robwoolford.com

I’ve not been having a good few weeks but these past couple of days have really been a kick in the nuts. I’m going to share my pain and newly found wisdom with you all, because I don’t want you all to witness this level of shitty-ness.

So a few years ago I bought myself a 120gb plug in hard drive because my music collection was getting too big for our computer and I was starting to just collect crap and nobody in the family could find their stuff through all the shit I’d saved. This hard drive was basically the coolest invention in the world because I could plug it in, save my shit on it, take it to college, do the same, take it to my mates, do the same. I could take it anywhere and listen to my music, watch south park, do work and all the other cool stuff I had saved on there. It was a blessing.

This past week I can only assume it got computer cancer. It’s been slowly dying and I’ve not been able to do anything about it. I brought it home from college one day and it said my music folder (which was holding about 10,000 songs and its a collection I’ve been putting together since age 12) was ‘completely unreadable’. It then just got rid of everything in there. 10,000 songs just disappeared. It’s a good thing I have about 250 of my favourite albums saved on CDs or I’d have been mighty pissed off (I’m still about 200-300 albums down!).

It didn’t stop there. The hard drive was killed off a few days later when everything became unreadable. All my programs, videos, movies, photos (which I can’t replace), college work (which I really need now, fuck) and everything I’ve been putting together for years just went. I don’t know how and I don’t know why but it sucked.

So, having gone through this agonising and very irritating problem I’d like to urge you all to back up whatever shit you have that you really don’t want to lose. Recordable CDs cost about 10p nowadays and they hold tonnes of shit on them, and for the cost of 10p you’re guaranteed you’re not going to lose this stuff and even if you do you’ll have a backup. I’d never had problems with the computer in 2 years and this just happened completely out of the blue. The hard drive is in computer chemotherapy now and is on a steady recovery, it’s still just a shell of what it used to be. The moral of the story is no matter how good or problem free your computer is, it can fuck up at ANY time. You don’t have to be shit with computers for your computer to be shit with you.

Nerdiest update you’re ever likely to see on this site. Just make sure this doesn’t happen to you – back up your shit.

Rob > * >>>>>>>>>>>>> Broken hard drives

Here’s a papparazi shot of how I took the ‘Z:\ drive is completely unreadable’ message.

So I’ve decided to put the site back up and start writing again. I disappeared from doing internet stuff for a while after I turned 18 – it must have been all the drinking, gambling and tattoos that I was getting now I was officially an adult. Rock on.

Not much to report about in the months I’ve been away. I got a speeding ticket, was front row centre at a Nas gig, fourth row (out of 10,000 people) for a Game and Snoop Dogg gig. I’m going to see Game in July again, because he’s the dogs bollocks. I’ll put some of the pictures and videos up from those gigs later, because they rocked. I’m sure there’s plenty of other stuff but it’s not been the most exciting couple of months in the history of me.

I have decided where I’m going to be spending the next three years of my life after I finish college. I’ll be glad to see the back of this shitty, rural village and an even more unpopulated college course. I’ll miss the people I’ve got to know in my time here but I’ll only be a train/car journey away, and I’m sure I’ll be back once or twice every few months. So I’ll be ditching the rural village to live bang in the middle of Sunderland. I took a look at Thames Valley in London (too expensive), Teeside (buildings were stained with smog), Chester (I’ve seen more life in Terry Schiavo – worst university ever!) and Salford (full of jews who looked like pilgrims? Scary stuff). Sunderland was just superb. I had a great feeling as soon as I got there. It’s not the industrial shit hole that everybody makes it out to be.

Sunderland is in a great location – a bus journey from Newcastle (which boasts great night life, more shops and is just generally one of the country’s biggest cities) and a bus journey from Middlesbrough (where I have family). Sunderland itself was great, the inner city was one of the most attractive I’ve seen anywhere in the UK, there were nice parks, nice shops, no dead buildings and it just looked very modern. The university is bang in the middle of town, as is the accommodation, both 5 minutes away from Sunderland’s football team/stadium, shops, a beach? Cinemas and everything you would want in a city centre. I loved it. I’m not a Sunderland University salesman, honest.

Ok, so other than going for location and how good the city looks, I’ll be studying a 3 year degree in TV & Radio. At the moment I’m doing an awful course in Media Audio (Radio Journalism basically) which has struggled to hold 5 people in the group and is just the dullest, most lifeless and depressing course I’ve ever been on. It’s not challenging, motivating or inspiring at all. At Sunderland they said they expect to fill the 90 person allocated course and the work they do there looks highly challenging - Documentaries, working for a proper broadcasted radio station, TV work, etc. It just looks like what I wanted this college course to be (hands on work that actually goes somewhere). At the same time I also want to work for the Student magazine and newspaper – so that I can also do print based stuff after I leave University. The facilities were very impressive too, I can’t see myself going anywhere else. Just got to get my D M M (distinction, merit, merit) now to get in.

That’s all that’s happened in me news. Interesting updates to follow – I promise. Photos from those Game & Snoop / Nas gigs to follow, some album reviews, maybe some interesting stories if I’m blessed with any…