Monday 5 December 2011

The Dumbest Concept In Dating


Firstly, I joined a dating website, out of boredom at work I registered for a free account, curious to see what type of person haunts the halls of online dating malarkey. I figured, if I'm looking at this website then someone with a similar outlook to me might be looking at it too.

Furthermore, I've never quite understood the whole tawdry reputation afforded to any organised means of meeting other people. Because, of course, the whole process of getting drunk, going to a bar and pulling one of an assortment of, say, 50 strangers, is far more noble and romantic, just like how Shakespeare wrote it.

But this leads me neatly onto my key point, which is to do with the dumbest concept in the dating world, and that is: the 'spark'.

This 'spark' is bothering me at the moment because I went on a date last night, it was somewhat hastily arranged, we'd exchanged messages online, we didn't seem to offend one another, besides it's always best to meet up and banter in person to really understand if you get along. So, we did that, after a bit of a wait in the cold she arrived, we walked to a bar, we had a drink, we had a chat.

Like many first dates (arranged by friends or online) it was a collection of awkward moments, chatty epochs, brief summaries of complex aspects of your life, efforts to advertise your own personally preferred qualities and mask the less reputable ones, it was, by my reckoning, an ok first date. Nothing special, but it was pleasant.

However, I sent a message to her the following day suggesting a possible event for a second date, and in return received a message that said thus:

"Thanks Owain. It was really nice to meet you too. I like your job and your brilliant free tickets and plus ones. :) I'm afraid though that I didn't feel the spark between us last night, and I hope that's ok..."

Now, don't get me wrong, I don't think I'm Captain Charming and no woman can resist my advances, I know I'm a socially awkward, waffling, rambly fool with a slightly wayward and confused sense of humour, but I'm sure I have some good qualities too... I mean, people have said nice things about me, some of them even let me kiss them and hold their hand for a few months. I, of course, get that maybe she just used the catch all concept of 'sparks' as an excuse for some other reasoning as to why she might not want to meet me again, but, what would that be? Am I a deeply repellent individual? Surely, regardless of whether 'sparks' was the exact concept what she is, in some way or another, referring to must broadly be described as 'chemistry', and, as far as I can fathom, 'chemistry' and 'sparks' are very close relatives, it's about that initial catalyst that would suggest two people get along.

Yes, I admit, maybe we didn't get along, but I don't think I'd be blinkered enough to not notice, I felt foolishly optimistic on my way home from the date, I didn't think it had been a roaring success but that's because it was a first date, they're awkward and strange for the most part. It's two people finding their way around one another, trying to figure each other out, maybe you won't hit it out of the park on that first date, but unless you utterly despise one another should you discount a second date because there weren't any 'sparks'? Is life really too short to not give someone a second chance?

Maybe you've felt the 'spark', I've certainly felt the 'spark' in the past, but for the most part, as best I can remember, when I felt that first 'spark' I was drunk. Besides it's probably bad form to arrive to a first date already pissed. Though maybe that is the solution? Arrange a date, both get absolutely rat arsed beforehand, then you meet in some bar somewhere, it's closer to how it's 'supposed' to happen then.

I'm not saying this girl was definitely, undoubtedly going to be the love of my life (that's another blog topic right there) but I think there was enough between to us to at the very least warrant a second date, in fact, I think all arranged dates should come with an in-built second date, the first date, if anything, is the prologue and the second date is actually Chapter One. You've got the ground rules and geography and family history established, then it's time to really get into the meat and potatoes of it and see if you have that 'spark'.

A date is different to meeting someone by chance, this is something that I don't quite think people understand, and I also think it's where this bizarre grotty image of 'dating sites' comes from. For the most part, for some insane reason, in much the same way as millions of people think an invisible bearded man built the Earth in a Gregorian calendar week, people seem to view love as something that happens by magic, by chance and will bind two people together in a fairytale fantasy, well, that's all bullshit to be honest, and this isn't some mean, jaded cynical side, I genuinely think I'm a pretty romantically minded optimistic fool (though I'm pretty sure my ex-girlfriends will say otherwise), and though I've been in love I've never thought "there's only one for me", because I've been in love more than once and in different ways. You don't discredit an ex you said you loved because you're not together anymore, or you love somebody new, that's not how it works, though opinions can change over time those moments when you were in 'love' were, whether you now regret it or not, moments when you were in 'love' and perspective won't change that. I don't think because my parents are now divorced and in new relationships that they wish they'd never met, and not just because of the lovely children they had as a result of 'love' and 'fate' and all that nonsense.

Anyway, I'm veering off topic, and would gladly blather on trying to disect every aspect of people's perceptions of romance, love, happiness, sadness and the like for pages and pages, but I don't think now is the time or the place.

In summary, people have a warped perspective of what meeting someone and 'falling' for them is supposed to be like, the world is changing, it is more intricately connected than ever before and the opportunities to meet a diverse range of people are more accessible than they have ever been, why not take advantage of this if you are in a position to meet new people. I did not join a dating website to 'meet the love of my life', I joined it to 'meet new people', which, I hasten to add, is something I also manage to do in my non-internet based life. Maybe other people don't see things that way with the dating world, which is naive on their part, additionally I find anyone who starts making specific demands in the 'What I'm looking for...' section to be awfully suspect, but, well, waffling again...

Maybe this is why people don't want a second date, they don't think I'll ever shut up!


My good friend, the esteemed Ellen Waddell, has written a response to this piece, you can read it here: CLICKY

Tuesday 22 November 2011

Why Christmas Trees Are A Lot Like Relationships...



Walking past a florist on my lunch break earlier I saw a lone, squat little Christmas tree for sale on the pavement. I suddenly thought to myself; "I'm going to buy that tree, take it back to the flat, decorate it and make everything there a bit more festive this year." Before quickly realising that I wasn't going to do any of this, I was merely momentarily enchanted by the idea of having a Christmas tree and the warm, cosy associations it has for me, and, probably, many of us.

As nights get colder, darker and lonelier I'm noticing them more and more, Christmas trees everywhere. Each window I walk by on my grey trek to and from the office is starting to become punctuated by the garish twinkle of fairylights entwined with tinsel and bright, brilliant baubles proudly hanging from ever more droopy branches.

Oh, it makes me yearn for a Christmas tree of my own.

Look, there they are, hundreds of them now, all gathered together waiting, their eager little limbs huddled around them in the cold winter air. It's best to hurry because by the time Christmas is almost upon us all those trees will be gone and you'll be hard pushed to find one at the last minute, and buying a plastic ones' a little sordid.

If you are lucky enough to have a Christmas tree then you've probably spent some time trying to find just the right one for you, but, you've also got to compromise depending on your front room situation. Once you get the tree home there's a lot of excitement and anticipation, sure, you've seen it bundled up outside, but once you've got the wrapping off it's a whole different thing, proud and green and perky, it's the best tree ever! Some people like to let it sit, teasingly, in its natural state for a few days before 'trimming' it, others can't wait, but ultimately you express your admiration for this tree by covering it in tinsel, lights, trinkets, chocolates, candy canes and - depending on your preference - you'll sit a star or a fairy on its head.



As time wears on you deal, routinely, with the pine needles it sheds all over your floor or the occasional broken bauble that fell off when one of the branches got a bit too droopy under the gaudy weight. Still, you love it, and you start to pile up presents underneath it, little wrapped boxes of hopes and dreams, who knows what they'll contain...

Of course, come Christmas day you unwrap these presents and it's either things you asked for, things you don't want or - occasionally - some lovely little surprise gifts that probably find themselves forgotten at the back of a drawer in a few weeks. The things that endure will ultimately be the 'blandest', some socks or a jumper.

Now all the presents are gone, their tempting wrap has been quickly bundled up into a big black bin liner, you gorge yourself and sit contentedly staring at the tree, it looks a little bedraggled, I mean its been carrying all those dreams around for a few weeks now and it's starting to take its toll, some of its branches look a little bare, maybe you should try and tend to it. You start to think; "Hey, after Christmas I could plant the tree and nurture it and use the same one next year and the next, this could be MY tree!"

But you don't, soon Christmas is over and the tree looks more and more out of place in your lounge, New Year comes and goes, maybe you find that one last chocolate hidden amongst the now bald limbs and for a moment you have a sweet memory of why you loved that Christmas tree. Though you know all too well, in the back of your mind, that you're going to have to dispose of this once joyful, ironically named evergreen very soon.

Maybe you take it to the tip, maybe you stuff it into a skip or chuck it by the roadside its ever withering carcass slowly dying outside your window, but it's over, the Christmas tree has served its purpose for another year. It'll take a while but in about 10 or 11 months you'll start to see other Christmas trees hanging around and you'll get that festive itch and the whole sorry process will begin again.



The other way in which Christmas trees are like relationships is that I don't have one and there's not much chance of me getting one before the year is out.

Thursday 27 October 2011

10 Reasons Why Books Are Better Than Kindles




1. If you hit a book really hard with a hammer it usually survives.

2. When reading a book in public you may look cool/a twat depending on the book's cover, with a Kindle you always look like a twat.

3. If you're stuck with nothing to wipe your bottom with you can always tear one of the blank pages out from the back of a book. Wiping your bum with a Kindle, whilst a fine use for it, is quite cumbersome.

4. One of the best things about reading any book, regardless of whether it's any good or not, is the sound of a page turning.*

5. There's no greater feeling than knowing you've crossed the half-way point in a book by looking at how many pages are left/feeling the shift in weight. No matter how far into a book you are on your Kindle you've always got the same weight of book left to go.

6. The only fonts a paperback can't display are ones that don't exist.

7. The Kindle's terms of use forbid transferring Amazon e-books to another user or a different type of device. I can transfer my paperback to anyone and they can read it with any type of eyes.

8. All pop-up books lose their impact on Kindle. (See also; Scratch and Sniff)

9. You only need to carry 1,000,000 books with you at once if you are (a) delivering a truckload of books to a bookshop or (b) Johnny-5, the robot from Short Circuit, and can read books at light-speed. Otherwise one at a time seems to do most people just fine.

10. A full bookshelf looks sexier than a full Kindle.

*Anyone who tells me that the Kindles have a 'page-turn-sound' you can activiate or download only further contributes to the argument that Kindles lose.

Wednesday 5 October 2011

P-ARGH!

Hello there,

I've written a piece about some strange PR I got emailed to me recently, you can now read it over at God is in the TV:

http://godisinthetvzine.co.uk/index.php/2011/10/06/p-argh-a-press-release-too-far/

Ta ta,

Owain

Thursday 18 August 2011

Uncredited Rewrites

Howdy,

I've been a little frustrated by a fair fews 'big' films recently, a lot of them seem to miss out on certain story strands or dramatic twists that I, personally, think would really improve the impact of the films. In a lot of cases the filmmakers wouldn't have needed to completely overhaul the film, just certain aspects in order to really give the audience an emotional wallop.

Anyway, in order to vent my frustration and go into some detail on what I feel should have been altered about these films I've set up another blog:

http://uncreditedrewrites.blogspot.com/

As it deals with the structure of a lot of new films I must stress that it is quite SPOILER heavy, so if you haven't seen any of the films covered it's best not to read the rewrite if you don't want to know what happens!

Hopefully I'll keep up with this blog, well, at least as long as Hollywood keeps disappointing me!

Owain

Monday 11 July 2011

Clone Alone

I entered a film into this year's Virgin Media Shorts contest, it looks like this:

Clone Alone - Virgin Media Shorts

Here's a little ramble about the 'Making Of...' Clone Alone.



My mum had encouraged me to enter Virgin Media Shorts a few years ago, a friend of hers had entered a film I think, but I never got around to it. This year I was procrastinating at work and stumbled upon the 2011 competition, thinking; 'I really should enter this.'

Over the next few days I was pondering over an idea for a short, but nothing was coming to me that I felt was worthwhile and could be delivered to fit the 2:20 running time limit. I did keep coming back to the idea of clones in my head, as it's something I seem to be obsessed with...

It wasn't until a couple of days later, on the 3rd of July that I acutally thought I might have had enough of an idea to warrant turning a camera on, so that Sunday morning I wrote a script and asked my resting actor housemate Sean if he would be interested in playing the lead? He, hungover and slumped in the front room, said yes and asked when I was planning on filming it. I said, 'In about ten minutes.'

We filmed between 11am and 4pm as I had to go to an 'all day' gig that afternoon. Sean captured the footage onto a memory stick and I edited the film whenever I could find the time around my 9 to 5 job on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday, the deadline for the competition.

I literally finished the film and pressed upload at 11am on Thursday with one hour to go before entries closed. So, whilst there's so much about the film I'm unhappy with - though I don't think I'll ever be happy with any of my creative endeavours being a terrible perfectionist and all - I'm really proud of the film we made considering the haste with which the whole thing was cobbled together.

Now, all I need to do is finish the next episode of Captain Neon, which should be on its way, soonish...

Monday 16 May 2011

INTERVIEW: Misty's Big Adventure

Hello,

Last week I had the pleasure of interviewing Grandmaster Gareth from Misty's Big Adventure, you can hear the resulting chit-chat here:

http://godisinthetvzine.co.uk/index.php/2011/05/16/interview-mistys-big-adventure/

Ta ta,

O.

Tuesday 29 March 2011

BAANEEX at the Lock Tavern

Here's a video of my band BAANEEX performing at the Lock Tavern:



Our next gig is at The Wilmington Arms on April 15th.

Monday 14 March 2011

BLAHNEEX

Hello there,

My band BAANEEX have got a fair few gigs coming up, click on the link to read all about them:

Blahneex - BAANEEX

Will be posting a silly short film in a few days!

Owain