Alex Rogahn

Recently I’ve been struggling with my organization and motivation to the point where I can’t function correctly in my daily life and just now had a strange urge to write my thoughts on this down.

In a way I’ve always been a procrastinator; never got things done and often had an awful memory. This combination has been the biggest difficulty in my life and has become evermore apparent in my life, especially in the past few months when I started my GCSEs at school. Coursework now is just awful, I constantly have teachers chasing me around for it and I even have to spend a period on Tuesdays with the school shrink to work on this issue.

I suppose the first thing I’d like to blame would be Aspergers Syndrome. I was diagnosed with a mild/moderate form of it back in 2008 and often try to accuse many of my negative traits on it, however I am aware that it’s a pretty lame excuse and at the end of the day – condition or not it just me and I need to get myself sorted. I don’t quite know how to get myself to do things, I’ve tried a range of methods and remembering things now isn’t really a problem as I often set an alarm on my phone that tells me “DO THIS NOW”. The real issue then arises when my laziness just kicks in and I tell myself to do it later; of course then later I simply forget. This just proves the cure for my problem is merely breaking a habit and instead of telling myself “cba” when I know I have to do something I need to learn to tell myself “DO IT NOW MOTHERFUCKER” maybe not as aggressive as that, but you get what I mean.

Aren’t random bored

Just yesterday my Sennheiser HD250’s arrived in my letterbox from the wonderful guys at Amazon UK. The post details the research I did to decide on the headphones and a in depth review on my purchase. I would like to say now that the pair I bought are simply stunning, especially considering the price-tag of just £29! I would definitely recommend these to anyone looking for a good value, exceptional quality pair of headphones.

Want to get right to the point? Click this link to go straight to the review!

The Research

Before my purchase I had done a lot of research on headphones; my first thought before doing said research was of course Skullcandy, however after reading several reviews dotted around the web and Amazon too I was a little shocked to learn they were not what I thought, providing little more than a fancy design and nothing else. The audio quality was supposedly mediocre and the durability was awful, so I decided to forget them.

I then moved onto other various manufacturers: Sony, Panasonic, Bose, Philips & JVC, but none seemed to have any enthusiasm about quality from their users or had over-expensive pricing! *stares at Bose*

Bleary eyed; with no hope at my side, I wandered desperately further into the world of headphones crying out for a good; not mediocre pair of cans for a decent price… And then I found Sennheiser (Praise be upon them) God knows why I ignored them, I’d never heard of them before. When I bought them I had read complaints that the headphones were very tight and quite uncomfortable, but it was virtually unanimous that the quality, while not a head-rattling bass or razor-sharp treble, was certainly up to scratch, although not audiophile quality. Being a tad smug I thought to myself “I have a fairly small head, so forget the uncomfortably tight thing.” and of course bought the pair.

The Review

3 days later the headphones arrived, the package contained: the headphones themselves; a fake-leather bag and a 3.5mm-6.3mm adapter – perfect for my amp! Then first thing I noticed when I picked the headphones up was their superb built quality – It felt like you could toss them about all day long and they would still remain relentless, the disappointing bit was when I first put on the headphones, they nearly crushed my skull and for a second I kinda regretted the purchase, however after just a day of use they’ve loosened up and are now amazingly comfortable!

The first few plays with the new headphones were also a small disappointment, but I knew the headphones needed to be ‘broken in’ and after a few hours of use the overall sound quality, bass and treble all gradually got much better. The bass now is not head-rattling, but more a pleasantly warm vibration to your ears, the treble is crisp and clear but again, not overpowering to the track and everything in between feels like the audio equivalent of glass. The padding in the ears are so soft and make not only a great pair of headphones, but also a nice pair of earmuffs too – rather fitting for the weather right now if I’m honest – the padding also doubles quite well as a noise-reduction system, although it’s nothing like a noise-cancellation system. The advantage of this is that I don’t have to have the volume on loud,, but if I do want to have a bit of a headbang the volume is outstanding and will probably mess your ear drums up at full volume, giving you premature deafness! The best thing however is that even at a loud volume there is no distortion of sound that I myself can hear.

Now there are literally just a couple of pitfalls with these headphones for me, for others these pet-peeves might actually be advantages. The first one is the annoyingly long cable, I find myself tripping over it; my chair going over the wire and pulling on it (certainly not a good thing for the life expectancy); it gets tangled very easily and the only real advantage is that it gives me a lot of freedom to move around my room. The second is the rotating cup, while it doesn’t affect my listening experience too much, it still annoys me to no end and isn’t a feature I’ll ever need to use.

Overall these headphones are fantastic considering their value, I’d recommend them to anyone who’s cheap bugger like me and not a full-on audiophile.

Unfortunately it’s a bit of a sad evening for me tonight, as I recently learned that John Frusciante – my biggest musical idol – has officially quit the Red Hot Chili Peppers, who were my favourite band of all time. That fact is reflected in my Last.fm page.

While I do not fault him for leaving the band (he explained quite well on his website why he did) now that he’s gone I’m not sure if I’ll be able to love their upcoming music as much as I loved the old.

In the end I feel like an era of my music-listening has died and that upsets me a bit, however I’m gonna keep looking forward and explore my music tastes more and more, it’s not the end I suppose! Only the beginning!

For each Monday I’ve made the decision to post a music track I like each week. In the post I’ll have a link to a video (if I find one available), a Spotify link and an iTunes and Amazon link too, along with a brief review of the song and video if provided.

One thing to mention is my music tastes. I generally stick to Rock, mostly alternative and metal. If you want to find out more about the kind of music I listen to it’s all ’srcobbled’ to my Last.fm account.

So this weeks track is:

Ayreon – The Truth Is In Here

Composed by Dutch Progressive-Metal Rockers, Ayreon, the track itself boasts a sort of cross between classical 15th century composition and Goth/Death Metal – although throughout the majority of the song it’s more of a modern rock ballad and the vocals are a lot more clean and smooth than you would expect from a Metal band. It’s a pretty unique sound and one I haven’t heard before, but I freaking love it.

To listen to the song click the video or on the various links below.

Spotify | iTunes | Amazon (UK) | Amazon (US)

In these posts, each week I’ll display a photograph I’ve taken mainly for critique but also to show off a bit too!

So without further ado I give you this weeks photograph:

Out of Tune

Aperture: f/5.6 | Shutter: 1/8 | Lens: 55mm

The snap is a photograph of my Stratocaster’s tuning pegs, I utilized a low aperture to create a blurred (Depth of Field) effect to lower the background’s noticeability.

Ahh, what a fine title to have as my second blog post; my first ‘real’ post. And the first in a long list of rants that is sure to unfold throughout the duration of owning this site.

I’ve always considered myself a well spoken person, often a little too much. I get into trouble a quite few times at school for basically telling teachers to ‘fuck off’ if I disagree with them. It’s no exception in any other area of my life. The fact is I say what I think and have yet to fully master the art of ‘thinking before you speak.’ so if in these series of posts I say something that offends you, say so and hopefully we can have a civil conversation.

This rant is all about people who bitch, gossip, chatter, whatever! It’s annoying, I will not stress this enough. I mean who the fuck thinks it is acceptable to spread rumours around about someone, in particular false rumours. It’s just childish and immature, which is unfortunately the type of environment I have to spend 6 hours of my day within.

I have to say I’ve been subjected to this type of intimidation a lot in my life and if there’s one thing I’ve learnt is that you cannot change people’s minds. Once they hear the rumour they automatically are locked into thinking it’s true and unless you come up with some solid evidence that it is untrue… you’re screwed, simple as. One thing is that I’m not 100% clean, I’ve bitched, we all have, it is for some reason an underlying piece of the worlds culture and in my opinion, it needs to change FAST!

Hi! I’m Alex, I’m fourteen years old and I make websites, graphics and snap the odd photo or two. I occupy a small town called Whalley which can be found in the center of the Ribble Valley. I set up this site mainly as a place to write down all my thoughts and opinions as well as display my work in a lazy effort to get some extra money. I don’t have high hopes for it, but hell! Why not?

Throughout the couple of years of owning this domain I haven’t really done much substantial with it other than host a few half-arsed posts, a half-finished portfolio and a design. I’m hoping to change that now as I enter version 4 of this website, which is shocking.

One last thing to note is to those who judge me for owning this site (school peers and others) I really do not care for your thoughts and comments if they are offensive and/or insulting. I have a website and pay for it because it’s something I enjoy; yes – perhaps to you that’s odd, but we all have different hobbies. So grow up and stop acting like tossers.