unusual purchasing

There hasn't been any news on the missing slice of my pay packet.

I think my boss is going to try to just sort it out for this month and not give me the missing amount for last month.  Yet another disappointment.

Either way, with my wage increase I've been looking at loosening the old economic belt a bit and considering a few unusual purchases.  Well, unusual for me - most are pretty normal for normal people who don't spend all their money on DVDs and books.

By that I mean clothes in that I have been looking at the various options for refreshing my work wardrobe in particular, but also a few other clothing and related things I need - a new dressing gown, in particular, for example.

Anyway, the one I specifically wanted to mention was that I'm looking at buying a shaving brush.

When I first started work I only shaved every other day.  I don't mean I could get away with only shaving every other day as my beard is thick, dark, and grows quickly, but that I used to just go to work with stubble.

However, as I got older and as I've thinned down a bit, it's began to look like I was growing a full beard every other day.  As such, I started shaving every day (well, work day).  This meant I had to slightly adapt my shaving style as I used to close shave, but if I close shave every day I'm much more likely to get razor burn and stuff.

However, I've been somewhat disappointed with the results and one of the things I've been looking at as a possible solution is getting a proper shaving brush.

The best brushes are apparently made from badger hair and are surprisingly expensive.  I mean, some obviously cost a fortune because of branding or whatever, but even cheap ones are several pounds.  When you consider how "old technology" they are that's pretty expensive.

Another thing I've been looking at is mu whole teeth cleaning regime.  Primarily I've been looking at getting a good electric toothbrush.  I used to have a cheap one and it was okay, but it was battery powered (as in normal A4s) and after only a week or two you would be able to feel that the power was going down, even though I used the batteries with the power testers on them and they would say the battery was still 90% okay.

As such I've been looking at getting a proper rechargeable one, but there are so many different types it's quite confusing.  Particularly since it seems like a relatively simple thing - the head oscillates, cleans teeth, done.

Lastly that I'll mention is a nose hair trimmer.

I bought a cheap one a while back when the nose hair issue was at a point where plucking them was more agony than I could take and it did okay for a while, but again, it's battery powered and quickly deteriorates in effectiveness.

I also got free one when I bought my hair trimmer, but it has a weirdly long guard on the blades and so leaves the hairs really long.  Okay, they're not really long, but they're long enough that it defeats the point of using the trimmer.

The problem here is almost the opposite of the toothbrushes - there seem to be very few models and most are quite poorly reviewed and rated.  As such it's difficult finding one that's not too expensive but also does the job.

both coming and going

I had a horribly busy / tiring weekend for some reason.

I've mentioned before the troubles that I was having meeting my footwear needs, though I'm not sure if I've mentioned that I've been wanting to get a new mattress as well.  Well I looked online and saw that the nearest millets was in Aldershot and they also have some big furniture type stores there as well, so I decided that I would try to knock everything on the head in one weekend.

The plan was I'd do my washing as usual first thing then head up to Aldershot for opening time, park at the furniture store, nip into town to get work shoes and walking shoes and then head back to get the mattress.  I'd then unload all of these before heading into Aldershot with the primary intention of posting some parcels I had to send but also in case the shoes were still outstanding.

I also needed to buy some bits from smiths and Tesco's so I could park up in Tesco's in Aldershot and then walk into town.  This walking would also help me tick my walking allocation box for the day too.

Good plan and it sort of worked - I got all of the things done, including the mattress, although there was one downside.  The out-of-town furniture places have gotten a company to manage the parking since I last went there (we're talking years since I last went) and one of the conditions they have is that you don't leave the site and of course I did, so they've charged me.

I've actually just been doing some searching and there are quite a few websites (including some YouTube clips from watchdog) saying these aren't really legally enforceable.

Anyway, having bought the mattress it was a hell of a struggle getting it home.  It's actually oddly deep (as in "high") and although it's surprisingly light it's rather inflexible.  I only drive a small car so I was fiddling about putting seats down and taking off headrests and all sorts to cram it in.

I did get it in eventually but it was a bit dodgy driving as it was difficult to get to the gear stick.  I remember thinking as I set off that it'd be a bit dodgy if the police saw me and of course on the drive back there was a police car that had pulled someone over (for speeding I guess)!

The reason for sending the parcels is I made a bit of a decision to get on and rip a bunch of anime DVDs and put them up for sale.  I had actually started doing this with my normal DVDs but got a bit side-tracked with the whole contracting work, but I got a couple of hefty credit card bills and it kinda spurred me into action to try and get the cash flowing again if I'm honest.

The other issue was that on Thursday night I had real trouble sleeping and Friday night I wasn't able to catch up, which meant that by Saturday afternoon I was absolutely shattered.  Sunday I felt so tired that I didn't go for any walk or anything - indeed I didn't actually leave the bedsit

shoes, shoes everywhere

Well, I'm back in the office.

I actually got back yesterday but didn't really have the time to write a blog post.

It was a good holiday I think, overall.  As I said beforehand I had a few days for doing stuff and then I was off gallivanting around the country.

The stuff at home my main aim was to get some new footwear - I needed some work shoes, walking shoes and some trainers.  My thoughts were that the easiest of these to get would be the work shoes, then the walking shoes, then the trainers.

The trainers would be most difficult because I won't wear anything except black trainers and I also like reeboks.  These, combined with my foot size (a 10 or 11 depending on the shoe fit) which is very popular tend to make it rather difficult to find them.

I figured walking shoes would be okay as there's a millets in Farnham and they sell karrimors, which are the brand I like and it would just be a case of finding the right fit and a design that looked sturdy.

The work shoes would be a piece of piss as there are usually lots of designs that are acceptable and there are loads of Clarks shoe shops around.

The reality was almost the exact reverse.  The first sports good shop I breezed into had Black reeboks in my size and I was out within 20 minutes.

The walking shoes proved to be problematic because the millets in Farnham has gone.  I then wasn't at all sure where another one was locally.  However, I knew there was a millets at the factory outlet place that's just up the road from my Dad's in Devon... only that had closed too!

I don't think millets have gone under and I've had a look online to find the shops.  I guess I could always order online, but shoes are one of those things you really need to try on to make sure they fit properly.

The work shoes was bizarre - I went into the Clarks in Aldershot and, as suspected, they had several designs that would have been suitable, but some of them were incredibly expensive (£70 for shoes for work!) and those that weren't they didn't seem to have any sizes that fit.  The ones I did try on were too small and they didn't have the next size up.

I then tried this cheap shoe place up the road, but they were awful - like walking on planks of wood.

There is a shoe shop in the town I work in so I'll try looking in there, or they could probably order them, but overall it was bizarre that I couldn't find any.

it's actually back this time

Total Wipeout appears to be properly back this time.

It also appears to have started in a "Winter Wipeout" format.  Whether this is a temporary Christmas thing or the whole series will be Winter Wipeout I'm not sure.

It was again very quiet in the Laundrette.  Not sure why it was quiet, but I did therefore take the opportunity of not being worried about my machine ending without me there (not from a people may knick my stuff point of view, but due to politeness - not wanting to keep a machine occupied when it's not doing anything) to go and explore the Co-op.

I'm pretty sure I mentioned this before, but a new Co-op mini-supermarket / convenience store type of thing has opened up at the end of the road.  It's taken over an old electrical goods store that's been closed for years and is of a reasonable size.

I think there's quite a lot of the store been used for storage and back-room area, though, because I was actually a little surprised by the actual shop-floor space.  It's quite 'rammed in' to compensate.  Most of the aisles are very narrow - it would be a struggle to get past someone if they were down the row and you certainly couldn't get two trolleys past each other.

IT was obviously quite early so it wasn't exactly busy, but I could imagine it would seem quite full even if there were only 5 or 6 people in there as you'd all be getting in each others way.

Having said that, part of the reason for it being so full is that they've tried to get as much in as possible.  The range of stock is really quite good and you could easily do a reasonable shop in the one place.  I mean, it doesn't have as much as a big supermarket, obviously, but there's a good range of products.

The opening hours are also very long - it's open 7AM to 11PM according to the sign, and I've been past it quite early on my walks and going to the laundrette and it did genuinely appear to be open.

I didn't exactly buy a lot - just some mini-baguette things - but then it was more of a reconnaissance exercise than anything.

And speaking of my wanders, on this weekend's saunters I got to see some of the damage the reason storms caused.

It was obviously not as bad as they had up north, but there were a couple of trees down and where there were roads with lots of trees there was a lot of detritus of broken off bits of branches in the road.  It was obviously a lot windier than I'd appreciated at the time.

re-rearrange

I rearranged my DVDs and books. Again... again.

I liked the idea of my plan when I rearranged them last time, but the results were a bit of a mess.  The big problem was that I mixed stuff up and tried to put books, anime and normal DVDs all together.

Trouble was the ‘slots’ on the shelf weren’t the right size and so what I ended up with was more like a jumble of stuff where I was trying for a more sensible order to watch stuff in.

My new arrangement tries to keep things together - so all my books are back over on the other book shelf, for example - and instead I’ve focused more on putting the groups into a sensible order to watch them in.  So in other words, all the books are together, all the normal DVDs are together and all the anime is together, but what I‘ve done is put those groups into an order where I can watch stuff from the top down.

Well, I say that, but there is one shelf that’s ended up as a random mix of stuff.  I’m not too fussed about that, because it’s more a reflection of the stupid amount of DVDs I’ve got to watch than any real failure in my ordering.

There was also an ulterior motive for my rearrangement.

Basically, I couldn’t find my copy of High School of the Dead.  HOTD was released last week on the Bank Holiday Monday an I’d pre-ordered the Blu-Ray version almost as soon as it was announced.  But I couldn’t find it.

I say I couldn’t find it because I was sure I’d received it.  I had a memory of being a little disappointed with the image they’d put on the Blu-Rays.  I also vaguely remembered unwrapping it and, more importantly, I checked my e-mail and Amazon had sent it on the Bank Holiday.

Now obviously there was the possibility that I hadn’t actually received it, but as I say, I was sure I had, but I couldn’t find it.  I have a small stack of Blu-Rays and it should have been with them, but no sign.

Therefore, by sorting out the mess I’d created with my last re-arrange, it gave me a chance to look through the piles and see if I’d put it somewhere odd.  But there was no sign.

And then, a couple of days after I’d basically decided I’d somehow lost it (perhaps doing something silly like chucking it away like I did with a volume of Bakuman) it turned up in the post.  It had taken some 8 days to arrive.  Now to be fair I do use the Amazon slow and free service and of course if they posted it on the bank holiday, it wouldn’t actually get picked up until later, but still, I think that’s the longest I’ve ever had it take to get to me.

I’ve actually cancelled a lot of the stuff I pre-ordered on Amazon - manga, mostly.  I‘m actually rather skint (all this dental work I’ve had to have has really not helped me) and I need to get more stuff on e-bay.  I’ve got quite a lot lined up - not least of all because I’ve been watching stuff on DVD - but I just don’t seem to be able to find the time to sit down and take photos and write the stuff for the auction pages.

new iron

Here's a random one for you - I bought a new iron recently.

I've been rather impressed by it, actually. I had to get a new one because the old one started leaking. Well, I dropped it, so that's hardly surprising, but it was one of those leaks where it was a small dribble, so I kept using it for a while, but in the end I picked one up at Tesco for about £25.

The cost of bog standard electrical equipment is staggering nowadays. It really has become cheaper to buy new things than to get old stuff repaired, which can't be a good thing for the environment.

Especially when (and I don't know for sure with my iron, but I'm assuming) everything is made in China. The quantities of raw materials and then finished products transported around the globe is mind-blowing. All of it done using fossil fuels.

It's one of those extra 'bonus' problems of unrestrained global capitalism. The main one of course being the fact that the workers who put this stuff together in China probably can't actually afford to buy the stuff they make. Especially when it comes to high-end electrical goods.

And of course the fact that part of the way these manufacturers make money is because environmental regulations for pollutants are so lax in China, so they don't have to spend money cleaning up.

Wow - that was a tangent and a half.

All I was really going to talk about is that I've actually found the new iron to be really good. It seems to get hotter and stay hotter than my old one, and it glides over the clothes much more smoothly.

I've no idea if that's because iron technology has advanced, or this is a better model (or, more likely, the features that were on the better models are now routinely available on the cheap ones) or simply that it's newer and therefore not worn out in any way.

foot and stuff

My foot still hurts.

It's a lot better than it was, but it's still not right. I was pretty busy this weekend and I was moving around a lot, but I've no idea whether this is the sort of injury that's made better by using it or resting it.

I managed to tick a lot of stuff off of my to do list this weekend.

I bought my main presents, although I stopped short of buying more wrapping paper and cards. I could have done, it's just my energy started to flag after a while, so I ended up not bothering. There's plenty of time left, and it also occurred to me I might have some wrapping paper left from last year, so I should check first.

I watched everything I'd recorded on my PVR, which was good as there's been a real risk of it building up to silly amounts again. Well, I say everything - there are 3 films I've recorded that are still on their. It was a non-rental disk weekend again this weekend, and I thought about watching one of the films instead, but in the end I didn't find the time.

I also got a haircut. It's been ages since I last had one and to be honest I've been growing it with the thought of it keeping me warm, but my hair just looks so bad when it's long I ended up getting the short cut I'd normally have in summer.

It also means I'm nice and tidy for Friday, which is the work Christmas lunch day.

What else of note?

Well, there was the parcel thing, but I think I'm going to do a separate blog about that as it's quite a saga/pain in the arse.

I played quite a bit of Anno too, but not as much as I could have done. I think I was relatively restrained, actually.

Oh, and I put a load of stuff up on e-bay. 16 things, in fact, ranging across books, manga, anime and regular DVDs. I'd hoped to have a lot more to sell, but then that would require me to be sufficiently organised and sensible to watch and read the things I should watch and read.

But I'm not, so there isn't.

cable confusion

Yesterday was a near-total right-off.

I was just so tired from the intensity of Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday I could hardly even see straight, let alone do anything useful. I'm also pretty shattered today, but then I didn't help myself by playing Anno quite late into the night - dunno why I did that as I knew what the consequences would be.

I do feel a bit better, though, so hopefully I can get something done.

Tomorrow looks like it's going to be a bit manic, though.

Recently, they've been digging up the roads in the town (well, village is more accurate) where I normally do my shopping. This has caused traffic chaos so where I normally slip my shopping in during my lunch break, it's meant that I've been having to do it very early on a Saturday.

I mean, there are advantages to shopping very early on a Saturday, but generally I find the advantages offered by shopping during the week tend to outweigh these.

But anyway, the point is that I've got the shopping to do, but I've slowly been adding more and more other stuff too. First off, I'll need to fill up with petrol, which isn't a huge hassle, but it's easier if I do it before the shopping, which means getting up super early.

Then I need to go to the post office, but the slight problem is it's a bit of a triple-whammy. First off I need to get some photos done for my passport (this means I'll have to shave either tonight or tomorrow morning) and then I need to post a parcel for an e-bay auction thing and finally I need to collect a parcel because there's a customs charge to pay.

What makes it annoying is that the first two are best done in Alton, but the last has to be done in Farnham. I'm very tempted to pay the customs charge online and then basically go from there - they'll try to deliver it and if I'm lucky my landlord Jon will be in to collect it. If not, it at least puts the problem off for a week and I can collect it next week when thins will hopefully be a bit less busy.

And they get even busier when I get home after the post office, because I'm supposed to be experimenting with my landlord's broadband. I mentioned before that I was looking at trying to get cable, well it turned out that this was impossible.

Basically, Virgin said they don't allow two separate accounts at the same address (my place is a self-contained annex and so has the exact same address as the main residence). Why the won't is a bit of a mystery to me. BT will let you have multiple accounts at the same address - that's what I've got now.

So that seemed to put a serious kibosh on things until John offered that we run a cable from hi box right the way through to my place and that should let me plug into his broadband. If it all works it means I should be able to cancel my broadband at least.

I've actually been giving serious consideration to stopping my phone line as well. Ideally what I'd like to do is just have a mobile (indeed, I'd actually like to switch to a pay as you go mobile as well, rather than be on contract).

I dunno - I need to think about that a bit before I go ahead.

But anyway, the first step is the broadband, so I'm going to test my laptop on John's router and see how we go. If it works, then he's going to see if he can run a long cable into my place and if so then I may well be sorted.

coming and going

It's going to be a confusing and rather busy weekend, I can tell.

There unfortunately seems to have come together a whole bunch of stuff that I need to do or want to get out of the way. It's all rather bit and all over the place, and what's worrying is I've tried to do some organising-type lists and each time they kinda break down or end up impossible to actually achieve.

For example, next weekend is Easter and me and my sister are going to be visiting our dad in order to give him his birthday present. Okay, so that's fine, but it means that the entire Easter weekend is basically a right off, so I need to get everything done now.

That includes buying the last part of Dad's present, wrapping all the bits (I'll need some paper) and buying him a birthday card as the more obvious stuff. However, it also includes less obvious stuff like making sure I'm fuelled up for the weekend and remembering to adjust my trip to the laundrette so that it ties in better.

So in other words, even the simple stuff involves multiple parts and multiple days.

And that's one of the simpler things. You also need to factor in I've got e-bay stuff to send, because people took a long time to pay, plus one of them is a cheque so I'll need to pay that in at the bank. Then you've got the fact that it's also my sister's birthday and I want to give her her present at Easter too.

Plus I've still got the scanning to finish off (new megami turned up - should I do that as well, or leave it until later). Then I've got the last few anime shows of last year to watch.

And mentioning them, the new anime season has started. Fansubs won't appear for about a week, I'd guesss, but the hard-drive I stor fansubs on is nearly full, so I need to burn them all to DVD.

Then it's the second F1 GP of the season, but it's on at a weird time in the morning :/. and of course I've got all that PVR'd stuff to catch up on still.

See - it's all little things that aren't int themselves, porblems, but they're all stacking up into a mighty confusing weekend.

*sigh*

My car's in for its service today. Fingers crossed there's nothign spectacularly wrong with it. I was afraid the tyres might need doing, and that won't be cheap. We will have to see.

oh my god, where's my card?

Those were my exact words last Thursday as I scrabbled around in my wallet, desperately looking for my debit card.

See, I was actually planning to buy my new dehumidifier last Thursday. There's a Focus DIY place just up the road and I figured, what the hell - might as well pick it up there, rather than have to go out at the weekend.

Only I couldn't find my card and there was no reason for it not to be in my wallet - I'd not cleaned it out or anything. In fact, I couldn't remember using it since earlier in the week at Tescos when I'd done a food shop. At Tescos when I'd used chip and pin to pay for it... I realised I must have left the card in the damn chip and pin machine!

I've nearly done this on a couple of occasions before and I bet it happens all the time. I mean, it's all right chip and pin, but I dunno, there's some aspects to it that just aren't as good.

Anyway, I had to dash back to work early so I could look up on the net where to call to cancel my card. Made the call and it was all sorted. I've also checked my statement and it doesn't look like any dodgy shenanigans went on with the card. The checkout person probably just gave it to the supervisor and they have some mechanism for keeping hold of them, I guess - as I say, it must happen all the time.

Anyway, it did put a slight kibosh on my plans for the weekend as it meant I couldn't get any cash out. Well, I could, but it was coming out of my other account, which never has a lot of money in it. So I played it safe and only bought 'just enough' petrol and paid the tax on the new figurine I got from Japan.

I have to say it's a really nice figure. It's Hime from a manga/anime called Princess Resurrection. It comes with a mini-character as well as the main figure. It's also got a proper base, rather than just the normal round ones and it's quite large and is well sculpted and the face doesn't look stupid as they sometimes do.

This weekend was a cleaning weekend, which also gave me the chance to give the new dehumidifier a whirl. This dehumidifier was a lot cheaper than my last one and it's kinda smaller and slightly less 'adjustable'. But in other respects it has a few advantages over the other one. One of the nice touches is that it has a carry handle. It was lugging my last one around that caused me to break it, I think.

It was an odd weekend in some respects - I've got this odd contradictory feeling this morning that I both achieved a lot and also didn't quite do enough :/.

Anyway, one thing I did do was a bit of scanning. I scanned megami, which is always an odd mag to scan. It has lots of posters and those take ages to scan, but then the mag itself can sometimes have as little as 10 or 15 things worth scanning, so it's done in next to no time.

Animedia was the other mag I scanned and that can also be odd. I've mentioned before that animedia would be the subscription I would dump if I had to. Some months there's next to nothing - less than megami even - but then in months like this it has loads of stuff. But the weirdest thing about it is the timing.

I mean, one thing about Japanese mags is that none of them are like our magazines. If you look at Empire, for example, it has reviews of films and they rate them, sometimes giving films very low marks and telling you they are dross.

Well, Japanese anime mags aren't like that at all. They're more like big collections of promotional material and they never ever say anything bad about the shows. What's weird with animedia is it seems to lag behind all the time. We're now well into the October season, right? But it's only this month where they've got loads of pics from the shows. Well, surely if it's all about promotion and previews, they should have had loads of images months ago too. That's what all the other mags do :/.

Also, you see what I mean about feeling like I've done loads but also not done much. I hadn't planned to do any scanning, so it's good I squeezed some in. But I only got two mags done and I was at it for hours :/.

Anyway, I watched a couple of the last few shows from last season while I scanned:

• Blade of the Immortal was okay, I guess. It seemed very talky - there were long periods of people basically almost making speeches, but some cool action interspersed. The weird thing was that although I wasn't hugely impressed with the anime, it made me want to check out the manga. I got the distinct impression it would work way better as a manga, where big long chunks of dialogue are more okay than in anime.
• Real Drive was kinda good. It's from an original idea by Shirow and you can see his hands all over it. It's also got a nice set-up and an interesting lead character. However, there were a few downsides - the character designs are not to my taste for one and the pacing is a little odd. The second episode, for example, was very lively with a nice dramatic structure, but then the third episode seemed a bit all over the place, tbh.

chilly

So this weekend I got my haircut.

I went for the shorter version, with the sides trimmed with trimmers, rather than a scissor cut all over, so it's pretty short (I normally get the trimmer haircut during summer). As such I can't work out whether it was proper cold this w/end or if it was just the sudden lack of hair.

I know I had the heating on all day Saturday, although it was only on at "1 bar" - which is half power - and then Sunday I only put it on in the evening. So it could well have been just chilly but with me feeling it more because of the lack of hair.

I also did a mega-shop on Saturday.

It was so big I used one of those proper full-size trolleys. Being single I never use those - but this time I had all sorts of big packs, like six-packs of pop and water and big value boxes of stuff. As I said, I was trying to get ahead of myself with Chrimbalo fast approaching. I've got loads of pasts and rice and stuff in the freezer now, so hopefully it should be more a job of making sure supplies don't get too low before then.

Then it was back to the gaff for cleaning duties. I thoroughly clean my bedsit every two-weeks. I think that's enough for a single person, but it does take me all day, especially with all the sundries like ironing and changing my towels and bins and stuff.

Anyway, the point is that I did that and all was going swimmingly - I was really cracking on and was going to have loads of time to do stuff, but I fell into a bit of a trap. Unfortunately, it took ages for the kitchen and bathroom floors to dry (it being cold) and I was totally stuck waiting while they did... so I thought I'd have a quick go on Civ3... and it kinda poxed up the whole rest of the weekend, so instead of doing more useful stuff, like scanning or walling or making new updates for my webstes, I basically just plaed Civ3. I didn't even really clear the backlog of TV I've got.

Bugger :(.

mags, hair and shopping

This month's newtype, animage and animedia turned up yesterday.

Two of them - newtype and animage - are absolutely dripping with pictures from the new season of shows and I'm very impressed. The other, animedia, is actually kinda rubbish. I sometimes wonder why I keep buying it - it's always very poor in terms of scans. But then it's not like it's reprinting other scans - if I didn't get it I wouldn't see those images. Still, as the anime magazines go, it's definitely the worst one I get.

I'm in desperate need of a haircut - my hair is really rather long and I'm starting to get that uncomfortable sweaty thing I get when it gets this long. Of course that's also a factor of being morbidly obese, but that's no reason not to avoid a haircut.

Looks like I'll have a busy w/end as I'll have to get a haircut and go shopping on top of a bunch of stuff I've got to do anyway.

I should also start hoarding for Christmas. I know chrimbalo is a long way away, but I like to get stuff like fozen food, tins and pasta all hoarded up well in advance, because shopping around Christmas can be such a nightmare.

I remember once going to Sainsburys to get some food one Christmas and the queues were so long I didn't get to the front of queue before my lunch ended. I ended up having to buy some manky sarnis at the petrol station on the way home :/. So now I like to stock up the freezer and cupboards well in advance.

weekend of dooooooooom

Well, not really.

I've yet another day off work tomorrow and Monday is one of the UK's few Bank Holidays so I've got a mega four-day weekend.

I'm not sure whether to put together a mega-plan or just play it by ear. There's quite a few things I want to do, but also I could do with just sitting down and chilling, tbh. One thing I definitely need to do is get a haircut and I need to pick some dry-cleaning up, so I will do those on Friday and I could turn it into something of a proper shopping trip--I need some new trainers, for example. Hmm.

Trouble is, after my whole going a bit nuts buying animu the other day I've now gone a bit nuts buying manga so I don't want to spend too much money. At least I had an excuse with the animu (ADV and Geneon going tits up). Here I really haven't, as the series I've ordered aren't old or going out of print or anything.

Speaking of Geneon--Black Lagoon disk1 turned up last night. I got the special edition with the steelcase book (as I did for the 1st Barrage) and guess what--it's got Geneon's name plastered all over it. Even though it's now being released by Funimation.

I'm guessing I had the wrong end of the stick a little. Basically, what I think has happened is that Funimation have simply taken over the distribution rights for the series that Geneon had on the go. Newer licences I guess may be treated differently, but at least it means good continuity of releases. I'd also guess that the ADV shows they picked up may be a little different as ADV properly lost the rights to those shows.

Oh, and also, the cover of the steelcase features photos of a model dressed as Revy, and man is it hawt.