free and easy

It looks like this weekend I'm going to have a lot of spare time in the sense that there's nothing I've got to do.

Hopefully that means I'll have some time to sort out various odds and sods I've got kicking about. Examples are things like getting a couple of walls and vectors finished that are 'nearly there' and making some more updates for my websites.

Speaking of websites I had a request the other day to pull my finger out and get scan-city moving. Only problem there is I need to pay for some extra webspace for what I've got planned and, more importantly, I need to get a much newer version of photoshop. Both of these mean I need to get a replacement credit card - I chopped them all up when I was having my severe financial troubles last year.

I should also really get watching some anime DVDs (not least of all so I can sell them e-bay, speaking of money troubles :/). stuff has started to fall out of my shelves again where they're so overloaded.

It's been quite a good week on the anime front from one point of view. Funimation has been announcing new licenses like crazy (presumably at comicon, or a similar event in American). Early in the week these include Dragonaut the Resonance, Bamboo Blade, the Aegis of Uruk (but both series) and blassreiter.

These put me in something of a quandary. Dragonaut and Bamboo Blade I'll definitely pick up (eek - more money) and Blassreiter I'm pretty okay just to leave as having watched it online. However, Aegis of Uruk was really quite good and I'd quite like to be ablse to sit down and watch it properly on the telly.

See this is the problem with downloads for me. They'll never be quite as good as DVDs. I just prefer to watch DVDs... but I've already seen (and, more importantly, paid for) the first part of Aegis of Uruk. I dunno. I'll have to think about it.

What I wil definitely be getting is Seto No Hanayome. This was one of the funniest shows I've seen in ages and I've been eagerly waiting to see if someone would pick i tup. Of less interest is El Cazador de la Bruja. Basically it was by the same people that did Noir and Madlax. Not seen Madlax, but Noir was poor in my opionion, and Bruja didn't seem to stray much from the same basic formula.

That's on top of a few other really good shows I want coming on sale like Baccano and Clannad... I thought the anime industry in the west was meant to be in terminal freefall :/.

And talking about anime, I've spent the evenings this week scanning animedia and animage (both of which had a surprisingly good scan count - I thought this month was goign to be a total duffer), and I watched some new anime shows:

• Sora Kake Girl was kinda good actually. It's definitely not a show I would describe as new or innovative, but I dunno, it seemed to have a certain charm to it. Plus it had jiggle and jiggle can count for a lot, although the character designs are a little unusual, but not in an un-appealing way. Dunno, maybe I'm going a bit soft.
• Asu no Yoichi might also be more confirmation that I'm goign soft. As far as I can make out the title actually translates as "Samurai Harem" or similar. To say it's therefore wearing its heart on its sleave is therefore something of an understatement - it's all there in the title. But do you know what, it's actually pretty good. And I think I know why - the main chracter isn't a douche bag. He's nice and kind but also tough and a good fighter. You can kinda see why the girls might like him. Plus it's agot a lot of good gags in it and - you guessed it - more jiggle. Did I mention jiggle can count for a lot?

Hmm, I hope this doesn't turn into one of those seasons where I like everything. I mean there's nothing wrong with that, obviously (why would I be an anime fan if I didn't like the stuff :/), but when you get a string of announcements like Funimation's this week, it also gets bloody expensive!

And on top of that I need a new PC monitor!

abandoned ideas 3

Third one of these as I'm just not in the mood to type out a proper blog entry, I'm afraid.

It's weird - yesterday I was totally "up" and full of energy. Today I feel like I've come "down" off of the high and feel a bit listless :/.

box

This was one where I got so lost in my own ideas I confused the crap out of myself.

Basically, the idea was sort of a riff on Hellraiser. If you're not familiar with Hellraiser, basically there's a puzzle box in it that, if you solve it it opens a doorway to hell. However, being Clive Barker, it's a bit more twisted, but I won't spoiler it.

Anyway, my box wasn't a puzzle box or anything, it was essentially just a symbolic thing. This was partly where I managed to confuse myself. It was partly that people just had a desire to possess the box (a la the ring in the Lord of the Rings, I guess) but also it kinda granted wishes.

But I wasn't sure if you had to gain the box in order to have your wish granted or if you got the box having had your wish granted. But either way possession of the box then brought disaster via the granted wish. So a bit like the classic Monkey's Paw story - granted wishes are bad, in essence.

Anyway, the structure was also a horrible minefield. The idea was it was effectively going to be a series of short stories. One was set back in medieval sword and sorcery type times. It was about a knight who was delivering a warning message or something - basically he had to get to a castle.

His wish revolved around being in love with the Queen and killing the King. It never really got much further than that.

The second story was about a detective with a death-wish. It was something to do with a bunch of drug dealers who had the box. Quite what his wish was and that side of it never really coalesced as I didn't get that far.

Lastly was something to do with an "average Jo" type. See there was basically going to be some witch or demon or something that, I dunno, tempted people or she was the one granting their wishes or something.

The end was that she got her comeuppance - Jo resisted the temptation of having his wish fulfilled and instead killed or something.

I dunno. As you can see it got a bit complicated and I realised I just didn't really know what I was doing. Even the basic idea of what the box did never really solidified into anything.

the number 23

This weekend's DVD rental was The Number 23, starring Jim Carrey.

To be brutally frank from the get-go, it was a total waste of the hour-and-a-half it took to watch.

And to be fair it started quite well. Well, I say that - the very opening titles were too reminiscent of Seven, which is a truly brilliant suspense thriller, whereas this is just not.

Anyway, after the credits the beginning of the story works quite well. Carrey's growing obsession with the book he acquires and the number 23 works. You can sort of see where he's coming from and it works on a basic level. Although even here there are some problems - the whole dog issue especially is never really explained or followed up on properly.

Also, the entire plot seems to revolve around a massive co-incidence. I think this was sort of intentional, but it's not really very well solved. There would have been so many better ways of achieving the same effect.

The real problems kicked in about half-way through. These mainly revolved around what I can only describe as plot-holes.

Just as a simple example, Carrey's gets told to take the day off (for medical type reasons) fairly early on and this is where his obsession really starts to grow. Fine, that's okay. But then by two-thirds of the way through he doesn't appear to be going to his job at all. And yet he never calls in sick. And no-one calls him up or pops around to see if he's ill (we're talking friendly small town setting here, I believe). And his wife and son never mention it to him - they mention the obsession but there's no "why the hell aren't you at work?".

As I say, that's just a simple example - some of the plot-holes you could fit an entire motel through (that makes sense as a pun if you've seen the film).

Let's see, what else was wrong?

Well, Carrey's performance wasn't great. I like Jim Carrey as a comic actor - I think he's very funny. He also did a great performance in Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, so he can do dramatic. It's just here, I dunno, the pitch was wrong - the character started out quite jolly and as the madness ensued it seemed like he couldn't quite throw that off. I kept expecting him to turn to camera and make a silly face.

But really the biggest problem was the ending of the film.

I don't think it's too much of a spoiler to say that I was expecting one of two things, given it's about "23". Either it would turn out that yes, in fact 23 is an important number or there really was a conspiracy or some explanation that validated it. Or it would turn out that Carrey was totally bonkers.

The actual end was somewhere in between - both were sort of true, and yet at the same time neither was.

This was wholly unsatisfactory on just about every level. It didn't even have the good graces to set us up with some sort of doubt/question or undermine itself. It was just sort of a bit lame.

making money

I finished reading Making Money this weekend.

It's an excellent read - I wouldn't want what I'm about to say undermine that. It's genuinely very funny in places, and it has a good portion of Pratchett's usual wry observations on life, the universe and everything.

The only real problem I had with it was that the actual plot seemed a little thin, somehow.

The book is the second featuring Moist Von Lipwig. As well as having a great name, Moist is a great character - very entertaining and intriguing - and unfortunately I've a bit of a feeling that Pratchett got too wrapped up in this great character to the detriment of the actual plot.

Let's put it this was - Going Postal, the first with Moist, was probably one of the best Discworld books for a while. It kinda restored my faith in Pratchett as I'd be growing a little disillusioned by him focusing too much on the city watch and Sam Vimes in particular. Not that I don't love Vimes and the watch, it was just getting to the stage where the discworld books were almost becoming like a "whodunit" series.

There's nothing wrong with those, I must add, it's just that they were a bit samey, where really the Discworld thrives when it's exploring the new.

Anyway, Going Postal was all about Moist reinvigorating the Ankh-Morpork Postal service. But one of the key things about it was that the Post Office had a whole raft of different problems. Most had to solve all these, as well as him introducing all sorts of clever new ideas (this is what I mean about where the discworld thrives - the ideas are new to the discworld, but are already familiar to us and so give Terry a chance to be anything from ironic, through clever all the way up to outright critical).

The fundamental principle in all stories is that they are about change. Now as well as the changes in the post office itself, Moist went through a change. I won't spoiler it if you don't know, but lets just say he grew into his new life.

The problem with Making Money then is that these two things are a little lacking. Moist doesn't really change. I mean, he acquires a new job and goes through a load of scrapes but as a person he pretty much comes out at the end fundamentally the same as when he went in.

Also, he doesn't really change the whole banking world very much. His only real thing is the introduction of paper money. I mean, there's other stuff which I don't want to spoiler, but really the paper money was about it. Whereas in Going Postal there were loads.

Plus the bank in question isn't really in trouble as such where the post office really was. I mean it's hinted that the Ankh-Morpork banks aren't doing well, but not in any real tangible way like the Post Office.

But as I say, don't take it that I didn't enjoy the book - I really did, it's just some bits felt a little flimsy was all.

I've also started on Pratchett's The Wee Free Men. This is actually a children's book set on the Discworld. I'd not read any of Pratchett's children's books, but a while back I read A Hatful of Sky (which is the sequel) and really enjoyed it, so I though I'd pick this up. Plus there's a further sequel, Wintersmith.

I'm fair racing through the wee free men. Partly I guess that's because it's a children's book and is therefore both shorter and a little easier to read, but also it's an interesting reflection on how if a book is enjoyable you read it quicker.

I mention this because a while back I encountered another one of those books that really turned me off reading. The book in question was The Dark Apostle (or something like that). It's set in the Warhammer 40K world and it's really a chore to read.

The plot' okay, but the execution of it is really poor - it does everything you're not supposed to do in writing (like telling not showing - all that stuff). Now that's okay you may think - rules are there to be broken, but let's just put it this way: you need to know what the rules are before you break them.

I've still not finished actually - I'm kinda wondering if I shouldn't just e-bay it and save myself the grief.

we are the losers, my friend

Well, it turns out we didn't get that piece of work I was edging around talking about on Friday.

This was actually the same piece of work I mentioned a little while ago. I've never seen such a palaver in all my life, I have to be honest. Really it's made so little sense I'd better just draw a line under it all, otherwise I'll start ranting and then I could wind up in trouble if this blog ever came to light :/.

The weekend was fairly useful. I didn't completely do everything I was aiming for, but then my plans are often quite over ambitious. I'm a bit rubbish at knowing how long some of the things are going to take and also allowing enough leeway.

One thing I did do was some scanning - I got through megami and newtype. Newtype is always the biggest mag each month and so often has the most scans, although this month it's a bit rubbish so that's not as impressive as it sounds.

While I was scanning I watched the end of Blassreiter. It's a pretty good ending. Well, no, that's not quite right - the ending proper was quite good, but then the prologue/coda was trite rubbish. It also didn't make a whole lot of sense, but ignoring that it wasn't a bad end to the show. If only those first few episodes had been better and the budget hadn't just gone on all the CG instead of the normal enaimation I think I'd like the show more.

The other thing I watched was Akikan. It was... odd. At heart it's basically a harem-type romantic comedy, but it was odd because it's also slightly surreal, though not in a good way. First off the idea was that the girl that turns up wasn't the usual alien or robot, but instead it was a drinks can. Yes, as in the can that holds coke or dr. pepper, only in this case it was melon soda. So the guy's meant to be falling in love with a drink's can that somehow turns into a girl... mmkay.

Also, it didn't help that every other element of the show is stepping right into cliche. In fact, no, that's not quite the impression I had. The impression that I got was more like the writer had simply taking all of his favourite things (harem, the "sudden girlfriend" type of show, lesbians, the OTT gay letch that hits on the main character, fighting contests/tournaments, main characters that are toal bell-ends (okay I'm prejudicing that a bit)) stuck them altogther with gaffer tape, seen a niche in the market (drinks cans ... :/) and toe-punted something into that niche.

As you can see I wasn't very keen at all. And I got through all that without even mentioning the piss poor animation!