Andy's Blog

I managed to win a new iPod Shuffle!  The thing is truly tiny and now takes pride of place as I pursue my increasingly fruitless task of developing a physique….

…although pear-shaped is a physique, it’s not the one I’m really striving for, rather get away from!

So I can now be found bouncing around the gym, with diddy wee iPod attached to jogging trousers, desperately trying to pump iron to the tunes of Marilyn Mansun, Iron Maiden, Hoobastank, Guns n’ Roses, Nickelback, Rammstein, and many other devils music practitioners.

Now if I could just get rid of this damn cold!  Although on the positive side, going around the gym equipment sneezing, coughing and sniffing and telling the other gym users “I haven’t felt right since Mexico” is getting me on the equipment far quicker than previous outings.

Karate tonight, although I’m sure the same ‘Mexico’ reference will not work quite as well on Sensei!

Stunning song from a group I’ve not heard of before, on an album I didn’t know I had and found after pressing a button on the iPhone I didn’t mean to.

Sometimes ‘Shuffle’ mode on the iPhone brings up some absolute pearlers, causing you to stop, appreciate and relate to your own personal moment, which is what all great music should do..

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In somewhat of a dark mood at the moment.  This tends not to be a usual state of affairs, although reading back on some of my previous posts that would seem to be a wee bit of a lie, however I do tend to try and look on the brighter side of life.  My usual way of describing myself would tend to bear this out;

6’1, Blonde, Idiot

Or how others describe me;

Muppet
Lurch
Long piece of damp string with knots in it

However every so often, having to internally deal with all the home-based drama’s and other concerns, the mood does turn darker and you allow yourself to dwell on your own insecurities, anger, sadness, self-worth and direction.  Not a glorious thing to behold or admit to, and probably not a very healthy way to proceed, but it’s a mechanism that works for me.

No dramatic outward signs fortunately.  Just, as friends who know me well will testify, a withdrawal into myself, an avoidance of others for a while, a quietness and a losing of oneself into work or activities (gym, swimming, karate, computer) and more importantly music.

Currently listening to the soundtrack of ‘Batman Begins’ by Hans Zimmer & James Newton Howard.  Deliciously dark and, as all music written by Hans Zimmer, powerful.

Normal service will resume shortly, with all issues buried out of sight once more..

*HUGELY* tired today, I really should go to bed much earlier than I am doing currently.  I think I didn’t hit the sack until 1.30 this morning – stupid really.

It did at least give me time to sort out some of the new music I have “acquired”, get rid of some of the duplicates albums I had misfiled, sort out some of the tags that were wrong and copy them to the external hard drive ready for others to “review”.  Annoyingly the first thing I noticed when I fired up the laptop at work, ready to listen to some music, was a whole load of mis-tagged tracks which have also found their way onto my iPhone.. BUGGAR!

Work was abuzz this morning with the news of a planned 2,100 job cuts announced on the BBC News website, and literally as I am typing this there’s news of a *further* 2,100 job cuts.. DOUBLE BUGGAR!

Probably not the best time to be feeling tired and looking lethargic at work.  Unfortunately the swim this lunchtime hasn’t helped much either, and I still haven’t managed the 20 lengths without stopping!

To add to the tiredness, peevedness and alarm I can now add “lonely”.  Online friends seem to have disappeared and chats and updates from MSN and Facebook have dried up to a trickle.  This could, of course, just be a by-product of me trying to be offline a little more and keeping to my ‘talk only when talked to’ policy, which I am hoping will make me a little less annoying and let others actually lead a life. 

Time to venture out maybe?

Ah well, I need to wake up before my Karate class tonight and mentally prepare.  The Wednesday class is always a tough one and I need to work on my Kukutsu Dachi and Shuto Uki, before my students arrive, if I want to attain my next belt.

Methinks it’s time to hit the coffee again, or if things get too bad; to pop a caffeine bean and suck on it for the remainder of the day!

Edit 1: Update -  The 2 x 2,100 job cuts aren’t within my section of the company, which hopefully means I won’t be invited to a meeting to “discuss my career options” anytime soon.  

Thanks for the words of concern though guys n’ gals, much appreciated

Edit 2: Just to prove me a damn neurotic liar, about 10 minutes after posting this little update; up pops two different people on MSN for a chat, and three messages on facebook!

I am not sure if it’s either my mood attaching particular meanings to tracks, or the album just connecting with my particular mood; but whichever way it is I am finding that Nickelback’s “All The Right Reasons” is hitting all the right spots for me personally.

The last few weeks have been a bit up and down and, as suggested within previous posts, some realisations bringing a more ‘calm’ me; Why worry about something over which you have no control?

This album hasn’t been off my iPhone for a few weeks or more, usually at a ridiculously loud volume, and particular tracks ‘seeming’ to chart my mood at a particular time over those weeks.  These being, in chronological order;

• Far away
• Next contestant
• Photograph
• Animals

There is always a danger of reading too much into this selection and not understanding the context into which these fit… but, and I have to admit to not understanding the *actual* meaning behind some of the songs, I think, as most people do, I just keyed on a particular sentiment or verse and attached my own feeling to it and made it make sense to my own situation.

That said, my current mood music “Animals” is just a pure grin-like-an-idiot, wind the amp upto 11 and do the same on my new plaything;  A Kawasaki ZX-6R!

600cc’s of diablo black fun, with a top speed of 168mph, 0-60mph in less time than it takes to blink (or hit the back of the car in front) and me sat on it grinning inside the helmet to match the grinning demon’s face painted on the outside.  I am one VERY happy troozers!

So if you see me wandering around with the earphones in, you’ll know what I’m listening to, and if you don’t see me – I’m the screaming black demon that just whizzed by..

For better or worse things are-a-changing around here.  First visible change, to the outside world at least, will be the car!  The mighty Volvo will be packed up soon and returned to the Volvo dealer, which is a wee bit of a shame as I actually quite liked the car – but needs must.  Actually what will hurt most is losing the 80GB built in mp3 player, which when crammed with tracks-a-plenty will talk to you as you browse through your uploaded goodies.

I shall miss the old girl’s metallic voice mispronouncing all the album and artist names.  Now, how to hook up the iPhone to the replacement old banger?  At the moment music is my great escape, especially during the commute to work – my ‘acceptable’ bit of reflection time with no sour looks when the music is pumped upto 11 on the dial.

Mood music at the moment is definitely on the darker side of the rainbow at the moment;

• The Drugs Don’t Work by The Verve
• The Artifact And Living by Michael Andrews
• Chasing Cars by Snow Patrol
• Pale Shelter by Tears for Fears
• Pilot by Alisha’s Attic
• Mad World by Tears for Fears (or performed by Michael Andrews/Gary Jules)

On the plus side, and probably a reflection of something deep and profound, I have managed to tag and update the music collection.  So now 14,580 songs (or 1,070 albums) have been tagged, categorised, and album artwork added – which all makes the iPhone/iPod look a lot more visually pleasing!

Now what else can I do to fill up the long nights?

Now is the time for big decisions to be made, or maybe ever-so-slightly later due to waiting for the right time to broach the subject and people to be available for their views.

It certainly feels like I am running to stay stood still at the moment, so I have decided to fill up the iPhone with an esoteric mix of music and have a wander around the local park to try and get some perspective and clear the head.

“Shuffle” mode on the iPhone is an interesting beast at the best of times, flicking from Fleetwood Mac to Metallica and then onto early Genesis – try setting your mood to THAT mix!

Another interesting read on the BBC News website; according to Professor Adrian North, of Heriot Watt University, my musical tastes are linked to my personality.

Apparently the type of music that you listen to shows what type of personality you have, for example;

• Listening to Classical music means you have high self-esteem, creative, introvert and at ease.
• Listening to Heavy Metal  means you have low self-esteem, creative, not hard-working, not outgoing, gentle, at ease.
• Listening to Chart Pop means you have high self-esteem, not creative, hardworking, outgoing, gentle, not at ease.
• Etc…

Which is a bit of a buggar for me, and a friend I was chatting to about musical tastes last night, as we both have somewhat ‘eclectic’ tastes in music.  My tastes range from Classical (when mellowing out), to 80′s pop (ahh my yooof!) to Heavy Metal (when in a good or ‘fast’ mood). 

It looks like I am a very confused little individual, which is probably not such a surprise to people who know me!