November 2009

I can't believe November is nearly done. It has been quite a fantastic month and was nearly all the more fantastic with the chance of seeing Alice Cooper live, but I missed out on that one, boo!

Productively, the month has been the penultimate series of lectures before my last semester at Newcastle University. My friends and I were debating about our futures and many of us agreed after 4 years of study, a change would be good. We have nearly completed the lectures on Heidegger, which have been my favourite so far, though the Gadamer lectures have been quite enlightening. I was surprised to hear death remains the 21st centuries 'taboo subject'.


I was a quite disappointed in Left 4 Dead 2, after the awesomeness of the original, I had hoped for something which felt like an upgrade on either gameplay or graphics, neither of which occured. The new adversaries made little difference to the challenge, and the new avatars seemed to lack the character of the originals. Of course Francis was missing, which meant a big thumbs down from me. The new areas I felt lacked atmosphere compaired to the first game, but them perhaps it was me adding the atmosphere to the original as I was impressed by the '28 Days Later' feel to the game which not many other games seem to be able to capture. There was a general creepiness and feeling of desolation to the first game, which seems lost in the sequal. I traded it in swiftly for 'Dragon Age: Origins' which seems quite light at the moment, but I realise I've just started it's epic quest. I was able to make a short, stocky ginger rogue named 'Rooney' in the character creation, which made me happy =D

I was perterbed by how much I had been enjoying the Twilight films, peterbed as my choice in films of late has been so far removed from the 'romantic drama' genre that to think I was enchanted by these movies was quite different for me, although it seemed to be the case that I was. I have a heart after all, who knew?! Although the plot revolved around a rather morbid young lady and her obsession with necrophilia (come on, he's dead, it's blatantly necrophilia) I was rather interested in the political and humanistic aspects of the film, of which most seemed to have been blatantly pilfered from Vampire: The Masquerade, although the casual viewer would have been obviously unaware of this. I had commented to my brother, himself a big V:TM fan that Twilight was "Giovanni: The Movie". While not done with any great artistic merit, I was interested in how they had protrayed the Vampires attempting to flee the inhuman aspects of their curse and intergrate as much as Vampirically possible, which is classic V:TM. The hirearchical system also mirrored White Wolf's game which previously had only really been touched upon in Underworld. So yeah interesting to see the aspects of V:TM I had so wanted to indulge in played out on the silver screen, it's quite unfortunate my RPG friends are mostly combat monsters. Oh yes lots of young men remove their shirts in this film, but none were my type, why can't Gerrard Butler star in these things???

Another media treat this month was a new Doctor Who cartoon 'Dreamland'. While the animation was not as good as something from, well, anything Japanese, it was, perhaps, good to have to suspend ones aesthetic judgements again to enjoy a Who story. The more things change, eh? What I enjoyed most about 'Dreamland' is that it played out more like a classic Who story rather than the newer format, only with Doc 10 involved. I rather hope it takes off in this format as there would be a better chance of getting the older Doctors to get a part in an animated role.


Other mediaspaff that got my attention this month was the new 'improved' BatGirl comic, which sees a re-invention of the character back to something a little more kitsch. As a lover of kitsch heroes, they don't come any more kitsch than BatGirl, it helps she's as cute as a button too ^_^ sooo I think I'll peer in to this title in the hope it doesn't get as psychological as most other comics seem to do these days (what ever happened to good ol' camp funnery?). I also got 'Sonic Boom' by KISS, which I'm delighted with. Having missed out on KISS through their glory days I'm chuffed that they have a great solid new release I can enthuse about with fellow rock fans. It's been quite a good few months for new releases, as it goes.

Well my University lecturer said we have to keep a notebook for our final project, which for me is tricky as most of my musing gos on in my head, but I thought as I'm keeping a blog, so far, so good (so what?) I should use it to post random project musings, for myself if nothing else. Well my initial project was to be on time travel, but what I had hoped to write about was the concept of Dasein and its utilisation of paradigms in the comparatve stages of modernism to post-modernism. Sounds pretty dull but it's relevant today as it's something I observe in pretty much everyone I meet in the West, only they don't realise it. I touched on it in last years Cosmology essay and got top marks for it so I think I'm on the right track here. I feel like I could steam ahead with the project right now, but I seem to have convinced my lecturer to do post-modernism next semester so it'll probably benefit me to wait. Unbeknownst to my tutor, I'm going to include some pearls of wisdom from my explorations in to Chaos Magic, although I wont tell him this, he's a rampant empiricist! The time travel idea is still pretty much on the cards, unless we get around to Quantum reality on the Cosmology course, as I have a few things I want to say about that.

Work rang this morning and asked if I could do nightsift saturday night, more money - less life. I could do with a laugh I suppose.

Never meet your heroes...

...was something I always told myself, they'll only dissapoint! How wrong I was. I have always been an admirer of Colin Baker, in no small part due to his role as Doctor Who, but in general as an actor I have always enjoyed his work, be it on Television, stage or audio. It is slightly bizarre that I find his characteristics inhernt in my best friend, himself a rather eloquent chap capable of being just as verbose as Mr. Baker and with alarmingly similar physical features. I digress.

I heard at very short notice that Dimensions 2009, a Doctor Who convention, was happening in my home town of Newcastle. As I was on holiday from work and had not planned much form my weekend, it seemed like a good plan, although in all honesty despite being at a Doctor Who convention before I expected my good self to fade in to the background of big stars and perhaps even bigger egos. In some small part, I did, however that was not the case with one of the stars attending, Mr. Baker himself.

I first met Mr. Baker during the morning's photo shoot, in which I was quite nervous. I was surprised at how charming and personable he was when it came to my photo shoot with him, which put me at an instant ease. I was also delighted to see age had not dulled the spark in his eyes and the intellect that shone through them. However it was down to the coffee morning with Mr. Baker which vastly changed my perspective on meeting my heroes.

I had expected for the coffee morning to find the stewarts at the convention to see to the guest stars demands, and I thought at least making a coffee for them was not beyond their duties. This wasn't the case and after a few hints from Mr. Baker, I offered my services as coffeemaker. I have been known to make a rather good cuppa. It felt rather bizarre thinking "I am making a coffee for Doctor Who" (which swiftly became my new facebook status :D). White, no sugar, BTW. Mr. Baker then moved on in to a game of introductions, in which myself and the other coffee morning attendees spoke a little about themelves.

At first I was nervous to speak, though I wasn't going to let my damn social anxiety kick in now. I was rolling my own eyes when I exclaimed the 6th Doctor was my favourite, but I progressed in to talking about my studies in philosophy and cosmology to which Mr. Baker seemsed very interested and we exchaged a few words on the subject. The game proceeded around the room and it was nice to hear from fellow Who fans. It was after the talk when Mr. Baker asked me to pick up some items of his he had placed on the floor (my knees worked better than his, so he remarked) that we shook hands and he wished me luck in my studies, commenting I was a "nice guy". Geeksquee # 1.

The evening rolled on, most notible events were Kia Owen's talk in which he entertained the audience with an open mic forum rather than a stuffy interview on the chairs on stage. I asked him if he felt comfortable displaying his rear end on television, I don't know what brought that to mind! (Ok yes I do). Later on however was the group photo shoot with all the guests stars that evening. It was set up much like a conveyor belt of fans who would jump in a seat surrounded by grinning stars and have their picture taken. To my delight, Mr. Baker recognised me from the coffee morning and exclaimed "ah, here's my friend", he proceeded to place his hand on my shoulder in a rather approving way. For a student of cosmology, a subject taken no less for my interest sparked in the universe by watching Doctor Who, this felt like a pat on the back by the boss. Geeksquee # 2.

I hurried through the autograph session with Mr. Baker later that evening for worries any further contact would tarninsh the awesomeness of the earlier part of the day. I left the evening having met one of my heroes and not only with good memories but with a sense that I had met a very intelligent and likable man who for a small time found me agreeable also. I had prepared myself for a rather placid affair at Dimensions, so what I recieved was, for me, out of this world.

Today has kicked off with a rather pleaset start, not only did I manage to catch an episode of Pingu, which is always a bonus, but I also managed to nail a decent enough sketch of Colin Baker, something I've been attempting to achieve for quite a while however of all the characters in the show, his profile seems the most elusive to my limited artistic talents. However I am happy with what I achieved and maybe it's a good point to start working on the comic strip I've been planning now for a few months. Well the story has been brewing for years but after being allowed out of the fitting room at work and on to a more recovery based role I have been albe to idly daydream up a few decent plots for the good Doctor and my take on the Who universe.



The real aim of this, however, is to get back in to Deviantart, something I haven't done since about 2005 and I do miss it. It was amazing to get chatting to artists all over the world and such a kick to have people working on fan art for my cartoon characters. It wasn't so much the quality of the fan art that I was concerned about, it was just awesome to think of kids around the world getting out their coloured pencils and doodling my superheroes and getting a buzz out of it. I almost felt like Stan Lee for a moment, only less iconic and with even less hair.

Just thought I would put my current playlist up here, this is what Im flicking between on my Mp3 player at the moment

First up, Five Finger Death Punch "Bulletproof"



nextly...


My current fave, love what Draiman achieves with his voice. Unfortunately he couldn't extend this excellence to his look


What's this Dave? What are we going for here? Xerxes?



NEXT!


A fantasy epic from Pyramaze. It's really rather epic as fuck and reminds me of completing the Riddler puzzles on Batman: Arkham Asylum

following on...


my fave song from the new W.A.S.P. album, Blackie proper gets in his pulpit in this one.