=Deez

"Dear You

This email is to confirm your purchase of the following:

2 x Darwin Deez - Newcastle @ The Other Rooms, Newcastle (13/10/2010)
Cost (per ticket): £8.00, Booking Fee (per ticket, if applicable): £1.30

2 x Darwin Deez - Leeds @ Leeds Cockpit (15/10/2010)
Cost (per ticket): £8.00, Booking Fee (per ticket, if applicable): £1.30


Your tickets will be dispatched by Recorded delivery (costing £1.30) to : You, Your house. Lunatickets Registered VAT number: 758459183, VAT is charged at 17.5%
Total Cost of This Purchase is : £38.50"

snooze dreams

my alarm has an unchangeable snooze timer of 5 minutes. I usually set alarms for 60 and 30 minutes before I need to get up; the former gets turned off, providing 30 minutes of glorious bed fug sleep before the latter goes off. I then snooze for the last 30 minutes, allowing me six 5 minute snooze windows.

although the snooze windows are short, the fact that I'm not awake properly yet means I can easily fall back asleep during them. for some reason the dreams I get during these snooze windows are, despite their erratic nature, unusually lucid. (I hope that sentence is right - I mean that despite the random topic of the dream, they are clear in themselves.)

for example today my snooze dreams included a chase through a sauna-come-kidnappers'-den. I came in accidentally through a tunnel in a back room, was seen, and then had to run away from some angry kidnappers through a series of (empty) steamy rooms.

then I was woken up by my alarm going off.

then I pressed the snooze button.

and fell back asleep, dreaming that I was at a meal with two twins from an old school, and their mother. the twins told me that they had separated after a massive argument, (separate as in divorce - not even sure twins can do that?) but that their mother wasn't aware of this. so when they were talking to me they were arguing and bitching, but they were all friendly in front of their mum.

how weird.

so basically, if you want some really random dreams, I recommend experimenting with your alarm's snooze setting.

that's all for today :)

unstructured rant

I've realised* recently that there are discrepancies between our perceptions of life and the lives we actually live. (*I think I need to define realise - I don't mean realise as in notice for the first time, I mean it as in making something real. as in I was aware there were discrepancies before 'recently', but only recently did I actually apply the knowledge to my own life. if that makes sense.)

I touched on the subject (albeit accidentally) in my last post, where I stated that on a "pleasant Summer's evening, shared with good drink, good food, and good company, [where] absolutely nothing untoward happened", I still "had a completely inexplicable feeling of sadness afterwards".

this struck me as unfair - why the hell should I be susceptible to being let down by my own deranged fantasies of how life should be?

I then thought that maybe, although these discrepancies are inevitable (otherwise everyone would have to have the same, unaltering, true view of life which is impossibly unrealistic), we can control the effect they have on us.

for example, some people get angry when their expectations are not met. they lash out, pass blame and ignore the actuality (however good or bad) of the situation. this is (from what I can tell) a fairly common reaction. my old RE teacher told our class a story once wherein a child was taken out for a day to a theme park, rode all the rides, was brought expensive souvenirs, ate his favourite food for lunch, and nothing went wrong until, in the car park before heading home, he saw an ice cream van and demanded an ice cream. his grandparents (or parents, whoever he was with) refused, citing that they had treated him all day and had run out of money, and that it would make him feel sick on the journey home. he could not understand this, and threw a tantrum, ending the day on a bad note, tainting it forever in his (and their) memories.

quite a tragic outcome in my opinion.

and although the above was only a story told to highlight a moral, too many times have I seen something similar occur in real life. I've experienced it many times myself, but beyond that I won't mention names, places, times, events or anything remotely incriminating because there's no point, but I think it's something we're all guilty of doing.

another reaction is to deny that discrepancies exist, and continue living a life with which you are not satisfied, for fear of having to confront the fact that nothing is going how you expected (and maybe wanted) it to. this is more tragic than the last, and probably much less easy to reverse (or even notice) once it's started happening. the thought of ending up in such a mindset in life genuinely scares me - I have visions of myself drudging away at something I hate to feed myself and keep myself alive merely for the purpose of continuing the drudgery.

then I realise that it's a lifestyle that only exists in films, TV shows and songs to make consumers feel better about themselves because they're not trapped in such a life (Photosynthesis by Frank Turner jumps to mind).

then I realise that it's a lifestyle that many people around the world are confined to. drudging away at menial tasks to earn barely enough money to keep their family alive.

then I realise that this lifestyle is shown to us regularly, along with pleas for donations and promises of bettering peoples' lives who are stuck in such a position. and that this just acts to make consumers feel better about themselves because they're not trapped in such a life.

then I feel guilty for being scared of drudgery when I have so many opportunities that millions of people across the world will never have, and even if I were to waste ALL of these, I wouldn't be in as bad a place as some of them.

then I realise I'm rambling, and that it's 1:56am, and that the six espressos I drank today are wearing off, and that I need to go to bed.

HIATUS MUCH

greetings, friends, fans and foes alike,

please excuse my recent lapse in blogging. the past ten days have been like a fucking rollercoaster, when realistically they should've been no more than a carousel, and this metaphorical alteration of amusement park ride intensity has taken its toll on me.

I'd like firstly to say that I was very flattered to receive a comment expressing what I perceived to be disdain after just a week of not posting. without sounding self-centred, knowing that people (or at least person) read(s) my blog makes me feel all rosey and glowy inside, so thank you.

now I feel it is my duty to describe through prose some of the events that have made the last ten days rollercoasterish. if you've read this post (or this, this or my particular favourite, this) you'll know I like a band called Darwin Deez, and on 29th June I received an email informing me that I'd one tickets to see them at the iTunes festival (supporting Kate Nash).

obviously this was awesome news. that the tickets were arranged via direct correspondence with mr Deez only made the news more awesome, as did the fact that 4 of my friends from my time Canada would be coming along. (I lived in Canada on exchange from university between September and December 2009, and spent two of those 3.5 months in a student house in Downtown Toronto. it was probably the best time of my life. aforementioned friends were to be my former room-mate, former house-mate, his girlfriend, and our friend who lived in a house nearby. three of the four I had not seen in seven months.)

this combination of awesomenity increasing factors made me extremely excited about Tuesday 6th July, or what was dubbed affectionately as "Deez Day". so it was with enormous disappointment that I was informed on Monday 5th July that Darwin Deez had been removed from the support slot, in favour of an act called Peggy Sue. I also discovered the reason for this, although out of respect of privacy I'd like to keep it private (good sentence there).

what, a fucking, JOKE.

regardless of the centrepoint of the day, Deez Day still went ahead. we all met, wondered around Camden updating each other on our lives, sharing stories from Canada, discussing Summer plans and much else. we went to a pub, then drank on the island thing in the middle of Camden Lock. it was a pleasant Summer's evening, shared with good drink, good food, and good company, and absolutely nothing untoward happened.

yet, and this is where events began to take their toll, I had a completely inexplicable feeling of sadness afterwards. I think I learned a valuable lesson not to hype things up too much (I was so, so excited beforehand), but I hate the fact that the human brain (or at least mine) is capable of taking a day that was amazing in every respect, and making it the subject of deranged and unfounded fretting.

from here onwards it was mainly tiredness that prevented me from blogging. I worked a lot of hours at Job B between Thursday and Sunday, and after my 4-10pm shift on Saturday I made my way to London to meet two of the four Deez Day attendees at a club. again it was fun - there were balloons and gin & tonics, as well as dancing and other various club-related activities. we left at 2am, then it took me 2 hours to get home, meaning I had only 5 hours sleep before my 12-6pm shift on Sunday.

Darwin Deez did a free concert on Tuesday to make up for their absence at the iTunes festival, which was attended by me, my cousin and 3 friends (2 Canada, 1 non). (I say "make up for", but that's not the right phrase (I can't think of a better one); their absence was out of their control, and as I mentioned before, a fucking joke.) to gain entry you had to buy their single (pushing the "free" part of free concert in my opinion), but I intended to buy it anyway so no worries. we walked around Brick Lane eating bagels and wearing sombreros until the gig, then had the best hour of live music ever.

the set list was great, the dances were there, the banter was excellent, and we got to meet him afterwards! I was shaking like a schoolgirl which was kind of tragic, although totally awesome at the same time. we had a photo with Mr Deez, a brief conversation, and he signed the single I bought before I had to be escorted from the premises (too shaky to walk).

so all in all a good, but time consuming and mentally draining week.

all the best,

your friend,

Chris

harshest critic

↑ I've found mine.


he's always watching me.

he doubts every decision I make.

as soon as I trip up, he recounts all the mistakes that led to it.


it's so easy for him to make me feel like shit.



but to be fair he always helps me better myself.



seems to be swings and roundabouts

three things I hate:

• people who deal in absolutes
• generalisations: they're always wrong
• double standards

dapper Zappa

it was my friend's 20th birthday yesterday, and being such a thoughtful friend I bought her the following items:

the goal was to get her drunk enough to wear all 6 pieces of self-adhesive facial hair, but unfortunately this was not achieved. instead I wore the Manly Moustache and Swingin' Soul Patch all evening, the birthday girl wore the Enticing Eyebrows for around 30 minutes before wussing out and removing them to go to the bar, and the Sleek Sideburns were worn by a friend, who was subsequently referred to as Hugh Jackman, The Janitor, and A Twat. the Enticing Eyebrows were passed around the group as eyebrows, a moustache (joined together and rotated 180°), sideburns, and at one point, pubic hair.

je suis un funky homme

one guy, who had a very similar real facial hair assembly to the counterfeit one I was wearing, complimented me, saying that I looked French (wait, is that a compliment?), and advised me to grow a real one, learn to "play guitar like a God" (to be fair he didn't know that I already can mwahahaha) and start a Frank Zappa tribute band.

anyone wanna join?