I'm lovin' it

I discovered this morning that if I turn around and face the door of my bathroom whilst I'm in the shower, I can see myself reflected in the mirror. It was rather unnerving, mainly because I decided to put my contact lenses in before I showered, so when I turned around I was presented with my long-lost twin, lathering up in high-def. Quite a disturbing image I assure you.

Anyway, getting back to the subject at hand, I'm loving Spotify at the moment! For anyone who hasn't heard of Spotify, it's a piece of downloadable software that gives you access to an online library of music for free. Sounds too good to be true right? Well, there are a few catches. To listen for free you, you have to put up with adverts that pop up in between every few songs, which cannot be skipped and pause if you turn the volume down. Sneaky! You can pay monthly for premium usage without adverts, or buy a daily pass for 99p to avoid the ads for 24 hours. The other catch is that due to it's rising popularity, Spotify is only available for free if you receive an invite, which you can apply for on their homepage. So unless you happened to sign up when it was fairly unknown, you've gotta wait indefinitely for an invite.

Apart from these negative aspects, caused by the need to squeeze the maximum amount of money out of the user, it's a pretty cool bit of software. There's a fairly wide variety of music in the library, which covers a lot of different genres and styles. Although it isn't exhaustive, I was quite surprised by the stuff I found on there. I've been using Spotify to listen to some cool music, such as the chilled-out alternative styles of Team Sleep, the side-project fronted by Chino Moreno of Deftones. On a similar vein, I discovered a band called Strata, who are a cross between The Mars Volta, Tool and Deftones. Very atmospheric and powerful. Sadly they've split up, which is annoying cos I've just got into them!

In other news, I've completely changed my writing project idea for university course. I was going to write the first 10,000 words of a sci-fi novel, but I was getting nowhere with it. I had a plot sorted out, which could extend into a series, but the setting and the characters just weren't coming to me. Every idea I thought of just seemed derivative and dull. So after a flash of inspiration I decided to start over with a new idea; I'm going to write a collection of short stories and micro-fictions (REALLY short stories!) with a sci-fi theme, inspired by quotes from my favourite films, fiction and music. Gotta pitch the idea to my tutor next Tuesday, let's hope it goes well!