Awff @ MindSay

My Internet's being sucky, so I wrote this blog in WordPad. This isn't going to mean anything to you, nor has it affected the blog's quality in anyway, I just thought you'd like to know before we got into the meat and balls of it all.

So, the blog title today comes from a quote I read on NME today. Apparently the original members of Limp Bizkit have all reformed, and are planning a world tour and are also recording a new album. Yep, it seems Fred Durst and Wes Borland are both in need of pay packets, and some publicity. What really made me laugh was the joint statement they released though. It's almost as if you could tell they were lying. Allow me to paraphrase:

"We decided we were more disgusted and bored with the state of heavy popular music than we were with each other."

Yes, quite. I hope you enjoy being banded together with all the other pop groups who were in need of cash quick. At this rate, we'll be seeing the reformation of B*Witched next...

Moving swiftly onwards, I'm very pleased to announce that I haven't fallen over since my last blog. My apologies for not blogging sooner, but as I said earlier, I've been hit by a sucky Internet since Tuesday, and prior to that I'd been putting it off. Whoops. I'm not exactly sure what's the matter, but at the moment I'm going to blame Virgin Media and/or the crap weather, whichever one owns up first.

I'm sat here, listening to Celldweller through headphones, because literally there's nothing better to do. I'd turn my Xbox/PS3 on, but in all seriousness it's just too much effort. Besides, I quite like listening to the song I'm listening to, and I don't really want to stop playing it just so I can play some...well, whatever I'd end up playing. Just in case you're wondering, I'm listening to Frozen (Mass Panic Mix by Skeel), which is on the album Take It & Break It Vol. 2. It's a pretty good remix actually. It turns the track, which was originally very electronica based, into a heavy rock track. I love it, it sounds awesome.

I suppose I should fill you in on the past week. Work has been a bit poor this week. I'm not sure exactly why, but still, it's not been a good week, so I'm glad that I've got a week off next week to recharge my batteries and not get too frustrated with it all. Some people have been a bit on edge for no apparent reason, and we've had some arsey patients as well. Patients with no patience, it seems. OMG U C WHUT I DID THAR?!?! ...I guess the snow brings out the worst in people.

Yesterday, I had to take four rather heavy boxes of A4 paper upstairs to the storeroom. As I said, they were quite heavy, and on the fourth box I had to stop at the contact lens department to catch my breath. Yes, I am weak, there's no need to tell me (although you probably will anyway). I didn't think much of it at the time, but I think I might have actually done myself some harm, as today my upper left arm aches, as does my left knee. Of the two, my left knee actually hurts more, as it hurts everytime I bend it. Even now, just being sat down is giving me a very slight pain. Still, because I'm a stupid fucker, I'm just gonna battle on and get on with it. I'm sure it's nothing too serious. Oh, and I've just noticed my back aches too. I might as well've called this blog Aches & Pains Vol. II.

Mena's coming to see me tomorrow :D She's going to be staying with me for a week over half term. I'm very excited about it, because the weekend we spent together in December was ace, and this week's gonna be better, purely because we're spending longer together :D I shall let you know how it was when it's over, as I don't think the mixture of Mena and Sucky Internet will let me blog a lot, if at all.

I'm gonna wrap this blog up with two semi-announcements. I'm calling them Semi-Announcements because I'm not really announcing anything, except that I'm not announcing anything. Still, I'll put them in seperate paragraphs, as it'd be easier to read that way, and it makes this entry longer, as if it wasn't long enough already.

ANNOUNCMENT #1
I might reform Living Sedative. I was thinking about it the other day, and when I get a bit more free time, I want to actually finish the tracks I was working on, rather than leave some good ideas behind, never to be heard from again. I wouldn't release them as two seperate albums though. Instead, they'd be put into one album, which I reckon will be called The Final Resurrection of Living Sedative, seeing as after that I would kill the project off until I could make something even better.

This album would then be followed by a "Greatest Hits", if you want, called R.I.P. I'm not too sure how that would work out, but then, this is just something I'd like to do when I can get my tools back together and find the time to do it. It's very unlikely, but still, it would be nice to go out with a bit of a bang. We'll see.

ANNOUNCEMENT #2
I still can't tell you about this one yet XD I'm waiting until it's made public, but I'll give you a few cryptic clues. After all, you've read this far.

Basically, I've been made a Moderator at RadioSEGA. This is a pretty big deal for me, as I've been a fan of the site since I stumbled upon it's radio station via my PSP in December 2008, and as I got to know its members, I felt like I could offer a lot to them, either as forum staff or as a contributor, and the more I fit in, the more I felt I could do.

So, I could be doing a bit of both. I've been made a Moderator, and because of this I'm now privy to a lot of internal discussions as to how the site should be improved and built upon, in order to really grab a hold of the increasing traffic and popularity we seem to be getting. I mean, we're getting mentioned in magazines for fuck's sake. Could AWFF and its self-centred arseholes lay claim to that? I thought not.

Anyway, in the future we're planning a pretty big deal that's going to make the radio station something really special. I'll wait until Mark makes it public on the forums. After all, I'd hate to be the one who lets the cat out of the bag. It is a big deal though, and something to get excited about.

On that "cryptic" note, I'm going to head off, and see if I can get this blog uploaded the next time my laptop decides to connect to the wireless router. If you see this blog on Thursday 12th February, I was successful. If not, then I obviously failed, and I have hung my head in shame.

Till next time...probably a week.
-=Gavvie=-

I shan’t go into detail, but I saw Gav today. And we had “fun”. 3 times. Once whilst watching Finding Nemo. Which was a little disturbing, I agree (if that’s what you were thinking). That’s all I’m saying about that.

I don’t really have much to say from the off, though I will probably end up ranting about something or other. Uni deadlines are coming up very soon, and I’m not doing very well in keeping up. I’m sure I’ll be alright though, I always am.

I had an interview for a teaching assistant job two weeks ago, which I think went quite well. They called me last week to check references, which is a good sign. They wouldn’t be checking if they didn’t think I was appropriate for the job, right? At least that’s what I keep telling myself. I need some money for this damned Egypt trip! I’m actually starting to get pretty excited about it. I was talking to Gav about it last night, and how it’d be awesome if he could come, but he can’t.

Things with Gav have been pretty great recently. We had a few arguments some weeks back, or maybe it was in January, but they were nothing major. Except when we almost had it out on the DLR. Seriously, I wanted to hit him and storm off, but I was very aware of the amount of people that were already staring at us as we whispered an argument and didn’t really want to cause a massive scene.

I’ve been seeing a lot of my school friends. We’ve met up twice this month, and seeing as the only people I see socially these days are Gav and Sina, I’d say things look good. We may be meeting again for a little piss-up this week, as we decided to make meeting a weekly thing but I’m not sure what’s going on with that yet.

Lately I’ve been thinking about who my real friends are. The thing with me is that a person usually means more to me than I do to them. So it’s only one friend that I have a slight problem with at the moment. I met Naj at uni, and for the first two years we were really close, we’d meet up for the hell of it and just hang out. This year when we started uni, it was as though she had had enough of me, and replaced me. There’s this girl Moni, who I’ve never really got close to. For some reason whenever I’m with her it just gets very awkward. Anyway, Naj spends a lot of time with Moni and all of her friends these days. Uni started on October, and we’ve only had lunch together after our lesson together once. Maybe it’s because of this that I’ve gotten pretty close to Ben, whom I also met at uni (the first day actually). I’d say I’m as close to him as he is to me, because where I would’ve spent time with Naj I’ve spent it with Ben. The usual checking how each other is, their whereabouts, being together in lessons. Most people at uni think we’re dating, but it doesn’t bother me. Thinking about it now, I’m grateful for people like he and Sina in my life (even after all the shit I went through with Sina) as well as Kay and Hayli, who I hope I keep seeing more of, There are the odd people online, but my inconsistency means that I may get really close to someone, but if they don’t try to keep in contact with me, it’s unlikely we’ll be that close again.

Oh, just to mention briefly, I made a little “comeback” to AWFF, following a conversation with Darryl about inactivity. Let’s see if I can help his cause.

Anyway, enough rambling from me, I’ve decided I have nothing left to say :p

Mena

Quoting Bullet For My Valentine today. To be honest, I prefer The Poison more than I do Scream Aim Fire, but their newer album's a lot less metally, so it's got better songs on that you can listen to more than once in a row.  I can't really put a metal track on repeat for hours on end, but I reckon there's a couple of tracks on Scream Aim Fire that I could do it with.

I got hold of The Feeling and Jack Johnson's new albums the other day, via Mena. I've not listened to JJ yet, but The Feeling's album is very good, and quite deserving of the #1 Album Chart spot it got today in the UK. Not listened to it enough to pick a favourite out just yet, though the lead single's good.

Before I move on, I have to talk about Living Sedative. Work on the new albums has halted for a few weeks whilst I figure out in my head where I'm going with them. I obviously know musical direction, I'm just wanting to finalise a few ideas before I put them to paper (or a computer screen, in this case). Some track names are coming to me, which I will be using. Conversations That Changed the World's final track will be called Conversation: End, whilst Only One Word Springs to Mind's final track will be a dance-rock track called Going Out With a Bang. I'm actually contemplating putting lyrics to that track, though I probably won't when it comes around to it. I've also had the brilliant idea of maybe covering Song 2, and doing something with that.

The First Shot Always Hurts the Most still isn't doing too great. I've had 6 downloads as of today. The link's still live, so if you're wanting free music, then hunt the link down and give it a listen. It's worth it, I promise. I only spent a year working on it :( The other two albums will be added shortly, I just need to find the time to stay online and upload them to SendSpace.

Moving on, I might have major job news to announce within the next week. I'm not quite sure yet, but you'll hear from me one way or the other. Could be quite exciting.

I got a comment a few days (weeks?) ago asking why I'm no longer on AWFF. I would've left a comment back, but I couldn't be arsed, so I'm gonna describe my reasons here. It's nothing I want to particularly hide, so there's no shame in making them public knowledge.

Basically, it bored me. It bored me and I tired of constantly being the scapegoat. OK, so I may have said some things that others considered "out of line", but everybody is entitled to their opinion. AWFF doesn't allow you to have opinions, their members don't allow it. After being there for over 3 years (ish, I'm not quite sure on that bit), I was effectively forced out because I was no longer needed by the community.

To be honest, I saw it coming. Members were forming their own little cliques that would exclude certain members, but allow others. The members that were left out would become disconnected from AWFFs happenings, as they didn't fully understand what was going on. New members didn't stick around as the community wasn't open enough. Five or ten posts later, and they were gone.

There's also the issue of what AWFF actually meant. In the beginning, I was happy to be a part of it, because it was going to be a reboot. It was meant to be a humourous video game website, where the community could participate. However, barely three months after it's launch, the decision was made to revert AWFF back to it's Final Fantasy roots, the roots which the site was trying to avoid on it's relaunch. The idea was to make it more accessible to everybody, yet it eventually went back to being specialist. Was I happy with this decision? No, because I knew it was the wrong one. Am I still happy that I made the right decision? Yes, I am.

I was told recently that the forums haven't been the same since me and Mena walked out, mainly due to the opinion issue that I alluded to earlier. Without meaning to sound egotistical, I would presume that this meant AWFF ended up hinging on myself and Mena to stick around and shit stir, so that everybody could band together and try to force us out. When we left of our own accord, the fun left with us, and so nobody has a reason to be there anymore. Because of the cliques they themselves formed, AWFFers have closed themselves off from being the community they once were two years ago.

So, bearing all this in mind, why would I go back? Speaking rhetorically, if I went back it would have to be for a pretty good reason. I no longer speak with the Admin like I once did, and I feel his opinion of me has devalued greatly in the past year or two, along with the majority of the members. I don't feel like I should go out of my way to change these opinions, as it's just unwanted hassle on my part. AWFF has helped me to learn who my friends are, and everybody who I assumed were friends ended up being just people I knew. As a result of this, I'm a much happier person, and I have no need to mingle with the community anymore, even if it is stuck in a timewarp.

Do I miss AWFF? No, but I used to when I walked out. I sometimes wondered whether I'd made the right decision, as a lot of my early Internet time was spent there. After dabbling with the GamesDomain DigiChat, and FFMO, I eventually settled in AWFF and stayed there. It was a hard decision to actually leave the community I'd grown up with, but after everything that had happened, I was sure it was the right one, and I still believe that to be the case. Going back now, if I wanted to, wouldn't be right for me. I have people closer to me with whom I can share my life with. People like Cloey, Kev, Matt and Ash aren't people with whom I want to associate myself with anymore. I want people in my life who can make me smile, like Mena can. She doesn't hurt me. She understands who I am. AWFF never understood me. They assumed me to be somebody who I wasn't, and I was painted with this brush throughout my stay there.

So, hopefully that explains it. I don't want to return to AWFF because it's no longer a website I enjoy visiting, and will never again enjoy visiting, primarily because of its members. I wouldn't fit in, not that I'd want to. I won't change who I am for anybody.

Thanks for reading.
-=Gavvie=-

I'll start by saying, yeah, I've brought back the blog.

Today's the day I've decided I'll go for the whole 'new year, new start' thing, and what better way to do that than by... re-capping the last year. I feel the need to do this, because it was one of the stranger years of my life - strange in that nothing really seemed to happen for the first two-thirds of the year, only for everything then to happen all at once.

January was uneventful, as it usually seems to be. The uh, highlight being coursework and exams. And if it wasn't for the release of Final Fantasy XII, my re-discovery of Pokémon, and The New York Fund's album launch gig at The Borderline, February and March wouldn't have been much better.

April saw the re-re-re-opening of AWFF, which was where things started to change in that I re-established contact with a group I hadn't been in proper contact with in over a year. I also bought my DS in what I described as 'like a birthday present to myself, only a month early'. May meant birthdays, as it usually does - most significantly, four twentieths, including my own.

June saw the best gig of the year, which was Ash supported by The New York Fund at the Koko in Camden. Much fun was had and I saw Andy from FFS for the first time in ages. June also meant exams, and despite my Multimedia game killing itself the moment I put it onto disk, and failing my Principles of AI & Neural Networks exam, I passed the year.

July saw me getting back into the IRC scene regularly, meeting some people who'd apparently been around for ages but I'd never met before. August involved my two-weeks of being home alone, but not before getting mugged and losing an iPod, £15, and the rest of the contents of my wallet.

August also saw me diagnosed with Keratoconus (Google it), essentially meaning the cornea of my eyes doesn't want to stay still ("the cornea thins and changes shape to be more like a cone than a parabola" - thank you, Wikipedia), essentially leading to me having a radically different lens prescription each year I go to the optitians.

Then September was when things really began to change, starting with my job placement. It's specifically stated in the company's 'Electronic Communication Regulations' that I'm not allowed to say anything about them in blogs. Hmm. It sucks arse though, and I thought I was gonna be stuck with 11 months of absolute boredom.

Then I met Christine, which lead to a rather good late-September til mid-November, particular highlights included Fresher's Week, Bonfire Night, and various trips to the student union bar. Things sort of went pear-shaped by the end of November though, various events that worked together to make me feel like crap.

Anyway.  Despite that, postive steps included more re-establishing of contact, this time with a load of the people from uni, particularly Ricky and girlfriend-of-six-months Emma, who I now know I'll be living with next year, which'll be nice. Of course, this is all while being stuck on placement, which sucked. October included the infamous (and extremely unexpected) Comeback Day, which put me back in contact with more people.

Lastly, December, which was almost as rollercoaster-ish as November (but not quite), mainly involving time away from Christine, 'that Christmas party', but also involving good old Christmas, a discovery of a true friend in Katie, and various events including Pina's 18th and a trip to Camden.

It was an eventful year, moreso than I seemed to let on at the start of this entry. I've learned a lot from it - about myself, and about other people - and I just hope that I can make 2008 an even better year.

Bring it on...

Well, I suppose the good run had to end somewhere.

Whilst I am able to release A Taste of Things to Come from tomorrow (6th March), it won't be on AWFF until further notice. This is mainly because Meph, the guy who was going to upload it for me, hasn't been around this evening, and I'm unable to do it myself. So whilst it will eventually turn up on AWFF, it won't be on there tomorrow.

INSTEAD! You'll have to request it on MSN (email address being ps2_dc@hotmail.com), and I'll send it to you through there. The album is 41.8MB, and has been compressed using WinRAR. If you don't already have WinRAR, Google it and download it. It's a free program, so you don't have to pay a penny. It also compresses files down more than WinZIP does, hence why I used WinRAR for the album, and WinZIP for the singles.

I am sorry about this, but it is the best I can do for the time being.

And finally, the Let Yourself Go CDS will be available from AWFF for one more week only. After that, it'll be removed from AWFF, and you'll have to either request it from me on MSN, or download the track itself from MySpace.

Happy Listening
-=Gav=-