Hey Mom, I'm FamousHey! The Inter Nets interviewed me! Ryan from the venerable Muzzle of Bees axed me some questions and I gave some self-conscious answers! Woo-hoo!
Love,
Brian
P.S. sorry I haven't been updating this blog. I hope the four or five of you who read aren't too disappointed. I mean, it's pretty obvious that I've moved on to bigger/better things, but I won't let it get to my head, promise!
YEAH
I can breathe! I can think! Last night marked the height of everything in my life lately. All the madness. I don't mean to be cryptic - it's just a feeling. I can relax.
I'll have pirate pictures later.
I DID IT! Check out my best-of 2005 list that took me ages.
- _______
"Rad," or, "Yeah"
Now there's an idea. Adam Penenburg gives Slate an interesting model for a more sensible digital music market. It's based on things like stock exchanges, but is much more simple than that makes it sound. Basically, demand is the controlling factor of the price of each track, so top hits will cost more than obscure songs. Record companies will still make all the money they want, but won't be able to set prices, which consumers can only blame themselves for. It would lead to more variety, in my opinion, and a much healthier industry.
I've got a pirate party to go to on Friday, and I'm pumped. But I must get through two exams first. Yaaarrrrr.
I saw Fight Club for the first time last night. It was good, and I'm glad it didn't completely promote the anarchy of the "You-Are-A-Machine-(Change-Your-Life-By-Fighting)" mindset by showing the consequences of such idealism. That crap appeals to misguided kids who think they will be stuck in an office job they hate when they're 40, not 40-year-olds in the office making a comfortable living. The mouth-breathing ignorant who love that movie because they it's "opened their minds" so much. I obviously went in with lower expectations, see? And I was pleasantly surprised. Edward Norton is a fine actor, but you already knew that.
On that note, I'm off to pick a fight.
-Don't talk about it.
What Goes On
This is going to be massive. Let's do this, photojournalism style:
Anne came on Friday afternoon, we walked around a bit. That night we went to a fantastic Christmas ceilidh. The first real ceilidh I've done, and by far the best.
Fun 2 tha MAX! Afterwards we went out until the bars closed.
I couldn't have asked for a better night. The next day we went to the castle, and it rained for the first time in a while.
We saw the crown jewels of Scotland: The Sword, The Crown, and The Sceptre. Sweet. On the way back we got Mexican food, a real treat. It's all about lunch menus. We got there at 3:30, and the hostess was hesitant to give us a table because there were a lot of people coming at 6:30. We assured her we wouldn't be there for three hours.
That night we went to the Princes Street fair with everyone.
This was also fun. But even better was going out to Indian food with Anne that night. It was an awesome restaurant, small and hip and atmospheric. The food, of course, is what counts - it was delicious. It was lovelylovelylovely, we got a bottle of wine and sat talking for hours. It made me a bit homesick seeing somebody close to me again, and talking about familiar things for the first time in a while.
Yesterday we did some shopping for Christmas before Anne left.
She bought some chocolate from this guy at the German Market.
The cafe we went to for lunch was disappointingly disorganized and slow, and I was left standing at the register for 10 minutes waiting to pay for my sandwich and crisps and drink while the staff bustled around inefficiently trying to get things made. There weren't even a lot of people to deal with. I got tired of standing after the worker girl saw me and didn't come over and ring me up, so I sat down with Anne and we ate our meals. And afterwards I just left without paying, not because I was mad or wanted to steal, but because I forgot. I didn't feel too bad though, looking back. Free lunch!
Today I had my first final, two essays in two hours. Hopefully I passed, but either way I'm done with that terrible class (Environmental Sensitivity & Change).
Thanks to Anne for the best weekend in a long time! I can't wait to come home.
-BKBKBKBKBK
Amazing.
Slate has begun a feature called Today's Pictures, a series of wonderful images and interactive essays updated every weekday. The interactive essays were spellbinding, comprised of a slideshow of images and narration from the photographer. Today's two essays were on Mexican immigration and London's inner-city youth, and both are very moving.
Watching the slideshows made me think of how connected we are to each other. Of myself to the destitute on the streets of London, for example. The Hot New Thing in music is Dizzee Rascal, a young black grime musician who I enjoy listening to, who has blown up in the UK and has a growing fanbase in America - a bona-fide star in the making. What is hard to realize is that Dizzee is a product of the exact same ghettos in Simon Wheatley's interactive essay. The same ghettos where kids deal drugs and get in fights and have kids and resign themselves to what is certainly one of the most depressing lifestyles imaginable. Where the only hope they have is of becoming a grime superstar; where people actually fear that nine-year-old boys will either kill or kill themselves. It's shocking thinking I'm not really that far removed from this.
I am so glad Slate is doing this. And I think the picture above is the most beautiful photograph I've ever seen, it's taken from the Mexican immigration slideshow.
...
Yesterday was St. Andrew's day, and last night we celebrated by watching a concert in the street, under the castle:
And then we managed to catch the last few dances at the big ceilidh in the student union!
It felt good to be out.
-TEAMTEAMTEAM
