Friday 5 June 2009

behind

I'm so fricking behind with everything.

Just before I went on holiday I bought a couple of new artbooks - the first in months - but now I've kinda realised that I need to scan them. And I've not scanned any of last months magazines at all. Heck, as I was taking the staples out I also realised I'd hardly even looked at those mags :/. And in the next week or two I'll be getting this months mags as well.

I've also gotten sick to death of the great big pile of old & imported mangas I was always planning to scan but have never gotten around to. Plus, I bought two calendars in a sale so I should scan them as well.

And speaking of magazines I've gotten way behind reading my magazines. I buy two each month - White Dwarf (which is for games workshop) and Empire (films) - and I've several recent issues of each still to read.

Part of the reason for that is that I've been really into manga just recently. I've been buying it like it's going out of fashion and so have been focused on reading all this lovely new manga. But that means I don't have time to read anything else.

The other thing I'm way behind on is my websites. Ever since I began doing my websites I've operated a policy of "building up" material. What I tend to do is write loads of reviews and make walls etc over a period of months and then have a big session making updates for the site.

I then roll these updates out on a weekly basis. The idea is that while the updates are rolling out I can be working on more new stuff and so (in theory) the cycle continues.

Unfortunately, what tends to happen in practice is that I work on the new material but then fail to have a new session of making website updates before I've run out of the old ones. The main reason for that is that making the website updates is kinda painful.

For one thing it's very confusing - I end up working across loads of different folders, trying to photoshop stuff here and copy-paste text there. Plus you're not just talking about the actual pages themselves - the front page and all the menus always need updating as well. It can be really slow progress.

The other stumbling block is scanning stuff. As mentioned, I can get way behind and of course for my reviews I like to have scans of the DVD covers, etc, so if I've not done any scanning I don't have them and so can't do the updates.

Of course the other issue is walling.

Generally speaking I try not to just upload reviews, but mix walls and psds in there as well.

Well unfortunately, just recently, I've been utterly uninterested in walling. It's kinda weird actually - a few months back I went through a huge burst of creativity making vectors especially, but then suddenly it sort of died.

The same thing happened with my writing - I had a huge burst of creativity and then *bam* I totally lost the desire to do it.

I mean, it's not that I don't have ideas and stuff, it's just the whole motivation to actually sit down and do stuff appears to have dried up. Hence why I'm so behind.

I think I'm going to take a few long weekends and try to do a bit of catching up. Well, if I can stretch to them - my recent 2 week extravaganza has left me a bit bereft of holiday days.

Oh, and my cold finally seems to be abating. The thing I can't work out about it was that it came on Sunday morning. Normally I get colds within 24 hours of contact with an infected person. However, that would mean I picked it up sometime on Saturday, but on Saturday I literally did not leave my bed-sit and didn't speak to anyone (I relaxed and watched all the telly I'd recorded while away).

The only possible source of germs where the landlords kids/grandkids, but as I say I didn't actually come into contact with them or even open the door. Very odd.

Thursday 4 June 2009

holiday 2 - the monaco grand prix

I've no idea what a principality is.

My guess is that it's basically a bit of a country (in this case France) that's effectively been leased for free to someone. I'm thinking it's a bit like the Hong Kong thing where we won it off the Chinese but had this weird leasehold agreement where after 100 years (or whatever it was) we gave it back to them.

Anyway, whatever it is, it's tiny. You can easily walk from one end to the other in a few hours. Or at least you can if you don't mind walking up very steep hills.

Monaco is a harbour town and it's basically surrounded by cliffs so the whole place is on a huge slant and is incredibly steep. I'm basically talking 45 degree angles here - this is proper steep.

This probably represents my biggest surprise about Monaco - just how steep it is. There's a part on the circuit, just after the start, where they go up a hill towards Casino Square. I'd always known this was a hill, but on the first day, sat in the stands and seeing it I was stunned at just how steep it is, and how long too. It's quite the climb.

Monaco is slightly odd (well, it's a lot odd, actually) in terms of the weekend. Normally a Grand Prix weekend lasts 3 days - Friday, Saturday and Sunday.

On Friday you have F1 practice sessions. On Saturday you have another F1 practice and then the qualifying. On Sunday you have the F1 race.

In addition to this you have all sorts of support races. For example, you have GP2 (the feeder formula for F1) and Formula Renault. But you also have Porsche racing. These other races also have various practice and qualifying sessions too.

Depending on the circuit you'll also have other entertainment stuff too, like fly-bys or special drag races or whatever.

Anyway, at Monaco it's different - they also have Thursday. Now the traditional reason for this was that Friday always used to be a Bank Holiday. But now it isn't; however they haven't recompressed the race - it's still across 4 days.

This unfortunately means the events are more spread out. Where you might have 5 things on each of the 3 days day everywhere else, instead you get 4 things on 4 days at Monaco if you see what I mean.

Anyway, the point is that we only watched on Thursday, Saturday and Sunday, which are the Formula 1 days. Friday had racing, but didn't have any F1 stuff, so we did other stuff then (I'll blog on that later).

On each day we sat in a different place. You'll need to have a look at the circuit on wikipedia to understand where.

Basically on Thursday we in the first part of the harbour, between Tabac (so named because there's an underground Tabac - a shop that sells cigarettes - on the corner) and Louis Chiron (who I believe is a Monaco Racing Driver from the old days). What the ticket allowed us to do was sit in any of the seats in the stands between these two corners, which was kinda cool.

I was amazed at how close you are to the drivers. Monaco is a street circuit and if you imagine a normal road, where the pavement is is where the stands start. I reckon in some of the stands if you'd have gone down the front you could have tapped the driver on the head as they drove past (except there's obviously a fence in the way!).

The closeness means it's bloody loud too. One of the things people are always amazed at is just how loud F1 cars are. The thing I compare them to is a loud fog-horn, but continuous rather than a burst - you have to shout right into someone's ear so they can hear you over the noise. If you then imagine that noise rattling around streets and also being close (most proper circuits have runoff areas and gravel traps so you're some way away) you can start to imagine how loud it is.

I got some good photos there, including a sighting of David Coulthard and Martin Brundle - both ex-drivers who do commentary/coverage for the BBC.

Another amazing thing about the harbour is how big some of these yachts are - they're like cruise liners, but are privately owned. There were millions and millions of pounds worth of yacht there.

But what's more, some of the smaller ones are parked up right at the edge of the circuit - the harbour is right next to the road they drive on. So there were people sat in the yachts, watching the race.

Also, in one of the lulls some page 3 type models came out of one of the yachts and started taking photos of each other. I couldn't really see from where we were, but they appeared to be wearing bikinis, although they certainly still got a reaction from the stands with people blowing those horns and cheering at them.

Saturday we were at Casino square. Of the three days this was probably the best in terms of the placing and the general atmosphere.

It was a single stand and it was the most comfortable seating, both in terms of what it was (moulded plastic seats that fit your bottom comfortably) and the space you had. You also got a really good view of the cars as they belted around Massenet and into casino square.

The casino is also right there on the other side of the track. In front of it was a large terrace type thing with a restaurant with a lot of people watching. Down the sides were some shops - that's another thing about Monaco.

If you want to watch the race you have two options. You need to be in a stand or you need to get onto a roof of one of these shops or in the rooms. You can't just go and stand and watch like you can at every other Grand Prix.

Well I say that - there is a place you can do that, called "the Rock". This has nothing to do with the wrestler and is literally a big rock where people stand and watch. But it's not some gentle slope - it's almost vertical. But on Sunday you would not believe how packed it was up there - I got some pictures.

Casino is close to where Lewis Hamilton spanked the barrier on Saturday and he walked right through the casino and I got a few pics. He kept his helmet on which was the first clear indication it was entirely driver error.

Casino was very civilised too - out the back was a little ark think where we could go when there was no track action and have a lie down. It was where we had lunch too and it was where we had another bit of a surprise.

We were all expecting that the cost of food and drinks and merchandise would be horrendous, but they weren't. Well, they were - but no more horrendous than at any other Grand Prix. We'd assumed that with the captive market and being where it was it would be doubly ridiculous, back actually they were about what you'd expect to pay at the British Grand Prix.

Anyway, on Sunday we were at Piscine (or swimming pool - and so named because there is an actual swimming pool there. It's a smallish one, but, rather incongruously, it had a water flume.). The stand actually faced along the track away from the swimming pool.

This was a bit of an odd position to be in. Form a track point of view you mainly see the back of the cars. There's a tricky chicane there that the Ferraris seemed rather intent on cutting all the time, but even then they're not really side on to you.

However, what you gain is a decent view of the pits (Monaco is odd in that the pit garages actually face away from the Start/Finish straight). This was something of a revelation. When you see them in the pits on TV it seems smooth and flowing and thoroughly well organised.

Seeing them in real life was like watching barely organised chaos - it's a massive flurry of activity and has much more of a feeling of impending, narrowly avoided disaster.

This is also where Kovalainen had his crash, which was rather stunning. I've seen crashes before of course having been to the British Grand Prix, but it was amazing to be so close to it.

When Kovalainen got out of the car he was clearly quite dazed. As I said from there you're right behind the pits and he seemed determined to run across to them, despite having to run across the circuit on what is effectively a blind corner. Also, the pits are actually slightly elevated, so how he thought he was going to climb over I don't know!

Wednesday 3 June 2009

no country for old men

Upon my return from holiday I watched no country for old men on rental. I'd initially planned to watch it before the holiday, but didn't get the time.

I have to say it was pretty good, although it wasn't quite what I was expecting.

It's a Coen brothers film and you can definitely tell it's one of theirs. Although it's not an out-and-out (black) comedy like the others of theirs I've seen it's got a lot of very dark humour in it.

Y'know I'm not entirely sure what to say about the film. I mean it's very good, but it's also pretty complex too.

To me it seemed to be an attempt to subvert just about everything. A big part of the film is essentially a chase - the protagonist, Moss, comes across a drug deal gone wrong out in the desert and steals the money. A psychopath, Chigurh, is then basically sent to recover the money and kill him, so he spends the majority of the film chasing him.

However, in addition, there's a sheriff who's "on their trail" as well. However, even though all of the characters do end up with scenes together, the contact between them is somehow distant and almost implied. By that I mean I don't think they ever actually see each others faces

For example there's a big shoot-out between Chigurh and Moss, but it's all in the dark and often done at a distance so they never see each others faces.

Similarly, a second psychopath is hired to sort out the mess Chigurh is making, but almost as soon as he arrives on the scene he seems to offer Moss a way out, but Chigurh then instantly finds him and kills him.

So do you see what I mean? These things are not how a normal story "should" go. It's subverting the norm.

The biggest subversion comes at the end. I won't spoiler it too much, but lets just say that anything you might expect to happen because of the type of film it is doesn't.

And from that point of view it's a really great film.

The difficulty is it also makes it a very complex film where you really have to think about what happened to get it. Which is always great, but it makes it a film you have to go to with that expectation - it's really not a switch your brain off type of movie.
Wednesday - no country for old men
Upon my return from holiday I watched no country for old men on rental. I'd initially planned to watch it before the holiday, but didn't get the time.
I have to say it was pretty good, although it wasn't quite what I was expecting.
It's a Coen brothers film and you can definitely tell it's one of theirs. Although it's not an out-and-out (black) comedy like the others of theirs I've seen it's got a lot of very dark humour in it.
Y'know I'm not entirely sure what to say about the film. I mean it's very good, but it's also pretty complex too.
To me it seemed to be an attempt to subvert just about everything. A big part of the film is essentially a chase - the protagonist, Moss, comes across a drug deal gone wrong out in the desert and steals the money. A psychopath, Chigurh, is then basically sent to recover the money and kill him, so he spends the majority of the film chasing him.
However, in addition, there's a sheriff who's "on their trail" as well. However, even though all of the characters do end up with scenes together, the contact between them is somehow distant and almost implied. By that I mean I don't think they ever actually see each others faces
For example there's a big shoot-out between Chigurh and Moss, but it's all in the dark and often done at a distance so they never see each others faces.
Similarly, a second psychopath is hired to sort out the mess Chigurh is making, but almost as soon as he arrives on the scene he seems to offer Moss a way out, but Chigurh then instantly finds him and kills him.
So do you see what I mean? These things are not how a normal story "should" go. It's subverting the norm.
The biggest subversion comes at the end. I won't spoiler it too much, but lets just say that anything you might expect to happen because of the type of film it is doesn't.
And from that point of view it's a really great film.
The difficulty is it also makes it a very complex film where you really have to think about what happened to get it. Which is always great, but it makes it a film you have to go to with that expectation - it's really not a switch your brain off type of movie.

Tuesday 2 June 2009

holiday 1 - journeys

So what I thought I'd do was split commentary on my holiday up into a series of blog entries, rather than do one ginormous one.

Today it's all about the journey.

I was thinking back on it and the journey was a little weird - going out there was the ginormous continuous slog, but coming back took three days!

Now going out the original plan was that we were all going to go from Devon. At the time both my Dad and my sister lived in Devon so it made sense to me that I should go down there and we could all go together.

However, in the mean time my sister suddenly got a new job and, rather selfishly if I'm being honest, decided she was going to go from where she mow lives. But I, being a little worried at trusting Dad to make the journey on his own, still went down to Devon.

Now from a logical point of view this made the journey a little daft. We were flying out from Gatwick and that's really close to where I live - closer in fact than my sister. But I was driving down to Devon to then catch a train to Gatwick!

Unfortunately I also needed some new tyres for my car, but it turned out that the tyres I have are basically only used on my car, so they needed to be ordered in. This meant I had to get them changed on the day I was driving down, which made things more stressful.

Luckily the journey down wasn't too bad as they got the tyres in a bit earlier than expected. However, due to the time the train set off I had to go to bed really early. As you might expect I was a little excited so I hardly slept a wink and then we were up and off to the train station.

The train took several hours. We also made a bit of an error by technically getting the wrong train; although really it wasn't the wrong train as such, it was actually the other option we could have taken, but hadn't wanted to as it meant more changes.

The reason for the error was that on the platform we changed to there were no announcements as to where the train was going, nor was there any board or sign up saying where the train was going. So, wrongly, we assumed the next train arriving was ours and got on it.

This was also where the weirdness of my driving to Devon and training it back became obvious - we stopped at several stations that are literally just down the road from me :/.

Anyway, we arrived and then we had the ordeal that was check-in to go through.

I've never flown before, so this was my first time and I was amazed at the amount of faffing about and waiting around there is. The flight itself was only one and a half hours long, but all the pissing about was twice as long as that - bloody daft.

Flying itself was odd. I can't say I really enjoyed the experience, but equally I didn't freak out or anything.

I'm afraid of heights and there was a moment when we were tacking off where this kicked in, but as we got higher it seemed to fade away. However, I did have a few moments where I had a light-headed, swimming sort of feeling about there being nothing underneath me for 30,000 feet.

Also we had some turbulence and I was really not a big fan of that at all. According to me sister who's a seasoned long-haul traveller, that wasn't really bad turbulence, but it was enough for me.

The worst part was watching the wing wobble - it was only a short haul flight so it was a small plane and apparently the wings are stiffer on bigger planes, but when you're in the turbulence you can actually see the tip of the wing wobbling up and down by several metres. It's very disconcerting.

Anyway, we arrived safe and sound in Marseille, but we were actually staying in Nice, which, it turned out was a 3 hour coach driver away. Okay, fair enough, but we had the comedy coach driver from hell.

He was very late picking us up, which isn't great given all the waiting around we'd already done. He also didn't speak a word of English. But worse was that halfway through the journey he pulled into a service area.

Our tour manager was a bit surprised and asked him what he was doing and it turned out he'd been on the road for 8 hours and so legally, had to take a break. So we all improvised some dinner and then set off again.

The kicker was that when we arrived in Nice it turned out he didn't know Nice at all. Now Nice is clearly a horrible place to drive around anyway - it's got loads of one way streets and there's also a motorway flyover that's so low coaches can't get under it. So it's a difficult journey to get to the hotel anyway and add into that he didn't have a clue where to go and so it was... fun.

So that was the journey there - I'd estimate that I basically spent something like 30 hours travelling with only a (rubbish) sleep in the middle.

The return journey was a lot smoother in the sense that there were no cock ups and we knew where we were going and doing. But as I say it took me three days. Basically on the first day was the coach journey to Marseille and the flight. We then stayed in the Travel inn near the airport.

Initially I though this was essentially a waste of time, but let's put it this way - I was in bed, asleep a mere hour or so after getting there. It didn't help that it had the worlds most rubbish air conditioning system that simply didn't work - oh how I longed to be able to simply open the window.

The second day was the train journey back. Then we had to pick up Dad's dog, which took hours as the kennels were bloody miles away. Plus when we got back I had loads of stuff to put in the car (I was taking my sister's sofa thing back with me).

That took so long it would have been daft (and dangerous) to attempt to drive back that evening.

So that meant sleeping over so the third day was when I finally drove home.

Blimey!

Monday 1 June 2009

return to work

Well, I'm back to work.

Truth be told I'm a bit broken after the holiday.

The skin on my arms is still peeling, I'm still bloody tired and I appear to have picked up some sort of cold. It's a bit of a half-arsed cold, though - I don't really feel bad as such, but I've got a soar throat and a mild case of the sniffles. I'm guessing it's a reflection of being a bit run down more than anything.

It was an excellent holiday. I'll be blogging about it in detail later in the week I think - today is just about getting used to being back at work, I think.

I've still loads to catch up on post holiday.

One of the things I always forget is just how much internetting I do. You go away for not even a couple of weeks and you've 70 e-mails to deal with - and these aren't just spam, they need me to do stuff. And then there's all the forums and news sites a surf on a regular basis that I've been trying to catch up on.

There's a good week of catching up there alone and on top of that there's all the real-world stuff too of course.

return to work

Well, I'm back to work.

Truth be told I'm a bit broken after the holiday.

The skin on my arms is still peeling, I'm still bloody tired and I appear to have picked up some sort of cold. It's a bit of a half-arsed cold, though - I don't really feel bad as such, but I've got a soar throat and a mild case of the sniffles. I'm guessing it's a reflection of being a bit run down more than anything.

It was an excellent holiday. I'll be blogging about it in detail later in the week I think - today is just about getting used to being back at work, I think.

I've still loads to catch up on post holiday.

One of the things I always forget is just how much internetting I do. You go away for not even a couple of weeks and you've 70 e-mails to deal with - and these aren't just spam, they need me to do stuff. And then there's all the forums and news sites a surf on a regular basis that I've been trying to catch up on.

There's a good week of catching up there alone and on top of that there's all the real-world stuff too of course.

return to work

Well, I'm back to work.

Truth be told I'm a bit broken after the holiday.

The skin on my arms is still peeling, I'm still bloody tired and I appear to have picked up some sort of cold. It's a bit of a half-arsed cold, though - I don't really feel bad as such, but I've got a soar throat and a mild case of the sniffles. I'm guessing it's a reflection of being a bit run down more than anything.

It was an excellent holiday. I'll be blogging about it in detail later in the week I think - today is just about getting used to being back at work, I think.

I've still loads to catch up on post holiday.

One of the things I always forget is just how much internetting I do. You go away for not even a couple of weeks and you've 70 e-mails to deal with - and these aren't just spam, they need me to do stuff. And then there's all the forums and news sites a surf on a regular basis that I've been trying to catch up on.

There's a good week of catching up there alone and on top of that there's all the real-world stuff too of course.