Merry Christmas Everyone!!!!
Best Wishes from me to all of you.
I hope Santa Claus brought you lots of gifts.
If you are spending or spent this Christmas day with family, I hope you enjoyed a nice dinner with lots of tasty things to eat.

My wish came true for this Christmas. (If you don't remember what i wished for, or you just didn't get to read that, you can check my entry of December 9th, titled "In The Mood".)

Anyway, I also bought myself a gift. I made sure I could look through a window and see a white Christmas. Wonder what I bought? lol???
Maybe check back tomorrow... lol ... I'll tell you what I bought then and I'll include a picture with it too. I'm still at my familly's at this time, which means I'm unable to take a picture of my gift for me.

Tomorrow I'll also tell you about my Christmas eve. It was a nice Christmas eve for the most part so, it will mostly be happy happy things in that entry.... yeah, it'll be a happy entry. I'm sure you'll enjoy getting to see again another part of my home. lol.
Right? well, either way, when you check back tomorrow there will be a nice picture here, showing you part of my home.
I always try to make the pics as small as possible in Kb so you don't have to wait like 15 minutes for it to download.

Soooo.... check back tomorrow and enjoy this Christmas day!!! :)

Love,
Marsha

In a discussion about law and some more or less complicated issues (oh yes this is a wide variety of topics I know) one of my friends adapted an existing expression to one I really think is worthy of mentioning in my journal:

"People who live in paper houses shouldn't be playing with matches."

Compliments, once again, to my friend and webmaster.
to you Bjorn Dieu.

There's no way I'm going into detail as to what the discussion was about cuz you all would be completely bored, and falling asleep within the next 15 minutes, if not sooner ;)

Anyway, I thought the quote was worth mentioning... And that's even besides the fact that it is a VERY SOUND ADVICE!!! lol.

Love,
Marsha.

What's going for me this weekend?
Nothing much. Tonight I'm going to listen to Xfm online. A friend told me to listen to it tonight.
I'm not quite sure what to expect though, but I'm always open for suggestions so I'm anxiously waiting as to what will be on. The show I'm supposed to listen to starts at 8pm UK time. So that should be about now... the show should be starting about now I said... waiting... oh damn my streaming audio seems to have been interupted... hm. My computer is such a piece of crap.
I should get another one. Nothing wrong with the broadcast though it's my computer that can't really do more than one thing at a time obviously.

Anyway, that's it for what I'm doing tonight.

Then of course there is Saturday... this is still unsure... I'm likely to be visitting some friends in the early evening. After that I'm not really sure what I'm gonna do yet. Maybe I'll just go about my regular things like reading a bit in the book I started (again for the second time), or start writing a song. Don't know yet.

Sunday, as always, is the day I visit my mom, which is a car drive of over an hour, then spending quite some time there, then I'm driving home...
Needless to say that I'll only be home by the end of the day.

Maybe something interesting will happen though... who knows huh? ;)

Love,
Marsha.

Just thought of something. This weekend I saw the video for Moby's "In this world" Those little blips (aliens i think) are soooooooo.... cute. It's so sad though when they don't get any response from humans to their little tiny greeting boards... The funniest part is in the ending when they go back to their planet, not disappointed and thinking it's hopeless. No no no no, their going back to make bigger, to them HUGE greeting cards.

That's so cute. Moby's little blip characters are so sweet. He drew them all himself (right?). The video of "In this World" actually gave these little characters a bit of dimension.

They are really adorable... I'd just want to cuddle them if I'd notice this little "fellas" on the street somewhere some day. heheheh.

You can see Moby's cute little friends on the first page of his website here Although they look cuter in the video, in my opinion.
Needless to say I definitely like the song too. The instrumentation is again magnificent.

Anyway, this is about it for today.
Hope to see you again tomorrow.

Love,
Marsha.

The lack of a Christmas tree...

It's been a while since I moved to the city... away from the country side that I love so much.
The city's got its advantages too, but around this time there's one big disadvantage that I seem to notice lol...
There is no way I could actually get a Christmas tree into my apartment... unless of course I could find someone willing and able to pull the tree up through the window of the second floor (where my apartment is) ... ???

I didn't think so.

So this is my solution to the lack of a Christmas tree.
Christmas Candles:

Thanks to my mom, who works for a candle company... dare I say it... heck yeah, it's my website you know ! ok, my mom works for Spaas, and sometimes she can bring candles for me... like things they would normally throw away or things that she just gets from the people there (that is if she doesn't like them all that much herself. heheh.) Sometimes I just ask her to buy some for me too so it's not like it's always for free either.

Anyway, what's funny is that last weekend, when my friends came over we were lighting tea lights, like the red ones in the picture.
The thing is, the only tea lights that are really good are the ones from Spaas. I wouldn't normally say this because I simply am not a suck up like a lot of people. But the thing is the candles that weren't from Spaas just went out by itself and the candles that were from Spaas nicely burnt till the end... like they said.. so I no longer have to take my mom's word for it. lol.
(If you read this.... Can my mom have a raise, for my advertisement here !!! Hey you can't blame me for trying, cuz no matter whether or not I voluntarily mentioned you guys it's still in your commercial advantage)

So anyway, as long as I'm careful and don't burn down my house with all these candles (that would be just my luck...hm.)

Anyway, I'm glad that I was able to buy a couple of gifts already.
Oh and the big brown package in the back is one that I got from my best friend, Tom Lomino from Long Island. (Hi Tom!! promise I won't open it till Christmas.)

that's all for now... too long already ... pffuh ... it's my journal so... heheh..

I love being in this Christmas mood.

Love,
Marsha

Even after all this time, there seem to be a lot of people who are still confused about everything concerning Castles in the Sky, what happened between the producers/record company of Ian Van Dahl and me.
Apparently, the people involved in the project currently are not really giving ANY answers whatsoever to people who express confusion. Just recently, I received an e-mail from, Shelly who seems to be confused but isn't getting any answers anywhere.

First of all, let's make sure that everyone know which version of Castles in the Sky is mine. There are versions of their album ACE on which you can find both, but there are also versions of it with only one version on it.
(I don't own that album, just in case you should wonder about that. I didn't buy it, nor did I receive a copy...nor do I intend to buy ACE.)

I noticed the way certain sites nicely chose the snippets of Castles in the Sky, to clarify the difference between the original version of Castles in the Sky, obviously done by myself, and the version done by their current frontsinger Annemie Coenen.

Just in case there is still confusion as to which version is mine, i'll link to the files right here too:
This is "Castles in the Sky" by Ian Van Dahl featuring Marsha, i.e. the original with my vocals:
realplayer
windows media player

This is Castles in the Sky with the vocals of Annemie Coenen, the current front singer of Ian Van Dahl:
realplayer
windows media player.

I assume the difference is clear?

Oh and by the way, once again I would also like to tell everyone AGAIN (i'm sorry for those who already knew about this) that I AM NOT THE GIRL IN THE MUSIC VIDEO OF CASTLES IN THE SKY. There are a lot of pictures on my website, so it should be fairly easy to see that.

The girl in the video was the first choice of a replacement for me. Don't ask me why, or how.

Anyway, I hope I can continue with my work and take things BEYOND Castles in the Sky. I have a lot more to offer... you'll find out soon enough

Love,
Marsha

Okay I know it sounds unbelievable but there is a drunken moose alert in Norway. I didn't believe at first either when a friend told me about it.
But but but I FOUND PROOF!!! here

That's funny. I wonder what these moose look like... and ... do they see pink elephants too???

Anyway, if you live in Norway BE CAREFUL cuz THERE ARE DRUNKEN MOOSE ON THE LOOSE.
I feel so sorry for the poor animals though... hope they don't get a hangover or get too sick of eating the fermenting fruit though. I really feel sorry for them... poor animals.

Love,
Marsha

What is it with thumbtacks lying around on the floor in my house.
This is the second time in less than a week that I stept in one!
This time it went all the way in my heel. The time before that i barely avoided stepping into one with the ball of my foot.

It's not that it hurts so much but it's not really what I call a pleasant feeling either way I try to look at it.

They don't even get sucked up by my vacuum cleaner even. They just get pushed around I guess. I don't know. I only cleaned the place yesterday!
Okay maybe the day before that, but still I didn't do anything involving thumbtacks in the meantime, so I really wouldn't expect seeing on lying around on the floor here you know. grrrr.

Figures... of course if there's one, just one lying around, I'll step in it. OF COURSE! Just my luck, huh? lol

Hope I stepped in all possible hidden thumbtacks now cuz I'm kind of getting tired of this, and my feet are tired of it too!!!

Love,
Marsha.

When I went to see the first part of Lord of the Rings, I didn't know that it was going to be a trilogy. I was sitting there frightened waiting for things like "all's well that ends well."
Needless to say... it didn't come...

So there I was sitting in the theatre, 2 am, cuz the movie was that long... I'm eager to see the second part. I just watched the trailer... My guess is it's probably going to be even scarier. Yeah, I know I'm such a wuss. I couldn't even watch "E.T." or "The Gremlins" without jumping on my moms back when I was a kid. lol.

Anyway, I like the thrill no matter how much it scares me... no I'm lying there.. not "no matter how much" cuz I have my limits... a very silly limit.... come to think of it I even thought that "Dinosaurs" was a bit too thrilling cuz I couldn't stand the Dinosaurs being trapped like that by the T-rexes. lol

I'm hoping to see the second part of Lord of the Rings in January, after the big crowd has already seen it. I like it when we (my friends and myself) have the theatre pretty much to ourselves so... :)

Hope someones coming though... like I'm not gonna watch this by myself you know.

Love,
Marsha.

It's been a while now since I received the nice feature of smileys from my dear webmaster Bjorn.
He has put up a few which I'm quite unlikely to use in general entries though.
His personal favorite, which he sometimes uses when he's testing my new website is this one :

So there he is ... Finally !!! your pirate!!!
Enjoy the presence of the Pirate in my journal Bjorn!!!! :)

Love,
Marsha

It 2.10 a.m. now. I woke up coughing. Hope I'm not getting ill for the holidays...
No one's online even now. Tom was online for just a bit... He's off to the firehouse now.
The time difference ... lol... no matter how long I have been talking to people on the other side of the ocean, on the other side of the world, ... actually EVERYWHERE, the time difference is still quite interesting somehow don't you think. lol
it's funny actually. I talk to people in Australia, Canada, USA (different states even) and it usually doesn't even come to mind that there's such a big time difference. Sometimes my online friends are going on and on about how i'm hardly ever online anymore and things like that ... well THINK OF THE TIME DIFFERENCE !!! .... lol

Well anyway, I'm gonna go back to bed... try to get some sleep. Hope I don't wake up coughing again.

Love,
Marsha

Just thought I'd share my Christmas lights with you... Nothing really special though.
Just click on the image if you want to see the picture a bit larger.

It looks ever nicer in if it's completely dark though, but it's quite hard to get a clear picture in the dark like that. :)

Anyway, I might get some fake snow that glitters a bit later, but for now... salt will have to do. lol :) The wooden chest that it's on is really really cool. It's a gift I got when I moved. It's handcarved even. The scene on this chest shows some sort of Viking ships. (irrelevant information?? right... uhm.. ok) lol. Now you know anyway.

So there, now you've seen my Christmas lights.
That's all I really have to say right now.
I'll write something a bit more interesting tomorrow.

Love,
Marsha.

Just got a phone call from my mom. We were talking about the Ian Van Dahl issue and how everyone in the industry still seems to be looking for a second "Castles in the Sky". I told my mom: "Let them come to me, I have a couple of those lying around here, without a doubt."

She said: "Why don't you sell your songs? At least that way you'd be making some money."

My answer to that is simple. My Soul is in my Songs and my Soul is not for sale. Simple as that.

At this time I'm not ready to give away free tickets to stardom. Castles in the Sky may have been taken away from me, but I will not allow people stealing my soul any longer.

No longer, am I as naive as I used to be.

My Soul lives within my Songs, and my Soul is NOT for sale.

Love,
Marsha.

Today I was thinking... artists who don’t enable their fans to get in touch with them don’t know what they’re missing out on.
I live on fan mail. It’s the most wonderful thing an artist can get in return for giving music.
It’s incredible how many nice people have written to me in the last couple of years actually.

I wish I could quote some here but that would in some cases really be giving out personal information.
To be honest, these e-mails (and my guestbook) have made me cry quite often. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I know I sound sentimental, but I don’t care. You can ask anyone who knows me, fan mail just moves me and so do the nice comments in my guestbook. (if only you knew just how much.... )

It’s just really … I can’t even find a suitable word for it. Like I said on my “thanks page”: all those people that send me nice e-mails and things like that, they’re the drive that keeps me going… And I mean that from the bottom of my heart.
Many times when I felt like I could go on anymore, all I had to do was check my e-mail to see that it wasn't all in vain, and that what I have done, what I did, and what I am doing does make a difference.

Thank YOU soooooo.... much. I will carry you in my heart forever.

Love,
Marsha

Hey did anyone notice? I got two comments on my entry about Eminem's song!!!
Heheh, I thought people didn't know they could post comments to what I wrote...

Guess nothing was interesting enough to post a comment to till I started writing about Eminem. lol. ;)

Anyway...
Uhm... Who shall I write about today then.... cuz I'm obviously not interesting enough myself for people to comment on what I write... Just kidding.

Either way, I'm glad to see that people actually read this online journal of mine.

Love,
Marsha

I put up my Christmas lights today... well it's just one string of lights really.
As usually one light was broken, and I had to figure out which one. Argh as always. In this case there wasn't even one broken, one was disconnected.
Took me a while to find it though.

Anyway, the title says it all. I'm in the mood for Christmas. I love the way it’s all cosy in the house, people lighting candles… Which I LOVE TO DO TOO. My mom works for a company that makes candles. Sometimes she brings some for me too. It makes the place look a lot more like home somehow.

My horoscope mentioned that I shouldn't go overboard with spending money on gifts and such. Let's just say that there's not much danger that I will do that. I simply don't have the money for that. Ooh, don't I sound like the superstar now!

Unfortunately, it's unlikely that I'll be able to buy gifts for my family or any of my friends this year... just like it has been the case the previous 3 years.
I catch myself wandering off, thinking how nice it would be to buy everyone gifts and how I could make them smile by doing so. There are so many people that deserve gifts... people who have been supporting me since long.

If fate would grant me one wish for Christmas, I'd wish that I'd be able to buy some gifts this year. It would mean the world to me to be able to show some people how I appreciate what they have done and are doing for me every day.

Either way, I'll try to think of something special somehow to show them my gratitude this year. Maybe I'll think of a song to sing for them or something. That's one gift that doesn't cost money, but, as with every song I write, it would be coming straight from my heart.

Love,
Marsha
*** Silent Wish I can buy gifts somehow, someway. They deserve more than a song.***

Once again, doing an effort to write to you more frequently.
I'm in the middle of finishing up the recordings of yet another song. I'm sure you'll all love this one.

I'm not going to tell you what it's about yet, nor will i release any other information... heheh.
I'm sure you'll hear it ... soon enough... lol

Sometimes it's really annoying to know that I'm so closely watched by those trying to interfere with my career.
And what's most annoying about it, is that I have to keep information from the people I hold dearest (*)because of it.
* YOU OF COURSE!!!

But I just want you all to know that I'm not being lazy... quite the contrary in fact.

That's all I've got to say right now.
Hope you'll keep coming back...
Love,
Marsha.

Edit by Marsha X - Thursday, April 24th, 2003.
*** THIS IS NOT EMINEM'S WEBSITE ***
May I have your attention, please! May I have your attention, please! This is not the blog of the real slim shady. If you are looking for "The real slim shady", go to http://www.eminem.com
I respect anyones opinion about Eminem and/or his songs, but please, do NOT address Eminem in my blog, it's a waste of time, cuz he's very unlikely to read this blog (right? lol)
*** DO NOT ADDRESS EMINEM HERE (please?)***

I don't know exactly how out of the ordinary this is for a singer whose main territory is within the dance music, but I like the work of Eminem. I admit that his approach on music and the way he always manages to stay original. He simply doesn't care whether or not it fits into anything, but either way he gets what he wants.
You have to admire that, you know.

The reason why i decided to write about Eminem is because I was listening to the radio and his last song "Lose Yourself" was on.
I definitely like that track. It's really catchy. First of all, he always has this gimmick in his songs, like in his previous hit it was a saxophone or a similar sound, in this new song it's the sound of a guitar that's continuously running in the background. Definitely makes his music catchy.
But anyway, the main reason why i wanted to write something about Eminem is because of the lyrics of "Lose Yourself".

I somehow feel I can relate to them. It's the general atmosphere that's created in the song but especially the lyrics of intro and the chorus.
the intro:
"Look, if you had one shot
or one opportunity
To seize everything you ever wanted
In one moment
Would you capture it or just let it slip?"
the chorus:
"You better lose yourself in the music, the moment
You own it; you better never let it go
You only get one shot, do not miss your chance to blow
This opportunity comes once in a lifetime, yo
You better lose yourself in the music, the moment
You own it; you better never let it go
You only get one shot, do not miss your chance to blow
This opportunity comes once in a lifetime, yo"

How is it that I can relate to this song? Well, there's nothing else I want to do besides be myself and bring my music, my songs, my lyrics.
Even though it's not the only thing I'm able to do, it's the only way, I think, I can make some kind of difference... somehow.
So I better give it my best to make the best of it and grasp every opportunity I can find, 'cuz otherwise there's not much I'll ever find worth doing.

See where I'm coming from?
It's not that hard to see, I think .... right?

Anyway, I'm sorry for not writing more... Guess you could say I'm working on those opportunities a lot which demands a lot of time and effort.

Talk to you soon.
Love,
Marsha.