sore in 37 different places
Jan 19, 2008 Stardom Leave a comment
My break has pretty much been spent chilling at home, relaxing, playing sims 2, and not really doing anything productive. In the midst of all this, i get a call from my agency saying I got a job as supporting cast in One Life To Live and that I should go fill in the paperwork the day before.
So I leave on Wednesday, bringing nothing with me except my little jelly bag, and the people at wardrobe call me AFTERWARDS to tell me what to bring. That annoyed me, but I decided to let it go thinking I could go back to Maryland first to get my stuff. What made it worse was the fact that the lady I had to see gave me a number to call AFTER 4pm to check my shooting time.
I’m as nervous as anything and praying my heart out hoping the shooting time would be later than 12pm. Wrong. It was at 9 am. 9 AM. I had to stay over in New York without my outfits, my toiletries, my anything. I had no idea where to find a hotel or a mall, and my cellphone was dying. I thought I was going to end up in a hostel with my arms and legs missing in the morning.
Luckily my boyfriend called his sister who then got us directions to Marriot and we found a Macy’s close by to buy the clothes I needed. It was 10pm by the time I finished doing everything and my feet were dying. So by the time we got back to the hotel I pretty much collapsed and died.
I had to wake up at 7am the next morning, catch the metro to the shoot location, and the wardrobe guy Dave (why do these guys always have to talk like girls?) was going around and selecting outfits for everyone. And so with my luck, the dress he chose just wouldn’t zip up for me and I was running as late as anything. Thank God for this other girly guy at wardrobe who helped me zip up. So I ran for dear life and realized they were just taking attendance. Grr. Afterwards I sit in the dressing room for literally 3 hours doing nothing except talking to other girls about boob jobs and nasty boyfriends. Fun.
Then for the next 7 hours, I was in the studio, standing there with my heels in this little black dress and freezing my ass off. I was thirsty, tired, and hungry, so by the time lunch break rolled around, I was more than ready to leave. My boyfriend was sitting in the lobby waiting for me, and he saw the whole shooting process on TV. Apparently, I had the angriest face he’s ever seen since going out, but heck, I’m not surprised. After lunch we come back for more torture and pain, though as perks I did get to see Mary J. Blige and listen to her sing live. Yay? And I got to dance with some cute white guy who was almost twice my height.
I was so relieved to finally LEAVE at 7pm that I’m pretty sure I was the first to run out that building. I’ll skip the rest of my unfortunate evening, but let’s just say by the time I finally got back home, it’s was 3 am, and I could barely stand, let alone walk. I had the best sleep of my life ever that night.This trip wasn’t completely ALL bad though. I did get a haircut there before going to fill in paperwork and my hairdresser was absolutely adorable and hilarious. And for what the lady did to my hair back in MD, he did a pretty good job fixing it. And he was very very cute. Hehehe.
But in all seriousness, what really made this trip not complete hell was the fact that I had my boyfriend with me. Oh my God, I do not know what I would have done without him. ???
Paid Host Review
Jan 9, 2008 Reviews, WWW 1 Comment
This is a continuation from my free host review post. On the whole, paid hosts are generally offer better services and are more reliable than free hosts. One would hope so because money IS being spent on the service, so they had better offer something good in return.
Start by looking at the various domains and find out where they’re hosted. See what they write about their hosts. Also, check out review sites like Web Hosting Jury and Web Hosting Stuff. Forums such as Web Hosting Talk are also recommended. They’re also useful if you want to request a custom package. Many hosts will then try their best to offer you exactly what you need at a decent price. However, you can’t 100% rely on review sites can’t because some hosts offer incentives to their customers to write good reviews about them. Nevertheless, they do offer some sort of insight on what the host is like.
Mimi’s recommendations:
Servage - It may seem like they are overselling, but during the year I was with them, they had great speed, uptime, and support. And of course, the price is excellent for what you get. There is no catch, no gimmick, and I was able to host about 6 gb of files on there using around 30+ gb of bandwidth per month. Only downside is that they have no Cpanel, but their control panel offers about the same features and is very user-friendly.
Cirtex Hosting - I’ve been with them for about a year and a half now, and they’ve been absolutely wonderful. At first I was skeptical about how they could offer such great services for so low a price, but quite a few sites in the design community were hosted with them and they gave great reviews. I talked to a staff there and they were friendly and helpful. They listened to what I had to say and then offered me a custom plan with great pricing, and things have been sailing smoothly ever since.
Mimi’s blacklist:
Netfirms - I’m very disappointed with the server speed when it comes to running scripts. There are just too many timeouts and errors, not to mention the slow running time. But if you’re not running scripts on your site, they do offer some amazing deals, including 2 free domains with their advantage plan. They have an extensive helpdesk, but their support can be vague and slow sometimes.
Free Host Review
Jan 8, 2008 Reviews, WWW 1 Comment
Having been on the net for 9 years now, I’ve been through my fair share of free and paid hosts. So here I will review some of the good, bad, and uglies that I’ve been through. Feel free to leave any comments or questions you have, and I’ll get back to you ASAP.
I’m not going to even bother listing all the free hosts I’ve been through. Why? Because 99% of them are unreliable, slow, filled with ads, and offer only the very basics. Might be good if you’re just starting out, and if so, stick with ones like geocities or tripod. They still suck, but at least they’re reliable.
Once you gain some experience, I definitely recommend getting hosted by other people, not companies. What’s the difference? The first usually have some requirements about the sites they’re willing to host, and you’ll need to email them an application showing you meet their standards. Once they offer you hosting, you’ll be good as long as they keep renewing their own domain and hosting plan. Even if they move, they’ll most likely let you know ahead of time, unlike companies who often suspend their services without a warning. You can usually find such offers in various forums or sites like Pick Me and Get What You Give.
Mimi’s recommendations:
000Webhost - You get all the features of paid hosting, including but not limited to: 250mb of space, 100gb of transfer, php & mysql support, cpanel, and much more! There aren’t any ads and you don’t have to pay a dime! Best of all, they are reliable and have been in service for 4 years now.
Mimi’s blacklist:
Hostgool - Absolutely horrible. First, their support is just a plain ass who is rude and can’t type in proper English, which just shows how unprofessional they are. Second, they offered ad-free hosting with a large amount of space and bandwidth, yet when I applied, they forced ads on my site (ruining the design in return) and gave me less than half of what they offered. After asking them politely if I could place the ad manually as to incorporate them into my design, they send back a rude email saying no and how I’ve been cheating off of them. WTF.
