skint

I'm totally skint.

It's all entirely my fault - over the last few years I've been spending money like it was going out of fashion. You'll have picked that up from me talking about how I've so many unwatched DVDs and unread books, etc, etc.

But I've also done things that really didn't make sense. Like I bought a new car, which I did need, but for some reason I fixated on getting a particular model (one of the highest spec ones in the range) instead of thinking about the one I could best afford.

Thankfully, it looks like I've been able to take out a loan just recently that gives me a lot more breathing room. Basically, it allows me to consolidate four debts into one and whilst that does of course mean I'll be paying off a larger total sum for longer, it also means my monthly outgoings will come a lot more into balance.

Hopefully it'll mean I can also pay off another couple of debts with the money it frees up. But if not, it at least means I can afford things like food and petrol :/.

I also hope I've broken the back of my over-spending ways. I'm using all the stuff I've bought to kinda distract myself - the more time I spend actually sitting watching anime DVDs, the less time I've got for sitting on the net buying anime DVDs.

Not an ant to be seen

Well, there's been no sign of the ants at all this last couple of days. I didn't take any action (because I forget, tbh), but I'd better get some ant stuff for if/when they come back.

Scanned animedia last night. I also watched some more of Wagaya no Oinarisama and I'm really not sure if I can work it out.

It's sort of like a "monster of the week" show, but it also seems to be trying to mix in romantic comedy and other elements. It's almost like a "slice of life" show in some ways... but slice of life if a fox-spirit moved in with you :/.

I was also unsure if I liked it or not, but I'll err on the side of yes, I think.

I put some stuff on e-bay last w/end (the first bunch of stuff following the clear-out the other w/end). However, I've been getting a bit annoyed with e-bay. Things that are worth considerable amounts of money are selling for like, 5p and 10p. It was getting to a situation where the effort and expense of parcelling stuff up and taking it down to the post office was far more than the money I was getting for it.

Especially when you think that, as well as what it costs to send, paypal take a fee and e-bay charge both an insertion fee and take a cut of whatever it sells for. In fact, I bet it was costing me money on some occasions.

As such, I've put many of the items on with more realistic starting bids and reasonable "buy it now" prices. I did this for ones where it would kinda break my heart if they sold for small amounts of money. I'd rather keep them and be skint than see them go for less than a pound.

I used to do this when I first started using e-bay, but the items often didn't sell for several weeks (plus I'd have to drop the amounts) so I'd get stacked up fees.

But fuck it - if people aren't willing to pay a reasonable amount of money for second-hand but genuine retail products and not pirates, rips and fansubs, then fuck 'em.

my anime list

Between bits of work, I've been playing about with myanimelist.net today.

I'm the sort of person that likes lists of stuff and it's kinda fun recalling all the stuff I've watched/read.

Here's my page - http://myanimelist.net/animelist/trismugistus.

I've not much else to say today, really - not much has happened just recently :/.

new mags

As I'd hoped, this month's animage, animedia and newtype were waiting for me when I got back.

There's definitely more pics this month than there were a few months ago. Animedia has some scannable stuff in the back, for example, and newtype is groaning with stuff.

No weird freeby stuff this month. They don't half give away some odd things with the Japanese mags - key chains and playing cards and tissues are among the oddest I've got. Not that I'm complaining, it's just interesting the cultural differences.

ants

Ants seem to be getting in my kitchen, somehow. Not at all sure how or where they're coming in.

I'd seen a few odd ones kicking about before, but I discovered a shed load of them making a bee-line (or ant-line if you will) for a tin of golden syrup that had a few drips down the outside of the tin (ants love sweet stuff).

I cleaned the cupboard and put everything in sealed plastic bags, so that should discourage them a lot, but I'll need to get some ant powder or something. I'd actually been trying to buy some when I saw the random ants, but it was really difficult to find any in the supermarket for some reason. I guess I can look in homebase or something - I'm sure they'll have something.

Polished off the magazine scans this weekend with the last two animages. I wouldn't be surprised if the next newtype, animedia and animage arrive today or tomorrow, so I'll have to get them done too and then the decks are cleared for me to attack all those artbooks I've got piled up.

Only managed to have a look at a couple of new anime series while I was doing the animage's, as it's actually a really easy mag to scan (it has the bit of having to un-glue it, but then the pages are all nice and easy to scan). The series were:

• To Love-Ru: watched some more of this and it's distinctly okay. My opinion didn't really change from what I said a few days ago.
• Library Wars: This was really good, actually. I didn't know much about it at all going in, but it's quite a nice show. The premise is a little hokey, but the real story is more of a love story than anything else, and it focuses on the relationships. Strangely, it reminded me of Full Metal Panic, for some reason, but with less in the way of an obvious comedic set-up.
• Wagaya no Oinarisama: just started and don't know quite what to make of it yet. I'd assumed it was a romantic comedy in a similar vein to kanokon from the pictures I'd seen, but it wasn't really like that.

The mid-season shows are just getting going. I always find it a bit of a pain in the bum when this happens. For some reason, the last few subs from the previous half-season shows always seem to take ages to come out, and the new mid-season shows are always erratic at getting picked up for subbing, so I find it very confusing.

I also finished off the second disk of Gurren Lagann. The second disk was all stuff I've not seen before and I'm thankful that my opinion formed from the first few eps is definitely vindicated. It's a really, really great show.

Though I'm again struck the animation quality is kinda all over the place. Plus the chara designs often seem very, er, fluid. I don't really mind, but it can be a little distracting at times.

Also watched a few more Ai Yori Aoshi eps and I'm disappointed again. Some nice little "flashes" of the romantic comedy / slice of life stuff that really works, but mostly it was still grinding away at the generic harem style show stuff. Ah well.

Looks like the first season of Code Geass is finally getting its DVD release in August too. This was some very good news to compensate for the woes that have resulted from ADV's continuing slide into death's slow embrace.

What I'm referring to is that basically ADV have lost the licences to all of the shows they picked up recently. Now thankfully, the shows have mostly been transferred to Funimation, so I'm sure in the fullness of time they'll come out through them, but unfortunately two shows I'm collecting (Red Garden and Welcome to NHK) were literally at last volume release stage and they've now gone into limbo.

This is annoying on so many levels - I can't finish watching the shows; I've no idea when Funimation will release their versions; I've no idea if they'll keep the same number of eps per disk or use the same style for their releases and, in the fullness of time, I've no idea how it will work for resale. I'd bought both with the collectors boxes so it kinda makes the problem even worse.

*sigh*

Still, at least Funimation have announced release dates for Black Lagoon: Second Barrage and Hellsing: Ultimate (which they picked up from when Genoen pulled out of North America).

The western DVD Anime field seems to be in nothing less than a state of crisis. Let's hope official download/internet type stuff starts to pick up the slack - and quick. Not that I don't vastly prefer DVDs, but electronic files is a lot better than nothing at all.

Lastly, this weekend I actually started working on some updates for my websites. It'll be a while before I'm back in full flow, but I think I'm finally out of my non-productive slump.

It's weird when I get so much done - I end up wondering why all my weekends aren't like that.