The Gathering

One thing I love about being a Uni student is the complete and total removal of the ‘I’ve got to look cool in front of everyone and must dismiss all quote-unquote uncool pass-times’ thought in your mind that kind of dominated high school.

Which is why my mates at Uni got me a Magic: the Gathering starter deck for my birthday and convinced me to dust off my old Magic cards to start playing again.

You don’t realise how much you miss playing card games until you start playing them again – they’re quite awesome – and we all seem to be around the same skill level, which makes playing with each other much more fun, than being dominated by one person each round. Victory is earned by all, depending on how you draw.

Now I just need to convince them to play D&D and all will be well.

Harmonica

I desperately wish I could play harmonica properly. I mean, I’m currently in the ‘not terrible’ camp and I feel myself getting slightly better each time I play.

I played harmonica while playing guitar and singing tonight. I’ve tried it before when I had no idea what I was doing and just making stuff up, but this time I had an actual riff to play, and that put more pressure on me (I should have practiced doing that before I went to an open mic night…) but I had fun and it didn’t fail.

Mostly.

More Werewolves!

We’re playing Werewolves again! But this time, we’re adding in so many new characters to try, test and confuse the crap out of us.

It’s such an awesome game.

Big Steps

My girlfriend and I took a big step last week in our relationship. It’s a step that all couples eventually have to consider; an important step that can completely change the face of the relationship.

We bought a video game together.

Not only bought, but pre-ordered.

When we found out that LEGO Lord of the Rings was going to exist, we were like: “We’ve totally got to buy that game!” And then when we found that if we pre-ordered it, we’d get a replica ring, we were like: “We’ve totally got to pre-order that game!”

And we did.

It’s pretty awesome.

I’ve mentioned before that my girlfriend loves the Lego games and she’s played a lot more than me (and is significantly better at them than I am), and apparently this is the best of the lot. It helps that we both love Lord of the Rings and that they’ve started using voices from the films, as well as adding an RPG element that we find pretty nifty. That’s right, nifty. I went there.

In fact, we’re getting ready to start playing it again. When we first sat down to play, we were there for hours, only stopping because we had to. At present, there’s nothing stopping us from pulling an all nighter.

And I imagine that nothing will.

Aeroplane

It took me multiple attempts to figure out how to spell that word… That makes me feel sad…

But, in any case, you don’t need to be able to spell the word ‘aeroplane’ to be able to play it, which is a nice segue to what I want to talk about.

I was playing Aeroplane today! It was awesome! If you don’t know how to play (and I feel for you, I really, really do), you just stick your arms out and run around, making your best “Nyeouw!” sound. It’s such an awesome game.

But, strangely, when you get to the world of adulthood, the likelihood of someone suggesting a quick game of Aeroplane starts to dwindle. It’s as if no one wants to pretend that they are the Red Baron, shooting down hoards of alien ships from the Planet Uranus (which, let’s be honest, is the funniest planet. All the best comedians come from there).

The best thing about doing a Creative Arts degree at University is that you can do a whole bunch of crazy things and still claim that it’s Uni work. For example, because I’m a creative writer, every film I watch, every book I read and every video game I play can be considered research, for you never know which part of the industry you might end up working in, so you have to gain an understanding of how each medium works. It’s freaking awesome. I actually think I’m set a short game as part of a course, as we are to play the game and then see how it was adapted to screen… I think. That, or the teacher couldn’t be arsed, and we’re just going to sit around playing Halo for two hours…

Either way, the students come out on top.

But I get to do a lot of fun things at Uni, mainly thanks to Medigood, who has asked me to be in a couple of his film projects. The last one, I got to play a silent film villain, and had a lot of fun hamming it up with everyone.

I know I complain a lot about University work and always having things to do, but there are sometimes when I have to be completely honest and say that University is freaking amazing.

I’m going to be so depressed when it ends this year…

Tambourine Man

I am officially one of them now, for I got a tambourine today! And not a lame one, a really good, professional one (yes, you can get them, apparently).

I grabbed one just before my gig tonight (which went awesomely, thank you for asking – I’ll probably talk about it more tomorrow) and used it in a couple of guitar solos, essentially to stop me from either standing around like an idiot, or running around like an idiot.

Tambourine playing being the best cure for looking like an idiot. Obviously.

I’d talk more about our gig tonight, but to be honest, I am exhausted. I’ve been full pelt all day and now that I’ve stopped, my energy has just gone. I guess that just means that I gave it my all tonight. At least I hope it does.

So I say goodnight to you, bloggy-pops, and I shall see you tomorrow.

For now, I sleep.

Playing Parties

Set lists don’t always work, as I have found, and must be in a constant state of switching and swapping around.

I’m currently at a party at which I have been hired to provide the musical entertainment – the first time I’ve done this solo, but the second time I’ve ever done it. Don’t worry, I’m not slacking off, I’m taking a short, voice-resting break in order to fill you all in on my life.

The first time I ever played a party was with most of my band – our drummer couldn’t make it – and it was for a fifteenth/sixteenth birthday party.

Looking back on it, it went kinda shockingly. I think the lack of percussion made it difficult for the kiddies to get into the music for dancing/enthusiasm. Plus, it probably wan’t the right kind of music.

The saddest point was when we took a break and an iPod was put on… And then they all started dancing and getting into it.

Actually, I don’t think I had to look back to know it was shocking. But we had fun, laughing at ourselves.

But this gig is going well so far – I’m having to mix about my set list because the one I’ve created doesn’t feel like it flows right. The reception seems good… I hope…

Anyway, on with the show!