As funny as Alex Day might find it...

I'm a bit gutted to find out that there were ten entries in the Fratellis competition that were better than mine.

Probably gonna do a video telling people I'm not making videos anymore and too blame the Fratellis. Yeah, that sounds like something I would do.

=)

Gone a been a bit productive!

Recorded a song for the collab ep and sent it off to get some beautiful harmonies recorded by Ms Tsontilis. Don't mean to sound too full of myself but it's pretty goddamn good! I can't wait to hear it with Emily's part. I won't say what song it is because I'm gonna leave it as a surprise. I also added some bass lines into a few of the other tracks I have half done, because I've recently discovered the joy that is the bass guitar.

In other news I have a gig in Nottingham one week from today (3rd July) if anyone is near. It's in a place called Bar None. don't ask me for directions cos I'm clueless. I imagine Google knows, ask him.

Also, lets face it: The finale of Dr Who looks fucking awesome.

Tiredness levels

I think I can sum up my current level of tiredness by saying that my legs alone were not enough to tackle the stairs, and that I had to use my hands as well to crawl up the neverending (14) steps.

Yesterday, I think it was yesterday though I'm struggling here, I went down to London. It was a long day. It began at around 8:30 and an hour later I started driving, By 1pm I was at Victoria station in London looking around for Tom, when suddenly there was Mr. Nerimon and Miss Mhazzrocks standing right in front of me!

We found the others and went off to do some random touristy things, which were suggested in jest and done anyway, mainly because they were indoors. Funny thing about meeting people you rarely see, personally anyway, I never really want to do anything but hang out with them, you just feel like you have to go and do something because you've made such an effort to be there. Anyway we did stuff (science museum, Tate gallery, Wagamamas) and then a few of us headed back to a hostel, well nine of us... six if you ask the guys at the hostel! It was a great night, we just sat around with a few drinks talking until falling asleep somewhere around six of the AM.

It was a shame Alex couldn't come back, half a day is not enough with my #1 fanboy. But it was great to talk to Myles, Laura and Ian (who might be the most awesome person ever, by the way) again for it had been too long, plus some of the guys and girls I speak to in stickam - got to speak to them without looking at a computer and with inappropriate touching. The only thing I'm disappointed with is the lack of an appearance by stickerman!

Ok so at this point I'm going to go collapse on my bed. This was going to be longer but it's not happening tonight!

So bye.

45

So I forgot to give the last post a title, and in my little behind the scenes part of this website it just called it '44'. I'd never thought about how many of these I'd done until I saw that. So although blogging was certainly already a bandwagon when I hopped on, I have at least kept it going now long enough for it not to be a fad and frequently enough for it not to be... crap. I suppose I could write frequent crap, but quite a lot of people read it so it can't be that bad. Plus it's kinda for me anyway. Well half for me, half for people who are interested in getting to know me more than my videos allow.

Tomorrow morning I'm heading down to London to see some friends. This pleases me. It's been a long time since I've seen any of them, and they've all been off meeting each other at various collections and congregations that I have been unfortunately unable to attend. I even seem to have managed to get various little projects sorted out to an extent with which I'm happy, so all that remains is to remember to get up early, and getting up early is a lot easier when you're looking forward to the day anyway.

I don't think I even know everyone that will be there so hopefully there will be a nice surprise or two waiting for me. If anyone who reads this is going let me know so I can get excited!

Also and very much off topic, I saw this video a few minutes ago. If you can't be bothered to click that link it basically says that Calum, one of the guys in charge of the 365 project, is doing a 36 hour (StickAid? 24 hours? pfft!) stickam chat to raise money for charity. It starts at midnight tonight, so if you have any free time over the next day and a half then here is the link to the stickam page, go say hi!

Another topic change, my last few videos have apparently not show up in quite a few peoples subscription boxes. So check my channel if you think you may have missed any. The last three were Gideon, VLR and ID.

One last thing before I go, Alex Day must go on countdown. That would complete my life.

I just used the phrase 'That's the best thing I've ever heard' so I figure it warrants a blog.

Basically, Pav had an RE exam and in it he " lolled about" which went like this...

Castle03: i wrote the flathead lyrics
Castle03: then said, oops i just accidentally broke into song
Castle03: btw my friend does an awesome cover, check him out at musicfromblueskies on youtube :D

Fantastic.

Also VLR series two started today, you probably know because you probably watch my videos. Listen to it, it's amazing. If you haven't heard of it I'm very jealous because you get to go and listen to the whole first series for the first time. I have to wait TWO WEEKS now for a new one.

Third good thing; I thought the hoi sin stir fry thing I found open in the back of the fridge was a mistake a couple of hours after eating it, but I feel alright now.

Final thing, last blog I mentioned Stickerman... well he has made his way onto youtube! Find him here. All I'll say is that video contains the line, "My name's Hermione Granger, and I'm a BEARD!"

Forget the European Championships...

I spent the day at my parents' school football festival! The less idiotic of you will have correctly assumed that my parents are teachers. I've never really talked about them, or anyone from my life on here which is odd. To be honest I find it strange when my two worlds collide in any way. I hate it when family ask about music and my internet stuff. I don't know why either, we are pretty close... My sister and I were never much trouble growing up so we've had the sort of relationship 30 year olds have with their parents for quite a while. But yeh, I never know how to explain it, I don't think it matters that it's family, I couldn't explain it to myself. I think you have to be a part of it to understand it really, the whole internet thing.

Now at this point I'm going to be honest with you, I can't remember why I started writing this. I usually have something I want to say or some time to fill, but all I know is I'm going to bed when I've finished this. That last sentence must have made apparent that I've had a drink or two (or... continue with numbers). *Thoughts from stickam* Nic is hoping it was about him... but everyone knows I love him so I can't see there's much to add there, Tom was going for stickerman, don't even get me started - I'm gonna see if I can get him on youtube before I divulge further, all I'll say for now is, drunk tom is very, very funny. So I'm at a loss.

Here's a thought though (those two words are very similar). There are a few videos that friends have put up lately that I would like to respond to, for example 55 words by Mr. Ed (Eddplant, no horses involved) and Mhazz's letters thing, but I haven't because... I don't know why. I've been overly cautious about what I put on my channel I think, I don't know if people will get annoyed if they subscribed for music. I shouldn't care about that sort of thing, I never did until recently, but somehow I seem to be counting viewers in thousands and that has made me a little bit paranoid. I'm really not the paranoid type so I think I'm just going to tell myself to stop being a twat and do whatever I want like I usually do.

Sorry if you read this, my excuses have been made.

Sneak preview!

If clipstar are gonna have two different music categories and not expect me to try to win both, they've got another thing coming!

I've uploaded The Fratellis video on there and it's not on YouTube yet so if you wanna be the first to see it here's the link: http://www.clipstar.com/videopage.jsf?video=2_9507_250


Hope you remember your passwords from when you signed up to vote for me before! =P

And let me know what you think because I could still change it before it goes on YouTube, though I'm pretty happy with it to be honest. Mind you it's taken so long I might just be telling myself I'm happy with it so I can finally say it's finished!

I'm thinking of giving away something to random voters, for example if I win I'll put some of the money towards getting merchandise made... Then I can pick say five random people and they get a free t-shirt (or whatever). Of course I don't know who votes so I'll have to get everyone to leave a comment when they vote to put their name in the hat. What do you think, good idea?

****************************************************************

EDIT

Mandy points out in the comments that you may not be allowed to offer stuff like the t-shirt thing so I'll have to find out about that, I'll let you know... and until then don't mention it in the video comments!

The 9th of June.

Got up, had breakfast out in the garden, did a few not particularly interesting things and was out of the house by 11ish.

Nic's uber happiness from his 4 hour stint of listening to Jason Mraz last night turned out to be pretty infectious, and yes I caught it bad! I went with The Kooks new(ish) album, which I'm not totally sure about overall; it's definitely good - I'm just not sure if it's great yet, but the first track is so great that I want to play it all the time and when I'm listening to it my body and mind seem to be perfectly in rhythm.

Anyway, I went to town to get my hair cut (zomg) and get a few other things, which I did. The sun was out and just built upon my good mood, I noticed how the majority of people smiled when I caught their eye, they don't do that when it's cloudy. Having spent about £30 on nothing much I headed back to the car and I walked passed this couple having an argument.

It was one of those arguments where everyone around is watching and they don't even pretend not to, they're all just full on staring at this couple. I missed the main part, just saw the guy walking away, putting his tattooed arms up in the air as if to say either 'I'm not guilty' or 'I can't take any more - this is ridiculous' I couldn't quite decide which. Then I saw what I assumed was his wife, she was in one of those motorised wheelchairs you usually see old people in with the little basket on the front. This one though looked like it had been reinforced to hold her substantial weight. I'm not talking about someone who's pretty overweight, more someone that's so fat it looks like they have extra limbs - I could point to bulges that I genuinely was unsure what part of the human anatomy they belonged to. Anyway I gave these two a backstory in my mind. I won't go through it all but be sure that it involved love, revenge, plot twists and an a terrible secret about why she was so outrageously fat.

I came home and did some filming for the Fratellis song I'm working on, it's too hot for drumming today. Far too hot for drumming.

But I think I have everything I need now so I can get to the editing, which is going to be... ambitious! So it might take a while, I'm not sure.

There's a new Russell Brand podcast out, which has topped up my happy levels.

There is one thing I'm gutted about; I forgot to make the start of a video where I say 'Before I start I need to sort this out' then point and my hair and it gets cut. I forgot about that.

Other than that I'm happy.

Only slightly intoxicated

I like it when John sings to me on stickam in the early hours of the morning.

Almost fainted

Just then after singing 'Nobody does it better' while waiting for some files to convert.

Was pretty funny.

I'm aware I haven't updated the goals for this month, I've been really busy and so I don't feel like I need them at the moment, I probably will type some up when I have time though.

I'm working on a Fratellis song for the video that's just been featured. I got most of it done yesterday and it's sounding really good. As most of the people entering aren't 'proper' musicians (attempting not to sound like a music snob/twat here... failing) I feel like it has to be really good! Just to distance it from the guy in his bedroom feel... even though that's what it is, I like to try to put more into my videos to show I take music seriously, that's why I usually use my proper recording stuff instead of just the mic on my camera, even though it's pretty good.

I recently put up an email address on my channel (musicfromblueskies@gmail.com) so people can send me stuff, don't know why I hadn't before, I've started a little collection of pictures on my myspace, including me in the libertines and me in the beatles! Plus some grade A DS art by Nic, obviously.

Of course I've also had people asking me for the chords to songs, telling me their freerice score, tagging me in tag games (thanks Alex), and one that simply said "how old are you?" I tried scrolling down and checking for attachments, there were none.

Jamie from YouTube has also been in touch, which in nice. It's good to have that channel of communication open - I've never talked to him or anyone from the site before.

Oh thanks for voting on clipstar! I know the site/video wasn't working very well when I posted last, but it seems to be ok now, the video even got featured over there... Doesn't mean much compared to a youtube feature obviously but I'm sure it helped. I'm currently in forth place, which is pretty good considering the three above (I assume) have been collecting votes over the last month and mine has only been up a few days.

I put a link in the video description on youtube but I haven't actually asked people to vote from anywhere but here yet. I'm going to try to take it slowly, probably only mention it in a video in the last week or so because I think random people from clipstar will be more likely to vote if I'm only in forth. Plus other people on youtube might enter if they see me say it! There are a few youtubers on there in other categories, so if you made an account for me (THANKS <3) then you may wanna go have a look around and support them too. The ones I can think of now are RandomProdInc, AmazingPhil, Y2KJon, 3sixty5days, MuggleSam, Walllofweird... and a few other I don't know personally.

Ok I'm gonna get back to 'work', talk to you later - oh I've decided everyone should get drunk and come on stickam tonight. The only thing better than a drunk friend is one that can't throw up on you because they're miles away. This all started because Barry Aldridge, the Godfather of YouTube, seems to think I'm an alcoholic! I've actually been properly drunk probably twice this year, Alex is more of a drunk than me and he doesn't drink!

BYE!

Clipstar

I decided to enter one of my videos into this clipstar competition thing. Its the first time I've entered a video into anything so I'm a little unsure how it will do. Its all on votes so I should get a few from youtubers who are nice enough to go to another website. One problem I've just realised, if I had it on clipstar before I uploaded to youtube then people would have seen the link in the description and maybe gone and voted, but it's already had 10,000 views on youtube so it probably won't get that many more.

I might put a second one up and make sure I do it the other way around. That video, 'The Promise' by the way, I put in the band or group category, even though it's only me I thought it was fitting because there were four of me and all... But there is also a 'singing or music' category, so I think I'll enter one in that too. I might make this one a cover as well since a lot of the past winners have been covers. I'll try to think of a song that shows off my voice. Maybe some Jeff Buckley.

The prize for this thing is certainly worth winning, voting goes on for three months, I think it's about one month in at the moment, and the winner of each category gets £5,000, then I think you go through to a bigger thing but I won't worry about that just yet! With £5,000 I could make some serious improvements to the quality of the music and videos I'm making. The last winner of the band category got under 500 votes, but I think it'll be higher this time, so that's about 10% of my subscribers. Not sure if I could get that many to be honest, but we'll see. I'm hoping for some karma here, I always go and vote for people when they ask!

Ohh I just looked and I've got my first vote. Go karma! Haven't even asked yet!

Well here's the link to it, yes I'm starting with you blog people... you're the most trustworthy and committed!

http://www.clipstar.com/videopage.jsf?video=2_9507_245

Thanks! <3

p.s. Great work with last.fm! We will have world domination, one website at a time!

p.p.s. For some people it's saying video not found... For me it's there on windows but not on my mac :S

I'll try to sort it out and will update you when it's working. Cheers guys.