im a riter!

17 09 2008

Hmm. Clearly, the workblog experiment has fared about as well as my non-work blogging has, recently. I haven’t actually had time to update either, especially since I just moved house and haven’t had ANY time to myself in between work, unpacking and arguing with various utility companies in pursuit of a broadband connection and energy bills. I don’t even manage to update Twitter frequently enough for it to be useful!

Anyway, in case you’re interested, my recent work includes near-weekly articles for Micro Mart and countless reviews and features for the likes of CBR, Comics Daily, Classic Gaming and Den of Geek. In fact, part of the reason I’m updating is for pre-emptive purposes. If you are finding my site because of the “Britain’s Best Blogs” feature in Micro Mart then:

1) I apologise for any errors I may have inadvertently made in your write-up that you are now here to point out.

2) Yes, I agree that the list is a little biased towards my personal tastes. Will everyone on the planet appreciate sporadic updates from Adam Buxton, or daily diatribes from Richard Herring? Of course not! More fool them.

It’s a bit of a fluff piece, I have to admit, but it was nice to give a bit of publicity to the stuff I’m really enthusiastic about under the guise of “reviewing” their blog. Yesterday I faced the unenviable task of composing an article about the lifespan of storage media, and ridiculously, I ENJOYED doing it. How strange is that? I guess I actually am a writer at heart, because this is the first time I’ve actually enjoyed doing my job. In some ways it’s a pity I didn’t listen to that nagging doubt before University, really, but at least I’m there now.

I was going to do a write-up about the Reading Festival, but at this point there’s not much to say. I feel like I’ve outgrown it, or it’s outgrown me, or something along those lines. There’s almost certainly a Phonogram story in that, somewhere. I remember the first year I went, and I looked out of place because I was wearing jeans. Almost everyone else was dressed entirely in Goth and Nu-Metal black. This year, almost a decade later, I looked out of place because I wasn’t daubed in UV body paint, and there was a period in the middle where, even on the crap years where it rained, simply being at Reading awakened an almost religious fervour in me. Nowadays, not so much. Next year, we’re going to stick to Latitude and maybe go to one of them cushier festivals in a warm European country, where they don’t set your tents on fire during the night.

Also, I am 26 now. The goal I wanted to fulfil when I was 25 was “Paid Freelance Work” and that worked out better than I expected, because I’m now supporting myself on freelance income, just about. This year? It’s time to get serious about being creative. I want to self-publish a comic and write (if not publish) a novel. Anything after that is bonus.

Anyway, enough rambling. I think I’ll probably fold the Workblog back into a portfolio of my most favourite work shortly. Unofficially, I’m going to try a little bit harder to make this blog a going concern amongst all my other output, but y’know. No promises.


Let’s worry about Star Trek

31 07 2008

Some of you will know that I’m regrettably a massive Star Trek nerd. In fact, I’m so massive a Trek nerd that I think J.J. Abrams’ remake/reboot of the franchise is going to be horrible even though the world at large knows almost nothing concrete about it! That’s nerd-thinking for you. To that end, I’ve written up my reasoning in an article on Den of Geek, in the true Den of Geek style - an annotated list. Take it all with a pinch of salt, this article is nothing if not self-aware.

5 Reasons to be worried about J.J. Abrams’ Star Trek.


3 Best Wolverine Moments

14 07 2008

Latest Alternate Cover column sees me choosing my 3 favourite Wolverine moments, then calling them the “best three” in order to stimulate some rage in the reading public. The thing I learnt from writing this article: over 12 years after buying Wolverine #99 from a small WH Smiths in Wales, I still have never read Wolverine #100. How wrong is that?

Alternate Cover: Top 3 Wolverine Moments


Space Invaders Extreme review

9 07 2008

As the title suggests, I have reviewed Space Invaders Extreme on the Nintendo DS for Den of Geek.

Space Invaders Extreme 


Micro Mart #1011

3 07 2008

This week, there’s a contribution to another communal article, this time about “Stupid Computer Problems.” My piece documents the ridiculous fight I’ve had trying to make my computer stop rattling. Luckily, someone at <a href=”http://www.quietpc.com”>quietpc.com</a> read it and is sending me a noise-reduction kit to try out for my troubles, so you can expect a review of that to show up in the pages of Micro Mart soon!


Micro Mart #1010

3 07 2008

Oops. Forgot to mention this. Last week’s issue contained the first instalment of “Betawatch” which is a monthly column where I review beta versions of software to help you all stay on the bleeding edge of software releases. Pretty snazzy, no? If you’re reading this and you’ve got beta software you think would be appropriate to review, please leave a comment and let me know.


Alternate Cover: Manga for Comics Fans

24 06 2008

Frustrated with how some people call themselves Manga fans or Comics fans and then never the twain shall they meet, I have taken it upon myself to recommend some manga with crossover appeal. Next week, the same, but in reverse.

Alternate Cover: Manga for Comics Fans


Micro Mart #1009 - How to Start a Blog

24 06 2008

Latest issue of Micro Mart (on sale for the next 2 days!) has an article by me about blogging. It’s pretty superficial, being aimed at people who might want to start their own but don’t really know how to do it. It’s not a “how to install wordpress” thing. Part of my attempts to do something a little different from the usual reviews of plugins and software!

Oh, there’s also a contribution to a communal article about “favourite computer news stories” - I wrote about the legend of Atari’s buried ET cartridges!


3 x DoG updates

18 06 2008

This week I’ve got a cavalcade of Den of Geek updates appearing, including:

Alternate Cover: Spider-Man stories we’d rather forget
Futurama: The Beast with a Billion Backs DVD review
The Incredible Hulk, Xbox 360 review


And again!

18 06 2008

This time for Kick Ass #3. They didn’t exactly choose the most elegant sentence (even I had trouble understanding what I meant when I read it back) but at least they recognised that it was positive.

The full press release is under the cut. If anyone reading this would like their own quotes, I’d like to make it fully clear that my newly-credible endorsements can be easily bought. With money. Papa needs a new pair of shoes (all joking aside, I really do).

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