Hi, I'm an actor, and I can project without hurting my throat...

Well, not quite, but one of my friends is. Had some buddies over last night for tasty food and songwriting fun. We started writing a song about being an actor. It's pretty stupid, but I think that it's going to be just the sort of thing that we can pull off with the band. For more news on The Salvator Darlings, and to get the lyrics to this song when they're posted, to download some of our songs, and to see pictures and all the rest of it, simply click here.

This morning was wierd. I've been working on Saturdays since I was 13, and anytime that I didn't work on a Saturday, there was a very good reason for it, i.e. I had to go to a wedding, or there was some need for me to go visit my parents, or I was properly on holiday, you know the sort of thing. Well, this morning, I got up, and I didn't have to go to work. Neither did I have to pack a suitcase, or a bag, and go and do something important. I have Saturday off, because I DON'T WORK ON SATURDAYS ANYMORE. It's brilliant, and I don't know why I didn't think of it earlier.

So, plan of action for the day - I have to go buy a couple of things, then I'm going to do some studying for my exam next week, before doing absolutely nothing this evening. That sounds more and more fun by the minute...

Four fantastic things...

Today, the following things happened to me:

I finished working at starbucks forever.

I got a new cell phone.

I watched Sheffield Wednesday win in their Carling Cup first round match.

I recieved my Pulp cd through the post.

Brilliant. I have a phone to play with, a great album to listen to, a win to celebrate, and no work to get up for in the morning. I have important things to do, why am I still here?

A good day...

I only have two more days left at starbucks! I went to work today, and I thought that I was finishing at ten this evening. When I arrived, I looked at the board that we have in the back that tells you who's working what shift that day, and it said that due to a deep clean of the store, we were closing at seven... Nothing could spoil that!

In addition, my crazy boss has tomorrow and Wednesday off, so today was my last day working under her regime..

I have only 8 days left until my resit exam now, and I'm working pretty hard on the revision for it. It's pretty interesting stuff - English and American detective fiction. But to be honest, when you hear nothing but crime fiction from the books you're reading, and your parents, for three months, it gets a bit tiresome. I think I'd be ready to commit some sort of hard-boiled crime on Raymond Chandler if I could meet him right now. Of course, that's not really possible, what with him being dead and all...

Finally finished the movie for my sister's birthday video today. It's a detective movie (I told you, I can't escape this ridiculous genre..) It's the third year that we've done it, and this year, as it was her 21st, we thought that we might even go so far as to have some sort of plot. It essentially focuses on the idea of claiming that her boyfriend is a sucky cop, which he isn't. It's shoddily made, the scripting is almost non-existent, bits of the story are missing, the camera work is horribly shaky, and the editing was done entirely by pressing pause and record on a vcr.

Right, back to the grind - today has been so good that not even a good hour's detective fiction before I go to bed can ruin it...

Hammer into...

When maple leafs are blue
They blossom in the month of June;
October - born anew,
Every season ends
So soon I'm falling, falling, falling

For the trees.
Glacial lakes I dive
Into your cooling summer breeze
Becomes the roaring winds that hammer, hammer, hammer.

Britpop party

I'm having a party. Well, we're having a party. My house. Me, Rob and Martin. Martin doesn't know about it yet, of course, because he's still living somewhere in Lincolnshire. But he's still having a party with us anyway. Now, here at our house, we throw good parties. And we don't like to do them the same as anyone else. We like to have fancy dress themes, but not the usual kind; oh no, there's no 1960s/1970s themes for us. No pimps and ho's (as is often the case here in Leeds, for some reason). We don't do Hawaiian or 80s parties. There's certainly no open fancy dress. So, what do we do? Well, the theme for our up and coming party is britpop. The revival of great British indie music in the 1990s. We only have a small house, but it will become the greatest venue in Leeds for my band, another local band, Speakeasy and Leeds Student Radio legend, Steve Darke. We will have a live video link from the basement (where the bands will be) to a projector screen upstairs, so that everyone can watch even when the basement is full. There will be a selection of the finest britpop music, and much reminiscing. But there's a problem. A lot of people can't decide who to go to the party as. They must come as a member of a britpop band, but there were a lot of bands, and not everyone can remember who they all were. Suggestions for party goers on the comments board, please!

Nobody knows where the poison goes...

Today marked the start of my last week at starbucks. Ever. (I intentionally avoid the capitalisation of starbucks on account of the fact that
a) it already represents capitalisation to a great extent, and
b) it just doesn't deserve the kind of recognition that comes with a proper noun.)
One week from today, I will have finished working for starbucks forever, and will have moved out onto the road of real work, leaving behind the footpath of hourly paid jobs, and the park of flexible hours.

On a slightly less joyful note, something happened at work today that really upset/affected/moved me. We have a sign up at the moment that says something like: 'for every bag of African coffee purchased, starbucks will donate 75p to buying books and equipment in the Sidamo region of Southern Ethiopia'. This all seems reasonable enough, starbucks contributing to the education of children in one of the primary coffee farming regions in the world. But then this old guy comes in today, and points out the sign. He says 'I went to school in Sidamo. My family is from there. But I left 40 years ago because of the war. They're still fighting, and I've never been back.' He was smiling all the way through this, and all I could think was 'starbucks make so light of this sort of thing, and this guy has lost his whole childhood because of the stupidity of man over there. And here's all these people coming in and buying a bag of coffee for £4.50, and feeling better about themselves because they've contributed 75p to a place that they just assume has got it bad, without ever knowing HOW bad.' It sucks. And that's all I have to say about that.

rumours...

What's up y'all? So, I just got one of those forwarded emails. The kind that I usually delete without reading at all; but this one was from someone who never sends me stuff like that, so I decided to read it. It turned out to feature a story about a movie, the plot of which revolves around the idea that Jesus and the disciples were gay. It claimed that the movie was based on a play of the same name: 'Corpus Christi', meaning 'The Christ Body', and it urged readers to sign the petition at the bottom, and forward it to all their friends. I decided to investigate this futher, as it seemed the sort of thing that might be possible. In doing so, I found this fantastic website, Truth or Fiction.

Sure enough, a read through of the site showed that it was a hoax. It seems that there is a play of that name, which features a theme based on the idea that Jesus was gay, but the name comes from the main character's home town of Corpus Christi. Not only this, but the email had claimed that the movie was due to be released later this year, and the website I checked had the last update on the rumour as sometime in 2001.

Don't get me wrong, if the story was true, I'd have signed the petition. But it's not true, and my already almost non existent faith in forwarded emails has finally breathed its last. Sad really. Never mind, I guess if another suspicious looking story turns up in my inbox, I know where to check it out now...

A smoke, a drink and a ponder...

Tonight I went to an indie club. It was my 'housemate' Rob's girlfriend Sarah's birthday night out, so we went to the Cockpit. I never thought of this before, but while I was there, it occurred to me how strange the phenomenon of the indie dj is. Those of you in Canada might not be familiar with this aspect of English club culture, so I'll fill you in a bit.

In most clubs, the dj is on a stage or platform. With hard house and trance (which I am most experienced with), the dj is almost like a sort of artist. When they play a certain tune, the crowd will cheer. They have friends in the dj booth with them, and when I well recieved record has been played, often these friends will take the record, and hold it in the air, to generate applause. Most people don't know most of the tracks that the dj plays, but they will stay and dance anyway. They will stay and dance if a track that they don't really like comes on, because the next one might be good. The dj beatmatches the records. They make them play at the same speed, and mix them into each other seamlessly, so that you get one long continuous journey of a night of music.

In an indie club, the dj's role is quite different. They press play on a cd player. This is not too unusual. In English 'cheesy' clubs, where they play pop music, the dj does exactly the same thing. The only real skill involved is in the selection of the music. The djs in these 'cheesy' clubs are almost hidden away. This is where the difference becomes clear. In an indie club, the dj is placed on a stage, much like in a hard house, trance, house, hip hop, or drum n bass club (the list is not exhaustive). This creates an odd effect. Because all they have to do is choose a cd, then play it, most of the time they stand there like a spare part. I only wish I had pictures to show you; it's quite hilarious.

Where is everyone?

Summer is a wierd time in Leeds. Because it's such a student city, the whole place seems to shut down when term ends. For example, I have no next door neighbours, and no one but me has slept in my house since last friday. I got a comment on this site from my old next door neighbour, katie, and it just reminded me how great it was to have friends living so close. It's kind of strange not just being able to pop round and say hi, or watch tv together, or borrow some flour (don't ask)...

So, let this be useful advice to you: befriend your neighbours, cause you'll miss them when they're gone...

Shine

There's something immensly satisfying about watching someone you have taught to mix, doing it well. I guess it's the same kind of feeling that a teacher gets when their pupils' recieve excellent exam results, or a director has when one of their actors is given an award for their performance. But there's more to it than that. With spinning, you teach someone how to cue up records, how to beatmatch, how to choose the right moment to start playing the next track, and when to fade it in. Then you leave them to it. They take it from there, with their music selection, their style of mixing, and many more factors.

Georgy showed up last night. Georgy is to playing records what David Helfgott is to playing the piano. She is prodigious, and Jewish, but with less mental illness... I gave her her first lesson at the start of June, she's been away from the decks for the past month, and when she got on them last night, she was mixing flawlessly. Seriously, this girl rocks.

So, she turned up at about 8pm, and brought in a huge box of records, and then some. We disappeared into the basement, and didn't emerge again until gone midnight. The box contained a lot of early 90s house, and some breaks, which is a real change from the hard house and trance that anyone who knows me, will know that I love to play. This was really refreshing though, and we had a sweet time. Man, those tunes are so funky, it's not necessarily a good thing that she leaves them here. In fact, I feel them calling me now. De La Soul, here I come...

One by one...

I'm getting rid of my housemates. We married Matt off on Saturday, and a fine event it was too. Old man Bradley and his lovely bride Rachel had a great day, put on a good bash, and have now cleared off to France in a camper van to go surfing. Do I hear any cries of jealousy? Check out the photos I took. Well, as you'll see, I didn't take all of them, I'm in some of them. Anyway, have a look, and marvel at everyone in their finery...

The wedding was special for a number of reasons. It was a superb service, great worship, lots of praying. Rachel entered to my favorite piece of classical music, Pachabell's Canon (which I'm listening to now). Irish Matt played one of his songs while they signed the register, then played them out to 'I'm a believer'. The reception was a veritable feast of all things good and tasty. It was also a treat for the vegetarians present (including The Salvator Darlings' very own Little Rob) as the meat products were few and far between. The highlight, though, of this section of the day, was the desserts. You remember the torturous cakes from my previous post? I got to eat them. It was a buffet, and so I cleverly took one bowl for me, and one for 'my friend Dave'. FIVE DESSERTS. That's what I ate. I had cheesecake, and ginger surprise (the surprise was it was full of ginger). I had banoffee pie and a chocolate/nut crunch thing. I had chocolate cake. It was beautiful; a moment of pure, orchestrated genius in the world of dessert eating.

The evening do was a Kayleigh dance (probably spelt wrong). Like a barn dance. I did one dance, and nearly threw up. Man, I'm so unfit.

NeverTheLess, a good day was had by all, and I wish them the best of times on the honeymoon, and the happiest of lives together. It'll be my turn one day. Scary thought...

Cake or death?

My kitchen is full of cake. Small cakes. Big cakes. Coffee cakes. Chocolate cakes. Sticky fudge cakes. There are little iced buns, great victoria sponges, three tiered stacked sandwich cakes, layered with jam and butter icing. There are pies and trifles. Delicious desserts of every kind fill all available space. AND I CAN'T EAT ANY OF IT. It's not mine. Is this what hell is like?

Thank God I know I'm going to heaven...

Another day, another dollar

Or no dollars. Or pounds. In fact, no currency of any sort whatsoever. It seems that I have been ill all week. That's why you'll find unnatural amounts of posting going on on this blog, because I have nothing else to do with my time. I'm supposed to be at work, earning money, but I've had to call in sick. This presents a problem: I'm only part time, so I don't think that I'm going to get any sick pay. Not to worry, the freezer is full, and I'm going to my parent's place tomorrow, so that should help out a bit. In the meantime, don't ask me to buy you a drink...

Where is the line?

Where do you cross over from being a regular internet user to being a complete geek? Have I made the transition? I check and send emails at least twice a day, I spend hours surfing the web to find good designs for pages, I blog on an (almost) daily basis, I have designed and built a website and I get excited about learning new bits of useful HTML.

Am I a geek? Answers on a postcard please (well, on my comment page, actually)...

Personality Test

So, a few days ago, Rachel published a post, announcing that she had recently put her computer media library on random, as she had heard that the first ten songs it plays should reveal something of your personality. Her conclusion was simply that she has very eclectic music tastes. I decided to do the same. Here are the results:

1. Some Random German Punk Band - Girls Just Wanna Have Fun
2. Bromacinfro - Random Track
3. Radiohead - Planet Telex
4. Ben Folds Five - Jackson Cannery
5. The Presidents of the United States of America - Peaches
6. The Darkness - Get Your Hands Off My Woman
7. Reeve Hunter - I Must Obey
8. Supergrass - Lose It
9. Foo Fighters - My Poor Brain
10. Modest Mouse - Third Planet

So, what can be made of my personality from this seemingly inadequate list? Well, my first thought was that it wasn't as eclectic as I had originally expected it to be. I think the best way to analyse it, is to go through song by song:

1. Yes, the song sucks, but it's a punk cover. From this, I determine that I sometimes don't care about the quality of the music or lyrics, so long as it's done badly, and very very fast.

2. A jazz/swing band from Toronto, who you almost certainly haven't heard of, even if you're from Toronto. The fact that I don't know the name of the track kind of speaks for itself - sometimes, even if I like what I hear, I won't have the motivation to find out more about it.

3. I'm still listening to the same music I liked when I was 16.

4. I don't care if you don't like them, they're the best band ever, and I will defend this opinion to the death. Again, I was listening to them when I was 16, and I haven't moved on. Does this mean that I am immature?

5. This song is silly. The singer is allergic to aforementioned fruit. Sometimes I don't care, so long as it's silly.

6. More silliness. Perhaps I am a silly person. Yes, yes I am.

7. This is a superb track by a guy who splits his production time between amazing, introverted, deep, acoustic tracks like this one, and Nintendo beats hip hop. Although he's far better than I ever could be, I guess he's the closest I've found to my songwriting style(s). You probably haven't heard of him, unless you're from Waco, Texas.

8. See #3

9. The song title says more than I ever could. This post is hurting my head.

10. I have no idea who these guys are. Jacob put the track on my computer for me, and I'd forgotten it was there. It's quite good though. I guess that means that there are parts of my personality that I am vaguely aware of the existence of, but I tend to leave them be. Or perhaps this whole thing, as Rachel concluded, is a load of rubbish...

Feeling old

My sister turned 21 today. That makes me feel very old indeed. My relatives all joined us for a meal, and I saw my cousin, who has suddenly, it seems become tall and very 15 years old. I'm sure he wasn't that big last time I saw him. Uh oh... Hasn't he grown and all that:

"I'm getting old Mike"
"We're all getting old Timmy, well, except my cousin."
"What's so special about him?"
"He's actually getting younger."
"Bastard. What are we going to do?"
"There's nothing we can do. The government knows, they're keeping it hush hush."
"Not about your cousin, you cretin, about us!"

I think that Spaced says it better than I ever could. Well, maybe not exactly what I was trying to say, but funny nonetheless. Props to my homeboy the Fresh Pegg...

I'm back in Leeds now, after an exhausting couple of days. I'm supposed to be at work tomorrow, but I'm not feeling well, so I called in sick. Guess I'll sleep late, do some uni work, and get some rest. I've got a big weekend ahead again. More news will follow, in the meantime, check The Salvator Darlings website for some new photos of the band, and email me with your thoughts/musings/anything else you want to tell me about. Over and out...

Back to the grind

Look, I know that I'm going to have to get used to this whole monday morning thing - I mean, it's not even that early now; but for now, I just can't take it. I love my weekends off so much, and suddenly it's all over and you have to go back to work. I think it's got something to do with the fact that I work for life-sucking corporate jerks who seem to think that a reasonable job description is:

Person should be able to work long and boring shifts doing something they have no interest in. They should be willing to have an extremely short lunch break, which they will take when someone else decides it is time. Most of all, they must have a desire to work different shifts each week, and be chastised for wishing to take any time off at all, for example, to attend weddings.

I hate my job.

A Roast Pig!

So, I did the whole wedding thing again yesterday, second week in a row. No, it wasn't my wedding, I've never been married; it was the wedding of one of two of my friends from Worksop, where I come from originally. It was kind of wierd to be honest, she's younger than my sister, and I've known her forever, it seemed strange to see her walking down the aisle.

Anyway, the service was very nice, and all, the reception was superb, with food supplied by Wright's butchers of Carlton. These are the family butchers, and, man do they know how to put on a feast! I went to school with their daughter, my sister went to school with their son, and my dad taught both of them. We know the whole family fairly well, so it's always fun to find them serving you at a wedding. One of the other waitresses was Another girl that I went to school with - I had a major crush on this girl when I was about ten!

The evening do was something else. A disco, with a hog roast. I took pictures, Pud, I'll send them to you.

Also struck up an old aquaintance with the lead guitarist from my old band, Bleach. Steven Archer. Great guy, got a great girl. We got on well. Watch this space for joint gigs...