I am older now, and we did it when we were young


This amazing song deserves a whole post to itself but since it will tend to bring you down a bit (the lyrics are pretty darn grave for a band they label 'punk'), you may like to counterbalance it with the following:


Oh this brings tears to my eyes, there are TEARS IN MY EYES. Bitta background: so Barney's black half-brother (they share a mum) has just reunited with his black dad, and white as paper Barney believes himself to be part of the family. Now hit play and die from pure mirth. (Btw do you guys remember that we had practised Def Leppard's Two Steps Behind for our performance on the last day of competition @ Sanya Samakki 1998, Pattaya but some old - and by old I mean in the 15-17 age group - guy decided when we were already on stage that we should do Stand By Me instead so it was just him singing and us pretending to sing from behind? Haha, good memories!)


Do the crazy Jamaican dance! Oh Bobster, where is that phone number you promised? I would have liked to chit-chat with you sometime.


Wow-wee! Why are all the people I like dead? I am eternally grateful that I am not an Australian Aborigine and not thereby barred from watching these videos.


Hee Hee Hee. Oh begone bad thoughts. I reject all thoughts on anything to do with a quick dissolution of a marriage, a creation of a new one, and me in the middle of all that. Nah, I genuinely wish (slightly) harder for Ronnie to be living happily now. Luckiest Woman Ever, unless you are in the middle of a Ronaldo picspam, you have no excuse for this. SHAME ON YOU, INGRATE. Repent, I say!

Tubby's golden line to ---: I was here before you and I will be here after you. I love it and I am so wanting to use it now on YOU and YOU and YOU, MANICURED PAWZ OFF MY BUDDIES. Or, ok I guess I can wait. But don't make me wait so long guys, grr!

Pong makes the last of the Ozzies, Americanos, UKians gone. My life is really, really quiet now. Come back soon lovelies, I can't wait to do it all over again.

Happier note! I recall from one of the viral ready-to-forward e-mails we used to receive, that apparently, there is at least one person thinking of you (i.e. any one of us) (hopefully fondly) every day. Now, even in my even more idealistic and optimistic days (yes, possible la) I slightly doubted that was true. But now, I am believing it a bit more, and the fact that people have actively come forward to make that happen makes me feel like the luckiest person on Planet Urf. And Luck, Woody Allen would have you know, will take you Everywhere (here, I cross my fingers and chant 'Brazil, oh let it be Brazil!'). Insert goofy smile.

P.S. <3 What made my heart warm warm was how the pictures showed him to be such an affable captain. You don't see Chelsea players trying to even whisper in John Terry's ear.

Conan: Facebook is trying to trademark the word "Face". I am going to trademark the word "aceboo", and then wait for the dollars to roll in. CHUCKLE!

Dear Jeff Buckley, what is your story? How did you reach musical nirvana? How did your range of emotions come to be deeper than the universe? Why did you go swimming in your boots in Memphis? Why your guitar so pro? Who is John Mayer? Good night dear Jeff Buckley.

I'll build a stairway to paradise

1) I am so obsessed with this. I need to sign this guy now. Of course, anyone who puts Travis and Oasis together, with Don't Speak (which, incidentally, is the first present-time song I remember liking, EVER) for bonus points must possess a cheat sheet to my heart and is furiously exploiting it. But really this song stands very well on its own, redonkulous song elements notwithstanding.

(Norwegian Recylcing - Singularity)

2) Gerrard has ticklish ears too :):)




Gerrard has always, and will always, for as long as he remains at Liverpool, carry the entire team on his shoulders. Unfortunately, playing one+a few more (depending on the mood of everyone else) against 11 for several years takes its toll and it has recently become so painfully evident that he cannot do that for much longer. Liverpool's much publicised desire to focus on the EPL this season has become a joke that isn't even funny anymore. Then this fuels even more will he stay, will he go rumours (is that even possible? Surely his transfer speculation limit has been busted eons ago), which is all so tiresome and unproductive. You know what, if, for a Liverpool revival, the club needs to be stripped down to its bones and majorly revamped, then I say do it. If the more established, more expensive and most unwilling-to-stay players need to be sold, if Gerrard and Torres need to be shipped to Barcelona to make way for fresh blood, all so that LFC can make a full-on comeback, DO IT even if this means that I will have to support a mid-table team for a few seasons. I don't think that a single true fan would mind.

3) Nadav is getting married! How cool is that? Congrats buddy, treat her right :)))))

4) I will try to stop saying 'this song is great' every day. But this is really one of those special ones. Thus the frame.


I got dosed by you, and closer than most to you, and what am I s'posed to do? Take it away, I never had it anyway. Take it away and everything willl be ok. In you a star is born and, you cut a perfect form and, someone forever warm. (...)* Show love with no remorse and, climb on to your seahorse and, this ride is right on course. This is the way I wanted it to be with you. This is the way I knew that it would be with you. Dosed - Red Hot Chili Peppers.

*The first and only time I got scolded for cutting lyrics to suit my purposes, it was by Ben Cai, who gave me a lesson on respecting the integrity of songs. Now even on my blog I follow his rules.

5) Last night I couldn't sleep because I was missing people so badly. Some are long gone and will eternally leave a void in my heart (not being melodramatic), some have just left me to deal with an awkward transition, some whom I know will soon leave despite my best efforts at retaining them, some are still here, and some of those some are still reaching out to me. How I manage to miss the last group of people.. let's just call it a unique talent. I almost manageg to miss those who have yet to enter my life. So I did something about just some of them and then slept like a baby. My friends, stop sitting there thinking and feeling, and try doing something about it. Like Rufus Wainwright says: I'll build a stairway to paradise with a new step every day.

Came home to some Johnny in my inbox. It is because of people like him that RG girls like us are unable to see the need for husbands.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tFmt2Y3nNDk&feature=related

Everything here is so perfect. How to do anything other than 'repeatedly rape the replay button' (not my words)? SCOFF YOU PALTRY RAIN! MY EYELASHES ARE BOTHERED. UH HUH WHIP OUT SUPER-RESISTANT INSTRUMENTS! YEAH, YOU CAN'T TOUCH ME! I. AM. IVINCIBLE. SUCK. IT. UP. I love GOO :)

Btw Glee busted owt nooyork, gave the asian guy his first lines and then fielded a half cute blonde. I am officially fully won over.

This song tugs at all the strings of my being, heart, ham, harp, whatnot, and makes me sad in my coriest core. Three Doors Down at this time was of Goo Goo Dolls quality. I must remember to build a time machine in my free time so that I can stick my head into the early 2000s and yell: GUYS, DO NOT DO HERE WITHOUT YOU which is awesome and all but will be the song other people will take as defining you even though you are so much better than that, and also uh it will earn you barrels of cash in which you can effectively retire, revel and roast fat, and I'll be .. here without you.

He spent his whole life being too young
To live the life that's in his dreams
At night he lies awake and he wonders
Why can't that be me
Cos in his life he's filled with all these good intentions
He's left a lot of things he'd rather not mention right now
Just before he says good night
He looks up with a little smile at me and he says
If I could be like that
I would give anything
Just to live one day in those shoes
If I could be like that
What would I do, what would I do

For this boy who lies below Brad Arnold while doing his QT :?, a little Conan is apt. Actually, scratch that, Conan is always and unversally relevant. This gem's from his uber classy goodbye speech which is master class, even if you don't consider that it was delivered midair, while he was making pretty projectile motion lines with his flying body, after he was unceremoniously kicked off the Throne of Comedy where his ass so rightly belongs forevermore.

"All I ask of you, especially young people...is one thing. Please don't be cynical. I hate cynicism -- it's my least favourite quality and it doesn't lead anywhere. Nobody in life gets exactly what they thought they were going to get. But if you work really hard and you're kind, amazing things will happen."

Yes sir. That is so flipping true and helpful, they should print it out into tiny life manual booklets and place them in the hands of newborns the moment they arrive.

"The chances of bumping into someone you know... I'll put it at pretty unlikely."


This is how it felt. You guys are never (gonna) let me go kazuoishiguro, are you? Thank you!

I am myself, i.e. a dork, but... also a GENIUS and so says my evidence:

Things come (crash) things go
Snip snap clipty clap tic tac
The weird world rolls on

I like it.

I am sorry / Why good people die young

I never saw that as being something that needed explaning. If anything, it was an explanation itself, to the puzzle that I often pondered over: What on earth were you doing, well, on earth? It confirmed my theory that you were made an angel, but accidentally sorted into the human pile. There was nothing fallible about you, no weakness that jealousy nor pride nor rage nor evil could attch onto. Life was a learning experience you simply had no use for. You were born ready and one day when the Authorities discovered their mistake they swiftly sent you to where you should have gone directly in the first place. But while there was nothing you could learn here, there was an awful lot you could, and did, teach me. It is in times like this when I have behaved like such a lousy human being that I miss you the most, that I wish that you could have continued teaching me. And then when I think hard about it with my crappy 2%-used mortal brain, I realise that these lessons were in the completed syllabus - like you used to say, nothing said on impulse is of any good, your greatest regrets in life will be all those times you hurt those you loved, and no trust, no relationship. Also 'John Lennon's music is good shit'. Of course you were absolutely right about that as well.

Try something new :)

LOOKY! http://www.flickr.com/photos/daffodilious/4428068621 :O

I need others to tell me about myself

That is what we discovered a long time ago. Here's another illustration to add to the Rapunzel list:

"the band's [Boys Like Girls] all-around sound is geared to late '90s alternative radio rock, along the lines of Vertical Horizon, Goo Goo Dolls, and Eve 6".

DING DING DING! Ok it's not that on the muneh since BLG is waaay poppier but still, all of the 3 mentioned could well make my High Fidelity list of Top 5 'Radio Rock' Bands of the 90s. Thank you, random music reviewer, for helping me sleep better, /mystery.

Tomorrow, tomorrow! Wish me luckkkkkkk! Now that I've put so much into this, I really want to do this right (fingers crossed).

Guezzwhat? Embarrassing fact of the day: I really, really enjoy Boys Like Girls! I know you want to roll your eyes and say that you already knew that. "I used to be love drunk/ But now I'm hungover/ I love you forever/ Forever is over/ Now I'm sober/ Nanananananananana"? TOO MUCH FUN HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHELLO NEW WEEK


(If your taste is as suspect and -gasp!- plebian (5m, not chris brown but not bad at all) as mine!)

I can't believe how nicely everything is falling back into place for me. Life will never ever be the same but I'm starting to lead a comfortable one parallel to the one before :) So I really did just have to wait faithfully and let you do the rest. Wow.

French test this week! Yes I am taking it very seriously! Yes I am taking it too seriously! Yes it is driving me a la folie. Yes that's probably not the right way to use that phrase!

Because crazy people read this, NEVER BURN. ALWAYS BUILD!!!

Je voudrais...
There is nothing like a little Otis Redding (in recording, not live, form) on a cool Saturday morning. He really helps to smooth out the rough edges of the past week.



This one really grows on you. I usually like my love songs epic and emo, so I thought nothing of it at first, but Monsieur Otis (like a gangster) shows us that a subtle, understated one can be quite something too, if placed in the hands of a master song-builder.

Two things trouble me. Too many French lessons are beginning to corrupt my English (mainly, 'at' for 'in', a chain of 'of.. of.. of..' for the simpler ''s'). Also, too many people continue to lead their lives unaware of the existence of my motivation to learn French. It is a crime to live on this beautiful earth and not know about all the things that make it beautiful, so educate yourselves little people, and type 'Yoann Gourcuff' into any good web search engine. I daresay life will get considerably more enjoyable after.

As a rosy-cheeked angel cherry on top of the sundae of smouldery yummyness that is Yoann, there is the precious Jean Baptiste Maunier, which you will remember from Les Choristes. For maximum viewing pleasure of the video below, kindly ignore Clemence, the French Mandy Moore (for breathiness) or Miley Cyrus (for a tenuous and I hope daily plummeting bit of legitimacy borrowed from her famous father, who composed the concerto pour deux voix. Ya VOIX not SOUFFLES, Clemence!) Why 'singing' beside JBM Paragon of Purity is not be the last place on earth she would ever want to find herself, baffles me. When they get on the singing see-saw, the array of flaws in her voice leaps out at you and does an elaborate chinese dance, complete with trailing flailing arms.



To complete the trinity! I don't know why it's taken me so long to find the video version of the song in my birthay disc.


My favourite rock anthem + my favourite rock group of my time + playing in their hometown + the crowd singing the words like their lives depended on it + crowd drowning out Liam's post-02 kermit-like voice + Noel's guitar solo!!! HELLO? CAN CRY FROM THE AWESOMENESS OF IT ALL OK. Je voudrais the comeback of Oasis. I spend my whole life waiting for miracles to happen, and sometimes they really do (Instanbul 05!), so I know it's always well worth the wait. I wil put my life in the hands of a rock n roll band, Noel, and I don't care that they'll throw it all away.