So the last part of the plan was to set a target.
I started properly weighing myself on the 16th of August and, by a nice coincidence, the end of the year was exactly 20 weeks away. This was a nice round number and so I had my target date.
Also, since by BMI was 47.1, I decided a nice target would be to get my BMI below the morbid obesity line of 40.0. This, to be fair, was an ambitions target - to reach it I would need to loose a total of 3 stone 9 pounds. That equated to around 2.5 pounds a week.
Which is where I have to diverge from my original posts, because obviously I didn't actually make the target.
My target was 20 stone 7 pounds, giving me a BMI of 40 by the end of the year. However, as noted at the time, I didn't make this, my weight bouncing up to 21 stone 9, having reached a low of exactly 21 stone. So close, but no cigar.
However, I can now say that I have finally reached this target, as my last weigh in was 20 stone 5 pounds.
In my original post as designed I then gave some graphs and stats, but I think I'll remove those. I may to a longer review if I hit my next target. Certainly when I finally achieve a weight in the normal range I'll do a proper review of how my diet progressed.
What I will say is that, overall, the weirdest thing is that it's actually been relatively easy. The first month was the worst. I was constantly hungry and I remember more than a few occasions where I felt light headed.
But after that it got so much easier. The hunger calmed down - I now only get it occasionally if I'm late having my planned meal, and I think that's a pretty normal hunger.
Which isn't to say I no longer crave food.
One of the things this has revealed to me is I lust after food - high calorie foods in particular - like a junkie. The BBC website has a food section and I visit it all the time, reading recipes and dreaming of eating the glorious food.
The other thing is I boredom eat - if I'm bored, I have this tendency to fill that vacuum with food. Now if I was doing sensible snacking (on fruit, say) and my meals were smaller to compensate, this wouldn't be a problem, but I don't - I'll eat a chocolate bar because I'm bored and then still eat big meals.
I've even had to build this into my diet plan to accommodate it - there's several snacks (now, thankfully, all healthy ones) I have throughout the day.
Of course, I know I'm a long way off a normal weight, so although I'm hugely happy about hitting this target, it also means I need a new target.
Again, there was a lot here about my new targets, which have been a bit messed up by not hitting my original target.
I think the basic point still remains though - in order to squeeze into the normal zone I need to loose a further 8 or 9 stone. It would be nice to achieve this by the end of the year, but I think I need to be sensible, especially given my first target was so ambitious and I overshot it by so much.
I've therefore set a much more modest target of loosing about 2 pounds a week across the whole year, which obviously comes to 104 pounds technically, but if you think about it as being 7 stone that comes to 98 pounds, which means that my ultimate target for the end of the year is to be at around 14 and a half stone. This means I would still technically be fat, but that's a lot better place to be in than where I am right now.
More closer to home, my birthday is the 1st of May, so my first target is to get down to around 19 stone by then.
Friday, 25 February 2011
Thursday, 24 February 2011
the plan
I think it's a pretty safe bet to describe myself as a nerd.
In particular I'm a scientist, having a degree in Physics. And that meant my plan was going to be one that utilised science. Or, to be more specific, I was going to do some research, come up with a plan - a theory - and to try out various methods to test it.
I've actually talked a lot abut this over the months, especially when I was starting out, so I won't go into too much detail. If you're interested you can look up the posts tagged with weight and walking.
What I will say is that there's a lot of stuff out there on the web, much of which conflicts. Obviously, there are loads of sites promising a miracle diet, but the basic point is that to loose weight you need to consume fewer calories than you use up.
What makes this tricky is metabolism, but perhaps not in the way most people tend to think. See, a classic argument of fat people is that their metabolisms are slower - if they ate the same amount as normal people, the argument goes, they'd still put on weight, as they're burning calories at a slower rate.
But that's cobblers - metabolism is mostly to do with the fact that we're warm blooded animals and must keep our bodies hot. Therefore, if you're bigger and have more mass to keep warm, this actually consumes more calories, so you have a higher metabolism.
As I say - it's complicated in the detail, but simple at the higher level. Since I was very fat, ate a lot a high calorie foods and did no exercise at all, I was gaining weight. By eating less and doing some exercise I would loose weight.
And that was the plan - I would devise a calorie controlled diet that worked for me and I would do some exercise. I would also set myself some realistic targets that meant loosing weight at a steady rate that was achievable.
The exercise proved to be the easiest to decide on - I would walk. I've talked a lot about the walking in previous posts, but what I thought I'd mention here is how far I've walked. As part of my plan and as a sop to my nerdishness I bought a pedometer and have noted down the number of steps I did every day since my first weigh in and I can reveal that I've taken a total of 997,555 steps. This equates to approximately 600 kilometres or 1.5% of the distance around the earth!
In terms of diet, my first attempt was pretty much just to switch to eating salads in the evening. Looking back on it, this seems daft, but at the time I thought it was genius. But after that first weigh in I put together my spreadsheet with my targets and to monitor my weight and steps and as part of this I did some calorie counting.
I therefore got the shock that what I thought was a diet was actually roughly equal to the recommended number of calories an adult man is supposed to consume - around 2,500.
See, this, it turns out, is one of the problems with fat people. We (or certainly I) have a distorted perception of what normal portions are. I'll give you a classic example - I used to regularly eat 3 Weetabix for breakfast, where the recommended portion is 2. I did this because of some perception that these normal portions were always "too small for a normal person".
Why ever did I think such a stupid thing? I now eat two and am perfectly happy with it, because what my diet has done is shrink both my stomach and my perceptions. And that was probably the hardest thing - the hunger.
For the first month of the diet I was properly hungry all the time. Now to be fair, I was experimenting with various things, but the main reason for this was simply that previously I had always eaten way too much and now I was eating too little, so it was a really big shift.
As for the last part of the plan - the target - I will discuss that tomorrow.
In particular I'm a scientist, having a degree in Physics. And that meant my plan was going to be one that utilised science. Or, to be more specific, I was going to do some research, come up with a plan - a theory - and to try out various methods to test it.
I've actually talked a lot abut this over the months, especially when I was starting out, so I won't go into too much detail. If you're interested you can look up the posts tagged with weight and walking.
What I will say is that there's a lot of stuff out there on the web, much of which conflicts. Obviously, there are loads of sites promising a miracle diet, but the basic point is that to loose weight you need to consume fewer calories than you use up.
What makes this tricky is metabolism, but perhaps not in the way most people tend to think. See, a classic argument of fat people is that their metabolisms are slower - if they ate the same amount as normal people, the argument goes, they'd still put on weight, as they're burning calories at a slower rate.
But that's cobblers - metabolism is mostly to do with the fact that we're warm blooded animals and must keep our bodies hot. Therefore, if you're bigger and have more mass to keep warm, this actually consumes more calories, so you have a higher metabolism.
As I say - it's complicated in the detail, but simple at the higher level. Since I was very fat, ate a lot a high calorie foods and did no exercise at all, I was gaining weight. By eating less and doing some exercise I would loose weight.
And that was the plan - I would devise a calorie controlled diet that worked for me and I would do some exercise. I would also set myself some realistic targets that meant loosing weight at a steady rate that was achievable.
The exercise proved to be the easiest to decide on - I would walk. I've talked a lot about the walking in previous posts, but what I thought I'd mention here is how far I've walked. As part of my plan and as a sop to my nerdishness I bought a pedometer and have noted down the number of steps I did every day since my first weigh in and I can reveal that I've taken a total of 997,555 steps. This equates to approximately 600 kilometres or 1.5% of the distance around the earth!
In terms of diet, my first attempt was pretty much just to switch to eating salads in the evening. Looking back on it, this seems daft, but at the time I thought it was genius. But after that first weigh in I put together my spreadsheet with my targets and to monitor my weight and steps and as part of this I did some calorie counting.
I therefore got the shock that what I thought was a diet was actually roughly equal to the recommended number of calories an adult man is supposed to consume - around 2,500.
See, this, it turns out, is one of the problems with fat people. We (or certainly I) have a distorted perception of what normal portions are. I'll give you a classic example - I used to regularly eat 3 Weetabix for breakfast, where the recommended portion is 2. I did this because of some perception that these normal portions were always "too small for a normal person".
Why ever did I think such a stupid thing? I now eat two and am perfectly happy with it, because what my diet has done is shrink both my stomach and my perceptions. And that was probably the hardest thing - the hunger.
For the first month of the diet I was properly hungry all the time. Now to be fair, I was experimenting with various things, but the main reason for this was simply that previously I had always eaten way too much and now I was eating too little, so it was a really big shift.
As for the last part of the plan - the target - I will discuss that tomorrow.
Wednesday, 23 February 2011
pandorum
Bit of an interlude for a review today, then back to the weight posts tomorrow.
Pandorum is full of plot holes. I'm going to go through a few and so the rest of the review will be spoiler heavy.
During the film it's suggested that the weird mutant creatures are like that because the "evolutionary accelerants" they've had put into their system have adapted them to the ship. On the surface this sounds okay, except there are quite a few normal people running around too.
Why has this evolutionary acceleration affected some and not others?
Especially since it's also made clear that the ship has been on its mission for a lot longer than expected. This gives time for those people to evolve, but raises even more questions about those that haven't.
This could be because those who haven't been mutated were released more recently, but then how come one of them knows the origin story and the others seem very experienced? Certainly given the lack of general food which has presumably been the driver that's caused the others to become cannibalistic, what are these normal people surviving on?
And how come the evolution of the other has actually seemingly devolved them into a bestial state? And how have they managed to become merged with bits of machinery?
It's also revealed that the ship has crash landed on their destination planet. However, gravity seems to be working in the usual and expected directions - none of the corridors slope, for example, despite the reveal shot showing them at weird angles.
This might be because of artificial gravity, and yet AG wouldn't work like that - surely the gravity of the planet would combine with the AG to still give canted angles?
Even if that isn't how it worked, this enormous ship has crash landed on a planet - surely it would have broken up? If it was somehow tough enough to survive, then how come a relatively slight impact on a glass window cracks it?
Also, the very end gives the feel of being some sort of triumph - as in, now they've escaped and all the others are dead, because the ship's flooded.
And yet, by flooding the ship they block access to any of the stuff they'd need to survive. Also, the film clearly shows big chunks of the ship out of the water, so presumably many of the others could have survived in those bits?
Seems more like they've leapt from the proverbial frying pan into the fire.
Despite all of the above I actually still quite enjoyed it. The reason was because, despite trying to be all complicated with its plot, most of the film is actually sci-fi horror and is quite atmospheric and stylish with it.
I think it's a classic case of turn your brain off and you'll probably enjoy the ride.
Pandorum is full of plot holes. I'm going to go through a few and so the rest of the review will be spoiler heavy.
During the film it's suggested that the weird mutant creatures are like that because the "evolutionary accelerants" they've had put into their system have adapted them to the ship. On the surface this sounds okay, except there are quite a few normal people running around too.
Why has this evolutionary acceleration affected some and not others?
Especially since it's also made clear that the ship has been on its mission for a lot longer than expected. This gives time for those people to evolve, but raises even more questions about those that haven't.
This could be because those who haven't been mutated were released more recently, but then how come one of them knows the origin story and the others seem very experienced? Certainly given the lack of general food which has presumably been the driver that's caused the others to become cannibalistic, what are these normal people surviving on?
And how come the evolution of the other has actually seemingly devolved them into a bestial state? And how have they managed to become merged with bits of machinery?
It's also revealed that the ship has crash landed on their destination planet. However, gravity seems to be working in the usual and expected directions - none of the corridors slope, for example, despite the reveal shot showing them at weird angles.
This might be because of artificial gravity, and yet AG wouldn't work like that - surely the gravity of the planet would combine with the AG to still give canted angles?
Even if that isn't how it worked, this enormous ship has crash landed on a planet - surely it would have broken up? If it was somehow tough enough to survive, then how come a relatively slight impact on a glass window cracks it?
Also, the very end gives the feel of being some sort of triumph - as in, now they've escaped and all the others are dead, because the ship's flooded.
And yet, by flooding the ship they block access to any of the stuff they'd need to survive. Also, the film clearly shows big chunks of the ship out of the water, so presumably many of the others could have survived in those bits?
Seems more like they've leapt from the proverbial frying pan into the fire.
Despite all of the above I actually still quite enjoyed it. The reason was because, despite trying to be all complicated with its plot, most of the film is actually sci-fi horror and is quite atmospheric and stylish with it.
I think it's a classic case of turn your brain off and you'll probably enjoy the ride.
Tuesday, 22 February 2011
bmi
But then came the big questions:
A normal set of bathroom scales maxes out at 20 stone. This, I knew, was a lot less than what I weighed - I'd weighed 18 stone when I was at school and still wearing XL level clothes. If I was now 4XL I had to weigh in the region of 350 to 400 pounds (ballpark 25 - 30 stone).
I therefore had to buy a set of scales that would weigh above 20 stone. It took me a little while to find one, but when I eventually did, on the 16th of August, I immediately weighed myself and found that I weighed 24 stone 2 pounds.
Fuck, that's big.
I'd often joked that I was "2 people" but it turns out this was scarily close to the truth, as the answer to the second question would reveal.
Question 2 is all about something called Body Mass Index ,or BMI.
A long time ago, some clever spod worked out a formula that allows you to combine your weight and height and come up with a new number - your BMI. This new number can seem arbitrary, but for me, this table really helps explain it:
So what this shows is your height (in feet and inches) along the left and the BMI along the top. The numbers in the individual boxes are your weight (in pounds).
What the table shows is that BMI is banded and has a simple interpretation - if you have a BMI of between about 25 and 30 then you're Overweight, but if it's over 40 then you're Extremely Obese as it puts it. Another name for this is Morbid Obesity, which is a way of saying you're so fat that, statistically speaking, your weight is almost certain to have extremely negative consequences on your health.
Guess what my BMI is? Well, firstly I'm 5 foot 11 inches tall and as noted above I weighed 24 stone 2 pounds when I first weighed myself. Well, there are 14 stone in every pound, so I weighed 338 pounds. That gives me a BMI of 47.1.
No surprise that I was over the morbid obesity line, but how far over might come as something of a shocker.
Or, to put it another way, to break through into the normal weight band I needed to loose a total of 159 pounds, or about 11 and a half stone. Which is why the joke I mentioned about being two people was horribly true. If I loose half my entire bodyweight from 24stone 2 pound to 12 stone 1 pound I'll be nicely into the normal weight range.
Indeed, what makes that slightly scarier is if you remember that it took me a while to get my scales and so I'd already been dieting for a while before I started weighing myself, so I don't really know what my maximum weight was.
But anyway, the point is there are two of me - inside this fat person there really is a thin one trying to get out!
But then there's question 3 - how was he going to do it?
I needed a plan.
- How much did I actually weigh?
- How much did I need to loose?
- 3. How was I going to do it?
A normal set of bathroom scales maxes out at 20 stone. This, I knew, was a lot less than what I weighed - I'd weighed 18 stone when I was at school and still wearing XL level clothes. If I was now 4XL I had to weigh in the region of 350 to 400 pounds (ballpark 25 - 30 stone).
I therefore had to buy a set of scales that would weigh above 20 stone. It took me a little while to find one, but when I eventually did, on the 16th of August, I immediately weighed myself and found that I weighed 24 stone 2 pounds.
Fuck, that's big.
I'd often joked that I was "2 people" but it turns out this was scarily close to the truth, as the answer to the second question would reveal.
Question 2 is all about something called Body Mass Index ,or BMI.
A long time ago, some clever spod worked out a formula that allows you to combine your weight and height and come up with a new number - your BMI. This new number can seem arbitrary, but for me, this table really helps explain it:
So what this shows is your height (in feet and inches) along the left and the BMI along the top. The numbers in the individual boxes are your weight (in pounds).
What the table shows is that BMI is banded and has a simple interpretation - if you have a BMI of between about 25 and 30 then you're Overweight, but if it's over 40 then you're Extremely Obese as it puts it. Another name for this is Morbid Obesity, which is a way of saying you're so fat that, statistically speaking, your weight is almost certain to have extremely negative consequences on your health.
Guess what my BMI is? Well, firstly I'm 5 foot 11 inches tall and as noted above I weighed 24 stone 2 pounds when I first weighed myself. Well, there are 14 stone in every pound, so I weighed 338 pounds. That gives me a BMI of 47.1.
No surprise that I was over the morbid obesity line, but how far over might come as something of a shocker.
Or, to put it another way, to break through into the normal weight band I needed to loose a total of 159 pounds, or about 11 and a half stone. Which is why the joke I mentioned about being two people was horribly true. If I loose half my entire bodyweight from 24stone 2 pound to 12 stone 1 pound I'll be nicely into the normal weight range.
Indeed, what makes that slightly scarier is if you remember that it took me a while to get my scales and so I'd already been dieting for a while before I started weighing myself, so I don't really know what my maximum weight was.
But anyway, the point is there are two of me - inside this fat person there really is a thin one trying to get out!
But then there's question 3 - how was he going to do it?
I needed a plan.
Monday, 21 February 2011
before
I hit my first weight target on Sunday, so this week I'm posting the modified version of the things I wrote in anticipation of meeting said target before Chrimbo.
For as long as I can remember I have been overweight.
When I was young, this was simply on the scale of being plump, or, if you were less kind, fat. I remember a few trips to the doctor to ask about diets and I even remember the rather odd advice that if I didn't put on weight then, as I grew older and taller, I would kind of 'stretch' into fitting my weight.
I didn't do either of these and instead my girth grew with my height.
When I was a teenager I was starting to get into the territory of being obese, or, if you were one of my bullies, a fat fuck. It was only really at this stage that I actually started to be bothered about being fat. Before I hadn't actually cared, but now being fat affected how people perceived me.
But, and this is crucial, I never really had the desire to do anything about it. I dunno - it's difficult to explain, but even though I knew my weight caused people to make all sorts of snap judgements about me and generally regard me with disgust, I didn't do anything about it.
Why I didn't, I actually have no idea. I could claim that it was some sort of weird rebellion, but that wasn't true. I could say I didn't care what people thought of me, but that would be so far from the truth as to be silly. I could also possibly go for an argument that I was stuck in a cycle of knowing people saw me as disgusting and that made me miserable with the comfort eating that resulted only reinforced this viscous circle.
This would be closer to the truth, but it would also be ignoring a major factor - I'm greedy and I'm lazy.
That may come as something of a shocker - fat people rail against the stereotype, but whether it's generally true or not, it's certainly true for me. I could happily spend the entire rest of my life sitting down, watching telly, stuffing my face with junk food.
When I went to University I had entered, to use a stereotype, American levels of fatness. I had huge man breasts bigger than any girl I knew; I wobbled when I walked and people would stare at me in shocked disgust on the street.
And yet I still did nothing about it. In fact, the opposite happened - I grew fatter and fatter. After leaving university I eventually reached the point where no high street store sold clothes I could possibly fit into (well, I could buy socks, but it gets a little chilly if all you have to wear are socks). I therefore had to seek out specialist big clothing suppliers. I was introduced to the world of extra X's.
Most people are not aware that there is a world of extra X's, because they're looking at clothes that never contain more than the single X of XL or extra large. The world of extra X's goes further than this, starting with XXL and going up as far as 6XL. Yup. that's right - XXXXXXL.
I never quite made it that far, but I can assure you that I'm currently sitting here typing this in a pair of 4XL boxers and wearing a 5XL shirt. Admittedly the 5XL is because I prefer baggy collars, but the 4XLs were rather tight not so long ago.
Anyway, the real point here is that this last summer I finally consciously decided to change.
There's a line of thought with junkies and drug addicts that they won't ever reform until they reach rock bottom. For some, this rock bottom is so low that they unfortunately kill themselves before they get there. For others - those that relapse - they are stuck in some sort of half-way state where they never got that far down but managed to affect some change that keeps them bobbing up and down.
For those that truly rehabilitate, they hit the bottom and realise that they need to change and they make that change.
Now, I'd love to say that there was a conscious moment where I realised I'd hit rock bottom, but if there is I don't recall specifically what it was. What I do remember is that this last summer, not that long after my birthday (perhaps that was the trigger - reaching 33) I remember thinking something along the lines of "Why don't you actually go on a proper diet then, instead of just constantly thinking you should start loosing weight?"
And that's when I finally decided to start loosing weight.
For as long as I can remember I have been overweight.
When I was young, this was simply on the scale of being plump, or, if you were less kind, fat. I remember a few trips to the doctor to ask about diets and I even remember the rather odd advice that if I didn't put on weight then, as I grew older and taller, I would kind of 'stretch' into fitting my weight.
I didn't do either of these and instead my girth grew with my height.
When I was a teenager I was starting to get into the territory of being obese, or, if you were one of my bullies, a fat fuck. It was only really at this stage that I actually started to be bothered about being fat. Before I hadn't actually cared, but now being fat affected how people perceived me.
But, and this is crucial, I never really had the desire to do anything about it. I dunno - it's difficult to explain, but even though I knew my weight caused people to make all sorts of snap judgements about me and generally regard me with disgust, I didn't do anything about it.
Why I didn't, I actually have no idea. I could claim that it was some sort of weird rebellion, but that wasn't true. I could say I didn't care what people thought of me, but that would be so far from the truth as to be silly. I could also possibly go for an argument that I was stuck in a cycle of knowing people saw me as disgusting and that made me miserable with the comfort eating that resulted only reinforced this viscous circle.
This would be closer to the truth, but it would also be ignoring a major factor - I'm greedy and I'm lazy.
That may come as something of a shocker - fat people rail against the stereotype, but whether it's generally true or not, it's certainly true for me. I could happily spend the entire rest of my life sitting down, watching telly, stuffing my face with junk food.
When I went to University I had entered, to use a stereotype, American levels of fatness. I had huge man breasts bigger than any girl I knew; I wobbled when I walked and people would stare at me in shocked disgust on the street.
And yet I still did nothing about it. In fact, the opposite happened - I grew fatter and fatter. After leaving university I eventually reached the point where no high street store sold clothes I could possibly fit into (well, I could buy socks, but it gets a little chilly if all you have to wear are socks). I therefore had to seek out specialist big clothing suppliers. I was introduced to the world of extra X's.
Most people are not aware that there is a world of extra X's, because they're looking at clothes that never contain more than the single X of XL or extra large. The world of extra X's goes further than this, starting with XXL and going up as far as 6XL. Yup. that's right - XXXXXXL.
I never quite made it that far, but I can assure you that I'm currently sitting here typing this in a pair of 4XL boxers and wearing a 5XL shirt. Admittedly the 5XL is because I prefer baggy collars, but the 4XLs were rather tight not so long ago.
Anyway, the real point here is that this last summer I finally consciously decided to change.
There's a line of thought with junkies and drug addicts that they won't ever reform until they reach rock bottom. For some, this rock bottom is so low that they unfortunately kill themselves before they get there. For others - those that relapse - they are stuck in some sort of half-way state where they never got that far down but managed to affect some change that keeps them bobbing up and down.
For those that truly rehabilitate, they hit the bottom and realise that they need to change and they make that change.
Now, I'd love to say that there was a conscious moment where I realised I'd hit rock bottom, but if there is I don't recall specifically what it was. What I do remember is that this last summer, not that long after my birthday (perhaps that was the trigger - reaching 33) I remember thinking something along the lines of "Why don't you actually go on a proper diet then, instead of just constantly thinking you should start loosing weight?"
And that's when I finally decided to start loosing weight.
Thursday, 17 February 2011
day in lieu
So a few weeks ago I posted about I had spent my weekend working and then about how I hadn't been given any kind of time off to compensate.
This I put down to my main boss and said that my other boss would probably have sent me home. Well, that other boss accosted me last week and said I should take a day in lieu by way of compensation for the weekend.
Rather than let it slip away and be forgotten, I therefore took the opportunity and asked on Monday about having this Friday off, and my request was granted. So, I'm therefore not going to be in tomorrow and that means this will be my last blog post of the week.
I've no particular plans for my impromptu day off. I'll probably try to get most of the boring weekend domestic stuff done, like the ironing so I can then spend my time more enjoyable at the actual weekend. I've a feeling I might spend most of the weekend scanning, as I don't want to loose the momentum and that in turn will give me a chance to get some more crunchyroll under my belt.
Speaking of which I think I've decided to write some mini reviews of the shows I've watched on crunchyroll and post them on my blog. My main website seems to have ground to a halt - I got half way into the whole update thing and then lost interest.
This I put down to my main boss and said that my other boss would probably have sent me home. Well, that other boss accosted me last week and said I should take a day in lieu by way of compensation for the weekend.
Rather than let it slip away and be forgotten, I therefore took the opportunity and asked on Monday about having this Friday off, and my request was granted. So, I'm therefore not going to be in tomorrow and that means this will be my last blog post of the week.
I've no particular plans for my impromptu day off. I'll probably try to get most of the boring weekend domestic stuff done, like the ironing so I can then spend my time more enjoyable at the actual weekend. I've a feeling I might spend most of the weekend scanning, as I don't want to loose the momentum and that in turn will give me a chance to get some more crunchyroll under my belt.
Speaking of which I think I've decided to write some mini reviews of the shows I've watched on crunchyroll and post them on my blog. My main website seems to have ground to a halt - I got half way into the whole update thing and then lost interest.
Wednesday, 16 February 2011
the imaginarium of doctor parnassus
I seem to recall the reviews for Parnassus being fairly negative when it came out. I can't actually remember what about it they criticised, but I rather enjoyed the film.
I think if I were to pick on negatives I'd probably go for two. First off, the film was a little long - there could easily have been some snips made that would have tightened things up and not really lost anything. Secondly, the core story was perhaps a little simple.
The second isn't necessarily a bad thing, it's just that the film itself tries to be a little more obtuse and distracting than the simplicity of the basic story needs. I think really I'd have preferred it to explored some of its sub-themes and throw-away ideas a bit more than it did over the stuff it tired to put in to make the core story seem more complex.
I'm not sure the above really makes sense, but I was trying to avoid anything that would count as spoilers. I'm also not really saying it because I disliked the film, more that there was some really good stuff in there that isn't really given enough time. Which is a bizarre contradiction given what I said about the length, but there you go.
Where the film does excel, brilliantly, is in the creativity and visual flair. This will come as no surprise to anyone who's familiar with Gilliam and his work, but I think he's really outdone himself here.
The other thing I should touch on, I suppose, is the whole issue of Heath Ledger's death. I was a little worried going in that it would be obvious where Ledger died - as in, certain scenes would inexplicably lack him. Well, as it turns out this was true, but they also managed to tweak the film such that, story-wise, it works.
So while the bits where Johnny Depp, Jude Law and then Colin Farrell step into his shoes are obvious, that obvious transition becomes a virtue. Not wanting to give anything away, the change of person becomes part of the point of Ledger's character. Indeed, if you didn't know it was done out of necessity, you'd probably think it was intentional.
I've kinda running out of things to say, because I really don't want to give any spoilers, but I also really enjoyed the film, so I can't really criticise it. As such I'll just leave it here.
I think if I were to pick on negatives I'd probably go for two. First off, the film was a little long - there could easily have been some snips made that would have tightened things up and not really lost anything. Secondly, the core story was perhaps a little simple.
The second isn't necessarily a bad thing, it's just that the film itself tries to be a little more obtuse and distracting than the simplicity of the basic story needs. I think really I'd have preferred it to explored some of its sub-themes and throw-away ideas a bit more than it did over the stuff it tired to put in to make the core story seem more complex.
I'm not sure the above really makes sense, but I was trying to avoid anything that would count as spoilers. I'm also not really saying it because I disliked the film, more that there was some really good stuff in there that isn't really given enough time. Which is a bizarre contradiction given what I said about the length, but there you go.
Where the film does excel, brilliantly, is in the creativity and visual flair. This will come as no surprise to anyone who's familiar with Gilliam and his work, but I think he's really outdone himself here.
The other thing I should touch on, I suppose, is the whole issue of Heath Ledger's death. I was a little worried going in that it would be obvious where Ledger died - as in, certain scenes would inexplicably lack him. Well, as it turns out this was true, but they also managed to tweak the film such that, story-wise, it works.
So while the bits where Johnny Depp, Jude Law and then Colin Farrell step into his shoes are obvious, that obvious transition becomes a virtue. Not wanting to give anything away, the change of person becomes part of the point of Ledger's character. Indeed, if you didn't know it was done out of necessity, you'd probably think it was intentional.
I've kinda running out of things to say, because I really don't want to give any spoilers, but I also really enjoyed the film, so I can't really criticise it. As such I'll just leave it here.
Tuesday, 15 February 2011
one more to go
I was wondering if I shouldn't make a bit of a confession.
The thing about these diet blog posts just recently is they always seem to revolve around such confessions. It seems every week I've put some new obstacles in my own path that's prevented me from loosing a big wodge of weight like I did last year.
This week's was actually one of the remaining problems from Christmas. Basically, I consumed the last of the free food my dad gave me. This was actually a huge packet of custard cream biscuits.
The confession wasn't that I sat down and ate them all in one sitting or anything, it was that I'd been eating them steadily across the week. What makes it a confession is I did this without compensating for the calories, so there's a good chance that my two pound loss could have been a three pound loss, and that would have meant I hit the target I keep going on about.
But I'm kind of bored of posts like that.
I've actually decided I'm going to try and eat the stores of food I keep. Again, not as a blow-out or anything, but over the next few weekends I'll have them as my meals instead of the more diety meals. It'll be a trickle feeding of bad stuff that should mean I'll still consistently loose weight, but it'll be on the scale of 1 or 2 pounds like recently, rather than the big drops pre-Christmas.
What I'm hoping to do is end up such that by summer I've not got all this food stored and then, with the days being generally warmer and lighter for longer, a return to my full on diet combined with more exercise should see me have a good summer.
A problem that might create is that I'm seriously starting to need some new clothes. My various trousers in particular have these weird creases in them where the excess of material gets bunched up because I'm having to use belts or tied drawstrings to keep them from falling down.
This is great of course, but I've been trying to avoid the issue since it's going to be expensive to get new stuff. Especially since in 6 months I'll probably need yet more replacements.
I went for a particularly long walk this last Saturday lunchtime as we had some very pleasant weather. I then went for a particularly unpleasant walk on Sunday as we had some really horrible weather. It was weird to have such extremes in such a short period of time, but I'm pleased I did lots of walking.
The thing about these diet blog posts just recently is they always seem to revolve around such confessions. It seems every week I've put some new obstacles in my own path that's prevented me from loosing a big wodge of weight like I did last year.
This week's was actually one of the remaining problems from Christmas. Basically, I consumed the last of the free food my dad gave me. This was actually a huge packet of custard cream biscuits.
The confession wasn't that I sat down and ate them all in one sitting or anything, it was that I'd been eating them steadily across the week. What makes it a confession is I did this without compensating for the calories, so there's a good chance that my two pound loss could have been a three pound loss, and that would have meant I hit the target I keep going on about.
But I'm kind of bored of posts like that.
I've actually decided I'm going to try and eat the stores of food I keep. Again, not as a blow-out or anything, but over the next few weekends I'll have them as my meals instead of the more diety meals. It'll be a trickle feeding of bad stuff that should mean I'll still consistently loose weight, but it'll be on the scale of 1 or 2 pounds like recently, rather than the big drops pre-Christmas.
What I'm hoping to do is end up such that by summer I've not got all this food stored and then, with the days being generally warmer and lighter for longer, a return to my full on diet combined with more exercise should see me have a good summer.
A problem that might create is that I'm seriously starting to need some new clothes. My various trousers in particular have these weird creases in them where the excess of material gets bunched up because I'm having to use belts or tied drawstrings to keep them from falling down.
This is great of course, but I've been trying to avoid the issue since it's going to be expensive to get new stuff. Especially since in 6 months I'll probably need yet more replacements.
I went for a particularly long walk this last Saturday lunchtime as we had some very pleasant weather. I then went for a particularly unpleasant walk on Sunday as we had some really horrible weather. It was weird to have such extremes in such a short period of time, but I'm pleased I did lots of walking.
Monday, 14 February 2011
one or two then
So I've just gotten done sending out 140 e-mails.
Actually, it's a lot more than that in total, because I sent 40 on Friday as well, plus I've been replying to some of the people who already came back to me. But it was 140 of the standard e-mails this morning.
This is the part of my job I dislike the most, because it's so tedious sending them out, but it also get's really confusing. Because of how it has to be don, it's a lot of individual e-mails with individual replies, rather than some gigantic mail-merge. That means I have to reply individually as well as process anything they send back individually. I may well have to do some chasing for replies later as well.
It's all horribly tedious. A while ago when I was too busy to do proper blog posts it was because I was doing a similar job - it sucks up so much time it's silly.
What it does do is give you a fascinating insight into the world of e-mailing. I once heard that people only take in about 40% of an e-mail when they read it, and this sort of job really confirms that.
It's quite remarkable how many times people will come back having clearly not properly read what we want or what they need to do. Especially with things like this which are a little different to what we normally send them.
A classic example is people not processing dates - they ask when you want it for, even though there's a date on there, or they'll see Monday and assume you mean this Monday instead of next Monday.
I mean, I don't fundamentally mind - we all make mistakes - it's just because I'm going out to so many people, it sucks up even more time me having to answer their questions or correct them or whatever.
Actually, it's a lot more than that in total, because I sent 40 on Friday as well, plus I've been replying to some of the people who already came back to me. But it was 140 of the standard e-mails this morning.
This is the part of my job I dislike the most, because it's so tedious sending them out, but it also get's really confusing. Because of how it has to be don, it's a lot of individual e-mails with individual replies, rather than some gigantic mail-merge. That means I have to reply individually as well as process anything they send back individually. I may well have to do some chasing for replies later as well.
It's all horribly tedious. A while ago when I was too busy to do proper blog posts it was because I was doing a similar job - it sucks up so much time it's silly.
What it does do is give you a fascinating insight into the world of e-mailing. I once heard that people only take in about 40% of an e-mail when they read it, and this sort of job really confirms that.
It's quite remarkable how many times people will come back having clearly not properly read what we want or what they need to do. Especially with things like this which are a little different to what we normally send them.
A classic example is people not processing dates - they ask when you want it for, even though there's a date on there, or they'll see Monday and assume you mean this Monday instead of next Monday.
I mean, I don't fundamentally mind - we all make mistakes - it's just because I'm going out to so many people, it sucks up even more time me having to answer their questions or correct them or whatever.
Friday, 11 February 2011
total wimpout
They've broken total wipeout.
Not irreparably so; not so much that it's unwatchable, but they've definitely managed to break it.
Or, more specifically, they've managed to break the ending.
For those that don't know, the basic idea with wipeout is they have a series of rounds and in each round they eliminate some of the competitors. For the most recent series, the sequence of rounds is 1) the qualifier 2) Crash mountain 3) Dizzy Dummies and then the final 4) the wipeout zone.
Now while there's never been a clear progression of toughness - rounds 1, 2 and 3 are difficult, but in different ways - the point is that each round is tough. And that's what they've broken - the wipeout zone, which is meant to be the culmination of the show, where only the toughest competitors get too, is now a piece of piss.
What makes this annoying is that it used to be difficult and they've steadily replaced all of the obstacles such that now they're basically all easy.
It used to start with the barrel run. This was difficult, because the barrels were huge. It's been replaced with killer surf, which can be tough, unless you're quick, in which case it's a piece of cake, and of course those that get to the final tend to be the quickest.
Next is a sort of seesaw balance beam thing, which is a piece of piss - no-one has vaguely even struggled. In the beginning this was a climbing wall with water gushing down that was genuinely tough.
Then is this obstacle course sweeper thing, which is about the toughest element, though even here it used to be a lot harder with people falling off all the time.
The last two bits are a rope swing and a spinning platform thing. To be fair, some people do struggle with this, but the old obstacle, which was a series of trampolines, was universally hard.
And that's how they've broken it - they filter down to the fittest, toughest competitors and then give them a (relatively) easy set of obstacles. The qualifier is now tougher than the wipeout zone!
You can even tell that by the times - people regularly finish the wipeout zone in less than two minutes (I wouldn't be surprised if we see some sub-one minute times this season), whereas two minutes is still a really good and rare time on the qualifier - it takes most people 4 minutes+.
I mean, I still enjoy the show, it's just they need to toughen the wipeout zone up again.
Not irreparably so; not so much that it's unwatchable, but they've definitely managed to break it.
Or, more specifically, they've managed to break the ending.
For those that don't know, the basic idea with wipeout is they have a series of rounds and in each round they eliminate some of the competitors. For the most recent series, the sequence of rounds is 1) the qualifier 2) Crash mountain 3) Dizzy Dummies and then the final 4) the wipeout zone.
Now while there's never been a clear progression of toughness - rounds 1, 2 and 3 are difficult, but in different ways - the point is that each round is tough. And that's what they've broken - the wipeout zone, which is meant to be the culmination of the show, where only the toughest competitors get too, is now a piece of piss.
What makes this annoying is that it used to be difficult and they've steadily replaced all of the obstacles such that now they're basically all easy.
It used to start with the barrel run. This was difficult, because the barrels were huge. It's been replaced with killer surf, which can be tough, unless you're quick, in which case it's a piece of cake, and of course those that get to the final tend to be the quickest.
Next is a sort of seesaw balance beam thing, which is a piece of piss - no-one has vaguely even struggled. In the beginning this was a climbing wall with water gushing down that was genuinely tough.
Then is this obstacle course sweeper thing, which is about the toughest element, though even here it used to be a lot harder with people falling off all the time.
The last two bits are a rope swing and a spinning platform thing. To be fair, some people do struggle with this, but the old obstacle, which was a series of trampolines, was universally hard.
And that's how they've broken it - they filter down to the fittest, toughest competitors and then give them a (relatively) easy set of obstacles. The qualifier is now tougher than the wipeout zone!
You can even tell that by the times - people regularly finish the wipeout zone in less than two minutes (I wouldn't be surprised if we see some sub-one minute times this season), whereas two minutes is still a really good and rare time on the qualifier - it takes most people 4 minutes+.
I mean, I still enjoy the show, it's just they need to toughen the wipeout zone up again.
Thursday, 10 February 2011
the parole officer
Well, this was a bit of a surprise, but not in the way I was hoping for.
I was hoping that it would be a hidden gem. I know it's received some mixed reviews, but I was kinda hoping, because I generally quite like Coogan's stuff, that I'd really enjoy it.
And I did basically enjoy it, but "really" enjoy it is a bit far past the mark. The reason I didn't enjoy it as much as I'd hoped is rather unusual, though.
You might think, with it being a comedy, that I didn't find it funny, but, on the whole, I did find it funny. I have to confess the comedy was a bit of a mixed bag - there's a real mix of low brow stuff and clever and subtle gags. And while I'd say it was a weird mix, it does basically work and basically succeeds in giving you something for everyone.
It's also a heist movie in the tradition of something like the old Ealing comedies like The Ladykillers. So you might think that I didn't like this aspect of it, but actually I did. The heist is daft and doesn't make a whole lot of sense, but it's also quite clever and witty, so I enjoyed this aspect of it.
No, what took the edge of for me was big chunks of it didn't quite make logical sense. Now as I've said, the heist plot was silly and not realistic, but I'm talking about the internal logic of the film.
I'll give you a good example that also doesn't really spoil anything. Having got into a bit of a fix, Coogan ends up quitting his job in Manchester - he's running away, basically. He says that he's going to go back to his old job in Brighton. In the next scene we see him waking up having slept in his car in what appears to be the Lake District.
Now what this suggested to me was that, for whatever reason he's parked up in the Lake District to have a kip while on the journey back to Brighton. It's at this point he has a revelation and decides to return to Manchester. Fair enough.
But it's later shown that he has a house, which must be in Manchester. I'd thought, from how it was shown, that he'd only just moved to Manchester, so perhaps his house was in Brighton and he was in the process of buying one in Manchester.
But no, he has a house in Manchester and decided, completely at random, to go and sleep in his car in the Lake District.
I know that sounds like me over thinking things and it's meant to be a light hearted comedy, but that sort of stuff happens so often it kept jarring me out of the film as I kept going "eh?"
I'll give you another example - towards the end, Coogan's character runs into some of the bad guys. Now this is a coincidence in itself, but also, these criminals are apparently attending a Police ceremony where they're giving awards to their officers. Why the hell are they even there?
I was hoping that it would be a hidden gem. I know it's received some mixed reviews, but I was kinda hoping, because I generally quite like Coogan's stuff, that I'd really enjoy it.
And I did basically enjoy it, but "really" enjoy it is a bit far past the mark. The reason I didn't enjoy it as much as I'd hoped is rather unusual, though.
You might think, with it being a comedy, that I didn't find it funny, but, on the whole, I did find it funny. I have to confess the comedy was a bit of a mixed bag - there's a real mix of low brow stuff and clever and subtle gags. And while I'd say it was a weird mix, it does basically work and basically succeeds in giving you something for everyone.
It's also a heist movie in the tradition of something like the old Ealing comedies like The Ladykillers. So you might think that I didn't like this aspect of it, but actually I did. The heist is daft and doesn't make a whole lot of sense, but it's also quite clever and witty, so I enjoyed this aspect of it.
No, what took the edge of for me was big chunks of it didn't quite make logical sense. Now as I've said, the heist plot was silly and not realistic, but I'm talking about the internal logic of the film.
I'll give you a good example that also doesn't really spoil anything. Having got into a bit of a fix, Coogan ends up quitting his job in Manchester - he's running away, basically. He says that he's going to go back to his old job in Brighton. In the next scene we see him waking up having slept in his car in what appears to be the Lake District.
Now what this suggested to me was that, for whatever reason he's parked up in the Lake District to have a kip while on the journey back to Brighton. It's at this point he has a revelation and decides to return to Manchester. Fair enough.
But it's later shown that he has a house, which must be in Manchester. I'd thought, from how it was shown, that he'd only just moved to Manchester, so perhaps his house was in Brighton and he was in the process of buying one in Manchester.
But no, he has a house in Manchester and decided, completely at random, to go and sleep in his car in the Lake District.
I know that sounds like me over thinking things and it's meant to be a light hearted comedy, but that sort of stuff happens so often it kept jarring me out of the film as I kept going "eh?"
I'll give you another example - towards the end, Coogan's character runs into some of the bad guys. Now this is a coincidence in itself, but also, these criminals are apparently attending a Police ceremony where they're giving awards to their officers. Why the hell are they even there?
Wednesday, 9 February 2011
any loss is good
The weekend weigh in revealed a one pound loss.
This is not a huge amount and usually I'd probably express surprise at it, especially given that I did plenty of walking and didn't really go off the rails diet wise.
Except that I realised that actually I did. See, because I weigh myself on Sunday morning, the previous week's weigh in would not have fully represented my food splooge. The splooge continued all weekend - in fact, Sunday was probably the worst day.
That therefore meant that I'd started the week very badly and the rest of the week was partly about making up for that bad start. I'm therefore relatively pleased with the one pound loss, although it does mean I'm starting to feel like things are stagnating.
I dunno, I'm rather worried that some switch has been flipped in my brain that says "actually, we've lost loads of weight now, so let's stop". The reality is that I still have a very long way to go. Hopefully, this week, which has been going quite well so far, will set things back on track. I may even finally reach my pre-chrimbo target!
The other thing I wanted to mention is that I think I've discovered a new route to walk. It basically takes me down to the Sainsbury's at the big roundabout down the road and gives me some more options. I think I was beginning to get a bit bored of my old route, especially as it was a bit random in where it took me.
I've actually been thinking about walking to either Aldershot or Farnham and back. I'm actually pretty sure my big walks I do at the weekend are actually of a similar length to walking to Aldershot/Farnham (I live equidistant from both), but I've got a bit of a mental block when it comes to certain walks.
I think it's because I've done them so often by car, I think they're further than they are. One thing I do know is that Aldershot would be a lot more difficult to Farnham. While both would require going up hill, Farnham involves more in the way of gentle slopes that Aldershot, where you've got to go up some quite steep hills.
Which is all fine and good - going up hills is good exercise and just what I need, but I think I've got a nagging worry about going too far in one direction. My fear is that I'll give myself a blister or find I've walked too far and then have the daunting prospect of having to walk back.
My normal routes generally involve going in circles around where I live and all of them have options whereby I can cut my walk short and go fairly quickly home if such a problem arises (and it has). By going in a straight line to Farnham or Aldershot those options disappear. I can obviously turn around early, but it's not quite the same thing.
This is made especially worrying when you consider I don't carry my phone or wallet when I walk - I just take my MP3 player with audio books on, my keys and my pedometer (well, and my clothes, obviously).
But as I say, I think this is far more a mental barrier than real issue.
This is not a huge amount and usually I'd probably express surprise at it, especially given that I did plenty of walking and didn't really go off the rails diet wise.
Except that I realised that actually I did. See, because I weigh myself on Sunday morning, the previous week's weigh in would not have fully represented my food splooge. The splooge continued all weekend - in fact, Sunday was probably the worst day.
That therefore meant that I'd started the week very badly and the rest of the week was partly about making up for that bad start. I'm therefore relatively pleased with the one pound loss, although it does mean I'm starting to feel like things are stagnating.
I dunno, I'm rather worried that some switch has been flipped in my brain that says "actually, we've lost loads of weight now, so let's stop". The reality is that I still have a very long way to go. Hopefully, this week, which has been going quite well so far, will set things back on track. I may even finally reach my pre-chrimbo target!
The other thing I wanted to mention is that I think I've discovered a new route to walk. It basically takes me down to the Sainsbury's at the big roundabout down the road and gives me some more options. I think I was beginning to get a bit bored of my old route, especially as it was a bit random in where it took me.
I've actually been thinking about walking to either Aldershot or Farnham and back. I'm actually pretty sure my big walks I do at the weekend are actually of a similar length to walking to Aldershot/Farnham (I live equidistant from both), but I've got a bit of a mental block when it comes to certain walks.
I think it's because I've done them so often by car, I think they're further than they are. One thing I do know is that Aldershot would be a lot more difficult to Farnham. While both would require going up hill, Farnham involves more in the way of gentle slopes that Aldershot, where you've got to go up some quite steep hills.
Which is all fine and good - going up hills is good exercise and just what I need, but I think I've got a nagging worry about going too far in one direction. My fear is that I'll give myself a blister or find I've walked too far and then have the daunting prospect of having to walk back.
My normal routes generally involve going in circles around where I live and all of them have options whereby I can cut my walk short and go fairly quickly home if such a problem arises (and it has). By going in a straight line to Farnham or Aldershot those options disappear. I can obviously turn around early, but it's not quite the same thing.
This is made especially worrying when you consider I don't carry my phone or wallet when I walk - I just take my MP3 player with audio books on, my keys and my pedometer (well, and my clothes, obviously).
But as I say, I think this is far more a mental barrier than real issue.
Tuesday, 8 February 2011
fantastic mr fox
Hmm.
I'm not quite sure what my final opinion is of Fantastic Mr Fox.
I should perhaps give a little background in that I was a big fan of Roald Dahl's children's book when I was young. I've never read any of his non-kids books and if I'm honest I only have fairly vague memories of the books I did read, but I do recall enjoying them a great deal.
My memory of the story of Fantastic Mr Fox was that the basic plot was of the fox in question as a master-thief who concentrated his efforts on three rather unpleasant farmers. These farmers then decide to kill him and end up trying to dig him out of his hole.
But Fox and his family dig themselves away from the farmers, who then set about besieging the hole. Meanwhile Fox discovers all the other animals are suffering to and eventually comes up with a plan that saves them all.
Now this story is basically there in film, but is embellished somewhat. This is not surprising, as the above story would make a better short feature than a full-length film. And I think, on balance, I liked and approved of the additions and tweaks.
The emphasis is changed a little, but not in a bad way, and the characters feel a lot more fleshed out and... well, grown up, and it's here I start to get a little uneasy.
See, the original book is for children. And this is an animated film (the stop-motion style really suits it and it works well) and, while being an animation fan I'm the first to argue that 'animation is not just for kids', I'm pretty sure this is aimed at a family audience.
At least I think it should have been - if you're adapting a children's book and using stop-motion, surely you're making a family film, right?
Except this doesn't feel like a kid's film. Now I don't mean that from the point of view of the story being too adult - while I do think it was grown up, I don't think any but the youngest of children would fail to follow the plot, although perhaps some of the themes are more suited to older kids. No, the problem is with the style.
And it's also here I run up against a bit of a problem, because it's a little difficult for me to explain.
You know how comedy often has labels you can apply? Slapstick is a good example. If a film is a slapstick then you know it's going to be full of physical comedy. Well, this film falls into a particular comedy style, but I haven't a clue what the label is.
Basically, it's a kind of knowing, ironic style, where jokes are delivered as asides, rather than proper gags. I'm tempted to say it's reminiscent of Woody Allen's stuff, but that's not quite it. As I say, difficult to describe, but my point is that it's not something I would associate with a children's film. It feels more like a film aimed at an older audience.
And that was why I was left unsure - was it a kid's film or not? I liked it, but it seemed like an odd adaptation.
I'm not quite sure what my final opinion is of Fantastic Mr Fox.
I should perhaps give a little background in that I was a big fan of Roald Dahl's children's book when I was young. I've never read any of his non-kids books and if I'm honest I only have fairly vague memories of the books I did read, but I do recall enjoying them a great deal.
My memory of the story of Fantastic Mr Fox was that the basic plot was of the fox in question as a master-thief who concentrated his efforts on three rather unpleasant farmers. These farmers then decide to kill him and end up trying to dig him out of his hole.
But Fox and his family dig themselves away from the farmers, who then set about besieging the hole. Meanwhile Fox discovers all the other animals are suffering to and eventually comes up with a plan that saves them all.
Now this story is basically there in film, but is embellished somewhat. This is not surprising, as the above story would make a better short feature than a full-length film. And I think, on balance, I liked and approved of the additions and tweaks.
The emphasis is changed a little, but not in a bad way, and the characters feel a lot more fleshed out and... well, grown up, and it's here I start to get a little uneasy.
See, the original book is for children. And this is an animated film (the stop-motion style really suits it and it works well) and, while being an animation fan I'm the first to argue that 'animation is not just for kids', I'm pretty sure this is aimed at a family audience.
At least I think it should have been - if you're adapting a children's book and using stop-motion, surely you're making a family film, right?
Except this doesn't feel like a kid's film. Now I don't mean that from the point of view of the story being too adult - while I do think it was grown up, I don't think any but the youngest of children would fail to follow the plot, although perhaps some of the themes are more suited to older kids. No, the problem is with the style.
And it's also here I run up against a bit of a problem, because it's a little difficult for me to explain.
You know how comedy often has labels you can apply? Slapstick is a good example. If a film is a slapstick then you know it's going to be full of physical comedy. Well, this film falls into a particular comedy style, but I haven't a clue what the label is.
Basically, it's a kind of knowing, ironic style, where jokes are delivered as asides, rather than proper gags. I'm tempted to say it's reminiscent of Woody Allen's stuff, but that's not quite it. As I say, difficult to describe, but my point is that it's not something I would associate with a children's film. It feels more like a film aimed at an older audience.
And that was why I was left unsure - was it a kid's film or not? I liked it, but it seemed like an odd adaptation.
Monday, 7 February 2011
you mean I don't have to work?
So this weekend I actually got a weekend and didn't have to work.
It was a pretty busy weekend as I had to catch up on stuff that I obviously hadn't been able to do having lost my previous weekend to work.
I had intended to 'relax' this weekend, which I'd mainly meant to be sitting and catching up with some of the TV I'd not found the time to watch. However, actually I went for some fairly long walks and also spent most of my time scanning.
I've really been making an effort to catch up with the scanning and have also been consciously making an effort to watch stuff on crunchyroll. On one level this is daft as I should really be watching DVDs so I can put them on e-bay.
On another it's daft that I've been paying for crunchyroll and not watching it. Especially now that CR has been showing just about every new anime each season, but some of them only for limited times. This means I've discovered quite a few series that I probably would have liked and had a legal avenue to watch, but that opportunity has now past.
It has, however, presented me with an odd problem. Because I'm so far behind there's a glut of stuff available for me to watch and I've found myself struggling to pick something to watch. Should I watch all the new stuff and 'keep up' or should I go for the oldest shows and work my way forward? Or maybe I should watch shows from recent seasons and that could be removed (I'm working on assumption that if a show's been up ages, the license means it will be there for a while yet)?
In the end I've ended up going for a bit of a mix - there's some new shows I'm 'following' (I think that's the phrase - my watching habits tend to mean I prefer to watch complete series all in one go), some old shows I've decided to watch ASAP and some more recent shows I marathoned.
I have to confess I'm still not a big fan of the CR site itself and the community aspect of it seems to be pretty much passing me by, but I have been finding the actual show streaming and watching to be a success. I guess having access to fast cable has its uses.
In terms of the scanning I ploughed through 3 Nyan types over the weekend, which is really good. I've actually only been focusing on doing the scanning itself. The whole thing of stitching the scans together will have to come later, my aim is solely on eating up the pile of unscanned magazines for now.
Plus the stitching process seems to fit poorly with watching fansubs - it wither takes too much active attention or is too short a process to fit chunks of anime around. Leaving it does mean I'm taking up huge chunks of disk space, though, so I may have to have a big session of just scan-stitching at some point, in order to clear some room.
It was a pretty busy weekend as I had to catch up on stuff that I obviously hadn't been able to do having lost my previous weekend to work.
I had intended to 'relax' this weekend, which I'd mainly meant to be sitting and catching up with some of the TV I'd not found the time to watch. However, actually I went for some fairly long walks and also spent most of my time scanning.
I've really been making an effort to catch up with the scanning and have also been consciously making an effort to watch stuff on crunchyroll. On one level this is daft as I should really be watching DVDs so I can put them on e-bay.
On another it's daft that I've been paying for crunchyroll and not watching it. Especially now that CR has been showing just about every new anime each season, but some of them only for limited times. This means I've discovered quite a few series that I probably would have liked and had a legal avenue to watch, but that opportunity has now past.
It has, however, presented me with an odd problem. Because I'm so far behind there's a glut of stuff available for me to watch and I've found myself struggling to pick something to watch. Should I watch all the new stuff and 'keep up' or should I go for the oldest shows and work my way forward? Or maybe I should watch shows from recent seasons and that could be removed (I'm working on assumption that if a show's been up ages, the license means it will be there for a while yet)?
In the end I've ended up going for a bit of a mix - there's some new shows I'm 'following' (I think that's the phrase - my watching habits tend to mean I prefer to watch complete series all in one go), some old shows I've decided to watch ASAP and some more recent shows I marathoned.
I have to confess I'm still not a big fan of the CR site itself and the community aspect of it seems to be pretty much passing me by, but I have been finding the actual show streaming and watching to be a success. I guess having access to fast cable has its uses.
In terms of the scanning I ploughed through 3 Nyan types over the weekend, which is really good. I've actually only been focusing on doing the scanning itself. The whole thing of stitching the scans together will have to come later, my aim is solely on eating up the pile of unscanned magazines for now.
Plus the stitching process seems to fit poorly with watching fansubs - it wither takes too much active attention or is too short a process to fit chunks of anime around. Leaving it does mean I'm taking up huge chunks of disk space, though, so I may have to have a big session of just scan-stitching at some point, in order to clear some room.
Friday, 4 February 2011
just let me sleep
Big plan for the weekend is, to put it simply, to relax.
Today is the 12th straight day that I've been at work and I have to admit I'm loosing the plot a bit. What really hasn't helped is that the stuff I've been doing during these days at work is quite stressful.
Having worked last weekend in order to finish one bid for a framework, I've then shifted onto another bid for another framework. This one is nearly as important as the last one, and I've been feeling really worried that our offering may not past muster.
See, the problem is that this is effectively a re-compete for a framework that we used to hold, and I'm not at all sure that they want to give us a slot on the new version. My worry is founded on the fact that we didn't win hardly any work last time we were on the framework, so they may want us off to try and give someone else a shot at it.
So I've been really worried.
What doesn't help is that I'm now really tired and getting very inefficient and sloppy. I'm quite sure if I hadn't been here last weekend I would have finished this new bid by Wednesday, but I've really been struggling.
Hopefully I should finally cross all the i's and dot all the t's today, and then I can have a proper weekend of sleeping and (shock, horror) not working.
I might even take the opportunity to finally set up my Blu-Ray player and experience the joys of High-Def.
Today is the 12th straight day that I've been at work and I have to admit I'm loosing the plot a bit. What really hasn't helped is that the stuff I've been doing during these days at work is quite stressful.
Having worked last weekend in order to finish one bid for a framework, I've then shifted onto another bid for another framework. This one is nearly as important as the last one, and I've been feeling really worried that our offering may not past muster.
See, the problem is that this is effectively a re-compete for a framework that we used to hold, and I'm not at all sure that they want to give us a slot on the new version. My worry is founded on the fact that we didn't win hardly any work last time we were on the framework, so they may want us off to try and give someone else a shot at it.
So I've been really worried.
What doesn't help is that I'm now really tired and getting very inefficient and sloppy. I'm quite sure if I hadn't been here last weekend I would have finished this new bid by Wednesday, but I've really been struggling.
Hopefully I should finally cross all the i's and dot all the t's today, and then I can have a proper weekend of sleeping and (shock, horror) not working.
I might even take the opportunity to finally set up my Blu-Ray player and experience the joys of High-Def.
Thursday, 3 February 2011
cream cake? don't mind if I do... several times...
Yes, as I hinted on Tuesday I had a seriously bad week, last week.
No, that's not actually true. It started off as a spectacularly good week - I stuck 100% to my diet and have also worked out a way for me to do a reasonable bit of walking during the week and I took full advantage of this.
See, I had that goal of finally hitting my first target weight and it was my initial aim to loose the four pounds needed to in one week, rather than the two dictated by my new plan.
The trouble started on Friday night. See, having had a super start to the week, from Friday night until Sunday night I totally fell of the wagon. And I really do mean that - when alcoholics use that phrase, you know it means that they didn't just have 1 pint, they went on some huge bender.
In my case I consumed several cream cakes and supermarket sandwiches (which are always deceptive as you tend to think sarnis are healthy, but they're not) and even several packets of 'normal' crisps.
It really was similar to a binge. And what made it worse was because I was spending all my time at work, sat on my arse, I wasn't doing any significant walking either.
The net result of this was that when I weighed myself on Sunday I hadn't actually lost a single pound. In other words, all that being good was then counter-balanced by my being bad.
To be honest, I've actually a sneaking suspicion that I would have lost one pound if I'd been able to muster the energy to go for a walk first thing Sunday morning. Normally, first thing Saturday and Sunday morning I like to go for a walk, but this last Sunday I was sufficiently shattered that I just laid there until it was apparent I needed to get up to go to work.
Previously when I've failed to do the Sunday walk I've then lost a surprising amount the next week, backing up my point that weighing yourself in exactly the same circumstances each week is highly important.
No, that's not actually true. It started off as a spectacularly good week - I stuck 100% to my diet and have also worked out a way for me to do a reasonable bit of walking during the week and I took full advantage of this.
See, I had that goal of finally hitting my first target weight and it was my initial aim to loose the four pounds needed to in one week, rather than the two dictated by my new plan.
The trouble started on Friday night. See, having had a super start to the week, from Friday night until Sunday night I totally fell of the wagon. And I really do mean that - when alcoholics use that phrase, you know it means that they didn't just have 1 pint, they went on some huge bender.
In my case I consumed several cream cakes and supermarket sandwiches (which are always deceptive as you tend to think sarnis are healthy, but they're not) and even several packets of 'normal' crisps.
It really was similar to a binge. And what made it worse was because I was spending all my time at work, sat on my arse, I wasn't doing any significant walking either.
The net result of this was that when I weighed myself on Sunday I hadn't actually lost a single pound. In other words, all that being good was then counter-balanced by my being bad.
To be honest, I've actually a sneaking suspicion that I would have lost one pound if I'd been able to muster the energy to go for a walk first thing Sunday morning. Normally, first thing Saturday and Sunday morning I like to go for a walk, but this last Sunday I was sufficiently shattered that I just laid there until it was apparent I needed to get up to go to work.
Previously when I've failed to do the Sunday walk I've then lost a surprising amount the next week, backing up my point that weighing yourself in exactly the same circumstances each week is highly important.
Wednesday, 2 February 2011
saw vi
The saw franchise seems to have disappeared right up its own fundament.
The problem is that over the series it's tried to develop a story, but in each film it also tries to have a twist. This stems back to the first film, where at the end it's revealed one of the people in it isn't quite what you thought he was (avoiding spoilers).
The problem with the first twist is it wasn't really that good a twist. It's actually hard to really call it a twist - it was more like a surprise than a twist. But the presence of this surprise seems to have led the makers to put in one or more twists in all the subsequent films.
But each film is actually a proper sequel, supposedly revealing more about Jigsaw and the saw world, so by this film we've ended up with a back story that's so convoluted it's gone beyond confusing. I mean, it's even gotten to the stage that Jigsaw almost doesn't appear in the films - he's certainly not the man directly responsible for a lot of the traps.
It also seems to have lost site of what the traps are supposed to be about. They're supposed to be trials where people's will to live is tested and thereby they become reformed - learning to treasure life because they see it's true value. In later films they seem to become more about pitching people against each other.
There's much more of a strand of people deciding each other's fates, rather than their own. And many of the traps seem unfair - they're either escapable or, like I say, pitching two people against each other with the outcome that one of them must die due to the others actions. In earlier films it seemed more like the weight of responsibility was on your own choices affecting yourself, rather than other people.
But as I say, the real problem is that the back-story has gotten so convoluted and complicated that unless you're a really big fan or you happen to have watched the earlier films recently, you don't really know what's going on. Certainly I've been getting rather confused by it all.
What makes this all rather understandable is that in the commentary for one of the films it's revealed that actually there wasn't any sort of a grand plan. Instead, they write the films as they come and either leave open bits for other films to pick up and do with what they want or they try to take a different view-point on something that's already happened in order to generate their twist and to layer the films in together.
You can therefore see how things have gotten so complicated - without that overall plan, they've written themselves into a bit of a muddle.
The problem is that over the series it's tried to develop a story, but in each film it also tries to have a twist. This stems back to the first film, where at the end it's revealed one of the people in it isn't quite what you thought he was (avoiding spoilers).
The problem with the first twist is it wasn't really that good a twist. It's actually hard to really call it a twist - it was more like a surprise than a twist. But the presence of this surprise seems to have led the makers to put in one or more twists in all the subsequent films.
But each film is actually a proper sequel, supposedly revealing more about Jigsaw and the saw world, so by this film we've ended up with a back story that's so convoluted it's gone beyond confusing. I mean, it's even gotten to the stage that Jigsaw almost doesn't appear in the films - he's certainly not the man directly responsible for a lot of the traps.
It also seems to have lost site of what the traps are supposed to be about. They're supposed to be trials where people's will to live is tested and thereby they become reformed - learning to treasure life because they see it's true value. In later films they seem to become more about pitching people against each other.
There's much more of a strand of people deciding each other's fates, rather than their own. And many of the traps seem unfair - they're either escapable or, like I say, pitching two people against each other with the outcome that one of them must die due to the others actions. In earlier films it seemed more like the weight of responsibility was on your own choices affecting yourself, rather than other people.
But as I say, the real problem is that the back-story has gotten so convoluted and complicated that unless you're a really big fan or you happen to have watched the earlier films recently, you don't really know what's going on. Certainly I've been getting rather confused by it all.
What makes this all rather understandable is that in the commentary for one of the films it's revealed that actually there wasn't any sort of a grand plan. Instead, they write the films as they come and either leave open bits for other films to pick up and do with what they want or they try to take a different view-point on something that's already happened in order to generate their twist and to layer the films in together.
You can therefore see how things have gotten so complicated - without that overall plan, they've written themselves into a bit of a muddle.
Tuesday, 1 February 2011
butterfly
My boss - the one I have to say I'm still rather resentful of for not letting me go home early yesterday - described the cause of a lot of the last week's stress as a "butterfly".
What she meant by this was that whenever something new and shiny came along, he was off, following it, rather than focusing on the things that needed to be done. So basically, instead of finishing off a job he was doing, or setting a prioritised list and running down it methodically, he only focused on the things that interested him or that appeared in his inbox.
This was a real problem, because the job he'd been brought in to do was work on a big new framework that could potentially be worth a lot of money over the next few years. So in other words, we want to win it and to do that you need to answer all the questions well.
So last Monday we had this session where we went through and looked at what was left to do. And there was loads - any question he hadn't fancied the look of he'd left and so we ended up divvying the work up between us.
And so I ended up having to come in to do loads of stuff over the weekend.
The thing is though, he didn't actually seem all that bad with the technical stuff, it was more that he just wasn't up to the job of holding multiple streams of activity in his head at once. He wasn't a manager, in other words.
Which was a shame, but also horrible for me as I spent huge chunks of the weekend working where I could have been doing other stuff.
I also seriously "fell off the wagon" in terms of my diet, but I'll talk about that later in the week.
What she meant by this was that whenever something new and shiny came along, he was off, following it, rather than focusing on the things that needed to be done. So basically, instead of finishing off a job he was doing, or setting a prioritised list and running down it methodically, he only focused on the things that interested him or that appeared in his inbox.
This was a real problem, because the job he'd been brought in to do was work on a big new framework that could potentially be worth a lot of money over the next few years. So in other words, we want to win it and to do that you need to answer all the questions well.
So last Monday we had this session where we went through and looked at what was left to do. And there was loads - any question he hadn't fancied the look of he'd left and so we ended up divvying the work up between us.
And so I ended up having to come in to do loads of stuff over the weekend.
The thing is though, he didn't actually seem all that bad with the technical stuff, it was more that he just wasn't up to the job of holding multiple streams of activity in his head at once. He wasn't a manager, in other words.
Which was a shame, but also horrible for me as I spent huge chunks of the weekend working where I could have been doing other stuff.
I also seriously "fell off the wagon" in terms of my diet, but I'll talk about that later in the week.
Monday, 31 January 2011
more work? what a nice surprise!
A big part of me didn't think I'd be here this afternoon.
This part of me is rather optimistic.
It's the part of me that was hoping that, having worked all weekend, my boss would turn around and say - "Mark, why don't you pop off home a bit early?"
This part of me's optimism has come crashing up against the reality that my boss isn't that sort of a person. The other person who's sort of my boss is that sort of person. As soon as the last i had been crossed and t had been dotted on the bid we've been working on he would have sent me on.
This is because he trusts me and he knows how to manage people. He would also have us working flexi, since he knows that it's results and output that counts, not the presence of a bum on a seat. My boss doesn't. My boss doesn't have that level of trust or that level of understanding. To her if the bum isn't on the seat during the allotted hours, you're slacking.
And unfortunately the understanding boss isn't here today, so here I am, having worked something in the order of 15 hours over the weekend, still sat at work, waiting for 5.30 to roll around so I can finally go home.
Well, actually, I'm writing this blog entry. And I'll probably pre-write several other blog entries too. That's how I get my own back, you see - I do other stuff during the day. If I was able to work flexi, and my getting in at 8am meant I could go home at 4:30, then I wouldn't. But it doesn't, so I do.
What's made this all rather annoying is the fact that I shouldn't have had to work this weekend.
This is where I get onto what I was talking about on Friday, but more on that later, as I'll end today's blog post here.
This part of me is rather optimistic.
It's the part of me that was hoping that, having worked all weekend, my boss would turn around and say - "Mark, why don't you pop off home a bit early?"
This part of me's optimism has come crashing up against the reality that my boss isn't that sort of a person. The other person who's sort of my boss is that sort of person. As soon as the last i had been crossed and t had been dotted on the bid we've been working on he would have sent me on.
This is because he trusts me and he knows how to manage people. He would also have us working flexi, since he knows that it's results and output that counts, not the presence of a bum on a seat. My boss doesn't. My boss doesn't have that level of trust or that level of understanding. To her if the bum isn't on the seat during the allotted hours, you're slacking.
And unfortunately the understanding boss isn't here today, so here I am, having worked something in the order of 15 hours over the weekend, still sat at work, waiting for 5.30 to roll around so I can finally go home.
Well, actually, I'm writing this blog entry. And I'll probably pre-write several other blog entries too. That's how I get my own back, you see - I do other stuff during the day. If I was able to work flexi, and my getting in at 8am meant I could go home at 4:30, then I wouldn't. But it doesn't, so I do.
What's made this all rather annoying is the fact that I shouldn't have had to work this weekend.
This is where I get onto what I was talking about on Friday, but more on that later, as I'll end today's blog post here.
Friday, 28 January 2011
shattered
This week has been absolutely horrendous, because we've been trying to rescue a bid and I'm absolutely shattered.
The presence of longer posts this week compared to last week has actually been something of an illusion - I was able to pre-write most of them before the poo hit the proverbial oscillating air redistribution system.
Today's, however, I've literally just slapped together, and I've not a lot of time, so I'll cut it short and then have a really big whinge session next week about what went wrong and why it's all been a bit horrible.
The presence of longer posts this week compared to last week has actually been something of an illusion - I was able to pre-write most of them before the poo hit the proverbial oscillating air redistribution system.
Today's, however, I've literally just slapped together, and I've not a lot of time, so I'll cut it short and then have a really big whinge session next week about what went wrong and why it's all been a bit horrible.
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