So – I’ve been rattling around looking for ideas and inspiration on what to write, and decided to watch something I’ve not seen for ages – Full Metal Panic (http://fullmetalpanic.wikia.com/wiki/Full_Metal_Panic!_Wiki) .

This is an Anime series, with mechs, guns, fancy aircraft carrier submarine. Watching this has done a couple of things, reminded me how much I enjoy some anime series, made me realise that the Japanese are crazy, and that nothing is really too much for sci-fi.

The good thing is that I now have a few more ideas rattling around the brain. Some are pretty rubbish really. Some not so – I will have to play with them over the next few weeks (if I get a chance – I really need a holiday but just not been able to take one).

One thing that I am sure of is that I will be watching a few DVD’s that have just been sat on my shelf for the last couple of years gathering dust. I then went hunting around on ebay and amazon for various things, realised my Blu-ray player isn’t multiregion (annoying as I have quite a few R1 DVD’s on the shelf), want to get a load of stuff from the US. Blah.

Who came up with the idea of regions for DVD/Blu-ray anyhow? And why if I create a “wishlist” on amazon.com, doesn’t it list with my wishlists on amazon.co.uk? gah!

So – here is a rant that will never actually get sent to amazon – although I did tweet them about it.

Dear Sir,

Why do your sites not integrate fully? I have wishlists on both the UK and US sites, as some items are not available in the UK. However, if someone searches for my wish list on the UK site, the lists created in the US site are not shown, and vice-versa. Would it not make sense for these to integrate across all the amazon sites?

Regards Me.

OK – so little rant over, but I think I have a valid point, in the modern day films/TV shows are now released internationally at pretty much the same time – unlike if the past when the US would get stuff a good 6 months before us.

Does this regional coding not prevent people seeing the widest range of things – of spending their money on more things!? And of course if anyone wants to recommend anime series/OVA for me to go and try to import – just let me know 🙂 or if you want to buy me something I have wishlists on Amazon .com and .co.uk 😉

As you may have guessed from the picture at the top of this post – I use a pen. It’s a Parker fountain pen that I have had for 15 years or so. I love this pen and couldn’t do my writing without it.

My hand writing is neater with it (it’s a doctors scrawl with anything else), I can write faster than I can type with it (I touch type btw), and yet even being a lefty I don’t smudge the ink (I do however write at 90degrees to what everyone else does! Top to bottom, paper tuned – I may have to YouTube that).

The biggest thing is the release, I just don’t seem to be able to flow when typing, something will distract me (the wiggly red lines are the biggest thing), that will kill the flow mid word.

That and my laptop is permanently connected to the internet and we all know how dangerous that is to productivity!

What really gets me is that no one ever writes letters any more, I get emails from my friends, I admit that I tend to email things most of the time too, but sometimes, some things, there is a need for a proper hand written letter, sent by the good old Royal Mail (ok – it may never arrive via the RM – but that’s a different thing altogether).

Try it – instead of telling a friend about something via email (or Facebook), write a letter, and post it (or even hand it to them), something special will happen. And I just got the attack of the wiggly red lines!

You may even get something back. One thing that will happen – they will take more care over reading it than the 10th Facebook update of the day – lost amongst the 100 or so other updates that appears on the timeline.

It may be the ocd in me – but I tend to keep a letter too, but emails, status updates etc. just get lost or deleted.

So – if I ever give you a hand written letter think nothing more of it than I value your friendship enough to tell you something important.

I bought the anarna.org domain in 2006, it’s only taken until the end of 2011 to actually get a site up!

Anarna is one of the main characters in one of the things I am working on. And I liked the name so much i got the domain for it. The rest as they say is history!

I have also posted up 2 short stories, neither is complete, i found them in a folder on my computer – and the last modify date was in 2001. Have fun!

Well, my plans went exactly how I hoped they wouldn’t. The last 8 months have vanished and I don’t know where they went to.

One thing I do know is that I havn’t done much writing and the site got neglected (again!).

Merry Christmas!

I hope to get some more of the content done for the site during my whole two days off!

I’ve been doing a lot of work in the background still, working on the plans and layout of the various stories – I don’t know how people can only work on one project.

Unfortunalty due to being very overworked at work I’ve not been able to do much to the site for the last couple of weeks. The last thing that I want to do when I get home from fixing other peoples computers is to use my own!

The creative bug has taken hold, and I find that there is not enough time to do everything – the website (which has been needed work for – well ever), redoing all the plot outlines for all the projects.

I’ve even had some new ideas and made a start on some of these. The big problem is I now have too many things floating around my small brain!

Then add on the stress of work and the need for some major dental work, with a distinct lack of sleep and you have me – slightly more mad than normal 🙂