an uneventful week

So I've totally failed to do any scanning. I've no particular excuse - I just couldn't be bothered is the truth. This weekend seems the best candidate for getting it done (or started at least).

I'm also planning to do a bit of e-baying this weekend. I've a few things I can flog and I need to generate a bit of cash to help out over the coming months. It's an expensive time of year what with things like car tax and car insurance due.

I've been watching Rocket Girls in the evenings. It's a quirky little show that's kinda difficult to describe.

It's ostensibly about a bunch of oddballs and their attempts to get a Japanese manned space programme going. Now that premise could easily be done in a deadly serious way, but with Rocket Girls there's a much lighter approach taken.

But the key to it is that it does also keep the serious side intact. So the space programme isn't SF type space flight - it's orbiter modules strapped to solid-fuel rockets and there's weightlesness and no sound in space, etc. But then equally it maintains the lighter anime side - the girls wear fan-service approved skin tight costumes, for example.

And yes I did say girls and the 'girls' in the title are actual high-school girls. And that's exactly what I mean - it's anime so they're cute girls, but it's not as daft as it sounds - girls weigh less and these are basically smart kids so they're not just eye candy.

It actually reminds me of a programme I once saw that basically said that women make far better astronauts than men. Because they're smaller and less bulky they're easier to get up there, but also from a weightlessness point of view having bigger muscles is actually useless. In fact, it can be more problematic, not least of all because bigger muscles suffer worse in terms of wasting away under zero-g conditions.

So it's not as daft as it sounds, but equally, it is kinda daft. Which is all good, because it's a comedy series at heart.

I also acquired the comic version of Wanted the other day and have started on it. I've gotta say I'm not hugely impressed. It gives the distinct impression of trying to be a Watchmen for Super-villains, but, well, simpler and less well written if I'm honest.

I also started on the Death Note manga. I'd only ordered volume 1 so that if it was dire I wasn't really loosing out too much - I could just flog it on e-bay and forget about it. I've ordered the other volumes so I guess that means it's not dire, although I'm not entirely sure it's as good as people seem to have been saying it is.

I'll reserve judgement for until I've read more, but I dunno, it seems almost to be moving too fast for its own good.