Today is my last day... of the week.
I'd love for it to be my last day of work forever. Well, I mean if I'd won the lottery or got a better job or something. Not if I'd be fired or made redundant or something. That would obviously suck big, hairy monkey balls.
Anyway, the point is that I've taken tomorrow and Friday off work. It's not for any exciting reason like I'm going on holiday to some tropical paradise or anything. No, basically I'm taking them off in order to get a bunch of stuff done. And the bunch of stuff is all very boring and tedious life stuff.
For example, I've an appointment at the dentists and at the opticians to get my eyes tested. Plus I want to see if I can get my windscreen fixed (with the terrible weather I'm figuring it's best to go to one of their places as they have a covered area) and I need to book to get my car in for an MOT and to get it serviced.
There's other stuff too, but it's all equally tedious.
The only good part is that I'm hoping I'll get a chance to do some fun stuff. I may try to marathon an entire anime show, but at the least I'm hoping I'll start the scanning I keep flirting with.
I actually did some scanning last weekend, but it was DVD covers to put in reviews over at trismugistus.com. One thing I did discover is I can't remember how I set up my scanner.
The problem seemed to be that the cables weren't long enough, but I distinctly remember that before I didn't used to have any problems with cable lengths. It was kinda bizarre actually, as I kept tugging on the wires thinking they must be caught up somewhere, but instead I'd just pull it out of the scanner or pull my USB hub thing off the desk. I did think that maybe I'd got the cables mixed up and put a shorter one in the scanner by mistake, but not of the other USB cables seemed longer.
Plus it turned out the scanner wasn't even plugged into the power, which took me ages to fiddle to get into a plug hole. And then when I did, I again found the cable seemed too short to reach. I've really no idea how I used to route the cables and stuff, but I know I didn't used to have all these problems.
Anyway, I'm sure I'll figure it out.
Wednesday, 3 March 2010
Tuesday, 2 March 2010
wall-e
Bit of a different order for things this week, so I'm doing the usual Wednesday film review on a Tuesday.
The film in question was WALL-E, which is a CGI film by Pixar.
I have a bit of a tough time with Pixar's films. There are some that I really like, but a lot of them I don't think quite live up to the hype surrounding them. A good example of this is the Incredibles, which I found very disappointing.
Which isn't to say I didn't like it, it's more like it didn't seem as good as it could have been. Another example is Finding Nemo - I just found it a bit disappointing and, if I'm honest, rather predictable.
I dunno, maybe it's because all of Pixar's films are essentially kid's films. Finding Nemo in particular you've got a father loosing his son and trying to find him. I mean, was there ever any doubt that he would find him?
Now don't get me wrong- even if it wasn't animated or it wasn't a kid's film, if that was the core plot it'd be extremely unlikely not to have a successful outcome. I dunno - it's difficult to explain.
I think the best I can cover it is that the jeopardy in Finding Nemo is false because there's that inevitability. However, if you'd got to the end and Nemo had suggested he wanted to stay where he was then I'd have been interested in that jeopardy.
I'm babbling - the point I'm coming round to is that WALL-E didn't disappoint me. I really enjoyed it. The writing in particular was superb.
One of the things I liked about it is that when they do these films they often bits for the adult - gags or whatever that kids won't get but that let the parents enjoy it a bit more. Well, in WALL-E, they didn't r really need to do that, because it's a more grown up story.
It's a love story, essentially, and I'm not sure Pixar have really tackled a love story like this before.
I will say that I did have a couple of reservations about the film, but they were more from me being a pedant about stuff than actual problems.
I won't go into detail over these, but one of the ones that did kinda puzzle me was towards the end. It's not really a spoiler as all I'll say is that there's a part where the ship they end up on gets tilted to the side and all the humans slide out of their chairs.
The basic idea is that all the people have become fat and feeble from having everything done for them. This includes walking and they all kinda sit in these automatic wheel chairs (we'll leave how they defecate out of proceedings).
Anyway, so the idea is the ship tilts, they all slide out of their chairs and then down the floor. Okay, it sorta works. Except think about this - in space there is no "up". It's clearly shown in other bits that there's no gravity in space and so the suggestion is that there's an artificial gravity system at work somewhere.
But wouldn't that gravity system be orientated along the axis of the ship? Which is to say, if you tilt the ship, you tilt the gravity too, so from the perspective of the humans in the chairs, there should be no sense of leaning.
Even if you come up with some reason for that, then why aren't the chairs affected too? Even if you say they're anchored in place, they should lean in the opposite direction if that stays fixed. So in other words, there's no way in which the chairs would upend and evict their users.
Another one that didn't quite make sense was that WALL-E and EVE end up in a trash compactor that's basically flinging all the ship's waste otut into space. And yet they've been in space for 700 years - wouldn't they have run out of raw materials if the ship was designed to just dump waste into space, rather than recycle/reuse it?
But as I say, these things don't affect the core story and you can happily ignore them as otherwise it's very, very good.
The film in question was WALL-E, which is a CGI film by Pixar.
I have a bit of a tough time with Pixar's films. There are some that I really like, but a lot of them I don't think quite live up to the hype surrounding them. A good example of this is the Incredibles, which I found very disappointing.
Which isn't to say I didn't like it, it's more like it didn't seem as good as it could have been. Another example is Finding Nemo - I just found it a bit disappointing and, if I'm honest, rather predictable.
I dunno, maybe it's because all of Pixar's films are essentially kid's films. Finding Nemo in particular you've got a father loosing his son and trying to find him. I mean, was there ever any doubt that he would find him?
Now don't get me wrong- even if it wasn't animated or it wasn't a kid's film, if that was the core plot it'd be extremely unlikely not to have a successful outcome. I dunno - it's difficult to explain.
I think the best I can cover it is that the jeopardy in Finding Nemo is false because there's that inevitability. However, if you'd got to the end and Nemo had suggested he wanted to stay where he was then I'd have been interested in that jeopardy.
I'm babbling - the point I'm coming round to is that WALL-E didn't disappoint me. I really enjoyed it. The writing in particular was superb.
One of the things I liked about it is that when they do these films they often bits for the adult - gags or whatever that kids won't get but that let the parents enjoy it a bit more. Well, in WALL-E, they didn't r really need to do that, because it's a more grown up story.
It's a love story, essentially, and I'm not sure Pixar have really tackled a love story like this before.
I will say that I did have a couple of reservations about the film, but they were more from me being a pedant about stuff than actual problems.
I won't go into detail over these, but one of the ones that did kinda puzzle me was towards the end. It's not really a spoiler as all I'll say is that there's a part where the ship they end up on gets tilted to the side and all the humans slide out of their chairs.
The basic idea is that all the people have become fat and feeble from having everything done for them. This includes walking and they all kinda sit in these automatic wheel chairs (we'll leave how they defecate out of proceedings).
Anyway, so the idea is the ship tilts, they all slide out of their chairs and then down the floor. Okay, it sorta works. Except think about this - in space there is no "up". It's clearly shown in other bits that there's no gravity in space and so the suggestion is that there's an artificial gravity system at work somewhere.
But wouldn't that gravity system be orientated along the axis of the ship? Which is to say, if you tilt the ship, you tilt the gravity too, so from the perspective of the humans in the chairs, there should be no sense of leaning.
Even if you come up with some reason for that, then why aren't the chairs affected too? Even if you say they're anchored in place, they should lean in the opposite direction if that stays fixed. So in other words, there's no way in which the chairs would upend and evict their users.
Another one that didn't quite make sense was that WALL-E and EVE end up in a trash compactor that's basically flinging all the ship's waste otut into space. And yet they've been in space for 700 years - wouldn't they have run out of raw materials if the ship was designed to just dump waste into space, rather than recycle/reuse it?
But as I say, these things don't affect the core story and you can happily ignore them as otherwise it's very, very good.
Monday, 1 March 2010
commence floggery
My main goal this last weekend was to get some stuff on e-bay.
I have a box that I keep next to my bed and as I finish reading or watching something I dump it in the box. When the box is overflowing with stuff is usually my cue (I had a real thicko moment there where I couldn't remember how to spell cue!) to get some stuff flogged.
The thing about this pile though is that it can be a little deceptive. Although it often gets the point of overflowing, sometimes there's not actually much in it that I can actually sell.
The reason is that often the majority of the pile is made up of manga volumes and while I will eventually sell them, I've learned that manga sells best when you sell it as a complete collection. That's particularly true at the moment where I've got a lot of ongoing series that I'm collected, but that aren't really keepers.
I mean, they're not bad, but equally they're not ones I want to hang onto in the long term. That means I have to put them away in boxes until the series is complete and I can sell them all in one go.
The other thing that does work is if I dump a series and I'm up to date. They usually sell quite well if it's a case of "all released so far" as you're effectively kick-starting someone else collecting them. The thing that doesn't sell at all well is single volumes in the middle of a series.
The problem, I guess, is that you're relying on several people being on that same volume in order to get multiple bids and also that they'll be looking on e-bay for that specific volume. It's usually fairly unlikely.
But what that does mean is you can't sell, say, volumes 1-10 in a lot and then try and sell the individual volumes as you read them. I've tied something similar to that before and I just cannot sell them at anything like a reasonable price. Where I would at minimum get a third back from selling multiple volumes or a complete series, with individual volumes I'm lucky to be getting 5% back.
When you consider postage and e-bay fees, that means it's almost guaranteed to be a loss-maker. And while I don't mind selling stuff and not making a lot of money so that other people can enjoy the series, I'm not happy about loosing money for the privilege.
Anyway, the upshot of going through the pile was that I've ended up with about a dozen things on e-bay. The pile had a lot more stuff in it that I've boxed away for the time being, but a dozen things isn't bad all things considered.
Hopefully I'll have more stuff to get rid of soon as well, because for the first time in ages I sat down and marathoned a load of episodes on DVD on Sunday. And that was on top of playing a load of Anno 1404: Venice, so a fairly successful weekend.
I have a box that I keep next to my bed and as I finish reading or watching something I dump it in the box. When the box is overflowing with stuff is usually my cue (I had a real thicko moment there where I couldn't remember how to spell cue!) to get some stuff flogged.
The thing about this pile though is that it can be a little deceptive. Although it often gets the point of overflowing, sometimes there's not actually much in it that I can actually sell.
The reason is that often the majority of the pile is made up of manga volumes and while I will eventually sell them, I've learned that manga sells best when you sell it as a complete collection. That's particularly true at the moment where I've got a lot of ongoing series that I'm collected, but that aren't really keepers.
I mean, they're not bad, but equally they're not ones I want to hang onto in the long term. That means I have to put them away in boxes until the series is complete and I can sell them all in one go.
The other thing that does work is if I dump a series and I'm up to date. They usually sell quite well if it's a case of "all released so far" as you're effectively kick-starting someone else collecting them. The thing that doesn't sell at all well is single volumes in the middle of a series.
The problem, I guess, is that you're relying on several people being on that same volume in order to get multiple bids and also that they'll be looking on e-bay for that specific volume. It's usually fairly unlikely.
But what that does mean is you can't sell, say, volumes 1-10 in a lot and then try and sell the individual volumes as you read them. I've tied something similar to that before and I just cannot sell them at anything like a reasonable price. Where I would at minimum get a third back from selling multiple volumes or a complete series, with individual volumes I'm lucky to be getting 5% back.
When you consider postage and e-bay fees, that means it's almost guaranteed to be a loss-maker. And while I don't mind selling stuff and not making a lot of money so that other people can enjoy the series, I'm not happy about loosing money for the privilege.
Anyway, the upshot of going through the pile was that I've ended up with about a dozen things on e-bay. The pile had a lot more stuff in it that I've boxed away for the time being, but a dozen things isn't bad all things considered.
Hopefully I'll have more stuff to get rid of soon as well, because for the first time in ages I sat down and marathoned a load of episodes on DVD on Sunday. And that was on top of playing a load of Anno 1404: Venice, so a fairly successful weekend.
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