I have come to a decision.

As I am now really pushing my voiceover / voice acting in the hope that I can make my hobby more of a lucrative enterprise alongside my full-time job, this website as you see it now will be pulled in the near future. I shall not be doing any further updates to this blog. As it is I have had relatively few visitors - those who do drop by: thanks!

I will be developing 2 new sites: Dark Phoenix Media will remain my Multimedia site, with a little about what I do, and projects currently being worked on et cetera.

The second site will become my main website: JustinDorey.com - this will be where most of my updates will go, as well as embedded voice demos, audio I have mixed, any video work that I do will also go here (no doubt linked from YouTube - thanks for the bandwidth!). I will not be hosting my own blog any longer due to the infrequency of my updates. I *will* however embed my Twitter entries into the front page of the JustinDorey.com website.

In the longterm I believe this is a more practical solution, rather than sitting on a bunch of domains I never use, and a main home page that I never visit or update myself.

Once again, anybody out there who does frequent these pages: Thanks.

- For the final time,
Justin Out.

The tagline for the movie I’ve been given a pre-release DVD for to review for sheTribes.com. Yes, it’s none other than ‘Electric Dreams’, with such recognisable talent as LENNY VON DOHLEN, VIRGINIA MADSEN and MAXWELL CAULFIELD.

Yes, I couldn’t name any of their other movies either.

Still, I’m excited about the fact I’m getting to review the movie before its official DVD release of April 9th (Published by Second Sight Films LTD and Distributed by 20th Century Fox - will be available from all good and many not-so-good video stores.) - however I’m not exactly getting a premiere, as the film was originally released in 1984 and scores a pretty reasonable 6/10 on the Internet Movie Database.

I’ll post my review here once I’ve watched the vid. Looks like some proper ‘Hackers’ style technology and will no doubt involve some superhuman AI on the part of the computer, who plays a main role (Yes, you heard right).  As the cover art itself says: “A boy, a Girl and a Computer” - and this is before World of Warcraft…

Anyway, I shall save my words for after the viewing!

Justin Out.

Unfortunately over a month ago I did something very silly - I drove through a puddle at well over 30mph, and now my car won’t work.

After what seems to be an eternity, I am getting fractured responses from my mechanic, who is usually completely dependable, but perhaps this is just a little beyond his reach… Ultimately, ‘one’ problem has been ‘fixed’ and ‘another remains’ - this new problem appears to be the immobilizer…

Serves me right for buying an MG.

Meantime, going through a little bit of a downward slump, and need to find my spark again.

On a positive note, I’ve discovered the amazing power of LittleBIGPlanet - I highly recommend it to everyone, gamers and non-gamers alike!

Justin out.

Okay. My updates have been few and far between. Failing one of your new years resolutions is not really a good way to bring in the new year.

I think I’ll give a new entry some thought and come back to you all. Not that there’s anybody except spambots reading this. Sometimes I feel like Jon in Garfield minus Garfield. That *is* sad. XD

One exciting thing recently is that I met legendary drummer Bill Bruford of ‘Yes’ and ‘King Crimson’ - whom I am editing some videos for to put on YouTube, lucky me! Such a nice chap, too. I’ll link the YouTube vids when they’re up.

One day I might get around to looking at my site stats and seeing how many humans read my blog!

All Pratchett-fans gather for the end-of-year celebrations that is Hogswatch. This weekend there will be festivities at the (nearly) world-famous town of Wincanton in Somerset. Folks young and old will be brandishing costume keeping with the best of traditions (looking a silly-bugger), heartily quaffing ale by the barrelful, and forgetting which B&B they booked themselves into.

Such jollifications are rarely seen in the realm of ChrismaHanuKwanza - or at least not to the epic standards set by the Discworld followers.

I thoroughly look forward to attending.

And look, a picture!
(Most definitely copyrighted to Paul Kidby - www.paulkidby.net)

Basically this means that I could theoretically hop onto pretty much any motorcycle in the world and ride it legally. Doesn’t mean I know how to ride yet! I plan to get several hundred miles under my belt before I sign up for an advanced training course.

The course went perfectly well yesterday, I started the day by getting to Ridesure Motorcycle Training, in Dunsfold Park Aerodrome (The location of the Top Gear Circuit, for those who watch Clarkson, May and Hammond’s antics every Sunday night on the BBC) - I grabbed my trusty loaned learner-bike (A Kawasaki ER-500) and shot down to the end of the runway while my instructor for the day got suited and booted. 

Did some controlled-stops (30-0mph Without skidding or losing control of the bike) and some U-Turns (Feet-up, slow speed turn through 180 degrees within a road’s width). Did some more slow speed bits, then my instructor, Roy, turned up. We then set off for Worthing (on the lovely southern coast) in the rain. I wasn’t too worried as all 3 of my training days were in the rain, so I figured if anything I’d be better prepared.

Got halfway, stopped, grabbed coffee, grabbed sausage roll, consumed said-items, then continued the journey south.

It was at this time that the test centre called Roy and asked if I wanted to take my test at 1:45 instead of 2:45. Very generous of them! This meant I wouldn’t have to drive back in the dark, so I agreed and we picked up the pace to get to the test centre in time…

…45-minutes early, we arrived in Worthing. So Roy and I practiced a typical test-route, and we were both happy I was able to take the test without any worry. So we parked up and walked into the test centre (through a very secure-looking metal back-door, creepy!

Not a very long wait in a waiting room (Clever, eh?) which was about as interesting as the inside of a cardboard box, with BBC Radio 2 being piped-in at such a ridiculously low volume that one could struggle to hear anything - then my examiner for the next 40 minutes walks in - so Roy (who had fallen asleep almost) and myself went ito his office/cave and filled out some info so everything was all legal. Roy had to step out and let me go at this point, nothing more he could do to help me now!

On with the radio so my examiner could give me directions - a huge great brick strapped to my side! -did my jacket up and we both went downstairs, back out through the creepy door and into the car park. He gave me my radio-check as I was doing my helmet up… all good….

Off we went. Ducking and diving into little back-roads, jumping onto a dual carriageway or two - I performed my manuvers correctly (Though there was a very steep camber on both sides of the road on my U-Turn, and I locked the front brake on my Controlled (Read:Emergency) Stop - but I let the brake go and reapplied - all was well. Hardest parts were over, examiner seemed happy… “Hmm, that was okay” - so on to a more high-speed setup. Back onto the dual-carriageway, I blipped up to 70 and held it there. Naturally you’re supposed to ‘get up to speed’ and stay there, unless traffic dictates otherwise. This meant I had to overtake a few cars and a lorry. Just as I was overtaking a lorry I received the direction that I was to take the next turnoff… it couldn’t be done, unless I braked and slipped behind the lorry and in front of the car behind it, or broke the speed limit and got in front of the lorry so I could slow down to take the exit. Both would mean the vehicle behind would need to brake sharply to avoid crashing into me. This would mean a fail on both counts, so I continued on. My examiner told me “you just missed your turn” - I had a little pang of anxiety, but I remembered you can’t be failed for going the wrong way, so long as you’re safe. So I remained calm and drove on.

Naturally the instructor wanted to get me into that road I missed, so he instructed me to come off at the next junction, go over the bridge and come back, which went just fine - then came the instruction to come off at the junction that I missed the first time around. Got that just fine, but took one exit too-early on the roundabout, meaning I went back onto the dual carriageway again! I felt like a complete idiot at this point, as I didn’t want to piss off my examiner - who at this point took me back into Worthing via the dual carriageway. We pretty much drove straight back to the test centre - the whole test felt like it took 20 minutes.

Parked the bike up, dismounted, too my helmet off, just as my examiner came to congratulate me for passing… just. 

I apologised for being an idiot with directions, be he gave me the impression he enjoyed going a different route for a change! So we went inside where Roy was fast asleep - so woke him up so he could sit-in on the debrief.

I got ONE minor fault for canceling my indicator too early while exiting a roundabout, the rest was just perfect, apparently! I felt so great after that. So Roy took me back outside and shook my hand. We’d be riding back to Ridesure without radios, and all I had to do was ‘Keep up’ with him.

It was more difficult than I thought…

It felt like real advanced training! We were blipping to high speeds in no time at all, rather than the slow acceleration I’d been used to - we even broke the speed limit a few times, I’m sure! (Naughty naughty hehe)

Still. Got back in one piece and felt thoroughly drained. I slept well last night.

So, forget the Virago. I can’t quite remember why I wanted one, because I realised that to buy a Really Nice(tm) Virago 750, you’re looking to spend between £1500 and £3000. For the same money you can buy a perfectly serviceable Harley-Davidson 883 Sportster which will never lose money.

Simple choice really. Though I quite like Triumphs as well… argh! Decisions!

I have plenty of time to think about it.

Okay, I really shouldn’t be getting excited about this…

ZOMG! IT ARRIVED TODAY!!!!!!

*Composes Self*

So yes, I shall be installing that this afternoon and eagerly anticipate the stroke of midnight when the servers go live. Do I continue levelling my Holy Priest from L70 to L80? Or do I start a new class character, the Death Knight? 

Decisions, decisions… such things were designed purely to tempt me, as there are so many better things I could be doing than liaising with 35Million+ people on a Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game (MMORPG - or just MMOG - to the initiated folks) .

Either way, today I got just a little bit more sad, didn’t I? Still, I’m not standing at the end of a train station platform in an anorak with a notebook, am I? (There’s bound to be digital train stations in WoW one day, I’m sure…). I mean, sure those guys get out a lot more than the World of Warcraft folks probably do, but I have a full time job, I visit friends and family on weekends (okay, admittedly that entails arsing around with games quite a lot) - but I think I deserve this one little thing… don’t I?

Anyway. WoW. Awesome.

I’m not going to talk about how thrilled I am that the best man won in the 2008 Presidential Election, nor am I going to wax lyrical about the guy and his past.

What I will say is Mr. Obama appears to be a nice chap.

In my book that is high praise!

And no, I’m not using pop culture references to boost my Google rankings! (They’re pretty good as it is!)

Those crazy Turks Got to love them.

Perhaps I should go on a counter-offensive, it’s amazing what you can do to pinpoint folks behind a proxy…

But I’m not like that. I’ll just ramp-up security. *Sigh*

I am fairly sure that word is made up.

A friend of mine gave me a birthday card with the phrase in it, and I couldn’t forget about it, so potato-tastic it is.

As it turns out, my birthday was a decent event after all, after years of failures organising parties, and days of depression afterwards, I resigned myself to a quiet-night in. Turns out that a couple of guys from work invited me to have a meal in the evening at The Windmill bar/restaurant in Ewhurst. I’m a huge fan of that place, so I couldn’t turn it down. I’d highly recommend making a special trip to visit the place. The beer isn’t spectacular, but if you’re a wineo then it’ll be right up your vineyard.

Food was stunning as always - had a bit of a posh curry - and you can certainly tell the difference! This is the sort of curry where the main ingredient isn’t ‘curry powder’ - thoroughly enjoyed it, so helped myself to plenty of it. Chocolate tart for dessert, only a tiny slice, but it was more than enough, it was so decadant, and even had a scoop of their home made Hazelnut / Praline ice cream, which was simply to die for. Even though I’m not a huge ice cream fan, I’d go back there just for another taste of that!

Once I’d had my fill, I was ready to settle down and digest a bit with a coffee. No chance, I was brought out *another* slice of chocolate tart and ice cream, with candles in. After the whole pub joined in with a chorus of ‘Happy Birthday to you’ (A lyrical masterpiece) - out the candles went, and everyone helped me devour the Second dessert that evening.

2 Irish coffees later (cream float - absolutely stunning), and I was ready to roll out of the pub. Got dropped off home.

Overall, a hugely spectacular evening with people I enjoy being with. For once I actually enjoyed my birthday, and will look back on it in days to come and smile… rather than cringe.

I’ll eventually make my way back to Verwood and see some friends - naturally as I’ve not been home for awhile I’ve not received any of my presents yet (My boss bought me a day of advanced motorcycle training for this Friday - will report on that event afterwards!) - so looking forward to that too!

I tell a lie, I did receive one present thus far - a Ukulele from my younger brother, Julian. I’d always wanted one - and now I can practice my strumming on a bright-Yellow Spongebob-Squarepants themed instrument. Fantastic stuff.

Also, it snowed today, and I had to use my whole bodyweight to get the car door open this morning. Nice.