A man, A plan, A canal: Panama

That’s a pretty awesome palindrome if you ask me, or several of my associates.

But really this blog post is about my holidays so far and comes in chapters.

Chapter One: Boredom

I have done an awful lot of nothing this holiday. My brother and I watched the entirety of Avatar: The Last Airbender cartoon series back to front and it was so awesome. Then we checked out the new feature film. It was shit.

My main issue is that in the first part they recreate the first episode where they find Aang (Side Note: They pronounce things wrong in this, as though M. Night. Shyamalan hadn’t even seen the series. Aang is Ung. Sokka is pronounced Soke-A. Agni Kai is pronounced Agni Key. What the fuck people! So that ruined it even more) and then he is captured by Zuko. However, they removed all of the humour and tried to explain all the details with words – these details take episodes to unravel nicely in the cartoon (this is also where you get to connect with the Characters, so you’re missing out on a huge chunk of what makes up Avatar). I can’t imagine what would have happened of they’d gone onto the later two series’ and tried to monologue their way through Zuko’s development, Appa’s capture and that thing with the Owl Library etc. Admittedly there are a couple of episodes that could easily be skipped in the film, such as the play in the third book. But that was only to let you settle down before the final big serious uber-battle at the very end.

So that’s how they screwed that up.

If you go to http://www.trashcanman.co.uk/films/noir.php you will see that I’m working on a film. It’s going to be about half an hour long, probably shorter. I’ve nearly finished the script, it’s pretty random in some ways and very straight forward in others.

Chapter Two: A day out in Winchester

So Bryn of The Shydogs was in Liverpool or some shit on holiday. Dan, Caz and I decided to have a random day out to God knows where.

During the summer under 16s on Stagecoach bus can go anywhere in three counties all day for £2 so we thought we’d just get a bus ticket and go wherever. The furthest place from us in one bus trip was Winchester.

We got to Winchester and hung around doing not much. We just walked like we do at home, but it was better because we didn’t know where we were. And we especially didn’t know where we were when we got lost. (<- Alliteration UNGH!) Luckily Caz strundled up (strundled may not be a word, but then again, shut up) to some bloke and it turns out we weren’t too far from the town centre.

We got some food stuffs and ate outside the Cathedral, as you do. We wondered around some more and then went back to the bus station because we’d heard of a magical place.

There was a bus that went to Badger Farm. Well that was the coolest sounding place that we could be bothered to go to so we waited for the bus. Caz went into the café and and got a something or other, it may have been a cherry bakewell I can’t remember. We hopped on the bus and left. Then we got off the bus, well, Dan told us to because he thought the bus was going to turn around and go back to town. Hahahaha WRONG.

We weren’t in Badger Farm as Dan thought, we were in Oliver’s Battery (which isn’t a euphemism thankfully). Well there was a golf course on the hill but we weren’t going to play obviously, so we decided to walk some more and follow the bus route. We kept walking, I took some videos because I had my camera on me. We got to a bus stop and were like “where we at?” and we looked at the map on the bus timetable. Then a girl sat at the bus stop was like “where you wanna go?” and we was like “we wanna go Badger Farm” and she was like “You’re in Badger Farm” so we were like “KThxBi”.

Badger Farm was essentially a housing estate. There was a Sainsbury’s I think but it was pretty much nothing.

So we waited for the bus and went back to town.

Chapter Three: Toy Story 3^3

Then Caz said “I wanna see Toy Story 3″ because he hadn’t. And neither had Dan. According to Dan the cinema in Winchester is pretty bad so we went back to Amazingstoke to see it. That was the second time I’d seen it.

Then A few days later Calum went on holiday, but Bryn was back. Bryn said “I wanna see Toy Story 3″ because he hadn’t. But Dan had. So had I. But we saw it again anyway. Caz: 1; Bryn: 1; Dan: 2; Rich: 3;       Andy’s last name is Davis. I found this out because in Andy’s room there is a certificate like the ones you get at primary school for not picking your nose or some shit (not from personal experience) and it said “Andy Davis” in handwriting and I was like OH YEAAH!!

But then I found you can just Wikipedia Toy Story and there’s his name so it’s really nothing special. But I was pleased. Also I spotted Totoro and got a raging boner over that. So yeah. (Side Note: A Raging Boner means you get massively excited, as opposed to an actual boner for Totoro. For instance “I CAN’T BELIEVE IT’S NOT BUTTER!!!!11111″ and subsequently “Alright, don’t get a boner”)

So I saw TS3 3 times. Arrrright.

Chapter Four: Wales

We went to Corwen to visit my nana who used to live in Namibia but now doesn’t. We stayed in her friend’s guest house thing for three days and it was really nice. The views were badass. I forgot to bring the camera. Oh well. The people who’s house it was were away looking for a new house. They were moving, obviously. However they did get back the day before we left so we met them. They had a nice MG B that my Granddad Ed had fixed up and a bunch of bikes in their garage. It was pretty sweet.

Then the next part of this week-long holiday was to take place at a Haven holiday camp place not too far away. So we stayed in a hilarious caravan where the front door didn’t work properly. It was a lot of fun. First night we didn’t do much. Second day we went around Prestatyn town and saw Inception at the cool cinema there. Inception was awesome. I’ll have more to say about that later.

Next day we something, how many days were we there? It was either Wednesday or Thursday we went swimming and went into the far-too-dry steam room that, after we chucked about four buckets of water in there, was nice and made us sweat up a storm. Speaking of storms there was massive thunder one early morning. I mean MASSIVE THUNDER. Seriously it roared like a roaring thing that had drank about ten cans of red bull and roaring pills that day. Anyway Thursday night we went to a hotel not far from the site and saw a cover band play. They were really good. It was pop/rock covers like Kings of Leon, Fire by Kasabian, Sweet Home Alabama and a bunch of other songs. Can’t remember the name of them but it was their last gig before they went to Uni.

Then I came home and then it was now.

Cya later or some shit.

~RikedyP

M. Night Shyamalan

Proper Gig OH YEAAHHH!!!

So Sunday 18th July, awesome. Less than a week away.

“Oh yeh facebook Loz and Jon..” Said Dan “Oh okay, about what” I replied. “Gigs”

Okay, gigs.

“Hey Loz, basingstoke live was epic, am here and Dan who is singerer in our band wanted me to get in contact with you. He just left the room so I don’t know what he wants. Probably gigs. I guess I’ll find out in a minute. But probably gigs.”

“which band are you in dude ?”
“We are the Shydogs, check out our awful recording skills at http://www.myspace.com/theshydogsmusic

the pic from the link is our lead guitarist bryn hendry, don’t be daunted by his eyes (you won’t get to see them much with his epic hair in the way)

www.myspace.com
MySpace Music profile for The Shydogs. Download The Shydogs music singles, watch music videos, listen to free streaming mp3s, & read The Shydogs’s blog.”
“ok i have a gig this sunday”
SWEET!
Oh shiii. Haven’t had a band practise in a while.
And we don’t have any drum kit.
So I got in contact with a friend who I knew wanted to flog his kit and we bought that.
Then we had a band practise Sunday morning.
Then we had a gig on Sunday afternoon.
It was pretty sweet, photos and maybe videos to be posted later!
Promise I’ll update the website more later.
later.
bye.
~RikedyP

Okay, Odd

How are you?

I’m doing fine thanks, but do you want to hear about my day?

Yeh, Sure.

Here’s what happened:

Something really surreal happened one day on the bus to town from school.

I can’t remember if anything particularly interesting happened that day, or what day it was, but we had this bus driver.

And she didn’t know the route…

It was so weird sitting there while school kids were telling this woman where to go.

The strangest feeling by far was the possibility of being able to mislead her. I feel like a moth near a bathroom light in those kinds of situations, like when I’m on the train station and I cross the yellow line and stand right next to the red thing that’s supposed to stop the train from charging into the bike sheds if it can’t stop in time. I wonder what would happen if I just jumped onto it and stood there.

The bus driver didn’t know where to go.

It was weird.

~RikedyP

A Bad Day…

How are you?

I’m doing fine thanks, but do you want to hear about my day?

Yeh, Sure.

Here’s what happened:

I will say my work experience, despite near setbacks at the beginning, went fantastically well. I will talk about those adventures later but I’ve only just started this blog and really feel that this is what I need to write about first while the aftertaste is still relatively fresh in my mouth.

Present tense is fun.

I wake up rather excited actually, not coffee-bean excited but looking forward to the day ahead. I’ve just had a nice end to work experience despite getting pulled over by a policeman and a school trip to the college I am likely going to in a year’s time seems like it could hold my attention for one more week day before getting back to the ol’ grinding my head on classroom tables.

“QMC trip today!” I said to my mother, sitting downstairs on the couch. “Oh God, do we need to get your uniform done?” “No, I don’t think so” I reply, it’s a bit late for washing by this point anyway and I’m pretty sure it’s normal clothes.

To get to school I usually go with my dad as opposed to the normal school bus and get the train into town and the number 2 up to my school, it runs near my dad’s work so we go that way. Our car(s) is broken at the moment.

When we reach the hospital it’s usually time for my good friend Ed to hop on the bus. Wait a minute? Why is he in school uniform? “Hey Ed,” I greeted him without mentioning the clothes, of course. “Oh, is it non uniform?” “I think so…” “Oh well, I might be the only one going in uniform..”

He wasn’t.

Fabulous luck to turn up to school in a bright pink shirt, jeans and tartan jacket; with a metro newspaper under my arm, completing the ‘homeless’ look I was totally going for. Not.                               Borat.

I talk to a few teachers and explain away me fashion retardation, my friend Duncan comes out from our tutor room and hands me my timetable.                    I had chosen Film/Media, Performing Arts/Music and finally Psychology stuff for shits and giggles.                 This is what my timetable for the day said:

“To: Dominic ****** (in handwriting ->) Be Dominic for Day”

Dominic is a pretty massive chav. I had a pretty massive facepalm.

Okay, time to get on the bus, we can get through this Richard. Even if you do talk to yourself.

My friend Bryn wanted to get on our bus to talk to us, even though he’s in a different house, I didn’t think anything of it and it was funny how easily he got on. So he sat down next to me.

Oh shiiii… Headcounts

“Bryn get off the bus!”       “Now because you let him sit next to you I’m going to sit here for the journey” Sitting next to teachers on buses (especially teachers you don’t know) is shit.

First class: P.E. and Sport. Now, I’m not too athletic, and it’s not untrue that I hate the really bad science and maths that is disguised as P.E.

The only thing making that class bearable was Scott Nichols, the legend we made. Scott Nichols is great, he is insatiably normal and the best thing is that we managed to make an absolute legend out of him pretty much simply by preaching his awesomeness to our peers. I don’t think it really caught on, mind you, but we really have started to believe he is the legend we say he is. All we need to do now is adapt Chuck Norris jokes to fit him.

Next: Media and Film

In Media our lesson consisted of taking the narrated fight scene in the latest Sherlock Holmes, which had been cut into the different shots and we had to arrange them back into the right order. Pretty straight forward and especially easy for Bryn and me as they were already in the right order. So what to do….?…. What to do…..?……

EFFECTS!

So we messed around with all the funky colour and distortion effects in Premier Pro (not sure what version). We then got Chroma Key and dropper selected random colours from the scene to take out and just layered shots on top of each other, it became incredibly surreal!

At lunch time I was spotted by my brother’s friends. “Are you Michael’s brother?” “Yeh” “Yeh cos you look just like him!” “Um… who are you?” “I’m Greg.”

He had ‘Greg’ on the back of his student union shirt, he seemed alright.

Now I forgot to mention that QMC is walking distance from town, but because the teachers got such a massive boner over people on buses before I forgot to ask. But I could have gone straight home from there.

I got on the bus to Tadley. While on the bus I discovered that about five other kids had not got on the buses because they wanted to go straight home. Massive facepalm.

I got straight on to the number 2 back to town once at school.

I went home.

It was pointless.

What a shit day.

~RikedyP

This is Mah BLOOGGGG

When I have the time I will write,

for now just enjoy the pretty theme!