Thought I'd do a broad update on the animu situation.
I've actually been watching loads recently, and most of it has been DVDs. I could probably have watched more, but not a lot more. And to be fair, it has been part of the reason I've not done so much scanning or some other bits - there are only a finite number of hours in the week, after all.
One thing I did try to do was re-arrange my shelves in order to make it easy to access the stuff I think I should watch first. This didn't really work properly as my shelves have so much stuff on them there's two layers of stuff - one in front of the other. I therefore couldn't decide whether I should do it in terms of height (top shelf is to watch first, second next, etc) or depth (stuff in front is to watch first). In the end it was a bit of a mix of both.
What made this more confusing is I decided to try to include both books and non-anime DVDs in the mix as well. When you factor in that I've got two sets of shelves of very different dimensions it all proved too much for my brain and the short amount of time I'd allowed to do it, so really it's just a mess now. I think I may have another go and take a slightly different approach.
What I have hit upon s a strategy for watching stuff. Basically what I've done is picked out a couple of series and stacked them up right next to my DVD player. The key innovation is that I watch 1 DVD from series 1, then 1 from series 2, then back to series 1, then back to series 2.
I've also blended together half and full seasons. This is really made possible by the fact that most of the series I've got are of the new variety where 13 episodes are covered in just 2 disks. It helps me because it gives me decent chunks of series to watch (I can watch half a disk (3 eps - about an hour) or a full disk (6/7 eps - about 2 hours)) but I don't tend to suffer series fatigue where I become disinterested because I've watched 9 episodes on a row or similar.
One of the things I found with crunchyroll is I get a bit lost if I try to watch multiple series a single episode at a time each week. Instead, I found it better to watch a bunch of eps of 1 series 1 week, then a bunch of another series the next week and so on and so forth until I get back the first series where there's now a new stack of episodes to watch.
Of course I've let crunchyroll slip. I obviously had the period where I didn't have a shower and I talked at the time about how that poxed me up. I then broke my scanner lid and while I could have limped on it was horribly annoying to use, so I just bought another one.
I'm therefore well behind with the latest stuff. Indeed, I'm still behind with last season and have barely registered the new season stuff. One thing I have noticed is that a whole bunch of shows that were supposedly picked up by Anime-on-Demand with a big "we've got these shows, they'll start NEXT WEEK" seems to have resulted in nothing. Certainly none of the shows they announced have started and that announcement was at least a month ago.
I mean, I don't fundamentally mind the delay, but if you announce they'll start NEXT WEEK and a month later they're nowhere in sight, that's a bit off.
And it doesn't help that the AOD site seems to be crushingly slow just recently. I know they're part of ANN and ANN had horrible hosting troubles and since they came back they've been really poor too, but it's really obviously a bad thing when you're tying to stream content.
I was actually intending to do some rounds up of the actual shows I've watched, but I guess this is already super long. I actually think I'm going to try to sit down and do a bunch of reviews at the weekend - I've now loads of long reviews that I should do and loads of short reviews too.
I was actually think I should come up with a plan for my websites. I can't possibly afford to get hosting for them at the moment, but it would be quite nice to have a fully 'working' site ready to go when I do eventually decide to bring them back.
Showing posts with label websites. Show all posts
Showing posts with label websites. Show all posts
Tuesday, 23 August 2011
Tuesday, 24 May 2011
web design software
So I've talked before about how I've switched all my domain name registrations to a new company and cancelled the hosting I had with the eventual intention of having hosting through the new people.
Part of the reason for the move is that the company in question are the ones we use at work and I got to see how they operate. Part of this is that I've been building a new website for work.
It's not the main website, but an additional one for a specific bit of work, but one of the key aspects was that we needed to be able to have users who could log in and out and use passwords to access certain bits of the site.
As part of the hosting this company provides, they give you a web design package called Serif X4 and investigations showed that this package gives you the ability to have user accounts. We therefore took the plunge and bought the hosting (which we'd need anyway, even if the design thing didn't work as we'd hoped) and I set about seeing if I could get it to do what we needed.
The answer to this question was, fundamentally, yes - we could have users and passwords and the whole thing. The way it works means that the details are held remotely on a secure web server hosted by the company (Serif, rather than the hosts).
Now obviously I've built websites before. I actually own a rather old version of Dreamweaver and have used that to build all of my websites. However, if I was going to get this program free with my hosting I thought it best to experiment with all the stuff it provides, not just what we needed for the work site.
And it's a bit of an odd beast.
The reason is that it's both quite powerful and quite limited all at the same time. I'll give you some examples.
Firstly, in the Dreamweaver I have, although it's What You See Is What You Get (WYSIWYG) you're not that far removed from the basic html coding (I've only ever used the html in it). So a lot of it is done by arranging tables. By tables I mean the type of thing you have in word - you set the number of rows and columns and then you can do stuff to the tables or put stuff in the boxes you've created. And I think Word is the best analogy for how I've always used Dreamweaver.
In Serif you don't do that at all - you basically draw the site as if you were using MS Paint or Photoshop or a similar artist package. It's very much about the visual side of website designs.
Now that is very good on some levels, because you can quickly and relatively easily produce very appealing sites. It even provides you with templates that look quite good and you can fiddle with.
The difficulties come because of the content in sites like mine. The above works well if you're designing a relatively static site, but with mine with reviews with variable numbers of words, this produces unexpected challenges.
A good exemplar is the size of the page. When you design the page you fix the height and width. That means if you have a bit more or a bit less content you end up either going off the bottom or falling short and it has no way of the pages automatically adjusting to fit your content. You have to fiddle with some numbers in a dialogue box - you can't even simply drag the bottom of the page (I believe they added this in the next version).
And a similar problem pervades. So, for example, it gives you really simple an easy access to a forum that you can just drop onto your site. But, you can't adjust the design of the forum at all - it's a standard php forum and that's it. Well, you can do colours and through a tortuous back-end process can add bits and pieces, but it doesn't let you properly fiddle with it.
So as I say - it's at once very powerful and very restricted. You can easily create very pretty sites, but something as simple as adding text of variable length to pages is a real pain :/.
Part of the reason for the move is that the company in question are the ones we use at work and I got to see how they operate. Part of this is that I've been building a new website for work.
It's not the main website, but an additional one for a specific bit of work, but one of the key aspects was that we needed to be able to have users who could log in and out and use passwords to access certain bits of the site.
As part of the hosting this company provides, they give you a web design package called Serif X4 and investigations showed that this package gives you the ability to have user accounts. We therefore took the plunge and bought the hosting (which we'd need anyway, even if the design thing didn't work as we'd hoped) and I set about seeing if I could get it to do what we needed.
The answer to this question was, fundamentally, yes - we could have users and passwords and the whole thing. The way it works means that the details are held remotely on a secure web server hosted by the company (Serif, rather than the hosts).
Now obviously I've built websites before. I actually own a rather old version of Dreamweaver and have used that to build all of my websites. However, if I was going to get this program free with my hosting I thought it best to experiment with all the stuff it provides, not just what we needed for the work site.
And it's a bit of an odd beast.
The reason is that it's both quite powerful and quite limited all at the same time. I'll give you some examples.
Firstly, in the Dreamweaver I have, although it's What You See Is What You Get (WYSIWYG) you're not that far removed from the basic html coding (I've only ever used the html in it). So a lot of it is done by arranging tables. By tables I mean the type of thing you have in word - you set the number of rows and columns and then you can do stuff to the tables or put stuff in the boxes you've created. And I think Word is the best analogy for how I've always used Dreamweaver.
In Serif you don't do that at all - you basically draw the site as if you were using MS Paint or Photoshop or a similar artist package. It's very much about the visual side of website designs.
Now that is very good on some levels, because you can quickly and relatively easily produce very appealing sites. It even provides you with templates that look quite good and you can fiddle with.
The difficulties come because of the content in sites like mine. The above works well if you're designing a relatively static site, but with mine with reviews with variable numbers of words, this produces unexpected challenges.
A good exemplar is the size of the page. When you design the page you fix the height and width. That means if you have a bit more or a bit less content you end up either going off the bottom or falling short and it has no way of the pages automatically adjusting to fit your content. You have to fiddle with some numbers in a dialogue box - you can't even simply drag the bottom of the page (I believe they added this in the next version).
And a similar problem pervades. So, for example, it gives you really simple an easy access to a forum that you can just drop onto your site. But, you can't adjust the design of the forum at all - it's a standard php forum and that's it. Well, you can do colours and through a tortuous back-end process can add bits and pieces, but it doesn't let you properly fiddle with it.
So as I say - it's at once very powerful and very restricted. You can easily create very pretty sites, but something as simple as adding text of variable length to pages is a real pain :/.
Tuesday, 17 May 2011
all change
So late yesterday I finally got some messages through that my domains had all been transferred to the new registrar. I did some research on the interwebs and it seems to have taken a bit longer than is normal. I started the process last Monday and it's taken a full week to transfer, where most things seems to indicate it should only have taken three days.
I guess that's not a massively longer time, but it does add more behind one of the reasons I wanted to change - slow responsiveness. Also now that I can play with stuff properly on the control panel, I can see that the new host's user interface on the site is way easier to navigate and do stuff with.
I've also been investigating their hosting packages - like all hosts they offer different levels of stuff for different prices. They seems pretty good value, though obviously proof will be in the pudding - my last hosting was always cheap, but I wouldn't call them good value as it wasn't generally a pleasant and easy "relationship" (I'm struggling for a word to really cover it).
Today is also the day when, in theory, my landline broadband goes up. It was a bit of a pain to get it going, as I mentioned before. The basic problem is that although I knew the company I sued to have hosting with had been bought out by TalkTalk and they'd even changed their name to TalkTalk Business, it turns out they're still effectively run as a separate business and I had to contact them separately.
It took ages to work that out, but once I did getting the MAC was very quick. Though quite why they held on to it I'm not sure - I guess it costs money to get someone to properly release it.
I say it's the start day in theory, because I've not actually received the kit and they've sent me a couple of e-mails saying it could be midnight before it goes live. If I were without interwebs at all I think I'd be more anxious than I am.
Indeed, if I didn't have interwebs at all I think I'd be a bit annoyed and puzzled that it's taken about a week for it to all get sorted. I don't really know how complicated such things are, but this seems like a long time.
I should perhaps say I'm doing it with BT. Like any mega-huge corporation I'm sure there are the full range of good and bad experiences people have had with the, but this was just for convenience and ease. Obviously I've got a BT landline and it was just easy and fairly cheap to "flick the switch" on them giving me broadband too.
My plan is essentially to use it for torrents and as a back-up. It's guaranteed to be slower than the cable and it has a usage cap, but then the cable has a usage cap too. The real point is that for the past few weeks it's been obvious that it's my torrenting that's been killing the connection. In the last week I've deliberately not done any while I wait for the landline broadband and the cable internet hasn't been down once to my knowledge.
I guess that's not a massively longer time, but it does add more behind one of the reasons I wanted to change - slow responsiveness. Also now that I can play with stuff properly on the control panel, I can see that the new host's user interface on the site is way easier to navigate and do stuff with.
I've also been investigating their hosting packages - like all hosts they offer different levels of stuff for different prices. They seems pretty good value, though obviously proof will be in the pudding - my last hosting was always cheap, but I wouldn't call them good value as it wasn't generally a pleasant and easy "relationship" (I'm struggling for a word to really cover it).
Today is also the day when, in theory, my landline broadband goes up. It was a bit of a pain to get it going, as I mentioned before. The basic problem is that although I knew the company I sued to have hosting with had been bought out by TalkTalk and they'd even changed their name to TalkTalk Business, it turns out they're still effectively run as a separate business and I had to contact them separately.
It took ages to work that out, but once I did getting the MAC was very quick. Though quite why they held on to it I'm not sure - I guess it costs money to get someone to properly release it.
I say it's the start day in theory, because I've not actually received the kit and they've sent me a couple of e-mails saying it could be midnight before it goes live. If I were without interwebs at all I think I'd be more anxious than I am.
Indeed, if I didn't have interwebs at all I think I'd be a bit annoyed and puzzled that it's taken about a week for it to all get sorted. I don't really know how complicated such things are, but this seems like a long time.
I should perhaps say I'm doing it with BT. Like any mega-huge corporation I'm sure there are the full range of good and bad experiences people have had with the, but this was just for convenience and ease. Obviously I've got a BT landline and it was just easy and fairly cheap to "flick the switch" on them giving me broadband too.
My plan is essentially to use it for torrents and as a back-up. It's guaranteed to be slower than the cable and it has a usage cap, but then the cable has a usage cap too. The real point is that for the past few weeks it's been obvious that it's my torrenting that's been killing the connection. In the last week I've deliberately not done any while I wait for the landline broadband and the cable internet hasn't been down once to my knowledge.
Thursday, 12 May 2011
fate of the websites
I've decided to cancel the current hosting for all of my websites.
There were a host (ho ho) of reasons for doing this.
Partly it was to save spending the money. None of the sites were hugely expensive, but given how little use I currently make of them it's like pissing money down the drain.
Another reason is that the company they were registered with and that provides the hosting was rubbish. I don't know that the new company I'm switching to will be any good, but it will be a clean break. Customer service was particularly poor at the old place.
Also, the hosting was of disparate types and accessed through different means and using different tools (despite all being the same company - another reason I'm not keen), which made things very confusing. This gives me a chance to consolidate it all into one place.
I'm going to kept all of the domain name registrations, which I've also transferred to this other registration place. I fully intend to revive trismugistus.com at the very least, but not for a while - certainly I won't even think about it until I've finished the magazine scanning, which I see as my main hobby priority for the immediate future.
I'll probably see if I can't get the sites to redirect to my blogs, but I'm sure there'll be lots of feet dragging over the transfers and cancellations. Making it easier for customers might encourage them to change things, and then they'd loose your money!
I've also decided to get my own broadband again.
Piggybacking on my landlords cable is something of a double-edged sword.
The upside is that when it's running smoothly, it's super quick. I can get download speeds somewhere in the ballpark of 10meg, which is super groovy.
Unfortunately, the download cap is pretty stingy - when you've downloaded about a gig it throttles the connection back something chronic. Of course, from my point of view it's still pretty quick - going from 10 down to 2 is a big drop, but 2 is as quick as I've ever had using telephone landlines. So the net effect of this doesn't bother me too much.
What does cause me problems is that the connection regularly flakes out. I'm used to this of course - loosing synchronisation is quite common on landline broadband too (I was more surprised that you get it on cable too) - but the problem is that the modem and router are obviously in my landlords house.
So if he goes out or it's late at night or early in the morning, I have no internet. Also part of the reason he suggested me using it was because he hardly uses the internet, so even when he's in he may not notice. And I also feel I'm being a bit of a nuisance constantly knocking on his door just to ask him to reset the modem/router.
I have actually noticed just recently that when I set a bunch of torrents going the connection dies very quickly. I've in the habit of setting them going before I go to work and leaving them going until I come back, by which time they've finished. I'm not sure if this is some deliberate move by Virgin to cap me in another way or just coincidence, but it is rather suspicious.
And it also means I feel a bit guilty that I'm now regularly killing his internet. As such, my new plan is to get a fairly basic phone line broadband. I can use it for torrents if that is what's causing the problem and it also means I've got a back up.
Not that it proved simple either of course. Turns out that when I cancelled my landline broadband back in September last year they never properly released the line. And to make things more complicated, the ISP was bought out by Talk Talk, so I spent ages trying to find out who to talk too, let alone getting it sorted :/.
There were a host (ho ho) of reasons for doing this.
Partly it was to save spending the money. None of the sites were hugely expensive, but given how little use I currently make of them it's like pissing money down the drain.
Another reason is that the company they were registered with and that provides the hosting was rubbish. I don't know that the new company I'm switching to will be any good, but it will be a clean break. Customer service was particularly poor at the old place.
Also, the hosting was of disparate types and accessed through different means and using different tools (despite all being the same company - another reason I'm not keen), which made things very confusing. This gives me a chance to consolidate it all into one place.
I'm going to kept all of the domain name registrations, which I've also transferred to this other registration place. I fully intend to revive trismugistus.com at the very least, but not for a while - certainly I won't even think about it until I've finished the magazine scanning, which I see as my main hobby priority for the immediate future.
I'll probably see if I can't get the sites to redirect to my blogs, but I'm sure there'll be lots of feet dragging over the transfers and cancellations. Making it easier for customers might encourage them to change things, and then they'd loose your money!
I've also decided to get my own broadband again.
Piggybacking on my landlords cable is something of a double-edged sword.
The upside is that when it's running smoothly, it's super quick. I can get download speeds somewhere in the ballpark of 10meg, which is super groovy.
Unfortunately, the download cap is pretty stingy - when you've downloaded about a gig it throttles the connection back something chronic. Of course, from my point of view it's still pretty quick - going from 10 down to 2 is a big drop, but 2 is as quick as I've ever had using telephone landlines. So the net effect of this doesn't bother me too much.
What does cause me problems is that the connection regularly flakes out. I'm used to this of course - loosing synchronisation is quite common on landline broadband too (I was more surprised that you get it on cable too) - but the problem is that the modem and router are obviously in my landlords house.
So if he goes out or it's late at night or early in the morning, I have no internet. Also part of the reason he suggested me using it was because he hardly uses the internet, so even when he's in he may not notice. And I also feel I'm being a bit of a nuisance constantly knocking on his door just to ask him to reset the modem/router.
I have actually noticed just recently that when I set a bunch of torrents going the connection dies very quickly. I've in the habit of setting them going before I go to work and leaving them going until I come back, by which time they've finished. I'm not sure if this is some deliberate move by Virgin to cap me in another way or just coincidence, but it is rather suspicious.
And it also means I feel a bit guilty that I'm now regularly killing his internet. As such, my new plan is to get a fairly basic phone line broadband. I can use it for torrents if that is what's causing the problem and it also means I've got a back up.
Not that it proved simple either of course. Turns out that when I cancelled my landline broadband back in September last year they never properly released the line. And to make things more complicated, the ISP was bought out by Talk Talk, so I spent ages trying to find out who to talk too, let alone getting it sorted :/.
Thursday, 21 April 2011
easter
It's the first of the long bank holiday weekends from tomorrow.
Unlike half the country, I'm not taking next week off, so I'll be in work on the Tuesday to Thursday. I'm kinda hoping that they're really quiet as we've been so busy at work it's been stupid.
My plans for the Easter weekend are pretty boring.
My main intention is to do the whole swapping over of spring and winter clothes from the shed and also to give my bedsit a bit of a spring clean.
Actually that's not fully true. As per usual, I've put together a big old to do list/schedule thing and I've been way too ambitious about what's actually achievable in this one weekend. So I've also got it down to do all the backup stuff and to sort through my scans and other images (these make sense since I keep the backup drives in the shed) and to sort through the audio books and animes I need to burn. Plus I've also tentatively got giving the car a clean in there too.
But then I've also decided to do a roast to use up the hunk of meat that's been in my freezers since Christmas (part of the spring clean will involve defrosting the freezer, so a perfect time to use it) and getting my haircut and...
This is clearly way too much, but then it wouldn't be one of my holidays if I didn't have unrealistic expectations as to how much I can do in a day.
I was actually thinking that I might use the next few weeks to catch up on my reviews. I've written quite a few reviews that I should really post on the blog, so I may use the next few weeks to get them up.
I've actually been thinking I might get rid of all of my websites and just keep various blogs going. It seems daft having some of the websites and I'm perfectly happy with how this blog operates. It's a hell of a lot simpler to update, for example.
I'll probably hold onto my trismugistus.com domain, but just not have an actual website.
Unlike half the country, I'm not taking next week off, so I'll be in work on the Tuesday to Thursday. I'm kinda hoping that they're really quiet as we've been so busy at work it's been stupid.
My plans for the Easter weekend are pretty boring.
My main intention is to do the whole swapping over of spring and winter clothes from the shed and also to give my bedsit a bit of a spring clean.
Actually that's not fully true. As per usual, I've put together a big old to do list/schedule thing and I've been way too ambitious about what's actually achievable in this one weekend. So I've also got it down to do all the backup stuff and to sort through my scans and other images (these make sense since I keep the backup drives in the shed) and to sort through the audio books and animes I need to burn. Plus I've also tentatively got giving the car a clean in there too.
But then I've also decided to do a roast to use up the hunk of meat that's been in my freezers since Christmas (part of the spring clean will involve defrosting the freezer, so a perfect time to use it) and getting my haircut and...
This is clearly way too much, but then it wouldn't be one of my holidays if I didn't have unrealistic expectations as to how much I can do in a day.
I was actually thinking that I might use the next few weeks to catch up on my reviews. I've written quite a few reviews that I should really post on the blog, so I may use the next few weeks to get them up.
I've actually been thinking I might get rid of all of my websites and just keep various blogs going. It seems daft having some of the websites and I'm perfectly happy with how this blog operates. It's a hell of a lot simpler to update, for example.
I'll probably hold onto my trismugistus.com domain, but just not have an actual website.
Thursday, 9 December 2010
website refresh
For the last few weeks I've been trying to update my website.
Most of my updates are of the basic content kind - predominantly nowadays that means adding a new review. But this update is slightly different, because I want to do two things.
First off, I want to tweak the design. I've been pretty happy with my most recent site design, so it's not a radical departure, more of a spruce up. For some reason, every time I do a redesign I strive to make things simpler. I'm not sure why this is - probably partly because I associate simplicity with elegance - but also maybe because I find when I'm doing a regular update there'll be some niggle that makes it slightly inefficient.
So that's one thing and it would normally take a little while to implement a simple design tweak like this.
But the other thing I want to do is a kind of a triumvirate of "r"s - I want to restructure, repurpose and review.
By restructure I mean I want to tweak the internal layout of folders and files so that it's more logical and easier to work with when I add new stuff.
By re-purpose I mean I want to change the focus of the my site. Essentially, I want to make trismugistus.com, which is my main site and the only one I really update any more, a stand-alone reviews site.
And by review I mean I want to go through all my reviews and check the content. Over the years I've veered all over the place in terms of a standard layout for the reviews, but also I want to go through and correct all the typos and errors I've made.
And it's this very last bit that I'm stuck on. I've done a new design, I've tweaked all the folder structures and page layouts and I've adjusted things so that trismugistus.com is solely a review site. And then I started going through the reviews and it's taken ages.
Perhaps the biggest problem is that it's quite tedious. I think one of the main reasons I have lots of reviews with these types of errors in is because while I'll happily bash the review out, I don't then enjoy going through it and giving it a proper edit. It's just quicker and easier to stick it up on the site. So now I'm compressing this boring editing process down into a big chunk and it's horrendously dull.
I've also found I had far more reviews than I realised - there are dozens of the things, and for each one you're talking about a thousand words. That means it's like editing and proof-reading a small novel.
So yeah, a site refresh is coming, but it may be Christmas before I find enough time to devote to completing it :/.
Most of my updates are of the basic content kind - predominantly nowadays that means adding a new review. But this update is slightly different, because I want to do two things.
First off, I want to tweak the design. I've been pretty happy with my most recent site design, so it's not a radical departure, more of a spruce up. For some reason, every time I do a redesign I strive to make things simpler. I'm not sure why this is - probably partly because I associate simplicity with elegance - but also maybe because I find when I'm doing a regular update there'll be some niggle that makes it slightly inefficient.
So that's one thing and it would normally take a little while to implement a simple design tweak like this.
But the other thing I want to do is a kind of a triumvirate of "r"s - I want to restructure, repurpose and review.
By restructure I mean I want to tweak the internal layout of folders and files so that it's more logical and easier to work with when I add new stuff.
By re-purpose I mean I want to change the focus of the my site. Essentially, I want to make trismugistus.com, which is my main site and the only one I really update any more, a stand-alone reviews site.
And by review I mean I want to go through all my reviews and check the content. Over the years I've veered all over the place in terms of a standard layout for the reviews, but also I want to go through and correct all the typos and errors I've made.
And it's this very last bit that I'm stuck on. I've done a new design, I've tweaked all the folder structures and page layouts and I've adjusted things so that trismugistus.com is solely a review site. And then I started going through the reviews and it's taken ages.
Perhaps the biggest problem is that it's quite tedious. I think one of the main reasons I have lots of reviews with these types of errors in is because while I'll happily bash the review out, I don't then enjoy going through it and giving it a proper edit. It's just quicker and easier to stick it up on the site. So now I'm compressing this boring editing process down into a big chunk and it's horrendously dull.
I've also found I had far more reviews than I realised - there are dozens of the things, and for each one you're talking about a thousand words. That means it's like editing and proof-reading a small novel.
So yeah, a site refresh is coming, but it may be Christmas before I find enough time to devote to completing it :/.
Thursday, 22 July 2010
da pageviews
That's 'DA' meaning DeviantArt, not 'da' as in "da boyz", by the way.
But speaking of stats and pageviews the other day, I've been a member of DA for a good while now (5 years according to my DA homepage) and somehow I've wracked up 6,300-odd pageviews.
I say somehow, because I'm not that good an artist. In fact, beyond writing, which I enjoy, and like to delude myself that I'm not half bad at, I'd say I was a pretty rubbish artist. And even if I was actually any good at writing, writing is not generally all that popular on DA, plus I haven't submitted anything at all now for the best part of 2 years.
So I've had the account 5 years and for the last two of them have submitted nothing. I've never posted on the forums and I don't use the blog on there. Plus, I only watch a small handful of artists and I generally don't comment very much on those artist's work, although I do fave plenty. I also don't go around randomly commenting or giving away the llamas that were such a hit recently.
In other words, I don't do anything that would get me particularly noticed, yet I've got more than 6,000 pageviews - that's more than 1,200 a year, or 100 a month, or around 3-4 visits a day!
However, what's even more puzzling is the stats on some of my deviations.
If you look at my gallery stats the first thing you notice is that the vast majority of my uploads have next to no views . The written stuff in particular rarely breaks past a dozen views. The wallpapers I did faired a little better. One in particular, called swords from when I was properly active on the site has about a 1,000 pageviews.
(What's really annoying about DA's latest, shittiest version, is that the above mentioned wall is meant to be a 1,600*1,200 res wall that people can download and use. But, because of how this shit new version works, you can't get at it as a 1,600*1,200 res image. What the fuck is that all about? I mean, it was uploaded as a 1,600*1,200 file originally, but somewhere in the shitifcation process they appear to have lost it. Or at least there's meant to be an "allow download" option in the back end, and it's not there. Fucking useless idiots.)
But what you also notice is that this version of the space scene wall has a massive 4,319 views and 3,401 downloads!
Now I appreciate that's not massive by properly popular artist standards, but in comparison to everything else in my gallery, it's the equivalent of a one-hit wonder. Especially when you consider that the other variants barely scraped past 500 page views combined.
The only thing I can think is that somewhere out there in the ether someone has linked to that wall and it still gets a trickle of click-throughs. And then a few randomly curious people click to see who this trismugistus fellow is.
It's all a bit bizarre really.
But speaking of stats and pageviews the other day, I've been a member of DA for a good while now (5 years according to my DA homepage) and somehow I've wracked up 6,300-odd pageviews.
I say somehow, because I'm not that good an artist. In fact, beyond writing, which I enjoy, and like to delude myself that I'm not half bad at, I'd say I was a pretty rubbish artist. And even if I was actually any good at writing, writing is not generally all that popular on DA, plus I haven't submitted anything at all now for the best part of 2 years.
So I've had the account 5 years and for the last two of them have submitted nothing. I've never posted on the forums and I don't use the blog on there. Plus, I only watch a small handful of artists and I generally don't comment very much on those artist's work, although I do fave plenty. I also don't go around randomly commenting or giving away the llamas that were such a hit recently.
In other words, I don't do anything that would get me particularly noticed, yet I've got more than 6,000 pageviews - that's more than 1,200 a year, or 100 a month, or around 3-4 visits a day!
However, what's even more puzzling is the stats on some of my deviations.
If you look at my gallery stats the first thing you notice is that the vast majority of my uploads have next to no views . The written stuff in particular rarely breaks past a dozen views. The wallpapers I did faired a little better. One in particular, called swords from when I was properly active on the site has about a 1,000 pageviews.
(What's really annoying about DA's latest, shittiest version, is that the above mentioned wall is meant to be a 1,600*1,200 res wall that people can download and use. But, because of how this shit new version works, you can't get at it as a 1,600*1,200 res image. What the fuck is that all about? I mean, it was uploaded as a 1,600*1,200 file originally, but somewhere in the shitifcation process they appear to have lost it. Or at least there's meant to be an "allow download" option in the back end, and it's not there. Fucking useless idiots.)
But what you also notice is that this version of the space scene wall has a massive 4,319 views and 3,401 downloads!
Now I appreciate that's not massive by properly popular artist standards, but in comparison to everything else in my gallery, it's the equivalent of a one-hit wonder. Especially when you consider that the other variants barely scraped past 500 page views combined.
The only thing I can think is that somewhere out there in the ether someone has linked to that wall and it still gets a trickle of click-throughs. And then a few randomly curious people click to see who this trismugistus fellow is.
It's all a bit bizarre really.
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.
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, 9 March 2010
pray continue, my good man
Continuing from yesterday...
6) I got infected by Malware from icanhascheeseburger.com
I used to go there every so often and look at the lolcats for a little light relief, but on Wednesday Lunch I got some malware from something on the site. Specifically it was one of those bogus anti-virus jobs that claims to find stuff and then gets you to pay for software that does nothing.
I've no real idea what it was that infected me, but it kinda ruined the afternoon of work, as I spent a lot of time getting rid of it.
7) I updated trismugistus.com
I've uploaded a new review for steamboy and already prepped two more weeks. I've also got a further dozen or so where I've done the review and scanned stuff, but I need to actually turn them into reviews I can upload.
It's weird that it's March already - it only seems like yesterday I was last updating the site, but it was November since my last review and Christmas since I uploaded the chrimbo message. I can't believe that Easter is nearly upon us!
8) I bought some new shoes and clothes
My current ones are falling apart and I'd been meaning to for a while, but never got round to it - much like everything on this list! - so I got a new pair.
I find the sizes weird - these new ones are a 10, but others I've got are 11s, and these 10s don't feel uncomfortable. Well, no more uncomfortable than any new shoe while you're breaking it in. The sizes seems to vary so much from shoe to shoe. Or maybe my feet keep changing sizes - who knows?
I also bought some clothes. Being so fat, I have to get special big-size clothes. There wasn't much of a selection at the usual place I go to. I hope they're not going out of business and running down there stock and it was just a case of me catching it "between lines".
Do clothes shops suffer during recessions? I honestly don't know :/.
9) Steam sucks cock
This is steam by valve, not steam the boiled water.
Basically I put a bunch of auctions up last week on e-bay and they came to an end on Sunday, but someone contacted me asking if one of them - Modern Warfare 2 - would be accompanied by access to my steam account.
After some investigation, I found out that when I registered it on steam, as I was required to on install, that basically locked the CD-key I got with the game to my steam account.
If I'd known I would have set up a special account for the purpose, but I didn't, and I'm unwilling to hand over my entire steam account to someone else.
But seriously - what the fuck is that all about? I mean, it really pisses me off the way these piracy controls have been going - I've now got a game I've no interest in ever playing again that I can't sell second hand.
Selling games second hand is almost at the heart of gaming - it's why the astronomical prices they charge for new games doesn't hurt so bad, because you know you'll get a chunk of it back again. If you're now saying that that's dead, then I may well have to stop buying your games altogether.
In a way I don't even blame them - it's the fuckers that are the pirates that have driven it that way. But still, there should be some consideration for us legal purchasers - what about the ability to simply transfer your CD key from one account to another?
Anyway, it also meant I had to piss off some poor bloke on e-bay who won the auction in good faith, sent his payment and then got all these messages from me apologising, saying it couldn't be transferred and then refunding him his money.
10) I did some scanning and watched some anime
This has to be one of the biggest shocks - I not only sat down and finished Maria Holic, but I also started Dragonaut: The Resonance. Indeed, I've gotten 10 episodes into dragonaut (I think if I'd gone for a half series, I might have made an extra push and finished it, but I didn't, so I didn't). Here are some mini review type notes:
Maria Holic was very inconsistent. Some episodes were very funny, but others a lot less so. Indeed, some were more like a proper dramas than something in a comedy. Unfortunately, it wasn't the best drama, so that didn't really help matters.
Also, I have to admit this is one series that could really have done with a dub. Several of the characters talked incredibly fast and with a few translation notes popping up too, it was horribly difficult to follow at times without pausing and rewinding.
Dragonaut I've been kinda enjoying. I read a lot of stuff totally slating the series, but I think it's alright. I mean, I'm not gonna pretend it's the greatest thing ever, but it's not bad either. Well, not so far, anyway - maybe it goes terrible at the end?
I've a sneaking suspicion that a lot of it is fuelled by the rather extreme character designs, which features more than a few boobs-bigger-than-heads characters. But then to be fair, the actual fan-service is relatively minimal. I mean, there's even been a "hot springs" episode, and even that had little fan service in it. Indeed, it wasn't really a hot springs - more like a swimming pool/water flume place, so everyone was in swimming costumes, rather than naked like they'd be at a hot spring.
And here's the real kicker - I did some scanning too!
Half of it was scanning the freebies and fliers I get with my cd-japan orders, of which there were a surprisingly large number, but I also did a complete issue of megami! I know, I was stunned too.
And while I scanned, I watched some fansubs (it's almost like the old days!):
Needless
Bit of a mixed feeling on this. I kinda liked the first episode, but the second was rather badly paced.
Overall, the show seemed to bare a close resemblance in tone to Gurren Lagann - a mish-mash of familiar ideas, but done with lots of gusto and energy. However, in the second episode there were long periods of people talking at each other (and supposedly during a fight :/), which smacked a bit too much of Dragonball Z syndrome and cheap budgets.
So I dunno - I'd probably watch it, but I've a feeling it would annoy me almost as much as I liked it.
Hipira: The Little Vampire
This is a series of shorts. It's actually cg animated, but it's done in such a way as to look more like normal anime than most.
In essence, it's a kids show and while there's nothing wrong with that, it didn't really appeal to me, to be honest.
I think I might have a bit of the old vampire fatigue too - they're absolutely every-bloody-where.
Charger Girl Juden Chan
A while back I was... well, I wouldn't say up in arms, but I was a bit miffed that Crunchyroll's streaming of this series was being edited. You should note that this was before I'd come to the conclusion that Crunchyroll's streaming is a hateful experience, so it was with reluctance at that time that I dl'ed an uncensored fansub version .
Well, to be perfectly frank if I'd known what Juden chan was like I would have not bothered and tried the Crunchyroll version (as I say, before I came to my current stance on Crunchyroll streaming). Now I say this without any sort of assurance that what I found objectionable is the stuff that's been removed, but I'm fairly sure it is.
The stuff in question is pee.
At least I'm pretty sure it's pee - it's yellow, and it runs down the female character's legs so I'm pretty sure it's pee. Trouble is, there's also a suggestion that it appears not only when the character gets knocked out (and hence looses control of their bladder - quite what the appeal of this fetish is I really don't know. It keeps cropping up in Ikkitousen and to me it's just plain gross.) but also when they're getting sexually aroused.
Of course that's sexual arousal in that faintly misogynistic way that still crops up in anime where the merest hint of contact with a woman's nipples, breasts or crotch area instantly has them dripping. Even when the person touching them is a complete stranger or, worse, a rapist or molester.
To be frank, this is the one aspect of mainstream anime that really annoys me. I can understand it in the total-fantasy that is the world of hentai, but in non-hentai anime, it's just plain wrong, because it's just plain wrong in real life.
I dunno - it's a double standard from me, I guess, as mostly I like fan-service, but to me there's a world of difference between getting a flash of panties or boobs and this.
Anyway, the point is, if it wasn't for the girls peeing themselves all over the place, this would be okay, but with it in, it's just nasty.
6) I got infected by Malware from icanhascheeseburger.com
I used to go there every so often and look at the lolcats for a little light relief, but on Wednesday Lunch I got some malware from something on the site. Specifically it was one of those bogus anti-virus jobs that claims to find stuff and then gets you to pay for software that does nothing.
I've no real idea what it was that infected me, but it kinda ruined the afternoon of work, as I spent a lot of time getting rid of it.
7) I updated trismugistus.com
I've uploaded a new review for steamboy and already prepped two more weeks. I've also got a further dozen or so where I've done the review and scanned stuff, but I need to actually turn them into reviews I can upload.
It's weird that it's March already - it only seems like yesterday I was last updating the site, but it was November since my last review and Christmas since I uploaded the chrimbo message. I can't believe that Easter is nearly upon us!
8) I bought some new shoes and clothes
My current ones are falling apart and I'd been meaning to for a while, but never got round to it - much like everything on this list! - so I got a new pair.
I find the sizes weird - these new ones are a 10, but others I've got are 11s, and these 10s don't feel uncomfortable. Well, no more uncomfortable than any new shoe while you're breaking it in. The sizes seems to vary so much from shoe to shoe. Or maybe my feet keep changing sizes - who knows?
I also bought some clothes. Being so fat, I have to get special big-size clothes. There wasn't much of a selection at the usual place I go to. I hope they're not going out of business and running down there stock and it was just a case of me catching it "between lines".
Do clothes shops suffer during recessions? I honestly don't know :/.
9) Steam sucks cock
This is steam by valve, not steam the boiled water.
Basically I put a bunch of auctions up last week on e-bay and they came to an end on Sunday, but someone contacted me asking if one of them - Modern Warfare 2 - would be accompanied by access to my steam account.
After some investigation, I found out that when I registered it on steam, as I was required to on install, that basically locked the CD-key I got with the game to my steam account.
If I'd known I would have set up a special account for the purpose, but I didn't, and I'm unwilling to hand over my entire steam account to someone else.
But seriously - what the fuck is that all about? I mean, it really pisses me off the way these piracy controls have been going - I've now got a game I've no interest in ever playing again that I can't sell second hand.
Selling games second hand is almost at the heart of gaming - it's why the astronomical prices they charge for new games doesn't hurt so bad, because you know you'll get a chunk of it back again. If you're now saying that that's dead, then I may well have to stop buying your games altogether.
In a way I don't even blame them - it's the fuckers that are the pirates that have driven it that way. But still, there should be some consideration for us legal purchasers - what about the ability to simply transfer your CD key from one account to another?
Anyway, it also meant I had to piss off some poor bloke on e-bay who won the auction in good faith, sent his payment and then got all these messages from me apologising, saying it couldn't be transferred and then refunding him his money.
10) I did some scanning and watched some anime
This has to be one of the biggest shocks - I not only sat down and finished Maria Holic, but I also started Dragonaut: The Resonance. Indeed, I've gotten 10 episodes into dragonaut (I think if I'd gone for a half series, I might have made an extra push and finished it, but I didn't, so I didn't). Here are some mini review type notes:
Maria Holic was very inconsistent. Some episodes were very funny, but others a lot less so. Indeed, some were more like a proper dramas than something in a comedy. Unfortunately, it wasn't the best drama, so that didn't really help matters.
Also, I have to admit this is one series that could really have done with a dub. Several of the characters talked incredibly fast and with a few translation notes popping up too, it was horribly difficult to follow at times without pausing and rewinding.
Dragonaut I've been kinda enjoying. I read a lot of stuff totally slating the series, but I think it's alright. I mean, I'm not gonna pretend it's the greatest thing ever, but it's not bad either. Well, not so far, anyway - maybe it goes terrible at the end?
I've a sneaking suspicion that a lot of it is fuelled by the rather extreme character designs, which features more than a few boobs-bigger-than-heads characters. But then to be fair, the actual fan-service is relatively minimal. I mean, there's even been a "hot springs" episode, and even that had little fan service in it. Indeed, it wasn't really a hot springs - more like a swimming pool/water flume place, so everyone was in swimming costumes, rather than naked like they'd be at a hot spring.
And here's the real kicker - I did some scanning too!
Half of it was scanning the freebies and fliers I get with my cd-japan orders, of which there were a surprisingly large number, but I also did a complete issue of megami! I know, I was stunned too.
And while I scanned, I watched some fansubs (it's almost like the old days!):
Needless
Bit of a mixed feeling on this. I kinda liked the first episode, but the second was rather badly paced.
Overall, the show seemed to bare a close resemblance in tone to Gurren Lagann - a mish-mash of familiar ideas, but done with lots of gusto and energy. However, in the second episode there were long periods of people talking at each other (and supposedly during a fight :/), which smacked a bit too much of Dragonball Z syndrome and cheap budgets.
So I dunno - I'd probably watch it, but I've a feeling it would annoy me almost as much as I liked it.
Hipira: The Little Vampire
This is a series of shorts. It's actually cg animated, but it's done in such a way as to look more like normal anime than most.
In essence, it's a kids show and while there's nothing wrong with that, it didn't really appeal to me, to be honest.
I think I might have a bit of the old vampire fatigue too - they're absolutely every-bloody-where.
Charger Girl Juden Chan
A while back I was... well, I wouldn't say up in arms, but I was a bit miffed that Crunchyroll's streaming of this series was being edited. You should note that this was before I'd come to the conclusion that Crunchyroll's streaming is a hateful experience, so it was with reluctance at that time that I dl'ed an uncensored fansub version .
Well, to be perfectly frank if I'd known what Juden chan was like I would have not bothered and tried the Crunchyroll version (as I say, before I came to my current stance on Crunchyroll streaming). Now I say this without any sort of assurance that what I found objectionable is the stuff that's been removed, but I'm fairly sure it is.
The stuff in question is pee.
At least I'm pretty sure it's pee - it's yellow, and it runs down the female character's legs so I'm pretty sure it's pee. Trouble is, there's also a suggestion that it appears not only when the character gets knocked out (and hence looses control of their bladder - quite what the appeal of this fetish is I really don't know. It keeps cropping up in Ikkitousen and to me it's just plain gross.) but also when they're getting sexually aroused.
Of course that's sexual arousal in that faintly misogynistic way that still crops up in anime where the merest hint of contact with a woman's nipples, breasts or crotch area instantly has them dripping. Even when the person touching them is a complete stranger or, worse, a rapist or molester.
To be frank, this is the one aspect of mainstream anime that really annoys me. I can understand it in the total-fantasy that is the world of hentai, but in non-hentai anime, it's just plain wrong, because it's just plain wrong in real life.
I dunno - it's a double standard from me, I guess, as mostly I like fan-service, but to me there's a world of difference between getting a flash of panties or boobs and this.
Anyway, the point is, if it wasn't for the girls peeing themselves all over the place, this would be okay, but with it in, it's just nasty.
Thursday, 29 October 2009
website change
I mentioned a little while ago that trismugistus.com had come up for renewal and although I'd never get rid of that site I might get rid of my other sites.
Well I think I've come up with a sort of half-way house. I've created a digital-bondage blog and uploaded all my walls there.
Well, I say all my walls, I've not uploaded all of the various resolutions I have on dig-bon. My plan was, where I had multiple resolutions, I was only going to upload the largest version.
However, it quickly became apparent that this involved too much effort. See, the problem was that while I know the main 4:3 ration walls off by heart (1600*1200, 1280*960, 1024*768, etc), I can't remember the 16:9 and 16:10 ones.
As such, rather than go through the tedious job of working out which was which, instead I just pruned out all the smaller 4:3 walls.
Anyway, the point is that I'm going to get rid of the main digital-bondage site, but I'll be replacing any links or references to it with links to the digital-bondage blog. That way I can keep my walls online and available, but it doesn't cost me any money.
I think with scan-city.org I'm just going to get rid of it completely. I guess I could do something similar in terms of a blog, but the problem is it would need a huge amount of space and while I can get it cheaply, it's also a lot of hassle. Especially when you consider I've basically not done any scanning in something like 3 months and am seriously considering giving it up as a hobby altogether.
I'll make some more concrete decisions on that front later.
I've been trying to watch a bit of animu this week. One of the things I've been watching is Baccano. I was deadly afraid I'd over-hyped it in my own mind and I wouldn't enjoy it as much as I remembered from watching the fansubs.
Well I have been enjoying it, but one thing I have found is that the English dub is terrible, because many of the actors are trying to put on New York accents (or should that be "Nu Yoik" accents?) and the level of success is... variable to say the least.
The other thing I've been watching is a bit of Saki on Crunchyroll. I've been kinda enjoying it, but I got really confused and had to look up what Japanese Mahjong was all about.
The site I did that via was this one which has loads of pictures to help you see what's going on.
Initially watching Saki I'd thought it was me being dumb, because it seemed really complicated, but looking at the game on that site it turns out that no, Japanese Mahjong is really complicated.
I mean there's loads of rules just to determine who sits where and who starts before you even start playing the actual game :/.
Well I think I've come up with a sort of half-way house. I've created a digital-bondage blog and uploaded all my walls there.
Well, I say all my walls, I've not uploaded all of the various resolutions I have on dig-bon. My plan was, where I had multiple resolutions, I was only going to upload the largest version.
However, it quickly became apparent that this involved too much effort. See, the problem was that while I know the main 4:3 ration walls off by heart (1600*1200, 1280*960, 1024*768, etc), I can't remember the 16:9 and 16:10 ones.
As such, rather than go through the tedious job of working out which was which, instead I just pruned out all the smaller 4:3 walls.
Anyway, the point is that I'm going to get rid of the main digital-bondage site, but I'll be replacing any links or references to it with links to the digital-bondage blog. That way I can keep my walls online and available, but it doesn't cost me any money.
I think with scan-city.org I'm just going to get rid of it completely. I guess I could do something similar in terms of a blog, but the problem is it would need a huge amount of space and while I can get it cheaply, it's also a lot of hassle. Especially when you consider I've basically not done any scanning in something like 3 months and am seriously considering giving it up as a hobby altogether.
I'll make some more concrete decisions on that front later.
I've been trying to watch a bit of animu this week. One of the things I've been watching is Baccano. I was deadly afraid I'd over-hyped it in my own mind and I wouldn't enjoy it as much as I remembered from watching the fansubs.
Well I have been enjoying it, but one thing I have found is that the English dub is terrible, because many of the actors are trying to put on New York accents (or should that be "Nu Yoik" accents?) and the level of success is... variable to say the least.
The other thing I've been watching is a bit of Saki on Crunchyroll. I've been kinda enjoying it, but I got really confused and had to look up what Japanese Mahjong was all about.
The site I did that via was this one which has loads of pictures to help you see what's going on.
Initially watching Saki I'd thought it was me being dumb, because it seemed really complicated, but looking at the game on that site it turns out that no, Japanese Mahjong is really complicated.
I mean there's loads of rules just to determine who sits where and who starts before you even start playing the actual game :/.
Monday, 12 October 2009
wib sites
I've recently been trying to cut down on my expenditures.
The primary reason for this is that I'm in a mountain of debt and have been for a very long time.
There are a few rays of hope in this cloud of gloom. One of the main ones is the huge pile of "stuff" that I own. For example, if and when I pull my finger out and watch all my unwatched stuff, selling it all on e-bay will (in theory), release some big old chunks of cash that should alleviate at least part of the debt.
Also, my attempts at reigning in my spending have, on the whole, been working. I now buy far fewer DVDs than I used to. I also don't buy so much random crap and I even try to by non-branded and generic products where I can.
As part of this "don't spend money you having got, you fucking idiot" crusade, one of my attempts has been to get cable. I know I've talked about this before, but I dunno how far I explained.
Basically, it turned out that they wouldn't allow two lots of cable at the same address, and my landlord already has cable. So what we did was run a very long network cable through the roof from his router and down into my place.
My plan was to try this out for about a month and if it worked fine then I'd cancel my existing broadband, saving me over £30 a month. I'd also look at stopping my telephone landline, potentially saving another £11 a month. That's the best part of £500 saved a year.
Unfortunately, early signs are that this may not be as successful as I'd hoped.
There are two basic problems.
The first is that it turns out cable broadband is subject to the same issues of dropping out as regular broadband. Now it doesn't happen as frequently, and it's solved just as easily, by unplugging the router and then plugging it back in. But the problem of course is that the router isn't in my house, so if my landlord is out, there's nothing I can do.
The other problem is that the connection is massively capped.
Basically, they only allow you about 1.5gb of bandwidth before they throttle the connection speed back. 1.5gb is nothing - I can get through that browsing websites, let alone all the downloading I do.
This is one of the things I have gotten used to with my current service. There are no bandwidth limits at all and I regularly get through over 100gb a month.
The other thing that weighs in here is that the cable connection isn't dramatically faster than my landline broadband. From the cable I get just under 2megabits (this is actually puzzling to me, because it's meant to be a 10meg line - dunno if it's been handicapped because of the giant network cable, but it seems quite a bit off of what it should be), whereas with the landline I can get about 1.4megabits.
Yes, it's faster, but once they throttle it, which happens often, it drops to less than 1megabit. If I keep using it, it also seems to slow down even more.
The other saving plan I've been mulling over is getting rid of some of my websites.
For example, the scan-city.org site has basically never been used properly and, having gone almost completely off of doing scanning, it seems an incredible waste of money.
I've also gone off of walling, so it also seems daft keeping digital-bondage.net. On top of which nobody likes my walls anyway, so it's not like the world would be missing anything. To be fair, scan-city doesn't cost much, so it wouldn't be a huge saving to get rid of it.
That leaves trismugistus.com. I don't think I'd ever get rid of it, but I've been thinking I should turn it into a straight review site, especially if I get rid of digital-bondage.net. I could also probably change the hosting as I wouldn't have the need to store all my big walling files.
That'd give me an excuse to tweak the site design as well. Not that I dislike the current design (just the opposite in fact) but it might be nice to give it a facelift. I could also go through and tidy up things like typos and errors I made.
The primary reason for this is that I'm in a mountain of debt and have been for a very long time.
There are a few rays of hope in this cloud of gloom. One of the main ones is the huge pile of "stuff" that I own. For example, if and when I pull my finger out and watch all my unwatched stuff, selling it all on e-bay will (in theory), release some big old chunks of cash that should alleviate at least part of the debt.
Also, my attempts at reigning in my spending have, on the whole, been working. I now buy far fewer DVDs than I used to. I also don't buy so much random crap and I even try to by non-branded and generic products where I can.
As part of this "don't spend money you having got, you fucking idiot" crusade, one of my attempts has been to get cable. I know I've talked about this before, but I dunno how far I explained.
Basically, it turned out that they wouldn't allow two lots of cable at the same address, and my landlord already has cable. So what we did was run a very long network cable through the roof from his router and down into my place.
My plan was to try this out for about a month and if it worked fine then I'd cancel my existing broadband, saving me over £30 a month. I'd also look at stopping my telephone landline, potentially saving another £11 a month. That's the best part of £500 saved a year.
Unfortunately, early signs are that this may not be as successful as I'd hoped.
There are two basic problems.
The first is that it turns out cable broadband is subject to the same issues of dropping out as regular broadband. Now it doesn't happen as frequently, and it's solved just as easily, by unplugging the router and then plugging it back in. But the problem of course is that the router isn't in my house, so if my landlord is out, there's nothing I can do.
The other problem is that the connection is massively capped.
Basically, they only allow you about 1.5gb of bandwidth before they throttle the connection speed back. 1.5gb is nothing - I can get through that browsing websites, let alone all the downloading I do.
This is one of the things I have gotten used to with my current service. There are no bandwidth limits at all and I regularly get through over 100gb a month.
The other thing that weighs in here is that the cable connection isn't dramatically faster than my landline broadband. From the cable I get just under 2megabits (this is actually puzzling to me, because it's meant to be a 10meg line - dunno if it's been handicapped because of the giant network cable, but it seems quite a bit off of what it should be), whereas with the landline I can get about 1.4megabits.
Yes, it's faster, but once they throttle it, which happens often, it drops to less than 1megabit. If I keep using it, it also seems to slow down even more.
The other saving plan I've been mulling over is getting rid of some of my websites.
For example, the scan-city.org site has basically never been used properly and, having gone almost completely off of doing scanning, it seems an incredible waste of money.
I've also gone off of walling, so it also seems daft keeping digital-bondage.net. On top of which nobody likes my walls anyway, so it's not like the world would be missing anything. To be fair, scan-city doesn't cost much, so it wouldn't be a huge saving to get rid of it.
That leaves trismugistus.com. I don't think I'd ever get rid of it, but I've been thinking I should turn it into a straight review site, especially if I get rid of digital-bondage.net. I could also probably change the hosting as I wouldn't have the need to store all my big walling files.
That'd give me an excuse to tweak the site design as well. Not that I dislike the current design (just the opposite in fact) but it might be nice to give it a facelift. I could also go through and tidy up things like typos and errors I made.
Monday, 13 July 2009
lookit
Look, I actually updated my website - http://www.trismugistus.com/
There's a new review on there. Well, I say new. It's new in the sense that it's new to the website. It's actually a very old review - let's put it this way: the review in question covers four volumes of the manga Rosario+Vampire. I recently finished volume 7 of that manga, and they don't exactly release them every month.
Still, it's good to have an update on the site. I even did a bit of work on some more updates. Unfortunately, the appalling tediousness of processing images for the reviews meant I didn't get as far as I'd have liked. I always forget just how long it takes to do them.
The downside is that I've still nothing really to update on the walling side - indeed, I've little in the ways of genuine motivation to even feel particularly guilty about that. What it odes mean is for the foreseeable future, my updates are going to be entirely review based.
Something else I managed to do while working on the updates was listen to the new Green Day album.
I gave it a couple of listens and I have to say that so far, while I like it, it's not one of their best. The main problem I'm having is that it sounds very familiar - they seem to have pinched (or pinched and tweaked) a lot of riffs from other songs.
Saying that, I've noticed it before with Green Day and I don't fundamentally have a problem with it, because they normally add a big fat Green Day stamp to the songs too. But here, it feels more like they didn't bother so much with the big fat stamp and used a small one instead.
It's difficult to explain and as I say, I don't dislike the album, but still, it feels like it could have been more.
It also doesn't help that the production seems a bit off - it's hard to tell what the lyrics are in a lot of places, which is never normally the case with Green Day. Also, because I can't tell what he's singing half the time, it means the album doesn't quite seem to have a cohesive theme. I mean, it's presented like a concept album, but I can't really tell what the concept was - not like American Idiot or Warning anyway.
So a little disappointing on that front.
I was also disappointed that I didn't get more done over the weekend. It wasn't a particularly busy one, but I dunno, the time seemed to slip away from me a bit. For example, I didn't do anything e-bay wise.
Also, even though I watched quite a bit of recorded telly, I've still a massive list of stuff on my PVR.
Partly that's because of my obsessive BSG watching, of course, but also the BBC decided to do one of those 5-parts-in-5-days things with the 3rd season of Torchwood.
It gets on my tits when they do stuff like that. I can understand it in some ways, but for me it's a totally impractical thing - I'd need weeks of advance notice to keep up with that as a schedule thing.
Still, it's one of the big advantage of PVRs - you can record all of the stuff in great quality and watch it back when you have the time. You can of course record stuff with normal VCRs, but the quality is poorer and you'd end up with several tapes kicking about for ages, which is far less practical.
There's a new review on there. Well, I say new. It's new in the sense that it's new to the website. It's actually a very old review - let's put it this way: the review in question covers four volumes of the manga Rosario+Vampire. I recently finished volume 7 of that manga, and they don't exactly release them every month.
Still, it's good to have an update on the site. I even did a bit of work on some more updates. Unfortunately, the appalling tediousness of processing images for the reviews meant I didn't get as far as I'd have liked. I always forget just how long it takes to do them.
The downside is that I've still nothing really to update on the walling side - indeed, I've little in the ways of genuine motivation to even feel particularly guilty about that. What it odes mean is for the foreseeable future, my updates are going to be entirely review based.
Something else I managed to do while working on the updates was listen to the new Green Day album.
I gave it a couple of listens and I have to say that so far, while I like it, it's not one of their best. The main problem I'm having is that it sounds very familiar - they seem to have pinched (or pinched and tweaked) a lot of riffs from other songs.
Saying that, I've noticed it before with Green Day and I don't fundamentally have a problem with it, because they normally add a big fat Green Day stamp to the songs too. But here, it feels more like they didn't bother so much with the big fat stamp and used a small one instead.
It's difficult to explain and as I say, I don't dislike the album, but still, it feels like it could have been more.
It also doesn't help that the production seems a bit off - it's hard to tell what the lyrics are in a lot of places, which is never normally the case with Green Day. Also, because I can't tell what he's singing half the time, it means the album doesn't quite seem to have a cohesive theme. I mean, it's presented like a concept album, but I can't really tell what the concept was - not like American Idiot or Warning anyway.
So a little disappointing on that front.
I was also disappointed that I didn't get more done over the weekend. It wasn't a particularly busy one, but I dunno, the time seemed to slip away from me a bit. For example, I didn't do anything e-bay wise.
Also, even though I watched quite a bit of recorded telly, I've still a massive list of stuff on my PVR.
Partly that's because of my obsessive BSG watching, of course, but also the BBC decided to do one of those 5-parts-in-5-days things with the 3rd season of Torchwood.
It gets on my tits when they do stuff like that. I can understand it in some ways, but for me it's a totally impractical thing - I'd need weeks of advance notice to keep up with that as a schedule thing.
Still, it's one of the big advantage of PVRs - you can record all of the stuff in great quality and watch it back when you have the time. You can of course record stuff with normal VCRs, but the quality is poorer and you'd end up with several tapes kicking about for ages, which is far less practical.
Tuesday, 7 July 2009
manga scans
I finished season 2 of BSG.
Well, that's not quite true - I've still the extras to go through, so while I've the show I've not 'finished' the DVD set yet.
I think one of the things that's impressed me the most is that the show isn't afraid to take a few risks. One of the things a lot of episodic television relies on is the return to the norm or the preservation of the status quo. In other words, our heroes don't die and our baddies never win.
But with BSG it's more complicated. I mean, just as a simple example that isn't really spoilering too much, the baddies do kinda win and they do so at the very start of the show. I mean, the first ep has the baddies wiping out 99.9% of humanity - that's not at all far off a big tick in the win column.
And there's plenty of that as the show goes along too - at the end of series 2 the status quo gets knocked so far off axis that it's a genuine shock.
Another example is that what you would classically see as being a dramatic series end type episode occurs a third of the way through season 2 and what it actually does end on is much more of a punch in the gut affair.
It's really brave is what I'm saying, and it's better for it.
Anyway, despite my growing BSG obsession, the weekend wasn't entirely a bust in terms of getting stuff done.
I managed to tick off most of the stuff on my to do list, one of the most important being that I scanned a whole load of manga covers.
I'd normally talk about the anime I watched while I scanned at this point, but scanning manga covers is always too complicated an activity to allow me to watch any anime. But what it does mean is I can finally finish off a whole load of reviews I've written for my website.
Making all the pictures for my reviews is a horribly tedious affair. I mean, scanning them is a pain to start with, but then there's the long process of resizing them and cropping them for the reviews. It's all stuff that sounds simple, but in practice ends up being both mind-numbing and very long winded.
But hopefully what I'll do is have a long session of it this next weekend and then start updating the site again.
There's unfortunately been no movement from me on making any walls, or even vectoring some scans, so I doubt I'll be having updates for anything except the reviews for a good while.
I'm not sure if this represents an effective end to my walling 'career' or not. I'm certainly very de-motivated when it comes to the whole walling thing.
But then, truth be told I've been quite de-motivated to do anything. I mean, I've hardly written anything (creatively, I mean) I've not exactly been keeping on top of updating my websites and I've been struggling to keep up with the scanning.
I can't understand where all the time goes :/.
Well, that's not quite true - I've still the extras to go through, so while I've the show I've not 'finished' the DVD set yet.
I think one of the things that's impressed me the most is that the show isn't afraid to take a few risks. One of the things a lot of episodic television relies on is the return to the norm or the preservation of the status quo. In other words, our heroes don't die and our baddies never win.
But with BSG it's more complicated. I mean, just as a simple example that isn't really spoilering too much, the baddies do kinda win and they do so at the very start of the show. I mean, the first ep has the baddies wiping out 99.9% of humanity - that's not at all far off a big tick in the win column.
And there's plenty of that as the show goes along too - at the end of series 2 the status quo gets knocked so far off axis that it's a genuine shock.
Another example is that what you would classically see as being a dramatic series end type episode occurs a third of the way through season 2 and what it actually does end on is much more of a punch in the gut affair.
It's really brave is what I'm saying, and it's better for it.
Anyway, despite my growing BSG obsession, the weekend wasn't entirely a bust in terms of getting stuff done.
I managed to tick off most of the stuff on my to do list, one of the most important being that I scanned a whole load of manga covers.
I'd normally talk about the anime I watched while I scanned at this point, but scanning manga covers is always too complicated an activity to allow me to watch any anime. But what it does mean is I can finally finish off a whole load of reviews I've written for my website.
Making all the pictures for my reviews is a horribly tedious affair. I mean, scanning them is a pain to start with, but then there's the long process of resizing them and cropping them for the reviews. It's all stuff that sounds simple, but in practice ends up being both mind-numbing and very long winded.
But hopefully what I'll do is have a long session of it this next weekend and then start updating the site again.
There's unfortunately been no movement from me on making any walls, or even vectoring some scans, so I doubt I'll be having updates for anything except the reviews for a good while.
I'm not sure if this represents an effective end to my walling 'career' or not. I'm certainly very de-motivated when it comes to the whole walling thing.
But then, truth be told I've been quite de-motivated to do anything. I mean, I've hardly written anything (creatively, I mean) I've not exactly been keeping on top of updating my websites and I've been struggling to keep up with the scanning.
I can't understand where all the time goes :/.
Friday, 5 June 2009
behind
I'm so fricking behind with everything.
Just before I went on holiday I bought a couple of new artbooks - the first in months - but now I've kinda realised that I need to scan them. And I've not scanned any of last months magazines at all. Heck, as I was taking the staples out I also realised I'd hardly even looked at those mags :/. And in the next week or two I'll be getting this months mags as well.
I've also gotten sick to death of the great big pile of old & imported mangas I was always planning to scan but have never gotten around to. Plus, I bought two calendars in a sale so I should scan them as well.
And speaking of magazines I've gotten way behind reading my magazines. I buy two each month - White Dwarf (which is for games workshop) and Empire (films) - and I've several recent issues of each still to read.
Part of the reason for that is that I've been really into manga just recently. I've been buying it like it's going out of fashion and so have been focused on reading all this lovely new manga. But that means I don't have time to read anything else.
The other thing I'm way behind on is my websites. Ever since I began doing my websites I've operated a policy of "building up" material. What I tend to do is write loads of reviews and make walls etc over a period of months and then have a big session making updates for the site.
I then roll these updates out on a weekly basis. The idea is that while the updates are rolling out I can be working on more new stuff and so (in theory) the cycle continues.
Unfortunately, what tends to happen in practice is that I work on the new material but then fail to have a new session of making website updates before I've run out of the old ones. The main reason for that is that making the website updates is kinda painful.
For one thing it's very confusing - I end up working across loads of different folders, trying to photoshop stuff here and copy-paste text there. Plus you're not just talking about the actual pages themselves - the front page and all the menus always need updating as well. It can be really slow progress.
The other stumbling block is scanning stuff. As mentioned, I can get way behind and of course for my reviews I like to have scans of the DVD covers, etc, so if I've not done any scanning I don't have them and so can't do the updates.
Of course the other issue is walling.
Generally speaking I try not to just upload reviews, but mix walls and psds in there as well.
Well unfortunately, just recently, I've been utterly uninterested in walling. It's kinda weird actually - a few months back I went through a huge burst of creativity making vectors especially, but then suddenly it sort of died.
The same thing happened with my writing - I had a huge burst of creativity and then *bam* I totally lost the desire to do it.
I mean, it's not that I don't have ideas and stuff, it's just the whole motivation to actually sit down and do stuff appears to have dried up. Hence why I'm so behind.
I think I'm going to take a few long weekends and try to do a bit of catching up. Well, if I can stretch to them - my recent 2 week extravaganza has left me a bit bereft of holiday days.
Oh, and my cold finally seems to be abating. The thing I can't work out about it was that it came on Sunday morning. Normally I get colds within 24 hours of contact with an infected person. However, that would mean I picked it up sometime on Saturday, but on Saturday I literally did not leave my bed-sit and didn't speak to anyone (I relaxed and watched all the telly I'd recorded while away).
The only possible source of germs where the landlords kids/grandkids, but as I say I didn't actually come into contact with them or even open the door. Very odd.
Just before I went on holiday I bought a couple of new artbooks - the first in months - but now I've kinda realised that I need to scan them. And I've not scanned any of last months magazines at all. Heck, as I was taking the staples out I also realised I'd hardly even looked at those mags :/. And in the next week or two I'll be getting this months mags as well.
I've also gotten sick to death of the great big pile of old & imported mangas I was always planning to scan but have never gotten around to. Plus, I bought two calendars in a sale so I should scan them as well.
And speaking of magazines I've gotten way behind reading my magazines. I buy two each month - White Dwarf (which is for games workshop) and Empire (films) - and I've several recent issues of each still to read.
Part of the reason for that is that I've been really into manga just recently. I've been buying it like it's going out of fashion and so have been focused on reading all this lovely new manga. But that means I don't have time to read anything else.
The other thing I'm way behind on is my websites. Ever since I began doing my websites I've operated a policy of "building up" material. What I tend to do is write loads of reviews and make walls etc over a period of months and then have a big session making updates for the site.
I then roll these updates out on a weekly basis. The idea is that while the updates are rolling out I can be working on more new stuff and so (in theory) the cycle continues.
Unfortunately, what tends to happen in practice is that I work on the new material but then fail to have a new session of making website updates before I've run out of the old ones. The main reason for that is that making the website updates is kinda painful.
For one thing it's very confusing - I end up working across loads of different folders, trying to photoshop stuff here and copy-paste text there. Plus you're not just talking about the actual pages themselves - the front page and all the menus always need updating as well. It can be really slow progress.
The other stumbling block is scanning stuff. As mentioned, I can get way behind and of course for my reviews I like to have scans of the DVD covers, etc, so if I've not done any scanning I don't have them and so can't do the updates.
Of course the other issue is walling.
Generally speaking I try not to just upload reviews, but mix walls and psds in there as well.
Well unfortunately, just recently, I've been utterly uninterested in walling. It's kinda weird actually - a few months back I went through a huge burst of creativity making vectors especially, but then suddenly it sort of died.
The same thing happened with my writing - I had a huge burst of creativity and then *bam* I totally lost the desire to do it.
I mean, it's not that I don't have ideas and stuff, it's just the whole motivation to actually sit down and do stuff appears to have dried up. Hence why I'm so behind.
I think I'm going to take a few long weekends and try to do a bit of catching up. Well, if I can stretch to them - my recent 2 week extravaganza has left me a bit bereft of holiday days.
Oh, and my cold finally seems to be abating. The thing I can't work out about it was that it came on Sunday morning. Normally I get colds within 24 hours of contact with an infected person. However, that would mean I picked it up sometime on Saturday, but on Saturday I literally did not leave my bed-sit and didn't speak to anyone (I relaxed and watched all the telly I'd recorded while away).
The only possible source of germs where the landlords kids/grandkids, but as I say I didn't actually come into contact with them or even open the door. Very odd.
Monday, 23 February 2009
website-a-rific
This weekend was mainly spent creating updates for my main websites, trismugistus.com and digital-bondage.net.
It can be something of a painful experience updating the websites. This is mainly because I don't really know much of anything about html or all the other web languages. My guess is that a lot of stuff on the sites could be done in much better, more automatic ways, but I don't know how, so they aren't.
The other problem is I like to mix things up. By that I mean that if this week I upload an anime review then next week I want to have anew wallpaper and then after that a manga review, then a psd file.
Admittedly that's not a huge range of stuff, but then over the years I've kinda learnt to focus the site on a few small areas. However, it still makes things chaotic, because that means I'm all over the place. In order to update something different I have to fiddle about with a different bit of the site (and also get the raw materials from a different part of my computer) and so I get very confused very quickly.
I swear sometimes that updating the site is 90% me looking in the wrong folders and 10% me actually doing stuff.
You see what I generally do is create the material I use on my site weeks, even months in advance. This allows me the chance to do it properly as well as allow things to gestate and change over time.
I then have a weekend like this one every so often where I blast through and do maybe anything up to 10 updates. The new and modified files for each update are then archived (and backed up - I learnt that lesson the hard way!) and I upload them at the appropriate time anything up to a few months later.
But as I say - it's easy to get very confused.
What else?
Oh yeah, I finally finished Trigun. It gets massively better in the last third or so, but for me it was just not enough to elevate the series.
Fundamentally, I guess the question comes down to whether the early stuff is necessary or not. Some of it is, in that it gives a contrast to the later parts. You couldn't jump into the last third and really get the full impact. But then I think you could easily loose about half of it and still get the impact.
I mean, it's not exactly filler, as such, but it's also not totally necessary.
Also, there was the issue I mentioned before about Vash suddenly pulling a stupid face and bursting out laughing at random or inopportune moments. That grated a bit.
I'll do a full review at some point.
It was quite the week for big announcements last week, as I mentioned before, and Funimation finished it off with Mnemosyne, another show I want.. Plus tokyopop appear to have a few new licenses that look interesting. I'm gonna be really skint in the coming months :(.
It can be something of a painful experience updating the websites. This is mainly because I don't really know much of anything about html or all the other web languages. My guess is that a lot of stuff on the sites could be done in much better, more automatic ways, but I don't know how, so they aren't.
The other problem is I like to mix things up. By that I mean that if this week I upload an anime review then next week I want to have anew wallpaper and then after that a manga review, then a psd file.
Admittedly that's not a huge range of stuff, but then over the years I've kinda learnt to focus the site on a few small areas. However, it still makes things chaotic, because that means I'm all over the place. In order to update something different I have to fiddle about with a different bit of the site (and also get the raw materials from a different part of my computer) and so I get very confused very quickly.
I swear sometimes that updating the site is 90% me looking in the wrong folders and 10% me actually doing stuff.
You see what I generally do is create the material I use on my site weeks, even months in advance. This allows me the chance to do it properly as well as allow things to gestate and change over time.
I then have a weekend like this one every so often where I blast through and do maybe anything up to 10 updates. The new and modified files for each update are then archived (and backed up - I learnt that lesson the hard way!) and I upload them at the appropriate time anything up to a few months later.
But as I say - it's easy to get very confused.
What else?
Oh yeah, I finally finished Trigun. It gets massively better in the last third or so, but for me it was just not enough to elevate the series.
Fundamentally, I guess the question comes down to whether the early stuff is necessary or not. Some of it is, in that it gives a contrast to the later parts. You couldn't jump into the last third and really get the full impact. But then I think you could easily loose about half of it and still get the impact.
I mean, it's not exactly filler, as such, but it's also not totally necessary.
Also, there was the issue I mentioned before about Vash suddenly pulling a stupid face and bursting out laughing at random or inopportune moments. That grated a bit.
I'll do a full review at some point.
It was quite the week for big announcements last week, as I mentioned before, and Funimation finished it off with Mnemosyne, another show I want.. Plus tokyopop appear to have a few new licenses that look interesting. I'm gonna be really skint in the coming months :(.
Friday, 20 February 2009
free and easy
It looks like this weekend I'm going to have a lot of spare time in the sense that there's nothing I've got to do.
Hopefully that means I'll have some time to sort out various odds and sods I've got kicking about. Examples are things like getting a couple of walls and vectors finished that are 'nearly there' and making some more updates for my websites.
Speaking of websites I had a request the other day to pull my finger out and get scan-city moving. Only problem there is I need to pay for some extra webspace for what I've got planned and, more importantly, I need to get a much newer version of photoshop. Both of these mean I need to get a replacement credit card - I chopped them all up when I was having my severe financial troubles last year.
I should also really get watching some anime DVDs (not least of all so I can sell them e-bay, speaking of money troubles :/). stuff has started to fall out of my shelves again where they're so overloaded.
It's been quite a good week on the anime front from one point of view. Funimation has been announcing new licenses like crazy (presumably at comicon, or a similar event in American). Early in the week these include Dragonaut the Resonance, Bamboo Blade, the Aegis of Uruk (but both series) and blassreiter.
These put me in something of a quandary. Dragonaut and Bamboo Blade I'll definitely pick up (eek - more money) and Blassreiter I'm pretty okay just to leave as having watched it online. However, Aegis of Uruk was really quite good and I'd quite like to be ablse to sit down and watch it properly on the telly.
See this is the problem with downloads for me. They'll never be quite as good as DVDs. I just prefer to watch DVDs... but I've already seen (and, more importantly, paid for) the first part of Aegis of Uruk. I dunno. I'll have to think about it.
What I wil definitely be getting is Seto No Hanayome. This was one of the funniest shows I've seen in ages and I've been eagerly waiting to see if someone would pick i tup. Of less interest is El Cazador de la Bruja. Basically it was by the same people that did Noir and Madlax. Not seen Madlax, but Noir was poor in my opionion, and Bruja didn't seem to stray much from the same basic formula.
That's on top of a few other really good shows I want coming on sale like Baccano and Clannad... I thought the anime industry in the west was meant to be in terminal freefall :/.
And talking about anime, I've spent the evenings this week scanning animedia and animage (both of which had a surprisingly good scan count - I thought this month was goign to be a total duffer), and I watched some new anime shows:
And on top of that I need a new PC monitor!
Hopefully that means I'll have some time to sort out various odds and sods I've got kicking about. Examples are things like getting a couple of walls and vectors finished that are 'nearly there' and making some more updates for my websites.
Speaking of websites I had a request the other day to pull my finger out and get scan-city moving. Only problem there is I need to pay for some extra webspace for what I've got planned and, more importantly, I need to get a much newer version of photoshop. Both of these mean I need to get a replacement credit card - I chopped them all up when I was having my severe financial troubles last year.
I should also really get watching some anime DVDs (not least of all so I can sell them e-bay, speaking of money troubles :/). stuff has started to fall out of my shelves again where they're so overloaded.
It's been quite a good week on the anime front from one point of view. Funimation has been announcing new licenses like crazy (presumably at comicon, or a similar event in American). Early in the week these include Dragonaut the Resonance, Bamboo Blade, the Aegis of Uruk (but both series) and blassreiter.
These put me in something of a quandary. Dragonaut and Bamboo Blade I'll definitely pick up (eek - more money) and Blassreiter I'm pretty okay just to leave as having watched it online. However, Aegis of Uruk was really quite good and I'd quite like to be ablse to sit down and watch it properly on the telly.
See this is the problem with downloads for me. They'll never be quite as good as DVDs. I just prefer to watch DVDs... but I've already seen (and, more importantly, paid for) the first part of Aegis of Uruk. I dunno. I'll have to think about it.
What I wil definitely be getting is Seto No Hanayome. This was one of the funniest shows I've seen in ages and I've been eagerly waiting to see if someone would pick i tup. Of less interest is El Cazador de la Bruja. Basically it was by the same people that did Noir and Madlax. Not seen Madlax, but Noir was poor in my opionion, and Bruja didn't seem to stray much from the same basic formula.
That's on top of a few other really good shows I want coming on sale like Baccano and Clannad... I thought the anime industry in the west was meant to be in terminal freefall :/.
And talking about anime, I've spent the evenings this week scanning animedia and animage (both of which had a surprisingly good scan count - I thought this month was goign to be a total duffer), and I watched some new anime shows:
- Sora Kake Girl was kinda good actually. It's definitely not a show I would describe as new or innovative, but I dunno, it seemed to have a certain charm to it. Plus it had jiggle and jiggle can count for a lot, although the character designs are a little unusual, but not in an un-appealing way. Dunno, maybe I'm going a bit soft.
- Asu no Yoichi might also be more confirmation that I'm goign soft. As far as I can make out the title actually translates as "Samurai Harem" or similar. To say it's therefore wearing its heart on its sleave is therefore something of an understatement - it's all there in the title. But do you know what, it's actually pretty good. And I think I know why - the main chracter isn't a douche bag. He's nice and kind but also tough and a good fighter. You can kinda see why the girls might like him. Plus it's agot a lot of good gags in it and - you guessed it - more jiggle. Did I mention jiggle can count for a lot?
And on top of that I need a new PC monitor!
Wednesday, 19 November 2008
a brief pause
I'm definitely putting trismugistus.com updates on hold until Christmas.
I have got a few things I could put up there, but they're basically just reviews and I've never been keen on just doing reviews every week - it gets a bit same-old-same-old so I like to have some variety. After all, that is why I have all the different sections :/.
However, one thing I do have to do before I pause is add on a thing for and affiliate for digital-bondage. I've never had a section for affiliates. I have a links page, which includes a section for other waller's sites, but I've never bothered with affiliates.
Mainly that's because I know I'm not very good. As such, I've always assumed that if I asked other people if we could become affiliates they would say no (or say yes more out of politeness than really wanting to do it) and that nobody would ever ask me.
Only someone did. The person in question is pinkprincesslacus and she has a site called hime-designs.com. What I'll do is I'll probably add something to the front page of dig-bon until I start updating the site again properly and I can integrate it.
I dunno if I've mentioned this before, but my sites are actually a big of a con. They look a bit like they're done with clever tricks with the menus and stuff, but those are all just cons. Really they're done in a hard-coded way that gives the illusion of being cleverer than they are.
Anyway, so the point is I'll have to manually add the affiliates thing in properly and that could take a while.
I was also thinking I could change up the banners. I use my walls as my banners and I only did about 5 or so when I came up with the idea, but I've done some nice walls since then so I think I could either replace them or add in some more.
What I also need to do is get some of these walls and vectors finished. I've done quite a few vectors, but some of them need tidying up a bit and many of them need backgrounds doing.
I've still not really done a proper background for the "little angel" vector I did. I've sort of thought of an idea, but not quite seen if it's practical. I wanted to do something a bit abstract for it, but I didn't know if I could lay my hands on the stuff I'd need to make it look right.
I've also not done any more on that soul eater wall. It quite demoralised me when someone else walled it, but it would be quite a shame to just let it come to nothing.
I also need to really rethink the writing section of the site. If I'm going to keep it (and I'm currently wondering if I really should) I need to think if I'm going to update it with stuff.
Part of the problem is that my writing effort has mainly gone into trying to write novels recently and I wouldn't be happy posting any parts of them until I'd finished the novel. Plus extracts are always a bit rubbish.
Hmm...
Lastly I really need to do something with Scan-city. It's just silly having it there doing nothing when it costs me money each year.
Anyway, the point is I'm going to put proper site updates on hiatus until Christmas and then come back "bigger and better" as it were.
I have got a few things I could put up there, but they're basically just reviews and I've never been keen on just doing reviews every week - it gets a bit same-old-same-old so I like to have some variety. After all, that is why I have all the different sections :/.
However, one thing I do have to do before I pause is add on a thing for and affiliate for digital-bondage. I've never had a section for affiliates. I have a links page, which includes a section for other waller's sites, but I've never bothered with affiliates.
Mainly that's because I know I'm not very good. As such, I've always assumed that if I asked other people if we could become affiliates they would say no (or say yes more out of politeness than really wanting to do it) and that nobody would ever ask me.
Only someone did. The person in question is pinkprincesslacus and she has a site called hime-designs.com. What I'll do is I'll probably add something to the front page of dig-bon until I start updating the site again properly and I can integrate it.
I dunno if I've mentioned this before, but my sites are actually a big of a con. They look a bit like they're done with clever tricks with the menus and stuff, but those are all just cons. Really they're done in a hard-coded way that gives the illusion of being cleverer than they are.
Anyway, so the point is I'll have to manually add the affiliates thing in properly and that could take a while.
I was also thinking I could change up the banners. I use my walls as my banners and I only did about 5 or so when I came up with the idea, but I've done some nice walls since then so I think I could either replace them or add in some more.
What I also need to do is get some of these walls and vectors finished. I've done quite a few vectors, but some of them need tidying up a bit and many of them need backgrounds doing.
I've still not really done a proper background for the "little angel" vector I did. I've sort of thought of an idea, but not quite seen if it's practical. I wanted to do something a bit abstract for it, but I didn't know if I could lay my hands on the stuff I'd need to make it look right.
I've also not done any more on that soul eater wall. It quite demoralised me when someone else walled it, but it would be quite a shame to just let it come to nothing.
I also need to really rethink the writing section of the site. If I'm going to keep it (and I'm currently wondering if I really should) I need to think if I'm going to update it with stuff.
Part of the problem is that my writing effort has mainly gone into trying to write novels recently and I wouldn't be happy posting any parts of them until I'd finished the novel. Plus extracts are always a bit rubbish.
Hmm...
Lastly I really need to do something with Scan-city. It's just silly having it there doing nothing when it costs me money each year.
Anyway, the point is I'm going to put proper site updates on hiatus until Christmas and then come back "bigger and better" as it were.
Monday, 10 November 2008
oversleep-age
Well, that was odd.
On Sunday morning I massively over-slept. By my reckoning I was asleep for a good two hours over when my alarm should have gone off.
I say should have gone off because it didn't. My main stereo has an alarm on it and I use that. It's a bit like a clock radio. Unfortunately, it was my cock up that caused it - turns out I knocked a button when I was shifting some boxes around and didn't realise, so the alarm didn't go off.
Anyway, it meant I didn't get up until very late. It also kinda poxed my day up - it was a bit like I was in a daze all day. Plus I had a terrible time getting to sleep last night.
That's one of the troubles with lay-ins - they mess your body-clock up and mean you're not tired when it comes to bed time, so you don't get as much sleep and your routine's a bit out of kilter. So I'm a bit muggy headed this morning too.
Anyway, one thing I did get done is a lot of scanning this weekend. I did all of last month's mags (which is good as I've just received e-mails saying the next ones are on the way :/).
I also watched a bunch of anime shows while I scanned:
It's just as good, if not slightly better than the first season. The reason is that there's a slight tonal shift from the stories covered in the first season. The first season I would primarily characterise as being humorous first, serious second, whereas in the second season this is reversed.
I'll definitely be doing a review of it later.
Oh, and speaking of reviews - I've poxed up my website update schedule. I could blame the oversleeping thing, but the truth is I've just ballsed it up.
Mainly this is because I've kinda been waiting on finishing some wallpapers. As I think I mentioned the other week I've done several character vectors, but haven't quite completed the wallpapers, so updates to my site have therefore gone the shape of the pear.
Thinking about it I may actually put updates on proper hiatus until the New Year. That will give me a little more breathing room and I can also take the opportunity to watch some more stuff and build up a new stock of reviews as well as the wallpapers.
On Sunday morning I massively over-slept. By my reckoning I was asleep for a good two hours over when my alarm should have gone off.
I say should have gone off because it didn't. My main stereo has an alarm on it and I use that. It's a bit like a clock radio. Unfortunately, it was my cock up that caused it - turns out I knocked a button when I was shifting some boxes around and didn't realise, so the alarm didn't go off.
Anyway, it meant I didn't get up until very late. It also kinda poxed my day up - it was a bit like I was in a daze all day. Plus I had a terrible time getting to sleep last night.
That's one of the troubles with lay-ins - they mess your body-clock up and mean you're not tired when it comes to bed time, so you don't get as much sleep and your routine's a bit out of kilter. So I'm a bit muggy headed this morning too.
Anyway, one thing I did get done is a lot of scanning this weekend. I did all of last month's mags (which is good as I've just received e-mails saying the next ones are on the way :/).
I also watched a bunch of anime shows while I scanned:
- Nogizaka Haruka no Himitsu - very good. I watched one more of this show and I still think it's very good - one of the best shows of the season, in fact.
- Kyouran Kazoku Nikki - okay. This really didn't do anything for me and I just watched 2 episodes. Whilst I wouldn't say it was actively bad, as such, it just didn't really appeal. The premise was part of the problem in that it seemed so utterly contrived and daft. I also have to say I wasn't at all keen on the art-style.
- Ryoko's Case File - good. I quite enjoyed this, though the animation seemed a little cheap. It's a supernatural/cop type show and it's one of those where you've kinda seen it before, but it's entertaining nevertheless and there's a good dynamic between the lead characters (a sort of will-they-won't-they thing).
- Mission-E - good. I just watched the one episode of this, more to confirm if it was still any good. It's technically a sequel to a series called Code-E which I quite liked (though I don't think it ever sparked much general interest). It's essentially a sci-fi show. Interestingly, the sequel isn't a direct sequel - some time seems to have elapsed between the two shows. I enjoyed this first episode, so both are the potential purchase list, if it ever gets licensed that it.
- Hidamari Sketch x 365 - good. Another sequel (to Hidamari Sketch), so again I just watched the one episode. It was good. It's sort of a slice of life show, but it's got an odd, surreal humour slant to it as well. Interestingly, this sequel is unusual too, in that it actually takes place in parallel with the original show.
It's just as good, if not slightly better than the first season. The reason is that there's a slight tonal shift from the stories covered in the first season. The first season I would primarily characterise as being humorous first, serious second, whereas in the second season this is reversed.
I'll definitely be doing a review of it later.
Oh, and speaking of reviews - I've poxed up my website update schedule. I could blame the oversleeping thing, but the truth is I've just ballsed it up.
Mainly this is because I've kinda been waiting on finishing some wallpapers. As I think I mentioned the other week I've done several character vectors, but haven't quite completed the wallpapers, so updates to my site have therefore gone the shape of the pear.
Thinking about it I may actually put updates on proper hiatus until the New Year. That will give me a little more breathing room and I can also take the opportunity to watch some more stuff and build up a new stock of reviews as well as the wallpapers.
Tuesday, 30 September 2008
my little angel
Well, I finished that re-cg I was working on.
You can find the finished product over at AP here. It's not a whole lot different to the preview I posted in the previous blog, mainly because I got sick of doing the wings.
I think it's probably my best vector work ever. I've used every technique I have at my command to make it and I think the results are spectacular.
The only problem is I'm not sure I can do it justice in a wall. I had a few ideas, but I dunno, I think I may wimp out of actually walling it :(. What makes this a special shame is that I very much doubt anyone else will wall it either :(.
I made an appeal for someone to wall it in the notes on the AP page and I'm effectively repeating that appeal here, I guess. I'd love someone to wall it. I can also make a wingless version available if you want to make your own wings in your wall--just give me a shout over at AP.
Eventually the vector will go up on my own site of course, but that won't be for a while.
And speaking of my own sites I uploaded the last of the previous batch of updates this last w/end. It was a review of X--ostensibly the anime, but also the manga effectively. Check it out here.
I think I mentioned it before on the blog. I struggle with CLAMP stuff and I sometimes fear it's because I'm homophobic on some level. I don't think I am, but, for some reason I can never pin down, I never really quite like CLAMP's stuff. I tend to assume this is because of their story-telling, but I dunno, everyone else seems to love their stuff, so I wonder if there's not something more to it
Well, that was surprisingly deep for the old blog :/.
I've been working on some new site updates - I've got a bunch of reviews done as I mentioned before, but I like to keep things a bit more varied, which is where things like the vectors and walls come in. It should basically mean my sites will be updated into the New Year at least.
You can find the finished product over at AP here. It's not a whole lot different to the preview I posted in the previous blog, mainly because I got sick of doing the wings.
I think it's probably my best vector work ever. I've used every technique I have at my command to make it and I think the results are spectacular.
The only problem is I'm not sure I can do it justice in a wall. I had a few ideas, but I dunno, I think I may wimp out of actually walling it :(. What makes this a special shame is that I very much doubt anyone else will wall it either :(.
I made an appeal for someone to wall it in the notes on the AP page and I'm effectively repeating that appeal here, I guess. I'd love someone to wall it. I can also make a wingless version available if you want to make your own wings in your wall--just give me a shout over at AP.
Eventually the vector will go up on my own site of course, but that won't be for a while.
And speaking of my own sites I uploaded the last of the previous batch of updates this last w/end. It was a review of X--ostensibly the anime, but also the manga effectively. Check it out here.
I think I mentioned it before on the blog. I struggle with CLAMP stuff and I sometimes fear it's because I'm homophobic on some level. I don't think I am, but, for some reason I can never pin down, I never really quite like CLAMP's stuff. I tend to assume this is because of their story-telling, but I dunno, everyone else seems to love their stuff, so I wonder if there's not something more to it
Well, that was surprisingly deep for the old blog :/.
I've been working on some new site updates - I've got a bunch of reviews done as I mentioned before, but I like to keep things a bit more varied, which is where things like the vectors and walls come in. It should basically mean my sites will be updated into the New Year at least.
Friday, 19 September 2008
choices, choices
I've no particular plans for the weekend, but a lot of options.
The only thing I do have to do is clean my bedsit and do a bunch of ironing. Otherwise I can do whatever.
There's certainly some scanning to do--newtype et al turned up at the beginning of the week, plus there's all the artbooks that need seeing to, as always. It never ends, scanning. I mean only the other day I was trawling through otaku.co.uk looking for new artbooks and I found about a dozen or so I'd like--I've not even cleared the 15 or so that I've got debound and waiting to go and I'm already planning my next purchases :/.
In the old days I would have just bought them there and then, but I think I'm learning a bit more discipline. Chopping up your credit cards has that effect on you using them :/.
Loads of anime to watch too, especially with the new season rapidly approaching. I think there's something like a dozen shows from this last season that I need to peruse--that's a good few hours there and would tie up well with the scanning.
Plus there's also all the anime I've bought. I really need to get into those piles so I can get e-baying again and generate some more 'bonus cash'.
Then there's all these reviews I've got written. I've got about 7 reviews stacked up and ready to go. By my reckoning that should take trismugistus.com the best part of the way to christmas alone.
Then there's my old scans - I should process them, get scan-city.org on track, as it's a total waste of money having it sat there doing nothing at all :/.
Plus on that front I think I might have caught a bit of a walling bug again--I've certainly got a good few projects in mind. My big stickler on walling has actually been vectoring. After that blog a while back where I was saying I really love it, the flip-side is I'm a bit of a perfectionist, which means it takes me bloody ages to finish a vector.
Which reminds me, I've been thinking about getting photoshop cs3. Well, actually I've been thinking about getting the full adobe "image product", which means photoshop, illustrate (which is for doing proper vectors) and some other programs. It's the best part of £1,000, though :/.
Plus I should finish off the Company of Heroes expansion. I should really tackle some more games, actually. Again, partly so I can e-bay some of them, but also because the chrimbalo season is approaching and there's quite a few new games I have on pre-order. Plus of course gaming is fun :).
The only thing I do have to do is clean my bedsit and do a bunch of ironing. Otherwise I can do whatever.
There's certainly some scanning to do--newtype et al turned up at the beginning of the week, plus there's all the artbooks that need seeing to, as always. It never ends, scanning. I mean only the other day I was trawling through otaku.co.uk looking for new artbooks and I found about a dozen or so I'd like--I've not even cleared the 15 or so that I've got debound and waiting to go and I'm already planning my next purchases :/.
In the old days I would have just bought them there and then, but I think I'm learning a bit more discipline. Chopping up your credit cards has that effect on you using them :/.
Loads of anime to watch too, especially with the new season rapidly approaching. I think there's something like a dozen shows from this last season that I need to peruse--that's a good few hours there and would tie up well with the scanning.
Plus there's also all the anime I've bought. I really need to get into those piles so I can get e-baying again and generate some more 'bonus cash'.
Then there's all these reviews I've got written. I've got about 7 reviews stacked up and ready to go. By my reckoning that should take trismugistus.com the best part of the way to christmas alone.
Then there's my old scans - I should process them, get scan-city.org on track, as it's a total waste of money having it sat there doing nothing at all :/.
Plus on that front I think I might have caught a bit of a walling bug again--I've certainly got a good few projects in mind. My big stickler on walling has actually been vectoring. After that blog a while back where I was saying I really love it, the flip-side is I'm a bit of a perfectionist, which means it takes me bloody ages to finish a vector.
Which reminds me, I've been thinking about getting photoshop cs3. Well, actually I've been thinking about getting the full adobe "image product", which means photoshop, illustrate (which is for doing proper vectors) and some other programs. It's the best part of £1,000, though :/.
Plus I should finish off the Company of Heroes expansion. I should really tackle some more games, actually. Again, partly so I can e-bay some of them, but also because the chrimbalo season is approaching and there's quite a few new games I have on pre-order. Plus of course gaming is fun :).
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