I was going to write a decent post tonight, and a record review, but I felt kind of ill and sleepy for a while, so I'll do it tomorrow.

9.28.2004 written by Email Poster 4:27 PM |
 



I'm a bit worried that I'm hassling people with instant messages. It's boring in the evenings on my own really, and I crave a bit of connection with my friends, so I just talk to people. I'm doing it as I type. I will just talk about anything - I don't know if it's good that I talk to people or bad that I might be bugging them. Not that any of my friends over here read this (I don't think) but I'm sorry if I am. Just bear with me for a while. I've just realised how bad this sounds, thinking I have nothing better to do than talk to you! I don't mean it like that at all, I just miss you sitting here alone in such a big city on a Monday night.

9.27.2004 written by Email Poster 4:25 PM |
 



Another Sunday evening. I've had a good weekend - a friend from university came to stay and we did some cool stuff. I won't bore anyone with the details, it will just raise questions like "what?? where?? who??" which is pointless on a thing like this. Anyway, this morning I spent a bit of time letting my stomach settle, and have basically been sat around listening to music all day. Despite my aims to get away from this, I still seem to spend all my spare time listening to music. I suppose it's not so bad though, I only really do it when I'm not doing other things or with other people, it's not like I avoid contact with the outside world to do it.

The other thing I did today was install a washing machine. Has anyone ever tried this? It really shouldn't be too tricky, but with my limited "just moved out of home" resources it was a bit of a pain. First of all you have to take some bolts/screws out of the back that hold some stuff in place for transporting the thing. Sadly I didn't have a spanner, and they were rather tight. I managed to borrow one today (after 2 days) to undo them. Never having done anything like this before didn't help. I then attached the hose to the water pipe, which is conveniently situated behind some kitchen fittings, and there is only a small hole in the back so you have to take all the drawers out and push your hands through to attach the thing. Needless to say I didn't get it on straight first time, so there was a bit of spray when I turned the water on... Anyway, I got it off and on again and did the other hoses and power leads etc. Then I tried to push it into its space. Of course it doesn't fit (at least that's my landlady's problem and not mine) so I just pushed it in as far as it would go. It seems to be working OK now, but only time will tell...

I also tried to have a voice conversation on MSN with someone, which was a bit novel. However I seem to have left my microphone at home so he spoke while I typed. It worked pretty well though, even on the slow connection I have. If anyone is looking for a cheap alternative to a phone call I would recommend it.

I've managed to type quite a lot of "guff" tonight. I'm not really progressing with this writing business as I hoped I would. Maybe I should go back and read those writing tips Mike suggested.

9.26.2004 written by Email Poster 2:59 PM |
 



Wow, what a long drive home. I went back to my parent's to see a football match. We lost badly (to a team in a much higher league than us) and I just wanted to get back home and go to bed. I've never really travelled that far for just a few hours (OK it was only 1 1/2 hours each way) but I have to get up in 5 hours as I am out in a different office for a meeting tomorrow. Now I really know why it's a long drive home - too much time for reflection, and it just seems like the road never ends. Still, better than sitting here alone I guess.

9.22.2004 written by Email Poster 6:26 PM |
 


Sink or Swim
It's been a long time since I've been able to post - a good couple of weeks I see. The truth is I have actually been incredibly busy moving and starting a new job, and then I didn't have an internet connection in my flat for a couple of weeks until yesterday.

It's been a real rollercoaster of emotions leaving home for the first time and starting a real job. I've left home before to go to university, and started plenty of new temp jobs, but this time it's so different, I'm really on my own. The worst thing is, I live on my own, so I don't even have my friends to come back to and chat with like I did in my student house.

I had considered writing some posts just in Word and then doing a kind of mega post, but I've just had other things on my mind - general moving in things, and my computer has been playing up. As I sit, there are a million things hurtling around my mind that I have been thinking about recently. I think it's being on my own that has given me the time to do it, even though I've been doing things. I'm rambling. I'll just start from the beginning of the last couple of weeks.

I see my last post was the last couple of days I spent living at my parent's house. It really was driving me crazy living with them. I can hand on heart say that I appreciate my parents and everything they do for me, even though I know I don't show it enough, but after 22 years, the little things were starting to send me mad - things as stupid as the way they eat, I just used to sit there with my head down trying to ignore the noise when they chewed. Like I always said, I figured I would be better off when I'm on my own so I'm free to indulge my own eccentricities. (I'm glad that I can have a clean kitchen and bathroom and living room instead of the state of the student house too... Though I wouldn't change my friends for the world).

Anyway, I finally got here, to my flat in London. There was no furniture, no TV aerial, and no phone line. My TV is also so old, there is no scart socket so I couldn't even watch DVDs. I have to confess, I'm rather one for home comforts, so it was a bit distressing at first. Luckily my girlfriend was here to stay the first weekend, and my parents stayed for a bit on the first day, so they all helped put furniture together. I really didn't mind the thought of it at all, but the first day I had an induction day about an hour and half's drive from London. It was great, until the drive home, where I came off the motorway into London rush hour traffic and it took me around 40 minutes to travel 3 miles. It made me so depressed - my flat is 15 miles from my office. The thought of all that travelling each day made me so unhappy, but I think I was just a bit overwhelmed by everything.

I managed to get up the next day, and I did and have been enjoying my time at work, though it was still strange to come home to an empty place. I passed the time by listening to BBC radio 5 (sports and news) and lots of music, and playing my guitar some.

It's funny though, as I read Mike's post I couldn't agree more with what he said about the internet being so important in a sad kind of way. While I was without it for two weeks, I was really lost. I couldn't access my emails, couldn't check on my bank accounts, couldn't chat to my friends. I couldn't find out what there was to do around here either, so I was really just confined indoors on my own. I did some exploring on the first saturday morning on foot, but couldn't go far. Luckily I've had friends/my girlfriend to visit, so have been going out to places and doing touristy things (went to London Zoo today for example). Back to my point, it's like I was really isolated. I couldn't find out where something was, or post on here, or read articles.

Back to the old subject of music, one thing I have always been interested in is the meaning of songs, and have become increasingly interested recently as I have not had ny distractions, and therefore been listening more intently. I wish I knew the story behind every line of every song. They don't always have meanings I guess, sometimes they can be more about the music, but then that's the beauty of music. I think you can answer any of life's questions by finding the right songs written by people who have been there before. Well, not so much the answers, I don't think that would be right. Kind of sad to never find anything out for yourself, more the comfort in the knowledge that someone else has been through the situation you may be in.

Well, I'm finally starting to settle in now anyway. Actually, three days of last week were spent on a course, where I got to spend time with the other new grads (there are about 40 of us) which was great to see some people my age, and that I get on with. I think I will really enjoy all of these courses, of which there are a lot over the next 18 months. All of the other grads are incredibly friendly. It's really a bit like starting university all over again, except we're a little bit wiser and more sensible, with no "undesirable element". (My neuroticisms creeping in again).

Well, my plans for the next 18 months are to get on well with work, start a new band, and continue with taekwondo. Now I've got it down in writing, we'll have to see where I get to.

"I've been, waiting a lifetime
For this moment to come
I'm destined for anything at all"

9.19.2004 written by Email Poster 4:16 PM |
 


Weekly Dispatch
i am something of an information hound. i continually find myself spending hours online reading various articles about music, books, art, news, sports, etc. and i find each of these articles usually in indirect ways- following a link from another page that was linked to another page. i just follow them as my interest grows and i'll often open several pages at once so that i won't forget something that was linked somewhere, but that was of secondary interest. most of the time i won't even know how i got to a certain page or a certain topic because the original item that sparked my interest may have nothing to do with what i'm currently on.

i first noticed this happening with myself during college when i would spend hours on IMDB.com the internet movie database, that lists information about movies, actors, directors and tv shows. since i am always interested in movies, i would start by looking up a certain person, then go to a film they were in, check out the director, check out another movie they made, find another actor in that movie... and on and on. it was a curiosity i still have and follow, though not to the same extent on that site. but it was because i wanted to know things, either about the people or about the roles, or about the movies. and i would become caught up in reading bits of information because i was hungry for information and consuming it all very quickly. i do the same thing now with other sites like i explained before, and to a lesser degree with the movies.

even before IMDB, i had a list of personal websites of various people online, many of the elite of the internet world (celebrities in some senses) and i would look at each of their sites fairly regularly just to keep up with what they were doing and, more importantly, see what they had linked to and what they thought of those links. but at a certain point i suddenly stopped caring about these sites altogether. i don't really remember why or when, but i do recall a point in time where i suddenly found i had a lot less to do online since i wasn't interested in those sites anymore. i still read one or two of them occasionally, like kottke.org, but that's more for the links than the content.

i think the internet is such an amazing resource that i can't really imagine living without it at this point.. not so much the various tid bits of information that i'm so found of, but because it serves essentially as my own personal encyclopedia, one that would dwarf thousands of sets of the Britannica. for example, i can remember a time when i was a big fan of the band pearl jam and would have done anything to find out more information on them than what was listed on the record sleeves. this was a few years before the internet really broke out big. at that time i had no resources, no way of finding out anything and so i had nothing. if that time was now however, i could find out anything i ever wanted to know and more. and that's what i do now, simply because i can... a commercial with an interesting song? why not look up the lyrics and find out what it was. an author you hear someone mention a few times? check out what they've written on amazon and read reviews.
everyone already knows all this of course, but i still find it amazing how much i can find out about even the smallest detail of anything.

i'm not sure if this will have a negative effect on life, given that any and all information is so readily accessible. as a consumer of information like i am, i certainly enjoy its convenience, but of course i was not always like this. the easy access of this information made me into this essentially. so do i have less imagination now because i don't have to imagine, i can find out information immediately. is this another 'age of reason' where any and all myth and mystery is put under the microscope of science and technology? i guess it could be that way, but of course our cultures were already that way for the most part. and you do have to be an active participant in this, though not necessarily with the same lust i have.

i didn't mean to get into more philosophical arguments though now that tangent interests me, i really was saying all of this to talk about music and specifically a couple of bands i'd just recently discovered. it is our email poster's domain, i know, but i used to talk about music long ago and thought i would again. anyway, i've been listening to the most amazing music recently, by The Postal Service. the record is called "give up" and is one of the best things i've heard in a long time. it is rock music set in an electronic atmosphere, but that description doesn't do it justice. what i like so much are the vocals and the way they sound in that musical context, it is just a really amazing set of songs. i used to be more into electronic music, specifically techno, than i am now, but i will listen to anything that is good, and this is most definitely good. the song that most gets me right now is the opening track "the district sleeps alone tonight". the other song that i put at its equal, if not better, right now, is "(this is) the dream of evan and chan" though the song isn't actually by the postal service. it is actually by Dntel though apparently the song is performed by the same people.. as postal is a collaboration between the singer from 'death cab for cutie' and the solo performer from dntel. but on that song, dntel is essentially the postal service collaboration again. get me?

the funny thing is, besides what i just related i know very little about any of these groups. i think that's pretty funny since i just spent a good deal of time writing about how information is so easily found online and how ravenous i am for it. sometimes i will read on and on about bands whose music i know very little of. but in this case, i've been so interested in the music that i haven't thought much about the groups. but how i found the music is through i series of links like i described before. my current favorite band is Iron & Wine a very low-key subtle country-rock outfit which is primarily one guy and his guitar. i really love his first record "the creek drank the cradle" and his second is good too and i found out everything i could about him and his music after seeing him by chance on the late night show "last call with carson daily". i liked the song he played so i looked him up and that led me to where i am now.

later i happened to be looking up the soundtrack listing for the movie "garden state" (remember the consuming of useless information?) and happened to see that iron & wine was providing a song called "such great heights" which was apparently a cover of a song by the postal service. so i got the iron & wine version and thought it was decent, but wondered how the original sounded. so i got it too, and it was very much different from the acoustic sound of iron and wine, but after a few times listening to it, it really grew on me. so i eventually investigated it further and found out how good their full record was. then in a review i read that someone thought they made decent music but it wasn't as good as "(this is) the dream of evan and chan" by dntel. so i checked that out just to see how accurate they were, and discovered the connection between the two bands and then found out how good that song was for myself. and so that's how i got here, writing what i'm writing. of course, i listened to those songs at the beginning of this, but now i've moved onto iron & wine's second record "our endless numbered days". it's all so good, i'm glad i don't have to choose between any of it. it's also made me happy to find that the state of current music in this country isn't as bad as modern rock and pop radio would have you believe.

check out these bands.

9.14.2004 written by Michael Wright 3:56 AM |