Hello, good morning/good afternoon/good evening and welcome! (Just delete as applicable)
This is, basically, a test post. But I always think that posts that simply say “test” or “Lorum Ipsem blah blah” are a little tedious, I’d even go so far to call them pointless. So I intend to put this post to good use. I thought I’d give you a little insight into me. Please, don’t run away just yet. It may not be as bad as you’re expecting.
Well, as you may have already spotted, my name is Alan. I’m rapidly approaching 30 and I live in Southampton. I’m currently working as a claims assessor for Norwich Union Healthcare, soon to be Aviva. And I also work for Ocean FM and Galaxy FM as an Ocean Thunder and part of the Galaxy Grew. But they’ve given me naff all work recently and still not paid me for work I did in December, so I may not be working for them much longer!
I have an interest in ‘cult’ television, especially Dr Who and Lost. As well as that I also like wrestling, football, films and computer games. I’m currently learning Japanese and hold a full drivers license as well as a basic food hygiene certificate. No, really.
At the moment I’m living in a shared house but I’m looking to get a place with my beautiful girlfriend, Kat, this summer. We’ve been together since September ’08, when we met through www.Match.com, and it’s honestly been the best 7 months ever.
My little website is where I intend to, for want of a better phrase, show off. It will play host to a collection of things that I have worked on. From radio to the web to canvas. I’m also planning to have it act as a sort of hub for everything else that I do online and a place to post my rambling thoughts, when 140 characters just isn’t enough.
So, what sort of things do I do? Let’s run a few by you to see how dull/interesting you consider them:
* Pop Art Portraits: One of the bigger and more recent things that I’ve gotten into. It started when I wanted a picture of myself in the pop art style. Other people saw what I created and wanted one for themselves. Soon I started taking orders at work and began to sell them. I’m still learning and I’d like to think I get better each time I do one. If you want one, check out my new online art company, Initiative.
* Other graphics: I’ve created banners and logos for other people, mainly for fun. See the big banner at the top of the page at http://mwa-online.net? That was me what done that. Check their forums and you’ll see lots of members have one of my banners in their signature or on their website.
* Radio… stuff: A broad category, I think you’ll agree. But then my previous radio work ranges from creating jingles and ads to presenting to being Head of Music to being part of a group that set up their own student radio station. The website should play host to my radio demo soon enough, including a selection of jingles and features I’ve made.
* Web design: This is the area where I want to learn more, it’s next on my list of things to do. Just after “learn Japanese”. I’ve always been interested in web design, but only from a strictly amateur standpoint. I created the first website for my brothers company, Work Positive (which has now been superseded by someone far better) as well as various sites that relate to my hobbies. I’ve had personal websites before that were kind of thrown together, as well as sites for the eFeds I’ve run. Don’t worry if you don’t know what an eFed is, I’ll soon explain.
* eFedding: (Told you!) eFedding, or eWrestling is one of my hobbies. It allows me to practise a couple of the above skills and is generally a fun thing to do. It works like this, you create a character and a back-story for them. You get put in a match against someone else and you both write a story or interview that leads into that match. These stories, known as role-plays, are graded by a group of your peers and the one with the highest score wins the match. A simple premise that can lead to some really creative stories and some fun times. I have a couple of characters based in the MWA and have previously run my own eFeds.
* Game Updates: I love editing games. Games like Pro Evolution Soccer, Fire Pro Wrestling, SmackDown vs. Raw… games that let you add your own people or teams. Every now and then you may find I upload an update for one of these games. Like I have with Pro-Wrestling Frontier for Fire Pro (www.frontier-wrestling.com).
* Talk nonsense: Yes, you’ve probably already noticed. There are actually days where I’m a very quiet soul. But there are also days when I have, to quote the great Chas & Dave, have more rabbit than Sainsbury’s. You can follow my shortened ramblings on Twitter or just keep coming back here to see what I have to say. I’ll moan about anything that goes wrong, laud over anything that goes incredibly well and review any film or TV show I choose to watch. Oh and my girlfriend will join in on the review front, throwing books into the mix too.
Ok, so there you have it. Some information on what you can expect to see on the website, a whole bunch of random content generated by yours truly.
Until the next useless update,
Sayonara!