tiring

I think this week I've been continuing on with the whole being a bit tired from last week.

I was gallivanting around all over the shop last week, so it's hardly surprising, I guess. I have done a few things - most notably I've been working on a new wallpaper. It's nothing hugely complicated or clever - I'm basically just vectoring out a to love-ru scan - but it's been nice to work on a wall proper again. Hopefully I'll get a chance to finish it this weekend.

I've also been reading a Terry Pratchett book called 'Thud!'. I started reading it on the train goign up and coming back from the thing last Friday (I like to read on the train, but reading manga gets you funny looks).

It's a pretty good one - there have been a few of his recently that haven't quite hit the spot, but this one was good. The only sort of down-side to it is that it's another Sam Vimes and City Watch book. Which isn't to say I don't like his Sam Vimes and the Watch books - I liked this one - but I've been wishing he'd focus a bit more on some other stuff. A lot of the recent books seem to be all about the watch.

One of the problems of this is that Sam hates magic, so some Pratchett's best characters (the witches and wizards) are deliberately side-lined, if not excluded all together.

Still, this one was good and I decided to go ahead and buy the other more recent ones I'd been holding back on... though not until I make a significant dent in my pile of unread books.

Did a little scanning last night and watch one of the shows I have left over from the last season. I also have one I watched last week that I forgot to mention on the old blog:

• Nogizaka Haruka no Himitsu - very good. I really wasn't expecting much of this - the images I'd seen for it in the magazines had all suggested it a fan-service heavy rom-com, but it turned out it was a bit more than that. The idea is that the girl in it is a school 'idol', but really she's a nerdy otaku and the male lead accidentally finds this out. Now that could have gone either way, but for the most part it's actually quite good, although there's a couple of elements I'm not sure about. But it's certainly better than I was expecting.
  
• Mahō Tsukai ni Taisetsu na Koto: Natsu no Sora - awesome. Now this one was also a bit of a surprise. I'd seen some images from it and I was really not looking forward to it because of the style. It has almost photo-realistic backgrounds - I'm not sure f that's just because they've been painted that way or they've processed actual photos. Now, I'm really not a big fan of animation laid over the top of photos, but once I'd kinda adjusted to the style what was revealed was a lovely story underneath. If I was to say it had a sort of studio Ghibli feel to it I think you'll know what I mean.
  

Megadeth

I've been listening to a lot of Megadeth recently.

This has kinda been brought about by a "grand project" I've been attempting (more on that later), the upshot of which has meant I've had all my Megadeth CD on my MP3 player, and hence can listen at work.

I used to be really into music, back when I was in A-level and at University. Interestingly it's another demonstration of how I'm slightly obsessive. I'd buy lots of CDs from new bands and obscure bands and stuff.

My main music of choice was heavy metal - specifically thrash or speed metal, by bands like Metallica and Slayer. My favourite was always Megadeth, though. I still think Countdown to Extinction is the greatest album ever made.

The reason I kinda stopped was a triple whammy.

Firstly, once I graduated Uni my interest just generally faded. My peers were less into music than I was, so there were fewer people to talk about it with.

Second, I got back into anime and manga in a big way, so a heck of a lot of my time was spent watching and reading that. Plus of course, my money went on buying then, rather than CD.

But the other key part was that Megadeth ceased to be. My favourite band was no more, and my interest kinda evaporated with them.

The reason they stopped was that Dave Mustaine (Megadeth has always been his band) had a severe arm injury and the prognosis was that he would never play again.

However, unknown to me, as I wasn't really paying attention any more was that Dave got better and eventually several years later he released a new Megadeth album.

Now, whilst I wouldn't say I was really back into music as such I have been rediscovering Megadeth, as well as familiarising myself with their newer albums, and I've really been enjoying it.

Drowning in Telly

I've been a bit indiscriminate with my telly watching lately.

I was trying to hold back and be a bit more selective, but I've kinda been watching a random crap. Unfortunately, this also means I'm getting a sizeable back-log of unwatched shows. There are a good couple of shows I've got sat on the PVR waiting to be finished.

But on top of that I know at the end of this month Lost season 4 will be turning up (on DVD - I don't have satellite), plus I'm pretty sure the last season of Battlestar Galactica is knocking about sometime soon.

Lost season 4 will be one of those things that always show me up as a completely lazy bastard. When it arrives I'll almost certainly sit and watch it almost non-stop. It shows that, if I really wanted to, I could plough through all my back-logs of DVDs, manga, books, games, etc, it's just that I tend to distract myself with rubbish and do things half-arsed.

But then every so often something like Lost turns up and I go through it solidly with total dedication until it's finished - probably in less than a week. So if I can do that with Lost, why don't I do it with other stuff? As I say, it's because I'm a lazy bugger.

I've not watched any of the new Battlestar yet, but I've heard good things, so I thought I should check it out. Unfortunately I think that means I need to get through 4 seasons, a mini-series and a couple of films, I think. It's a lot of stuff, especially when I've got loads of other telly stuff to watch.

I think I'm going to have to rationalise a bit. Plus I know some things are coming to an end. For example, both the F1 and MotoGP seasons must be due to end soon, plus there's some short documentary things that are near the end.

The trick is to not start anything new.

mags, hair and shopping

This month's newtype, animage and animedia turned up yesterday.

Two of them - newtype and animage - are absolutely dripping with pictures from the new season of shows and I'm very impressed. The other, animedia, is actually kinda rubbish. I sometimes wonder why I keep buying it - it's always very poor in terms of scans. But then it's not like it's reprinting other scans - if I didn't get it I wouldn't see those images. Still, as the anime magazines go, it's definitely the worst one I get.

I'm in desperate need of a haircut - my hair is really rather long and I'm starting to get that uncomfortable sweaty thing I get when it gets this long. Of course that's also a factor of being morbidly obese, but that's no reason not to avoid a haircut.

Looks like I'll have a busy w/end as I'll have to get a haircut and go shopping on top of a bunch of stuff I've got to do anyway.

I should also start hoarding for Christmas. I know chrimbalo is a long way away, but I like to get stuff like fozen food, tins and pasta all hoarded up well in advance, because shopping around Christmas can be such a nightmare.

I remember once going to Sainsburys to get some food one Christmas and the queues were so long I didn't get to the front of queue before my lunch ended. I ended up having to buy some manky sarnis at the petrol station on the way home :/. So now I like to stock up the freezer and cupboards well in advance.

lazy weekend

Well I virtually did bugger all this last weekend - only the "life stuff" I can't get away without doing, like changing the sheets and putting the recycling out.

I just couldn't really be arsed - last week was so intense with visiting Dad, having to do a whole bid in three days and then going to the SPSS thing on Friday, I just felt like blowing the entire w/end on nothing in particular.

So what did I do with my time? I buggered about with Civ3... I know, I really shouldn't have as I've kinda rekindled my interest, but I didn't want to do anything that needed me to think particularly hard. By which I mean I didn't want to do anything 'new', like have to learn a new game or pay particular attention to something. With Civ3 I can almost put my brain on auto-pilot.

Speaking of the SPSS thing it was actually okay. I mean, it wasn't really hugely useful but then it wasn't utterly useless either. Bloody uncomfortable seats though. And they tried to cram way too much in - it ended very late.