new beta

There's a second beta for SimCity this weekend.

I think I'm getting a little obsessed with the game actually as I've been checking the website and searching for news just about every day.  I guess part of it is that it's been donkey's years since I last played SimCity (even longer if you set aside the abomination that was societies), but also I finished (well, ish) Anno 1404, which is to say I built a world with both cathedral and mosque and the maximum number of citizens.  I then started Anno 2070 and I have to say it put me off a little.

There was no big reason for that, it was a combination of tiny things, but where I first played Anno 1404 and loved it I played 2070 and felt a bit lost somehow.  I dunno, I only really played it for a little while and haven't been back to it yet so I may like it more when I play it properly.

Anyway, the new SimCity beta is apparently designed to test the servers.  I'm guessing they want to avoid something like the Diablo III fiasco as much as they can.  They've said that the game actually runs on the EA servers and you're almost just logging into it when you play.  I've no idea quite how true this is but it suggests that in the first few weeks of play there's going to be a lot of demand on the servers as everyone starts new games all at the same time.

I believe the launch date is actually staggered around the world so I'm guessing they're hoping that will alleviate it a bit, but also they're intending this beta to be a stress test.

As such I'm guessing lots of people will get passes and the beta is compressed into 24 hours to ensure everyone is playing at the same time.  No idea if I'll get one, though - I was surprised I got in the last time and have certainly seen that some people didn't get in so it wasn't quite just a big demo.

It will, apparently, be a different build of the game.  I moaned quite a bit last time that some of the stuff wasn't intuitive on nice to use.  Roads and zoning were a bit frustrating in particular.  What was most weird about those was actually that they've posted a couple of "how to play" videos on YouTube and it looked far better to use zoning and road layouts on that video.

I'm hoping that the beta was actually a very early version of the game and that they'd actually worked on it quite a lot since that version and used the newer version for the video.  Whether this new beta will be the final version or what I'm not sure, but I hope it's closer - and I get on it, obviously!

All that remains now is to decide what version to buy.  There's a digital deluxe version which is download only and has several European building sets, but I've always steered clear of digital-only versions as I prefer to have the DVD.  There's also going to be an in-game store system.  This seems to have caused much ire, but I don't know why - I don't mind that sort of thing at all, so I guess there's the possibility you may be able to buy the European building sets online anyway.

washing

I've been using my new system of doing the washing in the evening for a few weeks now and I've decided I have mixed feelings on it.

When I have just the one bag it works really well.  I can use one of the smaller machines, which are a bit quicker.  IF I'm one bagging then generally its' clothes only so I can also use the wash and wear setting, which is the quickest.  The small machines on this setting only take about 20 minutes.

The wash and wear setting does require more drying as it leaves the clothes a bit damper, but not spectacularly so.  However, because it's a single bag it's quicker to dry anyway, so this then only takes about 30minutes of drying.

Add in a bit of time for moving stuff about, loading machines, etc, and it therefore takes about 1 hour, which is perfect for me to buy a copy of the Radio Times and my dinner and eat it while it's washing & drying.

If it's a double bagger it's less good.

Generally if I'm double bagging that means I'm washing bed sheets and towels as well as clothes.  That means I have to use the full wash setting, which takes about 40 minutes.  There's also more washing so the drying takes longer - about 40 minutes.  There's also more stuff so the loading, etc, takes longer and the whole thing takes at least 1.5 hours, but more like 1.75 hours.

It's then more difficult at home too - a single bag is foldable and put-awayable in about 20 minutes.  A double bagger takes twice that.

I still think overall I'm happier doing it in the evenings.  There's nothing quite as annoying as your washing doing its final spin with 1 minute to go when someone walks in the door and sticks it in the last of the tumble driers.  Particularly when you've gotten up at 6AM to try to avoid that sort of thing!

I actually tried extending the philosophy to other chores and doing my cleaning in the evening.  This basically fell at the first hurdle because the routine I have for cleaning my bedsit basically requires me to fold my bed up (it's complicated), clean that space and then use it to temporarily store stuff from the bathroom & kitchen.

Well given it takes several hours for the kitchen and bathroom floors to dry it means I can't go to bed until it's done, so that's a non-starter.  I mean, perhaps it would be possible in the summer when it's warm enough to dry quickly, but not now.

However, I think there are things I could move - trimming my hair, for example.  I don't see why I couldn't do that in the evening.

four lions

I tend to have a bit of a marmite relationship with the Chris Morris's stuff.

Some things I've adored (the Day Today, Brass Eye) and others I've really not liked at all (Jam, Nathan Barley).  And yes, I appreciate he wasn't the sole person involved with all of those, but he's the main force behind Four Lions.

Well, in this case I have to confess to being somewhere in between - there was a lot I liked about Four Lions, and it has some very funny stuff in it, but I also found it a little frustrating in some regards and other bits didn't seem to work at all.

One thing I definitely wouldn't say is that it has a pop at Muslims - it's not anti-Islam in any sense.  It is anti-suicide bombing and it does parody terrorism in quite a twisted way, but I don't think there's any real problem with those.

What I did have a bit of a problem with is that it relies quite heavily on stupid people.  Two of the characters are clearly not working with a full deck of cards.  Now I'm sure that such people are probably taken advantage of by terrorists, it's just that we don't really see anything of that side of things.

And that applies to all the characters - why are they terrorists?  What has convinced them that blowing themselves up is the thing to do?  Weirdly there's more on this in the extras, where issues such as racism are touched on, but in this it's not at all clear how these particularly guys came to be terrorists, just that main character is convinced it's the thing to do and the rest are either idiots or not quite mentally all there.

Another point of frustration was the flipside of things.  I appreciate the focus was on the main characters, but the film does also touch on the government side of things, I just wish there'd been a bit more of that.  I'm not saying it should have been like 24 or anything like that, but a bit more of the authorities botching things would probably have helped provide a bit more balance - if the terrorists are stupid but still getting away with it, then clearly the police are too.

Which is the other aspect I found didn't work - the logistical aspects of being a terrorist and that side of things doesn't actually seem to be consistently portrayed.  So when they eventually decide to target the marathon they basically turn up in London in a van, have no troubles finding somewhere close by to park and then at one point basically randomly join some of the runners.  It's just unrealistic and surely the point of the film was to focus on that side of things.

I've been quite harsh there - as I say, there was plenty in the film I enjoyed, and some good comedy.  It also makes some good points and makes you think.  I guess my real issue is that it's not entirely consistent with that, but it doesn't really harm the film, as such, it just feels like they missed a couple of opportunities.

face scrape

Had my second double-edge shave this weekend.

I can't honestly say it was much of an improvement.  Obviously it's still early days so I'm not quite going to give up yet, but I have to say I'm kinda wondering what all the fuss is about.

I did my best to keep the angle right - certainly I had less razor burn than I did last time.  The key word there is "less" - I still had razor burn, it just wasn't as sharp as it was the first time.

I have a particularly tough beard.  This second time I was shaving after my long Sunday morning shower and did all the usual stuff so the beard was really at maximum softness (well, without spending half a day in the bath).  I mention this because this is always when I get my best shave out of my Mach3.  I generally change the blade and the shower + stuff gets me a super-close shave that has little burn and lasts for a good while.

The DE shave was again more like the 4th shave I get out of the Mach3.  I didn't change the blade - I understand you're supposed to get 3 or 4 shaves out of a DE, but then you're supposed to get 8 or 9 out of a Mach3 and I get half of this so perhaps that's an issue.  If I have to change the blade every time I shave I won't actually mind.  Each DE blade only cost 20p, compared to several pounds for a Mach3 blade so it'll still be massively cheaper.

What I would say is that there's a big part of me suspects I won't get a good shave out of the DE until I've had more practice and I start going against the grain.

The truth is that I really only get a good shave with the Mach3 if I go against the grain as well.  See, the problem is that that really tough beard I mentioned doesn't really grow out of my face so much as along it.  The grain of my beard is rather unusual, going strongly  in odd directions (up at the base of my neck, but down for the rest of it so I have an "anti-parting" about three quarters of the way down my neck, for example) but also the hair almost universally emerges very much in the that direction.

So if I shave with the grain I cannot possibly get a close shave - the hairs simply lay down as the blade comes near.  If I go across the grain then it will feel smooth if you run your finger in that direction, but rubbing against it feels like sandpaper and (more significantly) you can see stubble left behind.  Only by going against the grain (and I really do mean going against - the blade has to travel in all sorts of weird directions for me to achieve this) can I get what looks and feels like a reasonable shave.

Since I'm not comfortable enough to do that yet with the DE I've a feeling I will continue to have what seem (comparatively) like poor shaves.  And that's the problem really - I'm trying this because it's meant to give a good shave more consistently with fewer issues like razor burn, but so far no joy!

Tomorrow I'm going to be out at a meeting all day so I won't be posting.

It's also Shrove Tuesday, so I'll probably be stuffing myself with pancakes!

first shave

So I had my first shave with a double-edge razor last night.

It was okay.

I was somewhat worried I might slice my face to pieces - that is the traditional criticism of DE shaving and certainly my dad always said he used to slice himself to bits.  That didn't happen.  There was a tiny nick on my jaw line, but we are talking scrape, rather than cut.

I have been using the prep technique for a good few months now as I wanted to have all that to a stage where it was natural and normal so that when I did finally give the DE razor a go I would be able to focus on that as the single new element, rather than totally confuse myself.  I think that worked well, although I was a bit heavy with the shaving soap and I think the lather produced dried out a bit much, but I don't think there was anything wrong on that front.

It wasn't a spectacularly close shave.  Partly I was a bit nervous, as I say, but also I had a lot of razor burn.  I went back and consulted the book I had read when working out DE shaving and it turns out that I had gotten the angles all wrong.

The blade for a DE sits between two edges of the razor (one above and one below, where it's clamped in) and I had done my angle based on the lower of these.  I'd remembered it should be a relatively shallow angle (30 degrees-ish) but because I was doing that from the lower edge, I essentially ended up scraping the blade across my face, scratching the skin and causing the razor burn.

I should have been going from the upper edge.  In other words, I'd started with the razor parallel to my skin and moved it up, where I should have started with the razor perpendicular to my skin and moved it down.

Other than that it was okay.  I don't think I applied too much pressure - I was all very "light touch," though as I say, difficult to really tell with me having the blade at the wrong angle.

Certainly the overall shave was not close one.  It was a brand new blade and I did two passes (one with, one across - I'm saving against until I'm more comfortable with the blade as a whole) and the resultant shave was similar to what I end up with after about the third or fourth shave with my mach3.  So not baby-soft smooth but clearly shaved rather than unshaved and with a touch of razor burn that would tell me to change to a new cartridge.

I'll keep going - this weekend I'll give it another go and see if I can get a better handle on the technique.

new procedure

So when it was snowing I had a lot of difficulty with doing my laundry.

I use the local laundrette, which is just up the road, but they don't tend to clear the roads and pavements around here very much, so it's difficult to get too.  If I have multiple bags (generally I produce two bin bags of washing every week during the winter) then I have to drive.  So if I have to walk like I did during the snow, then I can only do a bit (a three-quarter full bin bag is about all that's practical to carry, so I just do the essential stuff).

Now because the worst of the snow as over the weekend I decided to try doing my laundry in the evening during the week after work.  Previously I have gotten up super early and done it Saturday morning and it normally works.

The real problem is people who clearly have washing machines but not driers.  There are only a handful of driers in the laundrette and usually at least one is out of action.  That unfortunately sometimes means I will have my washing in the machine and people turn up and fill the driers with clothes.

This is actually a bit of a bugbear with me as they tend to use the driers like they would a smaller home drier, spreading what are large home loads (or perhaps 2 loads) across multiple driers.  The whole point of the big industrial driers they have in the laundrette is you can get a big load in them.

Also, the best way to use them is to load them up with a few pounds and let them run for a good while.  If you spread the laundry out across multiple machines it is less efficient (obviously there's a tipping point, but these people are way below it) and then feed in small change, checking it all the time and therefore letting all the hot air out, it will take longer and therefore cost you more.

Anyway, point is that I discovered that generally the laundrette is not particularly busy in the evenings.  Certainly not as busy as at the weekends.

Now obviously part of the reason I have not previously tried the weekend is time - I get up early and therefore tend to go to bed early so spending 1.5-2hours in the laundrette after work is basically my entire evening.  But there are also some other issues - obviously it's more efficient for me to drive straight there after work, so that means loading the bags into the car in the morning.

Now that's fine, but what if I need to wash my work trousers or similar?  Also I only have a small number of vests, so it can get complicated if I'm not doing the washing at the weekend when I'm wearing casual clothes.  So yeah, there are some kinks, but I think I prefer it.  It's quieter, quicker and it frees up my early Saturday mornings.

welcome to the space show

Rather shamefully, given that it's supposed to be my hobby, this is about the only anime I've watched in the last 3 months or so.

That's not really relevant to the review, just an embarrassing admission.

I wasn't entirely sure what space show was going to be about and I have to say if I'm totally honest it was a bit more... predictable than I'd anticipated.  I wanted to use the word cliché there, but I'm not sure that's quite right - it's more like it's generally familiar as the plot isn't hugely original.

The characters were more promising - there was a degree of usage of archetypes, but actually they weren't as bad as all that.  I mean, the tropes were there (nerdy kid, responsible but struggling with that responsibility older kid, "genki" older sister who's upset younger sister that adores her) but it was more subtle than all that.

The interesting characters compensated for the somewhat predictable story.  I'd also say, in fairness, that it's aimed at a younger audience than me.  It's broadly a family film, but really with a slant generally more towards children than adults.  I'm undecided if that excuses it using a very familiar story or not.

Also I have to say the bad guys weren't as convincing or interesting - they could have done with a bit more delving into their backgrounds, where instead it tended to rely on those familiar plotlines to short-cut the baddies.

Another thing in its favour is in the visuals and the awesome imagination on display.  When the story gets into space they really let rip with all sorts of odd aliens and the locations and backgrounds clearly show them having a riot of imagination.  As noted, it's also beautifully animated and looked awesome in Blu Ray.

I'd say overall then that it would probably work best for a younger audience, but it's certainly visually arresting enough and there's plenty of fun with the characters for older viewers not to be disappointed.

I guess Studio Ghibli's work is about the best comparator, but I thought it was quite distinct from those.  In other words, it would appeal to a similar audience, but if I'm honest it's not up to the same standard in terms of quality of storytelling.

warmer than you'd think

For the last week at work it's actually been warm.

The reason is that a heating engineer came and took a look at the boiler, serviced it and put new valves on all the radiators.

It's always been a bit of problem at the office where I work.  I've always felt that the building had some issues - it's poorly insulated, there are a lot of windows, the upstairs where we all work is a big, single open-plan office and the downstairs is basically unoccupied.  However, I also felt that the current boiler wasn't man enough for the job.

A few years ago the old boiler packed up and was replaced and since then it's never been as warm during the winter as I recall it being with the old boiler.  In particular I've taken to wearing an extraordinary number of layers of clothes at work - a vest, two t-shirts, work shirt, jumper and often my work jacket too.

Now part of the issue is that the last few years it seems to have been quite a bit colder than it was when I first started work there so it seemed only natural that it wouldn't be as warm.

However, the building has been veritably balmy during this last week.  This suggests that the newer boiler was up to the job but that the system perhaps hadn't been optimised.  I know the boss often had to "top it up" and was forever going on about the "pressure in the system".  I believe they flushed the system and refilled it, so perhaps there was some bigger issue?

The other thing was the valves - the old values always used to stick and although they had temperature gauges on them they always seemed to act more like on/off switches, rather than gradual valves.  Well the new valves work like proper valves - if you turn them down half way the radiator is only warm, rather than hot.

To me this suggests the old valves were either gunged up in some way or were not the correct type of valve and were restricting the flow of water around the system.  I've actually already turned the radiators near me down as I don't tend to like it as hot as it's been.  And the result is that on Friday I only wore a vest and my work shirt, and the vest was because it was cold outside and I ended up rolling my sleeves up when indoors.

It'll have a bit more of a test next week though as it's meant to get a bit chillier.

not again

I appear to have had to work this weekend.

I'm not particularly chuffed with this, as you can imagine.  I've never had a problem putting in the hours fundamentally, but the problem is we don't work any sort of flexi at work, so whenever I do long days or work the weekend I'm basically just pissing away my free time.

There was actually an article on the beeb website this week about Gambia - the African country that's basically given all of its civil servants 4 day weeks.  As I understand it that's the compressed week version, rather than cutting a fifth off of their week and a fifth of their wage.

So in other words they work the same number of hours, but they just work them across four days, rather than five.  There is actually quite a lot of evidence that this works, if you'll excuse the pun.  By which I mean that people are just as productive if they work their hours in four days, rather than five.

It obviously sparked a bit of a debate on whether it could work here.  The answer is obviously "yes", but of course it will never happen.  And in some ways it is difficult to see how it would work in all sectors.  Part of the article had a quote from a guy whose company works like that (in Australia, I think) and he said part of it was to give his workforce the time to do chores on a day where others are working.

So the example would be getting your hair cut or doing bank stuff or something like that.  So obviously if the whole country worked some sort 4 day week then that would potentially evaporate - if all banks were closed for a 3 day weekend, you wouldn't gain any advantage.  And of course if the hair dressers compressed their hours then would they close Saturday and Sunday?  So then Friday would be the day everyone treated like Saturday now so the hairdresser would be as busy, so there'd be no advantage.

The answer of course is a flexible approach.  So for jobs where it sort of doesn't matter, like civil servants, you can do fairly simple 4 day week.  Other jobs you could have overlaps - so some have Monday, others have Friday.  Other people get more flexible arrangements.  And some (teachers, for example) it's perhaps not possible at all, though there are other perks (long summer holidays, etc.).

Anyway, I seem to have gone off track - my company doesn't work flexi and it's basically because the boss has a very Victorian attitude to work.  If you're not at your desk then you're not working.  Well, I say that - it's weird, because some people seem to have ended up with flexibility in their working patterns, but I guess that's been through individual negotiation and been particularly hard fought for - it's not company policy.

Weirdly there have been some newer employees where you can kinda see why she'd want that.  Now I wouldn't call them slackers, as such, but they certainly do a lot of chatting and "not quite" working.

Trouble is, someone like me who is properly dedicated when there are things that need to be done then simply ends up feeling like we're being screwed over, because I don't ever got those hours back, or, and this is probably why it's so annoying, feel like it's being properly appreciated.

It seems like a weirdly English thing to me - the bosses are always trying to screw as much out of you as they can.  You can kinda see why Marx formed his theories while living in Britain.

6 months

Well, today marks the 6-month point since my deciding to stay on here.

And it also marks the point where I have decided to re-start my job search.

Unfortunately, yesterday I had a meeting that basically confirmed nothing has really changed.  Not fundamentally, and not where it really counts.  New month, same shit.

I also did some investigations about that whole thing I was going on about "cakes now and later" and it appears that I was somewhat mislead.  The basic issue is that it is essentially impossible for me to get as much as I was lead to believe.  What I could possibly get is basically limited by the system and is way, way below what I regard as being enough to justify my staying on.

I mean it's also been six months and nothing's happened about any sort of cake at all, so it's not like there's been any chance for the supposed growth to happen.  And on top of that, deep down I know that the same old shit over pay reviews will continue so whether that cake happens or not I'll continue to get screwed over in one form or another anyway.

I've also been looking on the job sites and it's not like my new salary is actually at a good level - it's bottom end of this type of job.

And as I say, nothing has really changed - promises have been broken, lunacy prevails over common sense, new procedures are ignored.  There's no strategy, and what they think is strategy actually just makes all the problems worse.  A crucial piece of software we were supposed to get 6 months ago hasn't happened and the problem they think it will really solve I know for a fact it won't (it can't - it doesn't work that way).  The 1 day of training on it they thought they'd bought actually turned out to be a day's development work and so we'll get no training on it anyway.  Heck, there doesn't even seem to be the competence to set up a direct debit for my pension.

I have even come to the conclusion that the one person in the office I thought was competent actually isn't.

No, that's not fair.  Competence isn't the only thing - they're also incredibly lazy as well.

I also haven't had my promising training.  Partly that is my fault, but also it's been put off several times by the boss.

Unfortunately, I'm in a bit of a situation this month where if I was to start taking random leave and/or sick days it would just screw me over, so instead I'm going to tweak my CV and then re-start the search in anger next month.

red raw

This last weekend wasn't all about SimCity.

On Friday evening I had the odd experience of discovering what looked like a rash at the top of my leg, in my groin.  Now this was rather odd for a couple of reasons.

The first was that it looked a lot like a sweat rash, but the thing is with it having snowed last week I hadn't done very much walking at all, so I therefore hadn't done much sweating and so a sweat rash was a weird thing to have.

The second reason is that when I've had sweat rashes before they've been quite itchy, but this wasn't itchy at all.  In fact I only discovered it by seeing it reflected in a mirror completely by chance as I changed out of my work clothes.

My guess as to the cause is the extraordinary number of layers of clothes I have to wear at work in order to stay warm.  the heating at work has been pathetic this year and so I've ended up wearing loads of layers.  I'm thinking that either there was some rubbing or I was sweating in that sort of region without realising it.

Anyway, I was also a bit puzzled as to what I should do about it.  As I say there was no particular discomfort - with the warmer weather and the rain I went for a few long walks and I didn't have any discomfort then either.

I considered buying some sort of anti-septic cream or something along those lines - a moisturiser perhaps?  However, given my theory (which really revolves around the area not getting properly dry) I decided to take more showers (evening and morning) and then make sure I thoroughly dried the area.  I also decided to try to "air" it, which was a bit difficult to implement and meant curtains closed at odd periods of the day.

Anyway, this seemed to work - by Monday things were calmed down and you'd probably not know it had been there.  Also there's been some good news on the work heating front, which I'll talk about in another blog post, so hopefully it won't re-occur.

pirates of the caribbean - on stranger tides

I was a little perplexed by on stranger tides.

I suppose I should make a bit of a confession that I'm not quite a big a fan of the first film than seems to be the general consensus.  In particular Johnny Depp's performance as Jack Black doesn't really do that much for me - I found him quite difficult to understand, in particular.

I should also probably note that I hadn't appreciated this was a "reboot".

Weird - I've just had the strongest sense of deja vu.  I was suddenly convinced I'd already written and posted this review (it's a good while since I watched the rental as I'm a fair few weeks behind) but I've checked and I certainly haven't posted it on the blog.  If I've written it before then I've either deleted it or lost it.

I guess also there's a point there that reboots seem to be "the thing" at the moment.  Well, that and pointless 3D.  I guess rebooting something is really just the modern phrase as they've been remaking films in Hollywood for ages.  The distinction they're trying to make is that you reboot a franchise, with the aim that you will then make further sequels for your reboot.  In a normal remake you're just making the same thing over.

Of course some reboots are also remakes - the recent spider man film is, I understand, basically a remake wearing a reboot jacket.

Anyway, the point is that on stranger tides is essentially a reboot.  Well, that's what it says on the sites I looked at anyway - what I actually experienced was a similar sense of confusion I did for resident evil damnation, which I watched shortly before this film.  By that I mean that I felt confused as to whether this was meant to be a proper sequel (the story was unconnected, but several of the characters from the previous films are in this one, but, adding to my confusion, some of them are somewhat different and some of the actors re-appear, but playing different roles) or if it was a separate adventure, just using the same characters.

Discovering it was a reboot didn't really help, as in that case they seem to have picked a few bits out of the previous films and carried them forward, but then felt free to dump other things.  What they've picked also seems fairly random, rather than sort of being the best bits.  Perhaps they relate back to the original Disney ride the best?

Anyway, the real point here is that I felt rather disorientated by the film story and character-wise, but then to make things worse the film itself was very loud and brash and bombastic and unfortunately the plot was a little bit confused too.

It was also very long - another victim of this trend of making what should be fun action films be two hour long and doing so by sticking in and extending pointless action sequences.

I think, overall, you can tell I wasn't hugely enamoured.

more beta

In terms of gameplay it worked okay.  Thing were pretty much there from previous incarnations, although there seemed to be less need for micro management, and what micromanagement you had to do was made a lot easier by the data layers, which were generally clear and obvious what they were trying to show you.

I did have some frustrations with the controls, though.

In particular, they seem to have flipped the standard movement controls backwards.  So when you want to scroll up the screen you hold the button and drag your mouse down.  You can also do edge scrolling, but it's horribly slow.

Also, the bulldozer only allows you to destroy individual buildings.  You can destroy roads in sections, but even here it tries too hard to be interpretive and will suddenly flip around to destroy an entire section of road were you just wanted to destroy a bit.  And I couldn't work out how to cancel the destruction - once you start you have to at least destroy the bit you've started on: clicking the right mouse button doesn't "cancel" it, which was annoying; particularly since it can then behave a bit weirdly when you try to fill in that bit of road.

With the roads they've introduced several ways for you to lay them down and, in particular, tried to let you do curved roads, which is something people always complained about before.  I didn't find this to be particularly good - you sort of drag the road around and it goes where it wants to go, rather than where you've directed it.  Imagine painting with a paintbrush in MS paint and the line goes all over the place, only vaguely following your pointer.  I'm sure this is so it maintains sensible crossing junctions and follows the height contour, but it was quite frustrating to actually use.

It also seemed to produce parcels of land than then weren't settled after being zoned.  I don't know if this was because they were too small or because there wasn't demand for the housing.

There was also some weirdness with it letting you place roads - oftentimes it would complain about a junction you were trying to create being "too close to another junction" but you were actually trying to make a cross-roads out of a T-junction, if you see what I mean.  This was particularly odd because if you then tried to create the same road from a different direction it would work fine.

And of course the mechanics that allow you to do curvy roads also do away with the rigid grid structure.  This is okay, but it also makes it difficult to know how things work in terms of sizes of buildings.  I kept seeing bits when I was applying zoning where it wasn't going quite up to a junction, but I had no idea if they actual buildings would compensate for this or if I should try to move the road.  Also I didn't have any feel for how big I should create each parcel of land.  It had what looked like guidelines for a grid, but these seemed somewhat flexible.

The impression I got was that you had to be quite clear where you wanted roads and zones to be.  Now, it's not like you are fixed once you've placed something - you can destroy and rebuild, obviously - but some of the municipal building in particular are very expensive, so if you have to demolish them then it could easily cost you a fortune.

My particular concern was that if I create a big square and fell it with industry am I then wasting space?  Or are there different varieties and types of building that would suit the space available?  In previous SimCity's with a grid it was clear (and, indeed, part of the rules) that if a zone was more than, say, 5 squares from a road then it wouldn't get filled.  Here you didn't assign any depth to the zone, you just applied it to the edge, and it wasn't clear to me how it worked.

And I was a bit puzzled over the mechanics of civic buildings here too.  In previous games something like the police would have a zone of effect, but here the police seem to cover the whole region and instead you "build up" the police building, adding more slots for cars and things like that.  However, that obviously means you need to leave room around them, or you're going to be bulldozing and rezone all the time.

The other thing I think they've gotten wrong is upgrading the roads.  I've no issue with that as a fundamental idea, it's just that you only seemed to be able to upgrade small strips of road at a time, so if you want to do a whole long road, you've got to do each little bit of it.  It would have been better if you could just "draw over the top" with the new road.  That would also allow you more flexibility in that you could upgrade , say, half of a long stretch of unused road (e.g. one going out to your rubbish plant) so you can add zoning just to that half.

I'm coming across as quite negative, I know.  I did enjoy the three goes I had, and felt that each time I learned something new about the mechanics and how to set up cities to achieve particular effects.  However, I was struck that each time I was effectively restarting I was kinda happy to have another go and not make the same mistakes.  Afterwards I found that a little worrying as it implied you either need to come up with quite a clear plan when you start or you're going to be doing all sorts of restructuring that may make you want to start all over again.

simcity beta

So this weekend I played quite a few games on the simcity open beta.

Well, they called it a beta - I think actually it was a bit of a half-way house between a beta and a demo.  I've no idea if all those who applied got to have a go - you had to register and they sent you a code so you could get the demo.  I guess if everyone who registered got a code, it was more like a demo, but I got one so I don't really care either way.

I'd actually wondered if I would - I've been tracking the simcity site, reading the news and blogs and stuff, and registered for the beta ages ago.  However, when they made an announcement as to when the beta would happen, it gave the impression that only those who registered after that would get to play, and I missed that window.  But it seems I still got "on the list".

Anyway, the point of a beta is to bug fix and so much of the game was disabled you were really only testing out the basics - basic roads and zoning and a few amenities, that sort of thing.

However, worrying the game did crash twice.  the first was right at the beginning, after I'd installed original and tried to launch the beta.  That was the most worrying crash as I was worried it meant the game just wasn't going to work, but I immediately fired it up again and it loaded/installed fine.

The game requires an always on connection.  They've said this is because your game actually runs on their servers and effectively you're controlling it remotely.  I've no real idea if this is true.  I'm sure the whole "defeating piracy" thing is a part of it too.  I have to say my experiences with always on games hasn't been great - Anno 1404 had an always on side to it and it was horribly frustrating to find their server was down so I couldn't continue my game.  and recently they somehow managed to delete my online account so I had to create a new one.

Anyway - simcity.  The "update" took ages - well, it took ages to download what it called "updates" but I've no idea if these updates were actually the content proper.  Certainly the other installation seemed remarkably short.

The second crash was during the tutorial.  Basically once you had the game running you played a little tutorial that showed you how to do stuff and then you got to play in a small (well, it seemed small - I understand this new simcity is somewhat scaled down compared to previous iterations, so it may actually have been medium or large for all I know) town.  The tutorial crashed right after a bit where I had to buy water from a neighbouring city and it dropped me right out of the game, rather than back to the menu or something.

However, I fired it up again and played right through the tutorial and had three goes at the city without it crashing again.  There was some graphical weirdness, though.  The most distracting of these was around the edge of the city, where the graphics flickered.  I've had a similar annoying affect in a couple of games and suspect it is some feature of how my graphics card works.

The other graphical weirdness's mainly revolved around the roads - you would lay down a road and it would appear broken, even though cars were travelling along it just fine.  Or, in particular, some of the bolt-on bits you added to building seem to interact weirdly with the roads.  It was like they were meant to cast a light and instead it just caused the road to look broken.

I'll continue tomorrow with some thoughts about the game.

the end cometh

Apparently it's going to warm up a bit this weekend.

I've also seen forecasts for rain.  The double combo of warmer weather and rain should be the death knell for all the snow.

This particular bout of snow has been particularly frustrating.  It arrived during the day, which gave me that horrible journey back and also meant I didn't really get a proper "snow day".  It was also a Friday and it then didn't snow very much across the weekend, so by the Monday it was drivable and I had to go to work.

Then, this last Tuesday we had a bit of a mini blizzard towards the end of the day.  The snow didn't really settle as such (about 2cm maybe) but it made driving conditions horrendous.  The problem was that there was just enough snow settled on the ground so that I couldn't see the markings.  It was also dark, so I couldn't go on general vision, but instead what I could see with my lights.

All that meant I was staring quite intently down at the road in front (usually you look into the distance to see where you're going and looking for any hazards, etc).  However, because the snow was really coming down it seemed like it was all blasting straight towards me.  I'm pretty sure it wasn't very windy, so it was just the effect of me driving towards it and the lights illuminating it that gave that effect.

The combination of staring down and stuff rushing onwards me was actually very disorientating and made me feel a bit sick.  Not to the extent of throwing up or anything, but I felt a bit dizzy and really tired at the end of the journey.

I've also been getting up a bit earlier (which translates to "stupidly early" for normal people) because I didn't want to travel in traffic and obviously knew I had to scrape the car, etc.  Now if it had properly snowed here at the right time I'd actually have been having some nice lie ins.  Tbh, what it's actually done has mainly disrupted the normal stuff, rather than work.

So I've a huge pile of washing to do because I've only been to the laundrette on foot and could only carry one bag.  I've also not been shopping in a while so have run out of stuff.  And I'm almost out of petrol because I haven't wanted to do too many journeys and also have had to have the engine on at lunch to keep warm.

It's also played havoc with my walking - I've only done a handful of walks early in the morning and have been woefully short of my step targets since last Thursday.  Add in that, as I say, I've not really been shopping so have been relying more heavily on tins and things like that and I'm fully expecting to have gained weight when I weigh in this weekend.  Which is particularly annoying as I should be shedding my Christmas pounds.

So, long story short, I'm very much hoping they're right that the weather is on the turn and I can get back to a bit or normalcy!

anime watching (or not)

I appreciate most of these review posts are a bit negative, but as I said before I don't really feel last year went very well.

I guess my point in this one is that watching anime and reading manage is supposed to be one of my hobbies - something I dedicate spare time to because I enjoy it.  Well one of those I managed to achieve (the reading manga side of things) but the other didn't go so well.

I seem to recall there was some watching of anime fairly early in the year, but there was a real lack of anime watching in the latter half of the year.  Now there are some reasons for this.

One is that I have not really been scanning my imported anime magazines.  While I scan I used to watch fansubs and/or crunchyroll.  Fansubs and crunchyroll don't really fit in very well with my more general TV viewing.  I have got a PC set up as a Blu Ray that I could theoretically use to watch both, but in practice this hasn't proven very practical.

One of the biggest issues is a bit unusual in that TV / monitor is actually relatively small, particularly given the distance I am away from it, so it can be very hard to see stuff, even with using the larger font modes of windows.  But also I have a wireless keyboard and mouse I use with it, but UI have to take the batteries out of the mouse and that means I have to re-synch it every time I switch the computer on, making it a huge pain in the arse.

I mean, I had managed to streamline the process a bit, but then not so long ago one of the hard drives in it packed up and I still haven't gotten around to really sorting it out properly since.

Anyway, point is that fansubs and crunchyroll are best done at my normal computer while scanning and I've stopped scanning.  I've stopped scanning mainly because I've found the whole A4 scanner plus "image stitch" on Photoshop to be horrible.  It doubles or even in some case quadruples the number of scans you have to do and then (and this is that bit I really hate) it takes three or four times as long again to stitch the pictures together... assuming it even works - a lot of the time it just doesn't put them together very well and then I have the horrid nightmare of having to try to do it myself.

The solution would be to get an A3 scanner again (I have one, but it doesn't have drivers for windows 7 and the machine I intended for XP doesn't work and I was never arsed to fix it) but that will cost me money I wasn't really expecting to have to spend, given what I've spent on it all already.

Of course if I'm honest it doesn't help that I'm not a fan of the whole weekly watching of anime that streaming sites seem to basically only be set up to support.  I prefer to watch series in big chunks.  But then the rubbishness of the Blu Ray machine also means I often hold off on watching Blu Rays and I've started to buy more anime on Blu Ray, so that's not exactly a help.

The final issue of course is time - given how much time I have spent job hunting and then working it's tough to find a good chunk of time to sit down and watch something that could be 10 or 20 hours long.

Obviously none of that has stopped me buying anime, because I'm an idiot.  Why am I spending all this money and then not enjoying the stuff I buy?

I really need to come up with some better plans.  Maybe a proper Blu Ray player could help in some regards, but then I really need multi-region and that's not something that players really support in the way DVD players used to - there seems to be a lot of faffing around with firmware, which surely negates the benefit over using my current system.

john carter

I recently reviewed the latest Conan film and gave it a bit of a slating.

One of the things I tried to say in something of its defence is that the types of story that other people have done since the Conan films means we've all become very familiar with that type of thing.  So, in other words, it ends up feeling like cliché, even though it's actually the thing that started what other people made into cliché, if that makes sense.

As I understand it, John Carter is very similar in that sense - the original novels were very inspirational to other people, who then went on to write books and make films that essentially used the ideas so we've all become very familiar with them, even though we may not ever have actually read those original books.

In the case of John Carter it has something of a tick in my case, because we're in the realm of science fiction, which is much more my cup of tea, where Conan was fantasy, which isn't so much my thing.  As such I'm probably a bit more pre-disposed to liking it than I was Conan.

I guess I should also mention the price tag thing.  I don't know how you wouldn't be aware, but Disney spent an absolute fortune on John Carter.  Assuming what has been reported is true (not necessarily always the case and I'm sure more complicated than all that) I have to confess I don't really understand how they thought they'd make their money back.

I mean if they really did spend the amount of money they did then the end film would have had to have been about the biggest movie ever.  Now that's always possible, of course, but you have to feel the odds are stacked against it.  You have to wonder - particularly when it lacked one of the things Disney tends to rely on: any clear merchandising.

Don't get me wrong - they could certainly have produced some figurines, but there was nothing in the way of cute and cuddly and even when you look at figurines it's relative small beer.  The majority of characters were humans and the alien characters didn't exactly show a vast array of variety.  Unlike Star Wars where just about every background figure is unique so you can sell toys of each one, there were only a tiny variety of different species in John Carter.  And even then the number of actual characters was actually fairly small.  There also weren't that many vehicles or other things you could make as toys.

Where I'm really going with this is I think it's actually a bit of a shame that it was seen as a big flop, as I thought it was kinda fun.

Unlike something like Conan John Carter maintained just the right level of a sense of fun.  It steered away from being ironic or too knowing or too clever, and it wasn't a comedy movie, but it kept things light and pacey (though if I'm honest I feel it was another too long movie).

The plot also basically worked and I think it also did a bit of a neat trick in terms of exposition in particular.  There's a bit of a tendency in films like this for them to have bit wodges of terrible exposition where the McGuffin is explained and things like that.  Here they basically didn't bother - we got enough of a sense to know that certain things were important and there was an explanation behind them, but the focus was on the characters and the preventing the bad guy winning side of things, rather than blasting loads of ridiculous pseudo-science at us or similar.

Of course I'm not saying it was perfect, but if you look at some of the rubbish that gets produced, it's a shame this has been perceived to fail as some more John Carter films wouldn't necessarily be a bad thing.

new job?

There's a bit of a theme to these pre-written posts of reviewing last year - I figured I should look at last year in some detail as, if I'm totally honest, I felt a bit disappointed when I thought about the year while I was on leave.

One of the key things I obviously set for myself was to get a new job.  And I am still in the same job.

Now I feel there were a lot of positives about the process I went through.  Despite the economic climate I was able to get a reasonable number of interviews and to be considered for a number of roles.  That has to be a positive as I know many people struggle to get any interviews.

Another positive is I got a job offer - and a very good job offer at that.  If I look at the job on offer (or probably more the company and circumstance) it wasn't an offer I should have accepted, and didn't.  I do feel this was basically the right decision.

However, what I didn't get right was how it went - I would at one stage have accepted it and basically just "seen what it was like".  If it was going to be a mistake then I felt I needed to make a few mistakes, as it's been so long since I've done anything in my career, I feel like I have to make some changes.

In the end it was my family that gave me the best guidance in this regard; the problem really was that I told my boss about the offer.  What I should have done is rejected it and kept looking, but the problem was several interviews had come to the "end game" and I was getting a bit sick of the whole thing.  Also I was really starting to struggle financially and needed a pay increase and at worst I needed to use the offer as leverage for an improvement in pay and conditions.

However, when this happened there was something of change of circumstance in that I found out about what I've been describing as "cake later".  The problem is that's not come to anything.  There's been no announcement about any sort of cake at all and the real upshot of it is I'm disappointed in myself for believing that the boss was change.

The issues I've always had with the boss and that have become real thorns in my side in recent years aren't going to change.  I'm starting to feel I'm just sticking around here so I can get a lot of money in a few years.  Well, is that really what life is about?

I mean I'd like the money, obviously - particularly as I feel I've been underpaid and undervalued in recent years, but can I honestly stick it out here for another 3 or even four years to get that money?

What about all the other stuff I wanted to do?  Lose weight (Id didn't mention it in the previous post, but a big problem I've had is that with all the extra hours I've ended up doing it's really hard to stop myself comfort eating and finding the time and energy to shop for and put together a healthy meal, rather than buy some junk I can just cram has been a particular struggle).  Buy some new/decent clothes (I've been trading off of "well I'm losing weight and it would cost a fortune to keep refreshing my wardrobe" all year, yet I've gained a stone!).  Find somewhere new to live (can't do that if I'm going to get a new job that might be in a new part of the country!).  Go on proper holidays (can't afford it at the moment, as I'm underpaid!).  Start writing again (first half of the year all my spare time went on job hunting and second half I've been working so much I don't have time to do my laundry, let alone write).

It all just feels like my usual thing of a list of excuses and I've managed to end up in the position of least resistance yet again - same job, no changes... but I'm bored of it all; that was the whole point.

Another issue I've not really mentioned before is I'm not sure I want to stay in this industry.  I can't really discuss the details, but I've started to feel uncomfortable with some aspects of it.  A few years ago it wasn't so bad, as the company did other stuff, but we've become increasingly focused in the one area and I don't really want to be there.

I think what I'm going to do is set a deadline for the boss - if there's no proper announcement by a particular date I might ask to discuss the issue with her directly... or I'll just start looking for a new job again.  It needs to be fairly soon, though - perhaps Easter?

snow day

So shortly after I posted on Friday, the boss sent us home.

Well, I say the boss - it was the "sub-boss" who is generally a more reasonable, less Victorian kind of person.

The journey home was pretty awful.  I didn't get stuck, but the roads were pretty manky.  The A31 had quite a lot of snow on it and the other roads weren't much better.

I was actually quite surprised by how busy it was.  I guess a lot of people were like me - headed in to work at the usual time, but then it snowed heavily so they went home.

A couple of people at work wimped out altogether and didn't come in.  I kinda wish I'd done similar - they waited until 9AM to see fi the snow genuinely did turn up (never any guarantees).  It wasn't actually bad until about 10AM, but clearly wasn't travelling weather.  Well, I say that - in this country it wasn't travelling weather, if it was Canada or Norway or something, I bet they would hardly have noticed.

Now I had said when I went home that there were some thing I could work on, but I didn't actually do any work.  Working from home is not generally something that's easy for me to do (other people have work laptops, but I don't).  However, on this occasion there were two issues.

The first was that I didn't really want to do any work.  I pre-wrote a post a little while ago that I'm planning to upload tomorrow, and that pretty much covers the issues, but I guess the summary is that I'm struggling to whip up any kind of motivation to continue in my current job.

The second issue, though, was that I had a massive headache.  The basic issue seemed to be eye strain, and I think the route cause is that I've been doing a lot of reading at home.  The book I've been reading is actually a really heavy hardback, so I think that's forced me to read in positions that have meant I've been straining my eyes.

Well, the other factor is it's been a long time since I've had an eye exam and a new pair of glasses.  I don't actually think there's really anything wrong with my prescription as such, but the lens for my left eye is quite badly scratched.

A new pair of glasses will cost a fortune, though, so I've been holding off, but I think it's probably time to bite the bullet.

bookend of snow

So, as I sit here typing early-doors at work it has been snowing for at least 1.5 hours.

It's not heavy snow, but it is settling.  This is not particularly good news.  I had hoped that if we were going to get snow it would happen overnight and therefore mean I could skip the day at work (well, "work from home" but that's not something that really works for me).

Heavier snow is still forecast.  This lighter stuff was forecast for 8AM but is a good 2 hours early.  The heavier stuff was forecast for 1PM, but I don't know if that therefore means it will be early too.

The problem is the company I work for isn't very enlightened in terms of things like work hours.  We don't work, flexi, for example, which all our customers do.  That means once you're here you can't just say that you'll go home, because as I say, the work values are dragged straight from the Victorian era - if your bum's not on the seat, clearly you're not working.

I guess we'll just have to see what happens.

I've packed my sleeping bag and some extra warm clothes (I'm already buried under layers of warm cloths due to the inadequacies of the work heating!) as well as a bag of some snacky type food and a bottle of water.

It's not going to keep me going long-term, obviously, but it means if I get stuck I'll be able to keep warm, and that's the key thing.  Particularly at this time of year, with it getting dark early - it's easy to get in a situation where you're not sure if you're stuck because actually you can't really see what you're doing.

weight for it

Last year didn't go well on the diet front.

Well, if my aim had been to gain a stone then it would have been a good year, but as it was almost exactly the opposite, it was fairly poor.

Christmas was particularly problematic this year.  I always put on weight at Christmas as I tend to stuff my face, but this year I had a bit of a problem with a tendon in my left foot and so decided to snot walk on it for a few days while I was on leave.  However, I didn't reign in my eating at all, so I gained 6 pounds just in the week that I was off, which is double what I've done before.

I'm fully expecting that over the next couple of weeks this will come off as that's the other part of the pattern.  However, the 6 pound loss was a addition to a 7 pound gain across the rest of the year, so not at all good.

This also actually pushes me back into the morbidly obese range, where I was hoping I would get a good way under that.  I never really set proper goals as such, but it was always the basic aim of the diet to take myself a good way under the morbid obesity range.  The odds and stats get quite... sobering for people who are that size.

On the up-side the walking has gone pretty well.  Apart from Christmas where I couldn't walk I stayed on target throughout the year.

It became particularly apparent to me how much fitter I was when I took my leave at the end of summer.  There's a little village I often walk around in Devon and where in previous years I'd struggled with some of the walks, last year I was easily able to walk right around the village (it has this loop around it) and wasn't really tired at all.

One of the things I have thought about on that front was whether I should step up the exercise.  Now that I'm able to walk longer distances with no problems does that mean I am working less hard?  Certainly I'm carrying around less weight so it's not quite the same level of workout.  And is that part of why my weight has gone up - I need to do more to achieve the same affect?

However, I think when I analyse it the reality is that the weight gain has been more to do with eating.  There have been a lot of weeks in the last year where I've not really stuck to my diet properly.  Indeed, it would be tough to really say I'd dieted with any consistency across the year, and it was that rigid sticking to my diet that I think gave me the greatest gains in previous years.

The problem I think therefore comes down to a slip of willpower combined with a fatigue over the diet.  I ate a lot of salad during the time I was successful and that's great if you want to fill yourself up, but I think I got very bored.  I've never actually been that big a fan of salad and after months and months of it I think I really wanted change and that change meant I strayed into areas of buying rubbish.

Anyway, I guess the point is I don't really make New Years resolutions, I really need to start taking this thing seriously again, particularly if I'm genuinely going to do some of the other stuff I want to in the next few years.

resident evil - damnation

I seem to recall I did a review of the previous cgi resi movie.

I've not actually looked it up, but I think I thought it was okay, but the cgi wasn't great and it was a bit clunky.  I think I'd say the same basic thing about this one, which is also a cgi film.

It's not a sequel, though.  At least, I don't think it is - I found this aspect a bit vague, actually.  In some places it seemed to be that it was a sequel in some sense (with recurring characters having been involved in the events of the previous film, rather than events following on directly) but in others it seemed to be quite stand-alone.

I think a big part of my problem as that the background to this film wasn't properly fleshed out and explained.  I mean it was clear what the plot was, but quite why Leon was there and who he was working for was very vague indeed.  I think this was probably deliberate so that they could meld it to suit particularly markets, but it also meant it was all very vague.

I have to say it wasn't as strong a plot in this film either.  In the first the events are very reactive to particular situations, but in this they'd tried to use more in the way of deep schemes to form the plot and these just didn't hold together.  There seemed to be a lot of inconsistency and why stuff happened as it did came across as a bit more random than it should have done.

In particular both sides seemed to be using the bio-weapons, but in ways that suggested the other side wasn't using them, if that makes sense.  So one side was using them as if they were a secret weapon that the other side knew nothing about, but then it seemed like the other side was using the same thing like a secret weapon the other side knew nothing about.

Another good example is the tyrants, which are included in the movie.  It's not at all clear how they come to be there - were they developed, or bought or what, and why were they not actually using them?  They seem to get released almost by accident towards the end, but surely if the other side are using lickers you'd probably want to role your tyrants out, rather than keep them in your secret lab.

I dunno.  One of the criticisms I have of these cgi films is they feel just that bit too much like cut-scenes from games.  My problem here, I think, was that this felt like a cgi cut scene from half way through a game and I was watching over someone's shoulder, having not seen the previous half f the game.

hunted

I mentioned last week that I watched a lot of stuff that I'd recorded.

This included quite a few documentaries, but also a few drama series, one of which was hunted.  I'd been under the impression that hunted as a single series, which is to say that the adventure was self-contained in the 8 episodes they showed.

It turned out this wasn't entirely the case, and I found myself quite annoyed by that.  Now to be fair, in some ways it was - the main plot of the series that revolved around what the team were doing in regards to a Pakistani dam that was being sold did resolve.  However, there was also a whole other element to the story about the main character Sam and this didn't really resolve.

Having looked the series up on wikipedia it's clear that this was intentional - they clearly wanted to make this something akin to 24 or homeland with an ongoing plot across all the series but with each individual series sort of self-contained.  I guess that's fair enough, but the problem is the first episode and about half o the second episode were essentially devoted to the long-term plot.  This therefore set me up for much more of a resolution on that plot than we got.

What's more annoying, though, is that the BBC has said they won't fund a second series.  The production company has indicated they are still looking to do a second series, but it will have to be smaller without the beeb's cash.  That could work as the production could easily be ramped down (fewer foreign episodes, for example) and still contain a good story.

Also, and I think this was probably one of the things that hurt the series, fewer episodes.  8 episodes was a lot and there was a lot of padding in the series.  They could easily have skipped whole chunks of it without any real impact on the story.

I've probably given the impression there that I want it to continue, but to some extent I think that's a bit more of a reflection of how maddening I found it not actually being told what was going on properly, even though the main character had clearly figured big chunks of stuff out.  In particular she was having half remembered flash back to her childhood and we saw she properly remembered these, but we never got any sort of explanation.

Anyway, point is I'm not entirely sure it was a good series, as such.  It relied very heavily on tropes and clichés - the main bad guy was this cockney gangster pastiche, for example.  Also the violence was so over the top it became almost silly.  I actually fast forwarded through quite a lot of the fights as they were just so overblown it was boring.  They also stretched credibility - Melissa George is very skinny compared to the beefcakes she was supposedly thrashing to within and inch of their lives.

Also London is apparently a place where people are murdered left, right and centre but the one bent cop is all you need to cover it up and the media doesn't pay attention.

A lot of it was kinda daft, really.

snow-ho-ho

God, it's cold.

The building where I work is appalling during the winter.  We're all upstairs and it's a reasonably-sized open-plan office.  However, it has lots of glass windows, many of which are not particularly well sealed.  There's also no-one downstairs, so there's not much in the way of 'rising heat' effect.  Also, the insulation in the roof is very poor - I once poked my head up there and it's very thin indeed. 

The plumbing is also clearly a mess - some of the radiators don't get hot at all and those that do can be erratic, not being as warm as they should be.  Also there are lots of squares for lights and they're obviously un-insulated.  The boiler is also pathetic.  Well, it seems pathetic compared to the old one, which packed up a few years ago.  The old one used to get the radiators so hot you couldn't touch them, where this one doesn't achieve that.

My guess is that if the plumbing was decent, the rooms divided up more, there was proper insulation in the roof and the building better occupied then the boiler would be okay.  As all these aren't the case, the place ends up freezing.

Indeed, the room is generally so cold that we end up putting on a fan-heater to warm it up.  This, obviously, is expensive, and ironic, since a part of the reason it's cold is because the boss has set the heating up in such a way that she's clearly trying to save money.

The heating is almost totally off across the weekend (I believe it does a couple of hours to prevent the pipes freezing).  This means that early at the start of the week the building is particularly cold and it's often mid-week before we've compensated for that.  In other words we have to have the fan-heater on full blast, which surely defeats the point of the "money saving" of having it off at the weekend.

It's also been set so that it only comes on at about 8AM.  Now I get in early, but if you assume a 9AM start then that's only 1 hour of pre-heating.  It also turns off around lunch-time for a couple of hours.  This one seems bizarre to me - okay, that's generally the warmest part of the day, but by letting the building cool the heating then has to work extra hard to bring it back up to temperature when it comes back on.  It also means the fan-heater stays on all day.

It also decided to snow here.  I was watching the forecasts quite keenly over the weekend and none of them showed it snowing here.  I mean, it's not deep - about an inch or so, but settling makes everything that little bit more difficult than it otherwise would be.

the rubbish continues

So as promised, here's the concluding stuff of the holiday.

As noted, Christmas day was good but then everything around it was rubbish.  When I eventually got home on Boxing Day I basically just watched TV for a bit and then went to bed.  I slept for about 14 hours if my maths is right and of course then I went to work for the next couple of days - still suffering with the cold and worried about my dad.

I had actually been planning to use these days to do some stuff that I've had to back-burner, but when I got in there was a big pile of stuff dumped on my desk I had to sort.  I wasn't best pleased, especially as stuff clearly could have been done with it on the Monday and there wasn't a lot I could practically do with it that others couldn't have done, particularly as my holiday was after New Years, which is when all the critical stuff on these things would actually need to happen.

I therefore wasted a good day and a half with what was essentially hand-turning that others should have already done or could really wait until after New Years when everyone was back.

However, I did manage to get some stuff done that I actually wanted to do, but I can't really say I enjoyed the days at work.  The problem really was there were other people there.  I've actually found that although rubbish on many levels I kinda enjoy coming in at the weekend - I can work whatever schedule I want and I can concentrate 100% as nobody else is there.

The real problem, though, was my landlord.  He wanted to sort out some mould that had developed in the corner of the kitchen and this was fine.  He said it might look a bit patchy, but I said that was not something I was worried about.

Now ideally (and this, I think, was the real source of my annoyance) he would have properly redecorated the kitchen.  I even made it very clear to him a long way ahead when I was away last Summer for him to use that time to do it.  However, like an idiot, he booked a foreign holiday at exactly the same time as when I was away, so he couldn't do it.

But, having mentioned I was working, he decided to take advantage - rather than just sort the mould he started redecorating as well.  Now as I say, no problem with him redecorating, but a) he was taking the piss by just launching into it and b) I was on leave (meaning at home) after New Years and he said there was no way he could complete it before then, so I had the prospect of a half decorated kitchen to cope with while I was on leave - yeah, great, thanks for that.

What also annoyed me is I basically didn't move any of the kitchen stuff out of the way when he started (as I say, he was just meant to sort a corner of the room) and so he'd just shoved it all randomly out of the way in a big pile.  I can't stand people touching my stuff or being in my rooms at the best of times, and this just wound me up.

Now I actually mentioned this to him when I got back from work on the second day and I also then properly moved my stuff out of the way for the last day I was at work before my leave.  I think because I'd implied it was a bit off for him to just launch into it without properly arranging it with me he actually worked hard on that last day and did two coats, so it was done.  I was relieved and it looks quite good, but it was still pretty disruptive.

Anyway, then there was New Years eve itself.

I'm not really a fan of New Years.  It's completely arbitrary, obviously, but also the problem is that everyone is out and about.  If you want to go for a few drinks you won't be able to get any because everywhere is so busy.  And otherwise it's normally just a really cold day where everywhere is too busy.

This year was no exception.  The plans I'd made didn't really happen and I ended up driving home stone cold sober at about 4:30 in the morning.

The holiday afterwards was okay - I got some stuff done I'd been meaning to do and relaxed a bit.  On the up side I watched loads of the stuff I'd recorded and not watched over the last year.  My PVR went from about 80% full to about 80% free.  I could probably have cleared it, but I find fatigue tends to set in when I watch too much TV in a row.

I'll leave it there I think - as I say, not the greatest time overall.  Certainly I've had better year ends.

despicable me

I actually watched this some time ago, but found it a bit difficult to write a review for.

I did enjoy the film, and that's really the problem.  I've said many times before it's harder to write the reviews where basically you liked the film and want to recommend it.

The thing here, I guess, is I was a little trepidations about the film.  I'd heard what it was basically about and it appealed as a concept, the thing I was worried about, though, is that it would fall over when it came to the nice ending aspect.

I don't know why you wouldn't know, but the film is essentially about a super villain and how he tries to use three young girls in one of his schemes.  I guess I should warn for spoilers, but of course the point of the film is he comes to genuinely care for the girls, and that was what I was worried about.  Or rather, I was worried it wouldn't quite work - a film like this can easily fail at the whole aspect of him coming round to love them.  It's something that has to be properly earned, and that can be a tricky thing to pull off properly.

And that's why I liked the film - it does a really good job at earning that ending.  It also doesn't totally cave in - he's still basically a super-villain at the end, although perhaps one who is reforming.

IF I was to make one criticism of the film it would be the minions.  With characters like that there's a really fine line with making them cute and loveable and clearly just an attempt to sell toys.  In this case I have to say for me they were on the wrong side of that line.

I think part of my problem was that there was also another character, Dr Nefario, who was meant to be an evil scientist character.  The problem I had was that overlapped quite a lot with Gru and the minions, but the minions could only talk in gibberish.  I can understand the problem he was there to solve (the minions only talk gibberish and Gru is otherwise on his own, so who does he talk to and how, therefore, do we advance things like plot?) but the problem is it introduces some redundancy.

So if Gru had been an evil-genius scientist as well (somebody needs to build the death rays, et all, right?) then the Dr would be redundant.  If the minions are weird geniuses types who madly invent things (they did still seem to sort of do this) then the Dr is redundant.  But in both those cases, who does Gru talk to that the audience can also understand?

As such you're left with the minions being like gofers, which was okay, but I dunno, to me it made them fairly pointless, and because they're cute they then start to feel like a way to sell toys.

I know - I'm really overanalysing this, but then, as I said at the top, I liked the film and don't really have much else to say!

worst. christmas. ever.

Back to work then, I guess.

As the title suggests it was a pretty rubbish Christmas period for me.

It started off poorly with a cold.  We had the company Christmas lunch quite late this year and unfortunately one of the work colleagues I sat next too brought a cold in.  It actually took me a couple of days for it to really kick in, so I guess there's the chance I got it from someone else, but if so, I don't know who that would be as I don't remember encountering anyone else with a cold then.

So the cold really kicked in on Friday, just in time for that first long weekend leading up into Christmas.  By Christmas day I was actually over the worst of it, but the weekend and the Monday I'd taken off weren't really all that fun, to be honest.

Although, as I say, I was over the worst of it fairly quickly, the tail end lasted ages and it was New Years day before I really felt it had started to clear up and the following week before it was properly gone, so that's three weeks total.

Christmas Day I went to my sisters.  This involved driving down on the day, which was rubbish for a couple of reasons.  Firstly it meant I had to get up early and couldn't really pootle - the journey was over 2 hours and I had to aim to get there a good while before lunch to be sure.  As you may remember the weather was pretty awful, with yet more flooding in the West Country and of course that's where I was heading.

I saw two accidents on the way down - it was pretty horrible weather for the first two thirds, but then weirdly (and I mean weirdly - it was like driving into another country) it suddenly brightened up and was actually fairly nice for the rest of the day.  As well as being poor weather it was also really busy - I mean, not rush hour stuff, but you wouldn't know it was Christmas Day.

The drive down was therefore quite tiring and I was already fairly knackered from the cold so I wasn't really very lively on the day itself.  My sister did a good job with the actual day itself - no complaints there - but next time we need to drive down the day before, though driving back on Boxing Day wasn't too bad, though I had to stop drinking quite early to make sure I'd be okay.

I saw about 5 accidents on the way back.  I'm assuming most were, if not caused by the weather, then it was a contributing factor.  This time of year some idiots drink and drive of course, so that may have been part of some of them.

The B&B was a bit naff - it clearly hadn't been decorated in decades (that or they're stuck in a 70s time warp) and the shower didn't work; she said they were getting the bathroom redone in a week.  It was well equipped, though - you could certainly use it as a base of operations if you were holidaying there, but it felt OTT for us just staying the night.

I was sharing with my Dad - something I'd rather have avoided and tried to do so, but as I think I've discussed the organisations side of it (or rather, the communication about the organisation) has not been great.  And it proved particularly problematic on this occasion, as my Dad was taken ill.

I won't go into too much detail, but essentially he was having some trouble and it meant he was constantly going to the toilet, which obviously didn't help with me getting to sleep (something I really struggle with anyway in unfamiliar surroundings).  At about 4AM I/we basically reached the conclusion he would need to go to hospital.  We're not talking life threatening, but medical assistance was needed as there was nothing we could do about the problem or the level of discomfort he was in without it.

Anyway, obviously neither of us know the local area, such as where hospitals are, so we tried NHS Direct.  They gave us the nearest one, but of course our cars were back at my sister, a good 20 minute walk away.  We therefore got dressed and headed off.

It became apparent during the journey that Dad would not be able to sit in my car (he couldn't sit at all, tbh) and also I pointed out Fay was still drinking quite late so she couldn't drive.  She could possibly direct me, but otherwise we would need to try to map read, which would likely make the journey longer than necessary.

Of course for my sister to direct we would need to wake her up, and with Dad not being able to sit we eventually decided to call an ambulance - I wanted to try directory enquiries and get the A&E but instead we used 999.

The ambulance actually arrived quite quickly and my sister went with him to hospital (I had a quiet word with her and explained I'd not slept at all and could barely see straight, let alone go to the hospital).  I therefore walked back to the B&B and tried to get some sleep.  Of course by then I was basically awake and only really had a small nap, which got me through the rest of the day as it was, but I felt awful.

Just to finish off - my Dad was essentially fine.  It wasn't really a life-threatening condition as such, it was just something he couldn't put up with and we had no way of sorting.

chrimbo period

I’m on leave on Monday and then Tuesday and Wednesday are Christmas Day and Boxing Day.

However, this year I am not having my usual two weeks holiday over the Christmas and New Year period.  There are a couple of reasons for this.

Firstly, the Chrimbo period is rather different this year.  Usually I would go and see my Dad for a few days and then take the rest of it away from home until New Year's when I would return and have a week at home.  However, my sister is hosting us for Christmas day, although this really is just Christmas Day and Boxing Day.

As such I have decided to work the period between Chrimbo and New Year.  I’m then taking the week after New Year off.  There are other reasons, though.

Firstly I used up a lot of my holiday while job hunting.  This meant I would have struggled to take the full two weeks - I had some left, but not enough for two weeks.  Indeed, by taking the week in New Year I actually get to punt some of my 2012 leave into 2013.

The second reason is I am hoping it will be relatively quiet and I will be able to catch up on some work stuff that I’ve also had to put on hold while I’ve done the other stuff these last few weeks.

The final reason is that I’m still not sure about staying with the company - the promises I was made haven’t manifested and I've a sneaky feeling the boss is going to throw a bit of a curve ball and do something different.  As such, I've decided that I will probably give it until a couple of months into the New Year and then go job hunting again.

In that case my transferred days will be particularly useful.

Now whether I will blog next week I kinda doubt, so I will leave you with my best wishes for the holiday period!

2012 grand prix season

Of course one of the things I would have blogged about while I was too busy was the completion of this year’s Grand Prix season.

The season ended in Brazil, obviously, and it was a cracking race.  It had just about everything - a bit of rain to throw the cards in the air, plenty of drama and loads of overtaking.  It was a race that probably summed up the season as a whole.

And what a season it’s been - I’m not sure I’ve seen a season before where to many teams and drivers were genuinely in with a shout at the title for so long.  Even at the end it went down to the wire between Alonso and Vettel.

If I'm totally honest I think I would have preferred Alonso to take it.  The mark of the truly great driver is to drive “beyond” the car, which is to say, to achieve more than the car is worth on paper.  This year's Ferrari was clearly not as good as the others, yet Alonso kept getting good results and kept putting it on the podium.

Of course it would be wrong to say he was robbed by the couple of occasions he was caught up in accidents.  Vettel also had a couple of races where he was in other people’s accidents or caused trouble by others that meant he didn’t get the points.

And of course that’s the nature of motor racing - it’s not just about the quality of the driver, it’s about the quality of the car and the entire team.  You could easily (and fairly rightly) say that McLaren threw it away - they had the fastest car at the start and dominated races at the start and end, but through lots of mechanical failures and “finger trouble” they put themselves out of the competition.  To finish first, first you must finish.

So on to next year.  I had originally thought we would potentially be going to the British Grand Prix next year, but it sounds like not.  Instead, the thought is we’ll go to a foreign race in a couple of years.  My sister wants to go to Singapore, but I don’t fancy that at all.  I think somewhere like Austin would be much better - I mean, I’d rather go on holiday to Texas than Singapore, but also the race would be much better.

There may be a downside to this - next year the rules are basically the same so I’m expecting another super-close season, but the year after there’s loads of changes.  The turbos come in and I believe there are some changes in terms of fuel limits and hence size of the cars.  Traditionally big rules changes mean one team dominates as they get things “just right” - stability allows others to copy them and so you get better, closer seasons.

Anyway, hopefully next year will be as good as this year.  The only downside this year has been the bloody BBC not showing all the races live on TV.

conan the barbarian

What a terrible film.

Okay, terrible is a bit extreme, but it really wasn’t very good.

I recall the Schwarzenegger Conan films with a great deal of affection.  They were terrible too, but in a jolly, fun sort of way.  They were extremely low budget and Arnie isn’t the greatest of actors, so what do you expect.

The films were also, apparently, not hugely faithful to the original character.  I’ve never read any of the Conan stories, though I recall the comic book adaptation, but apparently Conan is quite clever.  The Arnie Conan is basically a slab of muscle who hacks and slashes his way through the films.

This film is, I think, an attempt to take Conan back to that original book version.  He’s still quite muscly, but he’s also quite clever - well, in a relative sense.  You don’t get the impression he’s secretly a nerd and if he’s so clever, why not learn magic or similar?  But he certainly thinks things through and plans.

The problem with the film is that problem that all film adaptations of classic works have - you basically know the story already.  You know what’s going to happen, either because it’s something you’ve read or there have been loads of adaptation before as, in the case of Conan it’s been imitated to the point of cliché.

I mean, there haven’t been that many adaptation of Conan and while I’m sure it’s well read, it’s not something I’ve read, but the trouble is that loads of films have basically been Conan without Conan.  Think of any fantasy film or (in particular) game that has a barbarian character and that barbarian is Conan.

But also we’ve seen all the baddies too - the evil wizards and princesses that need saving.  It’s all been done so many times that it takes a real trick shot to give it any sort of feeling of freshness or newness, and this film just isn’t up to it.

It also makes some classic modern mistakes.  It’s way too long - this is a popcorn action film, but it’s very nearly two hours long because film tickets are so expensive that’s become the norm - give them better value for money at 2 hours.  But it would have been far better to make it quick, pacy, exciting, thrill-a-minute stuff.

It’s also clearly been filmed in 3D, so there’s the classic “stuff coming at you” tedious 3D cobblers in it too.  This does not make it a better film.

In this case there’s also a few specific problems, in particular with the magic.  The basic plot of the film seems to revolve around the bad guy trying to resurrect his dead wife using magic, but the magic in the film is very inconsistent.  When he finally gets hold of this magic at the end it seems very weak, particularly when compared to some of the magic earlier in the film.  And the magic at the end seems really difficult to get to use, but the stuff earlier seems like a piece of piss, yet is much easier.

It’s just not very good, as I say.

chrimbo lunch

chrimbo lunch

It's the company Christmas lunch today.

One of the perks we get at work is that the company takes us out for lunch when there are birthdays in the company and for Christmas.  It’s interesting - I know in a lot of companies they have to pay towards their company lunch, but then they have a big session that’s more like a party.  My company's is somewhere in between - the company pays for it, but it is just lunch and we have to work around it on the day.

I usually enjoy it, but it can be a mixed bag.  Some of the places we've been the food isn’t very good or it all takes so long your bum goes numb and my back starts to ache.  Also if I can get sat next to or near the people in the company I like then that helps.

On some occasions I’ve been trapped with some people that they’ve invited along (it’s complicated) who I don’t know or turn out to be boring.

Last year's wasn’t great - the food was poor, it all took ages (3 hours!) and I was next to an invitee who was nice enough but never stopped talking.

Hopefully this year will be better!

the weeks gone by

I guess it’s pretty obvious so I don’t need to say it, but I guess for the record the last few weeks I haven’t been blogging because I’ve just been too busy at work.

Well, I say that.  The last two and a half weeks I haven’t actually been at work!  The reason for that leave was because of work, though - I flagged up to my boss that I had been doing ridiculous hours (and was going to do even more hours before I was finished) so she agreed to letting me have time off in lieu.

So what have I been doing at work?

Well, we received some very large bids and there was very little resource available to bid for the work apart from me.  To be totally honest the situation was ridiculous - the total value of these piece of work were several million pounds as they covered many years and I was basically bidding them on my own!  And what’s more all of them had only several weeks to bid and they overlapped!

As you can therefore imagine, I was full-on with them, but what made it worse is that, because there was no-one else to do anything else, I still had to do a bunch of other stuff too.  I therefore had multiple weeks where my hours were in the order of 45 hours per week (instead of 37.5 as contracted) and I was doing loads of hours at the weekend.

I actually reached a point where I was at work but unable to do anything - I was so tired I couldn’t even think.

And so as I say I had the time off in lieu.  And I feel so much better for it.

But what did I do with my time off?

Well, a lot of time was spent doing things that I should have done during the normal week but just didn’t have time for. So I did a big pile of washing, which consisted mainly of the bits of washing at the bottom of the basket where I’ve just been doing quick washes of my basic clothes.

I also did all my Christmas shopping.  I mean, obviously I bought most of the significant presents online, but because of how Christmas is this year I’m having to buy presents for several other people (don’t ask - it’s complicated and I’m not hugely happy about it) and these are mainly of the booze variety, so I bought them at normal shops.  I also like to buy a few random gifts for people and of course there’s cards and wrapping paper, so I got all that.  I therefore now have a big pile of presents and stuff ready to go instead of some unopened amazon boxes and a list of stuff to buy.

And there was the chrimbo food buying.  While I’m leaving the break until New Year I’m still planning on having my own chrimbo roast.  So I bought pigs in blankets and stuffing and all that, which are now squirrelled away.  I’ve also bought all the food I’ll need until after Chrimbo - shopping becomes hell this time of year, so I avoid it by pre-buying, but obviously couldn’t do it until now.  In particular I bought the ingredients for my traditional chrimbo bolognaise, one portion of which I had and the others went in the freezer.

What else?  I did clean the flat - this I do every fortnight but haven't really done properly while I’ve been so busy, so that was good.

I also sorted out my big piles of Japanese magazines - the piles are huge as I’ve done no scanning.  I have a plan, though - I’m going to use my chrimbo money (and bonus?) to buy an A3 scanner.  The A4 scanner + Photoshop's “sticking together” tool is just not for me: it quadruples the time taken and is beyond tedious: so much so I’ve avoided it at all costs.  However, my old A3 scanner doesn't have a windows7 driver and the heat sink on my XP machine has packed up.

But the three things I particularly did were play some computer games, “internet stuff” (meaning reading e-mails, reading blogs and articles, buying stuff, downloading fansubs - all that stuff I used to fill my time with at work that then got moved to weekends and having been working weekends I’ve not done at all!) and, in particular, watching recorded TV programs.

Now this work isn't he reason I built up loads of unwatched TV, but it is the reason the amount of stuff has steadily crept up rather than shrunk. Well now instead of less than 30% free space I have more than 50% free.

failed

So I failed to pre-write any blog posts over my weekend off.

I got in on Monday and there were more than 50 e-mails for me to deal with as well as a stack of other things to do so I didn't get time to write post.  Heck, I didn't even check my e-mail all day.

To be honest I'm getting a bit sick of this at the moment.  The real problem is that I am essentially on my own with covering the elements I do and while that's okay on one level the trouble is I don't have full control - there is pressure for me to do more than is physically possible.

And that's how come I ended up doing 49 hours a couple of weeks ago.  See, when I look at my timesheet I spent my expected working hours (37.5ish) on the thing I'm supposed to be working on, and then the other 12 hours were on all sorts of crap that I should have been able/allowed to dump but just couldn't.

And that really comes back to me being on my own - if I don't do it then it doesn't happen.  And of course other people are expecting me to pick to do stuff, and we're back to my first point - I end up doing a 49 hour week.

Now if we worked flexi I wouldn't mind so much, but we don't - that's a12 extra hours that I will not see again and won't get overtime for or anything like that.

I have to confess I've started to wonder why I'm still here.  I think I know deep down that the job offer I got before wouldn't have been the right move, but I could have kept on with the job hunting and I'm sure I'd have eventually gotten another offer.

The prime reason for staying and stopping looking altogether were my slightly cryptic posts about "cake later" but there's no evidence that this cake is any further baked than when it was first mentioned.  Indeed, I've a horrible suspicion that oven is being used to bake another cake that I'm not going to get a slice of.

I know that's even more cryptic, but I don't like to be specific in these blog posts as it's not really stuff I should be putting out into the aether.

no blogging

No blog posts this week as it's been absolutely manic.

Well, actually it was super manic last week (I did 49 hours: standard hours are 37.5) and just plain busy this week.  Trouble was last week left me shattered and then I've had virtually no sleep Sunday and Monday night, so blogging wasn't really in the forefront of my mind.

Also I'm on leave tomorrow so this is it for the week.  I'll try to write a bunch of stuff while I'm off - particularly on the F1 and stuff I've watched and should review.