June 2010 roundup

Well, July has arrived and the hot weather continues and due to the World Cup not much really got done during June except for some arguments but everything ended up being resolved.

Started off the month though by spending time at Emily’s place which are just the highlights of my life really and will be looking forward to my next visit. The time we get to see each other as we’ve discussed has pros and cons and we’ve kind of had to just put up with it as that’s the situation that we are in. I am relaxed about it seeing as I know that we have a lifetime together and that the lack of time we get to be together at the moment will only serve to make the actual moment of when we do finally get to live together all the more sweeter.

Ahh, books, now see, have really slowed this down for a bit although I’m reading Death Note, I read that in a different way than I would do the books borrowed from libraries and others so it’s a different amount of energy I have to put into reading that coupled with the fact that there’s no pressure or time limit for me to read it as now I finally own all of the manga in the series. As for the books I have read this month, those would be Mort, Small Gods, Hogfather and started on Soul Music but haven’t gotten round to resuming it as of yet but I hope to as I really need to get onto Shutter Island before I reach the maximum times I can renew it.

DVDs and films are boiled down to just Ghost Town (which I saw at Emily’s), Futurama Season 2 Episodes 6-19, Bolt and Tenchi Muyo Episode 6-9.

Not exactly been much in comparison to previous months but I have the football to thank for that, not that I wouldn’t want to watch it, only comes round every 4 years and this is the only one where I actually have the time to watch every single match as previous World Cups were during school time so it wouldn’t have been practical.

Still, nothing really exciting going in on in my life just taking it a day at a time and this time next year I hope to be actually doing something of note, still that’s a while off, for now, I’m just going to take advantage of the time given to me at the moment.

No, I do not require cheese to go with this whine thank you very much

Well now, England have been knocked out of the World Cup, that’s good, I shalln’t go on about this as I’m just sitting in the back while soaking in a lot of people’s overreactions, delusions of grandeur and realistic views on this and anyway, I quite frankly have bigger things on my mind.

Now, this is going to come across as very whiny and in some respects maybe it is but whatever and all that.

Today I had a massive blow to my confidence and self esteem somewhat and it hurts me. Maybe seeing a shrink or someone would actually be the best solution for myself or something because I don’t know know. Some things I’m sure about and others I am not so sure of. The reason why I feel like I like to read up about things such as MBTI tests and the likes I think is because of the…“answers” it provides for me. Uncertainty is something that I don’t enjoy and as was my personal message on MSN messenger for a while, I eschew obfuscation. I think I might have said earlier about how this whole MBTI thing and for me I think that it is my coping mechanism in that it explains so many things to me and answers a lot of questions about who I am. It’s a bit like people believing in god, it is their way of dealing with that uncertainty.

As far as I’m concerned there profile of an INTP describes me a lot, using my experiences, my upbringing and my personality, it answers so much for me and it really made me happy that there was a reasonable and very good explanation as to why I was such a fuck up but bad in the way that it confirmed to me that yes, I was a bit of a fuck up at least in a lot of people’s eyes.

My Sunshine

Strange isn’t it?

What’s strange? I don’t know but it seemed like something you’d start one of these things with, I wasn’t actually what was strange. I could have said it was strange the instances that we met it how it was strange how were alike or whatever but I didn’t. In fact I’m not even sure what I’m even trying to achieve with this post and all but I just finished one earlier and just decided on a whim to do this.

Right now at the time at this time it is…err…let’s just call this, very late and you are asleep having gone to sleep annoyed at me. Maybe you calmed down a bit just before going to sleep but I cannot tell due to the fact that I cannot see body language and tone of voice in text but what can you do?

You didn’t want to hear what I think and I’m sorry so I guess it’s just given me something to mull over and to write down on here especially considering that I haven’t really wrote much in my blog recently (always seems to pick up around the end of the month and the start of the next but then go missing in action during the middle).

I don’t know about things but I like to speculate and imagine stuff. I have no idea where I’m going with this seeing as I’m tired and I’m probably going to sleep very soon so I’m going to just get down as much as I can and I keep forgetting the purpose of these blogs and that was to talk to myself about things but right now I feel I have been talking to you. I’m going to stop that right after the end of this paragraph as if I wanted to talk to you like this I would have done it in a text or on Facebook or something of some sort. Right now I need to talk to me about you.

“So, Emily huh”
“Yep indeed.”
”Remember that time and then after which you said that you’d do anything for her happiness, do you think you’ve done that? Do you think that you’ve made her happy whenever you could?”
“Maybe sometimes I have and sometimes I haven’t. I do try and achieve just that”
“ I know you do but personally I think it’s hard you know? She doesn’t get to see you very much and no doubt that fact is harder for her than it is for you”
“Yeah, something I’d do well to never forget”
“And it doesn’t really help that you have a natural tendency to absolve yourself from blame and you are a bit resistant to change in some ways…You tell yourself that your…"flaws" are just character traits, things that you naturally do and it’s because of that I think it’s harder at times.”

Didn’t you read about INTPs and how things that might be so blatantly obvious to you that it just feels redundant to say it at all. I’m glad you’ve improved that certain side of you as yes, it might seem so obvious that you love her and that yes, you do think she is beautiful despite her attempts to put herself down but like you were just thinking a moment before you typed this sentence, the way your brain works and the way that you view the world isn’t the same line of thinking as others and hence while it might feel…weird and redundant to say something sometimes others might not know what you’re thinking and sometimes even go as far to think the complete opposite (sometimes your actions contribute to this as well), tell her that you think she is gorgeous more often, let her know that you do care what she is doing at the moment, tell him that he’s an utter and quite frankly despicable bastard and you loathe their guts and believe them to be superficial…ok maybe not the last one so much but yeah it is obvious about these matters but sometimes it is only obvious to you and to be honest it can make you seem a bit…nope I don’t have the word but I’m sure something'll turn up sooner or later.

So anyway when you wake up tomor- today in about 7 hours time, just remember to stay calm and be patient, it’ll benefit you in the long run after all, who else would put up with your character and I’m not going to leave that as a rhetorical question and I’m going to answer it right now. The answer is no-one.

What to think about

So what is going on in my life right now? What’s occupying your mind right now hmm? I suppose it is a good thing you haven’t really wrote much recently on here as it can only mean that you’re occupying yourself with things so you haven’t really had time to just sit down and think and think deeply about life and what it really is all about, heck I’ve been so busy with things that I still haven’t really gotten round to reading the books that I have from the library and Soul Music is due on Monday unfortunately so I guess that’s another book renewing if it hasn’t already been reserved.

Nothing seems to be sticking into my mind at the moment, maybe it’s due to the World Cup but I suppose I haven’t really had time to think about life matters and think introspectively about why humans are such an annoyance to me and let it get me down despite being on forums where the most obnoxious of individuals lie. I suppose I like to hear other people’s views on certain matters but at the same time I don’t actually care and why should I? As long as I’m certain of my view then why does it matter what others think, however there is a difference between just being stubborn and sticking to your own beliefs. There’s no reason not to consider all the options and then to use that to form the basis of your opinion or change of it in fact sometimes some people are just so resistant to change that it then can sometimes becomes a problem.

I probably should head to sleep seeing as I cannot think straight and just stick to anything, I don’t know whether it’s because I’m a bit hyped up over the Ghana win and the last episode of the series in Doctor Who which made me want more but I really was in a good mood and for a bit nothing really mattered, there were things to look forward to, events to anticipate and that is a feeling quite like no other and I think when I have that feeling I like to be around others seeing as I’ll be happy and better make the most of it before…before…before I come crashing down.

And so it begins…

After four years since the last World Cup this one begins with quite a cracking game between South Africa and Mexico with both of them sharing the points in a 1-1 draw, it was a pretty good starting match though I suspect they’ll be better opening matches later on and France was definitely not one of them with their 0-0 draw against Uruguay.

France was absolute crap in that match, no denying that they have good players but Ribery and Anelka lost possession so many times trying to take on too much and dribble rather than go for for the easier option. The line-up was a bit weird and the 4-5-1 formation clearly did not work, so why the manager persisted with the tactics for so long was a mystery (though we’re talking about a manager that uses astrology to choose his players, sooo…) and should have changed it about or made a substitution to switch the play up a bit. I hope France do better next match but it doesn’t help when there’s so much conflict within the camp.

Tonight Argentina play Nigeria and after that England play USA so there’s two games to look forward to, just hope it doesn’t turn out to be an anticlimactic affair.

Eclectic taste? You better recognise II

Music is serious business. Considering that it’s just various sounds all put together sometimes accompanied with vocals which we recognise as speech.

What’s brought on this rant? Just reading someone’s reasoning on why rap is crap.
Now, I am not ranting because I feel the need to defend hip-hop/rap music but rather the idiocy of what they said would have prompted this whether they had said country music, pop, trance or rock music was crap, it’s just that rap seems to get most of the shit for this sort of stuff.

Now I don’t like hip-hop/rap as a whole (but then again I don’t like music very much), heck, I’m not even sure how it can be defined as a whole as it is far to diverse to simply generalise like that and I just prefer to just listen to the song rather than what artist it is or what genre it is and there are quite a lot of times if not nearly every time I cannot really relate to the song because the messages certain artists are giving out or rather, how I’m perceiving the message isn’t one that I can connect to in any way. As the attackers would put it, “Rap is only about guns, drugs, being misogynistic and how big their penis is”. A sense of macho-ness where the belief is bigger is better. But that’s stupid, not ever song is like that and quite frankly why does it bother them so much? There are some who relate to this sort of music, no, any sort of music, someone out there will relate to it. Whether it’s the lyrics, the artist, the emotions it provokes or whatever, someone is going to feel a connection with it.

Besides music is just music, there is no rule or strict definition to what music is, music can be found anywhere and people will like some form of music and people will dislike other forms.

One of my pet peeves is when I hear people say such stuff like rap is whack, pop is mindless droning, rock is just noise or what I hear constantly “Their old stuff was better and all the new stuff sucks”. It bores me when I see debates based on things that are completely subjective and down to an individual’s taste in music, you don’t like it! I get it! But that doesn’t mean that the music is rubbish, we are all different and our experiences and thoughts and many other factors such as our way of thinking play a part in what sort of music we like, I don’t think that it’s ingrained in us from birth what sort of music we like, that idea to me is preposterous and I think in a way if you criticise a genre of music or an artist or whatever then at the same time you criticise a way of life, someone’s way of thinking which to me is slightly ignorant.

This is not to say that we should like every single music or anything like that as people will not like every piece of music played, there even some songs I just do not like but what I think people need to be more mindful of is that really, it boils down to personal preference. There’s a difference between you yourself not liking a song/artist/genre simply because you just don’t like it and not liking a song/artist/genre and believing that anybody who likes it ought to be shot (as some would say) and genuinely believing that it is ‘bad’ music.

Ah well, such is the way of the human race.

Ho Ho Ho

Started the Hogfather and getting into it so far, was originally supposed to get started on the Witches arc and read Equal Rites, heck, I was even planning to read Guards! Guards! seeing as I’ve read the two books that come after it but the fact that these are library books have meant that I’ve had to change the reading order a bit but no matter, once this is done and the books have been read I can then get onto the ones that have no time limit (other than inevitable death) and read some of the books that were purchased rather than borrowed.

Plus with all this nonsense and universities and financing…oh and the World Cup makes me wondering when I’m actually going to get time to read them all. Oh well, upwards and onwards!

Day 1 in the Big Brother House

Big Brother has come back onto the UK screens on Wednesday for the last ever time which means the televisions in my house will be filled with nothing but Big Brother whether it’s the main show, the live feed, highlights, Big Mouth or Little brother, it’ll probably be on somewhere in the house. I personally have mixed views about this show but I’ll be sure to watch the last series when I can, probably the highlights or something seeing as I only have terrestrial television.

Now my first problem with the thing is the amount of people who hate the show and the people who watch it with great intensity. Why is that a problem? Because it’s similar to when people extremely hate things like Twilight and Justin Bieber. Yes, around this time I hear people have complete and utter disdain for an individual and the people who watch it and when asked (or not) why they don’t like it, they might say something like it’s utter crap and the people who watch it are saddos that lie on their sofa watching others lie on a sofa on television or watch them sleep and that’s just borderline voyeuristic eck sect ter ra, eck sect ter ra.

While the show might not be to everyone’s tastes, there’s no logic really in attacking the people who watch it and so on and genuinely believing in what you say.

I watched the show when it started and back then it was more or a social experiment rather than a reality show and it was quite interesting and simple but turned out to be a good insight into the way certain people reacted with others…especially when they’ve been caught lying and scheming (If anything he should of been given a medal for playing the game so well).

As the show went on it sort of adapted to what the viewers wanted and what they thought viewers wanted, plus a combination of other factors such as viewers and contestants being clued into the system and knowing what to expect, people seeking fame and so on. It all led to the show as someone put it being about ‘getting the weirdest and most eccentric people to put in the house in order to create conflict and you end up not being able to relate to any of them’ or something along those lines, which for me started to make the show more reality television orientated and became slightly less believable for me.

This year I watched the launch show to ascertain what the show might be like because I have a habit of watching the launch show and then giving it a miss for the next few weeks and then coming back to it at a later stage when all the relations have been established as I find it cringe worthy watching people meet for the first time and are getting used to each other so they won’t really relax and be themselves as they are still apprehensive of each other. Anyway, I might try and just watch the whole thing but it’s probably not going to be pleasant.

While watching the launch show I couldn’t help but be annoyed by the ignorant and the quick judgement exhibited by the the crowd there. Booing someone after they’ve seen a HEAVILY edited minute clip of them. Seriously. They asked someone if they loved themselves and they replied yes which lead to the crowd booing them and I think well what the hell are they supposed to say? ‘No, I absolutely hate myself?’ They’d probably be then booed for being a self pitying loser or whatever, you just cannot win and that was what I don’t like about society in general, the importance of first impressions. I’ve heard that people will judge you within the first 15 seconds of meeting you but from what I saw on that show the figure looks closer to be 3 seconds. People are so quick to judge every little action you do that Shabby…oh deary me, Shabby, ladies and gentlemen was a female who had an enthusiastic reaction in finding out she was selected to go into the house and the moment she got onto the walkway everyone booed her. No, just no. It seems there is a ‘proper’ way to act when you have been selected for an opportunity like that…and ugh, don’t get me started on the guy who sounded a bit posh and the audience reaction to him.

Anyway in conclusion, watching that show reminded me of how disgusting society can be, it wasn’t just on the show I observed that but on forums too, with the rampant discussing on how ‘ugly’ and ‘annoying’ some of the housemates were, I genuinely felt sick that we live in a society like this. Not to sound preachy or anything but really? Why is it even needed or does it even make one bit of sense? That I’m afraid is an answer I’ll never get to the bottom of.

Avoiding the drama llama

Reality is boring, at least in my world it is and there is hardly any drama in my life.

And that’s the way I kinda like it.

In my world, the drama should be reserved for the story books, films, soaps and games. The only things I’d want in my life are memories and by that I mean good ones. I suppose it’s why I would prefer to watch a fantasy thing where use of imagination is needed and why I’m really enjoying things like Dragon Ball Z, Pokémon (asides the nostalgia), Discworld, Death Note, Heroes, Doctor Who, Lost and similar things as I find them really exciting and fun as opposed to the more mundane aspects of reality such as paying bills and how humanity acts and the media. Basically real life is depressing though it can be exciting at times but sometimes the excitement and drama is just something that I’d find on a soap or a sitcom and I half expect to hear a closing theme music when someone does something really dramatic.

Maybe it can be considered to have a childlike mind but to be honest I don’t really cope well or have really grasped the fact that these things happen. I mean, someone cheating on their partner or domestic abuse was things that happened on the television or to other people…heck, people that I don’t even know. Maybe I just refuse to deal with that stuff because I believe it to be stupid for it to even occur in the first place or maybe I use my head more so my heart or maybe I just don’t have a personal connection with anyone it happens to but whatever the reason for it is, in my world these things just don’t happen.

I think one of the reasons I tend to eschew drama such as this is that it will invariably involve the human concept of ‘morals’. Sooner or later when an dramatic event happens someone mentions about whether it’s “right” or “wrong”.

Pshhh, there is no right or wrong, merely actions and your interpretation of it. Nothing is inherently good nor is it inherently bad and this is part of the reason why I think there’s so much conflict in the world, when two people see the same action or object as different things, rather than accept the fact that the other might not exactly see it in their own way, they attempt to enforce their beliefs and “morals” with the other person resisting their ideas and proceed to enforce their own ideals onto the other as well and no-one really getting anywhere…ah well.

I also often hear the argument that it’s because of morals, emotions and other human concepts that we are ‘better’ than animals like lions and other animals. Well…No. It’s because of things like that that we perceive ourselves to be ‘better’ when in fact we are just a different specie. We have things they don’t, they have things we don’t, neither is better, neither is worse, it is what it is. Then it is said that if we didn’t have things like morals and beliefs we wouldn’t be any better than them but would we really? I believe imaging such a concept is quite hard to do, imagining if we never had such things as emotions and just had the basic instinct to survive without all the fuss about emotions and morals, why, you may as well imagine what the world would be like if the colour red never existed. Whether it’d be a better world for everyone or a worse world…well, that’s all subjective isn’t it?