"Nothing but the rain"
Alice In Chains are an awesome band. I find their music haunting and beautiful. I reckon that the first few albums are just brilliant and after that the newer albums seem to sound the same. If I want slow heavy ghostly rock then this is an album I’ll play. It’s a newer album to me and is therefore subject to the Old Dog problem.
Anything by this band is worth a listen.
I am an occasional follower of the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster. I love the way the church has answers to all the really hard questions to life and by giving these answers I don’t have to think about what worries me any more. I also don’t have to question those areas of knowledge anymore.
Recently I mentioned this church at my workplace and I was told that it wasn’t a “real” religion. I countered “define ‘real religion'”. It’s wonderful that when faced with a made up religion people suddenly question their own made-up religions. Ha Ha.
Anyway, it turns out that I am eligible to become ordained as a minister in the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster. I can be a Pastafarian minister. I can’t wait. I am really looking forward to this.
By it for me now by clicking here.
Hopefully, once I become ordained I can then apply to perform ceremonies like marriage and naming parties. Excellent.
Saturday 21 December. A date that will live in my memory and on this communication. Andy and I travelled to The Angel to see Combichrist at Electrowerkz venue.
This is the running order, taken after I went to the “rest rooms”.
The whole venue was a bit weird. Pretty much a dark room in a strange building with a bar and unisex toilets. The black painted walls were painted with phrases and sayings and my favourite was the one that said “Hadley’s Hope” – the terraforming city on LV426 in the film Aliens. The mixing desk was hanging from the ceiling and the bottom edge of this construction was just at head height.
The first band on were shit. I reckon my staff band at work were better than them. They said they were from Coventry. Not sure if that’s a causation thing or not.
One of the things about listening to the type of music I like now is that the whole musician thing is constantly questioned. The eighteen year old me would hate me. I like electronic music which can be played using a laptop. Das Kapital (below) had three laptops and bopped around behind them. My issue with this is that although I might enjoy the music I don’t understand the creation process. Surely if your music is samples and drum tracks why don’t you just press play? Perhaps I need to see more of this type of music created. If only there was a festival dedicated to alternative music, somewhere like in Kettering next year.
Combichrist consisted of two people. Singer and mixer-dude. They were very good. It was brilliant to hear the old songs played – the gig was billed as the Old School Electro Set. I didn’t take any photos as I was about two rows back from the very front. As much as it ashames me I held my hand up and got to hold hands with the singer twice. I am such a teenager.
Songs I remember them playing:
There were others and I am sure I could find them if I searched the internet thingy but I can’t be bothered.
Andy gave this gig a 10. I am bordering on 10 but at the moment more than likely it is: 9.9 < r < 10. Don’t know why, there was just a little something missing and I’m not sure what that was.
My Rock Hands:
Use as often as possible.
Ever since I raced this car in Gran Turismo I have always started the game with the Honda Integra Type R as my first car. I love it. Here’s my latest one from GT6 [just after a car wash]
I seem to remember one game in the series where I had to get a Civic Type R initially but soon bought my Integra.
It’s such a shame that my iPhone camera doesn’t do very well in the low light. The moon has been gorgeous these last few mornings. A full moon and setting. Brilliant.
I’m amused by effects of our eyes on our perception of reality. To me, when I looked at the moon it seemed much larger than in the photo. My eyes and brain do a really good job of ignoring all the stuff I’m not interested in. To me, this view was mostly the moon and tree. My brain just chose to ignore all the houses and car. It will really freak you out once you start understanding perception of reality. We observe so little of what we see.
Here’s the thing. Where I work has some rooms with lovely views. Here’s the view from my normal classroom:
As you can see, the view from my classroom is dominated by mud. Mud and the sports hall. In terms of view, this room rather sucks. However, the selling points of the room are plentiful.
This room is in the same building and actually has a positive altitude in opposition to my room. The view over Maidstone is lovely and should be worth the effort of changing rooms. However, there are downsides to this room:
The compromise is that although I would love a good view from my work room I value the other good things about my room more.
It would appear that if you have no idea what to get someone for Newtonmass then you MUST get a book with 1001 things you must do before you die.
So, 1001 albums would take approximately 85 days worth of listening (daytime only) which is doable. But I’d probably hate most of the music.
There is no way I am going to read 1001 books recommended by someone else. I hardly have enough time to read all the books I want let alone read a load I don’t care for.
Films, yeah whatever.
Comics, maybe, I’ll tell Jase.
1001 Golf Holes – really? There are that many worth playing. Gosh, the world is a little more boring than I originally thought.
Wines and beers, whatever.
Video games, maybe but 1001 of them? Nope.
Guitars, seriously? There have been 1001 guitars that are considered important enough to put into a list Oh, give me strength.
1001 days that shaped the world. I can see that making sense, but I do wonder from whose perspective it is drawn.
Paintings, if they move you then good. If not then they aren’t for you. Relax and don’t care.
Cars and buildings are much like paintings and art, it’s made to move you and ultimately I ain’t going to spend time reading this book.
Look, if you have no idea what to get someone then get them a book telling them there’s too much to do in this pathetic little life that we have on this dying planet.
It’s a long time since I read The Hobbit. All I can remember is that it is about Bilbo Baggins and that there is a ring involved. So my impressions of the film are not contaminated by things like accuracy to the book.
This was the first ever film I have seen in IMAX 3D HFR and it looked absolutely brilliant. I am just so impressed with what the thing looks like. I loved the film. The 160 minutes passed really quickly and I was fascinated and enthralled for the whole thing.
There were a few places where I think the HFR acted against the “look” of the film. The first film looked oddly “other worldly” during the bright daytime scenes and I think that’s something we can get used to. There were a couple of shots during the Barrel Escape set piece that I thought looked like 1970s special effects on TV. The problem is I can’t explain what I mean by that.
I can’t wait for my children to be old enough to cope with the spiders, dragon, orcs and Sauron. This film was brilliant. I’m so looking forward to watching the three Star Wars films and also the six Middle Earth films.
Brilliant.
Made a coffee earlier and also needed to get into my “race seat” [a sofa and Logitech Driving Force GT Wheel].
Placed my coffee on the steering wheel stand which is not sensible given the way the wheel calibrates itself and checks the force feedback systems!
Luckily I didn’t get covered!
