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Well now, there's a can of worms.

"Ulysses Dredd" - 

I made a quick stopgap desktop wallpaper until Planet Replica releases the proper ones...



I know, I know. Sad, isn't it?

I shudder to think.

According to that despoiler of common decency and podcaster extraordinaire Richard McAuliffe, her name is Integra Fairbrook. Good old Richard has researched this thoroughly on our behalf and I think we all owe him a great debt of gratitude for undertaking this important work. He has uncovered the following evidence:



Thanks, Rich! I wonder if the poor woman knows what she's let herself in for...

Where do you get your ideas from?

Many people ask me that when I tell them I'm a writer. (An amateur writer, yes, but still a writer.) The answer, for me at least, is everywhere. This doesn't seem to suit them as an answer. It's as if they believe I was born with a finite number of fully formed ideas hidden in my brains and all I have to do is reach in and pluck one out. Like pre-programming or a gift from God. Like a woman born with all the eggs she'll ever need. As if an idea is a single, isolated entity within itself. A singularity, if you will. But to me, an idea is a nexus - crossing the streams and seeing what happens. An idea is not a static thing, it's a process. Sometimes that process takes years, sometimes it happens almost instantaneously.

My new puppy (aww, bless) is asleep on a folded blanket on my desk, next to my right elbow, head resting on a Star Wars stormtrooper mouse-mat next to this very keyboard. When was Star Wars? 1977? That's, what, 34 years ago. The puppy's four months old, he'll live ten to fifteen years, if he's lucky. From the puppy's point of view, Star Wars came out two to three lifetimes ago. Two to three lifetimes ago from my birth takes me back to around the time of the French Revolution.

This got me thinking about how dogs perceive time. Do they know there was time before they were born, that there will be time after? Or is all eternity just in their lifetimes? I can learn of the French Revolution through books, but the dog can never learn about the original theatrical release of Star Wars and how it changed things, even if it could understand what Star Wars was. The dog cannot learn from history, cannot access information from before its birth. (Well, indirectly it can - through genetics, "species memory" or me teaching it things I learned before even it's great, great grandparents were born.) Free of these constraints, what must it be like inside the mind of a dog? Does it only really concentrate on about twenty minutes? Ten minutes past and ten minutes to come? Does the rest just devolve to instinct?

And this train of thought leads me to think how an alien might perceive time if its two to three lifetimes ago takes us back to the birth of Rome or mankind's discovery of fire. How much patience would such a race have? How much foresight? This is an idea, but not necessarily an idea for a story. If ever I do need to write about ten thousand year old aliens, though, this idea at least gives me a handle on them. So this idea gets filed with the rest, waiting for the right place to be in a story.

Then I looked at the sleeping puppy on the Star Wars stormtrooper mouse-pad again and thought, wouldn't it be cool if, under all that futuristic armour, those stormtroopers were actually werewolves. Well, now we're getting somewhere...

So I get my ideas from the random musings of a turbulent mind. How about you?

Nice one Sharky! Good start to the comp.

(Should that read "Priam in irons" in the last line, instead of "Paris in irons". Or am I missing something?)

Uh-oh - that would maybe make more sense in this story. I was thinking along the lines of Paris "kidnapped" Helen, so maybe he kidnapped Anderson too. (Ans "Priam in irons" does sound better, now you mention it.) Still, it doesn't really matter - I'm not gonna' win once you guys get posting!

Thanks for the kind words, though

That's grand, CF.

You're a lucky boy.

Cute as cute can be. Where's HBO when you really need 'em?

"With the tenth anniversary of 9/11 fast approaching, there will be a lot of looks back, some fond, some heartbreaking... And then there will be "The Big Lie," a comic book by Rick Veitch and Gary Erskine that finds a scientist traveling back in time to the day itself in order to stop the disaster. And while there, she finds out that maybe the truth isn't as clear cut as she thought."

Interview: Rick Veitch On His 911 Truther Comic Book 'The Big Lie'

Been out of this for a bit, to my shame. Anyhoo, here goes...

Judgement on Troy (381w)

And in the ninth year of the Great Siege the gods sent Dredd unto Agamemnon for to make a brief end of it. Thus came the dark Warrior of Justice, borne above the black and ravaged seas of future folly upon the backs of eagles shining golden in the watch-fires of the weary Achaeans. Hard upon the shore did the boots of Dredd step, the thunder of the Law of Zeus ringing out with every footfall even unto trembling  the very walls of Troy herself. And the proud Achaeans bent their necks to him, and the Greeks did bend their knees and the wretched huddled in Troy did sneer and spit and snarl and cower, for they knew Judgement was at hand.

And Dredd, with nightfall in his face and the six-bladed sword Lawgiver in his hand, did call unto Priam to "give up the girl, creep!" For kidnapping was against the whim of Zeus today and entirely unjust. And Priam, to his shame, was too afraid to answer and incurred an extra ten for obstructing the Dredd in his course.

With the rising sun at his back, the Warrior of Justice hurled Lawgiver against the venerable and mighty Gates of Troy. Asunder, the Venerable Gates burst apart amidst the sparks from Vulcan's forge and the men of Troy rushed to meet the Dredd. Oh, fools - for none but a god could have met with and held him on that day, and by the dusk the humbled Troy - at once so great and so pitiful - was under flame.

In Priam's deepest dungeon did Dredd discover the damsel detained, yet stone and wood and iron barred his path only as a cobweb bars the path of mortal men. His road was lit with Vulcan's flames and the thunderbolts of Zeus himself until the woman he reached and pulled from fifty guards who never fought or laughed or ate or loved or dreamt again.

"You picked a great time to fall into a timeslip, Anderson. All Hell's breaking loose back home."

And as the Greeks plundered and raped the screaming Troy, the Warrior of Justice took Cassandra of Meg back to her home in the Years of Sadness, with Paris in irons to rot in the Dungeons of Olympus.

...now that the uniform news has been released, how about a load of us in the uniforms at the premier protecting the stars as they walk down the carpet. We could even bash a few fans as we do it  [/color]

As soon as my lottery numbers come up this Friday, I am definitely sponsoring this.

Shall we all turn up at the Dredd premiere next year adorned in these fine costumes!? 

We'll need smaller shoulder pads. Don't want to be giving Mr Urban pad envy.

Yum...

The premier should obviously be in CF's cellar for a select band of invited viewers only. (Me, basically...)