Floydian Slip?

YOU KNOW YOU’RE A FLOYDIAN IF….

You shake your head and chuckle each time you hear “Another Brick in the Wall pt. 2″ on the radio.

You have the urge to commit acts of vandalism and write “Just another brick in the Wall” each time you see a plain brick wall.

Your farewell line to your friends is “Shine on.”

You can name every studio and live album, in order of release.

You named your dog “Seamus.”

Every time you wear your ‘The Wall’ shirt you get somebody saying “Ah, Pink Floyd! Yeah, that guy’s cool…” and it never fail to piss you off!

You learn history through Pink Floyd concert videos.

You’re a member of an online forum group that discusses Floyd 24/7!

About umpteen different times a day, you here someone unknowingly say some Floyd lyrics, or something very similar

Every time you see a rainbow, you immediately think of Dark Side of the Moon.

Things that normally wouldn’t relate to floyd, relate to floyd. Like a gas station I know called “on the run”

Yeah, every time someone says money, I can hear the sound effects in my head.

If you think of sex anytime you see a flower.

You’re a true Floydian when you DO know ‘which One’s Pink?’….

Also, you’re a true Floydian if you can tell all kinds of interesting facts about the band, but nobody wants to hear them

You know you’re a pink floyd fan when you get into a bar fight trying to convince someone there is no song called Dark Side Of The Moon. (Brain Damage)

You actually sing entire songs to yourself all day, including singing the instrumental parts and the weird sound effects (like the “i can’t think of anything to say” from Brain Damage).

You have more versions of Comfortably Numb then Pink Floyd CD’s

You instinctively start looking under P at any record store, even though you know they won’t have anything you don’t already have.

You’ve waited 3 years for a single DVD (PULSE)

If you were in charge of a school you would make every each class listen to different Floyd (or solo works) depending on the Subject.

i.e physics: Dark Side of the Moon
History: Old Floyd (Piper – More)
Chemistry: Experimental (Umma & Atom)
Biology: Music from the Body (Waters)
Modern studies: The Final Cut & Amused to Death
English: The Wall. (Analysis)
etc

When you see someone bike past you with a cape streaming out behind them, you can’t help but start humming “High Hopes.” I did anyway. :p

You might be a Floydian if the buzzing of your washing machine/dryer sounds just like the beginning of Welcome To The Machine..

You know you’re a Floydian if you watch Dorothy fight off the tornado winds and you hear ‘Great Gig in the Sky’ in your head, or you hear ‘Down down down down down down down…’ and picture the Wicked Witch walking down the stairs…

You know you’re a Floydian when you keep wanting to say “Floydian slip”, when you really mean “Freudian slip”. ??? It seems highly ironic.

When someone says “What do you want from me?!” you answer, “You can have anything you want. You can drift, you can dream, even walk on water…”

You know you’re a Floydian if you get offended when someone says they don’t like Floyd.

You know you’re a floydian if…literally the only things in your music library is Pink Floyd and solo stuff

You know you’re a Floydian if any time you hear animal noises/nature sounds, you start imagining the intro of Cirrus Minor or Grantchester Meadows.

AND if you hear someone banging on piano keys, then you hope they start playing Sysyphus.

You might be a Floydian if you write it in the space that asks your religion

If people look directly at you if any reference to the Wall, Dark Side of the Moon or Pink Floyd is made in any media.

You know you’re a Floydian when you chuckle merrily when your history teacher talks about Nazi atrocities.

When you can listen to The Final Cut all the way through more than once.

When you request Jugband Blues at your funeral.

When you’re shocked to find that Microsoft Word says Saucerful isn’t a real word.

When you start singing when someone asks you the time or asks to borrow money.

You think of an orchestral ‘In The Flesh’ every time you see an Irishman.

When you quote psalm 23 every time you hear the words ‘New Zealand’

In the spring when the snow is melting, you constantly play “Signs of Life”

You might be a Floydian if, you have a girl that fits into your own world and your pretty much whipped to her every need and have a sh*t tonne of money to buy her w/e she wants…

When someone says/shouts: “Hey(,) you…” You start to sing “Hey You”.

your customary greeting to everyone is ‘hey you’

You’ve got a tattoo that says ‘R.I.P Syd’

You insist that your family members, friends and basically everyone around you refer to you by the name of your favorite band member (in my case Syd) and refuse to respond when they don’t

You’ve taught your nephews, nieces, sons, daughters, basically any kid you can get hold of the lyrics to ‘another brick in the wall pt. 2’ so they can sing it to their teachers

Whenever you some across someone named ‘Arnold’ you’re tempted to search through their closet.

When someone tells you they don’t like a Floyd song you feel a strong urge to kick them in the shins…hard!

Every song you hear by someone else you wonder what it would sound like if it had Dave or Syd playing lead, or Roger on bass or vocals, Rick on the organ or nick on drums…better no doubt

Your excuse for everything is either ‘I don’t know I was really drunk at the time’ or ‘it was a momentary lapse of reason’

You are capable of having conversations with fellow floydians only in their lyrics and titles
Let me present you with an example let’s see if you can figure out where each lyric is from
Exhibit A:
‘Hello (echo hello hello )’
‘Hey you’
‘What’s…uh, the deal?’
‘I don’t know, I was really drunk at the time last night I had too much to drink Sitting in a club with so many fools playing to rules, trying to impress but feeling rather empty I had another drink’
‘I got some bad news for you, sunshine you know the folly was your own but the force behind can’t conquer all your fears, so who’s the fool who wears the clown?’
‘Don’t give me that do goody good ********’
.’It was only a difference of opinion, but really…I mean good manners don’t cost nothing do they, eh?”
‘Out of the way, it’s a busy day; I’ve got things on my mind’
‘If you didn’t care what happened to me, and I didn’t care for you, we would zig zag our way through the boredom and pain occasionally glancing up through the rain. Wondering which of the buggars to blame.’
“I can’t think of anything to say except… I think it’s marvelous! HaHaHa!”
‘Well, you go your way, I’ll go mine. I don’t care if we get there on time’.
‘Would you like to say something before you leave? Perhaps you’d care to state exactly how you feel? We said good-bye before we said hello, I hardly even like you, I shouldn’t care at all’

But most importantly, if you’re a Floydian NOTHING else is good enough

‘If I go insane, and they lock me away, will you still let me join in the game?’

You spend all your time at work trying to come up with more stuff to add to the ‘you know you’re a floydian when…’ list. yeah people at work are quite sick of it

You know you’re a Floydian if you sit in a Maths class trying to calculate the volume of Roger’s nose.

I started laughing uncontrollably the other day when i passed a road named “Arnold Lane”.

Something happened in the Physics lab today…I forgot what it was, but I blurted out, “I must have had a momentary lapse of reason” out kinda loudly. lol…I know, not the best choice to tie ‘Floyd into Physics, but it’s one of my favorite lines to use! lol (at least PF album names)

You plan out what PF album/CD you’re going to listen to on a trip, SEVERAL days in advance!!!

You have listened to all the albums in order without listening to any other music in between.

You have tried number 58 without stopping.

(For guys) You have tried to grow your hair to look like on of the band members hair from the early 70′s.

(For girls) you think that one of the band members (in the early 70′s) was hot.

You’re a Floydian if you know the whole megaphone speech from Waiting For The Worms.

You can name all of the musicians who played on the various Floyd tours, live albums and solo tours and live albums

You have to put in “part 2″ when talking about what most people simply call “Another Brick in the Wall”

You know that Atom Heart Mother features “The John Aldiss Choir”

I don’t know if this is just me, but I get annoyed when people (even sometimes other Floyd fans) talk about SOYCD parts 1 and 2 – it’s parts 1-5 and 6-9!!!

You know which songs David Gilmour plays bass on and which ones Roger Waters plays guitar on

You know the backwards message in Empty Spaces

When you hear random words spoken by anyone you can break into a floyd song, like some one says “breathe” and you respond “breathe in the air-dont be afraid to care”

At least once every day you think of floyd lyrics for no apparent reason.

In conversation you make a pink floyd reference that no one gets.

At some point when in school you always wanted to shout at a teacher. HEY TEACHER LEAVE THEM KIDS ALONE.

You think that Pink Floyd wrote the best song and album of all time.

You know when each part of Shine on you crazy diamond starts and finishes.

You know the story behind ‘Dark side of the moon’s name.

You think that no other guitarist can play the comfortably numb solo better than Gilmour.

You know the full names of the 5 band members and which albums each participated on.

You know who sings ‘Have a Cigar’.

You would rather have had Roger Waters play Pink in the movie of the Wall (or at least have him sing In the Flesh (both parts)).

You know which album is each band member’s favorite.

For those of us who were too young at the time of the last tour (PULSE). You wish you could go back in time just to see them play (since it doesn’t look like they’re gonna do it again)

Every time you see or hear the word diamond you think of Syd

Every time someone says the word “numb”…your quick to respond “Are you Comfortably Numb?”

Every time you hear of a domestic robbery you immediately think of “brain damage”

Whenever you’re going over the phases of the moon in Science class, it takes actual effort to not mention DSOTM during an entire period.

You might be a Floydian if you know how Pink Floyd got their name
If you’ve named your pinkie “Floyd”, you might be a Floydian.

You called your cat Lucifer Sam

You own a gnome called Grimble Gromble

Every time you hear a bike bell you start singing ‘Bike’ to yourself

You own a mouse called Gerald but you don’t have a house for him

Every time you see a prism you think of DSOTM

Whenever you get into an argument with a doctor you always tell him/her to “Take up thy Stethoscope and walk”

Every time you go to turn on a light you say “Let there be more light”

You have your alarm set to play ‘Time’ to wake you up

When you go shopping you always buy Apples and Oranges and Candy and a Currant Bun

Every time you see someone carrying an axe you say “Careful with that axe, (name of person)”

You or someone like you

“You or someone like you” is the first novel by author Chandler Burr, whose literary feats heretofore include the odd book about scent and the hilarious job of being a ‘scent critic’ for the New York Style Magazine. Granted, I’m not sure how prestigious a job that is, for all I know he could be making the small to medium bucks doing it, it just makes me chuckle to myself.

Job description hilarity aside, this is a tremendous first effort. Parts of it could, perhaps, have benefited from a little Darwin-esque natural selection, but overall it is a definite page-turner. The protagonist is a British woman named Anne. We are made very aware of her ‘Britishness’ and how she finds it hard to adjust into the Hollywood lifestyle, confirming stereotypes of the legendary Brit aloofness. I found myself admiring her spunk; even though she insists throughout, how uncomfortable she is with public speaking, she seems to take no prisoners when the situation calls for someone to act as the voice of the crowd.

Okay, back story time – Anne is married to Howard, a guy she met at school. They’re both eng lit. Majors and seem to suffer from eidetic memory where they can rote word for word almost anything they’ve ever read. I haven’t read even half the books we’re made to believe these people have,  and I have no more than vague recollections of the gist of what a book was about, if that,  just saying a little more realism would’ve been nice, am I right people?

They have a son named Sam, the best-looking boy in the world, and their lives revolve around him. Howard is a Hollywood executive and knows all the movers and shakers of tinsel town. Also, he’s Jewish, and Anne’s non-Jewishness has been cause for a lot of strife in Sam’s paternal side of the family.

Doloreans in hand (booyah! Back to the future reference!), the book operates on a time loop between the present and several occasions in the past. We open to a major catastrophe that has planted itself in the center of our protagonist’s life, it has something to do with Sam, and it’s causing her and Howard to grow apart. The big reveal comes much later, when she stops acting like a schizoid, going back and forth and finally reveals what the devil is going on.

A spur of the moment recommendation of must-reads to a friend, snowballs into several book clubs that Hollywood types are bending backwards to get into, soon she’s suggesting books to turn into movies and donning the cap of executive producer on several projects. I loved the literary references, excerpts from books and poems that she uses to get her message across, whether to her estranged husband, pissed off friends or conniving back stabbers.

A coming of age trip to Israel to find out more about his Jewish heritage, reveals more than he bargained for, when Sam comes to realize that he’s not actually Jewish because his mom isn’t, pure blood and all that. This sets off a chain of events, which ultimately leads to Howards’ total meltdown. Also, we find out that Sam is gay, and no one cares.

The author uses the Hollywood backdrop to get his thoughts on gays and Jews across as well; I especially loved her comparison of the Jew philosophy to the nazi dogma, at a talk she gives about Art, no less. The woman has style!

Using a narrator whose not part of the Hollywood crowd; in fact, someone who’s the exact opposite of the typical attention grubbing, airhead that makes up most of tinsel town, gives the book a much needed impartiality. We see stark contrasts between the two; where the one has dignity, class, compassion, great taste in literature and intellect the other is greedy, classless, at times stupid, involved in idle gossip and part of the book club not for the love of reading but because it’s the ‘in’ thing at the moment, we’ll let you figure out which is which!

Overall I’d give the book a 3 out of 5. It’s an easy read, doesn’t require your full concentration like say, Moby Dick. It’s something I’d curl up by the fire with, a cup of hot cocoa in hand, provided I was living in Alaska, in Karachi I’d probably die of heat exposure.

 

You make me feel like a natural woman

chip away at the hard exterior, chisel in hand, and eventually the guard will be let down…

the real woman within; part cynical old hag, part naive little girl who still believes in a happily ever after

a little vulnerable, a little broken

some old wounds have healed…leaving behind all too apparent scars… some are still raw, gaping, seeping…i try not to pick at the scabs…

a sense of humor that’s off the wall and a very small repertoire of emotions, with indifference stated there in big bold letters

not everyone understands… even fewer grow to love…

that’s me in a nut shell

“Read, in the name of thy Lord”

I don’t think I could’ve chosen a more profound quote for a title for this week’s post. Also, I totally stole the idea from my sister’s blog which you should visit, dear reader; it’ll be worth your time.

www.sanahmad90.wordpress.com

Ever heard snooty people tell you ‘the book was better than the movie adaptation’? Well, however much you hate them, they’re right. The book is ALWAYS better, no exceptions.

Whereas the adaptation has restrictions like the director’s vision, the actor’s ability or the budget, there’s no limit to where your imagination can take you. If the book wasn’t better for you, hate to break it to ya, but your imagination sucks! The idiot box saps you of that ability, you’re basically watching regurgitated milquetoast that you know you could’ve conceptualized better (Michael Bay, I’m looking at you!). Reading adds volumes to your vocabulary (see what I did there?), it adds spark to the razor’s edge of your wit, it makes you a more interesting, enlightened person, best of all, it’s a way of escaping from the dreariness and misery of your everyday to a place where good always triumphs over evil, good intentions are rewarded, bad people get their just desserts and there are happily ever afters.

Oooh oooh Fun exercise! I’m going to put in tons of references of famous books, let’s see if you can get them all. Leave me a comment for the ones you can guess.

Books open up intellectual horizons so you can weigh the decisions you make today in light of their consequences, it can open portals to the future

You can visit a future with too much freedom, where all sorts of information is at your fingertips, except your path and destiny has already been chosen for you, through chemicals that stunt your physical or intellectual growth, and you will not be allowed to go beyond that

or You can be in a terrifying, dystopic future where there is no freedom and big brother watches your every move, the chimes of freedom are flashing, except in this suffocating universe ‘freedom is slavery’

I admit both of those futures are equally dismal… what’s up with that? Why are future imaginings always so despondent?

Or you can reminisce about the past

travel back in time to a sexist society where you share the despair of one woman whose cross to bear is the burden of her shame her entire life simply because she would not reveal the name of the man who has sired her child and that man is too much of a coward to come forward and claim his reward.

or be horrified with the gut wrenching story of slavery when one man decided to trace his ancestral family tree and how he came to be where he was.

*sheesh*  I’ve chosen the most depressing examples EVER! Please don’t commit suicide!

If unhealthy obsessions is your thing (weird segue, I am aware) in an instant you can be the first mate to a ship captain battling his inner demons and obsessions in the shape of a giant whale that may or may not be white or witness the struggle between an old man and a marlin fish, both of whom come to regard each other as adversaries, neither of whom end up getting what they had wanted.

Adolescence is a strange time for all of us, we’re just discovering who we are; you’re either the innocent young boy in 1930′s New York whose candor is heartbreakingly endearing, or the young man who’s defined by his love for Beethoven and ultra-violence.

A book can take you to a fantastical universe set in an alternate dimension, where elves, orcs, dwarves, hobbits, wizards and men exist in harmony… well, not so much in harmony as fighting an epic good vs. evil battle, where the ring that binds them in darkness is destroyed or an equally fantastical universe where cakes make you smaller, rabbits have tea parties, there are grinning cats and hookah smoking caterpillars and queens of hearts that scream ‘off with their head!’

or you can experience the complete isolation  of a man ostracized, and ultimately claimed by death for lack of human contact, because of his having changed into something undesirable (tons of subtext in this one!) or the hive mentality of a town where people have collective amnesia regarding the night before, all the women end up giving birth to these demonic children that have blond hair and creepy eyes, are inherently evil and grow at warped speed.

Your imagination will reel a little with the powerful imagery of the underwater world as one man imagined it in the late 1800′s and your inner child will rejoice with the above land imagery of a factory that makes every kind of candy imaginable

or be transported to a queer place where you meet a mysterious stranger just come to town, who’s all wrapped up in bandages and sunglasses (claims to have had an accident) so that no part of him is visible, what’s his secret? (I gave you a pretty big hint, right there!) or a man that the entire town considers somewhat soft in the head and stupid because he is so open and has no hidden agendas. A little too exposed, shall we say? People only befriend him because he is rich and they like affluence.

You can give me some books to guess in the comments too, but remember, they’re easy, so, no cheating!

Also, don’t scroll down and read the comments first!

One pill makes you larger and one pill makes you small, and the ones that mother gives you, don’t do anything at all.

i’m stuck at a crossroads. Of the two options before me, one is going to mean a lot of unpleasantness for the present but there is a possibility that in the long run i will come to regard it as a smart move. the other will mean ease for the time being but this road might lead to a reckoning far worse than anything the other one can offer. i might also add that the first path comes with the blessing of my folks, especially my mom, the second, not so much.

I’m in a pretty miserable state right now, if any of you reading this can offer any advice I’d appreciate it .

 

9 Annoying Ways to Gain The Undying Hatred of The One You Love (Through (Mostly) Facebook)*:

Are you in love? Is your crush blissfully unaware of your harebrained obsession? Studies show that there is a 100% chance that if you are a raving lunatic, you’re also a stalker. But for some reason stalker types get a bum rap, true, they have planned the odd assassination to impress the lady fair (Jodie Foster), and emo poems, written in congealing liquid that looks suspiciously similar to blood, are posted every which way. But that’s old news, before Facebook made stalking a fundamental part of forcing your way, guns blazing, into your crush’s heart and mind. So, Have you added them on Facebook? Then you’re already on your way, For the purposes of this article we’re going to refer to our mutual crush as X. Follow these 9 simple tips and SOMETHING is bound to happen, maybe love, maybe a restraining order! Excitement!

9) The ‘try, try and try some more’ approach: Comment on one of X’s pictures, wait for them to do something about it. The way you (crazy person) see it, they have two choices, they can either ‘like’ it or respond with a funny comment of their own. Heck, a mumbled ‘thanks’ would do. In any case, your existence will be acknowledged and that’s half the battle. In the case where you get absolutely zilch, a good technique to try would be to keep deleting and reposting the same comment until he/she realizes you are insane enough to do this till the end of freakin’ time! and just ‘likes’ it to shut you up. This will also have the added advantage of sending annoying notifications to everyone else that commented on the picture. Win-win.

8) The ‘Like-unlike’ strategy: When you want results similar to no. 10 but lack the wit and mad typing skills required to say ‘lulz, u so crazy!’, you might want to try this. Each time you see X online go and ‘unlike’ all the pictures you ‘liked’ last time you logged on, in about an hour or so ‘re-like’ them all. ALL of them! If X has several albums uploaded, that just adds to the fun! Randomly ‘like’ and ‘unlike’ pictures. Do this as often as you can. Eventually X will feel like he/she is losing his/her mind and also they’ll be sick of seeing your stupid face in their notifications. If you’re lucky, this will also take a toll on X’s fragile ego, and that’s exactly where you want them; sad, broken and unhinged.

7) The disappearing act: Now that you’ve got the basics down pat, let’s move on to something slightly more antagonizing, shall we? Write random things on X’s wall, preferably interesting enough that they’d be compelled to have a conversation with you. Once your conversation has lasted beyond two or three exchanges delete all your own posts. You’ll have to be creative with this, try getting X to mention you by name in their comment, given the right bit of nudging on your part and hyperbolism on their part, the results can be a thing of beauty!

6) Spread the insanity: Here’s a chance for you to share the fun with your friends as your crush’s mind slowly unravels. Air your existential angst on X’s wall, have a pity party with your equally deranged friends about your crippling heroin addiction, conversations that have nothing to do with anything, treat his/her wall like your own dank, smelly basement, where nothing is off limits.

5) Tag, you’re it: Tag X in pictures of you, even when they weren’t there, or possibly have never met you. You could add places you’ve never been to together. This idea works well for pictures of kittens or babies, especially if they’re ugly kittens and babies, hard to find but not impossible. For added lunacy, write on their wall reminding them about the fun the two of you had at the place you never went to. You could also tag them in your status, be sure to use mushy quotes with slightly homicidal undertones.

4) It’s complicated: Set your relationship status to “it’s complicated’ with them. Facebook will try to foil your plans, because it has this irritating habit of letting X know that you’re trying to be in a relationship with them. When they answer with a resounding ‘HELL no!’, your only course of action will be to make vague allusions to the fact that the two of you are in a relationship without actually coming out and saying it.

3) Racism and Hatemongering: Go over X’s picture albums with a fine-tooth comb, make hateful, vile comments about all their friends of the opposite sex. Be as un-pc as possible, racism can be tons of fun! For good measure, insult the particularly good-looking same sex friends too, you know, just in case your crush is gay, I mean why else would they not be in love with you, right?

2) Shopping! With photo!: Have you ever used Photoshop? Great! You don’t know what that is? Even better! Choose some pictures from X’s album which have other people in them, crop out the other people and Photoshop yourself in. Go crazy! Photoshop two or three of yourselves in, and then tag X in it. Use this in conjunction with no.6 and tag a romantic place you wish you could go, like ‘public restroom, Rout 66-Revisited’.

1) Blog it!: The ultimate love letter, write about your insane love strategy on your blog. Give vague, very clear hints as to who your X is, like maybe… oh, I don’t know… they invented being funny on the internet. When they know all the effort you put in they will be impressed and scared out of their minds! (Hi seanbaby!). Now, watch as everything falls into place!

*(Warning: Following the author’s effective, yet crazy advice, could result in you either put in limited access or blocked and deleted altogether from X’s fb.)  

 

light bulb!

Lately i have been having a bit of an itch, to write. not to be confused with the very pronounced itch due to the allergic reaction to some…shell fish?  sugar?  cloth?  skin cream? i guess we’ll never know!

Anyway, light bulb! what are my passions in life? music, movies, reading, season of shows, eating and shopping… so my idea was i could review something new for you everyday. what say? hit me back! if i get a response i’ll start today! if not… i might start anyway, or not… you know how fickle i am.