Have you ever searched for yourself on google?
There are two ways of doing this--you can search for your actual name or you can search for your username. Some people use a lot of different usernames (I've never quite seen why myself) so the second one is only really interesting if you keep the same username, like me.
I first did this when I got my first PC way back when. It was something of an eye opener. There's someone called Mark Sunderland who is a photographer (in the states, I think) and you can buy prints from him.
When I first discovered this I considered buying some of his stuff--it's not all that bad. I decided against it in the end, but it would have been kinda cool.
The search I tend to do is on my standard username, trismugistus. My website trismugistus.com always used to be the top result, but when I checked recently it had actually slipped to the second page. This seemed a little bizarre to me and makes me wonder quite how google does its rankings.
I mean, there's plenty of stuff on trismugistus.com and of course when I post in forums, etc, my website is in my sig, so it should all be interrelated. However, it occurs to me that as I've added more sites to my 'family' I've had to shrink the link. That is, it often says "trigs.com" or similar nowadays, so maybe that affects how google sees it all?
Anyway, one of the great things about google of course is you can also do image searches and that really does bring up a bizarre set of results. One of the things that's most interesting about my search results is all the scans that have been stolen from me. People don't change the filenames and since they got them from AP, that's why it finds them.
AP used to have actual stats visible--number of page views, number of dls, that sort of thing, but a while back they removed them. Now there's just the "popularity" ranking available via the gallery.
They've always had that too, and some of my stuff was up in the first ten pages, but I was always left wondering if people actually like my stuff. The google image results thing tends to suggest they kinda did :).
Friday, 29 August 2008
Thursday, 28 August 2008
ripportage
There's a siterip of AP going about on 4han. I won't link to it--you can go there and find it if such things are of interest to you.
I've discussed before how horribly ungrateful people are about the efforts scanners go to, so I won't really focus on that, but as someone who used to "work" for AP I thought I'd discuss a couple of the weirder things.
It's strange sometimes the things people get in their heads. I mean, if you look at some of the things being posted, a lot of it is just plain wrong. As in factually wrong--I don't mean regarding people's opinions, I guess people are entitled to those, but some of the things people think just aren't correct.
What puzzles me is how people get these inaccurate opinions. It's like, when I was a mod there, I wrote the FAQ. Now, I don't mean it was all entirely my original work, a lot of it was cobbled together from other sources or the existing rules, but the point is I compiled it together.
So I know what it said. It hasn't really been updated in ages and so is inaccurate in a few places, but a lot of the stuff is still valid.
Therefore, simply reading the FAQ would give people the proper information. And yet they don't--and I'm not just talking about the 4chan thing any more, I mean in general.
One of the most frustrating and annoying things about the job was all the people that would basically try to say "no, I haven't broken the rules!" when clearly they had, it's just they hadn't even bothered to read the damn rules.
It's like, in terms of the AP rip, there's a lot of rage towards bantam as the demon that owns AP. I've not spoken to him about it, but I am fairly sure he doesn't really give a rat's arse about the rip. AP has never laid claim to owning anything on its site--it just needs some mechanisms for slowing down its bandwidth usage so that he doesn't get bankrupted.
And the fundamental point is that surely it's his site--he can do what he wants with it. I know I had my emo thing a while back and said some unfortunate things at the end, but in the end I backed down because, when I'd calmed down, I remembered that fact.
But one of the weirdest things is what the rip represents. All it really shows is how successful AP has become. It's the king of the heap and so everyone's focus is on it.
So the reality is it's actually a massive compliment :/.
I've discussed before how horribly ungrateful people are about the efforts scanners go to, so I won't really focus on that, but as someone who used to "work" for AP I thought I'd discuss a couple of the weirder things.
It's strange sometimes the things people get in their heads. I mean, if you look at some of the things being posted, a lot of it is just plain wrong. As in factually wrong--I don't mean regarding people's opinions, I guess people are entitled to those, but some of the things people think just aren't correct.
What puzzles me is how people get these inaccurate opinions. It's like, when I was a mod there, I wrote the FAQ. Now, I don't mean it was all entirely my original work, a lot of it was cobbled together from other sources or the existing rules, but the point is I compiled it together.
So I know what it said. It hasn't really been updated in ages and so is inaccurate in a few places, but a lot of the stuff is still valid.
Therefore, simply reading the FAQ would give people the proper information. And yet they don't--and I'm not just talking about the 4chan thing any more, I mean in general.
One of the most frustrating and annoying things about the job was all the people that would basically try to say "no, I haven't broken the rules!" when clearly they had, it's just they hadn't even bothered to read the damn rules.
It's like, in terms of the AP rip, there's a lot of rage towards bantam as the demon that owns AP. I've not spoken to him about it, but I am fairly sure he doesn't really give a rat's arse about the rip. AP has never laid claim to owning anything on its site--it just needs some mechanisms for slowing down its bandwidth usage so that he doesn't get bankrupted.
And the fundamental point is that surely it's his site--he can do what he wants with it. I know I had my emo thing a while back and said some unfortunate things at the end, but in the end I backed down because, when I'd calmed down, I remembered that fact.
But one of the weirdest things is what the rip represents. All it really shows is how successful AP has become. It's the king of the heap and so everyone's focus is on it.
So the reality is it's actually a massive compliment :/.
Wednesday, 27 August 2008
mu of the moment
So yesterday I mentioned having watched Aegis of Uruk via download, so that also means I got a bunch of scanning done. Mostly this was the three outstanding anime mags, but I did also tackle a couple of artbooks.
I've sort of come to the realisation that part of the reason I've let the anime books pile up is because I started scanning them at 600dpi. To put this into context it took me the same time to scan two entire magazines at 400dpi as it did to scan one artbook at 600dpi. That's around 90 images compared to around 30. I think I may rationalise it a bit more--use the same criteria of just the pics I really like at 600dpi that I do for the mags. Anyway, the point of this post is that as well as watching the entirety of aegis of Uruk, I also watched a few of the old fansubs too:
I've sort of come to the realisation that part of the reason I've let the anime books pile up is because I started scanning them at 600dpi. To put this into context it took me the same time to scan two entire magazines at 400dpi as it did to scan one artbook at 600dpi. That's around 90 images compared to around 30. I think I may rationalise it a bit more--use the same criteria of just the pics I really like at 600dpi that I do for the mags. Anyway, the point of this post is that as well as watching the entirety of aegis of Uruk, I also watched a few of the old fansubs too:
- Kaiba - Hmm, I've a feeling this is brilliant. But unfortunately, I just didn't like it. There were a couple of reasons for that. First off, the art style was a real turn-off. If you've ever seen The Beatles Yellow Submarine film, or are familiar with some of the 60's psychedelic inspired art, it's like that, and it does nothing for me. But also, a lot of the story is quite abstract. This is why I suspect it's brilliant, but unfortunately I must admit I'm too stupid to work some of it out, so it just didn't do much for me.
- Monochrome Factor - This was, well, if not rubbish, then just plain dull. It just seemed like a rehash of bunch of shounen standards. It does appear to have a gay character in it, though, so I wasn't entirely sure who this was quite aimed--certainly not people who like well told stories (zing!). The third ep especially was terribly dull and horribly drawn out.
- Ikkitousen: Great Guardians - I've only seen the one ep, but I actually kinda liked it. The reason the previous animated versions of ikki tousen have failed is they've taken themselves too seriously. I know the English manga translation is all fucked up, but you can still tell that Yuji Shiozaki knows his manga is really all just about tits and arse. Great Guardians seems like it might finally have cottoned on to the same idea.
Tuesday, 26 August 2008
it's all legal like
Well, it's post weekend of doom.
Quite a good weekend in all--I got quite a lot done. I'm not sure I can be arsed to detail it all at the moment, but something of notable interest is that I did my first legal anime download.
I joined bost tv a while back when it was announced they were going to be one of the people carrying gonzo's stuff. The reason I went with bost is because it seemed pointless going for the youtube--I'm really not a fan of youtube at all--and crunchyroll just made my head hurt when I tried to work out how to use it.
Despite all that I was still a little nervous about taking the plunge. My fears were: what if I couldn't pay properly? or it needed some weird codec or other requirement and I couldn't get it to work? or the rental period expired before I got to watch it? or what if the dls didn't work properly? or it was horribly slow? or what happens if my connection flakes out?
What I decided to do was go for the Tower of Druage: The Aegis of Uruk. This seemed to be a short 12-episode show and it isn't quite in my normal preferred genres (i.e. it's a fantasy show) so it wouldn't hugely bother me if it went tits up.
The 12 ep show thing didn't quite work out--turns out it's one of those half season long shows that are really a full length season chopped into two parts for production reasons and it ends on a massive cliff-hanger.
But in terms of the actual viewing of the show it was very much a success.
First off, you can buy individual episodes or a season pass--I bought a season pass as they work out as slightly better value and it seems a little pointless just watching one or two eps.
The season pass basically does what it says--it lets you watch all the episodes in the season. But the key is you can still watch them when you want to. So if you go on holiday or something the pass doesn't expire. The episodes you've already watched do expire, because you're actually just "renting" them.
You rent them for 14 days and you can watch them as many times as you want in that period. That alleviated my concerns over my connection flaking out (which it did do several times) since I could just restart.
In terms of the streaming, the eps are actually broken up like DVD chapters--there's a gonzo splash then the opening credits, part 1, part 2, closing credits and next episode preview and you can skip through them or use the slider to move about.
Obviously, as it's streaming, you need to wait sometimes, but I found the streaming speed pretty quick. Basically, I found that if I start the thing going and then pause it and give it five or ten minutes to build up a buffer then I could watch pretty much un-interrupted and skip the credits.
So when watching eps in a row you can just start ep 1 and half way through open the link to ep 2. If you start and pause ep 2 then by the time you finish ep1, ep2 will be all streamed and you can watch it interrupted, plus start ep3 going in the same way.
Also, and I'm not entirely sure if this is just for season pass customers, you can properly dl the episodes. The dl is intended for ipods and PSPs, but the PSP one is just a regular mp4 file so you can watch it on your PC. I've no idea (yet) if these 'expire' in the same way as the streaming rental.
It's all pretty high quality files--they're not huge res like a lot of fansubs are, but they're a superior product to fansubs (e.g. image quality is better--there's no artifacting, the sound never goes out of sink and the translation is a proper translation, not the broken English you tend to get in fansubs).
As I say, I watched all of the Aegis of Uruk. It was actually pretty good--there's a slightly weird weird "meta" level to it, but as fantasy stuff goes it was okay. But here's the key: if I'd seen it via fansubs it wouldn't have gone on my list of DVDs to buy, so really Gonzo or anybody else wouldn't have seen a penny. But with the streaming, they do--it's a lot less per ep, obviously, but it's better than nothing, surely?
And, while I don't think I'll ever be a real fan of dl content over DVDs, at least if this is the way it all goes then I have found I can live with it.
Quite a good weekend in all--I got quite a lot done. I'm not sure I can be arsed to detail it all at the moment, but something of notable interest is that I did my first legal anime download.
I joined bost tv a while back when it was announced they were going to be one of the people carrying gonzo's stuff. The reason I went with bost is because it seemed pointless going for the youtube--I'm really not a fan of youtube at all--and crunchyroll just made my head hurt when I tried to work out how to use it.
Despite all that I was still a little nervous about taking the plunge. My fears were: what if I couldn't pay properly? or it needed some weird codec or other requirement and I couldn't get it to work? or the rental period expired before I got to watch it? or what if the dls didn't work properly? or it was horribly slow? or what happens if my connection flakes out?
What I decided to do was go for the Tower of Druage: The Aegis of Uruk. This seemed to be a short 12-episode show and it isn't quite in my normal preferred genres (i.e. it's a fantasy show) so it wouldn't hugely bother me if it went tits up.
The 12 ep show thing didn't quite work out--turns out it's one of those half season long shows that are really a full length season chopped into two parts for production reasons and it ends on a massive cliff-hanger.
But in terms of the actual viewing of the show it was very much a success.
First off, you can buy individual episodes or a season pass--I bought a season pass as they work out as slightly better value and it seems a little pointless just watching one or two eps.
The season pass basically does what it says--it lets you watch all the episodes in the season. But the key is you can still watch them when you want to. So if you go on holiday or something the pass doesn't expire. The episodes you've already watched do expire, because you're actually just "renting" them.
You rent them for 14 days and you can watch them as many times as you want in that period. That alleviated my concerns over my connection flaking out (which it did do several times) since I could just restart.
In terms of the streaming, the eps are actually broken up like DVD chapters--there's a gonzo splash then the opening credits, part 1, part 2, closing credits and next episode preview and you can skip through them or use the slider to move about.
Obviously, as it's streaming, you need to wait sometimes, but I found the streaming speed pretty quick. Basically, I found that if I start the thing going and then pause it and give it five or ten minutes to build up a buffer then I could watch pretty much un-interrupted and skip the credits.
So when watching eps in a row you can just start ep 1 and half way through open the link to ep 2. If you start and pause ep 2 then by the time you finish ep1, ep2 will be all streamed and you can watch it interrupted, plus start ep3 going in the same way.
Also, and I'm not entirely sure if this is just for season pass customers, you can properly dl the episodes. The dl is intended for ipods and PSPs, but the PSP one is just a regular mp4 file so you can watch it on your PC. I've no idea (yet) if these 'expire' in the same way as the streaming rental.
It's all pretty high quality files--they're not huge res like a lot of fansubs are, but they're a superior product to fansubs (e.g. image quality is better--there's no artifacting, the sound never goes out of sink and the translation is a proper translation, not the broken English you tend to get in fansubs).
As I say, I watched all of the Aegis of Uruk. It was actually pretty good--there's a slightly weird weird "meta" level to it, but as fantasy stuff goes it was okay. But here's the key: if I'd seen it via fansubs it wouldn't have gone on my list of DVDs to buy, so really Gonzo or anybody else wouldn't have seen a penny. But with the streaming, they do--it's a lot less per ep, obviously, but it's better than nothing, surely?
And, while I don't think I'll ever be a real fan of dl content over DVDs, at least if this is the way it all goes then I have found I can live with it.
Thursday, 21 August 2008
weekend of dooooooooom
Well, not really.
I've yet another day off work tomorrow and Monday is one of the UK's few Bank Holidays so I've got a mega four-day weekend.
I'm not sure whether to put together a mega-plan or just play it by ear. There's quite a few things I want to do, but also I could do with just sitting down and chilling, tbh. One thing I definitely need to do is get a haircut and I need to pick some dry-cleaning up, so I will do those on Friday and I could turn it into something of a proper shopping trip--I need some new trainers, for example. Hmm.
Trouble is, after my whole going a bit nuts buying animu the other day I've now gone a bit nuts buying manga so I don't want to spend too much money. At least I had an excuse with the animu (ADV and Geneon going tits up). Here I really haven't, as the series I've ordered aren't old or going out of print or anything.
Speaking of Geneon--Black Lagoon disk1 turned up last night. I got the special edition with the steelcase book (as I did for the 1st Barrage) and guess what--it's got Geneon's name plastered all over it. Even though it's now being released by Funimation.
I'm guessing I had the wrong end of the stick a little. Basically, what I think has happened is that Funimation have simply taken over the distribution rights for the series that Geneon had on the go. Newer licences I guess may be treated differently, but at least it means good continuity of releases. I'd also guess that the ADV shows they picked up may be a little different as ADV properly lost the rights to those shows.
Oh, and also, the cover of the steelcase features photos of a model dressed as Revy, and man is it hawt.
I've yet another day off work tomorrow and Monday is one of the UK's few Bank Holidays so I've got a mega four-day weekend.
I'm not sure whether to put together a mega-plan or just play it by ear. There's quite a few things I want to do, but also I could do with just sitting down and chilling, tbh. One thing I definitely need to do is get a haircut and I need to pick some dry-cleaning up, so I will do those on Friday and I could turn it into something of a proper shopping trip--I need some new trainers, for example. Hmm.
Trouble is, after my whole going a bit nuts buying animu the other day I've now gone a bit nuts buying manga so I don't want to spend too much money. At least I had an excuse with the animu (ADV and Geneon going tits up). Here I really haven't, as the series I've ordered aren't old or going out of print or anything.
Speaking of Geneon--Black Lagoon disk1 turned up last night. I got the special edition with the steelcase book (as I did for the 1st Barrage) and guess what--it's got Geneon's name plastered all over it. Even though it's now being released by Funimation.
I'm guessing I had the wrong end of the stick a little. Basically, what I think has happened is that Funimation have simply taken over the distribution rights for the series that Geneon had on the go. Newer licences I guess may be treated differently, but at least it means good continuity of releases. I'd also guess that the ADV shows they picked up may be a little different as ADV properly lost the rights to those shows.
Oh, and also, the cover of the steelcase features photos of a model dressed as Revy, and man is it hawt.
Wednesday, 20 August 2008
making breakthrough
Watched me some more Gurren Lagann last night. The show just gets better and better is about all I can really say. Where I thought Godannar was like mecha anime given a massive dose of viagra, Gurren Lagann is like mecha anime given a massive does of testosterone.
Since I decided a while ago to tweak how my novel, MitL, is structured, I've been doing some work on it. What I've decided is to have the more traditional sci-fi elements regarding the "brain in the box" be contained in a prologue and epilogue. The main story then will be the two strands and the prologue and epilogue act to give those stories the other level.
That all sounds more complicated than it is, but basically I've been working on the prologue and it's all proving a bit of a 'mare. I've been trying to "workshop" the piece to some degree using urbis. I've been putting it up, getting crit and then reworking it.
The problem is that what I was really aiming at when I started was a stark, narrative style to the piece. Also, I wanted it to be quite short and to the point--the idea is that it's a mysterious little taster that is only really made clear in the prologue. The problem is that that's not really how you're supposed to write fiction nowadays.
What you're supposed to do is "show don't tell". Which is to say instead of having "He lost his brother at an early age--cancer, the big C. It coloured the rest of his formative years." You instead have proper scenes showing these things.
But it's a novel--if you expand everything up into scenes, you get an immense tome that documents every minutiae of your character lives. So there has to be compromise. If the brother's death is important to the story (and it sounds like it is) then it should be expanded on. If not, then telling is more okay, though obviously still not great.
This is especially true for sci-fi, where you get lots of "accoutrements". If I simply want there to be something that has anti-gravity capability jerry-rigged to it in my story then do I need to have an entire set of scenes devoted to its construction? Or do I just tell you that the something has "jerry-rigged small anti-gravity pods strapped to the sides"?
Well, unless it's key to the story, it's the latter, obviously--because really the above is more like description for sci-fi. It's more like me describing the surroundings than it is me 'telling' you the story. It's not really violating show don't tell.
Since I decided a while ago to tweak how my novel, MitL, is structured, I've been doing some work on it. What I've decided is to have the more traditional sci-fi elements regarding the "brain in the box" be contained in a prologue and epilogue. The main story then will be the two strands and the prologue and epilogue act to give those stories the other level.
That all sounds more complicated than it is, but basically I've been working on the prologue and it's all proving a bit of a 'mare. I've been trying to "workshop" the piece to some degree using urbis. I've been putting it up, getting crit and then reworking it.
The problem is that what I was really aiming at when I started was a stark, narrative style to the piece. Also, I wanted it to be quite short and to the point--the idea is that it's a mysterious little taster that is only really made clear in the prologue. The problem is that that's not really how you're supposed to write fiction nowadays.
What you're supposed to do is "show don't tell". Which is to say instead of having "He lost his brother at an early age--cancer, the big C. It coloured the rest of his formative years." You instead have proper scenes showing these things.
But it's a novel--if you expand everything up into scenes, you get an immense tome that documents every minutiae of your character lives. So there has to be compromise. If the brother's death is important to the story (and it sounds like it is) then it should be expanded on. If not, then telling is more okay, though obviously still not great.
This is especially true for sci-fi, where you get lots of "accoutrements". If I simply want there to be something that has anti-gravity capability jerry-rigged to it in my story then do I need to have an entire set of scenes devoted to its construction? Or do I just tell you that the something has "jerry-rigged small anti-gravity pods strapped to the sides"?
Well, unless it's key to the story, it's the latter, obviously--because really the above is more like description for sci-fi. It's more like me describing the surroundings than it is me 'telling' you the story. It's not really violating show don't tell.
Tuesday, 19 August 2008
various viewings
Watched the rest of Black Lagoon: First Barrage last night.
It really is very good. I can always tell by how quickly I get through it--some shows take me weeks and I can't watch more than a couple of ep's at a time. BL I've watched the whole thing in two evenings of 6 ep's each. One for a review in future I think, though obviously now it's a Funimation release, but one would hope they're essentially just re-releasing, rather than fiddling with it.
The animation is of a very high standard, which does seem to be one of the advantages of going the 12-episode seasons route. I wish the Japanese audio was 5.1, but there's an English 5.1 up-mix. The extras are a little wimpy for a whole separate disk, but I can understand why they went that route--3 releases but the steelcase book has 4 DVD slots.
One of the bizarre things is that just as Geneon packed up they were starting to release some really good stuff. Geneon always used to be stuck in that mode of squeezing as much cash out of the user as possible. 8 disk releases used to be their standard, with no extras and no frills. But just before the end they seemed to be releasing stuff with fewer disks, putting in plenty of extras, doing nice packs like the steelbooks.
I'm not sure if it's ironic or just annoying :/.
Last night I also watched "Britain from Above" which is a new short documentary series presented by Andrew Marr. It's quite entertaining if a little "documentary lite". There also weren't quite as many nice map views with stuff overlayed on them this time. But then it was mainly about agriculture and farm use, so it's not surprising there wasn't so much to show in that fashion.
Over the w/end I watched Pan's Labyrinth. It's a Spanish language film by Guillermo Del Toro. Apparently Del Toro likes to mix it up--he does one big Hollywood film (Hellboy, for example) and then one independent Spanish language film (I think he's actually Mexican, but I'm not sure).
It was good, but unfortunately it was a bit of a hype-victim for me. I'd heard quite a lot that it was amazing and read some good reviews and so it had that difficult job of living up to the hype in my head. Even so it was good--perhaps a smidge too long, but not exhaustingly so.
I'm guessing it was released as a 2-disker (I watched it on rental) as the extras were thin on the ground on this disk--just a commentary by Del Toro. But that's not a bad thing--Del Toro gives good commentary on the films of his I've seen before.
It really is very good. I can always tell by how quickly I get through it--some shows take me weeks and I can't watch more than a couple of ep's at a time. BL I've watched the whole thing in two evenings of 6 ep's each. One for a review in future I think, though obviously now it's a Funimation release, but one would hope they're essentially just re-releasing, rather than fiddling with it.
The animation is of a very high standard, which does seem to be one of the advantages of going the 12-episode seasons route. I wish the Japanese audio was 5.1, but there's an English 5.1 up-mix. The extras are a little wimpy for a whole separate disk, but I can understand why they went that route--3 releases but the steelcase book has 4 DVD slots.
One of the bizarre things is that just as Geneon packed up they were starting to release some really good stuff. Geneon always used to be stuck in that mode of squeezing as much cash out of the user as possible. 8 disk releases used to be their standard, with no extras and no frills. But just before the end they seemed to be releasing stuff with fewer disks, putting in plenty of extras, doing nice packs like the steelbooks.
I'm not sure if it's ironic or just annoying :/.
Last night I also watched "Britain from Above" which is a new short documentary series presented by Andrew Marr. It's quite entertaining if a little "documentary lite". There also weren't quite as many nice map views with stuff overlayed on them this time. But then it was mainly about agriculture and farm use, so it's not surprising there wasn't so much to show in that fashion.
Over the w/end I watched Pan's Labyrinth. It's a Spanish language film by Guillermo Del Toro. Apparently Del Toro likes to mix it up--he does one big Hollywood film (Hellboy, for example) and then one independent Spanish language film (I think he's actually Mexican, but I'm not sure).
It was good, but unfortunately it was a bit of a hype-victim for me. I'd heard quite a lot that it was amazing and read some good reviews and so it had that difficult job of living up to the hype in my head. Even so it was good--perhaps a smidge too long, but not exhaustingly so.
I'm guessing it was released as a 2-disker (I watched it on rental) as the extras were thin on the ground on this disk--just a commentary by Del Toro. But that's not a bad thing--Del Toro gives good commentary on the films of his I've seen before.
Monday, 18 August 2008
didn't quite do it
Bit of a weird weekend--had lots planned, but didn't quite do those specific things, but did closely related stuff instead.
I was planning to scan all the new mags, but haven't scanned any of them. But I did do some scanning--I scanned the DVD covers for Genshiken, Ai Yori Aoshi and GUNxSWORD, which I'll use for reviews and stuff. Also, I went through all my artbooks and unglued them so that I can scan them, which is a very tedious and time consuming process (you heat the spines with an iron to melt the glue and then pull out the pages).
I'd planned to phone my Dad, which I did, but due to circumstances I had to cut the call short and didn't quite get to talk to him about everything I'd wanted. Plus he had some questions about my freeview box, so that took most of the time up.
I'd also planned to go out to a particular pub for a few beers, and I did go out, but ended up around a friends place and was driving so didn't have any beers.
I'd planned to get a haircut, but due to needing to collect a parcel from Farnham Post Office and also wanting to send a couple of e-bay parcels I didn't get the chance. Plus it occurred to me I've got next Friday off, so I can just do it then.
The parcel I picked up had Gurren Lagann set 2 in it, but also had Aika R-16: Virgin Missions in it. As I'd mentioned before I'd planned to watch Black Lagoon this w/end. I was actually planning to cane it and watch the whole 1st season, but instead I watched the original Aika that I remembered I had still to watch as well as R-16.
Surprisingly, both shows turned out to be pretty good. The original is pretty old, so the animation is not the greatest, but what it does have--action, comedy and fan-service are there in spades. R-16 is meant to be a prequal, but it actually kinda doesn't quite make sense with the continuity, but it's no biggy as the show is also more of the same--action, comedy and fan-service.
I did also get stuck into Black Lagoon as well, though, and am now half way through. It's very good, though I've a feeling I still prefer the manga, but there's not much in it.
Dunno--I know I did stuff, but because I'm a list-oriented person because the stuff I didn't wasn't quite to plan it makes it feel like I've not achieved anything.
It's like, I put a load of stuff on e-bay too (I've been doing so much e-baying recently I'm almost out of stuff to sell :/) but because I put it all on in one day and (I now realise) a bit early in the day for my usual target audience, it doesn't quite feel like I've done it properly.
I was planning to scan all the new mags, but haven't scanned any of them. But I did do some scanning--I scanned the DVD covers for Genshiken, Ai Yori Aoshi and GUNxSWORD, which I'll use for reviews and stuff. Also, I went through all my artbooks and unglued them so that I can scan them, which is a very tedious and time consuming process (you heat the spines with an iron to melt the glue and then pull out the pages).
I'd planned to phone my Dad, which I did, but due to circumstances I had to cut the call short and didn't quite get to talk to him about everything I'd wanted. Plus he had some questions about my freeview box, so that took most of the time up.
I'd also planned to go out to a particular pub for a few beers, and I did go out, but ended up around a friends place and was driving so didn't have any beers.
I'd planned to get a haircut, but due to needing to collect a parcel from Farnham Post Office and also wanting to send a couple of e-bay parcels I didn't get the chance. Plus it occurred to me I've got next Friday off, so I can just do it then.
The parcel I picked up had Gurren Lagann set 2 in it, but also had Aika R-16: Virgin Missions in it. As I'd mentioned before I'd planned to watch Black Lagoon this w/end. I was actually planning to cane it and watch the whole 1st season, but instead I watched the original Aika that I remembered I had still to watch as well as R-16.
Surprisingly, both shows turned out to be pretty good. The original is pretty old, so the animation is not the greatest, but what it does have--action, comedy and fan-service are there in spades. R-16 is meant to be a prequal, but it actually kinda doesn't quite make sense with the continuity, but it's no biggy as the show is also more of the same--action, comedy and fan-service.
I did also get stuck into Black Lagoon as well, though, and am now half way through. It's very good, though I've a feeling I still prefer the manga, but there's not much in it.
Dunno--I know I did stuff, but because I'm a list-oriented person because the stuff I didn't wasn't quite to plan it makes it feel like I've not achieved anything.
It's like, I put a load of stuff on e-bay too (I've been doing so much e-baying recently I'm almost out of stuff to sell :/) but because I put it all on in one day and (I now realise) a bit early in the day for my usual target audience, it doesn't quite feel like I've done it properly.
Thursday, 14 August 2008
It only hurts when I...
I've done something to my left foot.
I don't know what I've done, but it hurts when I walk. It's basically the 'ball' of my foot (I dunno if that's the proper word--it's the forward part before your toes where your weight goes when you take a step). When I apply too much pressure, or pressure at a weird angle, like twisting on it, it's really quite painful.
It's a little sporadic though--it'll 'go' and walking is agony, but otherwise it's okay. It's a bit like as if two tendons are pushing against each other--so long as I don't put too much weight on it they're okay, but past a certain point and they become inflamed.
It started about a week ago and I've been trying to stay off it as much as I can, but then I'm not exactly active anyway, so it's not much different :/. Mainly I'm walking with a bit of a deliberate limp to avoid it.
I got a USB hub recently--it's been an absolute pain in the arse swapping cables over (and also kinda dodgy because of where I have to lean to get at them) so I figured a hub was the answer.
It's a 7 port one and it's pretty good. It seems a little slow when transferring data to my external HDDs, but nothing disastrous and it's not like I use the HDDs 24/7 or anything.
I've also finished off GUNxSWORD. The ending is satisfying--I'm often let down by anime endings, but this one was pretty good. It did leave quite a few things hanging though, as if they ran out of time a bit, but the main story was properly resolved.
Now I need to decide what to watch next. I was actually making something of a dent in my unwatched 'mu pile, but unfortunately I've been on a spending splurge following my loan coming through (I know, I know, but some of it is due to practicality--with ADV and Geneon going tits up I wanted to get some of their shows before they're completely sold out).
I should actually get Gurren Lagann Disk2 (actually disks 3&4--they're coming out in double packs) and the box for Code Geass (which has 2 DVDs in, I believe) this month, so I'll be watching them. But also, I believe funimation's release of Black Lagoon: Second Barrage is out this month too. I guess that means sitting down and properly watching the first season is the order of the day then :).
I don't know what I've done, but it hurts when I walk. It's basically the 'ball' of my foot (I dunno if that's the proper word--it's the forward part before your toes where your weight goes when you take a step). When I apply too much pressure, or pressure at a weird angle, like twisting on it, it's really quite painful.
It's a little sporadic though--it'll 'go' and walking is agony, but otherwise it's okay. It's a bit like as if two tendons are pushing against each other--so long as I don't put too much weight on it they're okay, but past a certain point and they become inflamed.
It started about a week ago and I've been trying to stay off it as much as I can, but then I'm not exactly active anyway, so it's not much different :/. Mainly I'm walking with a bit of a deliberate limp to avoid it.
I got a USB hub recently--it's been an absolute pain in the arse swapping cables over (and also kinda dodgy because of where I have to lean to get at them) so I figured a hub was the answer.
It's a 7 port one and it's pretty good. It seems a little slow when transferring data to my external HDDs, but nothing disastrous and it's not like I use the HDDs 24/7 or anything.
I've also finished off GUNxSWORD. The ending is satisfying--I'm often let down by anime endings, but this one was pretty good. It did leave quite a few things hanging though, as if they ran out of time a bit, but the main story was properly resolved.
Now I need to decide what to watch next. I was actually making something of a dent in my unwatched 'mu pile, but unfortunately I've been on a spending splurge following my loan coming through (I know, I know, but some of it is due to practicality--with ADV and Geneon going tits up I wanted to get some of their shows before they're completely sold out).
I should actually get Gurren Lagann Disk2 (actually disks 3&4--they're coming out in double packs) and the box for Code Geass (which has 2 DVDs in, I believe) this month, so I'll be watching them. But also, I believe funimation's release of Black Lagoon: Second Barrage is out this month too. I guess that means sitting down and properly watching the first season is the order of the day then :).
Wednesday, 13 August 2008
creepy crawleys
I seem to be infested with spiders this summer.
Everywhere I turn there's one hanging in the corner of the room. As soon as I set something down leaning against a wall a spider seems to set up a home in the crack that's formed.
Now, I'm not really arachnophobic, as such. I mean, I'll admit I'm not the hugest fan of bugs in general. But with spiders, I only don't like them when they're fairly large or they have fat bodies.
A lot of it's to do with all the legs--which is why I don't like bugs in general--but also when you get those spiders with the big fat bodies, I dunno, it weirds me out for some reason.
Luckily the ones I seem to get are more of the tiny body with long spindly legs variety, so I don't mind them too much. I get sick of having to clean up all the cobwebs, though.
And I also once heard that we each swallow several spiders (a year? in our lives?) while we sleep--occassionally they fall off of the roof (that's how they end up in the bath) and occassionally their fall happens to coincide with your open mouth. That's why I tend to pick them up and chuck them out the window when I find them in my living room/bedroom area.
Forgot to mention--newtype, animedia and animage turned up on Monday. Less than a week again, I believe. I really am impressed with cd-japan. Hopefully I'll get them scanned before the w/end, but if not I'll definitely do them then.
Everywhere I turn there's one hanging in the corner of the room. As soon as I set something down leaning against a wall a spider seems to set up a home in the crack that's formed.
Now, I'm not really arachnophobic, as such. I mean, I'll admit I'm not the hugest fan of bugs in general. But with spiders, I only don't like them when they're fairly large or they have fat bodies.
A lot of it's to do with all the legs--which is why I don't like bugs in general--but also when you get those spiders with the big fat bodies, I dunno, it weirds me out for some reason.
Luckily the ones I seem to get are more of the tiny body with long spindly legs variety, so I don't mind them too much. I get sick of having to clean up all the cobwebs, though.
And I also once heard that we each swallow several spiders (a year? in our lives?) while we sleep--occassionally they fall off of the roof (that's how they end up in the bath) and occassionally their fall happens to coincide with your open mouth. That's why I tend to pick them up and chuck them out the window when I find them in my living room/bedroom area.
Forgot to mention--newtype, animedia and animage turned up on Monday. Less than a week again, I believe. I really am impressed with cd-japan. Hopefully I'll get them scanned before the w/end, but if not I'll definitely do them then.
Tuesday, 12 August 2008
e-bay
I use e-bay quite a lot.
Generally with the restricted living arrangements I have, it's difficult to keep a lot of stuff. But I tend to buy a lot of stuff.
Throwing it away is a (heart-breaking) last resort. Car Boot sales are a waste of a day, plus you have to sell everything at, like 5p, which is just pointless. That means using e-bay is the only real option.
It's a lot better than it was--back when I started, getting your stuff up was like pushing red hot needles underneath your own fingernails--distinctly painful, and very slow going. Nowadays it's a lot smoother in that regard.
But it doesn't mean it's without its problems. People have totally unrealistic ideas about things.
Often is the time I've put things on at a reasonable "buy it now" price and loads of people will watch it, but no-one will actually buy. Then I'll put it on as a much lower "bid" type auction, and guess what? It'll often go for what I was asking the week before, if not slightly more.
Then there's postage. People seem to have no idea how much it actually costs to send something through the post.
The Royal Mail is expensive, unless your item is heavy. Since most of what I sell is single books and DVDs it makes it look really expensive.
But that's not me charging a lot--it's because those are the Royal Mail's prices. People have no idea. I mean all they need to do is just go an look at the Royal Mail website--it's all explained on there.
It's like padded envelopes--I add a pound to cover these. Because, averaged out, that's what they cost. Padded envelopes are not cheap--especially the really big ones, which are way more than £1. Then you've sellotape, pens to write the address on, the carpark charge so I can get into the post office. But people just don't seem to get this.
But my biggest gripe is paypal.
I have no problems with e-bay charging fees or taking a cut of what an item goes for. That's how auction houses work. They've got a big site that presumably costs a lot to maintain and run and develop, etc. I've no real problems there.
What I object to is that paypal charge a small fortune for doing almost nothing whatsoever. My banks don't even charge me for transferring money and they're a bunch of bandits--how the hell can paypal justify it? Plus, they're just part of e-bay who are already raking in a small fortune.
But you almost can't do auctions without offering paypal. I've tried with just postal order and personnel cheque, but those auctions never go anywhere.
It's almost like racketeering.
Generally with the restricted living arrangements I have, it's difficult to keep a lot of stuff. But I tend to buy a lot of stuff.
Throwing it away is a (heart-breaking) last resort. Car Boot sales are a waste of a day, plus you have to sell everything at, like 5p, which is just pointless. That means using e-bay is the only real option.
It's a lot better than it was--back when I started, getting your stuff up was like pushing red hot needles underneath your own fingernails--distinctly painful, and very slow going. Nowadays it's a lot smoother in that regard.
But it doesn't mean it's without its problems. People have totally unrealistic ideas about things.
Often is the time I've put things on at a reasonable "buy it now" price and loads of people will watch it, but no-one will actually buy. Then I'll put it on as a much lower "bid" type auction, and guess what? It'll often go for what I was asking the week before, if not slightly more.
Then there's postage. People seem to have no idea how much it actually costs to send something through the post.
The Royal Mail is expensive, unless your item is heavy. Since most of what I sell is single books and DVDs it makes it look really expensive.
But that's not me charging a lot--it's because those are the Royal Mail's prices. People have no idea. I mean all they need to do is just go an look at the Royal Mail website--it's all explained on there.
It's like padded envelopes--I add a pound to cover these. Because, averaged out, that's what they cost. Padded envelopes are not cheap--especially the really big ones, which are way more than £1. Then you've sellotape, pens to write the address on, the carpark charge so I can get into the post office. But people just don't seem to get this.
But my biggest gripe is paypal.
I have no problems with e-bay charging fees or taking a cut of what an item goes for. That's how auction houses work. They've got a big site that presumably costs a lot to maintain and run and develop, etc. I've no real problems there.
What I object to is that paypal charge a small fortune for doing almost nothing whatsoever. My banks don't even charge me for transferring money and they're a bunch of bandits--how the hell can paypal justify it? Plus, they're just part of e-bay who are already raking in a small fortune.
But you almost can't do auctions without offering paypal. I've tried with just postal order and personnel cheque, but those auctions never go anywhere.
It's almost like racketeering.
Monday, 11 August 2008
a home for my scans
Well, something of a new chapter in the continuing saga of my scans.
I discovered that you can buy extra space from google. This blog is actually hosted by google and I really like the interface and it randomly occurred to me that I should set up a blog for scan city.
I'd discovered that when you upload pictures to your blog, they go into something called picasa web folders, also a google product. Then I discoverd you could buy the extra space and a plan formed that I could buy a wodge and upload my magazine scans there. That way, I can still use the main scan-city site to host my artbook scans as I'd originally planned, but it means my magazine scans aren't 'going to waste' (not that they ever were--just after the whole AP thing they'd been left without a home).
So I've set it up here - scan-city blog. It took a little experimentation last night to get things to work as I'd hoped. What I hadn't appreciated is that pics you upload via the blog get resized to be a max of 1600 pixels high. But if you upload directly to picasa they can be a lot bigger, so I had to work all that out.
Also, what I don't want to do is upload my originals. Generally, I actually scan at 400ddpi and occasionally do 600dpi too. I also save as very high quality jpegs, making the individual files quite monster.
Also, things like posters I often take multiple angles of. My scanner is A3, but Japanese mags are generally slightly larger than A4, so when they do a 2-page size poster it's a little bigger than A3. That means as well as doing a full-page scan, if it's a series I like or an image I like, I often scan it in two halves as well.
But I don't want all of them on there, or at those sorts of sizes, so it means I'm going to have to go through and re-save everything. This also gives me the opportunity to add a "micro sig" I came up with to identify the scans as mine.
I'm kinda used to this--it's similar to what I used to do for upload to AP--but of course I never kept the versions I uploaded to AP (my thinking at the time was why bother--I've got bigger versions already :/) so it means over a years worth of stuff to plough through :(.
I've also decided to combine the spreads from now on, rather than do individual pages like they are for that first Animage that's up there at the moment. It means I can make the files smaller, there's physically less files to upload and I also think it looks better.
I also scanned the new megami this w/end and I actually scanned some other stuff too--a freebie book and 'groundwork of gurren lagann'. Not huge things with too many scans, but hopefully it sets a trend.
Nia book turned up on Friday--it's nice, although I'm not really into loli, so it's not quite in the same league as the yoko book was. I've also ordered a second copy of Geass Rebels following the successful completion of some e-bay auctions.
Obviously doing some scanning means I had a chance to watch some new 'mu:
What else? Oh yeah--having spent a fortune on cleaning products the other w/end I brought them to bear this w/end, and everything (well, most everything) is all sparkly fresh again.
I discovered that you can buy extra space from google. This blog is actually hosted by google and I really like the interface and it randomly occurred to me that I should set up a blog for scan city.
I'd discovered that when you upload pictures to your blog, they go into something called picasa web folders, also a google product. Then I discoverd you could buy the extra space and a plan formed that I could buy a wodge and upload my magazine scans there. That way, I can still use the main scan-city site to host my artbook scans as I'd originally planned, but it means my magazine scans aren't 'going to waste' (not that they ever were--just after the whole AP thing they'd been left without a home).
So I've set it up here - scan-city blog. It took a little experimentation last night to get things to work as I'd hoped. What I hadn't appreciated is that pics you upload via the blog get resized to be a max of 1600 pixels high. But if you upload directly to picasa they can be a lot bigger, so I had to work all that out.
Also, what I don't want to do is upload my originals. Generally, I actually scan at 400ddpi and occasionally do 600dpi too. I also save as very high quality jpegs, making the individual files quite monster.
Also, things like posters I often take multiple angles of. My scanner is A3, but Japanese mags are generally slightly larger than A4, so when they do a 2-page size poster it's a little bigger than A3. That means as well as doing a full-page scan, if it's a series I like or an image I like, I often scan it in two halves as well.
But I don't want all of them on there, or at those sorts of sizes, so it means I'm going to have to go through and re-save everything. This also gives me the opportunity to add a "micro sig" I came up with to identify the scans as mine.
I'm kinda used to this--it's similar to what I used to do for upload to AP--but of course I never kept the versions I uploaded to AP (my thinking at the time was why bother--I've got bigger versions already :/) so it means over a years worth of stuff to plough through :(.
I've also decided to combine the spreads from now on, rather than do individual pages like they are for that first Animage that's up there at the moment. It means I can make the files smaller, there's physically less files to upload and I also think it looks better.
I also scanned the new megami this w/end and I actually scanned some other stuff too--a freebie book and 'groundwork of gurren lagann'. Not huge things with too many scans, but hopefully it sets a trend.
Nia book turned up on Friday--it's nice, although I'm not really into loli, so it's not quite in the same league as the yoko book was. I've also ordered a second copy of Geass Rebels following the successful completion of some e-bay auctions.
Obviously doing some scanning means I had a chance to watch some new 'mu:
- Allison & Lillia. Watched a couple more and my opinion is unchanged. It's really very good indeed. The story itself is quest like in nature, but it's also reminiscent of something like Kino's Journey. In fact, if you imagine Kino's, but with a central purpose as well as less reliance on the abstract and allegorical, you're pretty much there.
- Naisho no Tsubomi. Hmm, if I admit I thought this was good, it also kinda marks me out as a weirdo. This is what I could describe as a "coming of age" slice of life story. As in literally--it's about a girl changing into a young woman if you see what I mean. She enters puberty, gets a first crush on a boy, discovers what pregnancy is really all about (her mum). Really then this is more aimed at young teenage girls, but it's actually pretty well done--it has a strong air of reality to it and is sensitively done.
- Amatsuki. This was really very good. After something of a spate of Shounen Ai type shows I'd thought that this may be another, but it isn't at all really. It's about a kid that seems to have been time jumped back to the Edo period and has spirits and magic and stuff. That's not a very good sell, but I actually really enjoyed it--another stand out show of the season for me.
- xxxHOLIC - Kei. Kinda okay, I guess. I'm disadvantaged that I've not seen the original and I believe this is also somehow tied into Tsubasa Reservoir Chronicles, which I'm also unfamiliar with. I've an upcoming review of X where I kinda discuss how I don't quite "get" CLAMP, so I'll leave it there, I guess.
What else? Oh yeah--having spent a fortune on cleaning products the other w/end I brought them to bear this w/end, and everything (well, most everything) is all sparkly fresh again.
Friday, 8 August 2008
image test
Just testing out the image thing, really.
Oh hey - that seems to work quite well. In theory, clicking the above should bring up a larger image, but I can't test that till it's published, so here goes.
Oh - the above is a vector of Kei from Dirty Pair Flash I'm working on.
hostage
Watched a film called hostage last night. It was okay, but it did feel like it sorta lacked something. I dunno, it was like it lacked twists--as if there were parts that were meant to be twists, but they didn't quite have the punch to be proper twists.
The film starred Bruce Willis. I'm not sure if I quite like Bruce Willis--I mean, he seems to end up in a lot of poor films, but has also been in some really rather good ones. In terms of him as a person, though, every interview or thing I've heard about him has kinda made him sound like a bit of a dick-head.
Most recently I read the Kevin Smith collected blog book thing and he was in that (Smith is in Die Hard 4). And even though Smith professes his adoration for the man, what he writes in terms of what happened when he was there shooting kinda underlined the impression I have that Willis is a bit of bell-end.
My TV is on the fritz a bit. I got digital a little while back and have been nothing but impressed. However, the other day the reception seemed to go on the fritz, and I dunno if you've ever seen digital when the reception is poor, but it's outright unwatchable.
That's its big disadvantage. For normal telly if the reception is poor, you can still kinda watch it, it'll just have more 'snow' or the sound will be crackly. For digital if the reception is poor it stutters and the picture breaks up to such an extent you just cannot watch it. And it tends to be a threshold thing as well--perfectly fine down to a given strength, and then *bam* unwatchable.
Hopefully this fritzyness is due to a poor connection that I know about. I've asked my landlord to take a look see if it's come loose. Otherwise I'm kinda knackered. The worst thing is it's primarily the BBC channels that are affected, and it's those I watch the most :(.
Just got e-mails saying animedia, animage and newtype are on the way--so I should have them next week :).
The film starred Bruce Willis. I'm not sure if I quite like Bruce Willis--I mean, he seems to end up in a lot of poor films, but has also been in some really rather good ones. In terms of him as a person, though, every interview or thing I've heard about him has kinda made him sound like a bit of a dick-head.
Most recently I read the Kevin Smith collected blog book thing and he was in that (Smith is in Die Hard 4). And even though Smith professes his adoration for the man, what he writes in terms of what happened when he was there shooting kinda underlined the impression I have that Willis is a bit of bell-end.
My TV is on the fritz a bit. I got digital a little while back and have been nothing but impressed. However, the other day the reception seemed to go on the fritz, and I dunno if you've ever seen digital when the reception is poor, but it's outright unwatchable.
That's its big disadvantage. For normal telly if the reception is poor, you can still kinda watch it, it'll just have more 'snow' or the sound will be crackly. For digital if the reception is poor it stutters and the picture breaks up to such an extent you just cannot watch it. And it tends to be a threshold thing as well--perfectly fine down to a given strength, and then *bam* unwatchable.
Hopefully this fritzyness is due to a poor connection that I know about. I've asked my landlord to take a look see if it's come loose. Otherwise I'm kinda knackered. The worst thing is it's primarily the BBC channels that are affected, and it's those I watch the most :(.
Just got e-mails saying animedia, animage and newtype are on the way--so I should have them next week :).
Wednesday, 6 August 2008
suddenly, from out of nowhere... next week
Wow - it's been a week since I last posted an entry on the old blogo. Here's why:
Thursday was absolutely manic at work. There was a sudden decision to bid for something and I was roped in to do the legwork. Really, this was an impossible task, because the PQQ in question was some 40-50 pages in length. There would have been no way I could have done it if it hadn't been for an interesting discovery.
The PQQ was a direct copy (and I mean literally copy-and-paste) of an old PQQ we'd done for another contract. I won't go into details, but basically I was able to rip all the answers out, dust them down and re-use them. It still meant we had about 6 hours to do an entire 40-odd page PQQ, but it meant it got done.
Friday through Monday I was on holiday (more on that later), but since I only do the bloggage at work, that meant no posts.
Then yesterday, Tuesday, we went to Warminister to meet some guys from a company we may be teaming with on another opportunity. Meeting went well, but it did mean we were basically out of the office all day, so no post.
---
So, about the weekend.
It kinda went well, but on the other hand I didn't really get done what I really wanted to, namely the implementation of the new version of scan-city. This wasn't really for any other reason than I couldn't be arsed--I could have got it done, but instead I did other stuff :/.
Some of the highlights for the other stuff:
Watched Ai Yori Aoshi Enishi. It wasn't awful, like I was dreading, but then equally it wasn't anything special. I mean, it was basically just more of the same, but this time focusing a little more on some of the other characters. There was no real progress with Aoi and Kaoru's relationship and it ended in that typical "maintaing the status quo is best" ending you (unfortunately) get in these shows. Look for a review of both this and the main series in future.
I also cracked into GUNxSWORD. It's one of those shows that I've collected and have left sat on the shelf unwatched for years. I seem to remember watching the first DVD at some point before, but I never got any further. Why I'm not sure, as it's really good. Perhaps it's because the start is quite slow--the 'big' plot doesn't really kick in until the second/third disk, which is kinda late. Character design is by my fave guy, Takahiro Kimura. Animation is uniformly very good, which is almost a surprise in and of itself for a Gonzo show. Quite a few extras on the disks to boot.
The only real problem I'm having is with the subtitles--they're really quick and can be a little difficult to result. I'll have to re-watch in dub I think, which is no great shakes as it's got a 5.1 mix. Another one I'll be reviewing in future, I think.
My site update this w/end was a wall of LuLu I did a while ago. It's been on mt for ages and has become my second most popular wall on there. I also uploaded it to AP, where it's been fairly well received--it is quite old, after all. I also uploaded a png version of the LuLu vector to AP, which is actually a site update in a couple of weeks (in psd and jpg formats).
Lastly on the walling front, I uploaded one version of my dragonaut wall to mt. That's not proven so popular, but I was kinda expecting that. It's a fairly plain wall, for one thing (there's another version with a planet behind her, but I can't claim to be entirely happy with how that turned out, tbh). But also, dragonaut wasn't a brilliant series from what I saw of it and I know it wasn't very popular. Also, the chara designs are a little, well... extreme, shall we say? They aren't to everybody's tastes anyway.
I'm feeling a bit of a walling bug at the moment--this is again where I lament my doing too many hobbies, as it'll probably have passed before I get back up to speed on things I've given more priority like scan-city :/.
The new megami turned up on Monday, so I'll get that scanned. I didn't do any of the scanning I was hoping too over the w/end either :(. What the heck was I doing? Well, actually I was playing a bit of life catchup. You know I've been banging on about a lack of cash and needing a debt-consolidation loan? Well that all came through and so I spent a lot of the w/end getting in all the essentials I've been doing without--like electricity (the meter had dropped to less than £5.00!) and petrol (I'd been running on vapours the last week) and cleaning products (my bathroom has not been cleaned in weeks and mould is starting to grow :/), and it all sucked up a lot of time, but I'm pretty much sorted now.
Plus, last night I got two new artbooks through. Geass Rebellions, which is absolutely beautiful. I'm going to buy a second one of those for when I trash this one for scans. And Mine Blue, which has got some lovely stuff in, but it's only about A5 size--not sure if it's worth scanning it, tbh. I've got the Nia artbook on the way too.
Thursday was absolutely manic at work. There was a sudden decision to bid for something and I was roped in to do the legwork. Really, this was an impossible task, because the PQQ in question was some 40-50 pages in length. There would have been no way I could have done it if it hadn't been for an interesting discovery.
The PQQ was a direct copy (and I mean literally copy-and-paste) of an old PQQ we'd done for another contract. I won't go into details, but basically I was able to rip all the answers out, dust them down and re-use them. It still meant we had about 6 hours to do an entire 40-odd page PQQ, but it meant it got done.
Friday through Monday I was on holiday (more on that later), but since I only do the bloggage at work, that meant no posts.
Then yesterday, Tuesday, we went to Warminister to meet some guys from a company we may be teaming with on another opportunity. Meeting went well, but it did mean we were basically out of the office all day, so no post.
---
So, about the weekend.
It kinda went well, but on the other hand I didn't really get done what I really wanted to, namely the implementation of the new version of scan-city. This wasn't really for any other reason than I couldn't be arsed--I could have got it done, but instead I did other stuff :/.
Some of the highlights for the other stuff:
Watched Ai Yori Aoshi Enishi. It wasn't awful, like I was dreading, but then equally it wasn't anything special. I mean, it was basically just more of the same, but this time focusing a little more on some of the other characters. There was no real progress with Aoi and Kaoru's relationship and it ended in that typical "maintaing the status quo is best" ending you (unfortunately) get in these shows. Look for a review of both this and the main series in future.
I also cracked into GUNxSWORD. It's one of those shows that I've collected and have left sat on the shelf unwatched for years. I seem to remember watching the first DVD at some point before, but I never got any further. Why I'm not sure, as it's really good. Perhaps it's because the start is quite slow--the 'big' plot doesn't really kick in until the second/third disk, which is kinda late. Character design is by my fave guy, Takahiro Kimura. Animation is uniformly very good, which is almost a surprise in and of itself for a Gonzo show. Quite a few extras on the disks to boot.
The only real problem I'm having is with the subtitles--they're really quick and can be a little difficult to result. I'll have to re-watch in dub I think, which is no great shakes as it's got a 5.1 mix. Another one I'll be reviewing in future, I think.
My site update this w/end was a wall of LuLu I did a while ago. It's been on mt for ages and has become my second most popular wall on there. I also uploaded it to AP, where it's been fairly well received--it is quite old, after all. I also uploaded a png version of the LuLu vector to AP, which is actually a site update in a couple of weeks (in psd and jpg formats).
Lastly on the walling front, I uploaded one version of my dragonaut wall to mt. That's not proven so popular, but I was kinda expecting that. It's a fairly plain wall, for one thing (there's another version with a planet behind her, but I can't claim to be entirely happy with how that turned out, tbh). But also, dragonaut wasn't a brilliant series from what I saw of it and I know it wasn't very popular. Also, the chara designs are a little, well... extreme, shall we say? They aren't to everybody's tastes anyway.
I'm feeling a bit of a walling bug at the moment--this is again where I lament my doing too many hobbies, as it'll probably have passed before I get back up to speed on things I've given more priority like scan-city :/.
The new megami turned up on Monday, so I'll get that scanned. I didn't do any of the scanning I was hoping too over the w/end either :(. What the heck was I doing? Well, actually I was playing a bit of life catchup. You know I've been banging on about a lack of cash and needing a debt-consolidation loan? Well that all came through and so I spent a lot of the w/end getting in all the essentials I've been doing without--like electricity (the meter had dropped to less than £5.00!) and petrol (I'd been running on vapours the last week) and cleaning products (my bathroom has not been cleaned in weeks and mould is starting to grow :/), and it all sucked up a lot of time, but I'm pretty much sorted now.
Plus, last night I got two new artbooks through. Geass Rebellions, which is absolutely beautiful. I'm going to buy a second one of those for when I trash this one for scans. And Mine Blue, which has got some lovely stuff in, but it's only about A5 size--not sure if it's worth scanning it, tbh. I've got the Nia artbook on the way too.
Wednesday, 30 July 2008
small reprieve
Wages went in sometime yesterday--I honestly can't get my head around what happens with my pay any more. It's not the end of the month and it's not the last Friday. It just seems to be "sort of towards the end... ish" :/.
But at least it means something of a reprieve - loans still not materialised. In the letter it mentioned something about the 5th of August--I hope it's not that they're waiting till then. The whole point of getting a loan is that I need the money now. Delaying it seems pointless. Especially since it means both my old loan and c-card payments will come out, and the whole point is to reduce/remove those as soon as possible :/.
Got a message saying the new megami is on the way, so I should have that next week some time. Hopefully I can pump in some artbook scanning this long w/end to clear a few of them out of the way.
But at least it means something of a reprieve - loans still not materialised. In the letter it mentioned something about the 5th of August--I hope it's not that they're waiting till then. The whole point of getting a loan is that I need the money now. Delaying it seems pointless. Especially since it means both my old loan and c-card payments will come out, and the whole point is to reduce/remove those as soon as possible :/.
Got a message saying the new megami is on the way, so I should have that next week some time. Hopefully I can pump in some artbook scanning this long w/end to clear a few of them out of the way.
Tuesday, 29 July 2008
oops
Looks like I'm fucked with my wage.
It turned out that I didn't get paid last Friday at all... Which is actually a bit of an issue--I'm positive I'm supposed to get paid on the last Friday in the month, which was last Friday.
Either way, it means I am probably without any cash to my name until Thursday, when I definitely will get paid.
I've therefore got just about everything crossed that the loan gets sorted today. If not I could be in some deep, deep shit, as I know I've got a couple of cheques that are due to come out as well as the direct debit for my car loan repayments due sometime this week.
I'm really in the hands of fate for this one :(.
Finished Look to Windward. Definitely a cracking book.
I also got the aircon up and running when I got back from work, and the evening was therefore a whole lot more pleasant than it otherwise would have been. Standing in front of the cold air blasting out of an aircon unit when the world outside is swelteringly hot is probably one of the most enjoyable experiences in the world.
It turned out that I didn't get paid last Friday at all... Which is actually a bit of an issue--I'm positive I'm supposed to get paid on the last Friday in the month, which was last Friday.
Either way, it means I am probably without any cash to my name until Thursday, when I definitely will get paid.
I've therefore got just about everything crossed that the loan gets sorted today. If not I could be in some deep, deep shit, as I know I've got a couple of cheques that are due to come out as well as the direct debit for my car loan repayments due sometime this week.
I'm really in the hands of fate for this one :(.
Finished Look to Windward. Definitely a cracking book.
I also got the aircon up and running when I got back from work, and the evening was therefore a whole lot more pleasant than it otherwise would have been. Standing in front of the cold air blasting out of an aircon unit when the world outside is swelteringly hot is probably one of the most enjoyable experiences in the world.
Monday, 28 July 2008
Swelteridge
A few years back now I bought an air conditioner.
The reason was because we'd had such a hot summer the year before I'd gotten virtually no sleep. I find it very difficult to sleep when it gets above a certain temperature at night. It's especially difficult in this country, I find, as heat is always accompanied by humidity (I presume because we're an island nation).
The aircon was awesome and allowed me to get a lot more sleep and be a lot more comfortable during the ensuing hot summer.
However, the last couple of summers have been total non-events, with almost constant rain (remember the big floods). So I've kinda moth-balled the aircon unit. I mean, the unit is still by it's window, but I've put all the pipes and bits away in some box somewhere, as is usually my way given my cramped living quarters.
But ironically this w/end was of course sweltering and I really could have done with having my aircon going. Especially last night, when it was just so muggy when I was trying to sleep.
The problem is also made worse by the fact that I live next to a river, so any open window is just a big invitation for all manner of flying bugs to wander in. Which is especially annoying at night when they're attracted by the lights. Running the aircon means all the windows are closed, and I even have a special cut-out I put over the window the aircon pokes out of so that no heat gets back in.
Tonight I shall make it my mission to get the aircon out and back working again. Luckily, I have next Friday and Monday off, so the chaos of half-opened boxes this causes shouldn't be a hassle for too long as I can tidy up then.
Finally finished off Ai Yori Aoshi. I've got the sequel "Enishi"to watch next. I've a horrible feeling this will be terrible, as the end of the first series kinda didn't leave anything open--it ended and was a proper end, so what can they put in a sequel?
I'm still of the opinion Ai Yori Aoshi is disappointing. There was some real flashes of greatness in the show. It could have been such a good straight romantic story with a sort of Romeo and Juliet feel. But instead we get half that and half "generic harem show". It just seemed such a... well, a waste.
I've nearly finished ploughing through Look to Windward, which is one of the Culture Novels by Ian M Banks. It was for a long time the last, but I believe he's done a new culture novel, "Matter".
When Banks is on form, as he most definitely is in Windward, I enjoy his stuff so much. They end up being the sorts of books that make me remember why I love reading and why I enjoy writing too. Sometimes I forget, when I'm struggling with something that's a bit more turgid. The Lord of the Rings, for example, made me forget for the best part of two years.
I'm pretty sure I've now read all the Banks sci-fi stuff (well, except Matter, which isn't out in pb yet). I've often wondered whether I should check out the non-sci-fi stuff--maybe later when I clear some more of my other unread books.
I also achieved my main objective for the w/end. trismugistus.com has been updated!
I've added a review of the quite good, but not quite great Ergo Proxy.
I also worked on a whole series of weeks of updates. These include a further 5 reviews, two wallpapers and associated character psd files, so that's ten weeks worth seeing the site clear up until the end of September, I believe.
It's also my plan to get scan-city up and working over my upcoming long-weekend, with lots of lovely artbooks to download. Whether I go for a super-splooge approach and get all the scans up at once (current favourite) or do it in a more phased approach I'm not sure yet, but at least it will be active.
The reason was because we'd had such a hot summer the year before I'd gotten virtually no sleep. I find it very difficult to sleep when it gets above a certain temperature at night. It's especially difficult in this country, I find, as heat is always accompanied by humidity (I presume because we're an island nation).
The aircon was awesome and allowed me to get a lot more sleep and be a lot more comfortable during the ensuing hot summer.
However, the last couple of summers have been total non-events, with almost constant rain (remember the big floods). So I've kinda moth-balled the aircon unit. I mean, the unit is still by it's window, but I've put all the pipes and bits away in some box somewhere, as is usually my way given my cramped living quarters.
But ironically this w/end was of course sweltering and I really could have done with having my aircon going. Especially last night, when it was just so muggy when I was trying to sleep.
The problem is also made worse by the fact that I live next to a river, so any open window is just a big invitation for all manner of flying bugs to wander in. Which is especially annoying at night when they're attracted by the lights. Running the aircon means all the windows are closed, and I even have a special cut-out I put over the window the aircon pokes out of so that no heat gets back in.
Tonight I shall make it my mission to get the aircon out and back working again. Luckily, I have next Friday and Monday off, so the chaos of half-opened boxes this causes shouldn't be a hassle for too long as I can tidy up then.
Finally finished off Ai Yori Aoshi. I've got the sequel "Enishi"to watch next. I've a horrible feeling this will be terrible, as the end of the first series kinda didn't leave anything open--it ended and was a proper end, so what can they put in a sequel?
I'm still of the opinion Ai Yori Aoshi is disappointing. There was some real flashes of greatness in the show. It could have been such a good straight romantic story with a sort of Romeo and Juliet feel. But instead we get half that and half "generic harem show". It just seemed such a... well, a waste.
I've nearly finished ploughing through Look to Windward, which is one of the Culture Novels by Ian M Banks. It was for a long time the last, but I believe he's done a new culture novel, "Matter".
When Banks is on form, as he most definitely is in Windward, I enjoy his stuff so much. They end up being the sorts of books that make me remember why I love reading and why I enjoy writing too. Sometimes I forget, when I'm struggling with something that's a bit more turgid. The Lord of the Rings, for example, made me forget for the best part of two years.
I'm pretty sure I've now read all the Banks sci-fi stuff (well, except Matter, which isn't out in pb yet). I've often wondered whether I should check out the non-sci-fi stuff--maybe later when I clear some more of my other unread books.
I also achieved my main objective for the w/end. trismugistus.com has been updated!
I've added a review of the quite good, but not quite great Ergo Proxy.
I also worked on a whole series of weeks of updates. These include a further 5 reviews, two wallpapers and associated character psd files, so that's ten weeks worth seeing the site clear up until the end of September, I believe.
It's also my plan to get scan-city up and working over my upcoming long-weekend, with lots of lovely artbooks to download. Whether I go for a super-splooge approach and get all the scans up at once (current favourite) or do it in a more phased approach I'm not sure yet, but at least it will be active.
Friday, 25 July 2008
salvation
Loan documents turned up last night, finally.
I was beginning to get more than a little worried as the end of the month approached. If it isn't all set up by then, things could get a little hairy for me.
My other irons in the fire seem to be bearing some fruit as well, though again, they seem to have taken an awfully long time to get there. I dunno, maybe it's just because of the pressure situation that it's seemed that way.
Luckily this month I'm sorta okay because pay day happens to be a bit earlier (for reasons there's no point detailing) but it does mean I get a little bit of wiggle room in terms of timing. If it was next month, I'd be in deep shit.
I'm hoping to have a fairly relaxing weekend this weekend. My only real goal is to get some site updates under way again. It's been too long since I actively updated my sites.
The problem is there's never enough time to do all the hobbies I have. For example, just recently I've been reading a lot, which means other things have to drop out to make room for it. But that means they start building up.
It's like I've done virtually no walling for what must be the best part of 6 months. But then where would I have found the time?
Part of me wants to scale back--give greater focus to fewer things. The problem is it's the variety that's a big part of what makes the individual things fun. If I spent all my time on one or two things, I'd become bored very quickly and then end up doing other stuff anyway.
I was beginning to get more than a little worried as the end of the month approached. If it isn't all set up by then, things could get a little hairy for me.
My other irons in the fire seem to be bearing some fruit as well, though again, they seem to have taken an awfully long time to get there. I dunno, maybe it's just because of the pressure situation that it's seemed that way.
Luckily this month I'm sorta okay because pay day happens to be a bit earlier (for reasons there's no point detailing) but it does mean I get a little bit of wiggle room in terms of timing. If it was next month, I'd be in deep shit.
I'm hoping to have a fairly relaxing weekend this weekend. My only real goal is to get some site updates under way again. It's been too long since I actively updated my sites.
The problem is there's never enough time to do all the hobbies I have. For example, just recently I've been reading a lot, which means other things have to drop out to make room for it. But that means they start building up.
It's like I've done virtually no walling for what must be the best part of 6 months. But then where would I have found the time?
Part of me wants to scale back--give greater focus to fewer things. The problem is it's the variety that's a big part of what makes the individual things fun. If I spent all my time on one or two things, I'd become bored very quickly and then end up doing other stuff anyway.
Thursday, 24 July 2008
odd names
This news article on the BBC has tickled me.
What a very peculiar thing to do - naming your child Talula Does The Hula From Hawaii. I mean, it doesn't even make sense as an expression :/.
On the one hand I'm of the "poor kid" frame of mind, but on the other I'm thinking "lol".
Pretty slow just recently--still knackered after Tuesday so I've not really done much except watch a bit of telly.
Gadget show had there summer special on Monday. Suzi Perry in a bikini--life isn't all bad :D.
What a very peculiar thing to do - naming your child Talula Does The Hula From Hawaii. I mean, it doesn't even make sense as an expression :/.
On the one hand I'm of the "poor kid" frame of mind, but on the other I'm thinking "lol".
Pretty slow just recently--still knackered after Tuesday so I've not really done much except watch a bit of telly.
Gadget show had there summer special on Monday. Suzi Perry in a bikini--life isn't all bad :D.
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