I finished Saki this week.
I've been surprised by how much I enjoyed it if I'm honest. I still don't know the exact ins and outs of Mah-jong, and while a full knowledge didn't prove necessary in order to enjoy the show, I think if you know the game you'll probably get on better with some of the stuff.
One of the odd things about Saki is it's a mix of tournament manga where the characters are involved in battles against each other and high-school romcom. For me the blending sort of worked, although the romcom element is a bit weaker than the tournament side.
Also, as I mentioned before, it seems like any girl interested in Mah-jong is basically a lesbian, which although not something I'm entirely against, it gets a bit repetitive in a way. And it'd be nice if there were more complicated relationships in there - love rivals or love triangles for example. But then the sexual stuff is more an undercurrent than an explicit thing, so I guess that'd be going too far really.
The other odd thing is the pacing of the show.
There's quite a lot of prep stuff that builds logically into a regional tournament situation involving teams. This all works fine, but the problem is that doesn't represent the end of the show.
Instead, after this you get a lull and then it's into a second regional tournament involving individuals. Again, this builds to a climax, but then yet again, you get another lull and then you're launched into the nationals.
Except you aren't, because that's where the show ends.
It even goes to the slightly odd extreme of having highlights of 'what happens next' across the end credits and a final card saying "the adventure has only just begun".
Even though it's the end of the series.
And given the manga is only at 6 volumes and Gonzo has pretty much folded, it seems unlikely the story will ever continue. Which is a bit of shame really as it'd be nice to reach a proper conclusion. Maybe the manga will get licensed and I'll be able to follow it there.
Plans for the weekend currently revolve around Modern Warfare 2. In a typically impatient bit of planning, rather than add it to my pile of un-played games I installed it and started playing. As such, I'm not actually sure how much there will be left for me to play over the weekend, but then if I finish it I'll have to catch up on all the telly I've skipped in order to make room for me to watch it, so I won't be lacking things to do.
Friday, 13 November 2009
Thursday, 12 November 2009
stuff, stuff and more stuff
This last couple of months I've been drowning in new stuff.
Obviously I'm aware that Christmas is 'just around the corner' so in a way it should be no big surprise, but I dunno, I'd always kinda assumed most of the stuff I buy is rather immune from the Chrimbo effect.
The best example is that I'm collecting quite a few manga series and manga is released periodically. Now for some series that have been going for a while there's a gap between what's being released in the west and where the series is in Japan, so it can only been two or three months between new volumes. For others they're pretty much up with the Japanese, so it's more like one a year.
So if that's the case, how come every single series I'm collecting has volumes out either this month or next month and in some cases in January too. In order for that to happen they must all be trying to release a Christmas volume or two.
Which initially seemed a little illogical to me. If these things are coming out every few months or in the middle of the year then people are buying them anyway. In other words, they're not really Christmas present territory.
Generally, stuff comes out at Christmas because it can then be bought as gifts, you see. The good example of that for stuff I buy is computer games. COD: Modern warfare 2 came out this week and I'm sure it's therefore lodged on a lot of people's Christmas lists (even if it is an 18-rated title).
But then it occurred to me - people get money as a present too, so then it makes more sense to have these 'non-Christmas' items out too. It gives people something to spend their Christmas money on, especially given the manga market has been in a bit of a decline. So it's more like a sensible "alignment" than bringing them out specifically as gift items.
Anyway, the real point of this is that because I pre-order everything on Amazon ages in advance I don't tend to pay attention to the dates. And because of how complex the dates are I generally set everything to deliver "as soon as possible". I mean, it doesn't make sense if you're ordering two things, one of which goes on sale in October 2009 and the other in August 2010 to put it as "despatch together" does it?
Well no, but this means that over the last couple of weeks I've received a constant stream of parcels of new stuff. Indeed, it's gotten to the stage that it's sucked all of the money out of my bank account. Considering I keep about £200 in that account and each book only costs about £8 delivered, you get some idea how many things have been sent.
In fact I've actually switched the payment method over to a credit card because I just don't have the cash to cover it all and I swore I'd never do that after I racked up so much debt before :/.
Obviously I'm aware that Christmas is 'just around the corner' so in a way it should be no big surprise, but I dunno, I'd always kinda assumed most of the stuff I buy is rather immune from the Chrimbo effect.
The best example is that I'm collecting quite a few manga series and manga is released periodically. Now for some series that have been going for a while there's a gap between what's being released in the west and where the series is in Japan, so it can only been two or three months between new volumes. For others they're pretty much up with the Japanese, so it's more like one a year.
So if that's the case, how come every single series I'm collecting has volumes out either this month or next month and in some cases in January too. In order for that to happen they must all be trying to release a Christmas volume or two.
Which initially seemed a little illogical to me. If these things are coming out every few months or in the middle of the year then people are buying them anyway. In other words, they're not really Christmas present territory.
Generally, stuff comes out at Christmas because it can then be bought as gifts, you see. The good example of that for stuff I buy is computer games. COD: Modern warfare 2 came out this week and I'm sure it's therefore lodged on a lot of people's Christmas lists (even if it is an 18-rated title).
But then it occurred to me - people get money as a present too, so then it makes more sense to have these 'non-Christmas' items out too. It gives people something to spend their Christmas money on, especially given the manga market has been in a bit of a decline. So it's more like a sensible "alignment" than bringing them out specifically as gift items.
Anyway, the real point of this is that because I pre-order everything on Amazon ages in advance I don't tend to pay attention to the dates. And because of how complex the dates are I generally set everything to deliver "as soon as possible". I mean, it doesn't make sense if you're ordering two things, one of which goes on sale in October 2009 and the other in August 2010 to put it as "despatch together" does it?
Well no, but this means that over the last couple of weeks I've received a constant stream of parcels of new stuff. Indeed, it's gotten to the stage that it's sucked all of the money out of my bank account. Considering I keep about £200 in that account and each book only costs about £8 delivered, you get some idea how many things have been sent.
In fact I've actually switched the payment method over to a credit card because I just don't have the cash to cover it all and I swore I'd never do that after I racked up so much debt before :/.
Wednesday, 11 November 2009
the dark knight
I'm having a little difficulty knowing how to start this review.
The reason is Dark Knight was a massively popular film and came with a massive amount if hype. And I have a weird reaction to hype. I've discussed it before, so I won't bore you with the details, but it tends to turn me off a bit.
The problem is either a reactionary streak in my personality or a slight disconnection from the zeitgeist. Or probably both.
It doesn't help in this case that Heath Ledger died and posthumously won an Oscar for his role as the Joker. I mean, that meant I was wanting to like the film, but, I dunno, worried that if I didn't it made me a ginormous shit.
I'm wittering on like this because I'm not sure if I really liked the film or not.
Part of the problem is that while I enjoyed Batman Begins, I thought it was kinda flawed. There were some specific bits I didn't like, but my main problem was the general tone. It seemed to cast Bruce Wayne as a bit of a reluctant hero, where I never really got that feeling from the comics.
I'd got that he was a bit twisted. A bit warped from what happened to his parents. I'd got that he perhaps had an overly developed sense of justice and a tendency towards control freakery. And other stuff too, but never really reluctance.
I mean, I can understand why cinematically it works and it would be something actors/directors/writers might enjoy playing as a character trait. I can also see how adds drama in terms of his relationship with the woman he loves.
But to me, it's not Batman.
That's not who he is.
He's the guy who, although he regrets that he's loosing the girl, he lets her go - pushes her away even, secure in the knowledge that he's doing the right thing. He knows it's his fate, his destiny, his lot and he's resigned to it. He doesn't seek a way out, because he knows it cannot come.
And so my big problem here is that the reluctance thing continues on into this film. Indeed, it's even stronger here - the film is virtually about Wayne's reluctance. So for me, it's crucially flawed.
Which again, like Batman Begins, doesn't make it an un-enjoyable film. It's got plenty of good action, for example. There's a few good jokes and the basic plot is reasonable. And they've done a good job with the joker.
You know when people complain about comic book adaptations and say that they're not faithful? For me the faithfulness comes in depicting the fundamental character of the book/hero, not in terms of transferring the exact story from the page to the screen. And for me, that's where Batman was wrong but the Joker was right.
See, really they've buggered about with the joker, but what they've kept is the fundamental feel of the character. He's a sadist and an anarchist - perfect.
In fact, actually, the only problem with the joker is actually with the rating of the film. It was 12, and that means they've effectively toned him down. If he'd been let loose in an 18, or possibly even a 15, then I think it would have added quite a lot.
Two-face gets short shrift, though. Well, I say that, but the pre-Two-Face Harvey Dent gets loads of screen time, but once he becomes proper two face (which is a truly horrific thing to behold) he's not in the film very much at all, which is a shame. He's a bit of a victim of the classic "too many villains" syndrome that tends to effect superhero films.
So yeah - mixed bag overall, but well worth watching.
The reason is Dark Knight was a massively popular film and came with a massive amount if hype. And I have a weird reaction to hype. I've discussed it before, so I won't bore you with the details, but it tends to turn me off a bit.
The problem is either a reactionary streak in my personality or a slight disconnection from the zeitgeist. Or probably both.
It doesn't help in this case that Heath Ledger died and posthumously won an Oscar for his role as the Joker. I mean, that meant I was wanting to like the film, but, I dunno, worried that if I didn't it made me a ginormous shit.
I'm wittering on like this because I'm not sure if I really liked the film or not.
Part of the problem is that while I enjoyed Batman Begins, I thought it was kinda flawed. There were some specific bits I didn't like, but my main problem was the general tone. It seemed to cast Bruce Wayne as a bit of a reluctant hero, where I never really got that feeling from the comics.
I'd got that he was a bit twisted. A bit warped from what happened to his parents. I'd got that he perhaps had an overly developed sense of justice and a tendency towards control freakery. And other stuff too, but never really reluctance.
I mean, I can understand why cinematically it works and it would be something actors/directors/writers might enjoy playing as a character trait. I can also see how adds drama in terms of his relationship with the woman he loves.
But to me, it's not Batman.
That's not who he is.
He's the guy who, although he regrets that he's loosing the girl, he lets her go - pushes her away even, secure in the knowledge that he's doing the right thing. He knows it's his fate, his destiny, his lot and he's resigned to it. He doesn't seek a way out, because he knows it cannot come.
And so my big problem here is that the reluctance thing continues on into this film. Indeed, it's even stronger here - the film is virtually about Wayne's reluctance. So for me, it's crucially flawed.
Which again, like Batman Begins, doesn't make it an un-enjoyable film. It's got plenty of good action, for example. There's a few good jokes and the basic plot is reasonable. And they've done a good job with the joker.
You know when people complain about comic book adaptations and say that they're not faithful? For me the faithfulness comes in depicting the fundamental character of the book/hero, not in terms of transferring the exact story from the page to the screen. And for me, that's where Batman was wrong but the Joker was right.
See, really they've buggered about with the joker, but what they've kept is the fundamental feel of the character. He's a sadist and an anarchist - perfect.
In fact, actually, the only problem with the joker is actually with the rating of the film. It was 12, and that means they've effectively toned him down. If he'd been let loose in an 18, or possibly even a 15, then I think it would have added quite a lot.
Two-face gets short shrift, though. Well, I say that, but the pre-Two-Face Harvey Dent gets loads of screen time, but once he becomes proper two face (which is a truly horrific thing to behold) he's not in the film very much at all, which is a shame. He's a bit of a victim of the classic "too many villains" syndrome that tends to effect superhero films.
So yeah - mixed bag overall, but well worth watching.
Tuesday, 10 November 2009
ebay survey
I mentioned e-baying yesterday and that reminded me - a few days ago I was sent an e-mail by e-bay asking me to complete an online survey.
I figured what the hell, let's at least take a look and see what it is, so I clicked the link and it turned out to be a survey mainly about selling stuff on e-bay. I therefore decided to complete it.
Little did I know it was going to take absolutely bloody ages.
To be frank, it was a really badly designed survey - you could have easily compressed it to about half the size and still collected all the relevant information.
It was also bloody stupid, asking all sorts of confusing and contradictory questions. At times it actually felt like I was sat in a police interview room and they were asking the same question over-and-over, but in slightly different ways to try to trip me up.
The basic thrust seemed to be about charges - what would you be willing to pay, which system do you find the easiest to use, why do you do what you do - that sort of stuff.
As part of it there was kind of a role-play thing, where the question was something like "if you were selling an item that was worth x pounds what would you do?" And it seemed like it was trying to establish which charging system out of different possibilities you preferred.
This was gigantically flawed.
First off, I don't fundamentally work in tat way - I don't sell items that are "worth x pounds". I mean, I have hopes for what I might get and I have a minimum price I don't want to sell the item for less than (the starting amount) but items I sell don't have a value in the way this was implying.
Second, these values were ludicrous. One was £1,000! I've never sold anything even remotely worth that much on e-bay.
Third, it asked would you sell the item as an auction or as instant sale, as if they were mutually exclusive, but you can easily do both.
You were also supposed to be making your decision based on the fees. I've never based my decision on how to sell on fees. You know why? Because I know whatever I do, e-Bay are going to rip me off.
I mean, that's what they do - their veritable raison d'être, so why would I investigate the fees? It would only leave me depressed and wretched.
Also, I sell 99% of my stuff with auctions, because that's what e-bay is supposed to be about.
Anyway, the net result was that all the survey really did was further convince me that e-Bay wants to get rid of us small, individual users and become a wholesale outlet.
It did give me an opportunity to vent my spleen at them a bit though, as there was a question asking "what one thing e-bay could to encourage you to sell more?" (yet more assumptions - I mean, if I've not got any second hand stuff to sell, how can I sell more?)
I put 4 things. And swore at them quite a bit.
It's like shouting at the moon, of course, but it made me feel a bit better.
I figured what the hell, let's at least take a look and see what it is, so I clicked the link and it turned out to be a survey mainly about selling stuff on e-bay. I therefore decided to complete it.
Little did I know it was going to take absolutely bloody ages.
To be frank, it was a really badly designed survey - you could have easily compressed it to about half the size and still collected all the relevant information.
It was also bloody stupid, asking all sorts of confusing and contradictory questions. At times it actually felt like I was sat in a police interview room and they were asking the same question over-and-over, but in slightly different ways to try to trip me up.
The basic thrust seemed to be about charges - what would you be willing to pay, which system do you find the easiest to use, why do you do what you do - that sort of stuff.
As part of it there was kind of a role-play thing, where the question was something like "if you were selling an item that was worth x pounds what would you do?" And it seemed like it was trying to establish which charging system out of different possibilities you preferred.
This was gigantically flawed.
First off, I don't fundamentally work in tat way - I don't sell items that are "worth x pounds". I mean, I have hopes for what I might get and I have a minimum price I don't want to sell the item for less than (the starting amount) but items I sell don't have a value in the way this was implying.
Second, these values were ludicrous. One was £1,000! I've never sold anything even remotely worth that much on e-bay.
Third, it asked would you sell the item as an auction or as instant sale, as if they were mutually exclusive, but you can easily do both.
You were also supposed to be making your decision based on the fees. I've never based my decision on how to sell on fees. You know why? Because I know whatever I do, e-Bay are going to rip me off.
I mean, that's what they do - their veritable raison d'être, so why would I investigate the fees? It would only leave me depressed and wretched.
Also, I sell 99% of my stuff with auctions, because that's what e-bay is supposed to be about.
Anyway, the net result was that all the survey really did was further convince me that e-Bay wants to get rid of us small, individual users and become a wholesale outlet.
It did give me an opportunity to vent my spleen at them a bit though, as there was a question asking "what one thing e-bay could to encourage you to sell more?" (yet more assumptions - I mean, if I've not got any second hand stuff to sell, how can I sell more?)
I put 4 things. And swore at them quite a bit.
It's like shouting at the moon, of course, but it made me feel a bit better.
Monday, 9 November 2009
no friday
So having basically forgotten to do a blog entry on Thursday, I ended up totally failing to do one on Friday at all.
The reason for this was that Friday was jam-packed at work and it's usually while at work that I write these posts. In the morning I had to read through and edit a proposal that we were submitting. It wasn't a huge thing, but it needed a lot of work.
The afternoon was filled with a huge meeting that lasted the best part of 3 hours. However, it wasn't because it was a bad meeting, it was actually really useful and I found it really useful. Tbh, the only complaint I'd make was that it didn't happen sooner as it kinda means most, if not all of what I'd done already was rendered pointless.
I mean, it was rendered pointless in a good way in that I now know better what I should do, but still, it would have been better to have had it earlier.
The weekend was pretty productive.
I found the time (and motivation) to put my aircon away, which has been one of my outstanding jobs for a while now.
It's the sort of job that sounds fairly minor, but it takes ages (a couple of hours all told) because it involves sorting through a load of stuff and re-arranging it around where I put the aircon unit when I'm not using it. My aircon is a huge thing - it's a good 120cms tall and about 40cms deep and it weighs a tonne.
I mean, it's a good unit, but it's not what you would call "small and light". With all the tubing it also means it has to go in a particular place when in use, but that means it takes up a lot of room, and spare room is not something I have a lot of, hence having to pack it away.
So yeah, packed it away and had a bit of a clean in all the places that I can't get to when it's out. I also sorted through some piles of stuff. One of the things I discovered was that I've actually got quite a lot of stuff that I need to put on e-bay.
I'd been intending to save it up for closer to Christmas, but I think I might get a few things on sooner otherwise I'm going to get all pissed off at having to do so much e-bay-ing.
I also found the time to watch all of the stuff I've recorded. Well, I say that, but I'm actually saving a series of something because I want to watch the DVDs of the earlier series before I watch it, but that's kinda irrelevant.
Of course doing both of those things meant that I didn't get a chance to advance much other stuff, so I've ended up with a weird feeling of not having done much, even though I did :/.
The reason for this was that Friday was jam-packed at work and it's usually while at work that I write these posts. In the morning I had to read through and edit a proposal that we were submitting. It wasn't a huge thing, but it needed a lot of work.
The afternoon was filled with a huge meeting that lasted the best part of 3 hours. However, it wasn't because it was a bad meeting, it was actually really useful and I found it really useful. Tbh, the only complaint I'd make was that it didn't happen sooner as it kinda means most, if not all of what I'd done already was rendered pointless.
I mean, it was rendered pointless in a good way in that I now know better what I should do, but still, it would have been better to have had it earlier.
The weekend was pretty productive.
I found the time (and motivation) to put my aircon away, which has been one of my outstanding jobs for a while now.
It's the sort of job that sounds fairly minor, but it takes ages (a couple of hours all told) because it involves sorting through a load of stuff and re-arranging it around where I put the aircon unit when I'm not using it. My aircon is a huge thing - it's a good 120cms tall and about 40cms deep and it weighs a tonne.
I mean, it's a good unit, but it's not what you would call "small and light". With all the tubing it also means it has to go in a particular place when in use, but that means it takes up a lot of room, and spare room is not something I have a lot of, hence having to pack it away.
So yeah, packed it away and had a bit of a clean in all the places that I can't get to when it's out. I also sorted through some piles of stuff. One of the things I discovered was that I've actually got quite a lot of stuff that I need to put on e-bay.
I'd been intending to save it up for closer to Christmas, but I think I might get a few things on sooner otherwise I'm going to get all pissed off at having to do so much e-bay-ing.
I also found the time to watch all of the stuff I've recorded. Well, I say that, but I'm actually saving a series of something because I want to watch the DVDs of the earlier series before I watch it, but that's kinda irrelevant.
Of course doing both of those things meant that I didn't get a chance to advance much other stuff, so I've ended up with a weird feeling of not having done much, even though I did :/.
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