So I'm going to see The Audition on Sunday! I am not super-excited about them, as I haven't had time yet to listen to their albums. YET OMG YOU GUYS PARAMORE IS CANCELLED. URGHHHHHHHHH

You see, my concert attendance usually goes like this:

matertera/always_august- do you want to go see xyz?
me- who are they?
them- doesn't matter, they are awesome and you will like them.
me- ok.

That's how I get to see most bands! I did however, actively go and buy Mindless Self Indulgence tickets! After I said they were shit! Yet they're grown on me, strangely, and what can I say, I can't pass up the chance to watch Lyn-Z again. Yees, my lesbian tendencies,let me show you them.


Oh and did I tell you guys that always_august and I will be sitting outside the Carling Academy ALL DAY the day of Panic? I think there may even be folding chairs involved.

Gacked from stepps
Instructions: Open up your iTunes and fill out this survey, no matter how embarrassing the responses might be.

How many songs total: 3770
How many hours or days of music: 10.4 days
Most recently played: Seven Minutes In Heaven (Atavan Halen) - Fall Out Boy
Most played: To the End - The Way She Feels - Between The Trees
Most recently added: Bullshit - Mindless Self Indulgence

Sort by song title:
First Song: A- Cartel
Last Song: 9/15ths - Biffy Clyro

Sort by time:
Shortest Song: Foreword - Linkin Park
Longest Song: Goodbye Sky Harbour- Jimmy Eat World

Sort by album:
First album: Absolution- Muse
Last album: 9 Crimes - Damien Rice 

First song that comes up on Shuffle: The Only Difference Between Martyrdom and Suicide Is Press Coverage- Panic at The Disco
Search the following and state how many songs come up:

Death - 11
Life - 40
Love - 199
Hate - 15
You - 532
Sex - 11

Thanks to everyone for the nice comments over the last few days!

Tonight is a good night- I don't have to cook, my embroidery kit from sublime stitching arrived, as did my complete S3 of Due South and I get to read Wax Jism's new story without proposal related guilt.

Happy Valentine's to everyone. I heart you all.

OMG PROJECT RUNWAY

SWEET P AND CHRIS MARCH ILU PLZ LETS HANG OUT AND BE FABULOUS AND SWEET

So, I have a myspace. I haven't touched it in oh forever, but I keep seeing all the bands that I like have myspace. Here's the thing - my myspace friends are always_august and Tom. That's it. I really have whole swathes of issues with it- for one thing, the whole myspace photo angle is SO spectacularly unflattering for me.

So I want to add bands, but also am wary of the whole thing. Honestly, I though I thought the internet was supposed to solve that problem.

Any of you guys have a myspace? Maybe we should have a bandom myspace friending meme. Or something.

I'm lazy to upload a zip of these, but I can if anyone wants.

1.  So Much Love - The Rocket Summer
2. Your Beauty Must be Rubbing Off- Hawksley Workman
3. Breakin' Up - Rilo Kiley
4. Now That We're Done- Metro Station
5. History - Funeral For A Friend
6. Citywide Rodeo- The Weepies
7. White Lines and Red Lights- Between The Trees
8. Show Me Love- Robyn
9. One and Only- Timbaland feat. Fall Out Boy
10. Son of A Bitch to The Core- The Headstones

Also, for fun, the top ten blogs I read every day!

1.  A Dress A Day - IOMG, who doesn't love looking at pretty vintage dress patterns? You don't? Ok. But I DO. Especially when its like, shirt dresses in LIBERTY FABRIC, OK.
2. Smitten Kitchen - Head on over there, the recipes are amazing. I tried her creme de leche cheesecake thingies and they are like, an orgasm in a cake.
3. Just Hungry- A Japanese Food Blog - My deep and abiding love of Asian food and slight obsession with Bento boxes is catered to very well here. Just saying, the gyoza? AMAZING.
4. The Curvature - Cara is my favourite feminist blogger- mostly because she doesn't take any fucking bullshit. 
   
5. Jezebel- It's like anti Perez Hilton.  Have I ever mentioned how much I hate Perez Hilton? He's like one of the world's most obnoxious concern trolls. Acting like he's all sympathy when in fact he's all GLEE.  Jezebel is like, what I would write if I was a gossip blogger who wanted to bang porn stars.
   
6. Fat Free Vegan Kitchen- I'm not a vegan, mmkay, though I might as well be a veggie these days. This site is full of healthy, veggie food. Awesome.
7. Ysolda - Knitting blogs! I could have a whole top ten just for those. I love Ysolda's fairy tale designs.
8. Knitting On Impulse - Crafty blogs always make me envy, envy envy.  I want to live in somewhere snowy and be able to knit like that!
9. Soulemama - A blogger who shares my obsession with fabric! Also has adorable life/family and quilting skills.
10. U-Handblog- I love this blog for Lisa's easy, breezy style and detailed bag tutorials.

And just because:

Home Recordings -Iron and Wine

Thank you, klgrem, for the card!


So here's the deal: I am applying for a £10,000 grant for postgrad research. I am, at this precise moment in time, supposed to be writing my grant proposal.  Yet here I am!
Of course, thinking about failing at this makes me think about how I fail at other stuff like losing weight and having relationships. Oh and finishing things. Just how much I fail in general, actually. I'm not usually that emo about this stuff, but home has been eh, tense, I can't find a permanent job and I cannot write this fucking proposal. Today is just one of those days when running away with the foreign legion looks attractive. You know those days when you're all 'I have an honours degree! I'm smart and not ugly and pretty funny! Why am I still unemployed and single? Why is every girl I date crazy?' questions for the ages, man. It's just so depressing when you realise that in order to be employed you may actually have to take your hard-earned degree off of your CV.

But eh. I have Panic tickets for the Glasgow gig (any other fangirls going?) and I have my health (HAHA I am Sybil Ramkin without dragons, natch).

That sound you hear? The sound of my sigh of complete relief.

I have been working for a public body in Scotland and working on a high-profile report- doing the editing, formatting etc. It is now published, and I am so happy I could be sick!

Here's the thing, my friends, I have 35 'TEAM JWALK' badges up for grabs. Just email me your snail mail (rudhoreiel at gmail dot com). Bribery or rewards are welcome!



Oh and by the way, if you get a chance to see Funeral for Friend on tour then do it.   They were amazing, and their support acts (City Sleeps and Kids in Glass Houses) are worth seeing as well.

This week, even though its only Tuesday? Has rocked.

On Saturday I went to see Hot Hot Heat at the Oran Mor in Glasgow. The support band, Thirst, were really fucking excellent- I was sad they didn't have an ep for sale. Hot Hot Heat themselves were also pretty awesome- and do you know what is more awesome still? As we were leaving, there was the band, going into the corner shop! So we stopped and got some autographs/cheesy myspace pictures. Mine was on someone else's camera but I'll show you when I get it. The lead singer seriously has Ray Toro hair.

SPEAKING OF RAY TORO I WENT TO SEE MCR LAST NIGHT!

Ok so, Mindless Self Indulgence? I really wanted to give them a chance, really, because I think there are not enough girls in bands rocking out. But god, they kind of...really weren't my thing at all. Technically they were good- but the songs were kind of like each band member went away and wrote thier own thing and then they just slapped it all together with some shitty lyrics full of swearing. Plus the lead singer seems to be one of those people who thinks swearing a lot and being an asshole makes you 'edgy'.

FRANK WAS NOT THERE I WAS IN SUCH WOE. THERE WAS NO BOB AND NO FRANK. THERE WAS A HOT MIKEY, THOUGH. AND A GERARD, AND A RAY. BUT NO FRANK.


Gerard said that they left Frank at home because of some personal issues- what that meant I dunno- but he said that they missed him and loved him and stuff, then later when they were singing 'Give Em Hell, Kid' I'm pretty sure (although I was distracted by MIKEY ON HIS KNEES) he shouted WE MISS YOU AND LOVE YOU FRANK!  Then there was some Gerard being over at Mikey- I'd gotten split up from my cousin and she sent us a text saying 'did u c the waycest? lol'.
But they were still awesome, totally fucking rocked out.  I consoled myself with lack of Frank by being right up front when Gerard came over (I had positioned myself to be right underneath Frank's mike).

I am off now to read the story links Katie sent me! New cimorene111and bexless- just what I wanted.

After I posted the link to the PopPolitics article, adellyna commented to say that she disagreed strongly, and with pep. After second reading (and a third, and oh god, a fourth), I got a bit pissed off.

That people would find Pete Wentz exploitative doesn't surprise me. I don't, y'now, agree with that, because I think he hasn't crossed that line yet. I certainly don't feel exploited because I bought a clan hoodie or anything. More power to him, I say, go for what you want. And make people wear your strange bat tattoo on their clothes if you can!

What really fucking pissed me off hardcore was the casual way in which the writer dismissed the queerness of FOB as something commercial, a veneer, a show.  Like- not gay = completely straight and obviously just out for cash.  What about queerness? What about bisexuality? Where's the fucking spectrum, Mr Author Man?

Now, I am bisexual. I love boys, and I love girls. Sometimes more and sometimes less.  It never fails to irritate me when bisexual characters (like, say Alice on the L Word) are implicated to be merely travelling on the spectrum. Like bisexuality is the gateway to being fully something else. I think it is perfectly possible to enjoy kissing the same sex, to enjoy close relationships with them that yeah, maybe go farther than your usual friendship, but stop short of sex. In other words, I think it's pretty possible to be 'gay from the waist up'.  I think Pete Wentz is pretty fucking queer, personally.

As for the author wishing for some more of them fightin' words and actions from Wentz, I can't lie- I'd love to hear Pete say 'I'm all for gay marriage!' or something like that. But for me, I wish they'd been around when I was fifteen and thinking about girls. I wish that someone had had the gall to write a song like G.I.N.A.S.F.S and get the guy he refers to in his blog as his 'husband' to sing it. I mean sure, there was KD Lang or Melissa Etheridge or some shit but I was a West Coast Scottish Catholic Punk (yes, oh god, it deserves capital letters like whoa) and there was just no-one who had ever really thought to say something like that to me.

So yeah, the article just kind of stank of all sorts of privelege and shit that I am just not even going to touch, and pretty much ignored any bi/queer experience. Gay isn't a synonym for shitty, and queer/bisexual is not (should not be) a synonym for 'too scared to come out as gay'.


In other news, I got fitted for new bras.