Happy Bongzday

Sorry its been a while since I posted last, Ive been a bit busy, as well as lazy. For some reason, I haven't been sleeping well, so I've been feeling really tired and sluggish all week, but thats starting to get better.

So my South African neighbour Bongz (yes, her name is Bongz, i already told her how much I love it) had a birthday over the break and so my other neighbour Hans-Peter and I decided to make a little something for her. It's well known that the best gifts are homemade, so we decided to combine our talents (his of graphic art, mine of music) to make a little birthday album just for her. In short, there were three tunes on there, we adapted Happy Birthday to Happy Bongzday, and Wild World by Cat Stevens to incorporate her name, as well as a TvB original that I wrote a few weeks back, and recorded it in my room.

The recording session was quite hilarious as we really had no pro equipment at all, and ended up using my Skype headset to record the whole thing. All things considered, it turned out quite well, and needless to say, she loved it. She gave me a 20 minute praising on how it was the best gift she had ever gotten, and couldnt stop listening to it last night, etc. I felt pretty damn good, and it just confirmed my belief that if Im ever gonna give someone a present, Im gonna take the couple hours to make it myself. Cause for the most part, who really needs more shit? I sure as heck don't. But if someone shows that they will put just a bit of effort into something original, that goes a long way.

Hans-Peter had some pretty good ideas for the whole thing. For starters, we all live on the top floor of our building, so we called ourselves, 'End of Stairs', those grimy stairs on the front cover are actually along the side of our building. Theyre pretty nasty in real life, but give the cover a cool rustic feel. He did a great job on the inside too, it really looks professional. It's all about combining talents. Alone, I woulda had the music down pat, but the look woulda sucked, Im just no good at that kinda stuff.

On the topic of music, Ive been writing more music recently. Im totally happy to be back and creating, I took a couple months off, call it writers block, call me uninspired, call me what you will, but I'm back, and Im recording, which is awesome. If anyone wants a copy of my one tune that I put down, I'll send ya the mp3, just ask.

And on the topic of birthday's, a rumour has spread around here that its my birthday today. Pretty funny actually, my residence had some extra cash in the account, so we decided to throw a bash. Naturally, I spread the word, but really didnt feel it necessary to explain the whole situation to everyone. So after a few rounds of telephone (purple monkey dishwasher), word spread that its my borthday so everyone HAS to come. For the last couple days, Ive had all these people come up to me and wish me a happy birthday (for those who dont know, my real bday is in June). After explaining the real deal to a few people, I decided to go with it and celebrate my birthday tonight. I figure why have only one birthday a year, when you can have two! It just seems like twice the fun.

So anyway, thats kinda all thats happenin over here in Germany. I'm getting ready for my good friends Mark and Alex to come. Theyre travelling through India for a couple months and booked a flight into Europe for a few days, which is awesome of them. I will be heading to Zurich on the 3rd of Feb, picking them up, partying there for a night, then coming back here to show them around for a few days. I can't wait. I feel debauchery at it's finest coming on...

I hope all is well at home or wherever you may happen to be. I still wanna be in the loop of big life changes that are going on in people's lives, although with a few exceptions, home was pretty much exactly the same as when I left. I guess thats part of calling it home....

peace and love

t