omg, look at all the blood!

Woke up very early this morning. I'm kinda convinced that something is waking me up, actually - my hypothesis is that it's some kind of animal (fox or a stray cat, maybe?) using my landlord's catflap. It's just that it's odd that it seems to happen at about the same time in the morning and it's now happening all the time since it's come colder in the mornings.

Plus, when I stayed at my Dad's a while back I was sleeping right through until 7-ish. The regularity and pattern just seems odd. I think I may do something to see if I can get evidence in some way.

Anyway, I'm not sure if it was the getting up early, but I've got a blown blood vessel in my eye. It's very unsightly, but doesn't really hurt or anything - it just looks ugly. Maybe it was the BT thing yesterday? I literally blew a blood vessel! :)

So I've been finishing off the latest magazine scans this week and I so I got the chance to watch the following:

• Ultraviolet: Code 044 was okay. It felt very old fashioned. Plot wise, I'm not sure if it would come under 'retro' or not - retro implies something deliberate - but certainly the artwork and animation were retro, and, if I'm honest, not really my cup of tea. It was also surprisingly talky and slow in the first episode for an action series.
• Detroit Metal City is very good. I didn't quite go for excellent, as I have to admit the character design and animation is not quite to my liking, but the show itself is very good. It's probably the funniest thing I've seen in ages, with a very entertaining set-up. It also strikes a great balance between its elements - it kinda pokes fun at everything, which is a neat trick to pull off.
• Shikabane Hime: Aka seemed very good. It's the new show from Gainax and is (rarely, for them) an adaptation of a manga. I've no exposure to the manga, but the anime seems very Gainex-y so I'm not sure how much they've tweaked. Anyway, the show does seem very well done, although I have to admit it doesn't seem hugely original - there's a lot you've seen before, but it's entertaining enough.

I think that just leaves The Telepathy Girl Ran as the only thing I've not watched from the April '08 season, and that's because I downloaded a German version of ep 1 (:/) so I watched Shikabane Hime instead.

Oh no - actually I've got Strike Witches and Blassrieter to watch too, but those are slightly different. I've already paid to watch the entire seasons for both on Bost so I don't really think of them in quite the same vein.

It's about time - all the October season shows are startign to pass my threshold for watching them. What I tend to do is wait until I've got about 6 episodes downloaded. That allows me to watch 3 or 4 episodes (or go up to 6 if I'm really undecided) in a row. I usually watch them

bloody BT

BT phoned me last night.

Bizarrely, and I have no fucking clue what's going on, they claim that my "calls are not 'with' BT".

They've phoned me with this claim before, and it's always gone the same way:

Them: "Your calls are not with BT"

Me: "Yes they are."

They then assert that they aren't and I start to get very fucking annoyed. Yes, they are with BT, I just don't use my landline very much. Some automated system has decided that means my calls are not "with" BT.

I don't even know what it mean - who the fuck else would they be with? BT certainly send me a bill every quarter and, if I've made any call, they charge me for them, SO WHO THE FUCK ELSE HAS MY CALLS THEN, DIPSHITS?

What winds me up even more is that they, having made this asserion because the system is telling them my calls aren't with BT and me having denied it, told them no-one else has my calls, said I've never "transferred" my calls, and don't have SKY or any other call thing (well, I've got a mobile and I basically only use that to make calls), they then go on to say that they can check the system to see if my calls are still with BT.

I mean, seriously: What?

How can the system tell them my calls aren't 'with' BT and then they can check the system to see if they are? Excuse me while I spot the total fucking inconsistency.

As you can probably tell this wound me up no end. I was fuming for ages last night and I'm still annoyed about it now.

My guess is that if I let them proceed it will turn into a telesales thing and they'll try to sell me shit I don't need, but by the time we get anywhere near that point I'm already shouting at them and i just hang up.

bloody BT

BT phoned me last night.

Bizarrely, and I have no fucking clue what's going on, they claim that my "call's are not with BT".

I have

a brief pause

I'm definitely putting trismugistus.com updates on hold until Christmas.

I have got a few things I could put up there, but they're basically just reviews and I've never been keen on just doing reviews every week - it gets a bit same-old-same-old so I like to have some variety. After all, that is why I have all the different sections :/.

However, one thing I do have to do before I pause is add on a thing for and affiliate for digital-bondage. I've never had a section for affiliates. I have a links page, which includes a section for other waller's sites, but I've never bothered with affiliates.

Mainly that's because I know I'm not very good. As such, I've always assumed that if I asked other people if we could become affiliates they would say no (or say yes more out of politeness than really wanting to do it) and that nobody would ever ask me.

Only someone did. The person in question is pinkprincesslacus and she has a site called hime-designs.com. What I'll do is I'll probably add something to the front page of dig-bon until I start updating the site again properly and I can integrate it.

I dunno if I've mentioned this before, but my sites are actually a big of a con. They look a bit like they're done with clever tricks with the menus and stuff, but those are all just cons. Really they're done in a hard-coded way that gives the illusion of being cleverer than they are.

Anyway, so the point is I'll have to manually add the affiliates thing in properly and that could take a while.

I was also thinking I could change up the banners. I use my walls as my banners and I only did about 5 or so when I came up with the idea, but I've done some nice walls since then so I think I could either replace them or add in some more.

What I also need to do is get some of these walls and vectors finished. I've done quite a few vectors, but some of them need tidying up a bit and many of them need backgrounds doing.

I've still not really done a proper background for the "little angel" vector I did. I've sort of thought of an idea, but not quite seen if it's practical. I wanted to do something a bit abstract for it, but I didn't know if I could lay my hands on the stuff I'd need to make it look right.

I've also not done any more on that soul eater wall. It quite demoralised me when someone else walled it, but it would be quite a shame to just let it come to nothing.

I also need to really rethink the writing section of the site. If I'm going to keep it (and I'm currently wondering if I really should) I need to think if I'm going to update it with stuff.

Part of the problem is that my writing effort has mainly gone into trying to write novels recently and I wouldn't be happy posting any parts of them until I'd finished the novel. Plus extracts are always a bit rubbish.

Hmm...

Lastly I really need to do something with Scan-city. It's just silly having it there doing nothing when it costs me money each year.

Anyway, the point is I'm going to put proper site updates on hiatus until Christmas and then come back "bigger and better" as it were.

nacho libre

This weekend's DVD was Nacho Libre.

It's a bit long-winded to explain, but is actually kinda simple, so bear with me. It's got Jack Black in it as the titular character, Nacho, and is directed by the guy who did Napoleon Dynamite, Jerad Hess.

It's set in Mexico and the plot is basically that Nacho is an orphan who was raised in a monastery by Catholic monks. He's also a big fan of wrestling. Now that isn't wrestling as in proper wrestling like they do at the Olympics or the WWF type American wrestling (which actually developed from this sort of wrestling).

It's sort of the mid-point between those two - it's got slightly cheaper production values than the American wrestling, but still maintains a bit of the reality of real wrestling. However, it does have the whole pantomime aspects to it.

Basically, when I was a kid they used to have the same sort of stuff on Saturday morning TV, with characters like Big Daddy and Giant Haystacks. Only it's a bit more flamboyant than that.

Anyway, so Nacho wants to be a wrestler, but the monks are opposed to it (quite why is a bit vague). But Nacho is also the monastery's cook and is committed to the Orphans the monastery looks after, so he can't just leave.

Also, a love interest is kinda tacked on.... I'm not really selling this very well, am I? Well there's a reason for that - I didn't really enjoy it that much :(.

I'm a big fan of Jack Black, and he's basically the reason I thought I'd take a look, but really this isn't a JB movie, it's a Jerad Hess movie.

I really want to like Hess's stuff. I try really hard. I watched Napoleon twice to see if I would get it more on the second viewing, but I just didn't.

I don't know if you've ever heard the term, but there's a language to cinema. It's a way of doing things that we've all grown so used to that it only becomes apparent when it's broken. Like, for example, if you show two characters talking but using individual close-ups, generally you have one of them on the left hand side of the screen and the other on the right. However, it's only if this isn't done that you would realise it was a convention.

Well, comedy also has rules, like gaps left for people to laugh. Well, when I watch Hess's stuff I notice those gaps, but I don't really see the joke. It's like he's saying the punch line to a gag, but I don't even realise that that was the punch line. I just don't get it.

I mean, it's not totally bereft of funny stuff, but then it's equally got things that I just don't get. And worse, it often feels like they're trying way too hard.

*sigh*

Unfortunately, the things that could have carried the film even though the comedy isn't to my taste are also lacking. There are lots of plot holes and lots of stuff goes nowhere. I'm all for breaking standard dramatic structures, but it's just annoying when stuff goes nowhere.

For example, the love interest thing just never really happens. There's also no indication as to what happens to Nacho's partner after a certain point, or, indeed, any of the other characters. Also, the biggest crime is that there's this whole segment in the middle about this Gypsy king that is just utterly pointless (the deleted scenes feature a whopping 8 minutes of scenes that were excised from this part, clearly showing they realised it was beyond pointless too).

Anyway, the DVD itself is quite good. After the last few rental DVDs having absolutely no extras it was nice to see this had plenty - featurettes and stuff. Though I have to say the commentary track just isn't worth the space on the DVD, which was annoying as I like a good commentary.

oh my god, where's my card?

Those were my exact words last Thursday as I scrabbled around in my wallet, desperately looking for my debit card.

See, I was actually planning to buy my new dehumidifier last Thursday. There's a Focus DIY place just up the road and I figured, what the hell - might as well pick it up there, rather than have to go out at the weekend.

Only I couldn't find my card and there was no reason for it not to be in my wallet - I'd not cleaned it out or anything. In fact, I couldn't remember using it since earlier in the week at Tescos when I'd done a food shop. At Tescos when I'd used chip and pin to pay for it... I realised I must have left the card in the damn chip and pin machine!

I've nearly done this on a couple of occasions before and I bet it happens all the time. I mean, it's all right chip and pin, but I dunno, there's some aspects to it that just aren't as good.

Anyway, I had to dash back to work early so I could look up on the net where to call to cancel my card. Made the call and it was all sorted. I've also checked my statement and it doesn't look like any dodgy shenanigans went on with the card. The checkout person probably just gave it to the supervisor and they have some mechanism for keeping hold of them, I guess - as I say, it must happen all the time.

Anyway, it did put a slight kibosh on my plans for the weekend as it meant I couldn't get any cash out. Well, I could, but it was coming out of my other account, which never has a lot of money in it. So I played it safe and only bought 'just enough' petrol and paid the tax on the new figurine I got from Japan.

I have to say it's a really nice figure. It's Hime from a manga/anime called Princess Resurrection. It comes with a mini-character as well as the main figure. It's also got a proper base, rather than just the normal round ones and it's quite large and is well sculpted and the face doesn't look stupid as they sometimes do.

This weekend was a cleaning weekend, which also gave me the chance to give the new dehumidifier a whirl. This dehumidifier was a lot cheaper than my last one and it's kinda smaller and slightly less 'adjustable'. But in other respects it has a few advantages over the other one. One of the nice touches is that it has a carry handle. It was lugging my last one around that caused me to break it, I think.

It was an odd weekend in some respects - I've got this odd contradictory feeling this morning that I both achieved a lot and also didn't quite do enough :/.

Anyway, one thing I did do was a bit of scanning. I scanned megami, which is always an odd mag to scan. It has lots of posters and those take ages to scan, but then the mag itself can sometimes have as little as 10 or 15 things worth scanning, so it's done in next to no time.

Animedia was the other mag I scanned and that can also be odd. I've mentioned before that animedia would be the subscription I would dump if I had to. Some months there's next to nothing - less than megami even - but then in months like this it has loads of stuff. But the weirdest thing about it is the timing.

I mean, one thing about Japanese mags is that none of them are like our magazines. If you look at Empire, for example, it has reviews of films and they rate them, sometimes giving films very low marks and telling you they are dross.

Well, Japanese anime mags aren't like that at all. They're more like big collections of promotional material and they never ever say anything bad about the shows. What's weird with animedia is it seems to lag behind all the time. We're now well into the October season, right? But it's only this month where they've got loads of pics from the shows. Well, surely if it's all about promotion and previews, they should have had loads of images months ago too. That's what all the other mags do :/.

Also, you see what I mean about feeling like I've done loads but also not done much. I hadn't planned to do any scanning, so it's good I squeezed some in. But I only got two mags done and I was at it for hours :/.

Anyway, I watched a couple of the last few shows from last season while I scanned:

• Blade of the Immortal was okay, I guess. It seemed very talky - there were long periods of people basically almost making speeches, but some cool action interspersed. The weird thing was that although I wasn't hugely impressed with the anime, it made me want to check out the manga. I got the distinct impression it would work way better as a manga, where big long chunks of dialogue are more okay than in anime.
• Real Drive was kinda good. It's from an original idea by Shirow and you can see his hands all over it. It's also got a nice set-up and an interesting lead character. However, there were a few downsides - the character designs are not to my taste for one and the pacing is a little odd. The second episode, for example, was very lively with a nice dramatic structure, but then the third episode seemed a bit all over the place, tbh.