My only real plan for this weekend is to thoroughly clean my car - hopefully even to the extent of polishing it!
This is mainly because my landlord has gone on holiday... again. He did this two years ago as well - I think he had 4 separate holidays over the summer period, but then last year I don't think he had one. Not that I'm complaining - more power to him, he should be enjoying his retirement.
Trouble is, it currently looks like the weather is having other ideas - the forecasts are for more rain :/.
I've done a bit more scanning and watched the following:
Cross Game was surprisingly good. On the face of it, it seemed like a baseball sports-drama, and while it is definitely that, it's also quite a bit more too.
If I'm honest, I felt he first episode dragged a bit. I suppose it seemed that everything was a bit too nice and perfect for the man character, Ko. The characters were also quite young and it felt a lot like the show was aimed at that same demographic.
However, towards the end of the first ep there was quite a harsh tragedy (I fair got a lump in me throat) and it kinda hooked me in with that. The next episode skipped ahead 4 years so the characters were now into their teen years at middle school and with it the complexity also seemed to jump.
In other words, there seemed to be some quite complicated interpersonal relationships developing, as well as the whole baseball thing. So yeah, enjoyed it more than I thought I would and would probably watch it if it ever became available, though maybe not buy it.
It's a similar sort of story with Hatsukoi Limited. Well I don't mean story-story - Hatsukoi Limited has nothing to do with baseball - what I mean is that I found it surprisingly good.
It's a little difficult to explain what Hatsukoi is about, mainly because it's not that complicated. I know that sounds weird, but basically it's because it blends together a lot of genres. It's a romantic comedy at heart, but the easiest way I can describe it is to say that it's a lot like Azumanga Diaoh, but with all the girls being total stunners depicted in a more realistic style.
Which is where it gets complicated because I want to start adding in things like it's rather reminiscent of School Rumble too, but I'll stop there. The real thing of note is that I enjoyed it quite a lot and found it to be really quite amusing.
But I guess I should also comment on the big news of the day - Farrah Fawcett died! No wait, I mean Michael Jackson died.
It's all very sudden and shocking. Jackson was kinda ubiquitous when I was growing up - Thriller and Bad were released at the time I was a young kid, and they were all pervasive.
He had some good songs as well, I'll give him that, although clearly he wasn't what anyone would describe as "normal". But then how could he have been? He was a child star and went on to have the biggest selling album ever in thriller - anyone would end up a bit abnormal from all that.
Friday 26 June 2009
Thursday 25 June 2009
bad science
My birthday was a little odd this year - it fell really close to the whole Monaco trip, so for one thing I couldn't really afford to do anything spectacular, but for another it meant the presents from my family members were much delayed.
What I got from my Dad has been really interesting - he bought me a bread maker and a steamer. With the weather having been so hot recently I can't say I've really had a chance to use the steamer yet, but it looks like a really good model. Hopefully I'll give it a whirl with cooking some rice this weekend, which is a pretty basic thing admittedly, but it'll at least give me the chance to try it out.
The bread maker is really great and I've been having lots of fun making loafs of bread. I've not ventured too far from the traditional white bread, but even with that there are different variations - sandwich or more traditional, different sizes and whether you want light or dark crust.
The least successful side of it for me is the sizes - small loafs work really well and are manageable, but the larger loaves are not so easily used. I mean, they're great, it's just they're difficult to cut up, especially for sandwiches, which is what I mainly use bread for, because of the shape they come out in.
But most recipes appear to have smaller versions, so it's not so much of a problem. My next big venture will be into bread rolls I think - they're slightly more complex in that the bread maker only does half the job and you have to do the last bit.
Anyway, the thing I wanted to mainly mention was what my sister got me. She got me a couple of DVDs, but also a book called "bad science" by Ben Goldacre.
It's an interesting read. It covers quite a few subjects, including CAM ("Conventional and Alternative Medicine") and the MMR hoax. I'd always known CAM was pure bullshit and that the MMR hoax was, at best misplaced good intention and at worst, outright lies, so it wasn't these that's got me thinking the most.
What got me thinking was the section on Nutritionists.
It turns out that nutritionism is little more than extension of the hocus-pocus of CAM. The practitioners (or bullshit peddlers is probably a better phrase) of this pseudo-science are little better than the crystal-healers and homeopathic experts of CAM.
This really surprised me, because where homeopathy seems fairly ignored by the news, nutritionist stuff does seem to be in the main stream. Think of all those "diet doctor" type programs any you'll see what I mean. Plus, even the BBC has news articles when the latest stuff about miracle foods emerges.
But the reality is that most of these are nearly total bullshit. The problem seems to come from the fact that proper science is done, but it's miss-reported and miss-represented. Also, there's lots of really bad science done.
The books well worth reading, although I have to admit to a little bit of a dislike for Goldacre's style. It's kind of an odd one, because the people he talks about are clearly contemptible and the bad science conducted is clearly worthy of some scorn. The problem I'm having is he doesn't pull back on the contempt and scorn in the way he writes.
So while I've no problem with him fundamentally doing that, it can read like a personal attack, rather than an evidence-based dissection, which is what it actually is.
What I got from my Dad has been really interesting - he bought me a bread maker and a steamer. With the weather having been so hot recently I can't say I've really had a chance to use the steamer yet, but it looks like a really good model. Hopefully I'll give it a whirl with cooking some rice this weekend, which is a pretty basic thing admittedly, but it'll at least give me the chance to try it out.
The bread maker is really great and I've been having lots of fun making loafs of bread. I've not ventured too far from the traditional white bread, but even with that there are different variations - sandwich or more traditional, different sizes and whether you want light or dark crust.
The least successful side of it for me is the sizes - small loafs work really well and are manageable, but the larger loaves are not so easily used. I mean, they're great, it's just they're difficult to cut up, especially for sandwiches, which is what I mainly use bread for, because of the shape they come out in.
But most recipes appear to have smaller versions, so it's not so much of a problem. My next big venture will be into bread rolls I think - they're slightly more complex in that the bread maker only does half the job and you have to do the last bit.
Anyway, the thing I wanted to mainly mention was what my sister got me. She got me a couple of DVDs, but also a book called "bad science" by Ben Goldacre.
It's an interesting read. It covers quite a few subjects, including CAM ("Conventional and Alternative Medicine") and the MMR hoax. I'd always known CAM was pure bullshit and that the MMR hoax was, at best misplaced good intention and at worst, outright lies, so it wasn't these that's got me thinking the most.
What got me thinking was the section on Nutritionists.
It turns out that nutritionism is little more than extension of the hocus-pocus of CAM. The practitioners (or bullshit peddlers is probably a better phrase) of this pseudo-science are little better than the crystal-healers and homeopathic experts of CAM.
This really surprised me, because where homeopathy seems fairly ignored by the news, nutritionist stuff does seem to be in the main stream. Think of all those "diet doctor" type programs any you'll see what I mean. Plus, even the BBC has news articles when the latest stuff about miracle foods emerges.
But the reality is that most of these are nearly total bullshit. The problem seems to come from the fact that proper science is done, but it's miss-reported and miss-represented. Also, there's lots of really bad science done.
The books well worth reading, although I have to admit to a little bit of a dislike for Goldacre's style. It's kind of an odd one, because the people he talks about are clearly contemptible and the bad science conducted is clearly worthy of some scorn. The problem I'm having is he doesn't pull back on the contempt and scorn in the way he writes.
So while I've no problem with him fundamentally doing that, it can read like a personal attack, rather than an evidence-based dissection, which is what it actually is.
Wednesday 24 June 2009
planet terror
Grindhouse was a project undertaken by Quentin Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez a few years back now.
The idea was for them to both produce a film that harked back to the b-movies that they'd "grown up on". These would then be shown as a double feature, back-to-back, with a few additional bits and pieces chucked in, like fake trailers. QT's offering was called Death Prof, and Rodriguez's feature was Planet Terror.
Broadly speaking it didn't work and flopped a bit at the box office. What they hadn't really factored in was that people aren't really keen on double features any more. Even though cinema ticket prices are quite expensive nowadays, the extra value offered by a double feature didn't really appeal to people.
Certainly I personally can remember thinking that over 3 hours of cinema sitting wasn't much fun for my bum during the LotR features and don't think I'd have much fancied it for the Grindhouse double feature )this was only done in the states - everywhere else got them separate).
So they've also split them up for DVD and extend them a bit. There's still a super-deluxe original-format Grindhouse version I believe, but for the purposes of recouping costs, separating the DVDs makes sense.
I've not seen death proof yet - they're both on my rental lists, and it seems planet terror has popped out first.
Tbh, I don't really mind too much, as of the two I prefer Rodriguez. If I'm honest I'm not quite as enamoured of QT as most film buffs - not that I think his stuff is bad, I just don't orgasm over it in the same way.
Anyway, the point is to talk about Planet Terror.
Overall, my verdict is that it's okay.
Basically, it's roughly a zombie-apocalypse film, although this is actually one of its problems - it's not quite a zombie apocalypse film and I think it would have been a bit better if it had definitely been that.
What it does to very well is capture the cheesiness of such B-movie fair. The problem with this is it means this film is also cheesy. Admittedly it's cheesy with a few knowing winks, but still cheesy.
Also I think a few more direct references to classic B-movies would have helped. There are a few, but not as many as I'd hoped. Instead, as the (interesting) Rodriguez commentary track explains it's more of a homage in general sense.
So we get Carpenter-esque theme tunes or scenes similar in style to his stuff, but not actually directly referencing his films. This works but only so much. Also it becomes apparent that Rodriguez is definitely a Carpenter fanboy.
This is great in that I'm also a bit of a Carpenter fanboy, but the problem is that it needed a bit more of a wider fanbase. Some more influences would have helped, as it it's like why not just watch a Carpenter film instead?
The only other thing that I found odd was that the films were on one level a homage to B-movies of the seventies and eighties and yet they featured a lot of very modern stuff. It's like, the cars were old and the way people dressed was somewhat of the period, yet people had what looked like blackberrys.
Similarly, the films were processed and all scratched up as if they were proper, abused double feature prints (there was even a 'missing reel') from long ago, and yet the plot refers to Osama Bin Laden - a very modern thing.
It made it a little confusing.
Anyway, overall I liked the film, but perhaps not as much as I'd hoped.
The idea was for them to both produce a film that harked back to the b-movies that they'd "grown up on". These would then be shown as a double feature, back-to-back, with a few additional bits and pieces chucked in, like fake trailers. QT's offering was called Death Prof, and Rodriguez's feature was Planet Terror.
Broadly speaking it didn't work and flopped a bit at the box office. What they hadn't really factored in was that people aren't really keen on double features any more. Even though cinema ticket prices are quite expensive nowadays, the extra value offered by a double feature didn't really appeal to people.
Certainly I personally can remember thinking that over 3 hours of cinema sitting wasn't much fun for my bum during the LotR features and don't think I'd have much fancied it for the Grindhouse double feature )this was only done in the states - everywhere else got them separate).
So they've also split them up for DVD and extend them a bit. There's still a super-deluxe original-format Grindhouse version I believe, but for the purposes of recouping costs, separating the DVDs makes sense.
I've not seen death proof yet - they're both on my rental lists, and it seems planet terror has popped out first.
Tbh, I don't really mind too much, as of the two I prefer Rodriguez. If I'm honest I'm not quite as enamoured of QT as most film buffs - not that I think his stuff is bad, I just don't orgasm over it in the same way.
Anyway, the point is to talk about Planet Terror.
Overall, my verdict is that it's okay.
Basically, it's roughly a zombie-apocalypse film, although this is actually one of its problems - it's not quite a zombie apocalypse film and I think it would have been a bit better if it had definitely been that.
What it does to very well is capture the cheesiness of such B-movie fair. The problem with this is it means this film is also cheesy. Admittedly it's cheesy with a few knowing winks, but still cheesy.
Also I think a few more direct references to classic B-movies would have helped. There are a few, but not as many as I'd hoped. Instead, as the (interesting) Rodriguez commentary track explains it's more of a homage in general sense.
So we get Carpenter-esque theme tunes or scenes similar in style to his stuff, but not actually directly referencing his films. This works but only so much. Also it becomes apparent that Rodriguez is definitely a Carpenter fanboy.
This is great in that I'm also a bit of a Carpenter fanboy, but the problem is that it needed a bit more of a wider fanbase. Some more influences would have helped, as it it's like why not just watch a Carpenter film instead?
The only other thing that I found odd was that the films were on one level a homage to B-movies of the seventies and eighties and yet they featured a lot of very modern stuff. It's like, the cars were old and the way people dressed was somewhat of the period, yet people had what looked like blackberrys.
Similarly, the films were processed and all scratched up as if they were proper, abused double feature prints (there was even a 'missing reel') from long ago, and yet the plot refers to Osama Bin Laden - a very modern thing.
It made it a little confusing.
Anyway, overall I liked the film, but perhaps not as much as I'd hoped.
Tuesday 23 June 2009
keep on scanning
So I've been scanning away like mad just recently. I didn't get quite as much done over the weekend as I'd hoped, though. I mean I did a fair bit - a newtype, an animage and the posters from a megami - but I'd been hoping to get almost all of it done.
Part of the problem was that there was loads of telly for me to watch.
I noted before that I've been watching Big Brother and that essentially adds the best part of 7-8 hours of telly watching to my schedule per week. Now it's not as bad as that sounds, because it's more like one hour every day, but it means I can't watch other stuff in that hour, obviously.
But the big thing that's currently knackering me up is Thursday nights. For some reason about a third the programs I'm watching are all scheduled on a Thursday night. It's kind of getting a bit silly, tbh and I'm both hoping one or two of them will end and that I'll be brave enough to severe a couple of them, as they're not that good if I'm brutally honest.
Anyway, the anime shows I've been sampling while scanning have been:
Every year there are one or two shows that are 'stand-out' series for me. They're the shows that I desperately hope will get licensed in the west, and if I ever got to the stage of properly controlling my excessive spending, I would still buy these shows.
One of the best way for me to tell a show like this is if I get to the end of my usual 3 episode sample and I feel torn as to whether I should sample the fourth episode too. If I have a really strong desire to just keep going then that means the show is on the stand-out list. Of course if I'm a bit more happy to put it on hold then it can still be a good show I would probably buy (or all the levels below), but it's just not the best of the best.
Eden of The East is the first stand-out show I've found from this season's crop. It's got a really intriguing plot, an interesting idea behind it and deep characters - what more could you want?
Tayutama Kiss on my Deity was distinctly "meh". I actually only bothered watching 2 episodes as it sat neatly into a few holes.
Basically, it's an 'instant girlfriend' harem type show. The plot is about spirits and stuff, and to be frank it was kinda uninspired. Also, there seemed to be a severe lack of fan-service, which is normally a staple of this sort of show, so it didn't even have that going for it - plus the character designs weren't too my taste either.
Part of the problem was that there was loads of telly for me to watch.
I noted before that I've been watching Big Brother and that essentially adds the best part of 7-8 hours of telly watching to my schedule per week. Now it's not as bad as that sounds, because it's more like one hour every day, but it means I can't watch other stuff in that hour, obviously.
But the big thing that's currently knackering me up is Thursday nights. For some reason about a third the programs I'm watching are all scheduled on a Thursday night. It's kind of getting a bit silly, tbh and I'm both hoping one or two of them will end and that I'll be brave enough to severe a couple of them, as they're not that good if I'm brutally honest.
Anyway, the anime shows I've been sampling while scanning have been:
Every year there are one or two shows that are 'stand-out' series for me. They're the shows that I desperately hope will get licensed in the west, and if I ever got to the stage of properly controlling my excessive spending, I would still buy these shows.
One of the best way for me to tell a show like this is if I get to the end of my usual 3 episode sample and I feel torn as to whether I should sample the fourth episode too. If I have a really strong desire to just keep going then that means the show is on the stand-out list. Of course if I'm a bit more happy to put it on hold then it can still be a good show I would probably buy (or all the levels below), but it's just not the best of the best.
Eden of The East is the first stand-out show I've found from this season's crop. It's got a really intriguing plot, an interesting idea behind it and deep characters - what more could you want?
Tayutama Kiss on my Deity was distinctly "meh". I actually only bothered watching 2 episodes as it sat neatly into a few holes.
Basically, it's an 'instant girlfriend' harem type show. The plot is about spirits and stuff, and to be frank it was kinda uninspired. Also, there seemed to be a severe lack of fan-service, which is normally a staple of this sort of show, so it didn't even have that going for it - plus the character designs weren't too my taste either.
Monday 22 June 2009
silverston's swansong?
On Sunday it was the British Grand Prix at Silverston.
Potentially this could be the last Silverston Grand Prix for a very long time. Bernie Eccleston, the "commercial rights holder" for F1, has signed a 17 year deal with Donnington Park for them to hold the British Grand Prix.
However, there is quite a lot of doubt as to whether Donnington will actually be ready in time for next year. There's been some stuff in the news about some financial struggles they've been having and there's quite a lot of money that needs spending, in order to improve the track and the facilities so that it can hold a GP.
Bernie had made a proclamation that if Donnington wasn't ready next year then there wouldn't be a 2010 British GP as it wasn't coming back to Silverston. This was not good news.
One of the things I like about British GP fans is that they're both passionate and knowledgeable, but they're also magnanimous. If someone drives well and wins - even if it's not what we were hoping for - then we'll congratulate them too. This was amply demonstrated by the big cheer Sebastian Vettel got this year after his truly dominate performance this year, even though all the Brits were clearly hoping Button would win here too.
In other words, Britain is one of the few places on the calendar where F1 (and, indeed, motorsport in general actually) gets a huge reception. The atmosphere is always great and the crowds are always big and vocal.
The same can't be said about a lot of the tracks on the modern roster. Indeed, some of them you're hard pushed to see any spectators in the grandstands, even on Sunday.
Now don't get me wrong, I don't mean that from the point of view of there's no point gong there, but it make it disappointing that Bernie was basically implying there wouldn't be a 2010 British GP.
However, he now appears to have relented, saying that there are now more "commercial people" in the BRDC so he's okay with Silverston having it in 2010 if Donnington isn't ready. The BRDC is the British Racing Driver's Club and they actually 'own' Silverston (I think it's actually held in trust or something) and this comes down to the crux of why Bernie doesn't like Silverston - he hates the BRDC.
From some perspectives you can understand why - the problem with this type of ownership is that it's put a lot of difficult restrictions on raising money to improve the rack, etc.
But here's the thing that makes this an annoying situation - Silverston makes no money from hosting the British Grand Prix, mainly because Bernie charges a fortune for the rights.
When you think about that it's quite an amazing revelation because tickets to the Grand Prix (and the Friday and Saturday supporting days) cost a small fortune. They're way over £100, but if you use that as a basic number, and then think that about 300,000 people attended this year (admittedly a record attendance, but still) then that means £30,000,000 revenue. And Bernie takes so much of it they can't make a profit.
He also keeps all the money generated from TV revenue. He is literally the fat cat that hoovers up most all the cash F1 generates.
Add to that the fact that he and Max Mosley - the head of the FIA - are thick as thieves and you start to understand why the teams have been acting the way they have this year.
Potentially this could be the last Silverston Grand Prix for a very long time. Bernie Eccleston, the "commercial rights holder" for F1, has signed a 17 year deal with Donnington Park for them to hold the British Grand Prix.
However, there is quite a lot of doubt as to whether Donnington will actually be ready in time for next year. There's been some stuff in the news about some financial struggles they've been having and there's quite a lot of money that needs spending, in order to improve the track and the facilities so that it can hold a GP.
Bernie had made a proclamation that if Donnington wasn't ready next year then there wouldn't be a 2010 British GP as it wasn't coming back to Silverston. This was not good news.
One of the things I like about British GP fans is that they're both passionate and knowledgeable, but they're also magnanimous. If someone drives well and wins - even if it's not what we were hoping for - then we'll congratulate them too. This was amply demonstrated by the big cheer Sebastian Vettel got this year after his truly dominate performance this year, even though all the Brits were clearly hoping Button would win here too.
In other words, Britain is one of the few places on the calendar where F1 (and, indeed, motorsport in general actually) gets a huge reception. The atmosphere is always great and the crowds are always big and vocal.
The same can't be said about a lot of the tracks on the modern roster. Indeed, some of them you're hard pushed to see any spectators in the grandstands, even on Sunday.
Now don't get me wrong, I don't mean that from the point of view of there's no point gong there, but it make it disappointing that Bernie was basically implying there wouldn't be a 2010 British GP.
However, he now appears to have relented, saying that there are now more "commercial people" in the BRDC so he's okay with Silverston having it in 2010 if Donnington isn't ready. The BRDC is the British Racing Driver's Club and they actually 'own' Silverston (I think it's actually held in trust or something) and this comes down to the crux of why Bernie doesn't like Silverston - he hates the BRDC.
From some perspectives you can understand why - the problem with this type of ownership is that it's put a lot of difficult restrictions on raising money to improve the rack, etc.
But here's the thing that makes this an annoying situation - Silverston makes no money from hosting the British Grand Prix, mainly because Bernie charges a fortune for the rights.
When you think about that it's quite an amazing revelation because tickets to the Grand Prix (and the Friday and Saturday supporting days) cost a small fortune. They're way over £100, but if you use that as a basic number, and then think that about 300,000 people attended this year (admittedly a record attendance, but still) then that means £30,000,000 revenue. And Bernie takes so much of it they can't make a profit.
He also keeps all the money generated from TV revenue. He is literally the fat cat that hoovers up most all the cash F1 generates.
Add to that the fact that he and Max Mosley - the head of the FIA - are thick as thieves and you start to understand why the teams have been acting the way they have this year.
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