Tuesday 25 February 2014

UPDATES!

Hello all,

So this year I've decided it's going to be the year of me putting extra effort into my online "presence".

I've already updated my YouTube Channel banner to a nice one, rather than one I just hurriedly made because YouTube forced me to. I've used the same banner for my Facebook page, changed my Twitter background and have now updated this blog so I have nice matching "branding" across all of my social networking sites (might be doing my Tumblr next...just changed the colour to match for now). Basically I've been working really hard to make everything shiny & nice for you all & make everything a bit more welcoming than the black and white & grey look my old channel banner had.

I've also added links to EVERYTHING in the tabs on this blog, so you can easily find all my social network accounts & YouTube channel up there if you want to see more regular postings than this blog.

Another thing I've been doing is editing some old BioShock vids to make highlight videos; not everyone wants to sit through hours of gameplay, but they might enjoy shorter clips of me squeaking with fear and going "what the f*** was that??" at the tiniest of noises. More full BioShock Let's Plays will hopefully be coming soon too - I just have to set up my recording device again...

I want to make sure I make regular videos for everyone to enjoy and for me to keep sane whilst I job search. But, don't worry - I don't just want to churn stuff out. I want to work hard on it all & be proud of everything I put out. I also want to try and do some "lighter" vloggy-style videos alongside my more scripted stuff; it will be a little bit more relaxed & I just think it would be a nice addition to my channel for you to learn a bit more about me and some of my more embarrassing moments...

Anyway - WOOO UPDATES.

Friday 14 February 2014

Valentine's Day rant

Valentine’s day is something that has so much potential.

It’s a chance to let people in your life know that you love them.

It’s a chance to give someone a confidence boost by sending an anonymous card (without being creepy), just to let someone know that there is someone out there that thinks they’re great.

It’s a chance to fully confess your love for someone, an excuse to get it out there.

It’s a reminder to always make the special person in your life feel special, when your life is otherwise too hectic.

It’s an excuse for the romantics to do something nice for the person they love.

It’s a chance for people to learn about all different kinds of love between all different kinds of people, by seeing it everywhere all at once.


Instead, however, it has gone beyond simple card giving and gestures of love to become a massive thing to shame men into buying crap for their wives/fiancees/girlfriends.

All the adverts I’ve heard regarding Valentine’s Day have been this:

BUY HER A MASSIVE CARD

SEND HER OVERPRICED FLOWERS

BUY HER FANCY CHOCOLATES

GET HER SOME EXPENSIVE JEWELLERY

TAKE HER OUT TO A REALLY POSH RESTAURANT

DON’T WRITE HER A POEM, YOU’RE SHIT AT POEMS

DON’T BUY HER ANYTHING OTHER THAN FLOWERS AND CHOCOLATES AND JEWELLERY

IF YOU DON’T FOLLOW THESE RULES YOUR SPECIAL LADYFRIEND WILL OVERREACT AND BECOME A SCREAMING HARPY AND WILL NEVER FORGIVE YOU AND THINK YOU ARE A MASSIVE IDIOT THAT SHE NEEDS TO DUMP IMMEDIATELY.

You know what? If you’re a dude with a special ladyfriend this Valentine’s Day, don’t feel pressured by advertisers. Get her flowers and chocolates if you want to; take her out for a meal if you want to; but don’t feel like you HAVE to. The main thing is just let her know she’s loved on a day where love is being rubbed in everyone’s faces.

And LADIES - we should not be exempt from gift-giving. Do not be like those women who expect their man to just buy them tonnes of crap in order to “prove” himself to them. Valentine’s Day marketing preys upon this and is SO one-sided and deep-rooted in awful out-of-date gender roles where the guy pretty much buys himself into a woman’s pants or buys crap to “prove” himself or avoid being put in “the dog house”. Not very romantic, is it? They should want to buy you flowers, not feel like they have to, or else it’s not a day of love, but of fear.

I do understand with some things - it can feel rubbish if someone you know gets flowers when you don’t; it’s LOVELY to get flowers but it’s not the end of the world if you don’t get any. Do not - I repeat, DO NOT - feed the stereotype of the angry screaming-harpy lady who gets annoyed that her man did not get Valentine’s Day gifts/gestures right. Also, did you bother to send them flowers?

Make Valentine’s Day a MUTUAL thing. Everyone wants to know they’re loved. Don’t pander to the marketing execs and outdated ideas of chivalry, or be scared into buying tonnes of stuff.

Oh, and btw - marketing execs: LGBTQ+ PEOPLE EXIST TOO. Honestly, some of the most romantic people I know are gay - I cried my eyes out at my friends’ civil partnership ceremony because of they lovely things they said to each other. Not only is it rude & discriminatory to ignore them, but it’s also BLOODY STUPID TO CUT OUT A HUGE POTENTIAL MARKET.

Idiots.

Wednesday 5 February 2014

Tube Strikes and Broken Promises

So, there's been a lot of stuff on my Facebook & Twitter about the Tube Strike. It's mainly been people I know complaining about "selfish" Tube workers who decided to strike, saying things like "I hope you're happy" after a long commute home in the rain.

You know what? I don't think they're happy about you getting soaked in a rainstorm, gleefully laughing as they sit watching the news at home; I really doubt they did this just to give you a shitty journey home so you could bitch about them on Facebook.

They are angry & they did it to send a message to someone that broke a promise & they wanted ALL of London to hear that message.

In 2008, Boris said that if he was made Mayor of London, he would ensure that all ticket offices that were currently in use would remain open. He reiterated this several times after that as Mayor. Now he wants to close them and cut 950 jobs in the process.




This is about TfL putting people into unemployment so they can save a little extra cash each year (which I doubt will be passed onto commuters' fares). This is about Boris Johnson getting votes off of a false promise.

I don't think strikes should be done willy-nilly. They are annoying for people just trying to get to work and are definitely not a good way to get the commuting members of the public on the side of the Tube workers. But these strikes were because people are angry that Boris - *gasp* - broke a promise.

If you want to be angry at anyone, be angry at Boris for talking bollocks during his campaigning and getting into power thanks to false promises.

Some people don't see ANY need for these people to be angry and are perfectly happy with all stations just having ticket machines, but not me. I like having the option of speaking to a person when buying a ticket or topping up my Oyster card. I like knowing that someone has a job and is there to help people not confident enough to use the machine (of which there are many). Computers are great, they help us do so much, I have studied them and written programs for them, but too many people use them to completely replace people and label it as "progress". If it was just restructuring, if all the people were just being transferred to have all staff out and about in stations, I'd be fine with that, but the problem is, they're not. Most of those jobs are just being cut & replaced with machines.

Sadly, we live in a world right now where all we hear about is companies doing anything to to cut low/modest-paid staff on the ground & replace them with technology to save money, but giving bigger and bigger paycheques to executives. People are getting angrier and angrier about it, and when people get angrier, they are more likely to protest and say "screw you" to the powers-that-be - especially in a job where they are often at the end of verbal and physical abuse (which is one reason why I doubt I could do the job).

I don't think Tube strikes are the best way for them to get their point across or make commuters like them, but I understand why they are doing it. They don't want TfL to walk all over them and they want people to listen.

So please, feel free to be annoyed at your commute, but do take the time to think about why these strikes are happening, why these workers are so angry and who your anger is best directed towards. Is it the little guys doing the only thing they feel they can do to be heard, using the little bit of power that they have through their union, knowing that they could get a backlash from the public? Or is it the Mayor that breaks his promises & forces people into unemployment in a recession?