Had a bit of an odd weekend, because I was far too efficient.
As I mentioned on Friday my main plan was to watch all the telly stuff I'd recorded. Indeed, it was so much my plan I hadn't really planned to do anything else.
But I was so efficient I'd watched all of it by mid-day Saturday, so Sunday I had almost nothing to do whatsoever. I ended up filling that whole by playing lots of Anno, which isn't necessarily a good thing, as there were lots of things I could have done that would have served me better, but I dunno, I'm not sure I care at this point in time.
The thing I did do that was kinda more productive was start watching a DVD I picked up the other week called "Monty Python - Almost the Truth - The Lawyers Cut".
Weirdly they showed a kind of super-trimmed down version of this a few weeks ago on BBC as part of a Python night (it's a staggering 40 years since the show started) and I'd assumed initially that this was just that short documentary on DVD, but it turned out this is actually a 6-part series, with each episode being 50 minutes.
Weirdly, the description implies the full 6-part show has been on the telly, but I've only seen that trimmed down version.
I've gotten about half way through - it's pretty good is my feeling so far. Certainly people talk quite candidly about stuff, which is good. I'm not sure about the non-Python bits if I'm honest. I think I'd rather have more of them talking than the interviews with other celebs.
Not that the interviews with celebs aren't okay, just y'know, more from the men themselves would be better.
This morning I've been avoiding work by watching this interview with Charlie Brooker of News/Game/Screen-wipe and Guardian columnist fame.
I'm one of those people that like Charlie Brooker (about his only misfire for me was Trashbat, which I didn't get at all). He's not to everyone's taste, but if you also like him the interview's well worth a watch.
The interviews been up a while, but my traditional routine only means I check out Brooker's guardian page on Monday morning, so I've only just seen it.
Monday, 16 November 2009
Friday, 13 November 2009
saki
I finished Saki this week.
I've been surprised by how much I enjoyed it if I'm honest. I still don't know the exact ins and outs of Mah-jong, and while a full knowledge didn't prove necessary in order to enjoy the show, I think if you know the game you'll probably get on better with some of the stuff.
One of the odd things about Saki is it's a mix of tournament manga where the characters are involved in battles against each other and high-school romcom. For me the blending sort of worked, although the romcom element is a bit weaker than the tournament side.
Also, as I mentioned before, it seems like any girl interested in Mah-jong is basically a lesbian, which although not something I'm entirely against, it gets a bit repetitive in a way. And it'd be nice if there were more complicated relationships in there - love rivals or love triangles for example. But then the sexual stuff is more an undercurrent than an explicit thing, so I guess that'd be going too far really.
The other odd thing is the pacing of the show.
There's quite a lot of prep stuff that builds logically into a regional tournament situation involving teams. This all works fine, but the problem is that doesn't represent the end of the show.
Instead, after this you get a lull and then it's into a second regional tournament involving individuals. Again, this builds to a climax, but then yet again, you get another lull and then you're launched into the nationals.
Except you aren't, because that's where the show ends.
It even goes to the slightly odd extreme of having highlights of 'what happens next' across the end credits and a final card saying "the adventure has only just begun".
Even though it's the end of the series.
And given the manga is only at 6 volumes and Gonzo has pretty much folded, it seems unlikely the story will ever continue. Which is a bit of shame really as it'd be nice to reach a proper conclusion. Maybe the manga will get licensed and I'll be able to follow it there.
Plans for the weekend currently revolve around Modern Warfare 2. In a typically impatient bit of planning, rather than add it to my pile of un-played games I installed it and started playing. As such, I'm not actually sure how much there will be left for me to play over the weekend, but then if I finish it I'll have to catch up on all the telly I've skipped in order to make room for me to watch it, so I won't be lacking things to do.
I've been surprised by how much I enjoyed it if I'm honest. I still don't know the exact ins and outs of Mah-jong, and while a full knowledge didn't prove necessary in order to enjoy the show, I think if you know the game you'll probably get on better with some of the stuff.
One of the odd things about Saki is it's a mix of tournament manga where the characters are involved in battles against each other and high-school romcom. For me the blending sort of worked, although the romcom element is a bit weaker than the tournament side.
Also, as I mentioned before, it seems like any girl interested in Mah-jong is basically a lesbian, which although not something I'm entirely against, it gets a bit repetitive in a way. And it'd be nice if there were more complicated relationships in there - love rivals or love triangles for example. But then the sexual stuff is more an undercurrent than an explicit thing, so I guess that'd be going too far really.
The other odd thing is the pacing of the show.
There's quite a lot of prep stuff that builds logically into a regional tournament situation involving teams. This all works fine, but the problem is that doesn't represent the end of the show.
Instead, after this you get a lull and then it's into a second regional tournament involving individuals. Again, this builds to a climax, but then yet again, you get another lull and then you're launched into the nationals.
Except you aren't, because that's where the show ends.
It even goes to the slightly odd extreme of having highlights of 'what happens next' across the end credits and a final card saying "the adventure has only just begun".
Even though it's the end of the series.
And given the manga is only at 6 volumes and Gonzo has pretty much folded, it seems unlikely the story will ever continue. Which is a bit of shame really as it'd be nice to reach a proper conclusion. Maybe the manga will get licensed and I'll be able to follow it there.
Plans for the weekend currently revolve around Modern Warfare 2. In a typically impatient bit of planning, rather than add it to my pile of un-played games I installed it and started playing. As such, I'm not actually sure how much there will be left for me to play over the weekend, but then if I finish it I'll have to catch up on all the telly I've skipped in order to make room for me to watch it, so I won't be lacking things to do.
Thursday, 12 November 2009
stuff, stuff and more stuff
This last couple of months I've been drowning in new stuff.
Obviously I'm aware that Christmas is 'just around the corner' so in a way it should be no big surprise, but I dunno, I'd always kinda assumed most of the stuff I buy is rather immune from the Chrimbo effect.
The best example is that I'm collecting quite a few manga series and manga is released periodically. Now for some series that have been going for a while there's a gap between what's being released in the west and where the series is in Japan, so it can only been two or three months between new volumes. For others they're pretty much up with the Japanese, so it's more like one a year.
So if that's the case, how come every single series I'm collecting has volumes out either this month or next month and in some cases in January too. In order for that to happen they must all be trying to release a Christmas volume or two.
Which initially seemed a little illogical to me. If these things are coming out every few months or in the middle of the year then people are buying them anyway. In other words, they're not really Christmas present territory.
Generally, stuff comes out at Christmas because it can then be bought as gifts, you see. The good example of that for stuff I buy is computer games. COD: Modern warfare 2 came out this week and I'm sure it's therefore lodged on a lot of people's Christmas lists (even if it is an 18-rated title).
But then it occurred to me - people get money as a present too, so then it makes more sense to have these 'non-Christmas' items out too. It gives people something to spend their Christmas money on, especially given the manga market has been in a bit of a decline. So it's more like a sensible "alignment" than bringing them out specifically as gift items.
Anyway, the real point of this is that because I pre-order everything on Amazon ages in advance I don't tend to pay attention to the dates. And because of how complex the dates are I generally set everything to deliver "as soon as possible". I mean, it doesn't make sense if you're ordering two things, one of which goes on sale in October 2009 and the other in August 2010 to put it as "despatch together" does it?
Well no, but this means that over the last couple of weeks I've received a constant stream of parcels of new stuff. Indeed, it's gotten to the stage that it's sucked all of the money out of my bank account. Considering I keep about £200 in that account and each book only costs about £8 delivered, you get some idea how many things have been sent.
In fact I've actually switched the payment method over to a credit card because I just don't have the cash to cover it all and I swore I'd never do that after I racked up so much debt before :/.
Obviously I'm aware that Christmas is 'just around the corner' so in a way it should be no big surprise, but I dunno, I'd always kinda assumed most of the stuff I buy is rather immune from the Chrimbo effect.
The best example is that I'm collecting quite a few manga series and manga is released periodically. Now for some series that have been going for a while there's a gap between what's being released in the west and where the series is in Japan, so it can only been two or three months between new volumes. For others they're pretty much up with the Japanese, so it's more like one a year.
So if that's the case, how come every single series I'm collecting has volumes out either this month or next month and in some cases in January too. In order for that to happen they must all be trying to release a Christmas volume or two.
Which initially seemed a little illogical to me. If these things are coming out every few months or in the middle of the year then people are buying them anyway. In other words, they're not really Christmas present territory.
Generally, stuff comes out at Christmas because it can then be bought as gifts, you see. The good example of that for stuff I buy is computer games. COD: Modern warfare 2 came out this week and I'm sure it's therefore lodged on a lot of people's Christmas lists (even if it is an 18-rated title).
But then it occurred to me - people get money as a present too, so then it makes more sense to have these 'non-Christmas' items out too. It gives people something to spend their Christmas money on, especially given the manga market has been in a bit of a decline. So it's more like a sensible "alignment" than bringing them out specifically as gift items.
Anyway, the real point of this is that because I pre-order everything on Amazon ages in advance I don't tend to pay attention to the dates. And because of how complex the dates are I generally set everything to deliver "as soon as possible". I mean, it doesn't make sense if you're ordering two things, one of which goes on sale in October 2009 and the other in August 2010 to put it as "despatch together" does it?
Well no, but this means that over the last couple of weeks I've received a constant stream of parcels of new stuff. Indeed, it's gotten to the stage that it's sucked all of the money out of my bank account. Considering I keep about £200 in that account and each book only costs about £8 delivered, you get some idea how many things have been sent.
In fact I've actually switched the payment method over to a credit card because I just don't have the cash to cover it all and I swore I'd never do that after I racked up so much debt before :/.
Wednesday, 11 November 2009
the dark knight
I'm having a little difficulty knowing how to start this review.
The reason is Dark Knight was a massively popular film and came with a massive amount if hype. And I have a weird reaction to hype. I've discussed it before, so I won't bore you with the details, but it tends to turn me off a bit.
The problem is either a reactionary streak in my personality or a slight disconnection from the zeitgeist. Or probably both.
It doesn't help in this case that Heath Ledger died and posthumously won an Oscar for his role as the Joker. I mean, that meant I was wanting to like the film, but, I dunno, worried that if I didn't it made me a ginormous shit.
I'm wittering on like this because I'm not sure if I really liked the film or not.
Part of the problem is that while I enjoyed Batman Begins, I thought it was kinda flawed. There were some specific bits I didn't like, but my main problem was the general tone. It seemed to cast Bruce Wayne as a bit of a reluctant hero, where I never really got that feeling from the comics.
I'd got that he was a bit twisted. A bit warped from what happened to his parents. I'd got that he perhaps had an overly developed sense of justice and a tendency towards control freakery. And other stuff too, but never really reluctance.
I mean, I can understand why cinematically it works and it would be something actors/directors/writers might enjoy playing as a character trait. I can also see how adds drama in terms of his relationship with the woman he loves.
But to me, it's not Batman.
That's not who he is.
He's the guy who, although he regrets that he's loosing the girl, he lets her go - pushes her away even, secure in the knowledge that he's doing the right thing. He knows it's his fate, his destiny, his lot and he's resigned to it. He doesn't seek a way out, because he knows it cannot come.
And so my big problem here is that the reluctance thing continues on into this film. Indeed, it's even stronger here - the film is virtually about Wayne's reluctance. So for me, it's crucially flawed.
Which again, like Batman Begins, doesn't make it an un-enjoyable film. It's got plenty of good action, for example. There's a few good jokes and the basic plot is reasonable. And they've done a good job with the joker.
You know when people complain about comic book adaptations and say that they're not faithful? For me the faithfulness comes in depicting the fundamental character of the book/hero, not in terms of transferring the exact story from the page to the screen. And for me, that's where Batman was wrong but the Joker was right.
See, really they've buggered about with the joker, but what they've kept is the fundamental feel of the character. He's a sadist and an anarchist - perfect.
In fact, actually, the only problem with the joker is actually with the rating of the film. It was 12, and that means they've effectively toned him down. If he'd been let loose in an 18, or possibly even a 15, then I think it would have added quite a lot.
Two-face gets short shrift, though. Well, I say that, but the pre-Two-Face Harvey Dent gets loads of screen time, but once he becomes proper two face (which is a truly horrific thing to behold) he's not in the film very much at all, which is a shame. He's a bit of a victim of the classic "too many villains" syndrome that tends to effect superhero films.
So yeah - mixed bag overall, but well worth watching.
The reason is Dark Knight was a massively popular film and came with a massive amount if hype. And I have a weird reaction to hype. I've discussed it before, so I won't bore you with the details, but it tends to turn me off a bit.
The problem is either a reactionary streak in my personality or a slight disconnection from the zeitgeist. Or probably both.
It doesn't help in this case that Heath Ledger died and posthumously won an Oscar for his role as the Joker. I mean, that meant I was wanting to like the film, but, I dunno, worried that if I didn't it made me a ginormous shit.
I'm wittering on like this because I'm not sure if I really liked the film or not.
Part of the problem is that while I enjoyed Batman Begins, I thought it was kinda flawed. There were some specific bits I didn't like, but my main problem was the general tone. It seemed to cast Bruce Wayne as a bit of a reluctant hero, where I never really got that feeling from the comics.
I'd got that he was a bit twisted. A bit warped from what happened to his parents. I'd got that he perhaps had an overly developed sense of justice and a tendency towards control freakery. And other stuff too, but never really reluctance.
I mean, I can understand why cinematically it works and it would be something actors/directors/writers might enjoy playing as a character trait. I can also see how adds drama in terms of his relationship with the woman he loves.
But to me, it's not Batman.
That's not who he is.
He's the guy who, although he regrets that he's loosing the girl, he lets her go - pushes her away even, secure in the knowledge that he's doing the right thing. He knows it's his fate, his destiny, his lot and he's resigned to it. He doesn't seek a way out, because he knows it cannot come.
And so my big problem here is that the reluctance thing continues on into this film. Indeed, it's even stronger here - the film is virtually about Wayne's reluctance. So for me, it's crucially flawed.
Which again, like Batman Begins, doesn't make it an un-enjoyable film. It's got plenty of good action, for example. There's a few good jokes and the basic plot is reasonable. And they've done a good job with the joker.
You know when people complain about comic book adaptations and say that they're not faithful? For me the faithfulness comes in depicting the fundamental character of the book/hero, not in terms of transferring the exact story from the page to the screen. And for me, that's where Batman was wrong but the Joker was right.
See, really they've buggered about with the joker, but what they've kept is the fundamental feel of the character. He's a sadist and an anarchist - perfect.
In fact, actually, the only problem with the joker is actually with the rating of the film. It was 12, and that means they've effectively toned him down. If he'd been let loose in an 18, or possibly even a 15, then I think it would have added quite a lot.
Two-face gets short shrift, though. Well, I say that, but the pre-Two-Face Harvey Dent gets loads of screen time, but once he becomes proper two face (which is a truly horrific thing to behold) he's not in the film very much at all, which is a shame. He's a bit of a victim of the classic "too many villains" syndrome that tends to effect superhero films.
So yeah - mixed bag overall, but well worth watching.
Tuesday, 10 November 2009
ebay survey
I mentioned e-baying yesterday and that reminded me - a few days ago I was sent an e-mail by e-bay asking me to complete an online survey.
I figured what the hell, let's at least take a look and see what it is, so I clicked the link and it turned out to be a survey mainly about selling stuff on e-bay. I therefore decided to complete it.
Little did I know it was going to take absolutely bloody ages.
To be frank, it was a really badly designed survey - you could have easily compressed it to about half the size and still collected all the relevant information.
It was also bloody stupid, asking all sorts of confusing and contradictory questions. At times it actually felt like I was sat in a police interview room and they were asking the same question over-and-over, but in slightly different ways to try to trip me up.
The basic thrust seemed to be about charges - what would you be willing to pay, which system do you find the easiest to use, why do you do what you do - that sort of stuff.
As part of it there was kind of a role-play thing, where the question was something like "if you were selling an item that was worth x pounds what would you do?" And it seemed like it was trying to establish which charging system out of different possibilities you preferred.
This was gigantically flawed.
First off, I don't fundamentally work in tat way - I don't sell items that are "worth x pounds". I mean, I have hopes for what I might get and I have a minimum price I don't want to sell the item for less than (the starting amount) but items I sell don't have a value in the way this was implying.
Second, these values were ludicrous. One was £1,000! I've never sold anything even remotely worth that much on e-bay.
Third, it asked would you sell the item as an auction or as instant sale, as if they were mutually exclusive, but you can easily do both.
You were also supposed to be making your decision based on the fees. I've never based my decision on how to sell on fees. You know why? Because I know whatever I do, e-Bay are going to rip me off.
I mean, that's what they do - their veritable raison d'être, so why would I investigate the fees? It would only leave me depressed and wretched.
Also, I sell 99% of my stuff with auctions, because that's what e-bay is supposed to be about.
Anyway, the net result was that all the survey really did was further convince me that e-Bay wants to get rid of us small, individual users and become a wholesale outlet.
It did give me an opportunity to vent my spleen at them a bit though, as there was a question asking "what one thing e-bay could to encourage you to sell more?" (yet more assumptions - I mean, if I've not got any second hand stuff to sell, how can I sell more?)
I put 4 things. And swore at them quite a bit.
It's like shouting at the moon, of course, but it made me feel a bit better.
I figured what the hell, let's at least take a look and see what it is, so I clicked the link and it turned out to be a survey mainly about selling stuff on e-bay. I therefore decided to complete it.
Little did I know it was going to take absolutely bloody ages.
To be frank, it was a really badly designed survey - you could have easily compressed it to about half the size and still collected all the relevant information.
It was also bloody stupid, asking all sorts of confusing and contradictory questions. At times it actually felt like I was sat in a police interview room and they were asking the same question over-and-over, but in slightly different ways to try to trip me up.
The basic thrust seemed to be about charges - what would you be willing to pay, which system do you find the easiest to use, why do you do what you do - that sort of stuff.
As part of it there was kind of a role-play thing, where the question was something like "if you were selling an item that was worth x pounds what would you do?" And it seemed like it was trying to establish which charging system out of different possibilities you preferred.
This was gigantically flawed.
First off, I don't fundamentally work in tat way - I don't sell items that are "worth x pounds". I mean, I have hopes for what I might get and I have a minimum price I don't want to sell the item for less than (the starting amount) but items I sell don't have a value in the way this was implying.
Second, these values were ludicrous. One was £1,000! I've never sold anything even remotely worth that much on e-bay.
Third, it asked would you sell the item as an auction or as instant sale, as if they were mutually exclusive, but you can easily do both.
You were also supposed to be making your decision based on the fees. I've never based my decision on how to sell on fees. You know why? Because I know whatever I do, e-Bay are going to rip me off.
I mean, that's what they do - their veritable raison d'être, so why would I investigate the fees? It would only leave me depressed and wretched.
Also, I sell 99% of my stuff with auctions, because that's what e-bay is supposed to be about.
Anyway, the net result was that all the survey really did was further convince me that e-Bay wants to get rid of us small, individual users and become a wholesale outlet.
It did give me an opportunity to vent my spleen at them a bit though, as there was a question asking "what one thing e-bay could to encourage you to sell more?" (yet more assumptions - I mean, if I've not got any second hand stuff to sell, how can I sell more?)
I put 4 things. And swore at them quite a bit.
It's like shouting at the moon, of course, but it made me feel a bit better.
Monday, 9 November 2009
no friday
So having basically forgotten to do a blog entry on Thursday, I ended up totally failing to do one on Friday at all.
The reason for this was that Friday was jam-packed at work and it's usually while at work that I write these posts. In the morning I had to read through and edit a proposal that we were submitting. It wasn't a huge thing, but it needed a lot of work.
The afternoon was filled with a huge meeting that lasted the best part of 3 hours. However, it wasn't because it was a bad meeting, it was actually really useful and I found it really useful. Tbh, the only complaint I'd make was that it didn't happen sooner as it kinda means most, if not all of what I'd done already was rendered pointless.
I mean, it was rendered pointless in a good way in that I now know better what I should do, but still, it would have been better to have had it earlier.
The weekend was pretty productive.
I found the time (and motivation) to put my aircon away, which has been one of my outstanding jobs for a while now.
It's the sort of job that sounds fairly minor, but it takes ages (a couple of hours all told) because it involves sorting through a load of stuff and re-arranging it around where I put the aircon unit when I'm not using it. My aircon is a huge thing - it's a good 120cms tall and about 40cms deep and it weighs a tonne.
I mean, it's a good unit, but it's not what you would call "small and light". With all the tubing it also means it has to go in a particular place when in use, but that means it takes up a lot of room, and spare room is not something I have a lot of, hence having to pack it away.
So yeah, packed it away and had a bit of a clean in all the places that I can't get to when it's out. I also sorted through some piles of stuff. One of the things I discovered was that I've actually got quite a lot of stuff that I need to put on e-bay.
I'd been intending to save it up for closer to Christmas, but I think I might get a few things on sooner otherwise I'm going to get all pissed off at having to do so much e-bay-ing.
I also found the time to watch all of the stuff I've recorded. Well, I say that, but I'm actually saving a series of something because I want to watch the DVDs of the earlier series before I watch it, but that's kinda irrelevant.
Of course doing both of those things meant that I didn't get a chance to advance much other stuff, so I've ended up with a weird feeling of not having done much, even though I did :/.
The reason for this was that Friday was jam-packed at work and it's usually while at work that I write these posts. In the morning I had to read through and edit a proposal that we were submitting. It wasn't a huge thing, but it needed a lot of work.
The afternoon was filled with a huge meeting that lasted the best part of 3 hours. However, it wasn't because it was a bad meeting, it was actually really useful and I found it really useful. Tbh, the only complaint I'd make was that it didn't happen sooner as it kinda means most, if not all of what I'd done already was rendered pointless.
I mean, it was rendered pointless in a good way in that I now know better what I should do, but still, it would have been better to have had it earlier.
The weekend was pretty productive.
I found the time (and motivation) to put my aircon away, which has been one of my outstanding jobs for a while now.
It's the sort of job that sounds fairly minor, but it takes ages (a couple of hours all told) because it involves sorting through a load of stuff and re-arranging it around where I put the aircon unit when I'm not using it. My aircon is a huge thing - it's a good 120cms tall and about 40cms deep and it weighs a tonne.
I mean, it's a good unit, but it's not what you would call "small and light". With all the tubing it also means it has to go in a particular place when in use, but that means it takes up a lot of room, and spare room is not something I have a lot of, hence having to pack it away.
So yeah, packed it away and had a bit of a clean in all the places that I can't get to when it's out. I also sorted through some piles of stuff. One of the things I discovered was that I've actually got quite a lot of stuff that I need to put on e-bay.
I'd been intending to save it up for closer to Christmas, but I think I might get a few things on sooner otherwise I'm going to get all pissed off at having to do so much e-bay-ing.
I also found the time to watch all of the stuff I've recorded. Well, I say that, but I'm actually saving a series of something because I want to watch the DVDs of the earlier series before I watch it, but that's kinda irrelevant.
Of course doing both of those things meant that I didn't get a chance to advance much other stuff, so I've ended up with a weird feeling of not having done much, even though I did :/.
Thursday, 5 November 2009
slip of the memory
I completely forgot about doing the blog today!
What I normally tend to do is write it in the morning, but today I cracked on with a piece of work that I needed to get done and it slipped my mind.
So yeah, that's about all there is to say :/.
What I normally tend to do is write it in the morning, but today I cracked on with a piece of work that I needed to get done and it slipped my mind.
So yeah, that's about all there is to say :/.
Wednesday, 4 November 2009
dough you know what i mean
I'd normally be putting a film review on the blog today, but the Love Film scheduling means that this weekend I was without a rental (I only get 3 a month - it's a legacy thin from when it was Amazon rental) but also of course I didn't watch any of my bought DVD films because I was so busy watching all the telly recorded.
So instead I thought I'd talk about last night's second attempt at roll making.
It had the same basic outcome as the last time - the dough that came out of the machine was very sticky and I had to add extra flour and knead that in, in order to be able to form it into the roll shapes.
The problem was I don't know if that was because I messed the recipe up again or not, because what I tried to do was tweak the recipe. The last lot of roles was too much - I mentioned they used a lot of flour and that resulted in really big rolls that were too much to really eat in a sensible fashion.
So what I tried to do was halve the recipe, only the measure are such that that isn't easy to do. I mean, what's half of 3 & 1/4 cups? 1.5 cups and 1/8th of a cup is the answer, but that's not easy to measure. That means I could easily have botched the recipe again.
The other problem was that my timing wasn't great - last night I had quite a complicated dinner to cook as well. If I'd really been thinking I'd have just done a normal loaf, but I wasn't and so ended up adding more effort into an already hectic schedule.
So, for example, if I'd really been thinking about it I'd have actually only made the dough into four reasonably sized rolls, rather than the 6 half sized ones I did. But with me dashing about I didn't think, so I made that error.
However, I'm actually fairly convinced I got the recipe about right, but still it gave me the really sticky dough. I mean, the end result was okay, but the super-sticky dough makes it quite a complicated process. I'm therefore coming around to the idea of maybe not doing rolls as frequently as envisaged, owing to how messy the kneading is. I could maybe do them just for the weekend or something.
I've been continuing to watch Saki and it's Mah-jong related antics. I've still got the very strong feeling that if I properly understood Mah-jong then I'd enjoy it a little more, but I can still get the general jist as it's quite well done.
One of the interesting aspects of the show is that Yuri (basically lesbianism) seems to abound. Like 75% of all anime, the series is set in high school, and if the series is to be believed, it would seem that if a girl is interested in Mah-jong she's also interested in the contents of her fellow female team-mates knickers.
Not that there's anything wrong with that of course (No, Sir), but it does get a bit silly at times.
The other interesting thing about it is the way they depict the games of Mah-jong. It's done like one of those Beyblade/Pokemon tournament battle anime, with all like special moves. Lightning forks are everywhere and we keep slipping into a kind of virtual representation world where the characters are engaged in physical combat.
But it's for Mah-jong. Which is closer to chess than karate. The clever thing is that it manages to strike a good balance between knowing this approach is silly and also taking it seriously that really works.
So instead I thought I'd talk about last night's second attempt at roll making.
It had the same basic outcome as the last time - the dough that came out of the machine was very sticky and I had to add extra flour and knead that in, in order to be able to form it into the roll shapes.
The problem was I don't know if that was because I messed the recipe up again or not, because what I tried to do was tweak the recipe. The last lot of roles was too much - I mentioned they used a lot of flour and that resulted in really big rolls that were too much to really eat in a sensible fashion.
So what I tried to do was halve the recipe, only the measure are such that that isn't easy to do. I mean, what's half of 3 & 1/4 cups? 1.5 cups and 1/8th of a cup is the answer, but that's not easy to measure. That means I could easily have botched the recipe again.
The other problem was that my timing wasn't great - last night I had quite a complicated dinner to cook as well. If I'd really been thinking I'd have just done a normal loaf, but I wasn't and so ended up adding more effort into an already hectic schedule.
So, for example, if I'd really been thinking about it I'd have actually only made the dough into four reasonably sized rolls, rather than the 6 half sized ones I did. But with me dashing about I didn't think, so I made that error.
However, I'm actually fairly convinced I got the recipe about right, but still it gave me the really sticky dough. I mean, the end result was okay, but the super-sticky dough makes it quite a complicated process. I'm therefore coming around to the idea of maybe not doing rolls as frequently as envisaged, owing to how messy the kneading is. I could maybe do them just for the weekend or something.
I've been continuing to watch Saki and it's Mah-jong related antics. I've still got the very strong feeling that if I properly understood Mah-jong then I'd enjoy it a little more, but I can still get the general jist as it's quite well done.
One of the interesting aspects of the show is that Yuri (basically lesbianism) seems to abound. Like 75% of all anime, the series is set in high school, and if the series is to be believed, it would seem that if a girl is interested in Mah-jong she's also interested in the contents of her fellow female team-mates knickers.
Not that there's anything wrong with that of course (No, Sir), but it does get a bit silly at times.
The other interesting thing about it is the way they depict the games of Mah-jong. It's done like one of those Beyblade/Pokemon tournament battle anime, with all like special moves. Lightning forks are everywhere and we keep slipping into a kind of virtual representation world where the characters are engaged in physical combat.
But it's for Mah-jong. Which is closer to chess than karate. The clever thing is that it manages to strike a good balance between knowing this approach is silly and also taking it seriously that really works.
Tuesday, 3 November 2009
rollover
This last weekend I finally had my first crack at making bread rolls.
My dad bought me a bread maker for me last birthday and I've pretty much used it constantly since then. However, I haven't been particularly adventurous with it, having stuck basically to standard white/brown loafs.
But the machine itself has loads of different settings that led you make all sorts of different breads. Of these, the one that intrigued me the most was bread rolls.
One of the problems with the loaves is that, without the preservatives and other things they put into supermarket bread, they go stale really quickly. Now stale bread is something I'm not at all keen on, so it means I have to use up the bread quickly, which can restrict my meal options, or throw it away, which is rather wasteful.
My hope is that rolls will last a little longer, or at the very least will be slightly more manageable from a meal-eating point of view. But there were two potential issues that were holding me back from trying.
First off the recipe seemed a bit complicated. Basically, when you make normal, yeast-based bread you have to have two periods of 'proving'. This is when the yeast really does its 'thing', pumping out carbon dioxide that forms the bubbles that make bread the fluffy thing we all love.
With the normal loaves, these proving periods are covered in the machine's program where it just sits and waits, before doing more mixing. For the rolls you use a setting called 'dough' that only has 1 period of mixing and proving.
The idea then is that you hoik the dough out, knead it, chop it into individual rolls that you shape and then leave, covered, to prove a second time.
This sounded rather complicated and prone to error, so I've been afraid to try it. The other issue was that the recipe uses loads of flour - nearly twice as much as the loaves I've been doing - so I was afraid I'd balls it up and use up the flour.
My plan then was to make a normal loaf and then immediately try out the rolls. Given that a normal loaf takes 3 hours and the dough setting takes 1.5 hours, the 2nd proving period takes half an hour and the baking takes at least 15 minutes, you can therefore see why I waited until the weekend!
The final result was... (drum-roll)... actually not all that bad.
I did fuck up the recipe a little. Ironically I realised I didn't put the correct amount of flour in. This had the effect of making the dough very sticky, but with some good old fashioned elbow-grease, I kneaded in the extra dough.
I think the lack of flour also made it rise too much - not enough weight to stop it, if you see what I mean. And I was afraid my error and attempt to correct would have the opposite effect.
But nope, after the 2nd resting, the rolls did indeed inflate, and after baking I tried one out and it was really quite nice.
I left the rest of them and checked them out last night. They'd definitely declined in freshness like the normal loafs, but they seemed better and were still quite soft and moist.
Altogether then, I'd say it was something of a success.
My dad bought me a bread maker for me last birthday and I've pretty much used it constantly since then. However, I haven't been particularly adventurous with it, having stuck basically to standard white/brown loafs.
But the machine itself has loads of different settings that led you make all sorts of different breads. Of these, the one that intrigued me the most was bread rolls.
One of the problems with the loaves is that, without the preservatives and other things they put into supermarket bread, they go stale really quickly. Now stale bread is something I'm not at all keen on, so it means I have to use up the bread quickly, which can restrict my meal options, or throw it away, which is rather wasteful.
My hope is that rolls will last a little longer, or at the very least will be slightly more manageable from a meal-eating point of view. But there were two potential issues that were holding me back from trying.
First off the recipe seemed a bit complicated. Basically, when you make normal, yeast-based bread you have to have two periods of 'proving'. This is when the yeast really does its 'thing', pumping out carbon dioxide that forms the bubbles that make bread the fluffy thing we all love.
With the normal loaves, these proving periods are covered in the machine's program where it just sits and waits, before doing more mixing. For the rolls you use a setting called 'dough' that only has 1 period of mixing and proving.
The idea then is that you hoik the dough out, knead it, chop it into individual rolls that you shape and then leave, covered, to prove a second time.
This sounded rather complicated and prone to error, so I've been afraid to try it. The other issue was that the recipe uses loads of flour - nearly twice as much as the loaves I've been doing - so I was afraid I'd balls it up and use up the flour.
My plan then was to make a normal loaf and then immediately try out the rolls. Given that a normal loaf takes 3 hours and the dough setting takes 1.5 hours, the 2nd proving period takes half an hour and the baking takes at least 15 minutes, you can therefore see why I waited until the weekend!
The final result was... (drum-roll)... actually not all that bad.
I did fuck up the recipe a little. Ironically I realised I didn't put the correct amount of flour in. This had the effect of making the dough very sticky, but with some good old fashioned elbow-grease, I kneaded in the extra dough.
I think the lack of flour also made it rise too much - not enough weight to stop it, if you see what I mean. And I was afraid my error and attempt to correct would have the opposite effect.
But nope, after the 2nd resting, the rolls did indeed inflate, and after baking I tried one out and it was really quite nice.
I left the rest of them and checked them out last night. They'd definitely declined in freshness like the normal loafs, but they seemed better and were still quite soft and moist.
Altogether then, I'd say it was something of a success.
Monday, 2 November 2009
best efforts
Well, despite what I would basically call my 'best efforts', I didn't manage to watch all of the stuff I'd recorded last week.
I did manage to view all of the Lost s5 extras, mainly, if I'm honest, because they were a bit thin on the ground. The actual shows themselves lacked seriously for commentaries. Previous seasons have had at least 4 commentaries, but this only had two. The show's final two-part episode didn't even get a commentary, and the end usually does.
Anyway, as far as the telly goes there was just too much of it. I had more than 15 shows to get through and many of them were an hour long and it just proved too much. Not because there weren't enough hours available to watch stuff, but because after a while I just got sick of it all.
I mean, the reason I had all this stuff recorded was because I'd spent all my spare time watching TV during the week, and this was yet more telly to watch. Plus there was a Grand Prix on, so it's kinda understandable I just couldn't face it after a while.
By way of a distraction I played a bit of Anno, though I have to admit I got a bit bored off it after a while - perhaps the lustre has gone away a bit, but I think it's more because I keep rushing things in the game and ending up in less than ideal situations, in terms of resources and planning. I think I need to play a less complex game to really get my head around some of the stuff.
I also did a little bit of the stuff I've been putting off over the last few weeks. I didn't put my aircon away or clean up the detritus left from installing the cable lead, but I did some thing that needed to be done in order to prepare the way for those, if that makes sense.
One of them I think I need to adjust, though, as the end result was less than satisfactory. That sounds cryptic - it isn't meant to be, it's just a bit dull so I can't be arsed to explain properly.
One thing I really want to do is thoroughly clean my car. It's a rather unusual side-effect of these shit summers we've been having - if it constantly rains every weekend, then I never get the chance to wash or hoover my car, so it gets filthier and filthier, which is something I hate.
Trouble now of course is that it's winter so the odds are that I'm not going to get the chance to do it anyway. I've been considering taking it to one of these hand car wash or valet services that seem to be springing up all over the place, but obviously that'll cost money and I've been trying to tighten my belt.
I did manage to view all of the Lost s5 extras, mainly, if I'm honest, because they were a bit thin on the ground. The actual shows themselves lacked seriously for commentaries. Previous seasons have had at least 4 commentaries, but this only had two. The show's final two-part episode didn't even get a commentary, and the end usually does.
Anyway, as far as the telly goes there was just too much of it. I had more than 15 shows to get through and many of them were an hour long and it just proved too much. Not because there weren't enough hours available to watch stuff, but because after a while I just got sick of it all.
I mean, the reason I had all this stuff recorded was because I'd spent all my spare time watching TV during the week, and this was yet more telly to watch. Plus there was a Grand Prix on, so it's kinda understandable I just couldn't face it after a while.
By way of a distraction I played a bit of Anno, though I have to admit I got a bit bored off it after a while - perhaps the lustre has gone away a bit, but I think it's more because I keep rushing things in the game and ending up in less than ideal situations, in terms of resources and planning. I think I need to play a less complex game to really get my head around some of the stuff.
I also did a little bit of the stuff I've been putting off over the last few weeks. I didn't put my aircon away or clean up the detritus left from installing the cable lead, but I did some thing that needed to be done in order to prepare the way for those, if that makes sense.
One of them I think I need to adjust, though, as the end result was less than satisfactory. That sounds cryptic - it isn't meant to be, it's just a bit dull so I can't be arsed to explain properly.
One thing I really want to do is thoroughly clean my car. It's a rather unusual side-effect of these shit summers we've been having - if it constantly rains every weekend, then I never get the chance to wash or hoover my car, so it gets filthier and filthier, which is something I hate.
Trouble now of course is that it's winter so the odds are that I'm not going to get the chance to do it anyway. I've been considering taking it to one of these hand car wash or valet services that seem to be springing up all over the place, but obviously that'll cost money and I've been trying to tighten my belt.
Friday, 30 October 2009
lost marathon
Well, as predicted on Tuesday I've marathoned Season 5 of Lost.
In fact I've not so much marathoned it as veritably gorged on it. Season 5 consisted of 17 episodes (the last being a double-episode) and over the course of the week I've watched every single episode.
I've not finished the set yet, technically, as there are a few commentaries and a handful of other extras to go through, but I've finished watching the actual show. And I have to say it's a corker.
A while back they announced that Lost was going to have a definite end and they committed to actually going right through to the end no matter what. That's actually quite a rare thing for American TV, which is kinda a shame because you can really see the benefits in this season of Lost.
For example, it actually feels like they're building towards an end now, rather than slipping in extra stuff that, while I wouldn't call it filler, certainly delayed them getting around to finishing stuff off. But now it feels like we're building towards something.
Hopefully we're building towards some proper answers to the mysteries. There are two things I'm slightly worried about for the next season - 1) Are they going to give proper answers to the key things? 2) Are those answers going to be satisfying?
In a way those questions are the wrong way around, by which I mean are the answers satisfying is the more important question. If we end up with another Battlestar Galactica, where the final season winds up being a big kick in the teeth then I won't be happy and would therefore prefer if they left things open ended instead.
I don't think that will happen - there have been a lot of fairly big hints in season 5 and I think I get where it's going, but we'll have to see.
One of the things I have noticed about Lost is that people don't tend to explain stuff to each other. Sometimes this makes sense - if you started to explain it then the other person would ask so many questions you'd get bogged down when it's critical they do whatever now.
But often it does feel a bit trite - Character A: "But why?" Character B: "I can't explain that to you now." - happens so often and sometimes when there is actually time to explain.
But overall I've really enjoyed it. I especially liked the way they did some of the self-interaction - the whole area of time travel can become very complicated and it's easy to create paradoxes, but what they did here made paradoxes the whole focus of the show. Can you change the past or not?
Interesting stuff.
Of course this whole thing means I now have a hard-drive full of stuff to watch on my PVR. Considering my big objective this weekend is to tick off loads of little things I've either been putting off or been too lazy to do, it could make things interesting for me too :/.
In fact I've not so much marathoned it as veritably gorged on it. Season 5 consisted of 17 episodes (the last being a double-episode) and over the course of the week I've watched every single episode.
I've not finished the set yet, technically, as there are a few commentaries and a handful of other extras to go through, but I've finished watching the actual show. And I have to say it's a corker.
A while back they announced that Lost was going to have a definite end and they committed to actually going right through to the end no matter what. That's actually quite a rare thing for American TV, which is kinda a shame because you can really see the benefits in this season of Lost.
For example, it actually feels like they're building towards an end now, rather than slipping in extra stuff that, while I wouldn't call it filler, certainly delayed them getting around to finishing stuff off. But now it feels like we're building towards something.
Hopefully we're building towards some proper answers to the mysteries. There are two things I'm slightly worried about for the next season - 1) Are they going to give proper answers to the key things? 2) Are those answers going to be satisfying?
In a way those questions are the wrong way around, by which I mean are the answers satisfying is the more important question. If we end up with another Battlestar Galactica, where the final season winds up being a big kick in the teeth then I won't be happy and would therefore prefer if they left things open ended instead.
I don't think that will happen - there have been a lot of fairly big hints in season 5 and I think I get where it's going, but we'll have to see.
One of the things I have noticed about Lost is that people don't tend to explain stuff to each other. Sometimes this makes sense - if you started to explain it then the other person would ask so many questions you'd get bogged down when it's critical they do whatever now.
But often it does feel a bit trite - Character A: "But why?" Character B: "I can't explain that to you now." - happens so often and sometimes when there is actually time to explain.
But overall I've really enjoyed it. I especially liked the way they did some of the self-interaction - the whole area of time travel can become very complicated and it's easy to create paradoxes, but what they did here made paradoxes the whole focus of the show. Can you change the past or not?
Interesting stuff.
Of course this whole thing means I now have a hard-drive full of stuff to watch on my PVR. Considering my big objective this weekend is to tick off loads of little things I've either been putting off or been too lazy to do, it could make things interesting for me too :/.
Thursday, 29 October 2009
website change
I mentioned a little while ago that trismugistus.com had come up for renewal and although I'd never get rid of that site I might get rid of my other sites.
Well I think I've come up with a sort of half-way house. I've created a digital-bondage blog and uploaded all my walls there.
Well, I say all my walls, I've not uploaded all of the various resolutions I have on dig-bon. My plan was, where I had multiple resolutions, I was only going to upload the largest version.
However, it quickly became apparent that this involved too much effort. See, the problem was that while I know the main 4:3 ration walls off by heart (1600*1200, 1280*960, 1024*768, etc), I can't remember the 16:9 and 16:10 ones.
As such, rather than go through the tedious job of working out which was which, instead I just pruned out all the smaller 4:3 walls.
Anyway, the point is that I'm going to get rid of the main digital-bondage site, but I'll be replacing any links or references to it with links to the digital-bondage blog. That way I can keep my walls online and available, but it doesn't cost me any money.
I think with scan-city.org I'm just going to get rid of it completely. I guess I could do something similar in terms of a blog, but the problem is it would need a huge amount of space and while I can get it cheaply, it's also a lot of hassle. Especially when you consider I've basically not done any scanning in something like 3 months and am seriously considering giving it up as a hobby altogether.
I'll make some more concrete decisions on that front later.
I've been trying to watch a bit of animu this week. One of the things I've been watching is Baccano. I was deadly afraid I'd over-hyped it in my own mind and I wouldn't enjoy it as much as I remembered from watching the fansubs.
Well I have been enjoying it, but one thing I have found is that the English dub is terrible, because many of the actors are trying to put on New York accents (or should that be "Nu Yoik" accents?) and the level of success is... variable to say the least.
The other thing I've been watching is a bit of Saki on Crunchyroll. I've been kinda enjoying it, but I got really confused and had to look up what Japanese Mahjong was all about.
The site I did that via was this one which has loads of pictures to help you see what's going on.
Initially watching Saki I'd thought it was me being dumb, because it seemed really complicated, but looking at the game on that site it turns out that no, Japanese Mahjong is really complicated.
I mean there's loads of rules just to determine who sits where and who starts before you even start playing the actual game :/.
Well I think I've come up with a sort of half-way house. I've created a digital-bondage blog and uploaded all my walls there.
Well, I say all my walls, I've not uploaded all of the various resolutions I have on dig-bon. My plan was, where I had multiple resolutions, I was only going to upload the largest version.
However, it quickly became apparent that this involved too much effort. See, the problem was that while I know the main 4:3 ration walls off by heart (1600*1200, 1280*960, 1024*768, etc), I can't remember the 16:9 and 16:10 ones.
As such, rather than go through the tedious job of working out which was which, instead I just pruned out all the smaller 4:3 walls.
Anyway, the point is that I'm going to get rid of the main digital-bondage site, but I'll be replacing any links or references to it with links to the digital-bondage blog. That way I can keep my walls online and available, but it doesn't cost me any money.
I think with scan-city.org I'm just going to get rid of it completely. I guess I could do something similar in terms of a blog, but the problem is it would need a huge amount of space and while I can get it cheaply, it's also a lot of hassle. Especially when you consider I've basically not done any scanning in something like 3 months and am seriously considering giving it up as a hobby altogether.
I'll make some more concrete decisions on that front later.
I've been trying to watch a bit of animu this week. One of the things I've been watching is Baccano. I was deadly afraid I'd over-hyped it in my own mind and I wouldn't enjoy it as much as I remembered from watching the fansubs.
Well I have been enjoying it, but one thing I have found is that the English dub is terrible, because many of the actors are trying to put on New York accents (or should that be "Nu Yoik" accents?) and the level of success is... variable to say the least.
The other thing I've been watching is a bit of Saki on Crunchyroll. I've been kinda enjoying it, but I got really confused and had to look up what Japanese Mahjong was all about.
The site I did that via was this one which has loads of pictures to help you see what's going on.
Initially watching Saki I'd thought it was me being dumb, because it seemed really complicated, but looking at the game on that site it turns out that no, Japanese Mahjong is really complicated.
I mean there's loads of rules just to determine who sits where and who starts before you even start playing the actual game :/.
Wednesday, 28 October 2009
men in black
DVD rentalage was a bit of a retro-trip this week with Men In Black.
The reason for the rental was that I've never properly watched MiB all the way through. I mean, I think I've pretty much seen most of it at one time or another, but I don't recall ever managing to sit and watch it all the way through.
However, I'm guessing that most people have seen it by now, so I'm not sure I really need to go into much depth here. Especially since I basically agree with what other people have said - it's a really funny film.
What makes it so good is that the comedy is very well played. Will Smith and Tommy Lee Jones make for a really good pairing. Jones is a really good straight man who plays it so straight it would seem almost weird if it wasn't contrasted by Smith who's performance is very high energy.
It's also quite clever. I must admit one thing I didn't appreciate was that it was based on a comic book. I don't think it was a direct adaptation, more taking the general ideas and working them into a film.
The rental edition I watched was boosted by a couple of really good commentaries. By the looks of things it was a special edition 2-disk thing as there's clearly more content on a second disk (this wasn't sent to me and was separately listed on my rental list, but I removed it).
Anyway, one of the commentaries is sort of a Mystery Theatre 3000 thing. That won't make much sense to most people, but basically silhouettes of the director and Tommy Lee Jones are projected at the bottom of the screen (a bit like subtitles) and stuff is drawn on the screen too.
It doesn't really enhance the actual commentary track as such, but it was a nice little feature I'd not seen before.
Anyway, the basic point is that I really enjoyed the film and if you've never seen it before it's well worth a watch.
The reason for the rental was that I've never properly watched MiB all the way through. I mean, I think I've pretty much seen most of it at one time or another, but I don't recall ever managing to sit and watch it all the way through.
However, I'm guessing that most people have seen it by now, so I'm not sure I really need to go into much depth here. Especially since I basically agree with what other people have said - it's a really funny film.
What makes it so good is that the comedy is very well played. Will Smith and Tommy Lee Jones make for a really good pairing. Jones is a really good straight man who plays it so straight it would seem almost weird if it wasn't contrasted by Smith who's performance is very high energy.
It's also quite clever. I must admit one thing I didn't appreciate was that it was based on a comic book. I don't think it was a direct adaptation, more taking the general ideas and working them into a film.
The rental edition I watched was boosted by a couple of really good commentaries. By the looks of things it was a special edition 2-disk thing as there's clearly more content on a second disk (this wasn't sent to me and was separately listed on my rental list, but I removed it).
Anyway, one of the commentaries is sort of a Mystery Theatre 3000 thing. That won't make much sense to most people, but basically silhouettes of the director and Tommy Lee Jones are projected at the bottom of the screen (a bit like subtitles) and stuff is drawn on the screen too.
It doesn't really enhance the actual commentary track as such, but it was a nice little feature I'd not seen before.
Anyway, the basic point is that I really enjoyed the film and if you've never seen it before it's well worth a watch.
Tuesday, 27 October 2009
telly trimming
The other night I surveyed my DVD shelves.
I discovered I have the following to watch:
18 Full anime series (meaning 20+episode long series)
16 Half anime series (meaning around 13 episode long series)
10 Anime films and OAV sets
21 Feature films
23 British TV series (normally 6 episodes)
27 American TV series (normally 20+ episodes)
If you do some simple maths and don't get hung up on details, that means I have at least 600 solid hours of stuff to watch. Or, to put it another way, if I were to spend 6 hours a day watching stuff (i.e. approximately a 'working day') it would take 100 solid days to get through it all.
Or, to keep with the working week thing, it would take approximately 6-months operating on a 9-to-5 Monday-to-Friday schedule to watch all of the DVDs I have on my shelves.
And that's just to watch the primary content. Part of the reason I buy TV show and film DVDs is because of extras. If you therefore say that for every hour of normal stuff there's half an hour of extras it could mean an extra 3 months just spent watching extras.
Also, I think that's a massive underestimate, because I'm mostly rounding down. Plus, if you include things like annual leave and Bank Holidays, I reckon it would take an entire working year to plough through my unwatched DVDs.
(Presumably in this fictional job I'm spending my free time reading books and manga :/.)
Or, to put things in a monetary vein, if you say each film cost an average of £10, a US/British TV series an average of £40, and that an anime series costs an average of £60 for a half series and £100 for a full series (this one is complicated because of the modern trend of releasing things in economical box sets, but most of my stuff isn't in said box sets) then that gives a monetary value of:
31 * £10 = £310
50 * £40 = £2000
60 * £60 = £3600
18 * £100 = £1800
That's approximately £8,000
I reckon I can probably average a return (meaning profit after all the fees and postage) of 25% on e-bay, so that means I could be sitting on about £2,000.
I wasn't intending to go on like that, but the basic point is I have tonnes of DVDs to watch and suddenly a couple of weeks ago loads of new shows I was interested in started on the TV.
As such, with the above situation brought into focus I've decided to stop watching some of them. (It also kinda puts my decision to subscribe to Crunchyroll into a whole knew light doesn't it? I mean, I've tonnes of stuff to watch, yet I'm subscribing (yes, that means paying) for even more stuff. I'm insane.)
The casualties include True Blood, Generation Kill and Flash Forward.
I have to say I'm a little bit regretful that I have to drop them, but with the backlog and all the other stuff that's on I just don't think I can justify spending the time they require to watch. Especially since none of them blew me away.
True Blood was probably the one I was most disappointed with. The main problem I had with it was the tone seemed to be all over the place. One minute it was kooky comedy, the next a veritable "bodice ripper" and then it would shift into high school type humour.
I dunno, it was like it was meant to be a parody that forgot it was a parody.
Generation Kill was, quite frankly, a bit dull and Flash Forward just felt like a low-rent Lost.
And speaking of lost, season 5 has just been sent to me.
Which is where I start to get annoyed with myself, because I bet I'll start marathoning Lost this evening and I'll probably have it finished by the end of the weekend.
That's annoying because if I can do it with Lost, why the hell don't I do it in a more general sense and plough though all these DVDs?
The answer is "because I'm an idiot," obviously.
I discovered I have the following to watch:
18 Full anime series (meaning 20+episode long series)
16 Half anime series (meaning around 13 episode long series)
10 Anime films and OAV sets
21 Feature films
23 British TV series (normally 6 episodes)
27 American TV series (normally 20+ episodes)
If you do some simple maths and don't get hung up on details, that means I have at least 600 solid hours of stuff to watch. Or, to put it another way, if I were to spend 6 hours a day watching stuff (i.e. approximately a 'working day') it would take 100 solid days to get through it all.
Or, to keep with the working week thing, it would take approximately 6-months operating on a 9-to-5 Monday-to-Friday schedule to watch all of the DVDs I have on my shelves.
And that's just to watch the primary content. Part of the reason I buy TV show and film DVDs is because of extras. If you therefore say that for every hour of normal stuff there's half an hour of extras it could mean an extra 3 months just spent watching extras.
Also, I think that's a massive underestimate, because I'm mostly rounding down. Plus, if you include things like annual leave and Bank Holidays, I reckon it would take an entire working year to plough through my unwatched DVDs.
(Presumably in this fictional job I'm spending my free time reading books and manga :/.)
Or, to put things in a monetary vein, if you say each film cost an average of £10, a US/British TV series an average of £40, and that an anime series costs an average of £60 for a half series and £100 for a full series (this one is complicated because of the modern trend of releasing things in economical box sets, but most of my stuff isn't in said box sets) then that gives a monetary value of:
31 * £10 = £310
50 * £40 = £2000
60 * £60 = £3600
18 * £100 = £1800
That's approximately £8,000
I reckon I can probably average a return (meaning profit after all the fees and postage) of 25% on e-bay, so that means I could be sitting on about £2,000.
I wasn't intending to go on like that, but the basic point is I have tonnes of DVDs to watch and suddenly a couple of weeks ago loads of new shows I was interested in started on the TV.
As such, with the above situation brought into focus I've decided to stop watching some of them. (It also kinda puts my decision to subscribe to Crunchyroll into a whole knew light doesn't it? I mean, I've tonnes of stuff to watch, yet I'm subscribing (yes, that means paying) for even more stuff. I'm insane.)
The casualties include True Blood, Generation Kill and Flash Forward.
I have to say I'm a little bit regretful that I have to drop them, but with the backlog and all the other stuff that's on I just don't think I can justify spending the time they require to watch. Especially since none of them blew me away.
True Blood was probably the one I was most disappointed with. The main problem I had with it was the tone seemed to be all over the place. One minute it was kooky comedy, the next a veritable "bodice ripper" and then it would shift into high school type humour.
I dunno, it was like it was meant to be a parody that forgot it was a parody.
Generation Kill was, quite frankly, a bit dull and Flash Forward just felt like a low-rent Lost.
And speaking of lost, season 5 has just been sent to me.
Which is where I start to get annoyed with myself, because I bet I'll start marathoning Lost this evening and I'll probably have it finished by the end of the weekend.
That's annoying because if I can do it with Lost, why the hell don't I do it in a more general sense and plough though all these DVDs?
The answer is "because I'm an idiot," obviously.
Monday, 26 October 2009
recovering
The pain in my back eased a bit through the weekend.
The weirdest thing was that on Saturday I had a load of cleaning to do and it seemed that the more activity I did, the better my back felt. So having done loads on Saturday, on Sunday I woke up and it was almost gone. But then, during the day I spent quite a few hours playing Anno (naughty me!) and my back started aching again.
I mean it might be the chair I've got at home I guess. It's quite a good one, but it may not be set up properly or something. Not that I really know how to set it up properly :/.
Sunday saw Valantino Rossi win the 2009 MotoGP championship (that's the bike equivalent of F1 for the uninitiated) so congrats are due to him. It was actually his 7th world championship in that class, which is quite the record. While it's not necessarily appropriate to compare across vehicle types, it puts him up there in the topmost ranks of the best drivers and riders ever, if not at the very top, so well done that man. Not sure what the whole chicken/egg thing was about, though.
And speaking of motor racing, the British F1 GP looks to be going through more turmoil.
In theory, Donnington was going to be hosting the event this year, but unfortunately they seem to have had a bit of bad timing in that just as they were planning to take it on, the whole financial crisis broke. And given that they needed a heck of a lot of cash to update the facilities, this was a big problem. They've had quite a few extensions but it looks like they've just not been able to raise the required cash.
Silverstone has put itself forward as the only other potential venue, but the problem there is that they've not been willing to stump up the cash to pay Bernie to host the event. Indeed, that's almost where the whole Donnington thing came from - Silverstone were after a discount and Bernie said no.
The discount isn't without precedent - both Monaco and Monza get discounts as the 'traditional homes' of F1. And given that most of the teams are located in Britain and Silverstone was the first circuit ever to hold a formula 1 championship race in 1950, it's not an unreasonable claim.
Bernie's stance? Sign it and pay up, because we don't need a British F1 GP.
I do hope they get it sorted - it would be a shame if it didn't happen and if it is going to happen then they need to get it sorted quick so whoever hosts it can start selling tickets!
The weirdest thing was that on Saturday I had a load of cleaning to do and it seemed that the more activity I did, the better my back felt. So having done loads on Saturday, on Sunday I woke up and it was almost gone. But then, during the day I spent quite a few hours playing Anno (naughty me!) and my back started aching again.
I mean it might be the chair I've got at home I guess. It's quite a good one, but it may not be set up properly or something. Not that I really know how to set it up properly :/.
Sunday saw Valantino Rossi win the 2009 MotoGP championship (that's the bike equivalent of F1 for the uninitiated) so congrats are due to him. It was actually his 7th world championship in that class, which is quite the record. While it's not necessarily appropriate to compare across vehicle types, it puts him up there in the topmost ranks of the best drivers and riders ever, if not at the very top, so well done that man. Not sure what the whole chicken/egg thing was about, though.
And speaking of motor racing, the British F1 GP looks to be going through more turmoil.
In theory, Donnington was going to be hosting the event this year, but unfortunately they seem to have had a bit of bad timing in that just as they were planning to take it on, the whole financial crisis broke. And given that they needed a heck of a lot of cash to update the facilities, this was a big problem. They've had quite a few extensions but it looks like they've just not been able to raise the required cash.
Silverstone has put itself forward as the only other potential venue, but the problem there is that they've not been willing to stump up the cash to pay Bernie to host the event. Indeed, that's almost where the whole Donnington thing came from - Silverstone were after a discount and Bernie said no.
The discount isn't without precedent - both Monaco and Monza get discounts as the 'traditional homes' of F1. And given that most of the teams are located in Britain and Silverstone was the first circuit ever to hold a formula 1 championship race in 1950, it's not an unreasonable claim.
Bernie's stance? Sign it and pay up, because we don't need a British F1 GP.
I do hope they get it sorted - it would be a shame if it didn't happen and if it is going to happen then they need to get it sorted quick so whoever hosts it can start selling tickets!
Friday, 23 October 2009
jeebus that hurts
I was in the shower yesterday when I felt my back go.
Several years ago I trapped a nerve in my back. It was total agony and I ended up taking several days off work.
Ever since then I've suffered with my back, getting twinges of discomfort every so often. It's never been as bad as when it originally went, but it can be pretty damn uncomfortable.
The nerve in question seems to run down my right buttock and I get the most discomfort at the very top of my bum, in what I think is roughly called the small of my back. The twinges are usually helped by changing the way I've been sitting or having a good lay down.
However, while bending in the shower to wash my legs, I felt that familiar sharp stab of pain that I had when I first trapped the nerve.
Being in the shower may sound like a rubbish/naff place to be putting your back out, but it's nothing compared to when I originally did it. That first time I cleaning my car, of all things.
I'd basically been bending over to wash the right front wheel of my car and as I straightened up there was a feeling like a rubber band snapping and then a surge of agonising pain. It actually took my breath away for a few moments and then I went and laid down for days.
This time wasn't quite that bad. I felt the twinge and a stab of pain, but it wasn't on a par with the first time.
I'm hopping that by being careful and taking a few pain killers I should be able to avoid the same scale of problem.
Several years ago I trapped a nerve in my back. It was total agony and I ended up taking several days off work.
Ever since then I've suffered with my back, getting twinges of discomfort every so often. It's never been as bad as when it originally went, but it can be pretty damn uncomfortable.
The nerve in question seems to run down my right buttock and I get the most discomfort at the very top of my bum, in what I think is roughly called the small of my back. The twinges are usually helped by changing the way I've been sitting or having a good lay down.
However, while bending in the shower to wash my legs, I felt that familiar sharp stab of pain that I had when I first trapped the nerve.
Being in the shower may sound like a rubbish/naff place to be putting your back out, but it's nothing compared to when I originally did it. That first time I cleaning my car, of all things.
I'd basically been bending over to wash the right front wheel of my car and as I straightened up there was a feeling like a rubber band snapping and then a surge of agonising pain. It actually took my breath away for a few moments and then I went and laid down for days.
This time wasn't quite that bad. I felt the twinge and a stab of pain, but it wasn't on a par with the first time.
I'm hopping that by being careful and taking a few pain killers I should be able to avoid the same scale of problem.
Thursday, 22 October 2009
a little more on the roll
'the roll' meaning Crunchyroll, that is.
I basically forgot to mention this on Tuesday, but the thing I'd quite like Crunchyroll to have more of is downloadable content.
As I mentioned, the streaming thing is not always the best option for me, but if I was able to download episodes that would be great.
I wouldn't even mind if they were relative small files (as in the video size - pixel width and height) or lower quality, I'd just much prefer that as a method of delivery to streaming. It would give me the flexibility that fansub downloads give me, and if this is really meant to be a fansub 'killer' I don't see any other way it can achieve that.
Which isn't to say that you can't download stuff on Crunchyroll. There are several series where you can download episodes. The difficulty with these is that you have to effectively buy the episodes. On some of them it's actually done as a 'donation', which is a bit of a weird phrase, because it's a mandatory donation :/.
The problem there is a bit chicken and egg - I don't know what the dl is going to be like, so it's risky to pay for it. While, as mentioned, I'm happy that free dl's could be poor quality and small files, if I'm paying directly for it, then I'd prefer to get a good product.
This is made a little worse with some of the show's streaming having expired, so now you can't even sample the show via streaming to see if it's worth buying.
In other words, it seems to me there's still some way to go before Crunchyroll truly becomes a 'pirate breaker'. Plus of course they'd need to have all the new shows on there, and I can't ever see that happening, though I guess could be possible if other companies offered other shows via different routes.
I basically forgot to mention this on Tuesday, but the thing I'd quite like Crunchyroll to have more of is downloadable content.
As I mentioned, the streaming thing is not always the best option for me, but if I was able to download episodes that would be great.
I wouldn't even mind if they were relative small files (as in the video size - pixel width and height) or lower quality, I'd just much prefer that as a method of delivery to streaming. It would give me the flexibility that fansub downloads give me, and if this is really meant to be a fansub 'killer' I don't see any other way it can achieve that.
Which isn't to say that you can't download stuff on Crunchyroll. There are several series where you can download episodes. The difficulty with these is that you have to effectively buy the episodes. On some of them it's actually done as a 'donation', which is a bit of a weird phrase, because it's a mandatory donation :/.
The problem there is a bit chicken and egg - I don't know what the dl is going to be like, so it's risky to pay for it. While, as mentioned, I'm happy that free dl's could be poor quality and small files, if I'm paying directly for it, then I'd prefer to get a good product.
This is made a little worse with some of the show's streaming having expired, so now you can't even sample the show via streaming to see if it's worth buying.
In other words, it seems to me there's still some way to go before Crunchyroll truly becomes a 'pirate breaker'. Plus of course they'd need to have all the new shows on there, and I can't ever see that happening, though I guess could be possible if other companies offered other shows via different routes.
Wednesday, 21 October 2009
stealth
Militarily, stealth means not being detected.
A stealth plane is designed such that normal modes of detection are rendered difficult, if not impossible. So it means things like reducing heat signatures, in order than thermal imaging can't see you. It means designing your plane such that radar beams are bounced away, rather than back towards the sender. It means coating your plane in radar absorbent material. Stuff like that.
As such, the first ten minutes of the film kinda show you that 'stealth' is perhaps the poorest name for the film Stealth as you could get. Within those first ten minutes, the supposedly stealthy aircraft get locked onto by two missiles and fired at with reasonable accuracy by various radar-guided AAA.
They also fly so low as to be easily visible to their targets. Not to mention the aerobatic, stunt-like antics they engage in on that mission.
It's fair to say then that stealth isn't the most militarily accurate film. But then, to be really fair, I don't think it was the goal of stealth to be militarily accurate. The goal was more one of entertainment.
And in this regard it generally succeeds. The action stuff is thrilling; Jessica Biel's bottom is a delight to behold and the plot is passable.
Passable is about all I'd give it, though. The problem is it feels a bit too sanitized and a bit too familiar.
So there's a bit of a rather predictable romantic frisson between Biel's bottom and the main character. The other guy in the team is black and, well, let's just say it's fairly predictable what happens to him.
There's also an AI system in one of the planes that, and I don't want to get too spoilery here, 'goes haywire'. Then there's the team's boss who, again, not wanting to get too spoilery, but kinda does what you might expect him to do.
And that's the problem I had - there's nothing here that you haven't seen plenty of times before. Admittedly it doesn't do it badly, and the film is very pretty to look at (especially in the Alba department), but ultimately it's a fairly vacuous experience.
But it was the sanitisation that pushed things over the edge for me.
The point of these planes, it would seem, is that they're fighter-bombers. So as well as all the dog fighting they do, their role is also one of dropping bombs on bad guys.
In this case, the bad guys are nondescript 'terrorists'. Ooh, nasty men. Not that we're given any actual evidence that they're nasty men. We're just told they're terrorists and then the 'good guys' drop bombs on them.
We know they're good guys because a) they're all-American pilots and b) they go to extraordinary lengths to avoid killing civilians/non-combatants.
Now don't get me wrong, I don't mind them showing soldiers disobeying orders, it's just here it seems a bit extreme here. The issue of collateral damage and civilian deaths seems to be ignored by the commanding officers, when in reality they'd not be like that.
It just leaves an odd taste in the mouth
A stealth plane is designed such that normal modes of detection are rendered difficult, if not impossible. So it means things like reducing heat signatures, in order than thermal imaging can't see you. It means designing your plane such that radar beams are bounced away, rather than back towards the sender. It means coating your plane in radar absorbent material. Stuff like that.
As such, the first ten minutes of the film kinda show you that 'stealth' is perhaps the poorest name for the film Stealth as you could get. Within those first ten minutes, the supposedly stealthy aircraft get locked onto by two missiles and fired at with reasonable accuracy by various radar-guided AAA.
They also fly so low as to be easily visible to their targets. Not to mention the aerobatic, stunt-like antics they engage in on that mission.
It's fair to say then that stealth isn't the most militarily accurate film. But then, to be really fair, I don't think it was the goal of stealth to be militarily accurate. The goal was more one of entertainment.
And in this regard it generally succeeds. The action stuff is thrilling; Jessica Biel's bottom is a delight to behold and the plot is passable.
Passable is about all I'd give it, though. The problem is it feels a bit too sanitized and a bit too familiar.
So there's a bit of a rather predictable romantic frisson between Biel's bottom and the main character. The other guy in the team is black and, well, let's just say it's fairly predictable what happens to him.
There's also an AI system in one of the planes that, and I don't want to get too spoilery here, 'goes haywire'. Then there's the team's boss who, again, not wanting to get too spoilery, but kinda does what you might expect him to do.
And that's the problem I had - there's nothing here that you haven't seen plenty of times before. Admittedly it doesn't do it badly, and the film is very pretty to look at (especially in the Alba department), but ultimately it's a fairly vacuous experience.
But it was the sanitisation that pushed things over the edge for me.
The point of these planes, it would seem, is that they're fighter-bombers. So as well as all the dog fighting they do, their role is also one of dropping bombs on bad guys.
In this case, the bad guys are nondescript 'terrorists'. Ooh, nasty men. Not that we're given any actual evidence that they're nasty men. We're just told they're terrorists and then the 'good guys' drop bombs on them.
We know they're good guys because a) they're all-American pilots and b) they go to extraordinary lengths to avoid killing civilians/non-combatants.
Now don't get me wrong, I don't mind them showing soldiers disobeying orders, it's just here it seems a bit extreme here. The issue of collateral damage and civilian deaths seems to be ignored by the commanding officers, when in reality they'd not be like that.
It just leaves an odd taste in the mouth
Tuesday, 20 October 2009
the leap of doom
I took the plunge this last weekend and got myself a Crunchyroll subscription.
Currently I'm in the two-week free-trial period, but after that they start billing me $6.99 a month. I reckon should be about £4 a year, or it's probably best to think about it as £50 a year.
Now that's not cheap as such, but the point is to watch plenty of stuff in order that it starts to represent good value for money. My inaugural viewing under my subscription was the first four eps of Chi's New Address, which is a super-cute show about a young kitten.
Four episodes sounds a lot, but it's not that much, as each episode is only about 3 minutes long.
I've actually been a member of crunchyroll for ages - I joined slightly before it went legit, I think. I've also blogged about it before and I won't bother repeating my hatred of the site's structure and layout, the point is that I didn't really need to subscribe.
You can watch stuff on crunchyroll just by being a member. But the subscription gains you access to shows a week earlier and to a HQ version.
Now for me these are not necessarily the greatest of gains. Given my schedule, I don't generally have the spare time to follow shows in a fashion that would mean getting episodes a week earlier was a good thing. Also, when you add to that the fact that I actually prefer to watch shows in blocks, if not as whole seasons right through, then this really isn't a great gain.
The HQ versions are also not so useful.
For anyone that doesn't know, crunchyroll is a streaming site. Now, there appear to be two types of streaming - firstly, there's what I call 'pre-load' screening, which is how YouTube works.
You go to a video and it loads the video up once you press play. This gives you the option to pause the video and wait for it to load completely before starting. This is the best type of streaming if you're on a relatively slow connection like me.
Crunchyroll uses what I call iPlayer-style streaming. For this type of streaming, you simply get delivered what it is you're watching as you're watching it. So if you pause, it doesn't load up any more, it just waits until you press play again.
Now don't get me wrong, I love iPlayer and it's a system that does work for me. Just. If I'm watching iPlayer I can't do anything else on the interwebs. And it does have advantages - you can skip straight to where you want and it doesn't go bonkers, for example. I'd also guess it helps the company from a bandwidth point of view, as it's not sending you loads of stuff that you may then not watch because you closed the video or whatever.
The problem is that it's not as good as iPlayer. Even with a fair-wind, it can still stutter for me on the lower quality feeds. The higher quality therefore seems to be a constantly-stuttering nightmare. I'm guessing this has something to do with the relative size and quality of infrastructure available to the BBC compared to crunchyroll.
So why did I subscribe if these things aren't particularly beneficial to me?
Well, mainly because it means I'm contributing cash towards a hobby I love. The whole point of sites like this is that they're aimed at doing away with fansubs and all the illegality that involves.
It's a conscience saver, basically.
But there is also anther reason.
I was actually considering subscribing last year when loads of new shows were announced on crunchyroll. But the problem was that many of these, including some it turned out I really liked, were not licensed for anywhere other than the US.
This meant I couldn't watch them. And that really annoyed me.
Well this year there are even more shows are available on crunchyroll. Plus, more of them appear to be available in the UK (as far as I can work out only 2 of the new season shows aren't available in the UK), so I decided to subscribe and to actively try to watch stuff on there.
Of course the region problem remains, in general. If you go here then all the stuff in light grey is not available in the UK (assuming, that is, you're in the UK - if not, light grey still means not available in your region, but I've no idea how many there will be, if any).
But at least there's plenty I can watch now.
Currently I'm in the two-week free-trial period, but after that they start billing me $6.99 a month. I reckon should be about £4 a year, or it's probably best to think about it as £50 a year.
Now that's not cheap as such, but the point is to watch plenty of stuff in order that it starts to represent good value for money. My inaugural viewing under my subscription was the first four eps of Chi's New Address, which is a super-cute show about a young kitten.
Four episodes sounds a lot, but it's not that much, as each episode is only about 3 minutes long.
I've actually been a member of crunchyroll for ages - I joined slightly before it went legit, I think. I've also blogged about it before and I won't bother repeating my hatred of the site's structure and layout, the point is that I didn't really need to subscribe.
You can watch stuff on crunchyroll just by being a member. But the subscription gains you access to shows a week earlier and to a HQ version.
Now for me these are not necessarily the greatest of gains. Given my schedule, I don't generally have the spare time to follow shows in a fashion that would mean getting episodes a week earlier was a good thing. Also, when you add to that the fact that I actually prefer to watch shows in blocks, if not as whole seasons right through, then this really isn't a great gain.
The HQ versions are also not so useful.
For anyone that doesn't know, crunchyroll is a streaming site. Now, there appear to be two types of streaming - firstly, there's what I call 'pre-load' screening, which is how YouTube works.
You go to a video and it loads the video up once you press play. This gives you the option to pause the video and wait for it to load completely before starting. This is the best type of streaming if you're on a relatively slow connection like me.
Crunchyroll uses what I call iPlayer-style streaming. For this type of streaming, you simply get delivered what it is you're watching as you're watching it. So if you pause, it doesn't load up any more, it just waits until you press play again.
Now don't get me wrong, I love iPlayer and it's a system that does work for me. Just. If I'm watching iPlayer I can't do anything else on the interwebs. And it does have advantages - you can skip straight to where you want and it doesn't go bonkers, for example. I'd also guess it helps the company from a bandwidth point of view, as it's not sending you loads of stuff that you may then not watch because you closed the video or whatever.
The problem is that it's not as good as iPlayer. Even with a fair-wind, it can still stutter for me on the lower quality feeds. The higher quality therefore seems to be a constantly-stuttering nightmare. I'm guessing this has something to do with the relative size and quality of infrastructure available to the BBC compared to crunchyroll.
So why did I subscribe if these things aren't particularly beneficial to me?
Well, mainly because it means I'm contributing cash towards a hobby I love. The whole point of sites like this is that they're aimed at doing away with fansubs and all the illegality that involves.
It's a conscience saver, basically.
But there is also anther reason.
I was actually considering subscribing last year when loads of new shows were announced on crunchyroll. But the problem was that many of these, including some it turned out I really liked, were not licensed for anywhere other than the US.
This meant I couldn't watch them. And that really annoyed me.
Well this year there are even more shows are available on crunchyroll. Plus, more of them appear to be available in the UK (as far as I can work out only 2 of the new season shows aren't available in the UK), so I decided to subscribe and to actively try to watch stuff on there.
Of course the region problem remains, in general. If you go here then all the stuff in light grey is not available in the UK (assuming, that is, you're in the UK - if not, light grey still means not available in your region, but I've no idea how many there will be, if any).
But at least there's plenty I can watch now.
Monday, 19 October 2009
well done that man
So Jenson Button has been crowned F1 World Champion 2009.
It was a cracking race. Interlagos (Brazil) usually is a cracker, with incidents a plenty and the sort of circuit where overtaking is a very real option.
And Jenson had a truly great drive that pretty much put paid to the criticisms that have been floating about. Whilst I wouldn't really count myself as properly critical, I've certainly thought Jenson's performance had gone off the boil a bit in the last few races.
It's one thing if your car is a bit crap or deosn't suit the circuit when everyone else's does, it's quite another when your team-mate, who's in an almost identical car, is regularly beating you in qualifying and during the race.
It's difficult to know quite what the issue was - a desire to play-it-safe that resulted in over-caution, or a loss of nerves or confidence generally, but Jenson's really not been actively winning the championship so much as others have been failing to catch him up.
But he put an end to such criticism this last weekend with a stellar drive and some excellent over-taking manoeuvres. I mean, he didn't win, but after a another dismal qualifying he did a really good job when it counted and got the points he needed. So many congratulations to him and the team, who've become the first new-entrant team to win the constructor's championship in their first year (I bet Honda are really kicking themselves).
Oh and speaking of qualifying - that was a dismal effort. I mean, it was exciting and interesting (they've really cracked qualifying this year - as Eddie Jordan pointed out, it's often been better than the race itself) when the cars where out, but it took 2 and 3/4 hour to get through 45 mins of actual track action.
From what Bernie Eccleston said the implication was there's no contingency plan in the rules for when something like this happens. In theory, they just keep going until it's finished, but what if it ends up getting dark?
I thinkt hey need to sort that out.
It was a cracking race. Interlagos (Brazil) usually is a cracker, with incidents a plenty and the sort of circuit where overtaking is a very real option.
And Jenson had a truly great drive that pretty much put paid to the criticisms that have been floating about. Whilst I wouldn't really count myself as properly critical, I've certainly thought Jenson's performance had gone off the boil a bit in the last few races.
It's one thing if your car is a bit crap or deosn't suit the circuit when everyone else's does, it's quite another when your team-mate, who's in an almost identical car, is regularly beating you in qualifying and during the race.
It's difficult to know quite what the issue was - a desire to play-it-safe that resulted in over-caution, or a loss of nerves or confidence generally, but Jenson's really not been actively winning the championship so much as others have been failing to catch him up.
But he put an end to such criticism this last weekend with a stellar drive and some excellent over-taking manoeuvres. I mean, he didn't win, but after a another dismal qualifying he did a really good job when it counted and got the points he needed. So many congratulations to him and the team, who've become the first new-entrant team to win the constructor's championship in their first year (I bet Honda are really kicking themselves).
Oh and speaking of qualifying - that was a dismal effort. I mean, it was exciting and interesting (they've really cracked qualifying this year - as Eddie Jordan pointed out, it's often been better than the race itself) when the cars where out, but it took 2 and 3/4 hour to get through 45 mins of actual track action.
From what Bernie Eccleston said the implication was there's no contingency plan in the rules for when something like this happens. In theory, they just keep going until it's finished, but what if it ends up getting dark?
I thinkt hey need to sort that out.
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