A letter to Phil

Dear Phil

Thank you so much for your help today upgrading my mobile phone. I thought I was going to have a horrible decision between crappy phones but you've really made my day.

When I dialled 150 and got through to you I was greeted by your happy, buoyant tones and friendly demeanour and from there it only got better. You listened to my rambling about my previous phone ownership and usage and suggested some expensive phones by HTC (my current/old phones manufacturer) to which I said "Gasp!". Then you said the fateful words:

"We have some Blackberries which are free"

You offered me the 8210 and then the lovely 8220... The Pearl - Flip. I was overjoyed as you might expect until you pointed out that it would actually be £17 to upgrade to that phone. Heartbroken I realised I'd have to wait until tomorrow so I could put some money in the bank. That is until you checked what talkplan I was on and that if I upgraded to a plan which was more suitable for me you could give me the phone for free! Not only that but the contract was £5 cheaper which fit in nicely with the Blackberry data plan's cost.

So thanks Phil. You're lovely. Tomorrow I'll get a shiny new phone and my communication life will be good. Hell you even told me where you work all the way up in Darlington which I think shows we had a rapport going on. If you're ever in Brighton again I'll buy you a pint.

Yours lovingly

Albull

Bad gigs, creative input and fun.

The lights go down, the DJ stops, you walk on stage pick up your instrument and prepare to start playing. You're looking your best, you strike up with a fast paced song to get people going, get them excited... they're still eating their chicken & chips or chatting to people over by the bar and hardly notice you exist as anything more than a sudden volume increase.

Recently I've been getting a bit annoyed with the band I'm in. I'll give you a quick explanation of what we do for those of you not in the know. We are an 11 piece soul tribute band. We play weddings, birthdays, corporate functions... hell, we'll play your funeral if you book us (note to self: book a band to play at my wake). The problem is we've been playing the same 30-40 songs for the last 3 years and although we're much better than when we started, we still get things wrong. The problem is that I'm bored with the songs we're doing and that when things go wrong the band falls apart.

We've also played some horrible gigs recently. Ok, so I'd only had an hour's sleep before an 8am start at the last one but when the technology fails, the band panics and the host is a coked up douche-hole it just isn't fun. Top that off with a horrible get-out finishing at 2am and you've got an Albull being very physical and active for 18 hours and not even enjoying it.

I need to get out of this rut and improve on some of the songs and get OTB Rock going, play some completely different music and enjoy it again. Oh and sort out the chain of command on stage. It seems that although Viv may control the negotiations best and Sean is the frontman what we need is someone from the backline who knows the entire songs inside out musically who can make decisions and take charge when the guitar amp fails/bass batteries die/keyboard melts... whatever. That's a point... I need to learn all the introductions to the songs so I can replecate them in case of emergency.

The great thing about writing a blog is it can be cathartic... even if no one reads it :-p I'm in a better mindset now and I'll get on making OTB Soul fun again. I mean it's either that or just quit, and I don't want to do that now do I?

This is Albull, last surviving member of OTB Polka signing off.

Moving Home

To cut a long backstory short I'll simply say this: I was living in London, had a good job but all my friends moved back home to Brighton I kept on with the good job because it was good Then I was made redundant so I moved back home.

*gasps for breath*

There are many good things about living at home (free food, little or no rent, washing machine etc.) and those things are great. I really appreciate them. However, the bad points keep creeping up at me and getting so much on my tits I may just go insane.

My own place: Nil - Living at home - 1

For one my mum, her boyfriend, his son, my brother, his girlfriend and all his mates smoke. I've lived for the past 18 months in a completely smoke free house. My pubs are all smoke free and I love that. However I'm not home, in my living room and kitchen and they STINK. I mean they smell. Bad. Hell it's not even as if they open a window or anything and I'm the bloody odd one out here.

My own place: 1 - Living at home - 1

My second point will soon be rectified once all of my stuff is back down from London but I currently have to share the TV. This is picky I know but I used to be master and commander of my own media domain. My PC & Xbox are both connected up to a nice big monitor and my DVD collection is close at hand so that I can watch or play whatever I want, whenever I want. Loosing this power is infuriating and that is quite scary.

My own place: 2 - Living at home - 1

Thirdly, is the internet. Thankfully this will also soon not be a problem as I'm highjacking the phone line and bringing my broadband subscription down here but at this moment I have to use a dodgy wireless connection. I LOVE wires. Wires mean that nothing (aside from wire cutters) can get in the way of your intertubes. Having all the bandwidth to myself is so good it's slightly scary and here... well my laptop is currently not accepting the internet so I'm on an old PC in my mum's boyfriend's office.

My own place: 3 - Yahdee yahdee yaddah.

Ok rant over. Having my own place is far superior and I'm going a little doolally at the moment so I thought I'd tappy-type it out.

Oooh! My mum keeps buying nice ice cream and other tasty foodstuffs... this sounds good but I'm getting podgy again so it's bad.

-Fin-

Not Really News

Someone may have read my blog today. As this does not usually happen I thought it news worthy.

That is all.

The plight/blight of second hand games

Imagine this if you would: You walk into your local branch of Game Ltd wanting to buy Gears of War 2. You see it behind the counter in its brand new shiny box wrapped lovingly in shrink wrap and the price says £45. You look to your left and see that for £5 cheaper you can buy it second hand. What is your decision?

I'm a gamer, I love video games to pieces. I'm also fond of saving a bit of money but my overriding love is for video games and the industry which creates them. Because of this I urge you to not buy second hand games.

"Why on earth not?" I hear you silently ask. Well consider this: When you buy a copy of a new game your money is going to many different people. A simple breakdown (many thanks to fairplay-campaign.co.uk for these figures) is that for a £40 game your money get split:

- £9 to Sony/MS/Nintendo for hardware licensing costs (this is bad but I'll talk about why another time)

- £5.12 VAT (15%)

- £13.31 to the retailer (40% standard mark-up) which leaves

- £12.75 to the publisher/developer.

Now in many cases we can just say that goes to the publisher as, like musicians, developers are paid an up-front advance and only earn royalties once that has been recouped. Of that £12.75 which the publisher gets you can then factor in the cost of manufacture & delivery. Lets be arbitrary and say that takes us to £11 per game.

£11 per game, and most, if not all, of that is going to the publishers. Here's a fact: 95% of games released loose money. So at this point unless you have a worldwide hit like GTA4 (earned $500,000,000 in its first week which, using our calculation and after the $100 million it cost in development, puts $47.3 million into the hands of RockStar minus a percentage to Take Two as distributor) the developers are earning zero royalties.

OK so why shouldn't you buy second hand? I know I took the long way round but the fact of the matter is that when you take your copy of, say, Gears of War 2 back for trade-in, Game Ltd will give you £18 (accurate as of 9th Jan 2009), they will then re-sell it for £30. Now they've already earned £13 off the first purchase so anything they get over your trade in value is pure profit. None of that money goes to the coders, voice actors, musicians, artists etc. who created the game (let alone the temp who was making the tea). All this for a £5 saving? I think not.

I love gaming, I love the games industry, I love saving £5 on anything (it usually means I can use that money to buy some food whilst I'm out shopping) but with developers shutting down left right and centre I refuse to be a party to that. Since October 23rd I have bought Far Cry 2, Fallout 3, Dead Space, Mirrors Edge, Rock Band 2 and Guitar Hero World Tour, all at full price 'costing' me £30 over second hand prices... To do my part in keeping the industry going (as opposed to keeping Game Ltd in business) I think that is more than worth it and when I can start downloading entire console games to my hard drive and cut out the retailer I'll jump right in (I do already use Steam for PC games).

Do your part to support the games industry and let the retailers earn their money the honest retail way - through normal, one time mark-ups. Trade games with friends and friends of friends, sell them on ebay (you'll probably get more than if you traded it in and someone will be able to a) pay less and b) not give yet MORE money to Game) and hell, if you're anything like me you'll also save your waistline by not buying that fast food meal.

Next week: Why I couldn't work at a game store.