Sunday= meh

Well, hello there.

Been awful distracted of late, hence the lack of blogs.

As a bit of an update, been doing college work, going to work  and sleeping. Yeah, so very exciting, which as usual is mostly due to lack of funds. I have been doing very little bar frequenting various forums.  But I got paid on Friday, so went on the usual pay-day high. I spent £45 on comic books and booked myself a new tattoo.

I have been sitting in front of my laptop, struggling to find the momentum to finish my Graded unit research. I am very lax with it at the moment. There is just no motivation there at all. I am going to have to force myself to get it done, as I have to hand in the work for grading tomorrow.  Total dreading it. This is the project which decides where I get my grade for my course from. So I am making a lot of effort that it is done right, but doing it all tidy and clean, is making it very monotonous to do. It does look pretty mind you. Just I am regreting putting all my work together in Photoshop. Its just a lot of extra work *sigh* I just hope it pays off, which my tutor believes it it will, because it looks nice. Uch. Its giving me a headache too.

Also. Mr Benjamin Madden, kind of knocked the breath out of me a bit.

I mean 'hello'. Still not happy over the fact that Ellismania 5 is happening on my birthday. And all Jason Ellis can say to comfort me, is that Benji is a 'dead cert' to win'. *rolls eyes* Something tells me he said that just to shut me up. lol. But I am confused, and its something that has been playing on my mind. The fight is MMA, and Benji and Rikki are different weight classes. I heard that they were attempting to get Rikki up to Benji's weight, but he just couldn't bulk up. So Benji has been downsizing, to fit Rikki's weight class. Benji still looks heavier than Rikki, but he is very close to being in his class. Uch, Benji you had better win, since you decided to fight on my birthday.

Anywho, talking about MMA stuff, UFC? UFC113, is in May. I am all split over it for having Koscheck Vs Daley. I really like watching those two guys fight and it sucks that they are gonna be against each other. I do think Koscheck might win it, but I really want Daley to do well. Oh well

Today I've been listening to:-

WMG to back out of streaming

Having a look through the internet, just browsing for things of interest, and found this:

www.trustedreviews.com/mp3/news/2010/02/10/Warner-Music-Ditches-Streaming--Strands-Spotify--Last-fm--Napster/p1

Yep, WMG ( Warner Music Group) is pulling out of online streaming. That means artists like Madonna, Avenged Sevenfold, Fall Out Boy, Hootie and the Blowfish, Killswitch Engage, Lostprophets, Linkin Park and a ton more, will no longer feature on streaming sites, like Pandora (now US only), Last.FM, Spotify and Napster.  And I feel that they are attacking the normal, honest music fan, who uses the internet to quench their thirst for new bands.

This has really bothered me, because I use both Spotify and Last.FM a lot. WMG is one of the big four music companies (the others being Sony, EMI and Universal), and having them pull out of something, is surely only the beginning of the end for streaming. People may scoff, but be aware that Warner was the first studio to pull out of Toshiba and HD-DVD. Its whether the other studios follow suite or, Warner just falls behind.

People were becoming powerful in the music industry, no longer were we force fed music on Radio 1, and told what is good music. Now, people can go onto Last FM, and listen to streaming radio full of recommended artists.  People can make their own decisions. And more people are listening via streaming, then buying legal downloads.  If you take away peoples abilities to listen to the free music they want, illegal downloads will just increase. Whilst people are being more adventurous with music, they are still unwilling to pay for something they have never heard.

I felt that the music industry was moving forward, but someone says 'its not profitable' and it goes back to square one. There are more suited millionaires running the music industry, than there is with the currupt banks. The Music industry has always been about making money, but radio was how people learnt about new bands. To the average user, streaming has no difference from listening to the local radio station, except no dud songs. And people started to use streaming sites, to try before they bought an album. And, myself, as an honest music fan, would then buy a cd/record or download the album off emusic or itunes. But if you take the ability to listen to music before they buy, they will just flock to torrent sites and download what they want for free. This way, if the album is weak, then they don't lose out on anymoney, and can just delete it. But this person is criminalised, because, they have stolen the album, they have now deleted.

Is this right? I don't think so. Streaming keeps people happy, people can preview music, and they aren't downloading illegally to get their taster. Music companies don't like the word 'free'. Everyone has to pay for what they use, I understand that. But if a free listen, ends up in a purchase, is that not better for the industry, rather than downloading off Limewire, and keeping it.

The music companies are pushing their audience further and further away. And they won't see it, till its too late. The damage will have already been done, and noone will respect music at all, because the industry's lack of respect to its customers.

Blogging Vs Social Networking

So blogging is apparently now losing out in popularity to social networking sites, especially Facebook.

I'm still awful stand-offish about facebook, I like something that I can express myself freely, and you can't realy do that on Facebook. I mean, most people I know, go on it to play the games. Its gimmicky. And I don't like that.

I pour my heart and soul into my blogs, and recently, with my anti-depressants being taken away, it helps me sort things out in my head a bit. Ok, they have status updates on facebook, but that's why I use twitter. And to be honest, its easier to ignore annoyances on twitter. I mean I have 104 requests to look through on facebook, and I just can't be bothered.

It shouldn't have to be such an effort. You should be able to go on to sites, and use them freely and comfortably. And its not just the Social Networking thing, cause I was on bebo a lot, and after 5 years I still love Myspace. Its just Facebook.

I can use it ok, but I am bored of spending ages on it, playing all the wee games, and checking everyones status updates, and bitching about each other. I mean, people are bad enough getting the message through text messages, let alone facebook. I have seen people block me on facebook, because they didn't like the way I said something(actually, it'd be the way that they read it). Saying that, not had that issue on twitter yet, and I do talk to a lot of people on that.

The good thing about social networking sites, is when they start to work together, like Myspace shows my tweets and my lastFM, in fact just about all sites, bar facebook uses twitter problem free.

Facebook has got its good points. I mean its great if you wanna check how someone is doing, and its seen a lot of action reconnecting old friends. Maybe its me, and I'm bias because I love Myspace, I dunno. Myspace was the first thing where you could be 'friends' with bands you admired, and it really opened up a lot of gateways. I would say, somewhat grudgingly, that I now feel that LastFM is more relevent in music terms. But, that could be that I am always looking for new bands, and LastFM always recommends bands, depending on what you have been listening to.

But its all trends, I guess, one day it will all come back round, where blogs are 'cool' again. Saying that, by the time that happens, I might be at the age where blogging is deemed more relevent anyway.

Oh well.

Picks of the bunch

I spend a lot of time on the internet, as you probably already know, so I thought I'd post my 'finds of the day'. Its basically a way for me to bookmark what I like, and what I may not like. It seems like a good idea, but I always find interesting things, then forget where I found them. This was an idea I thought of, on my way home from work, tonight.

Draw!

http://drawn.ca


This site features various types of illustrations and cartoons. It has been created as a collaboration blog, where more than one person can update the blog, and post things. A quick scroll down the main page shows the variety of the work on show here. The blog is updated, usually, every few days, and this keeps the site fresh and up to date. It is a good site for browsing through when you are looking for some much needed inspiration. As a person, who works both in traditional media, and digitally, I find the range of creations on this site very broad, and the site seems to have all bases covered. I highly recommend this site to anyone with an intrest in art.

Last FM

http://last.fm



LastFM is a site that I use a lot. It is a 'social music network', and I use it to find new music. You can use the site in a number of ways. The way I tend to use it, is by allowing last.fm to note what songs I listen to on either iTunes or Windows Media Player.  It does this using a technique called 'scrobbling'. It works by installing an 'add-on' to your music player of choice, and keeps a note of each song you listen to, and sends it to your page on the main site. This then creates a library of the artists you listen to, and the site recommends you some artists, which are similar to what you already listen too. The site also enables a user, to listen to 'radio stations' online (available via subscription in some countries). As well as having pages for listeners, bands and artists can create their own pages, where they can upload their own tracks and promote themselves. This is one of my favourite websites, mostly because it contains a lot of music, which is what I am personally interested in. I have discovered 9 bands in the last 2 days, and these are bands I would never have heard off (Russian Punk, anyone?). The site has seen a reccent rush of upgrades, as it made a deal with Microsoft, for the LastFM radio service to be available through its Xbox 360 console. This has opened the site up to a wider audience, and has proven to be very successful for the site.

The Casualties- We Are All We Have



A hardcore punk band from New York City, The Casualties are a huge influence on me. They have been one of my favourite bands for a few years now. I love the energy that they pile into every song, it blew me away the first time I heard them. They are one of the bands I haven't seen live yet. This is the type of music which influences me most.