Dum de dum
One day, I will do my supervision work over the several days beforehand, not hours. Yeah right, who'm I kidding? Recently I've been mostly fueled by Chinese instant noodles and Sains instant coffee. It's all about the quick fixes!
Recent Stuff:
Friday was band rehearsal #3, this time complete with singer Mike (who couldn't make #2). I think it went pretty well - we managed to get through Ace of Spades, Paranoid and Master of Puppets with Mike, then Holy Wars and Viking Kong without him (he couldn't remember the timings for Holy Wars and Viking's an instrumental). I'll admit I'm not playing Master of Puppets properly - I'm using a pick for a start and I'm not down picking everything, but the notes are pretty much there. One riff's being a pain but I think I've worked out a way around it (it's the sort of chromatic one very near the beginning). Ones that didn't go so well were Thunderhorse (only slight problems) and the Lamb of Sods (Redneck & Walk With Me In Hell). LoS are very technical and rhythmic so unless everyone's exactly together it can sound quite muddy, especially with the hissing due to dodgy pickups/sockets/amps/stuff (I'm not blaming the equipment, just saying it's another thing on top of that!). Also, the riffs are solid and the bass pretty much follows the guitar in everything. Which means I fuck up a fair amount even before trying to get perfectly in time. Gyaaah! Annoyingly work has just descended from a great height so I can't spare any time to practise just now and I really need to before the next rehersal. If I can get everything finished by 9am Wednesday then I think I'll be back on top of things, but that's looking like a very hard ask right now what with 2 examples papers and a lab write up to do.
Straight after the rehearsal I zoomed up to good old Donny (The 15th worst place to live in the UK according to Location, Location, Location) for my parents combined birthday party - a trip to watch AFC Telford Utd vs. Stalybridge Celtic as match sponsors the following day. Twas a grand day out with 3 pairs of uncles & aunts plus cousin Jackie and we all had a cracking time. The match itself was entertaining too :P. Telford started off with some impressive passing and one touch football which tailed off a bit later on (alternating with long ball footie - please no!). Stalybridge were no pushover though, despite a slow start they caused a bit of trouble with their number 11 making attacking runs up the right wing. Still, it was Telford's day, with 3 goals scored in the second half. Very good result! I'm still a bit narked about Donny being in the bottom twenty places to live with no mention of Rotherham or Scunthorpe at all! If you're going to drag down one, you might as well have them all. *hmph*
Sunday went badly wrong - delayed leaving home by 2hrs, then made a wrong decision about where to join the A1 and sat in almost stationary traffic for another hour. By the time I got to Cambridge it was 16:45. Sam was extra nice and had anticipated I'd steal some of his food before rushing off to oversee the 7pm showing of Blood Diamond. As we're low on senior projectionists, not only was I committeeing but also projecting. On arrival, it being nearly 4 months since I was shown how, I realised I'd completely forgotten how to lay out the protective boarding to go under the seating. Luckily the head honcho of film soc, George, said he could come down and sort that while I went to set up the projector. This was doubly lucky as the junior projectionist never showed up and I couldn't reach Sam on his phone so George ended up sorting out the lights and sound as well.
On entering the booth I saw a very suspicious sight - two lenses laid out, indicating a lens change, and the notice board completely blank of information (usually says film title, running time, if there's a lens change and if so, after which trailer). As I investigated further my suspicions were confirmed. Not only was there a lens change for the showing, but also Sam (who'd a heavy workload over the weekend and so let the juniors do the watch through) hadn't changed around the Dolby for it. Cue a very stressful 30 minutes whilst I tried to locate the roll of blank film and the Dolby scope reel. We change over the lenses on the run during the blank film (other film societies solve this by stopping the projector and restarting when set but that's no fun) and the Dolby ad is shown afterwards as we often overrun when changing the lens and it gives us a bit of leeway. Separate Dolby ads (scope, 1:2.35 and wide, 1:1.85) are used depending on lens. I also had to complete my original mission of inserting the 28 Weeks Later trailer (it's our next film, this Thursday).
I think just getting so worked up about everything meant that when I finally did the lens change I forgot to set the catch which clamps the lens in position. Therefore every 5 mins I was diving into the projection booth adjusting the focus and wondering why on earth it kept going wrong. I finally worked it out, but I must say that that wasn't one of my finest hours for John's films. In the end the film did really well - we had over 100 people over the two showings and made £150. I just hope that the focus problems didn't put people off checking out some of our other films later on. :S
Anyway, after finishing all that, I came home, finished my book and did my Machine Design supervision work concurrently with my laundry until 6am. Today, I was ever so slightly knackered. Still, the super went ok, I made all my lectures due to not having the chance to fall so fast asleep I missed my alarm and I went to the Bun Shop with the Engineers Without Borders committee for dinner before coming back and pissing my life away on the internet. Next on the cards is Dynamics and Thermodynamics & Power Generation supervision work. The Thermo supervisor sent Jack, my supervision partner, and myself a charming e-mail which told us off for not replying to arrange a supervision with him and telling us to come on Wednesday at 5:30pm. This is intriguing as we did reply, on Oct 23rd 2007 at 18:43:41 according to Hermes sent-mail. I've forwarded that message to him as proof with an explanatory note and there's not much more I can do. I hope he understands and calms down a bit, especially as I don't think Jack can make the super time he allocated. *sigh* Oh well, enough delaying tactics. Work again I guess. Oh, and Rovers beat Leyton Orient 4-2 yesterday, taking us up to 11th. Top half of the table at last! :D
Recent Stuff:
Friday was band rehearsal #3, this time complete with singer Mike (who couldn't make #2). I think it went pretty well - we managed to get through Ace of Spades, Paranoid and Master of Puppets with Mike, then Holy Wars and Viking Kong without him (he couldn't remember the timings for Holy Wars and Viking's an instrumental). I'll admit I'm not playing Master of Puppets properly - I'm using a pick for a start and I'm not down picking everything, but the notes are pretty much there. One riff's being a pain but I think I've worked out a way around it (it's the sort of chromatic one very near the beginning). Ones that didn't go so well were Thunderhorse (only slight problems) and the Lamb of Sods (Redneck & Walk With Me In Hell). LoS are very technical and rhythmic so unless everyone's exactly together it can sound quite muddy, especially with the hissing due to dodgy pickups/sockets/amps/stuff (I'm not blaming the equipment, just saying it's another thing on top of that!). Also, the riffs are solid and the bass pretty much follows the guitar in everything. Which means I fuck up a fair amount even before trying to get perfectly in time. Gyaaah! Annoyingly work has just descended from a great height so I can't spare any time to practise just now and I really need to before the next rehersal. If I can get everything finished by 9am Wednesday then I think I'll be back on top of things, but that's looking like a very hard ask right now what with 2 examples papers and a lab write up to do.
Straight after the rehearsal I zoomed up to good old Donny (The 15th worst place to live in the UK according to Location, Location, Location) for my parents combined birthday party - a trip to watch AFC Telford Utd vs. Stalybridge Celtic as match sponsors the following day. Twas a grand day out with 3 pairs of uncles & aunts plus cousin Jackie and we all had a cracking time. The match itself was entertaining too :P. Telford started off with some impressive passing and one touch football which tailed off a bit later on (alternating with long ball footie - please no!). Stalybridge were no pushover though, despite a slow start they caused a bit of trouble with their number 11 making attacking runs up the right wing. Still, it was Telford's day, with 3 goals scored in the second half. Very good result! I'm still a bit narked about Donny being in the bottom twenty places to live with no mention of Rotherham or Scunthorpe at all! If you're going to drag down one, you might as well have them all. *hmph*
Sunday went badly wrong - delayed leaving home by 2hrs, then made a wrong decision about where to join the A1 and sat in almost stationary traffic for another hour. By the time I got to Cambridge it was 16:45. Sam was extra nice and had anticipated I'd steal some of his food before rushing off to oversee the 7pm showing of Blood Diamond. As we're low on senior projectionists, not only was I committeeing but also projecting. On arrival, it being nearly 4 months since I was shown how, I realised I'd completely forgotten how to lay out the protective boarding to go under the seating. Luckily the head honcho of film soc, George, said he could come down and sort that while I went to set up the projector. This was doubly lucky as the junior projectionist never showed up and I couldn't reach Sam on his phone so George ended up sorting out the lights and sound as well.
On entering the booth I saw a very suspicious sight - two lenses laid out, indicating a lens change, and the notice board completely blank of information (usually says film title, running time, if there's a lens change and if so, after which trailer). As I investigated further my suspicions were confirmed. Not only was there a lens change for the showing, but also Sam (who'd a heavy workload over the weekend and so let the juniors do the watch through) hadn't changed around the Dolby for it. Cue a very stressful 30 minutes whilst I tried to locate the roll of blank film and the Dolby scope reel. We change over the lenses on the run during the blank film (other film societies solve this by stopping the projector and restarting when set but that's no fun) and the Dolby ad is shown afterwards as we often overrun when changing the lens and it gives us a bit of leeway. Separate Dolby ads (scope, 1:2.35 and wide, 1:1.85) are used depending on lens. I also had to complete my original mission of inserting the 28 Weeks Later trailer (it's our next film, this Thursday).
I think just getting so worked up about everything meant that when I finally did the lens change I forgot to set the catch which clamps the lens in position. Therefore every 5 mins I was diving into the projection booth adjusting the focus and wondering why on earth it kept going wrong. I finally worked it out, but I must say that that wasn't one of my finest hours for John's films. In the end the film did really well - we had over 100 people over the two showings and made £150. I just hope that the focus problems didn't put people off checking out some of our other films later on. :S
Anyway, after finishing all that, I came home, finished my book and did my Machine Design supervision work concurrently with my laundry until 6am. Today, I was ever so slightly knackered. Still, the super went ok, I made all my lectures due to not having the chance to fall so fast asleep I missed my alarm and I went to the Bun Shop with the Engineers Without Borders committee for dinner before coming back and pissing my life away on the internet. Next on the cards is Dynamics and Thermodynamics & Power Generation supervision work. The Thermo supervisor sent Jack, my supervision partner, and myself a charming e-mail which told us off for not replying to arrange a supervision with him and telling us to come on Wednesday at 5:30pm. This is intriguing as we did reply, on Oct 23rd 2007 at 18:43:41 according to Hermes sent-mail. I've forwarded that message to him as proof with an explanatory note and there's not much more I can do. I hope he understands and calms down a bit, especially as I don't think Jack can make the super time he allocated. *sigh* Oh well, enough delaying tactics. Work again I guess. Oh, and Rovers beat Leyton Orient 4-2 yesterday, taking us up to 11th. Top half of the table at last! :D