Wow Stuff

World of Warcraft drives me mad at the moment. Any time I log onto my Shadow Priest who is currently hearthed to Dalaran I get a might frame rate of 5. Yes 5 it is like swimming through drying mud everytime I go there which has rather put paid to my PVP work at the moment, which is a shame because I would really like the PVP Helm to aid this whole mad rush to 80.

My Priest

Generally recently my framed rate has been rather dodgy recently which unfortunately meant I have had to change my interface to low graphic settings. Now my frame rate is around 45-50fps which is nice and quite flowing but the lag and the fact that I have no effects working tends to make things less fun somehow.

I know it is taking awhile for me to get to 80 but my new line has not been installed yet hopefully that will soon be dealt with. I hope. Really I do.

TURNING JAPANESE

This is a little section about the animes I am currently watching.

At the moment they include but indeed are not limited to:

Kidou Senshi Gundam 00

Vampire Knight Guilty

Naruto

These are currently my top three. Naruto of course speaks for itself truly a crossover success in the west with a load of DVDs and video games across the platforms. Bleach is probably just behind it but none of its games have been translated yet apparently. Naruto is the story of a young ninja at a ninja village and his maturing through missions and trials and making friends and enemies along the way. Vampire Knight is decribed as from the female-oriented genre of manga turned anime shows, for instance like Card Captor Sakura if you are a real anime geek. I could see why that is indeed the case but how the Japanese aim cartoons at women is entirely different from how the West does it, all you need to do is compare this with say My Little Pony Tales.

That leaves us with Kidou Senshi Gundam 00. Anyone who knows anything about Japanese cartoons should know about Gundam, off the top of my head it must have been with us for more than 20 years and is probably one of the most well known animes ever though likely not as well known as Transformers.

So basically if you wanted to get back into Anime or you had a little money set aside or some new DVDs you could do worse than picking up the first season of Vampire Knight (without the Guilty suffix) and Kidou Senshi Gundam.

Duality, Duel, Dual

Heroes' and its ever changing mid season cliffhanger. I tend to ask myself if the name was really that important but you know how studio types are. Still the episode itself was pretty good I mean Ando finally getting powered up he has served the fans well and it is time to see him outside of Hiro's shadow especially with all the weird, wacky and to be honest sometimes ill advised changes to Hiro's character that have come up this season.

I am happy with the end of the Volume though for awhile there it certainly did have me worrying, all that Sylar/Petrelli stuff feels like I have lost time that I will nbever get back pondering whether or not they were related. Listening to 10th Wonder didn't help though as they constantly compared Peter's, Sylar's and Arthur's abilities.

I will probably touch on this again in a bit but for now I am going to check on the Heroes forums I visit.

YouTube and High Street Banking

Darn evil banks. Just today I found out about a lovely new rule from my Building Society that said the new minimum for getting money out of the counter service is £30. What a joke I am sure the last time I checked this was my money but apparently I am mistaken in this belief. Combine this with last week when they refused to change a Northern Irish Sterling note to something more usable and you won't be surprised that I have seriously considered moving my non-existent funds just on principle.

In other news my poor YouTube channel has died a death do to a silly incident with e-mail recognition. So all that was has been lost and must be found again. Still it gives me a chance to take it in a new direction and make up some new videos which though will probably not generate a lot of views and/or subscriptions but will mean more to me in the long run.

Hmm this was short wasn't it.

3/10 thats not good people!

That is how I assess things personally at the moment. 2 years on the scrap heap and jobs are drying up according to the news. I think I chose the wrong industries to work in. All the jobs seem to be advertised just because they have to be and seemed to be filled internally which I did see from time to time and heard about just by being within an organisation but I never knew it was to this level. That and the feminine bias towards the jobs in this industry and I do wonder. And if you think I am moaning and I should get on with it then get off my blog this is why it is here to vent about some things.

Still I am not giving up but the jobs are indeed getting harder to come by even just for applying for things though that is more of a time of the year problem then necessarily the global economic crisis. I need a job something to bring me back into a more routine way of life at the moment I am just drifting and I can't stay like this much longer.

I still have some hobbies that I get on with, several blogs on a wide array of subjects, writing stories and of course doing the whole forum and discussion thing online mostly Heroes in that case.

New Year

Well I am hoping that my Internet problems will be resolved by the new year so that should help in a number of ways and definitely will help to reveal the boredom. It also makes applying for jobs from sites much easier too when you are not worrying about the site crashing halfway through an eight page application.

Other Rants
Girls who are taken should have to wear T-shirts. Perhaps a bit autocratic I know but then maybe we can compromise and they can change their damn facebook details to reflect the fact would definitely lessen truly uncomfortable moments.

No Heroes and other TV reviews this time I am too upset about other things keep checking back though Heroes pauses for the Winter break soon so I will definitely be discussing what I think about the first half of the season.

And now to our TOP story

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGH

Stupid stupid Internet.

I wrote down my thoughts of the latest episode of Heroes and they would not save. Have I told you all that certain mobile broadband sucks, is a complete ripoff and indeed makes false claims about its coverage?

Onto the discussion about the latest Heroes episode Villains. I felt it was perhaps the worse of all the episodes this season. My friend however thought it was the best which confused me greatly. For me there was nothing new contained in the episode except perhaps that Arthur tried to kill Nathan and that Angela tried to kill Arthur. Also it does not tally with season one at all like how Angela acted, the relatively scant information around Arthur like the fact that he certainly did not have powers around the time of the war when he and Linderman met. It gives me a Lost-esque headache when you start wondering why Linderman and Angela had powers especially as Arthur was already married by the time he and Linderman met. It seems as if Season 3 is attempting to rewrite Season 1 and I don't like that one bit.

Let me just say that I still love Heroes and I hope that all these changes, sackings etc. don't spell the beginning of the end NBC needs to be patient which is something that most networks tend to lack anyway enough of this I will be posting again soon.

Obama, Nanowrimo, Heroes and WOTLK

Indeed what a packed out month we are having. Got up early to follow the coverage of the US Elections, it may not directly affect us some may argue but I disagree this global economic crisis needs strong leadership worldwide to get us through to the other side. I listened to it through Radio Five Live it was a bit to early to be sat in front of a TV screen at 3am in the morning.

Nanowrimo is back again and again I am trying to crank out the novel. 50,000 words in a month and this will be my third try and I hope to keep up improving with my attempts so far. I might put a link to it later after I have updated my progress on the site itself.

Heroes is going swimmingly with a lot of shocks even for me. The last episode I saw was Eris Quod Sum and that was a heck of a show loads of questions answered but of course as with all Heroes episodes there were a lot more questions posed. I hear the Americans have a week off from Heroes which as we are were 2 weeks behind should not affect us but you never know about these things. The only question I have is about the Heroes 360 experience which includes things like text messages and e-mails talking about the Heroes Universe you don't see on TV and occaisonally shows us Heroes before they appear on the TV show like Ted and Daphne to name a couple. They always tend to be for the American public and not for the rest of us and due to the fact that the spoiler ratings are pretty low I think they are missing a trick.

And last but not least.

It is nearly here and for some reason even though this is one of the biggest games in Europe much bigger than the boring boring Fifa which comes around every year I can't get a damn WoW game card anywhere in my town which is just silly. The biggest MMORPG in the world brings out its new expansion next week. I will be there will you? Can't wait to get my hands on a nice new Belf Death Knight and rush headlong to level 80.

Heroes!!!

Well watched a few episodes now and I must say much better than the truncated Season 2. It seems Tim Kring took our observations and criticisms to heart and has made a stuinning start to this season.

PLEASE NOTE THAT THIS CONTAINS SPOILERS ABOUT HEROES SEASON 3. Not a lot just references to actors who are still about for instance.

Anyway my only worry about Heroes at the moment is Ali Larter's character. Whats going on there exactly? Hmm I feel a headache coming on. I mean they have literally by seemingly saying goodbye to Micha gotten rid of the only thing that made Nikki bearable in the first place. Now there were three? Though we were always told they were twins because that... makes... sense...
Damn headaches!

Computer problems means I don't know when I will put up my episode reviews but they have been written in pencil in my little notebook so they will be around in due course. Anyway let us hope that things keep on going this swimmingly all season I can't look away :)

HEROES

Yes it is back and finally. Indeed friends the wait has been too long but now it is back and here in the UK we the chance to see the first two episodes of the series in one night, unlike the Americans though we had to wait 15 minutes and switch channels. Though you could choose to watch the Heroes Unmasked show but in the past at least that show is horrible for explaining away all the fun of watching Heroes so personally I tend to give it a miss.

The episodes were incredible what a way to premiere I just could not look away even for a seond. Add to that all those easter eggs that they dropped in for us fans and the revelations about things that gave me worse headaches then Parkman dealing with the Hatian Sensation. I won't talk about them now as at the moment at least in an effort to keep the blog and the dream alive I'm rewatching the first episode and taking notes where anything particularly memorable takes place.

The return of Heroes also means the return of 10th Wonder. HANDS DOWN (wonder where I picked that up from) my favourite Heroes podcast apparently they are also the guys behind a Smallville one which I have not listened to. I like their insights and how incredibly positive they are about the series which helps a lot if you were like me during the 2nd season. So I encourage you to go there and check them out and their forums too which are pretty cool and are episode specific which goes some way to preventing spoilers in the case of different dates for shows going out.

Anyway thats enough for now I need to go find some cash to buy some popcorn of minstrels for the 2nd viewing. I hope you guys are as excited as I am. Also I am on TV.com here so you can check that out for sporadic reviews of episodes if you are so inclined though I cannot think why.

WAS IT MUCH ADO ABOUT...

Well not if 8 people still died after all that disaster planning. Not as I think of it at leasrt but at least here in the UK a lot of people seem to be saying "oh they went over the top" Over the top? This is about human lives people and given what happened last time with Katrina who can blame them.

It is interesting looking at these sorts of stories being so far away but the way that the UK public and more to the point the UK media looks at things will never cease to amaze me. The main good thing to come from this story though is the fact that the edies (is that how you spell it) and flood defenses have held so that there won't be the same kind of devastating flooding as before.

Sorry for such a short post there may be another later.

Hurricane Gustav and other stuff

Now I have some experience of Hurricanes having lived for 10 years in the Caribbean I know how destructive they can be. It is a shame then that the deaths in Cuba and Haiti (which no one in the UK seems to know how to pronounce) are only shown as evidence of the danger to America and not as the tragedy in its own right. I know there is little reason going off on one about the little people being forgotten in the news but it would have been nice to be able to know a little more about what Gustav did in the rest of the Caribbean. You never would think that a sizeable minority within the UK indeed Europe have ties to the Caribbean and may want to know but no lets hear about how the Americans are preparing. Anyway I am going to get information from the source and send out some e-mails to people still in Antigua to see if they were affected and how badly, then I will share it with you the few who check this blog occaisonally.

I need to find some more alternative news sites to get some information from though I do listen to a Jamaican radio station that also broadcasts online could not find any Antiguan ones that did.

CNN's coverage

Don't worry should be posting again soon.

ANKLE BITERS SHIVVED MY COUSIN OR Gnoming me Gnoming you

[Please note the original post in rough draft form was done awhile ago now but I thought it was important that it made its way to the blog eventually. That is also why it has its own update]

I can't be sure but it must have been awhile since my last World of Warcraft post if I have in fact ever done one dedicated solely to WoW. I tried to do this yesterday but I was at work and couldn't transfer my thoughts to my e-mail to expand upon later. It was time for a post though as my 1 year WoW anniversary has come around. I have managed in my year of playing WoW to level a SP all the way to 70 to take part in a Kara raid and to find myself stuck on 374 tailoring for attempts on end =o(

UPDATE
This bank holiday (in the UK) I finally got back into doing some adventuring around Azeroth andn Outland. Highlights included farming thick leather for my 225 leatherworker and running 9 dailies to get more money to spend on netherweave.

Thats all for now folks keep adventuring

Regular service may be returning soon.

Internet problems and lack of paying bills in a timely manner has meant that the blog has been more than a bit sparse lately but fear not though I could not always post in a timely manner when the news became interesting enough or I spied an interesting conspiracy theory I took notes knowing that eventually when my net connection improved they would be appearing here.
Things such as the Russia – Georgia Situation
The possibility of the end of Free Internet
China, The Olympics and Protests
You know however that this blog is not just about world news I also talk about entertainment mainly in the form of US and Japanese shows. I also talk about books and at the moment the book most in my thoughts has been Breaking Dawn by Stephanie Meier so there may be a review or at least a small editorial about it.So keep an eye out for things to come and please let me apologise for the lack of activity recently.

So Far Away

Employment looms big in the current financial chaos of the world. While we may not all agree on what caused it, rubbish governments, financial market speculation or just bad decision making by banks and customers around credit things are getting harder.

Even your humble blogger has been affected - well sort of. I was unemployed before this really blew and still am now. I tell you now I would very much rather be on the other side. In fact I have been out of work long enough according to the government that I really should take anything thrown at me and to help me on my way they told me to take out a 12 week work placement with an employer. Sounds interesting it gets more interesting when you start looking at all the details.

Apparently it must be local because they will pay your transport, GREAT so if like me you live in a town not renowned for its employment opportunities you are perhaps disadvantaged. If your ideal job role is administrative then my friend you are about to be violated I am afraid.




A gripe I had was I managed to set up a work placement all by myself in a week, a WEEK which would have actually would have improved my CV (which is very nice thank you) but no it would have cost them too much so I get sent to an unnamed department store for "clerical" which turns out to be me doing nothing but manual labour which will prove a great addition to my CV. (Can you get the sarcasm I'm not a great writer yet so I have to drop hints).

Anyway it is good to be back people and I want to hang around this time.

Happy stuff, Burn Notice is back and still smoking EXCELLENT people. Apparently Heroes is doing a Lost as in showing US/UK at basically the same time which I think you will agree is damn impressive especially as it will be on a Terrestrial channel i.e. the kind people in the UK get for free, if you forget that whole TV licence charge you can't get away from.

Peace OUT

News and Politics with Shaft

Magibon in Japan!

Yes yes thanks to the magibonfan blog for this information, which seems pretty accurate after checking out the footage. That video is here not sure how long it will be there though. Magibon more than most seem to generate a whole lot of derision and criticism, her videos are weird so I can partly understand some of it but a lot of it is just the same nasty remarks you always get on youtube videos with more than about 5 comments but with her it just goes on and on.

From my initial research, which I may have mentioned before it, seems she was part of an anime based forum community and fell out with them. I have no idea why Magibon has got so big so fast or well I have a couple of ideas, she is as cute as your average anime girl with hmm lets just say a great body so that must help.

Terrorism???

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7352969.stm

There have been some more terror convictions today including Abu Izzadeen, the muslim preacher who came to prominence in 2004 when he heckled Home Secretary John Reid has been convicted of terrorist fundraising and enciting terrorism overseas. For me it does make me wonder, all these new terror laws in my opinion effectively take one look at Free Speech before blowing its face off with a sawn off shotgun at close range. It seems that in the UK we have a problem with anything remotely to do with government or society at large that things have to go one way and not the other. Taxes MUST go up, like the tax rates on alcohol, fuel and council tax. Laws must be tightened and never ever relaxed, we need more CCTV cameras and speed cameras and we must be able to lock up people without charge for longer.

Let me tell you what I need more of, MORE DEMOCRACY, that doesn’t mean more pointless votes in almost empty chambers in parliament but more talking to people on the street, MORE real information and less of this SPIN that allows the media to lead the majority of the public around by the nose, immigration anyone there is so much bullshit slung around by both sides of the argument here we might as well be living on a pig farm. Anyway enough of a rant onto the next story.

Iran and the sailors
Do you remember way back when those sailors were picked up because they were supposedly on the wrong side of the waters between Iran and Iraq. Do you recall for awhile there it really looked like things were about to go into full ass kicking gun shooting mode? Well you also recall it didn’t and in the end we had soldiers selling stories which did not go down well and it seemingly ended there. Strangely enough after hearing this on BBC FiveLive for like 2 minutes a search of the BBC news websites reveals nothing but then to be fair that site has never been the easiest to search through for specific stories unless they are the absolute headlines.

Zimbabwe

A bad joke. If you are the world affairs/political type then you know about Zimbabwe and the election that never was. Unfortunately the UK and aftermath of colonialism means thatthings don’t always run smoothly and even those with noble intentions can be seduced by power. I do not believe that Mugabe was the way he is now when he was first leading an independent and vibrant Zimbabwe and I can even understand that the UK does not want to intervene due to its past connections. However once you set the line by joining up with the American idea of righting wrongs wherever you view them, after all Iraq certainly wasn’t about oil and we sort of proved that it was not about immediate danger from phantom weapons so it must have been about increasing democracy so lets go spread some more democracy now.

China

Another bad joke and another reason why I ended my love affair with the Olympics. First off why do we have Chinese security types running through the streets of London last time I checked we pay taxes so we can have our own police and what not to take care of things in our own damn country it is an insult to say we could not take care of it ourselves and I believe it helped to make the protests worse than they otherwise might have been. To stand by an allow China with its human rights record to hold the Olympics is just insane, INSANE. We go to Afghanistan and Iraq accuse Iraq of working with Al Qaeda with no proof, yet we all remember the videos of the horror seen at Tiananmen Square if that is not worth a few precision guided American missiles I don’t know what is.

For all those sports stars who want to keep politics out of sport they must have missed the UK based commercials from our last election, which basically said politics is everything. Also look at Apratheid and what the UK did then apparently now that we are hosting the Olympics after them and might lose some money we suddenly don’t mind tyrannical and oppressive regimes. I always thought the UK was a place that had integrity I was wrong.

Damn I am all ranted out and I did not get a chance to talk about Throttling the Internet which Sexy Phil pointed me too. Check his video for details.

One computer down but not defeated

It has been crazy at the new place what with the move and things. Unfortunately promises made to me by companies have proved to be false so now the business is running on less than broadband speeds which is disappointing and means that my endless march to 70 has been somewhat curtailed on good old WoW.

So it has still been unpacking, cleaning and setting things up to make things as comfortable as possible. Even got to watch some TV which was nice but soon my replacement charger will soon be here and the other computer will be back online soon.

Not much else to report here so will talk soon.

Moved Premises

Hello it is me again!

I'm back but different. I have moved the operation and myself to new digs in fact as I write this I am starting my first full day here. It has some problems probbaly down to my love of the high life but overall this place is great. As a result of the move over the last few weeks and copious amounts of paperwork and form filling I am a bit behind in my usual consideration entertainment available either by TV and the Net.

Things I am looking forward to:

1. Battlestar Galactica
2. Naruto Shippuuden

Don't really have anything else that I am aware of to be honest but I will be checking my podcasts and checking various sites to see if there is something that at the moment I am missing. Don't worry though it just means most likely that the next few posts will be about news items as opposed to TV.

Shafts Word

YouTube Video of the Year








Hands down. Hands down. This video sums it up for me shows the best part of YouTube and talks about some of the worst parts of being a YouTuber. I don’t even usually watch FiveAwesomeGirls but I know people who watch it obsessively and I recognised the young lady and clicked because she was on the videos being watched right now animated thingy and I was glad I did.





TV Trauma
Hmm I like that name might have to make me a logo for that.





Kyle XY
Its OVER ZOMG!
















The one show to keep it real and go 23 episodes in this rather messed up TV season, very strange especially when you think the first season was like 10 or 12 episodes and the third season is being reported to be a half season of 10 episodes. It has never failed to keep me entertained for a single episode. I think the acting too has stepped up to the next level where in the past it was a little wooden from time to time which is understandable if you have to play a teenager who doesn’t even know what emotions are.

Jericho
Died and then came back while the first 2 episodes were strong I was not so sure about episode 4 and it got me back into my old habit of leaving Jericho episodes till the end of the week after watching all the other things I like to look at from around the world. It is getting better though, it is good to see the Mayor back in town.

Music news
Leona Lewis Number One in the US who’d have thunk it. I think it is very impressive even if I am not a fan of the show that spawned her success, lets just hope she does better than Robbie did over there.

Sorry but I am back now

I know I have been away for a time but something HUGE came up so it was taking all my time. Over the next few weeks I will be moving so as you can imagine that is a source of stress. No phone line WHAT! Indeed so not sure when the next time you will be hearing from me will be. Anyway enough about my problems lets get to a few news stories that I find interesting.

UK oath of allegiance
(See it at http://edition.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/europe/03/11/uk.oath.ap/index.html)

Lord Goldsmith has written up plans for school children to swear allegiance to the queen to promote a sense of British culture. This has been big on Radio Five Live, which is all I listen to radio wise. If Radio Five is a reasonable reflection of the public then the public is not wholly behind the idea. Indeed it seems the most contentious issue is swearing allegiance to the Queen and I tend to agree, the country please and the not the outdated idea of the monarchy. I heard the allegiance for new citizens which mentions democracy and being a loyal subject all in the same paragraph. Also the Scottish Government are going nuts about it so that should prove interesting.

YOUTUBE review
Too much time on my hands means that I am forever having a look around to see what is to be seen on YouTube and these are the channels I think are pretty good.

Hotforwords
(http://www.youtube.com/hotforwords)

Making education sexy saw this totally by accident as a result of looking at the next person on the list. You can look at this one of two ways of course I prefer the good way which encourages men and women who have never looked at education before to give it a shot.

http://www.youtube.com/sxephil

The Phillip DeFranco show which in fact is a guy Vlogging about various news stories of the week. This is more than its description my first lead you to believe it is definitely worth taking a look at. This guy is funny and at ease in front of the camera, yes he brings his own views but he does not shove it down our throats.

Anyway that is enough from me might be again away for awhile subject to Internet access at the new place but I won’t be of for too long I couldn’t stand it.

The Week

Strike is over... WHERE ARE MY SHOWS!!!
Hey I’m very very happy to see that in all likelihood the WGA strike is over but me probably like most of you are wondering about how much damage has been done to the TV schedules. Living in the UK looking at the way that the US organises it TV scheduling gives me a headache. By the look of things having a quick look at a few news sites tells me Heroes won’t be back (which I knew from spending so much time on TV.com forums) and also it seems Chuck won’t be coming back till the autumn which is a real shame it is the first comedy show that I have deemed worthy in years most new comedies just seem to pass me by. Hmm thinking about it this also means that the Oscars will be ok if you are into your awards ceremonies.

Fallout
According to Cash Peters the following shows that matter as edited by me are gone as in cancelled.

Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles
Absolutely awesome I really hope that Cash has got it wrong in this case and that it will stick around for a season or two I mean the hype alone got most of us prepared to give it some time and I like what I have seen so far. There was like a 2-month teaser campaign in the UK that’s crazy and unheard of in most cases.








The Bionic Woman
I didn’t think I would like this show but I do now maybe it is the British attraction I don’t know but I am sorry to see it go. It is interesting to note that Flash Gordon managed to make it to the end of its run but that is probably down to being on the Sci-Fi channel, it is a shame that networks can be so timid. Flash Gordon was actually pretty intriguing I rate it more fun than forcing myself through Smallville these days more Lana drama than I can manage.

Moonlight
A guilty pleasure but no more apparently this one has called it quits too.

Diana
You know what they are still doing that inquest thing, biggest waste of money I can think of at the moment soon to be eclipsed once the national ID scheme goes ahead though. Diana’s death is one of those incidents people either buy the cover story or they won’t simple as that no amount of hearings will change that. It is best we just let it drop of the news radar surely.

Mosquito
Nope not the little bloodsuckers but something else entirely. Apparently hearing loss begins in your twenties so this one security expert guy made a siren that only young people can hear and has successfully marketed as a way of keeping children away. I say children the public would call them ‘scum’, ‘feral youths’ or ‘ne’er do wells’ ok maybe not the last one but I’m feeling a bit old school. I was just surprised that this technology existed I honestly thought it was a joke for awhile.

And that’s the week that was. Goodbye and be safe.

Random round up

Back once again people sorry about the wait. First of does anyone want a chicken strip? No… they’re spicey. Hmm more for me then, anyway on to it. I live in the UK I think it says on the side and the mood of the nation right now is well just a little bit down. Actually a LOT down. The economy and the mortgage rates problems are really starting to scare the public and have an actual effect too like in America the amount of repossessions are up. You take that and couple it with Northern Rock and we are lucky that they are not rioting in the streets.

People are talking about recession not that it affects me my main concern is procuring full time employment which in my view is just a s hard as it always has been. Slightly annoyed too had to turn down some part time work as the people who wanted it done called me the morning of, to somehow get to the place of work which is 40 miles away in around half an hour which was just stupid.

I’m still waiting to here about a job I applied for I will definitely be mailing them on Monday. It is a joke how companies treat people who are just trying to get a job, I was told that I would be informed regardless of the result 2 weeks ago and nothing.


This girl is going to be huge.

That’s enough of the negative, recently I have been just beginning to see past the surface of YouTube. Getting involved as much as I can without ay decent equipment, I have been branching out from the mostly Harry Potter related stuff that I look at to some music artists and the 5awesomegeeks channel.

ZOMG! Shaft is on the TV.

Not with Richard Roundtree at the helm but Samuel L Jackson. I caught it myself awhile ago it is an alright film, very different from the original but hey times have moved on.

Anyway that is enough for now.

Grr...

40 minutes waiting for the doctor after BOOKING an appointment the week before. Add to that not being paid last week because between two departments they managed to lose a sheet I hand delivered to them.

Grr x100

Anyway had a Subway sandwich and some Subway cookies. Do they have Subway cookies in America or are they like muffins instead? Hmm that is indeed a question worthy of deep thought.

That is my day my catch up on some American TV later and then this week maybe do an update of the American shows that have been on maybe even talk about that Smallville episode.

(ED. Why are the blogs getting so small)

I MADE A YOUTUBE VIDEO!!!

Well to be fair it is not the first or even the first one that I appear in but this one is the first proper YouTube formatted one if you know what I mean. Do I want to be famous? Nope infamous might be an option though. Really I just want to post a few vids get a subscribers that came to my channel just because something in the videos interested them and then after that try to take over the world.

Other YouTube news in my opinion these videos/Channels are awesome like Captain Awesome (10 points for those of you who know who I mean).

tokenblackchic Fighting back against the haters

sooz5 A great idea that I hope to post a reply to

jerryhcooke A reply to the above video

Britney in trouble again
In other news Britney has had her father put in temporary control of her affairs which when I thought about it, I was like “WAAAAAAAAAH” that is huge and really bad. I have had dark days but probably not as bad as that and I certainly didn’t have the whole world sitting back and watching me do it. Britney get well soon and prove the haters wrong.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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?

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.

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.

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.

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.