I'm off to London.

I'm going to be off to London tomorrow for a university open day, so I won't be updating this or checking out your blogs for a while.  Keep up the good work though everyone!

Fencing.

Every Wednesday evening I go fencing, which is a pretty awesome sport where you basically poke people with big metal sticks.  It needs a lot of concentration and uses a lot of energy in short bursts, which is great for lazy unfit people like myself.  You also obviously learn how to fight with a sword, which is useful if you ever want to challenge anyone to a duel because they stole your chocolate.  Does anyone else fence?

Also, obligatory video:

Won't be bloggering much tonight.

Evening my fine fellows, I have band practice tonight so I will not be as active as usual in checking out what you all have to say.  Got plenty of time to catch up tomorrow though.

I'm in an indie/folk/acoustic band, not really sure how to describe it, but it's pretty awesome.  I don't really usually listen to the type of music we play, but I think our songs and covers are great.  I might just be biased since I'm part of the band. <_<  All sounds good to my ears though.  Also, I get to finally play my didgeridoo with the band today, which shall be most awesome.  For those of you who don't know what a didgeridoo is, it's this:

A riddle.

Here's a riddle I made up the other day, pretty easy but lets see who can guess it:

What is well-known to the well-known but little-known to the little-known?

Leave a comment with your guess.

Finished necklace!

Well here it is. I'm a rubbish photographer though so these photos are poor. =P

Chainmaille necklace.

Though most people see chainmaille as just armour, you can actually make a lot of stuff out of it, including jewellery. This afternoon I'm going to be finishing off a chainmaille necklace that I started making for a friend in America.  I've currently made about 12 inches out of 20 inches of the necklace, which is made out of silver plated copper.  Pictures of the finished thing should be up here tonight. =]

Pasty Blues: Original Song.

Well due to my rubbish recording equipment and the fact I can't sing, this doesn't sound particularly good. =[
Here it is anyway:

Recording.

Thanks for all the encouragement on my previous post.  I'm now recording the song, I've done the guitar and vocals, just the piano and tin whistle to go.  I'll post it up here when it's done if anyone would like it.

Lazy.

I've been being really lazy lately. I haven't actually done any more to my vest since I posted the image, haven't recorded my latest song or written any more music. Basically just been sitting here listening to music and Blogggering. Motivation would be gratefully accepted. Also remember to check out the green highlighted words for any interesting adverts. ;]

Making chainmalle rings or links.

Someone asked about how I made the individual rings, so here's a posting explaining it. (side note: I've recently added InfoLinks to my blog. This should highlight certain words in green and display targeted advertising, feel free to click them if they interest you. ;])




First, take some wire (I use 1.6 mm Galvanised Steel, which is the wire used to make fences and can be bought from gardening/farming type shops), and wrap it around a metal rod. The larger the diameter the rod, the looser the chainmaille is going to be. For my vest I am using a 6 mm diameter rod.


Remove the wire from the rod and cut from the coil with clippers. There are many kinds available and most do the job.


Now simply cut the coil into rings. Try and keep the cuts in a straight line. It takes a bit of practice but soon one gains the ability to create nearly perfect rings.


Tada! Doesn't look very impressive by itself, but when combined with others, it can look amazing.

Guitar.

Well today I had a guitar lesson, learning the solo from Alive by Pearl Jam.

It's a pretty nice solo and some phrases are hard to play.  Haven't had time to work on my vest yet but should be doing tonight, so expect another update.

Behold, a vest!

As promised, here is the picture of how the vest is looking so far: (click on the image and skip the ad to see a full size version)





Doesn't look too impressive at the moment, but with more rows of rings it will start to hang properly.  What you see in the picture has taken me probably around 10-20 hours to make, I dread to think what the total time for this project will be.  Should give me a lot of opportunity to make boring blog posts though. =P

Chainmaille.

Last summer, I started making stuff out of chainmaille.  Bracelets, belts, necklaces, etc.  Recently, I decided I would make a chainmaille vest to wear, it alleviates boredom and improves my fitness in one fell swoop.  Therefore this blog shall be updated with images showing the progress of said vest, as a way to show how long the damn things actually take, and to motivate me into actually doing it.

Buses.

Bus services are rubbish down here.  Give you a bus pass, yet you still have to pay to get home. Communists, the lot of them. >:U

Welcome

Welcome to McGizzle's blog.  Here will be located the incredibly exciting stories of Mr. McGizzle.  I hope you shall enjoy them.