Watercooler 0: Nothing Is A Problem For Me

Im not giving up on it. I'm posting there too.

Though I kinda miss my avatar... Sigh.

http://static.flickr.com/96/215120003_fe34e0090f.jpg

Phew, that's better.

Never offer unsolicited advice. You'll only end up pissing both advisee and advisor off.

But whatever. Some people have to discover things for themselves - and if they never discover it, they're just going to carry on being frustrated and miserable.

I suppose it's just because the subject being discussed was something so close to mine own heart. It's impossible for me to be objective.

I find that often when I do this, the other person will reply: "No, but it's like this (minor circumstantial difference) for me, not like that," not willing to take any wisdom from my offering.

She thinks "K is like this, I'm not like this, I'm like that." When what I'm trying to say is "I used to be like that, and it did me great damage and caused me great angst until I learned how to be this"

Maybe it just comes down to reasons why people make music, and create in the first place... which I guess is something pretty personal and not really open for debate anyway.

*Why* do you make music? For personal fulfillment, for acclaim from others, to attract a specific audience?

When you write, do you have an audience (potential or actual) in mind, or do you just write what comes to you?

If you could look into the future, and find out for certain, that you will never actually "make it" in the music biz, that you will never actually get any further than whatever (small or otherwise) standing/success/lack thereof you have now, would you continue to do it? Would you do it differently? Would you just quit?

I mean, maybe that sounds harsh, but you know, thinking about what kind of *audience* you want, and then backtracking to what kind of music you want to make... to me, that just seems ass backwards, and wrongheaded.

(xpost = hullo watercooler people. I'm looking at last.fm and thinking about it)

And every now and then, I have a bit of a wobbly, but I have to kind of remind myself why I do make music. Because I go stark raving mad(der) if I don't. It's nice when more people listen to it, yes, I'll admit that (and it's probably really frustrating when you see you audience slipping away, or failing to form) - but the funny thing is, I think that people (music fans, whatever) are more attracted to your music when it *is* coming from your own Happy Buttons, that it's somehow just fresher, more energetic, more open, more honest, more... interesting.

And the funny thing is, the guys who invented the Crazy Frog were just f*cking about, trying to make the most annoying sound ever, for the sheer joy of it. Hence why its original name was "the annoying thing". Maybe that's not necessarily *musical* creativity, but it certainly fulfils the "push your own happy buttons first" criteria.

Most exciting thing today = we bought a new fridge. Our old fridge has been kind of failing doing what it's meant to, so quick trip to Comet and, hurrah, cold food and drinks again.

I'm going to Edinburgh tomorrow to drink booze.

Onimo joined!

He told me. I've told him about here. I'm sure he'll be along at some point to share your enthusiasm :-)

No, it's another last.fm group - it's called "UK Watercooler".

Oh heavens no. I just ripped the stuff I didn't listen to anymore. (Which was about, oh, a thousand CDs to start with.)

I'm quite excited by our xmas party on thursday. Should be mildly amusing. I've been practising doing my bow tie, and I look brilliant. I have to learn the words to the Internationale by tomorrow - eeek!

My goodies arrived from cafepress today - 2 cool t shirts and a mug. You lot will appreciate them: http://www.cafepress.com/barlowshop

I don't do that thing Forest, but I had a housemate who did. She was from Austin, TX but was a student of British history who was obsessed with King Charles I. Fascinated by the fact that our landlord's VCR had its clock in 'military time' (ie the 24 hour clock) one day she pointed at it all excited and said "Ooh! Ooh! 1625! The year Charles became King of England and the year he married Henrietta Maria!"

Emsk, are you OK? PLEASE be careful out on those crazy London streets. There are a lot of idiots out there, don't get mown down by busses or cyclists. Do you have your bike up and going again? Seems you were safer on it!

yay, Mark H has found an ILX with no work restrictions! Welcome back!

I don't mind shopping, I just can't be bothered buying anything. Had to endure "women be shopping" jibes from Dare's boss all afternoon and so she bought a dress to spite him.

anyway... HURRAH, I LOVE SKATING!!! I WANNA DO MORE AND MORE AND MORE OF IT!!!!!!!!

Jim and his missus were supposed to come with us, but cancelled cause he was coming down with the flu. So Dare and I went to the Natural History Museum by ourselves. I was SO SCARED when I got on the ice, because I've not skated in 20 years, and I was all "I can't skate" and terrified. But five minutes on the baby rink and it all came back to me. I had years of lessons when I was a kid - I used to be kind of a mad hockey player when I was about 11.

Apprently the best ice rink in England is five minutes from my house - I've walked by it a million times and never been in it. But Dare gave me her spare pair of skates under the promise that I would go every week.

Poor Ed. Brown rice is actually quite hard on the digestion. You should be eating over boiled white rice.

But I suppose "dig a well for clean drinking water" doesn't look as cute on a christmas card or whatever.

I did tell my brother to make a donation to Oxfam or FotE in my name for Xmas. But only coz he's a Tory.

Irish cattle thief.

I just ordered one of these for Amber and Alice, prob too late for Xmas but hey (ho let's go)!

There is a tiny tiny skating rink in Oxford in the castle complex (actually the prison exercise yard complex but that doesn't have the same marketing potential).

It's possible that the real ILX would now be unblocked by our IT boffins were it operational. Rumour has it that the restrictions at the Oxford office were apparently stricter than the other offices around the globe and so in the interests of fairness they have been relaxed. This sounds like a rare and uncharacteristic act of altruism to me, and other explanations have been ciculating on the office rumour mill, including that we are making use of webthings for commercial reasons that were previously the preserve of 'fun interweb', such as blogs and podcasts. That said the podcast from our new chief CEO (we've just been taken over) was still blocked and an email came round saying "but you can of course watch it on yr computers at home". This was greeted with snorts of derision, speshly as it is apparently two hours long.

I'm not sure if that's brilliant... or beary scary.

x-post

It's very scary at first. Dare *made* me do it, I really wasn't going to, I was all "no, I can't skate!"

But honestly, it's a bit like riding a bike. It's not difficult, but there's a trick to it. It's all about balance. I was terrified I was just going to fall over, but Dare told me "if you feel like you're going to fall, bend your knees" and I did that every time, and seriously, I didn't fall once.

We did this last year, Dawn and Alice were like giraffes on, well, ice skates. I was OK with Amber, we had a couple tumbles but it was OK.

Ice Capades - Skating In London!

I'm going to copy and paste and answer there.

Boiled eggs are pretty safe, you need to keep your protein levels up.

What does that even mean?

Unless of course they were actually trying to say that they beleive women are superior to men. (Only if you're an actuary, actualy.)

Also, L@@K:

http://i119.photobucket.com/albums/o125/wonderandlust/The%20Secret%20Machines/sm4.jpg

TSM are vampires!

1) drinking blood
2) NO REFLECTION IN MIRROR!!!

"Hey there, you don't care
Beautiful boy with the long brown hair..."

http://www.cs.uni.edu/~wallingf/blog-images/humor/find-x.jpg

I should set up some new users or something.

xpost awesome.

You could just rename the skating thread to

Watercooler Sub Zero: Ice Capades

as it's all the same people and this thread is about a million posts too long.

::waves wand::

Watercooler Sub Zero: Ice Capades