The Bloody Credit Crunch

OK, I thought I'd leap on the bandwagon since in the last couple of weeks Fox wrote a blog with a positive spin on it, and now Teenie has writ a blog telling us how to save money in this time of crisis. So here is my opinion on the Credit Crunch.

It's all rubbish.

Seriously.

OK, so it's not ALL rubbish. Economically speaking we are in a downturn (which is now officially a recession) and that is a bad thing. But for most of us, it just means business as normal.

The biggest risk to peoples livelihoods are people who work in what I like to term "fringe" jobs - jobs which do not directly contribute to making money/jobs in business that don't make money.

And yes, my career is one of those. Theatre, like many things, is viciously financially dependant, and in this time of recession there are less jobs around for all of us, techies, actors, producers, whoever.

Am I worried? No.

Partly because I am working in a school, and as annoying as the education system can be, they don't tend to lay people off often, and partly because if they do, I will go with the flow and do something else.

What I am fed up with is people blaming everything on the Credit Crunch, as if someone is personally sneaking into their house and stealing their money. It doesn't have much day-to-day impact on most of us unless you are buying/selling a house (or car), or unless you lose your job. Then obviously it has a huge amount of effect.

Rant over.

Ow. Appendectomy's hurt!

Hey everyone

My blogging may well be erratic (like it hasn't been before!) since I have just spent 4 days in hospital after having an emergency appendectomy on Thursday. So I might be in the mood for blogging a lot since I have two weeks signed off work.

Or I might not be, since I am feeling rather ill, not surprisingly, being as a large chunk of me has been removed.

But such is life.

Magical 51!

I just noticed on my Dashboard that the blog i posted yesterday (well, I say blog, it was like two lines..) was my 50th Blog! :D

So this is number 51 :)

Why do people insist on claiming DVDs are mastered in Widescreen, but they only are if you watch them letterboxed on a 4:3 TV?? If you play them on a Widescreen TV they stretch and look stupid??

STUPID PEOPLE!!!!!

And also, why when you make Hot Chocolate, does it take ages for the bits to dissolve???

And why haven't I written more of those Wonderland songs yet? Well, they've been buzzing in my head, so I'll get there eventually. Am much more positive about them today than I was two days ago. So that's ok.

I'm re-writing my short story at the moment as well, working on polishing it up, making it good. Because I want to enter it in the SFX Pulp Idol Competition this year.

For those of you who don't know, SFX is a Science Fiction Magazine (Yes, I know that SFX stands for Special Effects.. or more often, Sound Effects, but they obviously just liked the name) and they run a short story competition each year. Every year I attempt to enter, and I never get it done in time, so I started very early this year :)

Other than that, all is as normal in the Braunton world.

What are you all up to?

Does anyone ever read this anymore?

:)

Well, I've started....

It's not much, but I have now managed to start writing a Wonderland song :)

So now I ought to keep working on it....

Well it looks like curtains for that plan...

OK, so I was vaguely prepping to make my Record Shop Film in summer, but after a lot of thinking and maths, I've realised I can't afford to :( Which annoys me, because it puts yet another year between making films. At this rate I'm going to become the Terence Malik of the no-budget cinema world!

(For those of you who don't know, Malick has, between 1969 and this year (assuming his latest comes out on time) managed to direct only 6 films.)

Plus, I'm still suffering from writers block, with the Wonderland songs still nowhere near, my Alien Invasion screenplay stalled at 30 pages, my short story finished but rubbish, and various novel/story ideas not progressing.

ARGGGGGGH!!!!!!!!!

Composers Block, Script Readers and Exploding Televisions

I realised that in my last posts, I didn't wish you all happy new year. So consider this that belated greeting.

So, I'm struggling quite a lot this week with Composers block. I'm trying to write the five (I think it's five) new songs for Wonderland, and I can't really get going on any of them. I always find it much harder to unblock musically than I do if I'm writing script, don't know why, I just do. So I am casting around for any idea I can grab onto to get writing again. So for the moment, I am typing this entry whilst watching West Wing on my small TV.

Speaking of writing (as I so often do) I could do with a few people to read the script for my Record Shop Film and give me constructive criticism so that I can decide whether I should pull my finger out to try and find the funding to shoot it this year or not. Any volunteers please email me - michaelbraunton@hotmail.com

And finally, my television exploded! Which was irritating. However, thanks to the wonderfulness of a lovely ex-work colleague of mine called Karen, a new (old) one is on its way to me today :)

Anyway, if i dont manage to write anything I'm sure I shall be back in a bit.

What the hell has happened to Kerrang Radio??

OK, i remember when I used to live in Stoke, that Kerrang Radio was, by and large, listenable to and fulfilled the generally Kerrangy/Metal needs. And I know that was a couple of years ago, but now?

I'm listening to it at work due to our erratic internet connection meaning we cannot utilise our usual music playing wonder that is Broadchart, and yes, there has been some Kerrang based music on it, but also, COLDPLAY!! What??? There have been various others that have made me go HUH? too, but I can't remember them right now.

EDIT - Travis are on it now!!!! KILL ME!!

The Stupidity of People

So, I'm sitting at work, gently flicking through the BBC News website, and I come across a story about the Macworld expo and the "disappointing" speech from Apple.

OK, so I'm not a huge fan of Macs, and certainly not one of the Apple-philes around, who have to have everything Apple ever make (Hi Chris!), but the thing that amazed me was people who thought that there would be some big announcement of the next big thing.

Are you all stupid?

Regardless of what we would all think the next big thing would be (some people would say a new version of the iPhone would be a new big thing, whereas I'd say it'd be a pointless upgrade) Apple went out of their way in the run up to this event to state that this would be their last MacWorld, that they were reducing their presence at trade shows, and that there would be no big announcement.

And still people were disappointed.

Idiots!

It'd be like me saying "No, I won't get you a Christmas present" and then, shock horror, NOT getting you one!!

Don't know why I felt the urge to rant. But I did. So There.