Gotta Catch 'Em All

On the way home from the 'night before' gig, me and Sophie were in the car listening to music from her iPod out of the car speakers.

The Pokemon theme tune came on.

We sang the whole thing in 2 part harmony.

We then played it again for the fun.

Sophie even took a long way hom so we could finish the song.

It was fun. I love that girl so much.

Massive ASS

While I was waiting at Bristol Temple Meads, I was sat next to 2 foreign train workers who worked for First. They were talking about some of the other First employees that they liked and had made friends with. What follows is the dialogue that I heard between them:

“You know that guy that does the Reading line? Oh, what is his name… Thido? Theo? No… um…. Rido?”

“I don’t know who that is. What does he look like? I might know him.”

“Oh, he’s black. Well, he was born here but I think he is descended from Africa or something.”

“There are a lot of black people on the Reading line. Do you mean Ben? Thin guy. Works the buffet car.”

“No… this guy is quite tall. Oh, and he has glasses. He’s a really nice guy, I just can’t remember his name.”

“Na, I’m afraid I’m not sure what you mean. Could you be more clear?”

“Um… Oh yeah. HE HAS A MASSIVE ASS.” (Gestures with his hands. It seemed very big)

“Ohhhh. Rio. Yeah I know him, your right, he is nice. Not a bad bone in him, that guy. Massive ass though.”

At this point I couldn’t help but burst out with laughter. The two men looked at me and then moved away but I just couldn’t stop laughing to myself for ages, It was so funny.

The things I do for the Pigeons...

This has definitely been one of the busiest weeks of my life, and it hasn’t even finished yet! I would also like to point out that this is one of the first blogs I have don’t and not felt guilty for wasting time not studying. But fortunately I have no work for over a week and I finished my last of 7 exams no long than an hour ago!

Which brings me to the point of this post- I am on a train somewhere between Bristol and Taunton now- and yet I finished a thermodynamics paper about an hour ago. I would ALSO like to point out that Bath University is perched on a hill 2 and a half miles away from the city station. I would ALSO like to point out that rush hour in Bath started about an hour ago.

So here is the background information. On top of studying for 7 chemistry exams in the last few weeks, I have been preparing for the wondrous musical showcase that is The Room Upstairs 2. In the show, I feature as the lead in Ricky and the Pigeons, the lead in Battery Powered and also as a solo jazz act. It’s a lot to prepare for.
I didn’t feel like I could properly practice my singing at University, because certain polite standards go along the lines of “the walls are thin, people are trying to study”.

So that was the first dilemma. I couldn’t practice. This was made worse by the fact that there was no realistic opportunity to practice until the show itself! I then heard that there was some kind of warm-up gig to the room upstairs called ‘the night before’. This seemed perfect to me, because I got to practice and see Sophie at the same time. And of course get a celebration beer.
Unfortunately for me, this involved getting a train at 18:05. Where is the problem? Ah yes, my exam finished at 17:35. Hmm.

Thanks to Phil Murphy, I had some help. He waited outside my exam at the bus stop with my pre-packed luggage and gave me some precious few minutes to spare. So I ran into the bus and waited. When we moved off, I was clock-watching all the way. Once we got to the end of Norwood avenue, I was like ‘for f***s sake’.

It was queued all the way down the hill. So despite the fact I had paid the fare into the city, I made an educated snap decision- and jumped out of the bus. (with the drivers permission)

I proceeded to speed down Widcome hill, carrying my case, bag and laptop bag. That’s right. I ran 2 miles carrying a whole bunch of stuff just to catch a train to be at the night before. Only a few things were going through my mind at the time:

• Just think- you’ll get to see Sophie for longer
• I’m so glad I’m not carrying a keyboard (that was part of the original plan)
• I’d better get a beer for this
• I’m so glad ‘Big Pete’ fixed my back or this would be impossible!

Well, as you know, I made it, in the end by 7 minutes. Shows what people go through when they hear the words PIGEONS ASSEMBLE.

Juggle Video?

I got bored so I made a video of me doing some juggly things. Here it is!

University revision is quite strange

At the moment I am taking time out of my work to put up a brief post. You know what? Revision here is strange. Strange, for a number of reasons:

• You pretty much stay in you pajamas all day (plus a sweater)
• You never leave the house unless for food
• You never leave your room unless for tea (or food)
• You go through about 5 cups of tea a day just to get an excuse to be in the kitchen
• Your dreams get really messed up
• You find yourself drifting in and out of facebook and/or youtube
• Juggling suddenly seems like the most amazing thing in the world again
• You find yourself snacking on things you wouldn't normally snack on- such as cheese
  
• I miss Sophie way more because I have so much time to think
• Its so easy to waste time when others around you are wasting time
• Social gatherings are renamed: disturbances
  
• No matter how many times you promise yourself to get an early night, you never sleep before 2 
• No matter how many times you promise yourself to wake up early, you never wake before 11 or 12
• You realise that a lot of your friends are somewhere on campus, but you can't go and see them
• Suddenly, this friday evening is the best day in the whole world- for the first time in about a month I don't have to think about chemistry all the time and I get to see my girlfriend for a whole week! Can't wait to see her, sort out the room upstairs and finally go to the pub with my mates Phil and Sam...

So there you are. A fairly serious post from me, but as you expect, when your stuck up to your eyes in work not many funny things just 'happen'. *Yawn..,* well, back to PhysChem

I caught the Juggle Bug again...

Somewhat unsurprisingly, many jugglers seem to get a lot better at juggling over the exam period because they are not studying for some reason. I too have a similar problem.

When you are studying the ins and outs of organic mechanisms and have been for some time, you find yourself suddenly juggling for procrastination fun again. I will admit to myself and others that my recent juggling up until now has sort of been stuck in a rut, and I seldom learn a new trick or pattern. This has generally made it quite easy to keep up to date with the side bar on the right that says 'current juggling trick I'm learning'.

But like I mentioned, I have been juggling so much in the last few days that I couldn't begin to write it on the side bar. So here is what I have done:

3 balls:

• 3 ball box
• Double box
• Showers
• The fast machine
• The full boston mess
• Slams
• 1up switches
• 1up box switches
• The 'Half Gibson Clawed mess', colloquially known as 'slap that ass'

4 balls:

• 4 ball flash
• A-sync columns
• Sync columns
• Pistons
• Column exchanges
• 4 ball splits

Now when you weigh that up with the amount of Inorganic I have learned this morning- not great. In fact, I have banned myself from juggling anything until I have done a satisfactory amount of work today.

100th post! A run down of all the times some stuff has happened.

This is a 100th birthday celebration for my blog. Here is a 100 long list about all the times stuff has happened that has been worth blogging about. Enjoy, and remind yourself of stupid and pointless times past. So, remember...

1. The time I introduced myself as a fellow blogger
2. The time I decided Ricky's catchprases should be summarised to a short but accurate list
3. The time Battery Powered came to visit me while I was naked
4. The time I realised blogging was a never ending spiral
5. The time when the word 'Gloin?' was first invented
6. The time I realised that Graham should not have survived for as long as he has
7. The time I rode a unicycle for 11 miles
8. The time I ran the Teignbridge Ten race
9. The time when I noticed that the arrangement of numbers is strange on blogger
10. The time when Onix was Pokemon of the week, and he was disappointing
11. The time when people were starting to get confused about what Gloin? meant
12. The time when Battery Powered were just starting to get off the ground
13. The time I evaluated whether it was worth eating ribs
14. The time I attempted a poll on what Pokemon should be reviewed next- no response
15. The time when Paras was Pokemon of the week
16. The time when me and Wade got caught with a gun in school
17. The time when PINEHOUSE was first coined by Ricky
18. The time when that gig at venue sucked ass
19. The time when Snorlax was Pokemon of the week
20. The time me and Mike ran away from a dog shit
21. The time when I first tried out the Cool face
22. The time when Voltorb was Pokemon of the week. I gave him -1 out of ten.
23. The time I gave blood, then ran a long distance race in which for some reason I didn't do well in
    
24. The time when we had the first ever cracker challenge in the YES centre
25. The time I put google eyes on a picture of Wade
26. The time I ran a race called the Exterminator. There was a Dalek there.
27. The time when Pokemon of the week was actually an Everstone, and I ranted about it a lot
28. The time battery powered played the Frock and Roll ball and wore sleeveless shirts
29. The time when I found the Potato famine hilarious, and made Ricky laugh in class
30. The time I put google eyes on a picture of Tom Wood cooking his body like a sausage
31. The time I tried to climb out of my porch window...
32. The time I had a gap of blogging but came back
33. The time I had a massive rant about 'Rowntrees Randoms'
34. The time I told you how much I can't stand slow walkers
35. The time when we went on that frankly epic camping camping trip in the rainstorm
36. The time when I learned to use stickman animation software
37. The time I decided that my animations would be exponetially more successful if Ricky were in them
38. The time I stopped blogging, but then started again when I was drunk on my first night at Bath
39. The time me and Tom Bartlett met and both decided something was 'up' with the sandwiches there
40. The time when there was a fire drill while I was still naked
41. The time we had our first University cracker challenge, and that AMAZING photo of Phil was taken
42. The time when I managed to sneak past the increasingly annoying extractor fan
43. The time when Gareth nearly laughed his food all over the wall
44. The time we all realised we are acceptable cooks compared to the majority of the student population
    
45. The time when the whole house ordered pizza
46. The time my Chemistry group made a humorous safety video
47. The time when I discovered a couple of cool new (but actually old) bands from the 90s
48. The time when I learned to balance a spoon on my nose
49. The time when the first pictures were taken of me juggling fire
50. The time when me and Oli had a massive fry up in between 2 lectures
51. The time when I realised that Phil Murphy is fairly strange (took long enough)
    
52. The time when Tom was dissatisfied with his Pasty
53. The time I finally got to dress as the Green Lantern for the first juggling social
54. The time I dug out the old video of Utensil Pals episode 1
    
55. The time ricky made me upload the other episode of Utensil Pals as well
56. The time when I introduced the internet to Broast
57. Time I finally gave up on my rubbish frying pan that didn't even fry anything
58. The time I accidentally deleted a month of blogs. Sad times. Set my 100th birthday back too.
59. The time I tried to summarise the last month of my life and grieved the loss of the 25 posts.
60. The time I managed to down a bottle of wine
61. The time I showed Chris McGreal the face morphing software
62. The time I got my accordion
63. The time I actually managed to film myself synchronising two Leekspin videos
64. The time when we played articulate, and did no justice to the intelligence of the human race... tom.
    
65. The time I put together the Ultimate broast tutorial
66. The time when James Strutt first got a blog
67. The time when I just went on a rant about doughnut holes
68. The time I had my hair cut off
69. The time I got my dictaphone
70. The time when me and Oli had a whole bucket of chicken to ourselves
71. The time when we tested out some stop-motion software
72. The time when I spent 4 hours making a stop-motion animation of my room tidying itself
73. The time when I copied Karys and showed off my university hood
74. The time when I finally realised that I preferred the hard water to soft water
75. The time when we had a mini christmas party in the kitchen
76. The time when I wrote a song called wee bevy for Phil
77. The time I went to Checkers in America and ate a burger
78. The time when I had a rant about American cheese
79. The time I got unhappy about having to revise on holiday
80. The time I went to Busch Gardens
81. The time I went on an airboat ride on Cypress lake
82. The time my brother made a Gingerbread house
83. The time when I went to Universal and had to sit next to some wierdo guy
84. The time I went to Islands of adventure, but didn't really do anything because it was so busy
85. The time when it was new year and stuff
86. The time information was first leaked about me being in Ricky and the Pigeons
87. The time me and Sophie built Noel the snowman
88. The time Haaziq left, and we built a 7ft snowman called Haaziq to replace him, which got murdered
    
89. The time it snowed like hell (obviously not like actual hell, but you know)
90. The time when we made the mistake of picking on the cricket team in a snowball fight
91. The time Phil bought some cartoon shoes
92. The time Tom, Phil and I ran bathwick hill- turned out to be a death trap
93. The time someone finally spoke out about the state of the cooker
94. The time when we all got home delivery kebab and pizza
95. The time I morphed into the cool face
96. The time I realised chiropractors are not in fact fools
97. The time me and Oli teamed up to beat Sam and Dickson on Halo 3. We failed. Just.
98. The time when the SAVE BARRY campaign was started
99. The time when people showed support for Barry by hosting my campaign poster
100. The time I made a list of the first ever 100 blogs that I did