I'm not listening to any music...

Crackin'

2009-07-08T13:04:00.002+01:00

I spent this morning updating my CV in my underwear, and watching Gavin & Stacey...in my underwear. Now I've got to get ready to continue meeting people to say goodbye - something I'm extraordinarily bad at - as I'm supposed to be in Chelmsford in an hour to say cheerio to my friend Lois. The good news is that now I'm back on the car's insurance (somehow), I can drive there.

See kids? Things usually work themselves out in the end, if you give up hope of fixing a problem entirely and wait for someone else to propose a solution. There's a moral in there.

Upset With Car Insurance

2009-07-04T09:41:00.002+01:00

Yesterday was both bad and good, for numerous reasons. I met up with - and bid farewell to - my friend Adam in Chelmsford, in a trip which would turn out to be my last opportunity to drive. That's because I was informed when I got home that the insurance company had called to say there had been an error with altering my Dad's policy, and that I hadn't really been insured to drive for the past week. I'm pretty upset at this, and I hate insurance companies right now after noone will allow me to drive for my last two weeks in the UK. Also I learned that it doesn't matter if you're over 21, there are still things you aren't allowed to do yet.

In more encouraging news, I'm in the last month of my picadé project, which was my attempt at documenting the year by taking one photo every single day. In less encouraging news, Andy Murray shot out of the semi-finals yesterday, and now Wimbledon is (nearly) finished and I have no car, the next two weeks are going to be looooooong.

A Mix of Topics

2009-07-03T10:19:00.002+01:00

Well, playlist.com sucks, rendering my intricately-woven mixes 'unavailable' in my country. So I'm forced to switch to the infinitely more buggy mixtape.me for my series of tubes musiks needs.

In other news, we set the New Zealand blog up last night, which you can find at http://nzpostcard.blogspot.com/. For the time being, though, I'll be contributing posts to both this blog and the new one.

Updates Galore!

2009-07-01T11:11:00.008+01:00

Here's a bunch of stuff that happened:

I went to visit Emily and saw Philadelphia, Allentown, and Boston; I went to an American senior ball; I left Canterbury forever; I left Twitter forever; I started to think about packing for New Zealand; I performed in a play at Artsfest; I graduated from university with a First; Michael Jackson died; I drove from Manchester to London in torrential rain; I made a driving music mixtape; Sandy and I beat 3 computers at Age of Empires on 'Hard'; I've been watching about 7 hours of tennis a day during Wimbledon; I've been saying 'sayonara' to friends before I flee the country; I recorded some songs, but not enough to make another CD; and I covered my bedroom walls with photos from the last 4 years.

For the full story, check out the picadé. (Useful, isn't it?)

To hear the songs I made click onto the last.fm profile I made for The Fundamental Floors. The reason for separating these from the Cute Kids project will become apparent when you hear the songs, owing to a difference in style. But at some point I'll probably succumb to merging the two.

One or two other points of housekeeping: first, here's the photo of me and the hockey team I promised to upload, in which you can try to find my face.

Secondly, Emily and I will be making a joint blog detailing our trip to NZ, so I'll shift over to that one in time. I'll post the address when we make the first entries, so expect hilarious anecdotes of our experiences, wonderous photos of the antipodean sights, and maybe even a video or two. Who knows?

Later days.

Cultural Difference

2009-04-06T13:45:00.002+01:00

I like listening to Ladysmith Black Mambazo and singing along with words I make up. That's me letting my free spirit fly free.

Blogger > Twitter?

2009-03-27T16:35:00.004Z

Not too much going on today. I went to my last seminar for one of my two courses this morning, and intended to get some grocery shopping done this afternoon, but got caught up intermittently playing the guitar and working on an essay some more. Currently I'm at the point where I've written about 200 words short of the word limit and have yet to say anything.

I never thought I'd say this, but I can't be bothered with Winamp anymore. I used to have it open constantly, not only because I like the library but because I used the global hotkeys possibly more than anything else ever. But recently I've been growing increasingly disenfranchised with the music on my computer as a whole: the result of losing 95% of it last summer and having to rebuild my collection from near-scratch, coupled with the weariness I feel when I think about how much effort I put into obsessive-compulsively entering the data into each individual mp3 file. Plus there was that time I came home drunk and listened to some songs - all of them are meticulously re-encoded at 128kbps to save disk space - and realised the quality is appaulingly bad. I should have just bought MORE space, like I've now done.

So recently I just loaded up my mp3 player with my favourite songs; the ones I would want to hear if they came up on shuffle. Screw 'having to' listen to each song on an album the exact same number of times like I used to, I'll just take the good ones thanks. So I've got that on me when I go anywhere, and increasingly frequently when I'm just sat around, I'll plug my speakers into it so I don't have to be my own DJ anymore. Also lately, I've been making use of online music sites: first playlist.com and now mixtape.me. I'll just chuck some songs I like but which I can't be bothered to download on there, and just let that play through when I'm on the internet. Finally, I've got a small number of albums in the .flac format, which I'll roll out from time to time with VLC, which is a nifty little program. At least not having Winamp open all the time means my computer goes faster.

The problem is that neither my mp3 player nor the websites submit scrobbles to last.fm (which I used to keep constantly updated), and while VLC does, pretty much the only things I listen to on that are old dub records I've got hold of in lossless quality. Oh well, I've been scrobbling for nearly two years; maybe it's time to gracefully call it quits.

When I Get To The Border

2009-03-26T08:19:00.001Z

Last night I got halfway through Rushmore, and I fully intend to finish it sometime this evening, but I also have to prepare for a gig at Rutherford Bar tonight - which takes priority. I played there last week but that, coupled with the fact that I've been playing through complete songs more and more in my bedroom recently - means that the songs I have to play have become a bit stale for me. Time to whip out some fresh new material me reckons. By which I mean polish off some old material which I had never deemed performance-worthy up until this point.

I'm also currently engaged in the process of retrieving my lost Flickr password, so I can continue to update my pic-of-the-days for anyone who follows it (to wit: Emily, and any weird stalker guys who might be lurking). At present, having already sent an email to customer care explaining that I just want my password, I now have to respond to an email with the answer to a 'secret question' I don't recall ever previously providing the answer to. Then someone named Ratie at Yahoo is going to get back to me. Apparently the days of automated password retrieval are behind me, what with all those times I've had my identity stolen online, and all.

P.S. Yesterday I posed with the hockey team for this season's team photo, which I'll post when I get hold of a postable, computerized copy made out of 1s and 0s.

P.P.S. Check out my playlist (here), which I have as yet failed to include on this blog without it looking all cumbersome and rubs.

Another Supplementary Update

2009-03-25T10:44:00.000Z

In retrospect, it was an ill-thought-out idea to not write any blog entries for a year, as the gaps in information leave me with the awkward dual feelings of inconsistancy and discontinuity; an OCD-sufferer's arch nemises. So as I occasionally glance over past posts, it will slowly occur to me to add closure to certain ideas or goals I previously laid out. Here's the first batch:

- My 'Essential 50': yep, I have enough free time that I did this one (here) like I contemplated, but in my defence, at least four people had enough free time to read it, and at least one other drew the inspiration to also make one.

- I never went to the Balkans like I apparently planned to at one point, but I do now have at least the seeds of a life plan; it's rad.

- The speculated reunion gig of my high school band actually went ahead, and I thoroughly enjoyed doing it (picture below). We'd all been apart for some significant time, and it had been even longer since we'd played together, so it was amazing to see how we'd developed as musicians - and that wasn't supposed to be as pretentious as it sounded. The most interesting thing that happened at the practices was how we often put aside the real instruments so as to go play Rock Band. I can do the bass to Reptilia on expert. Woooo me and so forth.

- I still go through phases of being obsessed with The Office. Currently I'm not in one, although Pam adorns one of my desktops. Zooey occupies the other.

That's all I can think of fer now. Ta ra!

A Local Boston Band rocking our adopted home; The Box in Chelmsford

It Has Been a YEAR (hence the year's worth of information crammed into a single post)

2009-03-25T09:50:00.001Z

Bonjour, y'all. I been ritualistically 'stumbling' across my old blog fairly frequently for the last few weeks, which when it happens usually leads me to believe I'm supposed to do something about it, hence this incredibly contrived update. Yazooo.

One of the main reasons I've been constantly reminded of my upsettingly dwindling participation to the blogosphere of late (aside from the fact I've been playing with Google Reader streams) is that I'm contemplating starting a New Zealand blog for my adventures this year - more on that later. In the meantime, I may as well make use of the relatively competent blog I already have.

I'm also attempting to streamline my online self-obsessiveness, reducing the number of social networking sites I am a user of to four: Twitter, Blogger, last.fm, and mixtape.me (which I've recently become obsessed with). This is a ridiculously sad thing to be occupied with for the sole reason that most, if not all of these types of sites, are at least 95% unecessary, and to invest any prolonged thought in them is to demonstrate a terribly depressing disuse of my existence.

Nonetheless, to give an indication of how long it has been since I last updated, one of the major things I have been doing this year has been taking a photo everyday on my new camera - well, it was new, but using it literally every single day has caused it to age considerably faster than it otherwise might have - in order to document my final year. You can see the photos I took up until the beginning of March (here) at which point I forgot my password to flickr and haven't yet been able to retrieve it. I'm still continuing the project, though, and intend to until my 22nd birthday, where it will have lasted a full year.

Which leads nicely onto my current situation: I'm in my final year back at Kent after returning from Amsterdam last summer, and am working towards my graduation date in a few months' time. In the meanwhile, I'm living on campus and enjoying myself as the weather gradually improves, and slowly taking satisfying chunks out of my remaining snippets of coursework. I have started to perform my songs (here) in front of audiences, and have joined the inline hockey team at university, which I like to think of as an outlet for my intense aggression. If you know me or used to read this blog, you might recall I bought two goldfish in Amsterdam, one of whom recently died. Cody, the remaining one (who, as past entries can attest, always showed signs of being the first to expire) just sort of swims around bored-looking, usually watching whatever it is I'm doing. In other news, I brought my SNES back from A'dam and regular lose to my housemate Sandy at Street Fighter II, but regularly beat my housemate Sandy at Super Tennis. I'm happy with this dynamic. I recently added a second monitor to my computer, and as a direct result my productivity of procrastination has been up 500%.

I'm looking forward to this summer, because I have arranged a new life plan which is both unsettlingly irresponsible and consequently supremely exciting. Not long after I graduate - two days later, to be precise - I shall board a plane to Boston to visit my girlthing Emily, and celebrate her birthday with her, following which the two of us will fly via LA to Auckland, where we will pick up a campervan on my birthday, and travel down the country looking for a place to live and work; we will then ride out the year in Antipodean bliss. As I mentioned, we're thinking about starting a joint blog about our episodes in NZ, with photos, anecdotes, updates to our families, and maybe a poem here and there for submission to the 2010 Bloggies, but we'll cross that bridge when it comes. In the meantime, we have our visas arranged, plane tickets bought, campervan booked... it's almost as if this is a legitimate plan.

That's all I can think of to write at the minute. Hopefully I'll get into the habit of regularly updating blogger again; and I'll let you know how the streamlining of web 2.0 works out. On that note, I'll try and find a way to include my twitter feed and maybe a mixtape.me playlist on this site, so it serves as an all-purpose Jamieogram.

I Want it to Be Tomorrow

2008-04-10T08:11:00.000+01:00

Today is going to suck, and I know that because I've NOT been looking forward to it for several weeks. I've already been up since 7 o'clock this morning, and I didn't get to do anything fun last night because I've got to give a presentation today. I've known about it for over a month, but I've still done the work for it almost exclusively this week/morning.

So I have to meet my presenting group at 11 to put our shoddy work together, after which I have another lecture across town, and then I have to come back to give the actual presentation from 3 onwards. Tomorrow has never seemed so appealing.

Yesterday was a sunny day though - probably one of the first 'warm' ones of the year so far - and I was supposed to go with another class to Utrecht for the day, but I really didn't want to so I threw a football around in Westerpark instead. Life is full of choices like that. Then I think I had an epiphany on my way home to start doing some work and ended up having an early night instead. At least I'm feeling adequately well-slept to talk for a while in front of a bunch of Dutch people about art.

I'm not too sure what the next few days will bring, because I should probably start work on either of the two essays I already know about which are due next month, and that doesn't even include another essay I don't yet know anything about. Long story short, things are going to get hectic from this point on, and after hearing about people back in Kent who have been working for a while but have now finished schoolwork forever, it's not going to be any easier out here.

I realised I have less than two months of proper Amsterdam time left, because on the 5th of June I'll be heading down to the Balkans for two weeks, before coming back briefly while my Dad collects my things from the Netherlands, before flying home for good. Regardless of whether or not I've enjoyed it, my time here has definitely passed quickly. I can't believe it's (nearly halfway through) April already. I can't believe it's 2008 already. I have no life plans; it's rad.

Math Rock is a Legitimate Term

2008-04-04T09:00:00.000+01:00

Woo-hoo, a whole bunch of news. Sometime this week, a friend of mine from secondary school and someone with whom I was in a band for a couple of years suggested a reunion gig to take place in the summer. It sounds like a good idea on paper, but I'm sceptical that all four of us can practise all the songs we've long since forgotten until they are good enough to perform. But we'll cross that hurdle when we come to it, I guess. In the meantime, a Facebook group trying to garner support for the gig has appeared, and the band has added videos of our Christmas Eve 2004 gig and a link to our old website (which I can't believe is still online; there must be so much unread crap littering the blogosphere. Moving on...)

Jackie's fish died exactly one month after she got it, so we had a semi-sincere funeral to send little Benito Mussolini off to Valhalla, flaming boat (made out of a juice box and chopsticks) and all. Floating down the canal being heckled by two drunk passers-by - what a way to go. Unfortunately, I think the event was somewhat spoiled by an unwelcome attendee who found out about it on Facebook and proceeded to invite himself, misinterpretting the occasion as a 'drinking reason'. That seems like an insanely creepy thing to do. Anyway, Codes and Tens are still doing well, but I haven't had the heart to tell them that their fishy compadrito has visited the giant goldfish bowl in the sky.

My bike has fallen into a state as close to 'total disrepair' as it is feasible to get while still being technically ridable (it's held together with duct tape in more that one place), and my courses are still mostly unthrilling. However, after my exam a few weeks back in 'Metropolitan America', I'm now into the second block of the course which focuses specifically on the city of Atlanta from the time of the Civil War. This means that for the first two sessions we've been watching 'Gone With the Wind' in its entirity. Score.

I've finished watching the seasons of The Office in a retarded order, and now I'm onto the first series of Pokémon.

It's Just Another Day

2008-04-01T11:51:00.000+01:00

I hate April Fools' Day. It's just a retarded excuse to piss people off. < /rant>

In other news, I'm actually looking forward to running out of The Office episodes so I can start doing some real work again. It feels like I haven't don't anything useful in a looong time...

A Normal Day

2008-03-30T19:01:00.001+01:00

Ahhhhhhhhhh! What the hell have I done today?!

Journeys Through the Paintbox

2008-03-26T09:41:00.000Z

This post will be just a list of reminders for me, although it's also an opportunity to express a realisation about myself recently: watching season 2 of The Office for entirely too much of yesterday (and following Pam and Jim's tumultuous-yet-sweet friendship for hours and hours on end) made me feel more satisfied than watching episodes of season 4 when they're actually together. The thrill, indeed, is in the chase.

So today I need to do some reading from the book I finally acquired yesterday - needless to say, I'm supposed to have had this book for two months, so I'm a little behind. Then I have to go to a lecture and then book plane tickets to go home some time in April, after having worked out how much it'll cost me and how much school I can afford to sacrifice. Right now, I'm in a mindset whereby I can't motivate myself to care about my studies anymore, probably partially because I have just sat an exam in one course and have two weeks off in another, and partially because I got a reply from my home university regarding this semester assuring me that everything is going to be OK. It may seem trite, but it helps to be told that every once in a while...

This afternoon I'll have a bit of time off, but despite what I've said about my studies, I'd like to use that opportunity to write an uncomplicated art exhibition review due in a few weeks' time - simply so I don't have to think of it anymore.

The Best Retarded Idea Ever

2008-03-25T14:44:00.000Z

It's funny how a number of problems can build up and burden you over the course of a few weeks, but then all solve themselves and disperse within a few hours of each other. This morning, for example, a plumber came to fix (and ultimately replace) the leaking water heater in my bathroom, during which time I finally learned what the hell wakes me up so frequently with annoying smashing and banging sounds. Then I sat an exam which I now no longer have to ever think about ever, and then I finally managed to find a copy of one of my courses' books which I've been looking for almost constantly for the last two months.

Now I'm in a good mood, and I have options. They mostly involve playing Bomberman 2 and watching The Office. (N.B. I hate The Office in theory because I see waaaaay too much of myself in Michael, but I do love Pam and Jim ever so.)

Easter Update

2008-03-24T12:48:00.000Z

Wow, much to tell. First off, my water heater started leaking furiously on Thursday night, but what with it being Easter (and just another excuse for the Dutch to slack off), the 'urgent' email I sent to the accommodation people STILL hasn't been answered. On the plus side, my neighbour managed to solve the worst of the problem - it's amazing what an ingenious mind can do with a roll of masking tape.

Speaking of Easter, last night was the 'Easter Special' Sunday Dinner which was pretty nice, after which I went to hang out with Zach, Jackie and Lacy (who have been in Ireland since the middle of last week), and Frank who just got back from Barcelona. I'm not doing much travelling, it seems. However, I'm working on a plan to go home at the end of April to meet some people from my old work and maybe some people from school, and also to trade my electric guitar for my acoustic which I'll then bring back here. The plan is to busk on the bridges of Amsterdam; then my transition into a European will at last be complete...

In fish news, Cody (the dying one) seems to have made something of an unexpected recovery, and after spending two weeks making me think he was surely about to croak it has now started to perk up, and is currently almost as energetic as Tenner. Good news there, then.

I've been somewhat subdued by revision for an upcoming exam on the development of American urban areas, which is tomorrow afternoon. I'm not exactly confident - although it's rarely the case that I am for exams - but I'm into the final stages of revision and so I feel a little better for having done the work. After I sit the test I'll give myself a little break, but then I have to crack on with work in my other two courses, both of which blow. I sent an email to my home university complaining about the fact they don't seem to match my degree... I'm still waiting for someone to tell me everything's cool anyway...

So in the meantime, back to revision. Later Days.

A Positive Message

2008-03-20T21:15:00.000Z

After a great deal of anxieties recently, I'm starting to feel much more upbeat about things (even after a Facebook application diagnosed me as manically depressed...). I had a heart-to-heart with a friend, and even though some of his advice seemed clichéd and unhelpfully vague at the time, it turned out to be just what I needed to hear. So I've started to talk to more people and go out more, attempted to rekindle some friendships which I may have let go stale of late, tried to think positively about my course/life, and above all just started to enjoy myself. It's amazing the confidence boost you can get from just being intentionally vulnerable once in a while. That's the only possible way to maybe get the girl...

I've also been eating a lot of soup recently, for some reason.

A Tale of Two Bike Locks (Neither of Which Works)

2008-03-18T14:11:00.000Z

Prologue
For the last 4 or 5 months, the key has been stuck in my bike lock, meaning that it won't lock as it should. To a normal person, this might prove to be a setback with regard to the security of one's bike, but I've still been using it as a 'fake lock'; spending a great deal of time and effort balancing the lock in place around the frame and various bike racks around Amsterdam to make it look like it's an unpenetrable safety precaution. Even despite the fact that the key is still plainly visible in the lock for hours at a time when I'm away, noone has yet stolen my bike.

Zach's bike broke on his way to visit me a while ago when Scott was here, and so that has been kicking around outside my palace for a month or two doing absolutely nothing useful, until I finally managed to get the key for that lock off Zach sometime last week. But then the first time I actually used that lock - the first time my bike has been genuinely secured in a long time - the key broke off inside the lock, meaning my bike was stuck to a rack. This was bad.

(This all happened on St. Patrick's Night, so obviously I wasn't going to do anything before some heavy Irish drinking. I have a legitimate sounding claim to be Irish because of my name.)

Story
So the following morning, adventure ensued. It felt like a video game because I had to complete various tasks in order to actually regain the use of my beloved bike once more... I first needed to go to the Portuguese bike guy down the street and see if there was anything he could do about it, to which he suggested I borrow his rotating cutter-thingy (I never bothered to ask what this equipment was properly called). The condition was I had to find a shop nearby my bike which would be willing to let me plug in the thingy for long enough to cut through the chain of the lock. Step 1.

I found one - but the guy seemed a little suspicious at first, telling me respectively he didn't know who I was, whose the bike was, if the bike was stolen, and so forth, until he eventually relented on learning of the Portuguese guy's participation in this activity - and so I went back to collect the cutter-thingy. Step 2. But then the Portuguese guy accurately pointed out that I would most likely need an extension cord, and only on acquisition of said cord would I be able to cut the lock off. So I went back to PHK and asked various people if they had one, all with the same name negative reply. After trying one RA I eventually came across another in the courtyard who was busy posting fliers, and who told me to come knock on her door in ten minutes to pick one up. Step 3.

Eventually I got hold of one, and after explaining my story rounded up Zach and Dustin to help me cut it. I left them at the troublesome bike with the cord, and headed off to collect the gear, but when I got to the bike shop the Portuguese guy told me he had just broken his blade, and made a deal that if I went and bought him two new blades I could use the cutter for free. Good deal, methought, so I went off on this further adventure to acquire the blades. (Does it feel like the concept of a bad video game to you yet?) Step 13.

We found the shop and bought two blades to the Portuguese guy's specifications (from a guy with the most uncharacteristic hairstyle for someone who works in a hardware store; it would have been much better suited to a gay-bar waiter), and I took them back to the bike shop. In the meantime, Dustin joked about how carrying the huge extension cord reel was boosting his XP points, while Zach refused to stop playing with my 'fake lock', losing the key, and threatening to lock it to various bridges and posts. Step 127.

I EVENTUALLY got hold of the goddamned cutter-thingy and held the bike while Dustin (who claims to have worked in a metalworks for the past few summers) made sparks fly, so to speak. Now, this was happening in broad daylight, near a busy intersection, and a police van drove past as we were quite visibly stealing a bike. But it wasn't until we finished that a member of the public came up to us and sheepishly asked what we were doing.

Epilogue
Now my bike is back in use after an eye-watering 15 hours of being out of commission. (Being in Amsterdam sans bike is, after all, an exercise in futility.) The lesson is: never use real locks when fake locks work fine. There's probably some metaphor I could draw here about counting various unhatched eggs or appreciating what you have before it's gone for good, but I can't be bothered.

I Keep Taking Everything to Be a Sign

2008-03-16T09:07:00.000Z

For all of yesterday my heart was hurting, but I don't mean in the 'girl broke my heart' sort of way. I mean the palpitations and tightness of chest way. But my left arm was doing fine, so nothing to worry about.

Yesterday on a larger scale started off abnormally; got cultural and pretentious; then headed downhill sharpish; but then was quite nice by the end. First off I slept (and actual proper sleep, at that) until one in the afternoon total uncharacteristically, before heading to an art photography exhibition for one of my courses' assessed projects. That was followed by a couple of awkward chance meetings with acquaintances - the ones that happen in a street which you can't avoid but which you immediately regret - and later in the evening a party which wasn't so much a party as a small bunch of people I didn't know hanging out in a room being uncomfortable at how few people were there. So I just talked to Frank and Zach's visiting sister Lacy the whole time.

Today I need to get some reading done after last week's class when I attempted to blag my way through an intelligent contribution having not prepared, but offered a completely erroneous point and got shot down and picked apart by the professor. Other than that, it's raining, so today should be a laid-back affair.

Billie the Visions and the Dancers - 'I'm a Cuckoo'

Poetry Coroner

2008-03-14T14:29:00.000Z

Even though I don't need this right now, I've written a few more haikus:

"Learning from Mistakes"

Circles never end,

It all happens time again,
Ad infinitum.

"The Artist's Addiction"
Suffering aids art,
(It's all written in his chart)
But is it worth it?

"A Classroom of Boredom"
Participation,
Uncalled-for if you don't care,
Though still look busy.

So there that is. Nothing much else to report, apart from the fact that yesterday I was really bummed out about university, and how I'm not as interested in what I'm studying as I feel I'm supposed to be. But that anxiety has eased a little this morning, so it was probably nothing more than a bad day.

Haikus are the Pop Songs of the Poetry World

2008-03-12T15:58:00.001Z

So on Monday in my Metropolitan America class, I wrote a haiku. I call it 'Love at a Sensible Distance':

With more exposure
Comes startling revelation...
She is ANNOYING.

Regression

2008-03-12T09:46:00.000Z

For my 'Colour and Culture' class, I have to make collages intended to illustrate both my home country and the Netherlands. I find it laughable that this is going on when I'm in university; a time when I should no longer be cutting things out of free magazines and newspapers and gluing them down. That's time I could instead be dedicating to catching up on the MegaTokyo story from the beginning. As an aside, this homework means I have an excuse to look through toy catalogues that come in the post, and wonder if it's inappropriate for someone of my age to want a Pirates' Island.

I'm going to be taking it easy on myself for a while; less drinking, smoking and wasting time, and more fruit and fresh air. In fact, right now I resolve to spend at least two hours before the weekend sitting outside in the sunshine, reading for pleasure. It's not that I don't want to, it's that I can never make such a tremendous effort to leave the couch/bed area.

'You Can Always Kill Your Son'...?

2008-03-11T07:54:00.000Z

Woke up on my couch this morning, even though my bed is maybe 3 or 4 feet away from it. That was nice. Also, I wish Blogger wouldn't have so much about SXSW; I really want to be there (and yesterday I lost a number of hours looking through the entire schedule...). Since this hasn't been a particularly serious blog entry so far, I might as well also share the mind-numbingly uninteresting news that yesterday was the first day my hair has been long enough to do that 'poofy', wavey thing it does. Excitement.

Oh, and after reading some older blog entries I wrote, I decided to start adding links, images and videos so when I look back on these, I'll know what stuff I was obsessed with at that specific moment in history. For Christmas I want Nine Black Alps hair.

Nine Black Alps - Shot Down
Uploaded by Nine-Black-Alps

Some Life-Affirming Goes On in This Blog Entry

2008-03-10T10:10:00.001Z

Waking up early leaves one with plenty of time to think (and further time to consider the wording of those thoughts into a blog entry). As the current time slips past 7am, I realise that recently, and especially in the last two days, I've been thinking more and more about how life is finite and singular, no matter how depressing and earth-shattering that might be. Now this may be due to the fact that I've recommenced reading 'The Unbearable Lightness of Being' after about a month of being 'too busy to', or possibly because I've started trying to occupy most of my time with things that make me happy. In either case, I've been forced to think about what I want to do. And by that I mean, what I want to do.

I'm not going to cover up the fact anymore that I want to do the music thing. I've been concealing it for a long time - and telling myself that I want to accomplish other things - because it's seems like everyone's goal (the 'standard dream') is to become a rockstar. While that's an atrocious word to use, I hate to think that my goal is exactly like numerous others', and so to convince myself that this isn't the case, I either try and claim that other people don't really want to be in a band, they just think they do, or I make myself think that I don't really want to be in a band myself. Both of these can be concurrently truthful, and apparently, they are.

I'm fed up with university, but I'm not too stubborn to realise that I won't get an opportunity like this handed to me in the same way again, so I'll ride it out. However, that doesn't mean that I'm not going to do as much as I can to, in a phrase which has been occuring to me a great deal lately, 'get out of here'.

The Best Reason to Visit Winnipeg

2008-03-09T11:35:00.000Z

I overslept until after midday today, and now I feel bad because after giving that essay in on Thrusday, I've not been doing much, and even though I'm sure there's some work I could/should be doing, I can't specify anything.

Tomorrow, on the other hand, is the first day of registering my final year's module choices with my home university back in England, and so tomorrow I need to get up and make sure I sign up for the good'uns before they go. I've planned it well this time around: doing the lowest level courses possible (less work) except when it's completely unavoidable, in which case I've picked stuff I'm actually eager to study (less intense). It made me think that this will be the last time I pick courses, and even though I still have a year and a half left before my degree supposedly concludes, it feels like I'm nearly not a student.

Aside from that, I'm a little bummed out from girl troubles (not real girl troubles mind; just me overthinking and misinterpretting), but I'm combatting that with the first pieces of real songwriting I've done in months. I can't wait until the summer, when I can start recording again. I miss wasting entire days just messing about recording songs.

I Solve Mysteries When It Suits Me

2008-03-07T20:16:00.000Z

Oh, also I worked out why my watch was a day off... LEAP YEARS, stupid! I'm a muppet. Phew, well at least there's no more of that for another four years.

Friday Wrapped in a Duvet

2008-03-07T10:38:00.000Z

Nothin much to report today, except that I gave in an essay yesterday and feel I've earnt myself a lazyday today. So here's what I'm thinking as of right now:

Idly browse around the internet while listening to new music for a few hours.
Maybe do some laundry, if I decide to put on enough clothes to leave my room.
Watch one or more episodes of MST3K, followed by Return of the Jedi.
Idly browse around the internet some more, feeling rested but guilty for not having done anything of academic merit.

Speaking of the internet (always...), I found two kickass things recently that I'd like to share. Firstly, a page-for-page online version of Action Comics #1 from 1938. People have strokes of genius de temps en temps. Secondly, a great timewaster for the creative recluse: a self-explanitory Mr. Picassohead. Like I said, people get good ideas on occassion. Later days.

On the Plus Side, I Gained a Day

2008-03-06T10:38:00.000Z

I was totally confused a minute ago. Trying to find out the date so I know how long I have before I need to choose my final year's modules, I noticed a discrepancy between the computer's clock and my watch. Apparently, my watch has been giving me a date which was one day forward from the actual date; this is THOROUGHLY unsettling, because I have no recollection of adjusting my watch in recent memory, so it could have been out for months.

I shudder at the thought of looking back over my notes - which up until this point I had considered to be immaculately dated. Seriously, I care about this.

A reflection on Canters

2008-03-04T13:44:00.000Z

Woo, I feel like I'm back on top of things after a long while of being pretty out of it. Having left post-it note to-do lists all over the place, the tasks are being tackled one by one, and before long I can watch The Empire Strikes Back with few distractions.

Funnily enough, as I was filling in my accommodation form for next year's triumphant return to Canterbury, the old, familiar CT2 postcode initiated the slightest pang of homesickness. Now, I'm not entirely convinced that this is genuine homesickness, since I can't really recall what it is about the place I'm specifically supposed to be missing; I think it's just a vague nostalgic yearning to be back in Englanderry.

Even though I'm not counting down the days (though there was a point not all that long ago when that would have been true), it won't be long now...

The Horror

2008-03-02T15:25:00.000Z

Writing an essay, I suddenly realised that at this point in my life, I have learned more from Wikipedia than school. And I'm confident in my assumption that I'm not the only one...

Right, now time for a sandwich then back to work.

Cute Kids Don't Think Original

2008-03-01T19:08:00.000Z

In my continuing determination to upload songs to various Cute Kids Don't Sell Records propagandistic websites but without actually doing anything new, I trawled through my computer and came across a few folders of old songs dating from roughly 2004-2006. They sparked off memories of all the 'projects' I've had (basically speaking, getting bored of a certain moniker and ditching it in favour of another...): Peso, which I can conclude was my pop-punk side coming out; the Two-Tone Monkeys, in the period immediately following my purchase of a trumpet and the subsequent idea I had that I was a ska band; and Pepsi AM, the 'sophisticated' dream pop / soundscapey thing; not to mention the tracks simply filed under Jamie O'Brien, in moments when my creative juices abruptly stopped flowing somewhere between recording a track and naming it.

For the interested, all the songs I deemed listen-worthy are on my last.fm page, which I honestly don't think I pedal quite enough.

How to Get Rich

2008-02-28T10:22:00.000Z

I wish there was some way I could earn my living by doing the things I love and would do anyway regardless: pretending to be a rockstar in my room; dressing up like a cowboy; being a music snob; talking about stupid things in a dense and intense manner; losing myself in quiet contemplation; and wasting time on the internet. That'll always be the dream.

In the meantime, I'm going to play catch-up today. I'm writing myself a post-it note with all the tasks I have to do, like readings, essays, essential maintenance, and organisation. I'll let you know how that works out for me.

Oh, and in complete contrast to the actual merit assertiveness with which I've been writing the rest of this blog entry, I've come a little way on my essential 50, and have inspired a few others to think about theirs. The stipulation I have so far is that to make the cut, the songs must have been consistantly in my tops list for a few years; songs which still get me excited every time they come on. Obviously that seems to eliminate kickass songs I've heard for the first time only recently, but I'm working on some way to overcome that.

Latest Goal

2008-02-26T11:54:00.000Z

I'm going to finally make a physical list of my all-time favourite 50 songs. It'll be an arduous task which will rob me of dozens of hours of my life, but I'll embrace the challenge whole-heartedly.

One of these days, I should really do some actual work.

A Bit of Wisdom for Your Sunday

2008-02-24T08:56:00.000Z

Last night I realised that it is entirely possible to nurture one's own self-destructive crushes. I was faintly aware of this phenomenon last semester (as I thought I could use it to my advantage: ), but I never really believed it was possible to totally manipulate feelings until I began doing it by accident.

(Sorry for the self-promotion again, but I'd like to advertise the Cute Kids Don't Sell Records fan page on Facebook. Become a fan!)

Jamie O'Brien's Day Off

2008-02-23T16:34:00.001Z

When you're staring at a blank Word document, you know there's only really one thing you can do: blogtastical procrastinimiation. Which leaves us here. Hello.

So yesterday, I spent almost the entire day constructing a tight mix CD for a friend - after spending the previous day making my 'Daniel Johnston for the Uninitiated' mix - on which each song connects steadfastly to the next via trivial links and music dorkishness, in the six-degrees-of-separation stylee. See if you can get from Fall Out Boy to Save Ferris in 3 moves. GO.

In the meantime, I woke up this morning and decided I don't want to be the guy who goes on his laptop before even getting out of bed. So I just moved my duvet to the couch and hung out there instead. Amazingly, it relieved me of the guilt of not getting up, in exactly the same way as opening a blank Word document alleviates the pang of guilt which comes from not actually doing any work. Try it and see for yourself.

One other thought: I'm going to draw more, and if I work out a way to get them into the computer-box, I might just put them on this blog.

OK, so Fall Out Boy have a song called 'Tell That Mick He Just Made My List of Things to Do Today', which derives its name from a line in Rushmore, starring Jason Schwartzman, aka Coconut Records, whose brother Robert Carmine is lead singer of Rooney, who got their name from a character in Ferris Bueller's Day Off, as did Save Ferris. (You could have also gone the Fueled by Ramen / Less Than Jake / Reel Big Fish route.)

An Observation.

2008-02-22T03:36:00.000Z

Coming home just now, I realised that the people you see out on the street at half past four in the morning can only logically be fascinating people with stories to tell. And incidentally, at half past four in the morning, I just might be willing to listen.

Myspace...

2008-02-20T21:41:00.001Z

...has a funny smell. And Facebook still doesn't work.

General Update

2008-02-20T14:53:00.000Z

Facebook seems to be temporarily down, so I'm left with no choice but to update this blog with news of some of the things I've been complaining about recently. Firstly, my courses for this semester in Amsterdam are all underway, and the good news is they all seem like I could tolerate them for at least a few months. I do have a buttload of work coming up for one of the three of them, but that's a ways off yet, so the procrastinator inside me is satiated.

I've also decided that I worked well enough last semester that I could probably stand to give myself a bit of a break in this one, never mind that the logic behind this plan working out is entirely unrealistic. In any case, I'm only going to do the reading when it's absolutely necessary, and contribute just less than the amount expected of me. It's definately a 15 pieces of flare scenario (yes, it took me nine years to see that movie...)

In other news, Zach's friend from America-land has been here for a visit, and so we've all been using him as an excuse to poison ourselves and engage ourselves with fruitless activities much more than we probably should. Now he's gone, everything might just regress back to normalcy (read: sobriety) for a little while; at least until the next beer pong tournament. On the plus side, Scott left us having taught us all valuable life-lessons. Not in an 'after-school special' kind of way, but actual, useful tidbits like how to make a bong out of an apple.

Cody and Tenner are fine, but Cody has developed an annoying habit of swimming to the surface of his water and blowing bubbles. It's slightly amusing to watch at first, but it soon gets distressing to hear a constant 'pop-pop' sound coming from the corner of the room. Nonetheless, everything is well in their little fishy kingdom.

That's probably all to report for now, and those Simpsons episodes aren't going to watch themselves... (I love t'internet.)

Trip to Utrecht

2008-02-18T09:18:00.000Z

Yesterday was a fun day. We went on a mushroom trip to Utrecht for the day, where we found a street that smelled like toast, a cathedral that was advertising itself on the outside, and a mall that became a train station (rather fortunately - I don't know how we'd have found our way home otherwise). Then we smoked a bunch of pot and went to a dinner party, then watched Rambo while making cheese and hot sauce sandwiches.

On another note, I woke up this morning, rolled over in bed just enough to be able to turn on my computer - yeah, I'm that guy - and found an email I've been meaning to respond to, dated two weeks ago. So I decided that today I'm going to tie up all the loose ends: send belated birthday cards; take old beer bottles back; clean out my room of all old bits of paper and junk; and do some reading for school. Probably. Right now, it's time for a cereal run.

P.S. Cody and Tenner are still alive, surpassing even my most optimistic expectations, and seem to be much happier now they're used to sharing my container box accommodation with me.

Introducing: The Newest Members of the O'Brien Clan

2008-02-12T15:44:00.000Z

This morning I went out and bought the first pets I've ever owned. They are two goldfish who now live in a cosy tank on my dinner table, named Quetzalcoatl and Tenochtitlan (or Cody and Tenner for short). Just to give them each a little detailed introduction, Cody is the larger of the two, and has a freaky black cancerous-looking mark on his right fin - he'll probably be the first to die, the poor lad - while Tenner is a nimble little fellow who blinks in amazement from time to time.

Getting them home was a bit of an experience, since there was far more of a procedure to setting up the tank than I thought. (That's not true; I knew that would be the hard bit...) I was also working on memory of what the pet-shop guy told me since the instructions were in Dutch, but I think it all worked out fine.

I wondered if I was perhaps regressing to childhood and living out a fantasy of pet-ownership I've had for years and years now, but then I just reminded myself that I'm allowed to keep fish if I choose. It's a bit like how I recently worked out that part of growing up means I'm allowed to make myself pancakes whenever the hell I please. But goldfish are also fairly advantageous pets to keep. One of the great benefits, other than having something relaxing to stare at all day, is that they provide the incentive for me not to let my room get so baking hot all the time. Life is quite literally at stake.

When You're Young, You Get Sad, Then You Get High.

2008-02-11T17:11:00.000Z

It's been fantastically sunny in Amsterdam over the last few days, and I've come to realise that the daytime is always a time of pleasure for me: crack out the hippety-hop, cycle around a bit, bask in the warmth of the sun surrounded by the cool air offered by the middle of February... Around dusk is when the ill-decision to not wear suitable winter weather rears its ugly head, and I'm forced to return to my hovel in a state of shivering despondency.

So today I realised that I go from clinically depressed to over-the-moon at least twice daily, and it's not a nice place to be in, mainly because the falls are higher. But enough of my rantings...

A Musicky Blog

2008-02-09T18:11:00.000Z

N.B. I think this is the first time I've brought up the subject of music (other than my own, which is only imaginary) in this blog. Managing to hold off for 20 posts is pretty impressive, I have to say.

I was recently exposed to the Lawrence Arms, and the experience rekindled my teenage love affair with immaculately-produced power pop-punk, leading me to crack out all the old Goldfinger and Starting Line. Anyway, while doing the essential Wikipedia research that comes with an afternoon sitting in front of the computer, I noticed that Matt Wong, one of the original Reel Big Fish, left the band last year. In fact, Wikipedia covers in immense detail the comings-and-goings of RBF's roster over the course of its existence, and it saddened me to see the names I remember from the 'Why Do They Rock So Hard?' and 'Cheer Up' eras, most of whom are now gone.

I think it's about time RBF honorably called it a day. Come to think of it, I first thought that when 'We're Not Happy 'til You're Not Happy' came out, such a stinker of a record that it was. The reason being, it's not pleasant to have your favourite musicians replaced; it seems silly, but it's quite easy to take it personally as a fan. And the 'Cheer Up' version of Reel Big Fish is particularly significant to me because that was my first gig, and Carlos de la Garza remains one of my favourite drumming inspirations.

Anyway, I don't know quite what I'm getting at. Go watch BASEketball.

The Unbearable Lightness of Being

2008-02-09T11:50:00.002Z

I'm hungover, and have already made pancakes for the 4th day in a row this morning, so I've run out of ideas for what to do with the remainder of the day. My current thoughts, apart from sporadically laughing at Adam and Joe on BBC6 (as I do each Saturday morning), mainly revolve around asking myself why my laptop is still being so gosh-derned loud even though I've closed my torrent software, and wondering why I have never felt compelled to get into Depeche Mode until now, several weeks after I visited the Depeche Mode bar in Tallinn. (They have one of those there.)

I'll let you know how each of those respective thoughts pans out.

Less Melodrama

2008-02-06T20:11:00.000Z

From now on, I'll make it a point not to open the door unless I know for sure the girl of my dreams is standing on the other side.

A Breakdown on Students

2008-02-06T09:50:00.000Z

To take students as a single group of society and analyse them in comparison to everyone else is to realise that they are surely the most needlessly depressed section of the world's population.

Most fellow students I meet seem so distracted by having no idea what they plan to do with their lives, or the amount of debt they boast about having, or worrying about starting families - don't even get me started on those who become obsessed with 'settling down' when they are barely into their twenties - that they seem to be entirely oblivious to every positive thing they have going for them. Students have youth, excitement, enthusiasm, knowledge, energy, possibility, unfaultering social skills, an unerring ability to tolerate abuse of their bodies through alcohol and drugs, eager curiousity about the world, yet enough experience to be able to do anything, and most importantly, time.

I need to start realising that just because the grass seems greener to me, that doesn't necessarily mean I'm in any hurry to bypass the student lifestyle.

Misty, Water-Colour Memories

2008-02-03T17:53:00.000Z

For as long as I've been legitimately able to claim to feel it, I've hated nostalgia. I think that's because I didn't really understand what it was, but recently I've been thinking a lot about what it means to me, and I've come to realise that it's not as malicious as I thought.

On my average day, I probably see dozens of things which spark off fond memories, and a great deal of those are what I would probably claim to be regarded as nostalgic. That number increases significantly when I'm not at home, such that in Amsterdam I'm flooded with these feelings; not just longing for home as one might expect, but also memories of earlier times in Amsterdam itself.

That leads me to believe that it's not a homesickness I'm experiencing, and so I'm not morose solely through being in a strange country, but instead I'm recollecting times when I thought I was happier than I appear to be now. Up until this point, I always thought nostalgia was fueled by a desire to relive the moments one sees in the mind, not just in one's imagination, but to genuinely re-enact them in actuality. So, for example, I was just now cycling past a dock where three of us went one night last semester to sit just above the water. It was seeing this dock - and making the subsequent mental recollection - which makes me rethink my definition of nostalgia. That is, I don't actually want to round up all three of us, return us each to exactly the states of minds we were in that night, and literally live it again, as my feelings seem to deceive me into thinking, because that would be ridiculous.

Instead, I want to revel in the memory, but at the same time be comfortable in accepting that I can never return to it. It's gone, and we've all moved on from our specific mindsets from that time of our lives. Do the other two people remember that evening with the same subjectivity as me? More to the point, does looking at the same dock at an unrelated day spark off any such similar nostalgia?

So if nostalgia isn't a yearning to return to a given past moment in our lives in reality, but only in a manner of speaking, then it's no different from any other memory we might recall. In essence, what sets it apart under the grandiose title of 'nostalgia' is its slightly heightened intensity of emotional entanglement. In that case, I needn't be sad that I can never go back to past stages of my life when I was happier, because that's what memory is. To rationalise it, you can't explicitly yearn for the future which is unknown (although, in an unrelated way, you can look forward to your hypothesised version of it), and you're in the present now anyway. The past, which is left, provides the only healthy release from temporary sadness, but to obsess over it with feelings of desire and lust is both pointless and ultimately further upsetting.

There's a reason they advise you not to live in the past.

The Groove of Lazydays

2008-02-03T14:57:00.000Z

After mere hours in Amsterdam, I'm already back into my ritual of lazydays. So I thought I'd elaborate on what today - like an ungodly proportion of last semester, and most likely a great deal of this coming semester - is like.

7.30am-8am: My body clock is excrutiatingly and unyieldingly precise. While this means that I'm almost never late for morning things if I know I have to be up, it also means that I wake up at the same time even when there's no need. So I'll wake up, turn over, and fall back to sleep until it's not such a silly hour.

11am-12pm: Around this time I'll get up for real. Getting up for me means slowly withdrawing from my warm, comfortable bed, turning on my computer en route to the bathroom, and pointlessly playing with my hair until I realise it's been at least ten hours since I last checked Facebook. I retreat back to the computer.

12pm-4pm: Here is the portion of the day to which I lose most of my time, but which later leaves me with no recollection of how I passed it. I can only assume I see it through with a startlingly unproductive combination of listening to music; checking the blogs I read (and, of course, updating my very own); snacking on fruit, sandwiches and breakfast cereal; playing my guitar; rearranging certain furniture in my room; staring out of the window; or simply sitting and doing nothing. This is, without doubt, the hurdle of the lazyday. To overcome it means to have essentially seen one more day through, and to emerge in good spirits about getting on to the next soon enough. Yet at the same time, these hours are what characterise the lazyday, and their absence would entirely negate the laziness of the day itself.

4pm-5pm: About this point in the afternoon, my eyes drift to the clock and I suddenly realise I'm comdemning my year abroad to being a shocking waste of time, and I decide I should probably go outside for a while. I might walk down to the supermarket and load up on food (after all, that's how I'll be spending some of the coming evening), or just ride my bike around the canals of Amsterdam while listening to music. The latter option might seem like a more romantic and worthwhile choice, but it ultimately reminds me that I have nowhere to go, making the return home slightly more downcast.

5pm-7pm: This is quite an exciting part of the lazyday, mainly because of the myriad thoughts of possibility at its core. I contemplate how I will spend the evening, but I don't want to rush anything because the process of planning is as enjoyable as actually acting out said plans.

7pm-10pm: By now, I'm essentially at the day's end, so it doesn't really matter what I do because I'll be back in bed before long. That makes what I actually decide to do to fill the time that little bit better. Obviously, the central point of this part of the day is cooking, eating and washing up afterwards, so I smother this activity with more music or DVDs, or a little more dossing about on the internet for good measure. When I get to close the blinds on the scary world outside, turn on my fairy lights which radiate the room with warmth and serenity, and finally slump back in satisfaction at the completion of another 24 hours, I feel understandably contented. I might even serve myself a bowl of cereal and watch a romantic comedy, just as the cherry on top.

(10pm-?): On occassion, although increasingly infrequently over the course of last semester, I might afterwards go out and make my only extended social contact of the day. I'll meet some friends and we'll have some drinks, maybe dance a little, maybe get some ridiculously unappealing food from an all-night vender in the wee hours of the morning, and I'll cycle home (I don't think there's yet a verb to describe 'drunkly stumbling' on a bicycle) and collapse in bed.

Repeat.

Back in Amsterdam Once Again

2008-02-03T08:40:00.001Z

I arrived back in the Netherlands last night, and strolling through the city on my way back to my lowly hovel I was greeted with the familiar and somewhat welcome reek of pot smoke eminating from the numerous coffeeshops. Trust me, if you've never visited Amsterdam but do so, it's sure to be one of the first things you notice. It still strikes me as charmingly foreign, even though I've been living here for half a year now.

When I arrived back at my room, I found a couch there which wasn't there before. I wish I could claim that this was the work of a conniving-yet-unmalicious intruder, who spreads love and good cheer as karmic relief against all the robberies of the world by delivering couches - like a year-round Father Christmas for the DFS age - but no; it was the result of a plan concocted by my moving-out neighbour to pass his couch over to me while I was away on my holiday. There's nothing quite like the final few seconds before you find out that your key IS in fact in your mailbox as planned, groceries (sans shopping bag) in hand to make matters more difficult, to make the acquisition of a new piece of furniture all the more satisfying.

More importantly, I'm back in Amsterdam to stay for now. No more travelling or visits home planned, and nothing in the foreseeable future other than the recommencement of my studies (for those who are keeping score: 'Metropolitan America', 'Photography in Art Since the 1960s', and 'Colour and Culture' - yes, actual, factual colours. Red, mauve, beige and such...). No more recording equipment, no more PS2, no more TV, no more free food and shelter. But those are all only material goods, and I'm not necessarily one to shy away from the new experiences in store for me over the next few months. Even though I made no bones about the fact that I didn't particularly enjoy last semester here, it's always good to have something to look forward to.

So here's to the summertime. How I miss ye, darlin'.

Sorry for the Self-Promotion...

2008-02-01T10:24:00.000Z

...but I've uploaded a number of newly-recorded songs. The exact number is 5. Anyway, have a listen at my last.fm page, which I immensely prefer to Myspace for some inexplicable yet gratifying reason.

Cute Kids Don't Sell Records

Travel Time is Over

2008-01-29T22:22:00.001Z

Well, I arrived back safely at my Dad's house after the last stop on my adventure, and was welcomed with a pleasant combination of relief, satisfaction, and triumph. And the first thing I did (after taking a good, long, shower)? Picked up my guitar. Ahh, how I missed him.

So I'm back into the music thing for another few days until I retreat to Amsterdam at the weekend, given almost all of my recording stuff is here. I've already put a great deal of thought into the next CD I'm going to make this year, for which I'm probably going to abandon the 'Cute Kids Don't Sell Records' name I've been playing under for a year or so now. In the meantime, I'd like to get around to making recordings of both 'Another Self-Destruction Song' (previously called 'A Jealousy Shuffle') and 'The Thunderstorm Song'. I'll also fix up the instrumental, 'The Chase', which I started right at the beginning of the new year, and may even do a new version of 'Of Jealousy and Morrissey', or at least remix the pervious version.

(Here's where the blog gets less interesting from now on. Sorries.)

I Can Now Sound Like a Tool at Social Gatherings:

2008-01-28T18:59:00.001Z

"There's this sweet, little restaurant right in the heart of Riga; they make a roasted duck and tiramasu that'll knock your socks off."

Who's Your Friend?

2008-01-28T14:06:00.000Z

Today confirmed my yesterday's belief that Riga (which I just now mistyped as 'Jamietown', such is the great frequency with which we have been calling it that) is in fact the perfect city to me. It reminds me of many respective homes of mine, being a weird combination of all of Canterbury, London, and Amsterdam, and it is just so pleasant, peaceful, clean, friendly and nonthreatening, but with a further touch of the standoffishness and introversion I crave.

This morning started off in a bizaare manner though, as an old, drunk, Russian-sounding patron of the hostel complained that I smelt like a pub, and that he could smell me coming before he could hear or see me. I found this to be particularly insulting given he was no bowl of honey-scented cherries himself. Apparently, he also yelled at Zach while he'd been brushing his teeth earlier for being similarly offensive to his sense of smell. Then later we found him in the pub downstairs in his underpants.

Nonetheless, we went out to change some of our silly monies for useful monies - even though at any given point during the next few weeks, I'll most likely still have up to 5 different currencies in my wallet - and breakfasted in the building that was next door, either a down-market canteen or a swanky homeless shelter. We honestly don't know. Pasta for breakfast was followed abruptly by meat pancakes with jam for lunch; the pancakes I'd been yearning for since Helsinki.

(N.B. In very few circmstances, it is possible to make that precise statement...)

For the rest of the day, we wandered around Riga and had some beers in a pub that proclaimed in grand writing the maxim "Beer is good for you", which looked like if someone said it, they would have had a Russian accent. More 'In Soviet Russia...' jokes ensued. Aside from that, we just did standard touristy-type things: danced gaily in front of the Freedom Monument (Zach: "If freedom makes you gay then call me a homo"); did handstands in front of the Dome Cathedral; and found oddly snobbish t-shirts that said things like "I've been to Latvia. Hmmm...but where is it?".

Now it's Čili Pica time. (= pizza.)

Jamietown, Europe

2008-01-27T22:48:00.000Z

Zach and I arrived in Riga today, the last stop in my mini-tour of the Baltic states, and so I'll update you on the trip so far... (Zach is currently reading aloud from 'Tales from Moomin Valley', a product from a Finnish enterprise with which he has become totally infatuated, so I might write in a somewhat distracted manner.) Anyway, the most significant thing to happen in the last few days has been our inability to leave Estonia. We tried really hard for a number of days, but everything just seemed to stand so much in our way that we ended up leaving a day later than planned, and consequently felt like we had been trapped in Tallinn. As the final insult, the bus station was really hard to find when we eventually got around to leaving, so we came to the conclusion that the reason the Spanish guy who worked in the hostel was still there was that the country was simply too complicated to get away from.

That's nothing to complain about though; in our last day there we met an(other) Aussie fella named Stuart who shared a mutual love for both the Nintendo DS and the movie 'Anchorman', while we also shared the tiny hostel with eight or so Indians meaning that Zach had to sleep on the couch. In fact, Zach even commented that his last morning in Estonia was the most eccentric he'd experienced in a while: waking up on the floor in a room full of Indians, being kicked by an impatient Brit playing Tony Hawk...me.

So the 5 hour bus ride south to Latvia - a bus ride filled with 'In Soviet Russia...' jokes and celebration over finally leaving the northernmost of the Baltics - saw us ride through the heaviest snow I've ever seen, but it was mainly a chance to catch up on some much needed sleep. But getting to Riga a day late really agitated me, because from the second we arrived I loved the city. Everything that happened to us from when we stepped off the bus seemed to occur based on my whim, from the music I heard and the things we saw to the way it snowed (not to mention the fact that the tiramasu I had at the restaurant was the greatest I have ever tasted), such that it seemed to me to be Jamietown. We'll do some real exploring tomorrow...

Later days.

A Sauna By Any Other Name...

2008-01-26T12:20:00.000Z

This is just a quick post for today in case I don't get a chance to update later, singing the praises of the humble sauna. If you think about it - and when you take a one and a half hour sauna, you have plenty of time to think about it - a sauna is just a hot, wooden room where people get naked. What's not to love?

After a fairly heavy night yesterday, and the resultant morning of nearly dying today, a sauna is nothing short of a miracle hangover cure. That is, a somewhat unconventional hangover cure where the temperature can be found rocking somewhere around the 70 degrees mark, and your hair becomes too hot to actually be able to touch with your hand; I was by far the warmest I have ever been in my life.

P.S. This kerazy Estonian keyboard is truly messing me up with its letter and punctuation keys in silly places.

Stage 3: Estonia

2008-01-25T18:40:00.000Z

Zach and I spent our last few hours in Finland yesterday walking from our hostel somewhere north of Helsinki city centre to the dock on the south coast of the country, and in the process I confirmed to myself that my map-reading skillz are nothing short of kickass. When we eventually got there, the ferry ride south to Tallinn started off fairly confusingly (our cheap tickets seemed to limit us to certain unimpressive areas onboard) but once we bought a 24-pack of beers and some Jaffa Cakes, and found a little cubby-space between some staircases somewhere on deck seven, we were fine for three hours.

So when we arrived in Estonia we wondered around for another few hours, until once again my map-reading talent made its presence welcome (and some Estonian noticed we were pathetically lost tourists and directed us to the hostel). After dropping our stuff off in possibly the least organised hostel in the entire world, we went out for drinks with people who reinforce all the stereotypes I've long been taught to disregard: a charming, French womanizer; an insane, slightly deranged Japanese guy; and a relaxed Spaniard. Of course, Zach evidently felt the need to comply, and became the loud, drunk, obnoxious American.

This morning, after waking up much later than we'd have ideally liked, we resorted to grabbing a McDonald's 'Big Tasty' for breakfast and ended up wandering around the Old Town for a few hours. Unfortunately, Zach's and my own respective travels have absolutely exhausted us thusfar, and we ended up crashing back at the hostel and watched 'Wedding Crashers' with Estonian subtitles... I'd probably have to conclude that today has been the least eventful day on my trip, but it's about time I had a lazyday. (Sorry, I live in Amsterdam; I've come to expect regular days of doing absolutely nothing.)

Less Than 24 Hours in Helsinki

2008-01-24T14:17:00.000Z

So I left Vilnius yesterday afternoon, and hopped on my flight to Helsinki. The day and the flight itself were both fairly uneventful, although I did crack out my harmonica in an empty, reverberant part of the departure lounge and got some serious riff jumps going (bluesified by like 80%), and then the plane turned out to be the smallest aircraft I'd ever been in. I was also the only student amongst a pack of Lithuanian/Finnish businessmen, and the only passenger wearing a hoodie. Awkward...

When I arrived in Helsinki, it was already dark, and I was super-confused about the plan. I didn't know if I was supposed to meet Zach somewhere or make my way directly to the hostel. Since I had the directions (and since the bus driver managed to not stop at the bus-stop I needed), I decided to venture forth to try and find my bed for the night.

When I eventually met Zach, an hour after we were supposed to meet up, I had already walked between the hostel and the Opera House twice, and Zach had been waiting outside the Opera House with a game boy for 45 minutes (and had been accosted by a drunk Finn, but I didn't ask questions). Nonetheless, we headed into town after eventually finding each other, and wandered around to have a look at some of the grand buildings by night. Then we saw a band in the basement of some pub called the Furious Flames who sang rockabilly and blues in English but addressed the audience in between songs in indecipherable Finnish. We also decided that a better name for the band would have been the Red Hot Flaming Fiery Furnaces. I need to remember to steal that at some point.

The next morning we walked back into town and saw the same buildings as the previous night (I'll endeavour to find out and post the names of them when I get hold of some tourist literature), except this time it was snowing, and I was by far the coldest I have ever been in my life. We rounded off the tourism part of the day by taking a water-taxi (a.k.a. 'boat') to some nearby island, which hold two claims: not only is it the World Heritage Site with the least justification for being recognised as such, but it also has the world's saddest playground.

Now we're headed out to catch the boat south to Tallinn. Unfortunately, I noticed the possibility of taking an 18-minute helicopter ride between Finland and Estonia only after Zach had already booked the boat tickets. Oh well, next time...

My Final Full Day in Vilnius

2008-01-22T15:38:00.000Z

Today was my shopping day, although I don't believe referring to it in that way is technically all that truthful considering I didn't buy anything. On the other hand, I went in a hell of a lot of shopping centres, and came to the conclusion that I have a phenomenal amount of motivation to keep walking all day if the opportunity presents itself.

So after breakfast (and a pleasant chat with the new Australian couple in the hostel) I headed to the Europa Business and Shopping Centre just on the north side of the Neris River, where I wandered around the first explicit evidence of Western influence in Lithuania. Essentially, there was nothing to set this shopping centre apart from any mall in Britain, although it was still impressive (and warm). Afterwards, I resisted the temptation to walk a further 2km north to an ice-skating rink, instead opting to head back towards the main shopping street, Gedimino Prospektas, but not before casting a slightly dissapointed eye over the misleadingly-named 'Vilnius Beach'.

Undeterred by the presence of an unimpressive batch of sand on a river bank just 25km south of the geographical centre of Europe, I wandered up the shopping road until I found somewhere to eat, before I went back to hunt for the Gedomino 9 shopping district. However, I was preoccupied by the mathematics of paying for my hostel bill without needing to visit another cash point, but still being able to hold onto a 10 Litų note. I've decided to collect the '10' denomination of the currencies of each place I visit, with the ultimate goal of putting a map of the world on my noticeboard and pinning each note to its respective country. (It would look pretty pathetic right now, but after years of squirrelling away the collection in my wallet, it'll eventually be ready to pin up...)

Anyway, I'm planning to have a lazyday tonight, after last night's plans to stay in turned out to be total lies.

My Second Day in Litha-moo-ania

2008-01-21T17:40:00.000Z

After a fairly late one last night (during which I concluded that Lithuanian's chief beer, 'Švyturys', tastes a great deal like burnt toast...which is actually rather a pleasant experience after a while), I decided to take it easier today than yesterday. That plan, unfortunately, never came to fruition. I did more of the same things in my second day here, such as visiting churches, observing monuments and tourist attractions, and waging constant war with my Baltic guide-book (spending roughly 5/8 of the day transferring it into - and subsequently out of - my bag), but walked far more than yesterday, absolutely exhausting myself by 5 o'clock.

The main reason for the extra mobility today was my attempt at moving outside the perimeter of the Old Town, and doing so in an entirely unstructured way. For instance, after first trawling down the length of Aušros Vartų Gatvė to visit the 16th century Gates of Dawn which mark the southern edge of Vilnius, then heading back up to wander around Vilnius University (where I successfully found 10 of its 13 hidden courtyards) and gaze in awe at the Presidential Palace, I travelled to the easternmost point of the city to visit the respective churches of St. Anne and St. Michael, before finally making my way one and half kilometres west of the city centre to the local cinema. My reasoning by this point was that I had been walking so much in the early afternoon that I could easily manage to sit down for a couple of hours to watch a film. The eventually evident flaw in my reasoning, however, was that walking to and from the cinema pretty much cancelled out my revival during the film itself.

Nonetheless, I got to watch 'Bee Movie' dubbed into Lithuanian, and although I missed out on Jerry Seinfeld's amusingly sardonic voiceover work present in the original, I thoroughly enjoyed his Baltic substitution's expressive performance. I'd recommend it. As the conclusion to the day's sightseeing before heading back to the hostel, I went slightly out of my way to visit the world's only monument to the late, great Frank Zappa, which stood firm and proud in some car park between the Old Town and the New Town.

But, as I'm sure travellers would say (if I ever spoke to any), the tiredness at the end is a sure sign of a satisfying day's tourism. Hooray! Now it's tired-time for me.

Aš jūsų nesuprantu. Ar kalbate angliškai?

2008-01-20T20:35:00.000Z

Woo, so I made it to Lithuania without a hitch. I stepped off the plane just after lunch time and had the whole afternoon to execute some well-planned adventuring (I had two and a half hours on a plane with only a guide book of the Baltic states for company...what would you do?) And in the first few hours, I have to say I was rather capitvated by the charm of Vilnius. For starters, it must be the smallest capital city in the entire world, which is quite a welcome revelation for someone who would get lost in a map shop. Secondly, it's remarkably gentile, and rather sobering once you read all about its somewhat rebellious historical relationships with its vast neighbouring powers, caught up between Poland to the west and Russia to the east (again...a plane journey with the guide book).

So today I went to the National Museum of Lithuania; climbed up a hill and looked over the city - once during a cloudy dusk, and again a little later on once the sky had cleared and the perfectly-circular moon illuminated the sky - made a wish on the stebuklas tile on Katedros aikštė (I spent some time debating over what to wish for, eventually concluding that 'world peace' was a little too Miss America for me to get away with); and attended Mass in Vilnius Cathedral by night.

Anyway, I arrived at the hostel (located right in the centre of the wonderfully-named Jewish Ghetto) and met an Irisher, a couple of Australiacks, and a Scottisher, all of whom have been in Vilnius at least a few nights, so we're going out for a few drinks in a while. I heard that Zach made it from Milan to Helsinki just fine as well, so we're confirmed to meet up in Finlandia on Wednesday, as planned.

Later days.

An Inaccurate Introduction

2008-01-20T03:09:00.000Z

Be warned. This introductory blog post is potentially going to present me (to those who don't know any better) as an interesting, extroverted, well-rounded and well-travelled individual, when really I could only conceivably make an argument for being one and a half of those things at best. The reason you're going to formulate such a misconception is this sentence: tomorrow I'm going on an adventure.

This adventure, the details of which I'll give in a second, is simultaneously the most spontaneous and the most out-of-character thing I've ever done. Hence you could be forgiven for presupposing the erroneous, given that all you know of me as yet is that a) I'm playing some variety of escapade in the very-near future, and b) I'm a master of suspense.

Tomorrow I'm flying out to Vilnius, the capital city of Lithuania, on the first stop in a trip around an often-forgotten corner of Europe. From there, I'm bound for Helsinki where I was supposed to meet a friend following an immediate transfer flight, but a mistake I made when booking my connecting flights has ensured that I'm spending an additional 3 nights in Lithuania. (Yes, an ungodly proportion of the spontaneity of this adventure is the result of my not being able to differentiate between the words 'Sunday' and 'Wednesday' on a booking form). So after spending a unanticipatedly-reduced time in Helsinki with a justifiably pissed-off friend who has already been waiting there for 3 days, the two of us will make our way across the Gulf of Finland until we reach Tallinn, the capital of Estonia. Then, we'll continue to travel south through Estonia and Latvia before we arrive at the last stop at this mini-tour of the Baltic states, Latvia's capital Riga. Finally, while my friend flies to Oslo to continue his voyage, I'll fly to London and visit my Dad for a few days, before flying back out to normacy in Amsterdam.

This trip is the gratifying result of literally minutes of arduous planning I did a few weeks ago, during which time I was feeling particularly down about the uneventful routine my year abroad had thusfar taken; a time which, by all accounts, is supposed to be a time of unique adventure. (As a brief digression, the internet is a bad idea. If someone is feeling depressed about the circumstances in which they find themselves, and respond by spending hours and hours with infinite informational and commercial possibilty at their fingertips, sooner or later they're going to visit budget-airline websites, and buy out the shop.) So that's what I did. But I don't want to give the impression that I regret planning the trip. Quite the contrary, I cannot wait until tomorrow, when I'll begin a two-week journey through countries I'd never so much as contemplated visiting before to see things I've never seen and do things I've never done; and the fact that I've never done this sort of thing before contributes to its qualification in my mind as an adventure.

So do I seem interesting?