“Hello this is a voice post. This is my LiveJournal which is I haven't really set(?) any doing quite awhile and on Skype with me. This is the wonders of the inter web is call. Say hello Paul. Paul is very excited. Because this is my first voice post in many months. Yes it is. You're completely right for it. I wonder whether you'll be transcribed as part of this. I don't know ___ No do I. Speaking of transcription, I'm going to try and try to make this short so that the transcription gets transcribed but in order to make things difficult I will now say ___ farewell. Ladies and gentleman I'm bringing you ___. Bye.”
A drabble is a very short story, if you can call it that, which is supposed to be exactly 100 words in length. I don’t always like reading them very much, because they can feel hollow and pointless, but they’re a very good exercise in economy and can often lead to good ideas.
All but one of these drabbles is exactly 100 words in length. The last went over slightly, and was too good to cut. Forgive me.
Why am I Writing Drabbles?
This year I’ve suddenly found myself with a good reason to write, fiction, that is. Before, I was able to avoid the responsibility by pretending I didn’t have time. It is a responsibility, because if you start a story and don’t finish it, you’ve wasted your time, and you feel really bad. I thought that needing to write would make the process slightly easier, but it hasn’t. In order to force it to come more naturally, I’ve decided to undertake some entirely meaningless exercises. This is them.
What am I Doing?
I’m stealing a memeamor_demi_almahas just done in her writing journal. The terms of the meme itself are boring and I’ve altered it slightly because I wanted to, but in short, you have to shuffle your music collection, and write a drabble based on each song it produces. You’re supposed to do ten, I have only done five, because I didn’t have time for any more. Maybe I’ll do the rest later.
Her hot breath whispered the wordless truth in his ear as her small hands touched and played. Their movements were unconsidered and unchoreographed, striking every thought from his mind, leaving only the friction, the momentum of flesh against flesh.
This was all the meaning they needed. The quiet, fussy dance of the secretary he had watched a few hours earlier was the product of an alien world, separated from them by a vast, cold, inconceivable distance. She had transcended that, become real. all the grace and pride and predictability had left her. She was nothing but her, nothing but animal.
“Like fuck I haven’t. I’ve been working on it for three years! Isn’t that enough?”
“You haven’t. Three years isn’t long enough for you.”
“Haven’t you been listening? It’s fucking done! Finito! Over!”
“It’ll never be over. It’s like a girlfriend who keeps screwing around with assholes and flatmates and exes, but you keep taking her back because she gives you a blowjob every morning.”
As he lifted her out of the boot, he was struck by how fake she looked in the sunlight. Usually, he tried not to look at her at all.
“Do you want to lick my pussy?” she said. She’d gotten stuck on “crude” when a few of his mates had gotten carried away with her. He much preferred “subtle”, it was more rewarding. Maybe that was what had made him take the plunge.
“Sorry Penny. I’ve got a real girlfriend now.”
He flicked a switch, and Penny, “the gen10 sexbot ready to blow your mind, and much more” was gone.
“You just can’t get enough of that lovy dovy stuff,” said the Martian to the vampire.
“And you can’t get any!” The vampire gave the alien’s tripod a friendly pat, almost falling over in the process. “All you can do is cybersex while you’re stuck in that thing!”
“There are ways and means,” the Martian rumbled. “Another round for my buddy here!”
“For both of us!” the vampire cried lustily.
The bartender promptly provided them a pair of humans and they both set to drinking, the Martian luxuriantly, the vampire with savage glee.
“Tonight,” said the vampire, “we’re going to get you laid. If I can do it, so can you!”
Today, I decided to let the hand of fate choose my victim, and it stroked you,cassassinator, which is good, because you seem to have made an art of liking life.
Day Eight: Sleep
I haven’t been getting enough of it lately. The last two weeks haven’t seen me once achieve snoredom before 1:00 AM, and only rarely before 2:00. Thankfully last week, this was offset by my ability to sleep in until a healthy 9, which thus made it a fairly workable habit, but university frowns upon that sort of thing, which stops me because I like lectures at 10 in the morning, apparently.
Now, I am starting to notice a gap in my life, which can only be filled by a bit of good old fashioned crashing, and in trueborrisinaboxstile I have decided that it is worth talking about. Because today, I fully intend to be dead to the world by midnight. And that makes me happy.
How am I going to do this? Well, there has been one small, insignificant thing that has prohibited sleep for the last few days, partly thanks to myprocrastination,partly thanks tomy new cap,and partly thanks togirls with their toys.And now, it’s time for that small, insignificant thing to be strangled by the drain of history. This elated entries idea, as initiated ages ago by someone who doesn’t know me and doesn’t care, is now at an end. No more bouncy bunny blogs for you! What are you going to do?
Some of you know what you have to do, even ifyouhaven’tstartedyet.Thosepeoplewhom I have tagged, I fully expect you to do your duty to, ur,me. That doesn’t mean you will, some of you really can’t be bothered with that kind of thing, but I couldn’t, and I did it anyway, so it’s time you folks stepped up. You know you don’t want to.
My own blogging habits will now return to normal, and accordingly my entries will become less so. I hope you enjoyed these for what they were.Why I amsaying this I don’t know, it’s very clichéd, but I always do, because by the end of entries I’m tired and bored, or it’s 11:59 PM. That’s why conclusions always suck. We should stop writing them last all the time, it’s very illogical. That doesn’t mean I don’t mean it, though, and for the record, I do, because if nobody liked them then I would have to consider giving up writing and going to work in an icecream shop! Anyway, thank younick6489for making me do this. It was fun.
So is sleep, of which I will very soon partake. Coming slightly less soon: God gets a gutful of grim. Stay tuned!
This time, I choose you, pj_blindclown, because you started talking to me just as I finished writing this entry.
Day Seven: Stand Up
Today, I attended a talk at QUT by Sean Dorney, one of ABC’s most prestigious foreign correspondents. Last week, he was deported from Fiji, thanks to new censorship laws instated by its military dictator, Frank Bainimarama. He has been in power since 2006, but the recent crackdown on unfavourable media occurred thanks to a declaration by the court that his power was held illegally. Now, “information officers” have been stationed in all of the country’s major newsrooms, and the government have threatened to shut them down if they do not follow its instructions.
On the day after these laws were instated,the Fiji Timesleft many of their pages blank, noting that they were not allowed to publish the stories that should have filled them. TheDaily Postmade its own protest, by publishing stories like“Man Gets On Bus”.Both papers have been reprimanded and have since behaved better.
None of this makes me happy, I assure you. The fact that that kind of thing can still occur should be very frightening. But the difference, in this case, is that we know, to an extent, what’s really happening in Fiji. Censorship, as much as China has made an art of it, is not as easy in this day and age, where channels of communication are so various that blocking them all is impossible.
Yes, many Fijian journalists are currently enduring terrifying intimidation and worse, and yes, the people are being deprived of their only potential source of unbiased information, but the protests, in this case, were instantaneous. People know now that they deserve better. Journalists are already standing up for that, risking their lives in the process. I think it will be a long time before Fijian journalists are given back their freedom, and Fijian people are given back their democracy, but the fact that already, people are openly fighting for it is a testament to the awareness we have gained of these issues in the last few decades. And the internet is a device by which many of these regimes can be undermined. They won't go away, but neither will they remain unnoticed.
Today, I tag borrisinabox because he was the first American I met with an informed reason for hating Australia. And now Australia is coming to him!
Day Six: Bigger and Better Broadband than... New Zealand
I don't like the country I live in. It's a hole, a great big desolate gap in the world where dumb people go to chase kangaroos and smart people call them child pornography. It was taken over by the Brits in 1788 and the Yanks after the Second World War. The former sent us criminals and labourers, the latter, mostly Spam. We are plagued by a nation-wide inferiority complex, as I have just proven, and as a result most of us believe that nothing interesting ever happens here. The rest of the world agrees, though only because we tell it so.
How does one escape from our primitive lifestyle and the harsh life of he outback which most of us wouldn't recognise if someone fed us with it? One uses the Internet! With that, one can be assured that everywhere else is pretty much just as full of stereotypes as we are, and everyone else thinks they're just as boring. Oh, wait, there's only one line out of the country! We have to share our porn with Japan!
Never fear, for Bigpuddle is here, cramming an ocean of information into our gutter. For just $20 per month, you can download.... 400 MB. There is a torrent of Baz Luhrmann's Australia hanging around that's pretty much exactly that size. But when you realise that it's actually just saying the same things we've been telling ourselves for the last century, you'll want something better.
Well, I did, anyway, though I payed $99 for 25 GB instead, because a movie a month is just not enough for me. And now, I'm paying even more. 60 GB for $150! Yep, they definitely charge you for the salt and the water, but I really wanted that Japanese porn.
My new cap was instated today, and in the last 12 hours I have downloaded 2.3 GB. I'm having fun! And so is that girl under the covers with her hot new toy...
Hi,Rebecca.I know you're a very busy child and you have better things to do than all of us unmotivated adults, but please do this, when you have the time.
Day Five: Fixing a Hole in the Ocean
Rebecca decided last year that she wanted a laptop, and after a lot of back and forth, managed to convince her parents to buy her a MacBook, upon which she would duel-boot Mac OS X and Windows. This arrived the other week, and she was immediately enchanted by its shiny...ness. She cradled it lovingly for a few hours, then booted it, only to find that... oh no! Jaws was broke! "What's a video intercept and how do I install it? Craaaap! What do I doooooo?"
I had a similar problem with my new desktop last year, so I sort of knew what was going on. She was not very happy when I told her that the only solution I found was a reformat, followed by a different order of operations, and that even after all that I still didn't figure out what the problem really had been.
She did, however, eventually give it to someone who, puzzled as he probably was by her quack-addled explanation of her issue, somehow managed to fix it. Due to the same quack, I have no idea what he did, but it seemed initially to have worked.
Then, she tried to turn her screen off, in order to save battery, and apparently went about it in a very strange way, because not ten minutes after she'd got it working, the video intercept was once again broke!
I spent ages thinking that it was just the same issue having repeated itself, but by the time I decided that it wasn't, she had already broken the screen entirely! There went any sighted assistance we might have got, not that it would have been that useful anyway.
Thankfully, after loads more mucking about, we worked out that she had somehow changed her display output to a virtual one that didn't really exist, though she also convinced her laptop that its own monitor was an external device, or some such thing. Obviously, all this confusion would have been very stressful for poor old Jaws, not to mention her and I. That being fixed, everything worked again, and I no longer had to endure the prospect of loads more attempts at tech support, followed by very confused and mostly quite untechnical responses. Wouldn't that please you too?
Hey, psycho_rabbit, you're it! You and me have been collaberating for years, and being somewhat more adept at it, your musings on music are likely to be a lot more interesting than my own.
Day Four: Jamming
Today, I met up withthe Mango Man and his father, whose music can be found at the above link. It has become a tradition that whenever instruments are available, no matter where we are, a sing-along/jam session occurs. We make no promises as to the quality of the result, but we enjoy it nonetheless.
Many of the covers we sang were by the Beatles, because Paul knows most of their lyrics by heart and the Beatles book is usually the one in Peter's guitar case. I sang the ones I knew well and learned to play the ones I didn't. Peter's original songs also featured, includingNot My Baby (link leads to demo) which became a monster blues jam.
Later on though, we hesitantly stepped into unknown territory, first with songs by Neil Finn, then Neil Young. Probably the only Neil Young song I know well is Down by the River, which Dave Matthews covered a lot in 2007. I decided that would be a safe place to start, but realised, too late, that I had entirely forgotten the second verse. We couldn't look up the lyrics, but Peter had the song on him, so we decided to listen to that. too late once again, we discovered that the original version was 9 minutes and 13 seconds long, and the second verse didn't appear until a good way through.
All was not lost, however. Quickly bored with the young Neil's version of jamming, featuring more drugs than it did music, I decided to start soloing over the song. I will happily tell you that I am no good at doing this sort of thing and avoid it whenever possible, but I must have breathed in some of the smoke wafting from the speakers, because by my standards, it was amazing. I never thought I could keep a solo interesting for 5 minutes straight, but I was definitely captivated by whatever I was doing. I did it all with one hand, and used the whole piano, throwing in references to other songs whenever I temporarily ran out of ideas. I hope it didn't get recorded, because if I heard it again, I would probably be disenchanted, but at the time, I was sure it was one of the coolest musical things I had ever done.
Frighteningly enough, this is the second memorable musical moment I've experienced this week. On Tuesday I met up with Adam and Shane, 2/3 ofLandy's Mods,both of whom recently featured ina rather messy edition of Live and Loaded.We decided to jam in Shane's back bedroom, where he has given birth to a strange uneven hybrid of studio, rust and duck tape. Well, maybe I exaggerated a little, but it sounded rock 'n' roll.
Adam played bongos, eggs and a Tamborine that appeared from nowhere just when it was required. Shane played his mother's wobbly old acoustic guitar, which she might want back at any moment, though he swears she never uses it. I played a cheap plastic Yamaha keyboard from the dawn of time, whose 4th octave f really wants to be effed. Its ambition is only kept in cheque by an ingeniously placed piece of bluetack, which, like all methods of contraception, is not immune to failure. Ok, so maybe I wasn't exaggerating after all.
We had a great time though. We were there for hours, mostly going over just a few songs, but making them sound very cool to our own ears. The best moment for me came at the end. Up until then, we had been working on covers, but I wanted to try at least one original. I picked Henry Hill, one of Shane's solo songs, which you can hear on hisMyspace.I had just recently heard it, it was only two chords long, and we had been talking about my dubbing a piano line over his original recording.
Shane seemed worried that it would be boring with just a guitar and keyboard, as the studio version is driven by its bass line, but we did it, and it was almost immediately cool. It turned into a cross between gospel and honky tonk, a very appropriate interpretation for the lyrics, which, unfortunately, he forgot.
That was the song we went mad with. Picture the three of us dripping with sweat in this tiny room, Adam attacking us with his Tamborine, Shane belting the chorus, which we did know, while wondering what we were doing with his song, and me pounding the living daylights out of that stupid Yamaha. I swear, I effed that f at least three times!
These incidents make me feel, however briefly or incorrectly, that I could make it in the world as a musician. Just recalling that feeling makes me happy with myself. It's not necessarily the result that's worthwhile, but the passion of the moment. The music never sounds as good afterwards, but the memories always do.
Today, I tag stars_that_lie because you are paying attention.
Day Three: Procrastination
Yes, ladies and gentlemen, I enjoy that art that the rest of the world calls a vice.
I know you've all felt it, that adrenalin rush that comes when you suddenly realise that something is due in just a few hours time. You know that if you don't succeed, you'll have to admit that starting assignments when they're handed out is a good idea. And if you did that, your life would never be the same again...
So you settle down, and you start working, determined to concentrate until your eyebrows get eaten by your bibliography. You type a sentence, put a full-stop on the end of it and tears of joy trickle down your face, to splash like salty pebbles into your coffee.
And there you go again, off on a random rampage through the digital resources at your fingertips. Your impulsive brain in conjunction with the power of the internet could lead you anywhere, and you'll probably let it take you as far as you can get before something reminds you that the clock is ticking.
I love that feeling of adventure, the knowledge that I'm defying all logic and sanity for the sake of nothing much. I love that moment when I leap back into action, ripping a hundred words out of thin air in 5 minutes just when I need them. I love the pleasure I get from taking 30 seconds to scratch my head when I've only got two minutes left. And most of all, I love the moment when the finished product leaves my hands, and I know that despite all the awesome tangents, I succeeded, again.
Are you one of those people who finish their assignments in the first week? Well, congratulations, but next time, don't! I think you need some excitement in your academic life, and in this sterile world of criteria sheets and useless wanks, this is about the only place you can get it! Find out how little sleep you can survive on, and how many entirely unrelated Google searches you can make in 12 hours, at the same time! Procrastination! It's due today!
PS: This entry, unlike yesterday's, is fully endorsed by procrastination, and accordingly, was written entirely in the 10 minutes leading up to midnight, minus a couple of lunch breaks.
Today, my victim is thecrazykiwi though I have a really bad feeling you have already done this. If so, please ignore me. I’m picking on you because you’re relevant. Read on…
Day Two: A Toasted Sandwich
I’ve been listening toShon and Damo’s cooking podcast,and being inspired. Having tips from the perspective of fellow blindys is more useful than you might think, and generally makes things seem not nearly so difficult. When I have time, I have decided to make a point of mimicking their meals, and today, that involved a toasted sandwich. I usually don’t eat these, so this was the first time I had thought of making them, though they’re very easy.
When you’re not as cool with these things as Shon, and some of your readers are sighted, it’s hard to make a toasted sandwich sound exciting without seeming ridiculous, in a bad way. I won’t even try, but I will note that it was a fulfilling experience. I even burnt the middle finger of my left hand, and carried my wound with pride, until it went away. Ok, so it wasn’t much of a wound, I’ll do better next time. The sandwich was good though, nice and… cheesy… with bread on top. Oh, and mutant fake chicken. The best part, for me, was just knowing that my fingerprints were the only ones to have scarred it before it was consumed.
Disclaimer: This rather insignificant entry about food is not brought to you by procrastination, because I had committed to do it before the day before. The fact that it was only one day before the day before is entirely irrelevant. The fact that I decided to make a toasted sandwich, on today of all days, is probably not.
Dave Matthews Band - Funny The Way It Is (for the last time)
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I don't usually subscribe to memes of any kind, but I am bored and need an excuse to procrastinate, and nick6489 threw this my way. It was a reason to blog with no criteria apart from smiles and bunnies, so here I am.
Post about something that made you happy today.
Repeat for eight days.
Tag eight people to do the same.
Today, I will tag acorna_cat because she is likely to emit a lot of positive vibes over the next few days, and because the object of my attenttion today would not please her. I'm not sorry, either.
Day One: Funny The Way It Is
I woke up this morning, picked up my keyboard and was immediately alerted to the fact that the new Dave Matthews Band single had been released, and that I couldget it, right now.So can you, by the way, unless you're reading this from the comfort of next week. If so, comment and tell me whether I'm going to enjoy it.
I was first introduced to the Dave Matthews Band in 2007, and they have rapidly become one of my favourite musical entities of all time. Interestingly, the first I heard of them was their latest album, Stand Up, released in 2005. When I decided to go stumbling through their memories, I learnt that it didn't measure up at all to some of their earlier material, despite having easily captured my interest. Since then, I've been waiting with everyone else to see how their next release would compare, both to Stand Up, and to the "big three" albums of the 90s.
This single is the first track I've heard of that release, Big Whiskey and the GrooGrux King, which they've been working on for the last few months. While I don't think it's quite what I would have hoped for, it has grown on me significantly, through the 20 or so listens I've given it today.
It initially doesn't sound like DMB, as Tim Reynolds' guitar work is the meat of the song, and there are, unusually, no horns at all to be found here. But as I listened, I realised that it has the typical structure of a DMB track, and when I reached the bridge, which I think is the key to the song, I suddenly realised that it was brilliant. Just listen to it, it's completely unexpected and entirely unique. As if that weren't enough, Boyd's violin solo redefines the song yet again, immediately afterward. Carter's drumming is spectacular throughout, as usual, ending my fears that he would dumb himself down for this album in order to make performing easier on him.
I feel the band have been increasingly underused in the last few years, in favour of Dave's own, sometimes flawed vision, and that has been the problem with their recent material. I don't think it's a problem that has disappeared with the release of this single. It feels more like a song from Dave's solo album, Some Devil, than one that belongs to the band. But Some Devil, unlike Stand Up, was a consistently good album, so this remains a step in the right direction. It is also a song that, because of its commercial sound, will probably get them airplay again, and that will go a long way toward sustaining the band, and the quality of music too, as this is obviously better than most pop currently on the market.
They also kicked off their tour today in New York, and played two other new songs there, which, while recordings so far have been patchy, both sound very interesting. What's more, I think the death of saxophonist LeRoi Moore last year has made the band more passionate about their new material than they have been in a long time. Wow, three mores in that sentence, ha ha. This album is in his honour, after all. I'm still worried that I may not like it, but this track is very promising, and to be honest, it's exciting just to know that it's finally coming out, even if I end up hating it. I've been preoccupied by it for most of today, and will be eagerly watchingthe forums at Antsmarchingfor updates and commentary over the next few weeks.
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