CATSAREGREAT

Is anyone out there? 

It's been a few years since I've been active on dA. I'm not sure what kind of a community is still actually here that I was a part of 5+ years ago.

I feel like a completely different person.  Looking at my old journal posts, I feel like they were written by someone I don't know anymore.  They were so excitable, so enthusiastic - where has that person gone? I'm in my third year of college now, double majoring in Biochemistry and Environmental Science.  I'm so busy that I don't even get to read books anymore; it's crazy.  I'm not keeping up with friends like I used to, and I think a lot of my friendships are changing because of that (I've lost more friends than I can count on two hands in the past three years, and I'm slowly coming to terms with that). Everything is pretty crazy, but stress helps me work and get things done.  I feel like I'm making a difference at my school, and that I'm being productive and making myself a better version of me.  Hopefully that'll be what ends up happening, anyway.

I was just feeling a little empty tonight, and a little nostalgic, and wanted to say hello to anyone listening.

DFTBA, everyone.



And yes, I am still trying to get through Infinite Jest. Not everything has changed.

It's been awhile. I'm not really sure how to put into words what the last 18 months has been like for me (or 20, if you're counting).

I don't have much to say; I haven't been up to much.  I'm graduating high school in exactly 7 days, and I'm thrilled to say that I'll be attending MARIST COLLEGE on August 31st.  That's pretty exciting for me.

I'm aware of the news (old news at this point) regarding Tom Milsom, and I was going to write a long journal addressing that, but I just don't feel up to doing that now.  I'm not sure I ever will, but I am aware of it.

Hopefully I'll be on here a little more in the future.  Honestly, I don't know how often I'll be on here; it doesn't seem like I'm as into it as I used to be.

<3 DFTBA

I haven't written a journal for months now, I'm not really sure why.  While I was thinking about it, I thought I'd write a little bit about endings.

Recently I went to look for the cover of "No Worries" (by Mcfly) that Alex Day did on his second channel, nermiearmyhq, and then I realized it was gone. The whole channel.  It kind of hit me weird. Not that nerimon is one to keep things around ever, especially things that he might consider 'poor quality' (didn't he once say that he only liked high quality things on his channel so he'd sometimes go and delete other things?). It hit me that I hadn't really been paying attention to endings until recently. Thankfully, I had the video I was searching for saved through keepvid . com but the others are gone, I couldn't find those I searched for on tumblr or anything.

[Another thing that ended relating to Mr. Alex Day is his site. He turned it into a tumblr, and I can't find the chords and lyrics anymore, which is extremely disappointing]

Endings though, you don't always see them coming. When you do, it's hard to come to terms with it a lot of the time. Sometimes you never quite come to terms.  There's always that nagging "I don't understand..." in the back of your mind. That part that holds your regrets and your "what if"s and all the "I wish I had"s that you can possibly think of; if your mind works like mine does, it can still think of new things to finish those sentences even a long while after an ending has come and passed.

I can't really say much more on this because I've run out of motivation to think about this topic anymore. Guess it's just one of those things that'll have to go without a proper conclusion, a proper ending.


Alex Day - "Not Just Yet"

Goodnight, lay down and close your eyes
All things have to die but not just yet

I'm here, I'll always be around
We could both fall down but not just yet

Tomorrow's still a day away
And it will always stay that way

Goodnight, for now we've reached the end
This will start again but not just yet

Goodnight, our time is all but gone
I'll have to move on but not just yet
For now, I want to share my life
You'll be out of sight but not just yet

Tomorrow's still a day away
And it will always stay that way

So I haven't updated you guys in nearly a month on anything, so here's kind of a long update for ya. It's broken into sections to make for easier reading! (Complete reading is appreciated)

Tom's Album Alien Home
So guys, on Friday, July 13th, Tom Milsom released his new Album Alien home.

He said this about it on tumblr:
Alright, here we freakin' go!!!!!!!!!!!!
Alien Home is a collection of songs and field recordings made in 2011 and 2012, and on the whole it gives a fairly comprehensive picture of my life over these two years
I've taken a path through pop music and via a whole psychedelic kaleidoscope of sounds and at some point I'll be able to come out of this journey and put together a cohesive musical statement (probably Organs)
Alien Home is about the journey I'm undertaking to get there
It starts with music I feel comfortable making, and that I feel like I know how to do, and it ends up in a wilderness
I'm still on my way to figuring out what's next, and it's a confusing and scary process for me, but click on the album cover above and you can join me, which will hopefully prepare you for Organs cause that shit's gonna be cray-cray
This shit cray-cray too
"Alien Home also cray-cray" reports say
Tom xx

So without listening, because I love pretty much all of Tom's music, I paid 10$ (though it only cost 6 or 7 dollars.. I really hate change and he deserves much more than I gave anyway but XD) Anyway. That night I listened to all of the songs in my bed with the lights off. Perfection. All of the tracks are beautifully done, and while there are some things I wish he'd done differently (like re-recording "They Didn't Ask Me To Play") there are a million million things I love that he's done with this album.  The songs "Home" "Blinding Summer Light" (which has chords here: liewich.tumblr.com/post/272020…) "Charlie's Birthday Song" (which was the first video and song I'd ever seen from Tom, the first time I saw him ^_^) "They Didn't Ask Me To Play" "A Little Irony" "Skin" and "Alien" are my favorites of the album.  The other tracks are amazing too, but these are my favorites.  I like the album artwork but not as much as the Explorers 6 album cover, I don't think... oh well. It's nice still.  Basically I love this album and I've been listening to it nonstop since Sunday (when I downloaded it, how could I not have known of it's existence sooner? I wasn't paying attention to his twitter where he'd been talking about it more )
So yeah.  If for some reason you don't know who Tom Milsom is, wow, where have you been?
Here's his bandcamp with the new album, where you can listen to all of the songs completely free before you buy them! tommilsom.bandcamp.com/
(It's also on itunes now I see, the links are in the video link below here, but it's cheaper on bandcamp, if you like. Well, in the US it is.
Here's his video about the album: www.youtube.com/watch?v=ansp3i…
On his "Featured" tab, he has a video someone took of him playing Indigo and Cherub(annotation of the Indigo video) which are REALLY VERY NICE. These were taken when he was playing at "The Pipe Organ at The Old Church, Portland, Oregon", so if you haven't, definitely check that out. (He's playing barefoot.)

YouTube Channel JacksGap
Also recently I discovered with my friends the youtube channel JacksGap.  If you don't know who this is, it's a very good looking British 19 year old making videos and GUYS HE HAS AN IDENTICAL TWIN BROTHER. (And if that didn't tempt you to go and watch his videos, he did a naked bungee jump very recently which is on his channel. But you're going to develop a hatred for leaves, I can assure you.) www.youtube.com/jacksgap

Camp NaNoWriMo
I have decided that I'm once again going to attempt NaNoWriMo, except this time it's Camp NaNoWriMo, it's August My friends and (I think she is going to?) are going to participate as well and it's gonna be lovely, we've signed up to be cabin mates! (along with who probably won't participate in the actual writing part). So if you wanna write a 50,000 word novel in a month, just click this link and you'll be brought to the Camp NaNoWriMo homepage where you can sign up, and it's completely free so enjoy that campnanowrimo.org/

In fact, I'm so excited about the "camp" part of this, I really want to go camping now. Like maybe a week or so of sleeping in an actual cabin with people who are writing novels.  How cool would that be if this were a real camp that people could actually go to? (Someone please make this happen XD) So I'm gonna make my room as much like a camp place as I can (how is that possible?) and hopefully enjoy the month of August.  There's a store (if you want to pay to get any cool merchandise or anything) that you can check out as well

Dragon Story App
Recently on our ipod touch's, my friend and I have been playing a game called Dragon Story.. free game, very fun. We're raising dragons. If you want to add me as a friend on there (if you already have one or decide to get one) then my Storm8 ID is: CATSAREGREAT5 (not hard to remember, huh?)

Don't Forget Ed
Check out this link to learn more about this campaign thing and why candidates for the election should prioritize education more.  There's a nice short video and simple things. August 15th is the day to tweet #DontForgetEd , so that's a thing.


Okay, that's pretty much it for now, if you read all of that thank you XD But I don't blame you if you didn't.

DFTBA
~CATSAREGREAT

So in the past few weeks, a lot of articles have been written for "Alex Day, the Future of Music" or "Unsigned Artist, Alex Day".

So I thought I'd put a few of them here.

As many of you probably read on twitter, Forbes wrote two articles on him, by the same person I believe. Here they are:
www.forbes.com/sites/ryanholid…
www.forbes.com/sites/ryanholid…

An article I'm reading at the moment has a lot of links to these articles. This man, Clyde Smith, wrote this very short article after Alex had sold 100,000 copies of Forever Yours, and if I'm reading this correctly, it's dated December 2011. www.hypebot.com/hypebot/2011/1…
and the one I'm reading at the moment is: www.hypebot.com/hypebot/2012/0… Day is clearly working from the perspective of someone that is outside of the old industry but helping create the new music industry
(I found this second one by this guy to be the best out of all of them.)

One from Billboard . com said The British personality's YouTube channel is currently the third-most subscribed among all musicians in the United Kingdom. They have a very nice picture of him in his black and white jeans and map shirt. www.billboard.com/column/chart…

An article from MusicWeek said: Official Charts Company MD Martin Talbot said: "The week before Christmas is always an incredibly competitive sales week, so for Alex to make such a big impact in the Top 10 without the support of a traditional record label - big or small - is truly impressive.  Forever Yours is certainly one of the most successful self-released tracks we have ever seen, the Official Charts are based on sales, and sales alone, so Alex's achievements this week are a genuine reflection of the passion of his army of fans, and of course, the power of social media. His success is why the Official Singles Chart truly is 'the people's chart'." www.musicweek.com/story.asp?se…


So yeah, there's a little collection of articles that have been written on Alex, though I'm sure there are many more to be found out there. If you've found any good ones, please put them in the comments below so I can read them

Personally, I think that Alex has done a really nice job recently with the way he gets his songs out there and how he 'advertises' them.  Many of us, as loyal fans, most likely buy lots of the remixes he puts out to help him in the charts, but I think that's because we believe he's a really talented musician who deserves to have his name in the charts.  Needless to say, he wouldn't have gotten where he is today if he wasn't brilliant.  He's a brilliant songwriter and musician, as well as a comedian on YouTube, which helps gain viewers.  I try to get his name out there as much as I can, on Twitter, Facebook, etc. so that others can see him and hopefully get to know him.
Lots of people at my school are actually aware of him, so that both surprised me and pleased me.  I think he has a lot of influence and with his loyal fanbase, he's going to go a lot farther than we can even imagine.

<3 DFTBA guys. ~CATSAREGREAT

Oh, and I started watching Merlin.  I love it, and it's really, really brilliant. If you don't watch it, you should check it out. YOUTUBE LINK:www.youtube.com/watch?v=_F2Pm1…
The username FullMovie or FullHDMovie2011 or something like that is something to search for if you're looking for these episodes.  Amazing.
I haven't been on here as much as I'd like, but I'll set aside a few days to hopefully start attacking my inbox of deviations and suchlike, which is at 2277. .. oh god XD


Also, if anyone just read this and has NO IDEA WHO ALEX DAY IS (shame on you!) where have you been? XD Here's some links.
YouTube: www.youtube.com/nerimon
Twitter: twitter.com/#!/thatalexday
Alex's Website: alexdaymusic.com/