Thursday 29th June 2006
Song: The Corrs - What Can I Do?
So, for those who don't know, I will at any given opportunity read Heat magazine. I would never buy it, don't get me wrong, but I like to read it when I stumble across it just because it's the most ridiculous thing in the world. However, I've now found something even worse (yes, worse than Heat).
In my kitchen this morning, I found a paper magazine thing, the National Enquirer ("Hollywood's Hottest Weekly"). Oh yes, it's great. It's peak is unquestionably a picture of Heidi Klum eating an ice cream. The headline with it, is, "MMMM GOOD!". What follows is an article about the picture... This article is two sentences long. So Heidi Klum likes ice cream, just like every single other person in the entire world. THAT'S NOT NEWS!
Next to this "article", there's also a picture of, "Buzz-cut Malcom in the Middle star Frankie Muniz". He is using a fork back to front (with a big photo showing it). This incredible news sadly only got one sentence... But it did include two commas and a hyphen!
Sorry Heat, but it looks like you've got some pretty strong competition here.
*edit* Found this. Parody video of James Blunt. There ya go Stan, another video. :)
Sunday 25th June 2006
Song: Angels And Airwaves - A Little's Enough
Jimmy Carr is coming to Woking in October. Who wants to come?
Anyone gay, old, black, religious, disabled, or otherwise easily offended perhaps shouldn't.
Sunday 25th June 2006
Song: Angels And Airwaves - Valkyrie Missle
I've dreamt about Tom Delonge twice lately... It's a bit concerning (I don't fancy him, I swear!). I've literally just woken up from the last one and it's still quite fresh in my mind. I wont write it all out though. I just thought I'd listen to Angels And Airwaves.
So, last night was awesome. Rob, Ben, Dale, Lisa, and myself all went out to see Al Murray, doing his thing. It was just so good! The problem is, I can't remember anything he said, really. There is a few things actually, but I know they wont sound at all funny if I write them here. :( I really hope there's a DVD of this tour out soon. Although he adlibs loooooads, with his chats with the audience, all the scripted bits should still be there. Afterwards, we went for what was possibly the best burger in the world. On the way home we played the animal game, which I was absolutely dreadful at, and haven't quite got over it yet.
I had to go to uni on Friday, for a small lecture regarding my placement and stuff. I had expected it to be pretty rubbish, but I actually really enjoyed the day. I'd not been there in sooo long, everything about it suddenly seemed good again. I know that I'll be resenting it before Christmas. But for now... I'm quite looking forward to going back.
In doing that though, I missed what I later found out was my last guitar lesson at work. Bit of a bugger. They're pretty good there, and I have no doubt a makeup lesson will be arranged (that's not a lesson in applying makeup). Last week was quite heavily theory based. Oh the joy of sevenths. I now know how to construct Maj7, Min7, 7, Min(Maj)7, m7b5, and dim7. To be honest... I'll probably only ever use the first three, the major, minor and dominant, but at least now I have them written down on paper so if I do ever want one of the more fancy ones, I know how.
Yesterday I was dicking about on my guitar to pass some time, and at one point I'd noticed my power chord changes had got delightfully fast. The problem I always had was changing strings. Obviously when you're staying on the same string you can just slide up. But when changing strings you need to completely take your fingers off the strings, move your hand, and reapply them. I always struggled with this, especially given the nature of songs that heavily use powerchords. They're typically quite fast (overlooking Busted and McFly here). So anyway, this led me to wonder, would I now be able to play *that* bit from American Idiot. The intro and verses. Amazingly, I actually could! Still not 100%, as my third finger, playing the octave sometimes didn't quite land in the right place. But my first and fourth fingers were getting between that C#5 and F#5. This pleased me greatly. I just need help with my pickig technique I think.
I did however learn the guitar solo from Spice Girls' "2 Become 1" the other day. Quite a milestone, I feel.
Friday 23rd June 2006
Song: Christina Aguilera - Can't Hold Us Down
My Christina Aguilera DVD came today. I'm very excited.
I'm only a few songs in, and am quite surprised. Firstly, there is a live band on stage. In some ways I suppose that should have been expected, as a lot of pop artists do do the live band thing these days (Pink, Joss Stone, ...). Secondly though, a guitar solo in Genie In A Bottle. I'm pretty sure that wasn't in the original. :)
There's also a male pole dancer on one song... He was possibly the most unentertaining thing ever.
*edit* So, all the songs are actually pretty good (except for the completely crapped up version of Genie In A Bottle), but I get so bored between songs. She runs off the stage every one or two songs to get changed. I know she likes clothes, but really... It's so boring to have to keep waiting for it. And it honestly is every one or two songs. That was no hyperbole.
The a cappella intro to "Beautiful" was quite nice, she didn't wreck it too much with all this wailing that she likes to do.
Also at the end of, "What A Girl Wants", she hits and holds this ferociously high note. I'm not sure exactly what note it is, and unfortunately there's too much background noise (drums and backing singers) for my guitar tuner to want to have a stab at telling me what note it is. But Christ, it really is high.
Tuesday 20th June 2006
Just reading Forrest Gump's page on Wikipedia, and I learnt something new about it. Mainly because I'm uneducated. I'd never heard of it before... But apparntly It seems Forrest begun the Watergate scandal.
I also edited an article on Wikipedia for the first itme today. It was very exciting... Participation age indeed. Schwartz would be so proud.
Tuesday 20th June 2006
Song: Pink - Long Way To Happy
Just a quick one as I'm supposed to be working...
One of the other things I was going to say last time was about Lacuna Coil. Since seeing them at Download, I've got quite obsessed with their new album. Some of the chorus' are so catchy, I'm very impressed.
Oooh ooh oh! New Evanescence album finally has a release date. I'm *really* looking forward to that. Since Mr Moody left the band, I'm expecting a bit of a departure from too much time in the pop charts. Let us not forget that he has since worked with Avril Lavigne, Kelly Clarkson, and Anastacia. My understanding is that it was largely him that wanted the band to become quite mainstream. Anyway... I'm quite annoyed it's taken Evanescence forever to get a new album out, but it seems they have a fair reason or two.
Last December singer Amy Lee filed a lawsuit against her former manager, accusing him of sexual harassment and defrauding the band. (He has denied the claims.) Her songwriting partner, Terry Balsamo -- who replaced former partner Ben Moody in 2003 -- had a stroke. (He's since made a full recovery.) Lee split with her boyfriend of two years, Seether's Shaun Morgan. And to top it off, "the cat ran away," says Lee. (Taken from here)
Was out until 3am last night (whoops) with Rob, tring to get the Astra back to a working state. It was cool... But it didn't seem like such a great idea this morning. I had set my alarm (on my phone) for 8:30am. However my first memory of this morning is waking up and seeing the clock say 10am, and thinking, "shit". However, I then checked my phone, and it was on... Which means at 8:30 I managed to press the button to stop the noise, then press the button to agree to turn on the phone (it asks) then enter my four digit PIN, then put the phone back. Did all that, and have absolutely no memory of it. Fantastic stuff.
Sunday 18th June 2006
Song: Christina Aguilera - The Voice Within
I'm having a nice relaxing evening in tonight... Not had one in quite some time. It's nice. Thought I'd ramble on for a bit on here.
So, the other day I was talking to James on MSN, and he happened to mention he'd heard Christina Aguilera's single. Somehow from that, a Christina obsession bloomed. This new obsession has also caused me to buy her DVD. In my defence, I did get it off ebay for a very cheap price. I've always quite liked Christina though... During the long term rivalry that didn't really exist between her and Britney, I was always firmly on her side. If for no other reason... I always thought she was a better singer.
Some of you may know, Christina can hit the high E above middle C. For anyone who's ever touched a piano before should know where middle C is (clue's in the name... it's in the middle of the keyboard). The high E in question is not the one two tones up from there, but another octave higher. Anyway, apparently that's quite impressive... I have to say I've never tried it myself. But this is the reason she's often compared to Mariah Carey, and Witney Houston. Pretty commendable apparently. She does sometimes get a bit too carried a way I think, when singing live (and sometimes on album), but it's quite apparent from listening to her that she can sing very well. Britney on the other hand just comes across to me as a girl with quite a nice singing voice. But, nothing too exceptional. Shrugworthy, if you will.
But everyone knows that your voice doesn't count when you're a singer anymore. So, lets talk about image. Unfortunately, Christina always seemed to get labelled as a slag... or whatever. To be honest though, I always preferred that to Britney's virginal chimes. Christina just always came across a lot less fake to me than Britney... Perhaps this is why Britney ended up losing the plot completely. Who knows? I have to say though, the video for "Dirty" annoys me so much. Infact, the whole song does. When I listen to that album, Dirty is the only song I skip everytime, without fail.
Enough of Christina now... On to Fall Out Boy. They shot to sudden fame, out of nowhere, amidst the height of emo's popularity. Naturally, I was a bit weary of this, as I remember when this happened with nu-metal around 2001. Lots of average bands suddenly rocket to fame, and then dissapear. Anyway, I wouldn't let myself like them for this reason. They were too popular too soon. It just wasn't right. As time went on, I couldn't deny that they certainly had mastered the hook. I was starting to like the chorus of, "Sugar We're Going Down", or whatever it's called. I really like how the guitar doesn't do anything too fancy, but he really works the vocals to make a very catchy melody. Anyway, around the time I was starting to let myself like them, a new single came out. It was equally catchy, but I still wasn't quite ready to come out of the closet. Then the other day, I got showed this. Very amusing, since I actually didn't know what the lyrics were. I decided though, that this is a really good song.
So anyway... Today I actually listened to their album, and frankly was a bit dissapointed. It wasn't really bad, I suppose... But most of the other songs lacked the amazingly catchy chorus that the two singles so far have had. I do plan on listening to it more though, as I expect it needs to grow on me a bit. There were also a few really cool bits that I liked in some songs.
Wednesday 14th June 2006
If you like parodies of songs... Click here. Parody of Christina Aguilera's, Beautiful.
Made me chuckle. :)
Monday 12th June 2006
Song: Funeral For A Friend - The End Of Nothing
I apologise for the use of the word "cunt" in this update.
So, after being asked by Rob (who I recently found out actually reads this) about a billion times, I eventually decided to go to Downaload Festival on Sunday... and I'm glad I did go. Despite the emo that overtook me for some time, I still have those little metal and goth kids deep down inside me... And this was their day.
So, at 6am (in lovely warm weather), I got picked up, and off we set, for Donnington. We got there a little bit early. It was somewhere around 8:30 if I remember correctly, so we went back to the nearest services, and had a sandwhich for breakfast. We then head back and join the queue for ages. Gates didn't open until 10am.
Anyway, we get in, and so my first festival experience begins. My first thoughts on the place: "This is cool". Lots of weird (read: awesome) looking people. We met up with a guy Rob knows from the FEOC, and his g/f. A bit later on we met up with another person from there. It's amazing how many FEOC people I've actually met from that, despite never joining. Anyway, so we went for a bit of a walk through all the shops and stuff. Rob had a nice temporary tattoo done. As he went up to the guy to get it it done, the conversation went something like this:
"Hi, what one would you like?" *points at board of designs*
"Yeah, can you do custom ones?"
"Sure, just bring a picture of what you..."
"Oh well I just want a word..."
"Okay that's fine"
"I want 'cunt'..." *points at arm*
Anyway, the music... First band we wanted to see was 36 Crazyfists. I don't know any of their songs, but thought they were pretty good. Then I got mocked quite a bit as I insisted on seeing Fightstar. Unfortunately for Rob, he was coming with me. He did reluctantly admit at the end that they were better than he thought. There was this inevitable bottling though. After a few songs, Charlie took to the mic, and said, "It seems we have a lot of good throwers in today... or should I say CUNTS?!". Yeah, good one Charlie, that'll stop the bottles. What was nice though was that the cheers got bigger after every song. The flying bottles also shrank in number, though this could just be because people ran out. :)
Anyway, back to the main stage until the end of the day. Next up were Lacuna Coil. These were possibly the main band of the day that I wanted to see. They did not dissapoint. The male vocalist hasn't quite learnt fluent English yet (They're an Itallian band), but he did what he could. This aside the performance was really good indeed. I was suprised at how like the CD it sounded in places, with some of the effects they use. And Christina's voice was impressively good, like on CD.
Next up, Cradle Of Filth. Dani's a bit of a cock, songs were pretty boring, wasn't really thrilled by this set. Then came Bullet For My Valentine who didn't come across as cocks, which was nice. I wasn't really into them though, but they did grow on me a little bit as time went on. I did want them to finish though, as after them was Funeral For A Friend.
I've wanted to see FFAF for... ever. Way before their first full album came out, they were playing at the Camden Underworld, but I had no one to go with. Then they got all popular and I didn't want to see them out of principle (yeah, yeah). So anyway, it was really nice to finally get the chance. Even if I couldn't really see them, aside from on the big screens. The performance was really good though, all their songs sounded as good as they could. The only problem was when Matt started talking between songs, as he's Welsh. I find the Welsh accent quite amusing and can't take it too seriously.
FInally, was Guns n' Roses. The main reason that Rob wanted to go to Download. They were rubbish. We got really bored waiting for them to come out, they dragged every song out for ages, and Axl kept mumbling to himself between songs, and none of us was really sure what he was going on about. They also dragged, "Knockin' On Heaven's Door" out for about 10 minutes. Eventually we got bored of them dicking about and not playing the next song, and started to leave. As we were walking out, the very famous intro to Sweet Child started. I stopped to see if Rob wanted to stay, but we kept walking out, as we could still hear it anyway. We did stop for the guitar solo though, as Rob wanted to hear it. Then the guitarist appeared to cock it up anyway.
Today, I found this. "After slipping over during 'Sweet Child O'Mine', Rose annnounced that the band were experiencing "technical difficulties" and left the stage for five minutes". How very professional.
On Saturday, Korn were there. As you should all know by now, I used to be a huge fan of Korn (before they got a bit... well shit, basically). So I would have liked to have seen that. I was told though, by people who'd been there all weekend, that Jonathan Davis had been taken ill, and was in a London hospital. But instead of being mean and not playing, they came out and did their set, and got a couple of singers from the other bands there that day to sing with them. I thought that sounded so cool. A once in a lifetime thing, no doubt. I then read about it, here. Clown is one of my favourites of theirs, I would have loved to have seen it with Corey Taylor (from Stone Sour and Sliknot) singing. I love his voice.
I fell asleep for a bit during the car ride home (sorry Rob!), as I was absolutely knackered. My face also felt like it was on fire, as there was no shade anywhere all day. The heat wasn't too bad... especially as we had a nice breeze at times. But the constant direct sunlight was getting too much. Today, my face really hurts still. :(
All good fun. :)
*edit* And best of all... On the way up there, we went under a bridge on the motorway, and someone had written, "PEAS" across it, in huge letters. It was actually very amusing... But, perhaps you had to be there.
Friday 9th June 2006
Heh, England badger song. Will the badgers ever go away?
Monday 5th June 2006
Song: David Ford - State Of The Union
Click. Look like farmers get bored... And/or possibly thought no one would ever see that.
On Saturday I went to Tor's place, to "celebrate the end of uni, summer, and stuff". There was man-burgers, playing frisbee with a 49p tea tray from Asda, and beer drinking in trees. It was good. I did however not get to bed until 4:30am as you saw, so I spent most of Sunday feeling half dead.
Also while at Tor's, I saw their nice new (well new to me... I've not been there in a while) electric piano. It was very nice though, I did sit down at it for a bit, but I don't really know how to play anything fully on piano. Just mainly parts of My Immortal (Evanescence), Breathe No More (Evanescence), and Existentialism on Prom Night (Straylight Run). It made me want to get better though! I have now started (for the second time) learning "A Whole New World", the Alladin song. I'm not sure how difficult it is in terms of beginner, intermediate, advanced, but it looks feasable for me. I've currently only got the first eight bars learnt. That is the four bar intro, and then the first four bars after the singing comes in. The trouble I'm having with it, is landing my fingers on the right keys. I've more or less got over that problem with guitar now, so I guess it is just practice, practice, practice. My mum's been pestering me about what I want for my 21st b/day, so I think I'm gonna go for piano lessons.
On that thought, I've not got many weeks left at Sun, but I would quite like to keep my guitar lessons going. Not sure if I'd be able to (keeping the same teacher) but I might try and find out at least.
I watched Signs yesterday, and really enjoyed it. Was nice how at the end several minor things from earlier that I'd ignored, came back to be a major thing. The girl leaving glasses of water everywhere, and the boy haing asthma. I also liked that last scene that was no more than a few seconds long, with the dude back with his collar on. Was a cool scene to close the film on I thought.
I've been told now to watch The Village. Apparently it's by the same writer, director or something as Signs and Unbreakable (which I also really enjoyed), so I plan to have watched that by the end of the week.
Tonight though, I'm going to take apart (or just stand around and look pretty, while Rob takes apart) an engine from a Vauxhall Astra. Should be interesting. But now, dinner!
Sunday 4th June 2006
This is so cool! It's 4:16am, I've literally just got home from a day out at Tor's place... The drive home from Frimley was just awesome though. It's basically daylight. You can see quite clearly, the birds are up, and it's t-shirt weather. At about 4am I was putting petrol in my car, standing there in a t-shirt and it was just such a comfortable temperature. Now I'm home and my room feels really hot.
Anyway... yeah, it's like 4:20am now, so I think I'm going to go to bed.