Josephine

Thomas by A Perfect Circle Good shizzle. Now onto 10,000 Days by Tool I might like Maynard, it's just possible. Joe x

Me. :$ Well, it's not like I have a heart attack every time I see an error, but I definitely notice stuff like "Potatoe's 59p/lb" and stuff like that. I don't make a big deal of it, but if I can mention it and pass it off as a joke I tend, but yeah, I'm a fussy bugger. Joe x

Bit off-topic, methinks? It's easy to dislike Americans, please do it somewhere else. Anyway, yeah English people suck at English. I speak French and German pretty well(ish) and having spent a while in each of these countries it's fairly safe to say that foreigners studying English generally have a better grasp of grammar than English people. This is mainly due to it not really being taught; it's just assumed that you'll pick it up as you go along. Seems odd to me that the greatest contribution to my understanding of English grammar came from studying other languages... Spelling doesn't bother me too greatly; it's often easy enough to see what people meant to say and, let's face it, English spelling is all over the place. We're taught the phonetic sounding system, but it often doesn't apply. Grammar and punctuation are the biggest problems. If someone lacks these skills it can seriously impair your written communication. Punctuation is what turns an incomprehensible string of words into a meaningful bit of prose. There are plenty of little oddities of grammar that I can let go, for example; you're not ever supposed to end a sentence with a preposition (so 'The English f**k English up.' becomes 'The English f**k up English.' etc.). 'Txt tlk' in texts I can understand, I do it, it saves me money, good plan. MSN etc. are kind of a halfway thing for me. I rarely, for instance, capitalise 'I's and sometimes my punctuation slips, but it's more like verbal communication, insofar as it's spontaneous and mistakes are inevitable, but just think how mind-numbing it would've been to read that essay if I'd not punctuated. I almost guarantee you wouldn't have bothered. I doubt many of you will get this far even with the punctuation Which brings me onto emoticons, they're bloody fantastic, really add tone to what you're trying to say, which is something only previously accomplishable with speech, really. Joe x P.S. One huge gripe, it's 'should have' or whatever modal verb you want to use with 'have'. You cannot say 'should of', it's nonsense (the confusion comes from the contraction of 'should have' to 'should've'). You cannot say "I of done this gap." so you cannot say "I should of done this gap."; simple.

628 posts. With fewer than 1000 cumulative posts in all my time here (just over three years )... Joe x

It's one of the new ones sounds beautiful, getting the hang of the EQ now, the thing's so bloody versatile! I played through an old school Trace this summer a few times, and I fell in love with them. This badboy doesn't disappoint. I'm looking to get some effects sorted possibly, bass wah to start with, you recommend the crybaby? Joe x

Bwahahahahaha, my new Trace Elliot combo arrived today! Sounds pretty damned lush, just gotta get a feel for the EQ yet to make full use of its potential. 250 Watts of gigable joy is now mine Joe x EDIT: Oh yeah and the head part is backlit with green LEDs, PIMP!

Aye silent discos They did a couple of those at PLAY festival (mainly circus and fire stuff, not a big festy lol) Joe x

Nuclear power plants are being used to cut down on emissions (waste excepted, they're very clean, and even that doesn't contribute to global warming) and give us a contingency for when fossil supplies run out or become prohibitively expensive (this will happen in our lifetimes). It's not just about environmental issues either (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/6096084.stm) this stuff seriously affects global economy and will continue to have huge implications for humankind. Oil companies are the biggest barrier, while they can still make money from oil they're quite happy to shirk their responsibility to plan for the future, which is f**king irresponsible, considering this affects the entirety of humantity and our interests are being sacrificed for those of oil workers and barons. Bleh Joe x

Because if everyone thinks like you we're all f**ked. This 'everyone else is doing it' argument is a whole load of self-fulfilling horseshit. If people stop, then not everybody else will do it, and shock-horror the only person whose actions you can control are your own, so grow a spine and take some responsibility for yourself. (Sorry, this all sounds really acerbic, it's not aimed specifically at you, mate. It applies to everyone in the same position.) Joe x

Rough as f**k. Having said that, it's still a crazy move. Now imagine if he gets those smoothly... Joe x

You are Piers whatisface aren't you? f**king scientists, they should be sent to Iraq to see what our boys are facing! Joe x

Haha, what a lot of sensationalist bullshit. Red-top journalism strikes again! There's no point saying all the stuff about tractor beams, there's no possible reason to suggest that, they even say so nearer the start of the article [that they cannot predict the outcomes] they could just as well say it'll tell us why bumblebees are fuzzy. Science journalism pisses me off as a rule, even with stuff like new scientist you have to delve deep through the crap and unfounded claims to find anything worth reading... Joe x

The first railride I ever saw, some chap on a Brisa B26 (Leech?) rode one for a few feet, I thought it was impossible Joe x

Word, their new track is really well written from a bass point of view. Quite amusing to play, with a couple of subtle little mutes thrown in to spice it up. It's in flats though, so I have to transpose it up a semitone to play on my bass, it goes all rattly and blergh at half-step-down. Joe x

I've been quite intrigued by this 24" trials lark recently... Not in a particularly streety way, though. I'm 6'1" and not slightly built so my 985 Monty mod is a bit dwarfed by me. I've been finding myself rather jaded by trials all in all and I was thinking something along the lines of a Zoot or a 24UK might give me a different angle and something new to play with basically. Anyone with experience of this kind of situation help me out? I'm not after a big mod, nor a dinky stock, just something that feels a bit new. Joe x

Aye it's quite fun to twiddle along to d 'n' b. Most Prodigy stuff is in G so you can play along on 4-string without any faffing. Spybreak by Propellorhead is a nice one, that's played on a standard 4-string as well. I warn you, it's fun for a bit of faff, and playing around with different styles on your bass, but it gets repetitive fast. Look at some jazz and funk if you wanna expand your playing. Hip-hop bass is quite enjoyable too Joe x

I thought the Noisettes were really quite good, quite a fun lil' band to watch. Muse kicked ass, as you might expect, though they didn't play Citizen Erased It was an awesome show but not quite as magical as when I last saw them, something was different *shrug* Joe x

Aye, I gave myself a pretty brutal shindig way back when, stitches were required and everything. It's worth considering pads for confidence for a while, but i'm gonna agree with others and say you're better off without, you'll learn to stick to the pedals in time and shinnies are desperately uncomfortable and unbelievably sweaty in the summer. You're better off without Joe x

He's probably taking the piss out of anti-semitists, but yeah it's daft as a badger in a tutu. Joe x

Pretty self-explanatory really, ladyfriend needs a codec pack to play some tv episodes I downloaded for her just wondering what's the current favourite? Joe x

Cool, I found that a really interesting read, good work It's interesting to hear this, because you and I are obviously coming at this from very different angles. I guess it's down to personal taste. I find achievements (mainly in the spiritual sense here) very fulfilling, knowing that I've grown out of something that existed before purely by force of will. Agreed, there are no rules of life, and I tried not to suggest there were, as I implied it's an entirely subjective thing. This is a really interesting study on the effect of LSD on an artist. I can't read a lot into it, alas. It made this one guy go a lil' bit crazy and draw some relatively cool stuff. That's all I can reliably infer on that score. This was gonna go somewhere, but I got hungry and I'm now eating Everyone, think for yourselves, and question authority Joe x

It not a cardinal sin, I'd be dismissing that vast majority of people if I were to say alcohol was evil. It's not really that bad at all used responsibly and in moderation; but it's better to go without, and something to strive towards. Yeah, I'm not dismissing drugs for this kind of thing. It's pretty easily provable that the drugs help with things like epilepsy, and that's fine If it turns out there's a way to deal with that isn't chemical then I'd go for that, but that does seem ever so unlikely. I'm an asthmatic myself, and steroid inhalers have saved my life on at least one occasion. So it'd be hypocritical to cry out against all drugs, some are very useful. I guess what I'm really against is over-medication. I spent three years of my life on anti-depressants, and I'm sure they helped, but at the end of the day I was just another miserable teenager (still a teenager; no longer miserable) and I highly doubt that that intervention in that way was necessary. *shrug* Joe x

I'm not missing a lot I don't think. Most drugs just seem to make people progessively stupider. Alcohol's the main culprit here, of course. Drunkards are all idiots (what do you expect from a drug that robs you of your higher functions?). Far from expanding your mind most drugs just close you off to the richness of the world around you, that's real denial. My view on drugs is they're essentially cheating at life, and you end up a weaker person (this is my opinion, and whilst not entirely objective I've thought about this a lot). If you need alcohol to talk to people you're insecure, if you need (I don't wish to imply you personally do need it, more that it's just not necessary to toke to reach a higher level of sexual euphoria) cannabis to relax or enjoy intimacy with someone then you're too up-tight etc etc... I don't want or need to use recreational drugs, and I'm becoming increasing sceptical about using medicinal ones. The human immune system is pretty intense given the chance. I'm influenced a lot by the Dharma, and one of the core training priniples is not to use substances that cloud the mind, and I see a lot of sense in this. In conclusion, start meditating, you don't need chemicals to achieved altered states of being, you can do it for free. Joe x

Well around a third of all deaths from cancer are caused by smoking. So if you take that out of the equation your 1-in-3 rule suddenly becomes about 1-in-4, which is a big ol' difference in a nation of over 60 million people. Every smoker I can think of strongly advises against starting. It is daft, and you know it's daft, the research is staring you in the face. It's way too expensive, there's no benefits (that I can think of, feel free to point some out) and it's bad for your health. Other high-risk activities mean you achieve something (extreme sports I'm on about) and don't stand around getting ostracized by a society that realised how dumb it was 50 years ago. Your commitment to this "passtime" is commendable. I mean; you've gotta really want to do it when it's £5 for 20 nowadays . I'm not gonna tell you, you should stop, you already know you should. Oh, and as to that useless bit of rhetoric about 'handing out justice', of course it's easy to preach on this subject, it's so one-sided it's unreal... Joe x