Staines Part 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000

For the octillionth time, I’ve been to Staines! I said I wouldn’t write about milkshakes again, but I lied. As far as I’m aware, I may have done multiple times before even. Cheeky Simon. But before that, because I’m super nice I thought I’d promote another super nice musician called Christian Culak. He asked me if I wanted to attend his online Bandcamp party, but sadly I’ll be snug in bed at the time. You however, may not be. Perhaps you’re a hardcore person who is awake at ONE A.M. (!), or maybe you live in another timezone. If both applies to you, what can I say? Wowee. Badass and interesting at the same time. :) I’m sure his party will be a good party, as I was very happy with his album he’ll be showing, and that I reviewed for Metal Rules. I gave it a solid 4.5/5! Not every day I do that, that’s for sure, so check it out. It’s a little on the depressing side, sure, but if you can handle listening to bands like Alice in Chains for an hour or so without any problems, I’m sure you’ll love Culak. And if you LIKE Alice in Chains, but with orchestras and djent guitars? Perfect. If you don’t know what djent is, the genre has chugging riffs, think the sounds made by locomotives. Chug-chug-chug, etc. Alice in Trains! Anyway, here’s the link to the party!

https://culak.bandcamp.com/merch/dreamforge-listening-party-premiere

Anyway, Staines. I must have gone to the town for another reason than a milkshake and maybe an album or two?? Yes, I wore out one of my shoes out at the gym again, so time to get some new ones! At least I thought I did. Actually, in the gym I was wearing an old shoe I wore out ages ago. Yes that’s right, I very recently wore two odd shoes to the exercising place! One old, and one new. I really should have spotted how I was wearing odd shoes on closer inspection in the centre, when I finally noticed the wear and tear, but naturally I didn’t. In fact I was comparing my left and right shoe for ages, to see if they had any more weaknesses I should worry about. Only a day later did I understand where I went wrong. For a while, a very, very, very small part of me was thinking maybe the damaged shoe was an extra incentive, a sign maybe, for going to Staines. Nope, because as explained, it wasn’t damaged. And don’t people usually say or imply signs are important, not about things such as buying shakes or shoes? Maybe signs for me work differently. If I believed in them, anyway!

Moving on, in the CD shop, I picked up a completely white album by Foo Fighters. It didn’t seem to have any information on it anyway, so I couldn’t check the release date (in general older albums by artists are better, but maybe FF are different because they’re fighters… fighters of foo…) and not only that, it wasn’t even an original idea, the Beatles did the white album! I’m sure that was equally annoying - people like to have complete certainty in what they’re buying. Would you like a vague car salesman who could either be selling a van or a Ferrari and explained that you should take your chances? Of course not. Yes, that’s a lot more extreme, but not so much if you like to buy lots of uni-colour albums. So there. Ok, when I got the album home, I could see some very faint writing on the cover, but had my vision not been on point (with the help of glasses naturally) I wouldn’t have been able to read a word. Get your act together. And what if a troll put an album by another artist in the Foo Fighters section, thinking he’s a tough guy? I could have bought a weirdo act obsessed with either snow, birthday cake icing or white paint. Obviously they sound like awful ideas for any band.

I also bought an album by Killer. Never heard of them. The artwork of that release has a sword AND volcano on it, though! Now we’re talking. Looks much better than what could appear to be a concept album about chalk. ‘Simon! Are you crazy?? You’ve bought ANOTHER 2 albums!?’ Yes, but don’t worry, I’m not blitzing through the funds on my credit card, I’ve spent my change again. Well, my change AND card funds, anyway. Mostly the former. I used a neat trick where I got rid of my cash and used a credit card at the same time, so I didn’t have any physical money left over. Hard to explain, but it was very good! Now for the real highlight of the day - the special new shake place I recently discovered. I tried another shake this time, and I was SO wowed. Delicious wasn’t the word. I want another one right now, but I know deep down inside that’s not a good idea. But I can dream sugary thoughts for the near future; I went shopping earlier with my dad, and did get my hands on some Ferrero Rocher, that I didn’t pay for. Woo! Can’t wait. (Just another neat trick for you, I have a few, it’s just that most of them involve tricking people out of money).

What followed all that food enjoying stuff was the drive home! I could hypothetically spend a whole day in the cafe if the staff were willing to let me hang around as I at least enjoy the various smells of the foods (let’s not get diabetes by binge eating, nose binges are fine though I’m sure), but that’s a very odd thing for someone living in a real home to ask, crazy even. Best blog ever though, I think. Even simply making the request would generate some pretty interesting material. The sugar buzz soon turned to jittery annoyance however, in mild traffic. Not only that, a sign said ‘road ahead closed’! I was literally going back the exact same way I came, how could that even happen? Ah. The road wasn’t closed, the sign really said FOOTPATH ahead closed. Good. Just like I saw on the journey to Staines! I guess I’m not very logical sometimes. And finally, the Killer album is very cliched, but at least I can now claim to be at least slightly knowledgeable about old school Belgian heavy metal! Bye!