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Showing posts with label Music. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Music. Show all posts

Saturday, August 29, 2009

As Anti-Social As Ever

Hello blog universe,

Phew, after the never-ending blog epic that was my last post, I almost thought I wouldn't have worked up the energy quite yet to post...But, somehow, here I am!

Actually I still don't know if I have the energy, I'm simply doing this out of boredom. My aunt, uncle, and one of my cousins are over at the moment. Let's reiterate; My boring, math-y, genius cousin. His FUN, humorous, hitting-with-giant-inflatable-bananas(hehe) brother is still up in York enjoying doing whatever it is students do, before seeing Bill Bailey this evening, which not only makes the day sort of suck, but makes me totally jealous of him. Gawd, my stupid Drake And Josh-esque cousins are so annoying. So I'm here.

Yes, I guess I am being rather unnecessarily anti-social, but I cant say I like family do's and such. The purpose of them is simply to compare who looks like who the most and go off on strange little discussions about, in our case, education. At the moment my sister, dad, and aunt are outside playing croquet. Now, I know what you're thinking! And, no, we are not all outside drinking tea and scones in a pretty garden and laughing and being generally English. Tt's cold, windy, and has before involved at least one player nearly being the victim of another's fury in the form in a mallet across the head. That and the devilishly difficult course on a sloping-hill that leans towards a busy road would make it something more like Croquet; EXTREME!

The one positive event of the day was, before going on a walk, we all got our own little performance in the form of my uncle playing his bagpipes. Yes, yes, "Every family has one" and shizz. This was my dad's idea for his 50th birthday as he has an interest in peculiar instruments. Considering he's only had two lessons and a lot of people probably couldn't even blow enough to make a sound, he didn't sound too bad once he'd fixed all the pipes and knobs and such. And even when he did sound bad, as apparently said fun cousin once said, "That's what garden sheds are for"!

- Naomi(Short posts are fun, aren't they?)

PS- Read this - http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/8228053.stm -- music fans and weep. Another legend bites the dust, I guess. I can't wait for a heart-felt reunion in fifteen years time.

Tuesday, August 25, 2009

V Festival; Day One!

Hello!



As mentioned yesterday in my blog, the past weekend I went to something called V Festival, which is a fairly big music festival over in the UK...And, considering this is actually an important event in my life as apposed to my usual topics of school work and bying CDs, I thought at least some of you might want to hear about it, right? Well, if you do or you don't, I must record this for "later reference", so, enjoy...?



We'd expected the traffic to be a problem on Saturday, so we had to leave a little earlier than I would have hoped. But unfortunately the roads turned out to have no problems at all, considering the campers had already set up Friday night. We were lead into the wrong car park for our tickets, and then walked to the first gate, two hours before we'd actually be let inside the arena.



With plenty of time to burn, we thought we'd walk all the way over to red campsite(We had to get camping tickets, though my mom didn't want to camp), mainly so she could complain how unkempt everyone else looked. It was huge, the campsite, and no matter how far back you looked you couldn't really see an end to it, which must've been a problem for the people in the very middle. In typical festival style there was a line of ten or fifteen tents selling, most commonly, boots, stripy socks, gloves, hates, and sunglasses. I got a pair of big green glasses, the ones with the bars across, before we walked to our closest gate, gate Six, and waited in line. As mentioned yesterday, we were there with a few friends--Under the names of C, G, and B, who came with their mom, step-son, and a couple of friends--J, and A--and their mom. (Disregard the names, as I'm guessing they ll be of no use whatsoever.) Deciding to meet up at this point was a huge mistake, and it turns out they were at Gate Three, the exact other end of the park.



For about an hour we stood, squished up around two or three hundred other people. We'd bought a timetable of who was playing where--Several cards on a string, designed to hang around a person's neck, which wasn't a terribly good style. We were eventually let inside at about 11:50, and we walked with the flow of the people, which turned out to be partly towards the bar, and partly towards the main stage.



McFly was the first band playing at the main stage. Surprising, considering the average McFly fan is too young for their parents to let them go to the festival. But our currently un-found friends wanted to see them, and we'd got to the 5th row, which was pretty cool. After setting up all the cameras and things(Some of the festival is aired on TV), they finally came on at 12:15. After the first song, the singer(Tom, I think his name is), thought the best way to open was "Hi. How are you?", and then the guitarist deemed that too boring and said "I think the real question is how many people are going to contract a sexually transmitted disease this weekend".Um.They played a half-hour run of mostly awful pop songs, including Star Girl, Lie, It's All About you, and a Beastie Boys cover(Yes, I can dislike a band and still know nearly all the song titles), before randomly bringing out two giant inflatable balloons, throwing them into the audience, announcing that we're "all touching McFly's balls", and ending with Five Colours In her Hair.



All the fifteen year old McFly fans in way too much mascara backed out and I moved forward to 2nd row. Starsailor were playing next, and I found out I was at least 20 years younger than their rest of their fans that day. Because they were early on in the day it was only a fifteen minute wait to set-up. They were actually fairly good live, and I liked the singer's jacket. They played Tell Me it's Not Over, , Four To The Floor, Alcoholic(Afterwards the singer--Who's name I've forgotten--Looks into the audience, Laughs and says "I never thought I'd see anyone crowd-surfing to Alcoholic. Well done to that girl."), You Never Get What You Deserve, Hurts Too Much, a couple older songs I didn't know, before ending with Good Souls.

During a far too short half hour of them, we'd got a text from our friends' mother explaining where she was located, as she didn't want to go into the crowd, something along the lines of "We're between the main stage and the Union tent". Since 11:50, four or five thousand people were now just sitting down around the main stage, and under her basic instructions there were a few problems. But several panicky texts later, and their mom dragged one of her children--"C"--out of the crowd, and we finally met, and were taken back to their picnic set up few hundred meters way from where we were standing for Starsailor, for cupcakes and orange juice, while watching Taylor Swift play a few songs on the stage(You Belong With Me, Our Song, Love Story, etc.). A man next to us started talking about The Killers, and after their mom offered him a snack we'd presumed it was the step-son we've never actually met. Turns out it was just a random stranger and his girlfriend, who were quite keen on the same music as me.

After Love Song was played and an unhealthy amount of candy was consumed, me, my mom, and my friend walked around some of the stalls before going to check out the 2nd stage. Other than "the God Shop", these were all more or less the same places with different names, selling the same strange rubbish, including a few places selling tutus. We got to the stage to hear the Noisettes play a couple of songs. Other than their singer having an amazing voice, she does have a lot of stage presence, even if we were too far away to experience the full effect of it. They ended with Don't Upset The Rhythm--The only song by them that most people know--and after that we walked back to our picnic set-up, and got to see G for the first time that day.

The Script were about to start when we got in line to about the 15th row. This was a very similar audience to Taylor Swift for the most part. the three band members came on slowly, one at a time, and opened with Talk You Down. They later played Break Even, Rusty Halo, We Cry, The End Where I Begin, and the Man Who Can't Be Moved. Singer Danny O''Something Irish' had by the time of that song regained his confidence from a previous incident of nearly falling over on camera("Sorry", he says "I was just having a drink with our drummer". Good on ya, Danny, that's how we demolish stereotypes!), and gave an absolutely amazing performance. He seemed genuinely awe-struck when he didn't even have to sing, but simply listen to several thousand people sing every single word back to him.


We'd moved up to forth row for Lily Allen, somehow. At this point everyone was pushing against each other a lot and several people backed out. By this time backdrops were getting somewhat more elaborate, and she had giant models of the letters in her name behind her. A huge fuss seems to be made nowadays about what female musicians wear on stage, as if Lady GaGa doesn't keep people occupied enough from that standpoint, so if you're interested; Black tank top, gray short-shorts, black sunglasses, huge black heels. Nothing too fancy. She did take her glasses off, revealing a random blue stripe across her forehead. Between announcing the latest cricket scores and taking out a cigarette(And lighting it. How typically fake and annoying and same as always), she played Littlest Things, The Fear, Not Fair, 22, Every one's At It, He Wasn't There, Fuck You, Smile, and LDN. That's the best thing about pop songs such as hers; You can fit in a lot into a fairly short time-space relative to what these artists normally get.

After this mass chaos ins sued. I thought it was time to finally face those notoriously disgusting festival toilets, so while my friend went to get a snack, I spent 20 minutes in a line. They did of course live up to expectations, but this wasn't the problem. This happened when trying to get back into the crowd. I couldn't see my mom's head from where I was, so blindly maneuvered myself back in.This would not have been a problem any other time in the day, but The Specials were up next, and their fans are late-20s drunk party animals who I simply couldn't work my way into. I tried a couple of times and failed, still looking for my mom. I walked back to our picnic area, thinking she might've just walked out. I got my friend back into the crowd to help look as he's considerably taller than I am. He thought it was a good idea for him to brave the toilet ques, and by this time The Specials were just starting. I was starting to panic, as at this point I had no one to rely on. I kept looking back into the crowd three or four times, before actually seeing her, looking for me. She'd deemed the crowd too unmanageable--It wouldn't be once inside, and we'd just lost our place, so understandably I was rather annoyed at this point.

We somehow made it back to what seemed to be the 20th row to watch the end of their act. I was trying to get a better place in line by waiting through, but let me tell you, they were terrible. Every single song sounded exactly the same, and people were very drunk indeed. Part way through my friend's brother and sister--Previously mentioned as B and G--worked their way through to find us, as they'd just got back from watching N-Dubz on the 2nd stage.

We'd moved forward to the 5th row for the next act; Razorlight. At this time I hadn't properly sat down for about five hours. Maybe it means I'm unfit or something, but my legs and back were really hurting at this point, and that was the longest set-up wait of the night. I wasted time by listening to my friend's stories of mosh pit mayhem during The Wombats, who I'd have loved to had seen, and sending texts into the festival's number(They have two screens on the sides of the stage and sometimes the texts get through. Most of which consist of inside jokes, drunken marriage proposals, and "Scream if you love V"!!). The man next to me said to B he'd seen The Killers five times that year, which made me jealous even though it's not like I've done/own few things when it comes to them. The band themselves were actually quite good live, and I do like them, but I was just eager for them to get off most of the time...But they did play Somewhere Else, In The Morning, America, Wire To Wire, and North London trash, among others I didn't know. Tabloid Lover is so unbelievably underrated. That would have been great live!

I moved up one row for the one and only, The Killers, but I did get the six and a half foot gentlemen in front of me to move out of the way, at least partly. Everyone was really pushed up tightly against each other at this time, all of course desperate to get to the very front, which caused quite a lot of madness during the concert. Said tall person and the girl next to him started arguing, while a couple beside me with strange west country accents basically broke up(Go 'ome then, I warna see tha killerrrrrs" she says repeatedly, almost unbearably), and two people behind me were apparently looking for their friend. One of them looks to the left, the other looks to the right, and then is followed by screams of "Oh my god, I thought I'd lost you". Wow. Strange.

It was such a relief for them to finally come on. It was totally dark by now, so I was looking forward to a good ol' Killers light show. This isn't, of course, my first Killers show, look back to January 27th and May 10th if you want to see the excruciating details of this. It was pretty similar, except for some reason they'd brought on a giant plastic cactus. Boys, it might have worked during Sam's Town, but it looks really cheap and tacky now. Brandon came on in the usual attire, plus the traditional feather-shouldered jacket, looking as marvelous as ever. I guess he'd have worn some 'liner for the camera too, always a bonus. Mark looked exactly the same. He's strange in that, since the beginning of the band, he's neither changed in weight, aged, changed his hair, or shaved or grown the beard very much at all. Ronnie looked the same as always--Terrible. Don't gel your hair back! Get rid of the mustache, it's worse than the My Name Is Earl one from several years back! And Dave, who I'd had the best view of, seemed to be no longer bothering with wearing a shirt under his waistcoat--A bad idea, considering the weight he's quite clearly gained. They played Human, Spaceman, A Dustland Fairytale, The World We Live In, Joy Ride, This is Your Life, Mr Brightside(Unbelievable live!), Jenny Was a Friend Of Mine, All These Things That I've Done, Somebody Told Me, a piano-based Smile Like You Mean it, For reasons Unknown, Read My Mind, Bones, Shadowplay, and closed with When You Were Young("Are you ready to receive this as hard as possible?" screams Brandon beforehand).

So, they ended amazing as always, and we tried to work our way through what had become an ocean of empty beer bottles. Me and my friend got separated from my mom and other friend, and spent a very long time trying to find his mom. In the dark. It took a long time, but we eventually found them, and it was amazing to sit down. Also, one of my favorite conversations in my life took place

Friend; Hey
His Mom; Hey. Where's your brother and Naomi's mom?
Friend; He took his shirt off.
Mom; Why is he naked?!
Friend; He took his shirt off.
Mom; Just wondering, Naomi, but did you mother take off her shirt too?

Well, anything can make you laugh at that point. They did eventually find us, my mother with all her clothes still on her. We parted with them once we finally got through to the cars, waited for half an hour to get out, and were home by one in the morning. It was amazing.

Stay "tuned" tomorrow for part two!

Friday, July 17, 2009

Three Days Until I'm Goin'

Hey guys,



How are we today?





I haven't actual talked about my life since Sunday, if you were to ignore Harry Potter. Unfortunately not much has been going on with me. My sister's friend comes round a lot and I'm stuck in my room, at least until I get the energy to get ready(Which can take an awfully long time). I spend my time listening to new music, guiltily watching shows on Disney Channel(It's not that I find them entertaining, more that I'm bored with most other things), and using my computer...Oh, and let's not forget, promising myself I'll practice piano later, which I keep forgetting to actually do. Yesterday me, my sister, and the friend went shopping for our school stuff. Doing it early is so much better. I quite enjoy the task, for some reason. I always spend too much time over it though. Does it really matter what color my pencil case is? Well, I guess it does to me(It's GREEN!). My sister was worse, however. She spent ten minutes--And forty dollars--On decorations for her new locker. All dark blue. I can't blame her, I too was quite excited at the concept of having my own locker to decorate. After a month or so she too will come to realise that putting pictures up causes people to stare(Particularly the animal pictures she intends to use), you will be carrying a pencil case so a thing for holding pencils there is unnecessary, the locker racks you buy will fall down under the weight of your books causing more chaos then before, and most importantly you don't have much time to make it all pretty anyway. But at least she's excited for school now! O h,and in the line at Staples I saw this little light thing on one of the cheap stands. And, it was called a "MrBrightside"! How awesome is that?



After that my sister and the friend made what they called "Raspberry Lemonade". Doesn't that defeat the purpose of it being lemonade, then? Today--Well, it's only the early afternoon--We went food shopping in the morning. It was my turn to do self-service, I love doing that. Later I think we're going to the center of town, getting more brace elastics from the orthodontist, and from the doctors these patches that are supposed to stop my travel sickness from happening on the plane. Yeah right, I'm too resilient for that--Which is quite unfortunate in situations such as this.



My copy of Mark Twain's A Connecticut Yankee arrived from Amazon yesterday. I've read about thirty pages so far, a lot for my poor reading speed. I ordered another book, Touching Spirit Bear by Ben Mikaelsen also as I couldn't really chose one from the reading list. I skimmed through that but wasn't too impressed. The general plot sounds alright but the writing style isn't too good. Granted, I am finding some of Mark Twain's annoyingly long sentences difficult to understand, but when I do get my head around it it's very interesting. And it has a lot of history in it which is great for me.



I'm in what I've decided to label as a musical slump. By that, I mean I can't find much I like. Well, to be honest, that was a few days ago. I've been listening to a lot of Keane. Go watch the music video for Bedshaped. It's so sad, but also so good. My other favorite songs at the moment are Mayonnaise by Smashing Pumpkins, Zero by Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Feel Good Drag by Anberlin, and....um...(Okay, I'll admit it) Poker Face by Lady GaGa. The thing is, I dislike Lady GaGa simply on principle. But Poker Face is good, a couple of days ago I even got the guts to buy it on iTunes. That's hard for me with a song like that. Now don't get any ideas from this! I dislike the other of her songs I've heard. Okay, so Boys Boys Boys mentions my favorite band and that's cool...And the 'I wanna take a ride on your disco stick' thing in Love Game is amusing in a 10-year-old-boy way. Still, I feel my musical tastes dropping by the minute. Maybe I should stop it, I don't know...Anyone got any music suggestions for me? Something underground, preferably, or at least to those I know.

Oh, and has anyone checked out the single of the week on iTunes? I never payed much attention to it, but I was bored this morning. It's Fireflies by Owl City. I liked it. I played it a lot in the car to Stop N Shop this morning. My mother did not like it, at all, but my sister did. She's got a thing for synthpop music. It's really catchy, but just so electronic it's beyond mainstream pop music.

Gah, I leave for England Monday...I don't wanna go yet, oddly. It's something I look forward to the whole year. I need to get a load of music before then, I've realised, as I need to become familiar with the bands at the festival, and I won't be able to buy any songs until the end of August(I need to stop talking about music). And I wanna be able to read, and write, blogs. And I wanna be able to have my own space, something lacking when I'll be there.

Okay, enough of that. I'm gonna end this now, and return to my current universe of pop music, and long Mark Twain phrases I have to re-read to make sense of.

Friday, July 10, 2009

A Stream Of Consciousness Mood(Rambles...)

I love writing in stream of consciousness; Whatever comes to mind, basically, non-stop. We did this right at the beginning of the school year in English. He hated mine and I thought it was quite good. Too bad I can't spell it...Or spell much, in any case. And I need to stop making typos. And I need to stop thinking about school, which is quite impossible for me at the moment. And I need to stop putting so much thought into what I'm going to write here. That completely defeats the purpose of it. The purpose of it being something more interesting than what I normally do. It's interesting, and fun. I'm glad I'm not starting this one at eleven at night amongst AIM chats like I do a lot. That really sucks. I need to write in my journal tonight. I'm surprised the marker I drew on the cover of my journal didn't fade out. It's good. I need to cover it in hearts and stickers and other typical adolescent things. I like the song Fluorescent Adolescent by Arctic Monkeys. Why aren't I listening to any song this very moment? I listened to my iPod on speaker in the car today. Does anyone know the band Athlete? I'd heard of them before, but they reminded me too much of athlete's foot so I never listened to them. They're actually quite good. I'd heard this one song before--"Half Light". The computer nearly caught a virus from me trying to find the lyrics to that last night. It should have been fine. MacAfee isn't that great. Oh, wait, only one A in McAfee. I should've known that. Brings us back to the typos and stuff. Somehow that reminded me of the Spanish field trip several weeks ago. That was fun. The bus ride sucked. Oh, guess what! Me and my mom are gonna see a Broadway show in November! It's this one with Daniel Craig in. She only wants to see it because she's a fangirl of his. Personally I don't see the appeal, but whatever. I wonder how my dad puts up with it. I can see how I'm such a fangirl. It's in my blood. My mom collected these really expensive pamphlets from old concerts. They were on the floor last night in the spare room. The Police looked like a boy band back then. According to this thing I read Sting is really stuck up. They called it "The Lead Singer Problem " or something. Bono didn't seem stuck up either. I knew Morrisey was, he really is. He's songs are a tad overrated. Brandon isn't stuck up! How dare they! Wikipedia said he wanted to knock bands like Nirvana and Led Zepelling of their pedestal! WTF he never said anything of the sort! Stupid people, get your facts straight. I talk about him a lot. It's weird how when people mention Killers concerts I still get jealous despite having gone to two concerts already. Oh my god, not long until V Festival! I should count. We have a Top Gear calender hanging on the wall. It has good quotes and stuff. Top Gear isn't funny anymore. I wanna read what I've written. I'm reading what I've written so far. Hmm, I thought I'd written more than that. It's the style of writing, I know it. Out of ideas now. I might go into Boston tomorrow to this ship thing. Reminds me of this other ship thing I went to in the summer. I was a annoyed at my mother today. I was annoyed at my mother today. That sounded odd. I should bring my camera and load pictures here. Loading pictures is a pain. Photobucket is annoying. I dislike the picture count at the bottom of the page. Now they're stuck up. I can't be bothered to italicize. I wanna put a CD on. I wanna listen to The Script. Ooh cool my CD holder can hold two CDs in one pocket. Where's the case for The Script CD? That's okay, found it. I like the cover for this. Personally I don't think "Irish soul" is a good description for this band. That's what V Festival called them. The opening track is far too generic for my liking. They have a song called I'm Yours. Jason Mraz has a song called that too. You all know that, I know. Mraz is a weird name. Hayleyghoover likes him. He's alright. Waking Up In Vegas sounds far too generic. When I first heard of it I thought it should sound more unique. Don't Trust Me is unique for a song like that. They're playing at Warped Tour. They were talking about Warped Tour on a music magazine cover at Barnes and Noble today. Weezer were on the cover. They're cool. I need to watch Fuse so much more. Kinda repetitive, though. I'm writing a lot of sentence fragments. 2nd song on this album just started! it reminds me of the Abbey Road When You were Young version. I really wanna visit Abbey Road. It must be hell if you have to drive up there every day to work or something. The Beatles were cool. In the car Don't Look Back in Anger came on, that's by Oasis, and my mom's like "Is this Imagine by John Lennon?" and then when I tell her it isn't she knows all the words of it. That's weird. I've never actually listened to Imagine. It's supposed to be good. I love cliche songs. The Script DEFINITELY are not Irish soul. The verses in this are almost like rapping, but not. I'll write until the ed of this album. That'll be far too long. Maybe half way through. I need to check Facebook. No one'll be on at this time. My sister just joined ACC. She's gonna be such a n00b there. She'll never survive. God, I miss that website. I ate too much today. I worry about my weight too much. I went looking for a book on my school reading list today, and every shop didn't have them. That sucked. I wanna read the Mark Twain one. I first read a Mark Twain passage at the end of 4th grade, and I had no idea what the heck was happening. He was doing something with a Beatle at church. Haha, I just capitalised 'beatle'. John Lennon, Ringo Starr...Er, this is even weirder than before. I feel like I should be hyper but I'm not. Charles Dickens is incredible. I like his writing style more than most. I read the intro of Great Expectations in Barnes and Noble today. That's how I write in my dreams. Not in actual dreams. Why do we call both 'dreams'? That sentence made little sense, again. I love this. My thoughts flicker a lot. That's probably because I'm an introvert, at least partly, that's quite common. Introverts are cool. I think Charles Dickens was an introvert. And Charles Darwin. I think I'm getting my research crossed. My mother says I have an encyclopedic knowledge of music. I don't; It's called Wikipedia, mom. She's quite annoying. That's because I'm such a teenager. When does Harry potter come out? I wanna see that. Did you hear, the two Twilight people broke up? Kevin Jonas' marriage will never last. Danielle something. Something with a D. On YouTube WHATTHEBUCKSHOW said "Same letter initials are bad news, Lindsay Lohan". And then he's like, "But this is worse. We'll call her double D. Does that mean she has big boobs?". That's awesome. He has good quotes. He speaks like I write now. People who talk too slow on YouTube bug me. I shall write for one more song, and that's it. This'll be amusing to read back.What avatar will my sister pick for ACC? Something stupid. She's obsessed with fish on ACC. She can barely move in her house now, she has so many. That WHATTHEBUCK quote...Should I take it out? I won't. My sense of humour is odd. It can be very dark at times. Most people would hate it, think there's something wrong with me. There probably is something wrong with me. Yeah, that's what everyone says. People who boast weirdness 24/7 are annoying. That's most people. Middle schoolers are really annoying in general. I really wanna go to high school, but also I really don't. I wonder what 8th grade is like. Why am I talking about school AGAIN? Putting labels for this will be very difficult. Should I even do it? I wanna read. I wonder what books my mother owns. I talk about her loads here, little does she know. No where around here sells Starsailor. Wait, I always talk about music. I should talk about something else. Jeff Buckley. I have no idea. Rufus Weinwright is cool. Michael Jackson is scary. and I have probably scared everyone who started reading this off. Bye <3

Wednesday, July 8, 2009

More Polyvore and Stuff...

Wanna see what I've been up to today? Well, this;




Something went wrong(Or there's a trick I've yet to discover) which left it to shrink half the size after I published it. I'm confused. Can anyone help? If it weren't for my sizing issue, this is the first set I actually like of mine. It still isn't good, but it's better than my Springsteen one...And, no, if you know anything about me, and I have no idea what you know about me, then you'll know I'm not like this in real life. I'm definitely not this feminine and bright and cutesy. It's just for the effect, you know?

To add to the Springsteen-look-a-like yesterday, today I saw someone who looked like George Lopez. What a place I live in, huh? But, no, I've never noticed these things before. My area is quite boring. I've never really seen that many people who look like celebrities for that matter...But, me and my sister used to have the Hannah Montana haircut, to the last detail. It was the type that made little old ladies in the supermarket go "Aww, how adorable! Your hair is so pretty!". Needless to say, me and my sister didn't like this much. In fact for tomboys like us, it was like receiving an insult more than a compliment. Glad those days are over. Anyway.

Today I was planning to wake up at nine. I woke up at 10:51. I proceeded to blame my mother for it, since the alarm on my iPod never actually wakes me up, and actual alarm clocks install the fear that is the feeling of 'It's school today...'. That wasted a remarkable amount of my day, actually. I spent the morning on Animal Crossing. I caught two Ocean Sunfishes and two Napoleonfishes(10,000 bells each. Woot)and had Gracie, the supposed fashion expert, critique my accessory-less cheer leading outfit(Not well critiqued...) and in the afternoon I watched TV, and then me, my sister, and my mother attempted to go to the English food store a while away. There was a lot of traffic so we eventually gave up, got lost, talked about parts of speech, and became bored. My life sucks.

I hate YouTube. There are, like, no decent piano tutorials on there unless it's for something as wildly popular as How To Save A Life. I could just take the guitar chords and do them on piano but that's not much fun. I organised my CDs, too. That was fun. I love organising stuff, but I live a messy life too. I don't clean for the prospect of a nice room, I clean for the enjoyment of cleaning. I discovered how few CDs I own...And how many are borrowed from my parents. They have good musical taste. Well, mostly just my mother. That's an odd thing in a family in that we all have similar musical interests. The only musicians on my iPod my mother has claimed to dislike are James Blunt and Duran Duran. So she has a lot of music I like...I must only own about twenty CDs myself. I collected together the ones I want to listen to while I England in my CD carrier - Day And Age by The Killers, Oracular Spectacular by MGMT, Yes by Pet Shop Boys, Definitely Maybe by Oasis, Grounds for divorce by Elbow, The Script by The Script, A Guide to Love Loss and Desperation by The Wombats, Morning Glory by Oasis,and the first Snow Patrol album(The name I've forgotten. It has Run and Chocolate on it.

That's it...Er, sorry.

Does anyone have any ideas what I should blog about tomorrow? I have no clue, and if I have no clue then it'll just be another repeat of this.

Thursday, July 2, 2009

Why The Heck Must School Still Be Mentioned?

...Well, I suppose it's important, despite it being July now.



My grades for 7th grade came in the mail today. Here's what I got;



1st Term
English; A-
Math; A+
Science; B+
Social Studies; A
Gym; A
Spanish; A


2nd Term
English; A-
Math; A-
Science; A
Social Studies B+
Gym; A
Spanish; B


3rd Term
English; A-
Math; B+
Science; B+
Social Studies; B-
Gym; A
Spanish; B+


So...I think I can guess that the third term of 7th grade is the worst I've done ever. But, I was totally expecting that. I don't care anymore. Ever since I was five years old starting school, I was one of those teacher's pets. Quite frankly, it can be quite an exhausting path, and one that I don't wish to take up anymore. Though, I don't see how I dropped so much in math. My quiz grades were alright, and I only forgot one homework assignment the whole term. She does have favorites though, and clearly I was not one.

Thinking about it, it's more "Did" now, rather than "Does have favorites". It's so weird to think I'm not in 7th grade anymore.

Also, I found out which team I'm on next year(Explained in the post a few days ago). I'n on the small team--The one which everyone knows is worse than the big team. But nearly everyone is on the small team at least once in the three years of middle school, so it was gonna happen. I am on the small team with Adele and RAH, though. I got the letter about it...Some, "We're gonna have a great, productive year" stuff and a list of everything we need. This year for the first time, we have to read a book over the summer. The options for my grade are

- Nothing But The Truth by Avi.
- Witness by Karen Hesse
- The Princess Bride by William Goldman
- Touching Spirit Bear by Ben Mikaelsen
- A Connecticut Yankee by Mark Twain
- Murder On The Orient Express by Agatha Christie

None sound too appealing, but I'm not at all a book-ish person.

The weather here's been terrible, pouring rain and everything. we've just been doing a bit of shopping lately. Yesterday I got the new Elbow album(Well, technically my mother bought it. But, she hadn't even hard of them before I played Ground For Divorce to her the day before, so it might as well be mine). My mom also got The Offspring's Greatest Hits album, and I got the new(Or, new-ish) Razorlight album. And I got John Green's Paper Towns in Barnes and Noble, and I'd noticed that Looking For Alaska was under that area's Required Reading List. I loved that one. Today we went to the natural supermarket in town. They have some great stuff there. They had live music, too. Well, it was a woman with her guitar probably there simply for the money, despite all the hippie stuff she played. And, today I started learning the bridge of How To Save A Life on the piano because I've got the chorus down. It's really quite simple after doing the chorus, it has the same rhythm, and very similar notes. After that, I'm gonna try to learn a very simple version of When You were Young, or possible Sam's Town. They'll be easy to find online. Other than that, I've spent most of my day playing Animal Crossing City Folk. The annoying thing about this game is when you leave it for so long(*cough* six months *cough*) the whole world falls apart so much that you don't want to start playing again. I've been getting money, planting trees, the typical meaningless stuff that I enjoy for some reason. Today I went to the city to get rid of my guy's--Brandon--bed head(Back to the "Whole world falling apart" thing). In the wonderful world of animal crossing, you can't of course just request a hair cut. You have to go through a whole personality quiz to find out your ideal look. This could be considered quite an offensive procedure, considering no one's hair comes out the way they wanted it, and it's normally pretty ugly. Today, Brandon had the 'luck' of ending up with what was basically a Robert Pattinson cut! Hopefully if animal crossing is as real life-esque as the reviews suggest, the hair cut will go away after Brandon washes his hair. Too bad not even Animal Crossing is that sophisticated.

The music today has been nearly all Elbow. It's one of those albums where all the songs sound too slow, too long, and too similar to the last one, but it's quite good once you get past that. they have some amazing lyrics, especially in Starlings, the opening track. I'll be seeing them at V Festival, so it's good to get to know this album.

Sorry for the lack of good posts recently...I know I said I was saving good posts for the summer, but now that it's actually summer I'm totally out of ideas.


Forgive me?

Monday, June 29, 2009

Lyla! If You Can't Hear Me Call Then I Can't Say, 'Lyla, Heaven'll Help You Catch Me If I Fall'

Title lyrics; Lyla by Oasis.



Sometime yesterday, my sister came up to me out-of-the-blue and asked "Could you do a thing on your blog about Lyla?" Lyla's my sister's hamster, and like any child with an animal she's totally obsessed with it. Though, I agreed, and here she is.










We got Lyla...Er, five or six weeks ago, I think. She's named Lyla because my sister's best friend's dog's name is Mila, so why not(I suppose)? She's a teddy bear hamster, which means she's larger than most other hamsters. She's quite young, from a litter of...four, I believe. I can't say I was paying much attention when we bought her. I have very little interest in animals, unlike most people...Lyla currently lives in her flimsy cage in our spare bedroom...Well, it's not so much a bedroom any more, as simply 'The Hamster Room' due to the space the thing 'needs' and it's terrible smell. It's first cage broke a few weeks ago...Hamsters are nocturnal, so she spends most of her time in a little space at the top of the cage, sleeping. The opening there has to be held down with a book in case she gets out, and she also sleeps under the tissue that's there for reasons I don't know. She's quite hyper for a hamster...Especially when she's in her ball thing. My sister's too scared to pick her up(And I'm sick of her biting me and peeing on the floors), and my sister's annoying baby talk, unconditionally-loving stuff gets really annoying. But, it's nice.

I'm sure my sister would prefer me to be far more complimentary, but I do get creative control on this...And, she doesn't know my blog URL, so she doesn't need to know what I say. xD

And, yeah, I don't really know why she wanted me to write about Lyla if she can't even read it. She probably thinks the hamster's gonna get famous; Right, from like fifteen subscribers who probably lost interest a very long time ago.

My day's been another 'fail'. My sister's friend(Surprisingly, not the one mentioned earlier about the dog) slept round last night. They basically obsessed over Lyla the whole time while I was left on AIM, listening to their relentless giggling. Today my sister had an orthodontist appointment this morning to get spacers before her braces on Wednesday. And later in that day I had to go back. They thought I needed spacers too, realised I didn't, took them out, and gave me new, stronger elastics that won't break after an hour of use. We also got to wander around the center of town after that. There's nothing to do in my town. I'm so far away from the center I can't even walk there(Unlike the two other middle schools in town, lucky them). my sister showed-off to her friend in a toy store by using all the little kids stuff...We spent, literally, half an hour there, half of which was spent by her friend deciding whether the things on her bracelet were gonna be sparkly or not. And we went to a candy store, they got bags of M&Ms and stuff and I got a blue raspberry slush(The sort that makes people go 'Stick out your tongue; It's blue!).

I'm done watching my new Family Guy DVD, writing, playing animal crossing, etc. for the day. I've been spending time using the wonder that is Facebook. Earlier I had a chat with a girl from my school in England. We barely talked then but, hey, it's still nice. Today I collected all my Killers memorabilia together and realised how little of it there is. The only size able part of it is the nine Killers t-shirts I own. I need more random junk(ten, once I go get the new one at Hot Topic this week)...Like, I dunno, I just feel like such a bad fan. Would you say so?

Today I've been listening to Foo Fighters, The Fratellis, The Zutons, and not much else. I haven't been in the mood for music much today.

See you,

Wednesday, June 24, 2009

1.5 Days Of 7th Grade Remain

Hello,

Ah, just 1.5 days left of 7th grade! Then I'll be *gasp* an 8th grader. Well, I don't know...I wouldn't classify myself as an 8th grader until September 3rd when we go back. But I guess I wouldn't be a 7th grader either. Oh well, at least school will be out for summer. Not that it feels like summer nowadays. Damn it, Massachusetts, can you do nothing right?

This week, of course, has been a very slow week. We had our last official academic classes on Monday, which involved reflections, making clay models, a fun quiz, and working on actual math work. Otherwise we've been moving between various special events, watching The Simpsons, stuff like that. It's been fun...Speaking of which, I kinda love The Simpsons right now. I've watched The Simpsons since before I could speak. I was the kid who'd take The Simpsons--Full of jokes I wouldn't understand for a long time--Over the Teletubbies, Sesame street, etc. Oddly, I haven't entirely become the illiterate, troubled child my relatives feared I'd be. Anyway, now I'm rambling(More than usual). We had our talent show yesterday! Talent shows are amazing, mostly due to the fact that the majority have no talent whatsoever. Yeah, yeah, I know it takes a lot to perform in front of hundreds of people... But, still. Two girls did the commentating between acts, and they were awful at it. First off, they were 6th graders. And while I've meet loads of really amazing 6th graders, the ones at my school at least are just...Unbearable, which is the Best aay for me to describe it. You know how you obsess over the idea of leaving elementary for such a long time, yeah? Well when you eventually get to 6th grade, all that anticipation makes you a bratty, dramatic child that 7th and 8th graders will probably hate. Most of the acts were off-tune singers(Boulevard Of Broken Dreams, The "It's Too Late To Apologize" song, the "Every time we touch I get this feeling" song, a couple of Indian songs, etc.), a few dancers in odd, matching outfits(Star Struck by Lady GaGa, and Just Dance by...yeah, Lady GaGa again), a few bands, and a guy with his Chinese Yoyo(He's in my homeroom, so I'd already seen it every day for a couple of months). Dominique--Her French name, not her real-- Was amazing, though. *applauds*. Yay for someone with actual talent!

Today involved similar, relaxed stuff. Watched The Simpsons first period, and took down my board outside the classroom with my "Year's best work". Second and third periods a girl's dad came in to talk about Islam. It was interesting, but it did you go on...And, he had about 15 slides of his presentation, which goes to show how much talking went on. And we sort of got hit, yet again with the impossible "Don't stereotype" message, which is always worth blogging about. Forth period I had Spanish...Our last 7th grade Spanish class, because I have gym instead tomorrow. Ah, how I'll miss it; The endless student-made speeches about conjugations, the lengthy clap-for-the-teacher sessions to waste time, the guys hiding behind my teacher's desk, the guys throwing tennis balls because the teacher is just that oblivious, the uses of "Fiestas" to waste a class, my teacher's actions showing she was about to have a nervous breakdown. Ah, yes, that's all something to miss. My teacher really isn't much of a party--Or, "Fiesta"--Person, so we drank the Coke and ate the chips left over from the last 8th grade class and watched Toy Story 2 in Spanish, while I sat at the table with a few girls obsessing over a music video on someones pink iTouch. Fun, I suppose. After lunch I had health. We played yet another game of "Relationship Bingo", which I got sick of after five or six plays. Surely, one can only put up with so much of silly games such as bingo. I ended up with a toffee that I literally just remembered I had, and am now licking and hoping it won't pull my braces out. For the last period and a half, we had to watch a 6th grade thing in the auditorium. The music classes had made their own music videos. You had a lot of "A day in the life of *school name" which involved shaky, almost sea sick-inducing camerawork and shots of people walking through hallways. A few made no sense at all. One was an excuse for a few boys to play Star Wars with wooden sticks('cause it's not like Adele has a stick just like it that that she hides behind the bookshelf in homeroom and fences with, right?). A few involved the elementary kids at recess...Mostly staring at the camera the whole time, and one with my neighbor dancing like the possible-ADD child she is. we thankfully got to leave early and have a team meeting because a girl in my grade was leaving today. I barely knew her, but long goodbyes are always emotional for me, and everyone else. Until the speeches go on for far too long.

After school me, my mom, and my sister went to the mall to find my sister a dress for her 5th grade graduation. We were lucky first time in Gap--Don't judge that--and after we got a few clothes for my mom, batteries, a karate outfit for my sister's Build-A-Bear, FunYuns, a Nintendo points card, The Fray's "How To Save A Life" CD that I'm listening to now, and a Killers documentary DVD. Not all found in Gap, of course.

I've spent nearly all afternoon playing on my keyboard. ACC rehab does the weirdest things, you see, including doing stuff actually sort of worthwhile. I used to play piano but stopped after we moved...I was always bad at it anyway. Yesterday I picked up some of those "My first piano and me" books and started playing. Embarrassing, right? After I got sick of those I started learning How To Save A Life off YouTube. I can fluently do the main riff, and separately play the bass and treble of the chorus. I haven't started on the bridge yet. Later I'm gonna try to write it down, which will probably help put the chorus together. I feel so accomplished. I've wanted to play this song on piano since I first heard it...And, okay, it's so easy it's unbelievable, but I'm amazed at myself.

Music this past few days...er, The Fray of course, Weezer, Blink-182, Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Cage The Elephant, stuff like that. Must listen to The Script soon.

Bye,

Friday, June 19, 2009

I'm Saving Decent Blog Ideas For The Summer

The title is the reason of all these 'updates'. I at least did a few interesting posts a few months ago, but not anymore...

This week's been one of the craziest of the year so far. Yesterday, as I'd explained on Wednesday, was my "Celebration Of Learning". It was so much better than last year. The math, as I'd also explained, involved us showing our Walking Rated tri-folds. By "presenting", I do mean standing there staring at the minute hand on the clock while parents come in, hoping their child was there. The nice ones ask questions, but that's rare. Events like this are the most boring things to happen in school. Especially because my math teacher--Trying her best to be friendly, which isn't in her nature(Children or otherwise)--who wouldn't let us sit down. In LA we read poetry, and disappointingly, when people finished reading we clapped in stead of the arty clicking thing you're supposed to do at most poetry readings. Oh, and what I've learned from this is "I will shoot you if you write a poem about war". I hate people who obsess over peace, quite frankly. we watched a video on some of the projects of the year, with all but one video not working. We did our walk-A-Thon, and I'd improved from last year! I ended about...10th to last. Better than my "Last place by a mile" place last time. There was also this thing where select people got to throw "Pies" at the teachers, and in the afternoon we had a long recess.

First period today we had Social Studies, and we'd actually started a new section with a week to go...Well, better than Social Studies last year, where we did Ancient India in two weeks, and Ancient China in four days, because my teacher had spent months on Mesopotamia. Literally. We'd started Islam. I thought it was so interesting. Except when my teacher brought up the post-9/11 prejudice we have against these people, which turned into Nazi Germany, which turned into Japanese people-Pearl Harbor, which turned into "We shouldn't have judgements about anyone". As much as you say "Oh, I get to know people before passing judgement", it's completely human nature to do so. I don't think there's any way for us to stop.

We had about 3/4 of science next. We talked about the food chain, and energy, and watched a slide show made by my teacher. It was interrupted because we had to go to a Parade in the gym. My sister's school principal is leaving this year, and this is the sort of dragged-out, babyish "Good bye!" thing that elementary schools tend to do far too much. This was taking place in our gym, despite theirs being literally next door(Connected schools) and equal in size. My school sat on the bleachers, looking as if we wanted no association to the teachers in clown outfits holding up plastic signs that say "Applause", and "Shh...". Honestly, we didn't, even if 90% in my grade went there only a couple of years ago. The grades piled in, one at a time, holding signs and wearing weird headbands and whatnot. The 400 people in my school, plus the 600 in her's, plus teachers, plus parents, led to a very claustrophobic atmosphere. A couple of middle school classes did embarrassing performances, including 8th grade Spanish with the song we'd tried to learn, and failed at, on Wednesday. Then each grade did their own performances. They were the sort of things put together in 15 minutes, poorly-performed, with teachers kneeling a few feet forward acting out the movements, with more enthusias, than each of their students put together. Even my English teacher, sitting a few feet in front of me, couldn't disagree when someone said "Ugh, this is taking forever!". We eventually got out of there after 2 1/2 periods.

I had health 5th period. Today we started depression and suicide, and we had to make a pie-graph of our last 24 hours, coloring each section with how we felt at the time. I took this far too far, ending up with twice as many sections as everyone around me. I had math 6th, and we were told to measure arts of the stairs around the building. Wouldn't you thing the measurements within one building, at least inside, would be exactly the same? It seemed really pointless. After lunch we had to clean up our journals in English for grading. Our teacher would ask us questions about what we'd learn etc. and talk about improvement. Luckily, I didn't get to go today. Phew!

Not much else to talk about. My 2nd ACC account got banned. They also replied to my e-mail, calling my notifications "Constant and unrelenting", which is of course an exaggeration. The ACC ruled are ridiculous. My sister's friend is at my house for the 5th time this week, and we went to Target to get tape because all the pictures on my wall are falling down. Currently they're on the other computer, watching "Beat It"; Alvin And The Chipmunks version(My sister and her friend, not the pictures on my wall). As for music, I've just been flicking through random songs on my iPod. My favorites at the moment are 1979 by Smashing Pumpkins, Panic Switch by Silversun Pickups, and Ain't No Rest For The Wicked by Cage The Elephant. Oh, in the Ain't No Rest music video, the singer is wearing these awesomely-colored skinny jeans. They're like purpey, reddy, marrony...They're awesome.

This weekend, I'm no doubt having my sister's friend round again, and on Sunday Adele and Matt are coming round because it's Brandon's birthday!

Bye,

Wednesday, June 17, 2009

Nothing Can Go Wrong When The World Smells Of Grass Cuttings xD

Hello blog-readers,

We had the grass-cutter, or whatever I'm supposed to call him, 'round today. Now everything smells like grass cuttings. I love that smell. It kinda encouraged me to take some pointless pictures of my back yard. I'd show them to you, but my camera is being difficult. DX

Today during homeroom I told Adele I wouldn't blog today, I'd blog tomorrow when I actually had something to write about(Celebration Of Learning). She told me that I'd then hype it all up and type about it in one paragraph. This isn't far from the truth I suppose. So, here I am blogging instead of enjoying the above wonders of nature today. And, I don't know if I'll blog tomorrow, even if there is a paragraph worth of stuff to talk about.

I decided to be spontaneous. From now on, I'm going to post with labels. Crazy, right?

Ah, where to begin today. I had Enrichment first period. I basically read Harry Potter(Instead of Looking For Alaska, which I've now deemed inappropriate for reading in school) some more in the learning-assistant teacher's room. The teacher kept trying to start up a conversation with me. She'd been doing this a lot ever since yesterday when she read my completed poetry book and told me I had talent. I had never talked to her before that. Partly because I think she's a dominating know-it-all, and because I typically look down on the role of learning-assistant. I mean, every one's complaining about *gasp* THE ECONOMY at the moment. My school's already cut Art down to two weeks per year, we're losing 6th grade Latin next year(I think, or the year after) and I heard we're losing our librarian, too. But in my eyes those are all twice as important as an f-ing Learning-assistant teacher. It's really silly.

I had a double-period block of Science for 2nd and 3rd. We worked on researching the pond-water organism, animal, and plant we found when we went out to our school pond last week. I had to wait twenty minutes because the computers weren't working...Well, the third one worked. I have a particular fondness of all things microscopic so it was a good assignment, other than the fact I had to do Nematodes. They're really nothing more than microscopic worms. I looked a little into Water Bears. Now those are interesting if not rather disturbing to me. Want to know something else? I'm also slightly scared of biting, blood sucking(Or what could look like that) insects and microscopic insects. Ah, I'm so weird.

Spanish was a fun class, kinda. We had to sing a song. One that was rather too fast for any 7th grade Spanish kid to speak, let alone sing. We were split into groups of four to sing in front of everyone. Where the heck was she coming from when she did that? Stuff like that doesn't make people sing any louder. But it was fun to hear some of the popular guys screaming their lungs out to the song, and adding in some non-Spanish babbling from time to time. One guy even got a guitar from the music room--Probably more to escape Spanish than to play along to the song--which, considering it was very out of tune, was hilarious.

After lunch I had health. We got to go outside, and we did the ol' "Passive, aggressive, assertive behaviors" routine. And, guess what, we even did skits! How much more of an uncreative activity could you think of, seriously? Once again, the popular guys make classes like Health and Spanish worth going to. There was one when these two people were either drunk or high(Hard to tell, really) and then go "Unicorn!!" and run and crash into the largest guy in my class. And, where these two guys were going out, and (Of course) the one who was twice the height as the other played the girl.

We got to finish with a double class of Social studies. We're doing yet more last-minute work for the celebration we have tomorrow. We were put into groups to make posters. Mine was on the Byzantine Empire. Tomorrow we have to quiz our parents on the matter. I'd warned my mother of this. without my help, she could go two ways; "I'm an idiot", or "I'm English and therefore highly intelligent, especially on all things European". Both ways I'd love to avoid if I can. In the 2nd half some people, not me luckily, got to scrape of the blue tape on the floor, that had been put down three or four months ago for a Geography activity. My teacher found out the most effective way of doing so was scraping with the erasers from the "Flea Market Pencils" she got for 25 cents last summer, that don't sharpen. It all got insane as it usually does with last period classes. While clearing up someone had left a picture of Jesus on the floor...And, well, I thought the whole "JEEEESUS ON THE FLOOR, SOMEONE PICK UP JEEEESUS OF THE FLOOR" act was rather amusing. As much as I complain about my school, there have been so many funny memories over the year.

Speaking of basically everything said I don't believe I've talked about the Celebration of Learning yet, have I? It's something my school does every year. Parents come in to see all the marvelous things we'd done. It's pretty much all done in the week or so before the event of course. Tomorrow we're doing some poetry reading, parent-quizzing, showing our tri-folds in math, and I have no idea what in Science. And then we get to watch a slide show in the auditorium, and then the Walk-a-thon my grade's done, then we get to eat hot dogs and such. I don't know what in the afternoon. Probably watching a movie or something. Whatever happens, it's better than last year which was standing by my Science project for two hours, walking a mile behind everyone else, and not being able to eat amazing food because my teeth were enduring braces-pain at the time.

A couple other points worth making...

I have been banned from AnimalCrossingCommunity.com. Just to let you know. Well, I don't know if it's a perma-ban. I got a violation point added to my account for something I did--And got reported for previously--Over a month ago. Something's gone clearly wrong, and now I'm banned. But, you might want to send a PT to SoulNotSoldier. *winks*

Music's been up-and-down. I'm annoyed at Fuse for not properly updating their Top Ten Alternative Countdown yet. Posting the same thing but with a load of interviews does not make it any enjoyable...Well, Brandon was actually mentioned in an MGMT interview. God, just update it. I've been listening to The Script, Kasabian, and MGMT for the past few days. I want that Kasabian album, the new one. And I also found out Arctic Monkeys have a new album out in August.

See ya,

Sunday, June 14, 2009

Oh My Gosh, I Have An Awesome Weekend Planned(This Is NOT Intentional Bragging, I Swear)


Hey. Er...Like, nothing has happened recently. Might as well talk, anyway because I promised. Okay, when did I last post? Wednesday, Thursday? Wow, that's like forever for me. I think I'm rather obsessed with blogging.




The last two days of the week were alright. We had to work with the world's most insane class schedule--Courtesy of my science teacher--for the last couple of days. It made, and many would agree, no sense. It had to be shifted so we'd have extra time for our Math/Science projects. I wasn't too happy about that. Through a combination of laziness, carelessness, and my extremely dependant personality, I'm left jobless most of the time. I'd done the absolutely bare minimum for science, which no doubt contributed to it. I was more than happy to outline pencil marks in Sharpie, however, which is what I did the whole time. Friday was the worst from a boredom point. There were no computers left, and I'd been told to pick out the colors to use on the wings of the thing. Our group weren't even good at that, surprisingly, because we had one of those fashion-obsessed "I think I'm so cool" girls. Wouldn't she be able to match colors properly? Apparently not, which might explain why she's no where near as cool as she thinks she is. Our tri-fold looks like rainbow-colored vomit, or will do when we glue them on, and we're no where near as far as we should be. Fun. xD




The other day I got an e-mail from ticketmaster.com. I'm following a load of bands on there so they tell me when they're coming to Massachusetts. Wanna know who, this time? PET SHOP BOYS!! Cool, right? Well, I don't know, I think it is. Except, it's Saturday September 5th, the day after my 4th Killers show. House Of Blues. But oddly enough my mom said yet to the whole idea, and so...Another concert it is! It's gonna be the best weekend ever, except maybe V Festival, and we'd probably spend the rest of Sunday in Boston anyway. Funny story, actually, tickets came out on the 12th and I'd forgotten until the morning of the 13th. Even though they'd been out for over 24 hours, we still managed to get general admission! The Killers sell out in ten minutes, and Pet Shop Boys, after a day you can still get tickets to get right to the front? Shows how big they are, I guess. xD Anywho, I still look forward to it, even if I only have one album. I'll look into them more. Aaaaaah...<3


Yesterday I went into Barnes And Noble to buy a book. How bizarre is that? Actually it is rather weird, for me. The last book I bought was Oliver Twist in December because it was during a power cut and I had nothing else to read. I read about one chapter. I was on the hunt for Looking For Alaska by John Green. The only reason I'd wanted it was because John Green is a totally awesome YouTuber. Still I'd heard good reviews on it. I'd never ventured into the endless void that is teenage literature before now. These days, teenage literature is basically synonymous with "Twilight" which might be why. But considering I'm loving this book, I might bother to again...John has a unique way of writing, one that I can't really explain. A nice way of putting things, I suppose. I've been re-reading Harry Potter And The Deathly Hallows at the moment but I by far prefer this one. I considered continually reading the book last night while trying to get to sleep...Well, honestly, I was hoping to fall asleep with the book in my hands. It'd make me feel far more accomplished than I actually am. xD


Time Spent Reading; About 24 hours

Pages Read; 66(A lot for me)


Today was a usual day. We went to this place a while away that sells English food. The whole isle of candy is my number one weakness, and I came out with far too much. And, he was playing Black Eyed Peas there today. He's usually playing some 80s rubbish(I'm full of contradictions, I know), like The Human League(Who you'd know as the "Don't you want me baby?" song from the Swiffer Wet Jet commercial, by the way), Right Said Fred, etc. I was slightly worried for him...Odd. xD


Music this week's been interesting. I've been repeatedly watching the Top 10 'Alternative' Music Videos on Fuse this week, because I was hoping for A Dustland Fairytale...Sadly, not there, but good anyway. I got this big addiction to No You Girls by Franz Ferdinand because of it. Actually I've spent a good deal of the week watching Fuse. The Offspring, The Fray, and Foo Fighters, specifically. And Green Day, but that was because there was nothing else on. Green Day get on my nerves, especially Know Your Enemy which I'm sick of hearing all the time. I've also been listening to Red Light Company(Who I recommended on iTunes. Silly iTunes for not having them already.), The Script, Chameleon Circuit, Kaiser Chiefs, and Snow Patrol. Good stuff.


PS, today I went on my Twitter for the first time I'm forever. I'm LoveBrandonLove if you want to follow me.


Those are really the only points I think are worth mentioning. God, this post sucks. Ideas...please?


Stupid picture time...

Wednesday, June 10, 2009

I'm Not Just A Metal Mouth Anymore...I'm Also An Elastic-Band Mouth(Plus more) xD

Hey,



So...Tuesday marks one year of having braces, there or there abouts. Because I got them two days before the Walk-a-Thon at my school, which is the 18th this year. Today I went to get the colors changed for 'em. I've been happy, because I'm "nearly done" with braces, how ever long that might mean. There were really only a few teeth that had issues, though those issues were big. But they're looking surprisingly good now, if I do say so myself. Today I got these elastic band things, that attach from the hooks on my molars to two canines. They're apparently, like, small practice ones before I get bigger ones. They don't hurt, surprisingly, but I can only open my mouth half way now. And putting them in was a pain...But, this means I'm kinda closer to getting them off. It's supposed to be, I think, Januaary-ish time. Only 3/4 of the time it was originally supposed to be.



So, I guess I should fill you in on the more important stuff of the past couple of days. Yesterday I had a Spanish field trip! I'm sure my teacher is disgusted to her core at herself that we've spent some time without the textbooks; We've been working 100 miles per hour with Spanish work because we're so far behind the other two middle schools in town. Granted, we were only going to the next town over. First we went to this Mexican restaurant that everyone seemed to know, and that I'd typically I'd never been to before. We had chips and salsa, burritos, and these honey and sugar chip things. Yum. Oh, and I actually have a decently amusing story to say! The girls at my table; Me, B, Br, M, and Ma(Like the anti-stalker nicknames?) went to the bathroom. While I was waiting for them, Ma says "Oh, they've got hand sanitizer", so her and B, oddly, spent a few minutes discussing it. Afterwards, M says "Guys, it's toilet cleaner..." which it indeed was. Thinking about it, why would they put a hand sanitizer dispenser so low-ish to the ground? The funny part was going out and telling the prissy popular girls and seeing their faces, though. Never gets old. xD Afterwards we were going to go to a gallery with Mexican photography. We'd been split into our two Spanish classes, the others were at the gallery first. According to the texts my friends had been receiving, the driver had somehow got lost during the five minute drive from one destination to another, and we turned up late. And Hallelujah we did. The only photography I like is the colorful, weird-looking modern photography; I can assure you there was none there. Black and white pictures of flowers and Mexicans and tiny houses...Gah. We'd gone to a gallery last year, too, and having every little "And this could symbolize..." of each picture painfully dragged out doesn'tm ake things better. It was actually only about 15 minutes, hoorah. xD

Today in health, we got two "Singing telegrams" from two music groups. I love how the teacher gives vaguely noticeable themes to it. First we got Island In The Sun by Weezer(YEEEEES!), played by the one group who got the drum kit and electric guitars. Then we got a group of boys who song the "Feelin' Hot Hot Hot" song, if that's its name, extremely off-key the whole time.

And third period the band, orchestra, and chorus(Featuring none other than Adele; http://www.thatdarnadele.blogspot.com/) had their spring concert. It got me out of English. The orchestra went first, they sang Hallelujah off Shrek. I love that one, always have. If Shrek was a little lighter on the Smash Mouth I'm sure I'd have bought the soundtrack by now, if it's available...*shrugs*. Then they did Blackbird by The Beatles. This will seem so weird to Americans reading, but in England most schools are required to do at least some singing...Well, actually a lot of it. Everyone hated it, but in 4th grade we did a Beatles medley. This was one of the songs we had to do, and I still like it quite a bit. But school does sort of ruin just about everything, like Beatles songs. Also they ended with something I didn't know, and don't want to know. Unfortunately, I have no idea what the band or orchestra songs were called, though I doubt you care. The first two of the orchestra were by a German, if I remember correctly. All three ended with something not too impressive, with a sort of...Background "History of this country" speech by my Social Studies teacher. Weird, right?

And, to add to the immense drama and craziness(Yeah right...) of my last couple of days, today the hamster got out of its cage. It's currently in the spare bedroom, so it's not like it ran around the whole house. But it got under the bed, and it wouldn't come out. I had to help; Plastic hamster ball, flash light, and part of a carrot in hand. My sister was too traumatized to do a thing. she dropped a piece of brocoli on its head yesterday and now she's certain the thing hates her and is gonna go rabid and bite her finger off if she goes near. That went on for an hour before we had to go to the orthodontist. When we came back it was no longer under the bed...So, we looked around and it was in the corner under our heating-system rail thing(Whats it called?). It took so long to find because, as I've always said, it looks like a piece of fluff. It wasn't moving, and I was the assigned "Poker". Thank God, it wasn't dead; Merely asleep. Hamsters are nocturnal, you know. So then it spent some time under there, running before we could catch it. Then over an hour behind a drawer, that we couldn't get it out from. We had to wait for my dad to get home, and get it out by tipping the thing over, with a wall of pieces of wood around the drawers. Finally! This will no doubt happen again, but hopefully not soon. That hamster's evil, I'm sure.

Music? Er...I got The Script's album, I've probably mentioned that, and I'm listening to it a fair bit. It sounds kinda mainstream-in-the-working but they haven't got to that point in this country just yet. They have some sweet songs, though. I haven't listened to my Beatles album I got yet. The Killers' video for A Dustland Fairytale released yesterday(It's already 7th on iTunes music videos!), and it's been non-stop listening ever since. I might do a sort of "review" of it some time(Would that drive you crazy, the fangirling? I'd keep it to a limit.). The only review I've found so far was really negative("When in doubt, let's pick on Brandon Flowers' music, yes?". I hate journalists). It's cliche, but it had to be. It's pretty, and sweet, and kinda sad too, but it all turns out alright. Watch it. It's soooooo cool. And Nevada-y guess. And at the moment I love Hallelujah, as mentioned earlier. I've got a slower version by someone else on my iPod. It took some getting used to but I prefer it to the Shrek version.

Wow, that was choppy...

Bye,

Monday, June 8, 2009

'Song Obsessions'

"Song Obsession"



Usually last 1-2 days. It's when you become obsessed with a song and you have the loop button playing that song on your iTunes for hours at a time. At the end of a couple of days it usually wears off.



It can be very annoying to other people, and you constantly get yelled at for singing it, but in the end the enjoyment you get from the song is usually worth it.


Thanks to whoever on urbandictionary.com wrote that. What a great website.



Anyway, I'm sure if you've listened to music at any point in your life, you've had this happen at least once before. Yes? Well, earlier today(In math, if I remember correctly) I was thinking about all the times I've had this...And, well, I thought I didn't have anything better to do, so I'd make a list for whoever actually bothers to read this. This could be awfully long, but it probably won't be. I won't feed you the typical "I love music more than life, I could name another five hundred songs", because it simply isn't true. I'll name all the ones I can think of, though.





(PS, iTunes is being stupid, so this is purely by memory)





Somebody Told Me - The Killers

I must've been...eight years old when this song came out. My unfortunate bubblegum pop phase, that every girl seems to go through, had thankfully ended a few of years earlier, and I'd started getting into the alt. rock, Brit pop type stuff I still listen to now. I was listening to the English "Now That's What I Call Music" CDs. I could never finish the whole thing; Too many songs, not enough of an attention span. Thankfully this was only the 2nd song on the CD right after Vertigo by U2. This was the first song ever that I became obsessed with, honestly, even though it might seem sort of cliche, it being The Killers and all. I would listen to this song continuously, at least for a week, and I still remained slightly obsessed with it until...

Ruby - Kaiser Chiefs

This song seemed to stalk me in 5th grade. I don't know about this country but it was everywhere in the UK. It lasted for a good while. It was the first song I listened to when I got my new iPod I remember, because my dad had put the whole album on and I'd listen to it over and over and over. Ah, Kaiser Chiefs, how I loved you as a 10/11 year old...

When You Were Young - The Killers

Without a doubt the biggest song obsession I've ever had. It lasted like three weeks, at its strongest, and I remember never putting my iPod down. This was, like, early 6th grade. I'd heard it before, I'd heard several Killers songs before, but this was what converted me from "The Killers are my favorite band" to "I'm obsessed with The Killers" if you want to make it all that black-and-white. That was such an amazing time...And although When You Were Young is far from my favorite Killers song, think about how different of a person I'd be without this one song!

Mr. Brightside - The Killers

...Yeah, it was gonna happen at some point here. I'd heard about this song, how it was "Better than When You Were Young". Better than When You Were Young? Like that's possible! But...well, it was for me. I'd heard it once, thinking "This song is really, really good but not too special". And then, by the end of that evening, and a few more listens "Oh my god this is the best song in the world". The magic I found in the chorus never ended, and neither did the times I listened to it on my iPod. It lasted...Er, about a month.

Sam's Town - The Killers

Before you question this, I promise this will not be all-Killers obsessions. I've usually gone on mini-obsessions, listening to a few songs at a time. This was a really, really big obsession at one point, though. I never understood why it got so little attention, I was listening to it so much. Amazing, amazing song. I got over it eventually...But, wow, it must have lasted a month at least("1-2 days?" That's nothing, apparently!)

The Anthem - Good Charlotte

I do wonder why I liked this so much. It appeared on my Pandora account one day, and thought it was pretty good. So, I bought it on iTunes and then the obsession came...It lasted about four days, I believe. Good song. Great intro. Really catchy, apparently

Zero - Smashing Pumpkins

My parents own Mellan Collie And The Infinite Sadness, so I just thought I'd put the album onto my iPod. I'd heard a few songs I loved. This happened at Camp Kieve(A week-long school trip for my grade, back in October), and lasted that week, and oddly, didn't continue into the weekend. Sitting on the unusably-squeaky bed opposite Adele's(Below me) and just listening to that song over and over again. One high point to the week, right?

I Bet You Look Good On The Dance Floor - Arctic Monkeys

This was right after I got my new iPod. I was actually buying this other Arctic Monkeys song at a time, and this was their most popular. I hadn't heard it in forever, but I still bought it. This lasted about...er, three days I think. And, my iPod kept freezing that whole time which was the cause for this one being cut short.

1985 - Bowling For Soup

I had/have an annoying habit of getting obsessed with pointless pop-punk songs, which I realised once I bought this. I did get a lot of enjoyment out of the lyrics of this song, which was probably what made it last. If it didn't have those lyrics, I don't know if I'd like it as much. Lasted about six days.

The Man Who Sold The World - David Bowie

This came from listening to Nirvana's cover of it, and then deciding I might as well see the original...It's weird, but just so good. I can't say I'm a big David Bowie fan other than this...At the time we had a 48 hour power cut, and by the end of it my sister knew nearly all the lyrics.Llasted about three days.

Stacy's Mom - Fountains Of Wayne

I can purely blame this on Adele. It's pointless and stupid...But, yet again, it's just so catchy! Stacy's mom has got it goin' on! At least it gave me and Adele something to talk about for a few days...About five, actually.

Human - The Killers

Yes, they're back! This probably should have gone earlier in this timeline, but oh well. I wasn't too impressed with this song when I first heard it; On the day it first aired, before all the versions were taken from YouTube for copyright violations. But then..Just, wow. The Killers...Ah, they just never get old. It was like those first few plays of Mr Brightside all over again. Lasted about a week and a half.

Let It Be - The Beatles

You can't admit it's not a pretty song! I know, I know you've heard it so many times before but...The Beatles are legends. Their music just never gets old, and I completely adore this song. It was actually a really big obsession, lasting about a week.

Hey There Delilah - Plain White Ts

Don't judge, 'kay? It's catchy, and pretty, and sweet...And, yeah, I look really stereotypical right now. I love it. It lasted two days...Yeah, kinda sad.

Shattered(Turn The Car Around) - O.A.R.

My first real sad song obsession, I guess. I'm a sucker for sad songs, especially in the last couple of months...And, yeah, without meaning to I heard this song on the radio thinking it sounded like a really good song. Buying it and hearing the whiny, sad lyrics to it made it a whole lot more enjoyable to me. Lasted about five days.

And, most recently...

Don't Trust Me - 3Oh!3

*shudders* This is probably worse than Hey There Delilah but I still like it. It may be electro, but it sounds totally mainstream...But, yeah, it's still kinda electro, well sorta. I guess I don't have a real "other than it's catchy" reason for me liking this song. I hope my next obsession will be better, whatever it might be.

Enjoy it? See, I actually had an idea! Well...pathetic, but yeah...Oh! My sister got her hamster today! It's kinda tan, and looks like a big piece of fluff with it's eyes half shut. It's called Lila, and it's not as cute as she believes it is. She calls herself a tomboy, but really she's the type to carry around a Chihuahua in a designer purse. But at least it didn't get stuck in the tubes like I thought it might; It's a big type of hamster. And, I have a Spanish field trip tomorrow. I'll speak about it then.

Bye, love ya.