I gave google chrome a go the other week.
It has some nice touches. The integration with other google features is quite nice, the back-end interface is quite nice and it seems quite quick. I also got it because recent versions of Firefox seems to have some real memory leakage problems.
When I use Firefox to view crunchyroll or even do stuff on animepaper like download a bunch of scans, it doesn't seem to release the memory properly, so I keep having to restart it, which is crap.
chrome doesn't do that and also seems a little quicker than Firefox. Trouble is, it doesn't seem to have some of the things I like in Firefox - separate download window, more traditional "file" type menus - but also, it's not very customisable. So, for example, it has a bookmarks toolbar, which is basically fixed in its location, which is below the tabs and address bar, which I find annoying. But, more importantly, you can't move things around (that I can find).
Also, Ezy sent me an invite to google+, which is Google's social network thing.
I've given it a go and registered, but I have to say I really struggle with most of the social networking sites. I have facebook, myspace and twitter accounts and they're basically all totally neglected. I mean, I have enough trouble trying to blog every day, maintaining something like a social network page is just way too much like effort.
Part of the idea of google plus is that it's integrated with all the other google things you use. Now, while I like that for chrome, it actually has big disadvantages for me on something like google+.
See, a lot of the people I know have different relationships with me. So, the people I work with don't know about my interest in anime and manga. Certain circles of friend know I have an interest in it but don't know what it is or have any interest in it themselves. Other friends that's essentially how I know them - through that interest.
Now that's okay, but the problem is I keep some of those groups separate for very good reasons. While I do object to anime and manga all being classified as "cartoon porn", I'm not going to pretend it doesn't exist or that I don't enjoy such things.
And of course a lot of stuff is borderline. I'll give you some specific examples - I used to make wallpapers, a fair few of which were ecchii to varying degrees. Recently, I closed my wallpaper website down (hopefully temporarily) and moved all the images to a blog site.
That blog site was a google one and I used Google's Picasa site to host the images.
All well and good, but of course with google+'s integration, it turns out it shows all those Picasa galleries in your "my pictures" bit. So, in other words, if I was to friend (they use circles and I didn't investigate it fully) someone at work, could look in my gallery and see all the anime stuff? A good chunk of it is nearly pornographic so that would not be a good thing.
I wouldn't be surprised if you could set it up so they couldn't, but as I say, far too much like effort.
So I set all the galleries to "view only if you have the link" - but what does that actually mean? Could they do a couple of clicks and get access to them or what?
Also, what about people I'd want to see the images? Are they now blocked unless they're coming in via the blog that has them on? But I'd actually be happy for them to just brows through them on google+.
And that's just a specific example for me. Many people have flagged the whole thing google does that you have to use your real name and can't use an alias.
All these whole social networking things all just seems to open up more cans of problematic worms to me than I've got the time, effort or interest to really deal with.
But there's also something I heard recently that makes them all a bit scarier. Basically, facebook are introducing a new version / tool that, in essence, operates on the assumption that everything you do you want to share with the world. It's also facebook's vision that they will essentially become people's "portal to the internet".
Man, that sounds risky - imagine installing it with good intentions, or not understanding what it was going o do and then it broadcasts to the world all the stuff you'd rather that big chunks of the world did not know. And imagine that teamed with them acting as the portal through which you do all your web stuff.
That would open up the possibility so many potentially bad things it makes the mind boggle.
Tuesday, 4 October 2011
Monday, 3 October 2011
cash strapped
I've been having some serious financial issues just recently.
There are a number of causes.
The primary one is my spend-thrift ways (you don't acquire hundreds of unwatched DVDs and unread books without spending a hell of a lot of money), but extra pressure has recently been building due to the rise in the cost of living.
In particular, Petrol now costs an absolute fortune. I easily spend more than £100 a month, which is getting on for half as much again as I spent four years ago and in that time I've not had any pay increases.
But also, this last month I tried to "pre-invest" in electricity and spent a total of £150 to try to build up a bit of a cushion. Now that's a lot of money, but I felt it was necessary because my electricity supplier has increased their rates by 11%. This is particularly worrisome as I've heard serious predictions that this winter is going to be another super cold one.
Apparently we're going to have this warm spell, and then temperatures are going to plummet. I hope they don't plummet too far before I go on holiday. I'm going down to Devon at the end of October, which is a bit later than I would usually do, but I felt I needed to fit in with other people's holidays a bit. It's also already booked, so I can't change it.
My landlord is apparently going to plumb some heating in across from his place while I'm holiday, which will hopefully help a bit with heating (it's the electricity for heating that really hits me during the winter) although it's going to mean my rent will go up a fiver. Also I won't have any control over it, so it'll only be on at certain times and of course during summer I won't use it, so although it might only sound like £5 a month for heating, it's probably more like £10 a month during winter. So helpful, but I'm still going to be spending a fair old bit on heating.
I've also had to buy some more clothes. When I switched over the summer cloths I actually chucked a few clothes away. This was partly because they were getting very worn out, but also because I'd lost a lot of weight.
Back then of course I thought I'd loose more over summer, but I haven't so I'm still having to buy outsize clothes, which are more expensive. I'm not sure why they're more expensive - aren't all clothes made in sweatshops in Malaysia? I mean, I know there's more cloth in big clothes, but surely cloth costs next to nothing and there's not that much more labour involved, surely?
Anyway, point is I've had to buy a new coat, a suit, some new belts and I've also bought a new work shirt. As mentioned, I threw some clothes away and I actually threw too many shirts away, so I have to get some shirts or I'll be wearing short sleeve shirts right into winter!
I only got one shirt, more as an experiment than anything else, as I measured my collar size and, to be frank, I couldn't actually believe the size, which was 16 inches. I've a feeling that the shirt I've therefore ordered will fit my neck, but probably not my waist!
Also, I've had a review of my pension and it's gone up as a result. I'm in a bit of a weird position with my pension in that I started it way "ahead of the game" but then I failed to really capitalise on that and increase it in line with my wage. Now, the flip side to that is that there was a miss communication when I set it up and my contribution was nearly double what it should have been, but still, now that I'm on a lot more I should be contributing more so that I'll have a good pension when I retire.
Which, if you think about it, is really just another reflection of how bad I am with organising my finances.
I therefore got a bunch of stuff on e-bay this last weekend, and also identified some other stuff I could put on next weekend. But the truth is I'm running out of old stuff I could e-bay and really need to go through things I've got on my to do piles in order to sell them.
There are a number of causes.
The primary one is my spend-thrift ways (you don't acquire hundreds of unwatched DVDs and unread books without spending a hell of a lot of money), but extra pressure has recently been building due to the rise in the cost of living.
In particular, Petrol now costs an absolute fortune. I easily spend more than £100 a month, which is getting on for half as much again as I spent four years ago and in that time I've not had any pay increases.
But also, this last month I tried to "pre-invest" in electricity and spent a total of £150 to try to build up a bit of a cushion. Now that's a lot of money, but I felt it was necessary because my electricity supplier has increased their rates by 11%. This is particularly worrisome as I've heard serious predictions that this winter is going to be another super cold one.
Apparently we're going to have this warm spell, and then temperatures are going to plummet. I hope they don't plummet too far before I go on holiday. I'm going down to Devon at the end of October, which is a bit later than I would usually do, but I felt I needed to fit in with other people's holidays a bit. It's also already booked, so I can't change it.
My landlord is apparently going to plumb some heating in across from his place while I'm holiday, which will hopefully help a bit with heating (it's the electricity for heating that really hits me during the winter) although it's going to mean my rent will go up a fiver. Also I won't have any control over it, so it'll only be on at certain times and of course during summer I won't use it, so although it might only sound like £5 a month for heating, it's probably more like £10 a month during winter. So helpful, but I'm still going to be spending a fair old bit on heating.
I've also had to buy some more clothes. When I switched over the summer cloths I actually chucked a few clothes away. This was partly because they were getting very worn out, but also because I'd lost a lot of weight.
Back then of course I thought I'd loose more over summer, but I haven't so I'm still having to buy outsize clothes, which are more expensive. I'm not sure why they're more expensive - aren't all clothes made in sweatshops in Malaysia? I mean, I know there's more cloth in big clothes, but surely cloth costs next to nothing and there's not that much more labour involved, surely?
Anyway, point is I've had to buy a new coat, a suit, some new belts and I've also bought a new work shirt. As mentioned, I threw some clothes away and I actually threw too many shirts away, so I have to get some shirts or I'll be wearing short sleeve shirts right into winter!
I only got one shirt, more as an experiment than anything else, as I measured my collar size and, to be frank, I couldn't actually believe the size, which was 16 inches. I've a feeling that the shirt I've therefore ordered will fit my neck, but probably not my waist!
Also, I've had a review of my pension and it's gone up as a result. I'm in a bit of a weird position with my pension in that I started it way "ahead of the game" but then I failed to really capitalise on that and increase it in line with my wage. Now, the flip side to that is that there was a miss communication when I set it up and my contribution was nearly double what it should have been, but still, now that I'm on a lot more I should be contributing more so that I'll have a good pension when I retire.
Which, if you think about it, is really just another reflection of how bad I am with organising my finances.
I therefore got a bunch of stuff on e-bay this last weekend, and also identified some other stuff I could put on next weekend. But the truth is I'm running out of old stuff I could e-bay and really need to go through things I've got on my to do piles in order to sell them.
Friday, 30 September 2011
pre-blogging
I've been pre-writting most of my entries for the last few weeks.
I've mentioned this before on here - it's basically where I try to pre-write a bunch of posts at the weekend so that they're ready to just slap on the blog when the days roll around. The big advantage of this is that, if the week is very busy, I don't end up missing days simply because I didn't have the time to write an entry.
The disadvantage is of course that the blogs tend to be about roughly relevant stuff, but aren't 100% current. This is especially true of the later posts in the week, where something important may have happened early in the week, but I don't mention it until the week after. Or I forget and don't mention it at all.
To be fair, I don't think it's such a problem because my blog has kinda always had elements of that anyway. I mean, for ages now I've been posting mini reviews on Wednesday and Tuesday or Thursday are generally a reflection on the previous Sunday's weigh in and the previous week's dieting and walking progress. Then of course during GP season, many Friday's and Mondays have at least some content relevant to the weekend's race.
So in other words, the blog is often not really about 100% current stuff. I mean, fundamentally I try to do the blog as a Monday to Friday one post a day thing, but of course life is often not like that - loads of important (or bloggable anyway) stuff may happen during one week, but then nothing happens for the next couple of weeks.
But one thing I have found with all this pre-blogging is it's given me an opportunity to use my laptop more. I've been sitting on my bed tapping away at the laptop most Sunday afternoons, post race, and it's been quite a good way to do it.
The only real problem I've been having is that my laptop space bar seems to be really unresponsive. I don't really know if it's a reflection of my technique, or some problem with the laptop design or something that's not working properly, though.
I can't touch type. I wish I could and I did have the opportunity to teach myself when I was younger, but never really put the effort in. However, one small thing that was part of touch typing (well, I think it is) did seem to become a habit, which was using my thumb to hit the space bar.
I therefore don't really single-finger type either. My technique s an odd sort of both index fingers (one on each half of the keyboard) combined with the occasional use of the middle and ring fingers on my right hand and my right thumb for the space bar and then random occasional use of both my pinkie fingers for shift keys.
I'm very right handed, which is part of why I use some of the other fingers on my right hand, but also, most of the more occasionally used stuff, like delete keys and semi-colons is on the right had side of a standard qwerty keyboard.
But also, one of the other main features is I have a map of where the keys are in my head. So although it's not proper touch typing, I can type for long segments looking at the screen like a touch typist would.
Anyway, the point is I use my thumb to hit the space bar and a lot of the time the keyboard on my laptop doesn't seem to pick it up, so I end up with three or even four words stuck together. It's quite annoying when you're reviewing or spell checking to unpick the words.
And I'm pretty sure it is my laptop, as it's never happened with other keyboards, and I recall always having this problem. In particular when I was fooling myself into thinking I might try to become a writer I used my laptop a lot (indeed, that's kinda why I'd bought it) and had the same issue with missed spaces.
I've mentioned this before on here - it's basically where I try to pre-write a bunch of posts at the weekend so that they're ready to just slap on the blog when the days roll around. The big advantage of this is that, if the week is very busy, I don't end up missing days simply because I didn't have the time to write an entry.
The disadvantage is of course that the blogs tend to be about roughly relevant stuff, but aren't 100% current. This is especially true of the later posts in the week, where something important may have happened early in the week, but I don't mention it until the week after. Or I forget and don't mention it at all.
To be fair, I don't think it's such a problem because my blog has kinda always had elements of that anyway. I mean, for ages now I've been posting mini reviews on Wednesday and Tuesday or Thursday are generally a reflection on the previous Sunday's weigh in and the previous week's dieting and walking progress. Then of course during GP season, many Friday's and Mondays have at least some content relevant to the weekend's race.
So in other words, the blog is often not really about 100% current stuff. I mean, fundamentally I try to do the blog as a Monday to Friday one post a day thing, but of course life is often not like that - loads of important (or bloggable anyway) stuff may happen during one week, but then nothing happens for the next couple of weeks.
But one thing I have found with all this pre-blogging is it's given me an opportunity to use my laptop more. I've been sitting on my bed tapping away at the laptop most Sunday afternoons, post race, and it's been quite a good way to do it.
The only real problem I've been having is that my laptop space bar seems to be really unresponsive. I don't really know if it's a reflection of my technique, or some problem with the laptop design or something that's not working properly, though.
I can't touch type. I wish I could and I did have the opportunity to teach myself when I was younger, but never really put the effort in. However, one small thing that was part of touch typing (well, I think it is) did seem to become a habit, which was using my thumb to hit the space bar.
I therefore don't really single-finger type either. My technique s an odd sort of both index fingers (one on each half of the keyboard) combined with the occasional use of the middle and ring fingers on my right hand and my right thumb for the space bar and then random occasional use of both my pinkie fingers for shift keys.
I'm very right handed, which is part of why I use some of the other fingers on my right hand, but also, most of the more occasionally used stuff, like delete keys and semi-colons is on the right had side of a standard qwerty keyboard.
But also, one of the other main features is I have a map of where the keys are in my head. So although it's not proper touch typing, I can type for long segments looking at the screen like a touch typist would.
Anyway, the point is I use my thumb to hit the space bar and a lot of the time the keyboard on my laptop doesn't seem to pick it up, so I end up with three or even four words stuck together. It's quite annoying when you're reviewing or spell checking to unpick the words.
And I'm pretty sure it is my laptop, as it's never happened with other keyboards, and I recall always having this problem. In particular when I was fooling myself into thinking I might try to become a writer I used my laptop a lot (indeed, that's kinda why I'd bought it) and had the same issue with missed spaces.
Thursday, 29 September 2011
shelves of doom
I mentioned last week I would take some pics of my shelves, so I thought I'd present those today.
There are actually two shelves.
First is the one on the right.
A: Ink Cartridges
B: Some of my important documents.
C: Stack of important (and non-important, to be frank) documents that I haven't sorted out yet (though I'll need to go through them soon as I need to find something). Plus this is where I keep my TV listing and all my remote controls.
D: These are basically piles of anime where I've bought and imported the original Japanese anime version (and I wonder why I'm skint). I'm also in the process of collecting the western versions and my hope is that this combo will sell quite well on e-bay. I'm somewhat afraid that actually they won't sell at all well, so I'm also kinda ignoring them.
E: This shelf is where I keep all the unscanned Japanese anime magazines. As you can see, it's a fair pile, but it's a lot smaller than it was. There used to be so many that they lived on the shelf below, which is much taller.
F: These are my PC games. The ones in the front row are those I haven't really played much yet, if at all, and the ones in the back are ones I have played and want to hold on too or want to play a bit more, but feel I should really do something about those unplayed ones first.
G: And this is the core stack of anime. As you can see it's quite a deep shelf and you have to remember that these are stacked in two piles, one in front of the other. That's a lot of unwatched stuff. It's also the stuff I've prioritised to watch "first" which obviously means I have a couple of other stacks of stuff I want to watch "after" :/.
H: This stack (again, double depth) is the real life TV series (or at least non-anime and non-film) all unwatched (well, I'll have watch the majority of the actual shows when they were broadcast, but I've not watched the DVDs).
I: This stack is "films". Again, double depth and featuring a mix of live action, foreign and anime.
J: This is my cheater stack, where I've stacked up all those series I'm in the middle of. It's yet another way of excluding stuff from the to watch pile because I like to marathon things.
K: These cake boxes contain all of the audio books that I've already listened to. I like to listen to audio books while I walk. as you can see I walk quite a bit.
L: This is the main chunk of box files containing important documents.
M: My digital radio which wakes me up in the morning. I got it as a present from my Dad and was worried I might not be able to get a signal, but actually it's great. My digital telly is problematic, but I think it's because the aerial is pointing at the London region antennae, rather than the Meridian, which is a lot closer. Also we've still not switched over to full digital service in either region, so signal strength is lower than it could be anyway.
N: These stacks are original Japanese manga that I'm disassembling in order that I can scan the big spreads and dramatic images. It's really a hang over from when I used to make wallpapers and I used to find new/different/original content by doing this. Now they're just stuck in the huge scanning backlog (they're sell for a pittance on e-bay, so this way they at least get put to some use before being chucked away)
O: My right speaker, perfectly positioned so I get great stereo effect when watching DVDs or Blu-Ray... except of course I stuck a bunch of stuff in front of it :/.
Second is the one on the left.
P: The other speaker
Q: The overspill pile. It's mainly anime, but there's plenty of normal TV stuff in there too. My intention is to watch this stuff after the other stuff... yeah, because I'm ever going to get through all that other stuff :/.
R: My unread books.
S: VHS Tapes - burn the heretic! They're old anime VHS tapes that I felt guilty about chucking away without rewatching at least once.
T: Supposed to be my unread manga pile, but they actually spill down on to the shelf below. I've actually not being doing so bad recently with keeping on top of reading manga.
U: This is ostensibly my western comics to read pile, but it also has a bunch of CD old/empty jewel case I intended to use as spare parts to replace broken ones, but have never gotten around to.
V: These are the CDs I'm hanging on to for now. There's two stacking crates into eh kitchen of CDs I either want to e-bay (god, the effort required) or sell on one of those "sell your DVD sites" (bound to be a rip off).
W: These fans were headed out to the garage. Well, until this current heat wave so now they're sort of back in use.
X: I'm rapidly running out of letter, so, from left to right we've got: The DVDs I plan to take to watch on my upcoming holiday; CD cake boxes containing fansubs (I'm supposed to be sorting through them but got distracted half way); my Blu-Rays (I promised myself I wouldn't let it grow :() and a box of software.
Y: These spindles are the blank ones with DVDs and (out of picture) CDs for burning stuff on too. Oh, and some pants.
So there you go. The perfect shopping list for burglars. Well, burglar nerds. Which is very different to nerd burglars.
There are actually two shelves.
First is the one on the right.
A: Ink Cartridges
B: Some of my important documents.
C: Stack of important (and non-important, to be frank) documents that I haven't sorted out yet (though I'll need to go through them soon as I need to find something). Plus this is where I keep my TV listing and all my remote controls.
D: These are basically piles of anime where I've bought and imported the original Japanese anime version (and I wonder why I'm skint). I'm also in the process of collecting the western versions and my hope is that this combo will sell quite well on e-bay. I'm somewhat afraid that actually they won't sell at all well, so I'm also kinda ignoring them.
E: This shelf is where I keep all the unscanned Japanese anime magazines. As you can see, it's a fair pile, but it's a lot smaller than it was. There used to be so many that they lived on the shelf below, which is much taller.
F: These are my PC games. The ones in the front row are those I haven't really played much yet, if at all, and the ones in the back are ones I have played and want to hold on too or want to play a bit more, but feel I should really do something about those unplayed ones first.
G: And this is the core stack of anime. As you can see it's quite a deep shelf and you have to remember that these are stacked in two piles, one in front of the other. That's a lot of unwatched stuff. It's also the stuff I've prioritised to watch "first" which obviously means I have a couple of other stacks of stuff I want to watch "after" :/.
H: This stack (again, double depth) is the real life TV series (or at least non-anime and non-film) all unwatched (well, I'll have watch the majority of the actual shows when they were broadcast, but I've not watched the DVDs).
I: This stack is "films". Again, double depth and featuring a mix of live action, foreign and anime.
J: This is my cheater stack, where I've stacked up all those series I'm in the middle of. It's yet another way of excluding stuff from the to watch pile because I like to marathon things.
K: These cake boxes contain all of the audio books that I've already listened to. I like to listen to audio books while I walk. as you can see I walk quite a bit.
L: This is the main chunk of box files containing important documents.
M: My digital radio which wakes me up in the morning. I got it as a present from my Dad and was worried I might not be able to get a signal, but actually it's great. My digital telly is problematic, but I think it's because the aerial is pointing at the London region antennae, rather than the Meridian, which is a lot closer. Also we've still not switched over to full digital service in either region, so signal strength is lower than it could be anyway.
N: These stacks are original Japanese manga that I'm disassembling in order that I can scan the big spreads and dramatic images. It's really a hang over from when I used to make wallpapers and I used to find new/different/original content by doing this. Now they're just stuck in the huge scanning backlog (they're sell for a pittance on e-bay, so this way they at least get put to some use before being chucked away)
O: My right speaker, perfectly positioned so I get great stereo effect when watching DVDs or Blu-Ray... except of course I stuck a bunch of stuff in front of it :/.
Second is the one on the left.
P: The other speaker
Q: The overspill pile. It's mainly anime, but there's plenty of normal TV stuff in there too. My intention is to watch this stuff after the other stuff... yeah, because I'm ever going to get through all that other stuff :/.
R: My unread books.
T: Supposed to be my unread manga pile, but they actually spill down on to the shelf below. I've actually not being doing so bad recently with keeping on top of reading manga.
U: This is ostensibly my western comics to read pile, but it also has a bunch of CD old/empty jewel case I intended to use as spare parts to replace broken ones, but have never gotten around to.
V: These are the CDs I'm hanging on to for now. There's two stacking crates into eh kitchen of CDs I either want to e-bay (god, the effort required) or sell on one of those "sell your DVD sites" (bound to be a rip off).
W: These fans were headed out to the garage. Well, until this current heat wave so now they're sort of back in use.
X: I'm rapidly running out of letter, so, from left to right we've got: The DVDs I plan to take to watch on my upcoming holiday; CD cake boxes containing fansubs (I'm supposed to be sorting through them but got distracted half way); my Blu-Rays (I promised myself I wouldn't let it grow :() and a box of software.
Y: These spindles are the blank ones with DVDs and (out of picture) CDs for burning stuff on too. Oh, and some pants.
So there you go. The perfect shopping list for burglars. Well, burglar nerds. Which is very different to nerd burglars.
Wednesday, 28 September 2011
taxi
Luc Besson is a director/writer I have a bit of a mixed reaction too.
He's made some stuff I've really liked - Nikita, Fifth Element, The first Transporter - and other stuff, like the Transporter sequels, I've really struggled with. Taxi is probably a perfect example of the later.
There's a lot to like in the film - some interesting characters, some really great car chases, some nice funny stuff - and a lot that just doesn't work. The problem for me is that one of the key things that doesn't work is the plot. And for me, plot is one of the key elements of film.
Don't get me wrong, visual spectacle is one of the things that makes cinema an amazing art form and I'll happily watch something that's just purely visually interesting. Trouble is a film like this they're trying to make the plot more important than that, and, to be frank, the plot was a horrible pastiche of bits of ideas pinched from other films and stuck together in a way that can only really be described as rubbish.
Also, I have to say the acting was rather hammy. One of the things I always noticed with Hong Kong cinema was the hammy over-acting. Everyone would over-act all the time. If you were a bad guy you'd slope around making mean faces and being all menacing all the time.
Taxi seems to have the same bug (I specifically used HK as an example as Taxi seems really heavily influenced by HK cinema). It doesn't feel natural or real or even like it's vaguely attempting to be either. And it doesn't really even work as camp or something like that.
Tonally it just feels odd.
Also, there are lots of stupid bits in it that don't make sense. For example, there's one bit where the guy says he'll be back in a couple of hours and it's clearly the best part of a day before he returns. Now to be fair it's part of an ongoing gag, but even so, why he takes the best part of a day to return isn't clear. There'd have been loads of chances for him to pop back for a few hours or call - he wasn't tied up in a basement or anything.
I'm being very harsh on the film. It has a lot of fine Luc Besson stuff in it, and it's punchy and amusing and quite diverting, it's just that it feels lazily and haphazardly written and a lot of it doesn't make any real sense. It's predictable, hackneyed and a bit lazy, to be frank.
He's made some stuff I've really liked - Nikita, Fifth Element, The first Transporter - and other stuff, like the Transporter sequels, I've really struggled with. Taxi is probably a perfect example of the later.
There's a lot to like in the film - some interesting characters, some really great car chases, some nice funny stuff - and a lot that just doesn't work. The problem for me is that one of the key things that doesn't work is the plot. And for me, plot is one of the key elements of film.
Don't get me wrong, visual spectacle is one of the things that makes cinema an amazing art form and I'll happily watch something that's just purely visually interesting. Trouble is a film like this they're trying to make the plot more important than that, and, to be frank, the plot was a horrible pastiche of bits of ideas pinched from other films and stuck together in a way that can only really be described as rubbish.
Also, I have to say the acting was rather hammy. One of the things I always noticed with Hong Kong cinema was the hammy over-acting. Everyone would over-act all the time. If you were a bad guy you'd slope around making mean faces and being all menacing all the time.
Taxi seems to have the same bug (I specifically used HK as an example as Taxi seems really heavily influenced by HK cinema). It doesn't feel natural or real or even like it's vaguely attempting to be either. And it doesn't really even work as camp or something like that.
Tonally it just feels odd.
Also, there are lots of stupid bits in it that don't make sense. For example, there's one bit where the guy says he'll be back in a couple of hours and it's clearly the best part of a day before he returns. Now to be fair it's part of an ongoing gag, but even so, why he takes the best part of a day to return isn't clear. There'd have been loads of chances for him to pop back for a few hours or call - he wasn't tied up in a basement or anything.
I'm being very harsh on the film. It has a lot of fine Luc Besson stuff in it, and it's punchy and amusing and quite diverting, it's just that it feels lazily and haphazardly written and a lot of it doesn't make any real sense. It's predictable, hackneyed and a bit lazy, to be frank.
Tuesday, 27 September 2011
confusion reigns
I ate loads of crap last week and so got on the scales expecting a gain, but found I'd lost a pound.
I really found it all very confusing. The only theory I've got is that all the work I've been doing has really been sucking the energy out of me and also I had real trouble sleeping on Thursday night.
It was actually one of the weirdest bouts of insomnia I've ever had, in that I didn't actually feel tired. Well, I felt a bit tired, but not like I do after I've had one of my normal bouts of insomnia.
I've a feeling I did manage to get some sleep at the beginning and that, in effect, I actually just got up at about 1:30 in the morning. But as I say, when it became apparent that I really wasn't actually tired enough to make it even worth trying to go back to sleep, instead I watched some telly.
Usually that would then mean I'd be shattered during the day, but as I say, I was just a little bit tired - nothing particularly over what I'd expect for a Thursday after a busy week.
I did also manage to keep walking during the week. I think that helped keep the old metabolism ticking over and get the proverbial blood flowing, but I dunno, there's clearly something in the whole lack of sleep thing that means I do burn up calories. I wouldn't ever want to use it as a technique, as it's obviously not good for other reasons, but there it is.
One thing I have to say is I was particularly annoyed with myself last week eating some of the stuff I did, but I have been trying to use it to some extent to eat up some of the more random contents of my cupboards, fridge and freezer. I've managed to get through a lot of the stuff that's been kinda been "hanging about" since I started my diet.
About the only thing I've got left is a bunch of pasta meals and some rice. I'm fairly relaxed about keeping the rice, as plain rice is too boring and long-winded a food to cook for it to be "naughty eating" thing. Also, having it there means that if I sneakily buy certain meals I can cook the plain rice which is generally lower calories than the types of rice you buy, if you see what I mean.
I also felt rather daft with the extra eating too, as it was clearly... how to put it? Pointless eating driven by a desire to eat, rather than a need.
That's quite a complicated description, but what I mean is, one of the reasons people like me tend to gain weight is because we eat when we aren't hungry. A classic example of this is snacking - eating chocolate bars when you're not really hungry.
Well, in the evening what I've unfortunately been doing is eating stuff more because I'm in the habit of eating, rather than because I'm actually hungry. More often than not when it gets to evening I'm only really peckish, but because I'll have bought some extra stuff I'll eat that stuff, which is just un-necessary.
It actually represents a significant difference to how I was dieting when I first started this and I think is a reflection of the thing I was doing of buying strawberries (and other less good stuff) instead of sticking to my diet. It's that 'habit' I really need to break.
I really found it all very confusing. The only theory I've got is that all the work I've been doing has really been sucking the energy out of me and also I had real trouble sleeping on Thursday night.
It was actually one of the weirdest bouts of insomnia I've ever had, in that I didn't actually feel tired. Well, I felt a bit tired, but not like I do after I've had one of my normal bouts of insomnia.
I've a feeling I did manage to get some sleep at the beginning and that, in effect, I actually just got up at about 1:30 in the morning. But as I say, when it became apparent that I really wasn't actually tired enough to make it even worth trying to go back to sleep, instead I watched some telly.
Usually that would then mean I'd be shattered during the day, but as I say, I was just a little bit tired - nothing particularly over what I'd expect for a Thursday after a busy week.
I did also manage to keep walking during the week. I think that helped keep the old metabolism ticking over and get the proverbial blood flowing, but I dunno, there's clearly something in the whole lack of sleep thing that means I do burn up calories. I wouldn't ever want to use it as a technique, as it's obviously not good for other reasons, but there it is.
One thing I have to say is I was particularly annoyed with myself last week eating some of the stuff I did, but I have been trying to use it to some extent to eat up some of the more random contents of my cupboards, fridge and freezer. I've managed to get through a lot of the stuff that's been kinda been "hanging about" since I started my diet.
About the only thing I've got left is a bunch of pasta meals and some rice. I'm fairly relaxed about keeping the rice, as plain rice is too boring and long-winded a food to cook for it to be "naughty eating" thing. Also, having it there means that if I sneakily buy certain meals I can cook the plain rice which is generally lower calories than the types of rice you buy, if you see what I mean.
I also felt rather daft with the extra eating too, as it was clearly... how to put it? Pointless eating driven by a desire to eat, rather than a need.
That's quite a complicated description, but what I mean is, one of the reasons people like me tend to gain weight is because we eat when we aren't hungry. A classic example of this is snacking - eating chocolate bars when you're not really hungry.
Well, in the evening what I've unfortunately been doing is eating stuff more because I'm in the habit of eating, rather than because I'm actually hungry. More often than not when it gets to evening I'm only really peckish, but because I'll have bought some extra stuff I'll eat that stuff, which is just un-necessary.
It actually represents a significant difference to how I was dieting when I first started this and I think is a reflection of the thing I was doing of buying strawberries (and other less good stuff) instead of sticking to my diet. It's that 'habit' I really need to break.
Monday, 26 September 2011
singapore GP
Sebastian Vettel very nearly took the championship this weekend.
Well, let's be frank - he has the championship, but there's a mathematical chance that Button could win it. However, it's so slim a chance that it's negligible - Button would have to win every single race from here on out (a couple of the circuits - Japan definitely - suit the Red Bull car down to the ground) and Vettel would have to score no points at all.
Or, to put it even more bluntly, if Seb scores one more point in the entire rest of the season, then he takes the championship. So it's his.
The Grand Prix itself was okay. It was still horribly long and there wasn't a huge amount of overtaking. Most of that overtaking came from DRS, KERS and the tyres. Let's be frank - it's a terribly boring race that the excellent new rules helped to make okay.
Lewis was a bit in the wars again. Massa must think Lewis has a personal grudge against him, as he keeps ending up the victim. But then he must wonder at his luck full stop as everyone keeps crashing into him - Webber at Monza, for example.
I think the punishment for Lewis was very harsh, but you can understand it, as he did virtually ruined Massa's race.
I've gotta say I do think the Stewards are very inconsistent. Schumacher got the lightest slap on the wrist at Monza and Lewis has ended up with a penalty simply because it's very difficult to see exactly where the tip of your front wing is.
Anyway, I also got my haircut as planned.
I don't actually enjoy getting my haircut. I do get it cut at the same place, so I'm a bit more used to the girls they have and the environs now, but it's still something I just don't feel comfortable with.
My guess is that this is in no small part because my mum used to cut my hair. I don't mean in a random way - she used to be a hairdresser (I believe she used to have her own hairdressers before the bank stopped the funding/overdraft or something like that). As such, I've essentially grown up without the need to get used to a non-family member fiddling about with your hair and a sharp pair of scissors.
One thing that does puzzle me is, despite having the exact same cut type (number 2/3 on the back and sides, season and weather depending, and scissor trim on the top) it looks different depending on who's done it. A key difference is how high up they take the trimming bit - some do only a sort of lower chunk that doesn't go above my temples, but others take it right up the full side of my head.
Weirdly I ran into the girl who used to do my favourite version when I was out on one of my longer walks. I thought she'd been sacked or moved on, but she said she'd had an operation and that's why she'd not been in.
Well, let's be frank - he has the championship, but there's a mathematical chance that Button could win it. However, it's so slim a chance that it's negligible - Button would have to win every single race from here on out (a couple of the circuits - Japan definitely - suit the Red Bull car down to the ground) and Vettel would have to score no points at all.
Or, to put it even more bluntly, if Seb scores one more point in the entire rest of the season, then he takes the championship. So it's his.
The Grand Prix itself was okay. It was still horribly long and there wasn't a huge amount of overtaking. Most of that overtaking came from DRS, KERS and the tyres. Let's be frank - it's a terribly boring race that the excellent new rules helped to make okay.
Lewis was a bit in the wars again. Massa must think Lewis has a personal grudge against him, as he keeps ending up the victim. But then he must wonder at his luck full stop as everyone keeps crashing into him - Webber at Monza, for example.
I think the punishment for Lewis was very harsh, but you can understand it, as he did virtually ruined Massa's race.
I've gotta say I do think the Stewards are very inconsistent. Schumacher got the lightest slap on the wrist at Monza and Lewis has ended up with a penalty simply because it's very difficult to see exactly where the tip of your front wing is.
Anyway, I also got my haircut as planned.
I don't actually enjoy getting my haircut. I do get it cut at the same place, so I'm a bit more used to the girls they have and the environs now, but it's still something I just don't feel comfortable with.
My guess is that this is in no small part because my mum used to cut my hair. I don't mean in a random way - she used to be a hairdresser (I believe she used to have her own hairdressers before the bank stopped the funding/overdraft or something like that). As such, I've essentially grown up without the need to get used to a non-family member fiddling about with your hair and a sharp pair of scissors.
One thing that does puzzle me is, despite having the exact same cut type (number 2/3 on the back and sides, season and weather depending, and scissor trim on the top) it looks different depending on who's done it. A key difference is how high up they take the trimming bit - some do only a sort of lower chunk that doesn't go above my temples, but others take it right up the full side of my head.
Weirdly I ran into the girl who used to do my favourite version when I was out on one of my longer walks. I thought she'd been sacked or moved on, but she said she'd had an operation and that's why she'd not been in.
Friday, 23 September 2011
sing a pore (or is that bore?)
Singapore Grand Prix this weekend.
I’m guessing it will also be he weekend when Sebastian Vettel gets his hands on the championship.
It will also likely be another very big challenge for the new rules as Singapore is a dire race usually. Like Valencia and Monaco it’s on a tight street circuit and therefore ends to produce dull races. Unlike Monaco, Valencia was still dull and I would guess Singapore will be too.
A big part of the problem has been the length in Singapore - laps take such a long time that the race usually drags on for ages.
But we’ll see - who knows, maybe it will be a good one. Of particular interest is the other part of how I've written the title. According to the weather thing the BBC does for the next race it's basically been raining all week in Singapore. Usually rain adds a bit of spice, but given that Singapore is a night race, illuminated by great big spotlights, I'm unsure quite what will happen if it rains.
Other plans for the weekend are relatively simple. I need to buy my dad a present. What he's asked for can only really be picked up in a shop so I can actually pick things up and have a look at them.
I also really need a haircut. I get this weird thing with my sideburn area where they become very curly when my hair gets too long. It's odd - there's a point where they suddenly become curly.
Well, I say that. Maybe it's more that I suddenly notice it's happened.
I've been watching a lot of telly in the evenings and, as I mentioned before, I trimmed out quite a few programmes. Also, some others have come to an end. I'm therefore hoping I can do some scanning and, in particular, get back up to speed with anime stuff.
I'd quite like to plough through the fansubs I've got. I mentioned before that unfortunately, this season, there seemed to be a retro step that meant more stuff was only really accessible via fansub. Well, the new season is rolling around, so the hard drive I use to hold fansubs is very nearly full because of the combination of all the shows I've downloaded and my poor watch rate.
I’m guessing it will also be he weekend when Sebastian Vettel gets his hands on the championship.
It will also likely be another very big challenge for the new rules as Singapore is a dire race usually. Like Valencia and Monaco it’s on a tight street circuit and therefore ends to produce dull races. Unlike Monaco, Valencia was still dull and I would guess Singapore will be too.
A big part of the problem has been the length in Singapore - laps take such a long time that the race usually drags on for ages.
But we’ll see - who knows, maybe it will be a good one. Of particular interest is the other part of how I've written the title. According to the weather thing the BBC does for the next race it's basically been raining all week in Singapore. Usually rain adds a bit of spice, but given that Singapore is a night race, illuminated by great big spotlights, I'm unsure quite what will happen if it rains.
Other plans for the weekend are relatively simple. I need to buy my dad a present. What he's asked for can only really be picked up in a shop so I can actually pick things up and have a look at them.
I also really need a haircut. I get this weird thing with my sideburn area where they become very curly when my hair gets too long. It's odd - there's a point where they suddenly become curly.
Well, I say that. Maybe it's more that I suddenly notice it's happened.
I've been watching a lot of telly in the evenings and, as I mentioned before, I trimmed out quite a few programmes. Also, some others have come to an end. I'm therefore hoping I can do some scanning and, in particular, get back up to speed with anime stuff.
I'd quite like to plough through the fansubs I've got. I mentioned before that unfortunately, this season, there seemed to be a retro step that meant more stuff was only really accessible via fansub. Well, the new season is rolling around, so the hard drive I use to hold fansubs is very nearly full because of the combination of all the shows I've downloaded and my poor watch rate.
Thursday, 22 September 2011
dental treatments
I mentioned a bit ago that I needed to get some dental treatment.
Usually on Thursday I’d talk about my weight, but it was pretty rubbish again this week. I lost a pound (which I didn’t understand as I ate crap but then I thought about how much work and little sleep I’d had, so maybe it makes sense) and walking was average, so instead I want to talk about my dental work.
I had the last one the other week. Basically, I’ve had two new fillings put in - both on the bottom of my mouth, but one on each side.
The one on the left of my mouth was a big one, and it’s that one that I think was really a replacement for a filling that fell out several months back. It was also so big that it was close to my nerve and he was a bit worried that it would end up with constant pressure on the nerve that would cause me constant pain.
It’s that sort of pain that makes me uncomfortable with the dentists. I know people are afraid of the dentist, but my thing isn’t really fear.
Basically, my teeth are rather sensitive, so whenever he has to do drilling, I’m always worried it will hurt. Obviously everyone is worried about that, but mine is more like I’m worried that, although numbed, he’ll suddenly breakthrough to the nerve and it’ll be agony.
It’s quite specific and does literally go back to when I was very young and the dentist did a shallow filling and didn’t numb my teeth. Now she didn’t break through, but there was a point where suddenly it went from a vague feeling of someone doing something to a sharp pain.
And I’ve also found that, even when numbed, I can often still feel them drilling and it hurts - even when it’s had a really long time to take effect. It’s like when I had to have my root removed - he ended up having to numb two completely different areas in my mouth because apparently I have multiple nerve connections, which is quite rare he said.
Anyway point was I was fully expecting a rather unpleasant time of it. In particular I was worried about when the pain killers wore off. I've often had a lot of discomfort, but this time, both were all right. The anaesthetic wore off, but I then wasn’t wracked with pain.
Now the one on the leftisn’t100% comfortable to eat particularly tough or hard food with, but overall I’d say it was a success. In particular, the white filling used on the right is almost totally invisible, which is always nice.
But then given how much it’s all cost me, you would hope for good results. I’m private (they used to be NHS, but, like most dentists around here, they went private a few years back - NHS dentists are like rocking horse poo around here, and the few there are have waiting lists as long as both my arms) so it costs silly amounts of money.
To be honest, it’s the hygienist that feels like the biggest rip off. Especially now, as she’s given e about all the advice she can to help me do my cleaning, and it’s clearly helped as she did very little when I last went (though quite how two fillings ties into that, I don’t know).
Usually on Thursday I’d talk about my weight, but it was pretty rubbish again this week. I lost a pound (which I didn’t understand as I ate crap but then I thought about how much work and little sleep I’d had, so maybe it makes sense) and walking was average, so instead I want to talk about my dental work.
I had the last one the other week. Basically, I’ve had two new fillings put in - both on the bottom of my mouth, but one on each side.
The one on the left of my mouth was a big one, and it’s that one that I think was really a replacement for a filling that fell out several months back. It was also so big that it was close to my nerve and he was a bit worried that it would end up with constant pressure on the nerve that would cause me constant pain.
It’s that sort of pain that makes me uncomfortable with the dentists. I know people are afraid of the dentist, but my thing isn’t really fear.
Basically, my teeth are rather sensitive, so whenever he has to do drilling, I’m always worried it will hurt. Obviously everyone is worried about that, but mine is more like I’m worried that, although numbed, he’ll suddenly breakthrough to the nerve and it’ll be agony.
It’s quite specific and does literally go back to when I was very young and the dentist did a shallow filling and didn’t numb my teeth. Now she didn’t break through, but there was a point where suddenly it went from a vague feeling of someone doing something to a sharp pain.
And I’ve also found that, even when numbed, I can often still feel them drilling and it hurts - even when it’s had a really long time to take effect. It’s like when I had to have my root removed - he ended up having to numb two completely different areas in my mouth because apparently I have multiple nerve connections, which is quite rare he said.
Anyway point was I was fully expecting a rather unpleasant time of it. In particular I was worried about when the pain killers wore off. I've often had a lot of discomfort, but this time, both were all right. The anaesthetic wore off, but I then wasn’t wracked with pain.
Now the one on the leftisn’t100% comfortable to eat particularly tough or hard food with, but overall I’d say it was a success. In particular, the white filling used on the right is almost totally invisible, which is always nice.
But then given how much it’s all cost me, you would hope for good results. I’m private (they used to be NHS, but, like most dentists around here, they went private a few years back - NHS dentists are like rocking horse poo around here, and the few there are have waiting lists as long as both my arms) so it costs silly amounts of money.
To be honest, it’s the hygienist that feels like the biggest rip off. Especially now, as she’s given e about all the advice she can to help me do my cleaning, and it’s clearly helped as she did very little when I last went (though quite how two fillings ties into that, I don’t know).
Wednesday, 21 September 2011
coraline
Coraline is based on a book by Neil Gaiman.
I have to confess I’m not hugely familiar with Gaiman’s work. I probably should be, but I dunno, I’ve never really had any exposure to his writing. I also understand that the book is quite different to the film.
The film uses stop motion animation, which is something that I don’t gets enough exposure nowadays. I think one of the main problems is that cgi animation tends to look a lot like a smoother, version of stop motion.
It’s odd, cgi is most identified as having very nearly killed off traditional animation (I’m talking Disney style films and western kids animation, obviously) but it also seems to have had a real impact on stop motion. Even Aardman who were all abut stop motion produced a cgi film (the one about the sewer rats).
Anyway, one of the most popular stop motion films of recent years was the nightmare before Christmas. For some reason, nightmare is very closely associated with Tim Burton, but he didn’t actually direct it. It was directed by the same guy who adapted and directed Coraline.
You can see a lot of nightmare in Coraline. There is a tonal similarity, both in terms of its direction and the story, though obviously the story is more influenced by Gaiman, but then as I understand it Gaiman’s work is quite gothical in style.
I have to confess I wasn’t a huge fan of nightmare. The musical stuff felt too Disney and I found the story a bit predictable.
The Coraline story was a lot more imaginative, and the story themes are a lot more subtle. Visually it was just as - if not more - inventive, and there’s some truly magical stuff in it.
It also puts in some nicely realised digital stuff, using it to really boost the film, rather than replacing it, like the rats film.
One of the real triumphs of the film is the characters. They feel very real, being both beautifully animated, but also having surprising depth. You can really feel Coraline is a real character - one you won’t necessarily always like, who is selfish as well as having a genuine cause for her behaviour.
Many of the supporting characters are quite fanciful and feel less real, but then that’s part of the point - we’re seeing them through Coraline’s eyes.
The switch into the other world is really well done and the bad guy of the piece is extremely cleverly handled - in particular with how it’s finally revealed and how that clicks several clever little visual clues into place when you watch it through again.
The DVD also had a really good commentary and some genuinely interesting documentaries.
You can hopefully tell I really liked the film.
I have to confess I’m not hugely familiar with Gaiman’s work. I probably should be, but I dunno, I’ve never really had any exposure to his writing. I also understand that the book is quite different to the film.
The film uses stop motion animation, which is something that I don’t gets enough exposure nowadays. I think one of the main problems is that cgi animation tends to look a lot like a smoother, version of stop motion.
It’s odd, cgi is most identified as having very nearly killed off traditional animation (I’m talking Disney style films and western kids animation, obviously) but it also seems to have had a real impact on stop motion. Even Aardman who were all abut stop motion produced a cgi film (the one about the sewer rats).
Anyway, one of the most popular stop motion films of recent years was the nightmare before Christmas. For some reason, nightmare is very closely associated with Tim Burton, but he didn’t actually direct it. It was directed by the same guy who adapted and directed Coraline.
You can see a lot of nightmare in Coraline. There is a tonal similarity, both in terms of its direction and the story, though obviously the story is more influenced by Gaiman, but then as I understand it Gaiman’s work is quite gothical in style.
I have to confess I wasn’t a huge fan of nightmare. The musical stuff felt too Disney and I found the story a bit predictable.
The Coraline story was a lot more imaginative, and the story themes are a lot more subtle. Visually it was just as - if not more - inventive, and there’s some truly magical stuff in it.
It also puts in some nicely realised digital stuff, using it to really boost the film, rather than replacing it, like the rats film.
One of the real triumphs of the film is the characters. They feel very real, being both beautifully animated, but also having surprising depth. You can really feel Coraline is a real character - one you won’t necessarily always like, who is selfish as well as having a genuine cause for her behaviour.
Many of the supporting characters are quite fanciful and feel less real, but then that’s part of the point - we’re seeing them through Coraline’s eyes.
The switch into the other world is really well done and the bad guy of the piece is extremely cleverly handled - in particular with how it’s finally revealed and how that clicks several clever little visual clues into place when you watch it through again.
The DVD also had a really good commentary and some genuinely interesting documentaries.
You can hopefully tell I really liked the film.
Tuesday, 20 September 2011
too much to watch
Yesterday I ended with a mention that I was selling a bunch of stuff on e-bay.
One thing this did throw into sharp relief was that I’d started slipping with my anime watching. Part of this was because there’s been a load of stuff I’ve wanted to watch on TV, but another big part is of course that I’ve had so much work to do. I’d actually thought I may need to come in this last weekend, but in the end I thought - no, I need the break.
Something that was pleasing, though, was that even though the Saturday was again intense and physically demanding I wasn’t shattered on Sunday. Well, I was tired, but not like I had been in previous weeks.
This was part of what enabled me to do the e-baying. I’d tried a couple of weeks before, but had found it all too much and not done it.
Anyway, what I was really going to say was that it became apparent when I was e-baying that I hadn’t really watched much anime or read much manga since I’d last done a proper session. I mean, I have watched and read some bits, but certainly I realised that all the other stuff had really knocked the wind out of my sails.
Of course, the flipside is that I’ve now managed to really bight into the stack of TV stuff I’ve recorded and not managed to find the time to watch. In particular I’ve gotten about half way into the recent Torchwood series.
It’s been quite good so far. I have to say it’s been a little slow if I’m totally honest. It would probably have worked if it was more like the Children one, or even if it was maybe 6 episodes, rather than 10. However, it really seems to have ramped up in the last few episodes I’ve watched, and we’re also starting to get into the proper conspiracy stuff.
I mean, there was conspiracy before (I assume I’m okay with talking about this as I’m sure if you were even vaguely interested you’d have been watching. Well, okay, I wasn’t, but I have my reasons.), but it was about a pharmaceutical company being evil, and big corp being evil is hardly original or even very torchwood as it’s not really alieny. But it looks like we're about to get onto the proper underlying conspiracy stuff.
It also seems to have gotten a bit darker. The children one was very bleak and I’m kinda hoping we get that way with this one as so far it’s not really focused on the nastier side of the story it’s telling.
But anyway, point is that I also rationalised some stuff I was recording and having made a real big dent in my stuff to watch, I’m hoping that very soon I’ll be able to start watching anime again and then I’ll have some more stuff to sell as we get towards Christmas. Blimey, I said the Christmas word. It’s ages off, but e-bay’s free listing weekends aren't that often and it’s nice to take advantage of them as it can really boost the money I make.
They’re one of the few good things e-bay does.
And on a vaguely related note, my lovely fired Ezy suggested I take some photos of my freshly re-reorganised shelves (they’re the ones with all the anime on - it’s a thin link, but a link none the less) and I’ll probably have a go at that at some point too. Although to be frank, they’re a bit difficult to really photo in a way that’s easy and clear, because there’s multiple layers of stuff so it’s not really visible.
One thing this did throw into sharp relief was that I’d started slipping with my anime watching. Part of this was because there’s been a load of stuff I’ve wanted to watch on TV, but another big part is of course that I’ve had so much work to do. I’d actually thought I may need to come in this last weekend, but in the end I thought - no, I need the break.
Something that was pleasing, though, was that even though the Saturday was again intense and physically demanding I wasn’t shattered on Sunday. Well, I was tired, but not like I had been in previous weeks.
This was part of what enabled me to do the e-baying. I’d tried a couple of weeks before, but had found it all too much and not done it.
Anyway, what I was really going to say was that it became apparent when I was e-baying that I hadn’t really watched much anime or read much manga since I’d last done a proper session. I mean, I have watched and read some bits, but certainly I realised that all the other stuff had really knocked the wind out of my sails.
Of course, the flipside is that I’ve now managed to really bight into the stack of TV stuff I’ve recorded and not managed to find the time to watch. In particular I’ve gotten about half way into the recent Torchwood series.
It’s been quite good so far. I have to say it’s been a little slow if I’m totally honest. It would probably have worked if it was more like the Children one, or even if it was maybe 6 episodes, rather than 10. However, it really seems to have ramped up in the last few episodes I’ve watched, and we’re also starting to get into the proper conspiracy stuff.
I mean, there was conspiracy before (I assume I’m okay with talking about this as I’m sure if you were even vaguely interested you’d have been watching. Well, okay, I wasn’t, but I have my reasons.), but it was about a pharmaceutical company being evil, and big corp being evil is hardly original or even very torchwood as it’s not really alieny. But it looks like we're about to get onto the proper underlying conspiracy stuff.
It also seems to have gotten a bit darker. The children one was very bleak and I’m kinda hoping we get that way with this one as so far it’s not really focused on the nastier side of the story it’s telling.
But anyway, point is that I also rationalised some stuff I was recording and having made a real big dent in my stuff to watch, I’m hoping that very soon I’ll be able to start watching anime again and then I’ll have some more stuff to sell as we get towards Christmas. Blimey, I said the Christmas word. It’s ages off, but e-bay’s free listing weekends aren't that often and it’s nice to take advantage of them as it can really boost the money I make.
They’re one of the few good things e-bay does.
And on a vaguely related note, my lovely fired Ezy suggested I take some photos of my freshly re-reorganised shelves (they’re the ones with all the anime on - it’s a thin link, but a link none the less) and I’ll probably have a go at that at some point too. Although to be frank, they’re a bit difficult to really photo in a way that’s easy and clear, because there’s multiple layers of stuff so it’s not really visible.
Monday, 19 September 2011
triple bagger
Last Friday I briefly mentioned what I would get up to on Saturday morning.
Well, actually I mainly talked about how it had been a hell of a week. Friday was by far and away the worst day. I actually did what was basically a 12 hour day at work, and that was before having to go shopping and do a bunch of other bits so that the weekend would be easier.
I ended up basically passing out at about 10:30 (very late for me) and of course I get up earlier when it’s a cleaning weekend so tat I can get into the laundrette when it opens, so I was then up at 6:00.
Actually, I got up at about 5:30AM as when I got up for a pee in the early morning I was wide awake and I filled in the time by watching a bit of telly.
The actually washing was a triple bagger - I had two black bags full of clothes and then another bag with bed sheets and towels. I used one of the big machines and one of the medium machines and then three tumble dryers. It actually cost a fortune, but it means I’d caught up with the overspill that was left when I switched to ding my own washing.
Best thing was that there was literally nobody in there, so I wasn’t using up machines other people wanted access too. I also noticed on Sunday morning that the place was completely empty when I walked past it on my (slightly delayed) morning walk, so I may put that knowledge to use later on.
Particularly when the winter proper rolls around. I’m worried that when I fully break out the warmer clothes I may have trouble with the amount of washing I need to do. I mean, obviously the warmer clothes tend to be bigger, but of course I wear multiple layers, so that means loads more clothes.
Part of the saving grace might be that I won’t be quite so tied into doing it every other week - the F1 season will obviously be over, so timing's not so critical. If I can also use Sunday mornings, that may help too.
I actually took the first step with winter as I broke out the winter duvet. Eventually I’ll end up with both duvets and only wearing jeans and tracky bottoms, but for now it’s just the warmer duvet. Of course that does mean I’ll have to actually buy some new winter clothes...
I threw away quite a few clothes hen I switched to summer clothes. Partly that was due to the diet (and certainly most of them would now be too big) but also most of them were rather knackered and replacing anyway.
Where the heck I’m going to get the cash for that from I’m not sure.
I actually had to get a bunch of stuff on e-bay this weekend as my finances were looking a bit tight. I got a letter a few weeks back that they were increasing the cost of my electricity, so I took the calculated gamble of buying advance buying a load of electricity this month so that I wouldn’t be so badly impacted when properly cold weather comes around.
Of course that put a really big hole in my finances, because I can’t use credit cards to buy the electricity. I therefore did some e-baying of a bunch of stuff, especially as it was a no-insertion fee weekend.
Well, actually I mainly talked about how it had been a hell of a week. Friday was by far and away the worst day. I actually did what was basically a 12 hour day at work, and that was before having to go shopping and do a bunch of other bits so that the weekend would be easier.
I ended up basically passing out at about 10:30 (very late for me) and of course I get up earlier when it’s a cleaning weekend so tat I can get into the laundrette when it opens, so I was then up at 6:00.
Actually, I got up at about 5:30AM as when I got up for a pee in the early morning I was wide awake and I filled in the time by watching a bit of telly.
The actually washing was a triple bagger - I had two black bags full of clothes and then another bag with bed sheets and towels. I used one of the big machines and one of the medium machines and then three tumble dryers. It actually cost a fortune, but it means I’d caught up with the overspill that was left when I switched to ding my own washing.
Best thing was that there was literally nobody in there, so I wasn’t using up machines other people wanted access too. I also noticed on Sunday morning that the place was completely empty when I walked past it on my (slightly delayed) morning walk, so I may put that knowledge to use later on.
Particularly when the winter proper rolls around. I’m worried that when I fully break out the warmer clothes I may have trouble with the amount of washing I need to do. I mean, obviously the warmer clothes tend to be bigger, but of course I wear multiple layers, so that means loads more clothes.
Part of the saving grace might be that I won’t be quite so tied into doing it every other week - the F1 season will obviously be over, so timing's not so critical. If I can also use Sunday mornings, that may help too.
I actually took the first step with winter as I broke out the winter duvet. Eventually I’ll end up with both duvets and only wearing jeans and tracky bottoms, but for now it’s just the warmer duvet. Of course that does mean I’ll have to actually buy some new winter clothes...
I threw away quite a few clothes hen I switched to summer clothes. Partly that was due to the diet (and certainly most of them would now be too big) but also most of them were rather knackered and replacing anyway.
Where the heck I’m going to get the cash for that from I’m not sure.
I actually had to get a bunch of stuff on e-bay this weekend as my finances were looking a bit tight. I got a letter a few weeks back that they were increasing the cost of my electricity, so I took the calculated gamble of buying advance buying a load of electricity this month so that I wouldn’t be so badly impacted when properly cold weather comes around.
Of course that put a really big hole in my finances, because I can’t use credit cards to buy the electricity. I therefore did some e-baying of a bunch of stuff, especially as it was a no-insertion fee weekend.
Friday, 16 September 2011
i need this
The weekend is rapidly approaching, and boy do I need it.
It's been a tough week at work, not least of all because several people seem to have gone on holiday at the same time. That's meant that I've had to pick up a lot of stuff from them on top of my regular stuff.
There have been several things that have therefore gone un-loved if I'm honest. And if I hadn't managed to clear off some of my own stuff before this week I wouldn't have managed to done most of them.
So it's been hectic.
The real problem recently is that we've had lots of requirements come in. Usually we see a handful a month, but just recently it's been more like a handful every day. And while most are pretty small things, they all need several days of effort. And when you're a relatively small company everyone quickly gets maxed out with stuff to do.
But the real headache comes when you try to rationalise them - we won't do that one, but we will do those two, that sort of thing. The problem for us is, because of how we work, it's difficult to really make those decisions straight away.
I mean, you can make them, but often you're simply chopping things off without really investigating. And the investigation is the bit that takes time. So it's a bit of a no win situation - if you do the exploration, you expend quite a bit of effort and may either end up with nothing or generate a lot of work for yourself. If you don't do the exploration, you could be consigning the best opportunity you've ever seen to the dustbin and never know it.
Anyway, enough moaning. And not that the weekend will be much of a rest.
It's a cleaning weekend, and that means starting off with a load of washing up at the laundrette. I'm actually going to have to do three bags worth this weekend, so I hope it's not busy, as I'll need multiple machine and even more tumble dryers to get through it all.
Then I'll actually clean the flat and I'll probably give it a bit more of a thorough clean than normal, as it's a while since I did a thorough clean. Then I'll go for a walk and all that before lunch. It's no wonder I end up knackered on the Sunday. Ideally I'd spread things out a bit more, but I couldn't work out how to do that and not simply end up impacting on other stuff instead.
It's been a tough week at work, not least of all because several people seem to have gone on holiday at the same time. That's meant that I've had to pick up a lot of stuff from them on top of my regular stuff.
There have been several things that have therefore gone un-loved if I'm honest. And if I hadn't managed to clear off some of my own stuff before this week I wouldn't have managed to done most of them.
So it's been hectic.
The real problem recently is that we've had lots of requirements come in. Usually we see a handful a month, but just recently it's been more like a handful every day. And while most are pretty small things, they all need several days of effort. And when you're a relatively small company everyone quickly gets maxed out with stuff to do.
But the real headache comes when you try to rationalise them - we won't do that one, but we will do those two, that sort of thing. The problem for us is, because of how we work, it's difficult to really make those decisions straight away.
I mean, you can make them, but often you're simply chopping things off without really investigating. And the investigation is the bit that takes time. So it's a bit of a no win situation - if you do the exploration, you expend quite a bit of effort and may either end up with nothing or generate a lot of work for yourself. If you don't do the exploration, you could be consigning the best opportunity you've ever seen to the dustbin and never know it.
Anyway, enough moaning. And not that the weekend will be much of a rest.
It's a cleaning weekend, and that means starting off with a load of washing up at the laundrette. I'm actually going to have to do three bags worth this weekend, so I hope it's not busy, as I'll need multiple machine and even more tumble dryers to get through it all.
Then I'll actually clean the flat and I'll probably give it a bit more of a thorough clean than normal, as it's a while since I did a thorough clean. Then I'll go for a walk and all that before lunch. It's no wonder I end up knackered on the Sunday. Ideally I'd spread things out a bit more, but I couldn't work out how to do that and not simply end up impacting on other stuff instead.
Thursday, 15 September 2011
re-rearrange
I rearranged my DVDs and books. Again... again.
I liked the idea of my plan when I rearranged them last time, but the results were a bit of a mess. The big problem was that I mixed stuff up and tried to put books, anime and normal DVDs all together.
Trouble was the ‘slots’ on the shelf weren’t the right size and so what I ended up with was more like a jumble of stuff where I was trying for a more sensible order to watch stuff in.
My new arrangement tries to keep things together - so all my books are back over on the other book shelf, for example - and instead I’ve focused more on putting the groups into a sensible order to watch them in. So in other words, all the books are together, all the normal DVDs are together and all the anime is together, but what I‘ve done is put those groups into an order where I can watch stuff from the top down.
Well, I say that, but there is one shelf that’s ended up as a random mix of stuff. I’m not too fussed about that, because it’s more a reflection of the stupid amount of DVDs I’ve got to watch than any real failure in my ordering.
There was also an ulterior motive for my rearrangement.
Basically, I couldn’t find my copy of High School of the Dead. HOTD was released last week on the Bank Holiday Monday an I’d pre-ordered the Blu-Ray version almost as soon as it was announced. But I couldn’t find it.
I say I couldn’t find it because I was sure I’d received it. I had a memory of being a little disappointed with the image they’d put on the Blu-Rays. I also vaguely remembered unwrapping it and, more importantly, I checked my e-mail and Amazon had sent it on the Bank Holiday.
Now obviously there was the possibility that I hadn’t actually received it, but as I say, I was sure I had, but I couldn’t find it. I have a small stack of Blu-Rays and it should have been with them, but no sign.
Therefore, by sorting out the mess I’d created with my last re-arrange, it gave me a chance to look through the piles and see if I’d put it somewhere odd. But there was no sign.
And then, a couple of days after I’d basically decided I’d somehow lost it (perhaps doing something silly like chucking it away like I did with a volume of Bakuman) it turned up in the post. It had taken some 8 days to arrive. Now to be fair I do use the Amazon slow and free service and of course if they posted it on the bank holiday, it wouldn’t actually get picked up until later, but still, I think that’s the longest I’ve ever had it take to get to me.
I’ve actually cancelled a lot of the stuff I pre-ordered on Amazon - manga, mostly. I‘m actually rather skint (all this dental work I’ve had to have has really not helped me) and I need to get more stuff on e-bay. I’ve got quite a lot lined up - not least of all because I’ve been watching stuff on DVD - but I just don’t seem to be able to find the time to sit down and take photos and write the stuff for the auction pages.
I liked the idea of my plan when I rearranged them last time, but the results were a bit of a mess. The big problem was that I mixed stuff up and tried to put books, anime and normal DVDs all together.
Trouble was the ‘slots’ on the shelf weren’t the right size and so what I ended up with was more like a jumble of stuff where I was trying for a more sensible order to watch stuff in.
My new arrangement tries to keep things together - so all my books are back over on the other book shelf, for example - and instead I’ve focused more on putting the groups into a sensible order to watch them in. So in other words, all the books are together, all the normal DVDs are together and all the anime is together, but what I‘ve done is put those groups into an order where I can watch stuff from the top down.
Well, I say that, but there is one shelf that’s ended up as a random mix of stuff. I’m not too fussed about that, because it’s more a reflection of the stupid amount of DVDs I’ve got to watch than any real failure in my ordering.
There was also an ulterior motive for my rearrangement.
Basically, I couldn’t find my copy of High School of the Dead. HOTD was released last week on the Bank Holiday Monday an I’d pre-ordered the Blu-Ray version almost as soon as it was announced. But I couldn’t find it.
I say I couldn’t find it because I was sure I’d received it. I had a memory of being a little disappointed with the image they’d put on the Blu-Rays. I also vaguely remembered unwrapping it and, more importantly, I checked my e-mail and Amazon had sent it on the Bank Holiday.
Now obviously there was the possibility that I hadn’t actually received it, but as I say, I was sure I had, but I couldn’t find it. I have a small stack of Blu-Rays and it should have been with them, but no sign.
Therefore, by sorting out the mess I’d created with my last re-arrange, it gave me a chance to look through the piles and see if I’d put it somewhere odd. But there was no sign.
And then, a couple of days after I’d basically decided I’d somehow lost it (perhaps doing something silly like chucking it away like I did with a volume of Bakuman) it turned up in the post. It had taken some 8 days to arrive. Now to be fair I do use the Amazon slow and free service and of course if they posted it on the bank holiday, it wouldn’t actually get picked up until later, but still, I think that’s the longest I’ve ever had it take to get to me.
I’ve actually cancelled a lot of the stuff I pre-ordered on Amazon - manga, mostly. I‘m actually rather skint (all this dental work I’ve had to have has really not helped me) and I need to get more stuff on e-bay. I’ve got quite a lot lined up - not least of all because I’ve been watching stuff on DVD - but I just don’t seem to be able to find the time to sit down and take photos and write the stuff for the auction pages.
Wednesday, 14 September 2011
the thing
John Carpenter's The Thing was the first Blu Ray I bought.
It was also the first Blu Ray I watched. Or at least, the first Blu Ray I tried to watch. I then discovered that there's actually no Blu Ray player software built into windows, so I had to install Power DVD.
I then discovered that there appears to be some protection that appears to prevent you from playing Blu Rays via a DVI cable. I knew there was region protection and if I was to eventually play Blu Rays from other regions I'd need some form of cracking software. I hadn't appreciated I'd also need it in order to watch any Blu Rays from a computer on my telly.
That's a long winded way of saying that by the time I'd sorted all those issues out I'd actually acquired several Blu Rays (and had basically decided that actually I need to buy a proper region free Blu-Ray, but that doing so appears to be a bit of a hassle, as players are not (yet anyway) sold as being multi-region like DVD players are) and watched them.
So why did I pick a cult SF/horror film from the early 1980s as my first Blu Ray?
Well The Thing represents something of a high water mark in terms of physical creature effects. Yes it does look a bit dated, but what makes up for that is the wild, twisted imagination. There's stuff in there that is so bonkers they've still not really matched it. And the fact it was done physically then makes it even more special.
Really The Thing is two movies stuck together. One film is a paranoid action thriller and the other is a bonkers creature horror film. Of course this could have been a real disaster, but both elements work so well and gel together so well they end up enhancing each other, rather than detracting.
Of course, the film isn't without its flaws. On particularly big one is quite why these people are down in the Antarctic anyway. There are quite a few of them and they're a real rag tag bunch of misfits, which is fair enough, but why are they there? Are they supposed to be scientists? Only one of them actually appears to be a scientist, and one a doctor. Some of the rest have clear jobs (radio operator, pilot), but the rest are just random people.
And the other question is how come they have so many guns and, more importantly, flame throwers? You could maybe understand there being one rifle, just in case, but there aren't any particularly nasty threats down there. For example, it's a common misconception that polar bears live on the south pole, but in fact they're entirely based at the north pole.
There are penguins, seals and whales of course, but they're hardly a threat. And even if they were, a rifle or two would be okay, but flame throwers? And we're talking proper flame throwers, not improvised things.
But setting things like that asides, as a film it's really great (well, assuming horror his your thing, of course).
It was also the first Blu Ray I watched. Or at least, the first Blu Ray I tried to watch. I then discovered that there's actually no Blu Ray player software built into windows, so I had to install Power DVD.
I then discovered that there appears to be some protection that appears to prevent you from playing Blu Rays via a DVI cable. I knew there was region protection and if I was to eventually play Blu Rays from other regions I'd need some form of cracking software. I hadn't appreciated I'd also need it in order to watch any Blu Rays from a computer on my telly.
That's a long winded way of saying that by the time I'd sorted all those issues out I'd actually acquired several Blu Rays (and had basically decided that actually I need to buy a proper region free Blu-Ray, but that doing so appears to be a bit of a hassle, as players are not (yet anyway) sold as being multi-region like DVD players are) and watched them.
So why did I pick a cult SF/horror film from the early 1980s as my first Blu Ray?
Well The Thing represents something of a high water mark in terms of physical creature effects. Yes it does look a bit dated, but what makes up for that is the wild, twisted imagination. There's stuff in there that is so bonkers they've still not really matched it. And the fact it was done physically then makes it even more special.
Really The Thing is two movies stuck together. One film is a paranoid action thriller and the other is a bonkers creature horror film. Of course this could have been a real disaster, but both elements work so well and gel together so well they end up enhancing each other, rather than detracting.
Of course, the film isn't without its flaws. On particularly big one is quite why these people are down in the Antarctic anyway. There are quite a few of them and they're a real rag tag bunch of misfits, which is fair enough, but why are they there? Are they supposed to be scientists? Only one of them actually appears to be a scientist, and one a doctor. Some of the rest have clear jobs (radio operator, pilot), but the rest are just random people.
And the other question is how come they have so many guns and, more importantly, flame throwers? You could maybe understand there being one rifle, just in case, but there aren't any particularly nasty threats down there. For example, it's a common misconception that polar bears live on the south pole, but in fact they're entirely based at the north pole.
There are penguins, seals and whales of course, but they're hardly a threat. And even if they were, a rifle or two would be okay, but flame throwers? And we're talking proper flame throwers, not improvised things.
But setting things like that asides, as a film it's really great (well, assuming horror his your thing, of course).
Tuesday, 13 September 2011
dampened again
Got a bit of a soaking again this last Sunday on my walk.
I went a bit earlier than I usually do, as I’d checked the forecast and it suggested the rain would come at about lunchtime. In the end it was quite sunny across lunch. I think the forecasts were struggling a bit this last weekend because apparently the leftovers of a hurricane were drifting over us.
I didn’t get too wet, as it was more like a short sharp shower than the monsoon I suffered with last weekend.
I also put on a pound at my weigh in. This was a reflection of stupidity on my part, as I bought too much food and ended up having to eat up some stuff. I also bought a few naughty things and didn’t get quite as much chance to go for walks during the week as I’d normally expect. The problem was the weather again, as it seemed to rain quite heavily early on and at lunchtime for some reason.
Part of the issue I’ve been having just recently is I’ve discovered some other options for things I can eat that aren’t too bad calorie wise. Well, no, the problem is that I’ve discovered these things but haven’t properly worked out how to include them n my meal plans.
I therefore seem to keep ending up with multiple things to eat which obviously actually boosts my calorie intake, despite the specific things I’m eating not being bad in and of themselves as such.
Another weird problem is doing my own washing.
I used to drop my washing off on Wednesday or Thursday, when I would also nip into Sainsburys and pick up some rolls (and some naughty stuff in recent months) but also, crucially, I would pick up a copy of the Radio Times.
Now I do my own washing at the weekend, and I’ve not quite worked out a new strategy for when I go and buy my RT. I know it shouldn’t be complicate, but it’s been throwing me a bit as it’s a lot simpler to just pick up an RT and it seems to encourage me to buy more naughty stuff as well.
I dunno, as I type it out it doesn’t seem that complicated, but I’ve certainly been struggling for some reason.
I also know I’m in real danger of finding excuses to cover what is me simply not exercising the will power that allowed me to do my initial weight loss.
I went a bit earlier than I usually do, as I’d checked the forecast and it suggested the rain would come at about lunchtime. In the end it was quite sunny across lunch. I think the forecasts were struggling a bit this last weekend because apparently the leftovers of a hurricane were drifting over us.
I didn’t get too wet, as it was more like a short sharp shower than the monsoon I suffered with last weekend.
I also put on a pound at my weigh in. This was a reflection of stupidity on my part, as I bought too much food and ended up having to eat up some stuff. I also bought a few naughty things and didn’t get quite as much chance to go for walks during the week as I’d normally expect. The problem was the weather again, as it seemed to rain quite heavily early on and at lunchtime for some reason.
Part of the issue I’ve been having just recently is I’ve discovered some other options for things I can eat that aren’t too bad calorie wise. Well, no, the problem is that I’ve discovered these things but haven’t properly worked out how to include them n my meal plans.
I therefore seem to keep ending up with multiple things to eat which obviously actually boosts my calorie intake, despite the specific things I’m eating not being bad in and of themselves as such.
Another weird problem is doing my own washing.
I used to drop my washing off on Wednesday or Thursday, when I would also nip into Sainsburys and pick up some rolls (and some naughty stuff in recent months) but also, crucially, I would pick up a copy of the Radio Times.
Now I do my own washing at the weekend, and I’ve not quite worked out a new strategy for when I go and buy my RT. I know it shouldn’t be complicate, but it’s been throwing me a bit as it’s a lot simpler to just pick up an RT and it seems to encourage me to buy more naughty stuff as well.
I dunno, as I type it out it doesn’t seem that complicated, but I’ve certainly been struggling for some reason.
I also know I’m in real danger of finding excuses to cover what is me simply not exercising the will power that allowed me to do my initial weight loss.
Monday, 12 September 2011
viva italien
It was the Italian Grand Prix this last weekend.
It’s held at the Monza circuit, which is almost flat out - the track is mostly long straights with only a handful of corners. They’ve actually added a few chicanes over the years to try to slow things down, but even with them it still only takes about an hour and 20 minutes to run.
When you think that some f the tracks (Singapore in particular) they’re often banging up against the two hour limit and that all races are intended to be about 200miles long (I think - there’s certainly an intended length) it dhows you how quick it is.
Despite that, the race was not normally one of my favourites. See, while fast is probably great when you’re at the circuit, on TV it’s one of the first things you loose. It also tended to make things processional - you don’t normally overtaken the straights, you overtaken the corners, out breaking or out manoeuvring the other guy.
But this weekend’s race was great, and I think is probably another testament to the clever things the Pirelli guys have done with the tyres. There were also two DRS zones and I have to say it seemed to be giving the types of overtakes I’m not a fan of, where they just use the DRS to overtaken the straight, which is boring.
The race was also enlivened by a big battle between Lewis Hamilton and Michael Schumacher. Schumacher managed to sneak ahead of Lewis in the first couple of laps and then Lewis seemed to really struggle to get around him.
There seemed to be a few clear reasons for that. Firstly, the Mclaren also uses the Mercedes engine, which is acknowledged to be about the most powerful on the grid at the moment. Also Mercedes had gone for a slightly different strategy, using a very skinny wing that didn’t have a DRS flap, but also, crucially, gearing the car higher so it could take better advantage of the high speeds.
That meant Lewis didn’t have a particular advantage, but also I think he wanted to be a little more cautious and be sure to finish the race. Also, and it has to be said, Schumacher was, while not really breaking the rules, flirting with them. What he was doing would have been fine a few years ago, but nowadays they’ve added rules about how you can move about on the track.
Now there was no punishment, but it was odd that Ross Brawn seemed to have to warn Schumacher to leave room for Lewis.
Unfortunately, from a championship point of view, Vettel won, which means he’s got it all but sewn up. Especially since Webber smashed into Massa and didn’t finish.
It’s held at the Monza circuit, which is almost flat out - the track is mostly long straights with only a handful of corners. They’ve actually added a few chicanes over the years to try to slow things down, but even with them it still only takes about an hour and 20 minutes to run.
When you think that some f the tracks (Singapore in particular) they’re often banging up against the two hour limit and that all races are intended to be about 200miles long (I think - there’s certainly an intended length) it dhows you how quick it is.
Despite that, the race was not normally one of my favourites. See, while fast is probably great when you’re at the circuit, on TV it’s one of the first things you loose. It also tended to make things processional - you don’t normally overtaken the straights, you overtaken the corners, out breaking or out manoeuvring the other guy.
But this weekend’s race was great, and I think is probably another testament to the clever things the Pirelli guys have done with the tyres. There were also two DRS zones and I have to say it seemed to be giving the types of overtakes I’m not a fan of, where they just use the DRS to overtaken the straight, which is boring.
The race was also enlivened by a big battle between Lewis Hamilton and Michael Schumacher. Schumacher managed to sneak ahead of Lewis in the first couple of laps and then Lewis seemed to really struggle to get around him.
There seemed to be a few clear reasons for that. Firstly, the Mclaren also uses the Mercedes engine, which is acknowledged to be about the most powerful on the grid at the moment. Also Mercedes had gone for a slightly different strategy, using a very skinny wing that didn’t have a DRS flap, but also, crucially, gearing the car higher so it could take better advantage of the high speeds.
That meant Lewis didn’t have a particular advantage, but also I think he wanted to be a little more cautious and be sure to finish the race. Also, and it has to be said, Schumacher was, while not really breaking the rules, flirting with them. What he was doing would have been fine a few years ago, but nowadays they’ve added rules about how you can move about on the track.
Now there was no punishment, but it was odd that Ross Brawn seemed to have to warn Schumacher to leave room for Lewis.
Unfortunately, from a championship point of view, Vettel won, which means he’s got it all but sewn up. Especially since Webber smashed into Massa and didn’t finish.
Friday, 9 September 2011
internet & fansubs (BT)
I mentioned a while back that I’d gotten myself BT broadband.
Well, unfortunately I recently had to boost my package to the unlimited downloads one. This is quite a lot more expensive (the broadband bit of the package basically doubles), but there was no way I was going to be able to keep within the bandwidth limit, and they charge you a huge amount for each gb you go over.
There are two basic problems that have really brought this to the fore. well, actually there’s one problem, but it has a couple of facets.
That problem is the entire reason I got the BT broadband in the first place- fansubs.
As I’ve explained before, I got the Bt broadband because I was hammering my landlords connection so hard and so often that it seemed to be causing the line to fall over on a very regular basis. When this happened it meant I had no internet access at all, sometimes for quite long periods of time.
Also, my usage was clearly causing the line to hit its limit often, so when my landlord used it he’d get really slow speeds. Therefore, by transferring my fansub downloading to another line, I’d stop being an arse.
But then two problems cropped up. Firstly, the shower broke. As I explained at the time, that meant I couldn't download any fansubs because my computer is underneath the hatch to get access to the stopcocks. And because it was out for a week, I created a big backlog of stuff.
The other problem is that this year there seems to have been a real problem over shows that have been picked up for legal streaming. I try to be a good boy and only dl shows that haven’t been picked up by crunchyroll and AOD. However, this year a whole raft of stuff either wasn’t licensed at all or was licensed, but I was region locked out of.
A new service called Nico Nico started, which seemed to take several shows and I found the site basically unusable. But then quite a bit of stuff on crunchyroll was region locked and then there was this big announcement that most of it was going to be on AOD.
I’m not sure I buy into the conspiracy theories that it wasn’t picked up by crunchyroll for the UK because of AOD, but what was definitely true was that it was ages before AOD announced they had them and then literally months before they started appearing.
On top of that, AOD’s site has been crushingly slow, making it unusual and there’s still the problem that AOD's content can only be viewed full screen or in a tiny window, making it a much less practical site for me.
In other words, I seem to have reverted back to downloading just about everything.
And things seemed to be going so well :(
But it did mean that last month I was hammering the connection and I had to increase the bandwidth allowance.
What made this slightly more annoying was that when I tried to rest the payment direct debit thing, it wouldn’t let me set it to a sensible level. It had this weird thing of one page was recommending a sensible amount, but then when I went onto the page to change it, it insisted I couldn’t take it below a different “recommended” amount that was £10 more than the other recommended amount. I put the higher recommended amount in quotes, because if you it acts as a fixed minimum value, it’s not really a recommendation is it?
Still, I guess if a large credit build up because of this stupid flaw in the system, I’ll eventually be able to set it lower.
Well, unfortunately I recently had to boost my package to the unlimited downloads one. This is quite a lot more expensive (the broadband bit of the package basically doubles), but there was no way I was going to be able to keep within the bandwidth limit, and they charge you a huge amount for each gb you go over.
There are two basic problems that have really brought this to the fore. well, actually there’s one problem, but it has a couple of facets.
That problem is the entire reason I got the BT broadband in the first place- fansubs.
As I’ve explained before, I got the Bt broadband because I was hammering my landlords connection so hard and so often that it seemed to be causing the line to fall over on a very regular basis. When this happened it meant I had no internet access at all, sometimes for quite long periods of time.
Also, my usage was clearly causing the line to hit its limit often, so when my landlord used it he’d get really slow speeds. Therefore, by transferring my fansub downloading to another line, I’d stop being an arse.
But then two problems cropped up. Firstly, the shower broke. As I explained at the time, that meant I couldn't download any fansubs because my computer is underneath the hatch to get access to the stopcocks. And because it was out for a week, I created a big backlog of stuff.
The other problem is that this year there seems to have been a real problem over shows that have been picked up for legal streaming. I try to be a good boy and only dl shows that haven’t been picked up by crunchyroll and AOD. However, this year a whole raft of stuff either wasn’t licensed at all or was licensed, but I was region locked out of.
A new service called Nico Nico started, which seemed to take several shows and I found the site basically unusable. But then quite a bit of stuff on crunchyroll was region locked and then there was this big announcement that most of it was going to be on AOD.
I’m not sure I buy into the conspiracy theories that it wasn’t picked up by crunchyroll for the UK because of AOD, but what was definitely true was that it was ages before AOD announced they had them and then literally months before they started appearing.
On top of that, AOD’s site has been crushingly slow, making it unusual and there’s still the problem that AOD's content can only be viewed full screen or in a tiny window, making it a much less practical site for me.
In other words, I seem to have reverted back to downloading just about everything.
And things seemed to be going so well :(
But it did mean that last month I was hammering the connection and I had to increase the bandwidth allowance.
What made this slightly more annoying was that when I tried to rest the payment direct debit thing, it wouldn’t let me set it to a sensible level. It had this weird thing of one page was recommending a sensible amount, but then when I went onto the page to change it, it insisted I couldn’t take it below a different “recommended” amount that was £10 more than the other recommended amount. I put the higher recommended amount in quotes, because if you it acts as a fixed minimum value, it’s not really a recommendation is it?
Still, I guess if a large credit build up because of this stupid flaw in the system, I’ll eventually be able to set it lower.
Thursday, 8 September 2011
tweaks to blogger & drafts
They appear to have tweaked the layout and structure of blogger.
Generally speaking I often find myself having quite conservative reactions to changes like this. I try to be open minded, but it’s difficult sometimes, especially if you’re talking about something that works perfectly well (or suits your needs perfectly). Change for change’s sake is rubbish - if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.
Of course, sometimes you only realise it was broke after they fix it, but this isn’t one of those cases. However, I have to say I actually quite like these changes they’ve made. They’ve added some stuff that, while not necessary, is quite nice/useful, and they’ve not broken anything.
It also looks prettier and feels more involved and a smidge more professional. As I say, I don’t think it is actually changed much, but it has a nicer, cleaner feel to it.
I’ve not played with everything yet, but certainly the stats are nice. Being a numbers nerd, stats are always nice, of course.
The new layout also showed me that something odd had happened to some of my posts. Whether in fact they were fine before and got broken by the change I can’t know for sure, but I actually think it was some problem that I hadn’t realised.
Basically, quite a few (around a dozen over the years) of my posts had not been published. Instead, they’ve been saved as drafts. Quite why these particular posts never got published, I don’t know, but it was fairly clear from the page view counter they hadn’t been.
As I say, it was a bit of a random selection and I thought I was in the habit of always checking the blog once I’d published a new entry, but clearly something had gone wrong somewhere.
It would also explain a discrepancy I noticed a few times before, where two of the numbers that showed the number of blog posts didn’t quite seem to add up. I can’t remember the exact phrasing, but it was something along the lines of the number of posts and the number of entries were different, because one must have been including all these drafts where the other wasn't.
Generally speaking I often find myself having quite conservative reactions to changes like this. I try to be open minded, but it’s difficult sometimes, especially if you’re talking about something that works perfectly well (or suits your needs perfectly). Change for change’s sake is rubbish - if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.
Of course, sometimes you only realise it was broke after they fix it, but this isn’t one of those cases. However, I have to say I actually quite like these changes they’ve made. They’ve added some stuff that, while not necessary, is quite nice/useful, and they’ve not broken anything.
It also looks prettier and feels more involved and a smidge more professional. As I say, I don’t think it is actually changed much, but it has a nicer, cleaner feel to it.
I’ve not played with everything yet, but certainly the stats are nice. Being a numbers nerd, stats are always nice, of course.
The new layout also showed me that something odd had happened to some of my posts. Whether in fact they were fine before and got broken by the change I can’t know for sure, but I actually think it was some problem that I hadn’t realised.
Basically, quite a few (around a dozen over the years) of my posts had not been published. Instead, they’ve been saved as drafts. Quite why these particular posts never got published, I don’t know, but it was fairly clear from the page view counter they hadn’t been.
As I say, it was a bit of a random selection and I thought I was in the habit of always checking the blog once I’d published a new entry, but clearly something had gone wrong somewhere.
It would also explain a discrepancy I noticed a few times before, where two of the numbers that showed the number of blog posts didn’t quite seem to add up. I can’t remember the exact phrasing, but it was something along the lines of the number of posts and the number of entries were different, because one must have been including all these drafts where the other wasn't.
Wednesday, 7 September 2011
signs
I kinda new what signs was about before I watched it.
In fact, actually, you can pretty much tell what signs is about from the title and the box / poster art. However, being an M Night Shyamalan film, I was also expecting some sort of twist. Or, more specifically, I knew the film was about aliens, but I was expecting some sort of twist on that.
And while there was a twist, it wasn't really concerned with the aliens, as such. So the aliens didn't turn out to actually be humans from the future or friendly but misunderstood or anything like that - the aliens were pretty much as presented. The twist was more subtle than that, and I think it worked.
In fact, I was actually surprised as I wasn't really expecting to like signs, but I actually quite enjoyed it. Despite the clear indication that it's a story about aliens, he still manages to build a good feeling of suspense and tension and, crucially, it feels quite real. It feels like, if aliens were to come here, this might be a possible way it plays out.
Well, I say that - there's a bit of a reveal at the end that doesn't quite make sense. It's not the twist, as such, and I won't spoiler it, although some simple Google searching will probably reveal it to you if you feel so inclined. But basically it's a bit of an odd idea that actually made the aliens a bit crap. If you know much about science it would also make it impossible to be on the planet at all, but it's not too big a thing.
The film stars Mel Gibson of course and he gives a good performance. It's a little difficult nowadays not to think of the whole anti-Semitic drunkenness thing of course, but after a while you get used to his character being quite a subtle, gentle person.
The DVD had some pretty good extras too. There's a nice making of featurette and an interesting commentary. Shyamalan is quite a talkative chap, which is always good. Some directors can be rather quiet on commentaries, which I've always thought of as a bit odd as surely it's your chance to explain stuff about this film that you've invested a big chunk of your life in and, presumably, had an eventful time making.
I've not much else to say, really - I enjoyed it more than I thought I would.
In fact, actually, you can pretty much tell what signs is about from the title and the box / poster art. However, being an M Night Shyamalan film, I was also expecting some sort of twist. Or, more specifically, I knew the film was about aliens, but I was expecting some sort of twist on that.
And while there was a twist, it wasn't really concerned with the aliens, as such. So the aliens didn't turn out to actually be humans from the future or friendly but misunderstood or anything like that - the aliens were pretty much as presented. The twist was more subtle than that, and I think it worked.
In fact, I was actually surprised as I wasn't really expecting to like signs, but I actually quite enjoyed it. Despite the clear indication that it's a story about aliens, he still manages to build a good feeling of suspense and tension and, crucially, it feels quite real. It feels like, if aliens were to come here, this might be a possible way it plays out.
Well, I say that - there's a bit of a reveal at the end that doesn't quite make sense. It's not the twist, as such, and I won't spoiler it, although some simple Google searching will probably reveal it to you if you feel so inclined. But basically it's a bit of an odd idea that actually made the aliens a bit crap. If you know much about science it would also make it impossible to be on the planet at all, but it's not too big a thing.
The film stars Mel Gibson of course and he gives a good performance. It's a little difficult nowadays not to think of the whole anti-Semitic drunkenness thing of course, but after a while you get used to his character being quite a subtle, gentle person.
The DVD had some pretty good extras too. There's a nice making of featurette and an interesting commentary. Shyamalan is quite a talkative chap, which is always good. Some directors can be rather quiet on commentaries, which I've always thought of as a bit odd as surely it's your chance to explain stuff about this film that you've invested a big chunk of your life in and, presumably, had an eventful time making.
I've not much else to say, really - I enjoyed it more than I thought I would.
Tuesday, 6 September 2011
new regimen
My new regimen seems to be working okay. Well, ish.
An unfortunate downside seems to be that the Sunday after the cleaning weekend I end up shattered. It’s difficult to say for sure that it’s entirely down to the new regimen, but it seems very likely.
The problem with being sure is I’ve not been doing it very long and of course this last weekend I was coming off the back of a very tiring week (hard work and lack of sleep). But certainly as Sunday dawned it was real struggle to get out of bed and the morning was pretty rubbish. I perked up a bit in the afternoon following a particularly strong coffee, but it didn’t seem to last very long.
Certainly I didn't do any scanning, though I sat down and thought about starting, but in the end I slobbed out in front of a film.
Hopefully that's compensate for a bit by the fact that the other weekend is basically free of stuff to do apart from watch the grand prix.
Total Wipeout is back. Well, ish. It seems to have started with two celebrity specials, which the telly listing clearly indicated were episodes 11 & 12 of 12, so they were meant to come last. I thought maybe I’d missed the series, but a quick it of googling suggested that no, they’d simply shown the la two episode first.
The seem to have added some good new stuff for the earlier rounds, but the final section - the wipeout zone - is still far too easy. Indeed, they may have made the one bit of it that was tricky (a long roe swing) easier, y replacing it with some not very fast moving turntables.
The gadget show is also back. Well, ish. It’s now on Friday evenings instead of Monday. I can't say that so far I’m impressed with the new slot. I can't really fit watching it live into my schedule, which means it’s become just another program I watch at the weekend.
Leaving it until Monday might be an idea, but I dunno, if there's a problem with the recording (it’s on 5) the repeat is at the weekend, so I’d have missed it. I guess I could record both, just in case. Roll on proper digital switchover next year (only two years after when it was meant to happen!).
They’ve tweaked the competition, which now involves a celeb naming stuff, which works okay, but takes up quite a lot of time. Otherwise it’s the same basic stuff, so I’m pleased it’s back.
Bit of a random one today. Well, ish.
Hopefully the return of regular schedule fixtures like these with the drawing in nights and my new regimen will help to get me back to my dieting ways and also kick me back into doing things like scanning during the week. I figured out that a big part of my problem recently has been that I've been pissing about in the evenings with complicated (and regrettably high calorie) foodstuff so I’ve lost all the time I seemed to gain last year.
An unfortunate downside seems to be that the Sunday after the cleaning weekend I end up shattered. It’s difficult to say for sure that it’s entirely down to the new regimen, but it seems very likely.
The problem with being sure is I’ve not been doing it very long and of course this last weekend I was coming off the back of a very tiring week (hard work and lack of sleep). But certainly as Sunday dawned it was real struggle to get out of bed and the morning was pretty rubbish. I perked up a bit in the afternoon following a particularly strong coffee, but it didn’t seem to last very long.
Certainly I didn't do any scanning, though I sat down and thought about starting, but in the end I slobbed out in front of a film.
Hopefully that's compensate for a bit by the fact that the other weekend is basically free of stuff to do apart from watch the grand prix.
Total Wipeout is back. Well, ish. It seems to have started with two celebrity specials, which the telly listing clearly indicated were episodes 11 & 12 of 12, so they were meant to come last. I thought maybe I’d missed the series, but a quick it of googling suggested that no, they’d simply shown the la two episode first.
The seem to have added some good new stuff for the earlier rounds, but the final section - the wipeout zone - is still far too easy. Indeed, they may have made the one bit of it that was tricky (a long roe swing) easier, y replacing it with some not very fast moving turntables.
The gadget show is also back. Well, ish. It’s now on Friday evenings instead of Monday. I can't say that so far I’m impressed with the new slot. I can't really fit watching it live into my schedule, which means it’s become just another program I watch at the weekend.
Leaving it until Monday might be an idea, but I dunno, if there's a problem with the recording (it’s on 5) the repeat is at the weekend, so I’d have missed it. I guess I could record both, just in case. Roll on proper digital switchover next year (only two years after when it was meant to happen!).
They’ve tweaked the competition, which now involves a celeb naming stuff, which works okay, but takes up quite a lot of time. Otherwise it’s the same basic stuff, so I’m pleased it’s back.
Bit of a random one today. Well, ish.
Hopefully the return of regular schedule fixtures like these with the drawing in nights and my new regimen will help to get me back to my dieting ways and also kick me back into doing things like scanning during the week. I figured out that a big part of my problem recently has been that I've been pissing about in the evenings with complicated (and regrettably high calorie) foodstuff so I’ve lost all the time I seemed to gain last year.
Monday, 5 September 2011
damp enough for you, sir?
I got an absolute soaking on yesterday afternoon’s walk.
I’d checked the forecast the day before, so I kinda new rain was forecast. In fact, to be honest, I was actually hoping for a bit of rain.
My afternoon walk on Saturday had been rather sticky. It was surprisingly warm for the time of year (are we going to have an Indian summer, I wonder?) and I’d thought a little sprinkling of rain might not go amiss.
When I set off I took my cap as it was just starting to spot with rain and for about three quarters of the walk it kept spotting on and off. It was also pretty muggy again, so these spots were actually quite welcome.
I didn’t take any sort of coat or other rain protection, though, as I figured if it did rain properly I wasn’t going to be that far from home and I could possibly duck under cover if needed. But this was a bit of a mistake.
When it started raining, it quickly changed into a deluge and I got very wet very quickly. Also, the timing was very unfortunate, as I was a good way from any decent cover and by the time I reached cover, I was so wet, stopping wouldn’t have made much difference. I’d have just ended up being cold and wet for ages, before having to set off in the wet anyway (it continued raining for hours).
I therefore continued on and the rain managed to somehow get even heavier. As I was coming down the bit that leads to where I live, there were rivers running down the road and everything. It was a veritable monsoon.
This, of course, had that weird side effect of that super-pleasant feeling you get when you come in out of the rain and dry off and change into fresh clothes. It’s a really oddly pleasant experience.
To emphasise just how wet it was, my clothes were still sopping wet when I went to bed and rather damp when I checked them after I got up.
In other weight/diet/exercise news, I unfortunately put on the best part of a pound at my weigh in. To be honest, I’m actually surprised I only put on a pound, considering the crap I ate. My guess is that my long walk on Monday and my sleepless night and resultant fatigue burnt off a lot of the crap I ate.
I think, basically, it’s a good thing I’m ending one diet period and starting a new one. Hopefully, it will effectively draw a line under my recent poor performance (only 10 pounds lost across the period, less than half compared to the other periods). My new plan is very ambitious, as I’m aiming to be “fat” by Chrimbo.
Obviously I’m already fat, but what I mean is I want to take myself out of obese and down into overweight.
If I make it, it will be great, but if not my next target for my birthday will stand a good chance of achieving this goal. Once I’m down into overweight, I can hopefully look at slowing down, if not stopping the dieting.
While part of me wants to become normal weight, several other parts of me have very good counter points. One big one is that if I get properly thin I’ll have real problems with loose skin. Another is that while being obese is a noticeable health risk, simply being overweight is much, much less bad.
Thee are other points too, but those are the key ones.
I’d checked the forecast the day before, so I kinda new rain was forecast. In fact, to be honest, I was actually hoping for a bit of rain.
My afternoon walk on Saturday had been rather sticky. It was surprisingly warm for the time of year (are we going to have an Indian summer, I wonder?) and I’d thought a little sprinkling of rain might not go amiss.
When I set off I took my cap as it was just starting to spot with rain and for about three quarters of the walk it kept spotting on and off. It was also pretty muggy again, so these spots were actually quite welcome.
I didn’t take any sort of coat or other rain protection, though, as I figured if it did rain properly I wasn’t going to be that far from home and I could possibly duck under cover if needed. But this was a bit of a mistake.
When it started raining, it quickly changed into a deluge and I got very wet very quickly. Also, the timing was very unfortunate, as I was a good way from any decent cover and by the time I reached cover, I was so wet, stopping wouldn’t have made much difference. I’d have just ended up being cold and wet for ages, before having to set off in the wet anyway (it continued raining for hours).
I therefore continued on and the rain managed to somehow get even heavier. As I was coming down the bit that leads to where I live, there were rivers running down the road and everything. It was a veritable monsoon.
This, of course, had that weird side effect of that super-pleasant feeling you get when you come in out of the rain and dry off and change into fresh clothes. It’s a really oddly pleasant experience.
To emphasise just how wet it was, my clothes were still sopping wet when I went to bed and rather damp when I checked them after I got up.
In other weight/diet/exercise news, I unfortunately put on the best part of a pound at my weigh in. To be honest, I’m actually surprised I only put on a pound, considering the crap I ate. My guess is that my long walk on Monday and my sleepless night and resultant fatigue burnt off a lot of the crap I ate.
I think, basically, it’s a good thing I’m ending one diet period and starting a new one. Hopefully, it will effectively draw a line under my recent poor performance (only 10 pounds lost across the period, less than half compared to the other periods). My new plan is very ambitious, as I’m aiming to be “fat” by Chrimbo.
Obviously I’m already fat, but what I mean is I want to take myself out of obese and down into overweight.
If I make it, it will be great, but if not my next target for my birthday will stand a good chance of achieving this goal. Once I’m down into overweight, I can hopefully look at slowing down, if not stopping the dieting.
While part of me wants to become normal weight, several other parts of me have very good counter points. One big one is that if I get properly thin I’ll have real problems with loose skin. Another is that while being obese is a noticeable health risk, simply being overweight is much, much less bad.
Thee are other points too, but those are the key ones.
Friday, 2 September 2011
another day missed
So obviously there was no bloggage post yesterday.
Hopefully the reasons are pretty obvious. Having had very little sleep on the Tuesday night, Wednesday was a bit of a right off, so stuff got pushed forward to Thursday. I also had two meetings on Thursday, so they sucked up loads of time too.
And of course I was still pretty tired on Thursday, so I pretty much went straight to bed when I got home. I certainly wasn't up for writing my blog post in the evening.
So work has been horrible just recently. It feels a lot like I'm just managing to keep my nose bobbing above the water as the flood comes pouring in. Luckily I've not had to sacrifice any other weekends, but if any more stuff comes in for me to do I'm really going to struggle. And it's pretty fortunate that one of my colleagues is now back in the office and she's super competent and has helped by picking a load of stuff up that I might have had to be more involved in.
But what else has happened?
Well, I lost another pound at the last weekend, which was a very nice surprise. However, my guess is I'll have put it back on, as I've really been eating badly this week. I'm not beating myself up too much, though, because with work being really heavy and the whole lack of sleep it's probably a natural (but obviously not desirable) knock-on effect.
Also there was the Spa Grand Prix last weekend, which I've not really talked about.
It was okay. I have to confess I was a bit disappointed with the outcome, and for some reason the latter half of the race was a bit dull. If I'm honest, though, I was a bit distracted when I watched it. As I mentioned before I'd watched loads of telly and I think I was reaching overload by the time I sat down to watch the race itself.
The biggest disappointment, though, was Lewis, who managed to crash into Kamui Kobayashi. IT looked like he basically wasn't paying enough attention and thought he was fully past Kobayashi. However, he wasn't so he essentially drove into him. It happened right at the end of one of the fastest straights, so was a big accident and took him out of the race.
It's a cleaning weekend coming up. I'm not entirely sure if do the cleaning myself is really saving me money. The problem is that I'm pretty sure the machines in the local laundrette are more expensive than those where I used to go, so where I save in some ways, I loose out in others.
I think long term there'll be a saving, but it's not going to represent a massive windfall of cash.
And I could do with one of those - I got a letter the other day that my electricity is going up by 11%, which is an enormous price hike. Yay for capitalism, right?
Hopefully the reasons are pretty obvious. Having had very little sleep on the Tuesday night, Wednesday was a bit of a right off, so stuff got pushed forward to Thursday. I also had two meetings on Thursday, so they sucked up loads of time too.
And of course I was still pretty tired on Thursday, so I pretty much went straight to bed when I got home. I certainly wasn't up for writing my blog post in the evening.
So work has been horrible just recently. It feels a lot like I'm just managing to keep my nose bobbing above the water as the flood comes pouring in. Luckily I've not had to sacrifice any other weekends, but if any more stuff comes in for me to do I'm really going to struggle. And it's pretty fortunate that one of my colleagues is now back in the office and she's super competent and has helped by picking a load of stuff up that I might have had to be more involved in.
But what else has happened?
Well, I lost another pound at the last weekend, which was a very nice surprise. However, my guess is I'll have put it back on, as I've really been eating badly this week. I'm not beating myself up too much, though, because with work being really heavy and the whole lack of sleep it's probably a natural (but obviously not desirable) knock-on effect.
Also there was the Spa Grand Prix last weekend, which I've not really talked about.
It was okay. I have to confess I was a bit disappointed with the outcome, and for some reason the latter half of the race was a bit dull. If I'm honest, though, I was a bit distracted when I watched it. As I mentioned before I'd watched loads of telly and I think I was reaching overload by the time I sat down to watch the race itself.
The biggest disappointment, though, was Lewis, who managed to crash into Kamui Kobayashi. IT looked like he basically wasn't paying enough attention and thought he was fully past Kobayashi. However, he wasn't so he essentially drove into him. It happened right at the end of one of the fastest straights, so was a big accident and took him out of the race.
It's a cleaning weekend coming up. I'm not entirely sure if do the cleaning myself is really saving me money. The problem is that I'm pretty sure the machines in the local laundrette are more expensive than those where I used to go, so where I save in some ways, I loose out in others.
I think long term there'll be a saving, but it's not going to represent a massive windfall of cash.
And I could do with one of those - I got a letter the other day that my electricity is going up by 11%, which is an enormous price hike. Yay for capitalism, right?
Wednesday, 31 August 2011
insomnomnia
Horrible night last night, as I think I got about an hour's sleep.
The worst aspect of it was that I don't really know why. My best guess is that it was a combination of factors; these being eating too much, not doing any exercise, spending all day driving and a meeting.
Basically, I had a meeting all the way down in Dorchester, which meant I spent around 5 hours on the road yesterday. It was a useful meeting, but it did mean all my usual routines were blown apart.
Also, by the time I got back it was so late I did the classic of going to the supermarket to get something to eat and, being starving by that time, bought a load of crap. A load of high calorie crap. High calorie crap I then ate a loads of. And of course, having been sat down driving all day I didn't do any walking.
So I think the insomnia was brought on by a load of energy (both nervous as a result of the meeting, and physical as a result of high calorie food late at night and nothing to burn it off.
It's a pretty flimsy bit of reasoning, but certainly the more traditional causes of my insomnia (nervousness, excitement and late night caffeine consumption) weren't present at all, so I don't have any better reasons.
Anyway, upshot is I'm shattered today and am barely able to concentrate on my work, let alone proper blog posts.
The worst aspect of it was that I don't really know why. My best guess is that it was a combination of factors; these being eating too much, not doing any exercise, spending all day driving and a meeting.
Basically, I had a meeting all the way down in Dorchester, which meant I spent around 5 hours on the road yesterday. It was a useful meeting, but it did mean all my usual routines were blown apart.
Also, by the time I got back it was so late I did the classic of going to the supermarket to get something to eat and, being starving by that time, bought a load of crap. A load of high calorie crap. High calorie crap I then ate a loads of. And of course, having been sat down driving all day I didn't do any walking.
So I think the insomnia was brought on by a load of energy (both nervous as a result of the meeting, and physical as a result of high calorie food late at night and nothing to burn it off.
It's a pretty flimsy bit of reasoning, but certainly the more traditional causes of my insomnia (nervousness, excitement and late night caffeine consumption) weren't present at all, so I don't have any better reasons.
Anyway, upshot is I'm shattered today and am barely able to concentrate on my work, let alone proper blog posts.
Tuesday, 30 August 2011
three double u's
Does that make six u's or three w's?
Anyway, my entire bank holiday weekend can be summed up as Watching, Walking and... er... Scanning... Widiculous amounts of scanning?
Er, yeah, no, it doesn't really work. But it's still true.
On Saturday and Sunday I essentially spent all my time watching stuff. It was the Belgium Grand Prix, so that involved loads of hours of watching practice, qualifying and the race (I'm going to miss this depth of coverage when it's gone).
But I also had loads of stuff recorded from the past week that I watched. If I'm totally honest I'm not entirely sure how I managed to stack up quite so much unwatched stuff last week. I mean, it's not like I watched loads of anime DVDs and I didn't do any scanning during the week.
I think the honest truth is a high degree of fatigue brought on by work. It's been so manic these last few weeks I think basically I was getting home quite late, having something to eat, doing only a little bit of stuff and then going to bed. Either that or somebody shaved a few hours off each day.
Going for more extended walks is something I like to do at weekends, but I figured this weekend would be a good chance to really pump in the steps. As I've discussed before I use a pedometer to try to keep an eye on the number of steps I do.
This weekend I went for three long walks - one each on Saturday, Sunday and Monday. The Saturday and Sunday walks were two of my normal walks, but on Monday I did one of the super long/hard ones that I'd been doing before I went to the British Grand Prix.
It was quite knackering, I have to say. The Monday walk on its own was about 8,500 steps, which is quite a way. When you add in the steps I do as part of normal weekend stuff, I was a good way above 10,000 steps each day.
I think most people have heard of the 10,000 steps thing before. To be frank, it's actually a huge distance - if each step is just 50cm, it's around 5km, which is a big way. My steps are about 60cm, so that's more like 6km, which is a long way. Also, I walk at about 100 steps a minute, so it's about 100 minutes or 1h40mins of walking.
I think you can pick up from the above that the suggestions of doing 10,000 every day are a little unrealistic in the modern world. Spending more than an hour and a half every day walking is quite unlikely for anyone who works in an office and has to commute to work. I therefore use 10,000 as my guide for the weekends/days off and 5,000 for normal days, which I (roughly) manage to achieve.
I hadn't actually thought I'd get round to scanning at all this weekend. And if it had been a normal weekend I wouldn't. Basically, I spent a good number of hours at it on Monday, having managed to watch most of what I needed to across the weekend. I could have watched torchwood, which I've been recording but not got the chance to start yet, but I was a bit sick of watching telly so scanned, instead (where I obviously watched anime while I scanned... is that ironic or just me being daft?).
Anyway, my entire bank holiday weekend can be summed up as Watching, Walking and... er... Scanning... Widiculous amounts of scanning?
Er, yeah, no, it doesn't really work. But it's still true.
On Saturday and Sunday I essentially spent all my time watching stuff. It was the Belgium Grand Prix, so that involved loads of hours of watching practice, qualifying and the race (I'm going to miss this depth of coverage when it's gone).
But I also had loads of stuff recorded from the past week that I watched. If I'm totally honest I'm not entirely sure how I managed to stack up quite so much unwatched stuff last week. I mean, it's not like I watched loads of anime DVDs and I didn't do any scanning during the week.
I think the honest truth is a high degree of fatigue brought on by work. It's been so manic these last few weeks I think basically I was getting home quite late, having something to eat, doing only a little bit of stuff and then going to bed. Either that or somebody shaved a few hours off each day.
Going for more extended walks is something I like to do at weekends, but I figured this weekend would be a good chance to really pump in the steps. As I've discussed before I use a pedometer to try to keep an eye on the number of steps I do.
This weekend I went for three long walks - one each on Saturday, Sunday and Monday. The Saturday and Sunday walks were two of my normal walks, but on Monday I did one of the super long/hard ones that I'd been doing before I went to the British Grand Prix.
It was quite knackering, I have to say. The Monday walk on its own was about 8,500 steps, which is quite a way. When you add in the steps I do as part of normal weekend stuff, I was a good way above 10,000 steps each day.
I think most people have heard of the 10,000 steps thing before. To be frank, it's actually a huge distance - if each step is just 50cm, it's around 5km, which is a big way. My steps are about 60cm, so that's more like 6km, which is a long way. Also, I walk at about 100 steps a minute, so it's about 100 minutes or 1h40mins of walking.
I think you can pick up from the above that the suggestions of doing 10,000 every day are a little unrealistic in the modern world. Spending more than an hour and a half every day walking is quite unlikely for anyone who works in an office and has to commute to work. I therefore use 10,000 as my guide for the weekends/days off and 5,000 for normal days, which I (roughly) manage to achieve.
I hadn't actually thought I'd get round to scanning at all this weekend. And if it had been a normal weekend I wouldn't. Basically, I spent a good number of hours at it on Monday, having managed to watch most of what I needed to across the weekend. I could have watched torchwood, which I've been recording but not got the chance to start yet, but I was a bit sick of watching telly so scanned, instead (where I obviously watched anime while I scanned... is that ironic or just me being daft?).
Friday, 26 August 2011
returne des grand prix
So F1 Grand Prix is back.
The first race post-summer break is the famous Spa-Francorchamps in Belgium, which is always a cracker. My dad and sister have actually been to the race. When they went it was bitterly cold and very wet and they were sat on top of the famous big hill, so it was a bit of a miserable experience, though they naturally enjoyed the actual racing.
They tell me that apparently waffles and chips (which are actually a Belgium invention) form the mainstay of the Belgium diet as that's what every food place seemed to sell.
But anyway, that's beside the point.
I'm hoping for a good race. Spa usually produces a good race and there's always the possibility of a sprinkling of rain (I don't know if all of northern Europe has had similar weather to us, but rain this weekend seems like a fairly good bet if it has). Also, the Red Bulls seem to have been a bit on the back foot the last couple of races, so we'll have to see if they can pull it back.
I can't actually remember if Spa suits their car or not, but certainly it's been clear the last few races that Ferrari and McLaren have caught up a lot. Webber also seems to have found his feet a bit.
I still think Sebastian Vettel is a shoe-in for the title, though. He's got such a lead it will be difficult for the others to catch up, especially if they're all in contention and therefore effectively taking points off each other, rather than Vettel. I don't mind that - I think Vettel put in such a string of brilliant performances at the start of the year he would be a deserving winner, but it makes it more interesting if it goes later in the season before being decided.
As I've said before, we've had an odd situation where all the races have been interesting this year, thanks mainly to the new tyre regs, but the championship has been a little dull because Vettel did so well at the start.
If I'm honest, each race being interesting is more appealing to me, so I've enjoyed this season a great deal.
The first race post-summer break is the famous Spa-Francorchamps in Belgium, which is always a cracker. My dad and sister have actually been to the race. When they went it was bitterly cold and very wet and they were sat on top of the famous big hill, so it was a bit of a miserable experience, though they naturally enjoyed the actual racing.
They tell me that apparently waffles and chips (which are actually a Belgium invention) form the mainstay of the Belgium diet as that's what every food place seemed to sell.
But anyway, that's beside the point.
I'm hoping for a good race. Spa usually produces a good race and there's always the possibility of a sprinkling of rain (I don't know if all of northern Europe has had similar weather to us, but rain this weekend seems like a fairly good bet if it has). Also, the Red Bulls seem to have been a bit on the back foot the last couple of races, so we'll have to see if they can pull it back.
I can't actually remember if Spa suits their car or not, but certainly it's been clear the last few races that Ferrari and McLaren have caught up a lot. Webber also seems to have found his feet a bit.
I still think Sebastian Vettel is a shoe-in for the title, though. He's got such a lead it will be difficult for the others to catch up, especially if they're all in contention and therefore effectively taking points off each other, rather than Vettel. I don't mind that - I think Vettel put in such a string of brilliant performances at the start of the year he would be a deserving winner, but it makes it more interesting if it goes later in the season before being decided.
As I've said before, we've had an odd situation where all the races have been interesting this year, thanks mainly to the new tyre regs, but the championship has been a little dull because Vettel did so well at the start.
If I'm honest, each race being interesting is more appealing to me, so I've enjoyed this season a great deal.
Thursday, 25 August 2011
a surprise loss
Obviously one of the things I didn't manage to cover last week was the old diet.
It's not gone particularly brilliantly, mainly as I continue to not stick to my diet properly. If I wasn't exercising I think I'd probably gain weight, but since I am, I've broadly been staying constant when I've had a bad week.
That basically covers what I should have posted last week. This week it went better than expected in that I lost a pound. I'm not just 2 and a half pounds away from 19 stone, which is the new, revised-revised target I set for August Bank Holiday, which is when I switch into the next phase of the diet.
If I reach it, I'll basically have lost one stone across this dieting period, which is good in the sense that I have lost weight, but quite poor because I've lost much more than that in previous dieting periods of similar length.
I've mainly put the problems down to the combined effect of more social eating and drinking and, to be frank, a slip in my commitment to not eating crap. I'm hoping I've turned a bit of corner on that front, as I feel much keener to loose weight and stick more closely to a lower calorie intake than I have done in recent weeks.
Of course, the acid test is actually what happens next time I go into a supermarket and am faced with the temptation of buying stuff.
Hmm, that was a lot shorter than anticipated, so I'll stick in a random observation. Basically, while I've been wandering around my usual walking patch near my home and up into Farnham and Aldershot, I've been really struck with how overgrown everything has become.
This year, with its wet summer and bursts of hot weather seems to have really suited some of the plants and there's lots of bits on my walk where I have to duck down to avoid the overgrown shrubbery.
In particular, raspberries seem to be absolutely thriving, with loads of big bushes weighed down by loads of berries. I'm very tempted to go and pick some, but the problem is how I would fit it into my walk if I did it then. I'd need to take a container with me and of course I try to walk at a decent pace, so there's a good chance they'd get bounced about and damaged.
I think if I decide to go on a picking session I'll have to pop down in the car, park up and then grab a load.
It's not gone particularly brilliantly, mainly as I continue to not stick to my diet properly. If I wasn't exercising I think I'd probably gain weight, but since I am, I've broadly been staying constant when I've had a bad week.
That basically covers what I should have posted last week. This week it went better than expected in that I lost a pound. I'm not just 2 and a half pounds away from 19 stone, which is the new, revised-revised target I set for August Bank Holiday, which is when I switch into the next phase of the diet.
If I reach it, I'll basically have lost one stone across this dieting period, which is good in the sense that I have lost weight, but quite poor because I've lost much more than that in previous dieting periods of similar length.
I've mainly put the problems down to the combined effect of more social eating and drinking and, to be frank, a slip in my commitment to not eating crap. I'm hoping I've turned a bit of corner on that front, as I feel much keener to loose weight and stick more closely to a lower calorie intake than I have done in recent weeks.
Of course, the acid test is actually what happens next time I go into a supermarket and am faced with the temptation of buying stuff.
Hmm, that was a lot shorter than anticipated, so I'll stick in a random observation. Basically, while I've been wandering around my usual walking patch near my home and up into Farnham and Aldershot, I've been really struck with how overgrown everything has become.
This year, with its wet summer and bursts of hot weather seems to have really suited some of the plants and there's lots of bits on my walk where I have to duck down to avoid the overgrown shrubbery.
In particular, raspberries seem to be absolutely thriving, with loads of big bushes weighed down by loads of berries. I'm very tempted to go and pick some, but the problem is how I would fit it into my walk if I did it then. I'd need to take a container with me and of course I try to walk at a decent pace, so there's a good chance they'd get bounced about and damaged.
I think if I decide to go on a picking session I'll have to pop down in the car, park up and then grab a load.
Wednesday, 24 August 2011
127 hours
Really, 127 hours has a very simple plot.
I don't think I'm spoilering it if I say it's about a guy who gets his arm stuck in a weird accident and spends 127 hours trapped. I also don't think it's a spoiler to say how he eventually got out, but I won't in case you don't know.
Given that very simple plot, how would you go about making a film of it? You've got to portray the fact that he's there for an incredibly long time (5 and a bit days) but not be boring about it. Well, clearly you've got flashback, but you could also try to show what other people are doing - his friends, family and co-workers.
Trouble is, he didn't tell anyone where he was going, so they wouldn't have started to even miss him for a good few days (he went at the weekend) and then they'd probably have waited a while before filing a missing person's report and then it'd be a while before anyone actually started searching.
In the film he does meet to pretty girls who invite him to a party, which he obviously misses, so you could have worked that up into something, but I'm not sure how closely that reflects reality (the film is based on real life and the book about it - "between a rock and a hard place").
Also, they took the decision to focus only on him once he was trapped. Now they do utilise flashbacks and hallucinations, but the point is there were no other real-word characters in the film after he got trapped.
The point I'm making is that while the whole film has an inherently tense structure, because it was such a long time it could have been horribly boring. What saves it is clearly the fact that he didn't give up and constantly tried to free himself.
And that works because the central performance by James Franco is really convincing. You really feel like he gives it his all in trying to escape and you really go through the highs and lows with him. And there are highs and lows - little moments of joy he experiences and some surprisingly comedic stuff.
Now while I'm sure it's not 100% accurate to the real world, they're quite clear in the excellent commentary that the dialogue is based on real stuff and captures the spirit of things if not the exact occurrences (it couldn't be 127 hours long, after all).
Also, interestingly, chunks of it were actually recorded. The real guy - Aron - was somewhat of a pioneer in that he used to record himself doing the extreme sports stuff he used to get up to. That's quite common nowadays, but back in the early 2000's people weren't really doing it, although new compact digital cameras were just starting to make an appearance.
I have to say I really enjoyed the film. It was pitched just right and it's very clever how they put it together.
I don't think I'm spoilering it if I say it's about a guy who gets his arm stuck in a weird accident and spends 127 hours trapped. I also don't think it's a spoiler to say how he eventually got out, but I won't in case you don't know.
Given that very simple plot, how would you go about making a film of it? You've got to portray the fact that he's there for an incredibly long time (5 and a bit days) but not be boring about it. Well, clearly you've got flashback, but you could also try to show what other people are doing - his friends, family and co-workers.
Trouble is, he didn't tell anyone where he was going, so they wouldn't have started to even miss him for a good few days (he went at the weekend) and then they'd probably have waited a while before filing a missing person's report and then it'd be a while before anyone actually started searching.
In the film he does meet to pretty girls who invite him to a party, which he obviously misses, so you could have worked that up into something, but I'm not sure how closely that reflects reality (the film is based on real life and the book about it - "between a rock and a hard place").
Also, they took the decision to focus only on him once he was trapped. Now they do utilise flashbacks and hallucinations, but the point is there were no other real-word characters in the film after he got trapped.
The point I'm making is that while the whole film has an inherently tense structure, because it was such a long time it could have been horribly boring. What saves it is clearly the fact that he didn't give up and constantly tried to free himself.
And that works because the central performance by James Franco is really convincing. You really feel like he gives it his all in trying to escape and you really go through the highs and lows with him. And there are highs and lows - little moments of joy he experiences and some surprisingly comedic stuff.
Now while I'm sure it's not 100% accurate to the real world, they're quite clear in the excellent commentary that the dialogue is based on real stuff and captures the spirit of things if not the exact occurrences (it couldn't be 127 hours long, after all).
Also, interestingly, chunks of it were actually recorded. The real guy - Aron - was somewhat of a pioneer in that he used to record himself doing the extreme sports stuff he used to get up to. That's quite common nowadays, but back in the early 2000's people weren't really doing it, although new compact digital cameras were just starting to make an appearance.
I have to say I really enjoyed the film. It was pitched just right and it's very clever how they put it together.
Tuesday, 23 August 2011
animu
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.
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.
Monday, 22 August 2011
what a week
Last week was bonkers.
It actually started the week before, and I ended up working most of the Saturday, just in order to get everything done in time. See, during last week I had several meetings that meant I effectively 'lost' one and a half days.
Also, quite a lot of the stuff I do is rather time critical, so I often end up in situations where three different things are all due on the same day, or thing x has to be done for Monday or we miss the proverbial boat. It was an example of the latter that meant I had to come in on the Saturday - I just had to do something before Monday and there was no chance of me doing it before the weekend.
I've also tried to kick off a new schedule for my weekends, as I've started doing my own washing, as I think I mentioned before.
Basically, what I've tried to do is make it so that I have one weekend where I do virtually everything and then the next weekend I do virtually nothing. The idea is that I'll align the virtually nothing weekends with the Grand Prixs.
This of course was before the news that the BBC will only be showing a chopped down version of the GPs next year, but it still remains as an idea. Even when we move out of the GP season I think I'll still keep it going as it means I can use the non-doing stuff weekend to really focus on some other activity.
Anyway, the point of the above is that it was a non-doing stuff weekend where I came in, so it didn't pox me up too much. What it did mean was that on Sunday I was knackered and did virtually nothing. I didn't even go out for a walk in the afternoon. I also ate pretty badly on the Saturday, probably as a comforting thing.
The week went okay - I had loads to do, but I think the Saturday helped a lot as I didn't have to stay late. Also, we got an extension on one of the things I was doing, so Friday became much less of a panic and allowed me to finish off a bunch of other stuff that needed doing.
This week looks much calmer and emphasises the point, really - last week bonkers busy, this week, not so much. I actually really wish I worked flexi at times like this - sacrificing weekends and working long weeks wouldn't be so bad if I knew I could do fewer hours when it's quiet or have extra days off.
It actually started the week before, and I ended up working most of the Saturday, just in order to get everything done in time. See, during last week I had several meetings that meant I effectively 'lost' one and a half days.
Also, quite a lot of the stuff I do is rather time critical, so I often end up in situations where three different things are all due on the same day, or thing x has to be done for Monday or we miss the proverbial boat. It was an example of the latter that meant I had to come in on the Saturday - I just had to do something before Monday and there was no chance of me doing it before the weekend.
I've also tried to kick off a new schedule for my weekends, as I've started doing my own washing, as I think I mentioned before.
Basically, what I've tried to do is make it so that I have one weekend where I do virtually everything and then the next weekend I do virtually nothing. The idea is that I'll align the virtually nothing weekends with the Grand Prixs.
This of course was before the news that the BBC will only be showing a chopped down version of the GPs next year, but it still remains as an idea. Even when we move out of the GP season I think I'll still keep it going as it means I can use the non-doing stuff weekend to really focus on some other activity.
Anyway, the point of the above is that it was a non-doing stuff weekend where I came in, so it didn't pox me up too much. What it did mean was that on Sunday I was knackered and did virtually nothing. I didn't even go out for a walk in the afternoon. I also ate pretty badly on the Saturday, probably as a comforting thing.
The week went okay - I had loads to do, but I think the Saturday helped a lot as I didn't have to stay late. Also, we got an extension on one of the things I was doing, so Friday became much less of a panic and allowed me to finish off a bunch of other stuff that needed doing.
This week looks much calmer and emphasises the point, really - last week bonkers busy, this week, not so much. I actually really wish I worked flexi at times like this - sacrificing weekends and working long weeks wouldn't be so bad if I knew I could do fewer hours when it's quiet or have extra days off.
Friday, 19 August 2011
battle royale
was out at meeting all day yesterday, but here's another review I had 'stacked up'.
When I do these reviews I often like to take a look at see what the critical reaction was. I don't do that in order to parrot back a similar view, it's more to see if people also enjoyed/disliked it or if my views are different.
But I also like to look up some of the history/background, partly so I sound more knowledgeable, but also so I don't make any boo-boos.
In the case of Battle Royale I already knew it was based on a book, but didn't really know how close an adaptation it was or anything like that. It turns out that it's pretty faithful, especially in terms of the killing and the end, but a couple of the things that have change actually represent things that I always had problems with.
I've seen Battle Royale before and I'm not entirely sure why it was on my rental list, but there you go. One thing I wasn't expecting was how poor a DVD it was. It actually had what are known as hard subs (it's Japanese, if you didn't know) - the subtitles are actually printed on the negative, like they would have been at the cinema or on a VHS tape.
In actual fact, I'm pretty sure it's simply a direct port from a VHS copy to DVD - it certainly doesn't look like a very high quality transfer. Although, interestingly, the film itself doesn't really appear to have aged that much - it still looks fairly contemporary. The effects are also pretty good still - I know it was an early user of digital blood splatter, and it still looks pretty good.
Anyway, the real point is that I discovered that one of the things about the film I always had a problem with - the set-up - was actually something that was changed from the book.
The book is set in a dystopian authoritarian "Greater Asian Empire" and the idea is that the Battle Royale itself, where a class of kids is forced to fight each other to the death, is used to keep the population cowed and fearful. It's done under the excuse of a military testing thing, but that's its real purpose - instilling fear of the authorities in the population.
This makes sense.
In the film we get an set up that civilisation went to rats and the youth of the day were hyper-rebellious, so the government passed this Battle Royale act where the class that's picked is a really bad one, full of trouble makers. It could make sense, except it's full of holes.
If you have something like that and it's meant to be acting as a deterrent, then you have to tell people about it. The point of having a death penalty, it's exponents argue, is that if people know they will be killed for committing a crime, they won't do it.
Trouble is, the kids in the film haven't a clue about it - it has to be explained to them and they've never heard of it.
Also, this isn't surprising, as it doesn't appear to be televised or anything. But then none of their parents or teachers have ever apparently told them about it either. Indeed, when their teacher objects, something nasty happens to him... er, why?
And they have a real hard time showing these kids are a truly bad lot - the bits of them acting like real delinquents are pretty widely spaced and for the most part they seem okay. Although I guess some of that is cultural, my guess is it's because the original kids in the book were just ordinary kids and those bits have been ported across, without adjusting them to make them all arseholes.
Apart from the fundamental set-up flaws, the film itself holds up well, as I say. Something of the acting is a bit OTT, but that's fairly common in Japanese cinema, but the story of the kids on the island works, just I wish they'd stayed with the original version f how and why they got there.
When I do these reviews I often like to take a look at see what the critical reaction was. I don't do that in order to parrot back a similar view, it's more to see if people also enjoyed/disliked it or if my views are different.
But I also like to look up some of the history/background, partly so I sound more knowledgeable, but also so I don't make any boo-boos.
In the case of Battle Royale I already knew it was based on a book, but didn't really know how close an adaptation it was or anything like that. It turns out that it's pretty faithful, especially in terms of the killing and the end, but a couple of the things that have change actually represent things that I always had problems with.
I've seen Battle Royale before and I'm not entirely sure why it was on my rental list, but there you go. One thing I wasn't expecting was how poor a DVD it was. It actually had what are known as hard subs (it's Japanese, if you didn't know) - the subtitles are actually printed on the negative, like they would have been at the cinema or on a VHS tape.
In actual fact, I'm pretty sure it's simply a direct port from a VHS copy to DVD - it certainly doesn't look like a very high quality transfer. Although, interestingly, the film itself doesn't really appear to have aged that much - it still looks fairly contemporary. The effects are also pretty good still - I know it was an early user of digital blood splatter, and it still looks pretty good.
Anyway, the real point is that I discovered that one of the things about the film I always had a problem with - the set-up - was actually something that was changed from the book.
The book is set in a dystopian authoritarian "Greater Asian Empire" and the idea is that the Battle Royale itself, where a class of kids is forced to fight each other to the death, is used to keep the population cowed and fearful. It's done under the excuse of a military testing thing, but that's its real purpose - instilling fear of the authorities in the population.
This makes sense.
In the film we get an set up that civilisation went to rats and the youth of the day were hyper-rebellious, so the government passed this Battle Royale act where the class that's picked is a really bad one, full of trouble makers. It could make sense, except it's full of holes.
If you have something like that and it's meant to be acting as a deterrent, then you have to tell people about it. The point of having a death penalty, it's exponents argue, is that if people know they will be killed for committing a crime, they won't do it.
Trouble is, the kids in the film haven't a clue about it - it has to be explained to them and they've never heard of it.
Also, this isn't surprising, as it doesn't appear to be televised or anything. But then none of their parents or teachers have ever apparently told them about it either. Indeed, when their teacher objects, something nasty happens to him... er, why?
And they have a real hard time showing these kids are a truly bad lot - the bits of them acting like real delinquents are pretty widely spaced and for the most part they seem okay. Although I guess some of that is cultural, my guess is it's because the original kids in the book were just ordinary kids and those bits have been ported across, without adjusting them to make them all arseholes.
Apart from the fundamental set-up flaws, the film itself holds up well, as I say. Something of the acting is a bit OTT, but that's fairly common in Japanese cinema, but the story of the kids on the island works, just I wish they'd stayed with the original version f how and why they got there.
Wednesday, 17 August 2011
burke and hare
You know, I have to say I found Burke and Hare more than a little disappointing.
It's difficult to really pin it down to one single thing, but if I was forced to do so it would be that it just wasn't funny enough. Comedy, of course, is a very subjective thing, but generally I like black comedy's, which this is - it could hardly be anything else, given its subject matter of two people murdering to feed the need for cadavers for medical training purposes.
There are of course many changes and omissions to the actual story. For example, some of the more unpalatable murdering of children is totally excised.
Additions include threads being added involving something akin to organised crime and the production of a play. I have to say, many of these, to me, seemed a little un-necessary and rather like the writer scrabbling around to add in more traditional narrative elements or to give elements of redemption to the characters, who were actually thoroughly unpleasant.
They also weren't particularly well developed, with the organised crime bit being rather slap-dash and not making a lot of sense. And I didn't get the whole photographing of corpses idea - why was that useful? And why, wanting to avoid spoilers, did the bit at the end happen, when they do what they do to the photos?
I also have to say that the Bill Bailey role of opening and closing narration felt a little ham-fisted to me. There were a few nice gags in his bits, but they felt very artificial and the into especially was something of an info dump, which is never a good way to start a film.
But as I say, the real failure was the humour. I dunno, it seemed to not want to tread too far was the problem. So it's a black comedy and you expect to be laughing at things that aren't really pleasant, yet it seemed to shy away from really going for it. So there seemed to be a lot of bits where they cut away or skipped ahead when really showing more of it and/or making the murders much more farcical would have given greater laughs.
With this being a John Landis film I was expecting it to be a little more gory too, and for laughs to come from that, but, while there were some gory bits, they weren't really played for laughs much and there weren't as many as I was expecting.
It also didn't really seem to capitalise on some of the key bits. So "Burking" is a name that's been given to how they murdered people - suffocating and smothering them, yet most of the people we see being killed aren't really killed like that. We also don't really see them kill that many people.
It all just felt like a bit of a damp squib, which was a shame.
The DVD also lacked any extras at all - there were only trailers for other films.
It's difficult to really pin it down to one single thing, but if I was forced to do so it would be that it just wasn't funny enough. Comedy, of course, is a very subjective thing, but generally I like black comedy's, which this is - it could hardly be anything else, given its subject matter of two people murdering to feed the need for cadavers for medical training purposes.
There are of course many changes and omissions to the actual story. For example, some of the more unpalatable murdering of children is totally excised.
Additions include threads being added involving something akin to organised crime and the production of a play. I have to say, many of these, to me, seemed a little un-necessary and rather like the writer scrabbling around to add in more traditional narrative elements or to give elements of redemption to the characters, who were actually thoroughly unpleasant.
They also weren't particularly well developed, with the organised crime bit being rather slap-dash and not making a lot of sense. And I didn't get the whole photographing of corpses idea - why was that useful? And why, wanting to avoid spoilers, did the bit at the end happen, when they do what they do to the photos?
I also have to say that the Bill Bailey role of opening and closing narration felt a little ham-fisted to me. There were a few nice gags in his bits, but they felt very artificial and the into especially was something of an info dump, which is never a good way to start a film.
But as I say, the real failure was the humour. I dunno, it seemed to not want to tread too far was the problem. So it's a black comedy and you expect to be laughing at things that aren't really pleasant, yet it seemed to shy away from really going for it. So there seemed to be a lot of bits where they cut away or skipped ahead when really showing more of it and/or making the murders much more farcical would have given greater laughs.
With this being a John Landis film I was expecting it to be a little more gory too, and for laughs to come from that, but, while there were some gory bits, they weren't really played for laughs much and there weren't as many as I was expecting.
It also didn't really seem to capitalise on some of the key bits. So "Burking" is a name that's been given to how they murdered people - suffocating and smothering them, yet most of the people we see being killed aren't really killed like that. We also don't really see them kill that many people.
It all just felt like a bit of a damp squib, which was a shame.
The DVD also lacked any extras at all - there were only trailers for other films.
Tuesday, 16 August 2011
yesterday
all my troubles seemed so far away. Now it seems as though they're here to stay.
I didn't post yesterday mainly through forgetting, but it was forgetting that was almost entirely due to the fact I've been really busy with work.
I actually came in on Saturday and was here for the best part of 4 hours. It was pretty much unavoidable, but not very much fun.
To be frank, I'm also not really going to have the time to post much this week at all. What I'll probably do is post some of the small reviews I've written but have been 'saving up' for just such an occasion as this.
I didn't post yesterday mainly through forgetting, but it was forgetting that was almost entirely due to the fact I've been really busy with work.
I actually came in on Saturday and was here for the best part of 4 hours. It was pretty much unavoidable, but not very much fun.
To be frank, I'm also not really going to have the time to post much this week at all. What I'll probably do is post some of the small reviews I've written but have been 'saving up' for just such an occasion as this.
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