Warcraft: the update.

Just a quick post to let all four of you know that my account has been un-'permanently suspended' and they are looking into restoring all the items I lost while some hacker raped my characters.

Happy days.

This Warcraft business.

Ladies and gentlemen, my account got hacked.

Thats right, you always think that it will never happen to you, when in actually fact, its happened to me. The gits changed my password (according to an automated email from Blizzard) and a few hours later BAM, another email from Blizzard told me that my account had been permanently suspended.

This all happened last week, and after a very firm message to the security department regarding my account I still have had nothing from them besides the email telling me they had received my message and were "looking into it". I am getting increasingly tired of Blizzard at this point and have already started looking into other avenues of entertainment which I can use to supplement the boredom which WoW alleviated. Unfortunately it will be some time before FFXIV is released, and I am still uncertain as to whether I could play that or not on Nelly (my laptop.)

I will keep you posted with news as I get it (I am sure your all on pins)

My second gig...

...was amazing!

Don't worry, as I hit the circuit Im not going to report on how every one of my gigs go, but this one is a major turning point considering how bad my last one went; let me take you on a journey...

I had emailed the promoter of Yours Comedy which is a comedy night held at Salford student union at the weekend, but didn't hear anything back for a few days and so assumed I was not on the bill. On the monday, Red (Red Redmond, my comedy buddy) and I went to see Beat the Frog (BtF) at the Frog and Bucket which is a comedy club in manchester, famous for harbouring such serial comedians as Peter Kay, Johnny Vegas, Alan Carr etc... and has a fantastic, electric energy.

BtF was compared by the gloriously fabulous Jonathan Mayor whom I had a brief chance to chat with and is so genuinely charming, I can't wait to hit the circuit for the chance to be on a bill with him. We watching the two eight minute spots who were very good and the competition started. For anyone who doesn't know, BtF is a friendly(ish) gong show, comedians and comediennes try to be consistently funny for five minutes, if they manage five minutes without being gonged off (three random members of the audience are given score cards, if all three cards are raised, the acts are gonged) which is a lot harder than it sounds (and it doesn't sound easy, does it.)

We stayed for the first half, in which we saw three acts. The first was dissapointing, he was a guy who 'had tourrettes' (I have quoted it because I'm not 100% convinced he genuinnely has tourrettes, and a number of sources have evidence to support my doubts) which isn't a bad thing, except that his comedy didn't really hold water besides the random outbursts of swearing which to me seemed contrived (hence my doubts.) Even this along is fine, because BtF is a place for new acts to hone their skills as I hope to do at some point, yes it was mainly the 'ticks' which were getting the laughs and some of his jokes I'm sure I'd heard before but the worst was yet to come. Towards the end of the five minutes so spent about thirty seconds saying "I can't believe this, I have genuinely forgot my act" and then being silent for a bit, then saying it again. Now at first everyone said "Aaaawwww" and after about ten or so seconds, assuming he was just going to leave the stage having made people laugh and ran out of steam, the audience started to applaud. The cheeky sod stayed on the stage because he'd remembered his material! A few minutes later the music played signalling five minutes and he had supposedly 'Beat the Frog', which in fact, he didn't.

Anyway, It was a bit of a turn around but I'm not bitter (I probably would be if I was in the comp) because if he thinks his material is good and it made people laugh, he will keep doing it; if it keeps working, then good, but I can't help thinking at some point he will get a crowd who thought the same thing as I do and a few other people at the back of the room. I won't dwell on that but the evening had left me feeling anxious about performing stand-up considering that the act after him has been on the circuit a while and even compared a few shows, and she got gonged off within a few minutes (which isn't a reflection on her, she is actually funny, well she would have to be to compare right?) If people are gonging off good acts and keeping on people who admit to forgetting their material in the middle of their set, what hope was there for me?

Due to massive failures by the transport of Manchester it took me about two hours to get home (long story) but when I got home on the Monday, I checked my emails and what should I find? I'd been given an open spot for the day after! Christ I was shitting myself.

In fact, Red had read (har har) the line up for Tuesdays comedy night before I had, so he literally knew I was on before I did. I spent about four hours priming my material and had got a collection which genuinely made me laugh every time I read through it, but after seeing BtF I was so nervous I was having coffee farts all evening. Red came round to my halls to check through my stuff and just stop me from going insane, which was massive help to me, I doubt it would have gone as well without his support. The time came to go there and wait for the show to begin, which it inevitably did. the compare arrived, as did all the other acts for the stage that night and I was second on (I wasn't told, which added a bit of comedy to me doing mincing dash to the stage from the back of the room) then the fun began.

It was amazing! I remember much more of it this time, I remember there being a lot more improv than I intended but I only carried on with it because the audience loved it! The room was alive with energy and I was just encouraged to push my material to its limits, in the end I didn't even get halfway through my material before I had to finish on a strong gag and give someone else a chance, but the applause and laughter were genuine and to my ears it was thunderous and divine. I didn't want to leave the stage! At the rate I was going, I probably could have stretched my material over twenty minutes and beyond.

thinking back, there were definitely moments which I used improv because I had forgotten the link to the next joke, and there were a couple of moments were I stood on stage thinking, but I became quickly aware that I was losing the energy of the room and as soon as I got that, my material came flooding back. I also did a terrible thing, at the start of my act where I improv to get into my material I ended up picking on an audience member, and It was quite a bitchy thing that I said which I feel bad about. Even if everyone laughed and loved it, I'd hate to think that the person I hit with a comeback left the gig feeling bad. I realised this throughout my act and offered a few consolidation gags to him, and apologised to him afterwards so I think its cool.

I just wanted to stay on the stage and perform to the audience, I wanted to get into what I'd started but there just wasn't any time. The next thing I'll do is tighten my act, cut what didn't hit the high notes and condense so that I get further down my set in ten minutes and be able to finish with a strong gag at the end before I leave.

The last time I did stand up, I felt like shit afterwards, I really did. This time, I cannot wait to get back on stage and make people laugh!

The whole year through: 2009

Like last year, I am late in posting this, this being of course a review of the previous year as a narrative, summed up in a single post. Lets start where I left off shall we? one year ago...

After making the monumental decision to make the intangable leap from psychology to performing arts, my mind became a battlefield. Psychology was a race to the finnish, I was so eager to get started at Salford uni but my pyshcology course was gaining pace as it was reaching its finale. Assignments piled one on top of the other as the stress mounted, what was harder however was that the stress mounted, penetrated and didn't even cuddle me afterwords...

I am speaking of course, of the nonesense which began in January of last year, and continued througout 2009 and beyond. The day after last years post, Jayden Watts was born by caesarian section. My nephew was a month premature and was kept in hospital for over a month with one ailment or another, he was finally released after a hernia operation. However, Jayden's parents; my brother Colin and his girlfriend Sarah are two morons, and I mean that in every concievable sense of the word. Both of them were at the time claiming DLA, him for ADHD and her for... Is 'thick as pig shit' a medical term? well whatever it was, social services were not going to let them try to raise a child, and my brother knew it way before the birth. I feel I should mention that my brother re-entered our lives in august of 2008 after three years of no contact, of course Sarah was heavily pregnant, which lead us all to see the obvious; that he had knocked up an idiot (as idiots tend to do,) and is coming crying to daddy for help, but I digress.

Naturally, family is a very important tradition to us so my parents were not going to let Jayden into the adoption system were we would never see him again, unfortunately however this left us with only one option. Thats right, my parents began the lengthy proceedure of adopting my nephew (well, becoming 'special guardians' or whatever.) It was not easy, social services were fighting us every step of the way at that point and we needed to make some major changes, which were unfortunately for me going to coincide with these late deadlines and so on; the worst was still to come and I had no idea of it.

As briefly mentioned here, my parents won the right to be 'emergancy foster carers' which was at the time a major triumph but came at a price. As all the stress was piling on with uni, I was asked to leave home while the police sorted out my security check, I was booted out of my own house at a time when I really needed their support. The worse thing was that they (my parents) were apologising and felt so guilty that I had to leave (which was my choice, and I made it knowing how hard my parents were fighting for custody of my nephew,) add to that the nonesense with B.yoU, and old youth group I used to frequent which was pushing for a new production (which I had written and was starring in,) the stress was certainly piling up.

Not to mention it was around this time that I had put my application in to Salford through UCAS, for a performance course. I didn't hear anything back for what seemed like forever, which did not do to improve my mood, things were looking bleak. I heard back from salford and it was time for my audition which went... well, I explained it better here but in a nutshell, I was not impressed with how they handled it but was pleased to have a desirable outcome; This time I was all set to start my life in salford after the summer...

...but I didn't hear anything. For over six weeks I didn't hear anything after my interview. Nothing changed on UCAS, I couldn't apply for student finance but what was worse? I didn't even know whether I had got onto any of the courses I applied for or not (and had only applied for Salford in the first place.) Eventually, they updated my UCAS and I was surprised to find out I had been offered a place on HND media and performance, I was looking forward to it.

Roll on a few more month and major renovation work was almost complete on the house, new carpets and flooring, redecorating througout, a wall to split one of the larger rooms into a bedroom for me and a nursery for Jayden, it was a lot of work. My course has just about ended with all my assignments handed in and everything as it should be. It was about this time that my brother got married to my (now) sister-in-law Tammy, and we had to clean their house in its entirity because I was asked to dog/house sit for them and the place was layered with years and years worth of trash, but we did it and that worked out fine as well. It was also at this time we found out that my third nephew is on the way, he is due in March, and his name is Alex (I'm sure with the next kids my brother and sister-in-law will start on the 'b's.)

What followed this was a long and empty summer, filled with the sort of bubble gum dreams and meadow frolicking you would see in any teen movie, except it was all supported by the high I got from knowing that in the September to come, I would be starting university and my life was going to change. Jayden was assigned a new social worker who was at last working with us instead of against us and I managed to move back home, into a broom cupboard with a bed in it (which I was greatfull for, having spent over a month living as a burden on my brother and his girlfriend, in their house across the road.) I am getting my times mixed up here I think, It must have been more than a month spent at my brother's house, as I remember going to Bolton uni while staying there, funny thing memory isn't it?

In august, just before my birthday, I went on a weekend residential to train as a Stonewall Youth Volunteer, I had a wonderful time and made some cracking friends whom I can't wait to see again at the awards ceremony this coming march. Since last august I have been working on a campaign to improve the situation regarding homophobic bullying in schools. however, the verdict is still out on how successful I will be.

Lets see, where are we up to now... ...lets call it September. My summer was over, all of the finance and accommodation stuff has been sorted out, it was time to head to Uni. After moving over and breaking the ice with freshers week (I didn't attend much, shocking I know) it was time to start my course; HND Media and Performance. The year kicked off with a three week project at the Lowry which was called Beyond the Front Line (I blogged the whole thing, and even I like reading over it every now and again.) It was on this installation workshop that I made friends with some fantastic people, the sort of people you know you will be friends with for many years to come (also the sort I had already made while studying at Bolton Uni.)

Also, and I still don't know how to be truthfully honest, I ended up joining the Salford Sirens, which is Salford Uni's cheer leading squad. I don't do the dances, but I do the stunts (lifting and making pyramids and such) and the tumbles (the gymnastics, I'm almost able to flip flop!) I think I may have touched on this as a part of my series on healthy living, but it is fantastic exercise and has just enough danger to be manly.

And there you have it. Aside from an amazing amount of weight lost compared to previous rates of weight loss (16-15st at the beginning of 2009, 13.1st at the end) I have pretty much settled into life as a first year student. That's not to say that life is uneventful, stand-up is still my main goal and I have a few things in mind for the coming year as well as learning to drive, not to mention this improvisation course I am starting (in about two hours, weee!) at the comedy store which I will probably post about another time.

I always gauge my life on how many things I have to worry about. If I have a lot to be worried about, I'm obviously not doing too well, but if I have relatively few worries then things are looking good. at this point, I have much less worries than I did a year ago and I hope the trend continues. See me in a years time, doing a ten minute open spot and ripping the house down with improvisational eccentricity.

It is going to be a fantastic year.

PS: I know this is half a month late, but I was too busy having fun. x

2010, fingers crossed!

Using my good friend Antony's post as a muse, I am going to kill some time by jotting down some of the things I hope to achieve or at least advance in before the end of this year. I always leave these lists purposefully short because having a long list of achievements only leads to a long list of failures at the end of the year if things go astray, I also don't use words such as "try", because I've been trying to do these things in the past which is why they are on this list, which will be full of things I will do. I think I'm willing to be adventurous, so here goes;

Health

• Brush my hair more.
• Reach my 'normal' weight bracket (as discussed here.)
• Keep up my exercise

Uni/Career

• Be funnier
• Gig more
• See more live comedy
• Explore the performance industry
• Learn to drive
• Be more productive and industrious with Uni work
• Get more comics done

Well-being

• Keep in touch with friends and family
• Go out more
• More reading, less gaming
• Study more on the area's which interest me (space, history, biology etc.)
• Make the effort to improve/be more adventurous.

I think that's it for my list of goals. You might notice that a few of them are ambiguous, I assure you that this is by design. You see, there are a lot of things in my head, all bumping into each other and flying all around the place, and I kinda like it like that. But every so often there will be something which will sit still at the back of my mind, a concious desire to affect change in the way I think or behave, and it is that which I want to achieve with these goals.

I can think of an incident in Uni not too long ago, I was checking out the unions LGBT group, and there were three people who didn't really pay attention or seem interested in the meeting, two people running it (dominating it, or at least trying to) and two other people slightly wishy washy and embarrassed to be spoken to (if you know the type, they annoy me.) They started trashing Stonewall which I was not happy about (and made myself heard on the subject) and showed support of LFG (who once pulled funding from a local group in Wigan from the NHS, essentially stealing a service) which I also made known to the group. I did the goody goody act all the way though (which is difficult when your refuting a point made by an assertive dominator) when what I really wanted to do was tell them I was disappointed and leave half way through.

So my thinking with the goal 'Make the effort to improve/be more adventurous' is to take the opportunity when my instincts tell me that playing the nice guy isn't in my best interest in this situation, even if it may turn opinion against me; See? purposefully ambiguous.

My First Gig

Feedback time on my first gig, the JOKIN' New acts competition at the Lass O'Gowrie, just off Oxford Road, Manchester.

The kick off was at 9pm, I arrived at twenty to. I had read about the comp on the comedy forums I frequent and was advised that it was great for beginners and there is even the chance of a prize! Not wanting to waste any more time getting into the frey, I signed up. They got my name wrong (apparently I'm 'Simon Woods', shocking) on the forum and on the night, which in hindsight was probably an omen of what was to come, but I'll get to that.

The atmosphere was wonderful, although there were a lot more men than women, and the men were mostly middle-aged or teenage, which probably isn't my target crowd for the material I used but everyone was friendly and supportive and it looked to be a good night. I was fith, on just after a short interval. The first act was abismal, but he was a middle aged gentleman, so the three judges offered helpful criticism and he was off, it should be noted though that it was his first gig. The next guy was fantastic, he had obviously done stand-up before and brought the house down. Third was a scouser who had some good gags but nothing special, fouth was a guy who had half filled the pub with friends, he was awfully nervous and kept screwing up his lines, and told fat gags most of the night. But the judges were generally supportive of him regardless, then it was the interval.

The organiser came to me and told me that the running order had shortened because someone's dropped out, someone called "Simon Woods", I said "I'm Simon WATTS, and have not dropped out", to which she told me it was actually Andy-something who dropped out, and its all okay. So the interval finished, I was nervous as hell (which is bad, I need to be relaxed to be funny) and so when my name was called "Welcome on stage, SIMON WOODS!", the applause on my entrance were the most applause I would recieve all night. I was awful, well, my material was I guess, but I also kept doing the nervous shuffling, not holding the mike close enough or lowering it while still talking, and saying "err" and "umm". I got some laughs for my one liners, but my comedy is based on story telling (like Mike Harding) but it just did not go down well at all. This was fine, because it was my first gig, I figured the judges would see how nervous I was and offer a little helpful advice. My five minutes are up, it was feedback time...

Judge #1: "Are you a drama student? I thought so. I like the outfit, the bandanna reminds me of my aunt who had cancer. Seriously though, are you a drama student?"

Judge #2: "You have some good subject there, and there is potential, you just need to up the auntie on the material, work on it."

Judge #3: "DOG SHIT, GET HIM OFF."

...Just typing that last one felt horrible, then again, I probably shouldn't take it too badly, that judge was making gay jokes all night, so was probably a bit bias. That was that, I left after my act to catch the first train home. On the way home I couldn't think straight, I couldn't have been that bad could I? Maybe if I'd had some friends in the audience, or some support. Now I kinda know what works and what doesn't, but I don't think I will be doing that again for a long time.

Now I have a decision to make, in hindsight I should have got more gigging experience because this one attempt is muddying the waters of a pretty big decision soon to come. Do I stay in performing arts, knowing what stand-up is like? Comedy is the only thing I want to do, but what if I can't do it? What's the point? But then, could I go back to psychology, and leave my dreams behind entirely?

God I feel like shit.