Of Biblical Proportions

I was thinking [Ed. "the 3 opening words that always precede one of my more stupid comments"], given that Jesus is always refered to as being a 'shepherd' and we are supposedly his 'flock', does this mean that he was possibly the first person ever to coin the term 'Sheeple'?

I asked this in the office and it met a frosty reception - but I guess religion is a divisive issue.

Also - zombie safari? There's an idea there.

The Lost Art Of Throwing Shapes

Everyone needs to be all over this - get on it immediately. Drop what you're doing and dance... now :)

KC and the Sunshine Band - Give It Up

This Isn't Goodbye, It's Great-Bye

As predicted, my blogging has become rather sparse as of late. Still - you know how it is; living life in the fast lane and various other vastly inaccurate clichés. Anyway, lets get on with some general updating...

Firstly, as some of you may have noticed, YouTube has become a bag of crap and have begun muting all the sound on many of my videos because it contains vaguely popular music. Up with this I shall not put. Therefore I have started to migrate all my videos to Vimeo, which is a much better site anyway. If you want to check them out - you can find my Vimeo page here.

Next, as much as I have been having tremendous fun in England [Ed. "I am not being sarcastic - nor is this sarcasm - nor was that...."], the time has come for another escape. I have re-applied for my old job teaching in Japan, had an interview, been offered a position and accepted. Assuming I am not struck down by illness/a bus/an act of God in the next 3 months, I will be returning to Japan in August. I really have enjoyed my time in England, but I can't abide the crappy weather and surplus of alcohol-fuelled idiots rampaging through the streets. Some may call that a little hypocritical as many would claim that the description 'rampaging alcohol-fueled idiot' would suit me rather well; however, there are idiots and there are idiots. So anyway, long story short - I have 3 more months left and then I intend to bail for a considerable time. I urge all those that have yet to grow weary of me to come visit me over there, as it is tremendous fun - hence my decision to return.

Now that I have a deadline, it's back on with the mega saving of pennies. Need to accumulate a vast amount of funds for my return, as I may or may not owe the Japanese government a moderate amount of taxes. It's all good though - you've gotta pay the piper at some point. This is however in direct conflict with my plans for the upcoming months, as I have many fine activities in the pipeline. As many of you have noticed I spend most weekends darting around all over the shop for capers - this is due to continue. Trips lined up over the coming month or two include Manchester (next weekend), Edinburgh, Liverpool, (probably) London and (hopefully) Amsterdam. If you would like to join me in any of these escapades, give me a shout. Those of you that live in said cities, your inclusion in capers is both assumed and mandatory ;)

Anyway, I have waffled on a fair bit and really said very little, so I will stop there for now. But I wanted to dust off this bad boy and get some words out there. Will try and convince Rami to get some updates posted as well.

In the meantime, I hope you're all chillin' like villains with massive grins on your faces :) Ciao.

Gepetto's So-Called Wunderkind

I'm feeling creative. I have been reading my friends' blogs - namely Valiant Skipper, Beers On The Corner and a travel blog chronicling the international exploits of some good friends of mine - and it has filled my brain with ideas/thoughts/feelings/impulses. More than I can possibly handle at one time - but it gave me an urge to do a great many things. One such urge was an immediate desire to do something creative. Now I'm no where near as blessed in the art department as many of my friends, but I am not without some element of creative flair.

I had 3 ways in mind to express my creative impulses. The first is the picture below.


Not much I know, but just a brief shout out to some upstanding pillars of the international community. Granted BxOxTxC might not mean alot, if anything, to most of you, but it is a reference to something that I have for too long neglected. See the aforementioned blogs for an insight. I have not made a video for quite some time and it was today that I had the vision of what my next one shall be; said theme being BxOxTxC. Stay tuned for more developments on that one.

The other avenue for creativity is Codename: BetaDog - which some of you are now aware of. My friend Chris and I have been putting together various ideas for t-shirt designs, just to see what we can come up with. Have a look and see what you think or if you have any ideas for any new t-shirts yourself. Anyway, this evening I busted out 4 new designs - so have a gander.

The other main thing that sprang to mind while reading my friends' blogs was my urge to flee Britain once again. I know I go on about this all the time, but it's a hard feeling to keep in. I'm not going to rush off any time soon as I currently have a cool job which pays well and this is a good situation for me to be in right now. However, I've been reminded that there are so many amazing places out there and I really need to go visit them sooner rather than later. To this end, I've currently been saving about £1000 a month and will continue to do so until the time to act is upon me.

I can't help but feel that our youth is like water in our hands. You may think to yourself that you have plenty of time, but if you don't make the most of it while you have it, it'll have run out before you even realise what happened - et voila, before you know you're an old man wondering what the hell happened.

Granted it could all be a combination of the recent sunshine, the energetic music I keep listening to, my lack of patience and having friends abroad - but I'm feeling a big tug towards the great unkown [Ed. Well, unknown to me].

I'm so buzzed and excitable recently - maybe it's all this healthy food I keep eating. Who knows. All I know is that I need adventure. I feel a bit like the Anti-Pinocchio; he was so desperate to become a real boy and it's a fate I'm trying desperately to avoid.

Codename: BetaDog

Chris and I have been designing t-shirts - have a gander and see if you like any of them. We're making new ones all the time. If you want one printed or want to submit a design yourself, then give us a shout. So go check out Codename: BetaDog.

You can follow Codename: BetaDog on twitter too to see when new designs come out.

Mind Over Matter

I think this has to be the highlight of the £12.50 diet - watching/smelling Chris eat a giant roast beef sandwich (also containing roast potatoes, yorkshire pudding and gravy) followed by a generously portioned white chocolate rice crispie cake for lunch, while my lunch consists of an apple.

Boy is this a great challenge.


[Ed. I'm probably going to have to abandon the challenge tomorrow. Not due to budget constraints, but I am going away for the weekend and it'll be way more hassle than it's worth trying to continue the challenge. However, I would like to state that had I been staying in Sheffield over the weekend, that I do have enough food in the house to continue the challenge if circumstances had been permitting. In other words - 'cop out'.]

Stalemate

Am I the only person who thinks that Ginger Nut biscuits are nicer stale than fresh? They become all soft and chewy - it's ace.

Guess I better bust out a quick update anyway. Firstly, the £12.50 diet - it's going alright so far. Mostly been eating lots of fruit, salad, tuna, baked beans, whole grain bread and some Ginger Nut biscuits. My daily calorie count is pretty low on this diet, but it's covering all the essential food groups I reckon. So you're is unlikely to get malnutrition, but given the low calorie count, you couldn't keep it up indefinitely I suppose. I have so far spent £9.42, leaving me with £3.08. Granted it's only Wednesday, but I have enough food at home to last me for the rest of the week. I will probably use the £3 on Friday to get more fruit for the weekend. The only thing that has made this a bit tricky is that I have had the dreaded ManFlu since Sunday evening.

A rare strain of flu so powerful and so deadly it can only be matched by the Bubonic Plague and Aids. A incurable virus which has adapted to only effect the "XY" gene found in men. The virus attacks the immune system 10,000 times harder than the average flu virus, causing excruciating pain for the victim. Man Flu has no cure and prayers can save the forsaken life of the infected. The often deadly virus is mostly laughed at by women who sadly cannot contract "Man Flu".

Woman: Is he ok?
Doctor: I'm afraid not, I'm sad to say he has Man Flu

- Quote from UrbanDictionary.com

Secondly, as many of you may be aware, I was on BBC Radio 6 on Monday. I was on George Lamb's weekday show. I'm sure I came across as the div kid that I am. If you want to listen to it, you should be able to catch it here for a limited time.

Other things that spring to mind:

- If you're planning to lose weight, I'd suggest the self-imposed budget restraint method rather than Rami's IDOYT diet, as even though I am sure there are merits to both systems, I'm pretty sure no-one ever suffered chronic kidney failure from beans on toast.

- From what I've listened to so far, Rokysopp's new album seems on a par with previous efforts and, as such, is well worth a listen. You can listen to the entire album on their website.