Cartoons, Anime and Musical Stuff

If the title hasn't already given it away, I've spent this week watching anime and cartoons. I have done other things, for instance I had band practice earlier, I have been playing a hell of a lot of guitar, and I have been drooling over Killing Floor 2. Weirdly, I have even done a bit of gaming this week, I've played about 10 matches of League of Legends, did a few levels on Serious Sam 3, and I pushed my monk through Westfall in World of Warcraft.

This week has mainly been about the cartoon/anime watching for me though. I was coming up on the end of Bleach (I had about 40 episodes left) and so I decided to power through that. Once that was completed, the season finale of Archer was available, so I watched that. After that I was stuck, but then I remembered an advert for a cartoon I saw on Disney Channel while I was at my mates on Monday.

That cartoon is called Star versus the Forces of Evil, and I for one think it is incredible. so far there are only three episodes, each is split into two mini episodes. I plowed through the three episodes in one sitting, and now I stare at the recent releases section of my preferred website waiting for the next episode(s) to be uploaded.

Since I could watch Star, I decided it was time to embrace my masculinity and watch Dragon Ball Z. It was actually a hard choice to make, a large portion of me said to watch Sailor Moon, which I had started in August, but I then stopped for some reason. I really don't know why I stopped, I was loving Sailor Moon. Finally to top off my cartoon watching, the season premiere of My Little Pony was uploaded last night, and so I watched that while I ate my breakfast this morning. I loved it.

As I also mentioned, I have been playing a lot of guitar this week. It's nothing new, but I thought I'd mention it because it wasn't until band practice earlier that I actually properly started playing anything close to metal. I've had a week of clean guitar and finger picking, only occasionally flicking to the bridge pickup and adding a bit of crunch, but those crunch moments didn't last long, it was usually for a quick lick or riff to just break up the strangeness of my clean guitar playing.

I've also declared it restringing time, but only for my three main axes. So far I've only ordered strings for one of my guitars, I'll have to take some of my wages out of my vault and put them in the bank before I order my next set just so I can continue to have an acceptable amount of funds in my account. I would have ordered the other strings with the set I ordered for my 8-string guitar, but I've only just decided what strings I'm getting for what guitar, and I'm still not sure whether or not to go with it, chances are I'll change my mind last minute.

I've also decided I should get an acoustic guitar, but I won't get one. at least not for awhile. It's time to buy an amp head, and that is more important to me right now. However, I will be buying an acoustic guitar at some point. Correction: three acoustic guitars. as it stands I want to own a 6 and a 12 string western guitar as well as a classical guitar. I won't be buying any that are too flashy, but they'll still be good, as long as I hand Nathan the money and get him to order them, he has more luck than I do.

As I said, the amp head is my next step, after that it'll most probably be a new bridge pick-up for my 8-string. Another 8-string would be nice, but I'm trying to be realistic. If I'm lucky and my repair idea works, I may not buy a new pick-up and simple try to sort out a pedal board for myself, I have some of the parts I want, such as the power supply and a delay pedal, I could probably also borrow Nathan's drive pedal for gigs since he won't need it then. Unfortunately, I'm still short on a few things, namely a chorus, a pedal tuner and some form of octaver or pitch shifter, which ever gets the sound I want.

I'm happy, at least I'm mostly happy. Nathan has ordered a mic, a stand, I believe he's also ordered a lead for it, and thankfully we already have an amp for it. I should be able to gig with my amp, but I'd feel much safer with a new amp head which can be easily transported, and isn't likely to explode on me. I have been warned by my brother that my current amp will probably do just that if I crank it up too much.

8 Strings?

As I mentioned in my last post, I have bought an 8-string guitar. It arrived awhile back, but I had to get it replaced, the replacement arrived on Tuesday, and naturally on Thursday (after the back of the guitar had been covered in belt scratches) the bridge pick-up slipped and is now very out of place. On the upside, I reckon I can give it a decent temporary fix.

This 8-string guitar actually turned out to be a better idea than I had originally hoped. My initial plans were to use it in Open F and play some nice instrumental music on it. Instead I took it down to Nathan's to show it off on the day he decides to start drumming.We jammed for a good ninety minutes, and during that time we had answered all our problems.

Our band had been struggling ever since our drummer decided to quit, and on Wednesday during mine and Nathan's jam session, I realised that we could work as a two-piece band because I could play both the bass and the lead parts on my 8-string guitar. This works out at a few more financial difficulties, since we were better prepared for our original idea, but overall it'll all work out cheaper for us, if we do it properly.

During our jam session we were also able to write a song, which was great since we'd have to start again with the song writing. Thankfully I was able to salvage and rework three of our other songs so we could still do them, they may sound different, but they still sound good. This knocks our current song count up to four, if I can get another six original songs I could happily start gigging, I don't mind doing the odd cover song (I have two in mind), but I'd much rather be doing our own material.

I also know that I need quite a bit more than just a few more songs before I can start gigging. The main thing being a decent place to rehearse. We unfortunately can't practice in Nathan's garage, his neighbours keep complaining, thankfully his dad plans on sorting out the back part of the garage (where we rehearse), which will hopefully involve some sound proofing.

Other things we need, amps, mics, and a few helping hands. Things I need: to sort out my guitar, another 8-string as back-up and/or different tunings and an amp that is NOT likely to explode on stage. Unfortunately for me, my brother has done a lot to my amp, and it apparently has a tendency to blow up if pushed above bedroom volumes. I'm not the only one who needs to invest money though, Nathan has a drumkit that needs quite a lot of maintenance, I'm also hoping he'll help investing in the mics and some amps for them.

In order for this project to work I need to start prioritising my expenditure. The first step will be to sort out this guitar as best as I can. The pick-up needs leveling, the strings want changing, and I'm putting some Schaller Strap Locks on for added security when playing. The pick-up leveling will be the hardest task since the screw is currently useless, my dad has an idea, and I have a backup idea, one of those ideas will definitely work. All the other adjustments on that guitar can wait, and so after that, I'll see about getting a decent guitar amp head, and then I don't have any clue what comes next.

I am quite excited about what I can do in this band, but I realise I've made plans like this before and something has decided to thwart them. I can only hope that that doesn't happen this time around, but I am already facing adversary. I hope this works out, but only time will tell, either way, I don't plan on giving up.

Another Rally: Frozen Nuts! (And also some other stuff)

In case the title didn't give it I went on another bike rally, and I have just finished sewing the patch onto my cut-off. The Frozen Nuts patch was one of the three rally patches I wanted, meaning I now have the Another Piggin' Rally patch and the Frozen Nuts patch, the third patch of the three is for the Last Wolf Rally which I'll hopefully be going to this year.

Patches and rallies aside, for the time being t least, I have also been up to quite a bit this week. To be perfectly honest, this week didn't have the best of starts, self-doubt kicked in, and I spent the first half of the week thinking I'd get nowhere in life. Thankfully that disappeared on Wednesday, and the week could return to normality, which was good, especially since I had the first part of my army interview on Friday.

Thankfully it wasn't the real deal, it was a pre-interview in order to sort out my three job choices, since there is only a slim chance of me getting my first choice, I need to have back-up options. I'd also like to point out that I don't exaggerate when I say slim chance, in-fact I think a slim chance would be bigger than the chance I have. I say this because I plan to be a musician in the army, and I plan on entering as a bassist (but I will happily go for guitarist if need be). with there only being three army bands that require a bass guitarist, and each band will only need one bassist, there are only three potential jobs for me, that could be boosted up to nine by adding six guitarist slots (two for each contemporary band), but there are jazz bands which I might be able to slot myself into.

I now have two back-up jobs, I had to change at least one of my original jobs because the staff sergeant interviewing me, didn't want to send me into one of those job choices. This meant he gave me a nice big pile of job briefs to take home, sift through, select three jobs from and rank them in order of preference. The end result (in order of preference) was Musician, Combat Medical Technician and Military Policeman.

Army aside, the day before I restrung my bass. I used the thicker four strings of a five-string set (leaving me with a spare G string), and after about twenty minutes of playing part of the nut shot off making a satisfying ping sound. I literally busted a nut. I made a few quick measurement and ordered a new nut from eBay, while I was measuring I noticed that there was enough nut left to raise the string, but not enough left to hold the string in place. I decided to use my engineering prowess and I wrapped duct tape around the strings to hold the thick B string on the remainder of the nut.

The duct tape idea works quite nicely, but I had to put a bit more tape on not long after taking the picture, because the B string only stayed in place for two minutes of playing, I now get fifteen minutes of playing before I have to adjust it. At least I now have another nut on the way to replace my current on. Hopefully my new nut will be stronger, I order a graphite one to replace the original plastic lump.

That bass has a few more problems with it, which should be fixed by the next post. as it stands it an active on-board pre-amp which has died. I don't really know much about electronics, but I do know that the wiring is a mess, and it makes no sense to me, or to Nathan, and so I have decided to remove all the wiring and the pre-amp, and replace everything. I'm even going to replace the pick-ups with the Seymour Duncan Quarter Pound P-J set. This will leave me with a pot connected to nothing (I'll ground to that) and an empty hole where the battery should go which I'll fill with a block of lead hopefully adding enough weight to counteract the headstock heaviness of the stock bass. I will at some point also add a set of Schaller Strap Locks, and buy a decent strap.

I have also had a bit more misfortune with guitars this week, this time it was my primary guitar. I've had her tuned down a step-and-a-half for six days, and so when I decided to tune her back up to E standard the 0.011 gauge high E string snapped and struck me on the infected scab on my right middle finger. My finger hurt enough as it was, that string really didn't help. Thankfully the Rotosound set I bought awhile back for another guitar came with a spare 0.010 gauge string, which will suffice for now.

I have now also decided it was time to restring the guitar I got off my brother. I've been putting this off for awhile because the Floyd Rose Floating Tremolo bridge seemed like it would be a ball-ache to deal with, I've also decided to replace the busted pick-up ring holding the neck humbucker in place, I'd like to replace both pick-ups at some point, but I don't really want to do something that will annoy my brother since I don't fully consider the guitar mine. That guitar is now back in her box after a vigourous cleaning, and there she will remain until her new pick-up ring arrives.

Hopefully I can get both of those guitars finished and theoretically, I should be done working on my guitars until June, when my Epiphone and Harley Benton basses get restrung. That is, of course, unless I buy a rolling tune-o-matic bridge, which won't take long to fit.

Anyway, as some of you know, this weekend was the weekend of the 29th annual Frozen Nuts Rally! Naturally as soon as we arrived some woman with a very hoarse voice came up to us and gave us a tongue lashing for something that happened six hours prior to our arrival. One of the lads from the Greedy Pigs started a very loud argument at four in the morning and kept everyone awake for the next three hours while they all shouted and screamed at each other. If you were one of those unfortunates who were affected by their arguing, I have a very strong feeling that disciplinary action will take place at the next meeting, but since I'm not a member of the Greedy Pigs, I can't say anything with any certainty.

Other than the bad start, the rally was quite enjoyable, I was only there for the Saturday, and so I didn't get to the the Jalepenos perform, but I hear they were good. I did however see half of Disturbin' the Peace's performance. I say half because I went outside for a breather during there interval and all the booze, the cold and the fact I had been awake since six O'clock that morning all struck me at once. I just couldn't continue, and so I dragged myself to the tent and slowly drifted to sleep.

I may have missed the half naked sexy girls, I may have missed Disturbin' the Peace cover a Rush song, but I did witness the worst proposal ever, which naturally took place in the middle of a hen party. I then saw (about five minutes later) the newly engaged woman fall over on the dance floor, spilling booze all over the singers pedals and the monitor by his feet. I reached out to help her up, and she gave me a really dirty look.

The bride-to-be from the hen party also randomly gave me, and a few other confused looking dudes, a big hug, while someone followed her with a camera. As soon as she stepped away from me, Dion (Nathan's dad) walked up to me and said "You lucky git, I've been eyeing her up all night." I on the other hand was eyeing up another member of her party, that entire group were wearing corsets, and one of those corsets looked like it was about to pop, so I was eyeing up the owner of that corset.

At some point between the proposal and the band kicking in, the bride-to-be had a male stripper, I get the feeling that he was her soon-to-be husband, judging by everyone's reaction. He didn't do the full monty, but it was still funny as hell to watch. Shortly after that I went to get me and Nath a drink, and on the way back from the bar I congratulated the newly engaged lady, turns out she has a voice that can break glass, I don't know if that's normal or just because she was drunk and/or excited.

I am also aware that none of this post is in chronological order, but the rally has thrown everything out of perspective and so I don't actually know what order anything happened in, I just know within two hours of getting to the rally I had had four different beers in three different pubs, one of those beers was a can I had bought with me, which I drank by the fire.

Forwards

I realised when I posted my last column on Bronies UK that I missed out last weeks post, So Happy New Year everyone, I hope you all got wasted and had lots of fun, and I also hope that you can't remember all those naughty things you did that night. Joking aside, I have quite a lot of plans for this year, mostly centered around my band: Reincarnated Love.

I get the feeling the skeptics reading this are laughing, and have probably made a mental comment about me saying "joking aside," but I don't really care about what those skeptics think. No one can tell me with any certainty what will become of the band,  It's not likely that we'll make it, but you never know. And unless the band does get anywhere, I still aim to have a steady income from elsewhere.

I also get the feeling there are others who have read my previous posts thinking something along the lines of "I thought he wanted to join the army," which is true, I do want to join the army, but I want to join as a musician. I position which will be pretty hard for me to score, especially since I can fill only one of about forty-five slots. Other things that will get in my way include the entrance exam, audition and the simple fact I am ungraded in my instruments.

I am actually confident in my audition, I'm working on the two pieces that I have to perform. I am grateful that I can chose the two pieces of music, as long as they contrast. The word contrast is what worries me the most, to me it could mean many things while referring to music. So I'm just going to have to hope that they accept the contrast I have chosen, and also hope they don't ask for the names of the pieces. Anyway, I try not to think about those things, the more I do, the less confident I feel, and a lack of confidence will obliterate my chances of success.

Anyway I seem to have sidetracked a little, so as for the band, we intend to get a four track EP recorded so we can stick it on ReverbNation and hopefully start gigging. We currently have a friend of ours working on our publicity for when we do get everything ready, but until then we can only practice what we have and write more.

The four tracks for the EP have all been written, one of which is even loaded with a solo from each member of the band, but since we no longer have a rhythm guitarist, Nathan will have to record the second guitar as well as his own, and hopefully we can train up a fourth member soon enough.

We will face a few difficulties when it comes to gigging, the first of which being we are a member down. But more than anything our current biggest problem is that we don't fully know what kit we will need, we do know that we can currently only play somewhere that already has a PA system, our amps are loud enough even if they don't get mic'ed up, but we only have 3 amps big enough to use: a 100 watt Trace Elliot Commando bass amp (solid state), a 100 watt guitar amp which we can't find any information on (also solid state), and an 80 watt Marshall Valvestate (which as the name suggests is both valve and solid state). The Marshall may be smaller than the others, but it is still very loud and will be perfectly usable in conjunction with the others.

The next problem will be transport, neither me, Nath or Phil can drive, and so we'll have to pack the majority of the kit in Nath's dad's van, once that is filled with the amps, and the drum kit, and the guitars, there probably won't be enough room for all of us. so my guess is that some of us will have to go in Phil's fiancée's car.

The next problem would be the sound tech, we don't have one of our own, and so we'll need to use whoever is at the venue, that is of course if there even is someone at the venue. So yeah, if you haven't guessed, being in a band is a lot more than most idiots expect it to be, and so we as a band have a lot of things to sort out.

This year is going to be fun...

Soap Opera

Last week was very peculiar, in fact it was so peculiar and so oddly messed up that it felt more like a soap opera than the average week in the life of this particular twat. The only thing this week was missing was a gratuitous sex scene.

There were some mundane aspects to my week, for instance I played guitar, I played bass, I ate chocolate and I even watched some of my favourite films. But that is about it really, the majority of the week was spent terrorising the local (unpopular) park, and begging Zed to join me and Nath in an orgy.

As you can tell things got weird, but wait there's more, the weirdest thing that happened to me last week was that I got invited to a party, a party at some strangers house where there would be beer and a barbeque. I went, I thought it would be an interesting experience, but it wasn't. I just stood near someone I knew and ate three burgers, followed by drinking three bottles of Budweiser.

Onto the most interesting event of the week, Zed caught on to Ash's suspicions that she fancied Nath, so one day they decided to do a bit of role playing and started acting as a couple just to really get under his skin. It worked, he said otherwise, but even a dead chimpanzee could tell that it worked.

It was actually quite funny to watch Nath and Zed act as a couple, they played a really convincing part, even though they did both admit to it being the single most awkward moments of their lives (which might mean something entirely different). They even had a few special moments when Nath acted extra mad, and Zed walked up to Ash to ask if he had any idea what was wrong (Ash's face was priceless), and another moment where they engaged in an all out pillow fight which put Rarity's and Applejack's pillow fight to shame.

I admit it was all a bit harsh, but since Ash has been a bit of a pathetic fuck-around lately, we decided to get back at him, especially since he quit the band, just after I managed to succeed in getting a place with a drumkit for us to practice. What a tit. The funny part was that he quit because we mentioned make-up, he can happily "dance" but he won't go near make-up, I hope he makes it onto television.

Looking the Part!

The last week has been quite epic for me, and today was quite interesting since we mixed things up a bit. The first thing that happened is I had a quick changed of appearance, a new hair style to be precise. The next thing of interest that happened was the compliment I received about my post on Bronies UK. And finally there was today, probably the most interesting day of them all.

So I'm going to start with my new look, because that seems like the best thing to start with, and I also like to go in chronological order. I decided since I'm in a pop-punk band (which will most likely end up as a hardcore punk-metal band) I'd give myself a punk hairstyle, and being the big Misfits fan, I decided to chose the devilock.

Everything went well at first, my hair was of a decent length, not quite long enough for Doyle's or Jerry's variant of the devilock, but it was perfect for Danzig's version, which is the one I'm aiming for. Anyway I combed through my hair to quickly remove my knots and left the fate of the back and sides of my head to my dad, and his barber skills.

That all went well and once the easy bit was over and done with I had a shower and went to bed, it was late and I couldn't be bothered to do anything further at the time. Come morning I started crafting my evil mop into a devilock, firstly by straightening it, and then by coating it in the only hair styling product I had available, Murray's Superior Pomade. It's excellent stuff, but pomade was not designed to hold a devilock in place, and so I ended up just going for that hipster look and combed everything to the left until I had some appropriate product.

Moving swiftly on, on Friday I did my second real post on Bronies UK (I say real because I don't exactly count my first post). Once that was posted I sent it to Zed, because she enjoyed my first real post and wanted to read the second once it was up. As soon as she finished reading it she sent me a message on Facebook reading "I love your writing, it gives my a unique look on life!" I didn't really know what to say to that so I just awkwardly smiled at my screen, thankful that I wasn't in a video chat with her, otherwise it would have been weird.

Today was when the fun really began, Zed decided to come to me instead of have me go to her. Naturally Nath also decided to show up, and then we decided to move to his house since my room is only just big enough to have two of us in here, let alone three of us with guitars.

Well after a ninety minute "guitar lesson" we decided that we should stop and just terrorise the town like the typical teenagers, so we went to the park and literally just played on the swings like little kids. The only thing remotely bad that we were doing was listening to psychobilly songs through the speakers of my crappy phone.

My currant task is actually to start getting my mate Ash running, because he literally just told me he wants to get fit, so I'm gonna support him and help him. After that i can go back to eating pizza and rocking out. I've also got to create my half of our bands setlist, I have twenty-five minutes worth of music to choose.

Rocking Tunes!

As you may know from reading my previous posts I'm in a pop-punk band called Six Stories Up. So far we have written a grand total of two of our own songs, and we are also preparing a crap load of covers to perform. At least two of us are taking this seriously, that's me and Nathan, we're not so sure about the third.

Anyway we have been spending a nice amount of time jamming together, and decided just the other day that we should each choose four songs to cover (making twelve covers), those songs have all been chosen and we're now learning how to play them, unfortunately we don't have access to a drum kit at the moment, which is a bit of a pain, especially since we have an area to put it (Nath's garage, which will soon be converted for our band practice).

As I said we have two songs, one of them just needs a few minor adjustments, and the other one we have forgotten how to play, but we still have the lyrics so at least something is on our side. the first song simply just needs the guitar part for it's quieter bridge rewritten.

On to other ventures, I celebrated my 100th YouTube video last Monday and I had a nice little party with my friends, after I had finished celebrating that I started a secondary YouTube channel called G_Man TV! which is essentially me doing the stupidest things I can think of for the sake of it. So far I only have one video, which is me attempting what I call the Mustard Challenge, and failing miserably.

I also went to Hanley the other day, which made a nice change, I spent the day causing chaos with my friends and wishing I had money to buy myself some nice things. I did however visit the new music shop that has opened in The Potteries Center, it didn't have a very good selection of basses which was a shame but there were some damn nice guitars there, more importantly there was a lot of other nice things there, including, and not limited to, a sexy female employee.

Overall my week hasn't been too interesting but I've been enjoying myself nonetheless, and now I have yet another fun day at the House of Zed, unfortunately I wasted all my money whilst at Hanley so I need to ride my bike there.

I Have an Exciting Week Ahead, and I Have No Plans for It!

Well what do you know it's Sunday again and I don't actually have much to say. I am however excited about a few upcoming things. Before I get onto that though I will talk about a few parts of my week.

Well first thing I set about doing this week was designing a band logo, which I needed to get a bit of help for. I ended up calling upon the aid of my eldest brother Chaz, who decided to give me a few lessons on how to use Adobe Illustrator CS6. I definitely need those lessons, my vector drawing skills aren't great. I was even handed a booklet on how to use Adobe Illustrator CS2, which is pretty much the same as CS6, but I actually have CS2 so it was perfect for me, and I ended up creating a decent logo for a punk band, I don't know how well it'll work for pop-punk though, but my band mates haven't complained yet.

After the logo was done I started working on creating a pop-punk version of Eurobeat Brony's song Discord. I did this in the hopes that I could convince the rest of the band to join me in covering it, and thankfully I was able to succeed in such a thing. So now we have one song that we are definitely doing at some point.

Continuing on with the band activity, our lead singer Ash wrote a song for us, which describes all of our relationships without using his horribly inaccurate wrestling theory (don't ask). My initial thoughts on his song was simply "oh no" the least pop-punk person in the band wrote a pop punk song, and surprisingly it's actually not bad, I would say it's better than the one I wrote the other week, but it talks about me, Ash and also Nath instead of just Ash, or just me, or just Nath. Mine at least talks about just me, which focuses the song. Admittedly I screwed up the instrumental side of the song by letting my love of prog take over.

Other than various band related activities my week has been fairly uneventful, which has meant I've had a few bad days in regards to my depression, but overall I am still a mostly happy person. Weirdly I've been suppressing my depression with darker music, and by that I don't mean I've been listening to Cradle of Filth or someone similar, I mean instead of listening to Rush I've been listening to Tool. I suppose this is actually quite normal for a sad person to suppress their sadness with sad music, I just don't understand how it works.

Anyway this next week has at least two events that I'm looking forward to. First off tomorrow I'm going up to the House of Zed and the plan is that the entire Library Crew all turn up. The Library Crew consists of the three friends I've mentioned a lot on this blog recently (Ash, Nath and Zaina) and also another friend of mine, Keely, who is hard to reach now that we don't all go to school anymore. I'd also like to point out, in order to avoid confusion, that Keely is a boy, not a girl, he got the name Keely when Ash misheard what I called him during an intense game of Uno.

So the five of us are all going to have a meet up at the House of Zed, which is Zaina's house in case you didn't know. If all goes to plan Monday should be quite enjoyable, however, I was told by Zaina that she wanted to have a word with me, the way she said it implies that it's not going to be good news. I still can't wait to hear what she has to say, because she wouldn't have said it if it wasn't important and it might help relieve some of the tension within my mind.

The other thing that I'm looking forward to this week is celebrating my 100th video on YouTube, which I believe is on Wednesday or Thursday. I have a few plans for my video, but I'm not entirely sure what I'm actually going to do with it. The only thing I know for definite is that I'm going to need to borrow my dads smartphone, it's the best camcorder in the house.

Yet Another Exciting Week for The G!

I have had an absolutely incredible week! First off I spent a day at college to get to know the students I'll spend next year with, and I even made a friend. After that I had an absolutely incredible Saturday which may have started rough, but it became one of my happiest days. Today has also been pretty darn good too!

I'm going to start with my day at college which was Wednesday. I didn't really expect much out of it in the first place, I went because I wanted to see who I'd be spending the next year with so I had time to mentally prepare myself for it. Most of the lads seemed alright, but they definitely aren't the kind of dudes I'd usually attach myself too, one of the girls wasn't either. The other girl however I did find some connection with, I ended up spending the majority of the day making friends with her, she seemed to be the most like me.

Surprisingly the people I met that day seemed to like me, I usually have people hating me straight from the get-go, but not this time. I'm also not sure how long this will last, but most of the year will be spent team-building so I imagine we all might come to be friends, maybe not good friends but friends nonetheless.

As I said Saturday has been the best day in recent memory for me. Unfortunately though I started it off by talking to my ex-girlfriend (and not the good ex-girlfriend either) so I started the day feeling pretty damn horrible. I'm not going to go into details, it's not very interesting, (for me at least).

That feeling lasted about an hour, it stopped when a little knock at the door signaled the arrival of a package for me. Inside the package was a new headset for me to record my YouTube videos with, and more importantly, a set of bass strings (D'Addario Chromes XL if you must know) so I distracted myself for the next few minutes by listening to Tool and restringing (and polishing) my bass.

Once she was restrung I felt like I could marry my bass guitar, flat wound strings are amazing, they feel so smooth and they flatten out and smooth the tone to really emphasise the fact it's a bass instrument. I don't think I'm ever buying round wound strings for my basses again.

Unfortunately I wasn't able to play her for very long, it was time for my day to start. To jump back a little, Wednesday was Zaina's birthday, but she was unavailable that day due to plans with her family, Saturday was the day where me and Ash were able to celebrate with her. and come one O'clock on Saturday afternoon I set off for Ash's house where I got a lift to Zaina's house (after a brief clothes shopping trip).

The day with Zaina was spent pretty much in the same way as all other days with Zaina. We just sat back and chilled whilst having a great laugh. The highlight of out time there was that she made us a really nice curry, and even supplied us with a nice amount of naan bread and poppadoms, as well as prawn crackers, mango chutney and some weird tasty chicken things. That meal really did kick ass.

That time soon came to an end and it was time for me to face what I was expecting to be the hardest part of the day. To jump back once again, that morning I noticed a post on the Bronies UK Facebook page saying that the blog was going to be opened up to a few new authors and he was looking for applications. Being an aspiring author, and a big fan of the My Little Pony television series, I added him on Skype, thinking I'd have a higher chance if I applied that way instead of by filling in the form. I was told at the time that he couldn't speak to me because he had to go to work, and that he would be able to speak after nine PM.

When I got back home from Zaina's house at about half past nine, the first thing I did was send him a message. No reply, so I waited. While I waited I decided to plug in my new headset and test it out. I thought progressive rock sounded incredible without surround sound, with it it sounds like pure magic being pumped into my brain. It's Heaven.

Half an hour later I received a message and we started talking. He asked me if I'd ever wrote for a blog before and I told him that I have my own blog (this one) and then sent him a link to last weeks post. He was so impressed with it he just accepted me onto the team there and then. I couldn't believe it. Then he started asking me the interview questions just for the sake of it.

I don't think I've been that giddy since just before May Day when I started seeing Lydia. I wanted to celebrate and dance around my house, but unfortunately my brother was asleep and he needed to wake up at stupid O'clock in the morning, (his words), so I couldn't make much noise.

Today was a bit more toned down, I spent the morning trying something new with my YouTube channel, and I spent the best part of two hours editing my video, at least it felt like that long. It was all worth it, I quite like how my video turned out.

After all that was done I went to my friend Nathan's house where we discussed our band and recorded a silly video for his YouTube channel. The majority of that visit was about how our band needed a name change, because the name we had was more horror-punk than pop-punk. We now have a new name, and this next week will be spent on a logo, and also creating a set list that gives us about fifty minutes of play time. Hopefully we can soon get our hands on a drummer and then get around to doing some proper rehearsals.

I'm pleased to be able to end this post by saying that i am most definitely pulling myself out of my depression, I now have a band, I've made a new friend, I also have a new hobby and even a bit of a job. As long as I keep on going like this, I reckon I'll be back to my old self by September at the latest.

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.

Friendship is Magic

My plan to win over Lydia's mother has failed, which means I am to remain single for the foreseeable future. This does have one major advantage though: I'm now allowed to have friends. Unfortunately I don't really speak to my original best friend anymore, I lost him sometime during the relationship with Dana, but thankfully I now have a new friend to take his place.

So for the time being my mate Ash will be considered my best friend, as he is my first real friend. I highly doubt he'd be replaced by a female anytime soon on the sole basis that I am no longer in contact with females, and those I am in contact with are much manlier than I am, so I don't consider them dating options. I'd also like to admit it isn't hard to be manlier than me.

My current hope is that my other friend Nathan will visit me, or at least tell me where he lives so I can visit him, and then the two of us will be able to form a band. I'd also invite Ash to join us, but unfortunately he isn't a drummer, which is what we'd need. I already have a name idea for the band, but since there is no band as of yet, the name will stay in my head.

If a band is formed it will most likely end up a horror punk band, since we both like punk and I get the feeling I'll be the primary lyricist so I'd end up including a lot of horror themed lyrics, or my lyrics will consist of taboo subjects. I have other ideas for what this band would become, but it'll most likely become something entirely different.

I have also restarted my old YouTube channel and I'm working on another Minecraft play through, I'm hoping that this one will last more than twelve episodes, and I'm hoping someone will actually view it, (I'll put a link to the first episode at the bottom of this post). There are two reasons why I've started doing this again after two years, the first and foremost being: Ash reminded me. The second reason is simply that I have nothing better to do with my free time.

Since it is the first of the month, I may as well record the plans I have for it, first of all I have a college interview on the twelfth, which I'm both looking forward to and dreading at the same time. following that on the Saturday I'm going on holiday to Abersoch, and I'm looking forward to that very much. I plan on taking my guitar and a notebook so I can compose a song or two, I may practice my drawing skills a bit.

The half term has pretty much ended now, school is back open tomorrow. I won't be going though, I've finished with it. I should now consider getting myself a job, I reckon I stand the best chance of getting a job at the newsagents where I do my paper rounds. I do need a job, I also need to visit my GP at some point so I can get a letter from him.

As promised here is the link to the first episode of my Minecraft Let's Play:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u5nyXx_QdsM