Sunday, June 28, 2009

Breakdown Breakdown

So today I purchased, among other things, the new Green Day album - 21st Century Breakdown. As most of my readers will know, I've long been an ardent Green Day fan, and even like their more recent stuff, so was intrigued as to the new album. I've seen excellent reviews of it, and it's been well received.

It's interesting. I've listened to it once through, and it has to be said it really needs to be listened to as an album as opposed to as a collection of songs. It's more of a complete piece, and the phrase I recall reading calling it a 'punk-rock opera' is rather accurate in terms of the construction.

For me, though, the weird part of the album was the borrowing from previous albums. The structure of American Eulogy: Mass Hysteria is borrowed from Deadbeat Holiday on the Warning album, except it suddenly veers off towards the end of the lines. This is very surreal the first time you listen to it. The song ¿Viva la Gloria? (Little Girl) is also very reminiscent of Misery, again from Warning. This is more stylistic as opposed to a direct copy though.

I've not listened to it enough to really get a feel for it, but on a first listen there's only one 'home run' song, that really stands out, and that's saved for last. It's an interesting album, and I think it probably warrants a second listen before I commit to a full opinion on it!

Wednesday, June 24, 2009

Brief Interlude: Wedding Rant

Okay. This has cropped up in general discussion a couple of times of late, and due to my generally unusual opinions I wanted to at least clarify what I mean when I have the opportunity to correct my mis-statements.

Excellent.

To start with, this is not something I have a great personal fear of, nor that I'm generally opposed to. In fact, overall marriage isn't a bad thing, except the spelling, which always trips you up. In the conceptual version - two people joining together - it's a great thing, something that should be thought of positively. (Of course, it's never about that, it's about the dress or the cake or the venue or the reception or the flowers or the cars or the myriad of other things that go into planning a wedding, but that's a different story.)

What I typically take issue with is the way it is given a great significance beyond that which it actually bestows. Taken literally, a marriage is the legal confirmation of a couple's commitment. Now, you may take a more religious line, which I know some of my readers do, in which case there are other factors which I won't fully go into because it's an entirely different subject matter. What I personally take issue with is how marriage is held as a holy grail, as a final goal and an idealised future. The comparisons with everything else are that they are markedly inferior.

Now, I'm in a relationship of closing in on six years, one which I'm seriously committed to. Relationships such as mine - long-term, seriously committed ones - are not common. But when they are, it is greeted with bafflement. A long-term relationship seemingly has less validity in people's eyes than a short term relationship where people end up married (as this seems as good a point as any to clarify, this isn't aimed at any of my readers, so Sophie, Kat, you can put the weapons down, I'm not trying to dissuade Mark or Tim).

Pop culture and everyday 'norms' confirm all of this - when was the last time you saw a couple for a long time together in any TV program without a 'happy ending', but just a happy couple? The problem is that because of this idealised vision painted of marriage, everything else takes on a naturally gloomier look by comparison.

The long and short of it? When I think about it in depth, I think positively towards the concept. What irritates me is when people somehow assign a lesser significance or seriousness to a relationship without a marriage (lack of commitment? I think years alone indicate commitment), or without this quote wedded bliss quote you won't know true happiness. What rubbish.

Not sure where this came from, really. But essentially: people can be happy in lots of ways.

Tuesday, June 23, 2009

Odd Linkage

It amuses me that when thinking of buying a new suit, the first thought in my mind is that scene from Anchorman (not Dodgeball, I clearly wasn't thinking there!) pursuing a similar theme. That, of course, ended up not with a new suit being purchased, but with an all out inter-newsroom battle royale.

No danger of that, then.

Monday, June 22, 2009

Heartily Sick

Having been meaning to post something all week but suffering from a lack of inspiration, it's vaguely amusing that the first thing that I have to blog about is being ill.

I'm currently at home by virtue of feeling horribly sick this morning. Having ummed and ahhed for a couple of hours as to whether I was well enough to go into work, I decided I wasn't. A good call, as I was sick right about the same time I would usually get on my train!

The main observation here is that - while it makes perfect sense logically for being sick to make you feel better (removing the problem, etc) - conceptually it doesn't make much sense. "I've just been sick - I feel terrific!"

Monday, June 15, 2009

Short Outage

So for a few days I was remiss in failing to blog; no updates to speak of from yours truly. This was down to both tiredness and an absolute lack of anything whatsoever happening.

My sleeping routine is slowly returning to normal, by virtue of the fact that it was horribly muggy at the weekend not as fast as it should do. Averaging three-four hours of sleep last week I stumbled through it, although the afternoons were not noted for my productivity at work. I managed to grab ten-twelve hours kip on Friday night, and a decent few hours on Saturday night, but Sunday night saw me back to the small numbers again as despite going to bed at 9:30pm feeling shattered, I only made it to 2:30am before waking up!

It looks as if there's a thunderstorm looming, so this means at least the muggy weather will break and should hopefully get a good night's sleep tonight!

I'm yammering on about sleep because little else has happened since I've returned. I did find out today though that apparantly Andrew is the least dateable name. What do you know.

Wednesday, June 10, 2009

Day Two

So the second day into my return home, and my sleeping patterns are as crazy as you might expect. Today was marginally better - I felt that instead of not having really been to sleep, I'd just gotten up stupidly early. I suppose 4am is better than 3:30am, but I'm not being especially blessed with sleep right now.

I'm also getting a long list of things to do this weekend - besides such delightful chores as ironing, as you might expect following a long trip, I have to do other things such as get a new wallet (it's falling apart), get the overdue haircut I discussed pre-trip, and many other things too which I have now forgotten what they are. This is why I need to make a list, to remember this sort of thing!

Tuesday, June 09, 2009

What colour?

So today was tiring. Jetlagged, awake from 3:30am, work was the delight that I expected it to be - too much coffee, staring at the screen without much hope of reading things on it, the standard first-day-back scenario.

This was slightly compensated by the debut one of my new shirts, the colour of which is up for debate. I've termed it 'sea-green', but settled on teal by midway through the day. I'm a man who's not embarrassed to know what teal is. Suggestions it was turquoise were dealt with with the appropriate level of ridicule. The solution was only realised at lunchtime, when I realised that tragically the only colour it can be termed is mint. In hindsight, it is glaringly obvious that the shirt is just an excuse to eat mint ice-cream and drip it down you without anyone noticing.

Anyway, enough about the shirt.

Sunday, June 07, 2009

Odd Yet Comforting

So Friday evening, Chrissi and I actually signed a card as a couple. This isn't oddly exciting to notice, but it felt weird yet comforting and familiar. I suppose seeing us as a couple more in writing like that is odd. Anyway, that was a nice reminder of the future and a glimpse forward. Yesterday was Chrissi's birthday, allegedly her last one until I catch up to her. No issues here, folks. It was an enjoyable day and we had a good time.

Also, as an aside to work folks - I have been shopping and red shirt day will no longer be a standalone day of awesomeness. There are going to be multiple days of awesomeness.

Today is my last day here, so we are going with the usual ritual of going to BJ's for lunch; I will order the supreme pizza, and we will both be too fill to sample the sublime pizookie for desert! That's how it usually works anyway!

Saturday, June 06, 2009

Life in Technicalities

Okay, I'm clearly months behind the news with this comment, but hearing it on the radio this week, the Coldplay song 'Life in Technicolor II' is just plain weird. Firstly, for those of you who don't know, it comes from the first track of Viva la Vida: Death and All His Friends. Which in itself is decent. But this track is a superb instrumental introduction. Now they've gone and messed about with it and added unnecessary lyrics, and it just sounds wrong compared to the simplicity of the original.

It annoys me, anyway.

As an amusing tangent, while looking for a bit more detail on this I did come across a top class rant for the Killers' absurd lyrics in Spaceman; this is not a shock to everyone, considering they have the stupidest lyrics I've ever heard from a band. But it was a geographers' rant about how if they'd wanted to find a river for their song that used to flow from east to west but now doesn't, why not pick that fairly well known river the Amazon, that actually did? Cracking stuff, anyway.

Wednesday, June 03, 2009

And The Proof ...

It'll have to wait. While Chrissi has an excellent collection of USB leads with various associated ports, none fit my camera, which in my wisdom I didn't bring the USB lead for. The pictures will therefore not be seen until Monday evening, or admittedly Tuesday is more likely.

So Vegas was fun. I lost money, as you might expect, but also won some here and there. Overall a loss, but as I wrote it off as 'spending money', it doesn't bother me! We also took in a show, as you do, which was called 'Defending the Caveman' and was both excellent and hilarious in equal parts. I'd go into more detail, but the humour won't be translated very well so I'll pass on that.

This week Chrissi is working during the day (last week she was working the second job in the evening), so I'm entertaining myself during the day chiefly by sleeping, but also reading and generally wasting time online. Surprisingly, this doesn't entertain me as much as it used to.

That's about it for now, I think! As said, those pictures will be there when I am able to upload them.