The trouble with doing a blog when I have never read or followed any blogs/bloggers is where to start.So you may wonder why did I start one if I have never had any past interest in them, well, some YouTube Partners have a mentor, this is a person who emails or phones to give me advice on all things YouTube, my mentor at the moment is a very lovely sounding lady, she has the voice a young Lauren Bacall but probably has the figure of Oprah Winfrey. My mentor tells me about new YouTube features or things they are gonna change, they ask if I have any ideas to improve the service etc, my two previous mentors both urged me to start a blog and they gave me links to other YouTubers blogs. When I took a look at the links all they spoke about was buying makeup, perfume, getting nails and hair done, presents from boyfriends, what crap was in their handbag etc and that was just the guys blogs..NO NO Im joking! Anyway your getting the picture, I just thought WTF is this garbage so I decided to give it a try and your reading the result, good or bad I'm not sure.
What have I been up to..last week I was at POW in Bonnybridge http://playersofwar.co.uk/ Its my local site and just five minutes drive from my house, I headed up at 9am thinking the site would just be starting to fill up and I got the second last parking spot in the car park, there were just under ninety players on site, I expected at most forty due to the recent bad weather putting a lot of people off but it was busy and the first few games were so action packed that I had all the video I needed by lunch time, I took about 50 minutes of video and spent the rest of the morning chatting to friends as I met them wandering about in the forest or speaking to new players. Before lunch I went up to my car to get my gun so that I could drop into the games, I had cam cream on my face but it was kinda wearing off so decided to add a bit more, I dug out the cream from a rucksack in the car, then standing at the drivers door I spun a wing mirror around to see where the cam cream was going at which point my car door shut and the central locking clicked, the car keys were on the seat in the car which I was now locked out of with my gun, cell phone, house keys etc all locked inside. Three hours later a puzzled RAC man (AAA if your American) got the car open, that must have been that RAC guys strangest call out in a long time, he's met at the edge of a forest by a guy wearing full modern German Army uniform including chest rig overflowing with mags, taken into the middle of the forest where he sees more people running around with what to him looks like real machine guns, grenades etc and just off in the distance threw the woods stands a WWII V2 rocket, you can see it from Google Earth. By the time I got a gun out of the car it was the second last game of the day and though I joined in for a few minutes my pal Kenny who you often see in my videos noticed something about my gun which I had noticed but dismissed as my eyes playing a trick on me and that's as much as I can say for the moment for legal reasons. Its a long story and I will explain next blog. I bought another gun, much to Lynda's despair, via the forums at http://forums.fortairsoft.co.uk/ this is the forum for "Airsoft World" a local retailer that I have used since I started playing Airsoft, I got it for half the UK retail price plus it had an extra mag included, second hand sales are a great way to pick up bargains and I knew the seller pretty well so I know he has had it only a few months an used maybe five times, so it was a bargain.I told her about two hours before I was due to pick it up, I had no choice as I was gonna have a problem sneaking an A&K Dragunov SVD sniper rifle into the house under my jacket.I could have left it in my car and then smuggled it into the house when she was not around, but if my car had been broken into and it fell into the wrong hands I would have made the local news for all the wrong reasons. The owner of a local Airsoft retailer "Landwarrior" http://www.landwarriorairsoft.com/ had his car broken into a few weeks back and had three guns taken including a Systema and a VFC not the cheapest of guns to lose, this theft made a few nations newspapers and the BBC news, I hope your covered by the insurance Scott. We are selling our house, moving to a much bigger place where I will get a room as an office, it cant come sooner as I have stacks of video and computer gear most of which is in storage just now, having two young kids I don't get much peace to read in anywhere other than on my throne of contemplation.. I leave you to guess which small room that is in the house. so over the last few days I did work on the gardens, sold stuff I did not use on EBay and tried to clear up some of my mess, the house is pretty much spotless most of the time other than the areas I lurk which brings me back to my throne where in my magazine rack I found seventeen issues of "Airsoft International" magazine http://www.ai-mag.com/ six Mac Format magazines and one book on Camouflage. Is this normal?
Years ago I was over at a pals house where in the toilet there was a pile of magazines in the corner at least three foot high, there were ten or so motorbike mags on the top and the other two hundred were shall we say special interest art magazines, if you know what I mean, I went back to the lounge and congratulated my pal on his collection in the toilet, his wife said"Thank You" at which he informed me they were mostly hers, its a strange world. Over and Out.

Just Back from Section8, a very good day, only 30 players due to the snow on the track through the forest to the site safe zone where players set up, my Honda CRV managed it no problem though, but most of the regular players stayed away.

I took the Tachyon head camera but I mounted it direct on top of a helmet as you can see from the image below and the view is too high, next time I will stick both cameras on each side of my helmet at eye line which will give a much better view. Got some real nice video, including a clip of the HD camera getting shot straight at the lens, no damage was done though, thankfully the guy who shot me is a regular and he just did a three BB burst shot.

I will start editing Tuesday and should have something read for you on Friday or Saturday.

I had a few funny questions from new players at Section8 today, one guy asked where the other cameramen were?

He seemed surprised that I always film on my own, he was sure I had a crew. One other young player told me he would have asked for my autograph if he had some paper and a pen on him, I thought he was joking, but he was serious.

Its always nice to meet people who watch my videos, but as I am not the most outspoken person you would meet on a site I am often lost for words when people say things to me, either way I like meeting people who watch and I always ask what they like about them, the most common reply is the lack of music, they seem to like to hear exactly what is going on and that is one of the reasons I started making these videos, if I hear that stupid track which starts off with "Let the bodies hit the floor" one more time on an Airsoft video I will go crazy.

Talking of videos, this blogger account was supposed to allow me to upload video, but it does not, I have made two short exclusive videos for here and watched the tutorial on how to upload video to blogger at YouTube but the uploader icon seen on their tutorial is no longer available, I will try posting the videos to one of my other YouTube accounts (I have a few) then do a link to the videos in the next post, I will try and do that tomorrow for you.

Ok gotta go

John

A Quick One

People keep asking what guns I have or use, so here's a pic of my Systema M16A2.  I am just about to sell this via the Systema Europe forum.
Its a great gun when it works and I guess I could have gotten it fixed a very long time ago, but my other guns work just fine so this has been taking it easy in my attic for the last six months or more.
Tomorrow I will be at Section8 getting more video for you guys, I stuck one of my 2010 Tachyon XC cameras onto a cycle helmet so that I can play and film some of the day.  
Tachyon also gave me a gun mount & if I can find it this evening I will put the other XC onto the new FNC.

 I will take some pics at Section8 tomorrow and post them up for you and I will do a little behind the scenes video exclusive to this blog.
John

At last I have free time

My girlfriend (Lynda) told me to update this blog, I was gonna kick it off by telling her that I bought another Airsoft gun this morning Tuesday 12Th Jan but she was looking at my emails and noticed not one but three from the retailer THANKS A LOT! Zero One now just bloody send the gun and stop sending me emails.

So what did I buy? Well I bought a Star/Ares FNC Long version and four mid caps.

I have looked at this gun for a very long time, I was at one UK retailer last night who wanted over £320 + postage for one, then I found another at £270, then I found it on "Sale" at Wolf Armouries for £259 and last but not least Zero One who had it for £249, I added four Star Mid caps to the order which took it to just over £300 and gave me free next day delivery, though if that happens it will be a miracle.

Every single day of the week I get PMs via YouTube asking "where can I buy..." I don't understand why people don't just Google items they want, which is what I sat and did last night, spent about two hours searching out the best deal via Google.

Now readers in the USA etc will says its cheaper elsewhere, I know that, but if I import the gun to the UK there is a higher shipping charge, then UK customs could charge me £70 or there abouts for tax etc just for importing it and it would take longer to arrive.

So after considering all that I bought from a UK retailer that I have used in the past.

Now some of you must have thought "He must get his guns for free or get a discount on everything" the simple answer to that is NO I DO NOT.

Only once did I get a discount at an Airsoft retailer and that was from Steve who is the owner of "Airsoft World" and I mention it because I really did appreciate him doing such a thing.

So what did Lynda think about me buying another gun, well as always she's fine about it, she was smiling as she asked me this evening "Have you bought another gun?" Knowing full well that I had.

Now I just have to sell my Systema M16, take my advice.. Never Buy A Systema!

I have had more problems with that one gun than all the other guns I have ever owned combined, no sooner is one thing fixed on it than another part dies, so I have given up with it and am gonna sell it as it is, None Working as usual.

OK gotta go, am working on the next video for Friday 15Th or Saturday 16Th, got over three minutes edited so far which took about five hours, seems like a lot of time but I have to review all the video I filmed on Sunday the 10Th then figure out a rough timeline and piece it together, then add credits so that viewers know what guns are used etc, though sometimes I wonder why I bother to state the gun names on screen because viewers still ask "What guns that"

OK I'm gone, I will try not to take so long to write next time.

John

Its Sunday morning, for days I have been meaning to write something here but at Christmas God hits the fast forward button on my life and before I know it three or four days have zoomed past. So did you get all you wanted from Santa?

In a few hours we are off to a Spanish island called Tenerife where it should be hot, my son Dylan cannot understand that we are getting on a jet at Glasgow in a snow storm and walking off into heat, I'm sure he will be happy with it once we get there.

Im not taking my Mac with me.. I have many hours of video that I could edit on holiday but I really need to take a break from it, but when I get back there will be plenty of work to do and its all gonna be in HD on YouTube from now on.
I have been filming in full 1080 HD for about six months, I keep every bit of video even the stuff that I will never use, got around 1TB of video in store and an new 1TB fire wire 800 drive on the way which I will fill soon.

I thought about digging out all the old videos that are on YouTube in poor quality and remastering them on the Mac, but some people would complain, what do you think? Should I remaster or not?

The older videos were edited using Windows Movie Maker, once I had edited them I saved copies at the highest quality setting possible then uploaded them to YouTube, but a lot of the time YouTube really messed up on the rendering and the quality was sometimes simply terrible even though the originals were perfect, some of the videos are short so I would like to string three or four together on the Mac and upload in HD. I would still be doing my usual one new video a week as usual.
Wish I was going to POW today, its a beautiful forest but with this snow it would be stunning.

John

Been so busy the last few days I just never had the time to write here, just put my daughter to bed so I am grabbing a few minutes to write. My daughter is two on 28th December but can already count to five, my son who is almost eight could not even say five when he was my daughters age, why I am telling you this I don't know.
Saturday, I finished off the latest video from POW then installed the latest Mac operating system onto my MacBook, took an hour but the difference is fantastic, the internet is so fast videos loading almost instantly, programs start faster etc.
Then I installed iMovie 09 WOW! Super fast and so many new options plus output in 720 HD to Youtube, pity its not 1080 HD which is the format I record most of the Airsoft video on but its still nice to be able to edit and upload in HD with ease.
Sunday... Nice fresh snow on the ground and its still falling as I head out to an Airsoft site called Section8, only twenty five miles from my house and set in 1600 acres of forest which is totally snow covered, it looks amazing. I walked alone on the rough road through the forest, all I needed was John Lennon and Yoko in front of me and it would have looked just like I was in the Imagine promo.
I filmed sixty minutes of HD video at Section8, left in a hurry as I wanted a video on YouTube the day I filmed it for you guys, within thirty minutes I had picked a clip added the titles etc and was running it to YouTube, I LOVE iMOVIE 09
So now I am off to finish the edits on the latest video for this Thursday, well not really edits, the full game lasted seventeen minutes, it was the final game of the day at POW, the rule for defenders was if hit your out of the game and with 40 v 40 it was kinda fast n furious, I had to trim a few bits out and its down to about ten minutes.
OH damn I just remembered I gotta book car parking at Glasgow Airport, I am off out of the UK this coming Sunday, will tell you about it later.

John

Well at last I got a new video uploaded, I had to trim a full eight minutes off it which annoys me.
I went to see Public Image (Johnny Rotten) at the o2 in Glasgow and because the latest video had a running time of over eighteen minutes video I left it uploading while I went to the concert. when I got back Youtube told me the video was blocked due to the running time, this pissed me off because YouTube Partners are allowed unlimited video uploads and there should have been no problem with the video.
Anyway I did a quick edit this morning and got it uploaded for today Saturday, should have another ready in a few days.
The concert last night was good, I have seen PIL a few times in the past but last nights was the longest set I have ever seen them play, Johnny was on good form and seemed very happy to be in Scotland, he can be a little moody at times but was not at all like that last night.
The snow is falling fast here, at least an inch in the last ten minutes, if it stays like this I will go to Section8 tomorrow and film, hopefully they have had snow there.
Well thats it, Im off to Blockbuster to pick up a few DVDs to watch tonight, any excuse to drive in the snow.
John