chrimbalo cheer and merry wishings

Well, this is pretty much it for me for the year.

It's my last day of work until a good way into the new year and I should imagine I won't be blogging again until then.

So to anyone that reads the blog, hope you have a good Christmas and New Year period and I hope 2011 turns out to be a good one for you.

bloody hard work

So this last Saturday the snow I was worried about turned up.

It was rather surreal, actually, as I went for my usual Saturday morning walk and it was bloody cold, but totally snow free. Then, just as I was coming up the road to where I live a few flakes started.

I then effectively went back to bed (well, had my breakfast and, because I'd done everything I needed to like shopping and buying petrol during the week before, I just sort of lounged about instead of having a shower and getting up properly) and watched some telly. When I eventually got up for my shower, I glanced out of the window and there was a good 2 inches of snow covering everything.

It was quite a shock just how quickly it had come down, and by the time it eventually stopped, it was a good three inches deep. That was at about lunchtime and I considered going out and clearing some of it away. However, I wasn't sure if any more was expected, and also I had to clean the bed-sit and by the time I was done it was pretty much dark.

When I got up on Sunday, there'd been no overnight snow, but it had clearly been a super cold one, as the snow that had fallen had compacted down quite a bit. The forecasts were saying no new snow was due, so I therefore decided mid-morning to get out and do a bit of snow clearing.

If you've ever done this, you'll know it's incredibly hard work. The weird thing is that snow doesn't weigh very much, but shovelling it around is still really hard. I'd actually bought a spade to put in the car, but it turned out to be a bit rubbish, as the surface of the shovel head was too smooth, so the snow slipped off, inefficiently.

However, my landlord had left a yard broom out and I found that to be much more effective. It's odd - I've always found sweeping the snow is much more effective at clearing it, but it's even harder work, even though you're not lifting anything. You also have to be clever about it, as if you start in the wrong place you end up with a big mound that you then have to shovel anyway.

So yeah, cleared the snow for about an hour and a half and then went for a huge lie down, as I was utterly shattered.

The other thing I did of note this weekend was lots of cooking.

Specifically, I made two lots of my amazing bolognaise sauce. I did one lot on Saturday and one on Sunday. I obviously ate some on each of those days, but I bagged up and froze the rest.

My cupboards and freezer are now stuffed with loads of food, including stuff that needs next to no cooking and other stuff that is basically just ingredients. After last year when I got stuck in and found my pack-rat tendencies a real life saver, this year I've deliberately stocked up so that if I get stuck in like I did again I can last ages.

The only thing I won't have is fresh fruit and veg, so it won't be ideal, but I can still go for a good long while on my "stores". Hopefully, if things go well, I'll be able to get down to Devon to see my dad for Christmas, and then on the way back I can shop and get a big load of said fresh fruit and veg that will last me for a good while.

Oh, and mentioning cooking, I completely forgot to blog about this when it was happening, but a few weeks ago, I discovered I'd bought the most amazing box of eggs.

Basically, every two weeks I buy a new six pack of eggs, and then eat three every week. I actually have all of them on Sunday, which has been my (small) treat day and I use one to make pancakes in the morning and have two as boiled egg sarnis in the evening.

Anyway, this box of six eggs contained five with double-yokes. It was the weirdest thing - cracking open or cutting into the egg to discover it was yet another double-yoker. I'm guessing that it was to do with how they sort them, but it was very freaky.

Oh, and I should also say that, when I weighed myself on Sunday I had gained a pound in weight. Given I was unable to do any walking past Saturday morning and how big work Christmas dinner was, I'm not too surprised at this, and I think it's now pretty much official that the diet is on hold.

Given I've lost more than 40 pounds (about 3 stone) I'm not too bothered about a few weeks of small gain over Christmas, though it would have been nice to hit my target.

work chrimbo lunch

Today is the day of the work Christmas lunch.

One of the nice things about the company I work for is that we get little perks like this. We also go to the pub for lunch when it's someone's birthday, and it's always paid for by the company, which I think is a nice little perk.

Recently, though, there's been a tendency for the bosses to try to use the Chrimbo lunch as a business opportunity. So, basically they invite along lots of people they want to butter up, if you will. It's gotten to the stage in recent years where these people actually outnumber the people I work with.

I shouldn't complain, but it hardly makes it a situation where you feel like letting your hair down.

I've not much else to say today, either.

I do have two worries for this coming weekend.

First off, there's the Sunday weigh-in, which I'm again not expecting to go well. I'm starting to think I should just formally say the diet and weight loss is officially "on hold". I mean, I'll still try to avoid massively consuming food and I'll walk when I can, but that kinda feeds into my second worry.

Which is the weather - forecasts have been predicting a return of the snow around here (I believe it's never actually left some places) for the weekend.

I don't really care if this poxes up work on Monday and Tuesday, but it'll be a bit of a disaster if it's still having an impact later in the week, as I'm supposed to drive down to Devon for the family get together.

only thursday?

Wow - it's only Thursday.

I feel like yesterday should have been Friday. I'm getting to the stage where I could really do with a break from work. But my last day at work isn't until next Tuesday.

In fact, to be honest, I'm not sure I can really be bothered to write any more today.

into the blue

The weekend's movie rental was Into The Blue.

To be perfectly frank it was okay - nothing spectacular, but equally not terrible either. Actually, if I'm honest, it felt weirdly like a TV movie, rather than a proper Hollywood film.

I mean - think extended Baywatch episode and you're almost there.

And really the stuff it does well is the whole water-based filming. There are a lot of shots of very good looking (well, the women are a bit skinny for my taste) people swimming about in not very many clothes. And you get to see a lot of sea life and it's all very well shot and enjoyable to watch. Much like those montage bits in Baywatch.

The plot is less solid - it does basically work, but it relies on quite a few conveniences and expositional scenes that I'm not sure if I really bought. It's full of what I've heard called movie logic - it works at the time you're watching it, but when you think back afterwards, you realise it doesn't really hold up.

There was quite a nice twist towards the end, but more because it had successfully sold a dummy and even there, how it gets to that twist and disposes of the dummy is a bit ham-fisted. Not sure that really makes sense, but I don't want to spoiler anything.

I think it was also a bit long at an hour and 45 minutes. I think chopping 15 minutes off that - and there were a few sub-plots that could easily have been dumped. Indeed, there seemed to be a few elements that looked they kinda had been half dumped, as they didn't really have any pay-off.

But if I was to make one really big criticism it was that there wasn't really any reason to care about these people. At the end when everything comes up roses, it doesn't really feel like they deserve the pay-off that they get.

I'm also not entirely sure that it makes sense when you look back at the reasoning that got them into the pickle they find themselves in in the first place. But the point is more that these people aren't really doing all that badly in the first place, and when they get greedy they aren't really punished for that greed, just very unlucky, if that makes sense.

So given that pickle they end up in is almost entirely of their own making, it doesn't really endear them to you. If they'd been doing it for nobler goals than simply greed, I think I would have liked it better.

no change

So last weekends weigh-in revealed I'd not lost any weight whatsoever.

This didn't really come as a surprise, but was a bit disappointing.

There were reasons I wasn't expecting any change, and they relate mainly to what I ate. Basically, last week marked the beginning of the influx of sweats and other treats at work. And while I resisted for a while, I still ate a few bits and bobs and then on Friday I totally caved in and ate several biscuits and several sweets.

What makes that really bad is that the snow was still hanging around and I was unable even to go for my short lunchtime walks. The previous weekend was also really badly affected, as I talked about last week, so overall my exercise was also down.

Now, I tend not to think of the exercise as my primary means of loosing weight, but I do tend to think of it as a way of keeping my metabolism up. Doing exercise raises your metabolism, which is the primary way you burn calories.

In other words, the double whammy of eating badly and not doing much exercising was why I didn't loose weight.

And, to be perfectly frank, I'm not expecting next week's weigh in to go well either. This Friday is the work Christmas lunch, where I'll be eating a really big, calorie rich dinner, and the odds are several people will bring in some snacks and treat too. So yeah, a bad week is likely this week too.

What I'm hoping for in order to reach my target weight is that after that I'm on holiday, and so can stay away from snacks and treats, but also do lots of walking. Except, the weather forecasts are not looking promising - the snowy conditions are predicted to return and could well bugger me up.

In other words there's the real chance that I may well be facing a forced abandonment of my plans.

crap-tabulous

I felt really crappy this last weekend.

I'm not really sure why, though. I think a big part of it was that the end of the week wasn't all that great at work. I'd basically made a mistake on one of the projects and on another project I was really struggling t get my head around some numbers, where I thought it would be a quick job.

Also, things were pretty distracting last week - there was a lot of coming and going and general activity in the office. Ours is a small office, as we're only a small company, but it's open plan and the location of my desk means that any activity can be very distracting.

We've also had a new person start work and, if I'm totally honest, I'm not all that keen on her. She's basically joined because someone else is about to go off on maternity leave and she seems to be struggling to really come up to speed on how stuff works.

Now, to be fair, this isn't totally unexpected. How we do stuff is all about stuff in people's heads, where really it should be written down and formalised. I mean, the mistake I made was essentially as a result of my not quite getting the right end of a particular stick and using the wrong document as a template.

Now really, we shouldn't have multiple independent templates that are so close as to be easily confused, but we do, so I can understand why she's struggling. But it means she's asking a lot of questions and that can be pretty distracting.

But also this last weekend I was finally able to go out for some walks and, in attempt to make up for the previous week, I did a couple of long walks and found myself aching a bit. And that, combined with a more general fatigue, meant I wasn't feeling particularly on-form physically either.

So yeah, have to say it was a bit of a miracle I did anything this last weekend other than stay in bed.

it's officially christmas

Well, it's officially Christmas - the Radio Times Christmas listings came out this week.

Nothing makes Chrimbo feel like it's here quite like buying the Christmas edition of the Radio Times. To be frank, not even the day itself feels quite as Christmassy as going through the Radio Times seeing what's on and marking out the stuff I want to watch.

And speaking of Christmas, my sister has pulled one of her classic manoeuvres.

For some reason, my sister has this weird attitude whereby everybody else is made of money, but she's so poor she can't spend any of her own. So usually I'll receive an e-mail from her asking me what I want but, either via subtext or an outright statement she'll suggest that she's not got much money to spend.

I'll happily oblige by providing a list that contains a variety of options, none of which is that expensive, but that can also be sensibly combined to make whatever sort of value she can spend.

Which is all fair enough, and sometimes she does a reciprocal thing. But also sometimes she executes one of here classic manoeuvres.

I should note here that my family long since abandoned the notion of guessing what we want - we all just ask each other. So much easier. And my tactic of providing options maintains some element of surprise to the gifts.

So this year she's asked for an FM transmitter. These are small things you attach to an MP3 player and that broadcast the signal so you can then pick it up via your car aerial. In other words they let you play your MP3s through your car radio.

The reason (well, if you can call it that) she wants this is because the CD player in her car has apparently packed up.

But here's the thing - she doesn't actually own an MP3 player.

So what she really wants is an MP3 player and one of these transmitter things. Only she's decided on which model she wants, and of course she's picked out what are about the most expensive versions. So we're talking Apple.

Being one of my sister's classic manoeuvres she actually wanted an iPod Nano, but specifically not the most recent version of the Nano, but the previous model Which of course they don't make anymore and so is at a premium.

But even if we don't get her that we're still talking an over-priced Apple Touch or something like that.

And that's all that's on her list - there's no "If you can't afford it here are some options for books or DVDs."

Classic.

website refresh

For the last few weeks I've been trying to update my website.

Most of my updates are of the basic content kind - predominantly nowadays that means adding a new review. But this update is slightly different, because I want to do two things.

First off, I want to tweak the design. I've been pretty happy with my most recent site design, so it's not a radical departure, more of a spruce up. For some reason, every time I do a redesign I strive to make things simpler. I'm not sure why this is - probably partly because I associate simplicity with elegance - but also maybe because I find when I'm doing a regular update there'll be some niggle that makes it slightly inefficient.

So that's one thing and it would normally take a little while to implement a simple design tweak like this.

But the other thing I want to do is a kind of a triumvirate of "r"s - I want to restructure, repurpose and review.

By restructure I mean I want to tweak the internal layout of folders and files so that it's more logical and easier to work with when I add new stuff.

By re-purpose I mean I want to change the focus of the my site. Essentially, I want to make trismugistus.com, which is my main site and the only one I really update any more, a stand-alone reviews site.

And by review I mean I want to go through all my reviews and check the content. Over the years I've veered all over the place in terms of a standard layout for the reviews, but also I want to go through and correct all the typos and errors I've made.

And it's this very last bit that I'm stuck on. I've done a new design, I've tweaked all the folder structures and page layouts and I've adjusted things so that trismugistus.com is solely a review site. And then I started going through the reviews and it's taken ages.

Perhaps the biggest problem is that it's quite tedious. I think one of the main reasons I have lots of reviews with these types of errors in is because while I'll happily bash the review out, I don't then enjoy going through it and giving it a proper edit. It's just quicker and easier to stick it up on the site. So now I'm compressing this boring editing process down into a big chunk and it's horrendously dull.

I've also found I had far more reviews than I realised - there are dozens of the things, and for each one you're talking about a thousand words. That means it's like editing and proof-reading a small novel.

So yeah, a site refresh is coming, but it may be Christmas before I find enough time to devote to completing it :/.

no rental again

Due to a weird alignment of rental periods and days in the month I didn't have a rental DVD to watch yet again this week.

However, I have been watching some anime, so I thought I'd give some brief thoughts on those instead.


Claymore

I noted when I mentioned I was watching Claymore how close it was to the manga, and this proved to be the case right up until the last few episodes, when it departed somewhat. Though even there it wasn't a massive departure.

The real difference was that it jumped ahead to a confrontation that's likely to finish the manga, but still seems many volumes off even today.

I have to say that even though the anime did stick very close, what it added really made it worthwhile. It sounds daft, but the use of colour and animation really did add an extra layer, and the soundtrack was especially clever.

Funimation also did a cracking job with the dub, so I really enjoyed it. My enjoyment was such that even though the end of the show wasn't really an end (it screams 'second series') I still liked it.


Giant Killing

I watched Giant Killing via crunchyroll.

I'm not entirely sure why I chose this as the series to watch over the other stuff that's on crunchyroll. I think part of it was that where it ended was very early in some major plot arcs, so I was intrigued to see how they played out. Also it seemed like the exact sort of show I should watch on crunchyroll - quite entertaining, but nothing I'd ever buy.

The plot arcs mentioned developed pretty well and I enjoyed the first 12-15 or so episodes quite a lot.

However, after that point I have to confess my enthusiasm flagged. The problem was that the beginning had been quite detailed and followed everything, but then later on it skipped ahead big chunks of time. Also, a bit like Claymore it didn't really end. It didn't skip ahead to, for example, the last match in the season or a cup final.

I mean, the last match is showed was important and climactic, but in a mid-point of a bigger arc way, rather than as a proper end to the season. In other words, like Claymore, it felt like a second seasons would be needed.


Strike Witches

Strike Witches did end properly, although it too set up a sequel, though in this case I know the sequel exists, so that's not too bad. And as I say, this first season did end with a proper conclusion.

In fact, it ended with what was a pretty clear conclusion. A lot of the time in anime endings can be quite weak and from what I understand this reflects cultural attitudes and differences - the Japanese tend to prefer things that way, if you will.

I was actually quite surprised with myself over Strike Witches as I watched the whole thing across 2 days. The reason for this heavy watching was because I really enjoyed the show.

To be frank, it's packed full of fan-service, and I don't just mean of the ecchi variety, though there is plenty of that. No, this has huge aerial battles, genuine humour, geekiness, and just about everything else you'd want to be in a show. But the key is that it doesn't feel cynical.

Let's put it another way - they've worked hard to give it a coherent and interesting plot instead of just relying on the fan-service to bring in the viewers.

justifiably worried

I was very worried about my weigh-in this last Sunday.

And I think that worry was entirely justified, though in the end it came to nothing. Well, I say that, there's the distinct possibility that there may be a delayed effect that shows up next weekend, but certainly my weigh in was good news, as I'd lost another two pounds.

It's weird - last week I was terribly disappointed at a loss of two pounds and this week I am hugely pleased at exactly the same weight loss.

The reason is that this last week was a bad week. And it essentially comes back to the snow again.

As mentioned yesterday, I was snowed in on Thursday and that meant I did nothing - I mustn't have walked more than a couple of hundred steps, if that. In Friday I suppose looking back on it I did have the exertion of digging myself out in the morning, but at the time it really didn't seem like that. At the time it again felt like I didn't really do anything.

But also, because I was stuck in and how I discovered the cock-up I'd made I was feeling a little depressed. I think this was made worse by my having got up really early to try to fix the error and therefore being tired. Anyway, the point is that when I did hat bit of shopping on Friday I picked up a pack of cookies (we're talking the ones baked in-store by Sainsbury's.

Now cookies and other baked goods of a similar ilk have been one of my particular weaknesses over the years, so this was definitely me giving into temptation. I've no idea how many calories each cookie has, but we must be talking in the ballpark of 200 each, and there were five of them. So, in other words they were a huge calorie boost during a time when I wasn't really able to do my normal exercise.

Now if I'd not been in the frame of mind I was, then maybe I would have tried to compensate. I could have the cookies, say, if I had them as replacements for other things. But I didn't do that - I ate what I normally would, and also had the cookies.

To compound the problems, while the snow did clear throughout Saturday it wasn't really until the afternoon that it was really noticeable. I therefore didn't go for my usual morning walk and my afternoon walk was much shorter than I usually do.

To be fair it was also a little scary as the footpaths were among the last to clear. Indeed, even on Sunday there were still big patches of ice that made walking a bit dodgy. I did do a fairly reasonable walk on Sunday afternoon, and did walk in the morning, but both were shorter than I'd usually do. And all the walking involved bits of taking it steady or otherwise trying to avoid slippy conditions where I usually try to walk at a decent pace.

So yeah, I was fully expecting that come Sunday morning I would discover I'd not lost anything or - even worse - put weight on. I think it would have been a blow, but not a catastrophic one, as there were understandable problems.

What this does do is put into doubt whether I'll hit my target for the end of the year. Not because I'm deliberately going to abandon my diet or stop walking altogether, but certainly if the snow returns I may find circumstances overtake me.

If this does happen I'm not too concerned and won't be disappointed, it was more of a realisation that this could happen and I therefore shouldn't worry if it does. After all, I've so much to loose that I'm probably going to be dieting for all of next year, so I'll have plenty of time to make up any shortfall.

brrr

So at the tail end of last week, we finally copped some of the snow that has been causing chaos across the rest of the UK.

I'm pretty sure the council didn't do any gritting at all. There was certainly no signs of the classic evidence of gritting. I shouldn't be surprised by that as I don't think they ever spend the money. They're shit the council.

Thursday had a classic snow day moment, where, having heard the forecasts and seen no snow before I went to bed I woke up to find a veritable winter wonderland outside. It wasn't as bad as we got it last year, but it still stopped me getting out. Where I live is down an un-adopted road, which basically means it gets no through traffic, only residents, and many of the residents happen to be retired, so they don't tend to go out much anyway.

Luckily I can actually work from home, although the system for doing this is pretty clunky, it gets the job done. Especially since it means I can simply e-mail stuff back to myself at home from work.

Not that I had a lot on - the timing was such that I was essentially finishing one thing and then would be asking my boss for something new to work on, except I couldn't really do that.

What I mainly did instead was play about with my new scanner-photoshop combo. I'll talk about that in a later, mainly as I'm still undecided how it's all going to work, but it certainly killed the day.

Well, except for discovering I'd made a gigantic cock-up. It's not really worth going into the details, but let's just say that a document I produced was supposed to be limited to 20 pages long, but was more than double that. And it needed to go by the end of the day, and was being reviewed, so there was no chance for me to fix it.

Except there was. If my boss had called me back, I could have sorted it out, especially since, due to the weather, they said you could send an electronic submission up until the Friday deadline.

On Friday I woke up incredibly early, mainly I think, because this was playing on my mind. I therefore decided to see if I could make a 20 page version, and spent ages tweaking it to get it inside the limit. This I eventually did and was quite pleased with myself.

Only problem was my boss had already sent the previous version, so I had to phone them up, blame the problems on the weather and ask if I could submit a version 2. They seemed happy with this, so I decided to try to make it to work and sort things out from there.

There'd been no extra snow and what snow there was seemed to have compacted due to freezing overnight. Also, the traffic that had been on the roads had probably helped to clear them up. I set off quite late - after 9 - having dug my car out and eventually arrived at about 10.

Only to discover I'd made a monumental cock-up - I'd not attached the 2nd version of the document to my e-mail back and so now I had t basically go back home after only a couple of hours, meaning the whole trip was a complete waste of time!

Still, I used the opportunity to do a bit of food shopping as a just in case exercise. The forecasters had said it would warm up a little over the weekend, clearing the snow, but I thought it best not to risk it and do it while I was out.

In the end it did warm and has cleared enough for normality to return, but better safe than sorry.

weight for it

Bit later in the week than I would normally post about it, but last weekends weigh in revealed a further two pound loss.

If I'm totally honest I was actually slightly disappointed with this. But I don't really know why. I dunno - it's odd, but after I'd weighed myself I saw the new weight and for some reason I was convinced I'd actually put on weight.

However, when I fired up my spreadsheet I use to keep track of things, it actually turned out to be a two pound loss. But weirdly, this didn't change my outlook - part of my brain didn't seem to accept I'd lost weight and instead remained convinced I'd gained.

It's very odd.

My only guess as to why this is that I'd been thinking out the amount I hoped to loose that week and it was three pounds, rather than two. Or, to put it another way, I'd been hopping I hit a certain weight at the weekend and I think I got confused that it was my weight from the week before.

So, when I saw my new weight was 1 pound over this, I thought I'd gained weight, where in fact I'd just forgotten what my weight had been before.

I must say that the pace I've lot weight at I have become confused on more than a few occasions. Especially in terms of how much I've lost. If someone asks me, I really struggle to think about it, because I've not been tracking it in that way.

To me, I've been logging and thinking about my actual weight - especially in terms of what it is now and what it needs to be in the future. So I'd have to go and look at how much I'd actually lost.

Which I've just done and it turns out to be a total of 42 pounds, which it turns out is exactly 3 stones. I hadn't planned that as a milestone, but it just shows you how much I've lost so far.

And I've really not that far to go to meet my target- a further (checks spreadsheet) 9 pounds, which is only just over half a stone. So given my ultimate goal is to hit that weight by the new year, which is 5 weeks off, I'm well on my way there.

Indeed, I don't see why I won't make it even with the slippage I'm allowing myself over the Christmas period. Which should all be good things to think about, but as I say, I still cant' shake this nagging disappointment over last week's result.

And does definitely worry me for this next weekend's weigh in is the terrible weather. It's been a real struggle not to eat more and to eat more warming winter foods, and when you add in the fact I've really struggle to do the walking I should be doing because of the bitter cold I'm not expecting this weekend to go well.

taking the good with the bad

Delayed from yesterday, due to snow!

And here's the continuation of the manga catch-up:


Something I really should drop is Asu No Yoichi: Samurai Harem. This is another series engaged in artificial story extension, and it's also making a real bad job of it.

I mean we've just been through a whole thing of the main characters joining the dram club at school and putting on a play. The whole section was dull and uninteresting and after a chunk of chapters ended up with them leaving the drama club. So, in other words, the whole thing was essentially pointless!

At least the fanservice has stayed away from being creepy. Well, what fan-service there's been - it's noticeably tailed off over this recent arc.

I really should drop it.


Anyway, on a brighter note, there's been some really good news about Tenjho Tenge. Basically, Viz have announced that they've picked it up after CMX dropped it - http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/news/2010-11-15/viz-adds-tenjo-tenge-school-fighting-manga .

Overall, I'm really pleased, although it is tinged with a bit of annoyance. See, famously (or I should really say infamously), CMX's release of TenTen was really heavily edited. And Viz have announced that they will be releasing the series uncut.

This is great in that we get to read the proper series, but annoying because it means I will have to buy the whole thing again. This is slightly tempered by the fact that they will be releasing the series as double-volumes, but then that's undermined by the fact that I now need to e-bay the entire series and I bet it will be really difficult to sell, because everyone knows a better version will be coming out soon.

So yeah - real mixed bag of feelings.


But not really any good news for Moyashimon, which I'm pretty sure is yet another series I was enjoying that Yen Press have dropped. To be frank, their serial offending on this front is really starting to piss me off. A bit of commitment on their parts would not go amiss.

And okay, I know they tend to release quirky, niche titles, but seriously, if the business case for putting them out is so weak that they get dropped after only a few volumes, I'd rather they didn't bother in the first place.


A new series that I've picked up but that I've got a strong feeling won't work out is Cross Game. The ray of hope is that the show is coming out via Viz, who are bigger and more able to cope with poor sales. Also, they're putting it out in three-volume collections and there are only 17 single volumes, so they might be able to sneak the whole thing out before anyone realises it's a Baseball manga.

In actual fact, it's hardly a baseball manga at all. Really it's a coming of age and slice of life type series that happens to feature baseball. It' also really good, although perhaps a little slowly paced. I think it deserves to do well, but that not the sort of thing that means it won't.


The other new series I started is Omamori Himari. I picked it up because I quite liked the episodes of the anime I watched. However, while the plot seems to be the same, I have to confess I think I prefer the anime.

The manga is... I dunno, oddly drawn. The artwork isn't bad as such, it's more that the character design is very reminiscent of that generic porn game/dating sim style. It's difficult to explain, but it's just not a style I particularly like. I think I'll give it a few volumes, but I may well simply watch the rest of anime (it's another one on crunchyroll) and leave it at that.

What certainly doesn't help is that the story is extremely generic instant girlfriend harem type stuff with a rather dull and uninteresting protagonist. If it had had more going for it than that I think I might have overlooked the art, but to be frank, the artwork was most of what I liked about the anime and it's radically different to the manga.

cod: black ops

This weekend there was no DVD rental, as there occasionally isn't due to how my package works out. So for this week's mini review I thought I'd give some thoughts on the recently released Call of Duty: Black Ops.

I've actually been buying and playing CoD since the beginning. I believe the only entry in the series I haven't played is the third one, because I seem to remember that was a console exclusive. Back then the original CoD was a PC-only first-person shooter that put you in the thick of the most interesting battles of WW2.

From the beginning there were several interesting ideas in CoD. One was that although you always played the allies, you switched between different factions. So, sometimes you'd be playing as an American, sometimes a Brit and other times as a Russian.

Another interesting idea was that of pre-designed set-pieces. At certain points in the game, control would either be rested from you entirely, or you would essentially be ferried down a particular path. Sometimes these were like cut-scenes, but interactive cut-scenes, and at others more getting to be in the really cool moments from films. In fact, sometimes these were clearly just scenes from films that they'd made part of the game, but that was always part of the appeal.

Another interesting element was vehicles. Rather than the approach of some games where you would jump into a vehicle when you wanted, CoD's approach was more that at certain points you transfer into a section that is a vehicle-based level or part of a level.

The reason for this is because CoD has always really been a guided path shooter. There's very little exploration in CoD games and enemy attacks are planned and involve random spawn points. In the modern gaming world these are very old-fashioned techniques, but CoD has pushed through because it's generally has a good, engaging story.

And on the whole I'm glad to say that Black Ops is more of the same. It maintains all the familiar CoD aspects of guided paths, random enemy spawning, interactive cut scenes, playing moments from films and a well thought out and interesting story.

If I was to make one criticism on this front it's that they've taken things a bit far. At times it can feel a bit like you're not really playing the game so much as pressing a key in order to let the game continue. There aren't too many of these, though, and there's lots of fun to be had.

Another thing that is a little confusing is how quickly and how much you jump around. It's a result of how they're doing the story, but it can be a little disorientating going from the North Pole straight to the jungles of Vietnam. And it's also a little odd how the same black ops people seems to get involved in just about every conflict since the second World War.

And there are some fundamental flaws in the baddies plan, which I won't discuss for spoilers. But overall, as a game, it's good and enjoyable - especially when you get to duel-wield, which works really well. It also looks amazing and you even get a bonus zombies game, which is surprisingly tense.

So yeah, I enjoyed it more than MW2 and it's certainly longer to play, although perhaps not perfect.

full metal manga

Last week I was going to do a round-up of some of the manga I'd been reading but ran out of space and energy, so I though I'd go though it now.


First off, as I mentioned, I've been reading my way into Fullmetal Alchemist. I don't think I really need to explain what FMA is, as it's one of those ubiquitous shows that everybody's either seen or read. Well, except for me.

I've seen a couple of episodes of the Brotherhood version and will probably buy that somewhere down the line, but although I knew of the show it never really crossed my path. But then I decided I should get it, bought the first volume, which I thought was good enough to pursue, and so bought the rest.

Obviously I was therefore in big scale catch-up mode and there are now 23 volumes released in English, so I've quite a bit to get through in order to be current. I'm up to book 10 and I'm generally enjoying it.

I have to confess I have been a bit struck by my traditionally feeling of "Is this quite as good as everyone proclaims it to be?"

Don't get me wrong, I am enjoying, but I'm not sure it's at the top of my favourites list, shall we say. One thing I do think is clever is that it has a consistent, ongoing narrative that advances at a decent pace. With a lot of manga like this you get artificial story extension (I'm looking at you, Naruto, Bleach and DBZ), but here, while that is definitely going on, it's handled in a much more intelligent and well done way.

It' snot so much artificial extension, as sensible, well considered extension.


Next, a couple of ongoing series I'm still enjoying. First there's Kimi Ni Todoke (From Me to You). I'm definitely still liking this, but I think this is also engaged in story extension and I'm not sure it's being handled in as good a way. It struck me actually to be having a similar issue as Kare Kano.

In that manga, the main characters were really interesting and it was a clever story, but really that story resolved itself within a few volumes. There was then a big middle section that mostly focused on the (less interesting) peripheral characters before coming back to finish off the main character's story.

I'm pretty sure Todoke is going to do the same and we're just switching focus to the other characters. It's still well done, so I'll stick with it, but part of me wishes it had just wrapped itself up in a few neat volumes.


The second ongoing series is Natsume's Book of Friends. Weirdly, having just complained about story extension of a main over-arching plot, my slight criticism of Natsume is that it doesn't really have an overarching plot.

The series is essentially a collection of short stories and it works well at doing that, but it can make things feel very bitty. I still love the book, though, and dearly wish someone would license the series for DVDs. It's actually on crunchyroll, but is region locked to the US :(.


Next I though I'd mention Toshokan Senso: Love & War. I was seriously considering dropping this, but the second volumes was a lot better than the first. I think part of the problem was that because the first volume covered what I saw of the manga, but radically shifted things about, this disconcerted me. Now that it's into stuff I haven't seen I think it's easier for me to understand, though it still has the problem that a lot of shoujo has of poorly flowing speech and panel layouts.


Okay, as usual when I do one of these catch-ups, the post is getting huge, so I'm snipping it in half and I'll post the rest later.

winter clothes

So if you are a fellow occupant of the UK and assuming you don't live in some sort of hermetically-sealed, climate-controlled bubble, I'm sure you've probably noticed the rather sharp downturn in the temperature of recent times.

Or, to put it more succinctly, Holy Mary mother of Jebus H Chrimble it's been cold.

Even though I believe we are now technically in winter (I always loose track with the seasons) it's not normally until after Christmas that the really cold weather bites. It's like even though I think summer starts in June, it's normally August that's the hottest month - or something like that.

Anyway, the point is that it's been really properly cold over the last week or so. And that means I've been re-introduced to the problems of excess clothing.

Well, not excess clothing, but the problem of having to put on lots and lots of clothing.

See, the real issue is that where I work seems to be really bad at retaining heat. It's okay up to a certain point every year, but then after that it never really seems to warm up. I think the reason for this is a combination of factors.

Firstly, it's a big, open plan office, making it difficult to heat. Second, it has a lot of big windows through which heat can escape. Third, the roof insulation is inadequate, again, allowing heat to escape. Fourth, the central heating provision is inadequate, so there's not enough heat provided. And lastly, the boss tries to save money by setting the timing to the minimum we can get away with.

This means that the office is normally cold during winter, so I have to wrap up in lots of clothes. Specifically I end up wearing the following:A vest;

• A T-shirt;
• A jumper;
• A second pair of socks; and
• My suit jacket.

These are all in addition to my clothing for the rest of the year, which consists of boxers, socks, work shirt and suit trousers.

And this all creates the problem that getting dressed in the morning takes at least an 10 minutes and is a total pain. Especially since I also wear a baseball cap, gloves and a coat when I'm outside.

It all becomes a bit tedious eventually. And what makes this even more annoying is that my flat can get really cold as well, so I end up wearing jumpers and extra clothes there too.

I've always said as a general principal I enjoy winter and colder weather, but I think really, I enjoy winter from the perspective of being toasty and warm inside and looking out the window. And in my current work/living circumstances, I don't spend enough time in that state.

chrimbo is when?

So this Saturday it is, almost unbelievably, exactly four weeks until Christmas.

I think three or four weeks to go is the point where it becomes okay to actively start thinking about this particular holiday. I mean, it's okay to book holiday and stuff, as I generally need to do this some way in advance, but in terms of actively thinking about it as being 'just around the corner', three or four weeks is the time.

I also think this is the point at which Christmas advertising become legitimate. As everyone I get rather annoyed at the steady encroachment of Chrimbo backwards into the year. I genuinely saw my first Chrimbo related shop stuff about a month back and that is way too early.

I'm not the biggest fan of Christmas. It's okay as a point in the year to see your family and friends and I can see the point of celebrating the mid-winter solstice, although the whole Christian side of things does leave an unpleasant taste on my atheistic taste buds. But the whole excess consumption and forced frivolity and joviality doesn't really do anything for me.

Anyway, point is I was thinking about potential gifts this last week. My family has thankfully fully abandoned any sort of ritual f having to guess gifts. We all specifically ask each other for things and it tends to save a lot of hassle, although there's obviously the loss of the magic of the surprise perfect gift.

What I try to do is provide a wide range of options across a broad range of prices. So there'll be a few books on the list, which will only be around a tenner, then there'll be a few DVDs heading up into the £20 bracket, and maybe a couple of games, which are more around £30-£40.

That way the family can get me a combination that suits their particular budget, but also maintains an element of surprise for me as there's more stuff on there than they could sensibly all buy me.

There'll also be some specific gift requests for my Dad, who likes to buy a bigger, more substantial present. Usually this revolves around some particular gadget - my bread maker, for example. But this year I have to confess something of a difference. This year I want clothes.

See, recently I've really noticed that my body is changing.

I know that's a fairly obvious thing to say, given the extent of the weight loss, but it's only really recently that I've been able to actually see changes in my body. And more specifically and important, my trousers are getting to the point of proper looseness.

In particular, there's a pair of jeans that only stay aloft due to a thoroughly tightened belt. Then there's the work trousers, where I have one pair that's slightly looser and I'm in danger of loosing them on occasion. And with my work belt I regularly find myself tightening it to the fifth hole, which was previously unimaginable. Even my elasticised tracksuit bottoms are more reliant on the drawstring than the actual elastic.

This is all really good, but it means I'm going to have to start buying new clothes. Trouble is I know they're only going to be temporary. In however many months (three or four) I'm surely going to need a whole load of new clothes.

Hence I've actually asked my dad for cash. Hopefully I can get some really cheap clothes that I won't mind replacing. Maybe there'll even be some cash left over that I can use to offset the next wave of clothes buying? Or perhaps my birthday present and next year's Christmas presents are also pre-decided!

edging ever closer

The weekend revealed another step closer to my weight loss goal for the year.

And it was a much more impressive change than last week, as I'd lost 4 pounds. I now need to loose about 11 pounds before the end of the year and if I can have a few weeks where I achieve weight loss like this last weekend I may well reach my goal before Christmas.

I'm not planning on doing that - the goal is still the end of the year, so if I don't get there before Chrimbo I won't be too disappointed. Still, it'd be nice to no longer be morbidly obese before Christmas... and eating and drinking too much and putting some of it back on again :/.

I think I've mentioned this before, but one of the things I've been doing to help me exercise is listen to audiobooks. I'm pretty sure I did mention it, as, in order to get the audiobooks I joined Amazon's audible site and discovered the books have a horrible DRM that it's a pain to get around (you have to burn them to CD via iPlayer (yuck) and then rip them from CD, which takes ages).

The reason I started listening to the books was because I'd been trying to listen to songs and not really enjoying it.

See, I know when people run they tend to put playlists together and listen to them, and I think that might work because you can choose songs all of a roughly similar tempo. You can then run too that tempo. But I have several problems - firstly I don't really like listening to random songs, as I prefer to listen to complete albums and secondly, the faff of putting together a playlist just seems like too much hassle.

But also, and most importantly, I found it difficult to match the tempos. Obviously, when you're listening to an album (well, an album of proper music, not some dance tracks where all the tempos are the same) you're going to get varying tempos, but also when you walk in real life, rather than run on a treadmill your pace varies all over the shop.

You might have to walk uphill for a bit, then downhill, or you might be on a nicely tarmaced pavement before then walking down some pot-holed track. So you can't really maintain the same pace of walking, so I found listening to music slightly unhelpful.

With an audiobook it doesn't matter - people don't talk at a fixed tempo. Also, you can actively listen to what they're saying and obviously enjoy it. And as a bonus it's a good way of reading and therefore doing something "productive" while I do something "unproductive" (the quotes are because yes, I appreciate that technically, doing exercise is a different sort of productive, but in my mind it's dead or wasted time, which, when you analyse it, is probably a big part of how I ended up the way I am).

domino

The domino of the title is one Domino Harvey, who was a bounty hunter.

I say 'was' because she died of a drug overdose shortly before this film based (very loosely) on her life was released. What also makes her interesting was that she was a rather unusual character, being a not unattractive, fairly slight English girl from a decent background in a rather rough job.

Bounty hunting is one of those jobs that has a weird sort of mystique, even though it's actually a fairly simple activity in the main. By that I mean that really they just go around people who've skipped out on court dates and therefore broken the terms of their bail.

In other words, generally, they're suspected criminals who haven't turned up for their court dates. Now given we're really talking about blue collar criminals - thieves, junkies, con men - that sort of level of crime, you can see how it would be very dangerous (the US is one of the only counties where it's a legal job) and also not really all that glamorous.

It's not like Bobba Fett chasing after Han Solo.

Anyway, the point is with Domino, she didn't exactly fit the stereotype, and much of the film plays on that juxtaposition. It also plays quite a bit to the lowest common denominator, but it does so in a broadly knowing way.

The other key element to the film is that it's by Tony Scott, who has a rather distinctive visual style. In fact, if I'm honest it's this visual style that I enjoyed, rather than the story.

See, the problem with the story is it's one of mounting escalation and it eventually reaches a point where it breaks past credulity. For me, this rather popped me out of the film and from then on it was daft.

Up until then it had been hovering around level of silliness, but not going too far. After that point is was just plain silly and that was a little disappointing. It also didn't help that because it was sort of based on a real person and then segwayed into this over-the-top Hollywoodness. It just didn't fit.

The other thing I was struck by on the negative side was that Kera Knighley didn't really seem to fit the role properly. I think it was her accent - she obviously sounded English, being English, but I think she would have been better taking the edge of her cut-glass upper-class accent. If she'd gone for something regional I'm not sure that would have worked, it's just her accent as was jarred a bit too much.

Overall, I enjoyed the film, but only as a visual spectacle and popcorn action movie level.

no, I've definitely lost it

I appear to have lost a volume of manga.

The manga in question is called Bakuman. It's a manga about being a manga artist, but that's not really relevant. What's relevant is that I remember it arriving from Amazon. And I remember opening the parcel, flicking through the pages.

I then don't remember what I did with it.

My flat is actually quite small and I've had a really good search around and can't find it. I've even done what I think of as the classic of going back to the same place (in particular, the shelf on which I keep my unread books and manga) and rechecking it "just in case". Just in case what, I wonder? In case I was suffering temporary blindness, maybe? Or in case I was suffering a mental black spot?

I've a horrible feeling that what I've done is put it in the recycling. I keep a big box that I chuck things for recycling in. I then sort this box out every couple of weeks when they come to pick up the recycling and put it in the appropriate bin outside.

However, where I am the collection service is shit, and they're really pissy about what they collect. In particular, paper but not cardboard is the one that really erks me. Especially since when you go down the local community recycling place they've got a single big storage thing that you can out all paper and cardboard in.

So a while back I started saving cardboard up in my big box too and then taking it down there myself. This isn't too much hassle as it's easy to drop off on the way to get my food shop every Saturday. And I don't do it every week - maybe once or twice a month, depending on how much stuff I've got.

The point is that I think I may have put the manga in that box. This isn't as retarded as it sounds, because Amazon sends its stuff in cardboard packaging, so that has to go in the recycling box and I keep that box in my kitchen and usually when I get in I take my mail into the kitchen with me and sort it there - the bits of it I want and need, keep, the rest of it in the recycling box.

Only I've a feeling I got a lot of stuff and maybe rested the manga on the top of the box stuff just to put it somewhere out of the way and then forgot to pick it up again and it got covered with stuff.

The trouble with this theory is it means that when I've then sorted through everything in there to put it in the right bins for collection, or to take it down the recycling centre, I've completely ignored the fact that it's a book of manga and just chucked it away. Even for me that's amazingly dumb.

This post was meant to quickly turn into a quick manga review one, but I've prattled on so much, I'll have to save that for another day. I've read a few new things and dropped some things I was collecting. Plus I started on all the FMA volumes I had saved up, so I've plenty to talk about, just not the desire to keep going at the moment.

return of the quiet weekend

So on Friday I mentioned that there were no plans for the weekend, and that would only be partially true.

Being me, I had prepared my usual list of stuff to do. What I really meant was there was no specifically interesting activity planned. I did have a few things I thought it might be nice to try to achieve, including:

• Finish Claymore (did this);
• Watch the first few eps of The Big Bang Theory s4, which I'd managed to get all across with in terms of order, having not realised it had started (did this);
• Finish CoD: Black Ops, assuming I was already a good chunk of the way through (did this);
• Play Anno 1404 (did this... a bit too much, which resulted in me not doing the next thing) and
• Scanning stuff (didn't do this, but see below).

Otherwise, it was a flat-cleaning weekend and I went food shopping and caught up generally on recorded telly programmes, plus I went for my usual weekend walks (pleasingly, I'm keeping up with doing 10,000 steps at the weekend, so the fact the weekday walking has suffered due to daylight and the weather doesn't make me feel too guilty).

Anyway, about the scanning.

As I discussed last week, I've been building a new computer (I may actually have got it fixed and it definitely looking like it's the loose RAM module theory I had - I may even have identified the culprit, which leaves me the real problem of how I get the company to believe me and accept a return :). And that means that I have the problem of hand-down.

See, I've built the new computer exclusively for gaming. What I like to do is keep that computer clean and not install any crap on it, so that games will run smoothly and as quickly as possible. I even try to remove any un-necessary windows components and it gets completely reinstalled on a regular basis.

But that sort of regime is not helpful for more normal stuff. I don't know about you, but I have all sorts of crap on my machines - random programmes that where maybe useful at the time and documents saved in what seemed like sensible places at the time. All that sort of stuff. So I also have a machine for general use.

And that machine is where I do my scanning. Or I would if I wasn't a lazy bugger (just recently I have a myriad of proper reasons I haven't been doing scanning, but before that it was definitely a list of excuses).

Anyway, the point is that I've ended up in the tricky situation of having to re-purpose my machines. What was my old games rig can now become my new desktop, etc. The big problem is that I want to also end up with a machine I can put by my TV that I use to watch blu-rays on (well, and all sorts of other stuff too - but essentially I'll end up with a PC there, rather than a DVD and other players).

I'm getting way off the point, which is that I found my A3 scanner does not have a windows 7 driver. But I've also heard that later versions of Photoshop have a really good photo stitching algorithm. But Photoshop is incredibly expensive (£600!) so I was hoping to get a cracked version of it.

This will allow me to at least test out how good the photo stitching is. If it's good then I can look at buying a new scanner (a regular size one, rather than the A3 one) and possibly getting a legit copy of CS5 (ouch) and then that will allow me to completely upgrade to windows 7.

Except I've given myself another headache, because in my attempts to fix my games rig by throwing money at the problem I've kinda ended up with half another machine, and it's a really powerful one. So do I try to sell this stuff (I've no idea how well it will e-bay, especially as it's without original boxes)? Or do I go the whole hog and get the last few bits to build yet another machine? And what do I do with a fourth PC? I know my dad is frustrated by the age and slowness of the machine he has - perhaps I should donate it to him?

just the one

This last weekend's weigh in was a little disappointing.

Well, I say that. Basically, I'd lost 1 pound.

The upside of this is of course that I've lost more weight and in my current situation all weight loss is good. The downside is that it's only 1 pound. And if I'm going to hit my target I need to be loosing more than 1 pound a week. Indeed, I need to be loosing about 2 or 3 pounds a week.

Now to be totally fair when we get to Christmas the possibility of doing plenty of walking opens up, although of course that may be offset by the excess consumption that Chrimbo gives rise to. I could take a stern view and not give in to that excess, but I have to be sensible here.

If I completely avoid eating and drinking and having fun, that will likely make me feel a bit miserable and could easily trigger a negative effect. The worst thing would be to go off the diet completely, so I think it's far better to have a few days where I enjoy the excess (Chrimbo weekend with the family and New Year's eve are the most obvious) and then I can do normal diet on the other days.

Not sure I've got any spectacular plans this weekend coming.

I'm kind of thinking of having a normal quiet weekend. The last few weekends have been rather busy, so I think having a more normal, boring one will be good. That includes ignoring the whole PC thing.

more on the PC

So yes, I was getting loads of error messages which suggested RAM, but running Memtest 86 showed up no problems.

There's another testing tool called Prime 95. This can be run in what's called a torture test and it's a way of testing a mix of things. You can do three test, which test the CPU and RAM to a greater or lesser extent.

Running this the machine completely flaked out on all three tests. This actually suggested there might be a power problem, as in the system wasn't getting enough juice. A quick trip to the BIOS revealed that something called Intel Turbo Boost was turned on by default.

This is meant to increase the clock speed of your CPU with no effort, but often overclocking requires more power, so I thought maybe that was the problem and I turned it off. Doing so meant that Prime95 now passed two of the tests, but the third still failed. This third test was one that mainly tested RAM.

But given Memtest 86 had passed I was now thinking that the mobo/PSU combo couldn't supply enough juice to run all four sticks of RAM. So last week I took the brave decision of buying a new mobo (it's actually about the most expensive you can buy) and a new, high quality 1,000W PSU.

This last weekend I rebuilt the system with this new mobo and PSU and the initial results were good. I spent most all of Saturday building the system, installing Windows 7 and all the updates (this was the bit on the previous system that was a crash-fest of epic proportions) and then playing Anno 1404 and CoD: Black Ops with not a single crash.

But then on Sunday, it wasn't happy. However, I checked the RAM modules and one of them was definitely slightly loose (I'd touched them the day before after I'd shut down to see how hot they'd got). So, I pushed it back in and the machine ran fine all day.

But then I switched it on this last Monday evening and last night and it initially seemed to be having the same problems.

Actually, I should note I'm skipping a point here. See, the weird thing about the BSODs is that they really only occurred from what's known as cold boot - literally booting up after the machine has been switched off for a good while and has gone cold.

And that was one of the problems I've been having working out what's wrong. See, I'd boot it up, it'd crash and then I'd start investigating. However, as I'd do more testing (swapping the RAM modules, for example) the system would no longer be booting from cold, so the BSODs would clear up.

But also there's another aspect there I mentioned - swapping out the RAM modules. See, the weirdest thing is that the problems on Monday and last night were simply solved by me pushing on the RAM modules. Now they weren't loose that I could tell, but I applied some pressure to them and the machine was totally fine after that.

It's almost like as one or more of the RAM modules cool down they become slightly loose in the slots and so as they warm up from use they expand a little and then when I reseat them ever so slightly by applying pressure they then run fine.

To me, this seems like a bonkers explanation, but it's the best I've got. It also suggest I've spent a lot of additional cash on a mobo and PSU when perhaps the RAM really is the culprit. Problem is, I'm still not sure. See, a complicating factor is that the memory controller is actually located on the CPU.

So it could be the processor and my bizarre conclusion above is simple coincidence.

ai

The weekends DVD was AI, which was directed by Steven Spielberg, but was actually pretty much developed by the late, great Stanley Kubrick.

And I have to confess I found it to be a bit of a mixed bag.

The AI of the title is of course Artificial Intelligence. Specifically, he film is set in a future where the Poles melted and bits of the world sunk into the water. This triggered a bit of a global disaster and as a result people in the western world can only have children if they get a license to do so.

However, technology has also advanced dramatically and robots (it's odd that the film never uses the word android, which is the common name for a humanoid robot, but does the Japanese term Mecha) now look and pretty much act like humans. It's never really said, but the feeling I got was that labour is therefore cheap and easy, presumably supporting the reduced human population levels.

Anyway, these humanoid robots are perfect except in one regard - they're not capable of feeling emotion. Except that's where the story really starts - one of the companies is just on the cusp of building an actual feeling robot.

The niche this fits into seems to fit into is that of children - childless couples can buy one f these feeling robots that, a bit like a newborn chick, will implant on the parents and be capable of feeling love and other emotions like a real child would.

This of course opens up a huge minefield of potential problems and issues and it's these that the film explores. In particular, the first child developed is given to a couple whose son is crippled and kept in cryo stasis as they can't heal him. Only of course they do, so now the couple have their robot boy, but also their real boy.

The grand parallel of the film is Pinocchio - the wooden boy who wanted to become real. But there are also a lot of complicated issues that are explore din the film. So you have a section where those who have reacted against the robots destroying them at a 'flesh fayre'. Then you have a support character who is essentially a gigolo robot. And all the while you've got a robot who is exploring and coming to terms with his new emotions and what the implications of those are.

And as far as that film went I thought it was really good. There's a genuine attempt to explore the complex issues and the circumstances and their conclusions.

But then when you get to the last half hour of the film it takes what I can only really describe as a sharp sideways turn.

I won't spoil it in case you haven't seen it, but it really is a little odd.

And I was rather conflicted. The problem was that, logically, it did sort of work, but it also opened up all sorts of other questions that never really get answered. It also doesn't hang together as well from a scientific point of view where the earlier part of the film does.

But what's worse is it gives an ending that I found somewhat touching, but also ultimately unsatisfying.

pc building woes

I've been unsure about posting about this for the last few weeks.

The reason I was telling myself was that I was afraid I might curse myself, as I kept thinking I'd solved the problem and then finding myself. So I didn't want to find what I thought was the final solution, but then the "yay" post caused it to fail.

This, of course, is superstition. It also isn't true. My fear was mainly of embarrassment - "yay, I've fixed it" followed by "no, I haven't." But then I realised I could write the post as a "I'm still trying to fix it" because I still am.

Anyway, a while back I think I mentioned how I was building a new PC. The reason was that the newest version of Civilization - Civ5 was coming out. No, that's not right. The excuse was that Civ5 was coming out. The reason is because I'm a huge nerd who isn't very sensible with his money.

The point is that I bought a load of new computer kit and built myself a new PC. The specs for the PC were:

• 850W power supply
• Gigabyte GA-P55-UD3 motherboard
• Intel 2.8GHz socket 1156 Quad-core Processor
• 4 lots of 2gb 1600 MHz DDR3 RAM
• 150gb SATA2 Hard Drive
• ATI HD5970 Graphics Card (this is a dual GPU graphics card)
• Windows 7 Pro 64bit

I had a Dickens of a time with a case to put it all in as I ordered a really swanky one, but it turned out that the graphics card was an absolute monster and it simply didn't fit. The case I use for my then current games machine was actually an oversized one, so I ended up doing all sorts of switching over.

So yeah, I put together the machine and then started the process of loading on Windows7. And that's when the problems started.

See, as windows was loading, there was an error. The error message wasn't hugely helpful, but a Google search suggested that there'd probably been some sort of copying error from the CD into either memory or RAM. This seemed very odd and what was more worrying was that restarting everything and giving it another go kept producing the same error.

But it was late when I was doing it, so I left it and tried again on another day. And that time it worked. But, when I finally got into windows proper, the real problems started. Basically, every so often the machine would crash. What's more it was a proper full-on crash - what's known as a Blue Screen of Death, or BSOD.

But weirdly, every time it crashed it gave the same error message of a "Memory Management" error. This gave the initial impression it was the RAM, but a search of the error codes online was inconclusive, because although other people had the same codes, the meaning of them was not explained by Microsoft.

But it seemed like RAM, so I downloaded something called Memtest 86. This runs from a CD and test your RAM by sending it binary codes and checking the accuracy of what comes back. Now because I had 4 sticks, the best thing to do was to run each stick during the day while I was at work and see which one failed.

Only none of them failed. I even tried slotting all of them in and running them all and that still didn't produce any errors.

So what the hell was wrong?

This post is already quite long, so I'll pick up on another day.

pc building woes

I've been unsure about posting about this for the last few weeks.

The reason I was telling myself was that I was afraid I might curse myself, as I kept thinking I'd solved the problem and then finding myself. So I didn't want to find what I thought was the final solution, but then the "yay" post caused it to fail.

This, of course, is superstition. It also isn't true. My fear was mainly of embarrassment - "yay, I've fixed it" followed by "no, I haven't." But then I realised I could write the post as a "I'm still trying to fix it" because I still am.

Anyway, a while back I think I mentioned how I was building a new PC. The reason was that the newest version of Civilization - Civ5 was coming out. No, that's not right. The excuse was that Civ5 was coming out. The reason is because I'm a huge nerd who isn't very sensible with his money.

The point is that I bought a load of new computer kit and built myself a new PC. The specs for the PC were:

• 850W power supply
• Gigabyte GA-P55-UD3 motherboard
• Intel 2.8GHz socket 1156 Quad-core Processor
• 4 lots of 2gb 1600 MHz DDR3 RAM
• 150gb SATA2 Hard Drive
• ATI HD5970 Graphics Card (this is a dual GPU graphics card)
• Windows 7 Pro 64bit

I had a Dickens of a time with a case to put it all in as I ordered a really swanky one, but it turned out that the graphics card was an absolute monster and it simply didn't fit. The case I use for my then current games machine was actually an oversized one, so I ended up doing all sorts of switching over.

So yeah, I put together the machine and then started the process of loading on Windows7. And that's when the problems started.

See, as windows was loading, there was an error. The error message wasn't hugely helpful, but a Google search suggested that there'd probably been some sort of copying error from the CD into either memory or RAM. This seemed very odd and what was more worrying was that restarting everything and giving it another go kept producing the same error.

But it was late when I was doing it, so I left it and tried again on another day. And that time it worked. But, when I finally got into windows proper, the real problems started. Basically, every so often the machine would crash. What's more it was a proper full-on crash - what's known as a Blue Screen of Death, or BSOD.

But weirdly, every time it crashed it gave the same error message of a "Memory Management" error. This gave the initial impression it was the RAM, but a search of the error codes online was inconclusive, because although other people had the same codes, the meaning of them was not explained by Microsoft.

But it seemed like RAM, so I downloaded something called Memtest 86. This runs from a CD and test your RAM by sending it binary codes and checking the accuracy of what comes back. Now because I had 4 sticks, the best thing to do was to run each stick during the day while I was at work and see which one failed.

Only none of them failed. I even tried slotting all of them in and running them all and that still didn't produce any errors.

So what the hell was wrong?

This post is already quite long, so I'll pick up on another day.

thank you, come again

So, it's all over.

The 2010 Formula 1 season has finished, with the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix this last Sunday. And the winner was Sebastian Vettel, who also managed to take something of a surprise World Championship title with it.

I say something of a shock, because Vettel was pretty much an outside bet. In order to take the title, going into the race he had to win, with Alonso and Webber getting poor results. In qualifying Alonso ended up third and Webber a poor fifth. That meant it seemed really likely Alonso would take the title.

But, on the very first lap Michael Schumacher spun and ended up in a bit of a scary accident where one of the Force India's ran up the side of his car. This meant there was a long safety car period and some of the lower down drivers took the opportunity to pit.

Once the race was back under way, Webber came in for tyres after a few laps, because his seemed to be going off and Ferrari covered his decision. But, and here's where things get a complicated, Vettel stayed out and so did Hamilton and Button.

The reason this is complicated was because Alonso and Webber ended up behind Petrov, who had come in for tyres with the safety car. However, Vettel, Hamilton and Button's tyres either weren't that bad or they came back to them, so those three stayed out for ages.

When Hamilton did eventually pit, he ended up behind Kubica who, because he was outside of the top ten, was on the harder compound of tyres and so didn't come in for ages. Vettel was able to time his pit stop so he came out in front of Hamilton. Mclaren tried a similar trick with Button, but it didn't work and he ended up behind Hamilton.

So why were these important? Well, Abu Dhabi kinda typifies the modern bread of circuit, which is to say that overtaking is almost impossible. I mean, you basically ended up with Hamilton and Alonso trapped behind Kubica and Petrov. They were both in Renaults, which have basically been proven to be an inferior car - indeed, the word is that there's been no development of the car for ages.

Of course, the fact that Renault engines are in the Red Bulls inspired some conspiracy theories, but these are clearly rubbish as the Renault car is Renault in name only - the team was bought out last year. No, the problem is that at certain circuits, the combination of the track layout and the almost complete reliance on down force generated by aerodynamics (the wings) means overtaking become impossible.

So you end up with this situation that some circuits are great, with actual chances of overtaking, but others there's no overtaking at all. That means that, as this last Sunday, you're reliant on tactics and other aspects to bring any sort of interest to the race itself.

I mean, if this race had happened earlier in the season, it would have been dull city. The fact that it decided the world championship was all that made it interesting.

So while we've had the best season in ages, we've still had some frankly dull races. Let's hope that some of the changes to the rules proposed for future years - turbos, allowing the use of ground effect and some of the things like KERS make all of the actual races good ones.

Which is to take nothing away from Vettel - well done that man.

and how does that affect the graph?

Following on from yesterday, something I wasn't sure about mentioning was my graph.

Basically, what I have discussed before is that I've set an initial target for my weight loss. I've not given too many details, as I find it rather embarrassing, but what I have said is that this initial target marks the transition point from me being "Morbidly Obese" to simply "Obese".

Now, clearly that doesn't mean it's any sort of end point, but it seemed like a reasonably sensible first target - get from my current weight to under that threshold before the end of the year. Unfortunately, Christmas is one of those holidays where consumption is difficult to avoid, so I'm actually hoping to exceed the target by a bit so that any bounce up that occurs doesn't take me back over.

But anyway - the point is, get below that line by the end of the year (When not at my Dad's and eating too much I will of course be home and can probably do a lot of walking, so that's how I'm hoping to compensate). And of course, me being me, that also means I can create a spreadsheet.

In this case I also have the bonus of the fact that I'm using a pedometer to monitor my walking, so I've got numbers I can put in daily (the pedo) and weekly (my weight). And that means (drum roll) graphs!

In this case, I've got two fairly simple graphs that plot my weight and BMI, but the key point here is that there's a line drawn on them that connects my initial weight and the weight I need to get to in order to go below the target weight.

Now generally, I've been some way below this line. Indeed, it was the degree of belowness that triggered my worry about not eating enough calories a while back, but last week's zero change result was particularly alarming, because for the first time I got close to the line with the very real prospect that this week I would go over it.

Thankfully, I'm now back well below the line after Sunday's weigh in.

Anyway, the thing I really wanted to mention was that my big plan is to have a "reveal all" session once I pass my first target. My idea is I'll reveal my initial weight, show the graphs and discuss my next target. I'll also probably do a bit of an analysis on the pedometer stuff.

Dunno why I wanted to mention that, I guess it's partly because of the scare, but also because I'm actually getting quite excited about hitting the target. It feels like it's been ages (to be frank, it has) with such slow progress, but recently it's started to feel like it's really doable.

perhaps it did change?

This last weekend's weigh in revealed something interesting.

The something in question was that I had apparently lost another 5 pounds. To me, this sounded slightly odd, because I'd had a slight issue with chocolates.

The issue stems from the fact that my landlord had been on holiday and I'd been house sitting for him. He seems to go on holiday at least 4 times a year, but anyway, when he does, he asks me to look out for the place and at the same time I can pick up my mail.

When he returns, he usually shows his appreciation by buying me a box of chocolates. The me of old would proceed to eat these chocolates on my own. To be fair to the old me he wouldn't scoff them all at once and he'd try to adjust his other eating to compensate a bit, but it wouldn't be that serious an attempt and so he'd get a whole boat load of extra calories to deal with.

The new me decided that the best thing to do was to take the chocolates in to work. That way I could have a few, but avoid eating too many. Only the new me was also a bit stunned by the size of the box my landlord had bought (it was a double layer Thornton's selection box!) and so the new me had quite a few chocolates, as it was almost impossible to avoid them.

Otherwise, the week was fairly normal diet and exercise wise, so I was expecting to loose a few pounds, but not to the extent of loosing 5 pounds.

This actually leads me to suspect that last weeks weigh in was something of a false result. Looking back I didn't really weigh myself under the same circumstances as I have done every other week. And as I've said before, consistency is the real key to monitoring something like this.

I therefore think that last week I actually lost perhaps one or two pounds, but because of the inconsistency of measurement it was 'hidden'. This week I therefore probably saw those one or two pounds plus the extra 3 or 4 pounds I'd genuinely lost this week.

I have to confess this makes much more sense to me. Despite how harsh I was on myself last week I was a little puzzled that I hadn't lost anything at all. I mean, when I tried to guesstimate the calories, I was struggling to see how what I'd eaten would have genuinely cancelled out the rest of the week's diet, even though that diet was slightly higher than normal.

One of the weird advantages of being so heavy is it's actually easy to loose weight. When I start getting closer to simply being fat, I'm pretty sure the scale of weight loss will reduce and I'll have to be doing more exercise. Hopefully, though, I won't be hitting that sort of problem until we get back into the warmer months, when exercising (walking) will be much easier and enjoyable.

ocean's 11

The subject of this week's review may come as something of a surprise, as Ocean's 11 is one of those films that 'surely everyone has seen'. I mean, it's pretty old and has been on regular telly loads of time, right?

Well, yes, but I've never really gotten around to watching it. I am aware that it received pretty good reviews and did well enough at the box office to spawn two sequels, so it's not like it passed under my radar or anything. I just never really got around to watching it until now.

Generally speaking I think I'd have to agree with the consensus. It's a good, fun, entertaining movie. I've no experience of the original Rat Pack Ocean's 11 film it's a remake of, so I can't comment on that, but this film works pretty well.

I've no idea of whether it was coincidental or whatever, but I think The Hustle TV series was probably inspired by the film, but because I'd seen that first, in my head I kept thinking 'this is like the Hustle', rather than the reverse.

It's a scam/caper type movie and it takes the route of being a very Hollywood pop-corn version of crime, where the thieves are actually on some level 'honest' (eh?) and because the target is Vegas, it's all okay. I dunno, it's that old Robin Hood/A-Team thing where they're criminals, but they're almost righting wrongs.

There's also a few nice little twists in it, but not to the extent of that being the point of the film. and generally as a heist it sort of holds up. I did have a few questions as to why they were doing certain things, some of which were clearly more to do with making it visually entertaining that anything that 'makes sense'.

A few of these, though, were a little off. The most noticeable is to do with the money, which I won't detail to avoid spoilers, but it's what I believe is labelled a "fridge door moment". A fridge door moment is the question or illogicality that strikes you several hours after seeing the film when you're looking into the fridge for a snack.

"Hang on - how did they....?" That sort of thing.

And there are actually a few of these, but only a couple really spoil the integrity of the con. Some you can sort of think up possible explanations for, even though there's nothing on-screen to back it up. Movie logic is another phrase for it - it works there while you're watching the film, but not upon later inspection.

Anyway, these don't really spoil the film and overall it works. There were only two things I wasn't sure about.

Firstly, there's a section towards the end which is weirdly heavy on the pathos. I mean, it's a beautiful scene, but it's odd - it's like they stopped the fun caper movie and insert this poignant sentimental section before then going back to the film proper.

The other thing was the end, which is weirdly open-ended. Not in a really bad way, but it makes the film feel like it doesn't quite end when the credits roll.

I was reminded actually of that bit in Jurassic park where the can of shaving foam with the embryos in it is filmed sliding down the hill in the rain, almost as if it was meant to be the source of a sequel or it was meant to come up later. But then it didn't

animu blip

So last week I experienced something of an anime blip, in that I actually watched some.

I wasn't entirely sure why. I think part of it is that all the sorting out is kinda done and my room redecoration is kinda done, so two things that were absorbing a lot of my time are now not taking up any time. Also, dinner is now a meal that requires no preparation, so that's freed up some time.

But I think a bigger part of it is a degree of guilt and a smidgen of worry.

I mean, I've still got a massive pile of unwatched anime DVDs. I've also now got nearly a years worth of unscanned anime magazines. And what's more I've got this Crunchyroll subscription that I'm paying for and not really suing.

And what makes the last of those worse is that some of the shows on Crunchyroll are subject to time limits. In other words, after a while they're no longer on there to watch. That's okay if it's a series I think I'll like and it's been licensed, so I can buy it on DVD, but if it's a more average show that I wouldn't want to buy or isn't licensed anyway, then I'm loosing the chance to watch it. And paying for the privilege.

So, and despite the amount of stuff to watch on telly surging upwards, last week I started watching some anime stuff. Unfortunately I then seemed to get scuppered by other stuff I had to do, so it stopped, but I thought I'd dust off the old anime mini reviews thing.

Except, the first thing I'm going to talk about I watched ages ago.


Blessing of the Campanella

Blessings of Campanella pretty much managed to combine several things I really don't like into a whole that did nothing for me.

The things I didn't like included a derivative fantasy setting, a quest theme, cookie-cutter characters, generic character designs and a non-descript hero. If I had to guess, my guess would be that the whole thing was based on some Japanese RPG game.

It's probably a hallmark of how uninterested I was in the show that I don't even have the energy to go and find out.


Giant Killing

This was the show that I started properly watching via Crunchyroll.

I'd already sampled it back when it came out. It's basically a football (soccer, rather than American) anime and I was surprised at how much I enjoyed it.

My surprise continued while I was watching it, but it did become increasingly apparent that while it's about football, it's not really football. It's much more like chess than it is proper football. Well, I say that, I'm not exactly a football fan, so maybe there is more of a similarity between the two than I'd realised.

If I'm honest I think I binged on the show a bit too heavily. I think I watched about 15 episodes across just a couple of days and I that's a bit much - I got a bit fatigued by the end. Also, the earlier episodes happen across only a few days, but then it switches to more of a 'sampling' method.

By that I mean that it'll skip ahead a few days until the next match and only show you about 15 minutes worth of the actual game, where in the earlier episodes things were more real time. I think this, combined with binging, disorientated me a bit.

But I did enjoy it, although it confirmed to me it wasn't a show I would ever buy on DVD, which makes it the perfect thing for watching on Crunchyroll.


Claymore

I didn't watch claymore on Crunchyroll, as I think I actually watched and bought it a good while before I even knew there was a Crunchyroll. No, this is a DVD release from Funimation. Indeed, it's actually a DVD release that came out in old-skool format - released as six single episodic disks, rather than one or two half/full season sets, although it was one of the last shows ever to come out like that.

I initially saw Claymore on fansub and decided to buy it. I bought the DVDs, but in the meantime I've bought and read the manga version, which is now up to volume 17 (I think). One thing I've been struck by is how similar the anime is to the manga.

I know later on the story diverges, but they've stuck pretty close in the 6 or so episodes I've watched so far. However, they've not really stuck closely to the style.

Well, they've maintained the bean-pole character designs, but there's a definite stylistic shift. And to be frank, it's a good one. The manga is relatively simply presented, but the anime is much more of a visual treat, with interesting camera angles and stylisation of movement.

The most effective thing is probably the use of colour, which obviously wouldn't be possible in black-and-white manga, but here they've not simply coloured things in. Instead, we get scenes painted in vivid colour palettes that really use colour in an interesting and dynamic way.

I'm sure I'll be doing a full review at some point, but I've been quite impressed by this show - more so than I remembered.

best season in ages

This year's F1 has probably been one of the best seasons in ages.

At the very start of the year, the first race in Dubai was, quite frankly, dull, and there was a real risk that the season would turn out to be a stinker. But after that things really livened up and don't ever seem to have stopped being lively.

In years gone by it wasn't unusual for one team to emerge as being totally dominant. I can remember a lot of seasons - the Schumacher era in particular - when a single driver dominated, taking most every pole and winning most races. I remember a lot of seasons where the winner was decided a good three or four races before the end, and back then you didn't have as many races.

But this year, despite Red Bull having what most have acknowledge as being the best car, they haven't romped away with it. There have been problems of reliability, the rivalry of their two drivers and the fact that some cars seem to suit certain circuits better to make things more complicated than that. And then on top of that we've had all sorts of other stuff going on to add even more spice to the mix.

One thing I think was particularly interesting this year is that you had several drivers who clearly had a genuinely good chance of winning it. Often, you only get a couple of drivers and teams that stand a genuine chance, but this year there were several, with several others just on the margins waiting to swoop in if any weakness was shown.

The Brazilian Grand Prix just passed was pretty good. Brazil is one of those circuits where even the average races are interesting. I think this year's actual race probably goes down as average, although qualifying was definitely one of the best this year.

But that's the thing about this year - even when the race itself wasn't necessarily the best ever, it's still added to the overall enjoyment of the season. So the result on Sunday meant that Red Bull secured a well deserved constructors championship, but that the driver's title is far from over.

Button is now definitely out of it, and Hamilton has almost no chance, but Vettel is still in with an outside shot and of course Alonso and Webber are still very much in contention.

So it goes down to the wire, and there's only a week to find out the result, as Abu Dhabi is his Sunday.

brazlillian

This weekend it's the Brazilian Grand Prix. Well, actually it's the Brazilian F1 GP and the Valencia MotoGP, but the MotoGP is already decided, as Jorge Lorenzo won the championship several races ago.

The F1 GP is far from decided, as there are still five drivers who could technically win it. Well, I say that, but for two of them - Vettel and Button - it's pretty much a long shot. Both would almost need the other guys to all get no points in both of the remaining races to win it.

And to be frank, it's a bit of a long shot for the third place man, Lewis Hamilton. He's in one of those situations where the others could score a few points and he'd have to win both races to take the title.

Now to be fair, Brazil is well known as a track where unpredictable things happen. It's not unusual for there to be rain, for example, and there have been some big pile-ups in the past. Also, it's a circuit where there's loads of opportunities to pass.

However, the last Grand Prix - Abu Dhabi - has been much more processional and predictable. So although you can see odd things happening and going in Vettel's, Button's or Hamilton's favour at Brazil, it's much less likely at Abu Dhabi, so really you have to say that there are only two contenders with a good shot at taking the championship.

First there's Mark Webber, who's had a very up and down season. By rights, the championship should be a Red Bull fight to the finish. Barring a few circuits they've clearly had the quickest car all year and the number of pole positions and front-row lock-outs they've had is amazing.

In years gone by these would all have been converted to race wins (or at worst second places) and you would have seen both drivers fighting it out for the championship. But that's not really happened - Red Bull have been plagued by all sorts of technical and other problems that have seen them if not throw it away then not exactly help themselves.

But then, to be fair, Red Bull are a relatively new team - they're not like Ferrari and McLaran who have years of race and title winning experience to draw on. They're the upstart new kids who've persevered and got themselves into a championship winning situation.

The other real contender is Fernando Alonso.

Weirdly, Alonso seems to have become something of a pantomime villain for the British press. There was the whole thing of Massa being told to let him through and he can be a bit of a spiky character. Plus he's won several titles already, and the press love an 'underdog makes good' story, which is more what you've got for Webber. And I guess there's something of an antipodean affection, if you will.

My own take is that Alonso is probably one of the best drivers on the grid at the moment and is definitely one of the all time great drivers. So personally, I like him. Plus of course, he's driving for Ferrari, which is my favourite team.

However, I also think it would be nice for Webber to win, so it looks like it could be a cracker of an end to what has, I think, been one of the all-time classic seasons.

no change

Well, it finally happened.

When I weighed myself on Sunday, I found I had lost no weight.

Now, I could regard this as a bit of a disaster or I could console myself with the fact that I've not put on weight. I'm inclined to do a bit of both.

See, last week was a bit of a tough one. Firstly, it turned out that it was someone at work's birthday, so we went down the pub on Friday. That meant having a big old pub-lunch type meal. Then of course there was Saturday, where we had a three course meal at a restaurant.

Neither of these adequately fit into sensible meal sizes, calories wise, when you're on a diet. Oh, I'm sure that because of my otherwise diet-friendly eating I wasn't in a situation of having too many calories, but the point is there were sufficient calories to bugger up the diet.

Plus, the person whose birthday it was brought in some cake and I had a slice. I mean, technically I could have avoided most of these things, but there are two problems - firstly, it would mean admitting I'm on a diet to my work colleagues, which I'm not fully comfortable with, but also as part of that it'd be a bit rude to say I didn't want any cake or not go to the lunch.

However, there's also a bit of a double whammy here. Last week I was talking about how I'd scared myself a little by not feeling hungry and that I was worried I was taking in too few calories. This sounds daft, but one of the weird things is it can be bad loosing weight too quickly - as I understand it, your heart can be put under quite a strain, for example.

Anyway, the point is that as a result of that I was actually eating slightly more. Not to the extent that I wasn't still on a diet, but enough to take me up to being safely above 1,300 calories. If I'd thought about it properly I'd have not done that, so as to try to compensate a bit for the big meals. But I didn't, so I think that all pretty much explains why I didn't loose any weight.

Certainly I didn't do enough exercise to make up for it either. I mean, I tried on Saturday to arrive early and have a nice long walk around London, but of course on Sunday I was so tired I didn't do any walking at all, so I'm betting those two have cancelled each other out. And of course I'm now in a period where I'm doing less exercise generally.

So yeah, bit of a mixed bag. Part of me is pleased it wasn't as bad as it could have been (I think putting on weight would be a bit of a blow), but the other part of me is a bit annoyed with myself that I didn't think things through and plan the week out properly.