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Yep sharky is lurking in the chat room again and it is down to me to declare it officially open for refined discussion and polite innuendo.*

How to join:

Download the chat client (best way) and create an account. (You can also chat directly through PalTalk's website without downloading the client, but this method isn't usually as stable.)

Log in and find us listed under Miscellaneous/Other/Rowdy Yates Block Citizens' Yap Shop

* In your endo

My friends and I were discussing the news/politics and one of my mate's girlfriends asked "Who are Kofi and Anne?" presumably impressed that two people were jointly running the UN at the time.

Out today:

http://strangeplanetstories.blogspot.co.uk/2012/03/d-day-new-deadwardians-have-landed.html

A bit of news, interviews and a previews:

www.usatoday.com/life/comics/story/2012-03-28/The-New-Deadwardians-comic-book-series/53826286/1
www.comicbookresources.com/?page=article&id=35996
http://herocomplex.latimes.com/2012/02/08/the-new-deadwardians-if-vampires-zombies-visited-downton-abbey/

I'm in a quandary - if it pisses on my chips, I'll want to know about it, but I suspect I'll want to get my ideas down on paper before taking a peek at this, so I can't say it has influenced me. Or can I resist??

Crossed: Wish You Were Here.

How can you not love a comic that opens with a psychopath having sex with a shark?

Who's writing this one, Gordy? Wasn't overly fond of the second run, after Ennis left...

Here is the thread on it:

http://forums.2000adonline.com/index.php/topic,33168.0.html

Went to two shops this morning, no luck on 2000 ad. One has a huge selection of mags that I thought 100 % would have it.

Looks like eBay sales are easyest or subscription. Cannot believe this cannot be found on the shelf.

I am surprised as I see it in most newsagents I go into and if they don't have it they will order one in for you (although a subscription is cheaper).

I was only teasing you all (mainly emperor sorry hunny)

You monster!!! 

Started Embassytown by China Mieville, he hasn't let me down yet.

Crossed: Wish You Were Here.

How can you not love a comic that opens with a psychopath having sex with a shark?

Its a dolphin, which makes it worse

For zombie/shark action see:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3F3fin4MjVw

Any decent Miike DVD / BD collections out there?

There is a general one:

www.amazon.co.uk/Takashi-Miike-DVD/dp/B000EMSQBE/

Which seems identical to this:

www.amazon.co.uk/Miike-Collection-Region-Import-NTSC/dp/B002OMIKRC/
www.amazon.com/Miike-Collection-4pc-Dub-Sub/dp/B002OMIKRC/

And there is a second volume of that:
www.amazon.co.uk/Miike-Collection-II-Family-Region/dp/B000Z6GT7W/

And a collection of MPD Psycho that I have:

www.amazon.co.uk/MPD-Psycho-DVD-Mpd-Psycho/dp/B0009ZCPCW/

There is an R1 Dead or Alive trilogy, I enjoyed them but perhaps not enough to buy the boxset:

www.amazon.com/Takashi-Miikes-Dead-Alive-Trilogy/dp/B0000E6FNU/

There is an 8 disc omnibus which might be worth it:

www.amazon.co.uk/Takashi-Miike-Omnibus-Region-Import/dp/B001B187JI/
www.amazon.com/The-Takashi-Miike-Omnibus-8-Disc/dp/B001B187JI/

The Black Society Trilogy contains 3 films from the Omnibus, so if you only wanted them it might be an option:

www.amazon.com/Black-Society-Trilogy-Takashi-Miike/dp/B0002LE9NQ/

You can get a Fudoh: the New Generation/Full Metal Yakuza set which might not be a bad bet (the latter is cheap but bonkers):

www.amazon.co.uk/Fudoh-Generation-Full-Metal-Yakuza/dp/B000AYQJG0/

Although they don't do an Audition/Ichi/Visitor Q set which would be an ideal Christmas present for an aged auntie, there is an Audition/City of Lost Souls/Happiness of the Katakuris:

www.amazon.co.uk/Takashi-Miike-Collection-Region-Import/dp/B0000C52K0/
www.amazon.com/Takashi-Collection-Audition-Happiness-Katakuris/dp/B0000C52K0/

The most comprehensive set of boxsets seems to be this one although it appears to be Italian, so is probably not much use:

www.amazon.co.uk/Takashi-Miike-Collection-Box-Collectors/dp/B00423BE06/
www.amazon.co.uk/Takashi-Miike-Collection-Box-02/dp/B00423BDYI/
www.amazon.co.uk/Takashi-Miike-Collection-Box-03/dp/B00423BDYS/
www.amazon.co.uk/Takashi-Miike-Collection-Box-04/dp/B00423BDZ2/

The problem is that he produces so many films, in such a wide range of genres that I reckon your best bet is to read up on them and watch the ones you fancy - LoveFilm have quite a few so I am working through what they have there for now.

Hmmmm....just did a quick tot up there and immediately I can account for 52 pages of script I need to write, which is pretty much already mapped out. So that's halfway there!

The pain is that under a British comics approach 100 pages could be twenty 5-page stories!! Luckily I have a 20 page script to do and 3 ten pagers, plus three linked 6 pagers, so that'd be a good slice of the 100. I'm also not sure what you'd count, as there is a rough first draft, a more solid draft and a formatted, ready-to-submit version but I'm not going to worry too much about that - it isn't a competition to get the most number of pages done, it is about getting those pages done for me.

Yeah, I think I'll sign up - are you on Emperor? Maybe if we submit daily reports of our progress, one will motivate the other to keep going! Anybody else?

You're on.

My profile there:

www.scriptfrenzy.org/eng/user/801602

Greetings Scando-Squaxx, it is always encouraging to hear about the spread of thrill-power to all corners of the Earth. If you have any questions, then we are all ears (literally, in some cases where exposure to thrills has a mutagenic effect).

is it wipe clean?

The winner can laminate it themselves.

Off to the printers!! Coo. Exciting times.

Medicine's recipe for keeping older people active and functioning in their homes and workplaces — and healing younger people injured in catastrophic accidents — may include "noodle gels" and other lab-made invisible filaments that resemble uncooked spaghetti with nanoscale dimensions, a scientist said

...

Samuel I. Stupp, Ph.D., who presented an ACS plenary lecture, explained that the synthetic pasta-like objects actually are major chemistry advances for regenerative medicine that his research team has accomplished. Regenerative medicine is an emerging field that combines chemistry, biology and engineering. It focuses on the regeneration of tissues and organs for the human body, to repair or replace those damaged through illness, injury, aging or birth defects. Those tissues range from cartilage in joints damaged by arthritis to heart muscle scarred by a heart attack and nerves severed in auto accidents.

...

For example, Stupp attached to these fibers signaling substances that mimic a powerful substance called VEGF that can promote the formation of new blood vessels. The VEGF-mimic caused new blood vessels to form in mice (stand-ins for humans) with blood vessel damage.

"When VEGF itself was used in clinical trials on humans, it didn't work, despite a lot of laboratory research that suggested otherwise," said Stupp. "The problem was that VEGF was quickly broken down in the body. The nanofilament scaffold, however, lasts in the body for weeks, which allows the VEGF-mimic more time to grow vessels." Eventually, the nanofilaments break down and disappear, leaving only the new blood vessels behind.

www.physorg.com/news/2012-03-noodle-gels-spaghetti-highways-tools.html

[Blue remembered Earth]

Almost completed Alastair Reynold's latest, Blue remembered Earth. He's really dialled up the Clarke on this one. Great stuff.

Good to hear. I'm usually running one or two behind but have finished Terminal World (which I enjoyed) so will be getting around to this at some point.

I'm reading my way through him just now! Any I should dodge or particularly go for?

Nope, they are all good (IMHO, of course). You could read them in order of publication like I did but it isn't necessary. If I was coming to his books now I'd probably read the Revelation Space ones together and then pick up the standalone books:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alastair_Reynolds#Novels

Almost completed Alastair Reynold's latest, Blue remembered Earth. He's really dialled up the Clarke on this one. Great stuff.

I've only ever read his short fiction, which is all types of aces. In fact I just read one last night night in the Solaris Rising anthology. It made my head wobble with wonder just like a good SF short should!

I'll really have to pick up his novels...

Yes you do.

In fact any 2000AD reader who likes epic-scale hard sci-fi shouldn't hesitate to get stuck in to his books.

[bloody well fantastic]

I'm probably waaaay out in the tall grass with this opinion and I apologise should I offend anybody's sensibilities in having the inexcusable gall to even consider saying this but it has to be said.  Chris Weston is Spartacus and so is your blog.  By which I of course mean, bloody well fantastic.

Finally something we can all agree on!

I was tempted to disagree with you for the hell of it, but I crumbled in the face of that cover. That is going on the list for consideration when the cover of the year swings around again.