Modern Technology

I have been gifted with a smartphone! I don't know what I'm going to do with my smartphone, but I've got one now, which is definitely a nice start. I have to say that it a weird thing, it's grubby, and it has a cracked screen, but it was given to me by a plumber, who has just bought a Cat work-proof phone. It may be work proof, but I can pretty much guarantee that it is not Dion proof.

Anyway, the smartphone I received is a HTC Desire S, now I have never heard of HTC before, so I don't know if that means I am simply just out of the loop, or HTC are so bad it was probably a good job I hadn't heard about them. Either way, only time will tell.

Naturally the first thing I did on this phone is disable the auto-correct feature, I have received enough poorly written Skype messages to know that auto-correct is a very bad idea. After that I performed a factory reset, to cleanse it of all the old account details that can't be removed any other way. Then I installed Snapchat so I could annoy Nath's cousin.

My current opinion of this thing is that it's okay, but the battery seems non-existent, by the time I've loaded up my music the battery is has lost 30% of it's charge (exaggeration), my old phone may have been pretty crappy, but I only needed to charge it once or twice a week, this looks like it'll be on charge every night.

I was initially very skeptical of this phones alarm system, I had tried to listen to Iron Maiden through the phones speaker as a test, and I discovered that the speakers were very quiet, but when my alarm went off this morning it pulled me out of two dreams, for I was dreaming in my dream, and being pulled into the real world from two dreams is a very strange sensation. I suppose it also helps that I have a very loud song set as my alarm.

My only quarrel is that it is outdated, and so some of the games I wanted to put on it aren't compatible, which is a shame because Boom Beach looks pretty good. But I've got 9GAG, Instagram and Snapchat on it. I also have an app called SoundHound, which answered the question that has been plaguing me for three years now.

The question was: what is Bernard Doherty's theme song for Listomania (a radio show on Planet Rock)? This question has been bugging me for ages, because I have never heard it played before, and so I couldn't read the song name on the LED screen, thankfully Soundhound allows you to hum, sing or play a song/tune and it will tell you the song title. The song in question was Love Spreads by The Stone Roses, now I have the title, I can get to learning it on guitar.

I guess I have now joined the countless ranks of teenagers who are glued to their phones, or have I? Only time will tell I suppose.

Yay! I'm Keeping Myself Occupied!

This week has been another week that has thrown me off my usual routine, I have been spending time with friends at awkward hours, I have finally formed a band, and I'm learning Spanish.

First off My friends have dragged me into a strange concept for a YouTube channel called TheMentalLibrary which is basically the insane group of idiots that used to hang around the school library. It isn't actually the complete set of idiots unfortunately, one idiot doesn't leave the house or socialise. The other idiot is camera shy so we haven't fully included her, although she is mentioned as being part of the group in the introductory video (which I will start editing shortly after writing this).

That YouTube channel is basically going to consist of Ash telling me to humiliate myself, and Ash telling Nathan (A.K.A Stunt-Man) to hurt himself. Ash will simply be involved in the skits that are semi-scripted. It's definitely a good job I have no dignity when a camera is rolling.

Last night I also formed a band, and within thirty seconds we were jamming along to Weird Al's parody of American Idiot. So far it seems like this band will be a pop-punk band (sigh) but I can live with that and soon I'll convert it to something that suits my preferences a little more. Although I don't mind pop-punk I'm more of a Horror-Punk kind of guy, I also like progressive rock/metal and psychobilly. My ideal form of band would be a progressive psychobilly band, with a musical style reminiscent of black metal, but I highly doubt that will happen.

The other point I made in my opening sentence was that I'm learning Spanish. I used to learn Spanish in school when I still lived in Birmingham, but since I moved to Stoke-on-Trent I stopped learning Spanish and started German instead (sigh). Recently my dad told me about a website that teaches you one of five languages for free, and I couldn't remember what it was called until a post on 9gag lead me straight to it. That website was called Duolingo!

I have so far done six lessons on it, I'm doing two lessons a day, and I will do that everyday (well that's the plan anyway). I've encountered a lot of words I already knew, but I've also been learning some new words. I'd also like to say that it is teaching me Spanish better than my old teacher did.

My last post was full of talk about stories. I have been working on the My Little Pony Fan Fiction piece, and I wrote three chapters in one morning. Which if it had followed my original idea would mean that the story would be complete, however, while I was lost in the story I changed it slightly taking the mid section of it down a completely different road. I had no plans to do such a thing, but I did, and it's coming along nicely.