gentleparachute

I've Room For Squares... Brilliant fella. Love his guitar-work and the intimate sounds he produces. So relaxing! Yep, one of the few albums with non-skippers :) Though yeah, surprisingly the voice can get a bit boring after a while unlike Chris Martin's... I wonder why?

Happy birthday Ren... The moderator-I-don't-often-see-in-the-threads-I-post-in-but-who's-still-much-appreciated-nevertheless :D :lol: Have a lovely one and many happy returns of the day :kiss:

Hey... Same here... Mine was Millenium :) My first purchases were on tape :o ... Also BSB (Backstreet's Back) :lol: :embarrased: Back when I had dodgier tastes in music... Their vocal work was good though to be fair... I still say the five-part harmonies are unrivalled for their studio work

A bit extreme but I agree with you on this. On the other hand... I know you're angry right now but I ask you to have a little empathy and to pay attention to some facts... 1) Blowing up innocents is unjustifiable, but how would you feel if your own country and its people were the ones victimised first (e.g. the middle-eastern peoples)? I'm pretty sure you'd want to blow up those you perceive as having killed the people you love... To the terrorists, we're just as bad as they are. 2) You're kidding yourself if you think the troops are going to leave in 6 months... Maybe the troops from UK, but not from US- they will have to stay and sort up the mess, leaving would be plain irresponsible since they started it. And 6 months is a long time for more Iraqis to wind up dead... I'm sorry to put it this way, but definitely more Iraqis will die in 6 months than those killed in the London blasts 3) Btw, the civil war you're referring to was started by the US (with the help of UK) with the coming of the Iraq War and Bush's WMD... Granted that this war may help democracy there and that a civil war might have happened on its own anyway, the fact still is that this disorder was started by "outsiders"... Imagine your reaction if some country came in and decided to liberate your country of all the "indecently-dressed" people by setting up new laws and enforcing them? FACT: Most oil sources come from this area... Unless you develop new energy sources, we'll all have to rely on the middle east for oil and live with their messy political/social situation until the oil dries up and we all die together of an energy crisis. Agreed but how to go about this without infringing on "individual freedom and rights"? Asian countries get criticised for having controlled democracy e.g. China and other countries with laws to "protect social harmony". How to distinguish lawful protesters just exercising their democratic rights from terrorists? The fact is, you can't have it both ways- full-on democracy with protected civilians unless other things that go with civilised society are existent e.g. no poverty, no oppression etc. The same thing with giving asylum and freedom to lead a safe/peaceful life along with privacy rights. With both of these existing, it's very difficult to stop terrorists taking advantage to enter a country and plan bombings. The only viable way to uphold these two principles and protect your own citizens is if terrorists cease to exist/are wiped out altogether.

mp3 files and my university's servers :angry:

What animal noises? The only noise ("noise"?) I remember is the crazy frog's "diiiiingdiiingdiiiing" and the "whoaa!" thing he does before Politik a lot of times. I think he meant Chris breathing into the mic, e.g. in Daylight right before they start playing; or halfway through Low in Glastonbury 2005, right after they sing the chorus the first time (before the "spoons" come in)... I think Chris is thoroughly lovely... Lovely, lovely personality with ironic sense of humour <-- my preferred type

Their music? Never! Especially songs from Parachutes or even earlier... I could listen to them for whole days on end

Beautiful song actually... Except for that part :rolleyes: Right up! - Guy's single bass notes on Till Kingdom Come (e.g. right at the start) - The synth-baseline kicking in on 0:20 in Talk... Totally overproduced (too camp for my liking) - A Message sounds a bit overproduced again... The one on The Edge sounded just as good (if not better) to me - Swallowed in The Sea: Never thought I'd say this but sounds like a Westlife song? - Overall, my complaint is the album feels very stuffy, it closes in on you and weighs you down... And the fact that you can't play it softly: the only way it sounds good is when you turn it on full blast. Any other way and it sounds terribly mediocre. Actually the more I hear it the more I like it, but some niggles just won't go away :/

Well, it was alright. Forget the storyline - It is pretty good for a horror movie, which this movie assuredly is. I give it a 10 for horror, right up there with Jaws. I found it a very sobering movie. Though it was a surprise that the whole thing was only 2 hours long... Must be a Spielberg first! :P

To you people in London & UK right now and those who'll be here later- my deepest condolences and sympathies... Love all of you guys and hope that you and all your family and friends are alright. I'll keep my thoughts out for you tonight... Sorry I can't stay and see how it pans out - I was just going off and checking the threads one last time when I saw this one... Sincerely do hope this will be the end of the blasts and no more people are hurt. For all you people who need this today - Here's a smile for ya :D :D :D Hope it brightens up your day even if only by a tiniest bit. Peace! :heart: , :kiss: and hugs Ai Ling

Thank you. You've been quite succinct yourself ;) While science isn't built on faith as strongly as most religions, faith does still deal its hand in science... 1) Whenceforth the hypotheses come if not from faith/belief in something that might be proven right (even if it's based on past findings/evidence)? 2) The toils of many scientists over many long years have often come to naught yet these people still continue their work. Faith there assuredly is, just not blind faith. In a way they are... Look deeper. Both serve to explain the meaning of life. The way they operate and the basics on which both are based on may differ vastly but us humans invented them so that we could explain and convince ourselves of our origins and purposes here. Both deal very strongly in belief based on what we can perceive - religion in witnessed miracles as well as the miracles of life; science in observations of phenomena. Both ascribe to expounding what is called "the truth" whether or not believers/non-believers subscribe to it - one can choose whether or not to believe, but "the truth" will still be true. And from a societal point of view, both religion and science serve the same master to keep society in order: societies are made up of individuals and both fall into chaos when the individuals in it are discontent / fearful... Fear and discontent come when people lose their place and this is prevented via social hierarchies (in society) and by individuals gaining understanding of the nature of life thus finding purpose. Both science and religion attempt to explain our origins- so help keeping society in order although social heirarchy is consciously maintained by religion and not science. Even then, science may determine hierarchies when politics come into the mix and politicians use science for their own ends... Witness the eugenics movement. I agree to a certain extent though I would argue that the real evil here is politics. Science is lucky in that so far it has been impervious to politics due to its impersonal nature of dealing with cold hard facts. There have been times when individuals misused these "facts" for their own agendas (eugenics again) and politics tangled with science but inevitably science always untangles itself from politics over time as observable trends in nature do not bow to the wills of individuals. Unfortunately for organised religion, politics and religion have always gone hand in hand... Where politics go, quest for power/control follow. Organised religion is an obvious target - by virtue of looking for the personal truth, the followers of organised religion are more susceptible to manipulation by others who purport to tell the truth. As such, I would agree that politics (and by that extention- religion too since the association cannot be avoided) is the bane of society. On the other hand, individuals need something to believe in / hold on to (as you've said yourself). Thus that religion and politics will spill into societal affairs would be very hard to avoid. Awareness and a conscious will not to be manipulated would therefore do a world of good to followers of religions. ;)

I guess most of us can... Especially all u guys out there who have literally thousands of posts ;) I'm alright :)

Hello... See that you've already amassed yourself quite some posts :D

Yikes, tifosi, that's a terribly grim outlook, have at least a little faith, even if it's only in your fellow man. ;) I think Tifosi was just quoting from the book "The Selfish Gene"... Go check it out if you've never seen it, it's interesting ;) Personally, I think it's interesting that nature may inherently be "selfish" in preserving its own interests even to the point of altruism towards others as explained by the book. In this context, even apparent altruism towards others may have a selfish motive :o While I agree that you can certainly see this "selfish gene" at work in our world, I'm not so sure by what / whose hand... God-believers say God, Scientists say science (in a way its own religion ;)), agnostics say of our own will... Who knows? This will have been argued many times and I'm sure will be familiar to many but I'm surprised that no one has put forward in this thread that evolutionary science and God (not a rigid, institutionalised religious one, but just one based on a higher being working unseen hands) can co-exist in harmony. Is it not possible that God gave the spark and building blocks that started life while letting life as we know it continue evolving of its own course; and maybe, just maybe occasionally interfere in life's affairs? I myself am not even inclined to say that I believe in what is called God - I prefer to call that force nature - but I would emphatically agree that it is logical both may co-exist and compliment each other this way. As has been debated and concluded by many scientists themselves: science cannot prove nor disprove the existence of God - only "his creations" - while those bent on a fixed God will never be able to overturn all the evidence in support of science that lies around us... Yet there are those who cannot reconcile themselves with both these facts. Must strife again prevail? I'm not referring to the discussive tone of this site :), but time and again, human history has shown the path this kind of disagreement tends to take us- much blood has been shed before and probably will be shed again, though maybe in less obvious ways. And whatever the case, whoever is "right" doesn't matter. Like Tifosi says (quoting Tifosi a lot ;) ), in the end all that remains of us will just be a speck of dust in the universe. If there is someone now who could travel into the future to that point in time when we no longer exist and reflect on the history of mankind, he/she would realise that anything we say/believe now won't matter... Not in the grand scheme of things (as all things end anyway), not to others, not to our egotistical selves. He/She would probably find that it is more important that we live life, appreciate it, and try to help (or at least not make life miserable for) others while we're still here... Which brings me to my point: argue and debate for all the world - we all know it won't matter; but do not make life more hurtful for others than it already is since our actions are the one thing we can control and coz it is the NOW and also our interaction with the world around us that matters and makes life meaningful/important to ourselves. Sorry if I came across like a mod / your mother / too goddamn self-righteous - in addition to going some way off the topic of discussion. This post is far too long... Didn't mean to fingerpoint at anyone in particular but I just had to say what I had to say about name-calling and taking what is expressed here too seriously :P

very nice frostbitepanda... I downloaded it, hope it's ok (I think I'll make it my wallpaper) :D

^ Some would just say that's maximising your talents :D

Hahahaha :lol: :lol: :lol: Yep, that's the funniest part of the whole lot

I think they would've grown big (though maybe not to current proportions) just by sticking with their "small" songs

I liked them a lot (still do, just a bit less) coz they used to fit the comfort-intimate niche with the songs in their earlier albums. Now that they've become more mainstream, at times they sound a bit mediocre trying to sound big. I totally agree that they should've mixed it up in this album... It would've been both sonically more diverse and also given themselves more room to manouevre. And just maybe, this band wasn't meant to be "big"

:o Woah... what's this all about? :stunned:

I agree. :( They seem to have maxed out whatever their "genre" has to offer. A big change is in order after they're done with this album. I really hate saying this but I think that they've finally become too commercial, even for my taste. I wouldn't criticise the band for being not dazzling enough instrumentally though, they've never tried to be and have never tried to pretend that they were good that way either. They do try to go for what they're good at playing though, which are simple, nicely rounded lines, never too much nor too little

Yep... Lovely, lovely absolutely super performance!

Post us all a version of it when you're done ok? :D I totally agree with you on all the points about both the old and new versions. A mix would be super

Oh alright, alright... :D I know, I know it's a joke... It's just that everyone's so willing to take a bite off of him. Dare I say I feel a wee bit sorry for him? :lol: