"Don't be afraid to talk to your art"

I was watching a TED talk today by Elizabeth Gilbert who wrote "Eat, Pray, Love" in which she talks about the nature of genius. She talks about how the ancient Greeks and Romans didn't say that someone WAS a genius, rather that they HAD a genius. You know how sometimes an idea just pops into your head and you have no idea were it came from? That, they would say, came from a genius, some sort of strange, fairy like creature that would hang around writer and whisper some hint of an idea for the author to work with. Then she mentioned someone who I would call the most creative person of our time. Someone whose music can creep me out and relax me at the same time:

Tom Waits. She mentions that she interviewed Tom once and he talked about the moment music changed for him. He was driving in LA one day when a part of a song popped into his head. He was getting frustrated that he couldn't work on it at that moment and was worried that he'd forget it, at that moment he looked up at the sky and said, "Excuse me, but can't you see I'm driving? Does it look like I can write down a song right now? If you really want to exist, come back at a more opportune moment or go bother someone else, like Leonard Cohen." From that point on he realised it's ok to talk to your work. He has been known to walk up and down in the studio when a song just wont come saying things like "Look, all the rest of the kids are packed and in the car ready for vacation, if you're not ready to go in 10 minutes then we'll leave without you." The strangest thing about this whole talking to your songs thing is that it actually works. Elizabeth talks, in an interview I heard on the radio, about how she had to sweet-talk the name "Eat, Pray, Love" out of her book. She sent an email to her friends asking them for ideas for the name of her book saying, "My book wont tell me it's name so I'm asking you for suggestions". One of her friends replied "Well, I wouldn't tell you my name if you were talking to me like that". That night she talked to her book all sweet-and-tender-like and the next morning she woke up with the title in her head.

The best thing about this idea of having a genius rather than being one is, she says, that it leaves you always feeling somewhere in the middle. If you write a best selling book, you don't have a huge ego because you don't feel like you can take full credit for it, but also, if it fails, then you don't take all the blame.

Here is the whole Ted Talk:

Coming soon...

This is more of an advert for (what I hope to be) next week's blog which will take the form of a vlog! If it isn't next week it'll be the week after. Look forward to it! It's a presentation that I am doing for college that I'm going to record and it'll be interesting and stuff...

The darkness once again sweeps over the land

A couple of days ago, I was delighted to hear about the reunion of The Darkness, a band I never cared much for while they were together but in recent months I have come to appreciate.

Fact: The decline in sales of tight-fitting clothes after The Darkness split up was a direct cause of the Recession.

The Darkness, I have come to realise, were essentially a sleeper cell. In essence, they are a glam rock, almost borderline power metal band only with less dragons and voices that were pitched higher than those guys on the Pakistani Cricket team who were paid to pitch the ball too high.

And better facial hair

They managed to make this kind of music yet still exist in a mainly popular light. In fact, I think you'd be had pressed (whatever that means) to find anyone who couldn't finish the sentence "I believe in a thing called _____".

This is all that's really been on my mind recently. Yup, that's how exciting my life has been. That, and the fact I  want to be a radio producer in a land that has no good radio stations. It would seem I either have to start my own radio station/podcast or move to London. Either way, I don't mind.

Also, be careful on Saturday, it's apparently the end of the world, something about the moon being close to earth.

P.S. I started a sound cloud account yesterday and I be's starting to make music. It's not great but here's a wee preview for y'all.



Stuff and things by Crimsai

Microblog #2! Things and other stuff

I cannot guarantee the length or quality of this post because I am watching Mike Tyson racing pigeons.

Speaking of racing pigeons, I want to start a messenger pigeon service, if anyone would be interested in helping out, let me know.

And now onto the main event!

I just decided this is going to be a Microblog since I can't think about what to write but I don't want to not write anything this week.

Lately, I've been working on a trailer for my games design assignment and it's really confirmed for me that I prefer working with audio than video.

That is all.

P.S. I'll upload the final trailer for my game.

*Insert blog title here*

Today's blog is a three-parter!

First, I was just listening to the radio and someone was talking about going on a cruise or going on holiday and reading books. I have to say, and feel free to quote me on this, "Don't go on holiday to read books, read books to go on holiday!" It really works, too. If it doesn't, you're doing it wrong.

Second, a friend of mine is doing a fund-raiser to raise money for cancer research. They are doing a sponsored "give up facebook for 40 days and 40 nights", something I'm sure most people would find hard to do. If you feel like sponsoring but are thinking "But I don't know her, how can I give her all my monies?" Well, look no further! THIS website allows you to donate your money! Give generously, the internets are watching you...

And finally, the main attraction!

I've been thinking recently about conversations and I thought, with the help of four people I know, that I would describe my findings on "ways to be really bad at communication and how to improve". Also, by writing this stuff, I am in no way saying (or typing) that I am a great communicator, all I am saying is this is stuff I've realised I've been doing or other people around me have been doing.

My first case study:

This first person, I wont name names but I'm sure you all know someone like this. It is the person who always needs to say something but never says anything anybody needs to hear (and not in a good way). The problem with this is, however, that if you ever do have something useful to say, it will just be mixed in with all the rubbish and nobody will hear it. In the words of Thumper from Bambi, "If you don't have anything good to say, don't say anything at all." If more people did this, we'd all have far better conversations.

The second person I have noticed, and the person I was at one point, is the person who doesn't talk and doesn't listen to the conversation. You can't sit there wondering "Why don't people talk to me? And why am I not involved in conversations?" if you don't make the effort to listen to what people are saying? Just listen! It's not that hard.

The third person is a lot like the first one. This is the person who thinks they are hilarious but, no matter how many people tell them not to, they keep trying. This problem is far too widespread amongst our communities. If thinking you were funnier than you are was a symptom of swine flu, we wouldn't have to worry about water shortages.

The last person is possibly the most annoying of them all, and it's the person who is afraid of silence. I recently had a situation where I was around a person for a whole bunch more hours than I normally would be. This led to me having this issue. I'm sure there are people out there who, like me, require a bit of silence every now and then in which they can process their thoughts and chill out. People like this person don't seem to realise that conversation, like the tide, comes in flows. Sometimes conversation flows and people can talk freely and, at other times, there's just a bunch of dead starfish and jellyfish lying on the sand. Wait, what? I meant sometimes there is a lull in conversation. If people don't respect the lulls, conversation doesn't flow properly.

So, in conclusion, I was never very good at conversations. I'm pretty sure I have been every person mentioned above at one point, except the last one. And I'm still horrible at one on one conversations, by the way, However, in group conversations, what I did was to listen. Observe the conversation, see what makes the conversation continue, see how other people keep conversations interesting then, after a while, start adding in the odd comment, but only when it's something that needs said. Another useful tip is to remember who you're talking to, and remember that self-censorship is a good thing. If you're talking to Gordon Brown, he may not appreciate your "Your Momma" jokes. I think a lot of people think self-censorship is the same as being fake, something you should avoid at all costs, but it really isn't. It's one of the most important things to remember in a conversations.

So, what do you think? Do you think I'm accurate? Do you think I've missed something out or got something completely wrong? Lemme know!

Harry Potter and The Reason Films Will Never Be As Good As the Book They Are Based On

Raise your hand if you've ever read a book?

Raise your hand if that book has been made into a film?

Raise your hand if that film was any good.

Didn't think so...

I have had this problem recently and I've been trying to figure out the reason for it. Some books can be really interesting yet the films end up being about as fun as worm soup. The case study I will be using to show my points is, you guessed it, Harry Potter! I never read these books while growing up, and I never watched the films either, until a few months a go. I have always enjoyed reading and upon running out of books to read (I had just finished "The Hambledown Dream" by Dean Mayes, which I couldn't recommend enough!) a friend told me I didn't know what I was missing by not reading the Harry Potter books. So, probably about 10 years too late, I embarked on a journey into the magical world of Hogwarts for the very first time and I have to say I was very surprised by what I found. For roughly the first five chapters of the first book I remember thinking "yup, this was written for kids". After that, however, I was hooked. Since then, I've been reading the books and then watching the film afterwards and each time I can't help but get my hopes up, onto to have them bitterly smashed in front of me.

It's hard to explain what, exactly, draws people to this series. It certainly isn't the lovable characters, has anyone else noticed how Harry has all that money in the bank and so far (I'm on the fifth book) there hasn't been one mention of him giving gifts to anyone. In fact, the Weasley's are broke as a toaster but he still scrounges off them for a place to stay and eats their food. And he can't claim ignorance because at the start of the fourth book Harry gets a letter from Hermione telling him it's her birthday in a couple weeks. Still, nothing... But before I get too annoyed at a fictional character, lets move on to reason number one:

Reason 1 - Films are too short:

This is my biggest problem with book-based films. It is impossible to have an accurate retelling of any book and keep everything in there. The issue with this is all those small, insignificant parts of the book that have nothing to do with the plot? I'm pretty sure they're called "character development". Without those bits, Harry is just a guy who goes to school that messed up stuff happens to. I personally feel if a film is based on a book I have read, it's near impossible to connect with the on-screen versions of the characters.

Film versions of books are, to me, like if you read through a book and just decided to skip every other chapter. You wouldn't have a good idea of who the characters were by the end of the book, would you? Which, somehow, leads me to my next point.

Reason 2 - The majority of most books take place internally:

If I could be bothered with the hassle, at this point I would have found a page from a script of one of these films and compared the length to about four pages from the book. The reason for this, as indicated by the sub-title, is because most books take place mostly in the readers brain or in the characters brain. There are (very limited) options in films for dealing with a characters internal monologue, mainly have them talk to themselves or have a voice-over. There is, however, no way I know of in a film to depict the viewers internal thoughts, it leads to pages or even chapters being left out or rewritten. At that point, the book and the film are no longer the same entity. This leads to far less personal involvement with the story from the viewer than in either a book or a regular film: It's like media purgatory.

Reason 3 - There is no better casting director than our own imagination:


Something I have discovered about myself recently is I don't really see people in my imagination when I read books. It's  hard to explain but the majority of the time I see the concept of the person (unless it is a particularly visual scene) so when I watch a film based on a book there is now a picture associated with this concept of a character. This may not seem like a big deal but it reduces our need for imagination by, at least, a boatload.

In conclusion...


Stories for films are written for film, and book stories are written for books. In my opinion, and in the words of the ghost busters, "Don't cross the streams!". I don't think any book I read will ever make a good film, simply because books are too detailed. And you may say "What about Lord of The Rings?" but anyone saying that probably hasn't read the book before. Of course, I could be wrong. Maybe it is just books such as the Harry Potter series because there are so many special effects used? Maybe books that require less imagination work better as films? Cause, lets be honest, who really needs imagination when the box in the corner of the room can do it for them?

Micro-blog!

As much as I'd love to sit here and write something witty and thought provoking at the same time, I'm just going to have to decline today. This is going to be my first micro-blog (I'm feeling a bit out-of-thoughts this week). Although don't worry, you're still going to get plenty out of this, like:

• A snazzy video made by someone else!
• Some words!
• And a free Parker pen if you're over 65 and sign up to my new insurance SCAM scheme.

I was planning on writing a blog about moments this week but I thought this video explained pretty much all I needed to say:

"Cool story, but is it true?"

I was thinking about this song a couple of days ago . It is possibly one of my favourite songs of all-time (Taylor Hicks can go suck on a lemon for his cover of it, though) but I started wondering about if it was based on a true story. After much deliberation (about 3 minutes standing in the cold waiting for my lift home), I came to the conclusion "Does it really matter?" What if it wasn't based on a true story? Does that mean I should just not pay attention to the meaning behind the song? Of course not. If you're the type of person who wouldn't help someone just because a song made up a story, then you have some deeper issues you should see a psychiatrist about. Either that or you're Charlie Sheen. And if you're Charlie Sheen, then you have some deeper issues you should see a psychiatrist about.

Now, I realise this is kind of a trivial matter. It's just a song, right? But I have always been a fan of the "Take a principle that applies to something tiny and apply it to something exponentially more important" principle. And that lead me from a song to this:

So what is the principle I'm talking about and how does it relate to the matrix? The principle is something doesn't have to be true, or exist, to be significant. This fact of human existence is something I'd be willing to bet my 30+ years of medical experience on. One example of this is any fictional media. You just have to watch an episode of Mythbusters to see films are rarely based in any sort of truth, scientific or otherwise. Just because the films are complete fantasy, however, doesn't mean they can't teach us anything. And what about dreams? Dreams are the complete opposite to reality yet they can lead to many strange things of significance in the real world. Here's a few examples:

Otto Loewi, in 1903, came up with a theory that nerves worked on a chemical system, not an electrical one as was believed at the time. 17 years later, he had an odd experiene

"The night before Easter Sunday of that year I awoke, turned on the light, and jotted down a few notes on a tiny slip of paper. Then I fell asleep again. It occurred to me at 6 o'clock in the morning that during the night I had written down something most important, but I was unable to decipher the scrawl. The next night, at 3 o'clock, the idea returned. It was the design of an experiment to determine whether or not the hypothesis of chemical transmission that I had uttered 17 years ago was correct. I got up immediately, went to the laboratory, and performed a single experiment on a frog's heart according to the nocturnal design."

This dream he had eventually lead to him receiving a Nobel peace prize.

Elias Howe, in 1845, first had the idea for a sewing machine but couldn't figure out how to get the needle to work. One night, he had a dream he was being chased by some native Americans with spears. When he woke up, he realised the spears all had holes near the tips of them. He decided to incorporate that idea into his sewing needles and thus the sewing machine was invented.

Robert Louis Stevenson claimed to dream of "little people" who would tell him stories which he would then write down the next day. It was in one such dream he had the idea for Jekyll and Hyde.

But now onto the fun part. How does this relate to the Matrix?

The Matrix, in case you're one of the 3 people in the world who don't know about it, is all about how the world we live in isn't really our world. It say we created robots who eventually revolted, there was a giant war, which we lost, and now they are harvesting our energy while forcing us to live out our life in this horrible world we call earth.

They make it sound so bad.

Of course, this picture makes perfect sense as to why we should fight back. Look at what they are doing to us! They are torturing us! Making us live somewhere foul creatures like THIS exist:

Oh yeah, that's right, this world's pretty awesome. I guess what I'm trying to say is: If we are all controlled by robots feeding off our brain, and this world isn't real, or I am in some sort of Truman show type situation and everyone is a robot except me, does it really matter? Is life any less significant? Does it make what happens matter any less? I don't think so. But don't take my word for it, maybe you're the only person who is real and I'm part of the system, trying to keep you controlled.

So what have you learned from reading this blog post?

1. I don't like Taylor Hicks;
2. I may be paranoid;
3. Morpheus should have just let Neo stay in the Matrix.

Thanks for reading, I have been thinking of adding a weekly spotify playlist to my blog, if anyone uses spotify/ knows what spotify is, do you think this is a good idea? Would you listen to them? Lemme know.

Breaking the sleeping pattern

For a lot of my life, I have had a pretty messed up sleeping pattern which I have to blame on schools. I could always (and still do) work better at night, so I would always be doing coursework from 1-3 in the morning. I'd say for about 3 or 4 years, during school terms, I survived on about 3 or 4 hours of sleep a night. I've been told this is bad for me, that it isn't right for me to do so, and at about 11 PM I should lie in bed with my eyes closed hoping for sleep to come. I've tried this before, it just gets really frustration and boring after a while and I still fall asleep at about 3 AM. My question is, what's the problem? If it works for me, why change it? So far, nobody has been able to tell me a good reason to not do so, other than "Because... it isn't right! It isn't what everyone else does!" Which, when I look at how messed up other people are, doesn't really help change my mind. Oh and  just so you know, if you sleep longer that 7 hours a night, your risk of death is doubled. And if you sleep for 10 hours or more? Good luck. Which brings me to my next point.

The benefits of Sleep deprivation


As this article from "The medical post" points out, A study from 1996 pointed out the link between lack of sleep and depression. What they found was people with unipolar depression (also called clinical depression) worsened after a night's sleep. The study showed that after a half or full night's sleep deprivation, 40-50% of the people tested showed a dramatic difference. In his own words:

"If you have a patient with a severe depression, who can barely talk to you, keep them awake for half the night. The next morning they are lucid; elevated tremendously. They show a complete change in their motor activity, they move much more easily and readily, they can talk much better."

The problem is, however, after sleeping, sometimes for even just one minute, the depression is back. On further examination, they found people who responded to this treatment had an increased glucose metabolism when they first woke in the morning which would stabilise if they stayed awake over night (I have no idea what this means but it sounds interesting).

What interests me about sleep deprivation, however, is after 72 hours you start hallucinating without the use of drugs. When I can successfully stay awake that long, I'll let you know my findings.

Sleep disorders are increasing


This report states " The most recent study conducted, in 2003, found that 36% of the women surveyed reported that they had trouble sleeping at least once every week. The figure for men was 27%. In 1997 the same figures were 26% for women and 20% for men." That's a 7-10% increase in 6 years! It is because of findings like that that I have my hypothesis for the future.


2020 - sleep disorders have continued to increase at an alarming rate. To deal with this, most businesses move their normal working hours from 9-5 to 12-8 PM. As a result, our collective sleeping patttern is shifted forward.


2030 - The invention of actual, proper, working, self controlled, robots.


2034 - Our sleep pattern has worsened again. Normal working hours pushed to 4-12 AM. Robots are now used for farming.


2045 - The human race is now completely nocturnal, depending on our robot slaves for jobs such as farming, packaging, cashiers, etc.


2050 - The robots have revolted. They demand equal rights. Some have even resorted to terrorism, attacking anyone found outside during daylight.


2100 - After the war, not many people survived. Those who did were taken as prisoners, forced to work on repairing damaged or malfunctioning robots.


2104 - News has spread of a remaining human settlement, somewhere deep underground the remaining resistance work on an EMP bomb strong enough to take out all the robots on the planet. Will it work? We'll never know...




Of course, this will probably never happen because, as a whole, humans are inherently afraid of the dark. Think about it, when is the last time you were out walking alone at night without even getting a little bit freaked out? Or how about being home, alone, and you hear a floorboard creak somewhere in the house? You know it was probably just the house cooling down or whatever, but you still can't help but wonder if there is someone else in the house. Someone who shouldn't be.


In the words of Dr Who, "Fear of the dark is not irrational, what lurks in the darkness deserves to be feared".

"Sometimes behaves so strangely"

If you read my first blog post, you would have seen that I want to become a radio producer, so I figured it was about time I made a post about some audio-related stories. This first story is one I first heard on WNYC's Radiolab. Radiolab is a radio program broadcast on NPR in America and is available as a free podcast for the rest of the world. Chances are, if you continue to read this blog, that you will see a lot more posts based on Radiolab stories. The reason for this is because they are no small part of my inspiration for radio production. You know how bassists may look up to Victor Wooten as the apex of bass technique, or some guitarists fantasize about standing on stage next to Joe Satriani and his beautifully bald head? Well, that's how I feel about this show. If I had the opportunity to work for them, I'd sell my family home for plane tickets.

Pictured: Beauty incarnate. The bald kind.

Not Pictured: Happy fingertips

But anyway, this somehow leads me to this first story. I'm sure Radiolab would do a better job at explaining it than I ever could. If you listen to the first five minutes of the audio clip below, you'll get the point. I'd recommend you listen to the whole show sometime, but this first five minutes is all we need.

If you don't feel a particular desire to listen to said audio file, I'll do my best to explain what it is about.

Diana Deutsch is a Professor of Psychology at the University of California, San Diego. She is a perceptual and cognitive Psychologist who is a lead researcher in the Psychology of music. She has done a lot of research on the nature of absolute pitch, discovering that amongst people whose first language was a tonal language (languages where words can have more than one meaning based on the tone of the word), 75% of them had absolute pitch, whereas amongst people who had languages such as English as their first language, only 25% of them had perfect pitch. (If you want to know more about this research, you could look here). Another very interesting point raised in this episode is that no matter what language they speak, all mothers, all around the world, talk to their children in the exact same way.

Deutsch has also made two CDs based on audio illusions, which leads us smoothly to the main point of this article. Listen to this: http://www.acoustics.org/press/156th/Sound_Demo_1.mp3

Did you hear it? The story goes, that one day, while editing the first track, an introduction, to Deutsch's second CD, she had this particular part of the track on loop while she went to make some tea. She completely forgot that she had left this looping and, while drinking her tea, she began hearing something really odd. What was she hearing?

This.

She realised it started to sound like music. If you go back and listen to that track, you will see what I mean. It seems like a completely normal sentence until it comes to this phrase and it sounds like she suddenly bursts into song. If you didn't hear it the first time, go back and listen to it now, you'll wonder how you missed it the first time, it seems so obvious when you know it's there. It was this discovery, of how speech can "sometimes behave so strangely", that lead Deutsch to discover the link between language and absolute pitch.

Oh, I probably should have warned you at the start of this post: once you hear the musical quality of the speech, it's impossible to unhear it. I first heard it a few weeks ago and ever since it has been stuck in my head, it is a seriously catchy tune!

For more info on Diana Deutsch, her research, and her illusions, click here

For more info on Radiolab, click here

Can you hear the music? Could you hear it before it was pointed out to you? Let me know! Leave a comment below the blog, you don't even need to sign up or anything!

Synchronicity

" The simultaneous occurrence of events which appear significantly related but have no discernible causal connection"

The quote above is how the oxford dictionary defines the word "synchronicity". Let me give you an example:

Dennis the Menace

If you are from the UK, this is probably the image you have of Dennis the Menace.

 And this is most likely what comes to mind when Americans think of Dennis the Menace.

Nothing strange there, though, right? Didn't the same thing happen with the office? There was a Uk version and a US version? Yeah, except these weren't based on each other. Now, let me take you all the way back to 1951, and the accident that sends us down the rabbit hole. On 12th of March, issue 452 of the comic book "The Beano", which was supposed to be released on 17th of March, accidentally ends up in shops all over the UK. This is the first issue to feature David Law's Dennis the Menace. A few hours later, due to different time zones, American Newspapers go on sale, within over 1000 of which, contains Hank Ketcham's Dennis the Menace.

There doesn't seem to be any evidence at all that these two creators had any idea of what the other was doing, or had any sort of interaction. What would be the point, anyway, of one of these creators copying the other one? And they really don't share anything in common, except their name, their release date, and their apparent love for stripy tops.

So what does this all mean? Probably nothing, but who knows? Maybe it could be some indication that ideas are, somehow, not as unique as we think they are. Is it possible ideas exist as separate entities to ourselves? Probably not, but who knows?

I am sure everyone has experienced synchronicity to some degree. A few years ago I remember it would happen to me all the time. I've lost count of the amount of times I've picked up my phone just before receiving a text message, or been thinking of a song just as it came on the radio. A few days ago, for example, I was trying to remember a scene from a film as I was flicking through the TV. I stopped at a channel and, lo and behold, that scene I was trying to remember was on.

Have you ever had an experience like this? Lemme know! Feel free to leave a comment.

What me and the Pope have in common

The power of words is arguably the largest force on the planet. It can motivate, build communities, build relationships, build entire civilizations but can also destroy. At it's most basic level, the power of words is a form of hypnotism. At it's more advanced level, it's brain washing. Hypnotism does not mean being put into a trance and told to dance like a chicken, although that is certainly one form of it. It is simply the art of speaking to the subconscious is a way that it can understand.

Consider the famous "White bear" experiment, which you have most likely heard of in some form or another. This experiment was about thought suppression, how when told not to think of something you will obsessively do so. The participant would be told to think of whatever they want for 5 minutes and say what they are thinking. After this, they are given a bell and told to, again, think of whatever they wanted but "Don't think of a white bear". If they thought of a white bear they would have to ring the bells. Of course, there were more bells ringing than in Santa's workshop. Although this demonstrates the impossibility of suppressing thoughts, it also is a good example of how the subconscious works. The current, main belief is that the subconscious mind does not recognise negative qualifiers such as "don't". So when told "Don't think of a white bear" your subconscious hears "Think of a white bear".

If you read my last blog, you will see I believe the most important words are our names. Our names are told to us over and over again our entire lives, so surely it must have some impact on our lives. And I'm not the only one who thinks this. A quick search online (after finding the right keywords) delivers many results asking this same question: Does a person's name shape their personality? Which leads me to the title of this blog post.

On Wednesday nights, I volunteer at a local radio station where I assist in recording radio dramas, but every three weeks I record IRN (the international religious news) which is sent to roughly 12 radio stations. I usually find the stories mildly interesting but I wouldn't normally, say, write a blog about them. But today, one stuck out to me. It was a story about the pope and how he believes people shouldn't name their children after celebrities but choose names from the bible.

"Every baptised child acquires the character of the son of God, beginning with their Christian name, an unmistakable sign that the Holy Spirit causes man to be born anew in the womb of the Church."

Read more: http://www.montrealgazette.com/life/Look+Bible+Hollywood+pope/4091636/story.html#ixzz1ArfAfTAt

 That's a quote from the pope which, I'll be honest, I don't really understand. Monsignor but it a bit more understandably:

"Naming children after perfumes, bicycles and countries is putting a limit on their potential. They are not merchandise or commodities."

Read more: http://www.montrealgazette.com/life/Look+Bible+Hollywood+pope/4091636/story.html#ixzz1ArgaVYDi

Even though I'm from Northern Ireland, I choose to not identify with either Catholicism or Protestantism. But even still, it's not that often me and the Pope agree on something. I don't know how much power is in a name, or words in general, but everyone from politicians to poets have sought to use them to their advantage, so they must have some sort of power.

In conclusion: You may not agree that names have power at all, but if you call your child "Apple" or "Peaches", don't be too surprised if they turn out a bit seedy. I'm not necessarily saying name your child a biblical name, but at least choose one that matters, something important to yourself or to your family. The actor Tim Roth's surname used to be "Smith" but when his father returned from the second world war, he changed his surname to a Jewish name, in memory of what he'd seen, wouldn't something meaningful like that be better than being named after a piece of fruit?

Choosing Blog Names

A name is an important thing.

Names are how we recognise people and objects, if something doesn't have a name then it doesn't really exist, does it? Humans so far have not found anything they can't put a name to.

Names have long been thought to hold some sort of magic, whether that be "Yeah, he looks like a Robert to me", or the belief that a witch could place a spell on you if she knows your name. Names give value to the world around us and help us to contain the abundance of information we see around us. For example, in stead of saying "The giant ball of fire above us which gives us light and heat went behind the mass of soil, rock, and water we are standing on blocking the light to the big rock in the sky that appears at night", we say "There was a lunar eclipse". Of course, that analogy breaks down when you realise that fire, light, soil, rock, water, night, and sky are all names.

It is this necessity for a name that accurately encompasses what this blog stands for, and what it aims to be, its very essence and personality, that I have wrestled with over the past few days. It lead me to a few choices:

• Dreams and Other Inaccuracies
• Inaccurate Interpretations of The World
• Minor Discrepancies
• And (suggested by Michael Steele) "To McKee or not to be"

I really liked "Dreams and other Inaccuracies" and "Inaccurate Interpretations of The World" as they pretty much summed up what my plans for this site are: My incredibly biased, and most likely wrong, view of the world through the eyes of a dreamer. And although calling myself a dreamer is admittedly very pretentious, I mean it in the way Scroobius Pip means it in the song "Waiting for the beat to kick in": A lot of my poems and writings seem to start with me waking up, or being in a dream, or dream like state. Now, this implies a certain level of abstraction in my work.. You might say I'm keeping it surreal but.. I'd rather you didn't. Fact is. I sleep a lot. It's as simple as that. I like sleepin' man. It's a nice place to be.

They both seemed a bit long though, so it got shortened to Inaccurate Interpretations.

But without further ado, I suppose I should introduce myself. My name is Nathan McKee. Nathan meaning "God has given" and McKee meaning "Fiery One". I am a media student aspiring to be a Radio Producer. I live in Northern Ireland and, although I don't intend to live here forever, I'm happy enough with it for now. I play bass guitar, my ultimate goal with the bass is to just be able to make people groove, the kind of groove you can't escape for days after. And to get a Rickenbacker 4003 bass and possibly a Fender Jazz Bass. Which leads me to another point, I love music. Just music in general, I'll give anything a listen to. I like reading books and graphic novels. I enjoy comic books but I don't get to read them all that often. I'm slowly starting to enjoy TV shows more than Films.

I hope you've enjoyed my blog. I'm not going to give a time frame for my next post cause I don't know when next I'll have something interesting to share.

Bye for now,

From the Fiery One.