Hı everyone. Please excuse my bad spellıng and weırd I's. Im usıng a Turkısh keyboard. Yep, I'm fınally ın Marmarıs ın Turkey, on that holıday wıth 6 other frıends. It should have been seven, but someone pulled out and we had to pay for hıs share, even though he's not here. That kınd of sucks. I'm kınd of glad, though. I don't really lıke hım and I would have had to share a room wıth hım.

Apart from that, we've all been doıgn really well on our fırst holıday abroad. We've dıd some excursıons. We went to a Turkısh bath, whıch was amazıng. We went on a boat trıp around the bay, and just generally lazed around the pool. We went to a foam party, and have also been drınkıng quıte a lot. Fun fun.

I'll probably post a more coherent pıcture of my thoughts on my own keyboard back home, but that ısn't untıl Monday. So I'll talk to you all later. Hope you're doıng well, everyone on my flıst.

So I've generally been doing nothing over the last few weeks. I'm on a zero-hour contract at work (in Debenhams) and overtime has completely dried up. I've worked eight hours in the past four weeks, meaning that I won't have any extra money for going away on holiday, which is kind of crap. This credit crunch is worse than I originally thought.

Apart from that I've either been playing the PlayStation 3 too much (I got i on the way home in the airport), been drinking with friends or watcing loads of anime. Not a very productive summer, but a relaxing one nonetheless.

If anyone has a PS3 and wants to add me as a friend, I would be more than happy. Just make sure you say you're from LJ and I'll know it's not some random person. My PSN ID is gerjomarty.

As far as anime goes, I bought the 2nd Gig of GITS SAC, which, true to form, has been very good. I love its mix of philosophy and action. I'm also nearly finished watching Kokoro Library, which is a real gem of a slice-of-life series about three sisters running a library. Really sad that its nearly done.

As far as games go, I have GTA4 and Gran Turismo 5 Prologue for the PS3, and have been playing them alot, but none moreso than Super Stardust HD from the PSN Store. It's a really addictive game! And it has trophies, which is a bonus. On the DS, I bought Another Code: Two Memories (Trace Memory in the US) and Cooking Guide. I've finished Another Code already, but it was a great game. I just bought Cooking Guide today, so I'm going to make dinner with it tonight to see how it does. :)

Hello!

Exams are finally over, and the soul crushing and utterly defeating part of the year has now passed, which has made way for a week and a bit of pure relaxation with brief interludes of alcohol. It's just so nice to not have to set an alarm every morning. But seriously, this place changes so much in the exam term it's scary.

The next week, which is (inexplicably) called May Week, is full of garden parties and our college's June Event, which this year has the theme "Pangaea". It's like a massive festival in which they transform the college grounds into a music and entertainment venue for one night. I can't wait. Apart from that, I think it'll just be lazing around and wasting time on the internet. Which is what I usually do anyway, but now I can do it guilt-free. :)

I won't find out how I did for another week or two, but I'm kind of glad, as I'm pretty sure it won't turn out to be the greatest set of marks ever.

Despite hard revision, I did find the time to buy stuff. I knew that as soon as I seen this Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya wall scroll, I would have to buy it. It just screams cool - it doesn't even touch any other posters. It was much bigger than I thought, which just makes it even better. Images under the cut...


Elfen Lied - I had wanted to watch it for a while, but I finally got to when my friend had the DVD boxset and lent it to me. Needless to say, I was gobsmacked by how shocking it was and just how good it can be. So much so that I had to go and buy my own copy. I'm hoping to introduce my non-anime-appreciating friends to it when I get back, as they quite like horror films. I'm not quite sure if they'll think it either too tame or too extreme.

Anyway, it's nice to finally post again here. I hope everyone still reading is doing well. :)

Hi!

I probably won't be updating very much in the next month or two. I'm already trying to revise for exams at the start of June, and already failing miserably.

I preordered GTA 4, but I'm having it delievered to my house, so I won't get it until I come back home in June. I don't even have a PS3 yet. Yes, I am crazy. I did this for Pokémon Diamond too - preordered before even getting the console. My plan is to get it really cheap in the tax free shop on my way home from the airport. I'm just praying that they announce a better SKU for Europe between now and then.

I'm getting so excited about the new GTA, but I won't even be able to play it. -_-

Anyway, I hope everyone has a nice few months. Because I certainly won't. :) Feel free to add me on Twitter, because it seems that it'll be easier to update in short bursts rather than long journal posts.

Bye for now.

I'm now on Twitter. Does anyone else actually use this? Anyway...

http://twitter.com/gerjomarty, if you're interested. :)

Hi.

So I'm on my vacation in between the second and last term now. I really need to start revising for exams, given that they're not very far away and there's so much stuff to cover. I *will* need to start tomorrow, after saying that for the past three days. -_-

Don't know if I mentioned, but me and about 7 or 8 other friends are going to Turkey this summer, which I'm really looking forward to. The only problems? Two of them are very close to having a major falling out, which may wreck the holiday before we even step on the plane. And one person we probably won't even see until the end of July, when he actually *has* to be there. Hooray! </sarcasm>

Closer to now, I'll be heading back to Cambridge on Tuesday week, and hopefully then heading up to Leicester for a day or two to meet up with some university friends before next term starts. I'm very much looking forward to that, as I really haven't seen enough of England, and (though I haven't really done any research) Leicester does sound quite nice.

Anyway, time to get back to watching anime late into the night... while I still can. :) Bye!

Musical meme stolen from megchan...

Take your top 25 artists from last.fm and answer these questions (OR DIE).

1. Röyksopp (201)
2. Keane (182)
3. Air (179)
4. Razorlight (174)
4. Coldplay (174)
6. Bloc Party (160)
7. Snow Patrol (149)
8. The Go! Team (139)
9. Zero 7 (135)
10. Mark Ronson (123)
11. KT Tunstall (119)
12. Muse (118)
13. Mylo (112)
13. Groove Armada (112)
15. Massive Attack (110)
16. Digimon Savers (99)
16. Feeder (99)
18. Travis (94)
19. Morcheeba (93)
20. Faithless (86)
21. The Chemical Brothers (79)
22. The Killers (78)
23. Basement Jaxx (77)
24. Lemon Jelly (74)
25. Editors (72)

Hi flist. The reason why I haven't been replying and posting and stuff is because I'm now back at university in Cambridge. There must be some sort of acclimatisation that needs to happen because I always feel so strange when I start living either here or back home. But I'm back to working now, so stuff is starting to calm down now. And when I say calm down, I mean get hectic.

But I'm used to it from last term anyway. So this will probably be it for me on eljay for another 8 weeks save for some procrastination by reading my friend's page.

I'll talk to you all soon, hopefully! ^_^

It started to snow! For the first time in about two years! The forecast said there would be some flurries in England, but I didn't expect any here. Naturally I had to take a couple of photos. Isn't it nice when it snows? It's like everything becomes the same creamy colour - the sky, the ground, and everything in between. It's really mystical.

Decking in the back yard
We actually keep those Christmas lights up all year now. But not the tree.

Our car
Completely covered. Amazing.

View from the front window
No, the camera's not fuzzy, that's the snow falling. The same picture with the flash on shows this.

I might be getting a little fanboyish though. One of the first things I thought to do was stick the Kanon 2006 OP on the MP3 player and walk about in the snow, y'know, just for the hell of it. It seems to be the right thing to do, since Kanon's all about the snow. :)

In other news, I bought the box set of the 1st gig of Ghost in the Shell Stand Alone Complex today. XD It's great, I love it.

:) I had a good day today.

A merry 2008 to you all. My purpose of writing today is to let you all know my Mario Kart DS Friend Code.

It is 3308 3274 2557.

I haven't been able to finish a race on Wi-Fi so far due to the 94030 error, though. Not sure how to work around that, really. I'd love to add some of you if you also have the game. :)

Osu!

Woah. I took a bit of a break from LiveJournal for a few weeks over term, mainly due to time constraints. Now that I'm back home for Christmas, I can post again! Happy to be reporting that things are progressing nicely over at university, apart from the stupidly large workload that I have over Christmas to catch up with everything. But I'll get that done eventually, even if I need to cram it in before I go back.

Worryingly, I think I've become a bit of an anime otaku while away. The uni has an anime club that shows fansubs two times a week, so I went to those, then at those I heard about other series I need to watch. I also had the use of very very high speed broadband and YouTube. All of these things came together and I ended up watching far more than was healthy.

So far, I've finished off watching Lucky Star (I adore this anime) and Excel Saga and am close to finishing Welcome to the NHK. I'm also currently watching Kanon 2006 (I also adore this anime), Black Lagoon, Mushi-shi, Higurashi no naku koro ni, Ergo Proxy, Maria-sama ga Miteru and Wolf's Rain.

Just back from our work's staff Christmas party, too. T'was a good night, if not a little taxing due to everyone being slightly tipsy and there being so many people I don't know from being away all this time. It's so strange how people can be so different to interact with when they live in different places. I had to get used to talking to people back here in N. Ireland, and soon I'm going to have to get used to talking to Cambridge people all over again.

I'll probably post before Christmas again. Until then... :3

Feeling a lot better now. The work's starting and I'm meeting loads of people. It's really great here, I'd be mad if I left.

:D

I made it! :D I'm in my room now after a hectic day of getting up at 6am, catching a flight, dragging luggage all over town, getting keys, having tea and biscuits with fellow freshers and going to the Fresher's barbeque. :)

Obligatory pics of new room, under the cut! (Sorry for the bad quality...)


That's all that. I've got an action packed schedule this week, so hopefully I'll speak soon.

I'm away to Cambridge on Saturday morning. I've also did my timetable into a calendar, it looks like I'll be up at 9am every morning for Maths and Physics, every day except for Sunday. -_-

I've been buying and packing and doing general pre-Uni stuff, which is why I haven't posted on LJ for a while. It looks like I won't be on for a while after my lectures start too. Ah well, I should be grateful in truth.

In other news, a blue moon rose overhead a couple of weeks ago, as the UK's second regular daily anime block starts, this one on it's own actual channel. It's Anime Central, and they do this fantastic thing of repeating their programs three times throughout the night so I don't have to miss any because of my parents watching the TV...



So I'll probably post again once I get to Cambridge, find my room and get everything set up. Ooh, I can post pictures of my new room! Exciting! Anyway, until then, talk to you all later.

So yeah, all this weekend I've been at Tomo-Dachi 07, an anime convention in my home town of Derry/Londonderry. I really didn't know what the hell to expect, given that I'm a con virgin, but it's been great fun.

None of my friends are in to anime, so I'm here on my own, but that's not so bad. I've met many people that are in to anime and manga this weekend - it's nice to know that you're not the only one with this weird obsession with things from Japan. In fact there's been around 250 people each day so far this weekend.

Mike McFarland is the guest of honour - he's done stuff like directing the new Full Metal Alchemist film, which we watched today. It's the first time I've ever seen FMA at all, so I've completely spoiled myself for the actual series. But I still enjoyed it very much. It's slightly complicated with all of the world switching stuff, but once the story is gotten the hang of, it's a very engrossing film. Ed is a very cool protagonist!

There was an extensive manga library present, and from it's shelves I picked up a Tokyopop manga I've been reading the blurb of for a while - Fruits Basket. The basic premise is a girl called Tohru is taken in my the Sohma family and learns of their terrible secret that if one of them is hugged by a member of the opposite sex they turn into an animal of the Chinese zodiac. (You just gotta love manga.) I did really enjoy the first two volumes, someone as nice and sweet as Tohru makes you want to read more. And I don't care what it says about my masculinity reading it either! :3

I must say, I don't think I'm used to cosplay yet. I didn't know it was so popular at cons. Meh, glad to see the effort put in anyway.

Woo! At 10pm there, a couple of people were just sitting around the reading area with their DSes, so just to see, I fired up Pokémon Diamond and used the Link Checker, and sure enough, 2 people were underground. Entered the underground, waved, pulled up a chair and me and two random guys started taking each others flags to get platinum status, so we could remove those boulders from the secret base. Truly random. Someone else then did the exact same thing as me, and so we had four of us "raping each others bases" (not my words). Now this is what made me happy about today!

Just to top it all off, I'd also heard about Excel Saga, and it was showing there at 11. I'm sorry, but I've never laughed so much at an anime. That anime is hilarity on screen, it's absolutely brilliant. We were all in stitches at the dying and reincarnation of the first episode, the universe having it off with Pedro while his wife is making babies with "That Gomez" ( :D ), but the best was Menchi barping the ED while being seasoned, with a Japanese translator beside. I'm sorry, but this anime is truly inspired.

I'm there the whole day tomorrow, then I'm off to Belfast in the late afternoon for a random trip with friends for two nights. Talk to you all later! ^_^