And Here I Was, Holding Out For A Nazgul. Or Tom Bombadil, At Least

Congratulations! You're Faramir!
Which Lord of the Rings character and personality problem are you?
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Many thanks to Rob for pointing that one out.

Since I've managed to somehow not sleep the day away, I may actually do something productive today. But let's not count on it, eh?

This Week I 'Ave Been Mostly Drawing A Dystopian Post-Apocalyptic Future

These will make more sense to you if you've read Oryx and Crake, but if you have read Oryx and Crake, I pity you, as it truly is a pile of tosh.
Egad, another Fast Show reference. There must be something in the water.

Paper

Well, even though it didn't count in the eyes of the law, Meg and I were married a year ago today. It's a sickening cliche to use in this situation, but time really does fly when you're having fun. Thanks for a great year, Meg!

Now, put your knickers on and make some tea.

So Good They Named It Twice...

Right. So we left from Minneapolis bound for Rochester, and apart from flying on possibly the smallest plane ever, it was a fairly peasant flight. We got there quicker than we should, and I didn't get the awful ears-don't-pop-causing-intense-head-pain effect that usually accompanies me on plane trips and will probably develop into a plane-based phobia.
Anyway...
We were greeted by Courtney and Casey, our New Yorkese friends, and spent the next couple of days faffing about. After a day or two Casey was off on another ill-advised journey (this time to Scotland), and was replaced by Liam, who has decided to try to live in America. Lots of presents were exchanged during this time, as we kept on repeating Christmas for the new arrivals.
On new year's eve, we headed down to Geneseo, the slightly creepy little town that Courtney's parents live in, and which undoubtedly has a bunch of dark secrets. There's probably a cult of murderous children in the fields out there. We went out to a hotel to see a and called Spider Nick & The Maddogs (sic), who were a pretty good proper-ska band (as opposed to the "ska" of groups such as No Doubt). Something went wrong however, as they failed to give an adequate performance. The music was good, but there was no special new year bits. I can live without the insipid Auld Lang Syne, but they could have done a countdown and a "Happy New Year" at least. My theory is that they were annoyed at the tiny turnout, even though they'd done the gig as a favour, and just didn't have their hearts in it. Still, it was an okay night out, and since I've really gone off new year celebrations in the past few years, I didn't mind too much. Courtney's parents are lovely people and will make an event fun even if it isn't. At some point here, I also presented a caricature of Courtney's dad to him, which he seemed to enjoy. I'll put a copy up at the newly-revamped website when it is in fact newly-revamped.
After that things are a blur. Lots on unnecessarily poncey drinking and eating locations. I was having a horrible time of it, as I turn into Edward Hyde without adequate sleep, and a week on a floor just doesn't cut it. Plus I really didn't like Rochester. So I was homesick and irritable for the last half of the trip, which was great fun for everyone else. Still, never mind. Liam let me borrow his copy of V For Vendetta, which I'd bought for his birthday and not had a chance to read. That'll go a long way to erasing the painful memory of The Sword Of Shannara, a book I read during the trip which was so awful that it may have had a part in my grumpiness. We also got to see the excellent Bubba Ho-Tep at a slightly poncey local cinema. It's very much a spiritual successor to Bruce Campbell's Evil Dead films, and although not quite as fun, seems to have more depth. Liam has done an excellent review of the film at his blog, although I think he's being a bit cynical. We sadly had the misfortune to rent The Time Machine, which I truly think is one of the worst films I've ever seen. Pearl Harbo[u]r is probably worse, but I only paid twenty pence to see that. Actually, Titanic was worse than both of them, so perhaps The Time Machine is only the third-worst film I've ever seen...
Eventually, we left for home. Arriving at the Rochester airport, we found out that the airline, while happy to take our money, hadn't in fact reserved a place on the plane, so we were unsure whether we'd get on. We did, at almost literally the last minute. The flight to Chicago was fine, except my ears blocked up and my head nearly exploded. I swear something trickled out of my ears at one point. We boarded the Minneapolis flight at Chicago, and ten minutes before we took off, an announcement came that the pilots hadn't yet arrived. About three hours leter, they did, and we left for Minneapolis, arriving an hour after a flight that left from Chicago an hour after we were supposed to leave...
So I had a great holiday, all in all. How was yours?
Actually, it was good to see old friends again, even though I was annoyed at Casey's behaviour, and Liam probably could have done with us visiting a week after he settled in rather than being there as he arrived. It's Liam and Courtney's turn next, to visit us here in the banjo-twanging, gun-slinging, livestock-humping, Steve-Buscemi-woodchipping midwest. Yee-haw!

On a completely unrelated note, I realised the other day that the Playstation will be ten years old next year! Time does fly when you're having fun!

The Return Of The Shirt

I'm back. It was a bizarre New Year's holiday. I'll let you all know about it soon. For now, I have to recover...

Kev, we were wrong...

Just a quickie, as we're off to New York for New Year tomorrow, but I would just like to report that this

is an absolutely superb toy, and aside from one minor design fault, is definitely not the shoddy heap of plastic many of us Transfans thought it'd be.

I also got a cricket bat.

Ho Ho Ho! Now I Have A Machine-Gun!

Right, barring any interesting incidents, this is it until after Christmas. I hope that whatever it is you celebrate at this time of year, you have a good one. See you in a few...

Kings and Things

Hello to Rad and Postman Alan. They've got almost-Christmas birthdays, which are famously an opportunity for stingy relatives to prove just how stingy they can be. I hope that skinflints aside, Rad and Alan have a good birthday today. Technically, their birthday is tomorrow, but factoring in the time difference, it already is tomorrow where they are.

Well, we finally saw The Return Of The King today, and it's rubbish.
Actually I'm lying, it's bloomin' amazing. The perfect end to an almost perfect trilogy (I didn't much like the second one, probably because it's my favourite of the books, and they didn't get it quite right). All involved have done a wonderful job, and they really don't need the approval of the Oscar people come next year, but it'd be nice. Great film. Well done to all.

Happy Hanu-Car

We just went out to pick up some last minute Christmas-type stuff, and we saw something very odd driving along on the other side of the street. Sadly, we don't have a camera (long story, not very good) so here's a quick sketch:

Yes, the candles really did have lights on them. What an interesting place America is...

From The Cold Northern Wastelands He Came...

Wotcha.
They say that internet surfers have short memories, and that if you don't update your blog frequently enough, people will forget it's there. Probably a myth, but I hope someone's still reading. Besides bilLy and my wife, that is.

So what have I been doing? Nothing exciting. Mostly drawing and redesigning my website (and finding out that CSS is/are easy, while JavaScript looks easy but doesn't want to work). The new look isn't actually ready yet, but it'll probably be up in time for 2004. Since there's a very real chance that I will be selling my artistic wares pretty soon, I thought it best to redesign my website around my artistic talents (or lack thereof).
Today, though, I did neither of those things, and instead spent the day reading proper books, you know, the ones without pictures (well, one of them did have pictures actually...).
I enjoyed The Gunslinger, but I wasn't motivated enough to read on. But both Alan and Rad claimed that the story got better with the second volume, The Drawing of the Three, and I have to agree. Actually, to be fair, King himself even says in the introduction to the first book that it used to be rubbish before he revised it for these new editions. Perhaps he didn't revise it enough? Not a lot happens in the second book, but it's much much better than the first, mainly because Roland is no longer the main focus, and interesting as he is, I just don't find him to be a compelling central figure. The only real problem is that the story is so relaxed and open that in terms of plot, nothing happens. All they did in this book was walk from one end of the beach (a long beach, yeah, but still...) to the other. Admittedly, this wouldn't be a problem if I was getting the cheap-as-chips mass market paperbacks, but I do so adore the lovely Plume trade paperback editions. My own fault, I suppose.
Also read The Amulet of Samarkand (I see that yet again the US cover pales in comparison to the stylish UK cover), on Rob's recommendation. It's another kids' book about magicians in an alternate Britain, but it's at once more enjoyably cynical and truthful than the Harry Potter monstrosities and more entertaining than Pullman's metaphysical jiggerypokery. It's one of those books that's so light on description and so heavy on dialogue that it could be written in script format and still make sense, which is not a style I generally like, but I enjoyed it mainly because of the humour in the writing (even though it's ripped off from Pratchett, footnotes and all), and the unpredictable plotting. The story didn't go the way I expected, nor did the ending, and I suspect that the trilogy as a whole will be similarly unpredictable. Recommended.

Oh, and I've got insomnia again, which is probably the only reason I'm writing (we need a new techno-savvy verb for this kind of composition-"typing" doesn't cut it) this instead of sitting in the bedroom/literal-drawing-room sketching away while listening to Kosheen or something. Not sure if that explains why I'm so laughably behind with the Spooky's Dungeon comic or not...