Stuff from all my other blogs and journals
If you could visit anywhere in the solar system, where would it be?
Perhaps controversially, I don’t think I would go anywhere. Well. Other than here. There are loads of places on this planet that I’ve not visited and should probably tick more of those off before I go off jaunting across the stars.
Who is the best James Bond?
I quite like all of them. Not too keen on George Lazenby or Pierce Brosnan. Undecided about Daniel Craig.
PERHAPS the best one is the one in the books.
For anyone who plays or used to play at
milliways_bar and hasn’t been following the back room lately: Milliways is moving to Dreamwidth!
They’re using the opportunity to free up many old and retired characters for play, as well as to preserve as much of Milliways’ history on Dreamwidth as possible against the possibility of LJ going kersplut.
To decide what will happen to your character, help back up the game to Dreamwidth, and to see how you’ll retain control over all your content, head on over here.
Since it’s now about halfway through Tinnitus Awareness Week, I figure I should actually get around to saying something about it.
Some of you who know me in real life (and probably a few who only know me online) might be aware that I suffer from what I would call fairly mild tinnitus or that whenever I go to gigs or sing-a-long movies or anything potentially loud, I wear earplugs. My tinnitus is pretty much down to going to gigs and rocking out at the front and totally not looking after my hearing while I was at university. Looking back, I remember seeing Alec Empire at Reading when I was about 17 and being almost completely deaf for a little over an hour after leaving the tent he was performing in. Alec Empire was great and with all the excitement of seeing all the other bands I wanted to check out at the festival, I didn’t really give my hearing any real thought – other than it was a bit inconvenient that I couldn’t hear how much credit I had left on my mobile. I was young and invincible, right?
After that I went to other gigs. I remember marvelling that coming home after seeing Queens of the Stone age, my ears didn’t ring half so much as they did after I’d been to see Idlewild. Incidentally, that Idlewild gig left my ears ringing constantly for over a week. Again, I was young and invincible.
Until, after one gig I went to (and I don’t remember which one) the ringing didn’t go away. It just stuck about. Pretty quietly, but there.
Most of the time, I don’t notice it. I’m doing other things or listening to music and so long as my hearing hasn’t really been overstimulated during the day… I can go to bed and it’ll still be very quiet and I can just go to sleep like most people. Sometimes though, if I’ve been somewhere loud or right after doing the vacuuming, the ringing in my ears dials up to 11 and stops me from being able to get to sleep. Now, there are ways of dealing with it and I tend to turn the radio on very quietly and then my brain can latch on to that sound as something to pay attention to, instead of the riiiiiiing in my head (I find Ancient Faith radio or Classic FM to be pretty good for this).
The best thing is not to get to that stage in the first place and that’s why I now wear earplugs at gigs. Also, when I vacuum. It always feels like my hearing’s been pretty sharp anyway so I carry my earplugs everywhere and if I think something’s too loud, regardless of what it is? In they go. Best investment ever. I have custom earplugs which are moulded to fit my ears exactly and they are great. They live in a little purse in my handbag and I take them everywhere.
So. If you like going to gigs, wear earplugs. They don’t have to be the custom fancy pants expensive kind – for years I used to pop into Superdrug every so often and pick up a box of the foam kind. They don’t tone down the sound with the same kind of quality, but they still protect your ears and really, that’s the important part.
And finally, a word from Eddy Temple-Morris on Tinnitus, because he’s a boss and I got a discount on my earplugs thanks to him.
Originally published at half girl, half robot. You can comment here or there.
Do you believe in any superstitions?
About Friday the 13th?
No. Because sometimes it is my birthday.
I do, however, throw spilled salt over my left should and have no idea why.
The only reason I don’t walk under ladders is in case they fall on my head.
5. Chapel Club – Palace
Released 31/1/2011
Ok, so Chapel Club… I didn’t actually buy their album. I think this is on the list because I kept listening to that one song, All The Eastern Girls. It’s a really good song.
4. Patrick Wolf – Lupercalia
Released 20/6/2011
This is the only Patrick Wolf album I own, so I can really put it in context with his back-catalogue but I really like this. It’s the most loved up album that I’ve heard in a long time and it’s so happy and yay and weeee.
3. Dave Hause – Resolutions
Released 1/2/2011
So this album got released back in February, but I didn’t know anything about Dave Hause until I saw him on The Revival Tour back in October. He was epic then and at the Windmill in Brixton a few days later (when I bought the album). This is packed full of songs that are great to sing along to.
2. The Horrible Crowes – Elsie
Released 5/9/2011
I do love the Gaslight Anthem and the Horrible Crowes do sound a bit like them, what with sharing Brian Fallon and all. However, this is a different animal. Elsie is darker and more romantic than any of the Gaslight Anthem’s albums and I like the difference.
1. Frank Turner – England Keep My Bones
Released 6/6/2011
It was tough choosing between this and Elsie, but in the end it had to be done. Hearing Peggy Sang the Blues at Frank’s Brixton gig actually moved me to tears last year, because hearing about his cool grandma reminded me how great my own grandparents were. The whole album is full of songs about Englishness and mortality and belief and right now all of that really resonates with me. Even Hallelujah, the hymn for the modern atheist is great even if I can’t bring myself to sing along to it at gigs (I’ve tried, really, it just doesn’t happen – I put it down to getting a similar buzz from singing along at gigs that I get from really getting into singing worship music at church and…this song essentially being anti-worship and cancelling it out. *shrug* I dunno).
Created using OnDistantShores‘s Album Of The Year journal generator.
What would you name a new planet?
Keppler 22B.
Oh wait.
While I’m here, does anyone want an invite code for This Is My Jam? I’ve got 3 at the moment, but will probably get more when those are used up.
You know how, before a film like Captain America or Thor or any of the films of Michael Fassbender, the internets explodes with fangirling and fanboying and stuff?
If this SOPA thing actually went into effect, does that mean all the free advertising and hype-making from rabid fangirls gets banninated? If so, how is that good for the film industry?
Originally published at half girl, half robot. You can comment here or there.
I actually hate being sick. It’s normal to dislike it, I know, and most of the time I ignore it and carry on with what I am doing until it goes away.
What I hate most is when I am too sick to carry on with what I am doing and yet not tired or lethargic or whatever enough to be content with doing nothing. It sucks.
On the other hand, at least I don’t get throat infections every year, now that I have grown into my tonsils.
Originally published at half girl, half robot. You can comment here or there.
Confession time. I only really know the one Chapel Club song – All The Eastern Girls. This will be important later on.
So – Elephant. Two guys and a girl. One of the guys had a fascinating jumper & Mr T-style gold chain combo going on, which was a tad distracting. The other guy… he kept disappearing. No idea why. The girl had an elephant pendant on a really long chain. Other than that, and that one of the songs had purring in it… I can’t remember their music at all. Sorry guys.
Other Lives on the other hand were amazing. Everyone in the band appeared to be a multi-instrumentalist. Their music is pretty epic (possibly in part to the breadth of variety of instruments available – kind of sweeping and layered and generally rockin’. I’d definitely see them again.
The main event of course was Chapel Club. I’ve already admitted that I only really know the one song (though I do own it on vinyl and took the trouble to record a mp3 of it for ease of listening), so it’s no surprise that I was a bit wary of the musical plan for the evening – there was a first set of entirely new music and a second set of old music. The new stuff was less guitary than the Chapel Club I’m used to, but ok. The old stuff (if music probably at most 2 years old can be called old) was pretty much what I was expecting. Chapel Club have a sort of warm languid sound – something like being tucked up in a warm bed on a cold day. I left after All The Eastern Girls, even though I think there was probably another song left at least…mostly because I was tired and wanted to buy Other Lives’ album.
All in all, it was pretty ok.
Originally published at half girl, half robot. You can comment here or there.