Silent Music – Runaway

Thanks guys for the support and comments with Jaded, both online and IRL, it is a great help and gives me a warm feeling inside that can only be matched by chocolate fudge brownies (now that’s saying something). I’ve being working on a few songs and wanted to post another. Please, tell me what you think, I love discussion and criticism (nothing nasty) and if I get enough support I’ll make this a recurring series.

Note: Anyone new to this should have a look at Jaded, I explain the premise of Silent Music there.

Anyway, I started this song after reading a story being created on the site fanfiction.net called Glamorous Indie Rock and Roll (I feel I just lost a lot of respect from some people with that sentence). It’s a brilliant story that is really coming along. For anyone interested, I’ll link the story at the end of the post. And so, here is Runaway…

We need to make a break
Need to make an escape
There is a world out there
For us to take

Outside of this life
Of anger and strife
We need to let loose
On the edge of a knife

Hitting the road on a count of
One two, one two three four

Runaway, we need to runaway
From the mundane
Runaway, we need to runaway
From this pain
We can leave tonight
Under the milky way
Retire to the light
Becoming runaways

Shedding our past
We need to act fast
This town’s killing me
I cannot last

Out there is freedom
The dreams we seldom
See in this prison
Of sin and boredom

Runaway, we need to runaway
From the mundane
Runaway, we need to runaway
From this pain
We can leave tonight
Under the milky way
Retire to the light
Becoming runaways

(instrumental)

It’s a comedy
This tragedy
A life trapped in
Emotional poverty

Runaway, we need to runaway
From the mundane
Runaway, we need to runaway
From this pain
All we can do is fight
This world in disarray
No destination in sight
Becoming runaways

Runaway, we need to runaway
From the mundane
Runaway, we need to runaway
From this pain
We can leave tonight
Under the milky way
Retire to the light
Becoming runaways

We need too break away
Us runaways

Thanks again for the support, be back soon.

Glamorous Indie Rock and Roll

The Energy, Excitement and Efficiency of Hamsters

Looking over the news channels, newspapers, Facebook feeds, twitter things, English classes and online web polls, it seems to me that a major debate is raging and could decide our future and the future of the Earth, Karl Stefenovic. And renewable energy/global warming. After what transpired in Japan, Chernobyl, and the island of Tobukoo, the debate on nuclear power rages on with pro nuclear people (or nukems as i like to call them) having to lift their game. There is also the debate as to whether to stay with coal or go environmentally friendly, renewable energy. Some want to go solar, wind and hydrogen (aka eco-friends) and those who don’t believe in global warming and want to stick with coal (aka Tony and Andrew, collectively known as Abbolt (or in some cases, twats)). What to do, what to do?

After a lengthy discussion with my fellow Political And Current Environment Panel of Awesomeness, we have developed the next big advancement in the search for cleaner energy and comical trolling. Hamster Power. Hamster power is the production of electricity through hamsters. This can be done in many ways. The two main ways we have decided upon are the following: 1) Placing a series of hamsters in those small exercise wheels, sticking cheese or a female hamster in front of them and letting their running turbines, although this method may lead to animal cruelty (tiny whips, undernourished, no biscuits in the tea room) or be outsourced to Vietnamese children (like most things these days, well, everything except lemons, tripods and small stuffed pandas, which are done by Colombian children), or 2) Burn the hamsters, which may lead to a shortage of hamsters or the possibility of a hamster uprising, because nothing sparks vengeance in hamster better then watching 50,000 of their friends and family burn in a fire to power Lady Gaga’s hairdryer.

Many other animals were considered and later struck from the record (or burned to power the lights in my toy screwdriver) such as the rabbit (possibility of a bunny meltdown, causing a tsunami of rabbits and subsequent drowning), the gopher (to stupid not to kick), the gerbil ( to damn scary), the panther (not scary enough), and the rat (really, you thought you could get by using a rat! How dare you mock me with such stupid ideas! DO YOU KNOW WHO I AM! I’M THE MAN THAT WILL BURN YOUR HOUSE DOWN, WITH RATS, AND FLAMING HAMSTERS, AND BLACKJACK!). This went on for quite some time.

And so we settled on hamsters, but it is up to you on what we should use them for. Do we

A) Race them or

B) Burn them

We can do either, as long as their isn’t a tax. Because then we would have to have a nation wide vote and everything gets rather messy. Hamsters are the way to go, and if we happen to run out well, we could always invade Norway. I mean, who wouldn’t want to invade Norway, there just so invadeable. Leave your thoughts in the comments below. Or in your own blog. Or on a toilet wall. Up to you

Evan signing out, i like whales.

The Viral Life

I have been raking my brain for what to post as my very first post. I’ve procrastinating on what to upload, not knowing how to break the wall and start the flow. My collection of drafts and ideas is starting to overflow, and self-doubt growing. I had no idea what I could do, what would be the best way to begin. A gripping topic, a catchy title, a powerful opener. Nothing I could come up with had the right feel to set the mood for this blog

Then this image popped up on my news feed:

Source: TMZ

That, my friends, is a photo of Justin Bieber spitting off of a balcony, and onto his fans. Allegedly.

Whilst this kind of “news” does not normally catch my attention, it was when Bieber’s team of publicists tried to stop this image going viral that things became interesting. Some of you may recall an image of Beyonce from the Superbowl. Not many people cared too much, that is, until her publicity team tried to stop people photoshopping and sharing the image. Then all hell broke loose. The number of searches for the image skyrocketed. By trying to stop the image going viral, they made the image viral. A similar event happened to a photo of Barack Obama holding a rifle. 

This same spread seems to be occurring for Justin Bieber and this now infamous photo. So, it got me thinking about the community of the internet, as well as the raging debate on intellectual property. This, coupled with the recent discussion on copyright and publishing, brings up the notion of the viral spread. 

If, like me, you live on the internet, you would know about memes. Memes are various images and macros that spread across the internet, usually representing an action or idea. There is a huge variety of them out there, from Scumbag Steve to Grumpy Cat, Overly Attached Girlfriend to My Little Pony Fandom (known as Bronies), and all of them started as a single image (or video).

(For more on memes, I recommend http://knowyourmeme.com)

There is no science to what becomes a meme. Anything posted at the right time in the right place has a chance of going global. Anyone or anything can become famous in a matter of days. You can come to represent an idea or a platform for jokes, even if the image has little to do with the original content and meaning. The internet works in mysterious ways.

At this time I would like to bring your attention to a particular person.

Laina's Facebook Profile Picture

Source: Facebook

That is Laina, also known as Overly Attached Girlfriend.

After her song parody of Justin Bieber’s song Boyfriend (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yh0AhrY9GjA&list=TLcBc7SPUcT6A) went viral, Laina used it’s popularity to build her internet profile. She developed a website, expanded her Youtube account, got in contact with other youtube personalities. Soon her popularity expanded, with a loyal following of over 700,000 subscribers on Youtube and 190,000 Twitter followers (as of August 1st, 2013). Laina then used this popularity to start her Dare to Share Campaign, a campaign designed to raise money for certain charities. 

Jaded – Silent Music

Welcome to Silent Music, a new recurring collection of blog posts inside the confines of Nutmegs. In this series of blog posts, I shall post lyrics to songs I have written. None of the lyrics will have music with them. They are designed for you to imagine the music yourself, as well as act as an outlet for the hipster poet in me. Feel free to use these lyrics for what you want to do, internet wise, just as long as you don’t try and pass it off as your own, don’t try to make money off of it, keep it public for the world to enjoy, and that you send me a link to the creation so I too can bask in your brilliance. With that in mind, I would like to introduce you to my first silent song, Jaded. Jaded meet audience, audience meet Jaded. I’m sure you two will hit it off.

She’s a flower
A rose that’s grown
In the middle
Of a war zone
She’s nothing but
Class all over
She’s everything yet
I don’t know her

A rebel girl
You can’t restrain
A secret girl
I can’t obtain
This beauty so
High above me
My own upper
West side story

Stars burst with her every step
The wildest girl I never met
Like a sunrise in the west
Caught in her universe
Stars burst with her every step
The fiercest girl I never met
She’s not like all the rest
Lost in her universe

And I’m Jaded

oooh, oh….oh oh
I’m Jaded

Her angle glow
Her sea blue eyes
That stare has me so
Hypnotised
Like graffiti
That has been framed
She’s a rockstar
That can’t be tamed

She is a walking
contradiction
The only carni-
vorous vegan
A free songbird
Trapped in a cage
A leading lady
Behind the stage

Stars burst with her every step
The wildest girl I never met
Like a sunrise in the west
Caught in her universe
Stars burst with her every step
The fiercest girl I never met
She’s not like all the rest
Lost in her universe

And I’m Jaded

oooh, oh….oh oh
I’m Jaded

This is a work in progress, so please be gentle. Feedback would be greatly accepted.

An Apology

Hi guys, sorry I haven’t been up and running as I would have liked, there has been a few technical issues and little problems. If you are reading this, it means that the problem is fixed and I am back to posting. Due to the problems, I have a backlog of posts sitting on my hard drive. Hopefully, I shall post these up soon, so expect a bit of disjoint and unorganised posting for the next couple of weeks. I shall try and release these posts every couple of days in an attempt at organisation, so expect a bit of confusion in the time frame of blogs. Just pretend I’m a Time Lord posting from inside the Time Vortex. So, without further ado, let the craziness commence!

Super Heroes and the Real World

Having recently watched a series of superhero movies, including films like Watchmen, Spider-man, National Treasure 2: Book of Secrets, it got me thinking about what would be a good superpower to have. It’s a common question that gets asked a lot “If you were caught in a radiation leak/part of a malfunctioning science experiment/bitten by a genetically altered animal, what superpower would you have?”. It is interesting to note that the question is not about having the powers of a certain superhero, but on an individual basis. Having Superman’s great leaping ability, but none of his other powers. This renders a lot of problems due to the reliance some powers have on others. If you did have Superman’s great leaping but not his ability to withstand large forces and survive immense air pressure. One could leap over a building, but would become a jam paste if you tried to land on the other side. A lot of powers require other powers just to be semi-useful.

Also, what does constitute as a superpower? Is it anything the average human can’t do. Does the ability too perfectly cook 2 minute noodles in 30 seconds count as a superpower? Or is it being special in a certain area, like having the power of being luckier then most? “Stop thief, or I will stumble upon a very easy solution by total chance!” Doesn’t sound like the most exciting superhero to me, but that’s for another post. Then there are superheros like Batman and Iron Man who’s superpower is having money. If so, then I’d happily take being really really really really really really really incredibly rich as my superpower. Yes, there is also the fact that both are super-intelligant orphans that have some deep rooted need to amend their image, protect the people of their city, and wear spandex, but there are people out there with the same intellect being hired by people with the same fortunes to produce a variety of weapons, energy sources, vaccines, and Furrbies. Are they superheros? (Or, in the case of the Furrbies, supervillains?) 

Just a side note, is having dead parents a requirement to be a superhero? Is that something they check for when going through superhero applications?

“Interesting Mr. Firebolt, you seem to have the right requirements to be a hero, just one last question. On a scale of 1 to 10, 10 being very and 1 being not at all, how dead are your parents?”

“Um, 1, although my father has a kidney stone, so maybe a 2”

“Oh that is a shame. Sorry but you can’t be a superhero. Come back when your parents have died, preferably violently, and then we might have a position for you. Goodbye”

Anyway, back on topic. Another problem that arises when deciding on a power is how noticeable it is. If you chose the popular choice of flight, ignoring the fact that due to air pressure, oxygen levels, g-force, and human effort you would only be able to hover a few meters over people’s heads at the same speed you can run, ignoring all that, it is such a noticeable power that it is bound to be a problem down the line. For starters, you would effectively be the first superhero the world had seen. Whilst it would pertain to certain benefits, after a while you would constantly be harassed by strangers begging you to help them in some way or another. Anything you did would be under the public’s and the media’s scrutinous gaze, and anything judged “Un-superhero-like” behaviour would be judged and ridiculed. You would become an unwanted role-model, like a football player, and be forever analysed and scrutinised by everyone else. That is, if the government don’t try to make you a 1) weapon, 2) science experiment or 3) mascot. And worst of all, you would have to watch Ryan Reynolds play you in a movie about you.

Then, if your power of choice has made it through the general issues, there are the specific problems with individual powers. For example, the power of X-ray vision needs to have a distinct limit to what it can see through, or else you are stuck looking at a void of nothingness as far as the eye can see. And if it’s name is taken more literally, what adverse health problems does it provide?

“With my X-ray vision, I can see that you are carrying a pistol in your jacket, have cocaine hidden in your body. Also, you are now infertile. Take that evil henchman!”

With the power of future-telling, not only would you see things that you would not want to see, but whenever you try and tell someone, they would just think you are a nutter. It also brings up existential problems with fate and destiny and free will. Also, you would forever ruin surprise parties for yourself.

That is the end of my little vent, if you managed to make it this far I applaud you. There should be a small, stuffed panda in the mail arriving for you in 5 to 10 working millennia. So, with that said, what superpower would you have?

May all your watches be correctly set and your whales well liked. Until next time, this is Ev signing out.