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July 31, 2004
Not The Busiest Of Weeks
I spent the last few days feeling really ill anyway - headache, nausea, bad throat, the runs - all the usual symptoms. Except that I also felt very cold. Odd that, considering the tempratures we've had in the past few days! You wouldn't believe you could have a cold sweat in this weather, but you can! In fact, one lady I went to visit on Wednesday was all for calling the doctor for me! Thankfully it has pretty much passed (except the runs and the ever-present headache) so I feel okay at the moment.
Just for info (to certain people who never ever ill but manage to pull a sicky when a trip to Alton Towers happens or whenever he says he will definitely without question be coming out with us on a night out...) I didn't have any time off (unless you count going home at 4.30 on Wednesday) though I may use it as an excuse to bug out of the many meetings I'm stuck with next week... And I have actually got next week's I.T. comics drawn and coloured and started on the following week's strips! They begin properly on Monday, but I will be posting a 'cover' tomorrow to kick things off! Also today I revealed my plans for Dark Tidings (a separate website, opening in late October and the strip itself beginning in January with lots of hype! I must mention something to James too - he might be interested...), so today has been busy.
Not least because I went to Manchester and went kinda book crazy. Forbidden Planet didn't help either, as I was sorely tempted to get the complete Bone in one volume (I settled for the collected Bone volume 9 and Strangers In Paradise - David's Story). The centre was, of course, blocked off for the Lord Mayor's Parade... I got off the bus (after sitting next to an old woman who was going to Wales via the train station, and who had lived in a house that had been demolished for the motorway - we actually go through her old house, apparently) and wondered what all the police were for... To get home meant a trek through the centre to the other side - why wasn't I told?!? Where was my memo?!? Two scary things in Manchester (apart from some of the more odd-looking members of the Cow Parade) were a guy walking up and down with a Linux Developer's Convention 2001 T-shirt on (it was held in Manchester, apparently) and on the way home a distinctly chavvy woman with baby loudly talking to a friend about how she had just visited her man in Strangeways and how it would teach him to mend his ways and also how a man she had met knew some of her family after seeing them in Turkey on Holiday, though she didn't know which family member it was and stuff like that! And I meant to have no real punctuation there as that was how she talked. But in more capitals.
I won't talk about work (due to feeling crappy I barely remember it anyway), and to go through the complete twunts I met on the roads would be too much hassle. Lets just say there were lots, and leave it at that, eh? I was going to do a rant about the call to ban EVIL GAMES by the Daily Mail, but couldn't be bothered - I mean, if the Daily Mail is out to ban them, good luck to it - just remember that if games like the fairly crap Manhunt can make people kill (normal people, not mentally disturbed people) then I'm a raving lunatic with an AK. But the sorry case of Stefan Pakeerah, the boy stabbed to death by Warren Leblanc brings up questions of supervision, rather than a call to ban Doom III, Half Life, Manhunt and Frogger to me. The parents knew he was 'obsessed' by the game, but as he was 17 and obviously not mature enough to be playing it in the first place, what were they doing? Cheering him on? I mean, if I had kids (and I never will) I wouldn't let them watch Robocop unsupervised, despite the fact that I did watch it without parents getting in the way, and the fact that I believe it to be one of the greatest movies ever. Read the label - certificate 18 means something - work it out! I'm sure that the Mail would have called out to ban pornography if the lad had gone out and raped someone after watching a certificate 18 movie like Debbie Does Dallas...
I'll be so glad to leave this world when my time is up, leaving no descendants tolive on into the future we are creating. Just remember, the kids who you can't smack, send to bed without dinner, shout at or generally chastise in any way even when they feed their little sister into a tree-chipper are growing up in a molly-coddled world (hence the Government's 'Prepare for Emergencies' leaflet campaign) are going to be running the world very soon. All of them stupider than George W Bush and all likely to go off and kill people after watching something vaguely violent like Barney The Dinosaur. Wearing burbury-checked clothes. Do as I do, and choose to depopulate this bloody world voluntarily!
There - little mini-rant. I'll get round to entering the dream stuff soon - I have a feeling the serial dream hasn't quite ended yet!
Ah well - tomorrow we go up to Andrew's new house (rented, and currently pristine) to trash it! The good thing is that he won't be whinging that he has to be home for 6 as he will already be home... though he will probably be shoving us out of the door instead... Ah well! See you later!
Posted by Badgers at 10:40 PM | Comments (3)
July 25, 2004
A Quiet Night Out
Surprisingly, it was quite quiet - for a change I wasn't dragged onto the dance floor (walking with a pronounced limp seemed to help!) and there was not too much of note, really!
Nick and I headed into town (after he realised that getting his email once a day isn't enough - he got an earlier email saying it might not happen as Jamius hadn't contacted me, but I later sent another when I read his comment to my blog where he said he would be there) to start at Yates... we played pool but the table was horrible and had tiny balls - WTF? James called and said he couldn't get out till 9.45 and that he would pop into Lava to see if we were there before going on to Calamity Janes... of course Lava doesn't open till 10.30 so it would have been a little useless... From here we went to the Swan which was now open - it seems it was simply closed for a new paint job and some plastering - its a lot lighter in there, but not much different... then on to Calamity Janes where James turned up about 10.00. There was to a a live act downstairs, but we didn't stay, and missed the dancing on the bar too - it was going to happen, but later about 10.30 - a ploy to keep people there? Probably! We then headed to Lava and basically James and I sat on the same stools all night chatting and singing, while Nick ogled everything. It was a quiet night really - I hardly had any alcohol and James stuck to J20s all night. He enjoyed it though, which was good.
A few observations (no, not those!) come to mind (along with a great idea for an I.T. tale for later on - perhaps in late 2005/early 2006!)... The first is that the variation of quality of DJs really is incredible! Yates, for example seems to have a terrible DJ - you couldn't hear what he said, and his cross fading and mixing sucked. Calamity Janes and The Swan both have good pub DJs - full of double entendres and chatting to the patrons (and heckling them!). Lava's DJ is ecxellent - all the good points above, and quite mad! He was also having trouble with one of the CD players that was behaving like the ones they use on Radio 2... And of course, he plays pretty good music too!
The second thing was that some women/girls/whatever obviously felt that they were meant to be the main attraction, and the faces on some of them as we and others ignored them was great fun to watch! Sucking a lemon had little on it!
A few fun moments occurred though - on the beer garden at The Swan two girls were dancing together and giggling and laughing and generally showing that they had started drinking very early... In Lava one lady was obviously very drunk indeed and was having lots of trpouble trying to stay upright, but was still trying to interest the guys there... she failed miserably (see sucking lemons above!) Also, on the way home we all stopped at the trafficv lights on Manchester Road and watched to mad fools lying in the road trying to be run over... had they been reading my blog from Friday and decided to join the roadkill? Insane.
One annoying thing is that James asked why Andrew had been at my place as he had spotted him there... I had to say that Andrew had come up for my old Radeon 9600 Pro, which was partially true... In fact Andrew had decided to upgrade a little and had a new case, motherboard and processor and wanted me to help him fit it all together... It all went quite well (the case is a plastic rip on the Thermaltake Xaser cases) except that it was stingy with the IDE cables and had very few power cables (though a quick journey to S2S computers solved that for a fiver!). And he couldn't get his old Nvidia card to fit in again (hence needing the 9600). It certainly runs well as it did really well on Joint Operations today! James, of course, couldn't leave well alone and rang me to ask for Andrew's number so he could buy the card for anther PC he is getting ready to sell... I couldn't warn Andy as Jamius had rung him straight away... a shame that, as Andrew wanted it to be a little surprise! Nick go a little shock, though (James had asked if Andy had got a new PC last night, so it wasn't very big a shock!).
The big thing is that next week we all go up to Andrew's new rented house to mess things up and annoy the neighbours! Ah well. At least Andy has got a new copy of Joint Operations so he can join us online... even though he is now interested in us forming a clan... noobies, eh?
Posted by Badgers at 09:48 PM | Comments (0)
July 23, 2004
Dead Things, Crazy Cars and
Another week done and dusted, thankfully! Work has been annoying (mad even more annoying by not being able to find the address the new guy was going to so I could be there to help him assess a couple who are deaf, but finding that he did well alone - the house was on a new estate I didn't know about and which wasn't on the maps!). Still, I have seen a number of interesting things while out and about this week in the (mostly) glorious sun...
There seems to have been a problem with cars as I have ended up behind three cars all conked out at junctions and roundabouts... must be the heat! And twice I've been waiting for up to 15 minutes while A big truck sits parked between the temporary traffic lights set up for roadworks. The one this afternoon in Barnoldswick had finished it's delivery and sat there for 5 minutes while the driver nagged with workmen. Thank you Yorkshire Water!
Lots of fresh roadkill too - this afternoon I wondered why people were suddenly slowing down before spotting the poor magpie that hadn't quite got out of the way while picking at previous roadkill - too target fixated, I guess. The bird was put out of its misery by the car following as it steered to run over its head - it might seem cruel, but the magpie was already half squashed and couldn''t have lived anyway. The saddest was in Harle Syke yesterday. I was coming down the main road when a police car came screaming past, stopping for nothing... after it had passed a car was parked on the opposite side of the road and a guy leapt out of it into the road, tears in his eyes, and scooped up a black cat that had not been so lucky - it was limp and staring - the car then set off quickly, probably to a vets. Poor bugger.
One thing that nearly could have been roadkill was a peacock in Cliviger! I was going up there on Tuesday and came to a corner that is usually tight - I slowed down and suddenly this peacock came wandering across the road in frontof me. It wandered to the pavement and stood there looking at me before ruffling it's feathers, and setting off to wander back across the road as I set off again. Absolutely beautiful bird though... A couple of sheep also leapt out in front of me while I was going over Crown Point to have lunch - mad creatures! Another near miss came when I was coming down from Hapton to Padiham and two cute girls were walking down the pavement and then the other bumped her and she very nearly got hit by the car in front as she stumbled into the road...
The coolest thing this week has to have been this afternoon - I was on the A59 coming out of Clitheroe and I saw a yellow car coming towards me - I thought - cute - it looks like Bessie (the yellow roadster driven by the Third Doctor). It came closer and it was very like Bessie - in fact it was a smaller, one-person mini-Bessie! A replica of the car, not a Mini painted like Bessie! Neat. If anyone has any pictures of the mini-car, let me know! The second coolest was listening to Steve Wright on Radio 2 and he had Tony Christie on as a guest. That was cool enough, but the cool thing is that when he played Amarillo a car honked its horn in the chorus - remember the classic bit in Phoenix Nights...? Obviously he was listening to it as well!
So, in other news, there may be a night out in the offing tomorrow (if the lady in denim from last time is interested in going out!) depending on whether James can get out of working or not. I want to go out as a threesome (which as ways to die, isn't too bad!) not just Nick and me - that way it will be a little less gay... Not that we are - it's just that Nick tends towards the hairier members of the opposite (older!) sex... And of course, talking while out gives us hours of time to natter about all sorts of rubbish - its better to do it then rather than outside Nicks for an hour while James should have been home a hour earlier... or when Andrew returns with his cry of "stop talking and start shooting!"... We shall see...
Jamius actually came online to play Joint Operations early this week so we went on a server playing coop! I did really well on the White Noise map (top of the board for almost the entire game apart from a brief bit in the middle when the buggers were camping our spawnpoints)... I had lots of fun assaulting their mineshaft as they kept coming to the door and I kept shooting them - fish in a barrel - but then the lag hit and it went a bit dodgy., Coop can be as much fun as Assault, especially when the rebels are helped by the members of the clan the server belongs to...
Ah well - the last thing is to say that I now have my new NTL box and I'm ready for the 1.5mb broadband when it is turned on... and I've splurged on an ergonomic wireless keyboard which I find easier to touchtype on - I've certainly made less spooling mistakes in this entry so far! Later guys!
Posted by Badgers at 06:29 PM | Comments (2)
July 17, 2004
Short Notice
A fairly quiet week for a change! The big news at work is that the guy who will be doing my job in Hyndburn and Ribble Valley started on Tuesday. We were told on Monday. No big induction session, just out with me on some annoying visits, during which he learnt a lot. I now him, though, and I'm sure he'll be great - better than me!
On the friends front, some interesting stuff has been happening! On Sunday after the night out I picked up Nick and he went to buy Joint Operations so he could play it online that afternoon - and he loved it - so much he is now thinking harder about broadband... And I got an email form James and he has also been out and bought the game! Of course, this being James he asks for us to be online at 8.00pm and then turns up at 11.00 to whinge about why we are not online at that time... he may be online tonight after 8.00, so I'll probably have to stay up until midnight before he turns up... so much for getting the comics done! Andrew also surfaced from his exile and mentioned he had the demo for Painkiller (played, deleted it ages ago!) and asking if we were playing JO on cracked servers... now he is going to get it! This game seems popular!
Comic-wise I havn't done any art this week, but I am about to start up again on the new strips beginning with I.T. Must Die! to run from August. I have been scripting and found that the 'full page' webcomic style works better for the story and me... I don't need to do as much work (which will be a blessing from the middle of next month!) which means I can get down to life... and planning the next night out/night in/day out/whatever!
Ah well - see you tonight on UK Typhoon 1!
Posted by Badgers at 12:59 PM | Comments (0)
July 11, 2004
Yeee-HA!
Well, I won't go into the past week so much except to say that I've enjoyed taking a break from the comic, and as usual, I wish I could take a break from the job too! Back to the comics big time now though! I managed to get the tyres sorted, and I'm financially viable for the moment, which is nice! Just don't be anyone who owes me money... And Mum was due to go in for an operation on her knee, but it was called off due to her health. Typical.
So things moved onto last night. And another nice night out it was! It had been raining all afternoon, but it fined up and was not bad, if a little chilly. For a change we went in Yates for a quick one before heading off to The Swan only to find it shut and being worked on - hopefully they won't wreck the place as it is an old pub - a real old pub! From there it was on to Paradise Island and then to Calamity Jane's Saloon round the corner - this is the 'western' bar I spoke of in earlier posts. Overall, it is far better than Pharaohs! Okay, the paintings on the walls are tacky and seem to have been done by someone who paints the wacky cartoon characters on fairground ride (Yosemite Sam and Wiley Coyote?!?) but overall it isn't a bad place - bars in the ground floor and in the basement, a large fake cactus, proper swing doors and at 9.50 the bargirls (dressed as cowgirls, an indian and a, um, good time girl) got up on the bar (with encouragement) to dance to Lady Marmalade. Which was nice. To put it mildly! It was a shame James couldn't join us, so I did a text saying what he's missed, but then found that I don't have his mobile number.... so I sent it to Andrew instead! Nick managed to recognise one of the girls as being from Paradise Island, but as it is owned by the same people, its not surprising!
After watching the lovely ladies we went towards Lava but it wasn't open yet (it's getting later and later! And this after sitting on a wall over the river to make sure we didn't go in early!) and so stood talking to the bouncers outside Orange House. One of them is schoolmate Stephen Farmer who we havn't seen for a while. He used to have a gorgeous and very bubbly New Zealand wife that we never learned the name of but liked a lot - especially Nick. Well, he used to - now he has a new love of his life - and she was the lady bouncer standing beside him. When he said it me and Nick looked at each other. Who knows what the story of that breakup was. Lets just say that for all his faults (like letting Miss New Zealand go) he certainly has taste! I did say to Nick to ask him was we left, but it might not have been a good idea with his new partner beside him... We went in for a drink then headed to Lava. While outside two geordies came up and asked if there was a beach round here - though may have been asking about bitches - we couldn't be sure... way-aye!
The first thing we did was get on a pool table - I wasn't playing my best, but we ended up with a crowd (I could take my pool playing to Vegas as a lounge show!) and soon were playing with two other guys in a doubles match - we then gave way while two others joined to play them , then a girl came on and boy was she a pool shark! Nick had one more game then the guy bought the cues from him, and we went upstairs to the Terrace. As we went through the door I saw one of the most gorgeous brunettes ever - sadly she wasn't alone and came onto the terrace to her friends before they went back in - nice view though!
After a hour or so of ogling from the terrace (and commenting on the driving skills of the cars taxis and Police vans going by) we returned to Lava to watch the dance floor - and get watched back! Lots of nice sights (one extremely nice blonde girl was doing an interesting dance by the pool table) and one in particular on the dance floor who kept looking at me, even when dancing with other guys! Sadly for her it was not a dancing night (it never is with me!). Very nice though! If you were the pretty lady in the denim jacket with the blonded hair/streaks who kept looking at a kinda largish guy in a dark red shirt and glasses with floppy hair and a beardy thing on his chin tapping his good foot and singing to the music at the end of the night and barely keeping his eyes off you, leave a message in the comments! It might be worth it!
So 2.00 came round and we headed out - Nick commented that it was quite quiet, but as I said, this isn't surprising - when you have about 30 clubs all going for the same punters, things will thin down a little. Even in a place as alcohol soaked as Burnley, there is a limit. Of course, gimmicks (like dancing cowgirls!) work! One thing that all night Nick was yawning - and he blamed it on me! I started yawning after midnight but I'd been up since 5.00am... his excuse was that he hadn't got up until after 12.00... what a lazy bugger!
See you later!
Posted by Badgers at 07:03 AM | Comments (2)
July 06, 2004
Thunderbirds - The Movie (A Rogue Noid Production)
I mentioned this a long time ago, but now the film is with us, and while I like the designs (some hate TB2 but I like it!), I think the film seems to fail on so many levels. It is basically Spy Kids 4. I mentioned that I had a planned script and while I haven't really done much work on it, I'll present it here so people can compare it to the movie! Imagine it with the same designs and cast, and still having Busted oon the end titles if you like...
THUNDERBIRDS - THE MOVIE By Steven Newton
Once the logos for the film companies fade, we are at the launching of a new NASA spacecraft - similar to the planned lifting body design NASA are working on to replace the shuttle. Jeff Tracy is there with the head of NASA who asks him if he will miss all this when he retires (there is a countdown in the background - it reaches zero and up the ship goes). Jeff says he'll find some way to occupy his mind...
OPENING CREDITS using a powerful version of the Gray theme.
Tracy Island - a quick fly by and into the living area - the Tracy family are toasting the birth of International Rescue, with Alan already on TB5. They await the first distress calls as the station comes online. A message comes up from the hangars that there is a problem with TB2 again - Virgil goes down. Scott says that things always go wrong when Brains goes away - usually with the last thing he was fiddling with!
Brains is in England staying with Lady Penelope, as they are to be among the first people to fly on the new Fireflash aircraft - a large, high-speed passenger aircraft that is like a small liner inside.
In the hangar the fault is traced and TB2 is given a last checkover. above Alan calls down - a disaster! (Probably a fire on an oil rig - something underwater, anyway!) The World Navy rescue is on the way, but the IR team are already on the way - TB1 launches first to get there to assess the situation, and TB2 rolls out for takeoff - it looks like the lifting body but a little different as it is not a spacecraft. It launches and heads off to the area itself.
The operation goes well and Thunderbird 4 performs beyond expectations and the Tbirds return to base, while an oriental figure watches the shaky footage on a screen. He smiles. The announcer says that the footage is poor as this 'International Rescue' was on the scene before anyone, and the video comes from a telephoto lense from a few miles away...
(Not a lot of detail in the middle here, I'm afraid - another big disaster that requires the Mole, and a slight glitch in TB2, while the preparations for the first passenger flight of Fireflash 1 go on. Something is placed aboard the plane - something robotic, and spiderlike that starts rewiring and stuff. An engineer leaves the maintanance area and removes his mask it is the oriental guy (who I'm sure you have guessed, is The Hood!) who grins and smiles. Soon, my brother, you will have your part to play - fade to Kyrano!)
The Fireflash launches for its round the world flight! It races across Europe, but begibs o have problems as it goes over the Pacific Ocean - the speed drops, and the plane is barely under the pilots control - we see the spidery thing doing things that the plane responds to - the mayday goes out, and IR respond (aided by Penelope and Brains on the plane). The cool thing here is that they have to come straight from the big second disaster!
(Exact details of the rescue are sketchy, but Fireflash is losing altitude and speed, and the Hood puts out a list of demands to be met... Kyrano is doing things under the influence of The Hood back on Tracy Island. During the operation Thunderbird 1 has to be refuelled (TB2 carries large fuel reserves) and the glitch inTB2 becomes a big glitch, almost buggering up the entire rescue! The glitch has to be fixed and Gordon has to go outside to do it, under the eyes of Brains as they fly alongside the descending Fireflash... The plane is probably rescued by having the two TB craft lifting it under the wings while Gordon goes aboard and finds the spider thing - it is stopped somehow and the damage fudged with Brains help, by Gordon and Parker who clambers down to help!)
The world now knows of International Rescue, and that it can call on them when their expertise can help. As the film/story ends, another call comes in - Thunderbirds are Go!
END TITLES (yes, with Busted if you like!)
Note that my plan doesn't necessarily make it a kiddy movie, but doesn't go for an X certificate - there is lots of stuff for the kids (explosions, cool ships, Busted) and for the adults (the Tbirds themselves again, hunky Tracy boys for the ladies, a nice Lady Penelope for the men (something the movie did get right!) and an explanation of how the Tracys can keep the craft running - there are more support staff below than you realise - though secrecy must be a bugger!) The big disaster is based on a picture I did for a friend at work years ago, with Fireflash down in the ocean - remind me to scan it (it was lost along with the big file with the Dark Tidings poster in a computer crash!)
I mean, it sounds better than a young, high-school Tracy family member getting his mates together (including Brains son(!)) to rescue the rescuers... or am I just too close to my own plot to see that mine is just as crap? No, I think mine would work better. I'd even have consulted Gerry Anderson about it, making sure that it was at least fairly true to the series... something the film people didn't do (though they were willing to pay him to promote the movie - notice how little he says about it in interviews, preferring to talk about his New Captain Scarlet!) Just don't let Commander Ryker direct a Harry Potter movie!!!
As I said, I hope to spend some time knocking this into a much more detailed storyline or even a short novella - wish me luck! And you should see what I would have done for the Judge Dredd movie... and the Doctor Who Movie (please let the new series rule!)
Posted by Badgers at 10:38 PM | Comments (0)
July 05, 2004
I'll Never Be Cruel To A 5 1/4" Disc Again!
Now I know whata disc feels like in a Commodore 1541 Disc Drive! Today i went to the hospital for the MRI scan of my ankle. Things went well, I arrived on time, got undressed in the changing room and got into a hospital gown (I'd not make a good drag artist!) and waited for 10 minutes while the person before me was finished. I could hear the radio blasting out and a few bangs. I had heard that it was noisy, but nothing prepared me for the truth!
I went in and lay on the bed which was raised up to the level of the mini-stargate, my foot was put in a plastic cage then padded so it wouldn't move, and they put headphones on me. This I assumed, was so that I coulsd listen to the radio. Nope. This was so that the noise of the MRI scanner didn't deafen me! The radio was then turned on at as high a volume as possible so I could hear it and so it could get over the sound of the machine.
To begin with it wasn't too bad - I listened to Radio 1 (which actually played music I like for a change) while the machine made noises like an Amiga disc drive getting a 'banana in disc drive' error. Then it started to get louder as things got going, raising to the same sound as an old C64 disc drive, and then like a pneumatic drill. Luckily as it was only my ankle I only had to endure it for 45 minutes or so, but it was enough! Now I just need to wait for the consultant to get in touch to see when the operation on the lump or whatever it is on the ankle is.
Yesterday was a nice Sunday apart from the weather! It rained rivers and then fined up to become a beautiful day that has continued till today! Nick and I played Joint Ops, found a mission we hadn't done in Rainbow Six Athena Sword, and then played a little Bomberman. Now, Nick wants to go out, and he was playing badly - I got two really god kills on him with bombs but then he said "If I win this match, we're going out next Saturday." I said, okay, and we played. I didn't go easy on him as I haven't got any spare money (until tomorrow I hope) but I'm sure you can guess what happened. The bugger beat me, though it wan't easy win. So we are probably going out next Saturday, though the good news is that James may join us in his non-alcoholic way, which will be fun!
One reason I have little money is that I have sorted out the tyres on the car (and thanks to getting one tyre sorted free (!, I will be getting a new spare - farewell stupid space-saver tyre!) so tomorrow has to go well. If it does (and I'm sure it will) I'm going to be a much happier person. We shall see...
One big thing yesterday is that I've decided to totally change how the online comics run at .com - more detail on the site itself, but basically I.T. is no longer running every day from August - it will be a three-times a week webcomic. In colour. It wil be better for the stories (rescripting was too hard on certain strips - this gives me a break and enough time to get more done (especially remember inthat something that isn't Sir Notalot is returning soon... For now there are daily classics until then. Enjoy!
Posted by Badgers at 07:16 PM | Comments (0)
July 03, 2004
I'm Trying Not To Cry, Really I Am...
How was your week? Mine wasn't too bad, if you exclude all the work bits. And the slight lack of sleep bits. And the computer problems bits. And the not enough time to draw I.T. for next week bits.
Let's start with some good stuff - Sunday was great! No Andrew, so I turn up at Nicks, and James follows up soon after. Usually (as I have mentioned) the afternoon is full of us shooting, and Andrew moaning that he wants to shoot us. The one thing we don't get time for is talking. Me and Nick (and James when he is sober and not doing his Albert Steptoe impression) spent much of the nights out talking (usually in the gaps between ogling, but hey - "I'm not dead yet!" to quote Homer!). Much of Sunday was spent talking and watching videos - Nick copied some of the pop vids I had downloaded last month and they loved the Harry potter SNL sketch... yuo know the one! Joint Operations was fun in coop, too. Around 7.00 we called it a day, packed up and headed out to the cars, where we stood nagging about allsorts from Alton Towers to nights out (and in), classic lines from the Airplane and Hotshots movies, and watching terrible parking. It was nearly 9.00 when we headed home!
This was fun. What came next wasn't fun. After a chat to James the night before, my computer had suddenly decided to lose the system files that make it go. I'd got it working for Sunday afternoon, but then it needed doing again on Sunday night. Something to do with no internet connection and a slight need to get the comics for the coming week scanned and sorted out! I didn't feel like sleeping, so I got it done and got into bed arouns 2.00am, but didn't sleep much. Finished a book, though. And got almost to the end of another.
Work came the next day and I was of course, knackered. I still rushed around doing stuff (mostly boring stuff) and got through the day. Finally I got through the week with a working computer, a headache and a need to unscrew peoples heads. My last appointment on Friday didn't help - she liked the equipment, felt it worked brilliantly, but wants me to bring it back next week when she is used to it. I'm not sure how that works, if she desn't have the equipment, though. A meeting I was hoping to sleep through next week has been cancelled, so I've booked leave - I need to sort out a few things that may mean I have a future and get the tyre sorted finally (if I have the money).
Today wasn't too bad - I decided to put I.T. on hold for a week while I get caught up and get ahead - currently I've switched the running order back to what it was originally, and now had to write a week to link in, rewrite part of I.T. Must Die and Sun Fun And Hired Guns, and fretted about just how difficult I.T. Goes To War is going to be this time round. Luckily as I am basically remaking the stories I did badly once before it isn't too scary, and the fact that the strip is drawn as quickly as it used to be at the moment (meaning that the art is meant to look dodgy!!!) it isn't too terrifying, but as I want to get another property of mine up and running later this year (and it has to look good!) things are about to get tighter than I'd like - still, I survived in the early 90's drawing until 3.00am...
Today also saw me off to Manchester to spent a little money - a few books and a selection of comics later I was on my way home. I was hoping to get more (and for free!) as it is Free Comicbook Day, but unlike last year, it looks like it is a US only thing. Darn. On the bus back one guy decided to get on and spent ages grumbling that the driver had set off before he was sat down, and that he was going to sure the company. And that was before he felt the whiplash-inducing shudder everytime the bus slowed down as the gears were not altogether well...
Another bummer is that after getting the money into my bank that had been missing, I now find that I have just been given neutral feedback by someone on eBay. Basically, he didn't get all the invoices and payment reminders I sent via eBay - odd that. He got all the ones I sent today, though. It wasn't for much, so its not so bad, but its annoying. I won't say it was a blatant lie, but I noticed he didn't try to contact me via eBay, or try to complete the checkout... He'll get a shock when he recieves a non-payment thing (a formality only, so that I can get my money refunded by eBay) tomorrow!
Ah well. One good thing is that I've now got on my diet kick and I've lost 4 pounds without trying so far this week. I start exercises tomorrow (once I get some sleep!) which can only help. It's nothing compared to the weight loss I suffered a few years ago, but a damn good start considering that losing a stone in less than a couple of weeks (and 6 stone in 4 months) is a fast but dangerous way to do it! This time, though, I'm not ill (yet) and I am eating, though my mum's salads are not helping - she is one of those who think that A big plate full of salad (comprising 3-4 big lettuce leaves, pickled onions, big pork pie, mound of tuna/whatever, a boiled egg, a big lump of edam cheese - basically the lot fills the plate and more!) is good, after all, salad is healthy... ever tried the ones from McDonalds?
I also got a photo taken last Friday as a friend was using up her camera and had a few pictures left - not too scary, but at least I'm not the fat bloater I was! Note, I didn't want it taken, but there you go...
See you next week, if I make it through alive...
Oh, and Go Greece!
Posted by Badgers at 05:07 PM | Comments (2)