You know when you accidentally spend £150....

Oh bugger. I left a bid at the reserve price in the hope of pushing the price up for my dealer. I ended up winning. :-D. Thats what credit cards are for after all!

Just another Manic Friday

Apparantly the Manic Street Preachers are set to play a low key gig in the Brangwyn Hall, Swansea in April!!

Tickets go on sale from seetickets or the Grand Theatre Box Office at 9am on Friday 4th February.

Rumours are that they will be playing mostly early stuff, Holy Bible era.

I have spoken to a contact of mine in the Guildhall who knew nothing about it but has promised to let me know if there is any further information around.

Good luck!!

Christianity gone mad!

http://www.capalert.com/capreports/southpark.htm
SOUTH PARK!!!

http://www.capalert.com/capreports/teamamerica-worldpolice.htm
TEAM AMERICA!

Some people really have too much time on their hands.

For instance, people who write blogs....

Christianity gone mad!

Check this out

http://www.capalert.com/capreports/starwarsstudy.htm

The Star Wars movies presented separation and independence from God's Sovereignty and Omnipotence and rightful Authority, in particular:
Counterfeiting and mockery of the Scriptures .
Repeated use of the "force" as equatable to the Will of God and ignoring His supreme Authority.
Gaining power, strength, and protection from the "force."
Manipulating objects and minds by the power of the "force."
Portrayal that Anakin was a virgin birth.
Portrayal that Anakin was "the one" to bring community between good and evil.
presentation of ethereal beings in after-death presence to the corporeal world, and submitting to and seeking counsel/guidance/rescue from them.
unholy powers to control, manipulate, and kill and mystic sensing.
disappearing bodies.

We particularly like the reference for Pirates of the Carribbean!

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaarrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrgggggggggggggggggghhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

Things just got a lot more interesting!

Not only do we have 2 1/2 weeks of interviewing candidates and all the organisation associated with this, I am still working on the 2006 brochure and millions of other things!

On top of this I now have to prepare a 10 minute presentation every week on Victorian Britain and Wilhelmine Germany (about 2000 words I think) - as well as reading for my Stalin essay due in on May 17th which I am hoping to write on Soviet religion :s.

God knows how this is going to work !!!!

On a brighter note, it looks as though Paul and Jason are finally OK to move to their new pad, so a day was spent transferring all the bills into my name and setting up DDs. Gives me another month to pay and get some back off the cramp twins at any rate.

Sam just can't help competing with me. Just because I was ill, he has to be ill too.

Still at least it was I and not he that was dispensing Ipod advice. God knows why but hey - they are supposed to be good! I'm still a tape man myself.

Stand by for insanity...

All hail comrade Aldo

The new atmospheric posters for my study. With additional Commie cat.

Boxing clever

The boxes are really nice too - retro tape application to seal the edges, good attention to detail and a fantastic inner section which pops out to release the toy.

Revenge of the toy lines

Here it is at last - the first ROTS preview toy - Anakin's Starfighter. I must admit it is blinding - you even get some battle damage stickers a la Luke's ESB X Wing. Only £20 and avaiable now from Argos. Figures out on Feb 1st!

and then the blessed lapse into unconsciousness...

Yes!

I have recrowned myself as "most unconscious person". If only they had mentioned needles would (or if not actually involved, mentioned) be present! Needles(s) (HA!) to say I awoke to find myself trapped in the past, facing mirror images that were not my own.... Oh no, it was Adrian's face. I managed to faint. At least it was in a room full of medics so no harm done. Maybe I should charge extra for providing the service.

I got a fair bit of sympathy out of it anyway - and a whole lot of stick from Jo, Sam and Andrew lol!!!

Still, I think "Oh Fuck, was that a good demonstration" was an excellent recovery line.

VEL-VET REVOL-VER

They even had a big light up sign. You know its a good band when they have a big light up sign.

It's Slash. Need I say more.

"Slash, you're a legend" to quote the whole crowd

Scott and Duff rockin' out

The Big Boys

Sorry about my now legendary bad photography - but it is even more difficult when you're in the middle of a heaving crowd!

Scott, Slash, Duff, Matt and that other guitarist put on an amazing show. Set list will follow, but Big Machine, Mr Brownstone and Bodies (Pistols cover) were the highlights for me. Slash got his double guitar and top hat out for the first encore!

Unbelievable - almost as vicious as the 'Tallica Reading 03 pit. Collapsed lung, broken ribs and dodgy knees this time around but Im still alive!!

The real fans!

These are the hardy few who managed to get the crowd kicked into overdrive by the end of the Datsuns set. Big thumbs up for 'em!

I've seen the Datsuns 4 times now!

Datsuns opened for VR

Dolf and the Beanheaded one rocking out! Pretty good set from the NZ boys - sittin' pretty, Motherfuckers from Hell and Fink for the man were awesome, interwoven with some new stuff that we didn't know that well. Me and about 5 other people were the only obvious Datsuns fans there so it took a while to get a good pit going - but we did it! By the end the whole crowd was going. I did get smacked by some fat guy but hey what the hell...

Ahhh... New acquisitions (2)

Yes I will continue to use the same crap quote. ESB party table cloth and boxed single reversible pillow case. Why they need a box that big for a pillowcase is beyond me, but its well cool!

Glastonbury 2005 - the adventure begins!

"Michael did confirm that the Festival plans to take a year off in 2006, and Time Out are reporting that tickets will be on sale on Sunday 3rd April at 9am, costing £125 (plus a small booking fee), limited to two per person."

Oh my God.

Still at least there are no stupid raffles or competitions etc as mooted last year.

To go or not to go, that is the question.

We shall see...

Manic Street Preachers - Cardiff 2005

After the initial postponement and then the huge disappointment of hearing that Razorlight were'nt supporting (yeah(!), but 'The Departure' (who), the gig turned out to be really good. Plenty of early stuff, only occasionally ruined by something like the life of Richard Nixon. Renditions of La Tristessa and You Love us and Faster got the crowd going, and even managed to start a punch up between a couple of townies. Thats the one problem with the Manics - townies. Even Gary liked Motorcycle Emptiness this time around!

The only thing which annoyed me was their persistance in playing A Design for sodding life, the worst song they have ever written (if you discount the last three albums).

Nicky was on form and had Cath and Ramalla drooling again. James has massive bitch tits and Shaun has returned to wearing drumming gloves. Apparantly, so Cath says, Nicky was wearing leopard print knickers. Nonce.

No encore though. Lets face it, they're not Metallica and never will be.

Stay tuned for Velvet Revolver and the Datsuns (tomorrow)

Setlist:

1. If You Tolerate This Your Children Will Be Next
2. Faster
3. 1985
4. No Surface All Feeling
5. Empty Souls
6. You Love Us
7. Yes
8. The Love Of Richard Nixon
9. Kevin Carter
10. La Tristesse Durera
11. Australia
12. Die In The Summertime
13. Solitude Sometimes Is
14. The Masses Against The Classes
15. Small Black Flowers That Grow In The Sky
16. You Stole The Sun From My Heart
17. This Is Yesterday
18. Cardiff Afterlife
19. Motown Junk (Sweet Child O'Mine intro)
20. I Live To Fall Asleep
21. Motorcycle Emptiness
22. A Design For Life

For all those Zappa fans in the audience...

He's so gaaaaay

Yes that is quiche he's wielding

MA Feedback.....

Well, three months late, I have my first three assignment marks back.

I was hopeful that I'd pass, given the amount of other stuff I had.

Assignment one, the analysis of crime rates in the Irish famine - presentation and essay went well - score .... wait for it.... 72% - Are you fucking kidding me!!!

Assignment two, the annotated bibliography, on that bombshel I figured would be around 55 - especially as I missed whole sections on the cult of personality and the Terror (d'uh!) - score 67% This is getting ridiculous!

Assignment three, the book review. Now surely this one would be rubbish (even though as a partial English graduate it shouldnt be!) - score 72%.

Oh well, maybe I actually am as great as I think (!)

Plus I got felt up by students today for their anatomy lessons. Everyone had warm hands. Martin was banned from touching me ;-)

I'd better get that free lunch Jo and Sam promised me!

The case for contacts

And glasses are supposed to make you look more intelligent?

Middle Age Stalketh

ARGH! This is it. The end of youth as we know it. I've bought SAMPLERS. Soon I'll have those little patches of random paint on a wall, all in a practically identical colour of pale yellow.

Ignore the blue. The fact that there are brochures as well makes this somehow all the more sad.

Geek rating rising.

Roxy, on the other hand...

iRoxy still didn;t quite get the whole thing. Retard.

...But then found her new toy!

tShe loves her Raschetunnel. In fact they have taken to sleeping in it, playing in it and dragging a large array of household items into it. When we took the tree down there were 5 baubles in there!

Box of fun

Lenin seemed to miss the idea slightly...

Whats in the box.....?

Curiosity, on this occasion, did not kill the cat

Oh Tannenbaum...

Well....it lasted for about a week with Roxy's girth stressing it. Its now as dead as a real one

Aldos of London

Awwwwww. Shes got her own bag now

View from above

This is the view from my flat on a typical Swansea day.

Royal Mail are GAY

its official they are the gayest of all public services.

Not only did they not bother to deliver to me on Saturday (the card saying they couldn't deliver did even though we were in), but they couldn't redeliver to the Uni or give me a time when it would be delivered. Come 10.30 am this morning it still hadn't come, so I figured I'd better go to work really. Plus life in the sun is crap.

So I'm STILL waiting for my Velvet Revolver tickets for next week.

Hey - I've been busy!

Some of the more astute amongst you may have noticed a slight lull over christmas. Well there was no lull - a lull would imply I even had time to remember it at all! I have been on leave from December 17th technically - in that time I have been at work on at least 9 separate occasions, and last week every fucking day!! Some holiday. The time I wasn't in the office was mostly spent writing up minutes, writing the 2006 brochure and cleaning.

Then I went to the library just after Boxing Day to start my essay - to discover it was shut until the 4th of January.

HOO FUCKING RAY

So I couldn't even start my essay until last week - and couldn't do much to it until the weekend as I was in work!

Tomorrow is the Manics postponed gig. We are wondering if they will play 'Tsunami'.

Next week is Velvet Revolver and the Datsuns though - thats going to be wicked!