| Living might mean taking chances, but they're worth taking |
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| English people, laugh it up! |
[13 Aug 2007|04:03pm] |
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Flatland Farmer - Terry Allen |
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I assume the majority of Americans are going to see this and think, "The fuck?" but trust me, it's funny. How awesome would that be though? "Sorry I was two hours late back to my desk, I got pissed during the coffee break." Ahahaha.
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(6 buckled up tight | Read the house rules)
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| My opinions on the smoking ban. |
[01 Jul 2007|10:32pm] |
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The House Rules - Kane |
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I don't know why I do it to myself. Reading comments from stupid, arrogant, dim-witted tossers on the BBC website only serves to piss me off royally, more so because all the bloody interesting discussions on there are moderated which means it can take days for your comment to be published [if it ever is] and by then you can be assured that the idiots have lost interest, because they never wanted to listen to anyone else's opinion in the first place.
So I'm going to rant here instead, because I can. ( The Smoking Ban: )
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(5 buckled up tight | Read the house rules)
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| Secrets? Hell yeah. |
[02 Aug 2006|03:58am] |
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Nowt |
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So I've been reading ljsecret obsessively recently and it just made me think about things that people think but they don't ever want to tell anyone. And since I liked the last sort of post I did like this [which was the 'tell me something negative about myself'] one, I'm playing again, but slightly differently.
Tell me anything. A secret, something you want to say to me but can't if I know it's you, something you just want to say to anyone, whatever. Comments are screened and IP addresses aren't logged. I might reply, but if you just want to say something without getting a reply, let me know and I won't. This could be fun, guys. Get it off your chest!
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(Read the house rules)
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| Interesting thought! |
[18 Apr 2006|05:23am] |
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Ahab - MC Lars |
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I just had a really good idea for a post. Okay, I've always wanted to know what other people think my bad qualities are, because I know some of them but I know there must be more. So please comment to this post [either logged in or anonymously, I don't mind] telling me a bad quality about myself. IP addresses aren't logged [not that I'd know what to do with them anyway] so if you post anonymously there's no way I'll ever be able to find out it's you saying it, unless you tell me. I am simply insanely curious about this. Comments are also going to be screened in case you're worried you'll look bad if you point out something to me but you want to post logged in so I know it's you, or...whatever.
So yeah, please do this, I am very intrigued.
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(Read the house rules)
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| Fucked up dream. |
[24 Mar 2006|11:41pm] |
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Doors Of Hope - Blood Or Whiskey |
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I just remembered the dream I had last night. Most of it was sort of normal except for wtfweird, because I wasn't in it. It was just like watching a story about some family, a mom with a little girl about three and a dad with two girls about seven or eight, and they married and made one whole family. Anyway, they were in a hot tub at some point, and then it was like a TV show showing how much trouble they had finding a house, but they finally did and were having breakfast in the kitchen, but I could see one of the bedrooms. There was a box for a doll's swing, and on the box it said that it came with a free doll, of different versions. One of the versions, for some mad reasons, was Jon Bon Jovi, and another was Bigfoot. And then in this huge star bubble, it warned you that:
BON JOVI IS NOT BIGFOOT!
At the time this made perfect sense because it seemed like I'd heard the phrase somewhere before, but I woke up right after that and started laughing at myself. My subconscious is just as fucked as my conscious.
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(Read the house rules)
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| The world is fucked. |
[13 Mar 2006|04:09am] |
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If I Ever Leave This World Alive - Flogging Molly |
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I'm feeling quite a bit emo at the moment. I just spent the last hour and a half working out a timeline for Just The Way We Are [the current novel, with The Out Casts] and when I'd got pretty much everything sorted by month and year, I decided to get specific dates for the characters' birthdays. So I found a website, thehistorychannel.co.uk, and started trawling through all the dates for whatever month a character was born in, looking at only the event the website had decided was the most important, to find one that most fitted the character. For example, Jake's birthday is November 9th because that's when the Berlin wall was opened and travel restrictions for the East Germans were removed. But anyway, trawling through 'important events' for six different months got to feel a little...depressing. More than half of them, I'd guess, are negative things, like massacres or mass sucides or deaths or beginnings of wars or battles or so on and so forth. Even the good things tend to be attached to bad things: ends of wars, defeats over fascists, innocent people's releases from prison. Very few important things were purely happy, just birthdays or inventions or triumphs or whatever. Those things were included, sure, but down the page, in the lesser events. Hardly any of the dates had purely happy things being advertised as the most important thing to happen on that date, and that's really pretty fucking sad.
The world in general is obsessed with melancholy. Sadness and depression and fear, above all else. It's like Marilyn Manson says on Bowling For Columbine: the world these days is about fear and consumption. Keep people afraid, and they'll consume more [paraphrased]. That's why if you watch the news it's about earthquakes, tsunamis, murders, wars, dictators, rapes...generally bastards doing fucked up things. It's one of the reasons I actually really love Midlands Today. They cover some bad things, sure, but they always, always include happy things, and usually in the same quantity as the bad things, if not more. It leads to sometimes really ridiculous stories and segments, like Bob Hockenhull's Winter Walks [a correspondant goes on walks...] but at least it doesn't leave you just feeling depressed.
I don't know whether it's that there isn't enough happy stuff to be covering these days, or just that they chose to cover the unhappy stories because of a) the fear = consumption idea or b) car crash syndrome [you'll complain for hours when people ahead of you slow down to look at a car crash, but you'll automatically slow down and watch yourself when you get closer even if you know it's going to look horrible]. But either way, it shouldn't be this way. Life isn't supposed to be about death and destruction, and that's pretty much all you see on the news these days. Not just the news, either. TV programmes, or plays, or books - everything's shit. I get it, books and plays and programmes have to have a problem that is overcome because that's what's called, y'know, a plot, but more often than not things seem to end terribly anyway. Or if they end happily, it's after more death and destruction than was really necessary to convey a problem. The main character could just have one family member die, you know, not their entire family plus everyone else they know, from their best friend down to the postman. I'm not saying there's not a place for angsty things, because of course life isn't all roses, but christ, does everything have to end in pain? Everything? You know, I read when I was a child mostly because it was an escape, because I knew that none of this stuff would ever happen to me. Now I read because of a morbid fascination with all this crap that I know is very likely to happen to me. Half of it fucking has, directly or indirectly. There's no chance of reading for escape any more, except for maybe Sci-Fi, and that generally bores the hell out of me so we'll ignore that idea. I like things to be realistic, but not every single second of life is that damn depressing.
Everybody is afraid these days, that much is true. They're afraid of dying, afraid of pain, afraid of rape, afraid of attack, afraid of being burgled, afraid of losing friends, afraid of being poor, afraid of being an outcast, afraid of being ignored, afraid of immigrants, afraid of racists, afraid of freedom, afraid of slavery, afraid of being the centre of attention, afraid of not being the centre of attention, afraid of this and that and the fucking dining table. Everybody is constantly afraid, and life is just a big competition to get over all the fears fastest. I stick out because I have the most expensive trainers...but I fit in because I'm wearing trainers. I don't like gay couples being able to adopt, but I insist they be allowed to have civil uniond. I don't want to be anorexic, but I don't want to be fat. I don't want to have sex too young, but I don't want to wait too long. Nobody has any fucking clue what they want, and even if they did, most of them wouldn't do it. Because it's not about what anybody personally wants, it's about what 'the world' wants. About what everybody else is doing. She's wearing green scarves wrapped around her thighs secured with chewing gum? Well then, I must too. Everybody is afraid to be themselves. And the fucking media doesn't help any by constantly saying, "This is what the rest of the world is doing. Everyone else is afraid. Everyone else is the same. Everyone else has a car and a mortgage and two children and a cat and furniture from IKEA - why don't you?"
I don't even know what I'm ranting about any more really, but I know I'm annoyed. Annoyed and upset. The world shouldn't be like this. Life shouldn't be about this. Because if it is, then what's the point, you know? Why live a life of fear and insecurity and desperately trying to catch up and fit in and blend into the background? That's not living, that's just constantly reminding yourself where you've failed, and strangely enough I don't see that being much fun. Life is short, shorter than you realise, and if you can't have fun with it, why bother? I don't want my life to be about fear. I want my life to be about good things, happiness, and not just my own. It doesn't make me happy to know I have everything I want if I also know that because of it, some kid isn't eating tonight. I'm never going to make the world happy, but I can help to incite the fleeting glimpses of happiness that everyone gets. I'm not happy all of the time [I'm sure not now] but I get the moments sometimes where I really, truly am, and it's those moments life should be about. Chasing them. So if I can do something that might make someone else get one of those moments, I want to do it.
Ugh. Just...the world pretty much sucks, and if you have it in your power to do something to change that, all I'm saying is you should. Not because I say so, but because it's, you know, it's common sense. It's pure human nature. Don't be a bastard. It's not hard to give up Nestle products or Nike products or not steal or learn to control your anger or donate money to charity or just fucking smile at people. Well, some things that make other people happy are hard [giving money to charity is, if you don't have the money to give], but the point is, many of them are as easy as breathing; i.e. you don't have to think about them. So if those things are easy for you, just do them. Just fucking...be human.
Humanity. I wonder sometimes if we forgot a long time ago what it is to be human. I also wonder if it doesn't just mean that we're worse than anything else. No other living species, no tree or flower or monkey or badger or whatever, is as destructive to itself and other species and the world as we are. Yes, it's a fight for survival, but christ, don't forget to remember what you're going to be left with at the end. What's the point of detonating a bomb to wipe out the entire human race if you're the only person left to 'enjoy' your freedom, you know? There's no point surviving if at the end all you're left with is rubble and memories. I don't want to be the last man standing if it means I'm the only one there. And sooner or later I think we might end up like that. The human race will be there, but we'll have managed to kill off all the plants and animals, so we're the only things left. And once we've done that, then...well, what's the fucking point? You've just taken away all the natural happiness highs nature gives us - sunsets, puppies, the first snowdrop, whatever. And I absolutely refuse to believe humankind will be happy with only its machines and its money. I refuse to believe it.
Why does it feel sometimes like I'm in the incredibly small minority?
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(Read the house rules)
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| Do it. |
[06 Mar 2006|03:11am] |
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Bird Trouble - Cock Sparrer |
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Comment with "I am ___ [insert emotion//feeling] right now because ___ [reason//explanation]".
As many emotions can be included as you feel, but you must be feeling them now. Anyone who's been human knows it's possible to be ecstatic and distraught at the same time.
I wonder if anyone really knows why they're feeling what they're feeling.
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(3 buckled up tight | Read the house rules)
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| PLEASE READ. |
[17 Feb 2006|09:05pm] |
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Hersham Boys - Sham 69 |
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Attention and pictures, please!
I would like photos of ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) darkmike, demseythebear, raynor, androktone, commonpeople, dustbinflower and ____rubysoho. However, please be aware that these will be going up on my website, so be sure to tell me if you're not cool with that and we'll forget the whole thing. [Then I'll come to your house in the dead of night, beat you up and steal the photo, but yanno.] I already have photos of assiduity, lite_bright, playing4_keeps and selloutchick up, so lemme know if you're not [still] cool with that or if you hate the picture that's up cause it doesn't show your new tattoo or whatever and I'll take it down//change it//leave it the fuck as it is, as required.
Also, if you want to check what I've written about you you can, here [but be warned that a lot of the rest of the site isn't up and ready yet!] and if you don't like it or are just shy and don't want to be mentioned at all, let me know that too. However, you should want to be mentioned because I am so awesome that even being mentioned by me gets you an extra ten cool points. Hahahaha. Yeah.
AND, I'm linking to journals via the names, but if you don't want me to because of privacy or outside people or whatever, or you want me to link to somewhere else because you feel that gives a more accurate representation of yourself as a person or something, then let me know and I'll change it. This would particularly make sense if you have your own site or a MySpax or something.
ANDAND, if you have a site of your own and want it linked so all the three people that will ever visit my website will see it, give me the link, der.
So yeah, any problems, lemme know.
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(14 buckled up tight | Read the house rules)
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| London Blasts, as the BBC titled it. |
[07 Jul 2005|09:40pm] |
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BBC News [as has been all day] |
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So, half in response to selloutchick's post [cause I like a good debate and being educated too] and half because I just like to talk, my take on the things that have happened..
If anyone on my list believes this is the result of Arabs, or Muslims, or any particular race or religion, you can fuck off. You can tell me and then you can fuck off. The religion of Islam has absolutely nothing to do with terrorism or bombing or murder. It does not condone it. That's the religion of lunacy you're thinking of. Luckily I don't think I know anyone who's this stupid and racist. If I do, let me know so I can remind you how fucking stupid you are, and then I can take you off my list. I DON'T LIKE RACISM.
To the point Lara made about being furious with her country...I'm not condoning the way we think about this. The way we think, "Oh SHIT, London's been hit, I'm worried sick," and then, "Oh look. More bombs in Iraq. Three hundred dead. I thought 'news' was supposed to be new. Boring." Because it is a horrible thing that we do [we all do, me too]. But I think I can sort of try to explain it. The thing is, the reason we get more freaked out over this and we're glued to the TV and we go searching on BBC news and we call our friends and ask, "Have you heard?!" is because it hits closer to home. And what hits closer to home hurts more. It shouldn't, because death in any case is death. But at the same time it does because if we thought of everything as equal, if we saw exactly every person's life as exactly equal [in terms of how important they were to us] then we would spend our entire lives grieving. If your grandparent dies, you're very sad. You'll probably cry, and you'll probably go through the stages of grieving. It'll take a while for you to get over. If a good friend's grandparent, who you'd maybe met once died, you'd probably be a little sad, and you'll comfort your friend, but you'll be nowhere near as affected. If you hear about your favourite musician's grandparent dying, you'll be momentarily upset, and you'll wonder if they're okay, but that's about it. And if you hear about some random grandparent dying in a country you've never been to, most likely, your only response will be, "Life goes on."
That's not being inhumane. That's being human. Certain things mean more to us than others; that's how we form friendships and relationships and make sure our children take precedence over random strangers if we have to choose who to save. We're human, we're born to breed. We protect our own so we can continue to pass on our genes and the characteristics we like. It's like I was saying to Dee yesterday, everyone has their own Scale of Tragedy. If you lose your favourite bracelet, you're likely to be quite upset. You might even cry, especially if it was given to you by someone special. And then someone says to you, "Oh, shut up, there are people dying in Africa from hunger." But the point is, on your personal Scale of Tragedy, based on what has happened to you, losing your favourite bracelet means a lot. It's high up there. You don't know anyone in Africa. You've never been personally affected by that, even if you've cared about it and you've read about it. It's never directly affected you. Same as if a little kid drops his ice cream. It's only ice cream, you say, you'll get more, that's a minor thing...but to that kid it makes his week. That's high on his personal Scale of Tragedy.
This event is high on all of ours because it's in our country, and it's made to hit us, and we almost all have friends or family who might have been directly affected by it. It's personal. People dying in other countries and continents, as much as we think it's horrible, is not our main priority, because if it was, we would never have time to do anything other but be shocked or worried or upset, and we'd never get anything done. I'm not saying their lives are worth anything less. The loss of their lives just means less to us because it doesn't personally affect us. We're built to react that way.
On another point, refering to Tony Blair as a coward...this is a long due opinion but I didn't know you at the time so I'll repeat it. I have my own opinion on why Blair decided to go with Bush. My theory is because he knew that if he said no, if he refused to back them up, Bush would've gone, "Alright. Fuck you then," and would have severed a lot of trade links with the UK, would have ceased to back us up on future issues on the world stage, would have basically turned its back on us. The US doesn't need anyone except the US - it's proved that. It just makes things a bit easier if they also have the UK on their side, because the UK, though small, is powerful, and it's well in there in terms of the EU. But the US does not need the UK, and Blair knows that. I believe Blair said yes because he wanted to protect the UK against what would happen if he said no. That's only my theory, and I've never heard anyone else say anything like that, it's not an official thing...but it is mine. A lot of the other official theories don't seem to me to make too much sense.
And in terms of actually going into Iraq...getting rid of Hussein was, yes, a good idea. But I believe we did it for the wrong reasons and I would rather a good thing was done for the right reasons than for the wrong ones, at least in this case. Because it sours it all, and it means that when you need help, like French or German or whatever forces to help when he's gone and they need to put the country back together, you can't get it. If this had been done at any other time, and if they had obviously actually cared about what the fuck he was doing, and it hadn't just been the crazy post 9/11 revenge thing that it was, I would have backed it wholeheartedly, because the point would have been to get the bastard out. But right now all we've done is torn the country apart, probably stolen half their bloody oil, and it's now in ruins. And we don't seem to be in as much of a hurry to clear it up as we were to blow it up.
Just my two cents. Or twenty.
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(8 buckled up tight | Read the house rules)
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| Might make sense to put this in my own journal as well... |
[14 Jun 2005|01:43pm] |
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Livin' On A Prayer - Jon Bon Jovi |
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What I wanted to ask was if anybody would be interested in having a punk RP? And by punk I mean actual punk bands, not just mostly pop punk. I have nothing against pop punk [der] but I just think having one with 'real punk' bands would be interesting. Let's put it this way, any band would be allowed if they would feasibly hang out with Rancid. [Not necessarily if they have, just if they would, on a regular basis.] So that means yes to GC [because hell, who can exclude them?] but no to, say, MCR. And way yes to bands such as Pistol Grip, or hell, go all out...The Ramones, The Sex Pistols. Pretend half their members aren't dead, you know?
The basic idea I have at the moment is just that, and that also it would be a rule that every summer everyone would have to be on Warped Tour [because that makes it more fun since everyone can then be around everyone else at the same time] but the rest of the time, they could just do whatever.
I just want to know if anybody would actually be interested in playing members of 'real punk' [I feel like such a hypocrite but you know what I mean] bands, 'cause otherwise there's no point starting one.
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(4 buckled up tight | Read the house rules)
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| Sound System! And...well, that's it. |
[07 Jun 2005|02:33am] |
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Bicycle Race - Queen |
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Today I started a new story, which conceivably has no end, and also no beginning. This is the best kind of story ever for me, because it means I have no commitments to it. I can write it forever or I can never write anything in it ever again.
It's here. It's original characters, because it means I can mess about with the timeline more easily. This is gonna be using a cast of characters that have lived inside my head and in my room for over a year now, and I love them all to death. There is Jake, the red Mohawked tall dude; there is Hyphen, the blue Mohawked short dude; there are Mike and Steve, who are respectively huge and scrawny, and the perfect couple; there are Mikey and Eddie, the kids who are five and seven but look three and five and act thirty five; there are Duke, Chuck Taylor, Jessie, Waldorf and Worldwide, the dogs; there is Kevin, the homophobic asshole who leads the rival gang; there are Kyle and Jamie, the misguided sixteen year olds...it's all going on in here.
I don't actually expect anybody to read it, because it looks so confusing when you read the concept [that is, all over the place] and of course it doesn't involve bands, but to be honest I don't really care. I'm just posting it in case anybody's interested. I'll probably let you know in here when I update for a while, and then if nobody's reading it on this flist I won't bother any more. I'll still be posting it though. I really like it because I don't have any responsibilities towards it; I don't have to do it and if I do do it, I don't have to do any particular part at any particular time, nor do I have to have a certain length chapter or basically, follow any rules at all. I except to trip myself up on continuity a lot, and I also don't really care about that. [Well, I say that now, but we'll see how much I actually freak out later.]
What the hell, give it a chance, why not? Then if you hate it, no hard feelings, ignore it. I'm having fun anyway.
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(Read the house rules)
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