http://www.klicktrack.com/agrecords/releases/bowling-for-soup/my-wena-ep
Click on through for Wena goodness!
ROCK!
Thursday, 20 August 2009
30. My Wena in the UK!
The My Wena EP is now available in the UK!
http://www.klicktrack.com/agrecords/releases/bowling-for-soup/my-wena-ep
Click on through for Wena goodness!
ROCK!
http://www.klicktrack.com/agrecords/releases/bowling-for-soup/my-wena-ep
Click on through for Wena goodness!
ROCK!
Saturday, 15 August 2009
28: A World Without Beer: Weeks 7,8+9
CAUTION: Yen's blog contains harsh language and even harsher notions of propriety. Reader discretion is advised.
I know, I know, three bloody weeks. Hardly Samuel Pepys, am I? I wanted to do an entry at the end of Week 8, but I went to see Natalie on Thursday night, then Friday morning was off to Bournemouth with no internet access (so little point in taking the laptop). Anyway, I'm here now.
As you can see from the small-but-beautiful image above, the previous three weeks have included one of my gratis-days, where I get a brief escape from my self-imposed alco-exile.
There was a distinct possibility of slapping two into the previous weekend, as Mr Reed was accompanying me to Natalie Imbruglia's warm-up gig at the Zodiac in Oxford. As one of the three escape-days happens to be his imminent birthday, and as I won't be in Broadstairs for his birthday, he'd suggested using the Nat gig as an alcoholic celebration.
As it turns out, he drove there and back, so there was no alcohol to be had. He'd said "well, we could have one pint?", but I pointed out that if I was to use up one of my precious gratis-days, it wasn't going to be for one fucking pint of lager. The bar at the Zodiac isn't even that good. It would also have meant having two days in very close proximity, as one was scheduled for Bournemouth. Not so much a problem in itself, but I'd then have to go booze-free from the 10th August to the 27th September; and that might be too much for my fragile soul to bear.
So yeah, Natalie did a fine show. The set was a little on the short side, but it was a warm-up for the V Festival, and those sets always are. It took her voice three or four songs to warm up, and unfortunately Torn was within that bracket, but once she'd played that, most of the dickheads surrounding us no longer had a need to be at the front, which made the rest of the set more relaxed for others like me. By "like me", I am of course referring to the fact that I can't fucking stand people. Individuals can be okay, but crowds of baying morons, pissed, sweating and brushing against me just pisses me off. Especially when I'm on the diet coke.
Anyway, can't complain. Had a great night, and was reminded how obnoxious drunk people can be, which made me feel superior for not being one of them. (It didn't, it made be want to be one of them.)
+++++
Next up was Bournemouth. Had a really nice short-weekend there last year, so we went down for a long-one this year. The weather held up again, so I was out in the sea on Saturday and Sunday, proving to myself that my swimming skills are practically non-existent. And as much as I may look in the mirror and grumble about my beer-belly (which is inexplicably still there), I was able to look around the beach and realise that I'm actually quite a skinny bastard. Compared to some of those sights anyway. Christ. After witnessing various things which should not be squeezed into lycra and paraded in public, I needed that well deserved drink...
Beautiful. No, not my sunburned face (although certainly the wisely-kept-in-the-shade, face of my fianceé), more the several bottles of Newcastle Brown which I imbibed on Saturday night. I say several because I can't remember if it was five or six. To be fair, I was worryingly un-pissed after those. I could certainly feel I'd been drinking, but I wasn't falling over and being sick. This proves to me that I hadn't built up the alcoholic's resistance to drink that people go on about, but that I'm just hard as nails when it comes to The Brown.
We also got a free bottle of Magners from their promo people doing the rounds of the pubs. The young lady came over to our table and asked "Would you like a free taste of Magners this evening?". Being the suspicious cynic that I am, I replied "No, I'm fine thanks", thinking it would be a thimble-sized glass from the bottle she had with her.
Our lass, on the other hand, was more quick thinking and responded "Oh, I will, thanks", upon which the lady with the tray left us with the full bottle and a pint glass. Fucking result! Our lass doesn't even drink cider, so guess who had to polish that one off?
While I wouldn't class myself as "pissed" that night (although I almost certainly was drunk in dictionary-terms), what I did experience was that immense wave of relaxation that I've been missing for so many weeks. I didn't care about all of the pissed dickheads in the pub that night, and any trace of a hangover that may have been around on Sunday morning was very quickly relegated after the fried breakfast at the hotel we were staying in. We had a great weekend, and it was good to be away from everything (even without any internet to distract me), with gorgeous weather for a few days.
Drink is good for you. The next six weeks aren't going to be easy.
Still, other amusing things I saw in Bournemouth:
The brass band was playing in the park, with people sitting in deckchairs and listening happily or snoozing away. This old lady, however, was going to spoil everything by stumbling to her feet, groaning, then biting the closest people to her; thus precipitating the zombie-plague of Bournemouth '09. Just think of all that un-guarded flesh on the beach, they'd have a fucking field-day!
Seriously though, who sleeps like that? My fianceé actually went and checked she was breathing. I wasn't going to do it; that's when their eyes snap open and they bite you...
Taken at horribly lo-res because I wanted to send it from my phone without sapping my bandwidth. Here we have the cheekiest tramp in Bournemouth. He looks trampy enough, with old, weathered clothes, sun-baked skin and yellow (which should be white) hair. So the fact that he's pushing a brand-new mountain bike, complete with pristine messenger-bag on the back, clearly makes him a thieving bastard. He was walking quite leisurely with the bike, perhaps so's not to draw too much attention to himself as he left the promenade and headed for the town centre. Although in doing this, he was leaving himself more prone to the legitimate owner of the vehicle finding him and battering him to death with the record-bag.
Bournemouth didn't seem to have a high tramp-population, but the ones that were there, were proper old-school tramps!
+++++
And that's about it really. The week since we got back from Bournemouth has been relatively event-free, although I've just moved over from the agency I've been working for, directly to the company themselves. I'm still a temp, but I'm in a better position than I was. Nothing more to report.
I'll be back in a few days with another crazy idea or theory which makes you wonder if I actually am still drinking...
DISCLAIMERS:
• ^^^ That's dry, British humour, and most likely sarcasm or facetiousness.
• This is a personal blog. The views and opinions expressed here represent my own thoughts (at the time of writing) and not those of the people, institutions or organizations that I may or may not be related with unless stated explicitly.
DISCLAIMERS:
• ^^^ That's dry, British humour, and most likely sarcasm or facetiousness.
I know, I know, three bloody weeks. Hardly Samuel Pepys, am I? I wanted to do an entry at the end of Week 8, but I went to see Natalie on Thursday night, then Friday morning was off to Bournemouth with no internet access (so little point in taking the laptop). Anyway, I'm here now.
As you can see from the small-but-beautiful image above, the previous three weeks have included one of my gratis-days, where I get a brief escape from my self-imposed alco-exile.
There was a distinct possibility of slapping two into the previous weekend, as Mr Reed was accompanying me to Natalie Imbruglia's warm-up gig at the Zodiac in Oxford. As one of the three escape-days happens to be his imminent birthday, and as I won't be in Broadstairs for his birthday, he'd suggested using the Nat gig as an alcoholic celebration.
As it turns out, he drove there and back, so there was no alcohol to be had. He'd said "well, we could have one pint?", but I pointed out that if I was to use up one of my precious gratis-days, it wasn't going to be for one fucking pint of lager. The bar at the Zodiac isn't even that good. It would also have meant having two days in very close proximity, as one was scheduled for Bournemouth. Not so much a problem in itself, but I'd then have to go booze-free from the 10th August to the 27th September; and that might be too much for my fragile soul to bear.
So yeah, Natalie did a fine show. The set was a little on the short side, but it was a warm-up for the V Festival, and those sets always are. It took her voice three or four songs to warm up, and unfortunately Torn was within that bracket, but once she'd played that, most of the dickheads surrounding us no longer had a need to be at the front, which made the rest of the set more relaxed for others like me. By "like me", I am of course referring to the fact that I can't fucking stand people. Individuals can be okay, but crowds of baying morons, pissed, sweating and brushing against me just pisses me off. Especially when I'm on the diet coke.
Anyway, can't complain. Had a great night, and was reminded how obnoxious drunk people can be, which made me feel superior for not being one of them. (It didn't, it made be want to be one of them.)
+++++
Next up was Bournemouth. Had a really nice short-weekend there last year, so we went down for a long-one this year. The weather held up again, so I was out in the sea on Saturday and Sunday, proving to myself that my swimming skills are practically non-existent. And as much as I may look in the mirror and grumble about my beer-belly (which is inexplicably still there), I was able to look around the beach and realise that I'm actually quite a skinny bastard. Compared to some of those sights anyway. Christ. After witnessing various things which should not be squeezed into lycra and paraded in public, I needed that well deserved drink...
Beautiful. No, not my sunburned face (although certainly the wisely-kept-in-the-shade, face of my fianceé), more the several bottles of Newcastle Brown which I imbibed on Saturday night. I say several because I can't remember if it was five or six. To be fair, I was worryingly un-pissed after those. I could certainly feel I'd been drinking, but I wasn't falling over and being sick. This proves to me that I hadn't built up the alcoholic's resistance to drink that people go on about, but that I'm just hard as nails when it comes to The Brown.
We also got a free bottle of Magners from their promo people doing the rounds of the pubs. The young lady came over to our table and asked "Would you like a free taste of Magners this evening?". Being the suspicious cynic that I am, I replied "No, I'm fine thanks", thinking it would be a thimble-sized glass from the bottle she had with her.
Our lass, on the other hand, was more quick thinking and responded "Oh, I will, thanks", upon which the lady with the tray left us with the full bottle and a pint glass. Fucking result! Our lass doesn't even drink cider, so guess who had to polish that one off?
While I wouldn't class myself as "pissed" that night (although I almost certainly was drunk in dictionary-terms), what I did experience was that immense wave of relaxation that I've been missing for so many weeks. I didn't care about all of the pissed dickheads in the pub that night, and any trace of a hangover that may have been around on Sunday morning was very quickly relegated after the fried breakfast at the hotel we were staying in. We had a great weekend, and it was good to be away from everything (even without any internet to distract me), with gorgeous weather for a few days.
Drink is good for you. The next six weeks aren't going to be easy.
Still, other amusing things I saw in Bournemouth:
The brass band was playing in the park, with people sitting in deckchairs and listening happily or snoozing away. This old lady, however, was going to spoil everything by stumbling to her feet, groaning, then biting the closest people to her; thus precipitating the zombie-plague of Bournemouth '09. Just think of all that un-guarded flesh on the beach, they'd have a fucking field-day!
Seriously though, who sleeps like that? My fianceé actually went and checked she was breathing. I wasn't going to do it; that's when their eyes snap open and they bite you...
Taken at horribly lo-res because I wanted to send it from my phone without sapping my bandwidth. Here we have the cheekiest tramp in Bournemouth. He looks trampy enough, with old, weathered clothes, sun-baked skin and yellow (which should be white) hair. So the fact that he's pushing a brand-new mountain bike, complete with pristine messenger-bag on the back, clearly makes him a thieving bastard. He was walking quite leisurely with the bike, perhaps so's not to draw too much attention to himself as he left the promenade and headed for the town centre. Although in doing this, he was leaving himself more prone to the legitimate owner of the vehicle finding him and battering him to death with the record-bag.
Bournemouth didn't seem to have a high tramp-population, but the ones that were there, were proper old-school tramps!
+++++
And that's about it really. The week since we got back from Bournemouth has been relatively event-free, although I've just moved over from the agency I've been working for, directly to the company themselves. I'm still a temp, but I'm in a better position than I was. Nothing more to report.
I'll be back in a few days with another crazy idea or theory which makes you wonder if I actually am still drinking...
DISCLAIMERS:
• ^^^ That's dry, British humour, and most likely sarcasm or facetiousness.
• This is a personal blog. The views and opinions expressed here represent my own thoughts (at the time of writing) and not those of the people, institutions or organizations that I may or may not be related with unless stated explicitly.
DISCLAIMERS:
• ^^^ That's dry, British humour, and most likely sarcasm or facetiousness.
Saturday, 1 August 2009
27: Balls to infinity...
CAUTION: Yen's blog contains harsh language and even harsher notions of propriety. This particular one also includes badly (if at all) researched scientific theories. Reader discretion is advised.
Maybe it's seven weeks without drinking, or maybe it's because this is how my mind works anyway, but I was thinking the other day about infinity.
Well, I say thinking, it crossed my mind. In the words of Bruce Dickinson, infinity really is hard to comprehend. I'm sure you don't need me to tell you that it's not an actual number
.
If someone gave you a billion biscuits once a second for twenty years... you'd still be nowhere close. Although you'd probably be sick of biscuits.
Anyway, the thing playing in my mind was that playground argument that most kids have done (including myself):
: I've seen Star Wars 10 times.
: I've seen Star wars 100 times.
: Well I've seen it infinity times
: I've seen it infinity-plus-one times
: aahahahah! you knob! there's no such thing as infinity-plus-one!
Because even child-logic manages to grasp that if infinity can't be defined as an actual number, you can't possibly add a number on to it. Can you? I think we can do the next best thing...
+++ +++
For today's exercise, we're going to create a ball. A red ball. We're going to create it out of whatever we can find to make it tough, because it's going to last forever. Don't ask how, it just will.
There's our ball. Date-stamped at midday today. This ball will outlast the earth, the galaxy and even the universe itself. Like I said, don't ask how, because for the purposes of this exercise, the ball is going to be chronolgically-infinite; and if this ball can't be, then neither can anything else.
So, our ball has a fixed "start-point" in universal time. Before 12:00 today, it didn't exist. After 12:00 today, it did. 60 minutes after we make the red ball, we're going to make a blue one. Same materials, same properties, just a different colour.
This blue ball will also last forever. Same rules as above. We now have two balls (...quiet at the back), one an hour older than the other one; and that's the key.
If we come back to them tomorrow at 1pm, we can see how old they are:
As time is flowing smoothly, they've both existed at the same rate, and the red one is still an hour older than the blue one. Of course, at this point they're both roughly a day old. If we come back to them in a year...
And obviously, the red ball is still an hour older than the blue one. Of course, these are just snapshots of how they looked at any one point in time. The balls can't be said to be "infinite" yet, because they're both only a year(ish) old. This problem will be inherent in any snapshot we take because, as we identified earlier, we can't stop at "infinity" to take a picture - the number doesn't exist. But by now, I think you know where I'm heading with this.
So what we'll have to do next is make a statement, rather than a snapshot. Like I said, these balls will exist forever. We know that, because that's how we created them.
Although both balls a chronologically "infinite", the red ball will ALWAYS be one hour older than the blue one. Although the blue one will go on forever, the red one has been around longer. Can this be defined as "infinity-plus-one"?
Again, we're assuming there that infinity can be defined as a solid number. Although, to be fair, we're assuming that the balls will survive the end of the universe. As popular theory suggests the universe is 13.7 billion years old (which isn't a lot when you write it down), it seems silly to assume that it won't end at some point. And as we don't know what happened before the creation of the universe, we have no idea what will happen after it. Where do all the balls go?
Another way to look at it would be to suggest that as the balls have different-but-fixed starting points, they aren't truly infinite. Using the above exercise, any infinite object that was created before them would be older, and therefore "more infinite". Using that logic, the only infinte objects would be those that have always existed. Namely, objects that don't have a starting point, in the same way as the red and blue balls don't have an ending point. This would make the "original-infinite" objects older than the physical universe. If we could find one of these objects, we'd arguably have a way to find out what existed before the universe began.
But that's all wildly theoretical, of course. We haven't found an infinite object yet, and it seems a safer bet to assume that infinity can't exist, by its own definition.
...imagine the things I think about when I have been drinking.
Balls to it.
DISCLAIMERS:
• ^^^ That's dry, British humour, and most likely sarcasm or facetiousness.
• This is a personal blog. The views and opinions expressed here represent my own thoughts (at the time of writing) and not those of the people, institutions or organizations that I may or may not be related with unless stated explicitly.
DISCLAIMERS:
• ^^^ That's dry, British humour, and most likely sarcasm or facetiousness.
• This is a personal blog. The views and opinions expressed here represent my own thoughts (at the time of writing) and not those of the people, institutions or organizations that I may or may not be related with unless stated explicitly.
Maybe it's seven weeks without drinking, or maybe it's because this is how my mind works anyway, but I was thinking the other day about infinity.
Well, I say thinking, it crossed my mind. In the words of Bruce Dickinson, infinity really is hard to comprehend. I'm sure you don't need me to tell you that it's not an actual number
.
If someone gave you a billion biscuits once a second for twenty years... you'd still be nowhere close. Although you'd probably be sick of biscuits.
Anyway, the thing playing in my mind was that playground argument that most kids have done (including myself):
: I've seen Star Wars 10 times.
: I've seen Star wars 100 times.
: Well I've seen it infinity times
: I've seen it infinity-plus-one times
: aahahahah! you knob! there's no such thing as infinity-plus-one!
Because even child-logic manages to grasp that if infinity can't be defined as an actual number, you can't possibly add a number on to it. Can you? I think we can do the next best thing...
+++ +++
For today's exercise, we're going to create a ball. A red ball. We're going to create it out of whatever we can find to make it tough, because it's going to last forever. Don't ask how, it just will.
There's our ball. Date-stamped at midday today. This ball will outlast the earth, the galaxy and even the universe itself. Like I said, don't ask how, because for the purposes of this exercise, the ball is going to be chronolgically-infinite; and if this ball can't be, then neither can anything else.
So, our ball has a fixed "start-point" in universal time. Before 12:00 today, it didn't exist. After 12:00 today, it did. 60 minutes after we make the red ball, we're going to make a blue one. Same materials, same properties, just a different colour.
This blue ball will also last forever. Same rules as above. We now have two balls (...quiet at the back), one an hour older than the other one; and that's the key.
If we come back to them tomorrow at 1pm, we can see how old they are:
As time is flowing smoothly, they've both existed at the same rate, and the red one is still an hour older than the blue one. Of course, at this point they're both roughly a day old. If we come back to them in a year...
And obviously, the red ball is still an hour older than the blue one. Of course, these are just snapshots of how they looked at any one point in time. The balls can't be said to be "infinite" yet, because they're both only a year(ish) old. This problem will be inherent in any snapshot we take because, as we identified earlier, we can't stop at "infinity" to take a picture - the number doesn't exist. But by now, I think you know where I'm heading with this.
So what we'll have to do next is make a statement, rather than a snapshot. Like I said, these balls will exist forever. We know that, because that's how we created them.
Although both balls a chronologically "infinite", the red ball will ALWAYS be one hour older than the blue one. Although the blue one will go on forever, the red one has been around longer. Can this be defined as "infinity-plus-one"?
Again, we're assuming there that infinity can be defined as a solid number. Although, to be fair, we're assuming that the balls will survive the end of the universe. As popular theory suggests the universe is 13.7 billion years old (which isn't a lot when you write it down), it seems silly to assume that it won't end at some point. And as we don't know what happened before the creation of the universe, we have no idea what will happen after it. Where do all the balls go?
Another way to look at it would be to suggest that as the balls have different-but-fixed starting points, they aren't truly infinite. Using the above exercise, any infinite object that was created before them would be older, and therefore "more infinite". Using that logic, the only infinte objects would be those that have always existed. Namely, objects that don't have a starting point, in the same way as the red and blue balls don't have an ending point. This would make the "original-infinite" objects older than the physical universe. If we could find one of these objects, we'd arguably have a way to find out what existed before the universe began.
But that's all wildly theoretical, of course. We haven't found an infinite object yet, and it seems a safer bet to assume that infinity can't exist, by its own definition.
...imagine the things I think about when I have been drinking.
Balls to it.
DISCLAIMERS:
• ^^^ That's dry, British humour, and most likely sarcasm or facetiousness.
• This is a personal blog. The views and opinions expressed here represent my own thoughts (at the time of writing) and not those of the people, institutions or organizations that I may or may not be related with unless stated explicitly.
DISCLAIMERS:
• ^^^ That's dry, British humour, and most likely sarcasm or facetiousness.
• This is a personal blog. The views and opinions expressed here represent my own thoughts (at the time of writing) and not those of the people, institutions or organizations that I may or may not be related with unless stated explicitly.
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