Ok, for legal reasons I must insist that this wouldn’t be actual stalking.

I was reading Punktastic last night and they had the news that Billy Talent (who I went to see in Leeds after only hearing one song) are going to be playing at Download on June 10th, which is 5 days after my exams finish, so I can totally go to that.

But I wanted to check if it was true or just another PT rumour, so I headed over to the Billy Talent MySpace and found that it was true, huzzah! But then the stalking element came…

They’re also playing on the Sunday at Give It A Name ‘06 at the MEN Arena, an event that I wasn’t going to go to because of my hefty work schedule (and after the astounding failure last year at Alexandra Palace), but now I’m not so sure.

AND, they’re doing a load of dates around Germany at the time of Download, which makes me think that they may do a few headline dates around the UK as well.

… and all this for a band who haven’t released new music (’cept for a demo or two on MySpace) since 2003.

Brooklyn Industries hooked me up with a great tee from their new line, check out the review over at Hide Your Arms.

Had a good weekend keeping myself away from the dissertation. Went out on Saturday night and insisted on telling anyone and everyone about how great the last free tee is. At this rate in a 6 years I won’t need to wash any t-shirt for a whole year (presuming I wear one a day, sometimes pasta sauce accidents up the rate).

Oh yeah, the dissertation is now up to its first proofreading and editing, extra references are going in tomorrow, exciting times.

It may not be that great, it may just be a first draft, and its got about half as many references as I’m gonna finish with, its not in a coherent order, and the conclusion is half the length that its meant to be, but……

I’ve written my 10,000 words in 5 days.

I hit 8640 words today, so with a big push tomorrow I should reach the magical 10,000 on my dissertation, after which I’ll have 4 weeks to just make it better and better until its so good that it will no longer be a dissertation, they’ll have to make a new word to describe it because ‘dissertation’ simply won’t suit.

Went for a post-typing walk today around an abandoned quarry called Hodge Close, the sun was setting and it was silent except for the slight breeze. It is an amazing sight (see it in the flickr), but it is incredible that there is absolutely no safety fence considering the size of the cliffs that are there. If you fell off you more than likely wouldn’t find yourself getting out of the quarry alive. I’m not a big fan of heights to start with, and my balance is shocking, but falling off a clif is pretty high on a list of fears, I’d wonder what would go through my head in that moment when I realise that I’ve slipped and can’t stop myself from falling. And then what would fill my head in those couple of seconds before I hit the bottom.

Still. Lovely walk.

Having to stay inside the house and work when it’s really nice weather outside.

On the upside, I do now have 7000 words written for my dissertation, so my rate of 2000 words a day has dropped (as I’d done 1700 words when I was at uni), but since the required statistical average is 500 over the ‘holiday’ period I’m still pretty safe, seeing as I’ve technically already done 3 weeks of writing in about 3 days. But as I’m sure most people will know with dissertations, its not an essay, so you end up writing it more than once.

Oh, and I still haven’t actually decided what the dissertation is strictly about yet, which sounds bizarre, but I’m starting to think that my original title won’t fit with what I’m writing about.

Check me out in my free tee from the good folks at Beandip clothing, it was a pretty impromptu photoshoot though, if you look carefully enough you can see that the water is still running for my bath.

In non-blogger news, I’ve been a good boy today and worked really hard on my dissertation working from 9 till 4:30, and then from 7 till 8. I ended up writing more than 2,000 words, which combined with my sample chapter takes me to 38% completion of the dissertation. Technically. Because I’ll probably end up writing, re-writing, and then cutting before I’m finally done. It’s still good progress for 1 days work though.

Had a great time last night, even though we were in a slightly smaller group than usual, and Tigg even managed to keep the contents of his stomach in his stomach, which makes a change, which was largely due to some creative shot-sharing by the guys.

Thwaitesy was out, and insisted upon ripping his shirt open at every opportunity, pictures of his chest get be found on the flickr page, as well as lots of other pictures from last night.

Yup that’s me.  I have, as my sister would put it, contracted the ‘lurgy’.  The poor child refuses to look me in the eye cos apparently it freaks her out.  She sure knows how to kick a gal when she’s down.  Ilona’s response to my prediction that I am the first case of human bird flu in the world: “Are you being serious?”

I hope not.

So this is about how much fun I’m having at the moment.  Today I was forced to give Fiona a lift to work (yes, she managed to look me in the eye to ask me) cos I’ve infected our poor father.  I may sound like my mum when I say this, but men get one litle cold & the world is ending.  Though, if he feels anything like I do now, I don’t blame him.  Anyway so I drove up to Windermere with my mum & Fiona & even managed to park the car.  Maybe I should get ill more often!  Or considering the fact I’ve missed one of my best friend’s leaving party, 3 days of payment AND i feel like I want to lie down on the floor right now & sleep for the rest of my life, I’ll give that idea a miss…