11-05-09 – I be straight illin’ / For the Horde?!

Alrighty, time for some recappery! This week engulfed (I know that’s not the right word, but I still like it)…

- Being iller than an early 90s NY-based rapper with swine flu.
- Scared a bunch of people at a fun YAWA gig in Brum (6/10)
- Made a “Making the beat” tutorial video for Lady Gaga – Poker Face
- Did some blogging on biab
- Getting addicted to warcraft ><
- Doing my Uni FYP demo
- LOLHUMMINGBIRD:

Made me burst out laughing since I’ve been on both ends of a similar situation.

I’m so totally sick.

I woke up on the day before the birmingham gig with a massively sore throat, coughing fits and a nasty cold. I may as well have poured milk on razor blades for my cereal, and in general it’s pretty hard to focus on something when you’re involuntarily self harming every few seconds, so this week I’ve found it quite difficult to get anything done.

I tend to get colds really badly but relatively far apart, which has the advantage of less wasted time, but the disadvantage of feeling like death warmed up in a pressure cooker. Also, I have trouble sleeping as a general rule – it’s not helped by a blocked dose and coughing that actually shakes me across to the other side of the bed.

BTW – I’m not looking for pity, I just like using colourful metaphors, and I’m pretty sure I don’t have swine flu, since I don’t believe that pigs can fly HAHAHAhahahahaha… ha.

ARE YOU IN DIS CLUB?!

The morning was stressful. Since Jamie had gone to spain, none of us quite knew where he was at that point, and we couldn’t get hold of him since his mobile was off. So it was that Kieran and I were running around like headless chicken from about 10am looking for a back up bassist just in case, until 1pm when Jamie called and told us he’d just got off the plane. Whew!

I wasn’t quite sure what to expect in birmingham. Most of our shows there have not been too amazing, but recently quite a few brummies have been popping out of the woodwork on our myspace. We arrived at an empty pub – a nice pub though, on the wharf of a river, with a cool little venue room downstairs. After chilling with Zak and Eamon (We all squeezed in my car along with all the gear O_O) for a bit, Jamie eventually turned up, shortly followed by Kieran.

We sat out in the sun for a while, listening to Zak’s newest slang word “Nosh” being overused, and not quite understanding what it meant, since the context tended to change as often as Kieran in a Primark store with no time limit.

After we loaded in and soundchecked (some fun bands on the bill – an indie band “Silent Riot” who’s playing with us at the June 5th EP release show who had 3 layers of “oh-oh”s at one point, and “Bull See Red” who had some riiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiffs!), the place started to fill out nicely, including some YAWA girls who were all dressed in purple (apparently completely by accident, but I reckon that they were just being nice since that’s my favourite colour.) We went to sainsbury’s to grab some healthy food (apple donuts and lucozade) and hung out chatting outside, til it got freezing cold and we headed back to the Flapper (that’s the venue btw)

When we returned, however all was not pixies and rainbows – I became onset by a bout of exhaustion and general illness just before I had to go on stage. While I was setting up my gear before we went on I was actually struggling to stand. My throat killed when I talked too loudly, and I was dizzy as hell.

We kicked into Navigator and I was running around like a psychopath, screaming my head off. I don’t remember feeling any pain. As usual, I don’t remember what I was feeling. I have vague recollections of girls looking terrified as I ran up to them and forced them to scream (sounds WAY dodgy, but I assure you it was all in good fun.) And in the end I got everyone getting their crunk on. Booties were shaken, shoulders were brushed off, and I got everyone to shout “We IN dis club!”

I remember after the show I walked up to Kieran and asked him where I could possible have got my energy from. I managed to keep my energy up as I packed away (We had to leave straight away since Zak had to take his mate to see his dying grandmother in Stafford O_O) and after goodbyes were said, I hopped in the car and took Zak, Eamon and finally myself home.

As I walked up the stairs to bed, I realised I had a migraine, and jumped into bed as fast as possible, trying to fall asleep before the excrutiating pain hit (well lucky it didn’t happen on the drive home!). I was lucky this time. Though waking up with an even worse cold and the remnants of a migraine isn’t tantamount to encouraging productivity. Suffice to say that day was a lazy one.

Mum mum mum mah…

It wasn’t a completely wasted week though – I managed to make this video of me making the beat for “Poker Face” by lady gaga:

Which was infuriating since I kept having coughing fits half way through and having to start again. I like to do the majority of things in one take – though I ended up splicing two parts together.

It’s interesting – a video I did last week now has less views than my pokerface vid after one day of it being online – I like seeing what people prefer watch Stats are fun.

That is Dubstep.

I also managed to post a few blogs on boyinaband.com – including a pretty comprehensive definition of Dubstep. My page views have gone up considerably since I started posting more often again. By 14.61% in the past 12 days, in fact. I seriously love stats.

Warcrack.

Don’t fret just yet – I haven’t started playing World of Warcraft! I wouldn’t do such a thing – I know if I began It’d consume my life, so I’m keeping off it as much as I keep off drink and drugs. I’ve been playing Warcraft III – which was made by the same company before WoW. It’s an AWESOME strategy game. Got a good plot too, which is rare for fantasy Strategy/RPG games. I can see why people get so involved in it on the MMO game (for those that don’t know, MMO = massively multiplayer online – you’re learning geek language, yay!).

But yeah, it’s helped me keep busy while I’ve been unable to concentrate on anything productive during my illness this week, and for that I salute it. I can also now say, to any people that might care, with some conviction that I am very much for the horde.

Ch’yeah, ACED it, first place!

I kicked my FYP demo’s ass. A presentation for my final year project – 5 mins, 11 slides – all you need. Well, I also spent weeks developing a complex browser-based game, which helped, but I like to think the majority of the ass kickery was done by my blagging. The assessors seemed to like what I was saying. I kept referring to what I had learned from my mistakes, since I reckon that’s what they want to hear. We shall soon see if that is reflected in my grade ^^

But yeah – apparently there’s ANOTHER presentation I’ve got to go in for – regarding my placement year. And when I asked the teacher who emailed me telling me this; “When are you free and what do I need for the presentation?” she replied “next friday”. So I’m probably going to write about the consistancy of the colour of the office walls while I worked in the business village. I.E. Several white slides.

Next week on Dave’s blog!

Whoo-whee! Well not short on gigs lately, two shows coming up – one in coventry again, where I’ll probably be chilling at my black friends’ house again! (Score! More unnecessarily racial-based jokes abound!) And after that one in Amersham, which is just north of London. Whoops! I forgot to do this in list form:

- Cov gig.
- Amersham gig.
- Getting the final YAWA EP artwork through (They’ve dispatched it now, it was held up at the printers.)
- Seeing Kieran again, yay! (He’ll probs be moving in around september, when his lady goes to uni.)
- Stopping being ill!

AND THE BLOGLY QUESTION: What do you recommend to help cure a cold?