those three words, are said too much, there not enough...

Hey to all you blogees (my new collective noun for blog readers, blog writers of course taking bloggers already). I'm back. As un-eloquent as ever, but hopefully filled with ideas, and a willingness to write

So my first blog, is inspired by Transformers 2.... wait, DON'T LEAVE yet. This isn't going to be four pages of me drooling over Megan Fox, or moaning about how shit a film it is..... It is in fact going to be drawing on one aspect of the film, which reminded me of the oft quoted snow Patrol Line, used as the title for this blog

Essentially in the Film Shea LaBeouf (Sp??) is Reluctant to say I love you to Megan Fox, for a myriad of reasons.... most of which I can't remember, due to lack of caring, and also disbelief at how shockingly bad the movie was..

Anyway, the reason I'm blogging, is because i agree with Snow Patrol's line, in fact it is the sole redeeming feature of that song, which, compared to every other song by such an awesome band, is in fact, utter drivel...... although this may mostly be due to its overplayed nature.... anyway back to the point in hand

So yes, I am firmly of the belief that 'I Love You' is used as a phrase in life far too much
Before i discuss why i feel this is the case, i must explain that there are different levels of I love you. Obviously there is the family "i Love you", one which i fully understand, as this is a natural instinct to love your family, unconditionally. People who say i love you to there family i have no qualms with, unless they use it for members of family they barely even know, but I've never heard of this being the case, so i can ignore it for now, and for the rest of this blog.

Secondly, we have the friends I love you, normally the preserve of girl-girl or girl-guy friendships. This is one of the main areas in which i feel I Love you is used too much. Yes, i will happily say I love you to some of my friends, but I've only ever said it to two or three people as friends, certainly in my memory. Partly because some friends who i may well have said it to are guys, and that's not the kind of things guys do, (we do manly things, GRRRR). But mostly because i firmly believe if i don't throw the term around willy-nilly, that when i do use it it retains a lot more meaning... As i suggested when i say that i have used it, I am not trying to tar you all with the same brush, or even suggesting that even if you have said i love you to more people than me that you are in fact over-using the term, I am merely suggesting that many people do chronically over use the term in this context, and say i love you to all of there friends, best friends are not.
Maybe its just me, but i feel usage for non best-friends somewhat devalues the saying.

The third, and final usage of the phrase I love you, and possibly the main focus of my point, is obviously in relationships. Once again, use of I love you is often very valid in relationships. Marriages, long term relationships etc., however often i feel it is not actually a valid phrase to use... This will probably insult some of my friends, on the basis that they are my evidence for such things occurring, but I've seen people saying it to each other mere weeks into relationships, which i feel is too early to tell if its love or not. One of my friends suggested that they feel there is a difference between loving someone, and being In Love with them. In a way i agree with them, but as I see it, loving someone is loving them as a friend, nothing more, and then being love is a phase that will develop at some point in a relationship. Being single, i can't really say whether i will end up changing my mind/ being hypocritical when i eventually end up in a relationship. Id hope that i don't though.
So if its not acceptable straight away, when is it acceptable, and not devaluing to say I love you? I mean obviously this will vary according to a large number of factors, like how long you knew each other before going out, how much time you spend together in the relationship to name but a couple. Anyway I'm not here to dictate your life, you say it whenever you damn well please, if i agree, all is good, if i disagree, maybe this blog is aimed at you

So now we have discussed where i think ' I love you' is overused as a phrase, and in what circumstances i think it is socially acceptable, however one thing i haven't yet considered, is WHY people act like this...

Well this is a very interesting point, many people would say that if its a guy its probably just to get sex, but i think this is unfair on (most) guys, and i cant see this as the reasoning for girls either. I think its more a case of a gradual dilution of the words meaning over the years, which all of us, even me, are guilty of, to the point where we are now saying things like "i love burgers" which I'm sure somewhere someone does, but they probably don't have a girlfriend, except an e-girl they made on world of Warcraft, and they will probably die because the thing they love so much clogs there arteries, and they suffer the heart attack, on the way to the microwave.

So i think i'll leave this blog post at that, having started at Transformers, and ended at WoW players, making many massive, sweeping generalisations, and almost as many grammatical errors probably

Laters blogees.

so i found this last night ready to post in my drafts, so suck it up bitches. Maybe more blogs soon, if i can find time, or words. maybe I'll even try with my grammar (LOL)

Long time no speak guys

Basically hello to you if you read this (wow you really are bored)

and also dont worry i am in the process of composing a real blog.... check back soon

To Buy List

Not really a proper blog post, just a note to myself of CD's or mp3 downloads i want to aquire and have not yet done so:

1. White Lies - To Lose my Life
2. The Official Secrets Act - Understanding Electricity
3. Franz Ferdinand - Tonight...
4. The Prodigy - Invaders must die
5. Yeah Yeah Yeahs - Its Blitz
6. Trivium - Shogun
7. Vampire Weekend - S/T
8. Bat for Lashes - Two Suns
9. Various - War Child - Heroes
10. the Cure - 4:13 Dream
11. Greenday - 21st Century Breakdown
12. Hold Steady - A positive Rage
13. Linkin Park - Live @Milton Keynes
14. Eminem - Relapse
15. Mastodon - Crack the Skye
16. Papa roach - Metamorphasis
17. Marmaduke Duke - Duke Pandemonium
18. Little boots - Hands
19. Calvin Harris - The album with I'm not alone on
20. The King Blues - Save the World, Get The Girl
21. La Roux - in for the kill
22. Doves - Kingdom of Rust
23. Metro Station - S/T
24. Asher Roth - Asleep in the Bread Aisle
25. Flogging Molly - Float
26. Flogging Molly - Drunken Lullabies
27. Flogging molly - Swagger
28. Lifter Puller - S/T
29. Lifter Puller - half dead and dynamite
30. Lifter Puller - Fiestas and fiascos

Thats all for now - expect this list to be oft updated as i think of more and buy them

I live in a hiding place, it's the only way i feel safe

Social networking, and to a lesser extent (though hoping for this to change) blogging, are a big big part of my life. Myspace, Facebook, Twitter, MSN and now Blogger are all a large part of my life, but why is this. Maybe to a lesser extent with Facebook, where it's more to stay in touch with friends, at home, and at university. I certainly feel that it is almost an attempt to escape from my "real life" - even if somewhat a futile attempt now that i know more and more people on such sites well. So yes, social networking, i sense this is true for many people, not just me, is just an escapist policy. So why do we so desperately want to escape from our real lives, is it a case of stress? A case of things not going our way, or something else completely different.
For me at the very least i feel it is a mix of all of these:
At first, way back when i was a 16 year old boy, I was very sceptical about the whole Myspace thing. Msn was for people I'd met only, and, my parents (well my mum) being Daily Mail readers, and me being very impressionable, believed the Internet was 100% paedophiles who wanted to anally rape me by meeting me at the local burger king!
Quickly however i realised that, contrary to the "Daily Outrage's" propaganda machine, that if you were even vaguely careful that, not everyone was a 45 year old bloke with a beard wanting my anal virginity and to post pictures of my nude self all over the Internet for other beardy people to wank over. In fact i met some people who, to this day, i count among my best friends, Courtney, KP, ES,(Oh by the way - all those i didn't ask for permission to name them are merely initials), others i still talk to regularly, BA,EF, BL, RC, RW , and some who fell by the wayside, BL, being the example i remember the name of. This is just from the initial Myspace days, through these people, and friends, I've met other people who are notably awesome, and again truly come under the category of some of my best friends - Hannah, and Kat come to mind here.
So it came to pass very quickly i had found a great source of friends, friends who, not being involved in my life off the computer, often were easier to talk to about issues in my day to day life, not only because they had an impartial view of the situation, but also, not knowing anyone else involved, no gossiping could be done.
I honestly believe that, were it not for Myspace in particular, two of the three people i would count as my closest friends nowadays would not be in my life.
So although initially social networking was probably a way out of my life, in a way it now IS my life.
Myspace has also been a good place to rant, as, more recently, has twitter, however i feel this is because if i am annoyed with someone i can shout about them without them hearing, as such twitter was my new main outpouring, but now, as more and more people i know,and hence may get annoyed with, get such social networking tools, i sense it will be this blog, not neccesarily because people won't read it - in fact i hope they will, but i won't know that they are reading it, and can retain some anonymity - for them at least. so if i am ever harsh to you on here, please take it with a pinch of salt, blogs make for best reading when you are thinking irrationally, at least in my opinion, so ranting will be done.

So Anyway, the Point of this blog? Well, two fold:
A huge thank you to all of those above for being awesome mates, especially those actually named, your awesome, and i genuinely love you all.
Secondly, to see what other peoples experiences of social networking are?

Comment me up peoples
Peace, and love to you all, you Internet peoples, I'm glad i know you!

Directional Change

so my good friend slick111 (his blog is anonymous, so i shall retain his anonymity for him here, if you fancy a read though go here) has a blog which has only recently come to my attention. His blog, in my opinion, is awesome, where as, frankly, mine, is a big pile of turd. As such from now on, in an attempt to be more awesome, my blog shall attempt to be more like his. It may possibly wait until after my looming exams, due to busyness, or i may use procrastination as a sort of muse for my hopefully writings. Although content of the blog will hopefully be similar to Slick's subject wise, it will hopefully retain uniqueness opinion wise, and also in the fact that my english writing ability, as a scientist, is somewhat limited unless i have an oppurtunity to put in numbers and mathematical symbols in regulalrly, slick, on the other hand, is a theologist/philosopher, therefore his prose will be somewhat better than mine. On that note - do feel free to correct my grammatical mistakes for me, it can never be bad to know where i go wrong

for now
peace out

EFC - the life and times of

Well below(right at the bottom - quoted) - you will find a draft blog post from ages ago (just after i got back to university if i remember correctly - and reading it i thought it was amazing how much things can change in a football season

At the start of the season there was a lot of pessimistic feelings with regards to everton (i was one of the more optimistic from the looks of things)

Its nice to see how much things have changed for the better recently in EFC's world, a Cup semi-final, and the trip to wembley that brings with it. A manager now with a long term contract, some good buys( no matter how bad they seemed at the time), and as i was going to move on to talk about (before i nearly forgot about my blog forever), a big turnaround in the performances we have had this season:

Fellaini has turned out to be a god of a signing - some people will deride him for being lazy and having shit hair. However i think his hair is the best hair ever(or was till he braided it) , and has an immense work rate 90% of the time. For a young lad (20 i believe) he is an immense prospect for the future of the football club

My worries about the loss of Carsley have been well abated, Phil Neville has slotted in brilliantly well to his role, and our midfield is a force to be reckoned with when fully fit. Neville, cahill, fellaini, osman, arteta, peinaar, gosling, rodwell, Van De Meyde???. Hopefully losing one or ten of them due to injury wont have too big an impact on the final standings this season.
Our on field performance has had a dramatic turnaround - 6th in the table, and despite a mini slump of late, we have a fairly nice run in, and a decent amount of points are all easily obtainable.
new stadium troubles - no decision till november - no fun!!! and no developments on the buy-out - all just rumours post Manchester Abu Dhabi City's buyout!!

The other thing i mentioned was Moyes' contract which is all done and dusted now.

So an interesting change of hearts for everton fans over this season, perhaps looking back over blogs like this a few months later is something i should consider doing again. Definitely an interesting possibility id like to try in the future. Though hopefully next time it will be replying to a blog i actually post!!!

Well, as you may know if you are reading this (seeing as none of you are it doesnt matter too much, I am quite a loyal everton fan, and as you may have seen recently, we have been getting quite a lot of press coverage, whether it be our on field performance, new stadium troubles, possible buy-outs, or just moyes' new contract. so i thought i should have my say on what i think about everything that is being reported/happening

1. The Summer.
Personally I think one of the main causes of our down turn this season has been the loss of a key player over summer. Lee Carsley. He may have been an older, and less well known player within our team, but he was somewhat of a lynch pin within the team, and he did his job better than anyone, with minimal fuss about him as well. This was a big loss for us, but there was nothing we could do really to prevent it, as he wanted to move nearer his family in the midlands, and we have to respect such wishes.
Andy Johnson was our only other loss of the summer. This although a loss as a back up striker, as i would no longer put him in my starting XI, was definitely a tidy bit of business on our part. To make £2m profit on a player who is not only getting older, but no longer looks the player he did when we bought him and also who reputedly failed his fulham medical before they signed him is an outstanding bit of business on our part in my opinion.

In terms of players in, Summer was definitely a dissapointing one. The failure to get Joao Mutinho from porto was definitely a big loss, and the lack of any other significant signings until the last day also dissapointed. Felliani has looked distinctly average so far this season, and we have barely seen Segundo Castillo, or Jacobsen, both international players. Louis Saha could turn out to be an inspired signing, as there is no doubting his absolute quality if he can stay fit.

So that sums up the summer transfer situation, which all round was dissapointing to say the least.

Leeds Festival Lineup (or reading for you southern fairys)

So leeds Festival, one of the biggest music festivals in England, has just announced its 2009 lineup - and having been in 2001 for a day, and then for the weekend every year since 2003, including 2009, i thought i would give my comments on the line up so far for this year (see the blog title - tis a link)

Well, a lot of people have commented saying that this years line up is "shit" and "awful"
I would be the first to admit that this years line up is not as good as last years, at least in my opinion, Metallica and Rage against the Machine was always going to be a very difficult act to follow! However, i do believe some of the criticisms of this years line up are entirely unjust. so now you get my opinions on all of the bands!!! Lucky you

WARNING I AM OPINIONATED - DO NOT TAKE OFFENCE IF I DISS YOUR FAVE BAND

First the three headliners, are in my opinion mostly good, Kings of Leon, are undeniably awesome live, and the recent mainstream success (that song about STD's) makes them a prime candidate for headlining, even if i do prefer their old stuffs (That song off FIFA 2004)
Next for my praise as a headliner is Radiohead. So i probably won't watch all of them, but as much as Q over-rates them (best album of all time - i think not) OK Computer, and The Bends are two brilliant albums, and those two alone, and the fact MTV2 heralded them as the second best live band around at the moment (behind muse if you were wondering) make them fully deserving of a headline slot.
Finaly Arctic Monkeys - admittedly i am a big fan of both there albums, much more so the first one, however, i do not believe that they are (yet) headlining material for a festival this big. Some may say they have proved themselves by playing second below muse a few years ago, but personally i believe they seemed out of there depth. Time will tell, and the new Josh Homme(LEGEND) produced album should hopefully make up for a slightly dissapointing second album, especially after the hype surrounding them pre and post first album

The Other Bands -
The prodigy - legends, even if there new single is basically them trying to be Pendulum. Second on the bill = huge rave times with them playing
Bloc Party - A few good songs, but massively over rated, I'll probably be giving these guys a miss
Kaiser Chiefs - Yay for Festival happy music, if not particularly great!!! definitely suit the festival atmosphere with there sing-a-long happyness (ruby ruby ruby ruby) even if it does make me want to lobotomise myself if i hear it too much
Maximo Park - Legends, awesome live, excited bout new album, end.
Yeah Yeah Yeah's - Awesome live, always good music, and the new album is getting rave reviews everywhere (love the new single)
Placebo - not the biggest fan, but no denying their longevity, that they have written some absolute tunes in their time
Ian Brown - Ok so its no fun knowing he isn't the stone roses anymore, but he is an indie legend so cant knock him too much
Vampire Weekend - Possibly one of the coolest bands of the moment (read: one of the bands being bummed most by NME at the moment) and some awesome tunes - the video forCape cod Kwassa Kwassa is also brilliant for the dig at those who said their name sounded a bit more ramones punk esque than hip indie kids
Fall Out Boy are shit (except reinventing the wheel to run yourself over - off burnout 3 soundtrack)
the Courteneers - what ive heard is good - although admittedly this is two or three songs
Brand new - Lots of my friends love them - not really listened to full albums, but the singles and particualrly Sic Transit Gloria... Glory fades are awesome (awesome video as well)
Deftones -long standing nu-metallists (as they were branded at the time) Schools Out and the song from the matrix soundtrack are awesome, but other than that ive never been overly into them
enter Shikari - awesome live, saw them in a room about half as big as Trevs Bar/Study 19 (that should encompass everyone and anyone who reads it - if not - it was small!!!)
Eagles of Death Metal - what ive heard is good, and one of my housemate loves them, well worth a check to see Josh Homme on Drums
Funeral For a Friend - first album (Casually Dressed and Deep in Conversation) was amazing, since then downhill IMO, but still a band i need to listen to more, and a force to be reckoned with live!!!

NME STAGE
Normally One of the strongest stages indie wise, and this year appears to be no different
Gossip - undeniably a big indie band (in more ways than one), standing in the way of control is still one of the biggest indie songs (thanks to skins)
Glasvegas - another - NME loved band - yet to get into these guys, but my dad and brother are both fans, and my dad has fairly good music taste on the whole (my brother is a different matter)
Jamie T - Brings something different to the music seen, and i do very much like what he is trying to achieve - even if im not that big a fan of his music
AFI - One of the less indie bands on this stage, but definitely worthy of there place, and a few TUNES (girls not grey and miss murder spring immediately to mind)
White Lies Coolest indie band of the moment?? With tunes to match - which always helps - yes i am listening to them right now - would possibly suit low on the main stage well, due to the ferris wheel being nearby(Fairwell to the Fairground as a last song would be awesome)
Friendly Fires - not heard much - but what i have is absolutely insanely awesome!!
win
Maccabees - cool genius music - loved there first album, and the new single is better
gallows - famed for a MENTAL live show - get ready for shit to happen yeah!!!
Florence and The Machine - although there song itself annoys me - very catchy and a hot prospect for this year
Gaslight Anthem Hi we are the gaslight anthem, we are bruce springsteen but twenty years later - and slightly punkier, this makes us awesome


SO so far the line up looks awesome, Personally i've always loved the smaller (carling and lock up) stages anyway, much more intimate, and the line ups for these always has somebody you want to see

Roll on August!!!

peace out!!

My First Blog Post

Hello All,

So like the big geek that I am, i decided to start a blog, because i am cool like that!!!
yeah

Welcome to what, hopefully, will become a fairly epic collection of ramblings (expect lots of these), musings (probably less so), rants (probably lots), and hopefully some album and film reviews if i ever get round to any!!

The name of this blog, is a pun on my surname, and a nod to a column my dad used to write for his work magazine, which i remember being epically awesome, and similar in content to what i intend for this blog.

For now however farewell, Expect more content soon!!!!

Matt