I appreciate most of these review posts are a bit negative, but as I said before I don't really feel last year went very well.
I guess my point in this one is that watching anime and reading manage is supposed to be one of my hobbies - something I dedicate spare time to because I enjoy it. Well one of those I managed to achieve (the reading manga side of things) but the other didn't go so well.
I seem to recall there was some watching of anime fairly early in the year, but there was a real lack of anime watching in the latter half of the year. Now there are some reasons for this.
One is that I have not really been scanning my imported anime magazines. While I scan I used to watch fansubs and/or crunchyroll. Fansubs and crunchyroll don't really fit in very well with my more general TV viewing. I have got a PC set up as a Blu Ray that I could theoretically use to watch both, but in practice this hasn't proven very practical.
One of the biggest issues is a bit unusual in that TV / monitor is actually relatively small, particularly given the distance I am away from it, so it can be very hard to see stuff, even with using the larger font modes of windows. But also I have a wireless keyboard and mouse I use with it, but UI have to take the batteries out of the mouse and that means I have to re-synch it every time I switch the computer on, making it a huge pain in the arse.
I mean, I had managed to streamline the process a bit, but then not so long ago one of the hard drives in it packed up and I still haven't gotten around to really sorting it out properly since.
Anyway, point is that fansubs and crunchyroll are best done at my normal computer while scanning and I've stopped scanning. I've stopped scanning mainly because I've found the whole A4 scanner plus "image stitch" on Photoshop to be horrible. It doubles or even in some case quadruples the number of scans you have to do and then (and this is that bit I really hate) it takes three or four times as long again to stitch the pictures together... assuming it even works - a lot of the time it just doesn't put them together very well and then I have the horrid nightmare of having to try to do it myself.
The solution would be to get an A3 scanner again (I have one, but it doesn't have drivers for windows 7 and the machine I intended for XP doesn't work and I was never arsed to fix it) but that will cost me money I wasn't really expecting to have to spend, given what I've spent on it all already.
Of course if I'm honest it doesn't help that I'm not a fan of the whole weekly watching of anime that streaming sites seem to basically only be set up to support. I prefer to watch series in big chunks. But then the rubbishness of the Blu Ray machine also means I often hold off on watching Blu Rays and I've started to buy more anime on Blu Ray, so that's not exactly a help.
The final issue of course is time - given how much time I have spent job hunting and then working it's tough to find a good chunk of time to sit down and watch something that could be 10 or 20 hours long.
Obviously none of that has stopped me buying anime, because I'm an idiot. Why am I spending all this money and then not enjoying the stuff I buy?
I really need to come up with some better plans. Maybe a proper Blu Ray player could help in some regards, but then I really need multi-region and that's not something that players really support in the way DVD players used to - there seems to be a lot of faffing around with firmware, which surely negates the benefit over using my current system.
Thursday, 24 January 2013
Wednesday, 23 January 2013
john carter
I recently reviewed the latest Conan film and gave it a bit of a slating.
One of the things I tried to say in something of its defence is that the types of story that other people have done since the Conan films means we've all become very familiar with that type of thing. So, in other words, it ends up feeling like cliché, even though it's actually the thing that started what other people made into cliché, if that makes sense.
As I understand it, John Carter is very similar in that sense - the original novels were very inspirational to other people, who then went on to write books and make films that essentially used the ideas so we've all become very familiar with them, even though we may not ever have actually read those original books.
In the case of John Carter it has something of a tick in my case, because we're in the realm of science fiction, which is much more my cup of tea, where Conan was fantasy, which isn't so much my thing. As such I'm probably a bit more pre-disposed to liking it than I was Conan.
I guess I should also mention the price tag thing. I don't know how you wouldn't be aware, but Disney spent an absolute fortune on John Carter. Assuming what has been reported is true (not necessarily always the case and I'm sure more complicated than all that) I have to confess I don't really understand how they thought they'd make their money back.
I mean if they really did spend the amount of money they did then the end film would have had to have been about the biggest movie ever. Now that's always possible, of course, but you have to feel the odds are stacked against it. You have to wonder - particularly when it lacked one of the things Disney tends to rely on: any clear merchandising.
Don't get me wrong - they could certainly have produced some figurines, but there was nothing in the way of cute and cuddly and even when you look at figurines it's relative small beer. The majority of characters were humans and the alien characters didn't exactly show a vast array of variety. Unlike Star Wars where just about every background figure is unique so you can sell toys of each one, there were only a tiny variety of different species in John Carter. And even then the number of actual characters was actually fairly small. There also weren't that many vehicles or other things you could make as toys.
Where I'm really going with this is I think it's actually a bit of a shame that it was seen as a big flop, as I thought it was kinda fun.
Unlike something like Conan John Carter maintained just the right level of a sense of fun. It steered away from being ironic or too knowing or too clever, and it wasn't a comedy movie, but it kept things light and pacey (though if I'm honest I feel it was another too long movie).
The plot also basically worked and I think it also did a bit of a neat trick in terms of exposition in particular. There's a bit of a tendency in films like this for them to have bit wodges of terrible exposition where the McGuffin is explained and things like that. Here they basically didn't bother - we got enough of a sense to know that certain things were important and there was an explanation behind them, but the focus was on the characters and the preventing the bad guy winning side of things, rather than blasting loads of ridiculous pseudo-science at us or similar.
Of course I'm not saying it was perfect, but if you look at some of the rubbish that gets produced, it's a shame this has been perceived to fail as some more John Carter films wouldn't necessarily be a bad thing.
One of the things I tried to say in something of its defence is that the types of story that other people have done since the Conan films means we've all become very familiar with that type of thing. So, in other words, it ends up feeling like cliché, even though it's actually the thing that started what other people made into cliché, if that makes sense.
As I understand it, John Carter is very similar in that sense - the original novels were very inspirational to other people, who then went on to write books and make films that essentially used the ideas so we've all become very familiar with them, even though we may not ever have actually read those original books.
In the case of John Carter it has something of a tick in my case, because we're in the realm of science fiction, which is much more my cup of tea, where Conan was fantasy, which isn't so much my thing. As such I'm probably a bit more pre-disposed to liking it than I was Conan.
I guess I should also mention the price tag thing. I don't know how you wouldn't be aware, but Disney spent an absolute fortune on John Carter. Assuming what has been reported is true (not necessarily always the case and I'm sure more complicated than all that) I have to confess I don't really understand how they thought they'd make their money back.
I mean if they really did spend the amount of money they did then the end film would have had to have been about the biggest movie ever. Now that's always possible, of course, but you have to feel the odds are stacked against it. You have to wonder - particularly when it lacked one of the things Disney tends to rely on: any clear merchandising.
Don't get me wrong - they could certainly have produced some figurines, but there was nothing in the way of cute and cuddly and even when you look at figurines it's relative small beer. The majority of characters were humans and the alien characters didn't exactly show a vast array of variety. Unlike Star Wars where just about every background figure is unique so you can sell toys of each one, there were only a tiny variety of different species in John Carter. And even then the number of actual characters was actually fairly small. There also weren't that many vehicles or other things you could make as toys.
Where I'm really going with this is I think it's actually a bit of a shame that it was seen as a big flop, as I thought it was kinda fun.
Unlike something like Conan John Carter maintained just the right level of a sense of fun. It steered away from being ironic or too knowing or too clever, and it wasn't a comedy movie, but it kept things light and pacey (though if I'm honest I feel it was another too long movie).
The plot also basically worked and I think it also did a bit of a neat trick in terms of exposition in particular. There's a bit of a tendency in films like this for them to have bit wodges of terrible exposition where the McGuffin is explained and things like that. Here they basically didn't bother - we got enough of a sense to know that certain things were important and there was an explanation behind them, but the focus was on the characters and the preventing the bad guy winning side of things, rather than blasting loads of ridiculous pseudo-science at us or similar.
Of course I'm not saying it was perfect, but if you look at some of the rubbish that gets produced, it's a shame this has been perceived to fail as some more John Carter films wouldn't necessarily be a bad thing.
Tuesday, 22 January 2013
new job?
There's a bit of a theme to these pre-written posts of reviewing last year - I figured I should look at last year in some detail as, if I'm totally honest, I felt a bit disappointed when I thought about the year while I was on leave.
One of the key things I obviously set for myself was to get a new job. And I am still in the same job.
Now I feel there were a lot of positives about the process I went through. Despite the economic climate I was able to get a reasonable number of interviews and to be considered for a number of roles. That has to be a positive as I know many people struggle to get any interviews.
Another positive is I got a job offer - and a very good job offer at that. If I look at the job on offer (or probably more the company and circumstance) it wasn't an offer I should have accepted, and didn't. I do feel this was basically the right decision.
However, what I didn't get right was how it went - I would at one stage have accepted it and basically just "seen what it was like". If it was going to be a mistake then I felt I needed to make a few mistakes, as it's been so long since I've done anything in my career, I feel like I have to make some changes.
In the end it was my family that gave me the best guidance in this regard; the problem really was that I told my boss about the offer. What I should have done is rejected it and kept looking, but the problem was several interviews had come to the "end game" and I was getting a bit sick of the whole thing. Also I was really starting to struggle financially and needed a pay increase and at worst I needed to use the offer as leverage for an improvement in pay and conditions.
However, when this happened there was something of change of circumstance in that I found out about what I've been describing as "cake later". The problem is that's not come to anything. There's been no announcement about any sort of cake at all and the real upshot of it is I'm disappointed in myself for believing that the boss was change.
The issues I've always had with the boss and that have become real thorns in my side in recent years aren't going to change. I'm starting to feel I'm just sticking around here so I can get a lot of money in a few years. Well, is that really what life is about?
I mean I'd like the money, obviously - particularly as I feel I've been underpaid and undervalued in recent years, but can I honestly stick it out here for another 3 or even four years to get that money?
What about all the other stuff I wanted to do? Lose weight (Id didn't mention it in the previous post, but a big problem I've had is that with all the extra hours I've ended up doing it's really hard to stop myself comfort eating and finding the time and energy to shop for and put together a healthy meal, rather than buy some junk I can just cram has been a particular struggle). Buy some new/decent clothes (I've been trading off of "well I'm losing weight and it would cost a fortune to keep refreshing my wardrobe" all year, yet I've gained a stone!). Find somewhere new to live (can't do that if I'm going to get a new job that might be in a new part of the country!). Go on proper holidays (can't afford it at the moment, as I'm underpaid!). Start writing again (first half of the year all my spare time went on job hunting and second half I've been working so much I don't have time to do my laundry, let alone write).
It all just feels like my usual thing of a list of excuses and I've managed to end up in the position of least resistance yet again - same job, no changes... but I'm bored of it all; that was the whole point.
Another issue I've not really mentioned before is I'm not sure I want to stay in this industry. I can't really discuss the details, but I've started to feel uncomfortable with some aspects of it. A few years ago it wasn't so bad, as the company did other stuff, but we've become increasingly focused in the one area and I don't really want to be there.
I think what I'm going to do is set a deadline for the boss - if there's no proper announcement by a particular date I might ask to discuss the issue with her directly... or I'll just start looking for a new job again. It needs to be fairly soon, though - perhaps Easter?
One of the key things I obviously set for myself was to get a new job. And I am still in the same job.
Now I feel there were a lot of positives about the process I went through. Despite the economic climate I was able to get a reasonable number of interviews and to be considered for a number of roles. That has to be a positive as I know many people struggle to get any interviews.
Another positive is I got a job offer - and a very good job offer at that. If I look at the job on offer (or probably more the company and circumstance) it wasn't an offer I should have accepted, and didn't. I do feel this was basically the right decision.
However, what I didn't get right was how it went - I would at one stage have accepted it and basically just "seen what it was like". If it was going to be a mistake then I felt I needed to make a few mistakes, as it's been so long since I've done anything in my career, I feel like I have to make some changes.
In the end it was my family that gave me the best guidance in this regard; the problem really was that I told my boss about the offer. What I should have done is rejected it and kept looking, but the problem was several interviews had come to the "end game" and I was getting a bit sick of the whole thing. Also I was really starting to struggle financially and needed a pay increase and at worst I needed to use the offer as leverage for an improvement in pay and conditions.
However, when this happened there was something of change of circumstance in that I found out about what I've been describing as "cake later". The problem is that's not come to anything. There's been no announcement about any sort of cake at all and the real upshot of it is I'm disappointed in myself for believing that the boss was change.
The issues I've always had with the boss and that have become real thorns in my side in recent years aren't going to change. I'm starting to feel I'm just sticking around here so I can get a lot of money in a few years. Well, is that really what life is about?
I mean I'd like the money, obviously - particularly as I feel I've been underpaid and undervalued in recent years, but can I honestly stick it out here for another 3 or even four years to get that money?
What about all the other stuff I wanted to do? Lose weight (Id didn't mention it in the previous post, but a big problem I've had is that with all the extra hours I've ended up doing it's really hard to stop myself comfort eating and finding the time and energy to shop for and put together a healthy meal, rather than buy some junk I can just cram has been a particular struggle). Buy some new/decent clothes (I've been trading off of "well I'm losing weight and it would cost a fortune to keep refreshing my wardrobe" all year, yet I've gained a stone!). Find somewhere new to live (can't do that if I'm going to get a new job that might be in a new part of the country!). Go on proper holidays (can't afford it at the moment, as I'm underpaid!). Start writing again (first half of the year all my spare time went on job hunting and second half I've been working so much I don't have time to do my laundry, let alone write).
It all just feels like my usual thing of a list of excuses and I've managed to end up in the position of least resistance yet again - same job, no changes... but I'm bored of it all; that was the whole point.
Another issue I've not really mentioned before is I'm not sure I want to stay in this industry. I can't really discuss the details, but I've started to feel uncomfortable with some aspects of it. A few years ago it wasn't so bad, as the company did other stuff, but we've become increasingly focused in the one area and I don't really want to be there.
I think what I'm going to do is set a deadline for the boss - if there's no proper announcement by a particular date I might ask to discuss the issue with her directly... or I'll just start looking for a new job again. It needs to be fairly soon, though - perhaps Easter?
Monday, 21 January 2013
snow day
So shortly after I posted on Friday, the boss sent us home.
Well, I say the boss - it was the "sub-boss" who is generally a more reasonable, less Victorian kind of person.
The journey home was pretty awful. I didn't get stuck, but the roads were pretty manky. The A31 had quite a lot of snow on it and the other roads weren't much better.
I was actually quite surprised by how busy it was. I guess a lot of people were like me - headed in to work at the usual time, but then it snowed heavily so they went home.
A couple of people at work wimped out altogether and didn't come in. I kinda wish I'd done similar - they waited until 9AM to see fi the snow genuinely did turn up (never any guarantees). It wasn't actually bad until about 10AM, but clearly wasn't travelling weather. Well, I say that - in this country it wasn't travelling weather, if it was Canada or Norway or something, I bet they would hardly have noticed.
Now I had said when I went home that there were some thing I could work on, but I didn't actually do any work. Working from home is not generally something that's easy for me to do (other people have work laptops, but I don't). However, on this occasion there were two issues.
The first was that I didn't really want to do any work. I pre-wrote a post a little while ago that I'm planning to upload tomorrow, and that pretty much covers the issues, but I guess the summary is that I'm struggling to whip up any kind of motivation to continue in my current job.
The second issue, though, was that I had a massive headache. The basic issue seemed to be eye strain, and I think the route cause is that I've been doing a lot of reading at home. The book I've been reading is actually a really heavy hardback, so I think that's forced me to read in positions that have meant I've been straining my eyes.
Well, the other factor is it's been a long time since I've had an eye exam and a new pair of glasses. I don't actually think there's really anything wrong with my prescription as such, but the lens for my left eye is quite badly scratched.
A new pair of glasses will cost a fortune, though, so I've been holding off, but I think it's probably time to bite the bullet.
Well, I say the boss - it was the "sub-boss" who is generally a more reasonable, less Victorian kind of person.
The journey home was pretty awful. I didn't get stuck, but the roads were pretty manky. The A31 had quite a lot of snow on it and the other roads weren't much better.
I was actually quite surprised by how busy it was. I guess a lot of people were like me - headed in to work at the usual time, but then it snowed heavily so they went home.
A couple of people at work wimped out altogether and didn't come in. I kinda wish I'd done similar - they waited until 9AM to see fi the snow genuinely did turn up (never any guarantees). It wasn't actually bad until about 10AM, but clearly wasn't travelling weather. Well, I say that - in this country it wasn't travelling weather, if it was Canada or Norway or something, I bet they would hardly have noticed.
Now I had said when I went home that there were some thing I could work on, but I didn't actually do any work. Working from home is not generally something that's easy for me to do (other people have work laptops, but I don't). However, on this occasion there were two issues.
The first was that I didn't really want to do any work. I pre-wrote a post a little while ago that I'm planning to upload tomorrow, and that pretty much covers the issues, but I guess the summary is that I'm struggling to whip up any kind of motivation to continue in my current job.
The second issue, though, was that I had a massive headache. The basic issue seemed to be eye strain, and I think the route cause is that I've been doing a lot of reading at home. The book I've been reading is actually a really heavy hardback, so I think that's forced me to read in positions that have meant I've been straining my eyes.
Well, the other factor is it's been a long time since I've had an eye exam and a new pair of glasses. I don't actually think there's really anything wrong with my prescription as such, but the lens for my left eye is quite badly scratched.
A new pair of glasses will cost a fortune, though, so I've been holding off, but I think it's probably time to bite the bullet.
Friday, 18 January 2013
bookend of snow
So, as I sit here typing early-doors at work it has been snowing for at least 1.5 hours.
It's not heavy snow, but it is settling. This is not particularly good news. I had hoped that if we were going to get snow it would happen overnight and therefore mean I could skip the day at work (well, "work from home" but that's not something that really works for me).
Heavier snow is still forecast. This lighter stuff was forecast for 8AM but is a good 2 hours early. The heavier stuff was forecast for 1PM, but I don't know if that therefore means it will be early too.
The problem is the company I work for isn't very enlightened in terms of things like work hours. We don't work, flexi, for example, which all our customers do. That means once you're here you can't just say that you'll go home, because as I say, the work values are dragged straight from the Victorian era - if your bum's not on the seat, clearly you're not working.
I guess we'll just have to see what happens.
I've packed my sleeping bag and some extra warm clothes (I'm already buried under layers of warm cloths due to the inadequacies of the work heating!) as well as a bag of some snacky type food and a bottle of water.
It's not going to keep me going long-term, obviously, but it means if I get stuck I'll be able to keep warm, and that's the key thing. Particularly at this time of year, with it getting dark early - it's easy to get in a situation where you're not sure if you're stuck because actually you can't really see what you're doing.
It's not heavy snow, but it is settling. This is not particularly good news. I had hoped that if we were going to get snow it would happen overnight and therefore mean I could skip the day at work (well, "work from home" but that's not something that really works for me).
Heavier snow is still forecast. This lighter stuff was forecast for 8AM but is a good 2 hours early. The heavier stuff was forecast for 1PM, but I don't know if that therefore means it will be early too.
The problem is the company I work for isn't very enlightened in terms of things like work hours. We don't work, flexi, for example, which all our customers do. That means once you're here you can't just say that you'll go home, because as I say, the work values are dragged straight from the Victorian era - if your bum's not on the seat, clearly you're not working.
I guess we'll just have to see what happens.
I've packed my sleeping bag and some extra warm clothes (I'm already buried under layers of warm cloths due to the inadequacies of the work heating!) as well as a bag of some snacky type food and a bottle of water.
It's not going to keep me going long-term, obviously, but it means if I get stuck I'll be able to keep warm, and that's the key thing. Particularly at this time of year, with it getting dark early - it's easy to get in a situation where you're not sure if you're stuck because actually you can't really see what you're doing.
Thursday, 17 January 2013
weight for it
Last year didn't go well on the diet front.
Well, if my aim had been to gain a stone then it would have been a good year, but as it was almost exactly the opposite, it was fairly poor.
Christmas was particularly problematic this year. I always put on weight at Christmas as I tend to stuff my face, but this year I had a bit of a problem with a tendon in my left foot and so decided to snot walk on it for a few days while I was on leave. However, I didn't reign in my eating at all, so I gained 6 pounds just in the week that I was off, which is double what I've done before.
I'm fully expecting that over the next couple of weeks this will come off as that's the other part of the pattern. However, the 6 pound loss was a addition to a 7 pound gain across the rest of the year, so not at all good.
This also actually pushes me back into the morbidly obese range, where I was hoping I would get a good way under that. I never really set proper goals as such, but it was always the basic aim of the diet to take myself a good way under the morbid obesity range. The odds and stats get quite... sobering for people who are that size.
On the up-side the walking has gone pretty well. Apart from Christmas where I couldn't walk I stayed on target throughout the year.
It became particularly apparent to me how much fitter I was when I took my leave at the end of summer. There's a little village I often walk around in Devon and where in previous years I'd struggled with some of the walks, last year I was easily able to walk right around the village (it has this loop around it) and wasn't really tired at all.
One of the things I have thought about on that front was whether I should step up the exercise. Now that I'm able to walk longer distances with no problems does that mean I am working less hard? Certainly I'm carrying around less weight so it's not quite the same level of workout. And is that part of why my weight has gone up - I need to do more to achieve the same affect?
However, I think when I analyse it the reality is that the weight gain has been more to do with eating. There have been a lot of weeks in the last year where I've not really stuck to my diet properly. Indeed, it would be tough to really say I'd dieted with any consistency across the year, and it was that rigid sticking to my diet that I think gave me the greatest gains in previous years.
The problem I think therefore comes down to a slip of willpower combined with a fatigue over the diet. I ate a lot of salad during the time I was successful and that's great if you want to fill yourself up, but I think I got very bored. I've never actually been that big a fan of salad and after months and months of it I think I really wanted change and that change meant I strayed into areas of buying rubbish.
Anyway, I guess the point is I don't really make New Years resolutions, I really need to start taking this thing seriously again, particularly if I'm genuinely going to do some of the other stuff I want to in the next few years.
Well, if my aim had been to gain a stone then it would have been a good year, but as it was almost exactly the opposite, it was fairly poor.
Christmas was particularly problematic this year. I always put on weight at Christmas as I tend to stuff my face, but this year I had a bit of a problem with a tendon in my left foot and so decided to snot walk on it for a few days while I was on leave. However, I didn't reign in my eating at all, so I gained 6 pounds just in the week that I was off, which is double what I've done before.
I'm fully expecting that over the next couple of weeks this will come off as that's the other part of the pattern. However, the 6 pound loss was a addition to a 7 pound gain across the rest of the year, so not at all good.
This also actually pushes me back into the morbidly obese range, where I was hoping I would get a good way under that. I never really set proper goals as such, but it was always the basic aim of the diet to take myself a good way under the morbid obesity range. The odds and stats get quite... sobering for people who are that size.
On the up-side the walking has gone pretty well. Apart from Christmas where I couldn't walk I stayed on target throughout the year.
It became particularly apparent to me how much fitter I was when I took my leave at the end of summer. There's a little village I often walk around in Devon and where in previous years I'd struggled with some of the walks, last year I was easily able to walk right around the village (it has this loop around it) and wasn't really tired at all.
One of the things I have thought about on that front was whether I should step up the exercise. Now that I'm able to walk longer distances with no problems does that mean I am working less hard? Certainly I'm carrying around less weight so it's not quite the same level of workout. And is that part of why my weight has gone up - I need to do more to achieve the same affect?
However, I think when I analyse it the reality is that the weight gain has been more to do with eating. There have been a lot of weeks in the last year where I've not really stuck to my diet properly. Indeed, it would be tough to really say I'd dieted with any consistency across the year, and it was that rigid sticking to my diet that I think gave me the greatest gains in previous years.
The problem I think therefore comes down to a slip of willpower combined with a fatigue over the diet. I ate a lot of salad during the time I was successful and that's great if you want to fill yourself up, but I think I got very bored. I've never actually been that big a fan of salad and after months and months of it I think I really wanted change and that change meant I strayed into areas of buying rubbish.
Anyway, I guess the point is I don't really make New Years resolutions, I really need to start taking this thing seriously again, particularly if I'm genuinely going to do some of the other stuff I want to in the next few years.
Wednesday, 16 January 2013
resident evil - damnation
I seem to recall I did a review of the previous cgi resi movie.
I've not actually looked it up, but I think I thought it was okay, but the cgi wasn't great and it was a bit clunky. I think I'd say the same basic thing about this one, which is also a cgi film.
It's not a sequel, though. At least, I don't think it is - I found this aspect a bit vague, actually. In some places it seemed to be that it was a sequel in some sense (with recurring characters having been involved in the events of the previous film, rather than events following on directly) but in others it seemed to be quite stand-alone.
I think a big part of my problem as that the background to this film wasn't properly fleshed out and explained. I mean it was clear what the plot was, but quite why Leon was there and who he was working for was very vague indeed. I think this was probably deliberate so that they could meld it to suit particularly markets, but it also meant it was all very vague.
I have to say it wasn't as strong a plot in this film either. In the first the events are very reactive to particular situations, but in this they'd tried to use more in the way of deep schemes to form the plot and these just didn't hold together. There seemed to be a lot of inconsistency and why stuff happened as it did came across as a bit more random than it should have done.
In particular both sides seemed to be using the bio-weapons, but in ways that suggested the other side wasn't using them, if that makes sense. So one side was using them as if they were a secret weapon that the other side knew nothing about, but then it seemed like the other side was using the same thing like a secret weapon the other side knew nothing about.
Another good example is the tyrants, which are included in the movie. It's not at all clear how they come to be there - were they developed, or bought or what, and why were they not actually using them? They seem to get released almost by accident towards the end, but surely if the other side are using lickers you'd probably want to role your tyrants out, rather than keep them in your secret lab.
I dunno. One of the criticisms I have of these cgi films is they feel just that bit too much like cut-scenes from games. My problem here, I think, was that this felt like a cgi cut scene from half way through a game and I was watching over someone's shoulder, having not seen the previous half f the game.
I've not actually looked it up, but I think I thought it was okay, but the cgi wasn't great and it was a bit clunky. I think I'd say the same basic thing about this one, which is also a cgi film.
It's not a sequel, though. At least, I don't think it is - I found this aspect a bit vague, actually. In some places it seemed to be that it was a sequel in some sense (with recurring characters having been involved in the events of the previous film, rather than events following on directly) but in others it seemed to be quite stand-alone.
I think a big part of my problem as that the background to this film wasn't properly fleshed out and explained. I mean it was clear what the plot was, but quite why Leon was there and who he was working for was very vague indeed. I think this was probably deliberate so that they could meld it to suit particularly markets, but it also meant it was all very vague.
I have to say it wasn't as strong a plot in this film either. In the first the events are very reactive to particular situations, but in this they'd tried to use more in the way of deep schemes to form the plot and these just didn't hold together. There seemed to be a lot of inconsistency and why stuff happened as it did came across as a bit more random than it should have done.
In particular both sides seemed to be using the bio-weapons, but in ways that suggested the other side wasn't using them, if that makes sense. So one side was using them as if they were a secret weapon that the other side knew nothing about, but then it seemed like the other side was using the same thing like a secret weapon the other side knew nothing about.
Another good example is the tyrants, which are included in the movie. It's not at all clear how they come to be there - were they developed, or bought or what, and why were they not actually using them? They seem to get released almost by accident towards the end, but surely if the other side are using lickers you'd probably want to role your tyrants out, rather than keep them in your secret lab.
I dunno. One of the criticisms I have of these cgi films is they feel just that bit too much like cut-scenes from games. My problem here, I think, was that this felt like a cgi cut scene from half way through a game and I was watching over someone's shoulder, having not seen the previous half f the game.
Tuesday, 15 January 2013
hunted
I mentioned last week that I watched a lot of stuff that I'd recorded.
This included quite a few documentaries, but also a few drama series, one of which was hunted. I'd been under the impression that hunted as a single series, which is to say that the adventure was self-contained in the 8 episodes they showed.
It turned out this wasn't entirely the case, and I found myself quite annoyed by that. Now to be fair, in some ways it was - the main plot of the series that revolved around what the team were doing in regards to a Pakistani dam that was being sold did resolve. However, there was also a whole other element to the story about the main character Sam and this didn't really resolve.
Having looked the series up on wikipedia it's clear that this was intentional - they clearly wanted to make this something akin to 24 or homeland with an ongoing plot across all the series but with each individual series sort of self-contained. I guess that's fair enough, but the problem is the first episode and about half o the second episode were essentially devoted to the long-term plot. This therefore set me up for much more of a resolution on that plot than we got.
What's more annoying, though, is that the BBC has said they won't fund a second series. The production company has indicated they are still looking to do a second series, but it will have to be smaller without the beeb's cash. That could work as the production could easily be ramped down (fewer foreign episodes, for example) and still contain a good story.
Also, and I think this was probably one of the things that hurt the series, fewer episodes. 8 episodes was a lot and there was a lot of padding in the series. They could easily have skipped whole chunks of it without any real impact on the story.
I've probably given the impression there that I want it to continue, but to some extent I think that's a bit more of a reflection of how maddening I found it not actually being told what was going on properly, even though the main character had clearly figured big chunks of stuff out. In particular she was having half remembered flash back to her childhood and we saw she properly remembered these, but we never got any sort of explanation.
Anyway, point is I'm not entirely sure it was a good series, as such. It relied very heavily on tropes and clichés - the main bad guy was this cockney gangster pastiche, for example. Also the violence was so over the top it became almost silly. I actually fast forwarded through quite a lot of the fights as they were just so overblown it was boring. They also stretched credibility - Melissa George is very skinny compared to the beefcakes she was supposedly thrashing to within and inch of their lives.
Also London is apparently a place where people are murdered left, right and centre but the one bent cop is all you need to cover it up and the media doesn't pay attention.
A lot of it was kinda daft, really.
This included quite a few documentaries, but also a few drama series, one of which was hunted. I'd been under the impression that hunted as a single series, which is to say that the adventure was self-contained in the 8 episodes they showed.
It turned out this wasn't entirely the case, and I found myself quite annoyed by that. Now to be fair, in some ways it was - the main plot of the series that revolved around what the team were doing in regards to a Pakistani dam that was being sold did resolve. However, there was also a whole other element to the story about the main character Sam and this didn't really resolve.
Having looked the series up on wikipedia it's clear that this was intentional - they clearly wanted to make this something akin to 24 or homeland with an ongoing plot across all the series but with each individual series sort of self-contained. I guess that's fair enough, but the problem is the first episode and about half o the second episode were essentially devoted to the long-term plot. This therefore set me up for much more of a resolution on that plot than we got.
What's more annoying, though, is that the BBC has said they won't fund a second series. The production company has indicated they are still looking to do a second series, but it will have to be smaller without the beeb's cash. That could work as the production could easily be ramped down (fewer foreign episodes, for example) and still contain a good story.
Also, and I think this was probably one of the things that hurt the series, fewer episodes. 8 episodes was a lot and there was a lot of padding in the series. They could easily have skipped whole chunks of it without any real impact on the story.
I've probably given the impression there that I want it to continue, but to some extent I think that's a bit more of a reflection of how maddening I found it not actually being told what was going on properly, even though the main character had clearly figured big chunks of stuff out. In particular she was having half remembered flash back to her childhood and we saw she properly remembered these, but we never got any sort of explanation.
Anyway, point is I'm not entirely sure it was a good series, as such. It relied very heavily on tropes and clichés - the main bad guy was this cockney gangster pastiche, for example. Also the violence was so over the top it became almost silly. I actually fast forwarded through quite a lot of the fights as they were just so overblown it was boring. They also stretched credibility - Melissa George is very skinny compared to the beefcakes she was supposedly thrashing to within and inch of their lives.
Also London is apparently a place where people are murdered left, right and centre but the one bent cop is all you need to cover it up and the media doesn't pay attention.
A lot of it was kinda daft, really.
Monday, 14 January 2013
snow-ho-ho
God, it's cold.
The building where I work is appalling during the winter. We're all upstairs and it's a reasonably-sized open-plan office. However, it has lots of glass windows, many of which are not particularly well sealed. There's also no-one downstairs, so there's not much in the way of 'rising heat' effect. Also, the insulation in the roof is very poor - I once poked my head up there and it's very thin indeed.
The plumbing is also clearly a mess - some of the radiators don't get hot at all and those that do can be erratic, not being as warm as they should be. Also there are lots of squares for lights and they're obviously un-insulated. The boiler is also pathetic. Well, it seems pathetic compared to the old one, which packed up a few years ago. The old one used to get the radiators so hot you couldn't touch them, where this one doesn't achieve that.
My guess is that if the plumbing was decent, the rooms divided up more, there was proper insulation in the roof and the building better occupied then the boiler would be okay. As all these aren't the case, the place ends up freezing.
Indeed, the room is generally so cold that we end up putting on a fan-heater to warm it up. This, obviously, is expensive, and ironic, since a part of the reason it's cold is because the boss has set the heating up in such a way that she's clearly trying to save money.
The heating is almost totally off across the weekend (I believe it does a couple of hours to prevent the pipes freezing). This means that early at the start of the week the building is particularly cold and it's often mid-week before we've compensated for that. In other words we have to have the fan-heater on full blast, which surely defeats the point of the "money saving" of having it off at the weekend.
It's also been set so that it only comes on at about 8AM. Now I get in early, but if you assume a 9AM start then that's only 1 hour of pre-heating. It also turns off around lunch-time for a couple of hours. This one seems bizarre to me - okay, that's generally the warmest part of the day, but by letting the building cool the heating then has to work extra hard to bring it back up to temperature when it comes back on. It also means the fan-heater stays on all day.
It also decided to snow here. I was watching the forecasts quite keenly over the weekend and none of them showed it snowing here. I mean, it's not deep - about an inch or so, but settling makes everything that little bit more difficult than it otherwise would be.
The building where I work is appalling during the winter. We're all upstairs and it's a reasonably-sized open-plan office. However, it has lots of glass windows, many of which are not particularly well sealed. There's also no-one downstairs, so there's not much in the way of 'rising heat' effect. Also, the insulation in the roof is very poor - I once poked my head up there and it's very thin indeed.
The plumbing is also clearly a mess - some of the radiators don't get hot at all and those that do can be erratic, not being as warm as they should be. Also there are lots of squares for lights and they're obviously un-insulated. The boiler is also pathetic. Well, it seems pathetic compared to the old one, which packed up a few years ago. The old one used to get the radiators so hot you couldn't touch them, where this one doesn't achieve that.
My guess is that if the plumbing was decent, the rooms divided up more, there was proper insulation in the roof and the building better occupied then the boiler would be okay. As all these aren't the case, the place ends up freezing.
Indeed, the room is generally so cold that we end up putting on a fan-heater to warm it up. This, obviously, is expensive, and ironic, since a part of the reason it's cold is because the boss has set the heating up in such a way that she's clearly trying to save money.
The heating is almost totally off across the weekend (I believe it does a couple of hours to prevent the pipes freezing). This means that early at the start of the week the building is particularly cold and it's often mid-week before we've compensated for that. In other words we have to have the fan-heater on full blast, which surely defeats the point of the "money saving" of having it off at the weekend.
It's also been set so that it only comes on at about 8AM. Now I get in early, but if you assume a 9AM start then that's only 1 hour of pre-heating. It also turns off around lunch-time for a couple of hours. This one seems bizarre to me - okay, that's generally the warmest part of the day, but by letting the building cool the heating then has to work extra hard to bring it back up to temperature when it comes back on. It also means the fan-heater stays on all day.
It also decided to snow here. I was watching the forecasts quite keenly over the weekend and none of them showed it snowing here. I mean, it's not deep - about an inch or so, but settling makes everything that little bit more difficult than it otherwise would be.
Friday, 11 January 2013
the rubbish continues
So as promised, here's the concluding stuff of the holiday.
As noted, Christmas day was good but then everything around it was rubbish. When I eventually got home on Boxing Day I basically just watched TV for a bit and then went to bed. I slept for about 14 hours if my maths is right and of course then I went to work for the next couple of days - still suffering with the cold and worried about my dad.
I had actually been planning to use these days to do some stuff that I've had to back-burner, but when I got in there was a big pile of stuff dumped on my desk I had to sort. I wasn't best pleased, especially as stuff clearly could have been done with it on the Monday and there wasn't a lot I could practically do with it that others couldn't have done, particularly as my holiday was after New Years, which is when all the critical stuff on these things would actually need to happen.
I therefore wasted a good day and a half with what was essentially hand-turning that others should have already done or could really wait until after New Years when everyone was back.
However, I did manage to get some stuff done that I actually wanted to do, but I can't really say I enjoyed the days at work. The problem really was there were other people there. I've actually found that although rubbish on many levels I kinda enjoy coming in at the weekend - I can work whatever schedule I want and I can concentrate 100% as nobody else is there.
The real problem, though, was my landlord. He wanted to sort out some mould that had developed in the corner of the kitchen and this was fine. He said it might look a bit patchy, but I said that was not something I was worried about.
Now ideally (and this, I think, was the real source of my annoyance) he would have properly redecorated the kitchen. I even made it very clear to him a long way ahead when I was away last Summer for him to use that time to do it. However, like an idiot, he booked a foreign holiday at exactly the same time as when I was away, so he couldn't do it.
But, having mentioned I was working, he decided to take advantage - rather than just sort the mould he started redecorating as well. Now as I say, no problem with him redecorating, but a) he was taking the piss by just launching into it and b) I was on leave (meaning at home) after New Years and he said there was no way he could complete it before then, so I had the prospect of a half decorated kitchen to cope with while I was on leave - yeah, great, thanks for that.
What also annoyed me is I basically didn't move any of the kitchen stuff out of the way when he started (as I say, he was just meant to sort a corner of the room) and so he'd just shoved it all randomly out of the way in a big pile. I can't stand people touching my stuff or being in my rooms at the best of times, and this just wound me up.
Now I actually mentioned this to him when I got back from work on the second day and I also then properly moved my stuff out of the way for the last day I was at work before my leave. I think because I'd implied it was a bit off for him to just launch into it without properly arranging it with me he actually worked hard on that last day and did two coats, so it was done. I was relieved and it looks quite good, but it was still pretty disruptive.
Anyway, then there was New Years eve itself.
I'm not really a fan of New Years. It's completely arbitrary, obviously, but also the problem is that everyone is out and about. If you want to go for a few drinks you won't be able to get any because everywhere is so busy. And otherwise it's normally just a really cold day where everywhere is too busy.
This year was no exception. The plans I'd made didn't really happen and I ended up driving home stone cold sober at about 4:30 in the morning.
The holiday afterwards was okay - I got some stuff done I'd been meaning to do and relaxed a bit. On the up side I watched loads of the stuff I'd recorded and not watched over the last year. My PVR went from about 80% full to about 80% free. I could probably have cleared it, but I find fatigue tends to set in when I watch too much TV in a row.
I'll leave it there I think - as I say, not the greatest time overall. Certainly I've had better year ends.
As noted, Christmas day was good but then everything around it was rubbish. When I eventually got home on Boxing Day I basically just watched TV for a bit and then went to bed. I slept for about 14 hours if my maths is right and of course then I went to work for the next couple of days - still suffering with the cold and worried about my dad.
I had actually been planning to use these days to do some stuff that I've had to back-burner, but when I got in there was a big pile of stuff dumped on my desk I had to sort. I wasn't best pleased, especially as stuff clearly could have been done with it on the Monday and there wasn't a lot I could practically do with it that others couldn't have done, particularly as my holiday was after New Years, which is when all the critical stuff on these things would actually need to happen.
I therefore wasted a good day and a half with what was essentially hand-turning that others should have already done or could really wait until after New Years when everyone was back.
However, I did manage to get some stuff done that I actually wanted to do, but I can't really say I enjoyed the days at work. The problem really was there were other people there. I've actually found that although rubbish on many levels I kinda enjoy coming in at the weekend - I can work whatever schedule I want and I can concentrate 100% as nobody else is there.
The real problem, though, was my landlord. He wanted to sort out some mould that had developed in the corner of the kitchen and this was fine. He said it might look a bit patchy, but I said that was not something I was worried about.
Now ideally (and this, I think, was the real source of my annoyance) he would have properly redecorated the kitchen. I even made it very clear to him a long way ahead when I was away last Summer for him to use that time to do it. However, like an idiot, he booked a foreign holiday at exactly the same time as when I was away, so he couldn't do it.
But, having mentioned I was working, he decided to take advantage - rather than just sort the mould he started redecorating as well. Now as I say, no problem with him redecorating, but a) he was taking the piss by just launching into it and b) I was on leave (meaning at home) after New Years and he said there was no way he could complete it before then, so I had the prospect of a half decorated kitchen to cope with while I was on leave - yeah, great, thanks for that.
What also annoyed me is I basically didn't move any of the kitchen stuff out of the way when he started (as I say, he was just meant to sort a corner of the room) and so he'd just shoved it all randomly out of the way in a big pile. I can't stand people touching my stuff or being in my rooms at the best of times, and this just wound me up.
Now I actually mentioned this to him when I got back from work on the second day and I also then properly moved my stuff out of the way for the last day I was at work before my leave. I think because I'd implied it was a bit off for him to just launch into it without properly arranging it with me he actually worked hard on that last day and did two coats, so it was done. I was relieved and it looks quite good, but it was still pretty disruptive.
Anyway, then there was New Years eve itself.
I'm not really a fan of New Years. It's completely arbitrary, obviously, but also the problem is that everyone is out and about. If you want to go for a few drinks you won't be able to get any because everywhere is so busy. And otherwise it's normally just a really cold day where everywhere is too busy.
This year was no exception. The plans I'd made didn't really happen and I ended up driving home stone cold sober at about 4:30 in the morning.
The holiday afterwards was okay - I got some stuff done I'd been meaning to do and relaxed a bit. On the up side I watched loads of the stuff I'd recorded and not watched over the last year. My PVR went from about 80% full to about 80% free. I could probably have cleared it, but I find fatigue tends to set in when I watch too much TV in a row.
I'll leave it there I think - as I say, not the greatest time overall. Certainly I've had better year ends.
Thursday, 10 January 2013
despicable me
I actually watched this some time ago, but found it a bit difficult to write a review for.
I did enjoy the film, and that's really the problem. I've said many times before it's harder to write the reviews where basically you liked the film and want to recommend it.
The thing here, I guess, is I was a little trepidations about the film. I'd heard what it was basically about and it appealed as a concept, the thing I was worried about, though, is that it would fall over when it came to the nice ending aspect.
I don't know why you wouldn't know, but the film is essentially about a super villain and how he tries to use three young girls in one of his schemes. I guess I should warn for spoilers, but of course the point of the film is he comes to genuinely care for the girls, and that was what I was worried about. Or rather, I was worried it wouldn't quite work - a film like this can easily fail at the whole aspect of him coming round to love them. It's something that has to be properly earned, and that can be a tricky thing to pull off properly.
And that's why I liked the film - it does a really good job at earning that ending. It also doesn't totally cave in - he's still basically a super-villain at the end, although perhaps one who is reforming.
IF I was to make one criticism of the film it would be the minions. With characters like that there's a really fine line with making them cute and loveable and clearly just an attempt to sell toys. In this case I have to say for me they were on the wrong side of that line.
I think part of my problem was that there was also another character, Dr Nefario, who was meant to be an evil scientist character. The problem I had was that overlapped quite a lot with Gru and the minions, but the minions could only talk in gibberish. I can understand the problem he was there to solve (the minions only talk gibberish and Gru is otherwise on his own, so who does he talk to and how, therefore, do we advance things like plot?) but the problem is it introduces some redundancy.
So if Gru had been an evil-genius scientist as well (somebody needs to build the death rays, et all, right?) then the Dr would be redundant. If the minions are weird geniuses types who madly invent things (they did still seem to sort of do this) then the Dr is redundant. But in both those cases, who does Gru talk to that the audience can also understand?
As such you're left with the minions being like gofers, which was okay, but I dunno, to me it made them fairly pointless, and because they're cute they then start to feel like a way to sell toys.
I know - I'm really overanalysing this, but then, as I said at the top, I liked the film and don't really have much else to say!
I did enjoy the film, and that's really the problem. I've said many times before it's harder to write the reviews where basically you liked the film and want to recommend it.
The thing here, I guess, is I was a little trepidations about the film. I'd heard what it was basically about and it appealed as a concept, the thing I was worried about, though, is that it would fall over when it came to the nice ending aspect.
I don't know why you wouldn't know, but the film is essentially about a super villain and how he tries to use three young girls in one of his schemes. I guess I should warn for spoilers, but of course the point of the film is he comes to genuinely care for the girls, and that was what I was worried about. Or rather, I was worried it wouldn't quite work - a film like this can easily fail at the whole aspect of him coming round to love them. It's something that has to be properly earned, and that can be a tricky thing to pull off properly.
And that's why I liked the film - it does a really good job at earning that ending. It also doesn't totally cave in - he's still basically a super-villain at the end, although perhaps one who is reforming.
IF I was to make one criticism of the film it would be the minions. With characters like that there's a really fine line with making them cute and loveable and clearly just an attempt to sell toys. In this case I have to say for me they were on the wrong side of that line.
I think part of my problem was that there was also another character, Dr Nefario, who was meant to be an evil scientist character. The problem I had was that overlapped quite a lot with Gru and the minions, but the minions could only talk in gibberish. I can understand the problem he was there to solve (the minions only talk gibberish and Gru is otherwise on his own, so who does he talk to and how, therefore, do we advance things like plot?) but the problem is it introduces some redundancy.
So if Gru had been an evil-genius scientist as well (somebody needs to build the death rays, et all, right?) then the Dr would be redundant. If the minions are weird geniuses types who madly invent things (they did still seem to sort of do this) then the Dr is redundant. But in both those cases, who does Gru talk to that the audience can also understand?
As such you're left with the minions being like gofers, which was okay, but I dunno, to me it made them fairly pointless, and because they're cute they then start to feel like a way to sell toys.
I know - I'm really overanalysing this, but then, as I said at the top, I liked the film and don't really have much else to say!
Wednesday, 9 January 2013
worst. christmas. ever.
Back to work then, I guess.
As the title suggests it was a pretty rubbish Christmas period for me.
It started off poorly with a cold. We had the company Christmas lunch quite late this year and unfortunately one of the work colleagues I sat next too brought a cold in. It actually took me a couple of days for it to really kick in, so I guess there's the chance I got it from someone else, but if so, I don't know who that would be as I don't remember encountering anyone else with a cold then.
So the cold really kicked in on Friday, just in time for that first long weekend leading up into Christmas. By Christmas day I was actually over the worst of it, but the weekend and the Monday I'd taken off weren't really all that fun, to be honest.
Although, as I say, I was over the worst of it fairly quickly, the tail end lasted ages and it was New Years day before I really felt it had started to clear up and the following week before it was properly gone, so that's three weeks total.
Christmas Day I went to my sisters. This involved driving down on the day, which was rubbish for a couple of reasons. Firstly it meant I had to get up early and couldn't really pootle - the journey was over 2 hours and I had to aim to get there a good while before lunch to be sure. As you may remember the weather was pretty awful, with yet more flooding in the West Country and of course that's where I was heading.
I saw two accidents on the way down - it was pretty horrible weather for the first two thirds, but then weirdly (and I mean weirdly - it was like driving into another country) it suddenly brightened up and was actually fairly nice for the rest of the day. As well as being poor weather it was also really busy - I mean, not rush hour stuff, but you wouldn't know it was Christmas Day.
The drive down was therefore quite tiring and I was already fairly knackered from the cold so I wasn't really very lively on the day itself. My sister did a good job with the actual day itself - no complaints there - but next time we need to drive down the day before, though driving back on Boxing Day wasn't too bad, though I had to stop drinking quite early to make sure I'd be okay.
I saw about 5 accidents on the way back. I'm assuming most were, if not caused by the weather, then it was a contributing factor. This time of year some idiots drink and drive of course, so that may have been part of some of them.
The B&B was a bit naff - it clearly hadn't been decorated in decades (that or they're stuck in a 70s time warp) and the shower didn't work; she said they were getting the bathroom redone in a week. It was well equipped, though - you could certainly use it as a base of operations if you were holidaying there, but it felt OTT for us just staying the night.
I was sharing with my Dad - something I'd rather have avoided and tried to do so, but as I think I've discussed the organisations side of it (or rather, the communication about the organisation) has not been great. And it proved particularly problematic on this occasion, as my Dad was taken ill.
I won't go into too much detail, but essentially he was having some trouble and it meant he was constantly going to the toilet, which obviously didn't help with me getting to sleep (something I really struggle with anyway in unfamiliar surroundings). At about 4AM I/we basically reached the conclusion he would need to go to hospital. We're not talking life threatening, but medical assistance was needed as there was nothing we could do about the problem or the level of discomfort he was in without it.
Anyway, obviously neither of us know the local area, such as where hospitals are, so we tried NHS Direct. They gave us the nearest one, but of course our cars were back at my sister, a good 20 minute walk away. We therefore got dressed and headed off.
It became apparent during the journey that Dad would not be able to sit in my car (he couldn't sit at all, tbh) and also I pointed out Fay was still drinking quite late so she couldn't drive. She could possibly direct me, but otherwise we would need to try to map read, which would likely make the journey longer than necessary.
Of course for my sister to direct we would need to wake her up, and with Dad not being able to sit we eventually decided to call an ambulance - I wanted to try directory enquiries and get the A&E but instead we used 999.
The ambulance actually arrived quite quickly and my sister went with him to hospital (I had a quiet word with her and explained I'd not slept at all and could barely see straight, let alone go to the hospital). I therefore walked back to the B&B and tried to get some sleep. Of course by then I was basically awake and only really had a small nap, which got me through the rest of the day as it was, but I felt awful.
Just to finish off - my Dad was essentially fine. It wasn't really a life-threatening condition as such, it was just something he couldn't put up with and we had no way of sorting.
As the title suggests it was a pretty rubbish Christmas period for me.
It started off poorly with a cold. We had the company Christmas lunch quite late this year and unfortunately one of the work colleagues I sat next too brought a cold in. It actually took me a couple of days for it to really kick in, so I guess there's the chance I got it from someone else, but if so, I don't know who that would be as I don't remember encountering anyone else with a cold then.
So the cold really kicked in on Friday, just in time for that first long weekend leading up into Christmas. By Christmas day I was actually over the worst of it, but the weekend and the Monday I'd taken off weren't really all that fun, to be honest.
Although, as I say, I was over the worst of it fairly quickly, the tail end lasted ages and it was New Years day before I really felt it had started to clear up and the following week before it was properly gone, so that's three weeks total.
Christmas Day I went to my sisters. This involved driving down on the day, which was rubbish for a couple of reasons. Firstly it meant I had to get up early and couldn't really pootle - the journey was over 2 hours and I had to aim to get there a good while before lunch to be sure. As you may remember the weather was pretty awful, with yet more flooding in the West Country and of course that's where I was heading.
I saw two accidents on the way down - it was pretty horrible weather for the first two thirds, but then weirdly (and I mean weirdly - it was like driving into another country) it suddenly brightened up and was actually fairly nice for the rest of the day. As well as being poor weather it was also really busy - I mean, not rush hour stuff, but you wouldn't know it was Christmas Day.
The drive down was therefore quite tiring and I was already fairly knackered from the cold so I wasn't really very lively on the day itself. My sister did a good job with the actual day itself - no complaints there - but next time we need to drive down the day before, though driving back on Boxing Day wasn't too bad, though I had to stop drinking quite early to make sure I'd be okay.
I saw about 5 accidents on the way back. I'm assuming most were, if not caused by the weather, then it was a contributing factor. This time of year some idiots drink and drive of course, so that may have been part of some of them.
The B&B was a bit naff - it clearly hadn't been decorated in decades (that or they're stuck in a 70s time warp) and the shower didn't work; she said they were getting the bathroom redone in a week. It was well equipped, though - you could certainly use it as a base of operations if you were holidaying there, but it felt OTT for us just staying the night.
I was sharing with my Dad - something I'd rather have avoided and tried to do so, but as I think I've discussed the organisations side of it (or rather, the communication about the organisation) has not been great. And it proved particularly problematic on this occasion, as my Dad was taken ill.
I won't go into too much detail, but essentially he was having some trouble and it meant he was constantly going to the toilet, which obviously didn't help with me getting to sleep (something I really struggle with anyway in unfamiliar surroundings). At about 4AM I/we basically reached the conclusion he would need to go to hospital. We're not talking life threatening, but medical assistance was needed as there was nothing we could do about the problem or the level of discomfort he was in without it.
Anyway, obviously neither of us know the local area, such as where hospitals are, so we tried NHS Direct. They gave us the nearest one, but of course our cars were back at my sister, a good 20 minute walk away. We therefore got dressed and headed off.
It became apparent during the journey that Dad would not be able to sit in my car (he couldn't sit at all, tbh) and also I pointed out Fay was still drinking quite late so she couldn't drive. She could possibly direct me, but otherwise we would need to try to map read, which would likely make the journey longer than necessary.
Of course for my sister to direct we would need to wake her up, and with Dad not being able to sit we eventually decided to call an ambulance - I wanted to try directory enquiries and get the A&E but instead we used 999.
The ambulance actually arrived quite quickly and my sister went with him to hospital (I had a quiet word with her and explained I'd not slept at all and could barely see straight, let alone go to the hospital). I therefore walked back to the B&B and tried to get some sleep. Of course by then I was basically awake and only really had a small nap, which got me through the rest of the day as it was, but I felt awful.
Just to finish off - my Dad was essentially fine. It wasn't really a life-threatening condition as such, it was just something he couldn't put up with and we had no way of sorting.
Friday, 21 December 2012
chrimbo period
I’m on leave on Monday and then Tuesday and Wednesday are Christmas Day and Boxing Day.
However, this year I am not having my usual two weeks holiday over the Christmas and New Year period. There are a couple of reasons for this.
Firstly, the Chrimbo period is rather different this year. Usually I would go and see my Dad for a few days and then take the rest of it away from home until New Year's when I would return and have a week at home. However, my sister is hosting us for Christmas day, although this really is just Christmas Day and Boxing Day.
As such I have decided to work the period between Chrimbo and New Year. I’m then taking the week after New Year off. There are other reasons, though.
Firstly I used up a lot of my holiday while job hunting. This meant I would have struggled to take the full two weeks - I had some left, but not enough for two weeks. Indeed, by taking the week in New Year I actually get to punt some of my 2012 leave into 2013.
The second reason is I am hoping it will be relatively quiet and I will be able to catch up on some work stuff that I’ve also had to put on hold while I’ve done the other stuff these last few weeks.
The final reason is that I’m still not sure about staying with the company - the promises I was made haven’t manifested and I've a sneaky feeling the boss is going to throw a bit of a curve ball and do something different. As such, I've decided that I will probably give it until a couple of months into the New Year and then go job hunting again.
In that case my transferred days will be particularly useful.
Now whether I will blog next week I kinda doubt, so I will leave you with my best wishes for the holiday period!
However, this year I am not having my usual two weeks holiday over the Christmas and New Year period. There are a couple of reasons for this.
Firstly, the Chrimbo period is rather different this year. Usually I would go and see my Dad for a few days and then take the rest of it away from home until New Year's when I would return and have a week at home. However, my sister is hosting us for Christmas day, although this really is just Christmas Day and Boxing Day.
As such I have decided to work the period between Chrimbo and New Year. I’m then taking the week after New Year off. There are other reasons, though.
Firstly I used up a lot of my holiday while job hunting. This meant I would have struggled to take the full two weeks - I had some left, but not enough for two weeks. Indeed, by taking the week in New Year I actually get to punt some of my 2012 leave into 2013.
The second reason is I am hoping it will be relatively quiet and I will be able to catch up on some work stuff that I’ve also had to put on hold while I’ve done the other stuff these last few weeks.
The final reason is that I’m still not sure about staying with the company - the promises I was made haven’t manifested and I've a sneaky feeling the boss is going to throw a bit of a curve ball and do something different. As such, I've decided that I will probably give it until a couple of months into the New Year and then go job hunting again.
In that case my transferred days will be particularly useful.
Now whether I will blog next week I kinda doubt, so I will leave you with my best wishes for the holiday period!
Thursday, 20 December 2012
2012 grand prix season
Of course one of the things I would have blogged about while I was too busy was the completion of this year’s Grand Prix season.
The season ended in Brazil, obviously, and it was a cracking race. It had just about everything - a bit of rain to throw the cards in the air, plenty of drama and loads of overtaking. It was a race that probably summed up the season as a whole.
And what a season it’s been - I’m not sure I’ve seen a season before where to many teams and drivers were genuinely in with a shout at the title for so long. Even at the end it went down to the wire between Alonso and Vettel.
If I'm totally honest I think I would have preferred Alonso to take it. The mark of the truly great driver is to drive “beyond” the car, which is to say, to achieve more than the car is worth on paper. This year's Ferrari was clearly not as good as the others, yet Alonso kept getting good results and kept putting it on the podium.
Of course it would be wrong to say he was robbed by the couple of occasions he was caught up in accidents. Vettel also had a couple of races where he was in other people’s accidents or caused trouble by others that meant he didn’t get the points.
And of course that’s the nature of motor racing - it’s not just about the quality of the driver, it’s about the quality of the car and the entire team. You could easily (and fairly rightly) say that McLaren threw it away - they had the fastest car at the start and dominated races at the start and end, but through lots of mechanical failures and “finger trouble” they put themselves out of the competition. To finish first, first you must finish.
So on to next year. I had originally thought we would potentially be going to the British Grand Prix next year, but it sounds like not. Instead, the thought is we’ll go to a foreign race in a couple of years. My sister wants to go to Singapore, but I don’t fancy that at all. I think somewhere like Austin would be much better - I mean, I’d rather go on holiday to Texas than Singapore, but also the race would be much better.
There may be a downside to this - next year the rules are basically the same so I’m expecting another super-close season, but the year after there’s loads of changes. The turbos come in and I believe there are some changes in terms of fuel limits and hence size of the cars. Traditionally big rules changes mean one team dominates as they get things “just right” - stability allows others to copy them and so you get better, closer seasons.
Anyway, hopefully next year will be as good as this year. The only downside this year has been the bloody BBC not showing all the races live on TV.
The season ended in Brazil, obviously, and it was a cracking race. It had just about everything - a bit of rain to throw the cards in the air, plenty of drama and loads of overtaking. It was a race that probably summed up the season as a whole.
And what a season it’s been - I’m not sure I’ve seen a season before where to many teams and drivers were genuinely in with a shout at the title for so long. Even at the end it went down to the wire between Alonso and Vettel.
If I'm totally honest I think I would have preferred Alonso to take it. The mark of the truly great driver is to drive “beyond” the car, which is to say, to achieve more than the car is worth on paper. This year's Ferrari was clearly not as good as the others, yet Alonso kept getting good results and kept putting it on the podium.
Of course it would be wrong to say he was robbed by the couple of occasions he was caught up in accidents. Vettel also had a couple of races where he was in other people’s accidents or caused trouble by others that meant he didn’t get the points.
And of course that’s the nature of motor racing - it’s not just about the quality of the driver, it’s about the quality of the car and the entire team. You could easily (and fairly rightly) say that McLaren threw it away - they had the fastest car at the start and dominated races at the start and end, but through lots of mechanical failures and “finger trouble” they put themselves out of the competition. To finish first, first you must finish.
So on to next year. I had originally thought we would potentially be going to the British Grand Prix next year, but it sounds like not. Instead, the thought is we’ll go to a foreign race in a couple of years. My sister wants to go to Singapore, but I don’t fancy that at all. I think somewhere like Austin would be much better - I mean, I’d rather go on holiday to Texas than Singapore, but also the race would be much better.
There may be a downside to this - next year the rules are basically the same so I’m expecting another super-close season, but the year after there’s loads of changes. The turbos come in and I believe there are some changes in terms of fuel limits and hence size of the cars. Traditionally big rules changes mean one team dominates as they get things “just right” - stability allows others to copy them and so you get better, closer seasons.
Anyway, hopefully next year will be as good as this year. The only downside this year has been the bloody BBC not showing all the races live on TV.
Wednesday, 19 December 2012
conan the barbarian
What a terrible film.
Okay, terrible is a bit extreme, but it really wasn’t very good.
I recall the Schwarzenegger Conan films with a great deal of affection. They were terrible too, but in a jolly, fun sort of way. They were extremely low budget and Arnie isn’t the greatest of actors, so what do you expect.
The films were also, apparently, not hugely faithful to the original character. I’ve never read any of the Conan stories, though I recall the comic book adaptation, but apparently Conan is quite clever. The Arnie Conan is basically a slab of muscle who hacks and slashes his way through the films.
This film is, I think, an attempt to take Conan back to that original book version. He’s still quite muscly, but he’s also quite clever - well, in a relative sense. You don’t get the impression he’s secretly a nerd and if he’s so clever, why not learn magic or similar? But he certainly thinks things through and plans.
The problem with the film is that problem that all film adaptations of classic works have - you basically know the story already. You know what’s going to happen, either because it’s something you’ve read or there have been loads of adaptation before as, in the case of Conan it’s been imitated to the point of cliché.
I mean, there haven’t been that many adaptation of Conan and while I’m sure it’s well read, it’s not something I’ve read, but the trouble is that loads of films have basically been Conan without Conan. Think of any fantasy film or (in particular) game that has a barbarian character and that barbarian is Conan.
But also we’ve seen all the baddies too - the evil wizards and princesses that need saving. It’s all been done so many times that it takes a real trick shot to give it any sort of feeling of freshness or newness, and this film just isn’t up to it.
It also makes some classic modern mistakes. It’s way too long - this is a popcorn action film, but it’s very nearly two hours long because film tickets are so expensive that’s become the norm - give them better value for money at 2 hours. But it would have been far better to make it quick, pacy, exciting, thrill-a-minute stuff.
It’s also clearly been filmed in 3D, so there’s the classic “stuff coming at you” tedious 3D cobblers in it too. This does not make it a better film.
In this case there’s also a few specific problems, in particular with the magic. The basic plot of the film seems to revolve around the bad guy trying to resurrect his dead wife using magic, but the magic in the film is very inconsistent. When he finally gets hold of this magic at the end it seems very weak, particularly when compared to some of the magic earlier in the film. And the magic at the end seems really difficult to get to use, but the stuff earlier seems like a piece of piss, yet is much easier.
It’s just not very good, as I say.
Okay, terrible is a bit extreme, but it really wasn’t very good.
I recall the Schwarzenegger Conan films with a great deal of affection. They were terrible too, but in a jolly, fun sort of way. They were extremely low budget and Arnie isn’t the greatest of actors, so what do you expect.
The films were also, apparently, not hugely faithful to the original character. I’ve never read any of the Conan stories, though I recall the comic book adaptation, but apparently Conan is quite clever. The Arnie Conan is basically a slab of muscle who hacks and slashes his way through the films.
This film is, I think, an attempt to take Conan back to that original book version. He’s still quite muscly, but he’s also quite clever - well, in a relative sense. You don’t get the impression he’s secretly a nerd and if he’s so clever, why not learn magic or similar? But he certainly thinks things through and plans.
The problem with the film is that problem that all film adaptations of classic works have - you basically know the story already. You know what’s going to happen, either because it’s something you’ve read or there have been loads of adaptation before as, in the case of Conan it’s been imitated to the point of cliché.
I mean, there haven’t been that many adaptation of Conan and while I’m sure it’s well read, it’s not something I’ve read, but the trouble is that loads of films have basically been Conan without Conan. Think of any fantasy film or (in particular) game that has a barbarian character and that barbarian is Conan.
But also we’ve seen all the baddies too - the evil wizards and princesses that need saving. It’s all been done so many times that it takes a real trick shot to give it any sort of feeling of freshness or newness, and this film just isn’t up to it.
It also makes some classic modern mistakes. It’s way too long - this is a popcorn action film, but it’s very nearly two hours long because film tickets are so expensive that’s become the norm - give them better value for money at 2 hours. But it would have been far better to make it quick, pacy, exciting, thrill-a-minute stuff.
It’s also clearly been filmed in 3D, so there’s the classic “stuff coming at you” tedious 3D cobblers in it too. This does not make it a better film.
In this case there’s also a few specific problems, in particular with the magic. The basic plot of the film seems to revolve around the bad guy trying to resurrect his dead wife using magic, but the magic in the film is very inconsistent. When he finally gets hold of this magic at the end it seems very weak, particularly when compared to some of the magic earlier in the film. And the magic at the end seems really difficult to get to use, but the stuff earlier seems like a piece of piss, yet is much easier.
It’s just not very good, as I say.
Tuesday, 18 December 2012
chrimbo lunch
chrimbo lunch
It's the company Christmas lunch today.
One of the perks we get at work is that the company takes us out for lunch when there are birthdays in the company and for Christmas. It’s interesting - I know in a lot of companies they have to pay towards their company lunch, but then they have a big session that’s more like a party. My company's is somewhere in between - the company pays for it, but it is just lunch and we have to work around it on the day.
I usually enjoy it, but it can be a mixed bag. Some of the places we've been the food isn’t very good or it all takes so long your bum goes numb and my back starts to ache. Also if I can get sat next to or near the people in the company I like then that helps.
On some occasions I’ve been trapped with some people that they’ve invited along (it’s complicated) who I don’t know or turn out to be boring.
Last year's wasn’t great - the food was poor, it all took ages (3 hours!) and I was next to an invitee who was nice enough but never stopped talking.
Hopefully this year will be better!
It's the company Christmas lunch today.
One of the perks we get at work is that the company takes us out for lunch when there are birthdays in the company and for Christmas. It’s interesting - I know in a lot of companies they have to pay towards their company lunch, but then they have a big session that’s more like a party. My company's is somewhere in between - the company pays for it, but it is just lunch and we have to work around it on the day.
I usually enjoy it, but it can be a mixed bag. Some of the places we've been the food isn’t very good or it all takes so long your bum goes numb and my back starts to ache. Also if I can get sat next to or near the people in the company I like then that helps.
On some occasions I’ve been trapped with some people that they’ve invited along (it’s complicated) who I don’t know or turn out to be boring.
Last year's wasn’t great - the food was poor, it all took ages (3 hours!) and I was next to an invitee who was nice enough but never stopped talking.
Hopefully this year will be better!
Monday, 17 December 2012
the weeks gone by
I guess it’s pretty obvious so I don’t need to say it, but I guess for the record the last few weeks I haven’t been blogging because I’ve just been too busy at work.
Well, I say that. The last two and a half weeks I haven’t actually been at work! The reason for that leave was because of work, though - I flagged up to my boss that I had been doing ridiculous hours (and was going to do even more hours before I was finished) so she agreed to letting me have time off in lieu.
So what have I been doing at work?
Well, we received some very large bids and there was very little resource available to bid for the work apart from me. To be totally honest the situation was ridiculous - the total value of these piece of work were several million pounds as they covered many years and I was basically bidding them on my own! And what’s more all of them had only several weeks to bid and they overlapped!
As you can therefore imagine, I was full-on with them, but what made it worse is that, because there was no-one else to do anything else, I still had to do a bunch of other stuff too. I therefore had multiple weeks where my hours were in the order of 45 hours per week (instead of 37.5 as contracted) and I was doing loads of hours at the weekend.
I actually reached a point where I was at work but unable to do anything - I was so tired I couldn’t even think.
And so as I say I had the time off in lieu. And I feel so much better for it.
But what did I do with my time off?
Well, a lot of time was spent doing things that I should have done during the normal week but just didn’t have time for. So I did a big pile of washing, which consisted mainly of the bits of washing at the bottom of the basket where I’ve just been doing quick washes of my basic clothes.
I also did all my Christmas shopping. I mean, obviously I bought most of the significant presents online, but because of how Christmas is this year I’m having to buy presents for several other people (don’t ask - it’s complicated and I’m not hugely happy about it) and these are mainly of the booze variety, so I bought them at normal shops. I also like to buy a few random gifts for people and of course there’s cards and wrapping paper, so I got all that. I therefore now have a big pile of presents and stuff ready to go instead of some unopened amazon boxes and a list of stuff to buy.
And there was the chrimbo food buying. While I’m leaving the break until New Year I’m still planning on having my own chrimbo roast. So I bought pigs in blankets and stuffing and all that, which are now squirrelled away. I’ve also bought all the food I’ll need until after Chrimbo - shopping becomes hell this time of year, so I avoid it by pre-buying, but obviously couldn’t do it until now. In particular I bought the ingredients for my traditional chrimbo bolognaise, one portion of which I had and the others went in the freezer.
What else? I did clean the flat - this I do every fortnight but haven't really done properly while I’ve been so busy, so that was good.
I also sorted out my big piles of Japanese magazines - the piles are huge as I’ve done no scanning. I have a plan, though - I’m going to use my chrimbo money (and bonus?) to buy an A3 scanner. The A4 scanner + Photoshop's “sticking together” tool is just not for me: it quadruples the time taken and is beyond tedious: so much so I’ve avoided it at all costs. However, my old A3 scanner doesn't have a windows7 driver and the heat sink on my XP machine has packed up.
But the three things I particularly did were play some computer games, “internet stuff” (meaning reading e-mails, reading blogs and articles, buying stuff, downloading fansubs - all that stuff I used to fill my time with at work that then got moved to weekends and having been working weekends I’ve not done at all!) and, in particular, watching recorded TV programs.
Now this work isn't he reason I built up loads of unwatched TV, but it is the reason the amount of stuff has steadily crept up rather than shrunk. Well now instead of less than 30% free space I have more than 50% free.
Well, I say that. The last two and a half weeks I haven’t actually been at work! The reason for that leave was because of work, though - I flagged up to my boss that I had been doing ridiculous hours (and was going to do even more hours before I was finished) so she agreed to letting me have time off in lieu.
So what have I been doing at work?
Well, we received some very large bids and there was very little resource available to bid for the work apart from me. To be totally honest the situation was ridiculous - the total value of these piece of work were several million pounds as they covered many years and I was basically bidding them on my own! And what’s more all of them had only several weeks to bid and they overlapped!
As you can therefore imagine, I was full-on with them, but what made it worse is that, because there was no-one else to do anything else, I still had to do a bunch of other stuff too. I therefore had multiple weeks where my hours were in the order of 45 hours per week (instead of 37.5 as contracted) and I was doing loads of hours at the weekend.
I actually reached a point where I was at work but unable to do anything - I was so tired I couldn’t even think.
And so as I say I had the time off in lieu. And I feel so much better for it.
But what did I do with my time off?
Well, a lot of time was spent doing things that I should have done during the normal week but just didn’t have time for. So I did a big pile of washing, which consisted mainly of the bits of washing at the bottom of the basket where I’ve just been doing quick washes of my basic clothes.
I also did all my Christmas shopping. I mean, obviously I bought most of the significant presents online, but because of how Christmas is this year I’m having to buy presents for several other people (don’t ask - it’s complicated and I’m not hugely happy about it) and these are mainly of the booze variety, so I bought them at normal shops. I also like to buy a few random gifts for people and of course there’s cards and wrapping paper, so I got all that. I therefore now have a big pile of presents and stuff ready to go instead of some unopened amazon boxes and a list of stuff to buy.
And there was the chrimbo food buying. While I’m leaving the break until New Year I’m still planning on having my own chrimbo roast. So I bought pigs in blankets and stuffing and all that, which are now squirrelled away. I’ve also bought all the food I’ll need until after Chrimbo - shopping becomes hell this time of year, so I avoid it by pre-buying, but obviously couldn’t do it until now. In particular I bought the ingredients for my traditional chrimbo bolognaise, one portion of which I had and the others went in the freezer.
What else? I did clean the flat - this I do every fortnight but haven't really done properly while I’ve been so busy, so that was good.
I also sorted out my big piles of Japanese magazines - the piles are huge as I’ve done no scanning. I have a plan, though - I’m going to use my chrimbo money (and bonus?) to buy an A3 scanner. The A4 scanner + Photoshop's “sticking together” tool is just not for me: it quadruples the time taken and is beyond tedious: so much so I’ve avoided it at all costs. However, my old A3 scanner doesn't have a windows7 driver and the heat sink on my XP machine has packed up.
But the three things I particularly did were play some computer games, “internet stuff” (meaning reading e-mails, reading blogs and articles, buying stuff, downloading fansubs - all that stuff I used to fill my time with at work that then got moved to weekends and having been working weekends I’ve not done at all!) and, in particular, watching recorded TV programs.
Now this work isn't he reason I built up loads of unwatched TV, but it is the reason the amount of stuff has steadily crept up rather than shrunk. Well now instead of less than 30% free space I have more than 50% free.
Tuesday, 4 December 2012
failed
So I failed to pre-write any blog posts over my weekend off.
I got in on Monday and there were more than 50 e-mails for me to deal with as well as a stack of other things to do so I didn't get time to write post. Heck, I didn't even check my e-mail all day.
To be honest I'm getting a bit sick of this at the moment. The real problem is that I am essentially on my own with covering the elements I do and while that's okay on one level the trouble is I don't have full control - there is pressure for me to do more than is physically possible.
And that's how come I ended up doing 49 hours a couple of weeks ago. See, when I look at my timesheet I spent my expected working hours (37.5ish) on the thing I'm supposed to be working on, and then the other 12 hours were on all sorts of crap that I should have been able/allowed to dump but just couldn't.
And that really comes back to me being on my own - if I don't do it then it doesn't happen. And of course other people are expecting me to pick to do stuff, and we're back to my first point - I end up doing a 49 hour week.
Now if we worked flexi I wouldn't mind so much, but we don't - that's a12 extra hours that I will not see again and won't get overtime for or anything like that.
I have to confess I've started to wonder why I'm still here. I think I know deep down that the job offer I got before wouldn't have been the right move, but I could have kept on with the job hunting and I'm sure I'd have eventually gotten another offer.
The prime reason for staying and stopping looking altogether were my slightly cryptic posts about "cake later" but there's no evidence that this cake is any further baked than when it was first mentioned. Indeed, I've a horrible suspicion that oven is being used to bake another cake that I'm not going to get a slice of.
I know that's even more cryptic, but I don't like to be specific in these blog posts as it's not really stuff I should be putting out into the aether.
I got in on Monday and there were more than 50 e-mails for me to deal with as well as a stack of other things to do so I didn't get time to write post. Heck, I didn't even check my e-mail all day.
To be honest I'm getting a bit sick of this at the moment. The real problem is that I am essentially on my own with covering the elements I do and while that's okay on one level the trouble is I don't have full control - there is pressure for me to do more than is physically possible.
And that's how come I ended up doing 49 hours a couple of weeks ago. See, when I look at my timesheet I spent my expected working hours (37.5ish) on the thing I'm supposed to be working on, and then the other 12 hours were on all sorts of crap that I should have been able/allowed to dump but just couldn't.
And that really comes back to me being on my own - if I don't do it then it doesn't happen. And of course other people are expecting me to pick to do stuff, and we're back to my first point - I end up doing a 49 hour week.
Now if we worked flexi I wouldn't mind so much, but we don't - that's a12 extra hours that I will not see again and won't get overtime for or anything like that.
I have to confess I've started to wonder why I'm still here. I think I know deep down that the job offer I got before wouldn't have been the right move, but I could have kept on with the job hunting and I'm sure I'd have eventually gotten another offer.
The prime reason for staying and stopping looking altogether were my slightly cryptic posts about "cake later" but there's no evidence that this cake is any further baked than when it was first mentioned. Indeed, I've a horrible suspicion that oven is being used to bake another cake that I'm not going to get a slice of.
I know that's even more cryptic, but I don't like to be specific in these blog posts as it's not really stuff I should be putting out into the aether.
Thursday, 29 November 2012
no blogging
No blog posts this week as it's been absolutely manic.
Well, actually it was super manic last week (I did 49 hours: standard hours are 37.5) and just plain busy this week. Trouble was last week left me shattered and then I've had virtually no sleep Sunday and Monday night, so blogging wasn't really in the forefront of my mind.
Also I'm on leave tomorrow so this is it for the week. I'll try to write a bunch of stuff while I'm off - particularly on the F1 and stuff I've watched and should review.
Well, actually it was super manic last week (I did 49 hours: standard hours are 37.5) and just plain busy this week. Trouble was last week left me shattered and then I've had virtually no sleep Sunday and Monday night, so blogging wasn't really in the forefront of my mind.
Also I'm on leave tomorrow so this is it for the week. I'll try to write a bunch of stuff while I'm off - particularly on the F1 and stuff I've watched and should review.
Friday, 23 November 2012
getting a brazilian
Well, it's that time to make puns again as it's the Brazilian Grand Prix this weekend.
It's usually a cracker Brazil as the circuit is quite short, quite quick and has opportunities for overtaking. Of course this year we have the added interest in the resolution of the Driver's championship.
I have to say I would prefer Alonso to win, but you can't say Vettel (and Red Bull in particular) would be undeserving winners.
It has been one of the best seasons in a while and it's just a shame that Lewis was the victim of so much finger-trouble during the year and some unsuccessful development by the team. I think the honest truth is that McLaren has let Lewis down this year (and arguably the last few years). Obviously I'm biased as I'm a fan, but I think he's probably the best pure race driver out there.
Sure others have the edge in some areas but Lewis is the sort of driver I like - one who takes the car by the scuff of the next and gets the best out of and that never settles for position / points if he can chase down and pass someone. In a way he's actually somewhat disadvantaged by the non-standardised nature of F1.
Some formulas the cars are basically all identical (either by rule design or that they are all literally manufactured by the same company) but in F1 the idea is each team designs their own car - some parts are standardised and some there are only a few choices of very similar components (engines, for example) but in F1 it's all very much down to what the team designs and builds.
It's an underappreciated part of the sport for the general public: F1 is very much a team sport.
Next year also looks like it's going to be a good one as the rules are basically the same, meaning the teams should be even closer - particularly in terms of the teams at the back, as it will give them a chance to incorporate some of the cleverer ideas they've seen on the big team's cars.
It's usually a cracker Brazil as the circuit is quite short, quite quick and has opportunities for overtaking. Of course this year we have the added interest in the resolution of the Driver's championship.
I have to say I would prefer Alonso to win, but you can't say Vettel (and Red Bull in particular) would be undeserving winners.
It has been one of the best seasons in a while and it's just a shame that Lewis was the victim of so much finger-trouble during the year and some unsuccessful development by the team. I think the honest truth is that McLaren has let Lewis down this year (and arguably the last few years). Obviously I'm biased as I'm a fan, but I think he's probably the best pure race driver out there.
Sure others have the edge in some areas but Lewis is the sort of driver I like - one who takes the car by the scuff of the next and gets the best out of and that never settles for position / points if he can chase down and pass someone. In a way he's actually somewhat disadvantaged by the non-standardised nature of F1.
Some formulas the cars are basically all identical (either by rule design or that they are all literally manufactured by the same company) but in F1 the idea is each team designs their own car - some parts are standardised and some there are only a few choices of very similar components (engines, for example) but in F1 it's all very much down to what the team designs and builds.
It's an underappreciated part of the sport for the general public: F1 is very much a team sport.
Next year also looks like it's going to be a good one as the rules are basically the same, meaning the teams should be even closer - particularly in terms of the teams at the back, as it will give them a chance to incorporate some of the cleverer ideas they've seen on the big team's cars.
Thursday, 22 November 2012
it lives
So I tested my yeast this last weekend.
The results were not exactly conclusive.
Well, I say that - I did reach a firm conclusion that the new yeast I brought is definitely okay and a packet of yeast I opened from the last batch is also probably okay. However, as to whether the older yeast is okay, I am of the feeling that it is not, but my results were cast into doubt by the new yeast.
Let me explain.
Basically, my main theory as to why my bread recently has not been rising was either that the yeast I was using is dead/contaminated/not working very well, but I was also suspicious that temperate was an issue. With the recent down-turn in temperature I was suspicious that the yeast was not getting fully activated and hence not rising properly.
That would explain why the bread rises were poor, but not completely absent - the bread wasn't like an unleavened bread, but was only about a third of what it should have been.
As such I looked up testing the yeast - what temperature to use - and discovered it was actually surprisingly warm (115F - 120F). You also put in some sugar to give it something to feed on and give it 10 minutes - no rise = dead yeast.
So I gave this a go and got a very result from my old yeast - a slight scum, but nothing to write home about. I then tried it again using my brand new yeast and the other packet I opened from a few weeks back. And I got mixed results - the new yeast went bonkers and the older yeast was somewhere in between.
However, the problem was I was not particularly stringent on the temperatures. The last one with the brand new yeast I did at the proper temperature range. The mid-age yeast I did at a warm temperature but a good way below the recommended range and the old yeast I was quite a long way below.
Now I'd not been stringent because I hadn't thought it would make a big impact, but essentially I effectively got results of: very low temperature = poor result; medium low temperate = okay result; correct temperature = great result as well as the age factor.
In other words I didn't conclusively prove that it's the yeast that's bad, only that I need to be more precise with my temperatures before I can be sure.
However, I did use the two yeasts that had worked to bake loaves and got some awesome results. I'd worried that the bread maker might be faulty, but using the new yeast in there it produced an excellent loaf and using the medium-age yeast to hand-make a loaf I got an excellent result too.
I quite like hand-making, but it can be a bit messy and is a hell of a lot more faff than just sticking it all in the machine.
Still, now I can at least test the old yeast properly next time and see if it is duff.
The results were not exactly conclusive.
Well, I say that - I did reach a firm conclusion that the new yeast I brought is definitely okay and a packet of yeast I opened from the last batch is also probably okay. However, as to whether the older yeast is okay, I am of the feeling that it is not, but my results were cast into doubt by the new yeast.
Let me explain.
Basically, my main theory as to why my bread recently has not been rising was either that the yeast I was using is dead/contaminated/not working very well, but I was also suspicious that temperate was an issue. With the recent down-turn in temperature I was suspicious that the yeast was not getting fully activated and hence not rising properly.
That would explain why the bread rises were poor, but not completely absent - the bread wasn't like an unleavened bread, but was only about a third of what it should have been.
As such I looked up testing the yeast - what temperature to use - and discovered it was actually surprisingly warm (115F - 120F). You also put in some sugar to give it something to feed on and give it 10 minutes - no rise = dead yeast.
So I gave this a go and got a very result from my old yeast - a slight scum, but nothing to write home about. I then tried it again using my brand new yeast and the other packet I opened from a few weeks back. And I got mixed results - the new yeast went bonkers and the older yeast was somewhere in between.
However, the problem was I was not particularly stringent on the temperatures. The last one with the brand new yeast I did at the proper temperature range. The mid-age yeast I did at a warm temperature but a good way below the recommended range and the old yeast I was quite a long way below.
Now I'd not been stringent because I hadn't thought it would make a big impact, but essentially I effectively got results of: very low temperature = poor result; medium low temperate = okay result; correct temperature = great result as well as the age factor.
In other words I didn't conclusively prove that it's the yeast that's bad, only that I need to be more precise with my temperatures before I can be sure.
However, I did use the two yeasts that had worked to bake loaves and got some awesome results. I'd worried that the bread maker might be faulty, but using the new yeast in there it produced an excellent loaf and using the medium-age yeast to hand-make a loaf I got an excellent result too.
I quite like hand-making, but it can be a bit messy and is a hell of a lot more faff than just sticking it all in the machine.
Still, now I can at least test the old yeast properly next time and see if it is duff.
pirates! in an adventure with scientists
I should have posted this yesterday, but was far too busy and forgot!
I really wanted to like this.
It's made by Aardman (in Claymation - they've done a few digital films too) and is an adaptation of a series of popular books. As I understand it the books aren't actually aimed at children, but I think this film was.
I'm not sure if that was my problem with it, though. My real problem was more that it felt like you needed to have read the books to really get the film. Or, to put it another way, it felt like we were being dumped inside a world where we were supposed to know how everything worked (what the "rules" were), but I didn't, so I felt lost.
Which isn't to say I thought it was a bad film, it's just that I found myself confused at bits and so missing other bits. Why, for example, is the Pirate Captain called Pirate Captain? I'm guessing there's actually no explanation for that in the books as it's meant to be a joke, but why are all the other pirates on his ship known by their defining characteristics, rather than proper names. So there's Albino Pirate and Pirate with Gout, for example. It's particularly odd as other pirates that aren't on the ship have names - is it just because Pirate Captain forgets their names? Forgetfulness isn't really a trait they play up.
But then saying that they never really refer to each other by name either - the only one who does is Pirate Captain, and even then, not all the time. So Pirate with Gout has a bandaged leg, but it was only at the end when the credits rolled I realised that this was because he was meant to be suffering with gout.
I mean, perhaps it was mentioned elsewhere in the film but I missed it. The trouble is that's my point - I seemed to miss quite a few things that were important to make things funny or to help the plot.
So, for example, at one point a character is crushed. After a few moments he then appears in a doorway, confounding the hero's theory. Well, how did he get in the doorway? Did he crawl along the sewer? Maybe it's explained, but otherwise it's random.
Now random can be funny, but I don't think random was meant to be the type of funny here.
Another example was that another character finds a document that then explains some stuff later on. However, I completely missed this and only discovered that was meant to be the point when they said it in the commentary.
As it was when he said "I found out X" I was left wondering how he found out X and where he'd got the bit of paper from that he showed Pirate Captain to prove X.
Again, it's a relatively minor thing, but it seemed to happen quite a lot and I kept finding myself going "eh?" rather than laughing.
I dunno, maybe it's me - perhaps I was a bit tired or something?
I mean the film looked great and there was plenty in there I did enjoy, it's just I didn't like it as much as I thought I would.
I really wanted to like this.
It's made by Aardman (in Claymation - they've done a few digital films too) and is an adaptation of a series of popular books. As I understand it the books aren't actually aimed at children, but I think this film was.
I'm not sure if that was my problem with it, though. My real problem was more that it felt like you needed to have read the books to really get the film. Or, to put it another way, it felt like we were being dumped inside a world where we were supposed to know how everything worked (what the "rules" were), but I didn't, so I felt lost.
Which isn't to say I thought it was a bad film, it's just that I found myself confused at bits and so missing other bits. Why, for example, is the Pirate Captain called Pirate Captain? I'm guessing there's actually no explanation for that in the books as it's meant to be a joke, but why are all the other pirates on his ship known by their defining characteristics, rather than proper names. So there's Albino Pirate and Pirate with Gout, for example. It's particularly odd as other pirates that aren't on the ship have names - is it just because Pirate Captain forgets their names? Forgetfulness isn't really a trait they play up.
But then saying that they never really refer to each other by name either - the only one who does is Pirate Captain, and even then, not all the time. So Pirate with Gout has a bandaged leg, but it was only at the end when the credits rolled I realised that this was because he was meant to be suffering with gout.
I mean, perhaps it was mentioned elsewhere in the film but I missed it. The trouble is that's my point - I seemed to miss quite a few things that were important to make things funny or to help the plot.
So, for example, at one point a character is crushed. After a few moments he then appears in a doorway, confounding the hero's theory. Well, how did he get in the doorway? Did he crawl along the sewer? Maybe it's explained, but otherwise it's random.
Now random can be funny, but I don't think random was meant to be the type of funny here.
Another example was that another character finds a document that then explains some stuff later on. However, I completely missed this and only discovered that was meant to be the point when they said it in the commentary.
As it was when he said "I found out X" I was left wondering how he found out X and where he'd got the bit of paper from that he showed Pirate Captain to prove X.
Again, it's a relatively minor thing, but it seemed to happen quite a lot and I kept finding myself going "eh?" rather than laughing.
I dunno, maybe it's me - perhaps I was a bit tired or something?
I mean the film looked great and there was plenty in there I did enjoy, it's just I didn't like it as much as I thought I would.
Tuesday, 20 November 2012
lazy days
I had a pretty lazy weekend last weekend.
I've discussed before that I put together a to do list for the weekend so that I don't forget anything. Well occasionally (not for a while) I go off-piste and this was one of those weekends.
I didn't do any washing, even though I had thought to myself that I would in order to get ahead (I have the Friday at the end of the month off and am trying to avoid the temptation to just leave everything until then).
I didn't hoover - being a bedsit and with the areas I live in having lots of trees I need to hoover every week.
I didn't catch up with my e-mails & the blogs that I follow: heck, I hardly even opened a browser window all weekend.
I didn't put on any e-bay auctions. To be fair while I've a bit of a pile of stuff I want to get rid of I don't need the cash (the pay rise seems to be bringing a bit of relief on that front).
I didn't compile my new anime to torrent (I still do these, even though I've not watched an anime in months!)
I didn't even do that much in the way of catching up with TV. And obviously the GP wasn't really shown - certainly not at sensible times.
I did watch my rental Blu-Ray, so that's something I guess.
But what I basically did was play a computer game.
Now I had suspected that I might do this, as the new Call of Duty Game is out (Black Ops 2); however, I was possessed by more of a creative bug earlier in the week. This was brought on by the relative imminence of the SimCity and me reading some of the blog posts - I had a bug to create something.
As such I loaded up Anno1404 (I have the new game - 2070, but have not yet played it and I wanted to just crack on and build a world, rather than work out how to play the game). I must have totalled about 12 hours across the weekend.
I therefore feel a bit guilty that I basically "wasted" a big chunk of the weekend, but also happy I did something fun and a bit pointless with my weekend.
One thing I will say, though, is that it definitely beats working at the weekend.
I've discussed before that I put together a to do list for the weekend so that I don't forget anything. Well occasionally (not for a while) I go off-piste and this was one of those weekends.
I didn't do any washing, even though I had thought to myself that I would in order to get ahead (I have the Friday at the end of the month off and am trying to avoid the temptation to just leave everything until then).
I didn't hoover - being a bedsit and with the areas I live in having lots of trees I need to hoover every week.
I didn't catch up with my e-mails & the blogs that I follow: heck, I hardly even opened a browser window all weekend.
I didn't put on any e-bay auctions. To be fair while I've a bit of a pile of stuff I want to get rid of I don't need the cash (the pay rise seems to be bringing a bit of relief on that front).
I didn't compile my new anime to torrent (I still do these, even though I've not watched an anime in months!)
I didn't even do that much in the way of catching up with TV. And obviously the GP wasn't really shown - certainly not at sensible times.
I did watch my rental Blu-Ray, so that's something I guess.
But what I basically did was play a computer game.
Now I had suspected that I might do this, as the new Call of Duty Game is out (Black Ops 2); however, I was possessed by more of a creative bug earlier in the week. This was brought on by the relative imminence of the SimCity and me reading some of the blog posts - I had a bug to create something.
As such I loaded up Anno1404 (I have the new game - 2070, but have not yet played it and I wanted to just crack on and build a world, rather than work out how to play the game). I must have totalled about 12 hours across the weekend.
I therefore feel a bit guilty that I basically "wasted" a big chunk of the weekend, but also happy I did something fun and a bit pointless with my weekend.
One thing I will say, though, is that it definitely beats working at the weekend.
Monday, 19 November 2012
lone star state
It was the inaugural US Grand Prix this weekend.
They've rather cheekily called the circuit the "Circuit of the Americas". Note the plural in particular: clearly Mexico, Brazil, Canada, etc were all presumably signed off on such a name... ;).
Anyway, the circuit looked very interesting. It's not fully Tilke - his company was involved, but I understand the basic layout structure was designed by the people who built it. However, with Tilke being the only company that builds bespoke FIA circuits I guess it's difficult for anybody else to deign one that's fully up to spec: access roads, paddocks, etc.
It does feature big run-off areas, which is the modern circuit disease as they don't provide any way to separate the men from the boys.
The race sounded good.
I say sounded because I listened to it on the radio and have recorded the highlights with the intention to watch them tonight. The BBC's US Grand Prix coverage was just bizarre as I mentioned last Friday. It turned out that the race highlights were being shown as starting at 22:30 and were some 2 hours long, taking them up to half-past midnight.
Needless to say I didn't stay up to watch it (talking to those who are interested in F1 none of them did). The race started at 7PM GMT and did last for the best part of the maximum 2 hours running time, which meant it ended at 9PM ish. I was slightly delayed with the radio (partly to give me a buffer in case of safety cars) and so finished at 9:30PM.
I was pleased Lewis won - he was really on fire. The drivers really seemed to enjoy the circuit and it seemed like a good race. Also while not perfect from a championship point of view (Vettel did extend his lead) it means it's still all to play for in Brazil (the extension was small change).
Brazil is this next weekend and can be quite unpredictable. It's an old-skool circuit where you get a lot of action. Overtaking is very much a possibility and accidents are not uncommon, so thins like safety cars can come into play. This is particularly the case if the weather is wet or changeable (current forecast is for rain!).
Luckily the BBC is also showing the full race live and while late in the day here in the UK it'll be on at teatime so is much more watchable than the US coverage.
They've rather cheekily called the circuit the "Circuit of the Americas". Note the plural in particular: clearly Mexico, Brazil, Canada, etc were all presumably signed off on such a name... ;).
Anyway, the circuit looked very interesting. It's not fully Tilke - his company was involved, but I understand the basic layout structure was designed by the people who built it. However, with Tilke being the only company that builds bespoke FIA circuits I guess it's difficult for anybody else to deign one that's fully up to spec: access roads, paddocks, etc.
It does feature big run-off areas, which is the modern circuit disease as they don't provide any way to separate the men from the boys.
The race sounded good.
I say sounded because I listened to it on the radio and have recorded the highlights with the intention to watch them tonight. The BBC's US Grand Prix coverage was just bizarre as I mentioned last Friday. It turned out that the race highlights were being shown as starting at 22:30 and were some 2 hours long, taking them up to half-past midnight.
Needless to say I didn't stay up to watch it (talking to those who are interested in F1 none of them did). The race started at 7PM GMT and did last for the best part of the maximum 2 hours running time, which meant it ended at 9PM ish. I was slightly delayed with the radio (partly to give me a buffer in case of safety cars) and so finished at 9:30PM.
I was pleased Lewis won - he was really on fire. The drivers really seemed to enjoy the circuit and it seemed like a good race. Also while not perfect from a championship point of view (Vettel did extend his lead) it means it's still all to play for in Brazil (the extension was small change).
Brazil is this next weekend and can be quite unpredictable. It's an old-skool circuit where you get a lot of action. Overtaking is very much a possibility and accidents are not uncommon, so thins like safety cars can come into play. This is particularly the case if the weather is wet or changeable (current forecast is for rain!).
Luckily the BBC is also showing the full race live and while late in the day here in the UK it'll be on at teatime so is much more watchable than the US coverage.
Friday, 16 November 2012
us grand prix
It's the United States Grand Prix this weekend.
It's also possibly the worst coverage of any of the Grand Prix by the BBC this year.
This is frustrating for two reasons. First, and most important, the championship is at a crucial stage where Vettel or Alonso could win it. To be fair this is not something the BBC could have predicted.
The coverage is very thin - they're showing highlights of the qualifying late night on Saturday and they're showing highlights of the race very late night on Sunday. Indeed, the race highlights are so late on Sunday I won't be staying up to watch them and will probably watch them on Monday.
However, they're covering the race on 5Live so I will listen to that. But there's no other coverage on the radio - no practice or qualifying. I'm sure it will probably be online but I'm not going to do that.
The second point of frustration is that this is a brand new circuit. It's one that's been built for this year so there have never been any races there before. This one I don't understand - you would have thought they would want to cover the brand new American race.
Weird.
It's also possibly the worst coverage of any of the Grand Prix by the BBC this year.
This is frustrating for two reasons. First, and most important, the championship is at a crucial stage where Vettel or Alonso could win it. To be fair this is not something the BBC could have predicted.
The coverage is very thin - they're showing highlights of the qualifying late night on Saturday and they're showing highlights of the race very late night on Sunday. Indeed, the race highlights are so late on Sunday I won't be staying up to watch them and will probably watch them on Monday.
However, they're covering the race on 5Live so I will listen to that. But there's no other coverage on the radio - no practice or qualifying. I'm sure it will probably be online but I'm not going to do that.
The second point of frustration is that this is a brand new circuit. It's one that's been built for this year so there have never been any races there before. This one I don't understand - you would have thought they would want to cover the brand new American race.
Weird.
Thursday, 15 November 2012
shattered
So I've obviously not been posting the last few days.
To be honest I've hardly been at work the last few days - Monday and Wednesday I was at meetings away from work and Tuesday I had so much to do that I didn't even open my web-browser, let alone think about writing a blog.
Today I appear to be paying for all this activity as I am utterly shattered. And it's not because I was up particularly late or had trouble sleeping - I've just been working so hard that I've run out of steam.
I could honestly go home right now and just fall asleep as soon as my head hit the pillow.
I came in last Sunday and did a reasonable day. The morning was most successful, particularly as I developed something of a headache in the afternoon. To be honest it wasn't as useful a session as the previous time I worked the Sunday.
To be honest I've hardly been at work the last few days - Monday and Wednesday I was at meetings away from work and Tuesday I had so much to do that I didn't even open my web-browser, let alone think about writing a blog.
Today I appear to be paying for all this activity as I am utterly shattered. And it's not because I was up particularly late or had trouble sleeping - I've just been working so hard that I've run out of steam.
I could honestly go home right now and just fall asleep as soon as my head hit the pillow.
I came in last Sunday and did a reasonable day. The morning was most successful, particularly as I developed something of a headache in the afternoon. To be honest it wasn't as useful a session as the previous time I worked the Sunday.
Friday, 9 November 2012
tired
No grand prix this weekend, so current plan is to watch some of this telly I've stacked up.
Of course, the last time that was the plan I ended up spending almost all of my Sunday at work…
And unfortunately it does currently look like I may have to work at the weekend. The issue really is that I’ve got a stack of stuff building up – none of it is important, as such, but it all needs my attention. It’s just that because it’s not important I’ve been back-burnering it, and now it’s getting to a stage where it’s actually getting in the way – causing me confusion, clogging up the system, etc.
There may be a bit of an issue, though, as I understand some other people are wanting to work this weekend and I don’t really want to get in their way.
Of course, the last time that was the plan I ended up spending almost all of my Sunday at work…
And unfortunately it does currently look like I may have to work at the weekend. The issue really is that I’ve got a stack of stuff building up – none of it is important, as such, but it all needs my attention. It’s just that because it’s not important I’ve been back-burnering it, and now it’s getting to a stage where it’s actually getting in the way – causing me confusion, clogging up the system, etc.
There may be a bit of an issue, though, as I understand some other people are wanting to work this weekend and I don’t really want to get in their way.
Thursday, 8 November 2012
all a bit flat
I seem to have been having some issues with my bread making just recently.
The problem in question is that it's not rising properly. I use a bread machine and I've had this issue before. The solution was basically that I was using the wrong type of yeast. I hadn't really realised there were different types of yeast, but it seems there are and the one I was using was not making the bread rise properly.
So I switched to the right type of yeast and bob's your mother's brother it started rising properly. I also discovered - by accident - that I got even better rises if I let the yeast sit in the milk and sugar solution for a little while before adding the flour setting it going. I guess it gave the yeast time to properly activate.
Well things had been going great and then I had a bit of an issue in that I dropped the container I use to hold the yeast and had to buy some more. Since I started using this new batch it's gone back to the issue I mentioned above - not really rising properly. And even if I try leaving it in the milk for a while it doesn't seem to help - indeed, where it used to go nice and frothy in that time it now just sits there.
Now the bread does rise a bit, but it's a really pathetic rise - about a third of some of the best ones I've had.
However, I did some research and it seems that sometimes the yeast you buy can be duff, so I started trying to do some experiments. However, I have to confess these were a bit random. I've just done some reading online and it would appear there's a bit more a sensible way to test yeast (similar, actually, to what I was doing by leaving it) and it says if it fails that test then the yeast is duff.
I haven't actually done that yet, but will give it a go next weekend. I have to buy a thermometer to make sure the water temperature is reasonable - I have been meaning to get one a while, to be fair - as you can overheat yeast and kill it, but also if the liquid is too cold then that will impair the yeast.
I had actually been thinking that the recent change in weather to colder temperatures was a part of it - certainly, as I say, cold can be an issue.
What is slightly worrying, though, is that I actually opened a separate packet of yeast and tested that too and got poor results as well. It will be annoying if both batches are duff, although to be fair it was the same make, so perhaps the make is poor so I will be buying another make and trying that too.
Anyway, basic points is I'm going to be a bit more scientific about things this next weekend and see if I can't work out if it's the yeast that's duff or my liquid has just been too hot or too cold.
The problem in question is that it's not rising properly. I use a bread machine and I've had this issue before. The solution was basically that I was using the wrong type of yeast. I hadn't really realised there were different types of yeast, but it seems there are and the one I was using was not making the bread rise properly.
So I switched to the right type of yeast and bob's your mother's brother it started rising properly. I also discovered - by accident - that I got even better rises if I let the yeast sit in the milk and sugar solution for a little while before adding the flour setting it going. I guess it gave the yeast time to properly activate.
Well things had been going great and then I had a bit of an issue in that I dropped the container I use to hold the yeast and had to buy some more. Since I started using this new batch it's gone back to the issue I mentioned above - not really rising properly. And even if I try leaving it in the milk for a while it doesn't seem to help - indeed, where it used to go nice and frothy in that time it now just sits there.
Now the bread does rise a bit, but it's a really pathetic rise - about a third of some of the best ones I've had.
However, I did some research and it seems that sometimes the yeast you buy can be duff, so I started trying to do some experiments. However, I have to confess these were a bit random. I've just done some reading online and it would appear there's a bit more a sensible way to test yeast (similar, actually, to what I was doing by leaving it) and it says if it fails that test then the yeast is duff.
I haven't actually done that yet, but will give it a go next weekend. I have to buy a thermometer to make sure the water temperature is reasonable - I have been meaning to get one a while, to be fair - as you can overheat yeast and kill it, but also if the liquid is too cold then that will impair the yeast.
I had actually been thinking that the recent change in weather to colder temperatures was a part of it - certainly, as I say, cold can be an issue.
What is slightly worrying, though, is that I actually opened a separate packet of yeast and tested that too and got poor results as well. It will be annoying if both batches are duff, although to be fair it was the same make, so perhaps the make is poor so I will be buying another make and trying that too.
Anyway, basic points is I'm going to be a bit more scientific about things this next weekend and see if I can't work out if it's the yeast that's duff or my liquid has just been too hot or too cold.
Wednesday, 7 November 2012
attack the block
I think one of the basic underlying themes of Attack the Block is assumptions and the misunderstandings they lead to.
So the film starts with a mugging of a woman by a bunch of kids, but later on it's revealed that the woman lives in the same block (as in block of flats) and they tell her that if they'd known they wouldn't have mugged her. So they assumed she wasn't part of "their" block and so mugged her.
Later on the explanation of why the aliens are attacking the block and, in particular, the kids, shows how what they had been assuming to be the case is actually false. I'm trying to avoid spoilers, and I think it's fairly obvious a reveal like that is coming - it's usually the case in this sort of film.
Overall I thought the film basically fulfilled what it was going for. My only real complaint was with the kids - to me they didn't seem quite real. I dunno - realistic urban kids is a very difficult thing to pull off.
I mean, part of the problem is that that sort of culture changes incredibly quickly - the kids, after all, grow up and so move through phases very quickly. This week's cool phrase is next week's cliché.
They attempt to get round that by making the kids dialogue less real and more normal (it would likely be indecipherable if it were really real), but of course that makes the characters feel a little artificial. Interestingly the kids almost don't swear - it's the adults that have real potty mouths. Quite why this is I'm not sure, but again, it makes it seem slightly artificial.
In its favour the kids aren't too cookie-cutter. I mean they are presented to some degree as having "traits" so one is into pyrotechnics and another is a glasses-wearing nerd, but these aren't heavily laid on - think of the characters having preferences, rather than being entirely defined by those things. They're also all distinctive and memorable.
The above are actually relatively minor - things you can basically ignore or may not actually agree with. A bigger problem is that, actually, I didn't like the kids.
Having just moaned about them being a bit unrealistic, it's because of what they are trying to get close to (urban miscreants) that I didn't like them. During a bit where the police showed up I was, I have to confess, rather on the side of the police.
There are also some flaws and problems with the logic and the events - in particular it's not quite clear what's going on outside the focus on the kids. So the police are there at the end and the residents are outside as if they'd been in and evacuated the residents, but the police only actually seem to enter the building when the armed officers arrive.
Also the internal geography of the flats seems quite mismatched in places and it seems to have a lot more floors on the inside than the outside. The place also seemed weirdly deserted - particularly given all the people outside at the end. None of them seemed to interact with the aliens, which seemed a bit odd.
But overall I think it's worth a watch
It's a shame it didn't have any extras on the disk, though. I would particularly have been interested in how they did the aliens - they were very convincing and it was a clever idea to have them jet black, because I'm guessing the lack of details avoids CGI / model issues.
So the film starts with a mugging of a woman by a bunch of kids, but later on it's revealed that the woman lives in the same block (as in block of flats) and they tell her that if they'd known they wouldn't have mugged her. So they assumed she wasn't part of "their" block and so mugged her.
Later on the explanation of why the aliens are attacking the block and, in particular, the kids, shows how what they had been assuming to be the case is actually false. I'm trying to avoid spoilers, and I think it's fairly obvious a reveal like that is coming - it's usually the case in this sort of film.
Overall I thought the film basically fulfilled what it was going for. My only real complaint was with the kids - to me they didn't seem quite real. I dunno - realistic urban kids is a very difficult thing to pull off.
I mean, part of the problem is that that sort of culture changes incredibly quickly - the kids, after all, grow up and so move through phases very quickly. This week's cool phrase is next week's cliché.
They attempt to get round that by making the kids dialogue less real and more normal (it would likely be indecipherable if it were really real), but of course that makes the characters feel a little artificial. Interestingly the kids almost don't swear - it's the adults that have real potty mouths. Quite why this is I'm not sure, but again, it makes it seem slightly artificial.
In its favour the kids aren't too cookie-cutter. I mean they are presented to some degree as having "traits" so one is into pyrotechnics and another is a glasses-wearing nerd, but these aren't heavily laid on - think of the characters having preferences, rather than being entirely defined by those things. They're also all distinctive and memorable.
The above are actually relatively minor - things you can basically ignore or may not actually agree with. A bigger problem is that, actually, I didn't like the kids.
Having just moaned about them being a bit unrealistic, it's because of what they are trying to get close to (urban miscreants) that I didn't like them. During a bit where the police showed up I was, I have to confess, rather on the side of the police.
There are also some flaws and problems with the logic and the events - in particular it's not quite clear what's going on outside the focus on the kids. So the police are there at the end and the residents are outside as if they'd been in and evacuated the residents, but the police only actually seem to enter the building when the armed officers arrive.
Also the internal geography of the flats seems quite mismatched in places and it seems to have a lot more floors on the inside than the outside. The place also seemed weirdly deserted - particularly given all the people outside at the end. None of them seemed to interact with the aliens, which seemed a bit odd.
But overall I think it's worth a watch
It's a shame it didn't have any extras on the disk, though. I would particularly have been interested in how they did the aliens - they were very convincing and it was a clever idea to have them jet black, because I'm guessing the lack of details avoids CGI / model issues.
Tuesday, 6 November 2012
brrr and boom
So this last weekend it was bonfire night.
This year I didn't actually go to a display. There were a couple of reasons for that.
Firstly I made a right mess of my timings, so I was running very late and so would have struggled to get to one in time.
The second reason is kinda related in that I'd had some sleep issues, waking up after only about 5 hours sleep on Saturday morning and so feeling really tired by Saturday evening.
The last was that it was stunningly cold. I mean I've experienced colder weather, but it's not normally quite so sharp early in November. I had thought the last couple of weeks in October had been a bit chilly, but this weekend the temperature really nose-dived.
As such, staying in actually seemed appealing.
It was a bit of a weird experience, though, because I could still hear the displays. Where I live I'm basically in between Aldershot and Farnham, both of which hold quite big displays in parks that aren't too far away from me.
Now I don't know the exact start times, but I'm pretty sure both must have overlapped at the least, because you could have been mistaken for thinking world war three was happening - the cacophony of bangs between the two was quite extraordinary.
Speaking of the weather I believe it's going to get even colder next week, with temperatures down into the freezing zone. I hope it's not a sign of another cold winter - I could really do with a mild one for a change, not least of all because it costs me a fortune.
My heating (well, the heating I have control of) is electric. Now electric heating is not the most efficient anyway, but my flat is actually quite chilly & drafty anyway. It also doesn't help that in the last few years the electric company have really ramped up the prices. Why they privatised power I'll never know.
Anyway, there's also some heating I don't really have control of - there's basically a spur off my landlord heating and I have a radiator in my bedsit area. This is really good when it's on - I can leave the door open and basically heat the whole flat - but when it's on is not in my control.
This leads to some weird situations where they turn the heating on but I don't need it (I can turn the radiator off) and I end up wondering why they've turned it on. In particular, late at night, after the evening where they've not turned it on, suddenly the radiator will be blazingly hot. And the opposite is true as well - I'm sat there chilly, having to turn my own radiator on, but there heating is apparently completely off.
It's a particular problem this time of year when it wobbles between just being a bit chilly and properly cold - it's a bit better in winter proper as they obviously need to have it on themselves.
The other annoying side to it is that I actually pay some money in my rent specifically to cover the heating, so when I'm shivering I can get a bit annoyed as it feels Iike I'm not getting what I'm paying for.
This year I didn't actually go to a display. There were a couple of reasons for that.
Firstly I made a right mess of my timings, so I was running very late and so would have struggled to get to one in time.
The second reason is kinda related in that I'd had some sleep issues, waking up after only about 5 hours sleep on Saturday morning and so feeling really tired by Saturday evening.
The last was that it was stunningly cold. I mean I've experienced colder weather, but it's not normally quite so sharp early in November. I had thought the last couple of weeks in October had been a bit chilly, but this weekend the temperature really nose-dived.
As such, staying in actually seemed appealing.
It was a bit of a weird experience, though, because I could still hear the displays. Where I live I'm basically in between Aldershot and Farnham, both of which hold quite big displays in parks that aren't too far away from me.
Now I don't know the exact start times, but I'm pretty sure both must have overlapped at the least, because you could have been mistaken for thinking world war three was happening - the cacophony of bangs between the two was quite extraordinary.
Speaking of the weather I believe it's going to get even colder next week, with temperatures down into the freezing zone. I hope it's not a sign of another cold winter - I could really do with a mild one for a change, not least of all because it costs me a fortune.
My heating (well, the heating I have control of) is electric. Now electric heating is not the most efficient anyway, but my flat is actually quite chilly & drafty anyway. It also doesn't help that in the last few years the electric company have really ramped up the prices. Why they privatised power I'll never know.
Anyway, there's also some heating I don't really have control of - there's basically a spur off my landlord heating and I have a radiator in my bedsit area. This is really good when it's on - I can leave the door open and basically heat the whole flat - but when it's on is not in my control.
This leads to some weird situations where they turn the heating on but I don't need it (I can turn the radiator off) and I end up wondering why they've turned it on. In particular, late at night, after the evening where they've not turned it on, suddenly the radiator will be blazingly hot. And the opposite is true as well - I'm sat there chilly, having to turn my own radiator on, but there heating is apparently completely off.
It's a particular problem this time of year when it wobbles between just being a bit chilly and properly cold - it's a bit better in winter proper as they obviously need to have it on themselves.
The other annoying side to it is that I actually pay some money in my rent specifically to cover the heating, so when I'm shivering I can get a bit annoyed as it feels Iike I'm not getting what I'm paying for.
Monday, 5 November 2012
abu dhabi
It's been a weird F1 season this year.
At the start of the year everyone said McLaren's car was clearly the best. Red Bull were badly affected by the rule change, as they were getting maximum benefit from exhaust blown diffusers. Ferrari had taken some big risks, but they hadn't quite worked and the car was believed to be horribly difficult to drive.
However, McLaren failed to capitalise on their advantage. They had a lot of finger trouble (particularly in pit stops) and some mechanical reliability problems. But Lewis was relatively consistent and they hung in there.
Red Bull weren't winning everything in sight, but they continued their phenomenal reliability and were still in touch. Ferrari had Alonso and Alonso was able to compensate for the car's problems and was also consistent.
And with the rule's stability the mid-field teams were now up there challenging for podium positions and the back-field teams were all doing quite well. Mercedes had a brilliant idea, but it turned out it wasn't quite so brilliant.
Races that are usually terrible have actually been good (Valencia was great; this last weekend's Abu Dhabi GP was also really good, though more on that in a minute).
So as we came into the second part of the season all this seemed to mean that Alonso, with phenomenal reliability, his clear talent and some tweaks to help correct the car seemed like winning the championship.
But then he was taken out of two races in incidents and Red Bull have Adrian Newey and it's always dangerous to count him out, so they seemed to have taken a huge step forward and Vettel returned to race dominating form.
This weekend Red Bull had the opportunity to clench the constructor’s championship and also stretch their lead in the driver's championship. But then it all kicked off - Lewis was on fire and took pole, Vettel had practice issues and was only third. But during qualifying he was asked to stop out on track and FIA scrutiny revealed too little fuel in the tank, so he was demoted to the back.
But Red Bull decided to tweak the car, meaning he started in the pit lane - as bad as things can get bar not actually starting. And yet he finished third!
It can be quite puzzling when that happens - a clear example being Button at the wet Canada when he was stone-dead last and went on to win. The thing is, though, you have to remember that during most races they try to nurse the engine and gearbox as the regulations punish them if they have to change/use too many.
Well, if you're starting from the pit lane and it's nearly the end of the season you are going to take a different view: let's crank the engine up, hang the gearbox and tweak the car for overtaking, rather than leading. Of course they may pay a price for that later, but once you've won the championships it doesn't matter, does it?
Of course he was helped quite a lot by two safety cars and for some reason this year Abu Dhabi, which famously had the race where Vettel won because Alonso couldn't overtake Petrov, was jam-packed with overtaking. And good overtaking - not easy drive pasts due to DRS, though clearly the DRS was helping the overtakes.
Still, from a championship point of view it would have been better if Vettel had been further behind Alonso. The gap is closed, but Alonso is still 10 points behind with only two races left.
At the start of the year everyone said McLaren's car was clearly the best. Red Bull were badly affected by the rule change, as they were getting maximum benefit from exhaust blown diffusers. Ferrari had taken some big risks, but they hadn't quite worked and the car was believed to be horribly difficult to drive.
However, McLaren failed to capitalise on their advantage. They had a lot of finger trouble (particularly in pit stops) and some mechanical reliability problems. But Lewis was relatively consistent and they hung in there.
Red Bull weren't winning everything in sight, but they continued their phenomenal reliability and were still in touch. Ferrari had Alonso and Alonso was able to compensate for the car's problems and was also consistent.
And with the rule's stability the mid-field teams were now up there challenging for podium positions and the back-field teams were all doing quite well. Mercedes had a brilliant idea, but it turned out it wasn't quite so brilliant.
Races that are usually terrible have actually been good (Valencia was great; this last weekend's Abu Dhabi GP was also really good, though more on that in a minute).
So as we came into the second part of the season all this seemed to mean that Alonso, with phenomenal reliability, his clear talent and some tweaks to help correct the car seemed like winning the championship.
But then he was taken out of two races in incidents and Red Bull have Adrian Newey and it's always dangerous to count him out, so they seemed to have taken a huge step forward and Vettel returned to race dominating form.
This weekend Red Bull had the opportunity to clench the constructor’s championship and also stretch their lead in the driver's championship. But then it all kicked off - Lewis was on fire and took pole, Vettel had practice issues and was only third. But during qualifying he was asked to stop out on track and FIA scrutiny revealed too little fuel in the tank, so he was demoted to the back.
But Red Bull decided to tweak the car, meaning he started in the pit lane - as bad as things can get bar not actually starting. And yet he finished third!
It can be quite puzzling when that happens - a clear example being Button at the wet Canada when he was stone-dead last and went on to win. The thing is, though, you have to remember that during most races they try to nurse the engine and gearbox as the regulations punish them if they have to change/use too many.
Well, if you're starting from the pit lane and it's nearly the end of the season you are going to take a different view: let's crank the engine up, hang the gearbox and tweak the car for overtaking, rather than leading. Of course they may pay a price for that later, but once you've won the championships it doesn't matter, does it?
Of course he was helped quite a lot by two safety cars and for some reason this year Abu Dhabi, which famously had the race where Vettel won because Alonso couldn't overtake Petrov, was jam-packed with overtaking. And good overtaking - not easy drive pasts due to DRS, though clearly the DRS was helping the overtakes.
Still, from a championship point of view it would have been better if Vettel had been further behind Alonso. The gap is closed, but Alonso is still 10 points behind with only two races left.
Friday, 2 November 2012
abu dhabi grand prix
Well, I thought last weekend's race was poor, so I'm bracing myself for a real bore-fest this weekend.
It's the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix this weekend and so far it's been a real snooze fest each time it's been held.
I take the point that F1 is supposed to be a world championship, but so many really dull racetracks in the Middle East (and mostly pretty dodgy parts of the Middle East at that) can't be a good thing either. I mean if it's supposed to be a World Championship, why no Russian race? Or African race? Or more South American races?
Because the dictators in those parts of the world don't have enough cash or the desire (or maybe the common sense!) to throw it at Bernie, obviously.
It's the second to last double-header too, with a weekend off next week followed by the last two races as a double header (Austin, the new track and Brazil, the traditional closer). I think the championship could well go down to the wire in that Ferrari will remain relatively competitive, but Red Bull just slightly better and therefore winning in the end.
Of course anything can happen - there's been a lot more unreliability this year than there has been in recent years - but barring problems and accidents I don't see how Ferrari will really be able to catch-up. Much of their success was really due to Alonso, consistency and reliability and Newey's big brain and Vettel's particular talent for leading & controlling races probably just manages to trump those things.
One of the things that has been amusing me just recently, though is that other drivers have clearly cottoned on to Vettel's love of putting his name in the record books at each circuit. He clearly not only loves to win but also likes to get the fastest lap as well, so the other drivers seem to have been deliberately trying to take that off him, even when they can't win the race.
So last weekend Vettel put in a super quick lap on the last lap but Alonso also did the fastest lap as the last lap so he took it off him, but then Jenson Button did a fastest lap too, clearly with the intent of taking it off him as well. The weekend before Webber clearly did a fastest lap towards the end just to take it off of Seb too.
It's the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix this weekend and so far it's been a real snooze fest each time it's been held.
I take the point that F1 is supposed to be a world championship, but so many really dull racetracks in the Middle East (and mostly pretty dodgy parts of the Middle East at that) can't be a good thing either. I mean if it's supposed to be a World Championship, why no Russian race? Or African race? Or more South American races?
Because the dictators in those parts of the world don't have enough cash or the desire (or maybe the common sense!) to throw it at Bernie, obviously.
It's the second to last double-header too, with a weekend off next week followed by the last two races as a double header (Austin, the new track and Brazil, the traditional closer). I think the championship could well go down to the wire in that Ferrari will remain relatively competitive, but Red Bull just slightly better and therefore winning in the end.
Of course anything can happen - there's been a lot more unreliability this year than there has been in recent years - but barring problems and accidents I don't see how Ferrari will really be able to catch-up. Much of their success was really due to Alonso, consistency and reliability and Newey's big brain and Vettel's particular talent for leading & controlling races probably just manages to trump those things.
One of the things that has been amusing me just recently, though is that other drivers have clearly cottoned on to Vettel's love of putting his name in the record books at each circuit. He clearly not only loves to win but also likes to get the fastest lap as well, so the other drivers seem to have been deliberately trying to take that off him, even when they can't win the race.
So last weekend Vettel put in a super quick lap on the last lap but Alonso also did the fastest lap as the last lap so he took it off him, but then Jenson Button did a fastest lap too, clearly with the intent of taking it off him as well. The weekend before Webber clearly did a fastest lap towards the end just to take it off of Seb too.
Thursday, 1 November 2012
simcity moving closer
So the new version of SimCity is moving closer.
Current release date appears to still be February 2013. I'd wondered if it might slip or perhaps if it was tied in to something (only thing I can think of in February is Valentine's Day). You'd think they might try to hit an important date or get it out for Christmas, but I guess the date they've given is based on realism and not rushing it out. Hopefully, anyway - I wouldn't mind if it slipped so long as it means a better product at the end.
Anyway, it's looking good from what they've shown on the website and various places. In particular my big concern about SimCity 4000 I expressed before was that it was full of horrible micro-management. Not meaning micro-management is horrible, but that the way you had to go about the micromanagement was horrible.
In the new game engine they've developed there's a lot more in the way of clever graphics to show you the numbers. Now sometimes this can be quite a token effort, but here they appear to have done it in a really sensible and easy to use way - at least, that's what it looks like from the gameplay footage.
I have to say it doesn't look massively different to SimCity Societies (or SimCity 4000 for that matter) but then those games looked pretty good.
One thing they do appear to have developed is the idea that your city sits in a region - you can either control all cities in the region or other people can control other cities. I'm pretty sure this was in SimCity 4000, but there was a thing on the site where people were asking questions and the implication was that this was new.
My guess is I'm miss-remembering quite how it worked in 4000 - perhaps although multiple people could control cities they interaction between them was minimal? Certainly in the new game it appears to be going more for a specialisation idea. So one city might be industrial, another residential and a third all about education. In a sense then this means that the region kinda operates like a single big city, or a network of interconnected towns.
It sounds interesting either way - interactions sound like they might be quite complex and multi-faceted. Although only if you want them to be seemed to be the implication - you could have them all isolated.
There seem to be some changes, though. You can no longer terraform. The way they explained it was that it gives it more of a puzzle element, which makes some sense. I never used to be that big into terraforming anyway.
However, a slightly odd change is the lack of subways. They appear to have trains, buses, boats and even trams, but apparently subways have gone. I'm not quite sure why - subways could presumably be represented in some fairly simple ways. Perhaps they're saving it for an extension or as downloadable content?
I mean, it's not a big loss, just a bit unusual.
Still, it's looking good. And hopefully it will be a game I will play properly, rather than sitting on my shelf like all the others!
Current release date appears to still be February 2013. I'd wondered if it might slip or perhaps if it was tied in to something (only thing I can think of in February is Valentine's Day). You'd think they might try to hit an important date or get it out for Christmas, but I guess the date they've given is based on realism and not rushing it out. Hopefully, anyway - I wouldn't mind if it slipped so long as it means a better product at the end.
Anyway, it's looking good from what they've shown on the website and various places. In particular my big concern about SimCity 4000 I expressed before was that it was full of horrible micro-management. Not meaning micro-management is horrible, but that the way you had to go about the micromanagement was horrible.
In the new game engine they've developed there's a lot more in the way of clever graphics to show you the numbers. Now sometimes this can be quite a token effort, but here they appear to have done it in a really sensible and easy to use way - at least, that's what it looks like from the gameplay footage.
I have to say it doesn't look massively different to SimCity Societies (or SimCity 4000 for that matter) but then those games looked pretty good.
One thing they do appear to have developed is the idea that your city sits in a region - you can either control all cities in the region or other people can control other cities. I'm pretty sure this was in SimCity 4000, but there was a thing on the site where people were asking questions and the implication was that this was new.
My guess is I'm miss-remembering quite how it worked in 4000 - perhaps although multiple people could control cities they interaction between them was minimal? Certainly in the new game it appears to be going more for a specialisation idea. So one city might be industrial, another residential and a third all about education. In a sense then this means that the region kinda operates like a single big city, or a network of interconnected towns.
It sounds interesting either way - interactions sound like they might be quite complex and multi-faceted. Although only if you want them to be seemed to be the implication - you could have them all isolated.
There seem to be some changes, though. You can no longer terraform. The way they explained it was that it gives it more of a puzzle element, which makes some sense. I never used to be that big into terraforming anyway.
However, a slightly odd change is the lack of subways. They appear to have trains, buses, boats and even trams, but apparently subways have gone. I'm not quite sure why - subways could presumably be represented in some fairly simple ways. Perhaps they're saving it for an extension or as downloadable content?
I mean, it's not a big loss, just a bit unusual.
Still, it's looking good. And hopefully it will be a game I will play properly, rather than sitting on my shelf like all the others!
Wednesday, 31 October 2012
scream 4
I really liked the original scream.
As I'm sure everyone knows, the clever thing about scream 1 was the meta-textual stuff. Or to put it another way it constantly referred to classic slasher films, yet was a slasher film in and of itself. In particular it played with the idea that many of the victims were slasher fans and new all about such films as Friday the 13th and Nightmare on Elm Street.
It was very well done - it didn't step too far over the line of reasonable-ness, yet it had plenty of fun with the format too. It managed to work as a story as well as a slasher film and a meditation on both.
Screams 2 and 3 were less good. They were written by the same guy and tried to bring in the types of things that happen in sequels (the second was almost unrelated, but the third brought it back to the origin, for example). It also got even more met textual in that in the Scream universe the events of the first film spawned a film series called "stab" (a film-within-a-film).
Those sequels were okay - the trouble with any sequel of course is that people who come to them are doing so because they enjoyed the first film, so the temptation is to give them basically the same thing, but of course then they know what to expect. While the plots weren't exactly predictable and "the same" the basic idea - the meta-textual thing - had to be the same, so it made them fairly predictable.
Scream 4 essentially tries to do what Scream did, but this time including the idea of self-referencing and meta-textuality. In other words if Scream was "what would happen if a slasher film happened in real life?" then Scream 4 is "what would happen if a slasher film happened in real life if a slasher film had already happened in real life and been absorbed into the milieu?"
You probably see the problem - certainly I think the problem I had writing that paragraph (and I therefore assume you had reading it) hints at the underlying difficulties. It's become too complicated. It's meta-text of meta-text. It's like a self-parody of a self-parody: it could be brilliant or (as here) it could just feel like it's derivative with too many bells and whistles added on.
Don't get me wrong - there are still some good killings and thrills, it's just that you can get those in any good slasher film. The bits that made Scream stand out when double-heaped end up making this film feel overly complicated.
As I'm sure everyone knows, the clever thing about scream 1 was the meta-textual stuff. Or to put it another way it constantly referred to classic slasher films, yet was a slasher film in and of itself. In particular it played with the idea that many of the victims were slasher fans and new all about such films as Friday the 13th and Nightmare on Elm Street.
It was very well done - it didn't step too far over the line of reasonable-ness, yet it had plenty of fun with the format too. It managed to work as a story as well as a slasher film and a meditation on both.
Screams 2 and 3 were less good. They were written by the same guy and tried to bring in the types of things that happen in sequels (the second was almost unrelated, but the third brought it back to the origin, for example). It also got even more met textual in that in the Scream universe the events of the first film spawned a film series called "stab" (a film-within-a-film).
Those sequels were okay - the trouble with any sequel of course is that people who come to them are doing so because they enjoyed the first film, so the temptation is to give them basically the same thing, but of course then they know what to expect. While the plots weren't exactly predictable and "the same" the basic idea - the meta-textual thing - had to be the same, so it made them fairly predictable.
Scream 4 essentially tries to do what Scream did, but this time including the idea of self-referencing and meta-textuality. In other words if Scream was "what would happen if a slasher film happened in real life?" then Scream 4 is "what would happen if a slasher film happened in real life if a slasher film had already happened in real life and been absorbed into the milieu?"
You probably see the problem - certainly I think the problem I had writing that paragraph (and I therefore assume you had reading it) hints at the underlying difficulties. It's become too complicated. It's meta-text of meta-text. It's like a self-parody of a self-parody: it could be brilliant or (as here) it could just feel like it's derivative with too many bells and whistles added on.
Don't get me wrong - there are still some good killings and thrills, it's just that you can get those in any good slasher film. The bits that made Scream stand out when double-heaped end up making this film feel overly complicated.
Tuesday, 30 October 2012
it's christmas
I was actually planning to blog about this a few weeks back, but Christmas seems to have arrived already.
I noticed while I was on holiday at the end of September that the big supermarket already had a few Christmas things out, but I kinda dismissed it as it's a huge supermarket and it was only one or two tins f biscuits that looked a bit Christmassy.
However, while shopping in the local Sainsbury's last week and then the big Tesco up the road a couple of days later (nowhere seems to sell Crunchy Bran, which is one of my favourite cereals) there were some proper areas that seemed to be sprouting multiple Christmas things.
Every year it seems to get worse - I mean, seriously, September is ridiculously early isn't it? That's a quarter of a year before the event. And both Halloween and Bonfire night still a month away - it's just taking the piss.
The thing is though, people must buy this stuff. I'm sure supermarkets wouldn't waste space on Chrimbo stuff if nobody bought it; so who the hell buys it this early?
The other thing I wanted to mention on the Christmas front is that it snowed this last weekend. And I don't mean in a general sense in the UK - it snowed where I live.
Every Saturday morning I do my washing at the laundrette and once I've transferred it over to the Tumble Dryer I usually go for a short walk around the estate (while it's washing I read a book). Well this time weekend it was bitterly cold and as I was coming up the hill a small flurry of snow started.
We're only talking tiny bits and it wasn't settling or anything, but still snow. It had stopped by the time I got to the top of the hill and I don't think it snowed again.
It's a bit of a worrying sign, actually - I was hoping we might finally get a mild winter, having suffered really cold ones for the last few years. I've also not really been prepping for winter; particularly in terms of electricity - there's only a little bit of electricity on the meter and when it gets properly cold heating really sucks away at the power.
To be fair, given I was expecting to change jobs and therefore move, I've been tending to keep the meter quite low all year, but I'd better ramp it up just in case winter is a cold one. I'm now certainly not going to be moving or doing anything change-wise until next year.
I noticed while I was on holiday at the end of September that the big supermarket already had a few Christmas things out, but I kinda dismissed it as it's a huge supermarket and it was only one or two tins f biscuits that looked a bit Christmassy.
However, while shopping in the local Sainsbury's last week and then the big Tesco up the road a couple of days later (nowhere seems to sell Crunchy Bran, which is one of my favourite cereals) there were some proper areas that seemed to be sprouting multiple Christmas things.
Every year it seems to get worse - I mean, seriously, September is ridiculously early isn't it? That's a quarter of a year before the event. And both Halloween and Bonfire night still a month away - it's just taking the piss.
The thing is though, people must buy this stuff. I'm sure supermarkets wouldn't waste space on Chrimbo stuff if nobody bought it; so who the hell buys it this early?
The other thing I wanted to mention on the Christmas front is that it snowed this last weekend. And I don't mean in a general sense in the UK - it snowed where I live.
Every Saturday morning I do my washing at the laundrette and once I've transferred it over to the Tumble Dryer I usually go for a short walk around the estate (while it's washing I read a book). Well this time weekend it was bitterly cold and as I was coming up the hill a small flurry of snow started.
We're only talking tiny bits and it wasn't settling or anything, but still snow. It had stopped by the time I got to the top of the hill and I don't think it snowed again.
It's a bit of a worrying sign, actually - I was hoping we might finally get a mild winter, having suffered really cold ones for the last few years. I've also not really been prepping for winter; particularly in terms of electricity - there's only a little bit of electricity on the meter and when it gets properly cold heating really sucks away at the power.
To be fair, given I was expecting to change jobs and therefore move, I've been tending to keep the meter quite low all year, but I'd better ramp it up just in case winter is a cold one. I'm now certainly not going to be moving or doing anything change-wise until next year.
Monday, 29 October 2012
indian snore prix
Indian Grand Prix this last weekend and it was a pretty rubbish race.
It was a race the BBC only showed highlights of and unlike some of the others it was probably a race that really only deserved highlights. I listened on the radio and watched the TV coverage. The clocks went back, which made pre-setting the recording difficult, but then coverage started at about 9:30 so I was up and about anyway.
I actually did some stuff on the computer while it was on but didn't really miss anything. Indeed, the radio coverage seemed to focus quite a lot on other stuff, rather than what was (not) happening on track.
What was weird is they seemed to big up the race quite a bit beforehand. I guess when you're spending lots of money to show races you're not going to do the race down, but I seem to recall last year wasn't that great either. Quite whey they were describing it as one of Tilka's best and a circuit the driver's love I'm not sure.
Well, I guess what the driver's love and what the spectators love can be quite different things, but still, it was a bit of a damp squib of a race by all accounts.
What was interesting is that the TV coverage flattered the race - they trimmed out so much of the dull stuff that it seemed much more exciting than it was. What was really telling having listened to both is that the highlights didn't have any exciting bits missing - in a really exciting race they would have had to make choices about what to leave out for want of time, but here they had to put in some of the less exciting moments to pad it out.
Unfortunately from a championship point of view Vettel also extended his lead - not by much and he very nearly got scuppered by a technical problem at the end, but still, it now looks like Vettel and Red Bull really have the momentum.
It was a race the BBC only showed highlights of and unlike some of the others it was probably a race that really only deserved highlights. I listened on the radio and watched the TV coverage. The clocks went back, which made pre-setting the recording difficult, but then coverage started at about 9:30 so I was up and about anyway.
I actually did some stuff on the computer while it was on but didn't really miss anything. Indeed, the radio coverage seemed to focus quite a lot on other stuff, rather than what was (not) happening on track.
What was weird is they seemed to big up the race quite a bit beforehand. I guess when you're spending lots of money to show races you're not going to do the race down, but I seem to recall last year wasn't that great either. Quite whey they were describing it as one of Tilka's best and a circuit the driver's love I'm not sure.
Well, I guess what the driver's love and what the spectators love can be quite different things, but still, it was a bit of a damp squib of a race by all accounts.
What was interesting is that the TV coverage flattered the race - they trimmed out so much of the dull stuff that it seemed much more exciting than it was. What was really telling having listened to both is that the highlights didn't have any exciting bits missing - in a really exciting race they would have had to make choices about what to leave out for want of time, but here they had to put in some of the less exciting moments to pad it out.
Unfortunately from a championship point of view Vettel also extended his lead - not by much and he very nearly got scuppered by a technical problem at the end, but still, it now looks like Vettel and Red Bull really have the momentum.
Friday, 26 October 2012
patchy
Posting this week has been patchy as I've been rushed off my feet.
Obviously I've already mentioned that I came in last Sunday, and a big part of what I've been doing this week has been as a result of that. The thing I finished I've then proceeded to roll-out to the rest of the staff.
Now ideally I would have done that at a single session, but that was just not practical, so I've done two sessions already and I've probably got two more pending. It's all been quite tiring, particularly since I've also had the "day job" to do as well.
As a result, I'm shattered - thank God the clocks go back this weekend and I can get an extra hours kip!
It's the Indian Grand Prix this weekend.
It's only the second year, but I don't particularly remember it being a good race last year. There was overtaking, but I seem to recall it was basically all as a result of the DRS.
I'll also hopefully do a bit of general TV watching, as last weekend's "bonus work" didn't help clear it down any.
Obviously I've already mentioned that I came in last Sunday, and a big part of what I've been doing this week has been as a result of that. The thing I finished I've then proceeded to roll-out to the rest of the staff.
Now ideally I would have done that at a single session, but that was just not practical, so I've done two sessions already and I've probably got two more pending. It's all been quite tiring, particularly since I've also had the "day job" to do as well.
As a result, I'm shattered - thank God the clocks go back this weekend and I can get an extra hours kip!
It's the Indian Grand Prix this weekend.
It's only the second year, but I don't particularly remember it being a good race last year. There was overtaking, but I seem to recall it was basically all as a result of the DRS.
I'll also hopefully do a bit of general TV watching, as last weekend's "bonus work" didn't help clear it down any.
Wednesday, 24 October 2012
eating tweak
So I've tweaked how and what I eat in an attempt to get the diet going again.
The tweak, essentially, is that I have cereal for lunch. Now we're talking "proper" cereal here - not coco puffs or corn flakes or something, but high-fibre healthy jobs.
There were two real factors in the decision.
The first was that I noticed cereal contains very few calories. There's that old gag that the cardboard box has more calories in it that the contents, but generally speaking high-fibre cereals are pretty low in calories. Recommended portion sizes vary but they generally only come in at 200 calories. Now obviously what they say is a portion and what most people eat are a bit different, but even if you double the amount we're still only talking 400 calories.
If you team it with skimmed milk as well then that helps too (some portions on the box include the calories for semi-skimmed milk). So the bowl I have is generally a very big bowl, but I reckon even worse case we're talking 500 calories max (I tend to like to mix several cereals together).
That compares to around 1,000 calories for the sandwich-based meal I used to have (and still do some days, to be fair). Now the idea of the sandwich-based meal was that this was the single big meal of the day. That worked in the first diet phase, but just recently I've really struggled to limit my dinner to a small meal.
With the cereal lunch I can eat a reasonable dinner without it being a problem - and if I only have a small dinner then that helps even more.
The second factor is that I noticed I was doing okay in terms of hunger with just my bowl of cereal for breakfast. I therefore thought that maybe if I had cereal at lunch then I wouldn't get hungry, and it turns out it works.
I mean, I've had a few days where I was peckish, but I haven't ended up starving hungry. Of course I didn't with sandwiches ever, but then that's what makes the evening eating annoying - I'm not hungry, as such, but I eat anyway.
But then that's always been one of my main problems - always eating, even when I'm not hungry. Eating is just something I do - and if I'm not eating then I'm probably thinking about what I'm going to have for my next meal.
Anyway, initial results have been okay - 1 pound lost in the first week and 3 pounds this last week. I guess moment of truth will be this weekend as I think 3 weeks losing in a row is a good sign it's working.
The tweak, essentially, is that I have cereal for lunch. Now we're talking "proper" cereal here - not coco puffs or corn flakes or something, but high-fibre healthy jobs.
There were two real factors in the decision.
The first was that I noticed cereal contains very few calories. There's that old gag that the cardboard box has more calories in it that the contents, but generally speaking high-fibre cereals are pretty low in calories. Recommended portion sizes vary but they generally only come in at 200 calories. Now obviously what they say is a portion and what most people eat are a bit different, but even if you double the amount we're still only talking 400 calories.
If you team it with skimmed milk as well then that helps too (some portions on the box include the calories for semi-skimmed milk). So the bowl I have is generally a very big bowl, but I reckon even worse case we're talking 500 calories max (I tend to like to mix several cereals together).
That compares to around 1,000 calories for the sandwich-based meal I used to have (and still do some days, to be fair). Now the idea of the sandwich-based meal was that this was the single big meal of the day. That worked in the first diet phase, but just recently I've really struggled to limit my dinner to a small meal.
With the cereal lunch I can eat a reasonable dinner without it being a problem - and if I only have a small dinner then that helps even more.
The second factor is that I noticed I was doing okay in terms of hunger with just my bowl of cereal for breakfast. I therefore thought that maybe if I had cereal at lunch then I wouldn't get hungry, and it turns out it works.
I mean, I've had a few days where I was peckish, but I haven't ended up starving hungry. Of course I didn't with sandwiches ever, but then that's what makes the evening eating annoying - I'm not hungry, as such, but I eat anyway.
But then that's always been one of my main problems - always eating, even when I'm not hungry. Eating is just something I do - and if I'm not eating then I'm probably thinking about what I'm going to have for my next meal.
Anyway, initial results have been okay - 1 pound lost in the first week and 3 pounds this last week. I guess moment of truth will be this weekend as I think 3 weeks losing in a row is a good sign it's working.
Monday, 22 October 2012
a sunday of fun
So things haven't really been going quite as planned at work.
The main problem has been this issue that I was meant to be taking some time to develop a bunch of tools and processes for me/us to use. However, in order to do that I needed totally clear decks. And I never got totally clear decks.
Really I reckon if I had been able to clear the decks I could have gotten it done in about a week, but instead it's been months of me doing tiny bits and then having to work on something else. It also hasn't helped that I keep being hit by bombshells, which is to say people keep throwing things at me that change the whole point of what I'm doing.
A very good example is we're meant to be getting a new contact manager. That's fair enough - it's long overdue - but the idea, apparently, is to use it to do a lot of stuff automatically. And much of that overlaps with what I'm supposed to be developing.
However, even though I was told we were getting it, many weeks have gone by and they're only just starting work on it. And it'll be months before its' ready.
So what am I meat to do in the meantime?
And this keeps happening.
My decision each time is to re-do what I've already done so it's a bit more flexible and then basically just plough on - I need this stuff to get done, and as soon as possible. If it changes later, then it changes. For now it needs finishing.
And it was with that thought in mind that I came in this Sunday and finished off some really big chunks of it. Indeed it's almost ready to "launch", although I have just discovered I've deleted something I shouldn't have, but I can recreate that.
Of course it'll be a long way from properly finished in the way I want it to be, but the basics will be in place, and I can crack on with more normal stuff until some of these other changes pan out.
Sunday was actually hugely productive - without the distractions of the normal office (some elements of the office in particular) I got loads done. As I say, not finished, but a lot done.
Of course it doesn't help me address my stack of unwatched TV programmes, though I did come in late today to compensate a bit.
And nobody's paying me for Sundays... remind me again why I'm still working here?
The main problem has been this issue that I was meant to be taking some time to develop a bunch of tools and processes for me/us to use. However, in order to do that I needed totally clear decks. And I never got totally clear decks.
Really I reckon if I had been able to clear the decks I could have gotten it done in about a week, but instead it's been months of me doing tiny bits and then having to work on something else. It also hasn't helped that I keep being hit by bombshells, which is to say people keep throwing things at me that change the whole point of what I'm doing.
A very good example is we're meant to be getting a new contact manager. That's fair enough - it's long overdue - but the idea, apparently, is to use it to do a lot of stuff automatically. And much of that overlaps with what I'm supposed to be developing.
However, even though I was told we were getting it, many weeks have gone by and they're only just starting work on it. And it'll be months before its' ready.
So what am I meat to do in the meantime?
And this keeps happening.
My decision each time is to re-do what I've already done so it's a bit more flexible and then basically just plough on - I need this stuff to get done, and as soon as possible. If it changes later, then it changes. For now it needs finishing.
And it was with that thought in mind that I came in this Sunday and finished off some really big chunks of it. Indeed it's almost ready to "launch", although I have just discovered I've deleted something I shouldn't have, but I can recreate that.
Of course it'll be a long way from properly finished in the way I want it to be, but the basics will be in place, and I can crack on with more normal stuff until some of these other changes pan out.
Sunday was actually hugely productive - without the distractions of the normal office (some elements of the office in particular) I got loads done. As I say, not finished, but a lot done.
Of course it doesn't help me address my stack of unwatched TV programmes, though I did come in late today to compensate a bit.
And nobody's paying me for Sundays... remind me again why I'm still working here?
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