Messages

lol @ LMS

I didn't spot the dodgy pads, but I did think "Foolissssh Dredd! You cannot kill what doessss not live!!!"

I felt smug about it as well.

Blimey - it's Tharg!

There's every chance that The Sun just made this up.  I only say that because I know some newspaper reporters and they make everything up.

My favourite was "Is Boy George Buying This Castle?", splashed across the front page with in depth interviews from locals and such.

Totally made up.  Of course, they were only asking a question.  The answer, of course, was no.  He also wasn't buying any planets, submarines or orang utans that week.

[I think it's time to discuss your philosophy of drug use as it relates to artistic endeavors]
 
Check it, yo!
I always hit the tape with the rough road styles
You heard the psychdelic and ya came from miles
Keep my rhymes thick like a Guinness brew
So you could call me black and tan when I'm a wreckin' a crew
I'm like Bill Lee writing when he's in Tangiers
And now I'm on a soul safari with my Beatnik peers
Analog reel and a little distortion
Smokin' on somethin' s'you could say I'm scorchin'
I never been the type to brag but beware
I'll make a man burn his draft card like it was Hair
Send ya up the river like you lookin' for Kurtz
I got the mugwump jism up in every verse
 
I always hit the apple when I'm going to shoot
So you can call me William Tell or Agent Cooper to boot
Mr. Mojo Risin' on the case again
So tell your mother and your sister and your sister's friends
Like an exterminator running low on dust
I'm bug powder itchin' and it can't be trussed
Interzone trippin' and I'm off to Annexia
I gotta get a typewriter that's sexier    
My name is Justin and that's all that's it
And I'll be spittin' rhymes wicked like it ain't for this shit
Houses of the Holy like Jimmy Page
But the song remains the same so I'm stuck in a rage
Just like Jane when she's going to Spain
I think I'm going away tomorrow, just a fool in the rain
Light up the candles and bless the room
I'm paranoid, snow blind, just a black meat fool
 
Bug powder dust an' mugwump jism
And the wild boys runnin' 'round Interzone trippin'
Letter to control about the Big Brother
Try like hard to not blow my cover
 
Never been a fake and I'm never phony
I got more flavour than the packet in macaroni
Rock drippin' from my every vowel
I've got the soul of the sixties like Ginsberg's Howl
Shootin' mad ball and I'm always jukin'
Take you to the hole and I'm surely hoopin'
Top of the pops like the Lulu's show
I'll take a walk on Abbey Road with my shoes unsoled
I got a splinter though, damn, you know man it hurt
I got a Vegemite sandwich from Men at Work
I keep minds in line, but time sublimes,
So when you search you find something like a gold mine
A psychadelic meanderings in the poem
I got a patter, patter anyplace that I roam
Waiting for the sun on a Spanish caravan
Solar eclipse and I'm feeling like starin' man
 
Who's that man in the windowpane
Got somethin' on his tongue and it's startin' to stain
Sho' nuff equip so wop n'get down
Step up on my ladder and you'll get beat down
Hash bar style so I'm singin' day glow
Wakin' up the dead like Serpent and the Rainbow
Jeff Spicoli roll me another hay
The Fish that Saved Pittsburgh with Dr. J
Shockin' your ass like a faulty vibrator
Hear me now, but you'll probably get the vibe later
Who knows where the wicked wind blows
Que sera sera just leave it alone
Great Space Coaster toast up the town
Makin' midgets with my man Dr. Shrinker
Pass the hookah, throw down the pillows
Cloth on the ceiling, blow rings that billow
Kick off the shoes and relax your feet
Now roll up your sleeves for this lyrical treat
 
[I think it's time for you boys to share my last taste of the true black meat; the flesh of the giant, aquatic, Brazilian centipede.]

http://www.w3schools.com/css/default.asp" target="_new">http://www.w3schools.com/css/default.asp

Bates, C 2002 Web Programming: Building Internet Applications Wiley : Chichester
(Covers everything from basic to advanced web development topics, but in relatively light detail.)

Suggestions for a more pleasing colour scheme are most welcome.  Or are you just saying "wtf is gainsboro?"

Correction:

@import "style.css";

should have read:

<style type="text/css">
   @import "style.css";
</style>

(this site's tag-removal uber-security white belt web-fu system knocked out the tags on the first pass)

CSS:  The main benefit is centralisation.  You can place all your "style rules" for an entire site (multiple web pages) in one place (a .css file) rather than repeating lots of code in each seperate web page.

Other poster is correct:  do not use frames.  CSS can do just about any formatting:  including the location of items (eg divisions) on a page.

This http://www.amenable.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/dingdong/" target="_new">example site imports it's style rules from another file using the html:


@import "style.css";


"style.css" is in the same folder and is just a Notepad file saved with a .css extension and contains the following:

*      {font-family:arial}
h1      {font-family:impact; text-align:center}

body      {font-size:14pt; margin:0px; background-color:gainsboro; color:darkblue}

input      {color:darkblue}
button      {font-size:12pt; color:darkblue}

table      {width:100%}
td       {font-size:16pt; text-align:center; width:25%; border-style:ridge}

div      {padding:10px}

div.header    {position:absolute;
      width:100%; height:9%}

div.menu    {position:absolute;
      width:100%; height:9%;
      top:10%}

div.main    {position:absolute;
      width:100%; height:79%;
      top:20%}

div.date    {position:absolute;
      width:40%; bottom:0px;
      left:5%;
      padding:0px; margin:5px;
      font-size:12pt;
      text-align:center;
      border-style:groove}

div.time    {position:absolute;
      width:40%; bottom:0px;
      right:5%;
      padding:0px; margin:5px;
      font-size:12pt;
      text-align:center;
      border-style:groove}

div.sample    {position:relative;
      left:5%; top:5px;
      width:90%; height:50%;
      border-style:groove;
      text-align:center}

div.workZone    {border-style:groove}

td.noBorderL   {font-size:14pt; text-align:left; border-style:none}
td.noBorder   {border-style:none}

.centre      {text-align:center}

.result      {width:200px; background-color:white; border-style:inset}

Oh - I have to apologise - my poor addled brain made a mistake:  I said "PHP is a horrendous gubbins" - I mean PERL.  There's nothing wrong with PHP.

[red bit]

I'm making some assumptions about your web knowledge based on not much:  so I hope this isn't either patronising or flying too high:

http://www.w3schools.com is a very good site to start at and covers many aspects of web design at many levels.

My first question would be:  what technologies does your web server support?

PHP is a horrendous gubbins compared to the sweet delights of CFM (ColdFusion) or the more straightforward (for programmers, anyway) ASP (I've not used ASP.net yet, but assume it's just ASP that looks like Java).

If it's client-side functionality you're after (ie. non-database, essentially stateless functionality) then there's nothing wrong with JavaScript (and nothing wrong with mixing it up with one of PHP, CFM or ASP).

SQL just sits nicely in amongst any one of PHP, CFM or ASP.  Not sure about the difference between SQL and MySQL:  presume it's something to do with a database?

CSS is just an extension to the HTML markup language, and pretty easy to use (as there are no programming concepts to understand).

This red bit is very simple embedded CSS.

I'll look up a few favourite teaching books of mine tomorrow and post the names up.

[Article: British Icons: The Avengers]

Article:  British Icons:  The Avengers
I lost the will to live on the fifth page and had to stop reading.  It started off well, this article, and seemed to be telling a story, but then it descended into paragraph after paragraph of nothing much new.  

If you have all the details of where and when it appeared, and perhaps some brief quirky detail about said appearance, some kind of chart or graph would help break up the incessant prose.

Is there an editor that reads this through and checks it's tedium levels armed with a large red pen?  Why not?

An article (especially one as wordy as this), like a story, needs a beginning, a middle and an end.  Where and when isn't half as interesting as why and how.  

The Thrill Power Overload articles worked well partly because there was so much juicy gossip in them.  There was a story there.  

I notice that the editor's of the Meg accidentally forgot to include this image in their article on The Avengers:

http://cf.geocities.com/foxycath/peel2.jpg" />

[The Bendatti Vendetta]

The Second Half:

The Bendatti Vendetta
I never expect to like this:  it's just so contemporary and feels (with the style of the art) as if it should be in Crisis (not a bad thing in itself, admittedly).  13teen and Snow/Tiger were contemporary but variously had psychics, giant robots and planet-killing evil genius bombs.

Anyway, you could easily consider this the partially raw turkey on an otherwise perfectly cooked plate of christmas nosh.  However, it's very well written, very well drawn (whatever you think of the overall style) and by the end of it, I wanted more.

Charley's War
I'm really glad this is back:  and I can see now how the break really worked in the strips favour.  We've moved on from the Somme to experience a blitz I wasn't even aware of (historically).  The art is amazing:  check out the last panel on the 2nd last page.

Anderson Psi Psi-Division (You really should do something about that textual stutter.)
Unlike the dude on the letters page, I have no problem with Anderson going inside someone's mind:  she is a telepath, so it's this ability (and her precog) that really marks her out from other characters.

I think it's great that the slightly difficult alien world of the mind is interspersed with events taking place in the real world:  it's very well structured, leading as it does to the dual cliffhanger.

The Rest
Haven't had time for the articles yet and metro-Dredd is pretty throwaway stuff.

[Judge Dredd: ... P.J. Maybe]

Part #1 (I can't read it all in one go or my thrill circuits will overload.)

Well, 50 pages in and not a bum note in sight:  in fact, it's firing on all cylinders and showing no sign of flagging any time soon.  Even the editorial is provoking and intelligent (as opposed to 'editorial blurb').

Judge Dredd: ... P.J. Maybe
Aha, so that's what he was doing with the heart and the man and the inheritance!  I'm so glad he got away:  and yet it was the perfect time for him to lose:  thus it left us guessing right up to the climax.  Marvellous.  Ezquerra's work is just so accomplished that it almost belies comment:  but I especially love the frame where PJ and Inga are dancing in front of the image of Judge Geraldi being splattered across the front of a slabroller.

The Simping Detective
Fantastic cover:  anyone who misses the point must be blind.  More lyrical dialogue from Simon 'Zancudo' Spurrier and evocative noir from Irving.  What a build up, and what an ending:  I want my hipflask.  Special mention to the frame where Jack is sitting in the corner, obscured by the madly dancing shadow of Zig.

Devlin Waugh: All Hell
I'm totally at home with MacNeil's art and I love all the occulti-babble.  Eddie Whyteman was a big surprise, and I'm wondering how exactly he plans on inhaling that cigarette given his unfortunate new anatomy.

Young Middenface
Shaun Thomas for art-godhood!  Stunning.  This is the one that made me laugh out loud (whilst still being dark and sinister).  I used to think this story couldn't decide what it wanted to be:  comedy or drama.  Now it's really hit it's stride as it's managing to combine them perfectly.  "Have ye got any fags?  I'm gaspin'" is just spot on.

Well, that's it:  the first 50 pages are astounding (and that's without reading the article on The Avengers).

Actually, that wikepedia article is fantastic (as a sort of summary of "Thrill Power Overload!", which it references).

It was great to come back from a year abroad (circa '96) and discover that the galaxy's greatest had been saved from utter stagnation:  mainly by Sinister Dexter and Nikolai Dante, it has to be said.