lenina is currently approx. 22 years old

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Due to various circumstances I currently feel a HELL of a lot younger than what I in fact physically am. Various elements have triggered some kind of regression (well regression sounds negative, and it’s not negative). The main trigger has been finding out that Amanda Palmer is playing in Edinburgh and digging out her old CD (well the demo tapes that I burned onto CD), and that made me think of my (hot! but fucked up!) BF at the time, David.

Combine that with the fact that I’m getting a tattoo on the 19th, next to the one that both David and I had done (I’ll post a pic of a mock-up soon – it’s on the other computer and YES it is a thistle, but NEITHER of the ones I blogged about a year ago).

The other contributing factor has been reading Doris Lessing’s Golden Notebook and my brain cranking slowly back into gear, also caused by starting a handwritten (w00t) diary again where I write down thoughts occasionally, mostly introspective ones. The great thing is of course that I have this fresh new lenina but combined with a settled, happy lenina (not the fucked up lenina from 12 years ago). Hence, I might be able to put the fresh lenina to good use, without getting self-absorbed and suicidal 😀

We’ll see what happens. I feel quite full of myself at the moment, probably expanding and taking up space. It’s like you nearly burst of happiness, instead of dragging yourself behind, aching.

New BBC iPlayer, new Firefox

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Just now I’ve had a look at the new BBC iplayer site. Very much an improvement on the old one – you can now just go through the different channels, and a great bonus is that the radio stuff is now integrated too. Might even get me to start listening to the radio!

Though I was looking for The Tudors with tasty Jonathan Rhys Mayer, which I think started again this week but which I couldn’t find. Actually I think it’s back on from this Friday – that’s why I couldn’t find it 😐

Yes, the new BBC iPlayer site has been around for a month or so, but I don’t usually get ‘the latest’ things straight away.

See also Firefox 3. I only downloaded it the other day, and to my desktop (I still don’t have it on my laptop). So far so good – I’m sure extensive reviews have been posted elsewhere.

I’m also behind on other online stuff. These days I have upped my reading and game playing, and have reduced online time and watching TV. It seems not everything can be fitted in!

It’s quite good the way it is now. In fact last night I finished Doris Lessing’s The Golden Notebook, which may free up some time. To be honest though, I may just start another book 🙂

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The Wifebeater’s Argument

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Last night my downstairs neighbour (P.) and her boyfriend AKA the wifebeater had another row. I was in bed and couldn’t sleep as the argument just went on an on (mainly him shouting). I then got up and went into the lounge (which is above their bedroom), hoping that walking around would reign them in and hopefully stop the wifebeater shouting and potentially hurting my neighbour.

As I sat on my sofa, I tried making out what it was the beater was shouting about. It was very difficult but every other word was ‘fucking’ (fucking this, fucking that), and, after nearly each sentence he would say ‘right?’ (this ending sentencens with ‘right’ is a Scottish thing I believe, though not sure. Tends to be used by people who are angry/aggressive and want to get their point across).

I’m pretty sure I overheard the following:

What have you ever done for me? OK you do my washing, but you don’t even have my dinner ready when I get in!!

FFS Wifebeater! She doesn’t just do your washing, you also fuck her whenever you want, and you beat her up when you feel like it. You can shout at her aggressively for half an hour and be mean and cruel, and use her as your emotional punchbag. I bet she gives damn good blow jobs too, and swallows. What else is it you want?

Twitter is cool but

I now understand the reason why I’ve never really got into Twitter, even though it’s a very cool app. I love the fact that it follows a one-to-many communication model, which is especially useful for people like me who don’t really bother with msn and ‘chatting’ in general.

Twitter, on the other hand: you don’t chat as such, instead you just ‘broadcast’ what you’re doing or anything you pick up on to whoever is interested (follows you). Result: Communication with no obligation to engage! Wow that sounds horrible – without having to then follow the etiquette of conversation (e.g. on msn you can’t just type a couple of things into the chat window – you then interact with that person. Plus you can only ever do it one-on-one, which is very time-consuming).

But herein also lies the problem with Twitter and my use thereof. I don’t know anyone apart from anaj who uses Twitter. None of my friends work in new media/marketing or anything remotely similar, and with some I still communicate via regular email (not even msn/Skype!).

Thus, I need to find some peeps that do use it. I might just randomly search for people and start following them. Then we’ll see what happens. I definitely want to keep using Twitter as I like it for the reasons above; however, there may be  no point due to the fact that I’m writing into empty space with hardly anyone noticing 😛  (sounds like this blog, come to think of it 😉 ).

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Shout Out To Amanda Palmer

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Amanda Palmer has a solo album out. Finally. I never liked her Dresden Dolls stuff much (well, it’s ok, but the best songs on the Dresden Dolls albums are those from her solo demo tapes).

I got into her when my BF at the time in Cologne, David, had gone to see a very early solo gig of hers and kinda struck up a friendship (must have been in 97 or 98 ) and got the demo tapes. Subsequently I burnt the demo tapes via my PC onto CD (terrible quality unfortunately, lots of ‘rauschen’ that you can’t get rid of). The early demos were just her playing the piano, singing, with great lyrics (including self-mutilation, gender roles, people killing themselves, etc., but all in a positive way. I.e. she wasn’t whinging. A typical line is somthing like ‘I don’t think it’s right for a woman to breed for attention’).

In fact I’ve just dug out the CD with her demos on it and listening to it. I’m going to import the songs into my computer and see if I can clean them up a bit more.

So, shout out to her, and I’ve also found out on lastfm yesterday that she’s playing a gig in Edinburgh’s Cabaret Voltaire on September 30th. In fact I’ve just booked a ticket to go there. It’s only £12 which is incredible. Basically this lenina’s ‘insider tip’ in terms of gigs. Looking at lastfm and noticing that Coldplay are the no. 1 most listened to (their new album), and thinking how much they probably charge for gigs these days and how fucking easy this mainstream shite is. Just don’t make people think – wrap them in some soft sugary easy bubble wrap and coat them in pseudo depth.

I think I’m going to turn all radical again 😛   – well, what else is there to do?