Beasts and Superbeasts

I have a Youtube account (to which I will not link because I don't have any videos worth anyone's time) which I use mostly just to favorite videos and subscribe to cool Youtubers. One of these 'tubers happens to be mememolly, a formerly-British, now-Canadian teenage girl who I discovered over the summer from her homemade music video to Rilo Kiley's "The Frug."

In her latest video, "Glamorous," Molly told her viewers about all the books she bought recently (including one of my favorites Looking for Alaska) as well as a CD she bought. It was the debut album from the band Beasts and Superbeasts. The cover was really pretty so I decided to Google them and listen to the music on their Mypsace.

I didn't even get halfway through the first song of four before I absolutely fell in love with their style. The song, "If I Was a House," is completely magical. It starts with a cool accordion sound that is then accompanied by a mellow guitar melody. Soon the accordion drops out, yields to piano tinkling and male-female paired vocals that are fairly toneless but fantastic nonetheless. A little over halfway through the song, the guitar melody returns with a darker sound and so does the accordion, as if you just went from a mellow sailing trip to a journey into the dark and stormy sea. The lyrics and the vocals become more intense and emotional with about a minute left of the song. But then you come out of the storm and back into the sunny sea with toneless but happier vocals and piano tinkling.

I haven't gotten around to their other songs because I am so in love with this one I'm afraid nothing else of theirs will compare (though I doubt this is true in practice).

Books I Want To Write

Writing a book sounds like a huge task. For some, it may be a dark and looming task as well, especially if you love telling stories and have wanted to write a novel for years but just haven't gotten there yet.

But if I were to write a book, there would be two possible books I'd want to put onto paper (or, more appropriately, into a Word document).

The first would be the novel I have been working on since October that I worked on dilligently all through November, AKA: National Novel Writing Month. It's a fantasy novel about kids, but not meant for a child audience (think His Dark Materials type of novel). It's fun to write and plot this story but I haven't made much time basically since the end of winter break to get anything written. Since then, I've written about 15 pages, which is not very much considering I wrote probably 120 or so during November alone. It's a total of 167 pages as of right now and I'm waiting for the time to be able to dedicate to some serious, hardcore writing time.

The second book I would want to write is a novel that would mix basically everything I could ever want to read about. It would be a horribly self-indulgent novel and I would probably be the only person to purchase a copy in any bookstore anywhere. I would somehow manage to blend drug culture and vampires and magic (which sounds incredibly corny now that I type it out but does not in my head). It would probably end up being somewhat epic, because I'd need some sort of social drama, adventure drama and immortal drama. But it would be so much fun to write! If only for my own personal joy. :)


PS: I stole this topic from Chris Brogan's website where he has a list of 100 topics people should write about. I chose: #25: Books I Want to Write. (His list is very helpful.)

The Sims (2)

Yesterday, for lack of anything else (except homework) to do, I decided to play the Sims. I installed the Seasons expansion pack and haven't been able to use it as much as I'd like yet so I made great use of it. I made a Sim with Knowledge aspiration so that all her Wants would be easy to fulfil and went to town. I gave everything a Country theme except one room, which was a Tiki room. She has a gerbil and a green house and a pond to fish in. And I sat there and played for at least eight hours. I am not even kidding.

The Sim that I started yesterday is now at the top of the Culinary career track as a Celebrity Chef. She has lots of funny outfits that she can wear to work, when she goes to work, three days a week making over 2,000 Simoleons a day. She has a gold gardening badge, which means she can talk to her plants to make them thrive, and a silver fishing badge, which means she can catch more kinds of fish. Her cooking and creativity skill points are maxxed out and her body points are nearl there. She has seven friends, who are all also best friends, and one love interest (though they have no chemistry... ??)

And now I am addicted to The Sims. And why? It's kind of sad that I sit in front of the computers for hours, only to control a simulated person's simulated life. But, let's face it.. Sim lives are so much better than our own. My Sim makes $2000 a day but her bills are ony $100. She has a maid who charges $20 a day (basically, because my Sim is consistently non-slob-ish) and I can just cheat to get my Sim anything she (or I...) want. Everything is easy and black and white as a Sim. There aren't social cliques or sexist bosses to keep you from the top of your career track or any of the other things that make our lives horribly complicated.

Despite the fact that the makers of The Sims are trying to make the game as real as possible, with chemistry factors between acquaintances and lots of customizable factors and traits, it gets farther and farther away from reality and farther into how harmoniously we wish we could really live.