Well now, who doesn't love a four-day weekend?
I most certainly do.
What would have been ideal is if I had absolutely no commitments for this Easter weekend. I could really do with some chill-out time.
Unfortunately, that's not going to happen, although what is happening isn't exactly unpleasant. I'm going down to Devon to visit my dad. The specific reason is that me and my sister are going to be giving him his birthday present.
His birthday isn't actually until October, but we're getting him the presents now because they relate to our big trip in May.
I've not really mentioned the big trip in detail. Basically the family is going to the Monaco Grand Prix!
It should be really great, although it's costing me an absolute packet. It's costing my Dad even more as he's paying for the tickets and flights and stuff. It's kinda like a joint birthday present for me and my sister, I guess.
I'm also planning to surprise my sister and give her her gift as well this weekend.
The only nasty part this weekend might be the traffic, as it's coming warm and sunny now so many people may feel the desire to go for a bit of a trip down to Devon. Fingers crossed I don't get snarled up!
Anyway, I'll not be updating until after the weekend, so have a good one.
Thursday, 9 April 2009
Wednesday, 8 April 2009
Not more to do!
Work's gone a bit bonkers.
The main problem is actually that we lack staff - several important people are away on contract and rather than ease back on bidding stuff we've been ploughing ahead. This has resulted in us having several bids to get out in a very short period of time.
Add in to that it's Easter and you can see how it's gotten silly.
One of the most annoying things about bidding is that people often give you utterly ridiculous timescales. Or rather, they give you utterly ridiculous timescales, but give themselves way more time than they need.
Basically, we often get bids that pay no regard to things like holidays (such as Christmas and Easter). It's like they're fully expecting you to work your arse off over those holidays.
Also, they'll give you horribly short deadlines - a couple of weeks to do an entire ITT, which is no mean feat I can tell you.
But then they'll give themselves months to assess those ITTs. Plus, they'll pay absolutely no regard to the deadlines they set themselves, meaning they'll be late. But you can't be late - if you're late, then you're out on your ear.
The worst ones are when they're late and in order to claw back the time they maintain your deadlines. "Oh, we were a month late, but we're not extending your deadline. That's alright isn't it?"
It's like these people don't live in the real world.
There was one a while back where they were asking for a huge piece of work to be done. It was literally man-months of effort that would be required to do it.
Now my personal dodgyness radar was already flagged by the really tight timescales they'd given for the work, but we proceeded with the initial phase anyway. When we got the final requirement they'd given an indication of budget of... £5,000.
That's nothing - we could easily spend that in a week - and it was a massive underestimate of the task they were asking for.
It'd be funny if it wasn't so annoying.
The main problem is actually that we lack staff - several important people are away on contract and rather than ease back on bidding stuff we've been ploughing ahead. This has resulted in us having several bids to get out in a very short period of time.
Add in to that it's Easter and you can see how it's gotten silly.
One of the most annoying things about bidding is that people often give you utterly ridiculous timescales. Or rather, they give you utterly ridiculous timescales, but give themselves way more time than they need.
Basically, we often get bids that pay no regard to things like holidays (such as Christmas and Easter). It's like they're fully expecting you to work your arse off over those holidays.
Also, they'll give you horribly short deadlines - a couple of weeks to do an entire ITT, which is no mean feat I can tell you.
But then they'll give themselves months to assess those ITTs. Plus, they'll pay absolutely no regard to the deadlines they set themselves, meaning they'll be late. But you can't be late - if you're late, then you're out on your ear.
The worst ones are when they're late and in order to claw back the time they maintain your deadlines. "Oh, we were a month late, but we're not extending your deadline. That's alright isn't it?"
It's like these people don't live in the real world.
There was one a while back where they were asking for a huge piece of work to be done. It was literally man-months of effort that would be required to do it.
Now my personal dodgyness radar was already flagged by the really tight timescales they'd given for the work, but we proceeded with the initial phase anyway. When we got the final requirement they'd given an indication of budget of... £5,000.
That's nothing - we could easily spend that in a week - and it was a massive underestimate of the task they were asking for.
It'd be funny if it wasn't so annoying.
Tuesday, 7 April 2009
running out of stuff to do
I had a very weird mindset last night.
After the weekend where I got so much done I had this weird nagging sensation that I was going to run out of stuff to do. I mean this patently is just not the case - I've tonnes of stuff still to do. And besides, even if I was to finish doing those things, by the time I was finished a load of new stuff would come along to fill its place.
Still, I couldn't shake that nagging sensation - even when I looked over at the shelves groaning under the weight of unwatched DVDs and unread books.
Weird.
And speaking of weird stuff in my head I've been having a strange time with the old writing just recently. I've kinda ground to a halt with actually sitting down and typing, and yet my head is crammed full of ideas. I just keep coming up with new ideas, but for some reason I'm lackign the motivation to actually set them down on paper.
I'm not sure it helps that some of them are of a... er... more salacious flavour shall we say?
I've been taking a look at "How to Read Death Note". It's kinda like a 'making of' for the Death Note series and is a bit hit and miss. The majority of the book is taken up with analysing the plot and stuff like that, which is pretty dull. But there also interviews with the writer and artist. Plus there's the pilot manga at the back - that should be interesting.
After the weekend where I got so much done I had this weird nagging sensation that I was going to run out of stuff to do. I mean this patently is just not the case - I've tonnes of stuff still to do. And besides, even if I was to finish doing those things, by the time I was finished a load of new stuff would come along to fill its place.
Still, I couldn't shake that nagging sensation - even when I looked over at the shelves groaning under the weight of unwatched DVDs and unread books.
Weird.
And speaking of weird stuff in my head I've been having a strange time with the old writing just recently. I've kinda ground to a halt with actually sitting down and typing, and yet my head is crammed full of ideas. I just keep coming up with new ideas, but for some reason I'm lackign the motivation to actually set them down on paper.
I'm not sure it helps that some of them are of a... er... more salacious flavour shall we say?
I've been taking a look at "How to Read Death Note". It's kinda like a 'making of' for the Death Note series and is a bit hit and miss. The majority of the book is taken up with analysing the plot and stuff like that, which is pretty dull. But there also interviews with the writer and artist. Plus there's the pilot manga at the back - that should be interesting.
Monday, 6 April 2009
and confusifying it was
Well it was indeed a very busy and confusing weekend.
I think I managed to do everything I had to do. I've burned all the anime series I can to DVD. That doesn't mean I've burned them all of course, because some are not finished, but those that are finished are all done. It's free up about half of the hard-drive I use.
I made some headway with all my recorded telly too. I now only have two things stacked up - a drama called Red Riding and the new episodes of Lewis. Everything else is cleared (I've decided to by the Wire on DVD, for example).
Plus, thankfully, the burden of new shows has lifted somewhat - according to my scheduling I've only about 12 hours or so of new shows due this week, where it was nearly double that last week.
I also scanned all of the regular magazines I had to, including the new megami. It'll be a few weeks before the other mags turn up so that's given me some breathing room there too.
I also took the opportunity to watch some of the last of the new anime shows from last season:
RideBack is awesome. I have to admit going in that it sounded a bit cheesy - ballerina (Rin) rides motorbike/robot thing :/ - but it's actually really good.
It helps that the animation is of a very high standard, I think. I'm guessing the robots have been done with CG, but if so it's some of the best blended CG I've ever seen. They'd look hand animated if not for a slight over-smoothness. But also the animation is generally anyway - very smooth and clear - with really great cinematography.
The story is also pretty well done. There's only one part I'm not sure about - there seems to be a war/revolution background to the world's setting that at the moment is quite divorced from the main story of Rin riding the robot-bike things. I guess it becomes more apparent later, but since I always only use fansubs to sample the first few eps it may be some time before I find out.
Viper's Creed is okay. Unfortunately, it feels a heck of a lot like Blassreiter meets Shirow. Now I'm sure that's just a coincidence (well, Blassreiter anyway). Anime takes years to develop and Blassreiter was only on recently, so it'll just be coincidental that they both featured mecha-bike riding teams.
The trouble is I love Shirow doing Shirow, but am not so keen on other people doing Shirow. And Blassreiter was distinctly 'okay' - it got better at the end, but was pretty generic at the start, and Viper's Creed seems to share the same problem at the front and my sample won't take me far enough to find out about the back end.
The only saving grace was that there was a nice focus on the characters at some points, so maybe there's hope for this too.
Genji Monogatari Sennenki - I only had one episode of this available to watch as that's all I could find fansub wise. I'm not particularly disappointed by that, though - it didn't really scream at me that it was my sort of show.
It seemed to basically be an overwrought romance for women. It certainly had the classic character design you get in those sorts of girls comics - weirdly proportioned men with enormous shoulders, tiny heads and scary-thin limbs, but vaguely androgynous too (think CLAMP).
Not that that's a criticism as such, more an observation that it seems to conform to type and it's not a type I am particularly bothered about; although I wouldn't say it was bad either. What I did find annoying is that half the screen always seemed to be shaded out to black. I've seen this done when they want to censor (cover over) things like gore, but there was no reason for it here. All it did was the pictures feel tiny.
Chrome Shelled Regios - er... whut?
I had almost no idea what the hell was going on in this series. My guess it that it's based on a Japanese RPG or something like that. Maybe one of those light novels they have in Japan. It certainly has the feel of something the audience is already supposed to be familiar with and doesn't really pay much regard to helping newbie's come along. It's like watching the second series of something having never even heard of the first.
It's also a type of fantasy that doesn't really appeal to me and features the classic (tedious) anime tropes of people shouting out their next special move. And that brings me to the battles - they're okay in and of themselves, but the problem I had with them was that they were backed up by this pounding dance/electronic soundtrack that's so aggressive it kinda browbeats you.
The only saving grace is that when it's not getting up to all those things it has some reasonably interesting character relationships. So if it wasn't for all that guff I'd probably like it more, but as it is it's not really for me.
That really only leaves a couple of shows unwatched, only one of which is fansubs. I do still need to watch Strike Witches and then there are a couple of things that were made available on Crunchyroll which I need to at least sample. Plus there's a couple of films I should watch.
Oh, and I also finished Death Note - it had a good couple of last chapters, but they should definitely have happened 6 volumes ago.
I think I managed to do everything I had to do. I've burned all the anime series I can to DVD. That doesn't mean I've burned them all of course, because some are not finished, but those that are finished are all done. It's free up about half of the hard-drive I use.
I made some headway with all my recorded telly too. I now only have two things stacked up - a drama called Red Riding and the new episodes of Lewis. Everything else is cleared (I've decided to by the Wire on DVD, for example).
Plus, thankfully, the burden of new shows has lifted somewhat - according to my scheduling I've only about 12 hours or so of new shows due this week, where it was nearly double that last week.
I also scanned all of the regular magazines I had to, including the new megami. It'll be a few weeks before the other mags turn up so that's given me some breathing room there too.
I also took the opportunity to watch some of the last of the new anime shows from last season:
RideBack is awesome. I have to admit going in that it sounded a bit cheesy - ballerina (Rin) rides motorbike/robot thing :/ - but it's actually really good.
It helps that the animation is of a very high standard, I think. I'm guessing the robots have been done with CG, but if so it's some of the best blended CG I've ever seen. They'd look hand animated if not for a slight over-smoothness. But also the animation is generally anyway - very smooth and clear - with really great cinematography.
The story is also pretty well done. There's only one part I'm not sure about - there seems to be a war/revolution background to the world's setting that at the moment is quite divorced from the main story of Rin riding the robot-bike things. I guess it becomes more apparent later, but since I always only use fansubs to sample the first few eps it may be some time before I find out.
Viper's Creed is okay. Unfortunately, it feels a heck of a lot like Blassreiter meets Shirow. Now I'm sure that's just a coincidence (well, Blassreiter anyway). Anime takes years to develop and Blassreiter was only on recently, so it'll just be coincidental that they both featured mecha-bike riding teams.
The trouble is I love Shirow doing Shirow, but am not so keen on other people doing Shirow. And Blassreiter was distinctly 'okay' - it got better at the end, but was pretty generic at the start, and Viper's Creed seems to share the same problem at the front and my sample won't take me far enough to find out about the back end.
The only saving grace was that there was a nice focus on the characters at some points, so maybe there's hope for this too.
Genji Monogatari Sennenki - I only had one episode of this available to watch as that's all I could find fansub wise. I'm not particularly disappointed by that, though - it didn't really scream at me that it was my sort of show.
It seemed to basically be an overwrought romance for women. It certainly had the classic character design you get in those sorts of girls comics - weirdly proportioned men with enormous shoulders, tiny heads and scary-thin limbs, but vaguely androgynous too (think CLAMP).
Not that that's a criticism as such, more an observation that it seems to conform to type and it's not a type I am particularly bothered about; although I wouldn't say it was bad either. What I did find annoying is that half the screen always seemed to be shaded out to black. I've seen this done when they want to censor (cover over) things like gore, but there was no reason for it here. All it did was the pictures feel tiny.
Chrome Shelled Regios - er... whut?
I had almost no idea what the hell was going on in this series. My guess it that it's based on a Japanese RPG or something like that. Maybe one of those light novels they have in Japan. It certainly has the feel of something the audience is already supposed to be familiar with and doesn't really pay much regard to helping newbie's come along. It's like watching the second series of something having never even heard of the first.
It's also a type of fantasy that doesn't really appeal to me and features the classic (tedious) anime tropes of people shouting out their next special move. And that brings me to the battles - they're okay in and of themselves, but the problem I had with them was that they were backed up by this pounding dance/electronic soundtrack that's so aggressive it kinda browbeats you.
The only saving grace is that when it's not getting up to all those things it has some reasonably interesting character relationships. So if it wasn't for all that guff I'd probably like it more, but as it is it's not really for me.
That really only leaves a couple of shows unwatched, only one of which is fansubs. I do still need to watch Strike Witches and then there are a couple of things that were made available on Crunchyroll which I need to at least sample. Plus there's a couple of films I should watch.
Oh, and I also finished Death Note - it had a good couple of last chapters, but they should definitely have happened 6 volumes ago.
Friday, 3 April 2009
coming and going
It's going to be a confusing and rather busy weekend, I can tell.
There unfortunately seems to have come together a whole bunch of stuff that I need to do or want to get out of the way. It's all rather bit and all over the place, and what's worrying is I've tried to do some organising-type lists and each time they kinda break down or end up impossible to actually achieve.
For example, next weekend is Easter and me and my sister are going to be visiting our dad in order to give him his birthday present. Okay, so that's fine, but it means that the entire Easter weekend is basically a right off, so I need to get everything done now.
That includes buying the last part of Dad's present, wrapping all the bits (I'll need some paper) and buying him a birthday card as the more obvious stuff. However, it also includes less obvious stuff like making sure I'm fuelled up for the weekend and remembering to adjust my trip to the laundrette so that it ties in better.
So in other words, even the simple stuff involves multiple parts and multiple days.
And that's one of the simpler things. You also need to factor in I've got e-bay stuff to send, because people took a long time to pay, plus one of them is a cheque so I'll need to pay that in at the bank. Then you've got the fact that it's also my sister's birthday and I want to give her her present at Easter too.
Plus I've still got the scanning to finish off (new megami turned up - should I do that as well, or leave it until later). Then I've got the last few anime shows of last year to watch.
And mentioning them, the new anime season has started. Fansubs won't appear for about a week, I'd guesss, but the hard-drive I stor fansubs on is nearly full, so I need to burn them all to DVD.
Then it's the second F1 GP of the season, but it's on at a weird time in the morning :/. and of course I've got all that PVR'd stuff to catch up on still.
See - it's all little things that aren't int themselves, porblems, but they're all stacking up into a mighty confusing weekend.
*sigh*
My car's in for its service today. Fingers crossed there's nothign spectacularly wrong with it. I was afraid the tyres might need doing, and that won't be cheap. We will have to see.
There unfortunately seems to have come together a whole bunch of stuff that I need to do or want to get out of the way. It's all rather bit and all over the place, and what's worrying is I've tried to do some organising-type lists and each time they kinda break down or end up impossible to actually achieve.
For example, next weekend is Easter and me and my sister are going to be visiting our dad in order to give him his birthday present. Okay, so that's fine, but it means that the entire Easter weekend is basically a right off, so I need to get everything done now.
That includes buying the last part of Dad's present, wrapping all the bits (I'll need some paper) and buying him a birthday card as the more obvious stuff. However, it also includes less obvious stuff like making sure I'm fuelled up for the weekend and remembering to adjust my trip to the laundrette so that it ties in better.
So in other words, even the simple stuff involves multiple parts and multiple days.
And that's one of the simpler things. You also need to factor in I've got e-bay stuff to send, because people took a long time to pay, plus one of them is a cheque so I'll need to pay that in at the bank. Then you've got the fact that it's also my sister's birthday and I want to give her her present at Easter too.
Plus I've still got the scanning to finish off (new megami turned up - should I do that as well, or leave it until later). Then I've got the last few anime shows of last year to watch.
And mentioning them, the new anime season has started. Fansubs won't appear for about a week, I'd guesss, but the hard-drive I stor fansubs on is nearly full, so I need to burn them all to DVD.
Then it's the second F1 GP of the season, but it's on at a weird time in the morning :/. and of course I've got all that PVR'd stuff to catch up on still.
See - it's all little things that aren't int themselves, porblems, but they're all stacking up into a mighty confusing weekend.
*sigh*
My car's in for its service today. Fingers crossed there's nothign spectacularly wrong with it. I was afraid the tyres might need doing, and that won't be cheap. We will have to see.
Thursday, 2 April 2009
more about bowels
I've been... well, I was going to say suffering, but I've not really been suffering as such, more inconvenienced, I guess. So I've been inconvenienced these last few days by my bowels.
It's not my intention to turn this into some sort of scatological blog all about my bowel movements, but it's kinda been occupying my attention and a lot of my time this last week, as you can imagine.
Basically, I think I ate something that didn't quite agree with me. That's pretty unusual for me - my bowels are normally like cast-iron. And what it was I don't know - I've not even really got any good culprits, it just started affecting me fairly swiftly on Sunday afternoon.
Anyway, as I say, I've not really felt ill as such, just the occasional abdominal pain and the occasional need to beat a retreat to the nearest lavatory.
Thankfully things seem to have calmed down somewhat now, but it means I've not really felt in the mood to do much of anything interesting. It's difficult to know when an 'attack' will come on.
Instead, I've been trying to keep on top of the television stuff. It's getting pretty tough, I must admit. The hard-drive on my PVR is constantly hovering around the one-third full mark, which is a lot of unwatched stuff. Fingers crossed that the burden of new shows eases a little.
One thing I've been thinking is that a new show starting on the BBC called the Wire isn't actually all that new and is available on DVD. The BBC is blitzing showing the first season - it's on every weeknight! - so I'm very tempted just to watch a couple and then if I like it get the DVDs.
In a way that's transference as it means yet more DVDs to watch, but at least I won't fill my PVR's hard drive.
It's not my intention to turn this into some sort of scatological blog all about my bowel movements, but it's kinda been occupying my attention and a lot of my time this last week, as you can imagine.
Basically, I think I ate something that didn't quite agree with me. That's pretty unusual for me - my bowels are normally like cast-iron. And what it was I don't know - I've not even really got any good culprits, it just started affecting me fairly swiftly on Sunday afternoon.
Anyway, as I say, I've not really felt ill as such, just the occasional abdominal pain and the occasional need to beat a retreat to the nearest lavatory.
Thankfully things seem to have calmed down somewhat now, but it means I've not really felt in the mood to do much of anything interesting. It's difficult to know when an 'attack' will come on.
Instead, I've been trying to keep on top of the television stuff. It's getting pretty tough, I must admit. The hard-drive on my PVR is constantly hovering around the one-third full mark, which is a lot of unwatched stuff. Fingers crossed that the burden of new shows eases a little.
One thing I've been thinking is that a new show starting on the BBC called the Wire isn't actually all that new and is available on DVD. The BBC is blitzing showing the first season - it's on every weeknight! - so I'm very tempted just to watch a couple and then if I like it get the DVDs.
In a way that's transference as it means yet more DVDs to watch, but at least I won't fill my PVR's hard drive.
Wednesday, 1 April 2009
Pearl Harbor
This weekend's DVD was the, quite frankly abysmal Pearl Harbor.
But let's start with the positives - the sequence depicting the actual attack on Pearl Harbor is quite spectacular. It's also surprisingly effective at getting over the carnage and loss of life without being overly gory.
It is sensationalist, giving a slightly distorted sense that the Americans somehow won Pearl Harbor, despite actually being dealt a crushing blow - kinda like 'victory in defeat' if you will.
But then this is a Hollywood film - so much so that the 'Hollywoodness' is ultimately to the film's detriment.
It's an enormously long film at just over 3 hours. The reason for that is that it tries to take in a large arc. The actual attack doesn't happen until half way through, and the last segment is taken up by the Doolittle raid, which was sort of like a revenge attack on the Japanese mainland.
Now, taking in that big sweep you'd expect it to be trying to layer in lots of back-story or meaning to the attack. Looking at it from a cultural or political point of view.
Instead what we get is the most shoddy love-triangle in modern cinema history. You notice I used the word "modern" there - I did that for a very specific reason. the romance in the film almost comes across as a pastiche of 40s Hollywood films.
It's overwrought and melodramatic and it's way too 'perfect' - both in the sense that you've seen it all before and the dialogue has such a sheen to it that it almost gleams (presumably in that shinning, white-toothed glint of an all-American smile type fashion). It's so over-done that it's nauseating to watch.
And that's kinda true of the film as a whole - this is film-making with primary colours, not the subtle pastel shades of life itself.
The film is also woefully inaccurate. To some extent I can forgive them some things - a lot of the hardware shown in the film is more modern, for example, but then the majority of the kit has been decommissioned or is in museums. The only other option would have been to use 100% CG and that would probably have taken silly amounts of time and money.
No, the bad inaccuracies come more from the wilful disregard for simple things like facts. For example, there's a distinct air to the film that the majority of the senior characters either knew in general that an attack was coming or had information telling them Pearl Harbor was going to be attacked, but that incompetence of their superiors or public opinion somehow prevented them from taking action.
This is so grossly inaccurate it's almost offensive and represents both an abuse of artistic licence and a complete (and worrying) retelling of history.
The worst losers on this front are the Japanese. I mean, there's some token attempt to depict them as slightly reticent about going to war with American (bizarrely this in itself is actually inaccurate - part of Japan's problem was their total blindness to reality) but you really do feel this is a token effort. There's a great amount of time paid to the unconvincing American love triangle, but very little paid to the Japanese at all.
My recommendation would be to skip to the attack bit and just watch that. It may not be 100% accurate, but it's well done and gets some sort of point across.
But let's start with the positives - the sequence depicting the actual attack on Pearl Harbor is quite spectacular. It's also surprisingly effective at getting over the carnage and loss of life without being overly gory.
It is sensationalist, giving a slightly distorted sense that the Americans somehow won Pearl Harbor, despite actually being dealt a crushing blow - kinda like 'victory in defeat' if you will.
But then this is a Hollywood film - so much so that the 'Hollywoodness' is ultimately to the film's detriment.
It's an enormously long film at just over 3 hours. The reason for that is that it tries to take in a large arc. The actual attack doesn't happen until half way through, and the last segment is taken up by the Doolittle raid, which was sort of like a revenge attack on the Japanese mainland.
Now, taking in that big sweep you'd expect it to be trying to layer in lots of back-story or meaning to the attack. Looking at it from a cultural or political point of view.
Instead what we get is the most shoddy love-triangle in modern cinema history. You notice I used the word "modern" there - I did that for a very specific reason. the romance in the film almost comes across as a pastiche of 40s Hollywood films.
It's overwrought and melodramatic and it's way too 'perfect' - both in the sense that you've seen it all before and the dialogue has such a sheen to it that it almost gleams (presumably in that shinning, white-toothed glint of an all-American smile type fashion). It's so over-done that it's nauseating to watch.
And that's kinda true of the film as a whole - this is film-making with primary colours, not the subtle pastel shades of life itself.
The film is also woefully inaccurate. To some extent I can forgive them some things - a lot of the hardware shown in the film is more modern, for example, but then the majority of the kit has been decommissioned or is in museums. The only other option would have been to use 100% CG and that would probably have taken silly amounts of time and money.
No, the bad inaccuracies come more from the wilful disregard for simple things like facts. For example, there's a distinct air to the film that the majority of the senior characters either knew in general that an attack was coming or had information telling them Pearl Harbor was going to be attacked, but that incompetence of their superiors or public opinion somehow prevented them from taking action.
This is so grossly inaccurate it's almost offensive and represents both an abuse of artistic licence and a complete (and worrying) retelling of history.
The worst losers on this front are the Japanese. I mean, there's some token attempt to depict them as slightly reticent about going to war with American (bizarrely this in itself is actually inaccurate - part of Japan's problem was their total blindness to reality) but you really do feel this is a token effort. There's a great amount of time paid to the unconvincing American love triangle, but very little paid to the Japanese at all.
My recommendation would be to skip to the attack bit and just watch that. It may not be 100% accurate, but it's well done and gets some sort of point across.
Tuesday, 31 March 2009
fallen out of love
I forgot to crack my gag I'd thought up for yesterday's mini anime reviews!
Basically it went: "White Album? Shite Album more like."
See, it's sort of punny and sort of references Spinal Tap.
Not that the anime was that bad, but still, can't forget the gags.
Anyway, as the title suggests I've fallen out of love. Specifically, I've fallen out of love with Death Note.
It seems it was an intense, but ultimately fleeting affair. The passion burned brightly, and quickly burned itself out.
Er, yeah.
Basically, Death Note appears to be divided into two arcs. The first arc is focused on the battle between two characters - Light Yagami and "L" - and takes the form of a game of cat and mouse, but one in which you're not sure who's really the cat and who's the mouse.
It's all about the two of them trying to outthink each other, and they're both super-genius. Oh, there's other stuff along the way, but that's the core.
Unfortunately, the second half tries to repeat the same sort of trick, but fails spectacularly. It's trying to make the story bigger - more about world events than just focusing on two characters.
You may remember I mentioned all the silly inaccuracies it was committing when I gave a mini-review last week? Well now, because the focus has changed to the world stage those errors have almost taken over the story.
If the first arc is all about a clever psychological battle with other stuff, the second arc is all about the other stuff with some half-arsed attempts to reignite the clever psychological battle.
And that also now means I'm struggling reading it. Both arcs are exposition heavy, but before I cared and was excited to read it, now all that dialogue feels like a millstone around my neck, dragging my enjoyment with it.
Ah well, it was enjoyable while it lasted.
Basically it went: "White Album? Shite Album more like."
See, it's sort of punny and sort of references Spinal Tap.
Not that the anime was that bad, but still, can't forget the gags.
Anyway, as the title suggests I've fallen out of love. Specifically, I've fallen out of love with Death Note.
It seems it was an intense, but ultimately fleeting affair. The passion burned brightly, and quickly burned itself out.
Er, yeah.
Basically, Death Note appears to be divided into two arcs. The first arc is focused on the battle between two characters - Light Yagami and "L" - and takes the form of a game of cat and mouse, but one in which you're not sure who's really the cat and who's the mouse.
It's all about the two of them trying to outthink each other, and they're both super-genius. Oh, there's other stuff along the way, but that's the core.
Unfortunately, the second half tries to repeat the same sort of trick, but fails spectacularly. It's trying to make the story bigger - more about world events than just focusing on two characters.
You may remember I mentioned all the silly inaccuracies it was committing when I gave a mini-review last week? Well now, because the focus has changed to the world stage those errors have almost taken over the story.
If the first arc is all about a clever psychological battle with other stuff, the second arc is all about the other stuff with some half-arsed attempts to reignite the clever psychological battle.
And that also now means I'm struggling reading it. Both arcs are exposition heavy, but before I cared and was excited to read it, now all that dialogue feels like a millstone around my neck, dragging my enjoyment with it.
Ah well, it was enjoyable while it lasted.
Monday, 30 March 2009
crammed with stuff
Busy weekend.
I finally got my hair cut, so I no longer look like I've got an unruly mop stuck to my head. And the price has gone up again. When I first came here you used to get change from a tenner for a haircut. Now it costs £12.50. I know that's still not a massive amount, but it's a significant leap in a short period of time - especially when you include a tip.
And the Grand Prix season kicked off this weekend with the Australian Grand Prix. Now it may just be because there have been so many rule changes, rather than the nature of those changes, but it was a really good race - there was loads of overtaking. Hamilton, for example, started off at the back as he had to change his gearbox and ended up third.
Let's hope this bodes well for the season as a whole and is due to the cars now being able to overtake properly. Certainly there seemed ot be a lot of evidence for this with cars getting close behind and getting the traditional 'tow' followed by a burst around to overtake.
I also did some scanning. The main thing I needed to do was scan the covers of the DVD series I've watched recently, since I've had them up on e-bay for sale. I did manage to scan megami (the new one should be with me soon!) and animedia as well.
While I scanned I watched some anime (it's interesting doing it on my widescreen monitor - there's enough desktop real estate that I can have everything open without the windows overlapping).
White Album was distinctly okay. I'm not entirely sure what I was expecting of the show - I'd seen a few visuals and it seemed like it was set in the world of 'idols' which is a bizarre Japanese system, but what I hadn't been expecting was a harem anime.
And that's basically what it is when you decompose it - there's a central guy and lots of cute girls seem to be in love with him for no apparent reason. He's also got a hapless mate who fancies one of the girls.
But here's the thing - I think what they've tried to do is make a more 'adult' harem show. And I mean adult in the sense of a grown up story, rather than pornographic. Indeed, it pretty much lacks anything resembling fan-service, which is technically a core element of a proper harem show.
Now this might be okay, but there's a really weird ambience to the show. It's incredibly miserable all the time for no apparent reason. I mean, it's not like rubbish things actually happen to the characters, they're all just very melancholy. It's odd. And it affects the pacing too, which was very slow.
But then the show looks pretty - it's nicely animated and the character designs are nice. Also the characters seem quite interesting... apart from being miserable. Maybe I'm being too harsh.
Maria + Holic was disappointing. It's by the same studio that did Sayonara Zetsubo Sensei (SHAFT) and more than that it's directed by the same guy. It's also an adaptation of a slightly demented manga. They also appear to have used a lot of the same tricks that they pulled on zetsubo sensei and so visually Maria Holic is absolutely nothing to complain about (it has possibly the greatest opening credit animation ever).
Maybe, therefore, the problem was that I was expecting too much, but overall I found the series flat. I kept waiting for the gags to happen, but it seemed to lack anything resembling punchlines. As I say, maybe a bit of time and distance will make me like it more if I ever get the chance to watch it on DVD or something.
Hetalia - Axis Powers was really quite poor.
Maybe it was another show where I was also hoping for a bit much and maybe my knowledge of world history is a bit lacking, but the show doesn't really make a lot of sense.
It's also kinda offensive, but the problem is it's not wilfully offensive and neither is it being ironic. How can I explain? It's a bit like things like golliwogs and black & white minstrels. Looking back on them they're appallingly offensive and I'm sure to black people at the time they were offensive, but for most white people they just didn't think about it.
It's more like a general ignorance and thoughtlessness, rather than either deliberately being nasty or being ironic.
I finally got my hair cut, so I no longer look like I've got an unruly mop stuck to my head. And the price has gone up again. When I first came here you used to get change from a tenner for a haircut. Now it costs £12.50. I know that's still not a massive amount, but it's a significant leap in a short period of time - especially when you include a tip.
And the Grand Prix season kicked off this weekend with the Australian Grand Prix. Now it may just be because there have been so many rule changes, rather than the nature of those changes, but it was a really good race - there was loads of overtaking. Hamilton, for example, started off at the back as he had to change his gearbox and ended up third.
Let's hope this bodes well for the season as a whole and is due to the cars now being able to overtake properly. Certainly there seemed ot be a lot of evidence for this with cars getting close behind and getting the traditional 'tow' followed by a burst around to overtake.
I also did some scanning. The main thing I needed to do was scan the covers of the DVD series I've watched recently, since I've had them up on e-bay for sale. I did manage to scan megami (the new one should be with me soon!) and animedia as well.
While I scanned I watched some anime (it's interesting doing it on my widescreen monitor - there's enough desktop real estate that I can have everything open without the windows overlapping).
White Album was distinctly okay. I'm not entirely sure what I was expecting of the show - I'd seen a few visuals and it seemed like it was set in the world of 'idols' which is a bizarre Japanese system, but what I hadn't been expecting was a harem anime.
And that's basically what it is when you decompose it - there's a central guy and lots of cute girls seem to be in love with him for no apparent reason. He's also got a hapless mate who fancies one of the girls.
But here's the thing - I think what they've tried to do is make a more 'adult' harem show. And I mean adult in the sense of a grown up story, rather than pornographic. Indeed, it pretty much lacks anything resembling fan-service, which is technically a core element of a proper harem show.
Now this might be okay, but there's a really weird ambience to the show. It's incredibly miserable all the time for no apparent reason. I mean, it's not like rubbish things actually happen to the characters, they're all just very melancholy. It's odd. And it affects the pacing too, which was very slow.
But then the show looks pretty - it's nicely animated and the character designs are nice. Also the characters seem quite interesting... apart from being miserable. Maybe I'm being too harsh.
Maria + Holic was disappointing. It's by the same studio that did Sayonara Zetsubo Sensei (SHAFT) and more than that it's directed by the same guy. It's also an adaptation of a slightly demented manga. They also appear to have used a lot of the same tricks that they pulled on zetsubo sensei and so visually Maria Holic is absolutely nothing to complain about (it has possibly the greatest opening credit animation ever).
Maybe, therefore, the problem was that I was expecting too much, but overall I found the series flat. I kept waiting for the gags to happen, but it seemed to lack anything resembling punchlines. As I say, maybe a bit of time and distance will make me like it more if I ever get the chance to watch it on DVD or something.
Hetalia - Axis Powers was really quite poor.
Maybe it was another show where I was also hoping for a bit much and maybe my knowledge of world history is a bit lacking, but the show doesn't really make a lot of sense.
It's also kinda offensive, but the problem is it's not wilfully offensive and neither is it being ironic. How can I explain? It's a bit like things like golliwogs and black & white minstrels. Looking back on them they're appallingly offensive and I'm sure to black people at the time they were offensive, but for most white people they just didn't think about it.
It's more like a general ignorance and thoughtlessness, rather than either deliberately being nasty or being ironic.
Friday, 27 March 2009
tris go plop-plop
I hate pooing at work (now there's an opening sentence to a blog!).
There are two basic problems:
1. It smells and makes noise. There's little you can do about these - shit smells and you've really no way of controlling the noise.
2. It's obvious you've been for one. It takes at least twice as long as going for a slash, so there's no real way to hide it. Plus when you come back your clothes are re-arranged/tidied in a way they wouldn't normally be. Combine these with point 1 and it's pretty damn obvious what you've just done.
My issue with it is that this is kinda embarrassing. I mean, obviously everyone poos, but you wouldn't walk up to someone on the street and say "Hi, I've just defecated!" would you? But that's effectively what you're doing at work.
There's lots of evidence and potentially some embarrassing smells and noise.
Anyway, hopefully it'll be a somewhat productive weekend (I'm off the subject of poo now).
I've been trying to get stuff done during the week a bit - watching telly and tidying up for example where I have been leaving these to the weekend. That should mean a bit of free time.
I'm desperate for a haircut - it looks like I've got a mop on my head. Plus the Australian Grand Prix is on so I need to have a few spare hours to watch that. I really need to get this scanning done too as it won't be long before I get the next lot of magazines.
Unfortunately it's also a cleaning weekend this weekend so I'll have to clean the flat too, so we'll see how it goes.
There are two basic problems:
1. It smells and makes noise. There's little you can do about these - shit smells and you've really no way of controlling the noise.
2. It's obvious you've been for one. It takes at least twice as long as going for a slash, so there's no real way to hide it. Plus when you come back your clothes are re-arranged/tidied in a way they wouldn't normally be. Combine these with point 1 and it's pretty damn obvious what you've just done.
My issue with it is that this is kinda embarrassing. I mean, obviously everyone poos, but you wouldn't walk up to someone on the street and say "Hi, I've just defecated!" would you? But that's effectively what you're doing at work.
There's lots of evidence and potentially some embarrassing smells and noise.
Anyway, hopefully it'll be a somewhat productive weekend (I'm off the subject of poo now).
I've been trying to get stuff done during the week a bit - watching telly and tidying up for example where I have been leaving these to the weekend. That should mean a bit of free time.
I'm desperate for a haircut - it looks like I've got a mop on my head. Plus the Australian Grand Prix is on so I need to have a few spare hours to watch that. I really need to get this scanning done too as it won't be long before I get the next lot of magazines.
Unfortunately it's also a cleaning weekend this weekend so I'll have to clean the flat too, so we'll see how it goes.
Thursday, 26 March 2009
teribi
I've been banging on a bit about all the telly I've been watching, but I've not really been that specific about it.
I tend to watch a lot of documentaries and what I call pseudo-documentaries. Just recently there have been a lot of nature documentaries in particular.
Nature's Great Events was one. It's featured some beautiful photography, although I have to admit I've not really learned anything new. There were some bits - the artic one had some interesting stuff, but others like the Serengeti have kinda been covered before. Not that I'm saying it was bad, just not particularly new.
There's also a new series on Yellowstone. This one has been really interesting and also features much in the way of spectacular photography. Plus I really didn't know much about Yellowstone other than it's a really big volcano and one day it'll erupt and wipe out most life in North America and the dust thrown up will plunge the Earth into a mini ice age.
The other documentaries I've been watching have mainly been about Darwin and his theory of Evolution as part of a Darwin season (it's 200 years since his birth). Now whilst I greatly admire Darwin and think the Theory of Evolution is quite brilliant, these programs have kinda been running into two problems.
The first problem is that Darwin himself and his life isn't actually all that interesting. Darwin was independently wealthy and essentially devoted his entire life to gathering evidence for his Theory of Evolution. He didn't have any affairs, wasn't particularly scandalous and was a methodical and patient scientist. Which is all good, but there's only so many times you can hear that without it getting a bit repetitive.
I think that's also why people make so much out of the Galapagos trip. The reality was that he didn't really have any kind of "Eureka" moment on the Galapagos - his theory was really developed much later, it's just that people like Eureka moments.
The second problem they're having is that the Theory of Evolution is actually pretty simple. So that means documentaries explaining it are kinda all treading on the same ground.
The most successful of the docs have been those looking at the Theory at a more oblique angle - either looking at it from an oblique angle or looking at it in the context of society at the time or how people have misused, abused, misinterpreted or misunderstood it.
I also mentioned pseudo-documentaries - what do I mean by those?
Well, they're basically entertainment masquerading as a documentary. That's not meant as a criticism - I wouldn't watch them if I didn't like them - but it does make them separate. The distinction is that a documentary entertains while educating, a pseudo-doc entertains with a veneer of education.
A good example is Ramsey's Kitchen Nightmares, where old sweary-chops goes to kitchens, tells everyone they're doing a shit job and then makes them do a better job.
Specifically they're currently showing the American variant - Kitchen Nightmares USA. To be frank it's a hugely inferior product. It's amazing how different the style is to the British version.
The British version feels more real and organic to me, somehow. I mean, every week always follows the same basic pattern, but somehow in the British version it feels more like he gets to the heart of the problem and focuses on changing those, whereas in the US version it's more like they have a broader list of problems that are given equal weight. There's also a lot less swearing in the US version, interestingly, although the US version works more in the way of sound bites, they're not ones with lots of effing and geoffing in.
Another good pseudo-documentary is Grand Designs. This is all about people building their own homes or doing bespoke conversions. You get some truly bonkers ideas on the show and some of the homes are real ugly things when they're finished in my opinion. Still it's kinda nice to watch people living their dreams, especially if those dreams end up a bit nightmarish.
Britain's Best Drives has been another entertaining pseudo-doc. This one features Richard Wilson driving around bits of Britain in 50s cars. It's gentle fair, but entertaining nonetheless. Though I'm not sure how it sits with Global Warming...
What else?
Oh yeah, BBC4 has started a new season on Japan. I've not watched much of that yet, but it's all been PVRd (this is where I get into trouble you see - all the normal shows above and these come along and suddenly I've hours of unwatched telly to catch up on).
A new series of The Gadget Show has just started. I do love the Gadget Show - it's a good mixture of fun stuff and actual practical advice and reviews. Sort of like half way between old Top Gear and new Top Gear but with gadgets instead of cars, obviously.
Some new comedy shows have just started. Horne and Cordon which is by the Gavin and Stacey guys. It's a sketch show and I've got to say it's more miss than it is hit. There's a few good laughs, but lets put it this way - when you're parodying the pottery bit in the film ghost you know you're in some serious old ground.
Then there's Genius Dave Gorman's new one. It's surprisingly funny, though I have a soft spot for Dave Gorman (I know what you're thinking - you're thinking what that's done to the Graph?)
There's load of other stuff too, but this entry is way too long already!
I tend to watch a lot of documentaries and what I call pseudo-documentaries. Just recently there have been a lot of nature documentaries in particular.
Nature's Great Events was one. It's featured some beautiful photography, although I have to admit I've not really learned anything new. There were some bits - the artic one had some interesting stuff, but others like the Serengeti have kinda been covered before. Not that I'm saying it was bad, just not particularly new.
There's also a new series on Yellowstone. This one has been really interesting and also features much in the way of spectacular photography. Plus I really didn't know much about Yellowstone other than it's a really big volcano and one day it'll erupt and wipe out most life in North America and the dust thrown up will plunge the Earth into a mini ice age.
The other documentaries I've been watching have mainly been about Darwin and his theory of Evolution as part of a Darwin season (it's 200 years since his birth). Now whilst I greatly admire Darwin and think the Theory of Evolution is quite brilliant, these programs have kinda been running into two problems.
The first problem is that Darwin himself and his life isn't actually all that interesting. Darwin was independently wealthy and essentially devoted his entire life to gathering evidence for his Theory of Evolution. He didn't have any affairs, wasn't particularly scandalous and was a methodical and patient scientist. Which is all good, but there's only so many times you can hear that without it getting a bit repetitive.
I think that's also why people make so much out of the Galapagos trip. The reality was that he didn't really have any kind of "Eureka" moment on the Galapagos - his theory was really developed much later, it's just that people like Eureka moments.
The second problem they're having is that the Theory of Evolution is actually pretty simple. So that means documentaries explaining it are kinda all treading on the same ground.
The most successful of the docs have been those looking at the Theory at a more oblique angle - either looking at it from an oblique angle or looking at it in the context of society at the time or how people have misused, abused, misinterpreted or misunderstood it.
I also mentioned pseudo-documentaries - what do I mean by those?
Well, they're basically entertainment masquerading as a documentary. That's not meant as a criticism - I wouldn't watch them if I didn't like them - but it does make them separate. The distinction is that a documentary entertains while educating, a pseudo-doc entertains with a veneer of education.
A good example is Ramsey's Kitchen Nightmares, where old sweary-chops goes to kitchens, tells everyone they're doing a shit job and then makes them do a better job.
Specifically they're currently showing the American variant - Kitchen Nightmares USA. To be frank it's a hugely inferior product. It's amazing how different the style is to the British version.
The British version feels more real and organic to me, somehow. I mean, every week always follows the same basic pattern, but somehow in the British version it feels more like he gets to the heart of the problem and focuses on changing those, whereas in the US version it's more like they have a broader list of problems that are given equal weight. There's also a lot less swearing in the US version, interestingly, although the US version works more in the way of sound bites, they're not ones with lots of effing and geoffing in.
Another good pseudo-documentary is Grand Designs. This is all about people building their own homes or doing bespoke conversions. You get some truly bonkers ideas on the show and some of the homes are real ugly things when they're finished in my opinion. Still it's kinda nice to watch people living their dreams, especially if those dreams end up a bit nightmarish.
Britain's Best Drives has been another entertaining pseudo-doc. This one features Richard Wilson driving around bits of Britain in 50s cars. It's gentle fair, but entertaining nonetheless. Though I'm not sure how it sits with Global Warming...
What else?
Oh yeah, BBC4 has started a new season on Japan. I've not watched much of that yet, but it's all been PVRd (this is where I get into trouble you see - all the normal shows above and these come along and suddenly I've hours of unwatched telly to catch up on).
A new series of The Gadget Show has just started. I do love the Gadget Show - it's a good mixture of fun stuff and actual practical advice and reviews. Sort of like half way between old Top Gear and new Top Gear but with gadgets instead of cars, obviously.
Some new comedy shows have just started. Horne and Cordon which is by the Gavin and Stacey guys. It's a sketch show and I've got to say it's more miss than it is hit. There's a few good laughs, but lets put it this way - when you're parodying the pottery bit in the film ghost you know you're in some serious old ground.
Then there's Genius Dave Gorman's new one. It's surprisingly funny, though I have a soft spot for Dave Gorman (I know what you're thinking - you're thinking what that's done to the Graph?)
There's load of other stuff too, but this entry is way too long already!
Wednesday, 25 March 2009
inconweebleant
The weekend DVD rental was An Inconvenient Truth, which was the documentary on Global Warming presented by Al Gore.
There's not really a lot I can say about it, tbh.
It's well worth watching the documentary as the case for Global Warming is well presented. There's also no particular howlers in terms of the scene used - there are a few things that are over-simplified, but it's basically all there.
I'd say go and watch it, hopefully it'll do its job.
Anyway, in the absence of a proper film review I thought I'd talk about Death Note http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/encyclopedia/manga.php?id=4354 instead.
I may have mentioned it before, but the point is I've been reading Death Note.
Well, reading it is something of an understatement - "obsessively ploughing through it" would be a better description, tbh :/.
I did a similar thing with Genshiken - I'd bought all of the 9 volumes and once I'd started reading I really got that 'can't put it down' vibe and read it all in a week or two. It was really addictive, and it was also kinda a bad idea as I ended up going to bed really late and being shattered at work all day.
I've been a bit more sensible with Death Note, but I'm really enjoying it.
Weird thing is, though, until quite near the end of volume 1 I wasn't actually enjoying it that much. I dunno, it's odd and a little difficult to describe.
Basically, I've occasionally found with manga and anime that the portrayals of things can be utterly unrealistic. Now, obviously some stuff is meant to be 'unrealistic', like in Death Note, the existence of Shinigami or whatever, but those things are fine. I've no problem with them because they're genuine fantasy elements or things from the writers imagination or similar.
The problem is more stuff that's meant to be real or believable but is blatantly just wrong or silly or stupid.
In the case of Death Note, for example, there's this bizarre relationship between the NPA (Japan's FBI), the regular Japanese police, the FBI, Interpol and the G8 nations. These relationships are clearly wrong, but also made up in weird and illogical ways.
So in other words, my problem is almost that the writer hasn't bothered to do any real research and has instead made it up and got it badly wrong. The reason I have a problem with that is it's incredibly distracting to suddenly have something so jarringly wrong when you're otherwise enjoying what's going on. Normally it would really affect my enjoyment.
Ah, but I did say I was really enjoying Death Note, yes? Well I am and it's because the central plot and the relationship between the two main characters is extremely well done and incredibly interesting.
As such, despite my misgivings over the occasional "reality goof" I've still been enjoying it.
What's more it's full of really big twists. It's really not afraid to throw hefty spanners into the workings of its own story. The really clever thing is it then pick up the cogs and builds something even more intriguing each time it does.
There's not really a lot I can say about it, tbh.
It's well worth watching the documentary as the case for Global Warming is well presented. There's also no particular howlers in terms of the scene used - there are a few things that are over-simplified, but it's basically all there.
I'd say go and watch it, hopefully it'll do its job.
Anyway, in the absence of a proper film review I thought I'd talk about Death Note http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/encyclopedia/manga.php?id=4354 instead.
I may have mentioned it before, but the point is I've been reading Death Note.
Well, reading it is something of an understatement - "obsessively ploughing through it" would be a better description, tbh :/.
I did a similar thing with Genshiken - I'd bought all of the 9 volumes and once I'd started reading I really got that 'can't put it down' vibe and read it all in a week or two. It was really addictive, and it was also kinda a bad idea as I ended up going to bed really late and being shattered at work all day.
I've been a bit more sensible with Death Note, but I'm really enjoying it.
Weird thing is, though, until quite near the end of volume 1 I wasn't actually enjoying it that much. I dunno, it's odd and a little difficult to describe.
Basically, I've occasionally found with manga and anime that the portrayals of things can be utterly unrealistic. Now, obviously some stuff is meant to be 'unrealistic', like in Death Note, the existence of Shinigami or whatever, but those things are fine. I've no problem with them because they're genuine fantasy elements or things from the writers imagination or similar.
The problem is more stuff that's meant to be real or believable but is blatantly just wrong or silly or stupid.
In the case of Death Note, for example, there's this bizarre relationship between the NPA (Japan's FBI), the regular Japanese police, the FBI, Interpol and the G8 nations. These relationships are clearly wrong, but also made up in weird and illogical ways.
So in other words, my problem is almost that the writer hasn't bothered to do any real research and has instead made it up and got it badly wrong. The reason I have a problem with that is it's incredibly distracting to suddenly have something so jarringly wrong when you're otherwise enjoying what's going on. Normally it would really affect my enjoyment.
Ah, but I did say I was really enjoying Death Note, yes? Well I am and it's because the central plot and the relationship between the two main characters is extremely well done and incredibly interesting.
As such, despite my misgivings over the occasional "reality goof" I've still been enjoying it.
What's more it's full of really big twists. It's really not afraid to throw hefty spanners into the workings of its own story. The really clever thing is it then pick up the cogs and builds something even more intriguing each time it does.
Tuesday, 24 March 2009
weekend of nothing in particular
Well I feel better after yesterday's rant. As you can tell, I was unimpressed with the changes to say the least.
As you'll probably guess I put some stuff up on e-bay at the weekend. There was a bit more than I'd expected, actually as I thought I'd sell one or two things I'd held back on the last time I was doing an e-bay session. Hopefully it'll generate a bit of cashola and basically pay for getting my car taxed/serviced/insured.
However, the e-baying was about the only success I had at the weekend. I really didn't do very much at all.
I've a couple of reasons (excuses?) for that. The first was last Friday. It was an appalling day and I was utterly shattered when I got home and basically didn't really start to feel recovered until Sunday afternoon :/.
Second excuse was it turned out it was Mother's day on Sunday. I'd totally forgotten and while it doesn't affect me directly (my mother having passed away) it meant I deliberately had to put a few things off because it would be choka-block in town.
Which was also something I couldn't do. Because I'd forgotten I hadn't gone shopping on Friday and instead found myself having to go to buy a few bits on Saturday otherwise I wouldn't have had anything to eat. That meant several hours basically wasted because I didn't plan things properly.
Lastly, this week's rental DVD turned out to have 2 commentary tracks so that took a lot longer to watch than I was anticipating.
Anyway, whether they're reasons or excuses the basic point is I haven't started any scanning and I didn't watch any anime. I didn't actually get fully caught up on my recorded TV.
In fact, there's such a lot of recorded TV for me to watch I'm at serious risk of getting snowed under by it. I need to decide what the best order to do stuff in is.
As you'll probably guess I put some stuff up on e-bay at the weekend. There was a bit more than I'd expected, actually as I thought I'd sell one or two things I'd held back on the last time I was doing an e-bay session. Hopefully it'll generate a bit of cashola and basically pay for getting my car taxed/serviced/insured.
However, the e-baying was about the only success I had at the weekend. I really didn't do very much at all.
I've a couple of reasons (excuses?) for that. The first was last Friday. It was an appalling day and I was utterly shattered when I got home and basically didn't really start to feel recovered until Sunday afternoon :/.
Second excuse was it turned out it was Mother's day on Sunday. I'd totally forgotten and while it doesn't affect me directly (my mother having passed away) it meant I deliberately had to put a few things off because it would be choka-block in town.
Which was also something I couldn't do. Because I'd forgotten I hadn't gone shopping on Friday and instead found myself having to go to buy a few bits on Saturday otherwise I wouldn't have had anything to eat. That meant several hours basically wasted because I didn't plan things properly.
Lastly, this week's rental DVD turned out to have 2 commentary tracks so that took a lot longer to watch than I was anticipating.
Anyway, whether they're reasons or excuses the basic point is I haven't started any scanning and I didn't watch any anime. I didn't actually get fully caught up on my recorded TV.
In fact, there's such a lot of recorded TV for me to watch I'm at serious risk of getting snowed under by it. I need to decide what the best order to do stuff in is.
Monday, 23 March 2009
a big fat fuck you to e-bay
I normally try to keep swearing to a minimum in my blogs - just to keep them basically polite, as if I'm talking to an acquaintance, rather than a friend.
I'm not going to do that in this entry, because I'm extremely annoyed.
E-bay are a bunch of cunts.
Why the rage?
Because e-bay have done something extraordinarily retarded - they've capped postage costs.
Now fair enough, you may think, people that charge £20 on postage for a single DVD are clearly arseholes. But the problem is the way they've gone about it.
Rather than have some simple system of maximum charges based on weight of the item (since that's what the cost actually depends on) they've set a single maximum price.
What's more, like a bunch of douches, some of these max prices are ZERO - notably on DVDs. That's right, you have to have a free postage option for DVDs.
How fucking stupid is that?
So someone like me who specialises in things like box sets and collections of manga now has to have a free postage option? When it can cost up to £10 to send the thing?! I don't fucking think so, you bunch of shit-eating mother-fuckers.
It becomes patently obvious how retarded this system is if you think about sending a single DVD.
If you put a DVD on at a starting price of less than £1 e-bay doesn't charge you a listing fee. However, popular DVDs (so there's lots of copies in circulation) can often sell for less than a £1. Guess what? It costs more than £1 to send the thing.
I think many e-bayers are reasonable enough people to not mind selling DVDs cheaply so long as it doesn't cost them anything. They've already bought the DVD after all!
But with e-bays new retarded system you have to add the postage cost into your initial price, which is bound to make it more than £1. That means you get charged an insertion fee.
It then becomes patently obvious what they're doing - they're trying to suck even more cash out of buyers and sellers.
Because not only are their insertion fees, remember, e-bay also charge you % of the final cost. Plus they own paypal, which if your buyer uses that will also charge you a % fee! Now previously they couldn't charge for the postage, but by forcing you to include it in the initial price, they can charge you.
Plus they're screwing you up the arse because buyers will see that your initial bis is somethign silly like £2.50 but with free postage. Psychologically people will instinctively not go for this - I've found this in my own experiences that I've blogged about before.
What a bunch of cunts.
I think I've found a way around it, though, by using the "courier" option. This seems to allow me to not have silly starting prices, though I've no idea if I will then get charged at the end. I probably will.
I mean seriously - if they wanted to make even more money (not that they aren't dripping with it already) then they should have just put the fees up. Be honest about it. Being stealthy just makes you seem like a bunch of cunts. Which they are.
Oh - and btw, just to add insult to injury they've done this under the pretext (i.e. total fabrication) that buyers "have told them they want these maximum prices". Any buyer that thinks this is a good idea is a bigger retard than e-bay and should clearly be disregarded (if not shot out of a big cannon into the middle of the Atlantic).
I'm not going to do that in this entry, because I'm extremely annoyed.
E-bay are a bunch of cunts.
Why the rage?
Because e-bay have done something extraordinarily retarded - they've capped postage costs.
Now fair enough, you may think, people that charge £20 on postage for a single DVD are clearly arseholes. But the problem is the way they've gone about it.
Rather than have some simple system of maximum charges based on weight of the item (since that's what the cost actually depends on) they've set a single maximum price.
What's more, like a bunch of douches, some of these max prices are ZERO - notably on DVDs. That's right, you have to have a free postage option for DVDs.
How fucking stupid is that?
So someone like me who specialises in things like box sets and collections of manga now has to have a free postage option? When it can cost up to £10 to send the thing?! I don't fucking think so, you bunch of shit-eating mother-fuckers.
It becomes patently obvious how retarded this system is if you think about sending a single DVD.
If you put a DVD on at a starting price of less than £1 e-bay doesn't charge you a listing fee. However, popular DVDs (so there's lots of copies in circulation) can often sell for less than a £1. Guess what? It costs more than £1 to send the thing.
I think many e-bayers are reasonable enough people to not mind selling DVDs cheaply so long as it doesn't cost them anything. They've already bought the DVD after all!
But with e-bays new retarded system you have to add the postage cost into your initial price, which is bound to make it more than £1. That means you get charged an insertion fee.
It then becomes patently obvious what they're doing - they're trying to suck even more cash out of buyers and sellers.
Because not only are their insertion fees, remember, e-bay also charge you % of the final cost. Plus they own paypal, which if your buyer uses that will also charge you a % fee! Now previously they couldn't charge for the postage, but by forcing you to include it in the initial price, they can charge you.
Plus they're screwing you up the arse because buyers will see that your initial bis is somethign silly like £2.50 but with free postage. Psychologically people will instinctively not go for this - I've found this in my own experiences that I've blogged about before.
What a bunch of cunts.
I think I've found a way around it, though, by using the "courier" option. This seems to allow me to not have silly starting prices, though I've no idea if I will then get charged at the end. I probably will.
I mean seriously - if they wanted to make even more money (not that they aren't dripping with it already) then they should have just put the fees up. Be honest about it. Being stealthy just makes you seem like a bunch of cunts. Which they are.
Oh - and btw, just to add insult to injury they've done this under the pretext (i.e. total fabrication) that buyers "have told them they want these maximum prices". Any buyer that thinks this is a good idea is a bigger retard than e-bay and should clearly be disregarded (if not shot out of a big cannon into the middle of the Atlantic).
Friday, 20 March 2009
shitty day
I'm having a shitty day.
There's a bid I'm doing and it's not going well. I kinda guessed it wouldn't and it's clearly a total mess and an utter waste of time.
What makes it worse is that I have no idea why we're bidding it - it holds almost no relevance for us and we won't hardly do any of the work I imagine.
What makes it annoying is that the people who will do all the work have utterly dropped the ball. They were given extremely clear instructions on what to do and what they returned to us utterly failed to meet those instructions.
Plus it was late and considering they've done virtually fuck all, that lateness is just plain insulting.
What I was really hoping was my boss would just say fuck it - don't bother. These people haven't held up their end so why are we bending over backwards to get the bid done?
It's times like this I wish I could just fuck off somewhere and get drunk.
There's a bid I'm doing and it's not going well. I kinda guessed it wouldn't and it's clearly a total mess and an utter waste of time.
What makes it worse is that I have no idea why we're bidding it - it holds almost no relevance for us and we won't hardly do any of the work I imagine.
What makes it annoying is that the people who will do all the work have utterly dropped the ball. They were given extremely clear instructions on what to do and what they returned to us utterly failed to meet those instructions.
Plus it was late and considering they've done virtually fuck all, that lateness is just plain insulting.
What I was really hoping was my boss would just say fuck it - don't bother. These people haven't held up their end so why are we bending over backwards to get the bid done?
It's times like this I wish I could just fuck off somewhere and get drunk.
Thursday, 19 March 2009
an uneventful week
So I've totally failed to do any scanning. I've no particular excuse - I just couldn't be bothered is the truth. This weekend seems the best candidate for getting it done (or started at least).
I'm also planning to do a bit of e-baying this weekend. I've a few things I can flog and I need to generate a bit of cash to help out over the coming months. It's an expensive time of year what with things like car tax and car insurance due.
I've been watching Rocket Girls in the evenings. It's a quirky little show that's kinda difficult to describe.
It's ostensibly about a bunch of oddballs and their attempts to get a Japanese manned space programme going. Now that premise could easily be done in a deadly serious way, but with Rocket Girls there's a much lighter approach taken.
But the key to it is that it does also keep the serious side intact. So the space programme isn't SF type space flight - it's orbiter modules strapped to solid-fuel rockets and there's weightlesness and no sound in space, etc. But then equally it maintains the lighter anime side - the girls wear fan-service approved skin tight costumes, for example.
And yes I did say girls and the 'girls' in the title are actual high-school girls. And that's exactly what I mean - it's anime so they're cute girls, but it's not as daft as it sounds - girls weigh less and these are basically smart kids so they're not just eye candy.
It actually reminds me of a programme I once saw that basically said that women make far better astronauts than men. Because they're smaller and less bulky they're easier to get up there, but also from a weightlessness point of view having bigger muscles is actually useless. In fact, it can be more problematic, not least of all because bigger muscles suffer worse in terms of wasting away under zero-g conditions.
So it's not as daft as it sounds, but equally, it is kinda daft. Which is all good, because it's a comedy series at heart.
I also acquired the comic version of Wanted the other day and have started on it. I've gotta say I'm not hugely impressed. It gives the distinct impression of trying to be a Watchmen for Super-villains, but, well, simpler and less well written if I'm honest.
I also started on the Death Note manga. I'd only ordered volume 1 so that if it was dire I wasn't really loosing out too much - I could just flog it on e-bay and forget about it. I've ordered the other volumes so I guess that means it's not dire, although I'm not entirely sure it's as good as people seem to have been saying it is.
I'll reserve judgement for until I've read more, but I dunno, it seems almost to be moving too fast for its own good.
I'm also planning to do a bit of e-baying this weekend. I've a few things I can flog and I need to generate a bit of cash to help out over the coming months. It's an expensive time of year what with things like car tax and car insurance due.
I've been watching Rocket Girls in the evenings. It's a quirky little show that's kinda difficult to describe.
It's ostensibly about a bunch of oddballs and their attempts to get a Japanese manned space programme going. Now that premise could easily be done in a deadly serious way, but with Rocket Girls there's a much lighter approach taken.
But the key to it is that it does also keep the serious side intact. So the space programme isn't SF type space flight - it's orbiter modules strapped to solid-fuel rockets and there's weightlesness and no sound in space, etc. But then equally it maintains the lighter anime side - the girls wear fan-service approved skin tight costumes, for example.
And yes I did say girls and the 'girls' in the title are actual high-school girls. And that's exactly what I mean - it's anime so they're cute girls, but it's not as daft as it sounds - girls weigh less and these are basically smart kids so they're not just eye candy.
It actually reminds me of a programme I once saw that basically said that women make far better astronauts than men. Because they're smaller and less bulky they're easier to get up there, but also from a weightlessness point of view having bigger muscles is actually useless. In fact, it can be more problematic, not least of all because bigger muscles suffer worse in terms of wasting away under zero-g conditions.
So it's not as daft as it sounds, but equally, it is kinda daft. Which is all good, because it's a comedy series at heart.
I also acquired the comic version of Wanted the other day and have started on it. I've gotta say I'm not hugely impressed. It gives the distinct impression of trying to be a Watchmen for Super-villains, but, well, simpler and less well written if I'm honest.
I also started on the Death Note manga. I'd only ordered volume 1 so that if it was dire I wasn't really loosing out too much - I could just flog it on e-bay and forget about it. I've ordered the other volumes so I guess that means it's not dire, although I'm not entirely sure it's as good as people seem to have been saying it is.
I'll reserve judgement for until I've read more, but I dunno, it seems almost to be moving too fast for its own good.
Wednesday, 18 March 2009
wanted
This weeks rental DVD was... nothing. I didn't have one for some reason. I've generally found lovefilm to be pretty good - certainly they've maintained quicker turn-around times than I used to get with the old Amazon system.
However, this week, even though I sent the disc back on Monday there was no sign of my next rental. I checked it at the end of the week and was going to report it as a problem, but it said to give it 4 days. I then got my "it's been sent" e-mail on Saturday.
Dunno why there was the delay, but either way it meant I didn't have a rental disk to watch. This was advantageous in a way as it meant I watched more telly shows, but it also gave me the chance to watch a purchased DVD - in this case wanted.
Overall, it's a pretty fun movie.
The basic idea is that the hero is a super-assassin with special powers but at the start of the movie he doesn't know that. During the course of the movie he learns all about his powers as well as the Fraternity, a secret cabal of assassins who shape fate.
I won't do a full review here as I'll leave that for trismugistus.com at a later date, but overall I'd recommend watching it.
I wouldn't say the plot was all that great, but it's a real roller coaster action film that provides a lot of really enjoyable fights and chases. After it finished I had quite a lots of bits where I thought "that didn't make any sense" or "why did that happen?" but it's that sort of movie.
Visually it's stunning, especially since it doesn't do anything too over-the-top with the camera. Often you can watch these films and feel ill because the camera's swirling about all over the place. Here, although there are plenty of stylistic flourishes, the action is filmed in a much more straight way and so it's much easier to watch and enjoy.
---
I finished Derren Brown's book "Tricks of the Mind" over the weekend. I think I mentioned this when I started reading it and it's not that it's taken me months to read, more that I read the first half really quickly, then left it on the shelf for months and then picked it up again a little while ago.
Not sure why I did that - I've enjoyed the book - I just, I don't know, kinda got distracted, maybe?
Anyway, it's a real mish-mash of stuff, which is cool. I mean as an example there's a section on techniques for improving your memory but there's also a bit on debunking pseudo-science/mysticism and why Derren is no longer a Christian. It's quite a range of subjects, but then also it's a range of styles - memory stuff is verging on self-help (that's the wrong word, but you get the idea) whereas the debunking is more polemic.
But then you've also got humorous stories and anecdotes that border on making the book auto-biographical and stuff on how to do hypnosis as well as a fascinating discussion on why hypnosis doesn't actually exist mixed in there as well. As I say, weird mix, but it certainly works.
However, this week, even though I sent the disc back on Monday there was no sign of my next rental. I checked it at the end of the week and was going to report it as a problem, but it said to give it 4 days. I then got my "it's been sent" e-mail on Saturday.
Dunno why there was the delay, but either way it meant I didn't have a rental disk to watch. This was advantageous in a way as it meant I watched more telly shows, but it also gave me the chance to watch a purchased DVD - in this case wanted.
Overall, it's a pretty fun movie.
The basic idea is that the hero is a super-assassin with special powers but at the start of the movie he doesn't know that. During the course of the movie he learns all about his powers as well as the Fraternity, a secret cabal of assassins who shape fate.
I won't do a full review here as I'll leave that for trismugistus.com at a later date, but overall I'd recommend watching it.
I wouldn't say the plot was all that great, but it's a real roller coaster action film that provides a lot of really enjoyable fights and chases. After it finished I had quite a lots of bits where I thought "that didn't make any sense" or "why did that happen?" but it's that sort of movie.
Visually it's stunning, especially since it doesn't do anything too over-the-top with the camera. Often you can watch these films and feel ill because the camera's swirling about all over the place. Here, although there are plenty of stylistic flourishes, the action is filmed in a much more straight way and so it's much easier to watch and enjoy.
---
I finished Derren Brown's book "Tricks of the Mind" over the weekend. I think I mentioned this when I started reading it and it's not that it's taken me months to read, more that I read the first half really quickly, then left it on the shelf for months and then picked it up again a little while ago.
Not sure why I did that - I've enjoyed the book - I just, I don't know, kinda got distracted, maybe?
Anyway, it's a real mish-mash of stuff, which is cool. I mean as an example there's a section on techniques for improving your memory but there's also a bit on debunking pseudo-science/mysticism and why Derren is no longer a Christian. It's quite a range of subjects, but then also it's a range of styles - memory stuff is verging on self-help (that's the wrong word, but you get the idea) whereas the debunking is more polemic.
But then you've also got humorous stories and anecdotes that border on making the book auto-biographical and stuff on how to do hypnosis as well as a fascinating discussion on why hypnosis doesn't actually exist mixed in there as well. As I say, weird mix, but it certainly works.
Tuesday, 17 March 2009
or not 200
That's odd - according to the side bar over there that post wasn't the 200th. It says I made 147 posts in 2008 and 48 posts in 2009, which is only 195 :/. But according to the back-end dashboard thing I've made 200 posts. Odd.
Yesterday was a bit rubbish.
In the morning, as I was going out to my car, I realised I'd forgotten to fill my windscreen fluid, so I had to dash back in and get the fluid and some water. But as I did that I knocked over a bottle of oil I keep for frying chips.
It didn't quite 'go everywhere' but it made a mess on the floor, so I wiped up most of it, but had to leave properly cleaning it until I got back. I was slightly afraid the bottle of oil had cracked and would leak everywhere while I was at work.
Anyway, putting the fluid in (and the clean-up) took about 10 minutes and that meant I set off a lot later than I would normally, so I hit more traffic, which meant the journey to work was rubbish.
It was also quite warm yesterday - so much so that I didn't have to turn my heating on at all at home until just before bed. But at work, the heating was still on full blast and even though I turned down the radiator closest to me that didn't help much. So I had a fan on for most of the day but still sweated like a pig. Of course that's partially my fault for not getting my bloody hair cut at the weekend.
Then last night I had to clean up the oil mess properly, put my shopping away and cook dinner. Only for some reason I'd decided to have a fry-up - well, I know the reason, it was because I'd all sorts of random left overs. But the point is a fry-up is hardly a quick meal to do.
That meant I didn't eat until 8-ish and that obviously wrote off starting any scanning. But also I watched a documentary on peter kay's comic relief song while I had my dinner but for some reason it was all broken up due to poor reception. That wouldn't have been surprising if it was on 5, but this was channel 4 where I normally have good reception :/.
Anyway, I decided to watch the Red Garden OAV instead, so I've now finished all of that.
I guess I should warn for spoilers as I'm going to discuss the OAV which is a sequel to the show.
It's rather confusing. It's set several hundred years into the future and all of the 4 girls are still alive. This was fine - at the end of the series it's made clear that their bodies won't age and they'll live forever.
What isn't at all clear is how come all of the secondary characters in the original series are there too? Is that supposed to be based on the idea that we look like our ancestors? Well okay, but it becomes more bizarre when you see these descendants still in the same jobs as their ancestors or at the same school, or still friends, etc.
Then you have the added weirdness that the bad guy is there too, but now Lise is his 'sister' only she's not his sister she's a robot/cyborg... where the heck did that come from? And where did the other robots on Roosevelt island come from anyway? Did he make them? Why?
It was all just sort of random. I mean, it wasn't actually bad as such. It was more like they'd planned to do a fll proper sequel, but it got cancelled during production and they decided to compress the story and put it out as an OAV.
Still, it didn't really spoil my enjoyment of the series as a whole.
So that was the cap to the rubbish day - a rather disappointing OAV.
What makes it worse is I've woken up this morning knackered (I didn't stay up late) and therefore in a bad mood. We've got a quality inspection today and I really hope I don't get picked on as part of it as I'm really not up for it.
Yesterday was a bit rubbish.
In the morning, as I was going out to my car, I realised I'd forgotten to fill my windscreen fluid, so I had to dash back in and get the fluid and some water. But as I did that I knocked over a bottle of oil I keep for frying chips.
It didn't quite 'go everywhere' but it made a mess on the floor, so I wiped up most of it, but had to leave properly cleaning it until I got back. I was slightly afraid the bottle of oil had cracked and would leak everywhere while I was at work.
Anyway, putting the fluid in (and the clean-up) took about 10 minutes and that meant I set off a lot later than I would normally, so I hit more traffic, which meant the journey to work was rubbish.
It was also quite warm yesterday - so much so that I didn't have to turn my heating on at all at home until just before bed. But at work, the heating was still on full blast and even though I turned down the radiator closest to me that didn't help much. So I had a fan on for most of the day but still sweated like a pig. Of course that's partially my fault for not getting my bloody hair cut at the weekend.
Then last night I had to clean up the oil mess properly, put my shopping away and cook dinner. Only for some reason I'd decided to have a fry-up - well, I know the reason, it was because I'd all sorts of random left overs. But the point is a fry-up is hardly a quick meal to do.
That meant I didn't eat until 8-ish and that obviously wrote off starting any scanning. But also I watched a documentary on peter kay's comic relief song while I had my dinner but for some reason it was all broken up due to poor reception. That wouldn't have been surprising if it was on 5, but this was channel 4 where I normally have good reception :/.
Anyway, I decided to watch the Red Garden OAV instead, so I've now finished all of that.
I guess I should warn for spoilers as I'm going to discuss the OAV which is a sequel to the show.
It's rather confusing. It's set several hundred years into the future and all of the 4 girls are still alive. This was fine - at the end of the series it's made clear that their bodies won't age and they'll live forever.
What isn't at all clear is how come all of the secondary characters in the original series are there too? Is that supposed to be based on the idea that we look like our ancestors? Well okay, but it becomes more bizarre when you see these descendants still in the same jobs as their ancestors or at the same school, or still friends, etc.
Then you have the added weirdness that the bad guy is there too, but now Lise is his 'sister' only she's not his sister she's a robot/cyborg... where the heck did that come from? And where did the other robots on Roosevelt island come from anyway? Did he make them? Why?
It was all just sort of random. I mean, it wasn't actually bad as such. It was more like they'd planned to do a fll proper sequel, but it got cancelled during production and they decided to compress the story and put it out as an OAV.
Still, it didn't really spoil my enjoyment of the series as a whole.
So that was the cap to the rubbish day - a rather disappointing OAV.
What makes it worse is I've woken up this morning knackered (I didn't stay up late) and therefore in a bad mood. We've got a quality inspection today and I really hope I don't get picked on as part of it as I'm really not up for it.
Monday, 16 March 2009
200th post
Just thought I'd do a specific celebratory post to mark my 200th blog entry!
Not that it really means anything, it just sort of sounds like it does - 200 entries in my blog.
So hurrah for me spouting drivel 200 times in a row!
Not that it really means anything, it just sort of sounds like it does - 200 entries in my blog.
So hurrah for me spouting drivel 200 times in a row!
pulled muscle
I've pulled a muscle in my back. It's sort of in the middle on my right side, a bit below the bottom of my shoulder blade. It doesn't hurt if I just sit still but when I move in a particular way it gives me a bad twinge.
I think I pulled it yesterday while I was re-arranging all my computer gear. I've tried to put all of it on the desk where the actual PCs were on the floor before. Not sure if this is a good idea or not - it means the fans are going to be closer to me so it may be louder. I'll have to see.
I was a bit lazy with doing the desk actually - I should have done it on Saturday as part of cleaning, but I couldn't be arsed. Well, I say that, I was pretty damn knackered by mid-afternoon Saturday so maybe I couldn't have done it.
Anyway, the re-arranging took a lot longer than I thought (such things always do - you forget haw many cables and bits there are too sort out) so I did no scanning whatsoever.
That leaves me something of a quandary for the week - do I spend my evenings scanning? Or do I keep up the pace with watching anime DVDs? Either way I will watch anime, but when scanning I watch fansubs. I guess watching fansubs will be good too - the spring anime season is rapidly approaching and there will be loads of shows to catch up on. It will be good to be ahead of the game a bit.
Anyway, speaking of watching anime I finished Red Garden. The end was pretty good. There was one scene in particular that was very effective in a brutal horror kind of way. I was a little disappointed not to find out more detail about the history/back-story. It sounded quite interesting and it would have been nice to maybe have a flashback or two fleshing it out.
I haven't watched the OAV yet. I started, but it was quite late at night and having just watched the end of of the main series it was kinda jarring, because it suddenly seemed to leap forward in time and become all sci-fi, but, weirdly, with the same characters. I'm sure watching it with fresh eyes it will make more sense, but it did leave me puzzled.
I made some more of those carrot and pineapple muffins on Friday as well. Last weeks were something of a success in that they didn't collapse or explode and I didn't burn them or anything; however I found them to be very cinamony. Now don't get me wrong I love me some cinnamon, but if you're making carrot and pineapple muffins you at least want to taste the carrot and pineapple a bit.
Anyway, I therefore decided to make some more this week and drastically reduce the cinammon (just a dash instead of a teaspoon full) and, bizarrely, they still don't taste much of pineapple or cinammon. I even chucked in most of the juice the pineapples were in, but it doesn't seem to have helped the taste, only made them a bit too soggy.
Still, they're quite nice. The recipe contains raisins and I love how raisins become plump and juicy when you bake them in cakes and stuff. It's weird, normally they're kind dry things, but baked in cakes they're much nice.
I also made my spag-bol. I made a bit fi a tactical error with that, though as I started it a bit late. The recipe is phenomenal if it's given 3 or 4 hours to bubble away and reduce down, but I only had about 2 hours. It's still really nice, but in the back of my mind I know it could be even better.
I think I pulled it yesterday while I was re-arranging all my computer gear. I've tried to put all of it on the desk where the actual PCs were on the floor before. Not sure if this is a good idea or not - it means the fans are going to be closer to me so it may be louder. I'll have to see.
I was a bit lazy with doing the desk actually - I should have done it on Saturday as part of cleaning, but I couldn't be arsed. Well, I say that, I was pretty damn knackered by mid-afternoon Saturday so maybe I couldn't have done it.
Anyway, the re-arranging took a lot longer than I thought (such things always do - you forget haw many cables and bits there are too sort out) so I did no scanning whatsoever.
That leaves me something of a quandary for the week - do I spend my evenings scanning? Or do I keep up the pace with watching anime DVDs? Either way I will watch anime, but when scanning I watch fansubs. I guess watching fansubs will be good too - the spring anime season is rapidly approaching and there will be loads of shows to catch up on. It will be good to be ahead of the game a bit.
Anyway, speaking of watching anime I finished Red Garden. The end was pretty good. There was one scene in particular that was very effective in a brutal horror kind of way. I was a little disappointed not to find out more detail about the history/back-story. It sounded quite interesting and it would have been nice to maybe have a flashback or two fleshing it out.
I haven't watched the OAV yet. I started, but it was quite late at night and having just watched the end of of the main series it was kinda jarring, because it suddenly seemed to leap forward in time and become all sci-fi, but, weirdly, with the same characters. I'm sure watching it with fresh eyes it will make more sense, but it did leave me puzzled.
I made some more of those carrot and pineapple muffins on Friday as well. Last weeks were something of a success in that they didn't collapse or explode and I didn't burn them or anything; however I found them to be very cinamony. Now don't get me wrong I love me some cinnamon, but if you're making carrot and pineapple muffins you at least want to taste the carrot and pineapple a bit.
Anyway, I therefore decided to make some more this week and drastically reduce the cinammon (just a dash instead of a teaspoon full) and, bizarrely, they still don't taste much of pineapple or cinammon. I even chucked in most of the juice the pineapples were in, but it doesn't seem to have helped the taste, only made them a bit too soggy.
Still, they're quite nice. The recipe contains raisins and I love how raisins become plump and juicy when you bake them in cakes and stuff. It's weird, normally they're kind dry things, but baked in cakes they're much nice.
I also made my spag-bol. I made a bit fi a tactical error with that, though as I started it a bit late. The recipe is phenomenal if it's given 3 or 4 hours to bubble away and reduce down, but I only had about 2 hours. It's still really nice, but in the back of my mind I know it could be even better.
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