Kermit's Blog

So it’s been just a few days since my last blog, but I’m at it again.

First up…today my littlest of little bro’s turns 5.  I’ve got him a football/ soccer version of that tetherball/ swingball game…You know were you have 2 people hitting a ball around a pole until someone takes the lead and wraps it around.

I was gonna play it safe with a voucher …seeing as he’s 5 and kids get old with toys so easily I figured I’d just leave it to him to get something, but I don’t really like giving people vouchers as it seems like there’s no thought put into the gift.  So giving him something fun to play with in the garden with my other little bro (Jake, 7) they can probably enjoy that in the garden over the summer months.

It was good fun wondering around Toys R Us looking for a gift though.  Getting to see what stuff is making a come back, and what cheap shite is getting passed off as a toy.

Just to update you.  Yo Yo’s seem to be making a comeback, Tamagotchi’s are back…although they’re cheaper than they used to be.

Also…get this!!  I’m sure a number of you have seen “Billy’s Balls” on YouTube.  It’s a special feature in the “Toy Machine Skateboards video: Suffer the Joy”.

>>Click here for that video<<

Basically the video consists of dudes bouncing ping pong balls into a cup in many stylish and crazy ways.  Obviously the video took ages to film and that those success shots are all edited together to create one cool looking montage of skill throws.

WELL… At Toys R Us there was actually a cup and ball set being sold to try and inspire kids to have a go at doing some cool throws themselves  …The problem being was that it was being sold for about £9.  £9 for a ping pong ball and a plastic cup with a cartoon monster thing painted on it, jeez!

Apparently there was a tv advert recently to use that ball throw thing in it hence why it’s popularity has inspired a kids toy.  I haven’t seen that myself so for me at the time it just seemed random that some company was trying to make money off a video from years ago which without the video…kids wouldn’t actually give a shit about a ping pong ball and a cup.

Before I move on, here are 2 more of those Billy’s Balls clips for you to watch (as lets face it…they’re cool, and it makes me smile and think of times where I’ve spent the better part of my day doing trivial things with my friends for fun).
>>Billy’s Balls 2<<
>>Billy at the Berrics<<

oh…and here’s the advert that I think my sister was talking about >>here<< (that advert is weak though, and the “great deals for popular people” slogan is appalling if you ask me).

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Moving on from my lil bro’s birthday though, but staying within family matters…My little sister finally passed her driving test the other day (4th time lucky).  So she’s driving now, parents have hooked her up with a 2002 corsa (8 year old car that still looks fine).  I was originally given a 93 corsa in like 2004 (11 year old car that had a few rust issues) …I take that as further evidence that my sister has always been a favourite over me :p.  Oh and lets not forget the fact my dad used to nickname my sister “besty” when we were kids…clear implication that she was favoured then.   Anyway, I’m sure she technically owes me a lot of free drives seeing as how I’ve given her a number of lifts over the years when I had a car, but I don’t think I’m in any need to redeem those any time soon.

In fact I’m still STILL hoping to get that money I’m led to believe I will be getting from Student Finance, and then when I do I want to buy a BMX, so I can travel about Preston via bike.  Good excercise, and good fun.  Want!  If Preston had smoother streets I’d just take to skateboarding around more often, but as it stands a lot of the main streets are either unskateable surfaces, or just a bitch to skate (at least on my wheels anyway).

Another family matter I have to raise is the fact that I went into my Grandad’s garage the other day to try and get my desktop fan I had when I lived at my old place.  I put some of my stuff from there in my Grandad’s garage because we didn’t have the room in the garage here…and guess what…one of my uncle’s has gone and stolen my fan.  >:|  The nerve!  Plus it’s been well hot here recently too.  Not to mention the fact I live in like a 2 by 1 metre room that has a lot of electronic activity going on…meaning it gets hot in here.  So for me to go looking for my fan and realise this one object of joy that I had once bought to keep me cool, which I wanted to re-unite with in order to be able to not be tired all the time from this overheating hijinx has now been taken away and I am currently unable to afford a new one…well that just pisses me off >:|.  I hope when I do move again I’m not going to eventually find out more things of mine have been taken (by my own relatives ffs).

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Speaking of heat, when I did my last blog the other day I finished it and posted it from my friend Drew’s room.  It was a hot day then too, hence why I was wearing a vest on that day (as seen in my current mood picture from that blog).  I’m not normally the kind of person that’s comfortable going around in a vest.  The items of clothing themselves are very comfortable…and are great for hot as hell days like what we’re experiencing here recently.  The thing is though…when I see vest wearers there are usually 2 extremes.

1. Those white guys who think they’re tough or want to show off there gym time by wearing a vest.
2. Those skinny white guys who either look like the skinny guy from “Road Trip” or Cletus from the Simpsons.

Now, I dabble in self conciousness from time to time so I think about that sort of thing when I put a vest on and leave the house, because I don’t want to come across as one of those 2 types of people, I just want to be a dude who’s overdosing on this heat and needs to let his skin breathe a bit more.  So if I’m ever in a vest…don’t judge me!

Getting back to the mention of being at my friend Drew’s house though…like I said, it was a hot day.  I stepped into his room and it was very stuffy, I made a comment on the temperature, and then immediately I noticed he was drinking a cup of tea.  I couldn’t let this sight go unspoken about so I was like:

Me: “dude it’s 400 degrees and you’re drinking a hot cup of tea”
Him: “it cools me down”
Me: “a hot drink cools you down…?”
Him: “yes, it’s refreshing”
Me: “the last thing I want when I’m hot is a hot drink…”

Anyway…2 days later I brought this up, only to be told by someone else that the hot drink to be cool thing is apparently right.  Yet I still fail to see how the hell people get refreshed by a hot drink, and I think these people with this theory need to go reset their “thirst quenching” options to real world standards.   Cold Beverages PPL!!!  A cold soda, or a cold beer in these summer months is a thing of beauty.

Anyway…that’s it for now.  If you want more…there’ll be more in a few more days.

Adios Amigo’s

Kermit

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Kermit is Currently/ Recently:

Playing:

• Street Fighter III: 3rd Strike (Dreamcast)
• Cannon Spike (Dreamcast)
• Crazy Taxi 2 (Dreamcast)
• Street Fighter Alpha 3 (Dreamcast)
• Street Fighter IV (PS3 & XBOX360)
• Super Mario Galaxy (Wii)

Watching:

• Cast Away – Awesome film, plus Tom Hanks is ‘da man’
• Zombieland – Great film, some good lols, was suprised the Blu-Ray offered a free theme for my PS3 too.
• Seinfeld – Just finished Season 4, awesome stuff.
• Harry Enfield & Chums – Some good classic British sketch comedy
• The Big Bang Theory – One of my favourite shows on TV at the moment, will watch the season 3 finale tonight.
• Wrestlemania 26 – Was showing a friend the Taker vs HBK match at the weekend.  Want to get some WWE on Blu-Ray when I can afford too, it’s one of the best examples of Sports in HD…well, “Sports Entertainment”.

Listening to:

• Various Electronic music I’ve got on my iTunes
• Been listening to more old school hip hop/ rap recently too.  Goes well with the warmer weather
• Super Street Fighter IV Soundtrack.
• Various IGN podcasts

Okey Dokey!

It’s been about 3 weeks since my last blog post.  Didn’t really mean to go on a hiatus from blogging, however it was to be expected as I had to the final weeks of my uni year all up in my face.

So as one of the many “oops…left it till the last minute” type students it was serious uni.work.cram.time a’ goins on. To be fair though I didn’t leave it all to the last minute, I gave myself a decent amount of time, but I just didn’t really do a good job at calculating the time it would take to do some things, or in some cases give time for things I would have to learn in order to do some things. All my work is handed in now though, it’s all up in the air for assessments and such.  A lot of weight is off my shoulders in some senses although there’s still certain speedbumps ahead that need to be overcome before it’s plain sailing into my next uni year (which will hopefully be the beginning of my “Game Design” chapter in education).

Next Topic.  Monies (lack of)

Oh how I’m sick of this topic.  I got held up big time in my original student finance monies (5 months late), and then when I did get the money it turned out I hadn’t been some that a lot of my friends had gotten (Maintenance Grant).  According to SF I hadn’t applied, so in January (when I got my other Student monies) I told them I would like that money I’m entitled too, they asked for some more details, I gave those to them, they took a long time to receive and process them, and as it stands it’s either STILL in a pile to do (perhaps because they’re busy), or something must be up.

I’ve called them every Tuesday for the last 3 weeks, giving them a week since each call hoping they can shed some light on if they need anything from me, and to check everything is ok, but it seems Student Finance don’t seem to be in good communication with whomever assesses the maintenance grant side of things as they can never seem to give me any update as to what’s going on, and never seem to offer to be able to do so.  It’s just a case of “it should be ok…if you’ve done everything we asked then all you need to do is just wait”.  Which was fine the first time I heard it, but as the weeks go by, and I’ve got more and more cash starved it’s becoming a real pain in the ass.  Worst thing is I borrowed some money off these short term loan people, going off the basis of one of the calls I made to Student Finance I believed it couldn’t be much longer till I got this money, so I took a short term loan to help out with some art supplies I needed for uni, as well as just general living costs (lunches, bus fairs, Diet Coke…), I’ve not been on a night out in ages, and other than Super Street Fighter IV last month I’ve not really been making any purchases on unnecessary luxuries (although my ‘gamer’ side would happily say that SSFIV was a much needed purchase ^_^).

So yeah…I owe Wonga £400 next Thursday, and it’s looking like I’m not going to be able to pay them that money back now , and if they let me postpone it, it will no doubt lessen their trust in lending me money, as well as perhaps cost me more interest.  Thanks a lot Student Finance, for misleading me, and constantly stringing me along.  I have no idea what I’m to do if I don’t get the money at all .

Financial problems and worries aside.  Other things seem to be good.  The weather is getting nicer (although it’s transitioned into hot mode a little too fast and made it hard to get used to…typical British weather).  With Uni deadlines temporarily behind me I’ll have more free time on my hands.

I plan to fill this up with watching TV shows I’ve been meaning to get into for a while, and playing video games.  Then as it gets deeper into summer I’ll get back into following football for the World Cup.  I’ve not really followed League football for a long time…but I’ve always admired international football, plus it’s a good way to gather up friends, and enjoy cold beers in hot weather.  Plus summer means more BBQ’ing, and you can’t beat a good friends BBQ .

Hopefully if I get my uni money any time soon I’ll be able to hook myself up with some festival ticket money.  I’d really like to go to Download as I know a few people whom are going.  I also or at least want to go to Kendal Calling again (which I went too last year and it was awesome).  Gotta love music festivals…they’re out of this world.

I’ll have to cherish the “dude time” I get over summer too, as my girlfriend will be spending it in America working at a summer camp thing.  So in order to not be bummed out over the lack of her I’ll have to distract myself with good times with friends…although when I put it like that it doesn’t seem bad.

So…that pretty much wraps up the jist of this blog.  In summary…  I’m hella broke, stuck with the usual cash related worries.  Uni pressure is over, and I’ll have more time on my hands for the next few months.

I got some other stuff regarding the UK and other topics that I was going to mention but what with the time on my hands I’ll definitely be able to put those thoughts into blog sooner rather than later.

As always, gracias for reading.

Kermit x

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Kermit is currently/ recently:

Watching:

• Band of Brothers – Finally finished watching this EPIC series.  Such powerful historical drama, well acted and very well put together.
• The Pacific – Started watching this today.  It’s the spiritual sequel to Band of Brothers, however instead of set in Europe it’s based in islands on the Pacific.  So far so good.  Doesn’t appear to be as epic or have as memorable characters as BoB had, but it’s still from Spielberg and Hanks so I’m expecting it to be well worth the watch as things progress.
• Seinfeld – Currently in Season 4.  Great sitcom, and it’s providing a very very good bridge between the end of me going through all of “Curb Your Enthusiasm” earlier this year and the next season of that also epic series.  Larry David FTW!
• Hostage – Recentish movie, starring Bruce Willis.  Nothing I’d call epic, but still a decent enough film to warrant me making the DVD purchase I made of this film.

Playing:

• Tatsunoko vs Capcom (Wii) – Awesome Capcom beat em up
• Super Street Fighter IV (360 & PS3) – Mostly been playing my 360 copy, but I dabble in the PS3 from time to time.  Amazing game though, no regrets in owning the same game twice.
• Midnight Club LA (360)
• Kung Fu Panda (360)
• Skate 2 (360)
• Samba De Amigo (Wii)

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

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

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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

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Currently/ Recently:

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