lewis hamilton & contractual obligations

Well, I can't go without mentioning the formula one world championship and the winning there of by young Lewis Hamilton.

It's been a great season this last year. I mean, there was some dodgyness and not a little controversy, but then those things always make the season more interesting, if not actually being good in and of themselves, but Lewis triumphing is a perfect end to it all.

It was a well deserved victory, and I truly think he is one of the best drivers that this country, if not the world, has produced in ages.

What makes things even more exciting is he seems to be one of a crop of new drivers coming up just recently. As much as I personally like Michael Schumacher, I can't deny that things became a little stayed while he was dominant. The sport kinda lacked for any real rising stars of his calibre.

I mean, there were a few good drivers, as there are every year, but not in the volume we seem to have good newbies this year.

I did actually manage to spoiler the race for myself by catching the end of the broadcast (I normally TiVo it so I can skip the adds) but what I didn't realise was that he only won it right at the very end by passing Timo Glock on the last or second-to-last corner. It was still quite exciting, even though I knew the outcome.

Anyway, what I also wanted to mention was that next year there are a whole raft of changes coming. Firstly, they're getting slick tyres back, thank god. Also, they're banning all these "down force aids" which a) make the cars look fucking awful and b) are also part of the reason over-taking had become difficult.

All these down force things make the air coming out the back really turbulent, making it difficult to really get close enough to get a good tow. Also, if the air is messy it hampers the effectiveness of these down force aids, meaning it was difficult to follow another car closely.

I don't know the details on that one, but I've been saying for a while they needed to sort out the down force, as it's made it far more difficult to overtake, reducing the spectacle of the sport.

Anyway, the other thing that's intrigued me has been this new energy recovery system. I hadn't got a clue what that was all about, but on the commentary for the last race they implied it was almost like an electrical version of a turbo. It sounded like, once it's built up a bit, you can push a button and it gives you a "boost to overtake". If that's really the case, it should make things very interesting indeed.

Oh, and I've been checking my contract, as a blogger, and apparently I'm contractually obliged to comment on the whole Brand/Ross thing.

I can't honestly say I give fuck.

I've not much exposure to Brand - I've heard his radio show a couple of times and it was funny, but I've seen him on telly and found him unfunny. As for Ross, I used to like him a while back on the radio, but then went off him as he (and this is an opinion I'd formed a while back, it's just a co-incidence that people have been saying the same thing) really seemed to bully his guests, especially on the chat show. I dunno - he just seemed to keep stepping over the line.

Anyway, I haven't heard the offending show, didn't use listen again and don't read the papers, so I have no idea what was actually said and therefore don't have any real opinion.

What did interest me was that, apparently, only 2 people actually complained during the show (and those were about swearing), but within 2 weeks, 30-odd thousand had complained. That just says so much, it's scary.

Clearly the intended target audience for Brand's show "got" the joke, but those who aren't listeners were not amused. Seems to me there's nothing else that really needs saying.

backlogs

Well, what I was afraid of appears to be happening - I've got a backlog of scans building up.

Not that I can really blame it for the backlog, but I was kinda surprised actually. The latest issue of Megami seems to have set something of a new record, in that I think I got an e-mail saying it was on its way last Friday and it was here on Monday.

This is Monday... my day off... the day when I was supposed to do loads of scanning... the day when I didn't do anything of the sort... the day when I just sort of sat watching telly and playing games all day... :P.

I have now almost totally annihilated my backlog of telly stuff, though. I've just got the last three episodes of Mutual Friends and the film Lucky Number Slevin on there - that's it. Quite a few of the things I've been watching have now stopped and some more end this week, I think, so if I can watch this week's telly live (or at least, before the w/end) then I should be able to get it all totally cleared.

And that would mean I'd have loads of free time at the weekend which I can then spend scanning... Which I'm pretty sure I've been saying for the last couple of weekends, but there you go. Maybe I'll actually do it this time. Maybe.

The other backlog I've got building up is games again. I had a few sessions some months ago where I cleared out lots of un-played games, but what's happened of course is that Chrimbo is rapidly approaching, and that's a big time for new games.

Let's see, in the last couple of weeks alone, I've got Far Cry 2, the Civ4 thing about conquering the new world (can't for the life of me remember the name :/), Fallout 3, and, most intriguingly Red Alert 3 (I've a horrible feeling I'll end up laying Red Alert 3 all weekend instead of scanning.). And I'm pretty sure there's one or two more I've already pre-ordered coming out soon too.

I guess Chrimbo is going to be quite a busy period for me if I want to clear stuff down like I've been planning.

Especially since I've been totally failing to watch anime DVDs at a rate faster than I buy them. But then if I can just stay on top of the telly stuff like I hope, I should be able to allocate a few hours to that too.

transformers (the US movie)

I watched Transformers this weekend on DVD.

I've got to say that, in all honesty, it was not as bad as I feared it was going to be. In fact, it was actually kinda good.

Which isn't to say it didn't have its problems.

It was far too long, was the main problem - well over two hours. Now, I've said before that I'm not a big fan of films running on for two hours. It smacks of over-indulgence, and I'd say that was the problem here too.

There was just slightly too much of everything. Slightly too much Sam Witwicky being all nerdy, slightly too much of the secret government organisation thing, slightly too much of the US military stuff, slightly too much hackering, slightly too much of the Autobots hiding scene, slightly too much transformers combat... you get the idea. If they'd have cut about 1 scene each of those, or axed some elements all together it would have been better, I think.

Not that any of them were fundamentally bad, you understand, just they went on a bit long.

Also, Megatron, who's meant to be the ultimate bad-guy in Transformers, seemed distinctly unthreatening. Partly that was because he wasn't in it until near the very end, partly they didn't big him up enough, focusing too much on the McGuffin, and also he didn't really do anything hugely evil.

I mean, he did - he ripped one of the Autobots (Jazz) in two, but I dunno, it was done in long shot and just sort of happened. It didn't feel evil. Maybe that was because Jazz was a bit-player. Maybe if he'd pulled Bumblebee's legs off it would have been better, because we cared more about Bumblebee.

Anyway, the biggest surprise for me was that in the end I didn't care about all the buggering about they did with the transformers "lore". One of the most obvious changes was that they changed what a lot of the characters transformed into, most apparently with Bumblebee.

I mean, Bumblebee is named because he changes into a VW Beetle or "Bug". But actually, I found that didn't really bother me in the end. Plus some of the changes were logical, because the toys never made sense. For example, Soundwave was a tape player that changed into a huge robot and Megatron was a handgun.

You can do that sort of thing with a toy or in a cartoon, but you can't justify taking a tiny tape machine and just expanding up a million times - it would look silly. So I can understand those changes.

They also ditched the origin story. Again, I can understand this, to some extent, though it seemed less for practical reasons. Although part of me was glad - the problem with comic book adaptations is they often end up fudged. Although I often prefer the comic origins, I think it's better when they adapt them to give the films their own separate origins. It's better, I think, if they have an "alternate universe" approach.

Plus here, they actually focused on the human characters anyway. The film was actually about Sam and Megan Fox's character (can't remember her character name, but she is totally hot) falling in love, more than it was big robots pounding each other in the face.

So overall, it kinda worked.

The only other thing I'd say is it was kinda difficult to see what was going on. This film is the first I've ever seen where you need to go high-def to watch it, I think. The amount of detail in the characters means I think you'd really benefit from the extra clarity of blue ray.

dental scrapings

So I had Monday off. Part of the reason was because I had the dentist in the morning. And yeah, I know that having the entire day off because of a dental appointment in the morning seems a bit excessive, but then I hate going to the dentist when I have work, and yesterday part of the reason why was heavily underlined for me.

He scraped my teeth. You've probably had that done - they're removing the plaque that builds up on your teeth and is a veritable des-res for bacteria. So I can see why they do it, but it doesn't stop it being unpleasant.

The problem is the plaque builds up at the bottom of your teeth next to your gums and also in the gaps between your teeth, so when they're scraping they often hit your gums a lot, especially in the gaps. I came away yesterday with lots of red bits between my teeth where the gums had been totally brutalized.

And while I wouldn't say it was anything on the level of having a filling done or that sort of pain, it's pretty damned uncomfortable. My teeth ached all day, and they're still not fully okay today.

It's made slightly worse for me as I have sensitive teeth. I use sensodyne toothpaste and it really helps - without it I can't eat ice cream, but with I'm fine. But the thing I've noticed about it is it's sort of cumulative. If you stop using it, after a while your teeth become sensitive again, and then it can also take a while to have an effect once you start again. It's like it builds up on your teeth.

So of course, when he's scraping away the plaque, he's also taking that build-up away with him. Not that I've had any ice cream, but cold water, for example, is now unpleasant.

Which, as I say, is one of the reasons I like to take the day - sitting in work with aching and bloody teeth isn't my idea of fun :/.

quality

I've mentioned before that I'm a member of a site called Urbis . It's a site for writers and the basic idea is that you post your work there and people review it.

Now there are quite a few sites that are supposed to be about the same sort of thing, but what makes Urbis clever is that you're participating in a give-and-take system. Your work will only be reviewed if you do reviews of other people.

How they do that is with a credit system. So, you earn credits by doing reviews and it costs you credits to unlock your reviews. That way you have no choice but to do work in order to get the benefits.

Of course, it's all open to abuse, as all systems are, but there are some mechanisms to try to counter that. For example, you can ask for refunds if you think a review is pure drivel. The other system is that you can rate reviews as being either good or bad 'quality'.

Now, and I don't want to boast about it, but so far I have maintained a review quality above 90%. I don't want to boast about that because it's slightly unrepresentative - it's not just the author that gets to vote, for example, and a good chunk of my good votes have come via that.

Plus I've done something like 150 reviews, but only got about 50 votes (many, as I say, not from the author). Also, of those 150 a good proportion (maybe a quarter?) haven't even been unlocked, so nobody can rate them good or bad.

And of course there's always people who wouldn't know a good review if it slapped them in the face, but anyway, the point of this blog is that I like to think I've got my relatively high number because I write good reviews.

I do this by trying to focus on what really matters. In my opinion things like spelling ad grammar are not as important as the mechanisms of the story telling, for example. Also, I don't tend to worry too much about things like point-of-view unless it really badly poxes up a story.

Which isn't to say these things aren't important, it's just that if something is unreadably dull because it's all just boring telling when it could be shown in exciting and dramatic scenes, then that's what matters most.

Polishing up your spelling and POV slips can come after you make the thing interesting to read.

The other main thing I do is to offer suggestions. I think it's one thing to just rag on a piece, telling them in finite detail why it's rubbish, it's quite another to say "here's some ideas for making it better."

Now the difficulty with my approach is occasionally I run up against people who clearly think they're the next Shakespeare (or insert any appropriate well known and widely recognised writer you like). So then my review and suggestions come across rather differently - they're not seen in the light they're intended.

That's when I get a negative quality, I think. Even though I've clearly spent a lot more time thinking about my review than the people who've just spunked "zomg I r likings your drivel" below me.

It can be quite demoralising.

But the worst ones are when I point out something that's clearly just plain wrong, or doesn't work, or is illogical. For example, I might point out that some "science" they've used is bullshit, or point out that some trick they're pulling is just that - a trick and therefore a con.

Sometimes this is taken well, but a lot of the time it's taken as you might expect. If you're on a flying carpet, you don't want someone pointing out that there are strings holding it up (or, worse, pointing out it's impossible and hence causing the illusion to collapse), so you're not going to be pleased with the person that does.

lost in the extras

See what I did there with the title? It's because I've been wading into the Lost S4 extras. Clever, huh?

Anyway, bad puns aside, 'wading' is definitely the right term to use - there's loads of them, far more than there have been for previous seasons, I'm sure. For example, there are only 14 episodes, but about half of them have commentaries, whereas in previous seasons where there were twenty-odd episodes and only about a quarter of them had commentaries.

Also, there are two entire disks of other bonus stuff, which ranges from the standard (bloopers, deleted scenes, filming stuff and interviews) to the more interesting, like a documentary expose of the Oceanic Six (the description of which makes more sense once you've watched the show) and an hour-long thing on the flash-forwards.

It's loads of stuff and it should keep me busy for a good while.

I'm guessing this is the upside to having the shorter seasons. Plus there was the whole writers strike thing, so I imagine there was more spare resources to work on extras stuff than usual.

Unfortunately I've got really behind with other stuff. I've recently realised that the new megami is about to come out (and the other mags will be close behind) and I've not really got anywhere with scanning last months mags - all I've done is the posters from megami, everything else is untouched.

I really need to get my arse in gear so I don't end up with a backlog.

Luckily I do have next monday off (I've got the dentists in the morning) so I may take the opportunity to make a good chunk of the backlog disappear. It should also give me a chance to finish off last season's anime shows and maybe even tackle some of the autumn season's stuff.

Plus there's something of a let-up coming with all these TV shows I've been watching - most are coming to the end of their runs, so, assuming nothing else comes along, that should ease up some of the pressure.

Bizarrely, I've actually been doing quite a lot of vectoring recently and am literally on the cusp of finishing about 4 walls. All I really need to do is make the backgrounds, which, with me not really having any artistic talent is always a tricky part, but at least it means I won't be stalled due to half-finished vectors like I normally am.

monkey brasses

It was bloody cold last night and this morning.

At some point during the night it snowed, but it must have been dark when it happened as it was a case of opening my curtains this morning to be greeted by a blanket of the white stuff.

I love a bit of snow - it looks very decorative, but the practicalities can be a little difficult. After it had snowed it got so cold that the snow then froze, so this morning it was very treacherous going out to the car. And that's not to mention the job I had trying to scrape the stuff off the car.

It's really difficult scraping frozen snow off - it forms a sort of lattice structure that's really strong. Ordinary frozen ice is much easier to get off as you can literally just scrape at it, plus turn the engine on and melt it a bit. Frozen snow you have to sort of hack at it, and it really takes some doing, plus because it's got all these holes in and is so thick, it's less susceptible to heating.

All told it took me a good ten minutes to de-ice the car. It's things like that which make me glad I get up nice and early for work.

Anyway, I watched the rest of Lost Season 4 last night. I've just got the extras left.

It was good - don't take what I'm going to say next to mean I didn't like it - but I'm not at all sure about these short seasons.

I believe the idea behind them is so that the total number of episodes adds up to 108 (which is the sum of the magic numbers). Plus I also guess it means they get to stretch it out a little from the planned five-year arc.

But the problem is it makes these last three seasons seem more like light snacks than full-course meals, and I like my Lost to be a full course meal. Especially since I basically have to wait an entire year between seasons (thank you once again, fucking Sky).

In season 4 the pace is definitely a lot faster - all of the episodes are roller-coaster rides with very little let-up in the pace. So, for example, when they had Ben locked up as a prisoner before he was there for ages, but this year when they had him as a prisoner again, he was almost immediately out again.

Not sure which I prefer, tbh, as it's a bit swings-and-roundabouts. A fast pace can be nice, but it does tend to highlight one of the cheats they do on Lost.

The cheat in question is the size of the island. If a group heads out for another part of the island, the amount of time it takes them is totally flexible. There was a classic at the beginning of the season, where they went to a dead body and then it was the best part of a days walk until they encountered the helicopter.

But then, it apparently only took them 20 minutes to go and fetch the body and bring it to the helicopter. Well, okay, maybe the first time they were wandering a bit, but it still should have taken them a lot longer to go there and back the second time :/.

Anyway, as I say, I love Lost. Part of the reason is because it's proper sci-fi. I know a lot of people give it flack because they feel it's being made up as they go along and it never really answers any questions, but those criticisms mainly come from people who probably shouldn't be watching it in the first place.

I mean I'm glad it is popular of course, so it doesn't constantly have an axe having over its neck like Babylon 5 used to, but like B5 it's clearly really for sci-fi nerds more than it is for the average viewer.

Slither

Watched Slither on DVD this last w/end. I have to say it was rather good.

It's basically a comedy horror. An alien something-or-other lands on earth in a meteorite, infects someone and then he proceeds to... well, it's a little complex to explain. I suppose the best way to cover is that he spreads the infection, but it's not quite like that.

Anyway, the guy that's infected is a jerk, but he's rich and has married this totally hot school-teacher. The local chief of police (or sheriff I think they actually call him) is in love with the school teacher, and she kinda likes him too.

So you've got a love triangle going on, which is kinda a surprising amount of depth for the type of film. Well, okay, it's not deep, as such, but the clever thing is the film never forgets about the relationships, and indeed, is kinda driven by them, which is some adept storytelling.

Especially since Slither is essentially a Sci-Fi/Monster Horror B-movie, but with a slightly larger budget. It covers everything from zombie survival to horror-classics like Bride of Frankenstein.

One of the clever things it does is to pay homage to the staples of those old B-movies, as well as making references to a lot of the classics of the genre. Some of these references are quite subtle, but others are more on the nose, and obvious.

The same goes with the humour - sometimes it's quite subtle, or quite dark, but other times it's big and obvious and others it's more of a nod towards the fans, so there's different things for different people to laugh at.

It's also quite knowing. There's definitely a wry smile or a quick wink to the audience occasionally about how silly things in the movie actually are. The best of these comes right at the end where the denouement is both shocking and silly.

My only criticism was with the DVD itself - there were absolutely no extras. Which is weird, because on the Amazon DVD listing for the retail DVD there are loads of extras listed. So perhaps it's just that the rental version doesn't have any? Odd.

square eyes

So, a partially successful weekend.

I watched a lot of telly. The list of stuff I've got recorded and awaiting viewing on my PVR went down from about 2 pages worth (so about 50 things) to about 5 things.

However, I was secretly hoping to totally clear the list, but I kinda just got sick of watching that much TV. Sunday evening I was going a little bonkers, I think.

I had pretty much under-estimated how much stored up TV there was. As such, I also didn't get that far into Lost season 4 as I'd hoped. The last 3 seasons of Lost are being done as shorter seasons - 16-ish episodes instead of the American standard of 25-ish - so I was hoping I'd basically be able to watch it all this w/end.

However, I only watched the first disk, which is 3 eps. And what I've seen so far I really liked.

There was a lot of critiscism of season 3 (which I didn't really agree with, tbh) and I think most of those criticisms have been addressed. S4 is definitely faster paced and more focused on the core characters.

I also didn't get any scanning or walling or anythign done due to the weight of TV, but I was kinda expecting that.

The clocks went back on Saturday, so we're back on GMT. I always struggle with the changes. My body clock is rigidly fixed on my schedule and it's difficult for me to adjust, even by as little as an hour.

What normally happens is that on the day after the switch, the Sunday, I basically end up running on my existing schedule. That means I have my lunch at virtually mid-morning, for example.

Then, after that when it's back to work for the next week my body clock goes completely screwy and I end up feeling tired at 8PM and wanting lunch at 3PM and stuff. It's a bit like jet-lag (I imagine, as I've never actually flown anywhere, so I don't know) and I dunno why it does this, but it always happens.

Next week I'll be right-as-rain again.

fresh from nihon

I got a letter the other day that something had come from Japan for me and was being hit for customs charges.

I don't know what it is until I go and pick it up from the Aldershot depot. Customs charges are a bit weird - generally they're actually not that hefty (£5-off in this case) but what often happens is the Royal Mail tacks on a "processing charge".

Now I have no idea what they actually mean by that. Are they just charging me for sending me the letter? Or does it mean they had to go to some place to pick the parcel up especially? Either way, their charge is in the order of £15. To me, that seems a little disproportionate with what the customs charges actually are.

Anyway, I'll find out what it actually is tomorrow when I pick it up.

I'm planning to kick-start a bit of e-baying action this weekend.

I got a bit fed up with it the last time I was doing it. Partly that was because it was due to necessity - I needed the cash (don't I always) - and so felt like an obligation, but also it's quite demoralising selling almost everything you own :(.

And that was the other reason I stopped - I'd actually almost run out of stuff to sell. Well, I say that. I haven't run out of stuff to sell at all. What I mean is that I'd run out of stuff that I'd used.

I've tonnes of stuff I know I'm going to sell, but I've not watched/read/played them yet. And it seems a little retarded to sell stuff that I've bought and have never actually got any enjoyment out of :/.

Still, I've a few things I've been through now, so I can get a few things on there.

The only other big plan of course is to sit my arse down in front of the TV and watch all the crap I've been recording (and Lost s4 too, probably). Maybe then I'll feel like I'm getting somewhere.

Doldrums

I've been in a bit of a funk lately.

It's not particularly good timing - as previous posts have indicated I've already got lots on my 'to do' list, but I've been struggling a bit with getting on with stuff.

My dad suffers with depression and he's explained what that's like and it's not that bad, but it's a bit like a mild depression. It's like it's difficult to get started with things, like there doesn't seem to be any real point.

I mean, I do stuff like my hobbies because I enjoy it, right? And I know that, but it's just getting started on them becomes like a chore. It's like instead, sitting down and just staring at the walls is far more appealing than having to do anything.

I dunno - it's a bit difficult to explain, tbh.

The risky side of it is that I can go on binges. Now that isn't the normal booze binge or something you might think, for me it would be an over-eating binge, which I need like a hole in the head, or maybe a spending binge, which would just be a disaster.

So I'm trying desperately to push myself over the hump. I'll come out of it eventually anyway of course, but maybe I can distract myself until then or something.

Lost Season 4 turned up the other day, so maybe I should focus on actively watching that and see if accomplishing watching that (eh?) will give me kick up the backside.

Hollywoodland

One thing I did get done last weekend was that I watched a rental DVD.

This one's been sat on my shelf for a good couple of weeks, which isn't good. I like to get them watched as early in the month as I can so that I guarantee I get the most value from them.

Anyway, the rental in question was Hollywoodland, which starred Ben Affleck. I believe, though I may well be wrong about this, but it was heralded as something of a "return to form" following the nightmare abortion that was "Gigli" and some other dodgy movies.

I have to say that Ben was good in it. Indeed, all of the performances were pretty good, although Bob Hoskin's accent seemed a bit wobbly early on to me.

However, I didn't really enjoy the film.

It reminded me a lot of the Black Dahlia. Now that isn't to say it was that bad, it's just it was set during a similar sort of period and was about Hollywood (Hollywoodland used to be the old name for Hollywood - the sign even used to have the 'land' bit, trivia fans).

Maybe it's just me, but there's something about these two "real crime" films that I didn't really like.

I think a major part is to do with the fact they never really gave you a proper answer. Clearly, Black Dahlia had a theory as to who it was, but it was just so bizarre and stupid and made so little sense it just felt rubbish. Hollywoodland didn't really even have one of those - the detective chasing the story never really came to a definite definitive conclusion other than a sort of vague suggestion that it probably was suicide in the end.

The only saving grace for Hollywoodland is that it was clearly intended that way - the detective rediscovers what's important through investigating the murder, type story.

The other thing about them that turns me off is they feel like they're really self-indulgent naval-gazing exercises.

It's like the directors are more interested in the Hollywood of the 40's and 50's than the stories themselves. I think the intention of both is sort of to go "Here's the seedy underbelly of Hollywood."

But there are two things with that. First, we all kinda know it was seedy already, but then second there's a feeling that they don't really mean it. Or at least, maybe they do, but they're also going "Woah, cool, it's old Hollywood - great, huh?"

The Saga

Coming soon to a multiplex near you...

I don't think I've mentioned this on here before, but I've been having a hell of a time with my new Egg Credit Card. Basically, they've been making a total hash of setting up the standing order that takes money out of my account.

Egg is one of those entirely online outfits - apart from the card and the t's and c's that came with it they've never sent me anything via post. Now if you have a credit card you'll know that they generally operate by sending you a statement in the post which has all your transactions and stuff and tells you what the minimum payment is, etc, etc.

Now egg does do statements, but you access them online and that's it. But what they also do is set up a direct debit with your bank account and then they'll take out either the minimum or a fixed amount, or whatever.

The reason I got the card, by the way, was because of my financial difficulties a while back - I transferred a balance to them in order to take advantage of an interest free period.

However, when I first set up the account there seems to have been some problem with my account numbers - I happened to phone them about something else and the numbers they mentioned were totally different to what they should have been. Now, I'm perfectly willing to hold my hand up and say that might have been my fault. I don't really see how, as the numbers were totally random, but okay, maybe it was me.

So, we re-did the details and they had another go.

Then the saga really started - when the next month came round I got this nasty e-mail from them saying the direct debit had failed. I went and checked various things and, while the money hadn't come out, according to the listings they had set up the DD. It's just somehow they'd failed to do it properly, I guess.

So I phoned them up again and we went through it all again, giving them exactly the same info. Then I did a manual cash transfer again to cover the late payment.

And guess what?

Same thing next month.

Nasty e-mail. I phone them up yet again. Go through all the exact same details yet again. I manually transfer money yet again.

Finally, it looks like (*fingers crossed*) it's worked.

This catalogue of balls up is hardly a glowing reference and as soon as the interest free period is over I'm seriously considering transferring the balance out.

chilly

So this weekend I got my haircut.

I went for the shorter version, with the sides trimmed with trimmers, rather than a scissor cut all over, so it's pretty short (I normally get the trimmer haircut during summer). As such I can't work out whether it was proper cold this w/end or if it was just the sudden lack of hair.

I know I had the heating on all day Saturday, although it was only on at "1 bar" - which is half power - and then Sunday I only put it on in the evening. So it could well have been just chilly but with me feeling it more because of the lack of hair.

I also did a mega-shop on Saturday.

It was so big I used one of those proper full-size trolleys. Being single I never use those - but this time I had all sorts of big packs, like six-packs of pop and water and big value boxes of stuff. As I said, I was trying to get ahead of myself with Chrimbalo fast approaching. I've got loads of pasts and rice and stuff in the freezer now, so hopefully it should be more a job of making sure supplies don't get too low before then.

Then it was back to the gaff for cleaning duties. I thoroughly clean my bedsit every two-weeks. I think that's enough for a single person, but it does take me all day, especially with all the sundries like ironing and changing my towels and bins and stuff.

Anyway, the point is that I did that and all was going swimmingly - I was really cracking on and was going to have loads of time to do stuff, but I fell into a bit of a trap. Unfortunately, it took ages for the kitchen and bathroom floors to dry (it being cold) and I was totally stuck waiting while they did... so I thought I'd have a quick go on Civ3... and it kinda poxed up the whole rest of the weekend, so instead of doing more useful stuff, like scanning or walling or making new updates for my webstes, I basically just plaed Civ3. I didn't even really clear the backlog of TV I've got.

Bugger :(.

tiring

I think this week I've been continuing on with the whole being a bit tired from last week.

I was gallivanting around all over the shop last week, so it's hardly surprising, I guess. I have done a few things - most notably I've been working on a new wallpaper. It's nothing hugely complicated or clever - I'm basically just vectoring out a to love-ru scan - but it's been nice to work on a wall proper again. Hopefully I'll get a chance to finish it this weekend.

I've also been reading a Terry Pratchett book called 'Thud!'. I started reading it on the train goign up and coming back from the thing last Friday (I like to read on the train, but reading manga gets you funny looks).

It's a pretty good one - there have been a few of his recently that haven't quite hit the spot, but this one was good. The only sort of down-side to it is that it's another Sam Vimes and City Watch book. Which isn't to say I don't like his Sam Vimes and the Watch books - I liked this one - but I've been wishing he'd focus a bit more on some other stuff. A lot of the recent books seem to be all about the watch.

One of the problems of this is that Sam hates magic, so some Pratchett's best characters (the witches and wizards) are deliberately side-lined, if not excluded all together.

Still, this one was good and I decided to go ahead and buy the other more recent ones I'd been holding back on... though not until I make a significant dent in my pile of unread books.

Did a little scanning last night and watch one of the shows I have left over from the last season. I also have one I watched last week that I forgot to mention on the old blog:

• Nogizaka Haruka no Himitsu - very good. I really wasn't expecting much of this - the images I'd seen for it in the magazines had all suggested it a fan-service heavy rom-com, but it turned out it was a bit more than that. The idea is that the girl in it is a school 'idol', but really she's a nerdy otaku and the male lead accidentally finds this out. Now that could have gone either way, but for the most part it's actually quite good, although there's a couple of elements I'm not sure about. But it's certainly better than I was expecting.
  
• Mahō Tsukai ni Taisetsu na Koto: Natsu no Sora - awesome. Now this one was also a bit of a surprise. I'd seen some images from it and I was really not looking forward to it because of the style. It has almost photo-realistic backgrounds - I'm not sure f that's just because they've been painted that way or they've processed actual photos. Now, I'm really not a big fan of animation laid over the top of photos, but once I'd kinda adjusted to the style what was revealed was a lovely story underneath. If I was to say it had a sort of studio Ghibli feel to it I think you'll know what I mean.
  

Megadeth

I've been listening to a lot of Megadeth recently.

This has kinda been brought about by a "grand project" I've been attempting (more on that later), the upshot of which has meant I've had all my Megadeth CD on my MP3 player, and hence can listen at work.

I used to be really into music, back when I was in A-level and at University. Interestingly it's another demonstration of how I'm slightly obsessive. I'd buy lots of CDs from new bands and obscure bands and stuff.

My main music of choice was heavy metal - specifically thrash or speed metal, by bands like Metallica and Slayer. My favourite was always Megadeth, though. I still think Countdown to Extinction is the greatest album ever made.

The reason I kinda stopped was a triple whammy.

Firstly, once I graduated Uni my interest just generally faded. My peers were less into music than I was, so there were fewer people to talk about it with.

Second, I got back into anime and manga in a big way, so a heck of a lot of my time was spent watching and reading that. Plus of course, my money went on buying then, rather than CD.

But the other key part was that Megadeth ceased to be. My favourite band was no more, and my interest kinda evaporated with them.

The reason they stopped was that Dave Mustaine (Megadeth has always been his band) had a severe arm injury and the prognosis was that he would never play again.

However, unknown to me, as I wasn't really paying attention any more was that Dave got better and eventually several years later he released a new Megadeth album.

Now, whilst I wouldn't say I was really back into music as such I have been rediscovering Megadeth, as well as familiarising myself with their newer albums, and I've really been enjoying it.

Drowning in Telly

I've been a bit indiscriminate with my telly watching lately.

I was trying to hold back and be a bit more selective, but I've kinda been watching a random crap. Unfortunately, this also means I'm getting a sizeable back-log of unwatched shows. There are a good couple of shows I've got sat on the PVR waiting to be finished.

But on top of that I know at the end of this month Lost season 4 will be turning up (on DVD - I don't have satellite), plus I'm pretty sure the last season of Battlestar Galactica is knocking about sometime soon.

Lost season 4 will be one of those things that always show me up as a completely lazy bastard. When it arrives I'll almost certainly sit and watch it almost non-stop. It shows that, if I really wanted to, I could plough through all my back-logs of DVDs, manga, books, games, etc, it's just that I tend to distract myself with rubbish and do things half-arsed.

But then every so often something like Lost turns up and I go through it solidly with total dedication until it's finished - probably in less than a week. So if I can do that with Lost, why don't I do it with other stuff? As I say, it's because I'm a lazy bugger.

I've not watched any of the new Battlestar yet, but I've heard good things, so I thought I should check it out. Unfortunately I think that means I need to get through 4 seasons, a mini-series and a couple of films, I think. It's a lot of stuff, especially when I've got loads of other telly stuff to watch.

I think I'm going to have to rationalise a bit. Plus I know some things are coming to an end. For example, both the F1 and MotoGP seasons must be due to end soon, plus there's some short documentary things that are near the end.

The trick is to not start anything new.

mags, hair and shopping

This month's newtype, animage and animedia turned up yesterday.

Two of them - newtype and animage - are absolutely dripping with pictures from the new season of shows and I'm very impressed. The other, animedia, is actually kinda rubbish. I sometimes wonder why I keep buying it - it's always very poor in terms of scans. But then it's not like it's reprinting other scans - if I didn't get it I wouldn't see those images. Still, as the anime magazines go, it's definitely the worst one I get.

I'm in desperate need of a haircut - my hair is really rather long and I'm starting to get that uncomfortable sweaty thing I get when it gets this long. Of course that's also a factor of being morbidly obese, but that's no reason not to avoid a haircut.

Looks like I'll have a busy w/end as I'll have to get a haircut and go shopping on top of a bunch of stuff I've got to do anyway.

I should also start hoarding for Christmas. I know chrimbalo is a long way away, but I like to get stuff like fozen food, tins and pasta all hoarded up well in advance, because shopping around Christmas can be such a nightmare.

I remember once going to Sainsburys to get some food one Christmas and the queues were so long I didn't get to the front of queue before my lunch ended. I ended up having to buy some manky sarnis at the petrol station on the way home :/. So now I like to stock up the freezer and cupboards well in advance.

lazy weekend

Well I virtually did bugger all this last weekend - only the "life stuff" I can't get away without doing, like changing the sheets and putting the recycling out.

I just couldn't really be arsed - last week was so intense with visiting Dad, having to do a whole bid in three days and then going to the SPSS thing on Friday, I just felt like blowing the entire w/end on nothing in particular.

So what did I do with my time? I buggered about with Civ3... I know, I really shouldn't have as I've kinda rekindled my interest, but I didn't want to do anything that needed me to think particularly hard. By which I mean I didn't want to do anything 'new', like have to learn a new game or pay particular attention to something. With Civ3 I can almost put my brain on auto-pilot.

Speaking of the SPSS thing it was actually okay. I mean, it wasn't really hugely useful but then it wasn't utterly useless either. Bloody uncomfortable seats though. And they tried to cram way too much in - it ended very late.

giving it the hard sell

I've got to go to a thing tomorrow and basically it's going to be a company spending all day giving me the hard sell - as in trying to make me buy their product.

I'd really rather not go, but the problem is I don't want to seem overly negative. It's free and I think my boss thinks it's actually like a mini-course or something. I don't want to have that thing of me just pessimistically going "I don't want to go, it'll be rubbish." I worry about doing that as in I'm not a "team player" or something.

I mean, it may be useful, maybe I am being overly negative, but I've a feeling it won't be much fun. It also seems like a rather long day. It's up in London so I have to put up with the train journeys, so I doubt it'll really be any shorter than my normal work day.