I really, really do not want to go back to England. Again. Fucking place...

I experienced the infamous "scenic route" taxi trip for the first time last night. Wanker. He wasn't even trying to rip me off as such, he was just stupid and had no idea where he was going even though he claimed to know the street before I got into the cab. So it cost me 35 lei, but should have been around 5 or 6. If I see him again, I will cut him. I need to learn some Romanian phrases like "Where the fuck are you going?" and "I know this city better than you do and I don't even live here, so don't dick me about".

That aside, I had a very nice evening out with the guys, and managed not to spend much money (which was just as well, considering the taxi). Dora didn't come out, she was tired and not feeling good apparently... Which probably means she was stoned. Anyway, I'm going to a drum n bass night with her tonight, which should be fun.

HUNGRY. Must find food now.

That's settled, then - changed the flights; we will now be returning to England on August 17th. Money will be a bit tight while we're still here, but I'll cope. And I'd rather be here than home right now.

We had a storm on Sunday night, which finally cooled the air a little, but now it's creeping back up again and I just want to laze around. We spent the end of last week at the Black Sea coast, which was beautiful. I miss the sea and the pool - I could really do with that shit right now.

I'm kind of seeing a girl. She's cool. This will not be good when I have to leave. For now, I'll just continue having fun and trying to enjoy the warm weather and the beer.

Doing this because it's an interesting meme, and I'm afraid curious as to what I'll get from Amon.

The first five people to respond to this post will get something made by me!

My choice. For you.

This offer does have some restrictions and limitations:

* I make no guarantees that you will like what I make!

* What I create will be with you in mind.

* It'll be done sometime this year (2009)

* You have no clue what it's going to be. It may be something written, some physical thing made, could be anything at all, but I will make it myself. It's entirely my choice what it is. No quibbles, no refunds.

* I reserve the right to do something extremely strange.

The catch?

Oh, the catch is that you put this in your journal as well. If you don't.. You don't get anything.

I just received a piece of junk email with the subject "Looking for compressed air?"

...Not really, no. What happened to good old cock-spam? Everyone wants a massive dick.

During the review process prior to the release of LittleBigPlanet, it has been brought to our attention that one of the background music tracks licensed from a record label for use in the game contains two expressions that can be found in the Qur’an. We have taken immediate action to rectify this and we sincerely apologize for any offense that this may have caused.

http://blog.us.playstation.com/2008/10/17/littlebigplanet-release-update/



What.

I'm back. On the internet, and everything!

I wasn't really sure what to type to begin with, but I suppose I should open with an obligatory "have I missed anything?" since it's, well, obligatory. Almost. Except if I had missed anything spectacular, I probably wouldn't have actually missed it. I'm blathering. Ignore me. It's the rum talking.

So, internet access again after such a long time! It must be, what, two months or more? At first, it was difficult and I was twitchy as fuck, but I got used to being without it. Silly games, constant updates on everyone's lives via LJ/Facebook, readily-available porn, Wikipedia - I learned to let them go (though Wikipedia was fucking difficult). So, I hear you asking (in my mind) what the shittery have I been up to?

Well-loads of stuff, is the answer. Fucking WELL-loads of stuff.

Actually, not that much really. reading, dice, europe, blah.

Reading, though, YEAH! I've rediscovered the joy of books. I'm rather ashamed say I didn't read a single one last year (it was combination of laziness and House of Leaves having fucked me up), but since having no internet I've read six books, AND rejoined the library. Six books in a couple of months compared to absolutely none in the entirety of 2007 makes me feel sad, but it's going to be fine.

My favourite recent read was probably World War Z by Max Brooks, which was fucking excellent for many reasons I'm too drunk to go into now. Just read it, and don't watch the film when it comes out (if it does) until you have, because otherwise you'll miss out on something which might just be a little bit special. Least favourite book I've read recently was The Dice Man by Luke Rhinehart, because it was really interesting for the first 200-or-so pages, and then gradually festered.

However, I did give the dice a go for a day or two. On day one, it resulted in me walking way out of town in a polystyrene hat, looking for somewhere to camp out, getting rescued by Ashton and Mohawk-Tom in an expensive taxi, waking Wrong Tom and Briony up and jumping on them, and then sleeping in a basement. For a bit.

I abandoned the whole dice thing when I realised that "Luke Rhinehart" was a total fucking twat.

Oh yeah, sometime before most of this, I got driven around Europe in Dale's van, but more on that later.

I R ROBOT CUNT¬

My Miracle berry tablets arrived today.

So far I have eaten a tomato (really sweet and tasty), drunk some lemon juice (smooth and really nice), Worcestershire sauce (not awful, but not so great), soy sauce (not bad, still really salty), tabasco (tasted fine, hurt my lips and throat). Oh, and I have a beer now, which tastes rank. Sort of like shandy with really sweet lemonade. Not as amazing as I'd hoped, all in all, but still quite cool.

In other news, I'm still well happy with my boy. Even if he does bugger off to Medway when I want to see him. I'll let him off this time... But never again! Nah, it's all gravy though. I'll spare you from the SICKWORTHY HAPPY STUFF. For now.

Yeah yeah, another meme. Fuck it, I'll post something decent one day. Perhaps. Anyway...

The way this one goes, vixstar chose some questions for me to answer. If you want me to ask you five of your own, let me know in a comment. Then post this in your journal and so on and so on and so on and so on and DEATH.

I've done some drinking.

Anyway, yeah, I've put them under a cut due to excessive words. Most of which you won't like - though the word "fucking" features increasingly towards the end, after I took a break to mostly drink wine.

( Questions 'n' that. )

It's about what interests you! Explain in detail why they interest you. If you would like to partake in the meme, post a comment and I will choose 7 interests from your list which you will then post in your LJ. Chosen by ibid

Cheese
I love cheese of all kinds, as long as they don't have fruit in. My favourite is probably brie, closely followed by blue stilton - although you can't beat good old cheddar, especially for toastie purposes. The last time I attempted to quit smoking, I replaced cigarettes with brie and got through stupid amounts of it. I think if I had to eat nothing but cheese for the rest of my life, it wouldn't be a very long time but I'd be happy. I think I might eat some cheese in a minute, actually.

Chris Morris
From the intelligent, hilarious satire of The Day Today and Brass Eye, to the trippy surrealism of Jam, Chris Morris has created some brilliant pieces of television. Despite having seen all the episodes of Brass Eye and Jam countless times, I still love watching them today. A witty and very clever man, whom I admire greatly.

Geocaching
I haven't actually done this for quite a while, but intend to get back into it this summer. Basically, a sort of treasure hunt with GPS. The idea is, somebody hides a box of things, and supplies the GPS coordinates (or clues to work them out) and other people go find it. If you take something from the cache, you replace it with something else (little toys and things like that). Geocaching appeals to the part of me that wants to have adventures and solve mysteries. http://www.geocaching.com has all the details.

Lemon Agenda
Hmm, I can't really remember what this means, now. It was something to do with silly phrases and words that we used to make up when living in the House of Death and Grime. I'll have to ask Dale.

Sega Megadrive
For me, the Megadrive represents the golden age of gaming. The Sonic games alone took away days and days of my life, not to mention all the other fantastic releases there were. I've got the Megadrive Collection for PS2, and still love playing Sonic 2 and Golden Axe. Happy days.

Socks
I've got a bit of an obsession with socks. When I first started playing gigs, I used to like to change into a pair of brand new socks before going onstage, because there's nothing like it to make one feel refreshed and more confident. I've managed to wean myself off that habit, mainly due to it not being practical at every gig, but I still like to put on new (or, at least, fresh and clean) socks just before playing, if possible. I own a lot of socks. Recently I discovered that H&M and Top Man do interesting, colourful socks for men, which I'd previously had trouble finding. I buy them far too often.

The sea
What can I say about the sea? It's beautiful, relaxing and awesome. Looking out to sea, especially at night, is right up there with staring at the stars for me. One day I'd like to live by the sea.

So I'm back safe and sound from Whitby, and finally feel almost sane enough to do some kind of post.

I don't even know what to say, though.

It was one of the best nights of my life... The whole time before we played I was stressing like a motherfucker. Sitting around and waiting for our soundcheck rather than going for a wander was probably a bad decision, but we all kept each other entertained and it didn't drag too much.

Bah, anyway. A little while before we were due onstage, I got really angry about various things. By the time we were actually heading up to play, all my nerves had gone, I was really excited and still a bit pissed off and... Yeah. We all went fucking mental and had an utterly amazing time. I found myself with a microphone, and discovered that shouting backing vocals at a room of goths is very good therapy.

Strangers were dancing, there was lots of applause and cheering, and as we left the stage I could hear people (probably people we know :P) shouting "MORE!". Then we (well, it was Mark's idea and video) Rickrolled the fuckers with the aid of Dale's projector. Oh yes.

From the WGW forums, it seems we upset a few of the elderly trads. This makes it all even better for me. :D

After we'd played, I didn't really see any of the other bands because I was busy getting drunk and spacking around our dressing room. Figured I might as well make the most of such facilities while I had the chance.

When we all got kicked out, we nicked the beer Clan of Xymox had left behind and headed up to the Abbey, where we stayed drinking and pissing around until a while after it got light. At which point I went to visit Max of the History of Guns massive and watch a couple of KLF videos. I ended up wandering off and sleeping under an archway near the beach, because I thought all of our people who were sleeping in vans would already be akip - turns out I made it back before them. Bugger. The rest is mostly a blur, but it was all massive fun.

I really think I need a rest from drinking now. Well, I was pretty much doing it before, but that whole weekend was a mess. An enjoyable mess, but still...

Bizarre fucking video being assembled by Dale rather soon.

WELL FUCKING PORTION.

Had a bit of excitement last night. I was walking to go and see Abi at her flat, when I heard a weird noise... Sort of like glass cracking. I looked over to where it was coming from, to see a hoodied youngster climbing out of the top of a newsagent's door - where glass should have been. He then took a quick glance around and ran off.

So I called up the police, who sent about four cars after him, plus another one with someone to take a statement from me. Thanks to my fast calling and my description, they caught him soon afterwards still carrying whatever it was he'd nicked.

Had to go to the station today to make a second statement (just to clarify a few things - the officer last night had written down that I'd heard breaking glass, and they thought it had meant smashing rather than a softer cracking sound) and may have to go to court as a witness (though probably not).

That's my good deed done for this year, then...

Is there something I'm not getting about the current anti-Scientology drive?

Of course it's a bullshit religion, but so are pretty much all of them.

Personally, I drifted away from Catholicism at the age of twelve, don't follow the Five Pillars of Islam, don't give a toss what the Jews, Mormons, Jehovah's Witnesses, hippie fuck-hammocks have to say and frankly am not much of a fan of structured religion in general. However, I tend to ignore it and let them get on with it, as long as they're not attempting to tell me what to do.

Yes, Scientology takes a lot of money from fucking idiots who pretty much deserve everything they get. But is there more to it than that?

This is a genuine question, I'm honestly confused at the sudden attack on people who, as far as I'm aware, are harmless fuckwits who have certainly never come round and pissed on my shoes.

Please enlighten me.

Just checking in.

Shit be weird, but fucking great. I can't explain any of it.

88 words

free Touch typing

I have the internet back, by the way. It was gone but now is not.

Yep.

So, Friday we piled into the hire van with our equipment and set out for Leeds. Despite allowing what seemed like a perfectly reasonable amount of travelling time, we hit some traffic and then got lost going round and round Leeds and therefore arrived later than we really wanted to. This resulted in a somewhat stressful and rushed load-in and set-up, but I managed to relax a bit and enjoy Flesh Eating Foundation's set before we actually started playing. We had some technical issues with sound, and with my computer deciding to be a bitch (meaning long gaps between songs) but it was still all good fun. It's given me some ideas regarding changing exactly how we do things live, but nothing major. John did really well, and finally got to experience that post-gig high which didn't seem to hit him after the last gig.

After we'd watched Uberbyte and got the stuff back to the hotel, it was CRUNK TIME and a chance to have a chinwag and catch up with people. And then sleep.

I woke up the next morning feeling grumpy and still sleepy, but surprisingly hangover-free. Found a cafe round the corner and had a (vegetarian but still tasty) fry-up. Then I had to grab my computer and taxi up to the Subculture with John, for I was helping Xykogen out onstage! The Xyk ladies had been unable to make it, so I was asked to provide backing for Amon and Mark - and what an absolute pleasure it was! Bit surreal watching a Xykogen gig from behind the vocalists, mind... :)

The rest of the day involved more CRUNK TIME and many great conversations both fascinating and silly. Every band did a great job and were brilliant to watch, and I feel very lucky to be in the position I'm in. Who needs superstardom and millions of pounds?* This is what being in a band should really be all about.

After a sleep (and again, no hangover!) we hopped back in the van and I was home by about six, at which point my lovely Abi proceeded to cook roast beef for dinner. She is too awesome for words. :D

*Not that it wouldn't be nice, of course!

Back from Leeds, alive but knackered.

That was one hell of an awesome weekend, and I shall attempt a proper write-up tomorrow. Just want to say that everyone who was there was brilliant, especially Joel who's a total legend for pulling it all together.

And now, sleep...

Assassin's Creed is a beautiful, brilliant game - possibly the first truly decent thing to come to the PS3. Yes, I know 360 owners got it as well and their consoles cost less. I ain't be caring.

That is all.