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Friday 30 December 2011

Places 1: Bristol

Clifton Suspension Bridge
Bristol
The city of Bristol, will be the first topic, in this section of the blog. Bristol is the sixth biggest city in England with a population of about 1,000,000.Historically, a port city with a lot of links to the early slave trade. 


Culture is generally the biggest claim to fame of the city of Bristol a finalist in the European city of culture, which was somehow in a moment of madness I'm sure give to Liverpool.


    
DJ Derek
Music wise Bristol has always been home to hipster genres
such as dub and trip-hop, being the hometown for artist's such
as Portishead, Massive Attack. More Notably they were home
 to some good DJ's such as the infamous DJ Derek, who at 69

 pumps out the beats in the most noteworthy of ways. 










In regards to Art, I'm sure Bristol has populated the world with countless play-rights, poets, and generic artists, however here,
Special mention must be made to the world renowned Graffiti artist: Banksy.
Banksy has received popular acclaim for his politically incorrect, pieces all over the world, but mostly in Bristol his hometown. On the right is one of his most famous piece which is on the bottom of a very busy street.
Sadly nowerdays, celebrities and big business men, find that it somehow acceptable to buy pieces of Banksy. Which, completely defeats the entire object of his pieces, and should be a crime against art. Bastards.. It has also leant to the complete comercialistion of graffiti in general creating a market out of free speech.




Lastly sport, Bristol does have a Rugby and American Football Team,
Among other thing's, interestingly my father used to play Quarter Back for
Bristolian  American Football team, sadly in America this may of been a
great achievement, and worth getting excited over, here it just meant he
 could throw and didn't mind getting the most.  However, the most important
aspect of sport in Bristol, is considered to be the football team.
Bristol City Football Club, will be the subject of the next blog, try and contain your excitement. 






Wednesday 28 December 2011

An Interesting Dinner Party 1 Steve/Stephen

In this segment which, will hopefully appear often in the oncoming blogs. As this is the first one I will give a little introduction on how I plan to structure this, every time I will take a common name, and put together an imaginary dinner party of four people with the same name, offering a little insight into people from different walks of life.
This week the four people will be:
1.) Steve Wozniak
2.) Stephen Fry
3.) Stevie Wonder
4.) Sea-Sick Steve


Steve Wozniak
Steve Wozniak

This lovable giant was one of the co-founders of apple, the other being the late and great Steve Jobs, I chose Wozniak over jobs for his lesser known role in the making of the company, making him an excellent guest to have.

Born in 1950, this Californian claim to fame was his unimpeachable computer skills, giving him the nickname. "The Wizard of Woz".

Starting in Job's bedroom these two could be considered alongside Bill gates some of the biggest pioneers in the computer generation. Which precedes the current 'Internet' Generation that has evolved recently.

I believe Steve would bring a lot to the table, coupled with some of the other guests of the night, I believe it would insight some quite delightful conversation.




Stephen Fry
Stephen Fry 

The next guest, to grace this dinner party would be none other than British national, Mr Stephen Fry, an eccentric if there ever there was one. His claim to fame being through both acting, voice overs in games such as little big planet, and hosting everyone favorite quiz show QI.

I chose him as a guest for a variety of reasons, as a sufferer of Bi-Polar, he may in fact add an enthusiastic almost manic tone, to a so far rather subdued crowd of people,  if one were to consider Steve Wozniak as a rather lack luster party animal. Although, he may also bring a rather somber tone, regardless his quick wit and wild quips, sometimes a little to wild, if one were to cast their minds back to his defamatory remarks regarding Poland and the Third Reich.
I believe it is this Risque behavior which also adds to his culpability as being an excellent guest to have at any dinner party.

Stevie Wonder
Next up is one of the most inspirational men of our time, the one and only Stevie Wonder
Stevie Wonder
Born in the same year as Wozniak, making this quite the golden oldie debacle. Stevie Wonder, brings many unique aspects to the table; he's black, blind and his singing is not just out of sight but out of mind. A fantastic artist who has produced over 30 top ten hits in the US alone.

To of overcome so many of the obvious obstacles that must of presented themselves, credit must be given where it is due.

I was lucky enough to of seen Stevie Wonder live last year, when he performed with the owner and founder of one of the big UK musical Glastonbury festival. It is this reason I include him to this dinner, it was one of the single most enchanting memories I have, as it was the 40th Anniversary of Glastonbury, it was a very emotional time on stage but, the performance truly was fantastic.


Seasick Steve
Sea Sick Steve
Our final guest of the  evening is also a musician, and with an equally
 inspirational story.

Born in 1941 would make him the oldest of the four, he plays mostly, homemade personalized guitar in a wild folky way, which is unique almost unto himself.

He had the most colorful of lives, working as a Cowboy, Carnie and a musical engineer for a lot of his life as well as spending a large period of his adult life busking, supposedly friends with some of the greats such as Janis
Joplin and Kurt Cobain, Sea Sick Steve or real  name, Steve Gene Wold
Would make a great final addition to the dinner table.


All in all this looks like it could be a very colorful evening, with insightful conservation springing up from all four men, as well as Stevie and Steve offering some sought of jazz/folk duet which I'm sure anyone would pay to see.

Next time we will be looking at a dinner party for the name: Charlie

Tuesday 27 December 2011

Inspirational People: 1 Sun Tzu

Sun Wu,  or more commonly known as Sun Tzu or Sunzi, was an ancient Chinese Military general, strategist and philosopher, who is traditionaly believed and most likely author of the book "The Art of War"

The  book itself has been considered very influential ancient Chinese book, mostly based around military strategy is highly popular even now in the most modern of times.

Sun Tzu has had a significant impact on Chinese and Asian history culture, both as an author of The Art of War  and through the stories told about his life and the feats he achieved.

During both the 19th and 20th centuries, The Art of War has grown immensely in popularity through both the Western and Eastern cultures, influencing culture and politics as well having a large amount of precedent in businesses.




Bugsy Malone

The film, where all the gangsters are children. Instead of real bullets they use "splurge guns" that cover the victim in cream. The story tells of the rise of "Bugsy Malone" and the battle for power between "Fat Sam" and "Dandy Dan"

A good watch if anyone has a few hours to kill over the holidays, such an amazing musical, which is not two words which are usually used together.

One of my favorite songs from the film. .. 


Boxing Day




Had a wonderful time, pigging out yesterday on boxing day, I can't see why people would ever want to rush out shopping. I was much more content to get some quality family time and play a bit of chess with Dad.

Monday 26 December 2011

Catering Company Names

Recently, Me and My Business Partner have been given the chance, to start our own outdoor catering company.
We have been spitballing names for a while now, but can't come up with anything concrete. Here is a list of our current best ideas, feel free to offer any insight on other possibilities!
1.) DeJa Food
2.) Mean Cuisine
3.) Pulp Kitchen
4.) Alicatering
5.) Comida Buena
6.) Carpe Cibi

Battlefield 3

I got given this game yesterday for Christmas and have spent a while enjoying the multi-player. If I had to be honest, I do find it more enjoyable than COD in some respects, but I just don't see the replay-ability that you get from other franchises, I believe it has lent itself to strong into the ideal that to create a good game, it must do everything cod did/does, but with one or two aspects slightly better or slightly different. Sadly this does not make a good game, and after spending half an hour on the shaky single player campaign which was on disc 2 not 1, which I found a bit disheartening. Unfortunately I could not give an opinion on co-op as it's not possible to play local, which disappointed my brother immensely.

On a more brighter note, I did find the most epic video of this game, which is probably the sole reason I asked for it, to be completely honest.


So far, I've done a little on myself, music and now video games and TV, next up will be a short book review.

Googleing Yourself

Has anyone else ever tried to Google themselves, I did it for the first time in a while today and was amused to see the findings, apart from the obvious Facebook, and Old Bebo accounts.
There was my account on an online chess website, my american football stats for my university team, my rugby stats from college, and apparantly there's a five year old namesake who competed very well in athletics. Very interesting 10 minuets. I'd recommend to anyone!

Denny Crane

Just saw this Video, one of the best moments so far. Such an amazing program!

Kingdom Hearts

I recently downloaded the entire Kingdom hearts 2 Soundtrack, for my Ipod.
I would recommend  other people to follow suit, it's fantastic here's a little taste of some of the gems of nostalgia they instill.

Christmas

It's that time of year again, Gluttony, Capitalism and Chocolate all rolled into one, drawn out affair of niceties, fake smiles, and gift giving. Not to say that I don't hope everyone had a fantastic day, and got everything on their list. Regardless of whether they were naughty or nice, I've heard Santa's screening programs aren't what they used to be.

I was surprised and pleased to acquire a new keyboard, which I will be devoting a lot of time to. Although I have been looking for my old keyboard books and could not for the life of me find them anywhere. Sadly the day was marred by the continued correspondence of the ex, who still despite the torrid end to our monotonousness, (by the end) relationship, still envisages us remaining the  chummiest of pals. Although, all in all I'd have to concede that it was a pretty enjoyable day.

On a side note as this is my first blog I'll explain a little of what I was planning to do here.
This is my first attempt at a blog, and have never really taken part in anything similar in the past therefore I will be using it as a way to validate those mundane memories that people seem to forget even in young age, hopefully this will be done through the process of three key things. At the end of each daily post, I plan to include one Key Quote of the day, a Key Song, and a Key Memory.

Key Quote- Unkown- It's better to be Pissed off, Than Pissed on
Key Song- The Hyrule Cattle Market- Zelda
Key Memory - 9 Kill streak On BattleField 3

Till tomorrow, Stay Golden.
Max