Tag Archives: Twitter

The Black Widow’s 30 Day Song Challenge

Posted in Entertainment, Music by

Having to remember to post a link to a song for 30 days is harder than it looks.

If you haven’t seen it around before (because I’m pretty sure these were floating around ages ago as well), there’s been a 30 Day Song Challenge fad surfacing on social media. What you do is you post a link to a song on your Facebook wall or Twitter profile with the day number and the reason why you’ve chosen said song. If it doesn’t make sense to you, it will soon.

30daysong

In honour of my 30 Day Song Challenge, I’ve decided to post it on here in its entirety, with a few comments attached to it so the reader can understand why I’ve chosen that piece of music.

Without further ado, here is my 30 Day Song Challenge:
Day 1 – Your favourite song
Sam Hunt – Cop Car. I have many favourite songs but this was the one that I thought of straight away. This song is so beautiful and knowing that bae (Hunt) originally co-wrote this for Keith Urban makes it that much greater.

Day 2 – Your least favourite song
Taylor Swift – Blank Space. I’ll keep my words short and sweet here, in fear of a defamation lawsuit, but I am not a fan of Taylor Swift.

Day 3 – A song that makes you happy
Sam Hunt – House Party. How could you not be happy when you listen to this song? I hate this music video though. So disappointed, Sam.

Day 4 – A song that makes you sad
Luther Vandross – Dance with My Father. In a similar manner, how can you not be sad when you listen to this song? I think of my father and start crying immediately.

Day 5 – A song that reminds you of someone
Chaka Demus and Pliers – Murder She Wrote. Tl;dr version of this story: for about the past seven years, I’ve called my best friend Rebecca “Maxine”, and it’s because of this song. It’s a nickname that actually sticks; I sometimes forget that her name isn’t Maxine.

Day 6 – A song that reminds you of somewhere
Ne-Yo – Can We Chill. My family had this album in our car for like the entire two years we lived in Goulburn, so now I have forever attached these tracks to my second favourite country town.

Day 7 – A song that reminds you of a certain event
Big and Rich – Save a Horse (Ride a Cowboy). My first experience at CMC Rocks the Hunter was in 2013 and one of the headlining acts was Big and Rich, and they absolutely killed it with this song.

Day 8 – A song that you know all the words to
Nicki Minaj – Anaconda. Once rapped this entire song to my friend Cara on the way home from Manly. Was great.

Day 9 – A song that you can dance to
Little Big Town – Pavement Ends. Line dances for days.

Day 10 – A song that makes you fall asleep
Lana Del Rey – Ultraviolence. Dat soothing melody.

Day 11 – A song from your favourite artist
Love and Theft – Thinking of You (and Me). This was my first LNT song. Everyone knows that Love and Theft are my boys. Everyone should grab a copy of their new album Whiskey on my Breath, available February 10.

Day 12 – A song from a band you hate
5 Seconds of Summer – Amnesia. I can’t even describe how much I despise this song.

Day 13 – A song that is a guilty pleasure
Ariana Grande ft The Weeknd – Love Me Harder. Not a fan of Ariana, or the lyrics to this song, or even this Weeknd fella. But I love this song.

Day 14 – A song that no one would expect you to love
Megadeth – She Wolf. Being a country fan, no one expects me to like metal. But I do. And I have a special place in my heart for Megadeth.

Day 15 – A song that describes you
Ne-Yo – Beautiful Monster. My best friend said this song as soon as I asked “What’s a song that describes me?” Not sure if shade or compliment.

Day 16 – A song that you used to love but now hate
Iggy Azalea ft Rita Ora – Black Widow. This song is played too often on the radio and now I’m sick of hearing Rita Ora sing my alias name.

Day 17 – A song that you hear often on the radio
AronChupa – I’m an Albatraoz. I don’t even know what an albatraoz is, and I don’t want to know after hearing this ghastly song on the radio every five minutes.

Day 18 – A song that you wish you heard on the radio
Ashley Madison – Other than My Wife. Technically not a song, but I wish this ad was played on the radio. I don’t necessarily condone the message, but it’s so damn catchy.

Day 19 – A song from your favourite album
Love and Theft – Angel Eyes. Easily the best selling song from the album. I love my boys!!

Day 20 – A song that you listen to when you’re angry
Knife Party – Bonfire. It just sounds like an angry song, doesn’t it?

Day 21 – A song that you listen to when you’re happy
Paul Simon – You Can Call Me Al. How could you not be happy when listening to this song?!

Day 22 – A song that you listen to when you’re sad
Love and Theft – If You Ever Get Lonely. This song can make me cry almost instantly, as soon as I hear the intro.

Day 23 – A song that you want to play at your wedding
Ed Sheeran – Thinking Out Loud. Should I choose to get married and have a horrid wedding, this song will play. And I will proceed to do the entire dance.

Day 24 – A song that you want to play at your funeral
Love Spit Love – How Soon is Now? As soon as my coffin is being lowered into the ground, I want this song to be playing. And everyone can cry like Piper and Phoebe did at Prue’s funeral.

Day 25 – A song that makes you laugh
Rihanna – We Found Love. Tl;dr my best mate Alexia has a funny story pertaining to this song and I laugh every time I hear it.

Day 26 – Your birthday song*
Whitney Houston – I Will Always Love You. 29th January 1993 reprazent.

Day 27 – A song that you wish you could play
Frederic Chopin – Prelude in E Minor. I’ve always wished I could play this song on the piano. But I can’t. So.

Day 28 – A song that makes you feel guilty
Wiz Khalifa – We Dem Boyz. I think this is the same as a guilty pleasure?

Day 29 – A song from your childhood
Billie Piper – Because We Want To. Anyone who denies being a fan of Billie Piper as a child in the 90s is a fat liar.

Day 30 – Your favourite song at this time last year
Steve Grand – All-American Boy. I imagine this was my favourite song at this time last year because I always played it.

* The original 30 Day Song Challenge says day 26 should be “a song that you can play on an instrument”. However, the only song I can play is Mary Had a Little Lamb and I wasn’t about to put that up, so I changed it. Deal with it.

– by The Black Widow

Social media has ruined dating

Posted in Lifestyle by

“Oh my god, I can’t believe he has another girl in his Snapchat best friends!”

This one sentence is a prime example of how social media has ruined 21st century dating.

(EDITOR’S NOTE: after a lengthy absence, Solstice Satisfaction is back and sassier than ever. Keep tuning in to be entertained in that sassy way only SolSat can do)

Back in the day, couples were more focused on what to wear to their first date or what movie to watch or even what is the surname of their potential date. Now with social media – coupled with the fact that “social media stalking” can give you a ton of information on your date before you have even met him/her – people are more focused on how many girls he’s following on Instagram and why this one guy keeps liking all of her bikini pictures on Facebook.

"OMG he's seen my Snap but hasn't replied. He's SO cheating on me!"

“OMG he’s seen my Snap but hasn’t replied. He’s SO cheating on me!”

A couple of my girlfriends have expressed their concerns with their significant other because:
1) He has a picture with his ex on Facebook that he has neglected to delete or
2) He has other girls in his Snapchat best friends.

Girl bye, why is this even a problem? Even without social media, your fella/lady will still have other friends of the opposite sex. You just weren’t privy to this information beforehand because you couldn’t see what they were doing 24/7.

That’s where the major problem in social media/dating lies: at the touch of a button, you can see who someone is with, what movie they’re watching, what book they’re reading and where they are. All of that information in about 10 seconds tops. In a way, social media has made it “okay” to stalk someone to the point of knowing everything about them, even before they’ve met you. Sometimes you’ll find things that you wish you didn’t see and you will overthink the situation to the point where you have planned out an entire altercation with your loved one before it has even happened.

It’s important to remember that people will always have lives outside of you, so who cares if your boyfriend is following other girls on Instagram or if your boy Snapchats girls that aren’t you? Are you going to shut her out because he has a life? Are you going to withold sex from him because he talks to girls that aren’t you?

Sometimes ignorance really is bliss. Maybe it is better for everyone to settle their sweet horses down, hop in the river, and just go with the flow. Oh, and stop being a stalker.

That’s rich coming from me as I like to use my “investigative journalistic” skills on people sometimes, but at least I admit I’m a social creep.

I’m sure your relationship will be more enjoyable if you stay out of each other’s social lives.

– by The Black Widow

Bucking the Block

Posted in Lifestyle by

It’s finally time for me to admit it- Guys, I have Writer’s Block, an illness that is easily as serious and debilitating as the Man Flu or the Clone-Killing Nanovirus. Scratch that. This is way more serious.

lol

In an effort to cure myself of this crippling ailment, I’ve spent the last month trawling the internet, reading as much as possible; everything from books and newspapers to the ingredients on the back of shampoo bottles in my shower (I don’t know what Methylisothiazolinone or chloromethylisothiazolinone are exactly, but apparently they’re bad for skin, or the ozone layer or something). I also spent a disgusting amount of time reading other people’s blogs, obnoxiously long Facebook statuses and tweets and in doing that discovered something: Writing is a lot like running.

The Tweeters of the world are sprinters: they cover a very short distance in a really quick time. Unlike those of us who tend to ramble on a bit, they have to get their point across in just 140 characters, including beginning, middle and end.

Then  there are the Facebook Fanatics who answer ‘What’s on your mind?’ with not just one, but every single thought they had that day. These are the literary hurdlers – longer distances, more of a challenge and more pressure to make their words interesting without being boring or repetitive.

Then there’s us, the bloggers who devote entire days to writing lengthy, somewhat sassy posts about everything from split-legged jeans to the state of Australian politics. We are the marathon runners. The mentally-fit and fabulous distance writers who take a while to get to the finish line, but make the read worth-while (if I may say so myself).

And these people are the triathletes that make the rest of us look lazy…

ss l

I am hoping now that, having spent January wallowing in self pity, I am fully recovered and back in the writing game. Keep your fingers crossed for me though, guys. The last thing any of us want is a relapse!

– by Blaire Gillies (God it’s good to be writing that again. There’s nothing quite like the feeling of crossing the finish line!)

What I Miss About You, Bebo

Posted in Lifestyle by

I don’t know about you, but as a young youth growing up in Sydney (say between the ages of 13 and 16), the go to social networking site was Bebo. Sure, MySpace and Hi-5 were around back then, but Bebo was the one that all the cool kids went on.

Share the luv!

Share the luv!

Now, we have Facebook and Twitter and Instagram and Tumblr and all of the above, and pretty much no one uses Bebo anymore. Why? Because Bebo simply became outdated. It’s the unfortunate truth with trends – they all go out of fashion eventually. Regardless of this – and my love for Facebook – there are several things that I miss about that good ol’ red B.

What I miss about you…

[x] Share the luv. How grand was it pestering people to give you “luv” so your little love heart count could top that of your high school rivals. I specifically remember having a pretty damn high luv count compared to those of my high school classmates and I always felt the need to brag about it. How did I get such a high number of luv? Via pestering, of course. And “luv for luv”.

[x] Flash boxes. Remember how you could have a video or some other form of “flash box” play on your Bebo profile? Wasn’t that the coolest thing ever? I remember my first flash box was Control Myself by LL Cool J ft. Jennifer Lopez. I don’t even know why; I didn’t even like that song that much. After, however, I managed to get Pacman into my flash box and became the coolest kid on the block. Subtle JLo reference. It just added that extra zing to your profile to establish just who the hell you were in the land of Bebo.

[x] Top 16. You knew your relationship was real when you were in each others top 16. It was cool but also quite pressuring to establish your top 16 because if someone had you in their top 16 and the feelings weren’t reciprocated, well, that just made it awkward for everyone. Of course, to make sure this didn’t happen, there were always “I’ll put you in my top 16 if you put me in yours” conversations. Problem solved.

[x] Other halves. Aww. You had your friends, you had your top 16 friends, and then you had your other half. This person would get their own little space on your profile with a cute little message attached to them. The twelvies would always have their flavours of the week with “luv u bbygurl s2” which was awkward because they always broke up like five minutes after. I can happily say I had under five other halves and they were never romantic counterparts.

[x] Photo stealing. How annoying is it if you want to steal someone else’s picture on Facebook and then re-upload it onto your own profile? That’s a long tedious procedure if you ask me. Back on Bebo, all you had to do was select the picture you wanted to steal, click “Copy”, pick an album to put it in, and voila – it’s there. No bruises or scratches.

[x] Custom skins. What was originally made famous on MySpace became a big thing on Bebo. While we’ve become accustomed to the Facebook blue default skin and probably couldn’t care less about it, the cool thing about Bebo was the option to pick a cool profile skin and jazz it up a bit. I once dabbled in creating my own Bebo skins and came up with cool WWE Diva skins, like Mickie James and Torrie Wilson. Complete with “Made by Noah La’ulu” tag, of course.

With news that Bebo is making a comeback and will be better than before, may we see the return of luv sharing, flash boxes and other halves? Hopefully. However, I will give my honest journo’s opinion – I don’t see Bebo toppling Facebook at this point in time. It’ll be nice to see them try, though.

Much luv to all of you SolSatters!

– by The Black Widow