Alex Walker

Currently listening to: Some R&B on BigFM

Wow. I haven’t posted in six weeks. Have I really been that busy?

Here’s the last six weeks of my life in brief:

I started work on the summer project at Glasgow University. It’s going well. A little slow just now, but well.

I quit Burger King because I was working 7 days a week. So now I have weekends to myself!

I paid off my overdraft entirely, and all of my credit card. I’ve since bought a few more things on the card though.

My parents said they were going on holiday to Italy. Then disappeared off to Florida without telling me. Therapy, anyone?

I joined the gym. I regularly run, use the ab trainer, swim and relax in the sauna.

I’m extending my house’s wireless network infrastructure so my brother can access the Internet from his room. Aren’t I nice?

I’m going out with a very nice girl from Ayr BK called Becky. Yay! Dunno what she sees in me though.

In other news, Hellfire are looking for staff again. Persistent as always, I’ve handed a CV in. This time with better pictures!

Well, til next time, which willbe soon!

PS: I also tweaked my web site a little bit. New font in the titles and updated MSN address

Alex

Currently listening to: Underoath - Returning Empty Handed

Wednesday was the Burger King staff trip to Alton Towers. It was awesome. Jimmy managed to get on all the rides despite being under the “you must be this tall to ride” markers.

The park wasn’t too busy, and we managed to get multiple goes on everything.

I saw someone wearing the same From First To Last T-shirt I have, so went to speak to them. Awesome.

Someone I was at school with managed to pick me out of a crowd and came over to talk to me, which was bizarre. How did they recognise me?

Currently listening to Enter Shikari - Mothership

If I could find my iPod I’d listen to this song on repeat all night. It’s so awesome.

Go tell all your friends that this is the end.
THIS IS THE END!

Exam results will be back soon and I’m very worried. I studied for these exams, but I could always have studied better. Will I end up with a crap degree like a third? If I disappear off the internet and never return, then yes. If I never speak to most of the people I was at Uni with, then yes.

The exams were full of long, essay questions and applied knowledge. I managed to write something in all my exams, but was it the right something? Let’s hope so, otherwise it’s hello Burger King forever.

WALK THE PLANK! WALK THE PLANK! WALK THE PLANK!
WALK THE PLANK! WALK THE PLANK! WALK THE PLANK!
WALK!
THE!
PLANK!

Currently listening to: Glassjaw - Radio Cambodia

I love the weighing scales at my mum’s house. Either they underweigh by about 5 pounds or my own scales overweigh. My scales report my weight as 10 stone 2, but my mum’s report me as 9 stone 10.

But that’s not because I’ve been exercising. Oh no. It’s because for the past 3 days I’ve had the most insane throat infection. It started with an insanely running nose - it was like water coming out 24/7! Now I can’t swallow without pulling a face because it’s do damn painful. My nose is so blocked that I put Vicks under it and in it, and couldn’t smell or feel it at all. I haven’t eating anything beyond a sandwich today, and I can barely say a word.

Work will be fun on Friday!

Currently listening to: Biffy Clyro - Saturday Superhouse

So, I no longer have any computer or internet access from my flat. I’m currently sitting in the easyInternet cafe in Glasgow. £1 for half an hour isn’t bad. The connection speed is OK too.

Biffy Clyro are playing tonight at the HMV on Argyle Street. To get in, you need to ask at the tills for a wristband. I thought they were available from 11AM today, but when I got there at ten to eleven, HMV was already open and there was a lot of rubbish where people had been queueing all night. I still got a wristband though - one of the last ones! The problem is, it’s currently round my wrist, and it’s one of those ones that doesn’t come off! I have to work with it on all day today.

So, today is my last shift in BK Glasgow 5. Next Saturday I start in BK Ayr again. A lot has changed, but there are a lot of good staff there still. It’ll be a challenge, I’m sure. I do expect to be covered in ranch dressing (eww) by Matt and Catherine before I leave today, so I’ve got a change of clothes.

The Cathouse was fun on Friday night. I was there dead early, when there was no-one else on the dancefloor, and requested Underoath - It’s Dangerous Business Walking Out Your Front Door, which came on after Alexisonfire - This Could Be Anywhere In The World. I went a bit over the top with throwing myself about. I fell over three times. It was so worth it though. How good a song is can be judged by how many times I fall over whilst dancing to it.

Drowning in my sleep,
I’m drowning in my sleep.

Someone came up to me in the Cathouse and said “hey man, I really like your T-shirt”, then pulled exactly the same T-shirt out of his bag and put it on. Awesome!

All in all a good week. But this coming week I need to clear my flat out. That won’t be so much fun

Currently listening to: Glassjaw - Radio Cambodia

My exams finish this Friday. But I’m working at 7AM on Saturday so I can’t really go to the Cathouse on Friday night:(

I’m not impressed, I guess I’m not impressed

Unless… I go out on Friday, but only til midnight, then get up for work, finish work at 2PM, go to bed, get up at 9PM and go back out for the second night in a row.

Obsessed? Contrary to what you believe, No! Oh, and last Friday was awesome, even if they didn’t play my request (Girl’s Not Grey - I shouldn’t need to tell you the band’s name).

In other news, Alexisonfire are really creeping up on me. Mailbox Arson may well be the best song ever made. The lyrics on the album Crisis are amazing too. Post-hardcore at its finest:

I watch the smoke start to rise,
One hundred homes, one hundred fires
Everything you own now burned away.
This town is no longer mine,
It’s f*cked with me for the last time,
How I wish that I could see your face.

Strike a match,
Burn away,
Every tie that binds me to this place

Currently listening to: AFI - Days Of The Phoenix

After moving my computers from my flat back to my parents’ place, I can’t access the internet from home.

Was at the Cathouse on Friday. Some nights I get bored and I’m out by just after 1 AM. But Friday night was awesome and I stayed til it closed I also met Michael who works in Morrisons in there. And Barry from Hellfire said hi. Which was nice. They played two Underoath songs, one of which I requested (It’s Dangerous Business Walking Out Your Front Door), and songs by Alexisonfire, 30 Seconds To Mars, Atreyu and even CSS’s Let’s Make Love (And Listen To Death From Above).

I may well complain to ScotRail, because the trains now only tell you the next stop after you’ve left the station. It’s only a matter of time before I jump on a Balloch train at Partick, only to find out I’ve accidentally jumped on the Balloch express as “the next stop is Dumbarton Central” plays over the speakers.

So, four exams down, five to go.

Currently listening to: Coheed and Cambria - A Favour House Atlantic

Warning, this song is so insanely catchy. Never listen to it or you’ll be humming it for weeks.

Good eye, sniper
I shoot, you run

There’s a pattern emerging at BK these days. Two staff won’t show up for their shifts, and all the experienced staff will be on night shifts (when they’re needed). This leaves daytimes with one manager, five new staff and me.

The good news is that I’m being left in charge of the kitchen a lot. I get to tell the new staff what to do. The bad news is that I have to watch them and make sure they do things right. If they mess up, I get in trouble.

Currently listening to: Alexisonfire - Boiled Frogs

I’m always wishing,
I’m always wishing too late
For things to come my way,
It always ends up this way
COUNT YOUR BLESSINGS

Yeah, so I was very, very bust with university work back in March. In the end, it all got finished. And early this month I’ve pretty much been living in the Cathouse, especially on Friday nights. So apologies for not posting, I’ll write at least once a week from now on.

I must be missing,
I must be missing the point
Your signal fades away
And all I’m left with is noise
COUNT YOUR BLESSINGS ON ONE HAND!

I never really got into this song before I started hearing it played every Friday night in the cathouse. It’s got such a simple melody, but it sounds like it’s crying out. It’s edgy, it’s uncomfortable. But what really gets me is the words.

Poor little tin man, still swinging his axe
Even though his joints are clogged with rust

The name comes from what happens when you heat a frog. If you put a frog into a pot of boiling water, it will jump out. But if you put a frog in a pot of cold water then slowly heat the water, the frog will just fall asleep and die.

The song is very personal to one of the band members, and it’s easy to see why. To me it’s about rushing through life in a crap job - unappreciated despite how much you do, underpaid and far overworked. I am not going to spend my life like that. I will not be what someone else wants to be at the expense of who I am and who I want to be. It’s time to start appreciating things in life and stop letting things slip away.

So in case you weren’t sure, that’s why I dress and look the way I do, that’s why I like the music I like and that’s why I really enjoy going to the Cathouse. Who cares if other people don’t like who I’ve become. Screw them.

There’s a new Alex about.

So wait up, I’m not sleeping alone again tonight,
There’s so much to dream about,
There must be more to my life

Count your blessings.

Currently listening to: Bhangra Knights - Husan

Randomly, I found an MP3 of this kicking about. Wow, it takes me back five years to being in Sixth Form at school. I can almost see the view out of my bedroom window on a summer evening - the band hall and firing ranges lining the parade square, the large grass expanse with trees along the road, everything!

It’s amazing how music can just take you right back sometimes.