the passenger seat

Blacking out… I think that’s the theme of today’s blog.

Does anyone else have unreliable power in their home? It seems that sometimes if we turn on too many appliances, power in the entire house just goes kaput. This happened tonight. We had both our TVs in separate rooms and three computers on at the same time, plus the normal appliances like the fridge (I think the washing machine or dishwasher may have been on, too). Anyway, I was happily watching the beginning of MasterChef. I was looking forward to the winning team’s visit to the restaurant and just as they were heading in … black. Turns out my brother was cold and had decided to plug in a heater next to him, which ended up overloading our power and tripping the fuse. My dad then went outside to the power box to reset it and told my brother to unplug the heater. He didn’t unplug it, however, and by the time my dad had come in, asked him to unplug it again, then went back outside to reset it again, half of MasterChef had passed and I missed the part I wanted to see. Awesome. I’ll be sure to catch up on it later, though, since the MasterChef website posts full episodes a day or two after they’ve aired. I also decided to catch up on all the old audition episodes I missed from the beginning of the series. Wow, I realised that I talk about the show a lot in my blogs.

Speaking of blackouts, does anyone ever get prolonged creative mental blocks? Lately I’ve lost all ability to think of things to do creatively. There have been times where I’ve opened up Photoshop or got out pencil and paper, hoping to come up with a project of sorts to cure my boredom, but nothing at all has come. I’ve also attempted to continue my Extension II English short story, but to no avail. To make matters even worse, I haven’t played guitar properly for almost a week now. Usually I’m able to pick it up and think up random new songs or else a song will come to mind and I’ll look it up and play that, but I’ve found that in the past week my longest guitar session has probably been about five minutes, since I’m unable to think of anything new to play. To say the least, it sucks. I wish I were like John Mayer, who is constantly able to conjure up new song ideas and riffs on a regular basis, as evidenced by his YouTube videos, blogs and frequent Twitter updates about his new ideas. Maybe I should follow his approach to songwriting:

Again about memory, don’t you hate it when you remember to do something then forget what you were supposed to do in the process of doing it? For example, often when I feel hungry I decide to go to the kitchen to get some food, such as peanut butter on toast (usually). On my way from my bedroom to the kitchen I begin to think of other things and by the time I arrive at the kitchen, I’ve forgotten about the toast. It usually comes to me again after about a minute of standing in the middle of the kitchen and staring at the ceiling trying to remember, but it’s a bit of a scare when my memory bails out on me and it’s frustrating when I can’t recall what I was meant to do. Sometimes I’ll walk all the way back to my room and remember just as I sit down. Now that sucks.

Anyways, following the theme of blackouts (things going out, dying), today I had a really random thought. Isn’t it really weird how plants live for so long, while humans and other animals only live for a maximum of about one hundred years? I mean, plants are living organisms too and some are so small and easily damaged, yet they have lifespans that can beat any animal that could easily squash them with a step. For example, the oldest recognised human was a French woman named Jeanne Calment, who was 122 years and 164 days old when she died in 1997. In comparison, the oldest identified plant is a very fragile-looking 9,550 year old spruce in Sweden, thought to have begun its growth at the end of the last ice age:

Anyway, to end this blog I’ll leave you with a video of an extremely talented amateur musician on YouTube. He’s known as ortoPilot, and he’s a really amazing guitarist; an overall class act. He really brings a whole new level to each cover that he plays. His latest video is his own version of “Californication” by the Red Hot Chili Peppers. Watch it here:

PS. The title of this blog is once again a song by Death Cab For Cutie, also from The Photo Album.