canadian grand prix

I guess I should start my catching up proper by mentioning the Canadian grand prix.

The Canadian is always a good race as there's plenty of places where overtaking is possible.  I find it kinda weird that when they (Tilka) are designing circuits they don't really seem to have analysed what allows cars to overtake.

So at Canada one of the key features is you get some reasonable straights followed by a tight, slow corner.  That means cars can get up close, in the slipstream on the corner and they have to get the corner just right or they might lock up and if they don't get it right the driver behind has the chance to pounce.

Tilka circuits you often seem to get one gigantic long straight.  Well you need decent straights, but after a point it becomes pointless because aero and engine limits means that once they're at top speed (which happens quick as they accelerate like a stabbed rat) then that's it.  It also then means there are loads of corners crammed in in the rest of the circuit, which just creates a train of cars.

Anyway, this year Canada was pretty good.  I have to confess it was a bit disappointing that Vettel managed to just shoot off past the Mercedes at the start and then was miles in front for the whole race.  Which isn't to say there wasn't plenty going on, it was just further down.

I still don't get the Mercedes - they can pump in a super quick lap in qualifying, but then it's like they turn the wick down for the race.  I mean, I appreciate they may be harder on their tyres so that would cause them problems after a while, but why does that mean they're slower at the start of the race too?

Unfortunately Canada was a little dampened for me as it was actually the day when Iain Banks died.  I didn't know that on the day, but when I found out on the Monday it kinda took the shine off and was a little distracting.

He actually did a few interviews for his new book (which, weirdly, features a character dying from cancer, but was started way before Banks found out he was too.  One of these was broadcast on the telly last week and they have since appeared in the press.  I guess they can't have been filmed long before he died and he did look - well, I wouldn't say bad, but tired and a bit thin, I guess; although obviously it's easy to project how you'd expect him to look into his appearance.

It's an odd feeling knowing someone who was essentially still producing top-class work that you really enjoy is now no longer going to do so.  The last time I recall it was when Kurt Cobain died - all the songs he would have written that now never would.

a (long) short list

I'd obviously put together one of my famous to do lists for my holiday.

One of the main things I wanted to do was watch some of the fansubs I have failed to keep up with.  I did watch a few things, although not as much as I'd hoped.  However, I was sensible to watch things that haven't been licensed since they take up more room (for licensed stuff I generally only download a couple of episodes to sample them).

I also watched Nausicaa and Howl's Moving Castle on DVD.  I've had them for ages but have failed to find time to watch them.  I liked both, but they won't be going into my permanent collection - for Nausicaa I think he's done the same basic themes better elsewhere (Mononoke in particular) and Howl's was enjoyable, but lacked depth.

One of the things I wanted to try was my new portable Blu-Ray drive.  This is an external type drive for a computer, rather than a stand-alone portable player.  Weirdly it has a thing that says you can essentially run Blu-rays directly into TVs from it via USB, but then contradictorily it requires two USB sockets when you plug it in to a computer in order to power it, so how can it run okay on a TV when you only plug it into one USB slot?

Also, it moaned horribly about my laptop's graphics card not providing hardware acceleration (fair enough, it is an old laptop) so how can a TV run Blu-Ray disks direct?

Anyway, my laptop wasn't really man enough for the job of playing Blu-Rays.  The drive came with Power DVD, which basically refused to play the disks at all without the hardware acceleration and even when using the other player (the open source Korean one - I forget the name) the playback was horribly jittery.  However, the other thing this drive gives me, which in some ways is more important, is the ability to play DVDs multi-region.

Well, the drive itself doesn't, but AnyDVD is able to get around the region coding issue.  I discovered last time I took a holiday with the intent of watching some anime (the vast majority of my collection being Region 1) that my laptop's internal DVD drive is essentially built in such a way that it can't be gotten around - once you use up your allowed number of changes, that's it.

The other thing I wanted to do was catch up on reading - I've ended up with a lot of manga that I wanted to read.  I'd also managed to accumulate several magazines, all of which I finished.  I also read World War Z, which I got on the kindle.  It's really very good - even if you don't like zombies it's done in such a way that the fact it's zombies is mostly sort of incidental.  It's difficult to explain, but I can see why it's been such a hit.  Quite how they'll make a film of it and make it exciting I'm not sure, though.

I say I read them all - I read all that I took, which is the majority, but I've some more manga at home I need to read.  Most of this is actually in hardback or very large size format, which is why it was difficult to take with me.

shelves of doom

I mentioned last week I would take some pics of my shelves, so I thought I'd present those today.

There are actually two shelves.

First is the one on the right.

A: Ink Cartridges
B: Some of my important documents.
C: Stack of important (and non-important, to be frank) documents that I haven't sorted out yet (though I'll need to go through them soon as I need to find something).  Plus this is where I keep my TV listing and all my remote controls.
D: These are basically piles of anime where I've bought and imported the original Japanese anime version (and I wonder why I'm skint).  I'm also in the process of collecting the western versions and my hope is that this combo will sell quite well on e-bay.  I'm somewhat afraid that actually they won't sell at all well, so I'm also kinda ignoring them.

E: This shelf is where I keep all the unscanned Japanese anime magazines.  As you can see, it's a fair pile, but it's a lot smaller than it was.  There used to be so many that they lived on the shelf below, which is much taller.
F: These are my PC games.  The ones in the front row are those I haven't really played much yet, if at all, and the ones in the back are ones I have played and want to hold on too or want to play a bit more, but feel I should really do something about those unplayed ones first.
G: And this is the core stack of anime.  As you can see it's quite a deep shelf and you have to remember that these are stacked in two piles, one in front of the other.  That's a lot of unwatched stuff.  It's also the stuff I've prioritised to watch "first" which obviously means I have a couple of other stacks of stuff I want to watch "after" :/.

H: This stack (again, double depth) is the real life TV series (or at least non-anime and non-film) all unwatched (well, I'll have watch the majority of the actual shows when they were broadcast, but I've not watched the DVDs).
I: This stack is "films".  Again, double depth and featuring a mix of live action, foreign and anime.
J: This is my cheater stack, where I've stacked up all those series I'm in the middle of.  It's yet another way of excluding stuff from the to watch pile because I like to marathon things.
K: These cake boxes contain all of the audio books that I've already listened to.  I like to listen to audio books while I walk.  as you can see I walk quite a bit.
L: This is the main chunk of box files containing important documents.
M: My digital radio which wakes me up in the morning.  I got it as a present from my Dad and was worried I might not be able to get a signal, but actually it's great.  My digital telly is problematic, but I think it's because the aerial is pointing at the London region antennae, rather than the Meridian, which is a lot closer.  Also we've still not switched over to full digital service in either region, so signal strength is lower than it could be anyway.
N: These stacks are original Japanese manga that I'm disassembling in order that I can scan the big spreads and dramatic images.  It's really a hang over from when I used to make wallpapers and I used to find new/different/original content by doing this.  Now they're just stuck in the huge scanning backlog (they're sell for a pittance on e-bay, so this way they at least get put to some use before being chucked away)
O: My right speaker, perfectly positioned so I get great stereo effect when watching DVDs or Blu-Ray... except of course I stuck a bunch of stuff in front of it :/.


Second is the one on the left.

P: The other speaker
Q: The overspill pile.  It's mainly anime, but there's plenty of normal TV stuff in there too.  My intention is to watch this stuff after the other stuff... yeah, because I'm ever going to get through all that other stuff :/.
R: My unread books.

 S: VHS Tapes - burn the heretic!  They're old anime VHS tapes that I felt guilty about chucking away without rewatching at least once.
T: Supposed to be my unread manga pile, but they actually spill down on to the shelf below.  I've actually not being doing so bad recently with keeping on top of reading manga.
U: This is ostensibly my western comics to read pile, but it also has a bunch of CD old/empty jewel case I intended to use as spare parts to replace broken ones, but have never gotten around to.
V: These are the CDs I'm hanging on to for now.  There's two stacking crates into eh kitchen of CDs I either want to e-bay (god, the effort required) or sell on one of those "sell your DVD sites" (bound to be a rip off).
W: These fans were headed out to the garage.  Well, until this current heat wave so now they're sort of back in use.
X: I'm rapidly running out of letter, so, from left to right we've got: The DVDs I plan to take to watch on my upcoming holiday; CD cake boxes containing fansubs (I'm supposed to be sorting through them but got distracted half way); my Blu-Rays (I promised myself I wouldn't let it grow :() and a box of software.
Y: These spindles are the blank ones with DVDs and (out of picture) CDs for burning stuff on too.  Oh, and some pants.

So there you go.  The perfect shopping list for burglars.  Well, burglar nerds.  Which is very different to nerd burglars.

mustaine

Over the last few weeks I've been reading "Mustaine," which, rather predictably, is the autobiography of one David Mustaine, lead singer of my favourite band, Megadeth.

The book was pretty good. It's certainly very readable and you get a good insight into Mustaine's life. What I would say, though, is that it feels very trimmed down. Of course, this is true of all biographies, because you have to hack stuff away simply in order to avoid a multi-volume overload.

The problem is more that because Dave has had such an eventful life, this means quite a bit of stuff that's skimmed over is still pretty interesting. I mean, for a lot of people that warrant biographies you can skip past big chunks of their life where they didn't do the bit that was interesting about them.

However, Dave had a fairly unique - and not particularly fun - childhood that informs quite a lot of what came after, so you can't skip that. Then he was a homeless drug dealer, which is not something you can skip. Then he broke into the music world when he was becoming an adult and you can't skip that. And then you have Megadeth, with its constantly changing line-ups and massive success, the rivalry with Metallica, his drug use and abuse, his wife and kids, his finding God, the trouble his big mouth has gotten him into, the injury of his arm...

And it's not like he's now retired, or even like his career has hit the skids, so something has to give. In this case the 'give' takes the form of a skimming past stuff once you get out of the first years of Megadeth. So the earlier years have the most detail and then there are choice highlights from the later years.

It works quite well, and everything in there is entertaining and interesting, but you do sometimes feel a bit like you want to know more. In particular, touring and his process of writing songs are given very short shrift. Which is okay as I'm sure those things would only be of interest to fans, rather than the ordinary public, but if you're looking for details on what all the songs are about, you'll find meagre pickings (as I understand it, there was actually talk of doing a separate book on the songs, so this might be part of why they're not really covered).

What also feels a little short-changed is some of the well known feuds. In particular, Kerry King and Pantera are both mentioned, but almost more in passing than "here's what happened" detail. I can kinda understand that as most of these have been healed or fizzled out, so they may not seem important now and it wouldn't be fair if the book was entirely Dave banging on about old grudges.

But what about the big one? The Metallica thing.

Well, it's clear from the book what Dave's perspective on the whole thing was and is. He's certainly not changed his tune in that he feels hard done by, although he acknowledges several times that he was "a handful."

The main impression I got was that it's difficult to see how it could have worked any other way. I mean, a lot of the book is about how he was a chronic drug abuser and alcoholic and when he did drink he was an angry and dangerous drunk. And it took him several decades before he even came close to sorting all that out.

I mean, if Megadeth wasn't entirely his band and instead he'd been in other collaborative bands (which is what Metallica in the early days was) then you get the distinct impression he'd have been kicked out of those bands too. But since Megadeth was his, you get the situation where he's constantly firing people in a similar fashion to how he was kicked out.

Now to be fair there is a distinct difference - most of the people he fired were more like 'hired guns' than people who'd really been an integral part of Megadeth's song writing. And they all went for pretty reasonable reasons, although it's interesting he admits he's not very good at firing people.

But the point is more that okay, he was hard done by, they didn't fire him in a good way, and in his eyes he should have been the guitar player in the biggest band in the world, and yet that was a hell of a long time ago and Metallica have written an awful lot of albums that got them much more success than those early songs did.

guess what today's blog post is about?

Yup, walking and weight loss.

I think I'm going to make it so that I have 1 day a week where I do an update about the weight stuff, a bit like the mini reviews. At the very least I can give my pedometer readings for the past week (it has a 7-day memory function, which is pretty cool).

If I'm feeling very brave I might actually give my weight, which would tend to suggest Monday or Tuesday might be the best days to talk about it, since I'll be weighing myself at the weekend.

Anyway, the thing I wanted to mainly mention was my brilliant idea to help me walk - audio books. If you're unaware, an audio book is literally a regular book read out by someone and recorded. We're not really talking dramatization, though - think father reading story to child before bedtime, only not in a patronising way.

Having hit upon the idea, I therefore signed myself up to something called audible, which is a kind of talking-book shop (as opposed to a talking bookshop - that would just be weird) done by Amazon.

I went in with eyes open - I knew the audible site uses a DRM proprietary format which has a file extension of "aa". This potentially meant that I couldn't play it on my MP3 player, but I did the research and decided that if worse came to worst I could get around it by burning to CD and ripping it from there.

I mean, the audible system does have the advantage of allowing you as many downloads as you like and by installing their software you can play it from your computer, but this would hardly be a help for listening on the move. And besides, burning to CD means I will have hard copies that (I think) I can listen to in the car anyway.

Anyway, I tested it out this weekend and truth be told it's a bit of a faff, but it's a faff that only needs doing once per audio book, and I'm not going to be buying millions of them. So yeah, I can cope is how I'd put it.

One thing I did get a shock over was the price of the audio books - they're very expensive. In most cases they're more than 4 or 5 times the cost of buying the paperback version.

When I thought about this it made sense - you're not only paying for the story, like you are the normal book, but also there's all that expense of getting someone (or several someone's) in to read the thing, and that can only add to the price. And an unabridged version of a book can be very long. I recently talked about reading Matter and the unabridged audio book for that is nearly 18 hours long!

However, what audible does is it works a bit like the lovefilm rental service, in that every month you pay a subscription fee and that gives you a credit which you can use to get one book. The subscription fee is only about £8 (I think - I forget, plus it's discounted for the first few months) and that's a good chunk less than most of the books I've looked at. But not all - some were only about £5 (older and shorter stories) so those are going to be better to buy.

matter

So I finished Matter, by Ian M Banks.

I should perhaps say up front that I'm really gorging to spoiler it in the below discussion, so if you've not read it and think you might want to, probably best to not read on.

If I'm honest, I was a little disappointed.

There were two main reasons for this. First off, given that the novel is well over 500 pages, it's a little disappointing that the "end game" feels really short and truncated and rushed. And second, that endgame kinda wasn't really worth it.

I think this novel is quite close in style to Excession. In excession, the Culture basically encountered an "Outside Context Problem". The idea of an OCP is something that's just so far outside of your perception of the world it causes more than a few problems. Banks apparently got the idea from playing the game civilisation.

To paraphrase - imagine you're a tribe on a beautiful continent and you've managed to work yourself up into a functioning society with a religion and the ability to build nice houses and do clever stuff like irrigation. You're also the dominant force on the continent - the other tribes are all either friendly or subjugated and everything's going swimmingly, thanks.

And then over the horizon come some big iron ships filled pale looking fellows that carry sticks that make a lot of noise and cause your mighty warriors to drop dead. Then they announce you've been "discovered" and you're all subjects of the emperor now and he's quite keen on gold tributes and these holly men would like to have a chat with your priests.

Well, that was all a great idea, but I didn't really like the Excession book. My problem was the pacing - there seemed to be tonnes of set-up and then the whole action part was compressed into half a dozen pages at the end. Plus, that end wasn't all that satisfying anyway.

And that's the exact same problem with Matter - there are hundreds of pages of what feels like build up and then the end is all wham-bam-thank-you-ma'am.

What makes this especially annoying is that quite a lot of that set-up period is wasted on blind alleys. For example, Ferbin goes looking for this guy who helped his father, but when he finds him, he can't help at all. It makes it feel like an excuse for Banks to just go on a few flights of fancy and come up with weird stuff to entertain. Think Tom Bombadill in LotR - totally pointless and un-necessary, but the author's having fun.

There's also a hell of a lot of stuff being layered in that I think is meant to explain what happens at the end. The problem is that this actually undermines the surprise of the ending. But also, even through there's so much of this setting up, the actual end still ends up with a whole bunch of unanswered questions.

So, this thing they dig up turns out to be an Iln machine that then tries to destroy the Shellworld.

Okay, fair enough, but why is never explained at all. Now that's not so bad, as it's a relic of an ancient race, and a bit like real archaeology you're left guessing (note that nobody really has a good guess in the book). However, what makes no sense is why the Iln put this Shellworld destroying machine on the Shellworld in the first place and didn't just blow the place up.

Why do that? And the place they find it appears to have been custom built to house it. Was that done by the Iln or someone else? If so, there's no hint of who did it.

There's just so many unanswered questions it becomes annoying. Now often Banks will cleverly use the Prologue and Epilogue to answer these sorts of questions, but here he doesn't.

I dunno, it feels like he wrote a 1,000 page novel and the publishers said "look - we can go to about 600 pages, but that's about it" and so he took a hatchet to the back end and it ends up kinda not working.

I don't actually think that's true - I think actually the short, truncated nature of the endgame is supposed to act as a deliberate contrast. Part of the feel of the theme of the book is about contrasting the different civilisation advancement levels and, like excession, when the relatively backward people of the Shellworld finally uncover this ancient, yet advanced thing the shift of gear is a way of emphasising contrast. Their problems, in a sense, are petty on a galactic scale, yet also no less important.

My real problem is it feels like he's re-treading old ground and also the old ground of a novel I didn't really like that much.

gay ass and other entertainment

"Gay ass" is what people who don't like Code Geass - LeLouch of the Rebellion. The problem with this insult is that Geass isn't pronounced "Gay-ass", it's pronounced more like "Geeh-ass" with the G being a hard g. It's actually more like the Indian clarified butter stuff, which is Ghee. Although the ass bit isn't far off.

All of which random dribbling is meant to act as an introduction to the fact that I have been watching Geass.

There's actually a hell of a lot of weird namery in Geass. It kinda suffers from that old problem that a lot of the characters are supposed to be western (The "Britannia" many of the characters come from is kinda supposed to be a warped version of the British Empire) and the Japanese phonetic systems doesn't always cope well with western names.

Throw in the fact that the Japanese often like to pick bizarre names from the western canon (if you can point me to a Steve or a Fred in any anime ever you win a prize*) and you end up with people called stuff like Kallen Stadtfeld. Yes, not Karen, Kallen. Now Kallen is a name, but I've never seen it used as a forename - only as a surname.

And what's more, that's not because she's actually Karen, but the whole pronunciation problem is rearing its head, but both the subtitles and English dub call her Kallen with the l's as well.

Anyway, all of this is really beside the point. I'm finally watching Code Geass and it's just as good as I remember. It's jam-packed with twists and turns and that dash of moral ambiguity I enjoyed when I first sampled it all those years ago.

I've also been ploughing through Matter with some gusto.

I'm now about two-thirds of the way through. Which actually means I've read about 400 pages of the 600, so there's still loads left.

I have to admit I have been flagging a bit just recently. We seem to have reached a point in the narrative that's almost totally devoid of action. Previously, there were several wars kicking about, chases, murders and the regular introduction of new characters, alien lifeform and amazing vistas.

Now the wars are pretty much over, the chases have stopped and it feels like most all the characters have been introduced. I mean, I'm not saying it's bad, it's just some of the story momentum that kept me turning the pages has dissipated a bit so I'm only reading small chunks. Hopefully it'll swing into its final arc pretty soon and I'll be re-invigorated.

The only plan for the weekend is a relatively mundane one - I need to give the place a bit of a clean and do some domestics.

I'll tell you one good thing that came out of last Sunday's "free work" session - it made me realise that if I put my mind to it I can really sit down and get stuff done. I mean, I spent about 8 or 9 hours working on the Sunday and it wasn't because I abandoned doing other stuff, it was because I got my arse in gear and cleared the to do list on Saturday, leaving Sunday free.

It was also because I felt I had to do it. I think often on the weekend I end up drifting a bit, doing an unsatisfactory amount of lots of small things, rather than ticking off the big jobs. So hopefully it's lesson learned and I can start thinking that way more often in the future.


* No you don't.

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.

more about the sun, it seems

I figured out what I was blathering on about on Tuesday. Or that is to say, I figured out what I was supposed to be blathering on about: lack of sleep.

Basically, when it gets to this time of year I have real trouble sleeping. I mean, all this week it's still really light at 9pm, and that confuses me. For the rest of the year by 9pm it's usually dark, and my brain can go "oh look, it's dark, must be time to sleep".

But this time of year, I find myself going to bed and there's loads of light streaming in through the curtains. It's weird - it's like if you have a lie in at the weekend and you kind of drift into consciousness and it's clearly proper daytime outside, but you're still in bed.

Except it's at night, so I'm tired and want to go to sleep, but another part of my brian is saying actually it's not dark so it's not time for bed yet. What makes it worse, I think is British Summer Time/daylight savings. Without that, it would be dark at a more reasonable time.

Anyway, the upshot is that for a couple of weeks I'm going to be struggling to get to sleep.

I recently started a new book.

I've been a bit derelict with my reading for a while now. This isn't anything unusual - I tend to go in cycles of reading a lot and then nothing for ages. Usually I snap into a reading phase when I get a book I'm excited about reading. In this case that book is "Matter" by Ian M Banks.

I'm a big fan of Banks's sci-fi books - especially the culture novels, which this is one of. I get the impression he'd kind of put the culture (and possibly SF) stuff to bed, but I guess he's found a story he wants to tell... and it's a bit one. The book is some 600 pages long, which I'm pretty sure is the biggest book he's done.

I'm about a fifth of the way through and I'm enjoying it so far. It's really starting to get going - there was quite a lot of establishing stuff to start with, but now the main plot has really kicked in.

I've not actually read any of Banks's non-SF books, although I received his first - Wasp Factory - as a present for my last birthday and am intent on starting them. Banks has a great prose style, which is very readable, so I'm sure I'll enjoy them despite not being SF.

more about the sun, it seems

I figured out what I was blathering on about on Tuesday. Or that is to say, I figured out what I was supposed to be blathering on about: lack of sleep.

Basically, when it gets to this time of year I have real trouble sleeping. I mean, all this week it's still really light at 9pm, and that confuses me. For the rest of the year by 9pm it's usually dark, and my brain can go "oh look, it's dark, must be time to sleep".

But this time of year, I find myself going to bed and there's loads of light streaming in through the curtains. It's weird - it's like if you have a lie in at the weekend and you kind of drift into consciousness and it's clearly proper daytime outside, but you're still in bed.

Except it's at night, so I'm tired and want to go to sleep, but another part of my brian is saying actually it's not dark so it's not time for bed yet. What makes it worse, I think is British Summer Time/daylight savings. Without that, it would be dark at a more reasonable time.

Anyway, the upshot is that for a couple of weeks I'm going to be struggling to get to sleep.

I recently started a new book.

I've been a bit derelict with my reading for a while now. This isn't anything unusual - I tend to go in cycles of reading a lot and then nothing for ages. Usually I snap into a reading phase when I get a book I'm excited about reading. In this case that book is "Matter" by Ian M Banks.

I'm a big fan of Banks's sci-fi books - especially the culture novels, which this is one of. I get the impression he'd kind of put the culture (and possibly SF) stuff to bed, but I guess he's found a story he wants to tell... and it's a bit one. The book is some 600 pages long, which I'm pretty sure is the biggest book he's done.

I'm about a fifth of the way through and I'm enjoying it so far. It's really starting to get going - there was quite a lot of establishing stuff to start with, but now the main plot has really kicked in.

I've not actually read any of Banks's non-SF books, although I received his first - Wasp Factory - as a present for my last birthday and am intent on starting them. Banks has a great prose style, which is very readable, so I'm sure I'll enjoy them despite not being SF.

easter weekend

So, last weekend was Easter, which meant I had 5 whole days straight of not having to work, which naturally begs the question "What did I get up to?"

The answer is a rather disappointing "Not very much of interest."

As previously mentioned on the blog I'd been suffering from a stinking cold last week and I still wasn't feeling up to par by the beginning of the weekend. Friday I therefore mainly spent watching the last half of Ouran High School Host Club and some stuff I'd recorded. However, I did actually also go for a walk.

It was actually the first of two walks I did - the other being on the Monday. There were two reasons for me going for a walk. The main one is that this weekend I'm going to the wedding reception of one of my colleague's. It's being held in Farnham and, while I'm not sure I'll walk there (I may book a taxi), I'm thinking I'll walk back.

But the second reason is I'm a bit fed up of being as out of shape as I am. It's a bit of a weird thing to explain, because I've been having some thoughts that I'd like to be able to walk distances without getting really out of breath. Now I know the main problem here is actually that I'm morbidly obese, but in a way, that's not the bit that bothers me. It's the not being able to walk up stairs without sweating and breathing heavily for ten minutes I want to stop.

So I've basically decided I'm going to do that by going for some walks and hopefully that will improve my fitness a bit. The problem of course is that I may start butting up against the fact that really I need to also start eating a bit more sensibly as well and therefore as my weight would come down, so the real improvements in fitness would come.

Trouble is that's the real difficult bit for me.

Anyway, back to the point - I finished off Ouran, which turned out to be a really good series that I greatly enjoyed.

I also watched a lot of telly generally. As you might expect there were quite a few specials and stuff on over Easter, so I watched them as well as catching up on previously recorded telly. It was also the Malaysian Grand Prix and with the BBC's coverage being so extensive (they show all 3 practices, Qualifying and the race) that accounted for quite a lot of hours too.

I did no scanning whatsoever, though, which was a bit disappointing. I'd kinda hoped I would at least do a bit, but in the end I just didn't get around to it. What I did do was prepare a load more updates for trismugistus.com, which is always good. I'll start rolling them out from next week.

So you see it was all pretty dull. Part of the problem was everyone I know seemed to be off doing things, so I was just left to bimble around with no real plan or intent. I mean, I spent a lot of hours sorting through the scans I made myself or have downloaded and archiving those and fansubs to DVD and stuff like that. I tend to regard these as necessary activities, but they're so tedious (and time consuming) I only really do them when I've a big stretch of nothing much to do.

I did, however, get the time to do some more unusual entertainment stuff. First off I read Saturday Night Peter, the second volume of Peter Kay's autobiography. I didn't find it quite as funny as the first, which had me in stitches, but it was an interesting and entertaining read.

I also played Settlers 7.

Well, that is to say, I tried to play Settlers 7.

'm totally new to the Settlers series and I'm a bit torn if I'm honest. It's very similar to Anno, being a resource management/strategy type of game and in it's favour it's very slickly done. The campaign is engaging and interesting and teaches you how to do stuff. On the downside, I much prefer Anno's focus on the "sandbox" aspect and also, I slightly prefer its approach to resources. In settlers, some things get used up and are difficult to replace, whereas in Anno if you run out of something you can just pay to replenish it. This might sound like a cop-out, but of course you need to generate the cash to pay.

Anyway, my main issue isn't with the game itself, but with Ubisoft's horrible Digital Rights Management (DRM) implementation.

See, even though I've paid for the game and I've got a DVD in a box and everything, I still don't own the game. No, what I've bought is the right to rent the game off of Ubisoft.

See, it goes one step further than the really annoying online game registration. To play Settlers 7 you have to have a constant internet connection and you save games are basically stored remotely on Ubisoft's servers. And there's no offline mode.

Yes, that's right - if their servers are down (which it basically was all day Monday, when I was trying to play) or your internet connection flakes out (which mine often does), you can't play. Also, if you're in the middle of a game and your connection or the servers die then it pauses and won't let you play on.

I mean, I understand piracy is a major problem, but surely it's not in anyone's interests to punish the legitimate users?

as you do

I've recently been reading Richard Hammond's new... I was going to say autobiography then, but it isn't really. It's more like a diary/journal thing, although there are some auto-biography elements.

The first part covers the race to the North Pole Top Gear did, where Hammond was racing Huskies and James & Jeremy went in a four-by-four. Later on - although I haven't got there yet - it seems to cover the Desert race they did, as well as Hammond's meeting with Evel Knievel in a documentary.

I remember those episodes and the documentary well and it's been interesting to read Richard's take on it and the behind-the-scenes stuff. I'd certainly recommend it, but probably only if you're a Top Gear watcher or interested in Hammond. It's not quite got the broader appeal of his autobiography, since it's a bit more focused on things you need to have watched Top Gear to get properly. But it's still an entertaining read.

And speaking of reading, although I've not been watching any anime (naughty Mark!) I have been plugging away with the old manga. So much so, in fact, that my pile of unread manga has almost halved. Indeed, where it actually consisted of two separate stacks, it's now down to 1 stack.

Okay - that's not quite true. Because I deliberately read all my manga twice, actually it's changed from 2 stacks of totally unread to 1 stack of read-once and 1 stack of unread. But that's a sufficiently good achievement for me to be happy.

Anyway, the point is I thought I'd do one of those summary-type list of my thoughts on some of the newer stuff I've tackled:

The Welcome to the NHK manga has been rather disappointing, if I'm honest. The main problem I'm having is that it doesn't seem to be very consistent, both in terms of plotting and tone.

I'm left puzzled as to quite what it's trying to say or to achieve. At some points it comes across as an all-out comedy, at others it seems to be trying to make more serious points about the hikikomori (shut-ins, basically, though this shut-in spends a remarkably large amount of time outside his apartment, which kinda exemplifies my issue with it). At others it seems be going for a more straight drama style.

It almost comes across as vaguely schizophrenic - switching from one idea to another as it suits the whims of the writer. Now this is either a clever representation of the psyche of the main character, or just plain bad writing. And unfortunately I've been erring towards the latter.

Samurai Harem: Asu No Yoichi is a series I picked up because I rather liked what I saw of the anime version. Whilst I wouldn't say I didn't like the manga, the anime is better. That's a raft of double negatives, isn't it?

Basically, what I mean is that the manga seems okay, where the anime seemed good. There's a lot of commonality between the two - all the same characters are featured and the set-up is the same - but the anime is slightly better written. Weirdly, this is because the anime is more happy to use already familiar harem-type devices.

Normally I'd have been rolling my eyes at this rolling out of clichés, but the thing with Harem was that the main character was actually quite likeable and not the usual loser/milquetoast they often feature. In the manga this is also true, but the writer has tried to be innovative about lost of other stuff too, and it doesn't quite work.

In other words, for the anime, they seem to have picked the best aspects and used those. Plus the tweaks to the chara designs make them a bit better in the anime, if I'm honest.

Two series I think I've mentioned before but I've now read a bit more of are Doujin Works and Sayonara Zetsubo Sensei.

Doujin Work I was a bit on-the-fence over, due mainly to the format, I think. Well I've decided I pretty much like it now. Weirdly, it actually reminds me of Garfield.

Not in the sense of sharing any plot elements, obviously, but Garfield was formatted in a rigid panel format that was designed mainly for short, gag-based strips. However, occasionally it would veer into longer stories across more strips.

Doujin works is very much like that and it suffers the same problem. Long-form comics almost demand the use of varying panel sizes. Kept in fixed formats they feel oddly contained; broken up somehow.

But the point is, when you get past that, it works as a series. It also helps that I'm now used to the weirdness of it all.

However, another series I was a bit on-the-fence about has proven to be less of goer. Sayonara Zetsubo Sensei is really leaving me cold.

And I just can't understand why - when I watched the anime I really loved it, but the manga. I dunno, I just can't explain it.

My only theory is that the manga is confusing me. A lot of the characters look very similar and the panels are riddled with obscure, Japan-centric visual jokes that I don't get.

But in the anime, these jokes are either ignorable, or they are better explained by being animated. For the characters of course, you have colour to help distinguish them and different sounding voice actors.

It's a pretty flimsy theory, but it's all I can think of.

wanted

This weeks rental DVD was... nothing. I didn't have one for some reason. I've generally found lovefilm to be pretty good - certainly they've maintained quicker turn-around times than I used to get with the old Amazon system.

However, this week, even though I sent the disc back on Monday there was no sign of my next rental. I checked it at the end of the week and was going to report it as a problem, but it said to give it 4 days. I then got my "it's been sent" e-mail on Saturday.

Dunno why there was the delay, but either way it meant I didn't have a rental disk to watch. This was advantageous in a way as it meant I watched more telly shows, but it also gave me the chance to watch a purchased DVD - in this case wanted.

Overall, it's a pretty fun movie.

The basic idea is that the hero is a super-assassin with special powers but at the start of the movie he doesn't know that. During the course of the movie he learns all about his powers as well as the Fraternity, a secret cabal of assassins who shape fate.

I won't do a full review here as I'll leave that for trismugistus.com at a later date, but overall I'd recommend watching it.

I wouldn't say the plot was all that great, but it's a real roller coaster action film that provides a lot of really enjoyable fights and chases. After it finished I had quite a lots of bits where I thought "that didn't make any sense" or "why did that happen?" but it's that sort of movie.

Visually it's stunning, especially since it doesn't do anything too over-the-top with the camera. Often you can watch these films and feel ill because the camera's swirling about all over the place. Here, although there are plenty of stylistic flourishes, the action is filmed in a much more straight way and so it's much easier to watch and enjoy.

---

I finished Derren Brown's book "Tricks of the Mind" over the weekend. I think I mentioned this when I started reading it and it's not that it's taken me months to read, more that I read the first half really quickly, then left it on the shelf for months and then picked it up again a little while ago.

Not sure why I did that - I've enjoyed the book - I just, I don't know, kinda got distracted, maybe?

Anyway, it's a real mish-mash of stuff, which is cool. I mean as an example there's a section on techniques for improving your memory but there's also a bit on debunking pseudo-science/mysticism and why Derren is no longer a Christian. It's quite a range of subjects, but then also it's a range of styles - memory stuff is verging on self-help (that's the wrong word, but you get the idea) whereas the debunking is more polemic.

But then you've also got humorous stories and anecdotes that border on making the book auto-biographical and stuff on how to do hypnosis as well as a fascinating discussion on why hypnosis doesn't actually exist mixed in there as well. As I say, weird mix, but it certainly works.

the wintersmith

So I finished The Wintersmith. It's a good read.

I think if I was criticising, I would pick on two things. First off, it starts with a later event in the narrative and then the next three quarters of the book are effectively flashback.

The trouble with this is it kinda robs it of tension. I mean, the book still has it because the bit it starts with isn't the end, but it is close. If you know up-front that characters are alive and well at the end, then you also know they're not going to die in a flashback. That's a bit extreme, but you see what I mean.

Also there was a bit of a lack of Wee Free Men. I guess that's sensible in the fact that this is the third novel, so there's not much left in the way of surprises, but they're so entertaining it could have done with a bit more of them.

A bit more of them on there own, I mean - they were present in a lot of scenes, but didn't really do much of anything.

However, saying that, what had replaced them was all good stuff. It was a lot more 'witchy' than the previous books, as Tiffany had grown up a bit and done more training, etc. It was especially nice to see plenty of the elder witches - Granny Weatherwax, Nanny Ogg, etc - as they're such great character.

The book did leave a few sort-of loose ends that could be carried over into new books, but equally don't really matter or could easily be explored by your own imagination.

The plan to watch some anime has got off to a good start. I started on Gatekeepers.
For some reason I thought this was a very old anime, but it seems it was only broadcast in Japan in 2000. If you allow the normal couple of years for it to make it across from Japan it's not that old at all.

It's a good show as well - I was kinda unsure what to expect. It's basically a shounen action / monster-of-the-week show with some harem type elements so it's not hugely innovative in that sense, but there's a mean streak of wit and imagination runnign through it. Some of the monster designs are particularly clever, for example.

the wee free men

I finished the wee free men over the weekend. It's pretty damn good I have to say. I've started on Wintersmith, which is the third of this set of books and it seems pretty good too.

I've always liked the Discworld's take on Witches. I think it's one of the things I miss the most from the earlier books. A lot of the earlier books involved both the witches and the wizards and while I wouldn't want to put down the later books simply because the witches aren't in them, I wish they'd pop up more often.

The wizards make a few appearances, but then Unseen University is on the outskirts of Ankh Morpork, so it's not much of a stretch. The witches seem mainly to live in the rural areas and most of the recent books have been set in Ankh Morpork so it's less easy to have them pop up, I guess.

Hopefully I can also keep up a decent head of steam with book reading and plough into my unread book pile some. If I'm honest it's the pile that I'm most regretful about not tackling. Reading is kinda my lifeblood - sort of like entertainment in its purest form for me.

The next most regretful pile is the games I think. This is mainly because I know the amount of time it would take to play them all through properly makes it the most difficult pile to tackle properly. Plus of course I've got a really powerful machine "for gaming" that just sort of sits there doing nothing most of the time :(.

I'm sure I've mentioned this before, but I've been trying to write scripts recently, rather than a novel. It's been going pretty well and I'm kinda enjoying the process more than I do writing prose.

I started off with doing Man-in-the-Loop, which has generally been my most consistent project, though it's a bit complex and twisty at times for me to get my head around. Plus I realised I wanted the murders in it to be more realistic and I think I need to let it gestate a bit more before I continue properly.

I have started adapting another plot idea I had into a film script, though. It's going pretty well, but then it was always one of those ideas that I had quite well mapped out in my mind but never got properly started on actually writing.

Oh, and I forgot to mention yesterday, but that order cock-up I mentioned last week got all sorted so that was good, and I want' out of pocket. Plus now I finally get to watch Code Geass ! Yay!

making money

I finished reading Making Money this weekend.

It's an excellent read - I wouldn't want what I'm about to say undermine that. It's genuinely very funny in places, and it has a good portion of Pratchett's usual wry observations on life, the universe and everything.

The only real problem I had with it was that the actual plot seemed a little thin, somehow.

The book is the second featuring Moist Von Lipwig. As well as having a great name, Moist is a great character - very entertaining and intriguing - and unfortunately I've a bit of a feeling that Pratchett got too wrapped up in this great character to the detriment of the actual plot.

Let's put it this was - Going Postal, the first with Moist, was probably one of the best Discworld books for a while. It kinda restored my faith in Pratchett as I'd be growing a little disillusioned by him focusing too much on the city watch and Sam Vimes in particular. Not that I don't love Vimes and the watch, it was just getting to the stage where the discworld books were almost becoming like a "whodunit" series.

There's nothing wrong with those, I must add, it's just that they were a bit samey, where really the Discworld thrives when it's exploring the new.

Anyway, Going Postal was all about Moist reinvigorating the Ankh-Morpork Postal service. But one of the key things about it was that the Post Office had a whole raft of different problems. Most had to solve all these, as well as him introducing all sorts of clever new ideas (this is what I mean about where the discworld thrives - the ideas are new to the discworld, but are already familiar to us and so give Terry a chance to be anything from ironic, through clever all the way up to outright critical).

The fundamental principle in all stories is that they are about change. Now as well as the changes in the post office itself, Moist went through a change. I won't spoiler it if you don't know, but lets just say he grew into his new life.

The problem with Making Money then is that these two things are a little lacking. Moist doesn't really change. I mean, he acquires a new job and goes through a load of scrapes but as a person he pretty much comes out at the end fundamentally the same as when he went in.

Also, he doesn't really change the whole banking world very much. His only real thing is the introduction of paper money. I mean, there's other stuff which I don't want to spoiler, but really the paper money was about it. Whereas in Going Postal there were loads.

Plus the bank in question isn't really in trouble as such where the post office really was. I mean it's hinted that the Ankh-Morpork banks aren't doing well, but not in any real tangible way like the Post Office.

But as I say, don't take it that I didn't enjoy the book - I really did, it's just some bits felt a little flimsy was all.

I've also started on Pratchett's The Wee Free Men. This is actually a children's book set on the Discworld. I'd not read any of Pratchett's children's books, but a while back I read A Hatful of Sky (which is the sequel) and really enjoyed it, so I though I'd pick this up. Plus there's a further sequel, Wintersmith.

I'm fair racing through the wee free men. Partly I guess that's because it's a children's book and is therefore both shorter and a little easier to read, but also it's an interesting reflection on how if a book is enjoyable you read it quicker.

I mention this because a while back I encountered another one of those books that really turned me off reading. The book in question was The Dark Apostle (or something like that). It's set in the Warhammer 40K world and it's really a chore to read.

The plot' okay, but the execution of it is really poor - it does everything you're not supposed to do in writing (like telling not showing - all that stuff). Now that's okay you may think - rules are there to be broken, but let's just put it this way: you need to know what the rules are before you break them.

I've still not finished actually - I'm kinda wondering if I shouldn't just e-bay it and save myself the grief.

micks of the trind

This last weekend I started reading Tricks of the Mind, which is by Derren Brown.

How I came to buy this book is a little convoluted. Over Chrimbalo there was a Derren Brown special which was a recording of his recent live show. I think I mentioned it on the blog before - I was puzzled a big nervous tick he seemed to have where he rapidly nods his head.

Anyway, I was intrigued by this tick and tried to look it up online. I found some bits and stuff about him, though not much about the tick. It was mentioned on a forum that he explained it in his book.

The mention of a book intrigued me and I searched for it on Amazon and made the purchase. Perhaps the old mind-mongler was influencing me into making the purchase, who knows?

Anyway, the book is quite interesting, but it's weirdly undirected. It's part auto-biography, part introduction to becoming a conjuror, part explanation of what he gets up to on stage, part explanation of why there's no God and, most unusually, part self-help book (ish - the memory stuff especially is intriguing).

One thing it does have is some very humorous anecdotes. I suspect that were he ever to turn his hand to writing proper he'd be rather good at it. The style is very interesting. As a fan of Robert Rankin it chimes quite well with me. There's a lot of overly-ostentation wordage, which kinda plays into the cocky persona he's created for the magic but also hints at Derrens' devilish wit.

There's also an undercurrent as with all his stuff of self-deprecation. For example, it's clear the cocky persona is entirely a construct for the act and he plays with it a fair bit. He also lets it ease down when he gets more serious with relaying the teaching stuff and then brings it right back up when he's doing more entertaining stuff.

Anyway, I've certainly enjoyed reading it and am more than a third of the way through. I'm saying that because I'm not a quick reader by the way - it means I "couldn't put it down" as they say.

a writer's tale

Last night I finished reading "Doctor Who: A Writer's Tale."

It's a big book - it's about 500 pages long and the text is tiny. To put that in context, during the course of the book we get to read several (3-ish) Doctor Who scripts. Now a Doctor Who script is going to be the best part of 50 pages long if you were to read it as a script.

Admittedly scripts have a lot of white space, but still, when you consider the text of scripts includes all sorts of rewrites and when you look at it only accounts for 20% of the words in the book, you'll get a feel for how big the book is.

Anyway, what the book is is a collection of e-mails (and a few text messages for good message) sent between the head writer and executive producer of new Doctor Who, Russell T Davies and Benjamin Cook, a young journalist and friend of Russell's.

It's a little difficult to explain the format of the book, but it's obvious when you actually read it. The e-mails last the course of year and during them Davies writes a handful of his own scripts for Dr Who, which is mainly the point of the book, so we get to see those scripts develop.

But also, because he's head writer, we see him rewriting other people's scripts. And because he's one of the Executive Producers he has to do all sorts of show-running stuff. On top of that it's like Cook is conducting an extended interview as well as being a friend.

What we mainly get, therefore, is something of an insight into the mind of a writer. Now Davies is always quick to stress that it's only his mind and how he works and this is what works for him and his own personal take on things, so the fundamental point is it's an exploration of his writing process.

And it's really warts and all.

There are literally pages dedicated to self-doubt and anguish. Davies sometimes spends ages procrastinating and avoiding writing, making himself miserable. We get to know about ideas that failed and bits that didn't work as well as stuff that did.

It's very interesting stuff and I'd highly recommend it... although with a little bit of coveting. If you don't know about new Doctor Who (or, indeed, old Doctor Who) it does try to explain stuff to you, but really you'll be struggling. If you don't like Doctor Who or Davies this won't do anything to convince you otherwise.

The other biggy is I dunno how a non-writer would take to it. I'm guessing quite well as there's plenty in it that's just generally entertaining, but it did feel more directed at those who've considered or actually tried to write, rather than just the general public.

tiring

I think this week I've been continuing on with the whole being a bit tired from last week.

I was gallivanting around all over the shop last week, so it's hardly surprising, I guess. I have done a few things - most notably I've been working on a new wallpaper. It's nothing hugely complicated or clever - I'm basically just vectoring out a to love-ru scan - but it's been nice to work on a wall proper again. Hopefully I'll get a chance to finish it this weekend.

I've also been reading a Terry Pratchett book called 'Thud!'. I started reading it on the train goign up and coming back from the thing last Friday (I like to read on the train, but reading manga gets you funny looks).

It's a pretty good one - there have been a few of his recently that haven't quite hit the spot, but this one was good. The only sort of down-side to it is that it's another Sam Vimes and City Watch book. Which isn't to say I don't like his Sam Vimes and the Watch books - I liked this one - but I've been wishing he'd focus a bit more on some other stuff. A lot of the recent books seem to be all about the watch.

One of the problems of this is that Sam hates magic, so some Pratchett's best characters (the witches and wizards) are deliberately side-lined, if not excluded all together.

Still, this one was good and I decided to go ahead and buy the other more recent ones I'd been holding back on... though not until I make a significant dent in my pile of unread books.

Did a little scanning last night and watch one of the shows I have left over from the last season. I also have one I watched last week that I forgot to mention on the old blog:

• Nogizaka Haruka no Himitsu - very good. I really wasn't expecting much of this - the images I'd seen for it in the magazines had all suggested it a fan-service heavy rom-com, but it turned out it was a bit more than that. The idea is that the girl in it is a school 'idol', but really she's a nerdy otaku and the male lead accidentally finds this out. Now that could have gone either way, but for the most part it's actually quite good, although there's a couple of elements I'm not sure about. But it's certainly better than I was expecting.
  
• Mahō Tsukai ni Taisetsu na Koto: Natsu no Sora - awesome. Now this one was also a bit of a surprise. I'd seen some images from it and I was really not looking forward to it because of the style. It has almost photo-realistic backgrounds - I'm not sure f that's just because they've been painted that way or they've processed actual photos. Now, I'm really not a big fan of animation laid over the top of photos, but once I'd kinda adjusted to the style what was revealed was a lovely story underneath. If I was to say it had a sort of studio Ghibli feel to it I think you'll know what I mean.
  

Swelteridge

A few years back now I bought an air conditioner.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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