I'm driving myself CRAZY!

I know it seems as if everyone is going through the same thing right now, especially with assignments looming, Christmas on the way and the end in sight, but I can't help but feel like the whole world is on my shoulders right now. I feel like this insatiable weight is holding me down and I can't breathe whenever I think about it, which is usually all the time.

I don't know how to stop thinking about it though. It'll start off with worrying about one little thing. For example, today I swapped cars with my mum so my brother can practice driving (long story, but mum's car is manual, mine is auto, you get the idea...). Trouble is, eve though I know how to drive manuals, I'm not as confident because I've had quite a break from driving them and it worries me a little.

Then I worry about how I'm going to drive to work, and school! ARGH! School, assignments!!

I have two jobs in order to survive pretty much. And so I can have a reasonable disposable income. But in short, along with school, homework, a bit of a breather, family commitments and so forth, I can usually expect 4-5 hours sleep a night.

So then I will begin to worry about when I'm going to get my next decent amount of sleep and there really is no end to my bouts of worrying. I know I need to just breathe and relax, but I'm scared I'll get complacent and won't want to do anything anymore.

Am I crazy or what? Well, I'm going to go think about it now. Hopefully not worry too much more. And hopefully tomorrow will be a bit better than today. 

My brother got home from Japan today.

My youngest brother just got back from Japan today. Random topic to write a web media blog about I know, but there is a little bit of relevance.

Now, he is not the most, how do I put it, 'loving' of boys. (He'll say he doesn't miss anyone, calls everyone terrible names, you know, the same defensive type thing). Anyway, this trip with his school was his first real time away from home, in terms of furtherest, longest time period, and he was staying with complete strangers with whom he had never met before.

The reason for this back story is that he called home once. True, this could be put down to a number of things, none of which I really want to get into right now, but I think it a tad strange that there was no other way for him to communicate home.

Mum had given him a phone number he could ring so that it would charge the home account and not his host family's. Don't get me wrong, whilst experiencing the same trip I used the same method, but that was seven years ago!

Has technology not changed enough since then to allow my brother easier access to more advanced technology? Or is this technology just not being utilised as readily as it should be? Or furthermore, is this just a result of my brother's cold-heartedness and my mum's reluctance to find a new and better way of communicating with her son?

Blunders are funny. Leave them alone.

TVNZ is a funny thing. Owned by the government means that it is obviously got some bias, it's impossible to escape that. But I don't think it very fair that they get to tweak bits of their broadcasts in order to cover up little mistakes.

The 2008 Olympic games were the last games that TVNZ had the broadcasting rights to (Sky TV has them for the London 2012 games, and will be playing them on Prime). This was supposed to be a huge swan song for them, a chance for them to go out all guns blazing (excuse the cliches if you will), instead, one of the major things coming out from TVNZ's broadcasting at Beijing was how terrible it was. The commentators have copped a lot of criticism. No one more so than Peter Montgomery though.

Montgomery was one of the main commentators for the Rowing and Sailing. His voice is synonymous in New Zealand with Yachting, having commentating on the America's Cup races of the past. However, his performance this time around was questionable. Has the old guy past his time?When calling the Women's Double Skulls Final, featuring our own Georgina and Caroline Evers-Swindell, Montgomery called the Germany first, Britain second and New Zealand third. In actual fact it was too close to call between Germany and NZ, thus they had a photo finish, which eventually showed NZ to have won.

Montgomery's initial blunder didn't stop there as even when his co-commentator, Mike Stanley, first said that Germany and NZ were having a photo finish, Montgomery said "They've got that wrong." Turns out he got it wrong. And TVNZ have since tidied the dialogue up on the video, making it appear as if Montgomery never got it wrong. But it doesn't change the fact that quite a few New Zealanders were watching the final that night, and can still remember what Montgomery initially said.I think they should have left it. Why change it? It's kinda funny now. Frustrating then, but funny now.

TVNZ have only made things worse by trying to so obviously cover things up. And it was picked up by the New Zealand Herald.Nevertheless, like the rest of us Montgomery is only human, and mistakes are inevitable really. Shame on TVNZ for trying to fix the blunder I say.

American Politics

I'm going to begin this blog by saying that I am in no way a Political expert nor do I try really hard to try and understand what Politicians are trying to say. In fact, I don't really have any personal political thoughts. And I don't think I will ever understand the way Americans and their political choices so greatly affect the rest of the world.

True, there are many possible and plausible reasons for their domination but I don't want to accept it. Surely there must be some way we (the rest of the world) deny them their power? We are the ones that let them bully us, aren't we? Maybe not New Zealand (think saying no to Nuclear testing back in the 1980s), but those that have a bigger voice, like Britain and Australia seem to go merrily along with the Americans. Or have I got this all wrong?

The United States Presidency race at the present moment, has been watched more closely by the rest of the world than that of any other. This could be for a number reasons. Firstly, the incredible advancement in technology and the accessibility of information via the web can be easily accountable for how popular the American President race is. And also America's control over Oil and all that hoohar (?). Then there's George W. Bush as well. We all have our own opinions of him and his political expertise (or lack there of), and his ability to say some rather suspect things sometimes. (For some classics check this site out.)

This time around we've got John McCain, supported by Sarah Palin on the Republican side, and Barack Obama and Joe Biden for the Democrats. It is easily arguable why one side should win over the other but it is only up to the American voting public. The question I pose is, do we trust them?

At the risk of sounding comepletely biased, I don't have complete faith. I have some, but a news story I witnessed on the news one night showed Hillary Clinton supporters dismissing Obama and saying that they will now vote for McCain. What?? Are they not democrats if they support Clinton? I'm confused.

I could write so much more on this topic but to save myself from blabble and frustration I'm going to end this particular blog post by saying if you're as curious about the American election as I am, read this article from the New Zealand Herald.

Bring on the New Zealand Election!

Movie Originality

The past couple of weeks I have taken slightly more interest in what everyone else in my class is saying in their blogs. I get the general idea that we don't necessarily have to write about what is happening in class (even though I thought that's what we were told to do). Personally, I find it quite rewarding and a great catch-up to go over what I learnt in class in my blog. Especially when I realise that I actually have no idea what we learnt and I have to back track through moodle. Anyway, I've decided that this time I will try and venture away from my classroom learnings and take a look at the world around me, and talk about something that interests me.

The first thing that comes to my mind is movies. Firstly because I work there and secondly because my boyfriend and I are going through a phase of watching a whole lot of dvds that we've never seen before. For him it's the Disney classics like Cinderella, Snow White and Peter Pan (How he managed to not see them for 21 years is mind-boggling!) and for me, cult classics like Donnie Darko, Sin City and What's Eating Gilbert Grape. I'm also enjoying the old-school classics like Breakfast at Tiffany's and Casablanca.

All of this movie watching has got me thinking about originality though. Oh, and how Video stores are going to cope years down the track.

It is arguable that no idea is original. AMC last semester taught us that every idea branched from something or somewhere else, and that nothing is completely original. While the other side to that argument would probably be that in order to create something using ideas from different sources is in fact, creating something original.

But when do all of the good ideas run out? New movies being made lately seem to be either made from books or are sequels or remakes. Do these count as original? I think to a degree. Movies made from books require imagination to be turned into a screenplay, sequels require thought into different ways the hero/heroine can save the day again and remakes often have little changes so that they are their own movie. The same goes for movies made from TV shows and Spoof movies.

Working at the movies gives me an insight into what movies are popular and what ones fail. Shrek 2 was far more popular than its predecessor, as was Spiderman 3. Pirates of the Caribbean, in my opinion got worse as the sequels went on, but they franchise drew in decent numbers, nevertheless. The same for Harry Potter.

James Bond movies are always popular. Teeny bopper movies like Hairspray and High School Musical always incur chaos, and super-hero movies are definitely reign supreme (think Marvel's Spiderman, Iron Man and DC Comic's Batman).

I've come to the conclusion that originality is interpreted very differently, person to person. One person's trash is another person's treasure after all. It doesn't matter if it's a remake of a 60s classic, the 22nd movie in a series or a movie adaption of a comic book hero, as long as it has action, romance, comedy and drama all neatly packaged in one, there's a chance it'll do alright at the box office. Oh, but it must have a big-time director, multi-billion dollar corporation sponsorship and an obscene amount of advertising too. Not much really.

Time to take a breather

Week three in the world of Wintec Media Arts 2008 means Spark Week; a break from normal classes in order to view presentations, showcases, workshops and screenings from established industry people. A very interesting informative week that helps students, such as myself, pick up tips, learn exciting bits and bobs and just enjoy the work of someone who has been successful in their chosen field.

One presentation that I went and saw was that by Wintec's Editor-in-Residence, Julie Starr. She further reiterated my fear that there is a never-ending amount of sites on the Internet that in someway inform people or help them interact with one another.

One I want to mention is Twitter. This site allows you to tell everyone what you're doing at that point in time. You have a certain amount of characters you are allowed to use, and that's it. Write anything; what you're doing, something about yourself, recommend something, practically anything. It seems all pointless and quite trivial but it can be quite entertaining once you get into it. Although I'm not one to talk, at the present point I have made two posts, nothing exciting but there are people, such as Julie who talk to a lot of people on twitter and follow heaps as well.

I also found out that there is just an inconceivable amount of information on the Internet. Blogs are fast becoming the new way people get their information. For example, Julie said she heard about the Chinese earthquake through a Chinese man on Twitter. And he wasn't even in China at the time, meaning he had to source his information from someone else who was possibly there. But this in turn means, that during or straight after the earthquake, someone went on to their computer and started blogging about it.

This somewhat worries me. Is blogging that much of someones life that they must report the news to everyone else as quickly as possible? It seems very trivial to me. Perhaps my skepticism is blinding me from this wonderful cyber-space world though. Hopefully, this doesn't turn into something from a bad sci-fi movie where the technology consumes the human race and we become it's slave. But that's a whole other topic. 

Is This Possibly Too Much?

My Web Media class is steaming along now, (two weeks infact), and I have already learnt of tools and pages that I would never have dreamed existed a few years ago. As I alluded to in my last blog, I have never nor do I expect to, ever fully comprehend the immense power and capability the Internet possesses. However, it brings to my mind the question of whether this could all be too much?

This week's class taught my classmates and I of a new tool called bloglines. It basically lets you know when a new blogs have been posted by people and sites that you are interested in. It saves you the hassle of visiting the site and checking whether or not this has happened. It's great if you have this great desire to read a million blogs I guess, but personally I am not fond of it.

Firstly, I find it very difficult to connect with it. It appears so messy and unorganised and it takes me a while to find what I want to do because there is so much links and other pages to click on, that sometimes it becomes a bit overwhelming when all I want to do is look at one of my classmates' blog page. Once one learns where to look however, it does become much easier, but then I start to wonder what the point of the rest of the stuff is for.

Secondly, one of the things that has always intrigued me about the Internet is that you can get completely lost going from one page to the next; even though, granted, this is how you are most likely to get spam and come across a site that was maybe not what it said it would be. Even still, bloglines takes this away in a sense. True it saves time, but I don't mind snooping through webpages till I find what I am looking for. It's great sport for me.

And I don't have this huge desire to read an obscene amount of blogs. Sure this is part of the course this semester but I don't think I can honestly say that I have the time to read any randoms person's blogs. And after this course, who knows what will become of this blog.

Don't get me wrong, I think that bloglines, coComment etc. are all wonderful little tools that can in some cases be very helpful, I just don't believe that they are for me, nor any other average Internet user.