Part the first:
tthurman@dorothy:~> ls -l /var/spool/mail/tthurman
-rw------- 1 tthurman dev 0 2008-08-17 23:42 /var/spool/mail/tthurman
See that? ZERO! NOTHING IN MY MAILBOX! It had 5,700 mails last week, and after some hard final work on the last half-dozen tonight I have finally achieved a state of Inbox Zero. Now to keep it that way.
Part the second:
Someone just said they didn’t know about the Britpop band Pulp. Here are some songs of theirs which are worth listening to. I put this here in order to show it to them, and in case anyone else wants to know.
Common People: A rich girl tells the narrator that she wants to try slumming because she thinks that “poor is cool”. The narrator points out that it’ll only be superficial and she’ll never know the true hopelessness of being poor (“Still you’ll never get it right / Cos when you’re laid in bed at night / Watching roaches climb the wall / You could call your dad and he could stop it all”). Also memorable for “drink and dance and screw because there’s nothing else to do”. Watch for the Yellow Submarine references in the video. Probably their most famous song.
Sorted for E’s and Wizz: about going to a rave in a field somewhere in Hampshire. Often protested about (the Daily Mirror ran a headline “BAN THIS SICK STUNT”) by people who miss what a gritty picture of superficiality it paints. Broadcast versions often water the lyrics down a lot.
Disco 2000: The song is about a guy who arranges to meet up with a friend of his from school years later. They were very good friends and he secretly had a crush on her but he never admitted it, and when he meets her again she’s married with a kid. Or maybe he’s only just arranged it and they’re still kids and he’s imagining what will happen. I love this song but I have never understood what the video has to do with it: it’s about picking up people in bars.
There are other pretty good songs, but those are the ones I wanted to say that the person should check out. Do You Remember The First Time (about losing your virginity) almost made it into the list.
Part the third:
This is the card Amy sent us (possibly slightly NSFW).
Another fantastic Pulp song: Underwear (live video).
Oh c’mon, Disco 2000 is by far and away’s Pulps worst output.
Ever seen the Shatner version of Common People? Awesome.
Oh yes, after he realised he shouldn’t take himself seriously. I laughed until I couldn’t breathe.
Common People is a very filkable song, too; I remember the BBC once did a s/class/race/g version.
Rob: I look at the lyrics as a description of how life really is, so absent from most music. I am of course fourteen years old at heart, and inside I’m always sitting on my bed painting my nails black and crying.