In all the video rental shops in all the world...

Given that I'm about 4000 miles away from the country it was broadcast in, the last thing I expected to see in my local Blockbuster was a dvd of Stella Street. Now I understand that they did a full-length film of it last year, and that's what's on the shelves rather than the original shorts that BBC2 used to put on, but still...

Blimey. I'll be on the lookout for a Glam Metal Detectives boxed set then.

Marathon Man

Apparently, I am some natural anomaly, an abomination, an abberation. It seems that it's impossible to anaesthetise me. Ouch.

A Blot On My Conscience

Well, all the inking is done for my O Men strip. With any luck, I'll have the lettering and colouring done by Monday. Hurrah!

Public Safety Announcement

There's a cover of Bjork's "Hyperballad" going around, by the Twilight Singers. It is absolutely awful, and may prompt you into self-harm, so avoid it at all costs.

The Blessing Of Nurgle

Oh great, another chuffing cold. That's the fourth in as many weeks, I think.

In better news, I made something of a breakthrough concerning Photoshop today, which has pleased me immensely, and probably saved me a few hundred quid too.

(No prizes for guessing the origin of the title. In fact, you may not want to reveal that you know where it's from, as it's a bit geeky and embarrassing...)

Does Alan Partridge Work At Fox Sports?

By recording the Superbowl, I've managed to avoid watching the actual "game", and still get to see the movie trailers they like to stick randomly in there. Sorted.
Nonetheless, we managed to catch a bit of the broadcast while flipping the channels. It was a montage of images and film clips of various players from the opposing teams, being all tough and manly and whatnot. They obviously wanted to emphasise the sense of conflict between the teams, elevating it into something more akin to an epic battle between mighty warriors than a sporting event involving overpaid fat blokes. What better way to do this but to play some classic bit of masculine tough-guy rock over the montaged images? And that classic bit of masculine tough-guy rock? The song that, more than any other, evokes images of tough sportsmen engaged in a rugged game of skill and strength?

Sunday Bloody Sunday by U2. Because it's "Superbowl Sunday" you see.

Oh dear.


As far as the trailers went, it was a pretty poor showing. Only two big-name movies, Batman Begins To Rebuild His Reputation and Spielberg's "re-imagining" of War Of The Worlds. Neither trailer was anything more than a teaser, although Spielberg's two-second snippet of unfinished footage looked the best of the two.

The most bizarre event of the evening must have been the advert for official England rugby team credit cards. During the Superbowl. Right...

Currently listening to: Astronaut Wife. They have an almost Dubstar-ey thing going on, except they're a bit less melancholy, which may be because they're jolly Minnesotans rather than grumpy English folk.

But you're not fooling me, 'cause I can see, the way you shake and shiver

Up until now, I thought that the area of town that we live in was pretty quiet and safe. Now I'm not so sure. If these guys are in the area, then who knows what's lurking in the darkness?





I know that from now on, I'm keeping an eye out for suspicious-looking property developers...

For BilLy

"Home From The Sea", the fourth season opener of Magnum, p.i., as described by TV Tome:

It's the 4th of July, and Higgins is playing in a polo match, T.C. is taking his baseball team to a professional game, Rick is out with his latest girlfriend on the King Kamehameha II yacht, and Thomas is observing his annual Independence Day tradition of a solitary day at sea -- until his surf ski is capsized in the wake of a recklessly driven speedboat and set adrift. Carried off further and further away from land by the powerful Molokai Channel, Thomas relies on childhood memories of his father's training him to tread water to keep himself afloat as he struggles desperately to stay above water and fend off a menacing shark. As the hours pass, Higgins, T.C. and Rick each have a sixth sense that Thomas is in trouble, and they team up to rescue him. Thomas approaches the twenty-four hour mark in the water recalling his wedding to Michelle and his father's burial -- on July 4, 1951 -- as Higgins scoops him out of the ocean, with T.C. in his helicopter overhead and Rick on the yacht nearby.

So while you and Cal may be mad, BiLly, your memories of this episode are not a symptom of that madness.
As I remember, this was an excellent episode, but then I would say that!

Grinding

Last week, with a lack of computer access due to a busted monitor, and yet another stinking cold (I'm getting a lot of them this winter, for some reason), I managed to get three and a half pages of my O Men contribution pencilled and scripted. Since then, I've managed one page of pencils. It's only a five-pager, so there's just one page left to go, but then I've got to ink, letter and "colour" them too. It certainly doesn't help that I still haven't decided whether I'll letter the strip by hand or on the computer, and that I'm deathly afraid that I'll cock the whole thing up at the inking stage.
Meanwhile, my Brad story seems to have died, although I'm sure I'll dive straight back in once this O Men thing is out of the way. I've also got a good eight or nine reviews to do for Comics International before Friday. I clearly need to develop some self-discipline.
On the plus side, I've found a channel that shows daily Magnum, p.i. repeats, although that probably doesn't help a great deal.

American Local Radio In Not Awful Shocker!

Minnesota Public Radio has up until recently been a bit like Radio 4. It's worthy and interesting, but not what you're after if you want to listen to something that isn't classical or news. They've just started up 89.3 the current, which is an awful name, but is something of a Radio 2/6 Music/interesting-bits-on-Radio-1 hybrid. Finally I can listen to popular music of a more eclectic and interesting sort than the usual bland US radio fare. What's more, the late evening DJ is from Manchester or thereabouts, so it's almost like being at home.

Actually, with the death of John Peel and the departure of Mark and Lard, are there any interesting bits left on Radio 1?