The Black Star

A blog dedicated to the series of unfortunate events that always happen around me. Not so much unfortunate, more like funny.. but unfortunate sounds better.

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Friday, October 20, 2006

Football Bloody Football (FBF)

So I went to watch the football yesterday with my flatmate. And when I say "I went to watch the football" I mean I went to the St. James' Park to watch Newcastle vs. Fenerbace. And I just didn't go to any seat, but we got pitchside tickets (I'm not sure if I had mentioned it before...)! We were about eight rows behind the photographers... which basically means we had kickarse seats! During the first half we had Duff running right in front of us (and he look just like on the telly lol)... and when Roeder yelled at his players, we could actually hear what he was saying!

The first thing that we noticed when we arrived were the Fenerbace fans. Damn, there were a lot of them... and they were loud... and they looked angry (as usual)! I wouldn't've wanted to be up there with those guys, they looked like they would get out an English flag and burn it any moment! And like I said, they were very loud. At times they were even louder than the Newcastle supporters (but then we would start chanting just to silence them... 25,000 people vs. 3,500 :) )

The first half of the match was okay at best. We got to see some good footwork by Duff, but that was about it. The second half was much better and we also go to see some great skills from Milner... not to mention Newcastle scored. Final score was 1-0 and the city was happy. Yes, that's right. On our way out you could see the sea of Geordies flooding the streets, outnumbering vehicles 12-1. Not much the cars could do about it. It was a beautiful disaster. And well, the chanting went on for a while longer.

Thursday, October 19, 2006

Durham Team Games

So we went to Durham yesterday (or the day before yesterday? yes, the day before yesterday) in order to take part in some team games (you know, bonding exercises and that kind of crap). I'll just say it went well... my team didn't win anything but we had loads of fun (which is probably why we didn't win anything).

There was an exercise where we were given a flag--we had to identify it and draw two pictures that represented that country and give a two minute mini-presentation on interesting facts. Yeah... none of us knew anything about Ireland. At the end we just made up stuff about Ireland and gave the presentation with those bogus facts. Here are some of them:

-Capital is Dublin and it's the biggest city in the world... because it keeps dublin' and dublin'.

-People in Ireland aren't called "Irelanders", they're called "Irish" and you can identify them as either bums or bartenders.

-Grass is a myth. There's no grass in Ireland, they've just got three leaf clovers.

-While Britain spends loads of dough making tap water clean so it's drinkable, the Irish use a much cheaper techinique: fertilization; they don't have running water in Ireland, you see, they've got Guinness. It is estimated that Irishmen spend at least 3 hours per day changing the barrells (especially while bathing).

Of course, the last part of that presentation was our apology to all Irishmen present.

So well, we got our Software Engineering Project specifications today. Basically, we're creating a F1 like system that tracks runners and then uses a ghost runner to improve/compare times. Great stuff. As it is, Durham get the easiest part which is the database part (yeah, it's a joint project... Newcastle Uni and Durham Uni) while we have do deal with the... well, not as easy stuff. And they say they're the better uni... I bet that's why they can't get their systems to work and we have to wait.

In other news, I saw a bloke on the Metro with bright orange shoes. The kind that's almost neon and burns your eyes if you look at them for more than three seconds. Now, who would get shoes like those? And, what would you match them with?
- "better uni" but systems don't work

Tuesday, October 17, 2006

Last

So I overslept today. That's right, the first of many times to come. The problem is, though, that I don't live in Ricky Rd. anymore, so I can't get from my bed to the uni in 5 minutes... I actually have to walk to the Metro and then take the Metro, wait for the Metro to get to Haymarket and then cross to road from the Metro station to the uni (and then walk from there to whatever part of the uni I'm supposed to be in). So yes, it's a more complex activity now.

I just rushed. Half asleep. Rushed. Into the Metro (after changing, of course) and since I hadn't had time to organise my stuff before leaving, I thought I'd do that while in the Metro. Yes, I know it's a terrible idea, especially at half-eight when everyone's using it. I was fiddling with my bag when the Metro took a right turn, thrusting me to the left (or on my back). I wasn't holding on to the railing as I was holding my bag with one hand and looking for some paperwork with the other... and I just feel myself falling backwards with no stop. My last ditch attempt to save myself was a lash out savagely at the top holding-thinger... and I somehow managed to grab onto it and stop my fall. I then look back to see if I hit anyone and I see this terrified lady. Yeah, it would've been quite something to knock out an older lady at 8:30 in the morning...

The other day we were at Tesco shopping for our weekly supply of food. After we were done, we're walking with the shopping carts to the Metro but then there's a point where you can't take them any further (although I saw this woman take it past that point and she didn't get tackled or anything... but well, whatever, nevermind) so we take our shopping bags from the carts and then we face the task of placing the cart on the cart-storage thinger right there. I give it a kick at the back wheel and move it right in front of Jimmy. The cart is facing away from Jimmy (the right way, if you like) so I yell out at him "kick it in! kick it in!" and much to my amazement he does kick it--right in the middle.

Okay, for those of you who haven't gotten it yet, remember that the middle part of the back of the cart moves in so that you can place other carts "through" it. When he kicked it his foot went right into the cart, holding him in a kicking position for some time. I still can't believe he did that. What a brain fart :P

By the way, have you noticed that Emile Heskey looks like the huge black guy from the Green Mile? Not like the actual actor, but the way he's portrayed in the Green Mile: a humongous mentally challenged bloke (yes, I know he's not retarded in the Green Mile--no need to send emails about it).

Monday, October 16, 2006

Demon's Child

So I took an extended break with this entry... but hey, I'm entitled to a break during the weekend, aren't I? Oh, well, here's the lowdown of the Revolution pub crawl:

At the Hancock we met this guy (I played pool with him and he beat me and then we started talking) and among different conversation topics, I asked if the band playing at Trillians was any good. He told me it was the best group he'd seen play at Trillians which I of course took as an exaggeration. Come Trillians, they were actually quite amazing. Not quite amazing, but Amazing! (that's right, capitalised) The guitarist (who was only 17) was a white version of Hendrix (not only because he played some of his songs, but his overall style and feel was very Hendrixey), the drummer (who was 18) was kickarse (he played Moby Dick's live version which includes a 10+ minute drum solo... and nailed it!) and the bassist/singer was cool (and significantly older than the other two blokes). I couldn't believe they played Led Zeppelin's Moby Dick, but when they played Gallows Pole/Stairway to Heaven (both Zeppelin) as an encore, that just blew my mind. The kiddo nailed the solo! So, if The Brew are ever playing near you, go see them! It's highly recommended for any person, but especially if you're into the whole Hendrix meets Zeppelin thing :) They'll be the supporting act for Dragonforce next year, so you could see them then (I most definitely will!). So yeah, the guy wasn't exaggerating one bit... they are hands down the best I've seen at Trillians.

The rest of the night was also good. No overly odd things happening though(Geordies coming in and headbanging with you are now standard things, as are spontaneous trensitos... okay, maybe not the last one), so I'll just say it was a good night.

On another note, I saw the Dutch Guy in the Metro when I was on my way home last week. You thought you'd never hear about the Dutch Guy again, eh? Well, you were wrong. Although that's pretty much all I can say about him... I just hid from him in case he recognised me from laughing at him during his lectures... but he did look confused (surprised?).

Now, on a very different note, we found a spider in our bathroom yesterday. If you know me at all you'll know I'm the biggest arachnophobe (translate: wuss) in the world. Vadim found it on the bathtub and called me over. Neither him nor Jimmy would kill it for me and I really needed to pee so I didn't know what to do. Jimmy made me watch some disgusting things on the web, promising that he'd kill satan's creature after I had done that. He didn't. So well, I figured since it was in the bathtub maybe I could drown it. So I grabbed a pint glass and filled it up to the top on the tap, slowly walked into the bathroom and saw it was near the plug. I gathered my strength (you see, you have to be careful when killing spiders... you don't want to miss and then piss them off... they'll take revenge later on and there's nothing worse than a mad spider) and finally threw the water at the demon. The pint of water rushed towards it like a huge wave and washed it down the drain--it seemed. Just to make sure it did drown, I kept refilling the pint glass on the sink and washing it down the tub. When I stopped I had washed down at least 12 pints of water... it's a good thing we don't pay for water. But I did kill it, so I was able to pee in peace.