Mainstream Hate

So as my other half was realising about why she loves 1D so much, I figured out what i hate about mainstream music so much. I know most of you out there listen to a lot of mainstream music, (hence mainstream), but i guess i need to get is off my mind.
I used to listen to mainstream music, mum would have the radio on the Fox everyday on the way to and from school. What i remember really hating about that was the rotation of songs and artists. The world seemed to consist of a popular few bands, a handful of solo pop artists and a few other lesser known artists slotted in here and there. If there was a song people liked a lot then the song was played on high rotation to the point where even if you loved the song at first you ended up hating it. And what seemed to happen more often than not was my disliking of that song to begin with... But don't get me wrong, for the majority of my school life i listened to mainstream, had songs i loved, songs i hated from it. I think it all changed when i joined a band.
One of the members introduced me to triple J, and i have to say it took a bit of desensitising. But the more i listened to it, the more bands i found and fell in love with. There were just so many bands out there that I had never heard of, and even though triple J still had a "mainstream" of artists, my world was expanded. I think the main thing i loved was the real music feel. Music wasn't just computerised backing to a solo artist singing about how they love beautiful girls tits, getting down to the club every night and taking drugs and shots etc.
Also, the fact that mainstream radio claims to release everything first. Yes they may be first to release lady gaga and rhianas new hits, but by the time they play an indie-rock song, its not new anymore. For example Brother by Matt Corby...i was at a party a month ago and everyone was singing along with that song, thinking it was new, but it was on the top 100 songs for 2011 on tripleJ. And what got me really annoyed was that i knew that if i had of tried introducing them to that song earlier they would have probably not payed much attention to it, but because it was on fox fm and everyone was listening to it it was suddenly cool.
As a band we have recently put original material on the back-burner and scraped together some covers material, because lets face it, its easier and you get paid more for it.
But part of the whole covers deal is that you need to learn some mainstream music as well. And although we moan and groan about learning them, half the mainstream covers that we learn end up being our favourite songs to play. For example lady gagas lovegame. Why? Because when we do it our way with guitars, keyboards and real drums it is so much more fun. Another recent on was the old eurythmics song sweet dreams...
So i guess what i hate about mainstream is that it's everyone just following a trend. They don't always see music as an individual creative interest. They like it because they are told to like it, because their friends like it, they hate it because everyone else hates it. Their idea of going against the tide is hating music that teens like, hating justin beiber and 1D because they are young and sing about "naive" things like happiness and beauty rather than sluts and drugs. What they like is so much influenced by what everyone else likes, so kudos to Zo for sticking up to her one direction love, and even my BF for still loving the backstreet boys even though i laugh at him for it.

Ive worked out why I like one direction so much:

They're the last time I'm going to be able to "fall in love with" the hot new thing. The next time guys like them (like Justin Beiber, like Zac Efron, like Channing Tatumn) come around, I'll be too old for them :( Alas we have reached the age where we're pretty much stuck with what we've already got. Which isn't necessarily a bad thing (did anyone else almost die because of Ryan Gosling in Crazy, Stupud, Love?)

I know that I will hate myself when my my 1D phase is over but I just gotta get this out.

If you were ever wondering (or not wondering) just WHY I even like One Direction at all, I'm here to tell you.

1) It wouldn't be me without some superficiality. They're 5, young, gorgeous, 4 English and 1 Irish, lads which pretty much makes my xenophilic heart explode. Their accents are like heaven and their bodies are pretty nice too.

2) They can sing, at least I think so. There's a lot of hating out there about how "if they're such good singers how come they had to be put into a group to get through to X-Factor". Uh, I'd say it's because they had a better chance together (less competition for one) than they did alone and because, in all honestly, they were 16, 17 and 18 year old guys, you can't expect miracles from kids (and one technically adult, but I mean, have you seen Louis Tomlinson?)
Every time I hear them sing I change my mind on who's my favourite until I've finally settled on all of them because I think all of them have amazing voices, after all they were all individually good enough to make it through so that's got to count for something.

3) Did I mention the smiling thing? They make me smile, the stuff they say, their videos, the faces they pull, they're funny and they're cute and they just make my life happier for existing.

4) They're normal. I know everyone that's in the spotlight says they're normal but I actually think these boys are.
They cry, im almost positive there's footage of each of them In tears, not to say they're wimps or anything, they're just teenagers with emotions just like anyone else.
They get pimples, Liam can't live without clearisil, photos on their "days off" show acne prone skin, they miss their mothers and their families, they watch movies with their girlfriends, they drink and hang out with their (other) mates.

5) I just watched their documentary and they're so cute they made me cry, more than once. I know, I suck, but they're just this side of inspirational if you ask me.

6) Theres no...favouritism, there's no two of them are closer than any of the others, none of them are left out. At first, I thought Harry and Louis (They even have people "shipping" them: Larry Stylinson) were especially close, stand out from the others but there isn't. They are close, undoubtedly, but so are Liam and Niall, Louis and Zayn, Harry and Niall, Liam and Louis, Niall and Harry, Louis and Zayn, Niall and Zayn, Louis and Niall, basically all of them are so ridiculously close, as expected of course, but I love that. I love that despite their different ages, different upbringings, different interests, they are BEST friends. That is something to find inspiration in. 

7) They love music, they so obviously love it, it's unbelievable. They freaking sit in Harrys step-dad's bungalow or whatever (wtf is a bungalow anyway?), Niall with the guitar and they just sing. I mean, I dunno how much of it is for the camera...but it seems pretty legit to me. 

I remember when I didn't know what they looked like, didnt know who was who, couldn't pick out who was singing, couldnt pick who was who on radio interviews. Those were the days... now Harry's the background on my phone and their album is up there in my most played. But I like them so... 

I should've known studying the Holocaust would be a bad idea.

I should've thought about it more, gone 'Hey Zoe, do you really want to learn about how millions of people died horrible deaths for ridiculous and implausible reasons?"
I probably would've said yes anyway, I don't want to know, but I don't want to not know at the same time. I'm horrified, before I even went to class, two pages into the first week's reading and I was horrified. Someone had to create a word for it, I don't mean holocaust (or not only holocaust), I mean genocide. Someone had to come up with a word that could encompass what it mean to attempt to destroy and each and every person of a particular ethnicity (/nationality/race/religion).

I've just started reading one of the 'recommended' texts Neighbours by Jan T. Gross. It's about a town in Poland where half the population murdered the Jewish half. They killed and tortured the old, the sick, babies, women, men, children, indiscriminately. They killed those who had been their neighbours for years in peace. Ordinary people did this, not Nazis, not the Gestapo, not the SS normal people turned on their neighbours, friends, colleagues for...I don't even know why. No one will ever know why, I dont think even they knew why.

I'm 2 chapters in, I haven't even got to the story part yet, I'm still half way through reading about where the author got his information, who his sources were, how he discovered this forgotten bit of history. I've finished reading it now. I dont know how I got through the whole book, I dont know how I got through the whole course. I know I just needed to distance myself from it, desensitise but I just didn't know how. How was I supposed to just look past the horrific crimes against humanity? Do I even want to? Do I want to be the kind of person who isn't affected by reading about this?

I was affected, it was hard to do but I feel better for studying this unequaled period of history. I feel better for having more knowledge of it even though some of things I learnt are impossible to comprehend.

cards to politics....

I love playing card games, and learning card games and playing them over and over again. I'm not talking about Pokemon or anything. Just a simple deck of cards, 52 in a deck with two jokers chucked in, or skip-bo (i feel sorry for anyone who hasn't ever played that game... I don't like poker games as such either. I love games where you have to think, strategies, count cards. There is one game that i almost always end up playing with my mother and grandmother when she comes around. We call it Up the Creek. Its similar to phase 10, which we used to be obsessed with before we found this game. There something about sitting around the table, three generations of women, laughing and swearing at one another, that seems almost traditional. Its a three player game, and since my brother hates playing cards we can only really ever play when she's around (however sometimes i am able to rope my boyfriend into it). We love learning new games, but somehow we always end up playing that one game. I'm lucky that my boyfriends family like playing card games. When we went to visit his grandparents we spent the whole evening just playing cards and boardgames. I felt like i fitted in because i was able to pick up new rules easily, hold all my cards in one hand and teach them a few games of my own. I met someone that couldn't even remember how to play go fish, and when i tried to teach him he kept forgetting to put down his pairs and ended the game with a fist full of cards still in his hand. I felt sorry for him, and i dont know why. Many people dont like or play card games. they have other interests. I suppose in a way we constantly compare our own lives to other peoples. we consider normal to be what we like, know, do and are taught. It's a reason why we fight argue and hate our government. You cant please the majority without displeaseing the minority, who always seem to have the loudest voices. If the government dont please the minority then they are seen as greedy and selfish, but if they please only the minority.....well you get the picture...
It's such an easy thing to learn, and very sociable cards, ..maybe it can be seen that the government play poker, gambling, throwing chips here and there recklessly or just keeping them all to themselves, only taking sure wins, counting cards.... I don't know why i started writing a blog about card games, .....there seems no point, but i suppose there is a point. I now want to have a card night.

My BFF.

So I have this friend, right, she's one of my best friends. Only our best-friendship didn't come about like normal ones do. One day, at some group gathering or another she asked me if I would be her best friend. I said yes, of course, and we swapped numbers and have been best friends ever since. She's different to all my other best friends. She's so cute when she sends me random text messages basically detailing how awesome/beautiful/intelligent I am and they always make me smile and just feel good. I send random ones back of course just to make her smile but I dont think I could do it with anyone else but her even though I'm sure my friends would like to hear it. She does really sweet things for me that just brighten my day, I mean, she sent me a picture of Harry Styles with a piece of paper saying "I love you" because she knows how obsessed I am. This girl is amazing. I am so glad to have her in my life, glad that I can make her smile when she's not feeling so great, glad that she's happy to share her life with me.

She texts me to vent (bitch) about life and and the boyfriend and how school is sucking up her life and cutting into valuable boyfriend time (the boyfriend is one of my friends, hence how we met) and basically how she's afraid of how important her grades in year 12 are. I love that she trusts me with that stuff even though it adds to my life's constant reminders that no, Zoe, you don't have a boyfriend to fight and make up with and means that I'm vicariously doing year 12 for the second year running, which in addition to my own year 12 almost 2 years ago is kinda making me hate the whole institution of school (again).

Our best-friendship didn't start normally, we didn't start off slow, introducing each other and talking small talk for weeks until we graduated to phone numbers and life stories. We went from naught to 100 in 2.8 seconds. 

And I wouldn't have it any other way.
I love you, Best Friend♥.

The Internet.

The 'net is great, helps with homework, keeps us in touch, can pretty much tell you anything but it’s also the realm of a lot of hate, a lotta, lotta hate, like literal shit tons of hate (technical term).
Hate for bands, hate for celebs, hate for people who are connected with celebs, hate for people who like celebs, the list goes on.

I’ve noticed it most prominently with Justin Bieber, One Direction and in the Vampire Diaries fandom.

Justin Beiber was just a kid,he was like 16 and people halfway across the world were going out of their way to diss him. If you don’t like him, fine, don’t like him, whatever. Don’t fucking advertise your hate. He has feelings too.

One Direction are also kids and no one deserves the hate they’re getting, least of all post-pubescent-barely-adult guys in the spotlight but it’s more the hate their significant (or even not-so-significant in Harry Style’s case) female others in their lives are getting. Death threats, insults,“you’re-not-good-enough-for-Harry/Louis/Liam/Niall/Zayn”s. Seriously? Really? First of all, as if bagging the girls they hang out with (thus obviously like) is going to endear you to them. Secondly, like I said, they’re real people, they have feelings too. THINK before you speak/type/tweet. Didn’t your mother ever teach you, if you don’t have anything nice to say, don’t say anything at all?‘Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.’ Third: GET A FUCKING LIFE. Love them, or not, they’re just living their lives, maybe you should try doing the same.

And another thing, ship-wars, really? THEY’RE REAL HUMAN BEINGS NOT FICTIONAL CHARACTERS. Just…chill out guys.

TVD…oh TVD, the hate in this fandom simply astounds me. I can’t even explain how horrible people here can be. Everyone is entitled to their own opinion, if you disagree, cool. Agree to disagree and move on to find other likeminded people. Don’t hate and insult and abuse people who are different from you.

I am a big believer in “haters gonna hate” but I seriously wish there just wasn’t.

Feel free to voice your opinions guys, you are, of course, entitled to them, just try not to be a dick about it and respect everyone else’s opinions.

However, all I've said above is not to say that every single fan is a horrible conniving bitch, there are some genuinely nice people who just like [insert band/show/person here] and just want to be able to fangirl in peace. Those people are (generally) the majority, but as they say "the minority aren't stupid, they're just very loud."

On another note, the internet has also revealed that there are some serious creepers out there…and I mean to each their own but seriously? Some people are kinda twisted.

edit: I felt I should just mention that some things the internet brings are amazing, all you have to do is look at what's trending on twitter, the support for people/causes is amazing. While there is a lot of hate, when stuff like LLN (laughing like Niall, the irish guy from 1D who cracks up in every interview without fail) replaces LOL in Directioners' vocabularies...you can't help but smile.

The Importance of Being Earnest

I've been thinking a lot lately, about what's really important in my life, like what I seriously could not live without.

The obvious (obviously) comes to mind: my phone, my laptop, my car but they're all material things and I'm not superficial (really, I'm serious, I'm not).

I've decided that what is most important to me is my family, my friends and my pets and what I want to focus on here is said pets. They are very much something I could not live without, not so much my 3 goldfish (Jaws, Orcha and Sparkles) but my two dogs, Zak and Gypsie (and my not-yet existant, black kitty-cat Daisy, she's in my future and I know I will not be able to live without her) very much so.

The parentals are out at the moment, leaving me alone with the two dogs (and my fish) and they're just hanging out with me (the dogs not the goldfish). Gypsie's sporadically changing position on my bedroom floor and Zak is spreadeagled on my bed even then he barely takes up half a square foot, but the point is, I am not alone. I have Gyp sticking her big black nose in my lap every so often to make me giver her a pat and Zak trying to jump onto my lap as I'm trying to study.

I may call him stinky or a hairy nosed wombat and her big-bum or bitch-face but I am extremely grateful for my four legged friends, without whom I would be lonely and quite freaked out in this big, cold, dark house, all by my lonesome.

Possibly THE best photo of her I have ever taken.

Smile Gypsie-Rose Poppins!

Isn't he gorgeous?

Metric Colour Dreams

To follow the Zo I think i need to give an update on my music obsessions at the moment.

Although i unfortunately can't afford to splendour in the grass to see my Metric, i have just successfully bought tickets to see them at Billboards! So excited!! I hope they are great live, and im crossing my fingers that their new album will be just as amazing since thats what they most likely will be playing.....

And onto another amazing band...my amazing friend, the drummer of our band, has brought to my attention recently; City in Colour. She saw them live recently and she said she cried, which means that they must have been amazing. You could fall asleep just listening to that voice.... If you got serenaded by that voice, your pants would be coming off that night without a doubt.....

And to finish up, tonight i had band practice and we worked on my now favourite song. Sweet Dreams by The Eurythmics is the original, but if you look up Marilyn Manson's version and put the two into a blender, that is what we have somehow created....i have no clue if it works, but its fun and i love it!

Harry Edward Styles♥

I am a little bit ashamed to admit I have a total and utter crush on Harry Styles (and the other 4/5 of One Direction if I'm being honest).
The reason why I'm quite ashamed is because, God as if Bieber-fever wasn't enough, we now have the resurrection of the boyband (because the Backstreet Boys, Westlife, Human Nature, N'Sync etc. just weren't enough synchronised dancing and matching outfits for this world) as well and as a member of the post-teeny-bopper generation I should automatically not like and consider myself above the likes of Justin Bieber and the boys (or lads as they call themselves *swoon*) of One Direction.

However...they make me smile, plain and simple.
Their songs and videos (music videos, interviews, video diaries behind the scenes, etc) just make me happy, sometimes because I'm laughing at them and sometimes because I'm laughing with them but regardless, after watching/listening, there's a smile on my face.
As Sherly Crowe said (sung) "If it makes you haaaaaa-py, it can't be that baaaa-aaaaa-aaad" so I'm just going to settle in and enjoy the ride until 1D-mania blows over.

And, I mean, on a completely shallow note, when the kid (and he pretty much is a kid, he's just 3 months legal (trust me, I checked first)) looks like this:

And sounds like this (JUST WHEN HE'S TALKING! HE'S NOT EVEN SINGING! OMG!):

How can I not?

I love 1D.
And I'm not afraid to admit it.

Post-Easter Break Check List

I promised and ye (yee? I never know if that's supposed to have two Es or not) shall receive.

So it’s now 3 weeks after the Easter Break and I’m here to tell you I did, 4 of my 8 things. 

I didn’t wash Rosie, I didn’t start my essays (of course), I didn’t practice any basketball whatsoever and I didn’t see Battleship because I decided Eric just wasn’t worth it. 

I did however:

- Read Hunger Game - and LOVED it

- Saw Hunger Games - and was kinda 'meh' except for the 3 seconds Liam Hemsworth was on screen because let's face it, I'm quite shallow and he's quite hot.

- Do my readings (HW FTW!)

- See American Pie - that actually involved a cute little date with previously mentioned we-should've-been-twins cousin.

All in all, it wasn’t too bad. I did some other stuff instead, read some more books, hung out, slept.

I’ll just keep the other things on my list for next holidays I guess.

Metric

I dont think i have ever been so excited about an album release.....the last album (fantasies) by one of my favourite band metric was absolutely amazing. Today the first single was released, youth without youth, and it showed promise for their new album synthetica, to be released in june. If you haven't heard them, try listening to a few songs. I would recommend listening to help im alive (one of the most well known), blacksheep (played in scott pilgrim vs the world), or eclipse (all yours) (played in twilight....)
Actually i will recommend all three! Hopefully this album will take a seat of epicness next its predecessor, and albums of The black keys, kasabian, florence and the machine, and the wombats in my lists of favourite albums ever.

On a side note my mum got leggings that are meant to fit all sizes and have a fleece lining and asked me to try them on.....i havent taken them off yet! so warm and comfy!