Cats.

This has gone on long enough; it's time to explain the incessant pictures of cats on my blog. There is indeed a reason, and - in the style of Lost (my new-found summer obsession) - I've had it present throughout the series of blog posts without any explanation. So... the moment of truth has come...

I am not obsessed with cats... nor do I believe myself to be a reincarnated "cat-man," - Halle Berry style (which, is ridiculous, because Halle Berry is, and always will be, Storm in my eyes ["CARRY US TO JEANNN"]*) - she can't crossover from one franchise to another and think she can get away with it...! :@).

This cat is the Juggernaut BITCH. 

No. The real reason for the cat pictures, is simply due to one of my best friends. A simple comment of: "Hmm, needs more cats," and voilà - cats cats cats. (I should probably not do what people say so willingly... -_-) But yes, he is cat-MAD. A guy who could quite happily stand for up to ten MINUTES on a driveway laughing at a cat rolling about on the ground (I know this from experience... - not assumption). In fact, I've recently discovered the embodiment of his love for cats in a Youtube video:

This is my friend - eHarmony version. And female. Even though she's clearly putting this on, my friend could quite easily make a similar video, where his genuine love for cats can shine through.  

I, however, am indifferent towards cats. I feel neither excess love nor hate towards them - a balance that is hard for some people to find... This picture however, should give him some comfort... 

You're not alone... 

*I guess I'll have to explain what THIS is tomorrow... 

"Things are better in the future..." (Or so I'm told...)

Ok, so I was watching Lost (that's right - I'm only now catching up with the final series. So please don't comment with spoilers... D: bah!). That, combined with a (brief) conversation about time-zones, inspired me to write a blog. That's why, in "homage" to Lost, this blog is to do with time-travel :D 

She's from... THE FUTURE! 

My friends know, much to their detestation, that I have a "thing" about time-travel. It's not so much that I'm super into sci-fi, or any related pseudo-scientific paranormal technology, but... I think there's no feeling that can really compare to the feeling of getting your head-fucked... :') I love thinking about the idea of interacting with people from the future... or indeed, travelling to the future and interacting with people from the past...

Hmm... I suppose I could relate this to my "Superpowers. I want one" blog - in the sense that I have a lingering desire to achieve impossible feats. I mean... time-travel isn't possible. I know this. I'm not delusional. 

I strive for the moments when I make this face --------> :O (I call them "Lost" moments - when something time-travel related has happened... like a character meeting their younger self... or... something...). They are cool. 

This is Jack from Lost dressed as a chicken...
No... I don't understand it either...  - credit:
http://www.odoe.net/jackfaces/index.html

I know what you might be thinking at this point - that I'm going to relate it to the idea of going back and fixing moments of your past - but my feelings on that subject aren't that deep in the slightest. Also, if I know anything at all about time-travel - which I don't - altering the past can and will always have drastic consequences on the space-time continuum. And I'm not about to go messing around with that... It's more a selfish desire to achieve the aforementioned "Lost" moments 8-) 

But what about my future? I guess... in a way, I've decided one thing for the moment. I kind of moved away from the idea of becoming an office manager (as passionate as I was for that career... D':). I'm much more likely now to become a teacher - as I originally planned. 

I can't pinpoint exactly what caused this sudden revelation... Could my future really lie in the public education sector? Maybe, to inspire misguided youths with my unwavering passion for music is my destiny... but...

As shallow as it sounds... it may just be because I really like the idea of wearing different combinations of shirts and ties everyday... (which, ironically, I could do in an office... fuck the kids... in a non-perverse way.. o.O) yayyy for materialism... D: 

Because it's my DESTINY to feature a cat picture on every blog...
but I don't know whether to believe in destiny :) 

The COD effect. I hate it.

Sadly, this is NOT the type of camping I'm talking about... 

Preach. 

This blog update features a very specific topic in mind. Whilst I have previously mentioned my adoration (bordering "obsession" some would say...) for video game, I must reference my fondness for one such particular brand of game:

CoD... *dun dun dun* o.O

It's prevalence amongst gamers today is second-to-none. Mentioning "CoD" to most people over the age of say... 30,  they would probably expect you to be talking about a species of fish. However, to many people under 30 (if we're talking about the key demographic of 18-30 year-old males), their reaction may vary from: mouth-frothing, increased heart-rate, profuse sweating and indeed... an urge to "eliminate the opposition." 


In fact, as previously mentioned in my "Summer - not all sugar and rainbows..." blog, I myself am a CoD fan. Black Ops was the game in question that I looked forward to as being an unashamedly enormous time-sink for my Summer holidays. However, the excitement soon wore off. The thrill of killing anonymous online Xbox Live users was short-lived. I realised that COD, as a franchise, manages to both encapsulate and frustrate it's audience - including myself - in equal measures.

I'm not an angry person, by nature... Playing CoD has given me a chance at self-reflection. I'm a much more terrible person than I thought... D: 

This is me in Hulk-Cat Hybrid form. 

I find myself having to take breaks from CoD (or rather... play it in intermittent bursts... the first one made it seem like my entire summer was devoted to CoD - which would only be half right...), for fear of developing some adverse side-effects - like turning green and feeling unexplained urges to "smash." (for the astute comic book fans, I was likening myself to the Hulk... :| but... whatever...) 


A "game" should be fun... it shouldn't have the ability to elicit any negativity. But maybe that's what make me more... bloodthirsty?! 

This makes me sick... It requires no skill...! D:

... bastard. 

When a game harbours elements that frustrate me, such as so-called "camping", (whereby a player sits in a corner of a room, using equipment such as a motion sensor, or claymore to defend themselves...), I feel like it's such an injustice. Like the whole ethos of CoD multiplayer has been made of mockery of.  Is there any justice in "camping?" (I talk about "justice" as if there's a higher power of CoD police who could deal with such players... sadly - there is not). 


I then realise something else... these campers don't care how annoyed I get. And indeed, if we were in real modern warfare, you would use whatever so-called "dirty" tactics you could to survive... 


Still... It doesn't annoy me any less. 

Youtube - Uploads.

Hi everyone. Just informing you that I'll be taking a bit of a break from blogging. If I can think of any "serious" thought-provoking issues, I'll DEFO blog about them (yes - I'm bringing "defo" back... D:), but for now, I'm using this to advertise my recently updated youtube channel:

http://www.youtube.com/user/JohnathanPianoMan

Please check it out - rate, subscribe, comment, or request a song for me to cover ;)

Have a good summer guys! :D 

Youtube :D

Hi everyone. This is just a short blog post to tell you about my Youtube channel - 

http://www.youtube.com/user/JohnathanPianoMan

I cover mostly pop songs on piano, but take requests. I can do pretty much anything of any genre, as long as I can put it on an iPod... (ha, I'm so modest too... o.O). 


But yeah, my first update of the summer, I'm hoping will be next week and is going to be E.T. by Katy Perry - an awesome song if I do say so myself.

I also take requests, and would happily help out anyone wishing to learn the covers of my songs by providing the chords for them - as worked out by me...

So yeah, look forward to it...? I guess :D

(I even managed to embed my most popular video in my blog... How's that for technical wizardry?! Also, I'm an ashamedly good self-promoter it seems... ¬¬) Thumbs up for outstanding production values. The new stuff won't look like this... :|

Summer - Not all sugar and rainbows...

This blog post centres around my plans and ideals of my forthcoming summer vacation.

I'll be honest - I likely have a somewhat "different" view of what most people would consider "fun." My interests span to:-

1. Playing video games... 8)
2. Playing piano. 
3. Blogging now, apparently.

All of these activities require me to not leave the house (unless there's some outdoor piano somewhere... or I took my laptop outside and blogged from there - but those are technicalities... -_- ) and also, coincidentally, can all be executed alone. Does this therefore mean that I'm "wasting" my summer holidays? Can you call me a "geek" for staying indoors and owning the masses on COD, or working on piano covers for my youtube account? You could... I suppose. But where others feel the need to be outside, "making the most" of our paltry British summer, I find myself more inclined to cut out the middle man. It's more in my nature to act like a hermit all year round, regardless of the weather. 

What exactly are the benefits of being outside? "Fresh air" you say? Fresh air is overrated... 

This cat is a metaphorical representation
of how I intend to spend the majority of my
summer... I can't wait... :'D

I should point out, when I say "hermit," I'm not exactly an unsociable person. In fact, quite the opposite. I like spending time with my friends, and undoubtedly have more fun playing co-op RPG's with them for days at a time... ahhh TOV... you will have been missed... :') It also means I won't be seeing my friends any less than I normally would... but most of the entertainment that can be had with them can be achieved inside - going outside is, more or less, superfluous when it comes to attaining optimum levels of... FUN. 

But I'm not going to go out of my way to do something I don't particularly enjoy with my free time, to do something more "socially acceptable..." Like... having WILD house parties, or crazy road trips to completely arbitrary seaside destinations... those things would only appeal to me if they were "Xbox House Parties..." or if the seaside destination in question had some form of arcade...(wow, I can sense the geekiness in my words just seeping out into the interweb... :| ) 

This is NOT my ideal summer... these kids may have learnt to defy gravity, but can they do a 
Britney Spears mash-up on piano, or get a flawless FFA match on COD? ... Point proven.
(also, the ones on the left and right look in pain...) 

I guess what I'm trying to say is - if you hear about my plans for summer and start judging how "lame" they may seem in comparison to yours... you needn't bother. If your "warped" view on summer involves frolicking through fields of flowers, with overhanging rainbows, and picnics under a tree with friends, (or, seemingly more appropriate for people of my age-band, messy nights out getting drunk...) then all the more power to you. 

I'm as excited for my summer holidays as you are, and they can't come quick enough... :D 

The real social network: Stalking - We all do it.

The ability to use the internet to find out information is an astounding thing. It has no doubt settled many a debate, query or concern for everyday internet-users. But is there harm in using the internet to find out information on people...? Be they your peers, potential colleagues, or possible love interests, the internet can be an invaluable tool for gathering personal information on individuals. 

This cat takes the internet seriously... should I?

And it seems to be something that is harder to admit, while in turn, becoming ever more prominent.

This sense of "cyber-stalking" can seem to carry a social stigma - in that, admitting to knowing information about a specific person (most commonly, via their Facebook page) requires you, successively, to admitting to having looked on their Facebook page - removing the anonymity the internet provides.

I, however, suffer no ill-effects of stalking, nor of being "stalked"... I have no problem in confessing how I know things about people from their Facebook page - it's on their Facebook (in a sense, it's their fault that I'm looking on their facebook page in the first place... :P). On estimate, I would say I source around 85% of my pre-existing knowledge of an individual from Facebook. Would I call myself creepy (most people would), or just an astute internet-user?

I also have no problem in people knowing semi-intimate details about my life. In fact, recently (without wanting to come across too big-headed) I seem to have acquired a few "stalkers..." That is to say, people who have - either knowingly, or unwittingly - found one of my online profiles and started "talking" to me as a result. As I previously mentioned in my trust post, I can only trust these people. What reason would I have to suspect any "foul-play?" (although, if they were to ever ask for my credit card details, alarm bells might start ringing... D:)

Moving on, if I were to think back to the days before Facebook, or even Myspace... (well, to be honest, my memory is SHOCKING, so I actually can't remember back to those days... :| and I never even used Myspace...), it's strange to think of a time when our personal lives weren't on display to the world... and our main method of finding out about people was good ole' fashioned conversation. Is this new-found "social-networking" just making us more... anti-social? 

I find talking to new people in person a challenge. Talking to someone over Facebook, when I don't have to worry about making awkward facial expressions, or over-exaggerated hand gestures (or, more appropriately, over-exaggerated facial expressions and/or awkward hand gestures... =/ ), is far easier to handle. But does that make me... lazy? And if that's the case, when would it stop? Would people stop showering if they knew they were able to avoid social interaction for a day?! (well... I would hope not...)

Are we all destined to turn into... THIS?! 

Personal hygiene = win.