more fansubs

The new anime season is upon us, but as per usual I'm still on last season.

To be honest, this is partly a deliberate move as well as a consequence of getting behind. When I start shows I usually like to watch a few episodes on the trot so that I can get a proper feel for what they're about.

Sometimes they put an awful lot of effort into the first episode and they can be kinda misrepresentative of the show as a whole. They'll often launch in with lots of action and the budget and schedule allows them to spend a bit more time, money and effort on making it well animated. Then after that things can tail off.

I therefore try to watch a bunch to really get a handle on it and a proper feel for what the story is (if there is one). Also, having now tried it with a few crunchyroll shows I'm not such a big fan of watching individual episodes on a weekly basis. I find they work better for me if I can watch them in chunks, especially if they have a proper plot, as I can then get my teeth properly sunk into them.

Anyway, as mentioned, I've been sampling some of the shows only available via fansub from the last season, so I thought I'd do a round-up of some of them:

Aria the Scarlet Ammo (hidan aria)

Derivative, uninteresting, poorly executed drivel. What makes this worse is that the light novel it's based on appears to be by the guy who did Toradora and Shakugan Shana.


Dog Days

To be frank this was just the kind of fantasy stuff I don't like.


A Channel

I guess if you'd never seen one of these moe highschool shows before you may enjoy this. I mean, it's nicely animated and the girls are cute and the humour is pitched at a fairly generic level, but for me, having seen quite a few now, it didn't really seem to add anything that really made it worth watching. At least something like K-ON is based around a music club.


Denpa Onna Seishun Otoko

I have to confess I'm not entirely sure what I think of Denpa after my prescribed two episodes. I found it well animated and it's adapted from one of those Light Novels that at least try to be a bit more intelligent than just cramming in loads of anime clichés. Not that it hasn't got plenty of those, but it's at least trying. Trouble is I found it a bit slow and the weird girl in the futon had far too many ticks in the annoying column for me to really like it. I think, were it on crunchyroll I'd keep watching, but I doubt I'd want to buy it on DVD.


Yondemasuyo, Azazel-san

What an odd show. It's a comedy, but it involves a detective agency and demons that more like cute mascots than actual demons. It's rather difficult to explain, but I enjoyed it. It actually probably helps that the episodes are half length (about 13 minutes). I think if they were longer it might start to run thin on gags, but as it is, it works well.


Fireball Charming

This actually appears to have been made by Disney Japan. It's also computer animated, so not really traditional anime. It's clearly very high budget, though this is somewhat compensated for by the fact that each episode is shy of 2 minutes long. They're basically little double-act comedy skits and I have to confess it's a type of Japanese comedy I'm not a fan of. It actually reminds me of the Tachikoma shorts they did as part of GitS: SAC, only I enjoyed those much more.


Honto ni Atta! Reibai-Sensei

Another one where the episodes are really short (5 minutes in this case). This also is a flash animation job, which is a style I'm not a huge fan of. It's a comedy where a class's homeroom teacher is a psychic/mystic type and hilarity ensues. I think you can tell it didn't do a great deal for me.


Ano Hi Mita Hana no Namae o Boku-tachi wa Mada Shiranai

This looked like it would be really quite good. The story seemed a bit more complex and involved than a lot of stuff that seemed to come out in this season. Kinda like a slice of life meets tragedy show. It also looked surprisingly nicely animated.


Softenni

Perhaps if I'd never seen a cute girls doing cute things series before I'd have enjoyed this one a bit more, but as it is, it doesn't really seem to rise above the baseline for where you'd expect this sort of thing to be. I guess the girls are somewhat sex-obsessed and it did have more fan-service than is usual for this sort of show - girls playing tennis show their knickers - but it had weird censorship. What was weird about it was that it seemed to let you see plenty of knicker (and bra) shots, but then every so often one of them would be censored, even though you could see they were still clearly wearing knickers.

emperor's new clothes

In light of my trip to the British GP next week, this coming weekend represents the last chance for me to pick up whatever bits and pieces I need. I've pretty much got everything bar a few odds and sods of toiletries and things.

I bought some new clothes, partly so I'd have some stuff that wasn't worn out, like most of my clothes, but also because I figured it was about time I took the plunge and bought some clothes that are a better fit now I'm a bit smaller.

Buying these are the clothes I've been dreading, for a couple of reasons. For one, I'm not actually sure what size I am now, and I wasn't sure whether to go a bit tight with the expectation that they'll then last longer as I continue to slim down.

Another problem is just that - as I slim down I could be in a situation of having spent a lot on clothes than I can only wear for a few months before needing to replace again.

But I decided to take the plunge, with a variety of results.

The shorts, T-shirts and casual shirts all appear to fit great (I now roughly appear to be a 3XL, rather than the 5XL I was at my peak). The boxers I bought are way to tight (this, I think, is more to do with the style of them than an incorrect size selection - I like loose boxers), the trousers are just slightly too tight (Despite stating the same waste measurement as the shorts, holding them up next to each other shows them to be slightly smaller. This is one of the problems of big sizes - you get manufacturing differences in all clothes, but with big sizes you're often buying in the dark from online places.) and the belt I bought is a bit rubbish. It's a good fit,. but it has this weird design that I'm not hugely comfortable with.

It's been an expensive week generally, actually. I had my car into the garage as my lock was making the appalling grinding noise. According to the guy it was due to an actuator and is quite common. He reckoned they can go for ages and never fail, but I thought it safer to get it replaced. The part wasn't too bad, but (from experience) car doors are horrible things to work on, so the labour was pretty heavy.

I also got them to recharge the aircon, following this last weekend's horrendous heat wave. I switched on my air con and found it to be a bit wimpy. It is four years since I got the car, so I guess that's not a bad length of time for it, and we did have some pretty hot summers so I got quite a lot out of it.

My aircon unit at home was also a life (or, at least, sleep) saver, cooling my room down so I could get some shut-eye. The heat wave was exactly the sort of weather that inspired me to get it in the first place. And despite it having cost a fortune it's nights like those where I think of it as the best thing I've ever bought.

So yeah, I've put some fairly big holes in my finances over the last couple of weeks and the next couple are likely to be pretty expensive too.

Hopefully, some e-baying will take the sting out a bit.

and then back up

I don't really know why I said last week that I was going to try to stick to my diet.

It was a pretty daft thing to say given I had planned to take the Thursday and Friday off and had lots of physical stuff planned. Basically, the diet went to rats and I ate loads.

Now I did do a lot of physical stuff - my pedometer said I did about 12,500 steps on Thursday and I forgot to put it on until about 10:30 and didn't go for a single 'proper' walk. But what I ate was way more than the extra calories needed for this.

In fact, it was like a reckless splurge of eating crap.

It actually reminded me of the type of eating I do when I'm hung over - I concentrate on filling myself up with the worst possible junk food, presumably because it makes me feel better (I've always been a comfort eater).

I wasn't hung over, of course, but I was shattered across Friday, Saturday and Sunday, which was when most of the really bad eating happened.

However, the Sunday weigh in was a bit of a surprise. Well, I say that. I'd basically gained two pounds, undoing all of the work of the previous two weeks, but given what I ate, I think I've gotten off lightly.

This does also make it very difficult for me to hit my target of 19 stone by the British Grand Prix. I'm going to increase the amount of walking I do across the next week and a bit, so that may help get me there, although I'm doing it mainly as I expect the GP weekend to involve a hell of a lot of walking and I want to be a bit more 'in shape' as it were.

Some time soon I'll pull my finger out and really crack on with the last push I need to do to get down to being overweight, rather than obese. Really this is my minimum target. It would be nice to get to a 'normal' weight, but I don't regard this as essential, I mainly just want not be obese. I want the walks I do to be easier and not to feel like I'm constantly carrying around a small child on my midriff.

What I need is another moment like I had when I started the whole thing back last autumn where I say to myself "Stop pissing around and just fucking do it then." I mean, I'm still managing to keep my weight broadly drifting down, but I keep failing to really capitalise on my efforts and slipping with the diet.

watchmen

I have to confess, going into watching watchmen I wasn't entirely expecting to enjoy it.

Being a comic book fan you might expect this to be because I was worried they were going to butcher what is regarded by many as a pinnacle of the comic book form. Well, actually it was because of the opposite.

Call it my annoying habit of contrary-ness, but I'm not that big a fan of Watchmen. I do think it's got some great stuff in there, and certainly it's more realistic and thoughtful approach to super heroes is something I like, but I found the actual comic to be very heavy going and a bit lacking in all the things that I think really make comic books comics.

The style of it, with a rigid fixed-panel page structure was a massive visual turn-off and one of the primary things I like about comics is the dynamism of the visuals. I've got a perfectly good imagination and enjoy exercising it with the written word via books, but comics need to really sell themselves visually to be a success for me.

My problem with the film then was that I'd heard it was an extremely faithful adaptation, sticking so closely to the comic as to almost use the panels as a storyboard. So, not being the biggest fan of the comic, I was afraid I was in for a rather dull 2 and half hours.

In fact I really enjoyed the film. My big concern - the overly tight and flattened visuals of the comic, had been very much 'cured' by the film. It's a real visual treat, thanks I'm sure to the advances in CG - if it had been made, say, 10 years ago, it wouldn't look as nice as it did here.

Also, the action works a lot better on film than it did in the strictured panel layout of the original comic. As mentioned, the whole visual flair of comics with odd shaped panels works best when it's helping to tell the story, just in the same way that things like slow motion and the aforementioned CG help to tell the story in the film.

There have been some significant changes, of course. Most notable is the excising of the Tales of the Black Freighter comic-within-the-comic, which was made into a cartoon and released separately (I'm sure there's probably a version on Blu-Ray or something with it stuck in). I'm not sure I really miss the black freighter parts, as such. They added quite a lot of depth to the original, but this film is already two and a half hours and the freighter stuff didn't really tell any of the actual story.

One thing that I don't think works is how they've changed the ending. I'm going to spoiler both in the next two paragraphs, so you may want to skip ahead.

In the comic, Veidt's grand plan is the manufacturing of the sudden, catastrophic appearance of a somewhat Lovecraftian horror simultaneously in many the major cities around the globe. These creatures kill millions and it's made clear via a psychic broadcast that they hate humans and want to kill us all. This sudden new enemy gives us all something to unite against.

In the film, for reasons I can't quite work out, the Lovecraftian horror is replaced by Doctor Manhattan. So, instead of tentacle monsters, Manhattan destroys the cities because... well, that's what I cant' quite work out. I think the idea is because in the film the US is about to launch a pre-emptive strike against Russia after they invade Afghanistan. So, to teach the world a lesson, he destroys the cities... I dunno, it didn't suite gel for me. The Lovecraftian thing just makes more sense and is also independent of the Afghanistan thing, which seems to make Veidt's plan overly prescient.

Anyway, spoilers over. Another thing that becomes more apparent in the film is the issue of super powers. Obviously, Manhattan has super powers, but in the comic it's fairly clear that he's the only one. Veidt potentially might have had some, possibly via manipulating his own genes, but the others rely on simply being physically fit or advanced technology.

In the film it's less clear - the heroes do stuff that clearly only those with advanced strength or speed could do and in particular, the Comedian doesn't seem to age. Yet there's no mention of them actually having powers or how they may have gotten these.

However, I think really this is something that's actually not that clear in the comic.

I seem to have prattled on quite a bit. Basically I did enjoy the film a lot more than I thought I would, though I don't think it's without its flaws.

valencia grand prix

It was the Valencia Grand Prix this last week.

Traditionally, Valencia is up there as one of the worst races of the season. It's a street circuit and is normally even more processional than Monaco. Indeed, if you think of all the worst bits of Monaco, then Valencia amplifies those to the degree of tedium.

It's quite a common problem with street circuit - Singapore is another road-racing snooze fest, although that at least has the added interest of being held at night. Although it's not a universal effect. Canada is a street circuit and produces some cracking races, and so's Australia and that's usually okay too.

And of course the reverse isn't automatically true. Being a purpose built circuit doesn't guarantee a good race. Especially from the newer circuits, which are often a bit lacklustre.

Anyway, the point is that Valencia is usually dull (Mark Webber described it as being a Tesco's Car Park), but this year we have the superb Pirelli tyres, KERS and DRS. We even had two DRS zones, which they did in Canada, but more as a test for Valencia than because Canada did it.

Anticipation was therefore high it would finally produce an interesting race. And the result was not spectacular.

I guess it's worth noting that I thought Monaco wasn't the greatest race this season, but it was far better than in previous years. I felt the same thing about Valencia - it was a bit more interesting than it usually is, but I wouldn't put it high up the list of greatest ever races.

Part of the problem was that the DRS, which is meant to give overtaking, didn't really seem to add that much. It seemed that when they had the chance to use it, unfortunately the cars just ended up bouncing off the rev limiter, unable to really develop extra speed.

Perhaps if DRS was also associated with a temporary lifting of the limiter, it would have allowed them a better chance to overtake. But then it really would have looked very artificial, with one car sailing past the other on the straight and that wasn't really the idea of it. It's meant to put the trailing car in a position to try to overtake, rather than being a push-to-pass button.

It did seem to help some situations, but didn't quite do what it was meant to.

But it wasn't a terrible race - there were a few interesting things going on. And if we'd had this race last year, I think I'd have been very pleased. The trouble is the rest of the season has lifted the bar very high, so it made Valencia seem like a bit of a damp squib.

Next up is Silverstone of course, and I'll have the somewhat unique viewpoint of actually being there, which will be nice.

well that was tiring

So last week I took Thursday and Friday off.

The big plan was to attack the stuff in the shed and identify things I could get onto e-bay and also stuff I should really throw away. It was a big success.

Basically I've now got about 5 stacking crates in the kitchen with stuff in them to get on e-bay over the coming months (the British GP holiday happens soon, so it'll be a steady process). I got loads of stuff up this last Sunday and I'm pretty sure a good chunk of it will sell, hopefully generating some cash in the process.

Also, out in the shed I've also got about three or four stacking crates with stuff that I am poised to sell, but am awaiting the last few volumes of or that I just couldn't quite bring myself to take the plunge on. If there'd been less in the sell immediately pile I think I'd have bitten the bullet, but since I've so much to sell straight away I left them be for now.

I've actually done a sneaky manoeuvre in the shed of using empty stacking crates to fill up space. My landlord tends to encroach on the pile, so by filling up that space it ensures I can maintain access.

It does, however, mean I'm reaching a point where there's not going to be that much left out there to sell or throw away. This is good in that it means my life is a bit more streamlined, but bad in the sense that it means I've now freed up the cash "trapped" out in the shed.

Therefore, in order to free up any more cash my only real choice is to dive into the piles of unwatched stuff. Thankfully, it looked increasingly likely that watching and reading some of this stuff will now be a viable option over the summer.

See, the shed stuff went so well on Thursday that I actually finished it all. In fact, so efficient was it that I actually also gave my car a full clean (inside and out, including polishing it) in the afternoon/evening. This, I guess is the upside to long daylight hours that I was bemoaning as cramping my sleep last week.

It did mean I was totally knackered and, to be frank, am still a bit tired.

Friday became a day of recovery. I did very little, although I did manage to tick a few other boxes I hadn't thought about, one of these being watching a load of stuff I'd recorded. I basically went into Sunday with no programs left to watch on my PVR.

I'm therefore hoping this helps me out big time by meaning that when the summer schedule really hits and there's nothing worth watching on I can concentrate on watching some DVDs which I can then start ebaying across autumn and winter.

anvil: the true story of anvil

It would be very easy to compare Anvil with Spinal Tap.

Indeed, I think in the way it's been put together and with the events it portrays there's more than a small nod to Spinal Tap. A lot of bands claim to have been the inspiration for that film, but the reality was it was likely a combination of stories put together to form a band that represented them all. I'm not sure if Anvil was one of those bands, though they'd be in the right time period - part of what's called NWOBHM.

NWOBHM stands for the New Wave of British Heavy Metal and encompassed bands like Iron Maiden, Motorhead and Saxon. I was too young for NWOBHM when it happened, but the American scene it went on to inspire - Trash/Speed metal - that featured bands such as Metallica, Megadeth and Slayer probably represents the high-water mark of my interest in music.

Anyway, the point about the Anvil film is that they were a Canadian band that were actually part of that NWOBHM thing but that never really seemed to break into the big time. The documentary opens with some interviews with big musical stars - Lars Ulrich, Lemmy, Slash, etc - who all site them as a great, talented band that they couldn't understand why they'd never really hit it big.

The band themselves are shown working dead-end jobs, still chasing success some 30 years after forming. The film follows them on what can only really be described as a disastrous European tour, through the making of a new album with a classic break-up and reform for the band, rejection of the album by major labels, and a degree of success in Japan.

As I say, it's all very Spinal Tapish. And it's pretty entertaining.

However, what I would have been more interested in would have been more of the background and more of the history. How come they never managed to break through? What actually happened? No clear reasons emerge.

I've no real clue as to why they never got that initial break, but I get the feeling it's clear why after reaching a plateau and declining they've never really gotten back up there. Basically, musically, they seemed very good - you could imagine what I heard of most of their songs working if they were put out by plenty of bands. And they were extremely tight and clearly very talented musicians.

Lyrically things were a bit lacking, though. Where the lyrics of the songs they played from on the first few albums fitted in with the times (you can clearly hear the same sort of stuff on early Metallica and Megadeth albums), they don't ever appear to have really progressed from that. The lyrics for the new songs we heard seemed very cheesy and, to be frank, didn't scan well.

Also, the singer, Lips's voice seemed to have seen better days. Or at least, where the high pitch yelling vocal style is something he was capable of doing in his youth, now that he's a fifty year old man it just sounds cracked and broken.

In other words, there seemed to be a lack of any real progression in what they were doing. So, with that having failed to hit the first time, it kept on missing as they stayed in the same place. One of the A&R men even said it - things have moved on a lot.

i hate this time of year

Today, Tuesday the 21st of June, is the summer solstice.

The summer solstice is the longest day of the year (well, it's 24 hours long, just like every other day - I mean it has the most daylight) and it therefore marks one of my worst days of the year. Well, in terms of sleep, that is.

I believe it also marks the point when summer starts to get properly hot - the period when I'm traditionally the least comfortable, though this year I obviously weigh about a fifth less than I have done in previous years, so hopefully it will be a bit more bearable Certainly I've found spring to be quite chilly, but I also think it has generally been quite cool compared to seasonal averages.

But the point is that with it being the longest day, that means the sun doesn't set until very late at night. And of course, because it doesn't get instantly dark when the sun sets, it's still quite light until getting on for midnight. This lateness of setting is also further exaggerated by us being on British Summer Time.

Now I appreciate that this has many advantages and certainly, as an early riser, it's nice to get up and it be light to a degree, though to be frank, how early it becomes light is also a problem, because my body seems to react to the light by waking me up. So it becomes an attack from both ends - when I go to bed it's still light out and it gets light at about 4, so I sometimes wake up.

I mean surely it can't be right that I go to bed at 10 and when I switch my bedside lamp off, sufficient light streams in around the curtain edges to make it feel like I've gone to bed in the middle of the afternoon? That's got to be wrong.

Still, at least from here on the nights start getting longer.

Tomorrow I'll be posting up my usual DVD rental review, but after that I'm actually off on holiday for a couple of days. My landlord is on holiday and I'm going to use the opportunity to do some shed sorting out stuff.

Hopefully I'll then be able to get a load of stuff on e-bay - the pile in the shed seems to have grown again and I could do with generate some cash. Well, really I need to actually do something about the cash I've got locked up n unwatched DVDs and unplayed games, but then that's a continuing issue - the shed is the priority for the weekend.

Well, I say all that. I'm prewriting this and the weather forecast isn't great and my landlord traditionally doesn't have much tolerance for poor weather, so he may already have come back by the time I'm posting this!

a weighty issue

I did my very best to stick to the diet last week.

Well, I mean I tried really hard. I failed, but I really did try.

Walking wise, both Sunday afternoon and Thursday were foiled by the weather. Who knew we were going to end up getting our April showers in June? Especially with April having been so dry and having that warm spell. I seem to recall this has happened for the last few years as well. Perhaps it's the first big signs of global warming?

This last weekend I did quite well. Saturday was a scheduled flat cleaning day and I've been trying to do the cleaning in a way that race's the old heart rate. I mean, I wouldn't say I rush it, but I try to do it in a continuous burst of activity and keep moving.

Also I did all my normal walking, despite the weather constantly threatening to rain on me. I did catch a few spots on both my long walks, but it didn't actually rain on me. This was quite fortunate as it did piss it down a couple of times at the weekend.

I guess it must be getting in some practice for Wimbledon, which starts next week, I believe.

Diet wise I ended up with a double whammy. On Wednesday's excursion to Sainsbury's were I tell myself I will absolutely only buy some strawberries and some rolls for lunch on Thursday and Friday I ended up buying some calorie heavy treats. However, I wasn't too disappointed by this as I managed to avoid my previous trip of buying way too much fruit (they have lots of special offers on strawbs and raspberries) and hence I didn't overeat and get gut ache again.

Also, the treats I bought were a box of those small cornflakes and chocolate things, which were ideal for spreading out across multiple days. So I had a handful on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday, which I don't think is too bad. I mean, obviously it's not ideal, but it's much better than I've been doing over previous weeks.

The second whammy was that it turned out to be someone at work's birthday, so we went down the pub for Friday lunch. This took me somewhat by surprise and obviously meant I consumed a lot of calories on Friday, though I did try to compensate for this at the weekend a bit.

Anyway, the net result was I lost 1 pound. I was more pleased with this than I was last week for some reason, despite it being the same amount. I think it might be because I'm now really close to going below 19 stone. This will be quite some achievement as I think it will mean I'll be lighter than I have been in the last 15 years.

My dream target was to reach 18 and a half stone by the British Grand Prix, as that would have meant I'd lost 6 stone, which would mean I'd be about half way there. Now that its' closer and with my recent 1 pound a week thing, I'm pretty much going for 19 stone instead.

Over the next couple of week I'm going to see if I can't go back to eating what I did before Christmas when I was loosing lots of weight. I think this restoration of the old diet combined with the increased exercise I do nowadays might mean I'll achieve the 19 stone by then, which would be really pleasing.

rollycrunch round up

After yesterday, I thought I'd do a round up for everything on crunchyroll that I've watched from this season. As mentioned a couple of weeks ago, I was getting a bit off-course with the scanning, so last week (and the weekend especially) I decided to concentrate on it. I ended up doing all 4 of the animages that mean I've now finished scanning everything from 2010 (yes!) and even did a couple of nyan types from 2011.

I watched crunchyroll stuff while I scanned, so I've done some round ups of my opinions so far. I've not really been watching stuff on AOD due to the size issues I mentioned before, and of course there's a bunch of stuff only available to me on fansub (I grow increasingly miffed with the anime companies for not embracing streaming for the west).


Gosick

Did I cover this last season? Think I did, but my opinion hasn't really changed - it could do with stronger mysteries for Victorique to solve. She is daawww cute, though.

Battle Girls - Time Paradox

Basically, this is inoffensive, time diverting pap, which is both its strength and its weakness. It's odd - I hated Rio Rainbow Gate, which was also from the same background (adaptation of a Pachinko game!) but this I've found watchable. I mean, I wouldn't buy it, but it's okay to watch on crunchyroll. It's really difficult to pin down why I like this, but nor Rio, though.

Hoshizora e Kakaru Hashi (A Bridge to the Starry Skies)

This was total rubbish. It seemed to be trying to do "Harem, but realistic" and fails. It reminded me in that way of Winter Sonata. I mean, it's nothing like it story wise, but that pretty much failed too.

Hanasaku Iroha

This is a series that's clearly trying hard, but has left me a little unengaged so far, if I'm honest. I've let it slip a bit, so maybe I'll like it more when I get back to it.

Nichijou (My Ordinary Life)

Essentially this is a more surreal version of Azumanga Daioh. Mileage always varies with comedy, obviously, but I've been enjoying it on the whole. I find it works best in small doses, though. It's also a very nice production.

SKET Dance

Really this is a been there, done it series. Also, two of its main characters are of the shouty, hyperactive variety that usually turns me off. However, I actually quite like the show. I think it's mainly because it has an oddly subversive and self-deprecating element to it that sneaks in every so often.

Ore-tachi ni Tsubasa wa Nai (We, Without Wings)

Without wings tried way too hard to be interesting and ended up being confusing dribble.

Deadman Wonderland

A new manglobe series, which is always worth watching, and this is no exception. I'm not entirely sure what it's about yet, which I'm not sure if that's intentional. There seems to have been a few info dumps, but not really explaining what's really happening, just giving you enough to be going on with.

Astarotte's Toy

Really not sure about this one. The premise has paedo-bait stamped over it, but the episodes themselves have quite a few nice, touching bits in them, and the story isn't actually all that bad. In a way it's a similar struggle I had with Chu-Bra, except because this is in paedo territory, I'm much less comfortable with it.

World God Only Knows 2

More of the same, really, which isn't any sort of a complain - I enjoyed the first season. It's probably best to actually think of this as one of those shows that's actually a full 20-odd episodes long, they're just making it in two halves.

Sekaiichi Hatsukoi

I was a bit surprised by this - it's clearly a shoujo romance job, but nobody got raped! Well, somebody got kissed against their will, but I found it difficult to dismiss this out of hand as I was expecting to be able to. I mean, it's not high on my to watch list, but I couldn't just dismiss it as not worth keeping going with.

fansub mayhem

I thought I'd post some mini reviews for the fansubs I've watched. There's a big long list, because I was kinda forced to watch them over Easter when the broadband failed.


MM

I actually think I would quite enjoy this, but ... how to put this? It's playing up to particular fetishes I find interest? So I would assume that if those fetishes were of no interest to you on any level, you wouldn't like this at all.

Oniichan no Koto Nanka Zenzen Suki Janain Dakara ne—!!

I found this horribly cringe worthy. It's a show about a sister who has an extreme brother complex, which is something I have very little time for, but it was also very loud and shouty and it just didn't work for me at all.

Tamayura

I found this sweet, but it was very heavy on the moe. I understand they're going to do a full TV series of it, which may work, but it could drown in its own moe. The good thing about an OAV like this it's a relatively short burst.

Puella Magi Madoka Magica

This was okay to start with - magical girl stuff. How they'd done the bad guys / monsters was really cool. I'd heard it was really popular, though, so I went on past my usual 2 episodes and there was a really nice twist into darker elements in the third episode, so the praise may well be deserved.

Soredemo Machi wa Mawatteiru

A SHAFT show, but I didn't initially realise that - it's not quite as whackily done as their usual stuff. I mean, it has definitely SHAFT stylistic bits, but the dial's not turned up to eleven, shall we say? I did enjoy it actually - it felt like fairly standard romantic comedy stuff, but with an interesting perspective and approach. It was quite funny too.

Shinrei Tantei Yakumo

This was one of those shows where if I did a bit of research I'd probably realise not to even bother trying it. It wasn't fundamentally bad, but it was clearly aimed at a female audience. The male character is a broody bugger with some psychic powers and it just has that feel of being aimed at a particular demographic, which I'm not a part of.

Starry Sky

And this one was even worse that Yakumo. Here it was aimed at a similar audience, this time using a reverse harem theme, but it was also shot through with a load of bunkum about astrology and mysticism that was just horrible and annoying and tedious and stupid.

ponyo

I have to confess going into ponyo I wasn't actually expecting to like it as much as I should.

I think a kind of universal thing that binds all anime fans is that we all like Ghibli. Unlike something like Akira, which has also achieved mainstream recognition, Ghibli and Miyazaki is universally loved by anime fans as well as achieving mainstream recognition.

Oh, I'm sure there are anime fans who don't like Miyazaki's stuff, but I'm sure they're much rarer than anime fans who don't like Akira.

However, the last Miyazaki film I saw was Spirited Away and I have to confess I didn't really like it as much as the critical acclaim it received would suggest I should. I did a review at the time, so I won't go on about it here, but because it had fallen short of the hype, I was a bit worried the same would be true with Ponyo.

It may have been because of this lower of expectations, but when I actually sat down to watch it I actually found it really rather enjoyable.

The first thing to note, though, is that of the Miyazaki films I've seen I'd say this is the most squarely aimed at a young audience. I'd say most of his other films have been aimed at a more general family audience, but the themes and content of this are more... basic is the wrong word - gentler maybe? Easier to grapple with is probably the best way to put it.

As a story it has universal appeal, but what lifts it is the clarity of the story telling craft and the flights of fantastic imagination and the gorgeousness of the imagination. In particular there's a real sense in which they manage to capture the living, breathing feel of the sea.

Something else that also really appealed were the two main characters - a young boy called Sosuke and the titular fish-girl, Ponyo. Sosuke really does feel like a small Japanese boy - gregarious and inquisitive, but with that respect for your elders thing that's such a part of Japanese life. Ponyo is a delightfully inquisitive 'genki' character and they make quite deliberate play of her being a 'fish out of water'.

If I was to make one criticism of the film it's quite how accepting some of the characters are as to what happens. The nature of Ponyo and what happens because of her and her parents methods of fixing it barely seems to raise an eyebrow from any of the characters.

This is perhaps a reflection of the Japanese view on life, but I think a bit more convincing would have been needed for them to truly go with things. The one character that does seem to have a harder time believing things is a somewhat sour, curmudgeonly character.

But overall I really enjoyed it.

one more for the road

Lost another pound this week.

I'm not entirely sure how I feel about that.

A big part of me is pleased - loosing one pound is better than the opposite. But the pleasure is really more to do with the fact that last week didn't go well, diet or exercise wise.

Exercise was a problem for two reasons. At the beginning of the week I was suffering from soar feet, because the weekend walk had been a bit harsh on them. I'm finding it's taking quite a while to really break in these new shoes.

Later on in the week, I was suffering from extreme tiredness, because of a severe lack of sleep. Partly this was due to work as I was getting up extra early in order to cram in all the stuff I needed to do. But then also, on Wednesday night I was woken up with some severe gut pain. My guess is that this was due to overeating.

Which was the other problem - I've eaten loads this week. I'm guessing that because a lot of this was fruit, is part of the reason why my weight didn't go up. The other reason is I think when you lack sleep, your body tends to use up energy. Well, obviously, being awake burns more energy than being asleep, but also when you're tired I think I'm right in saying you need more calories to keep yourself going.

Of course there's a bit of a feedback loop going on there - when I'm tired I feel down and tend to eat worse food. And I've noticed that once I start eating badly I seem to get an attitude of "well, I've already blown this, so I might as well not bother." That's something I really need to be careful of.

So yeah, big part of me is pleased and surprised at loosing a pound, another part of me is a little disappointed that I managed to eat too much.

I dunno - I'm having a tough time of it, mentally, at the moment. I mean, I keep seeing the weight go in the right way, but I always end up thinking to myself about how much extra I could have lost if I'd just stuck to the diet/walking properly.

And yes, all reduction is good, but the slower I loose it, the longer it's going to take and the longer it will be before I can go back to eating normally and not being stressed over it all.

canadian grand prix

Well here's a novel thing.

I'm writing this at home on Sunday night. I often pre-write the later entries in the week, but this is the first time I've ever written one at home on a Sunday. Part of the reason for that is because I know I'm going to be mega busy on Monday, but the other part is that, in the background, the Canadian Grand Prix is on and nothing is happening.

That's not because it's been a boring race so far, it's because it's been red flagged, due to the weather. Now in the past a red flag used to mean the race was stopped, but nowadays it means it's paused, with the possibility of it being stopped later.

In this case, the heavens have opened in Canada and it's been chucking it down for the best part of an hour. They reckon it's going to get going again, but it's going to be very later. Indeed, as I type this the rain appears to be stopped, but there's usually a warning period before it actually kicks off.

Of course, rain always makes things more interesting, but sometimes it can be so heavy as to make it very unsafe. I mean, it's never safe in the rain, but not safe enough to race.

There was an added curiosity this year because of the change in tyre supplier to Pirelli so no-one had ever raced on their wet tyres. But they seem to have coped pretty well.

Canada doesn't normally need rain to make it interesting and it's certainly been an interesting race so far.

Lewis was in the thick of things, as per usual. He seemed to be a bit out of position from qualifying and there's a good chance that this was because McLaren pre-empted the rain and put on a higher down force rear wing than they would usually use at Canada. Canada is a high speed circuit with some very sharp bends. That means lower down force is needed so you can get good high speed on the straights.

Unfortunately, Lewis ended up crashing into Jenson

And that will probably do for my pre-writing - I'll just leave a bit of room to say how the race ended...

It ended very late - the broadcast started at 5pm, and they only crossed the line at 10pm - but it was well worth the wait, as it was a cracking race.

Most amazingly was Jenson Button, who suffered a drive through and, including that, went into the pits 6 times and ended up in last place behind a later safety car... and went on to win the race!

It was a remarkable performance with some excellent driving. It also again begs the question how did is happen? Was the McLaren that set up for the wet conditions? If so, an incredibly risky thing to do. Maybe the car is just that much better on this type of circuit? But then if it is, why the poor performance in qualifying?

of course we go there

Note that I pre-wrote this at the beginning of the week, so it doesn't reflect the later news about the Bahrain GP.

Towards the end of last week it was announced that the Bahrain Grand Prix, which was postponed from the start of the season due to the political unrest in the country, is to be slotted into where the Indian GP is currently sat. The Indian GP will be bumped to the end of the year.

It should be noted that this isn't due to any need to move the Indian GP - as I understand it, they're just dotting the t's and crossing the i's. Indeed, quite why they've gone for this approach is a bit of a mystery - plopping it on the end if we're going to have it at all would seem more sensible.

And that isn't to say I think having the Bahrain GP at all this year is in any way sensible.

Bahrain is unfortunately one of the countries where the remarkable "Arab Spring" seems to have come up against the rather less savoury powers of the jackbooted powers that be. The phrase "brutal crushing of decent" springs instantly to mind.

Now there is of course an argument that sport should be above such things as politics, but this, quite frankly is a ridiculous position. Sport - the pitting of individuals and teams against each other within a framework of agreed rules and conduct - should be exactly the sort of thing we use to express disapproval at such behaviour.

If you're not decent enough to treat people decently, you shouldn't get to play ball with the grown up kids.

It's frankly ridiculous that they're even considering it going ahead. But then I've talked before about how it's frankly ridiculous that F1 is a sport that's as cosy with the dodgy dictatorships of the world as it is.

Anyway, this weekend it's the Canadian GP, where I'm pretty sure they don't go around oppressing their population, so I'll be watching that.

Quite a lot of telly I've been watching has either come to an end this week or stops next week. I'm therefore hoping that we're about to start the quiet summer telly period (for me). I'm also hoping that I'll be watching lots of DVDs so I can then get them on e-bay.

I had a resort the other week, transferring DVDs and books around between my various shelves.

The reason I gave myself for doing this was because how I had them before was rather inefficient. And this was true - there were lots of big gaps, especially now that I've cleared a big chunk of my scanning backlog.

But another reason underneath that was that I needed to utilise that space, because I was running out of room with how I used to have them. In other words, the unwatched DVD pile has gown even bigger.

An unexpected benefit to the new layout is that said pile basically sits there in my eye line, nagging at me when I'm watching telly. And I think in part due to this pressure I've actually watched a few bits.

new iron

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

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

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

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

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

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

Wow - that was a tangent and a half.

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

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

the a team

doo-do-doo do do do doo

I loved the a-team as a kid.

Really it was daft show. A group of American special forces who were convicted of "a crime they didn't commit" go around the US as hired guns, only not hired in the sense of being mercenaries. It was more along the lines of them saving the weak from criminals and thugs.

The episodes were extremely formulaic, picking on particularly bits and pieces and using them in most every episode. Some of the more famous things were BA's fear of flying and them drugging him to get him on planes and the fact that despite all the shooting of guns and explosions no one would ever be killed.

Then of course there was the fact that at some point the bad guys would capture and imprison the A Team, but they'd put them in a warehouse or garage with access to loads of stuff that they would use to create some sort of cool vehicle with improvised weapons that help them escape and/or bring victory.

I fully expected to hate this film.

My problem is that I didn't, but I also didn't really like it either.

Firstly, it's obviously updated. For example, in the original it was the Vietnam war, in this it's the recent war in Iraq. I didn't mind this too much.

But some of the same basic ideas are there.

In the original I remember it being very much an ensemble piece, with individual episodes focusing more on one or other of the characters. Here, most of the characters have sufficient time in the spotlight to give that feel.

Also, the basic character traits are there. Murdoch is a loony, but a genius pilot. Hannibal is the implacable tough-nut leader. Face is a babe magnet. B.A. is super strong.

But other things have been tweaked in ways that I wasn't entirely keen on.

As mentioned, the main idea of the original was that it involved saving the weak from the strong and the improvising of cool machines from spare parts after having been captured.

Well, the first part isn't there, because this actually focuses on the origin story - the imprisoned for "a crime they didn't commit bit", which I'm pretty sure they never showed in the original series. I think this was a mistake. What was cool about the A-Team was that they were already fugitives going round saving other people (thus proving they were actually good guys) where this is just about proving they were acting on orders.

Also the improvising of cool machines to escape has become putting together cool machines or weird ideas to achieve an objective. This was okay, but less good.

Which pretty much sums up my feeling on the entire thing - okay, but less good.

Oh, except for the sound - the sound mix was horrible. I actually had to put on the subtitles as I could barely make out what people were saying half he time.

And while it looked good there was an awful lot of CGI. While I've no issue with this fundamentally, it kinda feels against the basic spirit of the original show to be using CGI to achieve stunts.

fat bodies

There was a programme on last night called embarrassing fat bodies.

It's part of a series that basically gets people on who have medical problems. I remember watching the first series, which was more general.

I didn't watch anything after that first series for a couple of reasons. First off it was clearly bordering on exploitative telly. It fell just the wrong side of the line where shows are basically the equivalent of gawping at carnival freaks.

I mean, it was also trying to act in a public information way, giving medical advice and highlighting conditions and stuff, but the actual people featured on the show tended to have extreme versions, which was the other reason I stopped watching.

So, for example, there would be someone on who had athlete's foot. Only the person featured didn't just have it, they'd had it for years and instead of visiting their GP or even going down boots/superdrug/tescos and getting some over-the-counter creams or whatever, they'd left it. And of course it had gotten to the stage where their nails had become a deformed mess and it looked like their feet were being eaten away.

Then the doctor would prescribe them some simple treatment like a pill or a cream and that would clean it up in a couple of weeks I'd just end up wondering why the hell they'd let it get so bad.

Of course the ironic element to this is that I essentially did the same thing in regards to my weight. I just kept 'leaving it' for my entire life until I got to the stage of being 24 and a half stone.

Anyway, the version I came across last night was all about being overweight, so I thought I'd watch and see what was going on. Quite a lot of the stuff I talked about I already knew, but one thing they did have on there was a woman who'd lost more than half her entire bodyweight, having dropped some 14 stone and been fat her entire life. Which, broadly speaking, is what I'm doing.

Her problem was what I think I'm actually most worried about now, which was that she had huge amounts of loose skin. She was only about 40, but her skin drooped down like that of someone more than twice her age. She looked okay clothed, but it meant she had to be fully clothed all the time.

She ended up having several rounds of plastic surgery to trim all the spare skin away. Obviously what I worry about now is ending up with similar piles of loose skin.

My hope is that the big difference was that she lost all that weight very quickly, where my plan is to shed it quite slowly and steadily. In reality I think it's inevitable that I'll end up with excess skin. In the programme they basically said that if you're really big for a long time, when you loose that weight the skin basically doesn't go away and surgery is the only option.

I could use the above as an excuse for this month's weigh in - that I'm taking it gradually - but that wasn't the reason I didn't loose any weight this last week. The reason was because I had the bad boozy weekend before and I ate too much bad stuff.

I have to say that, knowing what I did eat, I'm actually a little bit relieved the weigh in was no change, but still, I need to make sure I get back on track.

I'm more worried about putting the weight back on than I am having a lot of loose skin.

feck me

Horribly busy at work today.

With the exception of very first thing, I think this is the first time I've even fired up firefox today. I usually at least get the chance to glance at the forums I frequent and check my e-mail and stuff.

Not today.

how does that work?

So as mentioned I didn't do much exercise last weekend and I drank beer on Saturday and we ate takeaway pizza.

And yet I'd still lost 1 pound when I weighed myself on Sunday. It hadn't even been a particularly good week to compensate. I guess there's the possibility I was horribly dehydrated when I weighed myself, but I didn't feel that way - more tired than dehydrated.

Still, happy to take a 1 pound loss and won't be too harsh on myself if the "bad living" shows up next weekend instead.

It feels like I've gotten way behind with the scanning. I seem to have lost a bit of momentum with it.

I mean, I have done quite a lot of catching up - I'm no longer 15 months behind, I'm now only about 6 months behind - but I've been feeling like I'm never going to catch up, so why even bother trying?

I mean, it's not that bad, but you get what I mean. I think to myself that I've so much of it to do, doing x instead of some scanning is hardly going to hurt. trouble is all that adds up and I'll soon be a stupid amount behind again.

Part of the problem I think was the all problems I had with the cable internet connection. That coincided with me being off around Easter and meant I couldn't watch crunchyroll stuff. At the time the new UK one - Anime On Demand - was just getting going too and those were what I really wanted to watch while I scanned.

Instead I watched (older) fansubs I'd downloaded, and while that was good and needed doing, it meant I've gotten some way behind with new season stuff where I'd hoped I was going to be fully up to date.

As mentioned there's also this AOD thing and while I have subscribed to it, I'm not hugely impressed. It only seems to work in either a small window or full-screen, even if you adjust the resolution setting. This really doesn't work for me with watching it while I'm scanning, because the window is too small to easily watch and read the subtitles and of course full screen means you can't practically do anything else at the same time.

It's also all over the place in terms of episode numbers. To be fair they launched it just when the earthquake hit Japan and it's a brand new thing, so it's understandable, but it's a bit confusing with the episode numbers they're on and how big a delay they have from Japanese screening.

Also I'm unsure about the whole "season pass" model.

I hope what they're getting at is a quarterly subscription model that's basically a similar idea to crunchyroll. What I'm slightly worried about is that once the season is over, the videos will basically expire. That's a pain for me because I watch anime quite randomly, so it might be several weeks before I get around to watching some things.

The advantage with crunchyroll's model is that they try to keep things on for as long as possible. So if you come along several seasons later you can still watch stuff. A "season pass" implies that previous season's content will not be available to you.

Monaco GP

Last weekend saw the Monaco Grand Prix.

It was the second Grand Prix in as many weeks, but now that it's back in Europe for a while that doesn't seem quite as bad - Spain is just down the road from Monaco. And of course both aren't far from where most teams are based, in the UK.

Monaco of course is a traditionally processional race.

It's held in the narrow streets of Monte Carlo and if it were proposed as a race today it would almost certainly be rejected as being unsafe / too risky. The cars travel within millimetres of the solid barriers (the famous phrase is that you need to leave the tyres manufacturers logo behind on the barriers to know you've had a good lap) with few run of areas and nothing in the way of gravel to slow them down should they fail to make a corner.

Of course, being so twisty and turn they don't really ever get up to full speed, but there's no margin for error at all. This is one of the reasons why many of the drivers like it - it's a technical challenge and for the spectators it's more about getting really close to the cars and soaking up the atmosphere than stuff like overtaking.

I went a couple of years ago and it really is an amazing, atmospheric race and spectacle.

And this year it was almost a good race as well. To be fair it was nowhere near as some of the previous races, but compared to the dull, processional races at Monaco I've seen it was a hell of a lot better.

For some reason (slower speed maybe?) the Pirelli tyres seemed to last longer than at previous races, despite them using the super soft and soft combo for the first time. Also of course the DRS zone was a bit redundant, although there's some suggestion it helped in one or two passes.

And there were quite a few overtakes, which is quite novelty for Monaco.

Unfortunately for Lewis Hamilton in particular his weren't the best executed of overtakes.

To be frank, Lewis is my favourite driver of the current crop. I think the grid has a lot of good drivers at the moment, but I love the fact Lewis is a proper racer, never content to give half measure and always all about taking people on track. He wants to rave everybody and try to beat them fair and square.

Lewis is also a bit of a demon around Monaco, loving the challenge of the circuit.

But in the last part of qualifying there was quite a nasty accident that spoiled his only planned attempt at a qualifying lap. then, when they came out again he didn't do so well but also made an error and so was demoted to 9th. Not great considering how difficult it is to overtake, even with the current rules.

But of course he went for it and ended up having a terrible time - two of his moves ended with collisions that were, to be frank, entirely his fault. He was being way too ambitious (which, as I say, is kinda why he love him). In particular, the crash was Massa he was way off even being alongside and they got quite badly tangled.

He got penalised for both of these. Also the team called him in at one point, but they didn't have the tyres ready for him.

He was also peripherally involved in a complicated accident that saw Petrov in the barriers and the race red flagged while they took him to hospital.

So things didn't go well.

Unfortunately he also made it a bit worse by giving an interview when he was clearly still very annoyed, blaming the other drivers for basically being rubbish and the stewards for being over-sensitive. Which he then made worse by making a reference to the Ali G thing of "is it cos I is black?"

He was clearly not being serious, but it was a rather cringeworthy foot-in-mouth moment.

burn after reading

Until about half way through Burn After Reading I wasn't at all sure if I liked it.

The main reason for this was that all the characters were either unlikeable or stupid or, mainly, both. Being a Coen Borthers film I was also expecting it to be darkly comic but it was also quite light on jokes.

However, a bit like the title (ooh, clever), it's a bit of a slow burner. There's a lot of build up and then about half way through things reach a kind of tipping point and just about everything flips into the ridiculous, with truly hilarious results.

Stupid people are quite a common theme in Coen Brothers films, although usually there's at least one character who's sensible or clever. Here the only people who come close to that are the CIA men, although they're not really major characters and even they come across as being a litte dumb.

What I think makes burn really work is the central stupidity - the mistaking of CD containing a fired CIA analyst's financial info and a copy of their memoires. This is mistaken for somethign valuable/secret by the two main chracters. The particularly clever bit is that a lot of the chracters fall into what you might call architypal roles are expected actions, despite this data not actually being of any interst.

So, for example, they try to sell the information to the Russains. This is the very much post cold war Russains. But it's like everybody forgets that the cold war is over and that they're not actually in a spy film. Liek they're acting on autopilot.

I'm finding it a bit difficult to explain and that's why it needs such a big build-up. Without that build up the farcical stuff would just seem bizarre. The punchlines need that much preamble in order to work.

You know really there's not a lot more I can say - I really enjoyed the film, but it took a while to really become funny.

My favourite characters were probably the CIA men. The scenes between Palmer and his boss had me in stitches. The palpable embarressment and bafflment of Palmer was rather delicious. The whole "We don't know why" "But we're the CIA" feel of it was just perfect.

more work then

Back to work then.

I already feel like I could do with another holiday. The whole Bank Holiday madness and my associated holidays at the beginning of this month seemed like a good idea, but I'm not entirely sure it really worked.

It certainly doesn't feel like I've had a proper holiday a few weeks ago.

Or maybe it's just general fatigue.

It was a tiring weekend. Saturday I went to see a couple of good friends who I knew from school and haven't seen for what must be 2 years. It was the Champions League final, which is a football thing and I don't really do football.

I stayed over that night and came back on the Sunday, getting back about mid-day, which gave me just enough time to shower and have some lunch and then it was the Monaco Grand Prix., which I'll talk about that a bit more later in the week.

The rest of Sunday was pretty much spent bumming around. I watched quite a lot of telly I'd recorded and also played some games. One thing I didn't really do that I should have was go for any walks.

On the Sunday I wouldn't really describe myself as hung over - I got a bit tipsy on Saturday, no more - it was more to do with lack of sleep. My body clock combined with strange surroundings meant I got up at 6:30, having only gone to bed at 2:30.

Monday I wasted, to be frank.

I watched some more telly and played some more games, and that was pretty much it. I did go for a walk, but it was just the one in the afternoon, and it wasn't a long one. It was weirdly humid out, which made sense when it started raining just as I was getting home, so I guess the humidity was the build up for the rain.

yet another bank holiday

Well, there's yet another Bank Holiday on Monday.

Of course really we're only gaining 1 extra day off across the year, it's just that there's also been an undue concentration of them in May.

Plans for the weekend involve watching the Monaco Grand Prix. I'm also supposed to be going to visit some friends who I realised the other day I haven't seen in about 4 years.

I've been horribly busy at work this last couple of days. I even got up half an hour early (that's half an hour earlier than my usual 6:30 wake up time) to get in as soon as I could this morning and I'm still only about half way through what I need to do, so I'll cut the post off here I think.

67 stone

I randomly came across a programme the other day where two ambulance drivers (they may well have been paramedics - I couldn't tell) were discussing the tools they use to move very big people.

The standard trolley they put in and out of the ambulance has a kind of extension thing that allows bigger people lay on it without fear of falling off. Apparently the trolley itself can take up to 75 stone in weight.

If people were bigger than that (!) they explained there's a kind of big bag they use that people can be zipped into. This has all sorts of handles that allow it to be picked up by multiple people and can allow them to carry someone who weighs 99 stone.

One imperial tonne is 160 stone, so that's nearly two thirds of a tonne.

Something else they said was they'd actually had to use the bag for a guy who weighed 67 stone, because of his shape. They'd had to leave open a flap on the bag because his belly was so big they couldn't close it.

I'm not posting this to offer any sort of opinion on this state of affairs. Indeed, as someone who used to weigh about 25 stone with a BMI that put him well into the morbidly obese range it would probably be best approached from a those without sin casting the first stone mindset.

What it did emphasise to me was how bad things could have gotten. My eating and exercise habits were such that my weight was an ever upward trajectory. And it's not good to be in a situation where, should you need to be rushed to hospital they first need to zip you into a bag and then find enough burly men to lift you.

This last week I lost 3 pounds. Well, I think actually it was more a case of losing about 2.5 pounds over the last two weeks.

resident evil degeneration

I've noticed this pattern before with the rentals I get sent.

Two rentals ago it was the most recent Resident Evil live action film (zombies), last time it was zombieland (zombies) and this time it was Resident Evil: Degeneration (zombies).

In particular I remember it happened with films featuring Jason Statham - I had several of them sent in quick succession. I don't fundamentally mind, but it is a bit weird that this themeing exists in whatever software it is that picks out which DVD to send you next. Well, I assume it's software - perhaps it's done by hand?

Degeneration is a CGI Resi movie made in Japan and that actually features some of the characters from the games and, I believe, is canon, which is to say it forms a proper part of the Resi game series stories, unlike the films.

I have to say, though, that it's not all that good. The main problem with it is that it just wasn't scary. A big part of why the Resi games that I played were scary was the intense atmosphere. They were played in a third person, fixed camera view that gave a cinematic feel and through the use of creepy music they built up a very intense atmosphere.

There are very few scenes that even try to be scary in Degeneration, and to be frank the almost total lack of gore also suggested to me that this was part of an attempt to get a relatively low rating.

Instead, the focus is on trying to be an action film. In this regard it sort of works, but I think the CGI aspect hampers it. I dunno, part of the fun of live action films is that it involves real people. I know these days a lot of CGI is used, but they still try to do lots of stunts and use the CGI to enhance it.

Here you can't really tell. I mean, it uses motion capture, but you don't really know if this is used in all the action parts or not.

Also, everything feels quite wooden. The CGI being used seems more on the level of that used in video game cut sequences, rather than that Final Fantasy film. I mean it looks okay, and it's great for monsters and the zombies, but the living humans didn't look good enough for me to really get into it properly.

Something else that didn't help was that the plot was a bit weak. I don't know if it has more resonance if you're properly familiar with all of the Resi games, but for me it all felt a bit predictable and overly familiar. There also seemed to be quite a few plot holes. A good example of this was the plane crashing into the terminal.

This isn't really a spoiler, since it's plastered all over the trailers, but a plane crashes into the terminal building where the zombie action is centred. Obviously, the human characters need to escape from the building, and there's going to be issues over zombies getting out. So wouldn't a plane crashing into a building leave a very big hole in it? Well, you would think so, but this doesn't really get mentioned as an escape route for either humans or zombies.

And there's lots of other stuff like that - things seem to happen (or don't happen) for reasons that don't really make much sense.
weight

web design software

So I've talked before about how I've switched all my domain name registrations to a new company and cancelled the hosting I had with the eventual intention of having hosting through the new people.

Part of the reason for the move is that the company in question are the ones we use at work and I got to see how they operate. Part of this is that I've been building a new website for work.

It's not the main website, but an additional one for a specific bit of work, but one of the key aspects was that we needed to be able to have users who could log in and out and use passwords to access certain bits of the site.

As part of the hosting this company provides, they give you a web design package called Serif X4 and investigations showed that this package gives you the ability to have user accounts. We therefore took the plunge and bought the hosting (which we'd need anyway, even if the design thing didn't work as we'd hoped) and I set about seeing if I could get it to do what we needed.

The answer to this question was, fundamentally, yes - we could have users and passwords and the whole thing. The way it works means that the details are held remotely on a secure web server hosted by the company (Serif, rather than the hosts).

Now obviously I've built websites before. I actually own a rather old version of Dreamweaver and have used that to build all of my websites. However, if I was going to get this program free with my hosting I thought it best to experiment with all the stuff it provides, not just what we needed for the work site.

And it's a bit of an odd beast.

The reason is that it's both quite powerful and quite limited all at the same time. I'll give you some examples.

Firstly, in the Dreamweaver I have, although it's What You See Is What You Get (WYSIWYG) you're not that far removed from the basic html coding (I've only ever used the html in it). So a lot of it is done by arranging tables. By tables I mean the type of thing you have in word - you set the number of rows and columns and then you can do stuff to the tables or put stuff in the boxes you've created. And I think Word is the best analogy for how I've always used Dreamweaver.

In Serif you don't do that at all - you basically draw the site as if you were using MS Paint or Photoshop or a similar artist package. It's very much about the visual side of website designs.

Now that is very good on some levels, because you can quickly and relatively easily produce very appealing sites. It even provides you with templates that look quite good and you can fiddle with.

The difficulties come because of the content in sites like mine. The above works well if you're designing a relatively static site, but with mine with reviews with variable numbers of words, this produces unexpected challenges.

A good exemplar is the size of the page. When you design the page you fix the height and width. That means if you have a bit more or a bit less content you end up either going off the bottom or falling short and it has no way of the pages automatically adjusting to fit your content. You have to fiddle with some numbers in a dialogue box - you can't even simply drag the bottom of the page (I believe they added this in the next version).

And a similar problem pervades. So, for example, it gives you really simple an easy access to a forum that you can just drop onto your site. But, you can't adjust the design of the forum at all - it's a standard php forum and that's it. Well, you can do colours and through a tortuous back-end process can add bits and pieces, but it doesn't let you properly fiddle with it.

So as I say - it's at once very powerful and very restricted. You can easily create very pretty sites, but something as simple as adding text of variable length to pages is a real pain :/.

spanish f1 gp

Spanish Grand Prix this last weekend.

Spain is usually as dull as dishwater. It's one of the newer generations of tracks and it's not one of the better ones - it's very difficult to overtake. Indeed, the person who has pole position goes on to win the race more often than happened at Monaco.

This year, however, it was much more interesting. Clearly as a proper test for the new regulations it seems they've clearly brought some success. The Drag Reduction System (DRS - opening a flap on the rear wing to reduce drag and therefore give a speed boost) seems very temperamental/track sensitive.

Last week in Turkey it seemed to be too effective, with cars passing each other on the straights, making it way too easy. In China it worked perfectly, giving drivers the chance to be alongside in a corner and therefore battle it out. In Spain, despite it being used on a huge long straight it didn't really help at all, just like in Australia.

The problem seemed to be that in the corner before the straight it was difficult to follow another car closely. That meant that, by the time the DRS could be switched on, the other car was a long way in front and so the following driver didn't (in general) gain enough to even come close to passing.

What this did emphasise was the point that it's really the tyres that have had the biggest impact on racing this year. This is good, but I think they need to rethink it a bit. What I think would make things work better is if the harder compounds weren't so much slower than the softer ones and that they lasted ages.

That way you could have a proper battle between strategies - do you have only 1 stop and use the hard for ages, or lots of stops using the soft? This cant' really happen at the moment and is also worsened by the regs that limit the number of tyres the teams have. It also seems to be impacting qualifying quite a bit.

Anyway, the Spanish Grand Prix got off to a really interesting start with Alonso taking the lead with a spectacular bit of driving. Being the local boy, the crowd went mental - you could actually hear them above the sound of the cars, and each car is louder than a Jumbo jet.

This seemed to hold up the Red Bulls and I think also lead to the race being more interesting. To be fair, the Spanish was still less busy than previous races, emphasising that it is a less good track, but even so there was plenty going on.

In fact, still too much if I'm honest. I mean, Mark Webber, who started in pole ended up 4th and I have absolutely no idea how that happened. I mean, he didn't spin off or crash and I don't think there were any disastrous pit stops so how did that happen? It's almost like you need to watch 20-odd different versions of the race to work out what happened to each driver or cluster of drivers.

I dunno - it's just the wrong side of too much for me. But then would I have the sometimes dull, processional racing from recent years back? No, not at all, but it would be nice to find a balance between the two extremes.

up and down like the assyrian empire

So my weight went back down again this last weekend.

It wasn't quite enough to cancel out the gain I had, but any loss is good. I also think I had a bit of switch in mental attitude - having posted the numbers of what I'd lost and gotten used to what I now way, it doesn't feel as bad/poor as it did. I've also realised that I'm not that far from getting down into the sorts of weights where normal clothes will begin to fit me.

And speaking of clothes, I'm really desperate for some new stuff. I've been holding off because the idea of buying stuff and then having to buy the same stuff only a bit smaller in six months time and then buying it yet again six months after that is truly unappealing (and expensive sounding).

But it was my clothes that I think gave the game away at work.

My boss (who is that sort of person) asked me directly if I was loosing weight, so I had to fess up. I could hardly say no :/. And as he said, my clothes are "hanging" off me. He's also the sort of person that then went and told everybody.

I found the whole thing a little embarrassing. Not spectacularly so, but I'm never hugely comfortable about talking about that sort of personal stuff. I mean, there's some personal stuff I'm fine with discussing, but there's other stuff that I just don't like to talk about. And that extends outwards too - I'm not comfortable talking about those areas in other people's lives, even if they are.

I guess that makes me rather unusual - gossip and prurience is what keeps half the internet and all of the tabloid papers going.

This week I've been trying to increase my step count. I've been doing two laps around the industrial estate in the morning and then a slightly longer walk at lunch time. This has been successful, but if I want to take it any further it's clear I'll need to walk in the evenings, which may be difficult.

I actually didn't go for a walk last Sunday at all. This was because I'd washed the car on Saturday on top of walking, so I figured I'd done the exercise, but also, washing the car always involves lots of bending over which always leaves me with badly aching legs for a couple of days afterwards, because I've overstretched the ligaments.

I'm still breaking in my new walking shoes anyway, which will take a while, but hopefully they'll last me as long as the last pair I had like this.

one tenth as good

Well, the phone line interwebnets stuff turned up on Tuesday, as planned. It was waiting on the doorstep when I got back, so I plugged it all in. I'm of sufficient nerd level that I was able to do all this without looking in any of the manuals that came with it.

Almost as soon as it was all plugged in and ready to rock, there was a call on the landline which turned out to be an SMS (a text message, basically - if you send them to regular phone lines it reads them out to you) telling me it was all activated. I therefore fired up my machine and windows 7 sorted its life out and set up a second network (I really am impressed with windows 7).

Obviously I immediately downloaded some porn. I figured this was appropriate, but mainly it was a way for me to check the real download speed. I mean I also used an online speed tester, but I figured a real-life download would be a good way to see how it did.

At the time I first connected it the download speed was around the 1meg area. To put that into perspective the cable line is a 10meg line, which was confirmed by the speed checker, which had an extra 0 on it.

However, when I tested it this morning the speed was double what it was last night, so around 2meg. It was mentioned that to start with the connection speed would be all over the place, presumably as it works out what settings give it a good balance between speed and quality.

With the cable broadband crapping out all the time due to torrents I've gotten way behind, so I figured I should start straight away. My usual practice is to do a trawl for new torrent twice a week and then set them going first thing in the morning. Unless the connection fails like it has recently, this usually means they're all downloaded by the time I get back.

What I was hoping to do was have two networks running at the same time. I've mentioned that I use my landlords cable, well that's done via a long Ethernet cable that runs across the loft from my place to his. That plugs into his router, which is connected to his broadband modem for the cable.

I actually connect this incoming cable to a (rather old) network switch that I then plug all my machines into, giving them all access to the cable. However, it does mean that I have to set the network as a public one, preventing me doing any file or printer sharing, so that my landlord doesn't have access.

But all of the machines I use are sufficiently new/capable that they actually have two network connections. What I was therefore hoping was that I could effectively run the landline broadband line "in parallel" - get a new switch (actually the BT hub thing appears to have multiple Ethernet ports, so I think it can act as a hub) and plug it up in the same way using the secondary LAN ports on all the machines. This then also gives me the opportunity to create my own network with sharings.

This didn't really work when I tried it in the small play about I had. I mean, I was able to have both networks there and running on a machine - the problem was that it defaulted to using the landline internet, instead of the cable internet. This was not ideal, because of course the landline is way slower than the cable, so I want the default to be the cable.

This may work. You can actually turn the BT hub thing off, so when I'm torrenting or if the cable has crapped out I can turn the hub on and it should use the landline cable as a preferential thing. Otherwise, if it's turned off (I'll have to test this bit out) it should use the cable internet. This would have the added advantage that (assuming I buy a new switch) my own network will still exist, just I'll use the fast internet via the cable.

What I'm trying to avoid is the need to swap physical cables about all the time. I've had that set-up before and it's a right royal pain in the arse.

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I've mentioned before how I pre-write many of my blog posts. Well I wrote the above yesterday, having set the torrents going in the morning and seen everything working okay. When I got back all the torrents had finished, so all seemed well.

But this morning when I came to repeat the process (as I said, I've gotten a really big backlog of torrents) I couldn't connect to the internet at all. So I've had it less than 48 hours and already it's broken (or, I suspect, I've been cut off). Marvellous.

zombieland

One of my favourite films of all time is Shawn of the Dead.

Shawn of the dead was given the genre classification by its makers as a rom-zom-com, or a romantic comedy with zombies. And it was definitely that - if you'd taken away the zombies you'd have still had a romantic comedy, although you'd have had to introduce a new peril to replace the zombies.

Zombieland is more like a zom-com-rom, in that it's much more like a comedy-horror film with a more secondary romantic element. In that sense it's more like Evil Dead with a romantic element woven in. I use the term "woven in", rather than, say, "bolted on" because it's quite deftly done.

It doesn't feel like the romance is added on, more that if it weren't there the film wouldn't suffer too badly. It could easily have been an odd-couple style buddie movie if it didn't have the romantic element.

Indeed, I think that's probably where its strength lies - the relationship between the two male characters ("Talihasee" and "Columbus") is definitely the highlight of the film.

The zombies are of the modern, fast moving variety. As a general rule I'm not so keen on the fast moving zombie, but I've gotten to the point where I'm so used to seeing them now that it isn't a major issue with me any more. Though to be fair, they're actually more like the infected from 28 days later - not so much the re-animated dead as people infected with a virus that turns them into drugged-up psycho cannibals.

What I would say, however, is there aren't that many real scares, despite the emphasis on the post-apocalyptic/zombie element. I mean, there are a couple of jumps and there's a reasonable amount of gore, but there's not so much in the way of suspenseful or terrifying moment.

There are a lot of good jokes, though - it's a very funny film and it's pitched at a level of humour I always enjoy, as it's of the subtle wisecracking variety. Although I like it a lot, I struggle to find a term to really describe it properly, though.

Then of course there's that cameo from (Is what I'm about to say a spoiler? He's not really credited on the film and it was meant to be something of a surprise, but I'm sure everybody knows by now, right?) Bill Murray, which is just as good as everyone says. Particularly if you're of an age where you're familiar with Murray's early comedy roles.

Although actually if I'm totally honest, there was a better cameo for me personally - they use Metallica's for whom the bell tolls across the (frankly brilliant) title sequence. There was actually quite a lot of good music use in the film, actually.

all change

So late yesterday I finally got some messages through that my domains had all been transferred to the new registrar. I did some research on the interwebs and it seems to have taken a bit longer than is normal. I started the process last Monday and it's taken a full week to transfer, where most things seems to indicate it should only have taken three days.

I guess that's not a massively longer time, but it does add more behind one of the reasons I wanted to change - slow responsiveness. Also now that I can play with stuff properly on the control panel, I can see that the new host's user interface on the site is way easier to navigate and do stuff with.

I've also been investigating their hosting packages - like all hosts they offer different levels of stuff for different prices. They seems pretty good value, though obviously proof will be in the pudding - my last hosting was always cheap, but I wouldn't call them good value as it wasn't generally a pleasant and easy "relationship" (I'm struggling for a word to really cover it).

Today is also the day when, in theory, my landline broadband goes up. It was a bit of a pain to get it going, as I mentioned before. The basic problem is that although I knew the company I sued to have hosting with had been bought out by TalkTalk and they'd even changed their name to TalkTalk Business, it turns out they're still effectively run as a separate business and I had to contact them separately.

It took ages to work that out, but once I did getting the MAC was very quick. Though quite why they held on to it I'm not sure - I guess it costs money to get someone to properly release it.

I say it's the start day in theory, because I've not actually received the kit and they've sent me a couple of e-mails saying it could be midnight before it goes live. If I were without interwebs at all I think I'd be more anxious than I am.

Indeed, if I didn't have interwebs at all I think I'd be a bit annoyed and puzzled that it's taken about a week for it to all get sorted. I don't really know how complicated such things are, but this seems like a long time.

I should perhaps say I'm doing it with BT. Like any mega-huge corporation I'm sure there are the full range of good and bad experiences people have had with the, but this was just for convenience and ease. Obviously I've got a BT landline and it was just easy and fairly cheap to "flick the switch" on them giving me broadband too.

My plan is essentially to use it for torrents and as a back-up. It's guaranteed to be slower than the cable and it has a usage cap, but then the cable has a usage cap too. The real point is that for the past few weeks it's been obvious that it's my torrenting that's been killing the connection. In the last week I've deliberately not done any while I wait for the landline broadband and the cable internet hasn't been down once to my knowledge.

mad panic special

(My Thursday post about the websites and interweb seems to have reappeared - all very odd. My guess is they resorted to a back up or something.)

Wowser, what a horrible morning.

A bid needed to go away by 12 this morning and those can be a panic at the best of times, but this one was bonkers, as they'd given us a grand total of 3 working days to put together an entire ITT! That's totally insane - stuff that's marked urgent usually has at least a week turn-around time; 3 days for a full ITT is just plain unfair.

Of course everyone's in the same boat, but we're a small company. Big companies can obviously all on big numbers of people to veer and haul and do stuff, but that's obviously not a possibility for us. Luckily for me I was only peripherally involved, so I didn't loose my weekend.

Not that I was uninvolved, but my mad panic was this morning. The bid was via an electronic portal (uploading files, basically) and these are always horrible. I was responsible for putting together the final versions for upload and doing the actual upload.

It was a little nerve-wracking as the 12 'o'clock deadline rolled closer and closer and bits and pieces were still not quite finished. But we got it all uploaded and done in time.

My weekend itself was okay - nothing particularly exciting. One thing I did do was clean my car. I've not had much opportunity to clean it recently and what I though it was about time. I did it on the Saturday and the weather kept looking like it was about to piss down, but it held off while I was actually cleaning it.

The main thing I focused on was cleaning the inside (giving it a real good hoover out and wiping down the surfaces), the glass and the wheels. Obviously I also generally washed the car and the inside and alloy wheels are fairly obvious areas of attention, but the glass is also something I really needed to sort.

For some reason I find that most glass cleaners give very streaky results after a few weeks. Basically, dirt seems to slowly build up on the glass in the pattern of how the cleaner has dried. What I therefore do when I give the glass a proper clean is use a 'polish'. It smells quite a lot of turpentine and what you do is apply it and leave it to dry. Much like the polish you put on a car's metalwork it dries to leave a white chalk like substance that you then wipe off.

Although this is quite a lot of extra effort, the results are excellent - it gives a surface that remains streak free and completely "even" because the drying thing doesn't happen in the same way. It does also have the disadvantage of being quite expensive. In fact, actually all the stuff I use to clean my car is quite expensive, as I buy the Autoglym stuff.

It isn't cheap, but it really is good stuff.

up, not down

Unfortunately, blogger seems to have broken yesterday, which means I'm posting this very late, but also seems to have eaten my post yesterday.

It was basically about how I'm getting rid of the hosting for my websites and transferring my domains to a new registrar. I'll eventually resurect trismugistus.com at the least, but not for a while. It also mentioned how I'm going to be getting landline broadband as the cable I piggy-back has been really flakey lately. Actuyally, it was mostly saying about all the arse-painery these have either caused or been done in order to solve.

Anyway, on with today's scheduled post.

Dieting and exercise did not go well over my holiday.

In fact, they went so badly I came out of the holiday with a weigh in that was four pounds up on what it was when I went in.

This wasn't a surprising result, given the diet and walking problems, but it was disappointing. Last time I had an equivalent period of holiday was back in September, and I did loads of walking and only really let myself down by eating loads of junk food.

The difference was, in that previous holiday I was staying in a hotel (well, a travelodge job) so I had a much better control over what I did and was focused on doing the walks with fewer distractions. This holiday I was at home and so there was access to a myriad of distractions.

Of course I also ad my birthday in there, when I really let my hair down, so that was the most significant dietary slip. In that sense it wasn't as bad as when I pigged out on junk food last time, but then because I was doing far less walking, it clearly had a bigger impact.

I also found doing all that walking around where I live less enjoyable. Obviously I go for big walks at the weekend normally, but doing similar big walks every day got a bit boring. I think I should have driven to some other places and walked there, but then I was only just saying the other day how I didn't have enough time to do all the stuff I'd planned to - working out some different walks and driving to them and back would only have meant they would take longer.

I was also slightly hampered in that I bought some new walking shoes. These are actually a lot sturdier and therefore heavier than my last pair (which, presumably explains why the last pair started to fall apart in 6 months) and that's actually made walking the same distances a lot harder work. But then I guess that's good in a way.

But yeah, generally not good results for last week. And that's generally been my feeling about this period of weight loss since Christmas - it doesn't seem to have gone anywhere near as smoothly as it did last year. I think my desire flagged a bit and there were a lot more things getting in the way over this period. Maybe summer will bring better fortune?

The raw stats don't really back up my feeling, though. According to my spreadsheet, my net loss was a total of 28 pounds, or 2 stone, which is a good loss. It was a shorter period than last year, when I lost 35 pounds.

But then stats can lie - when I look at the numbers, the weird bump up and rapid fall away at Christmas effectively means it should be more like 42 pounds lost last year and 21 pounds lost this year - so 1 and a half stone.

Or another fact is that I've had two bits where I've actually gained weight this year and these add up to 7 pounds, so if I'd lost those then I'd have had a 35 pound loss across the period.

So I think my disappointment is justified. Don't get me wrong, I'm very pleased that I've lost a total of 63 pounds (or 4.5 stone) but I think I need to really take my diet and exercise seriously again if I'm not to loose heart. However, my next target is even more modest than my last one, in that I'd like to loose a further 1.5 stone by the lat August Bank Holiday.

The reason I've set this specific target is that 6 stone represents about half the total weight I need to loose and I actually kicked off my weight loss in August of last year. Also, I'm hoping that by setting a more sensible target if I'm able to beat it that can only be a good thing.