More things that piss me off at the moment

- Frodo
- Tim Burton’s Planet of the Apes
- When a shitty song that you didn’t even know you had on your ipod comes on and appears to be 3 decibels louder than anything else you have on your ipod and  there are too many people on the bus preventing you from pulling your ipod out of your pocket and pressing skip. So now Johnny random next to me thinks i’m  into Kylie Minogue…
- Going to sleep when the sun is still up
- TV shows like CSI and such that can ‘zoom in’ and ‘clear up’ cctv footage. Why then are we still looking at blurry pictures on crimewatch?
- When people answer an either/or question with ‘yes’. Which one dickhead?
- Men’s clothes. I went shopping recently to get some trousers for a party and the only two styles the stores seemed to have was one called ‘Skinny Carrot’,  and some other style that is only suitable for a skinny bow-legged jockey.

A song that makes you happy…I think this might be the toughest one for me to decide. Happiness is not something i can relate to, it’s too abstract. I can think of song’s that make me smile or laugh but is that really happiness? I need something tangible…Euphoric? Sure i could come up with a song that elicits a drug-like response, but happiness? Happy like what?

Even if i think how other people might answer this i struggle. Say some do-gooder out there thinks of Louis Armstrong’s Wonderful world for example. I don’t think that song makes me happy. If anything it makes me think of the all the shitty things going on that don’t match up to the illusion of the song. If i think of a song to remind me of someone or something good, invariably it is back home in Oz and it saddens me that i’m not there.

So i began making a shortlist of songs. Blind Melon, No rain? Hardly a happiness inspiring song, though quite a happy melody. Sneaker Pimps 6 underground? Doesn’t really invoke overwhelming joy, though a sarcastic nod of towards a common train of thought can bring a wry smile to the corner of my mouth. Bob Dylan’s it ain’t me babe? Similarly cynical though not really what i would call happy. I was going to say Brian Jonestown Massacre – Sue in that i always feel calm and tend to drift away when listening to that song. I guess that is the closest i could say i get to happiness…calm and not thinking about anything in particular.

But then i figured i’m just thinking about it too much and instead i’ve gone for the positivity machine that is Mr Rudd. A song that makes you happy or a song that is supposed to make you happy…

It’s true, when i don’t sleep it turns into Squires’ blog. Random inside jokes. One-liners that probably require explanation even for the people involved. Huge chunks cut and pasted from another website. Unexplained and un-related lyrics to songs nobody else knows or even cares about… it’s great, at least you know you can have a day off at some day mate and i can cover for you!

Before i start my latest series of rants, this is not my fabled ‘next blog entry’. That would require time, patience and dedication of which i have next to none of at the moment.

I found my songbook! I do not have any word in the English language to describe how happy and relieved I am not to have lost it. It is over 10 years in the making now.

Every day i take my earring out to go and work at the bank and every day i have to pierce it again when i get home. Completely covered over. I think that i am an X-man. Is that how you say it? I don’t want to offend any geeks. Ok i think i am one of the X-Men? How’s that? My eyebrow ring was even worse. If i took it out to play basketball for an hour i would have to re-pierce that one, and that one bled.

I used to think that i was hyper-observant, perceptive, even the ability to pre-empt the future – a soothsayer perhaps – because i always knew when a street person was going to talk to me….then i figured out that street people talk to anyone and everyone. They really are prejudice free. They are role models for the future.

Actually i think i just wanted to be a soothsayer because it is something that the kids of today aren’t really interested in, so i would face less competition in going for jobs. Maybe a candlestick maker…or something that still requires the use of an anvil. For CJ and red a soothsayer is ein Wahrsager oder einer Wahrsagerin. I don’t imagine the word Soothsayer would come up in too many English text books…unless you learn’t by reading Asterix.

Is there anything more annoying of a morning than someone walking behind you in high heels at a slightly faster rate than you? It sounds so panicked. Is someone chasing them? I don’t particulalry want to look around because if there is someone chasing them i may have to play Johnny hero. I hate Johnny Hero. He’s a cunt.

Why do high-heels have to make so much noise? Can they not put some rubber thingies on the bottom? Or is that one of the features of high-heels that is attractive to women? The ability to piss people off at a mass level.

60 year old woman: Hmmm what am i doing today again? That’s right i’m overseeing some examinations at the local school. Where are the exams again? The basketball court? Hmmm better take these comfortable rubber-soled loafers off that i have been wearing for the past 20 years and better put on some ridiculous heels while im walking in between rows on a wooden floor. That should help them concentrate.

Paraphrasing Catharine’s text: “I just went home to read a book, then a friend rang me to sing to me how much she loves me, so that cheered me up”

Matt’s witty reply: “Your friend’s call you to say how much they love you? Who do you hang out with, Lionel Ritchie?”

Would have been sooo much funnier had i remembered that it was Stevie Wonder.

So Coheed and Cambria were awesome. He had all the moves including singing into his pickups and some sort of weird instrument that Phil assures me Jimmy Page also once used. He’s too fat to use it now. I still managed to get sufficiently annoyed by the people around me. I really have to come up with a new strategy for concerts.

I learn’t a new word during the week. Well first of all i didn’t believe that it was actually a word, but then i looked it up and it is. I don’t normally plug any kind of products or what-have-you but i will tell you if you are looking for a Dictionary, go no further than Merriam-Webster’s Dictionary of Law. Dictionary.com was trying to explain my new word to me when i stumbled on Merriam’s contribution.

Main Entry: fungible
Function: noun
: something that is fungible

Merriam-Webster’s Dictionary of Law, © 1996 Merriam-Webster, Inc.

I wonder what their definition of a lawyer is: someone who lawyers stuff?

A person who turned out to be a surprising fountain of wisdom once said to me, everyone has issues – it’s just that some people let their issues get the better of them leaving the rest of us just deal with the pieces that remain.

I said this 10 years ago, then i didn’t have to repeat it until about 5 years later, then a few years ago, and now. Seems the intervals are getting shorter – who needs enemies when you have got ‘friends’ like mine?

People who can not stand their own company should probably not burn all of their bridges…

Xavier’s latest offering…

We left straight after work on the Friday so we had missed most of the Friday lineup. We managed to get there in one piece even after driving through a Turkish riot after they won some match in the euros. We thought we were going to be fucked for parking and camping places seeing as we get to Rock am Ring at least a day early and still have to camp a 40 minute walk away from the action. So we followed the parking signs and drove in..only a 5 min walk to the entrance…so we’re thinking we’re in the wrong spot. Following people and the sounds of a distant Thom Yorke whinge we see lots of free camping areas so now we’re sure we’ve still got a long way to go.

Walk through the gates and we can see Radiohead playing…we stroll up to the bar, no lineup, push a little closer so that you can almost catch Thom’s tears…what the fuck? Where is everyone? Where is the pushing and shoving..where are the queues? Thus is fucking bizarre. So then we dread walking back to the car and trying to find a camping spot. But it’s fine we just stroll up about a 5 minute walk to the main area. Flat ground, no music playing, no broken glass…i’ve been in hostels with worse facilities than this.

So the next few days were intriguing. Not as many rocking acts for my liking but we still saw Xavier Rudd, and Chemical Brothers were surprisingly good even though they’re not my cup of tea. Thanks to Phil, me and Phong managed to see the most bands we’ve ever taken in. So it was a good gig. I don’t think i’d go again, unless they got a really fucking good lineup. I think next year if the Rock am Ring lineup isn’t that good i might take on Pinkpopp fest or Roskilde or something to try a different one.

So what else has been happening? I went back to Sunny London a week or so ago for work. Found myself eavesdropping on conversations just because i could…have become so used to blocking out what is going on around me it was actually nice to hear random conversation. Good news for Germans…it’s not just Germany which pisses me off. Found enough things in London to shit me to tears…lets start with boots….Boots ok is a Pharmacy. At least that’s what they’re supposed to be…so i went in there looking for bandaids (plasters). Nup. Can get fucking Parsnip Crisps and some mayonnaise-laden pre-packaged monstrosity but no fucking bandaids. Wake up to yourselves Boots!

I was thinking about something the other day. I’m not drunk enough to call myself a musician so lets just say as someone that loves music, going off which beatles song’s bands cover i start to wonder why musicians / people who love music in general seem to find Eleanor Rigby as one of the best, if not ‘the’ best Beatles song? From the opening line to the chorus it assimilates loneliness, and perhaps unintentionally alleviates any stress or negativity associated with feeling lonely. This from the band with surely the record for the most songs with the word ‘love’ in the title, or at least the body of lyrics. How does one love when they feel lonely or feel lonely when loved?