Back online (Wake me up when September ends)

I'm back! Sorry it's been so long, but the internet at our house has been a complete nightmare these last few weeks! I have had several blog ideas in the last few weeks, but due to various problems they haven't happened. To fill you in let me first take you back to where my last blog left off (imagine your own blur effect transition between scenes here, like they do in tellyland).

I ended my last blog by bragging about how I was in Sunny Spain and enjoying 'mucho vino blanco'. Well it turns out that there is such a thing as too mucho vino blanco as I discovered a couple of days later on a day during which I hadn't drunk enough soft drinks, but certainly overdid the wine, causing dehydration to kick in. What this resulted in was me making a complete ass of myself in the home of Stacey's Grandad and his wife. I threw up not just in the toilet, but in the shower and on the upstairs landing. Super! All was forgiven though, as I was told the next day that this sort of behaviour is apparently a rite of passage for those that visit their household.

About a week after the posting of my 'Live from Spain' blog we returned home on a late-night flight from Alicante to Gatwick. Many flights had been delayed that day, we luckily only had to wait an extra twenty minutes though. Everything looked to be going smoothly and we soon found ourselves up in the air drinking coffee. It was when we landed back home in England that the classic British way of life once again reared its ugly head towards us. For when we landed, we had to sit on the plane an wait for the airport staff to actually come and let us off, as even though the plane landed right on schedule, the airport weren't ready for us. The pilot sounded just as peeved as us passengers. Once we were finally let off the plane, we trekked the endless hallways and corridors of the airport to what can only be described as Hell on Earth: Border Control. Now I will make it clear that I do appreciate the job that Border Control attempts to do, however when it's 2am and five or six flights are all landing at around that same ridiculous time, they could have at least had more than four members of staff working. We had to wait there for about an hour in the queue which resulted in much agitation!

My Dad was nice enough to pick us up at silly-o-clock in the morning and after waiting at a coffee shop that he referred to as Costa Fortune, drove us home and to bed for a deep sleep.

Once home, I discovered that the internet was down in our house. Talk about terrible news in 2010. Luckily in these days of 3G all was not lost even if not convenient. You see the flash player on my phone won't let me play Scrabble on Facebook. Internet problems are, as it turns out, extremely hard to solve. Dad bought a new router, we had a neighbour fix it up properly, and got the internet... in small doses on the desktop. Our laptops could forget about it! So we continued to get on the case of our internet provider, who'll remain nameless because you've probably never heard of them anyway. After weeks of badgering, we finally ended up with a BT engineer out to fix us up with a brand new phone line running to the house, and a new phone socket in the house. Although there had been a problem with the phone line, the engineer told me that unfortunately it looked like we had a 'two for the price of one' problem with out internet connection, as although the problem line had been fixed, there was also most certainly a problem with the new router. And where was the old router, oh yeah, at the dump somewhere! So the plan for Saturday was to take the new faulty router back to the shop and exchange it for a decent one, until on Friday evening when we received a message from our internet provider. Our provider hadn't been too helpful up to this point, but this message has made them good guys for now in my eyes, as they said that they'd detected problems in our house concerning the internet still, and as a result were sending us a new router. The router arrived today, less than 2 hours ago, and I set it up straight away. It's working great and has meant that I'm back online to entertain the masses (I'm counting both of you that read this as a mass by the way) with this great blog.

One thing I can't help but think is how much we become accustomed to having something in our lives. I can remember being a kid back in what seems now like the stone-age, the nineties and can't quite believe we used to live without the internet. I even still had some access to it, whether it was when I went round Stacey's, if the desktop was sort providing it for a bit, or even through my phone. I still felt some form of withdrawal though as it wasn't there as often as I would have liked, especially on this here laptop of mine. It now makes me wonder what we'll have in the future that we won't be able to live without.

On a side note, when the very helpful engineer was fitting our new phone line to the house, he told me that one of our neighbours was staring at him out the window. This neighbour has since been round and lectured my seven year old sister, moaning about how some dust from the drilling went on his windows and about how there was a mark left on OUR house. I don't why he felt he had to tell us, but gees. I just don't understand what goes on in people's heads sometimes and hope that I don't end up a complete busy-body when I'm older.

Moving on now from chat of internet troubles, as they are hopefully behind us, I will now tell of some of the more exciting stuff that has been going on in my world this month.

A couple of days after returning from Spain, Stacey and I attended a concert at Wembley Stadium, a venue that Stacey described as a 'great feat of engineering'. We were there to see Muse, and although I'm not a huge fan of their work, was plenty excited nevertheless as I had heard good things about their live act. Unfortunately to get to see them, we had to endure three of the worst support acts in history. The Big Pink and White Rabbit were both rather dull, and at one stage (I can't remember during which set this was) I actually forgot that there was a band playing. It would have been much better if they had merged to play one set between them and become The Big Pink White Rabbit, it would have saved time at least. The third and final support act was Lily Allen, who I admittedly detest. I simply hate her style of music. Her set was appalling and she even apologised and admitted that she was a little off due to her pregnancy. Why was she even on the stage then? She was in no state to put on a performance. Then, it seems Lily decided that I hadn't been tortured enough, as she introduced a rapper (crapper if you ask me) named Professor Green. All I can say is that I have serious doubts that he has a PHD in anything. He certainly has no qualifications in the studies of music.

Muse eventually came on at a rather late time for a Wembley gig, especially since the venue gates opened at 4:30pm. Alas, they put on a fantastic show! A lot of their appeal is smoke-and-mirrors, but done in the best way. Their songs were all recognisable, even to me, and they truly won me over. I'd happily see them again, so long as the support line-up is improved.


We unfortunately had to leave before the encore due to the time and that fact that we right around the back of the stadium and furthest away from the station. We got to the station as the crowds were beginning to exit the stadium behind us. Running down the steps to the platform, I saw a train about to leave, headed for our direction. I ran and jumped onto the train just as the doors were closing, very smooth. However, I then turned around and found that Stacey had not made it and was stranded on the platform, her phone died earlier that afternoon. I was stricken with worry and panic. Every imaginable horror came to my mind at once. I would never forgive myself. Then 10 minutes later, I found her.. or rather she found me. She was fine and couldn't believe that I'd been worried. After all she's not a child, in fact she's older than me, so it should have been her that was worried about me then I guess.

The next day we got up early...ish and went with some of the old gang to one of my favourite places in the whole wide world: Thorpe Park! It was a great day and despite more queues, these were much more worth waiting in than that of border control. Stacey, Chris and Nat queued up for the Saw Maze. While they were doing that, Pete, Jason and myself went on Logger's Leap. Afterwards we met back up and those that went through the maze claimed that we that had skipped the maze were cowards. I can safely tell you that we were not cowards, but indeed held the same belief, which is when at Thorpe Park, you queue up to have your body thrown around 100 mile per hour, not to have some of the park's staff jump out at you in a dark room wearing fancy dress.

As for the rest of the month, well, it's been business as usual. I've been back to work for a few weeks now, started revising for an exam that is fast approaching, and been on a few nights out with friends. Spain seems an age ago now, although I still feel the difference from life pre-holiday. Whereas before the holiday having to go to work, do uni work, and life in general was starting to become a bit of a drag, after having spent ten days away from it all has had a refreshing effect. I'm now excited to be back in the middle of all of the hustle and bustle in my life. Especially as I always enjoy this time of year, the run up to Christmas.

I also found what I consider to be somewhat of a bargain this past Saturday. I paid £18 for a Gamecube game, which may sound a lot to many of you, especially when you take into account that most Gamecube games in the same store were between £2 and £8. This game was however quite a find, and some would possibly consider it an antique of sorts. Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door is a very rare game, and being currently 5 hours into the game, is proving to be worth every penny. If you don't believe me, let me leave you with this epic scene from the game. Lara Croft, eat your heart out!



Stay Tuned!

'Live from Spain...'

That's right: Live from Spain, it's the world's greatest blog!

I thought that I'd take a break from the sunshine and the swimming pool to step inside and delight you all, my constant readers with my monthly blog detailing the last month or so.

August really was a dark and wet month weather-wise. It seems that as soon as the kids all finished school for the summer, the sun decided to go on a holiday of its own. As a result of this, added to the sum of there being nothing to entertain in town, our humble video rental store was extremely busy. In fact, it has been the busiest summer in history for us, and very tiring. As well as working at the store, I also had plenty of work to keep me busy with at home too, as I had to write not one, but two assignments for my Film and Television History course this month. Part of this was self-inflicted though, as the deadline for the jumbo-four thousand word assignment hasn't yet been. I just wanted it done and out of the way before leaving the country for a much deserved rest.

Leaving work alone now, my parents took two of my siblings away on holiday for two weeks at the beginning of August, they did however, leave on sibling behind with me. Bummer! Although I had a great time, as Stacey moved in for the fortnight and we had some friends over on a few of the nights, my brother seemed to try to (or should perhaps I should say 'made no effort resulting in..') ruin what should have been a great, carefree couple of weeks. He appears to have no skills in living... at all. He can't cook, clean or take care of himself. I may be being a little unfair here, I mean, maybe it's a pure case of won't as opposed to can't! Anyway, whenever his mates would come round, they would stay the night, causing a lot of mess to be left the next day. My dearest brother made as little effort as possible to tidy up, leaving me to bare the brunt of it. The house was left in a tip every time they stayed, and let's just say that at least one of his friends has extremely poor aim when it comes to using the toilet! What all this came down to was a huge bust up. For on the Friday before my parents returned, Stacey and I made the effort to clear up the house, as although they weren't coming home until the Sunday, I had work on both Saturday and Sunday. So after cleaning the place, I agree with my wonderful brother that I have been nice and put up with a lot or beer spills, pizza stains and toilet unpleasantries, and that he his to have no other friends round in a bid to keep the place looking good. He agrees and all is good. Then, that night at about 1am, just after going to bed, I hear my brother come home, and also hear that he is not alone. In fact I can hear that there are lots of them! I then let my temper get the best of me and storm from my room in my dressing gown to confront my brother. I find him and some of his friends in his bedroom unplugging the Playstation to take downstairs, and remind him of our deal.
'We're only going to play games and aren't drinking tonight' he argues.
This is contradicted almost right away with the line 'and some of them live in Leigh and have drunk, so can't drive home'.
I tell him that I don't care and that they'd better start walking then. Following this I go downstairs to find two crates of lager. Thanks for the honesty bro! I tell them all to get out, trying to ignore the abuse some attempt to throw my way. When they're gone, I turn to my brother and things melt down rather quickly as we nearly came to blows. Thankfully Stacey came down and broke us up to prevent us from killing each other.

Aside from that I had a great couple of weeks :-)

Life went back to normal once the rest of my family returned. My Mum had her birthday, for which I bought her a canvas print of our cat Pepsi. The following day, Stacey's stepdad Peter also turned of age. The rest of the month that wasn't spent consumed with work included a great Indian meal with some close friends, a night on the town in Maidstone which was great, and an evening bowling with the usual gang added with an American friend-of-a-friend. August came to its end with an evening at the cinema with the gang. We watched Scott Pilgrim vs The World which if you haven't seen it, is fantastic! Edgar Wright as director has done a brilliant job of creating something completely different that also features many a cheeky nod to retro-videogaming!

And now here we are, that was a week ago already! On Sunday morning we flew out here to Sunny-Spain! There was even a celebrity on our cheap, early morning flight. That's right the one and only Louie Spence was aboard! We didn't pester him for autographs or pictures though, he was with a friend and looked as if he was trying to keep a low profile. I mean, the guy didn't even dance!

Anyway, Spain has been great! Mucho Vino Blanco! Swimming Pool! And many chess victories over Stacey! I have also managed to read a lot more which is great, and have started playing the second Professor Layton game. There's barely been time to leave the house what with how busy we've been, but we did manage to go to a Spanish Shopping centre today. While there I found out something rather horrifying. It turns out that a virus is spreading and fast becoming an international plague. I am of course referring to the fact that we found a very large Primark store in Spain.

I'll leave you all now as it is early evening and I have a new glass of vino blanco sat in front of me, ready to drink!

Until next time, Adios mi amigos!

Nineteen

For my 18th Birthday, which was three years ago now in 2007, I received the gift of Stephen King's The Dark Tower series from Stacey's family. This story, which is spread over seven volumes follows The Last Gunslinger, Roland of Gilead on his quest to reach the elusive Dark Tower. Set in a world different to our own, a world that we are constantly reminded has 'moved on', remnants of our world often appear as ancient relics. Our world hasn't moved on, but seems to be linked in some way to Roland's. Three years ago, I read the first volume in which Roland gives chase to The Man in Black, and encounters Jake, a boy who died in our world and wound up in his world. Moving swiftly along so as to not give away too many spoilers, I then proceeded to read the second book, in which more characters from our world are introduced and brought over to Roland's. Once I had finished reading the second book, I began on the third, but felt that I needed a break from the series, as, even though I was gripped to the story, I didn't want to become bogged down by it. Three years have past however, three years in which these books have remained confined to a shelf in bedroom gathering dust, while I have aged, grown (mentally, emotionally and physically) and become an almost a completely different person. Essentially this 21 year old version of me seems a million miles away from the 18 year old version. This brings me to about a week and a half ago, the first week of August 2010, when I looked across my bedroom and felt the Dark Tower calling to me, just as it does to Roland with its mysterious power. I got up, and reached across picking up The Dark Tower, Volume III: The Waste Lands. I spotted a makeshift bookmark that I had been using which was placed exactly 100 pages into the book. This makeshift bookmark was itself an ancient relic from a time gone by, and goes to show that this world has also 'moved on', as well as signifying the changes in my life that have occurred during the last three years. 'What was this bookmark?' I hear you all cry. The answer, none other than a transaction receipt from the Woolworths store that I used to work in.

So I rejoined Roland on his quest and am enjoying it more than ever. This however is not the main reason for blogging today though, for it was the introduction written by Stephen King in 2003 that is printed on the opening pages of each book in the edition that I own. I reread this introduction entitled Introduction - On Being Nineteen (and a few other things) - and it got me to thinking. The first Dark Tower novel was published in 1982, and the final installment was finally released in 2004. So its fair to say that King spent a considerable amount of his life writing this story, and was a much younger man when he began than when he finished. In fact, when he wrote the introduction to my copy of the story, he was 55 years old, and in it he discusses how he feels that nineteen (the age that he was when he conceived the initial idea for the Dark Tower) was the best age of his life.

I can remember reading this when I was eighteen, and smiling at the fact that I still had the age of nineteen ahead of me. Now, however, the age of nineteen is two years behind me, and after rereading of Stephen King's thoughts, feelings, experiences and memories of being nineteen himself, I began to think back to 2008 (one of the two years in which I had put my quest to reach the Tower on hold), the year that I turned nineteen.

2008 for me has remained the year for all others to beat. For me, 2008 and that age of nineteen signifies the beginning of friendships that will last a lifetime. I was never close enough to any school friends to warrant staying in contact once I left, it was my Woolworths colleagues that I have indeed found my greatest friends in though, and it was 2008 that was the year that I first found this (maybe it was that receipt calling me back and not the Tower?). 2008 was a year of fun-filled days and even better nights. Thinking back, I can only muster some memories of that awesome summer, and all of them make me smile. Memories such as Thorpe Park, Pokemon puzzle league at Chris's house, Victor' s mansion with the hot tub, 'Spoons', a double-date to Bluewater cinema to see Iron Man, playing Okami, listening to 30 Seconds to Mars, SOS fancy dress, going for runs, and doing work experience at MTV while looking forward to getting home to meet up with everyone once again at Spoons.

Those were just some of the memories that I have of that summer, which I still consider to be the best ever in my life so far. Unfortunately that summer had to come to an end as do all sunny days. Many friends disappeared far and wide around the country, while Stacey left our happy Woolies store to end the year on a low an inferior branch. Our manager with whom we had become good friends with was then replaced with another (also inferior) and lead to myself jumping ship to the Blockbuster Store to which I am currently employed. The major story that finished off 2008 was the demise of Woolworths (my Dark Tower if you will). The end of Woolworths coincidentally would coincide with the end of 2008, and effectively be the end of an era. 2009 couldn't live up to the hype and wound up being a bit of a disappointment. 2010 got off to a rocky start, although has done a better job of gaining momentum. I feel I spent too much of 2009 trying to recapture 2008, while this year I have finally been able 'move on' as Roland would say.

To end this blog, I would like to say that while I haven't recaptured the feeling of 2008, 2010 has been an amazing year thus far. I also can't help but feel that in my mind, because the majority of my memories from two years ago are good ones, that I may be idealising it in my head. For now I can happily say that My World has moved on.

...And one last thing, I can't help but notice that this is the nineteenth blog that I have written, which is a spooky coincidence. I'm sure Stephen King would find a story in that!

Time of the month - July

That's right it's that time of the month once again... The time when I like to briefly recap the month that has just passed me by. July seems to have just disappeared! It went so quickly, as has the majority of this year already. A lot of fun was had though, and in one way I made some progress with my life.

We'll start with Saturday 10th July, which was probably the most fun I had this month. With a group of five of my friends, I travelled by train to Brighton. When we left home in the morning it was a bright and sunny day, although when we got down to the coast we were met with a grey foggy day. This thankfully cleared and didn't have a negative impact on the day. In Brighton we went on some of the rides, including the Waltzers, on the pier, sat on the beach, and had some drinks. I myself enjoyed my first alcoholic beverage since passing out to the stuff at my birthday bash two weeks earlier, which was a big step for me. The highlight of the day came towards the end, as we were walking along the beach and stumbled across the Red Bull X-Fighters showing off a demonstration of the stunts that they perform in a bid to advertise the fact that you can purchase tickets to see them. It was great to see these guys performing death-defying stunts, although now that I've seen it for free, I don't see the need to pay to see them again, so in a way I guess it backfired on them.

Another highlight of the month was the birthday night out for Pete. After not being impressed at how unorganised others had been recently over their own birthday nights out, Pete wanted to organise something great... Spoons and SOS it was then! Personally, I had a great night, as I'm of the opinion that a great night can be had anywhere, as the only determining factor in a whether a night is great or not is down to the people that you're with and how great you all make it.

July also saw the beginning of the school summer holidays, with which I decided to end my tenure with the local primary school with which I've been associated for the last 18 months. I volunteered there once a week to gain experience and to discover what life working in a school is like. For six months of my time there I was even employed. I chose to leave as I felt that the summer holidays were a good time to disappear, and because over the next year I want to be able to work more days in the week to earn money. I also feel that I've given more than my fair share of time there. I will miss parts of the place, but just felt it time to move along.

Movie-Mania hit me this month! July is the best month of the year for Summer Blockbusters every year, and 2010 proved no exception to the rule. I attended the cinema four times this month and thoroughly enjoyed each of the films that I watched, all four of which I believe will make my top 10 films of the year list in December. The first movie that I saw at the cinema this month was Shrek Forever After the fourth and final film in the Shrek series. I've been a big fan of Shrek, having loved the first 2 in the series as well as the Christmas themed short film Shrek the Halls. Although I will admit to being slightly disappointed by the third installment, I did to an extent enjoy it, but did hope that the fourth film could pick it back up again. I'm happy to say that I have as much love for the fourth Shrek as I do the first two. The story was well written, and much darker than its predecessors. Toy Story 3 was the next film that I went to see, and I will once again state that it was AMAZING, but I've already dedicated a whole blog to it so will move along to discuss Inception. Leonardo DiCaprio's newest film by Christopher Nolan concerns travelling into dreams, and dreams within dreams and utilises the device of time difference between dreams and reality to perfection. I found it a little hard to get into at first, but once the film got going, it was edge of your seat cinematography, with an ending that caused the sold-out audience to gasp. The last film that I went to the pictures to see was the brand new A-Team movie! This reboot of the highly popular action series from the 1980s was fantastic, and in my own opinion better than the slightly dated series of old. It was a CGI filled no-nonsense action flick which after having paid close attention during Inception, was a welcome change of pace.

To end the blog, I'll discuss the closing moment of the month for me. They were spent in a club in Maidstone, Strawberry Moons, for Sam's birthday. We had a great night out in the club that I'd never before been to, but actually quite liked due to the inoffensive (to my ears) music and not too expensive drinks. What made the night even better was the fact that there was a burger bar across the road open at 2am. A quarter-pounder with onions is always a welcome addition to my belly at that time of the morning!

Until next time... Stay Tuned!

You've got a friend in me...

On Monday evening I was lucky enough to have the chance (by lucky enough I mean had enough money for tickets) to see Disney and Pixar's latest collaborative effort with the highly anticipated Toy Story 3. The film was shown using the currently popular Digital 3D technology, which meant that the tickets cost extra and plastic glasses were to be worn, although said glasses have been kept as it will save money to reuse them. The glasses did come in handy during the showing however, as they did hide the teary eyes of everybody in the audience. That's right, I'm not ashamed to admit that I shed a tear of two during the film. I would like to make it clear that I have never to my memory cried at a film before, and that this was the first time.

This truly is a testament to Pixar's storytelling powers, as I am one of those people that despite becoming gripped to a good plot and somewhat attached to characters, will always turn around and say 'It's just a film, it's not real'. I can watch any film shot with real actors and any character can go thought the greatest of emotional traumas and my eyes will remain dry even if I do feel awfully bad for that character. This also applies to real life, I haven't been much of a crier since I was a kid. Yet, you take some computer animated toys, put them in any kind of jeopardy and that's it, I'm trying as hard as possible to fight back the tears. The reason for this is that Pixar over the years have become masters of cinematic storytelling and use this to toy (pun not intended but appreciated) with the audience's own emotions. The last time previous to Toy Story 3 that I became in any way choked up at a film was during last year's Up, which was also a Disney Pixar production. If you haven't had the chance to watch Up yet I strongly suggest that you track it down! To give you an idea of what it is all about, just watch the opening montage...

To get the full effect of that clip, you really do need to see the whole movie, although I do hope that you at least see what I am getting at there. If not then all I can say is that you must have a heart made from the coldest and hardest of stone!

Up, didn't actually bring tears pouring, or even trickling from my eyes, it merely produced a lump in my throat. Toy Story 3 on the other hand did produce salty liquid from beneath my eyelids. The reason for this I feel is that in its third edition, an edition that has taken over a decade to reach us, the Toy Story franchise is one that I have grown up with. I was five when the first film was released at the cinema, nine or ten when I went with my family to see the second one, and now at twenty-one I have been reunited with Woody, Buzz and the gang. In a sense, I guess that part of me felt that those were the toys that defined my childhood, causing me to be much more emotionally invested in their well being.

I'll leave you now, and do hope that you'll all see both films that I've mentioned in this here blog of mine. If neither of them causes any emotional reaction from you, then it's either because you're an uncaring monster, or because I've become girly when it comes to Pixar films. Either way, I enjoy watching them because of the memorable characters, great storytelling, and because of the emotions involved, as these films also cause laughter, gasps, and smiles throughout.

To infinity... and BEYOND!

'Tossed Salads and Scrambled Eggs' - My how my tastes have changed!

Very recently I have gotten into, and become rather obsessed with another sitcom. The sitcom of which I speak in case you hadn't already guessed from the title of this blog (which most likely means you don't watch said sitcom) is Frasier.

Yes the year is 2010 and I have begun to view a television programme that is no longer in production, having run from 1993 (the year that I turned 4 years old) to 2004. This got me to thinking last week about how my tastes have changed in the last decade since growing up. I think back to when The Simpsons was my favourite show on the box. I used to laugh from beginning to end of every episode and always looked forward to Sunday evenings when the new episodes would air on Sky One. As the years have past though, The Simpsons has given way in my viewing schedule to a number of other shows that I now deem to be more essential viewing than the comedic yellow family. The show has been running for over 20 years now, so maybe it's a simple case of it having run its course and growing stale. On the off chance that I catch one of the newer episodes, I often find myself feeling that the writers have run out of ideas for Homer and his dis-functional family, or even worse, feel that they may even be trying to rip-off certain other successful animated sitcoms such as Family Guy (which I also seem to have grown a little tired of) or South Park. On the flip side, maybe The Simpsons hasn't become as stale as it seems inside of my head. It could be a simple case of me having overexposed myself to it throughout my life, causing myself to grow bored. It's only recently that I've resumed watching the occasional episode of Friends after having not watched it for a couple of years due to it being shoved down our throats once in a while.

Scrubs is another example of what I am talking about. Back in 2005, which is alarmingly 5 full years ago now, after finishing my GCSE exams, I started following the adventures of JD, Turk, and rest of the staff at Sacred Heart Hospital. It was something new to me despite being on the air for half a decade already at that point, it was fresh and different, and I therefore found it extremely entertaining and soon became obsessed with it to the point that I own all of the boxsets available. I even watched all of the episodes again with the audio commentary on. Yet, as the years have passed, and I have learnt much of the memorable dialogue spawned from Scrubs, the show has faded into the background to the extent that I haven't watched any of the DVDs in over a year now, and quite often opt to watch something else if it's on TV. I do still like Scrubs, I love it in fact, but right now I feel I need to distance myself from it as I did with Friends so that I may enjoy it again in the future. When the newest series is released on DVD, I will once again join, and enjoy the company of the Scrubs cast.

So currently Frasier is sitting in my DVD player. That's right, I went out and bought the boxset, all 11 series spanning 44 discs. That's how into it I have gotten. What got me really thinking though, is that if I'm enjoying it this much at moment, then how come I was never a fan of it before. At first I felt that the reason was most likely due to the sophisticated and intellectual level of the script. Maybe I simply didn't get that kind of humour a few years back, after all I have changed an awful lot the last few years what with becoming a 'man' and all. I now believe though that the scripting of the show and the level of intellect is at most only a part of the reason, the main reason is simply the due to the sheer amount of media available to us in this day and age.

Back when my parents would have been my age, near enough everybody could have spoken to each other about the television shows that they watched the previous night, as there would have been a good chance that they would have watched the same thing. I said when my parents were my age, but in fact, this was also common in the early years of my life. There were less than a handful of television channels, and no internet in anyone's household. Today though, we have all sorts of media and multimedia vying for our attention that it is almost hard to keep up. We have blockbuster Hollywood films released at the cinema and on DVD and now Blu-Ray every week. We have thousands of television channels to pick and choose from, and now the internet and recordable hard drives so that we can watch what we want, when we want. This isn't even taking into account all of the great books and videogames to read and play.

My main reason for only truly discovering the comedy gold that is Frasier recently is that I had never properly watched it before. I mean, I'd seen the odd episode, but never paid it much attention and wouldn't watch another one anytime soon after. To get into a good television show you must watch several episodes to fully understand the plot and to get to know the characters, much like to get into a good book you must read past the first few chapters. It was because of all of the other shows, websites, games and books in the world that I simply never gave Frasier any time until now. And I'm glad that I eventually did, or else I would have been missing out on a well-written and performed sitcom. I'm only now left to wonder: What else am I missing out on?

The time of my life - Memory Deleted

It happened, I officially became a proper man, a real adult type person as I turned 21 on the 20th of this month. Of course this wasn't an occasion to let simply sail on by, so we decided to celebrate with a party!

Never before had so much fuss been made about little ol' me, and while flattered and in part enjoying it, in the weeks leading up to the event, I began to feel both nervous and anxious. I mean, what if nobody turned up, or what if nobody had any fun? The fear surrounded me that caused me to think of every possible way the party could be a disaster. This fear however proved false as from what I've heard the party was a success, and I can only really go by what I've heard because unfortunately I wound up more drunk than I've ever been before (and hopefully ever will be) in my life and as a result can not remember the whole night. The parts that I can remember (and more are coming back to me slowly) show me having the time of my life with almost all of my favourite people in the whole wide world. The problem came with everybody wanting to buy me a drink, which was great, apart from the fact that I was soon pretty far gone.

The speech that I made, seemed to me to be very well rehearsed and straight to the point. I have since been told by numerous sources that this in fact wasn't the case as the speech seemed to drag on, with me trying to remember what to say, forgetting very important 'thank yous' , and having to ask for help with what to say. I apparently also kept repeating the same part over and over. The night was a success overall though, and out of everybody that I've spoken to since, all have said that they had a great time. The only downfall seems to have been the downfall of me, as I ended the night with vomit streaming from my nose as I passed out, finishing the night unconscious on the floor. Luckily I don't remember that at all!

Moving on now, let's take a look back at the rest of the month that has been June 2010!

My actual birthday was celebrated with a BBQ! Although it happened to fall on the one day that wasn't as hot as hell, so we shivered everytime a breeze blew through the garden. I also received many nice presents, including a brand new stereo system that features an iPod dock as well as DAB radio from the ever lovely and beautiful Stacey! Thank you!

Before any of my birthday celebrations kicked off, there was another reason for me to feel nervous and anxious aside from the looming party. On the 17th I had another exam, this time to end my studies of the Open University's Approaching Literature course. I was incredibly scared and lacked confidence leading up to the exam, but feel that I hopefully may have pulled off a pass. Only time will tell on that front.

The month kicked off, what seems a lifetime ago now, with 2 trips to London. On Thursday 3rd, Pete, Stacey and I went to our second show at the great venue that it Shakespeare's Globe, which if you've never been, I strongly recommend as not only is it a part of our country's history, but ticket prices also start at just £5! This time we saw a production of Macbeth which was performed extremely well. Not only were the performances great, but the set design was used to great effect and unlike anything I've ever experienced before, with half of the standing area designed so that you can't see below your own neck due to a black sheet, which allows the witches to terrorize the audience and for the dead to rise up in gruesome fashion.Sea of Souls - The Scottish Play at
Shakespeare's Globe Theatre

The following night, Stacey and I were accompanied by Sarah and Mike to see Frankie Boyle record his new DVD for Christmas, at the Hammersmith Apollo. Now the others may disagree with me here, but I found Frankie to be a huge disappointment. I found that I only laughed a couple of times throughout his set and for most of it, just felt he was trying too hard to be edgy to get cheap reactions. His act was funny a couple of years ago, but it seems as if he's been unable to evolve at all in his act and simply fell flat. As a result I was not at all surprised to hear him announce that he was quitting comedy on the following week's Friday Night with Jonathan Ross. Still, Stacey loved it... bless her.Stacey outside the Hammersmith Apollo

June was also a month of birthdays. Not only did I turn in age, but so did many others, including my old friend Vikki, my very good mate Jason, for whom we had a great Friday night out, despite another disappointing England football performance, Stacey's sister Alice, and my birthday buddy neighbour Steve.

That's all for now as I leave you with the Soundtrack to June 2010!

AC/DC - Shoot to Thrill
30 Seconds to Mars - From Yesterday
Fozzy - Let the Madness Begin
Art of Dying - Get Through This (originally listened to to get through exam stress, although also applied to my killer hangover from the party).


Stay Tuned!