The Future's so bright...

Well hello there lads and ladies, I hope you're doing well.

This is not so ranty, this is a little heads up as to what is going to be happening with this blog.

As you probably already know by now. It's mainly a place for my general ramblings and rantings on everything that bugs or irritates me. That's not all that this blog will contain, I gots to keep it fresh, you get me, homie?

As a big fan of Formula 1, when the season officially starts I'll be reviewing each of the races, whatever controvesies that may appear (Cough, cough, Mercedes) and generally having a jolly old ramble about stuff.

I'll also be doing the same sort of thing with Formula E. However because the rounds are so far apart you'll have completely forgotten I was going to write about it. 

Other than that, for now at least, it's F1, FE and general ranty rants. 

This is rather short compared to normal, so that's a nice change for you.

Cheerio,

Stevie. 

Thank You For the Music

A mighty fine song that is from the hugely successful ABBA. The title says it all and it's a sentiment I agree with wholeheartedly. Music to me is as important as running water and shelter.  The majority of my time awake has music playing. One of the main reasons I love my job is because I can have the radio on so I can sing/whistle/boogie along with it.

You know those silly hypothetical question you ask each other when you're young? Would you rather questions? Before they get inevitably sexual, I remember once being asked, "Would you rather go blind, go deaf?" I chose blind. Sight is a wonderful thing, but the thought of not being able to listen to music was not something I took kindly to. 

Music is something I think many people take for granted. There are so many types of music, each with their own sub-genres and alternative forms. Furthermore, within each genre there are superstars of the category and young fledgling artists just beginning their careers. For a vast majority of people though the thousands of songs and bands that aren't to their particular preference, simply aren't important. Their existence is insignificant. "That's crap, turn it off." Never to be turned on again.

I'm no different. I think to think I have a fairly broad musical selection, but Rap music? One Direction? R&B? Justin Bieber? Kate Bush? No thank you. 

I'm rather varied when it comes to music, which I'll get on to later, but there is one band whose music is almost synonymous with me. It's heavily associated with me and people who know me will know all too well how properly obsessed I am with them.

This band is Status Quo.

Yes, the Rock veterans who brought you 'Caroline', 'Down Down' and the 'Rockin' All Over The World' that opened Live Aid back in 1985. 

Status Quo are my favourite band. No argument. I prefer the newer line-up, honestly, but I still love the original Frantic Four. Put it this way, I have over a thousand songs on my MP3 Player, over 600 of them are Status Quo. There are posters all of my walls, I've seen them live four times and I hope to see them as often as I can.

Rick Parfitt, the rhythm guitar player is also my absolute man-crush. If I look that good at 60 I'll be ecstatic. 

Obviously, they aren't to everyone's taste and over the years I've heard the same few lines over and over again about Status Quo. Well now I'm going to shut them up.

"They only know three chords" I hate this. If you're listening to music and counting how many chords someone's using then you're doing it wrong. Music is for enjoyment; to make your ears happy. "Err, they only used two chords, they suck" Your loss.

"They're too old" Can't deny the guys are getting on a bit. However, go and see them live, they rock out like nobody else and get better and better every year. For saying they're sixty-somethings, they put more energy into their shows than most. 

"It's all the same" No, no it really isn't. I don't go to a Quo gig and sing the same song 25 times. This one is exceptionally irritating. 'Hold You Back' doesn't sound like 'Caroline'. 'Rain' doesn't sound like 'Roll Over Lay Down'. And so on. All ABBA songs sound the same because it's the same four voices written by the same four people, but people don't complain about that do they? It's exactly the same with Quo, they have a formula, one lead/rhythm guitar and one pure rhythm guitar and the songs are written by the same people. It wouldn't be Status Quo if they suddenly came up with an Operatic Reggae album.

I should point out at this point I do like other things than just Quo. I'm a huge fan of Country music. Proper country music, Willie Nelson, Kenny Rogers, Waylon Jennings and the like. Whilst also liking some of the more unpopular Country stars. For example, Billy Ray Cyrus is one of my all-time heroes. His music is under-rated and the mullet... I saw it in the 'Deja Blue' video and fell in love with it, so much so that I have a mullet now.

I'm a firm believer that no song tells a story better than a Country song. I don't know why but people seem to shun Country music like it's diseased. It's glorious, honest music that comes from some of the best song-writers ever to have lived. I'll take Dolly Parton over Rhianna any day of the week.

Music of old has always been better as far as I'm concerned. Nowadays there's too much focus on marketing and selling rather than the music itself. Shows like X factor and The Voice as far as I'm concerned are simply the worst things to happen to music. Real artists work from the ground up rather than going on TV to gain popularity. What's more irritating is that there are millions of people watch this crap and vote for the winner, but whoever wins gets one record out and is never heard of again. What's the point?! 

I dislike shows like it for a passion. I feel they're more for making fun of people rather than trying to get real talent into music. I say music. Modern music isn't for my liking. It's all computers and synthesizers rather than with real instruments and artists more set up for marketing than performing. 

However, as much as I, the most part, dislike modern music/artists. I'm thankful for their existence. Without the hugely diverse world of music I wouldn't have the music I love and listen to everyday. 

Could you imagine a world with only 3 or 4 artists? HELL NO!
I love how spread out the music industry is because it allows people to like different things. The idea of a quarter of the population loving Quo as much as I do scares me.

So on that note, go and listen to some Queen, or something.

Cheerio,

Stevie.

Feelings, nothing more than feelings.

I originally posted this as a journal on the RoosterTeeth site (Huge fan) but as I'd like to get this all in one place, I've copied it here so there's more than just the introductory post.

This was originally posted in summer 2014
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As a 21 year old I thought I'd felt all the feelings there are; embarrassment/happiness/sadness/grief to name a few. 

But today I had a new feeling. I was content.
That's not happy. Happiness is a completely different feeling. Happiness, to me at least, is just a basic mood, a lesser version of content if you like. I get happy when people say nice things or I make someone laugh. But to be content is more of a natural thing for me. 

I'm a very indoorsy person normally. Generally, I go to work, I come home, play video-games and scourer the internet. And then we repeat. The only time I leave the house other than going to work is to go shopping, and that's only once a week. I'm not a fan of the outdoors really. I don't drink so going out at night is a ridiculous idea as far as I'm concerned. I'm not a particularly social person either. I'll talk to my friends and colleagues and whatnot but I tend to stay out of activities and outside of work meet ups. Not my thing, hence why I'm '"boring". A lot of people simply don't understand that you don't need to go out to socialise. You can do it all over the internet at home via social networking sites or playing games online for example. I know it's not the same, but it's a more accessible and interactive experience as far as I'm concerned. I'd rather play a game online with one of my friends than meet up in town with them. 

However, since England had the greatest summer that I can remember last year, I grew partial to hot summer days. And today was a corker. 

A bright blue sky, the sun bearing down with a force of heat so intense that even the sweat pouring down my face was sweating. I went to work like normal and as my job is hard physical labour it means that a hot day at work is not fun. Nice to look at but it makes a hard job even harder. But with a nice early finish on the cards, I knuckled down to get home. 

Sure enough, early afternoon I was done, and after helping a colleague who then offered me a lift (Tactical thinking) I was home before 3. I went to my room, put on my ripped jeans, my mirrored aviator sunglassses. Yes, Top Gun style. And to finish off the look, I donned one of my prized possessions. I put on one of my ugly shirts. Usually Hawaiian. Brightly coloured and shockingly patterned, I love them and I vow to collect as many shirts as possible that cause people to say, 'What an earth are you wearing?' I'm up to about 10 and they're fantastic. 

Anyway, rambling. Yes, I donned my summer outfit, went out to the garden, pulled out a chair, stuck my headphones in, arranged a playlist of happy, summer songs and just sat. 

Yup, I sat out in the garden with my music on, in basic terms. And it was utterly glorious. I sat out there for a couple of hours. And the longer I sat there, the more at peace with the world I became. No problems, no nagging, no irritating noises from the neighbourhood. I was simply content. I couldn't have been happier out there. With nobody around I could just sit back and relax. 

And as a result of my new found ultimate chill-out recipe, it's now forecast to rain all week. 
It was nice while it lasted. Oh well. Until the next time.

Cheerio,

Stevie.

Here we are, here we are and here we go...

Howdy, my name is Stevie, a 22 year old whose mind doesn't work like most peoples. I don't mean I'm a fruit loop and wake up every morning thinking I'm a banana and that the sky will fall down and clonk me on the head. More in the sense that I'm rather unique and don't like the mainstream stuff and I'm more into quirky things. Rather worryingly, the more I write the more I feel like a scary attacker or something. I'm not, honest.

I first started writing way back in 2009/2010. I am heavily inspired by Jeremy Clarkson as a columnist, where he just writes about what's he thinks rather than mainstream journalism where you would report on a topic. So I just wrote and wrote and wrote about how I saw the world and so on. It grew to be about 8,000 words before I stopped. Each article was a couple of pages long and was a mix of serious thought and comedy. I thoroughly enjoyed it though and have done ever since.

Skip forward 2 years and during my first year of Sixth Form (College) we had this silly 5,000 word project to do; an obligatory project. I think we had 6 months to do a research project, or a creative type thing. Nearly everyone went with the research a topic and then write about it. That to me sounded like work. Finding something to research, then reading up on it, then writing about it, whilst also writing down sources and all this extra rubbish which seemed like it would require a lot of effort and very little enjoyment.

Whereas I sat there, knowing I had that huge 8,000 word document sat at home. So within a week I had submitted a 'creative piece' - A diary of a young man who saw the world differently. I picked out enough articles to lift it up to almost 5,000. The remainder was used on an original article. An article I wrote about the project, ranting at how silly it was and what a waste of my time it was etc.

I submitted it and was called into a meeting. As you can probably guess, it hadn't gone down too well. Long story still long but shortened a little bit because I'm rambling on a bit now, I did submit it, and it did go through, and I did get 'meh' marks on it. I feel it only scored low because I basically told them it was a pointless project and I hated it.

The project did do one thing for me though. It inspired me to start writing again, I continued the project and got it up to about 20,000 words. It was such fun until my laptop died, and I never bought Microsoft Word again so I can't see it or work on it any more so here I am. I've written bits on the 'Notes' tab on Facebook, but that's only when something grabs my attention.

But now I'm here. Here to write to my hearts content and I don't care if nobody ever sees it. I have a printed copy of my 20,000 word project, so I'll type up some of the old stuff, (If I still agree with it!) whilst also writing original stuff.

That'll do for now. I've waffled enough for now.

Cheerio,

Stevie.