A gig of an ego boost?

So here i am, monday morning, 1:45am, starting this, feeling on top of the world.

What a weekend i've had!

Saturday was always going to be a long day, i knew that, so friday night, i logged off everything and went to sleep by about 10/11pm, but could i sleep? no. Infact, i didn't get off to sleep until about half 3 in the morning. I woke up at half 7, grabbed a quick bath... and started on my timeline of the day....

8:30am - Took Trey out for a walk, stunning sunrise today, little bit on the chilly side, but leaving this field soon to go and meet the mother, time for Trey to be pamperd...

9:40am - Trey dropped off at the dog groomers for a haircut and wash. Me and mum off to take a little look around the shops and will probably end up buying some random stuff we don't need... oooh, lets look in pet's at home...

11:30am - Been and picked Trey up, he looks so much better after his haircut and i saw so many animals in pets at home that i wanted...

 

3pm - Got to mothers and after one job leading to another, the christmas tree is up now and we think we're dealing with mice in the attick, what a joy! Time to get home and get down to the club... gig tonight!!!

5:30pm - Just arrived at the club, now, i'd seen the owner in the week and he'd said about it getting fixed up in the function room and... i'm impressed, but no time for waiting around, it's time to get set up!

6pm - tech guy's have turned up, setting up a huge screen on the stage, it's an awards show tonight, looking really good! People should get here about 7, then they'll start the awards show at about half 7, buffet at 9 and then i'll be djing about 10 ish. Sorted!

They've also been working with me to use this mic on the stand thing, awful, they placed it right under the speaker, on the weird side, i've never used phantom on the sound desk before, so thats something new. Kinda looking forward to seeing how this goes.

9pm - omg, just got out of the awards part, sheesh! Went brilliantly, happy faces, video's and images on the big screen all worked well, so yey to that. Other tech guys are taking the screen down as we speak, so i'll get in, finish off setting the light's up and then we're good to go!

1:17am - Well, the 2nd part went brilliantly, crowed were literally in the palm of my hand... time to pack up now and then wait for the people to leave...

3am - people just left, me and dan (the bar manager) are just clearing off the last few glasses and going home!

3:30am - BED!

So it was a busy day, loads of compliments after the gig, people saying how much they enjoyed it, so im chuffed to bits with it all, i really am! It's rare that i can say after a gig that it went perfect, but it did...

Anyways, that was my saturday... sunday, i've spent in bed, recovering, as you'd expect.

Now though, onto monday.... well, sleep first....

The death penalty, where i stand.

Odd, that in the run up to christmas i should post about such a topic. Yet, everywhere i go, people are in a hurry to get somewhere, pushing each other out of the way because over the 1 day that the shops are closed, you may run out of toilet roll, so quick, buy 50 of them before anyone else does.

That alone, warrent's me thinking about the death penalty.

It has been on my mind recently though. About a week ago, me and a friend we're up until the wee hour's watching the film "the mathew sheperd story". One of the main theme's that run's through the film is that they can have the death penalty, if they want it. As we see with mathews mother in the film, she doesn't want it. I don't think i would either?

But why? i hear you asking....

In my mind, the death of one person cannot be equaled by the death of another. I am not god, i do not have a right to say who is entitled to life and who isn't. I also have to bring into question as to how sure you have to be that you have the right person before you sentence them to death, because what if in 5 years after the death, new evidence is found and it turns out, you killed the wrong person.

To me, there's much worse that can be done to a person while they're still alive. Have a listen to this....

"A life in memory", to me, is a much tougher thing to deal with than death. It bring's around eventually a better sense of justice, because that person has to go through every day, thinking about what they did and why, with death, they don't.

Now, my friend and i, have never been in the position where we could have someone handed a death sentence luckily and touch wood, would never have to be in such a position. I can only imagine though that being in that position, would make a person think differently about thing's like this.

But what say you?

Are you for a death sentence as a way of justice?

James Arthur, the beginning of the end.

So, i've been reading the news over the past few days, and actually... i couldn't be more happy.

See, last year, or, the year before... a guy won the british x-factor show called James Arthur. From his audition on the show, i never took to him. He looked awful, sounded awful and i could almost smell him through the tv and wanted to wash him. So anyway, he went on to win and blah blah blah.

His first single has come out and wasn't actually doing too bad in the charts. That was, until, he used the term "fucking queer" in a rap song. The news was picked upon by the newspapers and people online and of course... began what we have today.

What seems to have happend is James has made a track for a rap artist, and included some of his own lyrics on it, which include the term "fucking queer". Some might excuse this, but i, can't. There's no need for such terms in music these days, at all. It IS homophobic. If you don't think it is, let's swap the word queer for nigger, so in the song he calls someone a "fucking nigger", is that racist? Yes? But fucking queer isn't homophobic?

Morals people.

Anyway, the short version of it is, he's made a series of apologies on twitter and, well, not got the responce he wanted. He's since left twitter and his account is now handled by his management team, which let's face it, must be now working overtime, trying to recover him from what is basically, a PR disaster.

He's brought this on himself, nobody else to blame and he's lost alot of fans. His album sales are down and i'm waiting for news as we speak to hear about how his song is selling at the moment.

His career is on it's way out, he'll be forgotten about soon, but let's hope this lesson, isn't.

It's called freedom to learn.

Here's a little thing to make you ponder slightly, as i am doing at the moment. I'm currently following an online newspaper called "Pink news" with the majority of their stories being based around the gay community. While sometime's i do have to question exactly how one of their news stories can be related to the lgbt community, i didn't have to wonder that today... much.

Today, one of their headlines was "Liverpool University was prepared to host cleric who says gays are ‘filthy’".

Correct me if i'm wrong here, but isn't the whole point of going to a university to learn? I fully accept that people will always have different point's of view on things, and i don't think we should silence those that think different from ourselves, if anything, we should explain our point's of view and talk about whatever topic it is. Yet, for this man, i kind of feel that he's being attacked over his point of view, just because he holds that point of view.

Here's the rest of the article.

The University of Liverpool has confirmed that it was prepared to allow an Islamic cleric with extreme anti-gay views to conduct a speech in front of students.
The Tayyibun Institute announced last Thursday that it had cancelled Mufti Ismail Menk’s tour of several universities – with the consent of the controversial cleric.
It had previously released a flyer promoting Menk’s tour and had stated that he would be visiting several British universities during November.
Despite being listed on the flyer, Glasgow and Oxford universities told PinkNews that they were unaware of any invitation having been extended to Menk.
However, the University of Liverpool has admitted it was prepared to host the cleric, after the university’s Islamic Society invited him.
The university confirmed to PinkNews that Menk would not be speaking today at the Guild of Students, but only because of last week’s decision by the cleric and the Tayyibun Institute to cancel his tour.
Menk has described gay people as “filthy” and worse than “dogs and pigs”; believes consenting gay sex is as bad as “rape”, and says it’s “foolish” for Muslims to accept homosexuality.
The University of Liverpool believes its students should be allowed to challenge his views in the presence of the cleric.
A spokesperson said: “We are committed to providing an inclusive environment where the views and beliefs of all our staff and students are respected.
“Universities provide platforms for discussion and debate – whether or not we agree with the views of those involved. It is not the role of the university to censor people’s views, but rather to provide a neutral, open environment for them to be debated and challenged.
“The Guild of Students and the university have clear policies on diversity and equality, which inform our decisions on events such as this.”

Now that, to  me, screams an attack on him just because he has a different point of view, doesn't it to you? Who's able to say here exactly what would have been said on his tour? When he reffers to gays as pigs and all that, so what? is he really the only one to think that? not at all.

We, as gay people, use our freedom of speech to express our point's of view, so why should we attack other's when they express their point's of view?

So... where do you stand on this now?

Click here to read the article on the pink news website.

Youtube... and why i won't comment on that.

... Because i can't.

Yes, for many of you reading this you'll have noticed that over the past week, popular website Youtube rolled out it's new system and gave us all these new wonderful features of.. erm.. well, i'm sure there's some.

Anyway, i thought's GREAT! A new look for youtube, people will like this, it's made playlists more user friendly, it's more easy to share the content on youtube now etc, what could possibly go wrong?

Then, i saw a post my my friend (and popular youtuber, who i won't name on here) post on his facebook about one of the orig designers of youtube and how he'd commented on his youtube wall to ask "why do we need a google plus account in order to be able to comment".

I thought, no, that can't be right can it? Unfortunatly, it is.

Let me explain to you my relationship between myself and google plus. When "plus" was first created, it was supposed to be a mixture of facebook, twitter, skype and even email. It was built to be this amazing thing that everyone should sign up to. The people that google allowed to use the service earlyer than the public all had these great things to say about it. (I don't actually know 1 person who tried plus before it's launch, who didn't work for google. Not that this matters, but, just saying).

Plus launched to the public and loads of people signed up and some... ran into problems.

See when you first signed up, google wanted people to use just their real names, nothing else. If you didn't want to remain secretive online, you were out of luck im afraid. I had a friend of mine HappyCabbie report on his youtube about people who were signing up, but didn't use their full real name and were deleted from google. That's right, not just deleted from plus, but gmail, youtube, adesense... all their google products were lost.

I avoided plus, never signed up, after hearing that, why would i risk all those hours ive spent filming stuff and uploading it to youtube, why would i risk it on a service i'd managed to live 20+ years without.

So i didn't sign up... and still refuse to, which is why Youtube's latest switch around is really bugging me.

See, not many people use google plus these days, site traffic is awful, when you take into consideration the amount of users the service is supposed to have... it's not great. So why is youtube now trying to push people into signing up for google plus?

I reported my issue to youtube and recieved a reply this morning from them, which reads....

"

Hi _____,

Thanks for contacting us.

I understand that you're having trouble when commenting on a video. I apologize for the inconvenience caused in this regard.

The new comment system has several features that are built on Google technology. These features rely on the Google identity system, based on Google+, so your channel needs to be connected to a Google+ profile or page in order to use the new system.

You can also find more information about the new commenting system in the help center and on the YouTube Blog.

You don't have to use your full name. You can keep your YouTube username, and your full name won't be displayed publicly anywhere. Not on YouTube, not on Google+. See your options here.
However, we appreciate your feedback as we're constantly trying to improve the YouTube experience. The best way to send us direct feedback with screenshots using the Send Feedback button at the bottom of any YouTube page.

I hope this information is useful. Thanks again for getting in touch with us!

Sincerely,

(not revealing who)

The YouTube Team"

 

Now that to me, is a pretty standard reply, it basically says "you're not going to be able to comment unless you sign up for google plus" and offers no alternative.

 

It is a shame to see Youtube selling out it's members for google plus, it's actually a shame that youtube was bought by google, it should have remained independant, yet you think google is going to sell off youtube? No chance.

 

So, worried about a lack of comments on your youtube video? Well, now you know. I'm really not the only one who's being like this, i'll just refuse to comment on video's until this rubbish rule is gotten rid of, however long it takes for them to do so. If they carry on trying to merg youtube with google plus, then i'll bid a final farewel to youtube.

***UPDATE*** - 14/11/12... and i got a reply from youtube.

Basically, I replied to the email they sent me and said it was a shame they were selling out the youtube brand to google plus, just to make google look like it's more popular then ever before, where as in reality, we're supposed to just sign up for this service that we neither want, nor use.

Here's the reply i got...

"

Hi Beverly,
Thanks for writing back.

Thanks for sharing your feedback on Google+. Let me provide some context around why we’re asking you to connect and hopefully answer some questions you may have.

Over the past year, we’ve been encouraging YouTube users to connect their YouTube channel with a Google+ profile or page. We recommend connecting because we've released several new features that integrate YouTube and Google functionality, and are continuing to build more. In order to take advantage of these new features, your channel needs to update to our unified identity system, which works both on YouTube and also across the rest of Google. This identity system is powered by Google+.

Although your channel needs to connect to a Google+ profile or page to be compatible with new features, you don't need to use the Google+ service itself. You can even hide your profile or page from search results if you don't want anyone to find it.

Also, I want to make sure you know that you don't have to use your full name. You can keep your YouTube username, and your full name won't be displayed publicly anywhere. Not on YouTube, not on Google+. Learn more about your options here.

It is also worth noting that if you don’t want to actively use Google+, then your Google+ profile or page will not reveal anything more than what already appears on your YouTube channel. It can show as little as just your channel name—the same one that already shows publicly on YouTube.

To learn more about connecting to Google+ and your different options, check out this support article and visit this section of the Help Center.

I hope that this information is helpful and provides you with a better understanding of why you’re being prompted to connect to Google+. Be sure to let me know if you have any questions after connecting to Google+.

Sincerely,

(Not telling you who)
The YouTube Team"

The site's and app's i dislike on the net (You might love them though)

I'll explain my point of view on these site's and you may agree, you may not, but these are site's and app's that i refuse to use, for various reasons. This post will probably be sent to my friends when they tell me i should sign up to a site because it's so good or start using an app... etc.

LinkedIn

Linkedin when it first launched was a good idea, certainly from a point of view of trying to gain employment it was ideal, because you really can be head hunted.

Why i don't like it - Basically, the site not a million moon's ago sufferd a hack and alot of details were stolen, so it lacked a proper security system, when the site holds some quite personal details of people, details that people have stored on there, which if stolen could lead to ID fraud. It's also not used by tonnes of people, so trying to get other's to sign up is yet another nightmare. Use of the site is also quite tricky, it's not the most user friendly site in the world, so finding your way around can often be confusing and certainly at times lead me to just logging off and thinking "try again another day". Which of course i never did, so i logged on once and closed my account for good on the site, while mentally vowing to never return to the site again after it's security breach.

Instagram

Instagram or "Insta" as it's also known, started off as quite a respectable website, it was designed for people to upload special pictures to, to share and people would also be able to buy them through the site. When it was bought by facebook, it's useage went through the roof and you're more likely to find a picture of what your friend had to eat these days, rather than a picture of something actually interesting.

Why i don't like it - Basically, it's over-used and not even for the right purpose. Don't get me wrong, very rarely you can find someone on there who has a special collection of photo's which can still take your breath away, but these accounts are few and far between. As i said before, you're more likely to find someone who's taken a picture of their meal and added an effect to the photo, than a nice photo itself. I also refuse to use the website becaue i have a facebook account, those people who i want to see my photo's already can and if somebody isn't on facebook, i'll often visit them in their cave or under their rock and show them in person, so i have no actual use for the site itself, plus im not that into photography to justify using the website for it's proper useage.

SnapChat

SnapChat was launched to compete with the likes of whatsapp, but have a "fun" element, which is that after a few seconds the photo with the tagline will be deleted forever. SnapChat was hacked in early october 2013, leaving people's picture's they never thought would be seen again, vulnerable to being uploaded online.

Why i don't like it - It's an app that everybody has these days and i fail to see the point in it, why would you go to all the effort of taking a picture, putting the tag line then using your internet allowance to send it, just for the person to see if for a few seconds and then fingers crossed, never see it again? Alot of people use this app to send pictures of their body parts and sexual organs, and trust me, i mean ALOT of people do this, which of course added to my delight when i heard that the app had been hacked and alot of these images with the users details, stolen. SnapChat itself however will just be a flash in the pan, once the novelty has truely worn off and people start to delete the app more than they download it, the app will just fade away, only it's concept will no doubt live on under different names as the future goes on. People rave about how great the app is, yet, is it that great? wouldn't you rather have something like WhatsApp, where if you've fallen asleep while replying to a message, you can see what was put and know what you were replying to?

Draw it

Draw it was a fun app when it first came onto the scene, it's rarely touched these days, but has still made it onto this list. The idea behind it is to draw something for the other person to guess what it is.

Why i don't like it - Although it's certainly had it's prime now, the app never seemed to make sense because let's face it, who's that good at drawing these days? It's basically a drawing version of charrads, which drunk or sober, can sometimes be impossable to play because people are rubbish at guessing games.

And the modern day tories strike again....

YES this is going to be another rant about being unemployed at the treatment of the unemployed, but with whats been proposed recently, SOMETHING needs to be said.

First of all.

Dear BBC news, ITV news.... infact, ITN as a whole.... the people of the UK are not mostly happy with the changes, infact, the people who have an understanding of the system, not one of them are happy about what has been said recently, please correct your news services to give the wider opinion of the public.

*Ahem*

So what has been said recently?

As it currently stands with the unemployed and how they get their money, alot of it is from what the person has paid into the system, so for a certain amount of time will recieve a type of jobseekers allowance. This amount has a limit but can vary from case to case sometimes on how much a person gets. After that time, the type will change and eventually, the person will pay it back in other ways, like higher taxes when they're in employment etc. As the system currently stands, i agree with that part, you pay into the pot when you have it and are supported when you dont.... then when you do have it again, you pay it back. Fair enough.

The governments latest plans are that you will now work for your benefit. Now this is where it gets tricky, so try to stick with me on this one. You will still pay into the pot and will still be supported, only now, instead of using your daytime hours to look for work, you'll have to spend them doing full time hours, unpaid work. That's right, unpaid.

Now, the government claim that it will be either community service or cooking for the elderly.... something like that.... but for those who remember, when the DWP announced the return of workfair, they said it would be for charities, yet i don't see the registerd charity numbers of Argos, Asda, Tesco etc.... all of whom took on free, unpaid workers... and then failed to recruit paid staff.... i wonder why?

So to say that this work which will apparently start as of next year will just be charitable, you can see why alot of us are going "ummm, will it?".

Next we move onto the fact that there's full time work there, yet the unemployed will be sent to do it free of charge. How about this for an idea.... IF the person is able to do the work, you stop all their benefits, and make them do the work.... PAID! I mean, how does that sound? Full time work and ok, maybe scrubbing paint off walls where theyve been vandalized isn't the best job in the world, but if i was offerd that job tomorrow, paid and full time, i'd snap their hands off to do it. The mere idea we send people to do this at A) no cost to the employer and b) no financial reward to the benefit recipiant, is beyond retarded and will force us into a futher state of financial depression.

The announcement by the government in the way they did it is yet again, trying to blame the unemployed for the state of the job market, where as, it's down to a lack of jobs, both part time and full time.... and silly government scheme's like the one announced, which is taking up paid positions by companies, because if you were an employer, who's profit margins need to grow, are you going to take on paid staff, or free staff if you can get them? Exactly, the free staff.

What we need is a BIG boost for the jobs market, it needs to be re-done. Giving companies free staff is not the way to do this.

However, it's too late.

The government have announced it and the wheels are in motion for this to become law. Which is done at a bad time really, because in 2015, the UK is sent to vote. As it currently stands, unemployment in the UK is still at a record high... meaning, the current political parties in charge (Cons' and leb dem's) have lost the votes of the unemployed.

Wise thinking on their part? Not one bit.