Saturday 30 May 2009

Twilight and High Fidelity

In the last week I have watched about 6 films. Three I have enjoyed and three I haven't. Two are English, one is Italian, one is French, one is polish and one is Japanese. You might have heard of five of them and you won't have heard of one of them. Only two contain a mainstream cast and the other four are independant films. In this post, I will talk about two.


The first is a stunner of a film. The music is great, the acting is great, the cast is great, the writing is great and the story is fantastic. No, it's not Twilight. It's High Fidelity. A typically 'British-but-set-in-America' film containing notable names like Jack Black and John Cusak. This film had everything I loved about it, and apparently I am a bit like the character portrayed (excellently) by John Cusak. A fairly quiet chap who loves music and owns a record store. Well I fit one out of those three then.


The story goes that the loveless protagonist owns a record store and is in search of finding the perfect woman. He is dumped by is then girlfriend who then goes to start a relationship with Tim Robbins. Then a load of stuff happens that I don't want to reveal and then it all turns out OK. This is good. This is the sort of film I like. This is why I liked The Boat that Rocked. It had a great soundtrack and I saw myself in some of the characters. Also, the Bruce Springsteen cameo is priceless.


Unfortunately though, this is classed as a rom-com. Which will mean that men who like to lift weights and have sex with twenty-seven women at a time will not watch it. But behind that awful facade of rom-comism lies a warming British comedy. And this is the exact polar opposite to the winner of the academy award for worst novel, film, film adaptation, characters, acting, writing, screenplay and every other 'worst' award in the world.


Twilight, new moon, every other piece of sh*t that comes from the hand of Stephenie Meyer. Utter drivel I tell ya! I'm normally open to all sorts of reading and film but I was unable to read this or watch this. Everything about it is wrong.
I'm sure you've got a good image of the vampire. Teeth, comb-over and cape. Well Stephenie Meyer seems to believe the vampire sparkles. And if that idea isn't bad enough then she also believes that he is pubescent teenager who attends a school in the middle of f*cking nowhere. Then out of nowhere; a load of warewolf rapists come and try to kill the sparkley campire. Then Bella looks desperate (for c*ck) and runs into a forest which suddenly appears by their school.
And since when could vampires stop cars with their hands? And why did Paramore ruin their awesomeness by putting the awesome song (Decode) on the soundtrack. And anyway, what is this film even classed as? Is it romantic-drama? Is it action-romantic-drama? Well I've got the answer. It's in a category saved for films like Terminator: Salvation and Mamma Mia. It's called "straight-to-dvd". This category is for films so awful and painful to watch that they should follow the path of Disney and just send them straight to DVD so that I don't have to stand behind mobs of 10 year old girls screaming "I LUV U ROBBURT PATYSUN" so that I can buy a ticket to see an arty film in some sort of inbred Russian language about a child who was brought up by snowmen and eventually took over Nicaragua through the power of telekenesis.
I think the worst thing though, is that people who I actually have a reasonable amount of respect for say that the books are good and the films can really "relate to real life."
...
SINCE WHEN DID YOU SEE GLOWING F*CKING VAMPIRES AT YOUR F*CKING SCHOOL?? And then how can you turn around and tell me that Stephenie Meyer is a linguistic genius?! The woman wrote a book for 2 year olds then decided to buy a thesaurus and use it on that book then sell it at loud and easily pleased teenagers. That's a point too. Did Stephanie Meyer actually write the book? I read on Digg she stole it from her room-mate in college.
My solution? Go to war with Finland.
It seems to be my solution to everything so why not this?
-Steve
(Hopefully I'll think of something better for next week)


Friday 29 May 2009

Customer Service

At Christmas I recieved an iPod Touch. Up until that point I had been using an iPod mini. The iPod mini has always been my favourite iPod, mainly becuase it is so retro it's cool. But I felt it was time for an upgrade so I asked for the 32gb touch. I got the touch and thought it was awesome. It still is awesome and always will be awesome.

However, it has recently decided that it doesn't want to turn on and would rather sulk away in some sort of coma-esque sleep mode. As I hammer away at the buttons I dread the thought of
calling some sort of call centre in some middle-eastern country to talk to a chap that can only help me by telling me he can't help. Well I've just got off the phone to Apple customer services and I must say; I am shocked.
I just had a normal conversation with a nice chap from a call centre based in Britain, who gave me the perfect amount of information and even said I sounded very mature. My touch will be sent back to Apple Headquarters and a new one will be sent back. How fantastic is that? Gone are the days of awful, incomprehensible call centres. Well no, not exactly.
Unfortunately, I have just recieved an email from a website called Tagged (see an older post) who insisted that I have breached their terms of service. Now I'm a fairly nice bloke who strives to abide by the 'rules' on a website. So I find it grossly unfair to be contacted by a site I never use, telling me that (and I quote): "You have breached the original contract to which you signed by way of electronic signature. The reasons for your ban include; persistent 'spamming' of profiles and grief causing."
I've been arguing with a chap called Pavel from the Tagged system team for weeks now, asking him to provide me with evidence that I have done these alleged things. But apparently I will not be able to access such files becuase I could (apparently) recover my profile. What kind of sh*t is he pulling on me?
I won't fight for the ban to be lifted. I couldn't give two sh*ts about Tagged. The only people who use it are either desperate or hideous. It's good to know that Facebook and MySpace don't treat people like the team at Tagged.
Oh, a new email from the Tagged systems team...
...now its on.
I declare war, right here right now!!
-Steve

Thursday 28 May 2009

I'm no bitch to advertising

Well I am...

http://blog.strangemedia.co.uk/ - The blog of a good friend of mines. He did the artwork for the album and is an all round legend. Read please.

http://www.strangemedia.co.uk/ - This too. This is his website, the gallery holds stuff like the album art and some skins.

http://www.myspace.com/charlieholemusic - Friend of mine from school. Very very talented acoustic/surf/whatever artist with bucketloads of talent.

http://www.myspace.com/steveturnermix - Self endorsement. My music is here. People like it so please click on it and listen. Also, new album out soon.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oHg5SJYRHA0 - Youtube link to my first music video. It's pretty crap but oh well, it's a starter.

Well there we go. There are 500+ of you looking at this each week so click on those please. They all deserve equal amounts of love.

Much love, Steve,
x

Wednesday 20 May 2009

A brief history of iPods.

If you've been outside in the last 30 years then you may have noticed a company called Apple. If you haven't been outside in the last 30 years then go and see a psychiatrist or stop being odd. Apple is headed by our supreme overlord Steve Jobs who I - for one - welcome as our new swine-flu defeating god. He had an idea about 15 years ago, while he was listening to his walkman, that he should make a USB device that plays music. 5 years later the first ever iPod came out. People gazed at the sheen on the back of this wonderous device. It came in 5/6 colours and had a little half-eaten apple on the back. We all see what you did there Steve...we all see!

Soon problems arrived. Everyone laughed at the awfulness of the first iTunes and no-one wanted to shell out £200+ for something which held as many songs as a cheap Argos CD rack. There was nothing on iTunes store and the colours lost their sheen after you left the shop. Lots of people got angry and Steve Jobs went all 'Pinky and the Brain' and made the proper iPod. Ahh, the iPod classic. So simple and so perfect.

A few months later something called the iPod mini came out and suddenly men saw how cheap it was and bought one instantly not realising that it was the Mazda MX-5 of MP3 players. They're small and cute, much unlike its big older brother who guarded his little mini-sister from the brothels of Microsoftland.

At this point Bill Gates gets pissed off and starts working on his own MP3 player (cue evil and over-dramatic music). Back in Steve Jobs' space-station, he tells his slaves to make an even bigger classic...and things called podcasts. Everyone loves the new classic, everyone loves the idea of podcasting. Everything works out for Stevie and Bill decides that his MP3 sucks so hard that he'll sell the design to Sharp.

Next comes the nano and the shuffle. The nano was basically the new mini and the shuffle was basically an iPod for people who don't 'do' screens. Both were cheap and fantastic in their own ways. But people got bored of bigger and smoother versions of old iPods. So just before AppleGlobalWeaponSystems LTD make the completely spherical iPod with attached mind-control system...

...he makes the touch. And just before you say I skipped the video iPods: I am skipping the video ones because no one wants to watch Fight Club on a 3 nanometer by 2 nanometer screen. Anyway, the Touch!! What a miraculous device, you can touch the screen to make it move. If you shake the screen then things happen. Applications. Music. HD films. Video Podcasts. Games. This baby has everything you could ever want in an iPod! Well no it doesn't.

Sir Steve Jobs PHD OBH QWE RTY PSC of GlobAppleCorp (leading manafacturers of everything [including oxygen and Pot Noodle]) put a phone in the Touch. This meant you couldn't get the 32gb but who cares? You can listen to your music and talk on the phone at the same time while you play Tap Tap Revenge and order a chinese from your local.

Moral of the story? Apple is awesome in every way. The iPod is the perfect device, the MacBook is fantastic and sleek, the other thing they make that looks like an alien ship is immense. You really can't fault Apple in any way.

Just my thoughts for the day. Good luck people doing GCSE's. Have a good half term other school-going folk and have a good weekend to everyone else.

-Ste...

WAIT! I've forgotten. Sh*t headphones. What the hell is that all about? I can buy a pair of epic Sennheiser HD 205's for a quarter of the price of your shite default headphones. They break after a few weeks and can't handle any bass.

Stupid Steve Jobs.

-Steve

Friday 15 May 2009

20th Century Boy's 21st Century Breakdown

A few weeks back I wrote about some Norweigan band called Royksopp and their elctrechno album. To quote my review of it; "Best album of the year, no doubt" Or something along those lines. Well I apologise, for I may have fibbed to you, my readers. It would seem that something has cropped up and overshadowed the little Norweigan teenagers with their floppy hair and synth decks. The big boys are back, and they're back with hell of an album.

American Idiot when platinum so many times that they had to make a new number; "Greendayllion". To write it in standard form you need to write some standard form within the standard form. It was a beauty of an album; bouncing melodies and heavy guitars with some anthemic lyrics to boot. The music videos went well with the song and they brought forward the whole Anti-bush crap that rose up.

So this can't be anywhere near as good can it? No it isn't. Sorry, it just isn't. I've listened through it six times and nothing compares to the songs on American Idiot. This by no means suggests its a bad album, its a flippin' fantastic album! Green Day keep with the anthemic vocals and heavy guitars, but they also introduced slower and more meaningful songs, and they're great.

But unfortunately there is something about this album that leaves a bitter taste in my mouth. You know the story of the Hare and the Tortoise? Of course you do. Well imagine a race where both of the animals are hares and can run the exact same speed and will both win. What a dull race that would be. You know its going to be a draw, so why are you watching it?

This is the issue with this album. Green Day have caused themselves a problem. They made their best album then they released one that is just a very teensy-tiny bit 'not-as-good' as their best. I listen to Horseshoes and Handgrenades and it all seems a bit samey, a bit 'whatsthepointy' if you know what I mean.

This is the best album of the year so far. Buy it and love it. Cheer when they win awards. But as you take that film off your album or you click "Buy" on iTunes, just spare a thought for American Idiot.


Though don't spare a thought for Working Class Hero or that one they did with Bono...lets be honest, they were both pure sh*te.

-Steve

(Ps: Happy Birthday to me)
(PPs: Thanks to Tom Jarvis for help with the album)
(PPPs: Thanks to Rob Amey for telling me to make an album)

Wednesday 13 May 2009

Tagged

It must be said that social networking has boomed in the past few years. We have changed from being a society based around the telegram and morse code into a society based around books made of faces. Also, if you are at school or work right now, then I would guess you are using a proxy server of some sort. Now, you probably use your proxy to go on Facebook or Twitter, but there's some good news. You can now go on the slummiest social networking site without a proxy.

A year and a half ago, a bloke from America called...Buddy...yes, Buddy and a young man from China called...I dunno, Thich Quan Duc decided that Facebook was a bit too mature. I mean that in both senses by the way, they thought that it was obsene and for old people. The story goes that they bought the lisence to a site called Tagged which was based around getting people to make friends and find a relationship without seeing each other.

So I made an account to see what the malarkey was about. I signed up and I was flooded with crap telling me I couldn't go live until I'd put some photos up. I did this and then I was told to write a small novel about my life...which I copy and pasted from an old Bebo account. After about twenty-six million more steps I could finally see the homepage, and this pleased me.

Then I got confused...very cnosufed. I had been watching people doing this at school and realised that I had to add people, and never has there been such a monumentously difficult task. I had to go into browse, then find people in my area that were my age. Then I chose what hair colour I liked, and what type of tea I like, and if I was a dictator what country would I destroy first. Seriously, I had to answer that. (I chose to destroy Nicaragua by the way).

As the time came where I could finally tell people that they were pitiful and lonely people, my laptop got filtered. I was using a proxy as well. This would have been a nuisance anyway, seeing as I could normally just press back and then use a method that has been coined around school to stop filters. But that isn't what happened. It was much worse.

Tagged uses a 'one-page' function which means that if you press backspace, you go back to google or whatever you were last on. So guess how unhappy I was when I found that at the point where I was one step from finishing my signing up process, I had to go back to google.

"AAAAAAARRRGGGHH" was my first thought, a whole food tech lesson wasted! Then all of a sudden, it worked. This pleased me. So yes, Tagged. I got 3 messages within two seconds telling me that three people wanted to 'meet up with me'. I was about to delete when I looked at the ages. 10, 12, 11. What sort of ten year old would click 'yes' to someone six years older. Then I realised that I hadn't even said I was sixteen. To get past parental crap, I put myself as 22. So these three girls were saying yes to someone (supposedly) double their age.

How thick could you be to just look at a picture and say yes without considering the age of the person. And then it hit me. The sort of person who signs up to a site that was made to be 'less mature' than Facebook. Nonetheless, I deleted my account and had a conversation with someone who has the power to spam websites with DDoS.

In short, sorry for breaking Tagged.

-Steve

Monday 11 May 2009

Illegal Downloads


A patch for Google Earth was released this week, allowing you to fly on Mars. As I read this news, I jumped in glee at the thought of spending useless Technology lessons flying around the Olympus Mons. I clicked on the link to download and had my dreams shattered (my god this sounds geeky). £280. Little did google tell me that you had to buy the complete business package to do this. So I thought on my heels and headed on over to The Pirate Bay.
"Oh my" I hear you all say. Well don't be shocked. Downloading illegaly is a little bit like cannabis in my eyes. Everyone from all walks of life does it. David Cameron - supposedly - downloaded Windows Vista Ultimate for his old laptop and a friend of mine who basically lives out of a rucksack recently downloaded Windows Vista Business on his desktop. I'll admit it, I do (on rare occasions) download the odd film or song. But like I say, everyone does it!
So what's the disadvantages of illegal downloads? The folks at EMI don't get any money when you download it...but who cares! EMI earnt a gross profit of $26.9billion last year, so they hardly need any more money. The small time bands and soloists aren't gaining any money though, but you can't find any of their stuff anyway so that doesn't really matter. And that's it. I can't think of many more disadvantages that really make much difference to the argument.
The advantages are plentiful though. People can listen to all sorts of music, allowing people to broaden their tastes. People can watch independant films and find new directors and actors. People can update the applications on their computers without having to spend vast amounts of money. Old games that have been taken from the shelves can grace your screens once again (Unreal Tournament 1999 for example).
I don't condone illegal downloading...but I just find it difficult to understand why it is illegal. Have a good week, I have revision to do.
-Steve

Sunday 10 May 2009

Thank You

Crikey.

Didn't really expect you to flood my inbox like that. A total of 71 people e-mailed me asking for music. Then I got another 70 e-mails saying how good my Prodigy remix was. The other person suggested I move on to making more stuff and try to get my name heard (cheers Rob). So yeah, big thanks to everyone out there who has been following my rants. Hopefully I'll return to the normal blogging next week in between my exams.

Hope you all have a great week and keep sending me stuff to write about.

-Steve

My Music

Haha, no image this time!

Well, after getting all of 40 e-mails telling me to "GET A MAC FOR GOD SAKES!!!1", I have found that there are a lot of people reading this, which is quite nice. So hello and thanks for reading. And as a thank you, I thought I'd do something for you.

You know I love music, but you may not know that I like mixing music (digitally), I don't do all that spinning and crap. But if you're interested in some of my older stuff (my first, second, third and fourth mixes) then I'd be more than happy to send you them. You may not like them, but NME magazine did, although only one was published...and only twelve people downloaded it. Anywho, if you'd like 4 free mixes straight from me, e-mail me at steveturner93@hotmail.com or tell me any other way you can think of; twitter, facebook, smoke signals.

Steve

Wednesday 6 May 2009

Dammit I'm Mad, by Dimitri Martin

Dammit I’m mad.
Evil is a deed as I live.
God, am I reviled? I rise, my bed on a sun, I melt.
To be not one man emanating is sad. I piss.
Alas, it is so late. Who stops to help?
Man, it is hot. I’m in it. I tell.
I am not a devil. I level “Mad Dog”.
Ah, say burning is, as a deified gulp,In my halo of a mired rum tin.
I erase many men. Oh, to be man, a sin.
Is evil in a clam? In a trap?
No. It is open. On it I was stuck.
Rats peed on hope. Elsewhere dips a web.
Be still if I fill its ebb.
Ew, a spider… eh?We sleep. Oh no!
Deep, stark cuts saw it in one position.
Part animal, can I live? Sin is a name.
Both, one… my names are in it.
Murder? I’m a fool.
A hymn I plug, deified as a sign in ruby ash,
A Goddam level I lived at.
On mail let it in. I’m it.
Oh, sit in ample hot spots. Oh wet!
A loss it is alas (sip). I’d assign it a name.
Name not one bottle minus an ode by me:
“Sir, I deliver. I’m a dog”
Evil is a deed as I live.
Dammit I’m mad.
---------------------------
Now read it backwards!!

Monday 4 May 2009

The Economic Crisis

Britain is plagued by the class system. It doesn't make sense and it's open to abuse. I think that me and most of the people who I'm friends with are middle class, but that's possibly because I live in the south (see, common stereotype). The class system is flawed as well. Wayne Rooney is a very rich chap, but does that make him upper class? Just because someone has a lot of money does not mean they are upper class, but that's the thing, it will most of the time.

But what effect does this have on the "economic crisis"? I think it just brings back the class systems, a think that has slowly disappeared over the past 10 years. New Labour pushed back the classes and now that Cameron is looking most likely to lead this country out of the "credit crunch", I think it's back. And while the working classes are struggling, and the upper classes are sitting back on their fixed rate ISA's.

But that's not my point, my point is a bit bigger. My point will blow the minds of the politicians. This resolution to the "credit crunch" is no dead cat bounce. This will solve it all. So hold on, here it is...




We need a war! Not a big war, but a war in which we can make some monies! We need to get the hell out of Iraq, leave it on the heads of the Americans and Obama. So then comes the next problem. Who the hell do we have a war against that could bring in some money? Well look no further readers, I've sorted that too!

Finland! They have oil and trees and are on the border with Russia. Imagine it as a republic of Britain - the new Scotland, but with less battered confectionary. Even better, the bloated politicians can celebrate over winning their war and eat their celebratory pie. I reckon that if this does well and we win, we could take Sweden, Denmark and even Norway! Soon, Britain could regain an empire, completely based in the arctic circle. The classes will fall and we will have no more money worries. Everyone will be like those Russian people who smoke massive Cuban cigars and drink their Russian Standard Vodka on ice.

NOW, SHOW ME YOUR WAR FACE!

-Steve

To Mac or not to Mac...

What happens when an unstoppable force meets an immovable object? You get the Mac v Microsoft argument. And it seems that the time has come to start looking at a new laptop. This is just the start though, I'll probably get the thing this time next year...but it doesn't hurt looking does it? Well it bloody does!

10 minutes and I don't know whether Mac's are better than PC's. I know the main differences; Mac's are more for media while PC's are more for word documenting and Gaming. I know that (depending on how much you pay) they both look very nice. To scale, the Alienware Area 52 is just as attractive as the Macbook Air.

Also, because I (will hopefully) have near £1000, I feel as though I can afford either the Alienware or the Macbook. So you can see the conundrum. The fast, sleek and beautiful Alienware...or the fast, sleek and beautiful Macbook.

So this is what I ask, if you have any info that could sway me to one over another; tweet me at Steveturner93 or comment on my blog. Alternatively, e-mail at steveturner93@hotmail.com.

-Steve




Saturday 2 May 2009

Faith

Right, well I thought I'd open up a post about faith with a picture of Tom Cruise talking about $ientology, that sets the tone well I suppose...

So what is your faith? And don't be all in 'ma' face with "I r Agnostic I dun't have no fathe". Becuase you do have faith, you have the belief that there is no God, which is a little bit like an inverse faith...so you do have faith. You don't have the same sort of faith as a Christian or a Muslim, but you have faith. Everyone has faith in something. Tom Cruise has faith in whatever the hell $ientology believe, Christians believe that a saviour came to save us from our sins and Muslims believe in the prophet Muhammed (pbuh).

So I ask again you dogs...show me your faith (ha ha to the movie reference amiright?). I feel like I'm trailing away from the point here so let's get back on track. I'm writing this to ask, do you think you understand other people's faiths? There is someone I know in school who is Muslim and I don't understand their beliefs. There are quite a few Christians in school and I don't completely understand their beliefs and I definetly don't understand Jews, Sikhs, Buddhists and Catholics.

I doubt many of you white anglo-saxon protestants (History reference there) can look me in the eyes and say that they completely understand the Muslim faith. Does this worry you that in a country with an increasing Muslim population, that we don't know much about what they believe in? It worries me. It saddens me to some extent. (I can almost hear the guffaws from my history teacher, as he reminices the 'tagging' lesson. But that was taken out of context so I think that's unfair!)

It saddens me because we give Muslims a lot of grief as a country. After 9/11, I think a religion which had sat back very quietly and had gone un-noticed suddenly became the spotlight of prejudice, with people not going on undergrounds because of the constant worry of a bomb going off. I even saw someone cross the road after they saw a group of Sikhs (ok, not Muslim, but it suggests the ignorance that some people have, not being able to differentiate between the two) walking towards them.

Is this what the country is coming to? Are we turning into a country where we are scared of those who are different to us? Are we turning into a country where the 'N' word becomes a common phrase? Will that creepy northener win the apprentice? I think this country needs to change quickly, before this feeble Gulf War II becomes something a lot worse.

This turned from a talk about faith to a rant about racism fairly quickly didn't it...ah well. Let me talk about $cientology for a second...









LIES AND DECEIT!

-Steve