Tuesday, January 29, 2008

HMMMM go deep

Are you ready for a glimpse into the soul of a blogger? The good and the bad on show equally or however I ended up describing myself. I’m paranoid and proud of it too often in the past I have trusted in people who have ultimately proved very untrustworthy. I also hold grudges, which I think stems from one central thought if someone screws you over, why wouldn’t they do it to you again and again. It is not being cynical it is just logical.

Recently though I am trying to bury the hatchet with some people who I have disagreed with in the past. Hmm, as an experiment I think the results are still somewhat out and the ball is in their corner really, not much else I can do. I’ll keep you posted on whether or not those people accept my overtures of peace.

Hmm what else asked out a hot girl, something I feel you must do in your life you know just to tell your grandkids or just random kids (lol) that you didn’t spend your whole life as a pussy. Unfortunately it didn’t work out in a way that I had planned for. Now you see I thought incorrectly that she would say yes or no. I was wrong she instead decided to let me know in another way that perhaps there were other suitors before me in the queue so to speak. It wasn’t subtle but it did result in my getting the message so back to the old drawing board eh.

That is enough for now bloggers. Invite your friends.

Friday, January 25, 2008

YouTube Blog

YOUTUBE blog

Yes in this blog I will be talking about my minor obsession YouTube. I can’t tell you how many accounts I have went through lol now I have settled on one and now I have to figure out what to put up for my own content.

So far I have two ideas:

Buy an acoustic guitar and try to learn stuff
Get my bass out of storage and brush up on my skills
Buy a Lightsaber FX and make some hilarious videos

Anyway as well trying to get viewed YouTube is also great for watching other people. One of my favourite people has just left YouTube though probably the second person I subscribed to girl who called herself Abbegirl. Blonde hot and funny.

(UPDATE)
I just checked again and mysteriously all the videos but one, which had been deleted, have now been returned guess there was something up with my subscription page.

Still I can still talk about her because she is cool, and totally gorgeous, I found her channel as a result of looking at stuff from Minouye no idea how I found his videos the first time. Anyway my favourite videos of hers had to be “Midnight Snack” and “Abbe’s Halloween”.

The second channel is Mririan. Big Anime eyes not a lot to say and even when she does speak it is in Japanese. What a strange American girl she is. Still as a YouTuber she is a phenomenon with 15k subscribers, which is a good start, and she is already well ranked in the monthly subscription races. The questions though are still lingering is she another lonelygirl15, the production values seem a little bit lower this time and one could assume she does not have anyone writing a script for her as she barely ever speaks. The speaking in Japanese though bit mysterious; though it is a language like any other I think it is more that we don’t expect a Caucasian teenager to be speaking it.

Anyway she is good looking (or just cute if she is underage) with those big eyes and her love of staring at the screen. So she will continue to attract new subscribers at least until she gets rumbled.

Tuesday, January 22, 2008

Busy and tired

Sorry Blog readers I've been away doing stuff being interviewed for pretigious positions too! Exciting definitely but nerve wracking at the same time got a wait to find out whether or not I have been successful.

Other than that wow I just got the news on Heath Ledger died, it is certainly not for me to speculate on how or why he died but the press certainly already have. They made it clear that they blamed press intrusions and drugs for his death in some sort of suicide. It is a shame such a young man is gone. I heard good things about his role as Joker now I wonder what happens to that film.

RIP Heath Ledger (1979 - 2008)

Sorry can't really say much after that.

Thursday, January 17, 2008

Just some stuff

14% of Americans have seen a UFO according to the AP and Ipsos

Just a random thing I saw while looking at one of those international stories not to bash Americans because I don’t have a problem with them I love their top TV, Heroes, Dexter, The Unit and things like that, of course I am well aware that they also make a lot of dren too, proportionally perhaps even more than we do here in the UK but I would have to let a government funded research team work that out for me – enquiring minds need to know.

Zoey 101 magazine now for sale in the UK that made me laugh and laugh. “Learn to do your hair just like Zoey” just perhaps try to keep your legs shut eh? I don’t like to judge but the British public certainly does so I thought it was strange that they did not pull the plug on this particular magazine.

Terminator – The Sarah Connor Chronicles
Again thanks to my time machine I have had a look at the first episode of this new series from the Terminator franchise. Lets just try and forget that last film because it really stunk up the place after the brilliance of T2. But onto this show, first things first it has Thomas Dekker in it; you know the gay one from Heroes. Yes his character was meant to be gay but the agent heard about it and nixed the idea (agents no matter what the industry seem to be evil lol).

It also has Summer Glau in it who I immediately recognised as Tess from The 4400 another one of the my favourite American shows, she is my age bit scary and very hard to except as someone who was in High School but hey you got to let the early things go or you will never watch any dramatic TV at all.

I liked it and I look forward to seeing the next few episodes but again with the WGA strike not looking like it will end anytime soon how many episodes is there? And if you did not know the pilot season is nearly open us it gets closer to the likelihood of no new US TV in 2008.

P.S. For those of you who know what dren is award yourself 10 points for your superior choice in quality TV and leave a comment with where the word comes from. You can then decide where the blog goes for its next entry or something whatever you would like.

Tuesday, January 15, 2008

Entertainment news and other stuff

Jericho – Returned from the great beyond. A little earlier perhaps than some would have liked, as it appears to have been leaked onto the torrent scene by an insider. By magic I saw the premiere recently and I have to say I was impressed this is the tricky second season that many fall down on, indeed it could be argued that the first part of the Heroes season two fell into that particular problem but the first episode was great continued on in a great way as well as opening up a few very interesting new storylines.

In other news Kyle XY is continuing on, which is just kind of odd really a 3-month gap from when the last episode came on. For those of you not in the know Kyle XY tells the story of a mysterious boy who appears to be a teenager but is other than that a blank slate. We see him face the trials and tribulations of being a teenager as well as learning about his mysterious powers and who he really is. It is a great show and was picked up by Trouble here in the UK not sure if it is still on though.

The strike is still with us but at least shows like this remind me why I rather watch US TV at 50% then most of what the UK offers in terms of repeats I mean programming. Still I am eagerly anticipating Torchwood coming on tomorrow especially as James Marsters will be appearing in one episode.

Itunes and Apple – I can’t say I am a huge fan of Apple personally ha an apple news story has just come on BBC News 24 about their new super thin notebook “MacBook Air” anyway I don’t have a problem with Macs never had the chance to use one myself not being much of a design head. Although to be fair dealing with Apple users and their incredibly high opinion of themselves and their strange belief that they are virus proof, it is just that no one can be bothered to try.

My problems tend to be around Itunes and Apple’s pricing policies for those of us unlucky enough to live in the UK. Itunes as a software is annoying I don’t want it but it does not seem to get the point, unfortunately Apple have managed to manoeuvre QuickTime as the film trailer’s industry codec of choice so you install QuickTime and then get Itunes doing its best impression of spyware constantly asking you to install it so it can do god knows what to your existing MP3 collection. No I don’t use an Ipod and while I do subscribe to a number of podcasts I had to persevere with Juice, there is nothing wrong with it but so many podcasters believe that MP3 player means Ipod they tend not to build in any contingencies for non-ipod users to work with which can be a total nightmare and probably means I listen to less podcasts than I might otherwise do.

Anyway that is enough blogging. For now. Mahahahaha.

Friday, January 11, 2008

Crap Night

I am so annoyed now this is ridiculous. It was all set to be a nice Friday night takeaway until they fucked up and poisoned my lovely Kofte with burger sauce the mustard gas of sauces needless to say I couldn’t eat it and left it for the others to have. So anyway I tried to put it behind me and do some levelling/farming on WoW but lo and behold the server kept kicking me off every 10 minutes. Great thing about crappy wireless featuring crappy routers from formerly government owned is that you are never quite sure if it is the rubbish coverage of the wireless router or the feeble bandwidth you are getting from your hardline broadband connection that is leading to all the problems.

Now on to the News…

I was a big fan of Marion Jones former women’s Team USA basketballer then came out of nowhere to take the athletics world by storm. Then her husband got caught doping and it all changed she was dirty by association and then years later it was all proven correct she had been taking performance enhancing drugs for years perhaps all through her career it just kind of leaves an athletics fan a bit numb to be honest.

What doesn’t help is the way the UK media report it like a jealous ex trying to stick the knife in, with this sort of holier than thou attitude as if UK athletes have never tested positive for drugs. It sickens me to be honest, even now I can remember a special on the doping regimes in the East back in the 80s they went after the athletes who back then had no idea what they were being systematically given by their governments and the effects it would have in later life.

I can remember Paula Radcliffe protesting at a European Championship I think it was about an athlete who had challenged and somehow got around a positive drug test, she went on and on over various BBC shows and probably others but then when UK athletes tested positive she was strangely quiet then especially strange as she had been on Championship teams with them and again she failed to speak out when Ohurugu missed her drug testing appointments. I could go on but anyone who watches BBC coverage of sport should notice how Nationalistic and verging on Xenophobic it get.

Hmm oh well that’s enough of that.

Thursday, January 10, 2008

Run for your lives

Bird flu panic is amongst us again sigh, once can only hope that the British public who choose to read the red tops and to be fair some of the other posh rags as well will wake up to the fact that the only reason they go on endlessly about what bird flu could do is to sell more papers. Unfortunately it seems with a free and independent media (not free from rich foreigners with media agendas just free from government) that you just can’t control these things so it is up to Joe Shmo to educate himself, which I strongly encourage. Hell you certainly don’t have to treat everything from me as gospel go out there and discover the truth for yourself but please don’t think you can buy it off a newsstand for a few pence.

Sorry for the short rant piece spent most of my time concocting a covering letter that will hopefully get my CV read. I should be a little more free with the time next post I hope. Plus I am making some changes to the blog personalising a bit with things you might find interesting or you might not either way it is nice to make an effort.

Tuesday, January 8, 2008

Quiet news day

Meh I'm spending too much time on the MuggleCast Fan forums I guess but there is not enough news worthy stuff going on that I can find to talk about. There are lots the press is covering the elections in the US (I find it interesting but not enough has happened for me to cover it) the cricket stuff is getting juicier and if I have the time tomorrow then I will be writing something about that but that is mostly it.

Still in my own life I am weighing up whether or not to buy an acoustic guitar. Hmm choices choices.

Monday, January 7, 2008

Incitement to Religious Hatred... by a priest!?!

Bishop of Rochester has caused a storm, as I write the first draft of this (always like to be careful about things like this) I am listening to the Stephen Nolan programme on Radio Five Live. Hate him as a presenter he does talk a lot of nonsense and never bothers to debate. The bishop stated that there are "NO GO" areas around Britain controlled by Extreme Muslims. This weekend politicians in the UK and both sides have been distancing themselves from his comments and this will no doubt enflame the arguments.

I saw the Bishop’s statement well a bit of it showed by the mass media and to be honest I found it a bit hard to swallow. It is an interesting situation that the bishop himself is Asian and from the sub continent apparently with a history of attacking Muslims. The Muslim organisation represented on the Stephen Nolan show talked of the Incitement to Religious Hatred law and reporting the Bishop to police but to be honest if Nick Griffin and the BNP can stay on the right side of the law I tend to think that the law is an ass in this case.

We shall see though and the debate should be interesting although of course boundaries will be crossed and the actual debate will be lost amongst everyone’s feelings of diversity being forced upon them or being hounded for just not being white.

“You can’t say what you think” that is a quote from the media coverage surrounding this storage, well it all depends on what you think doesn’t it and also how you say it. The minute however you say that to someone with their strong feelings they feel as if they are being censored which is odd because there is no such thing as free speech and they should have realised that by now. Anyway cutting short the rant here something that was mentioned during the above mentioned radio show is perhaps this idea of Muslim Extremist controlled “NO GO” areas is being mixed up with racial tensions in certain areas. That certainly doesn’t make it right but by confusing the two issues all that will be result is the worsening of relations between Muslims and non-Muslims.

When I think of the idea of “NO GO” areas I think is this just because areas that have high Muslim and ethnic minority population as a result of bad social policy and the ghetto-ising (probably not a word) of certain areas in towns and cities with large minority populations back in 70s and 80s. Perhaps that unenlightened idea of just keeping all the immigrants separate left them feeling oh I don’t know somewhat disconnected as well as leaving white people who now live near the areas feeling a bit apprehensive of these people who have been here but separate for decades.

If one tries looking it is amazing what can be seen.

Can’t we all just get along?

Saturday, January 5, 2008

Fandom Random lets all go to Cambden

Fandom, it is a strange word indeed I had not heard it in popular usage it basically means a collection of fans around a famous person and or sport. I first heard it referring to Harry Potter fans around the world most notably on Fandom Forecast a rather nifty Podcast I like to listen to from time to time.

Anyway I found myself thinking about how many fandoms I consider myself a member of. First and foremost I guess is Harry Potter because it seems that fandom is just very good at bringing themselves together through things like online groups, premieres, special podcasts and conventions. It is certainly one of the biggest fandoms around but it is not the only one.

Another fandom I am a fan of is Anime. For you that don’t know what anime is basically it refers to Japanese cartoons. Don’t ask me how you pronounce it I do it my way others do other ways, anyway amines you have likely heard include Dragonball Z Crying Freeman and Death Note. This is probably the fandom that I have been involved with the longest but it is a lot more disparate than the Harry Potter fandom but all over the world you’ll find people who know what Akira is and why it is amazing.

Anyway at the moment I am trying to now build up a list of anime series, which I will be discussing in a future blog.

STOP THE PRESS
Torchwood is back; I just saw an announcement for it on the BBC. It is an awesome show; to me it shows off everything that is wrong with Doctor Who. Which in case you did not know suffers from the problem from having 12 or 14 episodes but actually only about 4 episodes worth of anything remotely interesting to watch at most in a season it is a shame when you have two stars with as much going for them as David Tennant and Freema Agyeman so it is a shame they did nothing with it. Torchwood as well as its more adult theme compared to Doctor Who’s family centred approach allows it to play closer to the core ideals of Science Fiction, dark and grey and futuristic. Anyway I’ll be watching I hope you can too.

It's Britney bastich

Britney Spears
I intensely dislike writing about the whole entertainment industry thing as in celebs I love talking about films and TV shows for instance. However it would be remiss for me as a blogger to leave out this whole thing with Britney sent to hospital because she refused to give the kids back. I actually saw some celeb correspondent on TV say that this could be the golden moment, she can now get help for obvious emotional troubles and turn her life around.

Maybe or maybe this whole sick voyeur like stage show will continue on for far longer than anyone like myself would want. Britney is my age freaky stuff all that success so young but then I would not wish what she goes through now on anyone, and there are some people in this world I truly dislike.

Other than that it has been a quiet newsday with earlier news stories continuing like Kenya and the American Elections so that is all we have for today folks.

Thursday, January 3, 2008

Shaft's new ongoing experiment



The News as Shaft sees it.

In the news today things that have peaked my interest.

MuggleNet attack
On Wednesday the 2nd January there was a hacker attack on MuggleNet and since then they have put up a notice and included a review of the year that was. MuggleNet if you didn’t know is the premiere Harry Potter fansite set up by Emerson Spartz in 1999. It is an award-winning site that also launched its own Podcast MuggleCast, which is a current top ten Podcast on Podcast Alley.
Just took me by surprise when I checked it this morning just have a quick look at all things Harry Potter for the last month or so only to see that there had been an attack and that the site won’t be back online in the short term till they find the problem and get it sorted.

Joey Barton released on bail
I just thought it was weird they kept him in over New Years I mean he is famous and less likely to you know hastily leave the country than most. Still they are the legal eagles so they must know what they are doing right? Whether or not he is guilty not so interesting to me and the press will no doubt spin it out endlessly till everyone is sick of it I just think at this point things are a little interesting.

Kid gets £3000 mobile bill
UK story. Hilarious story but obviously not for the family involved. A kid 17 years old if you are interested at all decided to use his mobile as a modem to connect to the Internet. He then apparently managed to rack up a bill of £3000 the report seemed to indicate that it happened in a day but that is somewhat hard to except. To me it just shows once again big business, surely after he went past £200 in a small amount of time alarm bells and notifications should have happened especially as it was seemingly a new contract.
On the other side however it also goes to say something about responsibility. Should a 17 year old have a contract mobile paid for by their mother? Also through the fine art of interview we found out that she also pays for his girlfriend’s but we didn’t get to find out why that was.

Wednesday, January 2, 2008

Swollen fingers, cases of sprite and the news

So here I am blogging again not so much about entertainment but about news and other vaguely important stuff to me.

The Black Sisters
Only Harry Potter enthusiasts of the higher orders would realise who these wizard rockers are. They are also YouTube film-makers with over 100 videos dedicated to the world of Harry Potter. Their latest video was called confessions and celebrates their first year at YouTube and they come clean about a lot of things. Too hard to explain to non-Potter fans but I still thought it deserved to be included in my sum up of interesting things in media. The video is here

Drinking in the UK
On a radio phone in today they were asking why the British drink as much as they do indeed so much more than the rest of Europe. Most people who called in did seem to be actually taking it seriously and a few different reasons were given. The most popular answer was indeed "living for the weekend" with such justifications as the amount of hours the British public do as to why they tend to drink so hard. Sounds reasonable and would surely point the government in a different direction than constantly putting up the prices of alcohol in its various forms as a form of solution. It must be more than that though but don't ask me what it is. No doubt it will be on some panel show in the near future.

Thats enough for now will add some more when I find more interesting stories to comment on.

Tuesday, January 1, 2008

2007

2007 is gone so here is what I think.

My favourite film of the year - The Brave One
Not sure why just had lots of fun watching it. I guess because by my nature I rarely browse much past the action and martial arts flicks to be fair this one as sooon as I saw the ads on TV was one I had to see and I was impressed by it.

My worst film of the year - Spider-man 3
Stank up the place terribly had no idea what it wanted to do. Lots of pointless weird scenes that I can't understand why they were forced into it.

Favourite Anime of the Year - Naruto Shippuuden
Not sure if it is spelt right there may or may not be too many "P"s in it. Got to love this show and finally after a long wait for its loyal fans it has finished with the filler crap that was driving most of us insane and got back to a kick ass storyline that continues the growth of Naruto and his friends through a time jump of two years and his return to the village determined to find and rescue Sasuke.

That is all for now I might continue on with this later.