Happy New Year!… ? (Blog 414)

It’s new year’s day, today! Is it a happy day? I’ll get onto that, later. First up, I’ll blog about yesterday! At around 9 PM, I was feeling sleepy, so I had a nap. I woke up around 10:45 and in a bit of a daze, I was thinking to myself ‘why is it so harmful to a person’s psyche if you’re excessively nice to him or her? Maybe it’s good if you’re mean to people, then? No, that’s bad too.’ Then I was thinking maybe the middle ground would be best, which would be to ignore people. That’s bad as well! I assumed such thoughts had something to do with the new year, but actually it was just a random rant about narcissism. I was thinking maybe I could link narcissism with the new year, but I really don’t think there is a link. Nevertheless, it was an interesting topic, so I jotted it down on my computer so I didn’t forget it. It’s like unruly students being taught at school, the teachers are trying to help you! Not oppress you by teaching! However, nothing works! You can’t be too strict, you can’t be too nice, you can’t do anything. But again, nothing to do with the new year. The new school year, maybe.

A few days before the new year, I heard that if you play a certain Slipknot song (a certain rudely titled song) at 11:59:31 PM on new year’s eve, you will hear the singer shouting ‘Here we go again (expletive)!!’ at exactly midnight! What a way to start the new year, right? Or a bit silly maybe? I actually thought it was a good idea. Not good enough to make reality for me anyway, but the thought did amuse me at very least. Which is something! A fairly positive thought that leads on to better things in the upcoming 12 months, perhaps? The food equivalent would be a starter that precedes a main course. A papadum, maybe. It’s interesting how my dad - someone who thinks of himself as sensible - stayed up for the sake of witnessing a new time, whereas I couldn’t be bothered. Who’s silly now? Though to be fair, he didn’t try the Slipknot song out. I’d love it if he did, or maybe I’d be scared.

Even though I soon went back to bed, I couldn’t sleep for a while, so I did hear the new year start with all the fireworks. I thought ‘NOW it’s 2024’, and that was that, no more thoughts on the matter. I know I keep going on about how cool palindromes are, so you’d probably assume I’d be super excited about witnessing the new year change. Me too. I guess I’ve been suffering from what I call ‘time fatigue’ which is indifference to even the nicest times, caused by excessive number spotting beforehand. Here’s a thought: How come it’s easy to go to sleep when you don’t want to, but not when you try really hard? How is that fair? From an evolutionary perspective, I wonder what’s going on. Maybe people who slept through dangerous storms, wanted to, but couldn’t be bothered to go outside to check everything was ok and didn’t get blown off a cliff, had a genetic advantage. That’s the best I can come up with.

As it was the start of a new month this morning, that meant my Metal Rules reviews should have been posted. Nope, a staff member forgot. Here’s a new year’s resolution for him: Don’t be so forgetful. What’s mine? Hmm. I guess don’t be so pushy? It’s just that had I not reminded the staff member about my reviews, it would look like I didn’t do any. As I spent a day on each article and I did five of them, that made it look like I hadn’t done anything for five days! That bugged me a little. But it’s all sorted out now. Like a few months ago, it would have been nice if my recently approved bits of work were added to the site’s front page so I could dominate it, but it wasn’t to be. Maybe I should have another resolution: Consider others. Hang on, don’t people usually just have the one resolution? In that case I think I should get into shape. Yes, I go the gym already, I’m saying I should keep going. Oh if only I could have multiple goals. Darn.

Moving on and going backwards at the same time, if you read my Yore review on MR, you’ll see the intro paragraph is very short. That’s because a lot of it was deleted by a staff member. I guess it was just too out there. Too extreme. Either that or it was a bit silly. I was asked if I wanted to bring the erased writing back, but I left it. A positive sign? Cooperation? Well as you should only have one resolution to really focus yourself on, I think I should continue being rude. It’s just how the new year’s tradition works. If I could change it, I would. Whilst browsing the heavy metal website, I saw someone reviewed the same album I was given, that being Children of Bodom’s live LP. The reviewer gave it the same score I did! (A 4 out of 5). See? The scores aren’t random. Lots of people say the style of music’s just a load of noise, nope noise doesn’t get a solid four from two people, does it? Maybe the two matching reviews were a one off? Ok, they were, I’ve never seen that happen before, but still, pretty cool.

So, is today a happy day? After seeing MMXXIV on TV for the first time my mood was boosted ever so slightly. ‘But you said you were tired of numbers…’ Sure, but not Romans ones. I thought 2024 written in foreign was pretty good. As explained not long ago, Roman’s don’t have a number for over 3,999. What happens after then? The world crashes? If so, I guess just make the most of time we have, now. Either that, or update the Roman language? Here’s a thought, to write 4,000, just write MMMM. Is that really such a big problem? Apparently yes. I mean what happens when they want to write a million?? That’s a thousand Ms!!! Well it would be if you’re allowed to write the same letter more the three times in a row, whose idea was that? I know the Roman empire ended many hundreds of years ago and I should let it go, but history repeats itself. It can’t happen again. And on that thoughtful note, bye!