Thursday, June 29, 2006

Birthdays, Disinformation, Freedom and the Like

been so tired and vague lately; the world cup and a teething daughter have been partly responsible for this. but yeah, have had a few thoughts that have seemed like really unique viewpoints on things that i've always held, and wonder if anyone else has, and thought, 'i should blog that' but then promptly forgot, but here's one i've just remembered, whilst meaning to write about something else.

it's the whole Birthday Thing. i've never liked being the centre of attention, i'd rather heckle and annoy from some safe vantage point, with a good exit, and it seems like the during last decade in particular i've become very anti my own birthday, and have had some success in hiding it's actual date from a number of people. ha! that, these days, is a special skill in itself. disinformation and the like. but, well, i turned 30, like sometime in the middle of this month. and it was actually alright. i guess i've been dealing with it for the heavier side of the 20s and during this time, i've actually been the happiest i've been for a long time (like since school, which certainly had it's ups and downs, but seems like a good era, looking back on it) and since those dark mid-20s things have steadily improved. i mean, getting 'a real job' after uni, and then getting a 'real retrenchment' and stuff have been 'character building', actually, even finishing uni was a big achievement after 10 years, but since then things have been on the improve. marriage, our little kiddo... well, that's the pinnacle, obviously, but not the point of where this entry was meant to go.

it's occurred to me in the past 5 years that the thought that the whole perspective of the 'best years of your life' being are around that 18-21 age as absolute bullshit. but perhaps that depends on the individual. i, for one, cannot imagine having my shit together at that age, it's a time to be crazy, grasping unsuccessfully at what it all means, where you are going in life, are you on a good path?, is it where you really want to go?, etc, all the big stuff it seemed at the time, whilst having a 'good time', which was really good in that you could hide from all of those sorts of questions. i think this perspective must be a residue from previous generations - where people did have to become responsible at a younger age, get a job, get married, have a family, etc. and that now people on average seem to not have to deal with many of those responsibilities until much later, like in the mid- to late-20s, like myself. before that was possibly too much freedom, and i'm certainly a person who needs some boundaries. i bet my parents would nod at that statement. but the whole reason i started typing this observational/crapping on stuff was to eventually get to the point that i am actually quite relaxed and indeed happy about being 30 it could be considered as something of an achievement, yeah, i'm not a rock star yet, and i did miss out on joining the 27-club, but really it's more about learning to enjoy the present and not needing to look back and reminisce about the 'good old times', sure there were some great times, but things keep getting more interesting and as you get older you seem gain just a little bit more wisdom and can hopefully learn from learn from your experiences and also just feel more comfortable with being yourself and shit. i'm so sick of the image thing, how you are judged from your appearance, and i'm sure most people would also worry about that, but it's fun to be old enough to not care most of the time, like wearing a pink floyd t-shirt to an opeth gig (but maybe i was trying to prove somethign then?). but yeah, life certainly gets more tough as you leave those easy, cushioned periods of secondary and tertiary schooling, when you know you've got a few years before facing too much of 'the real world' and don't have to make any lifechanging decisions (but it's funny how those subject choices and results back at high school really seemed to matter at the time, when really, you can always re-invent yourself, it just might cost some time), however, once you're through all that, it is amazing what you could do if you put in the effort. it's exciting and daunting. like a big game, ala shakespeare's Life's a Stage, and you're playing for keeps, or losses. everything matters, but then there's endless possibilities. and this is sounding far too optimistic -i'm not high on anything besides lack of sleep- and i keep losing the point of this post. so, yeah, i guess, i've decided that it's good to be 30 and i hope i'll still have this perspective when i'm 80, assuming i watch that cholesterol and eat a balanced diet and cut down on alcohol and coffee adn do all those good things adn get fit again one day and avoid random accidents and don't become a rock star and take it all too seriously and demand frozen gerbils in my rider and stuff.

Sunday, June 04, 2006

Freakin Smileys

you know, i really hate those elaborate moving yellow smiley f*cking faces on the web, and i'm sure i'm not the only one. who downloads that shit? pre-teens i suppose. actually, i can't stand that stooopid 'green card' one - i think i always get it on my yahoo or at allmusic.com. i don't want to go and work in the US, ok? and i'd really appreciate it if you didn't keep showing me some stupid photo of some fortunate chick who won the lottery for that. good for her. and as for those banners that hover right over what you want to read and float down the screen with you like some freakdog at a party, yeah, they don't really impress me. i wonder if there's a software ap that can kill them, like those pop-up destroyers...

i was trying to remember something else that really pissed me off earlier this week, to rant about, it's been a while, there must be a lot of sh!t that has annoyed me. but as i return to this post after a day out and about, i still can't remember and don't care anymore.