The Zoos Shave All the Animals

I've been back at Uni now for 3 days, but it's so easy to 'spot the fresher'.

I shall offer you a quick guide of how to spot a Fresher

1st Law
'Bum fluff'

You don't want to look like you've just come out of primary school so what do you do? You try to grow a beard of course! However, it's clearly obvious that you haven't been on this planet long enough to have had enough shaves to grow a proper beard so it looks a bit fluffy.

I did this, btw - to see if I could grow something. I still can't...


2nd Law
'Wear outrageous clothes'

You're at Uni now. Why would you want to look like everyone else? You're different to everyone else in the world and no one can put you in a box even though everyone else can be boxed up. So what should you do? That's right. Wear things that make you stand out.

But if everyone does the same thing, then who's standing out?


3rd Law
'Where? How? Why? When?'

Where's A block? How do I get to A block? Why do I need to go to A block? When do I need to go to A block?

Are you accidently trying to flash your fresherism at me? Or are you just proud of it?


4th Law
'Keep fit'

Due to the lack of knowledge about the Uni, freshers tend to do a lot of doubling back on themselves, therefore they walk further and keep fit :)


5th Law
'Shirts'

Only freshers wear proper shirts like they're at work. The only people at Uni who are allowed to wear shirt and black trousers are lecturers and me, but only when I've come straight from work. lol. Actually, I should've gone home to change but couldn't be bothered.


6th Law
'Do EVERYTHING'

Pool. Snooker. It-box *wink*, gym, Uni ball, Uni party, fashion show... you name it, freshers gotta do it!


7th Law:
'Queue up nicely'

Freshers are really well behaved in queues. Seriously.


Disclaimer: My list is neither conclusive, accurate or a true representation of freshers.

Reg is someone who goes to my church.

I was just watching the video of Uganda when me and a few guys went over in Summer 04. (Thanks Loz!) and heard this:

Sat: So how have you found Africa so far?

Reg: It's been great. It's the furthest I've ever been away from home! The people have been superb. I mean, I worked with a lot of Jamaicans before and they're great people.

Sat (to everyone) : Does he know we're in Africa?!

I'm watching the Abundant Life church webcast at the moment.

I'm not sure if you've ever watched another church from the 'outside' but I always find it really strange.

We really are a perculiar people!

I even saw the worship leader doing 'spirit fingers'

"Those aren't spirit fingers.... these are spirit fingers!"

I also tried to give some money online but I don't have Mastercard, VISA or Amercan Express. It was a sign ;)

Ohhh. I just saw Rachael. *waves at screen* ... she's smiling at the kids... and now she's playing with her lip. I can see you :P

And now I've just seen Sez. Walking away from the worship! :-o
And Darren with two mics - I guess one doesn't work - some things never change. lol

How bizzare. How bizzare!

While travelling to Adam's in the car today, I picked up this little gem.


Gary (dodgey Northern accent) : So Tom, are you going to be playing football tomorrow?

Tom: Na. I won't be able to even last 20 minutes... I'm so unfit.

Gary (dodgey Northern accent) : Well. I'm playing tomorrow and I haven't played for at least 2 year. Saying that though, I'm a goal keeper, ain't I, so I don't have to worry about being too fit!

Tom: Yeah. True. There's no point of me going though, cos it won't improve our chances!

Gary (dodgey Northern accent) : Yeah. But I mean, even though I ain't played in 2 year though, I still haven't lost me goal keeping instinct.


Huh?!??!!? If you'd ever seen Gary play in goal....

You'd understand.

I've been looking forward to this week for AGES.

For you see:
Me
Timmeh
T
Andy and
Mark,

were due to go into a studio this Tuesday and Thursday to begin making sweet, sweet music.
(With guitars and vocals and drums and bass)

And has this week let me down so far?

No!

We went in on Tuesday - guns blazing - and managed to put down 4 guide tracks (we are doing 6 tracks) in the space of 3 hours. (Guide tracks are basically guitar and bass) We also managed to put some vocals down, but after listening to them today, we are definitely going to have to redo some of those! BTW, it's only my vocals at the mo.

I mean, I'm so far out of tune at some points it makes me wonder how much I'm out of tune ALL the time.

I have to say though, Jen, that going up the octave on the harmony for the bridge on With You is so much better. Mainly because whenever I go high on any of the songs, I can sing it in perfect tune... going high is gooooooood.

That's "going high" kids.
Not "Getting high" cos 'getting high' is bad mmkay?

Don't Do Drugs.

So yeah. I'll have to sing to 3 more tracks anyway, cos we finished the rest of them off tonight. I'd say we need about 6 more hours to lay down some more tracks on each song, to put some more vocals on each track and to EQ each song perfectly.

That's 2 more nights. And trust me... it will sound good :D

There's a reason I'm blogging at 2am in the morning though, and that's because it took us AGES to set up the drums tonight. We used an acoustic kit which sounds so good, (thank you Mr Blount for the cymbals and snare) but Rob (our current sound engineer - it's his studio) had rewired it recently...

Which is fine...

.... unless you rewire it incorrectly...

... which he did...

So we took 2 hours to fix all the problems we had with that.

Fun and games, eh?

But Andy was excellent. He got through 4 tracks in 40 minutes. That must be some sort of record. And he also got the other 2 done... by 11:30pm. But that was because we had to record the guitar and drums for those 1st.

I'd also like to say sorry to any parents who thought their son would be back by 12ish when he didn't actually get back til 1:30am. The drums had to be done after all the hassle it took to set them up!

It'll be worth it in the end though.

Honest. :)

I thought this day would come...


I just didn't realise how soon...


I'd been waiting a while...


The signs were there...


I feel like I've had long enough to comes to terms with it...


And after all, what would life be without a little surprise here and there?


But.... I just gotta tell you all...


Gary's back!!!!!!!


The man himself. The legend. The enigma. Gary Price.

And he's brought a northern accent with him.

Our mission, fellow bloggers - if you choose to accept it - is to make Gary speak like a Bristolian again!!!!

And after giving him a lift home tonight, I can tell you, without doubt.

He's the same.

Cryptic posts can be cool.

Yesterday should of happened 4 months ago.

And many people pray that it shouldn't have happened 4 years ago.

And a friend can cause more problems by lying than they can by breaking anothers trust.

But apparently I can cause problems too... without knowing!!!

And I have one thing to say to this...

"Whoops."

Confused? You should be. Cos I was!

Last night I went to bed at 9:30pm cos I was completely bored out of my mind.

I have no idea why... maybe I'm so used to going out during the evenings that a night in completely threw me.

Anyway, I was sleeping and someone rang my phone at 11pm... who calls at 11pm? ;)
Obviously I cancelled that call straight away, but then they rang again about 5 mins later...

So guess what I did?

I hung up again!

The moral of this story... I have no credit! And don't ring when I'm sleeping.

Holiday! Holiday!

This week I’ve been on Holiday. We went down to Ilfracombe in North Devon. Very nice t’was. We stayed at a caravan park called Ruda.

My week went something like this… (note – the days and things that happened are probably a bit wrong. All corrections welcomed)

Saturday:
“ERR. THAT WAS THE JUNCTION”

Up at 5:30am… Not a good start, cos I’m pretty pants at waking up that early. I managed to get to church before Adam though, so it was all good! I blagged Luke Radford into my car and we managed to go on a little detour for about 1 hour, due to the fact that we over shot the junction we were supposed to get off at.

Everyone cheered us when we arrived. It was all good. The sun was shining and the football was kicking. Went for a bit of a disco in the evening.

Funniest things to happen –
Tom and Luke getting lost for 1 hour.

Chris leaving J2O on his car roof and driving off with it on there – a drunk person had to tell him that it was on his car.

Karaoke Level –
No Karaoke. Only the disco.


Sunday:
“COME ON THE UTD”

First ‘real’ day and guess where we spent it – at the beach! And I only got a bit burnt this day. The sea was cold, but the ladies were hot *wink*
Watched Man U beat Newcastle 2-0!! Yes!

Funniest thing to happen -
One of the youth called Matt thinking that Tigers were female lions.

Karaoke Level –
Got up with the boys and sung together. I can’t remember what we sung, but it was funny!

Monday:
“YOU’RE JUST IGNORANT” & “WETSUIT!”

Bit of an overcast day so we just chilled around the site. Me, and few of the guys and girls went swimming and saw a very pretty lifeguard. Her name was Rachael. Watched some of the other guys do some mountain boarding too but not before we walked past someone’s caravan near ours. This old guy basically had a go at me and Andy and called us ignorant cos the area around his caravan ‘wasn’t a walkway’ which it was.

In the eve, me, Andy, Nig, Esther and Luke went to play tennis and found out we’d been walking the wrong way for about 15 minutes. Whoops
Also, Adam had gone surfing again and when he returned he put his wetsuit in the sink. Ryan was playing his guitar and we created the ‘Wetsuit’ song. On film.

Funniest thing to happen -

Luke telling Loz I had sunstroke and then telling Loz at the end of the convo he was joking and that I’d put him upto it.
Andy Norman inviting Rachael into the Jacuzzi and then saying ‘You don’t have to if you don’t want to. I’m a gentleman.’

The Wetsuit song and Adam's reaction to it.

Karaoke Level –
The boys and girls split up and did ‘You’re The One That I Want’.


Tuesday:
“I JUST HAD TO ROLL ON THE FLOOR”

We went for a shop in Barnstaple and I got myself a lovely tennis racket. Luke also brought lots of Thornton’s chocolate and I had a caramel truffle… so good!

Me, Luke, Maz and Andy also got in a game of tennis after jumping back in Adam’s car to get back to the site faster. I left Maz with Luke because I’m evil and wanted to play Andy! Luke thought that we’d all swap after a while but it didn’t happen. lol. Andy and myself finished the day with the score at 7-5, 0-3 to him.

But it wasn’t over then. Jamie and John Hooper played hosts to the greatest youth holiday moment ever… perhaps even the funniest moment of my life… please Lord, if it can be bettered, I think I’d actually wee myself with laughter.


Funniest things to happen:
Water fight with almost everyone. I got away with it cos I nicked the camcorder to video it.

Jamie feeding John Hooper and Andy Norman’s reaction to it. Oh. My. Word. It is the funniest Youth Holiday moment ever!! And it’s all on film! I was crying so much.

Karaoke Level –
I can't remember.


Wednesday:
“RUN! RUN!”

The day of sport. Firstly I played football in the morning. Then went for a swim straight after that to see if I could catch Rach. Unfortunately she wasn’t there and the other female lifeguard we asked seemed a little bit jealous that we weren’t interested in her instead! Me, Nig, John and Luke then played tennis. This time we swapped it around. Luke beat me and I beat John. And then me and Luke beat Nig and John. Fun and games! We had another disco session before returning to the caravans. Oh ho! But the night wasn’t over there! Luke being the innocent man he is entrusted me with the key to the caravan. And I abused this trust by taking out our 3 lads and starting banging on Jamie and Tristan’s caravan. Not before the girls all joined us though. I’d like to declare on this blog, that I did not invite them :P Jamie and T tracked us all down after a while, cos 13 y/o boys cannot whisper.

Funniest things to happen:
When we asked the not so hot lifeguard when the hot lifeguard would be back. And trying to ‘accidentally’ splash all the lifeguards who were stood on the bridge.

Banging on T’s and Jamie’s caravan 5 minutes after they had all settled down.


Karaoke Level –
Me, Trist and Jon sang 'I Don't Wanna Miss a Thing' by Aerosmith.

Thursday:
“IT WASN’T ME”

Another dosed day. We did a treasure hunt in the morning organised by T and our caravan came 3rd. Basically the losing caravan had to do the washing up the next day for the winning caravan. We weren’t last so I was happy!
We played tennis again. Yay! And I beat Andy Norman after a thrilling 3 set match.
5-7, 6-0, 6-3 to me after being a break down in the final set. I was loving it cos he’s really good at tennis and I wound him up about it all day.

We had our first and only BBQ and me and Luke did the cooking – cept for the chicken and spare ribs which were done in the oven. It was actually quite fun cooking it.

Also had a bit of drama today where one of the caravan window was smashed after someone had tried to break into it. Unfortunately, all the evidence pointed to 2 culprits from our group, but neither of them seemed brave enough to admit it and one even cried when being accused.

Funniest thing to happen -
Justin chatting up a girl after 5 of us managed to coax him into it.

Karaoke Level –
Me and Jon sang Nickleback 'This Is How You Remind Me'
We all sang Feeder.

Friday:
“TWO FACED”

Beach day number 2. The weather was great cos God is good and so I spent 5 hours of my day on the beach getting a red back and having Luke dive over me and 6 other people who were on the ground. Trist has got some awesome pics.

We also decided to start up a new game called ‘Window Breakers’. It’s like Mafia except no one dies and everyone is a detective.

Unfortunately our main suspects still didn’t own up to it and managed to call me two faced simply because I believed they did it.
This was after they were moaning to me about ‘friends they had’ ie: me, ‘not believing that it wasn’t them’, even though all the evidence points to them. I hope one of them realises that friends don’t lie to each other and that me saying to him, ‘Let them (the people on this holiday who think it’s you) say whatever they have to say cos you don’t have to worry if it wasn’t you’ is completely different to me saying, ‘I don’t think it was you’.

Funniest things to happen -
Me and Andy flickling sand at Maz and getting her really wound up.

Remember the annoyed guy from Tuesday? Well, he’d put up a tent to stop people walking past his caravan so we decided to move the tent… in front of his caravan door! All on camera.

Karaoke Level –
Bucked up the confidence to sing ‘When You Say Nothing At All’ on my lemon.

Saturday:
“ERR. THAT WAS THE JUNCTION”

Travelled home. The 2 hour trip only took 5 hours cos of a crash on the M5. Nice. We also missed our junction again! Now I’m knackered and am going to sleep after posting this.

Funniest Thing to Happen –
This is a real gem. When we placed the tent outside that old guys door, it wasn’t tied down – in fact, we had to burn through the string to untie it from its original position. When Nig got up in the morning, it was really, really windy and Nig saw the guys tent blowing down the hill!!!
God loves us.