"Think from outside the box, collapse the box and take a fucking knife to it."

Fuck me! It's been a long time since I've written one of these! Well as you can very well see, it is one of my blogs. It's coming up to almost over 3 months since I wrote my last blog. It seems like a lifetime ago now. I will make an effort to try and carry on writing these...promise :)
The reason for the sudden end to my blogs. Honest answer: I've been a very busy person. Between going into Uni, doing essays, going out on the toon, lazing about the flat and sleep, I haven't ever really enough time to sit down and write one of these blogs, well I say I haven't but I just can't think of: A. a reasonable excuse, and B. a believable one. But I have recently been rereading previous blog posts and I'd thought I'd give the whole thing another shot.


Little explanation about the quote. It's a quote by Banksy, the elusive and brilliant street artist, whose artwork for the past couple of months has fascinated me. Quote basically sums how I feel about my thought processes and the such. And I thought I'd pass it on to anyone who was interested. Don't have a clue what I'm on about? Well to be honest neither do I but I'll try and explain what I think I'm on about...if that makes sense. Basically when we think about things whether it be the past, present, future, work, friends, family, etc. we shouldn't have to think about it in a linear way, i.e. I did this mistake in the past and this then horrible thing happened. In this analogy your thoughts are the box, and so you must do as Banksy says: "Think from outside the box, collapse the box and take a fucking knife to it." In other words, all those linear thoughts, and I'm mainly aiming at the negative ones, take that knife and stick it to them. What I'm trying to say is: think more positively, don't let the negative linear thoughts take control of you and pull you down. Instead get rid of them and start to think much more positively.


Dunno if any of that actually made a whole lot of sense. It probably didn't. I'm pretty sure it did. Do you? Anyone?


So how have I been since the last blog? In a nutshell, pretty awesome. Uni's going great; going out plenty of nights, getting plenty of sleep, going to gigs every so often (saw Alexisonfire back in November, fucking outstanding performance and such a great night), getting work done (makes a change), met some more fucking awesome people who I'm glad I'm friends with, sorted out who I'm living with next year just need to start viewing houses now and I'm generally having a fucking awesome time. I'm currently back at home for Christmas. It's both nice and weird at the same time. Been living pretty much next door to city centre for the past 3 months, now I'm a good 40 minute drive to town. Feels proper weird. On top of that I'm not used to the house, feels like I haven't lived here for years. Couldn't remember where half the stuff I've needed today was kept. There are many things, however that I am looking forward to. Seeing all my friends being jointly at the top. Can't wait to just spend time with them all. Catch up on everything I've missed for the past couple of months and generally just have a great time with them all. The other thing jointly at the top is spending time with my family. As we all know Christmas is fast approaching and I don't know about all of you but my favourite part is the whole family sitting down for Christmas dinner. I always love it, every year. The whole of my close family, together, once every year. It's truly a wonderful moment. Other things that I'm looking forward to are catching up on most of my sleep, sorting out my room and just generally being back at home. It's the first time I've been home in such a long time. To simply put it: It's good to be home.


For the recommendations this time around I'm gonna recommend the songs Straight Up & Down by The Brian Jonestown Massacre from the album Take It From the Man and the brilliant Someday by The Strokes from the fantastic album Is This It. I'm also gonna be recommending the brilliant TV series Robot Chicken.


I first heard Straight Up & Down on the opening for a TV series called Boardwalk Empire (which I will most likely review in a future blog). My first thoughts were that the song was brilliant. And it truly is a brilliant song. The song is a wonderful reminder of all the brilliant bands and their songs of the 60s and 70s, the pinnacle of Rock, but it still manages to keep itself firmly based in the 90s scene. I've picked two versions: the first being the normal version of the song. The second version is the extended version of the song and the reason why I have included that is because not only is such a brilliant song but it is also a homage to the great bands of the 60s and the 70s such as The Rolling Stones and The Beatles; at some points the lead singer sounds almost like Mick Jagger and on top of that they include the famous "ooo ooo"'s from the Sympathy of the Devil  and the infamous "nananana"s from Hey Jude into the very end of the song. It really really is such an absolutely brilliant song and I hope you all love it as much as I do. I've picked Someday by The Strokes because recently I've been listening to them so much. They truly are one of the great bands in recent times and this song for me is my favourite and, I think, possibly one of their best. It's off their first album Is This It which is just a masterpiece. Don't really have much else to say about it other than: listen to it and enjoy. The TV series that I want to recommend to you is Robot Chicken. I can't really describe it other than it is a series of 11 minutes sketches and that it is fucking hilarious. I can't really do it any justice so I'll leave you with two clips.


Well that's it for the blog this week. Next blog post will probably be next Monday. Thinking of keeping it as a strictly once a week kinda thing, makes it easier for me to actually get one o these done. So I'll leave you with the videos for Straight Up & Down (Normal & Extended versions) by The Brian Jonestown Massacre, Someday by The Strokes, and Little Hitler and E.T. The Retard from Robot Chicken. Enjoy.


Straight Up & Down (Normal):



Straight Up & Down (Extended):



Someday:



Robot Chicken - Little Hitler:



Robot Chicken - E.T. The Retard:



So till next Monday. I hope you all have a great week. Stay safe. And I'll be back in a week's time.
Much love and have Merry Christmas.
E.
x


P.S. Sorry for the essay. It really has been some time.