It's going to be a confusing and rather busy weekend, I can tell.
There unfortunately seems to have come together a whole bunch of stuff that I need to do or want to get out of the way. It's all rather bit and all over the place, and what's worrying is I've tried to do some organising-type lists and each time they kinda break down or end up impossible to actually achieve.
For example, next weekend is Easter and me and my sister are going to be visiting our dad in order to give him his birthday present. Okay, so that's fine, but it means that the entire Easter weekend is basically a right off, so I need to get everything done now.
That includes buying the last part of Dad's present, wrapping all the bits (I'll need some paper) and buying him a birthday card as the more obvious stuff. However, it also includes less obvious stuff like making sure I'm fuelled up for the weekend and remembering to adjust my trip to the laundrette so that it ties in better.
So in other words, even the simple stuff involves multiple parts and multiple days.
And that's one of the simpler things. You also need to factor in I've got e-bay stuff to send, because people took a long time to pay, plus one of them is a cheque so I'll need to pay that in at the bank. Then you've got the fact that it's also my sister's birthday and I want to give her her present at Easter too.
Plus I've still got the scanning to finish off (new megami turned up - should I do that as well, or leave it until later). Then I've got the last few anime shows of last year to watch.
And mentioning them, the new anime season has started. Fansubs won't appear for about a week, I'd guesss, but the hard-drive I stor fansubs on is nearly full, so I need to burn them all to DVD.
Then it's the second F1 GP of the season, but it's on at a weird time in the morning :/. and of course I've got all that PVR'd stuff to catch up on still.
See - it's all little things that aren't int themselves, porblems, but they're all stacking up into a mighty confusing weekend.
*sigh*
My car's in for its service today. Fingers crossed there's nothign spectacularly wrong with it. I was afraid the tyres might need doing, and that won't be cheap. We will have to see.
Friday 3 April 2009
Thursday 2 April 2009
more about bowels
I've been... well, I was going to say suffering, but I've not really been suffering as such, more inconvenienced, I guess. So I've been inconvenienced these last few days by my bowels.
It's not my intention to turn this into some sort of scatological blog all about my bowel movements, but it's kinda been occupying my attention and a lot of my time this last week, as you can imagine.
Basically, I think I ate something that didn't quite agree with me. That's pretty unusual for me - my bowels are normally like cast-iron. And what it was I don't know - I've not even really got any good culprits, it just started affecting me fairly swiftly on Sunday afternoon.
Anyway, as I say, I've not really felt ill as such, just the occasional abdominal pain and the occasional need to beat a retreat to the nearest lavatory.
Thankfully things seem to have calmed down somewhat now, but it means I've not really felt in the mood to do much of anything interesting. It's difficult to know when an 'attack' will come on.
Instead, I've been trying to keep on top of the television stuff. It's getting pretty tough, I must admit. The hard-drive on my PVR is constantly hovering around the one-third full mark, which is a lot of unwatched stuff. Fingers crossed that the burden of new shows eases a little.
One thing I've been thinking is that a new show starting on the BBC called the Wire isn't actually all that new and is available on DVD. The BBC is blitzing showing the first season - it's on every weeknight! - so I'm very tempted just to watch a couple and then if I like it get the DVDs.
In a way that's transference as it means yet more DVDs to watch, but at least I won't fill my PVR's hard drive.
It's not my intention to turn this into some sort of scatological blog all about my bowel movements, but it's kinda been occupying my attention and a lot of my time this last week, as you can imagine.
Basically, I think I ate something that didn't quite agree with me. That's pretty unusual for me - my bowels are normally like cast-iron. And what it was I don't know - I've not even really got any good culprits, it just started affecting me fairly swiftly on Sunday afternoon.
Anyway, as I say, I've not really felt ill as such, just the occasional abdominal pain and the occasional need to beat a retreat to the nearest lavatory.
Thankfully things seem to have calmed down somewhat now, but it means I've not really felt in the mood to do much of anything interesting. It's difficult to know when an 'attack' will come on.
Instead, I've been trying to keep on top of the television stuff. It's getting pretty tough, I must admit. The hard-drive on my PVR is constantly hovering around the one-third full mark, which is a lot of unwatched stuff. Fingers crossed that the burden of new shows eases a little.
One thing I've been thinking is that a new show starting on the BBC called the Wire isn't actually all that new and is available on DVD. The BBC is blitzing showing the first season - it's on every weeknight! - so I'm very tempted just to watch a couple and then if I like it get the DVDs.
In a way that's transference as it means yet more DVDs to watch, but at least I won't fill my PVR's hard drive.
Wednesday 1 April 2009
Pearl Harbor
This weekend's DVD was the, quite frankly abysmal Pearl Harbor.
But let's start with the positives - the sequence depicting the actual attack on Pearl Harbor is quite spectacular. It's also surprisingly effective at getting over the carnage and loss of life without being overly gory.
It is sensationalist, giving a slightly distorted sense that the Americans somehow won Pearl Harbor, despite actually being dealt a crushing blow - kinda like 'victory in defeat' if you will.
But then this is a Hollywood film - so much so that the 'Hollywoodness' is ultimately to the film's detriment.
It's an enormously long film at just over 3 hours. The reason for that is that it tries to take in a large arc. The actual attack doesn't happen until half way through, and the last segment is taken up by the Doolittle raid, which was sort of like a revenge attack on the Japanese mainland.
Now, taking in that big sweep you'd expect it to be trying to layer in lots of back-story or meaning to the attack. Looking at it from a cultural or political point of view.
Instead what we get is the most shoddy love-triangle in modern cinema history. You notice I used the word "modern" there - I did that for a very specific reason. the romance in the film almost comes across as a pastiche of 40s Hollywood films.
It's overwrought and melodramatic and it's way too 'perfect' - both in the sense that you've seen it all before and the dialogue has such a sheen to it that it almost gleams (presumably in that shinning, white-toothed glint of an all-American smile type fashion). It's so over-done that it's nauseating to watch.
And that's kinda true of the film as a whole - this is film-making with primary colours, not the subtle pastel shades of life itself.
The film is also woefully inaccurate. To some extent I can forgive them some things - a lot of the hardware shown in the film is more modern, for example, but then the majority of the kit has been decommissioned or is in museums. The only other option would have been to use 100% CG and that would probably have taken silly amounts of time and money.
No, the bad inaccuracies come more from the wilful disregard for simple things like facts. For example, there's a distinct air to the film that the majority of the senior characters either knew in general that an attack was coming or had information telling them Pearl Harbor was going to be attacked, but that incompetence of their superiors or public opinion somehow prevented them from taking action.
This is so grossly inaccurate it's almost offensive and represents both an abuse of artistic licence and a complete (and worrying) retelling of history.
The worst losers on this front are the Japanese. I mean, there's some token attempt to depict them as slightly reticent about going to war with American (bizarrely this in itself is actually inaccurate - part of Japan's problem was their total blindness to reality) but you really do feel this is a token effort. There's a great amount of time paid to the unconvincing American love triangle, but very little paid to the Japanese at all.
My recommendation would be to skip to the attack bit and just watch that. It may not be 100% accurate, but it's well done and gets some sort of point across.
But let's start with the positives - the sequence depicting the actual attack on Pearl Harbor is quite spectacular. It's also surprisingly effective at getting over the carnage and loss of life without being overly gory.
It is sensationalist, giving a slightly distorted sense that the Americans somehow won Pearl Harbor, despite actually being dealt a crushing blow - kinda like 'victory in defeat' if you will.
But then this is a Hollywood film - so much so that the 'Hollywoodness' is ultimately to the film's detriment.
It's an enormously long film at just over 3 hours. The reason for that is that it tries to take in a large arc. The actual attack doesn't happen until half way through, and the last segment is taken up by the Doolittle raid, which was sort of like a revenge attack on the Japanese mainland.
Now, taking in that big sweep you'd expect it to be trying to layer in lots of back-story or meaning to the attack. Looking at it from a cultural or political point of view.
Instead what we get is the most shoddy love-triangle in modern cinema history. You notice I used the word "modern" there - I did that for a very specific reason. the romance in the film almost comes across as a pastiche of 40s Hollywood films.
It's overwrought and melodramatic and it's way too 'perfect' - both in the sense that you've seen it all before and the dialogue has such a sheen to it that it almost gleams (presumably in that shinning, white-toothed glint of an all-American smile type fashion). It's so over-done that it's nauseating to watch.
And that's kinda true of the film as a whole - this is film-making with primary colours, not the subtle pastel shades of life itself.
The film is also woefully inaccurate. To some extent I can forgive them some things - a lot of the hardware shown in the film is more modern, for example, but then the majority of the kit has been decommissioned or is in museums. The only other option would have been to use 100% CG and that would probably have taken silly amounts of time and money.
No, the bad inaccuracies come more from the wilful disregard for simple things like facts. For example, there's a distinct air to the film that the majority of the senior characters either knew in general that an attack was coming or had information telling them Pearl Harbor was going to be attacked, but that incompetence of their superiors or public opinion somehow prevented them from taking action.
This is so grossly inaccurate it's almost offensive and represents both an abuse of artistic licence and a complete (and worrying) retelling of history.
The worst losers on this front are the Japanese. I mean, there's some token attempt to depict them as slightly reticent about going to war with American (bizarrely this in itself is actually inaccurate - part of Japan's problem was their total blindness to reality) but you really do feel this is a token effort. There's a great amount of time paid to the unconvincing American love triangle, but very little paid to the Japanese at all.
My recommendation would be to skip to the attack bit and just watch that. It may not be 100% accurate, but it's well done and gets some sort of point across.
Tuesday 31 March 2009
fallen out of love
I forgot to crack my gag I'd thought up for yesterday's mini anime reviews!
Basically it went: "White Album? Shite Album more like."
See, it's sort of punny and sort of references Spinal Tap.
Not that the anime was that bad, but still, can't forget the gags.
Anyway, as the title suggests I've fallen out of love. Specifically, I've fallen out of love with Death Note.
It seems it was an intense, but ultimately fleeting affair. The passion burned brightly, and quickly burned itself out.
Er, yeah.
Basically, Death Note appears to be divided into two arcs. The first arc is focused on the battle between two characters - Light Yagami and "L" - and takes the form of a game of cat and mouse, but one in which you're not sure who's really the cat and who's the mouse.
It's all about the two of them trying to outthink each other, and they're both super-genius. Oh, there's other stuff along the way, but that's the core.
Unfortunately, the second half tries to repeat the same sort of trick, but fails spectacularly. It's trying to make the story bigger - more about world events than just focusing on two characters.
You may remember I mentioned all the silly inaccuracies it was committing when I gave a mini-review last week? Well now, because the focus has changed to the world stage those errors have almost taken over the story.
If the first arc is all about a clever psychological battle with other stuff, the second arc is all about the other stuff with some half-arsed attempts to reignite the clever psychological battle.
And that also now means I'm struggling reading it. Both arcs are exposition heavy, but before I cared and was excited to read it, now all that dialogue feels like a millstone around my neck, dragging my enjoyment with it.
Ah well, it was enjoyable while it lasted.
Basically it went: "White Album? Shite Album more like."
See, it's sort of punny and sort of references Spinal Tap.
Not that the anime was that bad, but still, can't forget the gags.
Anyway, as the title suggests I've fallen out of love. Specifically, I've fallen out of love with Death Note.
It seems it was an intense, but ultimately fleeting affair. The passion burned brightly, and quickly burned itself out.
Er, yeah.
Basically, Death Note appears to be divided into two arcs. The first arc is focused on the battle between two characters - Light Yagami and "L" - and takes the form of a game of cat and mouse, but one in which you're not sure who's really the cat and who's the mouse.
It's all about the two of them trying to outthink each other, and they're both super-genius. Oh, there's other stuff along the way, but that's the core.
Unfortunately, the second half tries to repeat the same sort of trick, but fails spectacularly. It's trying to make the story bigger - more about world events than just focusing on two characters.
You may remember I mentioned all the silly inaccuracies it was committing when I gave a mini-review last week? Well now, because the focus has changed to the world stage those errors have almost taken over the story.
If the first arc is all about a clever psychological battle with other stuff, the second arc is all about the other stuff with some half-arsed attempts to reignite the clever psychological battle.
And that also now means I'm struggling reading it. Both arcs are exposition heavy, but before I cared and was excited to read it, now all that dialogue feels like a millstone around my neck, dragging my enjoyment with it.
Ah well, it was enjoyable while it lasted.
Monday 30 March 2009
crammed with stuff
Busy weekend.
I finally got my hair cut, so I no longer look like I've got an unruly mop stuck to my head. And the price has gone up again. When I first came here you used to get change from a tenner for a haircut. Now it costs £12.50. I know that's still not a massive amount, but it's a significant leap in a short period of time - especially when you include a tip.
And the Grand Prix season kicked off this weekend with the Australian Grand Prix. Now it may just be because there have been so many rule changes, rather than the nature of those changes, but it was a really good race - there was loads of overtaking. Hamilton, for example, started off at the back as he had to change his gearbox and ended up third.
Let's hope this bodes well for the season as a whole and is due to the cars now being able to overtake properly. Certainly there seemed ot be a lot of evidence for this with cars getting close behind and getting the traditional 'tow' followed by a burst around to overtake.
I also did some scanning. The main thing I needed to do was scan the covers of the DVD series I've watched recently, since I've had them up on e-bay for sale. I did manage to scan megami (the new one should be with me soon!) and animedia as well.
While I scanned I watched some anime (it's interesting doing it on my widescreen monitor - there's enough desktop real estate that I can have everything open without the windows overlapping).
White Album was distinctly okay. I'm not entirely sure what I was expecting of the show - I'd seen a few visuals and it seemed like it was set in the world of 'idols' which is a bizarre Japanese system, but what I hadn't been expecting was a harem anime.
And that's basically what it is when you decompose it - there's a central guy and lots of cute girls seem to be in love with him for no apparent reason. He's also got a hapless mate who fancies one of the girls.
But here's the thing - I think what they've tried to do is make a more 'adult' harem show. And I mean adult in the sense of a grown up story, rather than pornographic. Indeed, it pretty much lacks anything resembling fan-service, which is technically a core element of a proper harem show.
Now this might be okay, but there's a really weird ambience to the show. It's incredibly miserable all the time for no apparent reason. I mean, it's not like rubbish things actually happen to the characters, they're all just very melancholy. It's odd. And it affects the pacing too, which was very slow.
But then the show looks pretty - it's nicely animated and the character designs are nice. Also the characters seem quite interesting... apart from being miserable. Maybe I'm being too harsh.
Maria + Holic was disappointing. It's by the same studio that did Sayonara Zetsubo Sensei (SHAFT) and more than that it's directed by the same guy. It's also an adaptation of a slightly demented manga. They also appear to have used a lot of the same tricks that they pulled on zetsubo sensei and so visually Maria Holic is absolutely nothing to complain about (it has possibly the greatest opening credit animation ever).
Maybe, therefore, the problem was that I was expecting too much, but overall I found the series flat. I kept waiting for the gags to happen, but it seemed to lack anything resembling punchlines. As I say, maybe a bit of time and distance will make me like it more if I ever get the chance to watch it on DVD or something.
Hetalia - Axis Powers was really quite poor.
Maybe it was another show where I was also hoping for a bit much and maybe my knowledge of world history is a bit lacking, but the show doesn't really make a lot of sense.
It's also kinda offensive, but the problem is it's not wilfully offensive and neither is it being ironic. How can I explain? It's a bit like things like golliwogs and black & white minstrels. Looking back on them they're appallingly offensive and I'm sure to black people at the time they were offensive, but for most white people they just didn't think about it.
It's more like a general ignorance and thoughtlessness, rather than either deliberately being nasty or being ironic.
I finally got my hair cut, so I no longer look like I've got an unruly mop stuck to my head. And the price has gone up again. When I first came here you used to get change from a tenner for a haircut. Now it costs £12.50. I know that's still not a massive amount, but it's a significant leap in a short period of time - especially when you include a tip.
And the Grand Prix season kicked off this weekend with the Australian Grand Prix. Now it may just be because there have been so many rule changes, rather than the nature of those changes, but it was a really good race - there was loads of overtaking. Hamilton, for example, started off at the back as he had to change his gearbox and ended up third.
Let's hope this bodes well for the season as a whole and is due to the cars now being able to overtake properly. Certainly there seemed ot be a lot of evidence for this with cars getting close behind and getting the traditional 'tow' followed by a burst around to overtake.
I also did some scanning. The main thing I needed to do was scan the covers of the DVD series I've watched recently, since I've had them up on e-bay for sale. I did manage to scan megami (the new one should be with me soon!) and animedia as well.
While I scanned I watched some anime (it's interesting doing it on my widescreen monitor - there's enough desktop real estate that I can have everything open without the windows overlapping).
White Album was distinctly okay. I'm not entirely sure what I was expecting of the show - I'd seen a few visuals and it seemed like it was set in the world of 'idols' which is a bizarre Japanese system, but what I hadn't been expecting was a harem anime.
And that's basically what it is when you decompose it - there's a central guy and lots of cute girls seem to be in love with him for no apparent reason. He's also got a hapless mate who fancies one of the girls.
But here's the thing - I think what they've tried to do is make a more 'adult' harem show. And I mean adult in the sense of a grown up story, rather than pornographic. Indeed, it pretty much lacks anything resembling fan-service, which is technically a core element of a proper harem show.
Now this might be okay, but there's a really weird ambience to the show. It's incredibly miserable all the time for no apparent reason. I mean, it's not like rubbish things actually happen to the characters, they're all just very melancholy. It's odd. And it affects the pacing too, which was very slow.
But then the show looks pretty - it's nicely animated and the character designs are nice. Also the characters seem quite interesting... apart from being miserable. Maybe I'm being too harsh.
Maria + Holic was disappointing. It's by the same studio that did Sayonara Zetsubo Sensei (SHAFT) and more than that it's directed by the same guy. It's also an adaptation of a slightly demented manga. They also appear to have used a lot of the same tricks that they pulled on zetsubo sensei and so visually Maria Holic is absolutely nothing to complain about (it has possibly the greatest opening credit animation ever).
Maybe, therefore, the problem was that I was expecting too much, but overall I found the series flat. I kept waiting for the gags to happen, but it seemed to lack anything resembling punchlines. As I say, maybe a bit of time and distance will make me like it more if I ever get the chance to watch it on DVD or something.
Hetalia - Axis Powers was really quite poor.
Maybe it was another show where I was also hoping for a bit much and maybe my knowledge of world history is a bit lacking, but the show doesn't really make a lot of sense.
It's also kinda offensive, but the problem is it's not wilfully offensive and neither is it being ironic. How can I explain? It's a bit like things like golliwogs and black & white minstrels. Looking back on them they're appallingly offensive and I'm sure to black people at the time they were offensive, but for most white people they just didn't think about it.
It's more like a general ignorance and thoughtlessness, rather than either deliberately being nasty or being ironic.
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