The Rhythm of Life

It's a fucking powerful thing. It's also the name for my new Facebook album series. It seemed appropriate for the move to Uni.

I sure am going to miss the lunacy of the phrase "Magic in a Can" though.

Sigh.

Anyway, I suppose you want to know all about my adventures into the vast exciting world that many of us call getting drunk in a place where we cook our own food. It's more colloquially known as university though.

So, let's start from the get-go.

Saturday
Christ this was a while ago now. Let's see if I can remember all. I packed all of my things, got in the 5 Series and went to my accommodation. I arrived, unloaded my things, found my room, unlocked the door, put all of my bags in there, emptied a couple of them so my Dad could take them back home and then he fucked off. So yeah, that went well. I then met my first flatmates. This was an interesting moment. Richard was the final one to arrive and so was wandering around trying to find out who everyone was. He was talking to Dave and I walked out to say hi, and he was all like, "Ohhh, you're the one in A. Yeah, I'm just trying to find out who everyone is because apparently I'm the last one to sign in. Oh, I'm Richard by the way and this is Dev." You see, it's funny, he called him Dev because Dave is a northerner and therefore pronounces his name as Daeve! What a hoot. Anyway, a little while later we went to the party upstairs and had quite a fun time. There was alcohol, attractive women, creepy weirdos, creepy stalker weirdos, creepy rapey stalker weirdos. In fact, I think there's a trend. I got into the vibe of the party pretty quickly, but I couldn't pin down the whole creepy stalker routine. Apparently I find it necessary to not treat women like meat that we want to stick our dicks into. I didn't want to appear like a nice, genuine guy for fear of embarrassment so I kept quiet about that trait. Anyway, one million introductions to people whom I'm never going to remember the names of later and I met someone that I apparently knew. What are the chances? This girl came up to me and pointed at me and said, "I think I know you... do we know each other?" Well, me being me I had no idea what she was on about but then she said, "I'm from Kettering too!" and followed it with, "You know Luke McIntyre? Yeah, I'm his ex. Or one of." This cleared everything up. Although to this day I still have no idea who she is or how she recognised me. Guess I'm just famous in my local town.

Anyway, so that was fun.

Sunday
Oh Sunday, what did I do on Sunday? That's actually a very good question. I woke up at ridiculous o'clock in the afternoon because I was a little more than tired and I... genuinely can't remember what I did for the rest of the day up until the evening. Although I don't particularly want to say what I did in the evening. Basically I attempted to cook myself a pizza that night, and upon failing miserably I suddenly started contemplating that I had no idea how to do anything. I was fretting that I had no idea how to live and do this whole uni thing and continually thought, "I'm not cut out for this." And then I broke down and started to think that without Lauren or Bekah or Joe or Becca or anyone else from my Real Family I'm just a non-entity standing in a field of nothingness being crushed by the vast emptiness. Anyway, a couple of text messages and a few tears (I KNOW. I FUCKING CRIED! HOW COOL IS THAT? [Just for those of you confused by that outburst, I used to be a completely emotionless dickhead and as time went on and I was transforming into the awesome person I am now I decided that crying would be a very significant step forward] So yeah, now I'm even better than I was before) later and I was all better. Good.

WAIT. I just remembered what I did in the day. I met up with Aimee with Dave and we went for a wander around town. Dave wanted to buy food and alcohol, so we found a Tesco and we went there. However, because Aimee is particularly cheap she wanted to find a Home Bargains. Eugh. And do you know what? There isn't a Home Bargains in Leicester. I think this might be my new favourite place on Earth. In fact, the ASDA isn't even close to the city centre. This place just gets better. There's two Sainsbury's Locals and two Tesco Expresses. I literally have no other option than to find good deals in these places. And that makes me really happy. ASDA might be cheaper than Sainsbury's, but I doubt that they have as many offers on.

Monday
8 o'clock start. 9 o'clock lecture. Although it wasn't really a lecture. Basically the course leader stood in front of us all and said, "So we've given you these sheets with all of these criteria on and now you have to find names to put under all of them! Go!" and it was brilliant. They called it the "icebreaker" just so that we were forced to get to know each other in the first five minutes of our time together as a team of Media Productionists. I met loads of cool people. We then had a coffee break in which Katie with a K and an ie (I had to ask these questions, and it helped break the ice as it were) took a shine to me and we bought a drink from the coffee shop where there was a trainee who didn't know the price of anything and so took the actual piss to serve us. Anyway, that was good. So a little while later we were back in the lecture theatre and then we really got on to talking about the course. And you know what? WE GET TRAINED BY THE BCC IN OUR SECOND AND THIRD YEARS. I KNOW. It's the most amazing thing ever. Of all time. Anyway, after that I'm pretty sure we had a couple more lectures but... oh yeah, we had the Dean's Welcome which was dull and then enrolment which was the easiest thing I've ever done. I was despairing because I thought I'd have to wait in a massive queue and then go through this complicated process that would involve having a stake driven through my heart and then I'd have to resurrect myself using my student finance form and my A-level certificates. But no, I was the third one there, they gave me a form to fill in, I filled it in, they sent me to get my student finance letter scanned, they scanned it, I got my student card and bam. Done. I was out within ten minutes. As for the evening... I'm sure I did something. Sunday has been the only night I've stayed in, so I must have done something. I know the film quiz was on that night, but I didn't do that. Wow. I guess it'll come back to me soon. Kind of like Sunday's situation.

...

I have 30 mb internet now so things download really quickly. But I shit you not, I just downloaded an entire program onto BBC iPlayer in less than 10 minutes. I like Uni. It's good.

Edit: I actually just downloaded this week's Mock the Week in less than 1 minute. Apparently I'm really underselling my current internet speed's true potential. 

Tuesday
This was fairly boring. We were given the library tour today. Wait, scratch that. We were told to look around the library today and answer questions and there was going to be a prize draw with iPods! Yay! I didn't bother doing the questions. I don't really plan on using the library. I have Adobe Premier Pro and Photoshop CS5 on my laptop. I'm set. We then sat in a lecture theatre for three fucking hours listening to security talks and boring stuff and other stuff I can't remember and it's all just a blur really. Anyway, that evening was Fresher's Footlights, which was a comedy show at the DSU. That was cool. It was actually pretty good and most of the acts were genuinely funny. One wasn't. I like to call him Shaky McNotaverygoodstandup. It must have been his first time, bless him. Oh, but the female comic afterwards said something hilarious. "So after most girls break up with their boyfriends they like to indulge themselves in something. You know, eat lots of chocolate, listen to loads of sad music which completely epitomises their current mood. I got chlamydia." Unfortunately that's the only joke that I can remember right now, but for 10 comics that aren't famous at all it was really good.

Wednesday
This is the day that Joe came to visit me. He arrived and it felt like we'd never been apart. I was supposed to go to the space centre that morning with my course mates, but I woke up at 8, did a painful shit and thought, "Life is too short" so I went back to bed and slept for another three hours. I know, that is ironic. So yeah, I met up with Joe and then we went to go and look at the societies. I think I'll be joining the Demon Media group, because they make TV and radio and newspapers and that's awesome. Then we met up with Aimee and went back to her place for a bit and chatted for a while. We then left to go to my place and Aimee went to bed because bless her she's always knackered now. Anyway, after Joe met Richard and decided that he was a nice guy we went to stake out Becca's accommodation so that we both knew where it was and how far it was from everything. We looked at the route on Google Maps and almost made it without a hitch. But to be fair, it was a 40 minute journey (including getting lost time, which still puts me ahead of Google's estimated time thank you very much) so it was very difficult to remember each and every turn. Anyway, it's fucking miles from anywhere. Seriously, it took us maybe 15 minutes to walk to Leicester Uni and then from there it took the piss. So yeah, she's going to have fun getting around. But then again, I'm a ten minute walk away from DMU so it's not actually that much further for her. Twice the distance in fact. But even so, it's still easier for me to get to Leicester Uni than it is for her, which is hilarious. Anyway, that night we... did the pirate treasure hunt and I got to see all of the sights around Leicester that I haven't seen yet, including some really freaking hot pirate chicks. Oh, and the prison that looks like a castle.

How cool is that?!

Anyway, we then went to the circus societies' welcome event, which was good fun. I can see me getting plenty of good pictures out of it. Kind of like this one:

I am master of fire!

So yeah, there were people playing with fire and I got to test some stuff out on my camera and that's always cool. Oh, and on this night I also tried Brothers toffee apple cider, and by Vectron's name it's the best tasting drink on the entire planet.

Thursday
And finally we reach today. My god, it's been a week. Today was Bodge Day for the Media Production students. It was insane amounts of fun. The guys from Demon FM and Demon TV came to give us a taster of what we'll be doing both with them if we join and over our three year course. My little group were first given a tour of Demon FM, which is really cool because it's an actual radio station that was kitted out by the same guys who kitted out BBC Radio. We were then given a task. It was a funny task. We were told to record a radio show about the dangers of squirrels in the style of an insurance advert. By god it was hilarious. But then came the Demon TV part. Firstly we were given a video camera that's worth like ... a lot of money and I fell in love with it instantly and wanted to keep it forever because it's amazing but anyway, that wasn't the point. We were tasked with making a video about a ninja death battle in the style of David Attenborough including the quote, "Do as I say or I'll give you a ride on the tickle train." I think that this is the single greatest thing I've ever done that doesn't count Granite Moths and Zombie Plan. And it was only an hour long project as well, but that was the best hour-long project I've ever done.

So, that was this week. Tomorrow there's another comedy thing happening at the DSU so I'll be heading to that and then from then on I don't know what's happening. Ooh, it's going to be good.

As a final note though, I do miss you (my Real Family) a hell of a lot. While I've made a few friends and I'm getting along with everyone, there's no one here than could possibly replace you. Wait, I have a feeling I've actually already said this in the last post. If I have, meh, if I haven't then here you go! Feel impotent.

HAHAHA! I wrote impotent instead of important! Fuck me, I'm funny.

Goodbye Magic in a Can

Those of you who have me on Facebook may well realised that I like to playfully name my albums. An ongoing album from the last two years has been my Magic in a Can series.

I used to be obsessed with the idea of having magic, and then condensing it down into a can so that you can store it for very later usage.

And it all started in one free period when some bozos stole my camera:

The birth of Magic in a Can

When Dukey slapped himself in the face on the 4th November 2009 it created a chain reaction that then resulted in Magic in a Can coming to fruition. Since then it has been the home to the last two years of photos that couldn't be properly categorised. And my, it was beautiful.

Magic in a Can 2: Magic Harder
By this time I had established what I wanted on the front of each of the Magic in a Can albums. Unfortunately the start of this album is not one that I'm proud of in my current photographical sense. But somehow, we skip forward to August 2010 with my favourite photo from that album.

Rawr!

It had taken months for Magic in a Can to get started and working properly. Churning out photos like there was no tomorrow. But this is where the magic started, baby. Magic in a Can 2 spanned only a few months, covering up until the 8th of November.

PUUURRPPPLEEEE

Magic in a Can 3: Revenge of the Jam Jar
I had to start this album on the same day I finished the last one, because I still had some fireworks left.

Cool, right? The proper starting event for this album, though, happened only a few days later.

Yeah, Josh held his own fireworks shindig.

The rest of the album covers right up until Christmas and includes time with My Kids, Luke and Becca's 18th, lots of fog, and time up until Christmas when this stuff happened:

Christmas with the Real Family

You'll never out-fox the fox.

Teddy sex.

And it finally finished up with one of the single cutest pictures you ever did see:

That was quite an album, and a very fun time as well.

Magic in a Can 4: A New Alloy
Shortly after my 18th birthday I made a new album. It covered the months from January through to April 2011. And it all started with Waistcoat Wednesday:

During this time we had barn dances, my death, Joe getting drunk, gigs, a trip to Manchester, and a very strongly worded message:

So yeah, a lot of Magic in a Can and blog crossovers during this album. In fact, that's probably apparently throughout the rest of time.

Magic in a Can 5: The Baked Beans Strike Back
Spanning the time between the 10th of April and the 16th of May, the fifth Magic in a Can album documents the final month we had at Brooke Weston. It began with Norra (I can't be bothered linking any more. I might do it later):

Then we saw Bekah's 18th:

Then there was some fooling around on the last few days:

Then there was some place I took loads of cool pictures:

And it finally ended up with Mr Nicholls' BBQ:

Magic in a Can 6: The Return of the Magic Talking Leopard
And thus, the swan song has been reached. The ultimatum of Magic in a Can. It began on the 18th of May with Dukey's first legal pint and ran through until today with some pictures of Edwards' final farewell to the ones of us who were left before we went to Uni. What a fun time this was.

Westie got came on by Kermit the Frog:

We dismantled Dukey's car:

We did something stupid with our chins:

There was a new cat to take cute pictures of:

I finally kick-started my childhood: (after Cornwall of course, but that got its own album)

We got very drunk one last time:

We met some of our heroes:

And finally, we created an army of rabbits:

So what now? This is it. Magic in a a Can is done. It's over. I can never use that phrase again. No wait, scratch that. Magic in a Can is too good-a-phrase to be simply washed away like that. But I can never ever ever ever ever ever upload another picture to anything under the name of Magic in a Can. It has encompassed me and My Real Family's lives through our A-levels and has been our companion through the holidays. It has shared every moment, every memory, every great time that can't otherwise be categorised under another name or would've been such a small album that it wouldn't have been worth creating. It's been a good run, but now it's time to start anew.

I won't mention anything from Uni right now, purely because I've got another post lined up for you. But seriously, the last two years have been the best of my life. Uni is going to start off tough, and it might get better, but it will never ever compare to being with the best people in the world (and I'm not even joking, I haven't met anyone here that even comes close to someone better than you guys) every day of my life. I miss you a hell of a lot. It's time to count down the days until I see you again.

Pete out.

I Was Held at Gunpoint

Hi, Kay. This post is to make you happy.

Christ, I'm just picturing a thousand people suddenly asking me, "Who's Kay? Why are you writing a blog post for her? Do you fancy her? Annoying question?"

But what can I say about dear Kay?
"fail. nothing then. HAHA"
Well, Kay, on the contrary, I believe I can say many-a-thing about you.

If ever I were to have a secret, Kay, then you'd be that secret. Mainly because I always harp on about how I don't like meeting people on the internet because they're almost always creeps and weirdos and even if they are okay people I don't keep up any sort of conversation with them when Dukey or Josh isn't there because I generally don't have anything in common with these people. But you had to go and ruin that, didn't you? You had to be so damn perfect that I just had to stay in contact with you.

You made me break my rule.

But that's okay, I don't mind that. One, because I'm going to be seeing you soon anyway when you move to London and two, you've proven to me that not everyone I can't look in the eyes is a pathetic weirdo who likes nothing more than to piss me off. You're a wonderful human being and you've never done me wrong. Ever. That's like a world record or something. That's pretty special, Kay.

So I'm going to leave this blog post here and tell you that your post is ready for your inspection.

All the best for everything,
Peter.

Uh... Outside Voice? This isn't a letter. It's a blog post.
I will sign out however I want to sign out!
Yeah, I'm sure she'll love this pathetic attempt at a blog post. It's not even that good.
Okay, it's not my best work, but it'll do, won't it?
Aren't you going to say something along the lines of "I love you and you've somehow forever managed to be a rock for me and you always know how to say the correct things even when no one else can"?
You've kind of just done that for me.
It's because I'm a fucking legend. 
Get out of my head, Inside Voice.
Can't. I'm kind of stuck in here.
Whatever.

I love you, KayKay.

BANG

THIS BLOG POST WILL BE FREAKING EPIC.

SERIOUSLY. IT WILL BLOW YOUR FREAKING MIND.

Hang on, my new phone did its gay little ring tone to tell me that I have a new text message. I haven't figured out how to fix it yet.

Ah, it was from an attractive lady. Let me read it to you.

"Dear Mr H. I've decided to call you Mr H. Because that's totally an awesome name. Anyway, I just wanted to let you know that you're super freaking awesome and that you're so freaking hot. All the best, your biggest fan."

Okay, I lied. It was just Sophia asking me what we were going to do tomorrow. Jeez.

Anyway, I believe that I promised you a freaking awesome blog post.

First off, who loves the Cookie Monster?

I know, right?! That video was freaking awesome!

So anyway, what have I done recently? Well, after GAMEfest I got a new HTC Chacha, can't remember if I told you that or not. I like it. I now understand why everyone must announce that they have a new smartphone. I haven't really announced it. I did the ceremonial post to Facebook to check to see if Facebook actually worked on my phone, and now I vow to never ever make a status update via mobile again. But you know, I can if I want to, and that's the point of a smart phone. Oh, but I'll tell you freaking what, the alarm doesn't go off if you have the phone switched off. That sucks. How can you call a phone smart if the alarm is lazy? How can you have a lazy alarm? The alarm on all of my previous phones dating back to my Nokia 8800 which had a camera and polyphonic ringtones wasn't lazy at all. If the phone was turned off when the alarm was due, then the alarm would sound regardless. Get smart, phone.

Anyway? What was the purpose of this post? Oh yeah:

If the snake-arm didn't do it for you, I don't know what will. 

So there's your choice. You can have your mind blown or your arm can become a schnakey-schna. Personally though, that paint job blew my mind. I couldn't even believe what I had done. I mean, that man's arm is a snake.

Speaking of italics, here's Inside Voice with a take on today's trip to the bank:

"Okay, so just walking in... looks pretty empty. That's okay, we'll be done in a minute. Two desks open, that's unusual. Aw, that baby is sitting on the desk thinking that he's all high and mighty. I know what he wants for his birthday. A schnakey-schna. I hope I don't have that old woman who always tries to advertise stuff to me. Are there any male bankers around today? They don't try and sell me pointless new bank accounts that may have added benefits, but you have to pay for them. I don't think of it as a benefit if it's not free. I got a bank account so that I wouldn't lose money, and yet there you sit trying to take my money from me. You're supposed to put that money into my bank account so that I can use it, not take it for your own selfish needs. Crap, there are only female bankers today. I'll just have to hope I get the black woman. She doesn't look so... 'banker' like. She looks like she knows what I want, which is to just put some money in my fucking bank account without dilly-daddling. Fucking hell, what's taking so long? Right, my turn. Yes, I'd like to pay in this cheque. No, I'm not trying to cash the cheque you stupid whore, I have my card right here so that I can pay it into my account. Stupid old woman. That mother and child are having such a nice time with the black chick over there. Damn this stupid world. Right, the money goes in, I put my pin in, you give me my card back. OH FUCK OFF. NO I DON'T WANT TO UPGRADE MY ACCOUNT TO A FUCKING SIGNATURE ARSING CURRENT FUCKING ACCOUNT. I have a bank account, I just came in to pay some monies, and now I want to go home. But no, that's not good enough for you is it? You're not even mentioning the monthly fee of too much fucking money per month. Yeah, okay, I save 7% at ASDA, but where does the money that I save from using this account go? Yeah, straight to you. You're a moron. I don't want or need this account. I've been saving money pretty well on my own. Well, I would've been saving money pretty well on my own if Liberty Living didn't take 200 fucking pounds off me to pay for damages to my apartment that haven't even happened yet. If I don't get every penny of that back at the end of the year, then Liberty Living is so going down. Are you done telling how much I won't benefit from this stupid account upgrade yet? It's not really an upgrade if I have to pay for it, is it? That's called taking money off me and giving me only a small reward in return. No, I'm not driving. All of my technology comes with its own insurance. Fuck off. You haven't fucked off yet. Give me my card so I can get the fuck out of here. I'm the one trying to fuck off now. Seriously, it's not that difficult. Just put the card into the funky tray and I'll get out of here so I can go home and watch a movie. Do it. Do it. Thank you, you mindless, self-centred, putrid being of a person. Now it's definitely time to look at the improvements to the town centre. Dum-de-dum... what? You've just redone the paving a bit. That's not an improvement, that's just maintenance. I want my money back. I didn't actually pay taxes for this to be done, but that's not the point. I want the money back that I would've spent on this terrible excuse for an 'improvement' if indeed I paid taxes. There, that sounds good."

Inside Voice got angry at the old woman in the bank.

Anyway, a whole new adventure starts tomorrow.

I have a headache.

P.S. Who searched "spider monkey touching their balls" and found my blog? You're a weirdo. So is the person who searched "filthy tits". This is just getting ridiculous. I should stop putting weird words in my posts. My blog is titled "Cliché Life Stuff." What makes you think that I'm the source for your weird, seedy fetishes?

GAMEfest

I could've easily written this post yesterday. In fact, I could've easily written this post on Friday. But I didn't. I didn't feel that the readers had enough time to read through the BBQ post that I wrote on Thursday. Anyway, I'm writing this post today, so deal with it. I've also only just uploaded the pictures onto Facebook. I only uploaded 21 of the pictures though, because the Magic in a Can album is almost complete and I wanted the last few pictures to be the best damn pictures of all time. That's the plan.

Anyway, GAMEfest.

Hang on, I'm just trying to navigate Facebook's stupid new photo uploading stuff. They've replaced the screen where you give photos captions and easily tag people with a screen where Facebook tries to recognise people and attempts to tag them. No, Facebook, I'll do it my way, thanks. And besides, half the fun of uploading photos is giving them captions, everybody knows that.

Anyway, after the fiasco where Josh remembered that he had forgotten the tickets when we were just outside Birmingham and therefore like 10 minutes away from the NEC, we arrived at the NEC and promptly walked towards GAMEfest.

Facebook has crashed again.

Here we go:

"So," I bet you're thinking, "this event can't have been that popular. Not that many people like games."

Well you're wrong.

"Well it's not that big-a-deal. I bet they didn't have an expensive banner outside the entrance."

Again, wrong.

"Well I bet there weren't any hot chicks there."
I don't have any photographic evidence to support this. But you're wrong again. There was a Nuts stand, Josh wanted to get his breasts signed.

"Well now you're going to tell me that Josh licked out Batman."

Yeah, I am. 

"Well you know what it didn't have? An Aston - "

Beat you to it.

"Well so what? They were just showing off merchandise and stuff. You didn't actually get to play any of the games, did you?"

You're so wrong now I can't even handle it.

"Fine, but this is all new stuff. I bet you three quid that none of those games gave you a vinyl for their soundtrack."
I have a Driver San Francisco LP.

"Fuck off!"

I assumed that this would be your next argument.

"You're far too clever, Mr Hutchinson."

I know.

"Damn, that was my secret code for the Golden Gun! Okay you win. This event was pretty cool and definitely worth £10. Still, when I go to these events I expect freebies."
Is like £100 worth of posters enough for you?

Okay, Josh got all the posters. I didn't really care about them. Aside from the Battlefield 3 one which is fucking awesome.

Anyway, I'm sure I'll post the highlights reel on here soon enough. If you were looking for game reviews then I guess I'll make a video chock full of those as well.

If you sneezed during this blog post, bless you.

Peace off.

What a Great Day

Yesterday was just fantastic. I didn't have any time to myself at all, and that makes it one of the best days since Cornwall. And I'm flipping knackered.

Lauren
Lauren gets her own title because she was pretty much the event for yesterday morning. Because Lauren doesn't mix with my usual group, it makes her a very unique person in my life and one that I don't get to see very often. We both decided that it wouldn't be right if we didn't see each other before we left for Uni, and so she rolled up in her KA yesterday morning and we took Walter for a lovely walk. We essentially caught up on all the things that had happened since results day and made conspiracy theories about the house on ... that road that leads up to the Park that's all locked up with padlocked shutters and such. I made the sensible assumption that there could just be illegal hardware in there, but she was saying that there were drug runners in there and murderers and all sorts. It was all very funny. A little while later we discovered that the Eye sticker things that are plaguing our town might actually be by the Neighbourhood Watch, since one of the stickers had the Neighbourhood Watch logo with the eye in the middle, but perhaps it's an anti-Neighbourhood Watch. I don't know really. In any case, we were talking about Hot Fuzz, and then Lauren came up with the term "FOF" which means "Fuzz on Face", which is hilarious. She then complimented me on my own FOF, which adds another 1 to the total number of people in the world who like my FOF. Anyway, on the way back past the house that had been boarded up with padlocks and shit, we found that it had a back door, and it then opened, and then we got scared that we were going to get murdered, but Lauren wanted to stop and stare anyway, but I implored her to not let the murderers and/or drug runners see her because they'd definitely kill her and/or eat my dog.

This makes all drug runners essentially East-Asian.

Or it doesn't.

In any case, it was wonderful to hang out and chat to Lauren again and I shall definitely look forward to all of our future meetings. Lauren, you've always been someone that I can always rely on in the most dire of circumstances and despite my previous shortcomings you stuck with me through my ups and downs and definitely had a massive impact on the person that I am today. There's not a single person out there who could replace you. I love you and I will miss you a hell of a lot, as I have done over this holiday. Just remember that if you ever need a friend, I'm not very far away.

Laura's BBQ
So after I hugged Lauren goodbye and exited her car I found a Jed on the way towards the other people and then the event had officially started (ain't no party startin' without yours truly). It was all jolly good fun. One highlight for me was playing an interesting game that I think the guys made up, but I don't know. You can take credit for it anyway. It was basically a game of catch, but if you dropped the ball then you had to lower yourself to the floor. Miss once, go down on one knee, twice, both knees, three times, ass down, fourth, laying down. When I joined Joe was already on the floor, and then it got violent. Quach and Joe were really going at each other quite viciously with that ball.

Another particular highlight for me was when Laura's friends that none of us knew was introduced to us and the first thing this guy whose name I forget said to me was, "I'm already jealous of the beard" and the other guy was pretty amazed at it as well, which adds another two to the total number of people who absolutely love the FOF.

In any case, it was great to see everyone again before we all go off to Uni, of which time is slowly looming upon us. All corners of the country we'll be in. It's quite weird to think that I won't have the best people in the world to lean on any more. I mean, yeah, I'll have a couple of the best people in the world, but not all of you, and that's kind of sad.

Bekah's Later That Evening
So, a little later after Laura's BBQ I went to Bekah's to set up her new laptop. It was supposed to be a 1 hour job, and then I ended up spending all night there. I essentially turned it on, did all of the things I was supposed to do including installing Skype etc, but then I had to give her loads of movies, and with only a 4gb memory stick it took several hours to do. During this time, Bekah's friends Ellie and Stuart arrived (which is why I was only supposed to stay an hour) and then we had quite a fun time, proving to Bekah that I am perfectly worthy of meeting her "other friends", which she has been so previously uninclined to do with us, since she thought that we were all just different people or something or nothing. In any case, it was all very fun and later on we went to the pub to keep her sister's friend company because she had just broken up with her girlfriend, so that was quite a laugh as well.

So yeah, that was just about the single busiest day of my life and I didn't spend a penny, which sounds like a result.

More please :)

Saying Goodbye

So everyone in the world right now is saying "RIP" to the victims of 11/9. If you expect me to breakdown and give you a wonderful tale of a woman living in New York who loved and lost on that terrible day, then I'm not, and it's all because of one simple realisation that I came by.

If the victims of the September 11th attacks (in fact, every person who has ever died) could hear everyone consistently mourning and telling them to "resquiat in pace" then they'd simply turn over in their grave and shout "I would if you just shut the fuck up telling me to!" Consider the needs of others, human race. Stop saying "rest in peace" and just let them get on with it. They get the picture.

Anyway, that's not what I wanted to talk to you about. Actually, it kind of is, otherwise I wouldn't have named this blog post after it. In fact, I'm renaming my blog post. I changed it from "Rest in Peace" to "Saying Goodbye" so that it is appropriate for both topics.

That's the kind of guy that I am.

So, what have I been up to for the last few days? That is indeed a very good question, my tiny insignificant readers. I believe the last time I posted was on the 7th when Becca was slagging off my brother, so all I've got to work out is what I did on Thursday and Friday, because I definitely know what I did yesterday.

So, Thursday was... probably sit in and do nothing day because I honestly can't recall a single solitary thing that happened that day. If I'm honest, that's a tad bit annoying, but hey-ho, what'cha gonna do? According to Facebook all I did on Thursday was watch videos on YouTube. I suppose I must've watched a movie as well, otherwise I can't think how in the how I'd have filled an entire day.

So what did I do on Friday? Oh yeah, in the evening we got together and stuff the Panther so that it now looks like this:
[lag due to the fact that the pictures haven't come off my camera yet]
Just uh... waiting for the pictures to upload. Shouldn't be too long now. Ah, there we go.

That's right, we dealt with that son-of-a-bitch.

So yeah, Slender Man's cousin, the Pink Panther, had finally been slaughtered. Granite Moths need never continue.

Ah no! What the fuck?!

That's it. I'm getting out of here. He doesn't even need support for his head any more. He is quite literally unstoppable now.

I've decided to quit.

This is the last time I will ever be posting.

You know, for the third time that I've actually used that joke.

Shut up.

But yeah, to get back to reality - what? Reality? But I am being stalked by a paranormal Pink Panther in search for Alec, who looks a lot like Dukey and being chased by Masky, who looks a lot like Josh... aren't I? And every time I post a video to YouTube it's actually detailing things that genuinely happened to me, like when I hit on Tessica, who looks an awful lot like Becca, and filmed that wild animal that looked a lot like Harry. There's nothing in this entire world that can make me believe that all of that is fake. Nothing. What about the bloopers? The stuff we got wrong in rehearsals for this story of fiction. That was just Tessica fumbling as she was trying to talk, and then she tried to flirt with me, and it was all very amusing at the time, but I got her to restart her story anyway so that it would work better on tape. I will personally post all of the bloopers on the internet which prove that Granite Moths is a work of fiction. In fact, if I wanted to I could link every Granite Moths video to their Marble Hornets equivalents because Granite Moths is actually a spoof of Marble Hornets. What the fuck is Marble Hornets? Oh wait, I know what that is. I thought that was a spoof of Granite Moths. Then how does it have more entries? Because they diverted and went down their own path. The first Marble Hornets entry came out a year and a half before the first Granite Moths. Oh. Well there I'm stumped. - But yeah, to get back to reality, we re-stuffed the Pink Panther. I knew it! I knew Alec and Jim would team up with Slender Man to take me down! And now he looks more menacing than he ever did. I am not coming out of this with all of my fingers, I can tell you that for free.

So then I said to the guy, "shut the fuck up, Inside Voice," and he was really confused.

Oh! There was something I forgot to mention that we did on Wednesday.

How cool is that?

Yeah, we actually got to meet Einstein. It is true that people from olde times didn't actually have pigment.

Pff! I'm actually joking. I can't believe you fell for that. My god, you're stupid. You actually believed that Einstein travelled forward in time and - on a whim - decided that it would be a good idea to come to England, and not only that, specifically go to Josh's house? And you call yourselves persons.

If you were a people then you'd have just thought, "Hah, he said persons. That's so wrong."

But anyway, I totally had you going, didn't I? Unfortunately that Einstein is actually made out of cardboard, and yet he can still theorise wormholes. Do you want to know how we got it there?

It was all very covert. 

Child labour, that's how.

I haven't even gotten onto Saturday yet. Yesterday we all went to Mairaid's goodbye party, in which we celebrated the fact that Mairaid was leaving to go to Germany and we were all going off to uni. Come to think of it, that's actually quite saddening. I'm sad now. In any case, it was all very fun and we drank and danced at Brigstock Village Hall and we all realised that Mairaid was the envy of the entire German group. She gets to live in Germany! I don't! I'm stuck with fucking Leicester!

Uh... Hi, Becca. I love Leicester. I'm super glad that we're going there.

Bullet: dodged.

In any case, the clear stupidest part of the evening was when we were getting ready to leave. We were parked in the car-park of the football field, and Dukey sent me back to the Hall to get his CD while they loaded the car up, on the condition that I get picked up from the Hall. So I picked up the CD and I walked outside and Paul, Andy and Aimee were out there so I thought that I should go and talk to them while I waited for Dukey to get his and Joe's, Josh's and Bekah's arses in gear. This was all very lovely and when their lift arrived about ten minutes later I thought to myself, "what the hell is he doing?" So I ran back to the car park and go to the car park gate and realised that it was shut. My immediate instinct was to think that the guys already knew this and were jut figuring a way to get out. I then thought, "Hang on, this is Dukey, say hi" and proceeded to shout "Hey guys, did you know that this gate is locked?" And it turns out that they were just pissing around at the car for ten minutes because they had no fucking clue that it was locked. Joe ran over and was like "Oh shit" and then was like "Hmm... I should smash it in" and I was like, "Yeah well, the wood is rotting," and then Josh came over and was like, "We could easily pull this off" and I was like, "Okay, you're both openly considering vandalism now," and then Bekah came over and said, "Yeah, no. You're not touching that fucking fence, you bastard." So then we had to ring a taxi and go home to Joe's house.

This morning Joe fixed my necklace with super glue and I was very happy.

Now, hit that fucking Publish Post button before I put things in your head.
Nice things?
No. Not nice things. 

Salute to Stupidity: Becca Slagging Off My Brother Special

Me: "I'm confused at the moment. Because now my brother's spouting shit at me as well."

This is where Becca started this wonderful concoction of all things that insult my older brother.

Becca: 
"Call him a limp dick cock choking parasite."
"Say he's got anorexicock and if he doesn't watch out it's going to whither into a useless husk!"
"Call him a turd-like anarchistic cerebrally-challenged smelly-crotched sperm-bank."
Me: "Hang on, Salute to Stupidity coming up. If you can keep 'em coming, that'd just be fantastic."
Becca: 
"XD"
"All he is useful for is an incense burner to improve the smell of horse barns?"
"I lost it man. :("
"I think anorexicock is the best XD"
Me: "That's absolutely brilliant. I need to know what went through you mind at that point."
"I could call him anorexic... but I also want to say that he's got a small dick... *gasp* idea!"

I think this has been one of my most favourite conversations ever on MSN.

What was especially funny about this was that my brother was standing behind me while she was saying all of this. Brilliance.

Becca, you're an absolute star. I don't know what I'd do if you weren't coming to Leicester with me.

Me and Pet Asian

That's got to be the single funniest Google keyword I've ever had ever.

Peter Duke: ... letters and pictures can't tell you how much I laughed there. Had I been drinking at the time, I'd currently be wiping it up.

I tried desperately to find my blog by searching this, but I couldn't. I know exactly which post this keyword links to, which is the post about Timothy, but they would've still had to have trawled through like 30 or 40 pages of Google to find me.

That's funny shit, right there.

P.S. I've been told to change one of the clicky buttons tick things and so I've changed "Outrageous" (the least clicked ticky click thing) to "You are Correct" because Josh told me to. If you don't like it and want "Outrageous" back, just tick "You are Correct" because that'd be hilarious and ironic.

Uninspiring Title

I looked around my room for an inspiring blog post title name, but the only things I could find were, "Lynx Dry," "Coalition's End," "No Fear," "Adidas," "The Bourne Ultamatum," "Chapter 5," and I think you'll agree with me when I say that none of these things would've been fit as a blog title, and certainly didn't give me any inspiration. Hence the name of today's post.

But did you see last night's pun? What a roffle.
What's a roffle?
I don't know, something My Kids say.
Do you mean rofl?
That doesn't make sense at all. That can't possibly be a word.
It means, "rolling on floor laughing"
But that would mean that they'd have to purposefully make a sentence grammatically incorrect and then shorten it to an anagram.
Well what do you suggest?
It would work better as Iarotfl.
I can see it catching on.
And besides, how can you type, "I am rolling on the floor laughing," if you are indeed rolling on the floor laughing?
Perhaps their inside voices did it.
No, those kids aren't smart enough to have inside voices. And trust me, I know.
Good point. I am an extremely intelligent being.
Yes, yes I am.

Anyway, I decided to leave last night's placeholder post as an actual post, which makes it even funnier because now it's ironic as well. I am definitely the best blogger of all time. You shouldn't even bother looking for a better blog, because you won't find one. Please don't look for a better blog. I only know of one other fantastic blog, and Hyperbole and a Half hasn't been the same since Allie Brosh got a job. I'm the champion of the internets now. Suck it.

Although a Hyperbole and a Half book is coming out next year, which I'm pretty excited about. I should make a book... then I could make monies... hmm... It's weird though, because Allie Brosh said that the book would contain 50% old material and 50% new material, so then she just stops blogging. I would kind of understand if she didn't make as many posts (and trust me, posting once a month definitely counts as not making as many posts. I mean, I don't know how she could live with herself going from posting nearly everyday to posting nearly never), but stopping altogether is just precarious.

Anyway, I believe I wanted to post to make a point. And that point would be...

What have I done for the last few days? Well, on Saturday night (Joe's actual birthday) the Brotherhood got together to celebrate that fact. We started drinking to get through the mountain of alcohol that was still left at Joe's house from the two nights previous, but I didn't drink much of it because I still had a stiff neck and wanted a good night's sleep. Anyway, we played card games for what seemed like hours. Actually, that's probably not far from the truth. I left at about midnight to let the other two get drunk and play more card games. I have no idea what time they finished. The plan was to do it until like 3 in the morning. That's why I didn't stay. And because my house gets locked at like half midnight.

So that was that day. Sunday ... we were supposed to go round Josh's but Dukey was a tit and told us that he was ill, so we chatted on Skype and tried to organise a trip to Australia. I had protested from the get-go that there would be no way in hell that I would be able to save up the money to go to Australia, and after Josh researched everything for like 6 hours we came to the conclusion that we can't do it next year. If I'm perfectly honest with you though, I don't want to do a massive trip like that until Uni is finished, and I'm sure every other sane person on the planet would agree with me. Otherwise I want to go to Cyprus, because I looked into it and they've got old ruins and stuff, and there are beaches for boring people to sit on all day. It sounds like a great place for a holiday.

So that was exciting. On Monday the Brotherhood got together again because Joe wanted to go to town to go to the post office and pick up - uh... [redacted]. Bullet, dodged. He also wanted to buy some new shoes. Oh, and he also gave me some new Tsingtao and I was ever-so-grateful. He felt like he owed me for the book I bought him, but that was kind of a present, buddy. It's kind of a thing to give people those and expect nothing in return apart from a present on my birthday. Smiley face.

Also yesterday Courtney and Emily (a couple of My Kids) caught me as I was walking home from a little bit of light shopping at Sainsbury's. I described to them how easy my life was now and how I still had a month off and how they were really jealous of that, and then Courtney started talking about how things had been, and how things were going to be as she goes into Year 10. But then she started talking about what things had been like without me. Apparently, literally everyone was asking her about me and how I had been. Firstly, this is how news travels around a year group. Because I used to get on Courtney's bus (it's hers now because I can no longer use it) and I occasionally talked to her everyone automatically knew that she was the one to turn to if they wanted to get in contact with me. The odd thing is is that even Mr Barrett (my teaching bro) also asked her how I was doing, assuming that for some reason she still saw me. That's an insight, to say the least. In her own words, "Some people were saying, 'but I didn't even talk to him that much, but things were a lot better when he was here.' So yeah, everyone misses you." As always, I was quite taken aback by this. I mean, it's easy for those kids to say to me, "I'm going to miss you" but to actually hear from the ... what's the phrase? Horse's mouth? Yeah, sure. But to actually hear from the horse's mouth that they talk about me in lesson - without me actually being there to have an influence on them - and do actually genuinely miss me. Aw.

But when I said goodbye to them Bekah pissed me the fuck off. In the middle of the conversation I was having with my kids, I received a text message, so I ignored it because that's the kind of guy that I am. If it's important, they will have phoned. She sent the words, "stop talking to little girls, people will think you're Hoier lol." That's not okay. You should all know that if anyone our age went for my kids then I'd have to kill them. And you should all know, because I'm complained about it before, that the one that angers me more than "ya mum" jokes are paedophile jokes. You can see the proof in the previous paragraph, I helped these kids in a way that many teachers don't seem to be able to manage, but yet you continue, even now, to slander this and compare my brilliance to those low-life, fucked up nutjobs. It's not a laughing matter.

Also, Tom Hoier is not a paedophile. He just went a little... below the bar once. But he's certainly not one of those low-life, fucked-up ntujobs.

If you couldn't understand why any of that isn't funny, then plug yourself into the computer, and fucking hard-wire it in. Straight from this blog if you have to. In fact, I'd prefer it if you did.

Whoa, angry rant over.

Umm... I need something light-hearted to finish the post with.

So yeah, My Kids really miss me, which proves that there is hope for them yet. Anyone who can benefit from my teachings and realise that when I am gone they pretty much have to fend for themselves because they know that a lot of teachers are incompetent will definitely grow up to be the next great thing. For example, Albert Einstein wasn't "all that" in school, but then he met me. He now is famous for theories such as E=mc2 and ... others. Isaac Newton was a dumb piece of shit, but after a little encouragement from yours truly he invented gravity. No he didn't. He simply realised that gravity exists. That's what I said. It may be what you mean, but it's not what you said. Anyway, if you fancy becoming the next big thing then just be taught by me for two years and it's in the bag for you. Stephen Playmountain was homeless before he met me, and now he's one of the most famous Hollywood directors of all time.

There, that should do it.

P.S. My family are complete morons. Apparently there've been some house raids down here, all apparently Indian homes. So who do they think are to blame? "Oh it's the Indians, innit?" Dickheads.

Placeholder Title

Placeholder titles work for placeholder posts.

Just in case you're confused by the concept of a placeholder post, basically I intended to post today but didn't get round to it and now it's like 0018 and I could start a blog post, but I don't want to, so I'm going to put this post here to remind me when I do my daily blog click to write a post. It's totally cool.

Aha! That's the best pun EVER. 

That image actually serves two purposes. Not only does it explain, in the appropriate amount of detail, what a placeholder post is, but it also shows you what a placeholder image is.

It was definitely worth staying up for 15 extra minutes to make that.

Hutch out.

Boom Shaka Laka Joe's Party

I needed to spice up the name a bit.

Right, I'm exhausted from last night so I am so not in the mood to blog right now, but I felt that I needed to as a service to mankind. I know, I get it. I am that awesome.

First off, for some reason Sophia presses ctrl+F "Sophia" on each of my blog posts in search for a mention, and so Sophia, you have a mention. Well done. Your efforts haven't gone unnoticed.

Right, it's time to piece together the things that happened as best I can.

Actually, I should probably mention Sophia's lovely meal that happened on... Wednesday. Basically we all got dressed up in our best outfits and some even went for the Alice in Wonderland theme that had been proposed, but this was actually far too much effort and in any case Joe's costume was the best because he looked like the white rabbit and he went all out with the glasses and the ears and the little tail and the pocket watch. It was surely a sight to behold. Anyway, I warned Sophia that I wouldn't blog about her dinner party because I wouldn't be able to do it justice and I can't so it's here. We all had a wonderful time, Sophia, and as always your meat was absolutely delicious. We all gobbled it down like we would never get any ever again. Do continue to provide your delicious meat, Sophia; we all love it.

Anyway, onto whatever the hell I was talking about. I'm hungry. BRB.

Eugh, can I do it later? Of course I can. I'll do it later.

Later is now. My neck is still killing me but I'm not too knackered to do so now is definitely the most opportune moment to do this. I've also just shredded about a ton of paper and so I needed to do something constructive rather than destructive.

On Thursday at exactly 1901 I arrived at Joe's house and Joe answered the door to say, "I knew he'd be the first one here." He and Becca both looked lovely so I immediately felt underdressed, but they also had changes of clothing so whatever. We then moved to the garden where Joe got to open the present that I had given him. It was a 50ans edition of Catch 22, a book that Becca had told me that he would want, and he was thoroughly pleased with it. He then found the deck of Plop Trumps I had also bought specifically for the party. Plop Trumps is disgusting. Anyway, other people then started to arrive and with them they brought the largest amount of alcohol that I have ever seen ever. There was just loads. Piles. Gallons. I'm glad Joe told me that I didn't need to buy any alcohol for it. There was enough.

The alcohol that we had accumulated then happened.

It really happened.

I'm stalling right now because my memory is straining to put the events in order. Like, I'm actually getting a headache just thinking about that inebriated patch of time that I like to call some point between Thursday evening and Friday morning. Let's uh... let's just put some pictures in.

Alcohol made us dance.

The people who weren't drinking were having lovely conversations.

Alcohol made us pull funny faces. 

Alcoh- actually, that's just me and Becca pulling our normal picture faces.

Anyway, Jed continued to be thrilled by the atmosphere.

And then alcohol made us pull some more funny faces.

 - Interlude -
As you can see, at this point the party was in full swing and the majority of us had begun to get drunk. Okay, so here's a list of things that happened in no particular order:

 - Joe told me to look after Becca because she was drunk
 - Joe told Becca to look after me because I was drunk
 - Joe told me to get more drunk because he had started to get drunk and couldn't accept that I wasn't as drunk as him despite the fact that my tolerance is like a third of his
 - Becca made me dance
 - Sophia kissed me ... on the cheek
 - Josh talked to me about something

Well that was more successful than I thought it would be. Here's some more pictures.

Alcohol then made me forget where my camera was.

Alcohol may have caused this, but I suspect that the green glow means that Josh is to blame.

This is just a nice picture. 

So yeah, that's actually the end of the album. The pictures that help me piece together everything that happened stop there. It's okay though, because I have the memory of an emu who has been given a drug so that it can access 25% of its brain. That's all an emu needs.

The "midnight rave" then happened in the living room and I didn't want to do this so I started mellowing out in the other room. Wait, something else happened first.

Hang on, I gave Sophia my hoodie. I don't remember getting it back. But yet it's here. Never mind.

Anyway, that wasn't what I was talking about. At one point I was sitting outside on the bench because people were doing stuff and setting up music or whatever - I don't know - and Joe came up to me and asked, "are you okay?" because I was sitting alone. Normally when I have a moment to think - especially under the influence of alcohol - I become miserable, but I said to him, "Yeah fine. I haven't been this happy ever." And that's a fact. Instead of contemplating how crappy everything is and what have you, Inside Voice actually started reciting all of the good things in my life. This is definitely a step up. Somehow, some way, I had become completely content. And that's just great. I think you know whose fault that is. Congratulations, your years of tiresome work have actually paid off. Well done. And thank you. I love you.

But yeah, the rave then happened in the front room, and someone convinced me to go in and give it a go. The alcohol then wore off enough to make me think, "but hang on, this music is not only crap, but shit as well. It's about as shitty as Plop Trumps. Why the hell would I even think about moving to this ungodly strain on my eardrums?" I think it was supposed to be dubstep, which is bad at the best of times, but the bass track just wasn't there so it sounded even worse. The alcohol then wore off enough to make me not want to put up with it at all, so I went back to the other room and relaxed. Aimee and Dallamore were there as well, so that was cool. A short while later Becca joined me and as far as I remember we sat and chatted there until everyone went to bed.

The following morning wasn't nearly as fun. It's not really blogworthy either I think. Essentially Becca and I tidied up most of the mess while everyone else gorged on the toast Becca was making from the goodness of her own heart, bless her. And then we had to tackle Edwards' puke. Eugh.

Anyway, right now is Joe's actual birthday, so it leaves me only to copy and past what I wrote to him on Facebook and see where I go from there.

"Yo Joe, it's your birthday. I do hope that you are aware of this fact. 19! What a number, eh? You get to do... zero extra things because everything became unlocked when you were 18 but uh... well 19's still a pretty cool number. For example, 19 is the 8th smallest prime number, and it's also the atomic number of potassium. 19 is also the début album from English soul and jazz singer Adele. The Soviet submarine K-19 was the first Soviet nuclear ballistic submarine.

Probably the most important one for you though is that this is the final year in which you can be a teenager. You have exactly 365 days before you become a boring, normal person, just like every other adult in the UK. You still have a year in which you will still be blamed for all of the problems in the world.

But apart from all of that, enjoy the hell out of yourself. Today is your special day and that's kind of cool.

Happy birthday, Dad :)"

And what is there really to say apart from that? I've already said a billion times that you're a wonderful person and happiness should absolutely always be heading your way because you totally deserve it for everything you do. Seriously, you're not one of those bad people we always hear about. You're one of those silent good people that we never hear about because only bad people crave so much attention that they appear on TV. You've proven yourself to be a top-notch guy and you have the qualities that make an awesome father and a great dog-keeper. No matter where you go and what you do in life only success will swirl around you because you've always been a shining beacon of success and getting free stuff.

Keep up the good work, sunshine.