Kermit's Blog

Seinfeld.

A comedy sitcom revolving mostly around 4 characters (Jerry, George, Kramer, and Elaine).  A show that specialises in turning small aspects of day to day lives and social interactions into amazing and hilarious plots for it’s episodes.  A show that ran for 9 great seasons from 1989 to 1998.  A show that still nets Jerry Seinfeld millions in royalties and such to this day.  A show to whom Larry David also deserves a lot of credit for..

Anyway, enough on trying to sum up the show for now.

Seinfeld first came into my life in the mid to late 90′s.  I caught the show in syndication on Paramount Comedy or some other network we had on our cable service, and saw it several times as a pre-teen/ teen.  The show is definitely not aimed at someone of that age, so naturally it didn’t jump out at me as must-watch TV back then.  However as I grew older I understood more (same goes for any tv shows aimed at adults) so I appreciated the jokes and laughs.  It definitely stood out to me as a cool show, yet perhaps due to its network, its timeslot, or the fact my friends just didn’t get it back in those days meant it was something no one my age would be talking about.  Yet ever since those days I did have it bookmarked as a great show I should properly watch at some point.  Plus one of the first comedians I properly got into was Chris Rock (also in the late 90′s in my early teens), and Chris Rock had stated in several interviews and such that Jerry Seinfeld was someone who he admired, plus he’s mentioned the show [Seinfeld] in a couple of his stand up specials.

Anyway, fast forward to 2009.  Last year I got into “Curb Your Enthusiasm” as I’d heard a couple of people rave about it in forums, and noticed a couple of actors/ actresses whom I’ve IMDB‘d had been on the show, plus it was from HBO who have a great record when it comes to delivering “must-watch-tv”.  It was through watching Curb Your Enthusiasm that I learnt of how Larry David was one of the creative minds and one of the key people to thank for Seinfeld and it’s success.  So I told myself once I was done marathon-ing (over a few months) through the entirety of Curb Your Enthusiasm (up to it’s current finished season) that I would move onto Seinfeld afterwards.

Now…as I came to the end of my watch through of Curb Your Enthusiasm, I started to feel a slight sense of emptiness growing inside me in a “what new show could possibly make me laugh and give me this much enjoyment when I’m done?” kind of way.

Curb Your Enthusiasm Season 8 coincidentally happens to revolve heavily around a fictional reunion of Seinfeld, so this furthered my desire to watch Seinfeld, and once I was done with Curb I got straight onto it.

Over the past 4 months or so I am now only the “Finale” away from having completed Seinfeld (through Season 1 to Season 9), and once again I feel as though I will struggle to get that same flavour of comedy from a TV show anywhere else.  See you really need to watch Curb Your Enthusiasm or Seinfeld to see how it differs from your average sitcom like say “Friends” and whatever.  Sure enough there are other comedy series I absolutely adore “Father Ted”, “Flight of the Conchords”, “Spaced”, “How I Met Your Mother”, “Big Bang Theory” and others… but Curb, and Seinfeld are in separate incomparable leagues to other shows (in my opinion).  I’m not trying to argue that Curb, and Seinfeld are the best shows there is, but I do rate them very highly, but just on a scale of there own sort of thing.

Anyway.  I just HAD to do a blog that was PRO-Seinfeld, as it is a show I’ll no doubt re-watch many a times over the rest of my life (same goes for Curb Your Enthusiasm).

Now if you’ve read through this blog (yes you, whom is reading this very sentence).  I URGE you to feed any curiosity you may have gotten from this blog post and start watching Seinfeld or Curb Your Enthusiasm, if you’re a person, and you live a regular life, then you’ve got many “lolz” in store for you.

Howdy (to you, the reader of this text).

It’s currently 20minutes past midnight, or 20minutes into this day of May 5th, and I’m coming to you once again from the university library. O_O

Skateboard Deck idea based off my Anti-Depressants box

Not only am I here right now at 00:20am, I will remain here until beyond the sun’s rise.  I have a deadline for 12:30pm and due to personal mis-management and a lack of organisation I’ve let things pile high.  I let this pressure get to me bad on Monday.  I started worrying about loads of things…as some of you know I’ve suffered with depression, and I’m still on anti-depressants at the moment.  For the most part anti-depressants seemed to limit my mind from being able to wander off into such negativity that could bring me down….Yet on Monday they didn’t seem to be as I was really beating myself up about things.  Worrying about how if I fail I’m letting me down, I’m letting people who already have low expectations of me down, and making it out to be the end of any chance of a working life I’d want.

See I’m very melodramatic with my thoughts when I worry.  I’ve always been like that.  It’s terrible at nights when laid in bed though, I become unable to sleep and my mind can’t get out of the negative thoughts it goes into, thus I worry more.  I wish I could shake that aspect of my life, but until I’m either working in a job I want to be doing, or I somehow luck out in life and win the lottery, then I will always worry…because there will always be bills to pay, and so forth…

Speaking of money though, I had to call Student Finance again today regarding some money I’m entitled too from them that they’ve sort of strung me about over since Jan.  To some extent I forgive and understand them.  They do get overwhelmed with requests and inbound mail from hundred of thousands of students…perhaps even millions.  It’s dissapointing when I ring them for an update and I get a response of the nature of “oh…I see, hmmm, it doesnt seem to have been passed on, I’ll get someone to look at it now…” and then I have to accept that and hope to see an update on things in the next few days.    These waiting games they make me play suck though (as do most waiting games), being left in the dark, leaving it all in there hands, with the potential outcomes being a) I’m financially screwed for the next few months, or b) they finally sort me out with this money I have been rightfully entitled to as a student whom was self supported for over 3 years before I started uni.  :\

Aside from the woes of money constraints and University pressure I did manage to have a good night on the Saturday that just past.  With it being the weekend that Super Street Fighter IV launched, me and 2 friends had a sort of winner stays on endless tournament at a friends house.  We’re all about an equal level in terms of skill so it was some really cool friendly competion.  Must’ve spent about 5 hours playing it, only taking a short break to eat an awesome feast of Domino’s Pizza.  SSFIV is definitely a very high contender for Game of the Year 2010 for me.  Loving it.  Have interested about 3 others into giving it a look as well as convincing my friend Brad into buying it today after he played a bit at my house last night, although the game sells itself if you ask me

My homeboys; Sam & Drew playing SSFIV

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Ok, what you don’t know is that since the =//= malarky above I have since shut down the Uni computer I was on.  Popped to a nearby shop, bought another Monster Energy drink and a bag of Sour Cream & Chive Snack’a'Jacks.  Hiked up the 3 flights of stairs back to the computer region of the library, sat at a different computer (near a plug socket so I can hook up my laptop), received weird looks from the people who were sat near were I was sat before (I think they somehow think I moved because of them), and now I’m on my laptop, listening to iTunes and continuing this blog.

My current work for my uni project involves me using Photoshop to make some skateboard designs for this project I’m doing on skateboard art (you’ve already seen 1 example higher up in this blog post).  I was kinda hoping that the computers here would use USB mice so I could hook it up to my laptop and use it (as photoshop is quite the bitch to use with a touchpad on my laptop).  I would use the photoshop on the computer in front of me, but both the nearby computers I tried have some sort of display issues.
Either this uni library is full of a diverse range of problematic computers, or I just seem to be the worst picker of random computers here. I seem to always choose the ones that work lame.

This library though…it’s quite the place.  It’s like a place that has no concept of time.  It’s 3am right now and there are still at least 20 people scattered about this floor.  Plus it’s all lit up and stuff, it’s not like they’ve dimmed the lates to say “you know it’s late right?”.  I feel as though me and these randoms still here are in some sort of unspoken bond.  Kind of like how when you’re on a plane and you have bad turbulence and you think “if this shit is going down, we’re all in it together”.  Although even if we are some sort of elite night crew whom are here because we’re unorganised and leave things to the last minute…I’m still hesitant to have a toilet break, risking leaving my laptop here .

Well I better get back to focusing on my work.  The sooner I get it done, the sooner I will be able to take in more air with each breathe as right now I’m squashes with the mounting pressure of WORK.

Adios Amigo’s

Kermit

—–

Currently/ Recently:

Current Mood: Just making the most of a random situation tbh

Playing:

• Super Street Fighter IV (360 & PS3)
• Final Fight Double Impact (XBLA)
• Tatsunoko vs Capcom (Wii)
• Pokemon Heart Gold (DS)

Watching:

• Seinfeld
• Pure Pwnage
• Banged Up Abroad
• The Bridge (2006) – Documentary on the Golden Gate Bridge being the #1 suicide spot in the world

Eating:

• Chinese Food
• Domino’s Pizza
• Fish & Chips (…like a traditional Brit)
• I also had some scones on Tuesday.  I forgot how awesome a buttered scone is.
• Not to mention the Skittles I’m chowing down on here in the library

I guess you could consider this a spin-off blog, but basically, if you’re the kind of person that gets bored and kills time with my blog, but are not into video games whatsoever, then you may well want to avoid this blog, as it’s all about them.

First up…let me just get my recent purchases out of the way in terms of gaming.

XBOX 360:

• Fight Night Round 4 — (bought as it looked great, not played the series since FNR2, and it got good reviews) – £40 (new)
• Call of Duty: World at War — (bought as I loved the COD4 solo campaign and wanted to run this down too). – £25 (used)
• Kane & Lynch: Dead Men — (bought as I am a big fan of IO Interactive, and once got to speak to a guy who works for them, and this is the only game by them I seemed to of missed out on). – £5 (used)
• Ridge Racer 6 — (bought as I’m fond of Ridge Racer games, as they’re somewhat unique arcade racers, never played this 360 launch game, and couldn’t argue with the price). £6 (used)
• Fable II – (liked the idea of the game, and it’s in a genre I don’t really play much of, saw a sale on some of the DLC for it, so I decided it was the right time to buy). £15 (used)
• Rock Band 2 – (Been meaning to get RB2 for aaages, simply because I do like music games, and have been a fan of Guitar Hero for a few years, was hoping the price for the game (solus) would come down, but it didn’t, but due to having B’day money I opted for full price, and I definitely don’t regret it). £45 (new)

I’ve also bought about £40 of MS points to get stuff from the Xbox Live Marketplace

• Worms 2: Armageddon (XBLA – 800mspoints) – Only played it for about 30mins so far, but it seems to be AWESOME!!!
• Peggle (XBLA – 800points) – Not played yet, but it has great reviews
• Space Invaders Extreme (XBLA – 800points) – Fkn amazing remake/ update.
• Ikaruga (XBLA -*400points) – Heard good things, it was on offer, bought it.  Not played it yet though.
• ‘Splosion Man (XBLA – 800points) – Released today, not played it yet
• Sonic 3 (XBLA – 400points) – …not played Sonic 3 in ages, I have good nostalgia from the game, and the convenience of having it in my 360 was appealing.
• Fable II – Knothole Island (Game Addon – 540mspoints) – Add on for Fable II
• Burnout Paradise – Big Surf Island (Game Addon – 1000mspoints) – Add on for Burnout Paradise, which I’ll get back into soon, and this addon has good write ups from people on the GameFaqs message boards.
• Rock Band 2 – approx 25+ songs (Game Addon – I’ve bought about 25 songs for Rock Band 2 already, simply because there downloadable content (DLC) selection is amazing, and pissed all over Guitar Hero’s, and because it’s taken me so long to get aboard the Rock Band series I had a great back catalogue to choose from.

Nintendo Wii:

• “Tiger Woods PGA Tour 2010″ (with WiiMotion+) – Bought because a) this game is the start of a new revolution of amazing game control on Wii, and b) I’ll be getting Wii Sports Resort later in July, and with this, I’ll have 2 WiiMotion+ addons for launch day of Wii Sports Resort - £45 (new)
• “Samba De Amigo” – Bought because it looks quite fun as a party/ music game, and the price! – £4.63 (new)
• **Pre-order** – “Wii Sports Resort” – Wii Sports is still to this day legendary, a sequel, with Nintendo’s best quality control driven teams working on it, with the new WiiMotion+ add on can only equal another great party game package.  Out July 24th

So…with that aside, let me actually get going somewhere with this blog.  I’ve mentioned this in the past a few times, but basically this year so far although I’ve very much followed the industry well (as in, I’m always watching videos, reading reviews, checking out previews, staying on top of the news, pretty much everything 1 can do to stay upto date on all things video game related), the 1 thing I haven’t been doing though…is the fun side, the playing!
  I’d kinda lost my mojo for playing video games, and other than the occasional bit of play time here and there, I wasn’t really playing much (in comparison to what I used to), but recently that has changed, thanks in part to a lot of great new games, and also just because I was due a comeback into gaming, and so in the last couple of weeks, when I’ve not been working, out clubbing/ out with friends, I’ve been playing video games…well not entirely true, I’ve been catching up on some TV shows etc also…but for the most part, if I’m at home, and I had nothing that needed doing, then I’d be playing on my 360 or Wii, and most importantly…I’ve been enjoying it.  I say that because sometimes when I’m just not in a gaming sort of mood, even my favourite games just don’t give me that sense of satisfaction I can normally expect from my favourite type of entertainment media.

Following on from the last paragraph, I think I can nicely segway from what I’ve bought, and my re-ignited spark for gaming, and sail smoothly into me telling you what I’ve been playing recently and such.

First up, I’ll go into Rock Band 2…because over the past 2-3 weeks of having this game, I’ve put quite a bit of playtime into it.  Definitely more so than what I would’ve found myself putting into the Guitar Hero series (even when I was at my highest moments of love for those games).  This is simply because Rock Band 2 has a really decent 1 player experience to it, as well as great multi-player.
Rock Band 2′s main mode is “World Tour” this can be played with between 1 and 4 players, and can be played co-op online if you so wish.  Within “World Tour” you pick one of the selected available towns you’ve got open to play at, then choose a gig, and within that gig there will be a few options to you, such as play some specifically chosen songs, or make your own setlist, or a random setlist (songs that are chosen at random), and if you have LIVE access, you can also get some of the online challenges pop up in this mode too.
  It doesn’t end there too, you hire staff to help you build up your fanbase quicker, or make you more money, and to open more doors for you etc, you have to dominate certain areas, and build up your star count in that place to unlock new things for you to progress, and at any given time your chosen gig could get a bonus added to it, such as “achieve 4 or more stars on the following song for double fans/ money, less than 4 stars, you’ll earn nothing”, or funky little music video opportunities that give you some hella funky visuals on screen as you play.  Not to mention the fact you also have a challenge mode too, which is basically like Guitar Hero’s main mode, where you progressively play through increasingly difficult songs and such.  However the challenge mode is more of a side quest, so that just kind of goes to show that Rock Band 2 offers so much more in terms of casual replayability.  Sure enough both games are addictive in a “keep playing to get better” kind of way, but Rock Band 2 just has a lot more to keep you entertained on the whole I’d say.
  The final nail in the coffin for the GH series has to be the fact that Rock Band 2 allows you to rip the songs from the Rock Band 1 disc, as well as from bonus disks (e.g. the AC/DC one), and all the DLC from Rock Band works in Rock Band 2.
…I borrowed Rock Band 1 from a friend, paid the £4 or so it cost to get the license key off the xbox live marketplace, then copied the RB1 disc contents over to my XBOX 360 Hard Drive, and like I said, I’ve in the past couple of weeks I’ve downloaded over 25 songs, so I essentially started Rock Band 2 with about 100 songs available too me, then on top of that playing through the Rock Band 2 Tour I’ve unlocked songs from Rock Band 2, and thus now I have an epic amount of great music in my Rock Band game, a lot of it specifically catered to my music tastes, and MTV/ EA have continued to support Rock Band with DLC a hell of a lot better than Activision do for Guitar Hero.

 Music games aside, I’ve also been hitting the XBOX live arcade quite a lot recently.  I’m looking at you “Arkanoid Live”, I’ve put about 4 hours into this game this week, and about 2x 1 hour+ playthroughs of Episode 1 and 2, and then just some general online play, and playing the cpu in vs mode.  It’s just a really great pick up and play game.  Some argue it’s pricey (with the DLC), but it really is a great game, and it’s something you could easily find yourself coming back to time and time again.
  It’s thanks to Arkanoid LIVE that I yesterday bought “Space Invaders Extreme”, Taito! <3.  I had a quick go on it yesterday night, and all I can say is it’s FRICKIN AWESOME!  Seriously, I hadn’t played Space Invaders in years…and even so, if it was just the original again, it would not be worth 800 points, but this game is that classic space invaders gameplay, remixed, and jazzed up, and the package is just an arcade gem!  Simply playing it for the 15mins or so that I put into it made me sort of wish I had a case of Red Bull, and a big bag of skittles or something, because my eyes must’ve gone all big and excited like a cartoon characters, and I really really would’ve liked to of just sat there for hours and hours trying for high scores and random acheivements.  I DEFINITELY reccomend those of you with 360′s to download demo’s for both Arkanoid Live and Space Invaders Extreme, give it a quick go, and then decide whether or not this game could have a warm welcome place on your hard drive.

Completed Sonic 3 for the ‘whatever’ time last night, I’ve never completed it with all the chaos emeralds though (which is weird as I’d class Sonic 3 as much easier than Sonic 2), but yeah…it was cool kicking Robotnik’s (Eggman’s) ass for ol’ times sake.  I’ll await Sonic& Knuckles coming to LIVE later this year, it’s been ages since I’ve replayed that game also.  Thinking on also…it’d be great if Sonic CD came to XBLA as I’ve never played that game (well…other than the first level on a bad emulator).  Played some Worms 2 recently too, really love this game.  Played some local 2 player (against @ThisIsMossy) as well as some random battles online.  Still not won online yet…I’m too much of a pyromaniac at the game I think…although a game where everyone is overly tactical can last upto like 20mins and I prefer things to be a bit more lively at times.

Fight Night Round 4 has had some time in to it recently (well…within the last couple of weeks) too.  Great game, very deep, but I think I’ve already gone into detail about that game in a previous blog.  Had some multi-player bouts the other day with a friend, which was a refreshing change from the CPU, went into things as if it was the CPU, and patterns weren’t emerging thus I had to slow the pace down, and with that came some quality several round battles.
  Kane and Lynch (360) got some play time not too long ago too, first impressions of that are good.  I can see why it’s a spiritual successor to “Freedom Fighters” (a PC Game I f’n loved), the game seems a bit flawed in some areas…as in the game is difficult not due to a lack of my skill, but more so because the AI, although it’s not the kind of problem that puts me off the game, just something you have to be more cautious of really, having a lot of fun with it though, considering I got it recently (used) for very cheap (£5) I certainly can say it was money well spent.  Should really get a friend over to go through it on co-op with me really
Speaking of co-op, I still need to complete Halo 3 and Gears of War 1, never completed either, but really want to do them on co-op. …been meaning to re-play Resi 5 on the higher difficulties too (via online co-op).

  I’m MASSIVELY excited for Wii Sports Resort this week, I should hopefully have it tomorrow.  I’ve had Wii Motion + with Tiger Woods 2010 for 2 weeks nearly now, but I’ve not managed to get round to playing that yet…I know when I do I’ll be in love with the Tiger Woods series all over again though, and quite rightly so what with the Wii Motion + version being the ultimate console golf simulator game.  Wii Sports Resort will be a lot more pick up and play than Tiger Woods though, so as soon as I’m home from work tomorrow, I can open it up, stick motion + into my Wiimote, and get into some Wave Race and Pilotwings -esque activities on Wii, as well as enjoying the new precision and the other new mini-games.
…possibly get to have some multi-player fun with it too (seeing as how I’ll have 2x Wii Motion +).

   Not shown my Wii enough love in recent months, got a couple of high reviewed/ high regarded game on it that I’ve been meaning to play but just haven’t got round to it.  Kinda dissapointed in myself for that recently.  I blame my living arrangements, I need my own place again, more space…more relaxed, more video gaming in my spare time.

  A game I did put some time into recently though…Fable II (360).  Been curious about this game for a while, it got some good reviews, and I played a bit of the original and thought it was a cool laid back sort of adventure game.  Finally got round to II on Sunday though, and managed to play it for at least 2 hours.  It’s a great game though…it has it’s main story and it’s main quest, but the world within the game is full of characters, and different places to go, so out of the 2 hours + I must’ve played the game for…I probably spent about 75% of that time just messing around, working jobs for money, gambling, pestering randoms in the town, breaking and entering into places, and trying to generally get away with as many crimes as I can.  It’s a good laugh, and I can see this game being a good laid back adventure game time consumer over the coming weeks etc.

2 genre’s of game I’ve been away from recently; FPS’s and Racing games.  I’m very much meaning to get stuck into Call of Duty: World at War very soon, and I also need to make use of the money I’ve spent on extra content in Burnout Paradise too, I loved that game, and really meant to play it more online, but somehow just phased out of that game, but I get a reminded in my head every other day for me to get playing again.

  So….currently I’m at over 2,500 words, and believe me!  I could go on, but I think putting this sort of irrelevant, unorganised, video game related blog out has taught me that I need to start writing more about games again, but on a more focused nature.  This blog is sort of an all around in pieces blog, simply because I’ve played quite a few games recently, but due to not being at home right now, I’m kind of just writing this off the top of my head, and in which case I can only imagine it’s not been the most structured blog I’ve done :p

Either way though…there’ll be more to come soon.  Perhaps a Wii Motion + blog next I reckon.  Giving you the personal low-down on if Wii Motion+ is the revolution in control for Wii.

Summer of Arcade 2, starts today on XBLA.  Every game this year is a purchase for me.

• ‘Splosion Man – Today - 800ms Points
• Marvel vs Capcom 2 – July 29th – 1200ms Points
• TMNT: Turtles in Time – August 5th – 1200ms Points
• Trials HS – August 12th – 1200ms Points
• Shadow Complex – August 19th – 12ooms Points

  ~Until then…thanks for reading, keep gaming, add me to LIVE (kermit1986), add me to twitter (@kermit1986), and Adios!

  ~~Kermit

So yeah like I said…yesterdays blog got cut a little shorter than regular because yesterday was a busy day…and thus it got to a point where it was either “post what I’ve wrote” or… “continue it later”, but to continue later would’ve lost me momentum, and no doubt just ended up stuck in the “drafts” bin for a few days.

 Anyway, this is just another regular general day to day life type blog.  I still mean to get a good ol’ blog in based solely on video games I’ve been playing recently and such, and will have that out this week.  I’d quite like to give Tiger Woods PGA Tour 2010 a try on Wii (with Wii motion plus) as I feel as though a hands on with the new WiiMotion+ controls would add value to that said blog post).

 Today though…I’m mucho’s tired, had one of those nights last night where you just kind of mindlessly watch tv and such and then you look at the time and realise it’s hella late, and after giving it about 2 minutes to see if a camera crew would come in followed by Ashton Kutcher to inform me of a time-trickey-esque punk’d-ing, but that didn’t happen, so I just had to sigh, go to bed, and hope that I wouldn’t be super tired in the morning, and well…it’s now the next day and I have been tired for the past 2 hours.  I’m hoping for some sort of energy burst to kick in…maybe once I have lunch I’ll be good.  I’m craving a corned beef sandwich today, not had a good one in a while.

  On the subject of food though, I need to get back into working out some more at home…I used to get in at least 3 semi-decent home workout’s in a week, I’m not really aiming to get beef’d or anything…just about staying healthy, and in relatively good shape.  Plus I feel like I need to get in some good weekly excercise as otherwise I would have to become very calorie concious or something, as it’s not like I don’t enjoy a good meal such as a big subway, chinese buffets, and other such epic meals.
…I’ve kinda had excercise on hold recently as it’s been TOO HOT, my tiny lil room I’m stuck with at my parents is a bastard temperature wise, when it’s hot it’s really hot…and when it’s cold, it’s a winter jailcell…and then with the on and off rain of recent, it’s stopping me being able to pop out for a little bit of skateboarding.  Anyway, I could go into a deeper more “emo-esque” blog regarding my issues with myself and eating/ weight, etc…but I won’t (not right now anyway).  All I’ll say is that I just tend to be very critical of myself, for whatever embedded reason that may be, yet I don’t ever put that same criticism on others, as I’m not that shallow.  Mmmkay so now I’m bordering on a self-hate topic, and I just said I won’t emo-up this blog :p.  Jeez.

  Moving on >_> …I have one of those real bastard spots today, the kind that you don’t even need to see in a mirror or something, because it literally just sits there on your face, trespassing, and you can feel it on you.  It’s a major annoyance, I’m tempted to get a knife and slice it off, then put it on the table and point at it and shout abuse at it…but well, that’d be mad.  So instead, I’m hoping a bit of clean & clear spot treatment shizzle will delete it’s existence from me.

  Kinda dissapointed in myself for not getting anything done debt or uni wise last night too.  I need to sort out my tuition fee loans as a priority, then i suppose just apply for whatever else I can get…I only need the tuition side sorted in order to do my course, as I could technically stay at my parents whilst I’m at uni, or ideally get a job, and move in somewhere cheapish with a mate whos willing to move out or something…or even just into uni accomodation later down the line with said “job” money.  I also need to send off the thing to get my Uni library card sorted.  Oh…and I need to get things in order for my debts…recently I’m thinking although it may not be “ideal” I might go with one of those debt consolidation companies…who basically make it so that instead of paying off numerous individuals, I just pay them and they sort the rest out…the downside being they’ll take a cut for there own profits and such, so te 3k I own may end up being like 4k to pay back.  Which is suckage…but on the other hand it’s the only way I can see out right now, and there convenient offering is desirable.  I need to get all this stuff sorted by Friday…as a personal deadline I reckon.  Stop putting shit off and letting days off, it NEEDS doing.
look at me all motivational like

  Oh, I forgot to mention in my last blog that my new skateboard is now fully complete, had a quick go last Friday, and it felt awesome, I could fell the “it’s new and improved” straight away.  Can;’t wait to get more time with it…weathers not been to in favour of that though.  Feckin rain :p! …I’m actually not too bothered about rain in general, just tims like say I was meant to be going for a skate, or to play some ball, or something like that, or on a night out…where I’ve spent time sorting my hair out, only for rain to totally sabotage it (cause my hair goes insane when it’s wet…it’s like a gremlin, I never feed it after midnight either).

and whilst I’m on about hair…here’s a random lil pic I made up sometime about March this year I think…?

:p

  I need to go get some diet coke I think…get some caffeine in me.  Althoguh buying Diet Coke means I’ll end up with more mess in my room >_>.  See the 500ml bottles of Diet Coke at the moment have a promo on where you get a code for a free song download from iTunes, but it’s only select Artists, and although there is a decent selection…at the same time there isn’t…so I’m having to wikipedia a bunch of 80′s/ 90′s 1 hit wonder type people, or people I’ve heard of but not sure for what…so I end up having to do about 5-10mins of research just for a free song that I wasn’t neccesarily in need of.  Also each time I get Diet Coke I get more points to my “coke zone” reward scheme thing, I got moer than enough for a free XBOX360/ Wii game now, which is cool, but I’m currently stuck waiting for them to update with some new games, which I suppose is cool as it’s not like I’m starved for games right now.  I’m a sucker for rewards schemes with things…I got loads of them in my wallet, the only one thats really paid off is my GAME card, over the years I’ve probably had about £160 worth of free stuff on it…and I currently have like £10 on it, as it is.  I’ve been doing Nectar for a while…although you need to be like the owner of BP or Sainsburys and illegally milk points out of the system to get anything of value, I’ve had Nectar for what seems like ages, and although I rarely get to use the points that much…I’d of thought I had better things available for my points ammount.  That’s the problem with Nectar though…you need to be like someone who spends £100 a week on fuel [at BP], and spends like £200 a week on Shopping at Sainsburys, as well as being with whatever phone company endorses nectar, and all this malarky…because those whom just so happen to be using all that stuff will have a tsunami of points come at them, were as I’m just getting urinal splashback. :p

  Oh another note to mention, my childish-ness got the better of me earlier…I was speeding down some stairs, leaned forwardgrabbed both rails about half way down the first batch of stairs and then sort of swinged to the bottom, it’s hard to explain it without showing it…but basically it was sort of as if I jumped down however many stairs there was left to be covered…and my left foot landed a bit weird, and then I instantly felt this burn in my left thigh, and then I was semi-limping afterwards (when i got something to eat) felt really weird at the time though, I could feel the muscles presence inside me unlike I ever have done before, and the burn was a really weird feeling.  I hope I’m not stuck limping for a while now.  This kind of reminds me of a thought I had about my “drunken worms” I’m quite partial to doing on nights out.  I never practice them…I just do them randomly when drunk on nights out, and due to this I generally do some bad ones (as well as some good ones), but the bad ones tend to really damage my knees and leave me with “grandad-esque” knees for 4 or 5 days afterwards :p…so I was thinking maybe I need to retire my worms soon, or! practice them in my spare time, heh :p.

  …I hadn’t heard this in a long time until earlier >>City High – What Would You Do<<

Also, on the subject of spamming YouTube.  I heard this song in Rock Band 2 when I got it just over a week or so ago, and I liked it…then I heard it on the radio here, it’s just getting released as a single I think
Hollywood Undead – Young
 and another cool song I’ll re-bump (I say that as I may have put it on my facebook a while ago?)
Polyphonic Spree – Runnin Away

and finally on the subject of music.  Paramore’s new single “Ignorance” – >>Download…Click here<<

and with that, I’ll bring this blog to a close.  Numerous blog ideas up my sleeve, as well as just these general ones on my life and shizzle, so expect more soon.

As always…I’m generally always posting stuff to twitter too, so if you have it…FOLLOW ME! and I’ll follow back.  http://www.twitter.com/kermit1986

Adios Amigo’s

Kermit

—

Kermit is currently/ recently:

• Harboring a cold
• Bored at work
• In need of sorting out his uni things and debt problemo’s

Listening to:

• Social Distortion – Been a fan for a while…just been in the mood for a bit more of them recently
• as well as a bit of Michael Jackson, H.I.M, and Bob Marley
  ….I listen to loads of music, but I’ve just been specifically track hopping to the above named a lot recently on iTunes etc.
  

  Current Mood: Ok, just fidgeting about at "work"

Watching:

• The Michael Jackson Story – Some ITV special thing from after he died, 45min long documentary on his career pretty much
• RE-Brand – Some old Russell Brand show from approx 2002, should be quite a decent watch from what I got from the first ep

Playing:

• Rock Band 2 (XBOX360) - Bought a few more tracks yesterday, and had a go at some challenges within the game, as well as had a bit of an “on my own” sing along last night, heh :p

Sooo….

It’s Friday.  I’m @ work, and blogging, thus living the “paid to blog” dream…sort of, although I’ve blogged from work at my previous 2 jobs also so this is nothing new.

Anyway…I don’t intend this one to be HUUUUGE, but you (or I) never know.

Anyway, I have my birthday coming up in 11 days, not that I’m getting hyped or overly excited for it or anything, but I am surfing the interwebs, and spamming eBay with searches, and just going on online shop browsing adventures.

I’ve just finished checking out a bunch of 70′s “Dog Town” style skateboard replica’s on eBay, and also came across some classic “1 tail” 80′s Skateboards too [I remember I had a turtles skateboard that rocked that retro style ].  I can’t really justify buying a retro board right now though…as I’ve been meaning for TOO F’n LONG to build up a new (proper) skateboard.  Which will cost me in the region of £120-160 to do so…but it’ll be worth it as I love skateboarding, and my current deck is haggard as hell (I’ve had it since 2001), the end tails are thinned out like crazy, and although I can’t blame it all on the skateboard, it can only be slowing me down in terms of progression with mastering what I can do already/ and learning new tricks.  Plus I don’t get that long roll you’d normally get from a push when on my board as my wheels/ bearings/ trucks are ancient and have seen too much bad weather usage.

  I watched “Lords of Dogtown” for the first time in a while the other night (I love that film, I love the documentary on the Z-Boys, and I just love that late 70′s era of skateboard evolution).  That’s really ignited my skateboarding passion within me a bit more recently, and with my B’day coming up, it may well be the right time to get that new set-up built. 

  Other than that I’ve been eyeballing a lot of video games recently too.  There is no denying I’m a massive video game fan (or geek if you will), that part of me is always there…but it’s all been ‘theory’ recently and not ‘practical’.  By that I mean I’ve been reading about games, the industry, monitoring e3, and just generally keeping up to date on most things Video Game related.
HOWEVER!
…I’ve not really been playing a whole lot of much recently.  Which on the one hand kinda sucks, but on the other hand it’s mostly due to me just being out a lot more.  Although it’s not like I never get time to “game”, I’ve just been tending to put my free “whilst at home” time into watching Tv shows and movies recently…although I presume this is just one of those phases, and that I’ll be back into video games again more soon.
  Anyway…that whole last paragraph was a ramble off point, because what I was going to say was that I’ve been looking at a number of games I want to purchase, some of them are games that have been out for a while now, and some of them are upcoming releases…

Examples:
Xbox 360

• Left 4 Dead
• Call of Duty: WaW
• Mirrors Edge
• Fable II
• Fallout 3
• Mass Effect
• Rock Band 2
  —-XBLA
• The Maw
• Space Invaders Extreme
• CellFactor
• Sonic 3 (why?…I own it like 4 times already!!)
• Wolfenstein 3D

Upcoming 360 Games I want:

• Ghostbusters: The Video Game (although I’ve heard some worrying things about how good this game is to be)
• Dead Rising 2
• Splinter Cell: Conviction
• Tekken 6
• Fight Night Round 4
• Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2
  —-XBLA
• ‘Splosion Man
• Marvel vs Capcom 2
• Turtles in Time
• Trials HD

Wii Games:

• Animal Crossing: City Folk
• Punch Out Wii
• House of the Dead Overkill
• Ea Sports Active (gonna get it free soon via CokeZone)
• Pikmin 2 – New Play Control

Upcoming Wii Games:

• Wii Sports Resort
• Tiger Woods 2010 (Wii Motion+)
• New Super Mario Bros. Wii
• The Conduit
• Metroid Prime Trilogy
• Red Steel 2
• Wii Fit+

…this list only really contains the things I can think of off the top of my head, no doubt there are other games out there I wouldn’t mind, and ones I’m forgetting.
Not to mention the fact I currently have a number of games on 360 and Wii that I have never played yet, but own (usually from sales, or great offers).  I could do with some time off work or at least a bank holiday weekend maybe to squeeze in a bit more gaming time than I’d normally get to play catch up on such delights.

Gamer geek aside though, I also want to get some new clothes, so I was hoping after my birthday to have a chunk of cash in my pocket to have a nice trip down to the trafford centre/ Arndale centre (Element Shop ), and maybe even Aflex Palace to updatify my clothing options.  Not to mention the fact I am eagerly wanting to get a tattoo on me (although not quite sure what I want and where).  As well as wanting to go abroad for at least a few days this year (Amsterdam perhaps).

So yeah…basically all this blog post has been about things I want to blow cash on, I don’t even know if I can call this a blog, or if it’s just a personal reminder list for me to come look at when my bank balance is nice and shiny.

  Oh p.s. I’m still in mucho’s debt, not really made much progress on that, and not really been checking any of my “letter” mail in months either :\  I’ll have to tackle that lot eventually, but it’s all so dull and depressing, and I just don’t want my summer bringing down with that kind of crud.

  Moving on though…Twitter’s picking up more steam recently I’ve noticed.  As always you can find and follow me @kermit1986 — and if you’re not on Twitter, I reccomend checking it out, it’s simple, and too many people seem to overlook it’s simplicity and not “get it”.  Twitter is awesome, see it as a micro blog, with the ability to follow and message friends and also to follow some cool internet-trained celebs whom are on it too .

  Cinema updatings!

I saw Terminator Salvation the other day avec ma friends Tom & Charlotte.  My thoughts…to be brief:  It was quite good, and fans of the series should watch it.

It was definitely not as good as Terminator 2 or 1, and was more serious than number 3.  It felt a bit different seeing an adult John Connor (played by Batman) in the main role and taking this as a Terminator film…considering the rest of the movies have revolved around Arnie (good or bad), and also the other films have tended to revolve around a start to finish bad guy chasing the good type plot, where as this one is more about the future war, and the good pretty much chasing the bad.  However the story came together well with the series, as well as dropping in a number of “fan service” references to the previous films.  I can see why some may be dissapointed, but really it depends on how much love you have for the series in terms of how much you’ll like this I reckon.
  Personally I <3 the series.  I even accept number 3′s cheesiness, so it put a smile on my face to see that “The Terminator” a series that’s been in my life since I was a kid…is still going to this day.  *hears terminator theme in his head.  I’m not quite sure I believe that we’ll be using USB data sticks in the future though (as this film implied), although time will tell on that.

  I’m in a bit of a rush (work is actually living up to it’s name now), so I’ve had to cut my Terminator synopsis and this blog on the whole short a bit.  Tonight I’m off to the Chinese buffet, going to possibly try “duck” for the first time in my life, and later on I’m off to see “The Hangover” which I’ve been hearing a lot of good things about.  So I should be in for a good Friday perhaps, and in good company too

So yeah…end of blog time.
Thanks for browsing
Adios Amigo’s…
…Kermit

—

Kermit is currently/ recently:

Playing:

Current Mood: Faffin aboot @work - Happy for tonight

• Scene It: Box Office Smash (360) – Just as good as the first, if not better.  <3 being tested on film knowledge
• Wii Fit (Wii) – Put in 32 mins into it the other day, Super Hula Hoop, 10mins Rhythm Boxing, Step Aerobics, and some arm workouts which I did, but the Wii trainer says I did wrong :p
• Arkanoid LIVE (XBLA): A true arcade classic imo, a bit pricey for XBOX LIVE Arcade standards, but I haven’t played a good game of Arkanoid (especially on a big screen) in sooo long.

Watching:

• Napolean Dynamite
• Marley & Me
• Journey: Greatest Hits (Music video DVD)
• Flight of the Conchords
• Family Guy
• Skint

I’ve just noticed that this is actually my 51st blog since moving to my own hosting, and now my 138th “official” blog (although who’s counting…other than me :\, lolz).

So…I’ll start this, just to kill a little bit of time on my late Sunday night (as it is right now), but I have the intentions of saving this as a draft, and continuing it either during some waiting time at work tomorrow, OR! either Monday or Tuesday night.

Anyway, as I mentioned in my last blog I believe, this weekend was the first weekend for me in about 7-8 weeks in which I didn’t go out once, it’s not been too bad though, I thought it’d all just seem like a depressing sense of loneliness, but it hasn’t.  I’ve not really accomplished much, played some XBOX360, some Wii, watched some stand up comedy, some WWE,  and just wandered around the internet (as you do).

*eats mike & ike's

One thing that’s still bugging me is the fact that because I didn’t go out this weekend I’m left with money still in my wallet, and recently I’ve not been used to that (AT ALL), so like an impulse mong, I’ve been trawling a lot of online websites for stuff to buy.

Mostly clothes and video games I’ve been looking at, although that narrows down further to just random t-shirts mostly, and a few XBOX360 games I’ve been meaning to buy for a while that I believe would have good value for money.  I was looking on the “Hot Topic” website, and was so excited at the thought of maybe buying some stuff off there, but then I got to the checkout stage and BAM! the minimum delivery to send to the UK is like £25 .  However, some of the stuff on there I’m SOOO in love with that I will have to just save up a set limit, like £120, and then just go nuts.  On the plus side it’s all stuff from Hot Topic, in USA, and as far as I know we don’t get “Hot Topic” in the UK, and a lot of the stuff I saw on there site I’ve never ever seen in real life.  So, extra yay!
-Also I feel I should fill in those who are like; “wtf is hot topic?”, well Hot Topic is basically a franchise clothing store in America that specialises in like rock stuff, as well as just culty/ scene stuff and dabbles in other fields too.  Having had a look around though, theres a lot on there that’d be my cup of tea.  Plus I could do with a 2nd pair of converse, so I think I’ll get a few tee’s and some new shoes, and whatever else catches my eye when I come to actually buy from there.

I’m hoping to hear back from my bank about my Credit Card application tomorrow, as I applied for it on either Wed or Thurs of last week I believe.  One downer is the fact I may get accepted for the card, but then find out I have a shit limit on it (like £500), when my recent pursuit to get hold of some money from the corporate lending bastards of the world has been fixed on me getting hold of £1,500 which I intend to have paid off before or by early September this year.  My momma bear kindly offered to lend me the money if the bank doesn’t work out, but she said that last week… and over this weekend I’ve sort of pissed her off about 3 times, 1) I’ve got my lil bro’s picking up swearing having heard a lot of profanity in video games and music I’ve been playing in my room, 2) my mum could smell a certain herb coming from my room the other day when 1 of my friends was round, 3) I’m not sure what 3 is, but she does seem to be triple-annoyed by me.

***_*_*_*_*_*_***

The underscored and stars above denote the fact it is now Monday afternoon, I’m sat at work and have been told it’ll be about 20-30mins until someone will be able to start getting out eBay bits for me to write down, photo, etc.  So, naturally I turn to the internet to viciously murder some time for me.  Facebook lasted me the whole of 3 minutes (comment my pics or something, give me a reason to smilez when I’m on there, PC4PC as the myspacers say), and now I figured I’d add to this draft blog.  I don’t think my mums got a grudge against me anymore, which is good, and although my dad was in a bit of an assy monday morning mood earlier, he’s chilled out now and not on my case about everything and anything.

Spent a good part of the morning playing “motorbike part tetris” as some dude had bought about 9 things off us through eBay, and I had to tetris them all into the smallest box I could (to save shipping costs) yet make sure they weren’t going to break in the box etc.  It sounds stupid, but it was actually quite fun, like some sort of crypton factor puzzle or something… except I win no prize (unless self satisfaction counts).  It’s also getting harder and harder and harder to find things nowadays, basically once something goes on eBay it goes into the nameless piles of eBay bits, which we have about 3 piles, piling up, in 3 different places in the upstairs (where I work).  If I was to compare finding these parts to a real life game of Where’s Wally, it’d seem fun…but it’s not, it’s annoying, yet theres so much stuff that it’s just unthinkable to actually get round to organising these piles of parts.  Ah well.
*spams some work photo’s*

a shot of 1 of the parts piles

a wasteland of motorbike parts

mini moto

randoms

You see that 80's pc on the left...thats my "work desk"

2 Health and Safety issues I have with this place though, is that no one ever seems to put these vent pipe cover things over the exhausts when they’re testing a bike that they’ve been fixing, so my (and everyone else upstairs’) working environment becomes full of exhaust fumes, sure it’s a big place, so we’re not confined to it, but it stinks, and it just seems sooo wrong to be breathing it in (seeing as though people can die from them).

I GIVZ U DEATH

The other issue I have, is with this little gas heater thing.  It dates back to when I was about 9, I remember a friend had a dog, and I was told that his dog got cancer from one of those heaters, and died.  I don’t know exactly why I remember that little fact from my past, but I do, and then about 2 weeks ago some guy was upstairs looking for someone regarding his bike, and on his way out he said to me “woah, they’ll give you cancer them things” referring to the heater :\.  Me being some what of a hypochondriac, I now in the back of my head feel a bit fearful of it.  If anyone knows what the deal is with these little heaters, then fill me in please!

Also, *high five* to anyone who drinks as much diet coke as I do, it is indeed the main thing I drink, I highly doubt there is anyone who drinks as much diet coke as me (which is good, because that means you’re free from it’s addiction).  Heh, well, I don’t think I’m addicted, but I do like drinking fizzy drinks (providing they’re sugar free), and Diet Coke is the top of my fizzy drink love list.  Anyway, I brought up Diet Coke for a reason (well any coke for that matter).  On the bottles of Coke recently, there has been something called “Coke Zone” printed on them, basically coke zone is a promotion where cans/ bottles of coke have a random code on them, you take that code, enter it onto the coke zone website (whilst logged in) and you get some points.  You use these points to get free stuff, it costs a shit tonne of Coke to get anything good, but I’ve got into it.  However, for some reason I’m epicly lazy about actually getting round to entering my codes, and because of which I end up secretly hiding empty 2litre diet coke bottles around my (small) room,

Me with diet coke bottles

with the intention of getting round to inputting the codes and getting the points from them.  I’ve probably got about 7 empty 2 litre bottles of Diet Coke in my room, although to a visitor, you wouldn’t see them, because I’m pretty sure I was a nut hiding squirrel in my past life because I’ve tucked all these bottles away nicely .  I should have a mass code input later tonight, and then load up the plastic bottle recycle box we have with diet coke bottles just to wind my dad up (who gets annoyed when the bins get full :p).  I’m sure I have a picture somewhere to how bad the empty bottles thing got whilst I was living at the docks last year, just to illustrate how lazy I can be about these coke zone code things, yet at the same time I can’t bring myself to pass up the free points in case someday I have enough to get something for free that I’d actually pay for.

Better late than never, I finally got playing Resident Evil 5 last night, and “bah gawd king” it’s amazing.  It feels very Resident Evil 4′y (which would’ve been enough right there), but at the same time, it’s a new world, new story, and it looks very pretty in HD.  I fucking love Capcom, they’ve given me soo much in terms of gaming gems throughout my life as a gamer, and I found myself playing Resident Evil 5 last night in the same way I started playing Dead Rising (also by Capcom), by that I mean, I played the first chapter, and then after completing it, I went back and re-played it, to collect more money, and find some things I missed on my first playthrough, and thus being able to upgrade my guns a little more, so that when I do move on to the next chapter, I will have a slight advantage in terms of how powerful my weapons are.  Confusing capcom-game references aside though, Resident Evil 5 is an amazing game, that is well worth the wait, if you liked Resi 4, you will get much joy from #5, and if you’ve not played a Resident Evil game in years, then get with the times and take in the awesome-ness that Resi 5 showers upon you.

*me once again rocking/ dancing in my room*

I’m still mucho’s loving my new C905, not really done anything “outside the box” on it yet, in terms of getting new applications and so forth, but just it’s general functions, it’s amazing camera, and the fact I’ve got into twitter and my phone caters to that , I’ve also just got into twitterpic, meaning I can take a pic on my phone from anywhere, email it to my twitter pic address, and the site updates with the pic, meaning that I can share a random picture of where I am from wherever, and people on the internet/ my twitter friends, can see it wherever.  I can see it being a very funky thing to have for when I see something weird/ random in life, and it’ll be fun to instantly be able to share it with the world, rather than waiting till I get home, or whatever.  Still, I’m a n00b to twitter, so if you so happen to be reading my blog, please add me on twitter.

In fact the same goes for XBOX live, if you’re bored, and skimming over my blog, and we know each other (from whatever means) add me on LIVE, “kermit1986″, if you’re reading this blog, you’re either a friend of mine, a random who enjoys my shizzy ramblings and has RSS’d me, or you’re a friend on facebook, either way…UNCLE SAM WANTS YOU! TO ADD KERMIT1986 ON XBOX LIVE!

***_*_*_*_*_*_***

POW! and now it’s Tuesday, St Patricks day 2009.  I think I’m pretty much done with this blog though, I meant to finish it last night, uploaded the pics to accompany stuff and then just got carried away on msn and the internet and next thing I knew it was 3am :p.  Woke up kinda late today, but thankfully not too late that I got ridiculed by my Pa at work.  Felt really sluggish this morning too, not sure why, one thing I do know is that in the next hour I WILL go to Subway and I will get a Meatball Marinara Sub !!! YAY!  Expect a twitter update with a photo .

I’m potentially going out tonight, depending on 1 friends ability to be “up for it”, I’m not putting all my hope in the fact of that following through, but it’d be cool to go out to PR1 for “Where’s Mavis” (Rock Night) I’ve not been to “where’s mavis” in a long time, so it’d be nice.  Usually speeds up my week when I’ve been out 1 of the nights too, which is always cool (unless it’s some sort of epicly special week), I do believe I shall be out this Friday too, Warehousing as usual.  Win!

Yeah, so anyway, I’ll go play “pin the picture on the blog” now, then I’ll enquire about how I’m to drop off the 14 parcels I’ve parcelled up (most of them yesterday) at the Post Office (cause the usual car I’d take has man flu).  Expect another blog later this week, as I am getting back into my old blog-whore ways, and until then…
…Adios Amigo’s!

Kermit is currently/ recently:

Playing:

• Resident Evil 5 – Worth the wait, it’s fucking ace! (need to play more!)
• Street Fighter IV – I’m shit with Chun-Li in this game
  

  Current Mood: Killing time @ Work / Excited for Subway

Watching:

• Various stand up comedy
• Hollyoaks