The Humour – Have Another Drink Video Shoot.

Last Saturday I spent the day working on a music video shoot at an old mill in Halifax.

Freethinking Productions are doing music videos at very good rates, and on Saturday we were working with a band called The Humour from Wakefield / Leeds.

We did a performance type video using two massive rooms in the mill, and the video is currently being edited as we speak.

The band were great to work with and up for any ideas we had as well as having a good laugh.

I was doing the stills shots for the day, some of which you can see here.

It was a great day and by 4:00pm we had a wrap, with some great footage shot.

We used my Sony Z7 HD camera for the shoot so the results should be very impressive.

Freethinking Productions also did the vidoe for Good Girl by the band Lazy Baby which you can watch here -

Nine Inch Nails and Jane’s Addiction Gigs in July.

Nine Inch Nails and Jane’s Addiction are playing two arena dates in the UK in July.

On Tuesday I got two standing tickets for the gig at the M.E.N Arena in Manchester on Tuesday July 14th, and this morning I picked up two seated tickets for the O2 Arena gig in London on Wednesday July 15th.

The will be NIN gigs 11 and 12 and as Mr Reznor is planning on taking a break, I think the chances are these will be my last.

It all ties up nicely into round figures -

20 years as a fan, after I first heard Head Like A Hole.
London will be gig number 12.
London will also be 10 years since I first saw NIN live in 1999 at Brixton Academy, having missed them on two previous occasions, which were at Manchester Academy, 22nd May, 1994 on The Downward Spiral Tour and London Wembley Stadium, Saturday 31st August 1991 on a red hot summers day when they supported Gun’s and Roses.

Tickets are still available from various outlets, non of which will be referenced and linked in this post due to their persistent theft under the guise of booking and transaction fees.

As for Jane’s Addiction, yes I am a fan and I have seen them twice, the first time being at the Leeds Festival where they were on stunning form, the second time was at Manchester Apollo shortly after and they were awful, and I mean really awful!

So roll on sunny July!

Steve Iverson is Back with Diomede Storage.

For those people who have arrived at this blog becasue you were searching for information on Streamload – Mediamax – Nirvanix and The Link Up.

You are probaly the same people wondering what happened to all the data you had stored with these companies?

You may also have some questions about the money these companies took from you for a service that hardly ever worked.

You might be the same people considering a law suite against these companies.

Well just so you know one of the main people involved in Streamload – Mediamax – Nirvanix and The Link Up has now re-appeared with yet another storage company offering to look after your data.

Steve Iverson is back as the CEO of Diomede Storage.

You can checkout Steve Iverson’s Linkin In profile here – http://www.linkedin.com/in/steveiverson

You can visit Steve Iverson’s new company here – Diomede Storage

You can contact the company here – Diomede Storage Contact

Hey. and would you look at they’ve gone all environmentally friendly as well!

Video Presenter Driven Website – www.leedscomputerrepairs.co.uk

On Monday the 12th of January I launched a re-designed website – http://www.leedscomputerrepairs.co.uk

The idea was to make the website a more personal experience and not to bombard the user with so much information they would take one look and leave.

The target audience is the general computer user who doesn’t know much about computers and maybe experiencing problems or require a little help.

The website features a video presenter on each page, so the user can easily find out about the services offered on the website.

Each video is fully branded with the Leeds Computer Repairs mark, and are short and to the point, in order to allow the user to digest a small piece of information and then make a descision quickly.

The videos are all delivered using Flash.

The videos were created by a company called Web Video Presenters Ltd who are based in Leeds in the United Kingdom.

You can contact Web Video Presenters Ltd on 07981486168 if you require any web video content.

A website for Web Video Presenters Ltd will be coming soon.

The Great British Booking Fee Rip Off.

As someone who attended his fist gig at the age of 13 (The Alarm at Leeds University in 1983 – ticket price £3.50), I have witnessed first hand over the last ten years the scam that is the ticket booking fee.

As anyone who buys tickets online will be able to testify, the hidden charges and extra charges that are appended on to your total during the transaction can leave a very bitter taste.

In 1999, I bought three tickets for the Leeds leg of the Carling Festival, at the time the tickets cost something like £125.00 with a £5.00 booking fee on each ticket as well as the postage costs.

The tickets were purchased over the telephone, and I distinctly remember the thud as my jaw hit the floor when I was informed of the £5.00 booking fee charge on each ticket.

I wrote an email to The Mean Fiddler who promote the Festival and expressed my feelings in no un-certain terms that the fee was nothing but a rip off and a way to extort extra money from punters.

Mean Fiddler responded to the email using a lot of words, but not offering any real justification for the charge.

We always buy our tickets for the Leeds festival online now via See Tickets and the booking fee is just something you tolerate paying.

But let’s do the maths on the weekend tickets.

If they sell 60,000 weekend tickets (this allows you to camp and attend all three days of the festival, I have attended every Leeds Festival so far) and there is £5.00 extra on the face value of the ticket, this equates to -

5 x 60,000 = 300,000.

So the £5.00 booking fee generates an extra £300,000 in revenue for what exactly?

There is also a tidy profit to be had on the overcharged postage costs of sending out the precious tickets you have just ordered.

I don’t believe for a second it costs anyone £5.00 to send three bits of paper via recorded delivery to a UK address, yet this is the type of charge you will regularly see.

Posted below is the screen grab of the purchase we made a few weeks ago for three tickets to see the Ting Tings at the new Leeds Academy.

The face value of the tickets was £15.00 each.

3 x 15 = 45.

Now we did some checking and spoke to Crash Records in Leeds, as well as running the transaction through various ticket websites and this was the cheapest we could find online.

You will note there has still been an extra £7.89 in fees added (including the postage, which I have no problem paying for, but what is the rest of it for?).

Here is a screenshot of the same transaction via See Tickets -

This includes a £2.00 booking fee on each ticket AND a transaction fee of £4.80.

Giving a total cost of £55.80.

I could not find any mention of delivery charges, but I think there may be one as well.

Next up, we have Ticketmaster, who didn’t have the gig at the Leeds Academy, but did have the Manchester Apollo gig listed.

Straight away on the face value of the ticket there is a £1.50 difference, with this gig costing £16.50.

Next up is a service charge of £3.75 PER TICKET.

Then three delivery options, all costing £3.00 a time, including Box Office Collection and PRINTING YOUR OWN TICKETS!

Yes, that’s £3.00 to go and pick up your own tickets, OR £3.00 TO PRINT YOUR OWN TICKETS!

Giving a grand total for three tickets of £63.75.

So what’s the point of all this, well the point is is I don’t mind paying for something at all, but you just can’t help but get the feeling that every time you make a purchase like this you’re getting done, plain and simple!

One last question to ponder about the Great British Booking Fee Rip Off is this -

If the gig gets cancelled, why do ticket agencies never refund the booking fee?

NSPA IONMAN PAINTBALL TOURNAMENT 27/07/2008.

Here are a couple of pictures from the NSPA Ionman Paintball Tournament that I played in on Sunday 27/07/2008.

I played for Fusion Black who won the tournament, but who were also well and truly beaten on the day by the other two Fusion teams we entered.

This was the hottest day of the year so far, and come our last game of the day at 3:00pm it was about 30 degrees.

My player of the day, was my team mate Chris Smith who scored us some many points it was untrue, and also managed to dig us out of some very big holes, including beating Newcastle Lockdown when it had gone down to one on one.

INDYKID DESIGNS – Apparel for Paintball Players, Geeks and Music Lovers!

I have finally got round to launching my tee shirt shop – INDYKID DESIGNS – Apparel for Paintball Players, Geeks and Music Lovers!

I have designed some tee shirts for Paintballer’s, Muso’s and Geeks.

You will find them at -

http://www.indykid.net

Paypal and all major payment methods are accepted

Enjoy!

My Life Tee Shirt Design.

Streamload – Mediamax – Nirvanix – The Linkup – CLOSING – WE GOT A RESULT!

It gives me a great deal of pleasure to announce that having checked The Linkup website today, to see they are closing down.

This company in all it’s guises and the people involved in it have caused a great deal of misery and upset to numerous customers.

They have lost files, in some cases very personal files that people paid to have them look after and generally treated their customers like dirt.

Due to the amount of blogging about the company and the negative comments that they fully deserved, they have anounced they will be closing on Friday 8th August.

As Quagmire from Family Guy would say “Jackpot.”

Goodbye and good riddance.

I will be having a drink on the 8th August and yes Mr Steve Iverson, I will have a very big smile on my face!

Streamload – Mediamax – Nirvanix – The Linkup – Shut user down for reporting them to the Attorney General’s Office.

On The Linkup Blog under the headline of “Site Maintaintence” dated Thursday 18th June 2008 you can find out what happens to a user when they report The Linkup to the Attorney General’s Office -

The entry was made by Brendan, and reads as follows (key part high lighted in Red) -

On Mon, Jun 23, 2008 at 4:02 PM, The Linkup Billing billing@mediamax.streamload.com wrote:
Hello Brendan,
We have just received notification that you filed a report with the Attorney General’s office. You did not contact us even one time to discuss any of this. The last correspondence from you under either of the email addresses on file was in October of 2007. I will be providing full documentation of this as part of our response.

Your account with our service has been permanently closed, and your files, which are not ‘gone’ but were being moved, will no longer be migrated.

Regards,
Tracy
The Linkup Support
http://www.thelinkup.com

I did contact Jim at the linkup regarding my missing files his response was to say sorry thats the way it is. That is not good enough for me since i paid for the entire year and have not had access to my account since the middle of May. I have been sympathetic to your “bugs” for more than a month but in my mind what the “linkup” has done and is doing is fraud.

What i find even more illegal is that now you have canceled/restricted perminatly access to MY files. For reasons i can only assume are personal. Your company cannot cancel service i paid for because you don’t like me, that is illegal. I want access to my files or i will continue to pursue legal action, for starters i will be sending this email and copies of my previous emails you have incorrectly reported were never sent to the state Attorneys General. Please do not forget i am a paying customer.
Sincerely
B Hogan

I will be keeping a close eye on this, I sent Brendan and email offering my full support.

Nine Inch Nails Rehersal Video – 1,000,000.

It’s on NIN.com and you can watch it now.

A live rehearsal performance of 1,000,000 from The Slip album.

I can’t wait for NIN to come back to Europe if this a taste of things to come.

Enjoy!