This morning I picked Steve up from the hospital (aka SL Electrotech). He’s been fitted with a replacement SuperDrive and is working fantastically again.

The first thing you see when you step into the front door of SL Electrotech is the huge black apple logo (click on the pic for a larger image). That thing was sweeeet. I’d love to have one of those in my room. It may not look much from the outside, but inside the building is pretty nice (as you’d expect from an Apple Service Provider). Also, check out the picture of the outside of the building and look in the reflection of the window for the logo on the van. If it wasn’t for the fact that I was carrying Steve, that my dad was watching, that I’m not a criminal and that my drivers licence has been revoked… I would have SO stolen that van!

It’s so good to have my mac mini back again. I’ve been going crazy without it.

Having to switch back to my PC for the last few days has been unsettling. It’s weird, but since making ‘the switch’, going back to my PC was really like using 5 year old technology. Which is a bit like using my Win98 machine (which recently I’ve managed to get on to the network).

Afterwards we went to PC World and took a look around because my Dad’s looking at switching to a flatscreen monitor (my Apple Cinema Display has made a good impression on him). He pointed out a mac mini that they have on sale there, which is only about £10 cheaper than Steve’s younger brother costs. I found out why. They’re selling old stock; the PowerPC mac mini which was the original release. The new Intel Mac Mini’s (released early 2006) have more USB ports and are much faster. I think that it’s a bit of a rip off that, even at £10 cheaper, to sell them at that price compared to the power that the new Core Solo chips offer. But that said, I wouldn’t have settled for anything less than the Intel Core Duo (the chip that’s in Steve) which is up to 4x faster than the original model.

I also want to say that the Apple equipment there looked in pretty bad shape. I don’t know if it’s just because it’s old stock, or perhaps it’s so popular that everyone wants a go, hence the amount they look worn out, but being PC World it’s probably just the PC loving employees there that throw books at the Powerbooks to see which type of book would win in a fight?

That’s right, tonight was the premiere of the new Shloer TV ad. It aired on Channel 4 (UK) during the first segment of adverts during Tuesday’s episode of Lost. You can see the ad by clicking on the image above. I didn’t really know what to expect to be honest - I was just psyched about the idea of an advert for Shloer.

Immediately afterward, I received a txt from Lea.

“Hmmm is all I can say about that”

As I write this post there’s an advert for an alcoholic drink called “Gaymers” and their slogan is “as good as it gets”. Now that’s the kind of advert that makes me say “hmmm”. Not the Shloer one.

To be honest, I love the new advert. It’s bright, it’s colourful, they get it spot on by saying it’s got a kick (you should see me after 3 bottles - whoosh!) But one thing I would love to know is what exactly happened during filming;

From the Shloer website:
What would you expect to have to take into account when filming a 30 second TV advert? Well we had the dancers, the villa, the swimming pool and a great production team, so thought we were set. Unfortunately we didn’t plan for 35 take scenes, lights blowing up, a fight on set or a force 6 gale!

It almost sounds as though I was actually on the set. I’m surprised that during my filming on New Street Law I didn’t do similar kind of damage. I almost did. There are pillars in the lobby area and inbetween takes I once leaned against one of them. They’re really well made. By “well made” what I mean to say is that whilst they look like marble, they’re not. In fact, they’re far from it. I think it’s just wood, and very light wood at that. Because the moment I leaned against it, I felt the entire pillar move. And that thing is holding up the rest of the set.

Something tells me that if I hadn’t noticed in time, that would be my last time on television.

For anyone interested, I’ve been on once, and there are another 2 (possibly 3) episodes yet that I feature in. I don’t have a role, I’m just an extra. But meh, it was great fun. New Street Law airs on Thursdays on BBC1 at 8pm.

Yesterday, in preperation for Steve’s return I picked up the latest copy of iCreate magazine and walked out into the street. I could hear music. At first, I thought that it was a march or something, but at 2pm on a weekday in the pouring rain, it seemed unlikely. Then I looked across the street.

Dixons, I noticed, has been renamed to “Currys.digital”. I hadn’t realised but apparently all 200 of their stores have been re-branded and Dixons is now an online-only store. It then occured to me that the music was being blasted from inside the store. And it suddenly became more obvious what it was.

There were lots of England type stuff in the new Currys.digital, and the new soccer anthem music was being played, which is less music and more of a chant with a pathetic beat in the background. The lyrics, which I assume have been written by drunk soccer hooligans for drunk soccer hooligans, are simply;

“We’re on the ball”

That’s it. Repeated over and over. You have no idea how much I wanted them to fall off that ball. Someone in the store must have really loved that song because you couldn’t hear any music from outside until then. I was quite tempted to step inside and pretend to be impressed by the volume and to ask what was producing it. And then follow up that question with “Where’s the off-switch?!?”

But in the fear that the music may attract the Bears from outside, I didn’t want to be trapped inside with no means of escape. So I continued through the rain back to my humble abode.

My friend Dom has been posting on his blog (A Travelers Record) about his Quest around the world and its highly worth the read if you’ve got the time. It’s also enhanced greatly by a bottle of Shloer. No, Shloer are not paying me to advertise, but c’mon - anyone who’s tried it will tell you that EVERYTHING is greatly enhanced by Shloer.

I love the bubbles. Don’t you?

This entry was posted on Tuesday, May 16th, 2006 at 11:59 pm and is filed under General, Acting, Shloer. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.