Part visual reminder for me, part interesting look into what I fancy over the coming months….
July 2008
August 2008:
September 2008:
October 2008:
November 2008:
December 2008?
Unscheduled in 2008:
sometime in 2009/ 2010?:
Archive for June, 2008
Want List – July 2008
June 30, 2008
Want List – July 2008
June 30, 2008The sleep chronicles …….. curing this sleep problem one night at a time.
June 30, 2008When last we spoke last night I’d decided that it was time to have a good crack at this shitty sleeping thing I have going on.
To summarise, I have the big problem that my mind works best late at night and my natural state is for me to turn day into night, get up late and go to bed in the early hours of the morning. Obviously if I were a famous writer with no wife, child or life beyond writing this would not be a problem. But as I am not and I would dearly like to be thought of kindly when it comes the time for Molly to decide whether to ship me off to the really cheap nursing home or have me at home with her and her family I reckon I need to change.
Over the last few weeks / months I’ve noticed that I’ve been getting tired later and later at night and instead of 1 / 1:30 being the normal time for me, I found myself heading for bed at 2am, 2:30am and then, in the last few days 3am. This is obviously just going to go very wrong soon.
So last night I decided that the best way to do it would be to force myself into sleep. I needed to make myself absolutely exhausted and then get to bed at a decent time to make sure I had a fighting chance of a proper, normal sleep pattern.
The best way to do this – pull an all nighter.
So I did, last night.
I was fine until about 6am when I started with a few stomach cramps. These went away with breakfast. As did the tiredness headache.
Work was fine as well, although by mid afternoon I was getting the headache, cramps and general washed out feelings all over again. As expected the worst time was early evening where I felt completely zombied.
Ironically it’s now just coming up to midnight and I’m actually feeling pretty good. The plan is to do this post and head for bed. Who knows, this might actually work?
Is this really the best time to be doing sleep experiments?
June 30, 2008After a few weeks now of seeing my sleep patterns get even more fucked up than they usually are I have decided to take action.
Now, seeing as it’s only a few weeks to the end of term (3 weeks, 2 days – not that we keep count or anything), I’m not entirely convinced that this is a clever move and we shall obviously see, just so long as I don’t run the car into a tree on the way to work through sleep dep.
One thing this is useful for is explaining to Louise what the hell I was doing still up at half 5 this morning when she got up to get ready for work. Instead of trying to explain myself at that time of the morning I can just tell her to read the blog at work and then ask questions later. Those questions will presumably be “what the hell do you think you’re doing? are you mad or just stupid? That sort of thing.)
I’ve found myself, in the last few weeks finding it increasingly difficult to go to bed. My brain annoyingly wants to stay active into the early hours. This is nothing new. But whereas before it was active from 11pm through to 1am, now it seems to want to stay up even later, 2am became the norm. Now it seems that 3am is becoming a normal point. Of course, this staying up late and getting up to drop molly off at school and take me to work has to has some payback somewhere. I can’t just function on 4 hours a night so I find that on at least one day over the weekend I shall be incapable of getting up before 11am. This is not a good situation.
Yet it was one I seemed powerless to change, despite my best intentions. So I hatched my dastardly plan. If I don’t feel sleepy at 3am tonight why not go with it and stay up all night? That way you could properly tire yourself out so that getting through Monday would be a struggle, and then all you have to do is stay awake until 10pm or so. THEN go to bed at a normal hour like normal folks do.
I’m thinking it’s my equivalent of a sleep reset button.
It may work. It may not.
All I know is that it’s 3:43am. I finished writing a review 15 minutes ago. Made the decision 10 minutes ago and have just written this to put it down on virtual paper (what phrase can we use now to replace getting it down on paper? putting it on screen doesn’t really work?)
So the plan now is to stay awake, see Louise, point her towards this post (hi Louise x), get Molly up, have a normal morning, get her to school, get me to school, have a good day, get home and then don’t allow myself to go to sleep before 10pm.
If all goes well, this will reset the system.
Or it may fuck me up even more.
Time will tell.
Let the great experiment commence. I need a coffee and more Gin.
Dave Sim – the Cerebus / Spider-Man Secret Invasion cover
June 29, 2008How wonderful is this? I was looking around the Interwebby for images to go with a review for Dave Sim’s Glamourpuss, I came across his DeviantArt page. And on his DeviantArt page, this:
(“Gleeps, Ditko Spider-Ham Skrull is soooo busted” DVS 08 after Ditko & BWS.)
Secret Invasion variant cover by *Dave-Sim on deviantART. At some point in the future there will be an auction for the cover, but no indication when on the website. Keep checking back for the details.
UPDATE: Thanks to Margaret in the comments: auction finished at $1513.
Terry Pratchett’s god lives just where mine does. Inside.
June 29, 2008Caught this via Neil Gaiman’s journal.
Terry Pratchett has been talking to the Daily Mail (someone has to I suppose) about his ideas on faith, God and why he doesn’t believe.
So of course this headline is:
I create gods all the time – now I think one might exist, says fantasy author Terry Pratchett.
Uh, no he doesn’t. What he does say is well thought out, honest and a genuine reflection of his faith and life following his revelation that he has early onset Alzheimer’s disease. To cut to the chase, he beautifully sums it all up thus:
I number believers of all sorts among my friends. Some of them are praying for me. I’m happy they wish to do this, I really am, but I think science may be a better bet.
So what shall I make of the voice that spoke to me recently as I was scuttling around getting ready for yet another spell on a chat-show sofa?
More accurately, it was a memory of a voice in my head, and it told me that everything was OK and things were happening as they should. For a moment, the world had felt at peace. Where did it come from?
Me, actually – the part of all of us that, in my case, caused me to stand in awe the first time I heard Thomas Tallis’s Spem In Alium, and the elation I felt on a walk one day last February, when the light of the setting sun turned a ploughed field into shocking pink; I believe it’s what Abraham felt on the mountain and Einstein did when it turned out that E=mc2.
It’s that moment, that brief epiphany when the universe opens up and shows us something, and in that instant we get just a sense of an order greater than Heaven and, as yet at least, beyond the grasp of Stephen Hawking. It doesn’t require worship, but, I think, rewards intelligence, observation and enquiring minds.
I don’t think I’ve found God, but I may have seen where gods come from.
It’s a great article, but please, please, read past the headline.
PROPAGANDA @ FPI Blog – Batman: The Dark Knight Strikes Back
June 29, 2008
Latest review is online at the FPI blog.
Batman: The Dark Knight Strikes Again.
They said Miller couldn’t repeat the success of Dark Knight Returns.
They were right.
Ragmop & Alex are mine, Tom’s got his – what makes your most overlooked books?
June 29, 2008A fascinating post from Tom Spurgeon over at the Comics Reporter that I felt deserved a little exposure here as well. 12 comics from the last 12 years worthy of looking at again.
There’s a few favourites on there (Paris, Jar of Fools, New Love) but a lot of very interesting books to hunt down and one completely left field choice in US War Machine. But it made me think about what would be on my list of criminally overlooked books and these two sprang immediately to mind:
Alex by Mark Kalesniko
An utterly miserable, truly depressing tale of an alcoholic lead character. But it’s also incredibly involving and utterly absorbing. Not one for a bad mood day, but a must read nonethelesss.
Ragmop by Rob Walton
The smiley, happy alternative to Alex in a way. Ragmop manages to be two incredibly difficult things; hilarious and deep at the same time. Well, maybe not the same time, but certainly within a couple of pages of each other at least. The story is a Marx Brothers farce or the plot of It’s A Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World but with Time Travel, dimension spanning aliens, talking Dinosaurs all thrown in. Add to the mix a perfect piece of political and social satire and you have one of the best comics I’ve ever read.
Okay, your turn – what makes your most overlooked list? Answers in the comments please.
Doctor Who …… gosh
June 28, 2008Well, bloody hell.
Didn’t see that one coming.
& don’t read on if you haven’t seen the episode yet……
Okay.
Bruton family settled down tonight to watch the Stolen Earth episode of Doctor Who with much expectation. And yet again, as is becomming the pattern with this series, it was bloody great…..
And what about Donna?
Did anyone else think of the Master’s sound of drums when she was sitting in the Shadow Proclamation room? Just not quite the right sound, not drums. But what?
What about Harriet Jones? Funny how the dalek very deliberately changed the aim on the dalek zappy thingy wasn’t it. Is she dead? In league with the Daleks?
What is the Copper Foundation? (Just answered that one with some very sad interwebby surfing – he’s the survivor from Voyage Of The Damned left on earth with lots of money to make something better – obviously this is what he did with it.
The Bruton mansions verdict on the regeneration is split: Either it’s not happening really or Donna will do something to reverse it and sacrifice herself or it’s for real and is one of the best kept secrets all year.
Think about it – the only reason we didn’t think it possible was the shots of Tennant on set for the Christmas special. But perhaps Russell T Davies just got Tennant on set for a while to either film flashbacks or, even better, just to get a few photos sorted by the press to confirm he’s definitely not going to be leaving. Genius.
Next week’s 65 minute long episode just can’t come quickly enough.
Matthew Craig is just Bostin’
June 28, 2008Matthew Craig, author of the lovely Hondle and other comics (reviewed right here) wrote to tell us of a recent piece in the Birmingham Evening Mail: Bostin’ Comic Heroes Flying The Flag For Birmingham.
Matthew’s writing a superhero comic based in the lovely West Midlands for the Bostin’ group. The brief is to write: “a Midlands-themed comic, aimed at a broad audience, but anchored in familiar landmarks, such as Dudley Castle and the Bullring”. This is obviously nothing new to Matthew as he’s been doing it for years in his own comics.The whole Bostin’ Heroes project is in it’s infancy right now, but Matthew says he’s hoping to see something in print and ready to go by the Birmingham International Comic Show in October.
fictions 
