I'm now finally starting my third and (hopefully) final year in college studying vehicle maintenence and repair. If I pass this year, I'll have my diploma and will be out in the real world looking for a garage to take me on. Yet again, loads of people have dropped out or not made it into the third year. Last year, there was about 45 students. This year, there's only 10 I know most of them which is good but it's a shame so many people didn't make it or chose not to continue.

In other news, I went to see Muse last Friday at their homecoming gig in Teignmouth, the first time they've played there in 15 years. They put on a hell of a show, it really was an awesome night. There were a few local bands supporting, one being a guy called Cosmo Jarvis with songs such as "Mummy's Been Drinking Again" and "Sebastian the Gay Pirate". An odd guy but was pretty funny.

I don't wanna go back to college

Or college in this case. I'm done for the summer

The good news is I got my Xbox back

The bad news is this. Swine flu has come to my town! I know everyone says don't panic but when something is all over the news like this, you can't help but be a little worried, especially when it's so close to home.

My Xbox got the bloody 3 reds

This is the second time this has happened to me so I'll be getting my third Xbox when it returns. The first one lasted from release until Christmas '07. That one lasted until yesterday. I've just spent ten minutes on the phone with some stupid robot thing before I got the chance to speak to a real person. She was actually really helpful and we got everything sorted in about five minutes but that robot made me want to kill someone.

Now I have to go two weeks without my xbox and I've just bought Test Drive Unlimited nice and cheap

It's my 19th birthday!

I haven't asked for anything so I'm just getting money thrown my way which I'm fine with.

I was supposed to be having a lie in as it's my day off college but, because everyone else still has school and work, they were all kind enough to wake me up one by one before they left to wish me happy birthday evil peoples

EDIT: Today also just so happens to be the birthday of the constantly hyper, smiley obsessed, wonderfully insane Hamda A.K.A Princess Jill so go over to her blog and give her some love.

New bloggy time, mainly because it's really starting to annoy me seeing "Happy New Year!" every time I come to check blogs seeing as it was over two months ago now.

Today was the second attempt at going to Morgan, the first being foiled by a sick tour guide. This time, I was at the college at 5:45am in the cold when our lecturer brought around the minibus.

After four hours driving on an endless motorway, broken up by trips to the services and bouts of loud, off-key group singing of such classics as In The Jungle and I Would Walk 500 Miles, we finally arrived.

Morgan from the outside isn't all that impressive, just looking like five or so brick workshops but inside is a different matter. Each building is dedicated to a certain part of the car's construction, whether it be creating the body panels or the chassis etc. From what I saw, there was only twenty-ish guys working there at the time which makes what they do all the more astounding. To hand build a car, including cutting out and carving the wooden chassis plus cutting and shaping all the metal for the body and panels, in four weeks is no easy feat. An apprenticeship with them lasts five years before you're qualified to start building them yourself.

Each car takes about four weeks to build and every single part of it's construction goes under scrupulous inspections and checks. I saw a guy trimming down a side wing for an Aeromax because it was 0.2 of a milimetre out. All of the guys there really take pride in their work and seem to love doing it. Whenever I asked any of them about exactly what the do there, they went on about how lucky they are to do what they do and how much they enjoy it and wouldn't trade it for the world etc. One of the techs had been there for fifty years and was still as passionate as anyone else about his job.

Once I can get my phone to start behaving and connect to my laptop properly, I post some pics I took. I don't know how they'll turn out though, my phone's pretty old now and the quality isn't very good but I'll post what I can when I can.

*EDIT*

Like I thought, the quality of the pictures is pretty crappy but you can see what they are...more or less.

1) The chassis of an Aeromax

2) An Aeromax (complete with Steve grabbing his crotch)

3)The hydrogen powered concept car

4) A Morgan bed!

5)The first ever Morgan put into production

A late Merry Christmas to the lot of you!

I've been busy for the past few days which is why I haven't posted this sooner. Hope you all had a good one, mine was great. I got a whole bunch of DVDs (Dark Knight, Iron Man and the complete Black Books boxset to name a few) and Gears 2 and Fallout 3. I also amassed a nice £350 in cash which I've already spent on a new laptop which I'm using to type this. It's nothing fancy but it can surf the web which is good enough for me.

It's also my niece's first Christmas so we went round to see her yesterday. She doesn't have a clue what's going on, she just likes all the flashy lights and new toys she's been surrounded with.

Hope you all have a good new year, prizes for the first person to succumb to alcohol poisoning.

I've been looking forward to this day since I was told about it, today me and my class were going to the Morgan car factory. At nine in the morning we were standing outside the automotive block in the freezing cold whilst we waited for the lecturer to bring the minibus around. Turns out the reason we had to wait so long was because he was putting faults on the van for us to repair. Once we'd replaced the HT cables we finally set off.

Once we were on the main road to Exeter, our lecturer received a phone call (and got pelted by Skittles for being a naughty man and speaking on the phone whilst driving) from Morgan and it turned out that our contact there had phoned in sick so we couldn't go and had to turn around at the services. Now we have to reschedule and won't be able to go until after Christmas

On that note, it's the 1st of December today, nearly Christmas! All the cheap decorations have gone up at college and annoying Christmas songs are all over the radio waves but it wouldn't be the Christmas season without them. I haven't bought my advent calender yet, I'm on the lookout for one of the ones that go all the way up to new year

As part of my course in college, I was offered the chance for a two day work experience placing. Figuring that'd it'd help me get into the automotive industry, I took it. Now that I've finished it, I think it's safe to say the entire business is run and populated by raving lunatics.

In my first day, I was assigned to help a 5ft tall man named Lloyd. His height caused obvious problems. Whenever he raised a car ramp to his head height to go under it, it had just reached my shoulders so I ended up banging my head a lot, much to his amusement. Once we'd complete a few services, we had to remove the exhaust off of a Transit that was leaking oil into the cat. Watching him drive it was one of the funniest things I've seen in a long time. It would have looked like it was driving itself if not for the pair of knuckles on top of the steering wheel and the top of a balding head just visible through the windscreen.

The next day, I was with a guy named Lee who liked to solve problems by shouting and swearing them into submission. Our first job was to remove the brake pads off an old Fiesta. I got my side off without too much hassle but Lee had found himself with a rusted bolt. Instead of spraying a little lubricant on it and waiting for it to ease up a bit, he decided to loosen the bolt by telling it how much he hated it's mother and applying large amounts of brute force. An unorthodox method but eventually came free.

I think the only sane guy I met was the apprentice, Neil, but I think that's just because he hadn't been there long. A few more years and he'll be just like them. Shouting, swearing and brandishing a hammer at any car that dares to disobey him.

Today, an important man in my life died

His name was Ivor and I've know him since I was born. He's always been there to offer advice and taught me a lot. He suffered a heart attack this morning. The ambulance arrived but it was too late and he died in his wife's arms.

Looking back, I feel guilty because he taught me so much and helped me whenever I needed it yet I knew so little about him. I never asked him how he lost his eye or how old he was. I don't even know his last name. What makes this worse is that in times like this, I'd ask him for advice which constantly reminds me that he's gone.

He was part of the scenery around here, every morning he'd be watering this plants and say hello as I left for college. Everyone in my street knew and loved him but no-one more than his wife Eileen. They were inseparable, they were Ivor and Eileen. I spoke to Eileen a few hours ago and she's inconsolable. She blames herself because she didn't ring the ambulance fast enough. I tried to tell her otherwise but she wasn't having any of it.

I don't care if anyone reads this or not, I just needed to vent. Newspaper obituaries never do people justice and he deserves to have something nice written about him somewhere, even if it is in some corner of the internet no-one will ever visit.

It's been almost a month since I wrote a blog so I'm writing one now.

College is back in full swing and I've been thrown in at the deep end with three written phase tests in the first six weeks which is kind of daunting. I've already passed two with an 88% and an 84% which I'm chuffed about with the third on this Thursday. It was kind of surprising how few people returned for the second year. Of the sixteen people in my group last year, only five have come back. I'd only met most of them that year but it's still a shame to see them go, especially those who passed last year. It's a waste of talent methinks.

Also, I've robbed my little brother's copy of VP: Trouble in Paradise which is basically exactly the same as the first one but more annoying. Some guy in a stupid hat keeps smashing my pinatas, he seems to target the artic/desert pinatas which means I have to catch them again before I can make them a resident. I prefer the first, it's much simpler. Like me.

I'm still looking to pick up Death Magnetic by Metallica but, from what I've heard, it's like St. Anger all over again. Convince me to buy it, I really want it to be good but I'm cautious.

Yep, back to college .

I'm starting college proper this Monday but today I had to go in and re-enrol so I got all my GCSE grades, my grades from my previous year at college, my proof of age, put it in a nice, neat folder....and forgot to take it with me

Luckily, because I was there last year, they had all my details on their system so they just pulled them up and all was good. I've got to go in again tomorrow for some welcoming thing and to pick up my new student ID and timetable.

I've got to go and pick up some new boots and overalls this weekend then I'll be all set. I'm not looking forward to having to get up at 07:00 every morning again but once I get back into the swing of things it'll be alright.

My kindey stones are gone

I went to the hospital today for another CT scan which showed that I was stone free. That means no more stupid pain, no more pills that make me unsafe to use a toaster and no more hospital visits.

A few days ago I decided to keep track of how much I drink a day and it turns out I'm only drinking just under a litre a day which is bordering on plain dangerous. I'm lucky I didn't get anything more serious. Needless to say, I'm drinking more now.

Yep, I've got kidney stones

I was admitted into hospital on Thursday night with suspected appendicitis so the very kind people at the hospital felt it would be best for me to sit around for three hours before being seen. Who says the NHS is bad?

After this, I got some junior doctor who stabbed me three times before finally placing my IV drip after which I was able to get some sleep with the exception of being woken up every few hours to have my blood pressure, pulse and temperature taken.

The next morning I was treated to cold toast and water for breakfast before getting an X-ray and CT scan which showed that my appendix is not trying to blow up and I have kidney stones instead. Apparently I have them due to dehydration which I find hard to believe seeing as I down pints of milk a day.

Anyway, I've just been released with a lot of drugs so I'm spending most my day high as a kite. I like it

The summer always has its irratances what with the heat, humidity, sweat and, more commonly than all those in our country, rain. But one of the many curses of living in a resort area like Torbay has to be the tourists.

Now often, they don't cause much trouble. They come, clog up the traffic and leave. Nice and easy, gone within the week but yesterday in town I saw something I was just appalled with.

Everyone knows pigeons gather in town centres. That's not unusual or odd at all but what was unusual and odd was a group of French girls running around trying to kick them! Now, if you kick your pigeons in your country then fair enough but how dare you come to MY country and kick MY pigeons!

Crazy tourists...

Only a little blog today, just thought I'd spread the word. GameSpot have released a BETA of a new site layout at beta.gamespot.com which looks worryingly like Giant Bomb which I wrote about in my previous blog. Seriously, the resemblance is far too close for my liking. Has Giant Bomb made GameSpot so worried they've had to copy the layout of it?

Post what you think of the new layout in the comments.

As most people know, Giant bomb launched this week. For those who don't know what it is, it's a new gaming site by ex-GameSpot editors Jeff Gerstmann and Ryan Davis and a few other GameSpotters. I've recently tried it out and, honestly, I don't like it.

People have been heralding it like the second coming of Christ. I visted the site and it's just a big cluttered mess. The forum is just a massive page of black and white, no clear line between threads, it's just chaos. They'll probably clean it up eventually but as it is, I'm not liking it.

As well as this, I found it annoyingly hard to edit my profile. I already had the codes for my avatar and signature because I copied them directly from GameSpot but, annoyingly, I found nowhere to put them. Again, I'm sure it'll be tidied up but I'll stick to GameSpot until that happens.

I have had the worst sleep this whole week because some stupid bloody owl has moved into the small wooded area behind my house. It just sits on the branch hooting all damn night long! I know it's an owl because I've seen the big brown git sat out there, it's an evil thing! It was going for almost 2 hours straight last night. Two hours of solid hooting! What's worse is I can't do anything to get rid of the stupid thing because they're protected birds so I have to wait for it to get bored and move on.

As well as this, a sparrowhawk has started poaching birds that come to eat off the bird table in my back garden. Whenever a bird gets the munchies and goes to the table, the stupid thing swoops at them. Seriously, I've seen it just flying laps around my garden waiting for some poor little bird to attack. It's like the chav of the bird world, it won't be long until it's wearing gold chains and mugging people in my street.

Finally, I had the most bizarre night of my life last night. I was just drifting off to sleep, trying to block out the owl, when instead of a hooting I heard a massive "HONK!" in my back garden. Understandably, I damn near soiled myself. I took a peek out my window but it was too dark to really make anything out, I just saw a weird shape moving around in the darkness. I flicked the switch on the spotlight outside and there's a sodding goose in my back garden! What I don't understand is how it got there. My house is nowhere near any ponds, lakes, rivers or any popular goose clubs and, as far as I know, they're not migrating at the moment so why on earth is there a goose in my garden? It flew off when I turned on the spotlight, I'll try and get a picture of it if it comes back again.

What have I ever done to the bird kingdom to deserve this?