monaco

So last weekend it was the Monaco Grand Prix.

It was a reasonable race by Monaco standards that was probably helped out by Fernando Alonso crashing in Saturday practice. This meant he had no car for the Qualifying, so had to start from the pits, putting him stone-dead last.

This therefore meant he could take his mandatory pit stop very early and then blast his way up the pack. In Monaco tyre wear is normally quite slight and so this didn't hamper him, but also meant when others eventually took their stops they would have ended up behind him. although many of the teams realised and so brought their guys in early.

It also meant Alonso had to do lots of overtaking (very difficult in Monaco's narrow streets), giving the cameras something to watch.

Anyway, the main thing I wanted to mention about it was that last year I was at the Monaco GP. This gave the viewing experience a little extra something I think - seeing on telly the bits I actually saw myself a year ago.

One of the things you really don't grasp on telly is the elevation changes of the circuit. At one part of the race they're driving past the harbour so are literally at sea level, but the famous Casino Square is actually at the top of a small mountain. There's therefore a long section where they drive up this steep incline that you just can't appreciate on telly - it has to be a 45% angle they go up.

Something that also occurred to me is that the Monaco GP is probably best watched from the in car shots. I mean, there's still no more overtaking, but you get a better appreciation of what it's like driving through the narrow streets with solid barriers just inches away.

I think this year the temperatures were a lot milder than when we were there. If I'm honest the stifling heat and humidity was the only real dampener to last year's trip.

My dad is actually going to the Canadian Grand Prix this year. Well, he's booked the trip, but it coincides with one of the BA strikes (I don't know if it's a BA flight, but I would imagine so) and there's the ever-looming threat of the volcanic ash.

Apparently the last time that volcano went up it was erupting continuously for 2 solid years or something, so it could become a permanent feature of air travel for quite a while.

And speaking of cars and... dust (yeah, okay, world's most tenuous segue ever) I cleaned my car this last weekend.

Well, I say cleaned, it was more like a very quick wipe down. It's been ages since I cleaned my car and it was getting to the stage where you couldn't tell if it was grey or brown. Also there were quite a few bird droppings on it and it's not good to leave those on for long as they damage the paint.

It still really needs a good, thorough clean, though.

My landlord was actually supposed to have gone on holiday this week and last and it was my original plan to give it a good clean during that time. However, in the end he wasn't well so has postponed it and I think this is good as in reality I don't think I'd have had the time - as I say, I only really found time to give it a quick wipe down on Sunday, so Id' never have fit in a full clean.

still a bit rubbish

Guess what I did on Saturday?

No, not that, you filthy degenerate...

Having read through my own pathetic dribblings on Friday after posting them I got a grip and took some rubbish down the recycling place.

You may recall that I'd investigated the Alton recycling centre as a possible option given I work just down the road from it and as part of my investigations I'd discovered it actually opens at 8am on Saturday as well.

My local one in Farnham doesn't open until 9am at weekends, which is just getting into that zone where most people are becoming active. One of the advantages of my body-clock being fixated on an early start is that it gives me the perfect opportunity to go and do stuff like shopping really early at the weekend.

So what I did was load the car up on Saturday and take it all to Alton recycling centre. This turned out to be slightly scarier than I'd thought it would be, because it seemed the police where doing a speeding check thing on the A31 in Farnham. That meant I had to drive past a load of coppers with my car dodgily full of boxes and stuff.

I'm never sure if loading your car in this was is quite legal. I think it probably comes down to one of those it should be "safe" things, which essentially means a judgement call. Anyway, they didn't stop me so I pootled on down there and unloaded my stuff.

The Alton place is a lot better designed than the Farnham one. At Farnham you have to climb stairs to be able to throw your stuff in the big containers (which if I'm honest didn't help with my laziness problem) but at Alton the containers are lower down so you're at the right level to just chuck your stuff in.

As it turned out, and kinda as I'd been expecting, a good chunk of my rubbish went into the 'domestic waste' bin, which basically means it was landfill and not recycling as I'd expected.

The other thing Id' suspected was that the old electrical bits and bobs don't actually go in a container at all. Instead, you basically dump them in an area close to the workers hut thing. My guess is that they go through this stuff to see what it's made of and if it still works and stuff.

And to give you some idea of just how much crap I've accumulated, even though I packed my car as full as was sensible and I've still got loads of crap to chuck. Now admittedly my car is only a micra, but that's a lot of rubbish given the size of my bedsit. And on top of that, I've still got loads of sorting out to do and there's therefore bound to be loads more of crap to chuck.

why i'm rubbish

This morning was the perfect example of one of the many ways in which I'm rubbish.

I tend to get in to work very early. Officially my work day doesn't start until 9, but I'm usually in just after 8. Well this morning I used that earliness in order to pop over to Sainsbury's and drop off some recycling at their recycling place.

This is fair enough, you may think. I mentioned how over my holiday I was furiously sorting through boxes and had identified loads of stuff to chuck away or send to recycling.

But what makes me rubbish is that I've been carrying around the bits and bobs I recycled this morning with me all week.

Now the reason I've had them in there all week are as follows:

I put them in my boot on Monday morning. My thought was I'd put them in the recycling bins at Tesco that lunch time when I went shopping. I didn't do that because there just wasn't the time. By the time I'd got my bits and eaten my lunch it was time to head to work again.

On Tuesday I went to Homebase to buy some more crates to hold stuff in, and that's not near Sainsbury's. Of course I could have gone to Sainsbury's as well, but I couldn't be arsed.

Wednesday there is literally no excuse - I could easily have gone to Sainsbury's and dropped it off, but I just couldn't be arsed.

Thursday is washing and shopping day. I drop my washing off at the laundrette and pick up last weeks load and then I go and buy a few bits of shopping. Guess where I buy these? Yup - Sainsbury's. Did I drop the recycling off? Nope.

I did go and have a look at the recycling place, but the door was closed and I couldn't see a way to open it. However, after I'd bought my bits I happened to see someone else open it (bizarrely the opening push-thing is on the inside, so you have to reach your hand in through the bars :/). However, by that time I had to go back to work.

Also, it had actually occurred to me that what I had thought was simply a tip down the road from where I work was actually a proper recycling centre. A quick Google also revealed that its opening time was 8am. Perhaps therefore I should just drop it off as I come in to work?

Well then this morning I had two options and in the end I went for Sainsbury's. So all that fannying around and I did what I should have done earlier in the week anyway.

You see when you think about it, even though I'd gone to Tesco on Monday I could easily have dropped the recycling off after work. Or before work like I did this morning. But I didn't, because I'm rubbish.

See mainly this was because I'm very lazy, but the other part of the problem I think is an issue I have over being embarrassed. I absolutely hate being embarrassed and of course if you've never done something before then the possibilities for getting it wrong and therefore being embarrassed are endless.

I mean, what if I went to this community recycling centre and they told me actually they won't take the things I had? Or if I put them in the wrong bins? Or if something is really heavy and I drop it? These would become excruciatingly embarrassing if one of the people that work there had to somehow fix my mistake or tell me off or something like that.

This is the thing that really tends to hold me back - my mind gets stuck thinking of all the things that could go wrong and that will therefore lead to me being embarrassed and so it's far easier for me to keep being too lazy. And so my entire bed-sit ends up so full of stuff that needs throwing away I can't see the carpet any more :/.

so it's dodgy dave then

I know politics is boring, but it looks like we finally have a government.

I can't claim to be happy about the result, but it's actually been quite fascinating watching it all unfold over the last week or so.

I think the most important thing that's come out of the hung parliament and the wrangling is that finally more people are starting to realise that our current system does not produce results that are fair on the people doing the voting.

There's actually an interesting summary of the different electoral options on the BBC news site. The system they're going to have the referendum on is the Alternative Vote System.

While this is a very mild version of PR, it would certainly address one of the biggest problems of the current system. If you look at last Thursdays vote, nearly a quarter (23%) of all the people that voted voted for the Liberal Democrats. And yet they ended up with just 57 seats, which is only 9%.

How can that possibly reflect the true feelings of the electorate?

I know there are lots of arguments for the 'strong' governments that tend to be formed under 1st past the post, but lets face it - giving total power to one party just gives them a mandate to ride rough-shod across the feelings of the majority of the UK population. How can that possibly be considered fair?

And isn't the whole point of democracy that it's fair - that it reflects the balance of opinion of the entire population?

I mean look at the Lib-Con coalition. The Lib Dems are, generally speaking, a centre-left party. The current incarnation of the Labour party is also broadly centre-left. A total of 52% of the electorate voted for these centre-left parties, and yet even combined they fell a long way short of %0% of the MPs.

It gets even worse if you look at the other party votes - many of these other parties are also either leftist or centre-left, so when you start adding their votes in, the proportion of left-leaning votes gets close to 60% and yet we've end up with a right wing government!

If you look at AV then while it still wouldn't even things up properly, it would likely have gone some way to redressing the balance. And yes this still would have produced a coalition government, but at least that represents the balance of the electorates feelings.

And at the very least it would stop this tendency we have to veer from one set of extreme policies to the complete opposite, which in my opinion can be more damaging than what the actual policies are.

I've actually felt this way for a long time, but I think finally people are starting to really get the point that the current electoral system does not produce results that truly representative of the British electorate.

Of course the irony is that, even with all the complaining people have done, given the innate conservative-ness of the British people the referendum will probably fail and we'll end up with the same old first past the post bollocks we've always had.

I mean look at al those opinion polls that said the Lib Dems were doing to do better than ever and what actually happened? People voted for the Tories :/. I actually remember the same thing happening in 1992 - all the opinion polls said labour would win, but people lied to the pollsters because they were embarrassed about voting Tory. Bizarre.

twilight

DVD rentalage got a bit confusing while I was on holiday, but one of the things I watched was twilight.

Obviously I, like everyone else, have heard all sorts about twilight. This has ranged from it being the worst abomination ever to the best thing since sliced bread. As you might expect, the reality is somewhere in between.

The film is an adaptation of a book that I understand is immensely popular with young women. I knew it was essentially about a young human girl and a vampire falling in love and that there has been a lot of talk that the whole thing is a gigantic allegory/metaphor for pre-marital chastity.

Clearly I'm not reviewing the book, so I can't really comment on that, but I would say those sentences pretty much sum up the film version. Girl meets vampire. Girl falls for vampire while vampire tries to reject her. Vampire caves, admitting the rejection was to protect her. Vampire has to save girl from other vampires.

I guess from that point of view the film works - you don't really ever doubt the characters motivations and their feelings are tangible and on the whole understandable and relatable.

I have to say though that from my point of view the whole thing did seem a bit daft. It also felt very long - the film has a two hour running time, but dawdles through most of it. It actually reminded me of a gawky teenager, shuffling its feet in the corner of the room at a family do, not quite knowing what to do with itself.

Also, if that teenage is dressed as a Goth - pale white skin, dyed black hair, black, ill-fitting clothes, then weirdly, that would match the film too. There's an odd artificiality to the look of the film - the images seem artificially de-saturated in an overly obvious way and while lots of the characters are perfectly normal people, they don't quite fit in the film.

It's almost like an exploration of a psychosis. The heroine Bella inhabits the real world, but she's also experiencing a series of fantasy-fulfilling delusions and visions involving Sebastian and his vampiric family. I honestly wouldn't have been surprised if it had been revealed at the end that Bella was experiencing some sort of breakdown.

And in a way that stylistic stuff and fantasy world thing worked better for me than the story itself, which I have to admit I found a little turgid and predictable.

As for the whole chastity allegory, it's certainly got a strong feel of that. I mean, vampires have always been wrapped up in sex, and so you can sort of understand it, but in a way it means they're like anti-vampires in twilight. To be frank, I personally don't think it works. Certainly there's absolutely no back-story or explanation as to why they're like that - introducing something like Angel from Buffy's soul would have helped no end.

failed

Continuing on from yesterday, the big disappointment area of the holiday was getting stuff done.

Where I made fairly good inroads into the sorting out of boxes, it took far longer than I'd thought it would and so I didn't even look at doing half the stuff I'd hoped I could.

One of the main things was I'd hoped I could do a bit of scanning, but I didn't do any at all. I therefore didn't watch any anime fansubs, as I generally do that so I'm way behind on that too.

Well, I say that - just before my holiday I did sample a couple of new shows:


Kimi Ni Todoke

Well this was a surprise.

I had absolutely no expectations when starting this and what I found was a sweet and charming romantic show.

The basic gist seems to be something along the lines of a misfit finds her place type of show. This is a theme I've always had a soft spot for, probably because I am a total misfit.

If I was being brutally honest, the show does have a slightly benevolent inevitability to it. By that I mean that, despite the main character basically being picked on (bullied is probably going to far), she isn't too badly affected by it and the whole show has an air that things aren't ever going to get worse for her.

I suppose you could say that the story starts with her at the low point and charts her breaking through that, but it's more that you get the feeling the writer wants to tell a warm, affirming story, rather than a dark one.


Kiddy Girl-and

One of the big problems with the original Kiddy Grade was its structure. The first half of the series was very light and fluffy - sort of like a more modern Dirty Pair. However, about half way through it suddenly developed a proper plot. And I don't mean it was one of those shows were you realised there was a plot underpinning the early episodes - you could easily have started watching half way through and missed almost nothing.

The difficulty with Kiddy Girl-and then is that this sort-of sequel, sort-of spin-off also starts in a very light and fluffy way. Indeed, it' possibly more light and fluffy than the original. My problem then is that because I only sample the first few eps on fansub, I've no idea whether it will also develop a substantial plot.

There are hints given in the prologue, but they're not very useful hints. My default position is that if it were ever licensed I'd probably pick it up, but it would be more due to the fact that I quite enjoyed the original than because the eps I watched blew me away.


But those are from a while ago and I was simply to lazy write them up for the blog before now.

I also didn't read any manga until Sunday, when I was basically taking the day to rest and recuperate. The manga I read was the latest volume of Ikki Tousen, so nothing interesting. I did read a lot of manga before the holiday - I'm now totally caught up with Oh My Goddess, but I've talked about that before

I also didn't get the chance to do any sorting out of files or backing up, which are things I usually take the opportunity to do when I'm on holiday.

So yeah, in terms of getting the usual stuff done, it was a bit of a failure. The consolation is I did make a lot of progress with non-usual stuff.

return

Well that would be my holiday over.

As is so often the way I achieved some things, but generally fell short of what I'd hoped to get through.

At the beginning of the holiday I popped down to see my Dad. It was my birthday and the bank holiday too and I'd not seen him since Christmas, so it seemed like a good opportunity.

It was good to see him, but it obviously absorbed three of the days.

When I got back my big plan was to go though the plethora of boxes I have and sort things out. The stuff in the boxes falls into three basic categories:

1) Junk I need to throw away, but through a combination of laziness and my pack-rat instincts I end up just sticking in a box.

2) Stuff I need to get rid of, but the bin isn't the way. This includes old electrical bits and bobs which are too big to chuck (and you're not supposed to throw away of course), and other stuff that I should take down the recycling place for example. Or there's tonnes of stuff that should go on e-bay.

3) Stuff I either need to or want to hang on to.

The idea was that I'd identify all the stuff that that fell into 1 and dispose of it in the rubbish. This I basically did, although because I didn't tackle every single box, I'm sure there's a bit more stuff.

The idea with 2 was that I'd identify it, and then take the stuff that needed recycling down the recycling place, which would free up a huge amount of space (there's a lot of it). This would then allow me more room to sort stuff that I could e-bay or whatever.

This was a partial success, in that I identified quite a lot of stuff to go down the recycling centre. But the problem was this too so long (Tuesday I did domestic stuff, and I was still sorting stuff on Saturday, and I didn't even finish then) that I just didn't have the time or energy to haul it all away.

The third group are more tricky.

My ultimate aim is to basically just be left hanging onto a handful of manga, anime and other stuff that kinda represent the 'cream of the crop'. In other words, they either quintessentially define my taste or are things I could watch/read over and over. The problem is really pinning down what these are.

The other problem is the stuff I need to hang onto. See, I seem to have ended up in a situation with manga especially where I'm collecting about 20-odd series.

The real problem with this is that the western companies tend to dawdle quite a bit when putting stuff out. There can be twenty or thirty volumes already out in Japan, but they only release three or four a year.

And on top of that, only a handful of the series I'm collecting have actually finished in Japan. This means I have a huge number of volumes of manga, many of which don't fall into the 'keep forever' pile, but it's not really going to be worth my while to sell them.

I mean, because I'm up to date, they will sell quite well - "all so far released" collections tend to do about as well as complete collection - but the problem is I don't really want to stop buying the new volumes. That means I'll end up with lots of random volumes, and those really don't sell well.

For example, I ended up with 3 random Bleach volumes, and to confirm my suspicions I put them on e-bay. I believe they finally sold for 5p each. That makes them total money sinks - it costs me money to auction them.

But the problem is there are loads of volumes now and they really take up a hell of a lot of room :/.

week away

Well, next week I'm on holiday, so I won't be doing any more blogging until after that.

I've decided the main job for the holiday is to try to clear out my room a bit. I discovered where the local recycling centre is and it's just down the road, so I'm planning to basically take a load of junk down there. Indeed, I'm planning to take several loads of junk, in order to clear out some crap.

I'll also be sorting through stuff generally, trying to decide what to either throw away, take down the recycling place or put on e-bay.

One of the biggest space consumers are my large collections of comics. I've had these kicking about for years with the intention of seeing if I can e-bay some of them. Problem is quite a lot of my comics are either very niche or very old and I really doubt they'll sell.

I'm also not at all sure whether it's best to whack them on as collections - issues x through y - or as single issues. If single issues, it could become a logistically nightmare to say the least. That's why I'm kinda tempted just to chuck them all out.

Next week also features the day of the general election.

The only thing I'm certain about is I won't be voting Conservative. Generally speaking, Tory ideas and views don't tend to mesh with mine, but there's also a specific reason for me not voting that way this time - the BBC.

If Cameron's mob gets in, I'm pretty sure one of the things they'll do is start the break-up and privatisation (that is to say, destruction) of the BBC. And to me, that's just not right. The BBC is one of the greatest things about this country, and I'd hate to see it go.

Imagine a world where all terrestrial TV is like ITV. It just doesn't bare thinking about.

phew!

Really hectic day at work yesterday.

A work colleague had asked me to recreate a picture he needs for a job, but he wasn't there on Monday or Tuesday to explain it to me, and the notes he'd left me didn't really make a lot of sense. He therefore left me a note saying he would call to explain, but then failed to do so.

Also, bits of it needed decoding from acronyms, and I didn't know what they were. Plus I had loads of other work to do.

Anyway, the upshot was that I didn't do anything about it. And then yesterday it turned out it was fairly urgent. But he didn't say that at all.

So I spent all day, scrabbling around for stuff to use in the picture and drawing it and stuff. Now don't get me wrong, I generally enjoy doing that sort of stuff, but it's always more time consuming than you think. So doing it quickly is very draining.

And it didn't help that what I think he really wanted was way too ambitious. I mean, I could have done it, but it would have taken about a week, which was more time than I would have had even if I had worked on it since the start of the week.

So yeah, I'm pretty knackered today, and I'm not really even sure if what I've produced is what he's after :/.

terminator: salvation

Time travel can be confusing stuff.

In the original Terminator film, the terminator in question was sent back in time to try to kill Sarah Connor. The basic jist for anyone that doesn't know (is there anyone?) is that in the future, Skynet, a military computer, had started a nuclear apocalypse, in order to wipe out humanity.

Humanity had been nearly wiped out, but the survivors were rallied into a resistance that, led by one John Connor, had turned the tide and were winning. On the very eve of their victory, Skynet had therefore sent back the terminator - an 'infiltrator' unit that was a humanoid machine clad in real human tissue - to try to kill Sarah, the mother of John and thereby prevent its defeat.

The problem with this of course is it could potentially create a paradox. Paradox's are the big problem with time travel. I mean, if Skynet only sent the terminator back in time because it was about to be defeated by John Connor, then if it succeeds, John Connor doesn't exist and it doesn't loose, so it doesn't have any reason to send back the terminator.

But there was an ace in the hole - it was a James Cameron film. So he did two things. First off, he focused the film on the relationship between Connor and Kyle Reese, who was the guy Connor sent back to protect his mother. So despite being a science fiction, action-heavy chase movie, it was also pretty much a love story.

Second, he made it so that the terminator was actually part of the original past. So, for example, it turned out that Kyle Reese was actually John Connor's father. Now really this is still paradoxical, but it's sufficiently plausible that you don't mind.

And then, in a sense, the problems started. The terminator was a hit and so a sequel was made.

Luckily, the sequel was again made by Cameron, so it worked, but the problem was, the first film wrapped itself up so well that they effectively had to tweak the story of the first in order to fit the second in.

The best example of this is that we're told at the beginning that oh, no, actually Skynet sent back two terminators - one to try to kill Sarah, the other to try to kill the young John Connor. And so the paradoxes start to eat your brain. I mean, why didn't Skynet send back a veritable army or terminators, or both terminators to kill Sarah Connor, if it could send 2 back?

But those aren't the bigger questions, the bigger question is that now, where the first film wrapped itself up by saying that the events of the film were integral to the events of the future, the second changes that. It's revealed, for example, that Cyberdyne systems got hold of the remains of the first terminator and, by retro-engineering it, they've gotten much further ahead than they were before.

Similarly, you get a weird contradiction that John Connor sends back a T800 to protect his younger self, because that's what he as an adult remembers happening. And yet, at the same time, things are being changed. Indeed, the whole end of the movie depicts them properly changing things in order to prevent the whole holocaust.

And yet it works because again you've got Cameron helming it, and there's a deft focus on the relationships of the characters as well as the action and the chase.

But T2 was an even bigger hit that the first and there was therefore a desire to make a third film. And Cameron wasn't to be involved because, quite rightly, his take was that he'd wrapped up the story he wanted to tell in the first two films.

So what to do?

Well, what they ended up doing was a kinda "re-instate the original future" film. And things get very confused, to say the least. One of the big problems of course is that the sequels are often trying to either retro-fit the preceding films or twist the story so that they can exist. But in doing so they break both the previous films and themselves.

So now, for example, even though the future was changed, the Skynet of this, presumably alternate future, must still send back the original two terminators, even though it presumably has access to information that proves these two attempts failed. But it also sends back a new terminator to try to wipe out the heads of the resistance.

I mean, when you really sit down and think about the plotting, it's really messed up, and yet I actually thought the third film worked on some levels. It maintained the central ideas of time travel, terminators, chase films and also, crucially, the focus on the relationships between the characters. So, although it doesn't make sense, it still basically works.

Wow, that's a hell of a lot of words already, isn't it? And I've not even mentioned the fourth film yet :/.

So, what did I think about the fourth film?

Well, it was okay.

One of the problems of course was that at the end of the third film, they left it so that judgement day was happening. In other words, the franchise had now effectively caught up to its own future. So one of the basic plot mechanisms of the previous films - time travel - wouldn't really make any sense in the fourth one.

Also, it's a little difficult to introduce new relationships, because they've already fixed John Connor's and Kyle Reese's relationships. As such, they introduce a new character, and, indeed, it's really this new character who is the central character in the film. And unfortunately, while they do give him a sort of romantic relationship and a sort of person to protect, it's just plain not as well done in the previous films. For one thing, of course, they're separate people, so it's diluted.

Well, kinda, there's also a lot of focus on Connor, but in a bit of a weird way. I mean, there's a suggestion from some of the taglines and plot summaries that some people don't believe he's really going to be this great leader. However, no one during the film actually says that to him.

At one point he meets the heads of the resistance, but although they're pissed off at him, it's for a perfectly sensible reason, not because he's some supposedly Christ-like saviour and they don't believe it. Indeed, they actually end up trusting him with a really important mission.

And that kind of oddness pervades the movie generally. Towards the end, Connor ends up going toe-to-toe with the

There are plenty of plotholes too. At one point the machines capture the younger Kyle Reese and put him in a prison cell. Why they simply put him in a prison cell and don't just kill him is not explained.

I mean, okay, they need Connor to think he's captive, but they don't really need him to be alive, do they? Or at least, once Reece's presence has lured Connor in, they could kill him straight away. But they don't - they wait until much later.

And it's not even clear why they're collecting humans. They effectively capture Reese by accident, because they're collecting humans, but there's no explanation as to what they're doing with them.

But despite that it's still okay as a film. There's some really good action stuff, the effects are good and it has a frenetic pace that pulls you along despite all the stuff that doesn't make sense on further inspection.

That really is a lot of words just to come to the point that it's "okay", isn't it?

settlers 7

Across the last couple of weeks I've been playing settlers 7.

I've discussed it a bit before. It's basically an economic/resource management game like Anno, meets an RTS like C&C.

Well, over the weekend I played the final mission in the campaign and also had a bit of a go on the skirmish mode. I have to say I did enjoy the campaign. The story was quite interesting, and things like the cut-scenes were well done. Also, the tip system worked very well and it introduced you tot eh concepts of the game quite well. Also, the game is very pretty, with lovely graphics.

On the downside, the system of copy protection they've put in is a total pain. And I think something in the game causes my computer to crash - it was totally fine before I installed it, but then it started giving me BSODs all over the place. These reduced dramatically once I discovered you didn't need to keep the DVD in the drive, although they still happen occasionally.

Also, I'm not really the biggest fan of the Victory Point system they've put in. The suggestion from the way they're marketing it is that you can choose how to win the game, using science, trade or the military. As such, you would expect that the number of victory points available to each of the routes is the same and that earning them is of about the same difficulty for each route.

But in reality, this is not the case - some routes let you get the victory points easier than the others. Additionally, it's not true that you can focus entirely on the one victory route.

For example, say you pick science. Slightly oddly, this actually means building up your religion. To do that you need various resources and that means expanding. Now, you can actually take over Neutral sectors using your monks, so initially that's fine and good.

But how do you take over a sector controlled by another player? Or what if another player wants your sector? Well those can only be done by military force.

So that means you need to build up at an okay military force, even if just for defence. But doing that is complicated, because if another player is doing military he'll have better units, so you need those better units too. Also, it can be expensive, and one of the best ways to get cash is via the trade route.

So in other words, it's actually nearly impossible to win without having at least a bit of all three routes.

And so here's the thing - now that I've finished the campaign, I'm probably going to uninstall it.

As I mentioned, I've had a couple of cracks at the skirmish mode, and it's okay, but it's like any other skirmish mode in an RTS. Basically, you're not playing for any real objective other than to win.

I've also no real interest in multiplayer, so basically, unless I replay the campaign, there's nothing left for me to do. Which is why I love about Anno 1404 - crucially, it has a Sandbox mode.

If you're not familiar with that term, it's where you can just play the game without objectives in a 'free creation' mode. So it's a bit like an RTS skirmish mode, except with one crucial difference - it's not about "winning" (well, unless you set a particular goal when you set it up). It's difficult to explain, but it gives huge longevity and continuing interest.

wherever i may roam

So I went for another walk yesterday.

The weather was a bit weird, as it kept looking like it was going to rain, so I put my coat on, but then when the sun popped out it was really warm. It was also weirdly muggy, even though there seemed to be quite a strong breeze blowing at times.

I've come up with a nice little route for my walks where I basically head off down the hill I'm on, then cut through a minor road past some fields that takes me onto the back route in past all the schools. That bit is the longest part of the walk, but it's on the flat. I then have to come up through the 'back way' that goes through the estate.

Obviously, since I came down the hill, that last bit involves climbing back up, but where downhill was fairly gentle, the uphill is very steep. The advantage of that route is that the only other way back is the long way back (which, of course, involves going uphill anyway). Therefore, it forces me to do a good stretch uphill and really get my heart pumping.

All told it's about one and a half miles. I know that for normal people 1.5 miles isn't exactly a long walk, but for me at the moment it's a huge distance. Well, actually, I could easily walk further, what I mean is that with the hill bit it's a good compromise between a long distance, which would take a long time, and good exercise.

It currently takes me about 30 minutes to do the whole walk and I normally have to stop a couple of times. I don't stop for long, but the walk up the hill is pretty steep, so I usually stop to catch my breath and on Sunday with the sun out, take my coat off and wipe my brow.

I've no real ambition regarding doing longer distances or walking it quicker. I'd like to get to a position where I can walk it twice a week - maybe Sunday and Wednesday - and also not feel quite so knackered afterwards.

Otherwise the weekend was a pretty normal one. I cleaned the flat and thought about cleaning the car. My car's been caked in dust this last week or so, which I dunno if it has anything to do with the volcano, but it could have done with a clean.

Trouble was with Sunday being the best opportunity and with it constantly looking like it was going to rain but then not actually raining, I ended up not bothering. Besides I'm on holiday next week and my landlord goes on holiday the week after, so I should get ample opportunity to give the old girl a good clean in the next couple of weeks.

omg!

I've been reading more manga this week.

Both of my renaissances of anime and scanning seem to have fallen by the wayside for some reason. It's not a conscious decision, I've just found myself constantly in the situation where I just haven't had the time.

Next week is my last week before I take a weeks holiday and I'm hoping I'll get a bit of anime watching and scanning done then. However, I was compiling one of my 'to do' list and it's got a hell of a lot of stuff on it. See, the problem is I really want to get rid of a load of crap.

I've discovered there's a council recycling place just down the road and I believe they'll take loads of the big stuff I've been reticent to throw away because it would just end up in landfill. The council collections are shot where I am - they take virtually nothing and you get nasty notes and threats of fines if you get it wrong.

So yeah, I'm hoping to clear that stuff, plus I want to finally get a load of stuff from my childhood on e-bay. I'm pretty certain it won't sell, but at least I'll have put it on there and then I'll know for definite it can go in the bin.

Trouble is of course both of those things will just eat my time and on top of that I'm going to visit my Dad and there's all the regular crap I do.

Anyway, the point today is I have been reading some new manga. Specifically I've started back reading Oh My Goddess.

OMG was one of the first manga I ever read. Indeed, I think it was one of the first manga ever released in America. Back in those days it was 'flopped' - printed back to front, which probably seems a bizarre thing to do in the modern era.

Anyway, the point is because it's such a long series (it's still ongoing in Japan!) there came a point with OMG where the fashion had very much shifted to printing manga in the original right-to-left way and Dark Horse where still playing catch up. That meant they decided with volume 21 to revert to the original format.

But also, it turned out Dark Horse had played silly buggers with the earlier volumes, skipping out and reordering some chapters. So they therefore released several of the earlier volumes in with the correct chapter order. But then they also announced that they would re-issue all of the already released volumes in unflopped format.

And that's why I think I stopped reading - I got very, very confused.

But now, many years later, I thought it was about time I caught up, so I bought loads of volumes and have started ploughing my way through.

I've gotta say I still like OMG. I was a little worried my tastes might have changed, but it still pretty much works. I will say I'm still a little frustrated with it - Keichi and Bell's relationship still remains weirdly non-intimate and stagnant, but the stories are sufficiently full of other goings on that it kinda gets around that issue.

Still, it would be nice for it to at least start to explore the implications of a man and goddess pairing, and who knows maybe it does in the volumes I need to catch up, but I kinda doubt it.

expenses

The other day my polling card turned up.

It's not long until polling day - the 6th of May. Weirdly, I'm actually on holiday that week. I'm not going anywhere exotic or anything, so I've not really got much of an excuse to avoid voting.

The media seems to be quite interested in the election this year. It's probably because this is the first time in a good while that it's not been guaranteed that Labour will get in. I'm not entirely sure that the general public is quite as interested.

Indeed, I think the whole expenses scandal could lead to lower numbers of voters than in most years. Well, I did think that until the whole TV debate thing. I didn't personally watch the debate myself, but obviously I've heard all about how Nick Clegg and the Lib Dems have had a surge in popularity since.

I'm not sure that will translate into an increase in their share of the votes. Certainly I doubt it would result in a sufficient change to give them power. Instead, it makes a coalition government more likely.

Traditionally coalition governments are inherently weak affairs, which sometimes pull in different directions to such an extent that they collapse. And there's always the risk of effectively giving power to a minority. Also it's always assumed that the Lib Dems would form a coalition with Labour as they tend to have similar views on things.

Anyway - the upswing of interest by the media means that there's been a lot more talk from the political parties getting air time. Which has also mean there's been quite a lot of things with the public questioning MPs, especially the heads of the parties.

One of the things these people naturally want to talk about is the expenses 'scandal' and I've found it fascinating.

Not for interest in the scandal itself, but because it's clear that people are angry, but many of them don't really know what they're angry about.

I mean, the impression I've been getting from some of the questions is that many people seem to be fundamentally opposed to MPs claiming any sort of expenses at all. Also, they don't seem to grasp that the vast majority of them were simply acting within the rules that had been established.

The first of those is bizarre. Part of my job often involves me travelling to places and therefore I claim that money back as expenses. Also, sometimes I need lunch or have to stay overnight or whatever, so I claim that as well.

That's what expenses mean - they're an expense you incurred in order to do your job. So when an MP does similar, in my opinion there's fundamentally no problem with them claiming the same. And yet people just seem to be angry that they claimed anything, which is bizarre.

The aspect that represents the real area of controversy is this issue of being able to claim for a second home and the costs of upkeeping said home. This is where things get a bit tricky, because an MP's job has a split personality.

All MPs obviously need to attend Parliament, which is in London. But an MP's job is also in his constituency, which could literally be anywhere in the country. Most people don't have a job where half the time you need to be in London and the other half you need to be somewhere else.

And the point is that your job requires this - it's not simply a lifestyle choice. And for some MPs we're talking hundreds of miles of separation - Cornwall or Scotland spring to mind as being rather distant locations.

The problem I guess is while I think rationally you could therefore justify the claiming of the travel costs, being able to claim for your second home is a might trickier. Especially when you add in all the dodginess of nominating which is your second home and that it's a house they're buying for themselves - once they stop being an MP they could sell it keep the money.

Plus on top of that they were able to claim for the upkeep costs, which is where you got all the stuff about duck ponds about. And of course it's a blanket system - MPs in London and close by were able to claim in the same way as MPs up north, or wherever.

But as I say, it's a trickier problem for me - on some level I don't totally disagree with them being able to claim for something to compensate for this issue of having to work in two places, it's just they set up a system where tacking the piss was the norm. I mean, if your job required that of you, you'd want some way of it not affecting your standard of living, right?

And it's that I don't think people have really grasped. The only thing they really did wrong was set themselves up with a bad system. It's a little unfair to judge them for what they actually claimed within that system.

And let's be frank - the amount of money we're talking about was actually pretty small. And only a tiny minority have been accused of anything like embezzling it.

Anyway, my real point here is that people just don't understand things. It's scary sometimes how they grasp the wrong end of the stick. And then they get to vote.

transporter 3

Oh dear.

If ever there was a franchise that epitomised the 'law of diminishing returns' then it's transporter.

I quite liked the first one. It was a bit silly, but it was also very Luc Besson and the plot pretty much worked.

The second one was not quite as good. There was a confusing angle in terms of the mother and her not being a love interest, but being presented in that way, and the silliness got a bit sillier, but again, the plot basically worked. I mean, there were a few clunky bits and oddities, but it basically hung together.

The third one doesn't even manage to get have a plot that makes sense.

The basic idea seems to be that some Ukrainian politician's daughter is being held hostage in order that he'll sign a contract with a big nasty corporation. The big nasty corporation (boo, hiss) wants to use his country as a dumping ground for toxic waste.

I mean, that doesn't even make sense as a summary. Okay, evil corporations are nothing new, but evil corporations with utterly dumb plans is pretty... unique. Why, for example, can't they simply find another country who'll probably jump at the chance for the money? A corrupt third world regime, for example.

Or if they're so big and evil, why not just dump it in the middle of the ocean? Or simply ship it in disguised as something else and then dump it in a big hole in the ground and bugger off?

And what's with that plan? Kidnap the dude's daughter to make him sign? How stupid are they?

If he signs and gets his daughter back, he just has to hold a big press conference and tell everyone what happened. A contract signed under such a situation would never be legally binding.

So what - they kill her instead? Well he just does the same thing. Or they keep her hostage permanently? How does that work?

No - plain truth is it's daft and non-sensicle. Much like the rest of the film.

Where the silliness was kinda endearing in the previous films, especially in terms of the stunts and action, here it just doesn't help.

I mean, there's a bit where there's a car chase and it's clearly been speeded up. Now this is something of a common thing in Besson films, but here it's like the speeding up machine got stuck in some high gear, because they speed it up to such a degree that it just looks like Benny Hill should run across the road halfway through.

Plus, when they aren't taking daftness to a new level, the chases, fights and stunts come across as being a bit uninspired and dull, tbh.

And don't me started on the girl. She's just about the most annoying woman committed to celluloid.

She starts of petulant (no reason is given) and rapidly reveals herself to be selfish, self-centred and stupid. And then she gets really annoying.

But worst of all we're supposed to believe Statham's character falls in love with her? I mean if he'd had a history of falling for women like her, then maybe it'd be okay, but the girls in the other films weren't like her at all.

It was just plain rubbish.

doctorb who

The b is for 'bargain'.

Here's something I haven't blogged about - there's a new Doctor Who. And not only is there a new Doctor Who, there's a new head writer in charge of the show.

At first I was a little unsure about the revamped Who. David Tennant is a pretty hard act to follow and Russell T Davies didn't exactly do a bad job with the whole writing and show running thing.

But then Steven Moffet, the new writer, is responsible for some of the best episodes of the new version of Who. He did the one with the kid in the gas mark and the angels that only move when you aren't watching them, for example.

I feel like I'm rambling a bit here, so I'll skip straight to my verdict. Overall, I like the new Who.

I have to say that the first episode was a bit of a gentle introduction. It didn't really have an epic feel or anything - we weren't instantly into a Daleks destroying the Earth story or anything. But it kinda worked, because it had a lot of new stuff to introduce, and a predominantly character driven story allowed it all to bed in.

The second one was a good one, and even managed to have a bit of a moral dilemma in it. And the third was a story by Mark Gatiss that featured the Daleks and Churchill at the height of World War 2. It also featured the Dalek's being a bit sneaky and clever, which was nice to see.

The Dalek episode also introduced new versions of the Daleks, which were bigger and a bit 'fatter'. I wasn't entirely sure about the new designs, as they had a bit of a plasticy look to them, but the episode itself was good. I especially liked that the Daleks properly escaped at the end.

Normally in the Dalek stories they get utterly destroyed, but then the next time you see them there's always "one ship/Dalek that escaped" or similar. In this one, all the new Daleks escaped intact, so it gives them lots more possibilities.

So yeah, overall I'm liking the new Who.

oh look, there's some more telly to watch

It was on some levels a slightly depressing weekend.

I've ended up the situation where I've got tonnes of stuff recorded on my PVR and this last weekend was the first time I've had to actually knuckle down and watch some of it. The PVR had got so full that it was almost a case of watching stuff to make room for new stuff. Well, it wasn't quite that bad, but I could imagine it getting that way fairly soon.

The problem was, this weekend was the Chinese Grand Prix and I also had a few bits and pieces to do. The BBC's coverage of the Grand Prix is, to be frank, excellent. They show all of the practice sessions, as well as the qualifying and the race itself. Plus there's lots of punditry and other stuff to. I'd say all in all I end up watching about 8 hours of stuff on a grand Prix weekend.

So you can see the problem - the only way for me to watch all the GP stuff and make a dent in my recorded stuff was for me basically to watch television constantly. And to be frank, it got a bit depressing. Especially given that this was the firs really good spring weekend we've had.

For example, I would have really like to keep going with my new walking habit on Sunday, but guess what? I had yet more television to watch. (Well, also, my right foot has been giving me some gyp after the huge walk into Farnham for the wedding, so I though maybe resting it wouldn't be a bad idea anyway.)

I also would have loved to give my car a bit of a wash. I dunno if it's the whole volcanic ash thing, but my car is filthy. But no, I had telly to watch.

Not that I didn't enjoy the telly watching, it's just you know - it would have been nice if it wasn't so necessary and I could have done some other stuff.

Anyway, it was a good Grand Prix.

Even the practice had a really dramatic moment with Sebastien Buemi's whole front end basically exploding as the uprights on his suspension failed. I've honestly never seen anything like that before. It was like something out of a film - as if there was a bomb in it or something.

The race itself was very good too. It was a wet one, which always spices up the action. And Button made another wise decision regarding tyres that effectively won him the race, like he did in Malaysia.

150 gadget shows

I forgot to blog about this earlier in the week, but the 150th episode of the gadget show aired last Monday.

I've mentioned before that I really like the show and I basically realised watching the special episode that I must have pretty much seen them all. During the course of Monday's show they repeated some of the challenges they'd done that either hadn't worked well or they thought could be done better.

One of these was to do a bullet-time type shot and they said during it that it was attempted in the first ever show, and I remembered it, so that must mean I've been watching from the beginning. Now for most shows that 150 would mean 'd been watching it for decades, but the gadget show tends to air in quite long runs, and it's not unusual for them to have a couple of series a year, so in reality it's been running for about 6 years.

But still, that's a fair old amount of time, and I still find it interesting and entertaining, so yeah, good job.

They've actually put out a special edition magazine, that's I think is intended to mark the occasion. I've also a suspicion it's also intended to test the waters to see if there's the market for a regular magazine, but either way I picked it up yesterday.

It's quite good, but I have to admit it's a bit lightweight. That's not necessarily a bad thing of course, because it makes it easier for me to read, especially given my always limited time, but it'd have been nice to have a few more in-depth articles.

This weekend is the Chinese Grand Prix, which will absorb a good chunk of my time and otherwise it's a fairly mundane weekend. To be honest, a relatively boring one would be okay for me this week as I've been working my arse off all week.

america, but not as we know it

Recently I've been reading Gunsmith Cats: Burst, which is a sequel to Gunsmith Cats by Kenichi Sonoda.

The original Gunsmith Cats manga was one of those that just sort of stopped. By that I mean, because the series never had an overarching plot, but was instead a series of consecutive stories, there was no 'final wrap up' to the last story.

I liked the original GSC a great deal. It had a bit of warped view of America, but the stories were good, the characters generally interesting and the artwork very nice.

After GSC, Sonoda went on to do Cannon God Exaxxion. This was more of a SF show, but with the typical Sonoda touches. I also liked this series a great deal, but I guess it wasn't as popular as Black Horse basically pulled the plug on publishing it and I never got to read the end. To be honest, I've never really forgiven them for this, especially as they were just 2 volumes from completion.

Anyway, I guess Exaxxion was one of those 'I've got to get this story out of my system' sorts of things, because afterwards, Sonoda went back to GSC with Burst.

And to be perfectly frank, I'm not really quite getting it.

I dunno if my tastes have changed radically or I'm just not quite in the mood for it, but I'm finding GSC not to be up to the high standards I remember of GSC. I think part of the problem might be that it's so long since I read the original and this is a proper sequel.

There was no re-introduction of characters or gentle ease you in approach - I think it just picked up from where the original left of. And I don't remember where that was, so I've been a little lost.

What I'll probably do is dig out the old GSC and give it a read.

One thing that is definitely annoying me, though, is the errors in Burst. For example, there's one bit where Rally refers to a magazine as a "clip". Now for a normal person that's a perfectly okay excuse to make, but Rally is supposed to be a total gun-nut, to the extent that she owns a gun store.

There is no way someone like that would erroneously refer to a magazine as a clip. Now to be fair, that could be a boo-boo on the part of the translators, but I dunno. I mean, there's another bit where a huge error is made in relation to blanks, saying that a blank could never be used in an automatic as it wouldn't cycle the action.

This is clearly wrong - I mean, they don't constantly fire live rounds in films. Plus I know someone who was an army cadet and they use blanks all the time with no problems.

Now maybe there are different grades of blanks and some work and some don't, but that's not what it says.

death race

This weekend's DVD rental... was watched last night.

What with the wedding and the hangover, I both didn't have the time and in all honesty really couldn't be arsed to watch my rental DVDs.

And it is DVDs plural - for some odd reason I got a bonus DVD rental the other month. I tried to get them to send it so that it would arrive sensibly, but I made a total mess of it and it turned up after Easter for this last weekend when there was the wedding.

Anyway, what I basically did was watch the first of the DVDs - death race - last night. I didn't get through all the extras, but I watched the actual film.

And it wasn't very good.

The main problem with it was that the story just didn't work. It was clumsy and it didn't hang together properly. But weirdly, it managed to be clumsy, despite wallowing around in what should have been a really clichéd plot.

Part of the problem I think was that because they knew it was a clichéd plot they thought they could skip bits. So, as a really good example, when Jenson's wife is killed and he's framed for the murder, we then skip 6 months into the future.

In other words, we don't get to see him grieving, we don't get the heart-string pulling scenes of his baby being taken away, we don't even get to see the court case or anything. So it's flat. We don't really know why we should care.

Oh, and mentioning the time-slip also brings up the films other major problem - it's full of stuff where you think "Hang on, that doesn't make sense." or "But what about..."

So, in this case him being framed is actually a pretty lousy job. Any kind of forensic investigation or proper detective work would show up all sorts of problems. Which would be fine, if we'd seen that the police were incompetent or corrupt, or that they've gotten rid of trial by jury or whatever. The actual explanation could be anything, but we don't see it, so it just becomes a massive plot hole.

And the film is absolutely riddled with them.

Plus, where it could have made up for this, it also lets itself down.

If it had been chock full of sex and violence then it wouldn't have mattered as much, because it would have been a trashy film that you just enjoy for that. But it isn't - it tries to be a proper film instead, but it just falls short. Don't get me wrong - there's quite a bit of stuff like that, but it's a lot tamer than it could have been.

poltergeist

I had the weirdest time when I was trying to get to sleep last night.

If I wasn't a rationalist I'd have probably said I was experiencing some poltergeist activity.

It started with a weird flash of light. I was laying on my front at the time and it seemed to almost explode from the wall behind me.

The next weird thing was that I could hear what sounded like wind, but not quite. Sometimes there are random gusts of wind that give a very distinct set of noises in my bedsit, and this was kinda like some of them, but not entirely.

The nest thing was another set of noises that almost sounded like someone moving about in the roof-space that connects my bedsit to the main house. We've had mice in there before and it was nothing like them. They make scratches noises and this was much more like something big moving around, but not in a floorboard-creaking sort of way.

At that point I put my earplugs in, but not more than 10 minutes after that I suddenly heard what sounded like a knocking noise.

Because my doorbell is shit, my landlord does knock on my door when he needs to talk to me. However, because this was late at night there should have been an accompanying light from under the door if it was him, but there wasn't.

The other thing I discovered was that my duvet was upside down. I'm sure you've got or have seen a duvet, and if you have then you know that at one end there's always a means of fastening the duvet cover once you've put the actual duvet inside.

In my case, my duvet covers button up and I like to keep the buttoned end down the bottom of my bed, at the foot end. Indeed, it's one of my many little idiosyncrasies / pathologies that I have to have the buttoned end at the bottom.

Weird then that I discovered the buttons at the head end. Weirder still that at no point since putting on the cover have I turned it round. Neither have I pushed it off during the night and had to pull it back off.

So what was it all about?

A poltergeist?

Paranoia and/or the random workings of a sleep-deprived and/or booze-addled mind?

A random collection of events that were actually unconnected, except for their proximity in time?

Well, clearly it was the latter combined with a bit of the second one, since ghosts don't exist.

the wedding

It wasn't bad, in the end.

Since I'm pathologically incapable of being late, I was the first of the work people to arrive. That meant I didn't really know who I was supposed to be looking out for, apart from the bride.

It turned out there were 2 wedding receptions on the go at the hotel, so I therefore kinda joined the wrong one. Really this wasn't my fault, because the staff were cataclysmically useless at showing me where to go. Plus, as I say, there was no-one I recognised who I could use to clue me in.

Anyway, after wandering about, I eventually found the right group and then people from work started turning up and I didn't feel like a lost soul.

I walked down to Farnham, and I'd not quite appreciated how far it was. I think I mentioned last week how I've been trying to at least do a bit of walking and I basically figured this would be a similar saunter.

Well, where my little walks have been around 30 minutes long in my proper walking shoes, this ended up being the best part of an hour in my work shoes. I had prepped by putting some plasters on the main areas I get blisters, but of course that means I've ended up with some sore bit (not really blisters) where I wasn't expecting to.

Thankfully a work colleague gave me a lift home, and that was a really good thing both from a foot ache and booze point of view. I got really rather drunk, I have to confess. I'm not sure how many I actually sunk, but my best guess is six plus a couple of glasses of champagne.

Now really that's not a lot, but it's a long time since I've had a proper drinking session. In fact I was so drunk at the end I' afraid if I had walked home I would have ended up in an accident or something. I could in theory have gotten a taxi, but I honestly don't know where there is a taxi rank in Farnham.

Anyway, the do itself turned out to be okay. I mean, I didn't really know anybody apart from work people, but they had a band on and they played lots of rock and roll standards, so at least it wasn't a night filled with Agado.

wedding bells

So, as mentioned yesterday, this weekend I will be attending the wedding of a work colleague.

To be frank, I'm not entirely looking forward to it.

Don't get me wrong, it's not one of those situations where I don't like the work colleague or anything like that. She's nice and we get on well, I think. The problem is more that that's the only connection - we work together. I don't know any of her friends of family, so it will be one of those situations of knowing nobody there.

No, that's not right - I'll obviously know the other people that are coming from work. Now again, I get on well with all the people at work, but I see them all day at work. Do I really want to be spending social time with them? And we're only a tiny company so we're not talking hundreds of people here - we're not even talking half a dozen, to be honest.

And, more importantly, do I want to be getting drunk around them? I've noticed alcohol tends to loosen my mouth and I'm bound to say something stupid or that otherwise marks me out as the weirdo I am, when I've been doing an okay job of keeping it hidden.

I'm sure I'm worrying needlessly - it'll be a case of a lovely meal and a bunch of speeches, and then I can just pop off when it gets a bit later and people are getting drunk and I'm getting tired. As I said yesterday, I only live a shortish walk way, so I can pretty much head home whenever.

easter weekend

So, last weekend was Easter, which meant I had 5 whole days straight of not having to work, which naturally begs the question "What did I get up to?"

The answer is a rather disappointing "Not very much of interest."

As previously mentioned on the blog I'd been suffering from a stinking cold last week and I still wasn't feeling up to par by the beginning of the weekend. Friday I therefore mainly spent watching the last half of Ouran High School Host Club and some stuff I'd recorded. However, I did actually also go for a walk.

It was actually the first of two walks I did - the other being on the Monday. There were two reasons for me going for a walk. The main one is that this weekend I'm going to the wedding reception of one of my colleague's. It's being held in Farnham and, while I'm not sure I'll walk there (I may book a taxi), I'm thinking I'll walk back.

But the second reason is I'm a bit fed up of being as out of shape as I am. It's a bit of a weird thing to explain, because I've been having some thoughts that I'd like to be able to walk distances without getting really out of breath. Now I know the main problem here is actually that I'm morbidly obese, but in a way, that's not the bit that bothers me. It's the not being able to walk up stairs without sweating and breathing heavily for ten minutes I want to stop.

So I've basically decided I'm going to do that by going for some walks and hopefully that will improve my fitness a bit. The problem of course is that I may start butting up against the fact that really I need to also start eating a bit more sensibly as well and therefore as my weight would come down, so the real improvements in fitness would come.

Trouble is that's the real difficult bit for me.

Anyway, back to the point - I finished off Ouran, which turned out to be a really good series that I greatly enjoyed.

I also watched a lot of telly generally. As you might expect there were quite a few specials and stuff on over Easter, so I watched them as well as catching up on previously recorded telly. It was also the Malaysian Grand Prix and with the BBC's coverage being so extensive (they show all 3 practices, Qualifying and the race) that accounted for quite a lot of hours too.

I did no scanning whatsoever, though, which was a bit disappointing. I'd kinda hoped I would at least do a bit, but in the end I just didn't get around to it. What I did do was prepare a load more updates for trismugistus.com, which is always good. I'll start rolling them out from next week.

So you see it was all pretty dull. Part of the problem was everyone I know seemed to be off doing things, so I was just left to bimble around with no real plan or intent. I mean, I spent a lot of hours sorting through the scans I made myself or have downloaded and archiving those and fansubs to DVD and stuff like that. I tend to regard these as necessary activities, but they're so tedious (and time consuming) I only really do them when I've a big stretch of nothing much to do.

I did, however, get the time to do some more unusual entertainment stuff. First off I read Saturday Night Peter, the second volume of Peter Kay's autobiography. I didn't find it quite as funny as the first, which had me in stitches, but it was an interesting and entertaining read.

I also played Settlers 7.

Well, that is to say, I tried to play Settlers 7.

'm totally new to the Settlers series and I'm a bit torn if I'm honest. It's very similar to Anno, being a resource management/strategy type of game and in it's favour it's very slickly done. The campaign is engaging and interesting and teaches you how to do stuff. On the downside, I much prefer Anno's focus on the "sandbox" aspect and also, I slightly prefer its approach to resources. In settlers, some things get used up and are difficult to replace, whereas in Anno if you run out of something you can just pay to replenish it. This might sound like a cop-out, but of course you need to generate the cash to pay.

Anyway, my main issue isn't with the game itself, but with Ubisoft's horrible Digital Rights Management (DRM) implementation.

See, even though I've paid for the game and I've got a DVD in a box and everything, I still don't own the game. No, what I've bought is the right to rent the game off of Ubisoft.

See, it goes one step further than the really annoying online game registration. To play Settlers 7 you have to have a constant internet connection and you save games are basically stored remotely on Ubisoft's servers. And there's no offline mode.

Yes, that's right - if their servers are down (which it basically was all day Monday, when I was trying to play) or your internet connection flakes out (which mine often does), you can't play. Also, if you're in the middle of a game and your connection or the servers die then it pauses and won't let you play on.

I mean, I understand piracy is a major problem, but surely it's not in anyone's interests to punish the legitimate users?

bleedin heck

Today is my first day back after Easter break and it's been non-stop.

We're putting together a banner for a show we're going to be at, and it's one of those things that takes way longer than you would sensibly expect. That's always the case with artwork like this, I find. You think 'oh, we can knock it out in an hour or two' but then it takes all day.

So yeah, just this crappy 'I'm too busy' update today.

four day week

It's a four day week this week, because it's Easter this weekend.

It feels weird when Easter is so early. Especially this year when we're getting a somewhat delayed spring.

Anyway, I can't really be arsed to post mush today, so this is it.

Except to say that I'm also taking next Tuesday off, so next week will be a 3 day week for me as well!

And in a couple of weeks it's my birthday and I'm taking the week off. It's a veritable cavalcade of holiday!

animu catch-up pt2

Here's the continuation of the mini reviews from yesterday.

This is also useful for me as there was no DVD rental this weekend and I didn't watch any films at all, so I don't have a review for you. I'm pretty sure that due to the timings I'm not going to have a DVD rental over Easter either, which is actually a bit rubbish, as it's the ideal time to watch a film.


Omamori Himari

See, one of the problems with being me and writing these reviews is that my tastes are kinda broad.

How to explain that better?

Basically, what I mean is that while I really like the flagship shows, I also really like some of the trashier ones too. So, while I love things like Eva and BeBop and Eden of the East or the Ghibli output - things that really show off the power and the strength of anime, stuff I'd happily sit anyone down in front of or that I watch and go "oh yeah - that's why I love anime!" - I also love things like fan service strewn harem shows.

If you hadn't guessed, that's exactly what Omamori is. And I'd say it's a pretty good example of the breed, although given how extreme fan service has become in recent years (shows like Kanokon are borderline hentai), this is actually more 'innocent', if that's the right word. But it works.


Chu-Bra!!

Now here's a tough one. Especially given what I was saying above about harem shows.

See, this is a show about underwear.

More specifically, it's a show about young girls wearing underwear.

And there's a line there somewhere. See, one of the difficulties with anime is that pretty much all female characters that aren't 'grandma' types always look a lot younger than they actually are. It's part of the style - the simpler lines and flatter shading just tends to make them look younger.

So it's easy to watch something like Chu-Bra and think the girls are very young. They're not, they're age appropriate to be starting to become interested in more adult lingerie, but only just.

So that's fine as it goes, but the other issue is the intent. If this was a show aimed at girls of a similar age, possibly aimed at providing them with genuine advice about how to wear correctly fitting underwear, then you could kinda understand that.

But it isn't. This is clearly a show aimed at men. And you can easily tell that because of the lascivious camera shots and the way the show is framed.

And that's where the problem with me being honest about liking a "broad range of stuff" comes in, because I actually found I quite liked the show. See, the thing is that although it's clearly got ecchi things on its mind, it does also have the genuinely good advice in it too and, what makes it a good show, is that the characters and the story are quite well done.

Of course, I'm sure that won't stop all those who have a more prudish take on things decrying the show, and in a way they have a point. You could easily have done the exact same stuff without the fanservuce and it would have been just as good.


Hanamaru Kindergarten

Hmm. I have to admit I wasn't sure what to make of this.

Basically, it's a show about a guy who goes to work at a Kindergarten. As in a lot of countries, teaching is a profession dominated by women, especially teaching younger children, so this is an unusual job.

The basic idea of the series is somewhere along the lines of a slice of life comedy. It basically works, although I have to admit a bit of an issue with how it portrays Kindergarten. It's a rose-tinted view of the world, to say the least.

I think overall it basically won me over.


Kaito Reinya

This was another oddity. Stylistically, Kaito looked a lot like a kids show, but a lot of the gags and content is distinctly adult.

It didn't really work for me, I have to say - the stylistic thing really jarred for me. I don't think it help that they were very short episodes as well, as it never really felt like it got anywhere before the credits were rolling.

animu catch-up pt1

So, as mentioned yesterday, I did quite a lot of scanning over the weekend and while I was ill, so I've sampled quite a lot of stuff via fansub, and that means mini-reviews!

So-Ra-No-Wo-To

Apparently, this show is a part of a drive by TV Tokyo to produce more original anime. A lot of anime have always been adapted from manga, but nowadays a lot of anime are also adapted from light novels and games. I guess the idea was therefore to move away from this sort of thing and do something a bit different.

Now to be totally truthful, So Ra doesn't quite hit total originality in the couple of episodes I sampled. The problem is that the characters are dangerously close to those moe stereotypes that everyone bemoans. It also doesn't help that it appears to have the same character designer who was used for K-ON, which is a really rather moe show.

However, I've heard the series gets surprisingly dark and engaging later on, although that wasn't much in evidence in what I watched. However, truth be told I don't have too many problems with moe and this was sufficiently engaging in its first couple of eps (and beautifully animated) that I enjoyed it anyway.


Yurumates

This is a slice of life job, and like many a slice of life it seems to follow the fortunes of students who are re-taking their university entrance exams. However, saying that, this has so little in it about studying and taking exams that it's not actually really about anything.

I dunno, this just felt too much like lots of other shows to really grab my attention. Also, like a lot of those shows, there's a hell of a lot of cultural stuff that isn't obvious and there were no "translation notes" to explain.


Baka and Test - Summon the Beasts

Baka is the first of two shows that Funimation have picked up from this season.

The premise of it is rather bizarre. Basically, the school our hero attends operates a system where you take an initial entrance exam and your grade on that test then defines what grade of classroom you get. So students getting A grades get the best facilities, whereas our hero, who's not clever, ends up in class F where they get rubbish facilities.

As if this wasn't odd enough, the students can then battle each other, using avatars whose strength is governed by their test scores, in order to try to switch classrooms with those above them.

As I say, it's really rather bizarre, but it also kinda works. I guess the best way to think about it is that it's only nominally set in school, and really it's an action/comedy series (with a hint of pokemon).


Dance in the Vampire Bund

This is the second show Funimation has picked up.

I wasn't expecting to like this. I've been suffering a bit of Vampire overload, and the title isn't some clever play or anything - the show is genuinely about Vampires. Also, the images I'd seen suggested the main vampire was a loli and loli does nothing for me at all.

However, watching the first couple of eps, I actually quite enjoyed them. I have to say, though, that (and I know this is quite the thing for me to say), the fan service seems both unnecessary and inappropriate. And that's not just the loli-centric stuff. There's one bit with a busty Vampire who basically stands up, and we get a shot of her boobs bouncing about with wild abandon.

Which is all fine and good, except it's during a really dramatic action moment, so it's distracting, and it's animated in a very unrealistic way, when the feel the show generally seems to be trying to give is more a realistic one.


Ookami-kakushi

I didn't really like this show, though.

I dunno - I think the problem was it was a bit ham-fisted. It's one of those mystery/occult/horror shows and it kinda laid things on thick. You could almost see great big question marks hanging in the air when something 'mysterious' happened.

Also, there's a bit where one of the girls latches onto the hero, and there's absolutely no explanation for this. They literally meet for the first time and she throws herself at him and proceeds to basically confess her undying love for him.

I mean, okay in a harem, but in a dark, mystery horror type job? It just comes across as weird.


And I think I'll cut it off there - more tomorrow!

diseased

So having caught man flu sometime the previous weekend, it got progressively worse as the week went on.

By Wednesday I was in quite a state, and so when I woke up on Thursday and things were even worse, I decided I wasn't going to come into work. And that's why the bloggage stopped.

And this was genuine not feeling well, not skiving off. I practically spent all of Thursday morning sleeping, only really 'getting up' at lunch time. Even then, the best I could manage was watching telly stuff I'd recorded on my PVR.

Friday was 'touch and go' - I could probably have braved it into work, but I was far from being well. It was probably on a par with Wednesday, where I was in, but I achieved very little and felt awful.

It was a slightly more productive day, in the sense that I did quite a lot of scanning and watched quite a lot of anime. I'll do some posts about the shows I watched later, but the main thing was the scanning. I've now managed to finish scanning all of the megami and nyan type magazines.

Well, until more turn up, but I was really quite pleased with this. I've also not totally gone off scanning, although I will admit I put my scanner away. However, Easter is looming large next weekend and it's fully my intention to do a load more scanning then too.

So although I'm not going to pretend I'm still a long way off, hopefully it won't take me as long to get caught up as I'd feared.

the science of sleep

Sometimes you have to be in the right frame of mind to watch certain movies.

I'm not entirely sure I was in the right frame of mind to watch The Science of Sleep.

The film is French, I believe, although the main character, Stephane, was actually raised mostly in Mexico. This means that although he speaks some French, mostly he speaks in English. The film therefore has a fairly random mix of English and French with subtitles.

But this is the least of the randomness. Stephane it seems has quite an active dream life. I personally am one of those people who almost never remembers their dreams, but Stephane is almost the opposite - he seems to live partly in his dreams and sometimes has trouble telling them apart from real life.

Now this is a tricky thing to convey on film - especially for a lower budget film like this. A modern Hollywood film might achieve the effect with expensive CGI, but here they tend to use more old school stuff, so we get lots of stop motion and rear-projection and stuff like that.

Overall it actually works quite well. There are occasions when you can't quite tell whether it's meant to be the dream world or the real world, but those are clearly deliberate. When it wants you to know it's dream, it's fairly clear, and when it wants to blur the lines, that works well too.

What doesn't quite work so well is the plot.

The basic plot is a romance at heart, with Stephane chasing his neighbour, Stephanie (yeah, I know). However, Stephanie seems to be a bundle of contradictions. She clearly like Stephane and there are lots of moments of them enjoying each other's company and having fun.

But then when he expresses more interest in her, she withdraws and discourages him. At points this seems to be because she thinks he's actually trying to use her to get to her friend, but then later on this seems to be a rather rubbish reason. Most especially because at one point the film moves forward a month and yet there relationship seems to be still stuck on the same basic issue.

Also, there's a lot of stuff that happens that feels unresolved or random. Stephane's relationship with his mother is never fully explained. His job is also bizarre. It's a rubbish job, and he basically stops doing it, but then later an idea he had somehow becomes a big success. But after that success, he's back to avoiding the same job he was in.

It doesn't make a whole lot of sense.

But the thing is, I'm not sure if that was supposed to be the idea - I mean, is this the film of someone who's having some sort of breakdown? People around him never really seem to comment on the bizarre elements, and yet they're often involved in them too.

As I say - I think I might have liked this film more, but I wasn't quite in the right mood for it.

breaking into 2010

By breaking into 2010 I'm referring to the scanning of anime mags. Specifically, over the weekend I scanned the January 2010 edition of megami.

I only scanned two mags total and I'm sure if I hadn't been feeling crappy I would have done more. Also I was slightly hampered because I went through the scans I've made and tried to name them.

When I scan there are always some images I can't easily identify at the time, so I then have to search through sites like AP and ANN to work out what they are. I've obviously been concentrating on doing scans, rather than naming them, so there were quite a few without names.

It's one of those jobs that takes ages because it's glacial - you sometimes have to open pages and pages to find the image you're looking for. Or you make a guess that proves to be inaccurate, but does lead you down the right path in the end.

So yeah, it can take hours and all you end up with is a dozen or files that have been renamed :/.

Anyway, the point is I watched some anime while I scanned so here are some mini reviews. There are quite a few, because I didn't watch many episodes. I was also a bit dismissive if I'm honest, probably because I wasn't feeling 100%.


Sora No Otoshimono

Essentially this is an "instant girlfriend" show, where the protagonist suddenly acquires a girlfriend, who usually also happens to be a magical girl or an alien or root or something like that. However, I'd say it was a good example of the genre.

Certainly, the first episode hinted at a lot of promise. In it, the protagonist goes power crazy, using and abusing the girl's power with suitably dramatic consequences. The second episode was less good as it kinda stretched itself a little thin, though if tightened up it would have worked a lit better.

So yeah, an overly familiar genre, but potentially quite a good example.


Sora no Manimani

I have to confess I found this to be okay, although I'm pretty sure it's a fairly standard romantic comedy anime. There's nothing wrong with that, I suppose, but it is a rather well-worn path. There's also a tendency in these sorts of shows to utilise a gimmick, rather than do anything particularly original, and in this case the gimmick seem to be astronomy.

Now to be fair that does score more points with me than most gimmicks, because it's an area of interest for me. So overall a watchable sort of show, but nothing new.


Toaru Kagaku no Railgun

Although this is an adaptation of a manga, that manga was a spin-off from Toaru Majutsu no Index. I quite liked Index, so I was expecting to like this too, but I dunno, it didn't really do anything for me.

I think the problem was that were Index pretty much got into a plot straight away, whereas this felt more like a sort of slice of life job. A slice of an unusual life, maybe, but because I Was expecting plot, it was just kinda dull. Maybe it works better if you've seen all of Index (I've only sampled it) or it develops a proper plot later, or something,


Kaidan Restaurant

Although the 'kaidan' bit generally seems to be translated as "thriller", a better translation would be "ghost story" or "scary story".

Basically, this is a horror Portmanteaux series aimed at kids. In other words, it features the same characters, but each episode has 3 ghost stories (2 featuring the characters and 1 shorter one told by them as a ghost story).

I wouldn't say I found what I watched particularly scary as such, but other culture's ghost stories can often be quite interesting. And everyone loves a ghost story, although to be fair, this is aimed at kids.


Anyamal Tantei Kiruminzoo

Magical girls. Animals. I barely got ten minutes into this - any show that features an animal psychologist (who, incidentally, proceeds to put a cat next to a feeding bowl were several guinea pigs are feeding) isn't going to get very far with me.


Kobato

A CLAMP show. I've said before that CLAMP do little to nothing for me, and this didn't really do anything to reverse that opinion.


Weiß Survive

One of those two and a half minute webisode type shows. If I tell you Weiss is basically a company that makes card games, you can probably fill in the rest yourself.


I've also continued watching Ouran High School Host Club. I'm really enjoying it. This was actually a bit of a surprise, because I wasn't sure it would be my cup of tea.

And I've been reading Gantz at a breakneck speed. To be fair, this is partly because it has one of those structures where it kinda eats pages. It's a bit like Claymore - you happily read a volume and enjoy it, but then realise that actually, it's not progressed very far. Which isn't necessarily a bad thing - I like both - but it does mean it works better reading it in big chunks of multiple volumes, rather than individual chapters or volumes.

man flu

A bit crappy weekend was a bit crappy.

On Saturday I woke up with a lot of discomfort in the roof of my mouth. I sometimes get the effect if I've been snoring particularly badly during the night, but this was slightly different. This was the prelude to disease.

Basically, I've got a bit of a cold. It kinda developed more during Sunday, with me getting a runny nose and sneezing and generally feeling tired and under the weather.

I was therefore fully expecting to get up this morning and be fully in the throws of a proper bout of manflu, except I'm not. There's actually been very little change from yesterday - my nose is a bit runny and the roof of my mouth hurts and while I feel a bit rubbish, it's not too bad.

I get these occasionally, where the cold never really gets going. I don't know why - it's like the cold is a wimpy strain or my body manages to fight it off before it really gets a foothold. Of course it could still get worse, but at the moment it's just a bit annoying.

It also made the weekend a vaguely unpleasant experience, but not enough so that I stayed in bed or anything.

On Saturday morning I went for a bit of a drive. My main intention was to see how the car was after its second new wheel and the results are good. I was a little afraid that the second bent wheel wouldn't be the only reason for the wobble, but signs were good.

It's great to be able to drive it down the A31 and not feel like it's shaking itself to pieces.

Sunday I went to the Opticians for my "these glasses are wrong" appointment and basically they've taken them and are going to replace the right lens.

The bit that I found bizarre was that from what the optician said, the lens they were going to put in the right eye was now basically identical to my old lens. I found this bizarre because at my first test the optician said that the test indicated that my eyes hadn't really changed and so they would put in the same lenses I had before.

So basically, I don't really understand what happened. It sound like, even though she said that, actually, they put in different lenses. So in other words, there would have been no problems if they'd just done what they said they would do :/.

I mean, I may have gotten the wrong end of the stick somewhere, but that's what it sounded like.

manga snippets

I don't really know what to talk about today.

My car's in to do the new wheel today, so I'll be £200 lighter by the end of the day. Sigh...

It's actually depressed me a bit, cos it just seems to yet another thing that's gone not well. I mean, I could have hit the pothole and simply burst the tyre. Don't get me wrong - that would have been a pain the arse, and expensive, but it would have been a lot simpler and cheaper than what I've ended up with, which is having to buy two new wheels and all the inconvenience that's gone with it.

So I thought I'd just do some mini-reviews of some manga:


Gurren Lagann (manga version)

This is the manga version of an anime I love.

Overall I'd say it works - there's quite a lot of tweaks to the story, which is good, but it retains the core of the story. Also, the artwork is pretty good.


Dogs: Bullets & Carnage

I read the first volume, which was actually a collection of short stories, that's then been continued in this series, and that was really good. The ongoing series is less so, because where the short stories were quite imaginative and interesting, the ongoing series seems to have fallen back on a lot of clichés.

The artworks' nice (if a little confusing in the action sequences), though.


Bokurano

I used to really like a manga called Shadow Star/Narutaru. I say used to because my enjoyment of it was spoiled a little by the poor treatment it got from Dark Horse. Basically, it used to be published in a monthly manga comic called "Super Manga Blast" with then anthology volumes put out subsequently. Well, SMB died a death and I'd assumed that the manga it contained would still be released as volumes. But nope, that was it - no more releases, you don't get to read the rest of the mangas!

Bokurano is by the same guy and it's very much in the same style - a very dark undercurrent underneath what seems like normality. There's actually been an anime version that I sampled but has never been licensed.


Biomega

Biomega is by the guy who did Blame, which is one of my favourite mangas of all time.

Biomega's strength, and, to be honest, it's weakness is that's it's more of the same. Saying that, there is one big difference here - there's more of a tangible story, and if I'm honest I'm not sure if I like it or not yet. An aspect of Blame I really liked was that, although there was clearly a story there, it was kinda lost and in many ways didn't matter. Biomega's story is more familiar, being roughly a zombie apocalypse deal.