Day: 27 September 2005

Bother

I’ve been feeling particularly low today. Little self-belief, or self-confidence. Worrying about the future. Struggling.

I was listening to my MP3 collection (one of the few things that survived The Crash(TM)) on random when Stone Sour’s song Bother came on. I found it somewhat (somehow?) encouraging. In there was something of the tension that I was feeling: a battle between wanting just to give up and finding that extra energy to fight on.

Bother
by Stone Sour

Wish I was too dead to cry
My self-affliction fades
Stones to throw at my creator
Masochists to which I cater
You don’t need to bother;
I don’t need to be
I’ll keep slipping farther
But once I hold on,
I won’t let go ’til it bleeds

Wish I was too dead to care
If indeed I cared at all
Never had a voice to protest
So you fed me shit to digest
I wish I had a reason;
my flaws are open season
For this, I gave up trying
One good turn deserves my dying

You don’t need to bother;
I don’t need to be
I’ll keep slipping farther
But once I hold on,
I won’t let go ’til it bleeds

Wish I’d died instead of lived
A zombie hides my face
Shell forgotten
with its memories
Diaries left
with cryptic entries

And you don’t need to bother;
I don’t need to be
I’ll keep slipping farther
But once I hold on,
I won’t let go ’til it bleeds

You don’t need to bother;
I don’t need to be
I’ll keep slipping farther
But once I hold on:
I’ll never live down my deceit

I still feel low. Perhaps an early night will help. And then tomorrow I can take my broken phone to the O2 shop and see if I can get another Nokia 6100. (Jane’s old one, I’ve just discovered, has a damaged earpiece!)

A Blogger’s Favourite Blogs blog-meme (Edinburgh edition)

The following questions were posted on Steve Lawson’s blog, who concluded his post with “Right, there you go – now go answer them on your own blogs!”. So, being an obedient sort of chap …

1. If you were stuck on a desert island with an internet connection to only one blog, whose would it be?
I would have said Steve Lawson’s blog but you can’t leave comments on it, and I would definitely want a blog that I could leave messages like, “Help! I’m stuck on a desert island. It’s the one with sand, palm trees and, oddly, a T1 internet connection. Please send International Rescue … or Melissa auf der Maur (see later!).” So … it would have to be … well, I was then going to say James Frost’s blog, but he posts so infrequently that I’d get bored of reading the same posts quite quickly. So I’m going to say Thought Mechanics, which I’ve started to read recently … plus, I love the name.

2. Which is the blog that makes you laugh the most?
James Frost’s The Bears Are Coming website/blog. Take for example, “I haven’t blogged in approximately… 2 and a half thousand billion years, so I thought I should try and post something.” That had me crying with laughter.

3. Which blog is most likely to make you cry?
Sleepless in Sudan. Uncensored, direct from a dazed & confused aid worker in Darfur, Sudan. I can’t remember how I stumbled upon this website. A link to a link to a link probably. It’s heartbreaking what is going on in that country.

4. Which blog is most likely to inspire you to part with cash for a CD/DVD?
Without a doubt: Amazon UK. I know that it’s technically not a blog, but it might as well be. They pack their site with loads of great recommendations, that quite often I’m just too tempted to say no.

5. Which blog is most likely to cause you to change your mind about an issue?
Probably Noam Chomsky’s blog, Turning the Tide. I’ve long admired his writings about linguistics and politics. (Although he’s not blogged for ages … he’s probably under house arrest by the US Government and banned from any access to the internet!)

6. Which blog do you read first in the morning?
It’s usually Steve Lawson’s blog, if I’m honest. If for no other reason than he’s such a prolific blogger, but he also has Interesting Things To Say(TM).

7. Of the blogs you read by people you don’t know, who would you most like to meet?
That would be either Noam Chomsky for the reasons stated above, or Melissa auf der Maur because I find her music and view on life inspiring … oh! and she’s gorgeous!

Another one bites the dust

It’s really not my fortnight. First my PC goes down taking my last six months’ work with it. Then the hi-fi on my desk dies. And this evening my belovéd Nokia 6100 mobile phone was ringing, while I was on a call on the land line, I picked up the phone and it powered off, never to power on again.

I’ve transferred my SIM card to Jane’s old Nokia 6100, but I didn’t realise that my contacts were all stored in my phone’s memory and not on the SIM. More data loss! And I’ve lost my wallpapers, my ringtones, and my Java games (Space Invaders and Mah Jong).

I’ve had a shocking day today. I’ve felt so low, so lowsy, so lacking in self-confidence or self-belief … and all the bits of technology that I put my trust in have packed in. *Insert your own expletive of choice here*!

Blog down

Odd, both my email and my blog went down this afternoon. They’re both back for now, albeit very slow.

Server problems I fear at Pipex, although their system status page is next to useless. It appears to only advertise the planned outages, rather than what’s actually happening. Which isn’t any use.

I had a much better service when HostEurope owned WebFusion. It all started going downhill when Pipex bought them out. I would move if it wasn’t such a hassle, and I do find the MyServerWorld admin backend more useful than many I’ve experienced.

I’d host my own, if I could be bothered. It may come to that once Telewest upgrade our broadband connection to 10Mbps. According to that website we should be upgraded by the end of October. How exciting.