Vacation Status: Phase One Complete

Now to head off to Uffington!

Plenty of pictures etc will flow through my interloins (WHAT?) starting Monday. Until then here is a store which I greatly wish had been open when I walked by it in Glydfada.

Goddammit I'm on the internet while in Athens

While looking up the details on the tram I want to take to the beaches of Glydfada tomorrow, the first paragraph of the main page struck me as too tragic not to share. Bold has been added by the douchbag with the sunburned forehead.

"Forty years ago Prime Minister Constantine Karamanlis (the first one) was photographed proudly tearing up the tracks for the original tram of Athens, which in the eyes of many people signified the switch from being a city where people relied on public transportation to one where everyone has their own car. This led to the Athens of the last three decades, choked with pollution and traffic, where getting from one side of the city to another required a lot of patience or some imaginative routes, which as more people discovered them also became choked with traffic. It might be said that when the Athenians embraced the automobile they screwed up Athens completely. "
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Addendum: A big hello to the person in England who found this website by typing "I wet myself today" into Google!

Okay NOW I'm gone for a week

I just had to share this first of three episodes in Adam Curtis' latest series The Trap. The man is just brilliant and makes Michael Moore look like a chubby teenager with his hand down his pants while swearing loudly at a poster of Ronald Reagan riding horseback.

Belated birthday sketch

Strangely, I finished doodling this before the conversation in the last post's comments truly got under way. Alas, the text on the right got smudged and had to be replaced with cee gee eye!.

Well, screw everybody, I'm off to Athens tomorrow. I'm taking a vacation from work and all things internet OR computer related until late Sunday the 24th. Email me if you wish, just know that I shan't be up on my correspondence until at least that point in the future.

Thanks to everybody who wished me a happy birthday! It was pretty swell. I greatly look forward to coming back from my vacation with a clearer gameplan for the rest of 2007 and piles of photos of Athens.

And maybe some finished blueprints for Scarlett RoboJohannson 1.0

Addendum: Superman fights the real life KKK in the 1940's

*Tootle Parp*

Wheeeeee - apparently I have the same birthday as Chris Onstad. My webcomics success is now assured by this divine omen.

I know I've mentioned this to some folk already, but I thought I'd mention here that in the UK there are "Youth" discounts as well as the usual "Student" discounts. I think that's pretty okay, since it's unfair to assume that someone going straight from High School to the job market should be expected to pay the same rates for transit etc. as someone further down the road, who isn't working the kind of jobs one can get when only in possession of a high school diploma.

The cut off for this "Youth" discount is, you guessed it, twenty-five. My gorgeous Youth Rail Card picture is now but an archaic relic of times gone by! Here's hoping a pack of archeologists don't abduct me while I'm checking out the Acropolis in three days time.

Less than twenty-four hours of being twenty-four to go...

This panel is from chapter three, page nine of Alan Moore and Eddie Campbell's From Hell. I recently spoiled myself with the softcover and after the mandatory re-read I feel like I may have found a format that sits at just the right point along the line from rigidity to flexibility. The above panel is the standard size used throughout the work in a 3x3 grid. Always, the page can be split along those lines and throughout Campbell cleverly chooses to merge different combinations of these panels in various manners which change the rhythm and flow of a page - as well as simply allow larger illustrations!

If I run with this then I suppose it is a theft of sort, but honestly I think that technique is one thing and style another. To me, "stealing" the former is always acceptable because otherwise nobody would ever learn how to do anything but by reinventing it entirely from scratch. The latter is much less so, with cherry-picking being widely accepted as another method of learning but flat out copying being just as wisely frowned upon. Unless, of course, it's an homage or you're being postmodern.

Meanwhile, if the Adam Curtis documentary I posted below got you interested in the man and his work, there is an rather good interview with him that has the headline "Our anger is being ironed out of us".

Two days until THE AGING

I'm trying not to rabbit on about the webcomic too much now, since I'm hoping to have it up in a somewhere in the four to six week range. But I thought I'd put a little up today. Generally I've been busily filling a sketchbook with practice on hands and rough experiments in style, since I wouldn't say I really have one of my own yet. But I have been trying to get one "template" image down for each of the four main characters that I can then refer to whenever I draw them. To the left is an older one of Ben that I drew about six weeks ago and to the right is one of Charlotte that I drew last week. I don't think they're worth a thorough dissection but I will say that the reason my characters always seem to be pointing or laying their hand away from themselves is simply my way of forcing more hand practice.

Meanwhile, shucks howdy but job hunting has been a strange creature this time around. Now that I have a few months behind me of data entry, I'm getting a couple of calls a week with offers of moderate to high paying jobs (proportionate to my current pay) where I'd get to work in the heart of London.

Which would be great, except that these jobs are always just evolved versions of what I'm doing now. I've been able to find some better job listing sites and an agency that claims it deals with media (publishing/film/tv) and it actually does - as opposed to the usual, which is that they deal in media sales....but that is too recent to expect results yet. Man, it's a tough thing this drawing a line in the sand about my next job having to relate to my degree and/or passions but if you keep taking "anything" jobs then you'll only ever be more qualified for FURTHER "anything jobs".

To conclude: The Greek word for "Wanker" is "Malaka". It is sometimes used as a coloquial greeting, such as "Hey there, my [Malaka's]!". Knowledge is power!

The only boobs in this post are politicians

ZING.

Check out that biting, political commentary!

Actually, you'd be better off checking out this brilliantly put together documentary - in three parts - called The Power of Nightmares. It traces the history of the of the ideological groups which have polarized the world over the course of this century thus far and manages that rare feat of being both factually and stylistically impressive in it's exection.

Yesterday...

...a picnic at St.James was great fun and along the way we spotted a whole lot of people lined up along The Mall (to clarify, this is the name of the long road which leads up to Queen Victoria's monument which is in turn just outside of Buckingham Palace). A policeman told that soon there would be the second last practice parade for the Queen's birthday. Impressive that literally a few hundred people were lined up just for the next to last practice.
What you can see in the background of this picture is a part of that practice heading towards the Mall as seen from where we settled to eat, which was a several hundred years up and over from the Monument. As you can see, everything has greened up since the last time I took pictures in St. James park.Now then, I might not have included that poor photo of the procession but it's needed for contrast to the other procession which caught me unawares as, hours later, I trumped down Oxford Circus in search of bits and pieces for my trip to Athens.

Why look!
Is...is it?
Why yes it's hundreds and hundreds of naked cyclists!
Call me a pervosexual if you will but, as you can plainly see, I was far from the only person pulling out a digital camera or mobile phone. After the initial "Oh me, oh my!" I found it neither arousing, disgusting nor even fearful!
It wasn't the hunt for perfect bodies that made it hypnotic, it was a two part equation that consisted of 1) the sheer volume of people that kept snaking by for well over ten minutes and 2)the fact that you were getting a pretty egalitarian cross-section of human bodies.
I mean, let's face it, we all know that 98% of the naked bodies we're exposed to in film etc (even dead bodies in murder mysteries, which sometimes makes me raise an eyebrow at the implication that even corpses must be sexy!) are uniformly "perfect".
The cyclists were doing this to raise awareness of motor vehicles contribution to climate change, to suggest to us that if more of us rode bicycles that it would do a great deal to help alleviate the problem. It was an interesting thing to imagine a society where bicycles are the dominant mode of transport and all that would change. But what they unintentionally raised awareness of was that maybe we shouldn't fret about our bodies not being sculpted like Hollywood film stars and take comfort in the fact that the vast majority of us simply are not made that way - and that that is okay!

Today

A little over £113 got me my €150 for Athens. Lucky me, a Canadian who works for Network rail dropped by the office yesterday. She was from Calgary but more importantly, she had been to Athens recently. To my relief, she told me that €150 would be plenty for three and a half days there. "Could you manage Ottawa on about $215 spending money for three and a half days?" she wisely put it to me.

Talking with her, I won't deny a little homesickness crept in. Actually, I've been wrestling with it on and off for the past two weeks. Partially because summer is coming and so my mind drifts back to last summer, one of the best in my memory to be sure. Then there's some recent family events which have brought thoughts of mortality to the forefront and made me have a few lingering thoughts about being so far away from my parents. Not to mention the little things, like Toronto's secret swing, concerts in Montreal or the Manx pub in Ottawa. Oh and maybe my friends, I guess.

But I'm still only nine months into this two year experiment of mine. Progress from the second to the third draft of Momentum is much greater than from the first to the second - I hope to have a draft worth shopping around before I leave for Athens. Though I've signed up for a little more time at Network Rail, job offers are coming in and eventually the right one will come. Though I don't like to prattle on about, what with my desire not to make the people I meet feel like their every move is being reported on the Internet, I have managed to get the seed of a social life to bear a little fruit. Being a writing hermit stopped being romantic after awhile!

The jury is still out on whether or not I'll stay in England for the extra-long haul. I have to say that on the negative side of things, I find it difficult to cope with how crushingly backward this country is when it comes to the general populations attitude towards the importance of the environment. More than once now I have hear a good deal of resentment directed towards the issue at large and I've even heard more than one person say "I fucking hate the environment".

What?

Is this not like a fish saying it "fucking hates water"? Perhaps while chewing a sausage roll and reading The Guardian?

Plus the culture of fear in England is much closer to America's hysteria than the general attitude of Canada. I know I was poking a bit of fun with it, when I made my posts about Brasseye, but pedophilia nonce-sense is still pretty bad. Though the Labour party has done a lot to block a lot of the proposed anti-terror measures which would bring England in sync with America's draconian, crippled joke of a legal system...it is still a contentious issue. Running parallel to both topics, the newspapers are just as shameless in exploiting these fears to sell paper as they were (and often still are, somehow) in exploiting the Princess Diana escapade of the late 90's. These are all things which can wear me down on a tired or otherwise down day, to be sure.

I'd like to have a clear conclusion to this train of thought, but I guess the point is that I don't!

Apparently you can set off an atom bomb in the sky without the general public knowing?

Tom just, quite fairly, asked me how on Earth he could miss this?

I'd like to ask, how did I? How could anyone? Was this ever given proper news coverage?

Great Gumblin' Gumbles

Huzzah, first world (computer) problems have been surmounted!

So I mailed back the overpay....and I guess it was the right thing to do. Heck, apparently I made "Temp of the Month". If only I could articulate how that makes me feel.

Tomorrow I'm going to nab some Euro's. They aren't as wonderfully cheap as ye olde Canadian Dollar but the pound still trumps it by a reasonably consistant margin. When I checked this afternoon I saw that 100 pounds would net me 147 Euro's which is roughly what I've been recommended to acquire for the trip. Red swimshorts have already been selected.

Job hunting is proceeding apace, but I may have to work at Network Rail another couple of weeks. I think I could survive this, now that I know that since my initial contract has been filled I can just give two weeks notice like a normal human being. There is one production house which offers one year, paid contracts for runners which would be a good way of getting my foot in the door. The contracts become avaliable in July so it's just as well that I can get a few weeks more out of NR. Plus I still get my vacation, so that should at least recharge me.

Nowt much else today, but lasers saving the earth and talking paper!

Addendum: www.firstworldproblems.com is mine! Nothing up yet, but it's on the way...

A £1,700 Kick in the Crotch

So! I have recieved a kick square to each testicle.

Kick #1) I checked my bank balance and I seemed to have been paid about £1,700 more than I usually am in a given week. I know in my tiny, robotic heart that I will have to call my recruitment agency on Monday and tell them - but god damn if it isn't a hell of a tease to think for even a moment that you, all of a sudden, have enough money to guarantee visiting Canada in December, move house to somewhere closer to the centre of London and take almost all the stress off of your current hunt for employment.

Kick#2) My damn computer has a corrupt system config file which means it can't start up. I don't have a Windows XP backup disc because of a shared stupidity between the retards who packaged my computer and the retard currently typing this message. So I guess my "e-presence" will be "e-much less" until I get this sorted, which will be tricky if only because there doesn't seem to be such a thing as a proper comptuer store in London - only retail outlets where the employees only know how to sell, not how to fix or help, and computer pawn shops which I wouldn't let my laptop near in a hundred years.

Ro-bits

Trying to get a better idea of robot's imitating human movement vs actual human movement, I've been watching assorted clips of the Honda ASMIO and the Sony QRIO. While doing so I came across this suprisingly "Aww..." inducing clip.


Meanwhile, I also discoverd that a cluster of QRIO's performed in Beck's video for "Hell Yes". This gave me untold joy and perhaps it will do the same for you?

Macbeth at Regents Park Open Air Theatre

The temperature was perfect and a cool breeze played through the trees the whole time. I'd have taken picures of the show in progress but it was so good that I completely forgot to! What I saw of Regents park while we found our way to the theater was also rather impressive, I'll have to return with my camera during a sunny day and give it a do over.

Oh! The reason the set may look a bit odd is because they chose to make the play anachronistic, with the usual period dress during court scenes but a mixture of Scottish military get-ups from the 17th through 20th century during most every other scene. It was a bit of a surprise when, in the opening battle scene, the King came swinging in on a jeep!

This country is also doing bad things

America deserves a whole hell of a lot of critical attention but, as this article from the Ottawa Citizen which not all of you may have read points out, it realllly is far from the only country that does.

Shibbidy shabbita don't let the monsters grab at ya

Two weeks 'til Athens, two weeks 'til Athens!

Ahem.

Sorry it's been a bit quiet lately, mostly I'm finding myself consumed with job hunting this past little while. But tonight I'm going with someone to see an open air production of Macbeth, in Regents Park, and I'll be sure to bring my camera.

Meanwhile, I found a very good and easily digestible article put out by a UK based group of scientists with a long, distinguished history, The Royal Society - A Guide to Facts and Fictions about Climate Change. Give it a peek, I dares ya.

Misanthropists unite!

Although, by definition, I'm not sure if they could!

The new season of Big Brother is on the way and from the depth in which it has permeated all forms of media in London, you'd think God had announced A)That he actually exists and B)He's swinging by for the taping of the first episode, where he'll finally clear up which religion is right about him.

Naturally, I tripped over some of this while perusing the BBC this morning and the entry for the first two contestants was just too vomitous NOT to share.
****
NAME: Sam and Amanda
AGE: 18
OCCUPATION: Students
Sam and Amanda are the first set of twins to enter the house. They have their own "Twin Song" which they use to introduce themselves to boys.
-As well as studying social work in Manchester the twins also work as promotions girls in a nightclub.
-They "find politics confusing" and until recently had never been abroad.
-They both believe that "men should always buy women drinks".
****
I was once highly amused at the idea of someone singing a song which would end the Earth - but now I find it hard to laugh, having discovered what that song will be.

It will be: The "Twin Song".

Bonus Points: THIS
*ALSO*: A somewhat relevant Cat and Girl strip!

Bits and Bobs and Bikes

One thing to know if you ever plan to live in or do a bike tour through London is that regular sized bikes are not allowed on the tube - the just take up too much space. This, amongst other factors I'm sure, has helped fuel the rise of folding bikes. They are pretty fun little guys, mostly resembling BMX's, and generally cost as much as a new bike of comparable quality. On Sunday I was riding the escalator in Liverpool station when I saw someone standing in front of me with a folded up example. It stood on the step in front of him and was about the size of a modest trash bin - the like you'd find by a desk in someones study. I guess you could say that I stalked him in that I kept track of him from the station doors to the street so I could watch him unfold it. No special key seemed to be needed and it took him only about 30 seconds. Depending on where the winds of employment take me, I might look into one for myself.

Though I can't help being a little hesitant, foolishly, because of something else I've been seeing in regards to bikes and London. I'd say about every third bicyclist that I've seen on the street has been wearing a face mask air filter thing (rebreather?). When I see someone sitting directly behind an eighteen-wheeler I guess I can understand, but the implications - as well as the imagery - just creeps me out. It really reminds me of one of the old clean air advertisements from the early 1990's where a bunch of lawyers with personal air masks are strolling through a street where everything is a shade of brown or grey while a homeless begs for change so he can suck a few precious gasps of clean air from a kind of vending machine (Ten points if anyone can find a clip of it). At least there are plans for this, such as the Low Emissions Zone (which is the vast majority of London, but for a few communities which lay outside of the M25 highway that encircles the city), the Emissions Influenced Charges Proposal and the steady increase of congestion charges.

It's all well and good that we've made fun of them alot

As much as they may amuse us, popular humor shows making fun of Scientologists do not - at least directly - impede those lunatics.

Luckily, Tom has put something under my nose that can. All British citizens and expatriates are being called upon to sign this petition pleading that Scientology does not gain official status as a religion in the UK.

To those of you who read this and would be able to sign it, or could pass it along to someone who could, please do. If this seems like I am being unfair by singling them out, well, let's just say that they really have established themselves as fair game and leave it at that.