OK, Catch up time!

Wow, just realised its 2 months since i wrote on here so better do a bit of catching up. So last time I wrote it was october 23rd and its now december 28th! Bloody hell well ill just go for the important stuff! Lets start off with the business! Wont be too long tonight as i am very tired but here goes!

SiMILE Media Solutions

Well SiMILE is going pretty well still we are working toward the naval documentary. The TV studio crewing is going well and from next month we are charging for the service through the university. We are also negotiating the coverage of graduation for the university which will make lots of work for us going into the summer. We also recently got awarded new hardware by the university so will be moving into the office properly at the beginning of january as we can work from there once the machines are delivered. So watch this space as we slowly move in, bringing with it new business telephone numbers and everything!

Other Stuff

In other stuff I have been really busy outside of the business aswell. Drama socoety have managed to rope me into a show, so i am now Pepe in West Side Story, still only 4 lines and some choral singing so not too bad! Also have had some awesome night out with the drama society aswell including ABC night, with nintendo characters as our theme (I was a controller!) - I am on the far left

I also hosted a karaoke party for drama aswell which was amazingly cool and went down so well that more are in the works.

 

Another, rather surprising development which happened end of novemeber has been the change in relationship status! Long story short I found out someone i knew from the bus i used to take to and from school is at Keele university in her final year as a physiotherapist. Seeing as keele is only about 25 mins from stafford we decided to meet up for a coffee and a reminisce, things have since moved on from that first fateful afternoon and kate is now my girlfriend, there is a much longer version of the story but that is very very long and frankly i cant be bothered to write it all here but to keep people content here is a picture of the two of us taken at my cocktail party that i hosted last night (more about that in a moment!)

 

And christmas.....cant finish the blog post without christmas! Well its been an interesting one, Dads been in hospital with a dodgy foot which has meant a few changes from the norm but has still been alll good, we had lunch at the gateway hotel in nottingham on xmas day which was awesome, even had a visit from santa on the big xmas lunch day, other festive holiday activities have included taking mums godson, so technically my godbrother, who is 5, to see reindeer at a local garden centre, and the obligatory xmas shopping. Hosted a cocktail party last night which was exceedingly cool also.

 

But i feel i am rambling a bit so i will sign off now, coming soon is my new years party so a new update will probably follow after that!

 

till next time!

Ben

The Club

Ok, so I admit it....the flu was more like man flu....a cold....still hanging on to it at the moment but doesnt stop me functioning. But down to business...ok....last blog was wednesday or thursday or something so life from then....OK Here we go:

THURSDAY

Well the film shoot at Trentham went well, VERY well, the people in project OARSOME really are awesome, the rowing club we were filming for it was for the kids of Stoke on Trent and they have some "World Class" rowers there 3 to be exact (world class in rowing basically means if you continue to imporve at the rate you are then when you get to adulthood there is a good chance you will be racing in world ranking events!) so thats pretty spectacular. Now after that I was dropped off at Leek Road and went over to Drama, Drama was fun, cast of West Side was announced, Ian got Tony so congrats to him :-). Then I was about to go off to the stage management side when i was asked to stay with the actors and do more improvisation games like i had done in Stafford a few weeks running, so that was all a good laugh, making as many people improvise embarrasing stuff as possible, and it all ended in a TOTALLY chaotic scene of 35 or so drama people improvising a school bus trip in random acting styles that changed very regularly. After that it was ember lounge time and time for drinks and chats and john heath writing everyone silly post it notes (Mine was "Elephants do it in their trunks" and Jess who was sitting next to me was issued with "Naked Eskimos are frigid) so all good fun generally!

FRIDAY

Well friday morning was an early start as we had to be at the TV centre by 9am, and we got there on time too. We did a filming shoot with Christine King (Vice Chancellor of the uni) as she needed to do a forward for the review of academic year 05-06 and an introduction to a DVD about the holocaust, that went nicely and we looked all professional (especially in our uniforms), photos were taken of the "studio in action" etc etc etc. Following that it was time to do some more re-hashing of the Sports Video we are making, followed by.....wait for it.....SiMILEs FIRST CORPORATE LUNCH!!!! Hell yeah SiMILE are on the way up, we treated ourselves to a Weatherspoons burger before sam went off for the weekend you see was his birthday today (Sunday) and he had a big contract to negotiate yesterday (Saturday) so lots for sam to do. Andy and I delivered the first final copy of the sports vid to james tallentire over in press only to find out his hometown is my hometown...how cool is that! Then work finished for the weekend. Friday evening for me was spent in a pub chatting to andy frost from drama about studio technology, drama, and just about everything else we could during a nice couple of pints of EXTREMELY nice cider. Now i havent drunk cider for a long long time, so i got nicely consumed by alchohol, not stupidly...but enough for that andy thought was a perfectly funny quote to come out of my mouth, that quote was:

The Windows registry is like communism, in theory it should work perfectly, but in reality, its wank.

So yeah, nicely tipsy would be my state on friday...but then we move onto saturday......

SATURDAY

Now Saturday was possibly the funniest day I have had in a very very long time so here we go. The day started off with a quick trip to the shops to collect a few essentials for a tea party i was due to attend at Jess, Ian and Charis's house (where nicola and carla both live also might i add). So, knowing they would go down well, especially with Jess who was by this time desparate to eat ANYTHING bad for her after a 2 week detox with ian, I bought scones, jam and clotted cream. Then it was off to the office in Stafford to pick up my evil monkey, where i ended up staying for 90 minutes catching up on work stuff, Im SOOOOO boring! but anyway picked up my evil monkey (yes my cuddly toy version  of evil monkey form family guy that was bought by Rob Goodall for my 21st. If you dont know the evil monkey....here he is:)

After the office and a short time at home...it was time for tea, so off I toddled to stoke with my scones. When i arrived i was confronted by a fairy (Ian) and three girls (Charis Jess and Nicola) in whimsicle costumes, Jamie who, like me, was dressed fairly normally and an AMAZINGLY large amount of cakes and tea. Enough for probably 15 or so people to all have a snack, so naturally I asked who else was coming, and the answer was....just us. AMAZING! So lots of tea was drunk, lots of cake and scone was eaten, and lots of Disney was sung. Then it was time to collect ed, who was coming down for the night to go out in Stafford for me, but the tea party wasnt quite finished so ed came back to the party with me, meeting Jess, Ian and Co for the first time. So the party continued, which moved to SingStar on the playstation, at which point ed and I decided to join those lot on their night out, so we went to get some alchohol from bargain booze. This started to be drunk and the house got ready for going out, Pop Idol was watched and everyone was happy, ed took a few photos too!

 
Ian as a fairy for the tea party

Me at the sober stage

Nicola, Ian and Jess's housemate

then the drinking got a bit more serious. And we started on....yes....

Monopoly....Stoke Edition (this involves LOTS of drinking) and we started playing, it was much much fun, drinking drinks...other peoples drinks...saying truthes, doing dares (well only ian had to do dares cos he was unlucky and his two dares were to:

Give Jess a lapdance....something i think he didnt really mind doing...Jess found it slightly disturbing and I just found it HILARIOUS!....and he also had to.....

Answer the door with his trousers down, something else he didnt particularly mind doing!

After drinking Monopoly it was off to the club...not just any club, THE Club, Hanleys premier Gay club. Now The Club used to be a regualr haunt of mine when I worked at Alton Towers, cos most of my friends there were gay and in the 2.5 years since i last went it has hardley changed at all. The music was very good and we all had a really good night, finishing only at 3am and finally getting to bed at 4am. So we get to:

SUNDAY

Got woken up on sunday a little bit bleary from the night before by Dad ringing me to find out when i wanted them to turn up, 1pm was the instruction given, and the house began to rise, much quiet as we all recovered from the night before and soon it was nearly midday so I took ed to the station as he needed to return to Leeds, though this did mean he didnt actually step foot in my house....or my town when he came to visit....only getting as far as stoke and staying at ashford street! Then after dropping him off came back to Stafford and met with mum and dad, who took me out for lunch which was nice. Then a case of a few bits of work before settling down to write what has turned into this mammoth posting!

 

Well I think I might be done now. This week is a busy week 2 jobs for the uni, social with drama on wed, screening of bouncers with drama on tues, and im sure ill find other stuff too! But im sure ill speak to everyone soon!

 

Byeeee!!!

Oh......a P.S. this week I nearly forgot about musical poster of the blog post....well a week on saturday Ella and myself will be joining Ian and Jess at the Apollo Vic....seeing wicked....so...in celebration...here is the poster:
                        

 

Now i am goin!!!

 

Bye!

Flu Glorious Flu!

Well...not so glorious but anyway. Due to flu related laziness short post today. hmmm since gobble what have i done....well the uni work is hotting up now just a week till our next gig so will be in uni alot over the next fortnight. Errrrr.......films going well, have another shoot on thursday at 4.15 for the project OARSOME......errrrr......i have flu......errr....i went to drama last night....always good fun!.....errrrrr.......flu is making my voice sound all husky like that bloke off radio 4 that fran fancies in black books......errrrrr......i think im done......i must go write our work proposal for the weekend....oh joy!

OPh btw, no musical mentioned today, so no musical picture, however i will treat you to the one pic i got hold of after gobble, so here is the lovely Jess Maynard and the lovlier Ian Dunscombe at Gobble last week! Enjoy!

So until next time.....byeeeeeeeee!!!!!

 

Ben x

Ok, I'd forgotten how good Gobble is!

Well since saturday its been non stop, and so here is my third blog in quick sucession YAY!

Ok, so I left you after the trauma that was saturday. Sunday came along and it was time for andy and I to go filming once again, this time at Rudyard Lake in North Staffordshire near Leek, (for those of you who are fans of Top Gear, this is the lake where Mr Richard Hammond sank a "dampervan" and Jeremy Clarkson capsized a "ToyBota"). We were filming the disabled canoeing squad from a few weeks back (whitby and seb coe etc etc etc) and the organiser wanted slightly more adventurous shots this time......the result was this:

Yes, that is me, up to my shoulders in a lake in october, with a £2,500 camera in hand about to be run over by a boat! The things i do for bloody SiMILE Media Solutions! LOL! 

Following on from that that camera i am holding doesnt work anymore....the lake just got too much for it and it decided to die on us, thankfully as we are on a university job the repair bill will not be falling into my hands!

On another SiMILE note, here is our official model modelling one example of our new SiMILE Media Attire:

Yes, SiMILE Media is now BRANDED....how cool is that!!!!!

oh, and for those of you who liked that picture...here is our model again, this time modelling a camera:

 

Fast forwarding to this wednesday, well what fun! We got up very early (ok ok 8.30am) to do more filming, this time at Trentham Lakes with another rowing team, however it rained...so they didnt come along....and we kinda got stranded and what does a film team do when thunder and lighting strands them.....take pictures of course!!!!!

Yes, it was actually raining THAT hard

But andy was enjoying it.

 

Ok this was meant to just be a work update, but finally before I go, and because it is in the title, I must apologise for my state at Gobble last night, i was far too drunk, it was not pretty and i hope I havent gone too far down in peoples estimations!!!! I really had forgotten how fun Gobble is, especially when you with the Drama Society, yesterday we went in painted masks (ie masks painted ON our face! :-D it was terrific fun and i shall be 'gobbling' alot more regularly.....just drinking less when im there! I might make a bigger gobble update later in the week depending if i get any of the pics that were taken/can be bothered!

And before i leave, of course, it is musical of the blog post, where i feature a musical poster in each of my blog posts, now today to celebrate the Drama Society deciding to put on West Side Story in Stoke on Trent later this year I feel this poster is appropriate:

Have a wonderful time everybody!

Ben x

Oh dear oh dear oh dear!

Wow, what a day, such a day that i felt i had to share it as a day of days in this year of years (sorry i feel a 'rent' quote coming on, because "How do you measure, measure a year?" could it be "525,600 minutes"?)

But i digress! Today has been a big day in the history of SiMILE, we have had our first studio shoot. We provided (along with High Pitch Media) coverage of the results show for the Stafford FIlm Festivals 48 hour film competition. Well.....what an ordeal! First of all we were meant to have a full rehearsal on wednesday with the event oiraniser and all the footage we needed etc etc etc, well he never showed up...instead i ended up only a quick meeting with him on thursday at which point i got told that i wouldnt get the nessecary footage until saturday (yes...today....the day of the shoot!).

So we prepared as much as we could and got to today....we finally got the footage about an hour before we were due to 'air' the programme. So naturally with so little time to prepare there were a few problems, mostly in regard to aspect ratio, which unfortunately the presenter made clear to the audience were in no uncertain terms our fault, even though it really wasnt and all the issues that were brought to our attention were either non existant or completely not our fault! but anyway the university were impressed with us and we did the best we could with the situation! The next studio presentation will be on 25th October which is a conference hosted by Advantage West Midlands, this show will be streamed LIVE via the universities web servers and, of course, I will provide everyone with a link so they can watch SiMILE Media Solutions first LIVE broadcast!

Ok rant over. However i will leave you with 2 things, first is this....it is a HILARIOUS story that i have nicked of my friend from Houston, Lauren Uhyrek, so thankyou so much for this lauren it made me really laugh my head off and i needed that today....here it is:

 

HELL EXPLAINED BY CHEMISTRY STUDENT...this is clever 
The following is an actual question given on a University of Washington chemistry mid-term. 

The answer by one student was so "profound" that the professor shared it with colleagues, via the Internet, which is, of course, why we now have the pleasure of enjoying it as well: 
Bonus Question: Is Hell exothermic (gives off heat) or endothermic (absorbs heat)? 

Most of the students wrote proofs of their beliefs using Boyle's Law gas (cools when it expands and heats when it is compressed) or some variant.

 
One student, however, wrote the following: 
    First, we need to know how the mass of Hell is changing in time. So, we need to know the rate at which souls are moving into Hell and the rate at which they are leaving.  I think that we can safely assume that once a soul gets to Hell, it will not leave. Therefore, no souls are leaving. As for how many souls are entering Hell, let's look at the different religions that exist in the world today.  Most of these religions state that if you are not a member of their religion, you will go to Hell. Since there is more than one of these religions and since people do not belong to more than one religion, we can project that all souls go to Hell. With birth and death rates as they are, we can expect the number of souls in Hell to increase exponentially. 
Now, we look at the rate of change of the volume in Hell because Boyle's Law states that in order for the temperature and pressure in Hell to stay the same, the volume of Hell has to expand proportionately as souls are added. 
This gives two possibilities: 
    1. If Hell is expanding at a slower rate than the rate at which souls enter Hell, then the temperature and pressure in Hell will increase until all Hell breaks loose. 
    2. If Hell is expanding at a rate faster than the increase of souls in Hell, then the temperature and pressure will drop until Hell freezes over. So which is it? 
If we accept the postulate given to me by Teresa during my Freshman year that, "It will be a cold day in Hell before I sleep with you," and take into account the fact that I slept with her last night, then number two must be true, and thus I am sure that Hell is exothermic and has already frozen over 
The corollary of this theory is that since Hell has frozen over, it follows that it is not accepting any more souls and is therefore, extinct..... leaving only Heaven, thereby proving the existence of a divine being which explains why, last night, Teresa kept shouting "Oh my God." 

THIS STUDENT RECEIVED THE ONLY "A" 

And finally to leave you with a picture of the musical i have mentioned in todays blog, that musical, described as "The musical phenomen that defined a generation" (what  GREAT reveiw line!) is Rent, so here is your picture!

 

See all you lovelies sooon!

 

Ben x

Something extremely good is definately happening in Oz

Ok, the test worked, so now onto the main post for the evening. First of all many apologies for the lack of pastage recently I have been exceedingly busy with the business and to be perfectly honest havent had the time or energy to actually write here! Ok first of all lets look at what i wrote last...so i actually can work out what I have done since then!!!.........Ok, so last blog i was off to see The Wicker Man....Jesus...was it THAT long ago??? right ok im gonna have to abridge my life so I wont go in chronological order or anything I will just blab on abotu what I can remember.

Ok well the best event since then by a long long way was Wicked. Those of you who know me know I have wanted to see this bloody thing since it opened on broadway 3 years ago so when it was announced it would come to london 12 months ago naturally tickets were GOING to be bought. Then in April, after months of casting speculation and the producers basically announcing they would have a fairly unknown all brit cast an email went out that was more fantastic than anyone could have expected, the picture just said it all:

the producers had announced that Idina Menzel would recreate her Tony Winning performance as Elphaba (The Wicked Witch) when Wicked opened in London for a limited run. Ok that meant tickets would definately be bought for the very start of the run so as soon as booking opened I was awarded by my parents with 2 3rd row tickets for the day after press night as a 21st birthday present. The show started previewing, my mate laura mcgowan went to see it and came back not being able to talk about anything else....this show was gonna be great! and it was....I went last thursday with Jess H and wow, I cannot begin to describe how spectacular this show is, yes ok the plot is not the strongest but the music is fantastic and the scenery, lighting and staging are just out of this world, i dont want to spoil it for any of you who are going to see it so if you WANT to know about the spectacular finale of the first act then select the text below to reveal!

Ok, so at the end of the first act during the song defying gravity, elphaba decides she will defy all those around her and strike out alone in an awe inspring song that end with her rising high above the stage (with no strings attached!) to bawl out the final words of the first act screaming at her enemies to look to the western sky as she makes the first of many decisions that will eventually make the understood bullied green girl the infamous wicked witch of the west!

Ok, you can look back now. I will stop talking about Wicked now as people will get bored but seriously see this show...and see it before the end of the year as Idina Menzel has just such an amazingly powerful voice. The website is www.wickedthemusical.co.uk. If you happen to be from a different country, the show is currently open in London, New York and Chicago and on National US tour, and productions are apparently opening in the coming year in LA (definatley opening Feb 07), Germany, Holland, Australia, Japan and Toronto. I will leave the subject with some photos of the show for you tho!

Ok well the day after Wicked was pretty damned good too, I went straight up to Leeds to see Ed and go and see an american band I have wanted to see for....well since i think year 11....so a LONG time, the Goo Goo Dolls, and they didnt dissapoint, ok the set was a little on the short side but they did ALL the songs that count (Iris, Slide, Broadway) and loads of songs from their new album (Let Love In, Stay with Me). It was the first date of a fairly lengthy UK tour so if you get the chance listen to some of their music (www.googoodolls.com) and go see em, I mean who wouldnt....they rock!

Ok, lets move away from social life for a bit and move onto work life. Work is moving......nice and quickly but very slowly at the same time. We have 2 big contracts that we are awaiting go aheads for and they seem to be taking FOREVER!!!! As is the delivery of our new uniform....yes we are getting uniforms here at SiMILE Media Solutions, we have the swatch showing how our unis WILL look like eventually:

So thats how we will eventually look we hope!!!

On the busy side of the business we are doing lots with the university at the moment, we have  about 6 bookings in the television centre, the first of which is tomorrow, and have been commisioned to do a short film showcasing disabled sport in the region. So there is PLENTY of work to be getting on with!

Uni is now back so the place is alot busier than it was just a few short weeks ago, I am once again a member of the drama society, though no matter how hard they tried i am not on the comitee this year (tho i was voted onto it without standing for election at the end of last year, so I immediately stepped down) I felt i could give the comitee what they would need from me with my work comittments as they are this year. For that reason I am also not audition for any shows, at leats this semester, though if the planned Variety show takes off i will appear in that. I went to Stoke drama to see everyone on wed, was good to see everyone again and I ended up at ians till about 1 i think playing singstar with ian, jess M (M to distinquish form Jess H :-P) and charis which was funny cos none of them knew i actually could sing! I tell you something, its bloody funny playing singstar with 2 drunkards (charis and jamie), a very very outwardly camp guy (Ian) and 2 quite shy about singing girls (Jess and Nicola).

 

But anyway I think i may have now babbled on enoughand can quietly go back to a land of producing, accounting, and listening to musicals on my computer no matter how much the housemates take the piss out of me.

Oh a few bits of news for you all about musicals, because as you know i do love them so LOL. If you are a student and buy your UCAS Extra card for £10, Ticketmaster are currently offering buy one get one free tickets for the 5.45 friday performance of Avenue Q at ALL price levels, so you can get 2 TOP TEIR best house seat tickets for £47.50, that pays for your UCAS extra card and STILL saves u about £12! Chicago is doing similar also. And on the me organising a west end trip. I am still hoping to do that, but it will prob be in the xmas hols now ill start sorting it in the next few weeks so keep you eyes peeled. If anyone is interested I should be off to see Wicked again before the years out as my sis wants me to take her, and Rach Beattie (my friend from staffs last year who has now gone to LA) wants to see Idina when she comes over in December so her and her fella tom will prob come too and i think ian and jess m from drama may wanna come but anyone is welcome just let me know soon as i will be booking soon!

And to leave you.....just because she is SUCH a good damned singer, one more pic of Idina Menzel in what i think is the best musical out in the west end at the moment (Yes it beats Avenue Q!)

 

See you all soon!

 

Ben x 

Testing Testing 1..2...3

I am trying out blogging on Windows Live Write (Beta) so here is a lovely test post (complete with image no less!)