Things I Did Yesterday 08/06/08

Pasta is on the boil, but yesterday I:

- Worked. In the morning I went in and worked on the order, then in the afternoon I went home and finished editing the Kevin O’Neill interview. This last stuff was quite tricky, as it veered away from the intentions of our initial structure and featured a lot of overlap. I broke it down into a section about O’Neill’s background, favoured work materials and inspirations, then another about the early days of 2000AD and how it changed things for artists. The latter doesn’t quite hold together as well as the other parts, but there’s still some interesting stuff in there. As to the editing, well, when these go up please keep in mind my lack of formal training and the fact that I haven’t edited anything in a good couple of years.

- Watched Isle of the Dead, one of the films from my Val Lewton box set. Genuinely creepy, it’s the tale of a group of people quarantined on a tiny cemetery island in Greece in 1912. An outbreak of plague creates a tense, suspicious atmosphere, as reason is pitted against superstition. The final act, steeped in night time shadows, is chillingly brilliant. I’ll put a fuller review up soon, I think, as I will for all these Lewton films.

- Read some comics, including Criminal Vol 2 #3, which is fantastic. I can’t say enough good things about this series. This issue, set in the early 70’s and focussing on femme fatale Danica, follows the grim tone that the previous issues of Vol 2 have set, all working to create a background for the current-day goings-on of the series. Seriously, a classic comic in the happening.

- Played some TF2 and did very well as a Sniper. There’s one particular server I tend to stick to now. It’s friendly, well-behaved, has a ton of great custom maps and has some nice custom touches: everyone runs around with party hats on and when people die they burst into an explosion of confetti, wrapped presents, cogs and wheels and of course bloody chunks of meat. It’s a nice touch that makes it all feel a bit more fun. By contrast I went onto another server yesterday to try out a different map and it was the usual chorus of “fucking noob”, “suck my cock, faggot”, “fuck you, fucker” kind of drivel that makes you realise that you’re playing with 13 year-olds. To be fair, with the stunted social development experienced by so many shut-ins these days, I’m probably dealing with significantly older folks than that. That being said, sticking to European based servers tends to eliminate most of that, not that I wish to imply anything about our trans-Atlantic neighbours. Though I did happen to log onto a particularly chatty French server one night, which was a little surreal.

- Watched the final episode of this season of Peep Show, which was great. I’m impressed with the quality they’ve managed to keep up on the show across 5 seasons. Hopefully they’ll do more. God knows it’s a better use of Mitchell and Webb than their sketch show.

- Read my book and hit the sack.

- Dreamt I was a bird with a broken, useless wing. As much as I wanted to I couldn’t fly. Couldn’t soar to the ecstatic heights at which I once flew. My wing, flaccid and lifeless, just wouldn’t bear me there. Not sure what it means.