talamega

[talamega]

Long time no see. Got a subject to write about. At least.

Well, due to circumstances, bouncing from place to place, we ended up in Dubai. Nobody knows for how long. Anyway, the place is absolutely new for us, so there are some things to describe. Please don't take my nagging seriously, I do love the place and all the cons I'm gonna write about are just tiny things absolutely uncapable of spoiling anyone's mood. Just some observations of the things one way or another uncommon for me. And I'm not the grumpy old fart, this is the way I'm expressing myself (that is another curious topic about one distinctive feature of my compatriots).

One point at a time. First and foremost thing that bothers and befuddles me: a problem to get into the city block. I mean go from outside the block to inside the block. Or cross the occupied plots of land. All the plots (if they are occupied with hotel highrises or residential towers for instance) have a fence. Their entries usually situated from inside the block and they often don't have entries from outside the block. And there are no pathways between the plots, so if you're walking on a sidewalk outside and you need to get to the building inside the block you may walk long and long distances until you finally find a way through the private territory of a multyunit building (you gonna cross the private parking area), or there will be a pathway between the fences, or a driveway with pedestrian sideways. All this makes a city fabric nontransparent for pedestrians and I can't consider it a good quality for a city. I believe, I was a student when the city I lived in started to lose this kind of transparency. Almost all the adjoining areas and yards of residential buildings were gradually enclosed and locked letting in only its inhabitants. Previously you could walk through any residential plot shortcutting your way and finding sonething new along the rout and that was cool, but then all the sudden you could use only streets. For the pedestrian city dweller that wasn't an improvement. And I still feel this way now.

#dubai #streets #citylife #city planning #observations #nagging

[talamega]

Spotify has performed some summary on my listening behavior recently. A funny one. I rarely use the app, I haven't bought it yet and the free version is quite inconvenient, though Spotify made some conclusions about my preferences. Well, my fav band turned out to be Roxette. Ok, this is fair, I love them. But it's funny to see this duo accompanied by Allegaeon, Emperor, Fleshgod Apocalypse, Sadist, Immortal, Cattle Decapitation along with... Dire Straits. Love them too, Tunnel Of Love and Sultans Of Swing are absolute killers. There were some bands included I couldn't remember I'd ever listened to so I was having some doubts about the app's algorithms. Nonetheless, it was curious getting that kind of statistics.

#music #shuffle #radio #spotify #habits

[talamega]

When I'm passing by the churchyard (on my way home from the railway station) where my bud's been buried, I usually greet him and wave to him from the car window and the memories come. This is curious that these memories originated from the times of us being kids, schoolboys, not adults. I'm recalling hanging at his place (his parents' place certainly) listening to Michael Jackson, or Guns N' Roses, or Jamiroquai. A big radio combined with a turntable, huge like a chest on the legs, this thing was placed in his room and he used to store his tape recorder onto it. I'm recalling sitting in his kitchen watching Terminator Judgement Day in awful quality 'cause he tried to watch the cable using his indoor antenna with his fuckin' fossil b&w TV so we could barely see anything but it was cool anyway. Or watching Armour Of God which he was a huge fan of, laughing our asses off and recording our cries on a tape to play it afterward on a double speed and laugh as nuts again. Or warm summer evenings when we took our girlfriends to swim in the pond (we dated two blond friends back then) instead of making preparations for exams... Oh man, I fuckin' miss you so much!

#life #friends #void #memories #death

[talamega]

66/344

The Last Witch Hunter is a good movie. Despite all ratings and all that crap. One weak thing is Vin Diesel. I mean, he's not a bad actor, at least, for entertaining movies. And he's not that bad for a witch hunter if he could get rid of his being that smug and complacent. This character should be sad and tired. His eyes should express infinite sadness and a burden of eight hundred years' grief and this is a hard thing to portray. But do you know who would do an amazing witch hunter? Adam Nergal Darsky would fit perfectly. Oh, I'd love to see the movie with that man (c) in a leading role. Well, maybe someday he'll appear in some good movie. I hope so.

#moreфон365 #movies #the last witch hunter #vin diesel #adam darski #nergal

[talamega]

65/345

My best buddy's got a birthday today. When I called him in the morning to wish him a happy birthday and ask how's he doing he said - like crap. That was utterly sad to hear as he's the funniest dude in the world.

Lots of my friends being decent kind and successful men don't get along with their wives. They love their work, they love their kids but there is an abyss between them and their spouses. Maybe this is the new times when a family doesn't mean anything in the modern world? Or maybe it's always been like that and monogamy's just a lame invention of society? They all are just good men, why they can't meet peace in their marriages? Sad shit.

#moreфон365 #family #friends #marriages #bragging

[talamega]

64/345

Layin' down on the floor while kids are taking a bath. Can you remember Rat Race? Mr. Bean is my character. In terms of narcolepsy. I can crash down wherever I am. Last time I got a blackout sitting on my sofa among kids playing and jumping. Perhaps one of them pulled my beard trying to wake me up but didn't succeed. The next step should be sleepwalking, I reckon...

#moreфон365 #blackout #narcoleptic

[talamega]

63/345

Reading Cock-The-Roach poem to my kids makes me feel uncomfortable every time. I can't say why but two images emerge before my eyes while reading. One is the streets of Saint Petersburg during the revolutionary uprising. The other one is trains of the Kindertransport taking the kids away from their parents. Such a disturbing text for me. But kids love it and ask to read it quite frequently. And these visions come again.

#moreфон365 #books #kids #weird associations #disturbing

[talamega]

62/346

Amazing thing. I talked to one guitar strap manufacturer who suddenly offered to introduce me to a luthier I've always admired of. Oh, he makes outstanding instruments! After all, every professional world is small enough. That was unexpected and very pleasant, I must say. If anyone told me a year ago I would have an opportunity to talk to a professional like that I would have not believed it. On the other side, I'd have not believed it if someone told me I'd talk to one of my most favorite musicians of all time, but it happened! Mindblowing!..

#moreфон365 #music #guitars #luthiers

[talamega]

61/346

I think this is a good time to skip to my safe island again. This time I would bring Heinlein's Glory Road. I read it countless times and will read countless times more. The book's always been my stress relief in any unpleasant circumstances. Unfortunately, my copy doesn't have decent illustrations, as far as I remember it doesn't have any illustrations at all. But anyway, every scene there is described in detail so I could imagine it all vividly as if watching a 3d movie.

Well, I'm gonna find some hideout place on my island and read this amazing novel.

#moreфон365 #books #robert heinlein #glory road #hideout

[talamega]

60/347

I've started to reread My Unbelievable True Story. Again. This is the fourth or maybe fifth time. Or perhaps sixth. I can't remember any other book that turned out to be that exciting I've read during the last decade. For sure, I'm aware the content of the book should be approached with a great deal of criticism along with skepticism, but holy fuck, I just can't stop reading it. Though there is a lot of evidence that Arnold's never been a decent human, still he is the symbol of everything interesting, new, and unusual that once came here from abroad and blew my schoolboy mind and minds of lots of boys here somewhen in the nineties.

#moreфон365 #books #authobiography #arnold schwarzenegger

[talamega]

59/347

Frankly speaking, I've always loved being ill until recently. I always got all the seasonable colds, viruses, and all this crap since being a kid (especially being a kid). This actually helped me to get a break as all the other time I was busy with lots of things. Now it's not that funny as before. Mainly because I just can't lay down and rest. There's always work I have to keep doing and calls and mail that need to be answered. How I miss good old colds when I could lie and sleep throughout a day and read a book whenever I want. Or watch some show. It seems to be an unreachable dream to stay at home for a week and watch the whole Evangelion show including new installments. That would be so fucking cool!

#moreфон365 #bring ill #cathching a cold

[talamega]

58/348

When my wife once told me she wouldn't mind visiting a special camp for meditations and other practices and that would be good for me either I just didn't take it seriously. Why would I? It always seems to me that I could analyze myself much better than any psychologist and could deal with any conscious and subconscious crap on my own. Apparently, I was sure I didn't need any practice to give my inner self some support. Perhaps I was too young. Now I'm sure such a thing would be of great help to me. I'd love to try to disconnect even for a split second. I guess I have to find something of the kind and try it.

#moreфон365 #meditation #need a break

[talamega]

57/348

When feeling disturbed and experiencing strong emotional turmoil there is no single thought to write down in my mind. I'd better return to some safe place in my inner universe. 2005, Bergen. It was the last day of my vacations there, on the next day I would return home. Just before the vacations, I'd ended up fucking toxic relationship with my girlfriend so being in high spirits. Traveling alone helped to reload and refresh the consciousness, traveling to a such fantastic place just erasing all the shit left behind. Having climbed up on the Floyen side I found a small flat area with a bench. Sitting there I could enjoy the fantastic view of the fjord and mountains emerging from the water. So I landed there and spent several hours resting, thinking, reading, enjoying my calm existence.

That was just like a saving point in a game. When feeling like shit I often get back to this spot in my mind. Getting calm. Reckoning infinity.

#moreфон365 #saving spot #mind tricks #bitter #disturbed

[talamega]

56/348

I like when people who claimed to be Christians celebrate pagan festivities. Oh, I really do. I don't care when they're swearing, lying, drink to shit, or whatever 'cause that's an absolutely common thing for them to do. For sure I know good samaritans either, but... Today I was watching they burned a girl's figure made of hay. A feast for eyes.

#moreфон365 #celebration #irony

[talamega]

55/348

Walking the streets of my small town always evokes lots of audio memories. I'm taking a look at one building and right away some invisible turntable starts to play Arise. Looking at another building's roof - it's Bloody Kisses playin'. Passing by this one - The Hate Syndicate's ripping my inner ears. That one - The Grand Declaration Of War. And this building sends me long long ago so East 17 it is. Strolling from point A to point B I can hear Cynic, Nocturnus, Rammstein, Death, Zyklon, Amorphis, Septic Flesh, Sadist, Emperor, Abigor, Sear Bliss, Limbonic Art, Suffocation, Paradise Lost, Bad Religion, Cannibal Corpse, Front Line Assembly, and many, many more. I've always imagined it like Jonesy's Memory Warehouse from the Dreamcatcher movie, but here it's been the audio warehouse where some vision triggered the mechanism and a vinyl emerged from the depths of the audio archive and the tonearm came into motion placing its stylus on the record's surface. The odd fact is that this warehouse still working. This scares me sometimes.

#moreфон365 #music #memories #stuck in adolescence

[talamega]

54/352

Yet another heartbreaking date. Lars-Goran Petrov has left us yesterday. Another piece of teenage life has been torn apart.

I recall two things about my first take on Left Hand Path. First - the fattest sound I've ever heard back then. The fattest of fat but still brutal as fuck. I remember sitting with my jaw dropped listening to that mighty riffs and having just one thought in my mind - fuck, I would give my lung away to play with such a sound. And second - the final part of the title track. I fell in love with the song, still, it is on my playlist.

There was a period when I listened to LHP and Wolverine Blues daily along with Dismember and Napalm Death. It took me an hour and a half or maybe a bit more to get to the university so I put them in my cassette player and enjoyed that amazing death'n'roll all the way.

Well, as you put it out:

Live your life you're gonna die your own death

There's no one above that's gonna take your breath

Rest in peace brother, we'll see on the other side.

#moreфон365 #sad #entombed #lg petrov #memories #music #metal #death 'n' roll

[talamega]

53/352

I'm decreasing consuming of bread. I haven't eaten cheese for a week, maybe more. I haven't drunk beer or wine for more than a month (that doesn't mean I quit drinking alcohol, I'm just reducing its consumption). For two or three days I don't add sugar in my tea or coffee. Trying not to eat sausages. Need to get rid of my habit to drink a huge amount of tea. And what seems absolutely unbearable - I need to stop listening to various stupid entertaining shit on YT or anywhere else. That would be the challenge!

#moreфон365 #challenges #routine