from the green sky

Album Review: Animal Collective - Strawberry Jam

2010-09-05T23:52:00.002+03:00

Yeah, I finally decided to do that! I'm going to review one of my current favorites, Animal Collective's Strawberry Jam. It has only 9 tracks, so writing a pretty detailed, song-by-song review shouldn't be much of a problem. Here we go...

1. Peacebone
The album starts off in a little cacophonic manner, with those seemingly random bubbly clicks after the word "bonefish". But if you listen a little closer, you can hear that this funny chirping actually has a rhythm and is not as random as it might seem at first. Then the vocals come in, and the song actually becomes melodic and beautiful, and keeps on becoming even more melodic and beautiful — staying as weird and random at the same time. This can be true of the whole album — weird yet beautiful. And then there are the crazy psychedelic lyrics ("A peacebone got found in a dinosaur wing / I've been jumping all over but my views are slowly shrinking / I was a Jugular vein in the juggler's girl / I was supposedly leaking the most interesting colors") which add to the song's awesomeness.

2. Unsolved Mysteries
Same here. The song begins with a monotonous rhythm, eventually joined by more instruments, and — once again — a beautiful melody eventually crystallizes out of all the noise. However, the song's very end is even less musical and more noisy than it's beginning. I'd say it's the noisiest moment of the album, it's all just screeching, blowing and wailing... but amazing nevertheless. I personally wish there were more moments like this on the album. And the repeated "Jaaaack the Ripperrrrrrrrrrrrr" in the end just won't get out of your head. :)

3. Chores
The most special thing about this one? Right — the super long "ehhhhhhhhhhhhhh" starting the 3rd track! The most interesting part of Chores must be the first part, i.e. the catchy tune which begins with the above-mentioned "ehhhhhhh". Then it gets just a little boring, so the middle part of the song is more like something you need to get through. Because then there's the final part, which is really good as well. It sounds kinda dreamy, with its layered repeated melismas, and it's pretty different from the first part of the song.

4. For Reverend Green
Now this is a longer one. But it's really worth listening to, even though it probably won't seem so after the first 30 seconds or so. Because it starts off with low-pitched screeching, then there's another screeching (but more rhythmic this time), then some more screeching comes in... and an impatient listener is like, "okay, I'm not gonna listen to 6 and a half minutes of this crap..." *pressing the Next button* And that's not a good thing to do. Very soon, a beautiful progression starts to peak through the screeching, and it becomes very obvious when the vocals come in. In the chorus, the climax is reached, with the screamed "NOW", and the high-pitched "ooh ooooh ooh" is just an ear candy. So get some patience so you can thank yourself afterwards for getting multiple eargasms! :)

5. Fireworks
This one is even longer. And as worth listening to as the previous one. Only it becomes clear much sooner — you know you want to listen to this already after a few seconds. Catchy and emotional melodies, combined with heartfelt singing — that's what this song basically is. It expresses many emotions — it's happy, it's sad at the same time, it's soothing, and it's exciting. And it's kind of epic overall. Well, if we mean the word epic as in "epic win", than it's most definitely epic.

6. #1
The calm "bubbly" background accompanying the entire song is peculiar and perhaps the most memorable thing about the song, something that makes you wanna listen to it. And the repetitive quiet backing vocals make the whole thing even better when they come in. A very calm song overall...

7. Winter Wonder Land
If you live in a climate where there are cold winters with snow and frost, and if you, to say the least, don't really like this type of weather (well, like me), this is one song that might cheer you up a little during the cold winter days. :) It just tells about some good things you can find in the winter. And the song itself is good, too! The chorus is the most interesting part, and the lyrics are very optimistic. "If you don't believe in happiness, then don't believe in happiness, but if you don't believe in happiness, then man you must be down".

8. Cuckoo Cuckoo
The quiet, lo-fi piano accompaniment, covered in noise, heavy chords and messy choruses, and then there are the atmospheric vocals in the beginning... that's a great idea.

9. Derek
A calm and happy ending for the album — the song about a white and black Shar Pei. :) Again, it can be easily divided into two parts, the first half being calm and pretty mellow and the second one being much louder — and having a different melody. It leaves you in a good mood after you've finished listening!

Short Summary

Strawberry Jam is an example of how the albums which have fewer songs but all (or almost all) of them are good are better than longer albums which have been filled with... well, filler. This album has only 9 songs (though two of them are longer than 6 minutes), and you can't find a single bad song on it.

Another thing is that this is the kind of music which is not the easiest to get into. Most songs have a catchy and nice tune, they're basically like children's songs, but most often obscured by the noise and the crazy sounds. You don't have to dig deep to find the beauty, though. It's almost at the surface, just a little deeper than you might expect it. Giving the album a few careful listens should be enough to fall in love with it to the point when you can't get enough of it.

Useful Links:

Strawberry Jam on Wikipedia

Strawberry Jam on Last.fm

Animal Collective on Wikipedia

Animal Collective on Last.fm

The official video for Peacebone, creepy and funny as hell:

P.S. I'm sorry if the whole thing sounds lame! And I really apologize for overusing the word "beautiful". 'Cause... that's just how this album is. :) Of course, the whole thing is highly subjective, so feel free to put an imaginary 'IMO' after everything you've just read. Please keep in mind that this is the first time I write a review, and I hope I'll improve over time.

Also, this review was written in the "song-by-song" format, but I'm not sure if I'll keep writing like that. As you can see, I was able to say more about some songs and much less about some other songs, so it probably doesn't look good. Or... well, I don't know. I'll see when I write the next review (if I'll ever write it haha).

Musical Musings: A Shitload...

2010-08-08T01:03:00.003+03:00

Last night I've listened to 3 albums, which is a huge amount for me. I usually listen to 1 album per evening, and very often I don't even manage to scrobble a single song while on the computer. While listening, I've downloaded a bigger shitload of music which I can't even list out now. I'll try to mention a few albums later though, in case any of my (non-existent) readers are curious. Hehe. So the point of this post is basically a poor-piss excuse for my earlier idea for keeping up with this blog — i.e. album reviews. Here, I'm just gonna provide a short impression for every of the albums I've listened to. Here we go, in the chronological order of listening...

The Pastels — Up for a Bit With the Pastels
I'll be honest — this album didn't impress me much. I was expecting something different. In fact, I wanted to hear a more regular variety of twee pop, something like Talulah Gosh, or Dolly Mixture, or even the Vaselines. But it was kinda slower and seemed, uh, pretty boring. It's only my first impression though. Sometimes I need to listen to an album a few times before I can really get into it, and this might be the case.

Sonic Youth — EVOL
Actually you can't expect (and get!) anything but awesome from the mighty Sonic Youth. So I suppose this album's been awesome as well. To be honest, I didn't listen too carefully... *sigh* But of course, I did notice the sound experiments (the most amazing thing about SY!), especially in the song Expressway to Yr Skull. I think I might've paid a bit more attention to it, because they played it at the recent concert in NYC, to which I haven't been of course (how sad...), but I've watched the video. It was EPIC. (I think I already wrote about that? Okay, sorry, I just can't stop going on and on and on about this stuff... haha)
The video is HERE. Go watch it! Come on, click the link and just fucking WATCH it, if you haven't already. You must do that.

Daniel Johnston — Hi, How Are You
The recording is of a VERY low quality, but I think it's one of the advantages of the album. After all, what are the reasons to love Daniel Johnston? His musical kinda naivety and amateur approach to music and songwriting, among others, aren't they? So yeah, I've listened to three of his albums so far. Fun is pretty amazing, Yip/Jump Music... well, a little harder to listen to, definitely not the "love-at-first-listen" type, and Hi, How Are You seems to be pretty awesome as well. I especially loved Desperate Man Blues and Keep Punching Joe, and a few more tracks I think... :-). And yeah, his voice is REALLY high-pitched on this one. (Nothing bad about that.)

After listening to these, I started listening to Crystal Castles by Crystal Castles. Sorry CC fans if any of you ever come across this post, but... I just couldn't go on any more after the first 3 tracks. Especially the 3rd track, Alice Practice, it has such disturbing vocals... Also, all their songs sound the same, and they seem longer than they really are. (Maybe I just can't handle them. Haha.) So I switched to MGMT's Oracular Spectacular. I've managed to listen to just 3 tracks as well, but I can already say that the 3rd one, The Youth, caught my attention.

Oh, and I almost forgot! Here are the few I just downloaded but haven't listened to so far:

Diane Cluck — Oh Vanille Ova Nil
Built to Spill — There's Nothing Wrong With Love
Beat Happening — Beat Happening
Fuck Buttons — Colours Move
Ra Ra Riot — The Rhumb Line

So that's pretty much it, and as a P.S. I'd like to attach this song which is one of my current absolute favorites:

"Do you want us to be, woah-oh, Miss Candy Twist"... I wanna hug this song. ^_^

An update...

2010-08-03T01:09:00.001+03:00

So I haven't posted anything since December, but I think I'd like to go on with the blog somehow. One of the reasons why I didn't post anything is that basically no one reads my blog anymore, so it didn't make any sense to me — why bother to post anything if no one's gonna read it anyhow? But still I think I'm gonna keep it up — A Blog That No One Reads. :-D

I've thought of a few options of what I could make my blog. At one point, I thought I might write album reviews and it might increase the number of readers in some way. But I suppose I'm too lazy to write a review. Hehe. It seems like a pretty exciting thing though. Who knows, maybe I'll get my lazy ass to write one some day. :D But it's more likely that I might write some kind of reviews of my trips to the town, something like my last December post, but with more text and less pictures. As well as telling about my own life, impressions, interesting occasions, etc...

Okay, now a bit about my life, in order to make this post not so completely pointless. I'm reading Jack Kerouac's On The Road, but I doubt I'll make it to the end. It's pretty good but a little boring. I've gotta bring my books back to the library on August 6th, I already asked the library for the permission to keep them for two more weeks, and I'm not gonna ask any more. I miss the town after all, I haven't been there for like a month. I wanna have a walk and a cup of coffee, explore the stores, watch the tourists and try to determine what language they're speaking. :D I miss the tourists. So, if I finish it until Friday, then good, if I don't, I'll just stop reading and return it to the library.

Short trips, long trips... Me and my mom are going to London next summer! I'm so excited. I just hope it works out. I'm most worried about finding an apartment, I'm afraid of scammers, and we know there's a lot of them out there. London is such an amazing city, one of the best cities in the world! I'd also really love to go to Glasgow or Edinburgh (or both!) from there, but they seem to be far away from London, so I'm not sure if it works out. So yeah. I just keep my fingers crossed.

Oh and if you see this, definitely check out this awesome blog, FreeWilliamsburg.com, I've found it just last night, and it's really interesting. The live Sonic Youth video is great. I was watching it and thinking, "If only I'd been there..." By the way, I think I might find a good concert in London and attend it during my trip. It must have LOADS of all kinds of concerts.

OK, so I'm pretty much finished with this post. Bye.

P.S. I just saw that it's my 20th post. An anniversary. So yeah, that's pretty cool.

Photos: A Walk in the City

2009-12-11T23:22:00.008+02:00

Yeah, it's been a while since I've made my last entry... I haven't forgotten about my blog though, I've been logging in everyday and reading all the blogs I follow. (By the way, I started following two awesome Daily Photo blogs; Seattle and Riga.) I just didn't really have any ideas on what to write. xD
So I've decided I'd post the photos I've made while walking in the center of Riga in November. Here they are...

A tea house which I find rather pretty...

A channel next to the tea house. These are the first things you see when you arrive there

An unusual and pretty fun ad :-D

Another view of the same ad

A bunch of awesome books I found at the bookstore!

I approve of the book about Nirvana xD

The mall I visited... View from above

A linocut I saw in that mall. All credits go to the artist, who is not me... ;-D (The bluish color is because of unsuccessful retouching lol)

When I left the mall, I saw the guy playing flute. The quality is awful, I know... I just was too shy to come closer so I used the zoom option haha.

Actually I also visited a coffee house that time, so there should be a nice cup of cappuccino between the linocut and the flute guy. But I haven't captured this moment for some reason, even though that was basically the main reason of my trip to the center.

So yeah, that's it this time. I think I will make such entries sometimes from now on. Also, it seems all of my followers have abandoned their blogs... I hope they'll come back. And if you're not a follower and you've come across my blog while surfing the net, and you like what you see (I'm sure you do!... hahaha), please, PLEASE clickety-click that shiny little Follow button wherever you can see it! *shameless self-promotion*

Aloha. ^^

Fuck you Pitchfork.

2009-10-25T21:56:00.001+02:00

I've heard many times of a website called Pitchfork Media. So I visited it a couple of times, and once I found an article called "Top 100 Albums of the 90's". Of course I was curious, so I thought I'd explore it. The list had many albums by good bands/artists, such as Elliott Smith, Pixies, The Breeders, and Yo La Tengo, and it was kind of interesting... until the top 10 started. Nevermind by Nirvana was put on the 6th place, and the review... well, that was what pissed me off. I think I'll just repost it here to make things easier, inserting my comments when needed.

"For a while, it seemed there were nothing but grunge bands: Pearl Jam, Alice in Chains, Soundgarden, Mudhoney, Green River, Screaming Trees-- and virtually all of them hailed from Seattle. On the surface, it makes sense that Nirvana, with their flannel overshirts and ripped jeans and greasy hair, would be lumped in with the movement. Yet I can't think of a single Nirvana-influenced band that ever got airplay in the 90s, or a single Nirvana song that carried all the actual attributes of true grunge music. Grunge, as we came to know it through MTV and commercial alternative radio, consisted of craggy and/or heavily reverbed, jangly guitars, mumbling ponytailed vocalists, and giant stadium drums not all that far removed from the hair-rock whose cultural relevance the genre supplanted."

Yeah, not all that far removed. Grunge bands were as concerned with their looks and made as shitty, commercial and empty music, didn't they?...

"Grunge begat Collective Soul, Creed, and Nickelback. Where do Nirvana fit into this legacy?"

Come on, didn't Nirvana's music play a significant role in appearing of such band as Nickelback? And after all, Nirvana "begat" Seether, which is probably worse than any of the bands listed. So if a crappy ripoff band appears, the good band they rip off is to blame? Nice...

"Well, maybe they don't. With all the facts laid out, Nirvana begins to look much more like a plain old punk band that happened to exist at the heart of a cultural movement they wanted nothing to do with."

Actually they might be called "a plain old punk band" during their Bleach-era. Yeah, Nevermind did have a couple of weak-ish, overproduced punk songs, but generally it was a pop rock album - good for pop rock, but not for Nirvana.

"Their influences-- not the classic rock roots of their Seattle brethren, but 70s post-punk and 80s college rock-- spoke to this categorization. Approximating Nirvana's sound with the time-honored [band] + [band] = [band] equation leads you to such dazzling dream-sums as Buzzcocks meets Sonic Youth, Vaselines meets Melvins, or Pixies meets Raincoats. Sure, there will always be those who insist that Nevermind was more of cultural import than musical, but they will also be full of shit: Nirvana are, a decade later, still regarded as the greatest and most legendary band of the 1990s."

Notice it. Are we talking about Nirvana in general or their particular album? Nirvana's third album, In Utero, was also released in the 1990s, and it's better than Nevermind. Also, the B-sides compilation, Incesticide, was released in 1992. Or you want to say Nirvana is "regarded as blah blah blah" only because of Nevermind? Or their only album is Nevermind? Come on...

"This band proved to a whole new generation that technical prowess has no bearing on quality, inspired their fans to seek out the music that slipped beneath the commercial radar, and then had the balls to be ridiculously, unthinkably fucking brilliant. Anyone who hates this record today is just trying to be cool, and needs to be trying harder."

I just love this conclusion. According to the author, if you dislike Nevermind, you are stupid, definitely more stupid than him. In fact, you even can't dislike Nevermind, and if you claim to do so, you're lying. Everyone loves Nevermind!! Haha. This snobby attitude is so ridiculous.

My opinion on Nevermind? This is a mediocre album. It's really good for pop rock, because it doesn't have that kinda sycophant feel to it most pop rock tends to have, but it's not good for Nirvana, whose previous album was Bleach, showing that they can do MUCH better. Nevermind wins when compared to most mainstream pop rock, but fails when compared to Bleach.
So, what do we have here? A snobby review starting with barely-hidden diss on grunge and ending with a dumb conclusion basically saying "there are 2 kinds of people: the ones who love Nevermind and the ones who don't admit it".
And yeah, I understand that Pitchfork just hates grunge so much (except for Nirvana), but putting Nevermind on the 6th place and NOT including Pearl Jam's Ten at ALL is just something I can't forgive. 'Cause Ten is like 100 times better than Nevermind.

That's it. I'm not interested in a website that talks shit about grunge and writes such snobby and nonsensical reviews. And I don't think I'm gonna visit it again, only if I'll ever want to get pissed off... Bye Pitchfork.

School... and maybe something else

2009-10-03T00:35:00.001+03:00

It's been a whole month since I wrote my last entry! So it's definitely time for another one.

So yeah, yesterday I started going to school. My classmates welcomed me, and one girl even hugged me. XD We have many new teachers, and things are now somewhat easier than in the previous years I think, there is much less homework, etc. As my classmates can be really hilarious sometimes, I've had pretty much fun at school, even though the thought of school starting kind of depressed me. Yeah, I actually tend to see things darker than they are. Haha.

Also, we have some new subjects, including German. When I heard about this, I was like WTF, no one told us we'll learn German this year or something. But I don't mind. At least I'm glad it's not French. XD Today we learned the numerals, they are pretty fancy... for example, 224 is:

zweihundertvierundzwanzig

Awesome word, isn't it? Haha. At first you can't even read these words. But soon I found out it's really easy once you understand it, how the word is formed and all that, and it's not hard to understand. And German seems to be really similar to English, so I think I won't have any problems with that. It's even kind of fun, learning new language is always fun I guess (as long as it's not French, duh... lol) We have culture and business now, too, but I haven't been to these yet.

Oh and a funny thing happened today. Our English teacher told us to talk about things we know most about or something in pairs, and I chose my favorite bands/music as topic. When I told my classmate I like punk music she gave me horns, and when I started naming my favorite bands, such as Pearl Jam, Wipers, Pixies, Kyuss, etc., she was like that: :O ("WTF is this?..." lol) And yesterday she said our English teachers (the actual and the former one) listen to Metallica and AC/DC, and she said she would like to go to Marilyn Manson's concert (there will be one soon in our city), but she doesn't have enough money. And I sat and thought, "eww, Marilyn Manson is such a piece of poseur bullshit", but I didn't tell her anything. I don't like hurting people. Haha.

The weather sucks lately. Suddenly it became so fucking cold... I think I might need some long johns. Haha. And there is cold at home as well, since they don't turn on the heat, so we have to have our own heater turned on almost all day. I hope it will become warmer...

Now a lighter note, since I prefer to end my stories with lighter notes. The weekend has started! Sleeping is the best thing about weekends. Haha. Most likely I won't do anything special, just listen to my music and maybe take a look at the German stuff my classmate gave me (things they've already learned while I was absent). Speaking of studying, I tried to read the physics book, but I couldn't understand a shit, so I guess I'll need to ask my teacher for help.

Okay, maybe I could tell something else, but I think I'll just stop here. Best wishes to anyone who's reading it! XD

Summary of the summer

2009-09-01T22:47:00.004+03:00

(the title came out pretty awesome, didn't it?)

So yeah, the summary. Here's what I wanted to do this summer:

start running regularly
start playing guitar or bass
paint a tee or get it printed

And what have I done? Well...

[Completed tasks: 0]

Yeah. The big fat 0. I guess that pretty much shows how fucking lazy and slow I am...

But hey, the life's not finished! Okay, I think I'll cross out the 1st item, 'cause I'm kind of unwell, and the school is starting so I won't have the time... that's a long story. Speaking of the 2nd item, I'm gonna start thinking about it around New Year... and I'm gonna paint that tee very soon. So yeah, that's about it.

Oh, and - because of my unwellness I won't go to school until October. Awesome!

Still I find it funny how I haven't done anything YET. Haha.

The European Engrish

2009-08-12T00:37:00.008+03:00

Looks like Engrish can be found not only in Asia, but in Europe, too. Just look at this...

I saw this in a shopping mall near our home. At first I thought it's something like a brand name, but after I looked at other products (see the picture below) I understood what it's supposed to mean and I just LOL'd.

And here is non-Engrish-related fail from the same shopping mall.

(Are you sure it's a discount? lol)

Yeah, looks like our shopping mall should change the name to FailMall or something like that...

Albums I should explore

2009-07-20T22:54:00.008+03:00

This is the list of my kinda abandoned albums. They are in my iTunes library already and I listened to them only once, or I don't remember most of the songs... well, I should explore them. Just a reminder for me.
I think I'll make some additions later... okay, here I go.
(Italics indicate the albums I almost have the idea about, but still have to listen to them a bit more)
([X] means I've explored this album)

Alice in Chains - Facelift
Wipers - Over the Edge [X]
Wipers - Youth of America
Eddie Vedder - Into the Wild
Auf der Maur - Auf der Maur
Black Flag - Damaged
The Doors - Morrison Hotel
Meat Puppets - Meat Puppets II [X]
Meat Puppets - Too High to Die
Mudhoney - Piece of Cake (I should make it to the end, no matter how boring it is... XD)
Nymphs - Nymphs
Ramones - Road to Ruin (probably)
Rites of Spring - End on End
Sonic Youth - Dirty
Soundgarden - Superunknown
Love Battery - Far Gone
Love Battery - Straight Freak Ticket
The Stooges - The Stooges
The Stooges - Raw Power [X]
PJ Harvey - Dry
Patti Smith - Easter
Pearl Jam - Vs. [X]

Slaughter of Mia

2009-07-07T21:10:00.005+03:00

Today 16 years ago Mia Zapata, a singer for Seattle punk rock band The Gits, was murdered.

Zapata had spent the night before her death drinking. Around 1:00 a.m., she left the Comet Tavern bar in the Capitol Hill area of Seattle. She went down the street to the apartment of a friend. She left around 2:00 a.m., telling her she was going home. This was the last she was seen alive. She may have walked a few blocks West to get a cab, North to a friend's apartment, or decided to walk home.

It is believed she encountered her murderer shortly after 2:15 am. Since the barkeep remembered her wearing her headset as she left, it is believed she was listening to music from her walkman and thus was unaware of the approaching danger.

Her body was found less than two hours later by a streetwalker in what was then a dead-end street in a part of the Central Area that was busy with drug buys and prostitution. The streetwalker, who went by the name of "Charity," told police that Zapata's body had been positioned in the form of a cross, with her ankles crossed and her arms stretched outward, perpendicular to her body. She had been strangled with the drawstrings of her sweat shirt, which bore the name of her band, The Gits.

Zapata was 27 when she died, the fiery lead singer and lyricist for an up-and-coming punk band, The Gits, a local favorite with a cult following in Seattle during a time when the city's "grunge" scene was all the vogue in the rock-music industry. Her slaying was felt by some local musicians as the pop of a balloon, the end of a delusional period of optimism. That the investigation stalled frustrated many in her circle.

After the initial shock of Zapata's murder, both the remaining members of the Gits and the Seattle musical community at large began an intensive investigation into her death. Using funds generated by the Seattle music community (from benefit shows and CDs), as well as their own money, the remaining band members hired private investigator Leigh Hearon to supplement the police department's investigation. For over three years, Hearon and the Seattle Police Department investigated the crime with little or no breaks in the case. In 1996 the investigation first gained national attention in an episode of Unsolved Mysteries, it however did not open any new leads. The case was later highlighted on several other TV shows including A&E's American Justice, Cold Case Files, City Confidential, CBS's 48 Hours and FOX's America's Most Wanted.

Seven years passed with few new leads in the case, until a random DNA check conducted by the Seattle PD's Cold Case Unit and the Washington State Crime Lab led to the arrest of Cuban-American fisherman Jesus Mezquia. Mezquia, who briefly lived in Seattle during the time of Zapata's murder, was linked to the crime in 2003 when a DNA profile was extracted from a saliva sample left on Zapata's body; Mezquia had bitten her breast. It had been kept in cold storage until the STR technology was developed for full extraction. An original entry in 2001 failed to generate a positive result, but Mezquia's DNA entered the national databank after he was arrested for burglary in Florida in 2002.

On March 25, 2004, a jury convicted Mezquia of Zapata's murder and sentenced him to 36 years in prison, the maximum allowed in the case under Washington state law.

(this is my favorite Gits' song)

I haven't watched this movie yet... what a shame. I should definitely do it.

Mia Zapata was an incredible singer. She just totally sang her heart out. Her voice brings tears to my eyes and just kinda rips my soul. Her songs are amazingly emotional and powerful. Yeah, I know all these things sound so banal... but I just can't find the words.

The unrecognized and underrated Queen of Punk Rock,

Mia Katherine Zapata...

rest in peace. :)

What do I do now??

2009-07-05T00:17:00.003+03:00

I haven't saved enough money for bass yet, I have to get pretty much money and of course it's going to be slow. But my mom said I can borrow some money from her. And I'm pretty sure my dad will also give me some. But okay, financial problems aside, that's okay... The thing that bothers me the most is that I apparently have to bring someone with me to try that bass out before buying. And I have NOBODY to do this!! Does it mean I can't buy it?? Or maybe there are some other ways? I hope there are.

Okay, that's pretty much all I wanted to say + I don't have time for thinking up anything else. Yeah... bye.

Hooray, hooray, it's a holi-holiday!!!

2009-06-10T23:42:00.007+03:00

Yahoo, I'm finally done with school!! I'm 100% sure I passed all my exams successfully and everything's OK. No more school for almost 3 months!! Yeeeeaaaahhh!!! =D
On Friday, they all are coming to school, they gonna be all glamorous, in suits and dresses and heels and shit and just are going to look like that pile of glossy crap, and they are gonna read some stupid poems and 'thankyou speeches' to our teachers... I'm not gonna participate in it (just a huge LOL at all of them). I don't wanna be a clown, and this comedy is just not funny.
But... anyways I'll need to come to school once more in a couple of days, because I didn't bring back 2 of my books. (I hope I'll find the librarian and the teacher... but what if not? Ohh...)
Okay, but what am I going to do this summer? (Mostly sit in my room listening to my iPod I guess... hehe) Umm, maybe I'll start running regularly (I wouldn't say every day because of my great will, if you know what I mean lol)... but I'm afraid I'm too much of a slacker to do this. Also I have thoughts of learning to play some instrument already for quite a long time, I'd like to play guitar or bass, but it's crisis, and it's seemingly going to eat all our money so we can hardly eat, not to mention buying musical instruments (my dad even had doubts about buying me a bike)... so I guess I shouldn't say anything about it now. Oh and I think I'm gonna buy some acryl colors and paint on some T-shirts, also I'm gonna get some tees printed at the store instead of buying pre-printed band shirts which is muuuch more difficult and expensive.
That's it...

My exams.

2009-06-05T00:10:00.005+03:00

So I had the Math exam last Tuesday. The day before, thoughts about the upcoming exam came to my head quite rarely and disappeared really quickly, and the next day the results of reading obscene poems instead of preparing and repeating stuff kinda showed up. The 1st part was OK, but the 2nd one... yeah, pretty nauseating. But anyways, I was sure my grade will be positive, and not that lowest positive.

Today we had the English exam (now that's the easy thing haha, I'm the best in my class!) Our teacher came and said a bit about the grades, and she told me, "your result isn't really good... I think you'll get that 7 [in case you have a different grade system: one can get a grade from 1 to 10, therefore 7 is an ok grade]," and one girl was surprised that she's not satisfied with it, and the teacher was like, "but she has brains, and she didn't turn them on." Yeah, I know how I turned my brains on with those poems... lol. Anyways, I got 7! Nice. I could do better I think. But I didn't want to. Math isn't that important thing for me. And actually I kind of cannot do this whole geeky thing. (I'm just too lazy, like I already said...)

The worst thing about the English exam was that looooooong waiting time before the speaking part. I was EXTREMELY bored, and the only thing I could keep myself busy with was staring at the dark green corduroy of my jacket, it reminded me of fields or something like that. I thought the queue could move faster that it should, but it moved even somewhat slower... shit.

"She's overbored and self-assured"... oh that's exactly me before the speaking part lol.

And yeah, what I absolutely love about the exams is eating chocolate bars at breaks! Haha.

UPDATE: I got 6, not 7 after all... but that's okay hehe. What about English, I got 9.

My blog has been abandoned...

2009-05-30T00:19:00.001+03:00

Yeah, I think I'll continue writing in it now. I hope I won't abandon it anymore. Actually I was just too lazy or I had nothing to write about... more often I was too lazy though. (laziness is one of my biggest problems haha) I've already resumed writing entries (as you can see).

Okay, I almost forgot I'm not at school writing a 200 word essay... =D I think I've already said everything I wanted to say. So I'm done with another silly entry.

Lilacs Part II: The White Flowers

2009-05-28T23:37:00.004+03:00

Maybe this picture shows a bit of its beauty?...

These flowers are so tender and so perfect I cannot find the words to describe it. Every petal, every little flower, every light white cloud of these flowers is the top of perfection. They are so ideal I can't stop looking at them. I cannot imagine something more ideal than a bunch of these little, perfectly-shaped, amazing flowers, every one of them. A perfect combination of small even curls, of light and shade, and that bright yellow dot in the middle of four snow-white petals shining like a micro-sun... I admire you Ms. Nature. Really.

It seems like these tender bunches are lighter than clouds. They bring up some unspeakable memories in me. Bright sunshine, a huge white building shining in the sun... maybe I haven't seen this in my life. Maybe it was a dream. But for some reason this unclear memory lives in my head. The white petals are like that building, and the ray of sun is in the middle. And everything is white. So white it's blinding.

They remind me of another spring that I missed. Another spring that passed by leaving me only few small pieces of it, tempting, calling, letting me only touch it, but not take everything. Another spring I couldn't fall into, dive in, swallow, feel 24/7, take and keep to myself. Another spring I couldn't catch.

Maybe I'll catch the next one?

Drowning in Lilacs

2009-05-27T00:18:00.006+03:00

I just love them.

It's spring.

Lilacs are blooming.

What an amazing smell!

-------------------------------------------------

...One, two, three, four...

One, two, three, four...

One, two, three, four... five!

They say that if you eat a five-petaled lilac flower, your wish will come true. =D

I don't do this... anymore haha. But I still like searching for five-petaled flowers!

Lilacs = Love

The Sellout of Last.fm

2009-04-26T22:10:00.004+03:00

Yeah, we all know that Last.fm decided to charge a fee for listening to the radio.

And we know it's bad. It's too bad. It just totally sucks. 'Cause selling out always does.

Why do so many good things just sell out??

And the other side of the decision: fee for all users except those who live in the US, UK and Germany.

Hey, it's discrimination!

“Any discrimination based on any ground such as sex, race, colour, ethnic or social origin, genetic features, language, religion or belief, political or any other opinion, membership of a national minority, property, birth, disability, age or sexual orientation shall be prohibited.”

(http://www.europarl.europa.eu/comparl/libe/elsj/charter/art21/default_en.htm)

We DON'T WANT

Ca$h.fm, Capitalist.fm and Racist.fm.

BRING BACK that old good

FREE

Last.fm!

Links:

Last.fm FREE IS FREE Group

FREE IS FREE Blog

SONG FOR FREE IS FREE

You can upload FREE IS FREE image to profile

Alice in Chains - New Album! (banner)

2008-12-13T23:33:00.001+02:00

Unhealthy pleasures

2008-10-15T21:48:00.005+03:00

A few days ago, I saw the message on CNN saying that 'mp3 player users risk hearing loss'.

That's what one of our teachers said to us. I always was like, blah blah blah, say what you want, you thought it up to make kids stop listening to music on lessons... :)

But - that's kinda information you can trust. I was a bit upset, and I thought, I just can't live without it! I now fully understand addicts - either I live harming myself or I better don't live at all. Before, the biology teacher told us that if somebody shakes their head hard, their skull can get off their backbone and they can even die. So I use my mp3 actively, and I like to headbang sometimes, and I risk hearing loss and getting my skull off my damn backbone, but that's actually one of the most important things in my life!

But anyway, I thought, tomorrow I'll try not to turn on my player as long as I can. I returned from school and just waited... :) I wouldn't say that I wanted to get to my player very much. But then, the thought hit my head like a lightning. I thought, WHAT THE FUCK AM I DOING?!! I'll hear loss after many years?! But what if I die tomorrow? Last minutes of my life I'll be so sorry about stealing these 'unhealthy pleasures' from myself for something that will never be... Life is too short, compressed and unpredictable to make such stupid things. My life is already censored by school, so I need to cut it myself even more?!!! And I grabbed my mp3 quickly, turned it on and started listening... :)

So, enjoy the life! It's too short and unpredictable to restrict yourself for 'good future' that probably will never be!!!

Different lives...

2008-10-14T22:12:00.003+03:00

Every weekend is a small life.

Sunday is ending, and I am dying into a new week.

But there is a new life...

The door is opening

I'm outside

and I'm starting to live.

There will be another 5-minute piece of great life

and I go slower

cause I don't have to hurry anymore

and I want this moment to last a little bit longer.

Because I'm alone at last

and fun starts when I'm alone.

I walk into my house

and there starts another life...

So many lives in one day, you know, different, good and bad, boring and exciting.

AUTUMN

2008-10-12T21:19:00.001+03:00

I discovered so many new places and great music this autumn, and so many new thoughts in my head...

I love the wind humming in my ears.

I love the colourful carpet of leaves covering the earth.

Leaves are rolling on the road and my foot stops one of them.

the moment stops

all the hurry stops

and I love this

colourful

beautiful

warm

sunny

and wonderful

Autumn.

My very first entry :)

2008-10-11T23:02:00.000+03:00

I just created this blog... Hooray!

What is the green sky and where it is? Well, I don't know. And that's why it's great ;)

Actually I just wanted to think up an original name :-D

Okay, I hope that following entries won't be as silly as this...

that's all for now.