I hate pooing at work (now there's an opening sentence to a blog!).
There are two basic problems:
1. It smells and makes noise. There's little you can do about these - shit smells and you've really no way of controlling the noise.
2. It's obvious you've been for one. It takes at least twice as long as going for a slash, so there's no real way to hide it. Plus when you come back your clothes are re-arranged/tidied in a way they wouldn't normally be. Combine these with point 1 and it's pretty damn obvious what you've just done.
My issue with it is that this is kinda embarrassing. I mean, obviously everyone poos, but you wouldn't walk up to someone on the street and say "Hi, I've just defecated!" would you? But that's effectively what you're doing at work.
There's lots of evidence and potentially some embarrassing smells and noise.
Anyway, hopefully it'll be a somewhat productive weekend (I'm off the subject of poo now).
I've been trying to get stuff done during the week a bit - watching telly and tidying up for example where I have been leaving these to the weekend. That should mean a bit of free time.
I'm desperate for a haircut - it looks like I've got a mop on my head. Plus the Australian Grand Prix is on so I need to have a few spare hours to watch that. I really need to get this scanning done too as it won't be long before I get the next lot of magazines.
Unfortunately it's also a cleaning weekend this weekend so I'll have to clean the flat too, so we'll see how it goes.
Friday, 27 March 2009
Thursday, 26 March 2009
teribi
I've been banging on a bit about all the telly I've been watching, but I've not really been that specific about it.
I tend to watch a lot of documentaries and what I call pseudo-documentaries. Just recently there have been a lot of nature documentaries in particular.
Nature's Great Events was one. It's featured some beautiful photography, although I have to admit I've not really learned anything new. There were some bits - the artic one had some interesting stuff, but others like the Serengeti have kinda been covered before. Not that I'm saying it was bad, just not particularly new.
There's also a new series on Yellowstone. This one has been really interesting and also features much in the way of spectacular photography. Plus I really didn't know much about Yellowstone other than it's a really big volcano and one day it'll erupt and wipe out most life in North America and the dust thrown up will plunge the Earth into a mini ice age.
The other documentaries I've been watching have mainly been about Darwin and his theory of Evolution as part of a Darwin season (it's 200 years since his birth). Now whilst I greatly admire Darwin and think the Theory of Evolution is quite brilliant, these programs have kinda been running into two problems.
The first problem is that Darwin himself and his life isn't actually all that interesting. Darwin was independently wealthy and essentially devoted his entire life to gathering evidence for his Theory of Evolution. He didn't have any affairs, wasn't particularly scandalous and was a methodical and patient scientist. Which is all good, but there's only so many times you can hear that without it getting a bit repetitive.
I think that's also why people make so much out of the Galapagos trip. The reality was that he didn't really have any kind of "Eureka" moment on the Galapagos - his theory was really developed much later, it's just that people like Eureka moments.
The second problem they're having is that the Theory of Evolution is actually pretty simple. So that means documentaries explaining it are kinda all treading on the same ground.
The most successful of the docs have been those looking at the Theory at a more oblique angle - either looking at it from an oblique angle or looking at it in the context of society at the time or how people have misused, abused, misinterpreted or misunderstood it.
I also mentioned pseudo-documentaries - what do I mean by those?
Well, they're basically entertainment masquerading as a documentary. That's not meant as a criticism - I wouldn't watch them if I didn't like them - but it does make them separate. The distinction is that a documentary entertains while educating, a pseudo-doc entertains with a veneer of education.
A good example is Ramsey's Kitchen Nightmares, where old sweary-chops goes to kitchens, tells everyone they're doing a shit job and then makes them do a better job.
Specifically they're currently showing the American variant - Kitchen Nightmares USA. To be frank it's a hugely inferior product. It's amazing how different the style is to the British version.
The British version feels more real and organic to me, somehow. I mean, every week always follows the same basic pattern, but somehow in the British version it feels more like he gets to the heart of the problem and focuses on changing those, whereas in the US version it's more like they have a broader list of problems that are given equal weight. There's also a lot less swearing in the US version, interestingly, although the US version works more in the way of sound bites, they're not ones with lots of effing and geoffing in.
Another good pseudo-documentary is Grand Designs. This is all about people building their own homes or doing bespoke conversions. You get some truly bonkers ideas on the show and some of the homes are real ugly things when they're finished in my opinion. Still it's kinda nice to watch people living their dreams, especially if those dreams end up a bit nightmarish.
Britain's Best Drives has been another entertaining pseudo-doc. This one features Richard Wilson driving around bits of Britain in 50s cars. It's gentle fair, but entertaining nonetheless. Though I'm not sure how it sits with Global Warming...
What else?
Oh yeah, BBC4 has started a new season on Japan. I've not watched much of that yet, but it's all been PVRd (this is where I get into trouble you see - all the normal shows above and these come along and suddenly I've hours of unwatched telly to catch up on).
A new series of The Gadget Show has just started. I do love the Gadget Show - it's a good mixture of fun stuff and actual practical advice and reviews. Sort of like half way between old Top Gear and new Top Gear but with gadgets instead of cars, obviously.
Some new comedy shows have just started. Horne and Cordon which is by the Gavin and Stacey guys. It's a sketch show and I've got to say it's more miss than it is hit. There's a few good laughs, but lets put it this way - when you're parodying the pottery bit in the film ghost you know you're in some serious old ground.
Then there's Genius Dave Gorman's new one. It's surprisingly funny, though I have a soft spot for Dave Gorman (I know what you're thinking - you're thinking what that's done to the Graph?)
There's load of other stuff too, but this entry is way too long already!
I tend to watch a lot of documentaries and what I call pseudo-documentaries. Just recently there have been a lot of nature documentaries in particular.
Nature's Great Events was one. It's featured some beautiful photography, although I have to admit I've not really learned anything new. There were some bits - the artic one had some interesting stuff, but others like the Serengeti have kinda been covered before. Not that I'm saying it was bad, just not particularly new.
There's also a new series on Yellowstone. This one has been really interesting and also features much in the way of spectacular photography. Plus I really didn't know much about Yellowstone other than it's a really big volcano and one day it'll erupt and wipe out most life in North America and the dust thrown up will plunge the Earth into a mini ice age.
The other documentaries I've been watching have mainly been about Darwin and his theory of Evolution as part of a Darwin season (it's 200 years since his birth). Now whilst I greatly admire Darwin and think the Theory of Evolution is quite brilliant, these programs have kinda been running into two problems.
The first problem is that Darwin himself and his life isn't actually all that interesting. Darwin was independently wealthy and essentially devoted his entire life to gathering evidence for his Theory of Evolution. He didn't have any affairs, wasn't particularly scandalous and was a methodical and patient scientist. Which is all good, but there's only so many times you can hear that without it getting a bit repetitive.
I think that's also why people make so much out of the Galapagos trip. The reality was that he didn't really have any kind of "Eureka" moment on the Galapagos - his theory was really developed much later, it's just that people like Eureka moments.
The second problem they're having is that the Theory of Evolution is actually pretty simple. So that means documentaries explaining it are kinda all treading on the same ground.
The most successful of the docs have been those looking at the Theory at a more oblique angle - either looking at it from an oblique angle or looking at it in the context of society at the time or how people have misused, abused, misinterpreted or misunderstood it.
I also mentioned pseudo-documentaries - what do I mean by those?
Well, they're basically entertainment masquerading as a documentary. That's not meant as a criticism - I wouldn't watch them if I didn't like them - but it does make them separate. The distinction is that a documentary entertains while educating, a pseudo-doc entertains with a veneer of education.
A good example is Ramsey's Kitchen Nightmares, where old sweary-chops goes to kitchens, tells everyone they're doing a shit job and then makes them do a better job.
Specifically they're currently showing the American variant - Kitchen Nightmares USA. To be frank it's a hugely inferior product. It's amazing how different the style is to the British version.
The British version feels more real and organic to me, somehow. I mean, every week always follows the same basic pattern, but somehow in the British version it feels more like he gets to the heart of the problem and focuses on changing those, whereas in the US version it's more like they have a broader list of problems that are given equal weight. There's also a lot less swearing in the US version, interestingly, although the US version works more in the way of sound bites, they're not ones with lots of effing and geoffing in.
Another good pseudo-documentary is Grand Designs. This is all about people building their own homes or doing bespoke conversions. You get some truly bonkers ideas on the show and some of the homes are real ugly things when they're finished in my opinion. Still it's kinda nice to watch people living their dreams, especially if those dreams end up a bit nightmarish.
Britain's Best Drives has been another entertaining pseudo-doc. This one features Richard Wilson driving around bits of Britain in 50s cars. It's gentle fair, but entertaining nonetheless. Though I'm not sure how it sits with Global Warming...
What else?
Oh yeah, BBC4 has started a new season on Japan. I've not watched much of that yet, but it's all been PVRd (this is where I get into trouble you see - all the normal shows above and these come along and suddenly I've hours of unwatched telly to catch up on).
A new series of The Gadget Show has just started. I do love the Gadget Show - it's a good mixture of fun stuff and actual practical advice and reviews. Sort of like half way between old Top Gear and new Top Gear but with gadgets instead of cars, obviously.
Some new comedy shows have just started. Horne and Cordon which is by the Gavin and Stacey guys. It's a sketch show and I've got to say it's more miss than it is hit. There's a few good laughs, but lets put it this way - when you're parodying the pottery bit in the film ghost you know you're in some serious old ground.
Then there's Genius Dave Gorman's new one. It's surprisingly funny, though I have a soft spot for Dave Gorman (I know what you're thinking - you're thinking what that's done to the Graph?)
There's load of other stuff too, but this entry is way too long already!
Wednesday, 25 March 2009
inconweebleant
The weekend DVD rental was An Inconvenient Truth, which was the documentary on Global Warming presented by Al Gore.
There's not really a lot I can say about it, tbh.
It's well worth watching the documentary as the case for Global Warming is well presented. There's also no particular howlers in terms of the scene used - there are a few things that are over-simplified, but it's basically all there.
I'd say go and watch it, hopefully it'll do its job.
Anyway, in the absence of a proper film review I thought I'd talk about Death Note http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/encyclopedia/manga.php?id=4354 instead.
I may have mentioned it before, but the point is I've been reading Death Note.
Well, reading it is something of an understatement - "obsessively ploughing through it" would be a better description, tbh :/.
I did a similar thing with Genshiken - I'd bought all of the 9 volumes and once I'd started reading I really got that 'can't put it down' vibe and read it all in a week or two. It was really addictive, and it was also kinda a bad idea as I ended up going to bed really late and being shattered at work all day.
I've been a bit more sensible with Death Note, but I'm really enjoying it.
Weird thing is, though, until quite near the end of volume 1 I wasn't actually enjoying it that much. I dunno, it's odd and a little difficult to describe.
Basically, I've occasionally found with manga and anime that the portrayals of things can be utterly unrealistic. Now, obviously some stuff is meant to be 'unrealistic', like in Death Note, the existence of Shinigami or whatever, but those things are fine. I've no problem with them because they're genuine fantasy elements or things from the writers imagination or similar.
The problem is more stuff that's meant to be real or believable but is blatantly just wrong or silly or stupid.
In the case of Death Note, for example, there's this bizarre relationship between the NPA (Japan's FBI), the regular Japanese police, the FBI, Interpol and the G8 nations. These relationships are clearly wrong, but also made up in weird and illogical ways.
So in other words, my problem is almost that the writer hasn't bothered to do any real research and has instead made it up and got it badly wrong. The reason I have a problem with that is it's incredibly distracting to suddenly have something so jarringly wrong when you're otherwise enjoying what's going on. Normally it would really affect my enjoyment.
Ah, but I did say I was really enjoying Death Note, yes? Well I am and it's because the central plot and the relationship between the two main characters is extremely well done and incredibly interesting.
As such, despite my misgivings over the occasional "reality goof" I've still been enjoying it.
What's more it's full of really big twists. It's really not afraid to throw hefty spanners into the workings of its own story. The really clever thing is it then pick up the cogs and builds something even more intriguing each time it does.
There's not really a lot I can say about it, tbh.
It's well worth watching the documentary as the case for Global Warming is well presented. There's also no particular howlers in terms of the scene used - there are a few things that are over-simplified, but it's basically all there.
I'd say go and watch it, hopefully it'll do its job.
Anyway, in the absence of a proper film review I thought I'd talk about Death Note http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/encyclopedia/manga.php?id=4354 instead.
I may have mentioned it before, but the point is I've been reading Death Note.
Well, reading it is something of an understatement - "obsessively ploughing through it" would be a better description, tbh :/.
I did a similar thing with Genshiken - I'd bought all of the 9 volumes and once I'd started reading I really got that 'can't put it down' vibe and read it all in a week or two. It was really addictive, and it was also kinda a bad idea as I ended up going to bed really late and being shattered at work all day.
I've been a bit more sensible with Death Note, but I'm really enjoying it.
Weird thing is, though, until quite near the end of volume 1 I wasn't actually enjoying it that much. I dunno, it's odd and a little difficult to describe.
Basically, I've occasionally found with manga and anime that the portrayals of things can be utterly unrealistic. Now, obviously some stuff is meant to be 'unrealistic', like in Death Note, the existence of Shinigami or whatever, but those things are fine. I've no problem with them because they're genuine fantasy elements or things from the writers imagination or similar.
The problem is more stuff that's meant to be real or believable but is blatantly just wrong or silly or stupid.
In the case of Death Note, for example, there's this bizarre relationship between the NPA (Japan's FBI), the regular Japanese police, the FBI, Interpol and the G8 nations. These relationships are clearly wrong, but also made up in weird and illogical ways.
So in other words, my problem is almost that the writer hasn't bothered to do any real research and has instead made it up and got it badly wrong. The reason I have a problem with that is it's incredibly distracting to suddenly have something so jarringly wrong when you're otherwise enjoying what's going on. Normally it would really affect my enjoyment.
Ah, but I did say I was really enjoying Death Note, yes? Well I am and it's because the central plot and the relationship between the two main characters is extremely well done and incredibly interesting.
As such, despite my misgivings over the occasional "reality goof" I've still been enjoying it.
What's more it's full of really big twists. It's really not afraid to throw hefty spanners into the workings of its own story. The really clever thing is it then pick up the cogs and builds something even more intriguing each time it does.
Tuesday, 24 March 2009
weekend of nothing in particular
Well I feel better after yesterday's rant. As you can tell, I was unimpressed with the changes to say the least.
As you'll probably guess I put some stuff up on e-bay at the weekend. There was a bit more than I'd expected, actually as I thought I'd sell one or two things I'd held back on the last time I was doing an e-bay session. Hopefully it'll generate a bit of cashola and basically pay for getting my car taxed/serviced/insured.
However, the e-baying was about the only success I had at the weekend. I really didn't do very much at all.
I've a couple of reasons (excuses?) for that. The first was last Friday. It was an appalling day and I was utterly shattered when I got home and basically didn't really start to feel recovered until Sunday afternoon :/.
Second excuse was it turned out it was Mother's day on Sunday. I'd totally forgotten and while it doesn't affect me directly (my mother having passed away) it meant I deliberately had to put a few things off because it would be choka-block in town.
Which was also something I couldn't do. Because I'd forgotten I hadn't gone shopping on Friday and instead found myself having to go to buy a few bits on Saturday otherwise I wouldn't have had anything to eat. That meant several hours basically wasted because I didn't plan things properly.
Lastly, this week's rental DVD turned out to have 2 commentary tracks so that took a lot longer to watch than I was anticipating.
Anyway, whether they're reasons or excuses the basic point is I haven't started any scanning and I didn't watch any anime. I didn't actually get fully caught up on my recorded TV.
In fact, there's such a lot of recorded TV for me to watch I'm at serious risk of getting snowed under by it. I need to decide what the best order to do stuff in is.
As you'll probably guess I put some stuff up on e-bay at the weekend. There was a bit more than I'd expected, actually as I thought I'd sell one or two things I'd held back on the last time I was doing an e-bay session. Hopefully it'll generate a bit of cashola and basically pay for getting my car taxed/serviced/insured.
However, the e-baying was about the only success I had at the weekend. I really didn't do very much at all.
I've a couple of reasons (excuses?) for that. The first was last Friday. It was an appalling day and I was utterly shattered when I got home and basically didn't really start to feel recovered until Sunday afternoon :/.
Second excuse was it turned out it was Mother's day on Sunday. I'd totally forgotten and while it doesn't affect me directly (my mother having passed away) it meant I deliberately had to put a few things off because it would be choka-block in town.
Which was also something I couldn't do. Because I'd forgotten I hadn't gone shopping on Friday and instead found myself having to go to buy a few bits on Saturday otherwise I wouldn't have had anything to eat. That meant several hours basically wasted because I didn't plan things properly.
Lastly, this week's rental DVD turned out to have 2 commentary tracks so that took a lot longer to watch than I was anticipating.
Anyway, whether they're reasons or excuses the basic point is I haven't started any scanning and I didn't watch any anime. I didn't actually get fully caught up on my recorded TV.
In fact, there's such a lot of recorded TV for me to watch I'm at serious risk of getting snowed under by it. I need to decide what the best order to do stuff in is.
Monday, 23 March 2009
a big fat fuck you to e-bay
I normally try to keep swearing to a minimum in my blogs - just to keep them basically polite, as if I'm talking to an acquaintance, rather than a friend.
I'm not going to do that in this entry, because I'm extremely annoyed.
E-bay are a bunch of cunts.
Why the rage?
Because e-bay have done something extraordinarily retarded - they've capped postage costs.
Now fair enough, you may think, people that charge £20 on postage for a single DVD are clearly arseholes. But the problem is the way they've gone about it.
Rather than have some simple system of maximum charges based on weight of the item (since that's what the cost actually depends on) they've set a single maximum price.
What's more, like a bunch of douches, some of these max prices are ZERO - notably on DVDs. That's right, you have to have a free postage option for DVDs.
How fucking stupid is that?
So someone like me who specialises in things like box sets and collections of manga now has to have a free postage option? When it can cost up to £10 to send the thing?! I don't fucking think so, you bunch of shit-eating mother-fuckers.
It becomes patently obvious how retarded this system is if you think about sending a single DVD.
If you put a DVD on at a starting price of less than £1 e-bay doesn't charge you a listing fee. However, popular DVDs (so there's lots of copies in circulation) can often sell for less than a £1. Guess what? It costs more than £1 to send the thing.
I think many e-bayers are reasonable enough people to not mind selling DVDs cheaply so long as it doesn't cost them anything. They've already bought the DVD after all!
But with e-bays new retarded system you have to add the postage cost into your initial price, which is bound to make it more than £1. That means you get charged an insertion fee.
It then becomes patently obvious what they're doing - they're trying to suck even more cash out of buyers and sellers.
Because not only are their insertion fees, remember, e-bay also charge you % of the final cost. Plus they own paypal, which if your buyer uses that will also charge you a % fee! Now previously they couldn't charge for the postage, but by forcing you to include it in the initial price, they can charge you.
Plus they're screwing you up the arse because buyers will see that your initial bis is somethign silly like £2.50 but with free postage. Psychologically people will instinctively not go for this - I've found this in my own experiences that I've blogged about before.
What a bunch of cunts.
I think I've found a way around it, though, by using the "courier" option. This seems to allow me to not have silly starting prices, though I've no idea if I will then get charged at the end. I probably will.
I mean seriously - if they wanted to make even more money (not that they aren't dripping with it already) then they should have just put the fees up. Be honest about it. Being stealthy just makes you seem like a bunch of cunts. Which they are.
Oh - and btw, just to add insult to injury they've done this under the pretext (i.e. total fabrication) that buyers "have told them they want these maximum prices". Any buyer that thinks this is a good idea is a bigger retard than e-bay and should clearly be disregarded (if not shot out of a big cannon into the middle of the Atlantic).
I'm not going to do that in this entry, because I'm extremely annoyed.
E-bay are a bunch of cunts.
Why the rage?
Because e-bay have done something extraordinarily retarded - they've capped postage costs.
Now fair enough, you may think, people that charge £20 on postage for a single DVD are clearly arseholes. But the problem is the way they've gone about it.
Rather than have some simple system of maximum charges based on weight of the item (since that's what the cost actually depends on) they've set a single maximum price.
What's more, like a bunch of douches, some of these max prices are ZERO - notably on DVDs. That's right, you have to have a free postage option for DVDs.
How fucking stupid is that?
So someone like me who specialises in things like box sets and collections of manga now has to have a free postage option? When it can cost up to £10 to send the thing?! I don't fucking think so, you bunch of shit-eating mother-fuckers.
It becomes patently obvious how retarded this system is if you think about sending a single DVD.
If you put a DVD on at a starting price of less than £1 e-bay doesn't charge you a listing fee. However, popular DVDs (so there's lots of copies in circulation) can often sell for less than a £1. Guess what? It costs more than £1 to send the thing.
I think many e-bayers are reasonable enough people to not mind selling DVDs cheaply so long as it doesn't cost them anything. They've already bought the DVD after all!
But with e-bays new retarded system you have to add the postage cost into your initial price, which is bound to make it more than £1. That means you get charged an insertion fee.
It then becomes patently obvious what they're doing - they're trying to suck even more cash out of buyers and sellers.
Because not only are their insertion fees, remember, e-bay also charge you % of the final cost. Plus they own paypal, which if your buyer uses that will also charge you a % fee! Now previously they couldn't charge for the postage, but by forcing you to include it in the initial price, they can charge you.
Plus they're screwing you up the arse because buyers will see that your initial bis is somethign silly like £2.50 but with free postage. Psychologically people will instinctively not go for this - I've found this in my own experiences that I've blogged about before.
What a bunch of cunts.
I think I've found a way around it, though, by using the "courier" option. This seems to allow me to not have silly starting prices, though I've no idea if I will then get charged at the end. I probably will.
I mean seriously - if they wanted to make even more money (not that they aren't dripping with it already) then they should have just put the fees up. Be honest about it. Being stealthy just makes you seem like a bunch of cunts. Which they are.
Oh - and btw, just to add insult to injury they've done this under the pretext (i.e. total fabrication) that buyers "have told them they want these maximum prices". Any buyer that thinks this is a good idea is a bigger retard than e-bay and should clearly be disregarded (if not shot out of a big cannon into the middle of the Atlantic).
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