words XXIV – Page 21

The new Chemical Brothers album is growing on me a whole lot. I didn’t like it at all on first listen but a couple more reveals some depth. Believe and Hold Tight London are excellent and the real standouts on it. It’s not like the last album, it’s whole lot less dancy and I don’t think it’s going to do anything like as well but it’s not bad.

It’s not been a good day so far. I’ve managed to go and delete the only copy I had of my personal calendar. Of course my work one is just fine. Not happy with that. I’m hoping I have some sort of recent version at home but not really holding my breath.

Not so sure on last night. A fun evening with various from around these parts and admiration of Stu’s new tattoo. I really have to sort out my design and go get it done. The place Stu went to certainly sounds like it’s worth checking out.

Alex is away for a few days so I’m on Hebe duty, which is all good. It’ll be nice to have a quiet evening tonight. The weekend’s going to be hectic. Added to everything else, I’m off to buy half the contents of the Apple Store for McGill. Should be fun. Hopefully the packages are small and carryable, otherwise I’ll be doing some dropoffs.

It should be a fun weekend but tiring. I decided to get the Dublin tickets so that’s Monday morning. Yay for getting paid in a couple of days and then juggling everything around to splash out on lots of extra tickets. Looks like the presale for the London shows was a complete disaster and ticketmaster has suffered pretty badly. I really hope they don’t have the same problem for Dublin. I won’t be going straight to them for my tickets on Friday morning anyway!

Reading stuff, lets see I read Coupland’s Shampoo Planet and Nicholl’s Starter for Ten over the past couple of days. Nice to have a couple of books to just bang on and on about loneliness. Decent reads tho, the latter slow to start ad to really kick off but the last 50 pages or so weren’t bad. Now I’m off on The Shadow of The Wind which isn’t bad so far…for an entire 30 pages on the tube this morning.

This morning, I have a dilemma.

Pre-sale tickets are out for U2 in Twickenham. I can get 4 and I can get them now. However as it turns out I can only get presales for one date out of the entire tour. Dublin pre-sales don’t start until Monday.

So do I wait or do I make sure I can get Dublin tickets for the night that I don’t even want to go because I want to be in Glastonbury just so I’m sure I get to see them at home.

Fuck. Twickenham is calling me because I can get them now and then I can know that I have my tickets and I’ll see them at least once. But at the same time I’m supremly confident that I can get tickets for it through the general release. It’s a big venue and I have one of the fastest internet connections in the country available to me to book with.

Fuck. The last time U2 played Dublin (Popmart ’97), I didn’t go because I was away at a wedding. I’ve never seen them in Dublin and Slane was a truly fantastic evening. This time promises to be so much more. Croke Park and everything that it comes with. Being allowed onto the pitch as opposed to heavy handedness of late after the GAA.

I’m annoyed that it’s only one night I can book for. Given that I paid to sign up to be able to get pre-sales, not a huge amount but not cheap either. It’s annoying. I guess I’ll have to make do with all the other benefits of that but fuck.

Jenny really was a friend of mine.

Thank fuck for credit cards. U2 ticket hit pre-sale tomorrow morning. Two nights in Twickenham for what should be massive gigs. Dublin has been confirmed. Croke Park for four nights running in what are the only Irish gigs of the tour. And yes, they are the same dates as Glastonbury. Tickets on general sale in staggered dates from this coming Friday.

Pre-sales start tomorrow morning. I’m in with them, I don’t know if I have any sort of limits on what I can buy with them (short of my plastic) but if there are, then I’ll be booking Dublin first and as many as I can get. Then Twickenham and again as many as I can get.

It’s a good thing that nothing I’ve heard line-up wise about Glastonbury is exiting me this year. I’ll get the Dublin tickets safe in the knowledge if I don’t go I’ll be easily able to pass them on. Will have to be for at least two nights to justify the travel and missing Glastonbury. Although I have just had the mad thought of going to Glastonbury and flying home the Monday afternoon to get to Croke Park that evening. I’d be completely shattered but it might be worth it. Hmm, now that’s well worth thinking about.

I can be back at the flat from the festival by around 12 I reckon if I’m up and out early early early. Then shower, drop stuff off and I can be at Heathrow by 3 or 4 and then straight from Dublin airport to the gig. Get my parents to collect my luggage. Tuesday I could then sleep.

I really like the sound of that and it is completely the best of both worlds. Complete madness but worth a whole lot of thinking about. Seeing them in Twickenham will be a great great day but seeing them in Dublin, in Croke Park of all places will be something else.

Anyway. Saturday night I missed V-Mas as I was off in lovely Hammersmith. I really hate Hammersmith and it’s horrible having to do the same journey I do to get to work on a Saturday, nevermind going to some of the same bars beforehand. Still it was a good cause, Velvet Revolver were playing in the Apollo. It was an excellent gig. They came on stage about an hour late with apologies as they “were off saving the world” but man it was an entrance. Great gig.

Sunday was quiet enough. I headed down to Camden with Tim for some shopping. A few comics, some books and some more blank dvds. Most of the afternoon and indeed evening was spent in CoH bagging some Winter Lords and other fun stuff. Very glad to report that I had respecs waiting on all my characters. So on my Katana/DA main I dropped a couple of attacks (I had too many anyway) and the DA cloaking thing and respeced in Kick (cause I had to), Tough and Weave giving me 4 defensive toggles. I have good defence. Did a lovely lovely level 39 mission last night with a Winter Lord hunting team and wasn’t sidekicked. I could hit, not well, but I could hit. Lots of nice XP from them but far more importantly 14k XP for the complete. I love it. So um yeah I’m back.

Took a break to head out with Alex to see Mean Streets at the NFT. Very enjoyable with the usual high standard of performances that Scorsese brings out. Alex nailed some of it on the head with a comparison to Bendis dialogue which I like so that was good too.

This week has gone from quiet enough to not so. Drinks tomorrow night in the Washington for Alex’s artist collection <:)> leading up to a couple of friends from Dublin staying the weekend which includes a birthday party which is going to run late on Saturday night and Planxty in the Barbican on Sunday. I’m really looking forward to that one. The usual Thursday in between then and whatever tourist stuff is gotten up to around all that. I may take a day off next week. I have some to use up and now I’m thinking about what I’m going to do with them. I was thinking Dublin for a bit but Paris has been calling for a long time now and it’s almost as cheap to go there for a midweek break. I would have to get a new camera before then so that adds things up a bit.

I’m using http://www.tadalist.com/ to track stuff. So far it’s for purchases and cinema trips. It’s not got half the functionality that I want but it’s new and shiny and on the web and so like a sheep I am following it. I could do it a whole lot better in an excel sheet but I don’t like excel and I’d have to load it and save it somewhere that I can access from home and work and I am inherently lazy. I’ll upgrade them into something better sometime when I can be bothered and really have the need to do so.

Lets see, oh yes. I finished off The Time Traveler’s Wife and it was stunning. One of the best books I’ve ever read. I wasn’t able to start another book for two days afterward and I feel like I’m betraying it by having started off on another one. No book has ever made me feel like that before.

A fairly nice long lunch today for a birthday and it’s going on 4pm already. I like days that suddenly disappear like that.

Jenny really was a friend of mine.

A fairly nice long lunch today for a birthday and it’s going on 4pm already. I like days that suddenly disappear like that.

Finding Neverland was excellent. That makes two for two this year.

Last night, I went to see The Frames in Islington. It was a good gig. It wasn’t as good as the Bush Hall in December but it was still fun. The crowd wasn’t the best and the venue which I had enjoyed before seemed wrong. The A/C was going strong and aswell as it being noisy, I was cold for most of the evening. Very unusual for a gig with 1000+ people around. Decent set list, not sure Revelate was meant to be on it this time around again but without the computer to help out on the last couple of tracks it fitted nicely. Snippets from Redemption Song was good and their usual strong Pixies cover Where Is My Mind. I like the new stuff, I think it works better live than on the album. As their first global release, I’m not sure on it. Setlist cleaned up a little would have been a much better choice, it’s easily one of my favourite albums.I already had a ticket for the next gig in April and I’m looking forward to it.

My switch box issues are almost over, I have a new one and its working fine. I’ve had to go back to a shitty PS/2 keyboard and mouse which isn’t so bad except there is no scroll wheel on the mouse. I’m completely lost without it. I went to see IC and get another mouse and the only one they had to give me does not work. Not happy with this at all, and of course they are out at lunch. As soon as that away message comes down I’m going to go see them again.

Tonight I’m finally off to see Finding Neverland. I was in work late last night (hence no comments on the support act) and early this morning (bastard conference calls) so I have no compunction about leaving on time this evening for a beforehand.

I’m reading Popular Music by Mikael Niemi. Someone gave it a very good review recently and the blurbs for it didn’t sound so bad. I’m not sure I’m reading the same book everyone else did. Some of the descriptions of the musical events are pretty good but most of it seems overdrawn and in places trying to be a bit fear and loathing. I’m missing something here…

Back to music and back to Nick Cave as referenced a few days ago. So I picked up No More Shall We Part and I like it, at least I like most of it. Not enough to rush out and buy everything else he’s done but I’ll keep an eye out for more in the sales.

Closer is a phenomenal movie. It’s set one hell of a standard for the coming year. Clive Owen is stunning and deserves every possible award. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a better peformance. Portman is also awesome and deserves everything she is nominated for.

Wonderful movie. Run, don’t walk, to see it.

books

I mentioned Greg Rucka’s Keeper sometime last week. It went downhill a lot from the first few chapters. Maybe there weren’t as good as I thought at the time and I was just in the mood for them. It’s worth noting that I have a sister named Katie with Down’s Syndrome, I think that put me off a little bit and I’m not convinced on how accurate or even close the descriptions there were. Not majorly but it sat wrong in a couple of places. Don’t get me wrong, it wasn’t a bad book and if Amazon had the next one in stock it would be in this morning’s order it just didn’t live up to the first few chapters.

Mitch Albom’s The 5 People you Meet in Heaven sat in Border’s as part of their 3 for 2 for a good while before I picked it up. The cover drew me in a lot, it was very simple but titled nicely. It’s a very charming story and had me thinking throughout about who my five people would be (hypothetically of course) and of how people do pass by each other in life. It’s quite a light read and it made me smile a whole lot.

Anonymous’ Belle De Jour was given to me by a friend because it was about a famous blog. Not really complaining about that, I had read her blog on and off and found it funny. I knew the book was coming and vaguely had it on my list of things to keep an eye out for in paperback down the line. I didn’t know that it was going to be in the same diary format as the blog with slightly expanded entries/chapters. So not hugely rewarding, I had read a good bit of it already. As a book, it shows up much more of the flows than an odd journal entry does. Every second page doesn’t need to go on about how pretty she thinks she is or more importantly how pretty others think she is. Not a hugely bad read but you won’t miss much by sticking to the website.

Right now, I’m in the midst of reading Lord of Misrule, Christopher Lee’s updated autobiography. It’s very well written, I was surprised by how much I enjoyed it. Close on 200 pages and all of the tales about his family, his younger life and the war is fascinating. Some of them are far more interesting than the stories about the films we get later on. He goes on about golf a bit much for my taste but peppers it with enough anecdotes to keep it going. So, not a my life in films book but an actual autobiography which is good.

I’m sure there was something else I read recently but I can’t think of it right now. Next up is probably The Time Traveller’s Wife. Picked this up on Friday due to the massive tube advertising calling it the next Lovely Bones, enough to have me take a glance in Borders and the back made me laugh so that was that.

Everything feels like a strange sort of limbo at the moment.

Work has picked up a whole hell of a lot andd it’s not taking much effort to not be miserable there. Alongside all that is actual work and indeed deadline stress. I worked late this week for the first time in a long time. So that’s good.

Outside of work there’s been a bit going on. Yesterday I had a few friends around for lunch and then an afternoon of playing some Xbox. The evening was around to the pub where some others joined us for a late night. Good fun throughout.

I’m off to see The Frames on Tuesday night which I’m looking forward to a whole lot. They were awesome in Sheperds Bush a few weeks ago and I’m hoping for more of the same. Then the weekend. I’m not able to make V-Mas which I’m annoyed about as I’m off to see Velvet Revolver in Hammersmith. That too should be a good gig, the reviews of nights to date have all been positive. Shame on the clash 🙁

A friend brought The Killers album into work on Friday. It went around a couple of us and I was very pleasantly surprised by it. Enough to go out and buy it. Track 4 Somebody Told Me is a major standout. Up there with Franz Ferdinand for a band that I shouldn’t like but I do, quite a bit.

It’s been a strange one for music lately. I heard Nick Cave’s Fifteen Feet Of Pure White Snow and was blown away by it. I never got into his stuff at all but I love this track. As soon as I get into a store I’ll buy the album for it alone. I’m hoping it lives up to it.

Halloween weekend, I was in the pub with some of the lads having a drink after work.n One of the other pubs was having a themed evening, Dead Rock Stars for dressup. We were generally scoffing at it. Until the thought struck, what if you took it a step further and played only music by dead rock stars. This thought snowballed onwards and a pen and paper was quickly found. Thus we spent at least two hours coming up with a complilation of dead artists (or group members to get Metallica, Stones etc). We listed a good 70 songs and I’ve been collecting ’em up to make the CD. That was how I heard Led Zepplin’s Immigrant Song for the first time. Again, wow. I’ll post the full playlist when it’s done.

More and more I’m starting to regret having my hair cut off. I don’t really want to go through the years it took to get it that long again. Beard is still in a limbo state of it’s own. We’ll see about that one in another few weeks.

I read a saying of somesort somewhere once. It went something like this.

Looking back 10 years, you’ll cringe at what you did and thought. In 10 years, you will be doing the same thing.

Fuck 10 years, sometimes 10 minutes is enough.