No fencing for me.

So usually on a Wednesday I'd be going fencing, poking people with swords is great exercise and I dun't really do much else in the way of serious physical activity.  However a couple of weeks ago I was in a motorbike accident and damaged my knee.  Luckily the bike was fine so I didn't have to pay for repairs or mess about with insurance or anything.  But still, kind of annoyed about not being able to fence.

On an unrelated note, does anyone know any good UK websites where you can buy steel welding wire?  Apparently it's good for making chainmail out of, and cheap, so that would be handy for making my shirt.

Playing live for the first time.

In about a week and a half I'll be playing live with my band for the first time.  We're a folky acousticy kind of band and we'll be playing at a local pub.  We've got all the live musical gear we need, monitors, PA, etc, but I'm pretty nervous.  I keep thinking I'm going to mess up and ruin it for everyone else. Can any performers out there give me any tips on how to avoid nerves?

World of Tanks

World of Tanks is a free online multiplayer game based around tank combat, specifically tanks from around the World War II period.  You start with a couple of very early (and rubbish) tank, which you can use in battle.  A battle consists of 15 tanks on each team fighting out over one of about 10 different maps, where one side wins once they have either destroyed all enemy tanks, or captured the enemy's base.  You have full control of your tank, using WASD to move and the mouse to move your turret and fire.

Screenshot of gameplay.

Every battle gets you experience and money which you can spend on repairing and upgrading/customising your tank.  Eventually you'll get enough experience to research a whole new tank.  There's a tech tree system with numerous classes of tank, include Tank Destroyers and Artillery as well as Light, Medium and Heavy tanks.  That should be enough information for now, if anyone wants to know anything more, just ask in a comment.

http://www.worldoftanks.com/

Riffs and Tanks

I worked on the song yesterday, and though it's not really resembling a song at the moment, the basis is there.  I've come up with about five different guitar riffs which I'll add together, create a backing track for, and "sing" over the top of.  Here's four of the riffs:
Thrashy by Cowbacca
The intro is rather slow and lasts 'til about 0:40 so skip to there if you want.  Also apologies for the poor quality and playing. =P

In other news, I've been playing an awesome online game about World War Two tanks called World of Tanks.  I might do a post about that sometime.  Driving a big box of steel with a huge gun on is rather fun.

Maille and Music

I'm thinking about writing a song today.  I've got a guitar, some tin whistles, a keyboard, a melodica and a harmonica to play about with, but no idea what I could make the song about.  I'm open to suggestions from anyone.

Also in the plan for today is to finish off a silver chainmaille bracelet I started yesterday.  I'm trying to decide how much I should charge for it, so I may put up a picture later and see what you guys think.

Back.

Sorry I've been away for ages everyone.  I kind of forgot about this.  But now I'm back, I'll be making some more posts and checking out other people's blogs.

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!