Double luck.

University has so far given me a generally good impression. Efficiency, dedicated lecturers, not too much work. Except for one little thing. Not being able to find available rooms for lectures. It's already happened to be numerous times, but it really worked to my advantage the last 2 times.

Last week we were supposed to start Econonomics Tutorial lectures. I overslept (following the infamous toilet prank night), but then learned that the lecture had been cancelled anyway due to unavailable rooms. Today I was to have the first Economics Tutorial lecture, and it was to be the only lecture of the day after being notified that my other lecture would be cancelled due to the Extraordinary General Meeting. So upon hearing the alarm at 6.15am, I thought to myself, "Fuck it, it's just a tutorial for a tutorial sheet I managed to complete correctly, I can afford to miss it". I caught some more z's until 10.15am, and lo and behold, Luke told me the tutorial was cancelled again because there wasn't any available rooms.

I won't push my luck any further this time, I'll go to the next lecture, if it ever occurs. It will be shifted to another day though so there should be available room. Man I could use another nap right about now.

The Life of a Young Man with a Beard according to a Young Man without a Beard... Part 2

During secondary education.

The Life of a Young Man with a Beard according to a Young Man without a Beard... Part 1

This would be Luke's whiteboard. On it is, well, the beginning of my life according to Jo. It's pretty accurate, details and everything. And it's just the first part.

Must I say more?

http://www.biggerbetterbeards.org/

I think not.

Check out The Imagery on...

http://ia310840.us.archive.org/2/items/ToniSantMMI0137/MMI0137.mp3

From 4:25 to 8:00

Be sure to go to at least one of their upcoming gigs (highly advertised on Facebook Events).

Dear God, even more shame.

With the humiliation of the toilet prank still very raw, I never expected that I would get pranked again so soon. Well, I did, and I fell for it hard.

Yesterday Luke SMSed me asking if I wanted to go out to eat with him and Jo. I said no, I wanted to go somewhere else for the evening, implying that I wasn't going to be with them for the night.

At 10pm Luke calls, asking where I am, because they arrived at Victoria, where I was with my girlfriend. I was a bit confused, I hadn't expected them to meet with me later on so that we could go eat together. I told him I couldn't meet up with him and Jo, and they got pissed off, and then so did I. Eventually I started to get worried and I felt a little guilty, on my part even though I felt that it wasn't completely my fault.

Jo then SMSes at around midnight, asking if I could go online, because he and Luke were starting blogs of their own. I couldn't go on at the time, so I spent the night worrying that they were writing stuff against me because they were so pissed off.

That's when Jo linked me to Luke's first blog entry this morning...

http://lukesultana.blogspot.com/2008/10/hi-well-lets-start-off-blog-shall-we.html

Enough said. It was yet another ingenious prank.

I hate you guys.

Ultimate shame.

I fell victim to the biggest prank ever played on me last night. Early morning, to be exact, at 3am. It goes back to hours before though, seeing as my lovely best friends are such prank artists they had to set up everything perfectly.

It started out by Jo and Luke saying that the light switch to the bathroom was shorting out half the flat, so we couldn't turn it on. They put a strip of tape on it so that no one would press it. Jo fetched my flashlight from my room, then after a couple of minutes he returned saying that Luke dropped it and broke the light bulb. I tried the flashlight myself and it didn't work, so Luke was to buy a new one the following day.

After that, nothing in particular happened. We played Call of Duty 4 after midnight until like 3am. I had to go to the bathroom, and since I couldn't turn on the light I took my iPod with me to use as a light.

So there I was, wondering how good my aim was in the dark, when I noticed that the sound of impact was a little weird. Since it was 3am, it took me a few seconds to register that I should probably stop and check what the hell I was taking a piss on. I stopped, lowered my iPod towards the toilet, and saw that the toilet bowl was covered in plastic sheet wrap.

...

My first reaction was to stare in awe for a few seconds, then shout "DUDES!" followed by a loud shrill of laughter coming from the 2 biggest dicks on the planet outside the bathroom. Then followed the speechlessness of utter amazement.

The lights were never shorting out, the flashlight was never broken, Jo had just flipped the batteries upside down. To add insult to injury, I was videorecorded cleaning up my own sad 4-year-old boy mess.

A truly artistic and epic prank.

Assholes.

Come if you want to listen to good music... and to us.

It's almost that time of the year again. No, I'm not referring to Halloween, although this event is almost just as scary, in other ways. The annual Battle of the Bands at the Sacred Heart Seminary Marathon. *Sigh* Oh boy...

Now, since I (and by "I" I mean anyone who has ever taken part in this event) love Joe Louis running the whole thing (and you thought I was serious), I'm going to be performing this year as I did last year. I'll be doing an unplugged set consisting of 3 songs with my somewhat longtime collaborator Ricky. The songs we'll be doing are:

...

...

...

Actually, fuck you, if you want to know, come and check us out. There's gonna be a couple of other bands, including Inner Grey, I believe, and yet another one of those temporary supergroup bands, made up by some of the most well known musicians on the island of Gozo. They're called The Mob. That's one awesome name. My project with Ricky is called Acoustica. That's even more awesome. The Mob's performance will be awesome. Ours will be even more... uhh, actually we don't give a fuck, we're just playing for the fun of it.

Chances are, everyone is going to head up to Ritz after to drink pints of beer out of the trophies. Just for the hell of it though, nobody really cares about the actual results of the Battle of the Bands. We all know it's one big dumb joke.

No spoonfeeding, they said.

I remember 6th form. A lot of teachers used to tell us that we had to get used to jotting down notes while they taught us during lessons, in preparation for university. "No more spoonfeeding", they would say. So there were lessons where we had to write down our own notes to practise for the years that were to come.

Well, here we are now. Has this so-called practice paid off? Partially. In some cases, we do have to type our own notes while the lecturer explains. But in most cases, we're actually getting more spoonfed than ever before. The lecturer waves a wad of notes, tells us that they can be found at a stationery to be photocopied, and then tells us to sit back, relax, and listen carefully. And they insist that we don't write a thing and just pay attention. When we do have to write our own notes, the lecturer tells us what to write, word by word.

Now I don't know, maybe it's because we're still in the beginning of the first semester, but damn, these lectures aren't just easy going, they're becoming boring as fuck.

Looks like the Americans are getting their free Dr. Pepper after all.

So the release date of Guns n' Roses' new album Chinese Democracy has FINALLY been set, for the 25th of November. The track listing has also been revealed:

01. "Chinese Democracy"
02. "Scraped"
03. "Shackler's Revenge"
04. "Street Of Dreams"
05. "If The World"
06. "Better"
07. "This I Love"
08. "There Was A Time"
09. "Riad N' The Bedovins"
10. "Sorry"
11. "I.R.S."
12. "Catcher"
13. "Madagascar"
14. "Prostitute"

Now personally I'm not a huge fan of the band. Yeah okay we all enjoy the classics, Sweet Child O' Mine, November Rain, yada yada. But I'm a far less of a fan of the band now than I was before. They're not really Guns n' Roses, after all. They're "Axl Rose and band", and well, Axl Rose has become one of the biggest dicks of the music scene who nobody really likes anymore.

A lot of people are really hyped about about this. Not because they're going to hear some new material for the first time in over 15 years, but because they're going to get a free soft drink. Hell, I'd be happy too if Dr. Pepper came knocking on my door with a free soda, who wouldn't?

Start the Machine.

I got Angels and Airwaves' first DVD last week. It received many positive reviews for the honesty and openness of Tom DeLonge in it. Personally I agree, I learned some things about Tom and the band that I didn't know before. He realised he was being a dick with all the bombastic claims before the band released the first album, and he genuinely understood that he went over the edge with what he said. Also, he was on a lot of pills due to his back problems and he became addicted.

There are two sides to every story, but the way Tom opened up about Blink 182's breakup in this documentary makes you feel sorry for the guy. The way he was pressured and the choice he reluctantly had to make must have been really tough for him.

Anyway, the DVD made me listen to the band a lot more again, Tom's a great songwriter. Not the most complex guitarist, but he really knows how to build up songs. Can't wait for the third album.

Find it and win a prize II.

2 posts in one day, but this really deserves its own separate entry. Some of you may already know this, but for those who don't, go to a past entry of mine - http://chrisredness.blogspot.com/2008/10/so-many-lectures.html - and highlight the whole text. Yes, you'll see an encrypted message.

Jo hadn't realised that the picture in front of his desk had been tainted with Hitler moustaches. For 10 days. And he found out yesterday because we gave up on him ever noticing by himself so we told him. But get this, we STILL had trouble making him realise even when we made it so obvious.

First we told him to sit at his desk. Then we asked him to check the time. So he looked at his wrist watch and we told him to ignore that. He looked at the clock on his desk. We told him to ignore that too. Then his mobile. He had to ignore that as well. Finally he had no choice but to check the time on his clock hanging on the wall. He looked at it for a second, looked back at us and shrugged.

We just stared in awe at him. We could have written a giant sign in red on his wall and he still wouldn't have noticed it. The thing is, it IS noticable. It's not like they were tiny dots or something. So we told him to focus on the picture, and I mean really focus, until he burst out laughing.

Sigh.

Find it and win a prize.

I've been on like half a dozen buses in the past couple of days. And each bus has its own different buzzer to signal the driver to stop. Everytime I go on a bus I spend a few minutes trying to find the damn thing. They come in many forms:

• You pull a rope, an old bell rings
• You pull a rope, a more modern buzzer rings
• A big black round button
• A tiny round black button on the ceiling
• The elevated part of a strip in a more modern bus
• A big red square button on the a pole of (what I believe is) the most modern bus, with that really annoying sound.

I don't know if there's anymore, but I swear that the past 6 buses I've been on all had different buzzers. I'll probably run into yet another one tomorrow. Perhaps I should start taking pictures. And perhaps they should make less types of buzzers, ones which are easier to find.

Drugs are bad, mmmkay?

THEN:

NOW:

Did that just happen?

My dreams are usually a jumble of many different random scenes interlocking, one after another. I don't normally remember much of them, but I remember one particularly funny scene from last night's dream.

I was playing soccer with Thierry Henry, I was on land and he was in the water. I kicked the ball to him and he shot it up really hard, kicking up a huge fountain of water. The ball disappeared into the sky and we were both like, "How the hell did that happen?" Then we joked about knocking a plane out of the sky, when all of a sudden, we saw a small biplane descending out of control. We just stared at each other and said, "...fuck" and followed the plane's path until we found it quite unharmed actually, except for some scratched paint.

Anyway,

Gozo's finally producing that good and ORIGINAL music we've all been waiting for (apart from Chasing Pandora and the now non-existant 4play. Keith is one busy guy isnt he?). Samples? www.myspace.com/imagerytheband The songs in full? Wait for their EP. You will buy the EP, assholes. Don't even bother copying it and sharing it, just buy the CD and support the band, it's not everyday you find this kind of talent here.

Words of Wisdom.

Yesterday's financial control and accounting lecture,

"Accounts is like sex, the more you do it, the better you get at it."

We need more of this kind of motivation from our lecturers.

University Student Recipe No. 2: Pasta with White Sauce

N.B. Please read thoroughly before doing anything. I'm not responsible for your kitchen blowing up.

Ingredients:

• 4 chopped slices of bacon or 6 chopped slices of ham
• 1 small chopped onion
• 1 can of sliced mushrooms (optional)
• 1 small carton of fresh cream or Gran Cucina
• 1 packet penne or spaghetti
• salt (if ham is used) and pepper

Instructions:

1. Put onion, bacon/ham and (optionally) mushrooms with a little oil in a pain and cook until onion is soft.
2. Add the fresh cream/Gran Cucina and a little pepper.
3. Add salt only if you use ham. Bacon is already salty enough.

Mirror mirror on the wall.

The "horror" film Mirrors. Is it good or not? Well here's my opinon.

Warning *Spoilers start here.*

The movie starts out good enough, a dude running away from something and ends up dead with an open throat. Which got me thinking, this movie's going to be pretty gory. In reality, it's not. Apart from that scene, there was only one other such scene, where the main character's sister rips off her own jaw. Now that was pretty damn disturbing, and with a scene like that you'd expect the movie to be packed with that kind of stuff. But no, it's not. That's the only gore. However the film did have its share of scares, like the burning people in the reflection. It's an okay movie overall, but definitely not one of the scariest.

*Spoilers end here.*

This morning I caught the wrong bus for university. Actually, it was the right bus but it was going the other way. In other words, I ended up in Valletta instead. However I had just enough time to catch another bus and make it in time for my only lecture of the day.

There's one thing that I think is worth a mention. It's something I never knew existed but it's sold here in Malta. Sliced white bread with no crust. And each slice is twice as long as a normal slice of bread. Hats off to whoever thought of it. Not that I don't like the crust, but when it comes to little kids, such bread is so convenient to shut their whiny traps.

So many lectures.

First day of lectures. A whopping 2 lectures. First one, Elements of Maltese Law, was supposed to be a double lesson but the lecturer was man enough to admit his 35 minute attention span, along with ours. So we left after 45 minutes.The second lecture was 4 hours later. Statistics and computing. Hah. The guy's a Gozitan with a British accent and he only speaks into the microphone half of the time. It's like he's drunk or something, constantly swaying the thing around.

Oh hi Jo, glad you can read this.

I think I managed to get Fridays off for the first semester. I just had to move a couple of lectures around. I only have one tomorrow because some lectures haven't commenced yet. Haven't really made any new friends, mommy, but I'm working on that.

I drew Hitler moustaches on the picture of you and Amy on your clock hanging in your room.

Tonight I think we're going to watch American Pie: Beta House. Never heard of this one before actually. Hope it's good. Then I'll continue reading Omerta' by Mario Puzo. It's a good book so far, but I'll comment on it later when I'm through with it. It might take me a while to finish it though.

But for the record, it was Luke's idea.

Well I'll be damned.

So like I said yesterday, I finished the book last night. For me to comment on it, I get to once again use my super cool spoiler warning feature, after many outraged comments concerning spoiling movies in past entries. Sorry 'bout that.

Warning *Spoilers start here.*

Sandra Brown did a good job of turning Gibb into the bad guy little by little as the story progressed. He starts out as a loving and extremely generous father, and ends as the crazy fanatic you know you want to throw through a pane of glass and into a lake of lemon juice. It must suck having your dad kill the woman you love right in front of you followed by him saying something like, "Meh, get over it." Asshole.

Soooo, Kendall's name wasn't really Kendall throughout the whole damn book. What's her name then? We don't know. We'll never know. It was a surprising ending but a fitting one nonetheless. Good book indeed.

*Spoilers end here.*

Lectures start tomorrow. I'm sort of excited I guess but the real thing that's on my mind is, how the hell am I going to find the lecture halls? Today I heard that last year they arranged for Gozitan Bcom students to have fridays off. I hope they do it again this year. Crossing my fingers.

Too absorbed.

I'm 3/4 through the book I'm reading. Okay, I know, I didn't read it within 24 hours. But I will definitely be done with it by today. So I can afford to mention what book I'm reading without risking any spoilers from you assholes. Nah I'm just kidding, you're all sweethearts. The book's called The Witness, by Sandra Brown. It had quite some surprises so far, like...

Warning *Spoilers start here.*

...the guy with amnesia was an FBI agent who was escorting Kendall back to South Carolina. And the whole Brotherhood thingy, wow. I still have a vivid image of that castrated Li kid on the cross with blood gushing out of him. And Matt sleeping with Lottie, now that was unexpected. I'm up to the part where Matt left Lottie a note asking her for a huge favour but I don't know what that is yes. Also, if I remember correctly, Kendall is still hiding some secret which hasn't been brought up in the book yet.

*Spoilers end here.*

So that's it for today, I'm off to finish the book. Sorry for the rather slow update these past couple of days, but I think the site was under maintenance or something. And I'm having trouble uploading pictures. Oh well. The picture of the drenched electricity main will have to wait.

Writer's block. Well, not really.

I can't even come up with a fucking title today. Must be 'cause I just woke up from a nap. Call of Duty 4 kept me up pretty late last night and I didn't really get much sleep. I better not get too obsessed over video games. Damn you Luke.

I finally decided to get my school leaving certificate today. The graduation was 3 months ago but I didn't go. And the only reason I went to get it today was because I needed it to apply for the Gozitan university student stipend. That's really the only reason you need your certificate if you're Gozitan.

Proper lectures begin this Monday. I start with a double lesson of Maltese law. Now isn't that a nice warm welcome. The time table is still one giant blur to me, it's pretty damn confusing. We haven't even been grouped yet so I think I'm going to have a few more free lessons than I already have.

Driving exams are only done on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday. It's like, they deliberately did that to piss students off. How the hell am I supposed to find a free day to do the test. I need my license damnit.

As for the flat's electricity main, apparently nothing was wrong with it since the switchboard didn't get wet. The whole problem's been sorted out and fixed, supposedly.

I started reading a new book that Deborah lended me today. I have a handful of books to read from Jo. I'm not going to say what book I'm reading right now though, in case some asshole wants to spoil it for me. I'll talk about it when I finish. I hope to read it all in less than 24 hours. Started at 3pm today.

Bedtime my ass.

Last night was pretty damn crazy. At around 2am Jo and Luke saw some large flashes coming out the window, and it wasn't just the lightning. Sparks were flying or something, according to them.

First I heard Jo say something like "Guys, what the hell was that?", followed by "HOLY SHIT!" - the electricity main was drenched in water. Water was seeping in through the wall and dripping all over the damn thing. So we were all there, in boxers, trying to turn off the main switch without getting shocked. Our gear? Slippers on our feet and a wooden spoon for the switch. We're so good. That was one hell of a storm. We thought the whole place shorted out. It's fine now though.

Moving on now. Buses are so fucking hard to get used to. We barely made it to the university on time today. We still need a couple of more days to get used to it. And to the university, which is apparently called "the maze" by some. I think I can find my home faculty on my own now though. Joy.

Oh and we finally got a washing machine. The standards of this flat are going sky high thanks to us. Now all we need to do is tear up every wall and rebuild them.

This means war.

First day at university wasn't so bad. Opening ceremony with a boring mass, yeah, but then we checked out the stands on campus after. Even got myself shown on the news, so I've heard, but I didn't see it. And I made it on TV a second time when they aired Imagery's and Overdrive's performance from last friday. I'm gonna be a star.

After many hours of troubleshooting I finally managed to start playing Call of Duty 4 with Jo and Luke. As predicted, I got my ass kicked to a pulp. On the plus side, I didn't do as bad as I thought I would. So yeah, we battled it out against each other for a couple of hours. I got knifed, sniped, blown up, everything. But I made a fair share of kills as well.

War online continued in real life. First we filled Luke's whiteboard (yes he has an old whiteboard in his room) with a bunch of stupid doodles. Then Jo was peering out the glass door in my room looking at the thunderstorm and, yes you guessed it, I creeped up from behind and shouted BOOM! I got punched a few times after that. Sore loser. Then he tried to scare me by sending Luke to hide in my wardrobe so that he could spring up on me when I went into my room again. Figured them out though so that didn't work. Then Luke locked Jo in the bathroom by placing my skateboard on a chair against the door handle. Jo decided to return the favour by barricading the bathroom when Luke was in it, with Luke's own furniture. I'm hiding in my room, listening to Luke's stern voice calling out for Joseph right fucking now.

Well it's time to retire for the night. Another meeting tomorrow at the University, at 9am. Followed by one at 10.30. Bedtime!