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| Friday, July 4th, 2008 |
_tonylee_
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9:49a |
July 4th... Happy Hotdogs and Hamburgers Day, Colonials. :-) 
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_tonylee_
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9:12a |
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| Thursday, July 3rd, 2008 |
_tonylee_
|
11:31a |
Life on Mars (US) Just watched a pre-air DVD of David E Kelly's Life On Mars US remake. I was expecting a nightmare of an adaptation, but you know what? I't ain't half bad. It's weird watching new people in established roles, but Colm Meaney does a good DC Hunt and the Los Angeles backdrop helps take you away from the grubby streets of Manchester. Whereas the UK version was a homage to things like The Sweeney, this is more aimed at the world of The Streets of San Francisco, Kojak or Starsky and Hutch. Small things have been changed, Americanised, even - but the pilot is almost line for line the same plots and subplots as the original UK version and it works surprisingly well. With a larger episode count than the BBC show per season (the entire season will be more than the combined entire UK series) there's more chances to explore other areas of Sam Tyler's world. And you know what? I think, when it starts to come out, I'll be along for the ride... EDIT - And then again maybe not. I think I'll forget the above statement... Thanks ![[info]](http://p-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) diffrentcolours for this... While NASA is having success searching for signs of 'life on Mars,' American TV viewers could have a tougher time finding the U.S. version of the similarly titled BBC detective show. The classic Brit production featured John Simm as a Manchester detective. After being hit by a car in 2006, he wakes up in 1973 and must take up his police work then and there until he can figure out how to get back to his own time. With a strong fan base, an Emmy and a BAFTA to its credit, ABC took notice and set up a U.S. remake written and produced by David E. Kelley (Boston Legal, Ally McBeal, etc.). The show was originally held back and almost halted completely by the writers strike. But, Kelley did pen and produce a pilot episode. When that script and scenes from the production hit the web, the reception was uniformly brutal. Now, ABC trashed the pilot, and Kelley is off the show. It's being rewritten, moved from a Los Angeles setting to New York, and recast from scratch. It's all part of a last-ditch effort to save a series ABC had high hopes for when it worked out the remake rights. |
flywingedmonkey
|
10:15a |
Busy doing nothing
Busy, busy, busy.
I am, in fact, so busy that I have discovered that I have gone through the other side of busy to the state of doing absolutely fuck-all.
Now we are not talking about my normal ability to do fuck-all in the face of work here. That is a combination of idleness, apathy and the attention span of a butterfly with ADD. I am used to that. I'm excellent at that. My doing-nothing-fu is so strong that I am a nothing-ninja. I cut class like a razorblade, buzz around fruitlessly like a bee. I can waste huge chunks of time (lots of it on this very journal!) and, not only that, make it look like I am working. Even now I write this post as a message on Microsoft Outlook so an observer thinks I am writing an e-mail. Fear my work-avoidance skills!
However as I'm in a new job I'm making the effort to actually achieve, thus the busy. But I have taken on (and by "taken on" I mean much has been thrust at me and I've stapled my go-to face on and smiled "Suuuuure! Why that hell not?" even though a)I have not the time and b)know not what the merry fuck they actually want me to do. Win.) so much that I've rendered myself inert. I flit from project to project apparently working, hell, it certainly feels like I'm working, but getting nothing done. Nothing! I'm like a rodent in a wheel but without the fun (they love that shit. If you could you would hear "Eye of the Tiger" running through their tiny ratty brains.) Yesterday worked and I worked and I have done NOTHING. Fuck, man.
But enough. Today I shall regulate. I shall ignore e-mails. I shall divert my phone. I shall stop attempting to assist everyone. I will have breaks (like this one). I shall hide in a backroom to do my Project Plan. And I certainly won't take on any work today.
I shall do less in order to do more.
JmC
Zen to the max, baby |
_tonylee_
|
10:07a |
On The Radio... So. Last night I was a 'Special Guest Presenter' on the Destiny Radio Network's Sci Fi Guys show, at www.dtrn.co.uk. The indubitable Stuart Claw of London Expo and the Anime Network (to name but a couple) fame held the fort while I joined him on a variety of subjects. Was I in the studio? No. By the wizzy wozzy magic of telephonic communications, I did the show pretty much like this.
The show started at 8pm and Stuart promised me that with no solid format or show to follow it, usually the show was an hour, hour and a half max, going out live across the world. I could do that, I felt. And the phone's battery wouldn't die within an hour.
No, it wouldn't - but it would however die twice in the three hours that the show ended up running for - I ended up having to run downstairs while on the radio and swap phones during a recorded spot, and then return to the original, slightly recharged phone during the final recorded piece. But apparently I didn't sound too bad, considering that I didn't have an earthly clue what was going on.
Luckily I was able to hold my own in the movies / TV discussion, standing up for Mark Millar and (surprisingly for many) actually arguing that Russell T Davis is a good writer, citing shows like Casanova and The Second Coming. We talked about Doctor Who, there were spoilers, and of course I talked about Hope Falls, Shotgun Samurai, Rough Trade (and the TV show Burn Notice) and Doctor Who: The Forgotten, possibly my most candid interview yet on the subject. People I know emailed in and I was forced to explain about Rollerblade Rabbit and Cattitude Cat amongst other things.
But a three hour (technically) phone conversation later, it was over. I had a blast, guys. Always happy to do that again. I don't think the show's on the archive yet, but for people who missed it live? As soon as I hear it's up, I'll let you know.
And so today. Following working until 11pm yesterday I've taken it easy so far - but I'm going to do some scripting, some of Monday's groundbreaking column and then this afternoon I'm off to London to meet up with belle_fille1982 and the oh, so lovely budgie_uk who, for my birthday has got us all tickets to the recording of Friday's The Now Show. Huzzah! And then after that I may make the London Comic Creators drink, but it's all in the air and dependant on how long the radio taping lasts.
Because lets face it - Yesterday? That radio taping went on for much longer than expected... :-) |
_tonylee_
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9:04a |
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| Wednesday, July 2nd, 2008 |
_tonylee_
|
7:59p |
LIVE ON AIR Remember kiddies, I'm about to be live on air at www.dtrn.co.uk as a special guest presenter... Listen to me talk about things including the Doctor Who comic and finale! |
_tonylee_
|
4:16p |
Whoo hoo!
Batman - The Dark Knight opens in the UK on the 25th July. Which of course is when I'm in San Diego.
But that's alright, because in the US it opens on the 18th. Which means when I land on Tuesday 18th July?
By God, I'm going right over to Horton Plaza to watch it... |
_tonylee_
|
10:09a |
Headfog Woke up this morning to realise that the San Diego crazies have already started in my skull, having had a stress-dream nightmare where, upon getting onto my plane for SDCC I realised that a) I hadn't changed any money to dollars and b) I'd left my Visa card (to get aforementioned dollars) at home. In my dream I tried to work out how to do it, I realised I was going to have to miss the flight to go get the card and unless they would move me, I'd have to miss SDCC.
(bog_boy, who was there with me for some reason was able to catch his flight...)
And this is with three weeks still to go. Or, as someone just reminded me, two weeks and six days, technically. I have great friends. They love to fuck with my mind.
But what these dreams have done is give me the head fogs as I've woken - I feel like I drank three doses of Night Nurse last night, I'm groggy and headachey and in general feeling bluergh. Perfect mood to write children's stories. I just hope I get this out of my system by tonight, as I'm 'special guest presenter' on the Sci Fi Show at www.DTRN.co.uk tonight from 8pm, and I don't want to be cranky.
Still, I'll admit, it's incredibly tempting to go buy the dollars today, just so I can tick them off the list.
The list. Yeah, that's right, the list is back as well. To stop some of the more, shall we say OCD packing crazies, I have an Excel list of everything I need to take with me. These include clothes, adaptors, chargers, laptop etc all the way to passports, money and inhalers. Once an item is packed? I change it's colour on the list. When everything is red? I no longer need to worry, everything is packed and I don't need to re-open the bag.
It might be a tad overzealous, but the first three San Diegos I didn't do this? I always forgot something stupidly important. Last year? Nothing.
It worked as a stress buster for San Diego last year but however it utterly failed to reassure me for New York. We'll see how it does this time!
And on that note? I have to start shaking the cobwebs out of my head. Later, kiddies. |
_tonylee_
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9:32a |
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| Tuesday, July 1st, 2008 |
_tonylee_
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9:44a |
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| Monday, June 30th, 2008 |
_tonylee_
|
3:56p |
THREE WEEKS!!!
Thank you VERY much, the person that just emailed me to remind me that in THREE WEEKS I'm off to San Diego.
Gah. |
_tonylee_
|
1:14p |
F*ck.
This is mainly for people who's been to San Diego.
The Kansas City BBQ, the one across the street from the Hyatt?
Burned down on Thursday. Damn. I loved that place. They filmed the bar scene in Top Gun there. |
_tonylee_
|
12:44p |
Doctor Who: The Forgotten #3... Cover by Nick Roche... Enjoy.  |
flywingedmonkey
|
12:37p |
You got the looks, I got the brains, lets make lots of tele
A void in my life that I didn't even know was there has been miraculously filled. I am like a woman with her first Rampaging Rabbit (or whatever those evil man-replacers are called.) and it feels so so good. Because... Beauty and the Geek has returned!
Yes, that "social experiment" (this is not a thinly veiled attempt to point and laugh at freaks, ho no. This is an Experiment. It's sciencishic, you see. There is SCIENCE.) returns to our screens! Made in America, where they know how to do freaks properly, the show pairs off nine "Beauties" (Including an aspiring Playboy model, a Hooters Waitress and a, uh, "professional" babysitter.) with nine "Geeks" (The likes of a computer programmer, a LARPer, and a guy so Jewish even Woody Allen would be embarrassed by him.) Oh, the social awkwardness, oh how we love the social awkwardness. At the initial mixer party one Geek explaining to a baffled Beauty why he had gaffa tape on his clothes made a, well lets generously call it a joke.
"You see gaffa tape is like the Force!" pause for effect "It has a light side and a dark side and it binds the universe together!" this last bit is chorused by another geek, unable to resist the pull of a quote he has heard before. All geeks in the vicinity start laughing through their nose. The girl looks at them like they've been sick on her shoes. Ace.
The beauty of the show (you see what i did there? I am so clever.) is in watching the evolution of the contestants. Mainly because the geeks get revealed, in the main, as smart sensitive caring people. Just because they dress up as Klingons occasionally doesn't make them bad people (ok, it does. But they can stop). And once they've got cleaned up (their hair! Their hair is so, so bad! "My Mom does mine" one confessed.) and are able to spend two minutes in the company of a woman without spaffing into their crusty Y-fronts they can be pretty cool. Bright, still a bit quirky (tip: if you wish to have sex with someone do not make your opening gambit about your World of Warcraft character. Yes, being a level 50 High Wizard is pretty cool. Kinda. But save it for the third date. Your dick will thank me.) but that's interesting, plus in 5 years he'll probably be out-earning all the Beauties put together.
The girls on the other hand, well, if you were a vacuous bitch when you came in being around nerds isn't gonna make you any less of a vacuous bitch, yknowwhatI'msayin? Oh sure, they're supposed to learn lessons like being beautiful isn't important (it is) and everyone is special in their own way (they are not) and such guff but there isn't that same transformation aspect.
The challenges are fun- you do not know sympathetic squirming until you have seen a scrawny white boy attempting to rap at professional rappers and using the phrase "caramel cutie" about his half-cast partner. Dude. Just, just... dude. And if you're feeling a bit down on yourself you can enjoy the sight of micro-brained cheerleaders debating on political topics and feel like an intellectual powerhouse in comparison.
"I, like, totally think we shouldn't, like, drill for oil in Antarctica because, like, its, like, not good and stuff." Brilliant.
There's laughter (from me), there's tears (from them) there's girls in bikinis. Its everything you need. My arm is complete again.
JmC
Its available now to watch online at E4OD! |
_tonylee_
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12:09p |
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_tonylee_
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12:06p |
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_tonylee_
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12:01p |
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_tonylee_
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11:49a |
Thank you. So I'm Thirty Eight, and I've been getting Facebook wall messages and private messages constantly since midnight wishing me the best of birthdays, which is really nice. But I also want to give a big thank you out to the people who braved the Saturday evening streets of Birmingham to attend mine and Rich ( _stormknight_)'s joint Birthday bash at the Subside Rock and Alternative Bar on Saturday night. We had at one point over forty Pirates, Ninjas and Zombies there which wasn't bad going! Thanks once more to all the people who attended, some of which came from miles away, who dressed up, who acted the parts, to our zombies for their makeup and for the presents I got! It was most appreciated, and now ups the ante for two years time, when I have my fortieth... This should link you to my pictures of the night, there are lots more out there, it seems... On a side note, I'm probably going to have a more quiet drink tonight at the Red Lion from about 7.30pm. Nothing major and not too long, but it'd be nice to see some of you there. :-) And finally? A massive thank you to Tracy / belle_fille1982 for the presents, support and in general being there ness that she gave me all weekend. One in a million, sweetheart. x T |
| Saturday, June 28th, 2008 |
_tonylee_
|
11:24a |
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| Friday, June 27th, 2008 |
flywingedmonkey
|
4:01p |
Clothes maketh the man
I just picked up a 122 pound Kim Jones top for a tenner.
One of the projects that my company ran, a shop selling designer gear, went bust last year and so is getting rid of the extra clothes. Everything is down to ten pounds (one bag was priced at £476!!). Its mainly Kim Jones (dunno who that is) and mainly girls stuff, most of the guy stuff is a little, uh, fruity.
The top is not exactly something I would normally wear but it fits, its not screamingly fagotty (perhaps a little "Hello, Sailor!" but I can cope with that), it means I have "shown willing" at my new company and, fuck it, its only a tenner.
JmC
Dedicated follower |
_tonylee_
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9:08a |
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| Thursday, June 26th, 2008 |
_tonylee_
|
6:06p |
Fight For Love - Kill Everyone. So it's been a busy year already for me and Dan Boultwood, we started it working hard on Hope Falls, we pushed our way from that into The Prince Of Baghdad Book 1, our 14 week series for the DFC, we're already working on the next proposed project, Faerie Tales, an 8 week series and then immediately after? We're back with The Prince Of Baghdad Book 2. And don't even get us started on what's happening with The Eleventh Hour, Dashing Tales For Young Chaps, The Crimson Todger and The Incredibly Exciting Adventures As Doc Chronology And His Time Travelling Armchair Investigates.
We're also working out a possible new Steampunk Children's book called The Revengers - basically think a Victorian Steed and Mrs Peel...
And while we're doing this? We're also adapting The DoppleGanger Chronicles Book 2 (yes, I know that if you read the PR for it, it seems like GP Taylor did it all, but believe me, we've done stuff with it) and The Gloom has been doing the weekly webcomic circuit at The Chemistry Set, and there's talk of not only having it collected into a trade later this year but also a whole load of things that we can't mention yet.
So, it looks like me and Dan are up to our necks, right? Well, it's close. But not so close that we forget our promises....
You thought we'd forgotten since that fateful day in the middle 2007? Oh no. We're pitching it to a couple of interested parties at San Diego, and already there's possible movie interest stemming from the stuff we talked about a year back on places like All The Rage, etc.
It was put on the shelf for Hope Falls and then The Prince Of Baghdad came along, but kiddies?
This one is going to be big. |
jesswah
|
5:24p |
Boooks
1) Look at the list and bold those you have read.
2) Italicise those you intend to read.
3) Underline the books you LOVE, add and strikeout the books you read but didn't like / started but didn't finish.
4) Reprint this list in your own LJ so we can try and track down these people who've read only 6 or less and make them read.
1. The Lord of the Rings, JRR Tolkien
2. Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen
3. His Dark Materials, Philip Pullman
4. The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Douglas Adams
5. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, JK Rowling
6. To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee
7. Winnie the Pooh, AA Milne
8. Nineteen Eighty-Four, George Orwell
9. The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, CS Lewis
10. Jane Eyre, Charlotte Brontë
11. Catch-22, Joseph Heller
12. Wuthering Heights, Emily Brontë
13. Birdsong, Sebastian Faulks
14. Rebecca, Daphne du Maurier
15. The Catcher in the Rye, JD Salinger
16. The Wind in the Willows, Kenneth Grahame
17. Great Expectations, Charles Dickens
18. Little Women, Louisa May Alcott
19. Captain Corelli's Mandolin, Louis de Bernieres
20. War and Peace, Leo Tolstoy
21. Gone with the Wind, Margaret Mitchell
22. Harry Potter And The Philosopher's Stone, JK Rowling
23. Harry Potter And The Chamber Of Secrets, JK Rowling
24. Harry Potter And The Prisoner Of Azkaban, JK Rowling
25. The Hobbit, JRR Tolkien
26. Tess Of The D'Urbervilles, Thomas Hardy
27. Middlemarch, George Eliot
28. A Prayer For Owen Meany, John Irving
29. The Grapes Of Wrath, John Steinbeck
30. Alice's Adventures In Wonderland, Lewis Carroll
31. The Story Of Tracy Beaker, Jacqueline Wilson
32. One Hundred Years Of Solitude, Gabriel García Márquez
33. The Pillars Of The Earth, Ken Follett
34. David Copperfield, Charles Dickens
35. Charlie And The Chocolate Factory, Roald Dahl
36. Treasure Island, Robert Louis Stevenson
37. A Town Like Alice, Nevil Shute
38. Persuasion, Jane Austen
39. Dune, Frank Herbert
40. Emma, Jane Austen
41. Anne Of Green Gables, LM Montgomery
42. Watership Down, Richard Adams
43. The Great Gatsby, F Scott Fitzgerald
44. The Count Of Monte Cristo, Alexandre Dumas
45. Brideshead Revisited, Evelyn Waugh
46. Animal Farm, George Orwell
47. A Christmas Carol, Charles Dickens
48. Far From The Madding Crowd, Thomas Hardy
49. Goodnight Mister Tom, Michelle Magorian
50. The Shell Seekers, Rosamunde Pilcher
51. The Secret Garden, Frances Hodgson Burnett
52. Of Mice And Men, John Steinbeck
53. The Stand, Stephen King
54. Anna Karenina, Leo Tolstoy
55. A Suitable Boy, Vikram Seth
56. The BFG, Roald Dahl
57. Swallows And Amazons, Arthur Ransome
58. Black Beauty, Anna Sewell
59. Artemis Fowl, Eoin Colfer
60. Crime And Punishment, Fyodor Dostoyevsky
61. Noughts And Crosses, Malorie Blackman
62. Memoirs Of A Geisha, Arthur Golden
63. A Tale Of Two Cities, Charles Dickens
64. The Thorn Birds, Colleen McCollough
65. Mort, Terry Pratchett
66. The Magic Faraway Tree, Enid Blyton
67. The Magus, John Fowles
68. Good Omens, Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman
69. Guards! Guards!, Terry Pratchett
70. Lord Of The Flies, William Golding
71. Perfume, Patrick Süskind
72. The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists, Robert Tressell
73. Night Watch, Terry Pratchett
74. Matilda, Roald Dahl
75. Bridget Jones's Diary, Helen Fielding
76. The Secret History, Donna Tartt
77. The Woman In White, Wilkie Collins
78. Ulysses, James Joyce
79. Bleak House, Charles Dickens
80. Double Act, Jacqueline Wilson
81. The Twits, Roald Dahl
82. I Capture The Castle, Dodie Smith
83. Holes, Louis Sachar
84. Gormenghast, Mervyn Peake
85. The God Of Small Things, Arundhati Roy
86. Vicky Angel, Jacqueline Wilson
87. Brave New World, Aldous Huxley
88. Cold Comfort Farm, Stella Gibbons
89. Magician, Raymond E Feist
90. On The Road, Jack Kerouac
91. The Godfather, Mario Puzo
92. The Clan Of The Cave Bear, Jean M Auel
93. The Colour Of Magic, Terry Pratchett
94. The Alchemist, Paulo Coelho
95. Katherine, Anya Seton
96. Kane And Abel, Jeffrey Archer
97. Love In The Time Of Cholera, Gabriel García Márquez
98. Girls In Love, Jacqueline Wilson
99. The Princess Diaries, Meg Cabot
100. Midnight's Children, Salman Rushdie
44...a fairly respectable number but I should probably read more "adult" books. Maybe I should visit the Adult Book Shop near my work? |
_tonylee_
|
12:12p |
THIS IS WAR  Jimmy Aquino, the incredibly good looking and talented co-host the podcast, COMIC NEWS INSIDER has mentioned me on the most recent podcast due to our ongoing clothing war - both of us seem to be wearing the same items, jeans, stripy shirt, tie, waistcoat - and as such I am forced to kill him. Yes, kill him. With laser beams or something. But I am a kind man and Jimmy is a special case, and so I challenge him to a test of sartorial elegance! Yes - I CHALLENGE HIM! We'r both in San Diego - And so I expect a DIFFERENT OUTFIT EVERY DAY! That's right, a DIFFERENT shirt/vest/tie combo every single day of the convention, Wednesday to Sunday. AND I expect there to be an OBVIOUS DIFFERENCE between the shirt / tie / vest of the show and the shirt / tie / vest of the EVENING! YES! It's ON, Aquino! And I'm going to grow my hair just like yours, too. because I love you.
So, go listen to the podcast. In fact, go listen to all of them, as that Jimmy guy? He's quite good, you know... And he knows how to drink! |
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