Diary of an up and coming sociopath

For those of you that love sequels, you’re going to enjoy this entry, for it deals with the natural extension of the ticket procurement concept I dealt with previously. Once I have the tickets, the question is, where do they get me?

And this is the answer:

I went straight to Hammersmith after work, and met Nikki for a wander around Hammersmith and then the sampling of their criminally cheap 2-for-1 meals, which I paid for because I’m a generous sort of guy. She waited at the venue with me until the queue started moving, then went back home while I ventured inside. I considered hanging around at the front, but I couldn’t really see anything so I moved about halfway up where it’s sloped, so I could see over the crowd. There’s a bunch of Railings in the Hammersmith Apollo, either it’s to control the crowd, or to do with when they put in seating for certain events, but I managed to find a nice leaning spot nonetheless.

I realised at some point while waiting for it all that start that this is my first proper gig in 8 months. Christ, it felt like along time. I’d almost forgotten the enjoyment of a live gig. The support act was just the main guy from Clem Snide, and he brought an odd brand of electroacoustic indie-country rock with him. In a shck move, I actually quite enjoyed it. That fact would probably astound anyone who knows what I’m like with support bands usually. I’m considering going to see the full band gig they’re doing at the water rats on the 20th, but I’m not sure how well the songs will translate to a full band/studio recorded setting. I suspect they’ll have the what I deem the “John Mayer Factor” where it sounds really good live, but terrible recorded because it loses the impression of spontaneity.

Folds himself was on top form. I guess. I’ve never seen him live before, but he seemed to be really throwing himself into it. Dunno if he’s always that way, or if I’m just benefitting from going to the opening night. He started with in-between days, and then played a bunch of his own songs. Near the beginning he apologised for the Jonothan Ross show the other week, where he gave, by all accounts, a pretty ropey performance. He did Jesusland, and then gave a short speech about how he could have radio hits, but he just doesn’t want to, and then proved it by playing a rocked-up version of Jesusland which was equal parts hilarious and masterful. It probably could’ve been a big radio hit. Before singing “All you can eat” Ben said there might be a culture gap because we don’t have Wal-Marts, then jumped down to ask the audience what our equivalent was. Everyone was shouting “ASDA!” (because, obviously, they’re owned by wal-mart) but he was confused by this and got back up on stage going “uh..I think you’re saying AS…DA?” and eventually confirmed that was what it was, and wrote it down with intent to use it in the song for the rest of the tour. I think there’s a big future in localisation of song references, though, we still didn’t get a translation of “Preperation H” during Rockin’ the Suburbs. I get the feeling the new material stands up really well live, though the set was surprisingly light on new songs, onlyfive of them were played, I’ve seen bands play their new albums in their entirety when promoting them. I’m not complaining, though, because I relished the chance to hear the oder favourites. I enjoyed the new stuff more than on the record, that’s for sure, but then “Bastard” still sounds like a sitcom theme tune. I expect listening to the songs again now I’ve seen them performed properly would heighten my enjoyment, and it makes me wonder if my problem with not liking Songs For Silverman as much as most Ben Folds stuff might be because of the production rather than the songs.

I was glad to hear a cover of Bitches Ain’t Shit, because nothing pleases me more than a song that’s both emotional and funny at the same time, and because everyone joined in singing “Bitches can’t hang with the streets” at the end. The BFF songs he played were Brick, Eddie Walker, The Last Polka, Army (the last four of those done solo during an interlude) Philosophy and One Angry Dwarf (as the encore.) I can’t help feeling the guy who yelled out “I want your babies!” during Brick was ill-advised to do that during a song about abortion. As seems to be standard, he got the audience to do different parts of the melody/horn section in Not The Same and Army respectively, and again, he abused his power of audience control during the end of NTS by making each half of the room respond to his hand signals, then waving his arms about like a loon.

I bought no t-shirts, because they were all a bit crap, even the bootlegged ones. Luckily for me, really, because I kind of spent £20 buying two Sin City graphic novels at the weekend (I stood in Fopp thinking ‘Hmm. Which of these do I get?’ before deciding there was little point hanging on to the pretense and just bought them both.) I made it home for about half eleven after getting the tube back, and walking from the station.

Full setlist:
In Between Days / Gone / There’s Always Someone Cooler Than You / Jesusland /Jesusland (Radio-hit Version) / Bastard / Still Fighting It / All You Can Eat (ASDA version) / You to Thank / Landed / Bitches Ain’t Shit / Zak and Sara // Brick / Eddie Walker / The Last Polka / Army // Rockin’ The Suburbs / Trusted / Late / Philosophy (Miserlou ending)// Not The Same / One Angry Dwarf

French Voters Reject EU Constitution. Whether you agree with this or not, you can’t help feel the BBC’s being kind of biased with their coverage of this. For instance:

Those who rejected the treaty included Communists, various left-wing groups, dissident socialists and far-right parties.

Pretty odd ideals in which to try and shoehorn half of the voting population of France. This is tantamount to saying something like “Those who supported the treaty include bleeding heart liberals and Bureaucracy-fetishists.” I find it quite funny that France of all places voted no on the constitution, and really I’m more concerned about whether this means the UK government will just side step our own referendum by saying “Well, without France on board there’s no point continuing with this.” I love the fact the French actually had a referendum, and I wouldn’t put it past the government to deny the British public our own, because it’d mean Blair actually had to listen to the public on an issue, instead of pushing his own agenda and calling it ours.

I’m also sort of shicked that the French government didn’t rig the results. I guess these are just exit polls, there’s still a chance they’re “inaccurate.”

This past week has often concerned tickets. Ben Folds Tickets. The ones that sometime in, ooh, February maybe, I forked out thirty quid for so that I could go to the Folds gig at the Hammersmith Apollo. The tickets weren’t sent to me for many months, which isn’t unusual, I guess it’s to minimise the reselling of tickets and suchike. A week ago today, they were delivered to my home in Leamington, where they had to be ordered because my credit card is staying registered there until such time that I have a place which isn’t rented. Now, the day prior to this, I got an e-mail suggesting that I’d need to present ID to collect the tickets. The problem with those conditions is twofold, because A) I can’t get ID from London to Leamington with less than a day’s lead time, and B) I didn’t find the e-mail until after mum phoned me up to tell me they brought my tickets, but wouldn’t let her have them.

The reason for this highly frustrating situation was the new courier being used by See Tickets, “Special Mail.” For whatever reason, taking the tickes to the address given wasn’t enough for them, and they wanted to check I also actually lived there before handing them over. The problem encoutered here is that I don’t live there and there’s no reason that I necessarily should, since it’s my business where I want my tickets sent. Whatever. I scheduled a redelivery, at work, which they told me couldn’t be done before Wednesday due to them having to take the post down the country. Again, fair enough, if a little slow. So on Wednesday, I waited, and waited, and, as you can guess, waited. All day in fact, for something which didn’t arrive.

I phoned them up.

I was only slightly irate, and asked a helpful confused woman where my tickets actually were. The answer was, obviously, Nottingham. How stupid of me to think that it’d take a mere three days to get an envelope the 90 miles from Leamington to London. Why, that assumes the ridiculous average speed of 1.25 miles an hour! I was assured that my tickets would be able to get delivered to work on Friday. The gig is on Tuesday, so I was increasingly concerned that, with a bank holiday in the way, they might not arrive at all, since I’d be unable to provide ID at the weekend due to being in Leamington, when my tickets were in London. But on Friday, I waited. And waited. Et Cetera.

I e-mailed them.

“Just what sort,” I asked, assuming a tone I felt was both friendly and menacing, “of contigency plan exists to ensure I get my tickets before the day of the gig they’re for?” Now, in fairness, I was quite successful in this exchange, because I dealt directly with the head of customer services. It was eventually ascertained that my tickets had already been delivered! You think I’d remember something like that, really. It emerged that they had been delivered on the wrong day, to the wrong reception, and the ID that a previous lack of had prevented my own mother from receiving the tickets, didn’t appear to be necessary at an address a hundred miles away from the originally specified address, when dealing with a receptionist whose name I don’t even know.

With Ian’s help, I found that the tickets had been left in a pigeon-hole I didn’t even know I had. It was lucky I decided to chase it up at midday instead of waiting until the evening. I keep trying to figure out why See Tickets changed from royal mail to these jokers. You see, with royal mail they’ll happily allow anyone at the specified address to receive the post, and if there’s no-one there, they’ll keep it locally for you to collect. Special Mail refuse to give people the tickets without your ID, and will redeliver only if you tell them a day to do it, needing around 36 hours lead time, they can only tell you it’ll be between 8am and 6pm,and will disregard any and all of the given conditions without notice.

Which makes me ask, what are they trying to achieve? Are they trying to fight fraud? I can’t be, because they accept a bank card as enough proof you live there or have authorised collection. If stopping fraud is their game, how does a bank card of indeterminate origin help anyone achieve that? What’s to stop me nicking a guy’s card, buying tickets to me own address, and presenting it as ID? Nothing, that’s what. The thought of voluntarily having to deal with this company again disturbs me.

To be fair, they did deliver mum’s coldplay tickets to her, on the right day, and di ask her for teh ID I had provided (since the tickets were in my name) and the customer service I received through the e-mails was top notch, so they’re clearly not all incompetant, it’s just that i’ve had two experiences with them and 50% have made them seem like a total mockery of a real delivery company. I had a renewed respect for royal mail. Or at least I would if I hadn’t seen what they did to Al’s birthday cards. Someone opened a bunch, took the money inside, put all the cards into one envelope, taped it back up, and the bundle arrived a month late. Whether it was someone inside the post office system or not is debatable, but it’s clearly their fault for puting the mail into a situation where that can happen to it. I’m starting to wonder if post of any kind is worth bothering with.

A pretty short week, and again, nothing too great to write home about. Still:

Incredible Hulk #81: Tempus Fugit Conclusion - This arc unfortunately ends with the time-tested method of ending a story by saying “It was all a dream!” only, in the Marvel Universe, it’s all a Nightmare created by the character of the same name. This, I believe, has been done to provide an easy way of writing off everything prior to PAD’s return to the title, while simultaneously allowing everything that came before to be valid should anyone wish it to be. There was a good subplot in here which explains how Banner ended up in the army, but I’m not so sure the Hulk as his “imaginary friend” during his teenage years is so easy an idea to swallow, mainly because it seems sort of incredible. No pun intended. Maybe something more will be done with the idea that’ll make it seem a bit less out of place, but I suspect it’s a one-time only deal and that it’s just PAD trying a different take on the “Hulk/Banner as MPD” theme, since during this flashback, Hulk does actually take control of Banner, Tyler Durden stlye, and years before Bruce’s gamma-irradiation incident. Not a bad ending to the arc, in any case, but not a great one either. I suspect, as a whole, it suffers from being originally conceived as a limited run that had to be self-contained and that’s why it doesn’t set up or feature any specific status quo. Highlight of the arc would be the fight with Fin Fang Foom about 2 issues ago, which was action-comedy the way I remember Hulk being written by PAD. C+ for the final issue, B- for the arc overall.

X-Men #170: Golgotha Conclusion - Up until this issue, Milligan’s not been impressing me much with his writing. Admittedly, he’s miles beyond the crap Chuck Austen was writing, but it took a while to actually get up to that speed. Last issue, and especially this one, it feels like he’s found his feet a bit more. It probably doesn’t help that his X-Men team isn’t the most interesting (Rogue, Gambit, Iceman, Havok, Polaris, Wolverine and Frost, though only the first 5 of those are really “his”) but the character moments have been improving. I enjoy the dynamics between Gambit and Rogue, but they’re some of my favourite characters, so that’s to be expected. Far less entertaining is the Iceman/Polaris/Havok romantic triangle plot, which feels kind of recycled from the 70s. Larocca’s art is the place where the book stands up best, but I feel like he’d look even better with a different inker or colourist. I remember his X-Treme X-Men and Fantastic Four work was far more striking. The issue is just some gratuitous action, in space no less, after last month’s suspense-based issue, so it works quite nice as a payoff. B for this issue, C+ for the whole arc.

Secret War: From the Files of Nick Fury - Can you say “Cash-in” people? When the gap between books is as large as Secret War has become (I almost said “ridiculously large, but there’re books doing far worse schedules…) it’s not a huge surprise that they’re releasing some filler material. It’s basically an “Official Handbook” style set of character profiles interspersed with some “conversation logs” and the like, such that can be found in the back of the regular Secret War issues. I haven’t read the full thing yet, because it’s mainly text, but it’s fair to say there’s not going to be anything essential to Secret War in here. Not bad for what it is, but still, only a rabid completist like me would be dumb enough to buy it. I think I’ll classify this book as E for Exempt From Classification, and hope the BBFC doesn’t take offense. It’s unfair to judge this against the standards of the others because it’s not a comic in the traditional sense. It’ll make nice addition to my complete set of Secret War issues, but that’s it’s main merit. Had the week been any fuller, this would’ve stayed on the shelf.

Again, not a great week for comics. I’ll be giving Hulk a bit more before I decide whether PAD’s crapped out on his return or not, and X-Men’s just one of those comics which I’m not going to stop buying, because my fondness for the characters transcends quality, though I often wish it didn’t, because for every Grant Morrison, it seems there are several Chuck Austens. Regular readers, though I suspect this is one of my less popular blogging habits, might notice that I’m still trying to figure out a format for the title. I don’t like using the word “review” because that implies a level of professionalism or thought or insight that I’m not even especially aiming for, much less achieving. However, I also hate the phrase “bought and thought” and I only used it in the first place because I nicked it off the SA Forums. I think I’ll keep the format how it’s at now, that should satisfy future generations of internet searchers who’re looking to find out what people thought of these comics when they were released.

Thought I’d better admit to having paid to see Star Wars this time around (I downloaded episode 2.) I’m not a huge star wars fan, but the third one’s clearly the prequel everyone was actually waiting for. It had only a few cringeworthy parts, and it did have a really good “NOOOOO!” towards the end, which I’m always fond of seeing. Really the high point of the film was seeing Anakin get utterly dismembered, because that’s what I’ve been hoping would happen to him for…ooh, about 3 films now? I’d love to list all the stupid points (”I have studied your Jedi arts” ) but there’s just too much for even I to mock comprehensively. If I ever watch it again, maybe I’ll feel inclined to do so, but with only fading memories of the film I can’t do its insultation justice. I could do a whole star wars mock-o-rama, really. My latest belief is that now Lucas is prone to edit the original trilogy to fit the prequels, they should take lines of dialogue from the prequels and dub them into the original as references, thus building the characters. What we need is Vader saying things like “I’ll try spinning, that’s a good trick.” and “Are you an angel?” and have a badly dubbed line where Obi Wan says “When I first met your father he was [crackle] A CHILD WITH POOR ACTING ABILITY.” Oh, speaking of Children, that one scene in Ep 3 where Anakin goes to sort out the kiddy jedi is just harsh as hell. Funniest scene they did, that’s for damn sure.

I think it’s a sufficient way to describe Ep 3 to say that it was probably in the top two of the Star Wars films, (and I haven’t seen Empire or the Original for many years, which most people would claim at least one of is superior) but being a good star wars film doesn’t necessarily make it a good film. I wouldn’t pay to see it again, though having said that the completist in me is eying the DVD sets with some perverse desire to own the lot. The put them in a box, dammit! A BOX! It’s unfair tactics. I wouldn’t mind watching some of the better bits again, but it took me almost 3 years to re-watch clone wars, and that was just because it was on one afternoon, I don’t think I’ve ever watched Phantom Menace.

Speaking of horrible films, Nikki and I watched Monster in Law on Saturday night, pretty much solely because it has Michael Vartan in, and it was probably Nikki’s turn to choose the film. I can’t adequately express how horrible a film it i. Possibly that’s because I don’t really like romantic comedies (though, this wasn’t very romantic, nor particularly comedic…) especially when they’ve got Jennifer Lopez in. Still, some may have enjoyed it. It’s still a fair point, though, when I read up on it and found that the general reaction was “Jane Fonda broke a fifteen year retirement to make THIS?” I hate to think what kind of financial (or psychological) difficulties would tempt her back to film for such a terrible script.

Didn’t get around to writing this yesterday, so without further ado:

Daredevil #73: Decalogue, Part 3: This is a significant improvement over the previous couple of issues. I feel like the story might actually be going somewhere, after this issue. Somewhere that looks pretty, er, disturbing actually. It seems like there’s some kind of literal devil that’s influencing some of the crime being caused in the city, and at least two of the characters in the discussion group have encountered it. This arc seems to be a far cry from by-the-numbers Daredevil, and it’s playing off the character’s status as a public figure in new ways. It’s not the first time someone’s done a “how the lives of normal folk are affected by Daredevil” story, but it’s probably the first major arc dedicated to exploring the subject in more detail. I got a good feeling of suspense from Bendis’ writing this issue, it’s almost describable as a horror comic. Maleev doing the art is great as always, and there’s some good colourisation effects during one sequence which is entirely done in red, grey and yellow. I’m looking forward to the next issue more than I was looking forward to this one. B+.

New Thunderbolts #8 - Thank god the art is back to normal, as Tom Grummet returns. Whoever did the fill ins last issue was quite bad. This is classic Thunderbolts, and an issue that shows Speed Demon trying to continue his criminal activities while posing as a superhero. It’s a good fit for the character, since he never really wanted to be on the team, he was placed there by his employer who’s now gone. It does beg the question of why he’s staying at all, but then his actions at the end of the story more or less prove he’s genuinely interested in reformation. In a typically morally ambiguous Thunderbolts fashion, it begs the question of whether it’s morally acceptable to steal money in order to finance fighting crime. The things the Thunderbolts prevent are arguably larger than that, but can comitting small crimes to revent larger ones actually lead to any kind of moral redemption? It’s good that Nicieza has returned to the central theme of the book, since if anything was wrong with the previous run, it was when they stopped focussing on that aspect. B.

MK Spider-Man #14: Wild Blue Yonder, Part 2 - The stabbing from last issue was resolved pretty much how I expected. There’s a great fight between Wolverine and Spidey at the start, and then Peter is left injured for the rest of the story. Peter doesn’t realise his new partner at the Daily Bugle, Ethan, turns out to have some kind of undisclosed super-powers. which is quite a funny spin on the usual concept when they go out for a story and both independantly change into their superhero outfits. Ethan is some kind of Superman analogue, it seems, given how he’s a reporter who can fly, but he does seem to have some kind of healing power. I’m not entirely sure why they didn’t just and write this story using the Sentry, since he’s another Superman analogue who has a whole bunch of vaguely defined powers, but I’m sure the reason will become clear soon. I’ll be interested to see if this stays as an ongoing subplot, or if it’s all dealt with in one arc. Interesting setup for next issue, but given how yet more villains have just discovered peter’s secret ID, I’m willing to bet that Ethan has some memory-erasing ability too. After buying MKSM #13 last week, I wasn’t totally convinced to stay on for the whole arc, but I think it’s definite that I will now, because this issue maintains, if not improves on the quality. B+.

Uncanny X-Men #459 - Well, I’m not sure what to say about this. I’m just glad that the arc is more or less over. Well, not totally over, i’m sure they’ll still be in the savage land next issue, but I’m glad they’ve rounded off the “oh no, Rachel is turning into a dinosaur” plot. One of the inherent problems in episodic fiction is that it’s almost impossible for any character to be killed, and when they are you tend to hear months in advance anyway. This really kills the tension, so I found it very hard to care that Rachel might be lost forever, and the world destroyed, because I knew she wouldn’t be and the earth would be saved. Claremont’s writing isn’t at its worst here, but it’s still only just readable. Alan Davis makes the best of what he’s got to work with here, but I admit I’m not a huge fan of his art. I’m only eager to see the next issue because all this dino-rider crap is hopefully going to be behind us. C+.

Not such a great week, really. Some decent enough comics, but nothing that blew my mind. I also got a free “House of M Sketchbook.” For some reason i’m totally underwhelmed by the prospect of this crossover. Probably because it’s based spinning out of the rather bad “Avengers Disassembled” story. I’ll have to think hard about what, if any, of the tie ins I buy. The House of M Fantastic Four and Iron Man books actually look quite interesting, but I’m still not convinced it’s worth buying them. I’ll have to wait and see what the actual story is like before deciding how much of my money to invest on it, since there are quite a few manga and tpbs I could buy instead of House of M tie in stuff.

I got myself a free Flickr account. In the interests of full disclosure, I’ll point out that while they’re a Yahoo! company, I have not been paid or asked to endorse them, I do it of my own free will. The fact I signed up the same day I was given a new monitor and keyboard for my workstation is totally coincidental.

Flickr’s a bit like myspace meets imageshack. There’s quite a cool feature that I’m eager to test that lets you post to your blog from within it, and I was most pleased to see it came with the ability to access wordpress. The interface has both good and bad points. When logged in, you basically only have to click on the thing you want to edit, and you can change it there and then. It’s the way such an interface should be done. Unfortunately, there are a lot of areas inside your own account that leaves a real mess of menus hanging around down the bottom and some confusion in the way links with different names take you to the same place, and the like. I’ve used less confusing backends, that’s for sure. The upload tool is good, but it doesn’t let you edit tags and things for individual pictures before upload, only do a group tag. It’s fair enough, I suppose, but I expected to be able to selectively tag and upload once I’d chosen which pictures I did want to put up, not to have to group the pictures into tags before putting them into the app.

The tags, though, are what I’m really impressed by. Excuse me while I do some CompSci geeking out. It’s not the nature of essentially adding keywords to a picture that’s especially good, it’s the way they’re displayed (I’m sure Relly won’t mind me linking to her tags page, because it demonstrates better than mine how things work) For anyone who might care, this is how you make an interface. It’s functional, it looks good, and it gives you the information you need at a glance. The more times a tag is used, the larger that tag is displayed. I’m sure it’s not a new concept, but it’s the first time I’ve seen something so obviously geared towards the future of interfaces, where things are functional AND aesthetically pleasing, with neither comprimising. I love it when I find that sort of thing exists, let alone see it being used.

Flickr does, unfortunately, have a touch of the fake corporate friendliness which I despise. It’s the same thing that’s tricked people into thinking Apple are some benevolant multinational where microsoft are evil incarnate. The same thing that makes Google “Cool.” Copy like: “Hi urthworm, Yay! pootle has marked you as a contact too. Here’s a link to pootle’s profile and photos. See ya!” I’m deeply cynical about it, and anyone who buys into it. These people are not your friends, and they wouldn’t hesistate to fuck you over if it made business sense. They’re the seller, you’re the buyer, and I wish they wouldn’t try and trick people into thinking those lines can blur at all.

Finally, I do have some photos of my friends which are viewable by the public on my flickr account. I don’t really care about such things, but I understand that some people are sensitive to having their image on the internet, and it if anyone doesn’t want any photos including them to be available on my account, let me know and I’ll remove it with speed.

“No matter how tight your jeans are, the GameBoy Micro will fit in them,” said Reggie Fils-Aime, Nintendo of America’s executive vice president of sales and marketing.

Well, that explains it. If you’re an image-conscious asshat, then this is the console for you.

*I’m not trying to reinforce gay stereotypes, I’m sure twats of all sexualities will buy this new console. However, I couldn’t pass up the opportunity for this pun. I’m sure you understand.

Here is it guys. The next generation of consoles. Not pictured: The PS3’s godawful looking batarang-based design of a joypad. I am underwhelmed by everyone’s design decisions.

Edit: Though there’s been stuff added by me and others in the comments, I felt this was necessary to put in the original post. Because, like you, I know the one thing I really wanted from Nintendo this year was a third version of the GBA.

I know I claimed to have said my last on the hitch-hiker’s film, and this time I almost mean it. I just thought that if you’re reading this, you’re probably thinking “What does Rikki Simmons, the artist for Shutterbox and the voice actor for everyone’s favourite insane robot GIR think about the HHGTTG film?” And now you know.