Demajen Productions™

Book Review - "Turn Coat" by Jim Butcher BEWARE SPOILERS

2009-04-12T04:57:00.001Z

“Turn Coat” is the latest book in Jim Butcher’s “Dresden Files” series of supernatural detective fiction set in contemporary Chicago. As with all the previous works in the series, it was an excellent read, but it struck me as different, somehow; especially since I’ve been reading one of his earlier novels during the last few days.

If you’ve not read any of the previous novels, and you like a) detective stories, b) supernatural stories, or c) both, I recommend picking up the series from the start and giving it a go (especially before reading this somewhat spoiler-laced review). Hell, even if you don’t naturally read those kind of books, I’d still recommend picking them up. There’s something about them that speaks to you, even if you’re not into books about magic and demons.

Firstly, the tone was different. I’m not sure what it was about it, but it seemed to take quite some time for the first-person narrative to slip into the familiar strides of a Dresden novel. In many ways this was refreshing, but it did offer the opportunity to spotlight some other (not necessarily good) things about the story.

And I really hate to say this, but the events of “Turn Coat” annoyed me in a few ways. I won’t go so far as to say I’m disappointed in how the story panned out, because I still thoroughly enjoyed reading it, but there were some definite parts of the narrative that didn’t sit well with me.

Firstly, the moment the guy who eventually turned out to be the villain was introduced, I had pegged him as the villain. It wasn’t a case of “I think it’ll be him, let’s see...” It was a case of “Aha! That’s the guy! Let’s see what he’s up to!” He was too obvious a character, I think, to have been anything but a villain. Sure, Butcher mixes the narrative up by hinting its other people through the narrative — and I admit there was one “Oh man, he’s not going to throw THAT at us is he?” moment when I really got annoyed with Mr Butcher’s direction with the story (more on that in a moment) — but overall, I worked it out soon. In my opinion, too soon.

It’s possible that I’m simply getting better with detective stories. I have to admit, I’m thinking of having a dabble in the genre myself, thanks mostly to the influence of the Dresden novels, and the “Bones” and “Castle” TV series, so I’ve been swatting up on a fairly limited range of its contemporaries. But for me, it’s all about having suspicions and then having the hood removed from your eyes, and I never really felt I had a hood on in “Turn Coat”. It was too obvious.

Be that as it may, the turns of the story were well executed in this sense, and the pace was consistently ramped up all the way through to the end.

Speaking of the end: I’m very annoyed with the whole Luccio situation. It’s possible that I’m annoyed because I didn’t see it coming. Maybe I didn’t WANT to see the whole mind control thing coming. I mean, Butcher’s played the mind control card a fair few times now in the series — the whole novel introducing us to Molly, for a start, and then Mab’s blanking out of Dresden’s mind when she ensured he couldn’t use his fire magic — and while this certainly reinforces the danger of breaking that particular Law of Magic, I can’t help but feel cheated that the fun writing we had in “Small Favour” has so quickly been squashed by the whole “Luccio was mind controlled into getting close to you” situation. From a story perspective I admire Butcher planting the seeds in the previous novel, and then carrying them through to fruition, but I still can’t help feeling disgruntled about it.

I can draw a parallel when the narrative thread pertaining to Lasciel, the fallen angel in Dresden’s mind for several books, came to a very powerful and poignant ending in a previous story, albeit one that led to Dresden’s new “power of the month” — Soulfire. With her departure there was a very clear act of bravery and defiance and sacrifice, and her character arc was rounded off tightly and emotionally. Perhaps if we’d been treated to more of the Dresden/Luccio relationship then I wouldn’t feel so cheated by it turning out to be a trick of the mind (literally). In some ways I feel almost as if Butcher didn’t really have this in mind when he wrote the previous scenes at the end of “Small Favour”, and the idea came to him after it was published.

I can only hope that, in subsequent novels, the simmering feelings that Luccio has for Dresden will surface once more, because it was a fun relationship to play with, and some of Butcher’s best writing. Besides, Dresden’s luck with women is worse than my own, and it’d be nice to give him some happiness that wasn’t wrenched away by the end of the next novel.

The “oh he’s not going to throw that at us...is he?” moments I mentioned earlier were first when Molly mentions that someone has been playing with Luccio’s mind (At this point it didn’t take a genius to figure out that the Luccio/Dresden relationship was going to come crashing down and it was only a case of to what degree); and then when Luccio mysteriously disappears from Dresden’s apartment. I know as a writer you are supposed to chase your main characters up trees and throw sticks at them but come on...

After finishing the book, I immediately felt the need to trawl the internet to find out what other people were saying. A lot of people are concerned about the new changes to Dresden’s brother, Thomas, but I’m not so worried. I felt it was time for the character to take a new direction, and Butcher quite skilfully worked it into the narrative. Its left deliciously ambiguous towards the end at how much/little of the Thomas we have come to know is still there — there are some offhand comments that he makes that don’t fit with his new hard-ass persona, and there are Dresden’s own musings that tigers can’t actually change their stripes, perhaps suggesting that he knows Thomas isn’t in great health, but he’s going to use that to his advantage. That’s a lovely setup and I’m intrigued to know what happens next.

So yeah, overall another excellent novel in the series. There’re a lot of important plot revelations about Dresden, some interesting titbits about his mother, various people get to learn more about his somewhat special relationship with Thomas, and there’s plenty of intrigue and stuff. I have to admit, if it wasn’t for the crap with Luccio, I’d probably have raved positive about it harder and possibly not even written this review. But sometimes a guy just has to rant.

“Turn Coat” : 9/10

On Romance and Comedy

2008-11-09T05:18:00.002Z

All of my friends are quick to point out that my taste in films, music, and television is questionable at best. I'm not really sure why we differ so much in this regard actually. But as a general rule of thumb, both Spence and Andy can both accurately state within 10 minutes of watching a new show whether it will be a Burrage Show or not. To the best of my knowledge, they've never been wrong.

Sometimes I try to get them both to watch the latest programme that I think is great, but I think they've become so skeptical of my taste that they simply smile and nod and don't give things a chance, which in my opinion is a shame, but for their sakes is probably a way of retaining sanity. Obviously I'm biased so I couldn't say.

I'm a very romantic person. Words used to describe me by female friends include "sweet", "cute", "silly", and "romantic". Yes, that last one is a bit of a giveaway. One of my friends said I came very close to sounding like "the perfect man". Obviously she's on drugs or belongs in a mental institute. ;)

But it's true, to a certain extent. I was brought up on old-world values, immersed in a world of chivalric nights from the tales of King Arthur, and the off-kilter chivalry of Robin Hood, as well as classic stories from around the globe. I've always had this sense of propriety in me. I open doors for people, I stand on the outside of the pavement so that ladies and older folk don't have to risk getting soaked by passing cars. If the pavement isn't wide enough for two-way traffic, I stop and let people through first or, if they beckon me on, I always say thank you. Simple, basic manners I guess, but you'd be amazed at how many people don't take the time anymore for such simple courtesies.

Naturally I have a psychological weakness for films and television shows dealing with the interaction of men and women. I've not exactly had a lot of relationships, and I often feel a bit awkward until I get to know someone much better than perhaps they need to know me. I'm a man of various tastes, and some of them are - perhaps - a little surprising. And I love watching well-rounded characters on the big or small screens who are involved in some kind of romantic daliances.

This is why I love Chuck, my current favourite TV show which I may or may not already have written a blog on... (did I mention I have a bloody awful memory, and I'm too lazy to check >_>) It's especially true to my life in a way as I think of myself as very much the Chuck Bartowski type guy. I'm good with computers, I'm nerdy, I'm sarcastic, I have fairly high ideals but often find myself stuck in a rut for one reason or another. And obviously I hope that at some point a super-hot Agent Walker-type is going to sweep into my life for whatever reason, and that - in the words of Mr Bartowski - I am going to have to win her over again and again (and again!)

That's just my idea of romance, I guess. Not just sitting back and letting yourself go no you've found someone, but constantly trying to keep things fun and alive and exciting. It could be something to do with low self-esteem I dunno, but part of me really digs the idea that yeah, I should have to work for a decent relationship, and make sure I do everything right.

Of course, Chuck is a romantic comedy action espionage adventure show. With an emphasis on the comedy a huge amount of the time. I truly believe that I have a decent sense of humour. Sure it may be a little sarcastic and prone to innuendo at times, but I at least think it can be sophisticated most of the time. I find a lot of things funny, and if I don't, I won't force a laugh just to appease someone (sorry, I'm a bastard like that ><) People who make me laugh include Alan Davies, Billy Connelly, and Jack Dee. Peter Kay sometimes (but not often) gets a chuckle from me. Every now and again, Russel Brand gets likewise, but I wouldn't go out of my way to watch anything either of them do. I've got a dry, straight man kind of humour about me. I like dry wit, deadpan stuff. Clever jokes. Things you have to think about. Arguably I'm a thinking man. (Yeah I know, lol!)

I think Shakespeare is funny. "What the fuck?!" I hear many of you cry! And yes, based on how it's taught in schools and stuff, I can fully understand why people don't like the Bard's plays (and I still can't stand most of the History plays, sorry Bill!) But there's a lot of funny stuff in Shakespeare if you can understand it.

Some of my favourite films of the last few years have been adapted from Shakespeare. The scenes with the Nurse in Luhrman's Romen + Juliet are funny in both the original and modern versions. Likewise 10 Things I Hate About You is a rather excellent and witty retelling of the classic Taming of the Shrew. And yes, both of them are romances, bringing me 'cleverly' full circle.

My inspiration for this post was the film No Reservations starring Catherine Zeta Jones and Aaron Eckhart. It's not a brilliant film. The plot is formulaic, with no real surprises, twists or turns apart from the one death near the start which I must admit I hadn't expected. From there on everything unfolds exactly as I knew it would from that moment on. And yet I'd still speak highly of the film for a couple of reasons.

Firstly the casting is excellent. I get really really sick of films where they've cast big names stars simply because they're big name stars. If you're gonna have romance in a film, it has to be believable. It has to have chemistry. Say what you like about Mr and Mrs Smith, but when you look at Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt in that film you know exactly why they're together in real life. Eckhart and Zeta Jones have chemistry in spades, and the whole film really revolves around the aloof, proud female chef and the dorky, opera-loving male chef.

Secondly, there were some very touching moments in the film. Obviously I'm a big sap prone to crying at emotional things as I'm sure I've mentioned before, but I do like it when a film billed as a romantic comedy has the guts to throw some tragedy in there too. It worked for R+J after all.

I'd give it 4/5 stars just for having the casting, the tragedy, and some pretty damned funny scenes.

Romance and comedy. Two of my favourite, essential elements of life!

Health Update: My Mate Gym

2008-11-08T12:00:00.000Z

I'm getting a tad tired of sleepless nights and sleepy days. I'm not sure what's up with me at the moment. My sleeping pattern isn't technically out of whack, but I've been spending too many nights tossing and turning and feeling sick rather than getting any proper sleep. I don't know if it is a side effect of the medical cocktail I'm taking, but it's fracking annoying.

This last week I started going to the gym on my physio's recommendations. The purpose of these visits is twofold really:

1) to exercise the core muscle in my back to improve its strength and thus my overall balance and stability. With a stonger core muscle, I should be back to my normal "on-my-feet-all-day" self in no time.

2) to improve my overall fitness level. It's no secret I'm not a huge fan of how I look. I've always had a bit of a weight problem, but that has been steadily declining since I started uni (apart from a blip during the six months I was off having a breakdown). I'm still slightly overweight, but I'm not hugely bothered about that. I'm worried about my actual fitness level. There was a time when I used to play badminton every week - that stopped when I buggered my ankle up in a night club. (Don't ask!) While I still played after that, it took a very long time for my ankle to heal up - yes I should probably have gone to see someone about it: benefits of hindsight I know. Obviously with a knackered back, running around, twisting and swinging a racket on a badminton court is unlikely to do me a great deal of good currently, but I desperately miss playing badminton (it being the only sport I was ever really good at) and would love to get back to it as part of a healthier lifestyle to balance out all the crap that my sweet tooth demands I eat.

The gym at the local leisure centre is a temprary one: they're in the process of refurbishing the real gym. But it's good enough for my needs. I had a 30 minute induction session with a personal trainer, who worked up a pretty simple regime for me based on the kind of machines I was going to be able to use. Obviously anything involving lifting was going to be right out. It ended up with a simple rotation of treadmill > reclining exercise bike > normal exercise bike. 10 mins on each, and build up in pace as I progress. Easy stuff. I was fine for all 3 machines, memorised how to use them, and was ready to start properly this last Monday.

Monday I got to the gym at around 1:30pm as recommended (it's quiet in the afternoons) and started off with the treadmill. 4.8km/hr speed on a slight incline. Not gruelling by any means, especially as I'd already spent 10 minutes or so walking at a fairly brisk pace to get to the centre through the pretty damned chilly weather. Unfortunately, cold weather + bad back muscle = not good. But I was fine for the treadmill anyways.

Next was the reclining bike. I'd been fine at this on the induction. The seat was relatively comfortable and supported my back well. But my back hadn't been hurting already on that induction day, and sitting down on that reclining bike was agony for the five minutes I gruelled out on it. Not sure I got any benefit at all out of that, and in fact I probably did myself more harm than good. "No pain, no gain" only goes so far in my book.

Finally the upright bike. By the time I got to this I was in a fair amount of pain. My knees were hurting, as were the back of and inner thighs, where the nerves connect from the back down the legs. This has been a problem throughout the last few months. If my back is really bad, my legs start to go weird with it. Not a fun thing at all! I managed about 4 minutes on that bike before I called it and left the gym. No point pushing myself any further than that. Not a hugely successful or beneficial workout, but as I walked round town to cooldown,

I didn't feel too bad. Popping a couple of tramadol obviously helped too.

But the next two days were absolute hell. I haven't felt that bad in months. I couldn't bend at all. Every single twist or slightest movement sent needles stabbing into my nerves. It took me 15 minutes to get my fecking socks on because every time I tried to bend to reach the end of my annoyingly long legs, my back said "Nah, fuck you!"

My regime of Monday/Wednesday/Friday fell apart in the very first week. Tuesday was hell.

Wednesday was less so, but I could still barely walk. No pain, no gain, I kept repeating to myself. I knew something like this would happen, after all. Just didn't expect it to be so severe.

Thursday I was finally feeling better. I got up late though. Crawled out of bed after a crappy night's sleep at about 1:30pm. Couldn't even be arsed showering. Just pulled on my gym stuff, stuck on a hat, and made my way into town. This time I changed some stuff.

Firstly I took a couple of tramadol BEFORE I started the exercises. I don't actually know if this was a particularly good idea, but in retrospect it seems to have at least helped.

Secondly I swapped the two bikes round. The one with the back support, which I had assumed would be easier for me to handle (and was dead wrong about ><) I left till last, while the upright got stuck in the middle of the workout.

I stuck with the treadmill at the start, this time working at it for a full 15mins at the slightly faster 5km/hr. Still not gonna win any medals, and its certainly not an impressive statistic, but for me, it's a start.

The tramadol helped. I didn't manage the two bikes any better than before - they were still pretty painful - but I made it out of the gym feeling relatively good. I expected Friday to be a nightmare though.

Surprisingly, the last three days haven't been too bad. Yeah I've been feeling really sick, my appetite is a bit botched, and I'm still suffering some of the nastier side effects of the tramadol, but I at least feel like I'm DOING something.

Hopefully I'll be able to swing the Mon/Weds/Fri thing properly this coming week. Fingers crossed.

~J

September 3: Revenge of September

2008-09-28T11:06:00.001Z

So yeah, I'm writing this on like the 22nd October (would I try and scam you lovely people? Noooo!) and am thus REDICULOUSLY behind on blogs. But anyways, today's blog is about:

GUITAR HERO!

There are several types of gamer. There is the hardcore FPS player. The puzzle game addict. The guy who plays RPGs or Horror games for rediculously long hours in the middle of the night. (This list is not complete :P)

But as well as these there is the casual gamer who only really dives into the electronic world of consoles at social gatherings, and more and more developers are hooking into this party ethos and producing multiplayer games that cater to this type of gamer.

Sure, there have always been multiplayer games. I remember many MANY hours over summers long gone playing Goldeneye on the N64, split screen, with 3 friends. We still regard Goldeneye as the best splitscreen multiplayer of all time, because it was fun, had great graphics for the time, and hell, you got to be your favourite characters from the Bond films. What's not to like.

These days, with such a focus on music and celebrities, games like Rock Band, Dance Dance Revolution (and its many clones), and the aforementioned Guitar Hero are all the rage. The premise is simple. Push buttons in time to little coloured dots on the screen which are themselves in synch to your favourite tunes.

The biggest holdup of this genre is, I believe, the initial outlay. You see, Guitar Hero, Rock Band, DDR... all these kind of games... tend to come with special controllers. What's the point in pretending to play electric guitar holding the awkward 360 controller, for example.

So yeah, they all have fairly expensive mini guitars, drumkits, etc etc. While these make for engaging methods of control, prices are indeed a bit steep. I believe Rock Band was currently going at £120 with its full set of drums, guitar and microphone. Ouch.

ANYWAY, Guitar Hero 2 & 3. These are the two GH games that I own, and I will be supplementing them with Guitar Hero: World Tour when it comes out.

I'm not great at these games. I have plenty of rhythm, and I have fairly long fingers and control, but I'm not exactly a god of rock, as I believe I have mentioned in previous blogs.

However, I have recently upgraded my game. Having beaten both games on Medium Difficulty, I've upped my ante somewhat and am now slogging my way through the Hard mode.

Surprisingly, I have made a little progress. The addition of an extra note further up the guitar to hit means that you HAVE to move your left hand up and down the frets to hit them all, and this is difficult. (Obviously. Wouldn't be HARD MODE otherwise).

When I first tried this level of difficulty I was basically aghast. No way was I ever gonna be able to hit any of these notes. No way was I ever gonna finish a song. I was doomed to Medium difficulty forever.

Turns out I was wrong. Sure, I'm probably never gonna be able to complete the game on Hard. By about the third bracket of songs it starts to get really tough, but practise makes perfect as people keep telling me. I'll get better as I go along. I hope.

But what I really wanted to write a bit about was the songs themselves. BOY is there some rubbish on these games. I know getting the licenses for real artists and their well-known tracks is expensive business for companies, but seriously, while I'm definitely no rock officianando, I've literally never heard of some of these bands.

This isn't always a bad thing, mind you. There are some really quite catchy tunes from some less well-known or even obscure bands on here. There's an awesome arrangement of the Top Gun theme, for example, or a rock remix of We Three Kings, and the Halo theme. There's also a version of ETC70's "I Am Murloc" for all you World of Warcraft players.

But I guess my favourite has to be Freezpop's "Less Talk More Rokk". It's barely a rock song, really, but it has an awesome catchy beat to it. Do a search for it on Youtube and give it a listen/watch. It won't be everyone's cup of tea, but I don't LIKE tea so to be honest that's all good.

I'll continue to update with GH progress as filler blogs at regular intervals.

... what, did I just admit this was a filler blog TO EVERYONE...?!?!? DAMN!!!!!

September Part Deux

2008-09-21T19:17:00.003Z

Welcome back to my rundown of TV to watch this season.

We had Monday last time, so we'll leap straight into Tuesday!

TUESDAY

There's only one TV show worth watching on a Tuesday night, and that's HOUSE M.D. starring the ever-awesome Hugh Laurie. Its probably one of my all-time favourite TV shows. A great blend of humour, interesting stories, and attractive female doctors. What's not to like?!

Season 4 ended with a brilliant double-parter involving House, his best friend Wilson, and Wilson's girlfriend Amber. Season 5 opens up with the repurcussions of these events, and how life has changed for all because of them. As far as I'm concerned, it is essential weekly viewing. If I could only watch 1 programme a week, it would be an awkward toss-up between House and Chuck.

WEDNESDAY

As I've explained in previous blogs, I am a big fan of crap TV, and also of the "Bad is Good" phenomenon, where something is so unbelievably bad it actually holds your interest to see if it can ever actually get any worse. One of Wednesday's programmes holds my interest because of this. If someone had asked me last year, which one 80s-90s classic TV show would I remake and update for a modern audience, I'd have probably gone into some kind of spasm and said "None of them! Don't you dare do it! Don't you dare spoil my childhood memories!" I mean, can you imagine what a modern day TV exec would do to something like the A-Team?! Update it for the war in Iraq or something? No! Just NO!

But sadly I'm not the boss of TV, and thus this year we've seen a remake of Knight Rider hitting the screens. Now, everyone knows which two things made the orginal Knight Rider a success: a super-cool car with lots of gadgets and special effects; and of course the Hoff!

Now I watched the pilot for the remake, and I was kinda intrigued. I mean, it was poorly paced,but the special fx were kinda cool, and it at least had a cameo from the Hoff in it. It ventured dangerously close to the absurd a lot of the time though, and since my general weekly line up doesn't really have any shows that fit the Bad is Good category, I figured I'd make it my mission to watch Knight Rider and see how long it takes before they cancel it for being pap.

Only good thing about it so far is that the female lead is very pretty. Not sure how long she will be able to distract me from the actual content of the episodes, but since they got her in her undies in episode 1, and in a bikini in episode 2, they're doing well so far!

The other show to hit the screens on wednesday night is the Tim Burton-esque "Pushing Daisies".

Its funny, it has cool dialogue, an interesting premise, and soooo many bright colours and interesting characters you feel that some of them could easily hog the show if it wasn't so well-balanced. Its a difficult show to explain, but the basic premise is that Ned, the main character, can touch dead things and bring them back to life for sixty seconds. If he does not touch them again within that time, something else has to die to balance everything out. If he touches them again, they go back to being dead. Of course, his childhood sweetheart dies and he brings her back to life, but while they are in love with each other, they can never actually touch. This provides all manner of awkwardness and hilarity.

THURSDAY

I constantly argue with people about "Smallville". I'm still unsure if it should go into the "Bad is Good" box. Certainly there have been a lot of bad episodes, but I still watch it, and this is one of the Bad is Good criteria. The latest season has seen 2 of the main cast leave (Lex Luthor and Lana Lang) but as I think I mentioned in a previous blog, I thought that might not be too bad a thing. Seems I was right. Season 8 has started strong, with interesting pace, some cool, well-rounded characters, and a fair bit of action. The last episode which was essentially an origin episode for the Green Arrow was a bit weak, but hopefully the season won't slide down into rubbish now that they've shaken the dynamic up so well by having Clark Kent finally move to Metropolis and become a reporter!

FRIDAY

Disappointingly, there's nothing on Fridays that I could see. Gives me a day to catch up anyways :P

SATURDAY

Nothing on American TV on Saturdays either, so I've had to scrape the barrel a bit and watch BBC1's latest attempt to fill the Doctor Who-shaped hole, "Merlin". Now, I studied myths and legends as part of my degree. I also studied them as a hobby before that. I like Arthurian myth a lot. But I'm not above people changing classical myth and legend to create an entertaining TV show. It kinda worked with the BBC's "Robin Hood" and its kinda working with "Merlin" too.

Sure the 'established' timeline of the legend is all out of kilter, the characters are kinda different, etc etc, but over all: its reasonably entertaining, it has Anthony "Giles from Buffy" Head in it, and the girl that plays Morgana is really quite fit. Obviously for a more discerning television viewer, this might not be enough, but for me this does quite amicably.

So that's my TV week. Hopefully there won't be any other cool programmes coming out soon, as I don't really have any more time to watch stuff now ><

~Jon

September Part #1

2008-09-14T15:18:00.000Z

I realise I’m behind on blogs, but in keeping with the spirit of my new year’s resolution I’m going to write 3 and backdate them to the appropriate date. This is blog #1 of 3.

This blog is about September, the month thereof. This particular month means a lot of different things to a lot of different people, but to a good percentage of the British populace this means Back to School.

Back to School is a fairly important part of the British calendar. Stationary stores and clothing stores tend to have special sales on; and teachers, children and parents alike prepare for the end of the summer holiday and the start of the new term. Some teachers look forwards to it (especially the supply teachers who don’t get paid over the summer holidays), others do not. A lot of parents look forwards to having their children out of their hair for most of the daytime. And even some kids look forwards to it because it means they can see their friends more, and their parents are out of *their* hair. Works both ways that. Instead everyone gets to be a headache for the teacher. Sigh.

September also sees the degradation of the already piss-poor British weather. Yes it rains most of the summer, but at least it’s usually warmish rain. September things get chilly fast, rain turns cold, and if you’re unfortunately enough to have a job outside like my Father does, then the Weather Gods play an important role in daily life and must be appeased with ritual sacrifices and offerings of beer. Or maybe that’s just an excuse to go to the pub on an evening...?!

But neither of these things are particularly relevant to my actual topic for this blog, for today I wish to state my love of September for one thing and one thing only. While I will never say “god bless America” in any kind of unsarcastic tone, I will state “god bless the US television season”.
Yes, September sees the start of the latest season of all the US TV shows. After a summer of reruns and quirky programming (some of which is actually quite good), the US networks bring the big hitters out to draw in maximum ratings/viewers for the winter months.

Now, I’ve often stated that I don’t really watch TV. This is, or at least was, true to a point. Most of my TV watching while I was in Lancaster consisted of series I bought on DVD well after their air date in Britain, let alone the US. But as the internet has evolved, and I’ve begun sweeping my creative nets far and wide for sources of inspiration, I’ve gradually come to realise that I *do* watch television. I just don’t watch British television (apart from Doctor Who and other oddities). That means no soaps, no sports channels, no quiz shows (though I occasionally watch something that another family member is watching).

There was a time when I would catch maybe one or two American TV shows per week, but *now* times have changed. This season I’ve had to make a frackin’ *LIST* of what is on on what night.

So here’s a rundown of my televisual week.

Sunday (Yes, the week starts on Sunday. Don’t argue with me, I’m a teacher.)

Only one programme (so far) worth watching on a Sunday, and that is True Blood starring Anna Paquin and some other people I’ve never heard of. It’s about vampires and a psychic girl set in the Louisiana (I think) swamps. It’s a late night, post-watershed show. There’s a lot of blood, a lot of swearing, and considerably more nudity and sex than I would ever have expected. I wouldn’t go so far as to say it’s an awesome show, but it’s intriguing to see where they’re going with it, and the chemistry between the male and female leads is very good. I shall keep on watching.

Monday

Monday is the heavy-hitter of a season of heavy hitters.

Firstly season 3 of Heroes is on. Season 2 was a step backwards from the awesomeness of season 1. It was a bit slow-paced, and it was cut short by the writer’s strike and not really allowed to reach any kind of decent conclusion. Hopefully season 3 (Villains) will change all this. Having seen the first couple of episodes, I have to say they seem to be on the right track, even if the actual formula isn’t all that different from previous seasons.

Secondly we have Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles. Yes, I hate the name too, just like everyone else, but I have to admit I was expecting the first season to bomb and yet was pleasantly surprised. The acting was strong, the special effects were very good for a small screen venture, the tension was there, and while there wasn’t as much gunfire and action as the Arnie movies – no surprise really, that wouldn’t exactly translate well to small screen – there was nevertheless the Terminator feel about it. Again s1 was cut short due to the writer’s strike, but it certainly ended on a cool cliffhanger, and s2 started up seconds after s1 concluded so there was no continuity jump or suspension of disbelief needed...if you can even use the term suspension of disbelief in a TV show about robots from the future being sent back in time to terminate the future leader of the resistance.

Thirdly, and probably the biggest draw of any programme of the week for me, is Chuck, now into its second season. It’s a romantic comedy espionage action drama series that pretty much defies any real convention. The premise is simple enough. Supernerd Chuck Bartowski has an entire supercomputer worth of government secrets downloaded into his brain, and now when he sees someone or something with possible shady background, he tends to get flashes, images of stuff in his brain. In a sense, he IS the computer now, and while he can’t control these flashes, they are important enough that he be kept around and alive. Thus he leads a dual life – computer repairman at the Buy More, a walmart style affair, and super spy analyst person type (at which he isn’t great, unsurprisingly). He’s looked after by two real spies, Casey (played by the ever awesome Adam Baldwin) and Sarah (played by the ever hawt Yvonne Strahowski – who the writers try and get into her underwear as often as possible. It works. Trust me.)

s1 ended with the revelation that the new Intersect computer was almost finished, and that Casey has orders to terminate Chuck when it goes online and he is no longer needed. S2 begins with Chuck finding out about the new Intersect, and how the last few months have changed him as a person, and what he’s going to do to move his life forwards. Of course, nothing is ever easy in TV world is it...

Look for the second part of this blog to conclude my rundown of Television goodness for the new season. ^_^

Yes I know this is cheating. It’s my blog. Sue me.

Moonbuggy.org & Funnies!

2008-09-07T11:56:00.001Z

Now, normally I don’t rave about other peoples’ websites. I’m not the kind of guy who says, “Yeah, man, I love *this* site or *that* site!” but I am a tad behind on the blogging, and I actually DID wish to discuss my love of the random stuff that comes up on the internet, so I decided to combine these things into a blog.

I am a big fan of the lolcatz internet phenom. Sites such as http://icanhascheezburger.com/ rank highly on my Giggleometer*. This and http://www.weebls-stuff.com/ were a mainstay of my week until a couple of weeks ago when Amanda linked me a rather hilarious animated .GIF file of a manatee slapping into a glass wall. (http://img.moonbuggy.org/manatee-bumps-into-glass/)

You see, moonbuggy.org has a Random Image button. I dunno about you, but if I see any link with the word RANDOM in, I have to push it a few times, just to see how random it actually is. Randomising between 10 or so images is not really all that random. In fact, it’s a bit dull. But moonbuggy pleasantly surprised me, not only with the fact that it seems to have bajillions** of images, but that some of them made me almost wet myself with laughter too.

To this end, and to showcase the rather large number of random images I’ve collected over the years, I’ve decided to open up the FUNNIES directory of my website. It’s not a fancy-pants gallery or anything. It’s a basic server directory. Clink on one of the links, open up the image. 99% of them are pretty self-explanatory from the image titles. Not all of them are Safe For Work so don’t open them while your boss is hovering around.

You can find the lot at http://www.demajen.co.uk/funnies

Hope you get as much of a giggle from them as I have ^_^

~Jon

* not a real device. Requires two AA batteries.
** not a real number. Probably.

Social Who?!

2008-09-01T06:42:00.001Z

A couple of weeks back, Spence was chuntering on about some application that he’d added on Facebook that he was having a laugh with. It’s called “Social Me” and the premise is very simple. You click through a series of photos of other Social Me users, and next to each photo there are a series of “Tags” which you choose one of to click on that you think best represents this person: examples include “Pretty”, “Sweet”, “Cool”, “Rediculous”, “Cheeky” and so on. Some are nice. Some are not. There’s also a form box that you can fill in for a custom tag if you prefer. As well as showing a picture, you can also upload More Pics, or write an About Me, so if creative people want to do a custom tag that’s not just based on your looks or one pic, then they can get a bit more info about you in order to do so. It’s quite a lot of fun, seeing what people can come up with.

You can filter people in a few ways. The first is simple: Male/Female/Both lets you pick which gender you’d like to look at. Since there is a “Flirt” button and an “I am interested in ...” button, this opens up “dating” (lol) possibilities. The second is more by area: My Friends/Network/Country/Everyone. So if you want to scout out “hot British chicks” you could do, for example.

Now I like this kind of thing, and get easily addicted to them. I like paying people compliments, as well as calling people silly things. It’s a character flaw. So I’ve been playing with it quite a lot, and made a few new friends in the bargain, which is always nice.

However, I began to notice a bizarre trend. Underneath your picture on the main Social Me page, you can set a headline. I tend to use mine for quoting silly things, or making witty and ironic statements about myself with my typical self-deprecating wit. However, I noticed that a lot of girls were writing “Please, no more sexy or drunk or happy or nice tits or fuckable tags please”, and the irony of this just shouted at me. See, a lot of the girls that had set this kind of comment were either smiling at the camera (“Happy”), holding a bottle of booze (“Drunk”), in a bikini (“Sexy”), taking the shot straight down their cleavage (“Nice tits”), or in more elaborate states of undress (“Fuckable”), and it occurred to me: do they not THINK that the subject matter of their photo might be inspiring particular comments about them?! Most people aren’t going to read the About Me for each person. They’re gonna focus in on a huge pair of boobs in a lacy bra and say the first thing that comes into their head, protected by the safety and anonymity of the internet. Duh!

So I changed my headline to something along the following lines: “~If you have a problem with people saying you're Hot or Sexy or Happy or Fuckable or whatever, think what it is about your photo that might lead someone to say that!~”

Fair enough, I thought. Consider it satire, if you will. And if I’m honest, I got a lot of people using the Send Note function to send me little notes about this. It inspired a fair amount of conversation between myself and various people I’d not met before. I was quite chuffed about the whole thing.

Until one person sent me the following note:

“I dont actualy have a problem with any of the above! wots your problem??”

Now I’m not generally an antagonistic person, but that riled me. Had she completely misunderstood the point I was trying to make? I felt I should at least reply to try and explain what I’d meant, just in case I’d come across as an ass. So I wrote the following reply:

“Good for you; I don't either!

I just find it amusing when people with no About Me written moan on their headlines for Social Me-ers to stop tagging them as Happy or Hot when all their photo has is a them smiling or showing their breasts. What do they THINK people are gonna say?!

I'm just being satirical. I'm allowed. It's part of my job :)”

Bit of humour, I thought, would lighten up the mood. Politeness goes a long way. Figured that was self-explanatory enough... right?!

She replied again:

“you know wot i find amusin?? ppl like you!! take your full of small minded shity attitude somewhere else pleas now, iv laughted 4 long enuf”

I chuckled at this on several levels. First of all her spelling is fucking atrocious, and while online I know the rules of grammar, punctuation and spelling are relaxed – hell, I’m lazy when I type too – the amount of effort put into this was great! Now I know I should take my “full of small minded shity attitude” somewhere else. Full of small minded. What the hell?! Either way, it was another insult, and since I was in a conflictory mood, I decided to send her another reply, just to prove how much of a jerk I was, and how right she was. Etc etc:

“Obviously you didn't get the joke. Never mind :)

And if I was small-minded I wouldn't have been able to see the irony in your words:

At the end of the day, I wasn't insulting anyone - except you obviously. I was simply pointing out that people expect too much creativity and imagination from the world at large. Okay, so YOU don't have a problem with people calling you HOT etc etc. That's fine. But I've seen a lot of people who DO moan. I was just pointing out that maybe it's the way that they've presented themselves on the application that provokes such a response.

It's interesting actually though. You're the first person in two days who has actually whined and moaned about my comment. Lots of people seem to agree with me.

But nevermind eh! You go reassess your poorly-spelt insulting attitude, and I'll go reassess the reasons why I'm even bothering to try and be polite. :)”

As you can see, I DID try and be polite and congenial, but she did rub me up the wrong way so I figured I’d have a dig at her. She’s the ONLY person, still, to have made a negative comment about that quote. I’ve actually just put it back on, to see if it inspires any more commentary over the next few hours. Maybe I’ll be able to write an addendum to the blog.

Anyways, if you’re on Facebook, check Social Me out. It’s good for a laugh!

Music Is The Weapon

2008-08-24T06:14:00.000Z

Okay okay, yeah I lose points for even daring to quote that, but I needed something at least a little bit catchy and dramatic.

I’m a musical person, always have been. There’s nothing like a sweeping symphony or a crackling electric guitar solo to inspire a man. I did GCSE music back in high school, played the violin to grade 6 standard, tried my hand at a variety of different instruments too, from flute, to saxophone, to guitar to piano. I was never brilliant at any of them. I was never gonna be the next Vanessa Mae or anything. But I enjoyed performing, and still regret that I hadn’t put more effort into learning the more difficult instruments – namely guitar and piano – though I know there is still time.

I don’t look back on my GCSE with fondness, unfortunately, because of what it did to me. Basically, I realised quite near the start of my final year of school – second year of GCSE music – that I was outgrowing my violin. I’d already got the full size one – largest you can get – but it just wasn’t big enough. My arms were too long, and I was finding that I had to twist my wrist in an odd way to hit the notes properly. It began to hurt when I play for too long, and my violin tutor noted that I should probably change instruments to the slightly larger viola, or to something even bigger like the cello.

In retrospect, I was an idiot. I didn’t want to do viola or cello because I’d have had to learn new clefs, and it had taken me long enough to get treble clef sorted. Also, if I had to give up violin now, it would completely screw up my final year of GCSE. I wasn’t really any good at the flute – grade 2 standard at most – and thus couldn’t switch to that and hope to get a serious GCSE result. I didn’t actually want to DO anything with music back then by the way. I just liked the class and wanted to do well in it.

I got a C, in the end. By the time the final practical exam came round, the muscle at the base of my left thumb, and my wrist itself, was so screwed up by repetitive strain injury, that I was never going to get the B or higher that I wanted. I’ll probably not be able to play a stringed instrument again, sadly, though I still do want to at least give guitar a try.

Until I can earn enough money to get myself a cheapo guitar and some lessons, I’ve been sating my music-playing desires and building up the muscles in my left wrist again, by playing Guitar Hero on the 360. And yes, I know I know it’s not a REAL guitar and it doesn’t require the same skills and motions etc, but for someone with a knackered wrist not even used to holding an instrument at that angle before, it at least helps me get some mobility back into my sore tendons.

Now, I’m a big fan of rhythm games. Ever since Spence first introduced me to the Dance Dance Revoltion series of arcade machines down in Torquay, I’ve always picked up the odd game for whatever console I have handy. Now, I’m a big man, so I don’t use the dance mats. There’s NO WAY I’m jumping around in my study trying to hit notes – I have size 12/13 feet and the chances of me being precise enough to hit the pitifully small squares on the mats are low. So I’ve always used the normal controller for these types of games. And because I AM musically-minded, and have a good sense of rhythm (apparently!) I tend to do very well at this type of game. I can kick ass on most DDR games on the PS2, usually on the Hard difficulty while my friends compete on Easy or Medium. Which is fine. It’s all about having fun after all! I just like a challenge.

I first tried the Guitar Hero games round at Dave’s house, and I will admit to being sold on it. It was a lot of fun, and while it seemed to be pretty darned difficult on Medium mode (where you have to hit FOUR frets rather than the first three on Easy mode) the mini plastic guitar controller and a great selection of tunes including Guns n Roses’ “Sweet Child of Mine” and Warrant’s “Cherry Pie” inspired me to get it. Was just a pity about the rather expensive price.

Fast forwards twelve months and a fair bit of supply teaching work later, and I found a second-hand copy of Guitar Hero III with controller for £50 in Gamestation. I snapped it up on a whim, and have been making steady progress. I can now kick ass on medium mode, and play the odd song on Hard, which forces you to use all 5 of the fret buttons. I have to be careful though, it seems. Yeah I’m musically minded, good sense of rhythm, know how the songs go... But I can’t overcome the RSI in my wrist just yet. Try and play more than a couple of songs on Hard and it REALLY begins to hurt. Not as much as my back hurts on bad days mind you, but enough. Sometimes I push through the pain, hoping that it’s just the muscles protesting at the exercise. Other times I’m sensible and take a break. But either way it’s good stimulation for my poor knackered hand, and it feels good to get it moving again. So much so that I splashed out on Guitar Hero II as well, which is the version I played back at Dave’s last year. I may never be able to complete either game on Hard or Expert, but I enjoy at least giving it a go, and as Rick tells me – with these games, practise is just as important as it is on a real instrument.

Can’t believe I quoted that as the title though.... >.>

THE MRI EXPERIENCE

2008-08-17T22:20:00.000Z

Magnetic resonance imaging is a medical imaging technique used to visualise the structure and function of the body (paraphrased from Wiki! Let it do the work, so You don’t have to!)

Due to me having a k-nackered back, and the physio and Orthopaedic specialist not being 100% sure of what’s actually wrong with it, I got to have my first ever MRI last week. I wasn’t looking forwards to it.

I’ve seen MRIs done on TV before, most noticeably on HOUSE MD., my favourite medical drama. They’re basically a big magnetic tube that they slide you into on a table, make you hold still for fifteen minutes or so, and then tell you all sorts of wonderful things about your internal makeup.

However, you know what they say about TV? That everything looks a little bigger?

The MRI machine was not big. After I kitted up in my incredibly flattering surgical gown, I walked into the room and did some basic maths. I’m quite wide-shouldered, and obviously pretty tall. The MRI machine didn’t look like I would fit in fully either way. I was right. I had to be shunted up halfway through the procedure, and I spent the entire 15 or so minutes I was in there with my shoulders compressed slightly together ‘cos I wouldn’t have fit in otherwise! Yay for modern medicine.

Now I don’t know how many people know this, but as well as being afraid of heights, spiders, and having vertigo and hayfever, I’m also claustrophobic. Not VERY claustrophobic, but enough. Only in REALLY cramped spaces, when I imagine most people would get a little edgy. I have real issues with sleeping bags (I know I know, laugh all you like ><) and have to leave the zips undone so I can stretch. I got very little sleep the night before the MRI, because it’s a big enclosed tube, like a big plastic and metal sleeping bag. But, I told myself, it can’t be TOO bad. They look big enough on TV.

But as I’ve already mentioned, they’re smaller in real life. The top of the tube was about four inches from my nose. I felt like I was in a coffin, and if it wasn’t for the cool breeze drifting over me, I’ve had probably had some kind of panic attack and completely freaked out. In fact, I almost did  It was utterly terrifying. I hated every moment of being in there, but I made sure I barely moved, because I knew that if I did I’d have to go through the whole process again.

As well as being afraid, I was also in a lot of pain. Some days my back is almost okay. Other days its hideously painful. The MRI day it was fine, until they got me laid on the table. They propped my legs up on a cushion about 4 inches thick, and this — unhelpfully — left almost all of the weight on exactly the spot on my back that hurts. I was in UTTER agony for the first ten minutes, until my body started freaking out from everything and went almost completely numb.

Now, when my back spasms in pain, I twitch. Twitching isn’t good for MRIs. So I had to fight that, as well as my claustrophobia.

Add all this up and I think you have a pretty good impression of my MRI experience. I hope, I PRAY, that *something* shows up after this, because I would gladly never go through that whole thing again!!!!

Even if I DID look pretty good in the surgical gown...:P

Data Disaster

2008-08-10T13:29:00.001Z

I had this blog all planned. It was going to be a happy, shining blog, reminiscing about the evolution of television from the mid-90s. This would have perhaps shown my age, and how I’ve dated as badly as a mobile phone in a music video, but I wouldn’t have cared. Mid-90s TV formed the foundation of who I am today!

But alas this is not to be, as other stuff happened before I got to write it. Let me explain.

I’m sure any of you that use computers as much as I do run out of space eventually. Hard disks can only store so much data, and they start to slow down — or “chug” — the closer to capacity they come. Now while TV show release dates ARE changing so that the UK is getting new series closer to their US releases, I still prefer to watch the shows I like straight away. So I download them. I also tend to watch them when they finally do air on British TV. I also tend to buy the box sets (the collector’s 5-series DVD set of Andromeda is sat right behind me, for example. Yes, I plan on watching it in a marathon of poor special FX and Kevin Sorbo-ness.) This is my thinly veiled defence against “zomg he is pirate! Yarrr!” or something.

Some of these TV shows I like to store to watch again and again until the DVDs are released. Things like the Dresden Files pilot episode, which — at approx 2 hours long — was very cool, but not out on DVD and only available in the US on Sci-Fi. I watch it now and again to remind myself what it is about the series (and the books) that I love so much. But it’s over 1gig worth of file. These all add up. So I store all this kind of stuff on an external HD to save myself from a chugging computer fate.

All was going fine with this plan, but now DISASTER has struck.

I have a very simple, 250gig external HD, which I’ve used to back up pretty much everything from the last 7 years or so. In fact, when my sister was moving out, and I was having the big overhaul/tidyup, I actually went through many of my old backup CDs and tried to consolidate the data I have onto the external HD. And now, via an application of Sod’s Law, the external HD has decided to screw up. Connecting it in Windows makes explorer hang. Trying to access anything on it makes explorer hang. Interacting with it in any way (except one, more on this in a moment)...you guessed it... makes explorer hang.

There is 232 gig worth of data on this drive. Granted more than a bit of it is TV programmes that I haven’t deleted yet (I’ve got the DVDs now). Some of it is Anime. Some of it is Doctor Who. I think some of it may have been the Sarah Connor Chronicles actually. Either way, a huge chunk of it is TV and I would in no way miss any of this stuff – well, apart from House S4, but that’s out on DVD this month so that’s fine.

What I will miss, if I can’t retrieve it, is photos, work, silly things that — retrospectively — I should have backed up elsewhere instead. I never even thought about it. That annoying “What if the external HD fucks up?” question. I certainly didn’t expect to have any problems with it only 6 months after I bought it, but considering my run of luck with external storage devices, I should have known better. The sad fact is that, while I have plenty of copies of a lot of the older stuff knocking around on CD — I didn’t throw ALL of them away in the clear out — there’s a lot of stuff that I simply don’t have backed up elsewhere. This IS my backup device, after all. It was a purchase designed to ensure I didn’t have to spend hours backing stuff up onto DVD.

But now it seems I may pay for that error of judgement with the loss of a considerable number of irreplaceable items. This makes me a very sad panda.

This is not to say all hope is lost, however. I currently have a programme scanning every single sector of the drive in the hopes of retrieving as much of my data as possible. I started this scan at 6:05am on 9th August 2008, and at 2:22pm on the 10th August 2008 as I write this very sentence, the scan is 39% done. It’s a slow one, and I live in fear of a powercut, or the cable to fall out, or something that will cause me to have to start the whole process all over again.

I’ve pondered if it’s worth it. How much of the crap on that drive do I ever actually look at?! But that isn’t the point, really, is it. Because I know that as soon as I give up on attempting to retrieve this data, then I’ll need some of it. This, really, is the problem with the digital era. Nothing exists “for real” until you make it real. Photos are a collection of pixels until you print them out.

A big chunk of the backed up stuff — probably 5% or so — is PSD files. My artwork, in the many stages of work-in-progress. I save all of those just in case I want to go back and change things, or steal elements for another painting, or use portions of them for something in web design. There’s several gigs worth of these, as PSD files are pretty damned hefty, that I don’t have backed up elsewhere. I COULD have burned them to DVD, but I didn’t. I relied on one device.

Never again! It seems I will have to add even further to the clutter that is my workspace by adding a second external backup drive to the mix. A smaller, more robust one, for critical backups of stuff. I may also need to add a third HD into my PC itself. All to ensure that, if I have critical data, if I do manage to recover the stuff that is important to me from this buggered HD, then I’ll have multiple copies of it just in case another Data Disaster happens again.

Let this be a lesson to me, and to you too!

August 2008

2008-08-04T14:01:00.002Z

Ladies and Gents, loyal readers, August is upon us already! To say this year is going fast is an understatement. I put the speed down to me measuring time as intervals between appointments with various NHS-related people trying to "fix" my back.

So what have I been up to recently? Well, a variety of things really.

1) I've had some fits of guilt and nostalgia and have taken it upon myself to try and get in touch with friends from years gone by, see how everyone is, and get up-to-date contact info for everyone on the off chance that they want me to visit. Some of these people I haven't heard from since I left college 10 years ago, so its really good to know that some of them are doing well, and I must confess to taking a guilty pleasure in knowing that some of them are as undecided about their futures at 27 as I am.

2) I've been reading books. Mainly re-reading Jim Butcher's Dresden Files books, in completely the wrong order. I've also been dipping into the world of Graphic Novels, working my way the the Watchmen in preparation for the movie release, as well as catching up on Slaíne.

3) I've been continuing to work on a particular painting. I've kinda got into a bit of a rut with it. Turns out it was a bit TOO ambitious for my current skills (and attention span), but it IS progressing slowly.

4) I've also done some writing, albeit not a lot. I'm currently working on a big fight scene towards the end of the novel and, unfortunately, its not going well. I'm finding it difficult to visualise the scene. I blame this on the painkillers which I'm currently taking too many of to block out the big spikes of pain that are happening (fortunately) infrequently.

5) I've been playing too much FFXI. As you might have gathered if you actually check my main site, a lot of the blogs/updates recently have been FFXI-related and thus not written about on this here Life Blog. Toddle over to the FFXI blog for updates on that.

That's about it for now. Not the most exciting of updates, but I did feel I was bending my new year's resolution a bit by counting the FFXI blogs as part of my "one blog per week" thing. Updates to this blog, and my website, will continue. Have a gander at the updated art gallery if nothing else. Some newish pieces in there from this year that most people haven't seen. ^_^

~Jon

Summer Holidays

2008-07-20T03:04:00.002Z

This last week was the final week of the academic year for most schools in this Midlands. As such, this means its time for six weeks of sun, relaxation, and drinking.

Or would do, if I didn't live in Britain, where there's rarely any sun, and I can't really drink due to the painkillers I'm taking.

The folly of drinking with a bad back was exemplified yesterday. Went out for a meal with the Waterhouses down to the Ruby Cantonese, my favourite local Chinese restaurant. I knew it was the last day of term, and that they don't have the chance to go out and enjoy themselves all that much as they're both teachers, so I figured I'd make sure I didn't take any painkillers during the evening so I could join them in a few beverages while we ate.

Good plan right?

Wrong!

See, while my back hadn't actually been all that bad during the daytime, by the time I'd spent 15mins in the restaurant, it had started playing up. Didn't bring any painkillers with me, thinking that the alcohol would numb the pain. Well, it did. But only as I downed three glasses of red wine in a row. Not my smartest move ever, especially as my alcohol tolerance is practically zero at the moment, but still...

Eventually - ie by the time we were walking home - the effects of the drink kicked in and pushed the pain to the background, but I must have looked like a right alcoholic in the Ruby, downing wine. ~_~; It's the kind of thing a guy with pride and/or a reputation would think twice about. Fortunately I have neither. :D

So that's how I started my summer holiday off. Full of food, drunk on red wine, and sprawled on the bed spasming in pain. My how fun my life is. I'd say "start as you mean to go on", but I'm not sure that's a good idea this year.

Still, my appointment with the spinal specialist is on Wednesday morning. Hopefully they can give me a better indication of what's wrong.

~J

A Day in the Life of a Teacher on Prescription Painkillers

2008-07-10T19:08:00.004Z

I have a bad back. It hurts. The NHS physio isn't sure what is wrong with it, so is referring me to a back/spine specialist. That appointment is on the 23rd July. Until then I am stuck trying to do stuff on co-codomol painkillers.

Or, as the box clearly states: "Omg Caplets".

I had a day teaching today. I haven't done a great deal of teaching recently due to it being the end of term and year 11 having left for their exams - thus not many supply staff needed. This is probably a good thing, as too many days like today would be bad for me.

The basic outlook for today was fairly straightforwards:

Yr10 French (top set, small and nice group. Enjoyable lesson.)
Yr7 English (large set, no work left, but enjoyable blagged lesson.)
Yr7 French (low ability, real headache of a lesson)
Yr7 French (higher ability, enjoyable lesson)
Yr8 French (top set, nice group, fun stuff)

Not too bad a day. My french is hella rusty, but that wasn't the problem. The problem was the atrocious year 7 group. It's the kind of group that there's just no recovering from. As a supply teacher, its difficult to know what to do in awkward situations, and the one thing I've noticed about the school is that it has narrow corridors and you can't leave kids out there if they're being pricks. So I had to put up with two obnoxious HORRIBLE children for almost the entire lesson.

The lad was a pain in the arse, rude, disruptive, and had the misfortune to be caught out in the corridor by a senior member of staff on call. Therefore he got taken away with little fuss. Turns out that he wasn't the main problem I was going to have that lesson.

The girl, on the other hand.... NEVER have I actually physically wanted to strangle a kid before. Sure, I might have moaned that I wanted to, but it was only through intensive physical restraint that I actually managed not to shout in her face and physically push her out of the classroom and slam the door on her. She was so utterly putrid in terms of her attitude and outlook. She had to be the centre of attention, and was so disruptive that she simply couldn't be ignored. She moaned when I wasn't paying attention to her. She called people names. She lead the class in some bullying. She threw pencil crayons. She called one girl a "fucking bitch" right under my nose. She insulted me. I sent her out several times but she kept coming back in when my back was turned, then offering a pathetic "I'm sorry. I won't do it again." each time. It made my skin crawl, she was truly horrible.

Eventually she was caught outside by another member of staff as I tried to keep her away from this other girl she was bullying as well as deal with the rest of the class as well as organise the lesson. Said member of staff thankfully said she'd take the girl for a walk until the end of the lesson. I was relieved, said many thank yous, and closed the door on the kid.

For sixty seconds I was free to get on with teaching French.

Only who should turn up at the door but the girl again, barging in, grabbing crayons, and going outside to work in the corridor...

I could have stabbed her eyes out with them... There was just nothing I could do. I don't know the name of the teacher that took her away, but I'm really not impressed. :(

By the time I'd got home, I'd got through 6 co-codamol tablets. That's 6 out of my 8 total for 24 hours. That's quite a lot in a short space of time. I was actually rather dizzy and feeling a bit out of it by the time I got back, and went pretty much straight to the bed for a lie down. I dunno if I fell asleep or what, but it was suddenly an hour and a half later and Mother was asking if I wanted dinner...

Sweet and sour chicken with light and fluffy rice. At least SOMEONE knows how to cheer me up ^_^

Sat at the PC typing this blog I can't really feel my back now. Can't really feel my fingers hitting the keys either, so please excuse any spelling mistakes.

That was my day on prescription meds. How's your day been loyal reader?

July Already?!

2008-07-02T13:38:00.002Z

What the...?!

Seriously, how is it July already? What happened to June? Where did it go?!

July is always a patchy month for me, as it tends to mark the end of the academic year. When I was a student, it was the time that I had to say goodbye to my social life and return home. Now that I'm a "teacher" it's the time that I have to say goodbye to any regular work, as towards the end of term there's very little supply work available. So I need to tighten my belt and look ahead to the summer months and consider my options.

That being said, there's a lot to look forwards to in these last couple of weeks of the year, and the summer holidays in general. None of these things are actually academic though.

Firstly, the new iPhone 3G is released in a couple of weeks. At £100 on a £35/month tariff, it's not cheap since I only got the last iPhone in March, but with its promise of much faster internet speeds - which is mostly what I use my iPhone for anyways - I don't see the point in not upgrading. Thus I have set some pennies aside for it.

Secondly, season 4 of Doctor Who is coming to a close this Saturday evening. The series has had some patchy moments - as any Doctor Who season does really - but the penultimate episode was rather over the top and a little bit surprising/shocking. There are gonna be a lot of people sat down on Saturday night to see what becomes of the 10th Doctor's regeneration sequence that started at last week's cliffhanger - I know I'm certainly intrigued by what they're going to do.

Thirdly, I am still planning on going somewhere over the summer months. It has been ten years since I actually went on a proper holiday somewhere and I figure it is about time I got a dramatic change of scenery. This will depend on finances, obviously, but again I have a few pennies set aside for it.

Finally there are a few movies out at the cinema that I want to watch. Some of them may not be very good, but I want to watch them anyway. These include: The Dark Knight, Hancock, Wanted, The Mummy III, and Journey to the Centre of the Earth. This probably tells you a lot about my cinematic "taste", but I care not.

The summer months. A time for BBQs, beer in the garden, friends getting together inside and outside, hoping for the best weather. Let's hope this summer is a good one.

(As I'm sat writing this it's raining heavily outside....)

~Jon

More Updates

2008-06-30T13:56:00.001Z

So yeah, I reset the blog layout back to a faster, default template, changed it to blog.html instead of index.html, and linked it through from the new index.php main page. Hopefully this won't throw everyone too much, not that I imagine many people visit or read this anyways. \o/

~J

Quick Update on the New Site

2008-06-27T16:09:00.002Z

Work on the latest version of the website is progressing. Something was badly wrong with the blogger version of the site, so I plan on reverting this to a simple blog page, stripping all templating, and doing a new main page. While I don't have the technical knowhow to import blog posts into a normal webpage, I will at least include links to the latest blog posts on the main http://www.demajen.co.uk page. It's an opportunity for me to get back into the web-development scene, as blogger, while convenient, is also a bit too unsatisfying from a coding point of view. I'm going to have a go at learning PHP and XML, so I'll see what I can come up with in the near future.

~J

Website Redesign

2008-06-23T12:31:00.004Z

I've been wanting to redesign the site (http://www.demajen.co.uk for those of you reading the imported blog on Facebook) for a while, mainly due to the fact that it's been over a year since I last did it, and the background/artwork was getting a bit out of date.

Sadly it's taken me a good two weeks to come up with any ideas. I tried a variety of things but fell back on the fact that if I made it too complicated, I'd never update it. Thus instead I spent a good portion of the time trying to figure out a way to skin the blogger aspect of the site, and I'll build everything else round that.

The basic template is now up, but there's a few things to work on:

1) The Archive/Previous Post links don't show up well enough on the background.
2) The main post area may also get a background of some kind.
3) The borders that run down the page suddenly stop for some reason.
4) The image map menu on the banner may get some rollover images so they glow and give a bit more jazz/interactive feeling.
5) Missing a footer/copyright notice.
6) Page background is screwed at higher resolutions than 1440x900.
7) IE and Safari cut off the page at, oddly, the exact same place the borders stop running down the sides.
8) Content isn't centered on IE.

But other than that (>_>), it doesn't look too bad at all.

~J

Erase and Rewind

2008-06-22T09:17:00.001Z

I watched the latest episode of Doctor Who last night, which gave Catherine Tate more of an opportunity to shout at us (a trait acknowledged in the actual story itself for some humorous effect) in an episode that explored what life would be like without the Doctor. It was quite an interesting episode, showing us events that previous companions have been involved in, but how events turn out if the Doctor was to have died in the second Christmas special (the one with the Empress of the Racnoss). It set off a chain of events with repercussions throughout recent history: without the Doctor and Donna having met, no one is able to stop the Judoon stealing the hospital from London (and Martha Jones dies up on the moon); no one is able to stop the Titanic crashing into Buckingham Palace (and the whole of London is wiped out); no one stops the Adipose plot (and 60 million Americans are all killed).

It shows a Donna Noble who never has the chance to break out of the mould, who isn’t given the opportunity to spread her wings and become something better (and while I’m not a huge fan of the character, she has grown on me the last few weeks as she’s gradually become less of the runaway bride and more of a fleshed-out character).

It also shows the return of Rose Tyler. It’s an interesting development in the plot, as the episode Doomsday from the end of the second season still sends chills down my spine. The moment near the end where the Doctor and Rose are separated in parallel universes is one of the strongest dramatic moments on this or any other show I’ve seen in twenty seven years. To bring her back was inevitable, but the look on the Doctor’s face when Donna tells him “Bad Wolf” was incredibly well-played by David Tennant. It was a mix of elation — he and Rose shared something after all — but utter horror too: not from having to deal with her, but simply knowing that having that chance, that the universes are bleeding together, is not going to end well for any of them.

Over several blogs I’ve mentioned how Russell T Davies skipped out on many storytelling opportunities by having the Time War destroy Gallifrey and leaving the Doctor alone in the universe, and yet we’re now faced with what is likely to be a big shiny Reset Button™ and I’m not as excited as I thought I might be. With RTD leaving and Moffatt taking over, it does seem right that he would get a tabula rasa to work with, but four seasons of emotional attachment to characters will be difficult to put behind. It will depend on how it’s done, assuming it is done at all. If it could be done in such a way that the Time Lords can come back without those essential relationships that have been built up disappearing, then I will be happy. But we’ve seen the Doctor grow hugely as a character based on his interactions with Rose, Martha, Donna, Captain Jack, Sarah-Jane, Mickey et cetera, and I simply don’t want all that to mean nothing, either for him, or for them.

Obviously you could play the “they never met” card for the companions, and keep the Doctor remembering, a bit like they did for Connor and Angel in the last two seasons of Joss Whedon’s Angel. It would work, and it would continue with the theme of torturing the Doctor — even if he does get his people and home returned, I’m still not certain he is emotionally strong enough to be able to look upon Rose Tyler and not have her know who she is. Or maybe I’m not. He’s walked away from her before through choice after all. Maybe I just don’t want to see that connection die. I thought having Martha Jones’ tortured family stuck at the eye of the storm and remembering everything when the whole world forgot the events of the Master’s rule as the paradox was reversed at the end of season 3 was a very bold, dramatic move after all.

So yes, I’m ambivalent about the whole event. While I don’t really want a big reset button to be pressed — for the reasons listed above — I’m intrigued as to how they will do it if they do do it — my writer’s curiosity I guess.

Now, how does Davros fit in to all this...

Friday the Thirteenth

2008-06-13T15:49:00.001Z

Is that how you spell 13th?! Anyone know? I was gonna be patronising about how we should all write out numbers in full more often but seriously, do they ever look right if you do?!

Ahem anyways, a short blog today to tell you about my day at Dormston High in Sedgeley.

Was very straightforward really. Got phoned the other day saying there was work available, and despite my bad back I leapt at the chance for some pennies as now the iPhone 3G has been announced, I know I’ll have to get one (faster downloads will be awesome for me, as the iPhone is mostly a mobile internet for me!) Went to bed earlyish last night, made sure not to take any of my painkillers (as they fuzz my head up), and slept pretty well.

Up at 6:40am this morning, had breakfast, shower, got dressed, out the door buy 7:45 —well within the timeframe needed to get me there via the power of MomTaxi. Got to school on time. VERY nice-looking place. Lovely reception area and nice lobby/courtyard. Really impressive to look at. Start to think positive.

Staff briefing is VERY brief, and then a woman approaches me and asks me who I am. I give her my name and supply agency, and she passes me on to the supply coordinator who informs me she has no idea why I’m here.

Ooookay. So she takes me to her office and explains that the guy who has been there recently has turned up for work today. I knew about him being there, but I’d been told he wasn’t available for that day so the agency had asked me to come instead. But now apparently they had both of us.

Couldn’t get anyone on the phone so I say my farewells, being not massively bothered about not having to work, and get on a bus heading for Dudley in an attempt to get home cheaply.

Ten minutes into the journey, I get a phonecall from the boss, explaining how wires have got crossed and the guy who had turned up at Dormston was actually supposed to be at Pedmore, and could I get there.

Well yeah, I could, but I was on a bus to Dudley and it was gonna take me a good while to do so. “Get off the bus and I’ll come pick you up,” says the boss. So I do. I’m standing on Wolverhampton St. next to Kwik-Fit. Wolverhampton St is the main road into Dudley from Sedgely way. Easy enough to find says Mother, who I inform of this.

But I still don’t manage to get to school until just after 9:30, 15mins before the end of first lesson. By the time I’ve got my timetable, got over to science, and apologise to the necessaries, its 5 minutes before period 2. Still, means I only had to teach four lessons today. 1 on chemistry, 1 on physics, and 2 music (and I didn’t really teach the last music lesson either — the normal teacher’s son ran the class, which was weird.)

Sounds like a reasonable day, apart from the somewhat shitty start. Remember what I said about the no-painkillers though? Well, turns out by 10:30am I was in considerable pain and had to risk head fuzziness so as to counter the shards of glass being thrust up and down my spinal column (that’s a metaphor people, don’t worry!) So as the day wore on, my head was just going more and more whooooo and by period 5 I’m not sure I was all that coherent. Good job I wasn’t really teaching the lesson.

And then I realised I’d forgotten to print out and take a timesheet with me, so I couldn’t even get that signed off. Popped into the office and sorted out my availability for next week and asked them to sort out the timesheet for me, bought myself a baguette from the French Deli to eat while I recuperate before the weakly shop, and I’m now sitting here half-tempted to go have a nap/try not to pass out.

That was my Friday 13th. How was yours?

Silence in the Library / Forest of the Dead - "review" (kinda)

2008-06-09T03:05:00.001Z

I don’t tend to write reviews of Doctor Who episodes, simply because I imagine I’ll come across gushing like a fanboy, and I do try to avoid being a real fanboy about anything. I’m an incredibly critical person, very rarely able to say anything is so 100% brilliant that nothing was wrong with it at all — especially not television.

But I am a lifetime fan of Doctor Who. I remember being introduced to the programme way back in the 80s. Sylvester McCoy was the Doctor back then, and I remember the Doctor and Ace’s adventures for the 3 or so seasons they travelled together. There was something incredibly likeable, dark, and mysterious about McCoy’s Doctor, especially after the initial season of his time playing the part, where the scripts took a much darker, more interesting direction, questioning who the Doctor is and why he travels as he does.

One of my biggest beefs against Russell T. Davies’ reimagined series was that it was clear from the start that the Timelords, that Gallifrey, were no more. I thought, rather naively, to begin with that this would cut out a huge amount of storytelling potential.

I’m happy to admit that I was wrong. While I sometimes think that the new series has kinda missed out on some of the Lore of the series, most of the stuff that I’m thinking of is from the book line anyway that took place before the Doctor Who telemovie, when no Doctor Who stuff was on air.

I’m thinking Lungbarrow specifically in many cases, which went a long way to exploring a lot of the mysteries of just who the Doctor is, what he could have been, and why he is who he is; but at the same time introducing yet more mystery to the character. Is he a genetic reproduction of the mysterious Other of Gallifreyan history? Will we ever know?

The new series has been brilliant at these little snippets about the Doctor’s past. Lots and lots of little throwaway comments about his life from all the times we’ve not had him on screen. He’s been a father. He’s not good with weddings. He chose his title for a reason. And now, with this marvellous two-parter from Stephen Moffat, we know that at some point he will (probably) find a soulmate, someone he will trust so implicitly that he will reveal to her his real name.

Looking back at Stephen Moffat’s episodes from the 4 seasons so far, I must admit that I’ve enjoyed each one. Even the Empty Child/Doctor Dances, which creeped me out a little bit. There’s something remarkably rich and admirable about the way this man tells a story, and I’m now in the fun position of being torn about what my favourite episodes of the series’ are now.

You see, this time last year I would have said “Blink” was probably the best Doctor Who episode, even if it barely features the Doctor. It was so *clever* and emotional.

The year before, I would have said “Girl in the Fireplace,” and not just because I think Sophia Myles is incredibly hot. Again, it was fun, it was clever, it had little mysteries to reveal, and it was packed full of emotion.

And then came “The Sound of Drums” and the 3-part conclusion to season 3. This arc with the Master was beautifully performed, and while I personally thought the third of the three was a slight letdown until the last ten minutes, the joy of seeing the Doctor pitted against the Master, finally seeing a fellow Timelord in the new series, and then having it all taken away by the end was a hugely emotional turning point in the story. Just as the Doctor is coming to terms with his survivor’s guilt, he’s thrown another curveball.

I would have said those were my favourite episodes, until this latest two-parter. They were excellently paced, featured brilliant acting, a “have you quite clicked it yet” plot, several layers of mystery, and yet another curveball for David Tennant’s Doctor. The whole story with Professor River Song and what her relationship with the Doctor is is STILL left deliciously mysterious at the end of the episode. It’s obviously hinted at that the only situation in which the Doctor would reveal his true name to anyone is during a marriage ceremony, but that is never explicitly stated, and that’s just the way I like it.

The Doctor needs to remain mysterious for him to have his appeal. Would we still have the same affection for the character if he was no longer just “The Doctor” and was called by some Gallifreyan name? I doubt it. His circumstances, his past: we need just enough of that hinted at so we know he’s experienced some degree of tragedy so great that he travels simply to cope with the magnitude of it. In Silence in the Library/Forest of Death we get not hints about his past, but hints about his future. Part of me is fascinated by the idea of knowing what happens in those events. How he meets River Song in future and their whole thing happens.

But then part of me doesn’t want to know. Because the conclusion of their story had such a huge dramatic and emotional impact, I’m not sure any revelation of their “first” and subsequent meetings could do the concept justice.

I think one of the reasons this episode resonates so much to me is the idea of being in love with someone who doesn’t know who you are, a concept that forms part of the foundation of my first novel, and kind of slips into the second and third parts of the trilogy too (or will do, when they’re written). It’s actually kinda strange how many of my ideas seem to end up used in episodes of Doctor Who before I get a chance to publish them — someone must be in my head invading my thoughts and stealing my ideas. Or something.

There is a bit of time travel and reincarnation in the trilogy, as well as an underlying thread that will be revealed by the end of the books. I suppose in a sense I’ve used that Doctor Whovian device as something to drive the story, though my characters have zero control over the method of travel and spend much of the trilogy dealing with paradoxes which hopefully all work in a continuity sense.

But anyways, I was talking about these two episodes. I’ve just watched them again, back-to-back, and I must say I’m looking forwards to two things now:

1) How is Russel T. Davies going to top those two episodes this series — its already well established that Rose is going to return, and stuff is going to hit the fan, but I’ve avoiding reading any spoilers about what might happen next.

2) What is Stephen Moffat going to do with the series when he takes over in 2010 for series 5 (and yes I really REALLY hope that David Tennant is still the Doctor by that point.)

Not really a review is it this... So I’ll give the episodes a score of 9.5/10 — as close to storytelling perfection as I can imagine at this time.

DEATH NOTE (live-action movie) – REVIEW (spoilers!!)

2008-05-28T03:29:00.001Z

So as a follow up to my finishing watching the Death Note anime, I did a bit of reading on Wiki, hoping to clarify a few of my mind’s issues, and came upon the fact that there was a live-action movie version of the manga, with a few key differences. I stopped reading there, and decided to watch it for myself first.

And I must say, I’m glad I did.

I’m not big on film versions changing huge amounts of an established fictional work. I can understand it with Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings trilogy — it’s such a huge work that doing a proper version including everything would turn it into a twenty four hour long film. In much the same way I can understand the film version of Rowling’s Order of the Phoenix doing the same thing.

But I was intrigued as to whether it would work shortening 12+ hours of anime into around what, 5 hours of film…

As it turns out, it worked beautifully. While certain parts of the plot naturally had to be changed, the whole thing felt so much tighter. There was no messing about with Near and Mello. No Yotsuba Corporation. No extraneous shinigami and plot turns.

And, perhaps most importantly, it was a battle of wits between Light and L for the whole 5 hours.

I won’t say a lot about the acting or casting, mainly because it’s not really very important to me in this instance. The character designs are taken straight from the anime for the most part. What really mattered was how the story was told, and in my opinion it was the more fluid, poignant version of the events surrounding the Death Note.

Yes it changes the ending in order to keep L alive long enough to unmask Kira properly. But it was handled poignantly. It also includes a bit of a monologue for Misa, which if you’ve just read my thoughts on the anime, you’ll know I was wanting. In some ways, because the cast was kept smaller, the emotional attachment to the characters was tighter. I was happy Chief Yagami survived, though I felt quite sad that he had to keep the secret of Kira/Light’s relationship from his daughter and wife.

Really the only thing I felt that the live action version lacked was the music. Unlike in the anime, where music played an important part in building suspense, I didn’t really notice the music in the film. I also kinda missed the internal monologues of Light and L, but in a film version too many of those would get very confusing so I’m glad they didn’t have many. Just enough to give away thoughts if absolutely necessary.

All in all, I’d recommend watching it after watching the anime run rather than before.

Score: 8.6/10

DEATH NOTE (anime) – REVIEW (spoilers!!)

2008-05-27T23:14:00.001Z

I’m very particular about what I watch. Sounds like a crazy statement considering my confession to liking Gene Roddenberry’s Andromeda. But yes, I very rarely watch stuff that isn’t recommended to me by at least one person whom I trust.

I first heard about Death Note on the IGN TV site and read a couple of reviews of miscellaneous episodes. It sounded interesting, and I put it on my (fairly extensive) list of anime to watch. This list is kind of a wishlist, as most of the time I never get any of the stuff on it to actually watch.

But then I read more reviews of it, saying how it was an interesting psychological thriller full of cat-and-mouse intellectual games, and my curiosity grew.

And then of course a couple of friends told me to watch it. So I spent a couple of weeks getting hold of all 37 episodes of the anime, and sat down to watch them (in-between other stuff).

Synopsis

It’s quite difficult to write a real synopsis of the anime as a whole, but it revolves around the eponymous “Death Note”, a notebook that grants its owner the power to kill anyone whose name they write on its pages while having that person’s face clear in their mind. It is found by a college student called Light who, being incredibly bright and therefore a bit bored, and also being disgusted by the evil and violence he sees in the world, decides to test the notebook to see if it is true. Upon finding that it does indeed do what it says on the tin, he then devises a way to cleanse the world through Justice and, throughout the first few episodes, becomes “Kira” — from the English word “killer”.

Soon the police begin working with a famous detective called L to thwart Kira/Light’s plans, and indeed a game of intellectual cat-and-mouse begins.

Thoughts

I like programmes that make me think. Especially ones that involve some kind of moral or philosophical debate. My already confessed love for Tru Calling and, to a certain extent, the original design philosophy for Andromeda is to do with this. Any kind of musing on the extent of human good and evil, or cosmic balance, interests me. It’s a theme I draw upon in my own writing, though it’ll take a couple of novels before you start to see just what’s going on there.

Death Note is a prime example of the kind of thinking/debating I like to see explored. While, in my opinion, the end of the series seems a little bit rushed and not quite as well-thought-out as the initial 20 odd episodes, there is nevertheless not a single episode I didn’t enjoy.

(I also must admit I didn’t like the change in intro/ending music that happened halfway through the run, but I skipped through that most of the time anyways.)

Really it isn’t the actual end of the series that I have an issue with. The actual story, though a little rushed (I understand that a large chunk of the original manga was condensed for the second arc of the anime, while the first arc was played out in full) was pulled off well. It was the actual characters themselves that lost a bit of credibility: especially Light himself. He went from being a meticulous genius to an almost dull, impetuous youth. Now I can see that this might have been designed to show a descent into arrogant madness, but for me it didn’t work. Light spent the last few episodes doing nothing but waiting for Near to do something.

Yeah, the more I think about it, the more the second half — the last 15 episodes or so — bug me. It was all about proving stuff we, the viewer, already knew, rather than foil and counter-foil as the Light/L storyline had been.

I must admit, I did find myself quite involved with certain aspects of the characters in the second half though. When Light kills Kiyomi Takada, the girl whom he says he wants to make a goddess of his new world, I actually said out loud “You bastard!”

With Misa, I was never entirely certain she was going to be anything except a puppet for him. With Takada, I actually believed that Light had found someone whom he would treat as an intellectual and romantic equal. This made her death a much more shocking revelation of Light’s depravity.

I suppose it’s the romantic in me that wants to find out more about Misa’s feelings after Light’s defeat too. While I felt the final moments of the series were given the time needed to satisfy the audience and absorb Light’s defeat and descent into madness, Misa looking out over the city could have worked better with some kind of final monologue from her.

Review

So, on to an actual review. Death Note is, in my opinion, a must see for any fan of anime that doesn’t just watch it for the crazy action scenes. There aren’t many in Death Note. While there are a couple of short physical exchanges between Light and L, there’s no super high jumping or lightning bolts being thrown around. It is all very grounded in realistic actions, as befitting a show whose main way of entertaining is getting the audience to think. It is character driven, not action driven.

The version I watched was a fansub, and as such had — at several points — fairly dodgy English subtitles. I don’t know what the actual English dubbing is like, but the original Japanese voices are very expressive.

The animation is fluid and very well done. The use of lights and darks, shadows, and saturated colour schemes in character’s internal monologues really adds to the design/look of the series. You KNOW when Light is being Kira, or when L’s brain is working overtime. It’s revealed not just in their words, but in their stylised character designs on screen.

One of the series’ strengths — apart from the new intro/credits music introduced halfway through — is the music. The score is very strong, poignant, and reflects the action on screen well. I must admit I can’t help but compare L’s theme to the theme for The Exorcist, but that maybe only adds to the character for me.

So over all, I give the series an 8.5/10.

The Show's The Thing...

2008-05-22T00:04:00.002Z

I don’t watch television. Well known “fact”. It’s what I tell all the kids at school whenever they ask.

But as with many things about me, it’s a half-truth. Because in actual fact, I do watch television programmes. I just rarely watch them a) when they air; and b) on tv.

This week is always a fairly important week for me in terms of television. It’s the finale week for most American shows, which I normally download from t’internet and watch a day or so after they’ve aired.

Two shows that finished their seasons this week have kept me utterly hooked for the entire season, and last season to boot. While many will completely disagree with me over Smallville being compelling viewing, almost everyone I know who watches House loves it. As well as these two, I’m also watching season 4 of Battlestar Galactica, season 4 of Doctor Who and, sadly, season 2 of the BBC’s Robin Hood. Oh, and the anime Death Note as well.

Smallville

Smallville as a show has always fascinated me. In a good half of the episodes, the plots are so utterly preposterous and mashed together that I can’t help but wonder why I even bother. And then the overall story arch pulls me back. Season 7 saw some of the biggest changes to the Superman mythos. The introduction of Kara Kent — aka Supergirl — could have worked really well. And yet she was horribly underused. The stuff with Braniac and Bizarro, so promising at the start of the series, flopped quickly, and while James Marsters put on his usual brilliant performance as a not-quite-Spike-from-Buffy character, his material and shining moments were too few and far between.

When I heard that Michael Rosenbaum (Lex Luthor) was “leaving” the show for season 8, and that Kirsten Kreuk (Lana Lang) was also leaving, I had mixed feelings. I’m glad that Lana has left. The whole Lana/Clark love dynamic was stretched so so thin over the last couple of seasons, and there was nothing fresh to inject into it anymore. I think it is good that the writers have realised this, and written her out in a fairly poignant goodbye that saw some excellent acting by Kreuk — and a surprising amount of emotion from Tom Welling’s normally stoic Clark Kent. Lana was right: she has been holding Clark — and the writers — back for too long; and it was nice to see a touching moment with Lois and Clark near the end of the episode.

I hear that Rosenbaum will be back in a few episodes in season 8, which is almost a necessity considering how season 7 finishes. The Fortress of Solitude crashing down on both an enlightened Lex and an incapacitated Clark was a fairly dodgy special effect to be honest, but it was a good episode to end the creative inputs of Miller and Gough, the guys responsible for the last 7 seasons. All the storylines, the threads, are relatively nicely tied up now. And yes, you may be able to tell from my tone that I believe another season might be pushing it a bit. But likewise, there’s something irritatingly compelling about this bad-is-good show that will leave me unsatisfied.

I remember reading somewhere that Miller and Gough stated explicitly that Clark Kent would never fly while they were in charge. That lapsed a bit when CK became Kal’El back at the start of…was it season 6?... but I really hope that changes now. Far too many stories are based on the idea that Clark Kent can’t fly, thus drawing the episode out rather than quickening the pace, and some of the travelling sequences are now just getting tedious.

Over all, yes I am glad Smallville has been renewed for another season. Less Lex and no Lana should hopefully make for a fresh breath of life into the series, and god I hope there’s some better quality writing now that the mushy Clark/Lana stuff is out of the way. Sadly, the season 8 premiere will probably deal with the events of 7’s season finale all too quickly and then we’ll be back to normal. It’d be nice, just for once, for the season to start well and pick up pace, rather than slump in the middle. Here’s hoping!

House M.D.

House is probably one of my favourite shows, and favourite characters, of any show ever. He’s acerbic, he’s cynical, he’s manipulative, he’s devious, and he’s incredibly charismatic. All phrases that I hope someone ascribes to me some day. Season Four of the eponymous medical drama has been consistently excellent television, though I’m reliably informed that the medicine isn’t going to win any awards for its logic and consistency. Almost every episode has me either in stitches or crying, and this can only be a good thing.

While I admit I could just watch the series for Hugh Laurie alone, I’m happy to report that the quality of ladies on the show also influences my decisions. Lisa Edelstein as Cuddy is still an excellent casting choice (and looker) despite her reduced part in season 4 due to the sheer number of cast members. Likewise, Jennifer Morrison’s Dr. Cameron is still infinitely fanciable. Wish the addition of the very sexy Olivia Wilde as the quite-possibly-bisexual “Thirteen” I found myself actually distracted from the plot at various points, which I never expected in this show. :D

The two-part finale of s4, cut short like most programmes due to the Writers’ Guild strike a couple of months ago, was quite frankly one of the best episodes of any TV show I’ve watched in a long time. The only memorable comparisons are the emotional impact at the end of Buffy the Vampire Slayer series 5, when Buffy dies; and the storytelling impact end of Tru Calling series 1, where we find out a lot about the nature of her abilities and the balance of power (and damn if I’m not still bitter at that show being cancelled partway into season 2!!)

I’m not going to spoil the events at the end of this one, because — unlike Smallville — I truly believe that everyone I know who actually reads this blog should watch House. Yes I know I’m horrendously biased, but chances are if you know me at all, you should be used to the type of person I am, the type of wit I like, and thus the type of entertainment you’ll find on House M.D.

Other Television

I’ll admit it. I don’t like Catherine Tate particularly. When I heard she was due to return as Donna Noble for season 4 of Doctor Who I was initially petrified. But I have to hand it to her: while the series has been a bit flat in places (I actually didn’t enjoy the Agatha Christie episode, sorry guys!), she has surprised me in terms of her acting ability. I’m really hoping the season is working up to something though, because while with the last three series there has been some link, some tie to hint towards the greater end, I will admit now that I don’t think I’ve noticed any such clue this season — unless it’s the bees thing! There, I’ve written it down. Hopefully I won’t try and retcon this in a later blog when something glaringly obvious has been revealed towards the end of the series. ~_~;;

Battlestar Galactica series 4 continue to go from strength to strength as far as I’m concerned. It’s a show that knows its concluding season, and this is great from a storytelling point of view. A few American reviewers have criticised the show for too much talking. To these I point them towards the nearest Deep Space 9 dvd collection to show them what a show that really does too much talking is like!! The dynamic between the characters is tight. The plots and storytelling are compelling. The acting is excellent across the board. And who know Alessandro Juliani had such a good singing voice! Well, decent anyways. Better than me! >_>

I’m not going to talk about Robin Hood. I was enjoying watching season 2 to a point, but then I heard that they killed off the one character that I watched the show for at the end of the season, and that kinda ruined everything for me so I haven’t watched it further. I’ll get round to it. Eventually.

And finally, Death Note. I don’t watch a huge amount of anime. For a reason: a lot of it is grounded in the same kind of styling and approach that I’m taking for my novel. Or rather, my novel is based loosely on anime sensibilities (I think it’ll make a good anime or live action/CGI film actually). And thus I don’t watch much because I think I’ll taint my ideas or try to alter them to fit what has already been proven to work. Death Note seems light years away from my story though, and I’ve been dying to see it, so I’m slowly working my way through it. I’m not very far, simply due to games and other tv and life, but I’m convinced that its one of the better anime series I’ve seen.

I’ll do a more indepth review on these series when they are finished. And yes, I know I promised a review of some books a few blogs back too. They’re on the cards!

~J

On the subject of peaks...

2008-05-20T00:00:00.000Z

Yeah I know it’s late. I’ve been busy. Took me a while to decide on a topic for this blog, and then things kinda fell together based on recent experiences and decisions I’ve made. Sounds a bit profound really, but I doubt you’ll be thinking that at the end of the blog :P

For the last, well, couple of years really, I’ve tried to get into games that weren’t Final Fantasy XI: Online or World of Warcraft. I tried Guild Wars, but despite how lush it is to look at, it couldn’t hold my attention due to a shoddy (in my opinion) combat system. I tried Lord of the Rings: Online, but again, while it was very pretty (especially on decent machine) it wasn’t anything I hadn’t seen in WoW — though I admit, emotes for /smoke and the player music system were kinda cool. Again, it couldn’t hold my attention.

I used to pour hours of my life into FFXI, and still do on WoW, but there is only so often you can complete the same daily quest or spend looking for a group for an instance/party. I used to spend my WoW time while waiting for instances exploring the world of Azeroth and Outland, flying or riding literally to every corner of the map to see what I could see, often risking drowning or an incredibly long and tedious journey back. Sometimes that peninsula at the bottom of the map held secret places full of creatures you wouldn’t otherwise have seen. Other times it was a dead end where no one was expected to really go. Either way, there was always something to see.

Until, y’know, I ran out of things to see.

I’ve always liked game graphics. I’m an artist, and I’m really into character and architecture/landscape design for these kinds of things. I get annoyed when I read forum posts for WoW where people moan that there isn’t enough individuality, or this, that, or the other is just a recolour of some other model. Rather than focusing specifically on stats and epics and individuality, people should take a look around them at overall scope and design of the world their imaginary characters inhabit. Yeah, we all like to be individual. We like to look cool. And yes, sometimes Blizzard’s item set designers go for the supposedly “lazy” route and do recolour sets. So what!? You don’t HAVE to get those items you don’t like the look of. If you want it so that you’ve got the best equipment, then you’re doing it for the stats surely?

One thing that appeals to me about the Korean “grind-fest” MMOs is that, much like Guild Wars, your character class really dictates the outfits you wear. There is a very stylish approach to equipment — it’s pretty much all cosmetic — which is completely different to how WoW does it. Even in FFXI, there has been a real drive over the last 2 expansions to enable players to collect stylistically cohesive sets of equipment: starting with Artefact armour and Race-Specific-Equipment, and branching out to new sets for Assault, Conquest, whatever (I’m a bit out of touch these days). Getting one’s final piece of AF at lv.60 and being able to wear the full set was a gratifying experience, even if the set didn’t always suit your character model very well. Spence’s Elvaan warrior looked very, very daft, for example.

I’ve been looking at a lot of concept art for games such as Lineage II and Rappelz lately, and there are some very distinctive things about their style. Their character designs are obviously more Eastern in appearance, but there is a certain western sensibility about the outfits and architecture in places — slowly the cultural reservations over clothing are being broken down by Westernised notions that yes, sex sells.

I downloaded Rappelz and had a quick bash to see what it was like, and it was less the game and more certain aspects of animation and character design that struck me.

Namely, that the female characters are all remarkably well endowed.

This brings me on to the first of two observations related to this month’s hot new MMO: Age of Conan. It is receiving a lot of hype, especially by less mature people, about how it is the new WoW-beater and would improve on everything that WoW does. I’ll probably discuss this in a later blog as I discover more similarities between the two games, but today I’m focusing on characters and visuals.

I was messing around with the character creation options yesterday afternoon, and try as I might, I simply couldn’t create a female avatar who looked…well…normal? Don’t get me wrong, I’m really impressed with the customisation options in AoC, but if I’m going to create an Assassin character, I just have issues with said character having *huge* pendulous breasts. Sure from what I’ve seen on the other characters I have, said breasts are animated very well, and seem to move quite naturally — unlike the over-inflated balloons in games such as Dead or Alive or Rappelz (where individual breasts seem to be bigger than characters’ heads) but I’d expect more control. Yes, there *is* a Breast Slider as well as a Chest Slider. So you can have smaller breasts on a wide torso, or vice versa, but my point still stands. Compare these 3 extreme “defaulted” body types:

I’ve almost always painted fantasy women with large breasts, simply due to my perception that this is a convention of the genre — but it is a perception that I’ve spent much of the last year breaking out from. There’s at least one girl I’m very fond of who can prove to me that women can look sexy, enticing, and alluring without having two water melons bouncing around in their bras.

So yes, while I applaud Funcom for their customisation options in AoC (there really is a LOT you can do to individualise your avatar) I wish it broke the fantasy mould a little further. The characters truly are beautiful works of art (I’ll illustrate when I can), with fairly slick animations, but the female avatars do seem to adhere too much to the teenage boy syndrome of “bigger boobs are better” — no offense intended to people who don’t share my particular lack of enthusiasm about large breasts: I recognise that this is individual taste.

Compare these screenshots for a taste of what I mean:

So that’s my rant about boobs over.

I want to end up with some pictures of peaks of a different kind. Going back to things I like to do and see: I like landscapes and sweeping scenery, vistas in my games. This was one thing LotRo did very well. The landscapes were very pretty if your machine could handle it. AoC does extremely well too. The land that it paints is dark, dismal, with Pict and Vanir bodies dismembered and hung up on pikes, people hanging from rafter beams in forgotten city alleyways, ground splattered with blood.

But it also has views like these taken from the top of a mountain. At the bottom of the mountain the Vanir (Viking-types) have set up camp, hiding in trees and rude tents. As I went up the mountain the scenery changed and you could almost *feel* the air getting fresher and brighter. Pity about the cobwebs and spiders that lurked here. *shudder*

And then as I went even further up, the ground started icing over and I suddenly got to appreciate just how much effort had been put in as the textures blended together, the footstep sounds turned to that lovely crunching sound of walking on crisp snow, and the view turned out like this. Couldn’t help myself. Had to take a couple of screenshots.

I don’t know what the same view would look like on a lesser rig (and remember, mine isn’t anything hugely special!) though I imagine that there would be a fair amount of fogging at a lesser draw distance, but either way I was impressed with my view from this mountain.

Life in General

As for life, my back is getting better now. Not much twitching unless I’m teaching, when it does tend to get a bit strained. Doing this coming Friday at Pensnett which should be easy enough, though it IS the last day of the half term so I shouldn’t get my hopes up too much I don’t think. Then in the evening we’re off into Wolverhampton to see the new Indiana Jones movie, which I’m hoping will be excellent. Someone has suggested that we go in fancy dress as characters/archetypes from the movies. If only I had the money to accessorise!! Still, I shall go as some Marcus Brody-type bumbling academic and hope that it passes as fancy dress more than “don’t you wear that to work anyways?!” >_>

-Blog Ends-