I'm Lazy! Who Cares!

becasue im extremly lazy i can't be assed anymore to write bit long rants about things so i've downgraded to using twitter as a mini-blog for my thoughts and ideas, so if you want to continue checking out my random thoughts check out my twitter @ http://twitter.com/csbl4ckh4wk

Pen Y Part 2

Today was the day, returning back to the Brecon beacons to do the same circuit as completed before, this time carrying approximately 5 times the weight this time. But this time I would receive a helping hand from my new LOWA elites, although they hadn’t been broken in. With Weather Forecast showing light showers in Brecon and the poor weather in Bracknell as we set of in the morning I was expecting it to drizzle all day and a pretty miserable trek round , but how wrong the weather forecast was, clear skies is what we experienced all day. The ascents seemed harder this time around but I’m attributing that to new boots and a heavy carried weight, but obviously these didn’t stop us to much as we smashed our previous time around the circuit mainly for running the decent down from the top of Corn Du(824m) back to the car park(400m). So all in all a good day and hopefully I shall be returning for round three soon. Farewell for now Pen Y

A-lowa HMSupplies

With Trip to the Brecon beacons coming up fast, it was time for me to purchases some hiking boots rather than borrow other people for once, so the Search went out for a decent part of hiking boots. First stop today was after a pointless visit to Guildford and its surprisingly very poor outdoor hiking and trekking shops, although the M&S lunch did have it redeeming qualities. After this disappointing trip I took a chance on a store that I knew existed but had no idea what it stocked or where the hell it was, this Shop was HMSupplies in Camberley. This Store is probably the best Surplus and Adventure Store I’ve seen, easily 4 times bigger that all the other stores of the day. Upon the highest Shelve was want I considered to be the Holy Grail of Hiking Shoes LOWA Elites and for only £120! Cheaper than even the store I found online which was having a 10% sale on LOWA’s so this last ditch trip turn out to be a great trip and I can tell you know all the equipment I’ve brought online stupidly when it’s all been just 7 miles away will I’m sure lead me to become HMSupplies new best customer.

You cant get out a blog entry that easy no, Not without a fight!

Not Without a Fight is the sixth studio album of New Found Glory. A distinct move has been made for this album by pulling in Blink 182’s Mark Hoppus as its producer, the albums tone and lyrics in contrast to its predecessor Coming Home, due to issues faced by band members. Unlike other younger pop-punk contemporaries, New found Glory no longer seems smitten with the idea of a happy relationship; there are precious few traces of the urgent, here's-to-the-night ethos that other Bands champion so heartily. One of the biggest improvements can be clearly heard as frontman Jordan Pundik, sounds considerably less nasal here than on previous records. Making this one of new found glory’s technically better albums to date and one which I hope will start a new phase in New found Glorys story and one which I will be following intently.

Back to Ye Olde School

Recently I’ve returned back to (in my opinion) one of the best games created in recent years The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, released back in 2006 the game has aged very well in my opinion and has graphics better or rivalling more recent titles. Of course having played this game many times before racking up ridiculous hours (I believe somewhere in the vicinity of 200) theirs the problem with repetition, but if there’s one thing I’ve learnt over the years of playing this game is that as long as you skip the extremely repetitive conservations with NPC‘s, that the sandbox style of game play allows you to create a different story for your character every time and therefore a different game, making replayability a key point of the game.

Apparently there is a new elder scrolls game under development set for release in 2010, but I’m sure that if oblivion has held its own as one of my favourite games for the last 3 years, I’m sure it can hang on another year until the next instalment comes out. Finally many of you reading this will have played Oblivion if you haven’t you best get moving because you have clearly missed out!

Ross Kemp in Afganistan

After Watching documentary on TV a few Days Called “Fighting Passions” about how soldier cope with the ravages of war and killing over humans within the process lead me to seek out and watch Ross Kemp in Afghanistan and Ross Kemp: Return to Afghanistan. Frankly I’m impressed with the two Series. The First Series follows the First Royal Anglian regiment on Operation Lastay Kulang. Unbeknown at the time these guys were the regiment that I had the privilege to welcome back to the UK at the end of their 6 month Tour of Duty in Guildford the year previously. Also unbeknown to me at the time the Friendly fire incident that was broadcast all of the news where an American bomb had killed British ground troops also unfortunately happened to be from this regiment. The Second Series Follows the Fifth Scots Division.

The Documentaries are some of the best war documentaries ever created not only in the production which is believed to be the first documentary of its kind filmed in high definition. But the realism and closeness to action in which Ross and His Team take place. Within the Documentary the Camera team get pinned down by the Taliban in several place form this sequences you can hear the hiss and snags of the bullets and the fly literally inches away from their head, this is only heighted by the Swoosh sounds as RPG’s miss them by inches. Unlike more traditional war documentaries, they are more focused on being a soldiers' story, focusing on the experiences of the soldiers at home and abroad and also features the views of their families.

As a strong supporter of both the British Armed Forces and the War in Afghanistan these documentaries are refreshing as they forget the liberal media bullshit and spin, and get down to the true facts about modern warfare giving an honest picture of what it is like to serve in Afghanistan for the regular man on the ground. It is for this Reason that I recommend anyone to watch both of these series as it will give you a new and fully image of what modern combat for an infantry solider is like.

Another Year at University Over

I haven’t had a blog entry in some time now, so I decided that today’s the day to start again. I’d like to think I haven’t been blogging due to the fact that I’ve been busy revising for my end of year exams but let’s face the facts here, I haven’t been revising at all, so without further ado here are all the entries which I have be too lazy to do until now.

New Day, New Watch

Finally today my New G10 “Stealth” Watch arrived, what a sexy beast it is as well. The design of the G10 “Stealth” watch is timeless and functional. It been a long time since I’ve had a watch after my last one ran out of battery a few years ago I couldn’t be bother to go get it replaced at a watch smiths. How ever going to the watch smiths is a thing of the past, The G10 features a battery hatch in which anyone can easily replace the battery whenever the need arises. Why does no other watch have this it’s a simple addition and saves so much money. I’m confused. Also being compatible with all NATO standard watch straps allows you to replace them with easy and even change styles in seconds making to a great watch in any environment.

One of the things I first noticed about the watch was new Super Luminova used in the 08 Model, wasn’t even dark and I could see the numbers light up. Don’t know if this is a good thing for a “stealth” watch, illuminated your wrist but I am sure that it is not as bad as I believe. But apart from this unexpected flaw the G10 Stealth is very rugged watch and I expect it to take a battering and continue to serve as my trusty watch.

The Black Swan Just Keeps on Arising!

Even though this album was released a year ago I still remember the excitemnt as I walked down to the shop to purchase it on its release date. Since then this album hasn’t left my Mp3 player. The Black Swan is the third album by American post-hardcore band Story of the Year. The switch form Maverick Records to Epitaph has seemed to help push the ban into a new realm of music focusing on heavier riffs and catchy melodic tunes. It starts off with "Choose Your Fate" which hits you like a slap in the face, an aggressive track and a good powerful way to start the album. Then flowing through several hugely melodic rock songs such as “The Antidote" and "We're Not Gonna Make It" all the way through until "Terrified”, vocals take centre stage in a slow intro, backed by another marching style drum build up, this one is rock ballad through and through. This album offers a wide range of different sounds from catchy melodies to rock ballads. This combine with the theme that flows throughout the album is that the concept of human existence is insignificant in comparison to the universe as a whole, and that wars, fighting and killing seem pointless makes this a powerful and thoroughly enjoyable record

My Two Weeks on Top of the World

Been back from Mallorca now for just under a week, and I’ve already been out of the country once! Ah the old university field trip to Mallorca, one of the best times of my life, just what I’ve need for a while now. A week of hard work (or at least a day) and even harder partying! Dancing on bars at 4:30am is something I’ve never done before and is something I would very much like to continue doing. The week opened my eyes to how much of the last 2 years I have wasted and I’d like to thank those guys (and girls) who made that trip so memorable. I would love to recall everything that happened on the trip but I’ll be here for hours so I’ll just give you the defining statement of the trip “Chris Whitehead likes to sit down when he does a wee” hehe. Anyways I mentioned leaving the country again. So he goes the story of that........We made our way up to the Brecon Beacons (in Wales of course) to a random car park in the middle of nowhere, he was me thinking that this would be a stroll compared to the New Year’s trip to Scafell Pike, At about 600m I realised that this wasn’t going to be as easy as I hoped(due to a pulled groin muscle). Then the Hail hit! Anyways needless to say this awful start just got better and better but the time we had looped back around to Pen Y Fan all of the shitty weather previously was forgotten as the views from the top were amazing; no wonder it’s the playground of the SAS. At 886m high Pen Y Fan is higher than we even got on Scafell Pike! What a day rounded off the perfect week and a half for me! I shall be making my way back to Pen Y soon for a go at the FAN DANCE!

Another Day, Another Year

Today is the day of my birth (or for the more laymen amongst you my birthday). And that’s all I really got to say about my birthday as nothing really happened, so another day, another year down the drain.

New Bike!

After a 20mile cycle to the aptly named road of death last weekend I noticed that my old bike which I haven’t ridden is years was ridiculously heavy, unresponsive and spongy, this lead me on to a search for a new bike. So with a limit of been £250-350 I set out on finding a bike.

Today I went to town to a small bike shop called Bracknell Cycles, I found several bikes that would have made perfect acquisitions, but most had something missing from the checklist in my mind of what I wanted. Then the clerk suggested the MONGOOSE Tyax Elite 2009 which ticked all the box as well as being the best quality bike I’d looked at and at a £340 it was to the upper end of my limit, this is when Sam Snowden the business legend stepped up to the plate and managed to negotiate £30 of the price. SCORE! Now that extra money will be spent on new cycling gloves as my old Kona glove are falling apart, so win- win. New bike and soon to be new gloves

What happened to my prostitutes? oh they were "Taken"

Scary east European prostitute kidnappers! You just can’t make this shit up. I’ve just finished watching the short thriller “Taken” and do you know what it was half bad. If you told me watch a 1hr 30m film of basically just Liam Neeson, I would tell probably tell you to fuck off! But fortunately this is not the case anymore.

The plots are your averagely highly coincidental young American blonde and brunette go somewhere in Europe and gets kidnapped. Never saw that coming........ But luckily her dad just happens to be an ex CIA hostage rescue expert, some people clearly get all the luck while the rest of us get shit. The film then continues to follow Liam Neeson around continuously for the rest of the film, whether he's smashing threw the wall of the gate house to what I can only describe as a prostitute stronghold or weaving in between oncoming traffic with the ease of James bond.

Although this film is clearly very predictable, it is also entertaining, the lean 1hr 30m run time doesn't leave much in the way for padding which only extenuates the swift pace of the film. This movie was a big surprise. Neeson is very well cast as the CIA operative having the physical presence during many of the fight scenes even though he is now getting on in years. Its only serious downfalls in my eye are the very generic bad guys and lack of an active supporting cast. I would say that this film is one of the best thrillers I have seen in a long time. I strongly advise anyone to go out and watch this film.