Feeling down?

I just watched the first episodes of both Dollhouse and Caprica. I was very impressed with both, although the main thing that stood out in both was how much bloody stuff was only in there for the straight male gaze. Cheers, media studies.

I've been feeling, guess what, lonely. As everyone is spending this time of the year with their families, it means I have to as well, so for the past couple of days I've been alone. Tom's been busy, although I might be meeting up with him later. I just realised it's my first Christmas without my parents. I don't find myself missing them. I want to be earning enough to afford to live alone. I want to go to university.

Every time you think you're walking, you're just moving the ground.

Every time you think you're talking, you're just moving your mouth.

Every time you think you're looking, you're just... looking down.

I don't know what this post was meant to be about. To quote someone else, "farewell, empty silence of cyberspace!"

all the looks of love were staged

If only we could Edit The Sad Parts, eh?

I wasn't going to write this post, as I'm a lovely drunk/upset combo, and promised myself I wouldn't do these sort of blog posts any more. Oh well. I'd turned my mac off, and was just settling into bed with On Avery Island's first track Song Against Sex, and I reached over to hug my other pillow because, yes, I feel lonely. And it reminded me of my ex. Early, early on in the relationship, probably about a year ago now, on the rare occasion we didn't share a bed, I would hug a pillow.

So, tonight. Very messy. Jacob tells me that he saw Chris and his new boyfriend in Gianni's. Any other restaurant and I would have probably been fine. Considering Gianni's is my favourite (had my birthday there pretty much 12 times or something), and that I took Chris there a few times as we were getting to know each other, it has a certain sentimental value to me. And the fact that he now takes someone else there makes me feel ill. It really means nothing. It means he likes the pizza (or the prices), and that's it. I'm still angry.

Something else. I got with someone called Bobby at a party a few weeks ago. I was quite drunk, and people had been telling me quite how much we'd get on. We got on quite well. Anyway, he repeated pretty much our entire sexual encounter to all his friends the morning after. I'm not happy with this, really. Especially as I find this out tonight from someone who barely knows either of us. It's ridiculous.

Oh, and. Some straight guy called Stephen is furiously intent on using me to explore his sexuality. I mean, come on. Nothing's going right at all.

John stayed at mine last night. He was going to spend my only day off this week with me, and watch a film. He didn't stay, he left so he could get a lift home. He didn't take the lift home, and instead met up with someone in town. If I'd been invited, I'd have been okay. But it's fucking annoying. I deleted his violin part (to be honest, it was badly played) and put some cool reverb effects on Karen's guitar part to my song, which still has no name. I like Underwater Breathing Apparatus.

I had a very nice chat with a drunken Ben. He's a good listener.

I just want to get away from it all again.

I'm too used to running from my problems.

I'm probably too self-absorbed. I like feeling sorry for myself.

I'm selfish.

And it all breaks down at the first rehearsal

I watched Synecdoche, New York again. And cried. Again.

Sometimes all I really wanna feel is love.
Sometimes I'm angry that I feel so angry.

I've been working on my song a bit more. It needs lyrics, but I think the music is finished. I got John and Karen to come over yesterday, Karen brought her guitar and John brought his electric violin, so we had a bit of a go with those. While I didn't get exactly what I was intending from either instruments, I think what we came up with is pretty good. Fuck it, actually, I'm gonna put them on Youtube. Hang on.

Compulsive Liar

I made up the most absurd lie earlier:
"You can't clap your hands if they're wet."

oxygen to breathe

I finally managed to figure out how to use Logic. It was really simple: Preferences>Audio>Input>Input. Oh well. This is the first thing I've made, so no laughing. The guitar is all me, the drums, synth and bells are all thanks to Logic. It definitely needs more instrumentation, and I'd hope to get vocals at some point. Comment.

In other news, Simply Syndicated head Richard Smith announced today on Twitter that he's going to hand the network over to someone else. That's a bit sad.

test 2

The woman next door is crying. Her skin is grey and broken: mottled, greasy and infected. She is no longer bullet proof. She tears at her face with clawing hands, it falls away and dissolves at her feet. The condition of her husband is not as severe, but progressing rapidly. As the woman's eyes burn away, she takes a last look at him and feels not remorse, but regret. "Is this the best I could have done?" she thinks, "That man? This life?"
She can feel nothing. She cares not for living.
As the woman dies, she can hear only her husband's screams, and the house collapsing around them.
The noises fade.

I did ask for this.

I did. Really.

Tonight, I went out with Tom for his birthday. He's 19. I wrapped a shoebox up for him in loads of newspaper, so it looked like something exciting. Inside was a card with a cute puppy on the front, and the words BITTER CRUSHING DISAPPOINTMENT on the inside. His present off the internet hasn't arrived yet, so I thought that would do.

Like I said, this is what I asked for: while in Woodrows, I saw two thin, trendy people wearing those bloody stupid hats that everyone seems to have nowadays. The second time I looked, I realised it was, of course, my ex-boyfriend and some lesbian looking woman. About half an hour later, I find out that it was in fact Chris, and his new boyfriend.

I was filled with despair. I still am. I know that this shouldn't be affecting me in any way, but it really is. Either this is what he wants or (more likely) he's moved on. It just seems so sudden. And, of course, I haven't moved on. I'm a mess, pretty much. I left Concrete early (the guy I was dancing with was straight, of course) (oh, and I applied for a job, badly) to walk home, alone. I couldn't be bothered waiting for anyone. It does seem, however, that I am now only capable of contributing to this blog when I'm a bit upset and drunk. Oh well. John gets back in just under a week. He really is marvellous. After I've spent Christmas with him, I'm probably going to go to France and work with my dad. Unless this Concrete job works out, or maybe that gay bar will get back in touch. Both are not likely. I just want to curl up in a ball and have no contact with anyone until it's time for university.

By the way, I have no right to be feeling sorry for myself: I did ask for this.

I've got a disease, an English disease!

What've you put in that syringe?

What have you really said to him?

(inside my head by radiohead)

I've been feeling ill and sorry for myself all day. It has something to do with the whole outside catering thing with the Sportsman from 5 to half 11 on Saturday, then going into town til four in the morning the day after, then standing behind a bar surrounded by alcohol whilst hungover for six hours on Sunday. Maybe. I got out of bed at about half two today, and I've probably taken too many paracetamol, and have watched the first half of the Studio Ghibli film Princess Mononoke, which so far is better than Tales Of Earthsea, which was a pile of crap.

I really, really want to be able to play the acoustic guitar. Just chords, mind. I'll save up for some lessons or something. Seeing as though Princess Mononoke is a Miramax film, I got a real craving to watch Kill Bill again, so I'm getting that now. I wouldn't mind seeing it in high def with a surround sound system, really.

Oh, that reminds me. Although I said I would never mention Poskett again, it's proving impossible. This is my own fault, I should have remembered that the internet is my enemy. I offered to give him £1100 for the Mac he bought, which is the step up from mine. Wait. I'll explain this. With his work, he got a £200 discount from Apple, thus paying £1300 (how much I paid for this) for a Macbook Pro worth £1500. I offered him £1100 for it, but, after agreeing to sell it to me, said he sold it to someone for £1300 (which, being the same price he'd paid for it, I couldn't have beaten, really [although it turns out I did end up paying £1300 for this]). By searching his username on eBay (pockych - oh, and I know his password. Luckily for him, I'm not feeling that angry quite yet. "Chris," his mum asks, "what is this.. German.. magazine.. you've ordered?"), I found that he'd not only sold it to someone he's never met, but for £1100. Bastard. Fucking bastard. Oh well. Comment to make me feel better. Now.

On a lighter note, this blog is genuinely interesting and funny:

Nate Fitzgerald: One Isolated Man's Journey

blame it on the satellites

oh cry cry cry get over yourself

I might, and you might. But neither of us will.

Bah. I'm a drunken mess, again. I got myself in a right state, after seeing that guy I'm not meant to be mentioning, went to Concrete with a few friends, they were all couples and/or getting with someone! I felt lonely and emo. I found a message in my drafts I can't quite remember writing: I miss you and I know you miss me. Luckily for me in the morning I don't have your number anymore. Yes. Pfft, that is so lame. I think I've just rediscovered Modest Mouse. On the way home, I heard Lives, The Good Times Are Killing Me, Might, and Karma's Payment.

There was a guy in Concrete who was alright looking, and getting a bit close. I came to the conclusion that he was just drunk and straight, like every other bloody person in the building. I feel so bloody lonely. Ridiculous. Although, it's not like I'm expecting to meet anyone in this place. I'm just annoyed because I saw Poskett.

Seriously though, can I go a single blog post without mentioning something to do with my sexuality? It's a joke.

I'm the next act, waiting in the wings.

Abi and myself have decided, since today, that we're going to do some miserable street theatre over Christmas. Not sure how we decided, but we did a test in town today: I laid down in an alley, we waited for some people to walk past. Abi stole my shoes and ran away. The people got angry, two tried to wake me up, one chased Abi. I yawned, stretched, and got up, ignoring the two people talking to me, and hurriedly walked, in socks, to where I'd arranged to meet Abi, who was waiting with my shoes. Possibly the most exciting thing I've done in quite a while.

We have a few ideas of what to do over Christmas, my favourite being:

Abi is kneeling down, paying great attention to the line she is drawing with a white piece of chalk. I am kneeling down a couple of meters behind her, furiously scrubbing away the chalk line with a sponge. This will go on for as long as we want. We'll try and get "audience members" to stand and watch us, and talk loudly about the dreary, meaninglessness of the whole situation. Something about humanity or artistic worth, you get the idea. I think I want this to be filmed, it's quite exciting. We'll be muttering something under our breath while we do this. Hopefully passers-by will wonder for a second what the hell is going on. Maybe they'll, hopefully, think. Maybe they'll think, "bloody students", and carry on. Either way, we win. Or get arrested.

I just applied for a job in a gay bar.

Carlisle's becoming very liberal all of a sudden. My CV has never made me sound so camp: my interests are media production, playing bass guitar, and acting. I tried to give it a personal touch, said something about being "thrilled at the prospect of a gay-friendly bar opening in Carlisle." Oh well. Either it'll work or it won't. I had to go through some sauna website to get to the online application form. I've just reread the CV and it feels way too informal. We'll see.

I've found that not being with Poskett (and this is the last time I'l ever mention him, don't worry) is a lot easier today than it was yesterday. Of course, I'm still not doing very much, but it's getting better. I knew it would. I bumped into his friend Stuart today, and it made me think, if he's friends with someone like that, then I'm lucky to have got away.

I'm also feeling sorry with myself for having some sort of writing block over the last few weeks (I mean, you wouldn't think writing in this whole stream-of-consciousness thing is hard, would you?), but I'm hoping to get back up with the whole one post a day thing I've always been trying to go for. I'm just starting to find myself that slight bit less interesting.

Oh, me and Tom recorded a song for his friend Dave. I'll try and make some sort of video for it, and put that on YouTube. Technology these days.

I'm enjoying a song called No More Shoes by Stephen Malkmus and The Jicks, try it.

Movin' on up

lol.

Gardenhead/Leave Me Alone by Neutral Milk Hotel

There are beads that wrap around your knees
That crackle into the dark
Like a walk in the park, like a hole in your head
Like the feeling you get when you realize you're dead
This time we ride rollercoasters into the ocean
We feel no emotion as we spiral down to the world
And I guess it's worth your time
Because there's some lives you live
And some you leave behind
It gets hard to explain
The gardenhead knows my name

Leave me alone, for you know this isn't the first time
In fact, this is twice in a row
That the angels have slipped through our landslide
And filled up our garden with snow
And I don't wish to taste of your insides
Or to call out your name through my phone
For the glory boys at your bedside will love you
As long as you're something to love

Follow me through a city of frost-covered angels
I swear I have nothing to prove
I just want to dance in your tangles
To give me some reason to move
But to take on the world at all angles
Requires a strength I can't use
So I'll meet you up high in your anger
Of all that is hoping and waiting for you

oh, damn it.

This blog doesn't look anywhere near as good in Safari as it did in Firefox. My hard drive isn't compatible with both Windows and Mac either. So no films, no music. Damn.
Otherwise, so far this Mac is great. The trackpad is a bit difficult to use at the moment, but I'm sure I'll get used to it. I hope the keyboard dims when you watch a DVD or something.

Bloody Poskett. He's not worth the hassle anyway.

I'm going to Bristol to see John tomorrow. The ticket cost me £78 with a young person's railcard, which cost £25. Still, should be a good night.
I'm going to try to do less of the whiny personal stuff. Actually, why did I even think that? Of course I'm going to keep doing the whiny personal stuff.

The only thing about not entertaining Chris any more is that he has a ticket for me to go and see Modest Mouse with him. I haven't paid him, and I don't think he expected me to, but I think I'll just buy a ticket for Glasgow or something instead. I'll see if he tries to get in touch with me or something. He never does. I love how soft this keyboard feels, it's great. I wonder if they do VLC for Mac.

I've seen Lawson, and he says he'd be happy to podcast with me. I think after I buy all the equipment and after this night in Bristol I will have a whole £100 pounds left, which really isn't that bad. I saw the Sportsman today and they said I can pretty much have a lot of hours until after Christmas. My dad wants me to go back and work with him in January and February anyway.

Lots of people have told me, since I've come back to Carlisle, that I should have nothing more to do with Chris anyway. oh, I don't know.

the whale song

I've bought myself a Mac. Well, joint Christmas present thing from my parents. I gave them €1230 (all my wages since moving here), they paid the rest for a £1300 Macbook Pro. Not bad really. I can't remember how much I have in my bank account in the UK. Hopefully around £200 but it could be quite a bit less. Oh well. Hopefully I'm getting my job in the Sportsman back, so that'll be some money coming in. I have some projects lined up.

• Film: With Ben, and probably Tom and other interested people. There's a plot idea. I'm hoping to act. Hopefully, we'll pick a strong scene, and focus on that. From the strength of that scene, we can expand it into a full film. That's how I'd work, anyway. Tom also talked about a series of short films (VIDEO PODCAST!) based on driving lessons. Comedy, easy. I reckon, any decent ideas can be turned into short films or otherwise, and I just have to motivate myself and others (and rent equipment, money) to get on with it. The first stuff we make will not be amazing quality. I understand that. Improvement comes with practice. That's fine with me, I want the experience, the portfolio stuff, and the fun.
  

• Podcast: Chris Lawson is interested in this sort of thing. After listening non-stop to Simply Syndicated, I am inspired. It is that easy. Now I have my Mac (well, monday), I need to splash out on Amazon and buy a mic stand, microphone and mixer. And get everyone else involved in this to buy microphones as well. (See, this is all money. Again.) I'm hoping to get as many people as I can on board with this, although keep it down to maybe just two people per episode. There are always interesting topics to talk about. How shit The Plan is, or how we got into listening to decent music.
  

• Music: I mentioned to Tom that I want to start a band with him. Hope that works out, although it's likely we'll just clash a bit. He might be into experimental stuff. We'll see.

This post is called The Whale Song because of this bassline:(everyone needs to find a way out)

Frantic Ruined My Life (on the end of the world)

smiling but lifeless
sweat and smoke tangled in their hair
the word was, "believe"
we didn't.

in the future, they'll see we had no choice.
"you could have done something"
you... nobody tells you what to do
same as
no
nevermind


"What I'm really, really trying to say, what I'm really trying to get across to you here is that, that none of this is certain in any way. Really. Is it? No. Why can't you just understand that?"
I've spent a decent part of my life staring at a computer screen, waiting for a change. Four years ago, it happened. You can't see it now. That's the way life, the internet, the government whatever works, and it's brilliant. Not in a good way, of course. People died. Communities were destroyed. And, this isn't from official sources. No, the BBC or CNN or whatever censored it all. Thousands of photos, videos and blogs ( and they're gone now, of course) told us the horrors committed by this country in the name of purity. The year is 2016, and Frantic ruined my life.


"No, he wasn't political in any way, really. He was a good boy. Never really stepped out of line. I don't know why it happened the way it did. I'm sorry." - excerpt from Memories Of The Victim, by Joel Hammersmith

can't stop feeling no i won't stop feeling

I'm moving back to Carlisle. Somehow I've only just realised that ctrl+backspace deletes words at a time, that's useful. iTunes fucked up with my entire music library, so I've had to add it all again and all the ID3 tags are also fucked so I have to rename and add artwork to 18GB worth of music. Damn technology.
Oh, and I'm moving back to Carlisle. Number of reasons. There's not much oppurtunity here for me apart from that political singer guy which probably wouldn't have worked, and speaking French. Which I've pretty much proved to myself I can do.
I want to act. I want to sort my uni application. I want to work. I miss Chris. I miss being comfortable. I miss good food. Pretty much, I can't find work here. I haven't exactly tried hard, and I've been here less than two weeks, but I'm fed up. Montpellier is a brilliant place, and I'd love to move back here sometime, but maybe with someone I know. It's not that I'm incapable of living alone, it's just difficult. Hopefully I can get some of my old job back. Hopefully start writing or acting or something. I'll try and get more involved. I'll try and get some of my old friends back, I left most of the people I know without saying bye. I need to find a band.

Those were the days.

feel no emotion as we spiral down

It gets hard to explain: the Gardenhead knows my name.
I tried to embed some music by David Gael (French band guy) here but can't figure it out.

Elly won't mind me posting this. Can't be bothered editing it right now either. Read if you can be bothered.
fuck it that wasn't worth posting
what nevermind

this is what, the 5th time I've edited this post.
I need to get on with something.
Some project.
I'm gonna go out and buy writing paper and some pens and stuff and write a fucking screenplay.

or a novel or play or something.
I'll buy a small notebook and a large one. Large one being for ideas.




So, I went out and couldn't find a single shop that sold them. What the hell is wrong with this city? I couldn't possibly write on my computer, oh wait.

still got your words and you've got your friends

Pretty much straight after my last post, I lent back in my chair, crushing the wire for my laptop charger. My new charger arrived yesterday, and by that time I was feeling entirely too demotivated to write on here. Motivation's back. I read a blog before that I saw linked through a comment on an article about Twitter on The Guardian's website and remembered I have a blog myself.
I've thought of hundreds (exaggeration right there) of Blog titles or whatever. No, wait. Subjects. Subjects to write about. But I've forgotten most of them. I'll try.
I'm still trying to find a job here. I haven't been entirely pro active about the whole thing, I've only given about three CVs out. Ah, yes: on Friday I saw a post online for some restaurant "Antidot" looking for workers. I found the address, looked at a map, but was unable to print it out, so tried to memorise it. I had to take a tram, which I thought would get me at least half way there. It didn't. I got lost. I asked someone for help. He couldn't understand me. I ended up walking the four or five miles to the edge of Montpellier to find some (quite trendy) bloody restaurant on an industrial estate. They'd already found someone, of course. Then I had to walk back.
We had a party that night which was too full of drugs and smoke.
I was hungover the next morning. Did nothing.
We had another, smaller gathering that night, which I enjoyed a lot more. There were only about ten of us this time, and I managed to talk to almost everyone.
The next day (I'm aware this is being written in a poor fashion) we sat in and watched films and stuff. Requiem for a Dream. I'd been putting off watching it, don't know why. I was very, very skeptical in the beginning but it turned out to be completely amazing, really. I was rather taken aback. The girls in this house like watching The Vampire Diaries, a shit American serialised drama about, guess, vampires.

Today, Janou sort of told me (oh and my British dictionary plugin isn't working. great.) that I need to get my act together and go out and get a job. In less words than that, obviously. She also told me that she's got a friend looking to co-rent an appartment with someone. If I had money (I have around €1300, which I shouldn't just go and spent), I'd be entirely up for it. I'm probably still going to go for it, if I can go and sign on or something. Need a job.
Janou told me to sign up for Couch Surfers (a [dodgy] 'non-profit' organisation which supports backpackers) and I did. I found an post on the Montpellier board for two guys who want a bassist and drummer
also fuck it it's hard thinking in english this much
so I called the guy before, David Gael. It was actually much easier to call him then I'd imagined it would be, and it seemed he spoke English. He writes in French, as a singer and acoustic guitarist. I think there's another guy playing acoustic in his band as well, and he says he likes Radiohead, although they don't play anything like Radiohead, which is fine, because The Turks loved Radiohead, but we never did anything like them at all. The advert had been up for five days and I don't think anyone had replied yet. This sounds promising. I'm going to meet him in.. one hour. Exciting stuff. I'll try and take him for a drink or something instead of merely picking a CD up off him. I hope he's somewhere close to my age, etc. Actually that shouldn't matter. Oh well.

Music in France is different to music in the UK. Not sure why.
Instead of A, B, C, D, E, F, G, they have la, si, ... and sol is G. I don't get it. Hopefully these guys can teach me a bit.

I'm starting to feel (probably imaginary) tension in this house after a week of living here mostly because to everyone here I seem to just sit in all the time. I can't go and get more CVs printed off yet because I have no USB stick, damn it. Also I'd rather just be on holiday and live cheaply and not spend money. As long as I have internet, food, music and sleep (all of which I can afford), I'll be happy here. Difficult to please yourself and not care about others when you're imposing on others. Not imposing, but. This post is long.
So yeah, anyway. The lyrics in the title come from The World At Large by Modest Mouse, from Good News For People Who Love Bad News, and mean something to me how American is this. Well anyway, even though I do no writing (OH YEAH REMIND ME TO WRITE), barely read, and whatever, I've always got my words and hopefully, got my friends. "still" is a very important word also.

Another idea I had was to write a screenplay (right? or script whatever) called Guilt, or How Frantic Changed My Life. I'm not sure where the guilt comes in yet, nor any ideas about characters or anything (in fact a play would be better), but it comes from my mother drunkenly shouting at me "you're a stupid fucking twat!" while she wanted to watch Frantic (old Harrison Ford film in Paris) one night a few weeks ago. It being set in France, and my being a foreigner in France, I could watch this film and draw parallels between my (ha, my) character and Harrison Ford's character in that film. Surely you don't need right from whatever film company to write that script. Anyway, it would all be fictional but stem from that. Sound good? I'd hope so.

Also, one of the girls who lives here got married to some guy last Friday, who's staying here. I don't think I like him. Or her. I don't know. It just feels tense.

I've just moved out for the first, no, second (no, third), time and already I want to move out. I guess I'll never stay fixed to one place. Also how do I make it look like I've been active all day when Janou gets back from uni? I don't think I can. Oh well. I'll pounce and tell her I'm meeting someone at six. That'll impress her, hopefully. (although, I still haven't made the effort to get a job. oh well.)

Thanks for reading.

i would stand in line for this

I'm in Montpellier! Living with three women. I've never seen so many shoes. It's my third day here, and I'm meant to making a CV. My first day here I spent doing the tourist stuff, basically just walking around. Yesterday one of the students I'm living with took me round loads of bars, but we didn't find a job. It was meant to be that easy, I'm sure of it.
I'm drinking infusion tea and it's terrible. I miss the real stuff.
I've gone like, almost a week without touching any food that I would deem unhealthy, chocolate and crisps and that. I actually cooked myself a meal yesterday. Scrambled eggs. I used full fat cream (there was no milk) and it was really sweet. That's how much of a student I'm being right now.

Today it's quite annoying because I don't have any friends yet, so I'm sitting in the kitchen using the wifi, and there's a radio on but I don't want to turn it down because there might be someone else in but I haven't seen anyone etc.
We went to the main gay bar here yesterday and tried to get me a job but no luck. I'm gonna search online for English-language theatre groups or something. There should be something like that.

Question Time

Like any self-respecting gay, I got hugely angry at both Nick Griffin and Baroness Warsi upon their mention of homosexuality. I also wanted to high-five the lesbian who stood up to him a bit.
It all starts with the story in the Daily Mail about Stephen Gately where this reporter is pretty much a massive homophobe. (I read the article, she's a bitch.) So the BNP leader and some Conservative woman both basically say that homosexuality shouldn't be taught in schools (she wanted Section 28 back for heaven's sake!) and other stuff but yeah. Being gay makes you sensitive to this shit. I don't remember any mention of homosexuality in primary school but I imagine I wouldn't have spent a decent part of my life feeling slightly fucked up if I'd known what the hell was going on with me. Seeing the reactions (well, opinions, I mean.) of these straight people on that panel (they were all straight, right) is so bloody common. There are very few straight people I think 100% understand what it is to be homosexual. Many people claim they know, but they really, really don't. And if you're straight, reading this, you'll be thinking, "that gay thinks he's special or something"
I don't know what point I'm even trying to make here
I've never felt that anyone straight could possibly understand what it's like. To be fair, I don't have any (wait, let me think... nope) any friends who are straight and part of a minority which is as belittled and whatever as homosexuality is. I'm probably wrong here, but living in Carlisle means there are only white people. or something. basically I'm just angry because everything for everything positive about homosexuality there are x30 fucking internet retards to upset me.

One example: Heinz Deli Mayo
I pretty much did my last media coursework on this advert. It was pulled after I think around 90 complains to Ofcom complaining about the homosexual content and it undermining the typical family or whatever. There are over a thousand comments on this video, and the more recent ones are positive, whereas the comments on this video when it was first posted were extremely offensive. People complained that their kids might see it or whatever and turn gay. Because that happens. The advert was in fact not allowed to be broadcast near kid's TV programs because of the high sugar level or whatever of the product itself. What annoys me the most about this whole thing is that Heins pulled the entire marketing campaign. Stonewall saw this as an insult, as if Heinz were scared to be associated with a gay market. The majority of positive comments on youtube fail to see much of a homosexual connotation to the whole ad. The kids even call the italian chef dude "mum"

Oh, fucking hell. Society has made me unhappy with myself, again.

we'll just say you were never here

Called Jeanne-Marie today, so my parents are gonna give me a lift to Montpellier on Monday. Once I get there, that's it, I'm staying. Awesome. I hope it goes well. Chris hasn't talked to me yet. I dunno. Guilty? or am I just paranoid? Probably both.
So, I'll have to go to Ikea at some point and buy bed stuff . And towels. Maybe plates or whatever as well. Because Chris didn't come, I'm also lacking a toothbrush charger, and enough clothes. Which is all very bad. I know that one was short, but yeah. extended status update or whatever.
I think I'm stuck already on acoustic guitar. I'm not sure where to go next. I've learnt all the basic chords and whatever but I have no idea how to progress from there, with strumming or whatever. Whatever I try and play sounds quite bad. More practice is needed.

Also how many times did I say that word? Is it even a word?

tells me all the ways that he's gonna mess me up

So, Chris can't come any more.
I'm not entirely sure what happened.
It was a mix of something to do with the hire car company and his credit card.
Oh well.
I can't go to Montpellier on Thursday so I'll have to call Jeanne-Marie tomorrow and tell her.
I won't be able to get a lift til next week, and I also won't be able to "just visit", so I dunno how it'll work but I'll just have to turn up and move in. This sucks. I don't know if Chris genuinely couldn't come, but there's the nagging doubt that he didn't want to in the first place. I mean, who misses a train? I never saw any proof of his tickets or anything. I don't know. Also, if anyone wants me to play me in my biopic, get in touch.

calls me up

Not too sure about the new header, really. Thoughts?

I called Jeanne-Marie (the student) from Nicole's (her mum) house to arrange meeting up and my French is appalling. Really, really bad. No small talk because I can't remember how to do it. So, just business. Chris gets here on Thursday and we're going to Montpellier once he gets here, then staying at Jeanne-Marie's house that night. My future house. Poor Chris, won't get any rest. He'll be worn out. Ah well. And hopefully I'll be moving there as soon as possible. I've said I'm not working at the Grau hotel/restaurant for two days, because Chris is here. Oh well.

in an interstellar burst

This place is getting a bit domestic/angry, which is annoying.

Also. I feel, I don't know, stood up or something.
Chris was meant to be coming on the train today, but he cancelled it. But now it turns out he's hiring a car instead, so I should just shut up and stop being paranoid. I treat him like crap, then get angry at him when he steps even slightly out of line. I'm an idiot. Ah. Well.

Tonight I'm going to my neighbour's house to call Jeanne-Marie, which is entirely belated, as I'm hoping to go and visit her in the next few days. If Chris gets here. When he leaves, I'm hoping to go and move in with this student, on the basis of teaching her English while I learn French. No idea about the sort of stuff I'll have to do. I mean, how much it'll cost or whatever. I've heard she has lots of gay friends, though, which is tacky but I'm open to the idea because well I'm a whore.

Also, every time I stand on the scales I get a different weight, but the average seems to be 70kg, which coupled with my height of 185cm gives me a completely average body mass index thingy. Which is good.

But, really

but i'm happy alone, honest

I'm so sore today. It was my last day of working for my dad yesterday and everything hurts. I was on a roof, sweeping it. It took about six hours. Crazy. I also have manly builder hands. Not right.

AND NOOOO I CAN'T WIN EXPERT MINESWEEPER. Seriously. 53 games and I can't do it. That hurts too.

So, I found this course: Acting in Creative Media which is at The Manchester College, which is part of Manchester University. It's a three year course, the first is theory based to weed out the slackers (me), second year seems to be acting, then in the third you create different forms of media (TV, radio, etc.) as part of a small company. I don't know but it seems good, and that's where I want to go, really.

hey paul, hey paul, let's have a ball

So it's like half three and I should have been asleep at least three hours ago because I'm getting up in four hours to go and do manly building work. I've been watching Stargate Atlantis and I can see why it got cancelled after the fifth season. Even though Midway was actually quite a good episode, it was blatantly oh look here's Teal'c from SG1 (tough foreign alien) and Ronan from Atlantis (tough foreign alien) let's put them both together oh and also because this is the last episode before the finale let's put it on Atlantis, a random planet, the midway station, AND Stargate Command oh and a jumper oh and the Daedalus. Hmm. But yeah, still interesting.

I have also discovered Simply Syndicated. Oh my God. It's a podcast network sort of site and it's awesome. I love the sense of humour the different presenters have. My favourite podcast so far is ...or do you think that's just bollocks?
It's exactly the type of non-profit organisation I'd like to be involved in in the future if non-profit was my kinda thing, which it will probably end up being. aha.

race: in

I bought myself an acoustic guitar for €150 last night in Andorra. I think it's an Epiphone but I'm not sure. It's very shiny, though. I'm finding it quite easy to remember the chord shapes but after almost twelve hours of owning an acoustic I haven't quite got the hang of jumping from chord to chord. I'm told it comes quite quickly once you start playing. Cool. I had the worst headache I've had in a while this morning so I didn't go to work with my dad. I got up at about one PM and I've watched a film called Thank You For Smoking which was rather funny, and listened to Thom Yorke's new EP Feeling Pulled Apart By Horses which is different but good. I'm getting bored of this village but I think I already said that before.

Also I can't do barre chords yet! Shame on me.

tell me something that rhymes with pavement

Seriously though, go for Stephen Malkmus when you have a chance. Lyrically he is insane. Neutral Milk Hotel are probably better for lyrics though.
So, Becca and Joe split up. Makes sense and itoldyousoetcetc.
So, Chris is friends with Stuart again, right after I leave. Is that what I do? Stifle people's friendships? Stuart is a fucking creep, though. I don't know what Chris is thinking at all.

Oh, and. I just finished reading The Ring which was a bloody waste of time. I won't bother buying the next part of the story because even the cliffhangar was lame. It seemed like a good book, but the translator I think died or something near the end because it became increasingly more pathetic. The blurb boasts, "Japan's most thrilling new literary star". The translator (I'm guessing) did a pretty shit job at keeping the thrilling part of the book in there. Also. I have been scared by books before. Stephen King and that. This book was in no way frightening. 3/10, purely because it keeps you interested even though it is lame. Dunno how it manages that. Next book I'm reading is by Ian M. Banks. It's called Use of Weapons. It sounds very heavy sci-fi, I'll give it a try.

raindown

Also, facebook in french is better than facebook in english.

stop whispering, start shouting

So, turns out I've finished my first week doing building in France. Tiring and I can't wait to get to Montpellier, which also turns out to be the gay capital of France. Weird, huh? Bought Nathan Pablo Honey and In The Aeroplane Over The Sea for his birthday. He seems to like Radiohead a bit more than Neutral Milk Hotel, but I bloody wish someone had given me those albums when I was 13. Ah well. Chris is taking ages to do his drums for that ice hand! Mathers will also take ages. At least I can (probably) count on Karen!

Radiohead's early music videos were weird.

and chris's drum were neither how I imagined them to be played or high enough quality.

that ice hand

That's what I think I'll call this new music project. That Ice Hand. Has a nice ring to it. I might absorb the Turks work in to that as well. Cheeky me. I look so round in the test video for Chris. My youtube account is called jackandjackorjack. Mathers and Karen are on board, and Chris is recording his drums tomorrow night. I hope he gets it right. This could be something special. Or it could not. Anyway, time to lie down.

hey there mister sweet and awful

So, (if Mathers agrees) I'm hoping to get a proper structure for this song. Also want to get Chris, Chris and Karen to record bits for it on video, then I'll do a mashup with fixed audio. That sort of thing. Too ambitious? I asked Mathers and he strangely hasn't replied.

Ooh, and he replied and said yes. Depends on Chris now!

got caught stealing from the lost and found

I'm in France, by the way. That's why the background in that last video was full of half-built rubbish. Obviously (?) I don't have obsessive compulsive disorder, but my mother pointed out before how many times I wash my hands. While working with my dad today, I kept having to go and clean the sawdust off my hands, even if I was going to dirty them again five minutes later. When I got home tonight, after stroking the dogs or whatever, I'd wash my hands. It's just this place is so dusty. Normal, right?

space rock

Seriously though, I seem to have written something I'm genuinely impressed with.

i've got it all (most)

Chris got a pair of Sennheiser PXC 350 headphones today and is letting me borrow them while at work. Not being able to hear myself type is a bit weird. I've never heard sound quality like it. I want some. And at just over a hundred pounds, why wouldn't I? This Modest Mouse EP thing is amazing with these. You can hear Isaac Brock go, "I just love this shit..." at the start of King Rat. This sort of thing gets me excited.
I'm going to listen to OK Computer and Amnesiac later.

everyone is so near

Today
Done nothing, same as usual. Will go on SMACX soon and listen to Scott Mills.
There's a film night or something at Tom's tonight. Cool.

Tomorrow
Work til four. Seeing Mathers afterwards? With Chris, of course. It'll be all end of the world.

Thursday
Working til four. Until Chris finishes work it will be the same nothing.

Friday
Nothing during the day, will probably see Chris before I go out for a "last drink" with Iain. Might invite Lawson and Bob or whatever.

Saturday
Working til seven (last day at work) then home for packing or whatever. Probably will see Chris although I probably shouldn't.

Sunday
Chris is driving me to Liverpool, I get my flight to Carcassonne. Cool.

Windows 7

Possibly the most lame thing I have ever seen. Skip to the end.

and I miss you when you're around

Spent about two hours getting the text on this just right, for my desktop. I have it on centre so it fits really perfectly. Realised this morning I missed out an 'e'. Fucking hell. And I've rasterised the layers or whatever so I can't edit the text. Sad.

you were laying on the carpet like

I can't play bass today.
Tips of my fingers are sore.
Don't know why.
Also I have the cheapest digital camera.
That's another thing I need.
Well, want.
As well as a Mac.

I'm going to be terribly poor in France.

seen through most of everything

Saw John (my first boyfriend!) after work yesterday. Chris was probably a bit jealous about it, so he picked me up when I got home from seeing John. Strangest time to have a night out. I finished work at four, so we went to Circle Bar, then Fats til about half eight. I staggered home a drunken mess after about four cocktails. Terrible. I'm gonna miss John. Karen's already gone too. Ah well.

Just started watching Paranoia Agent. The files are in bloody .mkv and they freeze all the time because of my shit laptop. The anime itself is good, though. A bit weird. I tried to get Chris to watch Cowboy Bebop but he's not interested. He likes Firefly though. The American Office is way better than the UK one, that took me about five mintues to work out!

The whole thought of blood donation makes me ill anyway, but check this out
http://www.blood.co.uk/pages/flash_questions.html
Turns out if you're gay, you can't donate. Brilliant.

where do we go from here?

Half-sure I've used this blog title before. Andrew has no work for me. I can't be bothered texting Mathers because he hasn't text me, so it doesn't seem too fair.

Called my Mam to ask if she could upload the photos of my band onto Facebook, because I can't find a decent photo of the four of us. Karen left today, by the way. I'm saddened. I finally talked to her as if we both have feelings. It's insane. Mam says that I could move there and work with my Dad in France for two weeks at the start of October and earn €1000. Not bad. I'm not to into manual labour but I am into one thousand euros. Thing is, in the third week of October, I'm meant to be going on holiday with Chris to France. So, three weeks in France? Not sure my new boss will be too happy with that. Should I just move to France now and be done with it? I don't know what to do.

i'm not home

This post is pretty much the same as yesterday. I don't think I can be bothered going to university next year. I don't think I'll be able to move to France as Jeanne-Marie hasn't sent me a message back on Facebook and it has been three days. I really don't know what I want to do with my life yet, which is silly because everyone else has. At least I have my job at the Sportsman, which I should be getting around £100 a week for. Could still do better. I'm going to photoshop something or make a short film or something. Actually I'm gonna text Andrew and ask if he's got any more acting work lined up.

Just realised that the background for this blog only works in my laptop resolution: 1280x800. Oops.

the sky turns grey

I've really got game over at the moment with life. I haven't done much today. Slept in til two, and I'm gonna get a shower then meet up with Chris. That's about it. I watched Stargate: The Ark of Truth, which was quite good. Especially after Unending, which was pretty crap.
I'm stuck in a rut with bass playing. Learning tabs doesn't seem to help any more. I'm stuck at a level of being able to play pretty much all the stuff I want to play. Practising scales doesn't entirely seem to help. I need to get better at writing basslines for our various songs. Oh, the band has slowed down considerably. We don't have anywhere to practice at the moment, which sucks. Karen's gone to uni, which sucks too. This looks so much better in align=justify.

I love how the stuff I read/watch/hear affects my thought process.

United States of Eurasia YA YA YA YA

I'm forcing myself to listen to the whole album. I can't get over how ridiculous the whole thing is. Parts of it are System of a Down, parts of it are Mika, parts of it are just recycled older stuff. The whole thing is a camper imitation of Queen. Basically, it's terrible. Saying this, it deserves a listen. Because (although the music is, of course, highly skilled), it's just lame. The lyrics are amazingly bad.
(it's wrong, it's wrong) It could be right!
2/10, there you go. Muse plain haven't got it any more. Back to your Italian villa, Matt Bellamy.

Bankrupt on Selling

I'm not sure what the video is about, but I love this song.

i couldn't remember if i tried

I've just spent about an hour getting the image to the left to be perfect. It's not perfect.
Radiohead's new song, Harry Patch (in memory of) is affecting me like an emo. It's really sad. Makes me think. I also just realised how amazing Subterranean Homesick Alien really is. There's a lot going on for a song which is mainly in G. I need another band practice. Even though auditioning Jacob as a new guitarist was terrible and embarrasing (17 suddenly seems so young), it was good for the band to practice again. In A And E is coming along nicely. It felt amazing to play Nostalgia again. oh oh oh and click here to listen to our demo, if I haven't already linked it somewhere.
You're all uptight, uptight.

Chris drove me to the McDonald's drive-through, where I paid £2.49 for nine chicken mcnuggets. Appalling. They tasted of cigarettes.

dit pas a ton pere qu'il porte des oeillieres

Listening to Arcade Fire and that song line (tell your father he's wearing blinders) inspired me to come back to this blog. I'm not sure why I've been away so long.
I have a long list of stuff to write about, so I'll try and get it all down no matter what happens.
Going chronologically would be too efficient for me (the intro to Moby's Hotel album just came on shuffle. Awesome.), so this will probably be in the order that things come to mind.

Tonight, I deleted all the "friends" on Facebook who I either don't know or don't care about. Brilliant. Looks like James Harrison deleted me as a friend first though, screw him then. Finally, I won't have to hear from all those gays from Trinity (literal gays, I mean), constantly updating their bloody statuses and bitching at each other. Get a grip.
Workin' on leavin' the livin' by Modest Mouse just came on. Awesome. In heaven, everything is fine.

So, about two weeks ago, myself and Chris (ex-boyfriend kind of) went to France with my little brother to take him back to my parents. Chris enjoyed himself. So did I, for the most part. This sounds gay, but I got some new clothes and that was probably the highlight. Pull and Bear makes me so happy. Amazingly, they don't pay me to advertise them. For the most part of going to France (we drove there and back, by the way. Don't ask why.), I was a grumpy little bastard. I don't know why. Chris just seemed to be really annoying me. I go through cycles of "hey, he's an alright guy really!" to "whatafuckingcuntwhythefuckdoievenbother" every two weeks. Truthfully, after a year of on-and-off dependence on and support from Chris, I don't know what I'd do without him. This reality I am going to have to (and want to) face when I finally get around to moving back to France.

Cuttooth by Radiohead just came on. Don't think I've even heard this one. Woah. It has lyrics that they recycled for Myxomatosis in there. I don't know why I feel so tongue-tied. I don't know why I feel so skinned alive.

Moving back to France. Montpellier, actually. This is because Jean-Marie (parent's neighbour's daughter) lives there, says I can stay with her, and that there's work over there. I haven't managed to talk to Jean-Marie yet, and she updated her status earlier telling Facebook that she's on the dole. So there's really work over there? right. People keep asking me, if I hated France so much, why do I want to move back there? I lived in a village in the mountains. Montpellier is a city bigger than Carlisle by the coast. Massive nightlife. I want to go and work in a bar there.

Talking of working in a bar, I've just got a job in The Sportsman. It's brilliant. Well, if every day is going to be as good as my first day was. They've given me nine hours so far, and that's already three times as much as Franco's gave me on a Saturday. So yeah, I had to quit Franco's, which was tense. Instead of quitting, though, I offered to still work there. What? No. Why did I say that? I now need to go and pick up a P45 or P46 or something in order to not be taxed over the top at the Sportsman or... something.

Outsiders by Franz Ferdinand. Will you still be Camille Lee, Gellar or whatever, yeah?

I'm not doing bar work at the Sportsman yet, though. That's this Saturday. Should be fun. For now I'm preparing food. Exciting stuff. Just put the Pixies album Doolittle on. Awesome.
Got me a movie, I want you to know!

I am fed up. Part of the deleting Facebook friends thing was because of Becca Farrell. What a two faced bloody whore. We were friends. Very loose friends, mind you. She was always I love you etc etc but it didn't mean anything. She's very superficial. Fake and that. And I'm a better actor than her. Sounds bitchy, but I'm annoyed at her. Basically, as part of her performing arts exam, I had to act with her. Neither of us learnt our lines, and we didn't rehearse. It went terribly. I tried to prompt Becca numerous times while we died completely on camera, but she wasn't capable of rescuing herself from stage fright or whatever. Can you guess her version of this story? She came out of the exam crying, got hugs off everyone, gave me a quick glare, let everyone think I'd messed things up for her, and went back into the exam. Rather than let people think she'd done anything wrong, she let them think it was my fault. It wasn't, by the way. Then, at the prom, she came and sat in my lap and was all "I don't blame you, it was my fault etc." Two days later, I text and ask her if she'd like to go for coffee. No reply. Chris Poskett bumps into her boyfriend in town and Joe tells Chris that, and I quote, "after how Becca looked after Jack when he came back to England, it's not right that he'd refuse to rehearse for her drama exam." Basically, this is the bullshit she's been telling everyone. It's not fair, because people will believe her. Not that I care too much what people think about me. (That's what I try to get people to think about me, that I don't care.) Without wanting to sound too emo or anything, everyone bloody cares how other people feel about them. When someone's spreading believeable lies about you, you can't really do much and it sucks.
One person heard my side of the story first. Eleanor. I was talking to her in Concrete. I've known her since childhood. She said she hadn't heard from Becca, and I told her that I hadn't either. She was shocked, after all, Becca was up until two months ago all ilu towards me. We agreed because Becca has her "perfect" (not in my opinion, clearly) boyfriend, and is off to her uni (DD entry grades, thank you) to do (dead-end) performing arts, she's just cut off anyone she doesn't want. Chris has been going on at me since he met Becca about how fake she is, about how she picks and chooses friends. I knew it was true then, but even more now. If I'm being harsh, and anyone dislikes me slightly more in any way, I don't care. She's made me feel bad about myself, and it's completely injust. The whole affair annoys me.

An underwater guy who controls the sea
Got killed by ten million pounds of sludge from New York and New Jersey.

I've been watching Stargate. I'm up to just past halfway on SG1, and level with that on Atlantis. Aspects of it are terrible. Especially Beau Bridges. Fucking terrible actor.

This monkey's gone to heaven.

Yesterday, after barely getting out of bed, (at about 1PM) I got a call from Andrew Elliot asking if I had a suit. I've come to expect this from Andrew. Half an hour later, I was standing outside Carlisle glass in my suit, wearing a huge, uncomfortable dragon's mask. Got a bottle of red wine out of it which I gave to Chris. Should have demanded payment. Anyway, this Dragon's Den parody is supporting some sort of online campaign encouraging people to grow their own vegetables. Andrew said it was bullshit. Probably is. My parents have seen both Echo and the French horror one. They didn't like the latter, but Echo made my mam cry. Cool. Andrew's doing an MA (which is a master's degree, supposedly), so hopefully there will be more acting work for me out there. Should I ask to be paid, or what? It's experience, yeah, and I'm probably not good enough to do paid work so shut up Jack you bloody diva.

Which reminds me. The amount of fucking stuff I did to try and impress James Harrison. I stopped wearing my digital watch. I obsessed over whiter teeth and trainers (both of which never happened). I lied through my teeth about liking bloody RnB music. I put up with Starbucks, camp Ali, him telling me how he liked some black guy off the internet. Me, bitter? no..
I made a friend, though. James introduced me to Iain. Even though he fancies me when we're drunk, he's genuinely a good person. I need to meet up with him again sometime soon.

This is the thing. The only person that I meet up with now (apart from Chris, we see each other every hour that Chris isn't at work. It's usually a relief when he is.) (oh, and Mathers and Karen. That's band stuff, though.) is John. My first boyfriend. We're good friends now, but he goes to uni in about a week. So does Karen. The band will probably break up then. Remind me to write about the band. Because I have, for the last six months, spent about 70% of being awake with Chris, my friendships with other people have withered away. If he reads this, (or when he reads this), he will say to me "Well if you don't want to hang around with me, why don't you stop!" he doesn't realise how suffocating he is, or how dependant I am on him. It's bloody terrible and I can't stand it and I probably love him. It's like Stockholm Syndrome (probably not as severe). On the occasion that I have tried to cease my relationship with Chris, (we're not officially boyfriend and boyfriend, and haven't been since before Christmas or something.) he has texted me non-stop for days, tried to call me etc. It's a never-ending cycle, but because I have noone else, and because, hey, he's an alright guy really, I'm doing it to myself.

Pretty much, I'm also jealous of people going to university. When they leave, although I will have lost only Karen and John, it will be empty here. I won't be happy. Tom's getting extra help from Sue Jones so he can pass his English Language resits so he can get into Leeds, a course which neither of us quite got the necessary grades for. Where I got BCC, and definitely shouldn't have got into Leeds, Tom got ABC, and deserves to go. I don't. I haven't seen Tom very much since we finished school, which is odd, because we live about a hundred meters apart. I haven't seen much of anyone, really. fuck it all.

shut up your mouth and look where it got you

English Language
B
C
B
D
B
C
= C

French
A
A
D
B
U
D
= C

Media Studies
A
B
C
B
C
B
= B

General Studies
U
B
D
= D

Brilliant. Didn't get into my first choice (Leeds, BBB) and my second choice sucks (LJMU, CC), so I'm going to go and live in France. Bye.

i don't know what's good for me

My gran just said "the pepper pot got broke". That's it really.

I had a good day today. This is, before I go to band practice tonight.
I met up with one of my oldest friends, and talked about her feelings. This has never happened. Weird. I felt good about it afterwards though.

two steps on the water

I haven't really kept in touch with anyone from sixth form, and find myself resenting them whenever they talk to each other on Facebook or whatever. I just want to get away. I also wish my band was just that little bit better. Chris, the drummer, is annoying me to no end. And I have to drive to the south of France with this guy. Foxes, along with Peter Jackson's and Debenhams, is among the list of places I can't really go any more. Oh, the Source as well. Purely because of interpersonal relationships with staff. Bah. I want to leave.

what's he building in there?

Added things like Tom Waits and Kate Bush to my iPod.

I had a dream last night which worried me so much that I woke up and needed a hug.
Basically, we were in Belcaire. My immediate family and I. We (me and my dad) were looking at the chalet developments around the valley. There were more mountains and more chalets than irl. There was also a path and some sort of oil pipeline (think The World Is Not Enough). We went for a walk up the hill. The pipe was blackened in parts, where youths had set fire to it or something. For any reason, this was not so worrying. As we approached the summit or the mountain, there were stone steps with a handrail. A blond boy with tanned skin, who looked about eight or nine walked down past us, without saying anything. My brother tried to get him to talk, and the rest of us carried on up the hill. Nathan started to get really agitated about the boy not talking, and that's the last I remember of Nathan in this dream. Shortly after this, six or seven boys and girls who looked identical to the first boy walked past us, without talking. This worries us (my parents and me), and then an old woman, strangely similar to these children, walks up to us, tells us something about the children (not entirely sure what), then carries on in the opposite direction.

I think I woke up around here, then drifted back into the dream, as we were suddenly inside a long corridor inside some hospital like building. We continued walking in a straight line, and my dad had disappeared. My mother was clutching at my arm, crying. The haunted figures in the rooms to our right were wailing, begging us to come into the rooms. My mam was tempted but I told her no, and we continued walking. For some reason we both gave in at one point (this is after walking through an indoor war zone, with foreign soldiers fighting each other), and entered a sort of hospital ward/military hospital where some Korean (?) medic stabs us with hypodermic needles. After a few hours of this torture, I somehow grab my mam and get out of there, but somehow she disappears too.

The dream ends when I see a swimming pool to the left. It is full of sad people floating, with old WW1 style mines floating about. The pool room glows red. Two female nurses, one black, one white, in blue uniforms, pin me down in the short corridor before the pool. I can see the long corridor stretching way further than I could have gone. My whole family have failed, and we don't even know why. As I struggle, kicking and thrashing about, the nurses spray me with stinging sort of washing up liquid bottles, the kind with the spray nozzle thing on the end. And that was the end. I'm not sure why all this was so terrifying, but it was.

we'll start the congregation

I've been awake for about 30 hours. Just saying.
I keep talking to myself without realising. And I keep noticing small things which don't matter.
We're going round to our singer's house tonight to further discuss the future of the band and other stuff. He likes apologising and he's probably an extremely easy person to read. Come on, though. My eyes are heavy and that. I'm meant to be going for a meal, then going to Mather's house to play PS3 and band talk and I'm not going to survive that long. This is killing me. All in pursuit of a decent night's sleep, for once. After that the cycle will start over. See, cycle.

try the best you can

Shamelessly plugging my demo left, right, and indeed centre. I just discovered the band Television. Where have I been the last thirty years?This poster went up in Rainbow Music this morning. Again, I'm too proud of anything text-based I make with photoshop, and too angry at little things which look slightly wrong. ie, the gap in the middle.

cuyahoga, it's gone

This is the proper actual image we used for the demo. Printed 50 copies of it out at Staples and everything. I would highly recommend: excellent service, high quality, low cost.

again again again again again

Demo is finished. Thank God.

we've got arguements and they've got guns

I watched Children of Men last night. Fucking amazing.
After going for a drink with Iain, I went to the camp guy from the Source's house.
Not great. The demo is taking bloody ages. It will be worth it though, I'm sure!
We're called The Turks now, not Reno. Probably...

If you stand in a circle, you'll all have a back to bite

Missed opportunity:
Should've asked the hot guy who served me a doughnut for his number. He had blonde hair, kept eye contact, and smiled. Shame he lives like 200 miles away.

On the way back from Alton Towers, Chris's car broke down. We had to wait in the cold and wet, in wet clothes, then get a train from Penrith to Carlisle.

I'm probably sick of Chris now.

As I typed that, I got a text.
I am sorry for been an idiot last night to you. I know it was my fault. You do know I am quite insecure. So I was wondering if would like to do something on friday night.
Bastard. Fucking bastard.

would you just let me know how

We've been recording our demo for bloody ages. It's painful.
Olive rented us his electronic drum kit for £25. We've finally got all the drums.
Tracks are as follows: (probably)
Nostalgia
Not A Killer
Second Attempt At Flying
The Silence
Amber Light (as a bonus. We've never played this together as a band!)
Untitled Still (bonus bonus. a song which I recorded last night with the singer of our band!)

We also had another little fight with Sawn Off Idol. Basically, they'd switched Chris's kettle lead for one that didn't work, so we took it back. Got a call off Matt, with his faux-American accent, "Look man, I'm not blaming you or anything.."

i will enjoy this silence

'cause I'm not a killer!
Gig was amazing. We need more songs.
We have both a MySpace and Facebook page now, so I dunno how to get there.
myspace.com/renotheband I think
and for facebook, I think you just have to search for reno
or something. Seems loads of bands have that name, so we probably need another.

Our setlist was:
Not A Killer, with the awesome drum+bass intro
Where Is My Mind? (Pixies cover)
The Silence, which was probably terrible. Couldn't hear anything. My ears felt like they were bleeding.
Psycho Killer (Talking Heads cover)
Nostalgia, which probably was the best song. Couldn't help but smile.
Second Attempt At Flying. I don't like ending with this, because it's too nice and it's a pop song.

Plus, we need a longer setlist next time. Our support act were nice, but not my cup of tea.

true love waits in haunted attics

Was at open mic at the Source Arts Café last night. People were playing instruments and I felt a bit left out. So I say to Helena, the manager, "How long is it til we're headlining?", meaning my band. She goes, "I'm leaving on Thursday. How does this Saturday sound?"
So we're playing on Saturday. woo.

do you need a lot of what you got to survive

I feel weak from hunger and I'm finding it hard to make myself something to eat.
Oh, this life is hard.

i just wanna know you're alright

Just went into the pub next door and asked for a job. I've never felt so brave.
Actually. When I got £200 out at a cash machine in Denton Holme (at like, 2PM) to pay for a new amp, with all those chavs about...
There were about five old men in the Thistle. I said to one of them, "Is Fly about?" Fly being the owner. The man replied in the affirmative. Fly appeared after a few seconds. I inquired about work. He told me two students who had returned from uni had taken the only available hours. Bloody students.

I only get three hours a week at Franco's, despite asking constantly for more.
I considered asking for a job in Simply Drinks, but they've taken the help wanted sign down.
I need to try harder. This is someone who would like various film equipment, or a mac with final cut. If my band gets more gigs, we could make probably a fiver each every fortnight...

mysterons

I've just discovered Portishead.
Oh, and I want to play with my band again really badly.
We're still called Reno.

i need this place to reminisce

Source was fucking awesome. Going back next week. I feel like a bassist.
It stank a bit of cheese though. Not great.
Some ginger cunt attacked one of my friends, so we're leaving the practice room.

you can't take the sky from me, since i found serenity

Pretty much watched all of Firefly. I can't believe how good it is. It's a hybrid of western and sci-fi, and it's really well done. I also can't believe it was cancelled after 14 episodes. In the words of Editorial Writing Pack #1 (Twin Peaks) June 2009, "We all know great TV doesn't last too long."

Also. Work won't give me any more hours, so I'm stuck inside with nothing to do.
I'm thinking film project.

Oh, and, I'm playing at the Source tomorrow night. If all goes well, we become a regular house band. Fucking awesome.

---------------------------------------------antistar

That would be a better name for our band than Reno. We were actually embarrassed to say it last night. After some getting lost in the countryside, we turned up to a barbecue at a farm, which we'd assumed was full of people from Trinity. It wasn't. So we covered a few terrible songs (that one by Feeder about a CD player, [sexually ab]Use Somebody by the Kings of Leon). Damn I hate those bands. That seemed to be the mood of the night, really. We left when it got too cold. We need a proper gig. I might be buying a decent amp, at last. Chris needs a proper drum kit though. And we need our own practice room. Did I mention that Sawn-Off Idol are a bunch of children? (Family members excluded, of course).

By the way, the guy in the pink, and the guy in the yellow were just trying to play instruments. Our drummer was being useless and said he couldn't play bongo drums.

she was talking with a silver lisp

Prom was meh. The "Bulldog's", the DJs with the annoyingly misplaced apostrophe, were old men who think cheap dance music is what the kids like nowadays.
Went to Walkabout with some people I don't really care for, then lost them all. Then waited with some people outside Lloyds, before going to Concrete.
As I got there, Bohemian Like You by The Dandy Warhols came on. I fucking danced and danced and danced. Good night.

holland, 1945

Finished school.
What now?

psycho killer, qu'est-ce que c'est?

French is such a complicated language.
qu'est-ce is pronounced kess
que is pronounced kuh
c'est is pronounced say
Honestly.

I had a film idea while in town this morning, so I wrote it down on a bus ticket.
It's a shame my camera is shit. I need both a mac and a HD camera if I'm going to succeed in life.
My two plot lines, which will be edited together, are these:
1. Four older women, around their 60s, chatting around a table, drinking coffee. Lots of possibilities, probably a darker, serious sex and the city type thing. Postmodernism and that.
2. Four male students who share a flat. But one of them is just pretending to be a student, and is really just sponging off the rest, using their cheque books, etc. It's not the end of the world, this came from our debate about the "high stakes" nowadays. £2000, is that much worth dying for?

we're always looking at a different picture

Ben: The Gucci ad. I can't believe how many times I've seen it and not known it was him! The Blondie music works perfectly. I think it looks pretty much like drugs.
Echo, that short film, is entirely clichéd. It's not amazing. They said they were doing a longer version, but I still have no lines. My talent is wasted!
http://www.youngfilm-makers.coop/
I saw a misprinted link in the News and Star about this, so it's unlikely that any other Cumbrians will enter! Not sure how relevant it is, but perhaps worth checking out.

Started watching Twin Peaks and Firefly.
Oh, and I went "grumpy" on my exishboyfriend again. Awesome.
And. Toulouse is actually a lot closer to my parent's village than I thought: it only takes one and a half hours to drive there, and there's a train from Toulouse to Ax-Les-Thermes, which is only half an hour from my parents. Brilliant. The end is within my grasp!

inertia creeps, moving up slowly

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Alo2pAf2bGU
This advert always worried me a bit, now I know why:
David Lynch.

crawling through, alleyways and hallways

I'm back in to Massive Attack.
I have loads of spots because I've been eating quite badly recently, something which needs to stop.
I'm reading a book. Debatable Space. It's amazing.
I watched half a film, Inland Empire. I can't believe how creepy that film is. Something about David Lynch. I just did an exam on Twin Peaks, too. Question 1.
I need more music on my iPod. I just downloaded The Eraser by Thom Yorke again, that album is fantastic. There's something strangely similar about all these sentences. This is what two and half hour exams do to you.
I'm worried what's going to happen to me when I finish my exams. This is next Thursday. Have I outstayed my welcome?

sometimes i'm angry that i feel so angry

www.virginmediashorts.co.uk/films/film/echo/
Some quality acting right there.

clocks go back, railway tracks

Day three of bass withdrawal.
It was making an amazing crackly noise when I plugged it into the amp, so I took it to Rainbow. I heard they take ages to fix anything. I'm worried.

arrest this man, he talks in maths

Jon Richardson is brilliant. Who are you, the yoghurt police?
Solitaire. It's taking me over. I see sevens and eights when I close my eyes.
What else isn't too great is that it's a bit hot, and school is almost over. What am I meant to be doing on my gap year?
Oh, and, I finished watching series 4 of Stargate, leaving me with nothing to do when I'm bored now. Could revise, but what's the point in that? Bloody hell.

laugh if you can't find me

Filming got cancelled tonight because of the weather. I really enjoyed myself, running around Silloth beach in the 1950s! I'm aching like hell from giving a girl a piggy back though. I'm not built to carry a woman. Plus. That is the longest kiss I've ever done with a girl. Just wrong.

i got up, remembering to thank him

I'm currently watching Dark Matter, a film about some Chinese student studying under an American professor. It's a typical student-getting-better-than-teacher-therefore-teacher-despises-student's-skill type thing. Meryl Streep is in it, too. It's got all the lovely scientific language in it, as well as a whole linguistic Chinese element. It has a lot of the lonliness of genius sort of despair thing, as well as the awkwardness imposed by cultural differences. I'll update this when I see the end of it. I think it got about 6/10 on IMDB.
I watched the Manchurian Candidate yesterday and there seem to be a lot of films involving Meryl Streep in intergenerational relationships. Well, technically it was only hinted in both films, and it was incest in the Manchurian Candidate, but hey.

Okay, so I've never seen such a relatively calm film end like that.

she was gone with a cinematographer

But everyone knew he was really a pornographer.

If you can't tell what my photoshop style is yet, this poster from months ago will help. Shit, and I can't spell Pixies.

and if they ever find me, tell the papers

Bah. I'm so ill today. Not properly ill, but enough to justify lying in bed all day.
I did some media work though. This was a film trailer/ad campaign thing that I did for my coursework resit. The image, when the print room got their hands on it, came out about as big as two stamps. The quality is absolutely terrible, though. Not sure why.

if everybody's here, then hell knows we ride alone

This is me trying to logically work out where the direction of my band's film project is going. In the top-left corner, there is a box labelled Introduction and Dream Talk. As you can see, by following any branch I seem to end up at time travel. The most interesting thing that arose from this method of planning was: my character needs some sort of subplot. This is possibly quite interesting.

The film I'm acting in is about an old man who gets attacked while visiting his wife's grave. I play one of the school kids who attacks him. Oh, and I play a younger version of the old man in a flashback. I haven't read the script yet, but that's not important, as I have exactly one line in the whole thing.

Amazingly, I was recommended due to my performances in some of the AS media projects I acted in last year. I bet it was my convincing junkie role.

standing by the grey ice water

Still have the Concrete stamp on my hand, twice. Had an awesome birthday. I drank solidly for fourteen hours but managed to never be totally drunk.

I've been recommended to act in a film. That is bloody amazing. I'm meeting up with the guy and his girlfriend tomorrow to discuss my acting role. I'm so excited.

got dirt got air got water

and I know we can carry on! The Good Times Are Killing Me by Modest Mouse.

The song lyrics in my last post were from Franz Ferdinand, hope you're not disappointed!

I got a birthday card off the Tories this morning, I was quite touched but then realised everyone gets one. My gran knows the guy on the back, and described him as one of the "slimiest, most grotesque, evil" people she has ever met. Awesome.

i may be lonlier now

But I'm happy alone, honest.
It ain't lonely alone.
Oh, what would we talk about anyway?

Awesome, I love that band.

Had my French oral exam this morning, I've never been so underprepared for an exam.
I want a double bass.
We came up with tons of ideas about the Project. It's about time travel, but not.

we are accidents waiting waiting to happen

My camera won't work, so this is the opening scene to our film.

"I had this dream...
we were all there, you remember?
There were people fighting.
I don't know why. A
woman with sore joints-
arthritis, isn't it? She
couldn't carry her shopping.
There was this man. His
ex-wife had used some
legal thing to take their
kid, but she was just
making him ill. What's
that thing called?"

"Munchausens by proxy."

"Oh right. Well.
They were fighting.
One of them said
let us out
or we want out or something. I don't really get it.
I thought you might."

This is my thought process.

the good times are killing me

So, we've come up with this thing. It's a band thing. It's called The Project.
It's basically a film, which we're going to film, edit, act in, and create a soundtrack for. Mathers is gonna hate this idea, but the rest of us are genuinely excited.
I wrote the opening scene already. My camera needs charged, but I'll post it in the morning if I remember.

and we are standing on the edge

You know when people don't listen? Fucking bloody hell.
Plus, I'm lazy and don't work.

you stare into the dark, the dark will stare back

I'm not really a conventional sort of guy.
I've told family and stuff I don't really want anything for my 18th.
A barbecue, or a meal. A haircut. That's it really. Company.

I had a general studies exam today. Two in fact. What a fucking waste of time.

it's hard to remember we're alive

It's my birthday next Saturday. Awesome.
This is annoying. I don't know what to say.
Ugly Cassanova are great for experimentalism.
Oh. I acted with Becca in front of my year at 6th form, in the cathedral. Got loads of laughter. I was born to be an actor. Other stuff. I just got added by some random gay. Scary.

don't get any big ideas, they're not gonna happen

that's been edited out
Can pretty much play Ulysses, learning Paranoid Android.

Lead singer knows me and the drummer used to be in a relationship.

Went to Houghton Hall, where I used to work. Bitch supervisor was there. Very, very hot latino looking guy. Tanned, spiked black hair, thin, with muscled arms. Probably called Alejandro.

climbing up the wall, i'll be there

finalised my application for uni today. My choice is Leeds, which wants three Bs, and LJMU, which wants two Cs. Great. Wish I'd chosen Manchester.
While rushing for school at half one today, I heard Green Day's new song on Radio 1 (I know..). Know Your Enemy is not only telling Americans to hate the Muslims living in their towns (or any foreigner living near them), but it sounds as bland as the entire American Idiot album was. tl;dr: green day suck.

You have not been
Paying attention
Paying attention
Paying attention
Paying attention

sounds like me.
Reno has a whole four songs which are finished, pretty much. Not A Killer, Nostalgia, the Silence and Tu Mantes. Amazing. We've still got The Vixen to work on, as well as Gentle Biscuits and Show Me Round The World. Being in a band is fucking fantastic compared to sixth form.
Which reminds me, Radiohead are amazing. We're lucky to have them. Look at me, completely brainwashed. Okay, Neutral Milk Hotel. How can something so overtly Christian affect me in the same way? affect or effect. That's going to kill me.

I got Season 4 of Stargate. Looking forward to watch that.
I was in Glasgow on Sunday. Lots of my family were there and my gran introduced my ex to everyone as my boyfriend. That sort of thing doesn't make me too happy. I need to distance myself from him. Which, I seem to have done. Neither of us are at work or school, and we're not together. Something like this hasn't happened for months. There has been a complete lack of any sort of intimacy between us. We're going to fall out soon. This relationship is fucking mental.

everyone is so near

Walked down to school in the wet only to find that my lesson has been cancelled. We've got, what, three weeks til exams?
I asked Olly about the theatre group (in my nervous, stuttering, idiot voice) and he basically said "Don't call us, we'll call you." Great.
Anyway, I miss sci-fi. Trying to get my hands on season 4 of Stargate right now.
I might see if Tom's PS2 is working, but my gran dropped it a few days ago, so I won't get my hopes up.
Maybe I'll have to audition for Olly and Danny. That speech near the end of series 3 of the League of Gentlemen is amazing. I'm gonna look for it.

this one's a doctor, this one's a lawyer

We're doing the cockroach, yeah.
Forgot to wake up this morning and it's actually better for me to be ill than late. Amazing, how this system works. Oh well. New Lost is out today. I might watch it and not wait for my "partner". Hmm.

Watched Lost.
And I was listening to Jonathan Ross's podcast, he was interviewing some actor. I want to get back in to acting. Some guys from the year below are performing the rape scene from Blasted by Sarah Kane, I'll try and get in touch with them. They were talking about making a theatre group. That would be pretty awesome to join. I miss acting so much. Becca wants me to be in the end of term assembly with her and do some shitty duologue. As if.

is she weird? is she white?

This is gonna be the first time I've slept in my own bed in about five weeks.

but last night was wild

Just watched Primer. That was a fucking confusing film.
Time travel does that, though. Well, in most stuff apart from Doctor Who.
By the way, the premise of Star Trek Voyager is amazing. It's similar to BSG, but they're trying to get back to their own people, after being teleported 70,000 lightyears from Earth or something. I wanna watch that again. Stargate is good too. Might download a couple of series.
I want to
I want to be someone else or I'll explode.

i don't know why i feel so tongue-tied

Watched Batman Forever in media studies today, I forgot how good/bad that film was!
Finally learned Wolf At The Door, Myxomatosis AND a new song by Franz Ferdinand, I've come so far!
Edie Britt. Bloody hell. I'm glad she's dead. But that follow up episode was abysmal. I can't believe how bad it was. Also, how disappointing Heroes has become. I hope 24 and Lost are still up to scratch.

it's for your own good, it's for the neighborhood

What should I do for my 18th? Parents keep asking me. They live in south france, by the way.
Went to supervised study for two hours today, sat and did crosswords and barely any French. I bet I fail that A Level, then there's me with only two A Levels. Great.

i'm gonna eat you alive i'm gonna eat you alive

there is only one way out
there is only one way out
there is only one way out
this is the only way out, follow us.
follow us or be left behind.

seems that's how the world works these days.

everything's burning down, we'd better dig it up somehow

Bonus points if you can guess what song that is without using google!
I have two hours of supervised study today at 1PM.
I've been sitting at a desk on here since 9 this morning, why do I have to walk into school to sit at a different desk for two hours? pfft. It annoys me.
Radiohead are nice too
Going out for a little drive, and it could be the last time I see you alive.
Killer Cars seems to mean a lot to me. I did spend a lot of being a 14 year old driving round France with leather seats and no air conditioning. Ouch.
Foxes are having a vintage tea party tonight, awesome.

well bet you are now, boy

I painfully finished my essay (mostly), only to find that the deadline has been moved forward to Wednesday. Great. At least I got a morning off.

one wing wasn't even enough

I play bass in a band called Reno. Myspace tells me there's another band called Reno, anyway we're Reno UK. A long time friend and her boyfriend came to watch us rehearse, so we played the only two songs we've finished for them, and it was great, they loved them. Our singer was bloody grumpy about it all though. Oh well.

I'm taking the morning off school (oh, and I started this post last night) to do homework. Which is a bit backwards, really. I was reading through my old English coursework, which I might edit and post here in shorter segments. It really is great. Well, I think it is. It's sort of the end of a story to work back on.

At the moment, I'm doing media work. It's coursework, it's due in at 1PM today, and it needs finished. It's about gay rights and representation of homosexuality in the media. Great.

So, when I finish sixth form I'm taking a gap year before uni. I have no idea what I'm doing for a year. None at all.

nice heart in a white suit

I have fifteen minutes before I set off to work, so I thought I'd post something. After my post this morning, I went back to Gaiaonline, a site which I was obsessed with about three years ago. One which I haven't even looked at properly since then. Lots of my old internet friends are on there, but a lot of them seemed to have forgotten about me. They were talking about old members they never see any more, and I wasn't even on the list. I guess either I didn't leave a lasting impression, or I'm too much of an oldbie to be remembered. Hey, I remember go-gaia and the original layout.
I left a couple of posts, in the vain attempt that people might recognise me, but hey. I shouldn't be going anywhere near sites like that (or like this!) or facebook or whatever until all my exams and coursework are finished.

I'm hoping for (at least!) daily posts on this site. I like a place to vent and that sort of stuff.
Modest Mouse are beautiful.
I needed a roadmap to find out where you lived, so excited about sleepwalking.
My love life at the moment is a bit weird. I dumped my ex probably last november, where I got a period of not seeing him for a month. I really didn't like him. He was too clingy (I'm 17 haha) and everything about him annoyed me! In what, February, I stopped chasing after this other guy I liked, because he wasn't at all interested, with good reason probably. Since then, I've pretty much been "best friends" with my ex, and in everyone's eyes but my own he is now my boyfriend, again. I'm still looking for someone else, it just seems convenient to have him there. I do like him a lot, though. It's silly. Anyway, need to get changed for work.

I loved him then I and still love him now. There won't be anything that will ever change that. I don't understand it. We both made mistakes, and there are still a great deal of things I dislike about him. But even now, in the future, in 2010, I still love him.