Chelly Palisoc - chellygraphics@home.com

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--Sunday, December 3 2000 at 9.45AM
Links Updated
  • Return of the Poster ID
After almost two years of vacation, the identification of who posted a news story is back! You'll notice it at the end of the Date line. "Why do you need that, isn't this site run solely by you?" Well yeah for the most part, but sometimes I am unable to update it and Weazel steps in and helps me out, so this will give you a for sure ID of who is posting the story. Also in the future it might not be only me posting stories... hmmmm who knows what the future holds!

Alright I got the links all up to date. If you look at them and you are like "what! how could he not have added my site!?" or any site that you feel should be on there, then send me the link and I'll take a look at it. It's possible I might have missed some good ones.


--Monday, November 27 2000 at 11.29AM
OMA Ranking
As you may be aware, the people's choice award for dotmusic's Online Music Awards has been going on for the past month. The results are up on their site and SpiceNews came in at #34 out of 2221 sites. Not too bad. It's also the highest ranked Spice Girls site! We beat out some other pretty popular music sites. Thank you v.much to everyone who voted!


--Saturday, November 18 2000 at 9.24PM
Why Windows Media Sucks
I wrote this because there are a lot of non-computer geeks getting into encoding video, and I'd just like to make sure they read this before getting too far into it. Who knows, maybe I have some influence. It's also good info for people who just generally don't know about this stuff. Windows Media sucks because:

a.) It plays on Windows Operating Systems only.

b.) System Requirements are high.

And simply why use it when there are better alternatives. I know that there is a beta MacOS player(finally), but there is no Linux player(what I use) or player for any other OS. This is of course because Microsoft are a bunch of greedy proprietary assholes. The main purpose of Windows Media is for Microsoft to force more people to use their OS(Windows). If that wasn't the case then it wouldn't be such a closed and proprietary format(and it probably wouldn't be called WINDOWS Media). Microsoft goes around and pays big sites and companies to use Windows Media instead of other formats. This is just another of their impirical schemes. Please do not buy into this technology. It is a burden on many people and unnecessary. Here are what I think are the best video formats to encode in from best to worse:
  1. MPEG - MPEG video has been around for MANY MANY years, and it's still the best format. It is the highest quality and requires only very low system requirements. It'll play on 486's for heaven's sake!(Maybe 386? I never tried an MPEG on a 386) Anyway playing an mpeg will not slow down any computers, it eats very few system resources. Secondly it plays back on virtually every OS that exists, meaning that anyone can watch mpegs without a problem. Virtually all video technology is based off of mpeg anyway. Windows Media is MPEG-4 based. DVD is MPEG-2. HDTV is also MPEG-2. Everything is flippin MPEG! Just use it damn it. Don't automatically think that MPEG = LARGE FILE SIZE, because you can make low quality crappy mpegs that have small file size and are about the same quality as most other video formats of that size. The reason you see most mpegs as large file sizes is because people like high quality, and MPEG is of course the highest quality video. You can make shitty mpegs, but I'd still like to see 320x240 for all video out there. Standard issue 320x240 25-30fps MPEGS are great, or VCDs.
    For MPEG creation software check out: Panasonic MPEG Encoder, Xing, WinVCR, there's more - just search for mpeg related material(and it's not hard to find warez versions of these programs, shhh!).

  2. DivX - DivX is MPEG-4 based. It's actually a hacked windows media encoder that does even better. The requirements on DivX are high though, you need a pretty powerfull computer and DivX's eat up significant system resources. They play back however on almost all OS's, and it's an open format. Basically if you really have an urge for some reason to use Windows Media(.asf, .wmv), just use DivX instead - it's the same damn compression, even better quality in the same file size in many cases.
    For DivX creation software check out: DivX ;-)

  3. RealVideo - Has been around for a while, and they have players for most Operating Systems. The quality can be pretty good too. It eats up system resources but not as much as MPEG-4 based video. I just wish people would utilize it's ability for quality and make 320x240 or 300kbps RealVideos, instead of these really shitty 160x160 RealVideos(I HATE THAT!) The compression of RealVideo is very good, but it's not quite MPEG/DivX quality.
    For RealVideo creation software check out: RealProducer

  4. QuickTime - This is Apple's version of a proprietary greedy video format. It's also MPEG-4 based. This one at least always had a Windows player from the start(otherwise it wouldn't survive at all). Quicktime 4 only works in Windows and MacOS and is also a system hog, but not as much as Windows Media. Nobody really uses this except big companies, and thats because it plays back easily on the two most popular common user OS's. Notice most enhanced CD's you get feature video in Quicktime. It was pretty interesting that Forever had videos in RealVideo(only because RealNetworks paid them more). I wouldn't be surprised if Apple also gave money to these companies to use it. The player is the worst thing ever as well. No normal people use this anyway, so lets just keep it that way.
    For Quicktime creation software check out: The above three alternatives.

  5. Windows Media - AVOID USING THIS LIKE THE PLAGUE: Proprietary, closed, system hog, works on Windows only. No point in using this when you have the first three to choose from. Eventually there will be a finished MacOS player, as well as a linux one probably. Until then, just DivX it please(or better).
    For Windows Media creation software check out: Start reading this post again from the beginning.
Number 4 & 5 are just garbage. So I'm saying please try to make MPEGs! If not MPEGs, then DivX! If not DivX, then GOOD QUALITY RealVideo. Not retarded Windows Media. While we're on the subject, let me go off about AUDIO:

Audio is not as much fo an issue as video because you have basically two real choices: MP3 or RealAudio. There is a reason why MP3 got so popular. It's because it is the best audio format that there is. It can be CD Quality in a very small file size! It is also an open format and plays on every Operating System, as well as many non-computer devices: all the mp3 players that exist, can be easily burned to CD's to play back on cd/mp3 players, everything is starting to play mp3's now: cell phones, digital cameras, etc. MP3 IS IT. There is no reason to use anything else.

RealAudio was good when it first came out before MP3 came and kicked it's ass all over the place. Again, do not immediately think that MP3s must be at least 4MB. You can make lower quality MP3s in small file size, just like you can do with RealAudio, in the same exact quality audio. Most music that people have is in MP3 as it is. So it's v.uncool to put out something in RealAudio. I mean you have your mp3 playlist playing all your songs and then there's this realaudio... and you can't incorporate it in with the rest of your songs, and have to fire up this seperate clunky player everytime you want to listen to it. Thats ass. So what at this point is the justification for using RealAudio? Answer: nothing. It's annoying, it's obsolete, stop making them.


--Thursday, October 17 2000 at 1.43AM
New File Policy
The Phuck-It server is gone so no more free web-space for files. I've got around 50megs that I can store worth of files. I know everybody likes the best quality, so I will always strive for that. But since high quality files are larger file size, I can't keep them up long because other files come along to replace them real quick. So the new file policy here is this: 24-48hrs for files, after that they will most likely be deleted from the server. So I encourage everyone to download them and spread them around the net.

Once again at a future point sometime I would like to have all the files ever released on this site uploaded again. If you own a machine that is hooked up to a t3 or faster, that is reliably up 24/7, running a *nix/BSD OS, and want to donate a few hundred megs to me on it, I would be very thankful. I know this is HIGHLY unlikely to happen, but I thought I'd throw it out there anyway :)


--Tuesday, October 17 2000 at 8.33PM
What Sucks Now..
First the updates on the site:
  • Made bottom of story boxes end closer to last text.
  • Split the current month's news into two pages.
  • Anti-Cache code added to main page!
  • Redirection page created for spicenews.com/html/news.html
You will all be happy to know that the main page now does not cache so when you go back to it, it will automatically get the latest version and you don't need to hit reload anymore! This also solves the problem of people emailing in saying "you haven't updated for a half month!! Whats going on!?" Hehe, this should have really been done a long time ago.

Decided on a new policy to split the page at the 16th of each month, just to make the main page load faster and save half bandwidth for both me and you. This has nothing to do with the new site design, I just haven't modified any of the site code for a year and a half and it is just a good idea as the news is more frequent these days than was a year or two ago. The new design main page is only about 10k-30k larger than the old main page depending on how much news is on it, plus you don't have the left toolbar page in seperate frame to load, so the new design should technically load faster than the old one. The exception is Netscape, which might load the page slower because it won't render anything until entire tables are loaded.

By the way since we never tested it, if you are using Netscape this site really does look bad in it. Don't worry I'm not giving up on browser compatibility, this is what I was talking about when I mentioned the consequences of uploading an unfinished site(see below). Although Netscape's archaic ways, lack of update, and downfall after rape by Microsoft & purchase by AOL are a whole different article.. Either way, here is a picture of how the site looks in IE5. So sorry for the 25% of you that don't see the site as it is, hopefully it will be fixed soon.


--Monday, October 16 2000 at 1.47AM
Say Hi to the New SpiceNews! - 70% There
It's the early hours of Monday morning and I'm dropping this new site design on all of you for the first time! One important thing to know is that this is NOT FINISHED YET. I would have loved to have been able to wait until everything was finished, tested, polished, and ready to go. But unfortunately we have run out of time due to "business" reasons. Some pages aren't done yet, some haven't been converted at all yet, nothing is in final form, there are probably tons of broken things all over :) But the time has come to unleash it, finished or not.

So this site is now under construction until there will be a "It's Done!" post on the main news page. The disadvantage is that there is plenty of room for problems putting the new site up without much testing. The advantage is that you get to see it's progress, if you like that sort of thing. All new developments will be listed on this page as they happen. The degree as to how much will change visually from what is up now may not be that much, but some stuff needs to be finished, a lot of compatibility needs to be done, some behind the scenes coding, etc. Overall I'd say it's about 70% done.

Of course all the wizardy behind this new design comes from the gods of html - GammaDelta - let there be no question about that.


--Sunday, October 15 2000 at 6.05PM
500,000
SpiceNews has surpassed 500,000 visitors!! Thats 500,000 dynamic visitors, doesn't count two views from the same person in a certain amount of hours. I think we should probably start going by that figure perhaps since many people check the site a few times a day. That number is at about 700,000 right now! Thanks everyone!!!


--Wednesday, October 4 2000 at 12.15AM
dotmusic awards
I've recieved an email from the dotmusic people about it, and some readers emailed me on their own suggesting I enter, so I figured what the heck, we'll see if we can get some sort of ranking on this people's choice award for the Online Music Awards 2000. So if you wanna vote for SpiceNews, please do so! Do it all the time, do it everyday! j/k hehe. And hell, you can even win a Playstation 2 or £500 for doing so, who wouldn't want one of those! Thanks everyone!


--Sunday, September 24 2000 at 11.21PM
Your Age?
New Vote! Last vote in the SpiceNews freevote booth was for if you wanted a new site design or not which ended in 82% yes and 18% no. This time it's a poll of how old you are. I'm just curious as to the age range of this site's readers. I made a pretty wide range of options for this poll and your vote is appreciated, GO VOTE HERE!


--Sunday, September 24 2000 at 11.59PM
Links: I Suck
Yeah the link page is updated around the first of each month - pffffffffffff hahahah, wow what a joke.. Listen... I know I suck at updating my links page and haven't updated it for like... oh I don't even want to admit or really try to figure out how long it's been - a long damn time. Anyway it WILL be updated with dope sites along with the new site design, cause there are some awesome sites that I should be ashamed of for not having links to.


--Sunday, September 24 2000 at 11.21PM
Site Redesign Status
Not much work has been done on the new site design recently, and now basically development is being slowed down significantly by Tony Hawk Pro Skater 2(playstation). Let me act like the record industry, or any industry for that matter, and push the release date back to mmmm let's say the same day as Spice Girls drop their new single.


--Thursday, September 14 2000 at 9.30PM
Server Stability
Yesterday and perhaps early today some of you may have had trouble accessing the site getting "Server Hangup" messages. I looked into it.. I think some people were leeching direct links to my audio so I renamed the directory. I guess that will need to be a regular activity from now on(renaming directories) to stop the leeching assholes.. Some extra processes were also killed so it should be good to go again today and on into the future!


--Sunday, September 10 2000 at 5.45PM
Hot Ish!
So the below vote results show that 80% of you want a new site design. I'm happy to tell you that it's on it's way, and it's looking pretty hot so far.. It's time to kick this site into high gear as we prepare for a new Spice Girls album. I don't know when exactly it will be up, i'm going to say that maybe at the end of this month.

Also the phuck-it server is fuct right now. Lee is working on it, but not right now since he's on vacation in Europe, so when the video links don't work, thats why.


--Wednesday, August 9 2000 at 6.30PM
Face Lift?
I'm considering a redesign for the site, since it really doesn't look all that impressive. I've mentioned before that this site is not about flashy graphics, the latest html fads, or anything like that. It's about delivering information BUT there is a chance that the site design could be upgraded. I'm kind of split on whether to implement a new design or not, since the site functions wonderfully for getting info on the current model so i've opened up a vote on it to let you, the visitors, and daily readers decide :) VOTE HERE


--Monday, August 7 2000 at 2.02AM
Phuck-It!
Someone has been nice enough to step up and eliminate the 50mb SpiceNews disk space cap! That someone is Lee from Phuck-It.net. Phuck-It has contributed several hundred megs of disk space for SpiceNews to use! Now SpiceNews will be able to keep files up and not have to overwrite old ones with new ones due to disk space constraints. Look for new files to be mirrored at Phuck-It starting now, and I'll start working on uploading all those older files soon so we have no broken links to any file! Major major thanks to Lee & Phuck-It. Lee can be reached at lee@spicenews.com.


--Sunday, May 14 2000 at 3.07AM
Updates
This is definitely no time for the third album page to be behind in updates, which it was majorly. You know you need to update a webpage when you start getting updated versions of the html file emailed to you from your readers! Hehe, well I finally got it all up to date. I definitely won't let it fall behind anymore as we get closer to the album 3 launch.. I also updated the Solo Projects page while I was at it.


--Thursday, May 4 2000 at 11.35PM
Disabled Spice Tracking
Disabled Spice Tracking temporarily because it hasn't been updated forever and is misinforming. I am well aware that the site has been majorly lagging on these individual news stories - Album 3, Solo Projects, and Spice Tracking. I've simply not been devoting time to these individual pages much this year. They will be brought up to date soon though so don't worry too much. For Spice Tracking I need to think of a new method of updating it as it currently is a bitch to do since it is a graphic that has to be constantly redone. There are easier options while still keeping it cool looking, but I also want to easily retain v.3 browser compatibility and these options don't meet that. Maybe it'll just be text, we'll see.


--Wednesday, May 3 2000 at 1.33AM
If Only Review
Well I finally finished reading If Only, Geri Halliwell's autobiography. I found it amazingly coincidental that I finished reading it on April 25th, 2000, exactly one year to the day of when Geri wrote the Epilogue. Everybody who is a hardcore Spice fan should read this book if you haven't already, even if you hate Geri. Of course it gives a total insight into Geri's life from her little girl days to post Spice-Split, but most significantly it gives you an incredibly deep and detailed account of how SpiceWorld is from the inside, or from inside the "Spice Bubble" as Miss Halliwell would say. There is so much information in this book about Spice Girls. There are so many things I know now that I never knew about Spice Girls. The book is information extacy. I never thought I would learn so many new things about Spice Girls. It's great, an excellent book. It hides very little, and seems to be very honest and from the heart.

It's no secret and I've said before that I hate Geri, and many people have told me "read her book, then you won't hate her, you'll like her." So now it's been read, and what does Jozzy Spice think of Miss Halliwell now? I don't really have a specific like for the girl, but I don't feel any raging hate against her anymore. Basically I have read her life story up until very recently and know a lot about her. The reason I hated her for so long is because she left the band, with no real reasoning or explanation of anything, dropping out in the middle of the world tour. I was mad at her for not explaining why she left, not giving any advance notice, and then just cutting off with no definable reason, no other reason pulling her away being apparent, she just kind of bailed out on Spice Girls and their fans in the middle of the tour, with no reason. It's like having someone you are close to for a good period of time, then one day they just leave, and they don't even tell you why, they just leave a message with another friend. Either way.. after reading the book I realize that she wanted to leave way back a long time ago, in the early days of 1998, was it late 97 even? In Geri's mind the Spice Girls from the start was a "two year deal", they would do as much as they could and enjoy themselves and live it to the fullest for two years. I guess when they first realized they had something special and were going to be huge they were talking about how pop groups have short lives and Geri said something to that degree about "well let's do this to our fullest and make the best out of it for the next two years." and it seems that the other girls just acknowledged her comment as more like "yeah in two years this COULD be over so we should enjoy it." where it seems that Geri was thinking "in two years this WILL be over." It's very evident, especially in the part of the book where the girls start talking about all their plans and what they want to do after the tour and about extending the tour to Asia and Australia, Geri says "what about the two-year plan?" and they all look at her dumbfounded as she described it. So regardless, Spice Girls was just another thing that Geri wanted to do for a set period of time in her life and always planned to stop doing it after two years or so. Maybe she thought the group wouldn't last after two years... perhaps she didn't fully realize how huge, powerfull, and talented Spice Girls really were compared to all other pop groups, perhaps she is just the type of person who likes to do many different types of things in her life and never devote herself to one occupation. Overall it was time for her to move on, she wanted out, she was over it. I don't blame her for that, I just think she should have stuck it out until the end of the tour, and herself told everyone that she was leaving a bit before she did, and why. So I guess I don't hate her anymore, now that I understand everything. I'm no fan of hers either, i'm just on neutral grounds with her. I wonder if she would have left at all if she saw how the group was after the tour... much more slowed down. She would have had time to unwind, I wouldn't be surprised if she was still in Spice Girls if she decided to stick it out until the end of the tour. She matured, so did the other girls, she has done solo work, so have the rest of the girls. Sucks that she's gone, but I'm over it. I have peace with Geri.

So If Only is not surprisingly the best book about Spice Girls that exists. Oh yeah, I cannot end this review without giving a shout out to their former manager Simon Fuller who was "always such a nice guy" - page 298. Simon Fuller: FUCK YOU!


--Tuesday, April 25 2000 at 7.14PM
Trixie Firecracker
Trixie Firecracker has closed. This was one of the best if not the best Geri Halliwell website out there. I don't even like Geri Halliwell and I'm having a hard time accepting it. I mean, sure I'd very rarely check it out not being a Geri fan, but it's just that it's existed ever since I've been a Spice Girls fan. The fact that it no longer exists is just hard to fathom. It was created in March of 1997 by Anna-Karin, a pretty cool chick I know who is also responsible for the creation of SpiceNews. Like Geri or not, this very website's origin's are closely rooted with the Trixie Firecracker website. It is truly a shame to see it gone.


--Thursday, March 16 2000 at 12.12AM
Weazel
As an update to the post exactly a month ago here about needing help updating the site when I'm unavailable to do it, someone has been chosen for the position. Thanks to everyone who applied. Everybody please welcome to Weazel, as he will be updating the news when I will be unable to do it. Weazel and I share a shocking amount of similar hobbies including first person shooter PC games, large mp3 collections, linux, LAN gaming, and of course Spice Girls! Our mentality seems to be on the same level. Weazel runs another video game/tech/other fun stuff news site called Arizona Blah, so be sure to check that out. He does have email here, it's weazel@spicenews.com, so if you for some unknown reason feel like bothering him, thats how you do it. Thats about all, if everything goes as planned, you probably won't see any news posted by him until early May. But welcome him aboard!


--Wednesday, March 8 2000 at 6.13AM
200k
SpiceNews.com surpasses 200,000 dynamic visitors. Happened over the weekend. Thanks everyone.


--Sunday, March 3 2000 at 4.48PM
Disk Space
The SpiceNews server has 50mb of disk space allocated to SpiceNews. In order to post newer files, such as the Brit Awards audio files that I just did recently, I have to delete older multimedia files on the server to make space. So if you're looking at older news and the links to multimedia files are broken, thats why. Yes it's a problem. The site itself without multimedia(pix, audio, video) only takes up a couple megs! I'm not really interested in paying more money for more space, so the only solution would be for someone to provide me with some free web space on a fast, and very reliable server. Fat chance that that would happen! But if you for some reason happen to have a fast machine with a lot of extra hard drive space switched on 24/7 and hooked up to a T3 but not really doing anything(hah), then drop me a line and we'll talk!


--Thursday, March 2 2000 at 6.15PM
.de
For all you German spicers, there is now a German version of SpiceNews at (surprise surprise) - http://www.SpiceNews.de

Please note that this is a seperate site, not run by me.


--Wednesday, February 16 2000 at 12.55AM
Help Wanted
I need somebody to help out with the site. This isn't a huge position, but rather a very small one that probably will rarely need to do any work. Basically I need somebody who can update the news for me when I'm unable to do it. I foresee some long roadtrips in the near future which will span a few days and I will not be able to update the site during that time. There are also unexpected times when the site can't be updated that I need someone to help me out with. This site now gets a thousand hits a day so it's pretty relied upon by quite a number of people to get their Spice Girls news from. All disruptions in news posting therefor suck for everyone. These are the qualifications you need if you think you might want to help:

  • Must have a good knowledge of HTML(some proof please), FTP, computers in general.
  • Must have own webspace(only need under a meg. Almost all ISP's give you a few megs) Free webspace is not acceptable(geocities, etc). The webspace cannot have any banners or banner windows, etc, or be slow.
  • Must be available for contact on demand(pager, or cell phone, or frequently checked answering machine, etc) Yes you'll actually have to talk to me in real life at some point most likely! (All charges would be on my end)
  • Must be reliable
  • Must be in the continental United States
  • Must absolutely love Spice Girls!
If you think this describes you, email me basically with a reply to each of the above qualifications. Yes I know this sounds like asking a lot, but really it's a position that would probably be very rarely used, like maybe four times a year(no not on holidays or anything like that). What will you get in return!?!? Well you'll get recognition for helping with the site, you can maybe throw up a link if you want to somewhere else, and ramble on this site news page if you feel like it. You'll also probably get one of those cool little @SpiceNews.com email addresses with like say 3 or 4 megs of space on it, hell maybe even 5. If you have any questions email me. I don't know how many people will want this position, but if you do then I'd appreciate it.


--Thursday, February 10 2000 at 11.44PM
No Scans
Let me first of all apologize for deciding to scrap plans to scan the Emma OK! Magazine article. I'm sorry because I know I said I would do it and now I'm not. And I hate when people say they will do something, then don't. It's one of the things I hate the most. My error came in not analyzing the task before diving into it and saying I would do it. The Emma OK! feature is 15 full pages long. OK Magazine pages are larger then 8.5x11 which is all my scanner will fit. Therefor each page needs to be scanned twice, the two scan parts fitted together, the image made into one, and resized. It takes about 15-20 minutes to do one page. 20mins x 15 pages = 5 hours. I don't have 5 hours of time to scan an article. The feature is brilliant and the pictures are brilliant and I recommend everyone that can get this issue get it (sorry for those of you who can't) but it's just too much work to scan it all in. I report the news, and thats all my responsibility is, and that takes up enough of my time as it is. I have plenty of other things going on besides Spice Girls. This means that I also won't be doing the upcoming Victoria OK! scan, or any other OK! scans in the future. As far as magazines which are normal size, it's possible *I might* scan one in once in a while. It would be nice if there was a dedicated magazine ripper in the Spice Community that would rip all the Spice Girls articles as soon as they come out, format them nicely so the text can be read and etc. If you actually have the time/resources to do this and want to do it and help out SpiceNews.com, drop me an email and maybe we can work something out. There could also be a general site that archives all the magazines. Either way, sorry again but I hope everyone understands.


--Monday, February 7 2000 at 12.28AM
RTM
Right now I'm extremely busy at work putting in overtime hours. Anybody who works/worked in the video game industry knows what it's like when a game is about to ship and it needs to get done. So that Emma OK! Magazine scan that I promised may come later then expected. By the time I have it up it'll be old news probably but we'll see. I've had a few requests to scan the small Vicotira & David article from the magazine as well but I don't know if I'll do it or not. I'll try to scan the new OK! with Victoria in it as well, but once again, I don't know when it'll be up due to my busy-ness in real life. I have just barely enough time to keep the news itself up to date. Probably I'll dedicate one weekend sometime this month(if i get one off!) and tie up all the loose ends with SpiceNews, hopefully that means getting 1997 news up as well, the key word is HOPEFULLY.


--Tuesday, February 2 2000 at 1.00AM
Alotta News
Would just like to mention the fact that I can't believe how much Spice Girls news there is each day. I can't FLIPPIN believe it! I mean, damn! ...and this is when the group isn't even doing much at the moment. Perhaps it will actually be less news when they are, as solo stories will die down dramatically. I mean Jesus Jones, it's one hour into the second day of the month and there have already been 11 stories!! Not that I'm sick of posting all the news, I was always amazed that there was so much news, but just mentioning that I can't believe the volume of news there is just each day, totally boggles my mind.


--Saturday, January 29 2000 at 12.27AM
VH1 Sucks
2 things...

#1 - Eat It!:

Signed Northern Star
:P Yeah thats my Northern Star cover signed by Melanie C! That day ruled.

#2: This day sucked! - not today but referring to last Friday when me and a few Spice-friends were supposed to go see Mel C on VH1's The List. Note: VH1 bashing follows:

We all had tickets ordered and confirmed about a week in advance for the show. So it's time to get going. Two of us(me included) couldn't get there early due to work/school, so one of our friends was saving us a spot in line, who arrived about 4 hours before the show time. So first we get to the place where it's supposed to be and it's not even there. VH1 decided to move it to another building without having anybody with tickets notified about it. So we finally get to the place where it's really going on about 2 hours in advance. We arrive only to see tons and tons of people, probably about 200 outside waiting to get into the show. How could this be??? How could there be so many people to this event. The other events with Melanie C were only a few people waiting a couple hours in advance at the other events Mel C was at in LA. Well I guess this version of the list was special, the LIVE episode, the FIRST LIVE episode ever. And I guess since it had other celebs on it people were there to see them as well. So we finally find our friend who is supposed to be saving us a spot. Where did we find him? In the back of the fucking line!! It wasn't his fault, he had been there close to the front for quite some time. But the asshole VH1 people told him he had to go to the back because groups got priority. If you had a group of people you would get priority in the line. Doesn't matter how long the person in front was standing there. How stupid is that!? And of course there were many groups of people, tour busses kept arriving. Not only that but a school had chosen that day to go on a field trip and guess where they got to go, to the taping of The List live. WOW, so there were tons of people there who didn't even care who was on the show and didn't want to be there, and we were in the back of the line with our tickets. Well not the very very last people, but in the back area. We were pissed of course. But we still thought we'd get in. They start letting people in and all the other lines get to go before us. FInally our line starts going in with the students and everything. It gets to halfway down the line and then that was it. No more people, it was full. The bitch came out(and trust me she was a bitch) and said that they had to turn us down because the show was full. Her excuse was that this was a special live version of the show, the first ever live one, and people from all over were coming to see it, executives from New York, MTV people from NY, everybody from everywhere. Thats nice, we only had tickets and had to go out of our fucking way to get them!!!! And we didn't get in. How ridiculous is that!? You have tickets for something, but you can't get into it. So we were pretty pissed off needless to say. And we waited to try to catch Mel on her way out but to no avail. The only enjoyable part was a group of Kristy Alley fans that were out there waiting with us(and they actually got to meet kristy) acting very funny and being very entertaining. But that is a truly good example of bullshit, what VH1 did to us. "Let's not tell you when we change the address and make you travel extra far to a different location, and oh yeah, by the way when you get there, even though you reserved tickets a week ago, you can't go to the show." BULLSHIT! Next time you hear the word bullshit I want you to think of the assholes at VH1. ....but it's alright, it was only one event.


--Saturday, January 15 2000 at 12.43AM
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Guess who met Melanie C again today!! Thats right - me! ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!!!!! It was at the Late Late Show with Craig Kilborn filming! OK.... so me and my friend Rosanne get to CBS studios at like 2.30pm and we're the first people there. So we sat and waited and finally our friend Val and her friend Joey showed up like a half hour later. Then people gradually started showing up later on. We were on the list for the on camera audience so we were set. They called us down to the gate to the entrance of the building and the four of us were first in line. They sat us on these four rows of benches outside still waiting to get ready to go in. "Alley" was the main director handling the audience stuff. Rosanne was showing her and the other seating people pictures of her and Melanie and Melanie by herself from the LA concert. Val was also showing some pictures. Eventually the CBS people had us form 2 long lines, we were at the front of the first long line formed. Then a bit later they finally started letting us in, and the other line got to go first!!!! ARRRGGHHHH!!! WTF!!!

We were there for hours before and people who came like 30 minutes ago were getting to go in first, we were pissed needless to say. We tried to complain to Alley saying that we were there for so many hours before anyone but she told us that "it didn't matter". So we were really disappointed as we went in after half the audience was already let into the building. Everyone was in one big room just inside though and they escorted the crowd to the third floor. We were at this point trying to get in front of the line just by outpacing people and passing them up the stairs and whatnot as we felt so cheated! So finally they get everyone in a big line on the third floor and we are maybe a third of the way down the line. Oh yeah, Rosanne had some flowers with a happy 26th birthday tag on them and note inside for mel that were taken away by one of the security/seating guys but he said he would give them to her. All along he was carrying them as he told us where to go and he put them down on an abandoned price is right stand as we all waited in line.

Alley comes back to us in line and says "you four came here as fans just to see Melanie C...right?" and we were all like "yeah.." and she just said "ok." and gave us a bit of an intriguing look. BOOM, right there my heart rate went up like you wouldn't believe just by the way she said it and looked at us before leaving. So we were all like quiet wondering if somethings going to happen, oh my god is she going to set something up for us, etc etc. So Alley comes back and is standing there in front of the line. Then low and behold some people come around the corner AND WHO ELSE IS ONE OF THEM BUT MELANIE C!!!!!!!!! AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!! I think I noticed it was her first but I'm not sure, we all went crazy at about the same time. At first when I saw her I wasn't quite sure if it was her, as her hair looked a bit different from the previous day on Politically Incorrect(she styled it back similarly for the show later though). But then I knew it was her and we were going crazy. First Rosanne shouted "Melanie those are for you!!" as she pointed to the flowers on the price is right stand. Melanie said something like "oh thats so sweet", and took them. Melanie was coming through there because I guess it was on the way to her dressing room but I just know Alley had something to do with it because there are other ways to get to the dressing rooms then public corridors where people are waiting. I mean no other celebs went that way. So back to the good stuff!!!!! Then melanie walks over closer to us and we all get around her. First Rosanne grabbed or shook her hand and I don't remember what was said by anyone else from this point on because I just had like tunnel vision between me and Melanie in the hearing manner if you know what I mean. Everything else was just muted out. Melanie came closer to me and she already had those flowers and something else in her hands and I had my Northern Star album cover and pen out and was thinking "oh my god, how is she going to sign this with all those things in her hands". So first I just kind of grabbed her hand and shook it kind of and said "Melanie, do you think you could sign this quickly?" holding my northern star cover and pen. She said "oh sure, no problem..." and handed her flowers and other stuff to one of the guys or girls standing by her(I don't know, tunnel vision/hearing!!!). So she was signing my album cover and right after she started I told her "Melanie, you're music is da bomb, I know lots of people like to write harsh things and stupid things sometimes, but don't listen to them because they are full of it, just keep making the music." and she said "oh thank you! thats so nice, that means so much to me, I really appreciate that." Then right away I said "So are you going to release a US Single?" and she said "yeah actually, Never Be The Same Again is going to be a single, released next month. I'm actually shooting the video for it next week with Lisa." and I said "Lisa, Left-Eye?" and she said "mmm-hmmm" and I said "so everything's cool now with her? It's all good?" and she said "yeah, she's being really nice." So I said "thats awesome!" Then something else happened where some lady said something about her daughter loving her and got something signed(tunnel, Rosanne told me that). All this time by the way that I'm talking to mel Rosanne is getting like 3 cd covers signed! And so then she started to leave and I think Rosanne told her happy birthday and then I said "yeah, happy birthday" because it totally slipped my mind to say it until that point and then I said "And Spice Girls forever Mel, don't ever forget Spice Girls!" and she said "ok don't worry I won't, bye bye!" or something similar to that. That is the only line I don't remember exactly what she said but it was something positive. ..and then she was gone.

Then I finally came out of my tunnel mode and was back in real life and I realized that the cap to my marker was missing and that Melanie took it by accident, hah! I thought that was quite cool actually, I could tell people who asked where the marker cap was in the future that Sporty Spice took it! But the girl is soooooooo nice, that like just one minute after she left, she had one her assistant girls run it back out to me! WOW!! And that was it for the meeting... and that was da bomb!!!!!!!!!!!! WOW Melanie C is sooooooo awesome!!!!!!!!! I LOVE HER! The show was so awesome as well as many of you have probably already seen by the time you read this. Wow did she do good on the show! And her singing "Somewhere Over The Rainbow" was excellent!!!! IT WAS SO GOOD!!!! I can't wait to get an MP3 rip of it! WOW, and her 5 questions thing went quite nicely too! I think this was possibly the best show she ever did. And it was so good! I think it will help her out a lot, I mean she really really did well and it was the Friday night show, and probably a lot of people were watching it. We thanked Alley about 5 times for her help! Ohhhhh yeah, Rosanne is the high pitched scream you'll probably hear throughout the show and *maybe* you might hear me sometimes screaming "YEAH!!!!" OH GOD, and melanie's little acting thing with the second guest is soooooo cute!!!! And she was waving to us and stuff during the commercials, ahhhhh it was sooooooooo cool! Everything was so dope!!!!! She was awesome on Politically Incorrect as well! She had a lot to say on the issues and didn't hesitate to speak!

Oh yeah and I know she's not reading this and probably nobody she knows is reading this, but a very very special thank you to Alley for her help and kindness, and also to the rest of the great CBS audience staff! THANK YOU!!!!!


--Monday, January 10 2000 at 9.29PM
Whats up dudes, hope everyone enjoyed the holidays. Got tickets for the filming of Politically Incorrect with Melanie C this Thursday!!(Story) If anyone else is going holla @ me. I wanna see you holler holler, holler holler... love that song!! I like the new songs. Can't wait to hear the album versions in their full quality. MelG split? I'm not surprised, I love mel but I wasn't sure about that wedding from the start, besides, this means I have another chance with her! ...sick of the british tabloids overloading on Victoria news. Then they publish polls saying 97% of the uk population is sick of hearing about her, so how about you stop printing so many fucking stories about her, dumbasses. It's not like half of the stories they do are necessary, "Victoria gets a manicure!!"... please, give the girl some breathing space. I'll post here about how it goes at PI on thursday. It's the year 2000, recognize game bitch!


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