This Is The Last Day Of Your Life

Hello. This is the last day of my twenties.
Tomorrow I shall be 30.
I still don't care.
The only thing that concerns me is that I'll make it physically and mentally through the weekend. My neck is still a bit loose; my tooth is a bit sore and my sinuses flare up with the minimal amount of warning. I'm also prone to get flustered trying to make sure everything goes right, and I don't like the flustered Glenn. He's the one who's prone to grinding his teeth and contemplating the murder of innocents.
Still, I think we'll have lovely fun.
I don't want to do any work today, I'm too excitable. Admittedly, I never want to do any work, but I think I'm entitled to be excited about the huge amount of presents the Birthday Santa will be bringing me tomorrow. I hope B.S. has realised that my 30th birthday is the most important one ever, and that as I've been a good boy that I should receive the most presents ever. Presents! Most! Ever!

Tomorrow I shall be 30, yet I shall always feel like a 10 year old boy inside…

And it just don't matter too much to me if you can't run
'Cause I will carry you up on my back until you're safe
And you will feel the way I feel someday

Beautiful. As is…

The fire that they said would burn just lights up the way
I lie in the place where I fell
And three years on this nine-day wonder won't go away
Till you bring an end to my hell
When you came along on a glorious day
By the time that you left I was crawling again
Yeah you came along on a glorious day
Now I want you to save me again

Just beaten on the scale of beauty by…

Keeping me up on my feet was a love so complete
I have chased but never bettered
Everything seemed like it fell at our feet
Now she's out of my reach and there forever
And in the end I wish it all would burn
You are everywhere now you are gone
There's no stone left I have not found and turned
But like a tidal wave that never breaks,
I will run and run and never stay
Because there's no way back that I could face
And no ones come to take your place

So fucking good.

I think I should make some lists. People want lists. They need them.
Hmm, I was thinking about making a top 10 records of all time list. Problem number 1 with this is that it is completely arbitrary; it changes virtually every week, depending on my moods and selective memory.
I was talking about my favourite records at the weekend and problem number 2 arose. Through my life there have been many records that I've listened to death. I was obsessed in 'Nevermind' when I was 17-19, when I could never imagine liking any album more that that. Every now and then I stumble across a stunning album and listen to it repeatedly, and because of how I am, it will affect me greatly and change me subtly. My top ten records would always have 'Nevermind' in it; as well as 'The Holy Bible' (obsession 1994-1995), 'Revolver' (obsession 1995-1996) and 'Formaldehyde' (obsession 1992-1993). The problem being that if I listen to them now the effect on me will be significantly less than it was at the time. If I play them for old times sake, I'll find myself skipping tracks or becoming restless with the thought that I should be enjoying it more, as it used to be so thrilling or moving to me. Why isn't it now?
So I was wondering if my top 10 records needs to be reconsidered. All those albums are important to me; they point back to good times in my life, and show me what I was like back then and how I was evolving into the grumpy faced man who is writing this. Yet I don't listen to them much anymore.
There are a select group of five or six albums that I became obsessed in, that I used to listen to virtually every day for a lengthy period of time. Surely these must be my favourite albums of all time. Or should I include those that affected the younger Glenn? Or does this only matter to a slightly autistic, list-obsessed and musically anal fish-faced man?

Anyway, I thought I'd do the list, so here is 'My Top Records Of All Time That I've Listened To Many Times And Still Enjoy Greatly Today'. Not very catchy title admittedly.

1. Embrace - The Good Will Out
2. Radiohead - The Bends
3. Silver Sun - Silver Sun
4. Radiohead - OK Computer
5. Foo Fighters - The Colour & The Shape
6. Ben Folds Five - Ben Folds Five
7. Easyworld - This Is Where I stand
8. Suede - Coming Up
9. The Bluetones - Expecting To Fly
10. Blur - 13

There are a few others as well, and to be honest, after the first 4 it becomes something of a random ordering.

Okay, what next? Films? Hmm, I find it immensely difficult to place films in any order. So here are 'My Top Films Of All Time Which Have Been Listed Alphabetically Because I'd Find It Hard To Do It Any Other Way'. Or MTFOATWHBLABIFIHTDIAOW for short.

28 Days Later, Aliens, Back To The Future, Clerks, Donnie Darko, Field Of Dreams, High Fidelity, Magnolia, Mall Rats, The Warriors.

Gigs! Yes, I'll do gigs next.

1. Embrace - Shepherd's Bush Empire - 2004
2. Embrace - Manchester Apollo - 2002
3. Radiohead - MEN Arena - 2003
4. Idlewild - Lancaster Sugarhouse - 2000
5. The Doves / The Delgados - Liverpool University - 2002
6. The Cooper Temple Clause - Wolverhampton Wulfrun - 2003
7. Embrace - Manchester Academy - 2004
8. Super Furry Animals - Manchester Academy - 2003
9. Herman Dune - Manchester Tmesis - 2003
10. Okkervil River - Manchester Star & Garter - 2003

Hmm, that was really difficult, I've seen so many great gigs. I also omitted festivals, which would have just made it impossible to do. Heh, maybe I have a really selective memory with gigs but that list contains only one gig earlier than 2002.

The rain is going horizontal outside.
Today I am something of a physical wreck. Over the weekend I've knackered my voice and hearing on two separate occasions, and this morning can hardly move my neck.
On Friday we went to see Embrace in Manchester. We went earlier than usual to meet up with the "sea-cret lig" (I'm not 100% sure why it's called sea-cret) people. This is a group of people who meet up and make new friends before Embrace gigs around the country. Wolla is one of the people who organises it and we met him last Tuesday at the video shoot. He told us all about it then, so we met up in The Phoenix Club next to the university.
It was cool and we met some nice people. Our natural reticence to force ourselves on people already chatting meant that we didn't meet everyone, but we met Sue and her husband, and two mental cockney ladies. Wolla has a stunning ability to remember names so proved useful in placing names to faces from the message board. It was cool, and I enjoyed how Embrace fans can vary quite significantly.
The gig itself was amazing, but then again it always would be. We were front-left next to the speakers and this is how my hearing was destroyed for the first time. We were stood next to people who didn't seem very enthusiastic about it, but I shouted along to every word and totally lost my voice. It was bizarre, as virtually the whole crowd seemed really up for it, bar the small group of people that we were stood in the middle of.
On Saturday we met up with Julia in Manchester for her birthday. We had a mooch around but I'm kinda banned from buying anything at the moment as people are getting fed up of buying me presents for my birthday / Christmas, which I've already bought myself.
On Saturday night we got drunk at home on cocktails and then wandered the very short distance to The Mill. We haven't been there in a while as it had been shut for refurbishment (it's been split into two rooms), and then there was that whole Liam being arrested incident.
I had a really good night, we danced the best we could to the music, and all got quite merry. It was a shame that a few more of us weren't available for the evening, but we had fun anyway. The thing is that I personally had a good time as I was drunk and with my friends, I would have had a good time anywhere. The club itself didn't really help things, as the music on the night was quite poor.
We danced and jumped around anyway (as we were drunk), but, as with many alternative music clubs, the choice of music was a mixture of the conservative and the wilfully obtuse.
Before midnight the DJ in the main room played some remixes of things such as '7 Nation Army' (and amazingly picked a remix that was impossible to dance to), and some unidentifiable dance music. This was obviously an attempt by the DJ to show he was cool and bang up to date 'wiv da kidz'. All it showed to me was that he knew how to ensure an empty dance floor. Then he'd have a brief flurry of still cool classics, and then follow it with turgid Ian Brown songs, and the old oh-so-boring staples. It's not 1994 anymore.
The back room was quite full, but seemed to be playing a mix of sixties songs whenever I went in. Anyway, the dance floor in the main room is bigger for spaz-dancing so we stayed in there for most of the night.
It was really loud and as my voice hadn't really recovered from the night before, I managed to totally destroy it when trying to speak to people. My hearing was also battered for a second time by standing right next to one of the speakers. I'm going to end up like a non-blind Helen Keller.
The neck injury seems to have slowly developed over Sunday and this morning. I think it is due to enthusiastic dancing. Hopefully it will have recovered by Friday.
Sunday was mainly spent lazing around, and being fussed over by my da. Liverpool got beat again. Ho, hum, I suppose we have to wait till Christmas to see if Benitez is heading in the right direction.

What am I going to do today? I can't sit on the internet all day anymore, and I can't be arsed to do any work leading up to my birthday. I think I may write some indietron reviews as I've lately felt the urge again to build it up and complete it. Heh, I'm so not a 'finisher'. I like the idea and initial development of that idea, I can't be arsed to finish it off when it gets boring.

I'm looking forward to my birthday this weekend. Jo and Grace are coming to the bowling on Saturday, which will be cool. We haven't seen Grace in a while, Nick says she is more interactive and exciting now. Children frighten me.