I ended yesterday mentioning the sale of the company I work for.
At the time I talked a lot about "cake". I may have subsequently explained this, but the cake in question was actually an employee share scheme. Basically the Managing Director wants to retire. To do this she needs to sell the company so that she can release a nice pot of money for her to go away with.
However, if you say to all the employees "I'm selling the company so I can retire" they may not view that too kindly as it introduces a lot of uncertainty, particularly around who will take over and what the new conditions will be like. This would therefore generally encourage the employees to look for new jobs, so by having the share scheme you effectively promise to give away a chunk of that sale money so that those people hang around.
My problem is that basically I've ended up with a share option, rather than actual shares. This option means that I have the option to buy the shares at a later date at a reduced price. The idea therefore being I sell the shares immediately as part of the whole sale and the difference between what they pay and what I get is therefore a nice sum of money.
But there are some problems.
The company is currently worth nothing. Now this is deliberate as it's basically a way of minimising tax, but it also means that the shares I've got are next to worthless. If sold the next day I wouldn't even have been able to pay off my smallest credit card debt.
Now in some ways that's a good thing in that it means they have the potential for the maximum gain, but the real problem is that I have no idea how many shares there are total and what my proportion of those shares is, and I only have vague ideas what the company is currently worth, what it might sell for eventually, and there are no mechanisms to know how the company/share value is changing.
So, to use some simple numbers, it's all very well knowing that at the start I have the option to buy 1,000 at 10p each and sell them at 20p each. That means I would get £100. But I have no way of knowing if the value of the shares has doubled across the year or tripled, or halved or what.
The other issue over the proportion of shares makes things even more complicated. Basically, for example, there are actually 1,000 shares, and what they've done is take, say, 100 of those shares, turn that into 1,000 shares, revalue them, and then distribute them to the employees.
This makes things very complicated to calculate the actual value of the shares. With the above numbers, if they sold each original share for £1, that means that the 100 shares would be worth £100, but as I say, they've then made each of the actual shares distributed 1/10 of those shares, so actually we get shares worth 10p each. This means it might seem attractive to us to sell the shares at £1, but then we only get 10% of that. Or, remember, we need to buy these shares at 5p each, so really we get 5% of the value.
But of course I don't know the real numbers. So if I've been given 1,000 shares is that a big proportion of the total pot? Have I got 10% of the shares? Or 0.01%? And this really matters because it affects what I actually stand to make, but I can't know, so it's all a bit meaningless.
It's like if I give you a million spondulics, have I just given you a fortune or nothing at all? Of course you didn't have any spondulics to start with, so in a way you've got a fortune, but only in spondulic terms.
I've been with the company the longest, which from what I was told means I have a bigger proportion of the shares. But then I was told a lot about the share scheme when I agreed to stay on and only a small proportion of it has turned out to be true. Firstly I was told there would be dividends. Well, there are no dividends on share options. I don't own any shares, so I've nothing to receive a dividend on.
It also transpires that the shares have been divided up based on seniority as the most important factor, rather than length of service. I mean, that's a factor, but seniority is a more important factor and of course I'm in the "middle" tier, so I'm pretty sure I have less shares than the directors, even though they've only been here a couple of years and I've been here more than a decade.
And here's the other thing - I'm underpaid. I've also been underpaid for the last five years when I didn't have a single pay rise, despite the rapidly escalating cost of living.
I have debt because I was underpaid (well, that and me being a fucking moron). So what's better, getting a new job that pays the market rate now? Or gambling that the amount I get down the line is sufficient to make up for that underpayment+ a little more?
Well looking at some numbers I can't make the latter make sense. Plus, as mentioned, I don't really enjoy working here any more.
So why stay? Particularly since it will be at least three years before the company is actually sold. I can't stay here three years - I can't stay six months. Did I mention I don't enjoy working here any more?
Friday, 13 September 2013
Thursday, 12 September 2013
work
So I thought I'd do the first blog about why I've not been having much fun just recently.
Unfortunately it's become very apparent to me that my decision to stay on at my current employer last year was a big mistake.
I'm really not enjoying work.
All the same crap still seems to happen. I had thought that some of the reason for me staying on was to help introduce some better ways of doing things, but basically they've all been either ignored or actively disregarded.
I'll give you a very good example - we've recently introduced a new Contact Management System. Now, Contact Management is key to what I do - bid management.
However, at no stage have I been asked my opinion or in any way included in the process.
The old thing we used to use was a bespoke system put together by one of the employees and it was bobbins. It was full of fields that nobody understood, nobody used to fill it out anyway and there was never any training to explain anything. The problem being it wasn't properly designed - it was thrown together and packed full of "wouldn't it be nice if it" stuff.
Guess what's happened with the new system?
It's full of stupid fields that are either pointless or nobody understand the purpose of / what to put in there. And there's not been any training.
Part of the problem is they've bought something that is a product - it is an "out of the box" thing. Now there are a few ways they could have gone that would have worked:
Guess what they've done?
They've kept the out of the box product and added in loads of fields that mimic the crap the old system used to have. So the problem is they're trying to make it bespoke when the product itself is set up such that in other to make it bespoke in any useful sense you have to get a programmer in to change stuff.
A programmer who costs a lot of money. And they're not willing to spend any money.
This bespoking has also been done by someone who is not that way inclined - he's not a programmer, not an analyst and really not at all suited to the job. And it's been "managed" by the MD. Who has started taking loads of holidays and breaks like she has already retired and is focused on trying to sell the company.
Which is the other thing, but I will continue with that tomorrow.
Unfortunately it's become very apparent to me that my decision to stay on at my current employer last year was a big mistake.
I'm really not enjoying work.
All the same crap still seems to happen. I had thought that some of the reason for me staying on was to help introduce some better ways of doing things, but basically they've all been either ignored or actively disregarded.
I'll give you a very good example - we've recently introduced a new Contact Management System. Now, Contact Management is key to what I do - bid management.
However, at no stage have I been asked my opinion or in any way included in the process.
The old thing we used to use was a bespoke system put together by one of the employees and it was bobbins. It was full of fields that nobody understood, nobody used to fill it out anyway and there was never any training to explain anything. The problem being it wasn't properly designed - it was thrown together and packed full of "wouldn't it be nice if it" stuff.
Guess what's happened with the new system?
It's full of stupid fields that are either pointless or nobody understand the purpose of / what to put in there. And there's not been any training.
Part of the problem is they've bought something that is a product - it is an "out of the box" thing. Now there are a few ways they could have gone that would have worked:
- Get a complete bespoke solution, a bit like the old one, but made by professionals.
- Get an existing solution and either:
- Pay to make it bespoke
- Modify the processes and procedures of the company to match the product.
Guess what they've done?
They've kept the out of the box product and added in loads of fields that mimic the crap the old system used to have. So the problem is they're trying to make it bespoke when the product itself is set up such that in other to make it bespoke in any useful sense you have to get a programmer in to change stuff.
A programmer who costs a lot of money. And they're not willing to spend any money.
This bespoking has also been done by someone who is not that way inclined - he's not a programmer, not an analyst and really not at all suited to the job. And it's been "managed" by the MD. Who has started taking loads of holidays and breaks like she has already retired and is focused on trying to sell the company.
Which is the other thing, but I will continue with that tomorrow.
Wednesday, 11 September 2013
underworld: awakening
I wasn't sure what to expect with this fourth film in the underworld series.
I enjoyed the first one quite a bit, but found the second one underwhelming and a little confusing. The third film was actually a prequel and was okay, but really Selene (Beckinsale's character) was the only one that was interesting and she wasn't really in it.
This fourth one does star Selene, but also introduces a daughter (sort of). Now when actresses and characters get older there seems to be a bit of a thing for them acquiring children. I mean, don't get me wrong, obviously people get older and have children, but when those characters are odd (vampires or superheroes or whatever) the children thing is also normally odd (not really a child, but a clone or whatever).
I dunno, you can get some weird stuff in order to force the film down the whole maternal instinct path. And that's basically the case here - the maternal thing is pretty much crowbarred in.
However, if you set that aside, I actually quite enjoyed the film. Selene is still quite an interesting character and it doesn't hurt that Beckinsale seems even more gorgeous (she may be of equal gorgeousness, but the previous films were a long time ago!). I mean, don't get me wrong, the story was a bit poor, constructed of quite a lot of clichés, but then if you're watching the fourth Underworld film, why would you be expecting anything less?
No, what I enjoyed was the visual look of the film, the action and the special effects.
Now it's not all great the film was shot in 3D and there were a few of those stupid moment they always build in to have stuff flying out at the audience but then look daft when you watch them non-3D (and daft in 3D if you're of that persuasion) but it wasn't too bad here.
I enjoyed the first one quite a bit, but found the second one underwhelming and a little confusing. The third film was actually a prequel and was okay, but really Selene (Beckinsale's character) was the only one that was interesting and she wasn't really in it.
This fourth one does star Selene, but also introduces a daughter (sort of). Now when actresses and characters get older there seems to be a bit of a thing for them acquiring children. I mean, don't get me wrong, obviously people get older and have children, but when those characters are odd (vampires or superheroes or whatever) the children thing is also normally odd (not really a child, but a clone or whatever).
I dunno, you can get some weird stuff in order to force the film down the whole maternal instinct path. And that's basically the case here - the maternal thing is pretty much crowbarred in.
However, if you set that aside, I actually quite enjoyed the film. Selene is still quite an interesting character and it doesn't hurt that Beckinsale seems even more gorgeous (she may be of equal gorgeousness, but the previous films were a long time ago!). I mean, don't get me wrong, the story was a bit poor, constructed of quite a lot of clichés, but then if you're watching the fourth Underworld film, why would you be expecting anything less?
No, what I enjoyed was the visual look of the film, the action and the special effects.
Now it's not all great the film was shot in 3D and there were a few of those stupid moment they always build in to have stuff flying out at the audience but then look daft when you watch them non-3D (and daft in 3D if you're of that persuasion) but it wasn't too bad here.
Tuesday, 10 September 2013
sleepy
I've been having a terrible time sleeping just recently.
I've been doing a bit of research (always dangerous!) and there's a suggestion it might be a form of insomnia. It's not the sort of insomnia you generally think of, where you have trouble getting to sleep, but instead I keep waking up in the middle of the night.
Specifically I've been waking up at around 1AM-4AM for the last 2 weeks.
That's quite a range and what actually appears to be happening is the waking point is drifting earlier and earlier. So I was generally waking at about 4AM when it first started, but on Sunday night it was 1AM.
It seems to be happening irrespective of the actual time I go to sleep as well. So if I go to sleep at 8PM then it happens, but if I go to sleep at 12PM it also still happens. Of course in the former case that means I've gotten a good chunk of sleep and in the latter I've only gotten a few hours. However of course in the former it means having no life.
There's also the problem of reinforcement.
By that I mean that by playing to the timetable (going to bed early in the expectation I'll wake in the middle of the night) it will reinforce the pattern. And, indeed, instead of being insomnia there's a good chance that is what it really is. It's something I've always been susceptible too - over holidays and weekends I will wake up when my alarm would go off and start to fall asleep at my usual time.
The insomnia is called Middle-of-the-night insomnia, which is a rather uninspired name, but it is actually something that seems to be well known. There are some possible medical reasons, but basically it seems to be down to stress, which would match well with all the rubbish stuff that's been happening to me and I still haven't posted about yet.
The frustrating side of it is that I don't have any trouble getting to sleep. No actually, the frustrating side of it is that when I wake up in the middle of the night I initially feel great and rested like I've had a good night's sleep and I think Finally "I've slept through".
It's then only after about half an hour that I start to think "hang on, why is my alarm not going off?" and then look at my curtains for the tell-tale cracks of light that indicate daylight, which I don't see and then I think "oh for fuck's sake, not again".
I then go for a pee and check how bad it is by checking my phone, which is when it gets annoying.
If I get up then by normal day time I'll be shattered. If I try to watch a bit of telly or similar before going back to bed I'll have woken up enough to have the same effect. If I read for a bit I get bored and then lay there often not able to get back to sleep. And if I just try to go back to sleep my mind races and 9 times out of 10 it doesn't work properly.
Even if it does work, the quality of sleep seems to be poor and I am still tired all day.
I've been doing a bit of research (always dangerous!) and there's a suggestion it might be a form of insomnia. It's not the sort of insomnia you generally think of, where you have trouble getting to sleep, but instead I keep waking up in the middle of the night.
Specifically I've been waking up at around 1AM-4AM for the last 2 weeks.
That's quite a range and what actually appears to be happening is the waking point is drifting earlier and earlier. So I was generally waking at about 4AM when it first started, but on Sunday night it was 1AM.
It seems to be happening irrespective of the actual time I go to sleep as well. So if I go to sleep at 8PM then it happens, but if I go to sleep at 12PM it also still happens. Of course in the former case that means I've gotten a good chunk of sleep and in the latter I've only gotten a few hours. However of course in the former it means having no life.
There's also the problem of reinforcement.
By that I mean that by playing to the timetable (going to bed early in the expectation I'll wake in the middle of the night) it will reinforce the pattern. And, indeed, instead of being insomnia there's a good chance that is what it really is. It's something I've always been susceptible too - over holidays and weekends I will wake up when my alarm would go off and start to fall asleep at my usual time.
The insomnia is called Middle-of-the-night insomnia, which is a rather uninspired name, but it is actually something that seems to be well known. There are some possible medical reasons, but basically it seems to be down to stress, which would match well with all the rubbish stuff that's been happening to me and I still haven't posted about yet.
The frustrating side of it is that I don't have any trouble getting to sleep. No actually, the frustrating side of it is that when I wake up in the middle of the night I initially feel great and rested like I've had a good night's sleep and I think Finally "I've slept through".
It's then only after about half an hour that I start to think "hang on, why is my alarm not going off?" and then look at my curtains for the tell-tale cracks of light that indicate daylight, which I don't see and then I think "oh for fuck's sake, not again".
I then go for a pee and check how bad it is by checking my phone, which is when it gets annoying.
If I get up then by normal day time I'll be shattered. If I try to watch a bit of telly or similar before going back to bed I'll have woken up enough to have the same effect. If I read for a bit I get bored and then lay there often not able to get back to sleep. And if I just try to go back to sleep my mind races and 9 times out of 10 it doesn't work properly.
Even if it does work, the quality of sleep seems to be poor and I am still tired all day.
Monday, 9 September 2013
italian grand prix
Well, that was a lot better than I was expecting.
I have to confess I wasn't really looking forward to Monza as my memory of it is as a circuit where it's very difficult to overtake, but that didn't appear to be the case this weekend as there was a lot of action on the track. Indeed it also seemed to disprove what I was saying about the DRS, but that wasn't quite as it might have appeared.
Basically because Monza is so high speed (I think it only has about 6 corners!) they all use a special low-down force package, and of course that means the rear wing is quite skinny. As such the DRS (which basically opens a hole in the rear wing to reduce its drag) doesn't have a huge impact. That means it generally allowed them to get into overtaking position without just driving past.
I mean, that wasn't always the case - there were some drive pasts, but even these weren't as daft as they were at Spa, for example, with the drivers able to defend a bit and then fight back at the next corner.
Unfortunately it was also a bit of a weird weekend.
Riciardo was confirmed as Webber's replacement at Red Bull, but the whole rest of driver situation is quite messy. It seems like Raikonen is likely to go back to Ferrari, and Alonso wasn't happy. Well, the feeling was that that was a big part of why Alonso wasn't happy. He could easily have been unhappy at how the weekend went generally.
It's odd - the Mercedes has generally qualified well this season and then gone backwards on race day, where the Ferrari seems to qualify poorly then do really well during the race. Reliability issues aside, I think Alonso has always finished some way above where he qualified.
And mentioning Mercedes, they had a bit of a shocker. Hamilton said he made a mess of qualifying, but I think that was overly harsh. Rosberg didn't actually do that much better, it was more that Hamilton messed up his quick laps in 2nd qualifying.
However, his radio then failed during the race, so he couldn't hear them calling him in for his pit stops, for example. He did make up a couple of spots, taking him into the points, but it was clear he felt he could & should have done a lot better across the weekend.
I have to say it now looks like Vettel is going to take the driver's championship as the others just haven't been able to deliver a consistent challenge.
I have to confess I wasn't really looking forward to Monza as my memory of it is as a circuit where it's very difficult to overtake, but that didn't appear to be the case this weekend as there was a lot of action on the track. Indeed it also seemed to disprove what I was saying about the DRS, but that wasn't quite as it might have appeared.
Basically because Monza is so high speed (I think it only has about 6 corners!) they all use a special low-down force package, and of course that means the rear wing is quite skinny. As such the DRS (which basically opens a hole in the rear wing to reduce its drag) doesn't have a huge impact. That means it generally allowed them to get into overtaking position without just driving past.
I mean, that wasn't always the case - there were some drive pasts, but even these weren't as daft as they were at Spa, for example, with the drivers able to defend a bit and then fight back at the next corner.
Unfortunately it was also a bit of a weird weekend.
Riciardo was confirmed as Webber's replacement at Red Bull, but the whole rest of driver situation is quite messy. It seems like Raikonen is likely to go back to Ferrari, and Alonso wasn't happy. Well, the feeling was that that was a big part of why Alonso wasn't happy. He could easily have been unhappy at how the weekend went generally.
It's odd - the Mercedes has generally qualified well this season and then gone backwards on race day, where the Ferrari seems to qualify poorly then do really well during the race. Reliability issues aside, I think Alonso has always finished some way above where he qualified.
And mentioning Mercedes, they had a bit of a shocker. Hamilton said he made a mess of qualifying, but I think that was overly harsh. Rosberg didn't actually do that much better, it was more that Hamilton messed up his quick laps in 2nd qualifying.
However, his radio then failed during the race, so he couldn't hear them calling him in for his pit stops, for example. He did make up a couple of spots, taking him into the points, but it was clear he felt he could & should have done a lot better across the weekend.
I have to say it now looks like Vettel is going to take the driver's championship as the others just haven't been able to deliver a consistent challenge.
Friday, 6 September 2013
italian grand prix
It's the italian grand prix this weekend from Monza.
Monza is one of the fastest tracks on the current circuit and is not that far off being an Indi-car style oval circuit. Indeed, I seem to recall the old, banked circuit was an oval. I mean, it has a few chicanes and that, but if you were to take an oval and stretch it and put a dog leg in it, that wouldn't be too far off of Monza.
Anyway, the point is that it's a very fast circuit and the race often doesn't take much more than an hour to run.
It's normally an okay race. It doesn't tend to have a lot of overtaking, though it is possible. Part of the issue is that being so fast and having so few corners it's not often they make mistakes, so there's not much chance to take advantage of that.
Still, it's usually a good race for Ferrari who tend to build a car that does well on high speed circuits. Hopefully therefore Alonso should do well, which should keep the championship alive.
There's also the possibility that if the Mercedes can get on pole in qualifying then they'll be able to dominate and hold the others back. That was part of the key as to why they did well in Hungary - get on pole and stay there.
Of course that's also the general Red Bull tactic, but then the car (deliberately) doesn't tend to have the highest top speed so they may struggle to achieve it.
Monza is one of the fastest tracks on the current circuit and is not that far off being an Indi-car style oval circuit. Indeed, I seem to recall the old, banked circuit was an oval. I mean, it has a few chicanes and that, but if you were to take an oval and stretch it and put a dog leg in it, that wouldn't be too far off of Monza.
Anyway, the point is that it's a very fast circuit and the race often doesn't take much more than an hour to run.
It's normally an okay race. It doesn't tend to have a lot of overtaking, though it is possible. Part of the issue is that being so fast and having so few corners it's not often they make mistakes, so there's not much chance to take advantage of that.
Still, it's usually a good race for Ferrari who tend to build a car that does well on high speed circuits. Hopefully therefore Alonso should do well, which should keep the championship alive.
There's also the possibility that if the Mercedes can get on pole in qualifying then they'll be able to dominate and hold the others back. That was part of the key as to why they did well in Hungary - get on pole and stay there.
Of course that's also the general Red Bull tactic, but then the car (deliberately) doesn't tend to have the highest top speed so they may struggle to achieve it.
Wednesday, 4 September 2013
belgium grand prix
Thought so - I wrote this yesterday, but turns out I didn't post it!
During my absence I only missed blogging on the one grand prix, which was Spa Francochamps in Belgium.
Usually Spa is one of the best races of the year, as it has natural opportunities to overtake and the drivers enjoy racing there. It's also a place where it often rains, and unpredictably so. Because of the hills it has its own little micro-climate that can take the teams by surprise.
Having given it the big build-up this year's race was okay. Qualifying was good as it was quite exciting. The weather played a major part and parts of the sessions were wet. However, in the race it stayed dry throughout.
I also have to say I think DRS ruins a circuit like Spa. The problem is that there are good places to overtake, and they still use them, but because there's quite a big DRS section some of the time they wait until they can get on the DRS straight and simply overtake with the extra speed. Which is the worst form of overtaking.
Good overtaking is getting them into the corner (or I guess sometimes when coming out of a corner) but simply driving past the other guy on the straight because you have extra speed that he doesn't isn't overtaking. And there was a fair bit of that this year.
DRS does work on a handful of circuits (notably the circuits in the middle east) but the intention was meant to be that it aided overtaking, helping them get into an overtaking position, not that it allows them to drive past.
During my absence I only missed blogging on the one grand prix, which was Spa Francochamps in Belgium.
Usually Spa is one of the best races of the year, as it has natural opportunities to overtake and the drivers enjoy racing there. It's also a place where it often rains, and unpredictably so. Because of the hills it has its own little micro-climate that can take the teams by surprise.
Having given it the big build-up this year's race was okay. Qualifying was good as it was quite exciting. The weather played a major part and parts of the sessions were wet. However, in the race it stayed dry throughout.
I also have to say I think DRS ruins a circuit like Spa. The problem is that there are good places to overtake, and they still use them, but because there's quite a big DRS section some of the time they wait until they can get on the DRS straight and simply overtake with the extra speed. Which is the worst form of overtaking.
Good overtaking is getting them into the corner (or I guess sometimes when coming out of a corner) but simply driving past the other guy on the straight because you have extra speed that he doesn't isn't overtaking. And there was a fair bit of that this year.
DRS does work on a handful of circuits (notably the circuits in the middle east) but the intention was meant to be that it aided overtaking, helping them get into an overtaking position, not that it allows them to drive past.
Monday, 2 September 2013
a month away
I’ve obviously not been blogging for the month of August.
This wasn’t deliberate. Well, it became deliberate, but it didn’t start that way. It started as just the usual lack of blogging, but then some stuff happened that meant I haven’t really been having much fun, so writing a blog didn’t really seem like something I wanted to do.
I’m feeling pretty miserable, actually. I definitely wouldn’t go so far or as dramatic) to say I was depressed, but I would rate my mood just recently as being below average and I’m one of life’s less cheery people, so you can see I’ve not been happy.
I’ll make some posts in the future about some of the stuff that’s been happening. These won’t be immediate, and I’m not sure this blog will be particularly regularly updated for a while, but I’m definitely going to do my best not to be totally silent for a whole month again.
I thought though for this return post I’d mention something a little bit positive.
I’ve been struggling with the diet/weight for quite a while now. I’d basically reached a point where my weight has stabilised, but it was some way above where I wanted it to be.
Now part of the problem was that I‘ve been eating bad things - high calories, stuff. However, it wasn’t like it used to be and I was a bit puzzled how my weight wasn’t really changing either way.
However, I've now figured out that exercise is also a big part of the problem. It’s not that I’ve stopped doing my walking - indeed, I’ve been doing the same amount that I’d built up to before. And that is the problem. I think my body/metabolism has built up to cope with this level of exercise.
It’s difficult to explain, but basically the last couple of weeks I’ve been testing out doing more exercise and it’s led to some more significant reductions, despite still doing badly with sticking to the diet. So the key is for me to increase the exercise. It’s going to be difficult as it means more time spent doing it, but I’m some way below the recommended 10,000 steps per day so it’s not like I’m going nuts.
This wasn’t deliberate. Well, it became deliberate, but it didn’t start that way. It started as just the usual lack of blogging, but then some stuff happened that meant I haven’t really been having much fun, so writing a blog didn’t really seem like something I wanted to do.
I’m feeling pretty miserable, actually. I definitely wouldn’t go so far or as dramatic) to say I was depressed, but I would rate my mood just recently as being below average and I’m one of life’s less cheery people, so you can see I’ve not been happy.
I’ll make some posts in the future about some of the stuff that’s been happening. These won’t be immediate, and I’m not sure this blog will be particularly regularly updated for a while, but I’m definitely going to do my best not to be totally silent for a whole month again.
I thought though for this return post I’d mention something a little bit positive.
I’ve been struggling with the diet/weight for quite a while now. I’d basically reached a point where my weight has stabilised, but it was some way above where I wanted it to be.
Now part of the problem was that I‘ve been eating bad things - high calories, stuff. However, it wasn’t like it used to be and I was a bit puzzled how my weight wasn’t really changing either way.
However, I've now figured out that exercise is also a big part of the problem. It’s not that I’ve stopped doing my walking - indeed, I’ve been doing the same amount that I’d built up to before. And that is the problem. I think my body/metabolism has built up to cope with this level of exercise.
It’s difficult to explain, but basically the last couple of weeks I’ve been testing out doing more exercise and it’s led to some more significant reductions, despite still doing badly with sticking to the diet. So the key is for me to increase the exercise. It’s going to be difficult as it means more time spent doing it, but I’m some way below the recommended 10,000 steps per day so it’s not like I’m going nuts.
Wednesday, 31 July 2013
tinker, tailor, soldier, spy
I actually listened to this as audiobook while walking shortly before watching the film.
I found the book good but a little confusing. It's one of those with a lot of characters who are introduced in fairly subtle ways and often without much in the way of physical description so there's not much for you to hang onto.
Plot wise it made perfect sense, but I had to really concentrate on the characters - particularly since the point is that one of them is a spy!
This film has a bit of a hard act to follow. It's one of a few adaptations and one of the most famous was by the BBC and starred Alec Guinness of all people and was quite well regarded.
This is also the first in a set of stories by le Carre and featuring the character George Smiley and revolving around Karla, a Russian spy. Smiley features in many other of le Carre's novels, but these are probably the most well known. What I'm saying is that if they are adapting this then they probably intended to do all of the other Karla books.
So do I think they should - was it any good?
Well yes, I thought it was quite a good adaptation. Smiley is played by Gary Oldman and I have to say he's perfect in the role. He really nails the character and it's a suitably subtle performance - Smiley is a very taciturn, deliberate, thoughtful character, not given to outbursts or displays of emotion.
The story is necessarily tweaked to fit the running time, though the main core of the story is there. The real changes are around the more peripheral characters. One of the best examples of this is Jim Prideaux. In the book there's quite a lot of stuff around his job as a school teacher, particularly revolving around one of the boys. In the film he's a school teacher, and we see some of the events, but they're incidental flavour, rather than things that take up significant screen time.
This has the advantage of not muddying the waters - the focus is squarely on Smiley, though it does remove some of the colour.
Overall I thought it was a good adaptation then, particularly of material that's very cerebral in nature.
I found the book good but a little confusing. It's one of those with a lot of characters who are introduced in fairly subtle ways and often without much in the way of physical description so there's not much for you to hang onto.
Plot wise it made perfect sense, but I had to really concentrate on the characters - particularly since the point is that one of them is a spy!
This film has a bit of a hard act to follow. It's one of a few adaptations and one of the most famous was by the BBC and starred Alec Guinness of all people and was quite well regarded.
This is also the first in a set of stories by le Carre and featuring the character George Smiley and revolving around Karla, a Russian spy. Smiley features in many other of le Carre's novels, but these are probably the most well known. What I'm saying is that if they are adapting this then they probably intended to do all of the other Karla books.
So do I think they should - was it any good?
Well yes, I thought it was quite a good adaptation. Smiley is played by Gary Oldman and I have to say he's perfect in the role. He really nails the character and it's a suitably subtle performance - Smiley is a very taciturn, deliberate, thoughtful character, not given to outbursts or displays of emotion.
The story is necessarily tweaked to fit the running time, though the main core of the story is there. The real changes are around the more peripheral characters. One of the best examples of this is Jim Prideaux. In the book there's quite a lot of stuff around his job as a school teacher, particularly revolving around one of the boys. In the film he's a school teacher, and we see some of the events, but they're incidental flavour, rather than things that take up significant screen time.
This has the advantage of not muddying the waters - the focus is squarely on Smiley, though it does remove some of the colour.
Overall I thought it was a good adaptation then, particularly of material that's very cerebral in nature.
Tuesday, 30 July 2013
hungarian grand prix
I didn't post a blog yesterday because I got busy with something from early on and basically forgot.
It was the Hungarian Grand Prix this weekend.
It's been on the calendar a long time has Hungary, but it's not one of the classic races. The nature of the circuit is such that it's very difficult to overtake. The circuit is relatively slow speed as it is basically a continuous series of corners. This makes it challenging and (I imagine) interesting to drive, but doesn't facilitate overtaking.
However, saying all that, this recent race was okay. I mean, it wasn't amazing, but there was enough stuff happening that it wasn't totally dull.
It was also Hamilton's first win for Mercedes. I have to admit they've done a lot better this year than I thought they would - I thought they'd struggle this year and then possibly pull off a blinder with the new engines next year.
He's also theoretically in the hunt for the championship, but I think this weekend was actually somewhat distorted. Basically Vettel, Alonso and Raikonnen got a bit stuck behind Button's McLaren. Button actually did quite well in the race, as he was down in 13th after qualifying and ended up 8th. I think they drove a clever strategy that Button was able to make work, but it was helped by the difficulty of overtaking at the circuit, as he then delayed a lot of people.
However, there is another way of looking at that, in that Lewis was also in the position of having to overtake people on a difficult circuit, but he did it, where others either failed or took too long. Hamilton had to overtake Button once and Webber twice and did so it quick order each time.
To me this shows the difference between Lewis and some of the competition - give him a car that's up to the job and let him go and he will race, where others will perhaps tend to sit back and consolidate.
It's now the F1 mid-season break, so there won't be any races for a while, and I think when it comes back at the end of the month it's the always entertaining Belgium race at Spa.
It was the Hungarian Grand Prix this weekend.
It's been on the calendar a long time has Hungary, but it's not one of the classic races. The nature of the circuit is such that it's very difficult to overtake. The circuit is relatively slow speed as it is basically a continuous series of corners. This makes it challenging and (I imagine) interesting to drive, but doesn't facilitate overtaking.
However, saying all that, this recent race was okay. I mean, it wasn't amazing, but there was enough stuff happening that it wasn't totally dull.
It was also Hamilton's first win for Mercedes. I have to admit they've done a lot better this year than I thought they would - I thought they'd struggle this year and then possibly pull off a blinder with the new engines next year.
He's also theoretically in the hunt for the championship, but I think this weekend was actually somewhat distorted. Basically Vettel, Alonso and Raikonnen got a bit stuck behind Button's McLaren. Button actually did quite well in the race, as he was down in 13th after qualifying and ended up 8th. I think they drove a clever strategy that Button was able to make work, but it was helped by the difficulty of overtaking at the circuit, as he then delayed a lot of people.
However, there is another way of looking at that, in that Lewis was also in the position of having to overtake people on a difficult circuit, but he did it, where others either failed or took too long. Hamilton had to overtake Button once and Webber twice and did so it quick order each time.
To me this shows the difference between Lewis and some of the competition - give him a car that's up to the job and let him go and he will race, where others will perhaps tend to sit back and consolidate.
It's now the F1 mid-season break, so there won't be any races for a while, and I think when it comes back at the end of the month it's the always entertaining Belgium race at Spa.
Friday, 26 July 2013
hungarian grand prix
Hungarian grand prix this weekend. It's not usually that interesting as a race, and the BBC is only showing highlights. After this there's a 3 week gap, during which F1 has its "two week holiday".
I have to confess I've not found this season all that memorable. There's been a few interesting races, but it doesn't seem as close as last year. Weirdly, even though the rules were pretty stable again, it seems to have had something of a crystallising effect on some of the teams. Perhaps they've shifted significant focus to next year's car?
It doesn't help that McLaren are not in contention and some of the mid-level teams have relatively poor cars.
I've no particular plans this weekend. I had thought that I might play some games other than SimCity. I mentioned doing this a while back, but didn't actually do it.
Alternatively I might try to get ahead with watching some of the anime I keep selling, rather than having to watch it once it's already sold.
My landlord is going away on holiday in September this year I believe so I'm expecting to have a go at the contents of the shed. There's quite a bit of stuff out there that I think I'm going to have to sell, given my financial situation.
I have to confess I've not found this season all that memorable. There's been a few interesting races, but it doesn't seem as close as last year. Weirdly, even though the rules were pretty stable again, it seems to have had something of a crystallising effect on some of the teams. Perhaps they've shifted significant focus to next year's car?
It doesn't help that McLaren are not in contention and some of the mid-level teams have relatively poor cars.
I've no particular plans this weekend. I had thought that I might play some games other than SimCity. I mentioned doing this a while back, but didn't actually do it.
Alternatively I might try to get ahead with watching some of the anime I keep selling, rather than having to watch it once it's already sold.
My landlord is going away on holiday in September this year I believe so I'm expecting to have a go at the contents of the shed. There's quite a bit of stuff out there that I think I'm going to have to sell, given my financial situation.
Thursday, 25 July 2013
loads of anime pt3
rideback
I seem to be making the same basic point on quite a few of these series I've watched - that I found the direction it took a little disappointing after the initial few episodes that I'd watched by way of preview.
Well in this case I can say... pretty much the same thing.
In the first couple of episodes of rideback we're introduced to the main characters, as well as the ridebacks, which are essentially bicycle mecha hybrids. They're pretty cool and the sudden and instant connection that the main character Rin has with them is just as enjoyable as I remembered. It also develops the point about her being a former ballet dancer and that the ridebacks become something like a replacement for this.
The problem really is that there's a whole political thing that is uses initially as a kind of backdrop, which is fine, but that then becomes a central part of the story. And my problem with it was that it was the usual unrealistic anime weird political stuff. I mean, it goes on about the world government and this being taken over and stuff, but it makes little to no sense.
Of course the important thing is how it affects the characters, and it does this quite well, though it does generate a couple of rather one-dimensional military types as a result, which just took the edge off of it for me.
I also found the character designs a bit off. I'm not saying they're bad, it's just they felt very old skool, but obviously it is quite a new anime. It wouldn't have been so bad if the technology was depicted in a similar old skool style, but it isn't so it felt a bit like taking an older anime and airbrushing some new CGI mechs over the top, which didn't really work for me.
I'm being quite harsh and it is an enjoyable anime that seems to have fallen between the cracks a bit; it's just for me it didn't become an instant classic.
kimi ni todoke
I actually first encountered kimi ni todoke in anime format, though it is actually an adaptation of a manga. Having sampled the show and enjoyed it I then read the manga and subsequently bought the anime. I have to confess I got a bit annoyed at the manga, so I was a little worried when I finally came to watch the anime.
Anyway, kimi ni todoke it's a shoujo series and centres on a girl who unfortunately looks like the character "Sadako" from the ring films, with a similar name. She is Sawako, where the ring character is Sadako, which her classmates give her as a nickname - it doesn't really refer to this fully in the anime, I'm guessing for copyright reasons, though keeps the nickname so it's still there. She therefore ends up linked by her peers to the occult, partly due to the films thing, but also because of her look and behaviour.
Unfortunately, Sawa is socially rather inept. She's actually very kind and does lots to help her fellow students, but the way she presents herself and behaves means that they are all scared of her - or creeped out by her, at least.
However, she has fallen for the class's mister popular and he has fallen for her, and the series is therefore about their love - will it overcome their shyness, etc?
Well, that's definitely what the anime is about. There are obviously some peripheral characters to this main story and the reason I got a bit pissed off with the manga is that it veers and hauls over to focusing on those peripheral characters. Now this would be okay if it was short-ish or it was about how the main characters really help them, but actually our main characters become a real side-act during these diversions.
However, the anime doesn't lose this focus, so it's more satisfying in a way. Well, the first series is. I found the second series quite frustrating. It deviates a fair bit from the manga and takes the whole miss-understandings aspect of the story to an extreme that I actually found a bit annoying. I mean, it justifies why their friends don't properly interfere, but I just wanted to bonk them on the head and say - "Look: you love each other, get on with it!"
But that's really only a small thing and it is a very good series that's worth watching if you like romantic stuff.
steins;gate
I have to confess when I sampled this one I wasn't massively impressed.
I'd watched a bit of the previous one in this "series" (I don't think series is quite the right word - I think these ones with the semi-colon by 5pb are related, but I don't think they have the same characters in them, so I'm not 100% sure how) Chaos;Head and found it awful. The main character was so annoying I couldn't watch more than an episode, from memory. The premise also seemed daft.
My sampling therefore pretty much boiled down to me watching the first couple of episodes and deciding the protagonist of this was also annoying (though not as bad) and finding the story very confusing.
However, later on I read quite a few people raving about the series, so for some reason I decided to buy it (yeah, no wonder I'm skint, right?). When I came to watch it, then, I wasn't really expecting much from it, and suspected I might end up stopping half way through.
I guess time mellows a bit as I didn't find the protagonist annoying, but did still find the plot a bit confusing. Well, initially I did - it takes a while, but it starts to make a bit more sense later one. Or rather it does until it fully gets into its time travel stuff, then it becomes quite confusing, but in a good way.
I have to confess, though, until about half way through the series I really didn't see what people were raving about. However, at that half-way point there's a particular episode that really elevates the series from okay to quite good. the rest of the series is about the ramifications from that, and it's this latter half that really works, helping to develop the characters and their relationships properly.
If I'm honest I'm not sure it quite "works" in terms of its time travel, as I think the way it does it means that it undermines itself, but really that's secondary compared to what it does with the characters.
I wouldn't put it in the "classic" bracket, but it was certainly more enjoyable than I'd expected.
I seem to be making the same basic point on quite a few of these series I've watched - that I found the direction it took a little disappointing after the initial few episodes that I'd watched by way of preview.
Well in this case I can say... pretty much the same thing.
In the first couple of episodes of rideback we're introduced to the main characters, as well as the ridebacks, which are essentially bicycle mecha hybrids. They're pretty cool and the sudden and instant connection that the main character Rin has with them is just as enjoyable as I remembered. It also develops the point about her being a former ballet dancer and that the ridebacks become something like a replacement for this.
The problem really is that there's a whole political thing that is uses initially as a kind of backdrop, which is fine, but that then becomes a central part of the story. And my problem with it was that it was the usual unrealistic anime weird political stuff. I mean, it goes on about the world government and this being taken over and stuff, but it makes little to no sense.
Of course the important thing is how it affects the characters, and it does this quite well, though it does generate a couple of rather one-dimensional military types as a result, which just took the edge off of it for me.
I also found the character designs a bit off. I'm not saying they're bad, it's just they felt very old skool, but obviously it is quite a new anime. It wouldn't have been so bad if the technology was depicted in a similar old skool style, but it isn't so it felt a bit like taking an older anime and airbrushing some new CGI mechs over the top, which didn't really work for me.
I'm being quite harsh and it is an enjoyable anime that seems to have fallen between the cracks a bit; it's just for me it didn't become an instant classic.
kimi ni todoke
I actually first encountered kimi ni todoke in anime format, though it is actually an adaptation of a manga. Having sampled the show and enjoyed it I then read the manga and subsequently bought the anime. I have to confess I got a bit annoyed at the manga, so I was a little worried when I finally came to watch the anime.
Anyway, kimi ni todoke it's a shoujo series and centres on a girl who unfortunately looks like the character "Sadako" from the ring films, with a similar name. She is Sawako, where the ring character is Sadako, which her classmates give her as a nickname - it doesn't really refer to this fully in the anime, I'm guessing for copyright reasons, though keeps the nickname so it's still there. She therefore ends up linked by her peers to the occult, partly due to the films thing, but also because of her look and behaviour.
Unfortunately, Sawa is socially rather inept. She's actually very kind and does lots to help her fellow students, but the way she presents herself and behaves means that they are all scared of her - or creeped out by her, at least.
However, she has fallen for the class's mister popular and he has fallen for her, and the series is therefore about their love - will it overcome their shyness, etc?
Well, that's definitely what the anime is about. There are obviously some peripheral characters to this main story and the reason I got a bit pissed off with the manga is that it veers and hauls over to focusing on those peripheral characters. Now this would be okay if it was short-ish or it was about how the main characters really help them, but actually our main characters become a real side-act during these diversions.
However, the anime doesn't lose this focus, so it's more satisfying in a way. Well, the first series is. I found the second series quite frustrating. It deviates a fair bit from the manga and takes the whole miss-understandings aspect of the story to an extreme that I actually found a bit annoying. I mean, it justifies why their friends don't properly interfere, but I just wanted to bonk them on the head and say - "Look: you love each other, get on with it!"
But that's really only a small thing and it is a very good series that's worth watching if you like romantic stuff.
steins;gate
I have to confess when I sampled this one I wasn't massively impressed.
I'd watched a bit of the previous one in this "series" (I don't think series is quite the right word - I think these ones with the semi-colon by 5pb are related, but I don't think they have the same characters in them, so I'm not 100% sure how) Chaos;Head and found it awful. The main character was so annoying I couldn't watch more than an episode, from memory. The premise also seemed daft.
My sampling therefore pretty much boiled down to me watching the first couple of episodes and deciding the protagonist of this was also annoying (though not as bad) and finding the story very confusing.
However, later on I read quite a few people raving about the series, so for some reason I decided to buy it (yeah, no wonder I'm skint, right?). When I came to watch it, then, I wasn't really expecting much from it, and suspected I might end up stopping half way through.
I guess time mellows a bit as I didn't find the protagonist annoying, but did still find the plot a bit confusing. Well, initially I did - it takes a while, but it starts to make a bit more sense later one. Or rather it does until it fully gets into its time travel stuff, then it becomes quite confusing, but in a good way.
I have to confess, though, until about half way through the series I really didn't see what people were raving about. However, at that half-way point there's a particular episode that really elevates the series from okay to quite good. the rest of the series is about the ramifications from that, and it's this latter half that really works, helping to develop the characters and their relationships properly.
If I'm honest I'm not sure it quite "works" in terms of its time travel, as I think the way it does it means that it undermines itself, but really that's secondary compared to what it does with the characters.
I wouldn't put it in the "classic" bracket, but it was certainly more enjoyable than I'd expected.
Wednesday, 24 July 2013
the king's speech
I think part of the reason I've fallen so far behind with these reviews is because I wasn't really sure what to say about this film.
You'll almost certainly be aware that the film won four Oscars and a whole slew of other things, was critically praised and made a bucket load. And, unfortunately for writing this review, I don't really disagree with that. It is a damn fine film.
As I understand it was actually based on an adapted version of a screenplay written by the voice coach (Lionel Logue). It is deftly written - the characterisations of Logue and Albert are particularly good, though some of the more peripheral characters are rather incidental and not really fleshed out in any particular depth, but then it doesn't really suffer for that.
Anyway, what is particularly good is it does make them feel like real people - Albert is quite caustic in many places and the no-heirs Aussie nature of Logue isn't over-done as it could easily have become pastiche.
The performances are also excellent. Firth and Rush portray Albert and Logue extremely well. Firth actually sounds just like Albert (there's some extras with original audio on there).
The locations are also well used. It could so easily have fallen into a big productions palaces and posh frocks thing, but it avoids that altogether. Indeed, much of the film takes places in relatively ordinary spaces.
So yeah, pretty short review as I'm not quite sure what I can really add. It is a good film. I guess if you were a total anti-monarchist you may be able to be miffed at it, but really the point of this is that it works because of that, rather than against it.
You'll almost certainly be aware that the film won four Oscars and a whole slew of other things, was critically praised and made a bucket load. And, unfortunately for writing this review, I don't really disagree with that. It is a damn fine film.
As I understand it was actually based on an adapted version of a screenplay written by the voice coach (Lionel Logue). It is deftly written - the characterisations of Logue and Albert are particularly good, though some of the more peripheral characters are rather incidental and not really fleshed out in any particular depth, but then it doesn't really suffer for that.
Anyway, what is particularly good is it does make them feel like real people - Albert is quite caustic in many places and the no-heirs Aussie nature of Logue isn't over-done as it could easily have become pastiche.
The performances are also excellent. Firth and Rush portray Albert and Logue extremely well. Firth actually sounds just like Albert (there's some extras with original audio on there).
The locations are also well used. It could so easily have fallen into a big productions palaces and posh frocks thing, but it avoids that altogether. Indeed, much of the film takes places in relatively ordinary spaces.
So yeah, pretty short review as I'm not quite sure what I can really add. It is a good film. I guess if you were a total anti-monarchist you may be able to be miffed at it, but really the point of this is that it works because of that, rather than against it.
Tuesday, 23 July 2013
duff stuff
I posted the other week about some things that seemed to have all broken at the same time.
When I started the post I was sure there was a big long list of stuff, but then the actual list wasn't that massive. I later remembered some of the stuff that has also broken that I forgot to mention.
Although first, I should say that my suspicion over what was causing my computer to go funny proved accurate - the wire that provides power to the CPU cooler was trapping the fan, causing it to make the funny noise and, presumably, do the whole restart thing. I'm not quite sure I follow how it was causing the issues, but I adjusted it so it's nowhere near and the noise and unreliability stopped.
Anyway - the other broken stuff does actually mostly relate to my computer.
First off the speakers - the right speaker has stopped working. The left speaker and the bass module are still functional, but the right doesn't seem to want to play ball. To be honest, the speakers are old and knackered anyway and had started to make odd feedback noises if the cables were in particular positions.
Then there's my printer. This appears to have gotten to the stage of printing some stuff in particular colours okay, but other colours or big things with lots of colours are coming out funny. I've tried cleaning the heads and using all the deep cleaning (which costs a fortune in ink) and it doesn't make any difference, so I'm guessing something is rather more permanently clogged.
There's a stage with printers were the need to clean them (and thereby waste ink) makes them uneconomical. I read somewhere that printer ink is one of the most expensive fluids in the world, ranking up there with semen from famous horses.
The next thing that's been on the fritz was my mouse. I've had it a very long time so my suspicion was that it was getting gunked up. It's an optical mouse, so there's not the rollerball gunk issue, but I've always produced a lot of greasy (and acidic) sweat that tends to foul even optical mice up.
However, with the mouse I was fairly determined to see if I could fix it, where the other stuff I will have to replace. I therefore set about it with a screwdriver (it had a surprising number of screws in it) and some tissues to wipe off any gunk.
I have to confess it didn't seem as bad as I'd thought it might be, so it may just be knackered, though it seems to be performing better now. Well, it is once I'd corrected my classic mistake.
Having put the thing back together, I naturally found a spare spring (there's always a spring or a screw left over!). I couldn't for the life of me work out where it had come from, but then eventually worked out it was the spring that you push against when depressing the centre mouse wheel. It took me ages to work out how it must go in order to achieve the tension, but it's all back together now.
And now for the biggie!
This actually happened just last week, but my exhaust fell off my car!
I was driving back home along the A31 when suddenly the car started making a very deep noise like those idiots who have the "loud" exhausts on. There was also a noticeable drop in power and a kind of scraping noise, leading me to think my exhaust may be damaged.
Even a cursory glance when I got back confirmed this and a more thorough examination showed that at the least back end of the exhaust (where the silencer is) was very loose, if not detached from the rest of the exhaust.
I therefore had to take it to the garage, having attached some string to hopefully keep it from dropping off.
A new exhaust + fitting cost me £145! But then also this was mid-week so I had to still go to work, which meant the train for several days, which added another £20. I have no idea how train fares work - they certainly don't seem to bare any resemblance to common sense. How it costs as much as they charged me I've no idea - how can two singles, one at off-peak and the peak one being only 2 stops cost half as much again as a 3-stop return bought during peak?
Oh, the joys of privatisation. Fuck you Maggie.
When I started the post I was sure there was a big long list of stuff, but then the actual list wasn't that massive. I later remembered some of the stuff that has also broken that I forgot to mention.
Although first, I should say that my suspicion over what was causing my computer to go funny proved accurate - the wire that provides power to the CPU cooler was trapping the fan, causing it to make the funny noise and, presumably, do the whole restart thing. I'm not quite sure I follow how it was causing the issues, but I adjusted it so it's nowhere near and the noise and unreliability stopped.
Anyway - the other broken stuff does actually mostly relate to my computer.
First off the speakers - the right speaker has stopped working. The left speaker and the bass module are still functional, but the right doesn't seem to want to play ball. To be honest, the speakers are old and knackered anyway and had started to make odd feedback noises if the cables were in particular positions.
Then there's my printer. This appears to have gotten to the stage of printing some stuff in particular colours okay, but other colours or big things with lots of colours are coming out funny. I've tried cleaning the heads and using all the deep cleaning (which costs a fortune in ink) and it doesn't make any difference, so I'm guessing something is rather more permanently clogged.
There's a stage with printers were the need to clean them (and thereby waste ink) makes them uneconomical. I read somewhere that printer ink is one of the most expensive fluids in the world, ranking up there with semen from famous horses.
The next thing that's been on the fritz was my mouse. I've had it a very long time so my suspicion was that it was getting gunked up. It's an optical mouse, so there's not the rollerball gunk issue, but I've always produced a lot of greasy (and acidic) sweat that tends to foul even optical mice up.
However, with the mouse I was fairly determined to see if I could fix it, where the other stuff I will have to replace. I therefore set about it with a screwdriver (it had a surprising number of screws in it) and some tissues to wipe off any gunk.
I have to confess it didn't seem as bad as I'd thought it might be, so it may just be knackered, though it seems to be performing better now. Well, it is once I'd corrected my classic mistake.
Having put the thing back together, I naturally found a spare spring (there's always a spring or a screw left over!). I couldn't for the life of me work out where it had come from, but then eventually worked out it was the spring that you push against when depressing the centre mouse wheel. It took me ages to work out how it must go in order to achieve the tension, but it's all back together now.
And now for the biggie!
This actually happened just last week, but my exhaust fell off my car!
I was driving back home along the A31 when suddenly the car started making a very deep noise like those idiots who have the "loud" exhausts on. There was also a noticeable drop in power and a kind of scraping noise, leading me to think my exhaust may be damaged.
Even a cursory glance when I got back confirmed this and a more thorough examination showed that at the least back end of the exhaust (where the silencer is) was very loose, if not detached from the rest of the exhaust.
I therefore had to take it to the garage, having attached some string to hopefully keep it from dropping off.
A new exhaust + fitting cost me £145! But then also this was mid-week so I had to still go to work, which meant the train for several days, which added another £20. I have no idea how train fares work - they certainly don't seem to bare any resemblance to common sense. How it costs as much as they charged me I've no idea - how can two singles, one at off-peak and the peak one being only 2 stops cost half as much again as a 3-stop return bought during peak?
Oh, the joys of privatisation. Fuck you Maggie.
Monday, 22 July 2013
melting
I think I'm melting
This last weekend there was a bit of a let up from the heat, but today it's been even hotter than it has been. It also seems much more humid today. The only small element of comfort I've been taking in the heat has been that the humidity hasn't been too high, but today it's been hot and sticky.
It's been costing me a fortune of course as I've been having to have the air conditioner on in order to bring things down into a more acceptable range for sleeping. One of the problems I have is that I can't have the windows open at night because of the risk of mosquitos (I react rather badly to their bites) but also I have to have the black bags on the windows in order to block out the light.
Unfortunately the way the sun shines on my bedsit is quite inconvenient as it tends to cause it to heat up quite a lot in the late afternoon / early evening, just when you don't want it to.
I have discovered a bit of a trick with one of my fans, though. I have to turn the air con off to actually go to bed, but I have a big vertical fan that has a timer on it. What seems to work quite well, therefore, is if I turn that on for a short period after the aircon is off then it blows across me, helping to keep me cool, but obviously the timer means it won't then go all night. It's quite loud, so I would be worried it might wake me up if I left it all night, but I tend to get dry eyes and things like that if I have a fan on me too long.
There were no posts last week as I was maxed out on the bid I mentioned. It was a horrible week, actually, if I'm honest.
This last weekend there was a bit of a let up from the heat, but today it's been even hotter than it has been. It also seems much more humid today. The only small element of comfort I've been taking in the heat has been that the humidity hasn't been too high, but today it's been hot and sticky.
It's been costing me a fortune of course as I've been having to have the air conditioner on in order to bring things down into a more acceptable range for sleeping. One of the problems I have is that I can't have the windows open at night because of the risk of mosquitos (I react rather badly to their bites) but also I have to have the black bags on the windows in order to block out the light.
Unfortunately the way the sun shines on my bedsit is quite inconvenient as it tends to cause it to heat up quite a lot in the late afternoon / early evening, just when you don't want it to.
I have discovered a bit of a trick with one of my fans, though. I have to turn the air con off to actually go to bed, but I have a big vertical fan that has a timer on it. What seems to work quite well, therefore, is if I turn that on for a short period after the aircon is off then it blows across me, helping to keep me cool, but obviously the timer means it won't then go all night. It's quite loud, so I would be worried it might wake me up if I left it all night, but I tend to get dry eyes and things like that if I have a fan on me too long.
There were no posts last week as I was maxed out on the bid I mentioned. It was a horrible week, actually, if I'm honest.
Friday, 12 July 2013
phew what a scorcher
Well, summer appears to have arrived this last week and, as per usual, it has arrived with an exclamation mark.
I've always found this a bit puzzling about the British weather, in that it suddenly seems to flip. A couple of weeks back I was regularly having to use my thick duvet cover and was dithering over whether to put my jumpers and tracksuits in the shed, and now I'm wandering about in shorts and a t-shirt.
Last weekend I actually broke out the air conditioner. I tried to avoid it on the Saturday, as it does obviously cost money to run and I don't have very much of that spare. However, Saturday night's sleep was terrible as it was too warm and so Sunday I had it on all day.
I used it again Monday and Tuesday after work, but then the rest of the week it's been a bit more tolerable and the evening more conducive to sleep.
It's meant to be really hot again this weekend, so I might have to wheel it out again, though actually there's a very good chance I'll have to be in work this weekend. The problem really is that I have a big bid that needs working on and I could have worked on it this week, but unfortunately a series of other bids needed me to fix them and that ate up all my time.
It's a shame really as I think the bid could represent a good general opportunity for the company, but it's kinda been received like a wet fart.
I find working where I do so frustrating. If I had a bit of spare cash I'd be back looking for a job, I think. Unfortunately money is so tight it makes it difficult - I'd need to buy some new smart clothes (trousers in particular) and then there would be the cost of travelling to the interviews, etc.
I've always found this a bit puzzling about the British weather, in that it suddenly seems to flip. A couple of weeks back I was regularly having to use my thick duvet cover and was dithering over whether to put my jumpers and tracksuits in the shed, and now I'm wandering about in shorts and a t-shirt.
Last weekend I actually broke out the air conditioner. I tried to avoid it on the Saturday, as it does obviously cost money to run and I don't have very much of that spare. However, Saturday night's sleep was terrible as it was too warm and so Sunday I had it on all day.
I used it again Monday and Tuesday after work, but then the rest of the week it's been a bit more tolerable and the evening more conducive to sleep.
It's meant to be really hot again this weekend, so I might have to wheel it out again, though actually there's a very good chance I'll have to be in work this weekend. The problem really is that I have a big bid that needs working on and I could have worked on it this week, but unfortunately a series of other bids needed me to fix them and that ate up all my time.
It's a shame really as I think the bid could represent a good general opportunity for the company, but it's kinda been received like a wet fart.
I find working where I do so frustrating. If I had a bit of spare cash I'd be back looking for a job, I think. Unfortunately money is so tight it makes it difficult - I'd need to buy some new smart clothes (trousers in particular) and then there would be the cost of travelling to the interviews, etc.
Thursday, 11 July 2013
cashless
I'm still quite badly skint.
Things aren't quite as tight as they were. I've been very stingy with my spending and my relatively higher salary has meant that it's started to come back into parity. I've also not done too badly with selling things on e-bay (the Blu Rays in particular) so that's helped alleviate the situation more than I had feared.
All my cards are still pretty much maxed out. Indeed, part of the issue is that some of them slipped over the credit limits and I got hit with various fees. That meant I had to spend even more to bring them back into the limits. Of course it also means I have no safety net in terms of spending.
It's quite surprising actually how bills turn up when you're skint that you don't normally think about when you're not skint. A good example of this was the TV licence. I'd actually been randomly thinking that I didn't seem to have paid this in a while and then the bill turned up last month and I was shocked by how much it was.
Well, I was shocked that I couldn't afford to pay it until payday came around. This was a little stressful in that it gave me a very small window to actually pay it (payday is quite a variable concept where I work), but also I realised I'd never really thought about how much the license is.
I mean, don't get me wrong, I think it's good value for money, but it's quite a bit to pay in a lump. You can do various quarterly or monthly things to spread the cost, but some of these work out more expensive and others you still have to pay, like, half straight off and then the rest is spread out.
It was a bit like my car insurance a few months back - it wasn't an extortionate sum of money (in this case after I'd shopped around) but paying it as a single lump or spreading it out left me scratching my head. the single lump was the cheapest, but it means paying a big wedge all at once.
I mentioned I'd curbed my spending - this has meant being a bit more careful with general shopping (I've talked extensively before about how I tend to hoard and so buy replacement things long before the old one has actually run out) but also killing off my spending online.
In particular I cancelled all my anime pre-orders (there are some "second halves" of series I should buy as I won't watch them until I do and they won't sell at all well as first half only, but I figure they won't sell out instantly and I can get them once I've gotten through the existing stuff, by which time I may have the money). I also cancelled everything I'd pre-ordered on amazon. In particular this meant loads of manga that I'd pre-ordered.
Something I did notice while I was doing this was that the price of a lot of manga has gone up significantly on amazon. My guess is this is because of the ending of the tax-exempt Jersey thing for small items that allowed them to sell stuff cheap. However, this does mean that amazon is now not the automatic choice and it's worth shopping round.
Again, with the manga there are some volumes I should buy in order to complete the series so I can sell it on e-bay. The series tend to divide into those that are still on-going, where I try to sell on the most recent volumes as I read them, and those that have completed where I try to buy them all so I can sell them as a complete lot. These seem to work quite well as they sort of match what those buying on e-bay want.
Things aren't quite as tight as they were. I've been very stingy with my spending and my relatively higher salary has meant that it's started to come back into parity. I've also not done too badly with selling things on e-bay (the Blu Rays in particular) so that's helped alleviate the situation more than I had feared.
All my cards are still pretty much maxed out. Indeed, part of the issue is that some of them slipped over the credit limits and I got hit with various fees. That meant I had to spend even more to bring them back into the limits. Of course it also means I have no safety net in terms of spending.
It's quite surprising actually how bills turn up when you're skint that you don't normally think about when you're not skint. A good example of this was the TV licence. I'd actually been randomly thinking that I didn't seem to have paid this in a while and then the bill turned up last month and I was shocked by how much it was.
Well, I was shocked that I couldn't afford to pay it until payday came around. This was a little stressful in that it gave me a very small window to actually pay it (payday is quite a variable concept where I work), but also I realised I'd never really thought about how much the license is.
I mean, don't get me wrong, I think it's good value for money, but it's quite a bit to pay in a lump. You can do various quarterly or monthly things to spread the cost, but some of these work out more expensive and others you still have to pay, like, half straight off and then the rest is spread out.
It was a bit like my car insurance a few months back - it wasn't an extortionate sum of money (in this case after I'd shopped around) but paying it as a single lump or spreading it out left me scratching my head. the single lump was the cheapest, but it means paying a big wedge all at once.
I mentioned I'd curbed my spending - this has meant being a bit more careful with general shopping (I've talked extensively before about how I tend to hoard and so buy replacement things long before the old one has actually run out) but also killing off my spending online.
In particular I cancelled all my anime pre-orders (there are some "second halves" of series I should buy as I won't watch them until I do and they won't sell at all well as first half only, but I figure they won't sell out instantly and I can get them once I've gotten through the existing stuff, by which time I may have the money). I also cancelled everything I'd pre-ordered on amazon. In particular this meant loads of manga that I'd pre-ordered.
Something I did notice while I was doing this was that the price of a lot of manga has gone up significantly on amazon. My guess is this is because of the ending of the tax-exempt Jersey thing for small items that allowed them to sell stuff cheap. However, this does mean that amazon is now not the automatic choice and it's worth shopping round.
Again, with the manga there are some volumes I should buy in order to complete the series so I can sell it on e-bay. The series tend to divide into those that are still on-going, where I try to sell on the most recent volumes as I read them, and those that have completed where I try to buy them all so I can sell them as a complete lot. These seem to work quite well as they sort of match what those buying on e-bay want.
Wednesday, 10 July 2013
loads of anime pt2
More of these anime mini-reviews.
no. 6
I'm not sure this was quite what I was expecting.
I basically bought it on the strength of the first 2 episodes and what essentially happens is that after that it takes a bit of a left turn and goes in a rather different direction. Well, I say that - it retains the same basic thing that I thought it was about, but it then includes a bunch of stuff that was rather different and not quite what I was expecting.
The inclusion basically relates to these wasp things that kill people. It's part of a whole environmental strain to the story that, as I mentioned, is kinda included later, but wasn't part of those first couple of episodes. It's also not a particularly satisfying part of the story.
The bit I "signed up for" was to do with a perfect city that is rotten to the core and a kid who is dissatisfied and finds out what's going on. I mean, I'm not saying that was some super original story, but it's the kinds of dystopia stuff I really like.
I'm also not saying that the other stuff broke it, it's just a found that part less satisfying - it had quite a bit of religious mumbo jumbo wrapped around it.
Anyway, the important bit is the characters and No. 6 really excelled at this, with some really interesting characters who were developed really well. I'd therefore recommend it, though it's quite 'grown up' and cerebral, rather than being an action-packed adventure.
bunny drop
Bunny Drop is an interesting one as it's difficult to put it into a genre and thereby let people know exactly what it is.
This isn't massively helped by the fact that the anime concentrates on the first half of the manga. I mean, this is good in some ways, but the second half of the manga is more easily categorised. Although, to be fair, the categorisation is part of what makes the second half of the manga somewhat controversial.
Anyway, the series is about Daisuke, a guy who adopts Rin, who is, in actuality, his half-aunt. I know, bit weird - basically, his grandfather had a child with his housekeeper, so in a technical sense the child is his half-aunt, but she is around 6 years old where he is in his thirties. When his grandfather dies, they essentially discover the child and the rest of the family doesn't want to adopt her due to the shame associated with it, so Daisuke takes her in and raises her. So what genre does that fit in?
Anyway, the anime series is beautifully done. It is not 100% faithful to the manga, but takes the key elements and bases the story around them, tweaking to suit the structure better. The artwork is very pretty and it doesn't go quite as "70s" as the manga does, which was always a weird look given it's set in the modern day.
baka and test
I have to confess to being massively disappointed with baka and test.
As is my usual way I watched the first couple of episodes as a sampler and enjoyed them quite a bit, so I decided to buy it, as it was a licensed series. It came out on Blu Ray and there was a second series and an OAV too, so I bought all of them.
My problem with the show really stems from the fact that the bit I found most interesting and amusing - the class fights with the avatars actually ends up playing a relatively small part in the show proper. I mean, there are some stretches where it's key, but there are also long stretches where there's none of that.
It's also becomes quite reliant on running jokes - particularly in the second series - and I have to confess I found many of these unfunny and even in some cases a bit annoying. I mean some were okay and I did find some bits of the show amusing, but not enough to really justify the purchase.
It's weird - I also found the main character quite shouty and annoying, and he's like this from the start, but I don't recall thinking this when I sampled the show. I think part of it might be that the US dub version was even shoutier - I'm not blaming the dub as "ruining it" or anything, the Japanese character is shouty and annoying, it's just not quite as bad.
no. 6
I'm not sure this was quite what I was expecting.
I basically bought it on the strength of the first 2 episodes and what essentially happens is that after that it takes a bit of a left turn and goes in a rather different direction. Well, I say that - it retains the same basic thing that I thought it was about, but it then includes a bunch of stuff that was rather different and not quite what I was expecting.
The inclusion basically relates to these wasp things that kill people. It's part of a whole environmental strain to the story that, as I mentioned, is kinda included later, but wasn't part of those first couple of episodes. It's also not a particularly satisfying part of the story.
The bit I "signed up for" was to do with a perfect city that is rotten to the core and a kid who is dissatisfied and finds out what's going on. I mean, I'm not saying that was some super original story, but it's the kinds of dystopia stuff I really like.
I'm also not saying that the other stuff broke it, it's just a found that part less satisfying - it had quite a bit of religious mumbo jumbo wrapped around it.
Anyway, the important bit is the characters and No. 6 really excelled at this, with some really interesting characters who were developed really well. I'd therefore recommend it, though it's quite 'grown up' and cerebral, rather than being an action-packed adventure.
bunny drop
Bunny Drop is an interesting one as it's difficult to put it into a genre and thereby let people know exactly what it is.
This isn't massively helped by the fact that the anime concentrates on the first half of the manga. I mean, this is good in some ways, but the second half of the manga is more easily categorised. Although, to be fair, the categorisation is part of what makes the second half of the manga somewhat controversial.
Anyway, the series is about Daisuke, a guy who adopts Rin, who is, in actuality, his half-aunt. I know, bit weird - basically, his grandfather had a child with his housekeeper, so in a technical sense the child is his half-aunt, but she is around 6 years old where he is in his thirties. When his grandfather dies, they essentially discover the child and the rest of the family doesn't want to adopt her due to the shame associated with it, so Daisuke takes her in and raises her. So what genre does that fit in?
Anyway, the anime series is beautifully done. It is not 100% faithful to the manga, but takes the key elements and bases the story around them, tweaking to suit the structure better. The artwork is very pretty and it doesn't go quite as "70s" as the manga does, which was always a weird look given it's set in the modern day.
baka and test
I have to confess to being massively disappointed with baka and test.
As is my usual way I watched the first couple of episodes as a sampler and enjoyed them quite a bit, so I decided to buy it, as it was a licensed series. It came out on Blu Ray and there was a second series and an OAV too, so I bought all of them.
My problem with the show really stems from the fact that the bit I found most interesting and amusing - the class fights with the avatars actually ends up playing a relatively small part in the show proper. I mean, there are some stretches where it's key, but there are also long stretches where there's none of that.
It's also becomes quite reliant on running jokes - particularly in the second series - and I have to confess I found many of these unfunny and even in some cases a bit annoying. I mean some were okay and I did find some bits of the show amusing, but not enough to really justify the purchase.
It's weird - I also found the main character quite shouty and annoying, and he's like this from the start, but I don't recall thinking this when I sampled the show. I think part of it might be that the US dub version was even shoutier - I'm not blaming the dub as "ruining it" or anything, the Japanese character is shouty and annoying, it's just not quite as bad.
Tuesday, 9 July 2013
fat bastard
I mentioned previously I was intending to do a food diary.
That didn't quite work.
A part of the problem is that I was doing it online and as this very blog shows, sometimes I can't be arsed. Also the format for doing it - a blog - wasn't very helpful, because this blogger thing fits better with single posts a day. Editing posts is a pain or just posting after each time I ate wasn't practical and didn't make a lot of sense when I was trying to review it.
So basically I gave up, but one thing it did prove was that I was eating quite a lot of bad things. I mean, I hadn't gone back to the old ways of eating loads and loads, but I was certainly eating lots of things that I wasn't eating while I was properly losing weight.
Over the last few months I've unfortunately been steadily gaining weight, such that I'm about a stone heavier than I was at the peak of the weight loss. To be fair I only hit this peak for a very brief period and about a stone is the maximum I've been over that.
My weight has actually been bobbling around quite a bit during that period, where I'll lose a few pounds for several weeks running and then have a bad week where I put it all back on plus a little more.
One problem I've been having is the weather. The period when I did my best weight loss was when we last had something resembling summer. I found it much easier to lose weight when it was warm as you more naturally eat less when it's warm (or rather, you tend to eat more when it's cold - it's a natural reaction that is made redundant by our modern central heating).
Also it's much easier to eat salads and things like that when it's cold. I found it a bit naff trying to eat salad when it was cold and I have to admit I got a bit sick of it. It's also much easier to walk for longer, more concentrated periods of time (meaning the mornings) when it's warm. I mean, walking in the winter is nice enough (assuming it hasn't snowed and isn't raining) but I tend to find longer walks easier in the summer, not least of all because it's lighter earlier and later.
So I'm hoping that this warm spell represents a summer proper and will last a while.
I've also decided my cereal at lunch idea hasn't really worked properly. It works in terms of the number of calories I'm eating as a meal and it's perfectly good at filling me up until dinner. The problem is it seemed to encourage me to eat poorly in the evenings. I think a part of it is that the meals are very repetitive, so I end up craving variety - not only in terms of taste, but also texture too: the cereal is very samey.
However, also, because I know that the cereal meals are light on calories it seems to have encouraged me to have treats (this was clear from the food diary) thinking I could "afford" the calories.
That didn't quite work.
A part of the problem is that I was doing it online and as this very blog shows, sometimes I can't be arsed. Also the format for doing it - a blog - wasn't very helpful, because this blogger thing fits better with single posts a day. Editing posts is a pain or just posting after each time I ate wasn't practical and didn't make a lot of sense when I was trying to review it.
So basically I gave up, but one thing it did prove was that I was eating quite a lot of bad things. I mean, I hadn't gone back to the old ways of eating loads and loads, but I was certainly eating lots of things that I wasn't eating while I was properly losing weight.
Over the last few months I've unfortunately been steadily gaining weight, such that I'm about a stone heavier than I was at the peak of the weight loss. To be fair I only hit this peak for a very brief period and about a stone is the maximum I've been over that.
My weight has actually been bobbling around quite a bit during that period, where I'll lose a few pounds for several weeks running and then have a bad week where I put it all back on plus a little more.
One problem I've been having is the weather. The period when I did my best weight loss was when we last had something resembling summer. I found it much easier to lose weight when it was warm as you more naturally eat less when it's warm (or rather, you tend to eat more when it's cold - it's a natural reaction that is made redundant by our modern central heating).
Also it's much easier to eat salads and things like that when it's cold. I found it a bit naff trying to eat salad when it was cold and I have to admit I got a bit sick of it. It's also much easier to walk for longer, more concentrated periods of time (meaning the mornings) when it's warm. I mean, walking in the winter is nice enough (assuming it hasn't snowed and isn't raining) but I tend to find longer walks easier in the summer, not least of all because it's lighter earlier and later.
So I'm hoping that this warm spell represents a summer proper and will last a while.
I've also decided my cereal at lunch idea hasn't really worked properly. It works in terms of the number of calories I'm eating as a meal and it's perfectly good at filling me up until dinner. The problem is it seemed to encourage me to eat poorly in the evenings. I think a part of it is that the meals are very repetitive, so I end up craving variety - not only in terms of taste, but also texture too: the cereal is very samey.
However, also, because I know that the cereal meals are light on calories it seems to have encouraged me to have treats (this was clear from the food diary) thinking I could "afford" the calories.
Monday, 8 July 2013
german grand prix
Well, the german grand prix was actually pretty good.
From memory the nurburgring, where it is held every two years, hasn't really been that great for overtaking, but it produced a good race this time. Unfortunately for the championship Vettel won, taking him to 30-odd points in the lead.
It's a shame the championship is not more interesting as the races themselves have tended to have a reasonable amount of action, it's just that Vettel seems to be just that bit more consistent than everybody else.
There were a few unfortunate incidents in the race, though. One of Mark Webber's rear wheels wasn't attached in a pit stop and as he drove off it careened down the pit lane and unfortunately hit a cameraman - he obviously was focused on his job filming a pit stop at Mercedes so wasn't really paying attention for rogue wheels. He was quite badly injured, with broken bones.
Also, one of the lower teams cars (I forget who) had a huge engine blow out that resulted in a bit of a fire. It's quite rare to see that sort of thing these days, though it was quite common years ago. Anyway, the driver therefore pulled off the track and leapt out pretty sharpish, which was fine and the on-board extinguisher killed the fire, but unfortunately the car started to roll back down the hill and crossed the circuit.
It ended up lodged against an advertising hoarding and didn't cause an accident, but it was a bit unfortunate and could have been disastrous. I think it was a combination of things - the driver obviously pulled off and jumped out without really parking his car in any sense. They're also required to leave the car in neutral, and it was on a hill, and I guess the marshals either didn't get to it quick enough or didn't get proper control of it and it set off rolling backwards.
On the good side there were no tyre problems at all. Pirelli changed the rear tyre for this race, with the changes making it more durable, but also the type of circuit is quite different to Silverstone and from what they were saying on commentary, the design of the curbs was different, without the sharp corners.
The real proof of the pudding will come at Spa, which has similar high-speed elements to Silverstone, and the properly different tyres Pirelli are going to introduce.
From memory the nurburgring, where it is held every two years, hasn't really been that great for overtaking, but it produced a good race this time. Unfortunately for the championship Vettel won, taking him to 30-odd points in the lead.
It's a shame the championship is not more interesting as the races themselves have tended to have a reasonable amount of action, it's just that Vettel seems to be just that bit more consistent than everybody else.
There were a few unfortunate incidents in the race, though. One of Mark Webber's rear wheels wasn't attached in a pit stop and as he drove off it careened down the pit lane and unfortunately hit a cameraman - he obviously was focused on his job filming a pit stop at Mercedes so wasn't really paying attention for rogue wheels. He was quite badly injured, with broken bones.
Also, one of the lower teams cars (I forget who) had a huge engine blow out that resulted in a bit of a fire. It's quite rare to see that sort of thing these days, though it was quite common years ago. Anyway, the driver therefore pulled off the track and leapt out pretty sharpish, which was fine and the on-board extinguisher killed the fire, but unfortunately the car started to roll back down the hill and crossed the circuit.
It ended up lodged against an advertising hoarding and didn't cause an accident, but it was a bit unfortunate and could have been disastrous. I think it was a combination of things - the driver obviously pulled off and jumped out without really parking his car in any sense. They're also required to leave the car in neutral, and it was on a hill, and I guess the marshals either didn't get to it quick enough or didn't get proper control of it and it set off rolling backwards.
On the good side there were no tyre problems at all. Pirelli changed the rear tyre for this race, with the changes making it more durable, but also the type of circuit is quite different to Silverstone and from what they were saying on commentary, the design of the curbs was different, without the sharp corners.
The real proof of the pudding will come at Spa, which has similar high-speed elements to Silverstone, and the properly different tyres Pirelli are going to introduce.
Friday, 5 July 2013
german grand prix
German Grand Prix this weekend.
It's not normally that interesting a race. The German actually alternates between two circuits and this year it's from nurburgring, but it's not the ring that you think of when you hear that - it's a custom built track that's basically alongside it (well - it might use a bit of the original). It's certainly not the miles and miles of track version.
We also get to see what happens with the tyres. As I understand it they've tweaked them so that they should be stronger and tougher, but they want to do more significant changes which aren't possible in the time available.
I have to confess I found the whole tyre blow out thing really quite scary. In open-wheeled racing like this tyres are one of the big weak-points that remain. Touching tyres often leads to the worst sorts of accidents, with cars flipping in the air. A sudden puncture or deflation when you're in any car is a disaster, but when you're going nearly 200 miles an hour it is a very dangerous thing indeed.
I'll also be trying to watch lots of anime so I can get it on e-bay. I may actually try to play some of the games I need to get through. I've played quite a bit of SimCity these last few weekends, but I think I may have gone off it somewhat.
I'd mentioned I'd got some really good tips off of YouTube and they'd helped me play the game a lot better, but the problem was that therefore meant I got a lot further into the game. What do I mean by that?
Well, basically up until recently I hadn't ever got to the stage of wanting to start a great work or being in a position to unlock the more interesting ones or have the resources to stand a chance to build them. Instead I'd abandon the region and start a new one, hoping to make a city that was better at whatever.
However, with my most recent region I basically had some rocking cities that meant I had all research done and was pumping out the resources needed by the bucket-load. I therefore decided to do the solar plant. I started this in my electronics city and sent it all the processors.
I then thought I'd do the plastics, only to discover that my petroleum city didn't think the solar plant had been started. Indeed, it even let me buy the solar plant again.
Oh dear. Well, perhaps it was just a synching thing? I came back the next day... and there was no change. And my metals city couldn't see the Solar plant either and again let me buy it.
My tourism city could see it and I started a city I'd always been intending to use to do trade and that could see it from the get-go (I'd wondered if maybe it was a game calendar thing, but that put a kibosh on that). What I therefore ended up doing was going to y petrol and ore cities and sending the required resources to by trade city where I could then send them on to the solar plant. So my petrol city can't help build the plant, but I can send the resources to another city that can then send them to the plant.
Well I stuck with that process (man was it fucking tedious waiting for it all to happen) and eventually completed the solar plant. And my other cities still couldn't see it.
A quick search of the interwebs confirmed this is a fairly common problem. We're now on version 5 and something that is surely fundamental to the regional, multi-player gameplay that's supposed to be what the new SimCity is about still doesn't work. And wasn't 5.0 meant to address the region play?
So I may play some other games.
It's not normally that interesting a race. The German actually alternates between two circuits and this year it's from nurburgring, but it's not the ring that you think of when you hear that - it's a custom built track that's basically alongside it (well - it might use a bit of the original). It's certainly not the miles and miles of track version.
We also get to see what happens with the tyres. As I understand it they've tweaked them so that they should be stronger and tougher, but they want to do more significant changes which aren't possible in the time available.
I have to confess I found the whole tyre blow out thing really quite scary. In open-wheeled racing like this tyres are one of the big weak-points that remain. Touching tyres often leads to the worst sorts of accidents, with cars flipping in the air. A sudden puncture or deflation when you're in any car is a disaster, but when you're going nearly 200 miles an hour it is a very dangerous thing indeed.
I'll also be trying to watch lots of anime so I can get it on e-bay. I may actually try to play some of the games I need to get through. I've played quite a bit of SimCity these last few weekends, but I think I may have gone off it somewhat.
I'd mentioned I'd got some really good tips off of YouTube and they'd helped me play the game a lot better, but the problem was that therefore meant I got a lot further into the game. What do I mean by that?
Well, basically up until recently I hadn't ever got to the stage of wanting to start a great work or being in a position to unlock the more interesting ones or have the resources to stand a chance to build them. Instead I'd abandon the region and start a new one, hoping to make a city that was better at whatever.
However, with my most recent region I basically had some rocking cities that meant I had all research done and was pumping out the resources needed by the bucket-load. I therefore decided to do the solar plant. I started this in my electronics city and sent it all the processors.
I then thought I'd do the plastics, only to discover that my petroleum city didn't think the solar plant had been started. Indeed, it even let me buy the solar plant again.
Oh dear. Well, perhaps it was just a synching thing? I came back the next day... and there was no change. And my metals city couldn't see the Solar plant either and again let me buy it.
My tourism city could see it and I started a city I'd always been intending to use to do trade and that could see it from the get-go (I'd wondered if maybe it was a game calendar thing, but that put a kibosh on that). What I therefore ended up doing was going to y petrol and ore cities and sending the required resources to by trade city where I could then send them on to the solar plant. So my petrol city can't help build the plant, but I can send the resources to another city that can then send them to the plant.
Well I stuck with that process (man was it fucking tedious waiting for it all to happen) and eventually completed the solar plant. And my other cities still couldn't see it.
A quick search of the interwebs confirmed this is a fairly common problem. We're now on version 5 and something that is surely fundamental to the regional, multi-player gameplay that's supposed to be what the new SimCity is about still doesn't work. And wasn't 5.0 meant to address the region play?
So I may play some other games.
Thursday, 4 July 2013
loads of anime pt 1
I thought I'd do the first lot of the mini reviews of anime stuff I've watched today (well I sure as heck haven't done any of the reviews of films I should have).
heaven's memo pad
I quite enjoyed this.
A lot of anime just recently have focused on NEETs, which is an acronym that stands for "Not in Education, Employment or Training" and is usually understood to mean young people who are not really making anything of their lives.
In this series the idea is that some of these NEETs have banded together to form something akin to a detective agency. The members all have particular otaku-focus, so one is a military nut and the leader is a young girl who is a genius hacker and a hikikomori (a shut in, basically).
There are also quite a few peripheral characters to the main agency people, many of whom add their own interest. The protagonist is roughly your typical nothing special cypher for the viewer, though as it goes on we see he does have some appropriate skills, though not quite in an otaku type way.
Overall the series is pleasant enough. It takes an interesting forma in that it's a very mushed-together version of independent episodes and on-going stories, such that you could watch some episodes as stand-alone, though not quite get everything and others only work as part of a particular ark. I guess what I mean is that it has blocks of stories, but these can run across a variable number of episodes.
freezing
This is a fighting-and-fan-service anime at its core.
And as far as those two things go, it's a pretty good example. If that isn't your cup of tea then I really wouldn't recommend this over and above it. It does do a lot better in the story and characterisation department than other anime in this area, but not to the extent that I'd recommend it if those aren't of interest, if you see what I mean.
The story is bobbins, obviously - a mash up of a variety of random religious and spiritual things, smooshed together with giant inter-dimensional monsters that bare an un-canny resemblance to something out of RahXephon (though with the religious overtones it has a distinct Eva feel to it too). However, it's not that intrusive of a plot - it keeps going with the story, but you don't end up with entire episodes of info dump. Indeed, they also didn't attempt to wrap the whole thing up in a single short season, so it doesn't actually end by the close of the series. This, I guess, ties into the length of the manga it's based on, but is interesting because they've only just announced the second season, suggesting the second wasn't guaranteed.
While the plot may be daft, the characterisation and the development of those characters is a lot better done. It's not subtle - a lot of the characters are quite arch and they don't tend to hide their feelings. I have to say the girls are all a little odd as well - they all seem to basically hate each other, and it's not really clear why.
I think part of it relates to the more contentious aspect of the fighting, which is that the girls get genuinely quite badly hurt when they fight (they need to practice for fighting the bad guys, obviously). I think the idea is that, although they get hurt, their special powers and super-science can patch them together. I guess this makes them quite antagonistic towards each other, as otherwise they're just horrible for no real reason.
Anyway, overall I quite liked it and will certainly pick up the second season, but you have to remember it is what it is.
majikoi oh! samurai girls
After watching this I guess I now know what the anime equivalent of a train wreck is.
I actually went on Wikipedia to look this one up as I know it was based on a light novel series, and I also looked at a couple of reviews on MAL. Part of the reason for this was because it felt like I was missing something - the series seems to start in the middle of something and also seems to do stuff like make running jokes for the first time as if you already knew they were running jokes.
It's also horribly inconsistent with its characters. The main protagonist can be the most pervy guy with a group of pervy mates in one episode, trying to sneak a peek at one of the girls naked, and then the next he's some milquetoast who seems to want to run away if any of the girls come near him and only has eyes for the main girl. Who is some sort of non-lesbian-lesbian - she seems to lust after girls, but also seems to expect the main guy to be in love with her and is in love with him. Or something - as I say, it isn't consistent and doesn't make a lot of sense.
Of course at its heart this is another fan-service-and-fighting anime but compared to freezing or ikki tousen the fighting isn't particularly interesting (and a little thin on the ground) and the fan-service is kinda hampered by some non-descript character designs and a rather low animation budget.
heaven's memo pad
I quite enjoyed this.
A lot of anime just recently have focused on NEETs, which is an acronym that stands for "Not in Education, Employment or Training" and is usually understood to mean young people who are not really making anything of their lives.
In this series the idea is that some of these NEETs have banded together to form something akin to a detective agency. The members all have particular otaku-focus, so one is a military nut and the leader is a young girl who is a genius hacker and a hikikomori (a shut in, basically).
There are also quite a few peripheral characters to the main agency people, many of whom add their own interest. The protagonist is roughly your typical nothing special cypher for the viewer, though as it goes on we see he does have some appropriate skills, though not quite in an otaku type way.
Overall the series is pleasant enough. It takes an interesting forma in that it's a very mushed-together version of independent episodes and on-going stories, such that you could watch some episodes as stand-alone, though not quite get everything and others only work as part of a particular ark. I guess what I mean is that it has blocks of stories, but these can run across a variable number of episodes.
freezing
This is a fighting-and-fan-service anime at its core.
And as far as those two things go, it's a pretty good example. If that isn't your cup of tea then I really wouldn't recommend this over and above it. It does do a lot better in the story and characterisation department than other anime in this area, but not to the extent that I'd recommend it if those aren't of interest, if you see what I mean.
The story is bobbins, obviously - a mash up of a variety of random religious and spiritual things, smooshed together with giant inter-dimensional monsters that bare an un-canny resemblance to something out of RahXephon (though with the religious overtones it has a distinct Eva feel to it too). However, it's not that intrusive of a plot - it keeps going with the story, but you don't end up with entire episodes of info dump. Indeed, they also didn't attempt to wrap the whole thing up in a single short season, so it doesn't actually end by the close of the series. This, I guess, ties into the length of the manga it's based on, but is interesting because they've only just announced the second season, suggesting the second wasn't guaranteed.
While the plot may be daft, the characterisation and the development of those characters is a lot better done. It's not subtle - a lot of the characters are quite arch and they don't tend to hide their feelings. I have to say the girls are all a little odd as well - they all seem to basically hate each other, and it's not really clear why.
I think part of it relates to the more contentious aspect of the fighting, which is that the girls get genuinely quite badly hurt when they fight (they need to practice for fighting the bad guys, obviously). I think the idea is that, although they get hurt, their special powers and super-science can patch them together. I guess this makes them quite antagonistic towards each other, as otherwise they're just horrible for no real reason.
Anyway, overall I quite liked it and will certainly pick up the second season, but you have to remember it is what it is.
majikoi oh! samurai girls
After watching this I guess I now know what the anime equivalent of a train wreck is.
I actually went on Wikipedia to look this one up as I know it was based on a light novel series, and I also looked at a couple of reviews on MAL. Part of the reason for this was because it felt like I was missing something - the series seems to start in the middle of something and also seems to do stuff like make running jokes for the first time as if you already knew they were running jokes.
It's also horribly inconsistent with its characters. The main protagonist can be the most pervy guy with a group of pervy mates in one episode, trying to sneak a peek at one of the girls naked, and then the next he's some milquetoast who seems to want to run away if any of the girls come near him and only has eyes for the main girl. Who is some sort of non-lesbian-lesbian - she seems to lust after girls, but also seems to expect the main guy to be in love with her and is in love with him. Or something - as I say, it isn't consistent and doesn't make a lot of sense.
Of course at its heart this is another fan-service-and-fighting anime but compared to freezing or ikki tousen the fighting isn't particularly interesting (and a little thin on the ground) and the fan-service is kinda hampered by some non-descript character designs and a rather low animation budget.
Wednesday, 3 July 2013
parcel fuck up
So I thought I'd do a quick update on the parcel I mentioned a few weeks back.
Basically I'd been sent two figurines from Japan and HM Customs made a complete mess of the charges. The figures themselves were worth less than £90, but they'd somehow managed to work out that I owed them more than £200 in import VAT & other charges.
Clearly this was ridiculous and it was so far off what I should pay I wasn't willing to stump up the money, even if I could have afforded it, which I couldn't.
As such, I filled out the required form and sent it in, including loads of supporting evidence, such as a photocopy of the sticker on the box and e-mails from the company I bought it for showing the real price. I even worked out what the charges should have been for them.
And of course I heard fuck all back and the parcel was returned to Japan.
I've therefore had to pay again for the figures to be sent to me. What I did, though, was ask them to split the order and send each figure individually. Unfortunately, by putting them together in one box last time they had to send it via the airmail tracked service, so it cost a lot of money. By splitting them up and sending them individually via surface mail it was a lot cheaper. Although of course I will have to pay twice as much in the way of parcel force charges.
I did also ask parcel force to hang on to the figures for as long as they could, but if they did then it was only a few days over the norm. I'm also going to be sending them a complaint as I was told I would receive a reminder, but never did.
But the point is it means that the useless fuckers in customs (those who can do, those who can't become civil servants and don't get me started on the immoral robbery that are sales taxes) have cost me extra money I'm going to send in a complaint, though I may wait until I finally get the figures.
And speaking of which, there was actually another figure that the company sent me shortly after these two but there's no sign of it. This was sent via surface mail, which can take a while, but I've not had it take this long before.
Basically I'd been sent two figurines from Japan and HM Customs made a complete mess of the charges. The figures themselves were worth less than £90, but they'd somehow managed to work out that I owed them more than £200 in import VAT & other charges.
Clearly this was ridiculous and it was so far off what I should pay I wasn't willing to stump up the money, even if I could have afforded it, which I couldn't.
As such, I filled out the required form and sent it in, including loads of supporting evidence, such as a photocopy of the sticker on the box and e-mails from the company I bought it for showing the real price. I even worked out what the charges should have been for them.
And of course I heard fuck all back and the parcel was returned to Japan.
I've therefore had to pay again for the figures to be sent to me. What I did, though, was ask them to split the order and send each figure individually. Unfortunately, by putting them together in one box last time they had to send it via the airmail tracked service, so it cost a lot of money. By splitting them up and sending them individually via surface mail it was a lot cheaper. Although of course I will have to pay twice as much in the way of parcel force charges.
I did also ask parcel force to hang on to the figures for as long as they could, but if they did then it was only a few days over the norm. I'm also going to be sending them a complaint as I was told I would receive a reminder, but never did.
But the point is it means that the useless fuckers in customs (those who can do, those who can't become civil servants and don't get me started on the immoral robbery that are sales taxes) have cost me extra money I'm going to send in a complaint, though I may wait until I finally get the figures.
And speaking of which, there was actually another figure that the company sent me shortly after these two but there's no sign of it. This was sent via surface mail, which can take a while, but I've not had it take this long before.
everything's falling apart
Internet issues meant I couldn't post this yesterday.
I seem to be plagued at the moment by things that are breaking or otherwise falling apart.
My dehumidifier has stopped working. I've had it for years, though it is the second one I've had. The problem is I put it on during the day in order to help keep the humidity down - my bedsit has very poor ventilation and is quite prone to damp.
The plug I use by the cooker for the kettle has also started playing up. For some reason you have to turn it on and off a few times for it to supply power. My landlord suspects it may be the points that have corroded a little, and this would make some sense - obviously being near the kettle it will get quite humid there. But it's hardly an encouraging sign.
My clothes have also started to fall apart - particularly my underpants. There are two problems colliding there, rally. It's been ages since I bought new clothes - much longer than usual - but I've also held back because I was supposed to be losing a lot more weight. Many of my clothes hang off me since ~I lost the bit of weight, but recently I've struggled to lose any more, so I've been stuck not wanting to buy clothes because "they won't fit after I loose x more stone" but not actually loosing x more stone.
And this last weekend my main pc started making some weird noises. It sounds like the sort of regular noise you get when a fan is not properly seated. I did recently clean out the pc so it wouldn't have surprised me if one of the fans on the top or side was not properly screwed back in, but I couldn't' see any evidence of that. However, also, it seemed to cause the PC to freeze. I'll have to pop the case to see if perhaps a cable has got stuck in the fan on the heat sink, but otherwise it could be something more serious.
What makes these particularly annoying is I don't have any spare money to actually buy them.
I seem to be plagued at the moment by things that are breaking or otherwise falling apart.
My dehumidifier has stopped working. I've had it for years, though it is the second one I've had. The problem is I put it on during the day in order to help keep the humidity down - my bedsit has very poor ventilation and is quite prone to damp.
The plug I use by the cooker for the kettle has also started playing up. For some reason you have to turn it on and off a few times for it to supply power. My landlord suspects it may be the points that have corroded a little, and this would make some sense - obviously being near the kettle it will get quite humid there. But it's hardly an encouraging sign.
My clothes have also started to fall apart - particularly my underpants. There are two problems colliding there, rally. It's been ages since I bought new clothes - much longer than usual - but I've also held back because I was supposed to be losing a lot more weight. Many of my clothes hang off me since ~I lost the bit of weight, but recently I've struggled to lose any more, so I've been stuck not wanting to buy clothes because "they won't fit after I loose x more stone" but not actually loosing x more stone.
And this last weekend my main pc started making some weird noises. It sounds like the sort of regular noise you get when a fan is not properly seated. I did recently clean out the pc so it wouldn't have surprised me if one of the fans on the top or side was not properly screwed back in, but I couldn't' see any evidence of that. However, also, it seemed to cause the PC to freeze. I'll have to pop the case to see if perhaps a cable has got stuck in the fan on the heat sink, but otherwise it could be something more serious.
What makes these particularly annoying is I don't have any spare money to actually buy them.
Monday, 1 July 2013
british grand prix
Well now - that was eventful!
It was the British Grand Prix this weekend, and it was quite the race, both for good reasons and bad.
The BBC showed the full race, obviously, and that meant they showed all the practice and qualifying too. However, when I got back on Friday I had a bit of a shock as my PVR had failed to record the Friday stuff. Indeed, it seemed to have stopped recording anything from Thursday evening.
I’ve had it do that occasionally before, though this time it stopped recording after I switched it off, rather than doing it while it was on standby. I managed to get at most of everything I lost via repeats, so no harm in the end.
The practice on Friday was unfortunately wet and because the forecast was for the weekend to be nice so they didn’t do much running. Qualifying was good as Hamilton ended up on pole, but unfortunately the Ferraris were rather poor.
But the main event was the race itself, which given some people seemed out of position meant there was probably going to be some overtaking. Well there was plenty of overtaking- sometimes Silverstone can produce some dull races and sometimes some great ones. Overtaking is possible, but not easy.
However, the race was also eventful for other reasons as apparently 6 Pirelli tyres failed. Four of these were caught on camera and all were basically catastrophic failures. I was a bit weird, actually. They’ve had several tyre failures in previous races this year, but this is the first where it’s happened repeatedly.
All the failures were spectacular and it’s really just a matter of luck and skill that there were no serious accidents. It’s a shame, really, as Pirelli did such a good job when they came into the sport of adding interest with the tyres, but for whatever reason all the coverage will be quite negative from this, I’m sure.
There’s a chance that the cause of the failures was them being cut on the curbs. The cuts would have been on the side of the tyre and because Silverstone is the first proper circuit with lots of fast corners that’s why there have been so many. However, the tyres should have been able to take it - it’s not like they’ve never raced there before!
The real shame of it was it messed with the results of the race - Hamilton was the first to get one and it meant he ended up fourth, and others obviously suffered too.
One of the problems is that they obviously want something to be done, but the next race is only a week away and they will probably have already shipped the tyres (or made them at the least). There’s a more decent gap after that, and the nature of the next race (German) is that if it is down to the high-speed corners it will be less of an issue.
It was the British Grand Prix this weekend, and it was quite the race, both for good reasons and bad.
The BBC showed the full race, obviously, and that meant they showed all the practice and qualifying too. However, when I got back on Friday I had a bit of a shock as my PVR had failed to record the Friday stuff. Indeed, it seemed to have stopped recording anything from Thursday evening.
I’ve had it do that occasionally before, though this time it stopped recording after I switched it off, rather than doing it while it was on standby. I managed to get at most of everything I lost via repeats, so no harm in the end.
The practice on Friday was unfortunately wet and because the forecast was for the weekend to be nice so they didn’t do much running. Qualifying was good as Hamilton ended up on pole, but unfortunately the Ferraris were rather poor.
But the main event was the race itself, which given some people seemed out of position meant there was probably going to be some overtaking. Well there was plenty of overtaking- sometimes Silverstone can produce some dull races and sometimes some great ones. Overtaking is possible, but not easy.
However, the race was also eventful for other reasons as apparently 6 Pirelli tyres failed. Four of these were caught on camera and all were basically catastrophic failures. I was a bit weird, actually. They’ve had several tyre failures in previous races this year, but this is the first where it’s happened repeatedly.
All the failures were spectacular and it’s really just a matter of luck and skill that there were no serious accidents. It’s a shame, really, as Pirelli did such a good job when they came into the sport of adding interest with the tyres, but for whatever reason all the coverage will be quite negative from this, I’m sure.
There’s a chance that the cause of the failures was them being cut on the curbs. The cuts would have been on the side of the tyre and because Silverstone is the first proper circuit with lots of fast corners that’s why there have been so many. However, the tyres should have been able to take it - it’s not like they’ve never raced there before!
The real shame of it was it messed with the results of the race - Hamilton was the first to get one and it meant he ended up fourth, and others obviously suffered too.
One of the problems is that they obviously want something to be done, but the next race is only a week away and they will probably have already shipped the tyres (or made them at the least). There’s a more decent gap after that, and the nature of the next race (German) is that if it is down to the high-speed corners it will be less of an issue.
Friday, 28 June 2013
british grand prix
It's the British Grand Prix this weekend.
As I understand it there are actually still quite a few tickets for sale. This is relatively unusual for Silverstone as it normally sells out a good way ahead. Indeed, from what my Dad was saying, apparently they have some seats left in the grandstands, which is very unusual.
I think one of the causes might be the weather last year. We were fully in the grip of the almost constant deluge and Silverstone was quite bad - people getting bogged in the mud, etc. Indeed, my Dad went last year and had to be towed out as his car had stuck. This was on the practice day (Friday) and they pretty much sorted it out for the qualifying and race days, not least of all because most of the campers would be in-place by then.
However, I think with the weather having not been that spectacular this year it might have put some people off a bit.
Another issue is that the brits are basically nowhere. The McLaren is clearly nowhere near competitive, which takes Lewis out of the running. Paul Diresta and Max Chilton are in non-competitive teams and of course while Lewis and the Mercedes might pull of their trick of getting pole or at the top end I expect they won't simply reverse down the field again.
Now while I don't think it actively harms attendance, with none of the brits in contention it means the boost effect doesn't happen.
I'm hoping it will be good race. Silverstone can vary in terms of racing quality - you get some good races and some dull ones.
The thing that often causes interest at Silverstone is the weather - the forecast seems to be all over the place recently, so I've no idea if it will rain. I hope if it does then it happens during qualifying or the race proper as that will shake things up a bit.
As I understand it there are actually still quite a few tickets for sale. This is relatively unusual for Silverstone as it normally sells out a good way ahead. Indeed, from what my Dad was saying, apparently they have some seats left in the grandstands, which is very unusual.
I think one of the causes might be the weather last year. We were fully in the grip of the almost constant deluge and Silverstone was quite bad - people getting bogged in the mud, etc. Indeed, my Dad went last year and had to be towed out as his car had stuck. This was on the practice day (Friday) and they pretty much sorted it out for the qualifying and race days, not least of all because most of the campers would be in-place by then.
However, I think with the weather having not been that spectacular this year it might have put some people off a bit.
Another issue is that the brits are basically nowhere. The McLaren is clearly nowhere near competitive, which takes Lewis out of the running. Paul Diresta and Max Chilton are in non-competitive teams and of course while Lewis and the Mercedes might pull of their trick of getting pole or at the top end I expect they won't simply reverse down the field again.
Now while I don't think it actively harms attendance, with none of the brits in contention it means the boost effect doesn't happen.
I'm hoping it will be good race. Silverstone can vary in terms of racing quality - you get some good races and some dull ones.
The thing that often causes interest at Silverstone is the weather - the forecast seems to be all over the place recently, so I've no idea if it will rain. I hope if it does then it happens during qualifying or the race proper as that will shake things up a bit.
Thursday, 27 June 2013
bloody wimbledon
Wimbledon started this week.
If memory serves the main singles part lasts two weeks? I think there's then a couple of weeks of the other types of tournament - doubles, mainly, I think.
I'm not a massive fan of tennis. I do find it odd that we are really only pay attention to it in Britain when it's being held in this country. It's like, "we'll like your sport when it comes here, but not before and not after."
One advantage of this is that it means the BBC basically fills up with wimbledon coverage so I have less stuff to watch. The flip-side to that is that if they extend the coverage then the programs I do want to watch get shifted around.
This obviously impacted by if we have anyone who's in with a vague chance of winning. Andy Murray is about the best player with a genuine chance who's fallen into this category for a while. I'm obviously referring to Murray as being "a Brit" in the traditional way we English do - if he's successful he's a Brit, if he's not, he's a Scot.
The post title, by the way, is a reference to one of my Dad's stock phrases. He has a lot of stock phrases, one of which is "bloody wimbledon". It has to be said in a miserable tone and at quite a low pitch to get the proper effect.
Another such phrases is "the derisories" for cricket. This is a reference to the fact that when the opposition does well (gets a 4 or a 6 or what have you) then opposing side has to acknowledge the achievement, but doesn't really want to show any enthusiasm, so they clap, but it ends up sounding a bit like the derisive slow hand clap thing.
Anyway, point of the post is that summer is now upon us, so I'm hoping that the amount of stuff I want to watch will decline. This will help me watch the stacks of recorded stuff I have as well as take some of the pressure off when I've also been trying to watch the anime.
I mentioned this before but I've been in a situation where I've had to watch a bonkers amount of stuff. I'm going to do a proper update (or two!) to talk about them specifically, but this is the list:
If memory serves the main singles part lasts two weeks? I think there's then a couple of weeks of the other types of tournament - doubles, mainly, I think.
I'm not a massive fan of tennis. I do find it odd that we are really only pay attention to it in Britain when it's being held in this country. It's like, "we'll like your sport when it comes here, but not before and not after."
One advantage of this is that it means the BBC basically fills up with wimbledon coverage so I have less stuff to watch. The flip-side to that is that if they extend the coverage then the programs I do want to watch get shifted around.
This obviously impacted by if we have anyone who's in with a vague chance of winning. Andy Murray is about the best player with a genuine chance who's fallen into this category for a while. I'm obviously referring to Murray as being "a Brit" in the traditional way we English do - if he's successful he's a Brit, if he's not, he's a Scot.
The post title, by the way, is a reference to one of my Dad's stock phrases. He has a lot of stock phrases, one of which is "bloody wimbledon". It has to be said in a miserable tone and at quite a low pitch to get the proper effect.
Another such phrases is "the derisories" for cricket. This is a reference to the fact that when the opposition does well (gets a 4 or a 6 or what have you) then opposing side has to acknowledge the achievement, but doesn't really want to show any enthusiasm, so they clap, but it ends up sounding a bit like the derisive slow hand clap thing.
Anyway, point of the post is that summer is now upon us, so I'm hoping that the amount of stuff I want to watch will decline. This will help me watch the stacks of recorded stuff I have as well as take some of the pressure off when I've also been trying to watch the anime.
I mentioned this before but I've been in a situation where I've had to watch a bonkers amount of stuff. I'm going to do a proper update (or two!) to talk about them specifically, but this is the list:
- eden of the east (series+both movies)
- steins;gate (series + oav)
- kimi ni todoke (series 1 & 2)
- ride;back
- bunny drop
- baka and test (series 1 & 2 & oavs)
- No. 6
- Freezing
- Heaven's Memo Pad
- Majikoi Oh! Samurai Girls
Wednesday, 26 June 2013
canadian grand prix
I guess I should start my catching up proper by mentioning the Canadian grand prix.
The Canadian is always a good race as there's plenty of places where overtaking is possible. I find it kinda weird that when they (Tilka) are designing circuits they don't really seem to have analysed what allows cars to overtake.
So at Canada one of the key features is you get some reasonable straights followed by a tight, slow corner. That means cars can get up close, in the slipstream on the corner and they have to get the corner just right or they might lock up and if they don't get it right the driver behind has the chance to pounce.
Tilka circuits you often seem to get one gigantic long straight. Well you need decent straights, but after a point it becomes pointless because aero and engine limits means that once they're at top speed (which happens quick as they accelerate like a stabbed rat) then that's it. It also then means there are loads of corners crammed in in the rest of the circuit, which just creates a train of cars.
Anyway, this year Canada was pretty good. I have to confess it was a bit disappointing that Vettel managed to just shoot off past the Mercedes at the start and then was miles in front for the whole race. Which isn't to say there wasn't plenty going on, it was just further down.
I still don't get the Mercedes - they can pump in a super quick lap in qualifying, but then it's like they turn the wick down for the race. I mean, I appreciate they may be harder on their tyres so that would cause them problems after a while, but why does that mean they're slower at the start of the race too?
Unfortunately Canada was a little dampened for me as it was actually the day when Iain Banks died. I didn't know that on the day, but when I found out on the Monday it kinda took the shine off and was a little distracting.
He actually did a few interviews for his new book (which, weirdly, features a character dying from cancer, but was started way before Banks found out he was too. One of these was broadcast on the telly last week and they have since appeared in the press. I guess they can't have been filmed long before he died and he did look - well, I wouldn't say bad, but tired and a bit thin, I guess; although obviously it's easy to project how you'd expect him to look into his appearance.
It's an odd feeling knowing someone who was essentially still producing top-class work that you really enjoy is now no longer going to do so. The last time I recall it was when Kurt Cobain died - all the songs he would have written that now never would.
The Canadian is always a good race as there's plenty of places where overtaking is possible. I find it kinda weird that when they (Tilka) are designing circuits they don't really seem to have analysed what allows cars to overtake.
So at Canada one of the key features is you get some reasonable straights followed by a tight, slow corner. That means cars can get up close, in the slipstream on the corner and they have to get the corner just right or they might lock up and if they don't get it right the driver behind has the chance to pounce.
Tilka circuits you often seem to get one gigantic long straight. Well you need decent straights, but after a point it becomes pointless because aero and engine limits means that once they're at top speed (which happens quick as they accelerate like a stabbed rat) then that's it. It also then means there are loads of corners crammed in in the rest of the circuit, which just creates a train of cars.
Anyway, this year Canada was pretty good. I have to confess it was a bit disappointing that Vettel managed to just shoot off past the Mercedes at the start and then was miles in front for the whole race. Which isn't to say there wasn't plenty going on, it was just further down.
I still don't get the Mercedes - they can pump in a super quick lap in qualifying, but then it's like they turn the wick down for the race. I mean, I appreciate they may be harder on their tyres so that would cause them problems after a while, but why does that mean they're slower at the start of the race too?
Unfortunately Canada was a little dampened for me as it was actually the day when Iain Banks died. I didn't know that on the day, but when I found out on the Monday it kinda took the shine off and was a little distracting.
He actually did a few interviews for his new book (which, weirdly, features a character dying from cancer, but was started way before Banks found out he was too. One of these was broadcast on the telly last week and they have since appeared in the press. I guess they can't have been filmed long before he died and he did look - well, I wouldn't say bad, but tired and a bit thin, I guess; although obviously it's easy to project how you'd expect him to look into his appearance.
It's an odd feeling knowing someone who was essentially still producing top-class work that you really enjoy is now no longer going to do so. The last time I recall it was when Kurt Cobain died - all the songs he would have written that now never would.
Tuesday, 25 June 2013
why you no bloggy?
So I didn't really explain yesterday why I have been so long without blogging.
The basic reason was a bunch of things... :)
So first off I've been somewhat busy at work. I mean, I'm not mega busy; I get bits of time where I'm not maxed. However, I've been tending to use that time to sneakily watch anime on crunchyroll.
I did blog about how I'd watched a few of this season's shows and I've done some of that in the quieter bits at work. Well they're not paying me very well, so there you go.
I have also watched some of this crunchyroll anime at home, so that's obviously eaten up some time I would usually use for writing the blogs. However I've also been watching quite a lot of anime on Blu Ray and that takes up a whole lot more time.
And I mean a lot of time - I've watched several whole series (half and full seasons) and a half-season is about 4 hours or so. The harsh reality is I've had to watch these shows because I needed the money from selling them on e-bay. Previously I'd "gotten away" with this by ripping them, but I have no means of ripping Blu Ray. Also while I do have some DVDs I could theoretically do this for Blu Ray you can get a bit more for and the DVDs I have left are ones I suspect I will want to add to my "permanent keepers" pile.
I've also been trying to keep up with the TV, rather than let it slide while I watched all this anime. My PVR is still very full, but I've been actively keeping it below 60% by watching stuff at the weekends.
And then of course there's the fact I've been playing SimCity quite a bit.
The final big issue was this - http://www.animepaper.net/ . In case the link doesn't work or dies, one of the sites I frequented posted up a message that, well, I'm not 100% sure quite what it meant. It seems to be saying that the site is being put on hiatus, but could mean it's going to be switched off.
I won't go into the detail, but basically I had a lot of stuff I wanted to download from it, but if it was going to close that meant I had to do it sooner, rather than later. I must have spent about 4 whole evenings and 1 weekend sorting through what I could actually download and then downloading it - I still ended up with about 60 images I couldn't get.
I mean, hopefully it's temporary and it will come back in some form, but if not I had to act.
So in summary the main issue has mainly been that I've spent my spare time doing other things, rather than writing blog posts.
There was also a bit of a side issue - Ian Banks died and I'm afraid this made me a bit depressed so I therefore wasn't really in the mood to blog for some of it either.
The basic reason was a bunch of things... :)
So first off I've been somewhat busy at work. I mean, I'm not mega busy; I get bits of time where I'm not maxed. However, I've been tending to use that time to sneakily watch anime on crunchyroll.
I did blog about how I'd watched a few of this season's shows and I've done some of that in the quieter bits at work. Well they're not paying me very well, so there you go.
I have also watched some of this crunchyroll anime at home, so that's obviously eaten up some time I would usually use for writing the blogs. However I've also been watching quite a lot of anime on Blu Ray and that takes up a whole lot more time.
And I mean a lot of time - I've watched several whole series (half and full seasons) and a half-season is about 4 hours or so. The harsh reality is I've had to watch these shows because I needed the money from selling them on e-bay. Previously I'd "gotten away" with this by ripping them, but I have no means of ripping Blu Ray. Also while I do have some DVDs I could theoretically do this for Blu Ray you can get a bit more for and the DVDs I have left are ones I suspect I will want to add to my "permanent keepers" pile.
I've also been trying to keep up with the TV, rather than let it slide while I watched all this anime. My PVR is still very full, but I've been actively keeping it below 60% by watching stuff at the weekends.
And then of course there's the fact I've been playing SimCity quite a bit.
The final big issue was this - http://www.animepaper.net/ . In case the link doesn't work or dies, one of the sites I frequented posted up a message that, well, I'm not 100% sure quite what it meant. It seems to be saying that the site is being put on hiatus, but could mean it's going to be switched off.
I won't go into the detail, but basically I had a lot of stuff I wanted to download from it, but if it was going to close that meant I had to do it sooner, rather than later. I must have spent about 4 whole evenings and 1 weekend sorting through what I could actually download and then downloading it - I still ended up with about 60 images I couldn't get.
I mean, hopefully it's temporary and it will come back in some form, but if not I had to act.
So in summary the main issue has mainly been that I've spent my spare time doing other things, rather than writing blog posts.
There was also a bit of a side issue - Ian Banks died and I'm afraid this made me a bit depressed so I therefore wasn't really in the mood to blog for some of it either.
Monday, 24 June 2013
week of whinging (or not)
So I've basically not blogged in about 3 weeks.
There are a number of reasons for this and I thought I'd come back with a week of whinging about some or all of these, but I'd also thought I'd write them over the weekend and I didn't do that. Instead I basically spent all weekend playing SimCity, so I'm not sure I'm quite going to be doing the whinge week.
I discovered some people on YouTube who have been posting some hints and tips that are actually helpful and I've started to understand the mechanics of the game a bit better. This means it's much more playable, but it also starts to make me think that it's misnamed. It doesn't simulate any sort of city I've ever seen.
I'll give you a very basic example - education and jobs. So you can place a grade school when the game starts and later unlock a high school. Now the names are obviously American, but given those names would you not expect that a grade school educates your Sims to one level and then a high school to another. And the grade school is for young Sims and the high school for older Sims. There's also a university and a community college - these must be for even older / working age Sims, right?
That's not how it works.
The grade school and high school are identical in their function - they take in uneducated "kid" agents and turn them into educated agents. They then take this education back to their homes and cause the homes to become educated, which eventually causes them to have less garbage and more recycling and have solar panels for less power use, etc. So the high school is basically just an upgraded grade school and having both in your city is counter-productive.
Every day at 6AM the kids flop from being educated to uneducated. Throughout the day they will leave their houses and be transported to the school by buses (this is for schools) - there's no need for them to all arrive at the start of the day. This can perpetuate for eternity - there's no sense in them growing up or becoming workers.
The community college and university do the same job with a slight tweak - the kids (now called students) have to make their own way there. This may be via car or whatever public transport. But again, having education facilities of different types is actually counter-productive - your schools rob students from the college/uni.
This has a particular danger in that colleges and unis also have an additional function. As your students attend they generate "tech level". This is a sort of weird fluid that flows out from your college/uni (like water or power) and feeds the buildings that use it. A college gives you tech level 2 and uni tech level 3.
The problem therefore is that fi your students aren't getting to uni/college then your buildings that need tech level will be starved. This may make them, for example, stop working (high tech industry), become inefficient (electronics buildings) or cause a meltdown (nuclear power) - hence the danger.
And of course this isn't how you would expect it all to work; but what makes it confusing and annoying in the game is that the messaging reflects how you might expect it to work (your universities turn your kids into workers or your workers into educated workers, perhaps?). So you'll get a message to the effect of "not enough educated workers", but what it actually means is that not enough students are going to uni and your tech level "fluence" is not enough to fill up all the buildings, like your water might not be enough to fill up all the buildings.
There are a number of reasons for this and I thought I'd come back with a week of whinging about some or all of these, but I'd also thought I'd write them over the weekend and I didn't do that. Instead I basically spent all weekend playing SimCity, so I'm not sure I'm quite going to be doing the whinge week.
I discovered some people on YouTube who have been posting some hints and tips that are actually helpful and I've started to understand the mechanics of the game a bit better. This means it's much more playable, but it also starts to make me think that it's misnamed. It doesn't simulate any sort of city I've ever seen.
I'll give you a very basic example - education and jobs. So you can place a grade school when the game starts and later unlock a high school. Now the names are obviously American, but given those names would you not expect that a grade school educates your Sims to one level and then a high school to another. And the grade school is for young Sims and the high school for older Sims. There's also a university and a community college - these must be for even older / working age Sims, right?
That's not how it works.
The grade school and high school are identical in their function - they take in uneducated "kid" agents and turn them into educated agents. They then take this education back to their homes and cause the homes to become educated, which eventually causes them to have less garbage and more recycling and have solar panels for less power use, etc. So the high school is basically just an upgraded grade school and having both in your city is counter-productive.
Every day at 6AM the kids flop from being educated to uneducated. Throughout the day they will leave their houses and be transported to the school by buses (this is for schools) - there's no need for them to all arrive at the start of the day. This can perpetuate for eternity - there's no sense in them growing up or becoming workers.
The community college and university do the same job with a slight tweak - the kids (now called students) have to make their own way there. This may be via car or whatever public transport. But again, having education facilities of different types is actually counter-productive - your schools rob students from the college/uni.
This has a particular danger in that colleges and unis also have an additional function. As your students attend they generate "tech level". This is a sort of weird fluid that flows out from your college/uni (like water or power) and feeds the buildings that use it. A college gives you tech level 2 and uni tech level 3.
The problem therefore is that fi your students aren't getting to uni/college then your buildings that need tech level will be starved. This may make them, for example, stop working (high tech industry), become inefficient (electronics buildings) or cause a meltdown (nuclear power) - hence the danger.
And of course this isn't how you would expect it all to work; but what makes it confusing and annoying in the game is that the messaging reflects how you might expect it to work (your universities turn your kids into workers or your workers into educated workers, perhaps?). So you'll get a message to the effect of "not enough educated workers", but what it actually means is that not enough students are going to uni and your tech level "fluence" is not enough to fill up all the buildings, like your water might not be enough to fill up all the buildings.
Thursday, 30 May 2013
bank holiday error
I mentioned yesterday that I made a bit of a mess of timings, etc over the Bank Holiday weekend.
The main error came from SimCity. Having been blogging about how I was thinking of leaving it for a while I thought I'd have a quick go at trying to adjust some settings to see fi that made any difference to the freezing.
My guess was that the freezing was either due to some game save problem (it saves to the cloud so there's no real way for me to tell what's going on) or if it was graphics related. The only pattern I've noticed for the freezing is that it happens when I do something that involves the graphics - scrolling or editing a building or putting a data layer on, for example. Now that's a bit tenuous as the whole game involves graphics, obviously, and it doesn't consistently freeze when I do any particular one thing, but I figured I could easily lower the graphical settings and see if it helped the stability of the game.
And, after fiddling for a while (I now have no filter on, some of the settings are at low or medium where my card should be powerful enough for it to handle the top settings and I run the game in a windowed mode at a lower resolution) I seemed to end up with the game basically playable.
The other thing was that they released update 4.0 and this included a new region so I started playing that... and I kept playing until I'd basically absorbed all of Saturday and half of Sunday.
This was where I forced myself to stop - I had the Monaco Grand Prix to watch and there was all this stuff I'd put on e-bay but that I hadn't watched. I therefore switched track, but the reality was that I should have watched all that stuff first. I had woefully underestimated how many extras there were, for example, so I then basically watched anime and films constantly from Sunday afternoon to Monday night and I still had hours of stuff left, hence why I've been getting up early and going to bed late to try to get it all done.
It's hardly an ideal situation and I need to get a bit of a grip - I need to keep watching stuff so that I'm then e-baying things that I've finished, rather than thinking I can watch them last minute and failing. And I still need to keep selling stuff, so there's no respite on the horizon - I'm going to have a tough couple of months with money until my current ban on spending lets my finances catch up.
The main error came from SimCity. Having been blogging about how I was thinking of leaving it for a while I thought I'd have a quick go at trying to adjust some settings to see fi that made any difference to the freezing.
My guess was that the freezing was either due to some game save problem (it saves to the cloud so there's no real way for me to tell what's going on) or if it was graphics related. The only pattern I've noticed for the freezing is that it happens when I do something that involves the graphics - scrolling or editing a building or putting a data layer on, for example. Now that's a bit tenuous as the whole game involves graphics, obviously, and it doesn't consistently freeze when I do any particular one thing, but I figured I could easily lower the graphical settings and see if it helped the stability of the game.
And, after fiddling for a while (I now have no filter on, some of the settings are at low or medium where my card should be powerful enough for it to handle the top settings and I run the game in a windowed mode at a lower resolution) I seemed to end up with the game basically playable.
The other thing was that they released update 4.0 and this included a new region so I started playing that... and I kept playing until I'd basically absorbed all of Saturday and half of Sunday.
This was where I forced myself to stop - I had the Monaco Grand Prix to watch and there was all this stuff I'd put on e-bay but that I hadn't watched. I therefore switched track, but the reality was that I should have watched all that stuff first. I had woefully underestimated how many extras there were, for example, so I then basically watched anime and films constantly from Sunday afternoon to Monday night and I still had hours of stuff left, hence why I've been getting up early and going to bed late to try to get it all done.
It's hardly an ideal situation and I need to get a bit of a grip - I need to keep watching stuff so that I'm then e-baying things that I've finished, rather than thinking I can watch them last minute and failing. And I still need to keep selling stuff, so there's no respite on the horizon - I'm going to have a tough couple of months with money until my current ban on spending lets my finances catch up.
Wednesday, 29 May 2013
bad day
It's not even lunchtime and already I'm having a bad day.
I had to get up very early, having gone to bed pretty late. This is because I made a bit of a mess of my time over the Bank Holiday weekend, which I'll talk about tomorrow, but I've basically left myself in a situation where I have some stuff I need to post for e-bay auctions that I've not watched. But of course the only time I can watch it is before or after work, so I had to get up stupidly early to watch some stuff.
Having done that I discovered that the plug where I plug my kettle in appears to have stopped working. Certainly the kettle is fine, but I get no power out of that plug.
I actually checked how much power I have in case I'd run out of juice or the circuit breakers had blown and therefore discovered that I have about £2.50 worth of electricity. In theory this is enough to last me about 2 days, so long as I don't use the oven... except that I have basically run out of food and the only things I've got left need cooking in the oven. That means I will have to buy some elecy tonight, but I have £20 to my name and I need to post some of those e-bay parcels I just mentioned.
I checked my account and obviously discovered I still haven't been paid. I'm betting I won't get the money until Friday, which puts me in a real bind.
Having watched some stuff and parcelled it off I was a bit later than usual leaving for work, but it is half-term here, so I was hoping the roads would be quiet. They were, but unfortunately when I got out to the car I discovered some workman was dropping off one of these mini-digger things, so I had to wait for him to finish before I could go. Add on to that the fact they've now started some roadworks at the end of the road and I hit every red light possible on the journey and I was not as early as I normally am for work.
This then meant that my morning walk was rather hurried and when I got back to the car I discovered I had forgotten my shoes (I wear trainers for that first walk and to drive to work). I'm therefore wearing my trainers at work, which are, thankfully, black so it's not too noticeable.
I then logged on and opened a couple of e-mails that were also bad news. I then went to listen to my MP3 player and discovered one of the ear bud things (I use in-ear headphones) has fallen off again. This happens fairly often - it will most likely be in my bag in the car, but if not I do have spares. However, it does mean I have had to switch to my other set of earphones I use for my MP3 player I use when walking and those aren't really very work friendly.
And it's only mid-morning.
I had to get up very early, having gone to bed pretty late. This is because I made a bit of a mess of my time over the Bank Holiday weekend, which I'll talk about tomorrow, but I've basically left myself in a situation where I have some stuff I need to post for e-bay auctions that I've not watched. But of course the only time I can watch it is before or after work, so I had to get up stupidly early to watch some stuff.
Having done that I discovered that the plug where I plug my kettle in appears to have stopped working. Certainly the kettle is fine, but I get no power out of that plug.
I actually checked how much power I have in case I'd run out of juice or the circuit breakers had blown and therefore discovered that I have about £2.50 worth of electricity. In theory this is enough to last me about 2 days, so long as I don't use the oven... except that I have basically run out of food and the only things I've got left need cooking in the oven. That means I will have to buy some elecy tonight, but I have £20 to my name and I need to post some of those e-bay parcels I just mentioned.
I checked my account and obviously discovered I still haven't been paid. I'm betting I won't get the money until Friday, which puts me in a real bind.
Having watched some stuff and parcelled it off I was a bit later than usual leaving for work, but it is half-term here, so I was hoping the roads would be quiet. They were, but unfortunately when I got out to the car I discovered some workman was dropping off one of these mini-digger things, so I had to wait for him to finish before I could go. Add on to that the fact they've now started some roadworks at the end of the road and I hit every red light possible on the journey and I was not as early as I normally am for work.
This then meant that my morning walk was rather hurried and when I got back to the car I discovered I had forgotten my shoes (I wear trainers for that first walk and to drive to work). I'm therefore wearing my trainers at work, which are, thankfully, black so it's not too noticeable.
I then logged on and opened a couple of e-mails that were also bad news. I then went to listen to my MP3 player and discovered one of the ear bud things (I use in-ear headphones) has fallen off again. This happens fairly often - it will most likely be in my bag in the car, but if not I do have spares. However, it does mean I have had to switch to my other set of earphones I use for my MP3 player I use when walking and those aren't really very work friendly.
And it's only mid-morning.
Friday, 24 May 2013
monaco
Monaco Grand Prix this weekend.
The BBC is only showing highlights on the TV, but I'll probably listen on the radio. I'm sure I'll do other stuff while I listen, as Monaco is not traditionally the most exciting to watch on TV.
It was the race I went to a few years ago with my family and I really enjoyed it while I was there, but it can produce some dull races on TV. The problem is that it's incredibly difficult to overtake and of course fi you can't overtake then it's just everyone following each other around or you have to rely on clever tyre and pit stop strategies, which are okay but not very exciting to watch.
This year the tyres seemed to be very short lived so that could mean it will be more interesting or it could make it pretty chaotic.
It's also the bank holiday weekend. As I posted the other day I'm pretty much skint until I get paid, which won't be until next week proper, so I'll not be doing much. Indeed I have lots of anime on Blu Ray I need to watch, because it's all on e-bay about to be bought by people, so that's my weekend sorted.
In other news I've not heard anything from Customs about the parcel charges. I've a horrible feeling I will have to pay the full fines once I've gotten paid and then have to try again to claim it back. That won't help my finances any! But then it'll be even more expensive if it gets sent back to Japan and I have to pay for it to be imported again.
The BBC is only showing highlights on the TV, but I'll probably listen on the radio. I'm sure I'll do other stuff while I listen, as Monaco is not traditionally the most exciting to watch on TV.
It was the race I went to a few years ago with my family and I really enjoyed it while I was there, but it can produce some dull races on TV. The problem is that it's incredibly difficult to overtake and of course fi you can't overtake then it's just everyone following each other around or you have to rely on clever tyre and pit stop strategies, which are okay but not very exciting to watch.
This year the tyres seemed to be very short lived so that could mean it will be more interesting or it could make it pretty chaotic.
It's also the bank holiday weekend. As I posted the other day I'm pretty much skint until I get paid, which won't be until next week proper, so I'll not be doing much. Indeed I have lots of anime on Blu Ray I need to watch, because it's all on e-bay about to be bought by people, so that's my weekend sorted.
In other news I've not heard anything from Customs about the parcel charges. I've a horrible feeling I will have to pay the full fines once I've gotten paid and then have to try again to claim it back. That won't help my finances any! But then it'll be even more expensive if it gets sent back to Japan and I have to pay for it to be imported again.
Thursday, 23 May 2013
animu
I've been watching some anime.
I know - shock revelation, what with it supposedly being one of my hobbies and all, but it’s been a long time since I really watched any anime.
I therefore thought I might revive my mini reviews:
attack on titan
I've read several volumes of the manga and basically enjoyed it. The artwork is a bit rough around the edges and the story is all over the places, but I quite like it despite those.
It kind of goes without saying that the artwork in the anime is much better, but it is actually of quite a high standard. They've also done a lot to smooth out the story - it's less 'high energy' because of that, but it also makes it easier to follow.
My only real criticism would be that the gore has been toned down - a lot happens off camera - and really it's this that's one of the key aspects of the manga: when the characters are whining about how scared you are, in the manga you've seen their friends be eaten alive, but in the anime you know it happened but didn't actually see how horrible it was, so you don't quite feel the same way.
But that's a fairly minor gripe - it's still worth watching.
flowers of evil
I've only actually watched 3 episodes of this.
It's drawn quite a bit of flack as it's actually rotoscoped. I've never really been a fan of rotoscoping. I think it's okay here, but I think much of what it brings could have been achieved with traditional animation. Indeed, I think a lot of what people have been complimenting that they think the rotoscoping is the reason for is actually more to do with the sound design. The sound is really creepy - there's a lot of bits that really ramp up the tension and atmosphere.
But the reason I've not really watched more than 3 episodes is I find he characters a bit annoying. It also seems very unrealistic - and I think this is actually made worse by the rotoscoping. You know it's been acted out in real life, so it's like a drama someone has drawn on, but it's therefore a very unrealistic drama.
gargantia on the verduos planet
I think this might actually be my favourite of the season. It's certainly the most proper science fiction of the shows I've watched. I like the premise, the plot and the characters and I think it looks great and has been done really well (it is a Production I.G. series, after all).
If I was pushed to make one criticism it's that it could have moved a bit swifter - there were some bits that could have been chopped out to move things along a lot quicker. But even during those bits the show is entertaining enough. Oh, and I suppose the fan service it has is a bit unnecessary too; given the overall SF nature of the show it can feel a little out of place.
majestic prince
I have to say my interest in this one has waned a bit over the course of watching it. I think a part of this is that it's been quite samey. I am actually a bit puzzled that this was listed as having 24 episodes where Gargantia was listed as having 13 as I'd have said the longevity of the two series feels the other way around (but not sure where I saw these listings so I don't know if they're true).
Another problem I had was that in the first few episodes I had the feeling that the show was actually a bit of a parody, or at least that it was making a few knowing winks at the story itself, but as the episodes have gone on I've felt this much less.
I did actually think it bore a resemblance to shows like GaoGaiGar - certainly the bad guys are the same sort of bonkers OTT bunch. However, GGG had the advantage of a proper giant robot and a real sense of fun. This tries to be a bit more serious than it needs to be to work properly.
Although saying that it could have worked if it had gone the other way. I mean, I think the main characters are meant to be kids who have had their memories wiped so they don't remember their families or anything, but it doesn't really examine how dark this is.
yuyushiki
It's difficult to hate shows like this.
Yuyushiki is one of those girls in clubs shows like K-ON, only in K-ON the girls are meant to be in a music club but actually spend their time doing nothing, where in yuyu their club is basically searching the internet.
I dunno, as an example of the genre it's perfectly fine and I enjoy it, but it's hardly ground-breaking stuff.
This isn't all the stuff from this season; but it's the ones I liked the look of. I might try sampling the other series from this season across the Bank Holiday weekend to see if they're worth watching.
I've also watched some stuff I bought (I was kind of forced to, because it's on Blu-Ray and, as my post earlier in the week said) I need the cash from selling them on e-bay. I'll talk about those in another post.
I know - shock revelation, what with it supposedly being one of my hobbies and all, but it’s been a long time since I really watched any anime.
I therefore thought I might revive my mini reviews:
attack on titan
I've read several volumes of the manga and basically enjoyed it. The artwork is a bit rough around the edges and the story is all over the places, but I quite like it despite those.
It kind of goes without saying that the artwork in the anime is much better, but it is actually of quite a high standard. They've also done a lot to smooth out the story - it's less 'high energy' because of that, but it also makes it easier to follow.
My only real criticism would be that the gore has been toned down - a lot happens off camera - and really it's this that's one of the key aspects of the manga: when the characters are whining about how scared you are, in the manga you've seen their friends be eaten alive, but in the anime you know it happened but didn't actually see how horrible it was, so you don't quite feel the same way.
But that's a fairly minor gripe - it's still worth watching.
flowers of evil
I've only actually watched 3 episodes of this.
It's drawn quite a bit of flack as it's actually rotoscoped. I've never really been a fan of rotoscoping. I think it's okay here, but I think much of what it brings could have been achieved with traditional animation. Indeed, I think a lot of what people have been complimenting that they think the rotoscoping is the reason for is actually more to do with the sound design. The sound is really creepy - there's a lot of bits that really ramp up the tension and atmosphere.
But the reason I've not really watched more than 3 episodes is I find he characters a bit annoying. It also seems very unrealistic - and I think this is actually made worse by the rotoscoping. You know it's been acted out in real life, so it's like a drama someone has drawn on, but it's therefore a very unrealistic drama.
gargantia on the verduos planet
I think this might actually be my favourite of the season. It's certainly the most proper science fiction of the shows I've watched. I like the premise, the plot and the characters and I think it looks great and has been done really well (it is a Production I.G. series, after all).
If I was pushed to make one criticism it's that it could have moved a bit swifter - there were some bits that could have been chopped out to move things along a lot quicker. But even during those bits the show is entertaining enough. Oh, and I suppose the fan service it has is a bit unnecessary too; given the overall SF nature of the show it can feel a little out of place.
majestic prince
I have to say my interest in this one has waned a bit over the course of watching it. I think a part of this is that it's been quite samey. I am actually a bit puzzled that this was listed as having 24 episodes where Gargantia was listed as having 13 as I'd have said the longevity of the two series feels the other way around (but not sure where I saw these listings so I don't know if they're true).
Another problem I had was that in the first few episodes I had the feeling that the show was actually a bit of a parody, or at least that it was making a few knowing winks at the story itself, but as the episodes have gone on I've felt this much less.
I did actually think it bore a resemblance to shows like GaoGaiGar - certainly the bad guys are the same sort of bonkers OTT bunch. However, GGG had the advantage of a proper giant robot and a real sense of fun. This tries to be a bit more serious than it needs to be to work properly.
Although saying that it could have worked if it had gone the other way. I mean, I think the main characters are meant to be kids who have had their memories wiped so they don't remember their families or anything, but it doesn't really examine how dark this is.
yuyushiki
It's difficult to hate shows like this.
Yuyushiki is one of those girls in clubs shows like K-ON, only in K-ON the girls are meant to be in a music club but actually spend their time doing nothing, where in yuyu their club is basically searching the internet.
I dunno, as an example of the genre it's perfectly fine and I enjoy it, but it's hardly ground-breaking stuff.
This isn't all the stuff from this season; but it's the ones I liked the look of. I might try sampling the other series from this season across the Bank Holiday weekend to see if they're worth watching.
I've also watched some stuff I bought (I was kind of forced to, because it's on Blu-Ray and, as my post earlier in the week said) I need the cash from selling them on e-bay. I'll talk about those in another post.
Tuesday, 21 May 2013
skint
I am skint.
And I mean skint. I can't currently afford to buy petrol for my car, which will need filling up on Friday. I have exactly £11 worth of electricity on the meter and this won't last long enough if I have to turn the heating on, which seems likely given the way the weather is just now. I'm even wondering what I will have to buy grocery-wise (food and toiletries, etc) and what I can put off until I get my next pay cheque.
That next pay cheque will turn up next week, but it will be kinda critical when it turns up. I have a Direct Debit coming out on Wednesday for £110. I don't currently have £110. I should be getting about £100 for stuff I currently have on e-bay, but as with my pay cheque, there's no guarantee people will pay straight away.
If not I will have to use my other overdraft (my HSBC one is already maxed out). I certainly don't have anything in my savings account I could transfer over.
I've even been toying with the idea of taking out one of these short-term cash loans. I kinda know that would be lethal, though.
I have been taking steps to correct the holes in my finance, but the problem again has been the whole stag-do, wedding and Dad's PC combo, which has proven to be quite the
Indeed, I was making quite good progress and was getting to the stage where I wasn't having to use as much of my overdraft and the credit cards were starting to come down. However, these recent events have wiped out that "breathing room" I had built up.
What I need to do is get more stuff on e-bay, but I've kinda reached a point where I have to watch/play/read the things I have in order to sell them. In particular the stuff I could rip and flog has pretty much run out.
Well, that's not quite true - I've a lot of stuff I could sell, but I've a feeling most of it will fall into the "more expensive to sell than I will get back" category. The few things I think might be worth a significant amount are kinda crossing a line - like selling your car to buy petrol :/.
Of course what I really need is a job that pays me a wage that's appropriate for my skill and value. But then that's a whole other story.
And I mean skint. I can't currently afford to buy petrol for my car, which will need filling up on Friday. I have exactly £11 worth of electricity on the meter and this won't last long enough if I have to turn the heating on, which seems likely given the way the weather is just now. I'm even wondering what I will have to buy grocery-wise (food and toiletries, etc) and what I can put off until I get my next pay cheque.
That next pay cheque will turn up next week, but it will be kinda critical when it turns up. I have a Direct Debit coming out on Wednesday for £110. I don't currently have £110. I should be getting about £100 for stuff I currently have on e-bay, but as with my pay cheque, there's no guarantee people will pay straight away.
If not I will have to use my other overdraft (my HSBC one is already maxed out). I certainly don't have anything in my savings account I could transfer over.
I've even been toying with the idea of taking out one of these short-term cash loans. I kinda know that would be lethal, though.
I have been taking steps to correct the holes in my finance, but the problem again has been the whole stag-do, wedding and Dad's PC combo, which has proven to be quite the
Indeed, I was making quite good progress and was getting to the stage where I wasn't having to use as much of my overdraft and the credit cards were starting to come down. However, these recent events have wiped out that "breathing room" I had built up.
What I need to do is get more stuff on e-bay, but I've kinda reached a point where I have to watch/play/read the things I have in order to sell them. In particular the stuff I could rip and flog has pretty much run out.
Well, that's not quite true - I've a lot of stuff I could sell, but I've a feeling most of it will fall into the "more expensive to sell than I will get back" category. The few things I think might be worth a significant amount are kinda crossing a line - like selling your car to buy petrol :/.
Of course what I really need is a job that pays me a wage that's appropriate for my skill and value. But then that's a whole other story.
Monday, 20 May 2013
eurovision
It was Eurovision this weekend.
As per usual it took me somewhat by surprise. For some reason I have it in my head that it is held later in the year. I think this might be because the Eurovision's I mainly remember watching were either as a kid or as a Student and in both my memories are largely of it being warm and late light (the student ones often involved drinking). Therefore in my head Eurovision is associated with summer.
Anyway, this year was okay. It was held in Sweden and was much more "traditional" in the sense that they hadn't gone mega bonkers with the whole thing. A lot of the Russian satellite states (who had quite a string of wins when they all joined and only voted for each other) seemed to get into a bit of a staging war, with ever bigger productions.
Sweden just put it on in a reasonably-sized hall with a single presenter on a fairly basic stage with a basic presentation. Really it's about the songs, after all.
The songs were genuinely of an okay standard this year. There were only a couple that stood out with Eurovision-weirdness, and this was mainly in the staging, rather than the songs themselves.
I thought the winner was okay. I got a bit mixed up with what was meant to be the favourite, but I think a perfectly okay pop song won in the end. Although I would have liked something like Greece to have won, as there's was more fun and definitely more memorable.
The UK did poorly, as has become the norm in recent years. There is obviously the Balkan effect nowadays, but to be totally frank it was another largely forgettable and uninteresting song.
Just recently they seem to have decided the best tactic is to have a 'star' name sing the song, but a star name from the ancient past. Last year it was Bacharach and this year Bonnie Tyler. I'm puzzled by this approach - isn't it mostly youngsters (or at least families) that watch Eurovision? So what youngster knows Bonnie Tyler from Adam?
As per usual it took me somewhat by surprise. For some reason I have it in my head that it is held later in the year. I think this might be because the Eurovision's I mainly remember watching were either as a kid or as a Student and in both my memories are largely of it being warm and late light (the student ones often involved drinking). Therefore in my head Eurovision is associated with summer.
Anyway, this year was okay. It was held in Sweden and was much more "traditional" in the sense that they hadn't gone mega bonkers with the whole thing. A lot of the Russian satellite states (who had quite a string of wins when they all joined and only voted for each other) seemed to get into a bit of a staging war, with ever bigger productions.
Sweden just put it on in a reasonably-sized hall with a single presenter on a fairly basic stage with a basic presentation. Really it's about the songs, after all.
The songs were genuinely of an okay standard this year. There were only a couple that stood out with Eurovision-weirdness, and this was mainly in the staging, rather than the songs themselves.
I thought the winner was okay. I got a bit mixed up with what was meant to be the favourite, but I think a perfectly okay pop song won in the end. Although I would have liked something like Greece to have won, as there's was more fun and definitely more memorable.
The UK did poorly, as has become the norm in recent years. There is obviously the Balkan effect nowadays, but to be totally frank it was another largely forgettable and uninteresting song.
Just recently they seem to have decided the best tactic is to have a 'star' name sing the song, but a star name from the ancient past. Last year it was Bacharach and this year Bonnie Tyler. I'm puzzled by this approach - isn't it mostly youngsters (or at least families) that watch Eurovision? So what youngster knows Bonnie Tyler from Adam?
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