Friday 9 July 2010

it's a heat wave

Not much to say today.

It's the British Grand Prix this weekend, so I'll be emerging myself in that. I'll also probably give the car a bit of a wipe down, although the forecasts are that this weekend will officially be a heat wave - it's certainly hot enough in the office today.

I always wondered what a heat wave was, and the definition of it is actually weirdly unpleasant. A heat wave is essentially a period when the temperature stays very high for a consistent period of time. Part of the key to this seems to be the night - if the temperature stays high at night then that means there's no chance for people to cool down properly.

And if there's no chance to cool down, then that leads to increased deaths. I kid you not - an official heat wave is essentially about an increase in the number of premature deaths.

I'll leave you with that pleasant thought - enjoy your sunny weekend. Needless to say my air con will be going about its important business.

Thursday 8 July 2010

shit happens

This weeks seems to have been a veritable textbook definition of the expression "shit happens".

On Monday I discovered I'd made bit of an error at work.

Basically I'm working on a literature review, which means reading all sorts of reports and I discovered that what I thought were documents to be included were actually not quite that. Instead, they were, in essence, documents that were to be included only if the customer is willing to pay for them.

In other words, I've done a bunch of work that technically we're not definitely going to be paid for. As it turns out, I think the reason I've gone over the times is actually because my work colleague has done a much smaller share of what was required. So, if there were 40 documents, I've done 30 and my colleague has done 10.

If we'd both only have done 20, then these extra documents would have been within the time allocated. I'm not sure that makes sense, but I know what I mean.

Also, at the end of Monday the work colleague and I had a long chat about which documents were still to be done and what was next. And I mean loooooong. This colleague could talk the hind legs off a donkey.

So I didn't even leave work until 6:30, which meant I got back really late. After having a bit to eat, it was basically time to go to bed. I therefore couldn't bake any bread for my lunch on Tuesday.

Following the discovery on Monday of me being over the days allowed, I basically had to suspend activity on that project. And that meant getting something else to do. And what I ended up doing was horribly tedious.

Basically, I had to do data entry. And it was tedious data - lots of dates and serial numbers, which are dull, but also easy to make errors with.

Plus Tuesday I had to buy lunch, which also meant I bought some other bits (as you do) and put my whole shopping schedule out of whack.

When I got home I initially had plans to do something productive and did something utterly unproductive instead. I also discovered that sometime during the day one of the curtain rails in my room had fallen down, which took a good half hour to fix.

Wednesday was more tedious data entry, except for the end where my boss suddenly asked me to do some stuff on a bid she's working on. However, my colleague on the other project had got themselves into a bit of a flap and basically asked me to continue working on that project, so I could get something to them by Monday. It's really not needed for a while - I wasn't even going to start on it until Monday - but it was easier just to agree to do it.

And it would need a couple of days to do, so I planned to finish the data entry on Wednesday, then work on it Thursday and Friday. Except the bid was due to go Friday lunch and my boss is away all day today.

So I've basically had to drop everything and work on this bad today. What I didn't appreciate from the simple instructions she gave was just how much effort it was going to need. I've spent all morning working on it and it's still got lots to do. There's nothing more I can do for now, but I wouldn't be surprised if I have to get involved tomorrow as well (hopefully more people will be back, so my boss will pick on them!).

And to cap it all off, last night when I thought finally I could do that productive stuff (finish Samurai Champloo or do more scanning) instead I get involved in a massive e-drama and the entire evening disappears.

See - sometimes shit just happens.

Wednesday 7 July 2010

no review

Today would be review day, where I do a little review of the rental DVD I watched over the weekend.

Well, there isn't one.

See, first off, there was no rental DVD. Due to how the package I'm on works, I basically get 3 DVDs a month. If you do the maths - 12*3 = 36, you'll see that means that some weeks I don't get a rental DVD.

But then of course some weeks I'm on holiday, so I'm not blogging anyway, or I simply watch a DVD I own and review that.

Well, I wasn't on holiday and I did watch a DVD, but the problem is, I liked it so much and I think I've got so much to say about it that I'd like to do a proper review for trismugistus.com.

So there's no review. But speaking of trismugistus.com, I did finally update the site last weekend. Plus, I have 2 more updates ready to go. Of course, then I run out of stuff, but hey, you never know, I'm might do something about it.

Tuesday 6 July 2010

one and a half newtypes

So this last weekend I had a decision to make as to how to spend a chunk of my leisure time.

I could have sat and watched a bunch of DVDs, or I could have read some comics/manga or I could do some scanning (and watch some fansubs). In the end I decided to go down the scanning route and scanned one and a half new types.

That doesn't sound a lot, but a normal newtype has about 60 scannable pages, so we're talking the best part of a hundred scans. You can get some idea how long this took from the fact that I watched a total of 8 fansub episodes (2 episodes each of 4 series). A single anime episode runs about 25 minutes with the opening and ending animations, so we're talking about 3.5 hours there alone.

But then you have to think that I'm continuously stopping and starting when I'm scanning (I can't read subtitles if I'm putting the next page into the scanner).

Anyway, the point is I've got some of those small anime reviews I like to do:


Angel Beats!

The first episode of Angel Beats is terrible.

One thing I learned when I was starting to write was that info dumps are very bad things. An info dump is when you have loads of paragraphs that just explain stuff. They're most common in fantasy and SF because there's all sorts of things the writer feels he needs to explain to his readers about the world he's created.

Now they're not forbidden, but they are a tricky thing to master. Usually because while the stuff seems cool and interesting and clever to the writer, generally, the reader will find it boring. Especially like here when it's all a bunch of stuff you've seen before.

The standard trick for discussing info dumps is to do it in dialogue. You have your lead character or someone else who doesn't know any of this stuff ask questions, then your other characters can simply explain it.

Wow - amazing and simple solution, right?

Well no, because boring, clichés are still boring clichés when your character says them. The best solution is to utilise show don't tell - you don't have your characters talk about stuff, you have them do stuff that demonstrates the point.

The difficulty with anime of course is that it's quite expansive to anime things that show, but quite cheap to animate lip flaps. And to be fair, Angel Beats does show us stuff, but it has far too much info dumping to be enjoyable.

Or it does in the first episode. The second episode was a lot more fun - perhaps they'd decided to cram it all into the first episode and the rest of the series is more enjoyable?

My instinct is to give it the benefit of the doubt.


Working!!

Clearly exclamation points (ugh) are the vogue in anime titles at the moment - the second season of K-ON!(ugh) has also had the temerity to go for a double exclamation point. It's sort of all right there, because it's the second season, so it's sort of a gag. Here you've got wanton double exclamation point use.

What makes it worse is that the series is also a bit poor.

The problem is similar to that of Angel Beats!(ugh) - it feels like the cobbling together of a bunch of anime clichés and tropes. Witness: lolis, menial part-time jobs, cut uniforms, tsundere, fear of the opposite sex, hot chick inflicting violence on male lead; disinterested manager, cool chef... hands up if you can't name half a dozen series featuring each of those.

Although the real problem here is a lack of mojo. Where Angel Beats!(ugh) at least tries to be fun, Working!!(ugh) is dull and flaccid. It also doesn't help that it keeps repeating the same basic jokes over and over - oh look, the loli girl is short, hilarious; oh no, wait, she's denying her shortness - I LOLd (the first time). Oh no, the tsundere has punched him in the face again for no apparent reason other than his hormones - I've never seen such japery.


Arakawa Under the Bridge

Ah, SHAFT, how plain and boring many anime would be without your visual chicanery.

Yes, it's this seasons SHAFT show and it's a good one. In this case, they're back to their bonkers best, as Arakawa is a rather unhinged series.

It's good, though.


Hakuouki Shinsengumi Kitan

I'm pretty sure this series fits squarely into the reverse harem genre.

In case you don't know that means there's a single girl surrounded by loads of men (i.e. the opposite of a guy surrounded by lots of girls, hence the name). Here, the series is set back in feudal times, so the guys are all samurai, but there's all sorts of physical and personality types.

The only show I've watched that I really liked in this genre was Ouran High School Host Club and while I didn't like this sufficiently to keep watching, I did think it was okay. I'd say if this sort of show is your bag then this, from my perspective, seems like a good example.

The only weird thing was the pacing - weeks seem to suddenly elapse between scenes for no real reason. Considering the girl is searching for her father, who we assume is in some trouble, she doesn't seem to cause much of a fuss if two weeks drift by.

Monday 5 July 2010

oh that holiday

So Sunday morning I looked out the window and noticed my landlord buggering about with his caravan.

And then Sunday afternoon he knocks and my door and explains how they'll be setting off tomorrow (Monday) and here' the key to look after his place.

Which presumably means I'll get home and they'll be gone. And I'm left slightly puzzled as to whether I'm going bonkers or he's just changed the date. He didn't mention he did and I was in the middle of dinner (he's got a hell of a knack of knocking on my door while I'm eating or just about to take something out of the oven) so I didn't ask, but I'm pretty sure he said he was heading off on the 1st of July.

I dunno, maybe he didn't say that date or maybe he changed it because of the rain, it just gets very confusing is all.

I'm now about half of the way through Matter. It's very good, but I have to admit it feels like it's a little padded. Well I say that, in the midpoint, Banks is essentially juggling 4 plot-threads at the same time and it keeps moving between them in a sort of languid way.

No, that's not right - it's like every time we switch narrative you shift into a different gear. Some of the stuff is told almost in a summary way, while other bits are told at a very leisurely pace. It's not a bad thing, because Banks's stuff is always very entertaining and readable, it's just that when I reached page 300 and realised I'm only half way through I think I sort of which he'd only had 3 plot threads, if you see what I mean.

My little toe on my foot ached like a bugger on Friday, and then Sunday it itched like mad. This is the one that I banged and while scratching it bits of scar tissue were coming away. That usually means it's all healed if the old scar tissue is breaking away, but it doesn't half make things look messy.

And speaking of Friday we went to the pub at lunch for a work colleagues birthday. I wouldn't usually mention this sort of thing, but it was a slightly bizarre experience. We went to a pub called the French Horn, which we've been to a handful of times over the ten years I've worked here.

Usually I associate it with being very busy at lunch - it's a well known gastro pub, but we were virtually the only people in there. And perhaps the explanation was that the food was really odd.

I had belly pork, which was reasonable enough, but it had this sauce with it that I thought was going to be normal apple sauce, but it was actually a sort of creamy sauce that was apple flavoured. Also, the crackling on the top was weirdly chewy where I normally associate it with being crispy.

And then the pudding. I had a fruit crumble and it turned up and was crunchy. At first, I thought this must be in the crumble, but then the actual fruit bit had crunchy stuff in it too. Now I can't be sure because the fruit was obviously brightly coloured and the crumble was covered in custard, but I'm pretty sure these crunchy bits were peanuts.

Yes, that's right, peanuts in a fruit crumble. It was just plain wrong and, tbh, slightly unpleasent.
oh that holiday

So Sunday morning I looked out the window and noticed my landlord buggering about with his caravan.

And then Sunday afternoon he knocks and my door and explains how they'll be setting off tomorrow (Monday) and here' the key to look after his place.

Which presumably means I'll get home and they'll be gone. And I'm left slightly puzzled as to whether I'm going bonkers or he's just changed the date. He didn't mention he did and I was in the middle of dinner (he's got a hell of a knack of knocking on my door while I'm eating or just about to take something out of the oven) so I didn't ask, but I'm pretty sure he said he was heading off on the 1st of July.

I dunno, maybe he didn't say that date or maybe he changed it because of the rain, it just gets very confusing is all.

I'm now about half of the way through Matter. It's very good, but I have to admit it feels like it's a little padded. Well I say that, in the midpoint, Banks is essentially juggling 4 plot-threads at the same time and it keeps moving between them in a sort of languid way.

No, that's not right - it's like every time we switch narrative you shift into a different gear. Some of the stuff is told almost in a summary way, while other bits are told at a very leisurely pace. It's not a bad thing, because Banks's stuff is always very entertaining and readable, it's just that when I reached page 300 and realised I'm only half way through I think I sort of which he'd only had 3 plot threads, if you see what I mean.

My little toe on my foot ached like a bugger on Friday, and then Sunday it itched like mad. This is the one that I banged and while scratching it bits of scar tissue were coming away. That usually means it's all healed if the old scar tissue is breaking away, but it doesn't half make things look messy.

And speaking of Friday we went to the pub at lunch for a work colleagues birthday. I wouldn't usually mention this sort of thing, but it was a slightly bizarre experience. We went to a pub called the French Horn, which we've been to a handful of times over the ten years I've worked here.

Usually I associate it with being very busy at lunch - it's a well known gastro pub, but we were virtually the only people in there. And perhaps the explanation was that the food was really odd.

I had belly pork, which was reasonable enough, but it had this sauce with it that I thought was going to be normal apple sauce, but it was actually a sort of creamy sauce that was apple flavoured. Also, the crackling on the top was weirdly chewy where I normally associate it with being crispy.

And then the pudding. I had a fruit crumble and it turned up and was crunchy. At first, I thought this must be in the crumble, but then the actual fruit bit had crunchy stuff in it too. Now I can't be sure because the fruit was obviously brightly coloured and the crumble was covered in custard, but I'm pretty sure these crunchy bits were peanuts.

Yes, that's right, peanuts in a fruit crumble. It was just plain wrong and, tbh, slightly unpleasent.