MidnightReign.org

I’ve spent the last four days re-organising my blog. Changed the theme, added tags to posts – damn I’ve got a lot of drivel here… four years worth!  It’s been an interesting experience going back over my old posts, comparing what I was thinking back then to how things have turned out now.  Some of my thoughts were pretty naive, but then I’ll probably always think that when reading my old stuff.

It’s also interesting to see how my mind set has (or hasn’t) changed over the years, also considering that I have posted such cryptic crap that I have no clue now what I was on about back then.

I recently got into twitter, thanks to my big red-bearded friend. Using a plugin for the site, I have integrated the two systems – for no particular reason other than I can. If it wasn’t for Digsby, I probably wouldn’t bother with updating twitter at all anyway.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not depressed. Well, not in the traditional sense of the word. I suppose you could describe it more as longing. Longing for better times and better places. I made the mistake of making a dvd slideshow of our USA holiday back in 2002.

We visited my brother and his wife at their home in Colorado Springs. We were only there for a month, but we fell in love with the place, and have been dreaming about going back there ever since we returned home. At worst, another temporary visit, but our ultimate prize would be to emigrate. In that light, I’ve been entering the green card lottery (diversity visa) religiously. Ok, well, not quite, since I stupidly forgot to enter at the end of 2005. So while we were watching the slide show last night, my wife asks me, “Why don’t we just say fuck it, and go?”

Man, I wish it was as simple as that, but I know from prior research that there was all sorts of criteria that you had to qualify for before they would even consider letting you have a visa. I guess I will phone the consulate some time this morning and speak to someone about it. Hopefully our dreams won’t be dashed on the rocks too badly.

Yes, I know that sounds defeatist, but I’m just being a realist.

A few years ago, I borrowed a CD from a friend of mine: Mike Oldfield, Songs of distant earth. I fell in love with this disc, and I listened to it constantly. I ended up keeping the thing for about a year, if not longer. Eventually, the love affair came to an end, as these things sometimes do, not for any fault of my own, or the album for that matter… jealousy intervened, and I had to return the CD (Actually, I got tired of the whining and pleading from the album’s owner, but I digress).

Years passed, and I forgot about the album, though I would sometimes hear a snatch of a refrain, and fond memories of our brief time together would come flooding back to me. One day, it happened to me again, but this time my friend (o jealous fiend) happened to be present, so I asked him if he still had the disc, and to me abject horror, he told me that someone had borrowed it and he had forgotten who it had been… the disc was gone forever.

After mourning the loss, and exercising self restraint (I had to prevent myself from throttling him), I vowed to get myself a copy of the album if I ever came across it.

More years passed with nary a sighting of the album, though I had looked at a few online retailers… nothing local to me though, and the international sites were too expensive for my taste. I wasn’t THAT desperate. My friend (o jealous heathen) called me on Sunday,

“Guess what I’m holding in my hand?” he said, almost breathlessly (say THAT 10 times fast). “Umm… the Rammstein dvd thingy you’ve been looking for?” I asked. “The Mike Oldfield you’ve been after for so long.”

I sat in stunned silence.

“WELL, GET IT!” I yelled.

So now I have the album back…and it’s mine…all mine.

It’s got this Mac only ‘interactive’ portion of the disc, which is fine, it doesn’t bother me, but to my chagrine, it refuses to play in my car mp3 player. Sucks to be me. Fortunately it’s easy to get around it. I just copied the CD, minus that damn track. I’m listening to it as I write this, just to verify that there are no problems with it (So far so good).

Can’t wait to hear it in my car tomorrow.

[Listening to: Crystal Clear - Mike Oldfield - The Songs of Distant Earth (05:43)]