Lately I’m becoming more and more aware of just how much info we have thrown at us on a daily basis.

I’ve heard the term “life stream”, which is currently a buzz word for social aggregation type platforms, but it seems we’re living in more of a life torrent, and there’s no sign of slowing down any time soon.

Everybody seems to be ready and waiting to jump onto the next big thing, but nobody seems to be enjoying the moment. Gone are the days of buying an album [I could end this sentence here] and listening to it over and over for months.

I’ll openly admit to downloading music, I’m a “try before buy” guy, but I actually DO buy (just this morning I ordered another 2 cds (’Elbow – Seldom Seen Kid‘ & ‘Grizzly Bear – Yellow House‘) – unlike a lot of people I know that simply just download infinite albums, and never reward the artists they like that put their hearts and souls into their work.

For me, buying a new album is still a great experience. Every night in bed I listen to my iPod, playing new material I’ve been working on, or a new download/CD I’m into. I love to indulge myself with new music, and really become engrossed. I have a great set of studio reference headphones to be sure I hear every aspect of the music, I’ll take out the insert and read about the band, the lyrics, the instruments used, who plays what, and the “thank you” section. On top of that you’ve the artwork, which normally adds to the whole ‘feel’ of an album (think Stanley Donwood / Thom Yorke’s artwork for Radiohead releases).

With so much information floating around [and being stuffed into every orifice possible by any vehicle (mail, email, phone calls, answer messages, TV ads, text messages, town square survey vultures, Radio commercials, etc] it’s more and more evident that we have less and less time.

As with anything in such volume & diversity, it’s only natural people will find it increasingly difficult to focus, and so I hope we never loose the ability of finding ways to indulge ourselves in what we love, carve out our own personalities, and enjoy being able to find escapism (in any form) from the day to day grind that is life on planet earth.

hey,

Just a quick one to say recently someone gave me a demonoid invite (which I’d been after for a long time). I’d like to return the favour, and so I’ve managed to get some invite codes to hand out.

If you want one just let me know

… it was a mistake.. kind of..

Look, I was driving quite fast on a dual carriage way. The pigeon had already been hit (I think) by another car, as it was just standing there in the middle of the road, taking in the lovely scenery of tarmac, speed barriers, and speeding cars.

I had a car in the slow lane next to me, so couldn’t change lanes. My initial reaction was to slam the breaks on. It then occurred to me that even if the pigeon [we'll call him Keith] was an additional 5 metres away, I’d still hit him, albeit a little slower, which would result in severe damage instead of death.

As we approached Keith, he slowly turned his head 90 degrees towards us, and looked me right in the eye. Keith had that look in his eye, and immediately I knew he was going to stand his ground, he was ready for ‘the end’ (being a pigeon isn’t all it’s cracked up to be you know), and my task was to deliver this to him as effectively as I could.

I made the decision to take my foot off the break, and began to accelerate instead. Keith didn’t move, nor did he even blink. We braced ourselves for the collision, the final section to an incomplete life.

I don’t remember any sound, just a small cloud of feathers. We both immediately looked back in silence out of the rear window. Keith lay still on the ground.

I’ve replayed this back a couple of times in my mind..
I’m not sleeping well lately.