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 520000. 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