Rain, rain go away...

Though I shouldn't complain as A)I'm staying inside to write, anyways, and B)apparently I'm in England?

In other news, Giles Peterson's excellent weekly show has alerted me to the existence of a really enjoyable electronic soul group called The Elektrons (the Myspace tracks are decent but their segment on Giles' show was really something). They have a show on the 6th at a different Brick Lane venue which I will check out, provided the steaming entrails of my weekly sacrifice to the disembodied ghost of Carl Sagan tells me that it shall be so.

If this were a Mad Magazine article it would be called "The Assault On Raisins"

Those witty, witty guys..."M.A.S.H." becomes "M.U.S.H." in their crazy, mirror universe!

Ahem.

No outrageous adventures to report at the moment, though I suppose I can provide a small amount of local colour by letting you all know that Charing Cross is the place to go in central London for an incredibly dense grouping of book stores (both chain and independent). I went there today to hunt for Al Gore's new book, "The Assault On Reason". At the third store I found it and have devoured half the introduction on the way home.
It's so strange to see a man we used to know mostly as "Bill Clinton's VP" and "The exceptionally boring man" turn into a savvy, entertaining and intriguing speaker who more than stands out from his old bosses shadow - which is more than Mrs. Clinton can say. The article I linked to in the last paragraph gives a nice sample, but I think his interview on The Daily Show (Parts one and two) is quite useful as well. My apologies for not embedding it, but the code which Comedy Central provides is, basically, poop. To sum up what the book is about in a sentence: Al Gore finally applies the analytical and problem solving skills he demonstrated an abundance of with An Inconvenient Truth to the troubles with political and public discourse as it relates to democracy in America.

Though it is written with Americans in mind, even in just what I've read so far, you can easily apply it to Canada and Britain as well. My admiration for Mr. Gore is growing steadily - but of course I still had to find and use a picture of him where he looks like an absolute tit. Such are my fickle ways!

Addendum: BEARD. At the risk of getting stupid in that most internet of styles, may I suggest a Gore/Frakes 2008 ticket?

It is too hot in herre

So I have removed some or all of my clothes. Holy crap it's only about +22c or something and I feel like my head is wrapped in twelve towels soaked in boiling water. I....I hear Greece is hot? Particularly in the summer? Man I hope my body adapts soon!

Meanwhile, the neighborhood in which I work (Barking) is generally littered with litter and the chav's who like to loiter while they litter. But there is one park/bird reserve which serves as a refreshing island of green and blue amongst all the grey and porno-neon advertising. Today I had my camera on me and so this is what you get (to see today).

New Layout - ha cha cha cha

Ta-da!

Working with paw on the website for the webcomic, I've been thinking more about proper site presentation and how it relates to being easy on the eye. The old template I used was snazzy and stylish, but cramped and somewhat counter-intuitive. Let me know if you like this profile better, if you don't, if you don't give hoot or a holler...or if you think that maybe I should have , instead of Athens, booked a trip to the secret city of Laos.

As for the webcomic site, my two favorite designs have always been Chris Onstad's and Ryan's. The use of whitespace, centering and minmalism all come together for something visually pleasing. Neither site ever feels cluttered - which is impressive on the latter given how many features Ryan has packed in - and my eyes are automatically on the comic as soon as the page loads. I find with some of my other regular reads that if I'm a little tired or distracted, I have to re-center my vision slightly and this can be a little annoying (FIRST WORLD PROB-). Sounds like nitpicking in the extreme, I know, but I strongly believe that even the tinest annoyance - repeated consistantly over a long period of time - has the power to make people less inclined to come back. Plus, let's face it, Internet usage seems to drive a lot of people to Olympic levels of laziness.

It's the first proper sunny, summer day in London today. Looking out of the kitchen window I saw a long string of roses reaching from the neighbors lawn and stretching out along the clothes line. It's invigorating as all get out, which is grand as that's just what I need to help me finish pinning the second draft of Momentum to the mat.
Addendum: Speaking of content and opinions and all that...feel free to make suggestions requests or coments regarding what you liked seeing here and what you might like to see. Now that I've been in London almost six consecutive months and England for almost ten I find that some of the touristy-ness is wearing off, perhaps leading me to leaving out interesting details which I'm glossing over as I become more assimilated.

Someone who really is on the front lines of womens rights

I admit that over the past year or so I've gotten in the habit of burying my head in the sand as regards what goes on in Afghanistan and Iraq - particularly since Saddam's disgusting treatment.

But thanks to my growing addiction to the BBC, I found out about something - someone - in Afghanistan that just blew my mind. I knew that there had been improvements since the Taliban had been ousted from power, but had heard of several backslides which eventually lead to the "hear no evil" approach I'd been taking.

I had no idea there was a woman MP in the country - named Malalai_Joya - who, despite numerous death threats and the bombing of her home, says all the things that need to be said there. Like the surprisingly obvious yet not universally regarded "We probably shouldn't allow former Taliban leaders to take positions in the new government" (I'm paraphrasing). Here is the article which drew my attention and here you can see her personal website. What she faces and what she is trying to do just impresses the hell out of me, while putting the pundits who ponder the ways in which warrior womyn can further engorge their sense of entitlement into proper perspective.

ATHENS AHOY

I booked it!

I'll be leaving late June 16th and arriving back late June 20th.

This is berserk, after years of grouping anywhere but England, Canada and the U.S. in roughly the same sphere as Narnia and Atlantis (for all the odds of my ever going there).

I also splurged on a day tour for the middle of my trip. Originally I was going to shun tours since I figured I could get around the city on my own power just fine and that I'd have a more "natural" experience that way. But then I noticed a tour which would take me sailing around three surrounding islands (Hydra, Poros and Aegina). I do not have a yacht, so I thought this would be worth it!

I have also hear that Greece is "cheap" for British tourists so I won't have to get a pile of spending money (thank you, all-mighty pound sterling). It's not a shopping trip, so really I'll just need enough for food and perhaps the odd trinket (hopefully I'll be suave enough to weed out the ultra-touristy crap from genuinly interesting artifacts).

I'm not sure what else to say at this point, other than just A-WHEEEE!

A blobbidty bibbida

As someone who is sometimes cheeky enough to call himself "a writer", I feel I have to try and avoid cheap literary analysis or expression of my own experiences...lest I get caught in the fallacy of trying to fit everything I do into a grand structure.

But it's a very tricky thing to resist the implied parallel when, upon waking up this morning, not only was my head physically unblocked (hurrah, illness has at least receded) but I woke up to find myself already deeply into a writing fugue after three days of barely being able to review my script notes. A trance, a fugue, a vomiting out of ideas, call it what you will but in five minutes I'd filled several pages in my trusty green, hardback notebook with a detailed outline for an entirely new script and in the frenzied rush I'd also filled a page of my yellow "Momentum" notebook with frantic shorthand resolutions to problems I'd been trying to solve. This state continued through breakfast and the ride to work - though I'm normally up in a blink, today I still feel the sleep falling from my brain almost three hours since I awoke.

This is, I think, the kind of inspiration and rush that so many before and after me have clawed at madly, with excessive drink or drugs. I can't say either has ever brought it on for me, but if it works for others then I can certainly understand.

When I say that I woke up halfway in, this is because for the first time in a long while I vividly dreamed a story I could actually relate to people who do not have my exact memories. Usually my dreams are so tactile and rooted in memory that it would be a tremendous pain in the arse to convey them. This dream had those two qualities but had a third facet in that multiple threads and themes of childhood were present. A strange thing for me as I've been looking forward to and considering what is to come with such intensity for the past few years. I don't know yet, of course, if this story will develop into something that could be made - but I do know that I shall have to explore it further when I visit Uffington to retreat from London/Las Internet for a few days.

After Greece, that is! Yes, Old Man Money bounced me on his knee and said that I could get away with both a four day venture into Athens and a four day retreat in Uffington/Oxford. Exciting times! During my weekend stupor I was able to investigate a decent flight and hotel package that will put me along a main road which seems roughly equidistant from the Aegean sea and the core of Athens where such wonders as the Parthenon and the temple of Zeus can be found. The only decision left to make is if I should include one of the little tours in the package and how obnoxious a pair of swim shorts I should purchase.

Addendum: I was warned London would be dirty compared to Ottawa, and parts of it certainly are, but it could be worse.

And how are we today, Mr. Brackenbury?

I want to live...

....and yet, even more, I want to die! While what I have simply dubbed "Generic Illness" ravages me, body and mind, let me direct you all to the kind of website which could eventually lead to the death of television. It has dozens of handily organized shows, including my beloved Brass Eye (which I'll now shut up about), Harvey Birdman, Look Around You and other magnificence. Not that searching YouTube is SO hard, but this is much better.

Enjoy!

Another post pertaining to the general area of below the waist

But not poop! No, no no, this shall not become a PoopJournal. This I promise.

I've recently been asked in an email, "Why don't you talk much in your site about British accents or slang?". This is a fair question since British accents and slang are two of the most defining national qualities - particularly as seen by foreigners, but for Britons as well. It's not something everyone does, but there are native Britons who still take pride in being able to tell where someone is from (be it as vague as "up north" or as specific as what city) simply by hearing them talk. Meanwhile, I'd say that slang is certainly a more slippery beast here than I ever recall it being in the parts of Canada which I've experienced. Terms I heard in Reading had no bearing in London as terms I heard in Broadstairs had none in Reading. Not that England has a monopoly on this phenomena, but there is a notable volume of slang and accents for a country of such modest size.

The reason I've strayed from getting deeply into the subject - and my experiences with it - is twofold. 1) I don't want the Britons I speak with to feel that anything they say to me is up for linguistic study and dissection in front of an online audience. 2)That good old fashioned desire not to feel too much like a tourist, pointing and marvelling at "the funny way these people are".

But for the sake of anyone who plans to visit here, I shall warn you of something which I tripped up over the other day. Yes, "trousers" is still the word for what North Americans would call "pants" - but what is less widely known is that "pants" has, in somewhat recent years, become the term for "underwear".

This would explain the raised eyebrow I got when I was explaining to a co-worker that I didn't have my tube pass on me, thanks to having put on the wrong pants. "Which is a real pain in the arse, because that means I don't have a host of other things on me as well. I keep everything in my pants, pens, pencils, a small exacto knife..." I went on to explain "It's a bad habit I've inheirited from my father, he practically has half of Office Depot in his pants".

Well!

Meanwhile, did the "No gurlz a-loud" sign (written in messy crayon, of course) we posted over the internet fail us? Apparently! Also a baby, named Bubba no less, has proven that America's gun laws continue to be a shining example to us all. Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to cough my way through being sick for the first time in England. Wheeeee! Literally the day after I signed up with the National Health Service, no less.

Newz you cannot possibly Uze(z)

I just tried a new, more arduous form of sit-up and it made me have to poop. I like that I felt more of that marvelous "burn", I wasn't so keen on being made to feel like a human roll of toothpaste.

Just sayin'!

Travels and travails and PAEDOPHILLIA?

Well, I've had a long conference with Old Man Money and it looks like visiting Canada will have to be a December/Christmas thing. Though recent events have upgraded a June trip from implausible to plausible, it has not yet graduated to wise. In short, I'd be cleaning out my savings account and leaving myself in a precarious position for when I returned to London. Plus I've lately been having crazy thoughts about "planning for retirement" and "not living hand-to-mouth". Sorry, to those who were hoping to see me sooner rather than later. If I had the ability, I'd visit in both June and December - with smaller trips all over Europe as well.

So now I am presented with the truly First World Problem of deciding what I want to do for a little vacation to celebrate my birthday and cap off what I sincerely hope to be the end of my "career" in data entry (it almost goes without saying that even though it's a month until this Network Rail contract finally ends, I've started hunting for a new and more stimulating job). On the one hand it's tempting to spend a modest wad of cash visiting Rome (before it crumbles) or somewhere in Greece for four or five days - seeking thrills and sights then coming back to London to decompress and recover from making the most of a few days somewhere exotic.

Or do I retreat to stay with my friends in Uffington/Oxford, take a few days off from hustle and/or bustle as well as the Internet (gasp) in order to seriously relax while focusing on writing and drawing in-between long country walks? Cheaper and more productive by far, but not as exciting or exotic - I certainly would miss seeing the Coliseum or the Aegean sea.

Perhaps I could be cheeky enough to do both, back-to-back?

In other news, here's an interesting artifact from recent British history which could be filed under the What's Got Us Whipped Up Into Hysterics Now? column. In the late '90's and very early 2000s's, up until terrorism stole our hearts and minds, paedophiles where the boogey-men supreme in England. Chris Morris, a father of two children and the man behind Brass Eye, got fed up with how the British people were being whipped up into absolute brainless terror so as to further the agenda of several newspapers, TV stations and politicians. Thus, though Brass Eye had been off the air for a few years, he resurrected his old show to produce a special entitled "Paedogeddon". You can find it on Youtube, split into three parts (1 - 2 - 3).

This article, What happens when you satirize hysteria?, does a good job of chronicling that brief period and the various reactions to the show. Here is a rather telling quote from the three page article, the italics added by yours truly:

"...a moral panic of gargantuan proportions has swept the land. Last summer in the English coastal town of Portsmouth, egged on by English tabloids running a "name and shame" campaign, mobs of vigilantes roamed the streets like medieval peasants. But instead of pitchforks they carried knuckle dusters and baseball bats, and rather than hunchbacks they were seeking "kiddie fiddlers," who existed only in the minds of the mob.

Dozens of people were wrongly accused, and one man, a pediatrician, had to leave the area after some of the protesters were confused by the term and torched his house. The pediatrician managed to keep his name out of the press, for fear that more crime might follow him. Another pediatrician, 30-year-old Yvette Cloete, had to leave her home in Gwent, South Wales after it was vandalized: Cloete arrived home from work to see the word "paedo" daubed all over her walls. Police say "the astonishing ignorance" of local anti-pedophile protestors forced her out. "

Bahahahahwhahahawhahwwhaa......oh lord I've wet myself

I've had this marvelous, marvelous show put under my nose - Brass Eye, a fine satire of alarmist news programs if there ever was one! The second clip has Simon Pegg as a militant pedophile - a Milipede.

The Gay fellow looks a bit like the Joker

This picture, originally from a 1936 British Publication Men Only, gave me a good laugh and hopefully it'll do the same for you. I nabbed it from the most recent issue of Time Out, which has the highly useful theme of "FREE" (things to do in London).

Meanwhile, while working on the second draft of "Momentum", I keep privately wishing that I'd invented the phrase "Fuck along, now" and that I could reasonably include it in the script.

Scroobius Pics

Scroobius to the left, Dan Le Sac to the right.

"Mic? Check. iMac Laptop? Check. Laminated copy of the periodic table? CHECK"

One song was an enjoyable mish-mash of a half dozen characters Scoobius played, with slight costume changes for each.
When he busted out "Thou Shalt Always Kill", everyone had a great time chanting along.
Around the Camden Locks at night.

No seriously, the new Bjork album is realllly good - pass it on

I was thinking about leaving the site alone today, knowing that tomorrow will almost inevitably yield some blather (maybe even pictures!) regarding the Scroobius Pip show I'm going to tonight.

BUT

then I read this interview with Bjork. One aspect of her new album (Volta) which I can mention without this degenerating into a wank about how much pleasure her music gives me...is how it reflects something I've never seen in any of her previous work.

Politics.

Now you could muddy the waters by getting into the sexual "politics" of a lot of her work, particularly if you are one of those people who see no distinguishing difference between belief's, opinions and politics. So to clarify, I am talking about Politics with a capital P. One song addresses a suicide bomber while another is a rallying cry against colonialism and there are subtler undercurrents in a couple of other songs as well. It isn't so present as to make it a Political Album but it's rather noticeable when all that's come before has been more to do with nature, love, raw emotions and a host of other things from which you'd have to get rather metaphorical to draw any connecting lines to the news of the day.

It's nice to have been a fan of someone for ten years and still feel that new facets and sides are being revealed to you, that there are are still more to come. Coming back to the article that sparked this post, the specific portion which made me appreciate her even more is thus:

----------------

Interviewer:There’s a lot of personal sentiment on Volta—I’m thinking of “Dull Flame of Desire” or “Wanderlust”—but there’s also a lot of politically oriented stuff, like “Declare Independence” (personal/political) and “Earth Intruders,” where you try to assert a kind of pre-civilized state. I’m curious what—besides the tsunami in Southeast Asia, which you mentioned in another interview—helped you return to this sentiment, which reminds me more of something like “Human Behavior” than anything else.

Bjork:Perhaps I am one of incredibly many that became a little pissed off with the Iraq war. And, especially since I am only spending half of my time in this country, it was pretty mind-blowing when Bush got reelected. On another note, I think that it is important to feel positive about globalism—it isn’t necessarily only an evil thing. I remember reading as a child, in music school, a quote from Stockhausen that in the next century (now) we will have killed all the animals and become only one nation, but it is going to be amazing, everybody communicating telepathically and floating into space between the stars. I don’t agree with him completely but I feel it is important to move on and stop clinging to old stuff. By moving forward and letting go, so much other stuff is going to come back to us like unite as one tribe and hopefully we’ll manage to get rid of organized religion.

----------------

It's an easy guess which specific sentence amused me the most.

The new Bjork album is really good, pass it on.

Man, if there is one thing I'll need to learn for the webcomic (as well as some more HTML and drawing ability) it's patience. About ten seconds after I uploaded that sketch yesterday, I only then noticed a couple of things I really should have fixed (what is up with Ben's lopsided chin?) before inking. I'll leave it up since, in general, I'm taking a "Warts and all" approach to this site...I just hope it will serve as an appropriate lesson to myself to help me avoid repeating the series of events which lead to it.

1)I draw something
2)Not having done much drawing in the past, my threshold for becoming very pleased with myself is low. Thus, with a minimum of error checking, I decide that what I've done is pretty okay when in fact it contains a certain amount of crap - not unlike processed meat.

This may sound like I'm being a bit harsh on myself, but I'll want to be this watchful when I'm doing the comic since once it is up there it is up there. People won't feel inclined to come back later for a re-drawn version of a shoddy strip anymore than I'm going to want to go back and redraw it instead of doing a new one and progressing the story.

Meanwhile, I gather that there has been a bit of nonsense in Ontario regarding Facebook? Do any of you guys have anything to add?

I guess there are others than me who are less than fussed with this Hyper-Connected Generation bullshit. Reading that article, I actually found myself becoming a bit anxious before I reminded myself that I don't actually have to participate in the trend - well, any more than I currently am. Now I'm going to throw my non-existant hat into the jargon ring and coin a neo-hyper-dynamo-term(-o-fuck).

E-Hermit
Some desolate, wary soul who refuses to have a blog or a presence on MySpace, Facebook, Meebo, Bebo, Instant Messaging, Twitter, Technorati etc. Nor do they podcast or "Lifecast", publish wikipedia articles or have a Flickr or Photobucket account.

A month and change from my twenty-fifth birthday, when I generally stop being considered a "Youth" by numerous facets of British society, and I already am starting to feel an urge to sit on my lawn with a shotgun in my hands and a corncob pipe.

Addendum: Holy Crap Banksy Revealed!
Nabbing this from Roberto, I hearby present a link to another article where you can see the face of Banksy!

From the train this morning...

A BLOG POST IS BEING MADE*YOU ARE USING THE INTERNET*YOUR WIFE IS LEAVING YOU...

You know, when I used to watch Star Trek: The Next Generation and Deep Space Nine I often wondered why having so many basic things being announced by the computer didn’t piss people off more. “Well, I’m just glad I don’t live there!” I’d think.

See where this is going?

I could list the full litany but instead I’ll just mention the straw that broke the camel’s back. What woke me up half an hour early today? Why it was a megaphone loud, repeated announcement of “STAND OUT OF THE WAY, THIS VEHICLE IS BACKING UP. STAND OUT OF THE WAY, THIS VEHICLE IS BACKING UP” blasting from the garbage truck outside my house. From transit, to cameras, to trash to appliances….everything in England WILL TELL YOU WHAT IS UP AT THIS PARTICULAR MOMENT AND ALSO MAYBE WHAT YOU SHOULD DO IN CASE SOMETHING BAD HAPPENS.

THEN IT WILL TELL YOU AGAIN.

'Zis is, perhaps, most basic comic you are havink

The character is the fourth and final member of the Main Cast, a fellow named Ben who hasn't featured yet in the Bronze Age stories or in the little preview sketches. While I work on getting more strips done, I'll use this one as a template for experimentation and displaying the results.
Word bubbles and using layers to slide in photographes for the train windows will be the first things I screw around with, most likely. Anywho...still need to work on this and that, but I feel like progress is being made and this definitely topped up my interest/excitement for the project. I guess I could have taken more time on this but I was just so excited to be doing a proper strip instead of doodles and such.
Meanwhile I'm meeting MySpace Man to talk over the changes for the second draft of "Momentum" (AKA the scifi short with Parkour in it). I'm looking forward to it, partially because my collaborator claims he knows a Thai food place in Picadilly which sells all you can eat for three quid...but also because I'm really curious to see what our combined notes and ideas will gel into.