Marius Kart

I've got tonsillitis. Hooray! Coughing and sweat for all. I realise that's no excuse for neglecting my blogging duties over the past few days...or at least it wouldn't be for a man who didn't type with his tonsils.

Hell, I didn't really want to do this entry, but I came up with that awesome title and, even though this is more of a Cliffey story, I knew he wasn't going to update his blog. So I'm taking one for Team Tenuous Pun.

Cliffey, since returning from his European jaunt, has had the pleasure of spending rather a lot of one-on-one time with Marius. First everyone went to Green Man, then Sarah and I went to Scotland, and of course Pete's been looking at rocks in Neath for the best part of six weeks. Tom's been here, but he's got a girlfriend now (ew) so nobody's really seen much of him.*

Which, largely, has left young Cliffey mano-a-mano with our Albanian import. During their time together, he has learnt much about Marius; his personality, his culture, his likes (British history) and dislikes (gypsies, Arabs and gays). And, through it all, their bond has only gotten stronger.

Which, presumably, is how Cliffey ended up being Marius' own private taxi service. Oh, it started small - lifts to his friend's house in Llanedeyrn, or to his job in the bay - but the mileages crept up, and pretty soon he was taking him to Bridgend for whatever reason.

And yesterday, Cliffey got up at 5am to drive Mazza to Birmingham and back. It was something to do with his visa, something he could have done in Cardiff but would have had to wait a lot longer for if he had. And hey, since his close personal friend with a car Cliffey-boy had nothing better to do that he couldn't do another time, why not have an early morning road trip to the Midlands?

As it happens, Cliffey's just come in the room (he's very hungover - night out with work last night) so maybe he could reel off a few reasons why not:

...

Nope, he's too hungover. But suffice it to say that he didn't have fun. Suffice it also to say that I'm banking on the assumption that Marius does not read my blog.

As for my life, well, I'm working tonight. By which I mean Josh has a gig and he's asked me to play drum for him again. Also, I'm bringing the mandolin along this time.

Come back tomorrow to find out whether or not that was a good idea.

Joel.        

*If any parts of this paragraph are news to you because I've neglected to mention something previously, well, now you now.

Signs of Carboard

Another Sunday, another go at doing a car boot sale. This one went rather better.

Sarah, Cliffey and I spent Saturday night at Sarah's house, with her brother Stuart and rather a lot of pizza keeping us company. We rose early on Sunday morning - some found it easier than others - and headed down to BP* to kick it off.

And we did fairly well. My old record player went within the first hour (although strangely enough nobody wanted the records that I'd hoped would go with it - seems there's no market for The Jam, George Michael, and a compilation of 'BBC Space Themes' nowadays), as did my bag of Action Man figures and several of Cliffey's knickknacks.

However, as the morning wore on, we became concerned at the non-sale of two important items: Cliffey's table football table, and Sarah's dad's TV.

Expectations had been high for these two - their starting prices had were £25 and £15 respectively - but there were no takes and the slow dwindling of the asking prices did nothing to change that.

Morning became afternoon, and we started to panic. Not so much for the profit; more because the three of us wouldn't be able to fit in the car if this pair of relatively hefty things was coming with us.

"TV for a fiver?!" we cried desperately at any and all passers-by. Lunchtime had been and gone, and the majority of traders had called it a day, including the lovely lady whose stall had been pitched next to ours (and whose CD rack I eventually bought for a pound out of sympathy - more on that later). We had spent the last hour or so 'modelling'** the football table, to no avail. The situation was looking bleak, and as I headed to the clubhouse to hear the results of the £100 prize draw, it looked like we would have to consider just tossing the football table on the cordoned-off rubbish area and giving Sarah's dad his TV back.

But as I gazed out of the bar's window, I noticed two things:

1) A large red car had pulled up alongside Xander, and...
2) The football table, which had sat alongside our stall all day like an albatross around our collective neck, had vanished.

Upon returning from the raffle results (we didn't win), I was informed that some men had bought the TV for £5 (on the proviso that Cliffey carry it to their car, which was reportedly parked a country mile away), and that the people in the red car had taken the football table for £2 (except Sarah had forgotten to actually take the money off them before they drove away, so it was effectively free).

So we dubbed the day a moderate success and headed off. Sarah had gained £5 from the sale of the TV, I had made £12 or so for flogging my various trinkets, and Cliffey had trousered somewhere between £20 and £30, which is pretty tasty.

Even better, those are the figures after we had, between us, spent a small nation's royal mint on other people's stuff. A quick rundown of our purchases:

Joel - Blondie's Parallel Lines on vinyl for £1; Charizard plushie for £1; melodica for £2; aforementioned CD rack for £1; old Liverpool home strip for 50p - back reads "Gerrard 17".

Sarah - Big fuzzy blue jacket for £2; tribal African face thing, £4.

Cliffey - Giant Tigger plushie for £1 - "big enough to spoon"; Cluedo board game for £1 (I think).

And afterwards we went to Harvester. So a massive success really.

Joel.

*The name of the field in Sully where this shit goes down. I have no idea why it's called that.

**Or 'playing on to pass the time during which nobody wanted to buy anything'. Whichever.

Also Dr. Dre Was There

You know how it is by now. I miss one day, and then I decide that I might as well miss two, then three, and before I know 11 days have gone by and I still haven't updated my blog.

Still, it's not like much has been happening around here lately. Sarah downloaded a game called Sam & Max: The Devil's Playhouse and she's been playing that and I've been watching her (it's really awesome, I've actually made sure she doesn't play it without me, lest I miss something important), so that's taken up pretty much all of our time recently*.

Oh, although I should mention that we have a new housemate. His name is Marius and he's Albanian.

Aside from that...yeah, just the game and work. The Next sale has been on all this week, and Sarah and I both had some pretty heavy shifts in preparation for it. My contract actually runs out a week today, although it remains to be seen if it will be renewed.

Speaking of sales, Cliffey and I had planned to pop to Sully and sell some of our tat out of Xander's rear at their car boot sale. We loaded all of his stuff in the car, went to my parents' house to load some of my stuff in the car, and drove all the way to Sully, only to discover this sign:

Oh and we went to Techniquest on Wednesday. That was awesome. I played the Rugrats theme on a stone xylophone and Cliffey built a bridge and Sarah had a Calippo and an Asian man stole my go on the water cannon thing. And afterwards we bought some fish and cooked it and ate it and I thought it was delicious and Sarah quite liked it but Cliffey was a bit disappointed.

Okay, it does seem like several things have happened that probably would each have been worthy of their own entry. But I've been busy, dammit!

Joel.

*Much to Cliffey's chagrin.

Rocket Summer

Cliffey's in work at the moment, and he's gonna be there 'til around midnight, so I'm guessing the jam sandwich-eating contest is off.

Rocket Summer, then. A good while ago (quite possibly the other side of the new year, I don't rightly remember), some of us went down to The Record Shop* to have a look at what they had to offer. Cliffey stumbled upon an album by The Rocket Summer - a band he persists in liking even though I saw them at T in the Park once and have repeatedly told him that they're not that great - and being as it only cost a pound he promptly bought it.

But it later transpired that it wasn't the work of The Rocket Summer at all. It was in fact by a local band called The Afternoons, who had rather selfishly titled their album Rocket Summer**. Presumably so that folks like Cliffey would pick it up by accident.

Anyway, Cliffey gave it a listen and decided that while it was okay, it wasn't what he was after. And that would have appeared to be it.

I'm not sure why he was suddenly so desperate to get rid of the album on Saturday night - maybe he got a bit too drunk and thought it was cursed - but he decided that he would offload it on me. As with anyone who offers me a free gift, I was suspicious of his motives (and hell, I didn't want to listen to anything that was merely okay) and no sooner had I discovered the album case left on my bed than I placed it outside his door for him to discover in the morning.

I think my rejection may have hurt his feelings, so I said that we could listen to the album in the car while we were out picking up organs and such. If I liked it, I would take it off his hands (jeez, I really come off as quite ungrateful in this story). 

As it turns out, I did like it. And so did Cliffey. Its vibrant, summery tunes were somewhat at odds with the deluge that was pushing Xander's windshield wipers to the limit, but for an album that cost £1, it was a great success.

The result being that I now want it, and Cliffey wants to keep it.

Oy. Maybe some sort of jam sandwich-eating competition would distract him long enough for me to steal it?

Joel.

* It's just called 'The Record Shop'. It's off Albany Road and it's easily my favourite place to rummage, check it out. 

** The band The Rocket Summer have been around longer than that album, in case you're wondering. Although in truth neither artist is original, both having taken the phrase 'The Rocket Summer' from the title of a short story by Ray Bradbury. Now you know.

Father's Day & What Happened Before

At my parents' house yesterday, having handed my dad his card and Burn After Reading DVD, I was asked how Tom's party had been the night before.

I gave some vague answer, something along the lines of "yeah, pretty good", which was a fair summary of the overall night but did omit some important details like the broken toilet flusher and the people doing ketamine off Death Cab For Cutie CDs. I suppose I decided that my parents wouldn't be interested.

All of that aside, though, I think people enjoyed themselves. I had a rather in-depth conversation with Tom Rookes on the subject of living in uni halls, Cliffey and Dave organised a jam sandwich-eating contest, Padbury tried to light his farts...

Oh, and there was absinthe. Goblin-green, nostril-stinging absinthe. Tom brought some back as a souvenir of his adventures in Magaluf, and a few of us gave it a go. Mark and myself had trouble with it, eventually resorting to slapping the wall in a vain attempt to take the taste away; Pete took a sip and immediately fell on the floor.

But it was Sarah who was the real absinthe hero. She actually seemed to enjoy it, taking multiple shots of the stuff and commenting with a smile that it tasted "warm".

There were also ongoing shenanigans involving myself, Cliffey and an album by local band The Afternoons. But more on that another day, one when I don't have important events to review.

That sandwich-eating contest is supposed to be tomorrow, actually. Maybe I'll give you some sort of play-by-play.

Joel.

P.S. Cliffey and I went to pick up my organ today, the one I won on eBay for 99p. You'll be pleased to hear that it fit into Xander quite snugly (once we'd put the seats down), and is in fine working order. It even has a built-in drum machine, so you can play along to awesome beats! Cliffey suggested that we record me playing organ versions of various tunes from the original Pokémon games and play them at our upcoming Pokémon party, but I countered by recommending that we just download said music from vgmusic.com instead.

Xander & A Solero Mocktail

Cliffey has his car back.

Remember this blog? Well disregard it, because Cliffey has his car back.

Sarah was working yesterday evening, and it wasn't hard to persuade Cliffey to drive to Next and pick her up at 7 (he was pretty excited just to be driving again). After a brief diversion involving some Penarth girls and waiting far too long to get served at Buffalo bar (although in all fairness their chips and that Solero mocktail thing were awesomatic), we decided to go to Sarah's house in Swanbridge and pick up the door that her dad had been keeping for Cliffey (he wants to make a dartboard stand or something, I don't know).

So we made the journey to Swanbridge, humming along to Klezmer Kollectiv all the while, but upon our arrival we encountered a problem: the door didn't really fit in the car.

We tried our best. Cliffey folded down seats, twisted and turned it but eventually admitted defeat.

But all was not in vain, for in addition for the lovely drive, we ended up going to Harvester afterwards.

We were very full afterwards. Good to have you back, Xander.

Joel.

June 1st

Today is the first of June, which means several things:

1. It's the first day of summer! Although the weather outside doesn't quite see it that way.
2. Thing #1 doesn't apply to any readers in the southern hemisphere, of course. For them, June is pretty much the equivalent of December, so I guess that today is also the first day of Advent. Pretty crazy, I know.
3. Speaking of the southern hemisphere, today is Samoan Independence Day. Samoans the world over (although admittedly the proceedings are probably most concentrated in Samoa) are celebrating their mother land's independence from those notorious dictators, New Zealand (boooo!).
4. May, a month in which I updated this blog an astoundingly poor 4 times - joint lowest with December, but even December had that huge entry with the 69 songs - is officially over, so for what feels like the umpteenth time I'm resolving to start writing here every day. Bet you're all really excited, huh?

There were several other reasons today was going to be a big day, including Cliffey getting Xander back from the garage and Gem moving out and Sarah and I moving into her ginormous master bedroom. However, Cliffey has not heard from the garage and I've got a feeling that Gem moves out on the first of July, not June, so it's looking like a fairly quiet day from our point of view.

Yesterday, by contrast, actually was pretty busy. I started work in the stockroom at Next, and did so adequately that those in charge saw fit to give me two extra shifts next week (that's a good thing...probably). Sarah, who started on Monday, is also doing well, and tomorrow she will be working a full eight-hour shift. 

Pundits have pretty much unanimously predicted an achy-legged Friday at Tewkesbury Place.

We also went to see We Are Scientists last night, and they were awesome, if somewhat pre-occupied with the fact that we'd just had a bank holiday weekend.

I'd barely noticed, although now I think about it I did spend the Monday eating zebra, snails, impala, and all manner of other things at Mark's birthday barbecue. 

So I guess I did celebrate it a bit. Happy Independence Day Samoa.

Joel.

Your Daddy's Car

I don't think I made a note of it at the time so I'll mention it now: Xander, Cliffey's car, passed on to the Great Tesco Car Park in the Sky. Some time ago, actually. If you didn't already know this, I'm sorry you had to find out this way. I told Cliffey to mention it on The Xander Appreciation Society's Facebook page, but I don't think he did. It's a sad state of affairs - he should be able to get a new car with the insurance money, but it obviously won't be the same. And there's always a hint of tragedy in his voice when he says he's going to get the bus to work.

So rest in peace, Xander. You were one of my favourite places to listen to the Klezmer Kollectiv.

Why do I bring this up now, I hear you ask between your heaving sobs? Because we made a trip to big Tesco's last night in a different car, and it was an unmitigated disaster.

Well, that might be a little strong. But I'm sure it would have gone better in Xander.

Sarah, Josh and I had just seen LCD Soundsystem and Hot Chip at the CIA (a real slayer of a gig, I might add, particularly All My Friends), and had come back to a house with Tom in it. An average Friday night. Once I had recovered from a) the gig, and b) the walk home, Cliffey and I turned on the N64 and did another Royal Rumble on No Mercy. I won with Kane - Cliffey's really not very good at Royal Rumbles - and was all ready to call it a night when the decision was made to head to Tesco's for a late night shop.

So we piled into Tom's car (which I think is called Shaniqua) - me, Sarah, Soph, Cliffey, and of course Tom - and set off. Pete wanted to come to, offering to ride in the boot, but we decided that was a bad plan and, given what followed, that was probably a good shout.

We were somewhere near Roath Lake, getting our collective groove on to my Destiny's Child album, when suddenly Tom shut the music off and pulled over. I initially protested at this abrupt silence, but soon shut up when I realise that we'd been pulled over by the police.

The blue lights echoed in the rear window. We sat silently and waited for judgement.

Turns out Tom had just forgotten to look before going across a junction or something. The fuzz were soon on their way again, but it was a nerve-jangling experience while it lasted. The police have never seemed scarier*, what with their uniforms and their questions and the fact that it's kind of hard to see their faces when you're in the back seat and they're standing outside the driver's window.

Of course, the fear was somewhat nullified when we saw another policewoman, in full uniform, trying to choose between fried eggs and hot lips at the pick 'n' mix in Tesco. A fun moment.

Tom, probably still a little shook up from the police incident, drew further criticism at the self-service checkouts. One of the shop assistants apparently told him:

"Hurry up, I know what you kids are like."

Charming. The expedition wasn't a total cropping fail - I did get a nice loaf of tiger bread, and we discovered the existence of the Yumberry, which is cool - but as I say, it probably would have gone better in Xander.

Joel.

*To me, anyway; I think everyone else in that car was fairly certain that we weren't going to get arrested. I just have a slightly over-active imagination, and am extremely naive.

Sharments

A correction. Yesterday's blog was not quick; it was in fact quite long.

Another correction. It's Klezmer Kollectiv, not Kolectiv. Two L's. Sorry.

And now, a bullet point blog!

THINGS THAT HAPPENED TODAY

• The main Thing That Happened Today was that we went to Tesco. This was mostly so that Cliffey could exchange his trousers and do a big food shop, but other people bought things too. Pete bought a Blur compilation and 10 frankfurters. Sarah bought a cheesecake and some juice. Anna Sharp, who came along, exchanged several bags of shrapnel for a crisp new £10 note (and some more shrapnel). And I bought four iced buns and a Flump. It was a good trip. One funny thing was that Cliffey picked up a bottle of high juice and attempted to 'flare' with it. He dropped it. We even bought a brand new bin! It has a lid and everything. I put it on and pretended to be a spaceman. Sarah later did the same but one of the builders outside our house told her she looked more like a toilet.
• On the way back from Tesco we got lost and ended up driving through Pentwyn. This was unfortunate, and resulted in our getting stuck in even more traffic, but it was good in that it meant we got to listen to the Klezmer Kollectiv for another fifteen minutes or so. 
• Before any of this, I met Sarah at Coleg Glan Hafren and she bought us chips on the way home. We ate them with bread and butter. They were very nice. Cliffey had one.
• While Sarah was in college, I ambled over to Chez Payne in order to pick up my drum certificate (if you read yesterday's instalment then you'll know that I passed grade 8 with merit). As it turns out, I got a better score than my teacher, who did the grade 8 exam on the same day! The student becomes the master. On my way there, I listened to Manowar's seminal Kings of Metal album, which is very good apart from a song called Pleasure Slave which is a bit sexist.
• This evening we watched quiz programmes and fell in love with a man named Gerry on The Weakest Link. He didn't get to the final but we all felt that he should have.
• After that Sarah decided to get another pizza from Domino's. We were going to walk but then Cliffey offered us a lift. We parked outside the Co-op and discovered a secret back entrance! We were amazed. While we were waiting in Domino's, the three of us compared the cards in our wallets. I won because I had a shiny Charizard.
• Strictly speaking, this is not a Thing That Happened Today, but I feel that it is worth mentioning anyway. When Cliffey was going to work yesterday, somebody crashed into his car. He was not best pleased because Xander has just come out of the car hospital and now this happens. He got the other guy's insurance details though so that's good.
• Pete just called Cliffey a nigger over a game of Robot Wars: Arenas of Destruction.
• Speaking of Pete, he acquired the internet today. He and Meic ran a cable from the router in Gemma's room to the PC in Pete's room. I am now the only non-connected house member, and that includes Sarah, whose iPod gets the friggin' internet. 
• Sarah would also like me to point out that she beat me at Tekken six times earlier. Six times in a row. 
• Gemma is not going to be working for a while as she has bad hands.

I think that's everything so I'll see you tomorrow. I hope you enjoyed Joel Writes Like An Autistic Day. Normal service resumes tomorrow.

Joel.

Moving Eve

We're scheduled to move in at 11am tomorrow, just under 16 hours from time of writing. All of my clothes, crockery, cutlery, bedding, baritone, television, DVD player, Playstation One are in a pile, waiting to be taken to their new home. Excitement is running high. To illustrate this, here are some exclamation marks:

!! !!!! !!!!!!!!!!!!

So, before we're down in it, I'll make sure you're all familiar with me and the strange people I will soon be holed up with.

Room One: Thom "Cliffey" Cliffe

Studying: Philosophy @ Cardiff University

Preferred Method of Transport: Xander, a car

Weapon of Choice: Golden Gun

Room Two: Joel Dear

Studying: Popular Music @ Atrium

PMT: A bicycle with no name

WoC: Telekinesis

Room Three: Peter Murphy

Studying: Earth Science @ Cardiff University

PMT: Angel Wings

WoC: Apocalypse 4000 and also some sweet eye beams

Room Four: Sophie Jones

Studying: N/A, was doing English @ Glamorgan but will instead be working full time at Boots.

PMT: Patsy, also a car

WoC: Imitation Super Soaker, £5.99 from Asda

Room Five: Gemma Ward 

Studying: Journalism @ Atrium

PMT: Perhaps a motorbike of some description?

WoC: Kendo Pole

There's also a cavalcade of friends, lovers and hangers-on who will doubtless be around a lot, but I'm sure we'll come to them later.

So it begins tomorrow. Everyone in Cathays is battening down their hatches and counting their daughters.

Joel.