VanillaCat’s blog

Stupid things people write on social networking sites, #54

nobody@vox.com(VanillaCat) — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 17:21:05 +0100

"I love my friends.1 I don't actually know where I'd be without them.2"

1. Err, me too...

2. In Lonersville?

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NITS!

nobody@vox.com(VanillaCat) — Tue, 15 Jul 2008 21:58:10 +0100

I'm seventeen years old. And I have them. THE HUMILIATION, SERIOUSLY!

I enjoyed an overnight treatment last week, and woke up to find the little rotters dead all over my sheets. This made me happy. So I enjoyed a nit-free five days or so.

But now... I find the eggs in my hair! I have just spent a lot of the afternoon getting trying to pick them out. This included even snipping off bits of my hair. But they are superglued on!!

It sucks so much! I'm so repulsive! I don't even know where I got them from. I don't hug many five-year-olds, let me tell you that.

Also, doesn't it annoy you when someone promises they will write you a long email the next day, and you know they're there, but they won't even write a short one saying "sorry, I'm too tired, maybe tomorrow?"

Heh, my life is so sad atm. Work shadowing is awful! Well not awful just... boring, deadly boring. At least I know now that I don't want to be a primary school teacher.

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Where

nobody@vox.com(VanillaCat) — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 21:20:35 +0100

the heck is he?

Why hasn't he called?

An email, at least, would be nice.

Idonotneedtobetrappedinthislimbo!

Listening to Guillemots' Through The Windowpane to try and calm myself down.

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Rant against internet youth. I'm feeling opinionated today!

nobody@vox.com(VanillaCat) — Sun, 29 Jun 2008 23:11:29 +0100

So it *is* possible to enjoy life without a computer?

It does not cease to amaze me that the Myspace-dependent batch of teens are stil around. I had my peak of logging-on-every-other-minute-to-see-if-I-had-a-new-comment in 2005, I think, and this ate me up until about July 2007. I think that above everything else, I was a bit frustrated because I had been locked out of my previous account, and people ignored my pleas to stop contacting that one. So in a true insouciant fashion, thought paying no attention to the problem would make it go away.

However, Facebook now pretty much fills the social (ha!) networking void in my life. Its less attractive interface causes me to waste less time on it. When I joined my new sixth form, and actually gained intelligent friends, they were on Facebook. The profiles are a lot more private on there, too, so there is less temptation for stalking. On the other hand, searching for the group that describes you perfectly can get addictive.

But I even try to avoid Facebook - which has been named as the quickest rising procrastination tool, like, ever - whenever I can. When I get on a computer, after checking my emails, I go onto Last.fm - a site combining music with the social. It monitors what music you listen to with Windows Media Player (boo, hiss), iTunes, and even your iPod. Sad as it seems, I love to see who my most played artists are, and how compatible they are with those of my friends. I mean, you can skip this bit if you don't care what music I am into, but here is every single artist I listened to last week (22nd - 29th June), apparently. I am writing all this to make a statement. Yes, all this music, just from last week, just a fraction of my entire existence on Last.fm, And I have put in bold the lucky guys and gals who also make my Overall Top 50 Artists:

The Strokes, The Dears, Elliott Smith, Arcade Fire, The Divine Comedy, Kings of Leon, Patrick Wolf, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Green Day, Death Cab For Cutie, Jeff Buckley, Arctic Monkeys, Röyksopp, Muse, B*Witched, Mobile, The Doors, The Stills, Guillemots, Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Morrissey, The Futureheads, Tocotronic, Bright Eyes, The Breeders, Maxïmo Park, The Shins, Lily Allen, Foxboro Hot Tubs, Rufus Wainwright, The Kissaway Trail, Naast, The Donnas, Scott Walker, Regina Spektor, Jens Friebe, Disney, Hot Club de Paris, Bloc Party, Kante, Eels, Wir sind Helden, Pulp, CSS, Air, Element of Crime, Art Brut, Someone Still Loves You Boris Yeltsin, Cold War Kids, Beyoncé, Final Fantasy, The Besnard Lakes, Land of Talk, Champion, Antony and the Johnsons, Farin Urlaub, Priestess, The Muffs, Die Goldenen Zitronen, Patrick Watson, Plastiscines, Kelis, Sugababes, You Say Party! We Say Die!, We Are Scientists, Die Sterne, Vitamin C, Tomte, Chris Cornell, We're Marching On, Robert Wyatt, The Coral, Yeti, Dusty Springfield, Metric, The Postal Service, CocoRosie, The Subways, Placebo, Voxtrot, Andrew Bird, The Diagram Brothers, Blink 182, Holy Fuck, 17 Hippies, Seeed, Locas in Love, Chuck Berry, Kate Bush, Eiffel 65, The Mountain Goats, Interpol, Sportfreunde Stiller, Jens Lekman, Bela B. feat. Lee Hazlewood, Camille, Sixpence None The Richer, Nena, Scout Niblett, Dan Mangan, Blondie, Tokyo Police Club, Franz Ferdinand, MGMT, Britney Spears, Taking Back Sunday, The Midway State, Wintersleep, The Flaming Lips, Christina Aguilera, Radiohead, The Earlies.

And then of course, I can find awesome artists who are waiting for me to discover them. Of course there are a few Myspace-girls on there who relish this opportunity to show that they have had 1, 556 plays of whatever band is in style that week and how "phitt" they can look in their avatar, but yeah.

There's Goodreads, to which I have become more recently acquainted. It's like Last.fm, but for books. I have added, rated and reviewed only a fraction of the books I have read. I even paid attention to the embarrassing ones, and the ones I despised. Of course this concept is attractive to all pseudo-intellectual types. But who cares? It's an outlet for my literary-critic tendencies.

The final site that floats my boat is SharedTalk. I absolutely love different langauges and cultures (I now consider French my second language; I know a decent amount of German; I'm beginning to teach myself Russian; and I have snippets of various languages like Italian, Spanish and Greek). Here, you can get in touch with people of your age and interests from all over the world who want to improve their language skills. And it's not at all sleazy, because it's powered by RosettaStone (this celebrated but dead expensive language-learning software. But this site is free, though, by the way).

So, basically, I have abandoned the conventional teen internet crazes, in favour of sites that summarise the three passions in my life: music, literature and language. All this whilst providing opportunities for getting to know other people.

Sure, I'll occasionally check Facebook, Bebo, and Myspace to keep in touch with certain people. But I certainly won't be messing about with HTML, posting status updates that follow my every move, taking countless pouty pictures of myself, search for my soulmate within my postal code, or be a fan of that ubiquitous and highly irritating TV show, Skins. Those things are so insubstantial, and I'm over them. I say, if you're going to waste time, do it with something that reflects your hobby.

If you have one, that is. For your own sake, don't become like this girl, who I've quoted from an actual bulletin:

"I fucking hate
that burning feeling you get in your eyes when your tired and have been looking at a computer screen too long. I'm not tired yet though."

Aaaaw, diddums.

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Stop the BNP.

nobody@vox.com(VanillaCat) — Sun, 29 Jun 2008 16:15:32 +0100

www.hopenothate.org.uk

I didn't really know until recently that I had a political cause - when I realised that the British National Party (BNP) are gaining an increasingly high status in the UK.

For those who don't know what it is - the BNP is an undeniably fascist political party, holding extremely racist values, disguising itself as merely a far-right-wing party which wants to hold onto the British culture and people. Ever since their foundation in 1980, they have had close links with Neo-Nazi groups all over Europe and the USA. What is worrying is how people are getting brainwashed by the way the BNP present themselves - and BNP councillors are getting more seats in certain towns, such as Stoke-on-Trent. David Copeland, a BNP councillor, was arrested for an act of nail-bombing terrorism in London.

Ensuring that the BNP do not gain any more seats in parliament (there is already one; one too many), is an issue I hold very close to my heart. As somebody who thrives on the very things about Britain which came from other cultures, as well as appreciating those of our own (tea, chips, the rain, queues). The BNP is itching to exile all who cannot prove they are of "white British" descent. Yes, even those of a different ethnicity who were born here, and have a perfect right to stay.

That's just the tip of the iceberg, really, of a vicious "party". Please sign up to the Hope Not Hate campaign - you can also get more information about it on the website. Even if you're not in the UK, I do believe it affects everybody; should you ever feel the desire to come here nor not.

I feel now in the mood to rant forever, but I have to go now. I hold so many opinions on this.

Thank you for reading!

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The national Nepalese flag

nobody@vox.com(VanillaCat) — Wed, 25 Jun 2008 17:27:28 +0100

Pretty nifty, isn't it? Breaks the mould, if you like.

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About time, too!

nobody@vox.com(VanillaCat) — Tue, 24 Jun 2008 20:10:50 +0100

Seriously, why should it take half an hour to find the button that lets you create a new post? It's ridiculous! I want to express my anger somehow. But doing so on a computer keyboard is futile.

Well, life is sad at the moment. It's like a clash of passions really. Hmm, internal rhyme. Basically, I'm sad because Adam has left now. And he's not even at home in Germany; he's having a holiday in Devon. Same country as me. Over a hundred miles away. On top of all this, people at school aren't exactly treating me well. Interesting, as well as a bit macabre, how such situations make it clear who one's real friends are. Most of all - it would just be really nice for people to GTFO of my personal life. Please?

Ich liebe dich...

But at least, I have found the reason I am on this earth. You see, my LANGUAGE NERDINESS is increasing and increasing by the nanosecond.

I have been speaking French since I was seven, and I consider this to be my "official second language".
I had a brief stint with German between the ages of twelve and fourteen, and to my dismay the school would not let me carry on. Of course, ever since I met mein Liebster, there has been something of a revival. It is a truly great language, and one I would really, really like to get better at.
Russian. The country itself has fascinated me ever since I watched the movie Anastasia at the age of eight (yes, I know). Just... how can one nation have all these different cultures? And besides, I really want to learn something with a different alphabet. There's a Russian woman at church, too. And I think a large Russian immigrant community where I live - at least, if the fact that the public library computers offer instructions in Russian, is anything to go by.
Italian. I'd better improve my sprinkling of knowledge of this, because I'm going to Rome in October. I think that if you have a good command of French, it is pretty easy. It's a nice, feminine and arty language. And I prefer it to Spanish. However when I speak/read it, I get a craving for pasta.

During this blog entry, I've been listening to Absent Friends by The Divine Comedy. It is bliss. But it's my second favourite album of them. Wait, while I'm here, I'll make a list.

Promenade
Absent Friends
Casanova
Liberation
A Short Album About Love
Fin de Siecle
Victory for the Comic Muse
Regeneration

I think I'll tart my Vox page up a bit more now. I hope I can make some "friends" on here, too. I'm a bit bored.

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Mm! Have a banana...

nobody@vox.com(VanillaCat) — Thu, 10 Apr 2008 13:49:52 +0100

It took me about five hundred years just to find the 'write new blog' button or whatever... and in a way, I can't really blame it, because this is indeed going to be another result of procrastination. By the way, 'procrastination' is by no means pronounced the way you think. No wai. Wai? Well, listen to this and then try to disagree with me.

To be honest I am not at school because I'm ill. That's right, I have a, erm, extreme cold. I'm supposed to use this time to do homework - clearly, I'm being disobedient. BUT, BUT, BUT. Who needs to do homework when your boyfriend emails you at midday to tell you that, in your weakest subject, English Literature,

"In your Cold Mountain Essay you got a B and you're one mark from an A!"

Boo yeah! Man, I thought I was so close to being forced to drop it or something! Well okay, it's true - easy come, easy go, because now I'm getting like 27/50 in my Classics essays as opposed to the 40/50 of before (can I help it that the Greeks rock so much harder than the Romans?). But still. Eeeeeee! No epic fail for me!

I love Adam.

Us in Cambridge

Also, this week has been the Week Of The Dramatically Sonically-Different Phantom Second Album...

Exhibit A: Guillemots - 'Red'
"W.T.F." was my initial thought the minute the beginning of opening 'Kriss Kross', erm, graced my ears. It is just so different than before, makes you wonder if the band have been replaced by pod people. Nevertheless it is not horrifyingly bad. It is not as if I have never willingly listened to music not dissimilar to this before, anyway.

Exhibit B: Panic(!) At The Disco - 'Pretty. Odd.'
I cannot even believe I am mentioning this, but you know. I discovered this band in 2004 and was like oooh awesome, and got really annoyed when I heard eight year olds singing their songs in the street one day. Coincidentally, I found the first album gave me some reminders of bad memories after a while, anyway. Then I heard the new single from this, 'Nine in the Afternoon' on TV one day (yeah!), and was pleasantly, pleasantly surprised. I am simply so glad they dropped the whole whiny Fall Out Boy style. It's very cheery and nice to listen to in spring.

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O HAI GUISE

nobody@vox.com(VanillaCat) — Sun, 09 Mar 2008 14:53:23 +0000

By pure chance, I stumbled across this website. Instead of doing my Shakespeare essay, I was snooping around on DeviantArt and someone had a link to their Vox. And I was like "hmmm, never heard of that before". So essentially, this is the result of procrastination and curiosity.

Maybe this will turn into either one of those ~~moany emo blogs~~, or into one that seldom gets updated. I mean, I already have a blog. I write in it at the end of each month, summing up the month, and giving small reviews of books I have read in that month, and music I've particularly enjoyed, to give an overview of 2008.

I also have one on a French blog website. I'll be bodged if I can remember it, though...

It just struck me that the song 'Touch Me' by The Doors is freakin' awesome.

Oh dear, Shakey continues to call and I simply cannot resist a moment longer. Au revoir, mes amis.

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