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.
Monday, January 18, 2010
Thursday, October 01, 2009
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?
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?
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?
Saturday, September 05, 2009
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.
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.
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