Tea and Hot Cross Buns make not very good blogging.

Seen as my last effort as posting was rather lame and lasted about 5 seconds, I had an urge to convey the latest feelings that have crossed my mind, the major incidents of the past weeks, and whatever else pops into my mind in the next 38 mins (I'm on the mother's laptop with no battery charger available at the present time).

And so it begins. Over the past month or so, I have been to 2 parties, a 3rd will take place in just under 24 hours, and, truth be told, drunkeness has occured both times. And fair play, I adore it. My mum keeps whittering on about me being sick once after a Sixth Form party last year, when I've been drunk 5 times. So being sick once is a cause for panic? Anyhow, both parties were of the epic variety. I think the first party (an 18th birthday) contained much more drink than the second, meaning my intoxication was much larger, but both were just awesome. And the biggest discovery of both those parties? I got served. Both times. The most impressive was the latter party, due to many being ID'd, besides yours truly. My apologies for bragging, but I'm still dumbfounded today. Intoxication makes me laugh, and seeing as I was complimented for the fact that I'm, I quote, "awesome when I'm drunk", I see that as a success. Aplogies once again.

In other news, good television has returned to our screens as big as Robbie Williams' come back performance on the X Factor...back with a bang and high as a kite. I really don't know if that makes any sense at all, but I had to mention Robbie Williams being high on live TV at some point. Yes, Fringe has returned, and a new current sensation, FlashForward, has just begun. And both are excellent. Fringe is brilliant anyway, but for sadly predictable endings in both episodes so far. FlashForward is different, and it's very, very good. Opening up so many different questions in the first 3 episodes, reminiscent of Lost, the other superb ABC Network programme, which by the by, is fast approaching it's final series, which begins in January 2010, something that will undoubtedly confuse and grip us all, right to it's last seconds. I hope. Oh, I almost forgot, True Blood, a (sort of) new vampire drama has started on Channel 4, and I'm as hooked as a fish being caught with a...well, hook. Damn, my imagination isn't working today.

Remaining with television, Heroes should also return soon, and in a shock twist that's utterly brilliant, Hayden Panettierre will have a lesbian relationship. Victory.

With 19 minutesand 14% remaining on the batter, I will bid yee good day, after another rather limp attempt at blogging. I should hope to be intoxicated once more in around 23 hours, oh yes.

Fare thee well, young grasshopper.

Insatiable, inflatable you.

Apologies for the more than random title. There is a reason for it, don't you worry. I have recently (very recently, as recently as around 12 o' clock this afternoon in fact) been introduced to a man named Tim Minchin. You may not have heard of him, I hadn't, but I find this one song, absolutely hilarious.



Back to normality. How long has it been since my last post? 8 days? Something like that, and nothing has really happened, but I thought I'd fill you in on the minor details.

The group in which I am part of has decided to make the venture to Ibiza next summer, which I am bloomin' excited for. It's a week in a different country, away from prying parents, with almost complete freedom. Crackin' stuff. And we have a plan. A plan that was conjured by myself and Ffion (partially) to go to the Waterpark in Ibiza...drunk. How abolsutely bloody hilarious would that be? I'd love it, and can't wait for it!

In other news, Chelsea beat Liverpool 2-0. Win.

And I honestly think that's it. Except for the holiday and that Electra (what we're studying in Drama) is the most confusing drama in history and am finding it impossible to get my head around, it's been a terribly uneventful week.

Crib, anyone?

The voice in my head said so.

With Sixth Form swinging in full swing, I thought it was time to fill all my avid readers (ahem) about the latest shenanigans that have bequeathed the world of Sixth Form in the past weeks, with excruciating detail that Stephanie Meyer would envy.

The post that has most recently graced your computer screen was one on the subject of Nottingham University, and how it has taken it's spot as the gold medal winner in the marathon that was getting yours truly into our University. And I would just like to clarify Nottingham's victory, one final time.

NOTTINGHAM FOR THE VICTORY.

Moving as swiftly forward as Usain Bolt succeeding in catching what he thought was his missed bus.

Now, where to begin? My A Levels have gotten into gear 5 already - except for the Menna Lewis half of my Drama course, where we haven't even started. History is as interesting as ever, with the Third Reich being the main character in my upcoming coursework, played by the main man himself, Peter Griffin. Yes, I have decided to write my coursework in the style of Peter Griffin*, with the inclusion of flashbacks that coincide with the context of the pre-written sentence.

I would like you the reader to know that 5 minutes has passed since I wrote the last word of that paragraph. The whole time spent trying to think of a Peter Griffin-ism that would undoubtedly make you chuckle, either in your head, or out loud. Sadly, no such hilarious moment has passed...like that time I was a stand-up comedian. Gah, it took me a long while to think of that, and I didn't even chuckle myself, although you shouldn't really laugh at your own jokes, even though I nearly always do. Like that time tod... - I'll stop.

Anyway, where was I? Ah yes, the coursework. We've been looking at different...oh god, I've forgotten what ffynhonnellau is in English (I'm actually serious, I can't remember)...sources! Got you in the end, you sneaky word that escaped me**. Yes, we've been looking at sources and evaluating them and thinking how useful they may or may not be in our essay. Which, by the way, has to be 4000 words. 4000 words! That's...mental arithmetic (or mathemateg pen for you lucky bilingualites) coming in handy here...double a 2000 word essay! Hard does not come into the same bracket on this one. Difficult*** fits the bill, I think.

Stumbling forward like a drunkard, we've finally started reading one of our two Drama's - Electra - but we didn't get very far, due to one of the character's names. The name was Clutomnestra. Take your time to figure out why that caused us to not get very far in the play itself. I'm not going to bore you with a rant about Menna Lewis (in this post...a sequel to this post will follow in the coming weeks) but, I will say that Manon Edwards is, in my book, possibly the coolest teacher ever. That's probably why I don't like Menna Lewis actually, due to Manon Edwards being so cool, but Menna Lewis has always been an annoyance in Rhydfelen.

French. My final, and most important subject, due to this being the subject I am desperately keen to study further to University level (a sentence for my personal statement, or?), and we've started by...

--Advert break--

And now, the Sudoku Forecast.

6, 3, 8, 4, 7, 1, 9, 2 and 5.

That was the Sudoku Forecast.

--Voice over man-- Yes, we stop and put our weather on in the middle of things now, because we're ITV, and we can. Welcome back to post 23, an extract from the upcoming book, Mindless Blogging, by Rhys Bowen Jones.

...finding out that we're to study a book, a play and a number of themes involving the Media World. The book is called L'Etranger (The Outsider) about a man named Mersault who kills a man accidentally, gets arrested, sentenced to death and dies. The play is called Les Mains Sales (Crime Passionnel is the English title, but the French title literally translates to Dirty Hands), which is also about a death or a murder, but is much more interesting and tense than L'Etranger, due to it actually being well written (yes, I'm talking to you, Albert Camus). On the plus side, my French Grammar is gradually improving having discovered my Bible, in the form of a French Grammar book.

Now, I think that's just about as much as you'd like to read, am I right? My insanely random insights will naturally confuse and mind-boggle you all, but I hope you've had fun reading this post, because I know I did. We'll see what the coming months of Sixth Form life behold for this blogger. We'll see.

Said the blind man.

*I'm not actually going to write it in the style of Peter Griffin by the by, any such fool doing so would immediately get a zero. Or one mark for creativity. Or the Peter Griffin-ism being underlined by the examiner and writing "wtf?" along side it. Now that, I'd love to see.
** My my, I'm going off on all different tangents in this one, aren't I? I don't know why I'm doing it, I'm literally writing what comes into my head at that moment...Fish. Ahh, stop it!
*** I have to apologise for my rather zany humour. I thought that was quite amusing myself, but the chances are no one will actually see my joke...

Things have just become so much clearer.

Remember my blog about my hopeful Universities? Well, that blog has now lost complete relevance. My top 3 at that point were Bath, Nottingham and Oxford. One of those has vanished off the list completely, and the other has dropped into fourth place behind two new candidates. But, these new candidates have also lst all relevance, because my first choice is now, in my book, my only choice.

The University of Nottingham. "Why?" I hear the question asked in your head right now, bouncing from left to right, and it shall be answered in the coming sentences.

Saturday, 12/09/09 was the day I made the 161 mile journey down to Nottingham, approximately 3 hours and 10 minutes in the car to take a look around the University on those ever inoccuous periods of time they call open days, they being the University Board folks that decide whether a University is any good or not. We arrived at the University at around 10 AM, and started off with a look around the Catered Accomodation Hall, Willoughby. Which was, in all fairness, a very, very nice place. The rooms were big enough for all my stuff, the Dining Hall was as big as Vanessa Feltz' stomach after Christmas, and there was a lovely little bar with a widescreen TV, Sky and a Nintendo Wii. What more would an 18 year old student want? A question I found out soon after. Broadgate Park.

Broadgate Park has everything Willoughby had, but on a 1000000x scale. Broadgate is like a mini-village, with about 9 different flat buildings, it's own Londis, it's own bar and it's own common room. It's a self-catered accomodation this time, however, which means I'll have to budget my money with my other flat-mates regarding Tesco visits and so forth, but that doesn't matter, it's all part of University life.

I then made the 10 minute walk up to the Trent Building, in which I would have my French and Spanish talks. The French talk really certified that I wanted to come to Nottingham to do French, the head honcho of the French department was a really funny guy, and the courses look brilliant too. The Spanish talk, however, was not so good. The Spanish head honcho was argueably the most boring man on the planet. His English wasn't very good, as he was obviously Spanish, but he could speak it quite fluently, but that wasn't the issue. Let me give you an example.

A point this guy wanted to make was "To study Hispanic Studies, then you must learn Portuguese." How long did that take, 3 seconds? Well, this guy managed to stretch it out to over 10 minutes. Do not ask me how. And that's how the rest of the talk went. Long explanation after long explanation. And, the irony is, that right at the beginning of the talk he actually said "I apologise before hand because I won't be able to go into enough detail about the courses...". Sorry, what?

After a post that's been a long time in writing, due to the fact of me being interupted every time I went back to it, it's been rather anti-climactic.

See you soon, Nottingham. Hopefully...

Apparently, 85% of scousers admitted to having shower sex. 15% said they'd never been in prison.

Apologies for the random title. I couldn't think of anything, and it makes me laugh.

And so my final year at Ysgol Gyfun Rhydfelen has begun to a, err, not that much of a start. I went in on Friday to get my timetable, and we were set to start our lessons at lesson 3 to the end of the day. I had free lessons from lesson 3 to the end of the day. So I just sat around doing my best to socialise with all the people I didn't talk to over the summer.

Today was slightly better, sort of starting my 3 courses - Drama, History and French. I say sort of. In Drama, we were given the low down of the course and what's to come. Which is basically an amalgamation of acting (oddly) and doing an exam that sounds quite difficult to say the least. 2 and a half hours of writing, where we have to write about two drama's, and write your direction for a passage of a script we've never seen before. Fun.

In History, we got absolutely ripped into. Miss Adsett wasn't so bad, she just said she was very angry when she saw the results, but that'll be sorted in January with the re-sits. Miss Bryan-Jones however. Goodness me. She played the whole "I've never had a U" card on the class, and she's had the worst results in 30 years of teaching. So, on that basis, I'm royally fucked. I didn't get a U, but I know I'm not the best in the class by a country mile, so I need to work my bloody socks off if I want to go to University. Something I want to do more than anything.

And finally in French. To start, I'd like to say that I absolutely can't stand Miss Rees. So imagine my reaction when we realise that we have Miss Rowlands (my favourite teacher) twice, Miss West (my joint-favourite teacher) twice, and Miss Rees four times. In the space of two weeks. So we get the good teachers once a week. Brilliant. Oh, and we're studying a French script and a French book in those once-a-week lessons. And studying different themes in the twice-a-week lesson. Which sounds more difficult? Books or our current theme, La Radio? Ridiculous.

Oh, in the lesson we started our theme. That's it.

In other (literal) news, Kakutagate. Not heard of it? Maybe "Chelsea have been banned from signing any players in the Transfer Window until January 2011" will ring a bell? Yes? Now, correct me if I'm wrong, but that is slightly harsh. Let's review.

According to FIFA and FC Lens, Chelsea are guilty of "inticing" a French youngster, Gael Kakuta, into breaking his contract with FC Lens to sign for Chelsea. Okay, that sounds bad. But, what strikes me, is that FIFA have banned Chelsea because of details that they're not completely certain about. Where in the flying fudges of Hell does that make sense? Oh and about this supposed contract that Kakuta had. He'd signed an agreement with Lens when he was 14, saying that as soon as he turns 17 (the legal age to be signed for a proffesional club in France) he will sign a proffesional contract. Okay, so if Chelsea sign him before he signs that contract, it is an issue. And they did sign him before that pro contract was signed. However. You have to be at least 16 to sign an agreement. So, Lens were breaking the law when they signed that deal in the first place. So, how can Chelsea break a contract that shouldn't exist in the first place? Lens didn't get done for doing that. But as soon as they find out Chelsea are involved, bang, they forget the original rule break and blame Chelsea for everything. As usual.

Sorry for the football rant for those who don't like football. But it's something that really, really pissed me off.

To conclude, I'm going to see District 9 on Wednesday, which I can't wait for.

So long, goodbye.

In the ever bright celebrity spotlight...

20th post!

So, after what I said last post about how my blogs will change slightly into the latest news and happenings that have caught my eye, and as no such story has largely caught my eye, I shall contain two different stories about the celebrities of this blue and green ball.

By the way, I have only now noticed my blog title rhymes. I wrote it, and still didn't see it.

Did you all catch the story that Kerry Katona has been sacked from her job promoting Iceland? The shop to go to if you're having a family get together? Have you all noticed that in every advert about Iceland Katona was in, there was always around 200 people there? No? Go get a tele-box. Well, she's been sacked after a video showed her snorting cocaine. Now I'm not going to have a rant about Katona here, it's more a rant about the stupidity revolving around doing stupid things when you're a famous person, where everything you do will be found out somehow. And shopping at Iceland.

Now, we've all seen it. Front page stories in Stories of the Universe and the Nightly Moon about certain celebrities (this week, the contestant is Kerry Katona) either getting absolutely smashed in a London/Manchester/Liverpool night club - it's never places like Loughborough, or Bracknell. Always the glitzy places. Surely going to a place like Bracknellwould make you less vulnerable to the Paparazzi batallion that patrols the streets of England daily, hoping to catch the latest celebrity scandal where a female celebrity went out of her house without the biggest sunglasses she'd come accross in yesterday's Gucci sale of 0.000000000000000000000001% everything. But surely being in a place like Bracknell would aid the celebrities that do like to have more fun than the celebrities that are watched constantly. Have you ever actually seen anyone in Bracknell? I've seen many cars drive through Bracknell, including myself, but never actually stop there. I can see it now in The Extremely Hot Orange Round Thing - Bracknell Becomes Celebrity Safe Haven. Althought I doubt these tabloids know what a safe haven is.

Now, if by chance that you're reading this, and are on the verge of becoming the latest hot property this world has to offer, then you should stay away from the Londons, Manchesters and Liverpools if you want to have fun. Bracknell is where it's at.

The second story that caught my eye is one that I find absolutely scandalous. The Calum Davenport incident. Heard of it? A young, English, 26 year old West Ham centre back was stabbed in the last few days, in both legs. His mother too. It's absolutely awful. A centre back that I believe had a chance at an England call up for the World Cup next summer, his career has been cut short by two lunatics with knives. Now these people don't deserve to see the outside of a jail cell ever again. And do you know what they've been charged with? Grevious Bodily Harm and Accidental Bodily Harm. And that's the scandalous part. Accidental? So you, Mr. Judge, have come to the conclusion that these guys accidentally broke into Davenports house, accidentally brought a knife with them, and accidentally stabbed Calum and his mother in both legs? I can really see where you're coming from with that. The latest news is that the mother is okay, she wasn't badly hurt, but that Calum Davenport may actually lose a leg. That's just awful. He's only 26! Chrissake.

I think that ends this rant of a post. And in all honesty, I didn't like that style of blog. I'll stick to the updates of my life, thank you very much.

So long, farewell, auf Weidersehn and good night.

When life gets you down...oh wait, it doesn't.

With a matter of days until I turn the magic 17, I was sadly anticipating a very depressed magic day. The 20th of August had been billed to depress the life out of me, but it had actually done the exact opposite.

I have never been so happy in my life.

Before I write about today, it may interest you to know what I have been doing since my return from Transatlantica. Well, let's travel back to the day I wrote my blog. So I wrote the blog...and I fell asleep. Okay, fun day there. The day after I seem to recall that's when I went to the cinema to see Orphan...yes, it was, with Ffion, Adam and Sarah. Was a good film too, check out my Film Reviews for full details. And after that, I guess I returned home at around 10:30PM, and I think I went to sleep. Jet lag really is a pain in the derriere.

Then other not very interesting things happened that I won't write about because it probably contains sleep, sleeping, going to bed, and crashing out on the sofa. Take your pick and fullfil the rest of my week until this very moment. This is turning interactive now! I'll give you some time to choose what I did before I move on.

So. Seen the weather? It's been pretty good recently, hasn't it? Yes.

Okay, chosen? Good. If you chose "sleep", it shows you're a very lazy person, like me. If you chose "sleeping", how do you think I'm writing this blog if I'm sleeping? Silly person. If you chose "going to bed", it really is past your bed time. And if you chose "crashing out on the sofa", it shows you're hardcore, and have just been drinking all night long and have been sick all over the front door. Rock hard.

Sorry for that slight detour from the blog, I have a minor case of writer's block at the minute, so my writing isn't flowing very well, and as a result this will probably be a comparatively short post, in relation to my past good tidings. Oh, and it'll be full of random shit. You can handle that, yeah?

Today. I arose from my deep sleep at around 7:45, half an hour before I set my alarm. So I lay in my bed, shaking in my...bare feet?...waiting for 9:00, at which time I would depart to receive my AS Level results. So at 8:15, I changed from my pyjama bottoms into some jeans, t-shirt and a hoodie, used the toilet, washed my face then went downstairs to have some breakfast. It consisted of Weetabix, Sultanas and sugar. Absolutely delicious. Whilst eating, I watched Scuzz, which is when I discovered the new Paramore song "Ignorance" which is rather good. Wait, not good, brilliant fits the bill. Sadly though, it hasn't been released yet, and only the live version is in the vortex of wonder that is YouTube. I guess I'll have to wait a day or two before I find it on there.

Anywho, at 8:50, I woke my Dad up to drive me up to school to fetch my results. Oh, we have a new car by the way. My sister crashed my Dads old one, so we had to get a new car. I hated the old car. So my parents went car shopping, and settled upon the ever reliable Mazda. A Mazda 3 Saloon, to be precise. And it's bloody good too. So he drove me up there, dropped me off, and left. Leaving me to walk into the unknown, and collect that very ominous looking envelope. As I walked away from the table that held my envelope (it had my name on it, conveniantly) dread filled my brain. "I've failed everything, I know it, I know it." I un-sealed the envolope, hands shaking, and pulled the contents from inside, bearing my results.

Drama: A
French: B
History: C
IT: B

A smile formed accross my scared face. Colour seeped back. I'd passed. I'd passed all of them. I couldn't believe it, I read them over three times before the headmistress came over and asked me how I did, and she smiled aswell. If the female equivalent of Hitler smiles at you, you know you've done rather well. But I had to contain my complete joy until I returned home, knowing that if I celebrate too much, the people that didn't do so well would feel even worse than they already feel. That still didn't stop me being hated playfully for the morning. But on the whole, everyone did well, with only one or two mishaps. But those mishaps don't matter at all, because all will be rectified come Christmas. Well done, everyone.

And so concludes my quite story-like post about my exam results. I think the style of my blog may change slightly in the coming weeks. Not only will I tell you wonderful readers (yes, that means you CrazyDistortion) about my life, I shall be expressing my opinions on the latest stories from around the world, depending on how stupid, ridiculous or amazing the stories may be. I will find the story of a lifetime while writing these blogs however, don't you worry.

Watch this space.

A concoction of bad memory and bad jet lag.

Rhys Bowen Jones...IS BACK. Dun dun dun.

So, where to begin? Well, I think my holiday is a good start as there were only 4 days between me leaving and the end of school, in which absolutely nothing happened. So, I shall take you on a journey, in a person-with-a-deep-voice-you-always-hear-in-horror-film trailers kind of way. Or, if you want, read the dates I post in the Big Brother Geordie Narrator's voice. It could give many a chuckle, although only to me and my 5 year old mind. Actually I think I'll write the whole thing like the Geordie Guy.

The times of days I post are just random approximations, I didn't pay attention that much.

Day 1. Tuesday, July 21st. 11:04 AM.

Today is the first day of the Bowen Jones' family holiday. It's been 7 minutes since they arrived at Cardiff Central Bus Station, waiting for the 201 National Express bus to take them to Gatwick. Naturally, disaster occured for the writer of this blog. He chose the wrong place to sit on the bus, as the bus toilet leaked urine onto his hoodie on the bus floor. Not a great start for Rhys.

5:31 PM.

The Bowen Jones family arrived at Gatwick, and checked in using the Virgin Atlantic Twilight method, leaving them staying the night at the Gatwick Hilton Hotel. The rest of the night was taken up by a pleasant meal at a Gatwick Airport Pub/Restaurant that was actually very nice indeed. Then, the family went off to the room, getting some rest before the 10 hour flight to Las Vegas the next day.

Day 2. Wednesday, July 22nd. 9:12 AM.

As the Bowen Jones family were staying at the airport, there was no pre-flight rush regarding check-in and what not. But, usefully, Rhys was still using his crutch, leaving him and the rest of the family to jump nearly every queue they joined.

Ah, fuck it. I just want to write freely now. Feel free to make up some days in your head for the Geordie voice in your head to say.

So, yeah, the crutch did prove useful at the airport, but from then on, it was an absolute disaster, which I shall talk about when I start talking about Las Vegas. But, for now, back to the airport.

The flight was very painless indeed, with a good selection of films on the seat back TV's for me to watch. I watched I Love You, Man (very funny), Slumdog Millionaire (brilliant) and maybe one other film but I can't remember which one. Obviously, it wasn't very good. The return flight was a much more enjoyable one, film wise. Read on to see what enjoyment I had on that flight home, for those of you who really don't have anything better to do than read my blog.

We arrived in Vegas at around 3 PM on the Wednesday because of the time change and all that jazz, which was a bitch to try and get used to for the first few days. But anyway, we arrived in blistering heat that really thwacked you in the face as soon as you walked outside. The heat in Vegas was unbelievable. It was at least 104 Faranheit everyday, I think, which is around the 36 Celsius mark, but I'm not quite sure, because I find faranheit very confusing. 37 Faranheit is 0 Celsius? Which genius thought that up?

To Las Vegas itself. It was really nice there, but it was the most tiring place ever. Walking from hotel to hotel (well, hopping) which were so far away from eachother. They were definitely worth going to, every single one of them were just breathtakingly stunning, but couldn't they have some sort of bus service going to each place...they did, but we didn't find out about it until the 3rd day. Clever. The best hotels were the Venetian, New York New York, Paris Las Vegas and the Bellagio who were all amazing inside. Just amazing. We did a lot in the 3 nights there, but the two highlights for me were the Fremont Street Experience and the Nathan Burton Comedy Magic show.

Fremont Street was absolutely amazing. Fremont Street is the original Las Vegas before it got famous, and every night from 10pm to the easrly hours of the morning, once every half hour, the glass roof above the street comes to life. It shows a very colourful lazer show from the roof to We Will Rock You and We Are The Champions by Queen. Pictures and videos will be up on the book of my face as soon as possible.

And Nathan Burton is possibly the most amazingly hilarious show I've ever seen. I laughed harder watching that show than at Lee Evans Live and The Hangover, and for those of you who do read my film reviews, you know how much I laughed at The Hangover. There were 3 acts in the show. Nathan Burton was the magic, and 2 others were the comedy. The first comedy act was really funny, but I can't remember the guy who did it's name, sadly. But the second act was comedy genius. His name is Michael Holly and he's a comedy variety act, but he did comedy and juggling when we were there, and it was the funniest thing I've ever seen. Both me and my mum were crying with laughter - my Dad and brother were laughing, but you had to be quite zany to get his humour, and me and my mum are on a different level of zany to those two - at every line he said and everything he did. He managed to juggle TWO BOWLING BALLS and an Apple, taking a bit out of the apple at every throw. It was brilliant! But it was his comedy that was the highlight. His delivery and the way he worked the audience was absolutely hilarious, and the highlight was this: Throughout the beginning of the show (when he was juggling), he was joking about throwing a bowling ball in to the air and bouncing it on his head. He threatened to do it twice by throwing the ball up, putting his head under it, but catching the ball at the last minute. But the third time, he picked a ball up from his box, threw it up and bounced it on his head! It wasn't a real bowling ball, obviously, but the way he did it was just incredibly funny. I was still chuckling at it a week after the show! I'm smiling at it right now while writing about it! Just brilliant.

And that's it for Vegas, boy it was good. Following Vegas, we drove down to Sedona, Pheonix for two nights and it was stunning there. The place is surrounded by big red rock mountains and it's beautiful. The only thing we did in Sedona was drive down to see the Grand Canyon which was absolutely breathtaking. The scale of the place is unreal, it makes you feel so small when you stand on the edge - yes, I stood on the edge, much to the annoyance of my Mum - and it does make you think. No matter how fucked the world is right now, it still holds so many brilliant things that you just have to see. Awesome.

Then we drove down to Palm Springs, which barely deserves a mention because it was bullshit. It was only for a night to break up the 8 hour journey from Sedona to San Diego. Onwards and upwards.

San Diego is amazing. The climate is so perfect there, it's amazing. And to add to the brilliance, our hotel was home to a huge gig venue, that our hotel room had a balcony view of! George Thoroughgood and Earth, Wind and Fire were performing, and they were okay. Thoroughgood was okay, and guaranteed every single person that reads this will know his song Bad To The Bone. YouTube it if you don't believe me. You'll know it, guaranteed. We stayed there for 3 nights and then we drove a short way to San Diego harbour to go on a cruise.

WHAT?! CRUISE?! Yep, that was my reaction too. Throughout the holiday me and my brother had been told we were staying in a second hotel in San Diego to see another part of the great place, but they'd booked a cruise for us. We'd been told we were staying in the Elation Inn. To make matters worse, I didn't work out we were going on a cruise even when we drove past the thing! It was to the right as we were going over a bridge and my brother said "Look, a Carnival ship!" - Carnival Cruise Lines is the company we always cruise with, and are the best cruise line ever - and it was called the "Carnival Elation", hence the Elation Inn story, and all I said was "what a coincidence!" I still hadn't clocked it! I only realised it when our shuttle bus from the car park to take us to the ship arrived when I started jumping around shouting "We're going on a cruise! We're going on a cruise!" for about 10 minutes. The cruise was a 3 day cruise going down to Ensenada, Mexico - I didn't get off, surprisingly - but the cruise was brilliant. Unlimited free food and drink for 3 days...how awesome is that?! Totally unexpected, yet totally brilliant too.

After the cruise, we drove down to Los Angeles for the final leg of our journey around California, Nevada and Pheonix. We stayed there for 6 nights, and it was amazing. We didn't do anything on the first day except stay around the pool and go to a mall. But on the second night we went to a LA Dodgers baseball game where they played the Milwaukee Brewers, and it was so much fun! The Dodgers won it 17-4 in the end, with nearly a big fight happening at the end after the Dodgers pitcher (the one that throws the ball) hit the Brewers batter purposely in the face. I chuckled. On the third day we did the main attraction of LA - Hollywood Boulevard, aka, the Walk of Fame. And it was awesome too! To start with, there were no really big names until a short distance from the Kodak Centre and I got pictures of all the stars I was interested in - Arnie Schwarzenegger, Leonard Nimoy, Jimi Hendrix and Kermit The Frog, but to name a few. We went to the Chinese Theatre and I loved that too, with all celebrities foot and hand prints and signatures, including Johnny Dep and Rupert Grint - got pictures of those too! We then went to the Hollywood sign and got pictures of that! Awesome day! But the next one was so amazingly incredible, that it'll get it's own paragraph...DUN DUN DUN.

Six. Flags. Magic. Mountain. The. Greatest. Theme park. Ever. And that's no word of a lie, I absolutely love it. There is so much to do there - we spent nearly 11 hours at the park and still didn't manage to do everything. There were 11 huge rollercoasters there and I think I managed to do 8 of them - Deja Vu, Terminator Salvation: The Ride, Deja Vu, Goliath, The Goldrusher, Batman: The Ride, Tatsu and X2. Missing out on Superman: The Ride, Colossus and Riddler's Revenge. We then threw in little rides like Go Kart racing and a couple of shows. Amazing day, but X2 is easily the highlight of the day. Actually, the whole-freaking-holiday! It was beyond insane. Basically, it's a ride with loops, corkscrews, and 3 vertical drops. Oh and your seat spins forwards and backwards as you go along the ride, with the train travelling at over 70 MPH. Absolutely freaking mental, and I loved every single second of it. Except when I banged my leg on a railing in the queue. Ouch.

After Six Flags on the next day, we went to a mall and I went to the cinema and saw G-Force (see film review for full details) with my brother and fell in love with American Cinemas. They're amazing! So comfortable, screens are huge, really really good quality, just awesome! Then the final day we packed and went to Pasadena, which wasn't all that much really. And so it ended. Easily the best 18 days of my life, and an amazing first half to the summer. Hopefully next year will top at after my free house for two weeks! SCORE. But still, awesome 3 weeks, fair play.

Oh I almost forgot - the flight home was epic too. 9 hours and 25 minutes watching films. Awesome. Watched Watchmen (was okay, too long though), Coraline (best kids film I've ever seen!), Observe and Report (funny, but very very weird...), tried to watch 17 Again, got bored, and started watching Miss March which has to be the worst first 20 minutes of a film I've ever seen, so I left it. Slept for maybe an hour, then watched an episode of The Big Bang Theory (now one of my favourite tv shows) and Live at the Apollo with Michael McIntyre, Rich Hall and Rhod Gilbert (funniest episode ever). Was good fun!

And finally, I shall give a mention to something I like to call The Converse Girls. Basically, every single girl I saw wearing converse was hot. This blog has sunken to an all time low, but America has some really pretty girls living there. And when you've seen one or two by the pool, you know you just have to live there.

Sorry, that was one of my less well written posts, but there was so much to put in, I just had to write at all out.

Ho hum, and that ends my biggest blog to date. Hope you had fun reading it, though I doubt you did.

Au revoir, pour maintenant. Hmm, doesn't have the same ring as "Ciao for now".

The end is beginning.

I'm sure I've already done a post titled similar to that. Which only shows that I have the imagination of a pig. A pig that spends all day rolling around in its own shit. A pig that does nothing but eat cabbage. A pig with AIDS. A fucked up pig. I have no idea where that came from.

So the end of Year 12 has officially come to an end, with the similarly titled blog being the unofficial end to Year 12. But it's official. I have one year left at Ysgol Gyfun Rhydfelen. Yes, I do maintain the stance that the name of the school is Rhydfelen. It's a lost cause now, oh yes, but I still the school is and always will be Rhydfelen. Good boy, Rhys, pat on the back for you. But to end the year on an unbelievably high note, I was voted as Prif Swyddog (Head Boy for the non-Welsh speakers) by my fellow Sixth-Formers and Teachers! I was so shocked when Tabatha (Headmistress) announced that it was Osian and I (oh, grammar, very good) who were the Prif Swyddogion! Rhys and Gwennan got Deputies, thoroughly deserved too, I thought it was those two that would've been Prif Swyddogion, truth be told. But, oh my, I couldn't believe it. Hopefully I'll do well and shall do my best to fulfill the Sixth-Formers wants and needs.

So, 6 weeks now until the first day back on September 4th. Which is a Friday. It begs the question, why? Could you not give us that extra weekend? Is it so hard? Bloody whoever-chose-the-dates-for-the-school-term.

I'm now packing for my venture to California. Be it updating the old MP3, or just packing my bag, I will be doing something productive towards California. I won't bore you with all the rollercoaster business, but I really can't wait. Should be the highlight of my holiday, that.

In other news, my local Borders is closing down. It hasn't been there for very long, but it's closing down. Which is very tragic. But it's got a 50%-off-everything-closing-down-sale. Which is very good. I went down there on this very day to get some new Summer reading material, and came out with two books. The first of which is called "Altered Carbon", a novel by Richard Morgan, and it seems awesome. It's about an Anti-Hero named Takeshi Kovacs, and it's set in the 26th century. Like a futuristic superhero thriller story. And the second is called Auslander, meaning The Foreigner, is set in 1943 Berlin, about a young German boy who has all the credentials to be the perfect member of Hitler Youth. But he doesn't want to be a Nazi, so he runs away. Which seems awesome too. Good stuff.

This is a relatively short post compared to past posts, but it gives me something to do. But this is my fond farewell from blogger for around 3 weeks.

California awaits.

Badoodadoodadoozy.

No, the title isn't a random combination of keys that a cat could've done. But yes, it is lame, yet also amused me muchly everytime I heard it. I'll explain later.

And so, the final week of school is upon me. But, more importantly, it's a mere 9 days until I make the venture all the way to Nevada/California. And I absolutely can't wait. The final 6 days should be the best of it. Los Angeles, and more importantly for me, Six Flags Magic Mountain. Home to a number of absolutely outstanding rollercoasters. Go have a look on the website if you don't believe me. And YouTube is a good source for the rides too.

Anyway, a sum up of the recent times.

Monday, I made the trip over to Oakwood (a theme park) with Year 7, and I had a really good day out there. Megaphobia is the classic Oakwood coaster that everyone goes on, and always loves. Then we have the likes of Bounce, Hydro and Speed. Bounce is not very exciting nowadays as I've grown up a bit, but Hydro and Speed are the bees knees. I didn't get a chance to go on Hydro this time, sadly, but it's still a cracking ride. And then Speed is pure brilliance. But I think I blacked out for a few seconds half-way through, as I can't remember anything after the picture, but before the corkscrew. Oh well.

Tuesday, fuck all happened.

Wednesday I went to Paris, once again with Year 7. Fair play to them, they're a really good laugh. Wednesday was just travelling all the way to Paris, so nothing very exciting happened. Thursday we went to Park Asterix, which is home to possibly the best rollercoaster (wow, rollercoasters have featured a lot in this blog) I've ever been on, despite the uncanny resemblance to the rollercoaster in Final Destination 3, except the fact that I didn't, err, die halfway through the ride. But anyhow, there was a number we went around with - Me, Andrew, Mirain, Emily, Gareth (the pie), Tom (yes, from Pobol Y Cwm!), Nathan, Carys, Amy and Hannah - and it was a whole lotta fun! Despite Gareth being the most annoying Year 7er ever to have been reproduced. Ho hum, no day can ever be perfect. And Thursday night we went on a boat ride along the River Seine and it was absolutely stunning. Paris is just an amazing city, that I hope to live in one day. Be it right after University, or when I retire, I will live there one day. Friday, then, was travelling home. And it was a really good laugh again. Me and a Year 7er have a little phrase going (well, it's not really a phrase, just an amalgamation of letters that make a rather amusing end product) which goes like the title says. Badoodadoodadoozy. I have no idea why I find it hilarious (well, not really hilarious, it just makes me chuckle whenever I hear it), but I do. Which connects to something I really did find hilarious on the bus home from Paris on Thursday night, which was one Year 7er sneezing rather wildly. That's all it was, and yet I was laughing uncontrollably for around 15 minutes. That's just me, get used to it.

Now I have one week left before the school term as finished, where I will have absolutely nothing to do all week, except for Thursday, where I'm in charge of the Bungee Run during the school's "Fun Day" which should, surprisingly, be fun.

In other news, it seems that one Bethan Hughes has screwed her knee in, in very similar fashion to what I did. Ligament damage and all that jazz. Except hers was done whilst playing football, and mine whilst skiing. Get well soon kiddo!

And so ends my post for this evening. I have Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince to look forward to on Wednesday - for those of you who do read my film reviews (yes, the both of you), I will review it on Wednesday night - which I cannot wait to see.

Ciao.