London

Having lived in London for the past eight months, it may sound entirely hackneyed (and yes I see what I did there) but you do genuinely learn a few things about the place. I visited the city many times before I moved here, but it always felt like a whirlwind visit, even though once I actually came here for a whole weekend.

That's the thing about living somewhere, you get to view it from a completely different perspective. Instead of looking for the best monuments, the nicest place to have a meal or the nearest toilet you now look for the quickest route, the best supplied food shop and the cheapest place to go on a night out. So here are a couple of things that may or may not surprise you about the capital of England that I've picked up.

i. People are afraid of the special seats on the buses

I'm definitely the kind of guy who prefers a bus journey over a tube, and of course this is due to the scenery and not the price... *ahem*. Actually, joking aside, the bus is infinitely better as in the summer the tube gets way too hot even in the slightest heat and it's always jam packed for about half the day. The buses come along just as often, you get more choices and is usually less crowded meaning you are usually guaranteed a seat. Speaking of which, like I mentioned at top of this paragraph, people don't like to sit in the disabled/elderly seats. Maybe they're afraid in case they are forced to give it up a few minutes later or perhaps they're concerned what the others will think of them. All I can say is if you're given the opportunity, just go ahead and take it. Not only will you likely never see any of the passengers again, but they don't even care. The ultimate trifecta for me is getting the inside seat right next to the door and then an elderly person sitting next to you. Ain't nobody gonna ask that old lady next to ya to shift her ass so's they can get yo seat foo'!

ii. There are stars in London

I'm not much of a huge celebrity person, but living in London and working for MTV has allowed to meet far more than I ever suspected I would. I won't go into names, but you should know (and probably be disappointed to learn) that none of them were truly A-listers so please don't feel the need to hate me too much! However, these aren't the stars I'm talking about, so I'd like to direct your attention up into the vast and epic space above. Yep, those ones. People will have probably told you at some point how the light pollution prevents people in big cities from viewing the spectacle that is space itself, but I'm here to tell you they're wrong. On my walk back home tonight, I couldn't help but be impressed by how brightly the moon was shining and looking around it I spotted quite a few shining gaseous giants. Not only this, but during the last major meteor shower, I was sat on my windowsill at 1 in the morning staring out into the sky and checking them out with nothing but my corneas. Of course you have to watch out for the planes, because they do appear very often but nowhere near frequent enough to taint your view. Besides, planes take you to nice places so what is there to moan about?

iii. People can be nice. People can be rude.

One of the only preconceptions I had before I left Wales was that people in London were going to be the grumpiest creatures in the land. Having nothing to base this off other than the odd episode of Eastenders and some gangster films, I probably didn't do myself any favours. So when I finally arrived, in a house full of the most welcoming people, shortly followed by a day of working with some of the greatest company and then going to visit friends in some of the busiest tourist spots, I did get a bit of a shock. People were all incredibly courteous and gentile! How long that impression stayed with me I don't know, but my guess is probably 24 hours. Trust me when I say this; soon after you arrive here, it may be one day, one week or if you're lucky, one year, but you will eventually meet the person who will burst your politeness bubble. Mine wasn't a particularly dastardly villain or vicious criminal, but it was merely a guy who probably didn't feel like waiting. He jumped ahead of a very long queue on the bus that I was standing in. Normally, due to the aforementioned public transport efficiency, I wouldn't mind but this guy's getting in front of me meant that one person behind me wouldn't be getting on this bus. Seeing as this was the only bus at the stop and no sign of another (and I think it was raining) that meant a potential ten minute wait. But the worst thing is, nobody even challenged him! I am not going to lie to you and say that I would have said something in a different circumstance, but I was nowhere near the front at that moment and only realised this rude act after he had gotten on. Could this be a result of fear of a retaliation by said queue jumper? Perhaps. Or could this be the result of a city full of people who are so used to it that they see it as a part of their daily life? Likely. Either way, those people are few and far between, but they are far outnumbered by the type of people who will step out of the way for you when they see you on your run and don't want to force you onto the road, by the people who will smile and say thank you when you let them go ahead of you and the people who will smile at you occasionally if you catch their eye (even if it sometimes through an accidental manner!) so I summarise with the headline to this paragraph, because that's just the way it is.

I shall have more of these for you, but for now my time is up and I have a few winks to try and catch. Goodnight everybody!

Reboot

It's been a while. In fact, somebody out there who commented on a really old blog post recently, I have you to thank for getting me to write this post. At least in my absence there have been quite a few drastic changes in my life to write about, so this post should be, in theory, very interesting. So let's get started.

The biggest change? Moving to London. Yes, I've bid farewell to the Swansea accent, Joe's ice cream and Welsh cakes (and of course my family and friends, the latter of which were dwindling when I left) and embraced a brand new city, even country, to start a new phase in my life. I've been dreaming about moving to the capital for a few years now, and as I approach the 8 month mark in my London life I can say without a doubt that I haven't been disappointed. There's always something to do, places to go and it never seems to stop. Yes, it really is like all those cliches you've heard. Take for example one of my earliest nights out here, where I left a pub in central London at 2am, was able to catch a bus home at that time (the memory of having to leave a Swansea night out at 10pm to get the last bus home after failing to wangle myself a lift home) and approaching 3 in the morning, I saw out of my window a store that was still open, on a Saturday night/Sunday morning, with boxes of fresh fruit and veg out the front. Where else in the UK can you really buy a cauliflower when 95% of the country is asleep?

Of course it's not just that, the enjoyment of living amongst so much culture and entertainment has been fascinating. I actually live in the area where they filmed the majority of one of my favourite films; 'Shaun Of The Dead' Every time I remember, it makes me smile. I've spotted scenes in other films which were shot near my house, such as 28 Weeks Later, and believe there are many others to be discovered, if only I had the time to spend watching it all.

Speaking of lack of time and the media, it might not shock you now to learn of the other big change in my life, one which makes a lot of sense when you consider the first. I have a job! Yes, I am now the official Acquisitions Intern at a very prestigious youth focused broadcaster. Remember that interview I posted about in my last post? Well I got the job, so I now work for MTV! It was possibly the best first job I could have hoped to get. It's been 8 months here so far and I've really enjoyed my time so much. Not only is the job incredibly fun and involves what I love to do in my own time (i.e watch and talk about a lot of TV shows) but the people there and the atmosphere/working conditions have been insanely good. It's a shame that currently there are no options to extend my contract there past the end of the year, but I knew this wouldn't last forever and to have been there longer than they originally contracted me for was a huge compliment to my work. There is still the option of getting an internal vacancy there but that's no guarantee and I have been looking elsewhere just in case. I shall share those aspirations of mine in another post.

I am going to leave it there for now, but will come up with a more well thought out post very soon to get myself back into the swing of updating more regularly.

Wales

Very sad times, it seems I didn't create a single new post in the month of February 2010. Well at least I've managed to sneak in one on the most important day in the Welsh calendar, St Davids Day! Or to put it in its native tongue; dydd gwyl dewi sant

Speaking of which, I'm aiming to learn Welsh at some point. Terrible pun aside, I've already started looking into it, having decided which book to buy to aid me with the basics.

I've had quite the social life as of late, which I think had something to do with the enormous feeling of optimism and general 'loving life' I had today. Things are finally looking up; I have a job interview on Thursday for MTV which I really hope I get offered (even if my good friend is going for exactly the same position!) as well as the not yet rejection from the BBC Runners Pool having rung them up today to check. Also I have work experience at Hat Trick for the 8-12th March, which apparently Adam didn't help me with even though I'm inclined not to believe him, and am feeling greatly optimistic about my chances of moving to London before the halfway point of 2010.

Aside from that, I've generally had a lot more of a busy life these past few days than I have the last couple of months. I've been doing something productive every single day for a while now, and it's paying off. I've got a few new projects in the works, two involving some filming.

I'm listening to BBC6 Music now and I'm actually quite surprised how much I'm enjoying it. I can never remember any of the songs I've listened to, but it's brilliant for doing other stuff with it on in the background. I really hope it doesn't get axed though, as it's home to the amazing Adam and Joe!

I'm forgetting a lot of news in this post, but I really don't want to ramble so here it ends-

Effects

I got off my arse and started up Adobe After Effects again, hoping to crawl out of the funktastic hole I had hibernated in these past few months. It worked, and I sit here having gotten the really-difficult-to-complete piece known as the 'Coming Up' segment finished. I'd love to show you, but you'll have to wait until I release the show itself! It's awfully late and won't be relevant to anybody but I'm putting my heart and soul into it because I want this to be my best work, seeing as it's the last that will have come from my XTV life. I'm hoping to come into enough money to get the Come Dine With Us footage repaired eventually, but not holding my breath for that.

I haven't really done much since I last updated apart from what I've written about above, I just figured it would be nice to try and keep this going a bit, especially after having such a creative revival. Only four or so days until I can watch the sixth and final season premiere of Lost. What a fantastic show! I bought the first season while working at hmv, but still haven't opened it. I guess I won't ever get around to watching all previous seasons before starting the sixth, which would be quite relevant as the rumours suggest there's a lot of original cast members making an appearance. Never mind, we'll find out how true that is soon.

WWID?

I just glanced back at the first ever post I wrote for this blog, and it surprised me. Not only because it was well written, but because it seems like I had this whole vision for how my life was supposed to turn out. Three and a half years later, and nothings really changed except the people I know and a bit of knowledge. This has made me feel quite down.

I think it's about time that I took some inspiration from my younger self. The whole point of life is to get things done, not to sit around and wait for things to happen to you, because they don't. If you have a creative idea, use it and make something beautiful, don't let it waste away inside your head. This blog shall now be about making my ideas come to life and my aspirations become a reality. I will do you proud 20 year old me.

Avatar

I feel a bit late to the party making a blog post about Avatar, and technically this belongs in another blog as I could do a huge article on it, but I'm going to keep it simple. I do want to state that I was at the first screening in Wales of this film, so I'm nowhere near a latecomer to seeing this.

A friend of mine just told me their opinion of the film, specifically regarding the plot, and that it didn't live up to expectations. Trying to be concise in my response, I put it this way; just because the basics of a story are familiar or simple, doesn't mean you can't make a great film out of it. The Na'vi could have had a spy in the human ranks or there could have been another tribe around to make the story more interesting, but the film wasn't about that. It wanted to show you this new world and how the tribe of inhabitants lived on it, and weave in a story about humans wanting to take something from them to show us how they coped with it. Simple, yes. Effective, yes. Entertaining, hell yes.

Aside from that, I had a brilliant weekend in Exeter. Friday I arrived in the afternoon, went to Dan and Jamies and we all had an Indian takeaway. Saturday consisted of me and Jamie going into town, have a bit of a wander round, then meet up with the people filming the music video. Afterwards I met Simon and spent the afternoon playing Borderlands. Then in the evening, we went to the Black Horse and had drinks for Pips Graduation, was great to catch up with her and glad she's doing well. Went to firehouse afterwards and stayed til they kicked us out! Sunday went back to Firehouse for sunday lunch, got sidelined to my own table, partially cos I was the last to go down and order my food but got served on my own instead of the group and had my food arrive first, partly because the table wasn't big enough for my ex housemates Dave and Simon to fit on so we sat on our own. Then in the afternoon we had another roast dinner, that's right, TWO, with my old housemates but including the rest and also Steve and Dave's girlfriend Kate who's really nice. I made a cake earlier which we ate, then we had vienetta which we ended up flicking around everywhere. On the Monday, there was much dossing around in the XTV office likes times of old, and then the evening held a comedy event in Mama Stones which was good apart from the talking audience at the back. On the Tuesday I left for Bristol, and met up with Dave where we had food and then also CJ where we had food again in a place called Start The Bus and Fern, Dave's girlfriend, came too. At 9pm I left, and then I got home yesterday evening pretty late.

Continue

It's been a while since I wrote in this, and I won't promise that the future holds any form of regular updating, but I will always try to post something up, even if it's incredibly short, when I remember about it. And so let's delve straight into the first entry of 2010.

As I sit here, my situation is as follows; I'm still living with my Dad, and jobwise I had a temporary position in hmv over xmas until 3rd Jan, but now I'm sending out emails and applying for the occasional media job in order to chance upon a TV production based vacancy or work experience placement. The trick to succeeding with that apparently is to send out as many emails as you can, and while I have begun this in a pretty slow manner, this will improve as the main excuse has been not really knowing how to structure the perfect email (I blame my perfectionism). Having written quite a few so far, I do appear to be getting better at it, or at least not caring so much about the final draft. I only made a single resolution this year, which was to get a job in the TV business. Hopefully this amount of emailing will get me somewhere. I should mention that I have one potential option, my friend Ceri has told me he will chat to the guys at a local production company called Telesgop and see if he can get me some work experience there, and so I must promise to myself to chase him up on that. That'd be a great headstart.

Other things that I'm currently doing are far and few between. As this is a catch up blog post, I'm cramming a lot in and so the form will have to suffer. I've booked tickets for a lengthy stay (Particularly on a dole income) in Exeter to see all the friends I haven't seen in ages. It should be good, though I've been asked to stick around until Tuesday to see a friends comedy event, and this makes me wonder if I'll be missing my own bed and privacy by then! Ah screw it, I'll enjoy getting to catch up with everyone and will treat it like a holiday.

I've still yet to finish writing a draft of 'Backstage' and for those of you who don't know what that is, it's a comedy script I've been asked to work on by a friend of mine in the business. However, I did start the whole thing again, and showed the first couple of pages to him and he told me it's the most promising he's seen it so far, which was quite pleasing to hear. I do add to it now and then but it's not going at a pace I'm happy with for the time being. It's worth mentioning that I did attempt a novel writing month challenge to write 50,000 words, but the challenge soon exceeded my capabilities and I gave up after a measly 10,000. I really should work through that while I have some free time.

Family politics now, and things are going great. My Dad is away often but that's a positive thing because he gets very agitated over the smallest things; I've put this down to him still being in the giddy phase (Though it's lasted bloody ages) of being in a relationship, and time spent away from her is grumpy time. It gives me a bit of freedom and peace when he's in Cardiff, but we still get along well most of the time. My Mum and I are on getting along really well, though there's not been a negative incident between us since at least a year ago (I think) and though I only see her once a week roughly, it's always joyful, and my little sis Emily is always ringing me on her mobile phone, I should ring her for once cos she obviously misses me and it would be nice for her to know that I care about her enough to speak to her of my own accord; thing is she won't give me a chance as she always gets there first! As for siblings, my bro plans to move out soon and we are getting along well which comes and goes, my sis Chloe is working a lot and I don't see her very much and my other sis Vicky is at Uni and in a seemingly 'controlling' relationship with her boyfriend Chris, but I don't know for sure, and I probably shouldn't even mention it, but this is a blog for me and I think I'd be interested to read this back in a couple of years and see if I was wrong about it.

I've applied for a BBC job in London for people who don't have much experience, and if they give me a chance to go to the next stage which is the interview stage, I am positive I can make them love me enough to hire me. Annoyingly I don't have much luck getting past the application forms, I need to practice that a bit.

It is way too late now, so I will finish downloading the new season of 24 and go to sleep. Night night.

Windows

I managed to snag myself a fantastic and legitimate Windows 7 upgrade for £30. It's 64 bit, which makes me worry ever so slightly because I am only assuming my very recently bought processor can handle it, and won't give me any problems when I upgrade. I have faith in it though!

TV has been the main pleasure in my life recently. I have been fascinated watching all the brand new shows that are out in the USA, deciding which ones I will follow when they make it to the UK (Some, like Flashforward, are incredibly close to their US airing dates which bodes well for us Brits!) Out of the ones I've seen, I'll be following these with eager anticipation:

1. Glee - A musical show following a school's glee club. Yes, this does sound a little bit camp, and it is which would normally put me off, but what's not evident until you work your way through to episode four is that this shows really got heart. In fact, if the fourth episode doesn't at least make you laugh and tear up just a little bit then you may be a broken individual. It moved the story surprisingly quickly for a drama too which is my biggest complaint of the genre.

2. The Good Wife - It's one of those 'smug' drama shows (Like Trauma and Mercy, two pilots I didn't care much for) but it teeters very carefully on the edge of being excellent and doesn't fall into the pretentious category... yet. It had an interesting storyline, and the acting in it is really good. Amazing almost. It's about the wife of a politician involved in a scandal who decides to be a lawyer again despite things like her family, her situation and her age and gender being against her.

3. Community - This show has Chevy Chase in! That should be enough, but this comedy has great characterisation and enough variety in them to provide plenty of interesting scenarios. It's about a group of misfits in a community college organised into a study group by a sarcastic prick who wants to bed this smart, gorgeous woman. It's gonna be a grower but I have a good feeling about it. Which probably means it'll get cancelled.

4. Modern Family - The greatest thing about this show is the variety of actors in it. It's got 'Ted Bundy' playing the older husband of a hot, younger mexican woman, and the geeky guy from the underrate show 'The Class' from a couple of years ago, who I always thought was great. And I won't tell you what it's about because the reveal at the end of the pilot was great and I didn't expect it, despite it being a pretty lame 'twist'.

Also, I've wondered whether I could try to carve myself out a career as a writer for games, especially after the issue of bad writing was highlighted in last nights airing of Gameswipe in the UK. I've always spent lots of my mind wanderingtime thinking about epic stories, and trying to construct them into working projects, and also when playing games I've always thought of ways to improve the story or at least make it more entertaining. Could I possibly create myself a wonderful little niche career here?

Multiplayer

I was just having a nice little think back to the time when I was forced against my will to partake in a little game called 'Red Steel' (Okay, it wasn't technically forcing, but they did decide to play it despite me protesting that it would be rubbish!) That was as close to a weird and frustrating multiplayer gaming experience as I've ever had.

Firstly, the controls are extremely fiddly and lead to you not actually being able to aim. Compare this to any other first person shooter, you know that upon sight of an enemy, either you or him are going down mostly within the three seconds after initial contact. In Red Steel, seeing an enemy is an experience that is shortly followed by you losing sight of them as you struggle to face them due to the overly sensitive motion sensing dynamic. A few seconds later, you catch sight of them through sheer luck or determined co-ordination, and then you try to shoot them. This becomes a greater challenge, and results usually in running past them, losing sight of them again or simply missing them. I swear there was one time where me and a friend had been trying to kill each other for nearly three or four minutes before one of us took the other out. What a mind bendingly annoying game.

As for my personal life, I've found myself just coming out of a groove of having little contact with real people, through my own lack of motivation. However, now that my best mate Dave has been down in Swansea for the past few days I've hung out with him a lot, have sorted out a few meetups during the next couple of weeks and got myself a lovely and desperately needed job interview for next week I feel a lot better about my situation.

I hope Red Steel 2 is a bloody awesome game, cos aside from Mario Galaxy 2 I have no reason to keep my Wii as it stands. Where are all the good games Nintendo?

Cube

Time for a little spiel on ITV's newest game show output, The Cube. I admit, I was hooked on this idea from the very moment I saw it advertised. It has all the makings of a videogame, specifically comparable to those on the Nintendo DS, Wario Ware comes to mind but even the Brain Training series must bear some of the inspiration for this programme. (Interestingly, a game show based around the latter has already been created: Britain's Best Brain) I like it the same way I liked the Krypton Factor when it was on, less so the modern version, because it challenged the contestants on it to use not just their knowledge but also their brain's more obscure abilities.

Just a simple summary for those who haven't seen it, the Cube is a roughly 10 foot perspex cube in which each player has to step inside to perform simple tasks like throwing a ball into a bucket or counting the number of squares on the floor. They begin with 9 lives, losing one every time they fail a task, but once they decide to go for a game, they must keep playing until they win or lose all their lives. While it sounds simple, the pressure is immense and the prizes are steep, and each game has the chance to take away everything as there are no safe zones.

The games, while they are simple, are more fun to watch the contestants do than answer any question or guess any value, because it almost feels like you could be there with them, or instead of them, performing these tasks and winning money. Most other game shows I've watched don't seem to get this; take Crystal Maze, one of my favourite activity based game shows out there. Instead of rooting for them to win, I always feel cringeworthy because they take the most idiotic selection of people and put them in these fun games which they almost inevitably balls up. It makes for very uncomfortable watching.

That brings us to these contestants. While we've seen only 6 or 7 of them on the show so far, they all have a likeable quality to them. This is down to the people producing it, who have selected some very fun or very entertaining people to watch. None of them are perfect, and each of them have come very close to losing the game, but they all are doing it for decent enough reasons and ease you into the spirit of the game. One guy on last week was 'wacky' enough to take his trousers off to complete one game, but he won £50,000 from it so all due respect to him!

As for the best and worst moments on this show, well the latter is clearly the over stylised camera zooming, slowing down and rotating, which tries some new things but ultimately comes across as trying too hard. On the opposite end of the scale, Philip Schofield is a top choice as presenter, as he makes plenty of brilliantly amusing noises every time the contestant comes very close to winning a game, with plenty of 'OOOOH!'s and 'AAAAAAH!'s, worth watching for.

If you'd like to watch it, currently all episodes are on the ITV Player (Which I think is the worst of the online catch up services atm, but at least it doesn't skip whole passage like it did before) but it's on ITV1 every Saturday at around the 8.30pm mark. Watch it.

Wrotten

I've never felt strongly about a lot of things in my life. I put this down to my carefree and mellow personality, or maybe due to a frequently dissipating interest in certain passions of mine. When I do get worked up about an issue, it's nearly always one that many others have already trodden, and thus I feel like some kind of 'hanger on', which does nothing to maintain my attention, and so I leave the ranting and the raving to the professionals who can make better arguments than me (I have never been one for articulating). So it surprised me the other day, when watching nothing other than an unrealistic, entertaining film, that I felt so invariably worked up over what was really a minor issue.

The film in question was Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. I know all the issues people had with it, including the oft mocked final reveal, which I must confess I was one of the majority spouting about how ridiculous it was. None of the big aliens reveal really affected me, because looking back to the other chapters in the series there were ghosts, demons and ancient booby trapped mines, all of which were equally as implausible, and at the end of the day, they are films to wile away a couple of hours not historical re-enactments or educational vehicles. No, what really got me was the rather minor side story involving the tiny monkeys and the Tarzan escape scene.

If you've seen the film, and I think it's worth checking out, you'll know how this bit is set up. Mud, played by Shia Labeouf, is standing on the top of a moving vehicle in the jungle, gets distracted by something, and ends up getting whomped (Gotta love that word, it so perfectly emulates the sound) by a stray vine leaving him up in the trees. All of a sudden, out of nowhere, a horde of monkeys approaches him and he eventually catches up to the vehicle convoy by swinging on the vines and landing in one of the jeeps which are zipping alongside the edge of a cliff. Now, I can forgive this jovial and almost ridiculous side story, I understand the whole film is full of little jokes and unreal situations, but what tipped it over the edge for me was the complete lack of LOGIC to this nonsense.

Logically, if the three cars that he catches up to have been going at the same speed the whole time, where it is clearly shown that they do not ever slow down in between these two events, then there is no way in hell he could have caught up to them by simply swinging along. Not only is the speed of vine swinging much slower than the cars velocity, but that's neglecting the time he takes to sort himself out after getting stuck in the first place. Then there's the matter of whether he had the strength to be swinging along the whole time without his arms hurting. Topping it all off, the cars never once seemed to turn around even the slightest meaning that he could never have caught up with them by taking a short cut.

Okay, by now you probably think I'm an extremely pedantic moron, but would it have been so hard for the writers to have come up with a slightly more realistic way for the boy to have made it back to the convoy? Realistically, they could have opted to show the vehicles turning a long and drastic curve along the cliffside, or perhaps not having Mud get swept up into the trees in the first place. I'm thinking even being picked up by a gigantic eagle would have been more plausible, maybe even finding some of those floating treadmills they always have in platforming games, the type that speeds up your movement in a certain direction. I would even have accepted a teleportation device, but the vine swinging is such an awful decision I'm tempted to believe they came up with this at the end of the writing session, when they resorted to filling plot holes by throwing darts at a dictionary!

It's episodes like this that truly encourage me to believe that I could be a writer one day, and a successful one at that. I wouldn't let this type of shit slide in a film that was supposed to resurrect, even temporarily, a MEGA series. I can't even honestly say that I would be happy for this gaping error to be fitting for any particular genre of film, and thus I deem it shameful. Shame on whoever wrote that abysmal piece of script. If I ever find out who you are, I will hunt you out and sit you down, explaining to you EXACTLY what you did wrong and make you cry through your awful writing ability! It's lucky for you then, that I probably won't see this through, because like I said, my interest in stuff wanes rather quickly...

Inbetween

Just a quick update to keep myself assured that I will keep up with the next batch of updates.

I'm currently looking for a job in the TV industry, and so far I seem to be stumbling across a couple of good potential opportunities. Whether I get any further than the application process remains to be seen, but I will surely let you know in time if I do. What's good about this is I have a plan. It is very difficult to get a proper job without any experience whatsoever. I have very limited experience, especially to a professional, in that I've only done student TV and nothing more. I do however have a couple of work experience positions lined up for me in January, and so I feel that even if I do fail to get any of the jobs that crop up between now and February, I will almost be certain to get something off the back of the things at the beginning of next year, so as I said, I have a plan. An approximately 6 month plan, but still a plan nonetheless.

Also should be working on Uncovered, and I really want to get this done soon, but my PC still has the incredibly irritating problem that it doesn't want to play any audio without accompanying it with a horrific scratching sound that does nothing to quell torrents of unholy rage that comes from its irritation.

Uncovered

Yes, it's that time of the year again, when I get round to editing the newest episode of the show I produce. I haven't been too good with hitting deadlines recently, but I don't think I ever have been. All I wish to say is that this episode will be worth waiting for, and I hope people will appreciate that.

I still have two tapes to find before I can start a proper edit, one of them I can grab the data for off the XTV computers if I don't find it, the other is extra footage which will make one of the features I'm editing easier, but is not absolutely necessary.

And that's that. Need some inspiration now!

Serious

How do you tell somebody that the reason you've been so cold to them lately is because you cannot possibly tell them what you really think about them? Bonus points for being able to do this without telling them the real reason.

Quickly

I wonder how many grand pianos have been destroyed in the name of comedy or art over the years?

TV

I think I may be adding another blog to my collection at some point, but this one will be a more bullet point format, adding little tidbits of news rather than a full blog entry. What shall it be about? Check the title of this post for a clue.

So, I have a few enticing newsbites about some TV stuff, so for those of you who are ultra keen to avoid any spoilers of sorts, look away. Even though they really aren't very big spoilers at all.

First up, My Name Is Earl, a very entertaining comedy show by NBC which ran for four seasons before being axed at the end of the last season is potentially being rescued by a cable company TBS which already airs shows such as Ten Items Or Less. I'm keeping my fingers crossed for this to go through, I would always resent the fact that the show never got a proper finale if it doesn't!

Secondly, Katee Sackhoff from Battlestar Galactica [A really fantastic show, check it out if you can] is going to be joining the cast of 24 for season eight. This comes along with the news that she will be playing the love interest for Freddie Prinze Jr's character. Now, Katee was a superb actress in BSG so this only excited me more about the new season, especially after seven was so great. Source

Finally, Margaret Mountford off The Apprentice is leaving, but who is going to replace her? This woman: Karren Brady aka the only woman interviewer from the penultimate episodes of the show. She's more attractive than margaret, but will she hold up to her predecessors eye rolling expertise and sharp criticisms? Only time will tell. Also, I should note that this is only speculation and not based on any fact, but it does seem likely doesn't it?

That's enough TV for now.

Opposites

Hmm. Well it seems that the situation in the gaming industry is far from the right way up at the moment. A quick example to illustrate my point;

Nintendo, family friendly, lovely, nicey-nice company now have set their sights on reaching out to the Halo audience now in a completely different direction to their current market: Source

Meanwhile, hardcore gamers console manufacturer of the Xbox, Microsoft, has decided that their future lies in motion controlling controllers. Of the full body not-actually-a-controller variety, a style Nintendo has clearly dominated already: Source

As for Playstation, they've even so much as, and remember this is my opinion, regressed in gaming terms with their ugly looking PSP Go which is quite far removed from the sleekness of the PS3 and inevitably pointless.



And then there is Apple, who is more than likely going to announce a brand new iPhone today with a built in 3D graphics card to better handle gaming applications, and who currently have an in house team of developers working on games ONLY for the system!

It's madness. But in the good way that allows us, the consumer, to have a wider selection of choices when it comes to spend our precious, hard earned cash. So yeah, keep twisting and turning you crazy gaming machine, I guess.

Summer

Well, the weather has blessed us for the past couple of weeks and I have definitely felt the warmth of its glow and it has considerably lifted my own mood!

Over the past few days I've done everything from running, swimming, playing football as well as lots of revision in my room despite having a stunning view of the sunshine and many sunbathers walking past, to and from their various sessions. I've had no ice cream, as I have been trying to think consciously about eating less unnecessary crap and this as well as my very regular gym sessions have resulted in me losing some weight which has made me so much happier!

As for creativity, I've started writing episode two of Steve on TV which should debut after my exams sometime, and have also kept on writing my novel which means that chapter 4 is not that far off with chapter 5, a very exciting one, not too distant behind it. I've also done a couple of videos for a new website, along the 'How To' style which got me quite a few quid and may lead to further money from them in the future if things go well. I was quite chuffed when they told me the people at the website really liked my presenting style :)

Also hoping to get a proper acting gig in XTV over the next few weeks, as I'll be putting my name out there to try something different. Trying new things seems to be in my blood these days!

Well, that's all for now, just a short little update to update everyone on my goings on. Hoping to have some exciting post exams news [i.e I did all right in them] and so until then or maybe before that time, I shall leave you!

Borsch

First of all, a little update as to why I haven't been blogging recently, and really, it's an absolutely terrible excuse. It boils down to me not having it bookmarked in my internet browser! [Chrome, in case anybdoy was wondering]

I don't remember how far I got in my life story in the last blog entries, but to fill you in briefly on any big stories I'll recap them in short below.

i. Hard Drive broke
This was the worst for me personally, I had saved all of my Come Dine With Us footage on an external Hard Drive, and in the time it took to take it from the XTV office to my house, it decided that it wasn't going to work anymore. So, all the footage is lost, except for the minor possibility that a friend or a rich person takes pity on me and pays for a big company to recover the data or have a look themself. All credit to my mate Jamie though, he seriously did his best when trying to recover it for free, but to no avail. All my photos and music and writing was on it, so take a tip from me and get a backup of everything you treasure asap!

ii. Steve on TV
As a direct result of the above, and progress on Fifty Fifty grinding to a halt I decided to bring out a brand new idea from within my brain and turn it into a show before Paul Jackson came down to the Uni to see some new creative stuff, something I wanted to make the most of and hopefully show off my skills to him. So, within 9 days, I'd gone from bringing a rough idea in my head to a script, a second draft then casting, filming and editing a show together. The result can be seen online at this location and please comment on it if you loved or hated it.

iii. Xmedia Awards
Heartbreak and losing stuff was about to resurface after the hard drive issue, as being nominated for four categories in the Xmedia awards was to come up with nothing not even an internal award. Yes, I played it calm and unaffected but it did suck a lot to have had no recognition for all the hard work I'd put into the society over the last year. However, I did win a raffle prize which was £30 worth of money vouchers for a local restaurant which was nice, and a few people who did manage to catch up to me after trying to hide from them [Not because I didn't want to speak to them, but because I didn't want 30 different variations of the 'I can't believe you didn't win anything!' conversation] did say some really uplifting stuff which made me feel happier. A lot of thanks to those people :)

So, not a lot really, but enough. Anyway, more blogging shall commence from this point onwards.

Coffee

This is the best news story I've read all week:

'Pay It Forward' in real life

It really is great when you hear about things like this. I've heard many other ways in which this kind of thing is done, such as leaving a pound coin on a street for somebody to find, letting somebody ahead of you in a supermarket just 'because' and giving complete strangers a compliment and then simply walking on.

This story led me to this website: HelpOthers.org which is a simple page with many stories of genuine kindness on. Sure, some of it is clearly an exercise in creative writing, but think about it. Just because the message doesn't come from a real source, does it make the meaning any less worthy? I for one think not.

In times like these, we have newspapers and websites and TV channels that try to turn everything into something watchable, so the less shocking items take a back seat. I want this trend to change [As does this show Newswipe produced and presented by Charlie Brooker, a genuinely brilliant man] and to stop news channels monopolising our opinions.

One of the ways of doing this is simply being nicer. You can surely spare a couple of pounds now and then, can't you? And you at the very least get a nice anecdote to share with your friends out of it and a feeling of good in your heart. You might think this is a pointless exercise, because the already nice people won't turn nasty if they don't do it and the horrible people won't suddenly don a halo, but by at least tilting the balance a little more to 'kindness' side it will help in the long run. I think.

N.B: I finished the title sequence! I've gotten feedback from a few friends and family and they really like it, which I can only feel relieved at. Also, the previous blog broke the record for most number of posts in a year! Considering I have also posted a couple of entries on my related blogs this is a good year for me, and I hope this commitment of mine will last for a lot longer :)