Growing up is optional.

Well, I'm eighteen now. It really doesn't feel like a big deal. I've always thought birthdays were overrated in the first place. My birthday weekend however, was fantastic. If you read my old blog (which is probably just Livvi, Imogen and Frankie) you would know I go to this mad Quaker camp (there's no camping involved, but I can't think of a better word) thing in the summer. They have a weekend long reunion that is usually in February, but this year and from now on it will be in April. It meant that this year it coincided with my 18th. A couple of my best friends there didn't come this year, and I feel really bad for saying this, but I'm somewhat glad they didn't come as it allowed me to get to know other people better. I'll be seeing them in four months time anyway, so it's not all bad. Anyway, the reunion this year was really good, lots of fun times were had and I'm looking forward to the summer now. I got home on the Sunday night and had a belated birthday supper with my family (my birthday was the day before). My sister gave me an "18" hat shaped like a cake, with a load of candles on top, which played "Happy Birthday" if you pressed a button (I say 'played' because it doesn't work anymore). I also got a few other, more serious presents. The good thing that topped the whole weekend off was finding that I got into the university I wanted to for next year.

A notice:
I do realise that I really don't blog that much in the first place, but I felt like I should tell you that due to exams and revision and whatnot I've decided to take a break from blogging. I will start writing again sometime in late June. It seems so far away... the holidays cannot come sooner.

Apologies

There will be no cover version Friday tonight due to the fact that I am not here, and cannot think of a good song at the moment either.

Instead, you can have this song, purely due to the fact it's in my head at the moment.

Eeveerryoone!

Well, I finally got around to watching Léon again. Norman Stansfield was just as psychotic as I remember him. Gary Oldman is a complete ham in this movie but he's still just brilliant. I just have to post this.



If you haven't seen the movie already, please do. Try to avoid the director's cut though (which is the one I have, as HMV weren't selling the original cut), I don't like what the extra scenes add to Léon and Matilda's relationship. Another thing? Natalie Portman can actually act in this movie! and then you watch Star Wars and it's like "what happened!?". Erghhh.

I also managed to (finally) watch "Plan 9 From Outer Space". It wasn't as bad as I thought it'd be. I mean, it is bad, but definitely not the worst movie ever. If you want a really terrible movie, try Manos: The Hands of Fate WITHOUT the MST3K riffing. I watched it with Joel and the bots, and even then I almost wanted to rip my eyes out.

What's got me even more excited is that this week Channel 4 are having a sci-fi week. Yesterday they showed the original "The Day the Earth Stood Still" and today they played "The War of the Worlds" (1953). I really liked TDTESS and I honestly do not know why they felt the need to remake it (which I haven't seen, due to my dislike of remakes). I didn't like TWOTW as much as TDTESS, I mean, I still enjoyed it, but I wouldn't watch it again. Maybe it's because I've read the book and the movie didn't really follow the book all that closely. Tomorrow is the original "Invasion of the Body Snatchers" movie. I can't wait!

Cover Version Friday - Rush with "Heart Full of Soul"

Look at them!

They are so small!

It's Jim Morrison!



and Gary Oldman!



I haven't watched a Gary Oldman movie in over a year, which is bad, considering he is one of my favourite actors. Once the Easter holidays roll around I am getting out my Léon DVD and watching it.

Images from this is not porn.

Cemetaries, Syd and Storm.

Yesterday I went to visit Highgate cemetery for my art project. I've never been there before and it was really interesting visiting it, expecially the West side where the Egyptian Avenue, Circle of Lebanon and catacombs are. I just liked the whole run-down, abandoned feel. (In fact I do just like abandoned places in general, I love looking at pictures urban explorers have taken. This is a good site for pictures. I've never done any urban exploration myself, but I would like to one day.)



Some of the graves had really nice headstones or sculptures with a story behind them. George Wombwell, the man buried in the tomb in the photograph below, was a Victorian menagerie exhibitor. One of his most famous animals was Nero the lion, who was so tame that children could ride on his back. A statue of him was placed on top of the tomb and the fact that he is sleeping represents his calm, gentle nature.



In the East cemetery I visited Karl Marx's grave (it's impossible to miss) as well as Douglas Adams' (which I did miss the first time round - it's rather small).

After visiting Highgate cemetery I went and visited the Syd Barrett 'Art and Letters' Exhibiton at the Idea Generation Gallery (nothing to do with my art project). It was interesting to see a side of Syd that not many people know about. I didn't actually realise he painted until I read about this exhibition on the Planet Rock website, where I first learnt about it. I have to admit that I didn't like a lot of the art, but I did really like these two (Untitled 6 and Untitled 7):





They also had some of Storm Thorgerson's photography featured in the gallery and I actually cannot express in words how much I love his work. When Borders was around I used to just go in there, get the big book on Thorgerson's album covers down from the top shelf and sit down and just marvel over his work.

This is a photograph that I had not seen before. Thorgerson has the most wonderful ideas for album covers (this is the cover of "An Introduction to Syd Barrett":



One day I will do a post on Storm's work, but it will be very hard choosing what goes in the post.

All in all it was a fantastic day, even if I didn't get any work done (apart from taking photographs to draw in my art book).

Cover Version Friday - Wing with "Back in Black"

I have no words apart from just try to not laugh when you listen to it.

This is insane(ly awesome)!

LOOK AT THAT DRUMMER GO.

Edward Weston

Edward Weston (1886 - 1958) is the other photographer I decided to include in my research for my art book for school.



He manages to capture natural forms in an elegant way. The shot of the cabbage leaf is a good example. Here he has managed to make it look like the skirt of a dress that flows downwards.



Another aspect about some of his photographs is that he manages to make the natural forms seem almost human. Here we have a pepper and, to me, it seems as if this could be a person, curled up, with their arms over the head to protect themself.



A similar effect is achieved here. I see this shell as a swan, with the long neck and the curl of the shell that appears to be a bird's head, looking down. The whole shot also manages to portray the elegance of a swan.



I just like the pattern in this shot, and the way it seems like it could go on forever.

Cover Version Friday - Soundgarden with "Stray Cat Blues"

Once again, I have failed in my task to post this on a Friday. I blame it on Fable II. I wanted to finish playing it by about 10 in the evening. I was at the stage in the game where I had to enter The Crucible. I had no idea what was inside and thought that I could probably finish it in 15-20 minutes. I was wrong. If you haven't played it, The Crucible contains eight rooms of enemies (and each room has three waves of enemies), each room contains a different type of enemy. There are target times that you have to beat to get a special prize, but if you don't beat them it doesn't matter. I managed to get a couple of these times but was usually out by a minute or two. Except when it came to the last room. I had to fight a large troll. Target time was about 1:50. How long did it take me to defeat it? TWENTY ONE MINUTES. Tells you how good I am at defeating trolls. Anyway, the whole thing took me around an hour and then afterwards I had to do some stuff (mainly changing my name from "Dumpling" to "Lionheart"... seriously - "Dumpling"? That's not a name for a warrior!). Anyway after that I was shattered and went straight to bed. That is my excuse. I think it is an alright one.

Seeing as we have has Johnny Cash covering Soundgarden, we are now going to have Soundgarden covering the Rolling Stones.

Ansel Adams

For my art homework I have to write about two photgraphers that "explore" places or objects in their works. One photographer that I chose was Ansel Adams. I love his work; it's just so beautiful. He has captured the natural world in a different way; his images often evoke the feeling of loneliness but they also show just how great and imposing the landscapes can be. The fact that he took his images in black and white just adds to the whole atmosphere of the photographs. Here are some images to illustrate what I'm talking about:









If you liked those, do go and look him up on Google images as there are plenty more photographs there.

Cover Version Friday - Steve Miller Band with "Hey Yeah"

This song was originally played by Jimmie Vaughan. I actually prefer this version to the original, the guitar in this track is just really nice.

Cover Version Friday - The Lovemongers/Heart "Battle of Evermore"

Here is The Lovemongers' (aka Heart's) version of Led Zeppelin's "Battle of Evermore". It is a very good cover, I like it.

Cover Version Friday - Sisters of Mercy with "Gimme Shelter"

This week I have been rediscovering Sisters of Mercy and so for this week's cover version Friday I have chosen Sisters of Mercy's cover of the Rolling Stones' "Gimme Shelter". To be honest I don't really have a preference between this version and the original one. I do think that this one is more atmospheric, mostly due to Eldritch's deep, dark vocals.

Good lyrics make a song so much better.

I used to think that me liking a song or not had nothing to do with the lyrics. I used to not care about the lyrics and I thought that I usually liked a song for the actual music. I now realise that I was so so wrong. Lyrics are one of the reasons I like bands such as Hawkwind and Blue Öyster Cult so much (I do like the actual music as well but the lyrics make me like the music even more). I'm a bit of a nerd and I really like science fiction so when I discovered that Hawkwind sing about, well, science fiction-y things I got very happy.

Yesterday and the day before I just went into some crazy mood where I refused to listen to anything that wasn't Hawkwind. I ended up discovering a lot of their songs and I now want to buy an album or two by them. The problem is they have recorded so many albums I don't know which one to buy first!

Anyway, I'd better post a few of their songs so you can see what I'm talking about.

This one involves freezing people, android replicas and clones.



I just love the lyrics in this song.



One last song for today: this one's based on the novel "Steppenwolf" by Hermann Hesse (which I've not read). Do watch the music video too, it's got some nice animation.

One thing I really want

is for The Cult to release their "Peace" album, in its entirety and on its own (as I do realise it was released in a box set a few years ago but I just want the album! I'm not a hardcore fan). Why? Due to the fact I feel it is far superior to the Electric album. (Long story short: they record the "Peace" album, are disappointed with it and re-record it as "Electric" which has a more hard rock sound).

Here is an example:

Electric version of "Electric Ocean":



Original Peace version of the same song:



It's just so much nicer. I like all the layers and the guitar effects in the original.

One of my friends bought me "The Best of Rare Cult" for my birthday a couple of years back which does have a couple of tracks from the Peace album on but obviously not all of it.

I guess I'll just have to content myself with Hawkwind for the time being (more on that later - tomorrow perhaps?).

Cover Version Friday - Johnny Cash with "Rusty Cage"

I'm posting this song, originally by Soundgarden, just because it is so wildly different from the original. It is always interesting to hear an artist from one genre cover a song from another genre. I must admit that I prefer the original though, seeing as Soundgarden are one of my favourite bands.

Last weekend...

...I had my friend Frankie round and we ended up watching some movies and playing some games. The first movie we watched was The Expendables which was one of the two action movies that I meant to see last summer in the cinema but never did (the other being the A-Team movie which my friend also brought round but we didn't have time to watch. Oh well. I will watch it soon!). My thoughts were this: it was shorter than expected and also needed more Bruce Willis (seriously, he was only in the movie for about five minutes. I was disappointed). I feel that we didn't get to know the characters all that well and it would've been nice to have had a bit of backstory. That being said, the main action scene was one of the best/most awesome/fun action scenes I've ever watched. Guns! Explosions! Fire! More guns! It was excellent. It is worth watching for that scene alone.

The other movie we watched was The Dark Crystal (well, it was mainly me watching whilst Frankie sorted out her photos on her laptop) which I've been meaning to see for ages, due to my love of eighties kids' movies (I think Labyrinth will always be my favourite though). It's rather dark for a kids' movie but I still liked it. The puppetry was brilliant (but then it would be - it's a Jim Henson movie). I'm glad that I've finally seen it.

I want to watch Labyrinth now.

We played on Fable II and Dead Rising 2. There is a lot to do in Fable II! I don't like the fact that there isn't one big map of all of Albion, like there is a huge map of the Capital Wasteland in Fallout 3. The maps for the current location are also too small and you can't zoom in, which I also dislike. That is one of my main complaints about the game. Other than the lack of a decent map, I quite like it. I've managed to maintain being neutral as I haven't decided whether to be good or bad. I prefer being good first, then bad in these sorts of games.

I then got Frankie to play on Dead Rising 2, after assuring her that it wasn't a scary zombie game. She ended up liking it, so that was good. I am now on a mission to make Chuck Greene as ridiculous looking as possible.

All in all it was a good Friday night/Saturday. Next time we will hopefully be having a Back To The Future trilogy.

Cover version... Saturday? The Cult with "Born to be Wild"

YES I KNOW I FAIL AT BLOGGING. I WAS BUSY YESTERDAY. HERE YOU GO.

The Cult - Born to be Wild (original by Steppenwolf)

Very Early Bowie!

This song just makes me laugh. (Although I have to admit, I do prefer Pink Floyd's 'The Gnome' to this song).

I am a leaf on the wind - watch how I soar.

I finally got round to finishing watching Serenity last night and I'm glad that they managed to wrap everything up in a movie. What I am not glad about is the fact they cancelled Firefly. I just don't understand what was going through the minds of Fox when they decided to cancel it. It is such a brilliant show and the characters are great - they are all so different from one another yet work so well together (before you ask - I don't have a favourite character. Wash is cool though. Him and his dinosaurs).

I do realise that this is what every Firefly fan thinks, and that if you're a fan too, that you've probably heard it a thousand times before, so I'm sorry for that. It is so stupid though, that it got cancelled, when other shows that are nowhere near as good get many seasons (-coughHeroescough- (although that abomination did get cancelled in the end, thankfully)). Well I guess Firefly never had the chance to jump the shark which is a good thing, but it would have been nice to see a couple more series, yes?

Cover Version Friday - Deep Purple with "Hush"

I've decided that every Friday I will be posting a cover version of a song. I find cover versions of songs really interesting; I just love hearing a different take on a song that I like. However, even though I enjoy cover songs I usually prefer the original, but there are quite a few exceptions for me. This is one of them.

The very first cover version Friday features Deep Purple performing "Hush" (originally performed by Billy Joe Royal).

Over the Hills and Far Away

As you all know, the talented Gary Moore died last weekend. I have to admit to not knowing much of his solo material but even so, it was a shock when I first read he had died. I always get a strange feeling when a rock star dies; I just always see them as these immortal beings who are brilliant at playing the guitar, or drumming, or singing, or whatever else they may play; so when one dies I just get reminded that they are all normal people, like you or me. It also takes me a while just to get over their death because I know I will not be hearing any more music from them. I still don't think I've completely got over the fact that Ronnie James Dio has died, and that happened last May. It just saddens me that we'll never hear Ronnie's epic voice ever again, or Gary's excellent guitar playing. At least I'm safe in knowing that there is a great gig going on up there...

To finish, here's one of my favourite Gary Moore songs:

New year, new blog.

Right, so I've decided to start a new blog. I just wanted a fresh start with a blog and I hope this blog will appeal to the masses a little more, since I intend to include art, music and nerdy things as well as the odd post about what's happening in my life.

I guess since this is a new blog I should give an introduction. Hello there, I am Sophia. I like a lot of things, many of which are 'ridiculous' (as my friends pointed out to me the other day). I guess they are. I like classic rock, nerdy things (I'm more of a sci-fi nerd than any other type of nerd), the internet and my awesome friends. I also like cuttlefish just because they are so cute. My three favourite movies at the moment are Die Hard, Blade Runner and Back to the Future. If you hadn't already guessed, I like action and sci-fi movies.

I am currently studying A-Levels in art, maths and psychology and next year I am going to do a foundation diploma in art and design. After that I hope to take a degree in illustation.

Well, that's the introduction done. There's a lot more about me that I haven't included, but you'll probably learn more about me with future posts.

Anyway, today I have been ill. When I got up my head felt like it was going to explode. This meant that I had to take a day off school which I haven't done in years, but it did give me a little extra time to revise for some class tests coming up. I still don't feel that great, but we'll see in the morning. Also, because I've been ill I haven't listened to music all day, which is highly unusual for me.

To round off this post I'm going to leave you with some BÖC, mainly because I really like this song and have only recently discovered it via my last.fm account (did I mention that I like last.fm?).