I got an e-mail this Tuesday or Wednesday telling me the new issues of Newtype, Animage and Animedia were on their way.
I'm not sure if they'll be here for the weekend - there's a good chance, based on previous experience that they'll turn up on Monday - but when they do arrive that will mean I'll have three straight months worth of un-scanned Japanese mags.
Those anime I mentioned yesterday - normally I would have watched those while scanning. But I've gotten so far behind and I've still not summoned the energy to do any scanning, so I've just watched them like they were normal episodes.
To be fair, there have been a lot of contributing factors to why I've not done any scanning in ages. For example, I watched BSG over the summer - that was a lot of episodes and therefore sucked up a lot of time.
Also, I've been doing loads of e-baying, and that always eats away a lot more time than you think. And then there was Monaco. I know it was ages ago, but it took ages to get stuff sorted out afterwards, plus it used up two whole weeks of holiday, so I've not really had many spare days over the summer.
Then there's been work. This last few months I've been so busy it's been really sucking up both my time and energy. It's like I've lost count of how many days this year I've worked really late.
So yeah, there are reasons, but that doesn't get to the core of the issue.
This core problem is I no longer really have anything to do with my scans.
When I started scanning mags I was a waller and also I had AP to upload them too. Both of those things are now gone, so it's like, why bother? What difference does it really make whether I scan stuff or not?
And the thing is I really don't have any answer to that other than "none". So I really am wondering whether I shouldn't just give up scanning altogether. It would certainly ease this sense of pressure and guilt I feel.
But then another side of me like the idea of scanning the mags. I mean, I can't read the text, so it's kinda nice thing to do with them. Plus I may find a future outlet for them, so better not to stop.
Friday, 11 September 2009
Thursday, 10 September 2009
cock
Nearly forgot to post on here today!
Think I'll just give a round-up of the animu I've been watching - not done that in a long while!
Darker Than Black
I'll give it a proper review later over at trismugistus.com, but overall I've really been enjoying this show.
To be brutally honest it's not the most original show. But it does represent something of a breath of fresh air. I mean there's not one character in the show that could be said to be remotely moe, for example. How many shows a year are there where you can say that with genuine accuracy?
Which isn't to say the show doesn't feature a bevy of beauties, but these are beautiful women, not pretty girls. They also feel like genuine, real, grown-up characters, rather than caricatures.
Which is saying a lot when you consider it's one of those shows where characters die in their droves. It makes for a real sense of poignancy - you could easily do entire series about half the characters that killed off in Darker than Black and it's that strength of writing that really helps to carry the show.
They could easily have made them two-dimensional bit players, but they're not. Instead, they're (mostly) fleshed out people who feel like they could exist. Well, apart from the whole super-powers thing, obviously.
DOGS OAV
I actually started buying the DOGS manga recently. I've not read it yet, but I really liked the artwork, so I thought I'd give it a go.
I've therefore no idea how close these OAVs are to the original, but if they're anything like each other I'm thinking I'll enjoy the manga. However, I must admit the anime wasn't quite what I was expecting.
The thing that took me by surprise was the humour. The first episode was fairly serious, but the second was really quite amusing and I wasn't expecting that at all. I was also expecting more of a solid plot.
I guess with it only being four episodes (And four 15 minute episodes at that) that's a bit unfair, but I thought they'd try and include some kind of overarching plot across the four. Well, I say that - with my usual approach of watching only a sample of the episodes, maybe it turns out that there is more of a plot, but I certainly couldn't see any longer plot strand sin what I watched. It was more like a series of shorter stories involving the same characters, rather than an overall story.
Still, I enjoyed it, so let's hope the manga is as good and they pick this up for a full anime series.
Tears to Tiara
I had absolutely no idea what to expect from this. I'm guessing I have seen some pics from the anime mags, but I've gotten so far behind with watching stuff that I have basically completely forgotten what they were.
When it started I have to admit I rolled my eyes a bit. Straight fantasy is generally not my thing and animes that are based on RPGs can get a bit tedious. They're also easy to spot a mile off - I could tell this was one before I even checked.
But then a while back I watched a show called Druaga that was really rather good, and that was a fantasy RPG game adaptation type anime too.
Tear to Tiara was also surprisingly good. Perhaps I've gone soft on fantasy? Or maybe it's more to do with the strength of the writing. One clever thing it's doing is to give you all the standard RPG tropes but to bugger about with them.
It's not quite subversion, but they're definitely tweaked enough to make them interesting. So in the first episode a "Demon King" god is resurrected, but he turns out to not really be evil/the bad guy (or at least not yet, from what I'd watched). So you've got a fairly standard fantasy element, but treated in a different-from-the-norm way.
It also has quite a bit of humour, and humour always goes a long way.
Oh, and it's interesting how bloody/violent it is as well - gore splatters all over the place. Not sure why, but it seems to add something to the show. They can be quite tepid these sorts of fantasies and it makes it a bit more... I dunno, weighty, for the violence to be more graphic.
Think I'll just give a round-up of the animu I've been watching - not done that in a long while!
Darker Than Black
I'll give it a proper review later over at trismugistus.com, but overall I've really been enjoying this show.
To be brutally honest it's not the most original show. But it does represent something of a breath of fresh air. I mean there's not one character in the show that could be said to be remotely moe, for example. How many shows a year are there where you can say that with genuine accuracy?
Which isn't to say the show doesn't feature a bevy of beauties, but these are beautiful women, not pretty girls. They also feel like genuine, real, grown-up characters, rather than caricatures.
Which is saying a lot when you consider it's one of those shows where characters die in their droves. It makes for a real sense of poignancy - you could easily do entire series about half the characters that killed off in Darker than Black and it's that strength of writing that really helps to carry the show.
They could easily have made them two-dimensional bit players, but they're not. Instead, they're (mostly) fleshed out people who feel like they could exist. Well, apart from the whole super-powers thing, obviously.
DOGS OAV
I actually started buying the DOGS manga recently. I've not read it yet, but I really liked the artwork, so I thought I'd give it a go.
I've therefore no idea how close these OAVs are to the original, but if they're anything like each other I'm thinking I'll enjoy the manga. However, I must admit the anime wasn't quite what I was expecting.
The thing that took me by surprise was the humour. The first episode was fairly serious, but the second was really quite amusing and I wasn't expecting that at all. I was also expecting more of a solid plot.
I guess with it only being four episodes (And four 15 minute episodes at that) that's a bit unfair, but I thought they'd try and include some kind of overarching plot across the four. Well, I say that - with my usual approach of watching only a sample of the episodes, maybe it turns out that there is more of a plot, but I certainly couldn't see any longer plot strand sin what I watched. It was more like a series of shorter stories involving the same characters, rather than an overall story.
Still, I enjoyed it, so let's hope the manga is as good and they pick this up for a full anime series.
Tears to Tiara
I had absolutely no idea what to expect from this. I'm guessing I have seen some pics from the anime mags, but I've gotten so far behind with watching stuff that I have basically completely forgotten what they were.
When it started I have to admit I rolled my eyes a bit. Straight fantasy is generally not my thing and animes that are based on RPGs can get a bit tedious. They're also easy to spot a mile off - I could tell this was one before I even checked.
But then a while back I watched a show called Druaga that was really rather good, and that was a fantasy RPG game adaptation type anime too.
Tear to Tiara was also surprisingly good. Perhaps I've gone soft on fantasy? Or maybe it's more to do with the strength of the writing. One clever thing it's doing is to give you all the standard RPG tropes but to bugger about with them.
It's not quite subversion, but they're definitely tweaked enough to make them interesting. So in the first episode a "Demon King" god is resurrected, but he turns out to not really be evil/the bad guy (or at least not yet, from what I'd watched). So you've got a fairly standard fantasy element, but treated in a different-from-the-norm way.
It also has quite a bit of humour, and humour always goes a long way.
Oh, and it's interesting how bloody/violent it is as well - gore splatters all over the place. Not sure why, but it seems to add something to the show. They can be quite tepid these sorts of fantasies and it makes it a bit more... I dunno, weighty, for the violence to be more graphic.
Wednesday, 9 September 2009
the shock doctrine
This weeks film was...
Well, actually, this weeks film was going to be Domino, starring Keira Knightly, which I'd recorded off of Film4, but about half-way in it started breaking up and became unwatchable. Then I was going to watch Tales from Earthsea, which I'd also recorded off of Film4 (due to timings I've not had a rental DVD for the last two weekends), but that turned out to be a re-dub version and I didn't fancy it.
So I ended up deleting both of those and watching The Shock Doctrine (this actually meant that I yet again cleared my PVR down to empty, though I've a feeling that with the autumn and winter TV seasons approaching, this state of affairs won't last long).
I enjoyed The Shock Doctrine.
Though, to be fair , I'm both a bleeding heart liberal and socialist (maybe even communist) at heart.
If you're neither of those things then your mileage may vary.
However, I have to admit to some degree of confusion with the shock doctrine. The basic premise seems to be that some scientists did some work with electric shocks and/or sensory deprivation and this somehow lead to a bunch of economists deciding that the same thing would be a good idea for the economy.
Actually I don't think that's what it was saying at all, but that's kinda how one of its messages came across. What I actually think it was trying to do was draw a parallel - that a branch of economics called "shock economics" (Google it) can be seen to parallel this shock therapy.
The shock therapy was intended to use the electric shocks (not sure quite where the sensory deprivation came in, or, indeed, the CIA's torture bible came in) to blank out a person's personality, and in its place construct a new, better personality.
So it is with shock economics - some crisis allows a particular type of free market economics to be bullied through and forced upon a population while they're busy trying not to die in floods or be disappeared by a dodgy dictator or whatever.
Now here it made some good points and the evils that are totally free-market economies and unrestrained capitalism are things I too would whole-heartedly disagree with.
The problem was it got a bit confused. While it was making totally valid and good points, it also seemed to be joining the dots in a way that didn't quite make sense.
Which isn't to say I can see kinda what it was going for, it's just that I'm not sure that event a) could be quite so definitively proven to be the cause of event b). In other words, it seemed to be fining a big conspiracy where I'm not really sure there was one - not in the planned and organised way it was being suggested anyway.
What I think I'm going to do is buy the book it was based on and see if that makes more sense.
As for the film, I'd recommend it if you're already of a similar mind-frame as mentioned above, but if you're not, I don't think it would exactly convince you to change your mind.
Well, actually, this weeks film was going to be Domino, starring Keira Knightly, which I'd recorded off of Film4, but about half-way in it started breaking up and became unwatchable. Then I was going to watch Tales from Earthsea, which I'd also recorded off of Film4 (due to timings I've not had a rental DVD for the last two weekends), but that turned out to be a re-dub version and I didn't fancy it.
So I ended up deleting both of those and watching The Shock Doctrine (this actually meant that I yet again cleared my PVR down to empty, though I've a feeling that with the autumn and winter TV seasons approaching, this state of affairs won't last long).
I enjoyed The Shock Doctrine.
Though, to be fair , I'm both a bleeding heart liberal and socialist (maybe even communist) at heart.
If you're neither of those things then your mileage may vary.
However, I have to admit to some degree of confusion with the shock doctrine. The basic premise seems to be that some scientists did some work with electric shocks and/or sensory deprivation and this somehow lead to a bunch of economists deciding that the same thing would be a good idea for the economy.
Actually I don't think that's what it was saying at all, but that's kinda how one of its messages came across. What I actually think it was trying to do was draw a parallel - that a branch of economics called "shock economics" (Google it) can be seen to parallel this shock therapy.
The shock therapy was intended to use the electric shocks (not sure quite where the sensory deprivation came in, or, indeed, the CIA's torture bible came in) to blank out a person's personality, and in its place construct a new, better personality.
So it is with shock economics - some crisis allows a particular type of free market economics to be bullied through and forced upon a population while they're busy trying not to die in floods or be disappeared by a dodgy dictator or whatever.
Now here it made some good points and the evils that are totally free-market economies and unrestrained capitalism are things I too would whole-heartedly disagree with.
The problem was it got a bit confused. While it was making totally valid and good points, it also seemed to be joining the dots in a way that didn't quite make sense.
Which isn't to say I can see kinda what it was going for, it's just that I'm not sure that event a) could be quite so definitively proven to be the cause of event b). In other words, it seemed to be fining a big conspiracy where I'm not really sure there was one - not in the planned and organised way it was being suggested anyway.
What I think I'm going to do is buy the book it was based on and see if that makes more sense.
As for the film, I'd recommend it if you're already of a similar mind-frame as mentioned above, but if you're not, I don't think it would exactly convince you to change your mind.
Tuesday, 8 September 2009
payment... when?
Recently, I've been selling a fair old bit of stuff on e-bay.
Now, usually what happens with most auctions is that people pay really quickly. Even to the extent that perhaps two-thirds of my auctions the person pays on the day the auction ends - many within hours of it ending.
I guess people do this because they feel it's payment that seals the deal - I've paid you, so you can't go back on the deal. Which is fair enough, although technically it's the end of the auction when things become contractually binding.
However, it's always been the case that occasionally some people take a long time to pay.
This is a horrible pain in the arse.
I mean, it's okay if they take a while to pay because they're sending a cheque or postal orders. Indeed, I much prefer these payment methods because then paypal doesn't take an unreasonably large slice.
No, the problem ones are the people who clearly bid but don't actually have the money to-hand.
I've got one at the moment who even though the auction ended at the beginning of the month, couldn't pay me until the end of the month when he got paid. Why the hell is he even bidding if he can't afford to pay for it in a sensible timeframe?
What makes this one worse is that he also clearly hadn't factored in postage and when payment time came he couldn't actually pay anyway due to some problem or other.
I'll be seriously miffed if he ends up not paying at all.
But he's not the only one - I seem to have gotten a glut of them at the moment, to the extent that I'm owed well over £200. Considering a big motivator for me to sell is my need to realise capital, that's not a fun stat to have kicking about.
What I think isn't helping matters is my whole use of the "courier" option to get around the new (retarded) e-bay postage policy. For some reason, the system actually allows people to pay without the courier charge included.
Quite why it does this points to yet more retardedness on the part of e-bay, but has also flagged up to me that people aren't reading the item description.
I mean, I've gotten several messages asking me how much postage is for items when it's clearly stated down the bottom of the item description. So maybe it's not surprising some people who win are among those who've failed to read the description, but the point is I find that whole behaviour staggering.
Who bids on an item without reading the whole item description? It could literally say anything and you didn't bother reading it? Weird :/.
Now, usually what happens with most auctions is that people pay really quickly. Even to the extent that perhaps two-thirds of my auctions the person pays on the day the auction ends - many within hours of it ending.
I guess people do this because they feel it's payment that seals the deal - I've paid you, so you can't go back on the deal. Which is fair enough, although technically it's the end of the auction when things become contractually binding.
However, it's always been the case that occasionally some people take a long time to pay.
This is a horrible pain in the arse.
I mean, it's okay if they take a while to pay because they're sending a cheque or postal orders. Indeed, I much prefer these payment methods because then paypal doesn't take an unreasonably large slice.
No, the problem ones are the people who clearly bid but don't actually have the money to-hand.
I've got one at the moment who even though the auction ended at the beginning of the month, couldn't pay me until the end of the month when he got paid. Why the hell is he even bidding if he can't afford to pay for it in a sensible timeframe?
What makes this one worse is that he also clearly hadn't factored in postage and when payment time came he couldn't actually pay anyway due to some problem or other.
I'll be seriously miffed if he ends up not paying at all.
But he's not the only one - I seem to have gotten a glut of them at the moment, to the extent that I'm owed well over £200. Considering a big motivator for me to sell is my need to realise capital, that's not a fun stat to have kicking about.
What I think isn't helping matters is my whole use of the "courier" option to get around the new (retarded) e-bay postage policy. For some reason, the system actually allows people to pay without the courier charge included.
Quite why it does this points to yet more retardedness on the part of e-bay, but has also flagged up to me that people aren't reading the item description.
I mean, I've gotten several messages asking me how much postage is for items when it's clearly stated down the bottom of the item description. So maybe it's not surprising some people who win are among those who've failed to read the description, but the point is I find that whole behaviour staggering.
Who bids on an item without reading the whole item description? It could literally say anything and you didn't bother reading it? Weird :/.
Monday, 7 September 2009
dubs
I think I mentioned last week that I started Darker Than Black.
Well, this weekend I had a veritable mini-anime fest and have now watched about two-thirds of it. That isn't to say this is a lot of anime. In the past I've watched entire series across a weekend and I'm sure many people consume anime at a much faster rate than that.
The point is that it represents a return to watching anime where recently I've been horribly flagging.
But that's not really what I wanted to talk about in this blog. What I wanted to talk about was dubs. Or rather, re-dubs.
You see, as a rule I've always maintained that I prefer watching anime in subtitled form. That is, the original Japanese version with English subtitles, rather than the re-dubbing efforts of the American studios.
This was kinda my default position. I'd always at least sample the English re-dub, but it would tend to be a fairly quick thing. Maybe I'd watch one or two episodes, or flick over to see what the American Voice Actor sounded like compared to the Japanese ones.
I should make it clear that I'm not one of those people who hates all re-dubs on principle. Indeed, I've watched several dubs and found them to be better than the original Japanese and so continued watching the re-dub, rather than the original.
The one thing that has rankled me about re-dubs was when they change stuff. There's always a balancing act of course - the words spoken have to match the lip-flaps and, generally speaking, a literal translation of the Japanese won't do this.
I don't mind tweaks like that, to fit the lip flaps, but keeping the meaning and general jist. What I've had problems with is when lines are drastically changed or even added where they weren't there originally.
Two classic examples of these were the Generator Gawl dub and the dub for Kiki's Delivery Service. In Gen Gawl, right off the bat they complete change a piece of dialogue in the first scene to explain the entire plot, when part of the point of the show is that you don't really know what's going on until late on in the series. In Kiki's they add innumerable lines to try and "explain" things that, generally, don't need explaining.
I hate both of these things mainly because they treat the audience like they're simpletons.
Anyway, back to the point: I have a dirty confession to make.
I've basically been watching the re-dub of Darker than Black, rather than the original Japanese. Now it doesn't quite get up to the level of Gen Gawl and Kiki's with buggering about with stuff, but it has its moments. I spotted one definite example of an added line of dialogue that changed the meaning of a scene.
The dirty part is that I don't really care.
Maybe part of it's because DtB is one of those shows with quite dense/fast spoken dialogue that's difficult to read and maybe part of it is that the American VA performances are actually really rather good, but really I think it comes down to a degree of laziness on my part.
I guess I shouldn't beat myself up too much. After all, it's better that I'm watching some stuff, even in re-dub form, than not watching anything at all.
Well, this weekend I had a veritable mini-anime fest and have now watched about two-thirds of it. That isn't to say this is a lot of anime. In the past I've watched entire series across a weekend and I'm sure many people consume anime at a much faster rate than that.
The point is that it represents a return to watching anime where recently I've been horribly flagging.
But that's not really what I wanted to talk about in this blog. What I wanted to talk about was dubs. Or rather, re-dubs.
You see, as a rule I've always maintained that I prefer watching anime in subtitled form. That is, the original Japanese version with English subtitles, rather than the re-dubbing efforts of the American studios.
This was kinda my default position. I'd always at least sample the English re-dub, but it would tend to be a fairly quick thing. Maybe I'd watch one or two episodes, or flick over to see what the American Voice Actor sounded like compared to the Japanese ones.
I should make it clear that I'm not one of those people who hates all re-dubs on principle. Indeed, I've watched several dubs and found them to be better than the original Japanese and so continued watching the re-dub, rather than the original.
The one thing that has rankled me about re-dubs was when they change stuff. There's always a balancing act of course - the words spoken have to match the lip-flaps and, generally speaking, a literal translation of the Japanese won't do this.
I don't mind tweaks like that, to fit the lip flaps, but keeping the meaning and general jist. What I've had problems with is when lines are drastically changed or even added where they weren't there originally.
Two classic examples of these were the Generator Gawl dub and the dub for Kiki's Delivery Service. In Gen Gawl, right off the bat they complete change a piece of dialogue in the first scene to explain the entire plot, when part of the point of the show is that you don't really know what's going on until late on in the series. In Kiki's they add innumerable lines to try and "explain" things that, generally, don't need explaining.
I hate both of these things mainly because they treat the audience like they're simpletons.
Anyway, back to the point: I have a dirty confession to make.
I've basically been watching the re-dub of Darker than Black, rather than the original Japanese. Now it doesn't quite get up to the level of Gen Gawl and Kiki's with buggering about with stuff, but it has its moments. I spotted one definite example of an added line of dialogue that changed the meaning of a scene.
The dirty part is that I don't really care.
Maybe part of it's because DtB is one of those shows with quite dense/fast spoken dialogue that's difficult to read and maybe part of it is that the American VA performances are actually really rather good, but really I think it comes down to a degree of laziness on my part.
I guess I shouldn't beat myself up too much. After all, it's better that I'm watching some stuff, even in re-dub form, than not watching anything at all.
Friday, 4 September 2009
so where is it?
Well this is both interesting and unusual.
I do a lot of e-bay as I'm sure I've mentioned in the past and the other day someone who bought one of my DVDs contacted me to ask when it would arrive.
Well, it had actually been sent more than a week ago, so it was odd that it hadn't arrived.
Luckily, they'd taken up the 1st class recorded option, so I was able to use the tracking service to try to find out what had happened.
But weirdly the tracking service just says the item has "been accepted" at the Post Office. So what does that mean? Have they tried to deliver it and failed? Or is it just sat in a bag somewhere? How the heck would that happen if it was?
It's very odd.
I hope I don't have to go through the palaver of claiming for it. That would be an extraordinary pain in the arse, especially since the value of the DVD was a spectacular 10p :/.
So yeah, I'm going down the post office tomorrow anyway to send my next batch of stuff, so I'll talk to them then, but I don't really know what they can really do. It sounds like it's been lost in the post - which is something I never thought actually happened.
Other plans for the weekend are relatively non-spectacular.
I'm basically hoping that I'm going to keep going with the watching anime thing. I finished Doujin Works and started on Darker than Black, but I'm still not discounting the possibility of this whole thing being a bit of a blip.
I do a lot of e-bay as I'm sure I've mentioned in the past and the other day someone who bought one of my DVDs contacted me to ask when it would arrive.
Well, it had actually been sent more than a week ago, so it was odd that it hadn't arrived.
Luckily, they'd taken up the 1st class recorded option, so I was able to use the tracking service to try to find out what had happened.
But weirdly the tracking service just says the item has "been accepted" at the Post Office. So what does that mean? Have they tried to deliver it and failed? Or is it just sat in a bag somewhere? How the heck would that happen if it was?
It's very odd.
I hope I don't have to go through the palaver of claiming for it. That would be an extraordinary pain in the arse, especially since the value of the DVD was a spectacular 10p :/.
So yeah, I'm going down the post office tomorrow anyway to send my next batch of stuff, so I'll talk to them then, but I don't really know what they can really do. It sounds like it's been lost in the post - which is something I never thought actually happened.
Other plans for the weekend are relatively non-spectacular.
I'm basically hoping that I'm going to keep going with the watching anime thing. I finished Doujin Works and started on Darker than Black, but I'm still not discounting the possibility of this whole thing being a bit of a blip.
Thursday, 3 September 2009
lordy lord
Holy Mary, mother of Jebus H Chrimble - last night I actually watched some anime!
I know, I can barely believe it myself either.
And it was multiple episodes. To be fair, the episodes in question were only 10 minutes or so each, but then I watched 8 of them, so that's got to be the equivalent of, what? 3 or 4 normal length episodes.
If it wasn't that anime is supposed to be one of my main hobbies, and thousands of anime fans don't struggle at all to watch some anime every night, it'd almost be impressive.
When I think back it kinda makes sense that I've been struggling. This last weekend I managed to finish both BSG (I'd finished the series a while ago, but there were quite a few extras to get through) and 'as you do' - the Richard Hammond book. Both of these have eaten up a lot of my time - don't get me wrong, it was all highly enjoyable, but it does mean if I'm spending hours watching/reading them, then I could hardly have been watching anime, could I?
Plus of course, there's the Anno thing. I think I may have crested a bit of hump there - I think I'm happier to ration my playing a bit more, instead of being horribly obsessed like I was not so long ago. Plus there's another factor there too.
Since I've been playing Anno loads I've developed a very stiff right shoulder and neck. I've a strong feeling that this is due to the many, many hours I've spent playing the game and hence sitting in the same position.
I've experienced a similar thing before when I've had a game obsession on the go, but usually the pain is focused in my elbow. I did have some elbow twinges, which is why I think the shoulder pain is caused by excessive playing, but they weren't too bad.
So yeah, I think partly my decision to reduce play is to see if that improves the situation. And certainly having not played at all since Monday, this morning my shoulder seems a lot freer.
Anyway, now for the brief low-down on what I watched, though I'm sure a full review will follow on my site eventually.
What I've been watching is Doujin Work. You may recall I mentioned I was reading the manga on which it's based and I said I was a bit on the fence, although broadly came down on the side of liking it.
Well, I started reading the manga and picked up the anime because Doujin Work was one of the shows I discovered via fansubs. I would never in a million years have picked this up if it hadn't been for the fansubs, as it doesn't look like my kinda show and it doesn't sound like it either when you read the blurb.
However, I was also starting to get a bit worried by my fansub filtering process. The best example of this was a how called Koharu Biyori (Indian Summer), which I really found funny when I sampled via fansub, but then when I bought and watched the DVD it was, well, I won't say bad, but it was just okay.
Another example was Sayonara Zetsubo Sensei. I really loved the anime when I watched it on fansub and although no-one has released it in the west, so I can't check it out properly, they have released the manga, and I've found that to be awful. Well, awful's unfair, but for a comedy manga I haven't laughed once - indeed I can hardly even spot the jokes, let alone find them funny.
So what about Doujin works? Well it's very good.
Having now read some of the manga and watched two thirds of the anime I can see why I have differing opinions on them. The manga is in a four-panel gag-strip format and to mimic this, the anime is a series of shorts. But the shorts are far longer than just 4 panels worth, so the story has become a joined-up whole.
But what they've also done is tweak the story. They've kept all the important elements, and some stuff is actually identical to the manga, but where the manga was weak, they've improved it. Mostly this revolves around the narrative, which they've given a really good massage too, making it more consistent and following a proper measured story.
And the most important thing is it's genuinely very funny. I was laughing out loud on more than one occasion and even when it's not laugh-out-loud funny, I was grinning.
So I'm relieved - at least some of my fansub filtering works!
Which isn't to say Doujin Work is entirely rosy - it's only 12 x 13 minute episodes in length and they've split it across 3 disks, which makes it pretty poor value for money. To kinda compensate for this, they've included a live action segment (which I'm guessing was part of the Japanese DVD releases) that follows two of the Voice Actors as they try to make their own doujinshi.
This is bloody awful on so many levels it's difficult to know where to start. In fact, I'll probably leave my spleen venting for the full review, but let's just say it's not enjoyable viewing.
But now comes the really big test - can I keep going? Or is this just a small blip?
I know, I can barely believe it myself either.
And it was multiple episodes. To be fair, the episodes in question were only 10 minutes or so each, but then I watched 8 of them, so that's got to be the equivalent of, what? 3 or 4 normal length episodes.
If it wasn't that anime is supposed to be one of my main hobbies, and thousands of anime fans don't struggle at all to watch some anime every night, it'd almost be impressive.
When I think back it kinda makes sense that I've been struggling. This last weekend I managed to finish both BSG (I'd finished the series a while ago, but there were quite a few extras to get through) and 'as you do' - the Richard Hammond book. Both of these have eaten up a lot of my time - don't get me wrong, it was all highly enjoyable, but it does mean if I'm spending hours watching/reading them, then I could hardly have been watching anime, could I?
Plus of course, there's the Anno thing. I think I may have crested a bit of hump there - I think I'm happier to ration my playing a bit more, instead of being horribly obsessed like I was not so long ago. Plus there's another factor there too.
Since I've been playing Anno loads I've developed a very stiff right shoulder and neck. I've a strong feeling that this is due to the many, many hours I've spent playing the game and hence sitting in the same position.
I've experienced a similar thing before when I've had a game obsession on the go, but usually the pain is focused in my elbow. I did have some elbow twinges, which is why I think the shoulder pain is caused by excessive playing, but they weren't too bad.
So yeah, I think partly my decision to reduce play is to see if that improves the situation. And certainly having not played at all since Monday, this morning my shoulder seems a lot freer.
Anyway, now for the brief low-down on what I watched, though I'm sure a full review will follow on my site eventually.
What I've been watching is Doujin Work. You may recall I mentioned I was reading the manga on which it's based and I said I was a bit on the fence, although broadly came down on the side of liking it.
Well, I started reading the manga and picked up the anime because Doujin Work was one of the shows I discovered via fansubs. I would never in a million years have picked this up if it hadn't been for the fansubs, as it doesn't look like my kinda show and it doesn't sound like it either when you read the blurb.
However, I was also starting to get a bit worried by my fansub filtering process. The best example of this was a how called Koharu Biyori (Indian Summer), which I really found funny when I sampled via fansub, but then when I bought and watched the DVD it was, well, I won't say bad, but it was just okay.
Another example was Sayonara Zetsubo Sensei. I really loved the anime when I watched it on fansub and although no-one has released it in the west, so I can't check it out properly, they have released the manga, and I've found that to be awful. Well, awful's unfair, but for a comedy manga I haven't laughed once - indeed I can hardly even spot the jokes, let alone find them funny.
So what about Doujin works? Well it's very good.
Having now read some of the manga and watched two thirds of the anime I can see why I have differing opinions on them. The manga is in a four-panel gag-strip format and to mimic this, the anime is a series of shorts. But the shorts are far longer than just 4 panels worth, so the story has become a joined-up whole.
But what they've also done is tweak the story. They've kept all the important elements, and some stuff is actually identical to the manga, but where the manga was weak, they've improved it. Mostly this revolves around the narrative, which they've given a really good massage too, making it more consistent and following a proper measured story.
And the most important thing is it's genuinely very funny. I was laughing out loud on more than one occasion and even when it's not laugh-out-loud funny, I was grinning.
So I'm relieved - at least some of my fansub filtering works!
Which isn't to say Doujin Work is entirely rosy - it's only 12 x 13 minute episodes in length and they've split it across 3 disks, which makes it pretty poor value for money. To kinda compensate for this, they've included a live action segment (which I'm guessing was part of the Japanese DVD releases) that follows two of the Voice Actors as they try to make their own doujinshi.
This is bloody awful on so many levels it's difficult to know where to start. In fact, I'll probably leave my spleen venting for the full review, but let's just say it's not enjoyable viewing.
But now comes the really big test - can I keep going? Or is this just a small blip?
Wednesday, 2 September 2009
intermawebnets
So this last weekend we did some investigations regarding the interwebs.
I plugged my laptop into his router and was able to access the internet no problems. The only issue might be that my laptop is running Vista. As such it'll have the latest network stuff and could have something that "works out" the connection for you.
My desktop machines are running older versions of windows and so could potentially be more problematic. It's unlikely, though.
So the plan is to run a network cable from John's router right through and across into my flat. I think the preferred route is to come into my place through the door to the attic space.
I should then be able to plug in and go from there. There may be some difficulty over the cable length - John measured it at 20m, which was an over-estimate, so that shouldn't be a problem, but such a long cable could be subject to signal loss and interference, so it may affect the speed.
Still, his cable package I believe is 10megabits, which is some 6 or 7 times faster than my phone-line broadband, so even with it slowing down it should still be quicker. Of course, that slow down may apply to the whole network would be the other possibility and I wouldn't want to affect John's connection.
Speaking of which I looked up Virgin's fair-use policy. I was rather afraid they'd have a bandwidth cap, which wouldn't be good at all, as I use a heck of a lot of bandwidth, as I've discussed before.
However, it seems they use throttling instead. The basic thing seems to be they have a peak period and if you download too much during that peak period, then they throttle back your connection speed.
It seems the amount you're allowed during this time is only 1.5gb, but the good (ish) thing is that it seems the peak period is in the afternoon and early evening. My heavy torrenting is mainly scheduled for the morning, so this may mean I'm okay. It could restrict what I get up to in the evening, though.
The plan, therefore, is to do it on a trial basis. If we hook it all up and see how it goes and if it badly affects John (or me, of course) then we can always not bother.
I plugged my laptop into his router and was able to access the internet no problems. The only issue might be that my laptop is running Vista. As such it'll have the latest network stuff and could have something that "works out" the connection for you.
My desktop machines are running older versions of windows and so could potentially be more problematic. It's unlikely, though.
So the plan is to run a network cable from John's router right through and across into my flat. I think the preferred route is to come into my place through the door to the attic space.
I should then be able to plug in and go from there. There may be some difficulty over the cable length - John measured it at 20m, which was an over-estimate, so that shouldn't be a problem, but such a long cable could be subject to signal loss and interference, so it may affect the speed.
Still, his cable package I believe is 10megabits, which is some 6 or 7 times faster than my phone-line broadband, so even with it slowing down it should still be quicker. Of course, that slow down may apply to the whole network would be the other possibility and I wouldn't want to affect John's connection.
Speaking of which I looked up Virgin's fair-use policy. I was rather afraid they'd have a bandwidth cap, which wouldn't be good at all, as I use a heck of a lot of bandwidth, as I've discussed before.
However, it seems they use throttling instead. The basic thing seems to be they have a peak period and if you download too much during that peak period, then they throttle back your connection speed.
It seems the amount you're allowed during this time is only 1.5gb, but the good (ish) thing is that it seems the peak period is in the afternoon and early evening. My heavy torrenting is mainly scheduled for the morning, so this may mean I'm okay. It could restrict what I get up to in the evening, though.
The plan, therefore, is to do it on a trial basis. If we hook it all up and see how it goes and if it badly affects John (or me, of course) then we can always not bother.
Tuesday, 1 September 2009
miserable
I'm feeling really miserable today.
I don't mean I'm ill, and I'm not particularly tired or sleep-deprived.
Plus the weekend didn't go badly or anything like that - indeed, if you set aside my utter failure to do any scanning, the weekend went positively well.
I'm just not in the mood for anything to day.
It's like a general feeling of... I dunno, dislike.
It feels as if at any moment I could snap. Like there's a tension; an fierce anger bubbling away below the surface. Like one small thing will just puncture the taut, balloon surface of my ego and BANG I'll go snap and shout at someone.
I feel like the whole world is against me; that no matter what I do I'll never win.
It's like I want to stick my middle finger up to the world and tell it to just go and fuck itself. Me, I'm going back to bed and tomorrow it better have sorted out its problems, or there'll be hell to pay.
So yeah, I'm not feeling my bright and chipper normal self today.
Not that my normal self is ever bright and chipper, or course, but you get the point.
I don't mean I'm ill, and I'm not particularly tired or sleep-deprived.
Plus the weekend didn't go badly or anything like that - indeed, if you set aside my utter failure to do any scanning, the weekend went positively well.
I'm just not in the mood for anything to day.
It's like a general feeling of... I dunno, dislike.
It feels as if at any moment I could snap. Like there's a tension; an fierce anger bubbling away below the surface. Like one small thing will just puncture the taut, balloon surface of my ego and BANG I'll go snap and shout at someone.
I feel like the whole world is against me; that no matter what I do I'll never win.
It's like I want to stick my middle finger up to the world and tell it to just go and fuck itself. Me, I'm going back to bed and tomorrow it better have sorted out its problems, or there'll be hell to pay.
So yeah, I'm not feeling my bright and chipper normal self today.
Not that my normal self is ever bright and chipper, or course, but you get the point.
Friday, 28 August 2009
now that's quiet
Well I got my new power supply unit for my gaming PC and installed it.
I was a little afraid that perhaps it wasn't the PSU that was the problem, so I stood well back when I turned it on. But everything was okay, so the PSU was definitely the problem.
The only shock I had was the noise - this new PSU is virtually silent compared to the old PSU. I think it's a bit of double whammy - this new PSU is a quiet model, but also the old PSU was incredibly loud.
I'd always known my machine was loud - it sounded like a blooming Hoover! - but I'd never realised it was entirely because of the PSU. I've got one of those mega-powerful PCI-E graphics cards in it that's a got a big fan on it (it takes up two slots) and there's the CPU cooler and stuff so I'd assumed all of that was making a large contribution.
Turns out not at all - with the new PSU in and the covers on, it's almost silent :/.
Of course, having regained my PC, guess what I did? Yup, played Anno 1404.
I could have used this as an excellent opportunity to watch some DVDs or do some scanning, but unfortunately, I'm now realising, because I bought as you do (Richard Hammond's book I mentioned earlier in the week) I've been reading that pretty intensely instead.
Ah well - at least this weekend is a bank holiday so at this stage I can con myself into thinking that I'll be utilising the bonus time to do something I should do, like scanning or watching DVDs. I'm sure the reality will be a great big pile of Anno.
I don't think I discussed it on here, but my landlord inquire about me getting cable and basically, virgin said they won't allow two separate accounts at the same address. This seemed very bizarre to me - I mean, what difference does it make how many accounts you have at the same address? Surely it just means they're turning away perfectly good business?
So having go this bad news my landlord came up with the idea of running a cable from his router to my place. I dunno what's happened with this, though, as I've not seen him to ask. I don't like to be pushy with it, because he's basically offering to give it to me for free.
I must admit to also being slightly worried about the practicalities - I'm an extremely high bandwidth user and I wouldn't want to push him over any sort of fair use quota.
In the meantime I've been investigating different broad band deals and phone lines and stuff.
I pay a lot for my broadband, I've always known that. The thing is though, it seems to be you get what you pay for.
Where I am, distance from the exchange wise and line quality wise, I get about 1.5 meg tops. This is pretty much as I'm expecting and all I will ever get, so deals going on about 24 megs and even 8 megs are just no-goers. I will never achieve those sorts of speeds (cable not withstanding).
But also, the line I'm currently on is a business line. This means it has a low contention (25:1 or 30:1 I believe). My experience is that this makes a lot more difference to your speed than anything else.
All non-business broadband I've seen has had contention of 50:1 - so a heck of a lot worse, meaning the speed would be a lot lower during peak times. Peak times are during the day and evening, when I'm either using P2P or doing my general surfing.
Also, as mentioned, I'm a very high bandwidth user. I have a facility for checking how much I've used each month and I've never checked it and seen my monthly usage bellow 100gigs.
That's a lot of bandwidth and the vast majority of ISP's "fair use" policies would be triggered. Indeed, many have stated monthly caps that are way below 100gig.
Basically then, non-business accounts are out.
So what about other business accounts? Well, the ones I can find are essentially either identical to my other account, or, again, they don't offer quite as good a service.
The basic point then is that while I could get broadband a heck of a lot cheaper, I can't get broadband that meets my needs any cheaper.
Unless I get access to cable via John. I may see if I can get hold of him this weekend and see if he's still keen on the idea.
If I could do that I'd be very tempted to dump my landline entirely. I virtually only have it for broadband - certainly I could cope with all my calls being via my mobile phone.
And speaking of phones I may have mentioned my bill had suddenly shot up - it went from £11 a month to £19 a month: nearly double. So I was looking at non-BT deals, but while I was doing so I was also checking the BT site and everything on the site seemed to be saying that although line rental had gone up, it was only by about £1.
I therefore gave them a call and what it seems has happened is that my direct debit for £11 wasn't quite enough to cover the cost of the line. Therefore, some automatic system kicked in and decided that £19 was the value for it be.
This is utterly ridiculous - across 5 years of having the line (so 5 * 12 monthly payment), the entire total of the deficit was £20. And in the space of 4 months paying at £19 I've therefore built up about £16 of credit on the account.
So the woman re-ran the software and it came up with the much more reasonable £12 monthly charge and she also said I can claim back the over-payment, apparently.
Bizarre.
I was a little afraid that perhaps it wasn't the PSU that was the problem, so I stood well back when I turned it on. But everything was okay, so the PSU was definitely the problem.
The only shock I had was the noise - this new PSU is virtually silent compared to the old PSU. I think it's a bit of double whammy - this new PSU is a quiet model, but also the old PSU was incredibly loud.
I'd always known my machine was loud - it sounded like a blooming Hoover! - but I'd never realised it was entirely because of the PSU. I've got one of those mega-powerful PCI-E graphics cards in it that's a got a big fan on it (it takes up two slots) and there's the CPU cooler and stuff so I'd assumed all of that was making a large contribution.
Turns out not at all - with the new PSU in and the covers on, it's almost silent :/.
Of course, having regained my PC, guess what I did? Yup, played Anno 1404.
I could have used this as an excellent opportunity to watch some DVDs or do some scanning, but unfortunately, I'm now realising, because I bought as you do (Richard Hammond's book I mentioned earlier in the week) I've been reading that pretty intensely instead.
Ah well - at least this weekend is a bank holiday so at this stage I can con myself into thinking that I'll be utilising the bonus time to do something I should do, like scanning or watching DVDs. I'm sure the reality will be a great big pile of Anno.
I don't think I discussed it on here, but my landlord inquire about me getting cable and basically, virgin said they won't allow two separate accounts at the same address. This seemed very bizarre to me - I mean, what difference does it make how many accounts you have at the same address? Surely it just means they're turning away perfectly good business?
So having go this bad news my landlord came up with the idea of running a cable from his router to my place. I dunno what's happened with this, though, as I've not seen him to ask. I don't like to be pushy with it, because he's basically offering to give it to me for free.
I must admit to also being slightly worried about the practicalities - I'm an extremely high bandwidth user and I wouldn't want to push him over any sort of fair use quota.
In the meantime I've been investigating different broad band deals and phone lines and stuff.
I pay a lot for my broadband, I've always known that. The thing is though, it seems to be you get what you pay for.
Where I am, distance from the exchange wise and line quality wise, I get about 1.5 meg tops. This is pretty much as I'm expecting and all I will ever get, so deals going on about 24 megs and even 8 megs are just no-goers. I will never achieve those sorts of speeds (cable not withstanding).
But also, the line I'm currently on is a business line. This means it has a low contention (25:1 or 30:1 I believe). My experience is that this makes a lot more difference to your speed than anything else.
All non-business broadband I've seen has had contention of 50:1 - so a heck of a lot worse, meaning the speed would be a lot lower during peak times. Peak times are during the day and evening, when I'm either using P2P or doing my general surfing.
Also, as mentioned, I'm a very high bandwidth user. I have a facility for checking how much I've used each month and I've never checked it and seen my monthly usage bellow 100gigs.
That's a lot of bandwidth and the vast majority of ISP's "fair use" policies would be triggered. Indeed, many have stated monthly caps that are way below 100gig.
Basically then, non-business accounts are out.
So what about other business accounts? Well, the ones I can find are essentially either identical to my other account, or, again, they don't offer quite as good a service.
The basic point then is that while I could get broadband a heck of a lot cheaper, I can't get broadband that meets my needs any cheaper.
Unless I get access to cable via John. I may see if I can get hold of him this weekend and see if he's still keen on the idea.
If I could do that I'd be very tempted to dump my landline entirely. I virtually only have it for broadband - certainly I could cope with all my calls being via my mobile phone.
And speaking of phones I may have mentioned my bill had suddenly shot up - it went from £11 a month to £19 a month: nearly double. So I was looking at non-BT deals, but while I was doing so I was also checking the BT site and everything on the site seemed to be saying that although line rental had gone up, it was only by about £1.
I therefore gave them a call and what it seems has happened is that my direct debit for £11 wasn't quite enough to cover the cost of the line. Therefore, some automatic system kicked in and decided that £19 was the value for it be.
This is utterly ridiculous - across 5 years of having the line (so 5 * 12 monthly payment), the entire total of the deficit was £20. And in the space of 4 months paying at £19 I've therefore built up about £16 of credit on the account.
So the woman re-ran the software and it came up with the much more reasonable £12 monthly charge and she also said I can claim back the over-payment, apparently.
Bizarre.
Thursday, 27 August 2009
monaco pics - coach journey back
I thought what I'd do today was just finish off the Monaco trip pics.
One of the reasons I didn't take many non-race photos was because I wasn't' sure how long my camera batteries would last. As it turned out I didn't really have anything to worry about, but I thought it better to be safe than sorry.
As such, on the last day of the race, on the coach back, I decided I'd take a few snaps and these are the best ones. They're all very sunny and Mediterranean, and I don't have much more to really say about them than that, so here they are:
One of the reasons I didn't take many non-race photos was because I wasn't' sure how long my camera batteries would last. As it turned out I didn't really have anything to worry about, but I thought it better to be safe than sorry.
As such, on the last day of the race, on the coach back, I decided I'd take a few snaps and these are the best ones. They're all very sunny and Mediterranean, and I don't have much more to really say about them than that, so here they are:
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
Wednesday, 26 August 2009
hellboy II - the golden army
I found the first hellboy to be enjoyable fair.
It had it's flaws, to be sure, but I thought as comic-book adaptations go, hellboy was entertaining enough.
Hellboy 2 is a direct sequel, made by the same director, Guillermo del Torro. Del Torro is probably one of the most imaginative and creative people working in film today. He has a simply amazing visual sense, but also manages to team this with a superb narrative style and strong story-telling ethic.
Proof of this abounds - Blade 2 is by far the best of the Blade films, both visually and from the story-telling point of view, for example. Then there's Pan's Labyrinth, a film I didn't quite see eye-to-eye with, but one that was dripping with gorgeous visuals.
Hellboy II therefore kinda shows-up the first film. Although I personally enjoyed it for what it was, this second film really emphasises what was missing from the first to make it truly great - del Torro himself.
I remember in the first film's commentary del Torro kept going on about how much of a Hellboy fan he was and how he'd strived to transfer Mike Mignola's characters to the big screen as faithfully as he could. And it worked - they're good characters - but what that therefore mean the first film was missing was a true del Torro-ness.
I'm struggling to explain this, to be frank, but in Hellboy II, del Torro really seems to have let himself go and infused the film with his style. But there's more - in the first he treated the Hellboy world with the utmost respect, whereas in the second it's more like he's expressing his love for the characters.
Does that make sense? So if the first film was reverential and slightly dry and stand-offish because of the respect, then this film is up-close and personal because we're getting a glimpse into the soul of its creator.
That's a bit over the top, but you get the idea.
The film is also staggeringly brave in places.
For example, there's a sequence where Hellboy has to fight an elemental. The elemental grows huge and is destroying the city in its attempts to kill Hellboy.
Hellboy fights back and shoots it and effectively has it on-the-ropes when the villain appears and explains that this is the last of its kind - if he kills it, he ends a race.
Even though this is a block-buster type movie there are shades of grey here. Protect the humans and the city (that is the humans who hate and fear Hellboy and his compatriots) by ending an entire race - it's an intelligent, thoughtful moment where traditionally you would not be presented with anything of the kind.
It had it's flaws, to be sure, but I thought as comic-book adaptations go, hellboy was entertaining enough.
Hellboy 2 is a direct sequel, made by the same director, Guillermo del Torro. Del Torro is probably one of the most imaginative and creative people working in film today. He has a simply amazing visual sense, but also manages to team this with a superb narrative style and strong story-telling ethic.
Proof of this abounds - Blade 2 is by far the best of the Blade films, both visually and from the story-telling point of view, for example. Then there's Pan's Labyrinth, a film I didn't quite see eye-to-eye with, but one that was dripping with gorgeous visuals.
Hellboy II therefore kinda shows-up the first film. Although I personally enjoyed it for what it was, this second film really emphasises what was missing from the first to make it truly great - del Torro himself.
I remember in the first film's commentary del Torro kept going on about how much of a Hellboy fan he was and how he'd strived to transfer Mike Mignola's characters to the big screen as faithfully as he could. And it worked - they're good characters - but what that therefore mean the first film was missing was a true del Torro-ness.
I'm struggling to explain this, to be frank, but in Hellboy II, del Torro really seems to have let himself go and infused the film with his style. But there's more - in the first he treated the Hellboy world with the utmost respect, whereas in the second it's more like he's expressing his love for the characters.
Does that make sense? So if the first film was reverential and slightly dry and stand-offish because of the respect, then this film is up-close and personal because we're getting a glimpse into the soul of its creator.
That's a bit over the top, but you get the idea.
The film is also staggeringly brave in places.
For example, there's a sequence where Hellboy has to fight an elemental. The elemental grows huge and is destroying the city in its attempts to kill Hellboy.
Hellboy fights back and shoots it and effectively has it on-the-ropes when the villain appears and explains that this is the last of its kind - if he kills it, he ends a race.
Even though this is a block-buster type movie there are shades of grey here. Protect the humans and the city (that is the humans who hate and fear Hellboy and his compatriots) by ending an entire race - it's an intelligent, thoughtful moment where traditionally you would not be presented with anything of the kind.
Tuesday, 25 August 2009
as you do
I've recently been reading Richard Hammond's new... I was going to say autobiography then, but it isn't really. It's more like a diary/journal thing, although there are some auto-biography elements.
The first part covers the race to the North Pole Top Gear did, where Hammond was racing Huskies and James & Jeremy went in a four-by-four. Later on - although I haven't got there yet - it seems to cover the Desert race they did, as well as Hammond's meeting with Evel Knievel in a documentary.
I remember those episodes and the documentary well and it's been interesting to read Richard's take on it and the behind-the-scenes stuff. I'd certainly recommend it, but probably only if you're a Top Gear watcher or interested in Hammond. It's not quite got the broader appeal of his autobiography, since it's a bit more focused on things you need to have watched Top Gear to get properly. But it's still an entertaining read.
And speaking of reading, although I've not been watching any anime (naughty Mark!) I have been plugging away with the old manga. So much so, in fact, that my pile of unread manga has almost halved. Indeed, where it actually consisted of two separate stacks, it's now down to 1 stack.
Okay - that's not quite true. Because I deliberately read all my manga twice, actually it's changed from 2 stacks of totally unread to 1 stack of read-once and 1 stack of unread. But that's a sufficiently good achievement for me to be happy.
Anyway, the point is I thought I'd do one of those summary-type list of my thoughts on some of the newer stuff I've tackled:
The Welcome to the NHK manga has been rather disappointing, if I'm honest. The main problem I'm having is that it doesn't seem to be very consistent, both in terms of plotting and tone.
I'm left puzzled as to quite what it's trying to say or to achieve. At some points it comes across as an all-out comedy, at others it seems to be trying to make more serious points about the hikikomori (shut-ins, basically, though this shut-in spends a remarkably large amount of time outside his apartment, which kinda exemplifies my issue with it). At others it seems be going for a more straight drama style.
It almost comes across as vaguely schizophrenic - switching from one idea to another as it suits the whims of the writer. Now this is either a clever representation of the psyche of the main character, or just plain bad writing. And unfortunately I've been erring towards the latter.
Samurai Harem: Asu No Yoichi is a series I picked up because I rather liked what I saw of the anime version. Whilst I wouldn't say I didn't like the manga, the anime is better. That's a raft of double negatives, isn't it?
Basically, what I mean is that the manga seems okay, where the anime seemed good. There's a lot of commonality between the two - all the same characters are featured and the set-up is the same - but the anime is slightly better written. Weirdly, this is because the anime is more happy to use already familiar harem-type devices.
Normally I'd have been rolling my eyes at this rolling out of clichés, but the thing with Harem was that the main character was actually quite likeable and not the usual loser/milquetoast they often feature. In the manga this is also true, but the writer has tried to be innovative about lost of other stuff too, and it doesn't quite work.
In other words, for the anime, they seem to have picked the best aspects and used those. Plus the tweaks to the chara designs make them a bit better in the anime, if I'm honest.
Two series I think I've mentioned before but I've now read a bit more of are Doujin Works and Sayonara Zetsubo Sensei.
Doujin Work I was a bit on-the-fence over, due mainly to the format, I think. Well I've decided I pretty much like it now. Weirdly, it actually reminds me of Garfield.
Not in the sense of sharing any plot elements, obviously, but Garfield was formatted in a rigid panel format that was designed mainly for short, gag-based strips. However, occasionally it would veer into longer stories across more strips.
Doujin works is very much like that and it suffers the same problem. Long-form comics almost demand the use of varying panel sizes. Kept in fixed formats they feel oddly contained; broken up somehow.
But the point is, when you get past that, it works as a series. It also helps that I'm now used to the weirdness of it all.
However, another series I was a bit on-the-fence about has proven to be less of goer. Sayonara Zetsubo Sensei is really leaving me cold.
And I just can't understand why - when I watched the anime I really loved it, but the manga. I dunno, I just can't explain it.
My only theory is that the manga is confusing me. A lot of the characters look very similar and the panels are riddled with obscure, Japan-centric visual jokes that I don't get.
But in the anime, these jokes are either ignorable, or they are better explained by being animated. For the characters of course, you have colour to help distinguish them and different sounding voice actors.
It's a pretty flimsy theory, but it's all I can think of.
The first part covers the race to the North Pole Top Gear did, where Hammond was racing Huskies and James & Jeremy went in a four-by-four. Later on - although I haven't got there yet - it seems to cover the Desert race they did, as well as Hammond's meeting with Evel Knievel in a documentary.
I remember those episodes and the documentary well and it's been interesting to read Richard's take on it and the behind-the-scenes stuff. I'd certainly recommend it, but probably only if you're a Top Gear watcher or interested in Hammond. It's not quite got the broader appeal of his autobiography, since it's a bit more focused on things you need to have watched Top Gear to get properly. But it's still an entertaining read.
And speaking of reading, although I've not been watching any anime (naughty Mark!) I have been plugging away with the old manga. So much so, in fact, that my pile of unread manga has almost halved. Indeed, where it actually consisted of two separate stacks, it's now down to 1 stack.
Okay - that's not quite true. Because I deliberately read all my manga twice, actually it's changed from 2 stacks of totally unread to 1 stack of read-once and 1 stack of unread. But that's a sufficiently good achievement for me to be happy.
Anyway, the point is I thought I'd do one of those summary-type list of my thoughts on some of the newer stuff I've tackled:
The Welcome to the NHK manga has been rather disappointing, if I'm honest. The main problem I'm having is that it doesn't seem to be very consistent, both in terms of plotting and tone.
I'm left puzzled as to quite what it's trying to say or to achieve. At some points it comes across as an all-out comedy, at others it seems to be trying to make more serious points about the hikikomori (shut-ins, basically, though this shut-in spends a remarkably large amount of time outside his apartment, which kinda exemplifies my issue with it). At others it seems be going for a more straight drama style.
It almost comes across as vaguely schizophrenic - switching from one idea to another as it suits the whims of the writer. Now this is either a clever representation of the psyche of the main character, or just plain bad writing. And unfortunately I've been erring towards the latter.
Samurai Harem: Asu No Yoichi is a series I picked up because I rather liked what I saw of the anime version. Whilst I wouldn't say I didn't like the manga, the anime is better. That's a raft of double negatives, isn't it?
Basically, what I mean is that the manga seems okay, where the anime seemed good. There's a lot of commonality between the two - all the same characters are featured and the set-up is the same - but the anime is slightly better written. Weirdly, this is because the anime is more happy to use already familiar harem-type devices.
Normally I'd have been rolling my eyes at this rolling out of clichés, but the thing with Harem was that the main character was actually quite likeable and not the usual loser/milquetoast they often feature. In the manga this is also true, but the writer has tried to be innovative about lost of other stuff too, and it doesn't quite work.
In other words, for the anime, they seem to have picked the best aspects and used those. Plus the tweaks to the chara designs make them a bit better in the anime, if I'm honest.
Two series I think I've mentioned before but I've now read a bit more of are Doujin Works and Sayonara Zetsubo Sensei.
Doujin Work I was a bit on-the-fence over, due mainly to the format, I think. Well I've decided I pretty much like it now. Weirdly, it actually reminds me of Garfield.
Not in the sense of sharing any plot elements, obviously, but Garfield was formatted in a rigid panel format that was designed mainly for short, gag-based strips. However, occasionally it would veer into longer stories across more strips.
Doujin works is very much like that and it suffers the same problem. Long-form comics almost demand the use of varying panel sizes. Kept in fixed formats they feel oddly contained; broken up somehow.
But the point is, when you get past that, it works as a series. It also helps that I'm now used to the weirdness of it all.
However, another series I was a bit on-the-fence about has proven to be less of goer. Sayonara Zetsubo Sensei is really leaving me cold.
And I just can't understand why - when I watched the anime I really loved it, but the manga. I dunno, I just can't explain it.
My only theory is that the manga is confusing me. A lot of the characters look very similar and the panels are riddled with obscure, Japan-centric visual jokes that I don't get.
But in the anime, these jokes are either ignorable, or they are better explained by being animated. For the characters of course, you have colour to help distinguish them and different sounding voice actors.
It's a pretty flimsy theory, but it's all I can think of.
Monday, 24 August 2009
kaboom!
My computer exploded.
Well, exploded is a bit of an exaggeration, but the power supply for my gaming rig shorted out. It made quite a bang, I can tell you, and I expleted quite loudly as a result.
At the time I wasn't sure what had gone so after the shock had warn off a little I reset the power for my bedsit and re-tried the power for my PCs and it shorted again with another loud bang. This time there was also a strong whiff of burning stuff.
I therefore decided to take my games rig apart and the smell was definitely coming from the power supply.
I've heard that power supplies actually store quite a lot of charge in capacitors, so I decided not to actually open the supply up. Pretty sure I wouldn't be able to fix it any way so I ordered a new supply.
So that was £50 I wasn't planning on spending :/.
In a way, it was a bit of a godsend, though. If the rig had been working I'm pretty sure I would have blown the entire weekend playing Anno. I would have enjoyed it, I'm sure, but the point is by not being able to play at all it meant I could do a load of stuff, and it turned out there was way more for me to do than I'd thought.
For example, I've prepared loads of updates for trismugistus.com - 8 weeks worth, in fact. This takes me up to the middle of October, I believe, which will be nice.
Also, I had a bunch of e-bay auctions on the go and there was quite a lot of effort with that. I always forget how much effort there is with e-bay stuff.
And then there was a surprisingly large amount of telly to clear. That was an odd one - at the start of last week I'd managed to totally clear my PVR and I was watching shows too, so I was keeping it clear. But then on Saturday/Sunday there were loads of unwatched things.
I think what happened was a conflagration of stuff - a few shows were coming to the end, some with double-episode things, while other shows were starting. And then there's the Thursday effect. For some reason loads of shows I watch are scheduled for Thursday, but by the time Thursday rolls around I'm often fed-up of watching telly or absorbed in the middle of something else and so I leave it to my PVR. I therefore end up with a big list of stuff being added on one night.
Plus it didn't help that this week's rental DVD had two commentary tracks on it, so that took way longer to watch than I had anticipated.
Still, the point is I cleared it all, which I'm sure I wouldn't have if I'd had a working games rig.
Unfortunately, I still didn't do any scanning, though. I did prep last months mags for scanning (taking out the staples and un-glueing them) but never quite worked up the desire to sit and start scanning. This is silly for two reasons - it builds up a barrier because the number of hours needed to scan it all is daunting, but also because I don't watch any of the fansubs I've got.
And there are a lot of unwatched fansubs. I mean, we're reapidly approaching the winter season and things will get bonkers if those shows start without me finishing most of the past two seasons :/.
Well, exploded is a bit of an exaggeration, but the power supply for my gaming rig shorted out. It made quite a bang, I can tell you, and I expleted quite loudly as a result.
At the time I wasn't sure what had gone so after the shock had warn off a little I reset the power for my bedsit and re-tried the power for my PCs and it shorted again with another loud bang. This time there was also a strong whiff of burning stuff.
I therefore decided to take my games rig apart and the smell was definitely coming from the power supply.
I've heard that power supplies actually store quite a lot of charge in capacitors, so I decided not to actually open the supply up. Pretty sure I wouldn't be able to fix it any way so I ordered a new supply.
So that was £50 I wasn't planning on spending :/.
In a way, it was a bit of a godsend, though. If the rig had been working I'm pretty sure I would have blown the entire weekend playing Anno. I would have enjoyed it, I'm sure, but the point is by not being able to play at all it meant I could do a load of stuff, and it turned out there was way more for me to do than I'd thought.
For example, I've prepared loads of updates for trismugistus.com - 8 weeks worth, in fact. This takes me up to the middle of October, I believe, which will be nice.
Also, I had a bunch of e-bay auctions on the go and there was quite a lot of effort with that. I always forget how much effort there is with e-bay stuff.
And then there was a surprisingly large amount of telly to clear. That was an odd one - at the start of last week I'd managed to totally clear my PVR and I was watching shows too, so I was keeping it clear. But then on Saturday/Sunday there were loads of unwatched things.
I think what happened was a conflagration of stuff - a few shows were coming to the end, some with double-episode things, while other shows were starting. And then there's the Thursday effect. For some reason loads of shows I watch are scheduled for Thursday, but by the time Thursday rolls around I'm often fed-up of watching telly or absorbed in the middle of something else and so I leave it to my PVR. I therefore end up with a big list of stuff being added on one night.
Plus it didn't help that this week's rental DVD had two commentary tracks on it, so that took way longer to watch than I had anticipated.
Still, the point is I cleared it all, which I'm sure I wouldn't have if I'd had a working games rig.
Unfortunately, I still didn't do any scanning, though. I did prep last months mags for scanning (taking out the staples and un-glueing them) but never quite worked up the desire to sit and start scanning. This is silly for two reasons - it builds up a barrier because the number of hours needed to scan it all is daunting, but also because I don't watch any of the fansubs I've got.
And there are a lot of unwatched fansubs. I mean, we're reapidly approaching the winter season and things will get bonkers if those shows start without me finishing most of the past two seasons :/.
Friday, 21 August 2009
cable confusion
Yesterday was a near-total right-off.
I was just so tired from the intensity of Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday I could hardly even see straight, let alone do anything useful. I'm also pretty shattered today, but then I didn't help myself by playing Anno quite late into the night - dunno why I did that as I knew what the consequences would be.
I do feel a bit better, though, so hopefully I can get something done.
Tomorrow looks like it's going to be a bit manic, though.
Recently, they've been digging up the roads in the town (well, village is more accurate) where I normally do my shopping. This has caused traffic chaos so where I normally slip my shopping in during my lunch break, it's meant that I've been having to do it very early on a Saturday.
I mean, there are advantages to shopping very early on a Saturday, but generally I find the advantages offered by shopping during the week tend to outweigh these.
But anyway, the point is that I've got the shopping to do, but I've slowly been adding more and more other stuff too. First off, I'll need to fill up with petrol, which isn't a huge hassle, but it's easier if I do it before the shopping, which means getting up super early.
Then I need to go to the post office, but the slight problem is it's a bit of a triple-whammy. First off I need to get some photos done for my passport (this means I'll have to shave either tonight or tomorrow morning) and then I need to post a parcel for an e-bay auction thing and finally I need to collect a parcel because there's a customs charge to pay.
What makes it annoying is that the first two are best done in Alton, but the last has to be done in Farnham. I'm very tempted to pay the customs charge online and then basically go from there - they'll try to deliver it and if I'm lucky my landlord Jon will be in to collect it. If not, it at least puts the problem off for a week and I can collect it next week when thins will hopefully be a bit less busy.
And they get even busier when I get home after the post office, because I'm supposed to be experimenting with my landlord's broadband. I mentioned before that I was looking at trying to get cable, well it turned out that this was impossible.
Basically, Virgin said they don't allow two separate accounts at the same address (my place is a self-contained annex and so has the exact same address as the main residence). Why the won't is a bit of a mystery to me. BT will let you have multiple accounts at the same address - that's what I've got now.
So that seemed to put a serious kibosh on things until John offered that we run a cable from hi box right the way through to my place and that should let me plug into his broadband. If it all works it means I should be able to cancel my broadband at least.
I've actually been giving serious consideration to stopping my phone line as well. Ideally what I'd like to do is just have a mobile (indeed, I'd actually like to switch to a pay as you go mobile as well, rather than be on contract).
I dunno - I need to think about that a bit before I go ahead.
But anyway, the first step is the broadband, so I'm going to test my laptop on John's router and see how we go. If it works, then he's going to see if he can run a long cable into my place and if so then I may well be sorted.
I was just so tired from the intensity of Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday I could hardly even see straight, let alone do anything useful. I'm also pretty shattered today, but then I didn't help myself by playing Anno quite late into the night - dunno why I did that as I knew what the consequences would be.
I do feel a bit better, though, so hopefully I can get something done.
Tomorrow looks like it's going to be a bit manic, though.
Recently, they've been digging up the roads in the town (well, village is more accurate) where I normally do my shopping. This has caused traffic chaos so where I normally slip my shopping in during my lunch break, it's meant that I've been having to do it very early on a Saturday.
I mean, there are advantages to shopping very early on a Saturday, but generally I find the advantages offered by shopping during the week tend to outweigh these.
But anyway, the point is that I've got the shopping to do, but I've slowly been adding more and more other stuff too. First off, I'll need to fill up with petrol, which isn't a huge hassle, but it's easier if I do it before the shopping, which means getting up super early.
Then I need to go to the post office, but the slight problem is it's a bit of a triple-whammy. First off I need to get some photos done for my passport (this means I'll have to shave either tonight or tomorrow morning) and then I need to post a parcel for an e-bay auction thing and finally I need to collect a parcel because there's a customs charge to pay.
What makes it annoying is that the first two are best done in Alton, but the last has to be done in Farnham. I'm very tempted to pay the customs charge online and then basically go from there - they'll try to deliver it and if I'm lucky my landlord Jon will be in to collect it. If not, it at least puts the problem off for a week and I can collect it next week when thins will hopefully be a bit less busy.
And they get even busier when I get home after the post office, because I'm supposed to be experimenting with my landlord's broadband. I mentioned before that I was looking at trying to get cable, well it turned out that this was impossible.
Basically, Virgin said they don't allow two separate accounts at the same address (my place is a self-contained annex and so has the exact same address as the main residence). Why the won't is a bit of a mystery to me. BT will let you have multiple accounts at the same address - that's what I've got now.
So that seemed to put a serious kibosh on things until John offered that we run a cable from hi box right the way through to my place and that should let me plug into his broadband. If it all works it means I should be able to cancel my broadband at least.
I've actually been giving serious consideration to stopping my phone line as well. Ideally what I'd like to do is just have a mobile (indeed, I'd actually like to switch to a pay as you go mobile as well, rather than be on contract).
I dunno - I need to think about that a bit before I go ahead.
But anyway, the first step is the broadband, so I'm going to test my laptop on John's router and see how we go. If it works, then he's going to see if he can run a long cable into my place and if so then I may well be sorted.
Thursday, 20 August 2009
son of rambow
Hmm.
Unlike yesterday's Blood Diamond, where I went in expecting it to be poor and really liked it, Son of Rambow I'd heard a lot of good stuff about and, well, I was a little disappointed if I'm honest.
I dunno - it just never really seemed to get going for me.
One of the problems I had was that you'd get a scene that was very realistic - this is what school is really like, but then suddenly there'd be a moment in it that was totally unrealistic. Or the entire next scene would just be daft.
There were also quite a few jokes that seemed to fall a bit flat to me. It reminded me quite a lot of Napoleon Dynamite, in that it kept feeling like I'd not quite got the gag. I mean, it wasn't that bad - I did find plenty of it funny - but it was that sort of thing.
But the thing is there were some truly excellent moments in it.
One of the characters was an artist with a huge and vivid imagination and every so often it sort of slipped into showing his imagination. There was a particularly effective dream sequence, for example, and another where he was travelling along in a car and his drawing were animated onto the surrounding fields.
These moments I absolutely loved - it was imaginative and lovely and clever all at the same time.
But other bits just didn't work for me. The whole issue of the same character being brought up in a weird religious sect just didn't really work.
Another element that didn't' quite gel was some of the dialogue. The main characters were all kids and some of the dialogue was perfectly framed for their age, but other bits were too grown up.
Not so much in the sentiments and feeling, but in how eloquently they were expressed. This was especially true for the scruff-bag/ruffian character - I had no problem with him being smart, but they way he talked needed to be less well rounded and clever in order to suit his character.
The problem is that makes me feel like a cynical, miserable git. What I mean is I didn't quite enjoy the film as much as I thought I was going to, but I'm left with a nagging feeling that maybe I was just not in the right frame of mind to enjoy it, rather than is being actively bad.
Unlike yesterday's Blood Diamond, where I went in expecting it to be poor and really liked it, Son of Rambow I'd heard a lot of good stuff about and, well, I was a little disappointed if I'm honest.
I dunno - it just never really seemed to get going for me.
One of the problems I had was that you'd get a scene that was very realistic - this is what school is really like, but then suddenly there'd be a moment in it that was totally unrealistic. Or the entire next scene would just be daft.
There were also quite a few jokes that seemed to fall a bit flat to me. It reminded me quite a lot of Napoleon Dynamite, in that it kept feeling like I'd not quite got the gag. I mean, it wasn't that bad - I did find plenty of it funny - but it was that sort of thing.
But the thing is there were some truly excellent moments in it.
One of the characters was an artist with a huge and vivid imagination and every so often it sort of slipped into showing his imagination. There was a particularly effective dream sequence, for example, and another where he was travelling along in a car and his drawing were animated onto the surrounding fields.
These moments I absolutely loved - it was imaginative and lovely and clever all at the same time.
But other bits just didn't work for me. The whole issue of the same character being brought up in a weird religious sect just didn't really work.
Another element that didn't' quite gel was some of the dialogue. The main characters were all kids and some of the dialogue was perfectly framed for their age, but other bits were too grown up.
Not so much in the sentiments and feeling, but in how eloquently they were expressed. This was especially true for the scruff-bag/ruffian character - I had no problem with him being smart, but they way he talked needed to be less well rounded and clever in order to suit his character.
The problem is that makes me feel like a cynical, miserable git. What I mean is I didn't quite enjoy the film as much as I thought I was going to, but I'm left with a nagging feeling that maybe I was just not in the right frame of mind to enjoy it, rather than is being actively bad.
Wednesday, 19 August 2009
blood diamond
Last week with all the photos I didn't post a review of my weekly DVD rental and today is a little less manic, so here it is. I'll probably do this weeks rental tomorrow.
For some reason I went into this expecting it to be rather bad.
I don't know why I thought that, but I did, and overall I'd say I was wrong - it was actually pretty good.
There are some slightly patchy elements, though.
One of the most glaring is the question who's the star? Who's story is this?
Well, Di Caprio is the biggest name and you could also therefore argue that he's the star. He's not the nicest of characters, so I guess anti-hero might be the best phrase to use, but ultimately in the end he doesn't' feel like the star - he's more of a scene stealing support.
Similarly, the framing device for the whole film is that of a family that's torn apart by the civil war. A civil war that's fuelled by an illegal diamond trade.
But as I say, it's more of a framing device - it lends impetus to the story and allows us to follow a thread that lets us get a grip on the real story, but it's also at many times a secondary element. The father, whose looking for his family and then specifically his son who's been taken by the rebels adds a lot of emotional depth, but he and it also don't feel like the star.
The female journalist takes a supporting role, so what about that title element - the blood diamond?
Well again, it's not really the start of the show. It's the McGuffin - the thing everyone is searching for and chasing, but in many senses what it actually is is irrelevant.
And I would also argue that the whole idea of corporate greed, the civil war, political machinations and man's inhumanity to man that form powerful elements to the story are also not quite the star.
The star, in my opinion, was Africa.
In a David Lean Lawrence of Arabia type happening, it seems the film falls in love with Africa more than it does the story or the players in the actual movie. And this is an Africa of equal parts beauty and dynamism as it is brutality and cruelty.
So yeah, I really quite enjoyed the film. They only bit I didn't like came towards the end. The film's violence was portrayed quite realistically up until a helicopter attack that's towards the end. for some reason it suddenly got very 'Hollywood' at that point with lots of squibs and earth exploding up as bullets hit.
This kinda lost my respect a bit, as it came across more like an episode of the A-Team :/.
For some reason I went into this expecting it to be rather bad.
I don't know why I thought that, but I did, and overall I'd say I was wrong - it was actually pretty good.
There are some slightly patchy elements, though.
One of the most glaring is the question who's the star? Who's story is this?
Well, Di Caprio is the biggest name and you could also therefore argue that he's the star. He's not the nicest of characters, so I guess anti-hero might be the best phrase to use, but ultimately in the end he doesn't' feel like the star - he's more of a scene stealing support.
Similarly, the framing device for the whole film is that of a family that's torn apart by the civil war. A civil war that's fuelled by an illegal diamond trade.
But as I say, it's more of a framing device - it lends impetus to the story and allows us to follow a thread that lets us get a grip on the real story, but it's also at many times a secondary element. The father, whose looking for his family and then specifically his son who's been taken by the rebels adds a lot of emotional depth, but he and it also don't feel like the star.
The female journalist takes a supporting role, so what about that title element - the blood diamond?
Well again, it's not really the start of the show. It's the McGuffin - the thing everyone is searching for and chasing, but in many senses what it actually is is irrelevant.
And I would also argue that the whole idea of corporate greed, the civil war, political machinations and man's inhumanity to man that form powerful elements to the story are also not quite the star.
The star, in my opinion, was Africa.
In a David Lean Lawrence of Arabia type happening, it seems the film falls in love with Africa more than it does the story or the players in the actual movie. And this is an Africa of equal parts beauty and dynamism as it is brutality and cruelty.
So yeah, I really quite enjoyed the film. They only bit I didn't like came towards the end. The film's violence was portrayed quite realistically up until a helicopter attack that's towards the end. for some reason it suddenly got very 'Hollywood' at that point with lots of squibs and earth exploding up as bullets hit.
This kinda lost my respect a bit, as it came across more like an episode of the A-Team :/.
Tuesday, 18 August 2009
still maxed out
I'm still snowed under and am barely getting the chance to even think abotu the blog, let alone write any new entries.
It may be a case of disregard the blog this week, I think.
It may be a case of disregard the blog this week, I think.
Monday, 17 August 2009
fecking hell
I'd thought today I might do a bonus post for the holiday pics.
I took a few photos as I was coming back on the coach on the last day - not many, but there's a few pretty things to look at.
However, today has just been fucking manic. It's only Monday, but it feels like Friday with all the dashing around I've been doing.
And the rest of the week doesn't exactly look like it's going to quiet down any so blog posts may be few and far between.
I took a few photos as I was coming back on the coach on the last day - not many, but there's a few pretty things to look at.
However, today has just been fucking manic. It's only Monday, but it feels like Friday with all the dashing around I've been doing.
And the rest of the week doesn't exactly look like it's going to quiet down any so blog posts may be few and far between.
Friday, 14 August 2009
monaco pics 3
So here it is - day 3, race day.
Let's crack straight in shall we with the establishing shots. These are where we sat on day 3:
For these next ones I'm actually hanging out over the side of the stand, which I can assure you I didn't really enjoy as I have a serious fear of heights:
Monaco is so small that there's not much room for, well, anything, really. So instead of the paddocks (where the teams 'live' being in the pits, they're a ways off to the side. These shots are aimed at the paddocks, but you can't really see them, as such:
This is actually the 'RED Bull experience'. Whether that means 'overly sweet with and with an unpleasant after-taste', I can't confirm.
Hubba-hubba:
The next lot of shots are all of the pits:
We were actually facing 'the rock' from this stand:
Here's one of the support races with Porsches:
Note how the red and white thing is there to keep them in the race-track and not skip the corner. The curbs are not much of a deterrent at all for an ordinary road car:
And some GP2 action:
Note the red and white thing has gone now:
This is them wheeling the Red Bull into the garage. At most circuits they don't need to bother, because the paddocks are right there, but as mentioned, Monaco is so tiny they can't fit them in:
Before the race they have a pit walk about where people can wander around the pits. If you can see anyone famous, let me know:
And here's the driver's parade. See if you can spot anyone you recognise:
And here, finally, is some F1 race action:
Not that I took many photos during the actual race, because you're so focused on the racing, you forget to:
A Ferrari skipping the corner. They got told off for skipping this corner:
A pit stop. On telly, pit stops look quite smooth and well-oiled, but in real life they're barely controlled chaos:
And here was one of the more exciting events: Kovalainan crashed his car right next to us:
And that's pretty much it, really. Here's a shot of Button holding his trophy aloft as shown on the big screen:
Let's crack straight in shall we with the establishing shots. These are where we sat on day 3:
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
For these next ones I'm actually hanging out over the side of the stand, which I can assure you I didn't really enjoy as I have a serious fear of heights:
 |
 |
 |
Monaco is so small that there's not much room for, well, anything, really. So instead of the paddocks (where the teams 'live' being in the pits, they're a ways off to the side. These shots are aimed at the paddocks, but you can't really see them, as such:
 |
This is actually the 'RED Bull experience'. Whether that means 'overly sweet with and with an unpleasant after-taste', I can't confirm.
 |
Hubba-hubba:
 |
The next lot of shots are all of the pits:
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
We were actually facing 'the rock' from this stand:
 |
 |
 |
Here's one of the support races with Porsches:
 |
Note how the red and white thing is there to keep them in the race-track and not skip the corner. The curbs are not much of a deterrent at all for an ordinary road car:
 |
And some GP2 action:
 |
Note the red and white thing has gone now:
 |
This is them wheeling the Red Bull into the garage. At most circuits they don't need to bother, because the paddocks are right there, but as mentioned, Monaco is so tiny they can't fit them in:
 |
 |
Before the race they have a pit walk about where people can wander around the pits. If you can see anyone famous, let me know:
 |
And here's the driver's parade. See if you can spot anyone you recognise:
 |
And here, finally, is some F1 race action:
 |
Not that I took many photos during the actual race, because you're so focused on the racing, you forget to:
 |
A Ferrari skipping the corner. They got told off for skipping this corner:
 |
A pit stop. On telly, pit stops look quite smooth and well-oiled, but in real life they're barely controlled chaos:
 |
And here was one of the more exciting events: Kovalainan crashed his car right next to us:
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
And that's pretty much it, really. Here's a shot of Button holding his trophy aloft as shown on the big screen:
 |
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)