I've just realised I don't know where my copy of Ichi The Killer is :/ must've lent it to someone...but who?!?!?
However, my MacBook has arrived!!!!!! :D
not quite as good as I was hoping for, but at the end of the day, I'm getting a replacement.
so, the backstory, my 12" iBook G4 1GHz 30Gb 256Mb, Combo (did expand with airport + another 512Mb), is dead (see earlier posts)
After a bit of faffing and having to send it to the insurance company, they agree that it's dead, or "beyond economical repair". Thank you.
They are going to replace it with a current bottom of the range MacBook (13" 1.83GHz C2D, 512Mb, 60Gb, Combo), after we gave them the princely sum of £75 excess!!
I was hoping for the mid-range model (2.0GHz, 80Gb, Super), but they wouldn't budge on that, still it's a replacement laptop for essentially £75 instead of around £800, so that's not bad I suppose.
Oh and to get my old one back they're charging another £75 + VAT! damn them.
Should arrive Weds, so I should be unpacking on next weekend!
Currently most excited about: Built in iSight! :D
Came across this recently while doing research for the doc I'm working on. Apparently it's massive in Japan.
http://reader.kaywa.com
QR Code will be popping up on my website, probably this weekend!
Please follow these guidelines, they may just save your life!
http://www.safenow.org/
to see what I've been up to recently..
Jessie Younghusband School
Well, after finally getting the Apple Hardware Test to run, it froze and then crashed completely on the RAM test section, so I force shutdown, whipped out the 512Mb Crucial stick and restarted the AHT...which didn't even load this time.
Apparently the basic RAM in an iBook is soldered onto the board. Damn.
Ok, I've been fiddling about for about a day and a half now, and as far as I can tell at the mo, my iBook has entered the world of the mentally retarded.
The light's on but nobody's home.
I have been "politly" told on the mac support forums, when I posted to a thread where a guy had pretty much exactly the same symptoms as me, to start a new thread for mine, as it may not be exactly the same thing and it would get confusing dealing with two different people. I didn't ask directly for help I merely explained my symptoms and said I was gonna watch the thread. Dickhead. in answer to the question.. No, this answer was not helpful.
Sometimes people online are wankers.
Anyway, as I've been fretting over my iBook and wanting to get a shitload of important stuff off (who the hell backs up their entire system regularly anyway?), I tried slamming it into Target Disk mode.
What Target Disk mode is, is a nifty way of turning my ibook into what is in essence a rather chunky and expensive 30Gb firewire drive.
Bloody useful, this confirmed for me that my HDD isn't dead and I can drag all my files onto my PowerMac, cheers.
But wait a minute...so anyone with their own Mac, basic knowledge of boot keystrokes and a 6-6 FW400 lead can do the same thing?!?
That seems a bit daft now.
As I don't currently have FileVault enabled on there, I don't know if this would make a difference and at the mo, I can't be arsed to read up on it. Also I did see on the instructions that it is possible to disable TD mode, however again, this seems a bit cack handed as it may provide the required security, but I'd be buggered for getting my shit copied.
And Mike..not giving up on it just yet, but certainly tempted to go for the insurance and then a new MacBook ;)
NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO! AAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGHHHHHHHH!
My iBook is buggered...keeps..freezing...out of warrenty...help
http://www.canadafreepress.com/2007/consumer-freedom012807.htm
bloody activists! >:/
Well it seems we've had our snow for the year, and what a day of now it was, I was half an hour late for work!!! HALF AN HOUR!?!?! I thought even a few flakes was supposed to completely cripple the rail networks over here?!? But no, I STILL managed to get to work. :/
Well at least it didn't snow on Wednesday 'cos I had the pleasure of crewing on an interview with none other than Dawson's Creek hearthrob himself... Joshua Jackson!! Well there were several girls/women that I mentioned it too who were more than a little excited at the prospect (even though they weren't the ones meeting him?!), including my girlfriend, for whom I was forced to forgo any sort of professionalism and get her Dawson's Creek soundtrack signed for her. Which she was incredibly pleased about and I felt like a right cunt.
He was very nice by the way. I was there allegedly to do sound, however they hired in kit for
the shoot, including a load of sound gear I'd never used before, including an SQN2S (may be a 4S mini as it looked like the one in the pic, but I'm sure it said 2S on it) mixer, very snazzy, proffessional mixer, a lot better than the smaller MixPre's we have, however a shitload more knobs and switches and by the time we came to shoot, I wasn't confident that all these switches were set correctly as it didn't sound quite right, so we left the mixer and went straight into cam from the radio packs, thus Will on cam monitored and I did..well bugger all really.
Dissapointing, but I'd rather do that than fuck up the sound! Hopefully company's gonna sort out some training from where they hired from, and I suggested possibly getting them to make up a one-page PDF quickstart guide, something Google (or SQN as they didn't answer their damn phone) couldn't help me with on Weds. Anyone who knows the location of one, please do let me know :)
Currently working across two documentaries, one on mobile phones in learning environments, the other on whether school league tables are working or not. One of them offers the prospect of filming abroad, the other offers baffling academic statistics...
Either way, it's something slightly different and there's a load of filming coming up so hopefully I'll get out of the office a tad more, which is always nice :)
I'm getting a little behind posting my vague reviews to my review blog, so you may find two or three pop up in a session, I'll try and be a little more regular as I have started watching more films again (btw.. Hot Fuzz.. 14th Feb!!!!!!!)
Oh yeah and apparently, according to the optitian, I need to get some glasses for when I'm operating a VDU (sounds so 80's..."V.D.U.")...more expense, and I have a hard enough time finding sunglasses I don't look a complete cock in.
Well go here dammit!!
as my mate Steve who did the stills photography and has been working on the poster/promo for my last short want's to do more and is going freelance with it..he has a page full of mockups so check it out!
www.stevewrench.com
And it's this...
I'm currently sat listneing to Godsmack while downloading Girls Aloud.
That's fucked up.
A) didn't realise I'd reached 100 posts on here, (this is 101)
and
B) I've updated my personal website... www.mattgrover.me.uk
will add more bits but I've run out of time today :)
Get yourself a whiteboard, draw a line on it with PERMANENT marker (yes permanent).
Let it dry.
Now draw over it with a normal DRY WIPE marker
Now wipe both lines away.
AMAZING!
NB you'll probably have to use some cleaner to properly clean your whitebaord, but at the end of the day I was pretty damn impressed with that here in the office!! :)
A very merry Christmas to you all!! Hope everyone is having a top day!! In the true self-obsessed nature of personal blogs, have a selection of pictures of presents I have revieved this year, from Mum, Vicky and then the gang (bear in mind the gang ones are for comedy value above all else!). Festivity-odey-doodey
Who can drive now? Oh that's right... I CAN!!! :D
Yes finally, today, I passed my driving test!!!!!
Happy? Me? FUCK YES!
I now have one on Facebook.com so, if ur on Facebook, look me up innit. (mainly as I can't post a direct link to the profile, cos u have to log in to see it, so you may as well just do a bloody search for me on there)
:)
- Flooding
- Signal Faliure
- Broken Down Train ahead
- Line side fire
- Line side fire involving gas canisters
- trespasser on the line
- road vehical striking a bridge
- suspicious package on the train ahead
- passenger taken ill
- person under a train
- Doors not opening properly
- Passenger incident
- Security Alert (@ Blackfriars)
- Dead beaver on the line (!!!!! Apparently so according to Carrie)
- Temporary signal failure
- Points Failure
- Earlier service disruption
- Defective train
- Poor rail conditions
- 7.16 from Brighton suffering door problems thus holding up other trains
- Overcrowding
- Derailment at Brighton
- Over running engineering works
- Major signaling systems failure
- Temporary fault with signaling equipment
- Suspected fire alert
- Poor rail conditions that affected the preceding train
- Train still in depot as staff are attending to a fault on the train
- Earlier slippery rail conditions
- Emergency engineering works
- Non-availability of staff
- A man on the train in front has suffered a heart attack and is being treated in the carriage
- Held at a red signal, we're trying to fix the problem
Fashion. You seem to get the same sort of amount of people with 'eclectic' fashion sense in London as you do in Brighton (esp. on my route, via Camden), but you also get the almost unfeasibly co-ordinated.
For example, the woman across from me on the tube, black trousers, black shoes with red trim that compliments the red tank top type affair over the red-striped white shirt, and the chunky bracelet and necklace that almost perfectly match her bleach blonde hair.
You just don't see that sort of effort in Brighton.
Sent while mobile.
Bloody commute, there are certain things i hate about having to commute each day, one being the homeless black guy who stinks of shit being in the same carriage as me on an unsettlingly regular basis >:/
www.mattgrover.me.uk
Sent while mobile.
- Flooding
- Signal Faliure
- Broken Down Train ahead
- Line side fire
- Line side fire involving gas canisters
- trespasser on the line
- road vehical striking a bridge
- suspicious package on the train ahead
- passenger taken ill
- person under a train
- Doors not opening properly
- Passenger incident
- Security Alert (@ Blackfriars)
- Dead beaver on the line (!!!!! Apparently so according to Carrie)
- Temporary signal failure
- Points Failure
- Earlier service disruption
- Defective train
- Poor rail conditions
- 7.16 from Brighton suffering door problems thus holding up other trains
- Overcrowding
- Derailment at Brighton
- Over running engineering works
- Major signaling systems failure
- Temporary fault with signaling equipment
- Suspected fire alert
- Poor rail conditions that affected the preceding train
- Train still in depot as staff are attending to a fault on the train
- Earlier slippery rail conditions
Dammit, I've lost the A-Team badge (Hannible + BA) off my rucksack!! :( had to happen at some point I guess.
Earlier, faster train....10 minutes later into the office! WTF?!
Why is my template all screwed up?!?!? I'm hoping it's just IE not rendering it properly...it better be anyway!! >:/
Yet more abomniable reasons...
- Flooding
- Signal Faliure
- Broken Down Train ahead
- Line side fire
- Line side fire involving gas canisters
- trespasser on the line
- road vehical striking a bridge
- suspicious package on the train ahead
- passenger taken ill
- person under a train
- Doors not opening properly
- Passenger incident
- Security Alert (@ Blackfriars)
- Dead beaver on the line (!!!!! Apparently so according to Carrie)
- Temporary signal failure
- Points Failure
- Earlier service disruption
- Defective train
One of the problems with this whole blog thing is that i think of loads of stuff to write or rant about while i'm out and about or, like this morning, sat on the train, but then forget to actually blog them when i get online.
This morning i've just remembered that i (hopefully got it right) set up email on my phone, although now i've forgotten what i had in mind to blog in the first place :/
Sent while mobile.
Continuing the list, here's a couple more
- Flooding
- Signal Faliure
- Broken Down Train ahead
- Line side fire
- Line side fire involving gas canisters
- trespasser on the line
- road vehical striking a bridge
- suspicious package on the train ahead
- passenger taken ill
- person under a train
- Doors not opening properly
- Passenger incident
- Security Alert (@ Blackfriars)
- Dead beaver on the line (!!!!! Apparently so according to Carrie)
- Temporary signal failure
Something I meant to post the other week but forgot.. the start of a list of reasons why the trains are delayed or cancelled on either end of my daily commute..
- Flooding
- Signal Faliure
- Broken Down Train ahead
- Line side fire
- Line side fire involving gas canisters
- trespasser on the line
- road vehical striking a bridge
- suspicious package on the train ahead
- passenger taken ill
- person under a train
- Doors not opening properly
- Passenger incident
- Security Alert (@ Blackfriars)
Vomiting seems to be becoming an all too regular occurrence in the realms of me.
In this instance tho, no bug or dodgy food, simply far too much alcohol for my system do feasibly deal with. Although scarily I wasn't aware that I'd drank that much, so...either I drank a shitload and didn't realise, or the little I had hit me harder than usual.
Either way not a good thing, especially when it involved vomiting from the early hours of Saturday morning until around 8.30 that evening :/
Needless to say I'm still feeling a tad rough today. :(
The Birthday Calculator...another website of meaningless toss for filling up blogs and myspace...and why not eh? (via digg)
27 August 1976
Your date of conception was on or about 5 December 1975 which was a Friday.
You were born on a Friday
under the astrological sign Virgo.
Your Life path number is 4.
Life Path Compatibility:
You are most compatible with those with the Life Path numbers 2, 4, 8, 11 & 22.
You should get along well with those with the Life Path numbers 6 & 7.
You are least compatible with those with the Life Path numbers 1, 3, 5 & 9.
The Julian calendar date of your birth is 2443017.5.
The golden number for 1976 is 1.
The epact number for 1976 is -1.
The year 1976 was a leap year.
Your birthday falls into the Chinese year beginning 1/31/1976 and ending 2/17/1977.
You were born in the Chinese year of the Dragon.
Your Native American Zodiac sign is Bear; your plant is Violets.
You were born in the Egyptian month of Hathys, the third month of the season of Poret (Emergence - Fertile soil).
Your date of birth on the Hebrew calendar is 1 Elul 5736.
The date of Easter on your birth year was Sunday, 18 April 1976.
The date of Orthodox Easter on your birth year was Sunday, 25 April 1976.
The date of Ash Wednesday (the first day of Lent) on your birth year was Wednesday 3 March 1976.
The date of Whitsun (Pentecost Sunday) in the year of your birth was Sunday 6 June 1976.
The date of Whisuntide in the year of your birth was Sunday 13 June 1976.
The date of Rosh Hashanah in the year of your birth was Saturday, 25 September 1976.
The date of Passover in the year of your birth was Thursday, 15 April 1976.
The date of Mardi Gras on your birth year was Tuesday 2 March 1976.
As of 10/14/2006 5:26:41 PM EDT
You are 30 years old.
You are 362 months old.
You are 1,572 weeks old.
You are 11,005 days old.
You are 264,137 hours old.
You are 15,848,246 minutes old.
You are 950,894,801 seconds old.
Celebrities who share your birthday:Alexa Vega (1988) Mason Betha (1978) Alex Lifeson (1953) Paul 'Pee-wee Herman' Reubens (1952) Barbara Bach (1947) Tuesday Weld (1943) Daryl Dragon (1942) Martha Raye (1916) Mother Teresa (1910) Lyndon B. Johnson (1908)
Top songs of 1976
Your age is the equivalent of a dog that is 4.30724070450098 years old. (You're still chasing cats!)
There are 317 days till your next birthday
on which your cake will have 31 candles.
Those 31 candles produce 31 BTUs,
or 7,812 calories of heat (that's only 7.8120 food Calories!) .
You can boil 3.54 US ounces of water with that many candles.
In 1976 there were approximately 3.1 million births in the US.
In 1976 the US population was approximately 203,302,031 people, 57.4 persons per square mile.
In 1976 in the US there were approximately 2,152,662 marriages (10.1%) and 1,036,000 divorces (4.9%)
In 1976 in the US there were approximately 1,921,000 deaths (9.5 per 1000)
In the US a new person is born approximately every 8 seconds.
In the US one person dies approximately every 12 seconds.
In 1976 the population of Australia was approximately 14,110,107.
In 1976 there were approximately 227,810 births in Australia.
In 1976 in Australia there were approximately 109,973 marriages and 63,230 divorces.
In 1976 in Australia there were approximately 112,662 deaths.
Your birthstone is Peridot
The Mystical properties of Peridot
Peridot is used to help dreams become a reality.Some lists consider these stones to be your birthstone. (Birthstone lists come from Jewelers, Tibet, Ayurvedic Indian medicine, and other sources)
Sardonyx, Diamond, Jade
Your birth tree is
Pine Tree, the ParticularityLoves agreeable company, very robust, knows how to make life comfortable, very active, natural, good companion, but seldom friendly, falls easily in love but its passion burns out quickly, gives up easily, many disappointments till it finds its ideal, trustworthy, practical.
There are 72 days till Christmas 2006!
There are 85 days till Orthodox Christmas!
The moon's phase on the day you were
born was waxing crescent.
So far today, Friday the 13th is certainly living up to it's reputation >:/
Got up on time, got the right train, train got to Burgess Hill and decided that the doors didn't want to work properly so everyone got chucked of at Haywards Heath..thanks. Thus I have to wait 10 mins, get a slower train, change a East Croydon, wait another 10 mins, get a train to Victoria, get to Victoria just before 8, which is when I'm due at the studio!
Get into the tube station and YAY my Oyster card's expired, unlike my train ticket that I can still use on the day of expiry, the Oyster card's clearly a no-no, rush to buy ticket from the machine, even later.
Oh yeah and I didn't get paid this week like I was told I would :( Hopefully that'll get sorted otherwise I don't know how I'll even get to work.
Apart from that, filming's going fine :)
Oh my god I got up early today! :( 4.15AM to be exact!!!
Dark, damp and way too fucking early!! :S I hate getting up early, but I've yet to find a job that's any good, where I don't have to (and isn't a night work job), so until that time I will continue to grumpily get up early when required to.
So a couple of hours and a McDonalds Big Breakfast later I'm stood, slightly chilly outside the Brook Lapping offices, various people on their way to work giving me strange looks as a loiter outside the building :/
We pack, we load and we get on our way, for five minutes until we get stuck in traffic just down the road, also why we're in traffic, moving albeit not a great speed, so our driver was reading the paper at the same time!! :/, not so encouraging!
A couple of hours spent setting up and we're ready to go.
My responsibility today, apart from general continuity, fact checking, errands etc...SOUND!, not just booming, but mixing too! It's only a small mixer and we're pretty much running off one clip mic for most of the time, but still :)
Long old day tho!, 16 hours for me before I got home, thankfully a slightly later start 2moro, but then it's also Friday 13th :(
Ok, this weekend me n Jim signed up for SecondLife and it's officially one of th funniest things online.
I urge people to sign up and come find us (I'm Matt Geiger, feel free to put me down as a referral)
so far, I've bought a dress, got some free dance moves and uploaded a very bad version of my face onto my avatar.
It's a tad slow and a bit complicated to work out, but damn funny, especially now I can breakdance :D
Pissing rain >:/ I got drenched making the short trip round the corner from the office to Tesco and back.
On the way there the damn graffiti ridden cashpoint was OUT OF SERVICE (damn things are almost as bad as cocking MySpace!), fortunatly I had enough change for, what seems to be the ritual, Deep Fill Smoked Ham and Cheddar sandwich, bottle of Sprite and pack of BBQ Chicken crinkly hula-hoops, although throwing in a racy pack of choccy buttons this time.
Lunches seem to be incredibly dull over recent months, although while at Square Donkey I used some of my lunchtimes to do a bit of exploring of the area around that particular bit of London and will probably do the same up this way (when it's not raining enough to drown Noah), the actual food aspect of the lunches are..well..a bit shit.
A ham'n'cheese sanger, occasionally in a granary bap from a sandwich bar rather than a pre-pack Tesco one, but still Ham n cheese, at SQD came the odd Jacket Potato, every time with Cheese And Beans, so nothing racy there, overall, the same stuff and it all gets a bit dull.
I need to sort out some different lunches :/
Ahh..back in the day...http://www.nokia.co.uk/nokia/0,,18161,00.html
It's time.. HOFF alert recieved and I've just spent £1.49 on the Jump In My Car EP from the iTunes store, HOFF TO NUMBER 1!!!
Well well well, for the first time since February, (with the exception of updating my CV in August), I've actually updated my website, not a huge amount, changed the layout on certain subpages, made it a little tidier, added some links, added some photos, the relevant film pages now have the YouTube feeds embedded in them, which is nice, all in all a productive day today me thinks :)
www.mattgrover.me.uk
Not having any money
Other people uploading from me and killing my d/l speed
Not having a MacPro 3GHz
Having stuffy ears
Juliette And The Licks
Limewire Pro
A Strawberry Cornetto
Air drumming
Little late in posting this I guess, well a couple of days at least.
First week @ Brook Lapping done and dusted and it's going ok, having to get back in the habit of cold calling people again, but I think all's going well at the mo at least. Should have some of the review samples coming in next week so I can get them checked out and sent out to the relevant teachers etc.
Two downsides to the job, 1)longer commute, 4hrs a day now :/ 2)A god awful HP PC, which allegedly is a 2.8GHZ P4, although you wouldn't guess it as it would probably run quicker if it was switched off! Possibly something to do with the 248Mb RAM it has (according to control panel at least), how the hell do you get 248?! It's a P4 surely the sticks are at least 256!?
I've also taken to trying to do the puzzles in whatever free paper I pick up on the train, namely sudoku or a crossword, needless to say I'm crap at both, but at least I feel like I'm stimulating my brain and helping to prevent the onset of Altzheimers...um...
--
This Orange Multi Media Message was sent wirefree from an Orange MMS
phone.
I keep seeing names of stations i don't recognise. Either i never usually pay attention or i'm going the wrong way :/
Cap'n Matt Chaffinch wishing you a happy Talk Like A Pirate Day!!
ARRR! (etc.)
Why is that as soon as I land another researching job (even though it should be quite good), do all the bloody Assistant Editor jobs start appearing :/
--
This Orange Multi Media Message was sent wirefree from an Orange MMS
phone. If you would like to reply, please either text, phone or send
a photo message to the sender directly by using the phone number listed
in the sender's address. To learn more about Orange's Multi Media
Messaging Service, find us on the Web at http://www.orange.co.uk/mms
Will this bloody work?
[edit] Well apart from all that MMS crap up there yeah. :/[/edit]...and Steve was like all...like, the iTunes Music Store, is just the iTunes Store now, cos like..we've got an ass load of movies in there..
IF YOU'RE IN FUCKING AMERICA YEAH!!!
LIKE ALL THE FUCKING TV SHOWS!!
WHY IS IT SO FUCKING DIFFICULT?!!?
America has had TV shows in iTunes for ages now, at least since half way throudh season one of Lost, and over here in Blighty we got zip!
I downloaded a couple of episodes of Lost today, to catch up on what I'd missed, now that's not right. Ive since deleted them (for space rather than morals), but had they been available in iTunes I would have bloody bought them!
Now I'm not gonna pay for episodes of Dr Who or whatever shite eventually ends up in the UK store (if the broadcasters ever sort their crappy prehistoric ways out and start to realise that there's other mediums out there now!), but stuff like Lost, Battlestar, and if it were available The Amazing Screw On Head, stuff I like, I'd happily buy, especially as they've gone to 640x480 res now, although that's a bit odd, as it's still 4:3 (cos it's all iPod orientated), most broadcast is 16:9 now, and computer monitors are going more and more 16:9.
Although oddly enough the new iMacs are apparently 16:10?!? What's all that about?!
So all these new goodies that the mothership's tempting me with and I can't have any of it. And even if I could, we're stuck in shite old England with it's broadcast industry that fears change and it's crappy broadband. "Surf at superfast speeds* *compared to outer mongolia"
In Japan they have 100Meg connections now, 100-fucking-meg!, why in god's name am I still on 2Meg?!? Oh yeah, cos I live more than 3ft away from the damn exchange.
Bastards.
(A-la gayspace)
Current Mood
HAVE YOU NOT FUCKING GUESSED?!?
Damn Apple!!
They drive me insane with their new stuff!! They announce their special "Showtime" event (today) a few weeks back, then last week, brought out a 24" iMac (w00t!!), after completing the intel transition with the Mac Pro (w00t!!!!!), now they've released an new 80Gb iPod, and are gonna be making a proper TV/Media centre thing.
why do the tease me so, they know I can't afford any of it BOO HOO, OH BOO HOO HOO
Hell Yeah!! Picked it up today, original trilogy lego goodness!! :D
The first one (set in the prequels) is amazing, this one is juat as good!! Bought it earlier, have just completed Episode IV ANH, so not amazingly difficult, but then a) it's lego and b)its aimed at younger kids anyway.
It wont take long to complete, but the magic is in the fact that you HAVE to go back and re-do the levels with different characters to get all of the special items.
I think they should do a full range of Lego platformers.. next up I reckon the Ewok movies..
Caravan Of Courage and Battle For Endor.
Then a bit of Indiana Jones Trilogy would go down well :)
It feels so weird to pay to download music, but I guess it the good and proper thing to do, rather than what some people do
I think it's this iTunes/Coke promo that got me started...I drink far too much Coke, and at the moment they've got this thing where 1 bottle of Coke = 1 iTunes song credit. Cheers, although it's limited to 5 songs per account, not so cheers. Still debating whether to set up any more accounts or not, just to get some more free music.
Plus side : more free music
Down side : having to manage more accounts that I'm only gonna use for 5 free songs each
Is it really worth it? Probably not.
But as a spin off from that, i've gone and paid for 2 whole albums from the store (previous and only purchase (apart from free downloads of the week) was the somewhat dissappointing Kubb album).. Revelations, the new Audioslave album, which rocks like a bitch although Tom Morello *still* needs to sort his damn solo's out :/
And thanks to the iTunes "Just For You" feature which suggests similar artists (sometimes with a fair randomness), I've purchased of Euphoria Morning, a Chris Cornell solo album, which is also quite good, if a little odd in places, but cheers. :)
and I know you're dying to know what I "bought" with my Coke Credits...
1. Dani California - RHCP
2. The Great Pretender - Freddy Mercury
3. Sweet Little Sister - Skid Row
4. We Built This City - Starship
5. Feuer Frei - Rammstein
Good mix huh? Maybe I should post that as an iMix??? ;)
The world has lost a legend. Steve Irwin "The Crocodile Hunter" has been killed today whilst filming for a documentary. :(
I couldn't quite believe the text that my girlfriend sent me this morning, telling me he was dead and that he'd been stabbed in the heart by a Sting-ray's barb, but it's true.
Now while I prefer watching some of the other reptile/animal people who cropped up on TV after Steve kicked everything off, I can't help but feel saddened by this news.
Both myself and my girlfriend thought that Austin Stevens would be the first to go, but it's not the case.
Steve Irwin, to us over here at least, I guess is kinda like a 21st Century Terry Nutkins, little bit edgier, but has done the same thing. Inspired a generation of children to learn more about animals and the world around them. His ridiculously high energy and enthusiasm for all things animal (esp. reptile), not only got him a top rating TV show, but also helped him pour much needed funds into the Australia Zoo in Queensland, raising awareness and support for all things conservation.
He will be missed.
Or it would be if the damn T-Mobile wireless connection was any good!!! Thank Christ it was free and I wasn't paying the ridiculously extortionate charges that they have!!
So an interesting week, cut a couple of sequences for Viral Vision, which was fun, got me better aquainted with Avid Media Composer, but was frustratingly slow. Not the system, just me not knowing my way around properly, but that all comes with experience. I should spend more time with Avid Xpress at home, but the projects I've been working on recently have been in Final Cut, or I've started them in FCP cos I know it better.
Speaking of which, ITGA, is coming along, I'm still pretty confident with the October deadline, I'm kinda finishing as I go...rough cut the scene, then sync the clips and re-cut, tweak the cuts, colour correct and sound mix, tweak the cuts, scowl and swear, etc.
Sound is overall a right pig. After I solved the syncing issues, i'm now onto mixing, which is also a bastard (think I may have mentioned in a previous post), but it's getting there.
Work wise, it's been going well, I finish at SqD on the 8th :(, looks like next week is paperwork week, which isn't really exciting, but will be good to know more about that side of things, especially as it seems the next job I'm going to at Brook Lapping Education is gonna involve a shitload of paperwork!
But, at the end of the day, although I have no interest in becoming a Production Co-Ordinator/Manager, knowing how that side of things works, can only help to improve everything else you do. Having a greater understanding of all aspects of production is better then being solely focussed on one side of things...I could really go for a McDonald's Big breakfast about now :/
a)
Your results:
You are Spider-Man
| You are intelligent, witty, a bit geeky and have great power and responsibility.  |
Click here to take the Superhero Personality Quiz
Well, I'm happy with that! (Although the female ones are a bit iffy)
and b)
Naive by The Kooks, really sounds like another song, possibly American pop-punk, it's ok, I've just clikced, it sounds like something by Alien And Farm...maybe Movies, i'll check that now
Only a couple more hours and I reach the grand old age of 30, this is really the only birthday, where I've actually felt any different (although we'll find out tomorrow, on my actual b'day if it is any different or not).
16 didn't feel any different from 15, 18 didn't feel any different from 17, no real advances to the "adult" world there, I'd been drinking for years, just now I could go and buy it legally..woo-bloody-hoo.
21 came around, the whole coming of age thing..uhuh, nothing really special going on there, in fact through the whole of my twenties, I haven't felt particularly grown up, despite becoming a father, forging a career, then changing career, getting in debt, I still fucked about at work (well, when I was in retail, when all you can do to remain sane is to fuck about), made stupid videos with my friends (now make more serious ones), joined a band, got pissed a fair bit, nothing that struck me as particularly adult.
Even now when I look in the mirror, I don't see "an adult", I see me, ok I've got a goatee (and a fair bit of stubble at the mo), my hair's throwing in a three-pronged assault of both receeding, thinning and going grey (cheers hair :/), yet I haven't felt like an adult since I supposedly became one.
Now approaching the big 3-0, I have this sudden sense of...well..."shit! 30!, that's like proper adult", things spring to mind such as TV programmes like "Thirtysomethings" "Friends", groups of adults, dealing with adult issues...ok maybe not so much in Friends, but you get the idea, it's pretty much a whole new demographic! And that's a tad unsettling.
So, in celebration of my impending b'day, I went out last night, got a load of friends together, went to the pub, had some drinks then went down to The Gloucester for (whatever it's called) an indy night. It's been a good few years since I've been to any club, let alone The Gloucester which I used to frequent, and, yeah, it was a good night, got a little drunk, not majorly, danced about a bit, and felt really really old.
I think it's a defining moment, when you're standing in the middle of a nightclub, not knowing hardly any of the songs and complaining to you friends (who were in agreement) that they needed to play more mid 80's to early 90's stuff, rather than all this new rubbish for all the people in the club who looked like they wanted to be Vince in the mighty boosh.
Then Outer Space by The Prodigy came on and everything was ok for 4 minutes :)
How long will it be before I'm thinking to myself "I can't keep up with these kids!" :/
So today was spent, with a little bit of a headache, sat in front of my mac, cutting ITGA. A lot of fine cutting and sound mixing today. I'm still not keen on anything sound related, although I've solved all the syncing issues now, and used Adobe Audition to clean up a lot of the fridge hum in the bar scene, there's now the issue of having one actor sounding really good, and the other sounding shite (mainly because of shooting on a wider angle and not having as good sound rushes), so more work there.
It's all a learning process tho, and I'll never be too old for that.
I've had a couple of messed up mornings this week. Trying to get back in the habit of getting up for work is not easy.
You stop work, and every day you want a lie in, you wake up at stupid o'clock in the morning, then when it comes to going back to work, all you want to do is sleep!! :/
For instance, this morning, I was at home in Henfield, over slept, woke up at 07:38, my bus was due around 07:40ish, rushed around, brushed my teeth, had a quick wash, chucked some clothes on and ran to the bus stop...missed it there's a surprise. Swore for a bit, then strolled up to the main bus stop to look at the time tables, ok, there's a bus to Burgess Hill at 08:02, which should get me there around 08:30, thus I should be able to get my normal train, cashback. Sure enough that's what happened (the pic is from platform 1 there) and I'm first in the office. Cheers.
Tuesday morning, even worse. In Brighton this time. My alarm on my phone goes off, I switch it off and immediatly drop off again. Wake up, look at the clock 08:30, shit! (my train's 08:36 from Brighton), jump out of bed, run around brush teeth, have a quick wash, look at my phone, the little bell symbol still there saying the alarm's still set, go into the clock switch that off, run around, finish getting dressed. Dash to the train station, thinking all the way about alternative routes to minimise my lateness, get to the station, next train to London Bridge 08:02, dash into the station...slow...stop...think...look up at the boards, next train leaving is 07:53.
Confusion sets in big time. Look at my watch, focus, 07:50, check it again. shit. When I woke up it was 07:30 not 08:30, my alarm never went off, hence why it was still set, and I could've had another 15 mins in bet and a bath in the morning. Damn. Spent most of the train journey up (on the 8:02) still trying to figure it all out.
Sometimes i can be really shit :/
Yep, back for a couple of weeks at Square Donkey, helping with the revisions to Viral Vision, so getting engrossed in the world of internet video once more, coming across stuff like this...
and remember...
Everybody loves Raymond. Except Chuck Norris.
Yes he bloodywell did!! Thank Christ for that!!
It wasn't that bad, 33/35 cheers, hated every minute of the Hazard Perception test, which is a load of bollocks, but hey, I passed, shouldn't grumble ;)
Okay, so some days have past since I last posted and since the shoot, which (if you saw the lookout blog) will know that as far as shoots go and being my first as a director, it went okay.
I've sat through, not all, but most of the rushes, started to drop scenes together to see what I've actually got and not got (soon realising that it's gonna be a hard cut), thinking about where the hell I can find a decent bathroom, and now..when the hell I'm gonna get that shot, as this weekend was the best one for it and after that, god knows on people's availability!?!? :/
I digi'd all the tapes into FCP with my iBook, on the weekend, I've now rigged the hdd back up to my powermac G4 for cutting.
One extra thing I've done is picked up a pair of cheap (and surprisingly good), £14.99 Sony 
So I'm currently flipping between, editing, sound syncing, sorting paperwork, generally procrastinating, thinking about installing ubuntu on my PC and thinking about doing some revision for my driving theory which I have 2moro.
I have to say, I've learnt a hell of a lot from this project (and still learning), knowing my limitations, knowing my abilities, realising how to think differently when you're a director from all the other shoots I've been on.
Learning about compromise on a shoot of this scale, realising how much more time I would've liked to shoot, I don't think I'm gonna love the finished product, but I think I'll like it, yesterday I hated it, but then that was just me getting tired and frustrated.
Sound syncing.
AAAAAARRRRRRGGGGHHHH!!!! yes that's right... AAAAAARRRRRRGGGGHHHH!!!!
I HATE IT!, first off I tried doing it in FCP (Final Cut Pro btw, thought about using Avid for this one, but went the FCP route anyway), my sound was 1/3 of a frame out, and I couldn't move it in anything but 1 whole frame incrememtents (first head in hands moment), so I bunged the shot into Soundtrack, which proved the business (despite crashing a fair few times on my PM), it allowed me to zoom further in and properly sync.
So a few hours and 2 shots synced. Onto the next one..bung it to Soundtrack, sync the clap, done. NOPE, the clap is synced but the pre-take voices are out!?!? Sync the voices, the claps out (and the voices still aren't fully synced!) at that point I went to bed.
I haven't tried syncing any more yet, instead choosing to drop an assembly together to see if the shots I've got actually work, why? because a) I need to, and b) I'm dreading getting to the dialogue and finding that it's all out of sync :/ fingers crossed tho!!
Anyway...back to the grind...
It's the headache. The constant, persistant dull headache.
Yeah and my printer's just ran out of black ink. Cheers. God I'm a grumpy bastard at the moment.
Anyway, getting stuff sorted, managing to make it through a day without being sick from nerves, and yay, soon get to make a "proper" film. :)
Got confirmed delivery times, got booked kit, still outstanding on a couple of things, a loc, an actor, but hey, that's all part and parcel of low budget, slightly poorly prepped, filmmaking ;)
Big kudos and cheers to Sally Reynolds, who's Producing, came on board late in the game (my bad) and has really pulled it together. CHEERS :)
){kind=link}
You'd think by now, i would be able to deal with stress a bit better. I mean, I've been a manager, I've dealth with countless pressured situations, I have some shit go on in my personal life that I've had to deal with, u know the usual "makes you stronger" stuff.
No.
I'm a wreck, I'm worrying about getting another Job, (have 2 weeks work @ sqd now, which is cool), I'm worrying a lot about the shoot this weekend!! Will it come together ok? Can I direct it ok, get my vision across, get the performance I need from the actors, can I explain my ideas clear enough???
Will it look and sound okay? Will I make a [rather expensive] complete hash of it? Will I unwillingly let someone else take over and it end up not really being my vision? Can I get anywhere near my vision???
Damn my worry, damn the world, I'm gonna be grumpy for a while, I just need to make sure that I'm not grumpy on the shoot and that I don't vomit.
MYSPACE!!! it's soo crap, Kevin Rose slagged it off on one of the recent diggnation episodes I watched and he's right, it's so crap.
"I'm sorry cuntspace had unexpectedly shat out it's own internal organs"
AAAARRRGH, I just want to post a damn comment! is that so fucking hard?!?!? Apparently so.
Anyway, short trip to London today, had some top garlic bread mit mozzarella in Pizza Express, cheers :)
How crap is it, really? I've tried all day to log in to deny yet another band's gay-myspace-friend-request and all I'm getting when I click the little login button is..
Sorry, I've unexpectedly shat my own mum out my arse, but I've told the technical losers about it.
Gee thanks. Well done Tom/Rupert whatever cock runs that site and it's clearly crappy servers. When I do finally get to deny the band, I do hope it shows up their end that I did. Have that in your face you Arctic Monkeys wannabes.
NB, obviously these feelings don't apply to any of my friends bands ;)
Well, it had to happen...my last day @ Square Donkey :( I have to say it's been great working here, it's been a fun job and the people are great (no, I'm not just saying that!)
So, today, make sure all the paperwork is up to date and kosher, then drinks :)
Had a fun evening last night, went to a pub quiz with Vicky, down at The Crescent pub, just around the corner from where she lives.
General knowledge, 30 questions, the winning team got a respectable 27, well done them, we scored 9.
Yes 9. We're shit, I'm not doing another pub quiz with just the two of us. It's too embarrasing! :/
I heartily recommend scooting over to scifi.com and watching the full pilot episodes of Eureka and The Amazing Screw On Head.
The first being a bog standard little sci-fi channel series, much like all the other series that are cropping up, like Invasion, Surface etc, but it's really funny, quirky and..well kinda like a grown up Eerie Indiana, which can't be a bad thing!
The ASOHead is an animated series from Mike Mignola...The creator of Hellboy you damn snotwheeze!
Watch them both! And if you feel like it also check out the first episode of Garth Mareghi's Dark Place, proper british lunacy that for some reason wasn't re-commissioned!?!?! Wankers.
No that wasn't my Steve Ballmer impression, although it was pretty close, that was my elatedness (?) at having broadband at home once more! :)
Thankfully, my Orange freebie package is now active and although only 2meg when apparently the line supports 6.5, it's better than dial-up and then nothing which is what I had for the past couple of weeks. Plus I only had 2meg on AOL (if that!)
Not so WOO! is the damn passport service >:/, they've severely pissed me off this week by messing me about something chronic with the delivery of my renewed passport. Now renewing a passport should be an easy (if expensive) process, you fill out the form, pay the money (£58 bleurgh!) and a couple of weeks later they send you a spanking new passport. Not if you move house after you've applied.
Now I didn't think anything of it, mum put a re-direct on the post, so I assumed (yes) that everything would get to me. Of course I didn't count on the fact that the IPS use a specialist courier service called Secure Mail Services (SMS) to deliver their stuff, they tried to deliver my passport to the old house, obviously we weren't there, so I got a letter through the post saying to ring a number and arrange for redelivery. I rang it, got a computer who told me they could send it to my work address. I hung up and got my work addy, phoned back, got a person this time, said could I re-direct to my work addy, they said sure no probs, i gave them the details, they said..
"That's in London yes?"
I said..
"Yup"
"We can't deliver there."
"Um...why?"
"Because your passport is in Brighton"
"Right?"
"So we can't track it to London"
Great..thanks :/
"Okay, can I give you my new home address then?"
"No we can't take that I'm afraid"
"Why not?"
"We can't we can only deliver it to the address on the system"
"But I just gave you my work address to deliver it to"
"We can't do it, you have to phone the passport service and get them to send a fax to us"
And so it begins...4 days of phoning the passport service, in the end to be told that I had to send a fax, which had I been given the right number would have been a hell of a lot easier and would have saved a lot of aggrivation for a little old lady.
That was sent on Monday. I still haven't got my passport and consequentially I couldn't take my theory test (driving) and have lost £21 for my trouble.
THANKS THE BASTARD PASSPORT SERVICE
Just gone a whole weekend with no net access whatsoever! :/
Cancelled my AOL account on Saturday morning, registered for broadband thru Orange, but in the mean time...no access at all! And of course being in Henfield, no wireless either, not even any of my neighbours have an unprotected wireless router. Dammit.
>:/
Dammit! We move, house and I have no broadband. I phone BT, they say the line *is* enabled and it's and AOL issue.
I phone AOL, tell them I've moved and they say sure give us your new address, right it'll take 20 DAYS to transfer your account, but you can have dial-up in the mean time.
Um... Dial-up? 20 days? £30/month? Um...
Dammit.