Well this post obviously won’t even come close to the depth and emotion of Craig’s third-person blog, but I suppose that’s nothing to be ashamed of. After all, he did spend many hours furiously writing that work of art. His skill with a keyboard is admirable.

School drove my face so far into a ditch this week that I physically experienced hell. I need to break out of this monotonous lifestyle; I need to take a step forward in life rather than stagnating at this sorry excuse for a school. I looked into applying for uni just in case, through some miracle, I managed to get accepted without Advanced Higher Maths. Sadly, it’s a wee bit too late to apply (the deadline was January 15th) so it looks like university is out of the question for another year at least. That leaves two options: a gap year which would add an element of risk to my future (if my university application’s rejected after a gap year, I’m pretty much fucked) or just going under the radar and getting through this school year by any means necessary. So the next few weeks will basically be spent trying to come to a conclusion on what to do with my life in the coming year – work or high school.

Luckily, the next few weeks are actually designed to help people my age to do exactly that; in the coming week there’s an open day at Napier which gives students information about career opportunities, student living, college, university and other important things. Then, next week, there’s an array of university open days which will let me get a feel for the campuses that I may well be spending three years of my life in – the perfect way to eliminate all the anxieties which I would face when stepping up to uni. If I already know my way around, the lecturers and everything else that I need to, then there’s really nothing significant left to fear. Hopefully in a fortnight I’ll know where I want to go with my life.

I know that a few of the people who read this are further on in life than I am at the moment, so maybe you guys have some words of wisdom to share? Any advice would be appreciated, even if it’s as basic as “Learn to differentiate like a robot.”

Anywho, school aside, I had a rather busy weekend (by my standards). The thing that you lot will be most interested in is the fact that I got a haircut on Friday; my fringe now lies in pieces on the floor. I no longer cover up my face with hair. It’s the end of an era, but this era will be much better. I suppose losing the fringe is just a sign that my anxiety is crumbling – I now look people in the eye without a protective barrier of hair. On top of that, I can now eat without tasting my hair again. There’s no doubt that I’ll miss it, but I believe this is a change for the better. I’ve had enough positive feedback already to prove that I’ve made the right decision in killing the fringe. If you disagree, fuck you. Click.

That night, my hair and I went out singing and dancing. I mentioned the housewarming party that I was invited to last week, along with the fact that I was the only guy there. It was far less awkward than I was expecting but I still felt a bit uncomfortable at times. There’s just something about being the only guy amongst over twenty girls that doesn’t quite sit right with my brain (considering I’m in a stable long-term relationship). No doubt there are a lot of people who will just assume I misbehaved that night but I didn’t. At least three (that I can remember) of the girls vocally expressed the fact that they’d taken an instant liking to me. As lonely as I’ve been without Laura around this week, getting with a random girl didn’t appeal to me in the slightest. But attractions aside, I made quite a few decent friends that night who don’t just see me as someone with a penis. A conversation was had some time into the night that essentially centred around how I’d look with piercings. A couple of slightly drunk girls came to the conclusion that I should get snake bites because I’d be ’soooo hot’. Drunk people are funny.

Then came Saturday. After a night spent in foreign lands, I was awoken by a text from Greg asking if I was up for having a drink that night. As hungover as I was, I wasn’t going to turn down a party with a Greg. The night was actually really good because I got reacquainted with a bunch of people who I went to primary with but never talk to these days. Sadly the night took a nosedive around midnight which resulted in a huge shitstorm, lots of frustration and endless rage. Let’s not go there though. It was a good night for the most part.

Bring Me the Horizon are one of the greatest bands ever. They were the first deathcore band I ever listened to; they introduced me to breakdowns. To this day, their breakdowns are still some of the best. You all know how much I love breakdowns.

Come to your own conclusions.

BRENDAN HAD DONE MANY IMPORTANT THINGS THIS WEEK, EXCEPT THEY WEREN’T ALL THAT IMPORTANT. HE HAD RETURNED TO THE MONOTONOUS LIFE THAT IS SCHOOL, AND HAD COME OUT WITH A SOUR TASTE IN HIS MOUTH. A SOUR TASTE OF ALIEN WING WONG? PERHAPS SO. ON THE FRIDAY, HE ATTENDED A PARTY. AT THIS PARTY, HE WAS THE ONLY MALE. DRINKS WERE HAD, TALK WAS MADE. OVERALL, THE NIGHT WENT BY FAIRLY SWIMMINGLY, MINUS A FEW AWKWARD SILENCES. THE NEXT NIGHT, THE SATURDAY, HE SPENT WITH A MAN NAMED GREG. I’M UNSURE WHAT THEY GOT UP TO, BUT I BELIEVE STRONGBOW AND PAOLO PLAYED A ROLL WITHIN THIS NIGHT. THE SUNDAY WAS SPENT PLAYING CALL OF DUTY: MODERN WARFARE 2 WITH, THE MAN HIMSELF, CRAIG. ALONG WITH CRAIG WERE TWO LESSER BEINGS, HOWEVER STILL EQUALLY MEN IN THEIR OWN RIGHTS. THESE MEN WERE SEAN AND GAVIN. THEY DOMINATED THE ROUNDS AND GENERALLY TOOK THE PISS. THE NEXT WHILE WAS AWAITING THE RETURN OF HIS DEAR, MISS LAURA GUNN.

Utada Hikaru – the best music ever.

If you’re deaf.

I reckon it’s time for a little derivation of my blog. A month or two ago, I’m sure I said that there would very possibly be little rants and reviews to go with the weekly blog. Well here’s a post that will be rather deep and thoughtful (as opposed to a mindless rant).

Feel free to ignore this post if you wish, as it’s more for me to get my thoughts in order than to inform the world.

As you’ve probably gleaned from the title, I still suffer from insomnia. By now it’s probably went on for long enough to be considered chronic (although there are circumstances under which I get a good night’s sleep – I’ll elaborate on that later). I’d say that I have sleep issues – both struggling to fall asleep and awakening in the middle of the night – about 90% of nights at this point in time. It would be fair to say that the problem stems from last year as that’s when I had my first ever experience of insomnia; when your innocence and blissful ignorance is torn away from you, stress becomes a part of your psyche. By now, it’s fairly common knowledge (at least amongst my circle of friends) that stressing has been my favourite pastime ever since. There is rarely a time when I am not haunted by worry, doubt or uncertainty; there is rarely a time when I am stress-free. That said, the insomnia I experienced last year was infinitely worse than what I experience these days; last year I was lucky to get an hour’s sleep each night – this is due to the fact that I was scared to sleep because of what haunts me. Yes, I used ‘haunts’ in the present tense rather than the past; I am still haunted by it, though it’s really calmed down these days and been replaced by other issues. But I might as well start at the beginning as ‘what haunts me’ is literally the root of all problems.

We all know what went down last year and I don’t plan to go over it again. Each and every person who reads this blog has a basic knowledge of the events, but one certain person knows every little detail about last year as they were the one I chose to confide in (for reasons I won’t state, so please don’t ask why it wasn’t you). Everything except one detail – a detail that hurts me so much that I feel physically sick whenever I think about it. So I suppose that means I’m suppressing a dark secret and allowing it to eat away at me by doing so. I wish I could share that burden with someone but a large part of me is scared to do so for multiple reasons: I don’t want anybody else to be haunted in the same way that I am by this; a few unnamed people have actually somewhat betrayed my confidence by sharing my secrets with other people – people whom I didn’t want to share them with; and I’m just generally afraid to confront the issue – avoidance at its best. Maybe I’m being an idiot in bottling this up but, on the other hand, maybe I’m being a martyr and protecting those closest to me. Hurting someone close to me is not a risk I’m willing to take at this moment in time – I can live with this constant pain but couldn’t live with hurting someone I love. That’s just who I am. My friends are everything to me. And this is the reason that I struggle to have an uninterrupted sleep almost every night – recurring nightmares. Recurring nightmares about something that makes me feel physically sick, no less. I often wake up crying with a sinking feeling in my gut, which leaves me scared to go back to sleep every time.

On top of the above, I also struggle to fall asleep even when I’m tired (generally takes an hour or two for me to drift off) because so much runs through my head when I’m lying in bed without light or noise; no distractions – just my thoughts. It’s more or less just an irrational fear of losing everything I have: I feel like I’m inadequate and, one day, the people I love will realise this and walk away; I fear that someone close to me will pass away without a chance to say goodbye; I beat myself up for all of the mistakes I’ve made in the past and start to worry that I’ll repeat those mistakes one day; I convince myself that Laura will one day realise that she deserves so much better than me, and go find the perfection that she deserves; I worry about the future – the uncertainty, the changes, the responsibilities, the independance, the cut-throat job market, all of the landmines that have to be avoided, etcetera; and this list extends indefinitely – let’s just say that I get anxious about everything you could think of and so much more, every night. It’s really stupid how long it takes me to get to sleep in all honesty, because I know for a fact that all of my fears are irrational and have no foundation – I just can’t seem to believe that when it matters most. And, unlike social anxiety, there doesn’t seem to be a way to truly eradicate it. With social anxiety I could just push myself out of my comfort zone, but with anxiety about the future… what can I do, push myself into the future? It seems so futile to even consider tackling the problem so I may just have to learn to live with it.

But on the contrary, there are nights when I have no problem falling asleep and my sleep is not plagued by nightmares. Generally, those would be nights when I have a close friend by my side, a can of Strongbow and some Paolo Nutini playing in the background. Those are the three conditions required to create my idea of relaxation – and has been tried and tested numerous times, with a 100% success rate. However, that scares me; that is dependance and dependancies are bad. It’s like I can’t stand on my own two feet – I need a friend to hold me up; I can’t cope with all the anxiety whizzing around my head so I need alcohol to slow my thoughts a bit; and I need happy music to drown out and replace the negative thoughts. Remove one of the three and my problems linger (even if they’re significantly dampened). Really, my solution is no solution at all and I don’t plan to resort to alcoholism to cover up my insomnia and anxiety; it just so happens that this situation is quite common amongst my friends, so I get a good night’s sleep every once in a while. The only other time that my problems disappear is the obvious situation of being with my Laura, because I feel more safe with her than words can explain – I know nothing can bring me to my knees when she’s by my side. But, again, that is a dependancy. You get the point.

So where do I even begin to tackle the problem? Sleeping pills trap me in the recurring nightmare, I don’t want to touch any form of antidepressant or such to mute my anxiety, and I can’t turn towards the dependancies because that would be detrimental to my emotional stability – I’d get worse and worse each time I was disconnected from the things I was depending on. I suppose the obvious first step is to open up about what I’ve been holding inside for almost a year now… but that terrifies me even more than the future does. Maybe it’s the only way to break through this wall and start to make progress.

I really hope there’s another way.

So now that summer’s gone, life’s returned to its usual self – a mix of tension, stress, emptiness and monotony. I guess the circumstances right now are a bit coincidental; things will get better soon, but for now there’s just a load of undesirable things stacked on top of each other. The world waits for no man, however, so I’m just going to have to trudge on despite everything. That’s enough complaining for now though – I’ll live.

Basically, two significant things happened in the past week: school resumed and Laura went off for a wee holiday to Turkey. The combination of those two things means I won’t get to see the lass for three weeks at least. I miss her in a kind of weird way that I’ve never felt before; it genuinely feels like there’s a massive part of my life that’s missing right now – a feeling that will no doubt become more severe as time passes. At least I can take solace in the knowledge that we will get to spend time together soon enough. Could be worse, eh? :]

As for school though… that’s a feeling that isn’t going to disappear ’soon enough’ because I, along with everyone else my age, will have to endure one final year of it. This year just feels so pointless – all of my courses are essentially repeats of last year, I spend about eleven hours a week just sitting around waiting for my next class, I’m not a prefect and I’m not in any of the committees. I’m basically there so that I can resit last year’s maths exam – with a longer course title – in order to get the C that I need to get accepted into uni. What the fuck.

tl;dr: My life’s in another country. My spirit’s locked within the walls of an educational institution.

On another note, I’ve been invited to a housewarming party at which I will be the only representative of the male gender. I’m not even sure why they decided to invite me, seeing as there will be no other guys there… and about thirty lassies. Actually, I know exactly why I’ve been invited – but I don’t understand the logic behind it. I’m sure that any of you who know me will be able to take a fairly accurate stab in the dark on this one. It’s like a fucking curse – I hate it.

Along with the obvious benefit of my mood being lifted by a party, this will also be a really good chance to break what’s left of my social anxiety. I only know two of the people who will be in attendance, which leaves a truck load of scary strangers for me to attempt to socialise with. I’m really going to push myself through whatever anxiety I might face because it’s not often that an opportunity like this comes along. I suppose this is the moment that will make or break my ability to socialise, eh? Let’s hope it goes well.

Of Mice & Men were something I discovered last week while sorting my iTunes library. Apparently the embedded song was written for one of the band members’ deceased mother. “I need your love like a boy needs his mother’s side” gets me teary-eyed, negl. I love them.

I’m not in the mood to blog but I don’t want to skip two weeks in a row. This may or may not be a matter-of-fact chronological blog.

Right, so I didn’t blog last week because last week was shit; I don’t want to reflect on it – ever. Said shit is well and truly buried now though, and life has returned to the happiness which I was getting so used to. At least last week has taught me not to take it for granted, eh? Life goes on!

Monday was basically a mellow day preceding Tuesday. I don’t think I did anything that day in all honesty, but Tuesday was a much required day for my Laura and I. We went for a wee stroll along the beach and talked loads, then took a walk to Asda to buy food and such. Then we uh… I don’t even remember what we did, other than eat good food. I think we might have been too tired to stay conscious after all the food – I don’t even know. Anywho, once we eventually woke up the next day we decided to be intellectual teenagers and visit the museum. Aye, you heard me. And I’ll tell you what, it didn’t live up to my childhood memories (admittedly, that’s because the majority of the museum was closed for renovation) but it was still a nice wee day out. Flame on.

I don’t know how many of you are up to date on the happenings in outer space, but Thursday was the first night of the Perseid meteor shower’s peak. I’ve never experienced a meteor shower before so I headed out to the darkest place I could find to take in the sights. Although it was perhaps not what my idea of a meteor shower has always been, it was still quite dazzling to be fair. I was certainly satisfied with what I saw. That said, I’m a homosexual and would most definitely sleep with astrophysics if it was a hunky male.

Friday was a repeat of Monday; not gonna lie, I didn’t even leave the house.

Theeeeen, I got my Laura back on Saturday and got to keep her until Monday. That meant, for the first time ever, there was a day in which Laura was the first thing I saw in the morning and the last thing I saw at night. Just saying that makes me smile. I’m so lame. :3 Sunday was the laziest day ever featuring a barbecue in the evening, courtesy of my father and his fucking obsession with throwing odd smelling herbs onto the barbecue to ‘mask the smell of smoke’. I reckon he’s starting to go a wee bit insane, but it’s hilarious so I won’t complain.

Today was good, until people decided they’d be cunts. Let’s leave it there before I end up ranting into the early hours of the morning.

Shit happens.

If Dallas Green is God, Jonny Craig is Jesus. There’s something about this man that amazes me – he was formerly the lead vocalist of Dance Gavin Dance, then moved to lead vocals of Emarosa and launched this solo project. How can a man who sings hardcore lyrics about inventing Times New Roman have such a beautiful voice when all the hardcore elements are stripped away? I’ll never comprehend him but I’m not going to complain about that. As long as he keeps up the good work then I’m satisfied.

Everyone likes acoustic music. Everyone likes Jonny Craig.

Everyone loves Jonny Craig’s acoustic music.

Admit it, you would.

Why hello there, internet. It’s been a while since I’ve saw your pretty little face!

You probably all noticed the dire lack of Brendan on the internet in recent times; I went AWOL when my graphics card decided to melt and drag the rest of my system to the scrapyard with it. I don’t think I need to explain that computers are unusable when numerous parts decide to die. This obviously meant I was left without a reliable source of internet access (although I did manage to commandeer laptops a couple of times during my absence, mainly due to the fact that I missed Laura). But I am back now, as you may have worked out already! This is because I managed to get my hands on a new rig which is fairly budget but also fairly cannibalistic. Imagine what would happen if underground dubstep materialised as a computer; it’s horrible and cheap, but it’s fucking filthy and requires the utmost respect. This is what my new computer is.

Anywho, as these are rough times financially I didn’t have the largest budget ever but I managed to live within my means. To quickly list the specs of this new PC: AMD Phenom II X2 550 @ ~3.1 GHz (Overclocked to ~3.4 GHz); 4 GB of DDR3 SDRAM; 750 GB WD Caviar-SATA HDD; 1GB ATI Radeon HD5750; a 64-bit installation of good old Windows 7; and a watercooling system to compensate for the hellfire created by overclocking. All of this cost just short of £400 and I have to say I’m rather pleased with what I got for such a (relatively) cheap price. The graphics card isn’t the greatest thing in the world, but it’s a low-end DX11 card which will let me run most things smoothly; the processor isn’t quad-core but it’s being pushed to the highest frequencies it can handle and performing nicely; the RAM isn’t some godly overclocked Mushkin L2 but it does a mighty fine job for its price; and the watercooling keeps everything quiet (noise was a major issue on my last build because there were over nine thousand fans operating at over nine thousand revolutions per second). The only thing left to say is that AMD are better than Intel and if you’re still running Intel processors you need to get to fuck. My processor is unlocked, your processor is more than likely locked. I rest my case.

So now I’m spending my time playing around with overclocking and software installation in order to get this PC to the level of everyday usage that I’ve grown accustomed to over the past three years; it feels weird having so much software to install after having every application ever for so long. If any of you have some suggestions of software that I may be missing out on, feel free to throw them at me – I’m more than happy to try out obscure software if there’s a chance of finding a hidden gem. Speaking of hidden gems, IObit’s Advanced SystemCare Pro 3 is a nice wee program that keeps all your shit in order (think Auslogics BoostSpeed with added functionality and increased efficiency, along with intelligent scheduling and background optimising). There’s plenty torrents out there so I’d suggest giving it a wee look, no matter how inadept you are with computers; it’s really rather simple to use and can really sort out old cluttered PCs. It certainly has my seal of approval.

But enough of the technical mumbo-jumbo! You came to hear about my life, not about my computer’s life (or lack thereof), and I suppose I shall have to oblige. But where do I start? I suppose I’ll go for my old favourite, chronological order.

So last Tuesday or Wednesday (I’m not sure which and have no intention of checking) I had a wee trip to the cinema with my partner in crime Greg. Our original intention was to see Inception but we were won over by a poster for Splice – a film about creating human-animal hybrids by combining the DNA from multiple sources. I’m genuinely glad that poster was there in all honesty, because Splice was a hell of a film that I wouldn’t want to miss out on. It gave me a lot of food for thought with regards to the moral and social dilemmas that almost every person in the film faced. One especially mindfuck moment was when the central male character took a running jump over every moral boundary, then refuted his girlfriend’s arguments by stating (paraphrased) “We’ve went so far with this experiment that I can’t tell the difference between right and wrong anymore.” Really, I’d suggest going and seeing Splice if you have time and money because it’s one of those subculture films that’s going to be buried by Toy Story 3 and Inception. Fuck the mainstream, go see a film that has no hype and no grotesque queue.

My week got rather slow and uneventful (with the one exception of computer death) from then until Saturday when my lass came through to stay the night. Long story short: we went and bought a truckload of food and ate it all, resulting in that state of mind where you’re so full that you just want to lie down and sleep, then watched A Nightmare on Elm Street (which Laura watched with her eyes closed the entire time; at first out of fear, then because she decided to have a nap on me). It was a rather amazing night (even moreso than usual) which will definitely be remembered for a long time, but let’s not divulge too much information about that; a relationship is between two people after all – not shared with the rest of the world. Sunday was just a quiet wee day full of cuddles and such, mixed in with some of the heaviest rain I’ve seen in months. This was a good thing though – Laura loves the rain and she leaned out of my window in the rain with a big smile on her wee face. It made my day.

All that’s left to say is that yesterday (Monday, the 2nd) was the one-month milestone of our relationship. Although a month doesn’t sound like a long time to anybody with a good head on their shoulders, it’s a remarkable time for a couple to last in this day and age. Here’s hoping that month turns into a year, and that year turns into a decade. I love you, Laura.

Now here’s another band that I grew up listening to – The Used. It seems to be a widely held opinion that The Used are ’screamo shite’ and have no talent, which has sort of forced them to become subculture whether they like it or not. I don’t care what other people think though; I make my own decisions in life, and I decided at a young age that The Used are one of the greatest bands in existence. There’s just something about the way his voice transitions seamlessly from screaming to soft vocals, the catchy riffs, and the unique blend of aggression and melody. Their self-titled album is a mile ahead of every other album because of the fact that it has many of the band’s albums; it was written in the period of time between being nobodies and becoming somebodies. Many of the songs reflect on how rough the past was for the band, then take a motivational turn towards the brightness of the future and the massive opportunity that their recording contract gave them. They’re definitely not a band that has something for everyone, but if you can appreciate their somewhat different approach to music then they’re definitely a band that you will listen to time and time again. Give them a good listen and let me know your thoughts – it’ll be fun to see how many people can see and appreciate the talent that oozes out of the band.

Worst week of summer. Best weekend of summer.

So I sort of got progressively closer to death as the week approached Wednesday, then got better rapidly at the thought of burgers and alcohol (that thought could cure AIDS for me, negl). I’d list my symptoms and stuff but Laura would just accuse me of having man flu, so I’m just going to cut out the middle man and say I had man flu. I almost died, yunno.

Now, the cure for man flu? A barbecue and twelve hours of drinking Strongbow. We started the day off early, arrived before everyone and such with plans to set up the music and get disgruntled pre-party. Brad forgot to take his speakers out of the car before it drove away though, so we didn’t get no music. We did get a couple of cans in before the other folks arrived though, thankfully. Anywho, they arrived and the music arrived with them, which happened to be a load of shite for approximately seven hours. I don’t even know how it’s possible to have so much shit on one iPod, although I’m sure you’re all going to tell me that I’m a hypocrite now. Fuck off. Anyway, I was civil and restrained for the duration of the posh people party and they ended up leaving shortly after midnight. Party started there. I was dual wielding Strongbow and shit while getting disgruntled to some of Brad’s tunes. I almost died, yunno.

The best thing is that I have another barbecue next weekend, although I don’t think I’ll be getting so wasted seeing as my parents will be the hosts this time. You never know though – maybe me and my father will bond a bit with a crate of Strongbow. I get the feeling there won’t be any filthy dubstep this time either, but my parents approve of Nutini. Maybe we can get disgruntled and have a sing-song, God knows. :’)

Alexisonfire really provided the soundtrack to my early years of high school and beyond. Their music has developed new meaning and attachments with time; as I grew, so too did my understanding of the music. A song that was once about rivalry became a song about the frustration of helping a friend through an addiction; a song about anarchy became a song about voicing your opinion amongst peers that would look to keep you silenced. You get the idea. Many people put Alexisonfire down for being screamo, Canadian or whatever other reason you might want to provide, but I love them no matter what people say. I loved them when they were hardcore, I love them now that they’re more mainstream; they didn’t sell out, they matured. They matured as I matured. If you don’t fucking respect and understand bands maturing, then you don’t deserve an opinion on anything music-related.

Love them or hate them, they have a special place in my heart and you all know how much it takes to achieve that status.

I’m not in a blogging mood, so let’s just get this oot the way for the week eh. ;)

Once again, I’ve had a very eventful week that was somehow also very slow-paced and quiet. I don’t even know how that keeps happening – it’s like I do nothing most days, yet my weeks are full of interesting adventures. :’)

I got to see my Laura on Monday and we went on an amazing two-hour shopping trip to get food for our tea. We ended up with spaghetti carbonara, potato smiles (serious nostalgia right there) and strawberry cheesecake. How we managed to create such a contrasting meal, I will never know. The most surprising thing is that it was fecking beautiful. Dipping potato smiles in spaghetti carbonara = nostalgia + flavourgasm. I’m also now hooked on cheesecake because of that night.

We had a nice wee morning in bed on Tuesday before heading oot to see Get Him to the Greek at the cinema. It’s a film that we were meant to be seeing about a fortnight before but somehow always missed it because we’re fools who are incapable of watching the time. Almost everyone ever seems to hate Russell Brand, but I love the man; even more so after watching Get Him to the Greek. You should go see it, seriously. After Laura headed off home, I decided to keep the ball rolling by meeting Craig and Greg to go walkabouts (except we ended up standing in the same place for 3-4 hours rather than walking about). Those two days were completely packed with doing things – I didn’t have a moment alone from when Laura arrived until about 60 hours later. :’)

But that’s where the excitement ended. I spent Wednesday through Friday doing absolutely feck all, literally. I didn’t even get dressed on Thursday. Friday featured thrilling events such as the dentist and… paying for my Avenged Sevenfold/Stone Sour ticket.

THEN CAME SATURDAY. I spent the entire day with my man Craig, with activities ranging from dancing to wandering around Magdalene to creating black dwarves with massive noses and bright blue blush. Yeah. Anywho, it was nice to spend some time with the man seeing as we rarely spend time together in person these days – the internet makes it far too easy to talk while being miles apart. In the evening, just to make a day of it, we decided to fire up Warcraft 3 for a massive rush of nostalgia – to everyone reading this who owns the game, reinstall it. Now. No doubt we’ll be playing it much more often now and more people would make the experience all the more sweet.

I was a lucky man today and finished off the week by seeing Lauraawrrr again – featuring good weather! Obviously good weather makes lying on some grass a necessity, so we took care of that part first (well, second, because I was dragged around Topshop and EVERYTHING was ‘cute’ or ‘cheap’ :’D). Anywho, there was some shitty motorbike show on in the gardens today which was just a nuisance full of cheesy gags and cliché stunts. I don’t think I’ve ever wanted someone to cock up and die as much I did today. Sadly, it all went smoothly and nobody died. :| After being lazy in the sun, we hit McDonalds and acquired a ’sweet chilli chicken deli’ (that’s so catchy) each – it was like heaven on a sandwich. Kinda cheap too, all things considered. Let’s start buying those more.

That’s where my week ended tbh, and next week is full of plans – it shall be a good’un. Roll on Sean’s barbecue. ;D

I discovered Adept again recently when I was making playlists – I decided to make a playlist of every gig I’ve been to, so when it came to Dance Gavin Dance I remembered that Adept were the support. God, how I have been missing out. The lead vocalist’s clean vocals are perfect, and his scream is so… gritty. If they don’t headline a UK tour in 2011, I’ll be rather surprised. There’s no denying that they’re (technically) some of the best post-hardcore out there – hate them or love them, you have to admire their musical talent. I don’t think I actually know a vocalist that can pull off such good screams AND clean vocals at the same time.

You also have to admire how high he can jump while still pulling off the flawless vocals.

This world is far too full of lies, backstabbing and deception. Of all the people I’ve encountered in my life – let’s make a very rough estimate of a few thousand – I have only ever trusted around twenty. Twelve of them are still in my life, two are deceasead and six have left daggers in my back. Honestly, what sort of fucking track record is that for the most intelligent species on the planet? This is why good, honest and trusting people cannot even make it past the starting line in life; if you set your world down at someone else’s feet, it will invariably get trampled. Even with your closest friends, as proven by the past, you can never tell whether they’re genuine or if they’re just waiting for a perfect opportunity to sell you out.

So how does one deal with humanity; an inescapable swarm that has a firm grasp on every hospitable inch of the planet? There are only two options: you can either drop down to their level and nonchalantly trample every person unfortunate enough to cross your path, or you can completely disconnect yourself from the world and become invulnerable through apathy. Which raises another question – is it possibly to be truly apathetic towards everyone in the world? No, of course it isn’t. There will always be those people that you care about, regardless of how much they hurt you; the companionship you share with them outweighs the pain. That isn’t true once they stab you in the back and destroy years of friendship though. That’s the thing about being stabbed in the back – you don’t have eyes in the back of your head. You never see it coming.

With that said, I want every single reader of this blog to go take a long hard look at themselves and ponder whether they’d ever stab a friend in the back. For a million pounds? To save your own life? For the greater good? If you found a situation in which you would indeed stab a friend in the back, would you kindly go fuck yourself?

Fuck you all, I’m becoming a hermit.

Asking Alexandria.

Enough said.

Yet another eventful week has passed. There’s something strange about summer these days; the weather instantly gets better, alcohol makes the evening that little bit sweeter, good times become amazing times and joy is abundant. Maybe that’s just me but summer sticks out a mile in terms of good times for me.

I genuinely can’t remember what happened before Friday. I think I just played The Sims 3 all week to burn time, which is a surprisingly good game. You should go try it now. There’s something addictive about it, it’s like ‘MUST GET PROMOTION, MONEY WILL PAY FOR SKILL CLASSES, SKILL CLASSES WILL RAISE SKILLS, SKILLS PAY THE BILLS.’ I shit you not, I am addicted to a game that targets twelve year old girls. The best part is that there’s absolutely no shame on my end (of course you lot will be ashamed of me, but fuck you). (:

Then came Friday. I spent the morning doing everything in my power to relax and polish myself until pristine, then headed into town to meet Laura. She decided that taking the slowest bus ever was a good idea though so I ended up walking my dad to his work, strolling over to the bus station then associating myself with a couple of homeless people. They kept me company and were actually really nice people to be fair – I liked them so much that I let ‘em have what was left of my bottle of water. Quite easily, they are two of the strangest acquaintances I will ever have but they were really nice. I doubt I’ll ever see them again, but you never know. Maybe one day they’ll be the ones sharing their luxuries with me when I’m shit out of luck.

So Laura arrived and it was sunny; we were meant to be going to the cinema but figured there was no point in wasting such a nice afternoon, therefore headed towards Princes Street gardens and found a nice spot to lay down. It was weird really, we were beneath a canopy of trees with one little hole allowing a circle of sun to shine through. We lay down in that circle. It was rather a beautiful setting to say the least. We just sort of lay there for an hour or so, staring into each other’s eyes closer than ever before. Then I asked that oh-so-difficult question: the question that turns two friends into a couple. Needless to say, my hunky figure and alluring scent drove Laura crazy – so crazy that she said yes. I’m sure all of the people who read this are already aware of this though, unless I have some obscure lurkers who don’t make themselves known.

Laura crashed at my house that night which was really nice. Our intimacy jumped up a massive amount and caused us to become much closer than I’d imagined was possible. You’ll have to just imagine the details because those are rather private. Sucks to be you. ;)

Saturday evening is when Her Majesty returned home to the fabled lands of Fife, but my weekend did not end there. I bounced from blissful love to drinking Strongbow with two of my best friends. That is what I call a weekend. We sat and drank a few cans while playing Naughty Bear, it was quite trippy. The story of the game goes something like this: Naughty Bear is the only bear on Perfection Island who isn’t invited to a birthday party, but he crafted a present anyway which the other bears laughed at; this isolation and humiliation made him sulk back to his house where he decides to slaughter every bear on the island. Imagine learning this story while drunk, then watching teddy bears fight with swords and stuff while shouting ‘Boo!’

Yeah.

Today, Sunday, basically consisted of going to Asda and buying some new deodorant. I’m not even gonna lie, I spent most of the day just replaying the rest of the weekend in my head and coming to the conclusion that I no longer hate my life.

My life has been coming together for quite some time.

Now it has reached perfection.

Agraceful are a band that I didn’t really hear about until recently, and the embedded song is by far my favourite song of theirs. Ironically, it doesn’t really sound like an Agraceful song. Go figure.

They are rather hardcore at times but they also have the soft serenade-esque songs like The Great I Am. Obviously they’re a Christian band, but if you hate them for that then you should stop reading my blog. The music is good whether it has a religious theme or not.

Dat hair.