Wednesday, January 31, 2007

Wail, Gnash, Complain!

What's going on with my music media type stuff?
Huh? Huh? Go on, tell me. I bet it was you.

My itunes keeps crashing when I'm attempting to rip (ahem) backed up cd's.
My iPod won't mount, itunes says it's corrupted, then I have to do the ipod reset, then it won't mount, then I have to do the iPod reset, then it won't mount, then I have to do the iPod reset, then I switch firewire sockets but the ipod won't mount, so I have to do the ipod reset and then it mounts. Hurrah, but it's been doing all this for a while now and I'm scared to connect the fucking thing to the computer.

And then... Then... I switch on my stereo and I'm only getting the right hand speaker working.
The little fella's drawn to the speakers like flies are to poo, so I check the cables and yeah, one's a bit loose, so I tighten up the connection switch the amp back on and... Nada.

So I swap the speakers over to make sure it's not a fault with them. Nada. Still no left hand channel.

Fucking arsing cuntwankbollocks!

I took the amp round the corner to the local tv and hifi place. I'm paying £25 just to get it looked at. Plus parts, plus VAT.
A couple of teeny tiny resistors have burned out. The fella's never seen it happen before. It's going to be a couple of days. It's not like I get much of a chance to get the stereo playing these days but I'd still like the option thengyewverramuch!

I ain't happy!

Tuesday, January 30, 2007

Surely it's not just me?...

But whenever I hear that single by The View, you know, the one that goes "I've had the same jeans on for four days now". I hear 'Brimful of Asha' but sung by George Fucking Formby. Is it just me?

Sunday, January 28, 2007

I may have forgotten to say...

The little fella's been walking for about a week and a half now.
I'm well proud of him :)

Friday, January 26, 2007

KUNCE!

I used to hate the people I work for.
Now I fucking despise them with every molecule that makes up every cell of every bone and organ in my body.

Fucking fucking fucking wankers.
Cunts. Absolute cunts!

That is all.

Monday, January 22, 2007

You really can't go home again.

I bought this at the weekend.


Regular readers to here and the Drum will be more than aware that I love comic books. As far back as I can remember I was reading comics. The Beano, Dandy, Whoopee, Whizzer and Chips, Monster Fun (now that was a great comic) Buster, the list is endless. They were the funny comics. Then there was 2000ad, Warlord, Victor, Tiger, they were the slightly older boys comics, and man they were cool. Even more cool, were the British black and white reprints of Marvel comics. Mighty World of Marvel, Conan, The Titans, all used to deliver the most amazing action on a weekly basis. I never knew these were reprints though. Nor that they were originally in colour. I can remember when I was a little kid my Aunt Sue, taking a break from travelling the world, dropped round my Dad's flat with some bloke she'd met. Said bloke said he had a present for me and gave me a bundle of american comic books. I was amazed. They were smaller than our comics, and they were in colour. I particularly remember Ka-Zar, and the original X-men being in this bundle of comics. I fucking loved them, read them and re-read them until they fell apart. That was probably the start of my obsession with what complete and utter wankers refer to as 'sequential art' (fucking sequential art, only a real dyed in the wool cunt would come up with a phrase like that). In 1976 Marvel UK who had been reprinting stuff from the 60's in black and white launched Captain Britain. It was fucking ace. I loved Captain Britain. I loved the fact I had my own Super-Hero to read about. He didn't go to diners for pancakes. He didn't talk about Woody Allen like the characters in Spider-Man did. He was British and he was a double hard bastard. His title didn't last all that long though. Probably because he was being written by Americans who really couldn't write convincing British people back then

It took Alan Moore to write a convincing Captain Britain, but by the time Moore was writing the character I'd grown out of comics (or so I thought) I'd discovered that girls weren't all that bad really. That cigarettes make you look cool, and that lager tasted like shit but if you stuck at it you'd forget all about the taste! It wasn't really until I was 17 and unemployed that I picked up an american comic book again and rediscovered my inner geek! The book in question was Uncanny X-men. I'd never read anything like it. The characters were more than two dimensional shouty people that beat other people up. There was an intelligence behind the writing. There were sub-plots continually being referenced and hints of a bigger picture that, if you stuck with the book, you might get a chance to see. I stuck with the book. They lied about the bigger picture! :D

One of the things that Chris Claremont ( X-Men writer) did that amazed me, was bringing Captain Britain into the book. He looked completely different to the Cap B that I remembered as a kid, but he was definitely Captain Britain. Claremont even moved Captain Britain into a team book called Excalibur where he was leader of what essentially were the British X-Men with a couple of yanks as members so they could sell it back to America. It was a great series at the start but once Claremont left it got very poor indeed and was eventually cancelled.

I had to wait for the internet to be invented before I could discover what it was that Alan Moore had done with the character. Thanks to people on the old Comics International forum I discovered there was a graphic novel featuring Moores work in a single collection. I managed to get hold of a copy via e-bay and was as happy as a pig in shit. The art was a bit scrappy here and there, but then it was being done on a part time basis by some bloke called Alan Davis who also had a full time job. The story though, was colossal, parallel earths, ancient gods, an unstoppable force of nature called The Fury, and all the time the story was being told there were all these little human touches. People speaking to each other like they were people. Not comic book characters simply moving the plot forward. It was good shit I tell thee, and Cap B was back to being my favourite comic character ever ever ever.

Which leads us to the Collection I bought at the weekend. As I explained via e-mail to some chums, when I found out the original strip was being collected my inner 8 year old self jumped with glee. Once I'd sat down to read it I decided my inner 8 year old self was a bit of a twat. Fuck but it was dire. Awful plots, stereotypical Cor Blimey Guv'nah brits, and some of the most stilted dialogue I've ever had to sit through. Who wrote it? Fucking Chris Claremont. The same Chris Claremont who reinvented the X-men making it Marvels' most popular monthly title. He wrote X-men for something like 18 years. 18 fucking years! I can only imagine that he'd written his Captain Britain stories with his eyes shut, while stoned on mescaline. Possibly with an ex-nazi war criminal dictating lines while holding a gun to his head.

It. Was. Fucking. Shit!

I've read elsewhere that Claremont suffered from a very interfering editor who wanted action action action and left him no space for character development but all the same... I'd love to scan a few pages in so you could see how shit it is, but Marvel would probably sue me. They finished the collection on a cliff hanger which says 'to be continued in volume two'. You know I'm going to buy it too, don't you?

I'm such a twat! :D

One pleasant surprise was finding this on the very last page

It's a facsimile of the original 'Fanastic Free Gift' given away with Captain Britain issue one. You had to put elastic bands through the holes in the side and then loop them over your ears. It hurt. But that didn't matter. I was 8 years old and I WAS Captain Britain! :D

Friday, January 19, 2007

Wind

Wind:

It's a bit cuntish sometimes innit!

Thursday, January 11, 2007

Can I just say...

Wanker!

You're in the public domain old son. If Someone takes the piss out of your missus who's also in the the public domain you take it on the chin and move on. Of course you could also have engaged in a bit of banter with Amstell but that was obviously beyond you.

Boys will be boys eh?

Monday, January 08, 2007

Yesterday was the Seventh of January

So that means the Little Fella's one year old!
He had a fab day. All the Rellies came to visit and spoiled him rotten. It's a shame really that he won't be able to remember it, but me and the breadknife will. :)

Wednesday, January 03, 2007

Well that makes a pleasant change

T-mobile fucked up.

My new phone was a bit dodgy, it wouldn't connect to a computer, the memory card would show up but the phone wouldn't, which meant a lot of flexibility was lost. I contacted them and was told that as Sony Ericcson don't support MAC (the swine) I'd have to connect it to a PC to see what happened. Naturally the phone didn't turn up on the PC either. So I logged on to their website and followed the links to report a dodgy phone. Except I didn't. Although the link said I was reporting a faulty phone and getting a refund what I was doing in reality was cancelling my contract!!

Well, that was a bit fucking dumb wasn't it?

So as soon as I realised what was going on I called T-mobile. Don't panic they said, it's how we do things. You cancel your contract, send in your phone, we contact you to arrange a new phone once we've got your old one. Everything's fine.

No everything isn't fine. I sent my phone off (this is after 2 or 3 calls to confirm what I'd been told) and got an email expressing sorrow that I'd decided to cancel and that I'd be contacted in 28 days. Oh fuck, I'm such a twat! I emailed back straightaway and then called customer services. The bloke I spoke to was great, said he could see I'd been mis-advised but that there wasn't anything he could do to stop the process now. My contract would be cancelled and I'd lose my number too. All he could do was put me through to sales to arrange a new contract. The girl I spoke to was great too. Except she couldn't help me as my contract was being cancelled.

Big big bag of big baggy bollocks.

So there I was with no phone and a sim card that could expire any time.
I stuck it in my v3x (I hate my v3x, it's a cunt!) so at least I had something. I composed (with the Breadknifes help) a final e-mail to T-Mobile letting them know how fucked off I was with the whole situation. Then, yesterday, as if by magic my phone rang. It was a very nice lady from T-Mobile who'd read my e-mail and then read all my other e-mails and the logs from my phone calls. She acknowledged I'd been badly advised and fucked about. She put a stop to the cancellation, sorted me out a new phone, sorted me out a bit of a discount and apologised profusely for all my grief. I was staggered. I'd come to the same opinion as Status Anxiety that all the phone providers are the same. To have someone bend over backwards to sort things out was incredible. My phone arrived today. I'm happy.

Mind you, I've not connected it to a computer yet.

Tuesday, January 02, 2007

Sad day

Some of you who used to read my old blog may recall me mentioning a workmate who'd been diagnosed with cancer at the age of 28... She died on my Birthday. I didn't know a thing about it until last Thursday when I returned to work after Christmas. I was gutted, totally gutted, but at the same time I felt relief for her that her suffering was over and that her family could now move on.

Today was her funeral. Fuck but I got choked up. The Crematorium was absolutely packed out which I guess is a testament to how well regarded 'D' was. She was a lovely person, always happy and smiling (not in an irritating way) she loved her family to bits and was absolutely thrilled for me when I told her I was going to be a Dad. Everytime we bumped into each other we'd have a chat about stuff. I find it hard to believe that she's gone. We weren't best friends, we'd never even been to the pub together but she was a very very special person. That was evident in what everyone had been saying about her. I hate the fact that she died at 29. She deserved more from life. So did her Husband and young daughters who have to get on with things now she's gone. Sometimes, when you think your life is really shit it's worth sitting back and thinking about what you do actually have, and then think about D.

Rest in Peace mate. x