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May 29, 2004
At Least This Week Is Over!
It hasn't been a very good week, generally... When the main high point is getting to a bugger of a bit in Far Cry which really started to annoy me (after a couple of days of being really unhappy and deciding to play the game to unwind), you can imagine that things are not going well.
I know, many others are having a worse time but this is my blog!
Sunday saw us playing Rainbow Six for a change, and some games of Atomic Bomberman. Nick sucks at Bomberman. As an incentive I said if he could get through a game without committing suicide, we'd go out tonight. Despite my being here, he did manage it (though one did go to a judges decision as it was technically his bomb that killed him, though it had been set off by another...). I would have been going out except that the weather has been crappy most of today (its fine and dry now!), and the fact that I don't feel like it (but I could have forced myself!). Why didn't I feel like it? Well, apart from ending this month £250 over my overdraft due to paying bills for other people and not getting the money back until next month (if I'm lucky), work has pretty much pissed me off. I'm so glad I'm not going in for a few weeks!
Work was, as usual, very annoying. Monday wasn't too bad, Tuesday saw me in Bury for a meeting, Wednesday annoyed me, Thursday was bad (one very annoying client who kept repeating that her hearing aid wasn't working and her husband who was very unhappy that he hadn't got the letter as we had the wrong address), while Firday saw me getting stuff done for my next two weeks off, getting messages that the Profoundly Deaf community hated me (it's pretty mutual, I am sorry to say) and other people I work with, two semi-urgent cases that I can't do much about, a fax machine that had to installed immediately, one person I hadn't been able to contact on Thursday living in Langho that necessitated a 6.30pm visit (I applied my usual 'get them on my side' tactic and it worked, but I was still annoyed), I didn't get to empty out the car of equipment (as I only got back to Burnley at 7.30!), and ended the week fuming.
This means that the comics going online this coming week have been drawn while not entirely happy - expect the quality to increase! As I said, I'm now off for two weeks, and I have to get down to 3+ weeks of comics to get sufficiently ahead to soet out this site for the end of June and finish off .com... Wish me luck!
I also need some luck on the roads (I think James' touch of death is reaching for me, but my natural luck is reflecting it) as I have nearly been killed a number of times this week. This is not a joke.
Monday saw me nearly getting hit by a fool on a roundabout coming out without looking and someone coming right out of a side road without looking and nearly making my 206 look like my Colt. Tuesday wasn't too bad as I headed to Bury for the meeting with a colleague from Preston - I was going onto to Motorway, and a big dumper truck win the middle lane decided to pull into the lane I was just pulling into) without looking and I had to slap the brakes on and nearly ended up on the hard shoulder... later another truck nearly did the same thing to another car coming off at a sliproad... definitely a theme here! On Wednesday I think I survived unscathed (though I nearly got beaned good by rubble coming off the top of a roof while walking to work). Thursday was not too bad for near death experiences, though work nearly drove me to cut my wrists in the correct way... Friday saw more fools at roundabouts (one pulled out and suddenly slammed on his brakes as I narrowly avoided him smacking into my left side!) and a number of pillocks who felt it was clever to drive at 60mph on a newly pebble-dashed road...
As you can see, not the best of weeks. And no night out. Probably for a while. I managed to get myself almost back to normal by watching the extended Lord Of The Rings: The Fellowship Of The Ring and all the extras today while mum was out, so it wasn't a total loss. We'll just have to see if the coming week is better - I have a trip to Manchester to come (though with a very low budget), and lots of fun art to do, and coding, and Flash, and possibly some sleep, though I feel I may soon be back to how I was in the good old days of working on art until 3.00 in the morning... especially if I do what I would like to for the 31st October this year... These plans are all that keep me going!
Posted by Badgers at 09:50 PM | Comments (2)
May 22, 2004
Signs Don't Work!
Considering it's been a week since my last confession - um - entry, I'm not going to go on for long tonight - I'm in the middle of a Spaced marathon and going to have a bath soon, not that you need (or want) to know that!
The week has been it's usual annoying list of annoying things that annoy me, but a few things have stood out for me... the first was a postman (an incredibly old postman) going postal outside someone's door when he got his hand trapped in the letterbox! He threw the sack down, the letter in his hand flew into the air, and the air was bluer than a blue thing turning blue at a Chubby Brown concert! It gave me a giggle, anyway... its not surprising they had such severe problems with the post locally!
The other thing is unfortunately, work-related. Y'see, last week I was given an extra cupboard to store my equipment in - so far, so good. The only problem is that all my storage is now in the smoke room. I don't smoke, and have trouble breathing in there at the best of times. The walls (recently repainted) are as greasy and yellow as before. Now, I have just been dumping stuff in my corner for the last few months as I haven't had the time to go down and tidy up. This week I did, so I was told to put a sign on the door telling people not to use it that day. This I did - I made the lettering easy to read and big, and I even laminated it. It was put down on the door the day before. I went down that afternoon expecting it to smell (even though I can't smell, you know what I mean) better as no-one had smoked in there all day. Yeah, right. While I was down there, most of the smokers in the building came and went (some three times in the space of an hour!), including managers. I got things tidied into the cupboards, but not how I wanted, but after an hour down there I thought "feck this!" - as long as stuff was out of the way, I was happy. I wasn't happy about finding it hard to breathe, but I decided that it was fine for me to go home early. So I did. Why can't people read? And three times in an hour?!?! I'm sure the 'smoker's break' doesn't last that long! And of course, it goes without saying that I can't take breaks (officially) being a non-smoker. Still, as I shouldn't die of cancer, I have some things to feel good about!
The only other big thing has been the fact that I have had the daily comic running daily for three weeks, and tomorrow sees the start of Call Of The Cthuloids (those who are going to do voices for the Flash series should read!), which feels good!
Oh - and I've noted some visitors and comments - not sure about the sex toys (!) but I think someone may have been searching for 'burnley' and clubs'! Nice to know that the search engines still list me, even though I don't pay them to!!!
Posted by Badgers at 05:30 PM | Comments (1)
May 16, 2004
16th Place!
Well done to the Ukraine entry, Rulsana for putting on a great show and winning some competition or other! My hopes for a Maltese holiday next year were always in doubt!
The same to Serbia & Montenegro - Terry Wogan couldn't understand why they did so well (except for the political block voting of the Eastern Europeans - more on this below!)... the song was good (and I think the nose-flute was the clincher - everyone voted for it one way or another! Greece and Turkey took the next two places - Greece I expected to win or be second,, as the song isn't horrible, and the show was very... strippy... in a Bucks Fizz kinda way! Turkey (another one Terry couldn't get his head around!) were cool - a cross between Busted and Madness, this ska band were great on the night! in fifth place (hurrah!) even if technically tied with the Swedish Entry (who wasn't bad - especially with what she was doing to the microphone stand!) was young Lisa Andreas from Kent singing for Cyprus! Yay!
The UK came 16th. Far from our best result, but James Fox gave it to them good, but was a victim to the political votes (nothing to do with the war this time, those who believed it got in the way last year! - see below)
and another factor that didn't help. Well done - you didn't discrace yourself, or us!
Some acts that should have been much higher were a surprise - Ireland 23rd?!? The song was very Westlife-y, but I won't hold that against it! An unsurprisingly Norway narrowly missed nil point...
So what happened? Well, there can be no doubt that there was some political voting. Last year, the UK wanted to blame the war for the nil pints fiasco, but the truth is that while there was political voting going on last year, it wasn't about the war. The reason is that the song was crap and the performance in the wrong key (Chubb or Yale, I think!). This year, the political votes were in force...
Neighbours voted for neighbours, so Portugal voted high for Spain, Cyprus went for Greece and Turkey, Monaco went French... Oddly enough, France didn't vote high for the UK, though Ireland gave us an eight. The Eastern Europeans were well into it - we got votes from them, but the big points went to their fellow Baltic states, totally foxing poor Wogan! But this alone won't answer for the points awarded to Ruslana (280) and Zeljko Joksimovic (263). Pretty much everyone voted them some points - and being in the top ten countries in the phone votes takes some doing with this many entries!
So what won it for them across the world? Simple - the show they put on. The stomping (and the Xena costumes) really sold it for Ukraine - it was excelent! Again, the show for Serbia was good - nowhere as flashy as the winners, but the build up - the guy with the flute comes on, then the others - the song is good and has a real feel for its roots, too, which is good. Greece at number three? The bit where they rip off their tops is a Buck Fizz moment that again gets the interest! Turkey hadn't a huge show, but their energy pulled them in lot of votes. In contrast, James Fox was basically out there, giving it his all, with a guitar. That was it. No dancers (though the song, while good, wouldn't work with any!) or showy stuff at all. The lovely Julie (with Ludwig) for Malta suffered something similar, though she sold it big (those eyes!), and they were popular in the hall.
The top two songs drew on their country's musical history and truly represented their country itself - this stood out against the background of everyone else singing in english... there was no way that you couls say that they were bland and made to please...
There are those who buck this trend though - Lisa Andreas was alone, but she managed 5th place, While Poland tried hard on the show part (right down to the poor girl wearing little under a see-through body stocking and getting touchy-feely) but the intense horribleness of the song totally counteracted that! And I thought the Swiss entry in the semi-finals was the worst song... then I heard that Polish entry!
The block voting from the east certainly didn't help, but what scuppered it for many entries (even at the Semis) was simply that for most viewers and voters, the first (and possibly only) time they hear or see the performer is on the night... If the voters had voted on the video performances, the votes wopuld have been different (see them at the BBC Eurovision site), though even then, Ruslana would have been up there! Those who put on a show were given the rewards, as were those coutries who simply had a good, catchy or otherwise memorable song. Ruslana was memorable, as was Serbia. Cyprus was a great, strong ballad, and sadly,as it followed James Fox, probably overshadowed him. Lisa's strong voice would have made it more memorable. Being the last act, Sweden had a good chance of staying in the mind, even without the microphone stand antics...
If we are to stand a real chance net year, we need to get the votes (well duh!). to do this we must be memorable - we must have a good song, and put on a good show. Even the eastern countries happily voted for the west (it's just that their high points went to their neighbours!), or at least those who put on a show... The trick is not to have a load of dancers and stuff with a song like this years UK entry - the song won't support it, in the same way that the Cypriot entry wouldn't (but didn't need to). The French song had a bald woman on stilts - why? I couldn't hear any reason in the song. It just didn't support it (though her stilts supported her). Malta would not doubt have done far better if it hadn't just been Julie and Ludwig on stage - though too much would have distracted me from her eyes. Ahem. It's a matter of balancing it. Can we pull it off?
Those Final Scores In Full! (here at the Eurovision site)
Overall though, it was a good show - well done Turkey (though the presenters were not as good as they had been at the semis... is that the words I was looking for?!?) - and well done to the lovely lady in the links who cast the petals/hearts - she must have been tired by the end of the night!
Remember people - we need a strong song that will support a good performance... we must be more than good, we must be memorable - we might not get 12's from the Baltic states, but we might just pick up the 8's and 9's!! I'd be more than willing to let them use 'Romantic Night' - heck, it won the Galactivision Song Contest in the old I.T. series, even with I.T. singing it! - all they have to do is call...
Posted by Badgers at 06:10 AM | Comments (0)
May 15, 2004
You! In The Shirt!
Here is the picture I promised yesterday!
It's taken from the back page of The Bugle, the newsletter we get at work. Yes, that is me on the left in the shirt! I'm actually in with the managers here (though I am far from being one, being a lowly Sensory Support Officer!). The other people are the other members of the team across the county, though some are missing - I think they were hiding on the turn of the stairs! The picture was taken at Alston Hall, a rather nice residential college just outside Longridge. Don't ask me to name everyone - I still don't know who half of these people are!
In other news, James is back with us (see his blog for more harrowing details - feel free to send money to him via my Paypal account over at .com! Feel free to send me money too!) which is good news, though he hasn't had much himself, it seems.
Ah well - heres to either the UK, Cyprus or Malta (those eyes!) winning tonight!
Posted by Badgers at 06:14 PM | Comments (0)
May 14, 2004
"Just Like A Butterfly, My Wings Can Take Me High..."
Sorry - due to the fact that I have a daily comic to do (next week's strips are fun, but it wasn't easy drawing the right hats in two of them... especially from the scrappy references I found!) I won't be doing the big Eurovision update thing this weekend. I know, you are all so unhappy, I can feel your pain. Well, I certainly felt pain listening to the two Turkish presenters reading lines from the teleprompter with all the panache of Sam Fox and Mick Fleetwood at The Brits... At least she had a dress cut down to there (like 'there', but further!). Of course, we are as bad - if James Fox wins we'll give them Davina McCall and Patrick Kielty. I think I prefer the Turkish lady with the low-cut dress...
Hmm - I can't manage to get the Maltese entry out of my head though - it was bloody catchy! And she was a catch too - lovely eyes (I like nice eyes - one of the reasons I like Ayumi Hamasaki is her eyes!!!) and other things. If I manage to get everyone to vote for Julie & Ludwig I might just decide to have a holiday in Malta next year... I still feel sorry for Estonia - dressed like Leela from Doctor Who, their song was tribal, and to be honest, sounded Klingon. I guess the sight of The Ukrainian Xenas overshadowed them a little. That and the fact one or two of the women were butch. And their drummer is a nutter who uses his hands and is bald apart from a goatee and two 'horns'... And the Germans and Austrian entries haven't a liederhosen in sight! I' think Switzerland were just having a laugh though... it sounds as bad on the album as it did at the semi finals on Wednesday! Ah well - roll on tomorrow night...
Once again, I won't go into work stuff (annoying, with an extra helping of annoying!), except to say that when the Bugle newsletter came in today, the picture from the Away Day a month ago was on the back - I'll add it to this entry over the weekend when I dig it out of my bag! Amazingly, I don't look as fat on it as I though I would... Also, I have now got my two weeks off signed and so I am free to battle through the next two weeks... This means that I should be able to save money in June (finally!) so that July might see me with enough money to do something, be it going out or just simply have a bank account without an overdraft again... we'll see what the parents say about that though! No doubt they have some good causes that would love my money... and I know the petrol companies certainly do! The next few weeks could be tight in the old 'full tank' front - I hear that prices are already above 90p a litre in some areas... of course, Burnley has had a garage that has had the fuel that high for years, and still managed to get punters in - of course, it's just become a car wash... I mean, you'd have to pay £1.50 a litre there if prices start going up... and no-one would do that!
At least, I hope we won't have to!
On interesting thing to note for whenever we get to go out as a group again is that the theme bar is alive and well in Burnley - we have a Walkabout (vaguely Australian), the egyptian-themed (slightly - there are transfers of hierglyphics on the walls!) Pharaohs, and soon, in the remains of the Bed Centre, we will be getting a western-themed bar. As in a Western saloon bar. The Carpet City shop, hit by a car not so long ago (the manager came in one morning to find it parked in the middle of the shop!), is now closed and is being demolished, and word has it that this too will become a bar. Does Burnley need more bars? Discuss.
So - thats pretty much my week - boring, but this is a blog, after all! James hasn't updated in a while, but as he is currently having to share his PC with his daughter, it isn't surprising - he is still around, though, as he is online at the moment (I can see him on Messenger) so no doubt he is downloading like mad as usual... I wonder if he has read today's comic? Have you?!? It is the first I'm really happy with as I have now introduced the main cast (apart from a couple who come in a few weeks...) so next week I get down to the madness of doing it regularly and then the week after I hit you with the new version of The Call Of The Cthuloids... you have been warned!
I have also got the plans drawn up for what is happening to this site - not only will it be my personal site, but I hope to make it a site a little like a low-rent version of Something Awful, or a less sweary b3ta... lots of little articles by various friends and idiots, as is my whim. We shall see...
Posted by Badgers at 09:39 PM | Comments (0)
May 12, 2004
It's That Time Again... Only More So!
Just a quickie, I'm afraid...
This Saturday sees the 2004 Eurovision Song Contest, but this year tonight is the first semi final - there are just too many entries!!! To see them (and so far, some of them haven't been too bad - at least they are mostly in tune!!!!) take a look here - they have the videos too! Saturday may well see me doing a written commentary as I sit there watching it... if I do, keep refreshing every 5 minutes or so...!!!
Ah well - enough fun - what has the week given me so far? Apart from a painful foot? Well, I've nearly been killed by a bus, a scooter and a loony in an Escort who thought he could keep up with me, but found corners were so difficult he had to take them very wide - almost as wide as James takes them in a bus. And a crunch to an Astra in Barrowford.
Oddly though, Andrew's parking on Sunday was really good. Usually he bumps the kerb (whiplash injury compensation!) but even though there was only one tiny space - he reverse parked as well as me (and James can vouch that I can reverse park!) and didn't hit anything! It waas the last Burnley match of the season, you see, and with their manager being sacked, it was kinda packed... Sunday was fun though - Atomic Bomberman (working in XP) is brilliant, and we played it for hours until we turned to Soldner - and proceeded to try dropping tanks on each other from Chinook helicopters... I like this game a lot more now!
You'll be happy to know that I am ahead on the I.T. comic - you needn't worry that it will suddenly stop... though you may pray that it will!!! I have today booked two weeks holiday too, partly to get some time of work and partly to play some games. I'll also be drawing like a fool those two weeks... I want to get at least two weeks ahead and also get some flash done - I have 3 animations (and not even I.T. ones!) that I want to get down to!!! I've also decided to spend that time sorting out the site! The new Badgers will be open in mid June...
See you on Saturday!
Posted by Badgers at 09:05 PM | Comments (0)
May 08, 2004
A Long Four-Day Week
I'm not going to go on about work except to say that the first big moves are underway (my old boss totally vacated her office one day then the next the members of my team from upstairs were in there), I saw a few annoying people this week, but not as many as usual, I survived a meeting that I was half an hour late for (too bloody busy!) and actually had a few things to say (which makes a change, but as I'm technically a 'senior' having done the job for 3 years, I can say pretty much what I like!)
Sunday of course, was shooting free - I spent it drawing this past week's strips and then every day I've put them online in the morning! Next week's are done, and the week after will be finished by Monday, allowing me to move onto Call Of The Cthuloids which should get me well ahead - it's having to have a few changes made to fit the dailies though. James turned up late on Sunday to say hello and get me to burn a few discs for him as his is buggering about. He brought Manhunt and some other game, but I didn't try them (more interested in getting Beyond Good And Evil back on!).
The week has progressed, and weatherwise it's been a mixed bag - rain, warm sun, very warm sun followed by bucketfuls of rain coming down... a funny old week.
One biggie though, is money. For one reason or another, money has been going though my fingers like the glittery stuff through the fingers of The Jacksons in the video for 'Can You Feel It'! And surprisingly little has actually come to me! Most has gone for keeping my parents from debtors gaol and towards paying for that car tax thing. Ani more is likely to go as I will probably have to pay for one of the dogs to be looked at - Brandy has a problem with his eye - it might be an infection, it may have been a stroke - all I know is that he has one eye that isn't opening most of the time.
All this of course, rules out a night out in the near future unless some nice people donate to roguenoid.com via Paypal! This isn't too much of a problem as I (surprisingly) don't feel like going out, but Nick is going to be very antsy tomorrow - he'll be, to coin a phrase, gagging for it. The worrying thing is that he and Andrew can't go out as Andrew doesn't go out, and James and Nick won't 'cos its no fun without me. He could still go out himself, though, but I'd hate to think what he might wake up to in the morning...
Ah well - tomorrow is another day - and next week could be fun - I have a supervision with my new boss and total chaos to sort out after the moves. At least I can come home and draw some more strips...
Posted by Badgers at 09:29 PM | Comments (0)
May 01, 2004
Busy Busy Busy
Sorry about the weekly updates, but the work on .com has really taken up all my available time! I still have a few bits to finish, but to all intents and purposes, it is up and running! The comic will launch tomorrow as I have spent the week drawing and writing the new strips (and having a real problem with the 4th part of the Story So Far - it works, but it is a little clumsy! I'll get to all that later, though - let's start on Sunday!
We went to Nick's and had fun - The new case went down well! The new Soldner beta is much better - but it still killed my PC to run it and the server - you need a dedicated server for that game! James arrived to ay hi, and show off his latest aquisition - a replica SA-80 rifle! He bought it in Portregal - you know - that place I can never spell! The reason he has been so quiet lately is that he has had some bad news. He's back, but we probably won't see him much for a while longer - hope things go well, dude.
Monday saw the return of work and what an annoying week is has been. Getting home to slave over php code has been a blessing! Tuesday saw me taking a break and going to the hospital in Rawtenstall so a specialist could look at my foot. This was the first time I have had a look at the X-ray from last year - and boy, is there something sticking out of the ankle joint! He wrenched it around and declared that it was going to need an MRI and then surgery. Oh goody. Luckily I had some php to fiddle with at home to cheer me up...
Of course, there was some nice stuff this week - on Thursday I was in Barnoldswick trying to find an address. I called at the wrong one and ended up meeting two rather nice blonde ladies who pointed me in the right direction. One one of them had just gone 21 - Happy birthday!
Today I had a break and went shopping in Manchester. On the bus station (which is getting resurfaced after barley 2 years use) I was waiting for the X43 when 5 LRPgers went by. I could tell by the leather, the beards (the group was 80% bearded). The weapons sticking out of their bags helped point them out too! At least two broadswords, a crossbow and a battle axe.
Manchester itself wasn't as busy as usual though - it got more so later as I was leaving. There was an impromtu rock concert going on - a great guitarist in the spce outside HMV, but the re was a loony dancing in front of him. You might remember those dolls that danced on sticks or on boards that street mucicians used to have - he danced like that - spinning, arms going everywhere. He was kind of like the lead singer in REM when he dances in videos only more so. More guitar picking was going on around the corner. While I was waiting for a bus home I watched a guy walk all the way down Deansgate to the light shop with a fluerescent tube, then walk all the wau back up with two more. When the bus turned up it was an X44 and the old women behind started wondering if it was worth waiting for the next bus (the X43) as it didn't make a detour through Edenfield. Considering it would have mant another 20 minutes or so, I know what I would have chosen. They eventually did, too.
Luckily I got home and sat down and did more stuff on the site. It is now as ready as it ever will be, so I'm leaving it for the night - I have stuff to add to this site! Tomorrow I'll be in a serious comic attack (and Bank Holiday Monday too). I need to get the 4th part of the Story So Far drawn tomorrow now I've got it into an acceptable shape. The next three weeks have written themselves, and should be good, but I have to get this last bit right - its the hook for all the more dramatic, longer tales to hang on. I've sorted out the gimmicks and characters - it's amazing how a character based on a person has to change so much after all these years... I'm damn near sick of Solitaire, though! Ah well...
I'm not sure when I'll be back here...! See you whenever!
Posted by Badgers at 07:51 PM | Comments (0)