go, go gadget show

A new series of the gadget show started last night. That meant my gradual return to my usual routine reached a bit of a zenith. I pretty much did the same routine last night what I do most every Monday and you know what? It felt kinda good.

I've mentioned before I'm a creature of habit and routine and with all the disruption that's been going on over the last few weeks (if not months) it was just plain nice to do the usual stuff.

The gadget show itself featured a bit on e-readers. E-readers are basically electronic books and for a while now they've been looming about, threatening to do to books the same thing MP3 did to music.

The idea is we ditch all our physical copies of things and we go electronic. You buy e-books via download and then they're stored on the e-book instead.

In a way, it's odd that books are lagging behind in this way. I mean, the vast majority of stuff you do on the internet involves reading, so why weren't books and magazines the first things to make that leap to being e-media?

I think a big part of it is that the other things were taken there by piracy. Music especially involves fairly small files that you can move about easily and there are loads of programs available for ripping CDs, etc. Books, how much of a pain in the arse would it be scanning in all the pages? I mean, I can't be arsed to scan a few magazines, imagine doing all the pages in all the books I own.

Another problem is that staring at small LED screens is tiring on the eyes. They're also very power hungry with their backlights. There's this e-ink stuff of course, but then I don't know how much that costs as a technology. Certainly e-readers all seem to be very expensive.

Yes, you're getting the capacity to store thousands of books, but those books also still need to be paid for. And imagine breaking it and loosing all of your books? I mean, you could back them up and stuff, I guess, but you couldn't re-sell them as second hand books.

And e-ink doesn't do colour, so that sort of goes against this idea that magazines and newspapers are part of the available content. And what about non-fiction books? And text books? And reference books?

Then you've got to factor in the tactical tactile joy that is reading a book.

I dunno, I'm guessing the day when it all goes digital is inevitable, but I won't be happy when it does.

And to cap it all off, in terms of the gadget show, the e-readers didn't fair very well in the reviews. Even the much-vaunted Amazon Kindle didn't do very well.

Of course the review couldn't look at this new iPad thing from Apple. I think they've kinda shot themselves in the foot with that myself. They've basically produced a tablet PC and given it something called iBooks, which is like iTunes for books.

But the problem is it's big and heavy and uses an LCD screen and so it's a hybrid beast where I think they should have focused more on doing a proper e-Reader and revolutionising that market.

Not that I mind, as I say, because I don't exactly want it to happen any time soon.

busyness

I was incredibly busy this weekend, and yet I didn't get everything done that I needed to.

I did a lot of stuff, though. I got my hair cut, did some food shopping, did a massive pile of ironing, cleaned my bedsit, burnt a bunch of watched anime shows to DVD, watched my rental DVD and watched loads of telly. And on top of that I even baked a bread pudding and made my super-bolognaise sauce.

And yet I've come out of the weekend with four unwatched TV shows and a bunch of things like updating my website, getting some stuff on e-bay and reading all of the pile of unread comics (I read about half a dozen, leaving a dozen) either not even attempted or hardly dented.

Plus I've still not got my life sorted out in terms of stuff like scanning or watching the huge pile of unwatched DVDs that still seems to be growing, even though I've tried to reign myself in a bit. I mean I've even somehow managed to enlarge my unread manga pile, even though I read loads of stuff over Christmas.

Plus I didn't get around to looking at buying some new clothes or booking someone to fix my windscreen (I got a chip before Christmas when I was going down to Devon to see my Dad) or the other stuff that I've been putting off because it'll cost me money.

I dunno - it was like there just weren't enough hours in the weekend, and I didn't bother going out or anything.

I really need to come up with a proper plan for some of this stuff.

a half-arsed anime catch up

I've found the time to sample a few series over this last week or so.

Normally I would aim to watch 3 episodes as a sample, but I'm so far behind that I only watched 2 episodes of these to help me make some inroads. Not that I've watched a lot of stuff, just that I've been having a go.

Seitokai no Ichizon

I wasn't really sure what to make of this. It seemed... I dunno - insubstantial?

The basic idea seems to be sort of a bit like Haruhi. In Haruhi, you've got quite a clever idea whereby Haruhi is interested in aliens and time travel and anime tropes like that, and she's surrounded by characters who are those things, yet she never realises.

In Seitokai no Ichizon I think it's supposed to be playing with the idea of Harem and Moe tropes, but to be frank, it just doesn't work as well. It kept falling into its own clichés and while I think this was deliberate, it's just not as well done as Haruhi. Plus it doesn't really help itself by skimming on the edge of being a "whacky" comedy and so not being very funny.

I guess it's the sort of show I could watch if there weren't a million other (better) things and I wouldn't really remember it after it was over.


Hanasakeru Seishounen

This is essentially what I believe is called a reverse harem show, which essentially means that instead of a male protagonist surrounded by gorgeous women, there's a female protagonist surrounded by gorgeous men.

As far as that sort of thing goes, this seemed like a perfectly okay show, but to be frank, it's not really my cup of tea. I mean, although the focus is on romance, rather than boobs as it would be in a harem show, they're not generally a particularly realistic genre. Not that normal harem is, but at least there it's feeding me fantasies that I can appreciate.


Sasameki Koto

Sasameki Koto seemed quite good. It's one you need to be in the right frame of mind for, though, I think.

The story is one of unrequited love, I guess you would say. The main character is clearly in love with her best friend and her best fried is an 'out' lesbian, but the problem is her friend likes cute girls and she's not very cute. Weirdly, the main character actually fits more into the mould of those strong women you get in girls animes that all the other girls fall in love with. She's very tall and athletic and clever.

The reason it's one you need to be in the right move for is because it's very melancholic. The friend keeps falling for all sorts of other girls and the main character never tells her how she really feels - that sort of stuff. So it's sad, but well done.

Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood

I guess this show highlights just how far behind I am with watching anime - Brotherhood started airing in April of 2009, so in a few weeks it'll be a year old and I'm only now sampling it.

I'm also pretty new to FMA full stop. I've never seen any of the previous version of the anime and although I've bought all the manga, I've only read the 1st volume, with the other 20-odd sat in a big pile awaiting my attention.

I believe Brotherhood is a re-telling of the original anime that's closer to the manga, but as I say, I've not seen that, so I can't really comment. What I would say is I really enjoyed these first few episodes I sampled and I can definitely see why it is/was so popular.


One thing I have been doing is continuing to read manga. I find it a lot easier to keep manga reading going, as I can easily stop half way through chapters, or only read for 10 minutes. And I can read it at breakfast and lunch, of course. I can't really do that with anime - episodes don't work well if you only watch a bit of them and I have to sit and watch them on telly.

Also, I tend to always feel I need to watch a full disks worth when I watch it, which is part of the problem. Doing that means it's going to be an hour and a half of my time (4 episodes on a disk, on average) and when I start thinking like that I start thinking stuff like "I don't have the time, I'll do X instead".

Anyway, one of the manga was a new series:


Sunshine (Hidamari) Sketch

I picked up Sunshine Sketch because I enjoyed the anime adaptation. It turns out the manga is one of those 4 vertical panel jobs. Really I should have guessed from the anime, which is staged like a series of short vignettes, which is a common approach when adapting these types of manga.

The manga is pretty good. It's very Japanese, though. There's one of those translators notes sections at the back and it's written in tiny font with loads of stuff crammed in. I also get the feeling they've deliberately tried to keep it to one page and there's plenty of stuff that could also be explained.

However, unlike with something like Sayonara Zetsubo Sensei, this doesn't really matter. There's the odd strip that you need the notes to understand, but overall you should be okay, especially if you have some general knowledge about Japan from other anime and manga.

Otherwise it's pretty good. It's quite light in tone and is a slice of life type show. The main character Yuno is attending an Arts based high school and once she's there it actually becomes something of an ensemble piece, focusing on all the girls who live at the Hidamari Apartments with Yuno.


The big box I need to tick this weekend is getting my hair cut. With the weather and holiday I've not had it done in ages, so it looks bloody awful.

a mosque of sultanas

Normally when it gets to the middle of the week I play anno in the evenings. I've reigned in the anno playing so that it's not all pervasive, but I still play it a lot. I've also been quite good this time at sticking with the same map, rather than starting a completely new one and therefore effectively wasting all the dozens of hours I'd invested in the old one.

Anyway, the point of this post is that I'm on the verge of hitting two of the big milestones. Last night I completed the Sultan's Mosque building on one of my islands. The sultan's mosque is a great big building that takes a heck of a lot of resources to complete. On the good side it does allow you to build a lot of houses in its influence area and not have to worry about the extra stuff that your citizens (in this case, the nomads and envoys) need.

I've also very nearly finished my first Imperial Cathedral. It's basically the equivalent of the Mosque for the Occident (west) and does a similar job, ticking all the building requirements for your western citizens (peasant, citizens, patricians and nobles). It's resource requirements are even more onerous than the mosque, which is why I completed the Mosque first.

If I play tonight (I may wait until the weekend) I should finish the Cathedral as well - I'm that close. It's then my plan to build more of both, though I'll have to build up the resources required again. The ones that are the most difficult are glass and mosaics, as they have the most complicated (and space consuming) production chains and seem to be slower too.

One thing that did surprise me when I finished the Mosque was the introduction of the Sultan as a new NPC. Normally you have the Corsairs and then a representative NPC each for the Occident and the Orient. Those Corsairs you have to befriend, but the other two are always your friend. Their respective bosses are the Sultan and the Emperor, and it seems you unlock them as direct NPCs by building the Mosque and Cathedral.

Unfortunately (or should that be fortunately?) t appears the expansion for anno is due sometime in February, which is basically in a few weeks. I'd kinda hoped I was going to finish this map before the expansion hit, giving me some time to not play Anno and catch up on other stuff. My fear now is that it'll hit and I'll be tempted away and not finish this map.

there will be blood

The first rental after the whole snow problems was There Will Be Blood.

I knew very little about Blood, other than it was about oil and it has received a lot of critical praise. Well, it turns out it's only sort-of about oil, but pretty much deserves he critical praise.

I say it's only sort of about oil, because my feeling about it was the film was more of a character study. The character in question - Daniel Plainview - just happens to be an oil man.

Or he becomes an oil man - initially he's a silver prospector who happens to strike oil. He's also working alone and manages to break his leg by falling down his mineshaft. Daniel then drags himself to some sort of claims office, where he gets exploitation rights. Well, I think this is what happens - the details are actually important in a way, because what we're experiencing is more to do with Daniel's character than his finding silver or oil.

And this is where the film plays its first clever trick. His dragging himself miles to the claims office with a badly broken leg shows us his determination, but it also makes us feel like he's a decent guy. You can't help but feel happy for him that his hard work and horrible accident was worth it as he finds riches.

Shortly afterwards, Daniel also adopts the son of one of his men who was killed in accident down his oil well. The son's mother died during childbirth, so he's an orphan and Daniel adopts him - he can't be a bad person, right?

But here's the thing - the rest of the film charts either his steady decline in character, or steadily reveals his true nature to us. Which it is is never definitively expressed, but then that's the point - is he a bastard all along, or does he become a bastard?

Certainly the people he encounters are mostly just as unpleasant. A preacher, Eli, plays a particularly important role. Eli is just as unpleasant in Daniel, with one of the only real difference between them being that Eli hides behind the facade of being a preacher - a man of the lord - where Daniel is a plain capitalist.

The central performance by Daniel Day Lewis is captivating - it's quite a remarkable portrayal. The score is also remarkable - it's just not what I was expecting at all. The score is orchestral, but it's really dark and sinister. If you've ever seen 2001 then the music that's used during the bit where they discover the monolith on the moon is how the whole film is scored. But it really works - informing you of the underlying nastiness.

However, there were a few things I didn't like. The main one was that we never get enough detail on the other characters. As a simple example, where Daniel sends H.W. away there's no detail at all - we certainly never see where H.W. ends up.

The other thing was I didn't really like the ending. I could see how it worked and how it paralleled other parts of the film, but I dunno, it had that un-nerving quality of just sort of stopping.

I know that sort of thing is more 'realistic', but that doesn't make it satisfying.

almost normal

Last night was about the closest to a normal night I've had in ages. By normal I mean it followed the expected routine.

Obviously, over Christmas I was on holiday, so that was very not normal. Then after Christmas was when it snowed. I was initially trapped in, so that wasn't normal, and then I was struggling into work, again far from normal, because it took ages and I had to get up really early and stuff.

And just recently I've been struggling with the whole bent wheel and driving on the space-saver. During that time I was again getting up early, to try to avoid the traffic (it didn't really work) and setting off later for the same reason (that worked better). But again - up very early and getting back late, which sucks up my time.

So yesterday was normal - I got up at my usual time, did the usual stuff, work was nothing unusual and then back home at the usual sort of time. I had my dinner and there was some spare time to watch a bit of telly, rather than me having to go straight to bed.

It was kinda nice, in a boring sort of way.

The telly I watched was the most recent couple of episodes of Being Human. I like Being Human - it shares a lot of similarities with Buffy the Vampire Slayer, but at the same time it's very different.

The thing I like most is the blend of drama and comedy. I have to admit that for the first few episodes of this new series I think it wasn't quite right. It felt too heavy, emotionally. No, that's not right - Being Human often has heavy stuff in it, but it's the way they blend that with funny stuff that makes the show work, and it's the funny stuff that's been a bit lacking.

Well, the latest episodes, which was shown on Sunday had a much better balance. There was still a lot of heavy emotional stuff, but the funny was also ramped up - I genuinely laughed out loud a couple of times.

a hole in the pocket

So this weekend cost me about £320.

I ended up ordering the tyre from Nissan and it cam in on Saturday morning. Not that the guy called me. I'm not really sure why I keep using the Aldershot Westway Nissan dealership, as the customer service is shit.

I've always maintained that in terms of the back room - the mechanics, for example - they do a really good job, but the problem is the front end. Whenever I call them up and they say "do you want to leave a message and he'll call you back" I've learnt not to bother, because they never, ever do call me back. It's far better to simply call back.

I mean, the guy said he'd phone me when I ordered it on Friday, but he didn't. I had to call in and check. Of course, being Saturday, he was pretty busy, so I had to keep calling - on one of the occasions I did leave a message, but he didn't call back.

Anyway, the wheel had come in, so I limped to the dealership. It cost about £185 (ouch!).

I then limped all the way over to Alton Qwik Fit where the tyre I ordered was. That was a fairly painless process, because I'd ordered the tyre and I had lucked out with the timing and got straight in and served. Painless apart front he price that is - £135 (double ouch!).

Not heard a peep from this guy who was supposed to fix my bent wheel. It's like he's dropped off the face of the earth :/.

Saturday was about the first time I've driven around with it being light out. I thought I'd have a drive around with the new tyre and see where all the potholes were, plus I needed some petrol. The A31 is like a dirt track in places. There's one place coming off of the roundabout after Farnham where the hole is like a crevasse, it's so big and deep. The one I hit was like that, but they've patched that one up.

Anyway, when I got back on Saturday, I thought I'd give the old girl a bit of a treat after having to limp around with a lame leg all week and gave her a good clean. Unfortunately, the light faded before I'd finished, so I had to finish off on Sunday morning.

Weirdly, normally when I clean the car I get a lot of pain in my hamstring down the back of my legs from bending over so much. However, Sunday morning I was fine, but this morning I'm in agony. That suggests the little bit of bending down I did when finishing off on the Sunday had more impact than everything on Saturday, which is a bit weird.

I also couldn't be arsed to go the whole hog and polish the car. There was also another reason for that - I seem to have a lot of... well, they're not really scratches, as such - the paint isn't gone, but the finish seems to have come off. I dunno, it's a little difficult to explain, especially as I haven't a clue what has caused it.

I do have this stuff that claims to restore the finish, but I've never tried it, and I couldn't be bothered to start experimenting on the Sunday.

Anyway, it looks pretty good, so I'm fairly happy.

tyre-d out

Right then, so this tyre/pothole situation.

To summarise what I've posted - Monday on the way home from work I hit a pothole REALLY hard. Continued home, but failed to check the tyre that evening, because I'm stupid. Tuesday I drove in, I now realise with the tyre deflating. By the time I got to work the tyre was totally dead.

My plan was to hope for the best - assume it was just a knackered tyre, get it off at lunchtime, go down kwik-fit and start the ball rolling on getting new one.

The first problem was that I could not get the tyre off. There are four nuts that you need to unscrew and I could do three of them, but the fourth was one of these locking wheel nuts. The idea seems to be that there's a kind of "key" that fits onto the nut and clips into your wrench, but for the life of me I just could not get any purchase to turn it.

Luckily, I'm a member of the RAC, so I called them up. I called them at about 1:30pm and they said it would probably not be until 4pm that someone would get to me. Fine - I was at work, I wasn't going anywhere any way.

However, because I knew my tyres are rather rare, I thought I'd call kwik fit and try to get the ball rolling. So I did that, explain the tyre size and stuff and that all 4 of my current tyres are continentals. The guy said they'd need to check the stocks and get back to me.

So, 4pm rolled around and no sign of the RAC. I phoned them up, chasing, and they said it was going to be 6pm before someone could get to me! I appreciate I'm not pregnant and stuck by the side of the motorway, but come on - that's just taking the piss. 4 and a half hours to get to me!

Next thing, I hadn't heard anything from kwik fit, so I called them up. Well, it turns out that there are no Continental tyres in my size in the entire country! Not even Continental themselves have got any in stock!

Well, I know that you're not supposed to mix tread patterns on your driving wheels, which are the ones with power going to them. In my case that's the fronts and it was the front left that was knackered. However, the guy said we could order another brand - Pirelli in this case - and swap one from the back to the front.

The RAC guy eventually turned up at 5:45pm and of course he had the tyre off and changed in less than 5 minutes!

Unfortunately, I've got one of these shitty space saver tyres. That means I can't go above 50, and in reality I've been driving everywhere at 40, because it's far too easy to go above and if I was at 50 and did that, Christ knows what would happen.

Anyway, got home and decided I'd tidy up so that my tyre was in easy reach for the next day and I'd put all the bits and pieces for changing the tyre away too.

Well, while I was doing that, I noticed that the inside of the wheel - the inner rim - looked a bit funny. Using a tape measure, I was able to determine that the wheel is actually bent! There's a part of it that isn't as round as it should be! I'm guessing that's actually why the tyre deflated - I certainly couldn't see any holes in it.

But that also means I can't just put a new tyre on it - it needs properly fixing. I therefore investigated this on the internet that night and a guy I e-mailed called me right back.

He said it was going to be about £75 to repair, which isn't cheap, but is a lot cheaper than a new wheel. He also said it was going to take a couple of days (there are loads and loads of people hitting potholes and bending alloys because the roads have been fucked up by the recent bad weather)and he'd pick it up on Thursday.

So I've been driving on this crappy space saver in the meant time and it's not fun I can tell you.

And guess what? Thursday rolls around and there's not a peep from this guy at all. I phoned him up towards the end of the day and it just went straight to voicemail. So I e-mailed him late last night and I've not had a reply yet - to be honest, that's kind of fair enough, because it was late, but it also means he's still not answered my phone message.

It's getting silly - he also said it would take about 48 hours to repair, because of the backlog, so that means it'll be ages before it's done. I therefore phoned the Nissan garage this morning and asked how much a new alloy would be. It's more expensive - £180 - but he said I could have it tomorrow if I ordered by 11am (not sure this would actually be the case, but even if it was Monday, that'd be quicker).

The way I'm currently feeling about the situation I'll probably actually do both. That way I might be able to have an actual proper spare tyre, rather than this space saver shit.

babylon5: the lost tales

Y'know what? I can't be arsed to do a proper blog entry today, so instead I'm going to post the last of the mini-reviews of stuff I watched over Christmas. This weekend I can finally resume watching new stuff as my latest rental DVD finally turned up on Tuesday. The post has really been knackered after the snow - more so than when they were on strike!

I'm not going to spend much time explaining the show - go check out Wikipedia - but I was a huge fan of Babylon 5 back in the day.

For some reason, Babylon 5 never really broke through into the popular imagination in quite the same way as Star Trek and Star Wars have.

Now you could put this down to the fact that B5 is definitely hard sci-fi, but then Star Trek is actually surprisingly hard sci-fi. Star Wars is not really - it's set in space, but it fantasy more than it is SF, truth be told. And I think the difference with Star Trek is that it had a sufficiently large nerdy fan-base it managed to whether the storms.

Also, Star Trek was kind of a benchmark and let's be frank - occasionally things just manage to breakthrough. Be it timing or sheer quality or just random good luck, occasionally some niche things just manage to make that leap into the general consciousness.

Anyway, the point is I really enjoyed the B5 TV series, so when I saw heard about The Lost Tales I thought I'd rent it and see if it lived up to the original series.

B5's strength was always its storytelling. The budget was always more in the cardboard set realm, and it was a pioneer of CG when, to be frank, CG was in its infancy, but the point is that stuff didn't matter, because the writing was so good.

Well, I say that stuff didn't matter.

The Lost Tales kinda proves that actually, it does matter a bit. Because although the writing is okay, the severely limited budget kinda shows. I mean, there must only have been a dozen actors across both of the stories.

To be fair, they're cleverly set up so that you wouldn't expect big crowd scenes, but it gives the whole thing a stage-play feel, rather than living up to the standards of even the TV show.

I mean, the idea is both tales are set before a big ceremony on B5 to mark an anniversary. But we never get to see that ceremony, because that would need a big crowd.

More obviously there are quite a few bits of "Oh, do you remember Garibaldi? Will he be there?" "Oh no, he sent a message saying he couldn't make it." Which just ends up smelling of "we couldn't afford to get all the actors."

And unfortunately it's really noticeable.

Plus, to be frank, the two stories are actually inconsequential.

Given the huge, Space Opera scope of the original series, if these had appeared as actual episodes, they'd have been in the "filler" bracket, rather than really adding to the grand storylines.

And that makes them a little disappointing, to be frank.

Plus the first one is kinda on a religious theme and to me wasn't very satisfying as it kinda came across as "oh, btw, actually, God exists in the B5 universe" when religion wasn't really a big issue in the series. Not to mention it conflicting wit my personal views... and common sense.

public enemies

I'll stick with the traditional Wednesday mini-review today and leave updates on the tyre/wheel situation for later (it's not working out well).

Interestingly, I watched this at my Dad's while I was visiting him down in Devon.

He recently got broadband, as I've discussed on the blog before, and as part of the package he got BT Vision, which is an on-demand thing from BT. The box actually also gives him access to Freeview, which is digital television via your aerial, but we watched Public Enemies via a streaming service.

You actually pay for the films a bit like you would if you were downloading them from iPlayer or something like that; however, they appear not be downloaded, but streamed.

I was rather curious (and a little dubious) that this would work. He only has the most basic package, so his internet speed is not the greatest and I was puzzled what system it would use and how it would work.

As I've discussed before on the blog I know of two streaming types - YouTube style, where it caches the video and iPlayer style where you watch live. Unfortunately, BT Vision appears to use the latter method and presumably because his speed is not great, it didn't work very well.

If you've ever watched the iPlayer on a low bandwidth connection you'll know what I mean - it kept stuttering, which really affected the experience.

The odd thing, though was that picture quality was surprisingly good. I mean, I know TV is deceptive in that it's actually at quite a low resolution compared to most computer monitors, but it actually looked quite good. I'm guessing this was part of the problem - if the video was compressed a bit more, maybe it would have streamed better?

Anyway, the film itself seemed okay, although I guess that opinion could be affected by the poor viewing experience.

I think my biggest criticism about the film was that if felt like you needed to know about the period. It's basically about John Dillinger, who was a bank robber during the early 1930s.

Now the film looked like it was set during that period and the performances were quite good, but I dunno - it sort of lacked context. I mean, the 1930s was when the great depression happened and the early 1930s was also when America had prohibition.

Now while Dillinger wasn't a bootlegger, so I guess you could argue prohibition wasn't of quite a great importance, the Great Depression was. I mean, the whole mythos and rose-tinted view of gangsters, bootleggers and bank robbers was virtually caused by the depression.

The whole "Robin Hood" feel to them was erroneous, but it was what people felt about them and yet there's nothing that really conveys that in the film. I mean, unless you knew it was the depression, you really wouldn't have a clue from the film.

It lacked context in that sense.

I have to admit it also felt both too long and not long enough. In other words, it felt like they were trying to cram too much in, so you get an odd sense of jumping huge chunks of time in order to show little snippets, and yet because there were so many snippets it kinda went on a long time.

I've a feeling that was the aspect that was most affected by it stuttering, though.

I think generally if you watch the film I'd say do a bit of reading about who Dillinger was before hand and you may enjoy it a bit more.

fucking potholes

Last night I hit a pothole.

And when I say hit, I mean mother fucking hit (I should warn that this blog entry may be a little more sweary than usual as I'm a rather pissed off). It felt like I was mounting the curb. And since I was on the A31 doing the best part of 60 miles an hour it was not a fun experience. It was a massive jolt and a there was a huge bang as I guess the shocks slammed up to take the impact.

Unfortunately, however, when I got home I was not sensible.

When I got home I should have checked out the tyre. I can't really check out the suspension, but the tyre is easily checkable and I now appreciate I should have had a look.

The reason I should have had a look is because the tyre has punctured. I don't think it could have burst as I didn't detect anything odd on the rest of the drive home. However, the drive in this morning got increasingly worse as I went.

I realise now that this was the tyre deflating. It's currently sat in the office car park awaiting me putting the skinny space-saver tyre on.

And that'll be a fucking nightmare. I've never changed the tyres before and it's got one of those locking wheel nuts, which I bet will be a pig to do. That's assuming the garage hasn't done the usual trick of tightening the tyres to such a degree that even bloody Hercules couldn't get them off.

So now I have a catalogue of potential problems.

First off the obvious - I'll need a new tyre. My tyres are a special size that are both quite rare and fucking expensive. We're talking at least £100. That's a lot of money. This means that even getting it sorted now will mean it will be tomorrow before a new one arrives. That means I'll have to drive on the skinny tyre, which is not the safest thing to be doing.

Next up the alignment/tracking could have been put out, which is not a big fix, but obviously represents more money.

Then it gets horrible - the shocks could have been damaged, the springs could have been damaged, the wheel bearing could have been damaged or the damn steering rack could even have been damaged. Those are all fucking expensive.

This is all assuming I've not caused even more damage by running on a flat tyre like a stupid idiot. Which, knowing my luck, I'm sure I have.

sleep patterns

My sleep patterns are all over the place it seems.

Normally they get a bit messed up when I take a long holiday, but the other thing that's buggered them up has been the getting up early during the last week because of the snow.

Sunday's a good example - my fritzed body clock woke me up about 5:30AM. I tried to go back to sleep, but it was no use as I was totally wide awake. So instead, I just watched some stuff I'd recorded.

Then, by about 8:00PM I was utterly shattered. However, I knew that if I went to sleep I'd end up waking up early again, so I forced myself to stay awake and read some manga. Eventually I turned in at about 9:30PM, which was still a bit early, but I just couldn't keep my eyes open.

I must have fallen asleep instantly, as next thing I know I'm lying in bed totally awake again. I checked the clock and it was only 1:30AM, but again I was really awake. What didn't help here was that I think I've pulled a muscle in my back and it was aching.

I took some pain killers and read for about half an hour or so until they kicked in and was then able to get back to sleep. But then I was woken up by my alarm at 6:45AM, which never normally happens. I was really tired when I got up, because of the messed up sleep pattern, but I'm okay now.

Hopefully with the return to normality my body-clock will get back on track this week. I say hopefully, because I saw a forecast over the weekend that predicted snow on Wednesday.

The snow has basically cleared here to the extent that it's not a problem. There are still a few patches, mainly where it was piled up.

The weekend was suitably dull and quite relaxing. I did a big shop and restocked a lot of stuff and cleaned the flat, which got some of the domestics out of the way. I also received about a dozen parcels, which was all the mail that had built up that they hadn't been able to deliver.

They were all parcels though - letters must still be backlogged, as I seem to be lacking a few things I would normally have expected to come through.

watched stuff

So when I've not been at work or doing epic battle with the snow this week I've mainly been watching and reading stuff.

The main thing I've been watching is the second series of 30 Rock. I really like this show. I think it's very well written and pretty damn funny, but for some reason it's not generally very popular.

It's surprisingly actually because it's not hugely popular in America, and yet it's not been cancelled. Stuff get cancelled pretty quickly in America if it's not popular, or its popularity fades. I think what might be helping 30 Rock stay on air is something hinted at in the extras - NBC wasn't expecting it to be popular.

As such, because its rating seen to have stayed pretty stable and in some cases gone up, they may be pretty happy with it. Plus it apparently tests well in certain demographics. It's also a critical darling and has won a clutch of awards, including Emmys, which are some of the big ones.

I dunno - it's one of those odd things about American TV where it's all a bit random as to what's renewed and cancelled.

I'll be doing a proper review of it at some point, but I've got a lot of reviews to write and prepare after Christmas, so it might be a while before it appears.

I've also sampled a couple of anime shows:


Kampfer

This is a gender-swap comedy. It's got quite a lot of fan-service and the plot is quite predictable. There's lots of elements I've seen in other shows.

So it's not really innovative or original. Plus the animation rarely bobs above the 'basic' threshold. Also, the soundtrack is slightly odd, flipping into heavy metal when there's an action sequence, which really doesn't shit the bright, colourful visuals of the show.

But do you know what? I kinda enjoyed it.

I was rather surprised by this, and tried o pin down what it was that made me like it, but I really can't figure it out.

Don't get me wrong - I'm not saying it's amazing or ground-breaking or anything, just that I kinda enjoyed it.

Maybe it's just that I've been out of the anime loop too long?


The Sacred Blacksmith

The other show I sampled had much higher production values. The animation was much generally smoother, and the soundtrack fit the show better.

I must admit, though I was a bit torn over it. There was stuff I quite liked - the characters were quite interesting, for example. But then there were quite a few things I didn't like.

The background/setting is another one of those weirdly random anime things. Part standard fantasy, part mumbo-jumbo mystical stuff and part odd take on Christianity.

Also, the show is sort of about a Blacksmith, which I thought might be interesting, but it didn't really show much of that in the first few episodes. What it did show a bit of was the 'sacred' part and I didn't really like it.

It came across a bit like magically making the sword, and I dunno it just left me really cold. There's a big difference between the sweat and toil of making a sword (especially a samurai sword with all that folding) and just going all mystical mumbo-jumbo and conjuring one up.


Plans for the weekend are basically pretty dull.

My main aim, as mentioned yesterday, is to get a big shop in and to buy some electricity for the meter. Apart from that, I need to clean my flat.

Otherwise, it's sleeping and relaxing watching a bit of telly, I think. This week has really left me shattered.

bored of this now

I'm bored of the snow now.

On Wednesday it snowed again - well, it's snow several times, actually, but this was proper snow that covered the ground with an extra inch or so. And the journey to work was horrendous.

Part of the problem was that I hadn't gotten up early. Since this snowy weather started I've been getting up a bit earlier in attempt to beat the heavier traffic periods. But on Wednesday I was so tired I just couldn't do it again, so I got up at my usual time.

My usual time is actually pretty early anyway and I usually get to work at about 8AM or so. This is with setting off at 7:30, so in other words it's about a half hour journey. It should be quicker, truth be told, as it's only about 11 miles, with most of it on the A31, which is a dual carriageway.

Yesterday it took an hour and a half.

The problem really seemed to stem from the fact that the roads appeared not to have been treated at all. It's really difficult to describe, but there was a sort of weird texturing of the roads, caused by the compacting of the snow. It was like driving on a cobbled road, only made of icy clumps, rather than cobbles.

I'm pretty sure that if they'd been out and put salt down it wouldn't have been like that. Especially because the temperature was actually not that old. Which isn't to say it wasn't chilly, just not like it has been.

So the journey to work was an extremely slow crawl - everywhere it could be snarled up, it was. I mean, it took half an hour for me to even get down to the Shepherd and Flock roundabout, which is only about 3 miles or so.

I weird consequence of this is that I've strained my groin muscle. My car's clutch is really heavy, and when you're driving in traffic you're constantly using the clutch. SO this morning driving in my groin was aching like a bastard.

So yeah, I'm falling apart. I'm really tired and my groin aches. Plus my back still aches from the snow shovelling. Also my shoulders ache because of how stressful it all is. Driving in weather like this is just the most tiring thing ever

Plus, my diet's gone to pot. Don't get me wrong, I wasn't on a diet, I just mean that what I'm eating has gone silly. The office is really bad at warming up and my job means I'm really sedentary, so I end up eating more stuff to try to keep warm.

I've also not been risking going out at lunch, and of course evening I don't (and can't) go anywhere, so I'm getting a bit of cabin fever.

Add to that I'm going to have to do a big shop on Saturday to replace all my stocks and buy some more electricity, but they're still forecasting torrential rain and black ice, and you can see why I'm a bit bored of all this.

rocky balboa

So over the Chrimbo period I watched a few films via rental and just generally.

The first was Rocky Balboa, which, rather amazingly, is the sixth film in the Rocky series.

The idea with this one is it's meant to be a proper end to the series. We catch up with Rocky with him having completely retired from boxing, as he's getting on a bit, and running Adrian's - a restaurant named after his recently deceased wife.

I think over the years I've seen all of the Rocky movies. Certainly I've seen the first two and the fifth ones, which are the better of the Rocky movies. The third and fourth, from memory, were fairly forgettable.

So I've seen them all, but I'm not really sure if I'm a fan.

I mean, I remember enjoying the first one and I seem to recall the fifth one had something about it, but I dunno. I think one of my main problems was that the character of Rocky never actually seemed all that good of a boxer to me.

Now to be fair I can't honestly claim to be anything of an aficionado when it comes to the pugilistic arts, but I'm pretty sure boxing is about more than simply absorbing as many of the other guy's punches with your face. This seemed to be Rocky's entire strategy - he punches me in the face until he gets tired and then I win.

From memory he didn't really even seem to guard himself properly in an attempt to prevent some of the bows making contact. He'd just stand there taking a pounding until the other guy was knackered.

Anyway, the idea behind this film is broadly one of Rocky making something of a comeback. The film features a modern boxer who's become hugely unpopular and in order to boost his popularity they put together a show fight.

Now this could have been extremely cheesy. It has actually happened in real life as I understand it, with old boxers coming back, and what they do here actually kinda makes sense.

They don't make it seem like the aging Stallone could really go toe-to-toe with the younger man, but they do create a few things that put them on more of a level playing field. But the key is how they end the film. I won't spoiler it, but there's actually an alternative ending on the disc that if they'd used that it would have undermined the whole film, so it's good they went the way they did.

The other clever thing is that there's much more of a focus on Rocky outside of boxing. The death of Adrian forms a core plot-thread, as does his relationship with his brother in law, Paulie.

There's also other non-ring plot threads and it's by focusing on these that make the film a good film, rather than purely a boxing film.

So yeah, I quite enjoyed it, though I still think it's a little daft that after all these years Rocky basically stands there taking the punches.

chrimbo break

I always get this feeling towards the end of a holiday of "what have I actually done?"

Well, unless it's a proper holiday where I've been away, I mean. If it's one of my less exciting "not going to work, but staying at home" holidays I'll almost inevitably have made a great big to do list.

These are like my normal weekend to do lists, but on a much bigger scale. Where the normal lists are basically just notepad files with a big list of stuff to do, these will be done in word, and have a colour-coded table mapping the days and what I'm planning or have to do.

It takes anal retentiveness to a whole new level.

Anyway, despite this level of planning there's always a bunch of stuff that I put down as more general things, like watching DVDs and reading books and stuff, with the idea that when I tick off the appropriate stuff on the timetable, I can do these.

And I think it's these that produce the "so what have I done" feeling, because I don't tend to kill them off in the same way. So even though I did loads of stuff like cleaning my cupboards in the kitchen (I've been there 5 years and never done them once - the grime was thick, to say the least), the fact that I made no real impact on my pile of unread Empire mags means I feel like I've not really been doing anything.

Which isn't to say I didn't do anything on that front. I mean, I even watched some anime. Admittedly, it wasn't much, but it was something.

Actually, the only thing I totally failed to do was any scanning. It's gotten to the point of being stupid now - I've a stack of more than 6 months worth of anime mags and considering I buy 4 a month (plus Nyan type whenever I can find it) that's a lot of magazines to scan.

That also means I've not been watching fansubs. I've now reached the stage where I've started on a new season (it's a half season really) and so I've downloaded all the episodes of loads of shows without watching a single one of them. There must be about 20 shows I need to watch the fansubs of, and that's not thinking about all the stuff that's available on crunchyroll too.

If truth be told the big problem here is Anno 1404 - I'm still playing it obsessively. My ray of light here is that I've resolved to turn the current sandbox map I'm doing into the definitive article. Indeed, I've actually reached the point where I only have 1 item I need to unlock for both the occident and orient and then that's it. Plus the world is relatively well planned out, so I don't feel like abandoning it.

I'm basically thinking that if I can 'complete' this world then I'll be able to put it down for a while. Well, until the expansion pack comes out in April anyway :/.

But on the brighter side I did make some progress in terms of watching US TV series. For example, I've watched all of 30Rock season 1 and am half way through season 2. Plus I've come out of the holidays with nothing stacked up on my PVR - that's definitely a good thing.

So mixed bag for Christmas really - did quite a lot but also didn't do everything I set out to. So a typical holiday, then.

it's snow joke

It was like déjà vu all over again last week.

After my big old couple of weeks off for Chrimbo and the New Year I was supposed to start work again on the Wednesday. I always like to take a couple of extra days and come back mid-week when I have any sort of holiday, because I find that shift to a full working week from holiday quite stressful.

Well my timing weirdly meant that I was coming back on Wednesday and Tuesday night was when it snowed heavily. Of course it had snowed before Christmas and had been pretty horrendous by all accounts, but it wasn't too bad while I was at work and then when it got bad I was off.

In fact, that pre-Christmas snow actually ended when I went down to Devon to visit my Dad - it was milder and rained heavily that morning I went down and that actually cleared away the snow, so my journey down was okay. And of course down in the South west they never have it so bad anyway.

I did have scary moment, though. I stopped at Cartgate services to have a pea and when I was driving out of their I hit some black ice on the road out. I turned left and the car went straight on.

It was my own fault because I was going too fast and it was just lucky that no-one was coming the other way. I didn't make it all the way across to the other side of the road, but I crossed the line marking the middle of the road.

Anyway, the déjà vu came because the snow that fell on Tuesday night was almost the exact same depth at what we got last February. And as then, I was trapped.

To be frank I probably would have stayed trapped as well if it wasn't for the fact that my landlord was going on holiday on the Sunday. That meant that he organised a "digging party" and we dug ourselves out on the Thursday.

Also, what would have encouraged me to stay is that I can actually work remotely from home. Plus, because of my pack rat mentality, I'd estimate that I had about 2 weeks of food that I coudl have lived off of. Admittedly, after a while my diet would have gotten a bit bland - lots of pasta and chicken and rice (which aren't great breakfast choices, in my opinion), but I could have survived.

Anyway, the dig out meant it was worth attempting to come to work on the Friday. The journey wasn't great to be frank. The roads had been cleared a bit, but they were a long way from being properly cleared. Especially when you got off the main roads - the industrial estate I work in was almost impassable and I actually got stuck. Luckily my boss has a 4x4 and was able to tow me out.

I took it steady both going and coming back, especially given my experience before Christmas, but that didn't seem to be the attitudes of most people on the roads - I had loads of people tailgating me, which seems the most ridiculous behaviour imaginable in this weather.

One slip or slide and what would have been me having a scary moment on my own could easily become a horrendous pile-up, just because people weren't giving enough space.

seasons well wishings and a happy new year

And there we go.

So today is my last day of work for the week, the month and, indeed, the year. Since I generally write this blog at work, it's highly unlikely I'll be posting again until the new year, so I thought I'd take the opportunity to leave a festive message up.

Or, to put it simply, I hope you have a good festive period and a happy New Year and I'll see you again when the calendar says 2010!

unff

So the post office on Tuesday was not as bad as I'd feared.

Don't get me wrong - it was busy, just not as busy as I was afraid it was going to be. I'd say it was about as busy as a normal Tuesday, or the end of the month when loads of people get their car tax.

Why do people bother getting their car tax from the post office any more?

You can do it online and it's so simple and easy, once you've done it that way once you'll never want to bother queuing at the post office for it ever again. I mean, seriously - click, click, click, enter your card details, click, and you're done. It really is that easy and simple.

Plus it's all on databases now, so the little paper disk you get is just a formality and they send it to you in the post anyway, so you just do not need to bother going to the post office and clogging up the queues for those of us that want to do proper post office stuff.

But the big surprise was yesterday when I went to post the next couple of e-bay items. There were actually more staff there than customers.

I don't know if it was the snow or the freezing temperatures that were putting people off from going, or it was the timing (last post for 2nd class is Friday and Monday for 1st class, I believe), but I was straight in, no waiting, do the business and out again. Really simple and easy.

Of course now that I've said that when I go there today I bet it'll be queuing out the door again!

This is one of the pain in the arse things with e-bay - a lot of people pay almost instantly, which puts a lot of pressure on you to get their things sent as soon as you can. I also try to do that anyway in order to avoid the dreaded poor rating of course, but it does make things more complex.

The reason being because there's always one or two people who take a while to pay. So, for example, I had about 15 auctions end on Sunday and by Monday morning, two-thirds of them were paid up.

Now I couldn't actually go on Monday as that's when I go shopping, but Tuesday I dutifully lugged all their parcels (plus the couple that had paid by Tuesday) to the post office and sent them all off.

So I was basically left with only 4 parcels unpaid by Tuesday afternoon. I sent them all an invoice by way of a reminder and two people paid up. So I trekked to the post office again yesterday, with only 2 parcels.

One more person paid last night, so I'm going again today.

That leaves 1 person unpaid and I sent them another message yesterday basically saying "if you don't pay by tonight it'll be next week before I send it"... and he's not even acknowledged my message.

It's a right-royal pain in the arse. If I waited until all the auctions were paid I'd piss off the early payers and get poor rating. But this way I end up having to make loads of trips, which is both really annoying and also costs me loads in postage.

This is part of the reason why I get sick of doing e-bay stuff every time I start on a new session of selling stuff. All the lunch-times wasted in post office queues just becomes really draining. Plus of course there's the fact that it gets really annoying the small return I get.

When you look at the total amount I'm supposed to get by way of payment from people winning my stuff, around half of it goes to other people. First off, e-bay charge you insertion fees (!), then they take 10% of the winnings (for doing very little). PayPal take a big slice in fees (for doing jack shit) and then of course there's postal fees (about the only bit I don't really mind, except for the fact that recorded costs too much).

When you then start to consider how much padded envelopes, sellotape and even car park charges cost it all gets a bit depressing really.

And yes, I did say earlier on that we got some snow yesterday. It started coming down about mid-morning, and somewhat to my surprise it settled on the ground. Well. it wasn't really surprising, because it was so frigging cold for most of yesterday the snow couldn't possibly have melted.

It's meant to be okayish today, but then there's going to be a cold snap tonight and heavy snow is forecast for tomorrow around here. I don't expect I'll be dramatically snowed in like the last time. I expect it'll just make the journey to work treacherous.

It's a pretty miserable and rant-filled post today, huh?

Well, I'm tired and I've had too much work to do and my holiday is still two days away.

the illusionist

Rental service was back to normal this weekend with the illusionist.

It's weird how sometimes there's nothing in a particular genre and then several things come along at once. The Illusionist was released in 2006, the same year as The Prestige.

I reviewed the prestige a while back (or if it was before I started blogging, be assured I have watched it) and quite enjoyed it. Why it's similar to the illusionist, if you can't guess or don't know already is that they're both Magic films.

I appreciate Magic films is not really a genre as such, but that's the best phrase to describe them. They're also both based on books and both are set roughly at the turn of the previous century. Certainly they have a Victorian feel to them.

Both are also focused on grand stage magic, rather than smaller sleight of hand stuff and both feature a "grand illusion" as the central crux of the film. Both also try to blur the lines between real magic and mere illusions. They differ mainly in the central theme, I would say. The prestige was about a rivalry between two magicians, where the illusionist is really a love story at heart.

But they're both similar in the sense that both are entertaining and I enjoyed them both.

There's a bit of a difficult nowadays with films based in the world of magic, because we all know that movies sometimes feature a lot of CGI. And CGI is getting to the stage where it's so good that it's possible to make unreal things seem real.

So the problem magic has on the big screen is that the true skill that is behind magic, such as things like misdirection or even sleight of hand, can simply be faked. You don't really need an actual skilled magician, or a clever contraption to pull of a trick in a film, you can just let computers and animators do their thing.

And at points it's quite obvious that CGI is how they're doing some of the tricks. However to some degree, this actually works in the illusionist's favour, because part of the story we're being shown is the idea that maybe the illusionist Eisenheim really can do actual magic.

Part of the idea is that he's so good he's got tricks that people genuinely can't figure out. He's either one step ahead of the current magic skill level or he can do real magic - and by mixing real tricks with a bit of CGI it helps that idea more than it does undermine the practical magic trick side of things.

Something else that helps is the treatment that's been done to the film, which makes it seem like a really old print. Initially I wasn't sure about this, but after a while it becomes kind of natural and really helps you feel that it's a story from that era.

This is also aided by the (roughly) consistent accents everyone uses and some truly involving performances. It's also a good story, with an engaging, well portrayed love story.

So yeah, overall I really enjoyed the film.

post office horror

This last weekend a bunch of e-bay auctions I had up came to an end. This means that today I have the rather un-enviable task of going to the post office. At lunch time.

I wasn't worried about it until yesterday when one of my work colleagues went to the post office. She was gone about an hour and when she returned she said they'd been queuing out of the door.

Now you could say well part of that is because it was Monday and it's always busy on a Monday. But then today is Market day in Alton, and so it's always busy on a Tuesday too.

But adding into that I believe today is one of the last posting days, and I think it's the last posting day for parcels. I may be wrong on that.

Last Christmas post is a bit of a myth actually. My dad used to work at the post office and he said that the effect it had was to get people to post early and therefore in the actual build up to Christmas there was often less post than usual, which meant there weren't many delays.

Of course, if they didn't set a day, loads of people would leave it until late and then there would be too much and it could potentially cause delays :/. So what the last day means is that that's when they stop guaranteeing delivery before Chrimbo. It doesn't mean your stuff won't make it in time, just that it's not guaranteed.

So yeah, lunch could be fun. Plus I'll have to do it all again later in the week, because some people haven't paid yet. Thankfully it's only a couple, plus if they had all paid I'm not sure I could have carried it all, to be honest, so I'd have had to make two trips anyway.

last working week of the year

I start my last week of work this week for the whole of 2009. It's a little weird when you start thinking in those terms, so I may not think abut it again until Friday when it'll almost be all over.

The Chrimbo meal was nice on Friday. The place we had it is kinda one of those Gastro pub jobs I think. We've been there before and the menu struck me as a little bit poncy, but not overly so, and the Chrimbo food was of a similar style.

If I was to make one complaint it would be the coffee they served at the end. I really didn't like whatever blend it was they were using. Plus it had a very powdery texture to it - like the filter hadn't done its job properly.

Well, actually, if I was to make one complaint it would be that the service was really slow. The whole meal took three hours and that was with us cutting it short because we'd all only paid for 3 hours in the car park. It was a bit of a case of throw down your coffee and go.

However, relatively speaking the chair I was on wasn't too bad, so it wasn't as unpleasant as it could have been.

I tried to do the handover with the now ex-RED employee on Friday too, but really we needed more time. He had to go at 4 and with 3 hours lost to lunch, it just wasn't enough time.

To be frank, I'm basically left with my fingers crossed, hoping nothing he handed over becomes active in any way. If it does I'm going to be having a few problems, I think.

The weekend wasn't a total disaster area. I'd didn't get the "do stuff" bug I was kinda hoping for, but equally I ticked everything off on my basic to do list.

I also found the time to finish off watching the Monty Python documentary I bought a while back. It was pretty good. The series featured 6 episodes and the last 3 focused on the post-TV series stuff, with the films and stuff like the Spamalot musical.

It was quite interesting, though I've heard much of that stuff before, as if I'm honest I tend to regard the films as being much better than the TV series, which was a bit hit and miss at times. I've therefore watched quite a few documentaries and stuff about the films.

Still, as a whole the series was entertaining and interesting. The extras were quite good, adding another good couple of hours of interviews and outtakes.

So yeah, if you like a bit of python then well worth checking out, though I'm not sure if non-Python fans would really gain much from it.

work chrimbo meal

Today is the work Christmas Meal day.

Basically, every Christmas, the company pays for us all to go out for a meal. Now the last few years we've always gone to the same place, but this year we're trying somewhere different.

Well, I say different - we've actually been there a couple of times before, but it's under new management, so it's effectively different.

Today also is when I have to do the handover stuff from a RED employee. Basically he's quit, so I have to go through some stuff with him.

I've mixed feeling about his quitting. He's an alright guy, but then he's also the guy who I moaned about because he tapped his feet and used to drive me insane. To be frank, he was also a bit of a slacker - if you didn't constantly give him stuff to do, he'd happily sit there all day on the internet. But then equally, when he did have stuff to do - especially analysis stuff - he was pretty good at it.

Plans for the weekend are pretty much non-existent.

I'm kinda aware that next week is my last week of work before I go on holiday for Christmas (hurrah), so I think my brain is going into that "well, I'll just do it next week when I'm on holiday" mode. Which is fair enough for some things, but really on others I should be trying to get them out of the way, so that I can properly enjoy my time off without having to worry about them.

So yeah, I'll either have one of those weekends where I do tonnes or absolutely bugger all. Place your bets now.

chrimbo radio times

I'm feeling pretty knackered today for some reason, so I thought I'd do a quick post about something completely random.

And that completely random something is the Christmas issue of Radio Times.

I've heard it said that for most people Christmas doesn't officially start until they see the Coca Cola add featuring Father Christmas and the trucks. Well for me, Christmas doesn't really start until I buy the Christmas issue of the Radio Times.

I actually buy RT every week as I'm a fan of television in general. I use it to help me plan what to watch and record, and I'm sufficiently anal as to be one of those people who circle the programs. Usually on Friday night I'll go through, highlighting the shows I'm already following and seeing if there's anything that peaks my interest.

My routine for the Chrimbo issue is almost identical. I'm expecting/hoping that it'll be on sale when I go into town today to drop my latest batch of washing off. I'll then scan through the articles while eating lunch and then Friday I'll plan out what I want to watch and record over Chrimbo.

Of course for those two weeks (if you've never seen it before the Chrimbo RT is a double issue that covers both the Christmas and New Year weeks) there'll be all sorts of specials and the schedules will be odd. Plus I'll be on holiday so there'll be more opportunity to catch some interesting things.

And that will be it - I'll officially be in festive mood.

Well, at least as festive as I'll get.

I have mixed feeling over Christmas.

First off I'm 100% atheist and, to be frank, the whole religious element actually gets on my nerves a bit. However, the thing about Christmas is it's essentially a winter feasting festival that was taken over by the organised religions, so I'm not totally against it.

The aspects I like are (predictably) the eating, the drinking and the relaxing, but also the spending a bit of time with your family and friends that you may not have seen in a while. The gift giving and receiving isn't bad too.

But, like most people, I get a bit sick of the saturation bombing that goes on. I'm very much on the side of people who complain about all the Christmas adverts. I caught an ad-break last week (so the first week in December) and every single ad was Christmas related.

I mean, it's not like we're going to forget about Christmas. We're well aware it's there and when it is, so the adverts are a bit excessive.

Although to be fair, the ads that really drive me bonkers are the post-Christmas sale ads, because they're fewer in number. At least before Christmas there's sufficient variety that you won't see the same ads over and over. But in that Sale period, every ad break will be identical, featuring the exact same 5 or six ads over-and-over, because the sales are much more restricted to certain types of businesses, like furniture stores or department stores.

Oops - got ranting and this post wasn't as short as I'd intended!

bonkers day

Yesterday was a little bit bonkers at work.

Basically, the person who handles a particular side of the RED business had a day off, and for some reason everyone chose that day to start sending her new requirements. I won't explain the boring tedium of it all, but basically it meant that I was running around like a headless chicken doing loads of stuff that I've never done before.

It wasn't too bad in a way, because otherwise I was waiting on loads of other stuff and so would have had not much to do. Thankfully they're now back in work today and also my other stuff has come back to me, so I can get on with it.

I also got a phone call late in the afternoon from Aldershot Parcel Force depot (I noted it was not from the number given to me and that was causing me all sort of problems) about my problem. Basically, the guy said that the payment had worked. Something he said made it sound like actually it was my re-attempts to pay that had worked, but, confusingly, he also seemed to imply the original payment had worked.

There's also the option that they've decided to wave the charge or there's some system error or something, but either way I guess I don't have to worry about it any more.

In the evening I just laid in bed and watched telly as I was a bit knackered after the bonkers day.

Normally Wednesday would be film review day, but as mentioned on Monday I didn't get a new review disks (it actually turned up in the post Tuesday) and didn't watch any films. As such, I thought I'd discuss a couple of the telly programmes I've been watching instead.

Dollhouse

I'd heard mixed things about this.

The show's actually by Joss Wheddon, who did Buffy, Angel and Firefly, all of which I enjoyed to varying degrees and I think that might have been part of the problem. See, the feeling I've been getting from the show so far is that it's an interesting idea that isn't explored enough in these earlier episodes.

The basic idea is that the Dollhouse is an organisation that can manipulate people's minds, wiping them and implanting new memories and personalities. They therefore recruit people who become the dolls of the title and then very rich people pay for them to fulfil certain rolls.

This could mean anything from them being a master thief to a hired assassin.

And that's sort of the problem - the show starts off too focused on the idea of being something different each week. It's kinda wrapped up in its own conceit - it's like normal telly, where at the end of the episode, the show resets and next week everything's back roughly to where it was.

Which is okay for normal telly, but being Joss Wheddon I think people were expecting more. It also didn't help that the resetting got it back to a weird position of implying "everything's worked out okay", yet you've got these girls who are essentially being abused and it's not making any real comment on that.

However, in more recent episodes, there's been a bit more of a hint of a longer story and it's actually started to focus a bit better on some of the moral issues as well as suggest there's more to the Dollhouse than it appears.

I've heard it gets quite good towards the end, but I'll have to wait and see.

Paradox

The other show I wanted to mention was Paradox.

This is essentially a new crime thriller type show, but it's tried to wrap itself around a bit of Science Fiction. In some ways it's like Bonekickers in that regard, but although I avoided Bonekickers like the plague, I thought I'd check this out.

My feelings are mixed - it kinda works and doesn't work in equal measure.

First up, the actual crime thriller type element combined with the premise (images from the future are downloaded by a scientist) works quite well. It's an intriguing way of providing a twist on the "whodunit" format.

You're effectively being given all these clues as to what's going to happen and then you have to try to work out what it is and how to stop it. It's quite satisfying on that front, in that it's a fair puzzle and you watch the police try to work it out too.

One of the big problems is with who they've decided to use as characters. Two of the worst culprit's are the Scottish detective, who always seems to be cynical about everything, but is also shagging Outhwaite in a "let's make the relationships complicated" fashion, and the Black detective. The black guy seems to be a sort of "always by the book" character so that the maverick Outhwaite can clash with him all the time.

Outhwaite's character and the scientist are actually okay, although again their kinda drawn from a pool of predictable character types, they don't clash with the basic idea of the show. See, the problem is that the way it's being presented is very much from their point of view, in that they believe the images are genuine and that they should try to stop them. The other two go against this and while that might suggest some good tension, in reality, because the scientist and Outhwaite are continuously proven right, it just makes the others seem a bit stupid.

There are also some problems regarding the whole paradox itself. My main one is where are the images coming from?

Weirdly, as they become real things, the camera does a sort of "photo still shot" effect as if it's the camera that took the picture that's been beamed back in time. But how does that work?

Are we supposed to believe that these people are watching grabbed moments from the telly show they're staring in? Very meta-textual, but also very non-sensical. Or in this universe is everyone chased after by film crews?

And if it's meant to be that they're photos taken by normal people or photographers, then how does that work? Some of them are so utterly random no-one in their right mind would take them.

a customs charge is due

About two weeks ago I got another of my parcels from Japan. I can't specifically remember which one it was, but the basic point is that it had a customs charge to pay.

This means that I got a letter telling me there was a payment due and directed me to pay online or at the depot. I always used to pay at the depot, but more recently I've been using the online system. It's relatively painless and avoids me having to make a trip across Aldershot.

Anyway, so in the usual way I paid up and the parcel was promptly delivered a couple of days later. All well and good.

However, a couple of days after that - so, Thursday of last week - I got another letter that told me that the payment had not worked properly. However, because they don't store card details they needed me to pay again.

Now, I try to be relatively honest, and given the number of parcels I receive I didn't want it to become some sort of black mark against me, so I tried to repay. This second letter also indicated that I could pay online again or via phone and it gave me the Aldershot depot phone number.

So this weekend I tried to pay.

I say try, because at every turn it seemed to block me from doing so.

First up I tried online again. I put the details in, it found the parcel and it indicated there was a charge to pay. However, no matter how many times I tried putting in my payment details (and I tried several times with several different cards) it just kept giving me an error message.

But that's all it said - an error has occurred. It didn't tell me what the error was or how I could remedy it or anything. Well, fine, I though, I'll just call them up.

But by this time, it was Saturday afternoon, and I know they don't work Saturday afternoon, but they do have one of those automated phone things where you press the numbers for the options. I therefore gave that a try.

It's a little tortuous, to say the least. The whole process is quite slow with you having to enter your details, but I persevered. It even at one point seemed to confirm that a payment was still due.

However, at the end of it, it told me "you've already paid for this" and that was that!

I then tried again, but exactly the same thing happened.

So I thought, right, I'll give them a call Monday morning and actually speak to someone. They open at 8am, so I'll phone just after that at work.

And this is where it becomes comical.

See, on the automated message it says press 4 for any other problem, which should route you through to an operator at the Aldershot depot.

I say should because it certainly routes you through to an operator. But it isn't one at Aldershot.

Of course, first try I didn't realise it had sent me someone else, so I was arguing with the poor woman about whether they delivered to my area. Eventually I twigged and asked her "Is this the Aldershot depot?" and she said "No, it's Lewisham."

She then tried to give me the Aldershot depot's number, but it was exactly the number I'd dialled. Plus when you get through it actually says Aldershot depot on the automated message thing.

So I tried again. Same basic thing, only it sent me to some depot in Middlesbrough.

I tried two more times up to 9'o'clock and each time it sent me somewhere completely random. And of course these random places can't help me because it's not part of their system.

By this time I was thoroughly pissed off (well, I say "by this time", I was actually pretty much pissed off after the whole internet failure) so I went to the Parcel Force site and sent them an e-mail telling them all the problems I was having and asking how to solve it. Of course, I don't actually expect them to reply. What I expect to happen is they'll ignore me and then I'll get some nasty letter saying "you still haven't paid". In the end I'll probably have to go down to the depot to sort it out.

See, what annoys me is that I'm having to do all the legwork. Y'see, I've already paid, and it's them that's cocked up. Why do I have to run around fixing their cock-up?

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.

a day off? blimey!

Day off tomorrow! Hurrah!

I'm hoping to square away some Chrimbo shopping activity. I do most of it online of course, but you always need cards and wrapping paper and stuff like that so I'll hopefully get as many of those boxes ticked as I can.

I'm also hoping I'll get some rest and recuperation time. I've been bloody knackered just recently, and it doesn't help with all the bits of me that are going wrong.

Toe still hurts, although it's better than it was. Also my front tooth starting hurting. The tooth was really sensitive when I was eating and drinking cold stuff, so I think it's just my usual sensitive teeth issues, rather than any sort of new problem. It does mean it feels like I'm falling apart!

I saw some interesting news on the Anno front the other day. They've announced an expansion pack. This adds multiplayer, which I don't really care about, but it also adds loads of other new stuff. It's due for release in February, so I guess I'm kinda doomed to play the game more than I should for a while yet.

And speaking of which, rather ashamedly I started on a new world last night. I know I really shouldn't have done that until I'd gotten further with my other world, but I kinda realised I'd made that original world too easy.

I mean, the whole idea was to play an easy world and build up a massive, well developed population, but I'd done stuff like disable the computer AI players and the Corsairs and it made it kinda dull if I'm honest. It certainly meant I didn't have some options and possibilities for doing stuff.

So I started a new game with more of that stuff turned on. Hopefully I'll stick with it.

I'm also planning on e-baying a load of stuff this weekend. I'm mainly hoping it represents good timing as far as Christmas is concerned. Oh, and I'm also hoping that e-bay wont rape me senseless, but that's kinda a non-starter as I know there's no way they won't.

I'm also hoping that this months' megami finally gets shipped over the weekend. Rather ominously the last issue is still saying "Not yet shipped" even though normally it's sent on or before the release date. In this case that was the 30th of November, which was Monday, so things aren't looking good to be frank.

clarkson duel

There was no rental DVD this week.

On my plan I actually only get 3 rentals a month, so that means I often end up with one weekend a month with no rental disk. Ideally I'd upgrade to one of the unlimited packages, but they're a lot more expensive and I've heard they're not quite as "unlimited" as they purport to be. Also I'd end up watching them instead of my bought stuff, which wouldn't be very helpful.

Anyway, I did watch something else that's mini review worthy - the new Jeremy Clarkson DVD, which is called "Duel".

It's called duel because that's basically what it's about - competing things against each other. The competitions included:

- What's the best drifting car?
- Who's the fastest off-road celebrity?
- Which is fastest - a man or a car?
- Which will hit the ground first - a penny or a Ford Scorpio?
- Which is the best TV motoring show - Top Gear or Fifth Gear?

There were other bits too, but those were the main ones.

I should also point out that this is the first Jeremy Clarkson DVD I've actually watched. He's been putting them out for years now, but I've never really felt inclined to buy one. However, recently I've been watching a lot of Top Gear on Dave (don't ask) and this DVD seemed quite Top Gear-ish in nature, so I thought I'd pick it up.

Overall, I found it a bit hit and miss if I'm honest, both in terms of the actual entertainment value and in terms of really being about 'duels'.

One of the big problems is that the first bit on drifting doesn't really seem to have much focus. It's like they took half a dozen cars with them in Spain and then decided what to do with them when they got there. I mean, Clarkson spends half the bit driving around in a 4-wheel drive Lamborghini in which he makes it clear it's impossible to drift.

The idea was he was demonstrating the type of car that wasn't good for drifting and why, but it feels a bit loose - a bit "well, we've also got this Lambo, how can we include it in a bit about drifting?"

And that slightly unfocused problem crops up in several other places too. For example, the Ford Scorpio versus the penny bit just comes across as a random. A bit, let's drop a car from a great height because... er... we can race it against... something. No, wait, I know - a penny!

A penny?

Yes, a penny. It'll be brilliant.

Well, actually, it's okay from a wanton destruction point of view, but it's hardly the world's greatest duel. I mean, you can't really even see a penny falling :/.

And there's also a bit on the end involving a catapult that I didn't really get at all. I mean, if the penny/Scorpio thing is an odd duel then the catapult bit doesn't make any sense as a duel at all.

However, the DVD also has some really good bits too. The actual apple-crushing car drifting part is amusing, for example. And both the fastest off-road celebrity and top gear versus fifth gear bits are genuinely brilliant. In a way, I'd much rather have seen more of them than some of the other bits.

So yeah - hit and miss.

Which means it's actually very much like Top Gear - some stuff is really good, some bits really funny, other bits feel a bit shoe-horned in or don't quite make sense.

On balance, I'd say it's an entertaining watch if you really like the Top Gear stunts and races, but some bits you could skip through and not really miss anything.

toe-tal agony

I've done something to the big toe on my right foot.

I don't know what it is that I've done - I don't remember stubbing it or bending it weirdly, but it's causing me quite a lot of discomfort. Basically, you know when you walk your toes bend as you move your foot? Well all of that movement of my big toe is painful.

It doesn't hurt as I just sit here typing and it's okay if I'm just standing up, but any kind of upward or downward movement (especially if it's taking any weight) is painful.

It actually started some time last week, but was a lot less painful. What I think caused it to become as bad as it is was driving down to Bristol. I tend to hold my foot a little weird on the accelerator - it's kinda difficult to explain, but let's just say I think that doing that for the best part of five hours caused it to get worse.

I think also all the walking about cleaning the car at the weekend didn't really help.

I'm trying to rest it as much as I can, but it's pretty difficult to avoid walking. I think I'll just crawl up in the evenings and avoid going out or anything - that's about as good as it's probably going to get as far as staying off it is concerned.

I forgot to mention yesterday that I had a bit of a problem with the old car washing. One of the reasons I was doing it was that my windscreen was horribly filthy. It was getting so bad it was difficult to see out of.

Unfortunately, however, when I was cleaning my car I discovered I'd run out of the real good glass polish I use. It's expensive, but it's good because it cuts through all the grease and road-grime that's difficult for normal cleaners to deal with. But also it doesn't leave any streaks, which can be a real pain when you're driving.

I'll obviously buy some more of the good stuff, but the problem of course is will there be an opportunity to use it? I did clean the screen with more normal stuff, so it's way better than it was, but the streaks where already obvious yesterday as I was driving in to work.

linen overload

So the bed linen turned up on Friday.

Slightly annoyingly it was all in one huge box... which was actually half empty :/. It had been stuffed with packing paper to fill it up. Why they didn't put it in a box half that size or multiple boxes, I don't know, but there you go.

I have a weird thing where I can't wear clothes or use towels or sheets or anything without first giving them a wash. I'm not entirely sure what the root of it is, but I think it's something I developed because (in my mind at least) they put stuff on the clothes to help them fold better for the shops.

Starch on shirts maybe? I dunno, I'm also perfectly happy to think it's just a weird paranoia/phobia type thing on my part, but either way, it means I've overloaded my washing basket.

I don't have a washing machine at my place, so I have to use a laundrette and they're going to have a bit of a windfall over the next couple of weeks. The march of winter and the chilly weather means I'm wearing loads more clothes to wrap up warm, and all this linen will have to be washed before I'll use it.

I'm less worried about the duvet and the pillow, as they won't come in direct contact with my skin, so I've already started using them. The duvet is 13.5 tog apparently. I've no idea how the tog scale works, but basically bigger numbers mean warmer and 13.5 is right at the top end.

It's really warm and snugly, in other words. While I'm pretty sure that means I'll have to by another thinner one for summer, right now with the temperatures having dipped drastically I'm loving it.

I got two new pillows, partly because they were on offer, but also because I like a lot of pillow support. However, these new ones are a bit too big, even for me. I've got an existing pillow that's still in reasonable knick, and with the other two it's too high for me to actually sleep with. It's good for when I'm sitting in bed watching telly, though.

I actually cleaned my car on Saturday. I kinda took myself by surprise actually, as I hadn't particularly planned to do it. However, the atrocious weather we've been having recently doesn't really seem like it's going to end for a while, so I thought it best to take advantage of a lull we had on Saturday.

Also, with my trip to Bristol last week it was very apparent to me just how filthy my car was and I really wanted to hoover it out at the least. My car is variety of quite grey colours. It's not dull, in my opinion, and it all matches quite nicely. The difficulty with it, though, is that inside it really shows up the dirt. It's odd actually, because the outside is the opposite - it can be incredibly filthy, but it looks okay.

However, inside, the slightest bit of dust really stands out. I think it's cos inside the grey is approaching black, which is notorious for showing up dirt, whereas outside it's a much lighter grey which is actually kinda similar to the usual dusty grime you get on cars.

I'm paying for my car washing antics today, though. My hamstrings are really aching. Both washing and hovering the car involves a lot of bending over, and that really strains my hamstrings. I'm almost tempted to do warm-up exercises before I wash the car, but then I'd look a bit of a tit.

Otherwise the weekend involved a heck of a lot of Anno. So much so that my arm was aching a little by Sunday evening. I'm really enjoying it though and have managed to keep going with the same map for yonks now. I'm even on the verge of managing to have all of the possible resources and products in use.

Well, I say nearly on the verge. Actually I need to completely restructure a good chunk of the world so that I can get more people in there, but the real point is that such a major tweak hasn't put me off at all. I have a plan and I'm going for it.

a million-hour work day

Yesterday was crap.

On Wednesday evening my boss had a deadline to meet. She had to print off and bind a proposal so that she could post it. It had to be there by 10AM on Thursday morning, so this meant it had to go the special delivery that guaranteed it would be there on time.

Well, that service itself has a deadline of 5PM. After that time you can't send it via that service.

And she missed the deadline. That meant that, because I was the only person who was available I had to drive all the way to Bristol in order to make it there by 10AM to hand deliver the proposal.

I've never even been to Bristol, let alone to where this parcel had to go, so my Boss leant me her Sat Nav.

That was kinda the start of the problems (well, excluding the whole thing as being a problem full stop :/). Her Sat Nav (and I guess all Sat Navs) are meant o be plugged into your cigarette lighter. Well, my car doesn't have a cigarette lighter.

Which is a little weird when you think about it, because it has a hole in the dash which presumably would normally house a cigarette lighter, but there's no actual cigarette lighter in there.

Anyway, the charge on this Sat Nav was pretty low, so that meant she had to drive home and pick up her AC charger and drop it off at my place so that I could charge it overnight.

Now as I'd mentioned, I've never been to this place, so I didn't really know how long it would take. According to Google maps it was about a 2 hour journey, but of course I'd be getting there at about 9AM which is rush hour, which isn't exactly famed for smooth traffic flow.

I therefore figured it this way - it needs to be there by 10AM, but the place probably opens at about 9AM, so I should aim to get there between 9AM and 9:30AM as that gives me some leeway in case I have to walk somewhere or get lost.

If it's 2 hours normally, then it's gotta be about 3 hours in rush hour. I therefore se off at 6:15AM, having got up at 5:30AM.

In the end, even though those numbers may seem way over-cautious, they weren't far off. I did get slightly lost twice. I also had to stop for a pee. That meant I deliver the parcel at about 9AM, so not that far out all told.

But then to be fair, the sat nav took me on a bit of an odd route. I think it was set on shortest distance, so we went on this very odd rout I just wouldn't have used. The route I would have used would have been a good 15 miles further, but it's roads I know like the back of my hand and can get good speed on, but also they don't suffer from much traffic at that time, which I know from all the times I've been to Devon.

The Sat Nav also only just lasted the journey. The battery literally conked out as I was pulling up at the final destination. Thinking about it now, it would have been better to find my own way t the M4 and then switch it on and use it from there - that would have mean tit was only on for half the time.

When I was driving down the weather was bloody awful - it actually hailed at one point! It cleared up later on, but then I had the problem of bright sunshine shining on wet roads, which is always fun.

Having set off at about 6:15AM I finally got to work at about 12:15PM - of that 6 hours, 4.5 where solid driving.

So yeah, not much fun.

But what makes it tedious and annoying is that having started at 6:15 and done 4.5 hours driving across 6 hours did I get to go home early?

Did I buggery.

That's what annoys me about my boss. I mean, this was her fucking up and me having to go way, way out of my way to fix it, and is there just a little consideration for that? Is. There. Fuck.

it's a mario!

Until Saturday I had never played Super Mario Brothers.

Well, that's not strictly true. In fact, it's not at all true now that I think about it - I had a super mario game on the original gameboy.

But that was in green and black and on a tiny, tiny screen. The only other mario game I've played was a thing released for the Amiga that was more like bubble-bobble if you've ever heard of that. It was a single screen thing where you used to have to kill baddies that came out of pipes on fixed platform single-screen play areas.

You see, the problem was my family was always towards the poorer side of middle class. I don't actually know quite how they decide on classes - I don't think we were working class, but then we didn't seem to be as well off as all my friends families at school.

So where all my friends had all sorts of games systems as they grew up (I remember there was the divide between Nintendo and Sega fans, a bit like X-Box versus Playstation nowadays) I kinda missed out on all that.

So as I say, I thought I'd never really played a mario game - certainly I've never played the 'classics' back in the NES and SNES eras. (I've definitely never played Sonic.)

Anyway, the point is that on Friday evening I got a lovely package from Amazon that contained Tropico 3, which I've not really had a chance to look at, and New Super Mario Brothers for the Wii.

So not only do I now own a 'proper' mario game, I've actually bought a new game for my Wii! A veritable double whammy.

So what do I think of the game?

Well, I've been enjoying it, although I've been suffering from what I believe is called "Nintendo thumb" where the tip of your thumb hurts where you're been pressing on the hard D-pad control.

It seems the basic idea is that the game has a multiplayer mode as its big feature. I've yet to try that out, as I'm just pleased to have the chance to enjoy the old mario game. Is that a bit sad at my age? Probably, but I'm not sure I really care.