Archive for the ‘Life’ Category

Did my first ISS appointment today. Consisted of ringing ISS up after my appointment disappeared, they said someone had forgotten to put the appointment on and put it back on. I then turned up on time, nobody answered the door. Phoned Victoria, she said it was fixed. 4 minutes, not bad at all.

Ok so I had an DivX file I wanted to to take the audio from. It can’t be that hard to do right?

Well Premiere can’t deal with DivX. Indeed nothing can deal with DivX. None of the conversion software seems to be able to. The only thing that could out of all things was Windows Movie Maker. So I imported it into there and exported it as a WMV file.

I then imported this into the Windows Media Stream Editor so that I could convert it into an audio file. This managed to convert it into a WMA file. I then imported this into Premiere. Premiere conformed it so that it could be edited in the timeline and by the time it was done the file had been re-arranged and randomly restarted the whole audio at points (for example at 3 minutes in it jumped back to the start – but it didn’t jump, it was still playing the file, it’s just the file at this point was the same as the start even though the original file was different if that makes sense. Basically instead of it playing 1, 2, 3, etc it would play 1, 1, 2, 1, and so on).

It as weird that it did this as it plays fine when you just open the file in Windows Media Player. So I took the file into Audio Conversion Wizard. Which crashed the first time I tried to convert it. I then went through again and altered some settings and exported it as a WAV file.

Ok so I now have a standard WAV file that I imported into Premiere. That so far doesn’t seem to be jumping back to the start. I then go through the file splitting into sections I want. Once I have done this I have to, section by section, copy and paste that section into a different timeline and export it as a WAV.

Done that, now it’s a case of going through the songs one by one and working out what song it is so I can rename the file appropriately. The audio files are also hidiously quite. So after all this what do I have? A bunch of MP3s (as I originally wanted them) but they are too quiet and only have artist details in the ID3 tags – no track numbers or titles. Brilliant. And that is presuming Audio Conversation Wizard which is currently converting them from WAV to MP3 completes without problems.

After enduring quite a lengthy period of lectures yesterday and squeezing in time to record the first bout of Jimmy Turtlehouse footage I headed off to the Linux Install Fest that was being run by CompSoc. It was quite entertaining to wander up and down the room going “hmmm” at various computers though the whole concept had got Maths Chris a little over excited.

I headed off to the union at 7 to check out Christianity Explored. It’s basically what they did at Alpha last year (not that I went to that) but with a new name. If they were attempting to bring new people into Christianity they are failing quite miserably though as it was (as with all these Christian events) packed with Christians and very little else. Still they did offer a free meal of sweet and sour chicken so I think I’ll head back next week.

I then finished the night at The Tunnel Club. The Kooks had cancelled their gig so they were doing free entry. Given it was 10:45 when I went down and that it was free entry I went down thinking “there is no way you’re going to get in to this Chris, it’s 2 weeks after freshers week they would be sold out even if it wasn’t free entry.”

I then walked straight in to find about 15 people there. The bar was deserted, the bar staff just standing around and the dance floor was completely empty. Which worked out really well as I got a seat at the side and even though it filled up the crowd didn’t move that far forward so I was like 2 metres away from the band and had a perfect view of them. The band, known as Olympus Mons or something were really good as well, I was well impressed.

Once it got busy the atmosphere really picked up as well. They moved the DJ stand into the middle of the stage after the band had finished and Chris Martin was really getting into it and dancing about. Plus every time he put a popular track on the crowd went mental. Spent some time hanging out with Jeremy too, it’s good to know there are other indie fans who like Tunnel Club as well as myself and Rich.

So yeah, all in all it was a wicked night. I normally get bored after the band has finished and leave like before midnight as I mainly go for the band anyway but I was there till like 1:30 last night. At £3.50 advanced for a good night of music and a live band you really can’t go wrong.

Today, Worfolk Pictures rolled out its brand new show, Jimmy Turtlehouse Guitar Hero. While you can find all the details about it on the website and in the videos what I really want to talk about is the rollout that has been done in order to support the show.

First of all, we started with a new website on a new domain. It’s a basic WordPress install with a template added on but it gets the job done. The videos for the show are then hosted on Revver as they split advertising revenues with the content producer.

It far from ends there though. The videos have also been added to YouTube due to it’s popularity as well as Google Video and Metacafe. To really get the viral going we have also added profiles on MySpace and Bebo so that people can connect that way and the videos will soon be added to MySpace Video too. There are several other avenues being considered too including MSN Soapbox (beta so we can’t get an account but I’ve put my email address on the notification list), Yahoo Video and a long list of social networking sites to trawl through.

On top of that the website is obviously going to get mentioned on Worfolk Online’s site, and the blog and of course the videos are on Worfolk Picture’s site as well. Plus I’m now mentioning it on this blog and any other blogs I remember I have which are suitable to promote such a topic.

I’m also looking into getting it listed on iTunes and the other podcasting directories. Did I miss anything? Maybe a story on Digg? A few more social networks couldn’t hurt. But I think we are going to manage to get the word out about the show quite well.

Has anyone else noticed that the aforementioned house is known as “Matt and Kat’s house” in which Kieran just happens to live. It’s never Matt’s house, Kat’s house, Kieran’s house or Matt, Kat and Keiran’s house. It’s always just Matt and Kat’s house.

Therefore I’ve come up with a few solutions to the problem.

• Kieran changes his name to either Matt or Kat
• Kat runs off with Sarann and it becomes Matt and Kieran’s house
• I am promoted to honerary resident like at Sarann’s house and we call it Chris’s house

I’ve spent a bit of time getting some coding done recently which has been cool as my activities over the past few weeks have included hardly any. Combine that with the meditation inspired by Garden State which I am currently watching and will probably blog more about later and it’s brought up some interesting thoughts about the future.

I mean, uni is ok but so far the lectures are scoring pretty high on the boring scale. And work isn’t the same since I got back from uni. So I’m still fairly unsure as to which is the lesser of two evils. I really need to spend more time on my online ventures and get them to a much higher level. Things are building slowly but they need to be moving much faster.

I also think I need to be more pro-active in getting some group projects and ventures together. The sooner the better, I might post a few ads and forum posts around and see what happens.

Considering a site for my blogroll is quite an undertaking. I can’t let any crap on there, it’s a very select list. You have to have an interesting, entertaining and regularly updated blog. Or be Michelle (seriously, no posts for 3 weeks, what is that about?). However after much consideration I have decided to blogroll Matt.

So head over and have a read of the infinite words of Matt Revell.

Last Tuesday I ventured down to the Hyde Park Social. They do pints of coke for £1 and doubles for like £1.50, £2.00 which are great prices. The place itself though leaves quite a bit to be desired. The atmosphere seems ok but I wasn’t that impressed. Phil and B didn’t seem to be either, what can I say, we have standards. I like my expensively fitted out bars. Yeah, you pay a little more for drinks but I would rather. If you were just out to get drunk, get a bottle of spirits and drink at home.

It’s been well ages since I blogged. So let’s do a day by day break down.

Saturday (16th)
Wendy House. Moved my stuff in to Ellerslie during the day and then went home for a BBQ. Finished it off at Wendy House. Left around 2 and ended up getting to bed at 4:30. Fun night.

Sunday (17th)
Welcome party, met a lot of my housemates, spent some time in The Terrace. I’ve already blogged about this day too looking back at it.

Monday (18th)
Intro party. Was fun, I went down and spent most of the time hanging out in Stylus’s Kissdafunk room as they were remixing rock stuff into dance tunes whereas the indie room was a little too indie for my taste. I felt really ill about 1ish though and had to leave, spent some more of the night talking to my housemates.

Tuesday (19th)
Went to Tunnel Club with Rich and saw Dead Disco which is an indie rock chick band who were good.

Wednesday (20th)
Spent the daytime at the societies fair recruiting for film making soc. Went to School Disco with Michelle, that was lots of fun. I got well wasted though.

Thursday (21st)
I had to be up at 8am for ISS VSA training which given I went to bed at 4am and was drunk it really knocked me out of it. Afterwards I spent a bit of time in the Llama before going to the second year introductory meeting and heading off to work to do a close, I was so tired by then, it wasn’t fun. Although probably worth it overall.

Friday (22nd)
Woke up feeling terrible in the morning from some kind of illness, maybe freshers flu. Almost phoned in sick but it was a close shift so I dragged my ass in and just took loads of paracetamol. I started feeling a little better at about 11ish so it wasn’t too bad. It took us till 3 to do the close though, Charlotte was doing dining area close till 1:50 and front counter took longer than anyone so myself and Neil did kitchen close and dive (a 3 person job) between us before front counter had finished! That is why we are on “the team” and the others aren’t.

Saturday (23rd)
Went down to Crossgates in the morning to try and get myself an X-Box. Couldn’t get one but I did find Dark Forces for the Playstation which I was well pleased about as I didn’t know it was released on anything other than PC. The walk took it out of me and I started feeling ill again though.

I had a 3:45-9 shift at work which was the most mental night shift I have ever worked. 3 people had called in sick and 2 of them were on the closing team so despite Danny drafting more people in they didn’t get out until 5am – they were still outside when Rob turned up to open for breakfast!

Meanwhile I went to Oblivion but still being ill left after about an hour.

Sunday (24th)
Had to be up at 9:30 for work. Afterwards my dad picked me up and gave me a lift home which was cool. Then me and Michelle headed out to the All-American Rejects gig which was wicked, they are quite an active band on stage (no Billy Talent but still very good).

Monday (today)
Had 2 lectures. And 2 hours of drinking in the Llama. It’s a nice balanace I think.

It’s been a long, long time since I blogged. The All-American Rejects rocked. Yeah!