Diary of an up and coming sociopath

Once again, I findmyself with very little to get, but it’s sort of merciful. I bought a comic I was considering getting a few weeks ago, and I still didn’t get to my £8 average zone, so I’m kind of pleased to have some slow time because it frees up the comic money to try new things. I’ll get to that.

X-Men #172 - Bizarre Love Triangle, Part 2 - It must be said, the ending of this issue really justifies the title of the arc. Mystique’s appearance was telegraphed by a line of dialogue last issue which pretty much gave it away to keen observers, but I didn’t pick up on it until after I’d done my blogging (mainly because I had only read the comic properly on the tube at that point.) This is a truly great X-Men issue. Milligan took a while to get there, but this time he’s totally nailed it. He’s nailed it more than Mystique’s about to be nailed by her daughter’s boyfriend. The best thing about it all is that for all its insanity, it still seems in character. Mystique’s motivations are slightly suspect, but I think Milligan’s playing up the scheming, criminally insane aspect of Mystique, and if there’s no further justification for her actions, I won’t be too upset. One of the greatest things about this arc so far is that it actually does focus on Gambit and Rogue. One of the strengths of having an ensemble cast like X-men does should be the ability to tell character-specific stories without cramming in all the other X-Men, and while they do make brief appearances it all seems appropriate because of how they interact with Gambit and Rogue. The plot is engaging me, so much so that I’m willing to look past the way Liquid!’s colours sully Larocca’s art (see my X-Men #171 review for details) and give this an A.

Smoke #1 - This was my experimental purchase for the week/month/whatever. I’ve heard a lot about Smoke being excellent, but it carries a hefty £5 price tag, which meant in previous weeks I’ve been passing over it. This month, I put down the hard monies and bought it, and I’m glad I did. It’s by self proclaimed Hot New Writer Alex De Campi and Top 20 Artist Igor Kordey, and tells the story of a government assassin set in a futuristic London. It’s packed with militaristic versions of familiar london landmarks, which has grossly increased the novelty value for me, but if it seems gratuitous in doing so, it’s far more effective for it. It helps craft a far more complete picture of this version of London, which, all told, is by no means a radical interpretation of how things could end up. I find it quite fdarkly funny because of that, actually, it’s the small details like the congestion charge-alike where people from outside london have to pay to enter that make the world come alive for me, and all this is before I’ve begun to talk about the characters and plot. It might be expensive, but god damn, it’s worth it. Kordey’s art is far better than he has been, and I even quite enjoyed his infamous rushed New X-Men work, so it’s nice to see what he manages at a more leisurely pace. This can’t come highly recommended enough. For Brits, at least, I’m not sure how well anyone who doesn’t live in the UK, or even London would enjoy it because a big part of the fun for me is recognising the culture, politics and location. If seems expensive, rest assured it justifies that expense. A+.

Let the floodgates open mitherfuckers. Arriving today:

Two T-Shirts from Brian Wood’s “Northern Boy” line. I’ve been looking for alternatives to band t-shirts for a while. I hate branded shirts, not because I have moral objections to the business practices of big names (though, I do) but mainly because I am fundamentally opposed to the idea that I pay to advertise someone else by buying ito their conspiracy of cool. I circumvented that after a while when it became obvious plain t-shirts were becoming hard to come by in interesting designs and colours, and the middle ground I settled upon was paying to advertise things I did actually endorse, hence a swathe of Radiohead, Manics, Placebo and Transformers clothing. In recent times it’s been getting harder to find bands with t-shirts that I actually like. Ben Folds’ t-shirt efforts were just pitiful, for instance, as were Garbage’s, and the Gorillaz’ and you get the picture. I decided I’d look for something a bit more original, but the alternatives were the socially irredeemable thinkgeek range, or generic mass produced generic and meaningless logos from high street fashion stores. Pre-faded american university logos people wear like they actually mean something. Save me.

All of which mental breakdownand overreaction led me to Brian Wood’s clothing store. That and a sale he had at the time. This is pretty much the sort of thing I was after, because I can guarantee there aren’t a thousand examples clogging up every backward ass shithole from here to wherever I stop acknowledging the UK (which, to be fair, is anywhere north of Birmingham.) But that’s only half the story, because I actually understand what the design on the t-shirts is about, and it’s done by an artist and writer I admire. I can’t imagine a better innovative t-shirt solution to my t-shirt problem.

So, now that you’ve read that, you can have a look at them:

If you like these, you can get them and more at the Northern Boy store. Probably not for a little while, because I think he’s slowing down on shirt production for a while as he moves house, but production is slated to restart at the earliest opportunity.

Also, I mentioned briefly when I was searching out this gear, but while I had the camera out, I thought I’d make sure everyone had photographic proof that I am still cool:

That’s right. Nikki’s Gameboy, My SNES, and assorted games. Actually, at this point, my PC probably counts as retro gaming. Also, if you can make it out, note the Autobot sticker on the front of my computar machine.

Unfortunately, most of the original SNES games were lost when they got lent to someone and never retrieved, but then, the games I planning to re-buy weren’t necessarily those ones anyway. I know for certain I have to buy Mario Kart and Street Fighter 2, after that it’s up in the air. I’ve still got Mario All Stars and Captain America kicking around somewhere, but at home all I’ve got is Mario World and Wolverine, and my Super Gameboy. Maybe the nostalgic value will wear off soon enough and it’ll got back into storage, but for now, let’s all admire the design and agree they don’t make consoles like this anymore.

Since Saturday’s geekery, you will have mostly found me sitting at my PC staring at Delphi trying to make the screen dance for me. I’m writing a program to do Dad’s invoicing at work, and it’s really flexing mental muscles I was starting to forget I had, especially since I’ve been using Java and PHP for just about everything these days. It’s nice to have a project that’s actually heading towards completion, because I’m one of those people who can start doing things and get bored somewhere just past the halfway point, and, well, not so much give up as simply lose momentum. No chance for that here, though. Current projections place the project at fully complete by the weekend of the 10th July, which is when I’ll next go home, though I’m hoping it’ll be what I like to call “functionally complete” by the end of this weekend, and then the rest can be touchups.

Then, it’ll be onto my next project. I have no idea what that is, but I’ll essentially have a clean slate, so I can more or less choose. The trick will be to choose an acheivable one, for a change.

I was pleased that the air conditioning at work is back on, though only to a point. I know I’m going to sound like a whiny bastard, but now it’s just…too cold. Yes, yes, your heart bleeds for me. I am utterly replete with disbelief that whoever controls the thermostat at work doesn’t realise it has a setting between “oven roast” and “eskimo funtime,” and in weather this hot we shouldn’t need to be wearing jackets in the office, but that’s what’s happening. I consoled myself with a cheese sandwich, and the discovery that keeping a packet of biscuits in my desk at work is both a wonderful and dangerous idea. I ate one, dare I buy more? It saves me on chocolate bars because they’re far cheaper, but as bad as I am with them, i’m notoriously pathetic at knowing how many biscuits constitutes “enough.” I think I’ll have to see how long my will holds out on this one.

Currently, I wait for the following things:
My Angel Series 4 DVDs. £25 from 101cd. I had to do it.
My Northern Boy T-Shirts. At $10 each, I couldn’t afford not to.
Nikki. Because it’s been just over a week, and it’s already too long.
Haunted, the new Palahniuk novel. Because Nikki has it.
FLCL figures from eBay. It was a bargain. I got them for £3 each, when everywhere else sells them for $30 a piece.
Volume 2 of the Genshiken manga. Because I’m a Genshiken whore.
Volume 1 of the Genshiken DVDs. Because I’m still a Genshiken whore.
Genshiken/Kujibiki Unbalance Gashapon. And so on.

My wallet was relieved to hear that there’s only one comic out I want to buy this week. It’s a sad circumstance. The question is do I crack and buy Couriers, CousCous Express, or another Sin City book? Do I meet the budgetting halfway and buy a volume of manga? Do I go buy that phillip k. dick book that I read the synopsis for the other day, and the memory of which haunts my waking moments? Now you see the constant turmoil a consumerist lives in.

Seeing everyone getting back from Glastonbury makes me wish it was time for Reading. I’ve never been to Glas, but I’m not so sure I’d get on with it. Reading, on the other hand, has always been damn good, and the Pixies are there, so it could piss down for 4 days straight and I’d be happy. It just can’t come soon enough, and if you’re reading this and have just been to Glastonbury, you’re a smug bastard for having already had your summer festival. Christ, even mum got to see Coldplay the other day. I’ll have to keep reminding myself that it’s going to be worth the excruciating wait. It will be worth it.

As much as I’ve appreciated spending a week working in an office with broken air conditioning, I think we can all agree that it’s nice to have the weather back to normal British settings. Total cloud cover and sporadic drizzle. Assuming you’re not in one of the places having storms inflicted upon them, and unfortunately, I’m not, so I’m just learning to appreciate mild bad weather as well as the extreme kind.

It’s not necessarily been a bad week at work, heating issues aside, becase in order to keep the troops happy, they have, on various days this week, hired an ice cream van which was paid to give us whatever we wanted, dropped off a freezerful of mars ice creams, orange lollies and choc ices, and bought a load of incredibly strong fans for the office. This, in stark contrast to the end of last week/beginning of this week where the facilities team soent the first few days telling us the air conditioning was working (a quick visit to the floor would confirm that it was, in fact, not remotely working)and then they chanced upon a new theory and spent their time running around telling us to close windows because we were “letting in hot air” which would’ve maybe been correct, had it not been vastly cooler outside than in. Make sure to consider that sentence again, remembering how hot it’s been this week. The facilities people were working under the assumption that the a/c wasn’t going because opening the window was heating it up past the point where it’d work. Apparantly no air conditioning systems in the UK work if the temperature goes above 29 degrees. As I sit here typing this out, I’m feeling increasinly doubtful that anything they told us was remotely correct, but it was certainly a huge relief when they admitted the air conditioning was broken and allowed us to open windows again.

Of course, now the heatwave is over, I don’t have to buy my air conditioning unit. Fortunately, the Family Guy DVDs for £9 have gone off sale, and I can’t find them cheaper than £9.60 now, so I managed to stave off that one for a while. Unfortunately, in the process of making sure the £10 per volume family guy DVDs were sufficiently abundant for when I wanted some in the future, I spotted Angel Series 4 for £25. When Angel S4 came out I was approaching abject poverty, and despite my earlier claim that I’d be holding off the DVD purchases, this really was too good to pass up. But now that’s it until Genshiken comes out later this month. I’ll maybe buy one more Sin City graphic novel this month, but in general July is going to be all about not buying presents for myself, and partly because I’m pretty sure the MOT for the car is about to drop in my lap.

Today Ian, Greg and I went up to the London Film and Comic Convention at Earls Cout. Well, it was technically at Earls Cout 2: Court Harder. I didn’t buy anything (except for some Ginger Beer for Nikki from the cafe) but it was an enjoyable few hours nonetheless. The scavenger in me enjoys rooting through boxes of comics just as much as actually buying things. It reminded me far more of Memorabilia than Expo did. Still a little smaller, but filled with merch stalls. KITT from Knightrider was also there. I can feel that you are jealous.

An extra slow week. Normally I like to spend between £8-£12 a week on comics, and if I were to ordinarily find myself in such a slump as this I’d go all out and by a graphic novel or something, but the past month alone I’ve bought Project: Superior, Project: Telstar, Three Sin City graphic novels, a Kevin Smith book, Brian Wood T-Shirts, and the Shake figure. Actually, that’s fucking criminal. I hereby cancel my plans to buy Family Guy DVDs. My point is, though, that in light of this horribly reckless spending, I’ll be leaving it at two comics this week. Luckily, they’re both pretty good.

House of M #2 - Some standard TPB pacing means this issue contains almost nothing that associates it with the previous issue. However, that doesn’t make it bad, even if nothing much happens. It’s an entire issue of short sequences setting up the House of M status quo, with little plot threads beginning to emerge. The altered realities give a good insight into the motivation of the affected characters, and thus don’t seem gimmicky at all. It kind of makes it interesting, then, when we see things like Peter married to Gwen, and MJ off making films, which is something that casts doubt on their current relationship, since if they’re both getting their wishes fulfilled, why did they end up seperated? Questions like that are raised for many characters. I am left intrigued by how the plot is going to progress here, and my previous reservations about the story are a fading memory. I’ve also gained new appreciation for Coipel’s art, which is suddenly reminding me of the Kuberts. A.

New Avengers #6: Breakout, Part 6 - Seems like it’s taken a long time to get here, but it’s finally worth it. This is an Avengers team I truly want to read about. I don’t have much interest in the “classic” Avengers characters like Vision, Hank Pym and Thor, so it’s good to see an Avengers team with a radically altered lineup. It’s especially good to have someone actually tackling the notion that Spider-Man’s a loner who doesn’t work on teams, though, it’d have been nicer if he actually, er, did anything besides crack jokes. Again, all plots moving full steam ahead, the team forms “officially” at the end and the hinted set up for future arcs is intriguing, though not a burning mystery (yet.) Finch does some nice art, not entirely to my tastes, but there’s nothing to complain about. A for the issue, A for the arc.

Let me share with you all this article on a subject that is very close to my heart. The BBC reports: Software Piracy ’seen as normal’

Campaigns to persuade people to stop downloading pirated games [..] are not working

Is this a surprise to anyone, when the campaigns aren’t actually based around the reasons people download games (to try them out, to find out if they’re worth buying, and obviously, because they’re ludicrously overpriced) and instead around suggestions that piracy probably funds terrorism or something, and assertations that it’s quite clearly killing the industry, which, of course, it has been doing for the last twenty years, except this time THEY MEAN IT.

Two UK university researchers found that people did not see downloading copyrighted material as theft.

As Ian points out, that’s because, by definition, it isn’t. Copyright infringement is not theft. That’s why people don’t see it as theft, you see? I don’t think many people see downloading copyrighted material as assault and battery either, but that’s more or less the comparison they’re making here.

“People are more accepting of it, even if they didn’t engage it in themselves,” said Dr Bryce. “They don’t see it as a great problem on a social or economic level.

That’s because it isn’t. The games industry has survived piracy for decades. I have personally bought plenty of games which I’d downloaded in order to try. The trick is, as with music, to make the game actually worth owning, instead of disposable rubbish that people aren’t willing to pay for if they can avoid it. I’ll return to this idea in a moment, because first there’s athe amusing comment:

“Teenagers are being tactical spenders,” said Dr Bryce. “The money saved lets them spend more on mobile phones, going to the cinema or eating out.”

If that guy’s right, then the real threat to the gaming industry is the film industry’s anti-piracy campaign! We need to stop those bastards before they get film piracy under control.

Michael Rawlinson, deputy head of Elspa, remained confident that attitudes towards pirated software could be changed.

“It is possible to effect a change in young people’s behaviour once you explain the process of creation in bringing these products to market,” he said.

“The government has spent millions of pounds to change public awareness of drink-driving and smoking.

“As a society, we need to go through a similar process for creativity and intellectual property.”

Now this is where it just gets sad. ELSPA is an organisation representative of games publishers. It is well understood to anyone with a brain that publishers don’t actually like innovation and creativity. They’d much rather see a game that’s near-identical to the last big thing so that they can cash in on its success without risking their own money by trying something new. I’ve had some limited experience inside the games industry, and I’ve thus seen first hand the ridiculous requests that publishers are prone to impose upon the development process. Publishers don’t care about creativity, and they certainly don’t respect intellectual property, since they tend to be asking for things produced as work for hire, which leaves all the work of the developers in the hands of the company, come the layoffs.

I would go so far as to say that I hate games publishers. And music publishers. They basically take money out of the pocket of the artists and creators, impose their will on the end result, and then, when their marketing campaign (or lack thereof) fails to sell a game, the developers and artists get the blame and are fired or dropped, or whatever. The best thing a publisher can do is provide a budget, and that’s usually at the cost of the freedom a developer or artist needs.

I would be so glad if the entire game and music publishing industry collapsed tomorrow, because I think it’d force everything back to the grass-roots style that serves indie games and music well already. Self-publishing on the internet should be the future, where products are created for the love of the medium rather than motivated by money. It’s a difficult path, but it’s a proven one. I think people would be far more willing to pay for games if they knew the developer was actually getting a fair share of what he did for his product. I know I would be. It’s just a ridiculously over-simplified pipe dream of mine, and that’s why articles like this piss me off. Do the games industry a favour, and pirate their crappy products instead of buying them, because maybe that way they’ll actually realise people won’t part with their cash for things that aren’t actually worth buying..

First, a belated review of my Master Shake figure. The pictures were taken with my cameraphone shortly before I remembered to clean the lens, and I took them at a low res, so they’re not so great. However, you should get a decent enough sense of what the stuff is like, and let’s face it, there are better photos out there.

The first thing I’ll look at is the Master Shake figure itself. It’s fair to say, Shake is the reason most people will be buying this set, and he’s probably one of the funniest characters in Aqua Teen Hunger Force as well, so it was a good choice to start with. Here’s a photo of Shake, so we’re all familiar:

Now, as you can see, Shake isn’t high on articulation. It’s true to the cartoon design in that respect, since it’s often unclear how Shake manages to perform even the most basic of functions with his stubby arms. The sculpt itself is utterly perfect. It’s hard to make a 3D figure of what is essentially a milkshake cup look interesting, but what it lacks in design flair, Palisades have made up for in show-accuracy. There’s nothing you could wish to change about Shake’s design, it is just how I imagine Shake would look in real life, and that’s the most rewarding aspect of the figure. The thick black lines and vivid colouring make it look almost as if the character has burst from the TV (or, if you’re like me, the computer monitor ;-)

Shake comes with 3 accessories. His rubber ring, which you can see pictured. It’s actually made out of rubber foam, and fits snugly around shake’s, er, midriff area, if you could call it that. His straw and hands can rotate 360 degrees, and the hands contain magnets to which the broodwich accessory can be attached. The Broodwich is probably the best accessory they could’ve made to go with Shake. Just looking at it makes me want to shout lines from the episode. The horns, wings and tail are nicely attached, not prone to breakage at all, and I can say that with confidence because I’ve dropped it several times. Partly because the magnet in the hands is quite weak. The Broodwich definitely needs to have its wings hooked over the back of shake’s hand for maximum security there. Shake also comes with Sunglasses (pictured in the mothmonsterman photo) which, unfortunately, let the package down a little. They look good when shake’s wearing them, however, the black paint on them rubs off onto Shake himself, marking the figure quite visibly and in an unacceptable way. It’s no huge loss, but it is something of a letdown to have the accessory damaging the main figure in such an obvious and preventable way.

Shake comes in a 2-pack with Mothmonsterman. It’s not the most inspired choice of villain, in my opinion. He’s an early one, that’s for certain, and maybe that’s why they chose him, but I’d have preferred a better character than him. I won’t be happy until I get a Robot Ghost of Christmas Past, really. The figure itself is a fine, detailed sculpt with basic articulation, but it’s hard to bring myself to be too enthusiastic about him. In my opinion, this set is all about Shake and the Broodwich and that’s worth the price of the set alone, Mothmonsterman is jsut an added bonus.

At £13, it’s probably a little steep, and certainly no-one but the hardcore fans would want to pay for this. It’s part of Palisade’s Adult Swim line of figures, and to follow in Wave 2 is what appears to be a Meatwad and Frylock double pack, which I’ll certainly buy based on the quality of this. I’d have maybe liked some more accessories for Shake, and some sunglasses which didn’t damage the guy, but besides those two minor dissatisfactions, there’s little to criticise. The Shake figure gets a 9/10, Mothmonsterman gets a 7/10 (because while it’s good, I am still unmoved by the character or sculpt) and the package overall rounds off quite nicely at an 8/10, with the inclusion of the Broodwich cancelling out the Sunglasses misfire.

Strange, it’s almost as if the air conditioning at work is functioning.

Edit: Forget it, someone’s just opened a window.

I bought a Master Shake Aqua Teen Hunger Force figure at lunchtime. It was quite a feat, since it required me to disengage the rationality centres of my brain. I have sacrificed Family Guy DVDs for this limited edition collectable figurine, and the plan is to provide pictures for all my loyal and numerous fans later on. Ooh, actually, I’ll do a figure review, since I’ve never done one of those before. How exciting.

What the hell is wrong with the weather in this country? I’ve spent probably the entire day in a constant state of moistness. Whether driving up and down the country, helping Nikki pack her stuff, digging out old console gear from my boxed up stuff at home, having dinner at Nan’s or checking out dad’s new laptop, there has been no comfortable point at all. Even now, I am unable to consider myself remotely pleased with my environmental situation, and I have the fan going and every possible window open. I actually long to get to work where there’s usually some measure of climate control, though there are equal chances the air-con or heating will be on full, and no way to tell which it’ll be until you get there. But at least the drinks machine is free.

It’s only £180 for an air conditioner, and god help me, it’s starting t0 sound like money well spent. Five days until I get paid, then we’ll see how insane the weather is driving me before I decide.

on Friday we were able to tick off the latest in a series of big summer releases - Batman Begins. i’d read a lot of good reviews for the film, but i’ve never been that interested in Batman as a character, so I was in two minds about how Much I’d like it. After watching it, I found out that I am actually interested in Batman. Mainly because the film spends about an hour avoiding the subject altogether. The first half of this film was essentially Bruce Wayne: The Movie. And a real yawn-fest.

I don’t have a clue if elements of this story are taken from the comics or not, but either way, one of the things that, in my opinion, Batman didn’t need, was a period of his life where he’s learning to be a ninja in tibet. A ninja who can’t execute a man without trial, but who will happily blow up a monastry full of other ninjas and cause multiple car wrecks. Once Batman appears, the film becomes much better, and Michael Caine as Alfred is an utter scene-stealing bastard. No-one else even has a chance. Katie “Tom Cruise is about to convince me I can gain mental powers through a pseudoreligion” Holmes is the most recent bat-girlfriend, and he once again manages to reveal his identity to her. I think we’re five for five now. There’s a scene where some tech guy is showing Bruce all the gadgetry they have (which is basically where he gets the utility belt and batmobile, and soforth) and i was unbelievably disappointed they didn’t work in a reference to shark-repellant. The scarecrow does make for quite a unique villain, and Gordon (not yet comissioner) is another good translation, as one of Gotham’s last remaining good cops.

Two of the bigger set pieces left me utterly cold, though. There’s a fight/race against the clock on an elevated train line - whoop de doo, just saw this in freaking Spider-Man 2, and a batmobile car chase. I hate car chases in about 90% of cases, and this one just involved Batman basically murdering a bunch of cops. There’s a throwaway line later that “it’s a miracle no-one was killed” but let’s face it, he wasn’t thinking about that at the time. It’s not exactly chucking a grenade into a warehouse full of thugs (Burton, I’m looking in your direction) but it’s not exactly seperating him from the criminals either.

I have to say, all things considered, I prefer Burton’s Batman films to this one. I’d call it a comfortable 3rd of the five Batman films. On the bordering-on-infamous comic film scale:

Sin City
Spider-Man
X-Men 2
Spider-Man 2
X-Men
The Punisher
Batman Begins
Constantine
Daredevil
Hellboy
LoEG
Hulk

Christ, that’s looking odd these days. When Fantastic Four comes out I’ll have to make some effort to justify some of these choices.

Speaking of Tim Burton, we caught the trailer for Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. Now there’s a film I don’t care to see. I think I’m also changing my position on war of the worlds as well. Tom Cruise isn’t getting my money this time. We noted that the promo gear calls it “a classic tale” which it is. Or was, you see, because the film version doesn’t bear much resemblance to the original. I think it’s just Kung Fu Hustle and Fantastic Four to go, and then I can clock out on summer films for the year. It’s been quite a packed few months for releases, so I’ve had a good run. Back to downloading films until the christmas rush.