Not why I named him that, but fun anyways.

On this past Saturday I was heading through the tube to The British Library so as to write and draw in seclusion. But the more I thought about the incredible weather I saw while on my way to the station, the more it felt like a crime to stay indoors all day. So I switched lines and popped out at trusty Embankment and took a leisurely stroll through Whitehall Garden, The Mall (where I made a great discovery) and around the Big Ben area before settling along the stream which lay in St. James Parks southern half. Luckily I had my camera with me.A monument to Florence Nightingale, no less.
Along The Mall I found something a Network Rail co-worker had pointed me in the direction of a ways back, The Institute of Contemporary Arts. It's a little bit like the BFI in that it is a repository for great films and film-related books (Like this Amos Vogel number I grabbed while I was there). Unlike the BFI it branches out into art, photography and music as well. As soon as I find steady employment, I do believe I am going to sign up for membership - if only for the discount on books. Mainly, though, I think a club which would regularly get me out to see new things and swim about with people with similar interests would be a pretty good idea. One good side-effect of my being unemployed is that it's forced me to see how insular I've been for the past couple of months! Moving on...
Though I was certainly less productive than if I'd been at the library, I think the state of mind which the park put me in was easily worth the price of my eventually doing a bit of a rush job on Clive in the last panel...and speaking of "Clive"...

A hoy hoy

New comic!

More tomorrah...now it is time to sleep.

"Look at all that gossip!"

Well I feel like the interview went pretty well yesterday. I even had a decent answer, which earned a good reception, when the dreaded "Where do you see yourself in X years?" question arose.
The editing and composing test was also nice in that it was an actual test of what I'd be expected to do on the job - so my internal spellchecker was able to function normally, unlike when I've been presented with a ten question "Do you spell the word this way or that way?" grade five style quiz. There's nothing like regressing to keep you sharp! (?).Not a whole heck of a lot to report today folks, alas.But I thought I'd bring in a couple of pictures from Broadstairs. The little pool is for crabs and the like to collect and then be enjoyed by small children and their patient minders.And finally we have me doing it up "Perez Hilton" style. Well, not quite, as I actually found this amusing (you may not?).
I'd hyperlink to his website but honestly, it's not worth the hype(rlink). A few people had told me it was basically a snarky, chubby gay guy with a teenage bathroom dye-job that spends twelve hours a day sitting at a Starbucks with his laptop and drawing pseudo-legible, funny captions on unflattering pictures of celebrities. "That could be amusing" I foolishly thought.

I felt pretty cheated by what I saw. Writing "FATT" on a picture of Lindsey Lohan does not a "guffaw" make. What the hell? Popular stereotypes had taught me that all gay guys had an inherent wit, particularly when it comes to catty remarks about celebrities! Also an impeccable fashion sense. Maybe....maybe being homosexual just means you desire the same gender as your own.

Maybe that's all it ever really meant?

Deep.

Anyways!

This kind of goes off the rails after the first two minutes but those two minutes sum him up very well.

Committed

Just thought I'd share a short film by my friend Gina, who wrote and directed this as her final project this year. I rather enjoyed it and if you feel the same while also being in posession of a YouTube account, then by all means please head over and give her a nice rating and/or comment.



Meanwhile, in my own film adventures, some of you may recall that I've been working on another, minimalist short to make with Myspace Man* while Momentum's arduous pre-production grinds away. For the past month I've been bashing my head against the laptop in trying to come up with a five minute comedy centered around a tennis match but luckily it turns out Mr. Man and I are both huge Fallout fans (and fans of the post-apocalyptic genre in general). After discovering that during a recent chat, the mini-short has now taken a decidedly different direction which seems to be massaging all the right brain meats for me to start cranking out pages at an appreciable pace. This is something we want to get working on asap and hopefully I will be able to flash it by y'all before the end of the year.

*For those of you recently tuning in, "Myspace Man" is my nom de plume for a fellow that I am collaborating on film projects with at the moment. Three guesses which poorly designed social networking website I met him on.

Terrible Cracking Sounds!

Broadstairs was wonderful and restful as always, now back to der hunt - I have an interview with a biomedical copywriting firm on Thursday that I'm looking forward to. Though not film work, it would be something where - gasp - I'd get to use my education. Oddly, the camera didn't get much of a workout...though later I might post short clip of a failed sand castle attempt, if it crosses the line from "personal trivium" to "something others may enjoy" upon a second viewing.

Meanwhile, good eye on one of the First World Problem readers for deciphering my scrawl in the second strip and realizing that "Flloyd Boastman" was based on my first impression of Loyd Grossman. She then passed along the following video clip of him being lampooned by British comedy duo Vic and Bob!

Enjoy!


P.S. My apologies to those who have written me lately and are still waiting for a reply. My wrist has been getting wonky and so I'm reluctant to spend more time on the computer than is absolutely necessary (re: continued job hunting). I will write to you all as soon as I can do so without terrible cracking sounds coming from my right hand.

What? No embedded video?

Since I am leaving my laptop at home while I'm away for the weekend, I think I'll just toss the new comic up now. John helped me figure out how to use Inkscape to make the linework much clearer and bolder, leading to what I feel is a huge improvement in general but also over the original version of the "Ben" strip.

Meanwhile, here is a really fun "Make your own Cat & Girl comic" flash widget I found in Dorothy Gambrell's extras section.

If you enjoy regional accents and have always wished there was a map you could click on, linking to different recordings of all the world's accents...then wish no more.

Anyways, I'm off to Broadstairs now - have a good weekend all! I'll be away from the internet until some time Monday, can you handle it?*

*Probably!

"I shoot all my employees"

Huzzah!

I got this week's comic done in plenty of time so I can spend some quiet moments during my weekend in Broadstairs getting ahead on the following weeks comic - which is longer and, judging by my thumbnail sketches, much more ambitious then what I've done so far. Eventually I'll probably cool out and settle into most strips being three to six panels instead of nine, but meanwhile I think it's worth the extra bit of struggle for the introduction of the main characters.

And for those who give a hoot and/or holler about the nitty gritty...

*The lines scanned a lot better this time around because I cowboyed up to a 2.0 pigment ink pen, only using the 0.5 for fine detail instead of everything.

*I think I'm going to stay with two pixels thickness for word bubbles but the search for good font continues. Until I find something better, I'm going to stand by what I used last strip - Kabel Dm BT 3.5pt

*I'm using the PNG format with the top level of compression (9) but what really made a difference in the size of the last strip was resizing it to be 800 pixels high (about a 50% reduction). Still, I feel like there is something I am missing so I'm going to experiment with other methods of image size reduction. The last strip was 474 kb - about a third of the first one - but I'd really like to get these down to at least the 150 kb range or even less, since I'm sticking with black and white at the moment.

I also think it's worth mentioning that the sense of accomplishment from drawing each panel has helped keep spirits flying much higher at Fort Brackenbury then they would if every single moment was spent job hunting. There is definitely something to be said for doing what you have to do to maintain a decent level of self-esteem while engaging in that particular grind - especially when there has been a long stint of "typical English weather". The boiling hot summer which I've been in fear of for months does not seem to be in a rush to arrive, which suits me just fine so long as there is a bit of sun while I'm inBroadstairs.

Basically what I am saying is that I want the weather to accommodate my needs and wants. All this being said, I should count myself fortunate not to be anywhere near the floods.

Finally, the title for this entry comes from the following VBS two-part series on bulletproof fashion.

Part One


Part Two

If I was offered a job where I was paid to look for work...

...I'd probably turn it down!

While I'm sitting at my laptop and probing the luminiferous aether of employment, here's a grab bag of amusment and disgust for you all to peruse. Just call me shameful Thomas.

My favorite guest comic by Ryan North

My favorite guest comic by John Allison

Chris Onstad doesn't ever do guest comics, sadly, but here is one of my favorite one-shots of his.

If anyone had any doubts about how ghoulish television programmers can be, this ought to stamp those out.

Captain Nemo would be proud.

And finally, I really think that we can thank Napoleon Dynamite for Eagle vs Shark.

Toss in Superbad and I really do think that for the first time in years, nerds - realistically portrayed nerds, mind you, not "nerds" - are going to be a new trend in film protagonists.

I gotta say, I'm in favor. These kinds of characters are way more interesting to watch then the vaseline coated WB set.

Drat

So it turns out I didn't get the job, namely thanks to the old "Need experience to get a job/need a job to get experience" joke. I've got savings enough to subsist for a while but if I'm still unemployed in about six weeks time then I may be forced to scuttle back to Canada. Even though I've thought about coming back for good in December, during more homesick moments, I really would prefer not to come back quite like that for all sorts of obvious reasons.

The other part of the rejection equation came, I believe, from my answer to what is easily one of my least favorite interview questions. The question was "Where do you see yourself in ten years?".

Now I do appreciate that there are those amongst us who have laid out grand architectural blueprints for their life - where they'll go to school, when they'll marry and precisely what job they shall have at specific ages. But man, even Joseph Stalin only managed five year plans. Even that plucky lil' fella. I myself am certainly not someone who can plan that far ahead in any meaningful way. I can fantasize all day long, but does that count?

Plus, even though it is clear that I was being asked specifically about where I saw myself career-wise the vagueness of the actual wording made me go a bit blank for a brief moment. I think I must have unknowingly given a very mild "Are you stupid? Also I am confused" look as I replied "Happy....?". I recovered my composure pretty quick and tried to cobble together some answer about how I wanted to be an editor and why I would enjoy that but it undoubtedly came across as just what it was - an attempt to give them the kind of answer they wanted.

Meanwhile, ten years ago I was fifteen and thought that maybe I'd like to get a job in marketing since I had cynically and naively deducted that that was a good way to get paid for being creative. Ten years ago I had no thoughts of film as a career (only "writing") and though I had enjoyed my trips to England thus far, I had no thoughts of moving there. Most of that came about seven years ago and I didn't begin to lay any concrete plans until about three years ago.

I completely understand why it is in the best interests of an employer to only hire experienced individuals who have known that they want to work in a specific field since a very young age and that they will continue to be in that field for the rest of their years. It's a much wiser investment then someone with vaguer ambitions who might just as likely try the role out only to discover it's not for them as they would fall in love with it and be a loyal employee for years to come. This is what makes it all the more maddening that I didn't figure out what I wanted to do at a very young age. Still, knowing this, it is hard to feel that folk aren't looking for someone whose first words were more along the lines of "In twenty years I see myself working in my second job along the corporate ladder as a Junior Assistant at a prestigious corporate law firm in either Boston or New York."

"Also, ma-ma!".

Addendum: The BBC had a great pair of articles today, one on a rather ambitious project and another on how a lot of people are missing the most obvious way they can help with climate change.

Meanwhile, screw you Londinium - I'm off to Broadstairs this weekend for some sun and beach and not job hunting. I'll be sure to bring my camera and have the webcomic done in advance, which should be a problem for reasons that will become apparent.

I.....can't.....get this....out of my head!

I saw it this afternoon and I'm tempted to see it in theaters again. It was everything it promised to be and then some.

True story.

If I was a rapper and of the right ethnicity, my handle would probably be "Black Gold"

This is a topic I've been reading a lot about lately and I think that, like climate change (the two topics are linked in several ways) the matter of peak oil will be one of the greatest world shaping factors in our lifetimes.

The documentary website.

Shrinking back down to the micro level, I have yet to hear back from the post-production company in Soho, which is odd since they did stress they'd call me back on Friday whether or not I got the job. I've dropped them an email, which I suppose is a little cowardly since I could phone them directly but I'm not entirely sure if I want to hear a rejection right this moment.

Boy howdy

Here we go! On time, in the Eastern Standard timezone at least. Ah well, progress continues to be made, new notions continue to be learned (particularly in the "Things Not to Do" category, but hey that still counts).

First World Problems
Strip #2: Charlotte

Font Party

I hearby vote this the least stimulating post ever. But a man has gotta think about these things, there comes a time!Font nerds, toss in your ten cents!
Addendum: I'm starting to think they all stink! Any suggestions?

These are the end times

They must be, for me to be posting someting from the flipping Montel Williams show

BUT

but man oh man

THIS DOG

A flip, a flop, a flippidy flop-hop

Well I gotta say it was a treat having the morning off to go into Soho during the early hours. I'm not sure why I tossed my camera into my bag, but I'm glad I did. If nothing else, it was worth it for my spotting one of the ceramic tile space invaders which I first read about in the always delightful Colors magazine a couple of years back.I'll find out about the job by Friday. I think I might get beat out by other folk with more practical experience in post-production but on the other hand the interview seemed a pretty cheery affair and I had decent answers to their questions. We shall see! Anyways, more of Soho...And then there are two neat bits I spotted outside Leicester station before I headed off to work.

Addendum: Here is the Invader's own site.

SUCCESS SUCCESS...

...SUCCESS!

I mean, SUCCESS!

Thanks to some help from John I tamed the GIMP and was able to do better word bubbles than PhotoPaint 9 afforded me. Meanwhile the first panel of the next comic is done and I've been able to take a bit more time with it, since I have more than twenty-four hours until my Sunday evening deadline this time. Huzzah! Already the steady march of personal progress has begun.

But then.... who am I kidding? How can I ever compete with this?

Now to toss myself in bed and cross my fingers for the interview tomorrow. In that order.

Addendum: SHEESH! I thought .png's were the preferred file format for webcomics because they were smaller than jpg's....but converting from the latter to the former has more than doubled the file size. Sorry folks! I'll see about changing this later.

Stabbing back at the winking anus of infinity

It feels too much like defeat to not post SOMETHING.

So if you are down with spoilers and mostly complete work, click on this link to see where I am with the strip so far.

Pulsating Balloon

Sheesh.
So after some long-winded Skype with Paw, I seem to have a way of making word bubbles in Corel Photo-Paint.

It's more arduous then feels right though...it feels more like a work-around than a solution but here we are. I need to spend some time today NOT in front of a computer as my ass is turning into a kind of pulsating balloon and it is not a comfortable sensation! Tomorrow my dear, tomorrow. At least I can lay back in bed and get a head start on the art for the next strip so hopefully I won't be setting a pattern of delayed updates from the frigging get-go.

Meanwhile, I guess I'll keep going through the GIMP mini-tutorials until I have the requisite skillz to pay the word bubble billz.

*sob*

IN OTHER NEWS
I have an interview on Wednesday for a different job in Soho. But it is with a film post-production company so I can't shit my pants with dissatisfaction too hard.

I can't do that!

Plus I am apparently to be interviewed by another "Oliver". Wish me luck! OR DON'T.

I must admit, I'd thought I'd be meeting Oliver's by the dozen over here but this guy will only make #2 since I arrived last October. It's a bit strange since this would make Oliver's, in my experience, only marginally more common than they are in Canada (I think I've met four there in my entire life). I'd expected they'd be as common as "Mike". Live and learn.

Addendum: Posterchild illustrates a pretty good point today. His art, as always, is stellar but holy crap scroll down to see the mobile phone pictures he put up.

Insert Mandatory Joke About How Giving Birth Isn't This Difficult

UGH!

The art is done, scanned and cleaned up. But I have to postpone uploading the comic until tomorrow - though not for lack of effort!

Ah.....but I planned the fuggin' thing out for the use of proper word bubbles, thinking that I could make such things instead of using the old (and ugly) overlayed text n' lines bit. It seemed a simple thing for one to do. But Inkscape, the GIMP and trusty old Corel Photo-Paint have all screwed me to the bone over this in one way or another. It's getting to 11pm and my brain isn't working any better, so for the sake of quality I am going to wait until I can take another tackle at it tomorrow. Trust me, it would be disgusting if I used the old method - I experimented in my last moments of soft-ware dis-pare.

Some things I have learn-ed
1) The GIMP is infuriating (Every time I tried to embed text into the main layer - it vanished) and it is most likely only a good move for those who have already conquered Adobe Photoshop.
2) If I get serious about this I'll need a larger tablet, a larger scanner or both depending.
3) Cramming a weeks worth of work into twenty-four hours could perhaps not be the best idea.
4) I hate reading authors newsposts where they go over the creation of the day's update in excruciating detail and/or make a pile of qualifying remarks. Yet, I may have to get that out of my system just the one time - tomorrow.
5) I gotta get some sleep, now.

Though maybe I'll stare at this for just a minute or two, to sooth myself.

I'm not sure if it's an effective advertisment...

...but it did make me laugh.

First World Wonderings

Well how about that, a satisfactory sketch of Devon. I think her exceptional height is at least suggested, her hair is what I wanted and I even managed to avoid the dreaded crummy boobs.
And another one of Clive.
Not to mention this one of Ben, whose expression I find oddly charming. I guess I find apprehensive fear charming? I also rather like his hair.
So I've been frigging around with the wacom tablet a lot and though I think I'm certainly capable of at least doing a good tracing job over one of my sketches....I cannot seem to find a drawing tool in GIMP that doesn't produce super pixelated lines. I'm trying to work very large and then shrink things down, as Jeph Jacques recommends, but I think that my not having a gigantic monitor is making this very difficult. It's a shame because I was hoping that when tracing onto another layer, I could fix anything which my non-computer inking may have blotched.

The learning curve is also holding back the site itself, though steady progress continues to be made when time can be allocated to it.

At the end of the day, though, I find that the art can be beautiful but if the writing is poor then I just do not give a flying fiddlers fuck*. I could find dozens of examples of this but A) I don't want to get into the habit of slamming other webcomic folk and B) I'd have to look up a bunch of comics I no longer have the URL's bookmarked for, then relive the disappointment. Meanwhile, fretting about getting the writing PERFECT for the first five strips is also absurd, given that it always takes a webcomic (or TV series, for that matter) time to find it's feet - and feet ain't found except by using 'em!**.

There is also something to be said for just getting the damn ball rolling. So sometime (probably late) tomorrow, the first official strip of First World Problems will go online and I shall link to it here.

*Sheesh, MORE cussing.
**This metaphor almost works. Almost.

At the end of the day, this is all you need.

In a fit of frustration, I did up a fake job listing to post here which would encapsulate as much of the rampant stupidity you get in said listings as possible. But when I was done, spent and panting while collapsed over the keyboard...I realized that such vitirol was unhealthy and perhaps a bit too soon since I dropped a ten pound cuss in my last post.

But I did keep the shining jewel of what I wrote and so I encourage you to Follow This Link To Apply Online

One Hundred, No More, No Less

Hooooo boy did I get my time wasted by the University of East London today. Apparently it is okay for their people to tell lies over the phone to get you to come by for a job, but then be told there is only some kind of six month un-paid training on the table. I would like to write these people one hundred letters and these shall all begin with "Dear Cunts".

I got pretty wary when I sat down and was asked to fill out a poorly photocopied form which asked for all sorts of information that they should theoretically already have had since they found me through my CV on Monster. In all my life, that has been about as good a sign as if I were to walk into a prospective employers office to find him impregnating his sister while watching pro wrestling on the tee-vee.

But at least when I got home I had a letter from Spain, a letter which made this recent Overcompensating strip seem all the more special.
Addendum: Paul Pope writes something dear to my heart.

So something a bit surreal happened to me last Monday and I wasn't sure if I wanted to mention it to anybody, though obviously now I think I do.

In the evening I went for a walk around the neighborhood and generally enjoyed stretching my legs after a long day of spending too much time in front of the computer. On the homeward bound stretch, I came across The News in a medium other than word of mouth, newspaper, radio, television or internet. It was in the form of a shrine to a young boy of about twelve who had been stabbed to death by a peer, on that very spot.

About six feet high at the tallest section and about twelve feet long, it is composed of about a hundred small candles, several wreaths, photographs, a football jersey and a plethora of notes on paper and the supporting wall. Classmates, teachers, family and friends had all contributed. I couldn't tell you why but, when I was able to stop looking at it, I counted the steps back to my front door.

One hundred and eighty-six. That's not a lot, really. Try counting that far the next time you stray from your door, to get an idea.

A lot of conflicting thoughts came about from this. But they aren't terribly interesting or novel and that's not really the point of my sharing this - it would be rather self centered if it was. I just think it's improper of me to gloss over this when I'm trying to provide a full glimpse of London, as seen by me. I saw this. It is part of London.

I contemplated taking a photograph of the shrine but kept shying away for fear I'd be turning something terrible into pornography. Tonight, knowing I'd built this up a wee bit in yesterdays entry, I figured "No, no I really should take a picture if I'm serious about giving the full view of this city". So I took my camera and set about those 186 steps.

But when I got close I saw four girls all around twelve or thirteen, looking upset and pacing around the the front of the shrine. Two were crying and that was that, really. I crossed to the other side of the street and walked right past, not wanting to intrude. I overheard a little of one of them talking to the others. "...I guess we could pray..." she said, not sounding entirely sure.

Also!

He was my hero when I was six years old

Sorry for being a bit quiet folks, I'm really trying to nail that thirty second advertisment script as I really want that Junior Copywriter job in Soho. The deadline is tomorrow though, so I reckon some healthier updates will be along the way. There is, in fact, a post I've been meaning to put up for four days but when you see it you'll understand why I wanted to take the time to word it carefully.

Until then, here is the dude, the dude who everyone should know talking about the topic we all need to be engaged with. I don't mean George Strombolpolobolopbolopblopobus.

LDN

It's been a while since I posted some pictures from around the city, so here are some I took between some shopping in the afternoon and drinkin' in the evening.Here we are at Leicester Square, which intersects with Charing Cross road (where all the bookshops are and hence myself on many a day). There are also several theatres and independent shops - the big chains haven't penetrated this area very much by comparison to, say, Oxford Circus.Later on party A (including myself) were going to meet some folk (B) on Cannon street but the nightclub (C) got a very low grade based on it's exterior (D). Thus a migration was made over to the Thames.
Beer, fun was had. True story! Now I have to wrap my head around that durn instant cappuccino commercial...

It's not just Alberta that is turning toxic

Never mind the brief skateboarding ad at the start.

Jeeeeesus Christ

THANK you Mr.Ban

From Upon The Great White Horse

Last time I was in Uffington I didn't end up going here, but I'd been three years ago and never really forgotten about it. The Great White Horse is arguably the site in the area and the view from here is magnificent - or so I'd been told! The day I'd been atop it for the first time, there was an absolutely ludicrous mist covering the countryside and I was denied the view. Thus, during one of the days immediately following my time in Athens, I asked my friends to take me up there again and this time I was much luckier.
The often quoted "they" say that if you stand upon the eye of the horse and make a wish, it might come true. Despite my disbelief in these sorts of things , it was just too amusing an idea not to try.

HUH

"SAM I GOTTA GET BACK TO YOU ON MY SMOKING MOBILE PHONE WHICH IS A MORE EXPENSIVE MODEL THAN OLIVERS, SO I CAN BERATE HIM FOR FUNDS I OBVIOUSLY NEED"

Well, it looks like my contact at Network Rail has reached the end of it's continuously extending ways. July 27th will be my absolute last day inputing railway forms in the dingy borough of Barking.

Okay!

Now job hunting has got to get serious. But, on an encouraging note, not more than a few hours after I learned about the contract....I got an email letting me know that I am long-listed for a job whose listing read thusly: "Junior copywriter required for trailer, TV & Radio commercials, at Soho based creative marketing agency. No experience necessary. Must have passion for writing, movies AND commercials."

I have to write a commerical for coffee, a thirty-second tv spot, and have it in before next Tuesday. If it is suitably marvelous then I will be short-listed, which I can only assume leads to an interview (or perhaps some chav wrestling).

Oh oh oh, last night I was harrassed at bank machine by a homeless man - but it soon became okay because he had to take a call on his mobile phone. I considered being a smartarse and waiting for his call to finish so he could resume badgering me for money, but then I remembered there must be a hundred better uses of my time than arguing with somebody who is clearly on the street either by choice or poor decisions. The mentally ill and genuinly disenfranchised of the homeless population don't buy sodding mobile phones!

Bits and bobs

Well, one splotch of England is pulling it's weight rather well.

Meanwhile the BBC has just dumped a pile of new jobs into the market, BUT they are all open purely to the disabled. Thus I am guessing an affirmative action quota needs to be filled.

Sheesh, anybody feel like pushing me down a flight of stairs?

Addendum: Posterchild's July 10th entry is a hell of a lot more novel and adds a lot more to the community than most street art - check it out! Hell, emulate it!

A few pictures from around Uffington

Athens Roundup

Right, sorry for the last few Athens posts just being picture dumps. Between several distractions and the worry that I might be approaching carpal tunnel syndrome, I've been reluctant to spend a lot of time adding text to them. But then, there isn't a whole heck of a lot to say. I must admit my trip was rather top-ended in interesting things to mention. The cruise was fun, but I became rather closely acquainted with the phrase "monotonous beauty" after hours and hours of the same gorgeous imagery of blue waters, islands, little villages...Day three I left unstructured and used to spend a few hours exploring the suburb of Glydfada, where I had a decent lunch and grabbed a beach towel for use at one of Glydfada's many, many beaches. I was tempted to try and see if I had the chutzpah for one of the nude beaches I'd heard about - thinking back to the brave, bareback bikers. But it's probably for the best that I didn't find them, since I couldn't even muster the chutzpah to ask a stranger "EXCUSE ME, WHERE ARE THE BEACHES WHERE THE CLOTHES ARE OPTIONAL?". Sorry, Athens, you lost out on a sight to last the ages!In the evening I mostly enjoyed pottering around the streets of Pelaka, the cafe and shopping district which lay along the North-Eastern side of the Acropolis. By this point I'd basically stopped using my camera as I felt like I'd seen more of Athens through it's viewfinder than my own eyes. As I suspected might be the case, my new memory card led to me taking a few hundred photographs in the first two days...by the third I needed a break, lest picture-taking become a compulsion. It was during these wanderings that I found that print shop which united me with the cold, warm, loving, hating eyes of Triplex. The kind of aimless city wandering I enjoy doesn't generally make for great stories though, sorry!
During what time I had during my last day before I had to catch my flight, I toddled around the National Gardens a bit and bumped into a bird house which I hadn't seen before. Later I went to take the tube back to the airport. At first I was stunned at how clean it was. More so than Toronto or Montreal's systems and certainly lightyears ahead of...oh, say Baker Street Tube Station in London - which I swear still has coal dust from the Victorian era on it (that might not be hyperbole!). It looked a bit like what 1960's futurists envisioned rail systems of the mysterious year 1999 to look like. In stark contrast to all this was the section which doubled as a small museum, seen in the last photo of my previous Athens post. In the far backdrop you can see where they allow you to see a cutaway of the earth which is marked with all the different era's of Athens ancient history as you go deeperthrough the layers.
Flying over the Alps I went back into ultra-tourist mode and took several pictures as we passed that famous landscape - which you've been browsing while reading this post. After a quick stop in Zurich where I bought some duty-free Swiss chocolate and quickly hopped back on to come on back to good old London. That last photo, which is a bit fuzzy (sorry), is of Hyde and St.James park.

All in all the Athens leg of my vacation was very novel, but I found myself kind of just wanting to get home near the end. I suppose it had been so long since I'd experience extreme heat for several days running that I forgot how much I didn't like it! Plus it really is a city for couples or large groups, not a lot is there to accommodate the lone traveller. I might go back again, but not on my own and not before seeing a lot of other places first. The next time I have a bit of cash to spare I'm going to hop over to Paris for a weekend, I think. Looking back over the week, I think I may have taken more from the second leg of my vaction - my return to Uffington.

My admiration for those who use Wacom tablets...

...just went up about 300%. Yesterday John helped me get my computer to finally recognize my lil' tablet, so today I've been doodling with it and generally trying to get the feel. I find it's best not to look at the tablet at all and I think I'll get to the point where my tablet drawing is about as good as my pen & paper drawing in another day or two. But these first few experiments keep bringing me back to falling on my ass while trying to learn how to snowboard for the first time...