Hey Hey my wonderful and cheery followers. I'm just dropping a quick post here for those of you who are interested. My house mate Sam has started another blog and has allowed me to add my own comic styles to the first post, so check it out if you want some political based comedy. Yes I am aware that most of the world will be doing similar thing, but here in the good ol' UK I like to think we had the idea first. So the link is http://distantvibes.samspinmedia.com/ check it and let him know if you like what he does. It will definitely make him happy, like this guy
Nothing like a Happy President. Anyway I will leave you with a song for the moment. Today the song is The Naked & Famous- Punching in a Dream. Enjoy and let my friend know what you guys think of his new blog and our joint post. Peace and Love as always.
Echoes of a Distant Star 2.0 has arrived my loyal followers. I've re-booted and revamped this blog to make it all fresh and new for the new year. I hope you like this revamped format. Let me know if you do. Answers on in a comment or a postcard please. So with a new blog for a new year comes new treats and goodies that will begin this month.
First is that once I find a scanner, I will be uploading the first of my short comics for you all to have a read of. It's done in a Scott Pilgrim style, i.e very comical and not in my normal style of artwork. But I've tried to maintain as much of my traditional style as I possibly could without making it look messy. This short features a large collection of my friends (and references to others who didn't make it into this comic, but don't worry they shall appear in other comic shorts to come) I had the most entertaining time drawing cartoon versions of my friends and had a giggle with their characters. Nothing like having a friend attempt to summon vampires in a Final Fantasy style manner to defeat a console that is proving to be annoying. It is quite amusing to draw out, as well as a battle scene against a sofa-bed... my housemates know how that one turned out in reality.
In other creative news, I have recently submitted my first short story to a magazine. So i'm hoping this one will get somewhere and I'll have some very excited tweets and blogs in the future. It might make things slightly more entertaining in the months to come and be a step in the right direction for me. Considering I have very few career plans aside from idlic dreams of the future, it would be nice to get somewhere for once. Oh the joys of dreams and hope... *seriously the sarcasm police will be onto me again if I continue with this sarcastic tone*
Anyways thats all for now. The song for this post is Bruno Mars- Grenade... actually seen as this is the first post in 2.0 format, I'm going to give you another song to keep you all happy and cheery. Song 2 for this post is Alexisonfire- The Northern. It's a good one.
Well the New Year has come and past, there was much amusement and entertainment which I hope we all had. The fun never ends on a New Year’s Eve, well it does technically, but that’s not important. So with this post I’m going to look back over the year and share with you my thoughts and musings with regards to music, film etc and my own personal experiences that are fun to talk about.
Firstly I would like to begin with music, as we all know it is the life and blood of society today. A strange lifeline for the youth of today, but we all love it. So once again we have all had to endure mass torture from so artists and been pleasantly surprised by others. Before I begin with this, one rule must apply here. On no account must anyone mention the music of Glee or the prodigy of Satan, a certain Mr Beiber in my presence or in comments or you shall suffer a mass amount of video game related violence! Similar to Scott Pilgrim style!
So onwards, I feel that two new artists have made a lasting impression on me this year. Firstly is winner of the BBC sound competition Ellie Goulding with her album Lights (or the re-release, Bright Lights) and her style of electro-folkish music. It has kept me singing along for many days, train journeys and 3am iPod listenings. Yes I do that when I cannot sleep. My personal favourite track is below entitled “Your Biggest Mistake”
The second new artist that has made an impression on me is Lights, a Canadian electro-pop artist. I first discovered her on YouTube (oh mighty YouTube) and watched some music videos and blogs that she made which made her seem even more amazing than before. Her album, “The Listening” isn’t 100% perfect but nethertheless it is a good listen for the days you want something mindlessly upbeat and cheery. The song that I’ve selected is “My Boots” and is a bit of a wintery jam without the cheesy festiveness of the last few weeks.
Also this year, I have rediscovered my love of the Gaslight Anthem who have returned this year with a splendid follow-up to the album the ’59 Sound, called “American Slang”. They never fail to surprise me. My favourite track on this album is “Old Haunts”.
Guilty pleasure tracks have been few but annoyingly addictive this year. The two that have stuck with me to the years end have been Leona Lewis “My Hands” due to its association with Final Fantasy XIII and the Saturdays “Higher” due to its catch chorus and the girls in the band aren’t too bad on the eyes. Oh dear that’s a bad reason to listen to music is it not.
Ahem onwards… Finally my favourite album of 2010 is a tie this year. First in the top spot is Bring Me The Horizon- “There is a hell believe me I’ve seen it. There is a heaven lets keep it a secret!” Despite there heavy sound and screamo music, the lyrics and music have so much depth and emotion to them. A personal album for Oli Sykes I feel as it expresses own feelings towards incidents of his childhood as well as his relationship to Amanda Hendrix. My favourite track is actually one of the softest tracks on the album, “Blessed with a Curse”
And the second album that has made it into my favourite album list is “Speak Now”, the latest offering from Taylor Swift. Another fantastic album from the country-pop musician which features songs relating to more heartbreak, forgiveness and gratitude to the fans. My personal favourite track on the album is “Enchanted” although on this album there is no easy choice.
Moving onwards, after the music must come the films of the year. Personally I’m still mortified to enter a cinema after the horrific film “Avatar” was released and the general public of teenage girl’s monstrous obsession with that goddamn “Twilight Saga”. Both should be forgotten and burned with films such as “The Last Airbender”, “Grown Ups” and “Salt”, the worst films I ever saw this year. These films personally made me feel unclean and mentally, wait… mentally and physically violated. The pure horror of those films, pointless characters, terrible jokes and Angelia Jolie… (I shudder)
Anyway, out with the band and in with the top five films this year. No analysis needed, these are no doubt the high points of the cinematic year. And guess what, only one of these films has been released in 3D and it’s the one of the two 3D films that have been worth seeing this year. 5. Heartless 4. Toy Story 3 (yes the only 3D film of the year I saw.) 3. Inception (I know most people will think this is higher but I personally feel that Nolan has not surpassed his best movie yet i.e. The Dark Knight) 2. Kick-Ass (Comic book mastery and a foul-mouth 11 year old who kills nearly everyone…) 1. Scott Pilgrim Vs the World (It’s my life long fantasy on screen!)
Although in the year of horrific 3D pointless films and stupid attempts at franchises that should never have appeared on the screen, there have been a couple of guilty pleasures. So my three guilty pleasures of the year have been: 1. Camp Rock 2 (Disney, music and Demi Lovato. I am easily pleased) 2. A Nightmare on Elm Street (re-make without Johnny Depp, but they manage to keep it slightly fresh) 3. Prince of Persia (enjoyable and a remotely decent videogame adaptation)
Video games have been declining again, much to the amusement of the bosses at Nintendo, due to their sinful product, the Wii. And has Xbox/Mircosoft/PS3 attempted similar stuff, yes they have now. Personally it’s a downfall of the computer game industry if everyone is buying pointless games like Wii sports resort, which in fairness are no where near as fun as Guitar Hero is, even when drunk!!!!
But less of the bad, more of the good, or to be fair the greats of the year. My two favourite games of the year which have kept me smiling and entertained for months and not just six hours (Sorry Halo Reach, you have not made the list, due to your dependency on multiplayer, however that doesn’t change the fact you are highly entertaining but not list worthy) 1. Final Fantasy XIII (beautiful animation and brilliant story to boot) 2. Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood (It’s time to come up with more new and inventive ways to kill the guards and templar’s)
Well, Christmas is over for another year and another year draws to its close. So to mark this yearly tradition of festive fun that one assumes will happen I thought I'd post another blogpost just because I've been out of the loop for a few weeks. So never fear I'm not dead, just yet.
So the news, Semester one is over and its behind me now. But the fiction course has inspired me for once, well its really just given me a kick in the arse to actually write outside of university. So I've now started the long awaited novel that I must have told myself I should start at some point in the future. Well that day has arrived (Cue the celebrations!) And I've even got a tentive tag-line for the thing. "Not all Religious Cults are based on myths!" So yes its something to keep my mind occupied for a bit, instead of resorting to killing as many people as I possibly can on Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood. Sorry but religious tom-foolary isn't appropriate at this time of year is it?... or maybe it is? Answers on a postcard please.
In other news, I attended a wonderful concert at the start of December for the marvelous 30 Seconds to Mars with Enter Shikari supporting. As usual the world attempted to stop due to the snow that decided to fall the night before but we made it there and enjoyed one of the best shows of the year. Just to remind anyone who finds it's a good idea to enter a moshpit for Enter Shikari, it's not. I very nearly died in that thing. But that could just be my typical luck though. It's also a good idea these days when you are poor student's to create your own band t-shirt before the gig, like I did for 30 Seconds. I believe the main focus of the tee was the lyrics to 100 Suns and the words "Gay only for Leto!" written on the back. Yes I am aware that is a strange declaration to make in front of nearly a 1,000 random strangers but the fact is it was a dare from my friend and I'm not one to easily back down from a dare. I will not be defeated.
Anyway that's all for now. I trust all ye noble followers have had a good Christmas, and even if you haven't don't be too down, it's not the end of the world until 2012 remember so we have one more year to get it right! As usual I'm going to close with the recommended songs for the moment. Again these do not mean anything in particular, I'm just spreading the joy of music across the world and to the four corners of the 'verse. So here they are: Ellie Goulding- Lights Young Guns- Weight of the World 30 Seconds to Mars- Hurricane (with or without Kayne West your own personal choice) The Gaslight Anthem- Old Haunts & This Town Needs Guns- Baboon
Ah metaphorical gibberish, how I do love to tease you in my titles to blogs. I love coming up with these cause its fun.
Anyway to the proper stuff that will fill this blog. We shall begin with the fact, I've been home for my reading week and had such a good time just being back in the old time and doing spontaneous dances at the early hours of the morning to songs like Airplanes, Hoedown Throw down and Pushing the Senses... a wide mix but we max it work. I hasten to add, that I'm not a professional dancer but i have a friend who ends up trying out new choreography on us when we have had a drink or two. Also the first assignment for fiction has been successfully handed in. so yeah, i'm pessimistic about the result because the story changed so much that I didn't recognize it anymore, but i am very pleased with the ending I created for it. nothing more entertaining than making your characters suffer and die in interesting ways.
As always I'm secretly stressing about things in life, but i'm very good at hiding these things (if your reading this and wondering why i'm telling you then stop being so smart and pretend you didn't hear it from me... or else there may be pain on a bizarre scale) but yeah, i'm finding that a lot of things are changing around me, as if I've handed control of my life to some mysterious nightmare man who drags me face first through dirt and expects me to stand up at the end of it all with a smile. Lately he has been toying with my emotions and has introduced someone to my world who I rarely spoke to in the previous years. Its now like i'm growing close to this person and developing feelings for her. As one of my housemates has said, feelings complicate things, I understand this and have agreed with him, but I don't seem to follow through in my actions. Its just the life of an incredibly unstable 20 (soon to be 21 year old) I guess. But we have fun don't we? or at least thats what i'm telling myself.
So yeah, moving onwards before emotion becomes so obvious that it burns a hole in my head. I am sketching out some of my comic as you read this most likely, so assuming I can get a scanner somewhere, I will post a couple of pages up on the blog for the world to gander at. Self Publishing to the MAX! Oh just to warn the faint viewers, some of the stuff does tend to get violent because its not a happy comic... there are no tea parties or white rabbits, its a story of how the world could end and it's not going to be a smooth ride because I know these characters are the most disturbed and flawwed individuals you will ever see for years to come. At least I hope so. Think Kick Ass with Watchmen with Blade with a bit of Japanese violence in the mix and times it by a million. But this is just my view of the stuff, I don't know if you'll enjoy it or not, but I have been working this story for the past six months and I hope that I've achieved the best quality of tale for the world to see.
Anyway, lets see, thats all for now. Hmm songs for this post... thats tough this time because I've been hearing a lot of rubbish in the music business these last weeks. But I'm going to suggest the new Alexisonfire EP- Dog Days and Parallels by As I Lay dying. they are heavy songs so just be warned. Oh and if anyone knows Final Fantasy, I rediscovered this the other day and it still makes me smile. so here you guys go.
Bonjour, it's now November which means two things. Firstly it's nearly Chrimbo time which is made clear by the ridiculous amounts of adverts on the television these days (I still haven't seen the cola advert yet tut tut) and secondly I turn 21 in less than three weeks now... i'm so full of excitement that if you asked me what I'm doing my response would actually be "whatever..." truth be told, i'm never very good with birthdays let alone my own after the last two years attempts at celebrations have been disasterific to say the least. But onwards and upwards i guess.
So the news on the week, we had the halloween party and the clean up (which was about as entertaining as finding a horse's head in your bed!) so that passed with very little trouble, despite my spider-sense going nuts haha. And then on the friday we had the field trip to the williamson tunnels. Now don't get me wrong, I was full of excitement to about the epic adventure I was hoping the trip would be, but i was majorly disappointed. Not because of the historical side of the tunnels, but the lack of things to see, it was almost like we were standing in a sewer to be honest... a sewer with ducks? Don't ask to much about that, because I only managed to come to the conclusion that they we halloween decorations, either that or ducks get freaky down there. And to top it all off, apparently we are meant to be inspired by the giant hole in the ground, i'm sorry but I'm lost for inspiration, historically i'm interested but inspired i am not. Not to mention that i'm sure people are going to be looking to sci-fi stuff to use in the stories, I dunno what to do with my story, i don't even have an idea... oh well best get to reading into the depths of human emotions again... and try a new style of story, historical stories that are purely insane and based on very little truth- hello da vinci code. haha
But on a slightly happier note, I got the new Taylor Swift album and its amazing. I don't think I've removed it from my cd player since last week, oh the joys of cds. I'm still not swung on the entire digital age (ps as discovered last night around midnight when me and some mates were incredibly drunk, we become crazy paranoids fearing technology and stuff, so it's safer not to get THAT drunk again for a long time!) so I'm still buying cds.
And to close this blog for the moment is the songs of the moment. I have 3 for you lucky followers this time round. muhaha
Katy Perry- Firework
Taylor Swift- Long Live
& Bring Me The Horizon- Fuck
So yeah I'm out of here and I'll give you an update soon =)
PS- I like this picture from my housemate. We look like adventurers
Good afternoon o' followers, First off I'll apologize for my temporary disappearance from blogging... for literally the an entire month and a half. Reason behind this is I have been riding a snow-ball of craziness as uni entered the third year. Oh the joys of that one.
Well lets see what i can tell you that will keep you entertained to the end of the post. well I'm now living in a new house away from the sinestro forces from last year which makes a big difference, because I can wake up dancing with happiness that I'm have some fun for once in my uni life. If I used emoticons I would be colon and a capital D... [:D] anyway I'm sure I can find some pictures of our exploits to show you all sometime soon.
Erm what else, oh yes earlier today I submitted to this short story blog because of homework, but I actually found the task rather fun and thought-provoking... odd combination of words but its what it felt like. so riding this breeze of enthusiasm for submitting I'm gonna send more stories out to places. Get ready magazines and publishers, you are about to be caught in my path of determination *insert evil laugh here*
Anyway I'm gonna fly for a bit, but I'll have some more news for you all soon, these next two weeks are gonna be crazy with stuff and parties so I will try keep you updated with our exploits next weekend.
Peace and love
PS the songs for this post are Radioactive by K.O.L and Higher by The Saturdays Laters
