All that comes with it

The Pallet Shed. I thought my compost bin made out of old pallets was pretty impressive, but this chap has made an entire shed out of them. Looks a bit drafty though.

I’m beginning to regret this whole meme week thing. In the past few days Evan learnt to crawl, then he learnt to walk, and now he’s just started to do the triple jump. Not only that but Amy has just landed a leading role in the new Harry Potter film and Kerry has been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize. But me? I have to pass over all this wondrous news and write a blog entry about my five favorite cheeses.

Anyway, recently both Holmes and Whit neglected to tag me with their ‘what magazines do you subscribe to‘ meme. The bastards.

Still I won’t take it to heart, after all it’s their loss. I’m only responding to memes for another two days now, and tomorrows post is already booked (I’m doing yours next Hygiene Dad). So if anyone has anything they want to send me, then you better hurry up, I’ll not be doing this again for at least six months.

In fact, if anyone has any interview type questions they want to put to me then I’d be more than happy to answer them in my last remaining meme spot. Just email me them ( dghughes28@yahoo.co.uk ) and I’ll do my best to answer. I reserve the right to make up questions and lie about their origins when no one bothers to send me anything.

So onto today’s meme:

Magazines I hold a subscription to

I do not currently subscribe to any magazines.

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Wow, that was easy. Now for the tags: Pikachu, Bulbasaur, and Squirtle I choose you!

LA Daddy recently posted an open ended tag for the “7 things about me” meme that’s been doing the rounds recently. As I have no other memes pending at the moment (apart from yours Hygiene Dad, I’ll do yours next) I thought I’d take him up on it.

1. Fact: I have spent a total of nine years in higher education, six of those full time, yet my highest qualification is only a honors degree. If you rearrange the letters I am entitled to put after my name you come up with Snobs mind shop branch. I am yet to discover the cryptic significance of that phrase, but enlightenment will be mine one day.
2. Habit: I am nearly incapable of remembering to shut cupboard doors once I have got something out of them, this applies to the fridge and the freezer doors too. This habit drives Kerry mad.
3. Fact: I used to breed parakeets, extremely unsuccessfully. I only managed to raise two cockatiel chicks in around seven years. Perhaps I should have tried mating the same species together instead of striving for that Budgerigar / Emu hybrid.
4. Habit: I frequently zone out when been given instructions. Even when I say “I’m listening” I’m probably not. And even if I am I will invariably have forgotten what it is I was told to do within around fifteen minutes. This habit drives Kerry mad.
5. Fact: People have told me on a number of occasions that I have saved their lives. With one person I believe them.
6. Habit: I leave the margarine tub out on the counter when I have finished using it, frequently without a lid on it. When challenged I claim that I hadn’t forgotten, I just was intending to come back and use it again shortly. This excuse is very rarely true and also very rarely believed. This habit drives Kerry mad.
7. Fact: I can never bring myself to use abbreviations and txtspk when I use SMS. All my text messages must be in full english and properly punctuated, even if that means I have to pay for additional word usage.

So there you have it. I now tag Doc, Grumpy, Happy, Sneezy, Bashful, Sleepy, and Dopey

A stand up guy. The creator, Holmes, has now been entered into the All that comes with it hall of comedy geniuses.

mybigball.com. The true adventures of Chad, the guy who was so into super monkey ball deluxe that he decided to live in a ball

Chaptastic. A surprisingly entertaining blog who’s sole purpose is to review lip balm.

For other Wordless Wednesday blogs click here.

Last month LA Daddy listed his favorite concerts. I’ve been meaning to do my own version of this for a while now, and what better time to do it than the official international week of the meme! Whilst compiling the list I’ve realized how long it’s been since I’ve gone out to gigs with any regularity. Still, listening to Amy’s nursery rhyme CDs at full volume is just as good as going to a rock concert. It is, it is I tell you.

I’ll do your meme next Hygiene Dad.

Barenaked Ladies – The Octagon, Sheffield 2001

This first time I saw BNL, and certainly the best. We went along with Morticia and Craig, and Paul was there too (but I only knew him as that guy who works in the comic shop at that point).

The venue was intimate, the audience enthusiastic, and the sheer energy of the band was overwhelming. They even doubled up as their own support group (acting as backing band for Stephen Duffy if I remember correctly). People who’ve seen BNL live before will know just how amusing and improvisational they can be. I don’t think I’ve ever laughed so much at a gig before or since.

Barenaked Ladies sell official bootleg recordings of all their live shows in their audio store

U2 – Evening News Arena, Manchester 2001

I don’t even like U2 all that much, Kerry is the real rabid fan, but I must admit they put on a hell of a show. The hairs on the back of my neck stood up at several points during the evening. The only downside was trying to get out of the car park afterwards.

The Evening News Arena is a relatively intimate venue for a huge stadium band such as U2. In fact the intimacy of the venue is a common strand that flows through all of these choices. There are occasions when a venue can be too intimate however: when I went to see Rocco DeLuca with Paul last year there was condensed perspiration from the roof dripping on the audiences heads. Nice.

They Might Be Giants – Rio’s, Bradford 2001

Another concert we went to with Craig. When we first arrived there was about four other people in the audience and we were slightly worried. The venue soon filled to capacity however, which granted was only around 300 or so people. TMBG are pretty much unknown over here. So the people who go to see them are all people who really know their onions when it comes to the band and their songs.

The atmosphere was terrific and we had a great time, even if the toilet floors were a little sticky.

Ben Folds / The Divine Comedy – Shepherd’s Bush Empire, London 2002

Yes, you have probably spotted that most of these have been Geek Rock bands. And even the one that isn’t is a favorite of my wife’s rather than mine. But I am unrepentant. If liking humor and pop culture references in my lyrics is a crime, then lock me up and throw away the key (but make sure you lock my Dungeons and Dragons Player’s Guide and Monster Manual in there with me).

Early in my new career as a married man I took off to London to visit my Uni friend Rob in London for a couple of days. The highlight of my visit was going to the Ben Folds and Divine Comedy double headliner (the low point was going to see Men in Black II).

I must admit I felt a little sorry for Neil Hannon (who basically is The Divine Comedy) as the audience were obviously there in order to see Folds rather than himself. Still, he did an admirable set and was enjoyable to watch.

Ben Folds on the other hand blew me away. It was the first time I had seen him without his Five, and I had some concerns that he wouldn’t have the same power as he did when he had a drummer and a bassist to back up his piano. I hadn’t counted on the fact that he would have the entire audience as his backing singers. He regularly split us into groups in order to sing various parts, and at times the sound of your fellow audience members voices welling up and encompassing you felt almost like a religious experience.

There was a live album made of that tour, although not the actual concert I attended.

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On a brief side note about splitting the audience up to sing songs, the best example of this that I’ve seen was at a John Hegley show:

“Right, this side of the theatre, you are group A.”

“This side of the theatre, you are group B”

“And you sir, the gentleman in a blue shirt in the second row, you are group C”

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So there you go. I tag Hannibal, Murdock, and B.A. But feel free to join in on your blog or in the comments section if you fancy it.

So now Bon Bon has tagged me too. There’s no fighting it, I shall have to turn this entire week over to responding to memes. I hereby declare this to be international meme week, god bless all who sail in her.

So give me your tired memes, your poor memes, your befuddled memes yearning to breathe free. The wretched refuse of your teeming blogs. Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me, and I shall attempt to answer all of them in a week. Of course if I don’t actually get tagged by anyone I reserve the right to trawl through your blog archives and dig up old ones in order to pretend you did.

So without further ado, here is my response to Bon Bon’s tag (I’ll do yours next Hygiene dad).

My five obsessions

1. Growing stuff in the front garden. This year is the first one I’ve actually made a concerted attempt at growing something, and the results have been surprisingly positive. My potatoes, beans, and tomatoes are in fine fettle and I have already started harvesting my lettuce.
2. Hitting things with hammers in the back garden. I’m making some serious progress and by next spring we will hopefully be able to use the space behind our house as a garden rather than somewhere to get stung by nettles.
3. Comedy. My tastes run in the reassuring rather than the acerbic: Hancock, Dad’s Army, I’m Sorry I Haven’t a Clue, The Goodies, Laurel and Hardy. But I like a bit of rough too.
4. The internet. I no longer watch regular TV, I get all my entertainment from the net, occasionally supplemented by the radio or the odd DVD. Oh, and people falling over in the street – that’s pretty entertaining too.
5. My family. Quite simply my reason for being.

Five reasons why I blog

1. Because all the cool kids are doing it.
2. It encourages me to work on my photography.
3. As a way of recording the minutia of my family’s life.
4. It’s a good way of getting some really cool free holidays.
5. Because if I don’t get some sort of alternative creative outlet I’ll start wanting to begin Dungeon Mastering D&D games again. The world doesn’t need another uninspired quest to free the holy ring of Dietcola from the evil clutches of Sir Pringles of Dorito.

So now I tag Dooce, Wil Weaton, and Neil Gaiman (well, you have to aim high).

Fence panel drought. Sod global warming, the real crisis of our age is the national shortage of fencing panels. People are panic buying fences, and paying 400% more for them on the black market. Bloody idiots.