a big guy in a big city

EXTRA! EXTRA! BLOG MOVES ADDRESS!

2005-08-19T12:30:00.000+01:00

So after 365 posts (366 after this one) we are moving over to the Wordpress platform, which should help us expand, be more efficient, and look that big more professional.

The archive is also being moved over, so this address will become pretty much obsolete, except to tell you to head over to www.bigguybigcity.com to enjoy the new blog goodness.

So once again, we are consolidating and moving to www.bigguybigcity.com this process may take a day or so, please bear with us.

what a little community!

2005-08-18T00:54:00.000+01:00

Isn't it nice to see everyone (minus Tigg, who is incidentally safe and well) checking in to say that they're doin' alright?

I've been a fairly busy bee lately, doing random jobs for my parents, including getting lost on delivery/pick-up jobs around the county. I've also been trying to choose a new camera, since the P51 has packed up, although it did work(ish) for about 10 minutes after I repeatedly smacked it against my knee like the bad boy it's been.

The move to Wordpress (though Mambo has been attracting my attention lately) is getting ever closer, with web hosts being checked out here, there, and everywhere. I think I may well heed Ben of a ben week's advice and go for theIcy.net and just post to forums rather than actually pay for hosting, although the way the ad revenue is going at the moment I may well be able to start paying for hosting, and maybe even start running little competitions for bigguybigcity.com merchandise!

Oh, and I broke one of my teeth on Sunday when watching Newcastle lose, as predicted, to Arsenal, and the weirdest thing was that it didn't hurt when I broke it, and it happened when I was eating a beef sandwich, which was a soft roll, I really should get that dentist called.....

Long Time No Post..

2005-08-16T18:24:00.000+01:00

The guilt of not posting finally got to me today, having seen that both Duncan and Claire have done their bit in the last few days..

Yesterday I got back from the Lake District, following a little trip up to see Andy's home area. I suppose that he probably gets bored of all the scenery, but it really is quite spectacular, even in the cloud and rain. Among the many natural wonders visited was "The Wheelie Bin", which is Andy's local club: I was disappointed to find out that it wasn't the worst club that I've ever gone to (that honour goes to Chameleon in Woking, Surrey), and it was in fact pretty reasonable.

In other news, I spent 2 weeks working for a Lib Dem MP in the Houses of Parliament, and found that my new room at university is far nicer than any other room I've had so far (Andy's room is larger, but also painted pink..).

And that is pretty much it!

She Digs Me

2005-08-14T23:00:00.000+01:00

So anyway, haven't blogged in a while, thought it might be relevant today.

Had a date today, first in a long time, (Longer than I'd like to broadcast over the internet).
As you cant probably imagine it didn't go badly, some could even say well.
So I guess it's a good day for Duncan, a bad day for Bone, at least as far as the football is concerned.
I'm in a pretty good mood really. We went to go and see the Wedding Crashers, a surprisingly good romantic comedy. To be fair though a romantic comdey was all that could have really happened on a first date.

So after a morning of exchanging texts and pleasantries I picked her up this afternoon at her fortess. I guess this comment probably need explaining, she lives on a private road, but the road itslef is guarded by 14 foot iron gates, with coded security. It was a little weird turning up at the to begin with, but she was beaming when I met her at her front door, even though her little brother was trying to hold her in with his lightsabre. He's a Star Wars fan, so he's instantly cool in my books, but thats off the subject.

So we went to the cinema, and she bought the tickets. I'm not really up on dating etiquete, but she had the debit card, and its always an akward moment at any time. But we watched the increasingly weird ads that appear before the films. We definatly picked the right film, it was funny, and actually had a good plot. I know thats weird a plot in a romantic comdey, but there's always an exception to any rule.

After the film we went for a drink at Wetherspoons, just cokes if you're wondering, and had the CV talk, who I am, what I like, what I do, the family, etc. But that was cool, I then took her back to hers, and I felt we had a good time, so did she. As soon as I got back I got a text off her saying she had a great time and wanted to do it again, I guess that warrants the title.

In other news the Jenas sending off was harsh, I feel sorry for the kid (who happens to be a year older than I). It wasn't a convincing win, but a wins a win, I'm just sorry it had to be Bone's team.

Anyway People that's all I've got to say at the moment

Peace Out

Gotta Help Bone Out Here...

2005-08-14T16:20:00.000+01:00

Bonjour! Claire's back in the blogging zone! I'm surprised Bone hasn't sacked me, I, again, shall apologise for the distinct lack of blogness, but I've been a busy little bee! It's been lovely being at home, uni was a bit shocking by the end of it all, got a bit of depression, but I'm not interested in any of that anymore... lets recap on the events of the last few weeks...

Holiday to Wales - just grand. A week with all 16 of my family member dudes in Bangor to celebrate my gruf's 75th birthday. Fun to had by all. I climbed Snowdon! We mocked the pathetic attempt of those old dears in high heels taking the train and trying the claim they also climbed Snowdon. My cousin Richard & I kept the student thang alive by drinking every night... Nah hang on, that was just me... Ah well, I'd been detoxing since leaving uni, hadn't drunk a drop of alcohol (well except for champagne on my friend Jen's 21st, but that doesn't count... to me anyway) for a month, it was a celebration! Why am I justifying myself, everyone knows I'm a piss-head! You only need to look at past blogs for evidence. Still working full-time which is good cos I need the ma-honey and loving my job anyway.

Then my little bratchen and I went to 'Pop 2 The Park' in Carlisle! (don't even both commenting and mocking me, I've heard it all before!) Afterall, it was only a tenner entrance and we saw a whole selection of dudes, ranging from the cheese from Daniel Bedingfield, Girls Aloud, Estelle, Jo from S-Club 7, Tyler James, Bananarama, to the pits from pop idol and pop star the rivals rejects. But all in all a good day. Except we waiting an hour for Girls Aloud and they were rubbish, pretty sure they mimed, Nicola had a face like a smacked arse throughout the entire set and Cheryl took every advantage in showing off her massive engagement ring to the assembled crowd, who really weren't all that excited to see them! Daniel was pretty darn fab though!

Returned from Carlisle to find I had been robbed of £422.86 from my bank account. Some bastard has cloned my card and is spending like billy-o. So I've spent many a morning either in tears at the bank or the police station. So basically, I have no money. Again, I try to forget these things that piss you right off!

Went over to York for a evening, stayed with my ex-housemate Helen, realised old habits never really die hard when I was faced by the state of her new bedroom... not criticising you though Helen! I'd have it no other way! Got massively drunk and was told many a time that what I was saying made no bloody sense whatsoever... what's new? Shopping the next day with Jenni, visitated Oscars, which reminded me of my fateful birthday... which led to thoughts of "why the feck did you drink AND smoke so much that you couldn't see Green Day?!" The self-tourment will never die. Saw Charlie & The Chocolate Factory... Johnny Depp is a genius! And he likes my favourite cool cat place in York - the Evil Eye. My kinda guy...

And now, in between working my butt off, I'm preparing for the big move! The flights are booked for 3rd October. Spending my days off trawling the mobile phone companies and banks for the best deals. Planning weekends to climb Scarfell Pike, visitating York again, seeing the Stereophonics and even stretching to planning next summer! Well, these things have to be done... but true to form, the best laid plans at all that!

Until next time, I leave you with a classic quote from my holiday... "So, have you ever been whitewater rafting?" I'll let you guys think about that one...

We coulda been brothers...

2005-08-11T00:50:00.000+01:00

So me and Neil were clearing out the pantry today as part of the re-organising/decorating of the house. During our clean up we had to remove everything from the shelves so that we could put wallpaper down as shelf-protectors, protection from what? I don't know, it's just one of those things that your mother decides is the way to go. Anywho, whilst we were remvoing the cans we thought we might as well chuck out all the ones that were past their best before dates. Somehow we persuaded ourselves that some products that were 2 years past their best still ok to keep, semolina doesn't go off right?

Once again, I appear to have gone off track, and the title has become ever more misleading, but I'll get to that now, though as ever it is still a bit obscure. One of the cans was for Carnation evaporated milk, which isn't that odd, except this particulary can had a date on it of 1989, thats 16 years ago, I'm only 20! And consider that that's the use by date, not when it was bough, and I'd imagine that evaporated milk lasts for years. Of course I had to open it, it smelt..... same as any other evaporated milk. It certainly didn't look like it though, kinda flaky, yet still gloopy, and most amazingly of all it was able to move on its own. Food. That moved. On its own.

Needless to say, I didn't taste it. But the 2000 vintage decorative icing was fine.

I shall hang my head in shame later...

2005-08-10T01:32:00.000+01:00

So I've just watched Agent CodyBanks on Sky and whilst I am shoked to say it, it wasn't that bad. Although Lovejoy wasn't much of a villain. Ad what about that Angie Harmon? Meeeow, hot stuff, table 2!

In less pervy news we failed once again at the pub quiz, despite getting a perfect ten in this weeks movie section. Although it was a laugh, as always, especially when I realised that one of the answers was the 'Best Little Whorehouse in Texas' which the guys struggled to believe, but still wrote down. And voila, 1 point.

Hollyoaks celebri-tease + a bit of a recap

2005-08-07T16:25:00.000+01:00

So I went to the wheelhouse last night, despite repeatedly vowing to never go back there when sober. It was supposedly a charity night because the Hollyoaks cast was there, but the only apparent act of charity was to put up the entry charge.

Even trying to get in was a hassle, I had faxed ahead under my parents company, as I had asked the manager on Friday night what the situation was for corporate membership, and after he tried to make me look like a dick he eventually just said that I needed to fax on headed paper. So saturday comes and I do that, and when I get there he checks Ian's Military personell card and lets him through, and asks if I'm signed in and I say "yeah, under Colwith Interiors" and he says "never heard of them" so I reminded him that we discussed it last night, showed him the fax and the fax receipt to their number and he had to shut up and eat his words. Considering that my group of friends goes there once or twice a week, every week, you'd think they'd cut us a bit of slack since we've got to be some of the best customers they have, that and I was sober, wasn't gonna cause any trouble, have never caused trouble there, am always polite to the staff and yet still all we get is hassle from them. And I don't mean to be big headed, but my parents company has to be one of the most successful in the area, employs 15 or so employees (+ sub-contractors) and does very high quality work all over the country (and once in France) so it's hardly my fault if he doesn't know them. And that is why I don't like the Wheelhouse, it comes with such an attitude, when the only reason anyone goes there is because it's the only place with a 2 a.m. licence and if it were in any city it would be out of business in a matter of months. Rant over.

The Hollyoaks cast were a laugh, and it was amazing how starstruck people were by soap stars that don't really attract thaty higher viewing figures. I'm not godude that plays Joe nna use the real names of the actors/actress because I don't know most of them, so it's character names for all. Greeny told Mrs Hunter that he loved her, and she reciprocated, but she was hammered, and finished the night being held-up by some guy. I saw the guy that plays Russ throwing double devil horns and rocking out whilst sat down, so I pointed at him and laughed, he looked at me and laughed, then stopped, so clearly I have the power to stop soap stars from making themselves look like fools. The Justin guy was loving the dance music, throwing shapes like a mad thing, standing on tables, I'd say that he was a dancing like a Leeds pill-head but I fear litigation, though lets be honest the exposure would be fun. Darren's hair looked greasy, but at least he had the decency to get out there and have a dance with 'normal' people, though one friend said that he grabs his arms and shouted "lets pull some birds!!," sure man, you do that. The dude that plays Joe seemed to act exactly like his character, sitting around acting cool. Lee Hunter is much shorter than I'd imagine, and was spotted in Bargain Booze earlier in the night looking at copies of Nuts and Zoo (Greeno said hi to him thinking he knew him, and then realised that he only 'knew' him because he was on TV). O.B. refused to give Daz a light for his cigarette even though we had seen him smoking, bit arrogant that some would say. Lisa Hunter, well what can you say about her, definition of fit perhaps, also spotted by Scott needing assistance when leaving the club after a few too many Bacardi Breezers, and being aided by O.B. maybe he's more of a gent than we thought. Les Hunter seemed to act much like his character and was clearly a few sheets to the wind, but still chatty to people asking questions.

After driving Danni back to Nichola's (can't let a girl walk home on her own) I went back to pick up Rob and the whole lot of them was walking across the road to the Burnside hotel, they didn't seem to care that a car was quite rapidly approaching them, "local man ploughs through C-list celebs." I then waited for 45 minutes for Rob, which is a whole other non-bloggable story, but he apologised to me about 50 times on the drive back, and then when he rang me today, andc I can't stay mad at the guy anway.

------
I enjoyed the Newcastle game even though we lost, and it was nice to see my grandparents and cousins. We also enjoyed a few Chinese starters at a place called Mango's after the game, I recommend the deep frieds squid. I managed to get back waaay too quickly, but it was never dangerous speed, and it was 1 a.m. so the roads were dead anyway.

I went out on Friday night and had a good time, stayed at Rob's and was loved by all. In Sophie's words "you made me laugh last night" "how" I replied, "Just by being you."

Amsterdam: the pics keep coming

2005-08-03T00:45:00.000+01:00

Errrr yeah, the entertainment in their clubs is.... interesting to say the least. To quote Tigg (the photographer of the past couple of posts) "she's wearing stars!" He was in heaven. Notice me putting the boobs at the top of the post. Genius.

This was from our first day, after we'd had an average of 1 hours sleep each, and we were walking around town searching for somewhere to have lunch. Logically, we walked into a cafe, but this being Amsterdam, cafe actually means bar, so instead of having sandwiches, we had beer. Now you have to consider that this was at 12:00, which was 11:00 English time, and we hadn't slept, so 2 pints had us fairly merry. The barman was a guy called Marco, who was very helpful in telling us about where to go for clubs and stuff, and was kind enough to take our picture behind his bar. We've also been immortalised in the form of a signed bar mat on a wall.

So when we were hanging out in what can only be described as an 'indoor-balcony/living room' (complete with tv and lamps) we met some American ladies , almost none of which can be seen in this picture. I think they came into Escape with us.... but I can't quite remember. This was in the Outback bar, where we also met a German girl called Sabine, who sat with us for ages, and I wondered what her friends thought of her disappearance, as she surely didn't arrive on her own.

For some reason we saw a mural of fish, and decided that we needed a picture of all of us in front of it. Check out my white belt, which was surely combined with gigantic amounts of ass-cleavage, and as many will testify, is my personal style.

*VERY TENUOUS CELEB LINK* There was a band on Kerrang! just before called 'My Awesome Compilation' who are from Leicester (and very good I might add) whose keyboardist once described me to their singer as "the man," he was very drunk, as most people are when they leave The Fan Club.

P.S. Probably no post tomorrow as I'm going to the Newcastle game and won't be home till late. Also, I'm getting a haircut, my first for maybe 4-5 months.

Amsterdam: More Escape pics

2005-08-02T02:32:00.000+01:00

Don't you just love this, they're so oblivious, they have no idea whats going on. Their is a super-secret double meaning to that previous sentence that would be beyond scandalous to the blogosphere, but those who know, will get it.

Poor Will, it wasn't until the next day that we realised that there was ticker tape on his face in the photo. Surely testament to the heat of the place and the hardcore-ed-ness of our partying..... or maybe the hotness of the girls. (Check out my big guy big city t-shirt making an appearance in a new country, the companies gone continental).

Some of you may say that I'm exploiting these women just so that I'll get more hits to the blog. Well, I can't really argue against that, and whilst they were lovely looking ladies, they stole the damn podium we were dancing on!

I get bus-ay

2005-08-02T02:24:00.000+01:00

It was a busy weekend, with much house decorating and partying done by the Bone. I went to the wheelhouse twice whilst sober, and whilst it wasn't a horrible experience, it is a bit better when you've got a few pints in you.

My brother got his law results back, he passed, and with a comendation too, to celebrate we ate chinese (hoorah for takeaway!). Anyway, I'm sure you people don't come here to listen to me paraphrase my weekend.

Thanks to all those who clicked on the ads btw, it may take over a year, but I WILL get a cheque off google, dammit.

Amsterdam: What an Escape

2005-07-29T02:09:00.000+01:00

On the saturday night in Amsterdam we had our "big night" and what a night it was, we spent the sepnt in the lively Rembrandtplein, having a geat dinner outside at the Three Sisters pub (the steak comes highly recommended...by me) and then went to a few bars, including one that had been done out to look like a cave in Ayres rock (in Australia, or did it have it's name changed, and does it have caves? basically it was red funny shaped walls, and it was an Aussie bar). Then we went to a club called Escape, which was filled with some of the most attractive ladies in Amsterdam that don't need to be in front of a window. We all danced like uncoordinated troopers for many hours, mostly on the podiums, showing those crazy dutchies how to really 'throw some shapes'. The drinks were astoundingly expensive, and I eventually resorted to buying water when tiredness kicked in. We slowly dragged ourselves back to the Botel along the Damrak, after eating gigantic amounts of chips and collapsed on my bed.

This was from the toilets in the Brazilian Bar, where the beers cold, the music funky and the people are friendly (one guy loved Steve's Thundercats t-shirt). I loied the way that there was just such a huge amount of graffiti on the walls, I almost etched my name on there, but I'm just such a goody-goody.

DJ booth in the Outback bar (at least I think that was its name, I could just be stereotyping), that dude knew how to spin some tunes. I do have more interesting shots from that bar, but I think that fall behind that curtain of censorship that the guys have set up from the trip (intriguing, no'?).

One of the many shots of the (HOT!) dancers in Escape, but I feel this one really captures the essence of the night, brilliant, just brilliant.

SPACE INVADERS around the world

2005-07-28T02:10:00.000+01:00

SPACE INVADERS

Looks like I've solved the mystery of the little space invaders mosaic in Amsterdam, apparently it's this big global game.

I've said it before and I'll say it again, we live in a weird and wonderful world.

Amsterdam: Amstel Botel pics

2005-07-28T01:31:00.000+01:00

Of course, I had to take a picture of myself brushing my teeth in the little Botel bathroom, wearing yet another of my Threadless t-shirts. Its funny, I never stop and ask myself why I take these pictures, I just think toothbrush pictures are fun.

A rather unusual addition to the regular hotel information sheet. From the exotic smells that were experienced in the hallways, this rule was very, very loosely enforced.

Just a quick pic of me and Tiggy boy's room, the cameraphone seems to have destroyed all perspective, but you get the idea of our surroundings.

Amsterdam: The infamous Botel!

2005-07-28T01:11:00.000+01:00

I realised that my Amsterdam coverage was a bit sparse, and seeing as I went on about the Botel a lot before we went it only seems right to talk about it now.

It wasn't the prison ship that everyone had expected, although when we turned up in the rain, there were a few cries of "where have you taken us Bone?" which annoyed me because I'd often made the case that they couldn't complain because most of them did bugger-all towards the organisation. To be fair, we all changed our tune after a bit of a nap (the joys of flying at 6am). The the staff were friendly, and chatty when we rolled in at about 5am only semi-coherent, joking about giving us a wake-up call at 7am. The rooms were fairly small, but this was to be expected since it is a boat, and apparently most rooms in Amsterdam are small, even in expensive places. They were very clean though, Tigg worried a bit about securityy, his fears were laid to rest when the cleaner left a penny on his bed that had been found on the floor.

There was a wide variety of tv channels available (I didn't realise that 'in-house movies' meant porn 24 hours a day...), the view canalside was lovely, the bar was well stocked and reasonably priced. Whilst it isn't exactly situated in the heart of amsterdam, the walk to the main areas isn't long, and even my feet managed okay so pretty much anyone should be able to handle those cobbles.

If you're young, or in a big group, I would defintely recommend the Botel, as long as you're not expecting five-star accommodation, remember, you get what you pay for! (we paid £60 per room per night)

Leeds: Gurnfest

2005-07-27T00:10:00.000+01:00

My weekend was occupied with a v.tiring but v.enjoyable trip to Leeds for a party, and the lovely Rosie's birthday.

Me, Greeno, Ben, Anna and Marques were packed like proverbial sardines into my 206, and the 2 hour journey seemed to take a fair while and it was hot, but we still had a good trip, with old-school stories and classic games (would you rather have 3 legs or an arm in your back?) keeping us going.

Upon arriving in Leeds we realised that we didn't actually know where Rosie's house was, and that we hadn't been given the right street name, but in the end we got there. Showered, changed, drove to a different house for the party. Where I had to catch in the drinking stakes, but never fear Frosty Jack's extra strength white cider came to the rescue, along with pouring vodka straight into the red bull can. It was at this point I realised just how classy I am....

It's always a bit tough for 5 people to fit into an alien crowd, since everyone else was from Leeds Uni, so there is a tendency that you'll just form your own crowd and not meet new people. As if by magic, the social powers of Frosty Jack's came about ("you cannot taste alcohol, and yet, it's 7.5%"), which led to much blokey booze discussion. We also managed to form quite a large circle for a rowdy game of 'Drink while you think' which was a lot of fun, and resulted in the emptying of a few cans.

Then we headed out into the infamous nightlife of Leeds, we hit a fair few decent (and expensive) bars, and I enjoyed a fantastic Lynchberg Lemonade in the Elbow Room, donated to me by Ana since she didn't like it (a Smirnoff Ice in exchange for cocktail, unfair to advantage to me on that one).

Rob and I enjoyed White Russians at Revolution, which I didn't think was as good as the one in Leicester, but it was quite cool the way that they had an outside area, even though it was pretty much an alleyway.

We then headed to the Townhouse, which was all exposed brickwork and filled with posers, which which meant it was expensive, but it was also filled with attractive looking ladies. Upon the advice of Corina (from Rosie's uni course) I purchased sloe gin and lemonade cocktails, which means I have finally found a use to the couple of bottles of sloe gin in the pantry.

As it was getting near 2a.m. a few of our group decided to head off, but since it isn't every day that I go to Leeds, the hunt for a club was on, we found one place and this is how Ben's conversation with the bouncer went:

Ben: Alright.
Bouncer: What make are your trainers?
Ben: Adidas
Bouncer: Sorry mate, can't come in

Boy shoulda worn a pair of Nike's! So then we found another club, it was called Rehab, and every person we spoke to told us it was only good if we were pilled off our faces, we I said "the windows are shaking, it has to be good!" Marques and Anna left. I wish we had too. Instead we paid £12 to get in (after persuading the bouncer that I wasn't that drunk, he thought I'd fallen over in the queue, simply not true) and found ourselves listening to the same repetitive house music for about an hour and a half until we left the pillheads to themselves.

Got a taxi back, chatted with Greeno till about 5, was amazed at the pace of a slug going up and down the wall. Was shocked by the stickiness of the floors (Ana's shoe actually came off on it in the morning). Slept for a few hours. Went round to Rosie's. Ben cooked an amazing full english breakfast for 8. Drove home. Collapsed on sofa.

Brilliant, thanks Ro (and her friendly friends).

Firefox is turning life to Opera

2005-07-26T01:58:00.000+01:00

Well, it's 2am, and I've lost all of the bookmarks on my computer. I know most people have a lot of bookmarks, but I REALLY had a lot of bookmarks, I had more than a page of just t-shirt sites, and I can only remember 3! I've managed to salvage around 70ish from my history but it's not the ones you visit that you really need to have bookmarked, is it?

There are quite a lot of tutorials out there on the web about how to recover lost Firefox bookmarks, but when I did eventually find the elusive file it was corrupted, which makes no sense as I hadn't used my computer since Friday, but there isn't much that can be done now is there. Bye bye meticulously researched dissertation sources.

I'll do a write up of my night out in Leeds tomorrow, including how we paid £12 to get into a club that we were repeatedly told was "only good if you like drugs." I don't do drugs, but that place woulda probably turned me if we'd stayed till it closed. Just to clarify, I don't do drugs, I was just making it clear that it wasn't a great club.

*Title Explanation* I think I might give the Opera web browser a shot, even if it is ad supported. Oh, and I'm considering moving the blog over to a Wordpress based system.

Barrow Superbowl where the fun never ends

2005-07-22T02:02:00.000+01:00

Due to a rather boring story involving bed-linen and Debenhams I found myself with nothing to do in the coastal town of Barrow, surely the most mocked place in Cumbria (though I can assume Cockermouth gives it a fair run for its money). The answer of course lay, as ever, with the combination of Pizza hut and Superbowl. The Pizza Hut buffet now has options, you can skip salad and simply gorge yourself on pizza, and for a pound less!

Suitably doughy Neil and I moved walked across the complex to the bowling alley, where we requested one hours bowling for £15, but we were told that we could have 2 hours bowling, a drink, AND a scone for just £5.95 each, which we obviously went for as it was the cheapest option. We didn't quite make it through the whole 2 hours as our hands eventually succumbed to the ache of seven games (I won 3-2 + 2 draws), but nevertheless it was damn good value.

btw, I didn't see Nixon at the superbowl, but I just wanted a picture and google imaged it.

2nd btw, I am posting from in bed, oh the glory of wireless internet!

Amsterdam: Red Light District

2005-07-20T15:25:00.000+01:00

I wasn't all that shocked by the red light dstrict in Amsterdam, I guess it just depends on how you apporach it. Yeah I got offered cocaine every 20 seconds, but I wasn't exactly hassled by it, you just walk on and no one cares. And it wasn't as seedy as I imagined it, like the the pubs there are just like the ones outside of the RLD.

Admittedly the windows are pretty unavoidable (especially if you make sure that your route home from from the club just so happens to go via the main 'lady street'), and the women populating them are fairly attractive, largely, but our group did manage to restrain ourselves, although I'm tempted to say that Tigg's only reason for not help the local economy was because he didn't want 'the walk of shame'.

Note to any potential patrons, we found that it's probably best to go around 10 or 11 o'clock, as the quality at 5am was dramatically lower, although if you're looking for a hooker at 5am then their looks probably aren't going to be your number 1 priority.

We did get a couple of great quotes from the greasy sleaze merchants outside the doors of the sex shows. "Quality sleaze and filth" and "it's disgusting, you'll love it!" Which brought much laughter from us, which was probably his aim.

P.S. I didn't take the above photo, because I didn't want a pimp throwing me into a canal.

ack! it's broken

2005-07-19T12:36:00.000+01:00

the blog seems to be broken at the moment, as I can't see the frontpage, though I can get to my archived pages. I don't know if this is the case for everyone, but I can't see how I'd fix it so I'll just have to wait (or blame it on the settings of my router).

And around half the world rejoices

2005-07-18T23:32:00.000+01:00

SARAH MICHELLE GELLAR - GELLAR DESPERATE FOR TOPLESS ROLE

Ok, possible tabloid headlines for this story:

Buffy's Bountiful Boobies
Gellar load of these
Sarah Michelle, Un-topless hell
Gellar wants the breast roles

Ok, bored with that now.

Plugging the Dam

2005-07-15T01:45:00.000+01:00

I've had some major laptop issues recently (the damn thing often refuses to turn on) leaving me with half of the previous memory, which I hope to rectify quickly by buying/ordering a new memory chip tomorrow. Because I just don't like having to do things on a computer even more slowly than usual. I appear to be suffering from a worryingly common fault on Sony Vaio's where the 2nd memory chip slot breaks, I've seen a few DIY fixes (bits of broken cd to push it, wrapping it in tape, even soldering the connections) but I think I'll just buy a 512mb chip for now, and then if I do get it fixed then at least I'll have gained a performance upgrade from my few days of frustrating laptop ownership.

I also bought GTA:San Andreas today, so I may well struggle to pull myself away from it in my quest to blog anything and everything about Amsterdam. I've found that there is something surprisingly satisfying about giving Carl Johnson bigger muscles, and hanging with 'ma homies'.

Amsterdam: Future, meet the past

2005-07-14T00:42:00.000+01:00

So me and Tigg were enjoying a leisurely stroll around the great city that is Amsterdam (before the rest of the group had even got out of bed) and as we approached an archway to Dam Square we spotted this odd little mosaic high up on a wall.

I don't think it exposes my geekery too wildly to say that its a character from space invaders (or it could be Pac-man, I can't be quite sure, actually I'm swaying more towards Space Invaders now). I just thought it was really cool how an image from a computer game (however old it is) was on what was probably a centuries old building. And that it was created in such a well crafted tiled mosaic seemed to make this form of vandalism so much more socially acceptable. Maybe it will inspire a wave of mosaic graffiti the likes of which hasn't been seen since the bad boys of Rome were tagging the Forum. Maybe not.

Amsterdam: First Stop, Bewley's hotel, Manchester

2005-07-13T13:29:00.000+01:00

I thought I might as well begin near the start at the hotel that me and Greeno stayed in the night before the flight. Takeoff was at 06:10 and I figured that to try and stop a migraine I should try and get as much sleep as possible before we got there, and a single room costs pretty much the same amount as a twin so Greeny might as well come along.

We stayed at the Bewleys Hotel which is located about 5 minutes walk from the Terminal 1 building, which was great, excpet we were flying from Terminal 2 (all KLM flights are T2, I think) but with the help of the Sky Bridge we were able to walk to Terminal 2 in about 10-15 minutes.

The hotel was very nice, nicer than the Crowne Plaza next door, where I had stayed a couple of years ago. It was a modern leather sofa type of a place, with granite-esque floors (or maybe they were real, I can't remember). All very bright and clean, with friendly and helpful staff.

The room (£69 a night with additional costs for off-site parking) was pretty big, so much so that it had 2 double beds in it, which was nice. The bathroom was granite/avonite and chrome, with a powerful shower (in the bath). I was quite surprised that we could only use 1 bathroom socket at a time, as Rob wanted to charge his toothbrush, and I wanted to charge my razor, but we couldn't which was a tad annoying, but not exactly that inconvenient. Another odd thing, you couldn't remove the tray for the tea and coffee making facilities (a kettle) without taking the stuff off the tray, as the drawer in which they were contained didn't pull out far enough...

The lack of air-conditioning is a hefty drawback of the place, as it was a hot night and even just under a single sheet I struggled to sleep and got all sweaty.

There restaurant and lounge bar served good food at reasonable prices, I had a ceasar salad that was pretty darn big, and filled with decent non-processed chicken. We also enjoying the first pints of the holiday, the first of many.

By 3:40am we were on our way to meet the rest of the guys at check-in.

btw, the beds at Bewleys can take the strain of someone jumping up and down on them as Rob enthusiastically demonstrated within seconds of getting into the room.

The Bewley Hotel Group

Let the deluge begin

2005-07-13T13:03:00.001+01:00

I'm back from my kerr-azy long weekend in Amsterdam with the boys. From leaving home to getting back my holiday lasted 5 days 40 minutes or so, and it was quite the adventure. A lot of blog space will be taken up with tales from the Dam (although it has been agreed by the group that some stuff won't be muttered outside of ourselves, so it may be a bit PG-13 at times, we do have reputations to protect, y'know?).

Much like a dike without a finger in it there is going to be a veritable flood of pictures from the trip, especially considering we used 7 disposables, 1 roll of film, 50 digi shots from Tiggs funky Fuji, a load on Tyson's digi cam, and a few on Smoothie's new Sony that he got as a birthday present from the girls. All in all, about 250 shots we reckon.

This will probably turn into a bit of a guide to Amsterdam when I've finished with it, so I might tie it all together and make it available as a download on rapidshare or something.

Let the deluge begin

2005-07-13T13:03:00.000+01:00

I'm back from my kerr-azy long weekend in Amsterdam with the boys. From leaving home to getting back my holiday lasted 5 days 40 minutes or so, and it was quite the adventure. A lot of blog space will be taken up with tales from the Dam (although it has been agreed by the group that some stuff won't be muttered outside of ourselves, so it may be a bit PG-13 at times.

Much like a dike without a finger in it there is going to be a veritable flood of pictures from the trip, especially considering we used 7 disposables, 1 roll of film, 50 digi shots from Tiggs funky Fuji, a load on Tyson's digi cam, and a few on Smoothie's new Sony that he got as a birthday present from the girls. All in all, about 250 shots we reckon.

The London Bombings

2005-07-07T21:35:00.000+01:00

I feel that the events of today should not pass without comment on the blog. As a Londoner I've found this all pretty shocking, from the initial reports of power surges that had caused explosions and shut down the underground, to the awful realisation that this was a terrorist attack upon the city that I love. My distress at hearing about people killed on the buses and trains that I use so frequently in the capital was made more vivid by its contrast with euphoria I felt yesterday upon seeing London chosen to host the Olympic games in 2012. I can only hope that those injured in the attack recover quickly, and that those who have lost loved ones do not suffer themselves too much. Further to that, I hope that London itself does not descend into a paranoid daze, but instead remains as the vibrant city that so pleases its residents and those who visit it.

That's It! I'm outta here!

2005-07-07T17:13:00.000+01:00

To Amsterdam!

I'll be back on Monday evening but won't post until Tuesday sometime, not that I've exactly been regular recently...

Apologies For My Absence!

2005-07-07T16:36:00.000+01:00

Yo! Clairey's back in the blogging zone! Mate, these last 2 weeks have just been so crazy, I've barely had the chance to sit down, never mind in front of the computer!

So I didn't go to Green Day... sob sob. Was totally my own fault though, don't drink guys! This statement lasted about 24 hours, as the next day I was back on the liquid refreshment for my leaving parrrrrrrrrrty. Which berocked as to be expected. Then messed around for a couple of days, working at the school etc etc. Boring. Then I went to Edinburgh to see my friend who moved up there. Was classic. And the beginning of a heavy drinkage week to leave York for god knows how many months in true styley! VERY eventful weeks dudes.

So I'm back in the LD now. Enjoying eating real food, not uni shit and getting loads of sleep! Also doing some major paid work which is just grand. Just bought an I-Pod too! Yay! Off to Milton Keynes this weekend. Was SUPPOSED to be seeing Oasid on Sunday, but there was a balls up on tickets so to cut a long story short, I'm not going. Never booking a ticket for Milton Keynes again. The place is blatantly doomed. 3rd time lucky for Stereophonics in September. Not going with Bone et al, they'll probably be at the front, whereas I was too late booking and possibly got tickets out of the stadium or something knowing my luck. Knew I shouldn't of walked under that bloomin' ladder!

Not that I should complain on a day like today, when you look at the horrors taking place in London.

Stage One: Complete

2005-07-05T17:11:00.000+01:00

My 2nd year university results arrived today, I got a 2:1, which is pretty good, but I was hoping for better marks after all the work that I did. It'll be a big task to get a First overall with next years modules, but you never know, and an almighty dissertation may well make that a bit easier.

Just 3 days until I'm in Amsterdam!

Because you'd just die without me writing something

2005-07-01T00:53:00.000+01:00

My day was pretty empty again today, even though I actually spent pretty much the whole day being active in some way or another.

I delivered oil

I bought boxes for my brothers stuff (he moves out of his flat this weekend)

Shopped at Marks & Spencer, it's amazing how you reach that £35 mark and get your free 6 aberdeen angus quarter pounder burgers, isn't it?

Paid off Dads credit card bill, not with my own money of course, don't be crazy.

Sorted out a hotel for a night before the flight to Amsterdam, just a week to go now!

I've been looking at my stats and I've decided that the people at Yahoo! love me, nothing wrong with that at all. E.g. if you search for student blog city university then I'm top 10, doesn't that seem a little odd that out of about 2 million pages I'm in at no.9. Even more oddly, for a student of Leicester University, if you add in london to that search then I'm no.4, happy days. Also, my review of "Say hello to sunshine" by Finch seems to be getting a rather wide airing through the portal that is Yahoo!, if they keep giving me hits then I may well begin preferring them to Google (who also give me a fair amount of random hits).

I am still getting a worrying amount of hits from people searching for "blackbootyinmotion" which I assume requires no description. They'll be sorely disappointed when they realise that I very rarely talk porn on these hallowed pages, the only reason it came up (....sorry) before was because in the gostats rankings I was just above them, about a year ago.

Well, wasn't discussing my stats and hella standard day lots of fun.

2005-06-30T01:59:00.000+01:00

Since there's a total dearth (is that even a word?) of BigGuy news today (I went to the pub, Steve's new plane ticket arrived, Hodge can't go to Amsterdam, I ate Indian food, yawn) I thought I'd link to something I found on BoingBoing.

It's a load of vintage propaganda posters, which are always cool, and I liked the NATO one since I've studied it that particular organisation at uni.

Link for the comrades!

2005-06-28T18:05:00.000+01:00

According to a Friends Reunited survey of universities Leicester is the 5th friendliest university in Britain, although we are beaten by our De Montfort neighbours who are in 3rd. So it's the locals that cause all the problems....

Also according to the survey, people in the History or Politics departments anywhere in the country will have the best love lives. As both a History and a Politics student I must be an anomaly... sad days.

*Image from a "love Life" search on google image*

The Karma beast bites Tom

2005-06-28T00:50:00.000+01:00

Check my new room at uni, it is ma-hoo-sive, so much so that Tom described it as being "so big it has gang rivalries between the East and West wings". Our new house is great (so far, we're all wary after last year), and its proximity to the supermarket and uni are really useful, even if we aren't in town anymore.

The move took a lot longer than expected, a shade over 9 hours of practically non-stop packing, unpacking, and moving. We celebrated the move with Buck's Fizz, and the ceremonial accidental setting off of the alarm. Then I got a migraine and just passed out in my room... on my double bed, sweet.

I'm really digging this new Blogger Images service, it does make things a lot easier now that I don't have to use a 3rd party photo hosting service or Hello.

*Explanation of title* When we were signing over for the keys to the new house Tom wrote my name on every bit of paper so I had to sign them all, meaning that everyones keys are now my responsibility. Which was a bit mean, though quite funny. In the draw that we had for the rooms (6 bits of numbered paper in my hat) Tom got the smallest room (again) and I got the biggest, so take that Mayfield!

btw, I don't believe in Karma, and hate it when people talk about it like science fact.

Room With A View

2005-06-28T00:37:00.000+01:00

This is the awesome sunset that happened on my last night in London (Thursday). Either that or is wasn't a sunset and the sun and Earth just got much closer together, explaining why it was so orange, and also so asroundingly hot.

2005-06-28T00:25:00.000+01:00

This is the view that my brother has out of his window (well, for another week until he leaves his flat). You probably recognise the 'erotic gherkin' (good god I hate that name) on the left, and St Pauls is in there too but the picture might be a bit small so you can't see it.

We're only fooling ourselves

2005-06-25T23:33:00.000+01:00

So it's my last night in my (Leicester) city centre abode, we're moving out to the slightly less centre tomorrow, near to the rugby an football stadia. We decided that that best way we could help ourselves for the move to 'remove' the spirit bottles that were taking up space on the shelf so that we wouln't have the hassle of having to move them to a new place. This of course slowed up our efforts of packing up everything else we own. However, I did manage to be all manly and take apart the table that the TV/other TV/freeview box were resting on. Within minutes Tom and I realised that we hate each other and the conversation dried up, so we set-up the TV again, which was for the best as we all watched the Murray vs Nalbanian match @ Wimbledon and now the awesomeness that is Coldplay are bringing their 'incorrectly-labelled-as-depressing' brand of indie to the Pyramid stage at Glastonbury on BBC2.

If only I hadn't packed up my speakers...

Arm the homeless

2005-06-25T00:56:00.000+01:00

First off, apologies for the horrifically obscure reference, but if you look at all the pictures on the link and it will become slightly less obscure, but you'll still be confused, just as I am.

So the highlight of my three days in London was seeing the almighty Audioslave, at the Brixton Academy. It was my first time there, which is hardly surprising since I've spent most of my 2 decades of life in Cumbria, but thats not important, I'd like to disspell the myth that Brixton is 'like Beirut but without the ceasefire,' it seemed lovely to me, though the distance between the tube station and the academy was pretty short to be fair, so there could be dodgy areas, but everywhere has dodgy areas.

We arrived a bit late and so struggled to find good seats (as it was an unresevered circle) but we did find a pretty decent spot with a full view of the stage. '...And you will know us by the trail of the dead' pretty much finished up their set as we were arriving, but they seemed alright.

Then we had to wait there for an hour in the horrific heat (I think the only time I wasn't sweating all weekend was when I was in the bath, day-am it was hot) waiting for the supergroup of epic proportions (am I giving them too much credit?). I was getting annoyed with them until they came out, then I rather predictably let my anger be diffused by the schoolgirl delight that is caused by watching Tom Morello play guitar. Highlights were the Rage songs, which is a shame in its own way, but when you see them play 'Sleep Now In The Fire' or 'Killing in the Name Of', and feel the passion and utter delirium of the crowd, I defy anyone not to react (one way or another). My hair stood on end, and those of you who know me will know thats no mean feat, I am 'hella' hairy. The acoustic portion (Chris Cornell with backing singers amounting to about 4921) would have been worth the admission fee alone, well maybe not, but it was still really good.

I'm afraid that since I didn't take my camera I am stealing a picture, but I am pointing to where I got it from, and there are lots of excellent photos on the Jeff's Odyssey page. Then again, he did get a signed, hand written setlist, and a guitar pick, so you can't really feel that sorry for the guy. Though having said that, if you (Jeff) somehow find this post and don't like me stealing your work, I will remove it.

more audioslave piccy-at-ures

Oh, the advantages of having a posh-esque voice

2005-06-24T21:58:00.000+01:00

Of course, I'm talking about Richard, people that think my voice is posh probably wouldn't be able to read this blog, or work out how to turn the computer on to go on the in-tar-web. Sorry, got side-tracked , yesterday me, Richard, and my brother Neil visited Westminster Abbey, and after walking around the regular stuff and having Richard give us a tour that was more thorough than the official tour guide were giving ("the queen comes here"....wow) Richard decided that it was time to push our collective luck. He wanted to get us 'behind the velvet rope' and that doesn't even need apostrophie's because there was a rope, and it had a no entry sign.

To my surprise, his 'lower upper-middle-class' ways managed to get us into an area that we're not really supposed to be in, the tomb of Edward the Confessor. Well, not in it, that would be ridiculous, but nevertheless it was pretty cool to get a mini-tour of stuff that isn't generally on show to the public. Perhaps me and Richard both wearing our bigguybigcity.com t-shirts gave us more credibility, as if we were part of a team of religious historians...... perhaps.

This was what we saw, amongst other things, mostly badly defaced, which his sad to see becuase I can only presume that it would have been quite spectacular. It's funny to think that there's a body in that tomb and the many other tombs that are displayed, and yet it doesn't seem to creep anyone out.

Of course, I don't mean funny as in haha, that would just be wrong.

Because no news is good news

2005-06-22T01:20:00.000+01:00

In the absense of anything that is really worth mentioning (I drove down to Leicester today, people tried to drive into me as usual, saw several near miss collisions, and ate in a McDonalds that had real flowers in vases, it was very nice) I'm just gonna post a few imageshack hosted pictures. They aren't exactly new (I haven't taken my camera out for a while) but should be entertaining. I'm going to London for the next couple days and won't take my laptop (it's just something else I can break/lose) so I won't be posting, I will be rocking out to the mighty Audioslave instead.

P.S. I'm not sure what my template will think of the size of these pics, so errors are expected.

Me and Tyse are doing the clever thing of intentionally looking in the wrong direction, cos we're funny like that. I liked my hair this way, even though it was a bit odd.

A few of the guys joining me on the Amsterdam trip, except for Ed in the bottom right, loser.

A bunch of friends (and me looking merry and v.burnt in the back) at Jack's 'surprise' birthday party last year (last year! how the days, weeks, months fly by).

Wake Me Up When This Hangover Ends

2005-06-20T14:31:00.000+01:00

Yes, I do love Green Day. And you guys know that right? So why the f**k did I think it'd be really clever to get so wasted the night before the biggie at Milton Keynes (support from Takeing Back Sunday and Jimmy Eat World for gawds sake) that I spend the big day in bed throwing up? I am such an idiot. I actually request people to post replies inferring at my idiocy! Raaaaah!

Anyways, the reason was really that the main event this weekend was my birthday. So I spend all day Friday at Ascot in York. But a few bets on, don't win a lot, have a couple of drinks & see the queen... well kind of. Then my mate Sarah arrives from Cambridge so we do some major drinking Friday night. Fond, fond memories. That I remember anyway...

Saturday 18th June 2005... My 20th Birthday! Major hangover. Just chill in town before going out for a meal then just drinking a little bit cos I know I'm up early the next morning for Jon to drive us down to MK. And I still argue with all my friends that I didn't have that much to drink! But I think the whole 2 day bender was too much for me, nothing to do with the cigar oh no... So all night & all day Sunday is spent in the bathroom. While my friends attend the mighty, mighty gig that I would have given all my birthday presents to stop being sick & run down to greet Billy Joe et al with open arms.

I am a dick.

**Bones 2 cents: there's always the DVD, the picture is from Reading 2004, but I have no idea who took it**

2005-06-20T00:56:00.000+01:00

So I ain't posted anything with a picture for a fair while, and stealing that one of Angelina/Brad doesn't really count, Bone originals have a certain something to them. This is about 3 minutes drive from my house, and on a day like that you can really understand why people will travel all over the world just to look at the scenery, and sit on a boat on a lake. It is just amazing, I never appreciated any of it until I went to Leicester. Not to say that the landscape of Leicester doesn't have its own highlights, even the ugly concrete mini-towers have a certain character (especially the completely empty obelisk next to the train station, I so wanna put ambient coloured lighting in there, just to make the world a bit more magical). By the by, I haven't heard all of the new Foo Fighters album but the current single 'Best of You' is really great, and I thoroughly recommend that everyone gives it a listen.

Ever so slightly hazy

2005-06-19T01:46:00.000+01:00

Had a night out with the 'gang' last night, which was officially for Nicola getting her first year results, but we could have also said that it was in celebration of mer wearing my big guy t-shirt. A good time was had by......most (enough said), and I danced hardcore and I finally got some recognition at home for ability to 'throw shapes'. Its always good to go to the Wheely for a night out, not for the surroundings, but because you're guaranteed to meet people that you haven't seen for ages, which tends to end with me saying "dude, gimme a high five, whaddya wanna drink?" which explains the lightness of my wallet.

So I woke up this morning in Scotts bed, which was a bit of a surprise, because oddly my immediate reaction was "shouldn't I be on a futon?" When I woke up, Scott and Steve-o were just coming in! At 7:30 in the morning! I realised later that this meant that me and Greeny had come back on our own, fallen asleep around 3:30, and Scott never returned to his own house, instead he carried on partying, hardcore long-haired fella that he is.

Ok, so there wasn't a huge amount of point to that story, I just thought that it was funny that me and Greeny stayed at Scotts, even though he wasn't even there.

I've been very lazy..

2005-06-18T15:23:00.000+01:00

I apologise to anyone who's been slavishly awaiting my next post (that is to say, I have no regrets). I went back home to the great capital of the United Kingdom of Engerland etc. to have my summer holidays. Somehow this feels a little obsolete when being at university is so like a long extended holiday, apart from those 'tricky' exam things, but I'm enjoying it nonetheless.

I've taken the opportunity to brush up on my culinary skills in a clean and relatively hygienic environment, and also to do some exercise (not very strenuous, I should add). Because of all of this free time - holidays run from the start of June to the end of September - I shall also be working on new designs for bigguybigcity.com, and new marketing ideas. Soon we will be a truly global empire!

In a week's time I'm going to Cyprus: an event that I look to with some trepidation. It's 28 degrees celsius here at the moment, and I'm sweating like the proverbial pig. I dread to think how my skin, which is a whiter shade of pale, will cope with 35 degrees.. Despite this, there should be plenty of nice Roman, Greek, and Byzantine ruins to visit on the island. That is what people do in Cyprus isn't it?

Ahem

We aren't even off the ground yet...

2005-06-16T02:02:00.000+01:00

So we were in the Wainwrights last night for the pub quiz, and I noticed something on Steve-o's name tag (he works there), it reads "Steven Heyns." I thought, "that's an odd misspelling of Haynes" but it wasn't a misspelling, thats how those kerrazy South Africans spell it, or at least how Steve spells it. This wouldn't regularly cause a problem except Steve is coming to Amsterdam with us, and I'm guessing that he "ain't getting on no plane" if it's spelt differently to his passport.

So this afternoon (me? in the morning? nope) I rang up KLM and was put through to a schmooth-sounding Dutchman, I know I'm enforcing stereotypes here, but frankly, those Dutch aren't helping themselves. Anywho, the upshot of it all is that I have to fax a copy of Steve's passport to Holland, so that they know who he is. I find this slightly odd, since we didn't have anything to do with passports when we made the initial booking, yet now we do, but its their rules so what can I do.

Is it clear that I was really stretching things to write about for this post just to maintain regularity?

Well I Never

2005-06-14T13:22:00.000+01:00

Bonjour! Another Hangover. I actually have to stop drinking! Like Tigg would say, my liver must really, really hate me. But it was a cracking night. It was one of my bestest friends Deb's birthday party. After having eaten or slept very little over the last few days I was predictably wankered after very little liquid refreshment. Though the up-side of this was that I got my appetite back... well for the night anyway.

At the moment, I'm being glared at in the library for taking up a space at the very posh computers just to write this post. Though, dude, they obviously don't appreciate the daily need of the the blog fans to hear about the dramas which go on here in York. And if Jenni reads this, I'm in trouble cos apparently I am a bit of a drama queen!

Anyways I better shoot. I'm off into school. Again! I love it really. And I get highly paid. Nice.

Ok, yeah, Angelina Jolie is that hot

2005-06-14T01:56:00.000+01:00

My first social outing of the home-summer was to watch Mr. & Mrs. Smith at the Royalty in Bowness. The 'gang' was me (duh..), Greeno, Smoothy, Hodge, Clare (not the contributory, yeah, that's right, I'm so popular I know 2 people with the same name, kinda) and Nicola. A good time was had by all and we enjoyed what was described as an 'entertainment' film, and that's a pretty accurate description. I doubt that there is anyone who says it is their favourite film of all time. The rumours and hype surrounding it were probably as interesting as the story itself, not to say that I didn't have a good time.

I may well be being a bit harsh though, the action sequences were a bit cheesy, the dialogue smug, and the plot ri-goddam-diculous, but that was what I expected, so to complain would just be downright silly.

It was cool to see Adam Brody in a non-O.C. role, but is there ever going to be a point when he doesn't act as if he's Seth Cohen? or perhaps he's not even acting, he just IS Seth Cohen, or Seth Cohen is him, whatever.

Recently I'd started to get bored of Angelina, but this film really turned me back onto the path of Jolie fetishdom, that PVC number did the trick, Hodge exclaimed "Jesus Christ" and made numerous worrying "ooh" noises.

TV execs are stooopid.

2005-06-13T00:23:00.000+01:00

So I get home and am excited to have the use of a full Sky membership to enjoy, on the line I find that a few things have changed, there's some new channels too. One of which demands me typing a few sentences about it.

Channel 339, 'Bad Movies,' that isn't the name of a show, thats the name of the freakin' channel!

Unless I'm horribly mistaken it's a channel dedicated to showing just bad movies. I'm basing this on the crap-o-rama that I watched for 5 minutes just now. Seriously though, how can this become a channel when even its novelty appeal is ever-so fleeting.

I can only assume that they know something about the relaxation of drug laws that I don't.

'Say Hello To Sunshine' with Bone

2005-06-13T00:01:00.000+01:00

I thought I'd review Finch's new album as I don't feel that I have anything blog-worthy (despite moving back home today, and having my car dented by some bastards the day before).

I bought 'Say Hello To Sunshine' the day it came out, like any true fan would, I didn't even 'find' and 'advance' copy on the net. After listening to it a few times in the house, and then the far louder environment of my car on the drive home, I've decided that I like it. It's very different to the debut album 'What It Is To Burn,' but that doesn't necessarily mean its worse (though, to be honest, I'd say it wasn't quite as excellent), WIITB was stuffed full of easily-appreciatable radio-esque hits, or at least as close as you can get to a radio-friendly hit with anything approaching the screamo-core genre (lets not have a genre argument here). 'Say Hello....' feels as if it is an experimental slow burner, with songs that don't grab me, but I'm not compelled to stop listening either, it's curious, and most definitely a brave move by the Finch boys. Though having said this, I don't think it'll be quite as bigger seller as the debut.

I can't decide whether I'll go and see them on the latest tour (that is, if there are any tickets left), since both of the times I've seen them previously I've gone away slightly disappointed, maybe because of rumours they get blind-drunk before shows, and maybe because the production of their songs simply can't be fully translated to the stage, no matter how hard Nate forces himself to produce those gutteral screams.

And now time for the obligatory Amazon.co.uk affiliate link to the new album

Big Brother Derek goes mental! Bahahaha

2005-06-12T02:05:00.000+01:00

I know that Big Brother is probably beneath the classy exterior that bigguybigcity.com exudes, but I just can't help myself, Derek Laud makes me laugh, there, I said it, a Tory makes me laugh.

I am the God of Sandwiches!

2005-06-12T01:18:00.000+01:00

Now thats a bigg-ass sandwich! And my hand isn't being used to make it look bigger, it is just genuinely a gigantic sandwich. It contained sausages, bacon, a fried egg, burger relish, lots of lettuce (to make it healthy) and mayonnaise. All wrapped in half a 'cross-cut batard' from Somerfield. When I was half-way through I was full, but since I am the 'big guy' I forced myself to eat it.

Research?!

2005-06-12T00:28:00.000+01:00

Oh pants. I have a 4,000 word Research project due in on Friday. And I've not even started really researching it yet, never mind writing it! Not good at all.

So last night we went to a campus event called Planet V in Vanbrugh College. Last one was pretty darn excellent, some goood memories, so I had high hopes for this one. Firstly, I was W-Wasted. I had consumed many doubles & shots to try and block out the poor, poor, poor attempts at karaoke in Derwent. Life Is A F**king Rollcoaster Mate! Still no need to bloody 'sing' about it. It was slow to start off with but soon we were berocking hard to some heavy tunes. Next thing I know I was at the bar (now there's a surprise) and this alarm starts going off. I figured it'd stop but then people start piling out and I realised it was a fire alarm. Bastards. So we stand outside in the freezing cold for ages, many a un-writable things happened and the fire engine turned up. I got chatty with some dude called Simon who met Dr Raj Persaud & we swapped love life problems while smoking. That him mum, not me, honest! When it came to it, we weren't allowed back in. And i wore my bigguybigcity t-shirt... but not a camera in sight. Dammit!

I'm a.....rocket.....man

2005-06-10T00:35:00.000+01:00

Shatner vs Griffin

Just to ensure that the day didn't go by without some BigGuy posting goodness I thought that I'd share a link I found today. I think it's season 2 or 3 of 'Family Guy' where Stewie does a hi-larious rendition of of Rocket Man, but I never quite realised that it was a parody of William Shatner, but in hindsight, it is so incredibly obvious. Anywho, this link takes you to a page that has the Stewie version, and the original by the one and only Shatner, both are funny, but I prefer Family Guy myself.

Rachel Stevens wants me to touch my testicles!

2005-06-08T15:16:00.000+01:00

Rachel Gets Fruity (Flash Required)

Tigg is probably going to lose his mind when he sees this. If it was a place, it would be called 'double entendre-ville' or at the very least, 'cleavage town'. It's good to see a popstar go out of her way to encourage men to touch themselves, good for you Ms. Stevens!

Of course, it isn't all fun and games, she's, ahem, raising awareness of male testicular cancer.

Not Too Many?!

2005-06-07T22:33:00.000+01:00

Major hangover Day. My not too many celebratory drinks turned into a full club moment, and I had to blag my way in wearing trainers. But the most unplanned evenings turn out to be the grandest and it really was! Our group of 2 multiplied to 7 or so by the end of the evening. Way too much to drink ended up in not going to bed til 5am and waking up at 6.45am and fearing going back to sleep incase I was sick. So I struggled onto the sofa, phoned in sick to the school (i'm dedicated normally!) and mooched into town slowly with Jenni & ended up chilling out in one of the nicest places in York, the Museum Gardens.

For now I'm going to tidy my bedroom. I am ashamed of it. And that's saying something. 1.45 hours sleep... my body's shutting down...

Bernard The Duck Has A Lot To Answer For!

2005-06-06T15:57:00.000+01:00

I've just returned from my German Oral! It didn't go so well. Basically I yapped on for 10 minutes about random Mass Tourism shit, forgetting the words & stuff, then came the questions.... And I was asked about the environmental problems that Mass Tourism causes in the Lake District. And I wanted to talk about the Speed Limit on the Lake, but had no idea how to say that in German. So I sit there, blankly, for a few seconds and say the first thing that pops in my head. Ducks. DUCKS?!? What was I thinking?!? So for the next few terrible minutes I made up lie after lie about the main problem in the Lake District at the moment is Ducks dying because of Boats, and the fact that their numbers are getting less & less every year. And the examiner was concerned. It'll break her heart if she finds out I've lied to her...

Well not a lot I can do about it now is there? But have a few celebratory drinkies tonight! Not too many mind you, cos I am working at a school tomorrow. I'm going to have to learn how to substitute my foul mouth for more conservative language...

Fuck.

"Walk down the right back alley in Sin City, and you can find anything..."

2005-06-05T23:16:00.000+01:00

The film Sin City is much like this particular slice of t'internet, pretty much anything will be commented on.

Fellow contributor Duncan and I were at a loose end today (who isn't when uni's finished for another year) so we headed off (along with Gath, Tom, Matt, Rory and Sophie) to the Odeon for a bit of modern-noir action. We stuffed our pockets with sweets and drinks (like the cheap students we are) from the supermarket over the road. As it turns out, they really don't care if you take anything in, but being conspicuously inconspicuous was a lot of fun.

The film itself is fan-freakin-tastic, I'm not going to discuss the story too much as I fear the creation of spoiler-age so I'll be careful. Basically, its a set of short stories which are semi-linked to each other, with many of the characters being involved in each others stories. When we left Rory said that it was "one of the best films I've ever seen" and I'm inclined to agree, I almost want to buy the ~~comics~~ graphic novels to see how they compare. As I was watching it I felt that the direction and cinematography was framed very much like a comic, it reminded me of the Max Payne games (yes, thats as close as I get to comics).

Oh, for the man in me, and the male readers, there's plenty of boobage, plenty of the b-e-a-utiful Jessica Alba, and in my opinion, a weekend in Old Town would be as much fun as my impending trip to Amsterdam.

IMDB's exhaustive Sin City page can be found here. Check it out #118 on the all time Top 250 list!

May be boring but remember, Boobs below

2005-06-04T23:03:00.000+01:00

Alright so I'm totally knackered, but it because I had a really busy and cool day. I went to Alton Towers, theme park of themes parks, for the UK anyway. I went with two of my house-mates, and had a totally A Awesome day (and we didn't even meet Chester [sorry random joke, but at least Bone'll understand (I hope)]). So I woke up with Pearl Harbour Sucks and I Miss You in my head, random song from Team America, but then again its a random film, so I sang that in inner monologue for a good hour and a half. To be fair I had Team America on the brain, and anytime my thoughts paused my favourite quote popped into my head "Surprise Cock-fags!"

But I'm divulging, back to Alton Towers, so it was an early start, and I wanted to look my best so I was wearing another Threadless t-shirt(with another shameless ad too). Anyway we treked it to Alton Towers (AT from now on) but it was cool, we got a good travelling sound track of Jimmy Eat World and Saves The Day, which got us to the car park by 10. Unfortunatly I lost my Make Poverty History charity-band in the car-park on the way to the monorail (monorail, Monorail, MONORAIL! Mono- D'oh) and now my wrist feels naked, it was only a small band of cloth too. After a quick monorail ride waiting in line both for the monorial itself and tickets we made it to the park for 11.

We decided anti-clockwise was the way to go so went into the park and turned right. Two rides to start the day, first a ride without a name, but pleny of centrifugal force, then oblivion, the best 0.125 seconds of ride, shame it lasts that long. We took a while getting onto oblivion though, fat people emergencies. We waited in the loading area for 10 minutes as for two sucessive cars we saw the employees of AT trying to jam morbidly obese people into the safety equipment, taking it in turns to kneel on the safty bars whilst the other tried to strech the safety belt to the harness. I felt really sorry for these people, as they became both a public spectacle and the source of much negative energy from the punters.

I could go through a massive individual description of each ride, but Im not the star of this blog (more like a satellite planetary system) and I've already taken enough time explaining the trivialalities of today. But suffice to say I had a totally A Awesome day and it was a total laugh , and I haven't had fun like that in a while. But there were two more rides which made the day, duel and air.

Duel was a bad ride made good, originally the haunted house with little or no spookability someone had a fantastic idea, LETS ADD GUNS! It was a toally sweet ride where you shoot zombie vamires and monsters with lazers and rack up scores. We went on the ride twice, and although I got the highest total score over the two times, my housemate got the highest single score, but I was just happy to score over 50,000 point each time, since most people seemed to average 18,000, but trust a nerd to know how to kill zombies, I felt just like Simon Pegg. Air was awesome, for those of you who don't know its a rollercoaster where you are inverted so that you travel facing forwards, head first. However you do no lie out, as you're bound to a seat with your ankles and the regular shoulder harness from most rollercoasters (with a few modifications). However this position is the closest thing to bondage I've experienced in my life, but that wasn't going to ruin my enjoyment, as for the whole ride I got to strike the superman pose (one arm fully extended forwards, fist clenched [not in a wheel-chair or dead, thats the Christopher Reeves pose], but you could tell I was enjoying it from the huge grin on my face on the photos afterwards.

That was the last ride of the day, and afterwards we left AT, to come home, it's safe to say we're knackered, and now I'm really just killing time so I don't wake up stupidly early tommorow, anyway that was my day, trivialities accentuated, details skipped, but the day was A Awesome (the third and last time I'll use this insider joke) and I'm done writing this blog.

Don't do anything I wouldn't do,
Live in Peace people

2005-06-04T17:16:00.000+01:00

Picture to demonstrate the power of Bernard the Blue Duck.

My adventures with a duck

2005-06-04T15:42:00.000+01:00

Last night I went to the University of Leicester's Student Union with a bunch of my mates, partly to celebrate the end of exams, partly just to get pissed on ridiculously cheap double vodkas and coke.

As part of our plan to make the evening more exciting and enjoyable we took along a little blue plastic duck, called Bernard, with the aim being to take as many pictures of random people featuring the duck as we could.

We started promisingly with the bouncers, worked our way to the dj and barmaids, a brilliant image of my mates' landlord, and hit a high point with a picture of a girl (and guy unfortunately) in s+m gear. In between we got loads of shots of happy students, who were all too willing to have their picture taken with Bernard, and generally acted like stupid drunks.

Hopefully we'll have many more good times with this duck, perhaps taking him to clubs which aren't full of people as prone to happy posing as students: a chavvy club perhaps?

Legendary.

Mon The Biffy?!

2005-06-04T01:27:00.000+01:00

Well hello there! You thought I'd gone didn't ya? Well I went back to the LD for a couple of days for inspiration. I have a 30 minute oral on Monday morning about Mass Tourism. And I'm telling you, I saw enough of those bastards to last me a lifetime! Still haven't really done any work for it though...

Yes I'm a little bit drunk. I've just been to my friend's birthday party. It was GRAND! I was chatting to a lot of people I haven't seen in a while & making friends with some random people by responding to their simple "Mon The Biffy" statement. And now I'm apparently going to see Biffy Clyro with them. I have no idea what just happened...

Anyway I'm off to take some paracetamol for the headache & go to bed. I have to get up at 8am to phone in sick to work (I pray my boss doesn't see this).

P.S. I managed a whole drunken blog without mentioning something I shouldn't, which would get me into trouble later & I'd no doubt have to edit it in the morning. Get Me!

2005-06-03T20:37:00.000+01:00

I am beardless! And happy! And my exams have finished! and I'd had a couple in the uni bar before lunch! Also, yet another t-shirt from threadless.com is being worn in that shot, because I just think its easier to buy new t-shirts than do any washing..... true, but not exactly my thinking. Also, the 'tache was just a little something I did for a laugh, but then I almost went out without shaving it off, which woulda looked funny with my ice lolly.

2005-06-03T20:25:00.000+01:00

Here is the final picture of my beard, along with one of my latest t-shirts from the good folks at threadless.com (this shot is also on their gallery pages, I'm a multi-site model). That bad boy was thick, and barely itchy at all (we're back to the beard now), if I needed to appreciate art, I knew it was there for me. Good times.

Just when you think you're getting big...

2005-06-03T20:19:00.000+01:00

So I get an e-mail of application to the 'Photo Hole' (BigGuy's official community group) and the reason for joining is:

so i can be the first groupie of the bigguybigcity label. and i think the t shirts are really cool.

and it's like "YES!" we 'r0x0r' (as the kids say). I became a little bit less excited when I realised it was Teb, now Teb is lovely, but I know her, I was hoping for a random that would idolise me and our collective designing skills.

Bowness, out.

The Long Walk for Justice

2005-06-01T21:52:00.000+01:00

“If anyone is not going to come to our party – and it’s going to be one hell of a party – they can fuck right off.” - 'Crazy' Bob Geldof

Apols for the swearing, it was me 'twas Bob Geldof. This article from NME adds a bit more flesh to the bones of the line-ups around the world. The only switch I've noticed so far that Brian Wilson is at Philadelphia now, not Berlin, but that's of no consequence to me. The Hyde Park line-up does look really quite amazing, I'm very tempted to get up early on Monday and text in for the lottery. I'd encourage everyone else to, but then it would be more likely that I wouldn't go.

EDIT: I got a bit worried that I wouldn't be able to even attempt to go, but I have now realised that the date is July 2nd NOT July 8th as I thought, which would make sense y'know, G8 July 8th? The 8th thing would have been a clash with the Amsterdam trip.

Downtime, no foolin'

2005-06-01T19:32:00.000+01:00

We're experiencing downtime over at www.bigguybigcity.com because the name servers are being switched away from the domain name masking that I've been using for the past month or so. The result of this will be that I can actually track who's coming to the site, and where from, not for any evil reasons, just so I can see what random google-ness the site is attracting. Also, it will mean that if you go from one of the links on bigguybigcity.com to say this blog, or the store then you'll have the correct address in the bar, not bigguybigcity.com

Onwards and upwards as ever.

www.bigguybigcity.com should now be working as intended, isn't it nice when things go right? (cue explosion in web hosts servers)

Return of the Mac

2005-06-01T17:39:00.001+01:00

"Reality is whatever refuses to go away when I stop believing in it." Phillip K. Dick

Finished my exams, done thats it. Went on a spending spree, spent loads of money, nothing like mass consumerism to sooth the soul. I went and got three DVDs and a game, plus my two t-shirts from Threadless. I got Team America, Full Metal Alchemist vol.1, and Spongebob Squarepants Nautical Nonesense and Sponge Buddies. Two cartoons and puppets, keeping up the nature of the nerd. So what else have I been up to you say? Nothing much to be fair, revising, films and videogames. So as long as I'm advertising for all you nerdophiles, go get Forza Motorsport too.

The only major event in the last weeks has been Episode III, which was awesome, I was grinning from start to finish, I have to see it again, Bone when do you want to go? I have to say though the film exceeded my expectations, although General Grevious was ill-explained as a character, and the very end fitted too well, and happened too quick.

So I'm working on designs for the store, got a few in mind, and I think you guys might like them. I've not really inputted much in the way of designs yet, I'm working to change that, I've been more of the internet modeling sensation which graces the flikr gallery and the BigGuy hub. I hope to have more designs up soon, but until then go buy more stuff, that's an order people. It's cool stuff anyway, you know you want to buy it, then you can be cool just like Bone. Other than that I want to welcome Claire, Richard and Tigg to the BigGuy set-up, nothing much left to say really so I'll get going, for now.

Stay Happy People, and good luck with your last exam tommorow Bone.

Worth a shot

2005-05-31T17:18:00.000+01:00

Telegraph | News | Five free concerts on Live 8

I may not be the biggest fan of Bob Geldof (get a haircut! hippy) but you've gotta say, the man knows how to throw a party. I really think that every country except for Britain is getting screwed over in terms of line-up (esp. with murmurs of the Spice Girls being announced for Hyde Park). But the other venues sound a lot better than Hyde Park, the Brandenburg Gate (Berlin) and the Eiffel Tower (I shan't patronise with that one) and the Circus 'freakin' Maximus in Rome are really unique venues for such unique events.

I know 'it's not for charity it's for political justice' but I think people should pay for their tickets rather than the random texting ticket lottery because awareness is fair enough, but money is needed as well. Right?

There's No House Like A Student House...

2005-05-30T11:47:00.000+01:00

It's official. Our House is trying to kill us. Like Bone et al, we've experienced many a problem with our beloved Home Sweet Home, including a shower that's never worked, broken garage doors and damp and mould to name only a selected few. And our landlord does nothing except getting his missus to come round and make me cry regularly.

But this morning tops the lot. I was minding my own business in my room when I heard an almighty crash outside. I ran out, expecting to find Scott lying in a heap at the bottom of the stairs, but instead I found him in the bathroom looking at the heavy glass shower door which had fallen off the wall and landed on the floor, where it had made a hole, and where helen sleeps in a cabin bed only inches from. Chris managed to sleep through the whole incident.

Ironically, this house was once nicknamed the 'Palace' by my friend.

S'pose we can kiss goodbye to the bond now...

Dear Miss Shore, Many Thanks For You're Interest in Tena... SCOTT!

2005-05-29T22:36:00.000+01:00

Yes, this was in fact a letter (sorry 20 letters) that Helen and I (and even one for Chris) received through the post the other day. The poor postman had difficulty getting them all through the letter box. Scott obviously hadn't learnt from the whole shower door/toilet seat practical joke of last eurovision night and decided to try and send Helen and I lots of free packs of TENA LADY (that's pads for the older lady with weak bladder problems for all those lucky enough not to know). But his plan was foiled by the stingy people at TENA who informed us that we can't receive anymore free packs and should buy them from the chemist instead. I'm not complaining, Helen used the free one we got to mop up a glass of juice she knocked over. The absorbancy was pretty impressive!

Been working all weekend so am pretty knackered. I appear to have got over my period of insomnia with the help of Dido and my newly tidied room. So i have one exam left now a week tomorrow. A half an hour German Oral. On Mass Tourism. I'm heading back to Windermere on Tuesday for inspiration. And Food.

2005-05-29T17:28:00.000+01:00

Just to finish the photo-fest it seemed appropriate/mean post Richard and Matt (L-R) in a post-club photo-op. It may seem as if they're being nice to each other, but the whole episode did begin with Matt saying "hey Andy, lets punch Richard." So after we'd punched Richard I diffused the situation withthe aide of my trusty (and old) Sony DSC-P51.

2005-05-29T17:17:00.000+01:00

The beard from another angle. (mit smile and Chinese dictator on t-shirt)

2005-05-29T17:15:00.000+01:00

END OF WEEK BEARDWATCH UPDATE: I can't believe I went on a night out with the carpet attched to my face. The fact that I went out last night is abundantly clear from one of the pictures. The only picture makes it obvious that I wanted to avoid looking hung-over, and all this during the exam period! It's ok though, I have till Thursday to re-learn everything from my Globalisation module. Back to the beard, it's really annoying me now, and it looks oooo-gly. And only men want to stroke it, thats not the aim!

Our Great Compensation Adventure

2005-05-27T22:41:00.000+01:00

As this is the student blog, it seems like a good idea to publish an account of our great efforts to get compensation from our landlord, as our flat this year was a bit of a hole..

We signed the contract for it in January 2004, little knowing the great amount of hassle that it would cause it. After moving in, in late- September, we quickly noticed that a lot of rubbish from the previous tenants was still in-situ (we had to remove it all ourselves), and that the alley that led to our front door had no light, making negotiating in the dark a slightly tricky exercise.

In the months that followed we experienced broken boilers, showers, lights, radiators, beds, toilet seats, and sinks, as well as having no gas or electricity safety certificates until last month. Thanks to Paz's tireless phone-calls, letters, and emails, most of the stuff eventually got done, but the sheer amount of hassle that we had to go through makes this a quite salutary tale: choose your agent and landlord carefully, and make sure that you take pictures of anything wrong with your flat, and preserve any documentation regarding the flat.

After a 2 1/2 hour meeting with the agent and landlord on Wednesday we got £50 compensation each (we were asking for £125, but it's better than nothing), and Paz should now become a much more relaxed individual.

We're going to spend our money on a piss-up, which should be quite good fun. Perhaps we could also spend it on creating an effigy of our letting agent, which we could burn ritualistically..

The second coolest person on the planet

2005-05-27T16:24:00.000+01:00

Cool Hunting

There's a bit of hipster in all of us, Josh Rubin is clearly lord of all hipsters, if you can't find an awesome t-shirt over at Preshrunk (are you blind?) then this is the spot to head for, that and other random cool stuff I want to buy but can't afford (cough, ads, cough).

It's Over! Finally!

2005-05-27T16:05:00.000+01:00

Hey Hey Scenesters (The Cribs!), you'll be delighted to hear my open exam/essay type thang is finally finished! Hopefully tonight I'll be able to have a good nights sleep - after the measly 15 hours maximum i've had over the last 3 nights. And I've been going to bed about 11pm and just not sleeping til 6am! I think my head's too full of essay... amongst other stuff... So anyway, I'm off to hand the dratted thing in. Be glad to see the back of it...

What else exciting has been happening? The other day Helen and spent the entire afternoon jumping up and down trying to impersonate Billy Elliot at the end of the film. It started with watching Strictly Come Dancing (or some similarly cheesy dance show!) and progressed into me showing her what my sister and I do everytime we watch the film... Oh the joys of being a student!!

Oh and my bigguybigcity T-Shirt came today, and it's fantastic... I'm gonna get some proper sleep before I submit my photo to Bone though... Mmmmm Sleep...

Buy Run Lola Run Now! Watch it Now!

2005-05-26T15:10:00.000+01:00

Well, technically not right now, because you'd need it delivered, but you get my underlying point of the awesomeness of this film (I'm a sucker for that red hair).

Its part of the evolution of the site that whatever DVD or CD I buy and like will become the new Amazon link. I don't expect anyone to become a dedicated follower of the Bone's media collection, but you never know what links you'll find.

THURSDAY BEARDWATCH UPDATE: It's damn itchy and I still have a week to go, I do not yet look sophisticated.

Beckham stories are ridiculous

2005-05-26T11:42:00.000+01:00

BBC NEWS | World | Europe | Beckham's dreams of space travel

Now I expect this kind of thing from the red tops, but the BBC? Sadly though the headline is only mentioned in the first paragraph. Good to know that he like "jamon" and "percebes," and that he is used to sleeping in the day.

Sometimes I just weep at such a hard time he has.....(sarcasm!)

Is this the end?

2005-05-25T21:18:00.000+01:00

Of my parking nightmare.... yes, well, kind of. I received a card on Tuesday, which the ticket machine swallowed at the first opportunity, so I was very pissed off and shouted at the ticket box (the ticket box does have an option to speak to an operator, I ain't that crazy). I was so angry that I was literally shaking, so I came home and shouted at the NCP customer service, who magically delivered a card to me by 8:30 this morning (how did it take so many weeks to get the others). And it finally work, it actually works!

Now all I need to do is get back the £200+ pounds that I've spent in the car park since coming back to uni....

Ooops I Did It Again

2005-05-25T04:03:00.000+01:00

Ahoy there! Yes, this is what you have all been waiting for, and it'll remain a feature of Bone's Blog for many weeks to come I hope... Dah Dah Dah Dah Dah Dah... Claire's Very First Drunken Blog! Bone promised to subsidise all the alcohol I have consumed in order to get one!

Well, it's 4am guys and I'm still awake. Dedication to the cause, that's what I call it. Even all the fricking birds are singing. It'll be getting light soon and I have to carry on with this darned open paper exam tomorrow! English Words In The German Language. The most interesting topic of the 8 questions... and that's really saying something...

Tonight was weird. I cried my little heart out in front of a whole bunch of assembled drunken students in Toffs. What a LOSER! Reasons are totally understandable, but totally too personal to talk about here yet. Not drunk enough - give it time, give it time! Dude is what I have to say about that. I shall no doubt reveal the more interesting details of the night tomorrow, which involves 6 shots of Baileys and a dance to Amarillo which cheered me right up, so stay tuned Blog lovers!

Oh and by the way, someone's saved the (Green) Day. Gotta love that pun...

Stupid things students do no.93

2005-05-24T21:24:00.000+01:00

Well, as a student we often do stupid things, with that in mind.

I'm not going to shave until the end of my exams.

It just so happens that last time I shaved was the day before my first exam, I'm halfway now and just have to go another 9 days till I can look like less of a hobo. Why a beard you ask? Well, people with beards are often intelligent. Stroking a beard makes me feel clever, which should aim the exam process. I'm lazy. I can't be bothered to recharge my electric razor. So the answer was obvious, don't shave, but making it some kind of crazy challenge makes it a lot less tramp-like, and more of a student-hero.

More Threadless news

2005-05-23T23:11:00.000+01:00

The fine folks at Threadless managed to go down in my estimation for about a minute, then went straight back up. I e-mailed them because my order was stuck in processing, which was a server error apparently (which they apologised for). The next e-mail I got from them was the bad news, my Flowers in the attic was actually already sold out when I ordered it, which is a huge disappointment, but they managed to cheer me up by refunding my money (including the amount that it added onto the shipping) and gave me a $5 coupon off my next purchase.

This means that shirts that were $17 last week went down to $10, my coupon then means that the shirt would be $5, if I send them a picture of me in said shirt, I get $1.50 of street team points, so that shirt would cost $3.50! Thats like 2 British pounds! Unbelievable!

When did this become the Threadless blog?

Totally wish I'd made my order this week

2005-05-23T19:35:00.000+01:00

Threadless are having a t-shirt sale until June 6th where EVERYTHING is $10 (before postage), a slight contrast to when I made my order last week and paid $17 per t-shirt, but hey, it's pretty cheap either way.

Students, save money, eat well!

2005-05-23T15:21:00.000+01:00

Whilst I never really want to become someone that helps people (this blog is ego massag, people), I am a student, and helping the heavily debt-laden, sleepy, lazy student population is in the interests of all. With that in mind I am posting this handy guide about eating well on a budget, its an American article by someone called Barbara Keck, of vidaville.com or you can e-mail 'Barb' at barb@vidaville.com. By the way, it looks a bit hypocritical, because I'm the worst student ever, steak anyone?

Shopping on a Shoestring

Eating properly for health on a limited budget is always a challenge. One of the biggest money gobbling culprits is ready made processed and packaged foods and too many trips for fast food. Although they’re quick neither of these ways are cost effective. When it comes to shopping on a shoestring and planning great tasting menus at home you’ll be surprised how well you can eat following these simple guidelines.

10 healthy ways to keep food costs within budget…

Make three meals a week without meat and watch your food bill drop. You won’t even notice the meat is missing when you experiment and combo flavorful foods for meals. It’s easier than you think. Include other forms of protein to complete your required nutrition.

Cook regular rice it only takes 10 minutes longer than Minute Rice (which actually takes 5 minutes) and it’s half the cost. This works for many other products as well.

Left over rice, corn or other vegetables? Add it to tomato soup or any other favorite soup the next day.

Cook (boil, bake or microwave) enough potatoes to fry or prepare in any other favorite potato dish for your next meal

Shop from the outside aisles – this is where most of the non-processed foods are. The inner aisles of grocery stores are all packaged and cost more

When your favorite vegetables come in season, buy lots. Peppers are easy to freeze – no blanching required, just cut in slices, bag them and freeze them. Prices can be 1/3 of what the out of season vegetable costs.

To avoid throwing out food you haven’t used make a plan for the week that includes the foods in your fridge that need to be used before spoiling. This also takes the guess work out of what to have for dinner or lunch every day.

Cut your juice down with water. Most juices are heavy with sugar or glucose. Using this idea can make a can of juice last twice as long and cut your sugar intake as well.

Plan your weekly menus with tasty meals from your favourite recipes that use inexpensive ingredients. You will be amazed at how this plan helps avoid fast food meals.

And of course never shop when you’re hungry!

Following these 10 ideas will make a big difference to your food bill at the end of each month. Remember there are many meals you can add to your meal plans that won't take much longer than quick cooking foods which cost more.

This is so 3 months ago!

2005-05-23T15:20:00.000+01:00

Flash � Learn to Dance with Napoleon Dynomite

I know that Napoleon Dynamite has slightly lost its culty edge but this is still awesome, especially for someone as dedicated to the art of dance as me. If you haven't seen the film then it will only serve as an educational tool, which is good anyway.

Nerd note: one of the 'moves' says "Exit, Stage Left" but he actually runs to his right, is this correct? Perhaps it's a theatre term from the p.o.v. of the director, who one would suspect would be sat in the seats. Goddamit Bone, just enjoy the damn flash application!

Time to get down

2005-05-22T22:46:00.000+01:00

There may well be some downtime on www.bigguybigcity.com over the next couple of days as the design is updated and the relaunch is implemented.

I guarantee that the new look will blow your socks off (not an actual guarantee), it's mighty nice, has a function to allow news to be propogated to the masses, and (hopefully) there will be random bigguybigcity.com related images to brighten up your day. Or maybe they won't be random, I'm no HTML genius.

Death Of St Green Day...

2005-05-22T18:04:00.000+01:00

Dude. It's sad days. We have to sell our Green Day tickets. I've been looking forward to Sunday 19th June, Milton Keynes, for a long long time. Unfortunately this gig has been a logistical nightmare and one long long stress. Still not sunk in that I will not be listening to the strains of Holiday among other classics on this aforementioned day.

But then again, how can I possibly be so upset when I've just had the most amazing day. I raced for life! Yes, I took part in the nationwide sponsored run in aid of Cancer Research. It was truly motivating be running alongside over 5,000 women for a great cause. I was saddened however, to see how many runners were racing for life in memory of lost love ones. It makes you realise how many people are affected by Cancer and I felt almost proud to be contributing to help these numbers decrease and I was inspired particulary by a lady displaying this simple statement - "I've beaten the big 'C' twice."

On a lighter note, Eurovision last night! I was quite shocked to see the UK perform so poorly again, after all, Javine really wasn't as bad as many of the other acts who received more points than us. However, the star of the show had to be the Granny from Moldova. Bang that drum grufti! I also didn't sleep until 3am. That was largely to do with my friend Phil's Thriller moves... I'll say no more. Only this, this time last year I broke my toilet! But that's a whole other story...

merchandizzle

2005-05-21T18:02:00.000+01:00

hey woke up for a fine weekend of lazzyness and how nice it was to see that my new tshirt has arrived.(see gallery when bone puts it on)

also i felt it was the day in which my hair must be cut and with a new t-shrit i felt a new hair do was required so i have gone for a crazy mohawk! i feel however that i may look like a penis so will likely shave it off

haha unlucky man u sometimes it just doesnt go your way but what can u expect from americans trying to play soccer. mayb they would have benefitted from half time monster trucks and added time multi-ball!

anyways must dash back to the sofa to watch episode 1 then off to see episode 3 tomoz

tigg

He's right you know...

2005-05-21T16:16:00.000+01:00

This post will be properly written, with capitals and everything, because Andy told me to, and I am clearly his bitch...

Design approved for spreadshirt, which is nice: we've been having some difficulty getting this guitar one through, because it's fairly complex, but they finally accepted it yesterday. This is a portent of a whole new world of designs with lines that overlap only a little bit (highly technical this tshirt lark).

In other news, we're all going to watch the eurovision song contest here this evening, following the rules that were originally created for the junior eurovision contest in the dark days of the first year. Not sure that we're going to get so hammered this time, as it's the middle of exams, but it should be fun nonetheless.

Satis.

Onwards and Upwards

2005-05-21T13:49:00.000+01:00

Richard has finally managed to have one his designs approved for the store. Unusuallu for me, that isn't a dig at him, he has been trying for weeks to create a design that the Spreadshirt overlords will find acceptable, now that they have we can work on a whole new range of merchandise.

In my own humble opinion, the new stuff does look v. nice.

Disguised no more...

2005-05-20T20:51:00.000+01:00

I just wanted to make a quick link to the newest fan of this particular slice of the web pie, she's called AnnieO and she's a fair bit more high-brow than me in terms of posting. Maybe it's time we added more syllables (I'm so sure I mispelt that, and its not even ironic) to the blog. Or maybe just more pictures of me in various hats, yeah, I should stick to what I know.

"You and Me, Are Meant To Be..."

2005-05-20T12:06:00.000+01:00

Yes I saw Morcheeba last night! They were red hot! My day didn't start so well as I woke up 10 minutes before I absolutely have to leave for my lecture, so it was a case of get dressed and run. Year Away Preparation was ok, I decided to leave my handy little book at home, Charles 'Make My Day Punk' Russ is a total legend, but I don't think even he's cool enough to handle my Pigeon licking comments.

So off we went to the Refectory at Leeds University Union, having again done bugger all work for today's exam (which was a pile of poo by the way). After nearly witnessing a fight in Wetherspoons, Jenni & I realised that the old saying is right, there's no chav like a Leeds chav (apologies to any Leeds chavs reading this post). The support 'act' were 'Husky Rescue' from Finland, more hypnagogic than psychedelic (get me... actually I stole it from Jen)... that's boring as shit to you and me. So we were glad when Morcheeba finally arrived. And did they arrive! It was a relief that they played some of the old stuff as well as the new album. And a moment of pure happiness arrived when they finished their set with those 7 magical words from 'Rome Wasn't Built In A Day.' I was elated... or was that just from breathing in the smoke from a guy smoking weed in front of me?!

How very odd...

2005-05-19T01:33:00.000+01:00

Cool Hunting: Secret Wall Tattoos

There are some weird and wonderful people in this world. And it seems that vandalism/criminal damage/graffiti isn't a problem in their world.

Such a hipster

2005-05-19T01:23:00.000+01:00

Duncan and I placed an order on Threadless earlier tonight, and our uber-cool and fairly rare (for the UK) t-shirts should be flying across the Atlantic within a matter of days. I know, I know, I'm helping to fund 'the enemy' but when the shirts look that damn good what am I supposed to do?

Other than buy one of my own designs of course. Incidentally, yet more of Duncan's bigguy purchases arrived, so we walked around the city centre talking various pictures of him, and getting looked at rather oddly for our impromptu photosession, which included standing outside of establlished, so-called, fashion chain stores, goading (sp?) them with our superior design and ability to see our our agenda, and not be controlled by 'the man'. Who that man would be, I don't know, he's purely fictional.

Pictures will be on the Flickr page some time tomorrow.

"Ich wette du bist ein Taubenlecker"

2005-05-18T20:33:00.000+01:00

Ok, granted it's unlikely you are going to be able to understand this statement, but it's a quote from an interesting little book I bought the other day from HMV - 'The Little Book of Essential Foreign Swear Words' (RRP £2.50 before 10% NUS discount!). I thought it best to swot up on some of my favourite expletives in German for when I'm forced to go live there for a whole year in October. The terrible two Ben & Chris again thought it amusing to interrupt my power nap & sit in my room, Chris reading every single one out & Ben trying to guess them. Without the headache I would have found it hilarious. So again I kicked them out...

I wrote about 50 words of a research project today before I got bored. It does not bode well. In true student style, I didn't get up until 1pm (all that late night Phantom watching), feeling ill so I didn't go into school for the afternoon to help with an English Literature class. I could cope with the Year 13s with my post-Toffs hangover, but since they've left for study leave they've assigned me Year 8. Yeah right.

Oh and by the way, it means 'I have you down as a bit of a pigeon-licker'. I'll have to remember that one.

capital letters..?

2005-05-18T18:51:00.000+01:00

tell you what's odd.

i emailed a quick report to my parents on how i'm doing at uni yesterday, got picked up by both of them for not using capital letters... not that surprising, they're both over 50

i posted on the blog yesterday evening as well, and i get picked up by andy, who is, i believe, only 20! it's the internet! grammatical convention etc doesn't matter!

ahem

i hope that post wasn't too self referential..

How much do I love The Arcade Fire?

2005-05-18T16:26:00.000+01:00

A lot, find out why by watching this magical video

It's in quicktime, which music videos have a habit of doing, but its still very watchable.

Everyone enjoying the newly expanded bigguybigcity.com team?

Link via Little Paper Planes, technicaly she's a rival, but I think I'll let it go just this once (and the other million times).

Phantom Of The Opera... zzzzz

2005-05-18T01:00:00.000+01:00

Well, look who it isn't! Clairey Fairy has entered the cyper world that is Bone's Blogworld. So be prepared for blog after blog of crazy drunkeness... well I think that's what Bone's expecting, but I am actually sober for the majority of the time, i just tend to get more outspoken when I've had a few... but don't we all?!

So it's 1am and I'm sat on the sofa with my lap-top in front of the most BORING film I have ever seen. Phantom of the Opera. Apologies to any Phantom fans, but really is sending me to sleep! (slight pause as I watch about the only interesting part in the entire thing) I'm also feeling quite guilty as I have done absolutely no work today after our German Tutor spending an hour telling us how important work outside the lessons is... Ooops. I've got my first exam on Friday and have barely started revision, using the old excuse "You can't really revise for this exam" - something I told my parents many a time throughout my school days! But how can I possibly think about revising when I'm excited about seeing Morcheeba on Thursday night! I dread to think what it's going to be like as the lovely Sky has been replaced with a more gritty voiced Daisy, but check out the Antidote, their new album... it's great!

Anyway my bed is calling... it was ambushed earlier by my housemates Ben & Chris. They got a bit silly after I'd begged them to remove a moth from my room (which they wouldn't do so I had to myself) and they promptly trashed the place the minute my back was turned!

So blog readers, until the next time, I implore you... don't waste your £3 on hiring Phantom... it's boring as shit!

richard's journalism update

2005-05-17T23:21:00.000+01:00

bit of an update here on that last post, and ben's comment on it.

happily i do speak and write pretty good french: 7 years of studying it at school has had some effect, but a year spent in france teaching english to french kids/ adults should polish it up a bit. i'm thinking of doing an italian course at uni next year as well, as it's also a romance language, and so built on the same (latin) framework.

i phoned up my cousin piers today, and after some initial confusion regarding my identity he seemed perfectly happy for me to interview him at some point over the summer, and also asked if i'd like to do work experience at fhm as well.

it would be rude of me to say no..

tigg in the blogging zone

2005-05-17T22:07:00.000+01:00

woo i am now officially blogging.

i have purchased a t-shirt from the store and am looking forward to recieving it.

cant think of much to say about the world at the moment coz i have been a social recluse with the amount of work.

however when i do eventually do something interesting i shall keep you informed (note on the 28th may i am having an official funnel day for my housemate colins bday, which means ANY liquid on the day has to be consumed through the funnel only)

adios for now and i shall take a pic when i get my new shirt

tigg

a big guy in a big city

EXTRA! EXTRA! BLOG MOVES ADDRESS!

what a little community!

Long Time No Post..

She Digs Me

Gotta Help Bone Out Here...

We coulda been brothers...

I shall hang my head in shame later...

Hollyoaks celebri-tease + a bit of a recap

Amsterdam: the pics keep coming

Amsterdam: More Escape pics

I get bus-ay

Amsterdam: What an Escape

SPACE INVADERS around the world

Amsterdam: Amstel Botel pics

Amsterdam: The infamous Botel!

Leeds: Gurnfest

Firefox is turning life to Opera

Barrow Superbowl where the fun never ends

Amsterdam: Red Light District

ack! it's broken

And around half the world rejoices

Plugging the Dam

Amsterdam: Future, meet the past

Amsterdam: First Stop, Bewley's hotel, Manchester

Let the deluge begin

Let the deluge begin

The London Bombings

That's It! I'm outta here!

Apologies For My Absence!

Stage One: Complete

Because you'd just die without me writing something

The Karma beast bites Tom

Room With A View

We're only fooling ourselves

Arm the homeless

Oh, the advantages of having a posh-esque voice

Because no news is good news

Wake Me Up When This Hangover Ends

Ever so slightly hazy

I've been very lazy..

We aren't even off the ground yet...

Well I Never

Ok, yeah, Angelina Jolie is *that* hot

TV execs are stooopid.

'Say Hello To Sunshine' with Bone

Big Brother Derek goes mental! Bahahaha

I am the God of Sandwiches!

Research?!

I'm a.....rocket.....man

Rachel Stevens wants me to touch my testicles!

Not Too Many?!

Bernard The Duck Has A Lot To Answer For!

"Walk down the right back alley in Sin City, and you can find anything..."

May be boring but remember, Boobs below

My adventures with a duck

Mon The Biffy?!

Just when you think you're getting big...

The Long Walk for Justice

Downtime, no foolin'

Return of the Mac

Worth a shot

There's No House Like A Student House...

Dear Miss Shore, Many Thanks For You're Interest in Tena... SCOTT!

Our Great Compensation Adventure

The second coolest person on the planet

It's Over! Finally!

Buy Run Lola Run Now! Watch it Now!

Beckham stories are ridiculous

Is this the end?

Ooops I Did It Again

Stupid things students do no.93

More Threadless news

Totally wish I'd made my order this week

Students, save money, eat well!

This is so 3 months ago!

Time to get down

Death Of St Green Day...

merchandizzle

He's right you know...

Ok, yeah, Angelina Jolie is that hot