Fuck Batman, is it Songbird RIP?

I’ve twittered on about my love for the comic Thunderbolts for some time now. Not news to many of you.

But amongst that team, a few characters stood higher than others. Jolt never really interested me, Fixer bothered me in a way I grew to find amusing but there was a place in my heart for tow T-bolts above all else.

One was Abe Jenkins aka The Beetle aka Mach One, Two Three and finally Four.

The other was his long time paramour Melissa Gold aka Screaming Mimi aka Songbird. She was clearly one of original Thunderbolts writer Kurt Busiek’s favourites too as she appeared in Avengers Forever as a future Avenger.

The hope of redemption was the core of the original take on the book. That dream gestated within the burgeoning romance between Abe and Melissa. Both low rent villains from the wrong side of the tracks, Busiek did a lot to flesh out their backstory and show us that a terrible upbringing and poor choices had made them into the people they had been in comics of yesteryear.

With a new wardrobe and new found respect coming from the public, Mach-1 and Songbird were the first Thunderbolts to question Zemo’s plans and dare to believe that they really could become heroes.

Melissa had many hurdles to face within her own confidence and resolve over the years but eventually grew in a smart capable woman who even lead the Thunderbolts for a time and was often their voice of reason when others were in charge.

Mark Bagley helped by giving her such a distinctive look, both in costume and hair. She was less femme fatale than Black Widow, more girl next door than She Hulk and grittier than the Invisible Woman. She had similar qualities to Rogue, a bad girl on a path of redemption but without the grating Southern Belle accent and convoluted history that made Rogue such a caricature.

When Warren Ellis took over writing the team after Civil War, he kept Melissa as part of the line up but it was clear she had a target painted on her. Much less malleable than the other former Thunderbolts and certainly not a hardened killer like both Venom and Bullseye, Melissa was a thorn in Norman Osborn’s side and he made that very clear.

Now as Andy Diggle takes over, Osborn is clearing house and at the end of Thunderbolts #126, Melissa found herself backed into a corner by the vicious Bullseye. I fnd myself nervous that Diggle is going to make me hate him by killing one of my favourite Marvel characters. She has been part of my life for twelve years after all.

Well, tomorrow will tell. A recent post on Newsarama shows she survives the first six pages, but after that who knows?

Yes, definitely nervous. I’m watching you Diggle.

Shit Day Two

Where is Shit Day One you may ask? That was yesterday. Nothing went right. Had some paranoia triggered through a simple question. Got angry. Had a day of idiot customers. And I ended up in store till gone 8pm working on the price change data. Then had a row with my Dad. Then rang back to apologise and had a row with my Mum. Then went home. Finally. Then realised I’d left the heating on at the shop. So got in the house, dumped my stuff and headed back out in to the cold. Was gonna get a taxi, but Matt caught me up and gave me a lift. Props to Matt for being a true gent. Got to shop. Hadn’t left heating on. Shit. Went home.

New day. New paragraph. Here it comes.

Overslept. Stubbed toe en route to bathroom. No time for breakfast. Rushed to post office. Queued behind morons. Finished, headed to bus stop. No bus. No bus. Ten minutes my arse. FUCK THE ROYLE FAMILY! THAT SHOW WAS AWFUL! AND NOT EVEN SLIGHTLY FUNNY. Three buses arrive. I fume quietly.

Get to work. Two people waiting outside. One is a good and elderly customer. I feel bad. The other is one of those guys who comes in and looks at everything, but buys nothing, Admits to buying it all online. Still feels able to make comments about my store layout, pricing, stock selection, etc. Total timewaster. I don’t feel bad.

I serve John, full of apologies. Explaining I was here till very late last night and the bus was late this morning. Other guy asks me for the Race For The Galaxy expansion. I tell him I can get him one for next week but that I haven’t ordered it thus far because - in my opinion the game is awful. I’ve played it with several friends and lent it to others. Most of us loathe it. Don’t understand why it’s so high on Board Game Geek. He looks offended. I feel a bit bad. Just a little bit. A smidgen, a sliver. (BSG boardgame reference there)

I ring home. New row with the mother. Am still angry with the father unit. Begin to think home alone for Christmas might be for the best. Fuck Swindon. Fuck Christmas. It’s all too much this year. I’m actually wanting to smash up Christmas trees that I see and I’m sick of Christmassy messages on Fb.

Matt has vomitted Christmas all over our hallway at home to make it nice for Krysia. Good for them. I’ll be honest, I hate it. Or do I? Maybe I’m just jealous. Christmas is a shit time to be alone.

I watched the last episode of Spooks season 7. Last night. SPOILERS.

I mean it. SPOILERS.

OK, I gave up with Spooks in season three. I hated Adam Carter and the actor playing him Rupert Penry Twatface. I missed the original team. It seemed careless to lose all three in one season. Tom takes early retirement. Zoe has to be hidden. Danny’s brains are blown out in the finale. Meh, the new characters suck. I’m done.

Then I catch the end of the first episode of season 7 quite my chance. Adam Carter goes up with a car bomb. I cheer! Actually cheer! The new guy is full of interesting back story and is played by the only good actor from the horrible BBC remake of Robin Hood. The one where they all shop at Gap. They even make a reference to Tom Quinn as the new chap is debriefed after 8 years in Russian prison. I cheer again.

I tune in for the next episode. The Middle Eastern fundamentalist angle is played down and Russia looms anew as a threat. The FSB are playing games. Friends from Special Branch tell me *nudge nudge wink wink* “Spooks has damn good sources”. Intrigued, I watch more. The new team captivates. Harry is still awesome. The show isn’t ham-stringed by Rupert Penry Twatface (please don’t cast him as The Doctor!).

Season 7 is brilliant. I love it, especially the thinly veiled Northern Rock, etc episode. The finale comes round. Connie is a traitor! There’s a suitcase nuke in London. There are FSB moles throughout British intelligence, section D can trust no one. And there’s an FSB kill squad on the streets of London looking for them. Down to the tubes. Use old tunnels. It’s all very claustrophobic.

It ends with the bomb being brought to Connie who has pointed out this a proper Cold war era bomb not some slapped together by teenagers piece of crap. She defused the nuclear part of the bomb but knew the explosive part of it would go up in her face as she removed and separated the core. While doing so she told Lucas he shouldn’t blame Harry for his time in a Russian jail. She sold him out. Ros then gets her and Lucas out and Connie goes up in smoke and I start sobbing uncontrollably. Gay I know, but that’s the day I had yesterday.

All in all though, bloody good series of Spooks.

Fifteen percent - an update

So it’s true. From Monday I will be altering my till and my banking spreadsheets to reflect a 13 month change in VAT.

Further to Fantasy Flight’s price increases, Esdevium have informed me that Privateer Press have followed suit.

The fantastic new CMG game, Monsterpocalypse, has been a nice hit here in Cheltenham. Primarily amongst the gamers I know. There have been, rumbles shall we say, that I have favoured that game over other new games or expansions for older games.

Truth is, Monsterpocalypse came out at a time when everything else was delayed or just simply absent from the schedules. I thought it looked interesting but was hesitant to stock any new game, but interest from three disparate gamers from different groups of friends suggested that it was worth a punt. It has worked well for the store and it’s a good game so I don’t feel like I’ve shilled a turd. So to speak.

I digress. Monsterpocalypse has now gone up by £1.75 trade price per starter, increasing the price by £2 on the RRP. The boosters have gone up less, only 40 pence, so thankfully that can be absorbed by the VAT decrease.

But once again, I can’t offer any discount to customers who are expecting to see savings instore in light of the 15% rate of VAT.In fact, new editions of the MonPoc starter will go up by £2 as I say. Sigh.

Today is also the first Proud Lion tournament, for Monsterpocalypse no less. We have limited edition monsters for the winners, but support from Privateer Press other than that has been sadly lacking., Despite registering for their website, we aren’t listed - perhaps cos we are in the UK. I had the same trouble with Wizards Of The Coast the other year whilst at Swin City.

The tournament has been dogged by other problems too. The instore posters were wrongly printed by the reprographics house so we had to go without those (they wanted me to pay for their mistake before they’d print corrected ones, disgraceful).

One player cannot make it now after being let down by a colleague who would have covered his shifts, another has not responded and I believe two others will be working. i’m wondering if a Sunday would have been a better bet.

All in all, I’m a little despondent about it. Hopefully the players that do show will have a good time. Currently it’s single round elimination tournament but if it is fewer players then I’ll probably go to a league table system for the day.

We shall see. I’ll update this later…

UPDATE

Well, we did go with the league table system and it all went very well! Kudos to all the players for making the most of it and turning a possibly failed event into something very fun.

More events are planned for the New Year and hopefully with a few days of under my belt I shall be full of renewed vigour!

Fifteen percent

So what a fascinating couple of days.

Amongst the package of financial aid that is being hinted as to come in the Budget, there is a proposed decrease to the rate of VAT. 2.5% is set to come off the rate of VAT if rumours are to believed, taking it down from 17.5% to 15%.

Wow, oooo, that’s great, I said yesterday. It’s been 17.5% for as long as we can remember we concluded during a very brief conflab. That’ll really change things.

Then the cold light of day hit me and on the way into work this morning I realised, bollocks will it. Damn. More on that in a moment, complete with specific examples from my own business.

But first, the history of VAT. The idea of charging tax on retail sales was devised by a Frenchman called Maurice Lauré. What a bastard. Though I gather from my research it was first suggested by a German in the 18th Century. Sigh.

The Direction générale des impôts, was introduced with effect from 10 April 1954 for large businesses in France.

These days EU VAT is compulsory for all EU member states. The maximum allowed VAT rate is 25% and the minimum is 15%. In 1973, the UK joined the EU and VAT replaced the previous Sales Tax system.

Today, the UK charges VAT on most things at 17.5%. Certain things are exempt, others are zero-rated (such as food, books and newspapers) and others are charged at a lower rate of 5% - mostly domestic fuel like gas and electricity.

How does it work? (taken from the BBC website)

The answer to this conundrum is best displayed using an example. Perhaps we should take the manufacture of small hand-towels.

A farmer would produce the wool required to make the towel. He would sell this to the towel-maker. For this wool he may charge £100,000 plus VAT at 17.5%. The VAT on this (in the UK) would be £17,500. The towel-maker would therefore pay the farmer £117,500. Of this amount, the farmer would pay the Government £17,500 and retain £100,000.

The towel-maker can reclaim from the Government £17,500 so the wool only costs £100,000. Once the towels are made he/she would sell some of the towels to a shop for £100 plus VAT of £17.50. The £17.50 is paid over to the government.

The shop would reclaim the £17.50 from the government and sell a pack of towels for £10 plus VAT of £1.75. The £1.75 is paid to the government.

The end consumer pays £11.75 for the towels, of which £1.75 is tax. He/she is not entitled to reclaim this amount and the government gets to keep the cash.

So why is it so difficult? (again from the BBC website)

All looks quite simple doesn’t? Ah ha! Well there’s the rub. When the VAT system was devised, some goods and services were thought to be so important that you should pay less tax (or none) on them. This was done in two ways: zero rating and exemption.

Zero Rating: The retailer charges the consumer VAT at a rate of 0%. The retailer can reclaim any VAT it is charged and the goods are therefore not taxed at any time.

Exemption: The retailer charges no tax on the goods or services. However the retailer is not entitled to reclaim any VAT it incurs. Tax is therefore collected one step up the chain on a lesser amount (it does not include the mark-up made by the retailer).

So that’s VAT in a Top Gear-esque nut shell.

So a cut of 2.5% will be a big help in these hard times right?

Uh, no.

It doesn’t put any extra money in a person’s pocket for the essentials. It only saves you money when you buy something you may not need.

Food is zero rated, unless you’re dining out. Then the standard VAT rate applies. But if you’re truly on a budget, why are you eating out more than once a month if indeed that?

Newspapers, books, magazines, comic books, etc are also zero rated. So again, no price change.

Utility bills are charged at 5% so they won’t be affected. Council tax doesn’t have VAT on it obviously so no change there and rent is only charged with VAT on business rents, so homes will not be affected.

Frankly, the only bills that might come down for the average person are phone bills - both mobile and home (including internet) and travel costs.

A 2.5% cut will not make you better off. It will just save you money on stuff like DVDs, TVs, video games, sofas, washing machines, etc, etc. So, great if it comes before Christmas, you’ll save money on your Christmas shopping.

But will you really?

Again, no. Or at least probably not.

You see a 2.5% decrease in VAT doesn’t compensate how weak the pound has become in the past year. At the start of 2008 the exchange rate was comfortably near $2 to the £1. As of today it is $1.5 to the £1 according to xe.com and at points last week it was lower than that!

That’s a decrease of 25% in 12 months! Suddenly 2.5% looks rubbish, right? To those of you who haven’t caught my drift, let me elaborate. We are an island nation. Much of products we consumers buy these days comes from overseas. And a lot of that trade is done in US dollars. It was considered to be a stable currency and the USA is the biggest capitalist nation in the world, stands to reason that money tied up in their currency is safer than say Zimbabwean dollars.

So something we Brits we importing at a cost of $100 in January, was costing £50. Now it costs £66.67. That’s £16.67 more in less than a year. Distributors and retailers face the realisation they need to do the undesirable option of raising the retail price or risk destroying their gross profit margin.

Boo hoo you think, but remember gross profit is simply the pot that said company uses to pay all of their expenses. Net profit or their actual profit is calculated after all the expenses are removed. And the things that are making life hard for the general public - increased fuel prices, etc - are also affecting businesses. So retail sales are down, costs are up across the board and Government throws out a paltry 2.5% decrease in VAT?

One that’s temporary too. It has been said that the VAT rate will go back up to 17.5% at a later date.

The most that will do is allow small retailers to keep prices down over the festive period. To absorb the price increase from the falling Pound and continue to trade rather than offer any immediate discounts.

Let’s take my business for example.

If we break my business down into three areas, comics/graphic novels, games and RPG and merchandise including t-shirts, only half of my products are affected by the VAT drop.

Comics, graphic novels and roleplaying books are all zero-rated items. No VAT is charged or collected on them. So the price remains unchanged.

Toys, boardgames and t-shirts will be affected. But almost all of this product in a comic shop such as mine is imported by UK distributors from US manufacturers. So they are affected by the changing price of the Pound against the Dollar.

Last week, US games manufacturer Fantasy Flight increased all of it’s prices as well! So my supplier Esdevium informed me of the new trade prices

Their popular Call Of Cthulhu boardgame Arkham Horror went up £4.60 in one week! The resulting increase in the retail price sees it go up to £40. Of which the Government currently gets £5.96 in VAT. It used to £35 with £5.21 to the Taxman.

The cut in VAT will change that to a retail price of £40 and £5.22 of VAT. So it’s gone up £5 at the till, it’s costing me £4.60 more to buy in and the Government aid comes to a whopping 74p. Wow.

I won’t lie. The tax cut will mean I make slightly more money on a copy of Arkham Horror. About the same amount as a Kit-Kat. So whilst I could pass that on to the consumer - overlooking the fact my other overheads have increased such as electricity and my own personal living expenses - it is hardly the massive drop in price that the 2.5% VAT cut is being presented as by the media.

And the media are the ones who exacerbated the credit crunch in to a recession/economic down turn/today’s media buzz word for we’re all fucked in the first place.

Sigh.

Nice try Labour, almost a socialist idea for your first time in nearly a decade - cut 2.5% off VAT and then charge the fat cats even more.

But frankly it won’t help me or my customers. Not anytime soon.

Fresh eyes, bad foot

Typical isn’t it? You have a bad day, you blog about it. You get all the negativity out and feel a bit better. Then you have a nice evening, a couple of good days and you want to blog about that to balance it all out and then Live Blog goes down!

Well, it’s back now so here goes.

Wednesday night I caught up with an old friend, the beautiful Kate, in Cheltenham. I got chance to show here the shop too and despite not being remotely into comics she loved the shop. Loved the look of it, the reality of it all. It was really great as seeing it through someone else’s eyes made me realise how much I have achieved this year.

It’s easy to take for granted the things you do to change and improve your life and that of those around you. Days blur into one, weeks become months and what was once a source of great pride can become commonplace and everyday.

Suffice to say, my batteries got a massive recharge, so huge thanks to Kate, currently mid-air between the UK and the US as I write this. She’s embarking on a three week holiday of a lifetime. Good luck matey - have a superb time!

Mind you, Kate was not the sole provider of love and support that week. The other wonderful thing to happen this year is I’ve met a great group of friends down here in Cheltenham, who always rally round when I’m low.

The friends in Swindon have all drifted apart and whilst I love ‘em to bits - real life, social politics and the boring business of growing up have slowed them down. The true friends form Swindon still make an effort, and I with them, but frankly I don’t miss the town anything like as much as I thought I would! So that’s another feather in the cap of the previously maligned 2008. Thanks guys!

I’m also loving the BSG game. I am concerned athat I will overplay it, but so far the game retains variety and the sheer tension that made the first play so captivating. Game of the year? Good well be.

The shitty part of the rest of last week was the accident or whatever with my foot. Perhaps it’s gout - in layman’s terms, the crystallisation of acidic chemicals that would otherwise be flushed out in your urine.

Instead these build up on joints and form needle like crystals that jab into the nerves and tissue causing swelling and intense pain. Stereotypically it affects the obese, though it is linked more to the acidity of your diet than your actual weight.

In the same way that the body can only excise so much alcohol, it can also only process so much uric acid. This is found in foods ranging from almost all meat, to vegetables like asparagus, mushrooms and cauliflower, to pulses like lentils and split peas.

So it could be that, but it is the top of foot that I’ve hurt - along the tendon that runs from the big toe back to the ankle. The most likely explanation is I put it between the metal bars of my bed frame in the night then turned over. I always was a violent sleeper, as a kid I used to sleep in a single bed next to a wall and was forever trying to bash my brains out!

Strange thing is, I did dream that someone was breaking my foot that night, which many have told me was my body reacting to the external stimuli.

Either way, it’s been swollen like a melon and really hard to walk on. I’ve been gobbling down Ibuprofen and being thankful that I don’t take painkillers for smaller headaches and pains. Plus I found a copraxamol left in my medicine bag and necked that on day two. Though it was stupidly on an empty stomach so I nearly threw up ten minutes later at the bus stop! Ooops.

It seems to be getting better now, so I’m going to attempt to do my final 50 lengths tonight. Final 50 of the swim challenge that is. 1064 lengths or 22 miles in less than 12 weeks. I’ll have raised £100 for the spinal injury charity, Aspire. It’s not too late to sponsor me, head to the link here - http://www.justgiving.com/benfardon

I’ll shall probably blog again later, as I want to talk about the proposed 15% VAT rate. But I’d best do some work first!

Nothing clever or [insert witty comment here]

Today I’m feeling tired, run down, unloved, lonely, unmotivated, hurt and empty. It all seems bloody pointless.

I’m really craving an extra day off, some more time for me. I really wish I was seeing more results from the exercise - i know I have to combine it with improving my diet but time and money is against me and so I’m still mostly eating rubbish.

Everything seems to be being made extra difficult recently. Battles with the landlord, the water board (they wanted to cut off next door, but that would cut me off too and I’m a fully paid up customer!!!), ignorant customers - I’m gonna say it. CUNTS! - and now a message from my old boss has rattled my cage.

What’s the point of it all? I’m only slightly happier running my own shop. Let’s be honest. I would be much happier if there was economic doom and gloom scaring the shit out of me and halting what had initially been reasonable growth. Everyone seems to want to stitch you up if you’re self employed from Government to friends.

This is why I don’t vote. No one has good policies that will improve my life or fall in lie with my beliefs and morals. The majority rules idiocracy we have means that if 30% of the country votes for one party and the remaining 70% vote for others but in smaller segments, that 30% gets power even though 70% said no to them.

Give me proportional representation and I’ll vote again. Till then it is wasted. A vote for Labour or Tory is a vote for the same shit wrapped in a different bow.

I know I’m out of sync having morals - to get ahead now you need to be the kind of person who will fuck over people on house prices, renege on deals to get leverage, etc.

But I wasn’t raised that way. In fact I think people like that are scum. Why am I even friends with people like that? I know it’s all speculation, no one has actually done that to me but some have admitted they see no problem in that and that worries me.

Actually it makes me downright furious.

So as the end of 2008 looms what do I want for Christmas and for 2009?

I want everything to be just a bit easier. I want someone to share the load, someone to confide in, to cuddle, and to be able to do that for them. I want a relationship that compliments my life doesn’t destroy it. Again.

I want to continue to lose weight. I want to eat better. I want to feel less run down, and have more energy.

I want to smile more, not just laugh and hide my true feelings. I want to not have to bite through my tongue rather than be honest.

I want to be more successful and feel that the shop is doing really well rather than surviving.

I want my dear friends to do well and be happy. And I want the people who are obnoxious to us to get their comeuppance. Petty maybe, but true.

I want to write again and feel pleased with the words, characters, dialogue and stories I craft.

I want to stop having to put the toilet roll tubes in the bin myself - seriously how hard is it to cross a room and bin a cardboard tube for fucks sake? I also want the lights in rooms that are empty to be turned off so I don’t end up paying 40% of wasted electricity. Teahc the planet a lesson on your own coin for fuck’s sake! :)

I ended 2007 keeping my goals and problems to myself. Let’s see if doing the reverse at the end of 2008, improves 2009…

The closest I will ever get to talking about religion and theology

I babble on about Babylon 5 more often than perhaps I should but perhaps because within it, whilst writing for Delenn, JMS gets closer to my feelings about the theology and belief than anyone else ever as. More eloquent than I could be. Granted, it is twee in places but there you go.

Here are the lines that best sum my feelings up -

“Then I will tell you a great secret, Captain. Perhaps the greatest of all time. The molecules of your body are the same molecules that make up this station and the nebula outside, that burn inside the stars themselves. We are starstuff, we are the universe made manifest, trying to figure itself out. As we have both learned, sometimes the universe requires a change of perspective.”
Ambassador Delenn, A Distant Star

“We do not have cats on Minbar, we have gogs.”
“Gogs?”
“Gogs. Such creatures are an attempt by the universe to make sure that we never take ourselves too seriously.”
Delenn and Sheridan, A Race Through Dark Places

“Don’t look away, Captain. All life is transitory, a dream. We all come together in the same place, at the end of time. If I don’t see you again here, I will see you, in a little while, in a place where no shadows fall.”
Delenn, Confessions and Lamentations

“What does the candle represent?”
“Life.”
“Whose life?”
“All life, every life. We’re all born as molecules in the hearts of a billion stars, molecules that do not understand politics, policies and differences. In a billion years we, foolish molecules forget who we are and where we came from. Desperate acts of ego. We give ourselves names, fight over lines on maps. And pretend our light is better than everyone else’s. The flame reminds us of the piece of those stars that live inside us. A spark that tells us: you should know better. The flame also reminds us that life is precious, as each flame is unique. When it goes out, it’s gone forever. And there will never be another quite like it. So many candles will go out tonight. I wonder some days if we can see anything at all.”
Sheridan and Delenn, And All My Dreams, Torn Asunder

An insiders guide to comic/game shop retail, part two

So having spent far longer setting the scene and outlining my background than I had intended let’s get down to the nitty gritty.

Comic shop stock ordering is a strange beast.

Other retail markets work by generating interest - through shows, advertising, sales representatives, promotional tie-ins, etc. They then manufacture product based on projected interest and the cheapest trade off between production run and projected sales. Then they take and fulfill orders on said products. If demand is high they do further production runs as deemed appropriate.

From natural yoghurt to natural pine furniture this is pretty much true. Some industries however, prefer to work solely on pre-orders. Special edition sports cars for example.

Comics now work in a similar way. A process called the Direct Market. More on that shortly. First, where did this system come from?

Prior to the Eighties, comics were primarily bought in the US from newstands, drugstores, local supermarkets, toy stores, etc. Comics were printed based on previous issues’ circulations. Unsold copies could be ‘stripped’ (the front cover removed as proof of the item’s unsold status, the rest of the comic would then be binned) and returned to the publisher for credit. This still goes on for books and magazines in places such as WHSmith or your local newsagent.

This was all handled by local newspaper/magazine distribution companies. It was a good system in many ways - comics were accessible all over the place in the US and the retailers could do so with little risk, but the profit margin was slim, perhaps only 20%.

In the Eighties, Phil Seuling (organizer of the annual New York Comic Art Conventions) approached the big comic publishers and proposed to purchase comic books directly. These books would be sold at a lower unit cost, but would be on non-returnable, ‘firm-sale’ terms.

Seuling’s method expanded and more specialist shops began to follow this route. Soon the publishers were producing material just for the Direct Market - more obscure characters would get their own miniseries for example. By soliciting a book in advance of publishing, the big companies could take pre-orders and then print only what was ordered rather than the risk of printing based on previous circulation figures.

In time, the newstand market declined and the Direct Market grew giving rise to several dedicated Direct Market distributors. I will gloss over the business that went on behind the scenes but ultimately Marvel tried to snag a bigger piece of the pie by signing an exclusive distribution deal with Heroes World, one of the major Direct Market distributors. Heroes World would only carry Marvel books and Marvel Direct Market books could only be purchased through Heroes World.

In response, DC, Dark Horse, Image and many of the smaller comic companies signed similar exclusive deals to Diamond Comic Distributors. Suddenly Direct Market comic shops had to open accounts with two or more different distributors to stock the full range and almost all the smaller Direct Market distributors went bust or were bought out by Diamond including their main rivals at Capitol City Distribution.

Marvel ultimately decided that self distribution through Heroes World (now incorporated into Marvel) wasn’t working and they too signed with Diamond. This effective monopoly remains in place today and was investigated as an antitrust from 1997 to 2000. It was closed with no further action because it was decided that whilst Diamond enjoyed a monopoly on North American Direct Market comic distribution, they did not have a monopoly on book distribution.

Translation, comics are too niche for the U.S. Department of Justice to bother with. Sigh.

In the UK we are also in a Diamond stranglehold. In the Eighties, we had Titan Comic Distribution and Neptune Distribution. Titan grew out of Comic Media Distributors and was part of the same company that opened Forbidden Planet in London in 1978.

Neptune grew too fast and expanded into publishing as Trident Comics. Ultimately the whole company was sold to Diamond.

Soon after, Titan decided to refocus on book publishing and expanding Forbidden Planet into a nationwide chain, so they sold the distribution arm of Titan to Diamond.

And what does this mean for you, the comic shop customer?

Well, because Diamond enjoy a massively dominant market share, they have no need to give great customer service. So deliveries are often late, short, damaged or otherwise rubbish. Retailers can complain but only to a point, knowing that they have no other way to get stock and so have to keep Diamond sweet.

This system is almost worse in the UK, where the shared feeling amongst smaller comic retailers is that because many of the higher up employees at Diamond UK are former employees of Titan, Forbidden Planet gets preferential treatment. Whether this is actually true, or if it is simply a reflection of the fact that the two Forbidden Planet chains probably have the largest accounts with Diamond UK is a matter for debate.

Ultimately it is frustrating. Comic shop owners/managers will receive Previews catalogues in the last week of the current month. They have until about the third week of the following month to draw up orders and place them with Diamond.

For the bigger publishers, these figures are then relayed to them some six weeks before the comics will hit the shelves (known as the FOC or Final Order Cutoff) and print runs are produced accordingly - often with some extra copies to cover restocks, but not always. Retailers can add further guaranteed copies to the order up until a title’s FOC, then after that it’s pot luck based on restocks. Other, smaller companies get their figures almost straight away, allowing the retailers no time to increase their orders.

This means that when you see issue #1 of a comic on the shelves - orders have already been placed for issue #2! And the figures for #3 are about to be sent in, if they haven’t been already. So retailers must place orders for up to the first three issues of a comic without knowing how well issue #1 sells! Many cope with this by ordering say 10 of #1, then cutting it to 5 for #2 and 3 or less for #3, hoping that they can get increases in before the FOC. Remember, a Direct Market retailer who has stock left on the shelves is stuck with them - they usually cannot get a refund.

If every comic enthusiast bought a copy of Previews each month and placed orders based on what they like in that month’s catalogue, retailers would have things a lot easier. But most people seem to forgo Previews these days. Instead they place orders for #1 maybe the week before or pick up #1 then add the rest to their reservation, not realising they may not get issue #2 if luck is against them.

Reservation customers are a blessing though. A customer who wants the same title every month gives a retailer almost guaranteed income and makes it much easier to gauge how popular a title is. If the creative team on a comic changes, retailers can see a massive drop or in turn a large increase in copies required. Difficult when orders were locked between three months or six weeks before the comic’s release date.

It is also disheartening to a retailer when a customer cancels his or her order. The shop has between 2 or 3 months worth of comics on order for that customer that may well be impossible to cancel. Suddenly the shop has instant negative equity moving forward unless someone new picks up those books.

All in all, the Direct Market is a mixed bag. It does give higher profit margins on comics than the magazine distribution model, but it comes at the price of a higher risk and a need to be a little bit cliarvoyant when it comes to placing orders.

I’ve been placing Previews orders myself for almost 3 years consecutively now and whilst I have a better insight into what can happen, you can never get it perfect.

Perhaps if people understand the inner workings of the process, it will be easier to understand why sometimes you have to wait whilst I source your missing issue of Captain Britain #2 from somewhere else!

An insiders guide to comic/game shop retail, part one

Hmmm, a new feature on my bloggety blog. A look into the lessons learnt - mostly the hard way - from working in and managing comic/gaming shops over the past decade.

First up, my relevant CV.

1996-1997 - part time sales assistant - Spot-On Models & Hobbies, Swindon

2000-2003 - relief manager - Into The Void, Swindon

2004-2005 - assistant manager - Forbidden Planet, Bristol

2006-2007 - manager - Swin City, Swindon

2008-present - proprietor - Proud Lion, Cheltenham

Plus, I’ve been reading comics since I was 6. My first comics were Marvel UK weeklies including Transformers, The Real Ghostbuster, Zoids, etc. Transformers often had a back up strip of something like Action Force/GI Joe, Visionaries and for a while Iron Man - my first and still my favourite Marvel superhero. It was the days of the red and silver centurion armour.

Years later I was hooked into the Batman and X-Men cartoons and I started reading X-Men UK reprints at my friend’s house, plus the Batman Knightfall and Death/Return of Superman graphic novels. Around this time my Granddad bought me a few Batman DC comics from the newsagent, ones with the fat Comag label spoiling the cover.

In the last few years of secondary school, a friend lent me Sandman and Watchmen, changing my perspective completely.

Then as college began, the great Lee Goodheart opened his comic shop in the Rodbourne area of Swindon, near the Designer Outlet Village. I drove Lee mad trying all sorts of US comics and ultimately adding and cancelling many titles over the months - Superman (the horrible new powers storyarc), Iron Man (of course), Green Lantern (Kyle Rayner, nice but it would be some years before the GL Rebirth story hooked me completely) and then the Heroes Reborn event happened.

It was twaddle, but at the time it was a new take on classic characters with great Image art. I loved it. That lead to Heroes Return and a greater appreciation of the proper Marvel Universe, which lead me to realise how naff Heroes Reborn had been really.

But in the midst of all that, whilst the heroes were missing, another book started. A quiet book. About some new Heroes. Lee was skeptical. But I thought the Iron Man-like one, Mach-1 looked ace. A human jet fighter. So I picked up there early appearances in the Incredible Hulk and Heroes For Hire and then the issue 1. And at the end of that first issue, Kurt Busiek blew my mind by revealing these new heroes were in fact, The Masters Of Evil. HOLY SHIT!

I have every issue of this title bar the embarassing Fight Bolts story arc. Lets draw a veil over that piss poor idea. I love it. At the heart of T-bolts is a story of redemption. Some of the villains grew to love the acclaim and respect that came as being heroes and welcomed the change of pace form the constant life of lies and evasion that came with being bad guys.

So they struck out to become heroes. A path fraught with disbelief, betrayal and hope. I still love it.

True Believers was eventually sold to the small comics chain Into The Void. The new manager Vince was someone I viewed nervously, I missed Lee. But Vince was good people and eventually I began to work for him covering his days off, the time he’d have to travel for meetings and holiday. It was great.

The Into The Void company eventually fell apart through mismanagement by the overall boss. Vince was messed about quite a lot and had to take a lot of stick from disgruntled customers. And finally Swindon was a town once again without a comic shop.

It was then I realised how much community spirit a good shop brought to a town’s comic fans. There had been shops before True Believers, but I never frequented them. Through True Believers I met one of the best mates I’ve ever had - Dave Cousens. We were in Computing A-Level together, but what got us speaking was me pulling out my TB bag to look at my new comics whilst we waited for our lecturer. Dave lived just round the corner and collected X-Men comics. He saw the bag, it sparked a conversation - the rest is history.

Incidentally, sidebar, Dave got bored of Computing and dropped out after a year though we stayed firends ever since. He used to draw in the margins, excellent sketches that showed the spark of talent. Now he’s a professional illustrator. Check out his stuff at coolsurface.com - magic.

Some years passed, I finished my Media HND, failed to find work and ended up working in the pub trade. Without a comic shop in the town I would travel most weeks to one of the shops in neighbouring towns. Comics Showcase in Oxford. Escape Comics in Reading. Forbidden Planet International in Cardiff. Forbidden Planet in Bristol. American Dream in Bath.

Then one day - whilst in FP in Bristol - I saw a sign for an advert in the store. They wanted an Assistant Manager. I wanted a new challenge. So I went for it, but the deadline was just passed. Boo.

I went home, got on with my job, grew more disillusioned with the spoilt fruits of my educational labour and the seemingly dead-end pub job I had and then finally all that stress destroyed my relationship with my then girlfriend. I didn’t help it. Neither did she. Nor did her pet gerbil.

So miserable and wanting a new start I went ot Bristol for comics and THEY WERE LOOKING FOR AN ASSISTANT MANAGER AGAIN!

I applied once more. Got an interview. Went - wearing new shoes that cut my feet to pieces. I hobbled into that interview room and somehow got a second interview. That was even better, turned out they liked my last CV and were fascinated to meet someone who had worked for Into The Void, the famed black sheep of turn of the century UK comic retail.

I got the job. I moved ot Bristol. I was assistant manager, plus head of DVD and gaming/RPG. The latter became my pet project after my years of playing Hero Quest, Space Crusade, Warhemmer Fantasty/40K, Man O’War, Epic, Blood Bowl, Necromunda, Magic The Gathering, VTES, Rage, Netrunnner, Star Wars and Star Trek CCG, Star Wars RPG, World Of Darkness, Cyberpunk 2020, Car Wars, Robo Rally, Settlers Of Catan, Lunch Money, Fluxx all sorts. It was great fun. Reawakening all my old skills from my time as a teenager working at Spot On.

The rest of the job was awful. The manager was never in, feigning illness, or taking extra paternity leave and when he was finally at work doing half days. Some weeks I had only the Sunday off and a couple of times a week I had to take paperwork like invoices home as I couldn’t do that at work and run the store.

The staff were lazy assholes, all hired through nepotism. Friends of the manager or sons of firends of the manager. It was crap. My falt was nice, but Bristol was a horrible. Dirty, rude and expensive like a council estate troll in a night club.

The worst part was the ethos of the whole company. Get them in. Sell them anything that vaguley approximates what they like. Get them out again. Do it again tomorrow. Don’t take time to get to know their names. Don’t learn what they like, where they work, who their family members are. Don’t form a community bond with these people - just sell them comics and plastic tat and get the highest price out of them. Rinse. Repeat. I hated it.

Spot On, True Believers, Into The Void - in all these shops I’d been allowed to befriend people, socialise with them and ultimately serve them better ensuring everyone was happier. FP wanted to strip mine the comic/gaming community for all they were worth.

Eventually I snapped, and the guys at the pub threw me a lifeline. I came home, went back to the pub job and felt thoroughly miserable. For a year.

Then I snapped again.

A few weeks later i ran into Vince in the graphic novel section of Borders. He and a business partner were opening a shop, would I like to work for them?

I feel the scars of Swin City are still too raw to lay bare here, put I bored blood, sweat and tears into opening that shop and fought to become the full time manager. I loved that job for six months, hated it for 12, and finally left to start Proud Lion in December 2007.

On March 22nd 2008 - Easter Saturday no less - I opened my own shop.

Which is quite frankly the scariest hardest thing I’ve ever done.

More on all of that next time.

Methadone Autoignition

So I walked home from the shop after a day of highs and LOWS intending to write a complicated and heartfelt blog about recent events and a comparison to the deleted blog post I drafted recently.

Instead, I’ve realised I don’t see the point.

I do want to talk/get drunk/find some release with some friends but this doesn’t feel appropriate.

What I will say is that I’m fed up of feeling used. That’s seems to be a lifelong malady.

I’m also sick of being constantly afraid. This economic crisis is a horrible time for a new small business owner. Sleep is alien to me now.

The title of this blog was randomly generated using some random site I found. Seems appropriate.

The substitution of drugs for my normal emotional response is very appealing right now.

The MI:13 - Heroclix style!

Geeky blog time!

It’s no secret to those that know me that I am thoroughly enjoying Paul Cornell and Leonard Kirk’s work on Captain Britain & MI:13.

It’s also no secret that I have never, ever enjoyed a game of Heroclix whenever I’ve tried it over the last few years. But last sunday, Rich managed the unthinkable and hosted a game at Reep’s that was bloody good fun. Perfect end of weekend fodder - AND I DIDN’T END UP LOST IN TIME AND SPACE! Long story…

I enjoyed it so much that I decided to put together the core lineup of Captain Britain and co in Clix form. I popped on eBay and quickly found a lovely seller in Canada (whiteschatzi) who had Captain Britain, Pete Wisdom (one of my favourites) and Black Knight.

So I snapped them up, plus Union Jack (not in the coreline up but after recent events ALL British heroes are now formally part of MI: 13 so the book will see various folks called to aid as required, reminiscent of Global Frequency - also Joe Chapman is a great character when written well!).

I also want to put the Thunderbolts together in both original and current line ups, but with the cost of certain Clix that will be a longer term effort, but whiteschatzi did have Mach-4 so I had to snag him - Abe is equally one of my favourite characters. I miss him actually. And the Fixer. I’d love ot pitch a book to Marvel starring those two. I have ideas, but would it sell to anyone but me? Ah well…

As the shipping costs were $8 for up to six miniatures, I felt I should get one more. So I did, but that’s a surprise. A very funny surprise! ;)

So along with the Iron Man from FCBD 2008, I now have a few Clix! Marvellous. So to speak. If I continue to enjoy myself, I will pick up the T-bolts as discussed (Citizen V/Baron Zemo, Moonstone, Songbird, Mach-V, Atlas, Techno/Fixer and Jolt, plus a Hawkeye to replace Zemo for when they’re going straight, and then Green Goblin, Venom, Bullseye, Songbird, Moonstone, Swordsman and Radioactive Man for the new post-Civil War team).

I also want to get a legion of Iron Man armours to represent Tony using Extremis powers as he has a few times, plus the Green Lantern Corps ready for Blackest Night. Great fun.

Plus we have Monsterpocalypse to sink our teeth into!

Fuck all the other rubbish in my life, at least i have some things to look forward to!

Humourous Homophobia aka from Hobo to Homo

Feeling tired and a bit poo, but this did make me chuckle. Taken from Live At The Apollo with Jimmy Carr and Alan Carr.

“I’m Jimmy Carr and we have Alan Carr on the show later on. How about that? I keep getting mistaken for Alan Carr, so what i’ve done is, I’ve stopped sucking men off. Don’t get the wrong idea. I’m a very gay-friendly act. I was asked last year to judge Mr Gay UK. I said, “No problem at all. It’s against nature and against God. He’s going to hell.“

Man, it made my laugh. Then cough and splutter and look around for a cuppa tea.

It’s on iPlayer for a while if you fancy it -

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b008bb38/

Blog Noir

Today's blog is a noir-stylised fictional retelling of events. No offence is intended.

The cold had settled into the town like a tramp in a cardboard box. I’d forgotten my coat, so pulled my shirt closer around me. The office was like ice, the kind of ice that settles on your heart and never thaws. My contacts were running late, all of them. Frustrated, I stepped out into the evening air and winced. The reassuring clack of the dead bolts assured me the office was secure and I set in search of warmer surroundings.

The bar wasn’t much warmer. Clearly the cheaper prices meant cheaper heating. It made sense. I have no heating to speak of so I’m hardly one to talk. I walked to the bar, passing the usual degenerate scum and make-believe common people. In the corner, a man counted his fingers.

The bar itself had a coating of todays slops and the regulars’ dribble. I decided to make this my only trip. I order two whiskeys and retired to a quiet annex by the radiator. It was cold.

Ensuring all the exits were covered I settled in and waited. My phone barked like a day-old puppy with delusions of grandeur. It was Sadler and his new moll, Kate. I knew were I stood with Sadler. Preferably not back and to the left. But Kate was an unknown quantity. Most women treat me like a cockroach in bad trainers till they get to know me.

Then they leave.

Kate was different. She seemed warm and sincere, there was a sense of fun about her that I didn’t trust. This job makes you cynical.

They ordered coffee and gin - not together. We made small talk and reminisced about an older case. Sadler had clued Kate in and she had some sharp observations. Our mutual friend Seaweed was joining us tonight and our last outing had been decidedly eventful.

Seaweed was military, but did some work with us on the side. His style was a curious blend of unsubtle and downright stupid that had an unnerving knack for getting the job done. Though not always the job that you wanted done.

My reverie was broken by the arrival of Husky Huskinson and the beautiful Jenny-Lynn. Our party was almost complete. Usually I work alone, but certain situations require a less discreet approach.

Husky Huskinson is the kind of man you want on your side. A solid dog of a man, with a reputation for never backing down. If shit was gonna go down, I usually turned to him.

Jenny-Lynn was an enigma wrapped mystery. And it was the kind of wrapper a man’s eye would never get tired of. I knew her better than most others, and still felt that I knew very little. She always brightened the night and her presence kept Seaweed off-balance. It gave us an edge over him that could be useful should he step out of line.

Seaweed arrived shortly after. Banter was exchanged and then we headed back into the unwelcoming night to meet the Chinese.

The meet went as could be expected. Messy and ultimately disappointing, like a tub of cottage cheese. But we got out with no casualties and moved onto our only other lead. The 2 Pigs.

The place smelt of sweat and disappointment. We bought a round of drinks and settled into observe the scene. A horrific odour like burnt hair on a turd crossed the room. The smoking ban was not being kind to places like this. Husky and I retired to the courtyard so he could smoke and I could brief him on another case. This one was a delicate situation and I needed his direct perspective.

Sadler and Kate did their best to blend in, making contact with a few of Kate’s contacts under the guise of shoeing off Kate’s new ink - a stunning double rose tattoo across her back. It was an effective ruse and they quickly cased the joint.

In their absence, the friction between Jenny-Lynn and Seaweed escalated. It was clear we’d get nothing constructive from tonight. I touched base with some other contacts and resolved to call it a night. Husky and J-L had to make the journey back to Swindon and I had to be in the office early tomorrow. We slipt into the night and left the others to deal with Seaweed’s increasing beligerence. It wouldn’t make me popular with Kate and Sadler, but the night was effectively a bust.

We stopped by the office and I retrieved a few files, maybe I could make some headway before I got some shuteye.

Cheltenham had been a harsh mistress that night, cold and unforgiving. Rays of sunshine crept into my life in the small hours of the morning, but when you’ve been walking these streets - both here and elsewhere - as long as I have, you learn that life is what happens while you’re making plans.

Even the most proactive among us, is truly only reacting to a grander scheme. Forces of nature, acts of God and the mistakes of men can change your destiny forever. If you find a safe port in the storms, be grateful.

I think maybe I am.

Fiction Rule of Thumb (taken from xkcd.com)

People Are Stupid, Episode One

Some conversations are just plain dumb. I am frequently astounded by the things I overhear or the dialogue people enter into with me.

Example:

Guy enters shop

GUY: This is new.

BEN: Well, we’ve been here about six months now.

GUY: So not that long then.

Guy looks around quickly.

GUY: Have you got any bargains?

BEN: There’s the 50p box here.

GUY: Any good stuff in here?

BEN: Well, mostly they are in there for a reason…

Maybe it’s just me but seriously folks, you aren’t gonna get gold for the rpice of a can of soft drink.

This was a conversation I heard on the bus this morning…

Bus drives past a billboard poster

MAN: I didn’t know he made that.

WOMAN: What?

MAN: Gordon Ramsey. I didn’t know he makes gin.

WOMAN: He doesn’t, they just asked him to advertise it for them because he has the same name. (pauses) Of course, then it sould be called Ramsey’s Gin.

MAN: Huh?

Bless.

Good news and bad news...

Yay! New Red Dwarf for 2009!

http://www.reddwarf.co.uk/news/2008/09/19/new-red-dwarf-specials-confirmed/

I loved Red Dwarf, it was there through all of my childhood and it last transmitted in 1999, the first time I lived in Cheltenham.

OK, so season 7 was shite, but 8 bought back some of the old magic for me in what was otherwise a pretty miserable year.

And now, here I am in Chelters again and blow me down if the boys from the Dwarf aren’t back,

Nice.

Dave are behind it would you believe? They’re actually commissioning new TV! What next? A new UK series of Who’s Line...? Ah man, that would rock. For now though, I have Mock The Week and Frankie Boyle to keep me in chuckles.

Oh and the bad news? My front room has a patch of damp. Found it behind my old lap tray today whilst tidying. It’s killed the lap tray and is too close to my DVD collection for my liking.

Time to call the agency methinks.

I mean, yeah, I dry clothes in that room too but I’ve done that in most house I’ve lived in and it’s never created damp before.

Stupid bloody Cheltenham and stupid bloody water. Days like this i miss the pig hill safety of Swindon.

Never mind, eh?

The different metal music of the world

High above in a castle, there’s a princess who was kidnapped, locked in there and is now “guarded” by a terrible huge menacing dragon”...

HEAVY METAL:
The protagonist arrives on a Harley Davidson, kills the dragon, drinks some beers and fucks the princess

GRIND METAL:
The protagonist arrives, screams something completely undecipherable for about 2 minutes and then leaves…

POWER METAL:
The protagonist arrives riding a white unicorn, escapes from the dragon, saves the princess and they make love in an enchanted forest

THRASH METAL:
The protagonist arrives, fights the dragon, saves the princes and fucks her....... easy and quick

FOLK METAL:
The protagonist arrives with some friends playing accordions, violins, flutes and many more weird instruments, the dragon falls asleep (from all the dancing) and the protagonist leaves without the princess

VIKING METAL:
The protagonist arrives in a ship, kills the dragon with his migthy axe, cooks and eats it, rapes the princess to death, steals the castle and burns the place before he leaves

DEATH METAL:
The protagonist arrives, kills the dragon, fucks the princess and kills her, then leaves

BLACK METAL:
The protagonist arrives at midnight, kills the dragon and impales it in the front of the castle.....then sodomizes the princess, drinks her blood in a ritual before killing her.....then he impales the deflowered princess

GORE METAL:
The protagonist arrives, kills the dragon and spreads his guts in the front of the castle, fucks the princess and kills her....then he fucks again her dead body, slashes her belly open and eats her guts, fucks the carcass for the third time, burns the corpse and fucks it for the last time

DOOM METAL:
The protagonist arrives, sees the size of the dragon and thinks that he never could beat him, gets depressed and commits suicide....the dragon eats his body and the princess as well

PROGRESSIVE METAL:
The protagonist arrives with a guitar and plays a solo for 26 minutes, the dragon kills himself out of boredom, the protagonist arrives to the princess’ bedroom, plays another solo with all the techniques learned in the last year of the conservatory… the princess escapes, and is now looking for the “HEAVY METAL” protagonist

GLAM METAL:
The protagonist arrives, the dragon laughs at the guy’s looks and lets him enter, he steals the princess’ make-up, convinces her to dye her hair and tries to paint the castle in a beautiful pink color

INDUSTRIAL METAL:
The protagonist arrives wearing greasy overcoat, makes an obscene gestures towards the dragon, and gets escorted out of fairy tale land by security guards.

FUN METAL:
The protagonist arrives with a CD of HELGE SCHNEIDER, the Dragon gets a fit of laughter and the princess eats a slice of bread with cheese.

with thanks to me old mucker Zoe Strobe! :)

Welcome To Intermission

After all the strife of recent days, here’s something that tickled me no end recently…

This Blog Is Not Yet Rated

You know, I was gonna piss and moan about what a shit day it was.

But it wasn’t. Not all of it.

I had a bad few hours where I discovered I had been mis-sold a product and that no one would accept culpability.

And that the regulatory bodies who are supposedly there to protect us…

...don’t.

I had a salesman stand in my shop. Look me in the eye. And promise that his company could save me money on my telecomms service.

That has not been the case. I will save money over the next few years, but at the cost of a penalty fee that was never supposed to happen. A distressingly large fee. I won’t end up better off, put it that way.

I shan’t go into it any further. It’s boring and upsetting.

But somewhere out there is a man who lied to me. Lied to me to my face. I hope karma gets you sir - for you are a shit.

In fact, any salesman who lies to get a sale. Anyone who dishonestly makes a buck at the expense of his fellow man. Every person who is able to do that everyday and then come home, have a decent night’s sleep in a bed lined with the money stolen from someone else and never let it bother you. To all of you, I have one sentiment to offer.

Die.

I will never ever lie in my store. And if I eventually find myself in a position to hire staff ,that will be spelt out as gross misconduct. If a customer asks me my opinion on a product, I will tell them the truth.

If I haven’t read it or played it and thus have no frame of reference, I will not lie and say I have to make a sale. If I think it’s shit, I’ll say so. I would rather mark an item down to cost price or lower to clear it than polish a turd and call it gold.

I cannot say who the telecomm provider were who ripped me off. SUch sNide behavIour CannOt be allowed in My blog. Nope. That would not do. Hmmm, where did I put my UNIcycle? Is it behind the COMpost bin?

It has been one of those days where I despise of my fellow man, A friend whom I respect said yesterday that he believes that most of humanity is basically decent.

I agree.

The rest of them work in sales.

Booooargh!

More bullpointy bloggetty blogging fun…

* I am indeed a tad squiffy.

* Darren’s was ace, but sadly brief due to rubbish train times. I missed some folks I wanted to see, but also thankfully some I didn’t…

* And I was mistaken for Roy! So that’s one goal achieved! Bless…

* I have realised via the mediums of bourbon, trains and an iPod that Bleed American by Jimmy Eat World makes me want to learn to play the bass guitar.

* Of course The Color And The Shape by the Foo Fighters make me want to learn the drums so both are unlikely to happen.

* I’m contemplating an extra swim sesh in the late morn’ of the ‘moro. Am I nuts?

* I am mostly glad to see the back of this week to be honest for various reasons.

* I’m gonna have to skip another Judder due to fundage. Sigh. Bloody birthdays and new gym passes.

* And I have nothing else interesting to say. Ah well…

* Oh, in case the Large Hadron Colider ends the world next week and I forget to say it before then - you guys all rock. Loving your work. Keep on trucking. And big hugs to all - except those who don’t like to be touched and then i’ll just wave affectionately.

Water, water everywhere...

Horrible weather isn’t it? Again.

Still, no moaning from me about that here.

Instead I’d like to talk about the English Channel.

I’m going to swim it!

Well, not literally. I’m going to fo the Aspire Channel Swim challenge. Between September 14th and December 7th, I need to complete a total of 1064 lengths of pool to equate the channel.

I’m currently doing 24 lengths a session and intend to get this up to 30 next week.

Then, 3 times a week I shall go and do 30 lengths per session. Then on my last session before the end date, I will only have to do 14 lengths to hit my goal!

I shall keep you apraised, but this seems like a great way to spearhead my new drive to do more swimming.

The charity Aspire works to help people “with spinal cord injury to create opportunity, choice and independence.”

I will be raising money for them whilst doing this - you can sponsor me here.

I don’t expect anyone to do so - times are hard and mandatory begging for charity is crass - but if you feel inclined please do so.

Thanks folks.

Wish me luck!

Bullet point blogging

* Tired, must sleep, but first blogging…

* Gen-Con UK => crap

* Day out with new friends => fun

* “Put A Donk On It” => worst song ever…

* …though it has inspired the donk card. A penalty for tasteless or tacky jokes/comments.

* A card which is going to be far sparklier than it is now apparently.

* Pool in Cheltenham now open! Woot!

* Membership is costing me about £7.50 more than the swim only pass in Swindon and gives me access to the pool, the sauna, the spa, the gym and the running track amongst other things.

* Pros - shiny, newly refitted facility, 50p lockers, free-to-use hairdryers, swimming lanes that are 1.5 times the size of those in the Health Hydro in Swindon - one lane up, one lane down and an overtaking lane - simple but effective.

* Cons - co-ed changing rooms (individual cubicles though) and with only one major leisure facility in Cheltenham it has a rather high percentage of chavs (hopefully just because it was newly reopened, they were bored and it is still the summer holidays).

* Summer holidays - how I chuckled to myself as I wrote that. So long summer.

* I did 24 lengths today, now bad for my first time in six months. When I started back to the pools in Swindon in January it took be ages to build up to 30 from a paltry ten per sesh in the first week, so I take a small measure of pride in that.

* Warhawk now has jetpacks - bloody good fun.

* Finally, I’m back in Swindon on Saturday 6th for Dazza’s birthday - will be around for just a couple of hours due to trains - unless I get an offer worth staying overnight for! ;)

* That is meant not in a lothario/Jabba The Hutt kinda way and more in a any-mates-wanna-meet-up-Sunday? kinda way.

* I’ve been hiding my lack of a haircut with gel and some lame styling but I need a haircut - anywhere good in Cheltenham to go? By good, I mean good - AND CHEAP!

* I’m off to see John Barrowman and Russell T Davies talk at the literary festival.

* I’m still nuturing dreams of going to Edinburgh Festival, Essen and SDCC in the coming years. Forlorn dreams that require money SO COME TO PROUD LION AND BUY STUFF! :)

* Although I shouldn’t really go to essen for I am cursed when it comes to games shows it seems.

* Got to replay and complete Beneath A Steel Sky this week. Bloody good. I miss point and click adventure games. If Sonic is going 2D sidways scrolly again, can’t we have Guybrush or Ben Throttle or Robert Foster back in glorious SCUMMy glory?

* Gemma has sold her house! Congrats to her - still worried about where Boots will end up living though. I wish I had a house/flat where I could have a cat. :(

* Games night is going really well - loving that, so thanks to everyone. Has really helped me feel more at home in Chelters and has (for the most part) banished the blues of my early self indulgent blogs.

* Finally, just saw the BBC1 repeat of Mischief: Britain’s Really Disgusting Foods. That was revolting - and whilst it’s not news most of it, I would say it is certainly harder to ignore that knowledge when you have seen it laid bare so disturbingly. If you want to know what I mean, watch this on iPlayer over the next 7 days. Not for the faint hearted. :)

Whubbley Mountain Lions & Icebergs

Cats. Working. Hating their job.

That sounds like my old life - before the shop.

Go here.

Do it.

Also, I have concluded this my best piece of Photoshop thievery - in that it looks good, not that the stealing was good.

It was produced as the poster for an evening of, oh sod it - read the bloody thing! Should be very good!



Finally, the picture below is symbolic of my life. I loves it I does. It is the artwork for the new Biffy Clyro single I prattled on about recently. It’s awesome and is out next Monday.

I am having both images professionally printed to adorn my walls. Go me.

Oh, and I am reflecting on one year on since… balls and gnash gnash grrr.

Still one year on from December 07 - January 08 shall hopefully be aceness and shiny apples of joy, so there’s that to look forward to.

Message ends.

I am the mountain, I am the sea, you can't take that away from me...

Hmmm, I only seem to blog when annoyed. I guess because it is an open forum and writing it down can be carthartic.

Well, today I’m in a thoroughly good mood. Had a long tiring week, but an enjoyable weekend which included Warhawk, Jim Beam and Starship Troopers with Husky on Saturday, then a trip to see Benji in Worcester on Sunday.

I’m still enjoying listening to music on my iPod I had long forgotten about, so expect more lyrics as I see fit. It’s nice to hear music for pleasure rather than the anthems for cash that was my life as a DJ.

My new exercise and breakfast regime is going well. I’m currently doing situps morning and night and keeping a diary of what I’m doing to help me form the habit. The leisure centre here reopens on September 1st, so I’m planning to start swimming three times aweek again as I was back in Swindon before I started the shopfitting. So that’s a work-in-progress that I’m pleased about.

Money is tight this month after a night out with Neil. Keeping up with that boy and his seemingly bottomless pockets is very draining financially and emotionally. Our night was taking a turn for the amorous when Sadler reeled in two lovely ladies before declaring his love for his girlfriend. I was able to capitalise on said groundwork and all was going charmingly. Then Neil managed to bugger it all up with one of his tetchy rants. Bless him. I wouldn’t mind but the phrase “she started it” is not acceptable out of the mouth of any bloke over the age of about nine!

Games night is going very well at the shop which is great. Murder City highlighted how rusty my roleplaying skills have become, so hopefully the forthcoming free-form RPG that Rich is running will give me a chance to give them a workout. The last lot of RPG I did saw me GMing it all so it will be nice to get back to playing.

Had an invite to do some LARPing separately to the stuff a lot of my friends do. Daunting, but nice to break away from the stuff like Renewal and have my own experience rather than one informed by others. I had previously tried to explain to folks that I had some rubbish experience with LARP in the past but got a torrent of abuse including my favourite - “Of course you wouldn’t like it, it’s exercise after all.” You know who you are, and you still draw breath through my good grace monsieur.

Anyway for now I am slave to the shop, so it won’t be till next year at the earliest.

Right, must wrap up and get my head down but I shall leave you with these thoughts:

If you order a cooked breakfast/fry up always try a mushroom first. If they are undercooked don’t even consider trying the meat!

There is no way to ask a couple to keep the noise down when they have sex without sounding like a prude - especially if you are single.

And finally, this from xkcd…

The Lion, the Bitch and the Whore-drobe.

Drunk, I am. Make sense I may not. Hee hee hee hee…

Neil back in the house. Army Neil that is. For those that know him he needs no introduction. Those that don’t, Neil is in the REME (wReck Everything, Mainly Electrical) in the Army. He’s a Corporal who has jsut been promoted to Sergeant and some would refer to him as a liability.

Tonight I was reminded why!

Back from work, shower, change, Neil arrives. Off into town, Pizza Hut, small meal then Revolution for a banquet of JD, coke, chilli vodka, porridge vodka (seriously) and the arrival of our third Mouseketeer, Sadler.

Sadler again needs no introduction to most. The rest of you should just imagine.

Sadler, Neil and I eventually move onto the ‘spoons after much perving and drinking. Sadler is driving so his consumption is purely non-alchyfrolic.

Eventually we end up in a blues/rock bar. I forget which. Neil strolls in like he owns the joint missing the fact there is a cover charge on the door and is hauled back out.

Good start.

We get drinks, we get seats, and quickly we upgrade to safas. We eye a girl who is slinky and clearly looking for a good time but as latched onto two lame guys, one of which is sadly in truly awful white shorts.

Game for a laugh, we egg Neil on and send him up to try to sweep her away.

Her response? “Got any ketamine?”

Classy.

Neil makes small talk then extricates himself from the formerly slinky girl, now known to us as simply, ‘nuts’.

Then Sadler and I catch the eye of a girl sat at another table who comes over. She introduces herself with the opening gambit of, “you look like Orlando Bloom”.

This is aimed at Sadler I hasten to add. She wasn’t blind.

She then introduces herself to me and the boy, and asks if her friends can join us. Moments later, Jane and her cohorts join our talbe in one big happy table.

Sadler makes it discreetly clear he’s attached and Jane’s focus turns to me. We discuss real film names turned into pornos and I unleash and an old favourite - Glad-he-ate-her. It is a hit and we’re all laughing like drans. Jane moves so that our legs are rubbing against each other and we chat some more.

I feeling pretty damn God-like at this point.

Then we tune into Neil’s conversation with Jane’s friend. Sadly I’ m shallow enough to have missed her name.

Neil is trying to guess her weight, dress size and number of previous sexual partners.

The night deteriorates.

He’s a fucking plum,

All in all it was a quality night. I love that dumb fuck, he’s great.

Although Jane was damn hot. Beautiful even.

And i’m no Orlando Bloom, but second place is better than last.

Ah well.

Curses!

Hmmm, do I swear too much? I’ve always felt that the English language in all of its forms should be enjoyed and used. That includes so-called rude words.

These words are actually only offensive because modern society has deemed them thus. The words are usually shorthand for a person to vent their frustraton, exaggerate a situation or attack another.

You can do all three without swearing. I can put enough vitriol into a sentence without using a single rude word and cause more offense than an f-bomb.

In fact, people that tell me to fuck off probably won’t upset me. And yet “f-off you fat (anything)” will upset me far more.

Any words can hurt or offend depending on the intention and the emotion within them.

Interpersonal communication theory teaches us that the medium isn’t the message.

And so I use curse words in my everyday speak. Perhaps not much in the shop and not when I first meet people per se, but it is part of my vocabulary and so on.

If it does offend anyone, please just let me know. I don’t agree with you but I can respect your beliefs and try to moderate my language in your company.

But please, don’t judge me as being any less intelligent just because I don’t speak Queen’s fucking English. :)

Strange little day

Hmmm, what an odd day. I have wired in a nice new remote control wall mounted fan above my till point that should keep me cooler and happier at work. That went off without a hitch (well, thus far) and provided a nice sense of achievement.

I’m banging my head against a brick wall with my ecommerce software which is apparently not entirely compatible with Access 2007, something they failed to make clear when I bought the package pack in January. I am bracing myself for a lengthy battle to get my money back if a suitable solution doesn’t present itself soon. Sigh. No achievement there.

I started to replay Soul Reaver 2 for some nostalgia value only to discover the PS3 creates a strange bug where it fails to render one pillar that is vital to the completion of the Dark Forge section which occurs early in the game. Without it you are screwed!

Apparently you can dump your save game on a PS2 memory card, get past the section on a PS2 and then continue without a hitch. Annoyingly you need the USB => PS2 memory card adaptor and I simply can’t be bothered to buy that when I’m already hankering after a Dualshock 3 anyway. Ah well, looks like Raziel will slip back into the void till another time.

If Eidos had any sense they’d port all the Legacy Of Kain games onto the PS3 and stick them all on one shiny BD-ROM. Come one, it’s two PSone games and 3 PS2 games in total, easy. And as a fan of those series I would snap it up and I know four other people off the top of my head who probably would as well. It’s all of the games in one place, would save me room on my shelf and you could fix said annoying bug. Hell, you could even sell them seperately as downloads on the PSN store thus maximising revenue from a simple bit of porting. Fricking genius, I am. Eidos, I am available on a work for hire basis, but the shop comes first.

To top it all off just as I’m reeling from that blow, I discover Srabulous has been removed from Facebook just as Tony and I started a monster new game where we both started with a bingo each! Sigh. I do think Hasbro have every right to protect their trademark though and Scrabulous was a BLATANT rip off.

I’ve added the new Scrabble app and it is shinier than Scrabulous. i know some folks will complain about the corporate monsters takng down the small fish but frankly, copyright violations should be enforced, whether it’s a corporation with a billion patents and copyrights or a small company that is one guy plugging away.

Cry liberty and whine at me all you like but you wouldn’t like it if someone stole your good ideas and made money off them too.

Seriously the day someone creates a perpetual motion machine using two magnets and a cat fed on iron filing laced pet food with a piece of buttered toast strapped to its back, I’m gonna be devastated.

I have diagrams you know.

Ticking along

Hmmm. All’s good frankly. I either gave myself a touch of food poisioning last night or I get heat stroke but I feel fine today. Shop’s doing OK, waiting for a call back from my ecommerce software’s support bods. Ho hum.

Had a very shiny weekend on a shoestring budget which was brilliant. Thanks to all.

Ugh, birthday. Can’t I be 21 again? I’ll settle for 25? Sigh…

Stuff and nonsense. EDIT: And oversharing.

A more whimsical feeling has passed over me. I have just been enjoying The Guild which is a little web series written by and starring Felicia Day about a group of gamers who play a deliberatley untitled fantasy MMPORG. It’s very funny and Miss Day proves she is quite, quite talented.

She was Penny in Doctor Horrible. :)

Seriously check it out - http://www.watchtheguild.com/ - I don’t play WoW, but I love the humour in this series. It is partly self funded with the later episodes funded entirely by donations from fans. They’ve won several online video awards - seriously this is impressive stuff. I once conisdered doing something similar as a serious zombie horror series not unlike The Walking Dead but I was too lazy to bother!

Quick aside for anyone who thinks that was me Wow-hating. The I don’t play that game or indeed any WoW is the same reason as to why I don’t take indulge in any drugs stronger than alcohol or weed (which is kinda past me now anyways). Put simply I have a very prone addiction personality). I can be the stereotypical obsessive boyfriend, I clearly love food way too much and i already log far too many hours on Warhawk. I played Oblivion and that took over my life and nearly ended the relationship I was in at that time. So no, I have no probs with WoW, but I’m gonna pass thank you. :)

So anyway, The Guild. Great fun. Check it out.

Further news, I have started to try to be more sensible with my evening meals in an effort to begin a battle of the bulge. Tonight was cous cous with mixed peppers and red onion and a chicken breast roast in it’s own juices. Which was tasty. And I made enough for a couple more quick simple meals.

The big one to combat is the sirens call of the corner shop when bored and lonely in the shop. Which would be solved by actually preparing proper lunches most days rather than wandering off and buying rubbish around midday.

Still tiny steps, yay me.

Anyone thinking this is pathetic or some other fitness Nazi, fat-hater bs can jog on. I’m been wrestling with me weight since I was about 15. I hit my target weight at 18, split with my first serious girlfriend, went to uni, failed to fend for myself and ballooned to a MASSIVE size. Then there was an incident and I had a mild breakdown.

Since then I have yoyoed back and forth. At one point I could wear a medium shirt and was feeling good. Then I got into another messed up relationship and threw away all my hard work. My fault, no one else’s. Now I wear an XXL again.

I’ve tried several different diets, hypnotherapy, antidepressants and regular cardio. Nothing seems to last. I’m just wired oddly. Basically, I have found that the only source of pleasure I can ALWAYS rely on is taste. Everything else is subjective and has at some stage let me down. See addicted to food. What a dick.

I’ve been trying to embrace exercise that I enjoy rather than hideous gym routines and plan my meals and eliminate snacking. After about a month they say things become routine and it should take less conscious effort.

This was going well after I quit Swin City and started to plan for myself. I hit the pool in Swindon about 3-4 times a week and loved it. I had a routine of situps morning and night and I was eating more sensibly. Sadly, adjusting to six day weeks and the lack of a pool here has made that difficult to continue. But I’ll keep on trying.

Another quick aside. Yes, I know about the Lido but the weather had been so unpredictable everytime I took my swim kit into the shop it would piss down. So I kinda gave up. Roll on the reopening of leisure@cheltenham frankly.

Right. Well that was a scary overshare on my part. But fuck it. I’ve been dealing with this shit almost entirely by myself for over a decade. It feels could to write about it. If Kevin Smith can ask fans to knock burgers out of his hand, I can share my little issues with food too.

Dr Horrible's Sing-A-Long Blog. Some rambling musings.

Spoilers follow.

Last week it was everywhere on the internet. Those of us who are of the mind to follow Joss Whedon’s repetoire where treated to three acts of supervillain musical glory.

Now I’ve read a lot of chat from people who were dissatisfied with the final act. There were also grumbles from folks who were unhappy that Joss killed another likeable character as if this has become his signature.

I can sort of see their point. I’m a fan of Whedon’s work but I’m not blind to his faults (I’m looking at you season six of Buffy and season four of Angel). That said I’ve been thinking about Dr Horrible quite a lot recently.

A lot of the plot revolves around making Dr Horrible a likeable character despite being a villain. Neil Patrick Harris is experiencing a renaissance as a comic actor at the moment which is fantastic and frankly he does a lot of the heavy lifting when it comes to selling us Billy as our protaganist. Nathan Fillion helps by playing Captain Hammer as a total “corporate tool” and a huge prat.

That said, the writing team have rooted Dr Horrible’s motivations in frustration with the world around him. He was probably bullied as a child so being victim to Captain Hammer’s humiliation must seem like old hat. This is a guy who’s become so fed up with getting shat on by life he’s turned to the life of a supervillain in attempt to change the status quo. Because as he points out the status is not quo.

That’s true. Joss has similarly seen the worst Hollywood can dish out and has retained enough of his humanity to see that the world is a mess. We can all relate to that. Anyone who has been reading these blogs of mine can see I’m certanly getting fed up with feeling like I’m being trod into the ground by the heel of modern society.

Billy is at pains in Act Two to disregard violence. He wants to be a mad scientist evil villain and reformat the world in his image, not become a psychotic murderer. It’s only when Captain Hammer provokes the jealousy within the Doctor that he vows to kill the superdouche. But even then he hesitates at the final moment.

So perhaps this is Whedon’s message in Dr Horrible. Life shits on you and it will try to make you bitter. You may change your views and embrace a darker path. But you get out of life what you put into it. Or something, Wait, my mobile’s ringing.

Hey Joss. How’s you? Oh, you’ve been reading my latest blog. Uh, how? I haven’t clicked publish yet. Oh, eeep. Is that what Bad Horse’s terrifying death whiny sounds like?

What’s that? We’re reading too much into a 45 minute musical? It’s just something you and your family did as a laugh during the writer’s strike?

Sometimes a dead Wiccan lesbian is just a dead Wiccan lesbian?

Wait, you’re just messing with me aren’t you? Hello? Joss? Hello?

Hmmm, he’s gone.

Well, screw it. I loved Dr Horrible and that’s the moral I’m going to try and derive from the story. If you let the horrible and depressing parts of life grind you down and make you hard you will end up lonelier and bitter.

And you won’t feel.

A thing.

So keep your head up billy buddy...

So, better day.

Gemma came down from Swindon and we took off into town in search of Subways and cinema tickets. We went to see Mamma Mia - I do have a weakness for musicals and Doctor Horrible’s Sing-A-Long Blog has only served to exacerbate that prediliction. Sorry, word of the day toilet paper again.

Anyway, I would’ve looked a bit odd going on my own, but going with Gem means I could just point at her and go, “her choice, her fault” whilst secretly being chuffed too! It’s like folks who enjoy taking their niece/nephew to see say WALL-E (which is awesome btw) so they don;t feel silly.

The film was OK, good fun but I don’t think I’d watch it again. It’s not in the same league as Phantom, Hairspray or Moulin Rouge (which I think I’ll have to rewatch this week, it’s been a few years) but it was entertaining. Gemma really enjoyed it and it was nice to catch up. She’s been busy doing up her house to get it on the market befoe it slumps anymore. She’s emigrating to New Zealand around the end of the year. I’m gnna miss her, friendships with ex-partners aren’t usually this laidback and enjoyable.

In fact, most of them are a chuffing nightmare.

So that definitely helped drag me out of my recent funk a bit. Daft happy singing, a good friend and a chance to show off the recent changes in the shop to someone who knows and appreciates how much work has gone into that damn place.

The shop is like my child and right now it’s in its difficult teenage years. I still remember the love I had for it when I first got it and when it took its first steps but it is rude and sullen these days. At least I can be fairly sure it isn’t on drugs…

Wow, this blogging stuff is starting to make sense. Huh. Inner monologue is fine but where is the line between that and talking to yourself? Then how long before talking to yourself becomes something a tad more concerning? :)

Right, I have the house to myself for a week, so if I start to go nuts again you;ll see it on here I’ve no doubt. But I intend to keep busy and I have One Man Star Wars to look forward to on Thursday, many thanks to Husky and Lou.

Slighty less melodramatic, slightly more drunk, pretty much the same computer...

So, should really sign off on a positive note.

It’s not all rubbish, The shop is AWESOME. I thjink it looks great - most people seem to agree. I’ve hit the target for reservation customers I set myself when I opened two months early. Trade is good and considering the desperate media attempt to create a recession out of the credit issues (I hate “credit crunch”, they were right on Mock The Week it does sound like a breakfast cereal), this even more impressive.

And I have met some great folks here. Quick name check to the nice folks I’ve met (in no particular order) - Charlie, Lee, Sarah and Andy, Alex and the gang, Rob W, Emerson, Rich and Lex, Reep, Tony and Adie, Simon and KJ, Glenn, Laura and the Blockbuster crew, and assorted folks from Cineworld!

The thing about real life - ie, not uni - is there aren’t social events where you meet people or get chance to re-engage with people outside of the professional setting. And being so painfully British and stuffy, the transition from acquaintance to friend is something I seem to do slowly. Dumb, huh?

Plus, everything seems to have rocketed up in price and my money goes nowhere! WAH! A problem we all face I guess, but back in the day I’d have been in our local rock club most nights getting to know peeps. Now I pop out maybe once a month. Usually to Judder, as over the past 5 years it has built up a near mythical status amongst friends I know who have moved to the area, so I kinda have to check it out!

Finally want to name check Dave and Emma who despite having a lot on their plate recently have reached out. Friendship is not defined by geography or eroded by time. Thanks guys. :)

Plus Matt and Krysia, who have to weather my current state of self loathing and depression. The concern shown has been appreciated and not suffocating. Thanks kids. Hope your LARP is going well.

I am using their absence to wander the house naked.

Psych. :D

NB: the author of this blog accepts no liability for your current mental images. Not even that one. You can’t pin that on me, that one’s your own sick, twisted fantasy writ large across your grey and squishy braincicle.

PS - I blame Joss Whedon for my bad dialogue and Brian Blessed for my voice.

PPS - me sleepy. Me sleep now.

The Anti Blog, Part 4

Mind you, I do the song lyric thing from time to time anyway,

Sigh. I will find a blog style.

And maybe some endorphins.

How happy chemicals, where have you gone?

Still I achieved something this week. I levelled up on Warhawk. Jeez, that’s sad.

Hmmm, I suspect that just as you shouldn’t so the food shopping when hungry, you shouldn’t blog when a tad pissed off.

Seriously, really connected.

Complete alone.

The Anti Blog, Part 3

Hmmm, or perhaps I could just post song lyrics…

Any dolt with half a brain
Can see the human kind has gone insane
To the point where i don’t know
If I’ll upset the status quo
If I throw poison in the water main.
Listen close to everybody’s heart
And hear that breaking sound
Hopes and dreams are shattering appart
And crashing to the ground.
I cannot believe my eyes
How the world’s filled with filth and lies
But it’s plain to see
Evil inside of me is on the rise.

(taken from Dr Horrible, Act Two)

The Anti Blog, Part 2

So.

Short. Vitriolic.

Here goes.

Love. Money. Companionship. Less stress. Not too much too fucking ask is it?

The chance to walk down the street without a car/moped full of chavs crusing past and a barely heard torrent of abuse streaming out. Give me a high powered velocity rifle and try that again. Better still - walk up to my face and say it.

Duelling pistols at dawn would certainly thin the herd.

You sir, I call you out. Just you. The rest of your shellsuit wearing mongoloids can wait till tomorrow. Let’s reintroduce a sense of fair play and see how far you get you little shits.

I should get a cat.

We can take over the world together.

The Anti Blog, Part 1

Wow, I am so bad at this blog malarkey. I used to actually have friends to talk to so blogging seemed kinda pointless but since life is kinda lonely here in Cheltenham I should get up to speed with this cyber diary stuff.

Don’t kid yourself folks - blogging is just that. Girly dear diary faff posted on the world wide interweb for many to see.

And now I have joined in.

Don’t get me wrong. Some blogs are ace. I’ve read some great entries and learnt a great deal.

But the vast majority are blah blah blah. Pick up a phone and call someone folks - or share your emotions and thoughts with friends down the pub.

I saw an episode of Supernatural where a demon/creature could fake phone calls, online chat or e-mails/SMS from dead loved ones, gaining their trust before luring them to his feeding ground.

He said that centuries beofre he had to lurk in the forests at the edge of villages and try to beckon people to him at night. Most of the time other villagers would intervene and he’d starve, getting maybe one meal a year.

But in modern times people are so connected with technology and yet so isolated. No one to look out for them or care for them, despite a friend list of over 500 on Facebook or a SIM card full of phone numbers.

It is true. I’m really feeling this at the moment. I know lots of people and yet I’m sat here feeling a bit lonely.

And pathetic.

And i’m blogging like a sodding hypocrite.

Heck, my last post was a whiny, fucked off post too. I’m turning into Warren Ellis with less piss and about the same amount of vinegar!

I should also resort to short braindumps of vitriol.

Hmmm…

Now, dance fucker, dance.

Ugh, what a day. Pissy wet weather to start with. Then Diamond tell me they fucked up and I’ll be getting my large (and I mean HUGE) graphic novel reorder tomorrow along with my normal delivery. I will drown in stock…

Diamond offer this service called a ‘prompt pick’ on all orders over a certain value which means you get it the next day. Well I put one in Monday and it’s not gonna arrive till Thursday, work that one out. Prompt? Fuck off.

9 times out of 10, Diamond fuck up like this. I could go into the reasons why the two Forbidden Planet chains in the UK get better service, but it’s boring for those outside the industry and it boils down to a simple case of an old boys’ network. Once again not what you know but who.

That kids is why brown nosing ass bag fuck dicks will always do better in life than people who work hard.

The thing that really grinds my gears is that Diamond make no effort to offer customer service. I have to give good customer service - I can rarely say what I’m really thinking when people are obnoxious and shitty over simple things whilst at work. And sadly I seem to carry that into the rest of my life. But that’s for another blog.

Diamond know they need to do nothing as they have an unchallenged monopoly. They are the only comic dsitributor of note these days. So they can happily fuck up and as independent comic shops we have to smile and take it as they slip their dirty veiny cock further down our throats.

My games supplier Esdevium know they have competition in the UK so they make more of an effort to keep me sweet and fix any problems. They are ace, big shout out to Esdevium. We had a big delivery of excellent board games for the relocated and shiny Gaming section today. That was brilliant. And arrived the day I expected.

So, the day’s a wash out and I’m gonna slip off and see Kung Fu Panda tonight to cheer myself up. I may even treat myself to dinner at Apres. Who knows.

The one good thing was I finally heard some tracks off new album from The Offspring and it tempted me to shell out for the album.