Sunday Sep 18, 2005

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I'm four for four biggrin Annie answered my last question and saw Annie Tetris biggrin

I felt really good and confident today, having announced Annie Tetris. Now that I'm done I can sit back and take it all in. Now that I'm not working on it every waking hour I can really start to feel proud. This is my best programming accomplishment yet!

I drove over to A's place at noon to get my KEY! That's right, I now have a key to my new home!! Kind of neat huh? I found out she's a lawyer, so no wonder she's had such a crazy week. It's litigation time blackeyed

diedianne pointed me to her group Hirsute. If I had known there was a group for hairy ladies I would have joined a long time ago. I don't get the whole shaving and waxing thing. It hurts and you have to keep doing it all the time. Too much of a hassle. It's easier just to be natural. I'm not ashamed! I do cover up with swim trunks if I'm wearing a bathing suit, because I don't want to cause a freakin' scene, ya know?

I probably shouldn't talk about it though, it just invites perviness. To think when I first got here I was talking openly about my sexual problems. I probably shouldn't say that either, now you're all going to go rushing back to my old entries and get all pervy on me. NEVER MIND

On the way to and from A's place I was listening to Chewing Gum on repeat over and over and over and over again. I swear I listened to that song for over an hour. I had been in the car with Annie's album playing a few days ago and felt sick of the music, but today it felt fresh again. It's the Annie Tetris, it put me in a good mood.

I even had the window down and was playing it pretty darn loud. That's the first time I've really imposed my music on others like that. And the same song over and over. I was really enjoying it though, singing along like I never do. My voice is maybe getting stronger? Not sure. I was able to sing along a little better though.

I've been emailing back and forth with a fellow Annie fan in the UK. Today I just wrote him the longest email ever, I went through my whole history of the music I've gotten into. What the hell, I'll copy and paste it with some minor changes. It's long so it goes in a spoiler. You get to hear my "email voice".

SPOILERS! (Click to view)
It wasn't until '97 that my first true fandom was born, at the age of 16, with Fleetwood Mac's widely acclaimed reunion tour "The Dance", a concert of which they played incessantly on public television for months. Mom let me listen to her Rumours LP, and over the next few months I became a true fan. It led to my first foray into the world of the internet as well, we got America Online and I started going into fan chat rooms. Made my first internet friends that way! Interestingly, my best friend from those days just got back in touch with me recently after years of no contact. Back then she introduced me to Stevie Nicks' solo material. This was interesting too, because at first I was really very put off by the big '80s synthesizer sound. But I really valued my friendship with this girl, so I wanted to give Stevie's music a chance. In the end I fell in love. It's a good thing, too, because otherwise I'm pretty sure I wouldn't have liked Annie's music!

I was quite a big fan of Stevie for years, I saw her in concert twice (one time I was able to get to the foot of the stage, in my Stevie-ish platform boots, but even then I was too short to reach her when she came to the front of the stage and went down the line touching people's hands. She did smile right at me though!) In those days I had a website of misheard lyrics of Fleetwood Mac that became very popular (example: instead of "I'm just second hand news" someone thought it was "I'm just sittin' here nude"!) I guess I could owe the site's popularity to a bit of luck with getting it well-placed in the Yahoo search engine and others. This was pre-Google, if you can believe it! I got many many contributions to the page. I even got a couple of signed Bob Masse posters, one of Fleetwood Mac and one of Stevie, for free! I've kept them in a cheap plastic frame, but they're in great shape.

After a while I became less interested, and there was quite a lull in my interest in music for a long time. That's one of my faults, I don't explore music on my own very much, so I'm very limited in the music I listen to.

In college, I saw Bjrk's Pagan Poetry video, and went straight to my room and checked the school network, and found someone sharing her Homogenic album on mp3. I was intrigued. My fandom of Bjrk never grew into anything very intense, but I do have all her albums. I found Vespertine disappointing, but her latest effort Medulla is quite interesting, being almost completely vocal with almost no instruments. She brought in the extremely talented human beatbox Razhel, who is just amazing.

I joined a small Bjrk fan forum, and made a number of new friends, including a guy from the UK. It was through him that I discovered Saint Etienne, whom I absolutely love. Sarah Cracknell is just amazing, her voice is brilliant and sexy and she has that fabulous and enviable fashion sense that I wish I could emulate. I'm such a fan that I even coined a phrase, "Addicted to Cracknell", and this friend, being a sort of freelance artist/designer, made a t-shirt design for me bearing that phrase. It's a really lovely shirt, and I hope to wear it if I ever see Saint Etienne in concert! Now if only I could think of a similarly clever phrase for Annie...

He also introduced me to Sophie Ellis-Bextor, and I really love her work, though her second album didn't fare too well. I had planned to try to fly over to the UK when she tours next and see her in concert. Now I wish I had scrapped that plan and seen Annie and Saint Etienne in London instead, as my friend repeatedly harassed me to do.

And then, one day, my friend sent me a chat message practically insisting I watch the video for Chewing Gum. It was March 5th to be exact. I loved it instantly (and saved it to my hard disk) and found Annie's album on a file sharing program (tsk tsk). I actually didn't give it a listen until a couple months later, around the end of June. I didn't take to all of the tracks immediately, but on repeated listenings, I developed into the raging Annie fanatic I am today. I'm actually a bit amazed at the level of fascination I have with Annie. Never before have I shown this much interest in any music act. Early July some upsetting stuff happened and I was extremely upset and very stressed, and devastated. But it was at that time that I was really listening to Annie's music obsessively. It was just what I needed, happy, sugary music to cheer me up during that hard time. It sounds a bit cheesy, but Annie's music helped me through it. That may be why I've become so attached to it, aside from the other reason of it being excellent music, of course!



And that's my story.

Oh and I've thought of the Annie catchphrase: Anniemal Magnetism. Unfortunately I'm out of touch with that friend so I have no one to design it for me. I should just draw something. But what? All I can think is to do a black and white line art drawing of an Annie photo and have the words below. It would have to be a rad shirt though, anything less than rad is not up to par.

You like pics of Annie DJing. Here is another.


VIEW 9 of 9 COMMENTS
cheech:
Hey, C. I saw your LJ post earlier- I just jump on there at work sometimes and (usually have to) jump right off (I am looking at it on someone else's PC, since mine is STILL out for repair).

I like Bjork a lot, but mostly in terms of her aesthetic and looks and lyrics. I rarely get into the songs much. I wish she had co-writers, or just music-writers (she can handle the words)... but I think she is very creative and hope she keeps doing music regardless.
nocontrol:
Yo, that is one hot picture of Annie on the wheels of steel! eeek

Anyway...do you think Annie might feel a little weird playing a video game of herself? I know I would! wink

*hugs*

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