Susan

You know what's a tiny thing that I've missed? Music posts. Bringing that back, at least for today!

• Another Way Out by Hollywood Undead — One day the playlist of really bouncy songs about murder is going to exist, and ON THAT DAY: THIS SONG.


• Living For the Weekend by Fitz and the Tantrums — I found this by way of this really cool Jujutsu Kaisen AMV to another of their songs, Handclap. The way they pitch up on "I get knocked down and I get back UP" and "when the going gets TOUGH" feels like it has a specific word to describe it in linguistics, but fucked if I can tell you what it is.


• Ship to Wreck by Florence and the Machine — Apparently Florence and the Machine are my go-to for Songs To Do Things To.


• Divide By Zero/Slim Pickings Rides the Bomb to Hell by The Offspring — I can never remember what Divide by Zero is called because I can't parse those specific words in it for some reason. Brain insists that it's "Fire runs through like a wrecking crew" which in my defence makes AT LEAST as much sense as "divide by zero."


• Blood and Glitter by Lords of the Lost — GERMANY WAS FUCKING ROBBED AT EUROVISION AND WE ALL KNOW IT. I really like this song! It deserved more points! Also the band did a cover of Cha-Cha-Cha and I'm immensely entertained by the MS Paint version of the Finnish guy's costume they drew on there.


• Little Girl Gone by Chinchilla -- Thank you renay for recommending this when I asked for gay songs to riot to! The response to the wolf-whistle at the end: perfection. Need to channel that energy more.


• Don't Threaten Me With a Good Time by Panic! At the Disco -- I have no idea what is going on with this song, but it entertains me.

... I'm going to Glasgow tomorrow to help friends move house and I am ABSOLUTELY BRICKING IT. D:

This week has mostly been spent working, napping, being a snot monster because apparently I'm allergic to naps, sending scary but positive emails, and basically livetweeting this Fire Emblem playthrough into a offline friend's DMs. Possibly I'm a human again, will report back.

Current playlist:

• Bring It! (Snakes on a Plane) by Cobra Starship — More terrible disaster movie songs need to put effort into their soundtracks so my Songs As Movie-Specific As They Are Catchy playlist isn't just this and Sharktopus.


• Grace Kelly by Mika — I forgot that I actually like the four Mika songs I know! I'm just never going to outgrow my teenage music preferences, cool.


• No by Meghan Traynor — I like this song, but every time I hear it my brain goes "This song was not written by someone who's interacted with gross cis men and I'm happy for them but can't relate.

I made a joke in January about how years legally start in January but actually start in March, and y'know what? March 21st, I'm marking it in my calendar, that is the official day my new year starts.

I am still tired and blegh, but I must be doing something right because I didn't spend Saturday sleeping for fourteen hours. I actually got enough executive function together to drop off/post/sell like... Seven boxes of books? I think that's maybe sixty books out of the house altogether, so yaaaaaaay progress! (Downside: I appear to have used up all of the sellotape in the house somehow. Um.)

Nothing particularly interesting going on at the moment apart from that. Highest Management have very foolishly given us a new standard operating procedure document and asked us to come to meetings to discuss it. It's a shitshow with no bearing on reality, and also explicitly says that if a student tries to record interactions with staff, we have to leave and call security. Yes Highest Management is all white ladies of a certain age! I may have failed at passive aggressive subtlety in my response on the form. I may have flat out asked "What is the objection to a basic safety precaution for everyone?" and "If the concern is video being uploaded online, surely if we're following the SOP, there'd be nothing in the video that would be objectionable." Soooooo let's see how much trouble I get into for THAT piece of BS.
Anyway. Going to bed, here is some music because it's been a while.

• I Like It Heavy by Halestorm — This... This is the audio form of standing on the furniture and rocking out. Admire my restraint in not just howling "Hallelujah motherfucker, take me to church!" at every opportunity.


• The Pride by Five Finger Death Punch — Okay but how old is this song that MySpace is a reference.


• Be Prepared from The Lion King — I WAS TUESDAY YEARS OLD WHEN I DISCOVERED THAT THE HYENAS HAD ACTUAL LINES IN THE BIT WHERE SCAR IS RIDING A MAGIC ROCK PLATFORM. FUCKING WHAT. So many of my childhood questions about the hyenas have been explained.


• Rockstar Sea Shanty by Nickelback and The Lottery Winners — I remember the like ten second tiktok during the sea shanty thing, and now there's an ACTUAL VERSION OF IT and I love it.


• Freak Like Me by Halestorm — Yes I listened to this at work, and yes I did rock out at my desk. I am an adult.

Hello my lovelies! I hope that any festivities you had have been good, and I hope that you're all okay! I think xmas went well for us, but I am going to save rambling about it properly for tomorrow! Good food was had, good books were read, just wanted to leave you with some music, and also the knowledge that it doesn't matter where you start on a christmas playlist on youtube, at some point it will switch you over to dad rock and there's nothing you can do to stop it.

• The Muppets Opening for the Disney Singalong II — "Why did we have to call here? Now we're all on video!" is very 2020.


• American Capitalist by Five Finger Death Punch — Did you know that this and Teenage Anarchist are not the same song in any way? Because my brain straight-up erased that knowledge for me!


• Natural by Imagine Dragons — Left youtube on autoplay and it reminded that I actually like Imagine Dragons???? Like, now that it's not the soundtrack to my having a mental breakdown anyway.


• I'll Make a Man Out Of You by Jackie Chan — I always forget that Jackie Chan can really sing and I don't know how I can possibly forget this.


• Fire and Water by Shu Lin Zuo — I've started watching The Sleuth of the Ming Dynasty and the opening is unexpectedly rock.

Do you ever get halfway through berating yourself for something and then actually process what your brain is saying to you? "How dare I waste my entire weekend by... Doing things I enjoy... Like watching anime with my husband, or horror movies with my housemate, or playing video games that I like...?" Because yeah, that's kinda been my brain this last two weekends. Fun with brains I guess!

• Written in the Stars by Tinie Tempah and Eric Turner — I have no idea why I've had this in my head, literally none!


• Enemies by Shinedown — No joke I have looped this SO MANY TIMES and I CAN'T STOP. Like, it's damn near a week straight at this point. On the plus side, it's apparently impossible for me to not rock out to it, so that's cool!


• Villain by K/DA — So apparently Knife Femme from K/DA just has an entire song about how she's a villain and gives no fucks, and I don't know where to start with how into that I am.


• More by K/DA — Knife Femme and Neon Gay are always going to be my favourite members of K/DA, but this video has promoted the other two in the coolness rankings as well, because apparently I'm easy.


• Mr Doctor Man by Palaye Royale — This is another one that's Lex's fault, because it's on his Fate/GO playlist for Dr Romani.


• Dragula by Rob Zombie — I still have no idea what this song is actually about because all I ever register is "DIG THROUGH THE DITCHES AND BURN THROUGH THE WITCHES!"

Anyway, tomorrow finishes off this posting every day thing! I didn't actually manage to post every day, but I did at least half the days, which is close enough! I was hoping that I'd get back into doing reaction shots and things, but that obviously didn't happen. It's fine! I accidentally ended up making progress on a bunch of reviews for The Lesbrary and reading(!!!!) multiple books(!!!!!!!!!!!!) in November instead! I will take this as the win it is, and fight the anxiety if it says otherwise.

Hey internet! It's November, my trying to post every day has officially started, and to celebrate I bring you music!

... I have no idea how you're supposed to recommend Tom Waits songs, considering how wildly different they can be.

• What's He Building In There? by Tom Waits — This is so weirdly intense and suspenseful and I have no idea why it exists. This is apparently just the only paranoid stalker-ish narrator I'm willing to cope with? Even though I have so many questions like "Why does the narrator know what's under the sink?!"


• Hell Broke Luce by Tom Waits — "How is it that the only ones responsible for this mess / Got their sorry asses stapled to a goddamn desk?" Can't imagine why that's in my head in this apocalypse, it's a mystery. (Caution warning for... Basically everything related to the US military complex and mistreatment of veterans? Especially if you start googling about the title, because iircc, it was inspired by the suicide of a veteran with PTSD?)


• God's Away On Business by Tom Waits — I have no idea why this video is full of emus, but Tom Waits is like JoJo's Bizarre Adventures levels of never having to explain shit.


• Bad as Me by Tom Waits — See, this is what I mean about how different he can sound! He manages to sound completely different in the same song.


• Actual Cannibal Shia LeBeouf by Rob Cantor — Spooky season closed yesterday, so OBVIOUSLY it's time to listen to the most dramatic narration of someone's RPG session.


• La Vie Boheme from RENT — I went looking for ONE GIF (Maureen and Joanne saying "We're close") and earwormed myself, because that's what I do!


• Ain't No Sunshine/Lose Yourself by Vienna Teng — I'm sure I've linked to this song before, but I remembered it existed and I'm in love again. The way Vienna Teng layers up her own voice and effects so that she can duet with herself is so cool, and her version of Lose Yourself is just... *stares dreamily into space*

I bought myself some noise-cancelling headphones, because I'm the only person in the house who didn't have any, and... Ngl, I wasn't sure how they were gonna work with my slight need to be aware of everyone's moods around me? But so far they actually cut the level of noise just the right amount! I can hear things going on, but it stops being the most important input if I'm trying to do something else! What is this magic?

But honestly, the main thing I like about these headphones is that because there's been a heatwave, everyone's been running fans! And some combination of the fans and the general house noises was being picked up by my brain as Pokémon battle music! Which was fine once I realised what it was – I thought it was my housemate listening to covers of Pokémon music at first, until I realised I could hear it while he was downstairs visibly not listening to music – but I was a bit worried that I was getting new and unforseen side-effects to my meds or something.

ANYWAY: MUSIC!

• Don't Be So Hard on Yourself by Alex Lahey — sithe did specifically say that he wasn't playing this song to call me out, despite the line "You haven't had a day off in weeks" and the recurring theme of "srsly pls go easier on yourself and take a break!" but I am still going to link you all to this song so that you can feel called out too!


• Uptown Funk by Mark Ronson and Bruno Mars — Me: Eh, Uptown Funk isn't really my thing.
  My brain at 7am: GIRLS HIT YOUR HALLELUJAH! GIRLS HIT YOUR HALLELUJAH! GIRLS HIT YOUR


• Me Against The World by Simple Plan — This song is always going to be the soundtrack to Final Fantasy AMVs to me, apparently! There is no escape!


• She's a Genius by Jet — Me, Will Smith posing next to every woman I know: THAT GIRL'S A GENIUS! I THINK SHE'S SERIOUS!


• That's Jazz by Bing Crosby and Louis Armstrong — High Society was one of my Dad's favourite musicals so I've seen it SO MANY TIMES, and it turns out that jilliferium mentioning that she's making her housemate watch it is enough to send me straight back to this. (And to Well Did You Evah, because Frank Sinatra and Bing Crosby leaving a room and then storming straight back into it because NOPE, I CANNOT DEAL WITH THIS is basically the template for how I've written people realising they have feelings since forever.)


• Sham Pain by Five Finger Death Punch — Brain is trying to latch this song onto a fandom and I say thee nay, stop that, let me just have one angry song with no mental links to a fic I'm never gonna write!


• Nailed by the Hammer of Frankenstein by Lordi — Just in case people didn't know that the metal band that won Eurovision that one time did make other songs: they did! I'm not 100% sure, but I THINK this one's about dick, it's difficult to tell.

I haven't been listening to as many lo-fi mixes this week, because the main things I meant to do were editing transcripts, and also: useless slug mode! But in the spirit of phantom Pokémon music, I found some lo-fi versions of the Pokémon music! This one is fairly chill, and I don't recognise the Johto music in this one but it's pretty relaxing anyway!

Good morning everyone! Hope you're all okay!

• I'm APPALLED that I'm someone who gets things done as long as I get out of bed before 6:30. I thought I was free of that when I got furloughed! Why is this still a thing! ... Okay it's probably still a thing because if I get up before 6:30 I'm the only one rummaging around and my inner brownie can come out and let me do housework before anyone else is awake to see me. Today I cleaned the kitchen counters and the stovetop, and scrubbed all of the congealed fat out of the grill tray! And I took my meds, got dressed, and managed to play Animal Crossing and Pokémon Café Mix without being sucked in for hours! Is this an upswing?!


• Watched the How to ADHD video about clutter and... I feel like this might have helpful stuff in! Clutter in motion and clutter in stasis certainly bears out with how I turn the entire house into a mess in five minutes flat. I don't know if I'm going to do the whole worksheet they link to, but I think the third step (looking at your clutter, breaking it down, and brainstorming ideas for how to fix it) would be really useful. ... Is skipping straight to the part that involves DOING THINGS instead of THINKING ABOUT THINGS an ADHD thing? Because I feel like that's an exceptionally ADHD thing to do.


• I spent a fair chunk of Tuesday unpeeling most of the stickers I'd put in my diary and rearranging it from a day on two pages to a week on one page with notes. I know this is one of the reasons that I use stickers, but also... Brain. Why. Could we not have done literally anything else.


• Please assume that I'm spending the entire week lurking creepily by front door waiting to ambush the postie because I... Apparently soothe my frustration about one online order not arriving by making MORE ORDERS. (LexGarrett is definitely not getting back into Warhammer as his quarantimes hobby. Definitely not. But I am absolutely getting jealous at his parcels arriving before mine.)


• The advantage of this is that I had another crack at weeding the front yard, and I defeated most of the plants that were growing out into the street! Before I realised exactly how many weird bugs had been living in there and had to strategically retreat before I wigged out.


• Utterly fucking bamboozled a couple of doorsteppers yesterday because they were like "Hi, we put a letter about [service] through your door a while ago —" and I immediately went "Oh good, because I tried to sign up for it and the website said you didn't serve my area! So I can sign up now, right?" Of all the reactions, they were expecting, I don't think that was one of them!


• Have actually downloaded the Netgalley app and I'm slightly in love?
  
  • IT DOES INFINITE SCROLL. THAT'S LITERALLY ALL I EVER ASK OF EREADERS. I FOUND THAT OUT AND NEARLY HAD TO TELL LEX THAT I WAS LEAVING HIM FOR AN APP. Listen, if I want to turn pages I will read a hardcopy book. I have spent long enough reading fanfic that I expect digital text to just let me scroll!
  
  
  • The only other app I have that does that is MoonReader, and it has EVERY SINGLE POINT OF THE SCREEN mapped to a function, okay, which is terrible for me and my constantly wiggling the screen up and down. Yes I've tried to turn them off, yes I have broken things by doing it.
  
  
  • It only seems to give me the option to download books with actual DRM rather than social DRM, but apart from that it's doing what I want? It's INCREDIBLY bare-bones, but I am easily distracted and/or confused so that's a positive for me! And it also shows my progress in percentages AND page counts, which fewer ereader apps do than you'd think. Good work Netgalley, thank you for this meal.
  
  
  • (Is it luring me back into reading by being a new shiny thing? IF IT WORKS I DON'T CARE.)


• LOUNGE KITTENS RELEASED A LIVE ALBUM! I love how so much of the commentary is "Okay, we're doing our normal set list IN A CHURCH, it has Foxtrot Uniform Charlie Kilo AND Gloryhole, we're definitely going to hell." ... Yes I found this while digging up a link for Gloryhole, Canada knows what it did.


• I am playing a Very Enthusiastic 9'1" Minotaur barbarian in a 5th ed campaign (she is literally made of beef!), who tends to call upon her ancestor spirits like she's giving a pep talk at a sports event. This week her summoning call was "Hey ancestors, WE GET TO FIGHT A TREE AND THE SUN! THIS IS THE BEST DAY EVER!"
  
  • She is starting to get offended that people keep hiding next to the party's camp and then running away when she asks if they want to come sit by the fire and have a sandwich instead.
  
  
  • The person hiding in the bushes this time was Definitely A Satyr, and his panicked excuse for hiding in the bushes was "I was just! Fastening my shoelaces!" which led to me asking very confused questions about whether fae sold shoes for people with hooves, and then being THOROUGHLY WEIRDED OUT by the concept of toes.


• Current video game circuit is Animal Crossing, Pokémon Café Mix, and Paper Mario: The Origami King! I'm up to the fourth boss out of five in Paper Mario, which isn't bad going considering I only bought it a week ago today. ... But seriously please be my Switch friend so I can give you bells, I need to get rid of this turnip money. (Code: SW-7705-1297-3990)


• Currently reading: Cinderella is Dead by Kaylinn Bayron — Queer YA fantasy romance that is basically "What if Cinderella was used as the model for a fantasy dystopia?" I've managed to guess every twist so far, but not in a frustrating way? Just in a "Cool, this is a walkthrough of misogyny-based dystopias and structural oppression, I can just let this wash over me" way. No I don't know why I can do that either, I assume because I'm still excited about people taking stories that have been done a lot and rubbing queer little mitts over them to make them ours.


• I have a lap desk now! Lex is using my regular desk for work and painting minis, and I need space to lay out all of my stationery while I'm faffing with it, so this seemed like a good idea! It is absolutely going to get covered in paint and stickers, this is going to be great.


• Apart from that... I've not really done much! Mostly been rolling around on the sofa playing on the Switch. Hope you're all okay!

• Du Hast (Waaay too happy cover) by The Melodicka Bros — They also did a too happy version of Last Resort, but it turns out that the really cheerful versions of not cheerful songs is actually great for me?


• Icarus by Jason Webley — Amanda Palmer has resurfaced recently, which makes me think of the duet version of Icarus she did with Jason Webley, because apparently in my brain she's filed as this song, pretending to be a set of conjoined twins (possibly in yellowface), and dated Neil Gaiman for a while. The song is good! I understand no part of its narrative, but I like it!


• Giant Mechanical Spider by Makeshift Gentlemen — I swear to fuck I'm not sure that this song isn't a fever dream, because I'll get the "There's something wrong with our [?????]" bit stuck in my head, spend ten minutes trying to google it, and then remember that I've done this before and the lyrics aren't actually online anywhere obvious. I have very little clue what it's about beyond maybe going up against a giant mechanical spider????


• Seven Nation Army Orchestral Cover by TLB Orchestration — The other type of covers that automatically gets my attention: orchestral versions!


• Bad by Royal Deluxe — I don't know why this keeps popping up on my youtube autoplays when I'm getting back into The Untamed, but I assume that's just going to be because Google is aggressively stalking everyone.


• Making Monsters by Five Finger Death Punch — I keep mentally mashing this up with Night Surgeon from Repo! because this is just who I am as a person.


• Short Change Hero — The Heavy — ... I just realised that this is probably a tie-in to all of the rebuttals of frontline workers and NHS staff as "heroes" because fuck my subconcious associations! Also, y'know, fuck anyone who thinks clapping and referring to people as heroes is an adequate substitute for payrises and adequate PPE. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

OKAY APPARENTLY I HAVE OPINIONS TODAY, GOOD TO KNOW.