UK Bloggers

A couple of days ago, my good friend Ema (link to her blog here) created a forum for UK bloggers. It's still in it's developing stage, and there are currently only 4 people registered on it, but all you British bloggers out there should go over and sign up and join the community. There's a link by clicking the banner below.



Go check it out. My screen name over there is Mr-Writer. I look forward to getting to know you all that little bit better.

Ciao. x


CURRENTLY LISTENING TO: Jay-Z & Linkin Park - Jigga What/Faint

Anton du Beck

So the past couple of nights have been awesome. Just been hanging out with my best friend Anthony. He's awesome, we have such a good laugh together.

Wednesday night we had Subway and then went back to his to play on the PS3 for a bit, and just chilled out. We played CoD4, and he kicked my ass with that, although I got a few good kills back, lol. Then we played GTA where we kept knocking things over and just generally wrecking our cars in it, was fun though.

Thursday night we'd planned to go to the cinema, but couldn't decide which film to go see. It was a toss up between Burn After Reading, Eagle Eye and Taken. Well, we arrived too late to go see Burn After Reading, and we had no idea what Taken was about. So we went to go see Eagle Eye. We had Pizza Hut (sorry, Pasta Hut) beforehand, and just talked for a while.

He's been my best friend for 4 years now, so I was looking at all my photos, and found a few of just the two of us, so decided to upload a kind of crude timeline to see how we've both grown over the years.


NOTE: this timeline starts from July 05 (apparently, cameras weren't invented before then).


From top left:
July 05 - Friend's 17th Birthday at Nandos restaurant. It's been commented we look like old men in this one.
November 05 - Anthony's 18th Birthday at my house. Yes, I threw an 18th birthday party for him.
December 05 - At a New Years Eve party, we look so thrilled to be there. It was the first of 2 parties that night.
March 06 - Friend's 18th Birthday. Look at the height difference between us, you can really tell it here.
May 06 - Friend's 17th Birthday. My hair looks awful here ... just awful.
July 06 - A random day at my house. We had a picnic (not just us two) and the girls decided to take a picture of us talking on the blanket.
November 06 - Anthony's 19th. Yes, we are holding the same flower in our mouths, how cool are we!
January 07 - Another birthday party. Stupid faces are an element in our photos, this is also one of the last photos before Anthony decided to grow a beard.
January 08 - The same person's birthday a year later. This is my favourite picture of us two. It almost looks professionally done.
September 08 - Annual end of summer party at mine. I was quite drunk at this point, Anthony wasn't. You should have seen the first picture taken.

So that's a glimpse into our past few years. And hopefully there'll be plenty more to come in the future. :)

Ciao. x


CURRENTLY LISTENING TO: O.A.R. - This Town

Tattoos and such

Sorry it's been a week guys, but I've been mega busy with work and stuff. Yeah, I started full-time so I've been exhausted at nights. I sit down ready to blog and then I just can't be bothered, but I've got into the swing of things now, so I should be okay from now on.

Just a quick blog to say I'm thinking of getting a tattoo now (after around 2 years of um'ing and ah'ing), and have a design in mind. I got it from a website, and then I just altered it a bit to suit myself more. There's a picture below of my version, criticisms welcome :)



Yeah, tell me what you think, and leave comments about your own tattoos.

Oh, and another note, I've got the new Keane album and Kaiser Chiefs' one too. They're pretty awesome, a lot better than their previous ones, but like I said in my previous blog not as good as their first albums. They have got quite a few catchy songs though, I can see myself loving these songs in the future. I'll leave you to your own thoughts now.

Ciao. x


CURRENTLY LISTENING TO: Kaiser Chiefs - Always Happens Like That

Coming soon to a stereo near you.

Right, so we've established that I live for music (in fact, I just got back from a gig, The Subways, and it was frigging awesome!), and while flipping through one of the music magazines that I buy, I came across the "future releases" section, and noticed quite a few albums that I can't wait to be released, and they're all Indie bands, excellent!

13th-Oct: KEANE - Perfect Symmetry.


I love Keane, they might not be one of my favourite bands, but they're a band I would search for to listen to. Their first album "Hopes and Fears" was amazing, I could listen to it on repeat for hours. Their second album "Under The Iron Sea" had a few good songs on, but all in all, wasn't as good as the first (personally I think their sound changed slightly). I'm hoping though, that they've turned this round and that this album is going to bring back the sound that I've always associated with Keane.

20th-Oct: KAISER CHIEFS - Off With Their Heads.


Kaiser Chiefs are another band like Keane. An amazing indie band with some awesome songs. But like Keane, I think they bombed out with their second album. "Employment" was full of bouncy songs that were very memorable, but "Yours Truly Angry Mob" was somewhat, forgettable. Don't get me wrong, there are some great songs on that album, but not as many as on Employment. I've not yet heard any songs from the album and I'm hoping that it's going to live up to my expectations.

28th-Oct: SNOW PATROL - A Hundred Million Suns.


Now Snow Patrol are one of my favourite bands, and I've been waiting for this album since they released their last album in 2006. Now unlike the previous two bands I've mentioned, I think Snow Patrol have gotten better. I don't really like much off their first two albums "Songs For Polar Bears" and "When It's All Over We Still Have To Clear Up". I thought "Final Straw" was very good, but then when "Eyes Open" came out the songs on that album were amazing, I thought they were so moving, with a mixture of fast, slow and emotional songs. I've heard one song from the new album, and I think it's going to raise my expectations of the band, and I will definitely be going to their concert when they announce it!

25th-Nov: THE KILLERS - Day & Age.


The Killers, an indie band from Las Vegas, NV. Now I wouldn't have thought a band from the middle of the desert would have made it so big over here, but they have. Their first album is by far the best though. A lot of very popular songs, but they are great indie tracks. I love them. Their second album wasn't as good as their first, but still had some good tracks. Let's just hope that they can create some more number 1s in this new album.

So as you can see, before the year is out, I'll have a lot more indie music to listen to, and I can't wait. Ha!

Ciao. x


CURRENTLY LISTENING TO: Keane - Somewhere Only We Know

A non-virtuous day.

Tonight, I was in a chatroom and we got to talking about sins and religion. So, being a subject I was always fascinated with, I brought up the seven deadly sins, and the fact that over a course of a day most people will commit at least one of these sins. I started to think about the comment that I had made, really thinking about it, and came to the conclusion that today, I had commited all seven of these deadly sins! How you ask? Well, the sinful details are below.


Picture by PimpcessTyna.

Lust
So, this one is really easy to fulfil, especially for a teenage male (well, early twenties). There's a few nice young ladies that come into work with their boyfriends while they bet. Yeah, I guess I had a few impure thoughts about them, and my colleague, who ... well ... probably has them about me too!

Gluttony
Yeah, this is me all over. I don't eat because I'm hungry, I eat because I'm bored. That definitely happened at work today. I got like 4 portions of chicken because I had nothing better to do. Yeah, label me gluttonous.

Greed
I suppose this is what happened when I got home, I've been wanting this computer game for a while, but instead of just buying the one computer game, I bought multiple ones just because they were similar. Pretty sure that's greedy.

Sloth
Yeah, I'm always slothful. I always fail to get up before midday, it's like an impossible task for me. When I'm off work all I ever want to do is stay in bed (where it's nice and warm) and watch DVDs all day.

Wrath
So this guy comes up to put a bet on, and after we've taken the bet he asks us if it's void, so we say no (because it wasn't). After the race has finished, and his horse has lost, he comes back up to say that it must be void, because it was after the race had started. I try to calmly tell him that there are a few seconds leeway in which the bet will not be voided. He starts arguing, so I start arguing back, and it ended up in a pretty heated argument. Very wrathful!

Envy
I work in a place where people win loads of money, I think this one is a given :).

Pride
When I got to work, I went into the staff room, and kept restyling my hair because I didn't like how it looked. I have to look good otherwise I just don't feel that upbeat and happy. I have to take pride in myself.


So as you can see, I've been quite sinful today. There are the seven virtues, but I doubt I managed to get any of them into todays events, maybe tomorrow I will do. We shall see.

Ciao. x


CURRENTLY LISTENING TO: My Vietnam - P!nk

¿Hablas Español?

Sí, pero sólo un poco.

In case you don't know what the title or that first line means, it's basically "Do you speak Spanish?" and "Yes, but only a little."

So, today in work we had this guy in that was betting, he was obviously foreign and spoke little English. That which he did speak was very broken. Now, for those of you who don't know, I work in a betting office, and we have these fill-in coupons for the football. So this guy comes up to the counter and tries to ask us something in broken English, I could make some words out like "football", but the rest kind of evaded me. So he then said "Do you ... erm ... hablo Español?" So, me being the smart-arse I am decided to say yes (in Spanish of course). He then preceded to ask me this question in Spanish. At this point the whole shop had gone quiet waiting for my reply. Obviously I couldn't make out exactly what he was saying, but I got the gist of the question, and managed to answer him correctly.

Now at this point I had gone bright red, which isn't very attractive with a blue shirt on. So I just wanted him to leave, so I could calm down and go back to speaking English, but he wouldn't leave, he kept talking to me. I managed to still make most of it out though, which is awesome!

Now, this story proves that even though it's been 4 years since I learnt any Spanish, it obviously still stuck with me over those years (I haven't really been to Spain either). So I must thank my high school Spanish teacher for that, and the fact that I didn't embarrass myself while speaking to this guy.

Ciao. x


CURRENTLY LISTENING TO: Falling Down - Muse

Music, funny thing isn't it?

Wouldn't you agree? Just the fact that a song can bring so many emotions over you, and remind you of things in an instant is just a testament to today's musical artists. Recently, I've found that quite a few songs give me chills just by listening to them. Whether it's because of the composition of the music, or the memories that it brings back I'm not quite sure. All I know is that it hits my heart when I hear it. The most recent one was Talk by Coldplay. Now, I only realised this on Tuesday night whilst watching an episode of CSI. Maybe it was because of the tone of the program, or because any Coldplay song reminds me of a certain person (whom I know is reading this), but it still gives me that feeling, giving me goosebumps and everything.



Music. It means a hell of a lot to me. So much so that I'm near enough always listening to music, and if I'm not listening to anything, you can bet your arse that I've got something playing in my head, lol. Yeah, I'm weird, but it really does mean a lot to me. Even if it's just in the background, it gives me a sense of security. Recently, I've been acquiring a lot of music, and I'm edging my way towards 1000 albums (currently, I'm at 816) and I'm at 11,582 tracks. That might seem a lot to some people, but to me it's not. I'm always wanting more and more music. I guess I'm addicted to music. At least I'm addicted to something that will enrich my life, rather than destroy it.

Yeah, that's enough ramblings about music. I might post something else about my love for music sometime in the coming week.

Ciao. x


CURRENTLY LISTENING TO: I Bet That You Look Good On The Dancefloor - Arctic Monkeys