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Wednesday 29 April 2009

Photography Venture...

After being at the Gig recently, as well as the Eddie Izzard gig, I have noticed that I am out a fair bit and with the weather starting to get good it's clicky clicky time.

Decided to plump for a Samsung L313 from Argos. I'm not big on photography - not much of an eye for it but I am an appreciator of it and the art of it all.

13.6MP, so considering I'm using it just for a hobby but at least so the pictures aren't God awful like the ones in recent blogs and such (iPhone only really good for photos up front --> I've decided too that even an iPhone upgrade won't give me much more, it's a phone, not a camera...)



Pretty.

Monday 27 April 2009

E is for Eddie, L is for Loser (Eddie Izzard Talking Politics, Bloomsbury Theatre, 27th April 2009)

Long winded title so apologies.

E is for Eddie -

Went to see Eddie Izzard Tonight at the Bloomsbury Theatre in Euston, London. Stopped over at the Bree Louise for a pint and half.

Eddie was joined by Ed Balls MP (Minister for Education) and Tessa Jowell MP (Minister for Sport, Arts and Culture). It was a political question time with Eddie playing the host role.

Only difference being there wasn't anything negative, except your normal Tory/Cameron political bashing.

Nothing really of note - Europe and the Olympics were the big talking points. Eddie is very passionate about Labour politics and Europeanisation that he had said he intends to stand for public office - I'd like to see him run against Boris.

Twitter was also mentioned - Ed Balls didn't quite get it, and one Tweeter has commented that Eddie should run against Boris Johnson for Mayor of London - and see the clown get beat by a real comedian.

Audio of Eddie Talking Politics here (my AudioBoo) - you can hear me laugh at one point!

Picture Gallery:
Picture 1
Picture 2
Picture 3
Picture 4

L is for Loser

Other than that, at some point between Bloomsbury and Euston I noticed I had lost my wallet - rediscovered it back at the Theatre!

On top of that, I lost my keys, too.

E is for Eddie; L is for Lucas - L is for Loser...

Sunday 26 April 2009

Senses Fail Club Academy Gig Review 25th April 2009

Went train hopping to Manchester for last night's Senses Fail gig at Club Academy, supported by Deaf Havana and My Emergency (click links for their MySpaces!)

Before the Gig

We had the time to get a pint in at the Lass O'Gowrie after briefly revisiting the memories of Weston Hall - Titanic Stout for myself. All was looking up as Manchester United were losing 2-0 too.

Ended up at the gig early enough to sit outside Jabez Clegg for a sit down and discovering United had reversed the score to 5-2 by the end of the match! - I had the fortunate honour of being hit on - twice for lighter and where to get cigarettes. The girl was going to some Chav gig in another one of the Academy rooms, and looked a right tit since the way she said she came she had to pass a shop. More for my ego, I suppose.

Despite the epic queue stretching as far back as Coupland Street - 2 gigs on, so no joke here - I used my university connections to get in via the side entrance at the Union pub. I'm sneaky, but get away with what you can.


The Gig

It was all broadcasted on my Twitter, but I thought I'd put a blog here too.



My Emergency - typical scene band, but listenable.




Deaf Havana - the better of the three - a bit more like Senses Fail of old, with sscreamer lead vocal and singer/guitarist, nice 4 set.




Senses Fail - the band practically everyone came to see. As I was warned, they were your typical studio band. Having stood in front of the stage by the amp, could barely hear the voices in the songs. Some classics like "You're Cute when you Scream", "Bloody Romance", "Martini Kiss" were all played, and well as their newer, more whiner stuff.

The singer was incredibly dense. He told us that he was an American Cub Scout and there was some documentary of him or something on some channel in America, something about something called "Oxygen" (the channel I think), and to watch at 2AM GREENWICH STANDARD TIME. Tit. Anyway, we are on British Summer Time.

Also, he tried telling us stories of swimming pool parties - thinking we would all understand and that we all have swimming pools. We don't.

And for comical measure, despite admitting he was not a comedian he still saw something humourous in that Mayo squeezing out of a bottle had a striking resemblance to semen. I suppose it was fitting as I and Renate were probably the oldest there - too many 13 year old scene kids drinking WKD by the looks of things.

There was something good though - some guy at the front got kicked out for throwing people over the safety barrier - and plenty of crowd surfers tried to get to the stage but failed. The singer almost got pulled in too. Fun times.

In in all, gig was not too shabby and it was a nice leveller to have someone in Manchester with me who loves it as much as I hate it.

After the Gig

After the gig it was time for Relentless and the treacherous walk through Canal Street. Much to my dismay there wasn't any men in leather, but many uniformed army gays and dykes you could easily mistake for men, and men you could mistake for flat chested ladies. I managed to make up for the experience after though, and a 4 hour wait called at the National Express cardboard box awaited.

We managed to witness a coach driver getting near assaulted by drunken passengers, police coming in and some racially incited banter between some passengers or something trying to go home to London. It's amazing how absolutely leathered people get on a night out!

I had a rude awakening and encounter with the security guard when I went for a cigarette who was probably expecting me to be rude back - but he had a hard night. A short stop at Keele services for photo processing and a walk home ended the night.

I give the night a ***/5 - * for getting away with so much and the entertainment of people getting in trouble with the policia, * for the gig being bareable, * for the shits and giggles.



Ren & I (at Jabez Clegg)
See full Facebook photo album of the night here

Fun with my friend, but I'm tempting to just let my beard grow all Karl Marx like - I never get served like this and its embarassing! I'm 20 for crying out loud!

Tomorrow - essay hand-ins and Eddie Izzard in London. Roll on.

Fin.


Friday 24 April 2009

'Hung' Parliament and Dead-lines

I have been busy with essays recently - written 3 in the past 10 days hence the lack of blogging because I just haven't found much time for it.

Over the past 4 weeks actually there have been 4 essays I have written this semester:
Philosophy of Mind - "Are Sensations Brain Processes?" (25 March)
Philosophy of Logic- "Do Possible Worlds Exist?" (22 April)
Politics: Germany - "Why has Germany’s second attempt at democracy been successful while its first failed?" (22 April)
Politics: UK - "The Attlee governments of 1945-51 have been described as the most successful application of the Labour Party's version of democratic socialism. What does their record tell us about Labour's version of democratic socialism?" (22 April)

So this Tuesday I hammered out the Logic essay in 8 hours, despite not really having much clue or understanding what the point in these Logic arguments are all about. Not got much interest in it, personally.

The Mind essay is still yet to come back -- but I'm looking forward to it.

Monday, I'm due to hand in the two Politics Essays and an Extended Essay of 5,000 (which now has a deadline extension for many reasons):

"In the event of a hung parliament, could this be seen as consensual democracy or otherwise? Discuss with reference to the United Kingdom."

The essay was chosen by me, much for all my Republican-interests politically and I have until 8th of May for that.

12th May is my Pre-Operative Assessment, so I'm planning a nice few blogs in the CP-section then, and the actual Operation is on the 28th May.

My Exams start 22nd May, with 4 exams - 22nd and 27th May, 5th and 8th June (Mind, German Politics, Logic and then UK Politics).

Its nice thinking everything could be over soon and I could get back to something that I love - decent blogging.

Saturday though - I get to see Senses Fail at Club Academy in Manchester --> Not that I care much for Manchester but I used to like the band when I was a bit younger. *might* be good, but from what I hear I can't expect too much.

Oh, and Eddie Izzard in London on Monday after I hand in my essays, with my dad.

Fun times!


Friday 17 April 2009

Essays and Referencing

It's madness in my poor, little, insignificant life right now. Well, insignificant to the point I am only one person and there's much worse out there.

But, as I finish typing a political essay on the Attlee Governments and Democratic Socialism, I've realized a real bugbear when it comes to essays - necessary though annoying.

As you probably guessed from the title - it's referencing and bibliography.

As boring as it is, it is also tedious as those academics among you will realize. To help with the speed of my essays, I have merely referenced in the text shorthand (I use Harvard), and now I need to shift through and write them out, long hand and get my bibliography set up.

With this being one of 4 essays due in in the next 10 days, I have also made a similar (mistake) approach to one of my essays due in a week on Monday.

This coming Wednesday - Philosophy of Logic essay - I'm intrigued how this essay is going to turn out...

then a week on Monday:

Extended Essay [Politics] (which requires BINDING) I've not even started researching, never mind writing.
Germany Politics Essay (needs referencing properly)
UK Essay (just conclusion and referencing required)

So just 3,000 words for the Logic essay now, and a further 5,000 in me for the Extended Essay.

I am on a tight schedule to get all this done, so apologies for lack of interesting blogging in the meantime.

I do miss it. But I'm sure you understand.

Rant over.

Thursday 16 April 2009

Football Manager - Male seeking Female?


I'm quite the social networker and I sometimes visit the SIGames Community Forums for Football Manager discussion. 

Anyway, I found a Football Manager singles thread (link here, you may need to be a member to see it) and found the below hilarious:


The thread continues with men talking about their frustrations of their significant other's lack of understanding with their love for the game (Football Manager, not football itself!) - and it all just reminds me of something I've had to deal with before, which became the following rant:



It 'ruins lives' apparently and is a silly little dot game. All in good humour of course. 

Now though, the game is a little less sexist - You can be a "female manager" now and there are, apparently, girl players of the game. It is too, a little bit more real - still dots but now a 3D view too, so all the more exciting. 

Of course, I would say that having played the game in its many versions since I was 8. It is true that it ruins lives, relationships and has been cited as a reason for a divorce (apparently)

Looking for a female player of this game must be very rare, and I must say I don't think it'll ever happen for those looking for it. 

Otherwise, it's probably best to lead a 'double life'...

Monday 13 April 2009

Football on Sundays. Heaven forbid. Or should that be Sunday trading laws?

The question or issue I'm talking about here is 'Football-free Sundays'.

Over the recent row over Easter Sunday football, the Archbishop Vincent Nichols weighed in opposition to live football on Easter Sunday.

Now, the ever famous Desmond Tutu lookalike (John Semantu, Archbishp of York) has weighed in, too.

Using Sunday trading laws or not to prevent games on a Easter Sunday, for a footballing neutral, I would have to say more has to be done to stop games being played on a Sunday as it is.

Historically, games are played on a Saturday at 3PM. With the advent of Sky and tv football, games are moved from 3PM to earlier on a Saturday or on a Sunday/Monday (or any day, take your pick) so that the ones played at other grounds, for the smaller clubs, don't lose out. That is the idea - on the one hand small clubs don't lose out, but also more people watch the tv games too.

If the first argument for tv football is the case, and should we accept Sunday trading laws; should it not be at all possible to prevent games being played on a Sunday at all? Sky have a choice of channels to choose from and are no strangers to interactive "match-choice" via the red button when it comes to the UEFA Champions League. This could be easily acheived by 7-8PM kickoffs on a Saturday and 11AM kickoffs on a Saturday respectively, so no matter what the case is TV football and the traditionalists will win in the end.

Super Sundays (as Sky love to call them) will become Super Saturdays. What is there to lose?
 1) Tradition will be somewhat restored - for football and religion
 2) Clubs can rest in the knowledge that fixture schedules are in sync with the rest of their league so they cannot gain an unfair advantage or be at a disadvantage.
 3) More fans will be able to travel to the games with public transport BETTER on Saturdays than Sundays.

I can't see where the great advantage is for Sundays - other than filling in blanks in the tv listings. Sky could easily throw on repeats of 'Hold the Back Page', WWE, 'Boots 'n' All', etc. Nobody will miss out.

The argument to agree with what Semantu and Nichols are saying, is not a religious argument as the media paint out. It's more one of tradition, heritage to the British nation.

Like the campaign to 'Save the Coachmakers', I'd feel only one party in the political system would be in favour - the BNP.

Heaven forbid!

Sociology and Religion: Belief in the Supernatural

A Theos survey found:
27% believe in reincarnation
39% believe in ghosts
55% believe in Heaven
53% believe in life after death
70% believe in human soul.

Comparing with 1950s:
22% believe in astrology or horoscopes & 15% believe in fortune telling
1950s: 10% believe in ghosts (2% seen one), 7% in fortune telling, 6% in satrology.

Comparing with 1998:
18% believe in fortune telling
38% believe in astrology
40% believe in ghosts, 15% seen one.

"The results indicate that people have a very diverse and unorthodox set of beliefs. Our research may point to a slight increase in scepticism about aspects of the supernatural over the last 10 years." (Wooley)

Source: BBC

So what does this tell us?

True that results indicate a diverse and 'unorthodox set of beliefs', and I would like to refer back to my last blog in a mention of a 'Civil Religion' - and that for some, even a sports game can be followed somewhat religiously. So perhaps given this, the results are not all that suprising.

But, what is really meant by a belief in... heaven, or life after death, or reincarnation, or astrology, or fortune telling? We can't by any stretch of the imagination draw anything conclusive other than the very obvious: There is a degree of an increase in such diversity of beliefs. Yet also, we cannot ignore there are degrees within these beliefs. For example, just what IS heaven? Also, what kind of life after death are we talking about? Something along the lines of John Hick's philosophy of a physical existence in the next world, or Christian resurrection, or that we move on to a higher mental plane after our physical death?

I would also like to make the suggestion that some beliefs could well be interlinked: consider the soul, life after death, and ghosts. One person may believe that when we die, our soul continues after death and is reconstituted in the form of a ghost. Another may feel the soul dies with the body, or that it carries on after death and there are no such thing as ghosts.

So there are many different (and interesting things) we can draw from the sociological survey, and importantly that while people may seem to be less religious (consider church attendences), that does not mean that people are any less spiritual and searching for this fulfillment in other ways.

Religion, Faith, Spirituality, Belief... all this smacks of a DIY ethic on the one hand, and a more critical, open-minded and considerate ethic on the other.

Friday 10 April 2009

Happy Good Friday?

Found this on my Feedly newsreader via Firefox which I found rather strange:



Happy Good Friday. It seems a bit strange, but I asked my dad, Fr Peter and he says its not a day of celebration as such but rather one of remembering. Quite right, too.

This Easter has seen a religious holiday getting all political over the football being shown on Easter Sunday - only ever happened 8 times, ever, in the past. For a country that is historically Christian, I do think that there is a point.

We should remember the Passion of Christ and Easter for specifically those reasons but also I think, for an atheist, who might not have any holidays, a compromise should be found: a religion of one is no less relevant than a religion shared by 6, 6 million or 6 billion.

Robert Bellah puts forward his argument of a 'Civil Religion in America' ; which we if accept this premise, can translate for many football fanatics that football is religion too, and the stadium is the church and the game is the service.

Should there be any clash of religions, (as ridiculous as football being a religion may seem to Catholics, Christians and vice-versa), what I propose is the art of compromise:

Whereby there is a clash, there are those that are religious, and watch their football too, and so both should be allowed in the spirit of things - but the football should be screened at a time that does not disrupt the Easter festivities. Where Setanta are showing the game at 1PM (kickoff at 2PM) - this does not allow most Evertonians travelling from Merseyside to get to the game on time where Christian services are likely to take place around 10:30AM. So I would argue the game should be kicked off at 4PM instead, to allow for Easter to go somewhat less disrupted, ample time to arrive for the game.

All this bleating might seem a bit crazy for some - it's impossible to please everybody. Still, this reminds me of an email my dad sent me on religious days for the atheist:

In Florida , an atheist created a case against the upcoming Easter and Passover holy days. He hired an attorney to bring a discrimination case against Christians, Jews and observances of their holy days.

The argument was that it was unfair that atheists had no such recognized days.

The case was brought before a judge. After listening to the passionate presentation by the lawyer, the judge banged his gavel declaring,"Case dismissed!"

The lawyer immediately stood objecting to the ruling saying, "Your honor, how can you possibly dismiss this case? The Christians have Christmas, Easter and others. The Jews have Passover, Yom Kippur and Hanukkah, yet my client and all other atheists have no such holidays."

The judge leaned forward in his chair saying, "But you do. Your client, counsel, is woefully ignorant."

The lawyer said, "Your Honor, we are unaware of any special observance or holiday for atheists."

The judge said, "The calendar says April 1st is April Fools Day. Psalm 14:1 states, 'The fool says in his heart, there is no God.' Thus, it is the opinion of this court, that if your client says there is no God, then he is a fool. Therefore, April 1st is his day. Court is adjourned."

You got to love a Judge that knows his scripture!


Wednesday 8 April 2009

Day/Night in Leeds

Leeds, if I could describe it, is Manchester but cleaner. A bigger city too, on first impressions and a nice night last night with friends - Charlie Chan Chinese food, Grolsch Beers and a bit of 360 gameage. Good times. And isn't this just a pretty sight?





Had a bit of a walk round Leeds centre in the morning thanks to Google walking directions & map. It is excellent!

-- Post From My iPhone

Monday 6 April 2009

Monsters v. Aliens


Watched Monsters v. Aliens tonight, and what a good film it was (as always with a Dreamworks epic).

Well worth the entrance fee, but in typical film fashion, the sadness in the film is vindicated by a happy one.

One for the family, indeed. :)

Come to think of it, haven't I see the gooey dude in Monsters Inc.?

****/5, for a rating, though I am no critic!

Sunday 5 April 2009

News, Twitter v. Facebook and a new kid on the block - AudioBoo


As previously mentioned in my Analytics for this month, there are exciting new developments for LucasWeatherby.com and the Social Networking community.

First, I would like to mention and recall the blog on Facebook v. Twitter I posted just a couple of weeks ago. I did intend on keeping a 'trial period' going with the idea of keeping status updates separate on both for some time, but with the advent of AudioBoo, I have decided to forego the experiment.

AudioBoo is new on the scene, the new kid on the block. Like Twitter, it is a micro-blog, but with a difference. Like podcasts, AudioBoo allows you to record your voice - up to 3 minutes to say what you want. Short, snappy, and you get to share your thoughts, jokes, news with the world. It's already seen it's importance in the latest G20 developments, just like it's Twitter cousin.

The power of aggregation, I think, is a very powerful tool that I think trumps any traditionalist, purist argument of different uses for Twitter/Facebook statuses. Now, with AudioBoo, you might want to share things that just come across better in voice. I've also come to the conclusion that 'yes', while it can be annoying on Facebook to see someone post lots of statuses, when you play a game, do a quiz, comment on a friend's page - just quite anything comes up in your "News Feed" like it would on your Twitter wall. That being said, I can't see why things I might choose to speak of in the AudioBoo scene or share in the Twitter community, Facebook people might not want to see that as well. It is the choice of the supposed friends, afterall. And yes, I have friends blocked from seeing my statuses who I might not want to see my 'status updates', which I see as a more networking use; whether this be recalling song lyrics or general wonderments or amazings on my status without going into 'touchy-feely' emotion types. There is a place for that, I feel.

Your closest friends are the ones on your phone, who you can SMS, email, and call, or send private messages via Facebook - so why broadcast something that's intimately personal as some do? That is my justification for bringing the aggregation back.

You can find my AudioBoo here, but you will soon, I hope find links on LucasWeatherby.com to playback my 'Boo's' on the webpage.

Finally some exciting news. I have considered with fellow bloggers the use of a 'branded' blog name, to give it a bit of zest, but personality as well. So from this day forth, the blog will be known as Lucas 3:16, an idea and a biblical reference of course, given my roots - but also reminds me when I used to watch WWE (WWF), and `Stone Cold' Steve Austin and his famous 'Austin 3:16' catchphrase.

To complement this, I have changed my authorship name again from 'Lord John Marbury' to 'Lucas 3:16', to encourage readership to my blog rather than something so random.

This is all a bit boring, of course, but I find a sense of fun in these things.

The future's bright.

The future's AudioBoo.

Wednesday 1 April 2009

Analytics for March 2009


December 2008
January 2009
February 2009

Just first, a quick notice on this belated Analytic post, usually customary for my blog - Been somewhat busy over the past week or so and you can refer to a more recent post for exciting news for the blog, things I'm considering, and website/general social networking news. But onto the Analytics!

March 2009

5 quick points I found interesting:

1) A 25% increase on amount of visitors, 11% for overall visits. (This is a rounded figure).
2) Going Global - now getting more hits from the Americas and Europe.
3) Many hits still coming through Facebook, despite the change in status aggregation - providing for 20% of my hits, but Google search engine a close second.
4) Labels proving a popular hit, but my topical post on abortion generated 47 pageviews, and a few comments. Read here if you haven't!
5) Manchester is still the highesat hit in the city stakes, probably due to my University connections I figure, but possibly also because ISPs locally can be 'seen' by Google as Manchester rather than Stoke-on-Trent. Manchester is 1st, followed by a growing London in second place and Stoke in 3rd.

Goals:

Growth is always good, and see the more recent post for an exciting new development in social networking and LucasWeatherby.com!

Stoke-on-Trent is now Snog-on-Sofa

Just left Stoke-on-Trent station for London Euston, and look what I found at the station. There appeared to be some filming going on, too.








Weird, but it made me laugh!

-- Post From My iPhone