I promised I’d post about stuff but it’s kind of old news now. That and I can’t actually remember half of it.
Anyway, last week at work I was talking to a guy called Davy Jones and I made some crack about Pirates of the Caribbean, and proceeded with some nervous laughter, and he was just silent. Turns out he’s never heard that one (I couldn’t work out if he was serious) but let me know he’s normally confused with the drummer in The Monkees. From here I decided to stay off the puns for a while.
Last week I had a customer called John Kettley. For those of you under 25 here’s an explanation… and for those of you over 25 it’ll be a flashback to 1988:
To cut a long story short we messed up and he ended up driving 100 miles to us to get it sorted. I happened to be in the shop so I actually spoke to him. As it turns out it was ‘the’ John Kettley. Good job I didn’t make any weather puns really!
I’m sat listening to Tommy Emmanuel after being out with my parents to the local pub. It’s completely not my kind of night out, but they keep asking me. I saw an old friend, Allen, and spoke to him about our love for listening to and making music. He’s 67 now, and is always singing. He’s good at it too. I also saw my old schoolfriend Nichola who I’ve seen just a couple of times since I left school. That reminds me – via the gift of Facebook I’m back in touch with my old schoolfriend Antony so we need to get together, play Pro Evo and down some beers or something.
I had a text from Michelle earlier tonight telling me to get over to York and I wish I’d done that instead. Sounds like she had a top night, and I could’ve been kipping in a two storey suite! Damnit… Hey well. York’s one of my favourite places to be so maybe we’ll go some other time.
Friday night was spent at Ste’s playing Rock Band with Jodie and Gregs. It’s about time it had a release here. At least they gave us the full back catalogue to download. Was an awesome night, mostly pissing ourselves at Gregs’ “singing!” Ste lives in North Yorkshire though, so I lose half a tank of petrol if I go… the state of the price of oil now it’s an expensive do!
I’ve got the week off now. Michelle quite rightly pointed out that it’s James’ last week and since the new guy’s not up to speed now’s the only time in the near future I’ll get time to take holidays. It also buys me some time to finish the task I was given at work. It seems I annoyed the directors at work with that. I was told that I was arrogant and self-righteous, and to get my head out of my arse. Sometimes it seems that my opinions aren’t valid. No, actually… it seems that they aren’t even considered, which is strange because after said argument the itinery changed to the one I suggested.
Champions League Final was an awesome match, what I saw of it. I was hoping for a blues win. Both sides played well. Things got a little out of hand in extra time, but I think everybody was tired and bitchy. I’m too tired to go into details, but it was a good match. It’s a shame it went to penalties as I don’t believe it’s a good way to determine the winner.
Last night was PUSA night and, as one Kerrang! journo described a friend’s band a few years back, it was bouncier than a bare-backed bonkers convention (please bear in mind that Kerrang! journos are rejects from the usual music press crowd that sit in a room with a Chambers thesaurus trying to lay way too much emphasis on cheap puns and one-liners.)
Support came in the form of very, very, VERY Japanese Electric Eel Shock – three kids, while managing to play their respective instruments to ridiculously high ability (as only the Japanese know how thanks to super-pushy parents) insist on writing songs that only consist of two chords with radio-friendly titles such as You Bastard. Actually, I think I counted three in one song. Not that that was any detriment to their entertainment factor – top class!
Next up was a (probably quite brave) Kid Carpet – a guy from the South-West armed to the teeth with sampling equipment, a Casio keyboard, more kiddy toy intstruments than I care to acknowledge exist and a microphone. I’ve gotta hand it to this guy – he had more guts than an exploding whale. It was a very fine line between musical genius and absolute tosh, and I think he achieved the former. Very mixed reaction from the crowd here which probably helped the odd heckle. “Thanks to the Presidents for bringing me on tour with them! It’s very cool of them to do that – they didn’t have to!” to which one guy yelled “They shouldn’t have!” It was all taken in good faith and fisty-cuffs didn’t break out.
The Presidents rocked as always, playing a couple of lesser known earlier tracks which everybody seemed to go down better than most of their later stuff. Not that their recent albums are bad at all (some songs are genius) but I guess we were all twenty-somethings reliving our youth. Notes were taken of kit I am required to purchase for our venture into the tribute world as The Prime Ministers of The United Kingdom. Oh yes. It will happen. At least as soon as I can afford a guitar that I can afford to deface. I was watching the guitbassism closely. It’s a talent I shall soon master.
After a decade of waiting (no, really) I finally saw Portishead play live tonight! Absolutely amazing. I’ve seriously never seen any singer mean and feel the words they’re singing like Beth does (or she should be an actor… that said, I saw To Kill A Dead Man.) The sound was spot on, the songs were brilliantly executed, and visuals were great. I was worried about the sound since the support band (Hawks and Hacksaws or something?) were quite tinny and you couldn’t hear them properly. I was pleasantly surprised when I felt my clothes vibrating with the bass. I fucking saw Portishead!
My friend Rachel was accepted into Oxford Uni today, so congrats to her (if she ever reads this!)
Wednesday was sheesha night. Nando’s then sheesha. Markaz is still open, but they’ve had to hide the smoking area in the sheesha lounge – no more smoking in the areas you can see. Presumably this is still against the law, despite the fact you wouldn’t be there if you didn’t want to breathe smoke. Anyway, was good to see Waz again. We had Nando’s too, which is always good. We questioned the intelligence of the girl who took our order though. Not content with us ordering the same meal at once, she insisted on taking our orders separately. I’m not sure how, since we told her about five times that we were both having the same meal, but she managed to get one of them wrong.
Last night I spent out in Leeds, first in Jongleurs comedy club, and then into Bar Risa (their counterpart) for Michelle’s birthday. The comedians were… okay. Everybody else thought they were shit hot. I guess I’m hard to please when it comes to comedy! Which brings me around to my other area in which I’m a snob – Bar Risa were presenting a band. To be honest, they were good. What annoyed me, apart from their slant toward generic pop/indie genres, was their sound and kit. The guitarist, while being evidently talented, had a PRS guitar shoved through a myriad of fx pedals, plugged into a half-decent amp and mic’d up to a shitty cab. The drummer seemed to have a 3/4 size kit with some cymbals so small I’m surprised he had the accuracy to hit them. They also had the kit mic’d up which, for the size of the venue, was pointless. All you could hear was drums. I guess the sound guy didn’t even know since he was stood in the wrong place to actually hear what everybody else was hearing. Again, everybody else I was with thought they were great. They were talented, but I guess they’ve not seen many good bands.
Today Rik and I went car shopping. I took him to the biggest car place here which has apparently been closed for months, which I only learned today. We went to Batley and looked around one place… the sales rep seemed pretty pushy so we had a quick look and then left. I need to find out where all the dealerships went.
Following last week’s escapade watching a friend’s band I decided to see the Four Fighters on Friday. It was good to see Clare and some other friends again. I was also challenged at Guitar Hero. Oh, they’ll crash and burn, don’t worry (actually, I’m not sure since I hardly play these days!) Anyway, for those who hadn’t guessed, the Four Fighters are a Foos tribute with quite a good name for themselves. I think I’m supposed to be designing and maintaining their website, but it changed recently since I’ve been slack and I need to double check said arrangement. Requests were being yelled by the crowd, and it seems my opinion is valued since their singer, Iain, decided to ask for Big Al’s opinion. “Hey, Johnny Park” was played. Oh yes – I had spoken. Anyway, I stood in the least ear-friendly position in the house and came out profoundly deaf.
Saturday I remembered I was supposed to collect a PC for Ste from work the day previous, so at 4:50pm I broke the land speed record and saved the day. Phew. That night was spent being fed by Ste (again) and playing some Viking and GH2 and GH3 before heading home at 2am. Since it’s about an hour away, and in another county, I got home around 3am. I then remembered that the clocks went forward, and 3am became 4am. It was even stupider o’clock than I’d thought.
Sunday we went to see Gogol Bordello, gypsy-punk beat combo extraordinaire. I have to say that I think they’ve got to be one of the most entertaining, if not the most entertaining bands I’ve ever seen. I severely exceeded my jumping quota. Apparently Simon from work was there, but despite his efforts I didn’t see him. Seriously though, if you ever get a chance to see this band, go. So much energy.
In other news, I’ve been struggling at play catch-up at work after James had skivalitis on Thursday and Friday. In his defense he processed some claims. I spoke to a customer I was dealing with a few weeks ago who happens to be an old TV presenter from Magpie, the cool kids’ Blue Peter. She’s sound enough. I have many other customers to call back tomorrow. The joys of pretending to be management – yay.
For those who booked the time off work I hope you’re having a cool week off. I’ve so far spent it mostly on my tod, which doesn’t really bother me much since my family aren’t particulrly religious and subsequently neither am I.
Good Friday I would have probably gone into work if I hadn’t remembered (or rather have Nikki remind me) that I couldn’t give her a lift home on Friday because we’re not working. So Friday I spent sleeping mostly, and then over to Carl and Nikki’s for fake spaghetti bolognese (fake because it was made with pasta twists) before heading to the pub to see my friends’ band. Later I gave Carl and Nikki a lift back home where I stayed for an hour or two. In that time we must have had a snow storm or something as I left to find everything covered in white. In true Bradford style the roads hadn’t been gritted, so I spent a fair time driving home on the motorway at 25mph or something. Saturday and Sunday were spent doing nothing in particular.
Today I went biking with Geoff. It’s a fair while since I used my bike (which means I should really get somebody to service it) and as a result I’m (still) unfit. I did a quick health check on brake fluid, tyre pressure, etc. I have some weird-ass pump with a pull cord. I filled the tyres a bit and then did myself a mischief whilst removing the damn awkward nozzle – I took a chunk out of my finger and lost a pint or so of blood, but in the words of Dilios, God saw fit to grace me with a spare. A few in fact, so we headed off still. We saw the canal boat on which a friend of ours lives. I’m not entirely sure how someone can live in such a small space, but I die grass. We cycles along the canal from Geoff’s house, onto Bingley and by Five-Rise Locks (bloody steep!), through Shipley and then across the river and pedalled up a dirt track. About half way up I gave in while Geoff ran circles around me on the bike. We had to turn back and do the uphill section along the canal. I got back, and was quite ill and threw up. I blame Geoff for this since I felt fine before I said “if you feel like you’re gonna chuck, best to do it while you’re cycling!”
Anyway, a few mins of fresh air, a sit down and plenty of water later I felt fine and stomached a cup o’cha. Same again next week? We’ll see lol I need to get out every day I think. I feel better now, despite my sore behind. My finger’s still screwed though. Work tomorrow. Bah – I wish I hadn’t cancelled my holidays.
Here’s Hayseed Dixie playing a bit of AC/DC! Fun times were had… The support band, Instill, were brilliant too, singing songs about those important issues such as conkers, vending machines, pedalos, zoos, etc.
Well, PIPEX decided that even though I only had 8 days usage this month before my contract expired that they’d charge me for a full month. I wrote them a nasty email saying I worked it out to £6-odd. Anyway, they replied a few days later saying that they’re not only waiving this month’s fee completely, but they’re also refunding me £25 for the inconvenience! Not bad for a company I’m no longer a customer with.
I mentioned I had a new Customer Service colleague a few weeks ago. He was full of shit and so sure of himself it was stupid. Anyway, he lied to our manager about why he was late, and probably about why he was taking time out of work. He also lied to the director of the company, which is probably not a good idea. Anyway, we ended his probation today and asked him not to come in any more! So, I’m once again without a colleague in customer services. That doesn’t really phase me to be honest – I got more work done without him anyway.
I’ve put my old Line6 Pod XT and also my PS2 on ebay to raise some cash for a bike. They’re ending this week… Hoping I get a couple of hundred for them both.
