quality

I've mentioned before that I'm a member of a site called Urbis . It's a site for writers and the basic idea is that you post your work there and people review it.

Now there are quite a few sites that are supposed to be about the same sort of thing, but what makes Urbis clever is that you're participating in a give-and-take system. Your work will only be reviewed if you do reviews of other people.

How they do that is with a credit system. So, you earn credits by doing reviews and it costs you credits to unlock your reviews. That way you have no choice but to do work in order to get the benefits.

Of course, it's all open to abuse, as all systems are, but there are some mechanisms to try to counter that. For example, you can ask for refunds if you think a review is pure drivel. The other system is that you can rate reviews as being either good or bad 'quality'.

Now, and I don't want to boast about it, but so far I have maintained a review quality above 90%. I don't want to boast about that because it's slightly unrepresentative - it's not just the author that gets to vote, for example, and a good chunk of my good votes have come via that.

Plus I've done something like 150 reviews, but only got about 50 votes (many, as I say, not from the author). Also, of those 150 a good proportion (maybe a quarter?) haven't even been unlocked, so nobody can rate them good or bad.

And of course there's always people who wouldn't know a good review if it slapped them in the face, but anyway, the point of this blog is that I like to think I've got my relatively high number because I write good reviews.

I do this by trying to focus on what really matters. In my opinion things like spelling ad grammar are not as important as the mechanisms of the story telling, for example. Also, I don't tend to worry too much about things like point-of-view unless it really badly poxes up a story.

Which isn't to say these things aren't important, it's just that if something is unreadably dull because it's all just boring telling when it could be shown in exciting and dramatic scenes, then that's what matters most.

Polishing up your spelling and POV slips can come after you make the thing interesting to read.

The other main thing I do is to offer suggestions. I think it's one thing to just rag on a piece, telling them in finite detail why it's rubbish, it's quite another to say "here's some ideas for making it better."

Now the difficulty with my approach is occasionally I run up against people who clearly think they're the next Shakespeare (or insert any appropriate well known and widely recognised writer you like). So then my review and suggestions come across rather differently - they're not seen in the light they're intended.

That's when I get a negative quality, I think. Even though I've clearly spent a lot more time thinking about my review than the people who've just spunked "zomg I r likings your drivel" below me.

It can be quite demoralising.

But the worst ones are when I point out something that's clearly just plain wrong, or doesn't work, or is illogical. For example, I might point out that some "science" they've used is bullshit, or point out that some trick they're pulling is just that - a trick and therefore a con.

Sometimes this is taken well, but a lot of the time it's taken as you might expect. If you're on a flying carpet, you don't want someone pointing out that there are strings holding it up (or, worse, pointing out it's impossible and hence causing the illusion to collapse), so you're not going to be pleased with the person that does.

lost in the extras

See what I did there with the title? It's because I've been wading into the Lost S4 extras. Clever, huh?

Anyway, bad puns aside, 'wading' is definitely the right term to use - there's loads of them, far more than there have been for previous seasons, I'm sure. For example, there are only 14 episodes, but about half of them have commentaries, whereas in previous seasons where there were twenty-odd episodes and only about a quarter of them had commentaries.

Also, there are two entire disks of other bonus stuff, which ranges from the standard (bloopers, deleted scenes, filming stuff and interviews) to the more interesting, like a documentary expose of the Oceanic Six (the description of which makes more sense once you've watched the show) and an hour-long thing on the flash-forwards.

It's loads of stuff and it should keep me busy for a good while.

I'm guessing this is the upside to having the shorter seasons. Plus there was the whole writers strike thing, so I imagine there was more spare resources to work on extras stuff than usual.

Unfortunately I've got really behind with other stuff. I've recently realised that the new megami is about to come out (and the other mags will be close behind) and I've not really got anywhere with scanning last months mags - all I've done is the posters from megami, everything else is untouched.

I really need to get my arse in gear so I don't end up with a backlog.

Luckily I do have next monday off (I've got the dentists in the morning) so I may take the opportunity to make a good chunk of the backlog disappear. It should also give me a chance to finish off last season's anime shows and maybe even tackle some of the autumn season's stuff.

Plus there's something of a let-up coming with all these TV shows I've been watching - most are coming to the end of their runs, so, assuming nothing else comes along, that should ease up some of the pressure.

Bizarrely, I've actually been doing quite a lot of vectoring recently and am literally on the cusp of finishing about 4 walls. All I really need to do is make the backgrounds, which, with me not really having any artistic talent is always a tricky part, but at least it means I won't be stalled due to half-finished vectors like I normally am.

monkey brasses

It was bloody cold last night and this morning.

At some point during the night it snowed, but it must have been dark when it happened as it was a case of opening my curtains this morning to be greeted by a blanket of the white stuff.

I love a bit of snow - it looks very decorative, but the practicalities can be a little difficult. After it had snowed it got so cold that the snow then froze, so this morning it was very treacherous going out to the car. And that's not to mention the job I had trying to scrape the stuff off the car.

It's really difficult scraping frozen snow off - it forms a sort of lattice structure that's really strong. Ordinary frozen ice is much easier to get off as you can literally just scrape at it, plus turn the engine on and melt it a bit. Frozen snow you have to sort of hack at it, and it really takes some doing, plus because it's got all these holes in and is so thick, it's less susceptible to heating.

All told it took me a good ten minutes to de-ice the car. It's things like that which make me glad I get up nice and early for work.

Anyway, I watched the rest of Lost Season 4 last night. I've just got the extras left.

It was good - don't take what I'm going to say next to mean I didn't like it - but I'm not at all sure about these short seasons.

I believe the idea behind them is so that the total number of episodes adds up to 108 (which is the sum of the magic numbers). Plus I also guess it means they get to stretch it out a little from the planned five-year arc.

But the problem is it makes these last three seasons seem more like light snacks than full-course meals, and I like my Lost to be a full course meal. Especially since I basically have to wait an entire year between seasons (thank you once again, fucking Sky).

In season 4 the pace is definitely a lot faster - all of the episodes are roller-coaster rides with very little let-up in the pace. So, for example, when they had Ben locked up as a prisoner before he was there for ages, but this year when they had him as a prisoner again, he was almost immediately out again.

Not sure which I prefer, tbh, as it's a bit swings-and-roundabouts. A fast pace can be nice, but it does tend to highlight one of the cheats they do on Lost.

The cheat in question is the size of the island. If a group heads out for another part of the island, the amount of time it takes them is totally flexible. There was a classic at the beginning of the season, where they went to a dead body and then it was the best part of a days walk until they encountered the helicopter.

But then, it apparently only took them 20 minutes to go and fetch the body and bring it to the helicopter. Well, okay, maybe the first time they were wandering a bit, but it still should have taken them a lot longer to go there and back the second time :/.

Anyway, as I say, I love Lost. Part of the reason is because it's proper sci-fi. I know a lot of people give it flack because they feel it's being made up as they go along and it never really answers any questions, but those criticisms mainly come from people who probably shouldn't be watching it in the first place.

I mean I'm glad it is popular of course, so it doesn't constantly have an axe having over its neck like Babylon 5 used to, but like B5 it's clearly really for sci-fi nerds more than it is for the average viewer.

Slither

Watched Slither on DVD this last w/end. I have to say it was rather good.

It's basically a comedy horror. An alien something-or-other lands on earth in a meteorite, infects someone and then he proceeds to... well, it's a little complex to explain. I suppose the best way to cover is that he spreads the infection, but it's not quite like that.

Anyway, the guy that's infected is a jerk, but he's rich and has married this totally hot school-teacher. The local chief of police (or sheriff I think they actually call him) is in love with the school teacher, and she kinda likes him too.

So you've got a love triangle going on, which is kinda a surprising amount of depth for the type of film. Well, okay, it's not deep, as such, but the clever thing is the film never forgets about the relationships, and indeed, is kinda driven by them, which is some adept storytelling.

Especially since Slither is essentially a Sci-Fi/Monster Horror B-movie, but with a slightly larger budget. It covers everything from zombie survival to horror-classics like Bride of Frankenstein.

One of the clever things it does is to pay homage to the staples of those old B-movies, as well as making references to a lot of the classics of the genre. Some of these references are quite subtle, but others are more on the nose, and obvious.

The same goes with the humour - sometimes it's quite subtle, or quite dark, but other times it's big and obvious and others it's more of a nod towards the fans, so there's different things for different people to laugh at.

It's also quite knowing. There's definitely a wry smile or a quick wink to the audience occasionally about how silly things in the movie actually are. The best of these comes right at the end where the denouement is both shocking and silly.

My only criticism was with the DVD itself - there were absolutely no extras. Which is weird, because on the Amazon DVD listing for the retail DVD there are loads of extras listed. So perhaps it's just that the rental version doesn't have any? Odd.

square eyes

So, a partially successful weekend.

I watched a lot of telly. The list of stuff I've got recorded and awaiting viewing on my PVR went down from about 2 pages worth (so about 50 things) to about 5 things.

However, I was secretly hoping to totally clear the list, but I kinda just got sick of watching that much TV. Sunday evening I was going a little bonkers, I think.

I had pretty much under-estimated how much stored up TV there was. As such, I also didn't get that far into Lost season 4 as I'd hoped. The last 3 seasons of Lost are being done as shorter seasons - 16-ish episodes instead of the American standard of 25-ish - so I was hoping I'd basically be able to watch it all this w/end.

However, I only watched the first disk, which is 3 eps. And what I've seen so far I really liked.

There was a lot of critiscism of season 3 (which I didn't really agree with, tbh) and I think most of those criticisms have been addressed. S4 is definitely faster paced and more focused on the core characters.

I also didn't get any scanning or walling or anythign done due to the weight of TV, but I was kinda expecting that.

The clocks went back on Saturday, so we're back on GMT. I always struggle with the changes. My body clock is rigidly fixed on my schedule and it's difficult for me to adjust, even by as little as an hour.

What normally happens is that on the day after the switch, the Sunday, I basically end up running on my existing schedule. That means I have my lunch at virtually mid-morning, for example.

Then, after that when it's back to work for the next week my body clock goes completely screwy and I end up feeling tired at 8PM and wanting lunch at 3PM and stuff. It's a bit like jet-lag (I imagine, as I've never actually flown anywhere, so I don't know) and I dunno why it does this, but it always happens.

Next week I'll be right-as-rain again.