Wednesday 30 July 2008

small reprieve

Wages went in sometime yesterday--I honestly can't get my head around what happens with my pay any more. It's not the end of the month and it's not the last Friday. It just seems to be "sort of towards the end... ish" :/.

But at least it means something of a reprieve - loans still not materialised. In the letter it mentioned something about the 5th of August--I hope it's not that they're waiting till then. The whole point of getting a loan is that I need the money now. Delaying it seems pointless. Especially since it means both my old loan and c-card payments will come out, and the whole point is to reduce/remove those as soon as possible :/.

Got a message saying the new megami is on the way, so I should have that next week some time. Hopefully I can pump in some artbook scanning this long w/end to clear a few of them out of the way.

Tuesday 29 July 2008

oops

Looks like I'm fucked with my wage.

It turned out that I didn't get paid last Friday at all... Which is actually a bit of an issue--I'm positive I'm supposed to get paid on the last Friday in the month, which was last Friday.

Either way, it means I am probably without any cash to my name until Thursday, when I definitely will get paid.

I've therefore got just about everything crossed that the loan gets sorted today. If not I could be in some deep, deep shit, as I know I've got a couple of cheques that are due to come out as well as the direct debit for my car loan repayments due sometime this week.

I'm really in the hands of fate for this one :(.

Finished Look to Windward. Definitely a cracking book.

I also got the aircon up and running when I got back from work, and the evening was therefore a whole lot more pleasant than it otherwise would have been. Standing in front of the cold air blasting out of an aircon unit when the world outside is swelteringly hot is probably one of the most enjoyable experiences in the world.

Monday 28 July 2008

Swelteridge

A few years back now I bought an air conditioner.

The reason was because we'd had such a hot summer the year before I'd gotten virtually no sleep. I find it very difficult to sleep when it gets above a certain temperature at night. It's especially difficult in this country, I find, as heat is always accompanied by humidity (I presume because we're an island nation).

The aircon was awesome and allowed me to get a lot more sleep and be a lot more comfortable during the ensuing hot summer.

However, the last couple of summers have been total non-events, with almost constant rain (remember the big floods). So I've kinda moth-balled the aircon unit. I mean, the unit is still by it's window, but I've put all the pipes and bits away in some box somewhere, as is usually my way given my cramped living quarters.

But ironically this w/end was of course sweltering and I really could have done with having my aircon going. Especially last night, when it was just so muggy when I was trying to sleep.

The problem is also made worse by the fact that I live next to a river, so any open window is just a big invitation for all manner of flying bugs to wander in. Which is especially annoying at night when they're attracted by the lights. Running the aircon means all the windows are closed, and I even have a special cut-out I put over the window the aircon pokes out of so that no heat gets back in.

Tonight I shall make it my mission to get the aircon out and back working again. Luckily, I have next Friday and Monday off, so the chaos of half-opened boxes this causes shouldn't be a hassle for too long as I can tidy up then.

Finally finished off Ai Yori Aoshi. I've got the sequel "Enishi"to watch next. I've a horrible feeling this will be terrible, as the end of the first series kinda didn't leave anything open--it ended and was a proper end, so what can they put in a sequel?

I'm still of the opinion Ai Yori Aoshi is disappointing. There was some real flashes of greatness in the show. It could have been such a good straight romantic story with a sort of Romeo and Juliet feel. But instead we get half that and half "generic harem show". It just seemed such a... well, a waste.

I've nearly finished ploughing through Look to Windward, which is one of the Culture Novels by Ian M Banks. It was for a long time the last, but I believe he's done a new culture novel, "Matter".

When Banks is on form, as he most definitely is in Windward, I enjoy his stuff so much. They end up being the sorts of books that make me remember why I love reading and why I enjoy writing too. Sometimes I forget, when I'm struggling with something that's a bit more turgid. The Lord of the Rings, for example, made me forget for the best part of two years.

I'm pretty sure I've now read all the Banks sci-fi stuff (well, except Matter, which isn't out in pb yet). I've often wondered whether I should check out the non-sci-fi stuff--maybe later when I clear some more of my other unread books.

I also achieved my main objective for the w/end. trismugistus.com has been updated!

I've added a review of the quite good, but not quite great Ergo Proxy.

I also worked on a whole series of weeks of updates. These include a further 5 reviews, two wallpapers and associated character psd files, so that's ten weeks worth seeing the site clear up until the end of September, I believe.

It's also my plan to get scan-city up and working over my upcoming long-weekend, with lots of lovely artbooks to download. Whether I go for a super-splooge approach and get all the scans up at once (current favourite) or do it in a more phased approach I'm not sure yet, but at least it will be active.