StereoMIX

Archive for the ‘Ramblings’ Category

IT WOULD PUT ANYONE OFF

June 14th, 2010 by Marvel | 5 Comments | Filed in Life, Ramblings, Rants, theatre

One of the best things about the internet for me is that I no longer have to telephone people to ask things. I hate telephones with a passion, but before the internet they were unavoidable. You always had to ring a shop to ask for opening times, or ring a helpdesk because something was broken – even ringing my friends is a hard task for me because I really hate phones. It’s only within the last few months I’ve been able to speak to my best friend on a telephone with seizing up and leaving huge awkward silences.

So to me, open forums are brilliant. One of the best ideas ever. Instead of ringing a lighting company to ask them what could be wrong with my old school’s broken collection of intelligent lighting fixtures, I just searched for a backstage / tech forum. I found on, signed up and wrote a full, detailed description before sitting back and waiting for other helpful technicians to offer their friendly advice.

It didn’t happen.

People replied obviously, because that’s what happens on a forum, but instead of offering the expected friendly advice, I just got slated by people I didn’t even know. Their problem being that their tax money has been wasted on lights that are now broken and won’t get repaired.

While it’s true that the lights probably won’t get fixed for a while, if at all, I was on that forum for advice, especially with two lights that I simply can’t diagnose at all. Instead, I have grown adults yelling at me, as if I personally took their tax money and bought the lights, then broke them on purpose.

I don’t work in that school, I’m a past pupil who took the time to learn how to use the lights so they wouldn’t be wasted. The school is a performing arts school, and the lights have been put to good use, especially when I was there. I used them nearly every week for various things. I now feel personally guilty to all these people and I don’t even have a reason too. I paid tax too when I was working, now I’m 18 I pay tax on the £3 something that’s in my bank, because I still haven’t been paid from some work I did before Easter. If I ever do get that money, I’ll be taxed on that too.

Next time I have a problem with anything, I’m going to keep it to myself. I’ve never felt so small and stupid in my life. It’s really put me off. Maybe I’m over – reacting. I’m having a bad week, maybe I’m taking it too personally, so if you want to see for yourself, this is the link. If you can be bothered reading it (it makes for a dry read) please tell me what you think.

Right, I promise to do this again.

May 17th, 2010 by Marvel | 5 Comments | Filed in Life, Ramblings, Rugby, theatre

I know it has been so long since I haven’t blogged. I’ve been tired. Basically.

I’ve completely run out of money. I haven’t been paid from one of my jobs, and my last job gave me £160, which is a lot for 10 hours of work, but when that’s the only paid work you’re going to have for a while, it isn’t much. I honestly can’t tell you what I spent it on. I know some of it went to my sister (who has assured me, she will pay me the £210 she owes me once she has been paid) and £10 of it went on a cardigan. Other than that…I honestly don’t have a clue. Food and bus fare it seems, I haven’t even bought iTunes money.

I did buy two hamsters, but that got taken out of the money I am owed by my parents, and even then, the hamsters, their cage, food, bedding,woodshavings, cleaning supplies and toys only came to £70, which isn’t that bad. And I like the responsibility of having them, they are teaching me to me more mature and reliable.

But anyway, I’m now writing for Bido Lito magazine (another un-paying job, but it makes me a lot of contacts in the media world.) My first job is Wednesday, reviewing The Fall in Liverpool Sound City. I am a huge Fall fan, so I’m actually really looking forward to this. I saw them last time they played in Liverpool and it really was amazing. On Saturday I also have to go and review Go Fiasco, Copyright and The Temps! It’ll be hard writing a neutral review of them, seeing as I’ve known them all for about three years, but I reckon that’ll be a fun challenge!

Also, I got the job as the lighting designer / operator for Ian Moore’s new play. I start that tomorrow, but the play itself isn’t until late July, and when it gets taken to other cities I have to pay for my own accommodation. We’re not forced to stay over, we can travel back to Liverpool every night, but I get so travel sick it really wouldn’t be a good idea to.

I know most people will just be thinking “get a proper waged job then” and I would agree with them wholeheartedly. I should get a real job like real people do. But, at the same time, if I got a proper waged job, I wouldn’t have time to do the different theatres, the rugby and the magazine, all of which are really really important to me and useful experience for what I want to do in the future.

So, until I get paid again, I’m grabbing bits of money here and there. I’ve put a link to my host up, and they’ll give me money if people sign up to anything from my link. I’m also tempted, once my hits have gone up a bit, to put GoogleAds on the site, just as a little extra. Really, I don’t waste my money. I don’t go out drinking, I don’t buy expensive clothes or bags or shoes, most of my money really does go on bus fare to and from places.

I’m doing a bit of work for another band, and once I’ve finished that, I’ll add some more content up here. The Temps website has been updated, and I’m making a website for a band called Dear Chicago. They’re both linked at the bottom.

So, toodles!

In a stark contrast to my second post…

March 7th, 2010 by Marvel | 3 Comments | Filed in Life, Ramblings

I would really like to write a great review on The Crazies. I would like to say how much I enjoyed it, how much it captured my interest and how it was one of the best things I’ve ever seen.

Sadly, I can’t. Not because the film was awful. Not because I hated every second. Not because it was boring. It was not of these things.

It was however, very shaky and out of focus, and as I result I got motion sickness and couldn’t watch. I realise, yes, I am pathetic.

The bits I did see and hear though were very good. A tad predictable, but everything is now. It’s not by any means the greatest film of all time, but it really is worth a watch if you’re struggling thinking of something to see. And unlike wolfman, the effects and make-up are very very good, so the only laughter will be nervous laughter. Or humor, because there are some one-liners that the charming lady next to me found hilarious.

I mean charming in the most sarcastic sense imaginable. You get some horrible people in cinemas now.

So, Pokémon HeartGold and SoulSilver are released on the 26th. I can’t wait. Gold and Silver were two of the greatest Pokémon games ever made, so I’m completely for remaking them for DS, because my GameBoy cartridge died a few months ago. As long as they keep the game play virtually the same, with the Aprikorns and the Mobile Phone and the radio, fine by me. I’m going to get both versions and complete my Pokédex. And you can probably link up with Diamond, Pearl and Platinum? I hope you can anyway, imagine the possibilities. I never bought FireRed or LeafGreen, which I was really disapointed about. I did want to play those purely because I never had Pokémon Blue and couldn’t complete my Pokédex.

I was going to preorder them yesterday because you could get a weeny Ho-Oh or Lugia figure, but I bought Pokémon: Battle Revolution for the Wii instead. Mewtwo in full 3D gaming glory? I think so.

___________________________________________________________________________

I think I can now begin again.

February 22nd, 2010 by Marvel | 6 Comments | Filed in Ramblings

Stereo Mix was never a good website.
Ever.

When I shut down my first website (torn-wings. You know, it did quite well.) I had all these grand plans. I would make this brilliant website with loads of things for people to use, and I’d get loads of visitors and everyone would think I was awesome. But there were a few flaws with my plan.

The first was that I actually can’t make very good graphics. Which, is a flaw when making a resource website really.
The second flaw was the timing. I did it two years ago, when I started 6th form. Suddenly I had exams, coursework, revision…and World of Warcraft.

So the other day, when I was playing about in my cPanel and accidentally installed a CMS which wiped over some of my main folders, thus getting rid of some important parts of my so called “website”, I didn’t really care that much. I installed a few CMSs, then didn’t like them, so uninstalled them. Then I installed Wordpress, but it was too hard so I uninstalled Wordpress. Then I coded by hand again, but it wasn’t as nice as Wordpress, so I reinstalled Wordpress.

So now, here’s a fresh new start. I’ll get used to wordpress as I go along, so I’ll keep improving the look of the site and such like and it just might become the site I wanted two years ago (cue inpirational and heart warming music.)

But first, I want to give you all a warning in the form of this story.

On Saturday, in a fit of boredom I gathered a bunch of friends and strolled into town. We went for some food, then went for a wander. Then 3 of them left, leaving me, Thom, my sister Jenny and her boyfriend Hendo. It was still early and we didn’t want to go home, so we continued to wander to the Cinema in town. The only thing on at the time was Wolfman, and Jenny said the adverts looked pretty good, so we bought tickets, Thom bought food which he ate during the adverts and we waited for the show to start.

I promise you, I’d have rather carried on watching the adverts for other films. Wolfman was awful, filled with rushed scenes, poor cgi, hammy acting by Hopkins and really, a poor plot. Along with this, we had strange accents, an almost invisible romance sub-plot which may as well have been left out of the film, and very unbelievable circumstances.

Everything about it just seemed cheesey and completely outdated, especially the “special” effects. Take Lupin’s wolf in Harry Potter:

: Pale and a tad scrawny, but we fully accepted it

We all knew it was CGI, it wasn’t hugely convincing, but it was good and, most importantly, we took it seriously. Now, see this:

: Ha ha ha ha

It looks ridiculous. And decades old. And laughable. And this just set the tone for the whole film. The location was a dark, spooky victorian countryside, all misty and sinister like some sort of mad Wuthering Heights. The acting by the two main characters (Del Toro and Blunt) was actually accaptable, but it really was hard to judge under the circumstances.

The film also seemed to throw in constant scenes of pointless gore. In one scene a man falls on railings. This was the only part of the film which envoked any sort of reaction from me, because I’ve never been comfortable with that. But there was constant mauling and scratching and bleeding and flesh ripping…which really just added to the outdated-ness of the film.

It was a shame, because somewhere, burried within the…the shitness of the rest of the film, was some potential. But only some.

While waiting for the fun to start though, I did happen to see previews for The Crazies and Shutter Island. I only hope they aren’t as awful as Wolfman, because sadly, I do believe there will be worse films made.