This week has been absolutely horrendous, because we've been trying to rescue a bid and I'm absolutely shattered.
The presence of longer posts this week compared to last week has actually been something of an illusion - I was able to pre-write most of them before the poo hit the proverbial oscillating air redistribution system.
Today's, however, I've literally just slapped together, and I've not a lot of time, so I'll cut it short and then have a really big whinge session next week about what went wrong and why it's all been a bit horrible.
Friday, 28 January 2011
Thursday, 27 January 2011
robin hood
Turns out I sort of lied when I said I would only do the one film I enjoyed that we watched at my dad's. The other films we watched were a film called Zathura, which is essentially Jumanji in space (it's deliberately that - the book it's based on is the sorta sequel to Jumanji, and you shouldn't think it's rubbish because I describe that way or because I'm not reviewing it - it was actually surprisingly good - it's just I need to get caught up) and the Russell Crow/Ridley Scott version of Robin Hood.
The reason I wasn't going to review this one was simply because I couldn't remember what it was we watched. A more accurate way to put it might be that it was sufficiently poor that I blanked it out.
The main problem with it, I think, was that it wasn't really Robin Hood.
Now actually the Robin Hood that tends to be thought of as being 'proper' Robin Hood isn't actually the original Robin Hood. The Hood of the original stories was an outlaw who robbed from the rich, but past that everything else, from the giving to the poor to being Earl of Loxley and Prince John and Richard the Lionheart - all that - is actually a later update.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying they should have made that original story, what I'm really getting at is that they've made neither. They haven't gone back to that original source, nor have they made a new version of the more familiar rich-poor-currency-interface story.
Instead they've kind of taken elements and grafted them onto another story. If this were set in another time period and you changed the characters names, it might just have worked. It could have worked in the sense that you'd have had familiar elements that would have been references for you to pick up.
Instead, by calling it Robin Hood, you end up with something that feels like they threw something together around the themes.
It doesn't help that the story lacks any real compelling element to it (and unfortunately relies heavily on coincidence). For example, I'm not sure if it's deliberate, but they seem to be trying to muddy the waters as to who the bad guys are and quite what their motives are. Rather than the simple antagonist of the bad Prince John, there's something here about the French.
It even goes to the extent at the end of having the French invade. Only it's a pretty crap invasion and also... well, it actually looks like the D-day landings as covered by the beginning of Saving Private Ryan. And I mean it properly looks like them - the French apparently had very similar landing craft to the allies in 1945.
Which is a big part of its problem - why are the French even part of it and why are they staging a reconstruction of the D-Day landings in Ye Olde England?
It's just confused and confusing.
Oh, and Russell Crow's accent is all over the place.
The reason I wasn't going to review this one was simply because I couldn't remember what it was we watched. A more accurate way to put it might be that it was sufficiently poor that I blanked it out.
The main problem with it, I think, was that it wasn't really Robin Hood.
Now actually the Robin Hood that tends to be thought of as being 'proper' Robin Hood isn't actually the original Robin Hood. The Hood of the original stories was an outlaw who robbed from the rich, but past that everything else, from the giving to the poor to being Earl of Loxley and Prince John and Richard the Lionheart - all that - is actually a later update.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying they should have made that original story, what I'm really getting at is that they've made neither. They haven't gone back to that original source, nor have they made a new version of the more familiar rich-poor-currency-interface story.
Instead they've kind of taken elements and grafted them onto another story. If this were set in another time period and you changed the characters names, it might just have worked. It could have worked in the sense that you'd have had familiar elements that would have been references for you to pick up.
Instead, by calling it Robin Hood, you end up with something that feels like they threw something together around the themes.
It doesn't help that the story lacks any real compelling element to it (and unfortunately relies heavily on coincidence). For example, I'm not sure if it's deliberate, but they seem to be trying to muddy the waters as to who the bad guys are and quite what their motives are. Rather than the simple antagonist of the bad Prince John, there's something here about the French.
It even goes to the extent at the end of having the French invade. Only it's a pretty crap invasion and also... well, it actually looks like the D-day landings as covered by the beginning of Saving Private Ryan. And I mean it properly looks like them - the French apparently had very similar landing craft to the allies in 1945.
Which is a big part of its problem - why are the French even part of it and why are they staging a reconstruction of the D-Day landings in Ye Olde England?
It's just confused and confusing.
Oh, and Russell Crow's accent is all over the place.
Wednesday, 26 January 2011
nearly there
When I say nearly there, I mean I've nearly reached the target I set before Christmas.
Yes, it's the weekly weigh-in post and I've nearly made the official (well sort of) transition from being morbidly obese to just plain obese! Hoo... ray?
Anyway, the weekly weigh-in revealed a further loss of 3 pounds over the course of last week, which I was pleasantly pleased with. I've worked out that if I loose an average of 3 pounds a week then I should reach my next target broadly on schedule.
My next target is a bit looser than my original target. Basically I want to roughly get to the half way point between obesity and just being overweight by my birthday.
Hmm... This actually seems to be getting more and more complicated to explain without having posted those celebratory posts I was talking about last week. I definitely need to tweak those and get them posted. What I'm hoping is that I can loose the last four pounds I need to this week, hit the target and then post the tweaked celebratory posts next week.
Even if I don't make it this week then it will surely only be the week after, so things should become clearer in terms of what I'm on about with the weight loss targets pretty soon.
For now, what I think I will say is that my main intended target is to hit 18 stone by my birthday. However, I'm rather aware that this year Easter is extremely late - literally the week before my birthday. But also, this year I'm going to the British Grand Prix, which is in July.
The plan to go to the GP was hatched pretty late and has left me in something of a quandary holiday wise. With the lateness of Easter and the extra bank holiday for the royal wedding I'm unsure if it's a good idea to take time off then. See, the issue is that the kids will be off and I imagine a lot of parents will take the couple of extra days need to make it a proper holiday.
But also if I'm now going to the Grand Prix, should I take some time off then? If I do both that won't leave me with a lot of holiday, so what should I do about my usual late summer holiday?
The reason these are important is that my goals and plans were formulated based on Easter/birthday and late summer holiday, but now I have the British GP as another node point.
I need to have a think about it all.
Yes, it's the weekly weigh-in post and I've nearly made the official (well sort of) transition from being morbidly obese to just plain obese! Hoo... ray?
Anyway, the weekly weigh-in revealed a further loss of 3 pounds over the course of last week, which I was pleasantly pleased with. I've worked out that if I loose an average of 3 pounds a week then I should reach my next target broadly on schedule.
My next target is a bit looser than my original target. Basically I want to roughly get to the half way point between obesity and just being overweight by my birthday.
Hmm... This actually seems to be getting more and more complicated to explain without having posted those celebratory posts I was talking about last week. I definitely need to tweak those and get them posted. What I'm hoping is that I can loose the last four pounds I need to this week, hit the target and then post the tweaked celebratory posts next week.
Even if I don't make it this week then it will surely only be the week after, so things should become clearer in terms of what I'm on about with the weight loss targets pretty soon.
For now, what I think I will say is that my main intended target is to hit 18 stone by my birthday. However, I'm rather aware that this year Easter is extremely late - literally the week before my birthday. But also, this year I'm going to the British Grand Prix, which is in July.
The plan to go to the GP was hatched pretty late and has left me in something of a quandary holiday wise. With the lateness of Easter and the extra bank holiday for the royal wedding I'm unsure if it's a good idea to take time off then. See, the issue is that the kids will be off and I imagine a lot of parents will take the couple of extra days need to make it a proper holiday.
But also if I'm now going to the Grand Prix, should I take some time off then? If I do both that won't leave me with a lot of holiday, so what should I do about my usual late summer holiday?
The reason these are important is that my goals and plans were formulated based on Easter/birthday and late summer holiday, but now I have the British GP as another node point.
I need to have a think about it all.
Tuesday, 25 January 2011
iron man 2
There seems to be a great tendency in comic book film to produce over-complicated sequels.
The first film in a comic-book franchise always has to cover the origin story. If the hero has powers, it generally has to show how he got them, or otherwise show how he got to his default 'hero' position. This isn't universally true - in X-Men most of the heroes already have their powers, but even their you get some origins or at least explanation of what mutants are.
But essentially, origin stories are covered by part 1. Because this will take up a good chunk of the story, there will only be enough space for one villain.
Now when it comes time for the sequel, we've already had the origin story, so there's now a big chunk of time free for an extra villain or two - right? Well yes, but the problem is it's actually really complicated to do multiple villains, not least of all because villains also need origin stories.
What I'm driving at is that there's a tendency to overfill sequels with villains, rather than come up with a proper, emotionally involving story for the hero. So, a good sequel, like Spiderman 2, only has one villain - Doc Ok - but has an emotionally engaging story for the hero to replace the origin story. A bad sequel, like Spiderman 3, crams itself so full of villains that the hero's story dwindles to nothing and all those villains get short-shrift too.
Iron Man 2 somehow manages to not have too many villains, but at the same time still somehow manages to have too much stuff into it that it doesn't really work. The problem here, though, seems to be forcing too much into the hero's own story.
So you've got him being killed by his chest energy thing, giving up control of his company, running some sort of weird expo thing, exploring his relationship with his dad, being recruited (ish) by Nick Fury to the Avengers, developing his relationship with Pepper and even being responsible for world peace (!) ... and the list goes on. They've crammed the film so full of stuff for Tony, that all of it seems to get short shrift.
And the villain ends up feeling like an add-on simply because they needed an excuse for some special effects. This is especially annoying when you consider that the idea of the villain is closely linked to his dad. It could have been so much more involving.
But what adds insult to injury is that the most interesting thing about Tony Stark - his drinking problem - isn't really even there. Well, it's sort of there, but it's not clear. I think the problem was that they wanted to hint at it, but because it had to be a U/Pg film, they couldn't really include it properly.
So yeah, to be frank, it ends up being a big old mess, even to the extent that the sharp wit that runs through the first film is a bit lacking in this second film.
Shame really, because it looks great and the acting's great - the plot just doesn't quite work.
The first film in a comic-book franchise always has to cover the origin story. If the hero has powers, it generally has to show how he got them, or otherwise show how he got to his default 'hero' position. This isn't universally true - in X-Men most of the heroes already have their powers, but even their you get some origins or at least explanation of what mutants are.
But essentially, origin stories are covered by part 1. Because this will take up a good chunk of the story, there will only be enough space for one villain.
Now when it comes time for the sequel, we've already had the origin story, so there's now a big chunk of time free for an extra villain or two - right? Well yes, but the problem is it's actually really complicated to do multiple villains, not least of all because villains also need origin stories.
What I'm driving at is that there's a tendency to overfill sequels with villains, rather than come up with a proper, emotionally involving story for the hero. So, a good sequel, like Spiderman 2, only has one villain - Doc Ok - but has an emotionally engaging story for the hero to replace the origin story. A bad sequel, like Spiderman 3, crams itself so full of villains that the hero's story dwindles to nothing and all those villains get short-shrift too.
Iron Man 2 somehow manages to not have too many villains, but at the same time still somehow manages to have too much stuff into it that it doesn't really work. The problem here, though, seems to be forcing too much into the hero's own story.
So you've got him being killed by his chest energy thing, giving up control of his company, running some sort of weird expo thing, exploring his relationship with his dad, being recruited (ish) by Nick Fury to the Avengers, developing his relationship with Pepper and even being responsible for world peace (!) ... and the list goes on. They've crammed the film so full of stuff for Tony, that all of it seems to get short shrift.
And the villain ends up feeling like an add-on simply because they needed an excuse for some special effects. This is especially annoying when you consider that the idea of the villain is closely linked to his dad. It could have been so much more involving.
But what adds insult to injury is that the most interesting thing about Tony Stark - his drinking problem - isn't really even there. Well, it's sort of there, but it's not clear. I think the problem was that they wanted to hint at it, but because it had to be a U/Pg film, they couldn't really include it properly.
So yeah, to be frank, it ends up being a big old mess, even to the extent that the sharp wit that runs through the first film is a bit lacking in this second film.
Shame really, because it looks great and the acting's great - the plot just doesn't quite work.
Monday, 24 January 2011
bits and bobs
Kind of a bits and bobs weekend this last weekend.
Which was good - after last week's huge physical exertions I didn't really fancy doing anything much. I got my hair cut, which is good, dumped a load of cardboard at the local tip and did some shopping and a load of ironing and those were pretty much all of the fixed tasks I had to do.
The rest of the weekend was pretty much spent watching telly, walking and scanning while watching anime.
I seem to be getting a bit of a backlog of telly shows and I was initially puzzled as to why, but I think it's to do with the time of year - there's always more of interest to me on during winter - and the fact I'm spending a lot of my time scanning. As discussed last week, the new scanning process is a lot slower, so although I'm spending a lot of time doing it, I am only proceeding at a steady pace with the actual scans.
I must confess I'm in two minds about this. A part of me thinks the results are sufficiently better that I should keep going, another part of me thinks that I'm so far behind that I should dust off the old scanner and use it to get caught up.
To give you some idea of the scale of how far behind I am, I need to scan one more nyan type and then I'll be a third of the way through 2010. In other words I'll still have 8 months of 2010 and everything so far from 2011 to do just in order to catch up to the present day.
Of course it's bound to take several months to get through them - more at my current pace - so that will add quite a few mags onto the back end.
I dunno - really am in two minds. Which I have to confess aren't helped by the fact that, in order to use my old scanner I will have to buy a new heat sink for my old computer. Due to what can only be described as a double-header of stupidity and incompetence, the old heat sink is both knackered and doesn't fit into the case my old machine ended up in anyway.
Trouble there is we're talking seriously old bits of kit. That does actually mean the heat sinks I looked at were really cheap, but also most of the models weren't actually in-stock.
I'm also rather worried that the photstitch thing seems to be really erratic, especially when it comes to posters. A lot of the magazines give away large posters and two of them - megami and nyan type - are almost nothing but posters. With the A4 scanner I have to break these up into at least 4 bits and sticking these together seems to cause real problems for photostitch.
I've a horrible feeling the best solution is going to be to scan magazine pages via the new method and posters via the old. That way I'll either be able to scan them as one like I used to or do them in halves so that only 2 bits need stitching together.
So yeah, decisions to make.
Which was good - after last week's huge physical exertions I didn't really fancy doing anything much. I got my hair cut, which is good, dumped a load of cardboard at the local tip and did some shopping and a load of ironing and those were pretty much all of the fixed tasks I had to do.
The rest of the weekend was pretty much spent watching telly, walking and scanning while watching anime.
I seem to be getting a bit of a backlog of telly shows and I was initially puzzled as to why, but I think it's to do with the time of year - there's always more of interest to me on during winter - and the fact I'm spending a lot of my time scanning. As discussed last week, the new scanning process is a lot slower, so although I'm spending a lot of time doing it, I am only proceeding at a steady pace with the actual scans.
I must confess I'm in two minds about this. A part of me thinks the results are sufficiently better that I should keep going, another part of me thinks that I'm so far behind that I should dust off the old scanner and use it to get caught up.
To give you some idea of the scale of how far behind I am, I need to scan one more nyan type and then I'll be a third of the way through 2010. In other words I'll still have 8 months of 2010 and everything so far from 2011 to do just in order to catch up to the present day.
Of course it's bound to take several months to get through them - more at my current pace - so that will add quite a few mags onto the back end.
I dunno - really am in two minds. Which I have to confess aren't helped by the fact that, in order to use my old scanner I will have to buy a new heat sink for my old computer. Due to what can only be described as a double-header of stupidity and incompetence, the old heat sink is both knackered and doesn't fit into the case my old machine ended up in anyway.
Trouble there is we're talking seriously old bits of kit. That does actually mean the heat sinks I looked at were really cheap, but also most of the models weren't actually in-stock.
I'm also rather worried that the photstitch thing seems to be really erratic, especially when it comes to posters. A lot of the magazines give away large posters and two of them - megami and nyan type - are almost nothing but posters. With the A4 scanner I have to break these up into at least 4 bits and sticking these together seems to cause real problems for photostitch.
I've a horrible feeling the best solution is going to be to scan magazine pages via the new method and posters via the old. That way I'll either be able to scan them as one like I used to or do them in halves so that only 2 bits need stitching together.
So yeah, decisions to make.
Friday, 21 January 2011
short sack and bides
I really need a haircut - I'm getting a serious case of mop-hair - so hopefully I'll get the chance to pop down the barbers this weekend and get a trim.
My landlord has been away on his winter holiday for the last two weeks and should be getting back today. Not sure what time, but I guess he'll back by the time I get back from work.
He actually went to Sharm El Sheikh, which is where they had all those shark attacks a while ago. I recommended avoiding swimming, as you would.
His absence was actually what spurred me into sorting through the boxes last weekend, as it can be rather disruptive with me leaving them all over the place, so I tend to like to use the opportunity of them going away to sort through them. Rather annoyingly, though, although he's been away for the best part of two weeks, his holiday only overlapped with one weekend.
He went on a Monday and is coming back today - a Friday, so that's only weekend. It'd have been better for my aching muscles (it took until Wednesday before I could really say they were feeling okay again) if I'd been able to spread it over two weekends.
The only other thing I've got to do this weekend is tackle the huge pile of ironing that's built up. This shouldn't be too great a task and I can watch telly while I iron, so it's no great shakes. What I'm hoping to do is more scanning, probably doing a few more animages.
If I'm honest I'm not wholly enamoured of the new scanning process.
Basically, the post-computer update situation means that I've now got a new, reasonably powerful PC running windows 7 as my regular machine. I've bought and installed Photoshop CS5 and a new Cannon scanner.
The big problem I had was that my old A3 scanner is not compatible with windows 7. But also, I was never really happy with the quality of the scans it produced. It was massively convenient to be able to scan an entire poster that the Japanese magazines give away in one go, but the end result was not that brilliant. It was also relatively slow and obviously quite cumbersome piece of kit. To be fair, it was a cheap scanner, so I shouldn't be too harsh given the advantages it gave me.
Anyway, point is that the new system involves using an A4 scanner, but making use of the photo-stitching tool that was introduced some time around CS2. The results are mixed.
First off, the scanner is a lot quicker and gives better image quality than the old A4 scanner. But I now have to scan every page at least twice - 4 times for the posters. The reason fro this (and why I bought an A3 scanner in the first place) is that all of the Japanese anime magazines are in weird sizes - they're all slightly bigger than A4, so you can't scan a page in a single go.
The net effect then is that scanning takes longer because although it's quicker it's not that much quicker, but also because I'm having to crop and save twice as many pictures.
However, there's also a whole new step where I have to load up the images and put them through the photostich process to stick them together. This obviously add a whole load of extra time, but also the results are really random.
Sometime you load things up and set it going and the results are perfect. Other times, they're rubbish. Most of the time they need some manual tweak - a slight nudge of one of the pictures to get it to line up properly. And of course this is even more time consuming, but also can be very frustrating.
So yeah - it's a real mixed bag.
My landlord has been away on his winter holiday for the last two weeks and should be getting back today. Not sure what time, but I guess he'll back by the time I get back from work.
He actually went to Sharm El Sheikh, which is where they had all those shark attacks a while ago. I recommended avoiding swimming, as you would.
His absence was actually what spurred me into sorting through the boxes last weekend, as it can be rather disruptive with me leaving them all over the place, so I tend to like to use the opportunity of them going away to sort through them. Rather annoyingly, though, although he's been away for the best part of two weeks, his holiday only overlapped with one weekend.
He went on a Monday and is coming back today - a Friday, so that's only weekend. It'd have been better for my aching muscles (it took until Wednesday before I could really say they were feeling okay again) if I'd been able to spread it over two weekends.
The only other thing I've got to do this weekend is tackle the huge pile of ironing that's built up. This shouldn't be too great a task and I can watch telly while I iron, so it's no great shakes. What I'm hoping to do is more scanning, probably doing a few more animages.
If I'm honest I'm not wholly enamoured of the new scanning process.
Basically, the post-computer update situation means that I've now got a new, reasonably powerful PC running windows 7 as my regular machine. I've bought and installed Photoshop CS5 and a new Cannon scanner.
The big problem I had was that my old A3 scanner is not compatible with windows 7. But also, I was never really happy with the quality of the scans it produced. It was massively convenient to be able to scan an entire poster that the Japanese magazines give away in one go, but the end result was not that brilliant. It was also relatively slow and obviously quite cumbersome piece of kit. To be fair, it was a cheap scanner, so I shouldn't be too harsh given the advantages it gave me.
Anyway, point is that the new system involves using an A4 scanner, but making use of the photo-stitching tool that was introduced some time around CS2. The results are mixed.
First off, the scanner is a lot quicker and gives better image quality than the old A4 scanner. But I now have to scan every page at least twice - 4 times for the posters. The reason fro this (and why I bought an A3 scanner in the first place) is that all of the Japanese anime magazines are in weird sizes - they're all slightly bigger than A4, so you can't scan a page in a single go.
The net effect then is that scanning takes longer because although it's quicker it's not that much quicker, but also because I'm having to crop and save twice as many pictures.
However, there's also a whole new step where I have to load up the images and put them through the photostich process to stick them together. This obviously add a whole load of extra time, but also the results are really random.
Sometime you load things up and set it going and the results are perfect. Other times, they're rubbish. Most of the time they need some manual tweak - a slight nudge of one of the pictures to get it to line up properly. And of course this is even more time consuming, but also can be very frustrating.
So yeah - it's a real mixed bag.
Thursday, 20 January 2011
inception
My dad has broadband from BT and as part of the package he gets a set-top box that has freeview on it, but it also gives him access to movies that he can stream. He has to pay for them of course - it's effectively a streaming rental.
Anyway, over the Chrimbo period we watched a few films, but rather than review all of them I thought I'd just do the one that was most entertaining, which was Christopher Nolan's Inception.
Obviously I'd been aware of Inception as it had quite a buzz about it, as they say, and I knew it had something to do with dreams. I should also note that I have a bit of a tricky time with Nolan's stuff - some of it I've really enjoyed, like Memento, other stuff I wasn't as impressed as everybody else seemed to be, like his Batman films, and then some I thought was rubbish, like Insomnia.
What I wasn't expecting from Inception was that it was going to be quite so complicated.
The film actually involves what are actually something like shared, lucid dreams - although they're still basically dreams, the people in them know they're dreams and can construct and manipulate them. This is already quite a complicated concept to get your head around as to how it works in the film, but later on they then go into dreams within dreams and things get really complicated.
By the end I think I'm right in saying you've got a triple-dream sandwich, where there's a dream within a dream, within a dream. It's complicated enough to write, let alone watch.
And what adds even more confusion is that this is all a mission to implant a thought in somebody's head, but to do so in such a way that they believe it's an original thought that they came up with themselves, rather than an implanted thought. Which is what the title is about - the inception of an idea.
So yeah - complicated, and so with the potential to be too confusing to understand. But it somehow manages to just stay on the side of the line that keeps it understandable.
I think part of how it does this is by treating the adults as intelligent people. So it doesn't feel the need to constantly explain everything - it does tell you stuff, but that's more about the mechanics than the fundamental plot or ideas. Instead it shows you the story and then lets you work stuff out for yourself.
So yeah, I thought it was really quite good - clever, with a good mix of action and ideas.
Anyway, over the Chrimbo period we watched a few films, but rather than review all of them I thought I'd just do the one that was most entertaining, which was Christopher Nolan's Inception.
Obviously I'd been aware of Inception as it had quite a buzz about it, as they say, and I knew it had something to do with dreams. I should also note that I have a bit of a tricky time with Nolan's stuff - some of it I've really enjoyed, like Memento, other stuff I wasn't as impressed as everybody else seemed to be, like his Batman films, and then some I thought was rubbish, like Insomnia.
What I wasn't expecting from Inception was that it was going to be quite so complicated.
The film actually involves what are actually something like shared, lucid dreams - although they're still basically dreams, the people in them know they're dreams and can construct and manipulate them. This is already quite a complicated concept to get your head around as to how it works in the film, but later on they then go into dreams within dreams and things get really complicated.
By the end I think I'm right in saying you've got a triple-dream sandwich, where there's a dream within a dream, within a dream. It's complicated enough to write, let alone watch.
And what adds even more confusion is that this is all a mission to implant a thought in somebody's head, but to do so in such a way that they believe it's an original thought that they came up with themselves, rather than an implanted thought. Which is what the title is about - the inception of an idea.
So yeah - complicated, and so with the potential to be too confusing to understand. But it somehow manages to just stay on the side of the line that keeps it understandable.
I think part of how it does this is by treating the adults as intelligent people. So it doesn't feel the need to constantly explain everything - it does tell you stuff, but that's more about the mechanics than the fundamental plot or ideas. Instead it shows you the story and then lets you work stuff out for yourself.
So yeah, I thought it was really quite good - clever, with a good mix of action and ideas.
Wednesday, 19 January 2011
down, not up
I thought I'd switch things up this week and post reviews on Tuesday and Thursday, in order to help me catch up. I also think I've decided to do reviews of crunchyroll shows on here, rather than on my website proper. Actually, the whole website refresh thing has hit a bit of a brick wall, so dunno what's ultimately going to happen with the site.
Anyway, point is today I'm going to do the weekly weight post.
Last week I was anticipating a small gain or, at best, no change, but actually I had a two pound loss. This loss actually takes me below where I was before my chrimbo splurge.
I must admit I'm actually at a bit of a loss to explain the Christmas splurge. Or at least, at a bit of a loss to explain why the net effect has been so minimal.
Last time I went off-diet was when I had my holiday at the end of last summer. On that occasion I was pretty good for the beginning of the week and did lots of walking throughout the week, but at the end of the week I went seriously "off piste" and ate lots of junk. This had the effect of meaning the week was effectively nullified - I lost and gained nothing.
This last Chrimbo, I essentially stopped my diet, but exercise was partly scuppered by the weather, but also self-sabotaged by my being silly about not building up the distance I was walking. The point being that I didn't do a spectacular amount of exercise, ate fairly badly and have ended up roughly where I started.
My theory last week was to do with slow bowels, and I still basically believe that, but I also wonder if the decreased size of my stomach had a roll to play. See, while I was eating badly, I have to admit I was struggling to eat the sorts of volumes of food I remember eating pre-diet.
There were quite a few days where I'd eat a really big roast lunch (as previously mentioned I came back from my dad with way more roast stuff that I was expecting) and then I'd be so full I would only eat a little bit extra later on. The difficulty there is that the little bit extra would tend to be a few sweets or biscuits, so I dunno.
Anyway, I'm over-analysing. The point is I lost a couple of pounds and lesson learned - I won't make any sort of prediction about this next weekend. It could go up or down or stay the same.
Anyway, point is today I'm going to do the weekly weight post.
Last week I was anticipating a small gain or, at best, no change, but actually I had a two pound loss. This loss actually takes me below where I was before my chrimbo splurge.
I must admit I'm actually at a bit of a loss to explain the Christmas splurge. Or at least, at a bit of a loss to explain why the net effect has been so minimal.
Last time I went off-diet was when I had my holiday at the end of last summer. On that occasion I was pretty good for the beginning of the week and did lots of walking throughout the week, but at the end of the week I went seriously "off piste" and ate lots of junk. This had the effect of meaning the week was effectively nullified - I lost and gained nothing.
This last Chrimbo, I essentially stopped my diet, but exercise was partly scuppered by the weather, but also self-sabotaged by my being silly about not building up the distance I was walking. The point being that I didn't do a spectacular amount of exercise, ate fairly badly and have ended up roughly where I started.
My theory last week was to do with slow bowels, and I still basically believe that, but I also wonder if the decreased size of my stomach had a roll to play. See, while I was eating badly, I have to admit I was struggling to eat the sorts of volumes of food I remember eating pre-diet.
There were quite a few days where I'd eat a really big roast lunch (as previously mentioned I came back from my dad with way more roast stuff that I was expecting) and then I'd be so full I would only eat a little bit extra later on. The difficulty there is that the little bit extra would tend to be a few sweets or biscuits, so I dunno.
Anyway, I'm over-analysing. The point is I lost a couple of pounds and lesson learned - I won't make any sort of prediction about this next weekend. It could go up or down or stay the same.
Tuesday, 18 January 2011
paprika
Paprika was directed by a guy called Satoshi Kon.
Sadly, Satoshi Kon recently passed away. He was well known outside of Japan, particularly among anime fans, as a bit of an innovative genius. Satoshi Kon also directed a film called Perfect Blue, which was probably the first anime film I ever saw that told me anime could do proper films.
Well, that's not quite true - Akira was the first film to do it; Perfect Blue was the film that showed it wasn't a one off fluke.
Paprika has been on my rental list for a while, so when it recently turned up it was therefore tinged with a little bit of sadness.
The film does show flashes of that genius I was mentioning, but it's unfortunately not entirely a success. The problem, really, is it's shot through with a lot of techno-babble and a rather confused plot. The plot is also a little over-dense - it's adapted from a novel and has the feeling of trying to include too much in the time it has.
Paprika is essentially about dreams.
A device has been invented that seems to allow people to enter, control and manipulate their dreams at will. However, in doing so, the device also seems to enable a degree of mind control. The victims of this control then occupy a kind of waking dream state, where they're dreaming, but still running around - a bit like a kind of sleep-walking.
The good side of it is that this dream-world allows for a fluid grasp on reality that seems to suit animation and Satoshi Kon perfectly. The bad side is that the above plot is quite complicated and convoluted and there's a bit too much focus on the technology, and not quite enough on the people.
Which is a shame, as when the film is firing on all cylinders during the dream sequences, it's quite spectacular. Indeed, I'd whole-heartedly recommend catching it just for these bits alone.
There is one other criticism I would make, though - come of the voices don't really match the characters. In particular, the super-fat genius guy seems to have a too light, high pitched child-like voice and the main woman seems to have a bit too 'girly' a voice.
In the case of the fat guy, I think this is supposed to reflect his character, but both voices do just seem to jar with what's on screen. I dunno - it's difficult to explain, and these styles of voices are roughly carried over into the American dub, so I get the feeling it's deliberate, but for me it didn't quite work.
Sadly, Satoshi Kon recently passed away. He was well known outside of Japan, particularly among anime fans, as a bit of an innovative genius. Satoshi Kon also directed a film called Perfect Blue, which was probably the first anime film I ever saw that told me anime could do proper films.
Well, that's not quite true - Akira was the first film to do it; Perfect Blue was the film that showed it wasn't a one off fluke.
Paprika has been on my rental list for a while, so when it recently turned up it was therefore tinged with a little bit of sadness.
The film does show flashes of that genius I was mentioning, but it's unfortunately not entirely a success. The problem, really, is it's shot through with a lot of techno-babble and a rather confused plot. The plot is also a little over-dense - it's adapted from a novel and has the feeling of trying to include too much in the time it has.
Paprika is essentially about dreams.
A device has been invented that seems to allow people to enter, control and manipulate their dreams at will. However, in doing so, the device also seems to enable a degree of mind control. The victims of this control then occupy a kind of waking dream state, where they're dreaming, but still running around - a bit like a kind of sleep-walking.
The good side of it is that this dream-world allows for a fluid grasp on reality that seems to suit animation and Satoshi Kon perfectly. The bad side is that the above plot is quite complicated and convoluted and there's a bit too much focus on the technology, and not quite enough on the people.
Which is a shame, as when the film is firing on all cylinders during the dream sequences, it's quite spectacular. Indeed, I'd whole-heartedly recommend catching it just for these bits alone.
There is one other criticism I would make, though - come of the voices don't really match the characters. In particular, the super-fat genius guy seems to have a too light, high pitched child-like voice and the main woman seems to have a bit too 'girly' a voice.
In the case of the fat guy, I think this is supposed to reflect his character, but both voices do just seem to jar with what's on screen. I dunno - it's difficult to explain, and these styles of voices are roughly carried over into the American dub, so I get the feeling it's deliberate, but for me it didn't quite work.
Monday, 17 January 2011
rain, rain
Rain, rain, go away, come back another day.
Not sure if this seems insensitive given what's happened in Australia and Brazil, but we seem to have been rained on constantly for weeks now. Obviously nothing like the scale of what they've had and they are massive tragedies, but this is my blog so I can only really talk about what's happening to me.
This morning's journey to work was horrible. We've had rain in some form pretty much every day for several weeks, but this morning it was really coming down. And given I set off for work in the dark and just when the traffic's starting to build for rush hour, you can guess why it wasn't much fun.
There's one part of the A31 in particular that seems to form a stream with even the slightest rain. Today it was like driving through a small river. I was actually overtaking a slow moving vehicle and managed to just be in its spray when we hit the river and my windscreen was completely wiped out by it. It took two or three swipes before I could see again, which was not nice.
I guess about the only good thing to say about it is that at least it's coming down as rain and not snow!
Oh - on that note, last weekend when I went shopping the snow had finally cleared from Tesco's car park. It obviously snowed some time back, and they'd piled it all up and the mound they created took ages to go - it was rather bizarre seeing it when it was turning mild and all the other snow had gone, but there was this big pile of nearly black snow.
This last weekend was predicted to be a little bit of a respite from the rain and although it did drizzle a couple of times, I took the combined opportunity of my landlord being away on his winter holiday to sort through some of the boxes in the shed.
My two main goals were to move some stuff that's drifted into my flat back out to the shed and to sort out the blue boxes, which contain my scanned magazines and artbooks. I did these, but it was incredibly hard work and I'm still aching badly today.
What I didn't do was sort all of the boxes. I'd hoped to make a complete list of what was in every box and to wrap everything up in plastic bags, but this proved to be just too much to achieve in one day. I did more than half of it, but when it got to dinner time and I was still way off I decided to quite while I was ahead.
On Sunday I also cleaned the car and, because it was flat-cleaning weekend but I'd been so busy with the boxes, I cleaned my flat then too. It was, to be frank, quite the painful experience as I really ached on the Sunday.
Anyway, at least now I've got a bunch of stuff identified to e-bay, so I can get that ball rolling. Well, assuming we're not going to get a sudden covering of snow as I seem to remember happened last year.
Not sure if this seems insensitive given what's happened in Australia and Brazil, but we seem to have been rained on constantly for weeks now. Obviously nothing like the scale of what they've had and they are massive tragedies, but this is my blog so I can only really talk about what's happening to me.
This morning's journey to work was horrible. We've had rain in some form pretty much every day for several weeks, but this morning it was really coming down. And given I set off for work in the dark and just when the traffic's starting to build for rush hour, you can guess why it wasn't much fun.
There's one part of the A31 in particular that seems to form a stream with even the slightest rain. Today it was like driving through a small river. I was actually overtaking a slow moving vehicle and managed to just be in its spray when we hit the river and my windscreen was completely wiped out by it. It took two or three swipes before I could see again, which was not nice.
I guess about the only good thing to say about it is that at least it's coming down as rain and not snow!
Oh - on that note, last weekend when I went shopping the snow had finally cleared from Tesco's car park. It obviously snowed some time back, and they'd piled it all up and the mound they created took ages to go - it was rather bizarre seeing it when it was turning mild and all the other snow had gone, but there was this big pile of nearly black snow.
This last weekend was predicted to be a little bit of a respite from the rain and although it did drizzle a couple of times, I took the combined opportunity of my landlord being away on his winter holiday to sort through some of the boxes in the shed.
My two main goals were to move some stuff that's drifted into my flat back out to the shed and to sort out the blue boxes, which contain my scanned magazines and artbooks. I did these, but it was incredibly hard work and I'm still aching badly today.
What I didn't do was sort all of the boxes. I'd hoped to make a complete list of what was in every box and to wrap everything up in plastic bags, but this proved to be just too much to achieve in one day. I did more than half of it, but when it got to dinner time and I was still way off I decided to quite while I was ahead.
On Sunday I also cleaned the car and, because it was flat-cleaning weekend but I'd been so busy with the boxes, I cleaned my flat then too. It was, to be frank, quite the painful experience as I really ached on the Sunday.
Anyway, at least now I've got a bunch of stuff identified to e-bay, so I can get that ball rolling. Well, assuming we're not going to get a sudden covering of snow as I seem to remember happened last year.
Friday, 14 January 2011
got ahead of myself
One of the slightly annoying things about not meeting my weight target is that I'd actually pre-written a whole load of celebratory posts.
I'd basically done a weeks worth that discussed how much I'd lost, how I'd done it and what the plan was for the coming year. Obviously these became rather scuppered, because I didn't actually meet my target (by some way) and so hadn't lost what I said and it somewhat ballsed up the plan for the future.
I think what I'll do is re-work these and post them when I do finally meet that target, as the target is a bit of a milestone anyway, since it represents a transition from morbid obesity to just plain old obesity. Still not a good weight to be, and there's some debate as to how accurate and representative the indicator I'm using is, but I think it's good to mark these things.
As I think I mentioned before Christmas, I did basically loose some 40 pounds, which is the best part of 3 stones, which is great, although it does highlight how big I was that this still didn't take me out of the morbid obesity zone.
I also completely failed to do a lot of the stuff I'd planned to over Chrimbo.
Usually, I try to ensure I do a back up of my electronic files when I have these holidays (usually I do it at Chrimbo, Easter and then my 'summer' holiday, which is usually actually more like an autumn holiday). I did do the essential backing up, but it's usually accompanied by some specific sorting and tidying as well as some redundancy stuff (having multiple copies in case both the original and other copies go tits-up).
It was this stuff that I failed to do. I also failed to watch much in the way of DVDs (anime or regular), which was another thing I'd decided was important. I'd thought I really should watch stuff, because at the least, if the weather stays improved I can start e-baying again.
But I didn't do that either. What I did do was sort of inspired by the back up and another thing I've been crap at - scanning.
Basically, the back-ups I did took absolutely ages - several days. The reason was because I've got so much stuff on my hard-drives it takes yonks to copy it all. But also, there's a hell of a lot of duplication, and some stuff in particular I know isn't properly organised.
The thing I ended up focusing on were my scans - all those scans I've done of Japanese magazines over the last 4 years. I thought if I could properly sort them out I'd be able to go through them and see what I could perhaps upload to animepaper and possibly even my own scan site.
The big problem I'd given myself was that I hadn't named things properly. A lot of scans were just numbered sequentially, so I couldn't search to see what Sengoku Basara scans I had, for example. But also, I'd been horribly inconsistent in terms of how I'd named things and then there was the age old problem of not being able to identify series at the time.
So I thought Id' go through and sort them. Only it turned out this was the job of weeks, not hours as I'd initially hoped. And that was with the discovery that windows 7 actually has some features that make the process pretty damn smooth.
Anyway, the point is I did manage to go through all the scans and rename and standardise everything but a small handful of stuff. And it seems to have done the trick a bit - I'm quite keen to get caught up with my backlog of magazines and have so far scanned 4 animages over the last week or so.
I'd basically done a weeks worth that discussed how much I'd lost, how I'd done it and what the plan was for the coming year. Obviously these became rather scuppered, because I didn't actually meet my target (by some way) and so hadn't lost what I said and it somewhat ballsed up the plan for the future.
I think what I'll do is re-work these and post them when I do finally meet that target, as the target is a bit of a milestone anyway, since it represents a transition from morbid obesity to just plain old obesity. Still not a good weight to be, and there's some debate as to how accurate and representative the indicator I'm using is, but I think it's good to mark these things.
As I think I mentioned before Christmas, I did basically loose some 40 pounds, which is the best part of 3 stones, which is great, although it does highlight how big I was that this still didn't take me out of the morbid obesity zone.
I also completely failed to do a lot of the stuff I'd planned to over Chrimbo.
Usually, I try to ensure I do a back up of my electronic files when I have these holidays (usually I do it at Chrimbo, Easter and then my 'summer' holiday, which is usually actually more like an autumn holiday). I did do the essential backing up, but it's usually accompanied by some specific sorting and tidying as well as some redundancy stuff (having multiple copies in case both the original and other copies go tits-up).
It was this stuff that I failed to do. I also failed to watch much in the way of DVDs (anime or regular), which was another thing I'd decided was important. I'd thought I really should watch stuff, because at the least, if the weather stays improved I can start e-baying again.
But I didn't do that either. What I did do was sort of inspired by the back up and another thing I've been crap at - scanning.
Basically, the back-ups I did took absolutely ages - several days. The reason was because I've got so much stuff on my hard-drives it takes yonks to copy it all. But also, there's a hell of a lot of duplication, and some stuff in particular I know isn't properly organised.
The thing I ended up focusing on were my scans - all those scans I've done of Japanese magazines over the last 4 years. I thought if I could properly sort them out I'd be able to go through them and see what I could perhaps upload to animepaper and possibly even my own scan site.
The big problem I'd given myself was that I hadn't named things properly. A lot of scans were just numbered sequentially, so I couldn't search to see what Sengoku Basara scans I had, for example. But also, I'd been horribly inconsistent in terms of how I'd named things and then there was the age old problem of not being able to identify series at the time.
So I thought Id' go through and sort them. Only it turned out this was the job of weeks, not hours as I'd initially hoped. And that was with the discovery that windows 7 actually has some features that make the process pretty damn smooth.
Anyway, the point is I did manage to go through all the scans and rename and standardise everything but a small handful of stuff. And it seems to have done the trick a bit - I'm quite keen to get caught up with my backlog of magazines and have so far scanned 4 animages over the last week or so.
Thursday, 13 January 2011
too busy
Again, just too busy to post yesterday.
Thought today I should make an effort and at least do my weekly weigh-in post.
Basically, I was rather stunned to discover I'd apparently lost 7 pounds. Having apparently gained 8 weeks over the Chrimbo fortnight, this means the net weight change since my last vaguely 'on course' diet week was a gain of 1 pound.
Now if I'd gone bonkers last week and done loads of walking and eaten nothing, I'd have sort of understood this apparent drop back. However, I didn't do those things, so I was rather stunned.
My theory as to what was going on is a little crude as it essentially revolves around bowel movements. You may want to skip ahead to the end.
The theory was that a big part of the gain was actually due to, shall we say "unprocessed", food in my bowels. Or, to put it more bluntly, having eaten a lot it was taking a while for all the waste to make its way through my system.
I know that may sound a bit odd, but I've always suffered from rather 'slow' bowels and am prone to constipation at the best of times. So going from a long term diet which involved pretty decent levels of fibre to a couple of weeks of eating a lot of not very good stuff it's not beyond the realms of possibility that I was afflicted with slow bowels.
Also, to get to the point again, I had really noticed a decline in the frequency and size of my bowel movements while on the diet (if you eat little, you're hardly going to do a lot of pooing) and then last week I was shitting for England. I was actually worried that I'd run out of toilet paper before I got a chance to go to the shops at one point.
So yeah, slightly bizarrely, my theory is that I had somehow managed to store, like, 5 or 6 pounds of poo. I know - doesn't sound very likely does it, but all I can say is that I've no other explanation of such a big increase and sudden decrease.
Anyway, I wouldn't be surprised if I have another gain this week. I am now pretty much back on the diet proper, but at the beginning of the week there were still quite a few bad things left to eat. Actually, past tense is wrong there - there is still plenty more left, but everything else is suited to long-term storage (that is, they're frozen or tinned, or dried packets, etc) so I can consume them in a trickle and compensate for the calories a lot easier.
Thought today I should make an effort and at least do my weekly weigh-in post.
Basically, I was rather stunned to discover I'd apparently lost 7 pounds. Having apparently gained 8 weeks over the Chrimbo fortnight, this means the net weight change since my last vaguely 'on course' diet week was a gain of 1 pound.
Now if I'd gone bonkers last week and done loads of walking and eaten nothing, I'd have sort of understood this apparent drop back. However, I didn't do those things, so I was rather stunned.
My theory as to what was going on is a little crude as it essentially revolves around bowel movements. You may want to skip ahead to the end.
The theory was that a big part of the gain was actually due to, shall we say "unprocessed", food in my bowels. Or, to put it more bluntly, having eaten a lot it was taking a while for all the waste to make its way through my system.
I know that may sound a bit odd, but I've always suffered from rather 'slow' bowels and am prone to constipation at the best of times. So going from a long term diet which involved pretty decent levels of fibre to a couple of weeks of eating a lot of not very good stuff it's not beyond the realms of possibility that I was afflicted with slow bowels.
Also, to get to the point again, I had really noticed a decline in the frequency and size of my bowel movements while on the diet (if you eat little, you're hardly going to do a lot of pooing) and then last week I was shitting for England. I was actually worried that I'd run out of toilet paper before I got a chance to go to the shops at one point.
So yeah, slightly bizarrely, my theory is that I had somehow managed to store, like, 5 or 6 pounds of poo. I know - doesn't sound very likely does it, but all I can say is that I've no other explanation of such a big increase and sudden decrease.
Anyway, I wouldn't be surprised if I have another gain this week. I am now pretty much back on the diet proper, but at the beginning of the week there were still quite a few bad things left to eat. Actually, past tense is wrong there - there is still plenty more left, but everything else is suited to long-term storage (that is, they're frozen or tinned, or dried packets, etc) so I can consume them in a trickle and compensate for the calories a lot easier.
Tuesday, 11 January 2011
only tuesday, but...
I'm knackered.
Main problem is that I've come back to work and there's been so much to do. Talk about diving in at the deep end...
And it's kinda scuppered the whole blogging thing, both from the point of view of I've not got the time to do it, but I've also not got the inclination.
But there's also another factor at work. A factor that I always encounter at the beginning of a new year, or actually after a holiday. This extra factor is summed up best as "too much to talk about and not knowing where to start".
A good example is the small reviews I post about the DVDs I rent and watch. Since the last one I put on here I've actually watched 3 rented DVDs, with a fourth winging its way to me as I type. But also, while I was at my dad's over chrimbo we used his BT box thing to watch a bunch of movies, so I could also write reviews about them too.
But that's loads and so I don't know where to start, just like after every holiday. And then add to that I also don't have a lot of time nor inclination because of all the work I need to do and you can see why the blog unfortunately seems to be staling a bit.
Main problem is that I've come back to work and there's been so much to do. Talk about diving in at the deep end...
And it's kinda scuppered the whole blogging thing, both from the point of view of I've not got the time to do it, but I've also not got the inclination.
But there's also another factor at work. A factor that I always encounter at the beginning of a new year, or actually after a holiday. This extra factor is summed up best as "too much to talk about and not knowing where to start".
A good example is the small reviews I post about the DVDs I rent and watch. Since the last one I put on here I've actually watched 3 rented DVDs, with a fourth winging its way to me as I type. But also, while I was at my dad's over chrimbo we used his BT box thing to watch a bunch of movies, so I could also write reviews about them too.
But that's loads and so I don't know where to start, just like after every holiday. And then add to that I also don't have a lot of time nor inclination because of all the work I need to do and you can see why the blog unfortunately seems to be staling a bit.
Monday, 10 January 2011
well this is rubbish
Couldn't post on Friday and can't really post today either, because I'm horribly, horribly busy, which is totally rubbish.
There's absolutely loads on at work and all of it's time sensitive and rather critical, so I'm having to actually do stuff all day, rather than blog. I know - what is the world coming too?
There's absolutely loads on at work and all of it's time sensitive and rather critical, so I'm having to actually do stuff all day, rather than blog. I know - what is the world coming too?
Thursday, 6 January 2011
and so, 2011...
Well, I'm back to work today.
I think most people tend to go back to work straight after the new year bank holiday (assuming they were off), but I always like to take a couple of extra days. I find it helps me ease back into the normal routines and gives me a chance to do last minute stuff before I'm back to work.
There was a distinct possibility that I would be returning to work at a different location this year. Basically, I've been put forward for a contract opportunity, that's based down in Portsmouth. I had assumed, since I hadn't heard anything, that I hadn't got it, but this morning I found out that the decision was delayed.
So there's still that possibility, but for now, it's back to regular work at the regular place.
So I guess I should give a brief round-up of the winter break.
Essentially, I didn't do very much at all.
I went down to visit my dad over the actual Chrimbo period, then the rest of the time was spent relaxing, basically. I did pop out to a few dos, but I have to say it wasn't with much enthusiasm. I dunno, it was quite quiet.
One thing I would say is that my diet went absolutely pear shaped. This was due to a number of factors.
First off, my dad sent me home with far more food than I was expecting. Every year he buys too much, but this year was just silly. He'd got a turkey crown, which is joint that just consists of the breast meat, basically, and it was enormous. This turkey must have been the size of a small child.
I personally took home enough meat that I ate turkey for 5 days, and I'd only taken away a third of what was left when I was home. But also, he sent me away with loads of veg and sweets and all sorts. I've actually still got half of it - the stuff that will keep for longer.
The big problem with this was that I'd stocked up myself anyway, and also it forced me eating specific meals, since lots of it was fresh and would go off quickly if not eaten. So, basically, I ate loads and still have loads left.
Another big problem was walking. Basically, before Chrimbo, we'd had a lot of snow and this meant my walking was drastically reduced. But crucially, they'd also had lots of snow in Devon, so when I was down there I couldn't go for any walks either. In fact, I virtually didn't leave the house.
When I got back, the snow rapidly disappointed, so I tried to suddenly launch into a load of walking, but that totally back-fired, because where I've generally reduced my walking because its winter and hadn't done any walking in several weeks, my feet seemed to have softened up and I got some really nasty blisters.
What I should have done was start with smaller walks and build up, but I didn't - first day I would walk I did two big walks totalling more than 14,000 steps for the day. So yeah, I managed to self-sabotage.
The upshot of all this is that I'd put on a massive 8 pounds over the two weeks between my weigh-ins before Christmas and then last weekend. And I'm expecting a further gain this weekend, too.
So yeah - guess I need to get back on that, to say the least!
I think most people tend to go back to work straight after the new year bank holiday (assuming they were off), but I always like to take a couple of extra days. I find it helps me ease back into the normal routines and gives me a chance to do last minute stuff before I'm back to work.
There was a distinct possibility that I would be returning to work at a different location this year. Basically, I've been put forward for a contract opportunity, that's based down in Portsmouth. I had assumed, since I hadn't heard anything, that I hadn't got it, but this morning I found out that the decision was delayed.
So there's still that possibility, but for now, it's back to regular work at the regular place.
So I guess I should give a brief round-up of the winter break.
Essentially, I didn't do very much at all.
I went down to visit my dad over the actual Chrimbo period, then the rest of the time was spent relaxing, basically. I did pop out to a few dos, but I have to say it wasn't with much enthusiasm. I dunno, it was quite quiet.
One thing I would say is that my diet went absolutely pear shaped. This was due to a number of factors.
First off, my dad sent me home with far more food than I was expecting. Every year he buys too much, but this year was just silly. He'd got a turkey crown, which is joint that just consists of the breast meat, basically, and it was enormous. This turkey must have been the size of a small child.
I personally took home enough meat that I ate turkey for 5 days, and I'd only taken away a third of what was left when I was home. But also, he sent me away with loads of veg and sweets and all sorts. I've actually still got half of it - the stuff that will keep for longer.
The big problem with this was that I'd stocked up myself anyway, and also it forced me eating specific meals, since lots of it was fresh and would go off quickly if not eaten. So, basically, I ate loads and still have loads left.
Another big problem was walking. Basically, before Chrimbo, we'd had a lot of snow and this meant my walking was drastically reduced. But crucially, they'd also had lots of snow in Devon, so when I was down there I couldn't go for any walks either. In fact, I virtually didn't leave the house.
When I got back, the snow rapidly disappointed, so I tried to suddenly launch into a load of walking, but that totally back-fired, because where I've generally reduced my walking because its winter and hadn't done any walking in several weeks, my feet seemed to have softened up and I got some really nasty blisters.
What I should have done was start with smaller walks and build up, but I didn't - first day I would walk I did two big walks totalling more than 14,000 steps for the day. So yeah, I managed to self-sabotage.
The upshot of all this is that I'd put on a massive 8 pounds over the two weeks between my weigh-ins before Christmas and then last weekend. And I'm expecting a further gain this weekend, too.
So yeah - guess I need to get back on that, to say the least!
Tuesday, 21 December 2010
chrimbalo cheer and merry wishings
Well, this is pretty much it for me for the year.
It's my last day of work until a good way into the new year and I should imagine I won't be blogging again until then.
So to anyone that reads the blog, hope you have a good Christmas and New Year period and I hope 2011 turns out to be a good one for you.
It's my last day of work until a good way into the new year and I should imagine I won't be blogging again until then.
So to anyone that reads the blog, hope you have a good Christmas and New Year period and I hope 2011 turns out to be a good one for you.
Monday, 20 December 2010
bloody hard work
So this last Saturday the snow I was worried about turned up.
It was rather surreal, actually, as I went for my usual Saturday morning walk and it was bloody cold, but totally snow free. Then, just as I was coming up the road to where I live a few flakes started.
I then effectively went back to bed (well, had my breakfast and, because I'd done everything I needed to like shopping and buying petrol during the week before, I just sort of lounged about instead of having a shower and getting up properly) and watched some telly. When I eventually got up for my shower, I glanced out of the window and there was a good 2 inches of snow covering everything.
It was quite a shock just how quickly it had come down, and by the time it eventually stopped, it was a good three inches deep. That was at about lunchtime and I considered going out and clearing some of it away. However, I wasn't sure if any more was expected, and also I had to clean the bed-sit and by the time I was done it was pretty much dark.
When I got up on Sunday, there'd been no overnight snow, but it had clearly been a super cold one, as the snow that had fallen had compacted down quite a bit. The forecasts were saying no new snow was due, so I therefore decided mid-morning to get out and do a bit of snow clearing.
If you've ever done this, you'll know it's incredibly hard work. The weird thing is that snow doesn't weigh very much, but shovelling it around is still really hard. I'd actually bought a spade to put in the car, but it turned out to be a bit rubbish, as the surface of the shovel head was too smooth, so the snow slipped off, inefficiently.
However, my landlord had left a yard broom out and I found that to be much more effective. It's odd - I've always found sweeping the snow is much more effective at clearing it, but it's even harder work, even though you're not lifting anything. You also have to be clever about it, as if you start in the wrong place you end up with a big mound that you then have to shovel anyway.
So yeah, cleared the snow for about an hour and a half and then went for a huge lie down, as I was utterly shattered.
The other thing I did of note this weekend was lots of cooking.
Specifically, I made two lots of my amazing bolognaise sauce. I did one lot on Saturday and one on Sunday. I obviously ate some on each of those days, but I bagged up and froze the rest.
My cupboards and freezer are now stuffed with loads of food, including stuff that needs next to no cooking and other stuff that is basically just ingredients. After last year when I got stuck in and found my pack-rat tendencies a real life saver, this year I've deliberately stocked up so that if I get stuck in like I did again I can last ages.
The only thing I won't have is fresh fruit and veg, so it won't be ideal, but I can still go for a good long while on my "stores". Hopefully, if things go well, I'll be able to get down to Devon to see my dad for Christmas, and then on the way back I can shop and get a big load of said fresh fruit and veg that will last me for a good while.
Oh, and mentioning cooking, I completely forgot to blog about this when it was happening, but a few weeks ago, I discovered I'd bought the most amazing box of eggs.
Basically, every two weeks I buy a new six pack of eggs, and then eat three every week. I actually have all of them on Sunday, which has been my (small) treat day and I use one to make pancakes in the morning and have two as boiled egg sarnis in the evening.
Anyway, this box of six eggs contained five with double-yokes. It was the weirdest thing - cracking open or cutting into the egg to discover it was yet another double-yoker. I'm guessing that it was to do with how they sort them, but it was very freaky.
Oh, and I should also say that, when I weighed myself on Sunday I had gained a pound in weight. Given I was unable to do any walking past Saturday morning and how big work Christmas dinner was, I'm not too surprised at this, and I think it's now pretty much official that the diet is on hold.
Given I've lost more than 40 pounds (about 3 stone) I'm not too bothered about a few weeks of small gain over Christmas, though it would have been nice to hit my target.
It was rather surreal, actually, as I went for my usual Saturday morning walk and it was bloody cold, but totally snow free. Then, just as I was coming up the road to where I live a few flakes started.
I then effectively went back to bed (well, had my breakfast and, because I'd done everything I needed to like shopping and buying petrol during the week before, I just sort of lounged about instead of having a shower and getting up properly) and watched some telly. When I eventually got up for my shower, I glanced out of the window and there was a good 2 inches of snow covering everything.
It was quite a shock just how quickly it had come down, and by the time it eventually stopped, it was a good three inches deep. That was at about lunchtime and I considered going out and clearing some of it away. However, I wasn't sure if any more was expected, and also I had to clean the bed-sit and by the time I was done it was pretty much dark.
When I got up on Sunday, there'd been no overnight snow, but it had clearly been a super cold one, as the snow that had fallen had compacted down quite a bit. The forecasts were saying no new snow was due, so I therefore decided mid-morning to get out and do a bit of snow clearing.
If you've ever done this, you'll know it's incredibly hard work. The weird thing is that snow doesn't weigh very much, but shovelling it around is still really hard. I'd actually bought a spade to put in the car, but it turned out to be a bit rubbish, as the surface of the shovel head was too smooth, so the snow slipped off, inefficiently.
However, my landlord had left a yard broom out and I found that to be much more effective. It's odd - I've always found sweeping the snow is much more effective at clearing it, but it's even harder work, even though you're not lifting anything. You also have to be clever about it, as if you start in the wrong place you end up with a big mound that you then have to shovel anyway.
So yeah, cleared the snow for about an hour and a half and then went for a huge lie down, as I was utterly shattered.
The other thing I did of note this weekend was lots of cooking.
Specifically, I made two lots of my amazing bolognaise sauce. I did one lot on Saturday and one on Sunday. I obviously ate some on each of those days, but I bagged up and froze the rest.
My cupboards and freezer are now stuffed with loads of food, including stuff that needs next to no cooking and other stuff that is basically just ingredients. After last year when I got stuck in and found my pack-rat tendencies a real life saver, this year I've deliberately stocked up so that if I get stuck in like I did again I can last ages.
The only thing I won't have is fresh fruit and veg, so it won't be ideal, but I can still go for a good long while on my "stores". Hopefully, if things go well, I'll be able to get down to Devon to see my dad for Christmas, and then on the way back I can shop and get a big load of said fresh fruit and veg that will last me for a good while.
Oh, and mentioning cooking, I completely forgot to blog about this when it was happening, but a few weeks ago, I discovered I'd bought the most amazing box of eggs.
Basically, every two weeks I buy a new six pack of eggs, and then eat three every week. I actually have all of them on Sunday, which has been my (small) treat day and I use one to make pancakes in the morning and have two as boiled egg sarnis in the evening.
Anyway, this box of six eggs contained five with double-yokes. It was the weirdest thing - cracking open or cutting into the egg to discover it was yet another double-yoker. I'm guessing that it was to do with how they sort them, but it was very freaky.
Oh, and I should also say that, when I weighed myself on Sunday I had gained a pound in weight. Given I was unable to do any walking past Saturday morning and how big work Christmas dinner was, I'm not too surprised at this, and I think it's now pretty much official that the diet is on hold.
Given I've lost more than 40 pounds (about 3 stone) I'm not too bothered about a few weeks of small gain over Christmas, though it would have been nice to hit my target.
Friday, 17 December 2010
work chrimbo lunch
Today is the day of the work Christmas lunch.
One of the nice things about the company I work for is that we get little perks like this. We also go to the pub for lunch when it's someone's birthday, and it's always paid for by the company, which I think is a nice little perk.
Recently, though, there's been a tendency for the bosses to try to use the Chrimbo lunch as a business opportunity. So, basically they invite along lots of people they want to butter up, if you will. It's gotten to the stage in recent years where these people actually outnumber the people I work with.
I shouldn't complain, but it hardly makes it a situation where you feel like letting your hair down.
I've not much else to say today, either.
I do have two worries for this coming weekend.
First off, there's the Sunday weigh-in, which I'm again not expecting to go well. I'm starting to think I should just formally say the diet and weight loss is officially "on hold". I mean, I'll still try to avoid massively consuming food and I'll walk when I can, but that kinda feeds into my second worry.
Which is the weather - forecasts have been predicting a return of the snow around here (I believe it's never actually left some places) for the weekend.
I don't really care if this poxes up work on Monday and Tuesday, but it'll be a bit of a disaster if it's still having an impact later in the week, as I'm supposed to drive down to Devon for the family get together.
One of the nice things about the company I work for is that we get little perks like this. We also go to the pub for lunch when it's someone's birthday, and it's always paid for by the company, which I think is a nice little perk.
Recently, though, there's been a tendency for the bosses to try to use the Chrimbo lunch as a business opportunity. So, basically they invite along lots of people they want to butter up, if you will. It's gotten to the stage in recent years where these people actually outnumber the people I work with.
I shouldn't complain, but it hardly makes it a situation where you feel like letting your hair down.
I've not much else to say today, either.
I do have two worries for this coming weekend.
First off, there's the Sunday weigh-in, which I'm again not expecting to go well. I'm starting to think I should just formally say the diet and weight loss is officially "on hold". I mean, I'll still try to avoid massively consuming food and I'll walk when I can, but that kinda feeds into my second worry.
Which is the weather - forecasts have been predicting a return of the snow around here (I believe it's never actually left some places) for the weekend.
I don't really care if this poxes up work on Monday and Tuesday, but it'll be a bit of a disaster if it's still having an impact later in the week, as I'm supposed to drive down to Devon for the family get together.
Thursday, 16 December 2010
only thursday?
Wow - it's only Thursday.
I feel like yesterday should have been Friday. I'm getting to the stage where I could really do with a break from work. But my last day at work isn't until next Tuesday.
In fact, to be honest, I'm not sure I can really be bothered to write any more today.
I feel like yesterday should have been Friday. I'm getting to the stage where I could really do with a break from work. But my last day at work isn't until next Tuesday.
In fact, to be honest, I'm not sure I can really be bothered to write any more today.
Wednesday, 15 December 2010
into the blue
The weekend's movie rental was Into The Blue.
To be perfectly frank it was okay - nothing spectacular, but equally not terrible either. Actually, if I'm honest, it felt weirdly like a TV movie, rather than a proper Hollywood film.
I mean - think extended Baywatch episode and you're almost there.
And really the stuff it does well is the whole water-based filming. There are a lot of shots of very good looking (well, the women are a bit skinny for my taste) people swimming about in not very many clothes. And you get to see a lot of sea life and it's all very well shot and enjoyable to watch. Much like those montage bits in Baywatch.
The plot is less solid - it does basically work, but it relies on quite a few conveniences and expositional scenes that I'm not sure if I really bought. It's full of what I've heard called movie logic - it works at the time you're watching it, but when you think back afterwards, you realise it doesn't really hold up.
There was quite a nice twist towards the end, but more because it had successfully sold a dummy and even there, how it gets to that twist and disposes of the dummy is a bit ham-fisted. Not sure that really makes sense, but I don't want to spoiler anything.
I think it was also a bit long at an hour and 45 minutes. I think chopping 15 minutes off that - and there were a few sub-plots that could easily have been dumped. Indeed, there seemed to be a few elements that looked they kinda had been half dumped, as they didn't really have any pay-off.
But if I was to make one really big criticism it was that there wasn't really any reason to care about these people. At the end when everything comes up roses, it doesn't really feel like they deserve the pay-off that they get.
I'm also not entirely sure that it makes sense when you look back at the reasoning that got them into the pickle they find themselves in in the first place. But the point is more that these people aren't really doing all that badly in the first place, and when they get greedy they aren't really punished for that greed, just very unlucky, if that makes sense.
So given that pickle they end up in is almost entirely of their own making, it doesn't really endear them to you. If they'd been doing it for nobler goals than simply greed, I think I would have liked it better.
To be perfectly frank it was okay - nothing spectacular, but equally not terrible either. Actually, if I'm honest, it felt weirdly like a TV movie, rather than a proper Hollywood film.
I mean - think extended Baywatch episode and you're almost there.
And really the stuff it does well is the whole water-based filming. There are a lot of shots of very good looking (well, the women are a bit skinny for my taste) people swimming about in not very many clothes. And you get to see a lot of sea life and it's all very well shot and enjoyable to watch. Much like those montage bits in Baywatch.
The plot is less solid - it does basically work, but it relies on quite a few conveniences and expositional scenes that I'm not sure if I really bought. It's full of what I've heard called movie logic - it works at the time you're watching it, but when you think back afterwards, you realise it doesn't really hold up.
There was quite a nice twist towards the end, but more because it had successfully sold a dummy and even there, how it gets to that twist and disposes of the dummy is a bit ham-fisted. Not sure that really makes sense, but I don't want to spoiler anything.
I think it was also a bit long at an hour and 45 minutes. I think chopping 15 minutes off that - and there were a few sub-plots that could easily have been dumped. Indeed, there seemed to be a few elements that looked they kinda had been half dumped, as they didn't really have any pay-off.
But if I was to make one really big criticism it was that there wasn't really any reason to care about these people. At the end when everything comes up roses, it doesn't really feel like they deserve the pay-off that they get.
I'm also not entirely sure that it makes sense when you look back at the reasoning that got them into the pickle they find themselves in in the first place. But the point is more that these people aren't really doing all that badly in the first place, and when they get greedy they aren't really punished for that greed, just very unlucky, if that makes sense.
So given that pickle they end up in is almost entirely of their own making, it doesn't really endear them to you. If they'd been doing it for nobler goals than simply greed, I think I would have liked it better.
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