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eldritchsurveys · 4 years

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658.

Do you miss Brittany Murphy's appearance in films? >> I barely knew Brittany Murphy existed.

Have you ever had confetti pancakes? >> No.

Do you obsess over your appearance? >> Yeah, sometimes. It’s awful and exhausting to experience but I can’t always make myself stop.

Is Christmas stressful? >> Not for me. There are no obligations in my life that would make it stressful.

Are you responsible for stuffing someone's stocking? >> Yeah, I stuff Sparrow’s (usually full of Hi-Chews and a few other things) and she stuffs mine (usually full of socks and tiny liquor bottles).

What's your favorite romantic comedy? >> I thought Always Be My Maybe was hilarious and also cute at the end. But mostly just really funny. If I like anything about a romcom it’s going to be the comedy part, so.

Do you stock up on make-up palettes during November? >> No. Is there a reason why someone would? What happens in November?

Have you ever taken a class online? >> No.

Do you have a Neopets account? >> No.

Do you make your own smoothies or juices? >> Nope.

Do you think time really does heal all? >> The passage of time gives the illusion of distance, which can help you move on. Also, over time you grow and change as a person, which may mean you develop different coping strategies and personal narratives, leading to the healing of past wounds. And, I’d assume, sometimes neither thing happens, and sometimes people just continue to suffer.

What happens to us when we die? >> How would I know?

Are you more sensitive to heat or the cold? >> I’m more sensitive to heat. I overheat really easily.

Did you care at all when Steve Jobs died? >> No.

Would it be hard for you to fit your music onto an 8 GB iPod? >> My final count of mp3s before I stopped using them as my main source of music was in the thousands. At one time, I had as many as 10k mp3s. So, yeah, I always had to have music players (or phones) with a lot of space.

Has anyone searched your room for anything recently? >> No.

Is anything in your room purposely hidden? >> No. Well, Sparrow’s credit card is, because she asked me to.

Do you get a cold around the holidays? >> No.

Does it snow where you live? >> Yep.

When do you decorate for Christmas? >> Usually whatever weekend we go to Bronner’s Christmas Wonderland, which is usually sometime just before Thanksgiving. (Hopefully we’ll stop going on weekends from now on, because it gets to be a madhouse in that entire town by mid-November.)

Would you be cool with wearing sweatpants to the grocery store? >> Absolutely. I’d wear sweatpants anywhere as long as there isn’t an explicit dress code. And there is no dress code for the goddamn grocery store (except that you must be dressed).

Have you ever been pranked via hidden camera? >> No.

Do you like teas? >> Yes.

Are you any good at sketching? >> No.

Do you gain a few pounds during the winter? >> I don’t know if I have a weight-gain pattern like that.

Do you know any of those people who are depressed during the winter? >> I am one of those people. I really have to keep up with my supplements these days.

What do you use to make your hair soft? >> I don’t use anything to make my hair soft.

Is hair gel a turn off on guys? >> ---

Do you think cursing makes people sound unintelligent? >> No.

What's something you can cook extremely well? >> I don’t know if there’s anything I’m especially good at cooking. I’m pretty much just... mediocre across the board.

#surveys #survey #random survey

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britishchick09 · 3 years

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sherlock ep 1 a study in pink livewatch

for the first livewatch of 2021 (and the first liverewatch), we’re taking a look at something i saw exactly 4 years ago! now that i’ve written my own sherlock holmes inspired story, the show will be a lot more interesting than it was in 2017 (hopefully). let’s dive right in! :D

this starts out with GUNS WAR SCREAMING DEAD NO

poor john :(

what a bleak flat :(

ooh laptop

i hope sherlock will be able to brighten up his life :)

OMG DAS THE BLOG!!!!

dere he is! :D

john has a therapist just like monk! :D

also he and molly’s dad from ag both have ptsd and the blog is to help cope with that... i wonder if molly’s dad had something similar like a journal (he had knitting which would help john’s shaky hands)

john: “nothing happens to me.” oh really? ;)

cool dramatic intro :D

the wheel is a dan and phil reference! :D

REDRUM ALERT REDRUM ALERTT!!!!!

poor wife :(

aww john is alone in the rain! :(

REDRUM RED RUM!!!!!

ooh blackberry! :D

a lady said ‘ignore the texts’ and that makes sense since ya know THEY’RE SUPPOSED TO BE LISTENING TO LESTRADE

these other people are cool and all but give me more john plz!!!!

ooh john has a friend before sherlock! :o

why does his friend look like his dad

OH HELLO MR

HE’S SLAPPING SOMETHING AND IT’S THE MOST HILARIOUS THING EVER OMG :D

the lady is super confused too like ‘???’

oh he’s checking for bruises it still funny tho ;D

of course he wants black coffee

the first thing sherlock does is ask john for his phone awww :)

that looks like a ds lol :D

aww sherlock wants to know if john plays violin like him! ^_^

john: “we just met and you want to look at a flat” it’s called true luv bby ♥

also wowza sherlock really wants a friend huh

sherlock just infodumped about john and john’s like ‘:o ???’

THE WINK THE WINK!!!!!

ooh coolio! :D

john is about to go inside baker street when sherlock comes out of a taxi what timing!

did sherlock just say florida

ah yes mrs hudson the number one johnlock shipper

aww she hugged sherlock and john! ♥

dere it is!!!!

my computer randomly shut down here GOSH DARN IT COMPUTER!!

it’s back let’s return to baker street! :D

aww john has a cane :(

john: “very nice indeed!” see sherlock is the light in his life already!

mrs. hudson: “there’s another bed upstairs if you’ll be needing two.” sherlock “of course we’ll be needing two” johnlock shippers be like ;)

mrs. hudson scolded sherlock for his messy flat WE LOVE A MOM!!! ♥

oh yeah sherlock had a website once! rip that :/

i almost expected mrs. hudson to call sherlock ‘lockie’

omg 4 murders? DUN DUN DUNNN!!!! :o

sherlock: “i need an assistant!” aww that’s code for friend! ♥

sherlock just jumped around and said “BRILLIANT!!!” first of all ADORABLE and secondly that’s what my own sherlock would do! (but he says ‘smashing!’)

he’s so excited about the murders wtf :’)

sherlock: “it’s christmas!” lol

aaand he’s gone

mrs. hudson said ‘cuppa’ that’s british slang for coffee (as seen in my own sherlock story) the more you know ;)

mrs hudson said ‘i’m not your housekeeper’ to sherlock and now john is that gonna be a running joke with her

oh hey lockie’s back

john: “i’ve seen too many deaths.” sherlock: “want to see some more?” john: “oh god, yes.” ...ok wasn’t expecting his ‘oh god’ to sound like that

i think the version in my story (’would you like to see a murder?’ ‘you mean a flock of crows or a gruesome death?’ ‘yes, we meet at the park every thursday- of course i mean a gruesome death!’) is better sorry sherlock :/

sherlock: “there’s finally something fun going on!” indeed there is! :D

sherlock: “the game, mrs. hudson. is on!!” and there’s the tagline for the series! (jk i don’t think it has one of those)

and off they go! (the theme music is really good btw)

why does sherlock’s voice sound a bit stuffed

john: “the police don’t consult amateurs!” BOI

sherlock said ‘mp3 player’ how very 2010 of you

sherlock’s deduction is cool :D (and a bit scary like how do you do these things)

john: “how can you possibly know about the drinking?’ as my holmes character once said, ‘detectives always know’ ;)

john: “that... was amazing.” indeed it was! :D

some chick just called sherlock ‘freak’ WOAH WOAH WOAH SISTER :o

aww sherlock called john a colleague how cute :)

woah anderson is a cranky perfectionist

why are they talking about deodorant

guy: “who is he?” sherlock: “he’s with me” johnlock shippers be like ;) ;)

yo are they in hazmat suits

credit cards how modern

of course kids found her

the lady’s in pink TITLE REFERENCE!! :D

i love how sherlock randomly says ‘shut up’

ooh sherlock’s thought process being shown is cool :D

as are the floating words!

guy: “got anything?” sherlock: “not much” lol :D

OP THERE BE RACHE!! :D (book reference!)

ooh cardiff that’s the cardiff giant

he wants john to examine the body because it’s fun how nice :)

the shade of pink is ‘alarming’ according to sherlock that’s because it’s so dark!

guy: “you’re just making this up!” boi sherlock doesn’t make anything up ;)

john: “that’s fantastic!” sherlock: “shut up” lol :D

sherlock clapped his hands together like maria in sound of music aww ♥

sherlock: “huston, we have a case!” nice one ;)

sherlock: “PIIINK!” panther!

is ‘rache’ really ‘rachel’ tho? ;)

great sherlock took off now john’s all on his own :/

jerk lady: “you’re not his friend. he doesn’t have friends.” he does now ;)

john: “i’m nobody.” no watson you’re... THE LAST SKYWALKER!!!

john and sherlock say ‘taxi!’ the same way awww :)

yo who’s calling john :o

john: “who’s this?” AN AD APPEARED JUST AFTER THAT WHAT TIMING!

is this guy moiarty or mycroft or whoever the villain’s name is in the holmesverse

he’s definitely a villain that voice is so scar!

the lady in the taxi knows john WHO ARE YOU PEOPLE

the car stopping sounds like tardis

the villain guy has a cane too YEP HE’S A BADDIEE!!!i

john: “you could just phone me... on my phone.” lol :D

john said the villain isn’t frightening BOi

villain: “since yesterday, you’ve moved in with him and now you’re solving crimes together. might we expect a happy announcement by the end of the week?” johnlock shippers be like :D!!!!!

also my watson moved in with holmes three days after they met so things are going super fast for the bbc lads i see! :)

villain: “he does love to be dramatic.” yeah he sure does!

the villain said ‘221′ as the actual number and it sounds weird

villain: “i worry about him constantly” is this sherlock’s bro?

this guy is creepy wtf :(

and he’s using an umbrella as a cane why

the villain and john held hands i bet people ship them

yep this is sherlock’s bro alright they both infodump!

SERIOUSLY WHAT IS THIS GUY’S NAME????

he says john misses the war and the ‘oh god yes’ makes perfect sense

yo why does john want to see the taxi lady more SHERLOCK IS IN DESPERATE NEED OF FRIENDSHIP PLZ ♥

yo sherlock has a nicotine patch NO SMOKING

sherlock: “breathing is boring”

he’s lying on the couch with his hands in prayer that’s so sherlock

john: “you brought me here to send a text?” the most 21st century question ever

sherlock about john seeing his enemy: “oh which one?” oh boy...

john: “who is he?” sherlock: “the most dangerous man i’ve ever met” AND HIS NAME IS....???????

sherlock in the text: “i must’ve blacked out...” wtf lockie

aww john called the dead lady ‘the pink lady’

sherlock just hopped up on the chair while holding onto it what a lad

i hope bennedict cumberbatch’s voice isn’t that deep and it’s only because of copyright it’s woah :o

john: “did i just text a murderer?” only in the holmesverse!

sherlock: “you could watch the telly...” OMG MY HOLMES CHARACTER SAID THAT EXACT THING!!! you go subconscious! :D

john: “you get off on this (solving cases)” plz don’t say it like that

wowza it’s so dark outside!

sherlock: “who passes unnoticed?” the cabbie!!

op here’s the diner scene from the sarah z’s tjlc vid!

waiter: “on the house for you and your date!” john: “i’m not his date!” johnlock shippers would like to disagree with you watson ;)

john: “you don’t have a girlfriend, then? do you have a boyfriend? which is fine by the way” OH COME ON

sherlock: “i’m married to my work and am flattered by your interest” OH COME ONNNNN

that lip licking john THAT LIP LICKING

oh boy the queerbaiting was strong with that scene

sherlock: “why a taxi?” cuz the cabbie did it boi!

see i remember things from this ep now!

WOAH SHERLOCK ALMOST GOT HIT BY A CAR WTF

sherlock and john going through town to get the cabbie with the street signs is something i easily remember from my first time watching. it’s so cool! :D

the music is great too!

sherlock: “this way! ...no, this way!” lol :D

and he almost gets hit by a car again! fun times with lockie :)

yo is the cabbie american

THAT WASN’T THE CABBIE MURDERER LOOLL!!!!!

sherlock pickpockets lestrade when he’s annoyed lol (that’s something my holmes would so do)

sherlock: “ready?” john: “ready when you are!” ♥

awww they’re laughing against the wall! :) ♥♥♥♥

imma be honest when i first saw that in gifs i thought it was a bed o///o

john forgot his cane and was able to run through london SEE SHERLOCK IS THE LIGHT IN HIS LIFE!!!

sherlock has said ‘shut up’ three times now lol :D

WHY IS EVERYONE AT THE FLAT

oh so rachel is a person! :o

onto part 2!

the first 10 seconds of part 1 are in the beginning how nice! :)

sherlock is ‘everyone’s favorite psychopath’

awww rachel was stillborn :(

of course the lady would think of her daughter! sherlock’s right!!

sherlock: “that was ages ago, why would she still be upset?” even after 14 years people can still be upset of a loved one’s death (just ask paul and addie) :(

mrs. hudson: “they’re making a mess!” oh mrs. hudson and her messes :)

sherlock: “SHUT UP, EVERYBODY, SHUT UP! DON’T MOVE. DON’T SPEAK, DON’T BREATHE!” gretchen from bob’s burgers: “GIVE HIM SOME ROOM!”

he’s so happy because the dead lady’s clever!! :D

smartphones, emails, online, gps... how 21st century!

mrs. hudson called sherlock ‘dear’ awww :)

sherlock: “who passes unnoticed wherever they go?” THE CABBIEEEEEE

CABBIE CABBIE CABBIE CABBIEEEE!!!!!!!

sherlock didn’t order the taxi THE CABBIE WANTS TO MURDER HIM AND THUS THE CABBIE MURDERED THEMMM!!!!!!!

SEE I REMEMBER THINGS FROM THIS EP!!!! :D

in my own holmes story the cabbie isn’t the killer IT HAS EVEN MORE OF AN EPIC TWIST!!! (although the cabbie twist is pretty epic too)

THE CABBIE WANTS TO TALK TO SHERLOCK AND KILL HIM OOHHHHHH

then the pills will come in

sherlock’s phone ring is old-fashioned awww :)

the others have given up but john won’t!

the cabbie has been on sherlock’s website IF ONLY I COULD TOO :(

sherlock knows all the streets of london coolio! :D

the cabbie knows of a ‘nice quiet spot for a murder’ while the villain guy said something of a quiet place hmm....

YO DON’T POINT THAT GUN AT SHERLOCK MR CAB MAN >:(

john’s gonna save sherlock!!! :D

sherlock’s in the pill room isn’t he

i remember this they sit down and sherlock has to choose the right pill

AND IT’S A RISK!

of course sherlock will choose the right one! :D

is sherlock’s ‘mortal enemy’ also the ‘fan’ that the cabbie speaks of?

cabbie: “this is... the move.” ;)

john in the taxi brings up an interesting question, do people in apartments not have cars or is it just a london thing?

they’re talking so much JUS TAKE THE PILLS!!!!

it’s good explanation, but that’s why i got out of sherlock in the first place- it’s goes on for so long in some places!

THEY TOOK THE PILLS!

and the cabbie died, his last word being the name of his beloved (just like the lady writing the name of her own before she died)...

sherlock: “what’s this blanket they keep putting this blanket on me-“ john: “it’s for shock.” sherlock: “i’m not in shock!” lol :D

sherlock: “i’m in shock, look i got a blanket!” double lol :D

wait does john not have his cane?? :o

john: “he wasn’t a very nice man.” yeah he wasn’t!!

awww they’re laughing about the cabbie :)

john: “you can’t giggle at a crime scene” ♥

moiarty is the bro!!!!

YEP HE IS!

♥

this was such an amazing first ep and i loved it even more than when i saw it in 2017! i’ll definitely be watching more (maybe in another livewatch wink wink). i guess you can say i’m now... johnlocked ;)

#livewatch #this was a fun one :)#especially after all these years!

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althinksthings · 6 years

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Top 10 Albums - Part 1

The Brief

“In no particular order – 10 all time favourite albums.

What really made an impact and is still on your rotation list, even if only now and then.”

As always, because I'm me, I'm going to break and change the rules for my own amusement and so it will hopefully be a more interesting venture. I'm going to discuss 10 of the albums that became important to my life. This is partly because the only way I could possibly nail this list down to only 10 albums was to select ones that were particularly formative or influential, and partly because since I'm not very good at analysing music, having some form of narrative behind them will help structure my choices and my posts. In that sense, then, they are in a particular order: I'll be putting these out in a bibliographic chronological series, in the approximate order that I discovered these albums during my life.

A quick note about the way in which I listen to music. I have synesthesia, which means that every song and album I listen to has colours that I strongly associate with it. This, while a thoroughly enjoyable part of my life, sometimes has drawbacks when discussing music as there are certain songs that I just can't help ascribing colours to. As an example in this essay, I couldn't help but describe the song Lord Grenville as “grey”, and I'm sure this phenomena will show up again.

So then.

1. Al Stewart – Year of the Cat. (1976)

YotC was the 7th album to be released by Al Stewart, from his rather extensive discography of 16 original albums, with a few live records and an instrumental one on top for good measure. His genre is primarily folk-rock with a strong emphasis on his spectacularly complex and beautiful guitar style. His favourite subjects for songs are history and wine, the latter even warranted an entire album dedicated to it in 2000, called Down in the Cellar. As for history, I swear I've gained more knowledge about history that has actually stuck because of these albums than anything else in my life. I specifically used one of his songs (League of Notions) to revise for my history GCSE exam, and another one (Post World War 2 Blues) to help me remember information in my history A Level classes. A caveat: this is not actually my favourite album that Al Stewart has ever released. That crown goes pretty unequivocally to Modern Times, released in 1975 and immediately preceding YotC in his discography. So this immediately seems like a pretty stupid pick.

Before the age of 10 I didn't really have a music “taste” per se. My dad reckons that the first artists I ever vocally showed a preference for were Abba and the Eagles, both choices that I will defend because I still think they're both great. I also loved Deep Purple (their album Who Do We Think We Are nearly made the list), but I didn't have any devices on which to listen to music as a solo venture, there were just constant tunes on in the house and car. However, it just so happened that we went on a family holiday to Canada in the summer of my 10th year, and this holiday involved a 10 day road trip in a camper van around British Columbia. It was amazing, the views were astounding, and we stayed in a new campsite every night which meant lots of new sights and exciting locations, but it also meant a rather large quantity of driving. My dad, at this point, had an MP3 player that was slightly smaller than a brick and which he had loaded with however much data a brick could hold in 2006. He handed me the MP3 player and suggested that I listen to this album because he thought I'd like it, so on one of the days of travelling I stared out of the window and listened to Year of the Cat back to back. It was the first time I'd ever heard any of Al Stewart's music and I remember my very first thought being “he has a weird voice”, but as I got used to it the songs stuck and later as we walked around a vineyard I couldn't stop singing the song Broadway Hotel. I think it was my first ever favourite song, and certainly the one that I remember changing how I listened to music. This album wasn't just on in the background, it was playing because I chose it and I wanted to listen. Long story short, YotC was the direct cause of me asking for and subsequently receiving a minute iPod nano that next Christmas, and so I accredit this album as being the direct cause of me starting to listen to music as a whole.

I feel like I should actually talk about the album for a bit. The final track on this album is the titular song Year of the Cat, which to date remains Al Stewart's most famous release. Some of you would recognise it, it still gets played on various radio stations from time to time. It's a gorgeous, largely instrumental song of almost 7 minutes, involving a large array of solos from various instruments. The cat is a year in the Vietnamese zodiac, coinciding with the year in which the song was recorded. The lyrics are a semi abstract reference to the comedian Tony Hancock, whom Stewart saw perform a couple of years before his suicide in 1968. The song has a basic narrative: the tourist protagonist whom we hear about in the second person is walking through a market and meets a woman. He gets distracted by her, loses his sense of perspective and his grasp of time, and the next day realises that his bus has left without him. This coincides perfectly with the meandering solos and instrumental interludes of the single, the listener can feel that they are getting gently lost in the passage of time but (if you're like me), you don't really mind.

So that's the single, what about the rest of the album? As a record it is relatively short, only 9 tracks if you don't include the bonus songs from the 2004 remaster (I don't). I'm not going to go into each song in so much depth, but every track has it's own certain atmosphere that serves to build the overall feeling of a somewhat pensive yet occasionally magical world. Lord Grenville, the opener, is a grey perspective of the situation of Sir Richard Grenville, who was a Lord, soldier, and sailor in the 1500s, now famous for dying when refusing to surrender his ship to Spanish fleets in the Battle of Flores. On the Border is half about the Basque Separatist movement (a situation involving a group of Basque organisations seeking for independence from France and Spain), with the second half of the song revolving around Robert Mugabe, who is now the ex Prime Minister/President of Zimbabwe. Flying Sorcery is a reflection on the life and achievements of Amy Johnson. Not all the songs are based in such concrete evidence: the aforementioned Broadway Hotel is an investigation into people who choose to live in hotel rooms, questioning the feelings of loneliness, isolation, and love that could arise in those situations. It is, then, genuinely surprising that the incohesive subject matter of the individual tracks lends itself to a finished product that feels complete and without tonal dissonance. That may stand as a testament to Stewart's lyrical and musical skill: love songs are treated with no less verbosity than songs about prominent political figures, and the distinctive sound of his intricate guitar patterns is a constant throughout the record.

I could go into this much depth and more about all of Al Stewart's albums, and do full analyses about a great number of his songs, but this was supposed to be an explanation for why the album YotC is important to me and I've already gone way over that particular boundary. The album Modern Times, especially, I think is an undiluted masterpiece of everything that is good about Stewart's songwriting, and I half wish I had spend more time discussing that in this essay. The enigmatically titled Apple Cider Re-Constitution is one of my absolute favourite songs, along with the song Modern Times, an 8 minute long masterpiece of nostalgia and the way in which different people remember their pasts. Other honourable mentions from Stewart's discography include the legitimately harrowing 8 minute Roads to Moscow, (a narrative of the German invasion of Russia during the Second World War through the eyes of a Soviet partisan), and a 13 minute live version of his epic Nostradamus. When written down like this, these songs sound depressing and miserable - and while Roads to Moscow is admittedly not the most jocular of tracks - even despite the heavy subject matter and the sometimes inherent lyrical complexity, Al Stewart's songs are always melodious, engaging, and interesting.

So really, all this to say: when I was 10 I listened to Year of the Cat and it spurred in me an interest in music and history that, I expect, will last the rest of my life.

#al stewart #year of the cat #music #top 10 #albums

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