Prospects

Isn't it funny how a day can change quite a lot? Yesterday, or more accurately Tuesday morning, I had just got up and was expecting another day of dullness and disappointment, as you do, and as I got up [I seem to getting into good sleeping patterns at last] at 10 am, I figured anything that happened today would be good. Now, as you should know if you're keeping up with my blogging, I've been constantly on the lookout for a good job. I found something on the internet which looked intriguing to say the least, so I picked up the phone and rung up.

The lady on the other end seemed very pleasant when I told her what I was after and she asked me a few questions and said she was happy to invite me down for the initial interviews. Inside I was thinking 'Yes!' and when she told me the times for interviews, which were today or Thursday, I figured I'd be keen and tell her the today one would be fine. As soon as I got the information and put the phone down I thought about things, and something stuck out to me as worrying; I have no smart clothes! I had a shower, picked out a shirt and some trousers from my wardrobe but knew they wouldn't do. I had just over 2 hours til the interview, so I got in the car with loads of stuff and headed to the local retail park. Went to about three shops before I had my stuff picked out and I had some smart clothes for £24 because of discounts. Also, might as well mention this, but for some reason I got a 20% discount instead of the regular 10%. I think it was a cashier error, but I didn't say anything and neither did he. That was a nice piece of luck.

I drove down to my dads and changed there, did my hair some and then made my way to the office. Boiling hot and me wearing black wasn't a great combination, but I did the best with it. Because the offices were under renovation, didn't find the office straight away but eventually did. Greeted by the woman there, and basically had to fill out a load of application forms. Eventually we talked about work expoerience and the actual job and then she delights me by telling me I am being put forth for the job! Interview is on tuesday and job starts the week after, if I get it. I'm resting so much on this job though, so if I don't get it I'm gonna be screwed :s And to put an extra boost into my day, my friend texted me and told me that the BBQ he'd been planning for the last few days, WAS going to be tonight after all, so I went and had a great time! Just don't tell anyone we dropped one of the sausages... :D

So moving on to the real reason you came here, the video of the day. I'm going straight into it; here is the dude with the brush, Bob Ross. Even if you have to just put it on in the background, do it because his voice is so soothing it's mad. Shame he passed away though :(



Comedy bonus video!


Done, now because I love you all so much, I'm going to give you another special photo of myself. You may only view it as long as you promise not to stalk me.


Me and my good friend Catherine a.k.a Cat from the hit radio show duo Sam and Cat.

Something only remotely amusing from the BBQ yesterday. I pull up in my loud car to the house, and just as I am getting out, my phone rings.
"Hey dude, we're having a BBQ today."
"Oh really? I'd love to come, just gimme a second to get there."
"A second? I thought you lived..."
And then I walk into the garden. Muahaha! Nearly as bad as me sitting in my room and getting a phone call from my mum's mobile.
"Hey Russ, are you over your dads?"
"No, why, where are you?"
"I'm in the house... why?"
And then I step into the lounge where she is standing and bursts out laughing. Muahaha!

And finally a music choice for the day. I've been trying to find this band, and the closest I've come is amazon, but can't be bothered to pay their prices because they're so ridiculously high. I've decided to buy the album off iTunes but I don't feel right without getting a CD. Anyway, said band is called The Trews and they're a funky blend of rockpop and alternative.

And finally a link of the day, which is becoming more and more of stretch to keep calling it that due to my manic update schedule. Maybe I'll call it simply 'Link of the ___' and put today's day in the blank. Or maybe, just maybe, i've though too much about this and nobody cares.

Which Celebrity do you look like?

Anniversary

10th post already? My, time does fly when you're writing for a blog. This is true for real life too, as I've actually forgotten what I've been doing for the past few days. Must have either been so brilliant that I haven't been able to take it all in... or such a bore. Yeah, that sounds about right. Tomorrow for me is going to be the day for objectives, and I'm setting myself tasks that must be done else find myself wallowing in a pool of unfinished business.

I'll cut to the chase then as usual. I have two videos to share with you, but I'm deciding which one to show. On one hand, we have a guy who has a cool if slightly mainstream talent doing his thing, but on the other hand we have some music videos which will make you laugh your damn socks off. They're completely cheesy, made for a kids tv show, but my bet is you'll be humming the theme tune on your work break, and busting to tell somebody but not doing it because it's slightly embarassing. I think I've made up my mind now, so without further ado, here are the Lazytown songs.

Lazytown - Cooking By The Book


Lazytown - You Are A Pirate


I'm sorry.

Anyway, I did get an e-mail from one of my internet people that I know with regards to a certain snack swap. Ok, a bunch of internet goons all decided that we'd share our local sugary goodness, so we set up this e-mail address where one guy pairs up people from different countries and we get to send each other stuff for each other to eat. I've already heard all the jokes about Anthrax and the terrorists sending me stuff, and I am prepared to risk it. I'll just make sure to dust it off the chocolate before I eat it.

Picture time. This was taken in Washington DC [yes indeed I have been to the US] and the biggest thing about this trip was that I went alone. I actually made an interesting blog for my journey, updating it daily or as close as I could get. I didn't name it interesting myself, other people have told me it is. There's some cool information in there, some random stranger who was intending to travel there himself had found my blog and congratulated me on my normally not found elsewhere information. Hooray for me! Back to the picture story though, this was taken along the Mall in DC, or just off it but I do not remember where exactly. I know I've linked you to the page where you can see all the photos but I'm just going to highlight this anyway. I call it 'Paradise'



I haven't had a chance to listen to much music today because I've felt a little claustrophobic in my room and decided to give it a break for today. [I say that, yet I'm back in here now and have been for an hour or so] I would suggest you, like me, go back and listen to some of your favourite tunes for now. I'll be back with some new music tomorrow for you. And having thought about it briefly, I already know what that will be. No, I'm not going to use that one for this blog because that would mean not having one for tomorrow.

Job hunting sucks ass, I'd better e-mail my CV to the lady who requested it today. Maybe this is good news, or maybe this is bad news. Who knows. I'll be off on the hunt for more tomorrow, though my search is looking grimmer every passing day.

And finally a link for today. It's a bit lame actually, because it's probably one of the big three websites you go to when searching for music or games or DVD's. There's Amazon, Play and...

Cd-Wow

Just....

Today, or rather yesterday, has been another uneventful day. Except that in some ways that would interest very few of you out there, it has been. Of the most noteworthy is that i got accused of being insensitive. I won't go into the details because it's actually quite a private issue and those involved would certainly object to me broadcasting it to strangers on the internet, but suffice to say I assured them it was a misunderstanding on their behalf because of a mistake on my part. Anyway, it's all been sorted now, as has the [i]disagreement[/i] me and my sister had yesterday [she and my brother have gone to somewhere in England because a mutual friend of theirs, who is younger than me and is pregnant, is having a birthday bash and so intend to celebrate big style, but hopefully not too big style because of the whole being pregnant thing, phew!] although she did understand the situation and then I did agree I had some part in the wrongdoing, but it's been sorted now. I can't believe I basically started off a whole post with a list of stuff I've argued about, that's quite sad.

Onto less depressing stuff, I have recieved some information from a great friend who reads this blog, and she has given me a number to a recruitment agency who should be able to hook me up with a paying gig! That's a job to those who don't get my weird way with words. Ooh, alliteration! Talking of grammatic coincidences, yesterday I was explaining how all I had to do with my student loan application form [yep, that's right. I have only just sent mine off, 2 months late. Better late than never though!] was to sign it, seal it, stamp it and send it, and it came out as exactly that with all the s's. It felt like a sitcom, or not at all like one.

Oh yes, [b]terrible[/b] news for me yesterday! Some guy rings the house up and asks for Mr _______. I answer I was a Mr _______ and who was calling, and he tells me he's from the Carmarthen camera centre. I think "Ok, this is either good news or bad news" because not so long ago I took my camera to the beach [and got that awesome pic of Three Cliffs Bay a few posts ago] and my sisters friends who I got along with came too. Actually, what's more accurate is I came along with them. Anyways, I lent my camera to one of them, and when they gave it back to me, it had sand everywhere in it, so thought "A simple dig around will get all this out" but nope, when I tried to get it out, I heard it rattling around inside the thing too. Making it worse, the lens wouldn't come out when I put it on shoot mode, and this horrible grinding noise was heard. He offered to pay for the costs to repair but I said "nah, it'll be all right, won't cost much to get sand out." Took it to the camera centre, paid £25 as a sort of holding fee, which would wither go towards the cost of fixing it if it needed fixing, or would be refunded if it didn't cost that much etc, so figured £25 about right. The phone call though, this is where it gets bad. "I just got off the phone with the camera centre, and they've given me a price. It's £60 for parts..." Oh. F&*£ing. God. "And £40 for labour/laser..." he said something else after this but i was too shocked to hear it. "...so that comes to £117.50. Now what do you want me to tell them, shall I tell them to go ahead and do it?" "Um, err, I'll have to check on this because I'm not in a great monetary position right now [a.k.a I'm skint] so would you mind if I called you back in a day or two?" "No problem, here's the number etc. Bye." My best bet now would be trying to get in touch with my sis' friend and asking him for a bit of help, because as well as him already offering, I can honestly say I would never have let it get in that state and it was because he had gone exploring. Though I will feel extremely bad asking him for the money, but most of all, that camera has sentimental value because I got it when travelling in America. Overall [b]terrible[/b] news.

Ok, going on though I've got an extremely, I would say, special video of the day! Ok don't panic, it's not three videos of the day, it's one video split into three. Get this though, it's an actual pilot episode for a TV show in America. Best do a bit of explaining for this one. It started off as a pilot for the 2005-06 season, and it was created by the WB [no longer exists, well as of September anyway when it joins forces with some other channel, UPN?, and becomes the CW]. It didn't make it past the pilot, so all was forgotten. Except some dudes on youtube dug it up and uploaded it. Now, after becoming a sort of minor success on the site, it has now been picked up for 6 episodes by none other than NBC, a rival network to CW. The program is called Nobody's Watching [The joke you're thinking of is already done in the piulot :D] and now you may watch it, entirley legal i think, on the following videos. Enjoy!





Musically, I really love this song and bought it on iTunes today. The bands good too. The Calling - Dreaming In Red. Also good is Idle Sons - Little Bit Less. I hope you're listening to these songs, there's nothing worse than not even trying out new music!

My pic of the day is this random picture taken of a famous London landmark. A bonus point if anybody can comment with the right landmark!



And todays' link of the day is pretty much about justice. It's a good feeling to know that people are out there trying to bring justice to sick perverts like those featured on this site. It's also highly disturbing to read things that they say, so maybe only click on this link if you don't have a weak stomach.

Perverted Justice

Tired

I know the best cereal ever! It's called Jordan's Country Crisp Honey Clusters, and I have a big box of it next to me right now, it's so good you might just become an addict. It's oaty goodness! Now you know what you'll be having for breakfast tomorrow morning, I'm going to move onto the main body of this post.

First a lovely picture for you. On July 2nd, I went to see the Red Hot Chili Peppers in concert. This wasn't only a big deal to me because come on, the Chili Peppers in concert, but it was my first concert ever! I've been to this local concert type thing called Party in the Park before, where all these cheesy pop bands play a couple of songs each, but it was nowhere near the same. I've never seen anything like it before, and it just makes me want to go to a lot more concerts in future. Any suggestions anyone? Anyway, this picture was basically the aftermath for one of the more intimate audiences [being so small a stadium compared to Millenium Stadium say]


Onto news type stuff. The weather sucks a lot compared to a couple of days ago, but honestly, I'm actually quite happy that I'm able to sit in my room without sweating a pint a minute because of the heat. Not being a typical Brit and moaning about the weather, I am happy whatever the weather is because each type has a bonus, but it is a relief that it's ended... for now. And something quite relevant to this weather news, is my plan for tomorrow. A few of us will be going to have a BBQ in a park or a beach. That depends on how windy it gets, because my sister had a beach BBQ and ate more sand than food in the end. Yes, invited a few a friends to do it and all of a sudden it's out of my hands and I'm simply an invitee. Similar thing happened with the househunting I did for the next year of Uni. One day I was leading the group, next day I wasn't. Sometimes it's better that way, but as the house situation proved, sometimes it isn't.

Apparently my mum scored the best deal yet with regards to her slow takeover of Cwmgwili and Capel Hendre [joke]. She has been making lots of friends over the years, and as a result of this is getting more and more land loaned or freely lent to her, and the best one she now owns is the field surrounding the sides and rear of our house. She has moved all of the horses into there now and yesterday my sis went riding around it. The foal is extremely friendly now, but sometimes she just cannot handle it if nobody is paying attention to her and has to be next to you all the time! Anyway, this now means that all four sides of our house are ours to use as we please. Which is great news for my mum especially.

Also, I don't know what the f!£@ is wrong with me but I listened to a Hanson song yesterday and can't get it out of my head, though I wouldn't recommend you listen to it, even if it is a lot less annoying than their older stuff. And before anyone assumes anything, I am only referring to their older stuff in terms of the songs that ever had airplay. And before anyone assumes anything else, I do not have their album and never have. I do highly suggest you listen to some music by Head Automatica who have been getting more and more of my music playing time dedicated to them. They're very good, in an Alternative/Cheese kind of way.

I saw this video on youtube a while back through a friend's praise for the kid in it. If this is the future for guitar music, then holy crap I am going to be blown away. Put it on in the background if you must, but listen to it for gods sake!



And in other sad news, I must announce that the fly that has been buzzing around my room for the past four days passed away. His death, though sudden, will forever remain in my heart as a tragedy. His demise, quoted by eyewitnesses as being from 'a pretty big shoe', is a reminder that all living things are not immortal and we should treasure every moment.

Photo taken from www.aphotojourney.com
R.I.P little fly

And finally my link of the day. I give to you this nifty site with which you can create a visual represntation of where you have been in the world. Simply check the boxes of the countries you have been and it will give you an image showing you them coloured in on a world map. Here's mine:



To try this yourself, simply visit the following link.

Visited Countries

Sleep

Oh man! I can't believe what I achieved yesterday for pure 'what' value. I managed to stay up until 2:30 in the am. You'll know if you read my other post that I will have been up from 9:30pm wednesday to 2:30am friday. That's 29 hours straight. I also managed to complete a lot of little things that have been weighing on my mind and so yesterday was a success. I'm not actually feeling up to writing a blog at the moment, so excuse me if this is forced. I'm going to attempt a more competent entry tonight.

I had a meal in Frankie and Benny's last night, and it was delicious. Loaded potato skins for starters and lamb shank for main course. Perfect! Could have had dessert too but nobody else wanted it and I didn't want to delay them all.

Ah damn, I'm so tired but since I missed on my update last night I had to at least write something

All Night Long

This isn't an official update as such, it won't have any of my usual stuff in it. I just wanted to say that it's now 7:30 in the morning [approx] and I haven't gone to sleep yet. I'm probably not going to either until tonight, so I will probably be a zombie. I do fancy going for a BBQ today, but don't know anybody who would want to go for one or anyone who is able to. Sucks.

This fly in my room has been tormenting me for the past two days. I accidentally letft my door open for a short period of time the day before yesterday [My mum leaves windows and doors fully open throughout the house due to scorching heat], and a fly flew in. When I was trying to settle down for the evening it kept flying around me. I couldn't kill a fly. I ignored him thinking starvation will settle in soon. Next day I'm out of my room so don't notice him. Tonight though, I'm sitting here minding my own business and he buzzes round me driving me insane. After a couple of unsusccessful attempts to knock him out, my thrid I get him right on the nose. On the floor, not sure if it's still alive, I put a big litre bottle on top of it so I can deal with it later. Cut to three hours later a fly is buzzing round me again, and you'll never guess what fly it is. I think I might resort to psychotic measures. Actually I may just adopt him instead.

Upkeep

All I can think of about today is that I have still not heard anything about any jobs going! Argh this is so bad, I don't hate being jobless because of the freedom I have and I have free room and board thanks to my lovely parents, and I'm not even spending that much money, but knowing I could be going on a trip to Europe sometime in September if I have the money, and my friend David inviting me to his holiday place in less than a week, I am extremely frustrated because at the moment it looks like I won't be doing either. Tomorrow, it is time to take this job search to the next level; active approaching each and every company I'd ever consider working for, and of course sorting out a job for next year in Colchester RIGHT NOW so I don't end up poor when I return. And I still haven't sent off my student loan form, so I guess I'd better do that tomorrow too.

I'm not full of anger though, just a bit of frustration. I got so bored today that I watched a bit of Big Brother, and it seems there's this idiot called Spiral who argues for no reason other than to argue. I guess it could be dowen to boredom too, but when nyou're arguing and you realise what you've said doesn't quite have the effect it was originally meant to, either stop and apologise, or just walk away, don't keep arguing a stupid point. That Jennie though, she's pretty hot.

Listen to this song: Trapt - Repeat Offender

I've been having a look through my pictures and I found this picture of me and it reminds me that no more than a year ago I was still adamant that people should not take my picture or face certain rage [Not really, I'm peace in human form], and suddenly University transformed me into this other guy who couldn't care less whether he got in a picture or two. I think it was having a camera, and knowing that anybody out there who refused to let me take a picture made me wonder why, then I realised I do the same thing and felt strange. Ever since I've always put on a big smile and posed for anyone who asked. Here's the before and after pictures of my transformation!




Video wise, I haven't really searched for anything in particular, but I've seen this thing before and it is great stuff. Family Guy, so watch it quickly before they take it down! Peter's dancing is great :D



And finally my link of the day, is another webcomic. It's one I've seen before, but only discovered how truly awesome it is today. Enjoy it, and have a great [really hot] day

Cyanide & Happiness

Desolation

Unfortunately I haven't had the internet in my control today [Which only rests more hope on the fact that we will be recieving wireless broadband soon!] so this is a late and very scarce blog. First up, as you know, is news. Last night I went out to celebreate the end of my friends teenagehood, which means the big 20. She did mention something I thought was completely true though; a lot of the aura going around now is that 40 is still a young age to be, and by the time we reach 40 we will be even younger than the 40 year olds of today. In some ways this is good, which includes the obvious, but it could be a bad thing. Imagine people all lived to 100. We're struggling as we are to find space to fit everybody, and this problem is even worse in third world countries. I personally hope the age thing finds a perfect balance, and soon.

Off of that depressing note, I managed to discover Pear Cider again! It's been nearly 5 months since my first and last taste, and I must say it's as good as ever. Anybody out there wanting to try it, check your local Wetherspoons or Lloyds, it's called Kopperburg and it's a great price £2.25 for a big bottle!

If you remember my first post, I chucked up some photos from my travelling on some site, and now if you follow that link you can see some photos from Montreal. I'm getting good comments even though I was literally an amateur, having purchased my first camera in New York when I was out there.

Music time now. Having not had access to the internet and the brilliant Pandora I have been cut off from new music, and have had to rely on the good stuff I have in my collection. I rediscovered some good stuff on Snow Patrol's album Eyes Open, including Set Fire To The Third Bar featuring Martha Wainwright. No idea who she is, but she adds some individual style to the music.

Video. I am bringing you not one, but two videos of the same sort. Both hilariously funny, both from the great show Whose Line Is It Anyway [Bear with me with all the colours, you'll understand what I'm doing in the future sometime] Without any further delays, here they both are:




And would you believe that just by looking at those clips, it led me to find a whole load of other clips from the show. Seriously, if you want to crack up with laughter, go watch that stuff!

No picture today as I'm not on my own PC, so expect an extra helping tomorrow. I'm sure though with my bounty of videos you won't be that bothered :D

Before I sign off with my link of the day, just a couple of things to share with you for those who care. First off, the next season of Lost [Don't worry, I'm not spoiling any plot so you may read on] will be split into two sections. First 6 episodes back to back for the frist 6 weeks, then a 13 week break before going the long stretch with 16-18 episodes playing week after week with no repeats of breaks in the schedule . I think this is fantastic news as us fans will never have to wonder when the next new episode is going to be which was hell last year, but a lot of complainers out there are crying over the vacation in the middle. And along with that, JJ Abrams will be fully on board for the next season.

Link of the day: Check out this site. Full of news and stuff. DigitalSpy

Blog Boy

I found this little clip yesterday. There's a guy who has his own TV show in America called Jimmy Kimmel, and he started this thing called Unnecessary Censorship. It would be best if I didn't elaborate, and you just watrched it for yourselves!



Moving on, I didn't recieve any mail this morning which could mean bad news regarding my job situation. I have applied for good old Tesco, and a recruitment agency and have yet to hear off either of them. All I want is one month where I can work solidly to gain a bit of cash so I am able to go on Holiday. Next year I am already searching out places I can work in Uni, and so far the best one seems to be this surf shop along Sir Isaacs Walk. I shall be writing to them later this week to get my foot in there.

I did some research yesterday about this site that me and my friend Dave are thinking of setting up, and the domain we want isn't registered to anybody! So we're going to see about purchasing it and pretty soon putting up some of our stuff. That reminds me, anyone out there reading this who knows about buying domains and any good value hosting sites out there, let me know please.

Today's picture, I thought I'd give you something which will hopefully make you jealous about not living in Wales. I took this last weekend when a few of us went to Three Cliffs Bay, and I think it was the picture that came out the best. [N.B This same day was when I broke my camera by getting sand on and inside it. Sucks, but hopefully today they'll contact me about fixing it. hopefully it shouldn't have too much damage, and they'll send it back to me this week.]



I started the script for my big project yesterday. As some of you know, I'm heavily involved in the media section of my University. Thus I am responsible for a great number of creations. My very first big idea for the TV station was to create a campus based soap, and that was the script I began working on yesterday. It's really hard trying to avoid clichés, especially in such a tired genre, so I figured I could embrace some but give them a new twist. Plus, because it's only a rough project, all I need to do is turn in a semi great piece as hopefully we'll have plenty of budding writers to tweak it next year.

Music choice of the day is actually becoming quite old and moving out of the modern music slowly every day that goes by. It's Nelly Furtado - Try

As for the link of the day, I am already finding it difficult to pick one, but I did remember a couple for you. They're both webcomics, and one of them is already listed on the right in my Links section, but I really like them both, even if the latter has become a bit sour by now [Early stuff is great though!]

The Perry Bible Fellowship
White Ninja

Trippin'

I've achieved not very much since yesterday, and that's something that I'm disappointed with myself about. However, something I did do was to organise a lot of my photos from when I went to the US last year. I resized them all to an appropriate size for a forum, and posted them up. That's right, I have shared my photos with some strangers! And here's the link for you: Photos You can see that they have been nice about them so far, and I've even got information about some of them that I didn't know about before. For example, this 'gem' of a photo [Pun partially intended] is called the Hope Diamond, and I didn't know that before.



I'm hoping to put up some more from that collection tomorrow, not today as it took a good amount of my time to sort them all out >.< Liz Phair - Rock Me and Armor For Sleep - Car Underwater.

As to complete this multimedia fest, I thought I'd share a youtube video I made in Uni with my digital camera [And remember, that's digital camera, not camcorder so that's why the quality is questionable.]



It's not proper horror, as most of the cast are constantly laughing, but I must say this. What started off as filming of the strange costume my flatmates decided to make, turned into a short film, and as it was not planned and edited in under an hour, i think this is damn good! Hope you at least laugh at it :D

And a link of the day for you.

Buy Digital prints and store them here

The Beginning

Everything great has to start somewhere, and my beginning is going to be here, in this little corner of the internet. I'm sitting in my room at the moment, jacked the modem from the primary house PC and trailed the cable into my room just because I had to tell the world something. And I could keep you here for a while before I tell you it, simply because you are the reader. You see the rest of this blog? That's right, in the midst of that is what I'm going to say, and only by carrying on reading this will it become clear! Actually, I don't want to scare you off on the first visit, so here it is: I am going to be a success. That's right. I'm a 20 year old youngster with a hell of a lot of creativity and it will make me a name to fear in the near future.

Ok, maybe that was a bit of a lame opening, but the point is still valid. I just have to create this blog because I want to share with you some ideas. partially though, this is just me having all this stuff in my head displayed and on show for an older wiser me to reflect back on what did and didn't happen when I was in this crazy phase of mine. But, so this post has some validity rather than just me rambling on, I will tell you this; if you have an idea, something that you enjoy doing, do it. You only get one shot at life, and if you grow old and regret something, i can imagine there would be no greater feeling to bring you down, so just do it. That's my philosophical moment done with.

Back to the present though, I've spent a lot of time talking about my ideas, but I haven't actually explained anything about them. However, if I were to tell you my ideas today, would you even consider coming back to read this? I doubt it, and so everything I tell you will be in eventual form. Sorry about this if you're one of the types who can't stand waiting, but you might get used to it if you try it!

That's it for now basically, except I'm going to give you a cool website to visit in the meantime. It's something I only discovered today, but it will definitely keep you entertained, especially if you're like me and have a passion for music. Enjoy, and I will talk to you tomorrow!

Pandora