Diary of an up and coming sociopath

It has to be said, May was a shameful month for updates. I think between NTS, PXM, work, this blog and all the stuff I’ve been doing recently, something had to give, and in May it was the blog. Still, I’ll power on as best I can. Actually the problem right now is that I hadn’t even finished explaining what I’d done in my last period of not-blogging when a second one turned up.

Those among you with insight will have noticed that I called the last post “Three busy days” but then I stopped after two. Suspicious, no? So, if we wind your memories back to Sunday morning, you’ll recall that Rachel, Seb and Dan had left some 10 hours previously, leaving me with aught but the prospect of getting up early, on a weekend, yet *again* and heading out across deepest London with Ian for the Anime Expo at the Excel Center. Turns out, those are pretty good prospects, so that’s what we did.

When we arrived at the Excel center, there was a traditional massive queue. we joined the end of it and made our peace with turning up 45 minutes before the doors even opened, and then someone handed up some bags of freebies. It was mostly junk, after all it was branded with Naruto images and contained largely promotional Naruto goods. There was quite a cool Elfen Lied sticker that’s basically a bloodied hand, a free DVD (of Naruto…), a promotional 5-track Driver soundtrack (as in the playstation game) and a tiny Gundam Gashapon. I got Agguy, but I really wanted Guntank. It’s a Gun…tank!

When we made it in, we did a quick circuit, and had a glimpse at the various supporting cast members of 24 that had turned up. No-one good, obviously - “The following convention occurs in real time - but it’s going to seem like twice that.” Haha, I am funny. We rounded on the Manga stall and I couldn’t help noticing that Dead Leaves was only a fiver. I’ve seen it a couple of times now, once in the cinema tent at Reading last year, and twice at home, and I really like it. Usually it’s like £15-£20, so I decided a fiver was too good a bargain to pass up. Then I noticed that every DVD purchase got a copy of the original Appleseed free. I tried to buy this from the first Expo we went to this time last year, and they’d run out. Back then, it cost a tenner. Now I was getting it for an equivalent cost of £2.50. That is the textbook definition of Bargain. The only other thing I bought all day was a Gwen Stacy figure which cost a fiver again, because I decided in somewhat bad taste that I would need a Gwen figure for my Green Goblin figure to kill. For some bizarre reason it has a removable PVC skirt, with a velcro fastening. The harlot.

We saw Walter Koenig at one point, slumped in his chair and looking pissed off. It seems that Manga/Anime fans don’t have much crossover with Star Trek (which I guess makes Ian and I something of an irregularity. Who’d have guessed.) At some point in the day we met up with Damian and went for drinks and a meal that I found… sub-standard. I was browsing the propery section and trying to figure out what I’d need to spend to get a place in the Docklands with Nikki (The answer? I would need to spend my free time giving handjobs at the railway station.) but then I spilt some coke over the paper and I lost interest in favour as the pages soggied.

On Monday, we didn’t do a lot, but we did go up to the local ASDA for a change. Going around anew supermarket is like the most pathetic example of middle-class pleasures possible. It was like some kind of Bizarro Tescos, with a range of different products that were weird and yet strangely enticing. I just took it as an opportunity to stock up on Vimto.

Tuesday we were back at work, but afterwards Nikki and I went up to the Shaw Theatre and watched Dave Gorman record an episode of Genius, the genius in question for this episode being Carol Vorderman. Much like NMTB, it was utterly hilarious to see live compared to even the very funny aired versions, and it’ll be sad to think how much was cut out. One guy’s idea was fizzy bovril, so Dave subjected him and Vorderman to some made in a sodastream. And fizzy marmite. And fizzy beef stock. And fizzy custard. And Fizzy Custard with Vodka, by which point they started to think they’d hit on something big. To be fair, he drank all the stuff himself too. It was undoubtedly the most thorough explanation of the idea that we could’ve hoped for and I wonder how much of that segment will make it into the cut.

On Wednesday, we continued living the bohemian London lifestyle by going to a book reading/signing for Douglas Coupland’s new novel, JPod. I’ve stuck a bunch of info about it up on my flickr profile for a change, in the Douglas Coupland Set. I will repeat the pertinent text here but go and browse the pictures for the full graphico-textual experience.

We met up with Josh and Marion at TCR and went up to the venue. The reading was utterly excellent. Beforehand, we purchased a copy of the special edition of JPod (comes in hardback, with an office blox figure!) and then took our seats that Nikki had saved for us. At the start, he read out stuff from the inner cover of the Canadian version of the book that was supposedly “office subconscious”, some of which was depressingly insightful (biggest laugh: How many post-its can you have stuck to your cubicle wall before it looks like you don’t have your shit together?)

 During the reading, Coupland forgot what the final thing he had to read was and had a minor freak out where he paced around the stage cursing himself and making jokes in an effort to jog his memory, eventually choosing to start reading form a random point until he remembered, which he did. After the readings, we all queued up and started getting books signed. We were allowed to get JPod plus one other book done.

I decided to get Generation X signed, since it was the first Coupland book I read, even if it’s probably not my favourite these days. Before signing it, he drew a giant X on the front. Special Edition copies of JPod like Ii’d just bought came already signed, so when I asked for the personalised version, he also attempted to copy the original signature with varying degrees of accuracy.

Josh and I then asked Doug why he dated our copies of “Hey Nostradamus!” as 10/27/03 when the date we got them signed was 08/28/0308/28/03 (US notation) - I brought my copy as a visual aid to show him. He said “Hmm, I dunno, maybe I was drunk.” then he stared at it, shrugged, and said “It’s still me!” as he signed it again. A third book signed! What a bonus.

Marion had to go back after that, but Josh, Nikki and I went to Smollensky’s where I had steak again and tried not to think about how much I spent, having also bought the art-book “I am 8-bit” which contains work inspired by old computer games (again, check flickr). It’s an awesome book that brought the day’s total expensies up to something close to, if not over, £60. Josh and I flicked through the book on our way back home while Nikki read one of her trash magazines. I was very pleased to discover it contained work by Jim Mahfood and Dave Crosland. Couldn’t have planned it better if I tried.

Which brings us, more or less, to today. I am so tired you would not believe, I feel like I haven’t stopped for days, so i’m going to reward myself with some serious lethargy between now and going home on Sunday. Assuming, that is, that I can fit in all the slacking off I need to do…