so i might write something decent for once, given some time. or i might just upload might rants, which i guess count as creative writing of a sort >.<

A new url! How very refreshing :]

In case you’re wondering, I was previously simonsaystheword.

Have a nice day :D

NB: Sorry this is so damn late, after GCSEs and 3 weeks holiday in France I forgot about the Z-Apoc Guide, hopefully I’ll get back on track with the rest of the Guide soon.

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Ok, the next essential in the Zombie Apocalypse is shelter. Somewhere to live, somewhere to sleep, somewhere to fall back to if things get harsh.

In my opinion there are five really important things to think about when choosing your shelter:

1. Defences: Can zombies attack your shelter easily? Is it strategically easy to fend them off? Is your shelter a small wooden shack that can be torn apart by zombie claws, or a huge impenetrable brick stronghold? Consider defence over nearly anything else, it ought to be highest on your list of priorities.
2. Escape: Can you escape from your base if in the worst case scenario you are over-whelmed by zombies? Is your escape route a quick one? Does your escape route allow multiple people to escape at once? Is there more than one escape route? Considering your worst case scenario and trying to find the best way of overcoming it is a very useful step in choosing a shelter.
3. Space: Is there sufficient living space in your shelter? How many people can fit in it? Will there be room for each member of your group to carry out their allocated responsibility (eg. does the medic have enough room to create a clean and sterile environment around patients?)? Also, do you have room for stockpiling resources such as food, water, petrol etc.? You’re going to need space for back-up supplies should you be besieged and thus become stuck in your base.
4. Strategic Location: Have you made a shelter that is tactically sound? Bearing in mind you will have to fight zombies, have you made it easy or hard to do so? For example, build on a hill with steep slopes so that zombies have to climb slowly to reach it, by which time you can pick them off with ranged weapons; or build on an island on a lake or river, as it will be isolated from attacks until your assailants find a means of crossing to the island, and you may have space to deploy various traps as well.
5. Stationary or Moving?: This is a very important question, as it will determine many of your decisions in the rest of your survival. Both options have pros and cons. Stationary gives you the certainty of having somewhere to fall back to; it can hold large amounts of supplies and will use very little up in its maintenance; you can hold multiple people with little effort, useful if you see someone in trouble (although ruthlessness for your own survival must also be applied)

I’m thinking of changing my name.

Here are two suggestions, and explanations for them. I’ll add more soon.

1. Complacency and Carambars (complacencyandcarambars.tumblr…) - as a satire on the alliterative “[word x]and[word y].tumblr” etc urls. also a joke from a trip to france with friends
2. HelloDoctorBuddha - As recognition of my efforts to be more buddhist and my decision to study medicine at uni (two passions of mine) i dunno why the hello is relevant.

and thus, please tell me here which names you like, which you don’t, whether I should change at all.

I don’t know why, but I feel inclined to tell you about a book I have been reading. Actually, I want to talk about several, but today, one will do.

Once there was a widow with three sons, and their names were Black, Brown and Blue.

Black was the eldest; moody and aggressive.

Brown was the middle child; timid and dull

But Blue was his mother’s favourite. And he was a murderer.

The book in question is “blueeyedboy” by Joanne Harris. You may or may not know who Joanne Harris is. If you don’t, you may well be familiar with her book Chocolat, or more likely the very good film made of it starring the very lovely Juliette Binoche. 

Anyway. This book.. it’s really quite unique. It is primarily a thriller, but more psychologically than any other way. It is all written by medium of WebJournal, an imaginary blogging website with similarities in community to a forum-blogging style tumblr. Perhaps this is partly why I found the book so appealing. I don’t know.

On WeJay, users create their own profile, not necessarily with any contact details, and can join forum groups, making restricted and public posts, as well as displaying mood and music choice. 

The story centres around one user, the titular blueeyedboy, a man in his 30s, who lives with his mother. The story is laid out in a series of fictional accounts and opinion posts through his blogging forum which he moderates, badguysrock, a forum group for people to safely gloat about or show off real or fictional crimes.

Part of the allure of this book is that while blueeyedboy does post some pretty mindblowing and creepy murders, we are never sure whether they are real or not. at least, not until the end., but I won’t give that away. Even the ending is ambiguous.

All the while, blueeyedboy has a relationship (not necessarily romantic) with another user, Albertine, and with the rest of his family. 

Due to the anonymity of WeJay, another, more complex layer of story comes into play, as certain personalities or even entire characters that we assume and trust to be true are revealled to be not quite as they seem.

And of course, there is a 20 year old unsolved murder lurking in the background.

The book is very, VERY worth the time it takes to read (in my case, a non-stop 4 day read), and is extremely different from the far more benevolent “heartwarming” story of Chocolat. I look forward to other unique books from Joanne Harris, and will be checking out “Gentlemen and Players” another thriller by the same author.

I want to point out a few things now which I have observed in the book. Those not willing to read the book, or those who have read it already may press “Read More” to see them, but this is a *SPOILER ALERT* for any prospective readers.

————MY PAGE BREAK DOESN’T WORK DON’T READ THIS PLEEEAAASEE—————

Firstly, blueeyedboy actually has several aliases.

One: Chryssie’s friend “azurechild” who recommends syrup of ipecac to her as a way of losing weight. blueeyedboy hints at this when he reveals the substance to have some rather serious side effects, but also saying that Chryssie “only has herself to blame”. And of course, blueeyedboy, azurechild, see any similarities? So in this way, blueeyedboy has the potential to have murdered someone, even if it doesn’t necessarily happen.

Two:, the person who Cap meets, whose name I can’t remember, but involves [something]kid or kid[something], thus a repetition in names as with Chryssie, and a way of getting Cap killed or hurt.

I’m sure there are others, but my aunt has the book, so I can’t research further.

Secondly, JennyTricks is revealed as meaning Genetrix, which in case you didn’t know (neither me or my aunt did) means mother-related.

Thirdly, the Emily White Phenomenon does not necessarily only mean the way Emily supposedly painted music despite blindness, but also may allude to Bethan virtually becoming Emily once she had died, and Bethan had left with her father.

Fourthly, a recurrent theme is “murder runs in the family”. Not only is this true directly for Blue, Brown, Black and their Mother, but, if, as implied, both Brown and Blue are Patrick White’s children, as is Emily White, and as is Bethan, then literally, murder occurs throughout the family.

Fifth, notice that with blue, specific words have colours. Notice especially that mother, murder, and various other negative m words are all blue, and blue is of course “the colour of murder”.

when someone rips the earphones out of your ears..

luanlegacy you are one cool kid.

(Source: simonsaystheword)

I am really, really happy with the suit I have for sixth form. I was worrying cos I have very much a slimmer figure than most men, and I generally have found that suits in the UK are too baggy and too large around the arms and shoulders.

So while I was in France, I tried there instead. Being a quarter french, I have a very french bone structure, and so instantly I found that suits in France just generally suit me better (pun not intended).

And thus I have a rather nice charcoal well-fitting suit jacket and trousers, and three shirts of different colours.

For anyone interested in fashion enough to want to know what said suit looks like, I found the links to the french website.

Suit jacket:

http://www.devred.com/produit/Veste-rayee-2149.r.html

Suit trousers:

http://www.devred.com/produit/Pantalon-micro-rayures-2105.r.html

Shirts (white, pale blue, pale pink):

http://www.devred.com/produit/Chemise-stretch-coupe-ajustee-1125.r.html 

This is a long one, be prepared haha!

Someone on Facebook indirectly pointed me towards a leakage of Lady Gaga’s new video for her song You and I.

I hadn’t heard the song, so i thought I may as well watch it. And to be honest, i’m a bit miffed.

Lady Gaga is obviously known for being a bit of a loon, a weirdo, wacky outfits and controversy bespattered all over the place. Great, go make a name for yourself, that’s a fantastic thing to do, if that’s your ambition in life. As a matter of fact Lady Gaga became rather a trend-setter in the whole “outrageous style” thing (see my rant regarding “Who Run The World”).

But her new album, Born This Way, is really kind of disappointing. And especially this song. Now, Lady Gaga has a penchant for taking bits of other people’s songs and making them her own. And that’s ok, too. Up to a point. I mean, the little “Ohhhhh” bit in “Bad Romance” came from a song from the 80s which I am currently unable to name, but the song made the phrase work as its own style. Even “Born This Way”, which quite obviously stole the entire tune from “Express Yourself” by Madonna, was ok, as there was a significant difference in speed and style in “BTW” (Lady Gaga using a more dance/electro vibe) despite the songs’ similarities, as well as Lady Gaga’s admirable stand for outcasts and individualism, which rather contrasted with Madonna’s almost blatant advocation of female domination in a relationship.

But things now start to take a turn for the worse. Here comes the punchline. “You and I” sounds exactly the same, and I mean EXACTLY the same, as “What’s Up” by The Four Non Blondes. It has identical melody, harmony, and the slight change in song structure does nothing to hide this fact. 

The video was good, if vaguely confusing and slightly perverted (as are all her videos). But it made no sense with the song. Gaga should just start directing short films instead if that’s what she puts all her energies into. The video is about mermaids and their creation (I won’t go further because of at least one die-hard lady gaga fan I know of who follows me *ahem ahem dave ahem ahem*) and also involves a lot of S&M gestures and postures and quite a lot of implied sex. Nice as a short film, but not in the context of the music. 

Gaga has also been accused of plagiarising Judas from a certain Loli Lux’s song WannaBE, released in 2009. Judas is a good song in its own right, but I really think Lady Gaga is pushing it a bit. Most famous artists are accused of plagiarism at least once in their careers. But when it comes to your 4th plagiarism, 3 in the same album, you need to consider the line between “inspiration” and “copying”.

Born This Way, the album, is just a little too try-hard. Lady Gaga has latched onto the image of being unique and rebellious and i’ll-do-what-i-like and haters-gonna-hate, and is trying to reproduce it in the second album, and plagiarising others’ ideas is not the way to go about that at all. In fact,k that’s quite the opposite of individualism. I wonder if perhaps Gaga is just trying to see how far she can push the plagiarism until someone high up complains.. and of course, more scandal means more views and more listens.

The thing is, The Fame and The Fame Monster were just free, natural, brilliant, every song an individual, good quality tune. Born This Way is just trying too much to be different, to be non-conformist, using everything from church choirs and christian metaphors to screamo and heavy metal. But it’s just become a bit too busy, a bit of an overload of “I need to be different” and, ironically, in this way, Lady Gaga has managed to achieve the opposite of her original aim: she is beginning to conform to non-conformism.