Last night was ZOMBIE NIGHT, which involved us going to Glem and Narie's to play the Zombies!!! boardgame whilst watching the cinematic classics Braindead, Return of the Living Dead, and Evil Dead 2. I had a fun time though the game did go on a bit. The event cards in the game add a random factor that makes it a lot more interesting than it would be otherwise. However the main factor they seemed to add was that whenever it looked like someone might win then everyone else fucked them over. So it took ages before anyone managed to actually get to the end and win. Good game though.

So what have I been up to in recent weeks? Well I went to see Franz Ferdinand and the Fiery Furnaces in Liverpool. Sadly we fucked up the directions and actually managed to go to the wrong Academy! So we missed half the Furnaces set. Still, they seemed pretty cool. Franz Ferdinand were okay but I felt the same vague disinterest I did when listening to the album. The singles are great but the rest of their stuff generally sounds like crapper versions of them. They're a quite good band but I find it hard to understand why people are getting particularly excited about them, I suspect it has something to do with the NME going on about how "important" they apparently are.

Actually the most exciting part of the night was probably standing behind the two foxy ladies from Ladytron during the gig. I resisted the urge to stalk them after the gig, but it was difficult.

A week or so later we went to the Carling Academy again to see The Stills and The Walkmen. The Stills were quite good, I like the album but again they fail to excite me. I think I was also put off a bit by the occasional cheesy shit they'd come out with between songs, like "You guys are AWESOME!" or the worst excuse ever for playing an encore ("Hey, you guys are great! We were meant to be stopping now but that's just bullshit and unfair, so we're going to play some more music!" - so, you mean you weren't meant to be playing an encore? How come you didn't turn off your instruments or that big animated banner thing behind you then?).

However the biggest thing to spoil it for them was that they were playing after the Walkmen, who were every bit as exciting live as I'd hoped they'd be. Hamilton Leithauser spent most of the gig looking like his entire face was going to burst and spray blood over the front few rows of people. They played most of my favourite tracks off the two albums, and for the most part they sound as tight live as they do on recordings. You can tell these lot have been around for a while because they're just so good at what they do. Aceness.

We also went on a big trip to Rockworld in Manchester at the behest of Christian. It was alright. They had an indie room which I spent most of the night skulking in, the DJ was okay but the choice of music was generally a bit bland. I guess I was hoping for something a bit hipper seeing as I was in the Big City and all. Ah well. And sweet jesus the drinks were expensive! It was a nice night though and we got to hang out with Zac, who I haven't seen since my days at Waterstones, so that was cool.

Meanwhile, in the modern day, I guess I'm concentrating on trying to get ready for this new job, though I seem to have failed to actually do any exciting CSS revision as of yet. Plus I appear to be having my head pickled by certain ladies in my life. I'm so the worst person at recognising signals, or knowing what to do when I get them. Still, I think I'm slowly improving. Though at something not unlike the rate of glacial movement.