darkship

Intolerable inbreeding of ideas indicating increased inclination towards insularity; advanced apathy, atrophying associations, amassed abandonment, alluded to through alliterative atrocities. Hopelessness leads to hibernation, hurried efforts at hipster posturing now hideous and turn instead into a horrendous howling across the desolate darklands of LiveJournal, once thriving, now a ghost town.

Yet do I hear from the destitute dwellings a sudden demand on Darkship, the desperate decadence of defiance? Across the malodorous mausoleum that LiveJournal has become, across the memorial ground, a museum to my masturbatory musings, comes a request for a resurrection, for a renewal of half-remembered rituals performed among the relics. "Do it for me one more time", comes the cry, "please just once, and never again will I trouble you with this demand. There's one thing I have not seen for many years. At one point it was a ray of sunshine in my worthless life and when it stopped happening, so too did any prospect of joy. The sky became overcast and the rain seems never-ending now."

I kneel to the ground, touched by the rapt reminiscing. "What is it I can do? What impossible labour would you have me undertake?"

"I just want one more DARKSHIP WEEKEND UPDATE."

Then it shall be so.

( Friday: Mastermind fail, 10 minutes of snow, Yuyi Dragon FTW, good company, good times )

( Saturday: My Hatred Of Town, Rosie Malones disappoints, Rainbows is madness as ever )

( Sunday )

This week: going to the gym I think; Royal Rumble 2010 at the Batcave, which should bring the awesomeness not only because it's been too long but because the Rumble always delivers (and Undertaker-Mysterio will be an interesting match for sure); Rammstein at Birmingham NEC, which I haven't really thought about but will TOTALLY BE AWESOME; and unquestionably a load of other exciting things before my housemate's birthday at the end of the week (for which I have so far bought her nothing). What the hell, man.

It's about time I got this one posted. Original titles as per IMDB, translated into our Anglophile names for them in italics afterwards. As usual, this featured massive dithering and, at the last minute, a scream of "HOW THE HELL DID I FORGET THAT?!". Come on in, why don't you?

( 30-21 )

( 20-11 )

( The top 10 )

Right, I think that's it for this decade. See you again in 2020, when I'm no longer cool or hip, nor labour under any pretence at being so.

There is some more review of the decade to come along at some point, but first of all, I have a lot of stuff to clear out of my house before my new housemate(s) move in, and who better to give it away to than you super-swinging sexy peoples?

All the items listed below are currently located in Earlsdon, Coventry and are FREE FREE FREE. Ideally, collection only- although with the lighter stuff (i.e. the non-furniture) I can drop it round yours if you're in Coventry; if you're outside Coventry I can probably post if you send an SAE.

TAKEN STUFF IS THE STUFF CROSSED OUT GUYS

( Furniture )

The following I can deliver if required:

( Kyly's stuff: she's told me I can get rid of it, honest! )

( CDs and books )

For those who missed the first half of the technomage's round-up of the first decade of the 21st century, it can be caught here. 2005 onwards, as follows.

( 2005 )

( 2006 )

( 2007 )

( 2008 )

( 2009 )

While saving the planet from the Eater Of Souls gets me no thanks, medals or accolades it does exempt me from liability during the many torturous insurance claims made against the BAMF and does mean that I get to renew my acquaintance with Adamantia, with whom I intend to see out the decade, providing that I am able to defeat the cybernetic reindeer who are currently bothering me. And with this I leave you, hoping that the new decade brings you more of my posting access and a moderately bearable time between updates.

(with a foreword by Ian Leslie-Miller)

Do not read this online or on any electronic media linked; linked via wifi code-protected access is safe, as long as the password is long, unhackable. A decade, the Naughties; noughties and ones carrying information from camera, qwerty touched screen updates to Facebook; a Flickr of high speed information, pulsed to the world ; a world connected as never before.
Download now, wizard and once past the marauding machines you can move your avatar to a lake, a lake on the edge of a sim and there, behind a shroud of program driven lace, lies a diary bound in an access code. technomage visible beyond the Matrix wrote the diary, so read- please feel free to read the diary of technomage, to understand it at your leisure, for pleasure- the web is wide....


One of the conditions of this Darkship idiot posting my memoirs under the pretext of fiction, deploying the excuse that this would somehow “protect” the truth from escaping, is that I can post as and when the mood takes me. So when I took time out from defeating a collection of demon-possessed reindeer to read that he was doing a bunch of reviews of the decade, I realised to my disgust that it would be only a matter of time before he would attempt to post some sort of review of the decade in autohagiographical form.

Well, zzzz to that, and a large part of his decade is already entrenched in these pages while my activities over the last decade remain criminally undocumented and I'm sure you'd rather read the brilliant remembrances of an accomplished technomage than the musings of whatever it is Darkship does. Even if you don't, it's tough, because I intend to recount it anyway.

( 2000 )

( 2001 )

( 2002 )

( 2003 )

( 2004 )

More information concerning my more recent activities will follow tomorrow, I assume you will be suitably glued to your seat.

This was actually harder than the Best Albums of The Decade- not only because choosing one song from each artist was near-impossible, not only because then organising that list and editing it down to 50 songs was an absolute nightmare (I was making last-second additions and edits even while putting it up), but because I kept getting distracted by the videos for the Top 10 and listening to the full song, which means you'll be reading this about an hour after I started posting it. Still, the reason I kept getting distracted was because the songs are amazing, so y'know, deal.

As always, personal favouritism, nostalgia and sentimentality bias the list entirely.

For those viewing on Facebook, I'm not sure if YouTube embedding works over there, so I've added the links for you to click through to. Alternatively, follow the original link at Darkship to view all the videos: http://darkship.livejournal.com/145128.html

Bear in mind that in each case I've posted the link for you to appreciate the music (rather than trying to define what exactly I see in the songs) and thus the video or its absence should be considered incidental to the music and I recommend listening to each with your eyes shut.

Let's go!

( 50-11 )

( The top 10 )

The top 5 are going up tonight, but here's the lower end of the top 10:

( 10-6 )

TONIGHT IS THE TOP FIVE GUYS

( 50-21 )

( 20-11 )

I'll try and get the final part up on Tuesday at some point, even if it KILLS ME TO DO SO.

50) Patrick Wolf 'The Magic Position'
49) Lift To Experience 'The Texas-Jerusalem Crossroads'
48) Smoosh 'She Like Electric'
47) Nada Surf 'Lucky'
46) My Chemical Romance 'The Black Parade'
45) CSS 'Cansei de Ser Sexy'
44) Super Furry Animals 'Phantom Power'
43) The Last Shadow Puppets 'The Age of the Understatement'
42) Murderdolls 'Beyond the Valley of the Murderdolls'
41) Mogwai 'Happy Songs For Happy People'
40) Patrick Wolf 'Wind in the Wires'
39) Bat For Lashes 'Fur and Gold'
38) Goldfrapp 'Felt Mountain'
37) The Dresden Dolls 'Yes, Virginia'
36) The White Stripes 'White Blood Cells'
35) Marilyn Manson 'Holy Wood'
34) Broken Records 'Until the Earth Begins To Part'
33) Metric 'Fantasies'
32) Sparklehorse 'It's A Wonderful Life'
31) The Strange Death of Liberal England 'Forward March!'

( 30-21 )

THE TOP TWENTY IS COMING UP! I'll try and have 20-11 up by Monday at latest and then 1-10 by the end of the year, but this weekend is looking prohibitively busy.

50) Patrick Wolf 'The Magic Position'
49) Lift To Experience 'The Texas-Jerusalem Crossroads'
48) Smoosh 'She Like Electric'
47) Nada Surf 'Lucky'
46) My Chemical Romance 'The Black Parade'
45) CSS 'Cansei de Ser Sexy'
44) Super Furry Animals 'Phantom Power'
43) The Last Shadow Puppets 'The Age of the Understatement'
42) Murderdolls 'Beyond the Valley of the Murderdolls'
41) Mogwai 'Happy Songs For Happy People'

( 40-31 )

21-30 coming up in the middle of the week!

So I'm not going to pretend that this is anything like the most important albums of the decade (in a decade where albums almost stopped mattering), the biggest selling, or the most influential. But in a decade that was hardly without incident, these are the fifty albums released this decade that I listened most to, fell in love with and became entirely over-dependent upon at various stages. I realise they're probably not the greatest albums of the decade and I'm being excessively sentimental with some of these choices, but hey, the idea of doing a Top 50 list is ridiculously self-indulgent anyway so I may as well go over the top!

There's no specific criteria here- I did consider limiting it to one album per artist, but it seemed ridiculous to allow a middling album like 'How I Long To Feel That Summer In My Heart' into the chart at the expense of, say, 'Black Holes and Revelations', and it's not as if you ever see this rule extended to the Greatest Album Ever lists where the Beatles monopolise the Top 10.

When the 'Best Songs of the 2000s' turns up, though, I did restrict it to one song per artist, in case the list became overran with cuts from Jack Off Jill albums.

But I've surely not given away the #1 already, have I? Let's find out with the first part of the list, chronicling 50-41 (yes, in reverse countdown order!).

( 50-41 )

Tune in later this week for 40-31!

This extended week off has been a frustrating one, what with the chicken coop no nearer completion due to Ian being poorly, house showrounds not going ahead due to my time and/or the potential room-mates getting wasted, bondage workshops (?!) at Warwick Uni booking a smaller room than needed and thus our admission was refused*, and so on and so forth. Nobody's fault, of course, just one of those things- and as I had more holiday time than I knew what to do with, I would have ended up squandering anyway.

Still, in this week off I have thus far:

( What I Did On My Holidays By Joe Wilson Aged 27 )

Anyway LJ I have some doubts over what to do looks-wise- that is, should I keep the beard or not? Here's the three options.

( No beard )

( Current option )

( Grow )

VIEWS YOU GUYZ?

This week, seeing Kris Mitchell tomorrow, hoorah; working 12pm-9pm for the rest of the week, thanks work; and more important than any of this bollocks, YOUTH FIGHT FOR JOBS on Saturday, which is the biggest national march the movement's done, I think, and of course you can read about it here and note without much surprise that Kyly's photographed on the main page again! (that's not me in the background of that picture, incidentally, in the unlikely event that you were wondering)

*- originally I griped about most of the audience clearly being there for lolz until I realised that this was mostly the same reason that I'd gone in the first place.

So recently I applied for a showround for a flat on Gumtree (don't search for it, the advert's not there anymore, for reasons that will soon become clear). Here's the image that was attached to this advert:



I emailed saying that I was interested in the property, could I have a look round, etc etc. I gave no indication that I was ready to sign a contract or that I had a certain timeframe in mind. Surely this place was perfect, I thought? Let's find out, with the response I got.

( I don't see anything wrong with this, do you? )

"Mr/Mrs" Roberts also sent three more pictures with the email. Here's one:



Surprisingly, I wasn't convinced, and sent the following reply:

( Does a message send a message? )

Not learning, s/he rose to it! Here's the next response from the sexually-ambiguous scamstrel. I'm posting their email address on this one, because who cares, it's not as if this is a legitimate businessperson anyway:

( What I mean is, of course this is a legitimate businessperson and I'm the naive timewaster here. )

Cheeky motherfucker. So of course, I rose to it:

( As follows... )

Strangely, he hasn't been back.

I know I never post here anymore, but I will return- coming up, I'm going to do the FIFTY ALBUMS OF THE DECADE. Get hot for it.

Between next week's jaunt to the Glastonbury festival, July 4 seeing my return to being just another worker after nine months as a manager (seconded position, which means they're well within their rights- but still, what a pisser) and our plans, still hazy, to go travelling in 2011, things have taken on a curiously pointless, time-killing air this week. I'm hoping that this is just a combination of pre-Glasto gloom and anticipation for same + an air of malaise relating to my current employment, but I can feel myself withdrawing into myself to the point where I'd be pretty much happy eating muffins and reading abandonedplaces and listening to the Airborne Toxic Event all day in lieu of going anywhere or doing anything that actually achieves anything, save for the occasional bit of housework.

Luckily Kyly has no such truck with this sort of nonsense and as such I've been out semi-often of late to the houses of friends and the allotment space that Emily H has granted us (an allotment of an allotment?) and to Socialist Party meetings (when I'm able to and am sufficiently inclined) and thus we see one of the infinite reasons why Kyly is important to me- and she doesn't even realise she's doing it.

And though minor, it does make me feel good when I've trimmed the Audrey II-esque hedge outside our front door or evicted squatting grass and weeds from a patch of land where seeds of tomato and herbs are eager to commence their tenancy: because it's practical and visible and it matters more than a colourful spreadsheet or whether or not I've seen any Misawa matches or anything.

Of course if my lingering gloom is more than just frustrated anticipation, then who knows what it is?

Anyway, that's enough navel-gazing bullshit, I have a job to go to.

Finally the tyranny of the indoor cat is over! After ten days of having to stay in modelling one of the spring's most fashionable surgical cones, ten days of yowling every ten seconds morning, noon and night, Cabaret was finally released from his stitches this morning, meaning no more cone and no more staying indoors. Of course, he sauntered out with the nonchalance of "well, I didn't really want to go out anyway, but if you insist".

While I obviously appreciate that many people have it a million times worse than me, Cabby having to stay indoors was proving distressing to my state of mind. As much as I like my job, it does involve me being pulled in four different directions in a noisy environment, so coming home and having to listen to repeated protestations to go out was annoying; having to listen to it throughout the night while I was trying to sleep worse still. This is to say nothing of the litter tray smell hanging over the house and the difficulty in airing the house sufficiently in a way which didn't involve the cat slithering out of the window or door; the mess that Cabby leaves around the house as a result of his cone accumulating and depositing junk (the jelly from his cat food, most notably); or Cabby insisting on our attention at the expense of whatever we were doing. Obviously it was no fun for Cabaret either, his cone proving a hindrance to all his favourite hiding places and preventing him from going outside brawling and sniffing things (and whatever else cats do outdoors)- and he couldn't understand why. Not even every variety of miaow in his vocabulary did anything. Still, he's free to come and go as he pleases now and hoorah for that.

This weekend, according to our calendar, there's some cello concert at the Holy Trinity Church. Tomorrow, providing that illness or injury doesn't negate it, we're going to be living our Saturday according to the dice, Luke Rheinhart style, only without the murder and rape. Who knows where this will lead us? Stay tuned to find out.

Some of last night- an adequate night in the company of work mates past and present in overcrowded dives too dreary to detail here- was spent with security guards and CV1 (Cov's secret police) desperate to talk to me, then immediately losing interest.

Seems that someone called Adrian had phoned the police, or someone had phoned concerning him, saying he was "going to do something stupid" and describing him with apparently only one detail: wearing a long coat. Cue what was presumably notification to every Godforesaken rathole in Coventry to keep their eyes out for trenchcoated mafioso. Damn you, Adrian!

Tonight it is Chelsea vs Coventry in the FA Cup which means that the entire city centre will be plagued by beer-addled louts (so what's the difference there). In view of this and with Kyly away in the deep South and a fair proportion of my mates up in the grim North I'm at a loss for how to pass tonight. Ah well, I'm sure I'll find something on which to waste my time, but if you're doing anything, holla.

You may or may not know that on January 2, I was beaten up. Nothing for you to worry about too much, all told: a couple of punches and shoves by a bunch of drunken scally kids. On February 16, walking home from work, I had eggs dropped on me by some other lowlives, who then had the temerity to shout "pussy!" as I failed to engage them in six-on-one combat. To be fair, the odds were slightly uneven: it would need to be at least nine-on-one for them to stand a chance, obv.

While I'm not taking either incident personally- more a case of wrong place, wrong time in the former and dimwitted kids dropping eggs for lolz in the same way that other kids drop bricks off bridges onto motorways in the latter, it has had the effect of souring me to Coventry, which had previously enjoyed eight years of being my favourite place. I can't walk past any large group of morons at the moment without noticing myself becoming tense, undoubtedly because of not just the vile events of the previous two months but also the high probability that some dweeb will make some cutting-edge remark of the "you're wearing a coat!" level. Obviously I shouldn't feel so anxious about all this, but hell, if I can't feel safe on the streets on which I walk, where's the fun in living here?

As Mark Steel would say, it's not just that, though, it's the city in general. You walk through the high street and there's Zavvi, Adams and a couple of others in close proximity, all closed, while Woolworths is just down the round. Coventry City Council's obsession with attracting high-street shops is clearly backfiring, although of course I realise that Zavvi and Woolworths are victims of the recession, albeit in an own-fault way (name anything you bought from Woolworths, for example). There aren't any indie shops worthy of your attention, being either half-arsed or a front for drug-dealing. You go out on a night aware that odds are that either (a) the night will be good, but the venue that it's held in will be a boiling hot shithole (the Phoenix, Taylor John's) or (b) the venue will be good, but nobody will turn up and the night will be shit. The local 'scene' seems to be- or at least, feels like- an endless repetition of the same old bands rotating in the same venues, while the big bands who I look forward to seeing in Coventry inexplicably cancel their gigs (CSS, Crystal Castles).

Most people I speak to seem to be in agreement that it's time to get out of Coventry, but two problems (and that's before we get to "can Cabaret handle moving?" and "what about your jobs?"): can we afford to move again, and where to go? Of the former, probably not for a while; of the latter, Manchester or Leeds seem to be the best bets. I realise that suggesting these particular cities after deriding Coventry for being so rough seems hypocritical, but at least something is happening in these cities, at least there's a choice of places to go to drink and dance, at least you can run two gigs on the same night and get more than 30 people through the door at both gigs, at least there's some half-decent shops. Oh, Coventry, you and I are so through.

In other news, my current musical obsessions are Of Montreal (still the novelty has not worn off) and Pixies. I can't believe I'm only now getting into the Pixies, I feel like I should hand back my Indie Cred card now. That said, I probably had that automatically revoked when I didn't get into The Strokes or The Libertines.

In other news, my team at work is doing well this month, bordering on, or getting, 100% on call quality. I'm proud of them although I'm not especially sure why: as patronising as it sounds, it must be that sorta parent/mentor kind of pride, since there's obvious improvement month-to-month. Another string to my bow this week, as I'm doing training at least one day for the brand new guys who are about to hit the floor. So, stuff's going alright there. At home, fun and games as the roof continues to leak, nothing having been done about it by our landlord yet. Bah.

Elsewhere, at least lots is happening to distract me: 'My Bloody Valentine' and 'The Wrestler' have both hit cinemas and, despite 'MBV' not being about the shoegaze band of the early 90s, it still has a man throwing an axe at the camera in 3D, so it sounds like good trashy fun. Tonight we're going to Circus of Horrors (in a show called 'Apocalypse at the Asylum') at the Belgrade, a theatre who seem to be booking exclusively for my benefit at the moment with Othello, Little Shop of Horrors and Thunderslam Wrestling all upcoming. Next week, a jaunt to Manchester to see Of Montreal with Anna and Ralph. The rest of 2009 will simply HAVE to be more boring to make up for all this expensive and exciting stuff happening so early on.