So this week I've not really gotten up to much - well, other than spending all that money I don't really have that is. I've been trying to watch more of the telly shows I normally record and then watch over the weekend.
I don't normally talk about all the telly I watch on here for some reason. I think that's partly because I'm such a PVR-whore. A PVR if you don't know is basically the digital/modern world equivalent of a VCR. It stands for Personal Video Recorder and does pretty much what it says - records programmes for you.
Only unlike a VCR, which uses magnetic tape, it does so to a hard drive. PVRs are actually the miracle that has spawned the modern anime fansub industry. In Japan, the fans PVR the anime shows (one thing we don't often realise in the west is that even though anime is on TV, it's often shown very late at night) and then make them available via peer-2-peer networks and Usenet type services.
Generally speaking they don't do this for western fans, though I understand there are some who do it on behalf of us westerners, but those are mainly western ex-pats. The Japanese fans do it to share with each other and the fansubbers just make use of the availability of it and add the subtitles.
Anyway, the point is that a while back I got digital telly. I bought quite an expensive model of decoder and it has a PVR built into it. Now during the week there are a variety of shows on that I want to watch, but because of a combination of work, eating, the time I go to bed and the types of stuff I actually fancy doing in the evenings, I tend to PVR everything.
That then means that I'm out of step with programmes, but it also means that at the weekends I watch a huge amount of telly. So much in fact that on the average Saturday afternoon and Sunday morning that's essentially all I do.
It's at its worst over the winter months as you get a lot more stuff on during winter. Over summer you get more sports stuff for one thing, but because people are expected to be out more in the evening, dramas and stuff tend to dry up too.
But this week I've been trying to get ahead of myself, watch more stuff as it's aired, rather than have a big stack at the weekend. Hopefully that'll free up some time at the weekend as I've a couple things I need to get done.
Anyway, the point of this blog wasn't really all of the above - what I wanted to do was moan about something.
Basically, two of my favourite shows are The Shield, which is a sorta-cop show and 30Rock a comedy show. They're both American and both air on channel 5. Or at least they used to - now they're being aired on 5Us (or something like that).
See as I mentioned there are more channels on digital, but quite a few of them are from the same broadcasters, so you have E4 and More4 and BBC3 and BBC4 and one of five's is 5US.
Now that's all well and good, except that my reception of 5's channels is really touch-and-go.
At the moment the digital broadcasts are "turned down" - they're not as powerful as they will be when they turn the analogue broadcasts off, because otherwise they'd interfere.
So that means that 5's signal strength is really borderline. I dunno if you've ever tried to watch poor-signal digital telly but it's impossible. With normal analogue what happens is it gets static and maybe the sound hisses, but it's still just about watchable. With digital it's more like a threshold - it'll be fine and then suddenly *boom* it's totally unwatchable because the picture and sound break up.
And that's what I've discovered with The Shield and 30Rock.
Now I would be buying DVDs of them anyway, admittedly, but they won't be out for months I imagine. What a pain in the arse.
Friday, 27 February 2009
Thursday, 26 February 2009
splooge
I've kinda splooged money away this last week.
To be fair, it's not entirely my fault as such. And they are things I need or have to get. Plus I have managed to hold back on going totally nuts with spending.
What am I on about?
Well, basically this year my Dad turns 65. So this is something of a special birthday anyway and on top of that we, the family, have got a special trip planned (more on that at a later date). So as part of that it seemed an opportune time to get him a particular gift that's special to the event and his birthday.
Me and my sister are going halves on it, but I've actually bought the items in question, so that was big pay out number one. Actually technically, it's not finished as we need to get some supporting bits, but I think I'm going to shop around in the "real world" as I think I need to actually see them up close to some extent.
Now really my Dad's birthday isn't until October and we've also decided to use the money we would normally spend at Christmas as well. However, because of when the trip is, we needed to get the stuff early and I'd noticed some good deals (credit crunch seems to be having some benefits :/) so I took the plunge this week.
The other big spend was one I had to make. Well, actually, I didn't have to get what I did - I could have spent a lot less - but it seemed daft taking a step down from my current model if I was getting a new one.
Not sure why I was being so cryptic there - unlike the present I'm perfectly free to tell you I got a new monitor for my computer. What I got was a 24 inch widescreen LCD monitor.
It's really rather spiffing, although I had a Dickens of a time getting the base on. I ended up having to grease the attachment bit so it would slip on, but before that I think I pulled a muscle in my arm I was pushing to hard to get it on :(.
The monitor is really bright and clear - almost painfully so in a dark room with it up high. I had to turn it down quite a bit to make it comfortable. Also, the big thing I was worried about with it was colour reproduction.
There seems to be something of an issue with LCD/flat panel type monitors in that the colour reproduction varies wildly. On some monitors what can appear to be a dark red just becomes black on another. However, in my experience, colour on Samsung monitors is really good, so I got one of those and I tried it out and I can't tell any difference in colour with my old monitor.
Yes, my old monitor does still technically work, but here's the thing - it's started making a really loud "squeaking" noise. It's like a really high pitched buzzing - I'm sure you've heard electrical equipment make such noises. The problem of course is it becomes staggeringly annoying when you're sat working at you pc for hours and it's squeaking like that. Especially since it's not constant - it goes up and down in volume and pitch.
So that's why I got the new monitor. I got a really big widescreen one because they're dirt cheap. This one literally only cost a smidge over £200 - for a 24 inch widescreen monitor! It's 1920 & 1200 res - that's huge, and for only two-hundred quid! Marvellous.
My real problem, though is I still have lots more expenses coming up.
Firstly, it's my sister's 30th this year (I know - my Dad's 65th and my sister's 30th all in one year. How poor timing is that?) and so I'll need to spend a good couple of hundred on that.
Plus the other problem is this trip - I need to get loads of stuff for that. I never really go on proper holidays, so I don't even have a suitcase, for example. Plus I want (or need, since these ones are scratched) some new glasses for then and they're not cheap. Well, the frames are okay, it's lenses that are expensive as I have a high prescription and have to get the special glass to make them thin or it looks like I'm wearing double glazing.
And on top of that in March car stuff will be due - car tax, insurance and service. Service won't be so bad as the deal I had was to get that for free for 3 years, but I'm pretty sure my car will need a new set of tyres and those certainly won't be free.
But also, like some sort of idiot-that-doesn't-actually-have-the-money-but-is-going-to-spend-it-anyway I've a hankering to buy the latest versions of Photoshop and painter, as well as upgrade to Vista.
To be fair, it's not entirely my fault as such. And they are things I need or have to get. Plus I have managed to hold back on going totally nuts with spending.
What am I on about?
Well, basically this year my Dad turns 65. So this is something of a special birthday anyway and on top of that we, the family, have got a special trip planned (more on that at a later date). So as part of that it seemed an opportune time to get him a particular gift that's special to the event and his birthday.
Me and my sister are going halves on it, but I've actually bought the items in question, so that was big pay out number one. Actually technically, it's not finished as we need to get some supporting bits, but I think I'm going to shop around in the "real world" as I think I need to actually see them up close to some extent.
Now really my Dad's birthday isn't until October and we've also decided to use the money we would normally spend at Christmas as well. However, because of when the trip is, we needed to get the stuff early and I'd noticed some good deals (credit crunch seems to be having some benefits :/) so I took the plunge this week.
The other big spend was one I had to make. Well, actually, I didn't have to get what I did - I could have spent a lot less - but it seemed daft taking a step down from my current model if I was getting a new one.
Not sure why I was being so cryptic there - unlike the present I'm perfectly free to tell you I got a new monitor for my computer. What I got was a 24 inch widescreen LCD monitor.
It's really rather spiffing, although I had a Dickens of a time getting the base on. I ended up having to grease the attachment bit so it would slip on, but before that I think I pulled a muscle in my arm I was pushing to hard to get it on :(.
The monitor is really bright and clear - almost painfully so in a dark room with it up high. I had to turn it down quite a bit to make it comfortable. Also, the big thing I was worried about with it was colour reproduction.
There seems to be something of an issue with LCD/flat panel type monitors in that the colour reproduction varies wildly. On some monitors what can appear to be a dark red just becomes black on another. However, in my experience, colour on Samsung monitors is really good, so I got one of those and I tried it out and I can't tell any difference in colour with my old monitor.
Yes, my old monitor does still technically work, but here's the thing - it's started making a really loud "squeaking" noise. It's like a really high pitched buzzing - I'm sure you've heard electrical equipment make such noises. The problem of course is it becomes staggeringly annoying when you're sat working at you pc for hours and it's squeaking like that. Especially since it's not constant - it goes up and down in volume and pitch.
So that's why I got the new monitor. I got a really big widescreen one because they're dirt cheap. This one literally only cost a smidge over £200 - for a 24 inch widescreen monitor! It's 1920 & 1200 res - that's huge, and for only two-hundred quid! Marvellous.
My real problem, though is I still have lots more expenses coming up.
Firstly, it's my sister's 30th this year (I know - my Dad's 65th and my sister's 30th all in one year. How poor timing is that?) and so I'll need to spend a good couple of hundred on that.
Plus the other problem is this trip - I need to get loads of stuff for that. I never really go on proper holidays, so I don't even have a suitcase, for example. Plus I want (or need, since these ones are scratched) some new glasses for then and they're not cheap. Well, the frames are okay, it's lenses that are expensive as I have a high prescription and have to get the special glass to make them thin or it looks like I'm wearing double glazing.
And on top of that in March car stuff will be due - car tax, insurance and service. Service won't be so bad as the deal I had was to get that for free for 3 years, but I'm pretty sure my car will need a new set of tyres and those certainly won't be free.
But also, like some sort of idiot-that-doesn't-actually-have-the-money-but-is-going-to-spend-it-anyway I've a hankering to buy the latest versions of Photoshop and painter, as well as upgrade to Vista.
splooge
I've kinda splooged money away this last week.
To be fair, it's not entirely my fault as such. And they are things I need or have to get. Plus I have managed to hold back on going totally nuts with spending.
What am I on about?
Well, basically this year my Dad turns 65. So this is something of a special birthday anyway and on top of that we, the family, have got a special trip planned (more on that at a later date). So as part of that it seemed an opportune time to get him a particular gift that's special to the event and his birthday.
Me and my sister are going halves on it, but I've actually bought the items in question, so that was big pay out number one. Actually technically, it's not finished as we need to get some supporting bits, but I think I'm going to shop around in the "real world" as I think I need to actually see them up close to some extent.
Now really my Dad's birthday isn't until October and we've also decided to use the money we would normally spend at Christmas as well. However, because of when the trip is, we needed to get the stuff early and I'd noticed some good deals (credit crunch seems to be having some benefits :/) so I took the plunge this week.
The other big spend was one I had to make. Well, actually, I didn't have to get what I did - I could have spent a lot less - but it seemed daft taking a step down from my current model if I was getting a new one.
Not sure why I was being so cryptic there - unlike the present I'm perfectly free to tell you I got a new monitor for my computer. What I got was a 24 inch widescreen LCD monitor.
It's really rather spiffing, although I had a Dickens of a time getting the base on. I ended up having to grease the attachment bit so it would slip on, but before that I think I pulled a muscle in my arm I was pushing to hard to get it on :(.
The monitor is really bright and clear - almost painfully so in a dark room with it up high. I had to turn it down quite a bit to make it comfortable. Also, the big thing I was worried about with it was colour reproduction.
There seems to be something of an issue with LCD/flat panel type monitors in that the colour reproduction varies wildly. On some monitors what can appear to be a dark red just becomes black on another. However, in my experience, colour on Samsung monitors is really good, so I got one of those and I tried it out and I can't tell any difference in colour with my old monitor.
Yes, my old monitor does still technically work, but here's the thing - it's started making a really loud "squeaking" noise. It's like a really high pitched buzzing - I'm sure you've heard electrical equipment make such noises. The problem of course is it becomes staggeringly annoying when you're sat working at you pc for hours and it's squeaking like that. Especially since it's not constant - it goes up and down in volume and pitch.
So that's why I got the new monitor. I got a really big widescreen one because they're dirt cheap. This one literally only cost a smidge over £200 - for a 24 inch widescreen monitor! It's 1920 & 1200 res - that's huge, and for only two-hundred quid! Marvellous.
My real problem, though is I still have lots more expenses coming up.
Firstly, it's my sister's 30th this year (I know - my Dad's 65th and my sister's 30th all in one year. How poor timing is that?) and so I'll need to spend a good couple of hundred on that.
Plus the other problem is this trip - I need to get loads of stuff for that. I never really go on proper holidays, so I don't even have a suitcase, for example. Plus I want (or need, since these ones are scratched) some new glasses for then and they're not cheap. Well, the frames are okay, it's lenses that are expensive as I have a high prescription and have to get the special glass to make them thin or it looks like I'm wearing double glazing.
And on top of that in March car stuff will be due - car tax, insurance and service. Service won't be so bad as the deal I had was to get that for free for 3 years, but I'm pretty sure my car will need a new set of tyres and those certainly won't be free.
But also, like some sort of idiot-that-doesn't-actually-have-the-money-but-is-going-to-spend-it-anyway I've a hankering to buy the latest versions of Photoshop and painter, as well as upgrade to Vista.
To be fair, it's not entirely my fault as such. And they are things I need or have to get. Plus I have managed to hold back on going totally nuts with spending.
What am I on about?
Well, basically this year my Dad turns 65. So this is something of a special birthday anyway and on top of that we, the family, have got a special trip planned (more on that at a later date). So as part of that it seemed an opportune time to get him a particular gift that's special to the event and his birthday.
Me and my sister are going halves on it, but I've actually bought the items in question, so that was big pay out number one. Actually technically, it's not finished as we need to get some supporting bits, but I think I'm going to shop around in the "real world" as I think I need to actually see them up close to some extent.
Now really my Dad's birthday isn't until October and we've also decided to use the money we would normally spend at Christmas as well. However, because of when the trip is, we needed to get the stuff early and I'd noticed some good deals (credit crunch seems to be having some benefits :/) so I took the plunge this week.
The other big spend was one I had to make. Well, actually, I didn't have to get what I did - I could have spent a lot less - but it seemed daft taking a step down from my current model if I was getting a new one.
Not sure why I was being so cryptic there - unlike the present I'm perfectly free to tell you I got a new monitor for my computer. What I got was a 24 inch widescreen LCD monitor.
It's really rather spiffing, although I had a Dickens of a time getting the base on. I ended up having to grease the attachment bit so it would slip on, but before that I think I pulled a muscle in my arm I was pushing to hard to get it on :(.
The monitor is really bright and clear - almost painfully so in a dark room with it up high. I had to turn it down quite a bit to make it comfortable. Also, the big thing I was worried about with it was colour reproduction.
There seems to be something of an issue with LCD/flat panel type monitors in that the colour reproduction varies wildly. On some monitors what can appear to be a dark red just becomes black on another. However, in my experience, colour on Samsung monitors is really good, so I got one of those and I tried it out and I can't tell any difference in colour with my old monitor.
Yes, my old monitor does still technically work, but here's the thing - it's started making a really loud "squeaking" noise. It's like a really high pitched buzzing - I'm sure you've heard electrical equipment make such noises. The problem of course is it becomes staggeringly annoying when you're sat working at you pc for hours and it's squeaking like that. Especially since it's not constant - it goes up and down in volume and pitch.
So that's why I got the new monitor. I got a really big widescreen one because they're dirt cheap. This one literally only cost a smidge over £200 - for a 24 inch widescreen monitor! It's 1920 & 1200 res - that's huge, and for only two-hundred quid! Marvellous.
My real problem, though is I still have lots more expenses coming up.
Firstly, it's my sister's 30th this year (I know - my Dad's 65th and my sister's 30th all in one year. How poor timing is that?) and so I'll need to spend a good couple of hundred on that.
Plus the other problem is this trip - I need to get loads of stuff for that. I never really go on proper holidays, so I don't even have a suitcase, for example. Plus I want (or need, since these ones are scratched) some new glasses for then and they're not cheap. Well, the frames are okay, it's lenses that are expensive as I have a high prescription and have to get the special glass to make them thin or it looks like I'm wearing double glazing.
And on top of that in March car stuff will be due - car tax, insurance and service. Service won't be so bad as the deal I had was to get that for free for 3 years, but I'm pretty sure my car will need a new set of tyres and those certainly won't be free.
But also, like some sort of idiot-that-doesn't-actually-have-the-money-but-is-going-to-spend-it-anyway I've a hankering to buy the latest versions of Photoshop and painter, as well as upgrade to Vista.
Wednesday, 25 February 2009
aliens v predator: requiem
The weekends DVD rental was Aliens v Predator: Requiem (or AVPRR as they rather sensibly re-named it).
I'm not sure I'd quite go so far as to say it was poor, but it wasn't great either.
Let's start with the positive - there were some fairly good fight scenes between the aliens and predator. There was also an appropriate aliens/predator total disregard for the humans approach.
One of the points of aliens and predator is that they're actually more horror than they are sci-fi and that means characters die randomly and in bucket loads, whether we as viewers like them or not.
It also tried a fairly neat trick - plopping the aliens and predators down in the middle of domestic life. The rest of plot was meant to resemble a soap-opera or similar and then bam! aliens and predators hacking and slashing their way through the town.
And there's a fairly cool coda/prologue type moment at the end.
However, the problems were myriad.
Firstly and most importantly it was way too dark. My guess is that this was almost necessary due to budgetary constraints. The film only cost $40M, so I guess making it pitch black means you can get away with more on the SFX front. Problem is that meant it was frustratingly difficult to see, well, anything. I had to slam the brightness way up on my TV :/.
Secondly, the whole normal suburban life thing kinda failed to be interesting. The characters were a little dull and predictable and it was difficult to really care about them. This whole aspect also seemed to be dumped wholesale about half the way through. When the aliens and predator really start doing there thing this aspect becomes almost totally irrelevant.
There were also a lot of weird things that didn't make any sense, mainly involving the predator.
At the beginning there's a whole thing with a distress signal. This is only answered by 1 predator, which seemed odd.
Then that predator behaves oddly when he finds the crashed ship, like he knew one of the other predators personally, but it's not really properly explained.
He then also behaves strangely when killing the aliens, using some weird blue fluid to dissolve them and any trace of them. Why, exactly he does this is not readily apparent. No predator has ever done anything like that before :/.
And if it's so that the humans don't catch on, firstly that makes no sense - predators don't give a shit about us - but also later on he kills a human and does the whole skinning them thing. So it's okay for humans to find that, but not traces of the aliens? Odd.
There's other stuff too (especially the Peed-Alien), but you get the point.
Overall I wouldn't really recommend it.
I'm not sure I'd quite go so far as to say it was poor, but it wasn't great either.
Let's start with the positive - there were some fairly good fight scenes between the aliens and predator. There was also an appropriate aliens/predator total disregard for the humans approach.
One of the points of aliens and predator is that they're actually more horror than they are sci-fi and that means characters die randomly and in bucket loads, whether we as viewers like them or not.
It also tried a fairly neat trick - plopping the aliens and predators down in the middle of domestic life. The rest of plot was meant to resemble a soap-opera or similar and then bam! aliens and predators hacking and slashing their way through the town.
And there's a fairly cool coda/prologue type moment at the end.
However, the problems were myriad.
Firstly and most importantly it was way too dark. My guess is that this was almost necessary due to budgetary constraints. The film only cost $40M, so I guess making it pitch black means you can get away with more on the SFX front. Problem is that meant it was frustratingly difficult to see, well, anything. I had to slam the brightness way up on my TV :/.
Secondly, the whole normal suburban life thing kinda failed to be interesting. The characters were a little dull and predictable and it was difficult to really care about them. This whole aspect also seemed to be dumped wholesale about half the way through. When the aliens and predator really start doing there thing this aspect becomes almost totally irrelevant.
There were also a lot of weird things that didn't make any sense, mainly involving the predator.
At the beginning there's a whole thing with a distress signal. This is only answered by 1 predator, which seemed odd.
Then that predator behaves oddly when he finds the crashed ship, like he knew one of the other predators personally, but it's not really properly explained.
He then also behaves strangely when killing the aliens, using some weird blue fluid to dissolve them and any trace of them. Why, exactly he does this is not readily apparent. No predator has ever done anything like that before :/.
And if it's so that the humans don't catch on, firstly that makes no sense - predators don't give a shit about us - but also later on he kills a human and does the whole skinning them thing. So it's okay for humans to find that, but not traces of the aliens? Odd.
There's other stuff too (especially the Peed-Alien), but you get the point.
Overall I wouldn't really recommend it.
Tuesday, 24 February 2009
the wee free men
I finished the wee free men over the weekend. It's pretty damn good I have to say. I've started on Wintersmith, which is the third of this set of books and it seems pretty good too.
I've always liked the Discworld's take on Witches. I think it's one of the things I miss the most from the earlier books. A lot of the earlier books involved both the witches and the wizards and while I wouldn't want to put down the later books simply because the witches aren't in them, I wish they'd pop up more often.
The wizards make a few appearances, but then Unseen University is on the outskirts of Ankh Morpork, so it's not much of a stretch. The witches seem mainly to live in the rural areas and most of the recent books have been set in Ankh Morpork so it's less easy to have them pop up, I guess.
Hopefully I can also keep up a decent head of steam with book reading and plough into my unread book pile some. If I'm honest it's the pile that I'm most regretful about not tackling. Reading is kinda my lifeblood - sort of like entertainment in its purest form for me.
The next most regretful pile is the games I think. This is mainly because I know the amount of time it would take to play them all through properly makes it the most difficult pile to tackle properly. Plus of course I've got a really powerful machine "for gaming" that just sort of sits there doing nothing most of the time :(.
I'm sure I've mentioned this before, but I've been trying to write scripts recently, rather than a novel. It's been going pretty well and I'm kinda enjoying the process more than I do writing prose.
I started off with doing Man-in-the-Loop, which has generally been my most consistent project, though it's a bit complex and twisty at times for me to get my head around. Plus I realised I wanted the murders in it to be more realistic and I think I need to let it gestate a bit more before I continue properly.
I have started adapting another plot idea I had into a film script, though. It's going pretty well, but then it was always one of those ideas that I had quite well mapped out in my mind but never got properly started on actually writing.
Oh, and I forgot to mention yesterday, but that order cock-up I mentioned last week got all sorted so that was good, and I want' out of pocket. Plus now I finally get to watch Code Geass ! Yay!
I've always liked the Discworld's take on Witches. I think it's one of the things I miss the most from the earlier books. A lot of the earlier books involved both the witches and the wizards and while I wouldn't want to put down the later books simply because the witches aren't in them, I wish they'd pop up more often.
The wizards make a few appearances, but then Unseen University is on the outskirts of Ankh Morpork, so it's not much of a stretch. The witches seem mainly to live in the rural areas and most of the recent books have been set in Ankh Morpork so it's less easy to have them pop up, I guess.
Hopefully I can also keep up a decent head of steam with book reading and plough into my unread book pile some. If I'm honest it's the pile that I'm most regretful about not tackling. Reading is kinda my lifeblood - sort of like entertainment in its purest form for me.
The next most regretful pile is the games I think. This is mainly because I know the amount of time it would take to play them all through properly makes it the most difficult pile to tackle properly. Plus of course I've got a really powerful machine "for gaming" that just sort of sits there doing nothing most of the time :(.
I'm sure I've mentioned this before, but I've been trying to write scripts recently, rather than a novel. It's been going pretty well and I'm kinda enjoying the process more than I do writing prose.
I started off with doing Man-in-the-Loop, which has generally been my most consistent project, though it's a bit complex and twisty at times for me to get my head around. Plus I realised I wanted the murders in it to be more realistic and I think I need to let it gestate a bit more before I continue properly.
I have started adapting another plot idea I had into a film script, though. It's going pretty well, but then it was always one of those ideas that I had quite well mapped out in my mind but never got properly started on actually writing.
Oh, and I forgot to mention yesterday, but that order cock-up I mentioned last week got all sorted so that was good, and I want' out of pocket. Plus now I finally get to watch Code Geass ! Yay!
Monday, 23 February 2009
website-a-rific
This weekend was mainly spent creating updates for my main websites, trismugistus.com and digital-bondage.net.
It can be something of a painful experience updating the websites. This is mainly because I don't really know much of anything about html or all the other web languages. My guess is that a lot of stuff on the sites could be done in much better, more automatic ways, but I don't know how, so they aren't.
The other problem is I like to mix things up. By that I mean that if this week I upload an anime review then next week I want to have anew wallpaper and then after that a manga review, then a psd file.
Admittedly that's not a huge range of stuff, but then over the years I've kinda learnt to focus the site on a few small areas. However, it still makes things chaotic, because that means I'm all over the place. In order to update something different I have to fiddle about with a different bit of the site (and also get the raw materials from a different part of my computer) and so I get very confused very quickly.
I swear sometimes that updating the site is 90% me looking in the wrong folders and 10% me actually doing stuff.
You see what I generally do is create the material I use on my site weeks, even months in advance. This allows me the chance to do it properly as well as allow things to gestate and change over time.
I then have a weekend like this one every so often where I blast through and do maybe anything up to 10 updates. The new and modified files for each update are then archived (and backed up - I learnt that lesson the hard way!) and I upload them at the appropriate time anything up to a few months later.
But as I say - it's easy to get very confused.
What else?
Oh yeah, I finally finished Trigun. It gets massively better in the last third or so, but for me it was just not enough to elevate the series.
Fundamentally, I guess the question comes down to whether the early stuff is necessary or not. Some of it is, in that it gives a contrast to the later parts. You couldn't jump into the last third and really get the full impact. But then I think you could easily loose about half of it and still get the impact.
I mean, it's not exactly filler, as such, but it's also not totally necessary.
Also, there was the issue I mentioned before about Vash suddenly pulling a stupid face and bursting out laughing at random or inopportune moments. That grated a bit.
I'll do a full review at some point.
It was quite the week for big announcements last week, as I mentioned before, and Funimation finished it off with Mnemosyne, another show I want.. Plus tokyopop appear to have a few new licenses that look interesting. I'm gonna be really skint in the coming months :(.
It can be something of a painful experience updating the websites. This is mainly because I don't really know much of anything about html or all the other web languages. My guess is that a lot of stuff on the sites could be done in much better, more automatic ways, but I don't know how, so they aren't.
The other problem is I like to mix things up. By that I mean that if this week I upload an anime review then next week I want to have anew wallpaper and then after that a manga review, then a psd file.
Admittedly that's not a huge range of stuff, but then over the years I've kinda learnt to focus the site on a few small areas. However, it still makes things chaotic, because that means I'm all over the place. In order to update something different I have to fiddle about with a different bit of the site (and also get the raw materials from a different part of my computer) and so I get very confused very quickly.
I swear sometimes that updating the site is 90% me looking in the wrong folders and 10% me actually doing stuff.
You see what I generally do is create the material I use on my site weeks, even months in advance. This allows me the chance to do it properly as well as allow things to gestate and change over time.
I then have a weekend like this one every so often where I blast through and do maybe anything up to 10 updates. The new and modified files for each update are then archived (and backed up - I learnt that lesson the hard way!) and I upload them at the appropriate time anything up to a few months later.
But as I say - it's easy to get very confused.
What else?
Oh yeah, I finally finished Trigun. It gets massively better in the last third or so, but for me it was just not enough to elevate the series.
Fundamentally, I guess the question comes down to whether the early stuff is necessary or not. Some of it is, in that it gives a contrast to the later parts. You couldn't jump into the last third and really get the full impact. But then I think you could easily loose about half of it and still get the impact.
I mean, it's not exactly filler, as such, but it's also not totally necessary.
Also, there was the issue I mentioned before about Vash suddenly pulling a stupid face and bursting out laughing at random or inopportune moments. That grated a bit.
I'll do a full review at some point.
It was quite the week for big announcements last week, as I mentioned before, and Funimation finished it off with Mnemosyne, another show I want.. Plus tokyopop appear to have a few new licenses that look interesting. I'm gonna be really skint in the coming months :(.
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