The Weekly Roundup

Its been a pretty busy week college wise. Its nearing Christmas fast so as usual that means Assessments are flying at us think and fast!

So far this week we've had assessments for Database, Computer Hardware, Web Design and weblogs with a few more on the horizon.

Despite it being hard work this week has been good as it actually proves I've learned a lot in the past 4 or so months. Panic stations were activated in Web design when it was announced that the 5 page website had to be presented by next Thursday, especially when i hadn't started it. Somehow i managed to pull through and finish it in a 3 hour session which I'm quite pleased with.

The rest of the week has been spent playing guitar hero(2 & 3) and listening to Kate Nash lots!


The rather awesome video for Kate Nash's new song "Pumpkin Soup"


So as Christmas looms there is only a week of college left before the well deserved break then the start of Block 2. I personally can't wait as it means we get to do lots of different subjects.

Oh and a final note for the attention of Mr Trent Reznor:

Hurry up and tour the UK again!!!!

The Weekly Ramble

Another week draws to a close and its now only 19 days till Christmas! I really should start shopping for gifts huh?

The weather has turned pretty rubbish which is to be expected this time of year. If only I lived in somewhere like Florida.

Anyways, this week at college has been okay i guess. In computer hardware we learned how to install RAM. Pretty basic stuff but its really handy to know in case the dreaded computer slowdown happens!

Yesterdays learning consisted of computer programming where we were learning how to write a loop into a program. Although it sounds complex its rather easy. The only bad part of it is the documentation which is time consuming as you have to test every eventuality and document it.

Other than that my weeks been pretty boring. I was supposed to be going to see Marilyn Manson at the weekend but thanks to some major disaster i.e. every single place in Glasgow being fully booked, I had to use the wonders of EBay to make a tidy profit on the tickets.

Ive also suddenly become addicted to The Beatles again. I don't really have to go into detail about them as I'm sure everyone knows the greatness of them.



Anyway must get back to work now

later

The Beatles
Marilyn Manson

Holiday Fun

I suppose I should write a bit about what I did during the holidays, or at least make something up so that I look like I have an interesting life..

They didn't get off to the best of starts to be honest. I was scheduled to to be going to see Kataklysm play the Cathouse in Glasgow and all was well until about 20 minutes into the journey down we get a phone call saying the gig has been cancelled.

So instead of going to Glasgow for a gig, we ended up going to Glasgow To watch a DVD. Needless to say I wasn't a happy bunny.

Most of the week was spent taking advantage of not having anything to do, so I played a lot of games, mainly Football Manager, where I proceeded to split the Old Firm with Hibernian. It all ended horribly though as the lousy board wouldn't back my plans financially and sacked me, after all I had done for them! That's loyalty for you!

Well as you can see My holidays have been pretty boring. I suppose I should make up something like I'm secretly a top secret ninja and have been busy doing ninja type things but alas it wasn't to be.

Soundtrack to the holidays has been Serj Tankians "Elect The Dead" and obviously Nine Inch Nails "Year Zero"

I also seem to be addicted to the new Avenged Sevenfold song! Which is, in the words of Springfields favourite evil old person, Mr. Burns...Excellent





Laters

The Week So Far

So the holidays are over and once again they didn't seem long enough.

Back to the early starts and long days. To be fair this week has been pretty good. Its taken some getting used to though. Most of the classes have focused mainly on revision of the stuff we learned before the break.

On Wednesday we were using pascal in computer programming and I'm amazed to say I actually understood it, something I never thought would happen. Other than that every class has been just like a refresh, especially using html in web development.

Halloween was also this week. Sad to say i didn't dress up this year. My plan of dressing up as Jason Voorhees and battling my friend, who would be cunningly dressed as Freddy Kruger, failed miserably due to lack of funds.

I went to see Saw IV and i have to say it was rather awesome. Lots of blood and gore which is always a crowd pleaser! It actually asks more questions than answers, leading up to the inevitable release of Saw V next Halloween.

I haven't really done much else this week, picked up the new Birthday Massacre album on Monday. Its easily their best album. Its criminal that no one knows about this band. They are one of the most unique bands around and more people should check them out.

The Birthday Massacre - Video Kid

Radio 1 DVD

We watched a DVD on Radio 1 and here is my report on it.



42 Million People listen to the radio each week and Radio 1 is one of the most popular radio stations in the UK.

Beginnings of Radio 1
The BBC ruled the radio world up until the 1960’s when pirate radio became popular. Stations began broadcasting from pirate ships with Radio Caroline being one of the forerunners. The government decided to set up Radio 1 and poached popular presenter Tony Blackburn from Radio Caroline to spearhead the station.

Producers
The producer of a radio show is the person responsible for running the show and making sure it all goes according to plan. The producer works out what goes into the show. They make sure that the show gets on air. They make sure that the music is suitable for the audience and generally make sure the show goes ok. They also check the papers and TV for topics to talk about during the show.

DJs
The DJ is the face and voice of the show. Radio 1 has a policy of recruiting DJs with regional accents to help make the station feel national and less like a London station. The daytime DJs are usually people with lots of personality, character and charisma. Night Time DJs are usually experienced in a specific type of music.

Playlists
The playlist is designed to reflect current trends in music. The daytime playlist is more light listening with all the current hits and new songs whereas the night time playlist is more specialist and targets a specific audience. The playlist is made to be a balance between the big well known artists and new up and coming artists. The playlist consists of tracks that have to be played so often:

· A List – up to 35 plays a week
· B List - up to 25 plays a week
· C List – up to 5 times a week
Music is listened to before being put on the playlist and there are board meetings before a playlist is drawn up

Reporters
The Radio 1 news is called Newsbeat. It is different from most news as it packages the news for its audience. Reporters are assigned to stories and they then have to go and do a report about the story. Once they have finished the report they have to edit it to fit into a package so that a few stories can be showcased.

Publicity
The publicist is responsible for placing stories in the papers and hyping up the station. The job of the publicist is to promote events or shows that are upcoming and try to get potential listeners as interested as possible and draw them back into the product. There are many ways of doing this but the most common ways are using newspapers and building websites.

Overall I thought the DVD had some interesting points but it did drag on a bit and some of the information given wasn't needed.


www.bbc.co.uk/radio1

www.chrismoyles.net


Radio 1 logo found on www.google.com
Radio 1 logo property of BBC

Bob Marley Concert

We were asked to watch live concert clips of bob marley and then rate them.

The clips were very good, two of his more famous songs performed live and they were nice and relaxing. Bob marley was one of the best entertainers and he was always moving and letting the crowd join in too

overall i thought they were very good, despite everyone in the class randomly singing parts of the song

My Favourite Album

My favourite album is "the fragile" by nine inch nails. It is a double album and has 23 tracks on it.




It was written during Trent Reznors battles with drug addiction and depression so its very honest and is amazing. It has so many great tracks on it..from the awesome build up of the opening track "somewhat damaged" to the calm ending of "Ripe(With Decay)"


It is one of the only albums i can listen to all the way through, despite its lenth, and never get bored.


My favourtite song ever "We're In This Together" is on this album and although its a very basic song its perfect.


Highlights of the album include the opener "Somewhat Damaged", "we're in this together", "Into The Void" and "The Great Below"


The tracklisting is as follows:


Disc One (Left)
1. Somewhat Damaged
2. The Day The World Went Away
3. The Frail
4. The Wretched
5. We're In This Together
6. The Fragile
7. Just Like You Imagined
8. Even Deeper
9. Pilgrimage
10. No You Don't
11. La Mer
12. The Great Below


Disc Two (Right)
01. The Way Out Is Through
02. Into The Void
03. Where Is Everybody?
04. The Mark Has Been Made
05. Please
06. Starf**kers Inc.
07. Complication
08. I'm Looking Forward to Joining You, Finally
09. The Big Come Down
10. Underneath It All
11. Ripe (With Decay)


Overall i rate this album very highly, despite being twice the lenth of a normal NIN record, Trent Reznor perfectly laid out the traklisting so that it never gets boring and you keep discovering new things everytime you listen.

www.nin.com

www.interscope.com


image property of nothing records

First Post

Im 19, i am currently studying computing at Aberdeen College.

This is my second year at college after doing the intro to IT course last year

I like football, drinking..alot and computer games

Muisc is a huge part of my life and i love going to gigs and go as much as i can. My fave band is Nine Inch Nails

I dont really follow a certain team, but enjoy watching the spl and premiership.

Anyway i must get back to work...

later