Messages

Spiders for me. I quite like moths- heh. Spiders haunt me, though. Actually, I think they really do- more often than not I tend to wake up in the morning convinced there's a spider on my face. I jerk awake like a mentalist, slapping at it. Amusingly, sometimes the beast is elsewhere, and once, while on the verge of waking, I delivered a hard slap to my wife's head convinced she had a spider on it.

Not-so-amusingly when she originally came to this side of the planet, she DID have spiders in her hair- her pet tarantulas, stored in tubes, hidden in her hair to smuggle them in.

I also have a terror of putting down a book if I'm on chapter 13, or if the page I finish on has a 13 in its number. I have to stop at the end of chapter 11 (so 13s not next) or read on to the end of chapter 14- and nowhere in between. Interetsingly, in no other aspect of my life does the number 13 worry me. It's only books.

I'm mental, me.

Sigh.

Steev

Van Dom- so glad to here the little fella is okay. That is an absolute fucking nightmare. My youngest has a habit of getting out of cars and running round them- and no matter how much we yell at him, he won't stop doing it. I live in fear of something similar. So- brrr. I went cold just reading your post.

Steev

... The Oxfam shop, up Queens Road, near the traffic lights, has a box of progs from the 700-900 mark, as well as some contemporary sci-fi specials and Megs. All 75p each, all in very good condition.

Albion Books, in the Old Town, has boxes of progs from around the 1100-1400 mark- some okay, some verging on "battered to shit" condition (the same split is true of almost the entirety of his stock) but for 50p each. (except the very rare issue, which I bought in almost mint, heh heh). Also a lot of Megs (including vol 1- 1, 2 and 4), annuals and specials.

Public service broadcast over.

Steev

Ditto huge KIng fan. Ditto Dark Tower being too much to bear. I gave up on the cowboy one- the one that's almost entirely a very long western (book 4? I forget). Have got halfway through three times now and each time have chewed my own head off with boredom. Such a shame, as the first couple (3?) are excellent. I still can't go near the shore without half expecting to see "lobstrosities"- which may just be my favourite word in the language.

Of his recent work- Cell was bearable, Lisey's Story wasn't and I still haven't bought Duma Key (despite being one of those obsessive "everything in hardback" collectors). Enjoyed Blaze though, for what it was.

Steev

Update: I am now on chapter eighty (yes, you read that right) of 'Patient Zero'. It's picking up a bit. Only forty-five or so chapters to go!

Steev

I've noticed the sheer warmth eminating from this board as well. All marvellous. Mr Field- did you ever solve your Incredible Hulk problem, whatever it was?

Steev

This thread is, to use a modern parlance, the bat's flaps! It has made me want to sign up for Second Life (even though my laptop has about as much chance of running it smoothly as it has.. er, well, doing anything other than being a convenient place to rest my coffee when the lid is down)- and find you Thryllseeker, if only so we can go on a faux-Dublin pubcrawl (is Bruxelles in there, just off Grafton Street?- you'd like that).

But, in the absence of everyone getting off their arses and all going to the same con, we should ALL join up and have a virtual romp. We should nick a boat, go on a booze cruise, then become an International terrorist organisation and see how Second Life's engine responds to a group of deperados trying to control the entire world.

But I if ever get a speedier computer- I'm defiantely there!

Steev

A big pile of late eighties Eagles, liberated from my local second hand bookshop at 50p each (minus a hefty discount). All splendid stuff, blah blah, Doomlord, Survival, Ortiz, Death Wish vs Dracula, blah blah.

However, what caused the biggest chortle was some of the letters pages- you wouldn't get the like of these in comics these days. An impassioned plea to ban fox hunting, an astonishing two-paragrapher waxing lyrical about the benefits of pasteurised milk and the following joke: "What has twenty two yellow legs and two wings?" (answer: The Chinese football team!). All splendid stuff, Tharg should take note.

Steev
Off to write to 2000AD about the benefits of lard.

I think that 'insectile' spiderman only came into style after McFarlane.

Although, of course, Steve Ditko was making him spindly and insect-like back at the start. He kind'a lost that effect when John Romita (Snr) took over- but yes, like many aspects of the "modern" Spidey, it's down to McFarlane latterly.

Steev

I did indeed have movie maker on my laptop!

As did I! Useful, since wife has been badgering me to get the software so I can edit her stripteases together into a showreel. So thanks to Colin and Pete for that!

Why did they hide it like that?

Steev

Impediments involving slime, day #2.

Youngest son, having had the slime removed from his underpants, today decided to shove it down inside the radiator. Have you ever tried to get slime out of a radiator armed only with chopsticks? It's tricky.

Steev

Today I stepped in an enormous pile of dogshit, because I was walking over the Hill reading my Fortean Times (cheers Sefton, for reminding me I hadn't picked it up in far too long). When I had removed all the shit from my trainer, I got home to find my youngest son, Bela, had taken the free "dalek slime" that he got with Dr Who Adventures comic today, and shoved it all in his pants "to see what it felt like".

Steev

Oh good grud- NO!!  This is appalling news. Didn't Kirkman once say that he would NEVER let this happen?

I dont know if you read the comics or the collections but in almost every other letters page he says he would like it to be a series made by someone like HBO. So this sounds perfect for him.

Please, please get made & dont be shit!

No, I read the collections. But I recall an interview with him, a few years ago, wherein he said it should never be adapted. Maybe that was before he realised HBO or the like might do it justice, but even so- I have never been more torn on anything in my life! Argh! I'm going to err on the side of caution and have faith in Darabont, I think- and be generally positive about this.

Now watch as, at the last minute, Darabont gets ousted from the deal and the new creative team of Joel Schumacher and Russell T Bloody Davies charges in.

Steev

Oh good grud- NO!!  This is appalling news. Didn't Kirkman once say that he would NEVER let this happen?

On the other hand- Darabont is something of a genius, and a tv series could approximate the feeling of the comic better than just ANOTHER zombie movie (although I obviously love zombie movies)- but really, what's the point? Walking Dead is an exercise in taking the mythos of the Romero films and making people live in them, forever. It's Night/Dawn/Day/Land/Diary without end, without the relief of closure. Its originality, if you can call it that, comes from there never having been the opportunity to exist in an ongoing zombie apocalypse for longer than a couple of hours before.

Fine and dandy as a comic, but as a tv show..? May as well call it 'Romero's Planet of the Dead: The Series' and have done with it.

But but but- it's a zombie tv show! It's Walking Dead!

"I can't stand the confusion in my mind!!"

Steev

The buggers are eating my courgettes.

Plastic cup with an inch or so of beer in the bottom. sink the cup into the soil so that it's flush with ground level. Come the morning, you'll have a cup (or several cups, if your veg patch is of a size to require it) full of drowned slugs and, in theory, unmunched courgettes.

If that doesn't work, try sprinkling broken egg shell over the surrounding soil.

And if THAT doesn't work, an all-night vigil with a very small shotgun.

Steev