General Happenings Of Jamie

Eurovision

Sun, 25 May 2008 13:50:55 GMT

Welcome to the Eurovision Politics Contest! Here are some singers to entertain you while we wait for bored families with nothing better to do to vote for which country they reckon is politically more popular.

Film: Deja Vu

Sat, 16 Dec 2006 10:43:39 GMT

Wow, that's one cool film...
I'm aware my girlfriend actuallt wrote a real review of this for her journalism class... so, I'm trying to take inspiration from that to make my words all pro-like... but that's already failing......
If you've liked Butterfly Effect, Sixth Sense, Memento or any sort of action film with a twist/time travelling sort of aspect, this is the film you'll enjoy.

This is a long film btw, just over 2 hours I believe. But, this isn't because there are unnessesary dialogue scenes etc, everything about the film is laid out perfectly. It really needs 2 hours for this film to work.
The concept is unbelievable (much to the critics disgust). However, if you can watch a film and believe what is happening (i.e, you enjoy a story of any kind about anything) then you'll be able to see through that. However, the concept is quite original and at first I questioned about how the film was going to handle this idea. It's one of those story ideas which if treated incorrectly, will make the film flop. However, this film did an amazing job of using this concept perfectly.
There is some violence with (slow-motion) explosions and a few scenes witnessing a death. But, it's all part of the film and it wouldn't be such a strong and dramatic film without them.
Overall, the film is very very clever and keeps you guessing to the end.

Highlights:

Compelling story-line
Great acting
The car chase scene..... very very original, awesome idea

Low-lights

Too much violence for some?
Unbelievable for some (why do the critics like Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings?)

New Accordion!

Sat, 16 Dec 2006 10:31:55 GMT

Score!
Got myself a nice new accordion nice and cheap (cheap as rather expensive (very expensive) chips (though the chips I bought the other day were even cheaper than normal chips because Woolworths priced it wrong!) ).....
Anyway, it's an 120 bass Italian accordion and it's pretty :)
Found my old Accordion music folder, started to sight-read some songs and my fingers started to just somehow know where to go, and I found I could still play (although I haven't played an accordion for well over 2 years)...
aaah, piccy after the cut!

Film: Mission Impossible 3

Sun, 26 Nov 2006 21:43:49 GMT

I'm having a film thing at the moment... and my tesco dvd rental is fueling this at the moment quite nicely :)
So, today whilst doing some work, I watched mission impossible 3...

Well, I can just about remember Mission Impossible 1 and 2... I remember not getting mission impossible 1 properly, but realised the story line wasn't that complicated enough to care... I feel the same about Mission Impossible 3, although I think I understood it, I feel I make have missed a line of dialogue towards the end to just clarify who is on who's side (yes, it's one of those conspiracy things again)...
The film does have a few emotionally drawn scenes including the first scene, when Ethan Hunt's (Tom Cruise) wife is held at gun point unless Hunt can provide the location of the "rabbit's foot". This is a moving (yet very effective) way of starting the film, which I found very clever and was in my mind throughout the film, where you see all the events that led up to the first scene.
If you're a fan of the first films, then there's a brilliant part when they make a mask of the baddie using this little CAD machine. However, like in the other Mission Impossible films, I'm not a fan of the whole mask thing. It really does get on your nerves and feels like they really couldn't think of a different way of making the plot more effective.
However, the plot of the story is very good and the action scenes are visually stunning (inparticular the raid on the bridge).

Highlights

Great action
Emotionally great film
Breaking into Vatican city!!! *hums The Vatican Rag*

Low-lights

Stupid 'mask' story twists... I mean seriously, who is who? Who cares anymore? is everyone just Tom Cruise pretending to be other people?
People who have never fired a weapon can NOT kill three people whilst holding the gun with one hand... of which all three of them are armed with machine guns...
General 'no big mission impossible'... a few little break-ins... apart from the vatican, which was rarther cool, but not that big as some of the original film ideas

Rating: 7/10

Film: Identity

Sat, 25 Nov 2006 20:57:20 GMT

ok, just got back from party on friday night... my head hurts... so I decided to watch a film. The film in question being 'Identity'.

Basically, this film ruled. If you ever see this film, watch the whole thing... it does feel a bit weird in the middle...
Essentially, I reckon I had guessed the film's twist 10 minutes into the film... that being theory A.
Then, in the middle I started thinking that this film was dire... I was almost tempted to turn it off. But, I needed to know the ending and the acting (the oh-so glorious acting) is superb...
But then the twist happens, which was completely not what I expected... which shocked me... I shall call this Theory B.
Then the film came to a close... again... and it turned out my theory A was correct... sort of... apart from far better... and the ending I presumed to be lame turned out to be brilliant... absolutely brilliant...

Highlights:

Tumble drying scene... on the edge of my seat...
The rain, very very well done rain
The twist (rarely does a film's twist actually surprise me, they are to be congratulated)

Low-lights:

The plot in the middle felt thin, but quickly picked up
The extended version is too confusing at first viewing I believe... the theatrical cut was far nicer, however the extended is great for second viewing

Rating: 8.5/10

um...

Sat, 11 Nov 2006 18:32:03 GMT

You know, I haven't updated LJ for ages... it becomes something you only ever post on when you have a mild moment of insanity and feel like expressing yourself in writing... but you pretend to yourself that noone else is listening or reading... and let's face it, not many people do read other people's live journals... I bet 3 at the most will read this...

But yeh... thought I'd update!
If I haven't mentioned it before, I have a working projector thing in my room, which is cool... can't get my laptop to plug into it yet... but my PS2 does, which means big screen video games! yay!

Bought a swanky new coat today, which is swish.

I can smell nice food cooking, got a new coat, got music pumping out my surround sound and just spent the day with the most amazing girl in the world. I couldn't be more happy at this moment in time... although I could have used the last 3 minutes a little more productively...

Over and out!

Projector

Tue, 10 Oct 2006 05:57:59 GMT

ok, I'm up early cos I keep sneezing... so I thought I'd update my bedroom home theatre project thingy...
I've gone like, £10-15 over budget because of the expensive thingy to hook my surround sound up to my laptop... but no worries! It's all working!
I'll post some pictures up later today when I do a good test this evening.
Last night I stayed up till 10:30 playing Stuntman on my PS2... on my bedroom wall!!!
Was very fun being able to lie in bed and play on my PS2 :)
I ran it for just over an hour and a half and there weren't any heat issues... although when I was putting it away I learnt that the lcd panel gets f*****g hot... ow...
so yeh, project almost complete. Missing one cable to hook my laptop to my projector, which is coming from Hong Kong and should be here today! :)
Pictures later!!!
Over and Out

Sun, 01 Oct 2006 20:05:17 GMT

haven't updated for a while (again)... but, I've just bought an over head projector, which is fab, should be here by the end of the week... then I'm going to have to spend a week or so kitting it out for my home cinema thingy :)... although I've gone £10 over budget..... which isn't bad actually... considering that means £160 for surround sound projector home cinema system in my room... hope it works :p... I think I'm missing a cable too... there's always some tiny thing missing... pff...
Anyway, I've got little to report really... started making 'cubeshack V.2'... which hopefully will work!! it's more blog orientated... so, we'll see how that pans out I guess...

Hello again

Wed, 06 Sep 2006 21:40:49 GMT

Note, this is a long LJ...

ok... Came back from an operation to have LJ successfully re-inserted into myself... jeez, haven't updated this for a while....
ummm... hmm... yeh, just had an operation... slightly spun out... little nauseous... can barely speak without grabbing my throat in pain... I wish thye hadn't told me about the pipe they put down there... apparently some people wake up and see them taking a pipe out of your throat... that would scar me for life...
But, all ok now... best to get the operation over and done with...
What else?
A level results? nah, not that important... moving on...
everything is fine right now... in fact, everything is better than fine... generaly speaking... yeh, generaly speaking, everything is fine... more specifically, things are not so fine... I'm in mild constant pain, I don't think I'll sleep well and I'm missing my girlfriend enormously right now... but apart from that everything is wonderful.
I wanna be back at school... it feels rather lame when everyone is at school and the nurse wouldn't let me go to school tomorrow... I'm sure I'm missing something important... but I need to be home so I can answer the phone when the lady phones to check up on me...
am slightly irritated since I found out the PS3 is being delayed til March.... ONLY in the UK...... twats... and they had better put the price down ALOT or else I'm just gonna get a jazzy computer... as the 360 and wii doesn't interest me at all.
My PSP is still loved greatly =) I've got some films on there at the moment, so I can lie in bed ill with things to do.
I've also found a load of new chili peppers video... which is v. cool... meaning I've probably found at least every song twice over... but I think there's probably gaps in between... which I'm going to figure out how to edit that...
I've also developed a slight sims 2 addiction... the original game? = boring as watching paint rot with your eyes closed... with the business expansion pack? I love it! Well fun! Although, I had this single rich guy who was really cool and had 3 businesses. But, he came home really tired every day and moaned at me for rest for hours... and as soon as he's about to go to bed... his best mate phones up, and he's happy to sit up all night talking to him... so, I invited his best mate round so I could break them up... first thing I do? select: kiss - romaticly.... and they only f**king fall in love with each other... so, now my millionaire sim has his gay partner living with him.... not quite what I wanted to happen...
anyway... where was I?... oh yeh, re-doing Cubehouse... because I needed to move hosting plans... I'll give you a few random passwords for the site:
orange
treason
blackingstone

right, I'm off to bed... shattered... pain killers I just took are kicking in at last...

Wed, 09 Aug 2006 10:19:39 GMT

just a minor note:
THIS is HILARIOUS...
http://www.weebls-stuff.com/toons/frosty/

Off again

Thu, 03 Aug 2006 16:53:59 GMT

right, I'm off again!
Just got through to my webhost and they're finally going to try and backup a load of my missing files...
Been working on my Chili Peppers Concert video of the 15th... I've got about 90% of it now... so thats good!
Also getting ready to do my parody video thing of metal gear solid, which should be a laugh.

I'm going away until next tuesday evening... again... I'm going alllll the way to lovely Bovey Tracy...... Where my dad will be for a while, so that will be great. Immediately after (basically) I'm off to Spain for a week... then I'm back in time for the 21st and carnival!

My phones being cool now after I FINALLY got it to work on my computer properly so I could upload games onto it... Motorola and games are very hard to get working together...
I'm enjoying the randomness of having two screens now... I can have different things on different screens at differnet times!

Also, I stayed up accidentally til 12:30 last night drawing pictures... got a bit carried away, been doing pencil sketches of photos from my trip to London a while ago.

Anywhoo... I may have a vague access to the internet whilst I'm away, but probably not to be honest...
Byes

Tue, 01 Aug 2006 20:54:07 GMT

went to my cousin's gay wedding at the weekend! what a blast! in the middle of Brighton and was sooo cool!
Chocolate fountain and Ice sculpture!... I might have to put some photos of it online sometime...
Got back last night and am just about settling in now!... going to my dad's on thursday/friday (not too sure yet...)
Bought a new phone the other day because my old one was getting on my nerves and was apparently sending blank texts. So, I got a shiney one, but with the same number thankfully!
Also just bought 3 Zuton tickets for Plymouth, which should be very cool!
I've managed to get hold of almost the entire chili concert on the 15th... gonna start doing some extreme editing tomorrow and see what I end up with...
I've decided to put up with my laptop a bit longer... partially because I'm coping and because my moneys are running a bit low now... and the longer you wait, the cheaper computers get anyway... I'm gonna sell my laptop starting at £200... later... I think I'd better format it first, as its full of loads of junk and weird programs and failed attempts at making it do things it doesn't want to do (like play any new games...)...
Goodnight... by god, I'm tired...

Mon, 24 Jul 2006 10:05:53 GMT

Gah... Yesterday kinda went downhill... Nicola left for Cornwall about mid-day, and I shan't see her for another week and a half... after which time I will shortly be leaving for Spain... Music day was quite fun yesterday, didn't get to perform because they were running 2 hours late and kicked me off the list... My website has been down for 3 days and WON'T WORK... yet, my host is determined that it's working... but when every single php page shows NOTHING, its not working... athough some of them show error messages... and its not my fault its not working, because I didn't touch it... it was fine one minute, now its buggered...
But then... in the evening we all went to Heather's... I got a bit drunk and we chatted in her garden for aaaages... which was really nice... then I came home to a nice surprise and went to bed... it all felt alot better after that...
Today... doing nothing... parcel still hasn't arrived for my projector part... I'm emailing him in a minute, and if it isn't here soon, I'm reporting him...

Sun, 23 Jul 2006 12:03:59 GMT

Med was fun last night :)
Had a good laugh =P
Today is music day, which should be fun. I'm playing about 7:00 I believe.
I'm getting irritated because my website hasn't been online for quite a few days... and my host don't seem to be able to fix it yet... I have to wait til tomorrow to see if they can fix it or not... gah...

Real Life Chinese Wispers...

Fri, 21 Jul 2006 10:24:57 GMT

A ride crashed at Alton Towers yesterday... which is not supporting the next group outing to Alton Towers...
Noone dies apparently, but read these news stories:
http://news.google.co.uk/news?hl=en&tab=wn&ie=UTF-8&ncl=http://www.guardian.co.uk/Travel/news/story/0,,1825693,00.html
They have different numbers. some say 3 are in hospital. some say 4, but 2 are now out. One says 6! Some say 29 and also 3 in hospital... its all nuts...
Oh well..... did you know Alton Towers has a Nudist Day....... In November!!!!... nutters...

Thu, 20 Jul 2006 12:44:55 GMT

heh, I found the entire chili concert I was at in mp3 =P
http://www.cubeshack.co.uk/stuff/chilis/

Chilis!

Wed, 19 Jul 2006 19:40:17 GMT

Ok.... Chilis rock so much...
That was absolutely amaaaazing... we went on 15th July to Earl's Court and it was fabulous... so good, they played so many of my favourite songs...
apparently there was like, 20,000 people there and we were at the FRONT... soooo cool! And we all were together so it was even better... unfortunately we have no photos, but there are clips on the net (youtube, google video etc. etc.)
Had a wicked time in London, on saturday (before the gig) we went sightseeing... I listed every landmark I could think of in London and we went to all of them.
Big ben, london eye, piccadily circus, covent garden, leister square, Trafalgar square, Buckingham palace. Was really fun! Then we went to the CHILIS! Which, as I've explained it was omfg-catterpillar-icecream-unbelievable...
Sunday we went Tate, which was really nice. In the evening we went to TGI Fridays in Covent Garden, which was well nice and we had an amazing (if not huge) meal.
Monday we shopped in Oxford Street, which was cool. and finally got a bus back =(
But we had a great time, hopefully we'll do it all again some time!
Note, this is an incredably condensed version of the weekend... I'm so very tired... and I've been home for 2 days already...
PICTURES:
http://www.cubeshack.co.uk/stuff/chilis/
Oh, one last thing. By the way rocked soooo much. It generaly ruled, extended bit was awesome and a bullet time machine thing!!! Brings back memories of one of my other obsessions... Matrix =P

CHILLI'SSSSSS

Fri, 14 Jul 2006 19:15:27 GMT

Wow... final countdown now!...
in 24 hours I'll be in the chili concert!!
everything's packed and ready to go...
everyone knows when to be where... everything's been arranged... I now know for sure where my aunt lives!
all will be goooood =)
Hopefully will be a huge blog entry with many images etc of our wicked time in London !!!!! =P

Chillis!!

Thu, 13 Jul 2006 21:54:43 GMT

Well, in two days time I'll be at the chilli peppers =P
All is going well, been researching events in London etc. etc. and tickets for shows/cinemas and how long tube trains take from different stations etc....
All tickets are in a small sticky (why are they called stickies?) and ready to go!
Everyone needs to be prepared to:
a) sleep on floor
b) get 3 day underground pass when we arrive (costing £15.40 each I'm afraid, try and flash ur student card and see if we can get a discount =P [or flash anything else you have on you])
c) have a REASONABLE amount of luggage for bus and underground transport
d) We're a little walk away and a short underground journey from my aunt's... who lives about here:
http://maps.google.co.uk/maps?f=q&hl=en&q=old+brompton+road+SW5&ie=UTF8&t=h&om=1&ll=51.489614,-0.189557&spn=0.000777,0.002704
me and my mum think we've worked out which house is hers =P
e) FOOOD... bring food for the saturday and if you can for sunday. Try to economise, we'll try and get cheap food from tescos etc. though. But, we will probably eat out somewhere nice at least once!

Ok... hopefully you all know my number, so call if you need any info.
Georgie NEEDS to be contacted and told to be at mine at about 5:30... I know what a pain it is trying to get in contact with her as it is...

Remember we're not allowed cameras into the concert, so... either be sneaky or have any camera equiped phone on you!

Argh...

Sat, 08 Jul 2006 15:08:53 GMT

hmmm... can't find much to do at the moment... I'm sure there's just something I've forgotten about...
Been a lovely couple of days, really enjoyed myself =)
got my surround sound set up! not working yet... need the right sound card, which I've ordered (now costing £3.50 less than before, wooh!)
got off the phone a minute ago to a sales lady.. very short conversation:
Me: "Hello"
Lady: "Hello, I'm from Kitchen's direct..."
Me: "Oh god..."
Lady: "Would you be interested in hearing a quote for a brand new modern kitchen?"
Me: "Hell no."
Lady "Ok... bye..."
Me: "Bye Bye"

Finally finished 24 season 2. I've seen the ending before... but that last scene with the guns and the shooting and the sniping and the running and the coolio action scene... I got well excited! I love 24, best tv show ever =P
Got season 3 disc 1 from tesco dvd renting... which is pretty cool actually, they send you dvd's you want, you watch them, send them back... they send you another dvd... well cool =P
Hopefully all my stuff will come on monday so I can start setting up some sort of projector... I'm pretty certain I'll end up going over budget by maybe £10... which is irritating...
Oh well, gotta go... do... nothing... might eat something... hmm...

Birthday Happiness

Wed, 05 Jul 2006 22:40:39 GMT

Wooh! My birthday is over now. Had a lovely day, watched some comedy on the tele and had a little nap =)
Woke up and ate pasty, pottered about and waited for Nicola to come, who came with her present, which I love sooo much.
Nicola stayed til about 10:15... I am now left gleaming with joy!

Project Update:
Right, I won the bid on the projector part! So, the projector part cost £77 in the end, which ain't bad... that might be all I need, but who knows... I might need one or two extra parts to improve the quality.
Then I bought the next item on my list... some way of getting 5.1 sound... the only thing I could think of at first was to buy a dvd player... best I could find was £40... but I felt I could do better... so I found an external 5.1 sound card for my laptop on amazon (omg...) which was actually cheaper than ebay! So, that cost £25...

Thus:
Inital budget: £150
Projector LCD panel: -£77
5.1 Sound card: -£25
5.1 speaker system: -£32.60

Leaving me with £16.40 left to finish off the projector! (which may not even need any improvement on =P)

P.S. I love being 17! best birthday day I've ever had! (for reasons I'm not putting in my public journal...)

Birthday morning!

Wed, 05 Jul 2006 08:41:49 GMT

haha, I'm 17! Can do... little more than I could before... just takes me longer to remember how old I am now!
This morning, got a set of new clothes from dear mother and a reather snazzy book from my little brother... the complete works of oscar wilde...
Also got a number of cards, including £20.Which is coolio.
Then my dad phoned from Spain this morning to chat to me, which was really nice. Then I finally opened the cards he had sent, which got me all emotional :(
The day will shortly unfold, Nicola's coming round later, which will be great and I'm going to spend some of the morning working out how to get a dvd player thats is region free, plays divx and under £20...
Then my post arrived, got some money from my grandparents (its their wedding aniversory today!) and I also got my new fan... which I'm using in the projector in case I get a big bulb. Because it will heat up easily, I've got a fan with green LED's =P... tested it a minute ago by opening up my computer and attaching it to one of the cables going to my cd drive... worked like a charm...
Onto Piccys!

The Emails I recieved today... almost all of them exactly the same... "Happy Birthday from {insert company name here}"... (Invision Forum thing... euch...)

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THE BEDROOM MOVIE THEATRE PROJECT

Tue, 04 Jul 2006 21:28:29 GMT

THE BEDROOM MOVIE THEATRE PROJECT
Right, heres the idea, I have a limited amount of money to get a home theatre system installed in my room...
I have a budget of £150 to buy all of this:

Projector
Dvd player
Surround sound speakers

I've already spent £32.60... so, I'm down to £117.40...
I'm giving myself 3 weeks and any money left over will go towards popcorn to test it all...

Weekend Update

Tue, 04 Jul 2006 20:28:23 GMT

Well, this weekend was well fun!
Saturday, went to Hayne Manor... lost £10 on the footy... bah... played a few guitar songs later on during the music session.
Sunday, went out for picnic with a few friends... got completely drenched... came back for session on singstar on eyetoy!
Thus, presenting the linky... oooh, linky:
http://www.cubeshack.co.uk/stuff/17th/
[Videos require Quicktime or .mov compatible player]

Projects

Tue, 04 Jul 2006 16:05:34 GMT

Ok, this summer's project is building my own projector... I'm gonna start simple and see if I can (or can be bothered) to continue building it better.
I've scavenged the internet and found the best set-up for me to handle...
Basically, there are three options:

Buy a couple grand projector
Take apart a montitor, buy two fractal lenses, a projector lense, a projector bulb, a wooden casing, a fan and a sod of a lot of careful building and electronics
Purchase an LCD panel and devise your own projector from there

Well... wish me luck, I'm ordering the parts at the moment... hope it works...

Also, I've finished my laptop boosting project to get it all equiped. Which involved buying my new digital camera, a usb extender, speakers, a new mouse etc. etc.
Today, my mouse FINALLY arrived... it took 9 days... when I buy things off Ebay, I specifically make sure they're not from other countries... but my new mouse didn't state this. So, my 1p (£5 postage) mouse came today eventually... from hong kong...
But, its very nice... although I keep trying to use my touchpad!