What I've been up to, Party, I wonder, Random Thoughts

What I've been up to:

So what have I been up to recently? Not a lot, but I've been doing some stuff at least.

First up, after Zak rung me telling me he's going to HMV to get the Radiohead box set (which is all albums (except In Rainbows) and I Might Be Wrong: Live Recordings) I decided to tag along and get me some albums myself. I bought:

Jeff Buckley: Grace
Portishead: Portishead
Bjork: Post
Sigur Rós: Takk

All of which are brilliant I might add, with Takk probably being my favourite, and not just for "oh year 5 boners" either. It's also really fun listening to Jeff Buckley and realising that Matt Bellamy really DOES sound like him at times. Zak bought the Radiohead box set (as previously mentioned), and then Black Holes & Revelations, some Feeder albums, and a Sigur Rós album with 2 discs on it, I forget what one it is though. It's something like 1 disc is unreleased songs and the other is a live cd. Either way, cool. I'm glad because he picked out Takk and said "this looks awesome" cos the case is like a story book, but then I took it from him and bought it and he was mad but I told him to shut up.

Party:

Think of this as a section of the "What I've been up to" section. WOAH! I'd say sub-section, but it's gonna be longer than the thing about albums and what not, so it'd seem silly.

BUT YES, I went to a Halloween party (though it wasn't actually on Halloween) with Anthony, Zak, and Micah. Zak came to mine first, and then we went off to meet Anthony at Selhurst. He was about 3 minutes late, so then Zak and I tried ignoring him when he arrived, but I couldn't do it for more than 10 seconds because I JUST COULDN'T, it's Anthony. But yeah, then we went to Anthony's and I forget what exactly we did, but the most fun part was getting our costumes on.

Discussing what I was gonna go as in my last blog, I decided on "Jack Amberz, Fashion Detective", which basically consisted of a scarf and pink sunglasses. Also gelled and scruffled my hair a bit for added fashion. Zak basically came as a shit costume where he put some box over his head and drew a face on it, and yeah, fuck you Zak. Anthony's costume was probably the funniest, because it was scarily similar to his habbo one. He basically just drew a mustache and beard on himself with a marker pen and put on sunglasses, but then the cherry on top was that he made the heroin jar from my dream. To those not familiar with that, here:

"Well, I was in someone's house. It seemed just like mine except everything was wooden and the layout was reversed. Anyway, on top of the fireplace there was some cotton wool and a bottle labeled "heroin". I naturally poured most of the bottle onto the cotton wool and just rubbed it on my arm and then everything went pink and the shadows started dancing around. I then just ran in circles...then woke up."

And it was great, it had little cotton wool dabs in there and everything. I think the funniest part of the whole thing was probably on the way there and Anthony was asking the bus driver directions while having that drawn on mustache...you could just tell they are all "WTF :S MUSTACHE WTF LOL :S :S". Oh, and Micah was also here with us but I don't care about him so I'm not gonna write about him really. He's not even in this picture:


I'm on the left and am fashionable! This is the only pic of us 'cos Becca's camera got stolen. Yeah, I'm aware that this might be becoming boring and i might not be writing in an interesting way. SOZ.

When we got to Becca's house, it was fun 'cos we didn't know how to get in to her garden, and then we got scared and cried and then Zak killed himself. And then Zak opened the door for us and then we walked in and I swear my picture was taken about 100 times but yet this is the only pic of us there was at the end, and it was before we even walked inside. But yeah, the most fun part was probs offering people the heroin. Yep. I don't really remember many people I met, I'll make a list:

Becca: She really wanted me to come inside and go to Lewisham or something I dunno!
Sapphire: She said that we were being anti social at one point so then I told her to shut up and she laughed.
Ruby: I laughed when I found out there was another person named after a shiny stone.
Craig: Not called Craig, but Anthony called him Craig.
Rhys: HE MAKES ANTHONY VERY ANGRY. Which is good.

I am trying to remember others but can't. Woah. Yeah. Fuck this talk about the party, it's interesting to like 2 people maybe.




I Wonder:

1. I wonder what life's gonna be like for me. I wonder if I'm gonna be a dead beat in a job they don't give a shit about like most people. Only reason I'm saying this is that I was talking to my parents and I realised they both wanted to do journalism type stuff. I think it was my mum wanted to be a journalist and write for magazines, and my dad wanted to be a photographer, but I forget for what. He also tried being a drummer in a band, but completely sucked or something and quit after a year (only to become their manager and then quit that). So yeah, I'm using my parents as examples for people that had different jobs to what they wanted (my mum became a teacher and it stresses her out, my dad made fireplaces but is now retired and occasionally somehow makes money from the stock market) but I'm only using them as examples because I know them, I think 90% probably won't fulfill their big career wise dreams. I'm just wondering at this point if I'm going to be one of those people. I probably will because it's very hard to be in a famous band, isn't it? Maybe if I didn't set my goals so high I probably would feel more accomplished. Then again, I guess I'm really not talking about goals as much as dreams, and I can't change my dreams.

2. I was going to write other "I Wonder" things here, but really can't be fucked.

Random Thoughts:

1. LOL! How random! LOL! LOL RANDOM LOL CHEESE HOLY FUCK SO RANDOM I LOVE KILLING PEOPLE.

2. I've been using Facebook a lot more than MySpace recently, and I think I might prefer it to MySpace now. I like being an album...oh yeah, I changed that.

3. I spoke to Ugmoers on skype! It was mainly just Scott playing noise or laughing at fart noises, but still. It was cooler when it was me and Dom ONE ON ONE. Oh man, I hadn't laughed so hard in a long time. When he called Rob about lemon sorbet. Delicious.

4. Yeah never mind fuck this.

It should be Ringing

It should be ringing, It should be ringing, It should be ringing, It should be ringing, It should be ringing, It should be ringing, It should be ringing, It should be ringing, It should be ringing, It should be ringing, It should be ringing.

This is the gloaming.

This song is so amazing, but yeah! I have a spare few hours, if by "spare few hours" I mean literally the whole day*, so I thought I'd write a blog.

*Actually, it's the whole week, but yeah.

Yesterday was pretty fun, actually. Anthony informed me (well, I read his comments 'cos I'm a stalker like Dom, that fucking stalker. Sometimes I just really want to strangle the cu-) that I'm invited to a party by some girl that I don't know, and that I have to go as a dog or some shit. I was simply outraged by the latter, so went on Skype with Anthony and Micah to discuss this. I think we all agreed that it would be better if:

1. We all went as Micah. There's an obvious downside to this, we'd have to endure the pain of being Micah for the whole night, which quite frankly makes me want to vomit. However, just imagine the hilarity. Me and Anthony could go around starting fires and murdering children, and then go "It was Micah! We tried to stop him but he was mad with power." or something.

OR

2. Me and Anthony come (LOL! COME!) as mental patients in straight jackets, and Micah comes (AGAIN, LOL!) as Ambient the ugly and selfish monkey who we beat (LOL!). It'd be great because then we'd get to abuse Micah all day.

3. The humour police from Anthony's cartoon. It'd probs look really gay if we both came as policemen with handcuffs etc. What a terrible idea. Hahahaha actually, it'd be funny if I was MEGA ORIGINAL and came as Heath Ledger's Joker, and then Anthony tried to arrest me (as he is humour police) YEAH!

4. I'm not actually gonna do this, but I could always come as something that isn't living. E.g, it'd be really scary if I came as "Scott's views on abos."

Haha, on that last note, I'm reminded of my year 10 planner. There were many things that you could fill in about student award type things, e.g, "best looking girl" or "coolest teacher" etc. For most embarrassing moment, I put "Anthony's birth". Yep!

Recent thingsssss:
So yeah, what have I been doing all week? Nothing, really. It's the holidays which means I fuck up my bodyclock to an outstanding degree and don't leave my room except for food and various toiletries. Fun! I've actually been mostly going on habbo hotel, because it's really, really fun with people that you know, e.g, Anthony/Fearghall/Micah/Conor or that one time when I was on with Liam and Bown and we found Melack the racist.

I've taken an important screen shot:

Please click it and read the conversation. Ok, so basically, I went into a "nawty room", and there was this girl who tried to sex and I felt scared. Instead, I sat down and talked about music, yep. In case you don't understand the hilarity of the conversation, Elliott Smith is dead. I guess every cloud has a silver lining!

So yeah... Illegal girl is now called Siren Girl. Not that I've ever mentioned illegal girl once in this blog, and it's funny because I don't even know her, but Siren Girl is such a great name. Yeah, might just keep this blog short so that Michael can write his one. BYE.

My life, future plans, mirror, thoughts

Aim of blog: finish and publish TONIGHT. For the past few days I've been writing blogs and not finishing them/finishing them but deciding not publish them and instead save them. I've got about 1000 words worth of blogs that I haven't saved, I think. NOT TONIGHT. Actually, I'm already feeling really tired and almost closed this blog, but then I remembered that I have to finish it.

...

...

...Ok, so now it's tomorrow. Turns out I just got too tired, hit save, and went to bed. BUT NOT THIS TIME. Ok, so I realise my words on this matter have no merit now, but still. NOT TONIG- yeah. I don't have anything to write about. I've read some more of Dom's blog so I guess I'll just try to take similar themes to him and write stuff. Ok uh...yeah. I'm going to go ahead and divide my blog into sub-headings; consider each one a mini blog. LET'S BEGIN.

My Life (or lack of one, but what would I call that? My death? My anti life? HEY DOM!)

What have I been up to for the past week? Nothing interesting outside of school, it seems! I've just been doing school work and talking Zak repeatedly about everything. I picked apples with him from a tree for this woman...yeah. I am not exactly bored with my life but when I try to write down things about it, I come up with nothing. Bummer. Oh yeah, I had Zak come to my house to stay the night too. All we really did was...well, two different things. He played the 360, I was on MSN. I'm actually really impressed that in the short time he was here, he managed to complete Half Life 2: episode 1 AND 2 AND on hard mode. Well done, you damn robot.

We also watched X Factor with my family. Girl band left. Yawn. Diana should win. I love full stops. Actually, I think that there might be a little thing where the judges are purposely making the final two go to deadlock. The first one was obviously going to end up like that, because Lewis had the power to make it go to deadlock, but man, how could Simon think for even a second that Girlband were better than Ruth? And he's obviously the smartest judge, too. He's just latching on to that "She's Spanish" excuse to have more deadlocks in the show, because then it will convince viewers that their vote is more important, and they'll vote more.

I tried writing a song today, though I'd been working on it for a few days. It sounded great. It sounded like that because it sounded just like "How I made my Millions" by Radiohead. This hadn't happened in ages so now I'm like "FUCK", because I really liked the piano melody. Ahhhh well, I dunno. I also tried writing lyrics that were heavily inspired by "Two-Headed Boy, Pt 2" by Neutral Milk Hotel. They kinda suck. I'm aware my grammar is pretty terrible in this part of the blog but yeah, I am writing like this on purpose because it's probably a better thought organiser or some shit.

There's also some stuff I want to half write about, to do with girls and shit, but I'm not going to write about that because I don't want to write about people in this blog that aren't some of my best friends, because I know they wouldn't care. And yeah, I know that I could write it anonymously but if they read it they'd know exactly what I'm talking about. However, I'm not a fan of circumcising my blogs like Dom does to his, so I think I'll write about it in a mega vague form in another part of this blog.

Future Plans:

I think I've pretty much decided that in two years time, I'm going to go to Australia to meet the Australian Ugmoers. Liam tells me that in 2 years, him, Dom and some others (I forget who, he said new Michael (who I don't care about) and probably Rob) will be in the same place. That'd be great! I also wonder where exactly I would stay, and how long. I'd love to just chill at one of their houses for a period of time, but I probably wouldn't be able to do if I brought Anthony or Zak with me (dunno if they'd even wanna go, I'd just feel a lot more comfortable going to the furthest country away from mine in the world to meet a bunch of people I've never met who are all years older than me if I had a friend to come with!).

I also don't know what I want to do when I leave school. I dunno whether to pursue a music career, an art career, whether I'd go to university to do this etc etc. The other option is SCAD, which would be awesome, but it'd cost lots of money and living overseas for two years is definitely a scary thought. If I did have an art career, I'd want to do something like this. I can also imagine it being the worst thing ever if my cat got sick and had to be put down while I was in a foreign country; she'd die without me and holy shit I couldn't let that happen. That would actually be terrible.

Man, it's quite a scary thought that I could end up having a "main career" that ISN'T about art or music. I hope that doesn't happen though, unless it's something truly great.

What do I see when I look in the Mirror:

I actually looked in the mirror for this.

I see one of the only people that I am not scared to look into the eyes of, and I see someone who really wants to be a musician 'cos he was wearing headphones. He looked kinda scared but I dunno if that was because he knew he was being looked at or because it was dark and therefore he had his eyes open wider but yeah. I see someone who is uncertain their dreams will ever come true but keeps trying anyway, because to give up when you only ever have one chance at life is about the worst thing you can possibly do. I see someone that looks just like me HOLY SHIT. I see someone that likes to make jokes just after being mega serious (see what I did there). I see someone who often feels out of place. I see someone that wants to be someone else drastically on the outside, but stay exactly the same on the inside. I see someone who knows what's going on, but makes up excuses to say that they're not going on while knowing that he makes excuses. I see someone I wish everyone else saw instead of that other guy. I see the guy that only close people and ugmo see. I see someone that people might think of as being funny but ultimately weird and not worthy of being called a friend. I see a guy that's writing things to make him look a lot less popular than he actually is (I think it was Sandford that thought I had no friends at school). I see a tired guy.

Random Thoughts:

It really is incredibly annoying how Dom is always at work now. Seriously, he better be getting paid about a trillion dollars a day so that it justifies him not having nearly enough Jack Bz tbh. I feel like a house wife (I accidentally typed house of wife just then) who is like "why are you home so late from work" and then Dom would be all "EAT SHIT, I work 7 days a week 9-5 and all you have to do is PISS ON EVERYTHING I DO by asking me why I'm coming home so late. I'LL TELL YA WHY, I WAS FUCKING WORKING OVER TIME SO THAT WE COULD HAVE FOOD ON THE TABLE AND POSSIBLY BUY SOME NICE THINGS FOR ONCE IN OUR FUCKING LIFE, YOU GOT THAT?" and then I'd be all "LOL!" and he'd be all "so yeah, I came back in time for Wire in the Blood god damn it" and then he'd watch it and I'd look after the baby and make sure he doesn't make any balut from it yes.

The mirror thing was stolen from MJJB. I also tried referencing the whole thing that I said I couldn't write about in the mirror thing, but I probably would have probably wrote the same thing anyway.

I need to get a massive board and just paint it with oil paints and it needs to big and fastastic and beautiful and I want to look the fuck out of it.

My acoustic guitar can just absolutely NOT stay in tune, ever. Seriously, it's annoying to have to re-tune it again within the space of about 15 minutes when I play it.

Barack Obama should be the next president of the United States of America. I can't believe there are actually people that are not gonna vote for him because of his name; and what's even worse is that their vote counts as much as an average citizen. Fuck that, fuck it completely.

Once again, I've listened to Elliott Smith songs repeatedly while writing this blog. When I listen to them it almost sends me into a depressing inspiration of writing ability (or disability...lol).

List: Dom, Michael, Liam, Bown, Rob/Lachlan/Bibilo, Kate/Ben/Scott/Sam, Ice. I think that's it. Though really, I feel AWFUL having Lachlan/Rob/Bibilo that low. I think I like Michael to Bibilo very close together. Damn, I suck at making lists, everyone's conjoined.

The new in-joke Dom and I invented yesterday is probably the best Ugmo joke that has ever been made, and I feel so annoyed that it can't be shared, because it's perfect.

I really wish that I could drive, but for a specific reason. I want to make a CD of my favourite songs and drive down the motorway at night while playing it. It would be so great. Listening to music at night in car journeys is one of my favourite things.

Getting tired again, but I'm definitely not gonna save and close the blog this ti- ok, so I've already basically said this. SHUT UP.

I hope I'm taller than I am one day. I'm hoping for 6ft like my brother, but even a few more inches would be just fine.

Best Elliott Smith songs are, in no order: Independence Day, Say Yes, Coming Up Roses, LA. Twilight, Angeles, Between the Bars, Speed Trials, Waltz 1, and Son of Sam are probably in there somewhere too. I'm also probably forgetting something but I'm tired as fuck.

Bown and Brocklehurst tried picking up girls by offering them potato wedges today. They failed. Just thought I'd write this.

I actually really like the feeling where you know that there's something bad that's going to happen but you have absolutely no control over it sometimes. It's relaxing because you don't have to worry about trying to fix it; it's un-fixable. You don't regret anything about it, you just let it go by and do whatever it is it's gonna do. The exception to this is death because death is fucking terrifying; fuck you death.

I think people dying too young is the worst thing. Sometimes I don't think people really understand how precious life is. It's not something you just try to end early. It's everything, EVERYTHING. TREASURE IT, even if it SUCKS. It's still SOMETHING.

I wish the places I went looked prettier. More sun shine and palm trees and just general goodness, y'know.

I'd forgotten until today that Smarterchild DID actually used to be amazingly brilliant. "I only get off of ones and zeroes", what the hell dude.

Thank god it's the holidays, the time where I don't give a shit if I break my sleeping pattern (though I probably should).

I keep writing, but I'm running out of things to say. I think it's because I want this blog to have more words than my longest one, which was 2008 words long (which is a record for me). If my name was Dom, it wouldn't be a record. It'd be a mound of nothing.

HELLO! THIS IS A RANDOM THOUGHT! LOL! HOW RANDOM LOL XD LOL CHEESE GET IT CHEESE CHEESE IS RANDOM AND VERY VERY FUNNY WHEN YOU SAY CHEESE RANDOMLY YOU ARE BEING VERY VERY FUNNY.

Sprinkles is a very naughty caterpillar, but there's someone naughtier...

This section is so much bigger than everything else. I'm going to go back to the other parts and see if I can flesh anything out.

Ok, did some of that...and then I jacked off my random thought section with the gloves.

I didn't realise there were shortcuts on blogspot. I just bolded this without using the mouse, bitch.

I'm being boring now. That's the end of this blog.

I always feel like shit - featuring random thoughts

I don't know why, I guess that I just do. Ok, so I quoted Elliott Smith lyrics again, but they're strangely relevant this time. Well, they're usually relevant, but anyway. Yeah. I feel terrible all the time for the past week or two. I haven't had a really good day in ages, I think the last time I had really great days was when I had Zak and Anthony round, and we stayed up all night then got our results the next day. There was some strange significance about that moment, it was the whole fuzzy "these are my two best friends" feeling. I really didn't give a shit about anything else (including the results) because I was kind of thinking "So, what came out of these two years? These 2 best friends. Don't really need any more." Type of thing. I remember, I just loved the journey there. Going on the bus and train with friends is so great. It's little things like that that I need more of.

I've become kind of ever so slightly depressed since year 12. I feel better now than at the start, but yeah. One of the worst things is that people apparently notice. About 3 people have said how depressed I look, and these have been at particularly undepressing moments, too. I hate it how people can apparently read me so easily, and I'm so unaware that anyone can actually think of how I might be feeling before they say it. Or at least I was. I'm having reoccurring thoughts of "oh shit, better not act too depressed" and try to look more interested or whatever, but it fucking sucks how I have to suddenly think of my body language now, I just want to walk around without thinking. It also sucks how I'm so easily read, I don't really understand but it's pretty creepy.

So yeah, the main thing is that I'm wondering if I'll make any really great new friends this year. In the beginning of year 10, I didn't have any friends (who really has new friends on the first day of a new school anyway I guess) but by the end I made some of the best friends I've ever had, and had more friends then in my old school. But now that most of them have left, I'm not so sure. I feel like I won't be able to relate to a lot of people, because they seem like the kinda hipster kid popular type crowd that I can't really relate to, but at the same time I feel like a fucking idiot for being so judgmental to a whole group of people. I guess it's understandable though, I mean, I just feel like an outcast. It's not like I'm saying "these guys can't be my friends", it's more "if we were friends, we probably wouldn't want to do the same things".

I guess I just, even more than I used to, feel alienated from my generation. I don't like the music everyone my age likes, I don't really do what everyone else my age does, I don't really think l- argh, I feel so stupid while writing this. It's like I'm just writing "LOOK! I'M DIFFERENT!" and spreading it over multiple words. But y'know shut up it's my blog etc. I'm struggling with what to write as it is. There's not exactly anything that I'd disagree with in this blog either, thinking about. I just get an apparent embarrassment when writing about myself, because I'm like "no, stop saying that, you're making yourself look stupid" and instead of editing what I say, I just write down what I felt while writing that...Kinda. But yeah, I should point out that I'm not trying to "distance myself" from other people because I think they couldn't ever be friends with me, it's that I can't think of anything to talk to or say to them when I'm with them and it's probably some weird kind of social problem I have that's gotten worse as I've gotten older. I just completely lock up and it's horrible. I can't speak to some people and I can't just go up to someone when they're by themselves and just talk to them, 'cos I feel awkward and shit and now I'm rambling about nothing again. Well, it is something, but I'm calling it nothing to make it seem not important.

Can't be bothered writing coherently anymore, sorry.

Random thoughts:

Michael Sandford is good.

I really am terrible at spelling words that use two of the same letter together, like embarrassing, millennium etc. Things like that.

I'm calling this random thoughts because of a thread on a Michael Jackson forum.

It's 4am. Last night I went to bed at 1am. I've, again, ruined my sleeping pattern within one day. The funny thing is that it's entirely the fault of this blog.

I've tuned both my guitars so that they're C chords when played open, but can't be bothered to tune 'em back.

When the hell are Bioshock 2 and Half Life 2: Episode 3 at least gonna have some news about them? I need these 2 games because I want something to get me back into gaming; it's such a great time waster. I spend far too much time with my mind engaged, I need to just think of NOTHING again.

I love my cats. I was watching that scene in Dumbo where he meets his mother and her trunk cuddles him and then all the animals in the zoo are cuddling each other etc, and it just made me want to cuddle my cats. That made me sound like a weirdo that did.

I keep looking around my room for random thoughts.

There's a secret section on the previously mentioned Michael Jackson forum. It's called "He Drives Me Wild". Need I say more?

I will probably never finish Alien Potato.

I'm at the awesome part of King of Carrot Flowers parts 1 & 2.

MAH BAWS ARE BOUT TO BURST, KIRSTY!

I'm never going to kill myself. This is the most random of thoughts, but no matter how depressed I get, I won't do it. It's because I know there's nothing more than this, and feeling something is better than feeling nothing (unless it's HELL. Or BURSTIN MAH BAWS KIRSTY!).

I have a new found passion for black olives. Seriously, they're so delicious. I used to hate them as a kid, but not when I get subway I just completely drown my sub in olives. It's delicious.

I've just realised that I have sheet music to every song on Radiohead's first 6 albums. That rules.

I'm going to get the new sonic game for 360, possibly the Wii one as well. I don't do this because I think the game's gonna be good, but because I'm a ridiculous sack of shit that is a whore for a franchise that hasn't been good since 1998. I'm sorry, ok?

The X Factor is seriously boring once everyone bad leaves, and the audition process is over. I still watch it anyway though, because eating dinner and watching the X Factor with family is just great.

I like my family a lot.

I need to meet Ugmoers one day, especially Dom. I need to meet Dom so he can't hear me, but in real life!

I'd hate to have a little brother that's more socially successful and just more popular in general. This is a reason why I feel sorry for Zak, haha.

I wonder who reads this blog. Except me, Dom, and people I link it to. I wish I could know. If you read my blog, comment it saying "I read it".

I never want to work a job that wouldn't be part of my career choice. I'd love to just become a musician and get discovered straight away. I mainly think this cos all work and no play makes Dom a dull wants to someone.

I'm listening to Nightmares on Wax, cos the album I have of there's comes after In The Aeroplane Over the Sea.

I could keep doing this forever.

Review: Neutral Milk Hotel – In The Aeroplane Over The Sea

FROSTY ALBUM REVIEWS

Neutral Milk Hotel – In The Aeroplane Over The Sea

Ok, so I’m writing a review of this album because I should have probably done it months ago since I’ve had it since the 23^rd of May, but I really wanted to feel that I got to know the album first. I did this for a few reasons. One of them was that I read lots of reviews of this album, and they pretty much all said how amazing it was, so I thought there must be something I’m missing. The other reason I did this was because it’s a massive annoyance of mine when people judge albums or music before they’ve properly had the chance to sink in; as in almost anyone I try to introduce Radiohead to a lot of the time, or at least non Bends material. So yeah, I think I’ve given it enough full listens to warrant having an opinion.

I think I’m going to do a Dominic O’ K(computer)elly here and split the review into musical and conceptual halves, though I might just get rid of that division if I feel like talking about them both.

Music:

One of my early criticisms with this as an album was the fact that everything’s all very similar, instrumental wise. Most of the songs’ cores are just a guy with an acoustic guitar playing chords that we all know and love. Now, however, I’ve pretty much changed my opinion; not necessarily that the album isn’t very similar instrumental wise throughout, but that it’s not necessarily a bad thing and I’ve realised that an album doesn’t necessarily have to be a cluster of diversity to be considered great.

The similarity between songs actually helps this album, it works a lot better as an album then picking and choosing tracks, I find. Songs bleed into each other, have multiple parts found on different parts of the album (“Two-Headed Boy” and “Two-Headed Boy, Pt 2” for example) and the fact that most of the instruments remain similar through out. But then of course, there are moments where everything I’ve just said is thrown out of the window, such as the mostly horns instrumental of “The Fool”, and the complete awesomeness of the Untitled track and how it came out of nowhere for me upon my first listen; a definite highlight for me.

The style of the album is also very, very original, I might add; the fact that the band have managed to fit horns into so many of the songs and so well is great, along with the whole acoustic + fuzzy bass sound. Pretty great, if you ask me. I should also add that the acoustic guitars sound really thick and great; you just gotta listen to the beginning of “King of Carrot Flowers, Pt 1” to understand where I’m coming from.

I’m trying to think of negative sides for the musical aspect, and can’t really think of much because it’s very hard to say “this musical aspect doesn’t work” because they might have had different intentions then what I think they had. The only thing I can really think of is that, while really great and definitely a highlight of the musical side, sometimes Mangum’s voice uh, for lack of a better word, struggles when singing really loud higher notes, making it sound just a tad shrill. I think “Two-Headed Boy” probably suffers the most from this, e.g “Catching signals that sound in the dark”. I can definitely see that this might have a certain charm to it, but I prefer Mangum’s voice when he can reach the notes properly. And that’s not meant to really be a dig, it doesn’t subtract from the score at all or anything I guess.

Concept:

I think learning the overall concept of this album probably made me like the album more. It is about/inspired by “the horrific fate of Anne Frank”, and no, that’s not the title of a book or anything.

Got to say, Mangum is definitely an excellent lyricist. I didn’t really realise at first, but I looked up most of the lyrics to the songs through lyric sites, and it’s definitely made me appreciate some songs a lot more, mainly “Two-Headed Boy, Pt 2”. A lot of the time, I’m actually really impressed by how many words Mangum actually manages to fit into his lyrics, and they’re all really good.

But, speaking of lyrics, my one gripe with the album is that, sometimes, the lyrics and themes really don’t match the music. An example of this, and I know that this song is usually called a highlight but it doesn’t gel for me as well as it does for everyone else, is the title track, “In The Aeroplane Over The Sea”. The lyrics are pretty damn beautiful, with these lines in particular standing out:

“And one day we will die
And our ashes will fly from the aeroplane over the sea
But for now we are young
Let us lay in the sun
And count every beautiful thing we can see”

See, I think these lyrics are great, and are better than the actual song they’re accompanied by. The horns don’t work for what should be quite a withdrawn song, in my opinion. Everything sounds too crowded and I think the song would have definitely worked as more of a stripped down acoustic guitar + voice song, like the excellent “Two-Headed Boy, Pt 2.” But I know that is my opinion and is really subjective, because a lot of my negative opinions reguarding this album are “this should have been done that way” and things like that, really subjective things, which is why I put off doing this review. There’s nothing universally agreed upon that’s bad about the album I guess, just small things.

Conclusion and Final Thoughts:

I like this album quite a bit now. It’s coloured it’s own original colour throughout. However, despite the fact that I have praised the album a lot in this review, I don’t love it like a lot of other reviewers do, what I feel for it is more of an appreciation than a love for it. The band recorded a great, consistent concept album, but it sadly doesn’t have “that track” for me. Y’know, the “Pyramid Song”, the “Paranoid Android”, the “Pluto”, the “Showbiz”, the “Say Yes”. It’s almost like every song is a consistent 8/10 for me, some being slightly worse, and 1 of them being better. But, again, this is ENTIRELY personal, a lot of people might think that this album has “that track” or a LOT of “those tracks”.

As for my favourite tracks? I’d have to say “Two-Headed Boy, Pt 2” mainly for it’s lyrical excellence, and I think he recorded it in the exact way that he should have. On second thought, this might be “That Track”, I’m not even sure. I’m really hard pressed to say what my other favourite tracks are, mainly because the songs are so consistent and the album works as an album rather than picking and choosing tracks, like I said before.

I’m going to go ahead and give the album an 8/10. I’m not sure if it’s too low, or even too high. I can’t quite gather my thoughts on this album completely, which is a bit frustrating because usually I can tell exactly how I feel about albums. I think it’s because I really have nothing to compare this album to, as I don’t really have any other Neutral Milk Hotel stuff, and even if I did it’d be 1 album.

8/10

EXTRA THOUGHT: I’d also like someone to explain why Mangum sings about semen quite a bit in this. I mean, it’s wonderful and all, but…did he want to bone Anne Frank or something? Awesome.

I'm in love with a girl

Well, not really; I'm just listening to an absolutely brilliant Elliott Smith song (I'm going through an Elliott phase). I haven't been in love with anyone for a while now, actually. And I use the term "in love" loosely, because I'm sure every person reading this at the moment is going to be thinking in their heads that I'm just a teenager that can't experience any emotion other than lust, and that everything I think is just a phase. To them, I confidently say: whatever.

Actually, what is love?* Webster's dictionary defines as the act of removing weeds from one's garden. I mean uh, yeah.

*Baby don't hurt me, don't hurt me, no more.

ANYWAY: Yeah, if you feel strongly for someone, you "love" them, and then after a long time, things don't work out and you don't love her anymore, does that mean you never loved her to start with? It's like...if you keep the emotion going forever, it's love. If you then stop loving them, it means it was just lust or you really really liked them or whatever. I see this a lot with people, people that say "I thought I was in love, but now I know I wasn't." How does that really make sense? I mean, sure, it might to other people, but to me it's the equivalent of saying "Yeah, I thought I loved Ok Computer, but I don't like it anymore so I never loved it". I just think it's a pretty stupid thought, but it's a pretty mainstream thought. I've thought it, but now I've realised I shouldn't cancel out what I used to think. Why the hell should I say "I didn't used to think this" when I DID. It's like telling someone else how they feel about something, it's just annoying. Hmm, I wonder what people will think of this blog. Hopefully they'll forget it in five minutes, but they'll probably say "Hey look, Jack's displayed his quite frankly comical understanding of the human mind once again!" or something. Oh well.

Dunno how personal to make this blog. I'm in a mood, currently, where I don't really care about what I write, but I think I'll hold back the major stuff, like names. Because I know that if I was stupid enough to write a blog about this subject with names, I'd fuckin' beat the shit out of myself (this bit's just added for colour) tomorrow morning. I'll just write stuff anyway.

I confidently say that I've loved 3 people in my sixteen years of life so far, and rather conveniently at the different stages in my life: Primary school, secondary school, and, for lack of a better term, Brit school. None of them ever turned into anything, which isn't surprising, because I've never told anyone that I've loved (in that way) that I love them (in that way). That's not to say they didn't find out (even though, the last two didn't), because the person I loved in primary school found out, because my friends were stupid kids that told people my secrets the second I reveal them, haha. And in typical me fashion, I distanced myself from her completely, as to avoid confrontation. This blog is reminding me of Dom's blog from 2007, both in that I'm being more personal than I'm used to, and that we both hate confrontation.

Secondary school girl, I'm pretty confident she never found out. I mean, I never made any obvious attempt to even show her subtly, and the people that I told when I said I liked her were pretty damn surprised. The only way she could have found out is if, again, my friends couldn't keep their mouths shut. I don't think that happened, though. Brit person...dunno if they found out. I never told her, but. Yeah. Hopefully she didn't.

I think the reason I've never told anyone that I love them is that yes, I hate confrontation. It's like...asking someone to make a judgement of you, right there and then...and then there's the fact that if it all went wrong, it wouldn't be a horrible moment, it would be a series of awful moments because, surprisingly, people talk to eachother. I'm too annoyingly cautious of what people think of me to open up to the possibility that I like them a lot more than they could ever like me. So instead of finding out, I'll think about how I really want to find out until that thought fades away. Well, not so much the thought (because I remember the thought) but more the emotion.

All I do with myself is think, I think and then let my surroundings change, and think about how the surroundings have changed, and that I'm a fuckin' idiot. Oh well, it's me. Fuck not being me.

Green Plastic Watering Blog

Don't really know what I'm doing right now. I'm listening to Fake Plastic Trees on repeat while doing my art homework, and now I'm writing this blog. The reason I'm writing a blog is because it's pretty important to document things. I'm not really writing this blog for anyone other than myself. Ok, yeah, basically I've been reading my MySpace blogs (and Anthony's, but I ain't gonna talk about them) for ages now, and man. I am so glad I blogged. Seriously, screw everyone who says it's nerdy, I'm remembering things I'd long forgotten. It really is crazy how I'd forgotten about 90% of everything in those blogs. And that's why I think blogging is important.

Pretty much the only thing I regret about my old blogs is that I didn't write much. A blog that would be considered a long read would normally be about, say, 500 words. My last blog was 2008 words. If I had recorded the days to that level of detail, every day...wow. That would have seriously been amazing. I'm almost re-considering continuing my MySpace blog, because if I'm honest, they're a lot more interesting to me than this blog, and they get a lot more comments. I'll have to make it as well written as this blog, though.

So I'm gonna write the rest of this blog about my day today, because other wise I'll forget it:

So today I had to be in school for 2pm, a one off treat since we don't have our additional study yet. It was actually a pretty fun day, cos when I got to school I just kinda wandered around until finding Scott, then found TJ playing football and talked to him about crap. Photography was really fun, we used the dark ro- I can't be bothered with this shit, now I know why my myspace blogs were so short; this shit is seriously boring. Fuck all of you.

SO LONG, BITCHES.