IPOD
RADIO
Well here we are its hit Tuesday once again and this time I'm not too tired to keep up to my blog schedule, though by the end of the day I might be.
So the weekend…
Saturday as I posted the blog you know what my general plan was, pretty much just sit around and die in a very general fashion while watching DVDs. This was pretty much all I did I will have to be honest now until about 1 o'clock, I sat around on the couch watching The West Wing and trading comments on Model Mayhem for kicks. Once again got some really good feedback and I was quite pleased.
At 1 I dragged myself up and got some food as I was getting perilously hungry. I wasn't in the mood for anything too complex so I simply shoved some soup on and shredded some bread in a bowl. Now it was Oxtail soup which is not the best for doing this, the best by far is packet Asparagus, which is just yummy!
The afternoon proceeded apace about the same as the morning until around 6 when LostSoulParry arrived. I finished off the episode of the West Wing I had been watching while twittering on my laptop and to him. This might seem a bit rude but I needed to as someone I desperately needed to talk to came online for the first time in ages.
In case you were wondering this was Tiggie, so we sorted out what we were doing next weekend to a point but I was a touch disappointed to find out she hadn't booked the tattoo appointment, so no tattoos for Geoff. But I still am really looking forward to seeing her on Friday, hopefully xZombiePrincessx will come to hang out too as I haven't seen her since May and I misses her.
Anyway we jammed in Nacho Libre as LostSoulParry hadn't seen it can you believe. As this was going on we had sorted out ordering food using JustEat.co.uk which was something new for me. We couldn't get it from where I wanted so in the end we went with the second option rather regretfully, LostSoulParry wasn't too impressed with them from the start but I gave them the benefit of the doubt.
While we waited and waited and waited for the food I got a call from EvilTony. He was lost on his way to us and so I tried to give him directions to us. These didn't work and a few minutes later we got another call and after some more attempted directions he realised where he was and was in fact nowhere near us whatsoever. He got it reversed and arrived a short while later amongst much hilarity.
The food arrived a short while later and so we got down to some serious eating and chatting while rounding out the end of the film. It had taken ages to get here the food had and to be honest I wasn't terribly impressed as it was a bit naff over all. The pizza was a little cold as it had taken ages to get here and on top of this the chips were going cold by the time we got to them.
But anyway I stuck on Garth Marenghi's Darkplace as neither of my compadres had seen it the poor sods. While this was starting up I quickly dashed into the kitchen to put the chips in the oven for a bit. Stupid me of course didn't know that the packaging would melt in the oven so one batch of chips got chucked away right off and then I had to use the other batch. Well they were shit anyway so it wasn't much of a loss and we struggled to eat the others. Notes for the future don't whatever you do buy food from them.
Anyway both the guys loved Darkplace but we only watched one episode through as it was now clearly time for some rocking out. So me and LostSoulParry dragged the bits down to play Rock Band. I gave LostSoulParry the microphone, I took guitar and we let the virgin (EvilTony) break himself in on the drums. Now this might seem a bit harsh but we are pretty secure in our band roles in Ph@llus so we had to go with what we could. We worked our way through some pretty fun songs too.
I'm mightily impressed with EvilTony he is a pretty damn impressive drummer for a first timer. We played through about six songs before we ever came near to requiring the use of the overdrive to save his arse. He gave the best first time performance on the drums I have ever seen and this from a guy who claims he is rubbish and can't do it. I don't ever want to see what he can do at something he is good at, by the gods he would destroy us all.
EvilTony toddled off home at a point later on and we watched some more Darkplace until it came to a clear point that we were getting too far into mucking about on computery entertainment and SG Chat. So we packed up and headed for bed where I stayed on chat for an hour or so and eventually called it sleepy time, or lung coughy outy to muchy time and rolled over for sleep.
Come the next morning I dived out of bed raring for action. Well lets be honest that's not strictly true, I lay there until I could be bothered to get up and do something truly effective. So I managed to drag myself up and drag myself downstairs. Not a lot I could think of doing, too lazy to put another DVD in and so I just picked up Rock Band again for a bit and played on that for a short while rather loudly belting my way through some of my favourite songs.
When done I went upstairs for a short while to sort out some more net related business and then lo and behold LostSoulParry awakened so we came downstairs and got into some serious Rock Band. Onto career mode we went and we rocked our way through several venues. We worried a couple of times on the random ones but we usually managed to carry it off which was cool. We even survived the "Scenester" one which I thought was gonna be full of all the crap songs and turned out to mostly be Weezer and the classic punk tunes.
We kept this up for a while and then turned our loving attentions to food and the quest for enlightenment. Well maybe not enlightenment per se but we certainly watched a large mess of Nick Frost's Danger 50,000 Volts. It's such a fun show and there are some absolutely cracking bits. I made us some lunch of chicken in a creamy sauce with pasta that really filled me up something chronic and we watched the special extra Danger 50,000 Zombies that was made to accompany Shawn of the Dead.
Now this was just bloody hilarious with Simon Pegg as some special Zombie expert from Australia who is basically completely nuts. This also makes them both look incredibly gay let me tell you as they kiss at one point and then walk off together holding hands and talking about how amazed they are to have found each other. Thought the Zombie advice was practical and as a person who has a Zombie Apocolypse plan it really helped me hone my ideas.
LostSoulParry bounced off a little while after this as he had to get home to his loving fiancée. Thus leaving me to deal with my rampaging parents and feeling pretty shitty, so I retreated to my room and watched the end of Sin City while tea was on the go. Chatted to a few models to try and finalise what I'm doing a week on Saturday with my big shoot in the hotel, I swear they are gonna wonder what in the hell is going on when I descend at this small family run hotel. But I think I have a good roster now. Two models who are doing standard shoots for the project and one model that is going to work on two nude studies for the project with me.
I think it's about time to get some decent nude work in my portfolio, I have to be honest back when I first started getting in to this I will admit a lot of my photo's were crap as I hadn't learnt what I know now. Not saying I'm perfect now but I will say I know I can make a damn better effort at it. I would even be tempted to shoot an SG set or two but I know of nobody that is near me who wants one or should I say that would want me to shoot one for them. C'est la vie.
Anyway tea was grand, nothing like a large pile of Yorkshire Pudding to keep any red blooded Englishman happy let me tell you. So I went upstairs happily ready to cough my lungs out for a while which I naturally did. Anyone who may at this point disbelieve me can take heart in knowing that there are witnesses to my cough as I had my mic on at one point in Chat and everyone heard it. But that was fun for a while except Mark_Plus_Beer's audio nearly killed me as my mic is too close to my speakers for that to work.
I decided after some rather amusing time in chat the time between my lungs making reappearance and going back in again was getting too short for comfort so I eventually rolled over and once again went off to bed.
Monday was a bit of slow day. It was the first day officially in my new office and I was a bit wary of this at first but I was getting on pretty damn well with Bob which is always good. I mean I know I can talk to anyone about anything as its one of my peculiar gifts but we were having a right old conversation about photography as he uses the same camera as me. I was still a little miffed about the key issue but it wasn't such a big thing at this point and I just dealt with it.
The day picked up immeasurably when I found out that I had in fact been granted another 6 months on the job so I am now in secure employment until July 09, hopefully this means I can ride out the recession safely and if we go the way we hope we will get more money in and I can stay here for the time being which will be excellent. I may complain but at times I really do enjoy my job, it has the right mix of politics, creativeness and relatively un-tight deadlines to suit me to the ground.
BB was pretty fun in the evening and I had a good old laugh with the lads though had to shout a bit as a couple of them were misbehaving. Had aw good old chat with Garry as he is a bit incapacitated at the moment due to having a knackered knee. He was saying he thinks I've lost more weight. Not sure I have but I know I'm now holding steady at 17 stone and I for the most part like the new me thought I'm not entirely sure its going to help me with any of my major issues.
For example I still hate my skin, this is one of the reasons I want to get some ink to cover the worse offending parts of my body that I really despise. I mean for example my ugly back that is covered in pock scars from having seriously bad spots as a teenager. As much ink as possible to cover these I think. But I digress this is only one of the issues I'm concerned with as you all well know.
But anyway the night ended on a stressful note as I got a call from Big Bad Jon of Vague in Manchester as I was needed to help him sort some things out with the Wargaming as Perry is proving a bit useless at it and he wanted my input on the key issues. I've also been sorting out my photography duties at the Nationals, basically I will tog it all the way round getting pics of all the sessions as they are ongoing and pics of all the closing ceremonies and whatnot.
Today has been a relatively full and busy day. Started off with my frantically trying to edit my scenarios to send to Big Bad Jon for the Nationals. Which I did, then I had to run around and check on the preparations for the meeting at 10, then I bumped into Tim our visitor and chatted to him a bit before dropping him off in the room and rounding up all the attendees and getting some extra chairs. Despite what they said I think they had forgotten.
The meeting was good and gave some good points but when the food I had ordered arrived it was fucking terrible. Not even close to what we had actually wanted and I couldn't eat anything. So I'm sat here now at nearly 6pm and I've had nothing but a biscuit or two since 7am. I am so fucking famished its not bloody funny. I put a complaint in about the food as I'm fed up with being fucked over by Leeds Met catering, wankers. They charge enough you think they could get it right.
Finished out the rest of the day sorting out some more shoots for a week on Saturday and organising tomorrow. I'm off at 6am for an all day meeting in Wolverhampton. Going to be long as I have to take three trains to do it and go through Manchester. But I will survive I think. Might see if any of my Manchester pals fancy coming and meeting me to get some food on the way back. Gonna finally finish Preacher tonight as I started reading Alamo on the way back home, its good!
In other news I'm trying to work out what I want for Christmas, now I know its a bit in advance at the moment but I need to work on these things so I can get it right in my own head. I'm thinking I might treat myself to one of the rather tasty new Nikkor 18-105mm lenses shown here:
Otherwise I'm at a bit of a loss and will need to think on it. I can't even seem to figure out what I'm going to get for my parents or brother. Well I might paint some models up for my brother, depending on whether he fancies doing the nationals again. He mentioned Cygnar and I really fancy making a Jermiah Kraye with custom gun slinging Sentinel. Might look into it for a laugh if nothing else. If I'm not careful I might end up buying some Khador and I can't have that, I should in fact be getting rid of models not buying more. Bad Geoffrey.
But I love this model:
Anyway I will leave you there and I shall give some more thought to present wrangling this week in between my massive photography planning. I mean hell I'm up to a minimum of five models to work with in the next two weeks alone. I'm a busy boy.
So what would you all like for Christmas?
Toodles
G
So the weekend…
Saturday as I posted the blog you know what my general plan was, pretty much just sit around and die in a very general fashion while watching DVDs. This was pretty much all I did I will have to be honest now until about 1 o'clock, I sat around on the couch watching The West Wing and trading comments on Model Mayhem for kicks. Once again got some really good feedback and I was quite pleased.
At 1 I dragged myself up and got some food as I was getting perilously hungry. I wasn't in the mood for anything too complex so I simply shoved some soup on and shredded some bread in a bowl. Now it was Oxtail soup which is not the best for doing this, the best by far is packet Asparagus, which is just yummy!
The afternoon proceeded apace about the same as the morning until around 6 when LostSoulParry arrived. I finished off the episode of the West Wing I had been watching while twittering on my laptop and to him. This might seem a bit rude but I needed to as someone I desperately needed to talk to came online for the first time in ages.
In case you were wondering this was Tiggie, so we sorted out what we were doing next weekend to a point but I was a touch disappointed to find out she hadn't booked the tattoo appointment, so no tattoos for Geoff. But I still am really looking forward to seeing her on Friday, hopefully xZombiePrincessx will come to hang out too as I haven't seen her since May and I misses her.
Anyway we jammed in Nacho Libre as LostSoulParry hadn't seen it can you believe. As this was going on we had sorted out ordering food using JustEat.co.uk which was something new for me. We couldn't get it from where I wanted so in the end we went with the second option rather regretfully, LostSoulParry wasn't too impressed with them from the start but I gave them the benefit of the doubt.
While we waited and waited and waited for the food I got a call from EvilTony. He was lost on his way to us and so I tried to give him directions to us. These didn't work and a few minutes later we got another call and after some more attempted directions he realised where he was and was in fact nowhere near us whatsoever. He got it reversed and arrived a short while later amongst much hilarity.
The food arrived a short while later and so we got down to some serious eating and chatting while rounding out the end of the film. It had taken ages to get here the food had and to be honest I wasn't terribly impressed as it was a bit naff over all. The pizza was a little cold as it had taken ages to get here and on top of this the chips were going cold by the time we got to them.
But anyway I stuck on Garth Marenghi's Darkplace as neither of my compadres had seen it the poor sods. While this was starting up I quickly dashed into the kitchen to put the chips in the oven for a bit. Stupid me of course didn't know that the packaging would melt in the oven so one batch of chips got chucked away right off and then I had to use the other batch. Well they were shit anyway so it wasn't much of a loss and we struggled to eat the others. Notes for the future don't whatever you do buy food from them.
Anyway both the guys loved Darkplace but we only watched one episode through as it was now clearly time for some rocking out. So me and LostSoulParry dragged the bits down to play Rock Band. I gave LostSoulParry the microphone, I took guitar and we let the virgin (EvilTony) break himself in on the drums. Now this might seem a bit harsh but we are pretty secure in our band roles in Ph@llus so we had to go with what we could. We worked our way through some pretty fun songs too.
I'm mightily impressed with EvilTony he is a pretty damn impressive drummer for a first timer. We played through about six songs before we ever came near to requiring the use of the overdrive to save his arse. He gave the best first time performance on the drums I have ever seen and this from a guy who claims he is rubbish and can't do it. I don't ever want to see what he can do at something he is good at, by the gods he would destroy us all.
EvilTony toddled off home at a point later on and we watched some more Darkplace until it came to a clear point that we were getting too far into mucking about on computery entertainment and SG Chat. So we packed up and headed for bed where I stayed on chat for an hour or so and eventually called it sleepy time, or lung coughy outy to muchy time and rolled over for sleep.
Come the next morning I dived out of bed raring for action. Well lets be honest that's not strictly true, I lay there until I could be bothered to get up and do something truly effective. So I managed to drag myself up and drag myself downstairs. Not a lot I could think of doing, too lazy to put another DVD in and so I just picked up Rock Band again for a bit and played on that for a short while rather loudly belting my way through some of my favourite songs.
When done I went upstairs for a short while to sort out some more net related business and then lo and behold LostSoulParry awakened so we came downstairs and got into some serious Rock Band. Onto career mode we went and we rocked our way through several venues. We worried a couple of times on the random ones but we usually managed to carry it off which was cool. We even survived the "Scenester" one which I thought was gonna be full of all the crap songs and turned out to mostly be Weezer and the classic punk tunes.
We kept this up for a while and then turned our loving attentions to food and the quest for enlightenment. Well maybe not enlightenment per se but we certainly watched a large mess of Nick Frost's Danger 50,000 Volts. It's such a fun show and there are some absolutely cracking bits. I made us some lunch of chicken in a creamy sauce with pasta that really filled me up something chronic and we watched the special extra Danger 50,000 Zombies that was made to accompany Shawn of the Dead.
Now this was just bloody hilarious with Simon Pegg as some special Zombie expert from Australia who is basically completely nuts. This also makes them both look incredibly gay let me tell you as they kiss at one point and then walk off together holding hands and talking about how amazed they are to have found each other. Thought the Zombie advice was practical and as a person who has a Zombie Apocolypse plan it really helped me hone my ideas.
LostSoulParry bounced off a little while after this as he had to get home to his loving fiancée. Thus leaving me to deal with my rampaging parents and feeling pretty shitty, so I retreated to my room and watched the end of Sin City while tea was on the go. Chatted to a few models to try and finalise what I'm doing a week on Saturday with my big shoot in the hotel, I swear they are gonna wonder what in the hell is going on when I descend at this small family run hotel. But I think I have a good roster now. Two models who are doing standard shoots for the project and one model that is going to work on two nude studies for the project with me.
I think it's about time to get some decent nude work in my portfolio, I have to be honest back when I first started getting in to this I will admit a lot of my photo's were crap as I hadn't learnt what I know now. Not saying I'm perfect now but I will say I know I can make a damn better effort at it. I would even be tempted to shoot an SG set or two but I know of nobody that is near me who wants one or should I say that would want me to shoot one for them. C'est la vie.
Anyway tea was grand, nothing like a large pile of Yorkshire Pudding to keep any red blooded Englishman happy let me tell you. So I went upstairs happily ready to cough my lungs out for a while which I naturally did. Anyone who may at this point disbelieve me can take heart in knowing that there are witnesses to my cough as I had my mic on at one point in Chat and everyone heard it. But that was fun for a while except Mark_Plus_Beer's audio nearly killed me as my mic is too close to my speakers for that to work.
I decided after some rather amusing time in chat the time between my lungs making reappearance and going back in again was getting too short for comfort so I eventually rolled over and once again went off to bed.
Monday was a bit of slow day. It was the first day officially in my new office and I was a bit wary of this at first but I was getting on pretty damn well with Bob which is always good. I mean I know I can talk to anyone about anything as its one of my peculiar gifts but we were having a right old conversation about photography as he uses the same camera as me. I was still a little miffed about the key issue but it wasn't such a big thing at this point and I just dealt with it.
The day picked up immeasurably when I found out that I had in fact been granted another 6 months on the job so I am now in secure employment until July 09, hopefully this means I can ride out the recession safely and if we go the way we hope we will get more money in and I can stay here for the time being which will be excellent. I may complain but at times I really do enjoy my job, it has the right mix of politics, creativeness and relatively un-tight deadlines to suit me to the ground.
BB was pretty fun in the evening and I had a good old laugh with the lads though had to shout a bit as a couple of them were misbehaving. Had aw good old chat with Garry as he is a bit incapacitated at the moment due to having a knackered knee. He was saying he thinks I've lost more weight. Not sure I have but I know I'm now holding steady at 17 stone and I for the most part like the new me thought I'm not entirely sure its going to help me with any of my major issues.
For example I still hate my skin, this is one of the reasons I want to get some ink to cover the worse offending parts of my body that I really despise. I mean for example my ugly back that is covered in pock scars from having seriously bad spots as a teenager. As much ink as possible to cover these I think. But I digress this is only one of the issues I'm concerned with as you all well know.
But anyway the night ended on a stressful note as I got a call from Big Bad Jon of Vague in Manchester as I was needed to help him sort some things out with the Wargaming as Perry is proving a bit useless at it and he wanted my input on the key issues. I've also been sorting out my photography duties at the Nationals, basically I will tog it all the way round getting pics of all the sessions as they are ongoing and pics of all the closing ceremonies and whatnot.
Today has been a relatively full and busy day. Started off with my frantically trying to edit my scenarios to send to Big Bad Jon for the Nationals. Which I did, then I had to run around and check on the preparations for the meeting at 10, then I bumped into Tim our visitor and chatted to him a bit before dropping him off in the room and rounding up all the attendees and getting some extra chairs. Despite what they said I think they had forgotten.
The meeting was good and gave some good points but when the food I had ordered arrived it was fucking terrible. Not even close to what we had actually wanted and I couldn't eat anything. So I'm sat here now at nearly 6pm and I've had nothing but a biscuit or two since 7am. I am so fucking famished its not bloody funny. I put a complaint in about the food as I'm fed up with being fucked over by Leeds Met catering, wankers. They charge enough you think they could get it right.
Finished out the rest of the day sorting out some more shoots for a week on Saturday and organising tomorrow. I'm off at 6am for an all day meeting in Wolverhampton. Going to be long as I have to take three trains to do it and go through Manchester. But I will survive I think. Might see if any of my Manchester pals fancy coming and meeting me to get some food on the way back. Gonna finally finish Preacher tonight as I started reading Alamo on the way back home, its good!
In other news I'm trying to work out what I want for Christmas, now I know its a bit in advance at the moment but I need to work on these things so I can get it right in my own head. I'm thinking I might treat myself to one of the rather tasty new Nikkor 18-105mm lenses shown here:
Otherwise I'm at a bit of a loss and will need to think on it. I can't even seem to figure out what I'm going to get for my parents or brother. Well I might paint some models up for my brother, depending on whether he fancies doing the nationals again. He mentioned Cygnar and I really fancy making a Jermiah Kraye with custom gun slinging Sentinel. Might look into it for a laugh if nothing else. If I'm not careful I might end up buying some Khador and I can't have that, I should in fact be getting rid of models not buying more. Bad Geoffrey.
But I love this model:
Anyway I will leave you there and I shall give some more thought to present wrangling this week in between my massive photography planning. I mean hell I'm up to a minimum of five models to work with in the next two weeks alone. I'm a busy boy.
So what would you all like for Christmas?
Toodles
G
Geoff be all ill my friends, I'm a bit disappointed too.
Now before some friends see that and think I mean you I don't I mean with me. I thought I was going to be having Snowdred, PsychoBettie13 and Deryn around this evening. Turns out Snowdred's birthday party has been moved up to tonight, hope they have a good time. I'm disappointed that I'm feeling like shit and haven't been able to summon up a solution to get me there and be well enough to enjoy it. So my weekend has gone a bit to hell.
Not been much going on the rest of this week really. Been organising my trip to Glasgow at the end of November. I posted a casting call on MM to ask for models to work with while I'm up there and I have already filled one slot at the studio. I have also booked the studio and got me a first refusal on the second day. Need to book my ticket which is getting difficult as thetrainline.com doesn't seem to like working today.
Been trading comments on MM and I'm liking what some people are saying about my new work, feeling quite bouncy, though I don't have the energy today to be very bouncy. Probably going to trade some more when America wakes up lol. But its looking good, getting some good pointers too from some more experienced photographers.
Edited to add that I had my first night back up at University. Was pretty good though I nearly didn't get there as the room arrangements in the Firth Street building are a bit off as 1 is ground floor not the first floor as it is in every other part of the universe. The lecture was good and the lecturer is cool we had a pretty interesting debate contrasting the accepted marketing theory in regards to counter and alternative culture. Just a little miffed that I don't get to fully chose my assignment but I'm hoping I can figure a way to make Consumer Behaviour work in my best interest.
Yesterday I had to move office from my cool one into a nice enough one which is basically the bloody store room for module hand books. The students who are annoying at the best of times are getting really fucking irritating. I mean for a start I'm pretty sure that this sickness is thanks to them, bloody freshers, but to top it off they keep bothering me in my office about module handbooks which are nothing to do with me. Then when I had to go and stick my name sticker on the door a couple of students started sassing me, I wish I had asked for their names but I was in no mood to be sensible and I nearly told them to fuck off.
Old office.
New office
Here is my new office door, yes my first name is Martin, Geoff is my middle name in case you didn't know.
Got home last night and sat around for a bit sorting a few things out. Sat on MSN for a while chatting to Sinope and tried to order pizza while I was doing it. Turns out my pizza place is closed or at least not answering so I gave up on it, then Sinope helped me to the decision that Dominoes was the way to go and so I got a tub of Phish Food with it. Well this was a good plan thought I and then I started drinking too.
This plan failed a little as I drank so much I was barely able to stay awake once I had finished the pizza so I still have the ice cream for tonight. Managed to sort getting LostSoulParry to come over to mine and might text EvilTony to see if he fancies coming round for a bit. Need to get some washing done today in preparation for going to Southampton next weekend and to you know have clothes for next week.
Speaking of Southampton where is Tiggie, haven't had any contact with her in over a fortnight and I want to know what's going on, she's supposed to be booking our tattoo appointment. Hopefully get to find out soon, plus you know I just really want to talk to her and find out how all the fun she has been up to has been going on.
Got a busy week this week despite the trip, got to sort myself out for a wonderful trip to Wolverhampton for a big meeting, got a load of work to finish prepping on Monday and Tuesday to make our 60 day deadline on final returns. But it should be cool, matter of fact I might do a bit tomorrow as I'm not sure with all the organising I have to do this week that I may have the time to sort it during the week. For the most part its just rewriting case studies but it shouldn't be a problem.
Anyway I'm too ill and rambly to be bothered with much more of this and I'm sat in my well prepared den with internet access and The West Wing in front of me. I also need a coffee so I'm going to get one now.
Bye folks, hope you have a better weekend than me.
Toodles
G
Now before some friends see that and think I mean you I don't I mean with me. I thought I was going to be having Snowdred, PsychoBettie13 and Deryn around this evening. Turns out Snowdred's birthday party has been moved up to tonight, hope they have a good time. I'm disappointed that I'm feeling like shit and haven't been able to summon up a solution to get me there and be well enough to enjoy it. So my weekend has gone a bit to hell.
Not been much going on the rest of this week really. Been organising my trip to Glasgow at the end of November. I posted a casting call on MM to ask for models to work with while I'm up there and I have already filled one slot at the studio. I have also booked the studio and got me a first refusal on the second day. Need to book my ticket which is getting difficult as thetrainline.com doesn't seem to like working today.
Been trading comments on MM and I'm liking what some people are saying about my new work, feeling quite bouncy, though I don't have the energy today to be very bouncy. Probably going to trade some more when America wakes up lol. But its looking good, getting some good pointers too from some more experienced photographers.
Edited to add that I had my first night back up at University. Was pretty good though I nearly didn't get there as the room arrangements in the Firth Street building are a bit off as 1 is ground floor not the first floor as it is in every other part of the universe. The lecture was good and the lecturer is cool we had a pretty interesting debate contrasting the accepted marketing theory in regards to counter and alternative culture. Just a little miffed that I don't get to fully chose my assignment but I'm hoping I can figure a way to make Consumer Behaviour work in my best interest.
Yesterday I had to move office from my cool one into a nice enough one which is basically the bloody store room for module hand books. The students who are annoying at the best of times are getting really fucking irritating. I mean for a start I'm pretty sure that this sickness is thanks to them, bloody freshers, but to top it off they keep bothering me in my office about module handbooks which are nothing to do with me. Then when I had to go and stick my name sticker on the door a couple of students started sassing me, I wish I had asked for their names but I was in no mood to be sensible and I nearly told them to fuck off.
Old office.
New office
Here is my new office door, yes my first name is Martin, Geoff is my middle name in case you didn't know.
Got home last night and sat around for a bit sorting a few things out. Sat on MSN for a while chatting to Sinope and tried to order pizza while I was doing it. Turns out my pizza place is closed or at least not answering so I gave up on it, then Sinope helped me to the decision that Dominoes was the way to go and so I got a tub of Phish Food with it. Well this was a good plan thought I and then I started drinking too.
This plan failed a little as I drank so much I was barely able to stay awake once I had finished the pizza so I still have the ice cream for tonight. Managed to sort getting LostSoulParry to come over to mine and might text EvilTony to see if he fancies coming round for a bit. Need to get some washing done today in preparation for going to Southampton next weekend and to you know have clothes for next week.
Speaking of Southampton where is Tiggie, haven't had any contact with her in over a fortnight and I want to know what's going on, she's supposed to be booking our tattoo appointment. Hopefully get to find out soon, plus you know I just really want to talk to her and find out how all the fun she has been up to has been going on.
Got a busy week this week despite the trip, got to sort myself out for a wonderful trip to Wolverhampton for a big meeting, got a load of work to finish prepping on Monday and Tuesday to make our 60 day deadline on final returns. But it should be cool, matter of fact I might do a bit tomorrow as I'm not sure with all the organising I have to do this week that I may have the time to sort it during the week. For the most part its just rewriting case studies but it shouldn't be a problem.
Anyway I'm too ill and rambly to be bothered with much more of this and I'm sat in my well prepared den with internet access and The West Wing in front of me. I also need a coffee so I'm going to get one now.
Bye folks, hope you have a better weekend than me.
Toodles
G
This was going to be a massive depressive blog but as far as it goes that all got turned around thanks to a few awesome people. I've been thinking of something awesome I could do with this blog for fun. I think I have an idea but my head is blagged as I type this so I will need to wait a bit.
Oh go and add Snowdred, Psychobettie13 and Eviltony they are all awesome
In the interim the tale of the weekend…
I can honestly say I feel like I've lived a whole week in one weekend, so much was crammed in!
Saturday morning I woke up at the obscenely early (for a weekend and even by my standards) time of 4am. There are times I honestly hate my internal body clock, to tell the truth. I mean I rolled over and growled it's not light out yet, then looked at my phone and swore loudly. I was pretty knackered still. But I grabbed up my laptop and proceeded to see what exactly had been going on in my absence. Not a lot it seemed.
Dragged myself for a shower and thus began the morning cycle. I went down for breakfast to discover there was in fact bugger all going so I ended up with coffee and some bad bad toast. This was not a good start to the day, following this I ran around like a loon trying to pack all my stuff to discover I had run out of space and needed to squeeze my clothing and camera in with the lighting rig. But I managed it and got out the door heavily laden and got myself to the train.
The train journey wasn't too bad aside from some pushy twat that made me drop my lighting rig bag and it hit my little finger bending it back and causing me to go into my high pitched yelp mode and swear like a kid on helium. But I got over it. Got into Manchester and dived in the first of many taxis for the weekend and got my bum over in an orderly fashion to the lovely abode of the charming Psychobettie13.
Now I had come down to Manchester with the intent of shooting about 6 models all told. This was to be the start of my big project based on The Heroin Diaries as you know. Well it shortly became apparent after we sat down and had a chat for a bit that it wasn't going to happen that way today. Snowdred and Deryn were a bit worse for wear and still asleep from the night before so they didn't end up coming round. But we pushed on anyway and descended to the basement.
The theme we were working on was Xmas in Hell. In a dark basement lit by candlelight we had a black gothed up Christmas tree with her in front writing in the diary. Now the candlelight though cool proved awkward and I mucked around with my filters until I managed to find a particular setting I liked and went with the flash option. The pics turned out great and it was super fun to work with her.
Here is the first preview of one of the edited pictures.
We popped back upstairs to relax for a bit and have another cuppa. While doing this Psychobettie13 filled in her pages in the Project Diary and I looked up some of the better pics on the laptop to show her. There are some really nice ones and I was shitting mars bars level of happy that I seemed to be living up to my dreams and potential with these photos.
I finished up at Psychobettie13's and headed over to Sonrisa's about 4ish. Got there and Ortus was already there and a few people I hadn't met yet. Got introduced and I put my shit away and grabbed a beer. Chatted about with a few folk and Ortus and then decided it would be a wise idea to try out the bouncy castle which was I admit rather fun. We mucked around on the bouncy castle and chatted for some time until food appeared from the barbecue. Man was I famished; I had nothing but two cups of tea since 7am so I was pretty fucking hungry.
After the main food stuff was out of the way we got to try the birthday "cake". I say this in inverted commas for the sake of artistic license, this thing was immense I mean there was enough calories in this thing to feed a third world nation for a year. Green sponge and lots and lots of chocolate and icing. It was nice just such heavy going and even I couldn't finish my piece but to be fair it had got an awful lot of white chocolate on top and too much of that stuff is admittedly a touch sickly.
We chilled on the bouncy castle taking pics for a laugh and then realised the time was getting on a bit so we had to get on with some last bouncing. This was awesome as I was like taking off by a few feet it was totally mint, then the bouncy castle folk turned up and so it was taken away. Ortus had made his exit by this point and so had a few others so it was just me, Sonrisa and her friend Ian. We settled in to the lounge and watched Peep Show while having little oddments of food like garlic bread which was lovely.
At a little while after 10 we headed down into Manchester and met up with another of Sonrisa's friends and TheMistress to head over to Caged Asylum. Now I had never been to Caged and was both looking forward to it and slightly apprehensive. The place has its own separate little lap dancing area and there is the rock and roll part of me and the lets be frank male part of me that loves this idea. But then there is the part that was nurtured by my upbringing and finds it all a bit seedy so you can see why I may have been a touch worried.
We got in and in what could be considered a fantastically good sign they were playing Metallica's The Day That Never Comes. I love this song and it was a good omen for the evening, however the drinks prices were not, I mean bloody hell £3.40 for a Newcastle Brown and I wasn't allowed to keep it in the bottle so it tasted shit in the un-cold glass. So I switched on the slightly cheaper and much more refreshing pint of Guinness.
They played some pretty awesome music (and some god awful ones too lets be honest) but we had a good old dance and I ended up dispensing with my jacket and un-tucked my shirt. Oh I should mention I had a cool white shirt, a tie, a suit jacket and my sexy jeans on lol. I also let down the old hair and had a bit of a mental mash up on the dance floor to some of my favourite tunes, such as Sleep Now in the Fire.
TheMistress "convinced" me to have a lap dance with the girl who was described as being "world class". Well it was fun and all and she was pretty good but I can honestly say though I have only ever been to one other lap dancing place in my life it was better there. Though I can now say I have done the whole Caged experience. It is a nice place with a nice friendly atmosphere. I don't think Sonrisa's friend Ian could deal with it too well, he ended up watching the girls a bit too much and wouldn't have a lap dance as he finds it sleazy.
We partied around in this general fashion for a while longer occasionally jumping up to dance to the odd song or two, especially me and TheMistress when 30-30/150 by Stone Sour came on, hell I nearly left a pint at the bar for that one. In the end though Ian was flagging so we started making preparations to leave, I bagged another lap dance which I will be honest was not exactly that impressive as the girl was new. But I'm not too worried. TheMistress had one too with a lass who looked like a ten year old but apparently was very good.
We headed off originally intending food and then waited with TheMistress to get a taxi that we basically forced her to have, I even gave her the cash for it. The wait in the taxi queue was long though and she kept dashing off to find a toilet which she managed in the end. But after a while food got taken off the agenda and Sonrisa, Ian and I just headed back to hers. We sat around for a few minutes then Sonrisa headed to bed and I was given the bits to make my bed up.
It was a big double airbed so in my manly fashion or at least how I do it when I usually have one I started blowing it up by lung power alone. This lasted a while and in the end I gave up and used the foot pump for a bit. Of course it turned out the foot pump was rubbish so I finished it off with lung power again, dropped the quilt over it, spent a few minutes looking at pics and mucking on the net and then drifted off into a sweet sweet sleep.
Woke up fairly early but couldn't be bothered getting up for a while so I mucked about on my laptop for a while. Eventually dragged myself up and over to Burger King to get myself some food. Checked if anyone else wanted some of course but they weren't interested. So I had me a lovely bacon buttie and hash browns. To be honest I wish I had had a little more as I would later be very very hungry. But that's for later on.
Sonrisa was dying in bed so I said a quick thank you and goodbye before dashing off in a taxi to the studio I was shooting in. This is one of the biggest band rehearsal studios in Manchester and is quite cheap for the amount of time you can get it for so I was quite impressed once again. Had a little fun finding it as I couldn't remember exactly where it was as we came a different way to the one I had come last time. But I got there and got in.
Found I had been shifted to another room but to be honest I wasn't too bothered about that at all. I got in there and found a few cool bits and bobs that could be used as props and then started setting up where I could work from. In the end I loosely picked the three corners of the room (the fourth one having the door in it obviously). One had a cool large window, another had a little ledge above a cupboard with a giant amp and the last had a really cool set of green painted brickwork to play around with.
So I set up my lights and got my camera and laptop all set up too and ready to go. Had a bit of a play about and then when it came up to about 1 I went downstairs and stood outside waiting for my models to arrive. Well they didn't. In fact I stood out there for over 45 minutes waiting and ended up chatting to a guy who was waiting for his band to show up. Not having the models number but having given her mine I was a little annoyed that I hadn't heard anything.
But I went back in and twiddled my thumbs and after a bit longer got quite angry about it and then a little depressed. I called a few people including LostSoulParry and Psychobettie13 who sorted me out with Snowdred's number to see if I might be able to sort something out with her and Deryn. Seems they weren't awake at this point. I even begged the studio guy to let me steal his internet for a while to try and find a number to call the models on. Even went so far as to hack the connection across the road, didn't work as the signal was too weak though which was annoying.
So I started to think about heading home, settled my bill with the guy at the desk and went to pack up my stuff when I got a text from Snowdred. I immediately called her back and asked her if she could come down. She said she would check with Deryn and get back to me, which she did and they said they would come down. I told them to get ready and jump in a taxi and I would pay for it. So that's what they did.
Not having a time frame I almost went a little spare again waiting and was literally moments from packing my stuff up when they called to say they were nearly here. I mean literally my prayers had been answered so I dashed down, paid the cabbie and we went upstairs.
Intermission: Thanks Psychobettie13, Snowdred and Deryn you all saved the day with your combined effort. But most thanks to Snowdred for responding to that text. I really will make a tshirt that says "Snowdred Saved My Day".
Anyway I decided in the hour we had left at this point (I had been there for 4 on my lonesome) we could have a very rapid go at "Van Nuys", "Intermission" and "Girl with Golden Eyes". We got right into it and we had a great deal of fun chatting all the way including me doing my Cousin It impression and having a jolly good time. Snowdred took Van Nuys and Deryn had Intermission while they were both in Girl with Golden Eyes.
Here is the first preview from Girl with Golden Eyes.
The pics were really fun to shoot and both girls are awesome. We wrapped up in plenty of time and headed down to get a taxi. Now by this point I had nothing eat or drink since 10am so I was pretty much on my last legs so I was really glad when they suggested we go get a drink together. So once we got ourselves back into the city centre via taxi we headed off to the Oyster Bar. Had a lovely pint of stout and we sat around chatting about random stuff which was awesome.
By the time the drinks were done I had decided there was little point in heading straight home so I suggested we get some food so we all went off to Nando's together. I'd never been before but I have to say I was quite impressed by the options available and the food was delicious. The company of course was better as the both girls are absolutely awesome. I'm so glad to have had the opportunity to meet and work with them, together they made what would otherwise have been a monstrously shite day actually bloody awesome.
Invited them and Psychobettie13 to come and have a mini party at my house this coming weekend as I have the house free and nobody else seems interested in staving off my horrifying levels of boredom. So a fun time shall hopefully be had by all.
Eventually I started to head home and we said goodbye with a big group hug, which is murder to take a pic of lol. See below.
Got back to Halifax and back up home but I was totally ruined so I dived into bed with my laptop and just mucked about for a while. Nipped in chat but everyone was too engrossed in their own conversation to really be bothered with me. It took some of them a couple of minutes to even say hello. But I didn't worry about it and dropped out. I did however find out why the models hadn't turned up.
It seems she always contacts a photographer before a shoot to make sure its still on as she has been messed around in the past. Well she had taken my number down wrong, 0779 instead of 0799 so she had been calling and texting some random and therefore didn't come as she thought I was messing with her but we sorted it out and I will shoot with her when I come up to Glasgow at the end of November. On that note I hit the hay.
Yesterday I was just completely knackered all day long and there was no cure for it, my office was so warm that I ended up going all fuzzy despite turning the heating off in my room. It got to a point where my brain switched off and I couldn't think straight at all. But I still went to the Armouries to get some training in.
I was appalled on arrival to find that Dan our Chapter Master has cut his bloody hair; it really doesn't suit him like this at all. I asked him why and he told me he was tired of having to wash and dry it all the time, so I accused him of being a lazy fucker lol. But we had a good chat about a lot of things such as photography and he was quite interested in what I've been up to.
Training was pretty good aside from the Capoeira bit at the beginning as the guy who was leading it is a shite teacher and I lost where we were supposed to be and instead of offering to help me out he continued at a faster pace. Wanker. But my mind was out of it at this point, I had a bit of trouble grasping the new techniques we were learning and nearly lost it all together when we tried it from the opposite side. Eventually though my brain woke up and I got on with it fine.
Got home and pretty much just died in bed as I was thoroughly and utterly knackered beyond belief. That has stretched through to today as I'm totally wrecked and have a massive headache. Though it seems my job is about to get more interesting as I'm gonna be trained in a lot of the website maintenance and content management. My boss even warned me not to overload myself, which is funny as at the moment I'm, a little of the opposite.
Soon be home time and I can post this blog up. In the mean time I want you to go through your favourite songs and pick a couple of verses or a few lines that mean a lot to you and copy them in with your comment to this blog.
For me it has to be these lines from Life is Beautiful by Sixx AM, very poingnant and they mean a lot to me.
You can't quit until you try
You can't live until you die
You can't learn to tell the truth
Until you learn to lie
You can't breathe until you choke
You gotta laugh when you're the joke
There's nothing like a funeral to make you feel alive
If you take out the female connotations and replace them with male ones this song, Afraid by Motley Crue is frighteningly poignant for me.
do you, do you wanna bleed?
do you, do you wanna live in vain?
it's only life
she's so afraid to kiss
and so afraid to laugh
is she runnin' from her past?
it's only life
she's so afraid of love
is so afraid of hate
what's she runnin' from now??
do you, do you wanna scream?
do you, do you wanna face the strange?
do you, do you believe?
are you, are you afraid of change?
it's only life
she's so afraid of this
and so afraid to ask
she hides behind her mask
nothing's ever right
she's so afraid of pain
so afraid of blame
it's driving her insane
so insecure
there is no cure
well she's so afraid
she's so afraid of death
she's so afraid, afraid of life
the drama in her head
getting louder all the time
getting louder all the time
she's so afraid, afraid to lose
been so afraid of fame
everyday she feels the same
it's driven her insane...
Toodles
G
Oh go and add Snowdred, Psychobettie13 and Eviltony they are all awesome
In the interim the tale of the weekend…
I can honestly say I feel like I've lived a whole week in one weekend, so much was crammed in!
Saturday morning I woke up at the obscenely early (for a weekend and even by my standards) time of 4am. There are times I honestly hate my internal body clock, to tell the truth. I mean I rolled over and growled it's not light out yet, then looked at my phone and swore loudly. I was pretty knackered still. But I grabbed up my laptop and proceeded to see what exactly had been going on in my absence. Not a lot it seemed.
Dragged myself for a shower and thus began the morning cycle. I went down for breakfast to discover there was in fact bugger all going so I ended up with coffee and some bad bad toast. This was not a good start to the day, following this I ran around like a loon trying to pack all my stuff to discover I had run out of space and needed to squeeze my clothing and camera in with the lighting rig. But I managed it and got out the door heavily laden and got myself to the train.
The train journey wasn't too bad aside from some pushy twat that made me drop my lighting rig bag and it hit my little finger bending it back and causing me to go into my high pitched yelp mode and swear like a kid on helium. But I got over it. Got into Manchester and dived in the first of many taxis for the weekend and got my bum over in an orderly fashion to the lovely abode of the charming Psychobettie13.
Now I had come down to Manchester with the intent of shooting about 6 models all told. This was to be the start of my big project based on The Heroin Diaries as you know. Well it shortly became apparent after we sat down and had a chat for a bit that it wasn't going to happen that way today. Snowdred and Deryn were a bit worse for wear and still asleep from the night before so they didn't end up coming round. But we pushed on anyway and descended to the basement.
The theme we were working on was Xmas in Hell. In a dark basement lit by candlelight we had a black gothed up Christmas tree with her in front writing in the diary. Now the candlelight though cool proved awkward and I mucked around with my filters until I managed to find a particular setting I liked and went with the flash option. The pics turned out great and it was super fun to work with her.
Here is the first preview of one of the edited pictures.
We popped back upstairs to relax for a bit and have another cuppa. While doing this Psychobettie13 filled in her pages in the Project Diary and I looked up some of the better pics on the laptop to show her. There are some really nice ones and I was shitting mars bars level of happy that I seemed to be living up to my dreams and potential with these photos.
I finished up at Psychobettie13's and headed over to Sonrisa's about 4ish. Got there and Ortus was already there and a few people I hadn't met yet. Got introduced and I put my shit away and grabbed a beer. Chatted about with a few folk and Ortus and then decided it would be a wise idea to try out the bouncy castle which was I admit rather fun. We mucked around on the bouncy castle and chatted for some time until food appeared from the barbecue. Man was I famished; I had nothing but two cups of tea since 7am so I was pretty fucking hungry.
After the main food stuff was out of the way we got to try the birthday "cake". I say this in inverted commas for the sake of artistic license, this thing was immense I mean there was enough calories in this thing to feed a third world nation for a year. Green sponge and lots and lots of chocolate and icing. It was nice just such heavy going and even I couldn't finish my piece but to be fair it had got an awful lot of white chocolate on top and too much of that stuff is admittedly a touch sickly.
We chilled on the bouncy castle taking pics for a laugh and then realised the time was getting on a bit so we had to get on with some last bouncing. This was awesome as I was like taking off by a few feet it was totally mint, then the bouncy castle folk turned up and so it was taken away. Ortus had made his exit by this point and so had a few others so it was just me, Sonrisa and her friend Ian. We settled in to the lounge and watched Peep Show while having little oddments of food like garlic bread which was lovely.
At a little while after 10 we headed down into Manchester and met up with another of Sonrisa's friends and TheMistress to head over to Caged Asylum. Now I had never been to Caged and was both looking forward to it and slightly apprehensive. The place has its own separate little lap dancing area and there is the rock and roll part of me and the lets be frank male part of me that loves this idea. But then there is the part that was nurtured by my upbringing and finds it all a bit seedy so you can see why I may have been a touch worried.
We got in and in what could be considered a fantastically good sign they were playing Metallica's The Day That Never Comes. I love this song and it was a good omen for the evening, however the drinks prices were not, I mean bloody hell £3.40 for a Newcastle Brown and I wasn't allowed to keep it in the bottle so it tasted shit in the un-cold glass. So I switched on the slightly cheaper and much more refreshing pint of Guinness.
They played some pretty awesome music (and some god awful ones too lets be honest) but we had a good old dance and I ended up dispensing with my jacket and un-tucked my shirt. Oh I should mention I had a cool white shirt, a tie, a suit jacket and my sexy jeans on lol. I also let down the old hair and had a bit of a mental mash up on the dance floor to some of my favourite tunes, such as Sleep Now in the Fire.
TheMistress "convinced" me to have a lap dance with the girl who was described as being "world class". Well it was fun and all and she was pretty good but I can honestly say though I have only ever been to one other lap dancing place in my life it was better there. Though I can now say I have done the whole Caged experience. It is a nice place with a nice friendly atmosphere. I don't think Sonrisa's friend Ian could deal with it too well, he ended up watching the girls a bit too much and wouldn't have a lap dance as he finds it sleazy.
We partied around in this general fashion for a while longer occasionally jumping up to dance to the odd song or two, especially me and TheMistress when 30-30/150 by Stone Sour came on, hell I nearly left a pint at the bar for that one. In the end though Ian was flagging so we started making preparations to leave, I bagged another lap dance which I will be honest was not exactly that impressive as the girl was new. But I'm not too worried. TheMistress had one too with a lass who looked like a ten year old but apparently was very good.
We headed off originally intending food and then waited with TheMistress to get a taxi that we basically forced her to have, I even gave her the cash for it. The wait in the taxi queue was long though and she kept dashing off to find a toilet which she managed in the end. But after a while food got taken off the agenda and Sonrisa, Ian and I just headed back to hers. We sat around for a few minutes then Sonrisa headed to bed and I was given the bits to make my bed up.
It was a big double airbed so in my manly fashion or at least how I do it when I usually have one I started blowing it up by lung power alone. This lasted a while and in the end I gave up and used the foot pump for a bit. Of course it turned out the foot pump was rubbish so I finished it off with lung power again, dropped the quilt over it, spent a few minutes looking at pics and mucking on the net and then drifted off into a sweet sweet sleep.
Woke up fairly early but couldn't be bothered getting up for a while so I mucked about on my laptop for a while. Eventually dragged myself up and over to Burger King to get myself some food. Checked if anyone else wanted some of course but they weren't interested. So I had me a lovely bacon buttie and hash browns. To be honest I wish I had had a little more as I would later be very very hungry. But that's for later on.
Sonrisa was dying in bed so I said a quick thank you and goodbye before dashing off in a taxi to the studio I was shooting in. This is one of the biggest band rehearsal studios in Manchester and is quite cheap for the amount of time you can get it for so I was quite impressed once again. Had a little fun finding it as I couldn't remember exactly where it was as we came a different way to the one I had come last time. But I got there and got in.
Found I had been shifted to another room but to be honest I wasn't too bothered about that at all. I got in there and found a few cool bits and bobs that could be used as props and then started setting up where I could work from. In the end I loosely picked the three corners of the room (the fourth one having the door in it obviously). One had a cool large window, another had a little ledge above a cupboard with a giant amp and the last had a really cool set of green painted brickwork to play around with.
So I set up my lights and got my camera and laptop all set up too and ready to go. Had a bit of a play about and then when it came up to about 1 I went downstairs and stood outside waiting for my models to arrive. Well they didn't. In fact I stood out there for over 45 minutes waiting and ended up chatting to a guy who was waiting for his band to show up. Not having the models number but having given her mine I was a little annoyed that I hadn't heard anything.
But I went back in and twiddled my thumbs and after a bit longer got quite angry about it and then a little depressed. I called a few people including LostSoulParry and Psychobettie13 who sorted me out with Snowdred's number to see if I might be able to sort something out with her and Deryn. Seems they weren't awake at this point. I even begged the studio guy to let me steal his internet for a while to try and find a number to call the models on. Even went so far as to hack the connection across the road, didn't work as the signal was too weak though which was annoying.
So I started to think about heading home, settled my bill with the guy at the desk and went to pack up my stuff when I got a text from Snowdred. I immediately called her back and asked her if she could come down. She said she would check with Deryn and get back to me, which she did and they said they would come down. I told them to get ready and jump in a taxi and I would pay for it. So that's what they did.
Not having a time frame I almost went a little spare again waiting and was literally moments from packing my stuff up when they called to say they were nearly here. I mean literally my prayers had been answered so I dashed down, paid the cabbie and we went upstairs.
Intermission: Thanks Psychobettie13, Snowdred and Deryn you all saved the day with your combined effort. But most thanks to Snowdred for responding to that text. I really will make a tshirt that says "Snowdred Saved My Day".
Anyway I decided in the hour we had left at this point (I had been there for 4 on my lonesome) we could have a very rapid go at "Van Nuys", "Intermission" and "Girl with Golden Eyes". We got right into it and we had a great deal of fun chatting all the way including me doing my Cousin It impression and having a jolly good time. Snowdred took Van Nuys and Deryn had Intermission while they were both in Girl with Golden Eyes.
Here is the first preview from Girl with Golden Eyes.
The pics were really fun to shoot and both girls are awesome. We wrapped up in plenty of time and headed down to get a taxi. Now by this point I had nothing eat or drink since 10am so I was pretty much on my last legs so I was really glad when they suggested we go get a drink together. So once we got ourselves back into the city centre via taxi we headed off to the Oyster Bar. Had a lovely pint of stout and we sat around chatting about random stuff which was awesome.
By the time the drinks were done I had decided there was little point in heading straight home so I suggested we get some food so we all went off to Nando's together. I'd never been before but I have to say I was quite impressed by the options available and the food was delicious. The company of course was better as the both girls are absolutely awesome. I'm so glad to have had the opportunity to meet and work with them, together they made what would otherwise have been a monstrously shite day actually bloody awesome.
Invited them and Psychobettie13 to come and have a mini party at my house this coming weekend as I have the house free and nobody else seems interested in staving off my horrifying levels of boredom. So a fun time shall hopefully be had by all.
Eventually I started to head home and we said goodbye with a big group hug, which is murder to take a pic of lol. See below.
Got back to Halifax and back up home but I was totally ruined so I dived into bed with my laptop and just mucked about for a while. Nipped in chat but everyone was too engrossed in their own conversation to really be bothered with me. It took some of them a couple of minutes to even say hello. But I didn't worry about it and dropped out. I did however find out why the models hadn't turned up.
It seems she always contacts a photographer before a shoot to make sure its still on as she has been messed around in the past. Well she had taken my number down wrong, 0779 instead of 0799 so she had been calling and texting some random and therefore didn't come as she thought I was messing with her but we sorted it out and I will shoot with her when I come up to Glasgow at the end of November. On that note I hit the hay.
Yesterday I was just completely knackered all day long and there was no cure for it, my office was so warm that I ended up going all fuzzy despite turning the heating off in my room. It got to a point where my brain switched off and I couldn't think straight at all. But I still went to the Armouries to get some training in.
I was appalled on arrival to find that Dan our Chapter Master has cut his bloody hair; it really doesn't suit him like this at all. I asked him why and he told me he was tired of having to wash and dry it all the time, so I accused him of being a lazy fucker lol. But we had a good chat about a lot of things such as photography and he was quite interested in what I've been up to.
Training was pretty good aside from the Capoeira bit at the beginning as the guy who was leading it is a shite teacher and I lost where we were supposed to be and instead of offering to help me out he continued at a faster pace. Wanker. But my mind was out of it at this point, I had a bit of trouble grasping the new techniques we were learning and nearly lost it all together when we tried it from the opposite side. Eventually though my brain woke up and I got on with it fine.
Got home and pretty much just died in bed as I was thoroughly and utterly knackered beyond belief. That has stretched through to today as I'm totally wrecked and have a massive headache. Though it seems my job is about to get more interesting as I'm gonna be trained in a lot of the website maintenance and content management. My boss even warned me not to overload myself, which is funny as at the moment I'm, a little of the opposite.
Soon be home time and I can post this blog up. In the mean time I want you to go through your favourite songs and pick a couple of verses or a few lines that mean a lot to you and copy them in with your comment to this blog.
For me it has to be these lines from Life is Beautiful by Sixx AM, very poingnant and they mean a lot to me.
You can't quit until you try
You can't live until you die
You can't learn to tell the truth
Until you learn to lie
You can't breathe until you choke
You gotta laugh when you're the joke
There's nothing like a funeral to make you feel alive
If you take out the female connotations and replace them with male ones this song, Afraid by Motley Crue is frighteningly poignant for me.
do you, do you wanna bleed?
do you, do you wanna live in vain?
it's only life
she's so afraid to kiss
and so afraid to laugh
is she runnin' from her past?
it's only life
she's so afraid of love
is so afraid of hate
what's she runnin' from now??
do you, do you wanna scream?
do you, do you wanna face the strange?
do you, do you believe?
are you, are you afraid of change?
it's only life
she's so afraid of this
and so afraid to ask
she hides behind her mask
nothing's ever right
she's so afraid of pain
so afraid of blame
it's driving her insane
so insecure
there is no cure
well she's so afraid
she's so afraid of death
she's so afraid, afraid of life
the drama in her head
getting louder all the time
getting louder all the time
she's so afraid, afraid to lose
been so afraid of fame
everyday she feels the same
it's driven her insane...
Toodles
G
So this was going to be Thursday's blog but in the end it turned into Fridays which isn't such a big problem even though I know nobody will comment on a Friday night. Basically my blog schedule will be altering slightly as my new weekly routine kicks in next week and is as follows:
Week 1 = Monday at the Armouries and Thursday at Uni.
Week 2 = Monday at BB and Thursday at Uni.
This will alternate until Christmas then I get two days at Uni. It's gonna fucking kill me! But anyway it means some slight changed as I'm not posting blogs after a long day at the armouries. Luckily now the Uni lectures have gone down to 2 hours from 3 so I will be getting in home a lot earlier thankfully.
Not been a lot going on this week really. Been preparing a lot of things for this weekend, which reminds me I need to go raid the stationary cupboard for some bits to make the diary to use in the sets. I have an idea to chronicle the whole project I'm going to ask each model to write something about it on one page in the book and then use pics of that as part of the final printed portfolio. It can be anything little drawings, why they like the idea that sort of thing. I think it will really add to the project.
EDIT Since writing this I actually went and got the bits and have doodled a welcome page and my own mini profile double spreads. When the project is done I will use this to make the final printed portfolio and much in the same way as Nikki's book include all the little cool things I find. Here it is The Heroin Diaries Project Book:
I got my new tasty cokin filters in the post and I've been playing about with them, they are really fun and I've figured out some lovely combinations to use them with. One of them is really useful as it's to colour correct in artificial lighting, be hella useful when I'm using my lighting rig. Also found a really nice combo using a sepialight and grey filter that browns the light and adds depth to the black, just hard to see out of lol.
I've been trying desperately to organise student site visits for the next two weeks but getting hold of people is annoying and driving me up the wall. Some people don't answer others ignore you. I'm gonna have to start chasing people on Monday if I'm getting no results. I got one offer of a visit to the Rose Bowl across the road on the 10th but now that I've asked for confirmation the guy hasn't got back to me. One of the other companies I spoke to someone but she hung up before I got chance to get her name so unless I get called I have no idea who to ask for.
This is further complicated but the fact I have to move office again. I actually do really mind this time for two reasons. Firstly I really like it in this office, its peaceful and private and allows me to get work done when I need to, the new one will have people in and out all the time and is right next to the main office so it will be noisy with students and people will observe my comings and goings. Secondly I can't get a name plate for the door, the other guy who works in the office has one, and he is only part time support staff, I'm full time but now you can't have one unless you're academic or management. Think I will make my own.
I'll probably get used to it but as Bob isn't there all the time but it's annoying at the moment, the damn room doesn't even have a window so there is no chance of light or fresh air, going to have to get rid of the plant. I also can't have toast for lunch anymore as the kitchen nearest me is the one in the general office and they A don't have a toaster and B it would make the entire office smell like toast. Frustrating!
But in interesting news I was coming back on the train and bumped into a friend I know through BB. I would never have guessed but after a while the subject of the London Tattoo Convention came up and he said he was interested in meeting the Suicide Girls. Surprised me no end this did but it turns out he is in fact a member on here and I got him to friend me when he got home. Go say hello to eviltony, he doesn't have many friends and should be more active than he is. Make him lol.
Yeah it's been a fairly boring week on the whole. Last night wasn't too bad, got force to eat chocolate cake and split a bottle of wine with my mum, harsh people my parents. Then I stuck my nose into chat for a while and had a good laugh messing with Ortus when I brought out the berries, I should have screen captured that, wish someone else had lol. It was however rather difficult trying to emote on a webcam using a permanently grinning Ribena Berry. Fun though even if my arm did get tired.
While all this was going on I was dotting back and forth between chat and watching Natural Born Killers, haven't watched that in about 5 years so it was pretty cool to watch again. I just love the bit where he says the "I'm a natural born killer" line, it was so funny. I mean parts of that film are badly overdone but others are just so good. Tommy Lee Jones as that warden is scarily believable at the same time as being absolutely horrifying. It however does give me inspiration for a shoot, I mean a red filter should be pretty easy to come by and those whole flickering evil nightmare bits are too priceless not to use.
Honestly not got a lot more to say at the moment, will no doubt think of more later but for now I'm off to start tidying my office up ready for the move and plot weird and wonderful things for the shoots this weekend. Wish me luck with them everyone, I want to be sure that I give my best as this whole project means a lot to me.
Toodles
G
Week 1 = Monday at the Armouries and Thursday at Uni.
Week 2 = Monday at BB and Thursday at Uni.
This will alternate until Christmas then I get two days at Uni. It's gonna fucking kill me! But anyway it means some slight changed as I'm not posting blogs after a long day at the armouries. Luckily now the Uni lectures have gone down to 2 hours from 3 so I will be getting in home a lot earlier thankfully.
Not been a lot going on this week really. Been preparing a lot of things for this weekend, which reminds me I need to go raid the stationary cupboard for some bits to make the diary to use in the sets. I have an idea to chronicle the whole project I'm going to ask each model to write something about it on one page in the book and then use pics of that as part of the final printed portfolio. It can be anything little drawings, why they like the idea that sort of thing. I think it will really add to the project.
EDIT Since writing this I actually went and got the bits and have doodled a welcome page and my own mini profile double spreads. When the project is done I will use this to make the final printed portfolio and much in the same way as Nikki's book include all the little cool things I find. Here it is The Heroin Diaries Project Book:
I got my new tasty cokin filters in the post and I've been playing about with them, they are really fun and I've figured out some lovely combinations to use them with. One of them is really useful as it's to colour correct in artificial lighting, be hella useful when I'm using my lighting rig. Also found a really nice combo using a sepialight and grey filter that browns the light and adds depth to the black, just hard to see out of lol.
I've been trying desperately to organise student site visits for the next two weeks but getting hold of people is annoying and driving me up the wall. Some people don't answer others ignore you. I'm gonna have to start chasing people on Monday if I'm getting no results. I got one offer of a visit to the Rose Bowl across the road on the 10th but now that I've asked for confirmation the guy hasn't got back to me. One of the other companies I spoke to someone but she hung up before I got chance to get her name so unless I get called I have no idea who to ask for.
This is further complicated but the fact I have to move office again. I actually do really mind this time for two reasons. Firstly I really like it in this office, its peaceful and private and allows me to get work done when I need to, the new one will have people in and out all the time and is right next to the main office so it will be noisy with students and people will observe my comings and goings. Secondly I can't get a name plate for the door, the other guy who works in the office has one, and he is only part time support staff, I'm full time but now you can't have one unless you're academic or management. Think I will make my own.
I'll probably get used to it but as Bob isn't there all the time but it's annoying at the moment, the damn room doesn't even have a window so there is no chance of light or fresh air, going to have to get rid of the plant. I also can't have toast for lunch anymore as the kitchen nearest me is the one in the general office and they A don't have a toaster and B it would make the entire office smell like toast. Frustrating!
But in interesting news I was coming back on the train and bumped into a friend I know through BB. I would never have guessed but after a while the subject of the London Tattoo Convention came up and he said he was interested in meeting the Suicide Girls. Surprised me no end this did but it turns out he is in fact a member on here and I got him to friend me when he got home. Go say hello to eviltony, he doesn't have many friends and should be more active than he is. Make him lol.
Yeah it's been a fairly boring week on the whole. Last night wasn't too bad, got force to eat chocolate cake and split a bottle of wine with my mum, harsh people my parents. Then I stuck my nose into chat for a while and had a good laugh messing with Ortus when I brought out the berries, I should have screen captured that, wish someone else had lol. It was however rather difficult trying to emote on a webcam using a permanently grinning Ribena Berry. Fun though even if my arm did get tired.
While all this was going on I was dotting back and forth between chat and watching Natural Born Killers, haven't watched that in about 5 years so it was pretty cool to watch again. I just love the bit where he says the "I'm a natural born killer" line, it was so funny. I mean parts of that film are badly overdone but others are just so good. Tommy Lee Jones as that warden is scarily believable at the same time as being absolutely horrifying. It however does give me inspiration for a shoot, I mean a red filter should be pretty easy to come by and those whole flickering evil nightmare bits are too priceless not to use.
Honestly not got a lot more to say at the moment, will no doubt think of more later but for now I'm off to start tidying my office up ready for the move and plot weird and wonderful things for the shoots this weekend. Wish me luck with them everyone, I want to be sure that I give my best as this whole project means a lot to me.
Toodles
G
Je suis knackered, yep that pretty much sums up how I am today. It's been a hectic few days and no mistake.
Friday I had to sort out a number of things not to mention the last minute steps before the training event I was hosting in the afternoon which was a little time consuming to say the least. I worked hard at it though and got everything organised, such as the sandwiches which was a lot easier and cheaper than I thought it would be so happy happy. Went to meet the speaker at the station and bumped into my colleague too.
So we all walked up together which was fun, no not really that's the wrong word annoying, they know each other and hadn't seen each other for ages so were twittering back and forth like little school girls. Then the speaker managed to nearly kill an old lady with her trolley case which was a touch hilarious and shocking at the same time.
They then bothered me about forms to get signed, I went along with it grumpy all the way (I had a large head and stomach ache). I of course after printing them out realised that nobody needed to sign them at that point so I nearly had to skip my lunch thanks to their silliness. Never mind I got it sorted and back across and managed to eat my delicious sandwich. Thickly layered turkey and ham, yummy!
The event itself was dull to start off but then got interesting towards the end when we ran an example Innovation Circle and it turned into basically a 25 minute long meeting about how awesome I am. This is always such a good thing; my boss was doing it to establish the concept of my presence and my actual function and abilities within the school. Loosely put that I know what's going on and can help you sort stuff even on short notice.
We got finished early and me and my Dad headed home to get cracking with the final bit of sorting before the relatives arrived that evening. This loosely involved me collapsing in front of my laptop while he made tea, man I was beat. But the family arrived and they were really nice folks. We had a lovely meal and a lovely chat and then kept on with this into the evening.
I was so knackered I headed upstairs with the intent of going to bed early but then sat down at my laptop to listen to some tunes for a while and figured out how I was going to tidy my room up in the early morning. Tiggie came online and I had a chat with her, thought she might not be able to get to the Wildhearts gig in London but I tried to figure out ways to help her out. Didn't need to in the end as she managed to sort it out herself (I assume haven't heard from her since).
Interesting note to all this is that during the evenings conversation the subject of tattoos came up and I decided fuck it and threw my oar in and revealed my intent. Fuck me it went better than I thought simply by the fact I'm still here and not on the streets somewhere. Seems they don't mind as much and therefore I have asked Tiggie to book me an appointment at the tattoo place she knows for the second weekend of October.
Have to see what they say when she goes in to discuss it with them but by this time next month I will have my first ink. Happier bunny I will be but then I'm not exactly falling over sad right now as it is.
Other things of Friday well I may have made a silly decision regarding money, not a badly silly one but I spent some on something that I kinda regret and feel will make me look more foolish than I feel at the moment. In good business however I managed to win an auction for some Cokin filters to use with my camera, they should add a new level of cool to my pics and hopefully will allow me to be a bit more creative.
Anyway feeling much more refreshed and generally bouncy happy I rolled into my bed and had myself a wonderful sleep.
Woke up at about 6am and genuinely could not be fucked getting up at that point so rolled over and grabbed my laptop. Mucked about on the old internets for a while and in the end decided the only way to stop myself mucking about on the internet was to actually strip my bed so I couldn't curl up in it anymore. Therefore I took the sheets off my bed, carried all my washing downstairs and got on with tidying up.
It was slow going for the most part as I kept getting distracted by parents, guests and the pressing need to actually put food in my stomach but I got there in the end and got my room quite well tidy. Not as much as I would like but it was done. Even managed to get the leg on Pitt that didn't work working which was a revelation, now if I could just get his torso to work properly then we would be in business.
Helped out with the downstairs tidying up and I would say that about 11am we were near enough done so I went and got my shower which at this point was sorely needed. It was a wonderful relaxing affair and I emerged quite happy. Dropped some clothes on and went about the business of helping out with whatever else needed doing, including stopping my Mum going spare dealing with my Dad. He ended up so tired he needed to lie down but he didn't stay there.
I got dressed after drying my lovely hair and went with a rather odd look, it was a nice sunny day so I put on my shorts and a shirt, I looked a regular goth surfer or some crap but it was funny. Went around barefoot until I needed to go outside and then I put on my flip flops, I was having a right laugh. Anyway people started to arrive in the form of my grandparents and a family friend from York. More people started dropping in after them so it became time for me to occupy my bar.
I in my impishly good humoured fashion at this point decided as it was my parents Silver Wedding I should name my bar appropriately so I named it The Silver Saloon. I set my laptop and my external hard drive up with enough music to keep me going for six days all ready for the oncoming horde. My bartending went quite well at the start as few people were actually drinking. In fact the people I thought I could rely upon for a cocktail or two weren't drinking so I had to make myself a Tequila Sunrise to keep myself occupied. I used a bit too much grenadine and it turned out crappy at the end though lol.
I was on fire though in all fashions, living the epitome of dance like nobody else was watching. Hell I was bouncing round the house long hair flowing and drink in hand dancing to anything that took my fancy and generally being a cheery soul, it was so much fun. However on my list of things I don't like are one of our friends kids who act like little spoilt brats and cry to mummy when things don't go their way, when not doing this they are very cruel spiteful little shits.
When I pick other kids up and pretend to throw them in the bin most kids love it and want me to do it again, Nick decides he doesn't like it and cries his eyes out and demands Mummy sort me out, Mummy can't sort herself so what do you think. Both those kids are social retards in the making.
Anyway less of that, lots of people came and we all had a good time, got to meet lots of new people and met some of my family I had never seen before. Had a really good laugh playing with my cousins Carrie and Rach (who loves being swung up in the air and me using her to mop the floor in a pretend fashion, so much so that she orders me to do it more) and a few of the other kids, even got to play with my little baby cousin Ajay, he was fun, right little camera poser too. I got some absolutely brilliant pics of him playing.
I was disappointed at the food situation as I was so busy rushing round most of the food got eaten, especially all the lovely chicken and beef so I was a touch miffed. In the end I had to cook myself a pizza later on which was good but not close in anyway to lovely freshly roast meat. That bit of chicken I got was so moist and delicious, yummmers. But I did get a few of the little sausages and I kept myself topped up with beer to keep my spirits up.
I had a good laugh when one of our friend's daughters brought her little boyfriend round, about 13, short with stupidly spiky hair and an unbroken voice. I had a laugh with him through her Dad when I said if you muck her around I'm the one he calls for and I get my sword. He didn't believe me so I got a sword and axe from upstairs and while he was on the phone pointed it at him until his girlfriend told him to turn around. Oh the look on his face was priceless I tell you. Not that I'm cruel…
But yeah the whole party really set me on wanting a kid mode badly, I love playing with babies and older kids too, it keeps me feeling young and everyone needs that little chance to be immature once in a while don't they. But I want to be a father so badly but I lack one of the prerequisites and the skills to get it. No female partner and no ability to acquire one, I am clueless in this regard. Someone smarten me up on this topic please, seriously I'm fucking begging!
Anyway after people peeled off we sliced the cake and eventually went to bed once the rest of the people left. I couldn't be bothered finishing sorting my couch for my bro so I told him to sleep downstairs. Crawled into my freshly made bed that is now absolutely covered in masses of pillows and drifted off into a sound sleep.
Sunday was a tired and restful day. I woke up, got downstairs and helped with the cleanup effort of the household by cleaning out the remains of my bar. This was fairly easy going, just glad I didn't get any staples stabbed through the heel of my foot as I had at least three times during the evenings festivities. After this we watched the end of Meet The Fockers before the remaining family from down south toddled off home.
We lazed around the rest of the morning watching Black Books and eventually I got it together to make some pasta for lunch. Chicken and bacon in a creamy sauce, of course my Dad ended up going back to bed and I had to eat his share which left me feeling a little too full. Watched a load more Black Books and in the end my Mum took my bro back to Leeds and I had a nap before finishing tidying up.
The rest of the afternoon evening went along in a similar fashion except in the early evening I lit the candles in my room and started plotting photography. Next weekend is going to be particularly busy as I have a shoot on Saturday then Sonrisa's party, then a shoot on Sunday in Manchester so I'm going to have to carry my lights around with me and taxi it all around Manchester; it's going to be very tiring.
Got some really cool and annoying news today, my mate Gonzo who's birthday party I went to a couple of weeks back is going to have a baby with his fiancée, I'm so happy for them both. But this means he can't do the Nationals as hands on as he was as its quite close to the due date, but still I'm really happy for them.
But I think I have it cracked so its no problem. Anyway I will leave you with a few cool pics to look over while I get ready to go home and post this. So knackered lol.
Oh and this from Edinburgh courtesy of Oskar.
Toodles
G
Friday I had to sort out a number of things not to mention the last minute steps before the training event I was hosting in the afternoon which was a little time consuming to say the least. I worked hard at it though and got everything organised, such as the sandwiches which was a lot easier and cheaper than I thought it would be so happy happy. Went to meet the speaker at the station and bumped into my colleague too.
So we all walked up together which was fun, no not really that's the wrong word annoying, they know each other and hadn't seen each other for ages so were twittering back and forth like little school girls. Then the speaker managed to nearly kill an old lady with her trolley case which was a touch hilarious and shocking at the same time.
They then bothered me about forms to get signed, I went along with it grumpy all the way (I had a large head and stomach ache). I of course after printing them out realised that nobody needed to sign them at that point so I nearly had to skip my lunch thanks to their silliness. Never mind I got it sorted and back across and managed to eat my delicious sandwich. Thickly layered turkey and ham, yummy!
The event itself was dull to start off but then got interesting towards the end when we ran an example Innovation Circle and it turned into basically a 25 minute long meeting about how awesome I am. This is always such a good thing; my boss was doing it to establish the concept of my presence and my actual function and abilities within the school. Loosely put that I know what's going on and can help you sort stuff even on short notice.
We got finished early and me and my Dad headed home to get cracking with the final bit of sorting before the relatives arrived that evening. This loosely involved me collapsing in front of my laptop while he made tea, man I was beat. But the family arrived and they were really nice folks. We had a lovely meal and a lovely chat and then kept on with this into the evening.
I was so knackered I headed upstairs with the intent of going to bed early but then sat down at my laptop to listen to some tunes for a while and figured out how I was going to tidy my room up in the early morning. Tiggie came online and I had a chat with her, thought she might not be able to get to the Wildhearts gig in London but I tried to figure out ways to help her out. Didn't need to in the end as she managed to sort it out herself (I assume haven't heard from her since).
Interesting note to all this is that during the evenings conversation the subject of tattoos came up and I decided fuck it and threw my oar in and revealed my intent. Fuck me it went better than I thought simply by the fact I'm still here and not on the streets somewhere. Seems they don't mind as much and therefore I have asked Tiggie to book me an appointment at the tattoo place she knows for the second weekend of October.
Have to see what they say when she goes in to discuss it with them but by this time next month I will have my first ink. Happier bunny I will be but then I'm not exactly falling over sad right now as it is.
Other things of Friday well I may have made a silly decision regarding money, not a badly silly one but I spent some on something that I kinda regret and feel will make me look more foolish than I feel at the moment. In good business however I managed to win an auction for some Cokin filters to use with my camera, they should add a new level of cool to my pics and hopefully will allow me to be a bit more creative.
Anyway feeling much more refreshed and generally bouncy happy I rolled into my bed and had myself a wonderful sleep.
Woke up at about 6am and genuinely could not be fucked getting up at that point so rolled over and grabbed my laptop. Mucked about on the old internets for a while and in the end decided the only way to stop myself mucking about on the internet was to actually strip my bed so I couldn't curl up in it anymore. Therefore I took the sheets off my bed, carried all my washing downstairs and got on with tidying up.
It was slow going for the most part as I kept getting distracted by parents, guests and the pressing need to actually put food in my stomach but I got there in the end and got my room quite well tidy. Not as much as I would like but it was done. Even managed to get the leg on Pitt that didn't work working which was a revelation, now if I could just get his torso to work properly then we would be in business.
Helped out with the downstairs tidying up and I would say that about 11am we were near enough done so I went and got my shower which at this point was sorely needed. It was a wonderful relaxing affair and I emerged quite happy. Dropped some clothes on and went about the business of helping out with whatever else needed doing, including stopping my Mum going spare dealing with my Dad. He ended up so tired he needed to lie down but he didn't stay there.
I got dressed after drying my lovely hair and went with a rather odd look, it was a nice sunny day so I put on my shorts and a shirt, I looked a regular goth surfer or some crap but it was funny. Went around barefoot until I needed to go outside and then I put on my flip flops, I was having a right laugh. Anyway people started to arrive in the form of my grandparents and a family friend from York. More people started dropping in after them so it became time for me to occupy my bar.
I in my impishly good humoured fashion at this point decided as it was my parents Silver Wedding I should name my bar appropriately so I named it The Silver Saloon. I set my laptop and my external hard drive up with enough music to keep me going for six days all ready for the oncoming horde. My bartending went quite well at the start as few people were actually drinking. In fact the people I thought I could rely upon for a cocktail or two weren't drinking so I had to make myself a Tequila Sunrise to keep myself occupied. I used a bit too much grenadine and it turned out crappy at the end though lol.
I was on fire though in all fashions, living the epitome of dance like nobody else was watching. Hell I was bouncing round the house long hair flowing and drink in hand dancing to anything that took my fancy and generally being a cheery soul, it was so much fun. However on my list of things I don't like are one of our friends kids who act like little spoilt brats and cry to mummy when things don't go their way, when not doing this they are very cruel spiteful little shits.
When I pick other kids up and pretend to throw them in the bin most kids love it and want me to do it again, Nick decides he doesn't like it and cries his eyes out and demands Mummy sort me out, Mummy can't sort herself so what do you think. Both those kids are social retards in the making.
Anyway less of that, lots of people came and we all had a good time, got to meet lots of new people and met some of my family I had never seen before. Had a really good laugh playing with my cousins Carrie and Rach (who loves being swung up in the air and me using her to mop the floor in a pretend fashion, so much so that she orders me to do it more) and a few of the other kids, even got to play with my little baby cousin Ajay, he was fun, right little camera poser too. I got some absolutely brilliant pics of him playing.
I was disappointed at the food situation as I was so busy rushing round most of the food got eaten, especially all the lovely chicken and beef so I was a touch miffed. In the end I had to cook myself a pizza later on which was good but not close in anyway to lovely freshly roast meat. That bit of chicken I got was so moist and delicious, yummmers. But I did get a few of the little sausages and I kept myself topped up with beer to keep my spirits up.
I had a good laugh when one of our friend's daughters brought her little boyfriend round, about 13, short with stupidly spiky hair and an unbroken voice. I had a laugh with him through her Dad when I said if you muck her around I'm the one he calls for and I get my sword. He didn't believe me so I got a sword and axe from upstairs and while he was on the phone pointed it at him until his girlfriend told him to turn around. Oh the look on his face was priceless I tell you. Not that I'm cruel…
But yeah the whole party really set me on wanting a kid mode badly, I love playing with babies and older kids too, it keeps me feeling young and everyone needs that little chance to be immature once in a while don't they. But I want to be a father so badly but I lack one of the prerequisites and the skills to get it. No female partner and no ability to acquire one, I am clueless in this regard. Someone smarten me up on this topic please, seriously I'm fucking begging!
Anyway after people peeled off we sliced the cake and eventually went to bed once the rest of the people left. I couldn't be bothered finishing sorting my couch for my bro so I told him to sleep downstairs. Crawled into my freshly made bed that is now absolutely covered in masses of pillows and drifted off into a sound sleep.
Sunday was a tired and restful day. I woke up, got downstairs and helped with the cleanup effort of the household by cleaning out the remains of my bar. This was fairly easy going, just glad I didn't get any staples stabbed through the heel of my foot as I had at least three times during the evenings festivities. After this we watched the end of Meet The Fockers before the remaining family from down south toddled off home.
We lazed around the rest of the morning watching Black Books and eventually I got it together to make some pasta for lunch. Chicken and bacon in a creamy sauce, of course my Dad ended up going back to bed and I had to eat his share which left me feeling a little too full. Watched a load more Black Books and in the end my Mum took my bro back to Leeds and I had a nap before finishing tidying up.
The rest of the afternoon evening went along in a similar fashion except in the early evening I lit the candles in my room and started plotting photography. Next weekend is going to be particularly busy as I have a shoot on Saturday then Sonrisa's party, then a shoot on Sunday in Manchester so I'm going to have to carry my lights around with me and taxi it all around Manchester; it's going to be very tiring.
Got some really cool and annoying news today, my mate Gonzo who's birthday party I went to a couple of weeks back is going to have a baby with his fiancée, I'm so happy for them both. But this means he can't do the Nationals as hands on as he was as its quite close to the due date, but still I'm really happy for them.
But I think I have it cracked so its no problem. Anyway I will leave you with a few cool pics to look over while I get ready to go home and post this. So knackered lol.
Oh and this from Edinburgh courtesy of Oskar.
Toodles
G
Hey ho my friends and neighbours.
I'm pretty damn jazzed right now, the working week has been a touch dull much like usual so there isn't much to say on that front. But today has been awesome.
We had a student activity day up at the landscape gardens in Headingley campus, it was massively awesome. I was walking around helping with the activities and taking pics so I took the time to take pics of cool locations.
Now I am truly dying to get in there and take some pics with some models. Thankfully being a member of staff I might well be able to get in, I have the name of the centre manager and I talked to her a little so I should be able to do it.
Here take a look at a few of the pics I got:
Toodles
G
I'm pretty damn jazzed right now, the working week has been a touch dull much like usual so there isn't much to say on that front. But today has been awesome.
We had a student activity day up at the landscape gardens in Headingley campus, it was massively awesome. I was walking around helping with the activities and taking pics so I took the time to take pics of cool locations.
Now I am truly dying to get in there and take some pics with some models. Thankfully being a member of staff I might well be able to get in, I have the name of the centre manager and I talked to her a little so I should be able to do it.
Here take a look at a few of the pics I got:
Toodles
G
Well howdy friends and neighbours I'm back with tales to tell and wounds to speak of. As shall now be customary here is the Exec Summary of the weekend:
Everyone in SGUK and SGS are freaking awesome and I love you all.
Kintoun takes the love part too literally with everyone.
Causy will do anything for money.
My hand fricking hurts.
Stupid brain made morning suck.
Yeah that about covers it
Thursday
Not a lot to say about the working day as it goes, I spent the day in quite a bit of pain due to the new medication I have for my foot that the doc prescribed. It bloody hurts a fair bit and made the day a little less bearable so I ended up having to take a nap at one point during the day to get myself away from the pain. Only eating soothes it for a while but it doesn't last too long unfortunately
The Armouries as usual was the highlight of the day but it was something different again. We had a guy from Arts of Mars in Germany come along to teach us Italian Longsword technique. He was a mad old English guy who had a habit of saying boom or boom-boom when he touched with a sword. This made it almost like we were being instructed by Basil Brush but it was a really good session and I feel we learnt quite a lot for it.
Got in home for about 11pm but couldn't get to sleep thanks to some really wonderful pain from the old stomach so I dosed about in chat until I could force myself to sleep. Basically I had to wait until I totally conked out which is never good.
Friday
Work was ok, but I was a bit tired first thing, I managed to get some things sorted but for the most part spent the early part of the day just sorting out stuff with my photo project which I had launched. You might remember it, it's the one about The Heroin Diaries, anyway there has been a lot of interest and I was getting really enthused and super bouncy and happy. What a bloody good way to begin the weekend.
Got into the station and got me a burger from Burger King as I didn't know what we would end up doing with food and I was starving lol. Hopped on the train and got to my seat easy enough though I ended up sat next to an arsehole with a bit too much belief in his right to space and he typed on his laptop all the time like an arse hole.
Luckily he got off at Newcastle as did the annoying hen party that left a fucking huge mess. But the guy was so polite to get me to move to let him out he didn't say excuse me he just twat me in the head with his bag as he stood up. But at this point I didn't let it dent my mood. The rest of the journey was pretty quiet and I just chilled to my mp3 player which is pretty good but I still need to sort out lol as all the music is in a jumble and only has half of what I want in it.
I got off the train in Edinburgh and got out of the station to find I had a fun walk up a massive wanker of a staircase. Managed to get myself over to The Tron calling Mistress_Paine all the way to try and get some better directions to the hostel than the ones I had. Well it didn't pan out as despite about five attempts I didn't manage to get hold of her so I went for a wander to find it myself. It turned out I was really close in actual fact.
She called me back and I managed to get some directions from Causy. By this point it was actually pretty warm in Edinburgh and I was starting to sweat in my two jackets. Got to the hostel after finding out that Kintoun was going to pick up Darklas from the station as I was running that little bit late. Saw him walk out and we sorta recognised each other but not entirely lol.
Stood in the queue for ages sweating and finally managed to get sorted for the room. Got up there and was in the process making my bed when I got a call letting me know they had gotten back. Took her through and up to our room, luckily I had realised they hadn't given me sheets for her so I got those too. Made up the beds despite some odd sheets for mine.
Made our way over to The Tron and despite ea bad start guessing found Kintoun sat inside with Necros, Twiggythespider and Oskar. We all sat around for a bit introducing each other and talking about trivial crap for a while. Eventually Causy and Mistress_Paine joined us from the hostel. So we all got down to the serious business of getting to know each other properly through the medium of copious drinking lol.
Creamygoodness and TheQuestion arrived and then gradually more people arrived including Monstrooper, ToneeBlair and Ikaruga. So the party was by this point in full swing. The drinks at The Tron weren't too bad but much in agreeance with Necros I think the Guinness was a bit off, which is a shame but when you're having stomach problems and Guinness soothes it you go with Guinness. Top bunch of folks though and I was immediately vindicate in my decision to go.
Much drinking took place and we all had a good laugh between Kintoun getting silly drunk and trying "magic tricks" to the irrepressible proof that Causy will do anything for money when he licked Creamygoodness in the ear for a fiver. Such good times and the pics bear this out; really glad I got that new camera as it has more than paid for itself in this regard lol.
Oh my god though how labyrinthine was The Tron, going to the toilet I managed to find myself no less than two other entire rooms as I went down until I found them. I swear I thought I was going to drop into Middle Earth, a hobbit passing me on the stairs would not have in any way surprised me at this point.
Time rolled on and after a few people left we decided to call it quits so Kintoun, Darklas and I followed by Oskar went to get some food from the takeaway across the way, just some chips nothing fancy but it provided that little bit of welcome stomach lining after hours of copious boozage.
Darklas and I sat around chatting for a while, not sure how long but it was a cool chat. In the end however it really did appear that I was about to drop off to sleep, I mean hell I had only had 3 hours sleep the night before so it may have been a really good idea to knock it on the head at this point. The bed was quite comfy as well which can't have helped lol.
Saturday
Early rising as usual, still not dealing in hangovers which is such a wonderful thing. Darklas and I chatted for a while and then got ourselves ready to go out. We got hold of Kintoun and told him to meet us for breakfast downstairs. Of course we got there and he was taking a while so we went and got some drinks from the shop across the road, Ribena rules lol.
While waiting we saw a girl with large boobs and an ill fitting top, I mean more than an inch up or down and I swear these puppies would have burst their bonds and beaten a poor unsuspecting fool to death. It was a touch funny and shocking in a way lol. Any rate Kintoun arrived with Necros in tow and we wandered over to the Lloyds we were heading too for breakfast. We picked up Oskar along the way so we had ourselves a regular little party.
We ordered ourselves some food and drinks and I got introduced to the concept that is Lorne Sausage
Everyone in SGUK and SGS are freaking awesome and I love you all.
Kintoun takes the love part too literally with everyone.
Causy will do anything for money.
My hand fricking hurts.
Stupid brain made morning suck.
Yeah that about covers it
Thursday
Not a lot to say about the working day as it goes, I spent the day in quite a bit of pain due to the new medication I have for my foot that the doc prescribed. It bloody hurts a fair bit and made the day a little less bearable so I ended up having to take a nap at one point during the day to get myself away from the pain. Only eating soothes it for a while but it doesn't last too long unfortunately
The Armouries as usual was the highlight of the day but it was something different again. We had a guy from Arts of Mars in Germany come along to teach us Italian Longsword technique. He was a mad old English guy who had a habit of saying boom or boom-boom when he touched with a sword. This made it almost like we were being instructed by Basil Brush but it was a really good session and I feel we learnt quite a lot for it.
Got in home for about 11pm but couldn't get to sleep thanks to some really wonderful pain from the old stomach so I dosed about in chat until I could force myself to sleep. Basically I had to wait until I totally conked out which is never good.
Friday
Work was ok, but I was a bit tired first thing, I managed to get some things sorted but for the most part spent the early part of the day just sorting out stuff with my photo project which I had launched. You might remember it, it's the one about The Heroin Diaries, anyway there has been a lot of interest and I was getting really enthused and super bouncy and happy. What a bloody good way to begin the weekend.
Got into the station and got me a burger from Burger King as I didn't know what we would end up doing with food and I was starving lol. Hopped on the train and got to my seat easy enough though I ended up sat next to an arsehole with a bit too much belief in his right to space and he typed on his laptop all the time like an arse hole.
Luckily he got off at Newcastle as did the annoying hen party that left a fucking huge mess. But the guy was so polite to get me to move to let him out he didn't say excuse me he just twat me in the head with his bag as he stood up. But at this point I didn't let it dent my mood. The rest of the journey was pretty quiet and I just chilled to my mp3 player which is pretty good but I still need to sort out lol as all the music is in a jumble and only has half of what I want in it.
I got off the train in Edinburgh and got out of the station to find I had a fun walk up a massive wanker of a staircase. Managed to get myself over to The Tron calling Mistress_Paine all the way to try and get some better directions to the hostel than the ones I had. Well it didn't pan out as despite about five attempts I didn't manage to get hold of her so I went for a wander to find it myself. It turned out I was really close in actual fact.
She called me back and I managed to get some directions from Causy. By this point it was actually pretty warm in Edinburgh and I was starting to sweat in my two jackets. Got to the hostel after finding out that Kintoun was going to pick up Darklas from the station as I was running that little bit late. Saw him walk out and we sorta recognised each other but not entirely lol.
Stood in the queue for ages sweating and finally managed to get sorted for the room. Got up there and was in the process making my bed when I got a call letting me know they had gotten back. Took her through and up to our room, luckily I had realised they hadn't given me sheets for her so I got those too. Made up the beds despite some odd sheets for mine.
Made our way over to The Tron and despite ea bad start guessing found Kintoun sat inside with Necros, Twiggythespider and Oskar. We all sat around for a bit introducing each other and talking about trivial crap for a while. Eventually Causy and Mistress_Paine joined us from the hostel. So we all got down to the serious business of getting to know each other properly through the medium of copious drinking lol.
Creamygoodness and TheQuestion arrived and then gradually more people arrived including Monstrooper, ToneeBlair and Ikaruga. So the party was by this point in full swing. The drinks at The Tron weren't too bad but much in agreeance with Necros I think the Guinness was a bit off, which is a shame but when you're having stomach problems and Guinness soothes it you go with Guinness. Top bunch of folks though and I was immediately vindicate in my decision to go.
Much drinking took place and we all had a good laugh between Kintoun getting silly drunk and trying "magic tricks" to the irrepressible proof that Causy will do anything for money when he licked Creamygoodness in the ear for a fiver. Such good times and the pics bear this out; really glad I got that new camera as it has more than paid for itself in this regard lol.
Oh my god though how labyrinthine was The Tron, going to the toilet I managed to find myself no less than two other entire rooms as I went down until I found them. I swear I thought I was going to drop into Middle Earth, a hobbit passing me on the stairs would not have in any way surprised me at this point.
Time rolled on and after a few people left we decided to call it quits so Kintoun, Darklas and I followed by Oskar went to get some food from the takeaway across the way, just some chips nothing fancy but it provided that little bit of welcome stomach lining after hours of copious boozage.
Darklas and I sat around chatting for a while, not sure how long but it was a cool chat. In the end however it really did appear that I was about to drop off to sleep, I mean hell I had only had 3 hours sleep the night before so it may have been a really good idea to knock it on the head at this point. The bed was quite comfy as well which can't have helped lol.
Saturday
Early rising as usual, still not dealing in hangovers which is such a wonderful thing. Darklas and I chatted for a while and then got ourselves ready to go out. We got hold of Kintoun and told him to meet us for breakfast downstairs. Of course we got there and he was taking a while so we went and got some drinks from the shop across the road, Ribena rules lol.
While waiting we saw a girl with large boobs and an ill fitting top, I mean more than an inch up or down and I swear these puppies would have burst their bonds and beaten a poor unsuspecting fool to death. It was a touch funny and shocking in a way lol. Any rate Kintoun arrived with Necros in tow and we wandered over to the Lloyds we were heading too for breakfast. We picked up Oskar along the way so we had ourselves a regular little party.
We ordered ourselves some food and drinks and I got introduced to the concept that is Lorne Sausage