No survivors left to save, too late for the walking dead

Well, time to post a little more I think. Firstly, I would have posted earlier, but I've been very, very drunk. Been drinking every night since I got here actually...may have to take a night off. I got my first proper night of sleep last night, it felt so damn good lol
My flatmates are very nice, though I'm missing Loz loads, will never be as cool with her not here. Get on with everyone, which is a welcome change from my last student flat on Ffridd. I'm dreading starting the second year properly next week mind, lets hope that goes ok *crosses fingers* Overall, so far, it's good to be back.

Should have Laura over at the weekend too, which will be great :D

Back to Bangor

Well, I'm in halls, and all is going well so far :) will update later when theres more to say.

Adverts?

Ok, an odd topic I know, but I've just seen two amazing adverts. The first, the new Orange advert, with the street cleaner, I love the new direction of their adverts and that theyve moved on from the Orange film board.
The second, the new Sainsbury's advert, no idea that Jamie Oliver could inspire such good thoughts, but hey. Maybe its the fact that they are both uplifting (well, I find them that way) I have no idea.

So, do you have any favourite adverts at the moment? Or maybe some older ones that you dont see these days?

Hmm

It has come to my attention that my latest passport sized photo set makes me look more than a tad dodgy.



Erm....well, off on my mammoth train journey lasting several days tomorrow!

Yarr

Right, I know that piracy is wrong and everything, but does anyone else feel that too little effort is being put into legal download systems? I was under the mistaken impression that going legal would be easy, and convenient, and that things would have changed at least a little since I last looked at legal download sites.

In the last week, I've tried both Napster, and itunes, and have found both to be apalling in terms of quality.

Firstly, the costs. The price of a music download is artificially high. I just downloaded 'Foo Fighters - DOA' from itunes, at a cost of £0.79, for which I got an mpeg4 (not mp3) file, that I could not convert to any other form. The quality was only 128Kbps, which consdiering you are paying the same price as you would in Virgin Megastores for a CD, is just stupid.

I'm sure at least one person reading this is thinking 'another idealist complaining about greed in the world.' I'm a business student, I have no issue with charging for things. But I also see that radio stations, even student ones like Storm, are forced to pay thousands a year in royalties if they wish to broadcast fully. Which when you consider how many radio stations there are in the UK, plus the amounts from CD and download royalties...well...its enough.

The next thing that pisses me off about these services is the restrictive licences. They are overly restrictive, and I believe this is why the legal download market is struggling to take off as fast as it could. I understand that the bloodthirsty fuckers at the royalty collection companies want their money, but it's just over the top. I want the freedom to use what I've paid for, otherwise what's the incentive? Why should I lose the ability to listen to my music when I end the subscription, unless of course I convert it to an mp3 file, which is illegal anyway, and kinda negates the point of downloading legally in the first place.

Next, the file format. Call me a traditionalist, but when I hear mp3, I'd actually *like* a proper mp3, not a mp4, or a wma, or any other three letter combination. I realise of course, that this is the case as you can't jam an mp3 file with 57 varieties of copy protection into it.

My final point relates to the software. Put simply, its a pile of shite. Being fair, itunes was a lot better at this than Napster (which crashed when I tried to open an account).

So, interactive time! If anyone is still reading my blog. What are your experiences of legal music downloads? Do you see any shortcomings? Or are you happy with the service you get?

Reminds me that it's killing time, on this fateful day

Virgin Mobile have now said no to the Storm sponsorship request, seems pretty hopeless to get the studio in time for freshers week now. At the risk of sounding naive, I wish corporate UK would actually invest in people like us, I mean it's not like it wouldn't benefit them. It doesn't seem to be the fact that we are asking for £11,000 that is getting to them, but the fact we aren't a registered charity, or promoting live music, or educational enough for them. I understand they need to be careful with their money, but its just fucking irritating.

Looking like I'll be doing a Northampton>Reading>Home round trip tomorrow and Monday, which fills me with dread - especially as it'll be a Bank Holiday Monday, on the M4.

By the way, if you know anyone with £11,000 and business sense, please point them in my direction.

For all the ghosts that are never gonna...

Just spent a great few days with Laura (she came down for my Birthday), not long to wait until I'm off to see her again :) (yay).
My summer Storm work is still lingering, need to follow up the proposal for Virgin tomorrow. Set the end of the month as a critical time to get funding by (based on lead times etc).
By the way, Just in case you haven't been caught and harrassed by me yet about it, Feeder Revolution (the new incarnation of Feederfan.com) is up and running, so I invite you to register and start posting if you're a feeder fan (or even if you're not!).