Last week sometime I got a call from my Richnerd, saying that the girlfriend of a friend of his (who I've met a couple of times and she seems pretty cool) had won tickets to go to a little intimate Maximo Park gig/signing at the Kerrang! radio studio in Birmingham on Tuesday 19th. Thing is, her Mr (who is the bigger Maximo Park fan of the two and pretty much the reason she entered) couldn't go as he had to go to Drayton Manor on a school trip (he works in a school). Ste had phoned Rich knowing he's a huge fan, but Rich had a meeting, so he called to see if I wanted to go. After a frantic text to my lovely boss Lorraine asking for the Tuesday afternoon off, I accepted. (Did I mention that Lorraine is lovely?) So, I met Yve at St Pauls' Metro stop yesterday afternoon and we wondered over to the Kerrang! studio. Bloody hell, did it rain! (The answer there is yes, yes it did. Quite a lot.) After a rainy 40 mins wait outside the studio (second in the queue, get us), we were led into the dinkiest room I've ever seen a gig in, and I barged my way to the front (normally I'm not so much of an arse, but these two hugely tall dudes had gone to the front to stand with their very short lady friends, and I wasn't getting stuck behind those giants!) Before the gig even started Yve managed to win a copy of the new album, Quicken the Heart (which is already a contender for Stacebob's Favourite Album of the Year with no other competition at all). I've come to think of Yve as the world's luckiest person, and I may get her to start entering competitions for me all over the place :P

Me and Yve getting excited before the set

Anyways, Maximo Park came out and played a five song set of pure unadulterated awesome. All were trackes from the new album; Let's Get Clinical, Questing Not Coasting, A Cloud Of Mystery (my favourite from the album and the highlight of my day), I Haven't Seen Her In Ages and The Kids Are Sick Again. Frankly, I cannot describe to you how amazing Paul Smith's voice is. He's just stunning to listen to, and never ceases to amaze me with his relentless energy and consistent brilliance.

Paul Smith being all awesome

It was a sort-of-acoustic affair; no drum kit could be found, but the guitar stuff was electric and the keyboards were present and fantastic.

Maximo Park! Squee!!

Lordy, I love this band. After their set, to which I bopped and sang along happily snapping photos all the while, we were ushered into a semi-orderly queue for the signing. I had lots of things in my head to say that would've made me seem all awesome and funny and stuff, but as soon as I was about 2 people away from the band in the queue, I got totally totally starstruck. When I got to the table I pretty much just placed my stuff for signing down, asked for a photo, made a lame joke about wearing Paul's hat, then went as red as my hair. I tell you, I've never been so embarrassed for myself in all my life. Unfortunately, I couldn't have my picture taken with the whole band as they were very spread along the table and unless I got behind there it wouldn't have happened, so I settled with a photo with Paul. I felt quite sorry for the rest of the band actually, no-one had pictures with them, as far as I'm aware.

Me and Paul Smith, and I'm slightly starstruck here...

Yve had brought a load of Ste's vinyls for signing and so I stood like a total lemon at the end of the table collecting her stuff for her as it got passed down the band for signing, just bright red, embarrassed and kicking myself for being such a lame-o. Still, despite my lameness, the gig was awesome, I got all of Rich's stuff signed and I got a veritable bevvy of great photographs of the band, so all was not lost. I'm still kicking myself today though, I tell you... Anyhoo, I walked Yve back to the Metro stop then faffed in Birmingham for a couple of hours before meeting Rich, Addis and Lesley for the Maximo gig at the Academy on the evening. I was quite chuffed because although they didn't play my favourite tune from the new album (A Cloud of Mystery), I'd already seen them play it earlier, and they did bust out my favourite from their previous album Our Earthly Pleasures, By The Monument, which I went crazy to. Amongst other things :P I don't have any photographic evidence of that part of the night (aside from the following picture of Addis in a hat made from an Academy leaflet :P), as I was dancing too much to even think of taking pictures, but suffice to say that everything was bloody amazing.

Addis is just sad cos he didn't get to meet Maximo Park like wot I did, innit!

I'm quite sad this morning, though, because a) I'm back at work, b) I'm not seeing Maximo Park today and c) I'm still mortified at my proper starstruckness from yesterday. Note to self: be less of a twat next time (if indeed there is a next time).

Bristol Con, innit

It's been a while since my last entry, which is mostly because I wrote an amazingly fucking huge one on LJ (which I would then copy and paste over here) and LJ ate it, never to see the light of day again. And, being the lazy tit that I am, I couldn't be arsed to type it all out again. So, an abbreviated version of that post follows here: I saw Observe and Report and thought it was weird, then I saw Wolverine and fookin' loved the pants right off of it, then I saw Devo in London and it was so amazingly awesome that I hurt myself in two different places dancing like a special. There was other stuff, but I've forgotten what it was which means it probably wasn't very informative or entertaining anyways.

Which brings us to Bristol Con. I apologise in advance for the general lack of detail and interesting commentary here; I am now back home, in my PJs at my PC but my brain hasn't properly recovered yet. Rich and I got down to Bristol at about 2:30pm on Friday, and managed to find an O'Neill's we could stuff our faces for cheaps in, and we spent a small part of the evening in the Ramada bar. Due to credit crunchiness and the general downsizing of this years' con, the bar was much emptier than usual, and after a few relatively quiet drinks with some mates, Rich and I were back in our hotel room by 11:15pm(ish). I watched a little High Fidelity before falling asleep. In retrospect, it was probably a very good idea to have a relatively quiet Friday night, as I was well rested for the Saturday drinking madness :P

So, on Saturday we met up with Iz, Rich and co in the Ramada bar before getting our tickets and heading into the con. Paul Cornell joined us for a while and we had a nice chat with him. The con itself was absolutely dinky, but to be honest, I didn't have much of a problem with it. I never really pick up much in the way of comics and toys and that at cons because there aren't really any bargains at British cons, I've noticed, and so I wasn't that bothered by the lack of stuff to buy. I don't see the point in buying full price stuff and lugging it around the con with me all day when I could just get it from Forbidden Planet on the way home from Richs' some time, really... I don't tend to get many sketches either, partly because I often can't be arsed to wait around for 'em and partly because I'm a bit too scared to approach the artists! We'd pretty much seen the entire main part of the con by 10:30am (after entering it at about 10:00am, and I actually bought something, too!), so we headed over to the Mercure where the Small Press Expo was happening. This was actually a bigger exhibition, and better laid out, in that people could quite freely walk around the rooms even while others were standing at the tables chatting to creators and getting signatures and sketches and that. I picked up my copy of Cancertown, which I'm very much looking forward to reading, and hung about the Geek Syndicate area for a bit, mostly hugging Geek Syndicate Dave :P A few of us headed back over to the Ramada for the DC Nation panel, which was when we discovered the daftest placing of a panel ever; it was due to take place in a room which only had one entrance, which opened onto a corridor lined with tables, so between us queuing at that door for the panel and people showing an interest in the stuff going on at the tables, there was no room for anyone to really move... The panel was awesome though, so I shouldn't really complain. I was quite proud of myself as Dan DiDio (EIC of DC comics) started by running through some of the main DC titles, asking us to raise our hand if we read them, and then asking peoples opinions on them. I raised my hand at everything he asked, though he never picked me to ramble at him (which is probably a good thing, as I may have buckled under the pressure and ended up mumbling some incoherent nonsense...) He followed with a Q & A, and some interesting stuff got discussed. Iz and I managed to corner him for a few moments afterwards, so I could shove a Comic Racks leaflet into his hands (a decision I am beginning to regret...) and get a quick photo.

The Racks with none other than Dan DiDio

After that, we hit The Knights Templar Wetherspoons for a spot of lunch, before returning to the Ramada for the Geek Syndicate panel. The panel, called Two Drunk Guys in a Panel featuring Tony Lee and Dan Boultwood, may never see the light of day as a podcast, even though that was its original intent. Dan Boultwood excelled himself in living up to the "drunk" part of the panel title, and was ramble-y, offensive, and downright fucking hilarious. Even though I was stood at the back, I'm almost certain my maniacally loud uncontrollable laughter will have been picked up by the Geek Syndicate lads' microphones. Iz and I had originally been offered the chance to do the interview as a podcast, but this was at the time when I thought Cymru Con was still gonna happen, and therefore wasn't gonna go to Bristol. In a way, I'm rather glad I wasn't hosting the panel as I may have just died of laughter right there in front of everyone! I swear, if the Syndicate don't put the episode out, I have to ask them to at least send me a copy to listen again, it was fantastic. After that, it was back to the Wetherspoons, solely with the intent to get very drunk very cheaply, as both hotel bars charge extortionate prices. So, after a quick bottle of Kopparberg cider, I went for wine. Now, many of you may already know this, but I cannot drink wine without becoming almost instantly sozzled. Stick ten double Southern Comfort and lemonades in me and I'll be a bit drunk, but one glass of wine and I am gone. So, I got me a bottle of rose, and was pleasantly toasted within the hour :P Other started to join us as I started to make more and more of a drunken tit of myself, and I stole Gavin's hat, which I thought looked rather fetching on me...

Snazzy hat, must...steal from...Gavin...nnngg...

Anyhoo, at 7pm(ish) Rich and I headed back to the Mercure to have some food and get changed. I have absolutely no idea how I did it, but somehow in the time it took me to eat a pot of Super Noodles To Go and put on my new dress, I'd almost completely sobered up. I was walking in a straight line and everything! One part of me thinks this is a very good thing, as I think if I'd remained as drunk as I was in the afternoon then I'd have passed out by 9:30pm. As it was, I was like a blank canvas yet again, ready to be painted with alcohol :D Although a party had been organised at the Mercure, Rich and I popped up there at 8:35pm(ish) and there seemed to just be two people at a rather cheesy-sounding disco. Normally, I'm all for cheesy dancing, but I wasn't willing to make that much of a twat of myself in a practically empty disco in front of some people I'd only met for the first time this weekend. So we hit the Ramada bar for the night, and I had an absolutely fantastic time. Iz and I always have a hell of a lot of fun together, and I met some ace new people, including a new Stacey, who is a Geordie and has the most wonderful accent! We got on like a house on fire, busting out the odd Erasure song, plus a bit of the robot every now and then, and giving ourselves the nickname StaceSquared :P Somehow, I did not manage to get a picture of StaceSquared and that makes me a sad panda, but I've decided that just means she needs to meet up with us again at some point soon :P I hung around with Belgium Dave and his bro quite a bit, who are both awesome and who like to rock the party. Highlights of my evening included a two and a half hour chat with Mr Dan DiDio (super nice guy and obviously very passionate about his work, which is good to know), Dan Boultwood still being alive and not being very coherent at 11pm, and anytime any of us burst into a bit of a song.

The Racks plus the somewhat inebriated Mr Boultwood...

I was actually quite glad to have only bought the Saturday tickets for the con, as Rich and I rolled back to our hotel at 3:15am(ish) and therefore I am knackered today, evn after staying in bed quite late. Well, I say quite late, I was awake at 9am and couldn't get back off to sleep, which sucked a little as Rich's drunk-snoring (weirdly, he only seems to snore when drunk or ill) had kept me awake until around 4:30am... Anyways, we checked out of the Mercure, hit a Subway for breakfast (egg, cheese and sausage with tomato ketchup = YUM) and then headed to the Ramada in the hopes of catching a few people on their way into the con to say goodbye. On my way in, Dave (oooooh dear, too many Daves.... This one shall be Waiting For The Trade Dave) told me that Jimmy Bott (awesome artist and regular visitor to the Geek Syndicate and Comic Racks forums) had done a sketch for me. Kindly, WFTT Dave leant me his Sunday ticket so I could pop into the con and retrieve it, and man, it is AWESOME!

Deadpool enjoying Comic Racks a little too much, by Jimmy Bott

We had a little chat for a while and he seems like a really cool guy. It's a shame I never spotted him the previous night in the Ramada bar, as I may have pounced on him slightly tipsily and chatted more. If he comes to Birmingham con, I must remember to stalk him incessantly :P I had to scoot though, to do the goodbyes before getting the train. Twas quite sad saying goodbye to everyone, as it seems the weekend went far too quickly, and sadly I didn't manage to find Geek Syndicate Dave or Belgium Dave to give 'em massive hugs.

So, all in all, it was a very successful con, though I think it may be smarter to skip the Friday next year, as it did cost us quite a lot for the hotel room and that... I cannot wait for June 13th to roll around now; Iz will be visiting Birmingham, hoorah!

My free sketch from Dan Boultwood, that I'm not sure he'd even remember doing!

Been a while...

Sorry I've been a bit absent from this blog for a while. I've had a lot on my mind (weight issues, lack of permanent work, complicated house huntery, Japanese classes sucking ass etc) and I was worried that if I started writing a blog entry it'd end up being a massive emo moan-fest that'd bore you all to tears before you even got halfway through. So, now instead, I give you this, a custom made Deadpool bottle cap necklace:

Awwww yeeeaaaaah :)

In other news, I've kept up with my cinema-going and seen The Damned United and Monsters Vs Aliens in the past couple of weeks. The Damned United was really good, but I feel that knowing nothing about Brian Clough is a slight disadvantage. See, the way the film goes, I thought it was all true like, but it turns out it's sorta based in truth but a bit exaggerated and that. I didn't know that, and was believing everything fed to me, and ended up leaving the film thinking that Clough was kinda useless without WhatHisFace Taylor. Which apparently was not the point of the film and I'd have known that if I knew more about Clough. Oops. That being said, it was a really enjoyable film and Sheen was pretty fookin' spiffy, so all was still good. Monsters Vs Aliens was actually better than I expected, which I think was quite a lot to do with the inspired casting of some characters. Hugh Laurie as a mad scientist half man half grasshopper? Yes please! There's also got to be something said for Seth Rogan's infectious laugh. There's something about Rogan that, while I don't find him really sexually attractive, makes me have a bit of a girl crush on him. I dunno, don't ask :P

I read the fourth fancy hardback of The Walking Dead the other day. Oh. My. Gosh. That shit just keeps getting better and better. No-one's safe, I tells ya!

I guess that's enough, for now. See ya round! *waves*

Random update with lots of crap

Hey hey,

So, stuff to talk aboot:

The His Dark Materials plays. AWESOME. If I hadn't already read the books and therefore known how it all ended, I would probably have cried. I particularly enjoyed the dude who played Lord Asreal; he had much more the sort of presence I expected Daniel Craig to have in the film, and was much more suited to the part. All the puppetry was really well done, especially the Gallivespians (though I'm not sure I spelt that right...) and overall it was a very good adaptation. An entire side-plot was skipped, but to fit the content of those three books into just two plays was a massive achievement so I wasn't all that bothered.

I also went to see Paul Blart: Mall Cop last weekend. It was actually a lot funnier than I'd expected. (Now, I know what you're thinking; why the Hell did you go see it if you weren't expecting to like it? I got a Cineworld Unlimited card, that's why! :P Though I ruddy hate my picture on it; I've got a big peanut face and for some reason the picture is discoloured at the top so I look like I have a jaundiced forehead... Anyways...) Yeah, so it was pretty good. Quite predictable, but enjoyable. Some bits really made me chuckle.

Reading-wise, I read the Marvel Classics version of Picture of Dorian Grey the other day and enjoyed it quite a lot. If I thought I had time to devote to the original I'd probably buy it off the merits of this comic adaptation. I'm now midways through the trade of the first few issues of Alan Moore's run on Swamp Thing, which I'm really enjoying.

Finally, I ended up getting tickets to Bristol Con in May. I wasn't going to go because I wanted to go to Cymru Con instead, but unfortunately that had to be cancelled. I feel really bad for Iz because she put so much time, effort, work and heart into the project. I guess the midst of an economic crisis is not a good time to be trying to start up a con, huh? Still, there's always next year, or the year after. I'm quite excited about Bristol now, even though I'm not actually that big a fan of the cons themselves. I find usually after walking around the exhibition hall/room once or twice and chatting to a couple of creators that I'm pretty much done with the convention part, I just love seeing all my maties on the evenings. For this reason, Rich and I have opted to just get the Saturday tickets for the Con, but to go down to Bristol on Friday for the pre-con piss up :P I'm excited now, I get to see Iz, experience Dave's beard and chat with all the forumites! :D

For your reading pleasure...

Since I haven't posted anything worth note in here yet, here is the rather ramble-y review I did of the Watchmen movie over on my LJ last week. Just so you know what you're getting yerself into by reading this blog, like :P

So, Rich and I went to see Watchmen on Saturday. I went into it very nervous; although I don't hold the comics in quite such a high regard as other comic readers do (I think that's mostly because I read it for the first time about 3 years ago, and I doubt it had the same impact on me it had on people reading it at the time), but I still think it's an amazing comic. The fact that the film was rated 18 made me feel slightly better about the whole affair as I sat down in the cinema to watch it, as I was worried they'd tone down the book and snip out/brush over a lot of the gorier or uncomfortable bits that made the book all the more interesting.

So, the lights go down, the film starts rolling, and OH MY WORD was it totally worth it. The opening credits alone were fantastic. I often find myself watching films and wishing that the credits would wait til the end where they belong, but the credits for Watchmen totally contributed to the film itself, setting the tone and generally being awesome. Fantastic choice of song during the sequence, too.

I figure before I launch into why this film is the shiznit, I shall briefly touch on the two or three things about the film which I didn't enjoy (all of which were minor and mostly down to personal preference):

1. A lot of you will know that I'm not a huge fan of sex scenes in films which aren't porn. For the most part, I think you can totally allude to two characters having had sex without showing them going at it like rabbits. Now, I did go into this film fully expecting a sex scene as it was in the book originally and it plays quite a big part in showing how being a superhero effects these people's lives, the exhiliration and excitement it brings. It practically brings them to life again. However, I do think the scene was maybe just a tad on the long side. Like I say, this is a total Stacebob preference; I'm just not a big fan of sex on screen, especially so when I'm in a cinema full of people I don't know ;P
2. The reliance on slow motion. Now, at some points in the film, I thought it worked superbly. The slow motion punch to the Comedian's face in the first scene, for example, looked great and really showed the power of the guy attacking him. But there was, in my opinion, far too much of it, until it became rather redundant. I can't help but get the feeling that they could've more impressively spent that screen time on other things.
3. The effects/make up in parts, Richard Nixon's putty nose in particular. In a film where they've taken the time and effort to make everything look as realistic as possible, they could've spent a bit more time on that nose... (This is where someone comments to say that that was the actors real nose and I feel awful :P)

Negatives over with, I have to reiterate that I love this movie. I've heard a lot of criticisms regarding the length of the film; I disagree. I didn't feel like I was in the cinema that long at all, and I felt like all the important bits were covered enough that it didn't need to be any longer. I am, however, very excited to see the Black Freighter stuff added when the DVD comes out.

I'm usually very picky about actors performances, but in this film everyone brought their A game. I would say that of all the main characters, the new Silk Spectre was the least exciting for me performance-wise, but that's not to say that she's bad at all. My Stacebob Award for Best Actor in Watchmen has to go to the dude who played the new Nite Owl. There was just something about him that was so amazing; he did a fantastic job playing the part and I hope he gets recognised for it (although I think most people would favour Rorshach, who was, to be fair, also awesome.)

Effects-wise I was pretty pleased with most stuff; some of the gore looked a bit wrong, but nothing so bad that it took me out of the film or anything.

I will admit that I've only read Watchmen once, and it was a few years ago, but as far as I recall this was a pretty true-to-the-book adaptation. I was fine with the few changes they made, and certain scenes seemed to be almost panel for panel. The ending still worked for me, so it was all good.

I think my favourite part of the film was my favourite part of the book (go figure :P), which is when Dr Manhattan realises what a miracle humans are just in and of themselves and decides to help save Earth. I've loved that whole chaos into specific form speech since I read it, and it was delivered incredibly well here.

So, in short, I loved the actors, the fight scenes, the effects, the story, and the soundtrack (aside from the My Chemical Romance song, and the random inclusion of the German version of 99 Red Ballons which was completely odd), with some super-minor gripes on the side.

I am definately gonna see this again at the cinema.

"Thermo-dynamic miracles... events with odds against so astronomical they're effectively impossible, like oxygen spontaneously becoming gold. I long to observe such a thing...

And yet, in each human coupling, a thousand million sperm vie for a single egg. Multiply those odds by countless generations, against the odds of your ancestors being alive; meeting; siring this precise son; that exact daughter... Until your mother loves a man she has every reason to hate, and of that union, of the thousand million children competing for fertilization, it was you, only you, that emerged. To distill so specific a form from that chaos of improbability, like turning air to gold... that is the crowning unlikelihood. The thermo-dynamic miracle."

Figured I'd give it a try...

It seems that a lot of people who's blogs I'd be interested in peeping at are over here at Blogspot (which blows because I've already got a blog elsewhere and so I keep forgetting to check over here :P) Anyhoo, I figured I may as well sign up here, then I can just copy and paste from my LJ to here whilst remembering to check others blogs.

And so ends your first episode of Getting Bored By Stacebob ;)