Contrasts

Yesterday, I woke up following a strange dream which placed me in a strange, cartoonishly colourful, unnamed American city, near the launch site for a space shuttle. I was there with my old mate Paul and, with the shuttle due to launch in only a few minutes, we were looking for somewhere with a view. Paul's preferred location had a large building between us and the view, but he assured me we'd see plenty. I wasn't convinced. Even less so when I heard the launch, but saw nothing but the building.

So I started dragging Paul off to find somewhere higher, with a real view (just like everyone else in the city). Along the way, I saw a flash in the sky. This turned out to be the shuttle doing a fly-by over the city (though, by this time, we were high enough up that we could see it was flying below the level of some buildings. I commented on its magnificence as it flew away, then carried on climbing.

I have no idea what I was climbing, but we passed people stood of the roofs of buildings, on scaffolding, on advertising hoardings, and even on a construction crane. The people on the crane seemed to be having a party. One of their number ran down the arm of the crane, intending to jump down to a nearby building (perhaps the one I was on, or its neighbour), but missed his footing and plunged straight down. As someone screamed, a girl who was lining up a photo turned around just too late to see that she was right at the edge, and fell after him. More people screamed. Paul and I kept on climbing, and I briefly considered jumping after them. As I looked down and saw them falling away, I remembered that one tends to be fully conscious most if not all of the way down, and I really didn't want that.

Overall, yesterday was very summery. Bright sunshine, blue skies, slight breeze... and very warm. It almost seemed to be the beginning of summer. Not so, however, as today we have grey skies and we've already had some rain, with the likelihood of more to come.

Doctor Who was very good. I'm tempted to say that it was the best story so far, across all four series. The return of the Sontarans has been very well thought out, their characters are believable, and their plan quite menacing. Some of the dialogue was very well done, particularly the exchange between the Doctor and Donna's family (Donna's mother complains that the Doctor has blown up the car, Donna says "Not now, Mum," and her mother retorts "Oh, should I make an appointment?"). Oddly, it did (well, more accurately, Doctor Who Confidential did) leave me thinking that, when the Doctor next regenerates, he should turn into Bernard Cribbins...

Also watched the opening episode of the fourth (and final) season of Battlestar Galactica. All I can say is "wow". It's set up so much potential for this run of episodes, and I'm really looking forward to it all. All the subtleties and complexities are so far removed from the original feel-good sci-fi action show.

It's BotCon Weekend, And I'm Not In Cincinnati...

As I was leaving the chiropractor this morning, I was told they wanted me to arrange an extra appointment next week for more traction.

Considering today's appointment was made because I'm away Thursday and Friday of next week, and so could not make the usual Friday appointment, or next Saturday because they're closed, this struck me as rather annoying. Still, I now have an additional appointment booked for the Saturday after that.

Meanwhile, in Cincinnati, many folks are enjoying BotCon 2008 with it's 'mirror universe' theme, where the Autobots are evil, and the Decepticons are good. Oddly, the names still kinda fit. 'Autobot' has quite a neutral feel, so it could go either way... 'Decepticon' could simply imply that the evil, totalitarian Autobot Empire uses propaganda to brand them as terrorists, "Is Your Neighbour A Decepticon?"-style.

On the subject of mirror universes, though, what kind of twisted up parallel universe would you have to inhabit to spend a good few hundred dollars registering for the Primus Package, book a hotel in Cincinnati, and go to the convention purely to pick up your box set to immediately list on Ebay?

I'll freely admit that I think this is possibly the least interesting BotCon set they could have come up with and that, at most, I'd only ever be interested in picking up Evil Jazz because the mold is basically perfect and the head is pretty well done... but it's obscene that people are so mercenary that they'd go to such lengths to get the box set (depriving others - the box set sold out within a couple of weeks of registration opening this year), only to immediately try to get rid of it at a profit.

And when you consider that maybe half the people bidding are looking to win so they can immediately put it up for auction again, to make their money back and more, the whole thing begins to spiral down into utter sickness.

Why would anyone do this? If their purpose is not to enjoy the box set, why pay the extra?

Upon closer inspection

Now that I've had a good look at TF: Universe Swerve (aka the limited edition Chevrolet Aveo TransFormer), I must say how impressed I am by the paintjob.

While it's been done to make the vehicle mode look as good as possible , somewhat to the detriment of robot mode (and without going to the expense of nice glossy paint, that is), it really is a very impressive bit of paintwork. Whereas the average, high-street-bought Deluxe has transparent plastic for the windows, etc, the extent of the paintwork used to match those parts to the opaque coloured plastic is minimal by comparison. On Swerve, they didn't just paint the shape of the door (for example), they painted the whole door... even round the corners of the plastic. Then the door handles are painted. The front grille is painted silver, and the Chevrolet badge is painted gold. The hubcaps are painted.

It's really very nice to look at.

It's not perfect... There are parts that really shouldn't have been left bare of paint, but on the whole, it's rather an improvement on Hasbro's usual work.

Robot mode, as I said, does suffer for all this paintwork. Aside from a couple of details on the face, Swerve displays largely bare plastic (red, grey and black) in his robot mode. That said, there's a fair bit of molded detail, including details on the backs of the legs, where you wouldn't normally be looking.

And all this in a limited edition, for less that £20. Methinks Chevrolet must be kicking themselves for not giving it a higher price.

For some reason, I thought my appointment with the masseur at the Chiropractor was first thing this morning, so I set my alarm for 6am. Having got ready for work, I checked my appointment card... 6.15pm

So I had myself a quick nap, then went out at what should be my usual time - about 7.45 - and managed to bump into my old mate Paul at the station. We chatted about his work and mine (it seems his employers don't just have a hiring freeze, they're actively looking to let people go), and the progress of my flat purchase.

It's been quite a while since I last caught him at the station, normally because I never manage to leave the house at quite the right time. His birthday is coming up, and I still have yet to find something suitable for him...

During the day, I was able to speak to the insurance brokers about my flat roof... and, within about half an hour, I had insurance lined up and ready to be activated when I'm closer to the exchange date. Definitely looking positive so far. I think that's basically everything ready, so it's all in the hands of the solicitors...

When, after work, I got to the Chiropractor, it looked as if I was the last patient to be seen (actually the penultimate, the last arrived just before I got put on traction), so I was ushered straight in for my massage. My legs and back were the focus of attention this time, with a short foray into the muscles of my buttocks.

"That's really tight," commented the masseur, while kneeding my left cheek.

I briefly toyed with the idea of asking if she was commenting on the state of my muscles, or merely complimenting me on my 'tight buns', but decided in favour of simply agreeing, and mentioning that it's usually the lefthand side of my body that goes wrong.

Accidents of Design

One other, darkly amusing detail of the day... One of the designers has been tasked with reimagining one of his magazines, bringing it up to date and freshening it up.

So, naturally, the font he picked for the masthead, flags and folios is one which we bought for an Estate Agent and, as such, is neither licensed for nor installed on any of the Editorial machines.

And, naturally, he denies all knowledge of it being a client-specific font, despite the fact that it's not in our printed type library directory.

Honestly, some people are just dense... That said, I'd imagine that kind of lapse is common in many design houses. I'm pretty sure Jaguar haven't allowed their corporate font to be used in anyone else's advertising and yet, a couple of years ago, I found that artwork supplied by a client was using Jaguar's corporate font. They were not happy when I pointed out the potential licensing nightmare.

And then not

Of course, there is one other constant.

If a beneficial change is suggested, events will unfold that make that change impossible.

To whit, there is a hiring freeze throughout the company. Anyone who leaves either Production or Editorial will not be replaced. This particularly includes redundancies. Sales will be unaffected.

So, for the time being, we're stuck with one senior designer who does bugger all, another who's only in two days a week, and a senior copy controller who's becoming problematic because he doesn't have the word 'manager' in his job title.

Meanwhile, my boss jets off to Egypt for a two-week Nile Cruise today.

I have a magazine that's going out on Wednesday that, on balance, isn't looking too bad... the problem is that today's magazine has caused problems for it by running late. Some of the same salespeople work on it so, while concentrating on making sales for that magazine, they've neglected sales for Wednesday's.

This wouldn't be so bad if the salespeople in question weren't unreliable at best. It got to the point today that I asked the MD to intervene... but, as far as I can tell, he did not. When I spoke to the South office manager, he said he'd have all the updates I need tomorrow morning. This, after spending most of the last week trying to get it sorted ahead of time because this is precisely what happened last month.

Now, granted, it's not ideal that the same salespeople deal with two deadlines in one week... but, frankly, Production do that all the time. One of the copy controllers had three press days last week due to illness or holiday.

In other news, the current flat purchase is still progressing reasonably well. I have a letter from the mortgage lender offering me the mortgage I need, I now have the information the insurance company want regarding the building's roof - in the process of being redone, asphalt and felt - and a homebuyer's survey that highlights a few things that need further attention/quoting.

In other, other news, when I arrived home today I was greeted by my super-duper limited edition Chevrolet Aveo TransFormer - originally made available to anyone who took the Aveo for a test drive in the States, it turned up on the Chevrolet Europe webshop at a dirt-cheap price. It's taken three and a half weeks to get here (a very laid-back Customer Support person in Sweden told me last week that they'd been so inundated with orders they'd got behind, and hadn't responded to my two emailed enquiries because they get so many emails, they couldn't possibly respond to them all, but he reassured my that I would get my toy... with a slightly condescending emphasis on the word 'toy'... It's a model, darn it!) but it's here and it looks rather cool. Transformation is a mixture of yer-average contemporary TransFormer complexity with touches of Movie stylings (particularly in the way the front wheels fold into the torso), with a head modelled loosely on the Autobot logo. It's perhaps not as poseable as one might hope, but it's pretty good.

And it's a limited edition.

And it's mine.

Change being the only constant...

On the quiet, there have been some positive moves within the barely organised chaos of my workplace.

Well, I say positive, but it is and it isn't...

While the MD is basically the be-all and end-all of the problems with the company, he has correctly identified certain other problems that kind of need solving, though not necessarily for the right reasons. To this end, he put forward an offer - via my boss - to the Senior Copy Controller: two months' pay if he'd leave.

Technically, it's redundancy, but he hasn't quite been around long enough to warrant that much of a pay-off. On the one hand, he deserves it because he's been very good at his job. On the other hand, he kinda doesn't because he's been causing friction within the department, and constantly butts heads - publicly - with the boss.

But while this may be a positive with caveats, it leads quite neatly to making the two Senior Designers redundant. One has barely picked up any advertising in months - on one magazine, he set none and made edits to three - and the other is just disruptive and completely fails to live up to the job description in any way, shape or form. Honestly, to the first person who asks out loud and within earshot "What are we going to do without him?", I shall respond (probably with a sneer) "Act your age, perhaps?"

Meanwhile, part of me* is beginning to regret this whole Chiropractor thing. Sure, my hip has been no trouble for months (apart from a sudden and slight twinge at work today), but being attacked - seemingly at random - with the Vibrating Pad of Doom can be quite painful. My muscles, accustomed to being bunched up, do not wish to relax... and no matter how many times the Chiropractor demands that I "let it go", I maintain that I do not know how.

Kind of a running theme with me, this 'not knowing how to relax'.

In the background, I'm stressing about the flat purchase (which is still moving forward) and trying to get a new job, which is proving more difficult than I'd anticipated... but then, I'm thinking that I probably need to get out of this line of work. I'm really good at it... but it's full of morons. I often find myself wondering if I can truly see myself doing this work in ten years' time, or if I'd rather be... something else.

If only I could pin down what that elusive 'something else' is.

(* usually whatever part hurts like hell for three days afterward)

The Colour of Pratchett

Having now seen both parts of Sky TV's adaptation of Terry Pratchett's The Colour of Magic, one thing is clear. Part one is (loosely speaking) The Colour of Magic, part two is (very loosely speaking) The Light Fantastic.

Neither part struck me as a particularly good adaptation, not least in terms of being faithful to the books. Both dwelt too long on inconsequential things, or glossed over parts that could have made a big difference to the end result. Both outright changed things that didn't need changing (Bel Shamharoth is a spider now?!) because they weren't even dealt with directly. I'm sure budgetary constraints played a significant part in deciding how to adapt the two books, and that much of it may have ended up on the editing room floor... but the films as shown felt a little amateurish, despite the impressive cast.

Part two actually seems very dark - in the sense of lacking light - meaning it was difficult to tell what was going on some of the time. The special effects in either part weren't that special, and some of the scripting could have been written by a teenager who'd only just finished reading the two books. Very little character shone through, and one thing Pratchett does very well is character.

The big shame of it is that the last adaptation - Hogfather - was so much better. Fewer 'big names' in the cast, tighter script, more faithful to the original material... The only thing that failed for me was the casting of Marc Warren as Teatime. Around that time, he was appearing in everything, including the BBC's adaptation of Bram Stoker's Dracula (that is to say, they chose to adapt the Coppola movie, rather than Stoker's original book).

In other news, my headache proved to be rather persistent, and I spent a good portion of the day in bed, asleep. At this rate, though, I may get an early night and do some reading before I put my head down.

Not much looking forward to the coming week, all told.

This Weather Is Silly

So here we are, Sunday 6th April 2008... Last week was getting gradually warmer, to the point where I was wandering around with my heavy winter jacket open and contemplating buying a lighter summer jacket (it's all about the pockets).

Today, I woke up to see snow everywhere.

It's still falling (very lightly edit: not so lightly anymore!), but it's mostly melted away from the pavements and roads (though I've just seen two cars drive past with snow on their roofs and bonnets) and the sky is still very grey. The back garden is covered, though it's clearly beginning to melt from the fence and trees.

And I have a splitting headache because I barely had anything to drink yesterday.

I'm hoping the pain killers are going to kick in, so I don't have to waste today in bed... Though, even in that eventuality, I should be able to get some reading done.

And so it begins. Again.

Yup, series four of the new Doctor Who has started. They've even re-recorded the theme music. Preferred the last version, personally.

In many ways, it's a low-key opener. A strange tale of cute little creatures made out of fat - illegally - by an interstellar supernanny. The Doctor intervenes. Donna (from the 2006 Christmas Special) turns up, and gets whisked away. The credits roll.

I quite liked it.

Donna has been substantially toned-down since The Runaway Bride and, while she hasn't become instantly likable, she's not as thoroughly annoying and one-dimensional as she was in her Christmas Special. The Doctor, too, seems subtly different... Not sure what it is, but I'm curious enough to watch more. Donna may have been on to something when she told him "you look older".

Considering the portentous way the last series dispensed with John Simm's incarnation of The Doctor's constant nemesis, part of me was disappointed that Sarah Lancashire wasn't the new face of The Master, playing a brief role in the series opener before returning only for the finale (which, we already know, will involve the return of Rose). That would have made for a pleasant twist, and - just maybe - answered the age-old fan-question of whether or not The Doctor could regenerate as a woman.

That and, hey, who'd object if The Master was technically The Mistress, done up in intimidating spectacles, office power-suit, high heels and red lipstick?

I know I wouldn't.

Scheduling conflicts

Assuming my current flat purchase goes ahead successfully, one thing I will definitely not miss about living with my parents is the way they'll completely mess up an evening without ever discussing it.

Take this evening, when the new series of Doctor Who starts. After a lacklustre preview after the lacklustre Christmas 'special' (why, oh why did we not realise it would be bad as soon as the involvement of Kylie Minogue was announced? The didn't even use her in a worthwhile way. She's a singer now... Don't make her a bloody waitress, give her a musical number, for crying out loud!) the cinema trailers actually made it look very promising, and I have been looking forward to it since its arrival this weekend was announced.

So, imagine my surprise when I popped downstairs at 6.30, wondering what time it was starting, only to see that it had started 10 minutes previously, and to be told that it's being recorded because my sister is paying a short visit on her way home.

Considering how much of a recorded television backlog we have, why on Earth are we recording more?

Grr.

In other news, it would appear that not only have the company behind BotCon woefully underestimated the top-dollar attendance for this year (leading to the supplies of the box set running dry about a week after registration opened), but they've also underestimated attendance in total to the point that they've just announced that supplies of the figure given free to all attendees (dealers and punters) are now all accounted for.

Plus side: Huge attendance, no doubt driven partly by the success of the movie. High attendance means higher profit, which should be ploughed back into the company, the Club and the Convention. Easily the quickest selling-out of a BotCon box set in the history of the current management.

Minus side: Some attendees won't be getting part of what they wanted out of the show (BotCon.com is still advertising the box set, despite not having any more to offer registrants). It is unclear how they could have underestimated to this degree... Surely they planned for greater attendance than last year? While this debacle plays out, the Club's exclusives have been delayed over and over again... I'm not interested in the Seacons, but I'd quite like to see Nightbeat sometime soon, considering last year's exclusives were - technically - 2006's figures, and the Club has a history of long delays with little to show for them.

I understand some of this, I really do. 'Fan Clubs' have come a long way - by necessity - since the days of teenagers running fan clubs from their bedrooms by producing a monthly 'newsletter' on their ZX Spectrum, which is then photocopied and sent out to members who've paid £5 for a membership badge and send stamped, self-addressed envelopes each month so they can get the latest news from someone who actually knows nothing more than they do, but has a talent for phrasing it well.

These days, a 'Fan Club' has to compete with the internet, in which there are already myriad fan sites set up by fans, for fans who regularly trawl all the same websites. There are forums. There are communities. News spreads far faster by email than it ever could by a monthly mail shot.

So the TFCC, against all logic, treats itself as separate from BotCon, despite being run by the same company and in spite of the fact that the organisation of an annual BotCon has a consistently detrimental effect on the running of the Club for its members. Those who join before mid-March each year are eligible for the year's free membership figure... which then takes several months to arrive (personally, I'd put the cut-off point some months closer to the mail-0ut date of the figure to eligible members). The Club Exclusives from 2006 somehow merged into 2007, so there was nothing Club-wise that linked to 2007's much talked-about BotCon box set. And because of the licensing issues surrounding the movie toys, this year's Club Exclusives are a repainted gestalt set from Gen 1 (making them near enough 20 years old, if not more) and a repaint of a mediocre mold from 2004 with a new head, billed as a 'fan favourite', but actually a fairly obscure character.

I'm sure it's a tough job, getting all of this arranged... but at some point, one must start meeting the expectations of the paying members. Many frequently express their disappointment at coming second to the requirements of BotCon, but if the company running both can't even predict its attendance numbers with reasonable accuracy, they're going to have a huge number of extremely disappointed attendees who, most likely, will not be interested in joining a club which already plays second fiddle to the convention.

And, hey, I think the current members would like their 2008 exclusives in 2008, if at all possible.

Preferably not after they're sold at BotCon.