Archive for May, 2008

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You Know I Could Stay Here All Night

In General Blogging on May 30, 2008 by Alasdair Tagged: ,

Friday. End of a week off (which is why I haven’t been about/replying to email much). Spent it doing the spring cleaning I’ve been putting off for a month or so now.

Spring cleaning was soundtracked by Billy Bragg, The Dropkicks and the Levellers, so naturally, what I feel I should be doing now is smashing the state in some way. I may compensate by reading another chapter or two of Demand The Impossible, a book on the history of anarchism that I never got around to finishing, largely because it had migrated to somewhere under the bed.

Speaking of books – I seem to have acquired a copy of “The Watcher’s Guide” volume 2 of a series of Buffy annotations books, the sort of thing that I’d never have willingly paid cash for, and I don’t recall ever reading it. Can anyone explain why I have it? Did I borrow it off someone (and can you remember why)? Did someone leave it at behind at our place, and has it just migrated in here? Have I been anywhere that they would have been giving them away? And, assuming that no-one sticks their hand up here in the next fortnight to claim it as theirs, would anyone like it? It’s just taking up shelf space, and I don’t have enough of it to waste.

(In a similar vein: anyone want copies of Cerulean Sins or Incubus Dreams, the Laurel K Hamilton books? I bought them in a fit of desperation for anything to read at an airport, and read them both, and now never need to do so again, ever, please don’t make me, so could so with the shelf space back. If they’re not taken in a fortnight, they’re going in the recycling.)

Fun weekend coming up – Saturday afternoon: board games in a pub. Saturday evening I: Flogging Molly gig. Saturday evening II: clubbing – last weekend was written off to that cold, one the basis I’d rather have written the night off than most of the week.

Sunday will probably be recovery, and not much else. Catching up on my reading after spending most of the last six months in a state of having run out of new stuff to read, I now have a respectable pile to read, and really ought to get on with it.

Monday, it’s back to work, where the insanity will almost certainly have begun – I had to cancel a day of my holiday, and go in to work on Wednsday, for what turned out to be a six-hour meeting in Luton. I can recommend against both of those things.

Right, time to tidy this desk. The rest of the place is tidy, so having a desk like a bombsite rather spoils the effect. Also, I’ve lost my My Bloody Valentine tickets, so they’d better be on here somewhere. Plus, there may be paperwork that needs sorting out on here.

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You Know I Could Stay Here All Night

In Livejournal on May 30, 2008 by Alasdair

Friday. End of a week off (which is why I haven’t been about/replying to email much). Spent it doing the spring cleaning I’ve been putting off for a month or so now.

Spring cleaning was soundtracked by Billy Bragg, The Dropkicks and the Levellers, so naturally, what I feel I should be doing now is smashing the state in some way. I may compensate by reading another chapter or two of Demand The Impossible, a book on the history of anarchism that I never got around to finishing, largely because it had migrated to somewhere under the bed.

Speaking of books – I seem to have acquired a copy of “The Watcher’s Guide” volume 2 of a series of Buffy annotations books, the sort of thing that I’d never have willingly paid cash for, and I don’t recall ever reading it. Can anyone explain why I have it? Did I borrow it off someone (and can you remember why)? Did someone leave it at behind at our place, and has it just migrated in here? Have I been anywhere that they would have been giving them away? And, assuming that no-one sticks their hand up here in the next fortnight to claim it as theirs, would anyone like it? It’s just taking up shelf space, and I don’t have enough of it to waste.

(In a similar vein: anyone want copies of Cerulean Sins or Incubus Dreams, the Laurel K Hamilton books? I bought them in a fit of desperation for anything to read at an airport, and read them both, and now never need to do so again, ever, please don’t make me, so could so with the shelf space back. If they’re not taken in a fortnight, they’re going in the recycling.)

Fun weekend coming up – Saturday afternoon: board games in a pub. Saturday evening I: Flogging Molly gig. Saturday evening II: clubbing – last weekend was written off to that cold, one the basis I’d rather have written the night off than most of the week.

Sunday will probably be recovery, and not much else. Catching up on my reading after spending most of the last six months in a state of having run out of new stuff to read, I now have a respectable pile to read, and really ought to get on with it.

Monday, it’s back to work, where the insanity will almost certainly have begun – I had to cancel a day of my holiday, and go in to work on Wednsday, for what turned out to be a six-hour meeting in Luton. I can recommend against both of those things.

Right, time to tidy this desk. The rest of the place is tidy, so having a desk like a bombsite rather spoils the effect. Also, I’ve lost my My Bloody Valentine tickets, so they’d better be on here somewhere. Plus, there may be paperwork that needs sorting out on here.

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Result!

In Livejournal on May 27, 2008 by Alasdair

Tom Waits, Edinburgh, July 28th, 8pm. Let joy be unconfined! And er, my wallet be rather *more* confined for the next while. Still, it was 100% worth it last time, and this time I get a weekend away as well.

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Indy IV

In General Blogging on May 26, 2008 by Alasdair

In a franchise that has contained the Ark of the Covenant and the Holy Grail, it should not be possible to say “that ending was too fucking stupid”.

And yet I am saying exactly that.

Let’s be clear: it wasn’t a Phantom-Menace-grade celluloid abortion. It wasn’t a waste of money or time, mine or the makers. I was amusingly diverted for most of the movie. But at the points where it gets stupid, it get really, unforgivably fucking stupid. Not in a “switch-your-brain-off-and-it’ll-be-entertaining” way, no. In a “so-stupid-it’s-just-plain-poor” way.

What bugs me is that it’s meant to be pulp. The very font of fun-but-stupid. Except I can’t help feeling that what they made was the inverse. Stupid-but-fun. I feel I’m forgiving it the massive weaknesses, because the fun bits were good. And then I think about the fun bits, and realise they could have done those same sequences in *any* Indy film, and they get less forgivable.

But, in the end, I had fun staring at a really big screen. It’s just not fun I feel entirely good about.

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Indy IV

In Livejournal on May 26, 2008 by Alasdair

In a franchise that has contained the Ark of the Covenant and the Holy Grail, it should not be possible to say “that ending was too fucking stupid”.

And yet I am saying exactly that.

Let’s be clear: it wasn’t a Phantom-Menace-grade celluloid abortion. It wasn’t a waste of money or time, mine or the makers. I was amusingly diverted for most of the movie. But at the points where it gets stupid, it get really, unforgivably fucking stupid. Not in a “switch-your-brain-off-and-it’ll-be-entertaining” way, no. In a “so-stupid-it’s-just-plain-poor” way.

What bugs me is that it’s meant to be pulp. The very font of fun-but-stupid. Except I can’t help feeling that what they made was the inverse. Stupid-but-fun. I feel I’m forgiving it the massive weaknesses, because the fun bits were good. And then I think about the fun bits, and realise they could have done those same sequences in *any* Indy film, and they get less forgivable.

But, in the end, I had fun staring at a really big screen. It’s just not fun I feel entirely good about.

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Appropos of Nothing

In General Blogging on May 22, 2008 by Alasdair

That musical toy I was mugged by the other week is possibly the best bit of beeping, flashing plastic I have ever wasted 20 quid one. Really, an irrational amount of fun.

Also, I suspect NIN’s latest album was made on one.

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Appropos of Nothing

In Livejournal on May 22, 2008 by Alasdair

That musical toy I was mugged by the other week is possibly the best bit of beeping, flashing plastic I have ever wasted 20 quid one. Really, an irrational amount of fun.

Also, I suspect NIN’s latest album was made on one.

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I have...

In General Blogging on May 22, 2008 by Alasdair

  • Glorious spring weather out the window behind me.
  • Plans for the weekend that I’m looking forward to.
  • A week off next week.
  • Just about managed to get back into a regular exercise regime, and actually made a little progress on it.

I am…

  • At work.
  • Coming down with a cold.

I could do without this. I refuse to have my life disrupted by getting the plague, dammit.

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I have...

In Livejournal on May 22, 2008 by Alasdair

  • Glorious spring weather out the window behind me.
  • Plans for the weekend that I’m looking forward to.
  • A week off next week.
  • Just about managed to get back into a regular exercise regime, and actually made a little progress on it.

I am…

  • At work.
  • Coming down with a cold.

I could do without this. I refuse to have my life disrupted by getting the plague, dammit.

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RIP Rory Root

In General Blogging on May 20, 2008 by Alasdair

99% of you will have no idea who this man was. I only met him once at a convention, for about ten minutes, (during which time he sold me three excellent graphic novels I had never heard of) and haven’t had even passing internet-contact with him in years. But he was one of the good guys, as testified to by the fact that just about everyone I know involved with comics in any way is making a post memorialising him, and like a couple of people have said, for someone I barely knew, I find myself remarkably saddened to hear of his passing.

Rory was the owner of what must be a very serious contender for the title “Best Comic Shop In The World”, Comic Relief in Berkley – I popped in there on a visit to San Francisco a few years back, and even for someone spoiled by the likes of Gosh! in London, it was obvious they couldn’t hold a candle to his operation, and not just in terms of size.

He was a tireless cheerleader for excellent comics of any kind and the medium will be poorer for the lack of him. All the best, Rory.