Old camera photos

For those who spotted it on Facebook I recently got my old camera back, thought long lost, from the lovely lovely people at Tewkesbury medieval faire. Here are a few potentially nostalgia inducing images for you all!

See! Really stupidly long time ago!

Unexpected surprises

Today we (my folks and I) went to Houghton hall for a wander around and to spend an afternoon. Completely to our surprise we discovered that the Hall was hosting a kind of rally for vintage planes, mostly Great War era biplanes but with a spitfire as well. There's nothing more guarenteed to make me feel twelve again than watching old planes flying. Especially spitfires. The pilots were clearly all having a great time and were swooping low over the visitors and making great photo opportunities. It was a lovely way to while a way an afternoon. Here's some piccies from the event.

And now to get back into the habit...

Well, the internet seems to be permanantly fixed. Has been for a fortnight or so and that's a record. Assuming that this marks the start of a renewed and beautiful aquaintence with broadband it occurs to me that I need to get back into updating this blog.

Ironically there isn't a lot to update on in this issue. Life has continued apace mostly being taken up with releases or urgent projects for the shop (40k; Assault on Black Reach (I'm still having to force myself not to add 'around' to make an interracial gay joke) and Games Day in that order). The last of these forced me to miss the September event of Ascendency and that made me grumpy. More so when I learned that the crew was down to about four thus making me feel like I had let people down. Can't be helped I guess. On a brighter note is the reality that tomorrow night sees the start of the first proper time off that I have had since ohh... March. The last holiday was the weeklong and I am realising that for a ref especially that is not a restful experiance. So shortly I shall be rested and relaxed and able to see my niece and nephew-in-common-law ;) for the first time in ages. 'Twill be cool. My laptop is also being fixed in that period so I shall be able to do this while I am collapsed on the sofa at the end of a day.

The short version is: I'm back baby. :)

Oh and for the White Dwarf readers amongst you; yes that is my bemused mug gracing the storefinder pages. We are playing "Slayer with a Reasonably Priced Axe" in Oxford. Not content with having me take a ribbing through September GW have also left me there for October. I shall just have to massage my fame to garner riches somehow. Perhaps a scheme involving penguins; AA batteries and a length of tagliatelli will suffice... Who knows or dares to tell?

TTFN all.

An update

Well, here I is again.

I'm starting with a minor whinge as my Internet is still boned and Virgin are doing their best to disown the problem. Not sure how many times I can say "It's the DNS server guys" before I wig out and change providers (a massive arse as I would have to get the phone lines changed over and all sorts.

So I am typing this in my mother-in-laws house where we have come this weekend to have a dual celebration of her birthday and mine and Lucy's 4th wedding anniversary. Very nice it was too, an all you can scarf Chinese and a couple of bottles of wine.

Well, there isn't a whole bunch more news really. Life is better working in Swindon, I am not as frantic about the dragging of feet perpetrated by the next job as I don't have that "really don't want to be here" thing.

In short, welcome to Status Quo... don't drink the water.

Making Vikings Cry

Well the guys in Oxford gave me a lovely send off. Really kind things said about me (probably about 70% true ;) !) and everyone really sorry to see me going. Then the team revealed that they had bought me a present... A collectors edition 40k rulebook. These things are rare as rocking horse poo. Only 4000 in the world. And I have one.

I'm telling you, a large viking type guy nearly weapt on the shop floor.

So now I am properly ensconsed in Swindon Store (where I am typing this as my laptop's hard disk is fried and my PC has decided that connecting to the internet is something that happens to other computers). This means my working day has dropped from 11 hours on a bad day to 8 hours on a normal day. Fantastic. I'll miss the guys at Oxford and the city itself is lovely. But the commute can go forth and multiply.

On a wetter note we apparantly have a severe weather warning tommorrow. Will let you know how that works out!

Comic based ramblings

I thought I'd take the opportunity to have a bit of a ramble on about comics. The "Graphic Novel" has become a larger and larger part of my reading. I still read a bunch of novels and regular print media but I read at such a ridiculous speed that I tend to burn these out over one or two evenings. You can only re-read a novel so many times but there is something different about the graphic novels. There's always something to enjoy that you might have missed before. It's also a confluence of artistic abilities; sharp writing meeting evocative art. The trouble is that if you say "comic" to the uninitiated - especially the British - the image that they get is either the Beano/Dandy kids market; the three panel syndicates in the newspapers (really variable quality there) or they think of the Simpson's Comic Book Guy. Unfortunately, like all delightfully geeky pastimes there are always the extreme ends - too kiddy or obsessive life devotee - and these are the images that stick.

I got into comics properly (I don't count the years and years of Beano and Dandy) through 2000AD. This is a great comic primer. Lots of different artists and writers; a selection of story styles with a penchant for the dark side and gallows humour. The variety means that there's always something for everyone; the double edge to that sword being that you sometimes go a few weeks with only one or two storylines that appeal. The other good thing is a fondness for collecting strips into the graphic novel format so favourite stories or ones that you have missed can be gathered into a convenient 'read-in-bed-able' book. While on the subject, I prefer the graphic novel to the periodical comic. Devoted as I am to 2000AD I don't buy any other periodicals. I prefer to read a series in one hit, to see the story develop without having to trust my memory for previous twists, turns and backstory. Plus I lack the discipline to do what some do and collect a bunch of periodicals over a couple of months and then read them all at once (plus it feels a little wierd, if you are doing that why not by the novel?).

Once you start getting in to comics then you tend to gravitate toward particular artists, writers and publishers. For some reason, publishers have become really important and the two big boys are Marvel (X-men; Spiderman; Incredible Hulk etc.) and DC (Batman; Superman; Justice League). Of the two I gravitate most to DC (I can hear a friend of mine - Andy L - growling as I say it) although I detest Superman and am rather fond of Spiderman in his place. This is because I am not really into the whole superhero Schtick. I prefer hero's like Batman who succeeds through human strength; guile and technology. The only superheroes I like are the flawed sort, Spiderman being a good example. Ultimately though I prefer my superheroes on the silver screen where I can really enjoy their antics rather than seeing 30 pages of immaculately drawn clobbering that I will whip through in ten minutes and wonder where my money went.

Instead I prefer Vertigo (itself a DC offshoot) and Dark Horse Presents... both of which focus on strong characters; dialogue; real world or near real world plotlines and tend to be erudite; well researched; well written and with a strong message (and not a twee GI Joe message either). Of these Sandman (and it's many superb offshoots); Transmetropolitan; Hellboy; Sin City; V for Vendetta and Hellblazer (Constantine) are probably my favourites. Of the 2000AD stable: Judge Dredd; Sinister Dexter; Slaine (the Clint Langley years); Caballistics; Bec & Kawl; Lobster Random and a few others of more variable quality. Wikipedia will fill in any of the details for the curious - and I urge you to be curious!. I am not going to go into what I don't like too much (beyond the hated superman) because that is horribly negative and would make me guilty of the kind of poncy elitism that infects so many geeky indie-ish pastimes.

The Japanese explosion into the west has largely passed me by. I love the art but don't know enough to choose books I will like. As the price of the damn things is comparable to a full novel over here rather than the periodical price you'd pay in Japan I am uninspired to experiment. Any recommendations gratefully recieved through the comments. I'm not really into the giant robots or the soppy relationship ones though!

Finally there is Webcomics; this genre has been growing and improving in quality enourmously. A large reason for this is internet advertising that allows people to actually make some money from their creations. Combine that with a growing fanbase that willingly buy t-shirts, collections, posters etc to show their support and display their interests and you have a source of income. The quality of webcomics is seriously variable and thus it's best to go by word of mouth than spend months searching for something you might not like. Another good way is the altruistic webcomic producers who link to their favourites. If you like their comic it is a better than even shot that you'll like their favourites. So given that piece of advice here are my picks for the current best of the bunch!

Applegeeks: Not a terribly inspired storyline but really, really nice art, also has a nice quick-laugh syndication style strip "applegeeks lite".
Backwards Compatible: Computer gaming and technology humour set in the office of a web-based magazine.
Bunny: This is a totally random one panel daily strip that rather like the far side uses surrealist humour and erudite puns to entertain... or totally confuse.
Ctrl+Alt+Del: Not everyone's cup of tea but some funny life and gaming based humour.
MacHall: Brilliant comic based around the lives of a bunch of college students, once into it's stride the art is magnificent and the storyline hillarious. It's completed now so you can read the whole thing to it's really poignant conclusion. Highly resommended.
Megatokyo: Avoid if you don't really like anime styling. Megatokyo is beautiful with a deep storyline set out in the usual Manga comic styling of chapters per book. Sometimes a little mopey but the art totally compensates for it.
Full Frontal Nerdity: RPG based humour following the lives of a trio of gamers who are uncomfortably familiar.
Ozy and Millie: Cute and really touching strip featuring two foxes, one a zen-like master of quiet contemplation; one a biological containment unit for chaos. Is coming to a close soon and so has been a little light the last year.
Ps238: Technically a print comic with web support lagging behind. Brilliant strip following a school for superhero's kids. Great humour and decent art. Highly resommended.
Questionable Content: The only life and relationship strip that I can read, it's by turns touching and hillarious.
Order of the Stick: Great D&D based comic featuring adventurers in situ. Very funny and has built one hell of a backstory.
Three Panel Soul: From the MacHall guys. Brilliant art; great observational humour; highly recommended.

*edit*

PS. Freakangels is awesome and drawn by a casual friend of mine Paul Duffield. Given that it's written by Warren Ellis it is well worth a look. Not terribly kid friendly and depending on your workplace nazi-code might not be safe for work either.

*/edit*

There you go! That was my comic book ramble. Hope you had the fortitude to read it all! Bye fer now.

"Interview" results

Well, that seemed to go alright. Was a bit bizarre because there wasn't a "job" that I was applying for. More a potential position that they could fit my skills set to. I think that I went over ok, everything from my past came over positively; skills and qualifications all complemented on positively. Yeah, bizarre; with nothing to resolve the interview with a "result" one way or the other to give some closure to the escapade.

In other words, am happy with how it went... but don't have a clue how it went!

Well, now for another three and a half hours of driving andwork tommorrow. Hooyah.