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