Than’s News

I get in bad form for various reasons. Actually…I mostly start feeling low for no reason at all. I don’t think other people have this problem. Not that everyone is chirpy all the time, but I do think that they have better reasons for descending into a pit of despair.

Anyway, when I start feeling low my first instinct is to try and meet up with people one-to-one to stave it off. Unlike when I’m in my normal mood, I’m not really up for banter when I’m feeling low, so I just end up sitting and chatting or whatever. Which is good, but not as uplifting as engaging in some sort of activity. So that ends up being a heavy night for both of us.

I believe that the effect of such meetings is that people eventually tire of me. They seem less willing to meet up - and understandably so - sending me into even more of a nosedive. It’s a perfect vicious circle, which eventually makes me sit inside and not go to see anybody. Of course, I still *really* want to see them, but I know it’s not a good idea because I’ll only end up spoiling something.

Now you’re reading this and thinking “ohhhh dear, I can’t believe I’m reading this; how embarrassing” or “He’s is over-analysing this far too much”, and you’d be right! If there’s one quality I possess, it’s self-awareness. I know how ridiculous this stuff is. I’m coming to conclusions though, so stick around.

The practical upshot of all this is to stop being in a bad mood. Well…that was easy.

At least publically. Nobody wants to hang around with someone who’s miserable. Nobody wants to share their problems with someone who thinks their universe it falling apart when it really isn’t. Nobody enjoys the company of someone…well, of someone like me. How about I become that guy who’s good fun all the time, but has a sensitive and understanding side? I think I could be someone who’s more stable - honestly.

There’s even more practical upshot in this paragraph. I’m not talking about pretending to be in good form - there are certain things I can control that will put me in a better mood generally. I do think I could fare better if I:

1) Sleep well
2) Eat well
3) Be financially secure

And these would enable me to:

1) Stop worrying

Here goes!

trumad :: Nov.05.2008 :: News :: No Comments »

I can’t stop thinking about her…

trumad :: Oct.11.2008 :: News :: 1 Comment »

I just had a frightening thought, and I had to share. I was listening to, of all things, Sweet child of mine (in a party - someone else put it on, honest!) and I heard this line:

“I’d hate to look into those eyes
And see an ounce of pain”

and I was dumbstruck. Of all the people I’ve claimed to love, including friends & relatives, can I honestly say that I’d hate to see pain in their eyes? Especially when I’ve hurt them all many times over. When husbands and wives fight, where is the love that once made them abhor seeing pain in their partner’s eyes? Perhaps if they treated each other as delicately as when they first met, their relationship would be healthier and happier? Well of course.

I’m not exactly torn up about causing pain to others or anything. I’m just thinking this through. People are very fragile and need to be treated with care. That delicateness expressed by such a violent sounding song stopped me in my tracks and forced me to think about all this - so I think you should too!

trumad :: Jul.26.2008 :: Muse :: 1 Comment »

Good afternoon!

I’m trying to do Greek, and I’m actually doing all right today. I’m working at it. But that doesn’t stop me from procrastinating! Here are a couple of thoughts I’ve been having.

Love: How can a couple get married and love each other for their entire lives? Wouldn’t they get bored of each other, or start griping at each other and the flame dies down, or just get totally sick of each other? That does of course happen quite a lot, but what is more amazing to me is that some couples actually stay together and love each other just as much after 40 years. Here’s a silly idea that I’m not really putting forward seriously because - what do I know about love? But here goes:

I’ve listened to Neil Young bootlegs for a couple of years now, and they’re basically the same songs over and over again, in different concerts (or sometimes different recordings of the same concerts) with the odd song that he didn’t release here and there. But I continue to listen and never tire of Neil. The songs are so familiar to me by now, that I can tell which song is coming up by the first couple of notes he plays and the way he plays them. Even the type of feedback he uses at the beginning of certain songs is a dead giveaway. In the same way, is 40 years of marriage about familiarity and absolute comfort with the one you love?

And then every so often I’ll be surprised by something Neil does. A way he sings a song, or the instruments he uses or a brand new song I’ve never heard or something. In those instances, I’ll always say to someone “Man, I love Neil Young” as if it’s the first time I’ve realised it. And sometimes it is. While familiarity is good occasionally I find myself tiring of hearing the same old stuff over and over - and then something surprises me and my socks are blown off and I’m in love again. Similarly, does this apply to true love over a number of years?

I’m sure this is a very narrow view of love - extremely narrow in fact - so that’s why these ideas shouldn’t be taken too seriously. My experience of love is currently limited to Neil and Neil only!

For my second thouhht…My beard is growing really long at the minute because I’m going to shave it all off on the 25th of May to sponsor a mission trip to Africa. I’ve found myself generally demotivated and not in good form over the last few days, and I’m going to put those feelings down to the beard being quite long. When it’s not shorter, neater and tidier I do find myself at a low ebb - so I’m really looking forward to just taking it all off and starting again! Then perhaps all will be right with the world…

Hope all is going well with my 5 blog readers out there!

trumad :: May.21.2008 :: Muse :: 3 Comments »

I bought a hunk of wood yesterday from b&q and it’s AWESOME! I’m gonna be making a rack to hold chopping boards. So I put my big block of pine into the car and drove to exit the carpark. But as I passed a burger-van, I just had to pull in and get myself a quarter pounder and chips. With my big chunk of timber and my fat-dripping burger I felt like a MAN. Grr!

Then today I hopped into my car and caught this lovely scent of pine throughout. I hate those car air fresheners (you know, the wee green trees you hang from the mirror: “Fresh Pine” or whatever) cos they’re too strong, but I can honestly advocate keeping a lump of actual pine behind the driver’s seat. It’s much less stringent and overpowering than air fresheners. Much more natural and real. Just forget the downsides for a moment and indulge me!

But yeah, life is good.

trumad :: Apr.30.2008 :: Muse :: 3 Comments »

Here’s something that made me sit up. In gmail there are advertisements for websites and products, known as sponsored links. I think they’re done through adsense. But here was an interesting one:

Audacity? My favourite audio editing software being advertised on gmail? Even though audacity is open source? I could tell by the link address that it wasn’t directing me to the audacity sourceforge page, but I humoured adsense and clicked the link anyway. You can visit the full site here, but here’s an image in case you’re lazy:

See, no mention of the word “audacity” anywhere! I wonder whose idea it was to ride on the good name of audacity to get more adsense clicks.

Good audio editing software? Probably not. Dodgy advertising? Ohhh yes.

trumad :: Apr.04.2008 :: Product Pain :: 6 Comments »

I was googling “I wroted a song” to see if I could find a cat picture to put at the top of this post, and instead I ran across Johnny Jet. I quite like his style and humour - he’s worth a good look. He’s got some mp3s on his website.

So anyway, remember last time I was talking about creativity? So what happened was I woke up at about 2am and couldn’t get back to sleep until I wrote and recorded a new song. I wrote the verses based on the tune of Tom Waits’ song ‘Rosie’ an recorded that. Then I came back to it the next day and wrote a brand new tune for it. So I can say the thing is fully mine! I’ll stick it up when I get a good recording made and the whole thing is finalised. The theme of it is about writing a song for a girl and not being able to tell her I like her etc. I wrote it with a light heart, I’m not dying inside or anything. What’s ironic is, Johnny Jet has also written something similar but in a much more lighthearted way:

I wrote this song for you
But I guess you’ll never know
I wish that I could tell you
I wish that I could show

All the feelings that I had
Bottled up inside
All the crazy longings
All the tears I cried

But fate really dealt us
Some terribly cruel blows
It shattered all my dreams
And punched me on the nose

It slapped me in the face
And kicked me in the teeth
Well actually it wasn’t fate
It was your husband Keith

I really want to continue being creative in a musical way. And what really appeals to me is music that looks at the world in this way. Of course, I can’t easily control the type of 2am inspiration I was fortunate enough to receive so you never know what I might write in the future! Hopefully lots.

Oh, and in normal life news, most things are grand. I’m at home at the minute on my day off, so we’re hoping to have a mothers day meal tonight before I head back to Belfast for church in the morning. Things are…changing. Massively. I can’t put my finger on it - it’s not as if external things are changing. Things inside are changing. I’m changing as a person. Or maybe it’s just been a funny month. I’ll know when I’m far enough into life to be able to look back at this time and figure it all out. Exciting stuff!

trumad :: Mar.01.2008 :: Muse, News :: 4 Comments »

Yeah, I started a blog and I have nothing to say. The most exciting thing that happened over the last couple of days is that I bought a CD, which I’ve had on mp3 for quite a while. It’s Ogdens’ Nut Gone Flake, by the small faces. The small faces were a British Psychedelic rock band, held up by the enormous talent of Ronnie Lane, lead singer and songwriter. This album, for me, tops The Who and The Kinks for British Psychedelia. So I got the “in a tin” edition and it’s fantastic! Everyone must try it. Find a torrent or something, try them out, then get the real deal.

I can’t think of anything else. Well…I might talk about creativity.

I’m usually making something, or doing something. A quake video, a drama, a picture, some woodwork etc. It’s all on my static website. This past wee while I’ve just been watching TV shows or playing TF2 and stuff, and not actually exerting any creativity and making something I can be proud of. Part of the reason is because of the job I’m working in. I’m all creatived out come the end of the day, and I just need to vegetate. Maybe if my job consisted of menial tasks all day I could come home and be creative then? but would I choose to be? Would I be too physically tired and just choose to veg as usual? It’s possible, many others have fallen into that trap already. So yeah, here I am blogging, but there’s nothing to blog about because of my lack of creativity recently.

I’ll leave it at that. The general news is that I’m doing all right. Things could be both better and worse simultaneously. That’s a state of health known as “middling”!

trumad :: Feb.13.2008 :: News :: 2 Comments »

I haven’t blogged in two months, so I got that quote from total recall stuck in my head. The one where Arnie is wearing this “woman” costume and she says “two weeks…two weeks” in a freaky voice and can’t say anything else. It’s worse than having the Quantum Leap theme tune stuck in my head (which was fairly pleasurable, actually…dee dee dee dee de de de dee…dee dee dee deeeee dee dee de de deeee…awesome!)

But yeah, anyway. I don’t know if there’s much news. I went to wales and it was great. Just the break I needed. I’m totally busy in the church where I’m working. Not too stressed about it at the minute, I just can’t see any free hours anywhere for the next while. But that’s the way it goes. In a few weeks I’m sure I’ll be twiddling my thumbs.

I gotz a car! So I’ve turned from mp3 back to CDs. I burned about 30 CDs of Neil Young bootlegs (FLAC -> WAV -> CD: lossless formats FTW) to listen to them in the car CD player, and I intend doing that with a lot more stuff. So yeah, if you buy me petrol I’ll come and visit you anywhere!

The final word is that for the month of February I’m going to make a concentrated effort to mix up the words “you’re” and “your” as well as “they’re” and “their”. I started it yesterday, and my best friends were correcting me on it. Even though I never EVER make that mistake. It’s my least favourite grammatical error, and so common on the interbutts. So I’m screwing with people to see how they take it when I suddenly start doing it. Seemingly, so far, they can’t tell I’m doing it on purpose - which is interesting considering I’ve never made that mistake in the past.

Goodnight and Good Luck!

trumad :: Feb.05.2008 :: News :: 6 Comments »