What happened next

There's really not that much point telling of the first three months in Belfast as a tale, an edited version of three months of my life in a new and strange environment is only a few evictions away from being a series of big brother. To make it simple I'll give you a list of the important bits, these posts are purely for the benifit of me as I get back into the habit of blogging and friends who want to know what I've been up to. If you want more information write me an email and ask.

So from the top, the high points/interesting bits have been,
- A very brief tenure working as low-level scum in a comic shop, was quite fun but poorly paid.
- A much longer, seemingly endless tenure sorting out database problems for a bank with an identity crisis. The job is not that exciting but the colleagues have actually made the whole experience quite enjoyable.
- Have moved in with Ali and her housemate Dave not too long back. For now it's a wee bit crowded but Dave is off to Manchester in three weeks so it'll all be ours.
- Went in search of a way to DJ over here, found a chap called Al who is looking for someone to DJ with him. We are doing our first night in a couple of weeks. Am really rather looking forward to it.
- In between all that I've visted Brum and Cumbria once a piece on parental visits. My parents have been over here once in retaliation.
- I've become considerably more domesticated.
- I've mostly, sort-of, kind-of, given up smoking. Truth be told I've not had one in ages but still don't really feel like I've given up. I've just not had one in ages. When does that wear off?

There isn't that much else to tell really. I really do wish I could write about my thrill a minute life of adventure but it isn't that exciting, the next thing that would appear on the list is that I went to the theatre. It is lovely here though, I'm really very happy and have quickly become very fond of it. I really honestly haven't missed Birmingham that much at all. Of course I miss the people but that's to be expected, the city itself though had really started to lose it's appeal to me a couple of years ago, I was never able to point my finger at one thing that ruined it all but gradually I realised I was struggling to find anything to love about the place. I'm probably actually fonder of it from here and appreciate what it does right more when I visit.

Right that'll do for now I think, I want to get back to writing about music, films, comics and crap I find on the interweb. And not mentioning FA Cup semi-finals.

Big bloody hills and publically funded mental scars

Leaving where you grew up can be weird; I'd imagine it's the same for everyone who moves away. Now if I'm honest I'm really feeling it, I've been around the UK quite a bit and really I've always thought one place was pretty much the same as the next once you got past the basics, in some cities people are nicer, in others they're all miserable sods but essentially things are pretty constant.

It may be that I'm more affected by it because I left it so long to get round to leaving Brum but really some things here really affect you (And I'm not talking about the almost non-existent Cherry-Coke supply though that will no doubt come up again).

I'll start with something positive. Birmingham, is pretty flat and urbanized as far as the eye can see in every direction. Belfast isn't, almost the first thing you notice is that the skyline to the West of the city centre is dominated by a massive bloody hill, it's called Black Mountain, though I'm pretty sure it's not really a mountain. It's a pretty good size all the same, it's about 3 miles out from the centre and the suburbs just stop dead at its foot. Birmingham has hills but they sneak up on you gradually. This bugger just ambushes the landscape and it is fantastic. This city has an edge that I can see and I find that very comforting for some reason. I'm going to climb it once the weather is more settled; it's only a couple of miles from my house. It's like a having a massive green climbing frame just round the corner. It was covered in snow this morning, there was fuck all where I live or anywhere else in town as far as I can tell. I'm sure it's jut showing off. I'm grinning like a twat as I write this. Best rein it in.

At the other end of the spectrum we have something which completely and utterly horrified me; seriously it's the sort of thing they should tell you about on your flight over here.

You know those adverts about drink-driving, and wearing your seat belt, and any other silly thing you could do where you might up dead. You know, they go a calculated distance past what you are comfortable with and push you out of your comfort zone the first few times you see them and climb into your consciousness with their tragedy and tastefully sanitised gore. But then a few views later you've sort of stopped noticing them, you've learned to tune out the tragedy somehow.

Not here, public service adverts here are turned up to 11.

About 2 or 3 weeks after I got here I was watching Million Dollar Baby on Channel 4, up until then I'd not really watched much telly past the watershed as I'd been off excitedly discovering new pubs and such. Anyway it's getting towards the end, the climactic final fight happens and the adverts come on and there is this nice scene where we see a couple on a country road on a sunny day. She sits on a wall, he stands on the ground below her between her legs, they're kissing, they are obviously in love and the world is lovely. A nasty screech and bang off screen and we cut to a car rolling towards them. I'm going to refrain from the details for a number of reasons, firstly it is seriously horrible and really if I did it any justice you'd get it worse than me as imagination is a bastard like that, secondly I don't really want to spend that much time thinking about it, and finally it's late and it'll save my fingers. I'm still bloody lazy when it comes down to it. I'll summarize it quickly. He dies, she is seriously injured and trapped in the most traumatic way you could ever possibly imagine, there is a whole twenty second montage of the rescue, the body bags, people whose lives are ruined by this over the next few months and all this because some bloke tried to overtake when maybe he shouldn't have. At this point I'm feeling somewhat sickened and a wee bit dazed and damn certain I won't overtake inappropriately for the rest of my life should I ever learn to drive and pretty sure I'll think twice about sitting on walls in the countryside too. The film is lost to me as my head is really not in the right place any more. The bit of my brain designed to watch and enjoy films is too busy sitting in the corner of my head rocking backwards and forwards trying to find a happy place.

Since then I've come to realise that all the adverts of this sort over here pull no punches, most I have built up a tolerance to but during adverts I'm ready to switch over at the first sign of pleasant summers day in the countryside.

What really bothers me is that no-one else seems that fussed, it's normal to be psychologically brutalized in the interest of road safety. My only explanation is that for some reason normal strength safety messages didn't work quite as effectively over here (There are a few obvious candidates for the cause for this) so they jacked up the levels a touch and as with the ads back home each time the Northern Irish community learned to ignore and normalize each new one the stakes were raised a little further to grab their attention. Which is fine unless you happen to be one of the poor sods who gets his inner calm kicked in the ghoulies by the unexpected cultural shift. The only other people who find them as harsh as I do are other people who've moved here in the last year or two.

Obviously this all pales in comparison to cherry-coke famine. I'll compile a less waffly list of them some time soon and put it up here too. Almost all of the rest are positive I'm glad to report.

Take it easy boys and girls, drive safe.

Please.

Another one of those excuse posts

So I vanished for a few days again. My excuse is better than last time at least. I've been in the Lake District since the 13th and will remain so until the 27th, at best internet access has been limited. And it's my birthday on the 28th as well as the first day at my new job so the best you can hope for is a rushed entry before heading for the pub.

On the good news front I've been having a bloody lovely time, there are photo's and I may post some once I get back. I shall see when I get home. That's all really. Just needed to ease my blogging conscience.

What happened to July

Last night I got a message from David of the Bearwood Bloggers who writes Golden Side of the Moon saying I should get back to the blogging and in fairness he's right. The second half of July was an odd one. The foremost reason I went silent was that I felt completely uninspired, anything I did write seemed a little too whiney or self-interested or just not very good, not the sort of thing I thought anyone would be interested in so I didn't post them. There are other reasons but we're moving into the whiney end of the market so I'll just say my apologies and get on with it.

For now have a quick summary of the last few weeks of the life of Stu

• Have worked quite alot at Nostalgia and Comics in Birmingham to make ends meet until the new job at Holly Lodge starts on the 28th of August.
• Discovered a hole in my bath just days before the roughly annual inspection of the property by my landlords. No-one is sure how long it's been there but no damage has been done in the ceiling beneath so can't be too old. Had a lovely chat with them when they came over to look over the place. They were happy with how we look after the place and we are happy plus after the chat we can move someone else into the house and getting a new bathroom suite.
  
• Have begun the Herculean task of sorting out my old comic collection and deciding what to keep and get rid of.
• Saw the Simpsons Move (Not bad)
• Read Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows (Not bad)
• Bumped into Dave Nickel completely at random outside the shop. Was nice to meet him properly if only briefly.
• Have spent hardly any money because...
• I've arranged to go and stay with Ali in the Lake District for a fortnight when she gets back from Kenya next Monday and...
• I've booked flights to go see her in Belfast in September.
• Spent much too long deciding what my 50 favourite albums of all time are (In no particular order). The reasons for this are long and complicated and I won't go into it right now. It was a fun excercise. I may well post the results. It took a week. The first 40 were easy. Picking 10 from the remaining 68 contenders was nighmarish. Needless to say I listened to an awful lot of music that week.
• I took up jogging by accident. Didn't really mean to. I agreed to go for a run with South and another old mate called Sam. I don't quite know why, jogging is not really the sort of thing I or for that matter anyone else would associate with me. Have been out running 4 times now doing about 2 or 3 miles each time around Warley Woods. Most recently was this morning which I did all by myself which really is worrying.
  
• Saw the excellent bands Sunset Cinema Club and Little Dipper play at Tropical Hotdog at the Island Bar in Birmingham City Centre.
• Unwittingly helped a man called Sam (Not the same one) who needed to get home to propose to his girlfriend get back home in the early hours of Friday morning. Well I did intend to help him get home but didn't know the proposal bit until we were nearly at his house. I hope it went ok.
  
• Found out texting Kenya only costs 20p so have lots more contact with Ali which has made me a happier camper all round.
  
• I'm not sure whether I mentioned it but in early July I recorded some music with my band Falling and Laughing and it's now available for download on the band myspace. Go have a listen if you're interested. Personally I recommed Roly Poly and Lights Out Birmingham.
  
• Discovered a wonderful little band/music project from Birmingham called the Voluntary Butler Scheme. I'm more than a little bit in love with a couple of their songs.
• Tidied up my entire flat (See the bit about the landlord visit for the reasons why)
• Watched Heroes and been pleasantly surprised.
• Spent too much time on my X-Box playing very silly games. The main problem was the discovery of a game called Saints Row which tapped into the 5 year old part of me that collected Matchbox cars and lined them up on the floor grouped by colour. It lets you modify all the cars and put hot rod decals on the them. The game isn't even that great but the modifying the cars and making them look cool just completely won me over.
• I started growing a beard. It'll go soon as it's already doing my head in.
  

I think that's more than enough about what I've been upto and at least partly justifies a lack of postings lately on my part. I will try to be good and keep things up.

Apologies

Oh dear, I have been slacking off the last couple of days haven't I. Here is an awesome and very funny little cartoon my friend sent me to make up for my poor form.

Tom Clancy has a lot to answer for

Oh dear! I have succumbed to yet another game on my console, well to be honest I succumbed a while ago but I'd only borrowed the game and thoroughly intended to go and buy it but then found love, happiness and contentment and forgot all about it for a wee while. Then the lady with whom I found all those things with buggered off to Kenya to go and save the world and stuff and as I had all this time again I remembered the game. So off a tootled to Gamestation and since then I've been I've been spending too much time on X-Box live hunting down terrorists. Really if I hadn't given the damn thing back in the first place I may never have found love and happiness. If you value your spare time, your girlfriend and your ability to meet commitments (Not to mention your dignity, I'm getting sick of being made to look bad by other players whose voices haven't yet broken) then stay away from Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six Vegas. If on the other hand you have no need for the above then I heartily recommend it. As for the time being I have a little too much spare time, a girlfriend on another continent and the only commitment other than work I have is this blog and a band that is held together by shocking punctuality. So I shall gleefully continue my virtual career as an anti-terrorism agent. In case anyone actually cares the plot is gash but the multi-player makes it all more than worth while.

Compilation help needed

I'm making a compilation cd with 1 track for each month and an extra one for the year. I have nine of them but am stuck on a few of them. Anyone have any suggestions

So far I have

1. January - Nothing?
2. One Heavy February - Architecture in Helsinki
3. Marching bands of manhatten - Death Cab for Cutie (Kind of cheating though)
   
4. April - Nothing? (Just saw April Showers on an advert so I might get that)
   
5. Maypole - Paul Giovanni (From the Wicker Man Soundtrack)
6. June on the West Coast - Bright Eyes
7. July - Low
8. Augustus Golden - Ella Guru (Kind of cheating again, any other ideas welcome)
   
9. September - Nothing?
10. October - Nothing?
11. Mr. November - The National
12. December - Teenage Fanclub
13. Calander Girl - Stars
    

Any help would be much appreciated.

Back in the saddle

Seem to have gotten a handle on things again, not quite as tired, not quite as fuzzy of head in general. On that note time for some housekeeping, I've got a pile of new links to add to my page as I've been off exploring the internet and the other blogs out there today and last Friday so I need to get them added to my blog so you can go take a peek at them too.

First up is Pete Ashton who judging by his blog presence is a bit multi-faceted, he writes the excellent brum blog, his own personal blog, a blog about the creative community of Birmingham called Created in Birmingham and finally he also has a collage of images, videos and all things interesting in the form of something called a Smursh of Pete full of lots of fun tidbits.

Damnit, I have to go out again. Ryan is on his way over to pick me up. Putting those links on my page will have to wait. Go take a look at Pete in all his glory and expect some Encyclopedia Brumica entries soon as they are semi-written and just need a bit of editing before I can put them up.

Take it easy all.

Isn't the weekend supposed to be for relaxing?

After a most hectic and tiring weekend (And it wasn't caused by going out too much) here I am on Monday evening exhausted and realise I really should post something. My mate Olly is already on his way round so this will have to be brief. Assuming once he's off I have any energy left I may well put something else up otherwise it's going to have to wait for tomorrow, I have time to sit down then. In brief the weekend went like this.

Friday (Gig)

• Played a last minute gig at the Flapper to help them out as someone had pulled out and they need some warm bodies to fill up the bill.

Saturday (Recording)

• Got up at 9
• Picked up by Daryl at 10.30 after showering, making sandwiches and packing snacks
• Drive around Longbridge looking for Dunc's house, due to breakdown in communication end up driving around but not quite to Duncan's for about an extra 20 minutes.
• We drive in convoy to Redditch, directions from computer go to somewhere else completely, get to studio about an hour late.
• Exhausting day of playing and singing the same songs over and over (and over)(and over) again until 2.30 AM
• Get home for 3.30 AM, body still feels perky, don't sleep until 4.30

Sunday (Mixing and Gig)

• Wake up for no explicable reason at 8.30AM
• Off to the studio again, only get a little bit lost this time, 15 mins late instead
• 4 and a half hours later mixing is finished.
• Home for tea.
• Off to the Yardbird for another gig (With Chinook, Little Dipper and Shady Bard)
• Play gig, drink more than planned, come home. Collapse.

Ooops, there's Olly, must dash.

Day off

I've been ever so good, I've posted two or three times for two or three days on the trot. Tomorrow is a busy day with lots to get done so I'm declaring it a semi official day off. If I manage to fit in a post then I might just do that but don't be surprised if nothing new appears until Sunday. In the meantime enjoy your weekend ladies and gents.

The lesser of two smelly evils

Just a quick entry tonight as I must dash out once I've finished my tea.

As I was sat on the bus on the way home from work I noticed that all the smokers were standing outside of the pub. This reminded me of something that occurred to me the other day. I was thinking about how the pubs would probably start to smell different, then I started wondering what pubs actually smelled like. I'm sure most smell fine perhaps even quite pleasant, but some probably smell an awful lot like stale beer, sweat and of their poorly maintained toilets (This is exactly the reason I avoid the UGC cinema on Broad Street, in some of the screens you can actually smell the toilets, actually using the gents there is an olfactory experience. Well it used to be I've not been back there in ages. And I know it's not a pub but the principle is the same). The lesser of two evils I'm sure but still thought it was worth a mention. Guess we'll find out soon enough as the lingering legacy of the pre-smoking ban era fades.

Tuesday night at Atticus

So as I was saying about 2 posts back I went out for a mid-week pint with some of the lads. Olly and Ryan of the Adventure Club couldn't be arsed to do music stuff so they gave me a call and I suggested we rope in Southall too (One of the housemates). We met up at Atticus in Bearwood. It were a good night, the main point of all this is that it looks like I've joined another band. Banner the current bass-player for Adventure Club has had enough and they want me to have a go at replacing him which I'm quite pleased about. It's been semi-on the cards for a while but I'm going to practice with them and try stuff out on Thursday night after work at the shop. Busy week music wise. Falling and Laughing are recording on Saturday and we have a gig with the excellent Shady Bard on Sunday night at the Yardbird. My poor fingers will be all achey.

CLICK!

They say that before you die your life flashes before your eyes.

Daniel Kitson who I saw at the Glee Club a couple of weeks ago said occasionally you know when your brain takes one of those pictures. Those really important moments that will wedge themselves in your memory forever more for one reason or another.

It doesn't happen often but it did happen last night and has put me in a very good mood all day even though I've had to do all the price changes on the DVD's upstairs in the Manga section which is a task I loathe becuase it almost always give me a bad back.

Life is good. Even with a mild bit of back pain.

Ooops

Oh dear, all i can manage is five posts before I get all crap and fail to post anything for a fortnight. Mikey has certainly put in an excellent effort and is back up to a very respectable level of posting so I'll have to get my arse in gear or he'll start to take the piss much like I did to him. I do have a whole passle of excuses though and they're quite good ones too. Firstly I went to Newcastle to visit the relatives with my Mom and Dad which was to be honest bloody lovely. Secondly I got hold of the remaining 16 episodes of Lost I was missing and have been munching my way through all of them at a steady rate of knots and thirdly I've been knocking around with the very pretty Miss Ali Smith an awful lot and to blog when she's about would be somewhat rude, though to be fair I'm doing this on her laptop and she is sat about 5 foot away reading and eating porridge so that restriction may be slipping. She makes mean radioactively hot porridge, it is excellent. Anyway in case anyone was worried I am still alive though I do have a slight hangover. I'd best get moving as I'm working at the shop today and am slacking in the getting ready department. I will return soon and say something worthwhile and focused (as opposed to waffly old bollocks like this).

See you soon.

Mikey's not dead, just busy

The man who got my arse in gear to do a blog has broken his silence with a slight crying off, for the time being. Mikey of Over The (Comic Shop) Counter Culture has finally said something on his blog though it was to say he's dead busy for the next few days so I get chance to pull further ahead in our vaguely competitive blogging excercise (Incidently Mike this makes it 5 -1 to me).

Meanwhile I've been pretty busy since West Brom lost hence the lack of posting, I have been home but generally I've had someone round so didn't have chance to sit down and write anything. This week I've been working at the shop (Must talk about the shop properly at some point but that's deserves a post to itself) yesterday and today and shall be back there in the morning. Have hung around at length with the lovely Alison too and have introduced her to the delights of Spaced which she is enjoying thoroughly, while she in return has introduced me to the delights of Singstar on the PS2 which while being horrifically embarrassing is great fun when you've gotten through a bottle of wine or two. Balls I've lost my DVD remote.

Other than that the things that have diverted me have been a mixture of good and bad;

• Y, the last man by Brain K. Vaughan - An epic comic series, I've been borrowing the trade paperback collections from work. Never fancied it that much but accidently read the first book while at Jo's on Saturday and have munched my way through the next three in the intervening days. Top drawer stuff (And apparently I know about such things so you can take my word for it). Google or Wiki it if you want to know more, sounds lazy I know but I'm sure they can do a much better job than I at saying what it's all about though be warned Wikipedia entires are riddled with spoilers in my experience so watch out.
• Rainbow 6 Vegas - I've been vaguely addicted to this excellent X-Box game for weeks, running round online with either your mates or complete strangers taking out terrorists has never been such fun.
  
• Electricity Bills - Forgot to pay one, oops. They are not happy people and they make you wait a long time when you phone them.
• The Escapist by Brian K. Vaughan - So Y the Last Man got me round to reading this little mini series I've been meaning to read for ages but never got round to. It was pretty criminal that I hadn't. More top drawerness from Mr. Vaughan.
• Temp Agencies - As shit as people say they are.
• Woke on a whaleheart by Smog - A grand album, Bill Callahan (formerly known as Smog) has found a cheery creative vein to tap. Must be hanging around with that mad little pixie woman Joanna Newsom.
• Big Brother - I just noticed it was on telly, it is now as much part of the english summer as Wimbledon and umm...something else very english. I have no doubt that it will entertain sometimes but to be honest if you filmed the next 13 weeks of my life it would manage to be entertaining sometimes too and as far as I know no-one is orchestrating stupid activities to humiliate me and make me fall out with my firends.
  

Right I've waffled enough, I'm going to phone and old, old friend who texted while I've been writing this. We haven't spoken in two years and are long overdue a catch up. If anyone has any ideas about where a DVD remote might hide, give me a shout.

Once upon a time...

...there was a boy named Stu, well I say boy but really I'm a bit old for that but it's what I've always called myself and feel wrong when I refer to myself as a man, bloke I can handle though so in future that may have to do. So there's this bloke named Stu and he has a long chat with his mate Mike at work about blogs and it would seem most of the people he works with have one so not to be outdone the band wagon is promptly leapt upon. Birminghm from a slightly geeky perspective shall be arriving online on a semi-regular basis, though lets face it most bloggers are pretty geeky by nature so it's probably just a blog from someone in Birmingham. I shall waffle about the city, things I like, things I want to rant about or just whatever passes through my brain before I head to bed or remember to post something. I could say more but considering that I should really be working I think that this is more than enough.