Huzzah

Bad Point Penn

2012-02-16T12:56:00.005Z

Ian's Quote O'The Day
Elise: I'm not your performing monkey, I can't just say funny things on demand.

I was close to ranting about Sean Penn and my seething hatred for those ultra-liberal Hollywood types who seem to think that being in the motion picture industry imbues you with political understanding that us mere mortals couldn't even dream of. I'm fine when people champion there causes, a friend of mine is currently inundating the social networks attempting to gather support for an initiative to feed the hungry, another is fundraising for a heart foundation, a swarm constantly thrust anti-Conservative ramblings into the world and even I have championed my fair share of causes. Sean Penn however in calling Britain "colonialist, ludicrous and archaic" seems to be utterly oblivious to the sheer hypocrisy that is rife in his words. Argentina are the country attempting to impose themselves on an island that wishes to remain under British rule, yet Sean Penn sides with them and calls us the colonialists? To me this doesn't make sense. I implore any political-minded reader to read this article by Ed West, puts it into words a lot better than I could.

Yesterday, for the first time in what has seemed like an age, I went to the pub with Murray, Alun and briefly James and Keri. I never realised how lonely full-time employment was going to be and my social life has somewhat disappeared into oblivion. My time is split between work and Elise and there is little time or opportunity for anything else, even when I'm not working, commuting, seeing Elise or generally too tired from the combination of all three to consider being able to go out, the others are busy. Saying that, I wouldn't change for a world the amount of time I spend with Elise. I wouldn't trade a single hour with her for an hour with others. I don't regret a single iota our time together or how we are operating under the imposition of distance. With Elise in Wycombe the vast majority of the time my days and evenings are generally spent alone, the closest I had to social contact the past few weeks has been my housecarl on Skyrim. I loathe my housecarl on Skyrim. I need to make more time for evenings like yesterday. None of this matters right now though, Elise is back tonight from Wycombe and will be home for over a week. I truly cannot wait for work to end.

Commuting Contemplations

2012-02-14T13:44:00.000Z

Ian's Quote O'The Days
Hector: I would like nothing more than to thread a thin piece of piano wire throughout your entire circulatory system, rock up with an enormous electro-magnet, then throw the switch, and grin smugly at my own ingenuity as it rips out of your skin, and the diced pieces tumble to the floor, like in that scene from the first Resident Evil film, but less neat and cauterized.

BBC News is running an article called "How did we forget about mutually assured destruction?" It has instilled within me a nearly uncontrollable desire to watch Dr Strangelove and has also reignited the desire to head toward the greener pastures of a Masters in Modern History.
This comes on a day that I was contemplating my future in a particularly boring segment of the commute, the tedious area between Finchley Road and Baker Street where the train often hilariously decides to slow down to a crawl within a series of tunnels much to the mirth and agonising dissatisfaction of the London-bound commuters. It was here that I attempted to piece together the future I have ahead of me, looking slightly further than lunchtime which is often where my foresight ends. I decide to correlate prospective careers along with the degree of facial hair that would be acceptable. The business world holds no sway over me and barely allows for the vaguely tame and groomed beard that currently reigns over my chin. I have never contemplated a job in business, it had never even crossed my mind that this is where my life should go, yet I seem to be heading to a job in sales at a company owned by RBS? A strange turn of events. The academic community, where beards are rumoured to be magnificent, bushy creations that God himself would be envious of, seemed the most logical choice. I started dwelling on what I'd specialise in and descended once again into the world of Cold War and Civil Defence, I could personify the paradox of a Modern Historian? But what about the money? The sheer financial implications of questing toward a Masters are overwhelming hideous. The more money I earn, the more I realise how little I have. Teaching, where beards seem to lay equidistant from the business and academic facial scruffs, once again became an option. I could teach? But having witnessed the swarms of bastards that the country seems to be producing at an unseemly rate, do I want to? Perhaps I could turn them into human beings? It would be like the Dead Poets Society accept Wilson won't die and I won't become an alcoholic. At this point we arrived at Baker Street, I cranked up the Djent and was swept underground by a tide of commuters.
I struggle to remember when I last updated, thought I remember it featured a Fight Club analogy and a sweeping political tirade. The weekend, as weekends are wont to do, did not go to plan. Rather than attend a birthday celebration with Elise on my arm, I spent Saturday night in bed, occasionally hurling the contents of my stomach into the toilet and always clutching my head in a vague attempt to keep the pain at bay. I slept for thirteen hours and had my eyes closed in a dark room for even longer. It wasn't a nice way to spend an evening, especially when the original plan involved Elise and not being in agonizing pain.
Sunday was a nicer day, the pain had subsided and I spent the better parts of the day with Elise. I introduced her to The Crow, a movie I adore and that she has never seen, and we spent the evening doing very little. I wouldn't have changed it for the world.

Sleep and Politics

2012-02-10T22:22:00.005Z

Ian's Quote O'The Days
Louisa: Nothing disney has taught me has come true apart from beastiality, I sadly found out that was true

The prevailing feature of this week has been tiredness. I would rise from a broken slumber and attempt to leave the confines of the mattress which usually resulted in me slumping back down into the embrace of the duvet while staring at the ceiling wondering why I was struggling to get up. Each morning I would swear to myself and which ever deity had stumbled into earshot that I would go to bed early and catch up on sleep. Each night I failed to achieve this due to a combination of Skyrim and a general inability to convert sleep in to a sense of untired. Regardless of how much I sleep, whether it's four hours or eight hours or twelve hours, I still wake up exhausted to my very core. Perhaps I have a Tyler Durden of my very own? Perhaps a bearded, more confident version of me is out there nightly reeking havok upon a society that loathes me and boning Helena Bonham Carter in a crack den. Probably not that and I hope not; I love my girlfriend and I don't want to be on Tim Burton's bad side.
I'm sure society doesn't loathe me anyway, it seems foolish trying to explain my lack of sleep on such little evidence. The closest I have right now to a "dream job" is a "job I can do while listening to music". Some people want to change the world, others don't care as long as Clutch are playing loudly while tasks unfold infront of them. I'd change the world if I could; I'm political aware enough to know the perfect political system but unfortunately I'm also sociologically aware enough to know that humanity as a whole are selfish, corruptible and basically bastards. The one weak link in any political theory is that it relies on man to work. Mankind is one generation away from a utopia. It takes one generation to take one for the team and go without, take the risk and thrust the world forward into better places. The very fallibility of man makes any seemingly perfect ideology buckle. I'm a socialist, I believe the world would be an infinitely better place under a system of socialism or even Communism, but they just aren't viable with our nature. A better phrase may be "I'm a socialist realist" perhaps? Unfortunately my views of socialism are seen through a fog comprised of my deep-seated animosity to the majority of mankind. I honestly don't understand how some people function. I can't fathom how people can go through life and not question the world around them. I can't comprehend the mind of a racist or the people who justify or even sympathise with gang culture. I don't understand blind patriotism. I don't understand how people can stunt the very progress of mankind because of superstition and dogma. I don't understand how an entry started with me discussing my lack of sleep and ended in a political tract recanting mankind. I'm sorry about that. It's probably best I stop talking.

It's Time To Play The Music

2012-02-06T22:52:00.003Z

Ian's Quote O'The Days
James: I've always wanted to be a cat in a dressing gown with fire for hands while simultaneously teabagging the king and eating mammoth cheese. Love this game.

I'm going to jump right in to the main issue of this blog: The Muppets, the new muppets movie from our favourite Henson creations, is now one of my favourite movies. It was charming without being patronizing, it was aware of itself without lulling into self-deprecation and parody, it was heart warming, intelligent, witty and feature many, many a cameo including perhaps one of the greatest cameos I have witnessed in recent years, though I shan't spoil this for those of you who haven't watched it yet. I'm not actually sure what my favourite cameo would be, infact right now I struggle to name any other than Danny Glover in Maverick - I did enjoy that cameo, you have got to love destroying the fourth wall.
What made the cinema experience even better was the company and the location in which it was enjoyed with. I got to share the movie with Elise at the Prince Charles Cinema. I honestly can't think of a better way to watch the movie and I doubt I would have gone if I couldn't have been with her, it just wouldn't have been the same. The Prince Charles Cinema is a spectacular place. Not only were the seats incredibly comfortable but everyone in the audience were movie fans. Nothing quite beats a room full of people laughing and applauding and enjoying a movie together in a way you can't replicate outside of an independent cinema where everyone seems that little bit more reserved. Everyone there was there to enjoy The Muppets, and that we did.
The rest of the day depends on your viewpoint, depending on how you view events the day either went spectacularly not to plan or incredible adhered to the very letter of what was set out. We had originally intended to get Chinese for lunch, which we didn't do as Chinatown was a cold, barren wasteland at the hour of noon; then we would go and see The Muppets, which we did; then we would go to Reading, which we didn't do as transport chaos was prophesied due to impending snow; in Reading we would go to Old Orleans for dinner, which we couldn't have done anyway as it was closed, instead we went to Pangs and ate our combined body weight in assorted chinese food and then the night was going to be round off with a Reel Big Fish gig, which we never made it to, instead we watched Drive with a bag of Haribo while in each others arms. If you say the plan of the day however as "have an incredible day with the love of your life" then I'd say the day was an astounding success.
In other news: I'm going to attempt to record an acoustic song complete with vocals. There is a good chance this song will never reach the light of day once recorded, but I feel I owe existence to the song I have written. Well, right now it has no lyrics, but that can be resolved fairly quickly. All I need is a pen, paper and a strike of inspiration.
I'm sure there is more I could right about, including Jesse Leach rejoining Killswitch Engage, but all I want and need to do right now is sleep. So sleep I shall.

Not Dead Island

2012-02-02T13:06:00.006Z

Ian's Quote O'The Days
Nate: Same. Any murderous rampage I go on in my future life I will attribute to that moment, and blame George R.R Martin for his reckless disregard for his best character

I'm in a hideously foul mood so thought I'd rant a while on here in an attempt to exorcise my demons.
Great Magazine have finally sent me something, this something is distinctly not Dead Island. I won't be receiving the averagely-reviewed, zombie-orientated extravaganza as Great Magazine have ran out of stock; permanently. In an all too brief phone conversation with a manager I was informed that I could pick from a number of other "free gifts", none of these free gifts involved zombies so I felt somewhat disheartened. They offered me some items of a lacoste nature, Green Lantern on blu-ray along with a Green Lantern tshirt and a graphic novel or a "limited edition Bane". Now I have no idea what a limited edition Bane is, perhaps it was incredible but I'm fairly sure it was simply an issue of Empire with a limited edition cover. I opted for the Green Lantern bundle. Though it doesn't involve zombies, it was the best choice given the three options I was presented with and in the end I should, should being the word that needs to be stressed, be acquiring Assassin's Creed 3 soon. This stress is needed as I should have received Dead Island three and a half months ago, but apparently life sometimes does not go to plan.
The Green Lantern bundle arrived yesterday. I tore open the packaging, unfolded the contents and was greeted by Green Lantern: Emerald Knights and a t-shirt that appears to have a sparkly Hal Jordan on. The Green Lantern isn't twilight. The Green Lantern is no place for sparkles. Now Emerald Knights was a straight-to-video cartoon, a cartoon that features the voice of Nathan Fillion, but is distinctly not Green Lantern on blu ray. I appreciate the voice of Nathan Fillion, I wish it would narrate aspects of my life and would probably make work a more enjoyable atmosphere, but after four months of being promised delivery of various things only for them not to arrive and then to have the one thing actually delivered not be what I was told it would be was the final nail in the coffin. I proclaimed "fuck this" to noone in particular and sat in bed watching 24. Under the cool, Jack Bauer observing façade, bubbled seething anger. I'm now stuck between wanting to strike down upon them with great vengeance and furious anger and giving up on even hoping for them to pull through in anyway. Perhaps if my expectations are low enough, everything will be a pleasant surprise? For someone who's supposed to represent a magazine specialising in films they should really learn to describe movies better.
Tuesday, as a day, was uneventful. You can probably write my day yourself, although if you choose this option please write a decent Sean Bean reference. He deserves one.
The next day was somewhat more eventful. After work I walked to Camden, a decision I made for the sole reason that on the train I can't phone Elise. In Camden I meant Dan Flanagan, a man I haven't seen since graduation. We discussed music and the downfall of society before we parted ways so Lee and I could eat a burger and go witness Four Year Strong. We missed the first support band but caught Don Broco (a band who pronounced their name differently every time they name dropped themselves) and A Loss For Words (a band who covered "I Want You Back" by the Jackson 5). Four Year Strong didn't disappoint, even if some of their songs were indistinguishable from the album versions now that they have ousted their keyboard player. Upon leaving we brought ice cream, it may have been -1 but after gigs we get ice cream - tradition cares not for weather.
I apologise now if this rant was unreadable - it was written while watching the Rum Diary and through a haze of seething fury and a desire for justice. Hunter S Thompson only serves to remind me that I can't write. I need to write more. Rambling, though entertaining, often ends up disjointed and generally lacks in both meaning and syntax. I need to write more. I need to write better. I need to present the world with literary genius that will reduce them to tears. The wonderful inspiration that is Hunter S Thompson, all I need now is a pint of raw ether.

Day 7 - Favourite

Favourite? Really? Consider that done thirty day challenge, I have had enough of your vagueness. Instead I shall google a random phrase from my blog and post whichever picture images thrusts into my life.

Roots, Rock, Wycombe

2012-01-30T23:37:00.003Z

Ian's Quote O'The Day
Elise: Malfoy is a cunt to those Apes

Today I spent half an hour reading about the European honeybee. I believe this sums up my day better than a dramatic overview would. Can you imagine how low my motivation must have been in order to fuel such a reading extravaganza? As interesting as Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD) is, I had better things to be doing with my time. But the allure of the bee was overpowering. That insectual fiend.
Over the past few days I have met Benji Webbe twice. Our first meeting was in London where I stumbled upon our favourite Welsh reggae superstar while on a quest for Romulan Ale - a phrase I never thought I'd use. I made my way to Forbidden Planet and outside I found Skindred. I was not expecting this. I introduced myself, informed them that they were awesome and then departed. Our next encounter occurred at the after party of their gig in Wycombe, this makes it sound a lot more elaborate and VIP-esque than the meeting really was - the after party was open to everyone who attended the gig. He recognised me though, which was fairly awesome.
Meeting Benji twice was hardly the highlight of my weekend however. Being in Wycombe with Elise safely takes this title. I retreated there from work on Friday and spent the entire week with her, a series of films, a bottle of sprite and a Skindred gig. The Saturday night, the night of Skindred, was a hideously good night. I haven't been out drinking in quite some time, and the last few times some form of something has always reared it's ugly head and ruined the night in some form. This didn't happen that night. It was one of the best nights out I've had in a considerable time.
Aside from bees my time at work also brought confusion. It was cold. Very cold. Usually I like the cold, it makes me feel vaguely like a Stark and therefore makes me feel, pardon the pun, cool. I imagine Direwolves and mead and haunches of meat. A maintenance man then appeared, as if from nowhere, and proclaimed to us that we were cold. I appreciated this verification, I wasn't certain whether me not feeling my toes was due to the temperatures or due to some form of stroke, luckily this genius was on hand to solve my woes. He then informed us, rather enigmatically, that the reason we were so cold was because "the office was designed to have walls". Thanks maintenance man, that did us the world of good.
I'm now a third of the way through Season Two of 24 and, although I love the programme, I have two fairly big issues with the whole charade. Firstly, for a programme called 24 it uses a 12 hour clock. Secondly, it has ruined Kiefer Sutherland films for me. I watched a fairly strange film called "Melancholia", a film that was about depression, a rogue planet that may be on a collision course with Earth (that isn't mentioned for the first hour of the film), Kirsten Dunst's boobs and a wedding. The only problem is that Kiefer Sutherland plays a prominent role in the film. When the world is faced with destruction and a large planet is seen in the sky, possibly about to bring the world into a premature state of apocalypse, and the person you see surveying the scene is Jack Bauer it is had to take the threat seriously. A rogue planet doesn't stand a chance against Jack Bauer.

Day 6 - Makes You Happy

Now this picture makes me happy for a number of reasons, primarily because it is a memento of yet another lovely evening spent with the marvellous girlfriend but secondly it's also photographic evidence at how incredible nachos are. I don't know who it was who decided to put tortilla chips together with cheese but this man (or woman) deserve medals, lands and the finest steed in the land.

You Are Feeling Sleepy

2012-01-26T21:49:00.006Z

Ian's Quote O'The Day
Father: I found an arrowhead and have an urge to disembowel someone... unless I get clubbed to death by Indians first.

The above was in reference to a strange motion picture Father and I viewed yesterday. It was called "Valhalla Rising" and was from the visionary mind that brought you Bronson and Drive. Words fail to convey just how strange this film was. There were 120 lines of dialogue, the main character didn't have a single one of them and the whole thing played like some form of acid trip or a pretty severe cheese-induced nightmare.
The past two days have been tiring. I haven't done anything different, the days were no more strenuous than any other day, but the lifestyle of dragon-slaying and tea drinking appears to have caught up with me and I succumbed to drowsiness. I nearly fell asleep at work, I nearly fell asleep on the train and I contemplated curling into a ball under a bush on the way home and it terrifies me how seriously I thought about it. Infact the only time I wasn't tired was when I was laying in bed attempting to actually sleep. My body was mocking me.
Father had a job interview today, a position as warden or something along those lines at Windsor Great Park, upon returning home he informed us that, if he were to get the job, they'd provide a house for him to live in. This house can only be described as a gay, pink castle.

Impressive right? Even if it looks like something from Balamory it's still a castle. A pink castle is better than no castle, that's what I always say.
Certus Sales Recruitment finally got back to me today. They're the ones who told me I had been successful in my interview for a company only for them to then not contact me again regarding the follow up interview. I sent them weekly emails after they phoned me telling me I was successful and sent sporadic emails asking what had happened and for an explanation before finally complaining. Each time I threatened to complain I got a swift reply. Everything else fell on deaf ears. Today however I finally got an email which utterly shifted the blame on to me. They told me they had tried contacting me - which they hadn't - and basically insisted it was my fault rather than them not doing their jobs. This has really annoyed me - annoyed me enough that I won't even rant about how GreatMagazine STILL haven't sent me my free gift(s). All I wanted was an apology and an explanation as to what went wrong. That was all. Not some bullshit about how he isn't "interested in a blame culture". Fuck them. A trained monkey could do their job and I'm not even talking about the Planet Of The Apes monkey or even the one from Jay and Silent Bob Strikes Back. I'm talking about a stereotypical, run of the mill monkey. A monkey that can't even grasp sign language properly but instead sits their eating and flinging his excrement at people. That's all they've done. They gave me a job interview and then flung shit my way. If you ever apply to a job advert and it turns out to be placed by Certus please send them my regards before hanging up on them. I should have realised when I went for the initial interview at their Twyford office that Certus were a company that wasn't worth my time. They had a bored of motivational quotes on the wall, many spelt wrong, and one of them was from O J Simpson. He didn't have the go-getter attitude I think the business world needs. as nice as a quote may be, you still need to bare in mind the context of who actually said it.Its like the quote "Words build bridges into unexplored regions." It seems quite philosophical - through our words we can open our lives to new possibilities and access places, both literally and metaphorical - that we never dreamed of entering. Adolf Hitler said that though. Regardless of how philosophical you may take it, I doubt it'll be put on a framed poster somewhere.
In summation. Avoid Certus like you would the plague or a street fundraiser.
I must now crack open Season 2 of 24 and enjoying the further adventures of Jack Bauer.

Day 5 - Something You Wore

A Murderous Tangent

2012-01-24T21:57:00.003Z

Ian's Quote O'The Days
Louisa: So we need to start saving up so we can open our own GoT themed cafe... just think mead shots for you coffee

I'd like to start this blog by talking about serial killers. I was halfway through an introduction - the usual spiel involving nerd references and a general hint toward what the blog would feature - this however has been changed due to a conversation I just had with my father.
My father was scrolling through our Sky Planner and found a programme about an American Serial Killer called Gary Ridgway an American trucker who confessed to murdering 71 women. My father commented that he believed this was the highest number of victims attributed to a serial killer and I promptly corrected him and told him this was bollocks. I withdrew to wikipedia to bolster my claim and discovered a list ranking serial killers by the number of victims they had dispatched in to the netherworld. On top of this particular list was a Colombian man called Luis Alfredo Garavito who has been found guilty of killing 138 people and was sentenced to 1853 years in prison which was reduced to 30 due to the legal fact that sentencing a man to 1853 years in prison doesn't seem to make much sense - a man who kills 138 children though doesn't particular deserve sense and should rot in a prison for 1853 years, but I digress. This jail sentence was then reduced to 22 years. I'll let that sink in. That is a sentence of just under 55 days per murder.
I'm not entirely sure how the world can operate like that? It makes me feel vaguely sickened. Killing 138 people, mostly children, is bad enough. But being punished with 55 days per murder cheapens the very concept of existence.
Also, for the record - Harold Shipman topped the overall list with 218. Makes you proud to be British.
My weekend was spent in Wycombe and although I was in ill health and ended up suffering a fairly horrific migraine, the weekend was still really quite lovely. We spent practically the whole weekend in bed watched Viva La Bam, Fringe, Castle and The Dudesons. It was a weekend I really needed, just relaxing with Elise and not having to worry about anything other than where the next cup of tea was going to come from.
I have accepted the job from Tracker, should be starting the end of February. Words can't describe how happy I am about working closer to home and the lack of a commute should take a fairly large burden off of my shoulders and make the weekdays somewhat more relaxed. Hopefully the temp position will become a fulltime position and I can surf the wave of employment until I actually figure out what I want to do with myself.

Day 4 - Letterbox?

The fourth day of this thirty challenge was entitled "Letterbox." I'm unsure as to what this actually means so have instead placed a picture of my night. I drank mead, listened to Turisas and slayed dragons.

Infections And Prospects

2012-01-21T00:14:00.003Z

Ian's Quote O'The Day \
Mother: I believe you. Thousands wouldn't.

I awoke in pain. This isn't a nice way to wake up and ranks quite high in my list of "ways I don't want to wake up" - a list that includes "to find Dain's dad staring at me" and "in a puddle, in a cupboard". I opted to take the day of work and make my way towards the nearest medicine man, a journey that resulted in antibiotics and a diagnosis of "that's quite infected".
The rest of the day was spent in bed recovering and working my way through the last half of 24. It took me eleven years to finally get around to watching it, but I have now and I am glad that I have. The only issue with 24 I have is that my internal monologue has changed and is now somewhat more dramatic. Jack Bauer is the bomb.
Other important news also reared it's head today and has presented me with an important decision. Tracker called with good news and bad news - the bad news being that I they were giving the position I interviewed for to another candidate but the good news, which is particularly good, is that they wanted to offer me one of the temporary positions on the other team, a position that will hopefully transform into a permanent position in the future. If they're fine with me starting the beginning of March, which is the soonest I could start, then I can't see why I shouldn't take it. I'm a temp now, may as well be a temp for better money and closer to home. Should I risk the prospects of a more enjoyable job? Or would I just be fooling myself? Who knows. What would Jack Bauer do?

Day 3 - Something You Adore

Rock 'Em Sock 'Em Robots: The Movie

2012-01-18T10:17:00.004Z

Ian's Quote O'The Day
Lauren: My boss said you were very articulate and that you looked like Dave Grohl."

The National are a distinctly depressing band. Depressing to the point that they make Radiohead sound like Bob Marley. I am not depressed, I am a happy person. I have a lot to be happy for; I have a beautiful girlfriend, I am slowly eating away at my overdraft, I have a 24 Boxset and an endless supply of tea. But, with all this happiness coursing through my veins, I still can't stop listening to the song "About Today". If anything it comments on how happy I am, if I were anyway depressed I think this song would end me. The only thing recently to sap happiness from my being was "Real Steel", my commuting movie of choice for Wednesday. Real Steel truly is a terrible film. I can't name a single redeeming feature for it and it achieved the impossible - it made giant, fighting robots lame. I have never hidden my disdain toward the Transformers series, but the robots are still awesome. Regardless of the terrible acting, the more writing, the predictable "plot" and the poor direction, the fighting robots were still incredible.
Today brought a job interview, which was probably the defining feature of the past few days which contained little more than resentment toward the underground and phoning businessfolk, and this interview went well. Lauren, who works at the company already, informed me shortly after that my Dave Grohl-esque appearance was appreciated and mentioned abundantly upon my departure. This can only be a good sign. You could say... I've got to Grohl with it.

Day 2 - Breakfast

Donuts and The End Of Magic

2012-01-16T23:02:00.003Z

Ian's Quote O'The Days
Callum: Remember when we spent a whole afternoon boozing and coming up with historically relevant porn movies? I like to think of it as an afternoon that defined my time at university.

I was missing Elise this week, I dislike how Wycombe steals her from me during the term, and this week I missed her a lot. That basically sums up my week. I went to work and I missed Elise. Luckily for me and the concept of missing, Elise returned to Uxbridge and we spent our Friday night eating a bountiful supply of unhealthy substances and watching The Deathly Hallows. We have now competed our magical task and I can now say, with the forces of knowledge standing behind my answer, that it is a distinctly average series and as Fantasy goes it falls into the category of "Not Lord Of The Rings" which, in turn, places it firmly in the realms of "Not Game of Thrones".
The rest of the week was spent supervising Elise completing university work. This involved the arduous and tiresome task of staying in bed and watching House. The things I do for my Koala. It was a really nice weekend actually, her work is coming along really well and it was good to see the incredible things she is coming up with. It was also good to watch half of Season One of House. We also watched The Troll Hunter, a glorious Norwegian film which I heartily recommend to fans of world cinema, trolls and Scandinavia.
Wycombe, being the bitch it is, stole Elise from me again which thrust me once more into the real world of the commute. I loathe the commute. Luckily, due to the wonders that are iPhone apps, the commute has become somewhat more bearable as I can now watch films on the train. The choice today was Warrior, Rocky with MMA and written by someone from a broken home. A very good film actually made me contemplate buying the sports channels to watch more MMA. Upon returning home I attempted to kickstart exercise. This went well, to an extent. I can't do anything like I used to. Have had to drop a weight from the dumbbells, couldn't do as many sit-ups as I used to. Need to get the routine back, can't let the knock to the esteem this has produced keep me from pursuing health and all the wonderment of not be a doughy, bearded swine. Seriously, I'm so doughy that it makes me hungry.

The Thirty Day Photo Challenge
Day 1: You

2011 - The Overdue Summary

2012-01-12T10:38:00.004Z

Ian's Quote O'The Day
Puddy: "Wah wah, I had a bad dream, wah wah Padme love me, wah wah, unresolved Oedipus complex made all the more complex by sand people, wah wah"

Ian's Quote O'The Year
Murray: Is it just me or does Michael Cera look like a really sick monkey?

DRINKING BUDDY OF THE YEAR?
See below. Days with them often became evenings which became drunken lazing around Park Bar which became Nate getting overly drunk, talking about JFK, and nearly breaking tables.

NEWCOMER AWARD - NEWEST FRIEND
It can only be Nate and Callum, our countless days sat in Mojos quoting Anchorman at each other over pitchers of beer and platters of burgers were some of the best days university presented me with, obviously the fact it was the last segment of my last year was annoying. Meeting them a lot earlier would have been a lot better. The swine.

HIGH POINT OF THE YEAR?
Realising my Graduate robe could be used like a Jedi robe

LOW POINT OF THE YEAR?
Realising that regardless of whether I wear a robe or not - I'll never be a Jedi.

BEST HOLIDAY?
"Download was really the closest to an experience I had this year that counts anywhere near a holiday and even then that is a stretch of a definition" - depressingly enough, last years comment still stands.

ANTHEM FOR 2011?
Anything from "A T-Rex vs 10 Gorillas" by Brannigan's Law (did you really think I'd say anything else?)

ANY REGRETS?
Regrets? I've had a few.

BEST NIGHT OUT?
Lying in a field with a crate of beer watching South Park on a giant outdoor cinema screen was a pretty epic night out.

WHO DID YOU SPEND VALENTINES WITH THIS YEAR?
I'm fairly sure Valentines Day was on a Monday which meant I spent it alone in a library reading books about the Sixties, romantic right?

BEST RELATIONSHIP OF THE YEAR?
Elise and I, this will be my answer every year.

BEST DECISION MADE THIS YEAR?
Not buying the Star Wars Blu Rays. I would rant, but why rant when I can link?

WHAT ARE YOUR PLANS FOR NEXT YEAR?
Acquire money, go away with Elise somewhere and spoil her senseless in which ever foreign country I romantically drag her to and make 2012 a perfect year for her and hopefully figure out what I actually want to do with my life and figure a way of moving toward this.

MOST STUPID IDEA WHEN DRUNK?
The infamous "Night Of The Duel Kebabs". I don't want to explain, I still feel dirty.

TWAT OF THE YEAR?
See here. It did lead to a lovely song though

MOST LOYAL FRIEND?
Again, I shall point out how I loathe the phrase "loyal", as my definition all friends should surely be loyal? Anyway, I couldn't have got through this year, or university without the combined efforts of Louisa, Rea Rea and Tash. Thank you all.

BIGGEST CHANGE OF THE YEAR?
I started the year without a degree and ended the year with one, you don't get much bigger than that.

The Poor War

2012-01-11T22:57:00.004Z

Ian's Quote O'The Days
Nick: I'm assuming at least some of the current government cuts are for economic reasons - otherwise they'd just be sci-fi villians

I now own Season One through Six of House on DVD. Some may say the DVD is a dying medium and to them I say "yes, yes it probably is". But DVD will always float around, Blu-Ray players will always be backwards compatible and most television hitting the market now can improve a DVD signal to look suitable on a high definition television and as much as I love House as a TV programme it isn't one that needs to be seen in crisp 1080p. DVD is a media spectre that shall never be exorcised and I stand by my decision that nobody actually questioned. Game Of Thrones on Blu-ray however is vital to my well being and shall be preordered post-haste.
With Elise back in Wycombe my days have become the usual parade through a list of phone numbers interspersed with tweeting my politic views and whatever nerdy reference I am thinking of at the time. My particular political view of this week was summed up in less than 140 characters as so "One day people will differentiate between cuts being made in an economic crisis and hating poor people. This will be a good day for politics". I felt this didn't need an explanation and my meaning was clear - I was wrong. I was generally annoyed that people were interpreting all the cuts and increases the Tories do as being to kill the poor rather than the more obvious explanation that "we are going through one of the worst economic eras of fuck since the thirties. Turns out people interpreted this Conservative-friendly tweet as a sign that I believe Cameron and his band of Tories are waging a war on the poor, a war they are fighting out of a seething hatred for the lower classes. This annoyed me to the point I felt like I had to blog about it. I would rant further but I am tired and I want to watch House.
Okay Season 1 has grey bars at the side because the aspect ratio doesn't match the TV and I adamantly refuse to use the zoom feature. I however stand by my decision. House is worth it.
I also own a Star Wars ice cube tray.

A Lot Of Magic

2012-01-09T21:03:00.000Z

Ian's Quote O'The Week
Elise: It's okay he gets to ski on the cheese... On the moon

The Korean Film that I am watching as I type this has started with an outlaw stealing a Tesla Coil. I am struggling to think of a finer way for a film to begin. Indiana Jones before his fridge nuking days never attempted to steal a Tesla Coil, the sure awesomeness frightened him off. Perhaps if it was Jesus' Tesla Coil he could have gone for it, but alas, we shall never see our favourite Archaeologist steal a coil from a frightened Nikolai. The only thing that would perhaps be cooler than even this would be if Tesla was played by David Bowie, like the Prestige but with more Koreans and/or Indiana Jones. I feel perhaps I ask too much from life? I'll settle for a Mandolin.
This week Elise and I have watched far too much Harry Potter. Six films in total. Six films of the finest actors Britain has ever produced juxtaposed with three actors who would struggle to act their way out of a paper bag. I have seen rocks display more angry than Mr Radcliffe can, I have seen trees laugh more convincingly than Emma Watson and Rupert Grint is the best actor of the trio, though he could be in a coma and this still be true, is still somewhat vexed when attempting to play anything more serious than the bumbling fool. It doesn't help that they're constantly alongside Gary Oldman or Alan Rickman or Richard Harris or Michael Gambon or Jim Broadbent or Maggie Smith or Ralph Fiennes or Helena Bonham Carter or Rhys Ifans or Maggie Smith or John Hurt or that elf who looks a lot like Vladimir Putin. Saying this, I loathe them a lot less than I used too. Infact I am growing quite fond of them even if I do spend half of the films lamenting the poor acting and selective amnesia that seems to blight the wizarding word. In tough situations they seem to forget that they are wizards. Perhaps use a spell? Maybe the one you learnt last movie? Or did none of that happen? I realise a lot is going on in their world, but Hermione entire character is based on a near Rain Man level of knowledge retention and what about the adults? One movie the wizarding community refuses to believe Harry and Dumbledore that Voldemort has returned! What a perilous situation! If only their was someway they could ascertain whether they were telling the truth? Like say, a truth potion or a bowl that will let you see memories?
Aside from watching a lot of wizards and discovering that the train I was on stopped in the thirties, I spent a lot of time with Elise who has now departed back to her University abode. This upsets me greatly. Not only does it mean that the Deathly Hallows and Trollhunter must wait until next weekend, but it means she isn't here. I don't like her not being here. Though we have intermittent dark moments, everything was going so very well when she was back, it was a lovely few weeks and I don't particular want Wycombe to bring an end to them. I'll be having harsh words with Wycombe. I really do love her. She's funny, passionate, artistic, caring, beautiful and understands Star Wars reference. What more could I possibly want?
We also spent some time with Louisa, Tash and pizza. These three made good company, particular the pizza, and we all wasted away a few hours in Pizza Hut. We got on to the conversation of "who we keep in contact with from university". Louisa seemed to name a list longer than my "people I talked to AT university" list and for a brief moment I felt the sharp pain of having wasted university away and then I realised we had unlimited salad, so I went to the buffet and all was well. We also got a free pizza as Pizza Hut fucked up, which was nice.

MM

2012-01-03T13:22:00.000Z

Ian's Quote O'The Festive Season
Father: He has more chance of splitting the atom than getting with that bartender

As usual this year, Christmas occurred in Devon. It was greeted by the masses of old people and pasty-lovers with reckless abandon and the countryside roared with festive cheer as the ale ran like rivers and the turkeys were culled in genocidal numbers. The difference this year was that I was amidst the fields and Devon-folk. The Harries Clan bid farewell to the city and headed to the countryside to stay with Nan and enjoy the festive festivities that such a family-fuelled event held. We journeyed to the town of Honiton, a town that consists pretty much of a single high street that is traversable in a handful of seconds yet contains five antique shops. If you angle yourself right and have some form of spyglass then you could probably see the all and the "Boston Tea Party" which, as a history student, I must point out is a hideous name for a café.
After exploring the town Father, Brother and I returned to the town in search of a pub. We found one, but after having our table stolen - it literally disappeared - and learning that a reggae band were about to kick off in the corner we moved to another pub. After sitting in a table that coincidently was next to a ceramic bottle of ginger beer from Llanelli we were quickly set upon by a metal fan intent on discussing music, his new found loathing for Slipknot and his Slipknot tattoo.
Christmas was as turkey filled as ever - I received a number of musical items (predominately pedals) which I shan't bore you with the details of on where they shall be placed in my new "Set Up Of Awesome Win" and The Walking Dead compendium that houses issues 1-48 of our favourite zombie series of which I read 24 before Turkey and a nap.
Upon returning home I headed to Elises where I was greeted by a dwarf being hit in the balls with a tennis ball. I feel this needs some elaboration and an explanation of context but where would the fun in that be? Christmas brought a lot of time with Elise, time that was incredible and awesome and involved a lot of Sons of Anarchy. We spent practically every day and night together and the days utterly flew past.
The big event for me however was the Barfly. Earlier this year we promised ourselves that before 2012 reared it's ugly head we would play the Barfly. On Friday we not only played but headlined. It was incredible; we had our own dressing room complete with a supply of free beer (that was quickly drained), the guitarist from Deaf Havana as a sound engineer, our name in bold on posters and a bigger turn out than I expected (especially considering that arguable the biggest band laying - Death Remains - hadn't promoted the event past a single status on the day of the event claiming falsley that it was a last minute gig. Lies). Aside from an amp that exploded and a band of douches who ignored gig etiquette and fiddled with the settings on my amp without consulting me, the evening was spectacularly awesome and ended with Elise falling asleep on the train. Lawson is entering the last few months of his masters, Summer 2012 will be ours.

New Years Eve was spent at Elises, an event that unfolded with all the wonderment we have grown to expect from a party hosted by her. Apache was danced too, much alcohol was drank and a good time was had by all in attendance. What was perhaps more awesome than either our domination at the Barfly or the sheer alcoholic fury of a New Years Eve party was the fact that Elise baked Pasties for my lunch at work. Could she get any further into the realms of perfection? Because I struggle to think how she could.

This is my 2000th blog entry. The first was back in April 2005 which is now six and a half years ago. Terrifying isn't it? It is equally parts infuriating, hilarious and interesting tracing the developments of me; seeing with hindsight what I saw as problems and what I can now fairly succinctly figure out how to resolve. If I could send back a letter I am positive I could have resolved a lot of my issues with two sentences - three if I allow myself to insult myself but I doubt I'd put up with that shit, not from me. The blog started as something read by one person in an IT room before slowly spreading across a number of people - I still have no idea who reads it and have even less of an idea how some people have found it. It's caused troubles and woes but has also helped me through a lot of things. Sometimes writing things down really does help you to conceptualise and think about things. Who knows where I'd be without the blog all I know for sure is I wouldn't be able to remember a lot of things.
Who knows, maybe there's another 2000 entries in me but at the current rate of blogging this will probably take longer than six and a half years which, again, is terrifying. I have no idea where I'll be then, I have no idea where I want to be then. Perhaps I would have finally written that book? Be settled in a house coated in movie posters and items of a nerd nature. In a job I enjoy? A postgraduate? A superhero? Some kind of owl? Sean Bean?
Who knows, but I hope it's the latter.

Band Practices 2, Voice 0

2011-12-23T22:28:00.005Z

Ian's Quote O'The Days
Dan: Why is it, when you see a fit women, and you think "God I would plough her until her other speaks German" but then you realise you said it out loud, and then she calls the police and then you go to prison because this isn't the first time its happened and then you get bummed in the shower by a big black man called sue, but he likes it when you call him Big Bear...

A week today the Law descends upon the Barfly and a strange sense of excitement mixed with stomach turning apprehension has set up home in the pits of my being. In preparations for this stunning display of musical fury I have selflessly destroyed my voice. Two band practices in three days has left my throat somewhat worse for wear, but I am a man and a man must persevere - even if I will be persevering somewhat quieter than usual.
The price of Masters has increased by approximately a lot since I last researched such exploits and this discovery has thrown another spanner into the "what do I do with my life" though process. I'm not sure financially if doing this next year would be the best choice, my finances are currently far from ideal and I doubt whether I could even survive the year without first taking another year to prepare my bank for the blow. Plus the extra year may hopefully spur some form of epiphany wherein I discover what I actually want from life. Spending £4500 on a Masters only then to uncover that my true calling in life resides in caring for elephants seems foolish and I don't wish to be foolish - especially if it costs me over four thousand pounds.
I'll figure it out at some point. Elise has been hideously helpful with my indecisive and generally confused vision for my future and with her help I am positive I can conclude my philosophical journey soon.
All this however can wait until after Christmas.

Dear Leader

2011-12-19T23:41:00.001Z

Ian's Quote O'The Days
Nate: The news are reporting that Kim Jong-Il is dead. He worked rearry hard, and made up great prans, but nobody ristened, no one understands.

Today North Korea drowned in a sea of tears as news made it's way to our shores that the world had lost yet another tyrant. That is right; Kim Jong-Il has left this plane of existence and gone to join the great dictatorship in the sky. I however am not sad, the world may be on the edge of diplomatic disaster, the political atmosphere may be strenuous and people may be slowly making their way towards the bomb shelters but I can't help but think that the world has lost a great man. I mean, Kim Jong-Il could use telekinesis to control the weather, set worldwide fashion trends, he invented the hamburger, he was the greatest golfer in history and his very birth spontaneously triggered a change in seasons and rainbows and a bright star appeared in the sky. The world really is a little bit less batshit insane today. This also means that my new favourite website is now Kim Jong-Un Looking At Things.
Aside from the death of a tyrant and a new favourite website the past week has brought many things. I now have someone to sit next to at work, which brings an end to a good month of sitting alone at a computer. She is only there until the 8th January, but two weeks with company is better than another month without anyone to talk to apart from a very, very quiet man and a very, very angry Chinese lady. It has also heralded in the Christmas holiday and two workless weeks in which to play guitar, prepare for the Barfly gig, see Elise and watch as much Sons of Anarchy and 24 as I possibly can. Sons of Anarchy is an incredible TV show, even if it does star Hellboy, Turanga Leela and Not Elijah Wood From Green Street. It has made me, for the first time in my existence, contemplate a motorbike has a valid addition to my life rather than something that will only serve to whisk me away to an early appointment with the Grim Reaper.

730.484398 Days

2011-12-14T20:08:00.004Z

Ian's Quote O'The Day
Tom: It also thinks Lando Calrissian is a panda and the optimal clothing for any situation is a soup.

I really need to stop being so negative. Assuming the worst outcome in any given situation is an exceedingly tiresome pastime and is generally sucking the fun out of existence - you can never fully enjoy yourself or "be in the moment" when you assume everything is somehow going to result in a broken bone and something ending up on fire. It has also lead to a near pathological distrust of locks. It's stopped me travelling, stopped me taking risks and I generally want this outlook to stop. Paradoxically to stop having this outlook will require the believe that it won't end badly which is something I struggle to believe at the best of times. If something can go wrong it will go wrong... and then explode.
The past week has brought an endless parade of phonecall and spreadsheets, an infinite stream of disgruntled businessmen and data entry and the sudden and near-uncontrollable urge for a donut. The past week also signalled something incredible - a milestone like no other.
Elise and I have been together for two years. Isn't that somewhat incredible? I am incredibly grateful for every hour we have spent together and hope for many more. We celebrated by eating nachos. They were good, glorious, world changing nachos.
The week also brought the news that The Law will be the recipients of a supply of beer at the Barfly gig - I acknowledge that this news does not warrant a place in the same realm of awesome as two years with Elise, but it is still awesome enough to merit a mention.

You Have No Idea How Alone You Are, Garfield

2011-12-08T00:24:00.002Z

Ian's Quote O'The Day
Louisa: I just managed to get one of my texts up onto textsfromlastnight, I may have a degree but this is definitely one of the proudest moments of my life.

The crowning achievement of my day was discovering the first season of 24 - a programme I am yet to watch which is apparently blasphemy in some circles - for £3.99. I have been warned that this shall turn me into a hermit but, to quote the wonderful Chris chun I "can be friends with Jack Bauer. Who needs any other friends."
Speaking of other friends, aside from Jack Bauer, today was spent at work and then in the company of Murray and a guitar. We proceeded to set the world to rights and then descend upon a particularly unLaw song and turn it into a glorious spectacle of Law based awesomeness. If all goes to plan this should be unveiled in the depths of Camden come New Years Eve Eve.
I should depart as I have to get to work for 845 which involves getting a train at 730, which involves leaving the house at 7 which involves waking up at 615 to cook sausages and a duck egg before drinking coffee and complaining that Breakfast television is an abhorrent blemish on the face of civilization.
I shall leave you with the following. I clicked on this link this morning and I was happy. After the minute it took to read it I was an empty shell of a man. Seriously:

http://www.garfield.com/comics/vault.html?yr=1989&addr=891023

Fast Food Crustaceans and Scientific Discoveries

2011-12-06T23:12:00.002Z

Ian's Quote O'The Day
Puddy: Kepler 22 is too remote to make an effective demonstration, but don't worry. We will deal with your rebel scientists soon enough.

Science has discovered a planet. This planet is in the "habitable zone" of a star 600 light years away and goes by the lovely and catchy name of Kepler 22b. People went apeshit. It went from quickly from the "habitable zone" to "it could have water" to "it could have continents" to "it could have aliens and restaurants and small quaint bistros just on the outside of town on a nice square, you know far enough away from the general throng of tourists that it is still cheap but close enough that you can slowly walk there." Perhaps I let my imagination get to the better of me for that last quote, but the planet is 600 light years away, it may as well have small quaint bistros just on the outside of town on a nice square, you know far enough away from the general throng of tourists that it is still cheap but close enough that you can slowly walk there, for all the good it will do me. It is utterly fascinating that they have discovered such a planet, but what was more fascinating was the sheer stupidity that reared it's ugly head upon twitter in the hours following the announcement. I have seen a better grasp of reality and science from a broken rock.
Today was a day of discoveries it seemed. Not only has Kepler 22b entered our cosmos but I have discovered something even greater and perhaps more unexpected. McDonalds sells a McLobster. Upon reading this I thought it was a joke - a satirical parody on consumer culture - but it turned out to be fact: distinctly awesome fact. The downside is you can only buy it in Canada. The upside is that Canada is closer than Kepler 22b. One day I shall sample a McLobster and that shall be a fine day for the world.
I'm still utterly unsure of what to do with my life or the route I will take to the goal that I don't know. The only thing I have decided recently is that I shall watch more Harrison Ford movies. As constructive and fulfilling as this is I am starting to worry I'm letting my life slip away, an utterly preposterous thing for a twenty two year old to ponder, a fact I know but a fact I ignore. Surely I should have a plan by now? Do I want to be a teacher? A lecturer? A researcher? A university based mixture of both? A journalist? An author? A copywriter? Advertising Executive? Do I want to get a masters? A PhD? A PGCE? A Masters and a PGCE? Or do I plunge straight into whichever career I decided to go for? Do I take a year out to see how far a band can go, to write the book from the concept I have bouncing around my skull? Do I learn to sing and travel America with an acoustic guitar singing the blues? So many options... too many options. I'm going to get hold of Air Force One and The Fugitive.

Exiting Exit Ten

2011-12-06T00:06:00.004Z

Ian's Quote O'The Day
Rea Rea: I've nearly finished Game Of Thrones. I'm so depressed.

The original plan for today was to make my way to Camden, attend Exit Ten and stumble home at a hideously unsociable hour before waking for work in the morning aching and sleep deprived.
Instead I had a bath. A bath to end all baths. A bath that seemed to bend time itself. Past, present and future merged into one glorious moment. I only released the length of said bath when the music stopped - my iphone had grown bored of the timeless nature of the event and hilariously drained itself of battery, midway through a particular epic Zappa solo. The silence snapped me to my senses and I released that I'd read close to a 100 pages of American Gods. I'm still not entirely sure how long I spent submerged, but I know four chapters disappeared into that timeless mass of water.
I have once again stumbled across an awesome idea for a story, an idea I am strangely excited about and one which I really hope to be able to write. I'm worried that, once again, I'll lack the drive to push myself forward. I'll write a chapter or two, comment on the sheer awesomeness of the idea, and then go back to drinking tea and playing Skyrim. I plan on filling a notebook with notes. It's going to be an epic to end all epics. A science fantasy journey of awe-inspiring proportions. It will make Game Of Thrones look like Harry Potter and Harry Potter look like The Worst Witch.

The Defeat Of The North

2011-12-04T23:29:00.003Z

Ian's Quote O'The Day
Rea Rea: But like, that's the Queen as well. and like yeah. The Queen is fucking her brother. My head hurts.

This entry shall start off with a disclaimer. I am something of a royalist. I believe the monarchy - though political emasculated - is an integral part of this country. From the historical perspective the monarchy has contributed a lot to making this country the country that it is (though we shouldn't blame them entirely for this) and economically their input is astounding; they bring in close to two hundred million pounds in tourist dollars into the country; a fact often overlooked by people annoyed that each one of us pays 69p a year in tax that goes to the monarchy. With all this in mind please understand that Mr Rea, above, is not discussing our monarch and I assure you that Queen Elizabeth II has no incestual tendencies.
The weekend has been an interesting one and started a day earlier than I expected. I had Friday off work due to a medical issue. This medical issue, as Graham so aptly put it, was a "mouldy bladder". I shan't go into details but the whole experience was a distinctly unpleasant one. After an emergency doctors appointment I spent the day on the sofa resting, feeling sorry for myself, running to the toilet and playing Skyrim.
Saturday I entered the real world once more and attended my first Rugby game: a charity match between the North Hemisphere and the South Hemisphere for Help The Heroes. For a first Rugby match it was a good one and I hope for many more, though preferably not when I'm still reeling from a bladder infection. Perhaps a Six Nations game or some Harlequins matches, it's about time I follow a rugby team that isn't Wales or the Scarlets. Upon returning from this sporting spectacular I met with Elise and we spent the next twenty four hours in bed. It was a glorious twenty four hours while it lasted and I truly had the fact that she had to leave. But Christmas holiday soon, for both of us, so hopefully I can see a lot more of here then.
For the record and for all who care, I am feeling somewhat better.

Great Expectations

2011-12-01T00:37:00.002Z

Ian's Quote O'The Day
Ryan: Duel Of the Fates was written for him. Checkmate

Someone today mistook me for someone famous. I was walking up a flight of stairs and someone glanced at me, then glanced again and pointed before inquiring to his friend whether I was "him". I didn't hear who they thought I was. I therefore assume it was Robert Downey Jr. or Han Solo. The likeness is uncanny.
I spent the last half an hour of work scouring for news of the outside world while phoning increasingly aggravated financial folk. Today was THE STRIKE, an event which I was informed was really important and about pensions and money. I'm a history graduate - I'm not interested in today. The news gave the impression that outside the gates of work "The Battle of Haymarket" was kicking off, hundreds of protesters were apparently being contained by policeman, frontlines were retreating and a number of flares and loud noises signalled something interesting happening beyond the windows of my workplace. The news promised an invasion of an office block, the block opposite where I worked, and various security updates were being disrupted through various inboxes declaring the front entrance out of bounds. This image built in my head, I expected to leave work to find London an empty shell - very much like the original ending of Army Of Darkness. This was not the case and I was somewhat disappointed.
I would rant about my views on the political ramifications of today and my views of them and those involved. However I am yet to articulate said views into a rant so I'm not going to. Instead I shall say the following: The Hong Kong Buffet was disappointing but Every Time I Die were fucking incredible.

And So A Month Passed

2011-11-30T21:29:00.000Z

Ian's Quote O'The Days
Graham: A BMT is essentially the same as a dip in the Lazarus Pool

Entering the working realm has brought with it many, many advantages. I can now look suave and quasi-pretentious while reading, in a suit, on a train. I have money to fill my life with such wonderful things as visiting Elise in Wycombe, Skyrim and tickets to such exciting events as Zappa Plays Zappa and Protest The Hero. I can drink Monster Energy Drink without feeling guilty of the cost. I can get takeaways without fearing of the cost and clothes without dwellng on imminent bankruptcy. My CV is slowly storing experience and my days are now filled with the voices of a hundred, slightly annoyed, businessmen who seem to loathe my very existence. What entering the working real hasn't brought is free time. I don't return home until 7pm, my evenings are spent eating (which I now do healthily), jogging (which I now do longer) and the weekends involve Elise in quantities which never seem enough. All of this is interspersed with Skyrim and Empire Total War and has left this beautiful blog somewhat neglected. I apologise to the blog for this. Huzzah. I'm sorry old friend. This will be my 1,991st blog - it seems silly to stop now.

I can't believe I missed an entire month of blog. For six years I managed to keep this regularly, like clockwork, only now to fail? I refuse to fail. Ian does not treat failure kindly. I really want to keep this for as long as I can - I like tracking the progress, laughing at the sheer stupidity of some things I've said and generally keeping tabs on my development has a human being. It really is incredible to look back. A month shan't pass again blogless. Perhaps a week, but never a month.
I will, once again, attempt to write here more often. Keep the creative juices flowing and the literary zeal in my veins doing whatever it is literary zeal does in veins ooze?
Right now I can only think of one thing to talk about - apologies to the many things that have occurred that would have been talked about, but are now lost to the depths of time. Tonight Father and I saw Zappa Plays Zappa. It was incredible and has utterly redefined the very parameters by which I judge live music. The sheer level of musical genius in the room was painful and I can't even begin to comprehend or convey how mind-numbingly extraordinary the gig was. A three hour set riddled with musical genius beyond compare in the musical world.
Seriously. The only word to sum up the event would be "wow".

Pumpkin 2: The Red Ring Of Death

2011-10-31T17:01:00.003Z

Ian's Quote O'The Days

Graham: What kind of depressingly dull man doesn't like sprinkles

Another All Hallow's Eve has approached us and I have yet again leapt on the opportunity to do something delightfully nerdy. My pumpkin of this choice was a carving of something I find terrifying; Elise has clowns, Nicole Kidman has butterflies and I am terrified of the dreaded RED RING OF DEATH. Seriously though, Nicole Kidman is scared of butterflies.

After being released from the service of justice I returned back to the realm of telesales, a grind that was endured up until Wednesday when Elise returned from Wycombe and broke my week into a new period of wonderment. She met me from work on Thursday and we headed for Chinatown and to the first buffet with a table free. We stayed here for a while, enjoying plates of succulent fried chicken, ribs submerged in spice, rice coated in egg and Pepsi, ordinary Pepsi. Upon the completion of this meal we headed towards the Islington Academy to watch Charlie Simpson. The gig was very good, even if some undesirables proved an annoyance but we shall get on to that story in a minute. One of the support bands, a solo performance by the lead singer of InMe, did an acoustic rendition of "Boom Shake Shake the Room" by Will Smith and a French experimental indie group with a fondness for loop pedals utterly blew me away. One of the cleverest performances I have seen in a long time, they're called "We Were Evergreen" and I highly recommend them live. These coupled with the sheer awesomeness that is Charlie Simpson and the company of my Koala made for an incredible night.

Now our tale of woe - let me first set the scene. We were standing on the balcony, sitting on a seat next to the barrier with clear views of the stage and our intention was, come the start of Mr Simpson, we would stand up and take our place at the barrier. It was into this scene that the undesirables entered. These undesirables were a strange combination between Cher Lloyd, a crack whore and the personification of herpes. They dismissed gig etiquette as something that belonged to other people and placed their bags near the barrier. They then left. They went to the bar, sat on the sofas and generally ignored everything that was happening for a good hour and a half. By the time they returned Elise and I were standing enjoying the opening chords of the set. This wasn't greeted well, a hyperbolic, jester like performance followed, with the chavs loudly speaking about how they couldn't take pictures, how they thought the situation was unfair and how "they couldn't believe the cheek, I mean our bags were there". Luckily they didn't ruin the night, the aggravation was overruled by sheer musical win.

Peacocks Will Rue This Day

2011-10-19T22:55:00.004Z

Ian's Quote O'The Days
Tom: I've just found a pile of books in the library, where someone appears to have been studying genetic engineering, dinosaurs and tanks. I want to see their final project.

Imagine, if you will, a peacock. Now imagine that this peacock invents fireworks and turns these colourful rockets into evil death-dealing missiles of woe, commits genocide on a popular species of Chinese bear and has the voice of Gary Oldman. Are you struggling with this mental image? If you are, do not fret. This is a scenario which should never occur. A scenario so utterly stupid that any movie would give it a berth so wide you could fit an equally stupid idea in between the movie and this Evil Rocket, Peacock with the voice of Gary Oldman. Unfortunately for you, me and the world in general, nobody told this to Kung Fu Panda 2. It was a film that seemed to have two separate writers: one thought Panda was a Kung Fu genius, the other thought Panda was a retard. I advice you to ignore this film. Ignore it good.
Yesterday, being Tuesday, was spent entirely in Court listening to Barristers do their barrister things. This exciting event was continued today where we listened to a different Barrister barrister in his own unique way, including an extended metaphor centred on a two headed llama from the original Doctor Dolittle film. This is all I shall discuss of the case, if I told you more I'd have to kill you.

My evening was spent with Elise, who has returned home from university for an extended weekend home. We spent the evening watching Castle and Terra Nova. It was an excruciatingly nice evening and I am sure the entire weekend will be described in a similar manner.

Hopefully tomorrow brings my last day of Jury service, I could really do with getting back to work and starting the final push towards my ultimate goal. By "My Ultimate Goal" I mean "Graham's Ultimate Goal". This is an important goal however - if it is reached I get money. I would like money. I also need to start the push towards a new job. Working for £6 an hour doesn't sit well when I spend £14 a day working there. If it were closer to home I would happily attempt to forcibly thrust myself into a permanent placement, but alas, this is not the case.

Princesses And Koalas

2011-10-17T20:51:00.003Z

Ian's Quote O'The Days
Nate: Of all the gayboys I have met on the my travels he was the most.... Homo.

My mother was surfing between channels and we stumbled across Lorraine Kelly waxing the leg of our favourite portly team Captain on Never Mind The Buzzcocks. This is the most depressing thing I've seen on television all day - to understand the full weight of these words you need to realise that currently on television, at this very moment, Michael Caine is crying.
The sun set yesterday on another glorious weekend spent with my Koala. Sunday, as is tradition, incorporated a stack of roasted food - I am unsure who started this tradition but they must be found and bequeathed land and titles beyond their wildest dreams. This roast was enjoyed in front of a Walt Disney film - another man who ought to have titles and land thrown at him but then taken away as anti-Semitism isn't cool, regardless of how many singing animals you spawned. Michael Caine is now chasing a junkie through a forest of narcotics. Our particular animated adventure this weekend was "The Princess And The Frog", I like this because of Jazz and a particular fondness of all things New Orleans. I am sure there's a hurricane joke here somewhere but I refuse to make one. Really enjoyed this weekend, nothing like a weekend with Koala to cure me of stress and worry. She really does mean everything to me.
Michael Caine is now starting a fire. Today signalled my re-entry into the world of Jury Duty. the literature of choice today was a copy of Empire and some Hunter S. Thompson. My civic burden today required five hours of sitting around doing nothing. That is all I can legally tell you. I like being able to say that, it adds hyperbole and drama to an otherwise hideously dull day.

The World Of Justice

2011-10-15T19:44:00.004Z

Ian's Quote O'The Day
James: Plus a pair of lungs in a glass box was awesome.

I was back in the realm of telesales on Friday, apparently the court system had no use for me that day and thrust me back into the working world. For the four days I was ensnared by Justice I was reimbursed with the princely sum of £168. Over these four days I spent approximately one hour in a court, ten minutes in deliberations and twenty hours reading the entirety of Game Of Thrones. I am fulfilling my civic duty; but apparently my civic duty is to read A Song Of Ice And Fire, and who am I to complain.
Thursday evening I spent getting overly stressed over a number of topics; primarily that the vast majority of things I own seem to be breaking and I'm running so low on funds that I am close to being unable to catch trains to work, let alone replace the plethora of broken items that seem to be appearing. My laptop, the very machine I am writing on now, takes about half an hour to get to a point where it will even contemplate cooperating with me and has a mouse pad that stubbornly refuses to work. My desktop, the very machine that is currently sitting inactive in my "room" basically making my glorious and much sought after nerd space a digital crypt, seems to have the plague and all files ending in .exe literally seem to laugh at me as they fail to work and it seems so far beyond saving it won't even restore itself to factory settings. My iPod hilariously decides to cut out whenever I do something overly active, such as walking or moving my leg in the slightest possible way, while it is in my pocket and my iPhone, along with everyone else who decided to install it, decided to wipe itself upon the installation of IOS5, reducing my obsessively organised app selection to a painful shadow of it's former self, I get a pang of anxiety when I look at my phone and nothing is in the correct place or in any logical order. It hurts. On top of this I currently have £-800 to my name and that includes the infamous "arm money" which has now well and truly run dry. This and "streetshirts" fucked up my tshirt order and didn't deliver Elise's one.
On the plus side I get paid in two weeks and Elise and I seem to be leaping from strength to strength, I also have a cup of tea at hand and have learnt that you need to de-skin chorizo before eating so, you know, swings and roundabouts. I'm trying not to get overly stressed about everything, as soon as my bank account raises it's head above £0 I'm sure everything will seem somewhat less dire, Lawson has promises of a Windows 7 installation disc for my desktop which should restore it to it's former glory, upgrading to an iPhone 4GS Monday and my parents may be getting me a laptop. The only annoying thing is my iPod as Apple don't seem to want to bring out the Classic model any more and all the other forms of iPod seem utterly pointless to me.
Wales lost to France today. I would love to rant about how this game was hideously refereed and the red card was about as just as OJ Simpsons trial, but I shan't. But fuck Alain Rolland, fuck him in his half French face with a halberd.

The Sweat Of A Viking

2011-10-12T00:31:00.002Z

Ian's Quote O'The Day
Murray: He's like anthrax if anthrax was a living, breathing douchebag

Today I have been angered, I shan't go into details so instead I present to you the following hypothetical situation and, hopefully, this will clarify things without naming names:

Infact no. I was going to go into a hideously entertaining story that would involve a cowboy and the phrase "yellow" but fuck it. Today someone posted a hideously unfunny holocaust related status. This status read:

"Being stuck on a train with a bunch of orthodox Jews makes me think maybe hitler was onto something, annoying fucking people"

This isn't funny. I am a fan of dark humour, I will laugh at anything that is clever and well crafted but this is neither. Perhaps if he'd pointed out how being on a train with Jews made him feel a deep sense of dread or maybe even gone darker and said that "Actually no, Hitler wasn't onto something, if anything there were more Jews on the trains under him". But no. It's badly crafted, hideously not funny and generally reads like a tirade of a bigot which he is if his youtube account comments are anything to go by;

"i dont get where islam is coming from... you act like yoursome massive badass's but for a religion your pussies. look at christian history although its not something to be proud of, but its history of becoming the supreme race compared to your halfass attempts belittles what your doing! HOLOCUST VS YOUR TERROR ATTACKS. SO ONE DONT ACT LIKE YOUR GOING TO WIN CAUSE YOU WONT AND TWO DONT ACT LIKE YOUR THE BEST THAT HAS EVER BEEN CAUSE REALLY YOUR JUST AMATURE "

This Holocaust status received quite a bit of flak, revitalizing somewhat my faith in humanity, and in the process of attempting to back pedal away from this used the phrase "A bit harsh yes of course I'll never condone the holicourst"

I replied with a "The holicourst? That's funnier than your back pedalling from your comment". If you're reading this I assume you know me, but if you don't I'll quickly paint you a word picture. I am renowned in some circles for having a particularly dark sense of humour, this at one point manifested itself in a twenty minute telling of the "Aristocrat Joke". The above, with this in mind, is nothing. Especially given the context that it was written on a status about how the holocaust was awesome. My response was greeted with a reply:

"Ian tbh your a gutless cunt who I have no time for maybe if scotty spoke to you again your "back pedal" from the belittling comments you pass on a day to day basis just to reassure your ego"

Upon being questioned as to why me pointing out typos and racism was gutless I was met with:

"No but making snide comments and making people look foolish infront of others whilst under the impression that if some reacts badly to it you have your friends to deal with it, but when actually confronted become a snivelling pathetic excuse for a man totry apologise while clearly shitting their pants is. Or has that night slipped your memory?... Furthermore, using other people's down falls to make your self feel better or to becomethe centre of attention will cover the basis of you being a cunt before you have another condescending question for that."

Now let me address a few points here. Firstly "the night that slipped my memory" with "Scotty" was a New Years Eve, this particular New Years Eve I got taken outside and informed that my joking/mocking/insulting had gone too far and the above person was taking it personally and was generally upset and annoyed. I was threatened and told to apologise. Having been unaware that anything I said was being taken seriously I apologised. So this person got someone to threaten me and then informs me that it is I that is a "gutless cunt" who relies on my friends to fight battles for me. Do you see the irony in this? The utter and infuriating irony? The sheer hypocrisy of the entire affair has angered me beyond belief. I'm fine with all the other comments because I know they are untrue. I'm not a snivelling excuse for a man and will stand up for my beliefs and friends whenever it is deemed necessary, apparently a dose of "humility" was confused with "pathetic" here; if I cause offence I apologise, I don't get my friends to ward of attackers, I apologise. Like I did above. Furthermore, the "downfalls" I pointed out here appear to be an inability to spell and antisemitism, not exactly a revelation that would soothe my ego. Seriously. I'm not being called a gutless cunt by someone who once got a man to threaten me rather than do it himself when he took offence to something I said.

In other news, Heidenfest was attended to. Skalmond, Trollfest, Alestorm, Finntroll and Turisas were viewed in all their Viking glory, some audience members were warpainted, some clad in armour of boiled leather and others donning t-shirts of bands I'd never heard of, but that I assume sound like Cthulhu's death throes but all were united by being coated in a metric ton of sweat. James and I left Rea Rea and his back injury and charged into the pit for "Rasputin", only to be greeted by a pit about has mild as a kitten sleeping on a velour pillow. Metal crowds generally involve a lot of throwing caution to the wind and yourself at other people, if you did this here however you slid straight off a sheen of sweat on the person and ended up dazed and confused a couple of feet away where someone, in return, would be deflected off of you. Deflector shields don't make for a good pit. Vikings however make for an epic gig.
Also, Daenerys has arrived at Vaes Dothrak, Ayra heard plots against the Hand and Tyrion faced his trial at the Eyrie.

Rivets The Size Of A Baby's Arm

2011-10-10T20:17:00.004Z

Ian's Quote O'The Days
Elise: Because you left you had to watch a Koala get raped by a cat, I hope you're happy.

Today I started Jury Duty which was a hideously riveting experience: Bran was still in a coma but after an assassin attempted to kill him Catelyn headed to Kings Landing in an attempt to rendezvous with Eddard and warn him that the Lannisters may have been behind Bran's fall. Meanwhile Jon and Tyrion were heading North, Jon was joining The Watch and Tyrion wished to view The Wall before he headed back South. Ayra attacked Joffery Baratheon after he threatened Mycah, an attack that let to Lady, Sansa's Direwolf, being executed at the hands of Eddard but by the request of Cersei, Robert's wife and queen. All this is occuring while Khal Drogo and Daenerys are leading their horde across the Dothraki sea. Further events occurred but by now you have probably guessed that this wasn't a literal account of my Monday and are probably growing tired of this extended joke. Today I spent four hours, in a room, reading Game of Thrones. I read 150 pages and got paid about £30.
The night before Jury Duty I headed to the Met where we talked of comics, movies, drank Desperado and ultimately ended up standing in front of the statue of Brunel discussing how his bridges were over-compensating for something and were just "too big for a normally endowed man".
All this happened after a wonderful Wycombe weekend (alliterations are awesome). Friday was spent "out on the town" and ended up at a pub called the Nag's Head listening to "The Kid From My Parent's Are Aliens" sing songs on an acoustic evening, the night was on the epic side of the awesome scale and ended with me accidentally turning the PA off and, as a result, feeling fairly stupid. Our original plans for the Saturday were to go for a meal but, upon seeing how busy ever meal-based facility was in town, ended with us watching The Break-up and eating an unhealthy and spectacular amount of Pizza Hut based goods. Sunday was spent with the Lucky Number Slevin, pizza left overs and a fried breakfast. Elise made me a friend breakfast, how awesome is she? She also has a Goofy Movie on VHS, which is retro and therefore can be considered cool. Nostalgia win.
It was a really, really nice weekend. Everything seems perfect and I can't describe how utterly happy I am that everything is the way it should be. This weekend was exactly what Koala deserved and I'm going to strive to make every day as lovely and perfect as this one was.
Saturday also brought about Welsh victory. Semi-final next weekend and then defeat at the hands of New Zealand the next. It's a good time for Welsh rugby and therefore the world.

Explaining A September

2011-10-07T23:02:00.000Z

Quote O'The Friday 7th October
Tom: On the upside, THe Steve Jobs 2 should be out next year with more features and a longer battery life

So September had three blog entries; the least amount of blog per month since this fine display of internet literature commenced; and for this I apologise. Below I shall attempt to explain why the blog has maintained something of a blogless streak and hopefully, by the end of this explanation, you will feel less cheated and appalled. I don't want you feeling cheated and appalled, it wasn't you, it was me.

I believe the below video sums up pretty succinctly exactly where the majority of my evenings have been spent:

My days in the first half of the blogless season were spent at work and then at the studio. No downtime was had. Little sleep was enjoyed. Have I talked about what my work actually involves? Lists. Lots and lots of lists. An endless stream of names, job titles and contact numbers. An endless supply of PA's, voicemail message and just when you have a glimmer of hope that, just maybe, someone will say yes to the event you're presenting to them, it's taken away from you and replaced by fifty people saying no. Sounds fun right?
Speaking of work, I'm going to watch the new episode of House and then sleep. I'll pick this back up in my lunch break tomorrow...

...So I didn't pick this up at lunch break the day afterwards, infact this is now lunch break two days after the above paragraph was written; it's like some form of blog archaeology, unveiling the past like some crazy, digital Indiana Jones. You have now found me choosing Elise over Emily Browning, I had a rather shit evening last night and an annoying morning and the universe has appeared to conspire to balance out the karmic scale by offering me free tickets to a screening of "Sleeping Beauty" and Q&A with it's star: Emily Browning. This is tonight, Friday, and tonight was going to be spent in Wycombe, I have until two to email them to receive details and such but I won't hear back from Elise until past two. I would rather a weekend in Wycombe with her over anything. It's an easy decision to make.
If your quest for new blog entries has lead you here recently, you may have noticed two fairly depressive blog entries that are no longer with us. I didn't want to look at my blog and be reminded of how close I came to losing everything and that is why they have gone. Elise and I are stronger than ever and I intend to be the single greatest person she could have need. Haven't been the easiest person to spend nearly two years with, but I love her, I love her so very, very much and I want to be able to know she's happy and can trust me in whatever endevours I set myself down. There's a view personal traits I need to iron out and a couple of issues I need to address, and I'm not going to attempt to defend myself or explain why I think I'm a bastard on occassion or attempt to diagnose, house style, the psychological reason behind them or the events, in the past, that may have contributed to them. All is good. Perfect infact. My job has made me realise I hate the corporate world and has set me, once again, on the path toward Postgraduate study; I'm thinking History at Royal Holloway or Nottingham, my band have released an EP and it sounds hideously incredible and I now have a small revenue stream that includes six whole pence profit from selling tshirts.
I will attempt to update you folk more, I enjoy keeping this blog and if I am going to hit the postgrade world with a vengence I need to keep up my writing. Expect more regular blogs, perhaps not daily but I will try, hitting you soon.
Huzzah is back, bitch.
I would also like to say that Steve Jobs dying is the loss of a digital pioneer, but this rant would lead into a "you can either insult everyone or none" debate and I can't be bothered to raise these views or find the supporting Trey Parker quote to base it around. Nethertheless, I am very iSad.

Awesome Studio Event and Epic Meal Times

2011-09-19T17:11:00.001Z

Ian's Quote O'The Days
Lee: I want a tattoo of an epic war scene over my ass, my crack could be a trench

I have my cup of tea and am currently settling down to watch "The Lost Bladesman", a movie which in essence is Guan Yu: The Movie. Being a huge Dynasty Warriors fan I couldn't turn this opportunity down. First however I must inform the internet of the epic few days that have past. Words fail to describe the sheer amazement of this weekend, adverbs struggle to grasp the sheer mountain of win that they are being demanded to describe, adjectives quiver in anticipation of the journey ahead and nouns cream over verbs dancing in a single spotlight, or something to that effect.
The weekend of undescribable fury commenced on Friday, as the vast majority of weekends do. The Law descended upon Blue Ape Studies to start recording our EP which shalt be named "A T-Rex Versus 10 Gorillas". In our six hour stint there we tracked the drums in their entirety and the bass to completion, Alun will claim he took on the mantle of "One Take Wallace", but this is a lie as he had to re-record a bit, I feel you should know this fact. I shan't dive into too much detail, a studio diary is in the process of being made and this shall serve to portray the awesomeness better than my words could.
The following video describes Saturday and the 22,000 calories that came with it, it also explains my Monday which was spent making said video:

We managed to demolish the vast majority of it and Alun the vast majority of the vast majority that we demolished. We ate slower and slower before we all succumbed to various levels of exhaustion and departed for the pastures of Reach. I woke up with an ailment closely resembling a hangover, as did all involved. Apparently meat can induce hangovers, who would have thought.
After recovering from a meaty hangover, a phrase I never wish to utilize again, I spent Sunday biding my time until an expedition was mounted for the Treaty to celebrate the birthday of James, they had headed towards a Laser Tag facility but I, lacking the funds, did not. We rendezvoused had a few pints and then all parted ways, it was Sunday after all and pubs seem unwilling to stay open past 1130 for ten people.
It was a good weekend, a weekend that my arteries will be unable to take again for at least a year. We return to the studio on the 25th and I start work on the 21st. Did I mention I have a job? The marvellous being that is Graham wangled, yes I said wangled, me a job at his place of work. It's £6 an hour, which beats the current £0 an hour I'm on now, and involves phoning a long list of people. This is good news and a fitting end to an epic weekend. Now onwards to Between The Buried And Me and Animals As Leaders tomorrow before entering the working realm.

22

2011-09-06T10:58:00.006Z

Ian's Quote O'The Days
Tom P: Happy birthday. Decrepitude is one year closer, and you still don't have a hoverboard

I just burped. This burp sounded like the very voice of Satan. Words fail to capture the sound; it personified evil. Though this burp was a key part of my life, a part I am sure I shall cherish to the grave, a number of other noteworthy events have transpired since I last ventured into the realm of blog.
Firstly, and probably most importantly, I am now 22. My birthday arrived and with it arrived some epic presents. I received two toy swords, from two seperate people, and a toy bow and arrow set. I loved these gifts, it worried me slightly how two different people thought of toy weaponary when they thought of me, but I am glad they did and I have already used these to fend of hoardes of imaginary orcs. My best present however, possibly ever, was what I received from Elise:http://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gif

That is a portal cake and a homemade companion cube. I'll let the sheer awesomeness of that sink in. How hideously incredible are they? I also got a poster of my favourite picture. I was given these at 1215am on the day of my birthday while we were watching Point Break. It was here that I decided this was the best birthday yet, a feeling thahttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gift was only to be verified by an epic barbecue.
In other news, I have a job for the next two months due to the wonderful being that is Graham and Brannigan's Law are recording an EP, I believe it's going to be called "10 Gorillas vs A T-Rex" or "For Maximum Awesome Headphones Recommend". I'm really looking forward to the recording process and the prospect of making some money. Perhaps now my life will be more than an attempt to name all Arnie films in less than five minutes.
Considering I have missed twelve days of blog you may have expected a larger blog entry, instead I leave you with the above. Enjoy.

The Hunt Deteriorates

2011-09-02T21:21:00.008Z

Ian's Quote O'The Days
Tom: So you won't want to hear about Mutoe the Edible Mascot of the leprechaun McMafia?

Watching Deadliest Warrior gives me such hope for my history degree; this hope is slowly being replaced with sheer desperation, a desperation that can be traced in my cover letters. Two months ago my cover letters practically read "I am awesome", they now basically say "Please... for the love of Odin please." Today I sent a CV to the Imperial War Museum, I may as well have signed it with "Help me Imperial War Museum, you're my only hope." If Lawrence of Arabia is beaten by Teddy Roosevelt I am going to be annoyed and call sheenanigans. I have no idea what to do. I don't even really have an idea what jobs I want or what my overall goal in life is. I really should decide on this. The closest thing I have to a goal is "Make a twitter account with the soul intention of spreading the "T-Rex vs 10 Gorillas debate" to the masses.
Once again the past few days have been little more than applying to jobs and recovering from bruised ribs. These ribs are now recovered and ready to be destroyed again through birthday drinking. What has seperated the past two days from the other days spent recovering from various ailments and applying to jobs has been the distinct lack of Koala. Elise has hopped over to Wycombe to move herself into her university house, a process which she informs me has gone very well! She is luckily back tomorrow so I am distracting myself by catching up with Entourage, Burn Notice and Deadliest Warrior rather than succumb to deeply into a pit of "I miss my Koala". I do though. Not looking forward to the time where I have a full-time job and she is in full-time education but I'm certain we can perserve through any troubles these raise and find ourselves safetly in the land of awesome.
George Lucas has once again tinkered with the original trilogy, yet not in the wonderful ways we hoped. The blu-rays don't include the original versions, or even the 1997 special editions which I personally had no problem with, Greedo shooting first aside. I'm not sure why this is necessary? Why the fuck do the Ewoks need eyes? Why do we need a CGI Yoda in Phantom Menance (infact why did we need the vast bulk of a Phantom Menace?) Why keep ghost Hayden Christensen at the end of Return Of The Jedi? Why put him there in the first place? Why change the sound Ben Kenobi makes when scaring off the Tusken Raiders in a New Hope? Why George? Why the fuck are you toying with my childhood? We must burn Lucas Ranch to the ground, we must salt the Earth in the hope that no heresy grows again. I'm seriously considering foregoing the purchasing of this saga; 12 Year Old Ian protests at this choice, but 22 year old Ian protests at what George Lucas has done.

Brannigan's Law Strike Back

2011-08-31T12:02:00.000Z

Ian's Quote O'The Days
Graham: I think the moral of A Serbian Film is to never fuck something that's covered by a sheet. And with that nugget of wisdom, I bid thee farewell and work beckons.

The above video was something of a highlight of the past few days. Brannigan's Law brought our special brand of nerd reference laden, melodic hardcore to the depths of Harrow and proceeded to shake the Trinity to it's very foundations. Mosh pits broke out and generally the whole evening descended into epicness, ending at the Treaty with vast quantities of alcohol and a kebab. This kebab was epic Friday night, though come Saturday morning I was cursing it's name.
Saturday also became a very important day. You see The Doctor went back to 1938 Germany, after being threatened at gunpoint by Mel who was a long-term friend of Amy and Rory; which is somewhat weird considered we've never heard her mentioned once. After Hitler accidently shoots Mel and is put in a cupboard, Hitler that is, a variety of shits hit a variety of fans and the episode descended into an analytical episode shedding light on the complex relationships forming between Amy, Rory, River Song and the Doctor. We also had pizza.
Sunday signalled yet another Brannigan's Law gig, this time our presence was once again to be felt at the Crown and Treaty. Chronology however proved to be something of a bitch. We were on at midnight. The gig started at five. We had to get there for four. This left eight hours, eight long hours to destroy before we took to the stage and unleashed weapons grade musical fury. Burger King was visited, we watched Manchester United beat Arsenal 8-2 and generally walked between The Met and The Treaty a number of times before settling on one of the tables outside the Treaty where drinking commenced.
The next goal for The Law is now to record our E.P, this is going to be called anything from "For Maximum Awesome, Headphones Recommend" to "Bacon". The plan is to record it mid-September for a general release via internet link the beginning of October.
Monday was spent recovering; my throat felt like sandpaper, my ribs appeared to be shattered and I generally felt rougher than a rough thing in a rough suit made of rough. I also slaughtered the beard and sent it's ashes back into the void. That's right dear reader, I am now counted amoung the ranks of the beardless.
Tuesday I had an "assessment day", which is short for "Sitting In A Room For Three Hours With Twelve Other People Listening To The Business Talk About Their Business." I'm not dismissing my chances, I think I performed on par with a majority of the folks there and aced the IQ test they provided us with. The only problem being that a lot of the people there seemed to be Sales Experts: one was salesman of the month for a few months running, another owned his own internet business and one is the lead saleswoman of the Jaeger flagstore on Regents Street. Upon leaving I got talking to one of the people there, they had said they graduated from Brunel a few years ago and we started talking about Brunel in general. I started walking to the train station only for him to stop in his Mercedes and offer me a lift home as he lived near Brunel. It transpires he lives opposite Elise, literally the house directly opoosite. It be a small world we live in.

Ron Perlman The Barbarian

2011-08-26T00:03:00.002Z

Ian's Quote O'The Days
Rea Rea: You can't quote that! That was me telling you that you can't do that so you can't quote that

A discussion with Louisa revolving around how we are going to fight on the edge of London at dawn has resulted in the sudden urge to watch The Cable Guy. Imagine Louisa and I fighting to the death with Star Trek Music playing in the back ground and you may get a similar urge. This urge shall soon be quenched; the urge to watch The Cable Guy that is, not the one to kill Louisa in Mortal Kombat.
YesterdayI signed on; a process I shan't delve into as the whole nature of the system will involve a long winded rant resulting in a multitude of exciting comparison with the guests from the Jeremy Kyle show. Noone needs this rant.
After another day of applying to a number of jobs, a process which is growing tiresome and depressing, I headed to Pizza Express for a remarkabley lovely meal with the gorgeous Koala that is Elise. Upon concluding our meal we parted ways; she went to watch the Inbetweeners Movie with her comrades and I went to watch Conan The Barbarian with my father. It is very easy to make a bad "Sword and Sorcery" Film and it is even easier to make a gay "Sword and Sorcery" film. Conan however was surprisingly good, camp in places and massively predictable in others but the general epicness of some of the fight scenes made up for this several times over, that and Ron Perlman plays a key role. How can you not like a film which features Ron Perlman? How I ask? HOW!? The guy who played Khal Drogo plays Conan and I really couldn't imagine anyone else more suited for the role, he was fabulous. (Imagine that said with a somewhat feminine lisp).
You know what are awesome? Bagels. Bagels kick ass.
Today involved less Barbarians; though Alun has braided his beard and was looking particularly Norse. I have returned from a band practice, we have polished our set for our dual-gig weekend and are preparing to unleash total rock fury upon all in the immediate vicinity. The practice was interupted with news that someone had died outside the Vine, my brother was within viewing distance and I don't particularly want to go into details as it seems heartless given this occured four hours ago. It has scared me somewhat, you never think events such as this will occur within a stones throw of your house. Fortunatly I don't appear to be familiar with the victim but it's still terrifying that my brother was in the pub and a number of friends of mine also. I shall stop this train of thought now to avoid the obvious Philosophical rant on the very finite nature of human existence.

Pop Punk Pains

2011-08-24T00:44:00.004Z

Ian's Quote O'The Day
Lawson: Best heckle ever. Repetition of the lyrics at the end of the song "I want your face, I want your face". Song ends. No applause. Someone shouts "WHAT DOES THIS MEAN?!

New Found Glory, as expected, kicked seven shades of shit out of the evening, an evening soaked in epicness and bacon cheeseburgers. The last song however has somewhat destroyed my body, it literally felt like I was being beaten from all sides; including from above and below. Never seen that may crowdsurfers and each of them seemed to feel it necessary to be aimed directly at the back of my head. My left lung hurts, my chest feels like my sternum has been dislodged and my brain appears to be a size too big for my brain. This list of ailments however were not the most painful event of the evening, this title goes to the band "Fight Like Apes". I have attended many a gig in my time on this planet, I am not saying this to brag but am saying this to add context and weight to the following statement: Fight Like Apes were the worst choice of support band I have ever seen. An outbreak of cholera may have gone down better with the audience. I'm not saying they were bad, I'm sure with a crowd who actually appreciated their style of experimental indie would have loved them. A crowd who were there to see New Found Glory care not for experimental indie or shit bands. (If any of you hilariously comment on this with anything along the lines of "well you obviously like shit bands as you were seeing New Found Glory" shall feel the full wrath of Huzzah, and this can be delivered; our bassist has an axe).
Tomorrow I sign on and watch Conan The Barbarian. I don't want to sign on but my financially situation demands it. It's somewhat demeaning, yet necessary; kind of like adult diapers for the elderly. Noone wants to, but sometimes you need that extra protection.

Nothing Suits Me Like A Suit

2011-08-22T19:50:00.000Z

Ian's Quote O'The Days
Dan F: He tackled a Wizard Hitler; but can he take the ghost of an elderly lady?

Once again time has ebbed away without a word being typed into this here machine, for this I apologise. Perhaps I am still shaken from my time spent watching A Serbian Film... The flashbacks are less severe now and sometimes hours pass without be wanting to cry and curl into a ball.
What has changed over the past 9 days? I am sure this is the question being uttered in the corners of taverns and cantinas up and down the land. The answer to this is simple:
I'm still jobless. A fact that is slowly draining my desire to function. I'm a graduate, achieved above average grades at a distinquished and recognised university and this week I literally signed on. If a job has a hefty trainee scheme, which the vast majority of graduate positions do; why do they also need experience? If they're looking for someone with bountiful degrees of experience then why also offer a training scheme? Surely that's somewhat pointless?
However, not is all barren and void in my future. I won't be eating boiled newspaper anytime soon and whoring myself and those around me to sailors. I have a few job interviews lined up, jobs that will hopefully turn my financial woes into finacial wonderment. The world will be mine; starting with new guitar pick ups. As much as I love Lily the way she is, she needs to be beefed up. (Lily is my guitar for those unfamiliar with the names of my inanimate objects. I have a Marshall amp you see. So it's Lily and Marshall. Get it? My acoustic guitar is Vera but that's a whole other story). The job that currently I'm aiming for interviews on the 30th and I'm preparing for this as much as I can; I have a new watch battery and I'm watching a lot of How I Met Your Mother. Barney is successful after all and I do need a role model.
In other, and some would say more important news, the Harries Clan are now the proud owners of a Wii. We have clutched this Wii to our collective bosom and embraced all it has to offer which, in all honesty, is a grand total of about 4 games and access to Lylat Wars and Pokemon Snap. But this means Smash Brothers Brawl now resides with us and this dear reader, this is fucking awesome. What is less awesome, and I feel bad talking about this in the same paragraph as Smash Brothers... infact yes, we shall discuss this in the next paragraph, I do not wish to taint Nintendo with heresy.
Here we are, a new paragraph, did you enjoy the journey? Was there much to scroll down? Ridley Scott has deemed it necessary to make a new Blade Runner film. I shall let that sink in. Why? Blade Runner is arguably one of the greatest science fiction films ever made, why bring a new film into existence that may only serve to discredit the original? Terminator 2 and Empire Strikes Back aside, the vast majority of sequels are nothing on the original, and in some cases (I'm looking at you Saw and Matrix) actively ruin the first film; if you mess with the mythology the first movie was based on then noone comes out the same. We may have another Phantom Menace on our hands, but we shall wait until Prometheus (the "non-Alien Alien film")comes out before we build our fallout shelters just yet.
Elise informs me, literally just now when asking how my blog was coming along, that the "biggest event" of the past nine days took the form of a birthday celebration. This was the birthday of Harry, he was 21 and we all wore suits and I got drunk. Drunk may be an understatment. I got too drunk. I got drunk to the point that I can't particularly remember details of events just a basic blur. From what I remember it was a good evening up until a moment where I started dwelling on things; lack of money, lack of job, arguements, people, places, future, past and suddenly utterly imploded in on myself and decided "I want to go home". Haven't faced an implosion like that in some time and I hope I don't have to again. Perhaps bottling up isn't the path to a healthy psyche? Perhaps I should talk to someone other than a blog about issues? Did I mention we sang David Bowie the entire walk to the party?

A British Blog

2011-08-13T16:32:00.003Z

Ian's Quote O'The Days
Hector: Go the whole hog and stitch your mouth to her ass; may as well kill two hideous birds with one stone.

I made a grave error; an error so grand in scale that it could be easily visible from space. Aliens would be able to witness this error from their spacecrafts, question the error and then vomit their alien vomit over their alienselves upon realising the full scale of this error. The error is so colossal it transcendes time and space, such a leviathon of an error that years from now the world will cease to exist but the error shall linger on. An error so unwieldy that I can't bring myself to address anything else in this blog entry. This error shall float through the void, much like the giant space baby at the end of 2001, and continue being a error until the very concept of time is forgotten and all that remains is the error. I watched "A Serbian Film".
This is a film so vulgar and horrific that the plot synopsis on wikipedia is enough to leave the average person shaking and empty. Unfortunatly I took Graham telling me it was the most "fucked up film" he's ever seen as a challenge, and promptly convinced Elise and Rea Rea into watching it with me. It started off slow, fucked up but we had all seen worse, then slowly it started to become more and more depraved and soul-destroying. I shan't go into detail on exactly what was shown; instead I shall quote the director who said the film was "a literally metaphor" of how the Serbian government "rapes you from birth to death". Do you understand the implications of this? What a literally metaphor of being raped from birth to death would be? If you answer to this question was "baby and corpse fucking" then you're right. And you know what? Those weren't even the worst parts of the movie.
I literally feel empty and I can't stress how seriously I am being. Elise and I watched "Your Highness", a film which is comprised entirely of dick jokes and bad English accents, during this film I managed to suffer what can only be describe as a "Vietnam-esque flashback". A character used the line "that's the baby that someday I will have to have sex with". My mind went blank and suddenly it wasn't funny anymore... nothing is funny anymore. Will I ever smile again?
Still, it was better than Skyline.

Battalions of Riot Police

2011-08-09T19:35:00.003Z

Ian's Quote O'The Day
Me: The solution is to give Jeremy Kyle the same powers as Judge Dredd
Flanagan: He would abuse these powers once dark forces are quelled. I would suggest spending money on giving Boris Johnson an Iron Man suit.

I made the grave error of looking through my inbox. This used to be a happy place; filled with confirmation emails for gigs, tshirts and Blu-Rays with the odd newsletter informing me of epicness occuring around the city and replies to my dire excuses for missing seminars. My land of rainbows and puppy dog smiles has been replaced by a sea of confirmation emails for a variety of job applications. There's at least 60, at the very least. I have thus far heard back from two. One of which dissolved into the ether after an interview and the other appears to be for a job as "Admin Bitch" in a London-based company that actually appears to be in Suffolk. This isn't actually London-based and this confuses me. To be confronted with the sheer volume of these confirmation has thrust me into a somewhat disillusioned state. I don't want to have to sign on. I'm a fucking graduate. I was told the world would be my oyster. WHERE'S MY OYSTER WORLD!? WHERE'S MY FUCKING SHELLFISH?!
The entire day was spent wondering whether Uxbridge was going to be razed to the ground by a horde of hood-clad bastards. This event had a particular resonance with me as a comrade of my Father, while protecting the town from these bastards, was hit by a brick and hospitalised. Riots when you Father is a policeman aren't exactly a rivetting affair even if I do appreciate the idea that I am one step closer to a reality similar to Fallout and Mad Max, finally the many hours I have spent in the Mojave and Capital Wastelands will serve a tangible purpose.
Now would be the time to talk about how this reinforces the anti-Patriotism that course through my veins and how I loathe the people on a cellular level who deem actions such as those witnessed over the past few days as justifiable. The following sentance will contain some violent sexual imagery, and for this I apologise in advanced, if you wish to skip straight to the picture of a cat dressed as Darth Vader then do so. It is opportunistic cuntery for the sake of opportunisitc cuntery and anyone who participates or condones these actions should be placed in a large field along with all cunts who participated or condoned these actions and set on fire, then their ashes set on fire and then a concrete poured over the area where the cunt ash residue resides before the concrete is nuked from orbit and the crater left, once again, is set on fire, because they are cunts and this is what cuntery of this cuntish calibre deserves. The human race didn't reach the dizzying heights it did because of cunts like these. They are detrimental to the very progress of humanity and should be culled in the a manner usually reserved for contagious diseases or whoever green-lit Skyline. Do you really think we will ever get self lacing shoes or hoverboards with people like this in existence?

Captain America and Colonel Spartans

2011-08-08T21:04:00.000Z

Ian's Quote O'The Days
Nate: Remember INTELLIGENCE, there's no I in Captain America....

In dredging my past I have discovered a review I wrote for the movie "The Rocker. I did not like The Rocker and I believe this is conveyed in a manner that is alarmingly disturbing. The review can be found here. I stand by this review to this day, the film was distinctly unfunny and served to sully the name of Demetri Martin who appears, albeit briefly. It's still better than Skyline though.
This week we, being the Law (sans Lee), Elise and I, watched Captain America. It wasn't Thor. This is obviously, they are different films and no manner of philosophical or scientific argument will ever lead me to the conclusion that they are one and the same. It also wasn't as good as Thor, which I would place as my favourite "Marvel Movie" and perhaps favourite comic-book adaptation since comics and movies were introduced. I assume if you read this blog we share a degree of similarity in our views on the world, unless you have merely stumbled across this while trying to find "Reggae Tuna", which my "Stats" section informs me one of you did. With this degree of similarity in mind I also assume therefore that you, as I do, believe Marvel Movies started with Iron Man. This seemed to be the point were the stigma choking Comic Book Movies was finally ousted and, in a more nerdier vein, were Marvel started to take the viability of comic book movies seriously. For all those saying "Spiderman was alright you swine" I respond with "Tobey Mcguire dancing". Remember that? An evil alien symbiote makes him dance. Does that sound like a good franchise to you? Where was I? This tangent has gone on for far too long.
Captain America was very good and I am now overly excited for The Avengers. It could not come soon enough.
Friday was spent with the Law (sans Alun), James, Sean Liz and Hayley at Facedown, a large rock night at the Scala. Much alcohol was drank and live music was provided by Me Vs Hero, during this set all of us managed to gain some form of neck injury and sung loudly, at the front, like the good fanboys we are.
Saturday the Law (sans Murray), James, Rea Rea and I spent the evening playing Halo and watching Deadliest Warrior. You may suggest this is an incredibly pathetic way to spend a Saturday, but unless you're a Colonel Grade 1 I suggest you keep your Spartan hating mouth shut. We have discovered the mass watching of Deadliest Warrior unfolds in a very predictable way. Firstly Alun will disagree about the biased match up, particularly focusing the argument on the technological advances one has over the other. I will then disagree with Alun over the majority of experiments as everyone makes a manly noise as ballistics gel bleeds over a table. When the final result is announced someone will shout "bollocks". This is tradition.
The rest of the week followed a pattern I am slowly becoming familiar with. I will apply for a job, the job will ignore me, I will apply for another job which, like the bastard job is, will ignore me. This process repeats until I am disillusioned with society and go to meet Elise, we will then watch a film and spend the evening in each others arms. This is a process that isn't disillusioning, but I still maintain that society is a dick. I mean look at the riots? The dicks.

Songs About Stupidity And Thoughts About Jobs

2011-08-03T01:16:00.002Z

Ian's Quote O'The Day
Four-term Missouri Democrat Representative Emanuel CleaverThis deal is a sugar-coated satan sandwich

In my eternal wisdom I have decided to set up a new blog/website with the intention of utilizing it as ammunition for the battery that is my CV. It shall review music; local bands, new bands, new albums, old bands, old albums and generally keep me writing and be a useful weapon in the War for a Job. I shall keep people posted on whether this manifests itself, but I intend on kickstarting it later this week. Though we all know there's a large gap between the realm of intention and the real world. I do really need to start padding out my CV though and this is one way to do that. A second pronged attack on the world of volunterring may also be undertaken to increase my employability, if only "being able to name all 150 original pokemon" was enough, but alas, this is not the world we live in.
I am currently marinading in the sweat of an epic band practice. Our roster of original material has grown once again and words can't express how much I am looking forward to our coming gigs and the posibility of recording.
The past couple of days have involved spending time with Elise, a regular occurance in my life; a highlight to anyday and the primary source of any ounce of happiness that courses through my veins. Aside from time with Elise, which was spent infront of various movies and things of a televisional nature as my ribs reached the plateau of full recovery, we attended a party. This was a party held at the Abode of Liz and one that involved marshmallows, a chocolate fountain, cupcakes and being given beer for allowing people to sing "We're the three best friends that anyone could ever have" in my general vicinity. You see, and this may shock you, I have a beard; Zach Galifianakis also has a beard. This means that we are officially the same person. A flock of party-goers seemed to revel in this connection and I benefitted by acquiring alcohol.
Is there more from life you could ask? Epic music, epic girlfriend and a beard that provides me alcohol.

Songs About Vikings And Interviews About Jobs

2011-07-30T00:59:00.002Z

Ian's Quote O'The Days
Morrissey: We all live in a murderous world, as the events in Norway have shown, with 97 [sic] dead. Though that is nothing compared to what happens in McDonald's and Kentucky Fried shit every day.

Today I found myself in London clad in a £200 pound suit and drinking a bottle of coke on a bench, the progressive nonsense of Rush ringing in my eyes and a variety of "buzzwords" reverberating throughout my brain; communication; tenacity; adaptable; sheer, ball-crushing awesomeness. Amidst the business rush I must have looked dazed and confused, somehow my suit still managed to look cheap; other suits appeared to glow, dispense an aura offering solace to all those lost in the capitalist dream. We all know success is a suit, I never knew success was literally that suit.
The interview went well, though became devilishly confusing. I applied for a job at a recruitment company as a "trainee recruitment consultant", it was rather good money combined with epic commission. This recruitment agency hired a recruitment agency to find them trainee recruitment consultants. Though this was vaguely confusing it did offer the prospect of being forward various other jobs by both recruitment agencies, even if the phrase "recruitment agency" has been used so many times that it appears to have lost all meaning.
This week was also note worthy, due to it housing my mother's birthday. "Uncle Ken" and "Auntie Sue", neither of which are my Uncle or Aunt but are related in some way, joined us in celebrating this momentous occassion. Much beer was drunk and my brother once again helmed the barbeque into the seas of epicness.
Speaking of epicness; the Law have a new song called "By Fire, Bifrost", it was written in an immense song writing/Deadliest Warrior session on Thursday and if it were anymore Norse it would snow. It sounds like Parkway Drive with lyrics written by Turisas, with a dose of Law-based splendor thrown in. I do love our original material.
Though possibly greater than a barbecue, a Viking-themed song of epicness, a job interview and family events of wonder; was the fact Elise and I made cupcakes. By "Elise and I" I mean "Elise and I watched", but I was still somewhat involved in the process by at least being there. These cupcakes were awesome, incredible to the point of illegality.
The sky is drawing dark and I have Korean film about a sword to watch and Portal 2 to finally rinse of all 1000 achievements.

A Tangent

2011-07-25T19:34:00.003Z

Ian's Quote O'The Days
Tom: Someone stole the floor

Various things occured over the past two days, nothing that I particually wish to divulge on this blog. So instead of talking about what I have done the past two days, I shall instead discuss how awesome The Old Republic shall be and how badly Capcom have screwed me over. Where shall we start?
Let us start with Capcom, let us end on a high with the glorious entry, lightsabres blazing, into a new MMORPG. Capcom in their eternally sage like wisdom, have decided to release "Ultimate Marvel Vs. Capcom 3", this is essentailly Marvel Vs. Capcom 3 with 12 new characters, 8 new levels, some rebalancing of moves and the insertion of some new ones. This basically relegates Marvel Vs. Capcom 3 to the status of "Beta Test", I shelled out my good, hard-loaned money on a game, only to have a better version of the exact same game released a few months down the line. I would talk about capitalism and corporations, or insult Capcom using colourful and violent sexual imagery but the most annoying thing about this entire situation is that I will end up buying it anyway. Fucking Capcom.
Speaking of money-grabbing shit, I watched Skyline today. I'm utterly perplexed how a film, so lacking in originality, can thieve from so many epic science-fiction films; Independence Day, Alien, War Of The Worlds, The Matrix and a mutlitude of others; yet still end up utterly underwhelming, and by underwhelming I mean ball-crunchingly terrible. If you're going to steal from some of the greatest science fiction films of all time you should at least have the decency to do it well. It's honestly one of the worst films I have ever seen and I urge you not to watch it, don't enter the mindscape of "I want to see how bad it is" because you'll end up wishing to wrench your eyes from your very soul.
Now for the information you have all been dying to; a Miraluka Jedi Guardian specialising in duel wielding. It took a lot of soul-searching but the decision has been made. Next step is a job to fuel my dive into full on virtual-addiction.

Cows, Clowns and Downs

2011-07-23T23:56:00.002Z

Ian's Quote O'The Days
Nate: I should write Kennedy-related comedy. I feel it's the only medium I'm truly good in

Tom: The highlight of my day is literally dropping you off a light bridge into some acid goo stuff.

I was going to update this yesterday, but discovered the above title already in place. I struggled to remember why this title was chosen, all I could remember was that when I conceived of said title I made a high pitched noise and started clapping. Elise informed me today that this title was a reference to a family discussion we had about phobias. My brother is scared of cows because, and I quote, "they're evil"; Elise is scared of clowns because of an incident at a circus; and my Dad is uneasy around downs, you may think this means vertigo but it's a far more interesting story involving his childhood, a swing and something along the lines of "mongol", which is strange because I can't remember ever having met a Mogolian in Wales, perhaps I have the word mixed up with something.
Now, as an apology for yet another overdue blog entry I present to you a picture of a Spartan using a dog as a gun:

So the past twelve days? What wizardary was held within them I hear you ask? The majority of the time was spend with Elise. Tom was off hunting the creatures of the lake in France which enabled Elise to basically live here for a week. My Brothers return coincided with my parents departure which enabled Elise to basically live here for a week. This meant the past twelve days have been rather awesome.
As of Monday the house was sans parents. Within a few days the dishwasher was broken, my ribs were fucked, all the clocks told the wrong time, I'd become addicted to bagels and my Apache proved to be no match to Alun's Knight. I am sure other amusingly bad things happened but right now I am struggling to recollect them.
I'm not sure what's happened to my ribs, but it's utter agony. If I stay very still they don't hurt, but the longer I stay still the more they hurt when I move, it's a viscious rib-based circle of utter lame.
Today has been a mixed day. Amy Winehouse died and the death-toll of "The Norway Incident" raised into the 90s, on the other hand Jurassic Park 4 and a remake of Goldeneye for the Xbox 360 were announced. I don't know whether to be melancholy or bouncing off the walls. Mike is quitting GONE to form a band that he describes as "Heavy. Just Heavy". Seems to be wanting a Parkway Drive angle and, if I logistically can, I'd love to get involved.
Still waiting on replies from the plethora of CVs I have released into the wild.
There's a lot more I could write I am certain, tomorrow I am spending further time with Elise and I shall write a blog in her presence and she can tell me what is worth discussing and what isn't. I shall see you at the turning of the tide.

Noting Randy

2011-07-12T00:40:00.003Z

Ian's Quote O'The Day
Alder: I thought the latest Rambo was funny stuff. Watching rambo rip out a paedophiles throat made me chuckle

For some bizarre and unexplained reason I am struggling to write coherent sentance. Infact that previous nugget of literacy is the first sentance I have written all day that wasn't rewritten an obsessive number of times. Today was set aside to write my CV, this task has suffered several setbacks, mainly due to my utter inability to craft phrase that I would be happy with. My mind forgets words or seeks words belonging to a higher echelon of intellect. Grammatical bearing and any form of concept of spelling sink ever further into a swamp of mindlessness. Perhaps that's an overly hyperbolic description of my current battle with writers block, perhaps a better choice of words would have been "this sucks donkey balls" or another combination of sexual act and any form of bovine exterior genitalia.
My brother is on a fishing holiday, an odd choice of exploit for him, but he has gone nethertheless. This enabled Elise to stay over for a few days, and she shall be staying for a few more if this CV ever finds its way to the shores of completion. Has been nice having her around the house, even if I have learnt the horrible lesson that she does not play well with Horror movies. Quarantine was watched, a sub-par remake of Rec yet, for an English-language film, a surprisingly good horror movie, very good infact, just far inferior to the original material. I miss Reading, I miss being close to some of my best friends, I miss being able to tell when I could see them, I miss simply knowing they were nearby, I miss not having to panic about jobs or income or my general future because that was "Future Ian's" problem (for the record, I fucking hate Past Ian, the bastard could have done something other than accumulate gamerscore). Saying all this, nothing beats the knowledge of having Elise nearby.
I have also devised my plan, an official plan of procrasination. My two options are graduate scheme or masters, I don't have the money for a masters right now and I don't have the drivers license (or money) for a decent graduate scheme. Therefore a year, at least, must be devoted to a question for income. I do like my quests.
Lawson and I literally noted quotes from South Park to use in a song, how awesome are we?

Robing Up, Shaking Hands, Good Samaritans And Bad Whiskey

2011-07-07T23:36:00.000Z

Ian's Quote O'The Days
Nate: I've just realised that most of that conversation is enough to warrant eternal damnation in the pit of hell.

Poor neglected blog. I apologise for thrusting you into a realm of derelicts but I have had my reasons. These excuses come in many forms and I shall attempt to explain to you now why this blog has failed to be updated and why you, faithful reader, have had many restless nights contemplating my fate.
1) The days that were worth writing about ended at an excruciating late hour and usually with a high alcohol content.
2) Most days involved little more than packing my room into boxes of various sizes and shape while watching American Dad.
3) Other days involved things that I didn't wish to discuss; arguments and the like and this placed me into a mindset that didn't bode well for a blogging.
Is this reason enough for a lack in blog? I am sure it is not. But I am the composer of this ballad and if I choose to refrain, I will refrain.

A lot has changed since our last venture into the happenings of my life. As you may have gathered from the picture above; I have graduated. You may also have assumed I had become a Jedi; this assumption would mean you can not differentiate between reality and the world of make believe. If this is truely the case then I am a Nigerian Prince, in order to access my vast fortunes I need your bank account information and your mothers maiden name.
My last night out in Reading didn't go as planned. Rather than end up at the Turtle surrounded by friends and whiskey I ended up on the sofa watching Arnie movies with Chris. On the way to meet an entourage I managed to loose my ID, this news wasn't greeted well. Saying this, the evening was still epic. We drink whiskey and beer and watched several action films before being joined by Mike, some of his intoxicated friends and Vicky. The evening then dissolved into Predator, guitar playing and Matt storming Irwin's room to "party-boy" a sleeping couple and ended with McMuffins. Any event that ends in McMuffins is an epic event, this is the legal definition of "epic event". I'm being totally serial. My ID later found it's way back into my arms. It had fallen, dramatically and in slow-motion, from my pocket and had been discovered by a girl called Hannah. She tracked me down on Facebook and we organised a rendezvous where my ID was returned to me.
I haven't blogged in over two weeks, the longest blog absence since I started writing this in April 2005, and I'm struggling to remember the exact chronology of events or exactly what happened. The only reason I remember the above was because the blog title was saved as "Good samaritans and bad whiskey", a nod to the epicly poor whiskey Chris brought and the kindness of the Returner of Identification.
Univeristy is now officially over, I have know educational reason to return to Reading. Really going to miss the place. The house started to come into it's own in the dying few weeks of our tenancy and I already miss knowing I'm close to people who fast became some of my best friends. Don't like thinking that, right now, I don't know when I'll be seeing anyone from Uni, particularly Nate, Callum and, of course, Louisa. Nate and Callum fast became best friends and it sucks to think we won't be loitering in Mojo's quoting Will Ferrell and South Park again. I don't like not knowing when I'll see Louisa next. She was my best friend at Uni and is one of my best friends now, she was practically my sister and I'll miss having her nearby. That is the most I shall complimented her and now comes the obligatory insult; she's a bitch. Aside from the continuous feeling that "This is the last time I'll be seeing you until who knows when" Graduation was actually really good, was nice seeing people again and I utterly rocked the robe and stupid hat look; the fact I have the greatest graduation photo ever only helps the matter.
I would write more, but I feel like I should post this just so whatever readers remain are aware of my continued existence. Once again I promise to strive to update this more often, two week vacuums shall be uncommon.

Lessons I Have Learnt From Movies #2041

2011-06-20T09:41:00.008Z

Ian's Quote O'The Days
Overheard Comment In The Co-Op: Stop paying people to grate your cheese.

In the past three days I have watched more American Dad than I ever have before. It has now dawned on me that in the blog entry that contains the revelation of my degree classification, I find my priority lies in regaling you with the volume of cartoons I have watched.
I met Louisa on Monday for a pre-result lunch, it was nice to know I wasn't the only one going through crippling levels of anxiety. Callum arrived once food had been consumed and we all sat discussing our mutual worries for our impending results; humorous metaphor were used and smart phones were constantly checked for incoming result-orientated emails. As one we descended upon the History Hallway and discovered, much to our delight, that we had all achieved a 2.1 and I ask you please, for me, to imagine the victory fanfare. I didn't think much could top this news, after all this is the grade I had aimed and longed for, but this was before I realised the history department had a supply of free beer. This free beer was drunk amidst various conversations with a multitude of history folk, all conversation started with either "So what did you get?" or "So what do we actually do now?".
We tried to leave this history gathering to return to Mojo's but were pounced upon and forced to take more free beer with us, we did not argue with these demands.
We sat in Mojo's for a while, ended up talking to Chris for the majority of the time but there were a number of people there. We then learnt of the demise of Ryan Dunn and then it promptly started raining. Wasn't a nice end to the daylight segment of results day, but you can't have it all. Ryan Dunn was the main catalyst for my beard, and it's a shame that he had to die in an overly dramatic and fiery fashion, but I do find it hard to pity someone who ultimately died, and killed someone, due to drink driving.
Upon leaving campus I punched the air and froze. I have been taught that life changing events end in a freeze frame right? Eighties movies don't lie. I returned to the abode for a pre-evening nap. This nap turned into five hours of American Dad.
The evening was spent with Dan and Pete in the Purple Turtle, we stayed here for a few drinks before heading to Sakura where we met up with Mike and his entourage. Here I got told I looked like "that guy from Due Date"; this entertained me but I'm fairly sure a part of me died. We headed back to the Purple Turtle where I ended up having a hefty conversation with someone about Tom Waits and hung around with Mike, entourage and Tash. The night ended epicly, with cheap chicken and the first half of Goldeneye. The second half aired, but we had both passed out by this point. This upset me, the second half features Sean Bean a lot more than the first half.
Tuesday, once again, involved a lot of American Dad. Alison came over in the evening and we placed ourselves on the sofa in front of a series of films. Vicky informed us she didn't know what Chicken Balls were (the chinese delicacy, not where chicks come from) and proceeded to stare on in utter confusion at our first film of choice, a movie about a psychic tyre. Words can not describe how strange that film was, it challenges Eraserhead for strangeness. We, joined by Marley, also watched Tucker & Dale Vs. Evil, all I knew about this was that it starred Alan Tudyk. It turned out to be the best Horror/Comedy I have seen in a long time. It was a good evening, haven't seen Alison in a considerable time so it was good to catch up.
Wednesday, being today, involved watching American Dad. American Dad is good. It's my new found happy place. This blog entry is long enough. I shall write more tomorrow on what I actually intend on doing with myself now that my 2.1 has been achieved. Stay tuned.

Completing The Smith Set

2011-06-19T01:40:00.003Z

Ian's Quote O'The Day
Lee: We'll be the captains of LOL

I can literally sum up the events of today with "burritos, beer and movies". The movies of choice were Limitless, Jersey Girl and The Blues Brothers and the beer of choice was Fosters.
I am growing increasingly anxious about Monday. Firstly I get my exam results, which is a terrifying prospect in itself. The past three years have been leading up to this very moment which is somewhat worrying considering the migraine suffered during one of my key exams; feel like my exams pivot on how fondly they look upon my extenuating circumstances. Not worried about my modules or the first paper of my special subject, nor my dissertation as such, fairly sure I scored over 60 for those but my second special subject paper is terrifying me. Worry and generally anxiety and stress has been getting to me a lot the past few weeks, come Monday this will all be over.
Secondly, Monday I need to sort out various council tax things. Sent off Louise, Vicky and my "student proof stuff", but yet to hear back from them as to whether they received them, slightly worrying considering the deadline to absolve the situation is 4pm Monday and if it's no sorted we need to be in court on Tuesday. Perhaps they haven't sent anything because Irwin is yet to send them his proof, or even show any awareness to the sheer horror of his plight, and they are waiting for that? Plan on phoning Monday and see whether Vicky, Louise and I have been pardoned and given free pass through the world of taxation. Quite worried about the whole situation really, I wasn't until today, didn't realise the deadline was this close and was expecting a letter through the post beforehand, for all I know we may get a letter Monday morning, but until there's closure on this I will worry, £2500 tax is quite a scary prospect. Infact, I'm 100% sure I won't have to pay anything anyway, I mean I am a student and therefore legally don't have to pay anything, fairly sure liability for tax doesn't lie in the household but those eligible, which in this case, appears to be solely on Irwin's shoulders. Anxious for Monday to dissolve into the ether, once Monday I can stay slowly piecing together my plan for total world domination, that and I can drink my weight in sake at Sakura without fearing of an anxiety induced crash like the last few times I've drunk heavily.
Now I depart, I must sleep, I have a long day of biding my time and finding hungover people to hassle (tonight was the Summer Ball you see, an event that cost £50 that I did not have; thus the burritos, beer and movies).

The Day I Learnt That Harrison Ford Ages

2011-06-18T00:55:00.003Z

Ian's Quote O'The Days
Brother: I'm still here and I'm wearing a onesie. What is bad about that?

I just called someone a "basket of fuck". This leads me to the conclusion that I should stop watching as much of The Thick Of It as I do. I shan't be watching less, Malcolm Tucker is a deity of badassery and insult and I intend to, if anything, up my dose. To insult like Malcolm you need to combine two aspects of language; the first being to take an ordinary phrase or word and the second being violent sexual imagery and an abundance of the word "fuck".
Elise has fled the country for a warmer climate. Her texts inform me of such marvellous occurrences as swimming in the ocean, sunbathing and general sun-based shenanigans. In comparison to this my day seems unfair. Today I was rained in. It rained in all day, the day was spent helping Vicky avoid work and watching Morning Glory (which was a good film, mainly because it had Harrison Ford in) and The Adjustment Bureau (which was a good film right up until the ending which utterly ruined the entire film for me, mainly because it didn't have Harrison Ford in). We ate doritos, haribo, donuts and chocolate. Little else of any interest happened aside from an epic 19-4 K/D spread on Call Of Duty and some bastard rage quitting on Fifa due to me winning 3-1 in the dying minutes due to two late goals. This lead to the "Basket of Fuck" comment and brings this blog entry full circle, like the plot of an Australian horror film I saw, but fail to remember the name of or like a song sung by lions, please choose your own badly crafted metaphor and prepare for this transmission to cease.

Life In A Crack Den

2011-06-15T14:12:00.009Z

Ian's Quote O'The Download
James: Lee. Why do you associate yourself with such cretins>

And so it came to pass that we returned, once again, to a muddy field in Derby. This year was different to past years, namely Lee, James and I were the only one of our particular social clique to be present, and we were heavily outnumbered by Chas and his chosen acquaintances who constantly used such phrases as "MDMAzing", get it? it combines their drug of choice, one used in such volumes to cause one to have a fit, with the term for enjoyment of a particular activity. It's drug-based humor at it's finest, it makes Harold & Kumar look like Schindler's List (which is by far the least funny movie ever made). Needless to say the ven diagram of our particular social habits didn't overlap as much as they could have. Can't quite grasp how they continued after "the fit" occured, just goes to show the sheer variety of a human nature; after all, the failed to grasp why I'd want to get drunk infront of the cinema screen.
Wednesday and Thursday were good days, Thursday was spent drunk infront of a giant screen that was playing Paul, which was a lot better than I thought it would be, and a South Park boxset. Watching Manbearpig, on a giant screen, with several cans of beer surrounding my person may have been my ideal pre-festival day. Wednesday was spent realising Mc Devo was playing in the Comedy tent and then losing everyone I was drinking with, but Family Guy was watched with some random folk and life was still good. Finally got to see Stephen Hughes live as well which was much appreciated by me, even if noone else seemed to grasp his wonderment.
Elise arrived Friday and we all galavanted off to enjoy some live music. Ultimately we saw over twenty bands, ranging from Taiwanese Black Metal to Hip Hop. It would be far too tedious for me to delve into reviews on all the bands we saw so instead I shall comment on those that I deemed the best of the weekend. System Of A Down obviously are worth a mention, I have been wanting to see them for a decade and if we trace my musical taste make to it's source it would be Chop Suey. Royal Republic, Hyro Da Hero and Times of Grace all brought their own brand of epicness to the third stage and all rank amidst the numbers of "my favourite bands of the weekend." Clutch were another highlight of the weekend, this time gracing us with "Electric Worry" and a set of pure rock fury. Avenged Sevenfold, though not my favourite band by any stretch of the imagination, played "Little Piece Of Heaven" which is perhaps one of the oddest, yet uberest, rock songs ever written, never would have guessed it would be played on during a festival stage, but luckily for all it was. Bowling for Soup also graced the stage with sheer punktastic uberment, one of the best bands I saw all weekend, along with Skindred, they managed to take a 2pm main stage and turn it into a headline atmosphere, was increadible. I managed to catch "The Boys Are Back In Town" by Thin Lizzy, "She Hates Me" by Puddle Of Mud and the song more commonly known as "Edge's entrance music" by Alterbridge live which were all rather awesome to witness and shall take their place amidst the great songs I have been lucky enough to witness, such as "Don't Stop Believing" by Journey, "Here I Go Again" by Whitesnake, "Killing In the Name" by Rage Against The Machine, "Break Stuff" by Limp Bizkit, "Rock Show" by Blink 182 and a catelogue of others. The Darkness, what I caught of them before Times Of Grace, were also rather entertaining.
Finally got to share a festival with Elise, hopefully the first of many, and even though our numbers dwindled from previous years I am still glad we went. Infact the date marking our 18th month together as a couple coincided with seeing System Of A Down, which was pretty darn awesome. It's now just Lee and I left from the original festival goers of '08, but we shall continue, next year an army of awesomeness shall be mustered and we shall descend upon a campsite and bring epicness and unabaited win wherever we doth go. Our numbers shall block out the sun and we shall rock in the shade.
We vacated the site earlier than we planned, Elise and I kicking it in the back of a van while James drew in the passenger seat and Lee piloted us to safety in his Van-like steed. We left earlier due to the rain, the rain soaked through to the skin and we realised that the vast bulk of bands we had wanted to see where behind us or in the tented stages, stages that we couldn't get anywhere near due to people sheltering beneath them. Instead of waiting in a downpour for six hours for two bands we hightailed it out of there.
Tuesday was spent at an art exhibit at New Buck's Uni looking at fine examples of Elise Head's work, a name in the artistic community that I am sure shall garner much praise. Saw some epicly creepy stuff made by people on their BA programme, the worst being doll's faces... so many doll faces. It was like something from a Japanese horror movie.
Today Elise and I enjoyed a trip to the cinema and a pizza express dinner. X-Men: First Class was good, Cinema was good and time with Elise is amazing. I would ramble on about my disappointment with the Darwin character or the lack of certain characters/events I would have liked to have seen but this blog is already hefty as it is. Perhaps I should stop writing now.

A Week With Elise

2011-06-07T21:06:00.002Z

Ian's Quote O'The Day
Dan: Never thought a scene where a man is cremated alive would be so funny.

Tradition appears to have be an organic entity which constantly has new addititions crowbarred within it. What is fast becoming tradition is for me to start a blog entry with an apology for a week-long absence and bringing the whole rant to a conclusion with some form of promise to whip my blog back into it's former daily glory.
Quick disclaimer before diving into the weeks events; this quote of the day is from today only. Many entertaining, quasi-philosophical nuggets of monologue have birthed themselves into existence and all of these have since been forgotten, lost like tears in the rain.
The past week has been a good week. I spent every day and every night with Elise, aside from a handful of days where University stole her away from me. Monday involved a barbecue in the rain, which was a lot less pathetic than it sounded and come Thursday we were ready to depart for Reading. Our time in Reading was spent in bed watching the entirity of "The Lost Room", an epic science fiction miniseries that Elise introduced me to. One of the best things I have watched in quite some time actually, would urge you all to follow suite and watch it. We also watched various episodes of Wonderfalls, a programme from the mind that brought us Pushing Daisies, and a number of films.
Vicky and Louise decided we needed a party to celebrate the end of the academic year, the end of their placements and the end of some peoples degrees, including my own. The party was a very good party, even if I did get told off for "stealing all the men". This wasn't an act of gluttonous homosexuality, but myself and four others deciding to play WWE All Stars in my bedroom. Aside from this scorning the evening passed by epicly, much alcohol was consumed and Elise got to meet various people that have been littering my university stories for the past few terms.
We returned Sunday and the past two days have been spent preparing for Download. My bag is all backed for a long, somewhat arduous journey tomorrow but I am sure the week shall be epic; if we can have a barbecue in the rain we can have a win-filled festival in the rain. I'm not as excited as I have been for previous years, but I'm sure this shall change as soon as the campsite is set up and I'm sitting on a camping chair drinking a luke-warm can of Fosters, perhaps in the rain or perhaps overcast. Not sure why I'm a bit anxious of the whole thing, perhaps it's because all the planning has belonged to other people? I don't like not knowing plans down to the last detail, I like having an accurate itinerary. But who knows, and who dares to dream.
Now fair reader, I leave for an austrilain comedy programme, sleep and then what should unfold to be an epic five days in Derby. Adieu.

Final Examination #4: Revolution and Reem

2011-05-31T11:20:00.005Z

Ian's Quote O'The Days
The Conclusion Of My Last Undergraduate Exam: And if anything makes the establishment of a liberal, constitutional monarch impossible, it's regicide.

My exams are now over, which means University could be seen as being over, though this particular strand of reality is currently being ignored and the mantra of "Universities Ends Upon Wearing A Stupid Hat And A Gown" is being embraced with both arms and a level of force only Yoda knows. That's a Jedi joke, Yoda wasn't a rapist.
The final exam was on Friday, so the days prior to this were spent revising with all the motivation I could muster, words were highlighted, notes were written and answers were drawn up to hypothetical exam questions which, if I may blow my own trumpet for a second, were surprisingly close to those that were actually asked. You may call this a confident analysis of the past papers, I prefer to think I'm psychic like Neil Patrick Harris in Starship Troopers or Uri Gellar, he's one powerful wizard.
Upon completion of the exam Nate, Callum, Louisa and I immediatly started drinking. A fitting end to exam season I feel. We sat upon a bench a stones throw away from the exam hall and wasted away a handful of moments discussing the sheer relief of not having to study history anymore. Within twenty minutes we were embroiled in an argument about who was the best, or at least our favourite, American President; history students until the bitter end. By the end of the day we had attended three student bars, come the third Nate was drunk enough to literally dive over the bar in an attempt to steal the bartenders hat, this amused us all until we realised that, in order to save Nate's dignity and our patience, we may have to put him down.
Louisa was hosting a pre-drinking party-esque event at her abode and Dan and I, after raiding the Park Bar jukebox, descended upon hers. It was "The Only Way Is Essex" themed, considering I still have no real idea what a reem is, I decided it was probably best I steer clear of this theme incase it tainted my waistcoat or suits.
A good night was had by all, but one that unfortunatly finished all too prematurely for me. I had a good two or three hours sleep, and woke up at five in the morning. I managed to reach a plateau of drinking that was, perhaps, the worst stage of drinking I have ever been. When I stopped drinking I started to develop a hangover, when I continued drinking I just became tired. Upon realising I couldn't win I succumbed to the urge to sleep and returned to my bed, promptly sleeping for a good twelve hours.
I have now returned to Uxbridge where I have taken residence in the abode of Elise, it is a good Elise filled week, we have already watched the first three Pirates Of the Caribbean movie in one sitting. Watching them in this manner really amplified how bad an actor Orlando Bloom is, he seems to think acting is the ability to occassionally lower your voice. Keira Knightly isn't much better, I had forgotten just how cringe-worthy and utterly hilarious her "battle speech" was. It's embrassing for all involved.
Next blog we shall discuss what I plan to do with my life now my existence isn't confined to highlighting things in the library and perhaps, just perhaps, we'll find out what the black smoke monster is and why Jack's Dad keeps appearing.

Final Examination #3: Eastern Reform and Nuclear Weapons

2011-05-24T23:15:00.005Z

Ian's Quote O'The Days
Callum: To be fair he sent us that list, so if he does anything other than make all of those topics separate questions we have the legal right to lock him in a room with a bunch of homeless, hungry mexicans with his pockets fulls of burritos and fajitas.

I have two hours of exam left and then my undergraduate degree is complete. I am sure I have used the phrase "fucking terrifying" quite a lot the past few days, but I am yet to find a phrase that sums up my sheer fear towards the fact that I must now decide what to do with my life. Life starts at graduation, this is the plan. Up until then I plan on doing very little with my time aside from spending some much needed time with Elise and catching up with some alcohol consumption.
The exam was a lot nicer than I thought it would be, but then again the sheer fact the questions had any relevance to things vaguely mentioned in class means the exam was better than I thought it would be. Vietnam wasn't mentioned, which must have annoyed a fair few figures and various questions seemed to relate to things which were never mentioned. Luckily, the two topics I revised appeared and in the form of some nice questions. Saying this, the email sent around to us (remember that email? Fairly sure it spawned a fairly hefty blog entry on my utter loathing for it's contents. In this email he mentioned to "look a little at some Eastern Bloc countries aside from the Prague Spring", the exam question was on "Eastern Bloc Reform", not one, but all of them. Luckily I managed to crowbar my answer in there with some epicly phrased sentences and a glorious introduction, but the fact we never looked at any Eastern reform aside from a youtube video on the Prague Spring. There was also a question on why the Sixties polorized historical debate. The only historical debate we were aware of in the Sixties was whether our seminar tutor was a bad tutor, or the worst tutor.
It could have been worse however, the people sitting in the exam with us who were sitting another paper discovered that they had been issued the wrong one. An invigilator went out and got some "higher up" guy who told them that "just because the questions weren't what they wanted, doesn't mean it's the wrong paper", this was greeted with outrage and someone proclaiming, loudly that "they weren't answering the wrong paper for their final exam". It gave much joy to us doing the Sixties. We may have had a shit module experience, but at least our exam was the right one. Luckily the invigilator realised the sheer lunacy of them sitting a paper they hadn't learnt, and it all seemed to be resolved out of the room.
Upon finishing the exam we, being Nate, Callum, Louisa, Tom and an assortment of people descended upon Mojo's to share horror stories, though conversation ultimately descended into Callum flirting with Nate and every story ending with "...and then I listened to the Smiths while crying."
Exam on Friday. Once again I am feeling confident about being confident later in the week. Stay tuned for more glorious library adventures.
On this note I leave, I'm sure I could discuss more events of the past two days but my brain is struggling to maintain function and retiring to bed for an episode of the Twilight Zone and sleep is starting to seem more appealing than struggling to remember the paragraph I was about to type, but have now utterly forgotten.

Confident Of Confidence

2011-05-22T21:36:00.003Z

Ian's Quote O'The DayS
Riz: All about the meth whores. They're a friendly, more agreeable form of bitchez, the kind of bitchez that you could take home to the mother.

There's either a fox outside, or two babies locked in mortal combat. As much as the latter image amuses me, it is probably the former event. By this I don't mean I find babies fighting until the bitter end funny, this is gladiatorial combat which is frowned upon by me, and the vast majority of humanity, but the thought of two babies dressed as Sub Zero and Scorpion does amuse me.
I am feeling more confident about feeling confident for my exam on Tuesday. Due to events beyond my control; the fact my seminar tutor has all the educational graces of a particularly stupid amoeba; I have two topics noted ready to be consolidated, this figure should have been three, but due to events beyond my control; namely the fact that five days before the exam our favourite particularly stupid amoeba, informed me that my topic was out of bounds due to being linked in with a topic that I had already written an essay about. He didn't do this during the seminars, not once. Darn amoeba.
Tomorrow however I should be able to consolidate what I know and prove to myself that I know it through the usage of historical debate and discussion with other people on the course. You may have thought the above was a typo, but it was not. I am not confident right now, but I am confident that tomorrow, I shall be confident. Make sense?
I have been reading about the AN602, otherwise known as the "Tsar Bomba" and it is utterly mind boggling, I literally can't comprehend the sheer scale of it. It was a fifty megaton bomb tested by the Soviets in 1961, that's thirty five megaton's bigger than anything the West tested and twenty five megaton's bigger than anything the West built. The mushroom cloud was forty five miles high, twenty five miles wide, would have given you third degree burns from sixty miles away and broke windows over five hundred miles away, it's seismic shock was measured going around the Earth three times. The explosive force was ten times that of the combined explosive ordinance used, by both sides, in the entire Second World War. This was half what the bomb was supposed to be, the design was a hundred megaton bomb, but the Soviet Union believed the fallout from the test was too big a risk so politely lowered the test to a fifty megaton explosion. Can you seriously comprehend that? I sure as fuck can't.

The Days Of Stress, Further Stress and Painful Anxiety

2011-05-20T22:58:00.003Z

Nine days. Nine long, blogless days. My internet browser is currently informing me, through the use of a totally unsubtle blood red line that "blogless" is not a word. But what other word suits this moment? Of nine days were my blog was utterly barren of anything even resembling a blog entry. Perhaps you thought I'd died? Commit seppuku due to the sheer strain the exam period was placing on my fragile psyche. To all those who believe this I say the following; "I'm not a samurai, why the fuck did you even think that? I mean seriously."
I have decided to make the executive decision not to attempt a mammoth nine-day catch up, the chances are sky high that I recount the thing wrong and I don't want some kind of public backdraft against my blog due to historical inaccuracy, though that may be me going overboard. I managed to fit five Kurt Russell films into that sentence, I believe that's a record.
All Kurt Russell references aside, the past nine days have been hectic to say the least and I don't wish to attempt to revisit them all, I'll get things wrong and misplace facts and probably Memento-style revisit areas in a chronological order that would even make J.J. Abrams weep. Instead I shall discuss how I am feeling now. Today's emotion is anger; seething Hulk-like rage.
Five days before an exam, in all his eternal wisdom, our lecturer sent us a revision guide. Five days before an exam. This revision guide included such nuggets of epicness as "you should find out what that is", this entertained me because I'm not spending £3500 a year for him to tell me to fucking find something my fucking self. I mean seriously? Five days before an exam and he's telling us to "find out what that is"? FIVE DAYS!? You would have thought he would have at least made a passing reference to it in our fucking seminar, but no, this key term we find out exists five days before an exam and he doesn't even tell us what it means in the email. Other nuggets of awesomeness are that the question on Vietnam won't be about Vietnam per-se; the space race will be tied to science fiction, something he NEVER did during seminars; the international aspect of Vietnam piece movements will be questioned, something he NEVER did during seminars and we need to focus on the historical debate of topics rather than what actually happened. He never, once, mentioned that a historical debate existed, let alone who the debate was between or over what issue in particular. So we learn all this five days before the exam. I was revising the space race for this exam, a topic I am now not able to do because he tied it to science fiction, a subject my essay was on so is banned from being answered in the exam. Why focus on the politics and Cold War nature of the Space race only then to ask a question about Science Fiction? I can't remember the last time I was this angry about anything, the man is a joke and utterly discredits the entire education system. But I feel this a good omen, if that man can be successful in life then I sure as fuck can. If there's hope for him there's hope for all creatures, big or small. I could position one of those birds, you know the ones that drink from a glass and move up and down? Featured heavily in a Simpsons episode once? Well, I could position one of those to click the "next video" feature on youtube and it basically will have achieved what this abject cretin did. If people don't turn up for a presentation the lecture we are paying to teach us should step in and actually teach us what the presentation should have, not just use the entire remaining seminar as a youtube based hunt for knowledge which seems more like an introduction to a relevant session we all knew was never coming. The more I revise the angrier I get about this. I can't remember the last time I was this angry, at the computer today I honestly had to close my eyes and count to ten, twice, in order to stop myself from punching something, anything. They're tribesman in the middle of the African savaanah, tribesmans with no communication with the outside world who are utterly unaware of the concept of "the sixties" because they were too busy doing tribe things to really give a shit, who would be better seminar tutors than us. Seriously. I learnt more from playing Black Ops, literally this isn't an exaggeration.
I'm going to stop typing now, not because I feel this rant has come to an end, but because writing it has made me so angry that I am literally shaking.

In other news, the first image of Bane was released today, he looks pretty badass.

Generic Library Day #41

2011-05-11T23:37:00.000Z

Ian's Quote O'The Day
Father: He's a sad lonely lunatic ex miner/wrestler gay Spassie Paedo.

I shan't write about my day in depth, we all know that I went to the library and did work. Today's music of choice were "acoustic version of songs", my particular favourite being Royal Republic doing their song "Tommy Gun" and an acoustic Four Year Strong set.
Aside from library time I did very little of any note. Nate and I discovered the wonder of "Two Meals And A Pitcher for £12.50", this discovery elongated a "quick break" into a "late lunch". We sat in Mojo's with Emma, Tasha and Tasha's friend and discussed our degrees and the universal lameness of exams. Company dissolved and the late lunch became a discussion of politics, Marxism, meta-jokes and Scottish Independence.
Upon returning to mine after a fairly hefty library session I made dinner, this time not setting the house on fire, and talked to Elise on the phone. It was a good conversation, one that involved plans for Saturday and discussions of how awesome the new time-lapse app is on the iphone. This is all for my day, now make up your own Sean Bean reference and be on your way, tomorrow I shall discuss a glorious podcast a comrade and I are developing.

A Lack Of Reading In Reading

2011-05-10T23:30:00.002Z

Ian's Quote O'The Day
Nate: Talking to you has made me want to watch Michael Bolton again...must resist

The above video should put the Quote O'The Day into some form of context. My day was spent alternating between looking at a book and watching this video. It is indeed glorious. Upon the realisation that I was failing in my attempts to revise due to being all out of fucks to give, I returned home and proceeded to watch Louis Theroux and nearly set my kitchen on fire. Apparently the "hot sauce" used to marinade my pork chop was hot enough to combust upon incineration, the pan set on fire and I very nearly had to resort to "Operation: Dramatic Tea Towel Throw" but luckily due to quick thinking, much "aarghing" and shaking of a wooden spatula like device, I managed to prevent the fire from becoming an inferno.
I then watched the latest episode of Stargate Universe. It was a good episode and ended on a fairly hefty cliffhanger, a cliffhanger I shan't go into as I don't wish to spoil it for anyone who is yet to be introduced to what I believe to be one of the best sci-fi series of the year. I mean it has Robert Carlyse in, you can't ask for me. Upon completion of this mammoth task I discovered that this was the last episode of the season and therefore the last episode of Stargate Universe due to it's cancellation. I am annoyed, so very annoyed. It went from strength to strength this season, the latter half being exceptionally awesome. Hopefully they'll be a tie in some where, a graphic novel or a web series perhaps, that will wrap up some questions, it is what Firefly did after all. Was literally angry. You wouldn't like me when I'm angry.
For all those who care, the pork that was set on fire actually turned out to be very, very nice.

Reading in Reading

2011-05-09T21:31:00.002Z

Ian's Quote O'The Day
Tom: He's Conan... you can't call him "Squishy".

I just took a painkiller by throwing it in the air and catching it in my mouth; I feel like I'm Gregory House just sans limp and with ibuprofen instead of opiates. Perhaps this fashion of self-medication is not the greatest achievement of my day, but for some bizarre reason this sense of House-esque euphoria seemed worth writing about.
I have returned safely to the welcoming arms of the library. Here life is simple, life is reading. Lots of reading in Reading. Little else actually, I realise it is very amusing, as the act of reading is spelt the same way as the town that my university is situated, but this is actually all that occurs in this fine university town of late. I waltz into the library and then return home at a late hour with fried chicken. This repeats day in and day out until I return to Uxbridge for some form of pre-arranged social event and time with my koala.
Elise is the koala, I don't own the planet's favourite marsupial. Would be pretty badass though, right? Who needs a dog when I have a koala, I'd call him Harrison Ford and would fashion a tuxedo for him to wear. Tuxedos are also a hefty dose of badassery. I will then train him in the art of ninjutsu and perhaps arm him with a no-dachi, he could become the hero we deserves, but not the one it needs right now. So we'll hunt him because he can take it. Because he's not our hero. He's a silent guardian, a watchful protector. A koala.

Final Examination #2: Ouch

2011-05-08T23:56:00.004Z

Ian's Quote O'The Days
Elise:... is this about a killer newspaper?

I always told myself I wouldn't buy "Call of Duty: Black Ops". It was "World At War 2" but advertised like "Modern Warfare 3", Treyarch are nothing on Infinity Ward and I heard the finished product was rushed with some hefty glitches. I don't care that Treyarch has released a zombie-themed DLC pack for Black Ops. This wouldn't make me buy a game. Danny Trejo as a playable character? Black Ops is now on my to buy list.
A new ipod is also on my to buy list, the headphone jack has decided it will work no more and will now thrust music through only one headphone. This upsets me, I loved El Duderino as if he was a son. For some reason a 120 gigabyte ipod is £6 more expensive than a 160 gigabyte ipod, I brought El Duderino for £160 in first year, he has served me well, why the fuck do I now need to spend £200 to replace him? What was wrong with 120 gigabyte? I think that's a perfect amount of gigabyte, 160 just seems selfish.
I had an exam Friday. Nice questions turned up, as did the worst migraine of my existence. I couldn't concentrate, felt like I was sweating, thought I was going to throw up and pass-out (perhaps in that order) and had I not immediately napped upon my return to the nearest bed that I owned I am fairly sure I would've broken down into a tiny, self-pitying ball of utter despair. Extenuating circumstance forms are being pursued and hopefully I won't have ballsed up my future. Thank you migraine, you utter and complete bastard.
The weekend was spent in a happier place than a tiny, self-pitying ball of utter despair. I spent Friday through Sunday with Elise. I loved this weekend, I managed to get some constructive work done, I got a roast dinner, time with Elise, the Fringe season finale and a Japanese horror film about a newspaper, got to love Japan. After the shiteness of Friday spending time with Elise was possibly the best thing that could've happened, the more time I spent in her company the more all my worries and stress seemed to melt away. I am also very aware that if you asked Elise "What did you do this weekend?" her reply would more than likely be "I ousted Ian from the Top 10 of Tiny Wings".
Hopefully if I blitz these last two exams and utterly pummel them into the ground I can still grasp the dizzying heights of a 2.1, already got coursework of 66 in one and 64 in another, which are worth half that course. Hopefully I can maintain these, really hope I can. Only a couple of weeks left, if these are spent predominantly in the library then maybe, just maybe, I won't have fallen at the last hurdle.

Final Examination #1

2011-05-05T22:06:00.004Z

Ian's Quote O'The Days
Dan: And then he turned to me and said "Please remove him from my presence or I will take those shoes from him and kill him with them".

It just struck me that, come this time tomorrow, I will have completed 100 credits of this years 120. Which is an utterly terrifying prospect. My first exam took place today, it went swimmingly. Well not swimmingly, am perfectly confident that I did not excel in any way, shape or form. Which is always a nice feeling to have after an exam, but at least I didn't leave wishing to commit seppuku in a an overtly dramatic and public fashion.
With the exam finished, we descended upon Mojos. Discussion was had, lunch was eaten and Nate, Callum and I quoted Anchorman; it's how any post-exam unwinding session should occur. Met various new people, which is always good, and wasted an hour or two doing very little before returning to the house with the intention of working. Working quickly turned to napping, which in turn turned to sleeping. I'm so very tired and all I want to do is sleep, but then no work will be done? Contemplating attempting to sleep now and wake early, then get a few hours of solid revision in pre-exam tomorrow. Say wake up at 430 and revise through until 730. Should get enough dates and such in my mind then right? Really worried about tomorrow's exam, feel like my brain has just shut off and is refusing to take in any more information. The wonders of having two exams with forty credits a week after the dissertation deadline, not entirely sure what the timetable Lords were thinking. But I'm not alone in this boat adrift in the sea of stress. I should be okay, just need some nice questions. Preferably one on Revolt, another on Resistance and one on justifications of the Slave system, or a good juicy capitalist/paternalist question.

Revision?

2011-05-03T12:45:00.003Z

Ian's Quote O'The Days
Tom: I'm not a chav, I'm just gangster

The family went out for a meal yesterday for my parents twenty fourth wedding anniversary and we all sat around a fairly swanky table, eating formal food and discussing fat strippers and midget porn. It was a surreal moment to say the least and one that may have to be explained to some form of therapist during some future moment in my life.
The days home have been eventful, but in the spirit of attempting to quell stress as best I can, I shall only discuss the good, borderline epic moments of the past few days. Due to Elise being the spectacular person she is, I rediscovered the awesome, yet underrated, sport of swingball. What made this discovery even better was that it took place while meat was cooked on an open fire, the way all good discoveries should be made. Elise was hosting a barbecue you see, an epic barbecue, one that I had to leave prematurily due to Lee and I having tickets to a gig. The gig was good, the headliners; Bring Me The Horizon had the misfortune of being utterly overshadowed by their primary support; Parkway Drive and there was literally sweat on the ceiling. We didn't stay until the end of the gig, Lee being ill. Lee's illness also meant we had to withdraw from the Battle of the Bands final, which sucked mighty and colossal amounts of balls but we shall make up for this over the summer, epicness shall burst forth at an unhealthy volume.
Elise and I watched Thor, a film which I may have to class as "My Favourite Marvel Film" but further study will have to be drawn before I verify this. I struggle to list any substantial issues I have with the film. It was cheesey in places, but when a hammer has "only those who are worthy" written on it; it is going to be cheesey. Has me well and truly excited for the Avengers. I would go off on a nerdgasmic rant here, but I shan't.
I'm now back in Reading, month old pizza is still in the fridge and each passing minute here makes me contemplate only coming here the weeks of my exams. I have too much to worry about right now without having a house that makes me physically angry. Seriously, that pizza has mutated to a point beyond mould, a point where it may start seeking vengence on those who created it. If that's the case I'll happily point him towards Irwin's room and tell the pizzabeast; "There! That is where he who created you dwells, would you tidy up after you are done with the vengence?"
I must now return to Hugh Laurie's album and further revision. I miss Elise. I miss not having deadlines. I miss living in a house where I felt safe from cholera. I miss being able to read things I actually enjoyed. I miss the feeling that "I can wait until September". I miss Elise more than these things, by a considerable degree, but my annoyance appeared to have muscled in on the sentimental moment there.
The dissertation is done. This will all be over soon, I must remember this and all will be well.

Farewell Dissertation

2011-04-28T00:37:00.002Z

Ian's Quote O'The Day
Callum: We should probably stop talking about the Jews now.

I felt a weight lift off of my shoulders as soon as I presented my dissertation to the lady in the History Resources Room, who for some unexplained reason seemed to be revelling in the job she had been given as if my 11,000 words had been written expressly for her. This weight was immediatly placed back onto my shoulders as soon as the revelling lady presented me with two lengthy questionairres that I had to complete and a dissertation coversheet. Upon the completion of these and a hasty get away to avoid any post-handing in banter with revlling lady the weight was once again alleviated.
With my new found bounce in my step I made my way to Mojo's in the company of a group I shall from hereforth dub "The French Revolution People" (due to their presence in the French Revolution Module rather than their presence storming the Bastille in 1789). We proceeded to drink from around midday, some more heavily than others. Louisa, being her ever awesome self, had a shot of tequila before lunch and Tom and James shared a pitcher of Pimms. As the French Revolution Folks left I found myself in the company of Nate and Callum.
We bided our time in the outside segments of Mojos and had to apologise to a waitress for being anti-semitic. But do not fear gentle reader; we do not loathe the Jew. It was merely a hilarious misunderstanding due to an out of context sentence said during a conversation about our dissertations. The Waitress promptly told us an apology was not necessary, and proceeded to tell us that she had heard some very weird things from our table and then she beat a hasty retreat back to the kitchen area.
It was a good day, a very good day. It is a shame more days like this weren't had in first year and part of me resents the fact that this myriad of awesome folks have appeared at the tailend of my degree. The swine.
I have now returned back to Uxbridge. The Law have a battle of the bands to prepare for and revision must be completed. Obviously this pales in comparison to how much I am looking forward to further time with Elise, but prepartion and revision must occur nethertheless. I love being close to Elise, I really hate being away from her for so long, but University is drawing to a close! Soon Uxbridge shall greet me with open arms once more and I shall take my rightful place back in a single bed in a shared room; who wants independence anyway?
A dog has used my copy of "Marvel Zombies vs Army of Darkness" as a chew-toy. This angered me. But that is all I shall say on the matter.

11,000 words

2011-04-26T22:35:00.004Z

Ian's Quote O'The Days
Gaz: ‎8 bands fought the law...and lost, the other 3 mutually agreed to a draw in the name of punching cancer!

Brannigan's Law are one of the four finalist in the Crown and Treaty's Battle of the Bands, we came, we saw, we did not falter. Tacked Sabotage on to the end of the set, which went down well and we were well received which was rather awesome. Our set was full of win, wrestling catchphrases and brutality. Next week we shall be even grander, win shall flow down the walls like wine. We played alongside Death Remains, who also reached the final. I have heard there stuff before and I was impressed but nothing prepared me for just how good they were, was fucking spectacular. We also played with GONE, we beat them.
My dissertation is now done. No more will I be chained to a keyboard writing about the Hollywood Ten. I think what I have produced is good, I am actually quite proud of it in place and hopefully this will help me towards the 2.1 I am aiming to get after the degree has finished. Two exams next week, two exams at the end of the month and then I'm done. In two weeks I will literally be half way through my exams, my final exams. I am nearing the end of my education journey and, as of yet, I have absolutely no idea what I want to do. Get a Summer full of Law-realted awesomeness, times with Elise and more time to read. I'm looking forward to actually being able to read, never really had the time to just sit back and focus on a book that I didn't have to read, especially with a history degree; the last thing you want to do after a day in the library is read.
Tomorrow I hand in my bound dissertation and then drink, depending on how much is drunk and what plans people have with their newly found inebriated state, I may then return to Uxbridge. If not, Thursday shall see my arrival. I plan on spending the days in a park reading about slavery, the evening at home reading about slavery and several hours spread across the weekend working with the Law or the extra ten minutes we need by Sunday.
There's a pizza in the fridge that has literally been early since March... it has things growing on it and it makes me feel ill.
Below is Randy Marsh live, enjoy.

History Shall Return In Dissertation 2: Dissertation Harder

2011-04-19T23:55:00.006Z

Ian's Quote O'The Day
Louisa: At least you have a mother to watch Airplane with
Me: No I don't, she doesn't like it either. Way to rub that in.

Chris: Queens Of the Stone Age were pretty good, but I couldn't get very close because I was with a guy who had a peg-leg. true story

Kat: My dissertation has been a mind numbing, soul-sucking, whore ... but I think you'll agree that I owned her arse quite spectacularly.

I am fairly sure that I have vanquished my dissertation to the realm of completion. My days spent in a cupboard have ended, now I get to go forth into the world and read things in the library. Some would say I am swapping a small cupboard for a larger cupboard, but this larger cupboard as a cafe, it is a definite trade upward. Is life not a large cupboard? It's not. That is a stupid thing to say.
Aside from time in the cupboard, I spent yesterday with Elise. I discovered she has never heard of the worlds favourite bob-sled related movie; Cool Runnings. I had always assumed everyone had seen Cool Runnings, like everyone has watched the Lion King or the Fresh Prince of Bel Air. But this turns out not to be the case. I must reassess my outlook on life, perhaps they're people out there who don't know the Pokemon theme tune? Don't know that Darth Vader is Luke's father? Don't know that The Simpsons used to be awesome but has fallen into disrepair and will never regain the glory that it had once reached?
We spent the night together and watched Tremors (A cult movie made of quantities of win that are dangerous when consumed) and then spent the day watching Serenity and doing very little. It was nice to do very little, rarely in the past fortnight have I had the time to do absolutely nothing.
Tomorrow the Law have their first gig with original material, well the first gig of this new Law. To use a Doctor Who metaphor; the band regenerated into a more awesome incarnation, before we were Christopher Eccelstone, now we are David Tennant, just a David Tennant with double bass, cowbell, riffs of epic and a song based on Fallout 3 and the fact that we aren't living on the moon yet.

Six

2011-04-18T23:06:00.004Z

Ian's Quote O'The Days
Ryan: ExactlyWe'd still manage to die at fake fighting, how pathetic would that make you feel?

The quote of the day was supposed to be the quote of the day for a blog that was to be written a good three days ago, I made a note of it in a draft and promptly spent the next week in a cupboard writing about Hollywood Screenwriters. How awesome am I? This is the main reason why this blog has been lacking in substance the past week, each day was spent in a cupboard typing away at my dissertation, this doesn't make for a very exciting blog entry and each session of writing basically ended with me wishing to succumb to the welcome abyss of sleep.
Today wasn't a good day. My dissertation you see has three chapters, the first and second chapter lead up to the big centre piece of my research which, itself is split into three sections: a section on Dalton Trumbo; a section of Ring Lardner, Jr and a section on John Howard Lawson. The big area of this section was the one centred on Dalton Trumbo, my whole essay was literally building up to an analysis of his letters that proved that Trumbo was a subversive, Commie swine. Today I discovered that my notes on the letters have been corrupted, or saved incorrectly and I am now left with notes on the initial letters rather than the ones wish would have made my dissertation the envy of all. I doubt that I an acquire these letters again in time and even if I could I doubt I have the time to note the letters again. This made me a sad, sad Ian. Upon discovering that the notes had gone I literally threw up and proceeded to sit in a dark room listening to blues music until a period of meditation allowed me to reach a moment of clarity where an alternate plan was spawned, true story. This alternate plan to follow, one which should save my skin and allow for me to hand in a dissertation that is worthy of a 2.1.
Today would have been the same as the previous days, as awesome as my depressive time in the darkened room after fear-induced vomite was, I would have avoided writing into this blog, instead choosing to work on my dissertation right up until the point where I medically had to sleep or face death. Today isn't a normal day. Today my blog is six years old. If my blog were a person it could talk by now. It has chronicled six the most important years of my life, covered various changes in my personalities and outlook and taken us on a journey that included gradually improved spelling and grammar and more embelished Sean Bean references. I intend on keeping this blog going for as long as I can, I like being able to chart my progress into what ever transcendental being I became, that was a Stargate referece dear reader, my egotism has not reached those dizzying heights nor will it ever. Speaking of Stargate, Stargate Universe has been cancelled, Robert Carlysle is going to be annoyed, you should never anger Robert Carlysle. The director of 28 Weeks Later could have made a very similar film had he just followed Robert Carlysle.
But a toast to the blog. May it live long and prosper until an EMP signals an inevitable Korean invasion. (Homefront is a shit game by the way, plays exactly like a game from 2004, it's basically Half-Life 2 if Half-Life 2 went out of it's way to piss off Kim Jong-Il, another person you don't want to annoy).
Now, dear reader, I must return to my dissertation. Enjoy whatever you have instore for your evening.

This Title Would Be A Lot Easier If There Hadn't Been A Bomb Scare

2011-04-11T22:20:00.007Z

Ian's Quote O'The Days
Ryan:I don't have toes, just more cocks

Kat: I mean seriously. just rub salt into my dissertation shaped wound. you bastard. you intelligent setence wielding bastard.

And so begins, another blog entry for a few days that I am struggling to piece together in chronological order. A few large events have occured over the latter half of the week, and it is these I shall focus on.
I returned to Reading for a single day, my entrance was made early and I returned to Uxbridge after I was ousted from the library. My visit to Reading was spent at a computer in the library where my time fluxiated between discussing the perils and pitfalls of dissertations with Nate and noting letters written by a blacklisted screenwriter in the 50s. It was a constructive and vaguely entertaining day that ended with a Burger King eaten on a train and passing out on the sofa in the time it took for me to say "Yes mother, a cup of tea would be lovely" and the kettle to boil.
Friday was spent in a soundproof room experimenting with crabcore and generally rocking out with The Law and then, after a beverage at the Load, I returned to mine with Elise. Today marks our sixteenth months together. How incredible is that? Soon University will be eradicted from my existence and I can spend the time with her that she deserves.
Saturday was a wonderful day, the first day in a number of long weeks where I have had the opportunity to go out amidst friends and drink vast quantities of alcohol. At the Treaty there is a list of "bombs", by this I mean along the lines of "jager bombs" not the kind of "bomb" that would get this blog flagged and suited men in an unmarked van appearing at my door. Each of these bombs involved a different beverage, there were Skittle Bombs; involving Cointreau, Glitter bombs; involving goldschlager, malibombs, vodbombs, cherry bombs. Nine in total. Ryan and I drank every single one. Ryan and I attempted to outdrink Lawson and Alder, because events like this are better in pairs, like climbing a mountain or battling a Fal'cie. I can't remember how many bombs were consumed, all I remember is that I drank more than Lawson and some how we were all still functional enough to return home and wake up feeling a lot better than I should have. It was a good evening, got to meet a lot of people I haven't seen in a considerable time and listen to music from the Sixties. Also in attedance, aside from our initial group was Emily's Birthday posse. Aaron and Dave were a part of this and decided to call me Steven from now until the foreseeable future due to the apparently resemblance between me and Stephen from Braveheart. I refuse to apologise to the world for saving Mel Gibson, he is Riggs and Mad Max, you don't fuck with Riggs and Mad Max
Sunday opened with a barbeque, the way days should always open and ended with a movie about trains, the way at least a few days should end. It also signalled a vast swathe of Uxbridge being closed due to a bomb scare, which utterly stopped me from showing off about "all the bombs" we had sampled on Saturday, I don't like my words being taken the wrong way, especially if it leads me to the English equivalent of Guantanemo.
Today was spent in a cupboard writing about Hollywood and listening to the "Royal Republic" album on repeat all day. I discovered, after developing an infatuation for the band, that they had been announced for Download a few days ago. This was good news, very good news. And with this nugget of win I depart, this has been a rambling narrative and I wish to attempt to write a little bit more before my final descent into sleep.

Progress and Pizza

2011-04-06T23:04:00.002Z

Ian's Quote O'The Day
James: Iron Maiden are epic. My son will be called Ron Maiden.

My dissertation progressed today and I spent some beautiful time in the sun with Elise before settling down in the presence of the television screen and a pizza. It was a really nice evening actually, and a somewhat constructive day. Hopefully many more days of such niceness and constructive-esque proceedings shall unfold for the remainder of my time away from University. This blog now ends as I have an early locomotive to catch, you shall hear of my exploits tomorrow.

A Return To Writing

2011-04-05T23:45:00.002Z

Ian's Quote O'The Days
Nate: The Austin/Rock confrontation had me literally screaming like a child. Once again I felt like one of the Millyuns (and millyuuuns). This morning I realised how real life pales in compairson to the world of wrestling.

I have rescued my computer from the very depths of Reading. I woke up in a cold sweat, a weird sense of foreboding drifting through my veines, I realised I was sensing my computer in peril. Ever since that mysterious and sudden storm a few months ago, I have felt connected to the computer, I feel it's circuitary in my quasi-developed muscles. I could hear it crying, I could sense it scream for salvation. Perhaps this was an elaborate ruse to make the activity of returning to Reading to bring my computer back to it's new Uxbridge-based home seem more interesting. I am sorry if this revelation has upset you fair reader, you have my deepest sympathies.
The evening was spent with Elise, we watched a story about a Frenchman with a heightened sense of smell who used his mystical and unexplained powers to slaughter fourteen people and cover them in goo, it was very good. Spent the morning in bed and then trotted back to my abode to enjoy a day of struggling to further my dissertation. It is terrifying me how much I am struggling with it. It took me all day to write about three hundred words. Apparently the more time I spent in education the less able I am at basic essay writing skills. Wrote a lot today, every sentance of three hundred words at least three/four times, which if anything means I wrote close to a thousand words. I need inspiration, a second wind or sorts. I'm scared. So very scared. And the more scared I get, the more scared it makes me. Keep trying and failing to get into the swing of things. But I will. I shall find a way. I will stunner this dissertation, I shall stunner it into the abyss from whence if came!

XXVII

2011-04-04T03:20:00.002Z

Ian's Quote O'The Days
Nate: (On Wrestlemania) I don't think I've ever had an erection for such a sustained period of time.

Yesterday did not go to plan. The plan originally was to spend times of epicness with Elise and then descend upon the Crown and Treaty to issue forth mayhem in all directions. Instead the day was spent with me feeling ill, throwing up and then being looked after by Elise until she descended upon the Crown and Treaty and issued forth mayhem in all directions leaving me to sleep for twelve hours.
Today was spent with The Law playing music in the dark, that's not a euphimism and eventually 4/5ths of us took up positions at my abode to view the most electrifying night in sports entertainment; Wrestlemania. We were joined my James, quavers, percy pigs, m&ms, relentless, monster, iced gems and milk, and the evening proceeded forth with much cheering and pointless trivia announcements from Lee, it was like a commentary track that we couldn't turn off. Haters appear to be hating in the general direction of Wrestlemania and I'm not sure why, mainly because I'm not entirely sure what people seem to have been expecting. We got Stone Cold, The Rock, Triple H and The Undertaker. We got three stunners, a Last Ride, Pedigrees, the Rock Bottom and the Peoples Elbow. We got catchphrases, we got amusing commentary and we got a camouflaged quad-bike with two beer holders (which is now one of my life goals). We got a rapping midget, Pee Wee Herman and Snooki, but we can forgive them for the latter. Perhaps it was the epic company in which this was all enjoyed? Who knows. All I know is that IT DOESN'T MATTER WHAT YOU THINK!

Any Questions?

2011-04-01T23:35:00.000Z

Ian's Quote O'The Day
Ryan: The joys of a stocked fridge, the tribulations of your family going on a diet. Water water everywhere and not a drop of it doesn't taste like fucking grass.

Zack Snyder: 300 was the gayest movie ever made

I won tickets to an advanced IMAX screening of Sucker Punch, introduced by a Q&A with Zack Snyder. This was the first event of this nature I have ever attended, hopefully the first of many. Listening to Zack Snyder talk about his process, inspiration and ideas behind Sucker Punch, his thoughts on the culture of geek, the upcoming Justice League movie and the studio system was actually really interesting. The film was epic; the choice of music was awesome - as expected from a Zack Snyder film, it featured a dragon, steampunk Nazi's and a 10ft Samurai with a minigun. Can a film that features these be anything other than epic? Can understand why some people wouldn't appreciate it; a movie that looks like a cross between a video game cinematic and a music video requires a certain person, namely a nerd, to fully appreciate. Still, go and see this film and then, preferably, discuss your views with me and Ryan. Within two minutes of leaving the cinema it transpired that both of us had interpreted the movie differently. Got to love movies like that.
Spent a lot of time with Elise recently, which is always time well spent. I'm struggling to get as much work done as fast as I wanted, but noone to blame but myself, just need to knuckle down but it's difficult when I keep going through bouts of pain. Difficult to focus under those conditions but I am sure I can man my way through like the glorious troll I am. I have a busy few weeks ahead of me, seeing Elise as much as I can, fitting as much band time in as I can and need to crack on with an abundance of work, so blogging may become more sporadic than usual. Just a warning there, I shall still attempt to update you with the goings on of my world, even though "you" are probably just me in a few months bored, with a deadline, procrastinating by reading through the annals of my history. If this is the case; get on with your work, you aren't fooling anyone.

Day 29 - a song from your childhood

Day 30 - your favorite song at this time last year

Entering The Priesthood

2011-03-29T23:05:00.003Z

Ian's Quote O'The Day
Someone: One has Arnie, the other one has a gay guy and a girl who's only line is shouting SAM! in a slightly frightened voice.

My Xbox, Marshall and Lily are now in Uxbridge which means I have officially moved back for Easter. As material possessions go, my Xbox, guitar and amp really really make somewhere feel like home. Did I mention my guitar is called Lily? Cause the amp is a Marshall amp; Marshall and Lily... Get it? The acoustic guitar is Vera, that's a Firefly reference, and my bass is yet to be named. Though I feel like it needs a name, not sure why, but instruments should be named. So should cars and particularly good omelettes.
Before my homeward journey the day was spent trekking to campus, sitting at a computer, listening to the Black Keys at a volume situated in the outer-rim of socially acceptable, regurgitating the information that was sent to digital hell yesterday and becoming an ordained Dudeist Priest. It was a constructive day.
My life needs more midgets.

30 Day Song Challenge: Day 28 - a song that makes you feel guilty

Because I laugh. I laugh a lot.

A Digital Coffin For The Digital Dead

2011-03-29T00:15:00.002Z

Ian's Quote O'The Day
Ryan: I love dick. The man, not the extremity

Due to the wonders of technology or some form of conspiracy the five hundred words written today were thrust into the ether, deleted, disgarded, remained unsaved, removed from it's digital coil, pushing up binary, no longer attached to reality, taking up space in the digital urn, recycle bin fodder, ushered from the existence or any amusing, digital themed, death idiom of your choosing.
This coupled with general third year stress agrovated by a number of other things resulted in me headbutting a table infront of Louisa and Allison. Luckily Louisa, being the wonderful person she is, managed to stop me from cracking and making an entertaining, yet overtly embrassing, scene in the middle of campus.
I will miss those 500 words, I don't mean to blow my own trumpet but they were exceptional. The phrasing was incredible, it used gloriously grown up words and were generally amazing. They shall be missed. Is it okay for me to rewrite them this soon? Should there be a mourning period?

Day 27 - A song that you wish you could play

There And Back Again

2011-03-27T23:16:00.002Z

Ian's Quote O'The Days
Nate: A friend and I won kareoke at union the other night, we rigged it by telling the bar staff unless they voted us highly we would set fire to the bar and scatter the meek, before deploying our ordinance to the ground, it was truly beautiful

Thursday, Friday and Saturday all involved attempts to further my dissertation and spending time with Elise, these two activites occured in various orders and ultimately ended with my return to Reading Sunday.
At this moment in our blog I could start to discuss a number of things, but none of these things I will discuss. I could discuss my health, which isn't overly good right now, but in describing this I will have to use various words that I don't wish to utilize, the wonders of describing infections. Needless to say, it isn't Superaids, but it still hurts like fuck. Secondly I could discuss why I'm still awake at two thirty in the morning, but this will involve various avenues of thought that I don't wish to delve down. Perhaps through some inception-esque awesomeness I'll think about them. That way, at least, they may have Pete Postlethwaite, which is never a bad thing.
I would type more, but it is late and if I watch Mad Max 2 from the comfort of the bed then maybe, just maybe, I'll fall asleep before the light graces my window. I would have discussed in depth the reignition of my love for Percy Pigs and the discovery of "Pig Tails", but instead I shall leave you with the following: I have decided to grow a beard that Ryan Dunn would envy.

30 Day Song Challenge: Day 23 - a song that you want to play at your wedding

30 Day Song Challenge: Day 24 - a song that you want to play at your funeral

30 Day Song Challenge Day 25 - a song that makes you laugh

30 Day Song Challenge: Day 26 - a song that you can play on an instrument

The Beginning Of The End Of The Middle

2011-03-23T23:13:00.002Z

Ian's Quote O'The Day
Lizzi: I still love Guns and Roses even though I know Slash and Axl Rose have the combined moronic dickheadness as Colonel Gadaffi.

The end of the story is that I am now back in Uxbridge, I'm sorry to spoil the journey we both would have taken through this blog entry, but it gets quite dark in place, at one point I nearly walked into a low wall, and I don't want you worrying about what happened.
Monday started earlier than Monday usually starts, I headed onto campus with the intention of picking up a mega breakfast Sub on the way, getting an essay handed in and then spending the remainder of my conscious hours at a computer writing notes on letters written in the late 40s by Dalton Trumbo. Here is where our tale takes a dive into the abyss, but don't worry, I survived. Upon arriving at my friendly neighbourhood Subway I discovered, to my horror, that they had discontinued the Mega Breakfast Sub, replacing it instead with "Turkey Bacon and Egg". I have issues with this. Firstly, "Turkey Bacon" should not be a food, Turkey should not taint the fine word that is "bacon", Turkey should stay in Christmas where it belongs and not taint one of our main food groups, what the fuck is turkey bacon anyway? Does it come from some terrifying amalgamation of a pig and a turkey? Science damn you. Secondly, if you're going to replace the Mega Breakfast with something, at least replace it with something that contains the a similar degree of "mega". I see no Turkey Sausage in this heretical sub. Where the fuck is my sausage? I cling to the hope that this is a branch decision and not a national one. If Mega Breakfast has left our shores I dread to think what I would do, how will I survive a hangover?
Upon surviving this horrific encounter I stumbled, dazed, into the depths of the IT Room. I spent a few hours here, with a brief interlude to hand an essay in before a larger interlude spent in the company of Louisa, Tash and lunch. After food was consumed, Louisa had insulted me after I giggled at an innuendo involving her father and Tash had threatened physical violence on my person, I returned to the IT Room to spend the remainder of the day reading and noting.
Upon heading home I realized I was tired, tired to the point that I nearly walked into a wall and went dizzy. I opened my bedroom door and promptly fell onto my bed, here I stayed until the morning.
Tuesday was another early start, a start earlier than any start that has been started thus far. I rose out of my slumber at 630, showered, meandered to the post depot to pick up my Daredevil tshirt and then leapt into my last seminars of my undergraduate career.
After a busy day of seminars and discussing wrestling I made the journey to Uxbridge and spent the evening in the company of Fringe, Pizza and Elise. I was so glad to be back with her, it has seemed a lifetime since I last saw her, but now we're together again and all is awesome.
Ferris Bueller stalked me yesterday. Spent the day in a "Save Ferris" tshirt, which was promptly complimented by two people (two more than usual), the guest star in Fringe played Cameron in Ferris Bueller and the latest episode of House had a Ferris Bueller reference within it, how odd.
Today I noted. Not as much was noted as I had wished but after I have climatized to working from home all shall be well.
I'm currently on antibiotics, worried that last years event that we shall call "agonizing pain" will return. I am totally fucked if I'm reduced to the fetal position for a week again, but hopefully blitzing my body with antibiotics will quell the uprising before it starts.
I have no more essays to hand in and no more seminars to attend. Scary isn't it? Closing in on the final days of Uni, only dissertation and exams left and then BOOM I'm all done, need to start making future plans. Hopefully my year out will be eventful, hopefully Nemesis Prime will take form and music shall flow like a stream of win, hopefully I'll decide whether my future lies in teaching or lawyering (it's learning towards lawyering right now, Louisa and I would make one badass Law team after all), hopefully everything works out awesome and hopefully Joseph Gordon Levitt isn't playing Dick Grayson.

30 Day Song Challenge: Day 21 - a song that you listen to when you’re happy

30 Day Song Challenge: Day 22 - A song that you listen to when you’re sad

When I get sad, I stop being sad, and be awesome instead. True story.

Letting The French Win

2011-03-20T23:26:00.006Z

Ian's Quote O'The Day
Murray: I think it's cause Brendan Urie infects peoples' subconscious, like Freddie Krueger but more effeminate and with a cooler hat
Me: So what you're basically saying is Brendan Urie has mastered the art of inception?
Murray: I was trying to suggest that he was a mind rapist but that works too!!

I just ate tuna from the tin, I was hungry you see and hunger sometimes drives you to eat the first thing on hand that doesn't require preparation. Upon the completion of this fish based quest a strange feeling swept over me. This feeling was the urge to play Fallout. Apparently eating from tins instills in me the desire to play post-apocalyptic games, always nice to know.
This blog may stumble into a sports based rant, and for this I apologise. Saturday was a bad day for Rugby, unless you were Irish or French. Ireland raped England so severely that it put Wales into fourth position, obvioulsy French utterly schooling us in the ways of Rugby didn't help, infact you could say this was our primary problem. Not sure what happened to Wales, hopefully they will pull themselves together so that, come the World Cup, we don't lose too badly. The annoyance lies in the fact Wales can play as a worldclass team, we have two incredible kickers on our team, George North is one of the best younger players I've seen and we have experienced players, it just appears that sometimes we forget how to play Rugby.
Aside from Rugby grievances little else of any bloggable interest occured this week apart from being addicted to creating "Sad Don" pictures, examples of this shall follow. I am sure many will be made in the coming days. As the world of meme goes, this is my particular favourite one. Obviously I didn't spend the whole weekend creating "Sad Don" photos, my dissertation was worked on and I levelled up Harran the dwarf during my bried dissertationless windows.
Bed calls my name, I have an essay to hand in tomorrow.

30 Day Song Challenge: Day 19 - a song from your favourite album

Casually Dressed & Deep In Conversation by Funeral For A Friend
(I reserve the right to change my mind and replace this with either Kezia by Protest The Hero, Rain Dogs by Tom Waits, Hollow Crown by Architects, Apostrophe by Frank Zappa, New Junk Aesthetic by Every Time I... Die or the Team America OST)

30 Day Song Challenge: Day 20 - a song that you listen to when you’re angry

This song has the glorious ability to calm me down. It's listen to this song or Hulk out. so when I'm angry I listen to this, if I don't have this at hand and therefore continue to store anger then instead I listen to the sound of bones shattering and the ple...as of mercy from my vanquished enemies

...Follow Library Sessions

2011-03-18T23:19:00.004Z

Ian's Quote O'The Days
Steve: You should come man, I'll be wearing nipple tassles

Another twelve hours have been spent in the library over the past two days, they were tedious in places but work has been achieved. Dissertation notes on the HUAC interviews are now basically over and I have completed my last assessed piece of coursework, possibly ever. Starting to feel somewhat more confident now, like there's light at the enter of the cesspool I appear to be wading through. A few weeks, working like I have over the past few days and I should have this dissertation rinsed. Wish I hadn't left it this late, but this term I utterly withdrew due to a general sense of forboding and utter dread. Not sure what happened, was so scared that I shut myself off from thinking about everything. Snapped out of it now however, and all will now be awesome and grand.
Speaking of awesome and grand, I have been listening to a lot of FACT recently, if you aren't aware of this band then you should familiarise yourself with them. Hope they tour again soon.
That is all this blog shall discuss, I would go into detail of my plans for the future, for summer, for music or how much I miss Elise and the general sense of not having a deadline, but I am tired, have an antibiotic to take and at least one episode of South Park to view from the comfort of bed. Excelsior.
Furthermore, Elise is awesome.

Day 17 - A song that you hear often on the radio

Seriously, I listen to the radio on New Vegas more than I listen to the radio in reality.

30 Day Song Challenge: Day 18 - A song that you wish you heard on the radio

Library Sessions Follow Library Sessions...

2011-03-15T17:09:00.002Z

Ian's Quote O'The Days
Dave: Who doesn't want to dress up as a dinosaur and hang out with some hos?

Over the past two days I have spent twelve hours in the library, finally motivation appears to have reared it's ugly head and I'm pressing forward. It means a lot of my attention is focused on reading and historical things, which is never nice, but I am in the last stretch of this degree and I need to make the last three years count to something, and that something will be a 2.1. If it isn't a 2.1 I will be upset, I will squander what is left of my overdraft on vodka, blame myself, write some poetry and become some kind of old school blues guitarman, the world needs a blues revival. I'd be like Leadbelly just with less slavery connotations.
Today I literally wrote over 6000 words of notes from "The Testimony of John Howard Lawson", one of the three people my dissertation is focused on. The intention was to get him, Dalton Trumbo and Ring Lardner, jr's testimonies out of the way today so that tomorrow and the following days could be focused on different primary sources, however after 6 hours and 6000 words I decided it was probably best for my sanity to draw the line there. That and the library was closing.
I am warming ever more to the idea of a conversion to law, but this is a discussion we shall have in tomorrow's entry as the alarm just went off. This means food is ready and I'm one hungry student.

30 Day Song Challenge: Day 15 - A song that describes you

30 Day Song Challenge: day 16 - a song that you used to love but now hate

"O really you're a Green Day fan? Basketcase is a lot better... No. That's not another band. Thats another... you know what, fuck off."

Free Meat and Dough based produce

2011-03-15T00:25:00.002Z

Ian's Quote O'The Day
Mahin: Ah right, so Hiroshima was just the warning shot. Invoking Poseidon was America's long-term strategy

Several things of a good nature today occured, even if the day started with something of a false-start. Today, you see, was one of those meticulously planned out days, the kind which would further my life in ways in ways previously unknown to society. Everything, including a Subway Breakfast onroute which we all know is the cornerstone of any nutritous breakfast. This all failed when I woke up four hours later than I had previous intended.
Aside from the false start the day turned out pretty good. The reason for this awesomeness was fourfold; I got work done, to the point that I am fairly certain I can finish this essay tomorrow. While sitting with Louisa for a bagel-based lunch we were presented with free donuts, apparently in the union their was some form of food orientated sale and it was closing, this fine baker had donuts left over so was offering them to anyone who heard the phrase "free donut". I heard this phrase and promptly enjoyed my free donut. Thirdly, today involved steak. Epic steak. 10 ounces of pure epicness. Ten ounces of pure epicness that I was given for free. I could write ballads about that steak, beautiful iambic pentameter describing it's glorious radiance. Finally, and most importantly, the evening ended with a long conversation with Elise, for her I'd write a longer ballad, in beautiful dactylic pentameter, with rhyming words and everything.
I am getting increasingly wound up by Americans. Not all of them, and I am sure they aren't all American but I shall use this term as the collective for all involved as the true word I'd like to call them would probably involve this blog becoming flagged. I have discovered some people using such wonderful phrases as "Remember Pearl Harbour Japan? Karma's a bitch", though when they use this phrase it is less grammatically correct. 2459 people died at Pearl Harbour, which was a hideous assault on a military base that was unprepared for it. I shan't go into detail, we all know that this was something of a dick move by the Japanese. At Hiroshima the Japanese lost between 90,000 and 166,000 and at Nagasaki faced loses of 60,000-90,000. And on the 10 March 1945, in an event which has been brutally swept under the carpet and is actually a bigger loss of life than were killed immediatly at Nagasaki, 100,000 died in a single night during a fireboming campagin against Tokyo and nearly a million lost their homes. You know how many civilians died at Pearl Harbour? 57. How many civilians died at Hiroshima? Nagasaki? Tokyo? To put in perspective in the entire war America lost 1,700 civilians. Japan, in total, lost 960,000+. 1,700 in the whole war. Even the minimum estimate for the loss of life at Hiroshima was nearly fifty times higher, compare this to the entire total and that's 564 times higher. If this is really Karma for Pearl Harbour then I dread to think about what's going to happen to America. If you're reading this and honestly believe the "remember Pearl Harbour" ideology then would you do me, yourself and the human race a favour and kill yourself in the most elaborate and painful way your barely evolved brain can think of.

30 Day Song Challenge: Day 14 - A song that no one would expect you to love

I don't think I come across as the kind of person who dabbles in South African Hip Hop.

Saved By The Dude

2011-03-13T19:30:00.003Z

Ian's Quote O'The Day
Ryan: WE WE WE SO EXCITED. NO. FUCK NO. WE ARE. MISSING OUT A WORD IS NOT 'GHETTO' OR SLANG. IT'S FUCKING BOLLOCKS. Done. I'm done.

Today I utterly crashed under the stress of everything. Three things made me better:
1. Phoning Elise. Just hearing her made everything seem better and for our brief phone conversation everything seemend nicer, better and generally happier.
2. Watching The Big Lebowski. It's my favourite film and it's always nice to utterly immerse yourself in a well written piece of epicness.
3. The following Video:

30 Day Song Challenge: Day 13 - A song that is a guilty pleasure

It's A Word

2011-03-12T16:46:00.003Z

Ian's Quote O'The Day
Chris: I don't even know what social format to type "Japocalypse Now" in, but I feel I have to share my pun...

Today work was achieved, the last essay due in this term is currently being worked on. I am several days behind the schedule I had made myself but this only means I need to throw myself into the library from waking until close every day that I humanly can without hallucinating or being driven to the edges of sanity. I don't wish to inhabit the edges of sanity, I feel like I am being pushed closer to it each day but luckily today I was rescued by a timely game of scrabble, a Welsh victory of Ireland (the try was given, therefore it counts) and some marshmallow/cherry based homemade goods. I didn't make these goods, but they were made within the walls of the building I am paying rent towards, therefore they are homemade. Want to fight about it?
I have just discovered, thanks to the "time played" feature on steam, that I played Empire: Total War for 65 hours. My beautiful Swedeish Empire hadn't even conquered the East in that time. I did love my Empire. Shogun Total War 2 is out in a few days. I do love my Total War games. Played through from Medievil, Rome and Empire. Shogun shall be mine one day, would love to have the time to read about Japanese history, has always fascinated me but I have never had the time to focus on delving deeper into it. Would have done my dissertation on an aspect of it but I don't speak Japanese. Infact, I was going to learn Japanese in first year but I wasn't sure if German GCSE didn't sit well with me because I'm bad with languages or because I hate my teacher. I didn't want to risk failing on a misjudgement.
Tomorrow, more research. Now. Little reasearch, an early episode of Fringe and maybe, just maybe, a battle on Empire.

30 Day Song Challenge: Day 12 - A Song From A Band You Hate

Crowded IT

2011-03-10T23:34:00.005Z

Ian's Quote O'The Days
Because you're the only person I know who would appreciate Boromir and a grey faced guy in lederhosen dancing to the crazy frog.

I have handed in an essay. This essay rather awesomely started with a transformers quote. This makes me happy. I do enjoy getting references into essays, they make the essay worth doing. I mean, the degree is somewhat important but I still like the referencing. I was scarily close to footnoting "Prime, O" but decided against it. Subtley referencing is awesome, literally referencing fictioal leaders, regardless of how noble they are, may not go down well in the academic world.
The past two days have been spent slowly crawling through work. Unfortunately this slow crawl was slow enough to hinder my progress to the Sylosis gig and to Templeman's gig. This is rather agrovating but hopefully both will perform soon. Tomorrow, if progress is equally as slow, it means my Saturday evening won't be spent watching Jeff Bridges' movies. This would be a crime against humanity.
Slowly cracking under University pressure, really struggling to stay focused because of it and am generally getting more and more stressed with each passing day which has started a terrible cycle. The more stressed I get, the less I sleep, the less I sleep the less work I get done, the less work I get done the more stressed I get. It isn't very nice but hopefully I can shake off the worst of it soon. That is all the blog you are getting today. Enjoy the videos.

30 Day Song Challenge: Day 10 - A Song That Makes You Fall Asleep

30 Day Song Challenge: Day 11 - A Song From Your Favorite Band

Iron And Wine And Impossible Mould

2011-03-09T20:43:00.003Z

Ian's Quote O'The Days
Hector: All life is fragile and unique, LIKE A SNOWFLAKE" STABS LECTURER IN THE FACE (in the film the lecturer was a decepticon, it's a beautiful moment.)

Ian's Quote O'The Day 2: Quote Harder
Kelly P: I want Quote O'The Day

Another year and another Ash Wednesday as passed under my radar, one year I will watch the Evil Dead movies on this day like Thor intended, perhaps next year? In other news I have discovered that it is possible for a bottle of coke to grow mould. This discover has shocked and disgusted me, it is a discovery that didn't have to be made and one my brain can't comprehend. I am not sure how anyone could leave a bottle of coke, unopened, long enough for mould to literally start festering on the top of the cola. It shakes me to my very core.
Aside from this I also learnt my exam timetable, which is a lot better than I was expecting. Get my special subject out of the way and then have a few weeks until my module exams, gives some good revision time for all and has helped alleviate some of the pressure.
I returned home for the evening yesterday to attend an Iron & Wine gig with Elise. I had brought her the ticket for Valentine's Day, I am nice, gooey and romantic that way. The gig was very, very good, if a tad unexpected. You could liken the performance to a mellow Frank Zappa, there was a lot of improvisation and jamming around songs, the majority of the songs were in different keys and sounded different from their recorded counterparts and the entire thing was rather epic, would love to see them again, one of the best gigs I have been to. Helps that I got to share it with Elise, we listen to them a lot together and was exceedingly awesome to watch them live in her company.
Back in Reading I sat in the library cafe discussing why Captain Britain should have been in Capcom vs Marvel 3 as well as my belief that leaving out; Gambit, Cable, Colossus, Cyclops, Iceman, Silver Surfer, Juggernaut, Sabretooth, Carnage/Venom, War Machine, Daredevil, The Merchant from Resident Evil 4 as well as Jack Krauser, Bucky, Ghost Rider, Blade, The Punisher (though technically one of the alternate costumes for Captain America is Frank Castle), Doctor Octopus, Phoenix Wright, Iron Fist and a variety of others were mistakes as well as the desire for a variety of additional costume which had been left out of the game. Would it have been too much to have any of the 1602 or Noir costumes? Deadpool Pulp or Spiderman 1602 would have been appreciated, or any of the Marvel Zombie incarnations, Planet Hulk armour or the Jim Fixit costume for Hulk. The Old Man Logan Dr Doom is awesome though, it's my favourite comic book series so was nice to see it. Yes, this extensive paragraph was entirely about costumes in a video game. Don't you just love my awesomeness?

30 Day Song Challenge: Day 08 - A Song That You Know All The Words To

30 Day Song Challenge: Day 09 - A Song That You Can Dance To

Rock Nights and Firefly Lights

2011-03-07T23:09:00.002Z

Ian's Quote O'The Days
Kat: Nothing more universal than the anal penetration of two gay cowboys.

The more I think about it, the more I need to attend Sonisphere. Periphery, Protest The Hero, Architects, Slipknot, Limp Bizkit, Fozzy and Sum 41 are just too epic to miss. Not sure if I'd be able to scrap together £195, and even if I can I should really spend it on other things and not my second festival of the year. Saying this, I've seen Periphery, Protest The Hero, Architects, Slipknot and Limp Bizkit before and I'll be seeing Protest The Hero and Limp Bizkit as soon as they announce tours for their latest albums and I am seeing Architects soon. And Download has Clutch, The Damned Things, System Of A Down, Times of Grace, Bowling For Soup, Frank Turner, Turisas and Avenged Sevenfold. I still feel the right choice has been made, though in an ideal world I would be attending both. The world however isn't an ideal world so I shall just revel in the fact that at least I can afford one and not neither.
Once again I found myself returning home for the weekend. Due to Friday being the premier Friday of the month, and due to the fact that Murray was spawned within the confines of this particular month, we took the opportunity to celebrate by attending Facedown. Can't beat an evening filled with epic companions, live music, a midget, the lead singer of Young Guns and the random appearance of Daniel Beddingfield. To go into painstaking detail would seem pointless, just understand the evening was good and I intend on dragging people again next month to celebrate the start of the Revision Period and the end of seminars. I can rarely afford to go out; but I'll never turn down the birthday of a close friend or the opportunity to drink myself into oblivion due to the fact that life as I know it is drawing to a close.
Saturday was spent at a less awesome rock night, but a rock night nethertheless. Got to see people I haven't seen in a considerable time and ultimately withdrew back to my abode and fell asleep infront of Jumanji.
Sunday was no rock night, infact it was possibly the furthest from a rock night you can get without dressing in a rabbit themed onesie and singing Kumbaya. Elise and I spent the entire day, in bed, watching Disney movies. This was an incredible way to spend a Sunday and a method of relaxation I wish to mimic as soon as I become paralysed with "The Fear".
It is now Monday. I have walked to two seperate libraries, retrieved various books, including "that one the Library lost and I had to loan from York" and now plan to spend the week completing an essay and getting back on track with my dissertation which I aim to have completed 20 days after the completion of my essay. They're two shining lights in the quagmire that will be the coming weeks of tedious library based research. Tomorrow I get to see Iron & Wine with the glorious Elise and Thursday night, if I can find companions and complete enough work in order to justify attending, I should be seeing Sylosis. This blog would descend into plans for the future, the planned music based exploits, the discover that Kevin Smith was 23 when he made Clerks and the effect this news has had on me but you have a lot of youtube videos to watch below and I don't want to keep you.
In other news, Louisa and I are going to make the greatest law team since Murder, She Wrote.

30 Day Song Challenge: Day 04 - A Song That Makes You Sad

As soon as this song started being performed I realized that I was playing the single most disappointing thing that has ever been presented to mankind. It was here that the full of horror of how bad Final Fantasy X-2 was hit me and I wanted to cry, destroy Square-Enix and then ...cry again. It made me sad, ergo, day 4.

30 Day Song Challenge: Day 05 - A Song That Reminds You Of Someone

The Drowned Theory (Now Vote Eden), was one of the first songs I ever learnt as part of a band.

30 Day Song Challenge: Day 6 - A Song That Reminds You Of Somewhere

Reminds me of the best London based gig venue (and one of the best gigs, realise that isn't a "somewhere" but it is somewhere in time and now it's lost... like tears in the rain... time to die)

30 Day Song Challenge: Day 07 - A Song That Reminds You Of A Certain Event

This reminds me of that time Daniel Martin Rea sang the song solidly for a good week, verifying his status as an utter douche

Writing The Essay

2011-03-03T23:38:00.001Z

Ian's Quote O'The Day
Murray: Is it just me or does Michael Cera look like a really sick monkey?

Today I wrote an essay, well most of it. True Story. Tomorrow I return to Uxbridge to celebrate the birth of Murray by going to London and drinking compious amounts of booze. I also get to see Elise, which is a very good turn of events as the time apart has pained me.
I need to get more work done so this blog entry stops here. Well it actually stops there but, you know, don't take what I say literally and everyone ends up happier.

30 Day Song Challenge: Day 03 - A Song That Makes You Happy

Not only is the song generally a happy song but it also makes me remember the countless parties where this song has been busted out and danced to occordingly.

The Prequel To "Writing The Essay"

2011-03-03T00:31:00.003Z

Ian's Quote O'The Day
You got a problem with me moving in, you know, because your fucking my ex?

Looks like we may have a new housemate. Mike has decided that, if the landlord is okay with it, to move in in place of the wonderful Sami. This is good news for all, Mike is a dude and living with him should be rather enjoyable.
The day was spent librarying through various library-based books. Not exactly an interesting subject on which to dwell but that was my day. Spent lunchtime in the presence of Kat and some of her comrades and we discussed the wonderful "stats" function on blogger and which countries appear to read what dwells within (big up to Luxembourg etc).
The evening was spent working through various essay based things, utilizing all that was libraryed previous. This blog entry is boring and won't get anymore exciting. I therefore move to end it after the following three sentences. Spent the latter part of the evening in the kitchen talking to Vicky and Mike, they mocked my rice.
Elise has an assessment tomorrow, I must depart so I can wake up bright and early and wish her luck, not that she needs luck, she'll destroy that assessment and all will be well, but I am sure luck will be appreciate. Would like to clarify though; she's awesome.

30 Day Song Challenge: Day 02 - Your Least Favorite Song

Willow Smith - Whip My Hair

The song has no redeeming features and highlights generally everything I dislike about the music industry. She's 11 and autotuned, good for her. The song is catchy, but so's chlamydia, doesn't mean it's good.

Challenge Accepted

2011-03-01T22:00:00.003Z

Ian's Quote O'The Day
Someone: It’s 5 in the morning and I am craving the body of Christ. Not literally, but those cookie chips that they use in Churches during ceremonies to represent Christ’s body. Anyone know where you can buy those? I want to buy a whole bag of it and munch on them when I watch porn.

Today was Seminar Tuesday. This means very little happened aside from a lunch break that involved quoting Will Ferrell movies and various South Park episodes. I am fairly sure that you could copy and paste that from any of the past seven Tuesdays and it would be the same. There is little I can write about that wouldn't be going into Inception like detail of the things I daydreamed during yet another Sixties Module that became an amazing voyage through youtube.
My xbox disc reader is playing up again, there's something about this room that it doesn't like. It works fine back home but here it choices to work less than some form of ethnic minority which harbours the stereotype of laziness. This isn't nice, but the time is upon me now to crack on with my degree and produce a 2.1, perhaps this is Odin telling me to play less xbox and do more work? Maybe he is vanquishing distractions? Who knows.
And now I introduce to you another 30 Day Challenge, do enjoy:

30 Day Song Challenge: Day One - Your Favorite Song

Wales Of A Time

2011-02-28T23:13:00.003Z

Ian's Quote O'The Days
Tom: Just heard someone say, in answer to the question "Go to Wales? What is there in Wales?" "A lot of castles and Doctor Who."

A thousand apologies for the hideous pun that has taken pride and place as the title to this blog entry, it wasn't big and it wasn't clever and a pun of this calibur shan't happen again for quite some time.
The weekend just past was spent in the wonderful land of Wales. My body weight in tea was consumed, cake was eaten and transcripts were read. What a constructive, yet cake based weekend this was. Was a good weekend actually, haven't seen that side of my family in nearly two years, it was good to spend a weekend in their company. An Indian restaurant was visited, a very nice Indian restaurant actually which has restarted my love of the food of our favourite non-Oriental Asian nation and The Town was watched; a very good movie directed and starring Ben Affleck. The only downside with the weekend would be that we watched Robin Hood which may be one of the worst films I have seen in quite some time. You see, the majority of it was bad. Noone really wanted a Robin Hood origin story, you want arrow based trickery and things of that nature. What we really don't want is a movie that claims the French had perfected D-Day style landing craft by the turn of the 13th century and then further claims that Robin Hood was behind the Magna Carta. It also suffers because all the bits that were passable as okay were done better in Gladiator, a film directed by the same director and starring the same star, one who's accent while playing Robin Hood fluxiated from Welsh to Scottish to Australian to English to How Dick Van Dyke Thinks English Is Spoken to Yorkshirian. Basically, stay away from this film, for the love of God stay away from this film.
Today was spent in the library and ultimately ended with a marvellous conversation with my favourite Koala and a brief run through of a Spiderman game that features the voice of Neil Patrick Harris.
May be getting my essay result back tomorrow. I'm really rather terrified. I know it wasn't an amazing essay, I struggled with it like I haven't struggled before but I'm not sure how not amazing it was. As long as I get above 59 I will be happy, if I get below 56 I am in serious trouble when it comes to this module. It will mean a 64 in my next essay to even break the cusp of a 2.1. I would say I have noone to blame but myself, which to an extent is true. But the person organising this module is hideous. Relies entirely on people giving presentation (which I am not paying £3500 a year for really, if I'm paying that much I want an expert teaching me not someone who researched the presentation while hungover and isn't entirely sure what he's saying), the majority of the bibliography isn't actually in the library and the ones in his private collection seem to have gone missing. Is rather agrovating to be quite honest. From hereon in I may stop attending the seminars and just spend the time in the library reading what he should really be teaching us. I know history is a "research-it-yourself" degree but that research has to be built on foundations the seminar tutor sets. He teaches you something, you build on it, you learn something, he verifies it. Not he sits there watching someone present and if the presentation finishes early or, as is increasingly happening, isn't presented because the person hasn't attened, he just goes on youtube and brings up videos with some vague connection to our course. So my tutition fee is going towards other people presenting and fucking youtube. Good times.
On the plus side, Charlie Sheen is bat shit insane.

And Other Testimonies

2011-02-25T01:21:00.005Z

Ian's Quote O'The Day
Tom: People should not have to face this level of disappointment at this time in the morning. I thought I'd seen a book called Robotic Viking. Turns out it was called Robotic Milking.

Today I read transcripts and Elise guessed correctly 24 of the 25 bands on my "Favou rite Bands" playlist that I have devised for the car journey to the land of the Welsh.A nerdy conversation was had with Tom outside the library and Nate and I discussed things involving Randy Marsh, 1940's Hollywood Screenwriters nad retarded horses, but nothing of any blog-worthy note was achieved aside from our opening statement. Therefore here is a video of Captain Picard singing:

Birthday Koala 2: Birthday Harder

2011-02-24T00:13:00.004Z

Ian's Quote O'The Days
Tom: I've just overheard someone explaining how she spent the evneing wearing both a bowler hat and a top hat, and watching Batman. The guy she was talking to simply replied "I envy your life, I really do".

Yesterday started off somewhat badly. Instead of the original plan of waking up, sprinting to my seminar, presenting a presentation made of sheer win to my seminar group and then, bagel in hand, walking to the train station and sprinting the mile to Elise house, I threw up. Throwing up is never a nice start to a day so I decided that this wouldn't be the start of my day and promptly decided to sleep it off. I re-awoke a few house later and nearly threw up again so repeated the process.
Upon reawaking again I made my way to the train station, bagelless but feeling vaguely better, and made my way the mile to Elise house. Here we celebrate the day of Elise's birth with Jess, Hannah and pizza before making our way to the Met for a few drinks and conversation which ultimately came to the Na'vi fleshlight. I learnt of this device on the "Jay And Silent Bob Get Old" Podcast and was so utterly horrified and amused by the discovery that I had to share it with all who would listen.
Today was spent in the company of Elise and some episodes of Drive. It's an epicly annoying television programme. It's not bad, infact I'm really getting into it, the problem lies in the fact it was cancelled after 6 episodes and we're not sure if it is going to "pull a FlashForward" on us. This would be very upsetting and someone will have to pay.
I have returned to Reading. Tomorrow is Transcript Thursday. Onwards and upwards.

Birthday Koala

2011-02-21T23:59:00.004Z

Ian's Quote O'The Days
Nate: Well thank you Bahrain. All you had to do was start protesting in about three weeks and we could've enjoyed a Grand Prix. But no, democracy was just far too important for you

Scurrilous has leaked. Three years I have waited for this album, three long years spent slowly trying to play guitar at a level that means I can look at Protest The Hero tabs without crying. A weird feeling set in before I pressed play. What if the album didn't live up to my expectations? Could I ever trust music again? Currently on track two and I have already decided the album is godly. Track three has just served to prove my definition. Shan't rank it within their discography just yet, but tis the best album I've heard in quite some time.
I spent the weekend in Uxbridge, it was a glorious weekend that focused entirely on celebrating the fact Elise has entered the world of the 19 year old. After a band practice on Friday I went straight to Elise's and stayed their for the weekend, was really nice actually. Played a lot of Mario Kart, ate some epicly prepared fajitas and enjoyed a rather awesome party that resulted in a lot of drunk people dancing to Apache and various degrees of alcohol fueled amusements. Sunday, though worse for wear, was spent in the wonderful company of Elise, the house was tidyed and we spent some time together with Mario Kart and daytime television.
Unfortunatly this fantastical weekend had to draw to close and I returned to Reading to put the finishing touches to an essay. Third year is really starting to take it's toll. Shan't complain too much, I know for a fact that the vast majority of people are in the same place as me. Just need to get my act together. Crack on, focus, but in the longest sustained period of hard, academic work I have ever set my mind too and make this degree my bitch. Handed an essay in today and to be honest I'm not overly happy with it, as long as it's above a 59 it means I can slaughter the next one and crank my average up. Annoyed at myself that I have lost this motivation, first term I was on task, got a lot of work done and generally powered through but this term I just haven't been able to pick up the thread again and I'm not sure what I can do. Need to get this dissertation out of the way, maybe then everything will seem less like an unconquerable abyss of despair and more like a pleasant stroll up a hill, with rainbows and rabbits and shit.
Currently sitting listening to the new Protest The Hero album while refreshing the Download page waiting for the imminent announcement, I am on the edge of my seat. All that and it's my girlfriends birthday and I get to see her in a few hours. Tuesday has started well.
On track 9 of Scurrilous now. Ye all must aquire this album. Also, listen to the "Jay And Silent Bob Get Old" podcast. That is all.

The Development Of Mr. Flowers

2011-02-16T22:48:00.002Z

Ian's Quote O'The Day
Tom: I've composed entire epics out of bullets to Liam's face

I was asleep last night for over 12 hours. This terrified me upon waking up and I dislike that I became a slave to slumber. You may think this means I achieved nothing of any benefit today. This is an assumption that is fair to make, considering twelve hours generally contains half of the day. Achievements were however made:

I finally finished writing the lyrics for "My Dad Was Voiced By Liam Neeson". This song shalt be made available as soon as the Law can bring ourselves to record.
I read a good five hours worth of material on Western and Easter Science Fiction in the 60's. This means my essay is one step closer to completion.
I levelled Mr. Flowers up to Level 23.

I know what you're thinking; "Ian, that isn't constructive enough, you could have done more". I was thinking this too. If only I'd read four hours worth instead of five, maybe then I could have reached Level 25, or perhaps higher. But unfortunatly Borderlands will have to take a back seat until deadlines are achieved. Mr Flowers will have to wait his turn.

Marshall

2011-02-15T20:30:00.000Z

Ian's Quote O'The Day
Louisa: You'd just be wiping cum off ashes

Hector: Everytime I talk to you it's like someone re-invented the wheel by adding lazer turrets and tits.

Today I discovered that my seminar tutor has seen Frank Zappa live. I shan't say anything else on that subject as it will descend into an envious rant.
I now own a Marshall MG 100DFX amp. I brought it on the cheap from Matt. I am currently trying to figure out whether the amp has always been missing the top part of the treple knob or whether it fell out transporting it from Irwin's car. I shan't go into detail on why the amp found itself in Irwin's car in the first place as another rant will probably ensue and though this rant would be hilarious and envoke beautiful imagery I shall steer clear from this subject as I don't wish to induce anger this close to sleep.
Protest The Hero and Limp Bizkit have been announced for Sonisphere. I live in hope that Protest will also be announced for Download. Would be epic to have them on a festival line-up but ultimately both bands will be touring their latest album this year anyway, so I shan't lose sleep over it.
Last night however I did lose sleep. For some reason I kept waking up and this led to very little sleep actually occuring. Due to this I have decided to retire early. This plan shall come into effect now. True Story.

Swans and The Tardis

2011-02-14T23:40:00.003Z

Ian's Quote O'The Day
Father: "Fucknuts". Steven Seagal invented that swear word apprently. He's still a bit fat though.

This past weekend was spent in the glorious company of the marvellous Elise. We ate pizza, we watched countless films, Doctor Who episodes and rarely moved from the sanctuary that was bed. Was a really nice way to spend a weekend actually. Got to forget the stress and anguish that third year seems to deposit on everyone and just focus on how lucky I am to be with someone as amazing as Elise is. It's a shame we couldn't spend Valentines Day together, but I'm not a big Valentines person really so in the grand scheme of things I will survive. I dislike being told that I have to express my love on a specific day, seems to totally negate the entire idea of expressing your feelings for someone. For example, isn't it so much nicer for me just to randomly express my love for Die Hard rather than me told I have to? Why does noone ever consider Die Hard's feelings?
Elise and I watched Black Swan. I can describe this film in one word: Fuck?
The return to library times today didn't go as smoothly as I had hoped due to the presence of a drawn out waking up process and lunch. But once consciousness was reached and the burger eaten the library was attended and I struggled my way through a few chapters before leaving to buy cheese.
My plan for the week is to complete this essay on political ideologies expressed in Science Fiction. I shalt be Bear Grylls and this essay shall be the wild. This essay is grass and I'm a lawnmower. I'm George Lucas and this essay is the Star Wars saga. Basically I shalt destroy this essay. I shalt destroy it good. It shalt be my bitch. When the dust clears it will be only me standing. Well me holding a completed essay anyway.

Got Djent?

2011-02-11T00:55:00.006Z

Ian's Quote O'The Days
{insert anything said during our epic pre-gig Super Smash Brothers session}

The Tesseract frontman managed to get himself thrown out of his own gig. They were the support for Periphery and during their final song he decided to partake in some crowd surfing and ultimately ended up hanging upside-down from the lighting rig. A bouncer appeared and the frontman disappeared.
Lawson, Murray and Lee headed to Reading yesterday to attend the gig mentioned in the opening anecdote. We discovered that Alex With A Y was also in attedance, we didn't share company with him for a considerable length of time, but the coincidental nature of this event deserves some kind of mention. As does the fact Elise, whilst in Amsterdam, asked some random Americans for directions only to then realise that they were A Day To Remember.
Periphery were awesome, but the gig was only one segment of our evening. Before the gig we met up with Mary and had a few beverages at a popular Reading-based Wetherspoons. Post-gig we met up with Louisa and were later and briefly joined by Alison. After Lee and Murray departed for the joyous town of Uxbridge, Lawson, Louisa and I headed to the Purple Turtle. Lots of alcohol was consumed and good times had by all.
Today was spent in recovery mode. A breakfast sub was enjoyed and volume was kept to a minimum for the remainder of Lawson's time in Reading. It was a good two days and now I have a weekend with Elise to enjoy, this makes for an epic week.
The Man are apparently withdrawing the bursary they supply to trainee teachers, this somewhat puts a dampner on my plans to enter the educational realm. I am looking into alternative paths my journey through life could take me on. Thus far I have looked at astronaut and advertising. All I have decided with any degree of certainty is that I wish to go travelling. I don't know where, I don't know when. But I've got to do something more than furthering my collection of virtual achievements.
You should watch Black Dynamite, it's fucking hilarious.

Robot Unicorn References

2011-02-09T03:33:00.003Z

Ian's Quote O'The Day
Tom: I just walked past a guy in a suit so short it messed up my sense of perspective. I honestly had the weird feeling that he was further away than he actually was.

Mid-seminar, during a conversation about homosexuality in the Sixties my phone started ringing. My ringtone is the chorus from "Always" by Erasure (also known as "that song from Robot Unicorn Attack"). And yes, someone did get the reference.
Castlevania: Lords of Shadow has one of the single most bizarre endings I have ever witnessed. Shan't spoil it for you but I suggest you play the game, if solely for the sheer unexpectedness of the ending and for the vocal talents of Patrick Stewart, Robert Carlyle.
This, and the fact I got awarded a 65 for my dissertation presentation is all you need to know about my day that isn't cone related. The nugget of cone related goodness is simply the fact that I woke up to discover a cone outside my bedroom door. Marley claims this was to "trap me inside and to stop me escaping". Half an hour ago I heard noises outside my door and upon investigating their origins discovered three cones at my door. True story.

A Super Night and Other Puns

2011-02-06T14:33:00.005Z

Ian's Quote O'The Days
Nate: Last night my dream was the exact replica of Spock's funeral, only it was my funeral and Kirk said "of all the lifeforms I met in my travels he was the most...... human". Which I can only assume means I am stressed to the max.

I returned home Thursday night for a weekend that would involve time with Elise, two birthday gatherings, a gig and the promise of cake. The first gathering of a birthday nature was to celebrate the ageing of Faye. Faye's birthday event was a superhero themed bar crawl, I attended after Welsh defeat and as Captain Hammer with the full knowledge that noone would know who he was. I accepted this fact before my arrival and spent the journey home singing Dr Horrible songs as best as my alcohol infused mind would allow. Got to spend time with Elise which was really nice, watched Due Date which wasn't so nice but got to get drunk and spend Saturday daytime together which took things back into the positive scale of nice. She is now in Amsterdam, lucky for some.
Saturday's birthday belonged to Nikki but before this could be properly celebrated Lee, Murray, Yimbo and I had to attend a gig. We arrived with ten minutes to spare before A Day To Remember took the stage, the journey there was full of alcohol and a degree of woe but Lee's lost iPhone does not concern you. The gig was good, the songs that were primarily clean were awesome, the songs that were primarily heavy were awesome but the songs where the vocals fluxiated between the two weren't so awesome. Jeremy McKinnon voice has a tendency to break when performing live. Saying this, the new stuff sounded awesome and their encore opened with an acoustic song which is always nice. Upon returning back to Uxbridge and gaining access to the Treaty we soon decided that Rock Night was not it's usual epicness and departed. Kebab was eaten and the generally post-kebab guilt was suffered by all.
The grant trainee teachers obtain is being cut. This somewhat deals a blow to the crotch of my future plans and I am now unsure what to do with my life, which is never a nice feeling. I'm sure I can figure something out, we live in the age of the internet after all, all the information and Japanese tentacle pornography of our age is at my disposal. I am sure somewhere amidst this sea of fact I can discover a future.
Last term I managed to maintain an epic work ethic, my motivation kept to a general high level and work was able to be completed. For some bizarre reason this term I have yet to reach anywhere near these dizzying heights of productivity. I am failing epicly to maintain motivation or complete work and my mind is wandering more than Don Draper's eye (yes kids, that's a Mad Men reference!).

Beer and Bagels

2011-02-03T01:52:00.002Z

Ian's Quote O'The Day
Tom: Thanks. Although blowing up examiners, raping them then coating them in a sticky, viscous substance may not be the best way to a good mark.

By four o'clock today I was supposed to have accomplished a variety of tasks. These tasks ranged in scale; from a bagel, to meeting Mary for an early morning walk to campus to reading transcripts for my dissertation. Unfortunately due to a migraine that literally felt like Leonardo Di Caprio was reenacting his scenes from Inception in my brain without having the common decency to leave some form of motivation orientated inception behind, my day did not start as early as planned. Within the confines of reality, by four o'clock all I had achieved was the bagel segment of my initial plans and I had crowbarred a new section called "beer" into my schedule. This beer was had in the company of Louisa and Allison who I discovered as I was en route to the library. She convinced me, through various manipulative linguistic techniques (such as "would you like to come and get a drink?") she convinced me to delay my arrival to the library. Tom was found in the bar reading his presentation infront of a wicker basket of chips and we decided to join him. I realise now that his name has been said Tom shall be staring at this intently, waiting for some form of nerd reference or subtle compliment so that, on our next meeting, he can reference it or compose some form of witty rebuttal. All I shall say is this: You should rent or purchese, whichever you deem fit, Castlevania: Lord of Shadow. Within the first half an hour of gameplay Patrick Stewart has slaughtered a 70 foot ice titan and the character that you embody is voiced by Robert Carlyle. You should buy this game. Also, congratulations on Quote O'The Day, again.
I am struggling to sleep. I plan on laying in bed until The Big Bang Theory until I suddenly wake up and fail to remember when it was that I slipped into unconsciousness.
I want to be Green Lantern. Someone rich or of alien origin make this happen.

Seminar #6: Fucks and Cunts

2011-02-02T02:03:00.003Z

Ian's Quote O'The Day
Michael: And then the baby disarms nuclear weapons or something?
Me: Yup, because that's what Giant Space Babies do.

The Sixties lecture today involved: Star Trek, Dr Who, Marilyn Monroe, Porn, Giant Space Babies and the words fuck and cunt. Not sure how the rest of this blog can live up to that; regardless of how much Sean Bean imagery I invoke.
Giant Space Baby still confuses me. Why was there suddenly a Giant Space Baby? I asked my seminar tutor about this during our seminar and he seemed unaware of why said Giant Space Baby was hanging out just outside of Jupiter. Was it Jupiter? Where do Giant Space Babies loiter? A Giant Space kindergarten? Or was there a Giant Space Nanny just outside of shot? Whatever it was 2001: Space Odyssey is somewhat confusing. I understand HAL, I understand the giant PS2's but the Giant Space Baby still throws me.
That's all I am writing today. Enjoy this paragraph of Giant Space Babies (five to be exact) and get some sleep.
Also, with various matters of historical research I have stumble across the fact that most of my views society; religion, nationalism and politics are exceedingly Marxist. I don't want to be a commie swine. Somebody teach me the ways of freedom.

Broken Locks And Power Tools

2011-01-31T02:10:00.003Z

Ian's Quote O'The Days
Louisa: Totally dreamt that I saw Brannigan's Law play live in the middle of a giant hill, it was like The Sound of Music, but with less Nazis and Nuns and more guitars and awesomeness.

The more Mad Men I watch the more I wish to enter into advertising, well advertising in the Sixties, well I want to drink whiskey while wearing a suit and pointing at boards saying "See... aren't we just awesome?" Not sure if that is what advertising is like today. My only source of knowledge on the advertising industry as it stands today comes from an anti-semetic who can hear the thoughts of those around him, but only those with vaginas. Vaginas speak to this anti-semite and from this he learns something about himself, his relationships and how to sell things. To be honest I'd rather the whiskey and the suits over the talking vaginas, but each to there own.
This extended weekend involved many events that I shall hereby deem as "epic". I got to spent two perfect days with Elise that involved takeaway pizza by candelight and a scary amount of Doctor Who. Really wish those two days could have lasted longer, could have done with some Doctor Who wizardary but alas, I am no Time Lord. These amazing days were followed by an epic gig. Lee, Murray and I descended upon the Relentless Garage via an elongated route due to the railroads deciding they wouldn't function where we needed them to, the swine. This was a Darkest Hour gig but we, and most of the crowd from what we saw, were there for the support band; Protest The Hero. They played Bone Marrow, which they rarely play live and that I have never heard performed and three songs from the new album, I am now counting the days until their new album is released. It should be insane.
Upon returning to Reading I attempted to get into my bedroom, as you do. I failed in this task and after various attempts of hitting the door with a variety of different body parts I admitted defeat. The Landlord then arrived and proceeded to go to town on the lock with a crowbar, when this failed he destroyed it with a powersaw. Literally. Sparks flew, the whole thing was generally awesome and now my room smells of fireworks.