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CNPS : 100

Fuck. It wasn't meant to be like this.
The plan was to go and see Dave's band The Superkings play at the 12 bar last night and to be home for about 11:30. I go in work early on Friday, to negate the flexi destruction of leaving early when the temptation gets too much. So hopefully I'd be able to go out, but still get in work with my body intact.
No.
The 12 bar is kindly open till 1am, so we stayed there till pretty much the death, drinking the booze. Then we had a protracted amble home. Now I feel like death. As I took Liam and Dave to the train station this morning, we looked like three corpses, up early for a morning drive.
It was a good night though.
I like Star 27, they be good. There seems to be more of them than last time, and the guitarist seems to have left. Still, they have a certain "je ne sais quoi" and seem like nice people.
Condor Moments are really odd, but really good. Some of the things they play make you smile, but a lot of their stuff also excited me. I appreciate their difference.
I was a bit pissed off at first when The Superkings played. Everyone had been quiet and attentive for Star 27, but had sort of wandered away to sit down and have a chat for The Superkings. I know they don't have a gang following like Star 27 but at first the band were drowned out by the chit-chat in the bar.
Still, the quality shines through and I do like the added depth that the cello gives. It's a shame that more people didn't pay attention because I think they'd have enjoyed it. And maybe learnt something.

Hooray!
Yes I can hear you cheering.
As you can probably tell from the title of this blog, this morning I hit 100 on the CNPS. On day 113 of the challenge, I have seen the number plates 1 thru 100 in a consecutive order. Life almost complete.
Now, lets see if the three-figure numbers are easier.

I Am 30 Years Old

I can overhear Aaron on the phone behind me. He's using phrases like "it went mouldy at the end" and "we had to cut it off as it became useless". I'm finding it amusing. I am 30 years old.

I quite like that new Manics album. I didn't think I would, but lo-and-behold I think it has some nice tunes on it. More exciting is the fact that in two weeks a new version of 'The Holy Bible' is to be released to mark it's tenth anniversary. Of course I'm not talking about the religious book here, I'm talking about the Manic Street Preachers album of the same name.
The new version comes with a DVD, which includes live performances (including the appearance on TOTP which got the most viewer complaints ever). I find this exciting. It only sold about 35,000 when released which is a travesty, but apparently it is still selling around 15,000 copies a year. It's a fucking masterpiece and I look forward to discovering it again. I used to listen to it every day for about two years, but it has been a couple of years or so since I listened to it in its entirety. So, bring it on.

I'm so tired today. I was knackered last night and couldn't keep my eyes open past 10pm. Still, I woke up at 4am and then became trapped in over-analyse of nonsense. I've been sleeping quite well recently, but it doesn't take much to start the insomnia again. I don't mind so much in the morning as I crank up to full function quite quickly, come 2pm though and I feel exhausted. I think that if anyone shouts at me I may cry.

We've been to three gigs since the last blog.
Last Monday we went to see Modest Mouse in Manchester. It was good and I enjoyed it. They're a hard band to love though, audience chatter was kept to a bare minimum (though it didn't help that some dick in the audience kept telling him to shut up), and they seemed to spend ages tuning up between songs. Still, they score extra points for having two drummers.
On Thursday we had to do a frantic drive down to Birmingham to see Embrace. It was great, as it always is, but I think of the 10 Embrace gigs I've been to, that it may have placed near or at the bottom. The Birmingham Academy is huge, but the shape of it doesn't make for the best sound. We got there quite late so couldn't get near the front. A lot of sound is lost on the overhanging balcony and low roof further back. It also didn't help that the brummies wanted to chat amongst themselves. Tsk, gig-goers really get on my nerves sometimes.
And it was nowhere near as good as the Embrace gig we saw at Liverpool on Friday. The Royal Court is a great venue for a gig.
We were quite close to the front and it was a good view. Embrace were really up for it, the mix was spot on (as it sometimes hasn't been this year), and Danny sung the best I've seen him since the Manchester Apollo gig in 2002. What made it special though was the crowd. After 'My Weakness Is None Of Your Business' the packed theatre started cheering and clapping for about 5 minutes. You could see the disbelief on the faces of the band, and it was almost deafening out in the audience. Still, that wasn't the loudest that everybody got. Towards the end of the gig, it became a whole wall of noise. The band had to stop for about five minutes, the sheer fucking volume of cheering and excitement from the crowd made the hairs on my arms stand on end. I've been to a lot of gigs (I'm currently trying to construct a list of them that I'll put on here) but I can honestly say that I've never heard an audience reaction like I did on Friday night. It was mental.
It was actually virtually impossible to hear Richard on backing vocals as the crowd drowned him out. Beautiful.

On Saturday Paul and Karl came round for tea. We ended up watching the whole first series of 'Peep Show'. It is a beautifully wrong program and one of my favourite comedies of the last ten years (and most humour before 1980 was shit). By about 4am, Paul and I were pretty pissed and he made me drive around on GTA so he could listen to Guns N' Roses and Rage Against The Machine. Heh, I like booze sessions that come to a close as the day is beginning. It feels wrong, yet also quite right. It was also bizarre that we were drinking for about 9 hours, yet I haven't a clue how what we did for a lot of it. Peep Show took about 3 hours, maybe an hour for tea and an hour of GTA. What did we do for those other 4 hours?
We did spend a bit of time sending text messages to the landline. Dave has been sending me text messages to our house phone recently, and when you pick up you get your text read by a posh lady. So on Saturday we decided to send lots of swear words to the phone to see what it sounded like. I am 30 years old.
Anyway, sitting around drunkenly with my friends is one of my favourite things. I enjoy our gibberings about nothing for hours on end.