Rocking My Socks Off

Well Well Well, time is certainly flying by at the moment, its already mid June!! I am currently enjoying a nice week off work following a very long weekend at Download Festival, that is what this blog is pretty much going to focus on as so much happened. Here goes, hopefully I wont miss much.

Thursday

Sean and his dad stayed over on Wednesday night so we could head out early for the weekend at Download Festival 2010. This was the 3rd time I had been in 4 years with the only missed year being 2008 while I was in Australia, fair excuse I think. We arrived and managed to get one hell of a camping spot, 2 minutes walk from the main village without being in a place people walk right past, brilliant. There is no music on Thursday so we met Mark from my Contiki tour of Oz and his mate Phil who were also camping with us and just had a day of drinking going on rides, my highlights were the house of fun and the bumper cars! I have a YouTube channel http://www.youtube.com/user/grizm where you can check out a load of videos from the weekend. I would recommend the Spin Wheel ones from the funhouse as they are quite funny. Late in the day we met up with my mate Will and his group from my old job at Siemens which was cool. Other than that it was just a drinking day. Video Diary - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zmwbpSCgrxw

Friday

The first day of music and what a day it was going to be. AC/DC were headlining and had their own stage set up directly next to the main stage in the arena, I couldnt wait. Before that we watched a couple of other bands, Killswitch Engage were brilliant and stepped it up from last year when we saw them. We saw Them Crooked Vultures, made up of Dave Grohl from the Foo Fighters, Josh Homme of Queens of the Stone Age, and John Paul Jones from Led Zepplin who were ok but it was just like watching a chilled jamming session rather than a show but not bad. Then AC/DC came on and they were amazing. Loads of hits, 110,000 people only watching them as all the other stages had closed and basically cannons, fireworks, flames, inflatables and rocking. Very very impressed with them. Back to camp for more drinking! Video Diary - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ommznxFXBYc&feature=related

Saturday

After watching AC/DC we were hoping that it hadn't peaked too soon, one thing that Saturday had going for it was that music started at 11am rather than at 3pm like Friday so there was more to see. We watched a few bands, the stand out ones were Atreyu, Flyleaf and Five Finger Death Punch, the latter being one of my favourites of the weekend and actually got stopped as there were too many people crowd surfing, haha. The Deftones were playing but I didnt really like them that much, I dont know why they just werent my thing. Later in the day 30 Seconds to Mars headlined the second stage and were a really great show before Rage Against the Machine headlined the main stage. They were really good and finished with a bang! Good times. Video Diary - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vWPlead7UA4&feature=related

Sunday

Already the last day and we were not flagging at all. The sleeping in a tent on the ground wasnt too bad and the music was really great. Nothing could go wrong, well so we thought. The day started off really well with us chilling out with a Guinness watching a couple of great shows. Slash was really good to watch and performed a couple of old Guns N Roses tunes which was a nice surprise. Then Billy Idol came on which took me back to my younger days of being in my dads car, good memories listening to his songs. BUT....then the rain came, all weekend it had been boiling but all of a sudden the heavens opened and we were soaked through, and I mean soaked. We had all had enough after about an hour of getting wet so trudged back to the tents to have a relax in the dry. I got changed and headed back to the arena as the headline act was Aerosmith and there was no way I was missing them. Luckily the rain stopped just as I started to walk back. It was well worth the walk as they were fantastic. Steve Tyler is one hell of a frontman and had the crowd doing whatever he wanted. The highlight was him singing 'I don't want to miss a thing'. What a way to end the weekend!! Video Diary - Part 1 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i-1dUAShAsI&feature=related Part 2 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZVJ8zXNyyEs&feature=related

So that was my weekend. The highlights were definitely AC/DC and Aerosmith with a nod to Killswitch Engage, Five Finger Death Punch and 30 Seconds to Mars.

I will go back to proper writing next time, lol. Check out the videos and if you are my friend on Facebook you can see a load of photos too.

Take it easy, Rock on....

G

Remember Where You Are In a Moment!

Hotter than an Eskimo in Barbados


As I am writing this it is currently 27 degrees outside, lush! The weather at the moment is putting everyone in such a good mood, well, most of the time. You still get the grumpy ones at work having a grumble that they cant be bothered to work on such a nice day, lol. It has been lovely lately, the weekend was especially nice and isn’t it so much easier to get out of bed earlier in the day when you see the sun is shining. If it was raining on Saturday morning I would have probably stayed in bed until 10 / 11am not being too fussed about doing anything, but I was up and about by 8 wanting to do things.





I have met little Josh now, he is a little star. The first time I met him I thought he wasn’t my biggest fan however as he cried – no wait – screamed pretty much the whole time I was holding him. On Saturday though I saw him a couple of times and he was as good as gold, sleeping the majority of the time I was holding him and being a good little fella when he wasn’t in the land of nod. Im sure that his mum and dad are extremely proud as he is a special little dude, although I have seen a picture of Joe when he was just born and he is a spitting image. Shelley did make me laugh the other day saying to Josh while pointing at Joe ‘This is what you are gonna look like in 25 years’. Haha.





My friend Sinead had a BBQ on Saturday which was great in the hot weather, Joe caught a few trout on Friday and gave me a half of one, so I took this to the BBQ and it went down a treat. Yum Yum.





Reviewer G


I have bought an app lately, on the recommendation from Lara called Talking Carl. If you have anyone you can show this to under the age of 10 then I would urge you to get this. Its only 59p although worth it really. It’s a funny looking character repeats what you say in a silly voice, you can tickle it, poke it and make it growl too. Heck who am I kidding this makes me and every adult I have shown it to laugh let alone a 10 year old. I am looking forward to showing it to Dylan next weekend when I head to Katies for her birthday / babyshower do.





Oh, Alan Wake, that game I was saying that I was getting, is excellent. Its great to play alone, in the dark, quite late at night. Im not going to lie it scares the hell out of me when there are bangs or someone just appears but that’s what I love, something that can give you a range of feelings and involve you a little more in the world they have created. Lara is playing it too which is cool. The special edition package that I got for it came in a big book presentation case which was a nice touch (Alan Wake is a writer). There were a few other cool parts in the special edition, like a soundtrack and a 144page back story book, a bonus disc but I will leave those until I have looked into them a bit more to let you know what I think.





6 Years, Over 100 Episodes – Just Brilliant


This morning was a very significant moment in my life, one of my favourite shows, well possibly my favourite ever show LOST had its final episode. This was planned before the series started that it would be the final season so I have been excited about this for a long time. I was originally going to download it and watch it as soon as I got in as it would be shown in America first. But when they announced that it was to be shown in unison with USA then it was a no brainer, my Monday morning was starting at 5am no matter what! Usually Mondays are hard to get up for, not today! My friend from work James came over to stay so we could get up and watch it like mega geeks but I don’t care. The funny thing is, I has set my alarm for 4:55am but by 4:45 I was wide awake, my body clock knew that this was a big day! Haha. So we watched, it ended and that was it, LOST was over!





I know that not everyone will think this or agree with me but I thought that ending was just perfect for the show! I am totally satisfied and even though not everything was fully explained it didn’t need to be. I was actually a little choked that this period in my life and something that I have been involved in for so long has come to an end. This will be one of those shows that people will talk about probably 40-50 years from now and look back at. I will always remember where I was and the feelings I had when I watched that final episode of possibly one the best TV shows of our time.


LOST - Thank you!!



So Question of the Week is

What is your favourite ever TV Series?

On that note I think I will leave it there for this post. Hope you all enjoy the sun.





G