Isolation...

So, here I am in Leeds. I love Leeds. I've lived here for 4 years now, and it really is one of my favourite places in the world. I particularly enjoy life here during the summer, when the district that I live in empties itself of students, and everything becomes a bit quieter. But sometimes that can work against me. My housemate, Rob, has been away for most of the summer, working for a sound company in York. Bethany has been and gone. Afam (my other housemate) works a lot. So I'm sat here in my room, thinking that there's nobody around. All my friends are elsewhere. To make it even worse, my good friends Maija and Jonathan are getting married today, and I can't be there because it's in Canada. Many of my friends will be at the wedding. My girl will be the maid of honour. But I have to go to work in Stinking Starbucks. (The alliteration there was unintentional, but rather pleasing).

You could be forgiven for thinking that I'm being miserable. Well, I'm not. True, I'd rather be in Toronto right now, but it's very unusual for that not to be the case. The thing is, I just yesterday recieved a comment on my blog from a girl called Christie, who apparently lives in Leeds. I assume she found me because she was looking for people livin in this fine city. I read her blog, and it was good. Then I had another comment from her today. So I read her blog again. She had already blogged this morning! And it's about mundane stuff! That's brilliant. So it seems that those little comments, and her blog, have made me feel less isolated. There's someone here who writes blogs about little things that happen to them, and I like that. Suddenly I feel a lot better about missing out on the wedding. Go check out Christie's blog, maybe it'll inspire you to post too...

Where have all the good posts gone?

So, here I am again, writing pretty much for the sake of writing. Every now and again I realise that I haven't posted for a while, and that I should do so. Invariably, this leaves me with a blog to write, and nothing really to write about. Nevertheless, I do intend to start writing some articles for magazines and newspapers, so perhaps it's time I learned to get over my writer's block.

What am I going to write about? I don't know really. I could tell you about what I did this weekend, or what I've been doing with my summer vacation. I could tell you about a spiritual experience that I've had recently, and what it meant to me, or I could talk about the different aspects of working for a multi-national coorporation. I could tell some jokes, or give you the recipe for the FANTASTIC chicken I cooked last night. But I can't think of an original way to do any of those things, so I'll just leave it at that. Voila. One more pointless post to add to the list...

Ridiculous...

Ok, so I figure it's about time I blogged. Even J has noticed that I'm terrible at doing this regularly. Hmmm. Not much to say really though. Bethany has left the country, and I'm selling out for Starbucks to bring in a bit of extra cash while I'm not at school. The band is taking a break for the summer, and I'm currently working on the new website.

Only thing of note really is the bizarre comment on my last post. I appear to have recieved spam on my comments page. It's from someone trying to get me to study with them, which is something I don't want to do. The best thing about it is that the (clearly automated) message claims that the author was reading my blog, when they figured that I'd be interested. Surely anyone reading the blog would have realised pretty soon that I don't live in the States, and therefore would have no reason to study there. How silly of them.

My favourite spelling error of the week goes to a seller on Ebay, the wonderful online auction site. It's a guy trying to sell some roller skates; quads. He claims, and I quote: "The plates are Skater plates, made of very tough but flexible resin plastic with enormous front stoppers. These are incredibly tough and never brake."

Not really the greatest selling point - brakes that don't work. On that note, I'm going to go play a little hockey. Have fun kids...

It's a contest...

So, Bethany and myself just had an argument. That's right. We couldn't decide who was best. I said everyone liked me way more than her, and when I move to Canada, everyone will want to be with me and not with her. She said that everyone liked her more, which is clearly not true, because she's so rubbish.
There's only one way to solve this problem. Post a comment and tell us who you like the best. Then we'll add up the votes. Problem solved.

Very annoying...

Now, I'm not normally one to support the work of Bill Gates. I don't really have many good things to say about Microsoft, and I am pleased to announce that I use the superb Mozilla Firefox internet browser, as I know many of you do. (If you don't, then I recommend that you start. You can download it for free here.) However, I do sometimes converse with my friends using MSN Messenger. I appreciate that this endorsement would seem to suggest that I am the sort of person who would ditch my ethical standpoint because of peer pressure, but that's the sort of person I am.

I realise that by choosing to blog about this subject (the primary point of which I have yet to make), I may be revealing myself to be somewhat in the dark ages of instant messaging, but so be it. I recently downloaded a version of Messenger Plus which, amongst other things (that I have largely yet to discover) allows you to create your own personalised status. This, may I say, is brilliant. Aside from being far more interesting than just choosing a status from a small, predetermined list, it gives one the ability to let people know what you're up to, rather than leaving it to their imagination. It's sort of a very brief blog. For example, today I was able to inform my co-messengers that rather than just being busy doing some generic task, I was, in chronological order, sleeping, working, searching for a housemate, playing Risk and finally, in a short time, back to sleeping. far more interesting, I'm sure you'd agree.

I would like to take this opportunity to say that I was informed of this development in software by my former housemate Martin Oxby. Do check out Martin's site, not least because he has linked to The Salvator Darlings on it. It is a little out of date at the moment (something I'm sure he'll put right when he has time), and he does tend to overuse the exclamation mark (a little pet hate of mine), but he's a good guy really.

In other news (my, this is a long blog, isn't it?), Bethany has arrived in the country. AS I suspected, this has served only to make things harder for us. Knowing that the Atlantic Ocean no longer divides us, and the distance has been cut by aproximately 3,300 miles, it is particularly irritating not to be able to see one another. However, I'm counting down the days until, in just over two weeks, I see her for the first time in four months.

So, it's good news. Bethany is coming, I think I may have found us a housemate (albeit a week into the new tenancy agreement), I have an interview for a teaching course in September, and I'm feeling really well. Oh, and it's Canada day tomorrow, so that's quite fun too. Not that I get the national holiday, you understand, it just gives me the chance to annoy people by pretending to be Canadian even more than I usually do.

You may also be interested to note that 'Microsoft Operating Systems' can be anagrammed to form 'Competitors' grossest infamy'. Brilliant.

Summertime...

It's too hot to blog.

Going up...

Don't get me wrong, if I was like my friend Alex, who suppports Hull City football club, I'd have been really happy this season, going up into the Championship instead of staying down in League One. I wouldn't have complained at all. But that would have meant that I would have missed out on yesterday.

Yesterday was the play off finals to see who would gain that final place of promotion into the next league. I'm not going to go into an in depth commnentary of the game, that would be silly. Some of you probably saw the game. If not, you'll be able to read more at the Sheffield Wednesday website. All I'll say is the game had everything. We were in the lead, then we were tied, then it looked like we were going to lose. There was a penalty, and extra time, and eventually, we won. We deserved it - we were the better team. The atmosphere was electric too. Before the game, we were all out in the streets, just grinning, and waiting for the match. We took 40,000 supporters; from what I gather, more supporters than any other team has ever taken to Cardiff Millenium Stadium.

So yeah, if I'd have been like my friend Alex, or indeed, like my friend Ben, who supports Luton Town, I would have been happy with the promotion. I would even have saved myself £40. But it was worth £40 of anyone's money just to be in Cardiff yesterday, let alone inside the stadium. Come on Wednesday!

Too long...

It's been far too long since I last posted. Everybody knows that. At least you haven't been waiting for this one as long as readers of Monsieur Le Crayon's blog. He didn't post at all between September 27 and May 12. That's almost 8 months!

Back to business. I had a rubbish week last week. It started off ok, but kind of went downhill. I discovered on Tuesday that my school that I work in is due to close in three years. This doesn't directly affect me, as I intend to be elsewhere by then, but it certainly doesn't give the place a great working atmosphere. When I got home, I chatted to my good friend Jacob Murphy, who is coming over to visit me today from Canada (more on that later), and who is due to move to England, and into my house, in September. Unfortunately, he's decided not to come over, which meant that I don't get to live with him any more. That got me down a bit more.

On Thursday, my car was broken into, and my best coat and bag were stolen. The annoying thing is that there was nothing of any real value in there. The thief escaped with my diary, some swimming shorts, my pipe, and a sandwich. But I can't afford to replace the coat or the bag. To top all of this off, my friend (and probably yours, if you're reading this) Will Elder passed away from cancer. I don't think that there's anything more I can say about that.

So, this week has been an improvement. Not really an obvious one, just a bunch of stuff that I'm excited about. I was really looking forward to Jacob's arrival yesterday, but due to an error, he missed his plane (I'll let him tell you more about that) and so he arrives today. It wasn't a major problem, in fact, it left me with an evening to finish some jobs, so that's good. I'm also really looking forward to tonight's gig. Jacob's supporting us, so that's going to be awesome. For more info, check out The Salvator Darlings website. If you can get down there, it's at the Cardigan Arms on Kirkstall Road in Leeds. Tickets are £2 on the door, and it promises to be a bit of an extravaganza...

So, here's to an even better week ahead. I have next week off work, and I have Jacob with me. We have plenty planned, and I intend to fill you in as we go. It's funny how sometimes things don't obviously become better immediately, but you know that you've got past a rough patch. A breakthrough, you might call it. But not a break in. I've had quite enough of those, thank you...

Blessing or Blasphemy

So, I was looking for something on this wonderful internet of ours, and I came across this page. Now, this guy, whoever he is, believes very strongly in his subject matter. He's written a lot of things. But the sad thing is, he's way off the mark. If you can't be bothered to go through the whole thing (and I wouldn't blame you), I'll sum it up. Our man tells us that Christian Rock is inspired by the occult. The bad news, it seems, is that I'm not Saved. According to this guy, if you listen to rock, be it Christian or otherwise, neither are you Here's what he says:

Only backslidden, carnal Christians, who refuse to yield to the Holy Spirit, could ever think rock music was the will of God.

Hmmm.. I could go on and on with this stuff, but I think you get the idea. Read the whole thing if you want. It seems to me that it's really just rather sad that he's spent so much time trying to defame these people who are using the gifts that God has given them, and openly proclaiming the Gospel, whether that's apparent in their lyrics, or just in the interviews that they give.

His argument is riddled with holes, and is clearly one-sided, giving no thought to the counter-argument. He quotes only part of song lyrics, and takes them out of context. He calls Christian artists 'Blasphemers' repeatedly, and even refers to Keith Greene(among others) as an Occultist (without proof to back up this claim).

But the saddest thing is he often uses events in these artists' lives, where they have openly acknowledged their own sin, as proof that they cannot be Christians. Our expert, who seems to use the Bible to back up his points so well, seems to have missed out the most important, central truth in the Gospel. If you ask God for forgiveness, and you proclaim Jesus to be the Son of God, and accept him as your Saviour, NONE OF IT MATTERS ANYMORE. We're all sinners, NO EXCEPTIONS. Thank God that Jesus died on the cross and took my sins, because I'd be screwed if he hadn't...

Famous Friends...

I was just perusing the Sheffield Wednesday Football Club website, and I found this page. The guy right in the middle of the picture is Brett Shelton, my sister's boyfriend. I know that it's not particularly spectacular, but it was still a bit of a surprise...

Hooray...

For successful gigs! Thanks to everyone that made tonight's Salvator Darlings gig so much fun. There's more info about this on our website, but to cut a long story short, the gig at the Vine in town was cancelled, so we organised a last minute affair at the Cardigan Arms in Kirkstall. Despite the late notice and lack of proper organisation that goes with such an occurrence, we got both us and Band Club down there, and even managaed to get another band to play with 1 hour's warning! Not only that, but more than 100 people came down to watch us all, which is amazing at that short notice. Thanks to everyone involved, it was a great night...

Plagiarism...

So, I'm going to write word for word what I read in Rachel O'Dywer's blog today, because I couldn't put it any better myself...

False Economy

It's somewhat depressing that a McDonalds meal costs less now than it did when I was born in 1981.

I too find that slightly depressing. Hmmm. Check out her blog, by the way, she has a lot of fairly amusing things to say.

Also, I'm going to steal Jeremy Wright's subject matter from his blog of Friday, because I found this rather amusing. I took this test, to find out what kind of American English I speak. To be fair, like Jeremy, I have to admit that I couldn't always answer accurately, because I use Anglicised phrases for some things. Still, it's pretty funny, and you should have a go yourself:

Your Linguistic Profile:

55% General American English

20% Yankee

15% Dixie

5% Midwestern

5% Upper Midwestern

20% Yankee, eh?

What Kind of American English Do You Speak?

Sick and bored...

Sometimes it doesn't seem fair. I've just been off work for week after week. I finally get to go back, and a week and a half later I get sent home sick. That's just annoying. Plus, there's no one else at home at the moment, so I'm here on my own. None of this is really relevant, it's just meant that I've been trying to find fun things to do the last couple of days. Well, I say 'fun'. Mainly, I've been sleeping, and watching films when I've been awake.

I have discovered something which interested me, however. I was reading the classic graphic novel 'Watchmen', which Simon Davy, the lead guitarist from The Salvator Darlings lent to me along with 'The Dark Knight Returns'. I noticed an interesting parallel to be drawn between one of the storylines, and a certain 2003 film starring Johnny Depp as the swashbuckling Captain Jack Sparrow. Does anyone else think it slightly strange that both films feature a ship with a crew from Hell, one named The Black Pearl, the other The Black Freighter. I also believe that anyone who has seen the film will not miss the link between it and this exerpt taken from the end of chapter 5 in Watchmen:

'The closing images, with a multitude of dead and drowned men walking across the ocean bed towards the anchor rope of the Black Freighter which they climb to take their rightful positions on board the ship, remain some of Orlando's most haunting work on the series.' (Moore/Gibbons,DC,1986)

Hmmm...

In other, more interesting news, The Salvator Darlings finally return to the Leeds circuit on Tuesday, after a four month break. Now with a new bassist, Tim Higgins, we'll be headlining at the Vine on the Headrow in Leeds, supported by Band Club and two other bands. Check out our website for more details...

Trade Justice

So, it's about time that we got this one sorted. We're screwing over the poorest countries in the world to benefit ourselves, and I don't like it. You might notice the white band on the right hand side of this blog. You WILL notice it, you can't really miss it. Click on it, follow the link. I guess this doesn't really apply to you that much if you don't live in England, but have a shufti anyway - it's worth seeing what we can all do to help. Let's make poverty history...

A funny thing...

Today, as I often do to kill time during the holidays, I went into town. I drove, as I often do during the holidays, to Carlton Hill, the halls of residence in which I lived during my first year at university. These halls have a car park, and are reasonably central to Leeds. Unfortunatly, the owners realised the prime location of the flats, and put a barrier up to stop cars that aren't owned by people with permits to park there coming in. These permit holders are also issued with cards that they swipe to obtain entry. However, I happen to know that this barrier is constantly up during the university holidays, because people need to come and go with their belongings. I parked in the car park, driving in easily through the raised barrier.
After a good length of time shopping with my next door neighbour, we headed back to the car, only to realise that for some reason, the barrier was now lowered, locking us in. It used to be the case that one could easily lift the barrier by hand, but now it is fitted with an electromagnet that only disengages when you swipe a card. We were stuck, unless we managed to find the owner of one of the cars that were legitimately parked there, to let us out.

We started knocking on doors, and after a few, we got an answer. It was a lovely Irish chap, who, coincidentally, lived in the apartment that I used to live in. Once we had asscertained that he was unable to help us, I mentioned the fact that I had lived in that very flat, four years ago. He seemed to be amused by this, and asked if any of the post was mine. I pointed out that 4 years is quite a long time, and it was unlikely. Nevertheless, he asked if I was called Robert something-or-other. I said no, and he asked if I was Mark Hardy!
'Yes,' I said, 'that's me. I'm Mark Hardy.'
He handed me a letter, which further investigation proved to be a copy of Toronto Airport Christian Fellowship's Catch the Fire magazine! Can you believe it?! For four years, they have been delivering this magazine from another continent to a house that I don't live in! Furthermore, the man now in charge of sending mail out to people like me, is in fact Jonathan Puddle. That's right. J Puddy. Him of the DJ fame. The man that I taught to spin. The New Zealander. The man who is dating my girlfriend's roommate! And there he is, a man I assumed to be very holy (he is, after all, in a position of responsibility at TACF), and he's wasting people's tithes and conference fees, wasting the money that comes in from the bookstore, and also from the Riverside Cafe. He's taking the money that people give to the work of that wonderful church, and he's spending it on sending magazines to houses that I used to live in!

So, I'd just like to apologise to Pudd (and Hamish before him) for allowing them to continue with this wasted task, and also to the people whose gifts to the Lord have been spent on the printing and international postage of an unread magazine. God bless you all...

Daunting task...

Right. It's twenty after twelve. I should have been up hours ago, but last night I slept really well and long for the first time in about two weeks, and it felt good. I'm wrapped in my duvet while I write this, and I have no intentions of getting up. I know I have stuff to do. In fact, it's a very small, very easy task I have to go to the basement, take some clothes out of the washer, and hang them to dry. But even this simple, quick job seems far too much effort when I've slept so well in my comfortable bed which is nice and warm...

very pleased to announce an end to the confusion about the gig on April 19. I got the phone call from Simon while I was in Majorca, saying that he couldn't do the gig, because of a church meeting. When I returned to England, I pointed out that the gig was actually organised first, and that we'd still be able to get tapes of the meeting. Simon agreed that these things were true, and then all we had to do was convince the promoters at the Vine to let us back on the bill. They'd asked someone else, it seems, to ake our slot, but last night I got an email, telling me that the other band were being really good about it, and we're back on. We're headlining, and Band Club, one of the most promising new band in Leeds, are on first. Get down there if you can, you don't want to miss this one...

Afer the match...

I went to see the football today. As usual, Sheffield Wednesday made complete fools of themselves in the first half, letting in two goals from the rubbish Torquay United. And, as usual, they proved what they can do in the second half. Unfortunatly, they'd already given too much away, because all we managed was to equalise, and to leave Hillsborough with one point. Anyway, all this is irrelevant, I was just setting the scene, and my emotions got the better of me.

As is often the case, on my way back to Leeds after the game, I pulled off the motorway at junction 35A, and went to the McDonald's on the roundabout up the road. I decided to treat myself to a donut for dessert. Now, I worked at the greasy burger restaurant for a good year and a half in my school days, and I used to love a good donut. But do you know what This one was rubbish. I couldn't figure it out. It was not old and dry, the chocolate was not melted off on one side, there were no signs of tampering. It was exactly the same as any other donut I have ever eaten from McDonald's. Then I realised what was different. When I used to eat these sweet treats from the greasy clown's sweatshop, I had never made a visit to Canada. I had certainly never sampled the delights of Krispy Kreme's mouthwatering snacks. And so, it seems, life will never be the same again. Once you've eaten a Krispy Kreme donut; once you've ravenously devoured one of those warm, sticky, melt-in-the-mouth pieces of sugary heaven straight off the production line, there's no going back. No donut will ever taste as good. Not McDonald's chocolate donuts. Not Tim Horton's Canadian maple donuts. Not even Gregg's custard donuts.

I guess it's like the band, James, said in their song, Sit Down:
'If I hadn't seen such riches, I could live with being poor.'

England's green and pleasant land...

Well, I'm back in the country. I have to say, I had a good time, but I'm glad to be back. That isn't usually the case for me, because I can think of at least 4 places I would rather be right now than my native country. But this time, it was a bit different. I really enjoyed the place we stayed in, and it was awesome to spend time with my parents. But the situation was not one I would choose to find myself in again. We shared an apartment. My parents had the double room, and I was on the couch in the shared living room/kitchen/dining area. The couch was pretty uncomfortable, and the room was too hot. I didn't get much sleep, before I was woken up by my mom and dad coming in to make coffee/go onto the veranda/generally make a racket.

Now, don't get me wrong, I still had a great time, and I wouldn't change my parents for the world. But there's something very wierd about being asleep in bed in the same room as your parents are wandering around in, when you're 23. I realise now why I moved away from home...

Never mind. The hotel was just our basecamp, as it were, and it did the job. We did a whole bunch of stuff, the most important of which I've outlined already on here, so there's no need to go over old ground in that respect. The trip back was ok, I'm on my parents' computer now, and I intend to be in Leeds by tonight, so it's a fish and chip supper for me, then in the car for the drive home. Mom's out at the chippie right now. I hope it's open. For all that I love sampling the foreign delicacies, and avoiding the British run/attracting places when I'm away, I still really enjoy a nice big plateful of deep fried, battered fish, and greasy, thick cut chips, smothered in salt and swimming in vinegar. Now, if you'll excuse me, I'll go salivate elsewhere - I don't want to short out this keyboard...

Those caves?

Unstinkingbelievable...

Hooray!

At last! Something in the field of technology did not let me down last night! It all started when I was in a restaurant with my parents. I had discovered that I could not only send pictures taken on my phone to Bethany´s email address, but I could also attach text, and even voice recordings for her to listen to later. I had quite successfully sent one of these messages the day before, so I thought that it would be a good idea to send another, this time with my parents saying hello too. and a good idea it was, until part way through the text part, the phone crashed and switched itself off. When I switched it back on, all the pictures I had ever taken on it were gone. All the ringtones I ever had sent to me or downloaded were gone. Pictures that people had sent me were gone. Even all the pictures, and ringtones that came with the phone had been erased. Fortunately, my phone book and diary were unaffected, but when I tried to send another email message, the WAP connection claimed to have never been set up. It was most frustrating.

Then, when I tried to blog last night, I had about 30 seconds left to publish my post. I clicked ´publish´, and suddenly the computer decided to go into slow mode. The screen went back to the ´put coins in´ screen before it had even got halfway. I was cursing all technological advances since the 50s at this point. I didn´t have any more coins to put in, and my parents were in bed, so I couldn´t go scrounge from them...

Anyway, I got downstairs this morning, and it seems that it published perfectly well, so I was worrying about nothing. I´m still taking my cell phone to the shop when I get back. Stupid Sony Ericsson.

Right. Today, we´re going to the Drach Caves in Porto Cristo. They´re meant to be pretty sweet. I´ll take some pictures and put them up on here when I get back. They should look suitably out of place next to the ones of Magaluf. My dad bought some sausages for breakfast this morning, but when he cooked them, we realised that they were the worst thing we´d ever eaten. Good job we brought the Weetabix - the Official Cereal of 16 Village Place...