The erratic adventures of shay & jax
The beard competition is in the bag, and was a roaring success. This will now lead to me feeling slightly less over-whelmed, and dicking about on Popmundo a bit more. I'm toying with bringing Ellis to life, finally, but can't think of a way of doing it. Well, I can, but it's not popmundo-approved way, if you get my drift? Anyway, I'll get some more pics up as and when they come through from the photographers. For now, a little fan service. It's my blog, and I'll leer if I want to.
In Pop-related news, Shay is about to shovel baby poop, and Jax is messing with swimsuit-clad 16 year olds. I like to keep it classy...
16 Comments
Well, maybe not all. Just the cute ones. Like Roger. And why, I hear you ask? Well, I dunno. Maybe it's the rugged jawline, or the burly, muscled frame, or the sensitive poets soul, or the... Okay, got distracted there for a minute! :D Let's try this again: fuck all y'all for not updating your weeblies and generally entertaining me in my coffee breaks. I miss Rice's lunatic rants, memes and inappropriateness. I miss Bagel's snark. I miss the lady behind the Foulquiers in general. I miss Roger's toned abs and perfect buns. *sigh* Anyhoo, let's focus on the positives. It's raining. If it continues to rain for the next week, it will surely aid ticket sales for the beard and moustache competition that the boss and I are hosting next week, in aid of the local air ambulance charities. (Yes, that's right - I dunno how it works in developed countries, but here in the UK, these essential life-saving services exist thanks to ordinary people volunteering their time and money - but that's a whole other rant!) The Ashes is now under way in both the men's and women's forms of the game. I hold out a lot more hope of us being successful in the women's Ashes than the men's, but as neither test has gone the way I expected so far, what the fuck do I know? Other than the fact that Bell just has to be dropped now, as having this bad a run of form in such a highly scrutinised series can surely be doing him no good at all. The result of the women's 2nd one-dayer was disappointing, but the game itself was excellent to watch. Meg Lanning's century was a joy to watch, and her run out of Charlotte Edwards at mid-wicket would have been a thing of beauty, if it wasn't a bleddy Aussie doing it! What else? Well in the strange world of Popmundo, Jax is going to be playing football (I grit my teeth and use soccer when in character, but here? Never!) for Barcelona next season. Well, he's more likely to be watching games from the bench, but such is life. Shay has finally told Lily that he used to be Shayna. Obviously she reacted with the kind of small-minded revulsion that you'd expect from such a intolerant hatemonger. I think we all know that that one is pure evil, a fact further highlighted by her continuing to hide her ongoing relationship from poor Shay. No doubt she plans to reveal the truth when it will cause the most emotional scarring... *attempts a serious face* And, because we haven't had one in forever, bask in the almost impossible loveliness of Gogo Blackwater. Have a good weekend - and write more blogs!
10 years ago, UK screens were first graced by the presence of self-facilitating media node that was Nathan Barley. This is the first of two cultural references that may pass readers in some part of the world by, but I promise to make it up to you later with pictures of ladies with tattoos. Maybe. If you're lucky. If you haven't watched Nathan Barley then you really, really need to. I don't know if the show was as prescient as the Graun makes out. Even growing up on the moon (aka Plymouth) and going to uni in Bournemouth, the world was already shrinking. By the time Nathan Barley was shown, I was all too aware of the Shoreditch twat and the Hoxton fin. Nathan distilled all of that into one perfect, pompous, two bluetooth headset-toting bellend, who was still strangely endearing. Today elements of that subculture are being seen more and more. Hipsters are like rats these days - you're never more than 6 feet from one. And yet, as much as we sneer (and goodness knows I sneer) it's not really the end of the world, is it? You're not very likely to get glassed in a hipster bar (although I image that Kilner jars would make a fine assault weapon). Growing up in 90s Plymouth, where the local NHS trust opened a minor injuries unit specialising in treating such injuries, and police and Provost meatwagons would perch on every side road off of Union Street, I can't say that I mind a little gentrification. And while there's much to mock about the worst excesses of hipsterism, that's true of every subculture. When I tell people that I like hip hop, I think many of them are immediately surprised that I don't throw gang signs and call everyone blud. Which I do, obviously, but only when I go to visit my parents. Anyway - Nathan Barley. Go watch it; it's totally fucking Mexico. The second section of this blog which will make many eyes glaze over begins now. That's right, cricket references are back!! Err, except that I'm a little out of the loop on the cricket front. Is KP still playing? :P Okay, maybe not that far out of the loop. The England one-day side have gathered a little momentum of late. Freed from the turgid pace of Ali Cook's batting, Ian Bell. Moeen Ali, Eoin Morgan and James Taylor (minus the rest of the quartet) all look like proper limited overs batsmen, with guys like Root, Buttler and Bopara to back them up. Our attack is pretty decent too. The problem is that we still look a step or two below the top sides like Australia and New Zealand, both of whom are in our group. So no World Cup victory for us, but I think we'll do better than many expect. Are you poor foreigners bored yet? There, there - the nasty sport has gone away now. Well maybe not just because. The tenuous link is that I'm still thinking of recycling V as Ellis, and wondered whether to make the leap to using Kandy K as her faceclaim. But, yeah - mostly just because.
*'Today' in this case meaning 'in the last few weeks'.
I think that's it. Yeesh, typos galore! Anyway... Half a day more of hecticness and I'm on holiday. GET IN!! I'm not jetting off anywhere for the week. In fact I plan to be quite busy, but busy doing stuff I've chosen to do, so happy days. On Friday I'm off to (hopefully) sunny Dartmouth for my mate's stag. I'm the Best Man, and have done a fair bit of running around organising this, but it's all done, and nearly time to get drunk. We're all from working class backgrounds, but all of us went to uni and now work in varying professions. Over time, as we've got older, slower and better off, our various stag parties have got more and more middle class - from the booze-and-strippers tear-up in Dublin's Temple Bar when the first of us got married, to the camping trip to North Wales for the last-but-one one (first thing we did was hit Waitrose for croissants and brie. And booze, obviously.) This decline should culminate at this stag, where the groom has decided that, rather than buy 'comedy' t-shirts, he's getting everyone a cravat for Saturday night. Then again, it is Dartmouth, so I doubt anyone will bat an eyelid. Next week I'll be getting stuff done around the house, walking on the moors, and watching Stage 5 of the Tour of Britain. I'll also be hard in training, because on Saturday I'll be up in Bath, entering the second ever British Beard & Moustache Championships. I don't have a wild and crazy beard, so I will be entering the Business Class category. It's just a bit of fun really, and I'm not expecting to win or place. My barber, on the other hand, is incredibly excited about the whole thing, to the point where he's attending himself, and has been chastising me for not moisturising my beard every day. I'm off for trims tomorrow and next Friday, and I have visions of my sessions in the barber's chair being like this. Then again, as the boss is convinced that we're having a bromance, maybe it'll be more like this... If you see nothing here about Popmundo, the supposed main thrust of this entire blog, it's because nothing is happening there. I'm thinking about starting playing Track King again to while away a lunchtime or two. I'll leave you for now with some of the other staples of this blog: cricket, heavily tattooed women, and music you'll hate. I thoroughly enjoyed the England/South Africa women's T20 game last night. Charlotte Edwards' batting showed everything that guys like Ali Cook should be doing in limited overs cricket - no slogging, manoeuvre the ball into gaps, and run hard. I like Ali Cook a lot, but he needs to figure out that not everything is a fucking test match, and get on with it. I'd sooner see him get 25-30 fairly quickly than 50-70 sloooooooooooowly. What are your thoughts, gentle reader? Yeah, that's what I thought. While looking around for possible rockabilly events to attend (that's my transparent excuse, and I'm sticking to it...) I have recently stumbled across the very lovely Kandy K, an English model who's defected to the States, where she no doubt has a wider choice of rockabilly shows to attend. Expect her to appear as the face claim of one of Rice's bastard spawn sometime soon. You're welcome. And lastly I will leave you with a track that's been in heavy rotation on my Spotify account this week. I've been mostly dealing in words rather than drawings, so there's been lots of bleeps and bloops, and less lyrics. I know, I know: tl;dr. No doubt I will bug you lovely people during my week off, but if I don't it's because I hate you. :)
Yeah, my titles still suck. Really thought about offing V last week and concentrating on Shay. Then a friend suggested that I could turn Vera into Ellis, and effectively make V an NPC. This confused my tiny, over-stressed mind somewhat, but I can see what she's getting at. As a playing character V has probably run her race; I don't see her getting back on the road again, and as she's not song writing for anyone or, well, doing anything what's the point? Anyone that wants to 'talk' to her could still do so via PMs, but realistically she'd fade away and eventually die. Ellis as a more prominent character could well be an abject failure, but you don't know until you try, and the only other way to try would be to adopt a kid and wait forever for it to grow up. That said, it would leave a lot of in-game mess that would bug the hell out of the anal retentive in me: song history, showing up in other people's bookmarks, that sort of thing. I'm going to hedge my bets and fish for adoptions. If anyone knows of anyone who wants to get rid of an older kid, let me know. Also, and excuse my ignorance, but is there any way to make characters older, or is that not really a thing? I guess option three is kill V and Shay, get a new character and then resurrect them as Rice has done, which will cost me about £15. Hmm, decisions... Of course, probably the most sensible option is that if I CBA with V why would I with Ellis, so I should just do nowt. Knowing how fucking lazy I am, this is probably what will happen, rendering this whole blog post even more drivelly and pointless than normal. :) I read an interesting interview with ?uestlove of the Roots (and yeah, I'm being an Indier-than-thou dick by spelling his stage name the way it used to appear on the liner notes of Roots albums in the late 90s/early 00s - so what? :P) Firstly the SoundClash sounds like it might be a reason for me to watch MTV for the first time in forever (I watched one episode of Death Valley a few years back, quite liked it, and then promptly forgot about it - might have to catch it on Netflix). Secondly, it's an interesting take on cultural (mis)appropriation. Now I could probably write reams of bullshit on this ("please god, no!" -Everyone) but I'll try and keep it short. For most of the time when I was growing up and listening to rap it was pretty underground. You had the brief spells of chart success, and you had radio-friendly acts, but for the most part people liked a handful of rap songs, or one or two acts rather than Hip Hop in a wider sense. I'll admit that the current explosion of rap's commercial success does give me Hipster-twitches, and I have sneered at all the pale youths in the current scene. Or, to quote fellow whiteboy Vinne Paz: "I'm from a time where every song was righteous/ Before rap was just a swarm of white kids". That said, humanity has always adopted other cultures, whether that's Kublai Khan adopting elements of Chinese culture and forming the Yuan dynasty, or the Rolling Stones covering Muddy Waters. I don't think there's anything wrong with white artists performing musical styles of black origin. I think there's a lot of noise about what is 'white' music or 'black' music, and I'd rather just hear good music, but I'm also self aware enough to realise that it's pretty easy to say that as someone that isn't watching their culture get co-opted. And there's the thing; Iggy Azealea doesn't seem self-aware enough to recognise what a massive bump she gets from being a blonde-haired white girl, why fans of genre that, rightly or wrongly, celebrates 'realness' might get annoyed with an Aussie rapping in an Atlanta drawl, or why reasonable people might be a little ticked at all the racist bullshit she tweeted. Newsflash Izzy: just because you weren't famous when you said it, doesn't mean it doesn't count. Anyway, after reading the article, I figured I may as well listen to the song. Hmm. Suffice to say she's not the next Jean Grae. Fuck it though, pop music has been more about image than content for as long as I can remember, and clearly lots of people do like it. Then again, I'm sure lots of people thought that nice Mr Hitler would be good for Germany. Still, she should probably go listen to some Jean Grae to learn about the Twitter timeline... And just because we haven't had any heavily tattooed women lately, here is Miss Grae, aka my wife when I grow up (around about the time I hit 70, I reckon): Oh, and before anyone asks, Clair won't mind - she'll be married to Chris Hemsworth by then! :D
Two of the best things ever, surely? Or three, as boobs tend to come in pairs (they mate for life, I hear). So three of my favourite things. Then again, could a moustache could be considered a pair of moustaches, one either side of the philtrum? So three, or possibly four of my favourite things, depending on definition. Wow, that intro really lost steam, didn't it? Any way there were some fine examples of both (or all, as the case may be) at the second Kinky & Quirky show I've attended. Although not on the same person, which is terribly inefficient. And in Chichi Revolver the hula hooper there was also a heavily inked lady, which is another of my favourite things, and a chap in a fantastic cricket jumper/jacket/smart trousers combo, which is another! This brings us up to, what? Six? I'm not sure, I lost count (and the will to live -Bread's brain) some time ago. * I had a very mild existential crisis on how to spell this shortening of legend. Ledge sounds right, put is a word in its own right. Oh the perils of actually caring about not misspelling stupid slang... The photos are courtesy of someone we met on the night: Max D. Fontaine (Paul to his friends). The D stands for Danger. Or, if you believe his girlfriend, for Dickhead. There's every chance that these were taken with the lens that Paul got a 'hard earned' discount on by flirting outrageously with a gay Jessops shop attendant, while his girlfriend stood next to him. That's dedication, that is. The Boss and I thoroughly enjoyed the show, the after-party performance by Mr B the Gentleman Rhymer, and the pleasant few hours we spent chatting to the future Mr and Mrs D. Fontaine. We blew far too much money, including buying a painting of probably our favourite burlesque performer, but had a fine old time doing it. And I got to dress up like I was attending a Countryside Alliance rally. Spoddon. Not a great deal to report in Popmundo. I blogged a little bit for Shay, promised TLBTF a follow-up message, and then have either been drinking, sleeping of being hungover since. Sorry flower!
Anyway, nothing else to see here - carry on with whatever it was you were doing. It seems like as soon as I semi-retired V, inspiration struck again. Admittedly much of this took the form of teasing Mason and Phil, but that's what they are there for, right? Anyway, this has led to me completing a song for the much talked about, will-probably-never-be-delivered horror album. On top of that, I'm really pleased with it. I want the album to veer between quirky, fun and creepy, and I guess this one's at the creepy end of the spectrum. Knife in My Hand (The Red) It almost feels like it would work as a folk song, but as V doesn't know folk, it won't be. :P In other news, I'm waiting to find out whether Ghostbusters will get a cinematic re-release in the UK. I really hope so; this will be the best combination of geeking out and feeling older than God's dog in years. And then next October we have Back to the Future II Day. I gotta start working on my hoverboard. Although being a year older and fatter, maybe I should go as Biff? Looks like Marty's covered: (If you're not already following Ayria Lovett on the social medium of your choice, you should go do that. Her shoots are always super-cute, and her photography is spot on. And she's geeky as eff - what's not to like, fanboy/girl/rootvegetable?)
Tasks for the weekend? Get tipsy, listen to a fun local band, watch England/Italy. Oh, and treat Bread Sr to dinner. Peace! I'm tired, but at least the sun is shining. This means that spring may have just about sprung. Popmundo is a bit 'meh', as I'm as busy as everyone else, and I have no inspiration re. new songs. After meeting up with an old friend last weekend, I'm also starting to play the older-than-god's-dog It's A Crime, which could cut into my titting about time. What am I busy with? Well work mostly; still helping to put right all the damage caused by the storms that the UK copped at the turn of the year. In fact, it's 10pm and I'm doing a bit of work now. Small mercies? I generally enjoy what I do. On top of that, I just out the other day that some houses I designed have won a county award for best social housing and best small development. This means they go forwards to the regional awards, and also means that I may have to hire a tux. :P On top of that, the fine weather is a good opportunity to get work done around the house. We cleared out a border in the sunniest spot in the garden and finally buried our old cat on the weekend. He died just before we moved a few years ago. He had a pretty tough life before we took him in, having been abandoned by three different families, We promised him that he was coming with us and, even though he died a few weeks before the move, we kept our promise. For the past few years his ashes have been in a cupboard while we cleared and planted the garden. It may seem strange, but even though it's been three years, taking the wooden box that contained his ashes out of the cardboard box that the vets had packaged it up in for the first time still produced floods of tears from Clair and I. I think what set me off was seeing how small the box was. Anyway, that's all over, and it was nice (in an odd way) to do and to write about. To give you some idea of what a fucking idiot he was, if you started to tickle him, he would roll over like dog so that you could tickle his belly. Occasionally, if he was near a wall or fence, he would forget to leave room for his bum, and this would happen: Other than that, though, I promised you some of the stuff that's been missing from this blog lately. I was going to start with music, but the local live music scene is being a bit crap at present so other than post random stuff I've been listening to on Spotify, nothing leaps to mind on that score. Instead, let's go with the heavily tattooed women, shall we? How good is that image? And I do mean as a piece of photography, not (just) because of Heidi Lavon's *ahem* ample charms. Big ups to Mr Travis Haight. Oh, and a a music link has just sprung to mind. I heard this while I was getting my hair cut, and I'm loving the riff (and I'm a sucker for bands that are just drums and a bass): Is what this week has been.
Out in the real world, my work and social life has been pretty manic. The storms are going to mean a lot of work for us. I don't work in the insurance industry, I work as an architectural technician (it's what people who drank heavily through their A-levels and degree years become instead of actual architects :P) and the firm I work for gets a lot of work handling the reinstatement of damaged properties that are beyond the scope of Loss Adjusters and other insurance professionals. The boss teases me about being an ambulance chaser, but I really love my job when I get to give someone back their home or business, reinstated from the wreck we've often first attended. This week, however, was the other side of that. On Wednesday, I went to see a business premises that have been in the same family for over 100 years that's been left in a pretty sorry state by the storms. The current proprietor turned out to be a lovely bloke, but he's a big, strapping, shaven-headed guy, the kind that you'd be extremely polite to if you bumped into in a pub. There were several times, when we were going through the extent of the damage, that I thought he was going to cry. It was fucking horrible, but I guess it will be all the sweeter handing the property back over. I'm not even 100% sure why I'm blogging this. I think that, despite talking about it with the boss, it's still gnawing away at me a little. Meh. Anyway, in other news that has no impact on your lives, I checked out the Lego movie (it's true - everything IS awesome!), saw a couple of excellent jazz singers, and went to a very interesting talk on the history of the Eddystone lighthouses. Yes, I go to talks about lighthouses, and find them interesting. You may start your mocking now... In the wonderful world of the interwebs, Shay and V have been quiet for the reasons given above. The most interesting thing that's happened is that it seems Ariya Lovett has commented on my blog. Now I'm as cynical a fucker as anyone, and my first reaction to seeing her name was "pfft!" but, y'know what? The email address makes sense, and I realised that I have absolutely no reason to think it wasn't her. She seems like a very nice young lady. Apparently she's going to be a silent reader from now on, which I think is a polite way of saying "I've had enough of this bollocks, I'm off!" :D I've sorted out a tracklisting for V's horror album. I need to find some time to sit and write, but I still have plenty on out in the big wide world, and my boss (by which I mean my employer, not my wife this time) quite unreasonably expects me to do work for the money he pays me. I mean, c'mon - doesn't he realise that work is a four-letter word?! Ok, this blog has veered too close to deep-and-meaningful territory. I apologise unreservedly. I was going to post a picture of a heavily tattooed woman to make up for it, but fuck it: here's the reason why you should always spin in an anti-clockwise direction. I'm off to bed with the most important heavily tattooed woman in my life. (It's not quite as romantic as it sounds - she's has a stinking cold at the moment!) |
WTF?!This site contains out-of-character information for characters and events in the MMO Popmundo, as well as general navel-gazing and apologies for never updating. "If you are offended by words like: Shit! Bitch! Fuck! Dick! Ass! Whore! Cum!" Ice-T
Who the Hell?!
The author is a professional person in his mid-30s, old-school Hip Hop head, Punk Rock fan, Plymouth Argyle supporter, comic book reader, and general lo-fi nerd. He lives in the countryside with two cats and newly-wed wife, all of whom seem to be above him in the pecking order. He is a big fan of tea, fig rolls, H.P. Lovecraft, facial hair and quiffs. While MPB robbed him of his quiff-rocking dreams, he does sport a dope handlebar moustache. Categories
All
|