End of the month... busy busy busy!!

OK, so it turned out that I'm no longer bored of the internet - just that sometimes it can be a chore going to all my different haunts and checking messages, updates and friends requests. And I know I haven't blogged in a while. Finding time is hard. I could do micro posts, I s'pose, but I kinda do that on facebook: 'Steve is ... doing his chores', 'Steve is ... out with his mates' etc etc.

One thing I thought I was going to blog about was Endorse It In Dorest 2008. It was my first time at this local festival and had planned to edit together a movie. But it turned out that it was taking me forever to do because I'm finding iMovie HD restricing. It's the movie editor that came with my macbook. It's pretty powerful but it's a sequential editor, not a multitrack editor which makes it more difficult to get timings right. It's fine for just stringing stuff together though - I just prefered Sony Vegas. Anyway, all the clips are on Flickr. Check out the slideshow below...



I had a great time at this festival. Although, Saturday had heavy rain throughout the WHOLE day. So me and Lisa decided to come home for that day and go back on the Sunday. It was a wise move!

James Burtn also announced that he'd finally popped the question to Emma. Yep, that's right, they're getting married. So a big congrats to them - such a great couple. They were made for eachother (and Emma has the patients of a saint - not many people would put up with James's ways!) We were in Endorse It when we heard the news via text... they were in France... so we had a drink in their honour.

When they got back we had a massive party at Kai's house. I don't remember much about it thanks to Marianna's homemade Casasha. But I know it was a good one.

Me and Lisa dug deep and scraped together some pennies to buy a shiny new 24" iMac. We had to for several reasons. Mainly because of Lisa's Degree (at least that was my main excuse). My old PC was really started to creak and within the last 2 weeks of it's life it managed to catch a particularly nasty virus. I managed to contain and remove the virus but not before it messed up my OS. I couldn't switch the thing off. Everytime it shut down it would restart itself. And I couldn't browse the internets either. It would load up google but then I couldn't go to any other page! Oh and dodgy pop-ups would appear even when I didn't have a browser open. I ran a virus checker on full deep scan and it managed to detect 27 viruses!! I couldn't trust my machine anymore. I could reformat it but then I'd lose everything I had on it. I'd had it for a long time so it was time for a new piece of hardware. Enter then new 24" iMac with 4GB Ram and 1TB Hard Drive.

After it arrived our bloody washing machine decided to die on us!! Talk about timing! Luckily I'd paid off my credit card some months back and hadn't touched it since so the new washing machine went on the card. So now I'm pretty skint!

Bored of the internet?!?

I dunno, maybe I am. I've not logged onto here for an update for a long time. I hardly use Facebook to talk to people. I occassionally log onto MySpace to check messages but ignore friend requests (There's 3 pages on my own profile and about 12 pages on Blind Voyeurs' profile) I've not uploaded to my flickr. I've posted once or twice on Solid Air messageboard and Never go to b3ta anymore (hmmm I must check that out)

These days I've mainly been on youtube. I've only posted 1 video about 3 weeks ago but I regularly log on to watch vids - current favourites being 21stCenturyCat (for a bit of vlogging and comedy) and SFLogicNinja (for really useful tutorials for Logic 8)

I'm often checking out news on digg.com - occassionaly commenting. But that's about it. I'm kinda bored of participating in conversations. I just use it to mainly read or watch stuff. I think it's just got to a stage where I've got so many profiles on so many different sites that it just becomes a chore to go to them all everyday. The profiles I've talked about here are just a few. There are a load that are more neglected than these.

Don't worry. I'm sure I'll snap out of it!

GTA has got me and not letting go!

Sorry about the lack of posts. GTA IV is to blame mostly! Whenever I got a spare moment I'm on that thing plugging away at those missions, sniping people, stealing cars, killing prostitues etc.

That being said, I HAVE been having a life....



I went to see Iron Man with Lisa (after a really nice meal in Wagamamas). 2 words about the film ... 'fucking incredible'! Robert Downey Jr is amazing as Tony Stark (Iron Man) and Jeff Bridges is unbelieveably brilliant! The storyline is totally believable and solid, the acting is superb, the sprinkling of comedy had me laughing out loud, the effects were seamless and it had the best cameo of Stan Lee ever! It will have to be owned on Blu-Ray when it comes out.

I've been to 60 Million Postcards this week twice - once to see Maz perform her RubyMusic stuff live and give her a bit of support, and the second time was to go to the 'It Came From Japan' evening (I write about that on my Bi-Polar Bears blog)

I've been to see my dad during the bank holiday weekend

I watched the Snooker final.

...and the footbal final with Chealsea V Man U (that's probably my only football entry on this blog!)

Been getting back into Heroes


I received my NIN Ghosts Deluxe Edition in the post this week. Chuffed!

We played a gig at 60 Million Postcards for Solid Air - everything went really smoothly... apart from the very end where the last track fell apart because of technical difficulties (although, nobody in the audience actually noticed - they all thought it was part of the song!)

Oh and I've shaved my head!

H2-Woah!

I've just been forwarded an email about a news article on BBC News website from Lisa. It's entitles Bournemouth homes get fast fibre.

Bournemouth has been picked as the first UK town to get super-fast fibre via the sewers.

It is part of a plan from fibre firm H20 to extend its underground sewer networks from businesses to consumers.

Work will begin on the network within the next six months and more towns will be announced in coming months.

It will bring broadband of up to 100Mbps (megabits per second) to 88,000 homes in the Dorset town and is the largest scheme of its kind in the UK.

More...

Grand Theft Auto IV

Not much to say here - you know what it's all about, you know you have to own it. I've had it since Friday and I just have to say it's way better than I could ever have hoped. Fantastic!

New music video for Blind Voyeurs

So, I figured it'd be good to submit something to Vimeo as I love that site and I thought why shouldn't I showcase some of my material!? This video is a short snippet of some of my live visuals for Blind Voyeurs gigs put to some music. The tune is called Chemical Burns.

New tune + New Visuals = New Music Video.



Blind Voyeurs - Chemical Burns (DEMO v1.02) from Steve Beck on Vimeo.

It's also on YouTube. If you've got a profile on there and want to fave it, comment it, rate it. Feel free

Digg: Free New Nine Inch Nails Song, "Discipline"

Found on Digg.com (for those interested)...

Trent Reznor is an amazing man, just put your email address in to get the download link and check your email to download Discipline, the new single

read more | digg story

UPDATE: I just downloaded it, listened to it, didn't really care for it much. It was NIN by numbers if you ask me. But you might like it. And as it's a free download that's also DRM free that's a bonus. It's better to download it for free and then decide whether you like it or not than to go buy it on CD in HMV, take it home, listen to it and THEN decide you don't like it.

Eye eye

I can't quite remember the last thing I was dreaming about this morning but I know that I was about to apologise to someone in my dream before my alarm went off and woke me up. That annoyed me. So I hit snooze, went back into slumber land for 5 minutes so I could apologise to this guy and finish off my dream. I have such a guilty conscience that I even have to make ammends with imaginary people!! What's that all about?!?

Anyway, then I finally woke up properly my right eye was all blurry. I must've been sleeping on it. It's happened before and it normally corrects itself. But now it's nearly 10:00am and I still can't see out of my right eye properly! It's freaking me out a bit!!!!

(Lisa's just texted me saying that she'll have to get me an eye patch!!! Yaaarrrr Jim lad!!!)

I'm on the Radio tonight

...with my band, Blind Voyeurs. Here's a Copy&Paste of our Myspace Blog post...

We'll be on Hope FM tonight between 7pm and 8pm (GMT). We'll be playing 4 tracks from the upcoming album and chatting with the hosts about stuff. Listen to the stream online here...

http://www.hopefm.com/

...or tune your analogue dial to 90.1 FM - but you'll need to be very local as their range is pretty short. If you listen in online be sure to have pop-ups enabled on your browser.

Hope you can tune in

Textual Intercourse 1 - IBS

A text conversation between me and Lisa....

Lisa: We have a weeks extension on our hard GIS map assignment
Me: That's good news baby. I'm having a really shit day. My brain's not working, eerything I'm doing is wrong, the coffee machine's broken ... I could go on but I won't. Wanna go to Boscombe at lunch, coming?
Lisa: Ok, I'm having a shite day now 2. have to ring mortgage company as they're being arseholes. Will get my shit 2gether & jump on a bus asap x

...2 mins...

Lisa: On the bus, dya fancy The Percy 4 lunch? I could do with an alcoholic beverage?

(at this point I should explain that 'The Percy' is a pub on the edge of Boscombe High Street)

Me: If it's not too busy yeah. Xx
Lisa: OK ill check it out, what dya want 2 drink if its quiet?
Me: I dunno. Pint of Fosters? I really shouldn't be having booze today. I was thinking more about going to either Costa or the other coffee shop down by MacDonalds xx
Lisa: Ok, actually I fancy a maccy ds now?
Me: Maccy D's = IBS in a bun

As I was typing that last text she rang. I explained what I was typing so we decided to meet at somewhere completely different for lunch so as to prevent potential tummy troubles. We met up and went to a nice little cafe opposite the Opera House (the name escapes me) and had Cappacino with Chicken, Pesto and Mozzerella panini.

It arrived. The side salad had a sweet vingarette. Ate everything. I realised I was gonna be late getting back to work so I left at 1:51 (it's a 10 min walk back)

On the way back I had IBS.

Dammit!

Music - recording, watching, listening

So, I've got my new mixing desk and some new mics. (Alesis Multimix16 USB2 and a couple of Shure mics) Tried them out last night and they work a treat. I wanted to record this song that's been in my head for the last couple of days but I felt too self aware with the window open - it was so fuckin hot yesterday! Can't wait to try recording some proper tracks live with the full band. Need some more mic stands though.

I watched Jools Holland last night. It was cool to see The Charlatans with some new stuff. Tim Burgesses hair was a bit weird though - not that that really matters. Was interesting to see Was Not Was still pushing 'Walk The Dinosaur'. And there was an awesome Japanese drum band called Yamato Drummers that totally blew my mind.

Priorities?

I had a dream last night that we got burgled. All I could think about was "Ooh look how much room we've got" - not "Fuck! Where's me stuff??"

Woke up to find the kitchen window wide open!

Don't cry over spilt coffee

So, yesterday was a bit of a nightmare in that it was raining and I had to get up to go to work. Some days I don't mind having to earn a living but this was one of those days that I knew was going to be a bad start to a weird week.
Today (Tuesday) I sprung out of bed in an attempt to apply the typical English tally-ho "pull yourself together" type attitude - I was even singing the theme tune to Dallas (I dunno where that came from?!)

It was all going well until I got to work to grab myself a coffee. My usual brew (number 35 - instant coffee, white with sugar) came out as a weak milky water!! Undeterred, I went for a cappacino. I couldn't see if it was like the other coffee as it was covered in froth - as cappacinos generally are. I tried to blow the froth out of the way but that didn't work. So I gave it a sip. Burnt my lip and spilt half of it on my clean white shirt from the reflex action! Muthafucka!

Well, at least I've got a half day today!

grabbing your attention!

grabbing your attention!, originally uploaded by SteveBeck.

I HATE mondays!!! I'm at work and I don't want to be!

GET .... ME ..... OUT .... OF ..... HERE!!

Stormy bus journey 1

Stormy bus journey 1, originally uploaded by SteveBeck.

It was chucking it down last night. Thunder and lightening too. But it wasn't cold - it felt more like a tropical storm!

This is Boscombe

On the bus

On the bus, originally uploaded by SteveBeck.

on the way to Lee's. He offered to make us a slap-up roast! It was fuckin HUGE!!!!!!!! I still feel fat today

Blind Voyeurs - Stoner Jam

Here's my first video from Vimeo. Wanted to test how long my videos can be cos YouTube is limited to 10 minutes. It appears that the only limit on Vimeo is by the size of the video file! Sweet.


Blind Voyeurs - Stoner Jam from Steve Beck on Vimeo.

Vimeo

Just discovered a nice video site called Vimeo. It's like YouTube but without all the pointless videos of some guy being kicking in the nuts! This one's more about art and small magical packets of peoples lives. The videos have a better compression and are a lot better quality than YouTube. There's even a HD section. I've signed up, gonna start making videos and put them on there. Here's some of the cool stuff that you can find on there...



Stairwell from Ted on Vimeo.


HV20 Canon LOCUSTS - The Eighth Plague from scope2000 on Vimeo.

Pitchfork.tv

Check it out! It's a new video site from pitchfork.com. They have videos of live gigs, interviews, exclusive videos etc of lots of really cool bands. It's currently one of my favourite sites. Bookmark it

The Apprentice

I watched The Apprentice last night. Just caught the end of it actually. It's a great programme to watch if you enjoy seeing smug naive toffs make fools of themselves. Take this clip from last night's episode for example...



The guy in the middle did well considering. He nominated himself as team leader but the toffs didn't listen to him, purely based on the fact that he's 'lower class' than them. What a couple of pricks! And how slimey is that Nicolas?!?! This series could well be compulsive viewing