dailybooth

so, like, there's this new website you probably won't have heard of.
it's called dailybooth.com.

and there appears to be a battle between everyone to see who can get the most followers.
i guess it was bound to happen.
we're youtubers. we like attention. our egos need to be fed!

and guess what?!
i just hit 500 followers!!!
which moves me up to the 8th most followed person on the entire site.
my profile can be found here:
dailybooth.com/JohnnyDurham
you should sign up and follow me too! :P


more seriously though...
dailybooth looks like it's going to be a pretty cool site. i like the idea of being able to chronicle my life. to be able to look back a year from now and see what I looked like. after all, a lot can change in a year. i'll probably be living in a completely different place. I might have a new hair style? a beard? an third eye? who knows. so it'll be pretty neat being able to look back and see what I looked like now.

I also like the fact you can leave picture comments to interact with each other. It feels a lot more personal than text comments on youtube or twitter etc. I feel like I'm just repeating what alex said in his latest nerdfighterlike video, so i'll stop talking now.

but yeah, dailybooth seems pretty cool ^_^

and i'd definitely recommend checking it out if you haven't done already.

here is my latest picture from dailybooth (just for the sake of having a picture in this blog post xD)

weekend / math the band

thank you to everyone who commented on either of my last two blog posts.
it was cool getting feedback on my t-shirt designs, and loads of you left nice comments on the blog I wrote at the end of last week when I was feeling a bit miserable, and that cheered me up, so thank you.

i had a really good weekend, so i'm going to blog about it now. it'll probably be really boring to read, so if you're the type of person who gets bored easily, then stop reading now and go and watch a cute kitten fall asleep or something.

for those of you left reading, this is what i did this weekend...

i got home on friday afternoon, and had my hair cut.
then i went out on friday night with my friends, wid and morgan.
it was really cool seeing them both again -- just chatting and catching up.
we went to some different pubs than we'd usually go out to, and sampled a few real ales which was fun :)
towards the end of the night we were in loveshack (which is pretty much the only club durham has to offer) and we were all just dancing on the dance floor. i go to the toilet, and when i come back they're both dancing separately with two girls. i would have just gone to the bar to get a drink, but by this time of the night, i had no money left, and i didn't want to just stand around doing nothing, so i awkwardly danced sort-of-near-them-but-not, and hoped that no one on the crowded dance floor would notice i was just dancing by myself. i soon got bored of doing this though, and i saw a pretty girl by the edge of the dance floor, so i went over to say hello. i obviously wasn't looking for anything to happen with her, but i was bored and had nothing to do to pass the time until my friends were ready to leave and get a taxi home, so thought i might as well just go strike up a conversation with a complete stranger. i resisted the urge to use one of my chat up lines on her, although I kind of wanted to, just to see what the reaction would have been xD. I was pretty drunk though, and think I remember telling her that she had the most beautiful eyes I'd ever seen. god bless alcohol and its ability to lower your inhibitions and say whatever pops in to your mind. anyways, we chatted and flirted for a bit, but nothing happened. my friends and I then left, got some pizza and went home. good night all in all.

i got up fairly early on saturday, and went through to newcastle to meet a couple of my other friends, kelly and tom.

tom was working until 4, so kelly and i went to get some food at this quaint little sandwich cafe called blakes. i was hungover and felt a bit woozy, so only ate half my sandwich, even though it was rather nice. i also drank a can of orange fanta. i hadn't had fanta in aaages, so that was lovely.

we then met tom and went to northumbria's student union for a drink.

kelly and tom are two of my favourite people of all time, so it was great seeing both of them again, and catching up :)

on saturday evening I went out for a meal with my mum, step-dad, sister, and two step-siblings to celebrate my mum's birthday. we went to the newton grange (which is the pub/restaurant i used to work at a few months ago). we ate nice food, and I got to see a few of my old work colleagues, as well as getting to spend a bit of time with my family, so it went really well :D

then today, sunday, i've been to see my grandparents, my mum took me shopping to stock me up with groceries for the next few weeks, and then i drove back to sheffield.

so yeah.. it's been an awesome weekend seeing all my family and friends again.

i miss being at home in durham around everyone i love.

it's also been cool having a couple of days away from the internet again. the past few weeks i've been feeling more and more compelled to distance myself from the internet world. i think i'll probably talk more about that in a future blog post though. (nb: the irony of posting an online blog about distancing oneself from the internet isn't lost on me, just incase you think i'm crazy xD)

oh oh.. before i leave, i should send you all to listen to some amazing music!

my math the band banned the math CD arrived in the post along with a math the band tee shirt while i was away this weekend! wooooop! :D

some of you will have heard of math the band, and others won't.. either way, go now and listen to them on myspace! guarenteed to make you feel good :)

life sucks.

i'm feeling terribly miserable thisevening.
so i'm going to have a little moan here to make myself feel better.

i hate being in sheffield. it's horrible. it's lonely. it's boring.

i'm so thankful i've been able to take a few trips away during the past couple of months. going down to london 2 or 3 times. flying across to ireland. going to derby. it's kept me sane.

there are things i do like about being in sheffield. namely, the awesome flat i get to live in. but other than that, i completely hate being here.

i'm stuck doing a course i have absolutely no motivation to do. and it's costing me a fortune to be here. my life savings have all-but-gone after this academic year, not to mention the fact i'm further in debt with my student loan. i must have about £15,000 worth of debt now. i kind of feel like i'm failing at life. suprisingly, it's not a nice feeling.

people try to console me by stating that i only have a few more months here until i graduate.. but that doesn't make it any easier to motivate myself to do the work which i despise doing. it is a shame though, as I put in so much work during the first 2 years of the course, but on a day-to-day basis i struggle to see the big picture.

one of the worst things though.. is that even after i've graduated (assuming i actually do graduate) i have no idea what i am going to do with my life. perhaps that is something i should get excited about. i can do whatever i want with my life. but it doesn't excite me, it scares me.

i guess for now, i just have to take each day as it comes.. starting tomorrow.

- collect the package which is waiting for me at the post office
- post tom his cd back
- send receipts off to hat trick
- buy birthday card/presents for my mum
- possibly make a new video?
- possibly do some uni work?
- explore dailybooth xD
- drive home to durham for the weekend

tom just sent me a track from his upcoming album while i was writing this blog which has actually cheered me up immensely. i still have no idea what i'm doing with my life, but at least now i'm failing at life whilst listening to a pretty boy making pretty music :)

think i'll end this blog post now. ciao.

bigcartel.

I was bored today, so I decided to throw some t-shirt designs together, just for fun :)

I set up a bigcartel store so that I could upload the designs. You can check them out by clicking the link under the screenshot below if you're interested:


johnnydurham.bigcartel.com

I should mention that the 2 dinosaur illustrations were done by vee, not me, but all the t-shirt designs themselves I did ^_^

Hope vee doesn't mind me using her illustrations.. I assume it'll be ok seeing i'm not actually selling them, or making any money off them. xD

You obviously can't buy any of the tees because they're just designs, and I have no way of actually printing them. I suppose it would be easy enough to upload some designs to a site like cafepress or skreened, but those companies take such a huge cut of the profits, that it's just not worth it.

For a long time now, I've been really interested in setting up my own t-shirt "business"... where I would actually buy the screen-printing equipment and all the materials needed etc, and sell t-shirts independantly, rather than using one of the aforementioned sites that sell your designs for you.

I'm not really that artistic, so I probably wouldn't be able to come up with any great designs.. but the thing I think I would be good at is promoting and marketing the t-shirts if I ever were to set up a business. I've got lots of ideas of how to make a clothing line popular and successful. They're not even groundbreaking ideas; simple things like giving free tees to popular bands, and getting them to wear them for photoshoots and live gigs. Kids see their favourite rockstars wearing a cool tee, and want one for themselves...

So yeah.. I've got lots of ideas like that of how to make a t-shirt business successful, so part of me really wants to follow this dream.

Things holding me back from actually doing something about it though are...

- I'd probably need to work with someone who's good with graphic design/photoshop so they could bring my ideas to life and help design some great tees.
- I'd need to buy the screen printing equipment to actually print the designs on to blank tees which I could buy in bulk from american apparel or gildan or such. But screen-printing equipment isn't cheap by any stretch of the imagination. Also, it's quite a skilled process to actually use the equipment, so I'd either need to hire someone to do it... or take workshop classes to learn for myself.
- I have no money to do any of this.
- There are countless other things holding me back, some of which I probably haven't even considered yet.

Gah, if only someone said "Here, take this £10,000 to follow your dream and set up your t-shirt business. Pay me back if it becomes successful, but if you spend all the money on it, and it completely falls on it's face, then don't worry about it."

Hah.. anyone reading this have a lot of money to spare? No? Didn't think so :P

I know this blog post probably makes me sound like I've got my head in the clouds, or that i'm dreaming unrealistically. I probably sound like a kid who gets asked what they want to be when they grow up, and they say they want to be an astronaught. Then again, some kids DO grow up to be astronaughts.. so I guess there's no harm in having a dream, even if it is a bit far-fetched. And I'm sure there was a time when people like Johnny Earle and Paul Griffiths had a similar far-fetched dream... and look at them now.

If you have any opinions on the designs I've put up on johnnydurham.bigcartel.com, or if you have any thoughts on anything else I talked about in this blog post, feel free to leave them in the comments. It'd be cool to hear what people have to say :)

Much love <3

my weekend :)

This weekend has been so amazingly awesome!

I just tried writing a blog about it, but it started to get sooooo lengthy, so instead I shall bullet-point some of the amazing things which made it as good as it was :D

- John Green's books 'An Abundance of Katherines' and 'Looking For Alaska' arrived!
- I met up with Charlie, Alex and Jimmy - it was awesome to finally meet jimmy.
- I had a meeting with Hat Trick Productions which went really well, and I'm super excited about our future plans with them.
- Alex passed on a freakin' signed copy of Hank Green's album 'So Jokes' which Alan had sent him to give me <3
- I got given Chameleon Circuit pin-badges :D
- I met up with James, Becky, Tom, and Ed.
- We went to CYBER CANDY! (again)
- We ate yummy dumplings in China Town
- Spent ages in the Disney store, and Build-a-Bear
- I met two of Tom's friends who were absolutely lovely.
- Asal (one of tom's friends) let me stay at her house on friday night, which was amazing, because it meant I could stay with tom, and spend valentine's day with him today, instead of having to get the last train home to sheffield on friday night like i thought i might have had to ^_^
- Ate the most delicious veggie burger at The Burger Co. in kings cross with tom, before having to leave london :(

There are so many other little things which I haven't included which made this weekend amazing, but it's impossible to mention them all, and I think I mentioned the main points, so all is gooood :)

blink182!

watch a high quality version by clicking here

OMFG!!! BLINK182 ARE BACK!!!

happiest day evarrrrr! <3

They announced on their official website yesterday that they're back in the studio, writing and recording a new album, and that they'll be touring the world again in summer 09! :D

As soon as I heard the news I went back and listened to all my old blink albums and got awfully nostalgic :)

I started listening to blink around about 1999/2000 when enema of the state first came out, and subsequently went back and bought their 2 previous albums, and bought their following 2 albums before they went on a break. They're one of those bands for me, who have a lot of strong memories attached to their music.

Being 15. Sitting outside the rowing club in durham on a friday night with my friends, drinking vodka and 15p cherryade mixed together in a plastic bottle; listening to blink182 and other rock music of the time blarring out of the 'under18 rock night' held at the rowing club. Walking through newton hall, listening to their music on my portable cd player. Using quotes from their songs to describe my feelings for my friends, and my parents. Having secret house parties whenever my mum would go away for the weekend, playing "I want to fuck a dog in the ass" full volume and singing along like an idiot with all of my friends xD.

So many great memories! :D

Which is why I'm completely stoked to have them back together again! I'm definitely going to have to see them live if they come to the UK this summer!


As a little footnote to this blog post, I'm still not technically back off my internet hiatus :P I haven't been on youtube/twitter/skype at all since yesterday morning, and have only been online occasionally to check my emails. It's been nice having a little break.. although I'm starting to miss the internetz already, so I'll no doubt be back in the full swing of things pretty soon xD

Much love <3

unplugging myself.

I was looking at the stats on my 'Are You Straight?' video today, and noticed I had over 1,000 hits from an embedded video on a site called somanyboys.net, so I went to check out the site. It's a site about cute guys -- so i'm not quite sure why my video's on it?! It isn't a porn site, but if you're not interested in seeing semi-naked guys, I wouldn't bother going to the site.

Anywho, the reason for this blog post is that I came across the picture you see above on their site, and it caught my attention. I think the reason it caught my attention is that it kind of summarises how I've been feeling for the past couple of days. I wake up, switch my laptop on, and i'm just sucked in to the cyberworld. I sit here all day, refreshing the same few websites, hoping someone will have posted a new youtube video to watch, or seeing what people are up to on twitter. It's like I've become dependant on getting a continuous fix of the internetz, and I just completely ignore the outside world. I literally don't think I've left my flat in the past 48 hours. It's not healthy.

I think I need to unplug myself. Go on a little hiatus. Take a break from the internet world.

My will power is astonishingly low when it comes to neglecting my laptop though, so I'll no doubt be back on in a couple of hours, but at least for now, I'm taking a break.

I'm going to sign out of all my online accounts. Then I'm going for a shower. Then I'm going to eat. Then I might have a wander into town. And then we'll see where the wind takes me.

Goodbye for now, internet world. <3

YouTube Quiz.

Stolen from Phil.


Username: JohnnyDurham19

Why did you pick it?: because some inconsiderate person took the username JohnnyDurham a couple of months before i signed up.. and they don't even use the account! DAMN THEM! >_<

Who did you first subscribe to?: renetto, i think =/

Who did you most recently subscribe to?: the last person i remember subscribing to recently is wheezywaiter... who is rather awesome.

What does your last text message say?: "02 voicemail. You have 1 New message..."

Do you have any goals?: put in enough effort to graduate from uni

What was the last thing you bought?: irn bru, minestrone soup, 6 litres of cider.

Describe the person who posted this using one line?: An Amazing guy called Phil.

Are you excited about anything?: excited for my trip down to london at the end of next week :)

Do you have a crush? yes, and it's someone who's on youtube =X

Have you ever been drunk?: i've started drinking the cider i bought earlier, so i'm ever-so-slightly drunk right now actually :P

Who was the first Youtuber you met in real life?: i simultaneously met charlieissocoollike, blade376, mememolly, whataboutadam and several other people at the gates of thorpe park almost 2 whole years ago now :O

Who was the last Youtuber you met in real life?: davefromblueskies and iianardo!

Do you pefer day or night?: i'm a night owl

Are you a member of any collab channels?: semi-retired fiveawesomeguy

Do you have a secret account?: pumpkinsplat // davezers

Do you believe in God?: no.

Which youtuber do you talk to the most?: todd, although we've not been speaking as much recently :(

Which Youtuber do you think makes the best videos?: i love everyone's videos who i subscribe to, although right now, i get most excited if/when i see one of the following people post a new video: livelavalive, jabazzy, amazingphil, j0ames, joediscourse, hexachordal

You may only subscrie to 5 channels and only watch their videos. who will they be?: DON'T MAKE ME CHOOSE JUST 5!!!

Are you in a relationship?: nopes, i'm single. someone ask me out before valentine's day? :P

Would you date a smoker?: yes, although the first thing i would do as their new boyfriend would be to get them to quit smoking!

Where is your favourite place?: cyber candy?! xD

Are you a happy person?: most of the time.

Would you kiss the person who posted this?: *ATTACKS PHIL WITH TONGUE* :P

What would you take to the desert island? : a unicorn called dorothy.

Do you prefer sun or snow?: snowwwww!

Who did you last speak to on the phone? my sister :D

Who did you last text?: crikey! i need to use my phone more.. the last person I text was 4 days ago (?!?!?), and it was j0ames.

What are you doing tommorow?: no plans for tomorrow! we'll see where the wind takes me ^_^

What is your favourite flavour of potato chips?: currently, tangy cheese flavoured doritos.

What size are your feet?: 9

What do you want?: to not have to worry about money.

What do you need?: money? xD

What do you remember?: meeting the vengaboys in LA ;)

What do you wish?: i wish i were a zombie, roaming through the night, i'd bite off people's faces, and give them a great big fright. :P

END.

goodbye blogTV.

I've had a little fall out with blogTV today, to the point where I really don't want to continue doing my scheduled shows on their site anymore.

Previously, I'd been going live on blogTV every Monday and Friday at 10pm GMT, but I think I'm going to completely scrap that schedule now.

I wish I could give more details about it but I don't think it's really something I should be talking about in my blog.

It's been so nice having people come to my shows, and having everyone getting involved by asking me questions, sending me jokes to read out, helping with the "Share the love" feature, and so on. It's been fun for me, and hopefully it's been fun for all you guys who've been coming to watch the shows. So I just wanted to say thank you to everyone who has come along to the shows and made them what they were.

In a way I feel a little guilty for ending the shows just because I've fallen out with blogTV, and it sucks that I'm not going to be able to interact with everyone in the same way now that I'm stopping the shows, but it's something I think I have to do. I'll probably go live every now and again just to check in with you all though, so look out for twitter updates about me going live.

You can follow my twitter updates here: twitter.com/JohnnyDurham19

So yes, thank you to everyone who's been to, and supported my shows in the past -- it really means a lot to me -- and I'm sorry to anyone who might miss my shows now they're ending.

Much love <3