lost...

I caught up with Lost the other day. Good lord. this is what happened. Hurley found an abandoned van. Hurley got the van to start. Hurley drove round in circles. Wow. nice one, writers, keep up the good work...
meanwhile, i also caught up with heroes - ep 18. no new ep til april 23rd!!!!!!!!! aaaaaaaargh!!!

Deal...

How would you react if you were offered £29,000? Nice, eh? Well one of my favourite Deal or no Deal contestants won that amount on Monday - but if she'd said 'no deal' she would have gone on to win £160,000 or even £250,000. There were tears (not mine, well almost). It's such a funny old show - how can 30 grand be seen as a negative - and yet somehow it did. And of course, horrible old Noel was rubbing it in, tsk. He really needs to watch himself on TV and think about what he's doing...

CDs

Okay, the jury is now out. I alphabetised (spelling?) my CDs yesterday - is that a crime? Am I boring?
But it's so useful! I found CDs that I never knew I had! An old Kristin Hersh album called 'The Grotto' that I can't ever remember playing! And I seem to have lost all my Liz Phair CDs!
My life will never be the same with my new 'system'

Orbital...manga

As I mentioned, I popped to Orbital yesterday. It's a great little shop, lots of nice action figures and plenty of back issues. They used to have a really good manga section and it seemed to have disappeared... until I found out they've opened Orbital Manga!!! It's a new shop next to the Cinema Store, opposite Stringfellows. Cool, I wish them every success. And an old friend of a friend, Hannah works there, so just to provide some support, I bought Ohikno (oh, i don't know how to spell it!), something that people have been recommending.
It's a nice little shop - a bit strange in that they have the latest American imports downstairs (ie the first thing you come to) and then all the manga on the upper level (in a similar way that FP shops have all the toys as soon as you come in, and all the comics hidden away). And it's nice to have it next to the cinema store, which sells the american Entertainment Weekly, my favourite magazine. Also good to have something in the vicinity of where Comic Showcase used to be - it was never my favourite shop (it smelled funny), but I do miss it.
Speaking of manga, does anyone know if Lai the psyhcic girl is worth reading? I saw a pack, issues 1-11, in Gosh. Gosh do good packs too. They were selling Alpha Flight 1-50 at Christmas, and I wish I'd snapped it up before someone else did.

Walking Dead

I got the new Walking Dead yesterday. I like this series, but I don't think Kirkman is as good as he thinks he is. I HATED that michonne-governor-torture issue - totally unnecessary (end the story where she gets her implements out - and cut to Rick and the others who are trapped in a helicopter - that could have been a far more interesting story), and here and there he does stuff that I think is a bit stupid. The prison story has gone on for way too long. How did one-armed Rick manage to drive a van to chase after Miguel or whatever his name is, in the new issue. And how arrogant is Kirkman? Listen to the criticism in the leters! Don't get offended! If every other letter is asking you to reveal how the zombie plague started, maybe consider revealing it, instead of refusing to! Gah.

Spendaholic

Well I certainly know how to kick off a week's holiday. First up, my folks came to visit at the weekend. My parents are awesome - they will do anything for me :-) They helped me with all the DIY jobs that I am too rubbish to do myself. They just have the knack, and they left my house looking like a five star hotel.
And then yesterday I hit oxford street. boy did i hit oxford street. I got two new posters for my living room (seven samurai and another kill bill one), the two matrix sequels (my hatred for them has died down over the years), the new Laura Veirs album (she wails too much and I decided not to buy any more of her stuff, but they played it in the shop and it sounded ace - yeah, they got me), the Art of Brian Bolland (shame it doesn't feature more of the Invisibles and Animal Man covers), a Luke Cage action figure lol (now I have to get Iron Fist), and lots of packs from Orbital comics - Next Men 1-18, Criminal Macabre and Singularity 7 (if you are a Londoner, head to Orbital - it's ace, and the packs are amazing - and check out Gosh too obviously).
I missed out on Next Men as a kid - it always seemed a bit expensive and flimsy. I'm three issues in and I'm impressed - plus John Byrne writes his own letters column and gives an interesting insight into how his head works.

Kelvin and Jamie

Kelvin and Jamie, guys, can you send your postal addresses to my yahoo email address please? (martrpeden@yahoo.co.uk) I have O Mens waiting for you, and your addresses are on my work email (I have the week off from work yay)

Forgot to mention

i think i actually forgot to mention that O Men 2.3 is available NOW!!!
i'll be sending subscription copies and comp copies out early next week, and i'll be getting my webmaster Dave to put announcements on the website (and popping the issue notes on there).
Hope you all like it.
;-)
Next week I'll be putting the cover to O Men 2.4 on here. yes, i've done it already! very unusual. won't put it on here now, as it's a bit spoiler-y. you can kind of see a small version of it in 2.3.
I've got a week off this week (thank god!!!) so i'll be making a start on 2.4 along with working on a bunch of other projects tht i never seem to get round to doing.

Cracked

I cracked. listened to one of the new tori songs. 'big wheel'. awesome. how'm i supposed to wait over 30 days for this new album. arrrgh

Insane

i just watched the most insane movie ever. it was called Demons, an italian movie originally called Demoni, i think. it was so bad - so bad it was really good. very funny.
speaking of bad, i found myself glued to the tv this morning for this really weird cbbc show, which was hosted by jk and joel and was all about bonnie langford hiding in someone's house for an hour. it seemed really weird that a kid's show would be on for an hour, and bonnie was just insane, leaping and dancing around, but somehow it was compelling viewing...

24 improving...phew

I just caught up with ep 13 of 24 season six today. thank goodness it's getting better, after a really shakey start. i think the problem this year is that ctu has been a bit lame, but it's finally picking up and the characters are getting more interesting. i'm loving karen hayes, and thank god some of the lamer characters have been sidelined. i have some theories about what's gonna happen but they might constitute as spoilers so i'd best not say anything.

Manoon!

Mike has asked me to write a post about his cat, Manoon. Manoon just pounced on my chest and knocked all my comics behind the sofa. She's sitting on the stereo and also sat on the laptop keypad.
I have a strange relationship with animals/pets. When your only contact with animals, specifically dogs, is getting attacked by them*, it's all a bit weird, but I love MIkey's pets. Okay, I'll never get used to the dogs, DAisy and Jazz, HURLING themselves at the door/me when I arrive, but they are cute. Miyagi is my favourite - i can relate to her in a funny way. She is sort of shy but always tries to be friendly. I have a funny relationship with Manoon. She can be a bit stand-offish, but only when she is shy and frightened, and now that she's Mike's only pet (since he split from his ex), she's really come into her own.
Good old Manoon.
Have you guys got any pets?
*My pet attacks: 1: clawed down back at age 10 in the south of france while playing hide and seek leading to frantic search around the area for an open doctors (it was bank holiday) for a rabies shot; 2: at 8, sitting next to a dog in the lake district which was on a very long lead - very long. long enough to cause a lot of damage when it slowly walked round and round my ankle, wrapping its lead around it, and then deciding to run...

Down with Technology!

Whoever invented technology should be shot!!!
O Men 2.3 was pretty much ready 2 weeks ago, but I've spent that time tinkering with the issue and getting it right - a touch of Photoshop 'tippex' here a touch there. You get to the stage where as much as you love an issue, you start to get sick of the sight of it too!
And this week I've tried to get a PDF of the issue ready for the printer, and of course I totally messed it all up, and in the end I had to get my pal Marcus to sort it out for me (who is stressed out enough at work as it is). I mean, who knew all the jpegs had to be attached to the document. Certainly not me, lol. I don't think i even know what a jpeg is ha ha
But now it's at the printers and hopefully it's all okay. Some of the page numbers got clipped off from where I positioned the pages, which is a bugger as I am such a perfectionist (and knowing me, I'll probably letter them all back on when I get the copies - it's been known to happen before) - but at this stage I just want to get it out to the readers.
And I won't even start on the fact that I wrote the script for issue 2.4 in Birmingham on my parents' computer and for some reason it hasn't copied to my memory stick so I'm hoping they can find it for me, or the fact that I put about 200 songs on my new ipod and they're all on there but won't play for some reason!
So boo to technology! Boooooo!

Dolls

Meet Santa, Clyde, Isabelle, Tori and Pip - the American Doll Posse yay! (Bored of me banging on about Tori yet, guys? There's only a month til the new album...)

Oz: One to go

One episode of Oz left until me and Mike come to the end of the batch of Oz eps we borrowed off his ex. We will be gutted.
This programme is f*****g amazing, utterly shocking, really gripping, and best of all, completely outrageous. And from the trailer, the season three finale looks awesome - particularly Officer Diane Wittersly (she plays the wifey I think in the Sopranos) punching the lights out of her butch nemesis female officer hehe
Bring it on!!!

New phrase

have you noticed a new phrase that's sweeping the nation? someone asks you something and you go "yeah, no, I agree". yeah, no? but everyone is saying it!!!

Borat

I saw Borat last night. I hope it was scripted - otherwise I feel so sorry for everyone involved - especially Pammy Anderson.
Why did no one tell me how funny the wrestling scene was - hehe!

Infinite Cri-shit

This weekend I gave the Infinite Crisis trade a read - something I've been meaning to do for ages.
Oh dear.
I know there were mixed opinions about this one but, to me, it just felt like reading a really confusing jigsaw puzzle. And it really should have been longer and more stretched out - 12 issues would have been much better. I can't believe they crammed so much in! 20+ panels per page! Bendis would have spun this one out for 100 issues!
So all in all, not impressed. It's quite fun to play 'spot your favourite character in the background' but sometimes the art is way too tiny and detailed - it's actually hard to take it all in.
So I do think it contains all the elements of a bad crossover event thingy. Speaking of which, Secret Wars got a right old panning didn't it - but i re-read it last year and really enjoyed it! I remember reading it when i was a kid - well actually, this was before i discovered comic shops (the only place to get limited series) so i only ever actually read the build-up - when all the heroes disappeared - and then the secret wars promo poster was good enough for me!
one thing though - so all the heroes actually DIE in issue 11, and then get brought back to life in issue 12 - and that's it - no one seems actually that bothered that their life was brought to an end lol. Funny.

Artists that I like

Growing up, my favourite artists were Alan Davis, Bill Sinkievickwiwiwiwz, Mark Silvestri and Rick Leonardi. John Romita Jr was much better in those days, I thought, too.
Now, I'd buy anything that JH Williams III drew - he's deffo my #1. Jaime and Gilbert Hernandez constantly astound me (although I wish they'd do something new!!!). Chris Bachalo used to be amazing, but his stuff is too confusing now. Love Adrian Tomine too.
So, er, there you go.

Artists I can't stand

Let me get this off my chest. There are some artists whose work I find a real turn-off (sorry, that sentence was a bit weird wasn't it). Phil Winslade - yuck. Michael Kaluta - what's all the fuss about? Growing up, I had a big bugbear - Tom Morgan, who would fill in on loads of titles, although I didn't mind his run on my beloved Alpha Flight so much.
Ron Garney reminds me of Tom Morgan. Rubbish, can't stand him.
But the worst offendor for me is this new guy - Tom Denerick. Is that his name? What the hell is that? That's not art! He just pisses it all on the page! Yuck. What a hack.

Too morbid!

oh my god how morbid was that last entry - the stuff about ages! er, i didn't mean it, sorry. i just meant that it's weird that my friend oz - i've known him for 10 years, and he acts about 20 years old, so it's weird to think of him turning 40.
Er.
Sorry.
I will stick to posts about shaving.

Weird Epiphany

I had some sort of weird epiphany last night. It's a strange thing to say on a Saturday morning, but I realise now how short life is. My friend Oz is turning 40 this year, and that is so strange to me. To think that he will then be 50, then 60, so soon. It made me realise how I think I know where I'm going with my comics and drawing. I always saw it as an endless amount of output, but now I think it's:
- finish O Men
- do Spandex
- do my 'personal project'
- die lol
It's weird too, as I think the personal project could be really successful - but at this point in my life, it's all about the O Men.
It's so important to write ideas down. The personal project is based on a lot of stuff that happened to me in my 20s, and it's astounding how much you forget.
In the immediate future though - I am confident about issue 2.4 of the O Men - although I'm not quite sure of the logistics of it. Once again, it's going to be very different, and I think i'm gonna need to speak to my printer about how to do it!
SPANDEX (and I think SPANDEX always needs to be in caps) is exciting too - it'll be released very differently, and I@m excited about it. It's not quite there yet - not all the characters have names, but I know exactly what they look like now (I nailed the lesbian robot last night. So to speak.)

Random Thoughts on a Friday Night

- I've just been watching Paul O'Grady (the artist formerly known as Lily Savage) do a fire-eating performance on tv. i always get a bit concerned when i watch him on live tv, due to his many heart attacks, and even more so just now.
- i'm just reading the new comics international, which i'm really enjoying. intrigued by upcoming manga volume called Apollo's Song - looks really good.
- I've finished the cover to O Men 2.4!
- Reading about Caption, the small press comic con which takes place in August, it crossed my mind to try and get the anthology issue out for that. So that'd mean trying to get O Men 2.4 done by around May or June, and 2.5 out for Aug. It's doable I guess... Hmm... I'll have to have a think about it. I must say, it would be nice to launch it at an event which most of the creators will be attending. (I think I'm up to 7 or 8 contributors now)

Tori

More coolness on the tori front - could this be the cover? (and there are now apparently 23 tracks on the album, by the way!?!)

Chilling out

I'm at home in Birmingham with my folks and I'm really relaxing. Watched some great telly: Comic Relief Apprentice was astounding - so unintentionally funny. Rupert Everett was classic, the fight was shocking, Cheryl Cole is priceless and I've really warmed to Trinny. Looking forward to more tonight.
Project Catwalk final was a bit dull. Wayne was a worthy winner. I did want Monica to win, but her collection was pretty bad. And all her models looked like slimmer, ugly versions of her - very scary.
Today - went shopping in Brum - cool. Got the new Comics International - shame there's no O Men in there, but nice to see a new issue on the stands anyway. Really wanted to get my hands on the new Red Eye magazine but it wasn't around. Veeeery tempted to get an 'i love birmingham' t-shirt lol. I love shopping in Birmingham. It's just the right size and shape. not too keen on the amount of cheapo shops that are popping up though.
Right, off downstairs now. More TV-watching, banter with the parents, and my sole activity is to try and draw O Men 2.4's cover.

2 new films and well done tara!

I'm kind of not into cinema much at the moment - is it just me? Long gone are the days when I'd get excited about Empire Magazine. Maybe it's the cost. I remember a couple of years back, I went with some chums to watch the Descent in London - 'that'll be £13 please' - 'oh, is that for all three?' - 'no...'
(And yet when i come home to Birmingham, you can actually get three tickets for 13 quid.)
But there are some movies I'm really looking forward to. Grindhouse in a few months, and imminently 300 and HIlls Have Eyes 2.
By the way, my writer pal Tara DiLullo wrote a behind-the-scenes making-of book on 300, so go buy it! Well done, T!!!

Shaving

Can I just say this - I am rubbish at shaving. In fact, I think I would possibly win an award for the World's Worst Shaver. You see, I can't see a thing without my glasses, so it's kind of guess-work what I'm doing. In fact, if we still had Sweeney Todd style razor blades, I'd be long dead by now.
It's crossed my mind to cut my own hair and stuff, but the fact that I would have to take my glasses off to do this, rather defeats the object.
So I must apologise to all my friends, who have probably had to endure weird patches of unshaved hair on my face over the years. Maybe I should just grow a beard.
And one more thing on shaving - they say it's best to shave after you've showered - apparently that's the optimum time. ER, hello, how impractical!!! The mirror steams up for at least half an hour after the shower has been on, and if I didn't shower after shaving I'd go to work with shaving cream all over my ears.
Sorry, bit of a pointless post lol

My favourite super-team

My friends have all disowned me, but I still stand by my love of Alpha Flight, Canada's top super-team! It was one of the first comics that really hooked me on the genre, when I was a kid. I just remember seeing this ad for issue 12 - 'one of these heroes will die!' - and it really shocked me (can anyone find a picture of that online?)! Would it be Marina (she looked so worried!)? Everyone looked too cool to die. Of course, it was Guardian - the LEADER!!! - who died. Shocking. I'd never seen anything like that before in a comic.
John Byrne was at the height of his game when he was writing that comic - and he also wrote some spectacular stuff on Fantastic Four at the same time. All the characters were so unique, the villains were just awesome (Pink Pearl! Gilded Lily!) and I have to say, I learned so much from the whole thing (how to build subplots etc). In fact, if you're enjoying my O Men, there's probably a lot of sub-conscious Alpha Flight stuff in there!
Of course, the poor team has suffered several blows over the years. No one seems to know what to do with Aurora and Northstar, Guardian has died too many times to count (including that farcical Unlimited X-Men appearance where he dies and then the whole thing ends with 'oh he's okay, we brought him back to life'), and volumes two and three of the comic were pretty abysmal.
And now of course, half of them were dead - killed by Brian Michael Bendis! That was so nasty - just killing them off for 'effect', and I'd even go so far as to say that I think Bendis may have done it to piss off the ever-controversial Byrne.
I just hope that they come back eventually - characters like Puck and Shaman are way too iconic to stay dead, and Heather (one of my all-time favourite characters) and Mac are too heavily involved with Wolverine's past to stay dead.
In fact, i was watching Ghost Rider last night (meh) and thinking...Alpha Flight: The Movie...?

Nipples

A couple of my female colleagues have told me that the nipples are wrong on my explicit O Men scene, so I've had a little tinker. When i asked them to help me out a bit more they went all shy, I can't think why!

Spoilers

i just heard some huge 24 and Ugly Betty spoilers... You might already know them all. The Ugly Betty one made me go 'huh?' and the 24 one made me do this weird gasp thing in the middle of the office...

America's Next Top...Racist?

So last season of America's Next Top Model... The final comes along, everyone in the office is rooting for blonde, fun Joanni - and then Danielle wins, the black girl. For no reason whatsoever. Except maybe one...
You see, the winners always seem to be from an ethnic background - which is possibly not a coincidence, since Tyra has a huge say on the outcome of the show. Tyra, who had an under-privileged upbringing and now fights every black girl's corner...
And this season, what do we have? A really really WEAK black girl called Jaeda, who hates her new Halle Berry haircut, and has moaned NON-STOP. She's been in the 'bottom 2' about 4 times now - but each time she somehow manages to scrape through - when she's up against a white girl.
Last night, it came down to black Eugena and white Brooke. Hey, guess who went? Eugena, the one who is unbelievably weak, or Brooke the one with huge potential? Yep, you're totally right.
On her way out, Brooke said 'I can't believe I missed my graduation ceremony for this, and Tyra gave her one of her usual patronising dressing-downs ('honey, hundreds of girls would love to be in your position'). But no, Brooke, you're right - you probably were wasting your time all along...
As for the rest of the season - I think Caridee should win - she is a really strong contendor. Will be interesting to see what happens. She's blonde and white.
I love the format of America's Next Top Model, but Tyra, seriously, please just go girl.
Is this post too controversial???

Small pleasures in life

It's nice when cool things happen, isn't it. It's quite rare!
Like, every morning, I go down to get my 8.13 train to work, and it is always late (well except for that day when it snowed heavily and I stayed at home). Seriously, it is always late. The slightest bit of rain, and it causes havoc. (Mind you, I've never had a journey as horrendous as some of my old tube journies. Jesus.)
So what a pleasure, yesterday morning, to get to the station and find that my train 'had a fault' so it would be 'going non-stop to London Bridge!' Yes, that means knocking 15 minutes off the journey, by not going to every little stop, and that means no over-crowding and no hysterical women going 'can you move down please'. I mean, there was a hysterical Spanish woman who obviously missed the announcement and didn't know what was going on - but I could live with that.
Another small pleasure is reading free comics. I can borrow some freebies from the Books Dept downstairs. Which means I don't have to buy crap like 52. Honestly, I gather it's doing okay, but the art is so cruddy, and I honestly don't care about the characters. You can have a whole issue about 'Elongated Man' versus 'Felix Faust' and I guess I'm supposed to be excited and impressed, but I had no clue what was going on. And now they killed ****, and I thought she was actually a good character with a lot of potential.

Five...Six

Five people up for O Men 2.5 now. Another offer been sent out today, which I think will get accepted. Now I just need four. Anyone got any suggestions or can think of anyone they'd like to see do a page? I am tempted to ask Garen Ewing but he always seems so busy.

Ipod

I love my new ipod. It can store 20,000 songs on it and I have already put all my tunes stored at work on it - 4000. It's so cool just to be able to load stuff on and not have to bother taking stuff off. And i loaded lots of South Park onto it :-)
I'm happy.

20

The new Tori album has got 20 tracks on it. 20 TRACKS!!!!!!!!!!!! I cannot wait. I'm booking the day off. (It's a Tori Tradition.) One of the songs is called 'Fat Slut'. Cooool!

Rubbish

Another couple of hours on hold last night. Sky can't install now until MAY (!!!!!!) so I had to phone and keep Virgin until then and put BT off til May too. What a palaver. The Virgin guys were all 'this will probably all be resolved in a couple of weeks', so maybe it will and maybe Sky just shot themselves in the foot. I still think Sky will be cheaper for me though.
All this just so I can see America's Next Top Model.

Getting back into comics

It's hard to give up comics when there's some good stuff out there. There's no way I can give up Powers and Walking Dead, and Spider Woman is coming up soon. And I bought some amazing comics today:
Civil War Initiative: I have to say, I am actually really excited about Marvel's Initiative! I thought Civil War was kind of stupid and far-fetched and pretty uneventful to be honest, but the Initiative is an inspired idea - a registered superteam in every State (am already loving seeing Shooting Star again - is that her name?). Will be cool to see some characters return from Comics Limbo, as I'm sure a lot will. In fact, I'm amazed Marvel haven't come up with half a dozen new Initiative books already - which makes me wonder if it was a last-minute idea. And it's a shame Civil War couldn't have addressed this more, or added a few issues on at the end to set it all up. It does all seem a bit under-planned right now.
The new Initiative issue was cool - nice to see the new Omega Flight (although surely such classic characters as Puck, Heather and Shaman can't stay dead for long - and I still haven't quite forgiven Bendis for killing them), really nice art from Silvestri - all in all, a suprisingly good package.
Mighty Avengers - I thought I'd treat myself to this and it was a really cool issue. Amazing art. Funny how Bendis is trying to re-introduce thought balloons - it seemed really awkward. Ares worked well, which surprised me. Not liking the Tigra-dissing though!!! (or was that in the INitiative?) Not quite sure if I'll carry on buying this book. I bought the first 25 or so Avengers issues and I kinda could have lived without them...
Cap America - well i had to get this one after all the hype. Poor old Cap. A cool comic, Sharon Carter is a great character.
So Marvel's looking pretty good at the moment, which does restore the faith a bit, after it seemed to lose its way a bit. I still hate certain developments like Storm marrying Black Panther - and Storm just isn't the Storm I grew up with right now - so bland. It's nice to see new character emerge though - such as Penance.
Funny how Marvel are putting so into the Avengers - almost to the detriment of the X-titles, which I think are struggling a bit (is anyone still reading that boring Uncanny story???). And nice that they are trying to compete with DC more. 52? Boring. D-list characters are still D-list characters, even when you put them in a year-long event comic. So bored of Black Adam...

Five to go

Five contributors for O Men 2.5 down, five to go. I asked my colleague Andrew if he fancied drawing a page today, and he was well up for it - and coincidentally, he'd drawn a pic of Kelly outside the Institute, which he gave to me today. Andrew does an online comic called Dubious Tales which is probably at www.dubioustales.com.
So I now have Sean Azzopardi, Graham Pearce, Springy and Andrew - and I'm going to ask someone else tomorrow - who I think will be up for it.
So five more people to find - I'm hoping the new issue of Red Eye will give me some inspiration and it would be nice to have a female involved.

More time on hold

My whole Sky/BT/Telewest is still being a pain in the butt. I was going to have Sky installed on Sunday, and my BT line sorted on Monday, but now it looks like I will have to wait until April as I need to serve notice on Telewest boooo. So it looks like I'll have to wait ages until I can watch Project Catwalk and Battlestar and Lost (booo) again, and ages until I can sort out my ipod on broadband at home. And worst of all, it looks like I'm going to have to spend ages on hold again this weekend, phoning up BT, Telewest and Sky. Booooo.

Ipod

I now have a brand new video ipod, 80gb, and I love it. I have a nice little 'skin' for it, and it's black so it won't get dirty and horrible. Of course, I went to try and load it up on my laptop and I don't have the right version of itunes, and i can't download the new version without broadband hehe. Ah well, never mind, I can do it at work.
Had a really nice day. I had the day off so went all over Oxford Street, to get some birthday presents for a couple of people. Treated myself to a couple of Willy Mason albums and some comics and the Japanese Pulse DVD (slow, but atmospheric).
I don't think I'll look at my bank account for the rest of the month...

Very rude

Oh, and prepare yourselves for the rudest page of O Men that I've ever drawn. Seriously, I can't show my mom this one...

Sabotaging The O Men

It has become a fine tradition for an issue of the O Men to almost fall apart at the last stage. I remember when I was doing Issue 2.1, I had a week or so until Bristol, I'd just burned the near-final pages onto a disk and then my laptop went 'tink!' and died. Well it wasn't dead, the 'back-light' just died, but it still needed fixing, and I was very lucky I had loaded it onto a disk at that time.
Issue 2.2 almost went to pot as a couple of my laptop keys stopped working - I was almost finished on an issue, but my laptop warantee was about to expire so I had to send it off to get fixed as soon as poss.
So last night, I was pottering about on Issue 2.3 (it's still gonna take a couple of weeks to sort it all out, Gary!), I'd just got pretty much all of it onto my memory stick (so i could print it out at work and check the pages) - and then the laptop just ran out of power (I'd been too lazy to plug the adaptor in lol) and I couldn't get it back on again! I think my adaptor just blew a fuse or something, so it wasn't working. How weird that it happened again - and that I'd loaded the pages somewhere else in time. Luckily I had an old adaptor I could use and it's all okay - but I only realised that last night, so that was a night of being in one of those technology-related bad moods...
Oh anyway, to celebrate the issue almost being done - here is a preview page.

I'm freeee!

Finally, I've cancelled my Telewest. It's a shame, as I've never really had that many bad experiences with them, and the customer services lady I spoke to was from 'Dudlay' (near where I'm from), and apparently Sky negotiations aren't over - but you know, I'm a bit appalled by the lack of info available to customers (writes stern letter) and Sky works out cheaper for me - yippeeee!

O Men 2.3

O Men 2.3 is in very good shape. It's pretty much all done, so I need to check over it all, fill in little Photoshop colouring spaces, do the letters page, the previously page and a special small press ad on the back page. Also got to draw two courtroom pictures, so I'm waiting for my friend to lend me 'A Fish Called Wanda', as I know there's a courtroom scene in that. (Have taped Kavanagh QC today, too, in case that is helpful!)
I'm a bit wary of these updates though, you know, as I do like to 'fool' my friend Gary when a new issue comes out. He'll ask me how it's coming along and I'll say 'oh, still a long way to go, I'm afraid!' and then he'll get the new issue in the post the next day.
Little things do please me.
Oh, and I now have 3 contributors to O Men 2.5 - Graham Pearce, Sean Azzopardi and Springy. Just need to find 7 more - I have a couple of people in mind.

Ipod

I think I'm gonna get the big video ipod. I just can't stand those little nanos! 20,000 songs storage space, here I come!!!
(I'd get the cheaper video ipod, 7000 songs storage, but only 14 hours playing time)

Please release me...

I've been trying to get through to Telewest, sorry, 'Virgin Media' since Friday night to cancel my TV stuff, and haven't been able to talk to a human being. I think I've spent about 6 hours in all on hold. Actually I did get thru to two people - the first person transferred me to a dead line and I got thru last night and was told that customer services was closed now. So basically, I'm trying my hardest to cancel and they don't seem to want me to go. I have been on hold for 20 mins today (I am 'cradling the phone' right now as I type this) - I tried earlier and after half an hour on hold I went over to chat to my boss and I'd been cut off.
So anyway, I've joined Sky and they're installing on Sunday.
BT was a pain too (I need a BT line to get Sky broadband). Took me about an hour or so of being on hold - and I'm not surprised, the amount of bollocks the agents talk to you about - special offers and stuff. I spoke to a Geordie (sorry Gary) lady who kept saying 'Morning Morton' (like the Catherine Tate character) which cracked me up, and then, after about 30 mins of talking to her she presented me with my new phone number. I was like 'can't I have my old one?' 'Sorry pet (sorry Gary), if you want to keep your old one I have to cancel everything we've done and transfer you somewhere else so you can start all over again.' No thanks.
Also, I didn't realise that you have to pay 130 quid to get BT iinstalled if your gaff hasn't already had a BT line. So apparently a previous occupant did have a BT line, but I'm not 100% convinced, and I'm definitely putting my ipod-buying on hold.
So my aim today is to leave Telewest. 23 minutes on hold now... Come on. You can do it.

Nano

My poor mini ipod is dying, I think. I've had it for almost two years and the battery never seems to last long and there have been more than usual glitches(getting stuck on 'Shuffle' and not being able to get out to the main menu, for example).
(I have to have a quick reminisence and say that I bought my lovely little ipod from brighton and straight afterwards went on the 'Crazy MOuse' rollercoaster ride on the pier, hanging onto my ipod for dear life.)
I was looking at the latest ipod offers and I'm not impressed! What's up with those nanos? Way too small. The video ipods look okay but the one I want only plays for about 14 hours, which is pretty crap. 7000 songs on it though, which is great! I can barely cope with my 1500 at the moment.
I must say though, that I'm amazed they got rid of the mini ipods. Nice size, nice amount of songs - just a really cool player.

Leaving 'Virgin Media'

Today I spent most of the day trying to switch to Sky, from the evil Virgin Media. What a palaver! So I've managed to join Sky and they're installing next Sunday. I need to join BT (and if the house hasn't already had BT that's gonna cost me £130 - but apparently it has...) but i haven't had much luck with their 'sales team'. Apparently I get a free 'wireless router' for my Broadband.
As for 'Virgin Media', I reckon I tried for 2 hours to get through so I could cancel, and I had no luck. I did get through once but then the lovely lady transferred me to a dead end.
It is a shame though. I've never had a problem with Virgin Media, the artists formerly known as Telewest, and they have been very, very good to me. Sigh.
In a way though, this whole thing has done me a favour - by joining Sky I'm gonna get Broadband for just a fiver extra a month. yay!

Waiting

Two new Tori songs have been released on the internet. I'm dying to hear them, but I really want to wait. When the new album comes out, it'd be so nice to hear 12+ new songs all fresh and new, nothing spoiled. Plus, if you hear them online, it's often not the best quality, so they sound shit.
Online, people are saying the songs are awful!!! Ha ha!
I really want to wait, but I'm not sure I have the willpower...