Monaco Grand Prix this weekend.
The BBC is only showing highlights on the TV, but I'll probably listen on the radio. I'm sure I'll do other stuff while I listen, as Monaco is not traditionally the most exciting to watch on TV.
It was the race I went to a few years ago with my family and I really enjoyed it while I was there, but it can produce some dull races on TV. The problem is that it's incredibly difficult to overtake and of course fi you can't overtake then it's just everyone following each other around or you have to rely on clever tyre and pit stop strategies, which are okay but not very exciting to watch.
This year the tyres seemed to be very short lived so that could mean it will be more interesting or it could make it pretty chaotic.
It's also the bank holiday weekend. As I posted the other day I'm pretty much skint until I get paid, which won't be until next week proper, so I'll not be doing much. Indeed I have lots of anime on Blu Ray I need to watch, because it's all on e-bay about to be bought by people, so that's my weekend sorted.
In other news I've not heard anything from Customs about the parcel charges. I've a horrible feeling I will have to pay the full fines once I've gotten paid and then have to try again to claim it back. That won't help my finances any! But then it'll be even more expensive if it gets sent back to Japan and I have to pay for it to be imported again.
Friday, 24 May 2013
Thursday, 23 May 2013
animu
I've been watching some anime.
I know - shock revelation, what with it supposedly being one of my hobbies and all, but it’s been a long time since I really watched any anime.
I therefore thought I might revive my mini reviews:
attack on titan
I've read several volumes of the manga and basically enjoyed it. The artwork is a bit rough around the edges and the story is all over the places, but I quite like it despite those.
It kind of goes without saying that the artwork in the anime is much better, but it is actually of quite a high standard. They've also done a lot to smooth out the story - it's less 'high energy' because of that, but it also makes it easier to follow.
My only real criticism would be that the gore has been toned down - a lot happens off camera - and really it's this that's one of the key aspects of the manga: when the characters are whining about how scared you are, in the manga you've seen their friends be eaten alive, but in the anime you know it happened but didn't actually see how horrible it was, so you don't quite feel the same way.
But that's a fairly minor gripe - it's still worth watching.
flowers of evil
I've only actually watched 3 episodes of this.
It's drawn quite a bit of flack as it's actually rotoscoped. I've never really been a fan of rotoscoping. I think it's okay here, but I think much of what it brings could have been achieved with traditional animation. Indeed, I think a lot of what people have been complimenting that they think the rotoscoping is the reason for is actually more to do with the sound design. The sound is really creepy - there's a lot of bits that really ramp up the tension and atmosphere.
But the reason I've not really watched more than 3 episodes is I find he characters a bit annoying. It also seems very unrealistic - and I think this is actually made worse by the rotoscoping. You know it's been acted out in real life, so it's like a drama someone has drawn on, but it's therefore a very unrealistic drama.
gargantia on the verduos planet
I think this might actually be my favourite of the season. It's certainly the most proper science fiction of the shows I've watched. I like the premise, the plot and the characters and I think it looks great and has been done really well (it is a Production I.G. series, after all).
If I was pushed to make one criticism it's that it could have moved a bit swifter - there were some bits that could have been chopped out to move things along a lot quicker. But even during those bits the show is entertaining enough. Oh, and I suppose the fan service it has is a bit unnecessary too; given the overall SF nature of the show it can feel a little out of place.
majestic prince
I have to say my interest in this one has waned a bit over the course of watching it. I think a part of this is that it's been quite samey. I am actually a bit puzzled that this was listed as having 24 episodes where Gargantia was listed as having 13 as I'd have said the longevity of the two series feels the other way around (but not sure where I saw these listings so I don't know if they're true).
Another problem I had was that in the first few episodes I had the feeling that the show was actually a bit of a parody, or at least that it was making a few knowing winks at the story itself, but as the episodes have gone on I've felt this much less.
I did actually think it bore a resemblance to shows like GaoGaiGar - certainly the bad guys are the same sort of bonkers OTT bunch. However, GGG had the advantage of a proper giant robot and a real sense of fun. This tries to be a bit more serious than it needs to be to work properly.
Although saying that it could have worked if it had gone the other way. I mean, I think the main characters are meant to be kids who have had their memories wiped so they don't remember their families or anything, but it doesn't really examine how dark this is.
yuyushiki
It's difficult to hate shows like this.
Yuyushiki is one of those girls in clubs shows like K-ON, only in K-ON the girls are meant to be in a music club but actually spend their time doing nothing, where in yuyu their club is basically searching the internet.
I dunno, as an example of the genre it's perfectly fine and I enjoy it, but it's hardly ground-breaking stuff.
This isn't all the stuff from this season; but it's the ones I liked the look of. I might try sampling the other series from this season across the Bank Holiday weekend to see if they're worth watching.
I've also watched some stuff I bought (I was kind of forced to, because it's on Blu-Ray and, as my post earlier in the week said) I need the cash from selling them on e-bay. I'll talk about those in another post.
I know - shock revelation, what with it supposedly being one of my hobbies and all, but it’s been a long time since I really watched any anime.
I therefore thought I might revive my mini reviews:
attack on titan
I've read several volumes of the manga and basically enjoyed it. The artwork is a bit rough around the edges and the story is all over the places, but I quite like it despite those.
It kind of goes without saying that the artwork in the anime is much better, but it is actually of quite a high standard. They've also done a lot to smooth out the story - it's less 'high energy' because of that, but it also makes it easier to follow.
My only real criticism would be that the gore has been toned down - a lot happens off camera - and really it's this that's one of the key aspects of the manga: when the characters are whining about how scared you are, in the manga you've seen their friends be eaten alive, but in the anime you know it happened but didn't actually see how horrible it was, so you don't quite feel the same way.
But that's a fairly minor gripe - it's still worth watching.
flowers of evil
I've only actually watched 3 episodes of this.
It's drawn quite a bit of flack as it's actually rotoscoped. I've never really been a fan of rotoscoping. I think it's okay here, but I think much of what it brings could have been achieved with traditional animation. Indeed, I think a lot of what people have been complimenting that they think the rotoscoping is the reason for is actually more to do with the sound design. The sound is really creepy - there's a lot of bits that really ramp up the tension and atmosphere.
But the reason I've not really watched more than 3 episodes is I find he characters a bit annoying. It also seems very unrealistic - and I think this is actually made worse by the rotoscoping. You know it's been acted out in real life, so it's like a drama someone has drawn on, but it's therefore a very unrealistic drama.
gargantia on the verduos planet
I think this might actually be my favourite of the season. It's certainly the most proper science fiction of the shows I've watched. I like the premise, the plot and the characters and I think it looks great and has been done really well (it is a Production I.G. series, after all).
If I was pushed to make one criticism it's that it could have moved a bit swifter - there were some bits that could have been chopped out to move things along a lot quicker. But even during those bits the show is entertaining enough. Oh, and I suppose the fan service it has is a bit unnecessary too; given the overall SF nature of the show it can feel a little out of place.
majestic prince
I have to say my interest in this one has waned a bit over the course of watching it. I think a part of this is that it's been quite samey. I am actually a bit puzzled that this was listed as having 24 episodes where Gargantia was listed as having 13 as I'd have said the longevity of the two series feels the other way around (but not sure where I saw these listings so I don't know if they're true).
Another problem I had was that in the first few episodes I had the feeling that the show was actually a bit of a parody, or at least that it was making a few knowing winks at the story itself, but as the episodes have gone on I've felt this much less.
I did actually think it bore a resemblance to shows like GaoGaiGar - certainly the bad guys are the same sort of bonkers OTT bunch. However, GGG had the advantage of a proper giant robot and a real sense of fun. This tries to be a bit more serious than it needs to be to work properly.
Although saying that it could have worked if it had gone the other way. I mean, I think the main characters are meant to be kids who have had their memories wiped so they don't remember their families or anything, but it doesn't really examine how dark this is.
yuyushiki
It's difficult to hate shows like this.
Yuyushiki is one of those girls in clubs shows like K-ON, only in K-ON the girls are meant to be in a music club but actually spend their time doing nothing, where in yuyu their club is basically searching the internet.
I dunno, as an example of the genre it's perfectly fine and I enjoy it, but it's hardly ground-breaking stuff.
This isn't all the stuff from this season; but it's the ones I liked the look of. I might try sampling the other series from this season across the Bank Holiday weekend to see if they're worth watching.
I've also watched some stuff I bought (I was kind of forced to, because it's on Blu-Ray and, as my post earlier in the week said) I need the cash from selling them on e-bay. I'll talk about those in another post.
Tuesday, 21 May 2013
skint
I am skint.
And I mean skint. I can't currently afford to buy petrol for my car, which will need filling up on Friday. I have exactly £11 worth of electricity on the meter and this won't last long enough if I have to turn the heating on, which seems likely given the way the weather is just now. I'm even wondering what I will have to buy grocery-wise (food and toiletries, etc) and what I can put off until I get my next pay cheque.
That next pay cheque will turn up next week, but it will be kinda critical when it turns up. I have a Direct Debit coming out on Wednesday for £110. I don't currently have £110. I should be getting about £100 for stuff I currently have on e-bay, but as with my pay cheque, there's no guarantee people will pay straight away.
If not I will have to use my other overdraft (my HSBC one is already maxed out). I certainly don't have anything in my savings account I could transfer over.
I've even been toying with the idea of taking out one of these short-term cash loans. I kinda know that would be lethal, though.
I have been taking steps to correct the holes in my finance, but the problem again has been the whole stag-do, wedding and Dad's PC combo, which has proven to be quite the
Indeed, I was making quite good progress and was getting to the stage where I wasn't having to use as much of my overdraft and the credit cards were starting to come down. However, these recent events have wiped out that "breathing room" I had built up.
What I need to do is get more stuff on e-bay, but I've kinda reached a point where I have to watch/play/read the things I have in order to sell them. In particular the stuff I could rip and flog has pretty much run out.
Well, that's not quite true - I've a lot of stuff I could sell, but I've a feeling most of it will fall into the "more expensive to sell than I will get back" category. The few things I think might be worth a significant amount are kinda crossing a line - like selling your car to buy petrol :/.
Of course what I really need is a job that pays me a wage that's appropriate for my skill and value. But then that's a whole other story.
And I mean skint. I can't currently afford to buy petrol for my car, which will need filling up on Friday. I have exactly £11 worth of electricity on the meter and this won't last long enough if I have to turn the heating on, which seems likely given the way the weather is just now. I'm even wondering what I will have to buy grocery-wise (food and toiletries, etc) and what I can put off until I get my next pay cheque.
That next pay cheque will turn up next week, but it will be kinda critical when it turns up. I have a Direct Debit coming out on Wednesday for £110. I don't currently have £110. I should be getting about £100 for stuff I currently have on e-bay, but as with my pay cheque, there's no guarantee people will pay straight away.
If not I will have to use my other overdraft (my HSBC one is already maxed out). I certainly don't have anything in my savings account I could transfer over.
I've even been toying with the idea of taking out one of these short-term cash loans. I kinda know that would be lethal, though.
I have been taking steps to correct the holes in my finance, but the problem again has been the whole stag-do, wedding and Dad's PC combo, which has proven to be quite the
Indeed, I was making quite good progress and was getting to the stage where I wasn't having to use as much of my overdraft and the credit cards were starting to come down. However, these recent events have wiped out that "breathing room" I had built up.
What I need to do is get more stuff on e-bay, but I've kinda reached a point where I have to watch/play/read the things I have in order to sell them. In particular the stuff I could rip and flog has pretty much run out.
Well, that's not quite true - I've a lot of stuff I could sell, but I've a feeling most of it will fall into the "more expensive to sell than I will get back" category. The few things I think might be worth a significant amount are kinda crossing a line - like selling your car to buy petrol :/.
Of course what I really need is a job that pays me a wage that's appropriate for my skill and value. But then that's a whole other story.
Monday, 20 May 2013
eurovision
It was Eurovision this weekend.
As per usual it took me somewhat by surprise. For some reason I have it in my head that it is held later in the year. I think this might be because the Eurovision's I mainly remember watching were either as a kid or as a Student and in both my memories are largely of it being warm and late light (the student ones often involved drinking). Therefore in my head Eurovision is associated with summer.
Anyway, this year was okay. It was held in Sweden and was much more "traditional" in the sense that they hadn't gone mega bonkers with the whole thing. A lot of the Russian satellite states (who had quite a string of wins when they all joined and only voted for each other) seemed to get into a bit of a staging war, with ever bigger productions.
Sweden just put it on in a reasonably-sized hall with a single presenter on a fairly basic stage with a basic presentation. Really it's about the songs, after all.
The songs were genuinely of an okay standard this year. There were only a couple that stood out with Eurovision-weirdness, and this was mainly in the staging, rather than the songs themselves.
I thought the winner was okay. I got a bit mixed up with what was meant to be the favourite, but I think a perfectly okay pop song won in the end. Although I would have liked something like Greece to have won, as there's was more fun and definitely more memorable.
The UK did poorly, as has become the norm in recent years. There is obviously the Balkan effect nowadays, but to be totally frank it was another largely forgettable and uninteresting song.
Just recently they seem to have decided the best tactic is to have a 'star' name sing the song, but a star name from the ancient past. Last year it was Bacharach and this year Bonnie Tyler. I'm puzzled by this approach - isn't it mostly youngsters (or at least families) that watch Eurovision? So what youngster knows Bonnie Tyler from Adam?
As per usual it took me somewhat by surprise. For some reason I have it in my head that it is held later in the year. I think this might be because the Eurovision's I mainly remember watching were either as a kid or as a Student and in both my memories are largely of it being warm and late light (the student ones often involved drinking). Therefore in my head Eurovision is associated with summer.
Anyway, this year was okay. It was held in Sweden and was much more "traditional" in the sense that they hadn't gone mega bonkers with the whole thing. A lot of the Russian satellite states (who had quite a string of wins when they all joined and only voted for each other) seemed to get into a bit of a staging war, with ever bigger productions.
Sweden just put it on in a reasonably-sized hall with a single presenter on a fairly basic stage with a basic presentation. Really it's about the songs, after all.
The songs were genuinely of an okay standard this year. There were only a couple that stood out with Eurovision-weirdness, and this was mainly in the staging, rather than the songs themselves.
I thought the winner was okay. I got a bit mixed up with what was meant to be the favourite, but I think a perfectly okay pop song won in the end. Although I would have liked something like Greece to have won, as there's was more fun and definitely more memorable.
The UK did poorly, as has become the norm in recent years. There is obviously the Balkan effect nowadays, but to be totally frank it was another largely forgettable and uninteresting song.
Just recently they seem to have decided the best tactic is to have a 'star' name sing the song, but a star name from the ancient past. Last year it was Bacharach and this year Bonnie Tyler. I'm puzzled by this approach - isn't it mostly youngsters (or at least families) that watch Eurovision? So what youngster knows Bonnie Tyler from Adam?
Friday, 17 May 2013
simcity 3.0
The saga of SimCity continues.
They’ve now issued patch 3.0. I was hoping that 2.0 represented a significant fix, but it was still pretty messed up after that. And 3.0 now seems to have actually broken the game - it freezes my entire system.
I really don’t understand what’s going on with the patches, tbh, because the stuff they patch generally hasn’t been an issue for me until they patch it.
I’ll give you a very good example - disasters. Before patch 2.0 I don’t think I’d seen a disaster, yet everyone else was complaining about disasters happening every two minutes. So they patched it and suddenly I’m getting disaster after disaster.
It’s like I somehow got the final version of the game and every time they patch it I step back a version.
It’s incredibly frustrating, because if the game would just work better I think I’d probably enjoy it, but then they patched it again and when I played it, it froze my entire machine 4 times in a row and I've started to wonder why I bought the game in the first place.
It’s particularly frustrating because it’s not freezing for the same reason - I was doing completely different things and the game was at a different stage (several hours in and only about 15 minutes in). It’s also annoying that it’s freezing the entire machine so I have to use the reset button, I can’t just hit ctrl+alt+del and kill it via the task manager.
What’ weird with it is that when I then reload I’ve only lost a minute or two of play. I’m actually wondering if it’s the game saves that are killing it, but because of how it does it I have no idea if it’s saving related or not.
I actually remember there was big problem with Anno1404, which had a horrible that would cause saves to corrupt so you'd play for hours and lose all of it because the saves had no information in them. It also had a memory inflation issue that meant you couldn't really play giant maps. Those took them months to resolve so I’m starting to wonder whether I shouldn’t just put the game on hold and pick it up again in 6 months when hopefully it will be properly patched.
I understand yet another patch has been issued recently, so perhaps that will solve it?
They’ve now issued patch 3.0. I was hoping that 2.0 represented a significant fix, but it was still pretty messed up after that. And 3.0 now seems to have actually broken the game - it freezes my entire system.
I really don’t understand what’s going on with the patches, tbh, because the stuff they patch generally hasn’t been an issue for me until they patch it.
I’ll give you a very good example - disasters. Before patch 2.0 I don’t think I’d seen a disaster, yet everyone else was complaining about disasters happening every two minutes. So they patched it and suddenly I’m getting disaster after disaster.
It’s like I somehow got the final version of the game and every time they patch it I step back a version.
It’s incredibly frustrating, because if the game would just work better I think I’d probably enjoy it, but then they patched it again and when I played it, it froze my entire machine 4 times in a row and I've started to wonder why I bought the game in the first place.
It’s particularly frustrating because it’s not freezing for the same reason - I was doing completely different things and the game was at a different stage (several hours in and only about 15 minutes in). It’s also annoying that it’s freezing the entire machine so I have to use the reset button, I can’t just hit ctrl+alt+del and kill it via the task manager.
What’ weird with it is that when I then reload I’ve only lost a minute or two of play. I’m actually wondering if it’s the game saves that are killing it, but because of how it does it I have no idea if it’s saving related or not.
I actually remember there was big problem with Anno1404, which had a horrible that would cause saves to corrupt so you'd play for hours and lose all of it because the saves had no information in them. It also had a memory inflation issue that meant you couldn't really play giant maps. Those took them months to resolve so I’m starting to wonder whether I shouldn’t just put the game on hold and pick it up again in 6 months when hopefully it will be properly patched.
I understand yet another patch has been issued recently, so perhaps that will solve it?
Thursday, 16 May 2013
how much?
I appear to have been the victim of a massive cock-up.
I buy figures directly from Japan. They are expensive things, but the site I use sells them at good value and I’m happy to take the VAT charges on the chin for importing them.
Two figures were recently dispatched to me. Because they have had to be put in a big box (both are together, where I was originally expecting each individually) they’ve had to upgrade the postage to EMS, which is a tracked service and is quicker, but a lot more expensive.
I mention this because the figures are only about £50 each and the new postage cost is about £30. I’m obviously converting from yen, but the upshot is that the total cost is about £130. At worst case we’re talking £150.
This is important because customs charges only kick in for items that cost above £135. Below that you only pay VAT and even above it they waive it if the charge is less than £9. I’ve never paid customs charges, only VAT.
VAT is at 20% so I was expecting a charge of around £26 and then the (extortionate) parcel force handling fees would take it up to about £40.
The bill arrived yesterday - it is for £273.68
Thy want to charge me £57.39 for customs and £202.79 for VAT.
Those numbers are bigger than the original value of the items + postage!
I have absolutely no clue how that has happened, but I figure one of a few things might be the source of the problem - the original forms were not filled out properly, so they’ve done the calculations based on wrong numbers, or perhaps they’ve fucked up the yen to pounds conversion, but what is definitely the case is someone's made a huge mistake somewhere.
Unfortunately, this now gives me the horrible problem of having to work out who’s make the mistake, how I get it corrected, who I have to deal with to do that and all sorts.
There’s a form you can download on the customs site, but they want me to send the bits of paper you get with the parcel. Well, I can’t send those until I’ve got the parcel, and I can’t get the parcel without paying and I’m not paying £275 for a parcel whose contents cost me £130.
Particularly since I can’t afford £275.
Of course there’s an added problem - parcel force say they will only hold onto the parcel for 20 days (and that was about 4 days ago). Can I get this sorted in 20 days? Do I think HMRC will even look at the form in 20 days?
Marvellous.
I buy figures directly from Japan. They are expensive things, but the site I use sells them at good value and I’m happy to take the VAT charges on the chin for importing them.
Two figures were recently dispatched to me. Because they have had to be put in a big box (both are together, where I was originally expecting each individually) they’ve had to upgrade the postage to EMS, which is a tracked service and is quicker, but a lot more expensive.
I mention this because the figures are only about £50 each and the new postage cost is about £30. I’m obviously converting from yen, but the upshot is that the total cost is about £130. At worst case we’re talking £150.
This is important because customs charges only kick in for items that cost above £135. Below that you only pay VAT and even above it they waive it if the charge is less than £9. I’ve never paid customs charges, only VAT.
VAT is at 20% so I was expecting a charge of around £26 and then the (extortionate) parcel force handling fees would take it up to about £40.
The bill arrived yesterday - it is for £273.68
Thy want to charge me £57.39 for customs and £202.79 for VAT.
Those numbers are bigger than the original value of the items + postage!
I have absolutely no clue how that has happened, but I figure one of a few things might be the source of the problem - the original forms were not filled out properly, so they’ve done the calculations based on wrong numbers, or perhaps they’ve fucked up the yen to pounds conversion, but what is definitely the case is someone's made a huge mistake somewhere.
Unfortunately, this now gives me the horrible problem of having to work out who’s make the mistake, how I get it corrected, who I have to deal with to do that and all sorts.
There’s a form you can download on the customs site, but they want me to send the bits of paper you get with the parcel. Well, I can’t send those until I’ve got the parcel, and I can’t get the parcel without paying and I’m not paying £275 for a parcel whose contents cost me £130.
Particularly since I can’t afford £275.
Of course there’s an added problem - parcel force say they will only hold onto the parcel for 20 days (and that was about 4 days ago). Can I get this sorted in 20 days? Do I think HMRC will even look at the form in 20 days?
Marvellous.
Wednesday, 15 May 2013
holiday - dad pc
So after the wedding I had two basic tasks for the rest of my holiday.
Firstly, I had to clear down my PVR a bit. The PVR had basically gotten to 90% full, and given the last part of the holiday was going to be away from home I needed to clear it down or it would run out of space.
I did okay with this - I cleared off about 40% off, taking it down to 50% full. If I’d been off the whole week I’d have taken it down further. And if I hadn’t had the other task to do I would have made more progress too I think.
The other task was my Dad’s PC.
As mentioned before the holiday I made some poor decisions with the money he’d paid for it so I ended up having to split the purchases across multiple cards. This was particularly annoying since I therefore had to pay multiple postage for everything that was then delivered at exactly the same time in the same van!
In the end I bought the full spec stuff I’d said I would (I could have gone cheaper) with two exceptions: I didn’t buy a separate CPU cooler and I only bought 16gb of the 32gb of RAM.
Both of these would be virtually undetectable to him, though I did own up, although I didn’t give the proper reason that I’d fucked up. Instead I said I’d forgotten about the cooler and would get it later and that the RAM had been faulty so I’d had to return it.
I will get both of these, but it will be later when I have some money - probably for when I next see him, which will likely by in October or so.
Building the PC took me about a day all told.
I then went down to my Dad’s on Thursday, getting there in the early evening. I therefore started the installation process on the Friday. Well, there was a bit of an issue we had to fix first.
See, I was hoping we could re-use his DVD drive, which isn’t that old. I’d expected the motherboard would have both connection types (SATA and I forget what the older one is called). Unfortunately, the board only had SATA and it turned out his drive only had the older one. We therefore popped to PC World and got a new drive (it was about £30 - probably the same as buying online, taking postage into account). However, we also had to get a new keyboard, as it turned out the keyboard he had was PS/2 only - I’d guessed/assumed it was USB with an adapter, but it was just PS/2.
There was a bit of a cock up there as he actually had a USB mouse, but kinda forgot - I’d assumed it was part of the same thing (it’s wireless and the receiver was both and it used to be, but apparently he’d gotten a new mouse that was USB, but it was the same make - all very complicated).
Anyway, that afternoon I started and basically installed Windows7 plus all the millions of updates.
The Saturday I installed all the separate applications and the hardware, etc. My dad was a bit of a pain on this day - it was weird actually, as if he wasn’t expecting it to take so long and was making a fuss to get my attention like a child whose parents are too busy so they start misbehaving to get attention. He kept getting in the way and of course, ironically, that meant it took longer.
Anyway, Sunday we put the desk and all the bits back away and I gave him a quick tour of the machine. He seemed pleased, particularly with the speed. With the old machine he used to turn it on then take the dog for a walk and it would just be ready to log on when he got back. Then he’d make a pot of tea while it logged on and was ready for him to actually do anything.
The new one you press power on and 10 seconds later (5 of which are the POST checks) it’s ready for you to log on.
Firstly, I had to clear down my PVR a bit. The PVR had basically gotten to 90% full, and given the last part of the holiday was going to be away from home I needed to clear it down or it would run out of space.
I did okay with this - I cleared off about 40% off, taking it down to 50% full. If I’d been off the whole week I’d have taken it down further. And if I hadn’t had the other task to do I would have made more progress too I think.
The other task was my Dad’s PC.
As mentioned before the holiday I made some poor decisions with the money he’d paid for it so I ended up having to split the purchases across multiple cards. This was particularly annoying since I therefore had to pay multiple postage for everything that was then delivered at exactly the same time in the same van!
In the end I bought the full spec stuff I’d said I would (I could have gone cheaper) with two exceptions: I didn’t buy a separate CPU cooler and I only bought 16gb of the 32gb of RAM.
Both of these would be virtually undetectable to him, though I did own up, although I didn’t give the proper reason that I’d fucked up. Instead I said I’d forgotten about the cooler and would get it later and that the RAM had been faulty so I’d had to return it.
I will get both of these, but it will be later when I have some money - probably for when I next see him, which will likely by in October or so.
Building the PC took me about a day all told.
I then went down to my Dad’s on Thursday, getting there in the early evening. I therefore started the installation process on the Friday. Well, there was a bit of an issue we had to fix first.
See, I was hoping we could re-use his DVD drive, which isn’t that old. I’d expected the motherboard would have both connection types (SATA and I forget what the older one is called). Unfortunately, the board only had SATA and it turned out his drive only had the older one. We therefore popped to PC World and got a new drive (it was about £30 - probably the same as buying online, taking postage into account). However, we also had to get a new keyboard, as it turned out the keyboard he had was PS/2 only - I’d guessed/assumed it was USB with an adapter, but it was just PS/2.
There was a bit of a cock up there as he actually had a USB mouse, but kinda forgot - I’d assumed it was part of the same thing (it’s wireless and the receiver was both and it used to be, but apparently he’d gotten a new mouse that was USB, but it was the same make - all very complicated).
Anyway, that afternoon I started and basically installed Windows7 plus all the millions of updates.
The Saturday I installed all the separate applications and the hardware, etc. My dad was a bit of a pain on this day - it was weird actually, as if he wasn’t expecting it to take so long and was making a fuss to get my attention like a child whose parents are too busy so they start misbehaving to get attention. He kept getting in the way and of course, ironically, that meant it took longer.
Anyway, Sunday we put the desk and all the bits back away and I gave him a quick tour of the machine. He seemed pleased, particularly with the speed. With the old machine he used to turn it on then take the dog for a walk and it would just be ready to log on when he got back. Then he’d make a pot of tea while it logged on and was ready for him to actually do anything.
The new one you press power on and 10 seconds later (5 of which are the POST checks) it’s ready for you to log on.
Tuesday, 14 May 2013
holiday - wedding
I didn't blog last week as it was all a bit hectic.
I had a lot to catch up on having been away for a good chunk of my leave, and having not really paid much attention to things while I was here.
The holiday started with a friend’s wedding (I went to the reception only). This was the friend whose stag do I went on a few months back.
I was determined not to spend as much money on the wedding as I did on the stag. This meant booking into a cheap Travelodge that was further away than some of the more expensive hotels. My intention was to get a taxi there but walk back. This didn’t quite work.
The problems started with the journey up. I live in Farnham, which is near Guildford and the wedding was in Chelmsford in Essex. This meant I had to go around the M25.
I could have gone north. This would be a lot further and would mean risking the M3 & M4 junctions. I also know that that stretch is riddled with road works and bits where the speed is always limited. And as I say, I wanted to save money so going the long way round isn’t a good idea given the cost of petrol.
I therefore went the south way. This took me through the Dartford crossing. I wasn’t aware that the cost of the toll had gone up so much - it’s now £2 for a car so any petrol money saved was probably cancelled out.
But the real issue was the time - I set off at 2:00PM. I had to get some petrol, but the reception was due to start at 7:00PM - that gave me 5 hours and the journey was only 90miles. Surely even with the tunnel I’d be ahead of rush hour so I’d be okay, right? I mean 1.5 hours for 90 miles is a reasonable journey time, so double it to 3 hours just in case and that still gave me a 2 hour margin, right? I could have a leisurely shower and shave and still be there early.
Er, no - it took me 6.5 hours to get there!
The A3 was really busy, the M25 was solid and then the road to Chelmsford (I forget the number) was rammed too. I took me 5 hours to do 90 miles! So I had to rush to have a shower and shave and get a taxi there.
The next thing that happened was that the taxi dropped me at the wrong place! The problem was there are two venues with basically the same name. When I got there the other issue was that there was another wedding going on, so the taxi driver said “is that them?” and I said “I guess” and got out and paid.
But of course they were just distant figures in wedding gear so it was only as I wandered up that I realised they weren’t my friends! The actual venue was over a mile away up the road, and of course both were in the middle of nowhere so I had to walk!
When I did get there all the stress and lateness meant I bolted my drinks and got far drunker than I intended.
So then I had my plan of walking home. This would have worked except for a few things: I’d already walked a mile and a bit. I was drunker than I should have been. It was absolutely freezing - having had lots of nice weather it had suddenly turned cold and it was a miserable walk after a while.
I therefore ended up hailing a taxi who took the main roads, so even though we were only about 2 miles from the hotel it cost me £10 (the journey there, which was obviously too short, cost £15) so I think overall I hardly saved anything at all.
I’ll continue with the holiday details later in the week.
I had a lot to catch up on having been away for a good chunk of my leave, and having not really paid much attention to things while I was here.
The holiday started with a friend’s wedding (I went to the reception only). This was the friend whose stag do I went on a few months back.
I was determined not to spend as much money on the wedding as I did on the stag. This meant booking into a cheap Travelodge that was further away than some of the more expensive hotels. My intention was to get a taxi there but walk back. This didn’t quite work.
The problems started with the journey up. I live in Farnham, which is near Guildford and the wedding was in Chelmsford in Essex. This meant I had to go around the M25.
I could have gone north. This would be a lot further and would mean risking the M3 & M4 junctions. I also know that that stretch is riddled with road works and bits where the speed is always limited. And as I say, I wanted to save money so going the long way round isn’t a good idea given the cost of petrol.
I therefore went the south way. This took me through the Dartford crossing. I wasn’t aware that the cost of the toll had gone up so much - it’s now £2 for a car so any petrol money saved was probably cancelled out.
But the real issue was the time - I set off at 2:00PM. I had to get some petrol, but the reception was due to start at 7:00PM - that gave me 5 hours and the journey was only 90miles. Surely even with the tunnel I’d be ahead of rush hour so I’d be okay, right? I mean 1.5 hours for 90 miles is a reasonable journey time, so double it to 3 hours just in case and that still gave me a 2 hour margin, right? I could have a leisurely shower and shave and still be there early.
Er, no - it took me 6.5 hours to get there!
The A3 was really busy, the M25 was solid and then the road to Chelmsford (I forget the number) was rammed too. I took me 5 hours to do 90 miles! So I had to rush to have a shower and shave and get a taxi there.
The next thing that happened was that the taxi dropped me at the wrong place! The problem was there are two venues with basically the same name. When I got there the other issue was that there was another wedding going on, so the taxi driver said “is that them?” and I said “I guess” and got out and paid.
But of course they were just distant figures in wedding gear so it was only as I wandered up that I realised they weren’t my friends! The actual venue was over a mile away up the road, and of course both were in the middle of nowhere so I had to walk!
When I did get there all the stress and lateness meant I bolted my drinks and got far drunker than I intended.
So then I had my plan of walking home. This would have worked except for a few things: I’d already walked a mile and a bit. I was drunker than I should have been. It was absolutely freezing - having had lots of nice weather it had suddenly turned cold and it was a miserable walk after a while.
I therefore ended up hailing a taxi who took the main roads, so even though we were only about 2 miles from the hotel it cost me £10 (the journey there, which was obviously too short, cost £15) so I think overall I hardly saved anything at all.
I’ll continue with the holiday details later in the week.
Monday, 13 May 2013
spanish grand prix
It was the Spanish Grand Prix this last weekend.
It’s not traditionally a very good race - the circuit isn’t very good for overtaking, but also it’s where they do all the testing so they know it inside out. The race this weekend was okay - I’ve seen worse, but then I’ve also seen better.
One of the most bizarre things was that the two Mercedes qualified on the front row, but then during the race it was like they’d put the cars in reverse. They just lost place after place, lap after lap.
Lewis started 2nd and ended up 12th. It’s bizarre - how does that happen that you can pound in a lap that’s way faster than everybody else on Saturday and then the next day it’s like you have the handbrake on?
There were quite a lot of comments about the tyres. I’m not sure what I think about this - Pirelli coming in certainly made the racing more interesting, but it’s not good when they’re all making 3 or 4 pit stops per race. It’s confusing and too much, really. I'm also left wondering how many pit stops there will be in Canada where the surface is such that it usually eats tyres.
Anyway, Alonso’s performance was excellent - he had a really great early race, overtaking everybody left and right (you could actually hear the spectators cheering), but after that early phase the race was quite quiet.
If Ferrari can avoid more races lost through unreliability then it could be an interesting championship - the Lotus's are very reliable and consistent and the Red Bulls are there or thereabouts.
It’s not traditionally a very good race - the circuit isn’t very good for overtaking, but also it’s where they do all the testing so they know it inside out. The race this weekend was okay - I’ve seen worse, but then I’ve also seen better.
One of the most bizarre things was that the two Mercedes qualified on the front row, but then during the race it was like they’d put the cars in reverse. They just lost place after place, lap after lap.
Lewis started 2nd and ended up 12th. It’s bizarre - how does that happen that you can pound in a lap that’s way faster than everybody else on Saturday and then the next day it’s like you have the handbrake on?
There were quite a lot of comments about the tyres. I’m not sure what I think about this - Pirelli coming in certainly made the racing more interesting, but it’s not good when they’re all making 3 or 4 pit stops per race. It’s confusing and too much, really. I'm also left wondering how many pit stops there will be in Canada where the surface is such that it usually eats tyres.
Anyway, Alonso’s performance was excellent - he had a really great early race, overtaking everybody left and right (you could actually hear the spectators cheering), but after that early phase the race was quite quiet.
If Ferrari can avoid more races lost through unreliability then it could be an interesting championship - the Lotus's are very reliable and consistent and the Red Bulls are there or thereabouts.
Thursday, 25 April 2013
holiday
I'm off on holiday from tomorrow.
I'm actually going to a wedding reception on the Friday (I'm not attending the wedding itself, just the reception afterwards). They're having it in the middle of nowhere, and the Travelodge I'm staying at is a fair distance away, so I've a horrible feeling it could cost me a fortune in taxi fares, as well as being heavy on the wallet for the more obvious reasons.
Then the week after I'm building the PC, as mentioned yesterday. I'm also hoping to get some stuff watched, both in terms of recorded programs so that I've a bit more of a cushion of free space and I'm not constantly watching stuff in a panic so that I don't run out of room, but also in terms of Blu Rays.
I've stacked up quite a pile of Blu Rays to watch and I don't have any means of ripping them so I can't sell them on until I've seen them. There's a handful I think may be keepers, but mostly they're not things I'll want to hang on, but as I say, I can't sell them until I've watched them.
It's then my birthday and I'll be off down to my Dads to install the PC and also to see him as it's been ages since I have. Not sure how long I'll stay, but I expect I'll come back on the Sunday or Monday - the Monday is the bank holiday, so I'll be back to work (and blogging) on the Tuesday.
I'm actually going to a wedding reception on the Friday (I'm not attending the wedding itself, just the reception afterwards). They're having it in the middle of nowhere, and the Travelodge I'm staying at is a fair distance away, so I've a horrible feeling it could cost me a fortune in taxi fares, as well as being heavy on the wallet for the more obvious reasons.
Then the week after I'm building the PC, as mentioned yesterday. I'm also hoping to get some stuff watched, both in terms of recorded programs so that I've a bit more of a cushion of free space and I'm not constantly watching stuff in a panic so that I don't run out of room, but also in terms of Blu Rays.
I've stacked up quite a pile of Blu Rays to watch and I don't have any means of ripping them so I can't sell them on until I've seen them. There's a handful I think may be keepers, but mostly they're not things I'll want to hang on, but as I say, I can't sell them until I've watched them.
It's then my birthday and I'll be off down to my Dads to install the PC and also to see him as it's been ages since I have. Not sure how long I'll stay, but I expect I'll come back on the Sunday or Monday - the Monday is the bank holiday, so I'll be back to work (and blogging) on the Tuesday.
Wednesday, 24 April 2013
dad PC
I've made a bit of a potential minor catastrophic blunder.
Well, actually I've made a series of relatively small blunder that have combined and could give me some fairly serious problems.
I should start at the beginning.
My dad currently uses my sister's old desktop PC. It's very old - I built it for her more than a decade ago, and it was only mid-spec when it was built. It's therefore getting quite creaky - particularly as my dad is a bit of a one for installing random bits of software and doesn't know how to optimise the system.
So, for example, his penchant for saying yes to installs he doesn't actually want/need/know what they are means he has to have the virus checker doing constant scan and that of course uses up a good chunk of the available resources (virus software seems to be quite prone to becoming bloat-ware under the assumption that everyone is running the latest-spec equipment), slowing it down further.
He's also been getting into digital photography and so wants a system that could handle processing and manipulating big digital photographs. He therefore asked me a while back about getting a new machine and I recommended either buying one from PC world (or similar) if he wanted a cheap route to upgrade or me building one if he had a bit more cash as I could build one with specs that would help him, rather than lots of rubbish he didn't need that you get if you spend a lot of money in such places.
He agreed and went with a budget of £1,000. I then put together some suggestions and we refined it and it came in at about the right budget. It was a bit of a beast of a system in terms of processor, ram and hard-drive, but nothing special for the graphics, case and other bits (he's already using a bigger monitor, so he's keeping that, and we're also re-using his DVD burner - both are recent additions to the old machine so aren't that old, but also he doesn't need anything more).
Anyway, that was all fine and good, but I had a bit of an issue with timing, but also with finances, so he transferred the money, but I didn't have the time to buy stuff, plus some of it wasn't in stock at the time. However, I did something particularly dumb with the money too.
I prefer to use credit cards online for the additional protection they give, but instead of putting all the money onto one card and therefore freeing up an appropriate slot, I spread it across multiple cards. Why the hell I did this looking back I don't know - it means multiple orders and therefore multiple postage, so will cost me more.
Also, rather annoyingly, I've now come to buy the bits and the price of every single bit has gone up slightly. Not a lot - a few pounds, or tens of pounds- but enough to give me some additional issues.
It also doesn't help that I didn't really think sensibly about my car tax and insurance: I should have done 6 months instead of 12 for the car tax and split the insurance into monthly payments - both would have cost more in the long term, but wouldn't have taken big chunks out of my cash reserves. The stag do also cost a lot more money than I thought it would - I haven't added it up, but it was at least £500, all of which had to be paid in cash as it was all paid for by the best man and then re-paid by us: I couldn't book anything individually, which I could have put on a card and therefore given myself some free-space for my Dad's PC.
The upshot of all this is that I now have an annoying situation where I am going to have to pay more for my Dad's PC than he has paid me, but I can't go back to him with the above problems because he's under the impression I've already bought it all. What I might do is make a substitution - there are one or two bits that I picked as slightly better than he needs (the GFX card in particular) in order to make the budget up so I may go cheaper so it cancels out the additional cost. Not 100% honest, but he will never play a game on it so he doesn't need anything with any grunt.
Well, actually I've made a series of relatively small blunder that have combined and could give me some fairly serious problems.
I should start at the beginning.
My dad currently uses my sister's old desktop PC. It's very old - I built it for her more than a decade ago, and it was only mid-spec when it was built. It's therefore getting quite creaky - particularly as my dad is a bit of a one for installing random bits of software and doesn't know how to optimise the system.
So, for example, his penchant for saying yes to installs he doesn't actually want/need/know what they are means he has to have the virus checker doing constant scan and that of course uses up a good chunk of the available resources (virus software seems to be quite prone to becoming bloat-ware under the assumption that everyone is running the latest-spec equipment), slowing it down further.
He's also been getting into digital photography and so wants a system that could handle processing and manipulating big digital photographs. He therefore asked me a while back about getting a new machine and I recommended either buying one from PC world (or similar) if he wanted a cheap route to upgrade or me building one if he had a bit more cash as I could build one with specs that would help him, rather than lots of rubbish he didn't need that you get if you spend a lot of money in such places.
He agreed and went with a budget of £1,000. I then put together some suggestions and we refined it and it came in at about the right budget. It was a bit of a beast of a system in terms of processor, ram and hard-drive, but nothing special for the graphics, case and other bits (he's already using a bigger monitor, so he's keeping that, and we're also re-using his DVD burner - both are recent additions to the old machine so aren't that old, but also he doesn't need anything more).
Anyway, that was all fine and good, but I had a bit of an issue with timing, but also with finances, so he transferred the money, but I didn't have the time to buy stuff, plus some of it wasn't in stock at the time. However, I did something particularly dumb with the money too.
I prefer to use credit cards online for the additional protection they give, but instead of putting all the money onto one card and therefore freeing up an appropriate slot, I spread it across multiple cards. Why the hell I did this looking back I don't know - it means multiple orders and therefore multiple postage, so will cost me more.
Also, rather annoyingly, I've now come to buy the bits and the price of every single bit has gone up slightly. Not a lot - a few pounds, or tens of pounds- but enough to give me some additional issues.
It also doesn't help that I didn't really think sensibly about my car tax and insurance: I should have done 6 months instead of 12 for the car tax and split the insurance into monthly payments - both would have cost more in the long term, but wouldn't have taken big chunks out of my cash reserves. The stag do also cost a lot more money than I thought it would - I haven't added it up, but it was at least £500, all of which had to be paid in cash as it was all paid for by the best man and then re-paid by us: I couldn't book anything individually, which I could have put on a card and therefore given myself some free-space for my Dad's PC.
The upshot of all this is that I now have an annoying situation where I am going to have to pay more for my Dad's PC than he has paid me, but I can't go back to him with the above problems because he's under the impression I've already bought it all. What I might do is make a substitution - there are one or two bits that I picked as slightly better than he needs (the GFX card in particular) in order to make the budget up so I may go cheaper so it cancels out the additional cost. Not 100% honest, but he will never play a game on it so he doesn't need anything with any grunt.
Tuesday, 23 April 2013
version two point oh
So yesterday they launched the version 2.0 patch for SimCity.
I haven't tried it out yet - they took the servers down for quite a while to do it - but also I try not to play during the week too much. Plus I figure that a lot of people will have played in order to see if the new patch has really helped to fix things or not, so I'm guessing it would have been quite busy.
I don't think it will fix everything that needs fixing. Indeed, I don't think some of the things that should be fixed ever will be. Or at least, in order to be fixed, they would need some serious redesigning of the game engine/mechanics.
Having played a fair bit and sat down and studied what's going on in places I think traffic in particular is quite badly broken.
There are two big problems - the rules they've set for how vehicles drive on the roads and the "behaviour" of the Sims that driving is a function of. The first would require a total change of the engine. The second would also require some major changes but I think they may be able to "tune" the game around it or the bits that need changing might be changeable.
In the first the problem is that vehicles are very much "on rails". When you drive a car on a normal road there is nothing that stops you from changing lanes (going into the side of the road oncoming traffic uses). Well, I mean apart from the oncoming traffic itself and solid white lines - what I mean is, if someone stops in the road you can move into the oncoming lane in order to overtake them. This doesn't happen in SimCity - all vehicles are on rails.
But in SimCity they do not do this - if a fire engine stops to put out a fire then all vehicles stop behind it, causing a huge traffic blockage. And conversely, if an emergency vehicle gets stuck behind something it won't go in the oncoming lane to overtake. Now also there are (unrealistically, given the permitted density of roads and types of junctions allowed) so many vehicles on the roads in SimCity there wouldn't be that much opportunity to overtake, but that's not the point - it's unrealistic behaviour that leads to clogged streets.
There's other stuff as well, but that's the best example. There is a solution - you can upgrade the roads to multi-lane jobs and vehicles will overtake, but building density is linked to road density, so you then get buildings upgrading (there's no way to stop this) and so there are more cars, leading to clogged streets again!
The other issue is behaviour - no Sim has a fixed abode or fixed job, they all just go to the nearest free house/free factory/empty school/etc. This is simple to code and I'm sure minimises memory requirements, but it means that all Sims head off to the same destinations all the time - they all try to go to the nearest job, leading to huge jams.
And only once they reach the warehouse and the jobs fill up do they all suddenly then decide to go to the next job. This basically applies to everything they do, which is why you get huge lines of buses all following each other about and why vehicles perform a staggering number of U-turns (which is also another reflection of the previous issue - they can only perform a U-turn at a proper junction, rather than randomly, which also clogs up the roads!).
Now as I say, this second one is the sort of issue that I think they may be able to tweak the algorithms to give a bit more realistic behaviour, or even perhaps replace the algorithm for that sort of behaviour without needing to fundamentally rebuild everything. So I'm hoping this is what v2.0 helps to fix.
If it doesn't then I've been playing about with some workarounds. One in particular that seems to help is to construct your entire city as one big loop. It can be quite fun working this out, but boy does it lead to some unrealistic cities.
Another thing that helps traffic is to think of things as mini cities, so each small bit of residential has easy/close access to commercial and industrial, so they don't do too much long-distance driving (they don't care what the commercial/industrial is, remember, so they don't need go further than their nearest job). Again, horribly unrealistic cities, but at least your entire city doesn't grind to a halt!
I haven't tried it out yet - they took the servers down for quite a while to do it - but also I try not to play during the week too much. Plus I figure that a lot of people will have played in order to see if the new patch has really helped to fix things or not, so I'm guessing it would have been quite busy.
I don't think it will fix everything that needs fixing. Indeed, I don't think some of the things that should be fixed ever will be. Or at least, in order to be fixed, they would need some serious redesigning of the game engine/mechanics.
Having played a fair bit and sat down and studied what's going on in places I think traffic in particular is quite badly broken.
There are two big problems - the rules they've set for how vehicles drive on the roads and the "behaviour" of the Sims that driving is a function of. The first would require a total change of the engine. The second would also require some major changes but I think they may be able to "tune" the game around it or the bits that need changing might be changeable.
In the first the problem is that vehicles are very much "on rails". When you drive a car on a normal road there is nothing that stops you from changing lanes (going into the side of the road oncoming traffic uses). Well, I mean apart from the oncoming traffic itself and solid white lines - what I mean is, if someone stops in the road you can move into the oncoming lane in order to overtake them. This doesn't happen in SimCity - all vehicles are on rails.
But in SimCity they do not do this - if a fire engine stops to put out a fire then all vehicles stop behind it, causing a huge traffic blockage. And conversely, if an emergency vehicle gets stuck behind something it won't go in the oncoming lane to overtake. Now also there are (unrealistically, given the permitted density of roads and types of junctions allowed) so many vehicles on the roads in SimCity there wouldn't be that much opportunity to overtake, but that's not the point - it's unrealistic behaviour that leads to clogged streets.
There's other stuff as well, but that's the best example. There is a solution - you can upgrade the roads to multi-lane jobs and vehicles will overtake, but building density is linked to road density, so you then get buildings upgrading (there's no way to stop this) and so there are more cars, leading to clogged streets again!
The other issue is behaviour - no Sim has a fixed abode or fixed job, they all just go to the nearest free house/free factory/empty school/etc. This is simple to code and I'm sure minimises memory requirements, but it means that all Sims head off to the same destinations all the time - they all try to go to the nearest job, leading to huge jams.
And only once they reach the warehouse and the jobs fill up do they all suddenly then decide to go to the next job. This basically applies to everything they do, which is why you get huge lines of buses all following each other about and why vehicles perform a staggering number of U-turns (which is also another reflection of the previous issue - they can only perform a U-turn at a proper junction, rather than randomly, which also clogs up the roads!).
Now as I say, this second one is the sort of issue that I think they may be able to tweak the algorithms to give a bit more realistic behaviour, or even perhaps replace the algorithm for that sort of behaviour without needing to fundamentally rebuild everything. So I'm hoping this is what v2.0 helps to fix.
If it doesn't then I've been playing about with some workarounds. One in particular that seems to help is to construct your entire city as one big loop. It can be quite fun working this out, but boy does it lead to some unrealistic cities.
Another thing that helps traffic is to think of things as mini cities, so each small bit of residential has easy/close access to commercial and industrial, so they don't do too much long-distance driving (they don't care what the commercial/industrial is, remember, so they don't need go further than their nearest job). Again, horribly unrealistic cities, but at least your entire city doesn't grind to a halt!
Monday, 22 April 2013
bahrain
Well, how wrong was I?
Bahrain turned out to be a really interesting race. It was virtually non-stop, with lots of overtaking and good on-circuit action (and a bit of not so good action).
I think a big part of it is the DRS, which really works here - it enables them to get into a position for overtaking but doesn't make it a simple drive-past like it does at some other circuits. That's why it actually made China a worse race - if it's a circuit where there are already a few chances to overtake then it either makes those areas too easy or shifts the overtaking from that area to the main straight (why battle it out in a corner when you can just wait and drive past on the straight).
It wasn't all clean battling in Bahrain. Perez trying to overtake Button was a bit close to the mark (he even hit him a couple of times). For team-mates it's good that they were keen to fight and not ordered not to at all, but it needs to be totally clean - taking out your own team-mate (and, worse, yourself as well) is an absolute no-no as it basically ruins the work of the team and could cost valuable points.
However, that wasn't the only action - there were good fights between plenty of other cars too and some interesting results - the Force India of Paul Di Resta, for example, got up to 4th. The Lotus is looking extremely consistent - Vettel won, but Kimi and Grosjean were in 2nd and 3rd. The Red Bull therefore looks less comprehensively dominant than in previous years and we know there are circuits it doesn't suit as well given the design philosophy. However, the Lotus looks like it may be a good performer whatever the circuit.
Ferrari also look strong, but Alonso and Massa were horribly unlucky. Alonso's DRS failed quite early, which meant he couldn't use it, effectively tying one hand behind his back. This was having had the issue with the front wing last time, so he's dropped a lot of potential points. Massa had two punctures, which is almost unheard of - both it sounded like came from cuts in the tyres and there were a few smashes that would have left debris on the circuit, but very unlucky to get two.
There's a bit of a gap now until the next race, which is Spain, I believe. I think we also go into a stretch of alternate week races, rather than double-headers, which is better, I feel. The odd double-header is okay, but when they happen a lot I find it quite disruptive to my routines and plans.
Bahrain turned out to be a really interesting race. It was virtually non-stop, with lots of overtaking and good on-circuit action (and a bit of not so good action).
I think a big part of it is the DRS, which really works here - it enables them to get into a position for overtaking but doesn't make it a simple drive-past like it does at some other circuits. That's why it actually made China a worse race - if it's a circuit where there are already a few chances to overtake then it either makes those areas too easy or shifts the overtaking from that area to the main straight (why battle it out in a corner when you can just wait and drive past on the straight).
It wasn't all clean battling in Bahrain. Perez trying to overtake Button was a bit close to the mark (he even hit him a couple of times). For team-mates it's good that they were keen to fight and not ordered not to at all, but it needs to be totally clean - taking out your own team-mate (and, worse, yourself as well) is an absolute no-no as it basically ruins the work of the team and could cost valuable points.
However, that wasn't the only action - there were good fights between plenty of other cars too and some interesting results - the Force India of Paul Di Resta, for example, got up to 4th. The Lotus is looking extremely consistent - Vettel won, but Kimi and Grosjean were in 2nd and 3rd. The Red Bull therefore looks less comprehensively dominant than in previous years and we know there are circuits it doesn't suit as well given the design philosophy. However, the Lotus looks like it may be a good performer whatever the circuit.
Ferrari also look strong, but Alonso and Massa were horribly unlucky. Alonso's DRS failed quite early, which meant he couldn't use it, effectively tying one hand behind his back. This was having had the issue with the front wing last time, so he's dropped a lot of potential points. Massa had two punctures, which is almost unheard of - both it sounded like came from cuts in the tyres and there were a few smashes that would have left debris on the circuit, but very unlucky to get two.
There's a bit of a gap now until the next race, which is Spain, I believe. I think we also go into a stretch of alternate week races, rather than double-headers, which is better, I feel. The odd double-header is okay, but when they happen a lot I find it quite disruptive to my routines and plans.
Friday, 19 April 2013
bahrain grand prix
Bahrain Grand Prix this weekend.
I'm not expecting it to be a particularly good one, as it's not a circuit that generally produces much overtaking. Saying that I have a weird memory that it did produce a good race last year (one of these Arab races did, but I forget which).
I've grown increasingly behind with my recorded TV. I would usually listen to the practice, qualifying and race when they're not showing it live, but that eats up quite a lot of time. As such I made not do that this weekend in order to spend some of that time catching up (or working out if I can delete a few things - I found a few duplicates the other day).
Most of the stuff recorded are dramas. I've gotten into a bit of a habit of recording all the episodes for dramas and then marathoning them. The stuff I tend to watch live (or as close to live as I tend to get) are one off things and documentaries.
Part of my logic for that is that dramas you need to follow the plot so if I watch the first few and then can't watch the last few until weeks/months later, it spoils the fun a bit. For the things I do watch they're obviously self-contained as a program and while there may be multiple episodes it doesn't matter if I watch the next one weeks later.
I've actually got some leave coming up and I'll use some of that time to plough through some of these dramas. I'm only really going away for a couple of the days (the wedding for the guy whose stag I went to and down to my Dad's - more on that next week) so I should have a chunk of time available, though I wanted to watch some of the Blu Rays I've been building up. Unlike with DVDs I don't have a mechanism for copying Blu-Rays so I can't really e-bay them until I've watched them so they're starting to take up a huge amount of room that I don't have.
I'm not expecting it to be a particularly good one, as it's not a circuit that generally produces much overtaking. Saying that I have a weird memory that it did produce a good race last year (one of these Arab races did, but I forget which).
I've grown increasingly behind with my recorded TV. I would usually listen to the practice, qualifying and race when they're not showing it live, but that eats up quite a lot of time. As such I made not do that this weekend in order to spend some of that time catching up (or working out if I can delete a few things - I found a few duplicates the other day).
Most of the stuff recorded are dramas. I've gotten into a bit of a habit of recording all the episodes for dramas and then marathoning them. The stuff I tend to watch live (or as close to live as I tend to get) are one off things and documentaries.
Part of my logic for that is that dramas you need to follow the plot so if I watch the first few and then can't watch the last few until weeks/months later, it spoils the fun a bit. For the things I do watch they're obviously self-contained as a program and while there may be multiple episodes it doesn't matter if I watch the next one weeks later.
I've actually got some leave coming up and I'll use some of that time to plough through some of these dramas. I'm only really going away for a couple of the days (the wedding for the guy whose stag I went to and down to my Dad's - more on that next week) so I should have a chunk of time available, though I wanted to watch some of the Blu Rays I've been building up. Unlike with DVDs I don't have a mechanism for copying Blu-Rays so I can't really e-bay them until I've watched them so they're starting to take up a huge amount of room that I don't have.
Thursday, 18 April 2013
sherlock holmes: game of shadows
This wasn't a rental but a film I got for Christmas (which shows how long I take to watch things and then write a review!).
I've actually recently been listening to the Sherlock Holmes stories on audio book while I do my walking. Only a handful of them are novel length, which I haven't been listening to, and the vast majority are short stories. As such you can kinda see why they tend to stick them together or come up with original stories when they make films.
In the case of these Downey Junior films in some way they're more of the "inspired by" the originals than adaptations. The Moffat BBC series is similar in this sense - the stories are inspired by Holmes and just take bits of the original plots and weave them together. One of the big differences is that the BBC series is set in the modern day where the Downey Jr ones are set in the correct time period - turn of the century England. This gives them both a distinct feel, but also makes you think the Downey Jr ones are somehow "closer" even though really they're more divergent.
However, one thing that has struck me about the originals is how inconsistent they are with each other. In the stories themselves the chronology of events is confused (cases are referred to in the wrong order of occurrence on multiple occasions - to the degree that it's really noticeable), but also the character of Homes is all over the place.
One thing I particularly noticed is that early on he's referred to as going round solving mysteries that relate to royal houses in Europe - something that would surely bring him a degree of fame - but in later he is shunning fame, going so far as to get Lastrade to pretend he'd solved cases, and later still he's so famous in the fictional world that everyone knows who he is.
A particularly frustrating thing for anyone creating an adaptation must be the inconsistency and short-lived nature of key characters. So Moriarty, the apparent arch-criminal and rival is basically only referred to in one story (Reichenbach Falls) in an active sense and then referenced as the ultimate bad guy in subsequent stories - yet he never appeared before that. Irene Adler, who is inflated to a love interest in a lot of stories, is in just one story. There are also the Baker Street Irregulars who pop up in a vague handful of stories but are inconsistently used and then basically forgotten about and then in later stories he acquires a page, an assistant and all sorts, even though many of these stories are apparently set during others where they're not mentioned.
I appear to have gotten very side-tracked. The point I was trying to make is that when you really read the stories you can kinda see where they're getting a lot of the stuff from in these films. In particular, the plot of this second film is grown out of short story that appears quite late on and dabbles with political intrigue. It blends this with Moriarty to form what is a quite satisfying story.
On that front, and in others, this film is actually much better than the first. By using Moriarty and tying it to a meaty plot it feels firmer and is more enjoyable than the first. There's also quite a bit more humour than in the first, some of which is surprisingly surreal, and the action is just that bit more satisfying.
One thing the first did well was that the action was often quite grounded and physical - people beating each other up, rather than flying through the air on wires - and this continues, but it's also tied with a more clever take in some scenes. There's also a part in a forest I won't spoil that is probably one of the best action sequences I've ever seen.
The only thing I was disappointed by was the treatment of the aforementioned Addler - the way that part ends is very unsatisfying. Again, I won't spoiler, but I thought it undermined the first film quite badly, though when you think about it, it wasn't definitive, so it could be developed further, but if it's taken as face value (and little hints otherwise) then I found it quite disappointing.
I've actually recently been listening to the Sherlock Holmes stories on audio book while I do my walking. Only a handful of them are novel length, which I haven't been listening to, and the vast majority are short stories. As such you can kinda see why they tend to stick them together or come up with original stories when they make films.
In the case of these Downey Junior films in some way they're more of the "inspired by" the originals than adaptations. The Moffat BBC series is similar in this sense - the stories are inspired by Holmes and just take bits of the original plots and weave them together. One of the big differences is that the BBC series is set in the modern day where the Downey Jr ones are set in the correct time period - turn of the century England. This gives them both a distinct feel, but also makes you think the Downey Jr ones are somehow "closer" even though really they're more divergent.
However, one thing that has struck me about the originals is how inconsistent they are with each other. In the stories themselves the chronology of events is confused (cases are referred to in the wrong order of occurrence on multiple occasions - to the degree that it's really noticeable), but also the character of Homes is all over the place.
One thing I particularly noticed is that early on he's referred to as going round solving mysteries that relate to royal houses in Europe - something that would surely bring him a degree of fame - but in later he is shunning fame, going so far as to get Lastrade to pretend he'd solved cases, and later still he's so famous in the fictional world that everyone knows who he is.
A particularly frustrating thing for anyone creating an adaptation must be the inconsistency and short-lived nature of key characters. So Moriarty, the apparent arch-criminal and rival is basically only referred to in one story (Reichenbach Falls) in an active sense and then referenced as the ultimate bad guy in subsequent stories - yet he never appeared before that. Irene Adler, who is inflated to a love interest in a lot of stories, is in just one story. There are also the Baker Street Irregulars who pop up in a vague handful of stories but are inconsistently used and then basically forgotten about and then in later stories he acquires a page, an assistant and all sorts, even though many of these stories are apparently set during others where they're not mentioned.
I appear to have gotten very side-tracked. The point I was trying to make is that when you really read the stories you can kinda see where they're getting a lot of the stuff from in these films. In particular, the plot of this second film is grown out of short story that appears quite late on and dabbles with political intrigue. It blends this with Moriarty to form what is a quite satisfying story.
On that front, and in others, this film is actually much better than the first. By using Moriarty and tying it to a meaty plot it feels firmer and is more enjoyable than the first. There's also quite a bit more humour than in the first, some of which is surprisingly surreal, and the action is just that bit more satisfying.
One thing the first did well was that the action was often quite grounded and physical - people beating each other up, rather than flying through the air on wires - and this continues, but it's also tied with a more clever take in some scenes. There's also a part in a forest I won't spoil that is probably one of the best action sequences I've ever seen.
The only thing I was disappointed by was the treatment of the aforementioned Addler - the way that part ends is very unsatisfying. Again, I won't spoiler, but I thought it undermined the first film quite badly, though when you think about it, it wasn't definitive, so it could be developed further, but if it's taken as face value (and little hints otherwise) then I found it quite disappointing.
Tuesday, 16 April 2013
the ides of march
The 15th of March.
Technically that's what the title means. The romans used to count dates in a bit of a weird way and the ides was (basically) the middle of the month.
However, what the title is really referring to is the assassination of Julius Caesar, which happened on the ides of March. I have to confess the title is a little esoteric in relation to the plot - nobody actually gets assassinated, as such, though there is a bit of metaphorical assassination, and perhaps a bit of "death of faith".
Ides is a political film. It's surprising how few big political films there are. I guess a big part of the reason for that is that if you come down on one political side you're essentially alienating half (or more) of your audience. I don't mean films with politics in them, btw, I mean serious films about politics - set in the world of politics and exploring it.
It's like The West Wing is one of only a handful of political TV shows. Comedies are more common, I think, particularly as satire is generally focused on politics.
Ides of March is quite complex, but there's not a lot I can say that won't give the good stuff away. It's not too complex that you won't understand it, though.
I've kinda already mentioned the crucial bits - the meat of the plot is about ideology hitting reality and faith in a person hitting the reality of people. What is quite clever, though, is the way that actually two plots are inter-linked and intertwined in such a way that they are together, but can also be compared and contrasted.
The differences between them are intriguing, but the similarities more so. In particular the way in which the main character treats the plotline that affects him directly and that affects him more incidentally is very revealing. When you think about it the film then boils down to hypocrisy, both willing and forced.
And when you start to look at it in that way it's clever how the film sets up all sorts of mirrors at different levels to make the same point. I mean, it's not really judgemental about it, it's just presenting a reality.
I mean many people will say they hate politicians; that the way they flip-flop and compromise is terrible, yet that is the heart of politics - you compromise on things to achieve consensus. It is the essence of us as social animals.
I've gotten quite deep there, and a clever thing about the film is that you can enjoy it without having to delve too deeply into that side, although in some ways that is also its flaw. Because you can enjoy it in this way it could seem relatively flippant - the depth needs a bit of teasing at to really be apparent.
Also, it's not really saying anything you probably didn't already know, unless you were relatively new to this sort of thing.
Technically that's what the title means. The romans used to count dates in a bit of a weird way and the ides was (basically) the middle of the month.
However, what the title is really referring to is the assassination of Julius Caesar, which happened on the ides of March. I have to confess the title is a little esoteric in relation to the plot - nobody actually gets assassinated, as such, though there is a bit of metaphorical assassination, and perhaps a bit of "death of faith".
Ides is a political film. It's surprising how few big political films there are. I guess a big part of the reason for that is that if you come down on one political side you're essentially alienating half (or more) of your audience. I don't mean films with politics in them, btw, I mean serious films about politics - set in the world of politics and exploring it.
It's like The West Wing is one of only a handful of political TV shows. Comedies are more common, I think, particularly as satire is generally focused on politics.
Ides of March is quite complex, but there's not a lot I can say that won't give the good stuff away. It's not too complex that you won't understand it, though.
I've kinda already mentioned the crucial bits - the meat of the plot is about ideology hitting reality and faith in a person hitting the reality of people. What is quite clever, though, is the way that actually two plots are inter-linked and intertwined in such a way that they are together, but can also be compared and contrasted.
The differences between them are intriguing, but the similarities more so. In particular the way in which the main character treats the plotline that affects him directly and that affects him more incidentally is very revealing. When you think about it the film then boils down to hypocrisy, both willing and forced.
And when you start to look at it in that way it's clever how the film sets up all sorts of mirrors at different levels to make the same point. I mean, it's not really judgemental about it, it's just presenting a reality.
I mean many people will say they hate politicians; that the way they flip-flop and compromise is terrible, yet that is the heart of politics - you compromise on things to achieve consensus. It is the essence of us as social animals.
I've gotten quite deep there, and a clever thing about the film is that you can enjoy it without having to delve too deeply into that side, although in some ways that is also its flaw. Because you can enjoy it in this way it could seem relatively flippant - the depth needs a bit of teasing at to really be apparent.
Also, it's not really saying anything you probably didn't already know, unless you were relatively new to this sort of thing.
Monday, 15 April 2013
china
The Chinese grand prix was quite a good one.
I have to say I think the DRS actually doesn't help in China. The problem with it is it makes overtaking too easy and on the straight, rather than proper battling overtakes into the corner. This is particularly the case on the long straight that then goes into the big horseshoe corner.
This has always been a place where overtaking has been possible, but with the DRS it means they overtake on the straight before the corner, rather than going into it. Now I don't think it means there's more overtaking than there would otherwise be, but it does mean the overtakes aren't quite as interesting.
There was also plenty that happened in the race. When it turned out one of the tyres behaved more like a qualifying tyre than a race tyre I was a bit worried it would be fairly predictable - if the tyres are closer or there's more of an advantage revealed during the race then it can throw strategy into disarray, which makes things more interesting.
However, as it happened it didn't seem to be a problem. Indeed, the end was made quite exciting because Vettel changed onto the soft tyre and was hunting Hamilton and Kimi down at the end.
The BBC coverage was also quite extensive. It's weird - they seem to have ramped up the coverage on the races they do in full, despite supposedly scaling it back previously to save money. The practices were even shown live on BBC 2 where usually they would be on the red button, so they had to ramp up what they did. Usually when it's just red button they just commentate on the broadcast - no extra bits.
I'm increasingly convinced that a big part of their decision was the Olympics - both in terms of airtime available and the expense of having to give them full coverage sucking cash away from other sports.
Anyway, it's a double header next weekend with Bahrain. Bahrain is usually a pretty dull race, and it's one the BBC is just doing highlights of.
I have to say I think the DRS actually doesn't help in China. The problem with it is it makes overtaking too easy and on the straight, rather than proper battling overtakes into the corner. This is particularly the case on the long straight that then goes into the big horseshoe corner.
This has always been a place where overtaking has been possible, but with the DRS it means they overtake on the straight before the corner, rather than going into it. Now I don't think it means there's more overtaking than there would otherwise be, but it does mean the overtakes aren't quite as interesting.
There was also plenty that happened in the race. When it turned out one of the tyres behaved more like a qualifying tyre than a race tyre I was a bit worried it would be fairly predictable - if the tyres are closer or there's more of an advantage revealed during the race then it can throw strategy into disarray, which makes things more interesting.
However, as it happened it didn't seem to be a problem. Indeed, the end was made quite exciting because Vettel changed onto the soft tyre and was hunting Hamilton and Kimi down at the end.
The BBC coverage was also quite extensive. It's weird - they seem to have ramped up the coverage on the races they do in full, despite supposedly scaling it back previously to save money. The practices were even shown live on BBC 2 where usually they would be on the red button, so they had to ramp up what they did. Usually when it's just red button they just commentate on the broadcast - no extra bits.
I'm increasingly convinced that a big part of their decision was the Olympics - both in terms of airtime available and the expense of having to give them full coverage sucking cash away from other sports.
Anyway, it's a double header next weekend with Bahrain. Bahrain is usually a pretty dull race, and it's one the BBC is just doing highlights of.
Friday, 12 April 2013
chinese grand prix
Chinese Grand Prix this weekend.
I haven't really blogged much about the Grand Prix season so far. This has primarily been due to time issues - by which I mean I've not really had time to pay a lot of attention to the Grand Prix, rather than not having time to do blog posts. Well actually, truth be told, both have been a little difficult to devote the time to.
Indeed, if I'm totally honest, I haven't really watched either of the two Grand Prix. I've had the coverage on, but I haven't actually watched it in the sense of sitting down and giving it my full attention.
Now I used to do this to some extent last year, in that the practice and the radio coverage I would have on as background, but then I'd watch the qualifying and race coverage (be that highlights or live) properly. However, this year I've backgrounded those too.
Part of the problem has been that the first Grand Prix was when I had the stag do. Although even then I could have watched it, but the other problem has been SimCity. Even though I've been posting about how I've found it frustrating that hasn't stopped entire days disappearing to it.
For example, in my post about Cheetah speed on Monday the thing I didn't say was that, having finished cleaning the bedsit, I sat down at 11:45AM to have a quick go to check if a post I'd read about Cheetah speed being back was true and to install the Nissan Leaf thing and didn't stop playing until 11:45PM.
Which isn't to say I played solid for 12 hours - I had my lunch, put stuff back in the kitchen once the floor was dry and re-arranged the bedroom bits, had my dinner, etc, but basically I did nothing else with the rest of the time other than play SimCity. So I didn't watch recorded TV programs or DVDs/Blu-Rays or read any manga/books.
So I've struggled to find the time to properly watch the GPs. However, China is usually a good race as the circuit offers some good opportunities to overtake. It's also on in the early morning, though not so early as to be stupid, and the BBC is doing live coverage, so I will hopefully watch this one!
I haven't really blogged much about the Grand Prix season so far. This has primarily been due to time issues - by which I mean I've not really had time to pay a lot of attention to the Grand Prix, rather than not having time to do blog posts. Well actually, truth be told, both have been a little difficult to devote the time to.
Indeed, if I'm totally honest, I haven't really watched either of the two Grand Prix. I've had the coverage on, but I haven't actually watched it in the sense of sitting down and giving it my full attention.
Now I used to do this to some extent last year, in that the practice and the radio coverage I would have on as background, but then I'd watch the qualifying and race coverage (be that highlights or live) properly. However, this year I've backgrounded those too.
Part of the problem has been that the first Grand Prix was when I had the stag do. Although even then I could have watched it, but the other problem has been SimCity. Even though I've been posting about how I've found it frustrating that hasn't stopped entire days disappearing to it.
For example, in my post about Cheetah speed on Monday the thing I didn't say was that, having finished cleaning the bedsit, I sat down at 11:45AM to have a quick go to check if a post I'd read about Cheetah speed being back was true and to install the Nissan Leaf thing and didn't stop playing until 11:45PM.
Which isn't to say I played solid for 12 hours - I had my lunch, put stuff back in the kitchen once the floor was dry and re-arranged the bedroom bits, had my dinner, etc, but basically I did nothing else with the rest of the time other than play SimCity. So I didn't watch recorded TV programs or DVDs/Blu-Rays or read any manga/books.
So I've struggled to find the time to properly watch the GPs. However, China is usually a good race as the circuit offers some good opportunities to overtake. It's also on in the early morning, though not so early as to be stupid, and the BBC is doing live coverage, so I will hopefully watch this one!
Thursday, 11 April 2013
shave update
I thought I'd do a quick update of the shaving today.
Last time I posted I think I was basically at the stage of using the DE blade, doing the prescribed 3 passes for each shave.
Well I'm not currently doing that. Unfortunately the results were not all I'd hoped for and the time issue became a real pain.
I mean, the results were okay - I could get a reasonable shave doing the 3 passes (with, across and against the grain) - the problem was that it was giving me a lot of razor burn. I'm not sure of the root cause of this - when I did with and across I was getting little burn, but then I wasn't getting a particularly close shave. As soon as I added against the grain I got lots of burn (a lot more than with my Mach3), though the shave was acceptably closer.
It could of course be technique, but I was rather unsure how to really improve the technique. It worked okay with 2 passes, but not with the third one. Also I found that adding the third pass seemed to eat through the blades - if I used them for 3 shaves I would get nicks. Now, to be fair, this is not a new phenomenon, as my beard is so tough it basically kills any blade. However, it did mean that the cost wasn't quite as much of an improvement as it could have been.
The other issue was time - it was taking ages to do 3 passes. 2 took long enough, but adding in the third meant it seemed to take a small ice age. I actually tried switching so that I just did across and against, but this gave poor results (yet still with burn!).
As such, I have basically switched back to my Mach3. I still do a 3-pass DE shave on Sunday mornings when I have plenty of time and can take a very long shower to help soften the beard further.
I may still have another go at the DE blade, but for now I'm happy with the Mach 3.
What I think the DE shaving experiment has done is improve my technique. The additional beard prep and just generally how I hold and manipulate the blade and the way in which I shave my face has been considerably improved, I think.
Last time I posted I think I was basically at the stage of using the DE blade, doing the prescribed 3 passes for each shave.
Well I'm not currently doing that. Unfortunately the results were not all I'd hoped for and the time issue became a real pain.
I mean, the results were okay - I could get a reasonable shave doing the 3 passes (with, across and against the grain) - the problem was that it was giving me a lot of razor burn. I'm not sure of the root cause of this - when I did with and across I was getting little burn, but then I wasn't getting a particularly close shave. As soon as I added against the grain I got lots of burn (a lot more than with my Mach3), though the shave was acceptably closer.
It could of course be technique, but I was rather unsure how to really improve the technique. It worked okay with 2 passes, but not with the third one. Also I found that adding the third pass seemed to eat through the blades - if I used them for 3 shaves I would get nicks. Now, to be fair, this is not a new phenomenon, as my beard is so tough it basically kills any blade. However, it did mean that the cost wasn't quite as much of an improvement as it could have been.
The other issue was time - it was taking ages to do 3 passes. 2 took long enough, but adding in the third meant it seemed to take a small ice age. I actually tried switching so that I just did across and against, but this gave poor results (yet still with burn!).
As such, I have basically switched back to my Mach3. I still do a 3-pass DE shave on Sunday mornings when I have plenty of time and can take a very long shower to help soften the beard further.
I may still have another go at the DE blade, but for now I'm happy with the Mach 3.
What I think the DE shaving experiment has done is improve my technique. The additional beard prep and just generally how I hold and manipulate the blade and the way in which I shave my face has been considerably improved, I think.
Wednesday, 10 April 2013
transformers - dark of the moon
I seem to have missed something with these new transformer films.
In the original comic book series the Ark crashes on the earth millions of years ago. It crashes in a volcano, from memory, and the robots on the ark are from both sides - autobots and decepticons. I seem to recall that the ark is revived by the volcano re-activating and proceeds to repair all the robots utilising modern man's technology as the template for their rebuilding.
Reading the Wikipedia entry this isn't quite what happened in the first film - there's a crash landing on earth, but it's only Megatron. It's also not millions of years ago, but probably hundreds.
I mean, I'd twigged that it was not millions of years (no Dinobots ever :() but I dunno - for some reason I'd thought the film was closer to the original, and not just Megatron. The problem for me is this makes the stories in the films even more confusing. I mean, I'd found them a bit confusing and non-sensical the first time, but having missed that it wasn't the ark that crash landed, I was very confused to find that in this third film the ark crash lands at the beginning :/.
I mean, why do the autobots and decepticons look like human cars and planes, etc, if they've not been remade in the image of our machines? It gives them a stealth quality while here, but surely that would have been ridiculous on their home world? But also does that mean they can change what they transform into?
Anyway, point is I hadn't realised the films were quite so divergent. When I did realise this, at the start of this third film, I think it kinda made me see this third one in a slightly different light. I mean, I don't think it's a good film in the sense of having a deep plot and well written characters, just that the fact that it was different to the comics/cartoons didn't bother me as much - I judged more on its own merits.
I think this film is the best of the three, though as I say, I may be judging it slightly differently. The plot is certainly more coherent in my opinion. Also, rather than try to be a direct sequel, it seems to simply be "later on" so you don't get so much in the way of those rubbish bits in the second one where they try to fudge things to get Megatron back to life.
And I think that's its main strength - it's not really carrying any baggage. The first film you had all the issues over what they'd changed (which clearly I missed some of!), the second they were trying to make it a 'proper' sequel, but this third one they don't care so much and just spend the time blowing as much stuff up as possible (well, it's still a Michael Bay film after all).
I guess it's more playful is the point, so I found it a bit more enjoyable.
In the original comic book series the Ark crashes on the earth millions of years ago. It crashes in a volcano, from memory, and the robots on the ark are from both sides - autobots and decepticons. I seem to recall that the ark is revived by the volcano re-activating and proceeds to repair all the robots utilising modern man's technology as the template for their rebuilding.
Reading the Wikipedia entry this isn't quite what happened in the first film - there's a crash landing on earth, but it's only Megatron. It's also not millions of years ago, but probably hundreds.
I mean, I'd twigged that it was not millions of years (no Dinobots ever :() but I dunno - for some reason I'd thought the film was closer to the original, and not just Megatron. The problem for me is this makes the stories in the films even more confusing. I mean, I'd found them a bit confusing and non-sensical the first time, but having missed that it wasn't the ark that crash landed, I was very confused to find that in this third film the ark crash lands at the beginning :/.
I mean, why do the autobots and decepticons look like human cars and planes, etc, if they've not been remade in the image of our machines? It gives them a stealth quality while here, but surely that would have been ridiculous on their home world? But also does that mean they can change what they transform into?
Anyway, point is I hadn't realised the films were quite so divergent. When I did realise this, at the start of this third film, I think it kinda made me see this third one in a slightly different light. I mean, I don't think it's a good film in the sense of having a deep plot and well written characters, just that the fact that it was different to the comics/cartoons didn't bother me as much - I judged more on its own merits.
I think this film is the best of the three, though as I say, I may be judging it slightly differently. The plot is certainly more coherent in my opinion. Also, rather than try to be a direct sequel, it seems to simply be "later on" so you don't get so much in the way of those rubbish bits in the second one where they try to fudge things to get Megatron back to life.
And I think that's its main strength - it's not really carrying any baggage. The first film you had all the issues over what they'd changed (which clearly I missed some of!), the second they were trying to make it a 'proper' sequel, but this third one they don't care so much and just spend the time blowing as much stuff up as possible (well, it's still a Michael Bay film after all).
I guess it's more playful is the point, so I found it a bit more enjoyable.
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