This Is Not A Democracy

You know, I get that Decaydance is a business and all, but I'm kind of sick of seeing Pete use Fall Out Boy as a free advertising platform.

The new tour line up:

Fall Out Boy
Cobra Starship
Metro Station
All Time Low
Hey Monday

Ugh. I'm obviously not going to this tour (although the UK Tour is still a possibility and I doubt the line-up will change much) it's just... why do we need five bands on a tour, for starters? I'd rather have just have one support - two max - and then get a decent length set from each and not have to stand for so long.

Why do more than half have to be shitty bands on Decaydance that Pete is trying to convince everyone that we must like so we can make him money? Especially when all three bands are shit.

I'm really sick of seeing Hey Monday forced down our throats and his using the FOBR journals to promote them. His own blogs, that's fine - they're independent (even if it is still annoying) - but really. Hey Monday are a poor-man's Paramore (and no, I'm sorry - that isn't a compliment, I don't care what you claim in interviews, HM. Being a cheap rip-off of someone else is never a good thing). Most of the bands he pimps incessantly also suck. I've sat through ATL at Cobra shows - and left during their set every time because they were shit. It's actually quite funny to see them go from headlining above Cobra to being two bands below them.

Also, this may be controversial, but do they really believe, at this stage, that they can follow as high-energy and infectious a band as Cobra, without being, ultimately, an anti-climax? Not because FOB are a bad live band- I wouldn't have seen them so many times if I thought they were, would I? - but because Cobra shows are a party. Everyone is really into it. And after them, without a buffer of other bands in between, the energy is going to change so severely that it won't be quite right.

I saw Cobra supporting FOB as middle support last year; it was the first time I'd ever seen them and they blew me away. Now that I know the band and know their songs, I honestly don't know if a FOB set immediately after would have the same impact as if another band had been supporting them. The bands are just too different in how they manage the crowd.

Even though FOB are my favourite Bandom band, of that line-up, I know I would enjoy the Cobra set the most and I know that all my gig-going friends are pretty much in the same boat.

But yeah; I wonder if Island have realised that they're basically funding Decaydance's tour schedule.

You know what I hate? Those middle bits in stories. The bits where you've got all the important set-up down, and you have all the plans for the latter sections, but you get stuck down in a no man's land of Relevant But Boring to Write (Hopefully Better To Read) in the middle.

I always have that in fic. The little lull where I can't wait to write some part, but in the meantime you have to plough through the connection section and you just can't get motivated enough.

Meh.

There is one particular piece of music they use on the Sky TVGuide which REALLY reminds me of the W Hotel in Chicago.

It honest to God makes me want to be on holiday and it drives me insane with wanderlust every time I try to find something to watch. Dammit!

So... I hate it. In all sincerity, I really, really hate it. I hate it more than I hated Golden, and that's saying something.

Elvis Costello sounds EXACTLY like Patrick would sing if he was staggering home after the pub and about eight pints. He sounded so much like Patrick that when Julie heard it this morning she actually thought it WAS Patrick, singing badly.

It's just... tacky. And way overblown. And I honestly think that if people didn't know it was about Patrick, a huge number of them would be much less stoked on it than they're claiming to be.

I'm sure that under all that over-production there are some lovely lyrics, but the lyrics are not the only thing the makes a song, and I physically cringe when I listen to it. It's just... it sounds like something from a really cheesy musical, where all the male cast is singing about the main guy.

America's Suitehearts is the last chance for them to convince me. I think they've at least gotten Lil Wayne out of the way somewhere in the medley on Catch, but if they've fucked with the production on Suitehearts as well, that is truly it for me and this album. I love the guys, still, and I'll continue to go to shows and follow their career in the hope that something awesome will return to their music, but this album will not make it to my shelves.

What a disappointment.

So, Fall Out Boy have booked three arena dates in the UK in October.

In all honesty, I think it might be a bit excessive. Last time they came, they played much, much smaller venues like Hammersmith Apollo, which is really only a couple of thousand.

They would have been much better off playing several shows that size around the country, because a lot of the fans simply aren't going to be able to make London, Birmingham or... Manchester, is it? I dunno. I only know Wembley and the NEC.

Worse, the shows are on Sunday, Tuesday and Wednesday. Kids will be at school, grown-ups will have work either on the day, or the day after (unless that's half term, I guess).

Ages ago, I promised to take my cousin, Jasmine, to their next show with a friend. It's going to be pretty hard to arrange, because we'll be in Brighton and we'd have to take at least two days off work to get up to the London show and get home again (it'd either be so late we wouldn't get any sleep, or we'd need to sleep at my aunt and uncle's house).

It's going to be a bit of a nightmare to arrange.

It's doable - but really only if we have understanding bosses at our new jobs.

I'm sorry, I love Patrick to death and I know he is super talented, but... I don't like it. I just don't.

The piano is good. I love hearing him play piano (except on Golden, because I can't stand that song either), but the Tom Waits thing just does nothing for me.

No matter what Tom Waits called it: WALTZING FUCKING MATILDA?

Dude.

(And you sound a touch drunk.)

So, then, bandom_awards.

We just declined to promote it on trohslashstump. Mostly, neither Lin nor I are comfortable with the way we've seen these go in the past. Essentially, the better-known writers in the most common ships will be the ones who win. Even if virtual un-knowns are nominated, they rarely win and for a community centred around a rarer ship with three full-time writers and not much else, it seems pretty pointless.

All we can see it doing, is leaving the few people who occasionally do attempt to write fic kind of disillusioned. People in bandom really suck at leaving feedback (when I think of the essays I used to get every chapter, for my HP fic, back in the day, I'm kind of shocked by the contrast) so when the lesser-known writers are getting maybe four "That was cute!" comments and then the really well-known (and not necessarily that brilliant) writers are getting loads of minions telling them how awesome they are and go and win these kind of things it must really fucking suck for everyone else.

It just doesn't feel very productive to me.

So, today I'm starting a Dairy-Free Diet for 10-days, on command of jackie_brown.

I'm hoping not eating my ordinary volumes of cheese for a while will actually help me lose weight, instead of putting it on, even when I'm eating healthily.

The nurse at my new patient's sign-up, today, told me that 'according to the chart, you are obese'. Even after making me get on and off the scales twice, to make sure it wasn't broken because she didn't seem able to believe that it was right.

I know I'm over-weight. I know I have what a guy on my MySpace flist would call 'supercurves' - I mean, my measurements are 44-32-48 and I'm 5'5.5"; I have 36G/GG boobs, man! - but I don't think 'obese' is really fair. I don't look obese, really. I look plumper than is probably normal, but the average dress-size in this country is UK16, these days, and the average height 5'4".

Marilyn Monroe was a size 16.

And so am I. Although I often wear size 12 t-shirts, because otherwise they're way too loose around my waist.

So I'm a bit squishy in places, but obese people cannot fit into a size twelve, can they? Assuming they're not 3ft tall...

All of which kind of pisses me off, considering I was starting to feel better about my shape on the grounds that I thought I actually seemed to be a bit slimmer. I certainly look it in my bedroom mirror.

Goddamn it.

The world's a bit quiet tonight, isn't it?

I'm mystified by the blackout on reports of the Road Rampage in West London, earlier... some guy ran around attacking people, killing one and injuring eight WITH HIS BARE HANDS (I wonder if it was actually my mother. Or Berti. Except he doesn't drive). But it's not on the BBC news page. Not properly, anyway. They've got a sort of footnote saying it happened.

They actually have the BA argument as a main story, and that's seriously old hat.

*twilight zone*



I have pizza tonight. Hurrah. Being a piglet once in a while is alright when you've spent a week on about 1200 calories a day, isn't it? (So what if it was last week?) It goes well with Hamster getting hyponotised on Top Gear. He's such a dork. The fact he's tiny enough to fit in a toy car is so cute I want one. A tiny Top Gear presenter, not a toy car.

Really looking forward to oysters at the weekend. Hee! Come to me, my pretties...

Would it be shockingly glutinous of me to get the £40 seafood platter and eat it all to myself...? None of the mains look quite so delicious as the prospect of ALL THAT SEAFOOD. Why on earth would anyone ruin a lobster by stirfrying it?



This week actually marks eight years since I discovered the Manic Street Preachers and met my old mate Simey on a Manics chatroom. He looks a bit like Boyan. He thinks. Simon is 31 today. He was younger than me when we met... O_O

Not heard from my dear daddy in... months. I wonder if he'll remember my birthday. It's usually the only time I hear from him at all... I could do with the birthday money for the Canada fund. I will go, next year, dammit! (Twice)



I'm bored.

Laptop is still here. DHL didn't bother showing up. This means one of two things: they will turn up unannounced tomorrow, or I will have to rearrange to have it picked up next week, if I can get the time off.

A laptop stuck open at 90(wobbly)° does not travel well, so I can't get them to pick it up from me at work.

Poor Dushyant was very apologetic when he phoned to make sure the collection had been made. I assured him it was alright and that I knew it wasn't their fault.

However, he's still calling me Miss Nakasha. Which isn't my surname, but a wild mispronunciation thereof.

Rushed off to psychic development and did another seance.

All I'm saying is 'Well, fuck.' which won't mean anything to you, but it does to me. O_o Oh yeah.

Must learn to trust myself.