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New Turisas album - hooray May 30, 2007

Posted by Sharny in : Entertainment, Music , 3 comments

My copy of the new Turisas album The Varangian Way arrived yesterday, only the day after it was released so I’m pleased about that for starters. I bought their first album on a whim but it pretty much blew my mind, what they dub as “battle metal” is a sort aggressive folk metal with orchestration. I wouldn’t really expect many people to like it if they didn’t give it a shot but personally I think its awesome.

This new album is much more varied than the previous one, there are areas with much more use of the acordian and violin as well as quieter and louder areas with more aggressive stuff that resembles more of the bulk of the metal genre I suppose. For me that’s great as I really love the folky stuff but it also has variation that I really appreciate and given that I enjoy other areas of metal it all fits together nicely. My first listen gave me a good feeling about it, I’m listening again at the moment and enjoying it even more. I would advise people to buy it (and the first one, totally mind blowing) but

  1. No one reads my crappy blog
  2. No one cares what I have to say about this album

Didn’t stop me writing this post though eh?

Exams - yucky May 22, 2007

Posted by Sharny in : Life, School , add a comment

So yeah I’m on exams at the moment, not much fun. I had my critical thinking exam on Friday which I think went well, particularly the argument paper as I am more inclined to the analysis of arguments given how many there are on this big ol internet. Today was my psychology exam which was pretty tough actually, a few days ago I realised how unprepared I was for this exam and I really wasn’t the only one. I didn’t hear anyone saying they felt good about the exam before or after. To me I’m just glad to have gotten rid of it and I’m just not going to worry about it anyway, which is quite a relief.

My next exam is English literature on Friday, which should be er…fun? I somewhat doubt that I will do particularly well but there isn’t that much I can do about that, except reading the texts and learning quotes. In reality I don’t really care that much about it, I will make some effort to learn some quote for the poetry as I can already remember quotes for the play (Cat on a Hot tin roof). Other than that I will be doing some reading with a bit of daily lit. Quite a helpful website, shame it doesn’t have more books that I am interested in.

It was my sixth form’s may ball on Friday, meaning that lots of people got drunk (including one of my best friends) and it was generally a lot of fun, raving and such. Although I enjoyed having some alcohol and was sort of on the verge of being drunk at one point I managed to avoid it despite having drunk nearly a bottle of wine, a baileys and a malibu with coke (the latter two being one of my friend’s suggestions that I just went along with). The idea behind it is generally a leaving do for the year 13 so it will be “ours” next year. I look forward to it.

Christian aid week - seems kinda ironic May 17, 2007

Posted by Sharny in : Rants, Religion, World , 2 comments

Before I start, yes, ok, Christian aid is a UK charity but I think what I’m about to say is about a general problem.

This week is Christian aid week. I know because I saw a sign outside one of my local churches, they tend to have varying signs telling me to read the bible or whatever and they are usually pretty cheesy. When I saw this one I couldn’t help thinking about the irony of Christian aid, surely without taking from poor people over hundreds of years these churches would never have come into being. Surely these grand buildings are no more than a tribute to hundreds of years of theft not to mention all the other crap that Christianity has been a part of.

Ok, so, maybe they have changed their ways (which I do believe is the case) and now they are trying to make up for the mistakes of the past by doing something really good, which is commendable and…well…Jesus would be proud I’m sure. But having just read this post on God is for suckers I really can’t help thinking that this is really just a really half arsed attempt.

“According to our estimates, annual giving to U.S. protestant churches is $93 billion.” (Source)

$93 billion. That is a lot of money full stop but that’s every single year. According to wikipedia “War on Want estimates that US$45.7 billion would be required for 62 countries to meet the Millennium Development Goals“. Mega church construction currently stands at $28 billion annually and that is set to rise by 2010 to $40 billion.

So if the US, instead of building mega churches for a couple of years perhaps you could spend that money on stopping poverty, making sure that everyone in the world has enough food to eat. Perhaps you could do some real good around the world, maybe you could even try and be a bit more like Jesus, instead of just slagging off gay people and picketing about abortion.

You might call me hypocritical because I’m not out there doing a load of charity work but lets face it I don’t have the means to gather $40 billion. The church does, not only does it have the means it is already in excess of that every year. Just think of the amount of good this money could do for people who really have nothing? Surely even if you don’t agree with my stand point on religion you can see that this money could do a great deal more if it was used to relieve debt and poverty.

I really doubt that anything this radical and good would ever happen but the next time someone talks about the amount of good Christianity has done I would challenge them to think of the amount of good Christianity could do but doesn’t.

Rather crazy day May 15, 2007

Posted by Sharny in : Life , add a comment

Well, I’ve been feeling ill today and yesterday which has just contributed to the general crazy-feeling of today. I guess the most important thing would be finding out that instead of the C I thought I got in my first Chemistry module I actually got a B. This really pissed me off in some ways since I really wouldn’t have retaken the module had someone actually told me I had gotten a B, I assumed that for the score I got the grade boundaries were the same across all the subjects and modules, which would be logical since they are scaled up from the actual mark you get on the paper. Finding out that was wrong made me check the AQA website and after some digging found the grade boundaries, revealing that I had in fact gotten a B.

Another part of it lies in that I was asked for another £5 for the May ball. Now I’m absolutely certain that I had paid enough (I was giving in the money for me and a friend, we both owed £25 and so I gave over £50) but as I walked into my first lesson I was told I was £5 short. I didn’t really want to argue at the time because I figured my friend must have owed more than he thought so I just paid it. Later however, in Chemistry, my friend was asked for £5 as well. He told them he had already paid and they went away but I don’t think they will drop this. Now we’re completely sure that we owed £25 each and I’m absolutely sure I handed over £50 (I didn’t have any money left afterwards, I know that for sure). I figure £10 of that must have been lost in transit or something, so essentially I’ve been scammed out of £5. I guess I’ve got to have the grace to let it go, I want the ball to go ahead and if my paying extra £5 helps that happen then I should be happy, I suppose it makes up a bit for my lack of enthusiasm towards fund raising. I guess I just don’t like getting ripped off in such a way.

At least writing it down seems to have helped me get over those little things, what with feeling pretty ill it hasn’t been a great day really. I’m off to bed now, tommorow I just have one lesson first period then I’m going shopping to sort of piece together a suit for the previously mentioned may ball…

Realisation May 8, 2007

Posted by Sharny in : Scraps , add a comment

The kid who didn’t realise I am a guy briefly talked to me today. He seemed genuinely surprised that I am actually a man. Not a great boost to the old self-esteem there. Of course, its actually just funny that he seems to have difficulty recognising my…err…being a male.

Today has been quite a hazy day, feels a bit like a dream. Pretty crap really. Nothing really happened bad or anything it just feels sort of strange. Everything is pretty much on target otherwise, not much to report to the all seeing internet, although I do have the joy of “looking forward” to the may ball next Friday, no idea how that is going to go, I guess we’ll see.

Spider-man 3 May 7, 2007

Posted by Sharny in : Entertainment, Scraps , add a comment

We went (me and friends) to see Spider-man 3 on sunday. Overall I thought it was really quite a good film. The action was top notch and the effects worked very well, the battles were fast paced and on pretty big scales. There was also good storyline and drama with strong underlying messages. More of a surprise was the humour, actually. There were lots of bits where it was actually very funny and I enjoyed that, I like a good bit of humour. It hasn’t been getting the greatest reviews, I’ve seen people complaining about the cheesiness but actually I quite liked it, it was pretty entertaining. Overall my opinion is pretty useless but I did enjoy it so…err…there we go. One thing I did find funny was that all the characters seem to be able to circumvent the physics of free fall, it took them a loooong time to fall. Either that or the gravity on this earth is much weaker than ours.