Fearful Symmetry

CD-Wow has The Roots Come Alive and Ladysmith Black Mambazo: The Warner Brothers Collection for £6.99 each and free delivery. Hmmm. Should I snap these up because they’re cheap, or hold out for better albums by the artists like Things Fall Apart for The Roots and something from Ladysmith’s Nascente label days instead? I can hear a little voice in my head and it whispers prudence.

I wanted to listen to Maxinquaye last night, but remembered that it’s been on loan to Gareth since the beginning of this academic year. Note to self: nag. I also really wanted to listen to Loveless but I forgot to bring it back with me when I returned here after summer at home in Singapore. Note to self: MUPPET.

I really want to write something about this post at Entropy, but I don’t have the time right now. So often, when I’m reading this blog, it feels as if its author Jared has reached into my head, found the most fundamental things by which I define and understand myself, and written them down far more compellingly than I am able to. The scary thing is that he’s writing it about himself, and doesn’t know I exist.

The inevitable cliches about how the Internet brings the people of the world together and how you suddenly discover some wondrous synergy between yourself and someone you have never met thousands of miles away come to mind. But I’ve been on the Net since 1994, have spent more hours surfing the Web than I dare to compute, and have never seen any site with content that speaks to me quite like his. Something even scarier is that much of his “about me” page would sum me up perfectly.

It’s somewhat weird. A little depressing, in a way. Hmmm.

Off The Ground And Stumbling

Joy. The problems I’ve been having with updating my site have been solved by Russ, my usual first port of call for technical assistance. Thankfully, this time when I asked him to figure out what was wrong, there was actually something wrong. Usually, the problems magically cease to exist at the very instant I’m trying to demonstrate them, having gone on and on in my usual lengthy way about the inconvenience and annoyance they’ve caused me. This, of course, is a source of great amusement to him, as are all my other little quirks and foibles…

The point is, anyway, that I’m starting to get my act together with this page. Now I just have to get my act together with my life. European Community law, here I come.

Inaugural Gooseflesh

I feel as if some meaningful commentary must be made on this first entry; this big toe gingerly dipped into the bloggy waters of Web “independent content”, or whatever damn buzzword they’ve dreamt up for it now.

Perhaps I should describe some sudden epiphany that prompts this decision to clamber onto an already teetering bandwagon. But nothing comes to mind. Nothing profound, anyway.

Right now I’m distracted by the mundane. I need to buy groceries, have dinner and get to my debating committee meeting by 6 pm. I need to wrestle with my conscience about whether to stay for the debate, which should be fun (This House Would Invade France) or go get some work done, which I should have done today but didn’t. And on a more fundamental and long term level, I need to think of some way to channel my disgust at my own laziness into something productive, instead of letting it melt away as it usually tends to do.

I think the message of the day, and of this first entry, is that the last thing I need is yet another inspired way of wasting time. But am I going to keep on doing this blogging thang? Hell yeah!