Open School Night

Yesterday my school held an ‘Open School Night’. Basically this is an event that’s organized toward the middle and end of the school year to encourage new students to sign up for next year. I’ve seen about four of these events to this day and in the course of a few years they haven’t changed much. In the main lobby there is a whole bunch of stands with teachers annoyed having to be at school so late, trying to persuade you and your parents to pick that study. At least, that’s what you would expect.

Last year I went to the Open School Night since I was in fact looking to join the Media department. I knew what I wanted, so I had planned to just go there, get what I need and go home. But when I got to the Media stand the first thing I heard was ‘the department is full, we don’t take new registrations. We can put you on the waiting list, though.’.

Really?! If it’s full then why the hell did you put a damn stand there? No way in hell I’m going to wait 2 years to do a damn study. I was twenty for crying out loud. Obviously I did manage to get in eventually, otherwise this blog would be a whole lot of wasted server space.

Anyway, yesterday was no different from the night I had gone there to register. The media hallway (as it is known to most people in the department) had taken every piece of equipment we have from storage to create a very awesome display in our TV studio, obviously meant to show off the kind of stuff we do around here. Absolutely everything was there, from the expensive moving lights to TV cameras and even an auto-cue (I have no clue why we have such a thing at our school). It was very impressive to see when you walked inside, but you couldn’t exactly see anything going on from the main hallway. To solve this, me and a friend from class came up with the idea to set up a simple audio installation in the hallway, indicating to people that something was going on. And it worked, in less then five minutes from setting up we attracted a lot of curious people from down the hall.

We played some music, had two girls from another class do some chit chat over the microphone and generaly just had a good time. That day I think I was at school for a good twelve hours.

Pictures
Taken with the camera phone as usual, excuse the quality.

[View with PicLens]

Robin

How I Met Your Mother

Back in 1993 two people sat down with a cup of coffee and started discussing ideas for a new TV sitcom. The first idea they had was about 6 people in their mid twenties living in a New York apartment building and following their day to day lives which are of course packed with the day to day troubles of New York City.

That idea belonged to David Crane and Marta Kauffman and that idea would grow out to become the insanely popular TV sitcom Friends. The humorous adventures of Joey, Chandler, Ross, Monica, Rachel and Phoebe did not take very long to be liked by the American audience. New episodes kept being made, new seasons kept being ordered and ten years later the six unknown actors have become true moviestars. David Schwimmer for example played the role of Captain Sobel in the TV miniseries Band of Brothers. Matthew Perry made appearances in, among others, Beverly Hills 90210 and played the main character in The Whole Nine Yards alongside Bruce Willis (who later featured on Friends after a bet between Matt and Bruce).

The series final episode aired on May 6th, 2004 and drew a mind blowing 52 million people to the TV screen in America alone. Of all the actors from Friends only Matt LeBlanc (Joey) stayed in his original role and started his own sitcom, following Joey’s life after splitting up with his friends from New York.

Of course there have been a few Friends wannabees in the years after the finale. However it has been proven quite difficult to live up to the standard Friends set in those ten years. New sitcoms have come and gone, all with their own magical ideas about what would make their new sitcom unique.

On September 19th, 2005 however, it became clear that the spiritual sequel to Friends didn’t have to be unique in it’s own way. The only thing that sequel needed was more of the same; the adventures of five friends in their late twenties living in modern New York City.

How I Met Your Mother

To me also known as Friends 2, How I Met Your Mother is one of the best and funniest TV shows I’ve ever seen. The story of the show is that of a father telling his children how he met their mother in the year 2030. Most of the show just takes place in 2005-2009 though with only tiny moments from 2030 here and there.

The writers of HIMYM are doing a fantastic job coming up with original characters, situations and jokes. However the character Barney Stinson (played by Neil Patrick Harris), has really boosted the shows popularity. Barney’s one liners and hilarious ways of scoring chicks have quickly captured the hearts of many viewers to the point where Neil already has a huge fan base after only four seasons. Various people are selling t-shirts with some of Barney’s most famous quotes on them.

I for one am a big big fan of How I Met Your Mother and hope that it will be at least as successful as Friends was back in its day. I hope very much that the show will continue for a good 10 seasons or even beyond that.

To the writers of the show: You’re doing a legendary job! Keep up the good work for years to come!

And of course, to keep with the spirit of the site, some backstage material and a blooper reel. Enjoy!

Behind the scenes footage (Couldn’t embed this, sorry!)

Noise!

Today was my first audio class, taught by the same wonderful and fun teachers who did our AV class two periods ago. I didn’t really know what to expect with audio class, but I soon discovered I’m going to enjoy this as much as any of the other AV classes we’ve had so far.

After a little speech, detailing how they got their hands on some of the latest equipment for the school (ten audio mixers and twenty eight speakers), it was time for some hands on experience with mixers and speakers. Our objective: Set up two speakers and a mixer.

In groups of two we got to work and in a few minutes time we had an entire row of speakers and mixers with a whole lot of cables dangling between them. One little tip when you’re setting up professional equipment; tape off any dangling cable. Obviously our teacher gave us an ear full for just leaving the cables like that where anyone could trip over them and take down some pretty expensive equipment along with it. But since this was just a quick test it wasn’t that much of a problem.

Some other teachers came to watch and we got a few group photo’s. If I manage to get my hands on to them (which shouldn’t be too hard) I’ll make sure to post them up here.

Sold!

Remember that I moved house a while back? Well tomorrow is the final wrap up concerning the old house. Signatures will be put on paper and I will finally receive the money for my old house so everything can get back to normal. Happy days!

Well, pretty random entry for today but don’t have much more to share right now.

Robin

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