God I hate football.
Well, no, actually I don't really hate football. What I hate is the culture surrounding football.
I hate the fans - neolithic, tribal idiocy at its worst. I hate the money involved - most players could build hospitals with their yearly salleries. I hate the sheer volume of coverage - thousands of hours of half-wits kicking pigskins about. I also hate that the sport never seems to fucking end - there's supposed to be an off season during summer, but nowadays that literally last a couple of weeks... during which there's normally some other damnable international competition.
But most of all, the thing I really hate the most, is this assumption that everyone is supposed to love the sport. And if you don't, then you're the weird one.
You may have detected that fecking Euro2008 starts soon. And no, I won't be "following it".
Friday, 6 June 2008
Thursday, 5 June 2008
tonnes of crap
Thought I'd do this as a separate post - the new megami showed up the day before yesterday with lots of lovely posters again.
But I'm again struck by how not having watched any of this seasons shows impacts on how you view the posters. Not knowing the characters means the posters are more all the same, which is to say I don't have any particular favourites.
In previous years I've had chara's I liked and so was more into their particular posters. This season I mostly don't know them from Adam so they're all just pretty girls.
I am sooooo behind with everything at the moment.
As I say, I've not seen any shows from this season yet at all - actually that's not true, I've watched chii's sweet home, but those are 5 minute shorts and so don't really count. The only saving grace is I've been keeping on top of the torrents, so at least I've got them 'ready to go'.
I've got something like 15 artbooks stacked up waiting to be scanned.
I've also got all of last months magazines to scan, and this month's magazines are starting to show up. Plus I've not been through and sorted the scans from the month before, so they're clogging up my hard-drive (I transfer them to a separate portable hard-drive brick once I've been through and named them all).
I've not finished the reviews I mentioned on a previous blog and so I've got all that entails for updating my site pending.
I've planned out the newest version of scan-city.org, but haven't actually started working on it.
Plus, I've set myself the mission of ploughing through the huge stacks of unwatched anime and unread manga. Partly so I can sell off some stuff on e-bay and release some capital admittedly, but that doesn't mean it's any less stuff to watch.
Plus I have lots of normal film and TV series DVDs and regular books to read. Also, I've an entire series of 13 one hour long episodes of a show I PVR'd recently to watch.
I need to go though my CD collection and get rid of the rubbish on e-bay. Similarly, my boxes of crap need sorting again as they're starting to fill up my room.
Then there's all my half-finished or just started walling projects, the unplayed games and not to mention I've got the urge to write again... The list just goes on and on :(.
I really need to pull my finger out.
But how did it get this way? Well couple of things:
Recently there was a lot of stuff on normal telly that I was watching, which sucked up more time than normal. This should ease off a lot over the summer, as things like Big Brother and Euro2008 have absolutely no interest for me and will take up a lot of air time. Plus, the shows I'm currently watching are coming to an end, and generally over the summer good stuff is much lessened.
But the real problem just recently has been Civ3 - I've just been playing it incessantly and it's killing any free time I have to do stuff I should be doing. I should either ration it, or try to convince myself that if I do other stuff now then I can always come back to Civ3 later... yeah, that'll happen.
But I'm again struck by how not having watched any of this seasons shows impacts on how you view the posters. Not knowing the characters means the posters are more all the same, which is to say I don't have any particular favourites.
In previous years I've had chara's I liked and so was more into their particular posters. This season I mostly don't know them from Adam so they're all just pretty girls.
I am sooooo behind with everything at the moment.
As I say, I've not seen any shows from this season yet at all - actually that's not true, I've watched chii's sweet home, but those are 5 minute shorts and so don't really count. The only saving grace is I've been keeping on top of the torrents, so at least I've got them 'ready to go'.
I've got something like 15 artbooks stacked up waiting to be scanned.
I've also got all of last months magazines to scan, and this month's magazines are starting to show up. Plus I've not been through and sorted the scans from the month before, so they're clogging up my hard-drive (I transfer them to a separate portable hard-drive brick once I've been through and named them all).
I've not finished the reviews I mentioned on a previous blog and so I've got all that entails for updating my site pending.
I've planned out the newest version of scan-city.org, but haven't actually started working on it.
Plus, I've set myself the mission of ploughing through the huge stacks of unwatched anime and unread manga. Partly so I can sell off some stuff on e-bay and release some capital admittedly, but that doesn't mean it's any less stuff to watch.
Plus I have lots of normal film and TV series DVDs and regular books to read. Also, I've an entire series of 13 one hour long episodes of a show I PVR'd recently to watch.
I need to go though my CD collection and get rid of the rubbish on e-bay. Similarly, my boxes of crap need sorting again as they're starting to fill up my room.
Then there's all my half-finished or just started walling projects, the unplayed games and not to mention I've got the urge to write again... The list just goes on and on :(.
I really need to pull my finger out.
But how did it get this way? Well couple of things:
Recently there was a lot of stuff on normal telly that I was watching, which sucked up more time than normal. This should ease off a lot over the summer, as things like Big Brother and Euro2008 have absolutely no interest for me and will take up a lot of air time. Plus, the shows I'm currently watching are coming to an end, and generally over the summer good stuff is much lessened.
But the real problem just recently has been Civ3 - I've just been playing it incessantly and it's killing any free time I have to do stuff I should be doing. I should either ration it, or try to convince myself that if I do other stuff now then I can always come back to Civ3 later... yeah, that'll happen.
Separate blogs
I've been wondering whether I shouldn't start a separate blog and put some of my writing up on it. I read somewhere that publishers like to read blogs and if someone whose manuscript they've read and liked has a blog with stuff on that they can read then that isn't a bad thing.
Of course that sort of presupposes I'm going to be a bit more dedicated with writing stuff - I couldn't start a blog like that, post one or two things and then abandon it as I think that would have the opposite effect.
I guess I could sample some stuff from my more dormant projects, plus put my older short stories on there.
Hmm, something to give some thought.
I've been struggling with my back again just recently. It's my own fault - all those hours sat in the same position playing Civ3 at home have clearly not gone well with my back.
I first did my back quite a few years ago now and have had a few minor twinges since then, but this is the first really proper hurts-like-a-bugger type relapse I've had.
The problem is actually a trapped nerve, and I'm told that were it hurts isn't actually were the nerve is trapped. The nerve is trapped somewhere in the spine, but because of where/how the pressure is on it, it actually feels like it's in my lower back. This means that the pain is slightly counter-intuitive. The positions you'd imagine would hurt don't but moves you'd think would be fine are agony.
Guess I need to lay off the Civ3 for a bit, but looking on the bright side it means I have a legitimate excuse for not doing any scanning - sitting in my computer chair for hours on end was what caused the problem, so I can't do that until it's right and that's where I do the scanning.
Of course that sort of presupposes I'm going to be a bit more dedicated with writing stuff - I couldn't start a blog like that, post one or two things and then abandon it as I think that would have the opposite effect.
I guess I could sample some stuff from my more dormant projects, plus put my older short stories on there.
Hmm, something to give some thought.
I've been struggling with my back again just recently. It's my own fault - all those hours sat in the same position playing Civ3 at home have clearly not gone well with my back.
I first did my back quite a few years ago now and have had a few minor twinges since then, but this is the first really proper hurts-like-a-bugger type relapse I've had.
The problem is actually a trapped nerve, and I'm told that were it hurts isn't actually were the nerve is trapped. The nerve is trapped somewhere in the spine, but because of where/how the pressure is on it, it actually feels like it's in my lower back. This means that the pain is slightly counter-intuitive. The positions you'd imagine would hurt don't but moves you'd think would be fine are agony.
Guess I need to lay off the Civ3 for a bit, but looking on the bright side it means I have a legitimate excuse for not doing any scanning - sitting in my computer chair for hours on end was what caused the problem, so I can't do that until it's right and that's where I do the scanning.
Tuesday, 3 June 2008
To console or not to console
I've been debating whether or not to get an xbox360 or playstation 3 games console.
The reason is that the next incarnation of what is probably my favourite series of games, Civilization Revolution, is only going to come out on those consoles. The reason for this is that it's specifically designed as a console version of the game.
And there in lies my dilemma. I've recently been going through a bit of an obsessive time playing Civ3 and it's brought out to me what I found disappointing about Civ4. It was too simplified. In Civ3 I always play huge maps with slightly fewer races than recommended.
The reason for this is that I like to build a huge empire with lots of cities. Micro-managing all these cites is then what I deem to be a big part of the fun (I know, I'm weird). I like to build them all up to be as big and as good as they can possibly be, with as many improvements as possible and lots of specialist citizens. It's only then does my attention really turn to global conquest, with the added advantage that by this time all of the modern units are available, as well as railroads and transports to move lots of stuff around quickly.
In Civ4 that's not what you're supposed to do. Micromanagement is still there to some degree, but things like corruption and War Weariness have been removed, making the job basically easy.
Also, in Civ4 the idea is to have specialist cities - ones that produce great people, ones that produce units, ones that do science, ones that do culture, etc. That's not what I like to do.
Also, the world scales are considerably smaller, and this is another thing that doesn't appeal to me - I like big empires as I say, and not necessarily because you've conquered stuff, just big worlds. To me this is what Civilization is really all about, and it was taken out in Civ4, predominantly in the name of making the game more 'fun'.
And that's the problem with CivRev - it takes that Civ simplification (or dumbing down) concept even further. Yes it's gonna look a lot prettier even than Civ4, and it'll have a proper online experience (not that I play games online) but the stuff I like is not gonna be there.
But the other side of the coin is that this will be the first Civilization game I won't have bought and played, and that feels like a bit of a shame. Still, it also means I don't have to buy an expensive console just to play one game.
The reason is that the next incarnation of what is probably my favourite series of games, Civilization Revolution, is only going to come out on those consoles. The reason for this is that it's specifically designed as a console version of the game.
And there in lies my dilemma. I've recently been going through a bit of an obsessive time playing Civ3 and it's brought out to me what I found disappointing about Civ4. It was too simplified. In Civ3 I always play huge maps with slightly fewer races than recommended.
The reason for this is that I like to build a huge empire with lots of cities. Micro-managing all these cites is then what I deem to be a big part of the fun (I know, I'm weird). I like to build them all up to be as big and as good as they can possibly be, with as many improvements as possible and lots of specialist citizens. It's only then does my attention really turn to global conquest, with the added advantage that by this time all of the modern units are available, as well as railroads and transports to move lots of stuff around quickly.
In Civ4 that's not what you're supposed to do. Micromanagement is still there to some degree, but things like corruption and War Weariness have been removed, making the job basically easy.
Also, in Civ4 the idea is to have specialist cities - ones that produce great people, ones that produce units, ones that do science, ones that do culture, etc. That's not what I like to do.
Also, the world scales are considerably smaller, and this is another thing that doesn't appeal to me - I like big empires as I say, and not necessarily because you've conquered stuff, just big worlds. To me this is what Civilization is really all about, and it was taken out in Civ4, predominantly in the name of making the game more 'fun'.
And that's the problem with CivRev - it takes that Civ simplification (or dumbing down) concept even further. Yes it's gonna look a lot prettier even than Civ4, and it'll have a proper online experience (not that I play games online) but the stuff I like is not gonna be there.
But the other side of the coin is that this will be the first Civilization game I won't have bought and played, and that feels like a bit of a shame. Still, it also means I don't have to buy an expensive console just to play one game.
Monday, 2 June 2008
Bitten to Buggery
Something got at me this week-end.
While I was asleep on Saturday a bug or bugs have bitten my arms in several places. It's been quite a while since I've had an insect bite - the last time was when the landord's cat got infested with fleas and they hopped their way into my bedsit. It took several sprayings of flea stuff to get rid of them. Christ knows what all those chemicals in the air did to my lungs, but I was left in tatters after a few nights of them biting me so it had to be done.
It's not fleas this time - the bites are very different. I recognise them from when I was a kid. The culprit this time is mosquitoes. A mosquito injects you with its saliva while it bites, which stops the blood from coagulating and also slightly anaesthetises they bite to stop you noticing. It's because they take so much blood they have to do that.
Unfortunately this saliva is something my family has a bit of a history of reacting to - when bitten by mosi's my mum used to swell up like a balloon - and that's something I've inherited to a lesser degree. So now I've got big lumps on my arms where the bites are that itch like a right royal bastard. To make it worse, the bites are in places where they keep getting brushed by my clothes, etc, so just as they're starting to fade a bit, I'll rub them and suddenly that sets them off again.
Bloody insects.
While I was asleep on Saturday a bug or bugs have bitten my arms in several places. It's been quite a while since I've had an insect bite - the last time was when the landord's cat got infested with fleas and they hopped their way into my bedsit. It took several sprayings of flea stuff to get rid of them. Christ knows what all those chemicals in the air did to my lungs, but I was left in tatters after a few nights of them biting me so it had to be done.
It's not fleas this time - the bites are very different. I recognise them from when I was a kid. The culprit this time is mosquitoes. A mosquito injects you with its saliva while it bites, which stops the blood from coagulating and also slightly anaesthetises they bite to stop you noticing. It's because they take so much blood they have to do that.
Unfortunately this saliva is something my family has a bit of a history of reacting to - when bitten by mosi's my mum used to swell up like a balloon - and that's something I've inherited to a lesser degree. So now I've got big lumps on my arms where the bites are that itch like a right royal bastard. To make it worse, the bites are in places where they keep getting brushed by my clothes, etc, so just as they're starting to fade a bit, I'll rub them and suddenly that sets them off again.
Bloody insects.
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