My journal is FRIENDS ONLY because I'm paranoid. If you want to read my rambles then I'll be very flattered, just drop me a comment here and I'll probably return the favor! I like commenting on peoples' journals, when I get a chance.

On account of a) iPhone, and b) not having enough to do at work, I've become addicted to Twitter. I need more contacts there!

ADD ME, Y'ALL!

RIP Michael Jackson.

I'm actually really shocked and saddened by the news, even though I was never a fan of his. But he was an icon and he inspired so many people, and he'll be sorely missed. Very sad :(

This is a sad day.

I hate the Bible. In fact, I can't believe we live in a day and age where we take that shit seriously. The Bible? Come on. Believing that thing makes you look like an idiot. The Christians are the ones who are wrong here. Why should we have to tolerate their hatred?

I hate prop 8!

But I still think it's very encouraging that prop 8 originally passed by such a small margin. Imagine how it would've been even just ten years ago. We've come a long way. We will get there eventually. It's all a matter of when. We might have to wait for the radical Christians to die first, but we will get there. We have to educate people. The Bible shouldn't be an authority on how anyone lives, and it shouldn't be mixed up in the state. I don't believe in the Bible. Don't make me live by its silly little rules.

Talking of that, please sign THIS.

Really, only the first two minutes.

Well I might last a day, unless a t-rex got me. I reckon I look like quite a good snack, so it probably would go after me. But I know that if I just stood still, it wouldn't see me!

Ah! This is more like it, now!

1. The Dark Tower series by Stephen King - this counts as 1 book, ok? Hmmph. Anyway, it's such a great series. Eddie Dean is in it. And, in typical Stephen King fashion, most of the books are very long so they'll keep you occupied for ages on that island.
2. Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen - ok, it's kind of a typical choice. And I'd like to say that I'm not a huge fan of romance novels/movies at all, but this is probably the most perfect book I've ever read.
3. River God by Wilbur Smith - I only read it just about a month ago and already miss Taita. Plus it's another long one.
4. Watership Down by Richard Adams - I pick this because I've already put it to the test - I've read it loads of times and I'm still not bored with it!
5. Twilight by Stephenie Meyer - in fact, give me about 1000 copies of this. It might get cold at night, I need something to burn on a fire.

And these are only books I've read. Ideally I would like to bring an entire library with me. Books are really where it's at with me. I figure also that in the blistering heat of the tropics you don't want anything particularly long winded, so I selected fun reads. Apart from Twilight, but I explained that.

1. Queer as Folk boxset (a boxset does count as one!) Umm...season 1 or season 3? 1 or 3? Probably 3.
2. The Godfather
3. Zoolander!
4. Taxi Driver
5. Disney's Hunchback of Notre Dame! I watched this movie every night for a while when I was a kid. I could still watch it over and over without getting bored.

The truth is, I'd get bored with all of them eventually. Can't usually watch a film more than two or three times at the most, but I picked some I'd probably be able to stand for a while!

 Taken from cutecrazyice

The BBC allegedly believes most people will have only read 6 of the 100 books here.

How do your reading habits stack up? [bold those books you've read in their entirety, italicize the ones you started but didn't finish]

(I'm also going to add in some thoughts of my own and underline the ones that are on my to-read list)

1 Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen
2 The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien
3 Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte - I'm currently reading it but as I'm nearly finished I think it's ok to say I've read it.
4 Harry Potter series - JK Rowling
5 To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee
6 The Bible
7 Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte
8 Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell
9 His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman - I read Northern Lights and I think I read the second one, but I didn't find them that marvelous.
10 Great Expectations - Charles Dickens - This has been on my 'currently reading' shelf for well over a year...I do plan on finishing it someday!
11 Little Women - Louisa M Alcott - I was too young when I tried to read it. I'll read it again someday.
12 Tess of the D’Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy
13 Catch 22 - Joseph Heller - Brilliant!
14 Complete Works of Shakespeare
15 Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier
16 The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien
17 Birdsong - Sebastian Faulk
18 Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger
19 The Time Traveller’s Wife - Audrey Niffenegger
20 Middlemarch - George Eliot
21 Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell
22 The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald
23 Bleak House - Charles Dickens
24 War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy
25 The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams
26 Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh
27 Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
28 Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck - Wonderful book. I think everyone should read it.
29 Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll
30 The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame
31 Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy
32 David Copperfield - Charles Dickens
33 Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis
34 Emma - Jane Austen
35 Persuasion - Jane Austen
36 The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe - CS Lewis
37 The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini
38 Captain Corelli’s Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres
39 Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden
40 Winnie the Pooh - AA Milne
41 Animal Farm - George Orwell
42 The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown
43 One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
44 A Prayer for Owen Meaney - John Irving
45 The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins
46 Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery
47 Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy
48 The Handmaid’s Tale - Margaret Atwood
49 Lord of the Flies - William Golding
50 Atonement - Ian McEwan
51 Life of Pi - Yann Martel
52 Dune - Frank Herbert
53 Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons
54 Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen
55 A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth
56 The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon
57 A Tale Of Two Cities - Charles Dickens
58 Brave New World - Aldous Huxley
59 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon
60 Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
61 Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck
62 Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov
63 The Secret History - Donna Tartt
64 The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold
65 Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas
66 On The Road - Jack Kerouac
67 Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy
68 Bridget Jones’s Diary - Helen Fielding
69 Midnight’s Children - Salman Rushdie
70 Moby Dick - Herman Melville
71 Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens
72 Dracula - Bram Stoker
73 The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett
74 Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson
75 Ulysses - James Joyce
76 The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath
77 Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome
78 Germinal - Emile Zola
79 Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray
80 Possession - AS Byatt
81 A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens
82 Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell
83 The Color Purple - Alice Walker
84 The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro
85 Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert
86 A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry
87 Charlotte’s Web - EB White
88 The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Albom
89 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
90 The Faraway Tree Collection - Enid Blyton
91 Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad
92 The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint-Exupery
93 The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks
94 Watership Down - Richard Adams - One of my favorites since I was a kid! I've read it loads of times.
95 A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole
96 A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute
97 The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas
98 Hamlet - William Shakespeare - I think this was the play that made me realize that Shakespeare was actually ok!
99 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl
100 Les Miserables - Victor Hugo - What it is is that I read maybe the first third of it but couldn't continue. I didn't find the translation terribly impressive, and Victor Hugo just goes on and on and on. I may try to read it in French sometime though.

29/100 - not too bad if you know how slow a reader I am! And a lot of these are on my to-read list...I am full of good intentions!

Milk.

I think 2008 was a pretty fulfilling year for me, movie-wise. I've never been the biggest movie buff but this past year I watched some good ones for the first time - The Godfather, Silence of the Lambs and Taxi Driver have probably been my favorites. But those came out years ago. Milk was a stunning little movie, it's gone right up there with some of my favorite movies ever, so for 2008 it's definitely that. I don't bother with the Oscars, but I do hope it wins whatever it's up for! What else even came out in 2008?

Besides, things win points with me simply for being about the gay community. Hence my love for Queer as Folk.

*Remembers she still has to read The Mayor of Castro Street*

Stolen from barito 

Go to Google and type in your name plus needs in quotation marks ("Emma needs") and list the first ten entries.

1. Emma needs serious help.
2. Emma needs a love song (album version!)
3. Emma needs a belt rather badly (so true).
4. Emma needs help.
5. Emma needs you!!!
6. Emma needs _____.
7. Emma needs your prayers.
8. Emma needs a new home.
9. Emma needs more prayers.
10. Emma needs you to be the man she needs.

Seriously, avoid this entry if you hate snark or if you're blinded by love for Edward Cullen.

LOL well lasamy drew my attention to Stephen King's comments about Stephenie Meyer (who spells her first name in a weird way), that being that 'she can't write worth a darn'. So I love Stephen King even more.

I've read Twilight. I would not presume to write this entry if I hadn't. Why did I read it? Well I wanted to see what the fuss was. I know Twilight is directed towards girls in their young teens and I know young teenage girls are generally quite silly and don't know a whole lot about much. I know this because I was one. So I can see why Twilight might appeal to them. They don't know any decent literature to compare it to. To them, some creepy violent stalker who wants to kill you and has 'topaz eyes' which are mentioned on every page is sexy. Somehow, liking someone's smell or the way they look means you're 'madly irrevocably irretrievably unimaginably adverbially ly ly ly' in love with them. And somehow this constitutes a good story?

Mr King said Meyer can't write worth a damn, which is true. Go to your local bookstore and chances are the first book you pick up will have better writing than you can find in Twilight. In fact, go to your local bookstore and put some thought into what you're going to read, instead of following the tweenies. You know, I'm well aware that people liking Twilight doesn't affect me at all, even if it does offend my book lover sensibilities. And even though I have to endure seeing pictures of Robert Pattinson and that bitchy looking girl's faces everywhere, I can deal. I think it's just me losing more hope for humanity. If people actually think Twilight is worth their time, what's going to end up happening to us all?

Maybe it's just me with my cold cold heart that finds something creepy about a guy that's over 100 years old (even if he doesn't look it) 'falling in love' with a 17 year old. Or stalking her, watching her sleep, and the myriad other downright creepy things he does. And because the braindead masses like ACTIONZ, they stick in some little dramatic bit the end of the book which not only makes you hate Bella more because she's just plain stupid, but is badly explained, badly executed, and ends up followed by about fifty pages of Bella lying in the hospital going gooey over Edward's golden eyes all over again. Oh yeah, and the fact that he sparkles in the sun is meant to be wonderful for some reason. Now wait, really think about that. It's actually just quite laughable, isn't it?

If you like Twilight, I don't grudge you that. But the mass popularity of these books is absolutely sickening to me. And above all else, I really don't understand the obsession. Yeah, I know my views are controversial these days, but I think my dislike is valid. I'm not really here for a debate, because my mind's set up. Can anyone explain, without becoming all rabid Meyer-fan on me, what you saw in Twilight? What made you enjoy it?

Once you've been tagged, you are supposed to write a note with 25 random things, facts, habits, or goals about you. At the end, choose 20 people to be tagged. You have to tag the person who tagged you. If I tagged you, it's because I want to know more about you. Just do it if you want to!

1. I've been a beer lover since the tender age of 4. Yes, four. When it comes to alcohol, you'll rarely see me with anything else. The more flavor the better! I have no time for people who would prefer some pussy beer like Miller over a good strong Guinness!
2. I used to have 13 piercings, including five on my face. I'm now down to nine, most on my ears, and the majority were not gunned.
3. I always try to sit right at the back on the bus due to the fact that I get very nervous when someone sits directly behind me. I also dislike people sitting behind me in lectures or walking right behind me on the street.
4. I have the strongest sense of deja vu right now, and often suffer from a feeling of derealization, where it seems that nothing around me actually exists. I don't expect it's serious, but it is very frightening.
5. I've had several failed attempts to learn the following instruments - piano/keyboard, penny whistle, drums and guitar.
6. Despite never having lived there, and having only visited once, I consider San Francisco to be more of a home to me than the village in which I've lived my entire life.
7. I procrastinate. Lots and lots. In fact, I'm procrastinating by writing this. I should be sleeping.
8. I've always found it very difficult to make and keep friends. That said, I've never had many enemies either.
9. I spent virtually my entire fifth (and final) year of high school sleeping, but still came out with good enough grades to get me into university easily.
10. I was always that loser of a kid whose parents were the last to pick them up after just about everything.
11. I joined the Air Cadets when I was 13. It was far too matiliaristic for my tastes, and when I couldn't think up a good enough excuse to get out of a drill competition, I quit. I never did hand back the uniform.
12. Despite a general disdain for overpriced designer clothing, I have been known to read Vogue. However, I can no longer afford to buy it.
13. I was once kicked out of a bar for having the audacity to rest my head on a table in a vain attempt at sleeping. That said, I was very drunk and had to rush off to the bathroom to vomit.
14. I can't handle much alcohol before I start vomiting my guts up.
15. I briefly flirted with smoking in 2006, but never kept it up. I found the taste repulsive. That said, I'm not averse to smoking marijuana.
16. I went to Australia alone at the age of 18 and after a futile attempt at finding work had to come back home. However, I don't regret it - I met many interesting people and learned a lot in my relatively brief time there.
17. I have a strong fascination with the LGBT community and often identify more as a gay/bisexual man than anything else, and I won't take anyone who insists I should 'just be a straight woman' seriously, as they clearly don't understand a thing. When I was young, I wanted to be a boy. I can't stand guys who bring every conversation back to the fact that they're not gay.
18. I am an athiest who finds the idea of the Big Bang and evolution endlessly more fascinating and wonderful than the notion of a god. That said, 'by Seth's hairy right testicle' and other Kratas-like expletives are welcome in my vocabulary.
19. I rarely swear, because I think it makes me sound retarded. However swearing does not offend me, so curse away!
20. If you ever hear me singing, I'm probably drunk.
21. I once wanted to be an author and have always been a bookworm. Bookstores and libraries make me very happy, and you'll usually find me in the fiction section.
22. I've only ever broken one bone in my body - my arm - after slipping on some ice.
23. I don't like children and never want any of my own. I don't go gooey over other people's babies and, even though I know I shouldn't, tend to feel sorry for pregnant women.
24. My favorite animal is a giraffe, and I am slowly but surely gathering a collection of giraffe related memorablia!
25. The first half of 2004 was without a doubt one of the best periods in my life.

This is a big problem because we also go see a movie on Christmas Eve and this time there is nothing coming out that appeals. I mean absolutely nothing. There's that Keanu Reeves movie, but first of all I cannot stand Keanu Reeves, and secondly none of us are fans of sci-fi.

Then there's that Adam Sandler movie...well he sucks too. The Brendan Fraser movie looks lame, and Australia is meant to be very boring and it features Nicole Kidman, so no thanks. Other than that I'm not sure what else is out. Looks like this will be like every other month, in that I won't go to the theater.

But I'd go to see any of them if someone paid me, as I'm broke.

You guys should download these songs:

TKO

They're from Dublin and the singer and one of the guitarists are something like second cousins of mine, whom I barely know at all, but it was their sister we stayed with in London in the summer and she gave us a couple of their CDs, which I've had lying around and didn't even listen to until last night.

It's actually pretty good! I'm useless at describing music - it's just general rock, nothing too out of the ordinary but I had a lot of fun listening, so check 'em out!

(This comes up as some unknown hair metal band on last.fm - it's not the same band.)

I said I wouldn't, but I've gone and listened to Chinese Democracy. Are you really surprised? But I didn't download - figuring that it's on their Myspace, I thought that was ok. They're happy with us hearing it now. And the temptation was too much to resist!

Overall thoughts...I've heard most of this album already, and you all know that I really like it. I like that it's not identical to old Guns, because we have Appetite for that. Some songs do sound oversaturated and overproduced, like there's just too much going on. Notably in the songs that have already leaked quite a few times, and each time you hear a new version there's some new layer of backing vocals and guitar work shoved in to make it sound a bit different. But I still think the album's fabulous. Anyway:

Chinese Democracy - I like that it's a balls to the wall rock song, without being Welcome to the Jungle part 2. It makes you want to start singing along 'It don't really matter!' It's not the strongest track on the album, though. And I still wonder how much of the public is really going to 'get' this song, and most of the other songs on the album. Seems like everyone's expecting the exact same band as the early '90s.

Shackler's Revenge - I didn't like this at first, but I really like the final version. But if you're only a fan of the old Guns I really don't know if you're going to appreciate this.

Better - I've never much liked Better's intro, but the first couple of verses are great. Then it gets loaded down with a lot of guitar effects which bother my ears a bit. Though I like tracks where Axl sounds angry, as he does on this one. He does that well, and this song appears to be the one that the lay people like best too.

Street Of Dreams - This will always be The Blues to me! It's the album's first ballady song (I'm reluctant to call it an all-out ballad), but Axl's no Bon Jovi, so don't worry - Axe does good ballads! Actually Axl's strength lies in his ballady songs. But I do like that they've shoved some more guitar in this song so it's no longer a tinkly piano ballad. The guitar from the '01/'02 versions was perhaps better, but what they've got now is enough to give the song the oomph it needs. Perhaps if Axl sang it in a deeper voice it could sound better though - too much helium - but the last minute or so is incredible, as he's singing his heart out.

If The World - Flows a good deal better than in the leaks from June. It's not my favorite though. Axl's voice hurts my ears in parts, but it's something different! Are people going to be weirded out by hearing a song like this on a GN'R album though?

There Was A Time - TWAT! My old favorite from 2006! I really wish they hadn't kept that choir in the beginning, but as the first verse kicks in and the guitar line follows the melody, it sounds good. I'm not so keen on 'It was a long time for you...' part - too much guitar making a noise in the background there. Now the reason why it was my favorite back then - the guitar solo. Buckethead! Buckethead's actually good, even if he does look rather ridiculous! The solo goes where you want it to go, it's perfectly satisfying. Really.

Catcher In The Rye - First things first; they should have kept Brian May on this song. The song sounded better with him, and it would have to have remained more stripped down to showcase his parts. This is one of the main culprits for having way too many guitars in it. Axl's vocals are almost drowned at points because of all the millions of guitars. But after thinking it wasn't going to be on the album, I'm glad that it's here. It is a good song. Near the end we start getting that climbing piano/synthy effect in the background which I quite enjoy, although it sounds like it's taken right out of Ozzy's See You On The Other Side.

Scraped -  Oooh ouch, nooo, this is horrible... At least that's what I thought during the intro. Seriously, what are they doing there? Then the song proper started and we're treated to Oh My God Part II. It's ok, but I wouldn't rave about it. It has some great bits, others not so great. I think it'll be a grower though.

Sorry - Another song I hadn't heard before! And freakin' amazing at that. I love it. It's true that there is a line near the start where Axl sounds like a mix between Derek Zoolander and Count Dracula, but then that chorus kicks in with the ominous sounding guitar, and Axl's voice is so different on this one, and he's pissed off again in this one, and I love this one so much! I am gonna say it's possibly the best track on the record. Say what you want about the actual lyrical content - I'm not good enough at this stuff to analyze their meaning - but I love the way the lyrics are put together.

Riad N' The Bedouins - I can't find anything negative to say about Riad, but I also can't find anything positive to say. So I suppose that's a negative thing. It's definitely not bad, but it's never really caught my interest.

IRS - The first version of this song leaked almost ten years ago. Ten! Well...if the album had a secret weapon, it wouldn't be this. But I've always liked it anyway. Although I liked the 2006 leaked version best with that big booming guitar riff more obvious underneath the whole thing. Once again it's become oversaturated with too many guitars.

Madagascar - It's nice to hear Axl veering away from his helium voice for a bit. I still think they could've trimmed down the vocal clips in the middle though. It's not my favorite, but I don't usually skip it when I listen to the leaks.

This I Love - First time I heard it I really didn't like it, but it grows on me more and more each time I listen, which is always a definite sign that I'll come to love a song. I just like the general sadness and the minor key (I think it's a minor key - been ages since I studied music), Axl's deep voice at the beginning, the contrasts between the different parts of the songs, and the piano and strings providing a good contrast to the heavy guitar work on other parts of the album.

Prostitute - Very strong track. I like to think this is the one he's singing to Slash! This song is epic and it's the perfect way to close the album. 'Nuff said.

Is this album worth all the millions of dollars and 15 years of waiting? No. Can you think of an album that is? That's impossible. So take it for what it is. Let's face it, if this album hadn't taken so long to come out then it would be getting rave reviews. The time it took to make is the issue people have, but I'm not looking at it that way. Best songs... Sorry, This I Love and Prostitute!

But why has there been no promotion? Ok, I live in the UK, where people have awful music taste and probably wouldn't care about Guns N' Roses at all, but I've not seen a single thing about the album anywhere. And Axl hasn't done any promotion, no interviews, no radio appearances... What's up with that? Either way, I can't wait to go into HMV on Monday and pick up my copy!

OMG

Is it finally happening?! I won't actually believe it until I hold the thing in my hands, but this is lookin' good!

I can never resist one of these. I think I stole it from lasamy .

* Grab the nearest book.
* Open the book to page 56.
* Find the fifth sentence.
* Post the text of the next sentence in your journal along with these instructions.
* Don't dig for your favorite book, the cool book, or the intellectual one: pick the CLOSEST.

There are several books in about equal proximity to me so I decided to do the two I'm concentrating on right now. What I gather is that we're essentially typing the sixth sentence on that page.

'We all agree, for instance, that society has a right to constrain individual freedom when it threatens to do harm to others.'

From The Audacity of Hope by Barack Obama

'Alternatively, the best gamble might be to drink little and often, snatching quick gulps of water while running past the water-hole.'

From The Selfish Gene by Richard Dawkins

Nabbed from lasamy