The Book Buying Ban

Weh-hey! It's a new year! Woo! Yeah! Let's call it TWENTY TWELVE guys, none of this two-thousand-and nonsense any more.

Anyways, as you can see, I've made a new video. I kind of decided, back when two-thousand-and-eleven was drawing to a close that I should try and be a little more productive when it comes to my YouTube channel... especially now-a-days when it seems as though some utter arse has been ignoring my plea to not tell anyone about it. And before you say anything, yeaaah, I know, if I don't want people to see my videos then why have them up on the INTERNET? Surely that's ridiculous right? Well, I beg to disagree. I didn't have to tell anyone but I foolishly trusted this so-called-friend to not share my secret but alas. A lesson has been learnt: no one can be trusted.

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!

But putting my trust issues aside, I basically had to make a choice; either recoil in embarrassment and delete my channel... or take a deep breath and carry on. I've chosen the latter. Which is interesting because this is the first video I've made since Sept.

Here's the deal. This video explains that my New Years Resolutions are to firstly STOP buying books (I'm such a slow reader and such a fast buyer) and to secondly, try and read more books than I did last year... which shouldn't be too difficult because I only managed a grand total of 14....

But what I didn't mention was my video making resolution (mainly because no one actually gives a shit if I make videos except for me yet you'll be surprised at how many people care about books no matter who is talking about them). In a nutshell, I'm hoping at least a video once a week. The rules are slightly sketchy even to me (and I'm writing them for Pete's sake!) but as today is the 6th of Jan, I have successfully managed to stick to said sketchy rules. Now I have another 7 days to produce a new video. Hopefully one without such terrible lighting but I stayed up till stupid o'clock watching the third season of Dexter. And playing The Sims on my iPad.

I neeeeed to get my priorities sorted out.

Free Cinema Tickets

After several months of leaving my YouTube account unattended, it was this video that made me think fuck it! i'm gonna make a new video!! I decided against writing a plan/script for the video and just sat in front of the camera in my PJs and just decided to talk about anything at all. This is the result. Anyways, I've got a really important video to make soon so hopefully I'll get that up and blogged about ASAP.

The Raven

Earlier today I randomly started quoting The Raven by Edgar Allen Poe. I've had this version on my iPod for almost a year now and I absolutely love it. I actually haven't read much of Poe, although what I have read truly grips me.

Currently reading Knots and Crosses by Ian Rankin after giving up on The Hunger Games after the second book. I will definitely read the last one (Mockingjay) at some point, I just got a little sick of Catching Fire and it took me a good two months to finish the damn thing.

In other news, my sister has moved back to the UK! After a good seven-odd years of living in far off distant lands (and this is my younger sister we're talking about!), she has decided to grace our shores once more! It's also the first of September today... which means I'm taking part in RE:LENTLESS. I'm basically torturing myself by not drinking any carbonated soft drinks for a month. Today was day one. I'm shattered. I need sleep.

Pretty Much Sick

So I'm pretty much sick. Woke up this morning with a few sniffles, nothing to write home about. Then by the time I got to work, I had started to get that horrific tickley feeling behind my eyes as I seemed to be in a perpetual state of needing to sneeze without any such bloody thing actually happening. The day dragged and all I wanted to do was go home to bed. Which I did. So my room is still a mess and I have managed to do nothing at all productive which sucks. What sucks even more is the thought that if this gets any worse, I'll have to take a day off work which I really can't afford after two holidays in one summer.

Anyways, being sick is a good enough reason as any to write a blog post. The picture is of Charlie McDonnell, aka charlieissocoollike and I just really liked it. Hope to have some videos up shortly as I now have a massive backlog of footage.

One more thing, I'm gonna pay by cheque!

Saving Eeyore

Things have been pretty hectic for me recently, a lot of to-ing and fro-ing and being a general pest to myself and others in my vicinity. However, I have finally finished moving all my crap into my new place and accidentally/on purpose managed to acquire an Eeyore stocking along the way. Be warned; this anecdote illustrates how mentally unstable I really am!

You see, I think it had something to do with the lack of caffeine. I drink a lot of coffee/energy drinks at work and on Monday, I was challenged by those at the desks around me to go one full day just drinking water. I knew it was going to be tough and I knew I was going to be cranky. By the end of the day, my mood was all over the place and I just wanted to go home to bed. The last thing I really wanted to be doing was moving the last drips and drabs of my stuff. Especially as it was "pishin it doon". I mean, it wasn't just a drizzle, it was borderline torrential.

It was as we pulled up one of the neighbouring streets to park that I saw it. Something on the road. Something that looked a little bit like a red towel. Then a pillow. Then it became clear! It was Eeyore! In the road! Abandoned and getting soaked! I can't really explain why I felt such a strong urge to "save" it because even now, I know it sounds gross. But that's what I did. I picked it up (it turned out to be an Eeyore Christmas stocking), took it home and bunged it straight into the washing machine. The photo came about due to my telling this tale at work. And then my deciding to share it with you.

I told you, this blog is ODD.

The Edinburgh NerdFighter Gathering

I'm procrastinating, as per usual. It's 11.40pm, I have a taxi picking me up at 5.30am and not only am I convinced that this is the opportune time to write a blog about the Edinburgh NerdFighter Gathering that happened on Sunday, but I also fully intend on catching up with all the episodes of EastEnders that I have missed over the last couple of days. I know, I'm crazy. I should really be focusing on making sure I have everything ready for tomorrow (I'm heading to Vienna!!) but it seems that no matter how many times I go over my check-list, I still think I've forgotten something.

But enough of that! Sunday saw a reunion of the Scottish NerdFighters here in Edinburgh. Back in February, I stumbled across a thread on the forum called "YourPants" (I know, right? A thread on YourPants) which saw Scottish NerdFighters organising a meet up just for funzies. This was amazing because I had genuinely never met a fellow NerdFighter and so I was pretty quickly enrolled as the unofficial photographer of the event (a NerdFighter being a subgroup of the YouTube community created by the AWESOME VlogBrothers). It was held in Glasgow back in April so naturally, the summer gathering was held right here in Edinburgh!

For those of you wondering, it's basically a giant picnic so thankfully, the weather behaved itself and as you can see, it was actually a beautifully sunny day! I even got a tad sunburnt!

Guitars always make an appearance and with Songsfrompaul strumming away, our soundtrack for the day couldn't have been better!

Alistair, aka 8bitglasses takes a break

And last but not least, ME!

(You don't usually see me because I'm the one

pushing the button on the camera!)

A Thank You

Firstly, wow.

This is a big thank you to my friend Morven over at Cats and Rocking Chairs (as in, my first and currently only follower) who has very kindly given me a shout out in her blog. She told me this today while we were at lunch and I felt a little sorry for her poor followers who are used to her stylish fashion blog and who may have understandably assumed that this was also a stylish fashion blog...

Alas, it is not. I actually don't have a clue what this blog is other than a hotpot of crackpot posts! No, but seriously, it's called ODSOX87 and I welcome you to this merry-go-round of musings. I doubt many of you will stick around but here's a little treat for coming this far.

This video was taken today and is the first to be uploaded from my new Flip!

Enjoy :)