Asgrim

Well, after a highly uneventful day at work, as always stuck doing work on SQ, I feel ready to go out and celebrate the day of my 21st. Tonight I’ll be heading down to the Wedgewood Rooms with as many people as possible to have a few drinks, so that should be interesting.

Also looking forward to tomorrow’s party in Guildford, although admittedly I have been truly slack and still have not sorted out what I shall be wearing (wow, I really do sound like a girl - so to dispel that myth, I shall clarify that it is a fancy dress party).

Just 35 days until Wacken Open Air! Excellent. Then, shortly after, is Bloodstock Open Air, to which I am hoping to go to.

Adieu - see you tonight/tomorrow/whenever.

So as most of you know I’m back in the UK now. Poor weather compared to California, but hey!

I was finally informed of what my payrise is, and it’s acceptable, but I’m in the very bottom pay band of my role, which I think is a bit disgraceful considering I’ve worked there for four years and the amount of knowledge I have about what I do. A couple of experiened people are leaving soon, so hopefully they’ll learn to value their staff a bit better soon.

In other news, my parents have moved to France now, which is quite upsetting for me and my sister (especially as she’s just had her baby!), but it’s a good thing for them to do I think.

Speaking of my nephew, I saw him for the first time last Sunday, and he’s gorgeous! I also had a very tasty lamb roast dinner with my sister and brother-in-law and parents, which was nice - even though the ‘rents were late!! This Saturday I’ll be heading over for a nice barbeque (weather permitting!).

I’m now mostly looking forward to recording Frosthold’s new CD, and currently looking for a voice actor to do some narration, so that should be interesting. Also trying to get that support slot for Turisas in September at the Wedgewood Rooms!

As you may have noticed, I’ve also put up loads of photos, most of them old ones which I just fancied putting up, so I apologise if any of them make you remember how much of an alcoholic you are, or otherwise…

I’m now quite hungry, it’s twenty to ten, and I should sort out my accounts and so on, so I bid you goodnight.

So as the title suggests, I’ll be on the flight home tomorrow, meaning I’ll be home on Saturday! Happy James.

Just a quick one as I’m about to have a shower, but I’m all packed up and ready to go. The last three weeks have been very tiring for me, but I made it alive, and I’m looking forward to getting back to UK to get on with wedding planning, band work and drinking in a decent pub!

Hopefully we’ll be upgraded to Premium Economy tomorrow as we both have enough air miles. Would be nice, I’ve never flown in Premium/First before! Free champagne, woo.

So another day has passed, and today was the fourth anniversary of Gemma and I getting together. Four years… well it seems like we’ve been together forever, but I guess it’s flown by. In fact I can tell the wedding is going to come up very quickly - it’s June already, and it seems like last Christmas was only yesterday. My how time flies.

My 21st (and Tom’s 22nd) is due soon also, for which we are planning a celebrity-themed party up in Guildford. Should be an interesting event, and I haven’t decided who to go as. And of course, Gemma has been able to book the time off work to come and enjoy the festivities! Excellent.

I don’t really have anything else of interest to say - I’m just sitting listening to music and posting on various corners of the internet again. Pizza will be due later, but apart from that, there’s really nothing interesting going on! So I shall leave it at that. Adieu!

It turns out we didn’t make it to firing rockets in the desert yesterday to my disappointment. We did however have a most excellent barbecue - a true “caveman diet” as Seb put it.

So today I think will be a relax & watch films day. We went to Virgin Megastores at “The Block” in Orange, which was made famous by the Borat film - it is the location where he chases Pamela Anderson out of the signing session. So I’ve been there, woo! I got 8 new CDs, which I’m just putting on my MP3 player now:

• Amon Amarth - Versus the world
• Borknagar - Origin
• Death - Symbolic
• Edguy - Rocket Ride
• I - Between Two Worlds
• In Flames - Clayman
• Iron Maiden - Brave New World
• Behemoth - Demigod

I’ve only listened to Between Two Worlds so far, and I’ve really gotten into it. It’s like a different kind of Immortal/Enslaved/Gorgoroth, heh!

Anyway, I’m watching Police Academy 6 at the moment, and planning to watch Oceans Twelve after that. Only… PA6 is littered with ads - the main reason I can’t stand American television. Oceans Twelve will be a DVD though, so I can cope with that!

Oh - and we beat Medium on Guitar Hero 2 last night! Awesome. I’m not sure whether I really want to go onto hard - I’ve become quite used to only using 4 buttons, and hard has 5 buttons - I tried out a couple in practise mode, and it seemed impossible to keep track of where my fingers were going!! Nevermind — it just means I’m not geeky enough to do that…

So if you’ve heard of our band (I think most of my friends have..!) Frosthold are on a sort of hiatus at the moment. Our last gig at the Wedgewood Rooms went really well, and as I mentioned at the gig, it would probably be our last for a couple of months whilst we concentrate on finishing off writing the new songs for our Flames of Hatred CD. The tracks on it (not in any order, and not confirmed, mind!) will be:

• Flames of Hatred
• Aeon of the Kings
• A Dynasty Forgot
• When Brothers Fought in Arms
• … tbc …

So, it’s looking to be a 5-track CD, and I believe we’re planning to record at the Old Blacksmith’s studio in Hilsea with legendary producer Rich Tamblyn. Just need Tom to get back from Dubai so we can rehearse the songs and then go into the studio. I’m also hoping we can afford to do a proper pressed CD, with a nice jewel case and artwork etc., but we’ll come to that hurdle when the CD is actually recorded!

Needless to say, from my babbling (and I hate using that word in a blog), I’m extremely excited about doing this recording, and I’m hoping it will be the most extreme and well-produced CD we will have ever done. Once that’s done and dusted, I also can’t wait to get back on the road!

Anyway, ciao for now!

So for my friends back in UK, its about 3am, and I guess most of them are now sleeping, and I hope they have ridiculous hangovers tomorrow morning. However, it is 7pm here, and I’m sitting on my own listening to Opeth’s Damnation CD, just relaxing with one beer. Who knows where this night will end?

Whichever way it does end, I’m excited about going to the desert near Barstow tomorrow morning to fire rockets into the sky with my boss. That should be fun! I look forward to it - fire and fast-moving objects.

So I notice Tom has joined the bandwagon too and has started blogging on his Facebook also. I guess it’s being away from loved ones that makes you really miss what you normally take for granted - being around friends and family. I know I keep going on about blogs, but I’m still quite apprehensive about them, and perhaps this will only last until I return to my normal life in UK.

Well we played a bit more Guitar Hero II today, I managed to play several encores reasonably well (on medium still) including War Pigs, Sweet Child o’Mine and another song. I nailed Dethklok’s Thunderhorse a bit better today, which I found immensely satisfying.

Anyway, another closing note… the weather here is sublime - a very warm and sunny start to the day, and hot throughout, and finally a warm evening. I shall enjoy sitting in the middle of the desert tomorrow in the baking heat of Barstow, and hopefully - for once - come back with a tan! I bid you farewell… for now?

So as you might have gathered from my last entry, I’ve not been a huge fan of blogs, nor online profiles indeed. I’m growing to this quite quickly however and, in fact, have waited all day to write my thoughts.

I was thinking earlier about names for blogs. A friend of mine runs a successful blog called Velcro City (www.velcro-city.co.uk) which I am proud to host on the TC server. Also, a friend of mine writes one called “Genuine Interest”, on which his first post explained why he had chosen that name — but alas, my memory fails me and I cannot for the life of me remember why. I have also seen a few other blogs, with titles like “The Inner Mind of xxx” and “The Insane Ramblings of xxx”, or thereabouts. With regards to the latter names, I don’t feel that great about calling my blog something like that, and feel that with a little thought I could procure something better. However, at this time, I feel rather uninspired and unimaginative, so shall therefore leave the name out for now. And in fact, after that little “rant” — as it were — I realise now that even if I did procure a title, it would be pointless as this Facebook application doesn’t have room for a title, or so I believe.

So anyway, I digress. I meant to write a short exciting blip about how Seb and I managed to complete “Easy” on Guitar Hero II, and have purchased the Dethklok song “Thunderhorse”. I now realise how amazing (or otherwise… I leave that to your opinion) some people are at this game, when both Seb and I find it extremely difficult on the Medium setting. Although we have been learning well! I’m sure it won’t be long til we are, indeed, Guitar Heroes. Having said that though, my fingers are feeling quite numb!

In other news, on Tuesday 29th May at 10:12am, my sister gave birth to my first nephew, Finley. Unfortunately I have only seen photos so far as I am still in the US of A, and I have not yet met him “in person” so to speak. This is something I greatly look forward to. For those of you who wondered why my MSN Messenger name was “Uncle James”, there is your explanation.

It looks like I’ll be here in California for another week or so, and I doubt I’ll be getting any peace and quiet from the office for the remainder of my stay.

On a penultimate, slightly obscure and off-topic note, I have really taken a liking to Simen Hestnæs, who has (or does) do vocals in Lamented Souls, Ven Buens Ende, Borknagar, Dimmu Borgir, Arcturus and Dagoba. I do love his more powerful singing where it has been layered a number of times, for example in the newest Dimmu Borgir album, In Sorte Diaboli, especially The Serpentine Offering. A very powerful song I think, and epic as expected. On the note of that album, it’s taken me a few listens to warm to it, but I do like it I think.

And finally, a short mention of the new Frosthold website address. Instead of the hard to remember (not to mention reel off at gigs) http://frosthold.zapto.org/ we now have a simple… www.frosthold.com. Very nice. Update your bookmarks.

And at this point, tiredness takes over me, and I must sleep and dream of better times. Good day my friends!

Well this concept isn’t new to me, and personally I’ve never been that attracted to “web logging” and telling the world of my mundane working life. Indeed, nor of the nights (and sometimes mornings) of extreme inebriation. However, of late I seem to have taken a liking to Facebook, much more so than the wretched MySpace (which I loathe more and more when I log onto our band’s page and see all the pointless — for want of a better word — crap floating around).

So, as I lie here in bed in Lake Forest, California, I sit and think a few things. Firstly that my head hurts, possibly due to having had a few beers. Secondly, that Guitar Hero II, although a remarkably likeable game on the X-Box 360, is quite hard to get the hang of. Thirdly, the thought that has been in my head for the entire trip is the “pining” to be back home with my fiancée for several reasons, one of which is to get our wedding planning back on the road.

There is an awful lot more I could type - random thoughts and such like, but I highly doubt that anyone will actually bother to read this and in addition the time is 1:20am and I do have work tomorrow. As to how long I keep this web log going for is anyone’s guess, but for now, if you are really that interested in the confused rants of my mind, you have a small taster of what may or may not be to come. I bid you goodnight… all one of you reading this.

Although having noticed that all of my friends are from UK, I bid you good day…