Review of “Paul’s Boutique” by the Beastie Boys

My drawing of the Beastie Boys. From left to right: Ad Rock, Mike D, and MCA. Source: http://afistfulofculture.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/beastie-boys.jpg

So this drawing happened ages ago, but the review took a lot longer, so this is only coming out in the early hours of New Years 2016 instead of November 2015. Well, it’s here now anyway. As there were three people instead of just one to draw, I don’t think it’s as good as my drawing of James Murphy and I didn’t actually *finish* colouring in Mike-D’s clothes. Even still it looks OK, even if Ad Rock looks a little like Tom Hanks.

***

Paul’s Boutique is the Beastie Boys’ magnum opus. Though not as successful as their brilliantly juvenile (and catchy) rap-metal debut, this warm, multi-faceted sprawl of an album is something smart to shake your rump to.

The album was the perfect meeting of the beat-making brilliance of the Dust Brothers, whose eclectic but carefully selected samples (including a live ping pong match) made the album such a rich tapestry of music to rap against, and the easy flow of words between Ad-Rock, MCA and Mike D, sometimes cringy but always affectionate and startlingly clever. Their lyrics matured with the music (they bring alive New York and the world at large with a few deftly chosen words) but they never take themselves too seriously, so thankfully we still get lines like ‘My man MCA’s got a beard like a billy goat’ without any sense of guilt.

The Beastie Boys begin their album by dedicating the album ‘To All the Girls’ around the world, Ad-Rock listing, in a stoner drawl, women from all walks of life over a breezy soul-jazz sample. Then the group get down to business on ‘Shake Your Rump’, their bare-faced tribute to dancing, as well as the album’s first single. If that was it, the song would be fairly standard, but the boyish teasing (‘What’s up with your bad breath onion rings’, they ask Mike-D), the vocal tics (like the way MCA spits out the last syllable of ‘Shake Your Rump-a’) and the samples used (from genres ranging from funk to old-school hip hop to metal) elevate it to a classic.

From here, the song subjects are as kaleidoscopic as the music, ranging from parties to science experiments, New York to not New York, chicken dinners to car thieves. Scattered over the whole album are sly pop-culture references that don’t discriminate between the kitsch and the sophisticated and are all the better for it, seasoning over an already vibrant meal.

The world of Paul’s Boutique is populated with characters straight out of a bar joke: gangsters (in ’Looking Down the Barrel of a Gun’) inspired by every macho film from ‘Clockwork Orange’ to ‘Die Hard’, getting paid and getting rich; holy men straight from the book of Daniel in ‘Shadrach’, a maelstrom of funk, Biblical allusions, and pop culture references; cowboys from spaghetti films in ‘High Plains Drifter’; a serial egger in the song ‘Egg Man’, which has menacing music, sampled from ‘Psycho’, ‘Jaws’, and Elvis Costello, if not menacing subject matter; famous scientists in ‘Sounds of Science’; and a charming old rocker called ‘Johnny Ryall’ who wrote ‘Blue Suede Shoes’ but has still somehow fallen into homelessness (even if he does have a Gucci watch).

‘Hey Ladies’ finds the Beastie Boys on the prowl, using “cowbell” as an aphrodisiac in one of the best songs on the album. On the other hand, ‘Car Thief’ is concerned with MCs who steal rhymes from the Beasties (or maybe cars) over one of the funkiest beats on the album (probably because of that Funkadelic sample), and ’What Comes Around’ mentions everything from the Flinstones to baseball players to the blaxploitation film ‘Dolemite’, while also coming down on domestic violence.

The album is held together using two song fragments, both on the second side. While these are probably the worst tracks on the album, they both have a purpose. ’5-Piece Chicken Dinner’, which starts the second side, is nothing more than a 23-second fragment sampled directly from ‘Shuckin’ the Corn’ (there’s a lot of banjo, as the name would suggest), but it only adds to the wild diversity of the album, as well as being quite a funny, raucous way to open the second side of an album. You expect a rap song and BAM here’s some twangy bluegrass and some Texans. The second fragment ‘Ask for Janice’, serves a similar purpose; it is the short ad break before the epic finale, the calm before the storm, and it too adds some levity to the occasion.

However, the album’s best use of song fragments is in the final track, B-Boy Bouillabaisse, a glorious 12 minute medley of nine song fragments which range in length from less than a minute to two and a half minutes. The track concentrates everything great about the preceding fourteen songs into one cohesive suite. There’s the banter between Mike, Adam and Adam in ‘Get on the Mic’. There are the references to New York in ‘Stop That Train’ and in ’Hello Brooklyn’, which, by the way, features not only the dirtiest beat on the album, but also a wonderful, Johnny Cash, who pops up at the end of the song in the best sample on the album. And then there’s the raucous dance-ability and pop culture references we’ve come to expect from the Beastie Boys.

But then, out of the blue, appears ’A Year and a Day’, the most epic song on the album even though it lasts less than three minutes. MCA examines his inner most being over the same Isley Brothers sample that Kendrick Lamar uses in ‘i’, defining himself as an emcee, as one of the Beastie Boys, but also as an individual, the last bard, the king in his castle. And yet, despite his bragging, he sees that this can’t last for ever. Here he asks not for a Hollywood lifestyle but simply to be king every now and then. For now, he is content merely to look out a stained glass window and see the world in all it’s multi-coloured glory, and if that isn’t maturing, what is?

Paul’s Boutique was one of the best albums of the 80s, late though it was in the decade, and it wouldn’t be inappropriate to compare the Beastie Boys to the Beatles circa Abbey Road. Both have similar names (‘Beastie’ and ‘Beatle’ are both alliterative and assonant) and both ended their last albums of the decade with song fragment medleys. As well as this, the Beatles are sampled fairly heavily on Paul’s Boutique. In fact, according to Rolling Stone, the album is even named after Abbey Road, or Paul McCartney’s “boutique”; and in ‘Shake Your Rump’, Mike D even mentions being ’back from the dead’  after facing an eerily similar situation to that of Paul in the 60s.

And, most importantly of all, both pushed the boundaries of music. One was much more commercially successful than the other, but both Paul’s Boutique and Abbey Road have had a similar effect on music today, and, as I enter 2016 watching Pitch Perfect with my family, it’s a warm, comforting embrace that I’m sure I will cherish in years to come.

Happy New Year everyone!

Joe

 

Review of “Sound of Silver” by LCD Soundsystem

My drawing of James Murphy

Deciding which album was going to be the subject of my first music review took me a shamefully long amount of time. I knew the album had to be something I really liked, even loved, but not something I was too emotionally attached to; something I’ve listened to at least twice, but also not something I would tire of after another listen; not too well known to avoid future embarrassment (I don’t wanna look back and see that I gave Pet Sounds 7.5/10 *ahem*), but also monumental to me in some way.

Inevitably this gave me a bit of a headache, so I just scrolled through my list of albums on Spotify and picked what came naturally. Hence, Sound of Silver, an album by LCD Soundsystem release in 2007 (a very good year for music indeed).

LCD Soundsystem, if you haven’t heard of them, was a dance-rock band headed by James Murphy that released three very good albums before breaking up in 2010 (completely happily I might add, with a huge blowout concert to finish). I was reluctant to choose this album because I’m a little biased, LCD Soundsystem being one of my favourite bands of all time. But why not?

The drawing was meant to be done just while I was listening to the album, but I didn’t finish the beard in the time; by the time the album was finished, I just ended up obsessively retouching the lips. So I cheated a little bit and drew the beard while listening to ‘Dance Yrself Clean’ (the namesake of my last post). But it was worth it for the drawing. Source was this picture by the way.

But now, on with the review.

***

Sound of Silver was made in lonely basement parties with the lights turned low, with all the attendees crying on the dance floor. It’s not quite a heartbreaking confessional, but neither is it a fun but faceless dance record. Murphy always walks the fine line between the two, turning from misanthropic to raucous to deadpan to solemn blindingly fast.

Murphy lets his guard down, but sometimes not all the way; in ‘Someone Great’, as Murphy mourns the loss of a friend over a Kraftwerk-esque beat, his singing never falters, even as he complains that the weather is too lovely and the coffee isn’t bitter enough, as if he’s trying to pull it together one last time.

Undoubtedly the most emotional song on the album is ‘All My Friends’, where the indelible keyboard riff builds to a roar of triumphant melancholy, as Murphy, an elder statesman on a dance floor surrounded by twenty-somethings, laments being a middle-aged hipster holding onto his impeccable music taste for dear life.

In fact, many of the songs have the hazy, intoxicated ambiance of a club; in ‘Get Innocuous!’, the words are hesitant and sleepy in the hazy prelude to the morning after, the chirpy voice that follows him like the peppy, unsolicited advice of an acquaintance. ‘Us v Them’ shares similar themes, as Murphy rallies against those who want to spoil his fun before breaking down into despair. It’s often unclear if it’s the people around him who are ‘lonely and drunk’ or whether Murphy is projecting his own feelings onto them.

Despite its heavy subtext, the album is always witty and occasionally hilarious. Murphy screams and yelps through ‘North American Scum’, the goofiest song on the album, until he pleads “DON’T BLAME THE CANADIANS!” with a lack of inhibition more terrifying than I would care to admit. ‘Time to Get Away’ fits in lines such as ‘But me, I got a tiny tummy’ while still being delightfully misanthropic (not that they make much sense), and ‘Watch the Tapes’, if largely cryptic, is one of the most memorable songs on the album, with its back and forth opener getting stuck in your head even if you’re not entirely sure what it means. 

The last two songs are both about love, but they go about it in very different ways. The New Order-like title track features the same five lines repeated in a monotone clip, with the music built up and then stripped back for maximum, as the fond memories of adolescent music-listening are balanced against the less fond memories of adolescent emotion-having. On the other hand, ‘New York, I Love You but You’re Bringing Me Down’, fashioned as an acoustic break-up song and sung sincerely, denounces modern New York, with a sigh of reluctance, as being as scrubbed up and soulless as it was once dirty but full of life.

Underneath the slick, insanely danceable music lies deeply personal songs about longing and loneliness, about nostalgia for the sounds and cities of your youth, and, most of all, about aging and all the baggage that comes with it. LCD Soundsystem have sung about these things before, as in ‘Losing My Edge’, but never in such a beautifully understated way. And all while being musically irresistible. What’s not to love?

Joe.

P.S. I’ve decided not to rate albums as I’m generally reviewing ones I like so there wouldn’t be much variation on 9/10 and 10/10, and I don’t want to gush too much about how great I find an album. Also, I need to wean myself off critic scores, so it’s probably best just to leave them out. Thank you for reading! :)

Post yrself clean

          My Spotify artists page at the moment.

By now this blog has lost a lot of its readers and I’ve lost a lot of my enthusiasm for blogging. It’s been a little under nine months since my last post, which detailed my (what I then thought was huge but now I think is ridiculously tiny) Spotify music… collection? Is that the word?

I haven’t been completely inactive on WordPress since, but that was my last proper post anyway. Quite a bit has changed since then. The school year ended, I had a birthday (yay!), my laptop crashed (along with all my files as I hadn’t made a back up), my older sister went to uni, and somewhere along the line I became even more obsessed with music, to the point where I almost considered taking it as a GCSE.

I didn’t in the end, but I’m still listening to at least an album a day, so that doesn’t reflect my views on music – in fact, I decided five, six or seven months ago that I might become a music journalist, even if the pay is reportedly abysmal. My music taste has expanded a lot from primarily indie rock to everything but metal, and I don’t like all the same bands as I used to. A lot of the music I listen to now is derived from various music sites and lists (as opposed to my friends and siblings) which I’ve become unhealthily obsessed with reading. Not that that’s a bad thing per se – it all adds up to my musical knowledge. :P

I doubt I’ll do a follow up to my previous post with an updated list of my music because it would take way too long… but I would like to make this blog music-oriented. I would like to have a general update post every now and then, but I would mainly be reviewing music – mainly older albums I like, because those will be more enjoyable to review, but also new albums every now and then. I might even draw as I’m listening and upload the drawings too?

Obviously this is quite a change, and I don’t know if any of my old followers will enjoy my music posts, so maybe I’ll mix in some general posts. It’ll be good having something concrete to write about and keep me writing on schedule – I’ll try and write at least one post a week.

I don’t know if this will last, but it would probably be a good idea to try actually *reviewing* music rather than just listening to it before I decide to be a music journalist. Hopefully reviewing music will help me listen to it more deeply, develop my own opinions about music rather, and rejuvenate my writing and maybe my drawing as well. Anyhow, this should be a steep learning curve. The first few reviews will undoubtedly be meh, but have faith, I should improve… No promises though. :P

See you soon (hopefully),

Joe :)

P.S. I’m not gonna

My music

So, hello again! It’s been a while. I kept on meaning to post but school has kept me busy. I’ve been thinking about writing this post for months, but I didn’t get round to it until the half term. It took a lot longer to write than I originally anticipated, but here it is.

It was three months and a week ago that I got Spotify, which I mentioned in my (only) post in November. Before I got Spotify, I had very little interest in music. I just didn’t get it. I found some songs catchy, and I could appreciate a song, but it didn’t click.

For the unaware, Spotify is a streaming service. In effect, rather than owning a song, it is ‘streamed’ over to me via the Internet and then played, before being sent back. There are two versions: Spotify Free and Spotify Premium ($10 a month). Spotify Free lets you listen to any song you want, but, unlike Premium, you get annoying ads that pop up every now and then. Another annoyance is that, with Spotify Free on mobile, you can only listen to songs or albums on shuffle.

Despite these annoyances, Spotify is great in that I can listen to every album I want to for free legally.* Apart from ‘1989’. :P I understand there has been a lot of furore about Spotify recently about how much money they pay artists, but it has allowed me to make my collection of music and listen to stuff I never would have been able to otherwise. It probably isn’t ideal that I’m so dependent on the service, but it’s useful.

I thought it would be interesting to go through my list of artists from when I first got Spotify to now, three months later. I’ve tried to limit myself to one song per artist in their description, but I may link to other songs that will play outside of the post if you are interested. This is kind of necessary as the whole post is about music, but I get that you might not have enough time (or bandwidth) to listen to all this or even read all the post (although bonus points if you do), so I have put stars next to my five favourite musicians/bands.

Sidenote: All the ‘genres’ listed are the first thing that popped up on the artist’s Wikipedia page. Lots of the bands are labelled ‘indie rock’, a useless term which seems like an umbrella for any vaguely rock sound that is not ‘classic rock’. I would put a more specific genre, but often albums by the same artist differ wildly, so that’s not really possible.

Sidenote 2: Being a streaming service, you don’t download songs on Spotify – you merely ‘save’ them. However I’m just going to use the word ‘download’ because it’s much more intuitive.

Christmas Eve!

I can’t do a long post now, but stay tuned! o_O

Joe.

Hello Again

Today it is a month till Christmas and months since I last posted. Sorry! D: I don’t really have a very good excuse. I suppose school has played a part… but also just plain laziness and bad time management; often I could have blogged but just didn’t.

Rest assured no major tragedies have occurred. All my family members are in working order and school, while being school, is not too strenuous.

Since I last blogged:

• School started and there was the usual shake-up of forms and teachers. While I was separated from some of my friends, I think I got a pretty good bunch this year.
• Doctor Who started and ended. (Missy is so fine.)
• I got a Twitter account. I’m pretty sure that, so far, all of my followers are either a) friends or b) people who ‘follow for a follow’, but I’ll just say they genuinely like my tweets. :P
• I got Spotify… And may have gotten every so slightly addicted. More on this later! Or not. We’ll see. :P
• Oh, I also did my Grade 4 Piano exam in that scary church I mentioned back when talking about my Grade 1 exam. But the examiner was really nice, so it was actually OK (although my sightreading wasn’t great).

This post is painfully short to me, but I’m just gonna go ahead and publish it because I’m tired (I swear at least 50% of my posts have been published after 22:30, and I’m not sure it’s healthy). I think the important thing is to keep posting. :)

Joe

A look at my search terms…

So I haven’t posted in a while. Mainly because I have been drained of ideas. So today I thought, hey, let’s look at my search terms! I had the idea a few weeks ago, and it seems fun, so let’s do it! :D Obviously I won’t go through all of them, merely some of the more interesting ones…

So my main search term is ‘computer’ with 143 views, all presumably leading to my ‘Computers vs TV’ post. Understandable.

The next most popular search terms are ‘angry meme’ and ‘ain’t nobody got time for dat’, with 31 and 12 views respectively. Annoyingly I consider this one of my worst posts, but that’s the way it goes. :\

Interestingly, there are no less than 17 different variations of the spelling of ‘ain’t nobody got time for dat’, so I thought I would try an in-depth analysis on all of them, as you do.

1. ain’t nobody got time for dat – This classic spelling appears at the top of the pile by a process of natural selection.
2. ain’t nobody got time fo dat – The second most common spelling, with 8 views, more accurately reflects the speech patterns of Sweet Brown.
3. aint nobody got time for dat – This spelling is a nightmare for apostrophe activists, but not quite as lazy as our next spelling.
4. aint nobody got time fo dat – Omitting letters, punctuation and common decency, this variant will leave grammar Nazis crying in despair.
5. ain’t nobody got time for that – This spelling is a refuge for those who cannot bear to spell ‘that’ incorrectly. After #4, my hope in humanity is restored.
6. ain’t nobody got time fo dat obama – A sharp and scintillating satire of Democratic politics in post-1950s America.
7. aint no body got time for dat – Because corpses ain’t got no more time for that.
8. ain’t nobody got time for you – Sad but true. :P
9. ain’t nobody got time for that meme – A very meta interpretation of the search term.
10. aint nobody for time for players meme – Child, the players change, but the game remains the same.
11. aint nobody got time fo dat obama – Some more, less politically correct analysis of North American presidents.
12. we aint got time fo dat – No we do not.
13. aint no body got time fo dat – Again, more corpse talk, or if the typist in question meant nobody, this could imply an incredibly liberal use of the space bar, suggesting the typist needs more space; this deep psychological need could trace back to childhood trauma at a very young age when his personal space was often invaded by his pet dog Rover while he was on the toilet… Sorry, where was I?
14. ain’t nobody got time for that! – Use of exclamation mark indicates… something. *shrugs*
15. no one got time for dat – Who are you to say this? Have you conducted a survey of everyone in your local area? In the 2011 census, was there a section that asked, “Have you got time for dat?” :P
16. memes i aint got time fa dat for facebook – The specialisation of the meme for social networking shows its evolution from simple utterance to internet legend.
17. aint nobody go time fo dat – The epitome of laziness, omitting even more letters than #4. Disgraceful.

This post got very long-winded, so I will quickly go through some of the more interesting search terms. A lot of these only got one view, explaining their strange nature.

1. house of elf in harry potter – While this would be a very interesting house, I’m not sure if five houses is as snazzy as four. Besides, imagine how jarring it would be? Gryffindor, Slytherin, Ravenclaw, Hufflepuff, House of Elf… There’s already a house that begins with ‘H’. No, we knew something that rolls off the tongue like, “Spewington” or “Dobby”. And if “Dobby” won the House Cup, they would have to have the option to get a lifetime’s supply of socks instead. <3
2. harry whittier frees dead animals – I was initially confused by this, but it turns out ‘Frees’ is the surname of Harry Whittier, not a verb. Although the dead animals bit seems a bit strange. I think this directs to my post on memes again, as I looked at lolcats and I may have mentioned him for his work on dressing up felines. Even still, I can’t get over how strange this sounds. XD
3. people assume friendly gestures – Maybe they’re trying to be friendly?
4. are there any typos in the scorch trials wiki – In all probability, yes. Sorry about that.
5. technophile zombie – I would say those zombies are the coolest. The other zombies salivate over brains, but these ones salivates over iOS 8. I know who I would rather hang out with.
6. freedom exam – Just in case you’ve lost your basic freedom principles. What would be tested is beyond me.
7. yo ll be an technophile – I’m not sure whether this is a misspelling of “yo, be a technophile”, “yolo, be a technophile”, or “you’ll be a technophile”. I’m clueless as to why you would have to say YOLO before being a technophile, but I guess it’s a very daredevil thing to do.
8. august 12 skyfall 2014 at night at the sky – Actually ‘Skyfall’ was released on 26 October 2012 in the UK. :3
9. write a story on i had forgotten to complete my mathswork and knew this was the day i would be punished – This is a very specific search term, with no less than 21 words. I’m not sure why he would want to write a story about this of his own accord, and it’s unlikely he was set this as schoolwork, so the logical conclusion was that he was being held for ransom by the mafia.

That’s all I have time for today (no meme references intended) so this ends the post. Do you have very strange search terms? If you want to do a post on this, I am calling this the ‘Search Term Tag’ just because.

Joe

Brace yourself…

That’s right. I’m getting braces. D:

I had a scheduled orthodontist appointment last May, where a dentist looked around my teeth with a hand-held mirror and seemingly shouted out whatever came to mind: “A1, B2, C1 dinosaur, C12 antidisestablishmentarianism, D2, X23 coma…” and I sat in the dentist chair wondering what all this means and whether or not I should be terrified.

Lots of people are scared of dentists, but I never have been, perhaps because one of my aunts is a dentist. However the chill that ran down my spine when he said, “… J42 impacted…” after minutes of “G39, H40, I41…” didn’t bode well.

After commending me on my cleaning skills to soften the news, the dentist said my teeth were all fine and dandy apart from one that was ‘impacted’ and had only partially erupted when it should have been fully grown. If it’s left alone, it’ll make it really hard to clean that area when I grow up, so they strongly recommended I get braces. Meh.

I used to be concerned that braces would be the subject of mockery if I got any, but it’s not the case, at least not at my school. I can’t imagine myself with braces, but I imagine that once I get them, I won’t be able to imagine myself without them, so that’s not an issue either.

My main worry is the hassle it will cause. Luckily it won’t have much of an impact for me diet-wise (because of my allergies, I’m already restricted from chocolate, toffee etc.) but if I have to clean my teeth everyday after lunch, that will be an annoyance.

Still, I hear that it’s really worth it for the nice smile you get afterwards, so because of the ‘recommendation’ (it was more like an order) me and my parents decided to go with it.

Anyhow, I went for another appointment today to get my X-rays and other measurements taken, so they can make sure my braces will fit my mouth snugly. A few minutes after I’d sat down with my mum, a dentist came in and said that I was to be led to another building where my measurements would be taken… without my mum. I wasn’t sure why this was necessary, but I went along with it anyway.

So we walked around the corner to another building, into a room with lots of machinery. First the dentist took X-rays of my teeth. I had to put my chin on a piece of plastic  and bite into a groove in a piece of plastic; both of these pieces of plastic (I don’t know their names!) protruded at right angles from another piece of plastic. Tl;dr: lots of plastic. Then the dentist brought even more plastic apparatus to keep my head in place, and left the room, after telling me cheerily to keep my head still.

When I went to India two years ago and got a haircut (this is relevant, I promise) my dad did all the talking and left me with the hairdresser, who kept muttering at me in Malayalam and then, when I did nothing, forcibly keeping my head still or moving it. He had to mutter a lot, increasingly irritably as time went on.

I think the point I’m trying to make after that very long and convoluted anecdote is that I don’t like keeping my head still and that I’m not very good at it – even hairdressers get annoyed at me for my incompetence . But somehow I managed it – the X-ray machine hung from the ceiling and spun around my head and I stayed still. although there’s no saying the x-rays won’t show some very shaky teeth when they’re printed.

Then I had to go to another X-ray machine, but this time they put things in my ears. I looked like I was wearing  very heavy earphones that were attached to the ceiling. The dentist brought down a latch to put on my nose (to keep me in place again), took the X-ray, and then it was over.

After that the dentist took a number of pictures of my face with a very fancy camera. I felt more like a model in those annoying back to school ads that are starting to pop up than a person at the orthodontist’s.

She then proceeded to take pictures of my teeth while her assistant used stretchers to keep my lips out of the way (not as bad as it sounds, but still very strange). Perhaps understandably, this was much less glamorous. At one point, the dentist put a mirror in between my top and bottom rows of teeth so they could look at the inside of my mouth; they then told me I should only breathe through my nose to prevent the mirror steaming up. I had a mild panic wondering whether or not my nose-breathing was sufficient for me to survive for a few minutes. In hindsight, what if the mirror had gotten stuck? Would I have lived the rest of my life a nose-breather, trying not to steam up the mirror? With my perpetual state of blocked nose, I doubt I would last long. But I digress.

The appointment was perfectly normal apart from one unusual moment. Throughout, the dentist was very friendly and cheerful, trying to make some small talk. At one point, after I said that some of the procedures seemed a bit weird, she said something along the lines of, “Oh yes, we do weird here. We do a lot of weird. Never painful though.” Undoubtedly it was meant to be genial chitchat, but it came across a bit outlandish. XD After that, things continued as usual.

I had to bite into a sheet of wax so they could record my bite. I also had what felt like plasticine shoved onto my bottom and upper teeth, so they could make casts of them. It was bearable, although the container used to hold the plasticine were uncomfortable against my cheeks.

That was the end of it. I rinsed my mouth with some mouthwash and was led back to my mum.

Congratulations, you have just read a word-by-word account of an orthodontist trip! This was probably really mundane, but I’m sure you enjoyed it anyway. :P Sorry, that was a bit presumptuous.

What are your experiences with braces, orthodontists and dentists?

Joe. :3

Unproductivity and the Great British Bake Off

After my birthday, I woke up the next day with the Birthday Blues. As in, I couldn’t get out of bed for a few hours. And since then I have been incredibly unproductive. And on the day as well. And before. Basically I am and have always been kind of lazy.

Why? Why?!

Although this summer has probably been better than last summer, when I spent every waking hour hunched over my laptop, I haven’t done anything of great significance in the first half and I’m started to get… bored.

I’ve spent most of today on my computer, but I don’t know what else to do? Whenever I make to-do lists, I just cross off the items on my list that I want to do and leave the ones I don’t want to do alone. D: I have been reading a lot more though, which is great, and editing my story after almost a year break, which is great, but mainly just watching YouTube. I need help.

So any tips for productivity would be well appreciated. :3

As a side note, Great British Bake Off started again recently. (Sorry if this is very Britain-centric, you can try and make it a game to puzzle out what I’m talking about). So many innuendoes it’s ridiculous.

Ah, the Great British Bake Off. So laid back and British. The contestants can hug and exchange pleasantries, Mel and Sue made banter, and no one batted an eyelid. Martha is my favourite by far (she’s just so friendly!) but a few are starting to get on my nerves, although I have no dislikes just yet. Unfortunately I only came in halfway through the first episode, so I missed all the Swiss rolls, but it was still very entertaining. Nothing mindblowing just yet, but I expect more technical stuff in the coming weeks.

But by far the best thing is this conversation between BBC 1 and 2. For those not in the know, BBC 2 is a much more lower-key channel in UK television that BBC 1, so when the Great British Bake Off changed channels from 2 to 1, this was huge.

I don’t really know what exactly to post about, so this will have to suffice. :P Stay tuned!

Joe

If life gives you cake…

It’s my birthday today! :D

 

I will deign to tell you my age (because based on the terrifying Internet safety shorts my teachers have shown me, there are an awful lot of creepy people on the Internet) but yeah, it’s my birthday! :D

What, you forgot?! D: It’s OK, I won’t judge you. *cracks knuckles menacingly and then grins sheepishly*.

I didn’t really understand the gravity of the situation either when I woke up at 7:00 this morning. I thought, “Oh, it’s my birthday.” Then I went back to sleep and woke up again two hours later. Even still, I felt pretty happy, although not bouncing up and down excited.

I should probably tell you that I am currently not living in my home – long story short, I, my sisters and my parents are with some extended family because of a tennis tournament my sister is in; it’s been lots of fun over the last few days.

Anyway, I went downstairs, got hugged by my mum and aunt and had my ‘Birthday Breakfast’ (i.e. normal breakfast with a hint of antidisestablishmentarianism). I also texted everyone I know, “It’s my birthday!” Then I went to a tennis court to hit with my cousin, sister and dad. I was really really bad. As in, terrible. But I got better I think, and by the end I was only really bad. :P

The cake currently lies waiting to be eaten, chocolate with buttercream icing. Because of my extensive allergies (eggs, milk and nuts) I don’t normally have cake – when it comes to other people’s birthdays, I often have one or two Jammie Dodgers.

It would be a lot of hassle to bake a separate cake (mainly for myself as few others will eat it) every time someone has a birthday. That would be far too much cake for far too short a person to consume. But when it comes to my own birthday, my mum makes a dairy/nut/egg free chocolate cake, which is nom nom nom without making me have a rash.

Allergic reactions are not exactly desirable.

*Cue musical interlude*

I’m breaking out in rashes everywhere,
I’m in a state of disrepair.
My skin’s turning quite sage, turning quite sage,
My skin’s turning quite sage, turning quite sage,
Whoa, oh, oh, oh, oh, whoa, oh, oh, oh, I’m dermatologically reactive, dermatologically reactive!
Oh, no, no, no, no, oh, no, no, no, I’m dermatologically reactive, dermatologically reactive!

But I’m getting off topic. Birthdays.

Oh, forgot to mention presents. I had a much easier time than last year but I was still incredibly indecisive, so I only decided my birthday presents a few days before my actual birthday… when I was in someone else’s house (*facepalm*) so they haven’t arrived yet. I know what they are anyway though. :P

Turns out the book I got as a prize for Speech Day (another thing I need to write about) was really good, so I’m buying the other two books in the series; the book was ‘The Knife of Never Letting Go’ by Patrick Ness, part of a series called ‘Chaos Walking’ – I highly recommend it. I also asked for the Lego Movie, because why not? :P No, my friends all said it was really good, so I thought I would see what all the fuss is about. In my mind, 2:1 is the perfect balance of books to DVDs, but that might just be me.

At the same time, I can be kind of frustrated with my age. Because I was born in August, everyone in my year has their birthday before me. In Britain the cutoff is August 31, so as my birthday is perilously close to it very few people in my year are born after me! -_- As a result, I feel kind of older than I am, if that makes any sense. Whenever people ask me how old I am near the summer holidays, I normally say “I’m in Year X.” rather than, “I am X years old.” because when I say the latter, people often underestimate me and it’s starting to get on my nerves. :\

Another thing that annoys me is when people say, “Before you were born.” It’s hard to say exactly why that is, but it’s as if they’re trying to surprise you by saying this. Guys, I already know that stuff happened before I was born – that is not a mystery to me. Plus it gives no sense of time whatsoever. A year before I was born? A hundred years before I was born? Gahhhh! I would rather you just gave a date, no matter how vague.

No if anything, it freaks me out when I find out things have happened during my lifetime which I had no idea about. The idea that someone found out they had cancer or started a now famous YouTube channel while I was alive makes me kind of uneasy, but I’m not entirely sure why. Meh. Those are my thoughts.

I don’t really know what else to write about. Perhaps I should’ve posted this near the end of the day just in case something surprising happens in the rest of the day, but unless my laptop dies in a tragic car accident in Blackpool, I don’t think much will happen that will be worth saying (besides, my laptop will be destroyed with only the Blackpool Illuminations for company, so I won’t be able to post anyway).

What do you think of birthdays? Are they a happy harbinger of progress into your life, guiding you into another happy year filled with happy unicorns and happy rainbows? Or a drab and dreary reminder of mundane everyday life, only reminding you how old you are and how little you have accomplished?

Sorry that got dark quickly.

Anyway, happy birthday to me. :3

Joe.

P.S. 101 posts! :D