Jump Up, Jump Down

Shocking fact: I don't have a good picture of R jumping. I was trying to show Clark a good picture of the man's signature and I couldn't find one on my hard drive. As Allison pointed out, I could have just googled for a picture, but the point, in my mind, is I don't have one. On the other hand, Clark is my best buddy and tried to show me the difference between different kinds of guns. It was almost sweet in a way.

Insanity is Fun

My English paper has changed again. The topic hasn't changed, but the formatting has, but the formatting change allows me to do what I've always wanted to do: Beat people over the head with the idea that the Kinks are gods by comparing Kinks songs to other bands songs and going "See?? See?? Told you they were the same." In essence, I've lost my mind. I'm now going to go through and edit what I have for basic readability and then watch an episode of Buzzcocks to calm down. Which doesn't actually make sense, but will be done anyway. Just a quick update to prove I'm alive. Ta

Love

I'm in love.






Not really, I'm just super excited about something I just read on the AV Club site. According to their Newswire the Raconteurs are releasing their new album next week. That's right folks, no publicity, no singles, no videos, nothing, just a release. And, to top it off, here's a quote from their press release:

The band have done no interviews or advertisements for this record before this announcement. The purpose: to get the album to the fans as soon as possible and as we promised. We wanted to get this record to fans, the press, radio, etc., all at the EXACT SAME TIME so that no one has an upper hand on anyone else regarding it’s availability, reception or perception

Thus, I'm in love.
Meanwhile We Are Scientists have announced the American release date for their new album which is May 13th. Almost exactly two months later the UK release (which is today by the by.) Not in love with them. On the other hand, Rilo Kiley is coming to the 9:30 club in June and on a weekend, so their high up on my love list.
Finally, I got into a good dorm and got a really, really, really good grade on my Western Civ midterm. Overall, life is good.

These Days

The past 24 hours have been exceedingly stressful/weird for me. The English paper I had due yesterday changed topics on me yesterday, so I was up until midnight writing about why the Kinks are rock gods and then I spent another half hour sending off the not completed draft to my English prof and getting ready for bed. I decided that despite the fact that I wasn't done, it would best to stop were I did because I couldn't create coherent sentences. It was Allison's idea to send off this incomplete thing, which I thought was a good enough idea to do. (All apologies for the incoherence that just transpired. I may be awake, but my brain hasn't started working yet.)
I also met my roommate for next year. She's a nice enough person, a bit excentric, but I suppose social graces aren't something I should be the judge of. My main concern is that we both are the type to go to bed early and that she has a really good lottery number. Everything else is irrelevant, especially if she ends up transferring to another school like she thinks she might. Honestly I'm just glad I have someone to room with for next year.
My brain is mush. I can't wait for this week to be over.
Well now that I've checked in, I'll be off.

Reality Shows Make Me Happy (Along With Some Other Things)

After being forced to walk the dogs an hour earlier than I wanted to (I know it's incredibly petty, but it's the principle dammit!) by my father (who I plan to avoid eye contact with until Sunday) I watched the season finale of Project Runway. I've always (read: since this summer) been a fan of Bravo produced reality shows (the hair cutting one was amazing, love Top Chef and am super excited about the new one about dancing) and since I really haven't had much to do this break (other than write a five to seven page paper, history reading, and study for a math test) I got wrapped up in the show (damn you marathons!). I recorded the season finale and watched after my forced march. It was brilliant and Victoria Beckham was a guest judge and obviously grew up in London. (Actually she grew up in Hertfordshire which is a county incredibly close to London, so basically the same thing.) The point of this whole thing though is the following quote from the AV Club's review of the episode:

"Even though we've all heard her before, it's still very unsettling to hear Victoria Beckham speak. Honestly, high-pitched croaking sounds would be more reasonable coming from her than an actual human voice"

It's sad and made me laugh so hard because in it's own mean way is true, though Project Runway had this amazing way of making her look human, I was impressed.
So I'm going to link you to a couple other things that are making me happy at the moment as well as some really obvious information. All in a neat little list.

• Alex Turner and Miles Kane's collabo. Watch the video and listen to that beautiful orchestration. According to previous articles I've read the whole album they've recorded is orchestrated, so we all know I'm going to buy it. But yeah, absolutely brilliant and set in Russia thus making it that much better. That and the fact that they look like Help! era Beatles
• Useless information time: Going to a concert can make you deaf. I don't need research to tell me that. I don't need no fucking survey telling me I might go deaf if I go to clubs a lot. I know I'll be deaf before I'm thirty if I do that. I also already knew that from the loud ringing in my ears after going to concerts and not being able to hear people. :shakes head in a disgust:

Burger night! Real home made burger night! I'll be off now...

How Wonderful It Is to be Bored

1. How long ago did you join LJ?
I joined in 2004 but didn't start "participating" until 2005.

2. How did you find out about LJ?
Umm...the internet?

3. If someone introduced you to LJ, is s/he still on your friends list?
I joined because of someone, but they are no longer on my friends list

4. Have you introduced anyone to LJ?
No

5. Is your LJ public or friends only, and why?
Public, unless it's very, very private in which case it's friends only, but that's a rare occurrence

Name five...
1. ... things you can't live without.
Music, food, internet, water, and music

2. ... of the best moments in your life.
Five? I don't think I have five best moments. Let's see...first Kaiser Chiefs concert, Killers concert, getting into UMW, seeing Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova at the 9:30 club, and...any time I watch NMTB (that last ones bollocks by the by)

3. ... celebrities you can't stand.
Pete Wentz, Paris Hilton, Britney Spears, Preston, and Pete Doherty (that was a lot easier than the previous question, which scares me)

4. ... books you enjoy(ed) reading.
HHGG (all five of them, but only counting as one), Discworld series (again, counting as one entity), Vile Bodies, Metroland, and Thank You For Smoking

5. ... items in your purse/backpack/on your desk.
My wallet, pens, pencils, chapstick, and throat lozenages

1. What smell reminds you of your childhood?
Ummm...exhaust fumes? Dunno really

2. Would you ever consider getting laser eye surgery?
Yes, but only if I could afford it and the doctor could assure me that my eyes wouldn't get worse after the procedure

3. What food do you love now, that took you a long time to develop a taste for?
Huh. Dunno.

4. Do you have sensitive skin? Is there any material that you don't like touching your skin?
Yes and no. My mom thinks I have sensitive skin because I did when I was little, but I'm not entirely convinced that I do now. Then again I hate the smell of strong perfumes so I'll never know. As for any materials I don't like touch my skin, I would say wool because it's so itchy

5. Whose speaking voice is your favourite to listen to?
David Tennant, Ricky, anyone with a British/Australian accent :drools:

Cancellation

In the past few months I've rarely concerned myself with the deeds and don'ts of the music industry. I've had more important things to deal with, mainly doing well in my classes and trying not to have a melt down. In fact it would take something pretty horrendous (or KC doing anything) for me to get worked up enough to write about. Well, Vampire Weekend has done just that.
As frequent readers of the blog will know, my big thing (besides CDs being released at the same time on both sides of the Atlantic) is how frequently a band tours the States. Most of the bands I focus on mainly tour Europe and Europe. They make few and infrequent excursions to the American continent (and I do mean the whole thing) and make very little effort to build up any kind of fan base over here (and then they complain about it.) This is true even with certain American bands who feel that building up a fan base in Europe is more important than building one in their home country. So when bands cancel American tours (even if said tours are really just three dates) to work on their next album it annoys me a little. As I've stated before I can deal with "fake" medical reasons for cancelling tours, but the example I'm about to present to you just makes my blood boil.
Vampire Weekend has cancelled three gigs so they can play on SNL. Some might argue that it's an excellent idea, that playing on a nationally broadcasted show is a brilliant way to get their music across to everyone, that I'm just being a stick in the mud. Yeah, explain that to the people who thought they were going to get to see the band live and in person. Seeing a band on a crap TV show were they perform two songs does not make up for a live performance were they might play, oh, maybe all of their songs and you don't have to pretend to enjoy the comedic stylings of the SNL troupe. Sure, they've rescheduled for June, which means that the money those fans spent on tickets hasn't gone to waste, but cancelling three tour dates for a cumulative eight or ten minutes on a show that a relatively small number of people watch. (I can't actually substantiate that last statement because I've no clue how to find viewer numbers. If somebody can point me in the right direction, that would be very much appreciated.)
So what's the bottom line folks? Tour before television. Tour, tour, tour, tour, tour. And then tour some more, preferably in the US/North America.
On a lighter and more vain note NME will be launching an American version of it's "highly influential" (there exact words are "the world's most influential") awards show this April. The article goes on to say that the show has helped launch the careers of many important acts such as The Killers, Pete Doherty, Arctic Monkeys, Kaiser Chiefs and My Chemical Romance (yeah, they really said MCR.) The whole thing is just so obscenely vain it's actually funny in a way. Sadly I don't know enough about popular or current musical acts to help skew the voting, but god I wish I did.
Finally, the Young Knives recently bit off the hand that feeds them as well as everyone who reads DiS and makes comments. Also Take That won best single at the NME awards and the Kaiser Chiefs came away with nought to show for their existence this year. The world continues to turn on its axis and I continue to hoard episodes of NMTB in my secret lair.
Ta!

More Fangirling

So I'm home for a week, which means that if I'm not really careful, I'll use up all my means of entertainment today and be bored the rest of the week. Hence why I'm updating my journal.
One of the things that I like about LiveJournal, other than the easy access to DW fanfiction/smut, the ability to show off my insane side through little pictures called avatars or icons. I currently have 270, of which I can only use 15 at any given time. Granted most of the icons are just taking up space on my hard drive, but some things are just to hard to get rid of. (Note to self: Icon folder needs pruning.) Today I added two more of which I'm going to show you one. The one I'm going to show you is related to this post and more specifically the bits that come after the capslock section. Now onto the icon:

For niceness and fear of retaliation the icon that I posted was created by mediocrechick over at LJ.
Of course the downside of making that particular icon my default over at LJ means that I might spend more time smiling at staring at the upper left hand corner of my screen than is really necessary. Oh well.
That's it for me. Toodles.