So a couple of weeks ago now I made the long journey (never take a train on Sundays) back up to Durham. Walking through town and getting back to House 3 it was as if I'd never left. Of course, Matt was out so I had to wander around in the rain for a bit but eventually I found him and got the spare key. I wandered into the bar and everything was the same - same bar staff, same students (strangely, there were hardly any 1st years around) so I sat with a couple of 4th years and caught up on what had been happening.
Over the next week I finished off my thesis, printed and bound it (a lot more fidley than it sounds. Nothing is more frustrating than having to reprint 25 pages cos there's a dash missing in the header), had a meeting with a prospective employer, went out to lunch with the girls from my group and of course, the weeks big event: Blondie's viva. He passed and is now Dr Matt Cartwright subject to completing his corrections. This of course meant that a large night out with the chemists was in the offing leading us from the New Inn to the union, Varsity, Jimmy Alan's and finally Klute.
By Friday the effect of living amongst a new generation of freshers and their dirty germs had hit me and my head felt like it was going to implode. That night was the group Christmas meal and I had managed to get myself invited.
We went across to the New Inn at 5 to start the drinking before heading to Bella Italia. Kara ended up sitting opposite Martin who is infamous for ordering lots of wine, only having a glass himself and dishing out the rest to those around him. About 10 minutes in and she was hammered. As it was an evening meal, only 4 of us made it to the pub afterwards and pretty soon we were down to me, Kara and the 4th year Laura who stayed the course until chucking out time. After two months of not drinking, two nights in a row was surprisingly doable. On the way home I chatted to Laura about the group and she told me that the group had been pretty dull until they heard I was coming back at which point they started discussing going out for lunch and to the pub. Maybe I did leave a mark and they didn't just think I was dickhead alcoholic.
Over the weekend I just chilled out with the chemists around Durham and heard about Alan's plan to get a Bengal leopard cat - even when he's settled down, he just can't be normal. Finally on Monday I submitted my thesis and headed home. I didn't have a camera on me, so the only evidence of my thesis is this really bad camera phone shot (I really need a new phone - possibly one of those N73s with 3MP Carl Zeiss lens...).
Most upsettingly I had to give back my laptop. Now this has been pissing me off for a while now. It was taking longer and longer to boot up, it no longer went into standby when you shut the lid, it occasionally couldn't find my wifi network even right next to the aerial and had the occasional issue with Endnote, but it was mine: it even made the trip to Japan with me in May meaning it's more well-travelled than half the group.
Being back in Durham was like a second nature and with all the chemists it felt like nothing had changed. However, Trevs seemed a little bit deserted. I realise that it's the people that make it special. Last year was bad enough with a load of people I didn't know, but now I'm pretty much left knowing only postgrads and 4th years amongst some token 3rd years from my bar days. Next year it could well just be the physicists that I know. It'll be the same with chemists - almost all of my friends are now 3rd years and will leave in September. Time to move on. Ironically, I could spend the next few years in the same area, but more on that later.
Also, being at Trevs but living out of a bag was very weird. For the last three years I've lived full time at Trevs, but I guess my permanent address was still in Bromsgrove along with a load of my stuff. Next year I'm going to have to face the complete move to a new permanent address. Scary.
After extolling the virtues of the personalised internet radio station Pandora, I've discovered the next step: Pandora's Box. The main failing for me of Pandora is that you need to keep a separate window or tab open to keep it going and it's al too easy to accidentally close it or find it getting in the way. Pandora's box simply opens a dedicated window that can be minimised to and controlled from the system tray. It works a treat and even better: it's free!
Beyond the sight of Christmas trees starting to spring up in October, there is one easy way to feel the approach of the festive season: adverts. Thankfully, for the last 7 years I've been away during this silly season and have hardly watched any television at all, but this year I've seen it all. Last summer I set about the job of copying all our old VCR tapes to DVD and the most enjoyable part of this was seeing all the old adverts from the 80s. They really knew how to make them back then - no celebrities, bad hairstyles and simple premises. I have to say that my family are an advertiser's worst nightmare - my father doesn't understand any of the ads, my mother remembers them, but can't remember what brand they're for and I just mercilessly pick holes in them. Take the modern advert for the Vauxhaul Astra with all the cars flying all over the place - did anyone actually stop and think "this looks absolutely ridiculous!"? There's a bit in it where a chain of CGI Astras perform various choreographed manoeuvre's. Unfortunately it looks about as realistic as a Japanese Elvis. Saab on the, other hand, actually did this in real-life back in the 80s as shown below:
It's almost as if advertisers can't be bothered any more and just give their CGI people a free reign. But of course when it comes to Christmas we get the big promotional adverts. First up is the unfortunate case of Sony's PSP adverts. Sony clearly booked a lot of slots in the belief that they'd be pushing the new PS3 for all it's worth. The PS3 won't be with us for at least 3 months so Sony have had to push their PSP: after all it's being slaughtered by the Nintendo DS both here and abroad. Unfortunately they have come up with the most annoying characters known to man (the dustballs). If you haven't yet seen them (Sony have booked a LOT of slots) then play the video below.
Of course the one thing that never fails to appear ad-infinitum around this time of year are those tossing fragrance adverts - you know the ones: get various celebrities to ponce around and deliver a catchphrase that has nothing to do with the scent at all. To be fair, it must be a challenge to sell something that is entirely based on smell via a medium that's solely interpreted by the visual and aural senses, but why do they keep showing the same ads year on year? That "I see a man; it's chance. Take it!" gets me so angry and the one with the guy running across the bollards in time with the waves has me secretly hoping he falls and gets a large bit of concrete trying to insert itself into his crotch. And to finish, they're still wheeling out that Baz Luhrman/Nicole Kidman Chanel one that cost $45m to make. Apparently in the cinema it still carries credits at the end. What always amazes me is people fall for it. Of course, if people knew that behind the fancy names like Brut, Fabergé and the like were actually companies such as Proctor and Gamble or Unilever and that the scents were designed in massive chemical factories on the New Jersey turnpike they may not be so will to splash out £50 upwards on 50 ml of organic solution.
It's not 100% bad though. I'll finish on a positive (before all those sofa/kitchen sale adverts start next week) with two adverts that I actually like. The first is another Vauxhal advert. It's the ones for the Astra/Corsa with the muppet-like characters that simply say "C'Mon!" At first it bugges the crap out of me, but I and severa others have grown to love them - especially the really gruff one who mutters things under his breath before shouting the obligatory line. Sean Paul actually suits the soundtrack (I never thought I'd say that) so have a glance below.
Secondly is the 2006 Debenhams Christmas advert. The whole theme is a modern take of Father Christmas - instead of being a fat man with a long white beard in the traditional red suit, he's portraid as a young, slim man with a grey goatee and sharp red suit who body pops his way through his "grotto" (read: stylish house) before setting out on Cristmas Eve not on a reindeer pulled sleigh, but a flying snowmobile. It's not on YouTube yet, but if for some reason you haven't seen it you can do so here and the music (a modern version of Santa Baby) can be downloaded from the same page. In a world of dull, uninspired, cynical adverts, it's nice to know at least some companies are coming up with innovative adverts. Oh, and if you're ever left wondering what the music used in adverts was, try this site.
My last haircut was at the start of August. When it's just been cut it's too short and when it gets longer it gaves wavy and just looks like a mess. In fact when I got back to Durham I was told by at least 3 people how bad it looked.
From this...
to this...
There's always one day when I catch a glance in the mirror and actually think my hair looks good short and then the next day it's back to being bad. The same thing happens when it gets slightly longer.
I'm not one to advertise upcoming films on here, but I have to mention Hot Fuzz. Brought to us by the team behind Shaun of the Dead, this promises to send up buddy cop films in the same way Shaun... sent up the Zombie genre. The full trailer has just been released and is available to view here. Go now ModemMan!
It's official: being at home sucks. Over the PhD years I've become adept at being self sufficient. Cooking, shopping, cleaning, managing my time. Now I've been home for 6 weeks and I don't know where the time is going - it's too easy to just sit back and let my parents go about their business. Finally last week I met up with some friends: firstly some chemists who were attending an RSC event at Birmingham and then I went down to London to see Matt and Mel.
After getting over the ridiculously low train fare (£9.90 for a return) I quickly remembered how expensive the tube is. I met up with Matt at Waterloo and we wandered along the south bank taking in the sights (including someone trying to rob one of the living statues). We were supposed to go to an anime festival, but we arrived to find it had closed. A day early. Sounds like it hadn't been so successful which is a shame.
Despite having the world's cuisine available to us we settled on Wetherspoon's beer and burger offer for lunch. There were a lot of people waiting around in Leicester Square when we went in and as we ate vans turned up and began constructing barriers. It dawned on us that it was the Bond première that night. By the time we left, most of the square had been cordoned off. We wandered of through Soho and China town before finding a quiet, cheap pub just off Picadilly Circus. Finally we went to Covent Garden to meet Mel where we were flyered with coupons offering us free drinks at a new bar. It looked pretty dodgy from the outside, but once we went in it turned out to be an American diner theme bar. And the place was full of people claiming their free drinks and then leaving. Of course we did the same - who says you don't get anything for free.
After meeting Mel we ate at Wagamama and went back to their house in Wimbledon.
The next day was spent exploring Wimbledon although for some reason we didn't go to the tennis club. Strange.
Thursday brought about a trip to the Tate Modern. After crossing the infamous Millennium Bridge (very slippery) we entered and were greeted by the giant slides of "Test site". They can say what they want about art, but this exhibit is essentially a giant helter skelter. After the sheer naffness of the exhibition I saw at the Baltic Gallery in Newcastle last year I wasn't expecting anything special. Thankfully most of the displays were pretty good (barring some bizarre audio/visual affairs). We trogged up to the 7th floor cafe (by foot - not a good idea) and sat enjoying the view across to St Paul's on the north bank.
We went downstairs to met Mozza who's just got back from two months in Australia. We found a pub in the city and settled down into the comfy leather chairs. Within the hour the place was rammed with lawyers, bankers and other assorted yuppies.
The next day, we'd agreed to meet up with Mozza at Borough Market. However, 6 or 7 pints after 6 weeks of sobriety lead to the inevitable late-start. My friend Jim lives in Borough, but I'd never been to the market. It's absolutely amazing. Wandering round there was so much variety of food on offer - from exotic cheeses, Guinness sausages, venison burgers through to teas from around the world and even shark heads.
Finally it was time to head home and once again I made the near-fatal mistake of deciding to walk up the stairs in Marylebone. The Bakerloo line is one of the deeper ones and half way up I lost feeling in my legs.
Sony...Since my rant, the battery recall has escalated. In addition Sony have been forced to cut the launch price of the PS3 in Japan. This has meant Sony's predicted profits have been cut by 53%! Income is down an amazing 94%! This is before any other manufacturers claim compensation. In addition their BluRay player has been further delayed until December, and yesterday they successfully managed to close down one of the most popular importing companies down. Despite the company in question being based in Hong Kong (so technically they aren't importing - simply selling products to people abroad) it was ruled that they were breaking the law. In revenge, they have published a list of Sony executives who imported PSPs from them last year before their UK launch. Sony's statement after the result of the case included the phrase "Ultimately, we're trying to protect consumers from being sold hardware that does not conform to strict EU or UK consumer safety standards, due to voltage supply differences et cetera". Odd because PSPs carry CE approved power supplies from Sony that can be used all over the world. Of course, the way their laptop batteries have been going maybe there are some safety issues.
Ghibli...Reviews of their August film Gedo Senki (Tales of Earthsea) haven't been positive at all. Hasn't put me off wanting to see it though. Could be a while though as it can't be released in the US (who will produce the English dub) until 2009. In related news, Film4 has been showing further Ghibli films including the fantastic, magical Whisper of the Heart complete with its original Japanese dub.
Home...It's been over three weeks now. I'm worryingly used to it by now - it's worrying because I love being self sufficient - the cooking, shopping and cleaning but once you've spent a few weeks living with your parents again you get used to be lazy again. Thesis-wise I'm nearly done - I'm waiting on my supervisor getting back to me on the two chapters I sent him. My pet project is helping my parents tidy the house. It's absolutely unbelievable - after getting so much shit for having an untidy room when I was younger, it's amazing to look at the house. There are piles of papers everywhere, business cards from the 80s, years worth of Tesco points statements and catalogues. They are complete hoarders (getting them to buy a new kettle after finding the current one had lost most of its inside coating and sported a green filament was very hard) but I'll beat it out of them.
It's been over a week now and so far I've just about managed to get my stuff sorted out. I've even managed to do a bit of work, but that starts properly tomorrow. In my prior post I mentioned the lack of decent TV. In fact, since I started my PhD I've actively avoided watching new programs - the OC, Lost, One Tree Hill, Invasion - I've managed to avoid getting hooked. I've stuck to Scrubs, Family Guy and 24; and I download those. What I have realised is that there is some stuff that I watch over and over. Thanks to C4, E4 and abc1 I've found myself watching a heavy dose of Scrubs and Friends. They are waht I class as comfort TV - things I've seen so many times before, but feel safe watching again.
E4 show 2 Friends episodes a day and get through a series every 12 days (that means they show the whole thing about 2 and a half times a year). The jokes are memorable and its still funny even after all these years. At the moment we've just got to the start of season 3 which is probably the best. To my delight it was favourite episode; "The one where no one's ready" which is very cunningly a real-time episode based around Ross' attempts to get his friends ready to attend a dinner function at the museum with the whole episode (apart from the epilogue) set in Monica's apartment. It's also the episode most quoted by my friends and I at university - chair stealers are greeted with "In the words of A. A. Milne, get out of my chair dilhole!" or "Right, give me your underwear" whilst the stealer normally replied with "you went to Spain" and cries of "drink the fat" were not uncommon. Friends is the ultimate feel-good program, the ups and down's of the characters lives are mainly played for laughs. Even though, there are some major story developments, they are all pretty cheesey with the exception of the first Ross and Rachel breakup in season 3's "The one the morning after" where the comedy is very much downplayed in the second half of the episode. These two episodes explain why season 3 is probably my favourite.
Scrubs has gained in popularity over the last few years. I started watching from the start and feel quite proud of it. The humour is very different from Friends and the best episodes are often very bittersweet. From the very first episode the young doctors are forced to deal with death, but it's the forth episode, my old lady that really shows how uplifting the episodes can be - at the start the 3 new doctors are each introduced their new patient as the narration informs us that on average 1 in 3 patients dies. There's an awful moment about 2/3 of the way through the show where you realise all the patients will die, but somehow the fact that all the doctors take something from the day fills you with hope. Inspirational use of music (as frequently mentioned before) often elevates episodes to classic standard; my philosophy features the cast performing a Colin Hay song, my sex buddy finishes with Del Amitri's "Tell her this" as JD struggles to open up to Elliot. my screw up is frequently referenced as the best Scrubs episode due to the Sixth Sense-esque plot and recent episodes such as my cabbage and my lunch in which the previously infalable Dr Cox has his confidence shaken.
Friends has now finished so we are left with 10 seasons and perpetual rumours of one-off specials and Scrubs enters its 6th and possibly last season in January (Zach Braff has stated he wants to concentrate on films). Infinitely rewatchable, comforting and it's always far too easy to watch them again thanks to their heavy rotation of the Freeview channels than it is to do work on my thesis, get back to learning Japanese, look for jobs or do any of the things that seem like hard work.
Throughout the last year I've finally started going on nights out with chemists. The best nights have always stemmed from very innocuous beginnings such as chemSoc lectures or poster presentations. These inevitably lead to the realisation that it's 10pm, we've been drinking for 5 hours and not yet eaten anything. These always go on to be fantastic nights. On Thursday, Blondie and I organised another night out to celebrate the end of our time in Durham. Comprising our friends from Trevs who were still around and as many of the chemists as we could muster. Starting out in the New Inn we moved on through The Court Inn, perenial favourite the Swan and 3 before the survivors moved onto Chase and finally Walkabout.
The New Inn and the Swan and 3 have been favourites since our undergrad days whilst Chase has become our favourite post-11pm haunt over the year. My "Vote for Pedro" tshirt even attracted some attention. This is where things went to the dark side with the cheap double vodka and fake Red Bulls. How many of these we actually got through I don't think anyone knows. Thankfully, we didn't get onto the cocktails or Jagermeister like normal. What was very sad is how Blondie's group and other chemists made a big deal about him leaving including cakes and cards, where as my group couldn't have cared less that I was leaving. I've always felt on the fringe this past year (and before) - I sway wildly between feeling accepted and as an outsider and I've finished mostly on the fence between the 2.
The next day the vokda-fake Red Bulls had their revenge as I woke up a 6.30 and couldn't get back to sleep. Eventually I got up at 7.30 and wondered downstairs to be greeted by alan dancing around in his pants. I've seen it before, but this is likely to be the last time we are all so carefree.
It's been a very trying year - possibly the hardest year I've had to deal with - but it's nights out like these that have probably kept me sane in the face of a great deal of stress.
It's finally over. After seven years my time at Trevs has officially ended. I woke up in my room on Wesnesday, as it has been for the last 15 months. Everything seemed normal. By the end of that day I had started packing away my stuff - even though I've lived in the house's smallest room I've still got 3 years worth of accumulated crap. The big things like books, folders and DVDs packed away easily, but it was the small things that really made the room my own. Whether it be the notes left on my door, my "junior server of the year" tankard or even things like my fast fret jar that's now a pen holder, these were the things that I noticed every day and made it my room. Indeed, when I woke up on Thursday it was only my pictures and posters on the walls that still made it my room. As I packed these away, the room reverted back to being a college room. The subtle difference in how sounds reverberated was a reminder of its emptyness.
Thursday evening brought about our leaving do. An assortment of chemists and Trevs students gathered at the New Inn at 5.30 to celebrate the passing of myself and Blondie which you can read more about in the last post or next post - I'm not really sure what's happening.
Unfortunately, all the cheap vodka-red bulls took their toll as I woke up at 6.30 and couldn't get back to sleep. Blondie and I walked down to the department for the last time. I finished off cleaning out my desk and lab space and handed back my lab keys (although the £75 deposit refund looks like it will be mostly swallowed by the chrge for continuation). Eventually Matt had handed in his thesis and I had handed in my thesis title.
We said goodbye to Matt and dropped off our House 3 keys before getting a taxi to the station for our respective trains south. Blondie and I met on our first day in Durham and now 6 years, 362 days later here we were on our last day in Durham getting trains 20 minutes apart. Our friend Emma had accompanied us so we all said our goodbyes and caught our trains. It was nice to be seen off as it meant we didn't just annonymously leave Durham by ourselves.
I've been at home for a couple of days now and it's exactly like I thought it would be - I feel like I'm going back to Durham soon and I can't get used to the fact that I don't have to do anymore practical work for my PhD. Hopefully I get most of it written in the next few weeks and begin the fine tuning for the week after for a submission in late October. I decorated my bedroom just before my PhD so it really doesn't feel like my room at all anymore. In many ways "my room" is gone for ever.
I'm already bored and I hate television. I'd be quite happy to never watch it again. Desite Freeview having nearly 40 channels, there's either nothing on or they schedule 3 decent films at the same time. In my first 12 hours here I saw a load of adverts for the first time and now I'm fed up to the back teeth with them. The fact that my parents seem happy to witter away the nights watching ITV3 is almost unbearable. The good thing is it's made me even more anxious to get finished up and find a job so I can move out. I finally feel like I can be self sufficient, but I'm probably just kidding myself.
EDIT - In honour of having this rant made a Blog of the Day I've gone through and fixed some mistakes and added more links. Enjoy!
Well, it seems like the rants have been flowing over the past few weeks. Here's one I've been thinking about for ages. Back in the day, Sony used to be a company that charged a premium for it's products, but they were good quality and if you wanted the best (without going upto super expensive brands) Sony was what you'd go for. In addition, Sony had a hand in bringing a lot of everyday technologies to market. Sony in fact became a world-wide brand on the back of transister radios that were shipped to the US and Europe in the 50s. Sony had a hand in the invention of the CD, 3.5" floppy disc and of course, the walkman.
Of course, success tends to breed arrogance and even back in the 80s this was seen in the form of the betamax vs vhs battle. Sony developed the technically superior betamax system but was so keen to keep the technology to itself (which lead to higher prices) that the public took vhs as the better option. As JVC allowed the vhs technology to be licenced, most electronics companies produced vhs machines rather than expensive betamax systems. The market flooded with cheaper vhs players and tapes. Sony had tried to push a proprietry format onto the consumer and failed. This legacy may soon be repeated, but more on that later.
In the 90s, Sony released 2 formats which should now be dominant in the world. The first was the minidisc. Released in 1992 as a digital upgrade to the cassette. It featured all the benefits of CDs (no quality loss, instant track skips and content information can be stored) with the flexibility of recorable tapes. In fact, once you had recorded them, you could split tracks, reorganise the running order and combine tracks. Unfortunately, Sony once again decided to try and keep the market for itself, so for the first few years the only recorders you could buy were Sony ones. And, holding a monopoly lead to high prices. As minidiscs started to wane, Sony finally lowered it's licencing fees and recorders from other companies began to appear and drive down prices. Unfortunately, pre recorded MDs died pretty soon after - CD players had become ubiquitous and most of the time a CD of an album and a blank MD cost less than the MD album and could be played in more places. It didn't help that it was only Sony Music artists that had their albums released on MD. Ironically, it was at this point that the original idea for MD took off. Amateur bands started embracing MD as a recording medium and blank disc sales took off. In Japan, MDs are only now being overhauled by MP3 players so on a trip around Akihabara in May it was quite surprising to see MD recorders still comanding prices of over £100 whilst more advanced devices fail to reach even £50 on eBay in the UK.
The second format is Super Audio CD. Introduced in 1999, it had the potential to replace CDs, offering superior sound quality compared to CDs and its equally unsuccessful rival, DVD-Audio. Releases can be made a hybrid discs that feature the SACD data held on a layer below a regular CD layer, allowing playback of the standard CD version in a CD player, but also allows the high quality mix to be played back on SACD players. This would seem to be the ideal situation as it would allow you to build your SACD collection wihout sacrificing the ability to play the albums on standard CD players. Unfortunately, Sony once again seem to be imposing a licence fee that puts off most labels from releasing in this format. Even though there are over 4000 SACD titles out there, the publics awareness of this format is practically non-existant.
Further attempts to push proprietry formats (that would essential "lock" people into buying further Sony products) included mp3 players that didn't actually play mp3s (only the Sony ATRAC format), memory cards that only worked in Sony products (whilst SD and CF cards have a much larger compatibility) lead many people to swear off buying Sony cameras and UMDs - films that could only be played on PSPs with no extras for 2-3 times the cost of a DVD.
In recent years, the build quality of Sony products has steadily decreased despite their price premium remaining intact. The build quality of most brands has decreased (after all, if stuff breaks sooner, we'll need to replace it more often) but Sony have taken it to a new level. From televisions sold as "future-proof" that can't even pick up digital teletext or all the freeview channels and have been abandoned by Sony to Playstations with laser diodes that stop functioning after a year. Sony's first foray into LCD televisions provided absolutely no future-proofing as the entire line weren't HD ready - a decsion that left many peoples £1300 tvs obsolete before they'd even got them home. The reason? Film studios (including Sony's) demanding that HD content be distributed via a certain connector that Sony didn't see fit to include.
It's widely rumoured that the only part of Sony that makes money anymore is the Playstation. After being betrayed by Nintendo over a planned CD addon for the SNES, Sony continued developing the machine and released the Playstation against the overpriced and underspecced Sega Saturn and the N64 with it's overpriced games. The playstation 2 promised revolutionary performance due to its "emotion engine", but in actual fact, the machine was less powerful than all three of its competitors (Sega's Dreamcast, Nintendo's Gamecube and Microsoft's xBox). However, Sony had the money to ensure that the most popular games remained exclusive to its console. Sony have been making strong claims about the new PS3 console. Unfortunately, many claims have amounted to nothing. Initially the PS3 and xBox360 were to be released within a few months of each other and be roughly equivalent in power. Microsoft pressed ahead with a worldwide launch last Christmas opting to stick with the DVD format whilst Sony, convinced the PS3 would sell no matter what, took the opportunity to include their new BluRay format in PS3. This seems to have backfired big time for Sony. Rumours (as linked to) of the components being too big to fit into the case, overheating and reports that most of the development team had been fired kept cropping up. Firstly the release was pushed back 6 months as the specifications for the new format were yet to be finished, the specs of the console were lowered due to stability and yield problems (ie if you make 100 chips, and only 20 of them work at the desired speed, do you press ahead and loose money on the chips that don't work or do you lower the specs so that maybe 40 of the chips work?). At the recent E3 exhibition, Sony proceeded to shock even their hardcore fans by announcing a $599/£425 pricetag for the PS3 and giving one of the most embarrasing press conferences in history. Have a look at this video.
Pretty funny stuff ("new features such as real-time weapon change", "based on famous battles that actually took place in ancient Japan - so here's this giant enemy crab")
Further bad news came with the release of the first BluRay player - the picture quality wasn't up to the standard of it's rival format, HD-DVD. And HD-DVD was half the price of BluRay. Suddenly the decision to include BluRay in PS3 was looking like a massive gamble that could lead to the failure of both the BluRay and Playstation brands. If BluRay fails to win the HD war then Sony has needlessly held up the release of the console by over a year and introduced a massive cost that even they admit will take it out of the price of most households. Should the PS3 fail to make an impact, then Sony's Trojan Horse tactics of getting BluRay into the homes of the masses will have failed. Finally, problems building the diode for the drives has meant that the worldwide availability of PS3 this Christmas will be limited to 100,000 in Japan (the 2 year old Nintendo DS sells this number every week) and 400,000 in the US with Europe missing out until 2007. This also means there will be a shortage of BluRay players too.
The major problem is simply that Sony, as a company, is far too big. It has its finger in too many pies: electronics, film studios, music labels and gaming and it's this that has lead to Sony's many recent problems. When designing the BluRay format, rather than developing a system that the consumer would want, Sony's movie studios got involved and started designing the system around the restrictive needs of the studio. Without the pressure to include BluRay, the PS3 could have launched last year and at a much more competitive price. Sony music's desire to control how people can listen to music they've bought has caused Sony to loose it's hold on the market that the Walkman enjoyed to Apple and countless others. Then stupid ideas such as the root-kit fiasco and creating ficticious film critics to give good reviews to Sony studio films and most recently the unfortunate discovery that laptops fitted with Sony batteries could burst into flames at any moment don't do the overall brand any favours at all. The only real way out is to properly split up the company and let the electronics company get on with designing products that the consumer wants, the gaming division to make use of the best technology around at the time and not pin their hopes to a white elephant and the music label to loose customers by itself without draging down the rest of the company.
In the world of the entertainment business, Europe is the poor cousin of the US and East Asia. TVs are much more advanced and cheaper elsewhere. Earlier this month, Sony effectively gave Europe a kick in the teeth by delaying the new Playstation until March 2007 after promising a worldwide launch in November. Despite the population of the EU being greater than that of the US and Japan put together (462m vs 300m + 128m) - and that's without non EU countries - our traditions of different taxes and even more annoyingly, different languages, ensures we get the thin end of the wedge everytime. Today it was Nintendo's turn to bend us over. The new Wii console's launch has been anonunced around the world over the last few days. On Tuesday, it was launched in Japan with a price of ¥25000 (£113). Yesterday, it was America's turn - $250 (£132) but this included the Wii sports game that the Japanese wouldn't get. Today it was Nintendo of Europe's turn. Most people were confident we'd see a price between £130 and £150. Unfortunately, Nintendo decided to go with €250 (£168) and £180 for the UK Now firstly, why is our version so much more expensive than the US - it's £35 more for the same package! Secondly, Why do we Brits have the privalage of paying £12 more than the Irish, French and other European countries? For the last year, Nintendo have been trumpeting the fact that the Wii was going to be the machine that got "non-gamers" into gaming; a machine that anyone, young or old, could pick up and play with straight away. The unique controller was at the heart of this as was the fact that it wasn't as powerful as the new Microsoft and Sony machines, therefore it could be a lot cheaper. Now we have got to the point where it's only £20 cheaper than the xBox360 and once you've factored in another Wiimote (£40) - after all, this is supposed to be enjoyed by the whole family - there's very little to choose between the costs. Nintendo dropped the price of the Gamecube just before it's UK launch, but a repeat of that will be seen as Nintendo admitting they got it wrong.
After Nintendo's arrogance over it's #1 position in the 90s it's now only #3. Sony's supply problems gave them a big chance to gain ground , but it seems (especially in Europe) they've missed something of an open goal. Personally i intend to stick to my guns on this one and import a machine the the US - after our success with importing our DS Lites from Australia (which would have been an easy import from Japan if it hadn't been for stock shortages) it seems like the only way to go as even if it get's hit by customs it'd still be £20 cheaper than our native model. And available 3 weeks earlier.
The main even for my birthday was something we'd had planned to do since I got back from japan and typed '"karaoke box" + Newcastle' into Google. Eight of us gathered at Newcastle station for the short walk to the so-called Korean BBQ restaurant that boasted free karaoke rooms. After arriving at the street we found no such place - odd. After 5 minutes of wandering around aimlessly, we rang them and they told us to wait by Richer Sounds and someone would "come and get us". Our resident drama queen, Matt, immediately started phrophesising doom but, true to their word we were met and walked back to the restaurant - now no longer a Korean place (even though all the review cam out in May), but instead サガワ (Sagawa), an upmarket Japanese resturant. Suddenly we felt less stupid for failing to find a restaurant on a 20m long road. We were led up to our private room where our table (for some reason shped like a boat) was waiting. Whilst the rest of the party noticed the floor height chairs and lack of leg room, my attention was drawn to the 42" RPTV in the corner of the room, already knocking out cheesy renditions of classic songs. The next thing we noticed was the lcd screen attached to the karaoke machine was displaying a screen saver featuring various pictures of bikini idols. If you don't know what they are, have a search of Google and become enlightened. The drinks menu purported the availability of 2 litre cans of Asahi - surely a printing error, but no - we eventually got through 6 of these beasts (in addition to sake). We decided to get a selection of sushi for everyone to try which proved successful although Brett claimed he couls still taste the fish eggs the following day. The mains arrived and were duly finished with much slurping of ramen. Attention was now turned to the entertainment equipment in the corner. After being shown how to not put the player into Cantonese, we got started. Rather than being a hard drive-based machine, this was a DVD player with (I presume) CD+G support. There were songs in Japanese, Cantonese, Mandarin, Korean and English so the selection of songs we knew was a bit limited. The usual positive feedback loop of upping the microphone volume followed by the music volume followed. Catherine started us off and immediately put us to shame with a worryingly in-tune version of My way. As more beer was consumed, people became much more willing to "sing" and this kept going for another 2 hours. By the end, I suddenly realised that you could hear our room from the other end of the restuarant and in the toilets... The classics kept coming, and soon the duets and group efforts began.
Eventually, Matt and Hugh had to be dragged awayand the not insubstantial £250 was settled (~ £80 was beer). Everyone agreed it had been a good night. We got the stupidly early last train (10.45pm) back and then decided to go to Chase. Somehow, despite going to the bar for a 4-pint pitcher, Blondie manage to reappear with 6 pints which we set about until about 1. It was a great night and I think a few people were a bit dubious about the whole karaoke part were converted. What wasn't part of the plan was going out with the chemists the following night until 1 and then drinking till 4.30am the night after at the Trevs 40th anniversary. Whoops. Sunday didn't really happen after that.
I'm still going over the pictures from the 7th, so the "what I did on my birthday" post is work in progress. When I was a lot younger, my parents used to organise parties for me and invite loads of my friends from school. When I was about 12 I switched to going bowling with friends and then finally to going out into Birmingham at 17. When I first came to uni all my friends were very efficient at sending me cards, but they soon got pretty lax. My 22nd birthday was on the same day as my cousin's wedding. That side of my family had clearly forgotten it was my birthday and I only got 3 cards - and only a couple of friends even called/texted me. My 24th birthday was pretty good too cos even though I was in Durham (my first birthday away from home), there were loads of people around - Matt, Mel, Brooks, Matt, Tim, Carl etc so it was great. Then last year, there was noone around - even Matt who had been around most of the summer was away on his pre-PhD trip. As a result I got about 5 cards. It doesn't help that I have a really small family, but it was nice this year to round up a group of people and go out for a good night out and introduce them to something I'd discovered earlier this year (more on that in the next post). My opinion now is that I don't tell my old friends when it's my birthday - they're old enough now to keep records of these sorts of things.
So anyway, I'm now 26 and my time as a student is pretty much up. I've bought my last young person's railcard and am finishing up my lab work. I still don't feel old, in fact I think my drinking capacity has recently started in increase again if nights out in the last few months are anything to go by. This year has been a very mixed one - I've endured some hardships, at time felt completely alone and found out some things about myself, but on the other side I've made some great new friends, both at chemistry and college, and I felt more a part of the chemistry group, rather than a hanger-on. I've had a couple of amazing trips and after abstaining from traveling for a long time, I've been bitten by the traveling bug - perhaps part-inspired by my taking up of photography. I've also rediscovered cooking. After being spoilt in my 2nd year with a new kitchen I've endured a string of cramped, underequiped kitchens and pantries. Now, thanks to house 3 and Blondie's ワガママ (Wagamama) cookbook. The beauty of it is that once you can prepare the sauces in advance, so for most of the year we've had tubs of teppanyaki, yaki soba and chili sauces sat in our fridge waiting to go. Similarly, after a few dodgy examples, Blondie and I have mastered the okonomiyaki cabbage-pancake. The secret ingredients are sugar and miso paste and once Blondie managed to source some authentic sauce (sorry) they are tasting pretty authentic (to the Osakan style ones I experienced anyway).
so yes, a mixed year. I'll try to get up pics from the 7th soon.
Browsing through TIME magazine's list of "cool websites of the year" I was intrigued by the entry for Pandora. I'd briefly heard about this a while ago, but never actually investigated it properly. Now I'm hooked. The idea is that you tell it some bands and songs you like and it creates a custom radio station based on what you tell it. Don't like the song it's playing - let it know and it'll skip to the next track and play similar songs less frequently. Especially like a track - Pandora will find similar songs and play them more frequently. The more often you tell it what you do and don't like, the better the service.
Those with long memories will remember my post from last September about how I was getting stuck in a musical rut. Now I have Pandora to suggest from an increadibly wide range of music from many artists I've never heard of. It's allowed my to follow up my new found love of J-Rock (thanks to the Ouendan soundtrack) and Scandanavian rock (thanks to the Poor Rich Ones album). Thanks to Pandora, I'm going to buy albums by L'arc En Ciel and Kent. It's also nice to listen to as I type up my thesis.
The downsides aren't very many. Pandora operates via flash so there's no need to install anything. Because the music is actually licenced, you can rewind or relisten to tracks (you have to wait until they are played again) and you are only allowed a certain number of skips per hour. But, once registered you can have upto 100 different stations so this really shouldn't be a problem. After about 10 or so songs it asks you to register. Currently, it is only available for US residents but the makers clearly don't care about this as the only proof they require is a valid US zip code - not overly difficult to get off the net or even just make up.
After months of not getting around to it, Blondie and I finally sent off some photos to ProAm Imaging for enlargement. Thing thing that had put me off initially was the fact that I only had a 2MP camera. Since then I've got my 7MP A620 and been on some great trips. The attraction of ProAm is the prices - 8"x10" for 40p, and large 12"x18" prints for £1. They're a pretty retro company with no web submission forms and a paper order form that you have to send in. After a bit of hassle cropping and getting pixel densities correct we sent off the CD and waited. This week they came back and I'm glad to say they're fantastic. Most of mine are adorning my wall so here's a picture of them - for those of can't really visualise, most of the picture are 8"x10". The lustre/matt option cuts down on reflections from a glossy covering that seems to blight my other digital prints. They are so impressive that we've discovered they make very good (and cheap) gifts so I wouldn't be surprised if people receive these as presents (maybe with a clip frame if they're lucky) for a while.
Not really a rant, but more a realisation that time is very odd. In a little over 6 weeks I'll be leaving Trevs for the last time. Once again, summer has raced away like it did last year. For the first time in as long as I can remember I don't know what's going to happen 2 months from now. At the moment I have no job and thus the future is very uncertain and I'm not sure I like that. From school I knew I was going to uni and then 4 years later I knew I was going to do a PhD, so this is probably the first time I've been in this situation. When I started the PhD back in 2003 I joked to people that by the end I'd be 26 and still living with my parents - now that moment is almost here (September birthdays really aren't an advantage anymore). It feels like the world has changed so much in the last 7 years. Yesterday I put a load of old photos up onto my facebook account and seeing some of the photos from my first year brought back a lot of memories. When we arrived as freshers in 1999 Trevs was a different place: the cobbles and bar had yet to be refurbished, only about 1 in 4 people had a mobile phone (and that was mainly thanks to a Barclaycard offer of a free one) and only about 1 in 10 people had computers. College wasn't networked and the rooms weren't even carpeted and came with very old rugs (the so-called college Bungles). We had Pepsi, Fosters and Kronenberg instead of Coke, Carling and Stella and shots cost 95p. Even Durham itself has changed - Klute was the club of choice, Rixies still wasn't Rixes, but was DH1. Robbins cinema offered very small screens, mono sound and weird L-shaped rooms where Walkabout now stands. Within a few days I was so happy with Trevs and my new friends. The first 2 terms were the most amazing time of my life as everything was so different and we were completely free to do what we wanted. Being the worrier I spent a lot of time in the 3rd term thinking how this was already the end of an era - because of the way Trevs allows finalists to live back in, there wouldn't be another time when all my friends lived in college. I always seem to think about - and remember odd things. In 2nd year I realised that the calaendar year 2001 would start with us go from having just about got used to running a house and end with us 1/3rd of the way through our 3rd year. When you start thinking like that, 3 years really doesn't seem very long. Those of you who've now looked at my facebook photos (you'll need a durham/dunelm email address to sign up to dacebook) will notice that they stop after my 3rd year. The 4th year for me was a lost year. My life changed a lot as I had to make new friends and adapt to a different Trevs experience. The decision to stay for 3 more years was fairly easy to make, not only was I offered a place in an area that's reall interesting, but Durham has a 5* rating and I felt as though there was so much more I could accomplish here. The rest of the 4th year passed in a blur of big nights out and bar work. Walking back into Trevs in 2003 felt very odd. I had to continue making new friends and sure enough, by last summer I was really happy - even my reactions at work were working. I could see a fairly good short and even medium term future. This really would have been the perfect time to leave - on a high. This year I've struggled and I'm actually glad to be leaving now. Of course, once I get home I'll probably still expect to come back up to Durham, but that won't be happening. PhD funding seems to be increasing to 4 years now which is insane. When I started I was under the impression that I'd make some really important discoveries. Of course, that hasn't happened - with a PhD, supervisors are getting cheap labour and we are getting further training. And at the end of the day, it really is just that: training. By extending a PhD to 4 years and then allowing a further year to write up we're getting on for half a decade! For those that choose to stay in college, that's 8 years! Those people who are only here for 3 years might as well not have been here. Whenever I see friends who've left and got "real" jobs, they always say that they couldn't imagine going back to being a student. Well, at the moment I can't imagine not being a student.
I've just realised that the last few posts have been a bit texty. Well, to sort that out here's a link to a Flickr group that I've just joined that's been created by members of the DVD forum. Despite, being primarily a film forum, there is a photography forum that has revealed some very talented photographers. The group is still new (only a day old), but contributions will grow very quickly, so keep checking it out!
Ok, I just realised that this still hasn't introduced any pictures into the post. Oh shutup!
I'll come right out and say it: people are crap. There, I've said it. The classic interview question: "what do you see as your greatest weakness?" How are you supposed to answer this one without giving the interviewer a reason not to hire you or coming across as arrogant. Thankfully, one of my friends gave me the reply "I sometimes expect too much from other people". Brilliant - it makes it seem like you always give 100% and are held back by the failures of other people - essentially shifting your weakness to them. But the more I thought about this, the more I realised that it actually applies to me. Whether it be some analysis departments at work making analysis of our compounds far harder than it should be or someone saying they'll do something that they have no intention of doing.
This was one of my pet-peaves a few years ago. Friends would come out with statements like "We'll have a barbeque soon" or "We'll go out tonight" and then nothing would ever happen. It got to the point where I simply started showing no enthusiasm to anything as I simply knew that suggestions just wouldn't result in anything. And it continues to this day; "we'll organise a meal out", "we'll meet up again" - all things that I know just won't happen. Now my time at university is nearly up it's become all the more acute - plans people come to me with that sound fantastic, but never come to fruition. Maybe it's cos I spend so much time by myself, so I do still get pissed at these things. It's an important realisation that people are useless. I know I certainly used to - especially at home when I was asked to do such simple things as hang out the washing. Once I came to this realisation it became a lot easier to deal with people: simply expect nothing.
I remember when I first came to Trevs. It was amazingly overawing and after just a few weeks I felt like I had known my new friends forever. And this happens to everyone - you live together, go to meals together, go out together, go to the bar together - far more contact than you'll have had with most school friends. But of course, you don't know them that well. Everyone's so eager to make a good impression when they arrive that it's hard to get an acurate view of people in such a short time. It's the trap I've always fallen into and I've been burnt by it several times before. What I still haven't fathomed is what to do when people who you don't want to let you down do so. Hmm, does that make sense? Maybe. It's possibly the final fronteer I have to cross before I can fully accept that people are all flawed. Unfortunately, I've no idea how to do it. If anyone knows, please let me in on the secret.
It does sadden me that to think that I've become so untrusting, but maybe I still get caught out because deep down I know that not trusting anyone would make me too cold and distant. For my part, I'm sure I'm still crap too. I try my hardest to do things I say I'll do, but I probably still owe a few people sets of Scrubs discs or other such things.
In my first year, my roomate in 2nd term appeared to be an almost polar opposite to me. We were neighbours in the first term and got on pretty well. He smoked, went out on alcohol or drug binges and hardly ever got up for lectures. At the end of the term he told me that I'd inspired him because I always got up for my 9am lectures no matter how battered I'd been the night before and I always tried to help him out. I didn't understand at the time cos I thought "I inspired you so much, you didn't even try to get out of bed or remember to take your room key out with you". After that term I saw a lot less of him which I'm sad about now as he was a very interesting character. But I realised that we were more alike than most people perhaps realised. The was a time when he pulled me to one side and said "mate, do you think I'm a dick?" He went on to explain that every now and again he suddenly got the feeling that all his friends didn't like him at all and that he needed reassuring that it wasn't the case. Several years later I realised that I get those same feelings - maybe not that all my friends don't like me, but things along those lines. I guess all I can conclude is that every decision I've ever made - from deciding how much work to do to deciding what to have for dinner - has made up who I am. My decisions have shaped my personality and how I act and I have to trust that people will like me because of who I am and I should stop looking for people to validate my choices.
A while ago I wrote a piece on how the internet will become more important in our lives. Today I'm going to rant about how this future is being denied to us by the providers. Back when we got broadband in 2003, the standard package was 512kbs (9 times faster than dial up and 1/20th the speed of our uni connection). A few months later, BT enabled speeds of up to 2mbs (1/5th uni speeds). To get this though, not only did you have to live close to your telephone exchange, but you had to shell out £40/month. Speed came with a price, but if you were happy to have a (still quick) slower service you could still get all the data you wanted. Now times have changed, 8mbs is standard in the UK and local loop unbundling has seen the start of adsl2+ and speeds of upto 24mbs. ISPs are now quite happy to give you as much speed as you want, but it comes at a price. They have set caps on how much data you can access. Some of the most stingy limits are only 2gb (including most of the so called "free broadband schemes that have appeared). That sounds like a lot (especially to a dial-up user), but consider that you can download this amount in a little over half an hour with an 8mbs connection and it starts to look small. Things like graphics rich sites have become more prevelant as speeds increased and once things like Skype and streaming video and music are factored in, 2gb is pointless. When ipTV launches, it's going to be pretty costly.
One of the biggest revolutions that will happen in the next few years is mobile internet access on mobile phones. Back in 2000, the mobile companies launched WAP to much hype. Internet on the move - amazing! until you realised that the low rez screens, stupidly low amount of content and slow access rates made it all pointless. Now we're have proper access - smartphones integrate full web browsers that allow access to all the internet, operators are obliged to get over 80% of the UK fully covered by 3G by the end of next year and HSDPA (3.5G) has already been launched allowing speeds of upto 3.5mbs (T-mobile have pledged to increase this to 20mbs by 2010). Remeber that these phones can be plugged into laptops and used as modems, so getting your PC onto the web will be possible where ever 3G signal is available. This would make expensive city wide wifi or WIMAX networks pointless. Sounds fantastic right? Unfortunately, the mobile companies don't are limiting access (or at least making it very expensive) without adding a data package, the costs per mb are pretty rediculous - £4/mb on Orange! For 3G data access you're looking at £20/month on top of your line rental. On Orange, the unlimited 3G data package costs a whopping £75/month. Surely a better way to encourage people to use these services is to include a small allowence in the tarrif? T-mobile recently launched flext - a scheme where your rental buys you credit which can be spent on minutes, text and sms as you see fit - surely it would be easy to add data transfer to this so people could check their emails without getting ripped off? There are rumours that 3 are about to launch a rival tarrif makes me hopeful that they allow some data usage (I think their tarrifs allow 5mb/month anyway), but 3 still don't allow access to the full internet. The biggest problem is that the mobile operators are still realing from the massive fees they paid out in 2000 to obtain their 20 year 3G licences. £22.4 billion was paid out (only about £4 billion was expected). Of course, the roll out didn't happen for years and in the meantime 2G prices went through the roof. Handsets at the time weren't capable enough to provide decent net access to 3G was launched around the idea of video calling - something that completely failed to catch on. nealy 1/3 of the contract has passed and 3G phones are still in the minority.
All in all, the future is within our grasp - the infrastructure is rolling out all the time and new HSDPA handsets are being launched. It's just whether we're prepared to pay for it or not.
At the start of the month, Channel4's film channel, Filmfour went free to view. This means it is available free on Sky (315), cable( 701/50NTL - 444-Telewest) and Freeview (31). From next week they are showing a season of Miyazki films starting with his directorial debut, Castle of Cagliostro, a film in the Lupin III series. The full timetable is:
Fri 04 - 4:55 PM - The Castle of Cagliostro Sat 05 - 4:45 PM - Kiki's Delivery Service Sun 06 - 4:30 PM - Princess Mononoke Mon 07 - 4:55 PM - Castle in the Sky Tue 08 - 5:10 PM - My Neighbour Totoro Wed 09 - 4:45 PM - Nausicaa of the Valley of Wind Thu 10 - 5:15 PM - Porco Rosso Fri 11 - 4:45 PM - Princess Mononoke Sat 12 - 5:05 PM - My Neighbour Totoro Sun 13 - 4:55 PM - Castle in the Sky Mon 14 - 5:05 PM - Kiki's Delivery Service Tue 15 - 4:45 PM - Nausicaa of the Valley of Wind Wed 16 - 4:45 PM - Porco Rosso Thu 17 - 5:10 PM - The Castle of Cagliostro
No Spirited Away or Howl's Moving Castle, but still a selection of some of the most timeless films ever created.
After 1997's Mononoke Hime, Miyazaki was considering retiring from animation. An encounter with a friend's young daughter persuaded him that he had more stories to tell. He wrote a piece for this girl called Sen to Chihiro no kamikakushi (Spirited Away). With this film, Ghibli finally earned themselves worldwide recognition as Sen to Chihiro no kamikakushi won the 2003 oscar for best animated film beating Ice Age and Lilo & Stitch. This earned the film a longer run in US cinemas and even a UK cinemas release in the late summer of 2003. The film follows the adventures of a sullen 10 year old girl called Chihiro. She is spoilt and bored by life. As her family are moving house her parents car comes across a strange tunnel in the woods. Her parents decide to investigate and take Chihiro with them. As her parents settle down to eat at what they assume is a restaurant, Chihiro goes exploring. A mysterious boy warns her that she should not have come and urges her to get out. Frightened, she runs back to where her parents are only to find they have turned into pigs. As darkness falls, strange spirits arrive in the town and head towards the large bath house. Chihiro is helped by the mysterious boy who tells her that this world is ruled by Yubaba, the sorceress who runs the bath house. If she is to survive and save her parents she must persuade Yubaba to let her work at the baths. The deal involves Yubaba taking Chihiro's name, or more precisely taking some of the kanji from it leaving her name as Sen. Once someone forgets their real name they are forever trapped in the spirit world. As Sen struggles to fit in and find courage in the strange world, all manner of spirits and gods arrive at the bath house demanding service. Sen is taken under the wings of Kamaji - the multiarmed man who provides power for the baths, Lin - another bath house worker and Hakku - the boy who tries to guide her through the pitfalls of the land. She also attracts the interest of Noface, a strange ghost like creature that takes a liking to her.
If Grave of the fireflies was the Ghibli film least likely to be seen, Spirited Away is the film most people will be familiar with. The story is straightforward but the attention to detail, as always is superb. Little touches such as Sen tapping her foot on the floor after she puts her shoes on, the characterisation of the soot spirits in the basement and interactions of background characters help immerse the viewer into the world. The characters too are wonderfully eclectic; Yubaba's gigantic baby, the mysterious bearded heads (whose presence is never really explained) and of course, Noface. Noface exists as a being that seems to feed off greed and corruption. After he is allowed into the baths by Sen he starts to corrupt the workers by offering them gold, but immediately snatches them up. As his corrupting influence spreads so he gets ever larger. After being "cured" by Sen he follows her on trip to find Yubaba's sister, Zeniba, in order to help Hakku. As he gets further away from the bathhouse, he once again becomes passive and calm.
Chihiro starts off grumpy and ill-mannered, but must learn to grow up and deal with life in a very short space of time. By the end of the film, she is repectful and self-assured due to her time in the spirit world; Miyazaki's take on modern Japanese youth. Even the character of Zeniba's lamp - a flick of the hat to Pixar's Luxor Jr - displays great character in the short screen time it gets.
Spirited Away is one of the first Ghibli films to use computers. Thankfully, their presence is limited to a few scenes and largely goes unnoticed. Once again, Joe Hisaishi provides the score and really outdoes himself producing one of the most memorable scores amongst the Ghiblis. The requiem theme will instantly be familiar to anyone who owns an R3 Ghibli as it is used on the trailers. The music helps make the most of some otherwise silent passages of the film. Where as Laputa benefitted from frequent silences, Sen's train journey to the sixth station wouldn't be as magical without the Hisaishi score underneath it.
Of course we know what the outcome of the film will be, but it's a real adventure getting there taking us down many unexpected pathways - the river God's bath, the attack by Zeniba's paper warriors and Noface's rampage through the bath house. Miyazaki's great trick is drawing us into this fantasy world. Just like Chihiro, we never stop to ask what is going on, because it's irrelevant - it is going on and we just have to accept it and adapt to it. This is a wonderful fable - an Alice in Wonderland esque story combined with rich sumptuous visuals and a beautiful score. Simply put, beyond all the messages and morality this is simply a fantastic story told by one of the world's best.
The DVD of Spirited Away is normally available for £5 or less at HMV so you really don't have any excuse not to see this film. If you are willing to spend a bit more, the US R1 version offers a better transfer and is the one to go for.
There are some films that deserve to be seen by everyone in the world. Hotaru no haka (Grave of the Fireflies) is one of these films. It's often overlooked as a Ghibli film as it wasn't directed by Miyazaki, but instead his partner, Isao Takahata. The film is based on the semi-autobiography of Akiyuki Nosaka, who wrote the book to deal with his survivors guilt. People often overlook animation as being for kids or associate it with porn and violence. However, the fact reamins that Hotaru no haka remains the single most important war film ever made. It may seem strange that, beyond the first few minutes, there hardly any violence. Instead, the film is very gentle. It features on US film critic Roger Ebert's list of 100 greatest films of all time. The story opens in Kobe during the final days of WW2 - a starving child clutching a sweet tin eventually slips into death. We move backwards in time some weeks. US forces bombard the Japanese mainland with napalm bombs. Seita, 14, and his younger sister Setsuko are separated from their mother on their way to the shelter. The following day Seita finds her dying in an emergencey hospital, her body so burned that he can't let Setsuko see her. With almost everything they have gone and their father away serving with the navy, the children go to live with the their aunt on the outskirts of the city. She is initially happy to see them as their posessions such as their mother's kimonos can be sold to buy food. As this source of money runs out she grows bitter at having to house and feed someone elses children. Eventually Seita can't take it anymore and leaves with Setsuko to live by themselves. They find an old bomb shelter and set up a home there with Seita finding food anyway he can as Setsuko starts to show the early stages of malnutririon. Although Seita has money, it soon becomces worthless as there is simply no food to buy.
From the opening line "September 21, 1945... that was the night I died", we are left in no doubt as to how this film ends. We are forced to sit and watch as Setsuko's health deteriorates. We see how Seita tries his hardest for his sister, but this kind of responsibility is far too great to be placed on one so young. The film makes absolutely no statements about the Americans - in fact, they are never mentioned, refered to only as "the enemy". It would be far too easy to criticise the military decision taken to firebomb civilian towns where the majority of housing was made from wood and paper, but the film avoids this angle completely. Where it succeeds as a war film is showing how war affects the innocent - those who not only don't understand the fighting, but are too young to cope with the consequences. We see how in a time of shortages, imminent defeat and hopelessness, people ignore the plight of these children. No one comes to their aid - they are left completely alone. This isn't the fault of the population - the war has created only victims. Society has become unable to protect those who need it most The film has its moments of happiness to avoid sliding into melodrama. Seita and Setsuko's discoverly of the fireflies lighting their shelter brings a joyous wonder to the young girl's face. It's these scenes that remind us that compassion can still exist in even these difficult times. This film is an experience. Not an epic by any means, it clocks in at only 88 minutes, but it leaves you emotionally drained. A read of the IMDB comments section for this film shows there are large number of people who find it too hard to see the film more than once. This is a film that inspires tears; not those that might sneak out as Bambi's mother dies or that well up at the finale of Eternal Sunshine, but tears of actual grief. By this point, it doesn't matter that the film is animated - it's created more emotion than a live action film could ever do. As mentioned above, the original story was meant as an apology to the author's sister who died of starvation in the war as Nosaka admitted eating food before offering it to his sister.
Originally, the film was released as a double feature with My Neighbour Totoro, which is a coupling of possibly the most polar opposite films I've ever considered. Many school boards chose to show the film to their students to educate them about the horrors of war and how it affect society. This would be an excellent idea worldwide. These children are the "collateral damage" frequently talked about by politicians - dismissed as 2 words. In Japan, the film is broadcast annually on August 6th as a reminder of the costs of war.
Sadly, because of peoples' reaction to animation, the film hasn't received the attention it deserves. It really should be seen by as many people as possible. If you have seen it it's your duty to recommend it to as many people as possible.
If I've timed this right, the rest of my Miyazaki Ghibli reviews should appear on the day of release in Japan of the studio's latest film, Gedo Senki (Tales of Earthsea). I'm now going back to talk about the first Ghibli I (knowingly) saw. Back in the early days of 2002 I was reading a film website called DVD Times and browsed through a couple of reviewers choices of DVDs of the year. One reviewer picked out the R2J release of Mononoke Hime (Princess Mononoke). His praise was so glowing, that I went beyond my normal spending pattern and bought it at £15 from Play. For some reason that seems to afflict me with a lot of Ghibli films, I had to split up the film over 2 nights. This lead to me not warming to it straight away. The Western cast were passable, but there's always something bad about using regular actors in voice-over roles. Here, Gillian Anderson sounds like she only came up with her voice on the day of recording and Minnie Driver seems almost bored by her role. The film drew attention because the English translation was adapted by Neil Gaiman of the Sandman series. Big name stars were used to dub including Billy Crudup, Billy-Bob Thornton and Jada Pinkett-Smith. Thankfully, the next time I watched through I selected the original Japanese audio and sat through the whole film. This is an epic much in the mould of Nausicaa. Miyazaki once again returns to explore mankinds interaction with nature. This time around though, there's even less distinction between right and wrong.
The story opens in north-east Japan. A huge boar demon attacks a small village of the Emishi people. The town's prince, Ashitaka, manages to slay the boar, but is cursed by doing so. The peoples' wise woman extracts an iron ball from the demon's remains. She tells Ashitaka that this was what turned the former god into a curse demon and that the curse of hatred will consume him too before killing him. Banished from his town, he heads west to investigate the boar's origin and try to find a way to life the curse. To the west lies the settlement of Iron Town - a town housing a tribe of people lead by Lady Eboshi. She oversees the extraction of ore and conversion to precious iron. Unfortunately, the easily accessible ore has run out and the humans must dig beneath the adjacent forest to continue making their livings. The forest is home to several animal gods including Moro, the wolf god, and the forest spirit; a deer with the face of a human that can control life and death. As Ashitaka arrives, he encounters the aftermath of a battle between the humans and wolves and spys a young girl helping the wolves. Ashitaka helps several wounded humans back to Iron Town where Lady Eboshi explains their plight and the secret of her success - she employs lepers to build firearms and buys out the contracts of prostitutes in the neighbouring towns so they can work in the iron furnace. She is determined to kill the forest spirit for two reasons - to ensure access to the ore and because she has a deal with the mysterious Jigo, an agent of the emperor who believes the head of the spirit will grant him eternal life. As Ashitaka rests in Iron Town, the girl he saw earlier attacks the village, and tries to kill Eboshi. Ashitaka learns that she is human but was raised by the wolves. Immediately attracted, he saves her life and helps her escape - although he is shot in the process, leaving his life in the hands of a confused and torn Princess Mononoke (Princess of beasts), San. The arrival of the tribe of the former boar god ups the stakes as they want revenge for the death of their leader - a battle to end all battles is looming. A rogue group of samurai intent on taking Iron Town for themselves complicates matters and Ashitaka is caught in the middle.
Originally mooted as Miyazaki's final film, Mononoke sees the director in serious mode again after his playful films such as Tototro, Kiki and Porco Rosso. Blood is spilt, limbs severed and death is in the air. From the very first scenes, we see that this isn't going to be a light hearted story. We also see the amazing animation of Ghibli. Miyazaki personally checked and correct over 80,000 frames for this film. The attention to detail still remains - from the interactions of Ashitaka and his "steed" Yakkuru to the individual antics of the wonderful Kodama tree spirits he encounters in the forest. Once again Miyazaki presents us with a world where the line between good and evil has blurred to insignificance. We have Eboshi who has worked hard leading her people to prosperity, taking in the lepers that noone else would help and helping the girls escape the trap of prostitution. She only wants what's best for her people and isn't afraid to fight to get it. The animals want to resist the humans. The boars are so enraged at human behavior that they are prepared to kill them all in an offensive attack. To both sides Ashitaka remains the voice of reason, trying to help the humans, but at the same time stop Eboshi killing the spirit. Once again we see the character trademark of Miyazaki of a young naive, but strong girl. Since she was raised by the wolves, San has no appreciation for the human point of view. She feels attracted to Ashitaka, but is afraid of what it means. Her "mother", Moro, realises that San doesn't have to share the fate of the forest. As San prepares to leave and fight alongside the boars, Moro tells her
"You know, that boy wanted to share his life with you".
This draws an angry, confused response of
"I hate him! I hate all humans!"
Moro can see that maybe there is hope for humans and her daughter.
Although eponymous, San isn't given top billing on screen, and so must share a similar role to that of Fio in Porco Rosso. The love story between Ashitaka and San ends on an unfinished note - San has admitted her feelings for Ashitaka, but they realise they can't be together as San still has a resentment of other humans. I'll finish with what Miyazaki himself has commented about this film.
"There cannot be a happy ending to the fight between the raging gods and humans. However, even in the middle of hatred and killings, there are things worth living for. A wonderful meeting, or a beautiful thing can exist.
We depict hatred, but it is to depict that there are more important things.
We depict a curse, to depict the joy of liberation.
What we should depict is, how the boy understands the girl, and the process in which the girl opens her heart to the boy.
At the end, the girl will say to the boy, 'I love you, Ashitaka. But I cannot forgive humans.'
Smiling, the boy should say, 'That is fine. Live with me.'
For much or the UK, the month of July has been a scorcher - the temperature records have been broken and even the roads have started melting. By night though, the temperature returns to a managable 20oC or so. However, in house 3 we have the boiler from Hell. It seems it was put in before the invention of the timer, so it stays on 24/7. Fro Matt and I whose rooms share walls with this beast this has meant temperatures of over 30oC even at 2am. Needless to say even just sitting in our rooms is verging on unbearable. The best bit is if we turn off the boiler we don't get any hot water... So tempting to sleep outside.
The march of the DS lite's continues. Since Blondie and I got ours a month or so ago, we've convinced at least 3 more people to go out and buy them too. Having finished New Mario and Mario Kart I was keen to get more games. The useful metacritic site and posts on the DVDforums drew me toward the Japanese rhythm game osu! tatakae! ouedan! The story is fairly wacky, but you have no idea just how wacky until you play it. Essentially the game involves controlling a group of cheerleaders who are drawn by the frustrated cry of "Ouendan!" (lit. cheer squad) from people in need of motivation. By tapping, dragging and spinning the stylus on the touch screen, the cheer squad perform their moves to encourage a positive outcome in the story. Of course, being a J-game the music is a wonderful selection of J-pop from the last 20 years. Sounds weird, but when you realise that the stories involves such things as a violinist requiring the cheer squad to help him overcome a sudden bout of diarrhea on the train, cheering on a horse to not only win a race, but then catch a thief on a motorbike or the classic fable of a man trying to save a girl from a giant mutant mouse by engaging it in a fist fight. You really can't make this stuff up. The gameplay takes place on the touchscreen, whilst the story progresses on the top screen giving you a feeling for how things are going. Of course, sometimes it's funny to loose so you can witness both sides of the stories. This is the kind of game that, before the internet, would have been lost. It sold very badly in Japan, but as yet, isn't available outside of Nippon. People started importing it from such Asia suppliers such PlayAsia (use code "WGDS1" to get $5 off an order) and word of mouth spread quickly to ensure that the game sells for a premium. Sites dedicated to the game sprang up offering translations of the menus and links to the original music videos on Youtube. It's incredibly addictive and most of the songs have already wormed their way into my head and refuse to leave. A western version called "Elite Beat Agents" has been announced for later in the year. As expected, the game mechanics will stay the same, but the stories, characters and the music will all be different making it, essentially, a sequel. The same thing happened with the Donkey Konga games. I'll link a couple of the weirder stories below (don't worry, they're perhaps even funnier without any knowledge of Japanese) and make sure you click the link to check out the original music videos!
The female cheerleaders are unlocked on the "insane" dificulty level, where as the regular male cheer squad features on the first 3 dificulties.
Whilst out in Japan, I saw a new release of Radiohead covers. I debated whether to buy it despite the £15 price tag common to CDs in Japan, but decided to read up on it first. Having listened to the samples on Amazon, it seems that most of the tracks are abysmal. There's a novel version of the track Just that you can see on Youtube, but that was about the best. I kept on digging and found the two recordings from classical pianist Chris O'Riley: True love waits and Hold me to this. There are some sample songs available from O'Riley's website and I've made available Black Star on my webspace until I leave uni. They're very laid back and clever interpretations of the songs for piano and O'Riley isn't affraid to transcribe lesser known album tracks and B-sides such as I can't and title track True love waits. I haven't got the second album yet as I'm waiting for it to appear cheaply on Amazon marketplace.
