試験

I've just had my first two exams for the Autumn semester. The first was a Japanese speaking test and it went OK, even though I've never done a speaking test before. We were given a short storyboard and a little time to prepare and then we had five minutes to fill. I only actually spoke for three, but the teachers seemed OK with that. I tried to throw in some comedy as well, and my teachers were laughing by the end. But maybe that was just my incorrect conjugations?

The second exam was on the Japanese economy, and that went OK too, whilst breaking a record for my longest exam ever. It was originally meant to be three hours which is quite enough, but there was a fire alarm about two hours in, which meant I had a five minute break outside in the cold, but an extra half an hour added on at the end.

Modern Japanese history tomorrow. Wish me luck.

Today

Today's been pretty decent. The new netlabel I've been working on for the past few weeks/months finally launched this morning. The label's called Pterodactyl Squad and you can find it at www.ptesquad.com. It's similar to what I'm doing with my podcast and the band.

In the afternoon I went home for a bit to see my family, and then I played drums in the band up at church in the evening. It was nice to play on a full kit again. At my place the room where I have my drums is really small, and so to make space for other people to practise I've removed the toms. And then the other week when I was playing, my ride cymbal STAND broke - the metal actually snapped - so I'm playing a heavily simplified kit at the moment. It means I've been concentrating on playing tight, simple beats recently, but it's not much fun.

It was good to have a break from all the revision for my upcoming tests I've been doing, and the weather was nice today too - no rain, all sunshine. That's what I like to see.

Busted Tees

I don't know whether you understand how badly I need this t-shirt/hoody. And if you're my age and don't get this, I'm sorry, but you misspent your childhood.

The Beets t-shirt

There are some other cool designs too. There are so many great t-shirts these days I don't think I have a big enough wardrobe.

2-0

Yesterday I went to the Steel City derby at Hillsborough, the first of two football matches this season between Sheffield Wednesday and Sheffield United. I'd been to regional derbies before, but never the Steel City derby, so I was really looking forward to it. I wasn't all that confident that Wednesday would win, but it was a possibility, as neither team had been doing well recently.

The ground was pretty full with over 30,000 in attendance, and the atmosphere was great. We were sat at the end of the stand right next to the away supporters, and there were some interesting exchanges between both sets of fans. Wednesday started the game really well and scored after 25 minutes, the crowd going crazy. After half-time United had more possession but Wednesday played well and got another goal on 76 minutes. We went crazy again, and managed to hold on for the 2-0 win.

Wednesday played the best I've seen them play in a long time, and this was a really great result for us.

There was minimal trouble between the fans, a couple of scuffles as we were walking home, but nothing serious. I think it's amazing the amount of police that get used up on football matches like this.

The next derby is only under a month away too.

I always enjoy going back to Hillsborough, as I was born and grew up in that area, so it's really nostalgic. It reminds me of all the time I spent playing in the park, or at the library, or at school. It's funny how you can feel such a strong attachment to a place.

100

I've just finished cleaning up the HTML and CSS on this site. There are no massive differences, just a few things here and there that I've been meaning to change for a while. The site works better in Firefox than Internet Explorer, but that's no surprise. I've tried to keep the HTML and CSS valid too, but that's really hard when Blogger code is very broken. Maybe that's a job for another rainy day.

I've been coding a lot lately as I've been working on the site for a new netlabel I decided to create - Pterodactyl Squad. It should be launching this month, if everything goes to plan (but when does that ever happen?)

By the way, this is my 100th post on this blog. Here's to many more.

BBC iPlayer

The BBC have now released the BBC iPlayer (a shamefully unoriginal name, although maybe that's how everything is gonna be named from now on (I hope not, 'cos I don't like words that start with lower case letters, makes me feel uneasy)), a response to Channel 4's 4oD, although I believe the BBC were the first to start researching this kind of thing. TV on demand is great, and I think it's fair to say that the BBC have a higher quality of programming than Channel 4. I've already checked out a couple of shows, and it's interesting that the iPlayer works from your browser like YouTube, rather than having to download a whole application like 4oD. Playing from your browser is quicker, and you don't need an account either.

What's with all the short blog posts lately? I dunno, guess I don't have much time anymore. Revision for my Japanese exams is progressing nicely along its planned trajectory, but I'm not too stoked about the speaking test that's coming up.

Oh, and it's still raining.

雨が降っている

I wish the rain would stop for a few days. It's really quite depressing. Rain every now and again is OK, but but not all day for a week. Otherwise everyone has to stay in their houses, and it's no fun.

Here's another observation

I realised yesterday that new bedsheets don't have quite the same effect if they haven't been ironed.

An observation

Sometimes you'll have been listening to a song for years, but then you'll notice something that you didn't really hear before and the whole song changes. It's awesome.

Guitar Hero

My brother got Guitar Hero II for his Xbox 360 for Christmas. Loads of people had recommended the game and although I didn't think I'd like it, I really do. It's fairly easy to pick up, but not so easy that it isn't a challenge, and it feels great when you nail a solo. I often play air guitar along to music when no-one's around and I did used to play guitar in a band a while back, but none of that really helps here. Although I hadn't actually heard most of them before playing, the songs are great, and my personal favourites are YYZ and Killing In The Name. Definitely check the game out if you get the chance.

Do you remember the song from the opening credits of National Lampoon's Vacation, Holiday Road? Check out this cover version by a band called matt pond PA which I found today.