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The Year Almost Gone! God Damn!
Ready For 2008
The Year Almost Gone! God Damn!
6:51pm, Thursday, October 23, 2008
Current mood: sick 
If the last blog was a long time coming, how much worse this one?
Each year I think my fate can't get any worse and each year it does. It hasn't been my most miserable year but it HAS been the most frustrating.
Can you believe that 6 months of my life have been wasted on the lies of Canon? Hard to believe, but that's how long it took to diagnose a camera problem and solve it, tying up the loose ends along the way. Put simply: Canon SLRs don't focus properly. That's the fact, but you can't read that anywhere, because Canon stop anyone printing it. I know, I've been banned from 2 supposedly independent camera forums for demonstrating just that. I won't go into the details here, suffice it to say that it was exceedingly difficult to get to the bottom of it all.
I now have a Nikon D60 and a Tamron f/2.8 17-50 and I am once again getting the shots I expect. But it took 6 months, go to woe, from buying the 400D until I had the system I expected. And that means 6 months of full time work, researching, experimenting, testing, trying other people's cameras and lenses. Don't worry about the financial loss, what about the time? 6 months! Geez! That's worth more than any camera.
Don't buy a Canon SLR!
Meanwhile the shameful Dole business has not stopped. They have been on the brink of throwing me off for nearly 3 years now. Still the farce continues. What is it for? Just sack the bitches that are paid to make my life a misery, leave me alone to get on with my work, keep paying me the pittance and everyone will be better off. No matter how you look at it it makes no sense. What an idiotic world we live in.
On the positive side, I have begun the website rewrite and I hope to get most of it done by Christmas. It's my least productive year for some time, but what can you do? The curse has dragged me down for 8 months out of 10. What will it be next year? 10 out of 10?
I have written just a handful of songs this year, some ribald, some incomplete. It has been an odd year and no mistake. Still, I'm not dead and not beaten yet! Maybe next year I'll get something done.
Currently reading:
Liveship Traders trilogy by Robin Hobb
Ready For 2008
11:10am, Friday, January 11, 2008
Current mood: awake 
I can't believe it's been 3 months since my last blog!
A lot of stuff has happened in that time, including a fair amount of bad... More trouble with the Dole Agency. Sickness. Losing my singing voice. Financial constraints. etc, etc...
On the positive side I'm painting and drawing and achieving some good results. Hopefully these will be posted on my web site sometime this year.
The Christmas break has been good for me, relaxing and enjoying my friends and family, watching the cricket, reading and seeing BEOWULF in 3D! (stand by for my 1800 word review, couldn't post it on IMDB, it was too long).
Still awaiting responses to "Life on the Dole", personally I think it sounds great through my MP3 player, a good mix, good variety of rock styles, not over or under arranged, well played and sung, each song deep and no weak tracks. I don't think I can do any better with the resources at my disposal.
I only finished it in the nick of time because immediately after the final mix I lost my singing voice, my local GP misdiagnosed the problem as gastric reflux vocal irritation, but a recent trip to the ENT specialist revealed a different cause, probably the after effects of a past virus. He put me on anti-inflamatories and hopefully I should be singing again soon.
It is a very disturbing thing for a singer not to be able to sing...
This year I have big plans for my website. As detailed in a past blog, I must rewrite it, the whole damn thing!!! Yes it's gonna be a big job but I'll just have to grasp the nettle and get on with it. There will be some rearranging of the structure to allow for the great raft of new material coming in.
Of course there will be more music and art, (I try to get an album out every year), stand by for further information as these events unfold.
Currently listening to:
Young Modern by Silverchair