Paddy Kenny

Watching 120 minutes of some of the worst football I've seen in years was worth it to witness Paddy Kenny palming the ball into his own net.

Earthquake

The UK apparently had its biggest earthquake in nearly 25 years last night at around 12:55am. I didn't feel anything...

Earthquake felt across much of UK

２学期

The second semester of my second year at university has been pretty decent so far. I'm taking modules in Japanese language, Japanese society and one called Web Journalism and the workload has been much lighter than last semester. This means I'm finding myself with free time, which feels quite weird after not having any for about a year and a half. I've realised that I actually find it quite hard to relax when I have nothing to do now, 'cos I'm just so used to constantly working.

I think one of the reasons for the decrease in the amount of work this term has been due to me taking Web Journalism. The course seems to be intended for journalists who wish to learn something about working with the internet, and so far has involved a general study of the 'net as well as some basic web design. As I spend so much time on the internet it all comes fairly easy to me, and even the journalistic side shouldn't be too hard, as with things like the podcast I've already been creating some form of journalistic content.

Also, for the language part of my degree our teachers are encouraging the class to start writing a blog. So instead of writing out our weekly compositions on a sheet and handing it in, we'll all have our own blog where we write weekly posts for the teachers and everyone else to read. The idea is that we'll continue writing while we're out in Japan too. I think it's pretty cool that our teachers are embracing the web in this way.

Music

Reel Big Fish/Streetlight Manifesto/Sonic Boom Six was great last night. Most fun I've had at a gig in ages, and it reminded me how awesome an art form ska is (one day I'm gonna start a ska band).

I can't stop listening to Jimmy Eat World on their MySpace player at www.myspace.com/jimmyeatworld. Especially check out Always Be and Big Casino.

Live-action Akira?

This could either be really cool or really stupid. Probably the latter. One part of me thinks it could be a good movie, but then another part of me gets annoyed that things like this can't be left alone, and that the film's going to be set in New Manhattan and the actors are gonna be all white guys.

Reel Big Fish, Streetlight Manifesto and Sonic Boom Six tonight at Corporation. Should be sweet, mainly Streetlight Manifesto (they are awesome).

CD Baby

I recently ordered a CD from CD Baby and they sent me an email to confirm that the order had been dispatched. I thought it was pretty funny, so here it is:

"Your CD has been gently taken from our CD Baby shelves with sterilized contamination-free gloves and placed onto a satin pillow.

A team of 50 employees inspected your CD and polished it to make sure it was in the best possible condition before mailing.

Our packing specialist from Japan lit a candle and a hush fell over the crowd as he put your CD into the finest gold-lined box that money can buy.

We all had a wonderful celebration afterwards and the whole party marched down the street to the post office where the entire town of Portland waved "Bon Voyage!" to your package, on its way to you, in our private CD Baby jet on this day, Thursday, February 14th.

I hope you had a wonderful time shopping at CD Baby. We sure did. Your picture is on our wall as "Customer of the Year." We're all exhausted but can't wait for you to come back to CDBABY.COM!!

Thank you, thank you, thank you!

Sigh...

--
Derek Sivers, president, CD Baby"

Spottt

You might have noticed a new addition to the sidebar on the right of this page. After finding out about Spottt through another blog I decided to sign up. There have been a few services of this type springing up over the past few weeks; here's how Spottt works:

"If you have a website, blog, or MySpace profile, you can use Spottt to get people to your page without paying for advertising. Spottts are 125 x 125 pixel graphics that link from your web page to another, and vice-versa. For every two times a Spottt is shown on your site, your Spottt will appear once on another site."

Quite a useful thing to be involved in, it's fairly simple to implement and you can view stats on things like how many times your ad has been shown and how many times it's been clicked on. Also, adds a nice dynamic to your page I think.

Using the BBC iPlayer service I recently watched a documentary called Factory: Manchester from Joy Division to Happy Mondays. It's a film about the independent record label Factory Records which began in Manchester in the late 1970s, releasing music from acts such as Joy Division and New Order. I was familiar with what happened with Factory and the people involved as I'd seen the film 24 Hour Party People, a retelling of the whole story starring Steve Coogan as Tony Wilson, the guy behind Factory. And it is a really great story, very interesting and entertaining. It's no longer available through BBC iPlayer, but if you're interested in the history of British music then definitely check out either of these films.

Also, the Beets t-shirt I mentioned here came in the post the other day. My t-shirt addiction continues...

The Dillinger Escape Plan

On Tuesday night I went to see The Dillinger Escape Plan at Corporation.

I remember hearing TDEP for the first time a few years ago and being really intrigued by their style. I think I was drawn to the band's intensity, and the fact that I hadn't heard music like this before (was it even music?). But I couldn't properly get into them back then.

The intrigue remained though, and more recently I downloaded some of their songs and got hold of Calculating Infinity - an apparently seminal mathcore album. And once I got a feel for the songs and started to memorise them I began to enjoy them. Also, the musicianship, especially the drumming, is pretty insane. But I still couldn't listen to TDEP as I would other music. I preferred their more melodic tracks, and always felt they should extend their progressions, rather than just jumping from one riff to the next.

A few months ago I read that they were coming to Sheffield, and I'd heard that their live shows were pretty special so I intended to go. I bought their latest album, Ire Works, and it's a bit different from their previous stuff, having, for me, a good balance of technicality and melody. The band also changed drummers for this album, and the new guy plays much more groove-based stuff, definitely developing the band's sound.

At the gig the venue was quite full, and the whole thing looked great with a well co-ordinated light system and loads of smoke. I'd heard the band were well known for their violent shows, but apart from the guitarist knocking over a light/amp stack nothing too crazy happened. I knew most of the tracks they played, and after seeing the band live they now make more sense. It's hard to appreciate TDEP fully on CD, but live they just sound really intense and awesome.

There's a good selection of tracks on the band's MySpace page, as well as a couple to download, and if you haven't checked out TDEP or mathcore before you'll probably find it quite interesting.

Chocolate

I just ate this KitKat (not actually Nestlé, some supermarket brand), but instead of there being wafer and stuff in the middle like there's meant to be it was solid chocolate. Score!

The Dillinger Escape Plan at Corporation tomorrow night. Looking forward to it.

忙しさ

The past few days have been pretty crazy. Rather than just relaxing for a while before starting university again tomorrow I've had a load of things to do.

For a variety of reasons I didn't get to see MxPx the other night, which sucked. I did get to see the new version of Blade Runner at the Showroom though, which was wholly awesome. I hadn't seen any other versions of Blade Runner previously, and it was quite cryptic, but very interesting. I think I'm gonna try and now read the novel it was based on - Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? by Philip K. Dick.

Exams

Exams are now over! I had my last yesterday, but I only really have four days off before starting again on Monday. The fun never ends.

I was quite pleased with how the exams went though. I think I revised quite well and hopefully the results will reflect that; and this is one of the only two years of my four year course where exam results count towards my final classification.

As well as Japanese language and a module on contemporary Japanese society I'm doing a module in web journalism next semester, which I'm looking forward to. But as I've never done journalism before I have to read this book over the weekend about writing journalism articles.

Also, tomorrow I'm gonna see MxPx, basically my favourite band. Should be fun.

My Sonic duvet cover on UK:RESISTANCE

I'm very pleased to say that my Sonic duvet set was recently featured on popular all-things-Sega blog UK:RESISTANCE. I've been reading the blog now for a while now as I enjoy the humour and nostalgic remembrance of Sega in 90s Britain. And a couple of months ago I decided to take some pictures of my duvet cover and pillow and send them in, and finally they were published on the blog. You can read the post for some background on the set, and judging by the comments it seems that this duvet was quite a popular item.

THE AMAZING SONIC DUVET AND PILLOW CASE!

Note to future self

When I grow up I want a big drum kit and a table football in my house.