I'll never tire of making these...

Today's Random Album is the moody electronica duo Air City. Their second album, What is beyond it, seeks to explore the new facets of life opened to the band after the success of their debut work last year, titled Can't Breath without the Beat. Much of their new works deal with the complexities of experiencing air transport and living in upmarket hotels.

While fans may miss Air City's earthy, common lyrics like: "My mom thinks I'm a loser, yeah / I spend all day on the computer, yeah / I wanna get a job but / That might put me in an artistic rut," their new album has an atmosphere of refreshing maturity. Gone are the days of trite youth, such as the club anthem of 2009, "I wanna love you all niiiiight, just right, alright! / until then don't fright / I'll scrub my acne with all my might" and enter the more sophisticated lines of their newest single, "In a postmodern context, baby, you're so sexy, I wanna transgress your binary, while you deconstruct my hierarchy... all niiiiight!"


Random Album Covers make me happy. To make one, follow these steps:

1 - Go to a random wikipedia article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random
The first random wikipedia article you get is the name of your band.

2 - Go to "Random quotations"
or click http://www.quotationspage.com/random.php3
The last four or five words of the very last quote of the page is the title of your first album.

3 - Go to Flickr's “explore the last seven days": http://www.flickr.com/explore/interesting/7days
Third picture, no matter what it is, will be your album cover.

4 - Use Photoshop, MS Paint, or similar to put it all together.

For the record, my band name was Air City (TV series) a Korean show that only ran for a year, about a woman who manages an airport (which is pretty much the same as managing a McDonald's) and her personal drama which culminates in everyone in her vicinity falling in love with her, including some FBI agent who also, erm, works at the airport. I'd watch that. The beautiful photo is linked here, I love me some windmills. The quote I used is by Francis Thompson, which goes "In attempts to improve your character, know what is in your power and what is beyond it," a sentiment which I think Air City the band would appreciate, baby, all niiiiight.

Woo!

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The Curse of Old Man Willy

This was my first assignment for Travel Writing, a fun yet disturbing true story about hiking in Drakensberg...

I've never been on a proper hike – although I've heard it's just walking, it seems a lot harder. But hey, I'm in Drakensberg, there's this Blue Grotto thing -- I could hike. I don't have any hiking clothes, so I wear the hikiest stuff I brought on the trip. My off-black Guess shirt and Betty Boop hairclip probably don't have counterparts selling at Cape Union Mart, but I'm feeling pretty hardcore. We set off on the trail and are quickly immersed in a seemingly endless lush forest. As the mud squishes beneath my virginal trainers, I start to think I'm a natural at this hiking thing – that is, before I lose my balance on huge boulders crossing a tiny stream, and my left leg plunges knee-deep into icey mountain water. Our journey is lengthened by overwhelming obstacles – well, actually just by our B.A. tendency to photograph every funny-looking tree and magical-looking spiderweb we come across. Two hours later, we reach what seems to be the end of the trail: a dusty cliffside. We look at each other quizzically and realise that none of us knows what a 'Blue Grotto' actually is. Edging further, the cliffside opens up to a gorgeous waterfall which creates a placid pool. As my friends dip into the freezing water of the pool, an old man emerges from the forest and jumps in – buck naked. Gathering our stuff and averting our eyes, we hike back to civilization in under twenty minutes. We do not take any pictures of funny trees along the way.


While we were discussing the story in class, Emily and I mentioned that we'd dubbed the random naked guy Old Man Willy. Nobody knows if Old Man Willy lives in the forest, if he was just out of sight behind us the whole time, or if he's an apparition that haunts the pool waiting in the hollow darkness of eternity for the opportunity to make girls uncomfortable. Anyway, I don't think hiking is for me.

You are a banana moon subverting the sun.

If you're feeling a bit down, but aren't moved by standard compliments like "your jeans are nice" or "you smell nice" or "you look so nice when you're sleeping that I can't help compulsively breaking into your house and watching you for hours every night," then you're ready for The Surrealist Compliment Generator!

Seriously, this is one of the internet's most arbitrary and wonderful inventions...

"Your face does bend even the most anorexic mirror into a sensuous playground of muscular spasms!"

"Your hair is reminiscent of a self-digesting yak in heat."

"Dustmites the world over love you for your feet."

"The goats you buy shed a perfume that makes Marxism so terribly clear to me!"

So much awesomeness! I want to walk up to random people and say these things in my most sincere Petrarchan tone. These lines would also make legendary chapter titles for my Nanowrimo attempt this year. Yes.

T-shirt ideas

I had completely forgotten I'd made these until I was desperately scouring my documents for something decent to put into my writing portfolio.

As for my portfolio, I didn't find anything but about 20 pages of an awesome Sylar x Mohinder fanfiction (that's Heroes, y'all) but I don't think fanfics really count as 'creative writing' so much as 'perverted plagiarism' ... but maybe if I change Sylar's name to Rolex and Mohinder's name to Raj, and add a little prologue: "So Rolex is an evil superdude who steals other superpeople's powers by cutting their heads open; and Raj is an adorable scientist guy who's technically from India but sounds more like he's from California and trying to sound like he's from London. Cool, now on with the fanfi -- Uh, completely original work of prose!"

Yes, this sounds like a plan.

It was a dark and stormy writing class...

I had my first Creative Writing seminar yesterday, and the upside is that it wasn't as soul-shatteringly terrifying as I was afraid it would be. The downside is that apparently, I'm not the only person in the class who can string a coherent sentence together (damn it!) so I'll have to work a bit harder if I'm looking for standing ovations.

We did a couple of in-class exercises including one where we had to write really horribly (to get over the fear of writing badly, which is a huge block for amateur writers.) This is what I came up with:

It was a dark and stormy night when Clarissa, a stunningly beautiful young lady, fell off her loyal steed while riding to the next village to get more leeches for her ailing mother. As Clarissa toppled off her shining black steed, her ruby red hair cascaded from her headscarf and gleamed in the lightning-light. Her emerald green ballgown shimmered with mud as she splashed to the ground. Her usually loyal steed was spooked by the storm and disappeared into the tempest, leaving Clarissa in a dark, despairing ditch of despair. Her ankle twisted, Clarissa's gorgeous honey-coloured eyes widened in pain and dismay. It was then that, in the dark distance, she saw a tall, striking figure coming towards her ominously. As he approached, Clarissa's soft strawberry-pink lips parted in awe. It was an Adonis-like, totally hot guy with broad shoulders, a strong angular face, and a black cowboy hat...


Every time I read this it gets worse. I'm quite happy with it! The funny thing is that it really does reflect the problems I have when I write: I tend to repeat myself and use too many flowery, opulent, magnificently diverse adjectives.

I'm looking forward to carrying on with the course. I hope the "workshopping" part won't be too heartbreaking. At least, this way, I have to write and I can't flake out on it. So there won't be any "I'd love to write a book, but unfortunately I don't have a pen" business. Yeah, that's from Little Britain. The catchphrases are slowly working their way into my subconscious. It's a right kerfuffle.

I am easily amused.

Two songs that have been on a constant loop in my brain:

Gay Boyfriend! I want one:


Sorry the video's low res, but hey, one hit wonder + home made vid = not a lot of people on youtube caring.

And Lily Allen's Alfie, a classic:

This is just the song with a still - the official music vid has the "clean" lyrics, and this song without the words 'weed' and 'twat' loses all its meaning. Yes, I am easily amused.