It’s time to update this site with another journal entry. I don’t really feel like doing any work at the moment, I’m very tried, and this seems to be a valid substitute. All I’ve got to do is an assignment; write up four lectures and some questions. Instead I’ll waste my time writing this for all the people on the interweb that read other people’s journals.

This week I have done a few things of interest. On Thursday night (after my LONG university day – leave for uni at 8:15a.m. and get home at 10:30p.m.) I saw “Zatoichi” at the Warwick Student Cinema. I went through a phase of watching all the Asian movies I could, horror, samurai, anime, drama, ping pong, etc… . In doing so I watched a few great movies and a whole lot of crap. This crap had put me off foreign cinema for a few months, the last movie I recall watching being Azumi. Anyway, Zatoichi has firmly reinstalled my confidence in Asian cinema. It’s a refreshing blend of drama, samurai and comedy with a rip-roaringly fantastic blow out soundtrack ( – “The Sun”) by Keiichi Suzuki was nothing short of breath taking. I now officially support all of Beat Takeshi’s (Takeshi Kitano) work and have reminded my self to watch “Dolls”.

Then on Friday I slept through my lectures and woke at 1p.m. At 3, I and Samantha left for Birmingham, via Leamington station. We were going to see the Birmingham symphony orchestra perform a tribute to George Gershwin, the famous song writer from the thirties. Despite a few mishaps, i.e. getting the wrong train due to Leamington spa’s awful teleservice and walking for a mile in the wrong direction because someone (not me-hint) misread a map, we got there in good time. There we enjoyed some free jazz beforehand, a nice drink of lilt and an upper circle seat looking forward and down at the orchestra. From there we watched in awe as we were pleasured with the aural delights of “Rhapsody in Blue”, “Summertime” and other classics. I plan to return soon to watch the Charlie Chaplin movie, “City Lights” with a live accompaniment.

I randomly stepped into my local art house cinema today after a social meeting that I had planned to attend, was not where I thought it was.

The film showing at that very moment, just about to begin, was: “Fear and Trembling” or Stupeur et tremblements as it is known in french. It is a film adaptation of the popular book with the same title.

Winner of the Grand Prix de I’Academie Francaise and the Prix Internet du Livre, this taut tour-de-force of a novel created a sensation in France, where it has sold nearly half a million copies. FEAR AND TREMBLING tells the story of Amelie, a young Western woman who spends a year working at a Japanese corporation. She soon learns that at the Yumimoto Corporation hierarchy means everything. Keep to your place and you survive; break ranks and you will be broken. The determined but hapless Amelie makes mistake after mistake, not least of which is deigning to sympathize with her immediate superior, the beautiful, effcient and ice-cold Miss Mori. A perverse process of ritual humiliation follows. But even as Amelie’s life at the Yumimoto Corporation spirals inexorably and hilariously downward, what she learns about herself and her colleagues in this brilliant novel will alternately delight and outrage readers. Not since Marguerite Duras has a novelist so indelibly marked the difference between East and West, and with such seductive honesty.

This film is about differences in culture. Sadly the camera work, filming and screenplay are sub standard. The story and thought behind the writing is awe inspiring yet the movie is dull. Read the book and if you are interested in representations of japanese culture, watch the film as well.

Saying that, the film did have its moments and I enjoyed it in part.

5/10.

Yesterday was my one year anniversary with my girlfriend, Samantha. So we decided to do something special. After spending the day together, looking round the beautiful gardens of Leamington Spa, we went for a meal.

We went to “The Thai Village” restaurant. For those that don’t know, Thai is essentially a mix of Indian and Chinese food. Some dishes are very hot, some are mild and others are just tasty. It wasn’t too crowded being a Sunday evening, which was nice. After pondering for a good long while we finally decided on what to eat, we chose this:

It was delicious and so very different.

We then had a lovely romantic night in:

HAPPY ANNIVERSARY SAMANTHA
1 year.

Here’s a badger:

As I made known a few articles back, I purchased for myself a Sony Cybershot DSC-P93 5 Megapixel camera for about £220 from amazon. It was a toss up between this camera and the Nikon 5200. After reading reviews and comparing picture qualities, I made the informed decision to purchase a Sony.

My girlfriend, Samantha, has since bought the Nikon and I have been able to more thoroughly compare them. Here’s a summary of my findings:

Battery life: The Sony can last at least three times as long as the Nikon, the batteries are also cheaper and easier to replace. There is also an option to use normal AA batteries if necessary. When on my trip to Italy the failing Nikon battery was supremely annoying, particularly on a day out in Florence. You need a spare Nikon battery in order to not be afraid of failure, and they cost £30 compared to the Sony £7 for two sets.

Features: The Nikon has lots more one click settings, e.g. sunsets, profiles, etc…, however all their options, settings and changes are buried under menu after menu and take a short while to change values. The Sony has quick on screen changes just in case you need to take a picture quickly – e.g. picture quality, white balance, iso level – simple and effective. When it comes to one click settings, Nikon is king, yet in comparison of manual settings the Sony has far more available options, e.g. more manual aperture levels and a much wider range of shutter speeds (30 seconds longest compared to 4 seconds).

However, the most important feature of all is picture quality. I heard reports of Nikon pictures being too fuzzy and undefined. In a direct comparison on a site this was clearly noticeable and highly influenced my decisions. What that comparison DIDN’T show was the colour capturing abilities and saturation levels of the two cameras. The Nikon captures the images with much more vibrant colours, they look nice and full of life. The Sony images, although looking “life like”, don’t give a good looking image (in comparison) – the images seem dull and lifeless. Not the greatest comparison, but:

Sony:

Nikon