doubleshiny

Yep,on Tuesday July 21st me and Gossi are flying to San Diego for Comic-Con 09!

Excited much!?

I really want us to have some JJ and Joss footage by then so Gossi is measuring the puppets and I'm sourcing wood for the set. Don't want to post spoilers but if anyone knows where I might buy a pigeon I would bevery grateful

Also!

I have bought this tshirt, which I saw a version of in LA but they only had men's sizes, I found this online and was chuffed, it's the coolest shirt ever.

...but only if you do them in a faux ironic way, like I have done with Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs. Otherwise you're still a lamo.

So, if you don't know what Maslow's hierarchy of need is, here's a handy diagram.




So, starting with the physiological needs :

Air : well, check. I will try to breathe more, and I will not take up smoking

Water : I am going to definitely cut down on how much bitter I drink. That stuff is calorific, plus you can get drunk just as easily on double vodka and coke, which costs the same in the pub I went to on Bad Friday this year. (PS I would like to apologise to everyone I encountered on Bad Friday this year.)

Food : I eat too much cheese. I eat more than is sensible for a human being. I will try to eat less cheese this year.

Shelter : You may be aware of the ongoing saga of the decoration of my bedroom. Well, it is almost done, I just need to paint the ceiling and buy a new bed. I resolve to achieve this before next year.

Sleep : I'm pretty good at sleep. I will get that new bed though.

Sex : Taken care of, I'm just going to read more erotic fan fiction (if that were possible)

Safety and Security

I am a very safe person so this one was hard. I might start to actually shield my pin number, even though I think that it crazy and paranoid.

Love and belongingness

I am universally loved. I can't see this changing, so again this one is difficult. I resolve to get three new friends, and I will update you as I go along.

Self-esteem

I would rate my self-esteem at about a 9. I will try for ten this year AND I will help other people to get self-esteem by being nice to them and telling them they're great.

Self-actualisation

Now this one usually takes a long time to achieve so I'm not going to push it, but I reckon I've got it sewn up within the next few years. Watch this space.

I can tag my numerous achievements in these fields so at the end of the year you can look and say "Hey! She DID cut down on cheese this year!"

Watch this space friends.

What I'm currently up to...

Got the Sylar episode guide up to date finally on Zachary Quinto .co.uk , managed to remain mostly spoiler free but not completely - dammit!

Getting excited about The Cribs DVD of Cribsmas, more on www.thecribsonline.co.uk

Getting into the swing of things on the radio show, and had the first edition of the long awaited Challenge Kev. We'll be online soon.

Trying to stop Kev from making the world end by accidentally starting Buffy movie rumours on End Of Show.

Accidentally being rather filthy on the Heroes Podcast 'The List', which is now the only Heroes podcast in the UK! Get in there!



In real life....

FACT film quiz on Tuesday, apparently I am guaranteed to get at least one right, according to the quiz master.

Too many birthdays this month! Me, my brother and both my sisters within two weeks of each other.

Still decorating, this is getting ridiculous now. I still have to finish taking the carpet up, painting the floor and painting the ceiling. Then I have to put up three bookshelves, and buy a bed. All before Christmas. Which is less than a month. Oh God....

One of my newly acquired friends is leaving for Thailand for nearly a year! We've only just met! Something I said I suspect..

Running the radio project and watching the kids get so excited about being on air has re-ignited my passion for radio. I'm remembering what it was like to still get an adrenaline rush from broadcasting. Good times.

Played the old squeezebox at a tribute concert for my friend who died this summer. It was a strange but moving affair and I'm glad I did it.

Home Secretary announces that extremists are to be barred from the UK

This seems OK on the surface, but as I sat wearing my Heroes tshirt, drinking from my Heroes mug (which rested on my Sylar coaster as my Sylar action figure looked on in disgust) whilst watching Heroes and thinking about my new Heroes podcast at www.endofshow.com I realised that maybe I would count as some sort of Heroes extremist? I worry about these things, but clearly not as much as I should.

McCain or Obama?

Although I am a fan of the former's oven chips, I am more of a fan of Obama's good sense and sound policies. Apparently Zach Quinto is having a calling party where he will invite people over to call voters in swing states. Does this guy know how to party or what? I would volunteer but I fear a harsh rebuttal.

Kerry Katona

As argued fervently on my radio show, she's a grown woman who was quite capable of pulling out of a TV interview if she wanted to, and she had her husband, manager and publicist there to apply common sense, none of whom did. She is not a brainless puppet, so why act like one and then blame everybody else for gawping at her. And if I find that even a cockeyed look was given to the glorious Phil Schofield by any one of her entourage I shall issue a smackdown.

Sir Allen Stanford apologises for giving cricketers' wives a lapdance

My favourite story of the day, and I feel that there is little more to say on the subject.


What else has DS been up to?

Decorating my bedroom. It's going to look so awesome when it's finished that I'm considering having a few one night stands just to show it off.

Writing a credit crunch article for www.swinemagazine.co.uk    Don't worry, it's not a serious one or nuffink.

Neglecting my town on Animal Crossing  I am so busy with other things that I spend all my time weeding.

Watching Supernatural Season 2   I'm catching up very. very slowly.

Podcasting about Heroes  At www.endofshow.com

Reading Mylar fan fiction  I feel like I've got a disease, but one I quite like. No more Mpreg though, it's weird.

Campaigning for Obama  By putting a button on www.zacharyquinto.co.uk Every little helps!

Band practise  For a tribute concert on November 21st at the Quayside in Runcorn. I've been vocalising and squeezing my box.

I know it's early but seeing as hotel rooms in the gaslamp area of San Diego are gone already it's clearly on other people's minds too. I had an awesome time at Comic-Con this year and decided to go back next July. The savings account is going pretty well, I'm owed £450 which will be going straight in there when it comes through so fingers crossed I should be able to get my flight by Christmas. Here's my to-do list:

1. Get my brother's girlfriend to get me a cheap flight

She works for a travel agency, so any money she can save me on flights can go towards t-shirts.

2. Get a credit card.

America doesn't work without credit cards and Gossi won't be there to book stuff so after 28 years I am going to get my first ever credit card. I got one with space stuff on it. I'm sure it has other information attached to it, but, space stuff!

3. Book a hotel

Now, I know what you're thinking, it's very late to be booking hotels, but I thought I had one, until I looked at the prices and realised that with single occupancy the room cost somewhere in the region of $2000 for one week. Looks like the luxury of the Good Nite Inn Sea World again, unless I can find someone to share the nice room at the Porto Vista.

4. Get restraining order lifted.

Well, ZQ might be there.

5. Make some friends

Obviously most of the day time I'll be in panels/buying tshirts/climbing up ZQ's balcony but at night I need to drink, and there's only so much time you can spend at the bar on your own before people start asking if they can call someone for you.


So only a few arrangements to make really, and I do have eight months. Comic-Con here I come!

1)      The phone rings; who do you want it to be?
I want it to be my brother but it never is. It’s usually someone who wants me to do something that I don’t want to do.

2) When shopping at the grocery store, do you return your cart?
Me and my mum have a deal, if I return the trolley I can have the pound for sweets.

3) In a social setting, are you more of a talker or a listener?
It depends how drunk I am. I’m a great listener when I’m drunk because in my head I’m planning what I would do if I woke up with super powers.

4) Do you take compliments well?
Not really. Though I don’t get much practise.

5) What super power would you love to have?
I would love to have teleportation. It would also be good for the earth because my carbon footprint would be zero.

6) If abandoned alone in the wilderness, would you survive?
Absolutely, I have read a book about survival and know how to make shelters and which mushrooms to eat (all of them).

7) Do you like to ride horses?
Yes I do. I learned to ride a horse a long time ago, it’s a necessary skill in case all world’s transport systems suddenly and inexplicably failed.

8) Did you ever go to camp as a kid?
I went camping once with the playscheme for a week, and it was rubbish. A girl’s sleeping bag got wet and I had to give her mine – how is that fair? I had to share a one person sleeping bag with my friend Michelle Williams for three nights. Needless to say we don’t speak of it anymore.

9) What was your favourite game as a kid?
The game Hotel which is like Monopoly, but for people who are billionaires. My family used to play it with frightening regularity, and although it was a realistic game, none of us have actually owned a hotel since.

10) If a sexy person was pursuing you, but you knew he was married, would you go for it?
I have a graph which explains my feelings on this subject.

 

 

11) Have you lied to get out of a date?
Absolutely, you just hurt their feelings if you don’t.

12) Could you date someone with different religious beliefs than you?
I have a graph which explains my feelings on this subject.

 

13) What was the last thing you saw on TV?

The Supernatural Season 1 finale. (I’m a little behind).


14) Use three words to describe yourself
Not enough words.

15) Do you play any instruments?

I play the accordion and the guitar, but not at the same time.
 
16) Are you continuing your education?
In a manner of speaking – I am going on lots of courses because there is usually a free lunch and sometimes we get to go home early.

17) Do you know how to shoot a gun?
I know in theory how to shoot a gun, but I have never shot one. There are few guns where I live. I have shot a paint ball gun and it was awesome so I probably shouldn’t be given a real gun.

18) If your house was on fire, what would be the first thing you grabbed?
My dogs, though knowing them they’d bite me and leave me to burn.

19) How often do you read books?
Sporadically.

20) Do you think more about the past, present or future?
The future, when we all have robot butlers. I can’t wait for the robot butlers.

27) Have you ever taken pictures in a photo booth?
Why on God’s earth would anyone do that? There’s only one thing in there and that’s a phone.

*EDIT - I have just realised that this says 'photo booth' not 'phone booth'. Yes I have.

28) What was your favourite job?
I quite enjoyed taking photos of children in Santa’s Grotto, but the work dried up around Boxing Day, which wasn’t ideal

29) Do you look like your mom or dad?
Yes.


30) How long does it take you in the shower?
Depends who I’m thinking about. Oh you mean the shower? 15 minutes.

31) Do you own a camera phone?
My phone apparently does have a camera, but the quality is so low that the pictures I take on it look like it has cataracts.

32) Do you have an "ex box" with pics and letters from past lovers?
No, I think that’s tragic. All I keep is memories and lists of their fears.

33) Was your mom a cheerleader?
No, my mum was a pothead

34) Do you like care bears?
What’s not to like? As a female I think I am hard wired to like teddy bears with pictures of rainbows on them.

35) What do you buy at the movies?
That Tom Cruise is straight. Most of the time.

 

I have somehow convinced my friend Kev that it's imperitive he have a Hallowe'en party. This was easy because I did it DS style -

Me - Kev, you should have a Hallowe'en party.

Kev - Erm...

Me - Yay! Hallowe'en party!

So Kev is having a Hallowe'en party. Today he asked me how you have a party so I thought I would share the wisdom.

Step 1 - Find an excuse

There are many great excuses for having a party. Hallowe'en is a good one, so are birthdays, Christmas, New Year, St. Patrick's Day, leaving your job, leaving town, house warmings, anniversaries, Bonfire Night (or Thanksgiving if you're American or Canadian), St. George's Day, etc etc. Generally people don't care what the excuse is as long as step 2 is on the way...

Step 2  - Venue

Here's why Kev's flat is the greatest for parties - firstly, it's central, not in the middle of nowhere so people don't have to drive to get there. Secondly, there's very little in it that is breakable because it's a boy's flat and boys don't have breakable things. Thirdly, it is decorated in traditional boy-style, in that it is sparse and contains no colour. This is like a blank canvas for party decor.

Good venues for parties - boys' flats, warehouses, fields.

Bad venues for parties - girls' flats, art galleries, antique shops.

Step 3 - Booze

You should always tell people to bring their own booze, but there's always this little voice at the back of your head which says "I'll take a 4 pack but there's bound to be booze there when I run out". You should aim to get 40 cans of beer and 40 bottles of beer, two bottles of vodka and some coke and lemonade. This is like a Starter Pack of party booze. Also, you might want to fish out all of the booze that have left in your cupboards, pour it into a bowl and add a bottle of coke. This is called The Bomb, and it's like a power-up. Another good idea is vodka jellies - everyone loves jelly and VJs are like streamers and balloons because they indicate that this is a PARTY and not just a gathering with booze.

Step 4 - Guest List

Guest lists are very important, you can't leave these things up to chance. Firstly, you need your A-Team, that is, five or six people who will definitely be there right from the start of the party. These half dozen will be responsible for creating atmosphere (see Step 5). You then need your B-Team, another half dozen who will definitely show up and stay until the end because they are either awesome, or alcoholics, or both. Once the A and B team have been settled all bets are off ,and they will act as the glue that binds your party together. Choose wisely.

Step 5- Atmosphere

People arriving at a party want the following things to happen - noise, fun, colour and excitement. This won't happen if there is no music, no decor and no people, so you need to have your A-Team gathered, drinking and making merry from the start, with your music pumping and your decor rockin'. I can't stress the decor thing enough - you need to ensure that the room could not be used for a prayer meeting/intervention/wake at an hour's notice, and that means streamers, balloons and general partiness. Anyone who thinks they're too cool for decor probably goes to parties in art galleries.

Step 6 - Music

A big YES to - ipods, CDs and computer playlists. They can run all night, and providing you plan your playlist no-one will want to mess with it. Anyone trying to play DJ without being expressly invited may be subject to the Rule of Chug.

A huge NO to - guitars or any other instruments which require everyone to be quiet and listen. Listening is the enemy of the party. Also, no vinyl or anything which actually requires a human being to stand by it all night, this will not be a fun party for the DJ, adn it should be a fun party for all.

Step 7 - Longevity

Don't be kicking people out at midnight - if you're hosting a party, be prepared for it to go on all night and for people to be asleep on your floor at 12 the next day. This makes an awesome party even more awesome.

So there you have it - an easy guide on how to have an awesome party. Any questions, please post below.

I am generally suspicious of headlines.  I always check quotations, context and tone when I'm told that someone has said something 'outrageous', so when I read on BBC News that actress Rose McGowan had announced that she would have been in the IRA if she was in Belfast in the 1980s I checked out the real sources. The quotations simply said 'My heart bleeds for the cause', which is nothing unusual. American IRA sympathy is something which makes me balk but it's been around for so long that you can hardly still get upset about it.  She was promoting her new film 50 Dead Men Walking, an account of the life of a British intelligence mole who infiltrated the IRA in the 1980s. She plays a 'femme fatale' IRA member, laughably.

Unfortunately, with a little searching I also found this quotation : "I imagine, if I'd grown up in Belfast, I would have 100 percent been in the IRA". (The First Post).

What Ms McGowan doesn't understand is that if she'd have grown up in Belfast she would have 100% have been in danger of having her body parts blown off by the very people who were trying to 'free' her from the clutches of British rule. Let's not beat around the bush here, the IRA (more accurately the Provisional IRA) were terrorists. They killed indiscriminately with bombs and also discriminately with guns. They did not have right on their side because of the British Army's presence in Northern Ireland, and they represented a tiny minority of Irish people.

I have only ever met a couple of Americans who were intent on believing that the IRA were simply brave freedom fighters rising up against an oppressive nation, but they were deluded in the extreme and  very vocal about it. Mickey Rourke gave money to the IRA, some American businesses used to routinely collect for the IRA during the eighties. A relative of mine, an Irishman in the British Army told of his disgust that when ordering in McDonalds in America, he was told to take the money for his meal out of the IRA collecting tin because he had a Dublin accent. That's as offensive as saying "Oh, you're from Iraq? Well, give this money to Saddam with our best wishes". Thankfully the Americans I know are informed enough to know what the IRA did to innocent people in the UK.

Rose McGowan's comments are obscene given the atrocities that took place during the Troubles. Imagine a terrorist group assassinated a relative of George W. Bush, bombed Wall Street and then tried to blow up the hotel where the Republican Convention was being held. Would you expect British celebrities to get away with saying they would have been a part of this? Absolutely not, but the fact is that the IRA assassinated Lord Mountbatten, car bombed Canary Wharf and tried to bomb the Conservative Party Conference and kill Thatcher, and still  money rolled in through Noraid.

Ever wonder why there are no bins in UK train stations? It's because up until 2000 they still had a habit of exploding thanks to the 'freedom fighters' of the IRA. If Rose McGowan's 'heart bleeds for the cause' I wonder whether her heart will bleed after reading this list :

1973 Two of four car bombs explode, killing 1 and injuring 180.

1974 MP Ross McWhirter shot dead in his home.

1974 Bomb explodes on army bus killing 9 soldiers and 3 civilians.

1974 Bomb explodes at the Tower of London killing 1 and injuring 44.

1974 Guildford pub bombing kills 5 and injures 54.

1974 Woolwich pub bombing kills 2 and injures 28.

1974 Birmingham pub bombings kill 21 and injures 162.

1975 Bomb explodes at the London Hilton killing 2 and injuring 63.

1979 MP Airey Neave killed in car bomb outside the Houses of Parliament.

1981 Bomb at Chelsea barracks kills 2 and injures 40.

1981 Bomb disposal officer killed whilst diffusing bomb on Oxford St.

1982 11 soldiers killed and 50 soldiers and civilians injured in bombs in Hyde Park and Regents Park parades.

1983 Bomb explodes on December 17th outside Harrods killing 6 and injuring 87.

1984 Brighton hotel hosting the Conservative Party conference bombed. 5 dead and 6 permanently disabled.

1989 Deal barracks bombed, 11 killed.

1991 Bomb kills 1 and injures 38 at Victoria Station, London.

1992 Bomb kills 3 and injures 91 in London.

1992 Sussex Arms pub bombed, one killed, four injured.

1993 Truck bombed at Bishopsgate, one killed, 43 injured.

1993 Warrington city centre bombed, 2 children killed and 53 people injured.

1996 Truck explodes at Canary Wharf, 2 killed 40 injured.

This list is incomplete, and only features fatal attacks in England. If I were to list all of the attacks by the IRA, and those in which people were 'only' injured I'd be here all day.

If Rose McGowan thinks that she would be '100%' happy to be a part of cowardly, indiscriminate violence like this, she's either stupid or evil. I think stupid is the closer option.





 

I like the Writer's Block idea of writing a haiku about how your day's going. Here's mine...

My phone will not ring
I called communications
No-one will fix it

Sarah Palin has given her big speech and I just wanted to document how frightened I am of her. If the Republicans wanted to counter the feelgood-green-hope message of Obama's camp then they've certainly done it with this terrifying vicious nutjob who makes me want to actually abandon all hope and pack up for a new life on one of Jupiter's more hostile moons.

Her website paints her as some kind of cyborg, armed to the teeth and married to a dog sledder. It has a great stand-alone sentence in her bio "She also runs marathons". It sounds like a vague threat - if you run from Palin you're going to have to make it for 26 miles at least before she leaps onto your back and rips your throat out with her teeth. She's a 'lifetime' member of the NRA, in case there was any suggestion that  anything other than the cold embrace of the grave would remove the firearm from her holster.

Her children's names are even slightly nuts, they sound like they've been named after huskies - Track, Trig, Bristol, Piper and Willow. Someone should tell her that Bristol is English slang for tit. Bristol is the one that's been knocked up outside of Mrs Palin's beloved Christian wedlock. She was quick enough to parade the poor girl and her doomed boyfriend in front of the press and announce that they will be getting married immediately - don't forget son, mom's got an NRA membership, so the shotgun wedding won't just be a figure of speech.

She merrily accepts the nickname Sarah Barracuda. In case you didn't know, the barracuda's chief characteristics are powerful jaws (check, she looks like the lovechild of Bruce Campbell and a bear trap), and a voracious killer instinct (check, just look at those cold dead eyes and you can see that if you were stranded in the icy wilderness of Alaska she wouldn't wait til you were dead before cooking your carcass for sustenance). She is a former beauty queen, apparently named Miss Congeniality but to believe that you would have to conclude that the other competitors were in fact real barracudas. Palin admits to having smoked pot, which seems to be a requirement for presidential candidates of late. Good to know that the potential leader of the free world has a deputy who spent her youth parading in swimsuits, killing moose and getting chonged off her tits. It almost makes her human, but not quite, it's like these foibles have been generated by a random humaniser program.

From what I can tell she certainly don't like them animals. She pushed for people to be able to hunt wolves from helicopters, which I find both baffling and objectionable. It was apparently to control the wolf population and protect the moose. Protect the moose so that people could hunt them, you understand. It seems that the natural predation of the moose involving wolves with teeth and claws and men with guns was not as fair a contest as she'd hoped, so it's up with the armed chopper pilots to decimate the wolf population and leave those defenceless gunmen free to slaughter as many moose as possible.

Polar bears are also troublesome to Palin. It appears that the selfish little bastards make their habitat in what would otherside be perfectly good gas pumping country. Frustrating do-gooders had somehow managed to place them on the endangered species list, what with them being endangered and all, and this upset Sarah Palin greatly. She was so upset she tried to sue the US goverment for doing such a hasty thing, arguing that polar bears loved living alongside the majestic oil platform, because it reminded them of the sky scraping ice caps which she had melted with her laser vision only weeks before.  Whales? Yes, she wants them dead too, they also get in the way of gas and oil development.

Her official website bio claims that Alaskan nature is one of her interests, certainly true! She spends every waking moment trying to wipe it off the face of the earth, encouraging commerical expansion on protected land, and ensuring that the menace of wolves, moose, polar bears and beluga whales were eradicated, to save the Alaskan people from co-ordinated attacks by these numerous and vicious creatures.
Her opposite number Joe Biden looks like Gandhi in comparison. His childrens' names are Joseph, Robert, Amy and Ashley - pretty normal. You don't get the feeling that those names are actually acryonyms devised by United Robitics. He pretty much wins on the 'good kid' ticket - while Bristol Palin is attending ante-natal classes whilst also shopping for wedding dresses his son Beau is being shipped out to Iraq as part of the National Guard.

Biden's personal dislikes are not endangered animals or equality but violence against women and denial of educational progression to poor children. Biden for the win then, it seems.

I decided I might make my latest work in progress a little more public because I've been accused of secreting it away Secret Squirrel style because I can't handle the criticism. That's so not true! Actually it is, but I'm not going to be posting whole chunks of script, just random bits and exercises. To bring you up to speed my new sitcom that I'm working on is about people who typically work at weddings, so we have a barman, photographer, videographer, two DJs, a nightmarish venue manager and an annoying table magician  who all work in the same venue at various weddings. There's a B story which is probably the A story involving a will-they-won't they with the videographer and the barman, called Molly and Simon. Nico is the photographer and AJ is the DJ. Anyway, Gossi directed me to Jane Espenson's blog which I have been devouring and which has led to my most productive writing period in a while. I also like the new format of MS Word which is making the whole formatting thing much easier. Anyhow, here's the first post about 'Other People's Weddings', coming to a screen near you, erm, one day.

The Blogalyser reveals...

Your blog/web page text has an overall readability index of 15.

This suggests that your writing style is conventional
(to communicate well you should aim for a figure between 10 and 20).Your blog has 27 sentences per entry, which suggests your general message is distinguished by verbosity
(writing for the web should be concise).

CHARACTER MATRIX

male		female
self		world
past		future

Your text shows characteristics which are 57% male and 43% female
(for more information see the Gender Genie).
Looking at pronoun indicators, you write mainly about yourself, then the world in general and finally your social circle. Also, your writing focuses primarily on the present, next the past and lastly the future.

Today I was juggling for money, in that I was at work and I was learning how to juggle on company time. The circus skills guy is called Harry and he's a regular fixture at my workplace where we're always trying to get the students to do stuff whether they like it or not. Whenever we need a bit of team-building or confidence training or any other buzzword we call Harry and he brings his juggling balls and devil sticks down until senior management are happy that we're all having fun.

I like the diablo, but despite the fact that I must now have been through Harry's circus school half a dozen times I still can't do it very well. I can throw it up and catch it but that took me almost a year and I haven't progressed much further. Circus trainers have a weird effect on people, we seem desperate for their approval. It's so rare that we're actually starting to learn an elementary skill any more that it almost seems imperative that we have constant re-assurance. Every time I twizzled that devil stick or caught the diablo I was looking up to Harry for approval and possibly a treat. A weird phenomenon.

Today I met someone who dosn't know how to do McDonalds. I didn't think these people existed outside of some former Yugoslavian territories but a middle aged guy who was with us had no idea how McDonalds worked. He was trying to order a McMuffin at 1.30pm, didn't understand the concept of the meal deal, couldn't work out where the bin was and thought that he had to eat outside because he mistakenly asked for his filet o'fish 'to go'. He assumed there was some VAT related reason why they even bothered differentiating between 'to go' and 'to eat in' and was probably worried that the manager would come and turf him out of a seat or demand an extra 6p if he didn't immediately vacate the premises.

More DS Bulletins

My brother borrowed my laptop whilst I was away and now it won't load the internet from our wireless router for absolutely no reason. The little dialogue bubble keeps taunting me by saying 'Connected to Belkin54g, and the signal is bloody brilliant, why don't you dive in?'. Then I click on Firefox and it looks back at me as if I'm an idiot. I feel like it's the internet equivalent of gluing a pound coin to the pavement and watching people try to pick it up.

I have some new pics of Zachary Quinto at the Ojai playwrights conference that I found through clever sleuthing (or clicking on their weblink, as it's sometimes known) and I feel fine.

I had another damn sex dream about a slightly embarrassing TV actor. Ten DS points if you can guess who it was (Kev, you can't play and I wish i had never told you).

Tomorrow I'm off to London to see The Cribs. Hurray!

OK so I stole it from Star Trek and changed the show but it's still mildly diverting.

First write down 10 Heroes characters and number them.

1. Sylar
2. Matt Parkman
3. Hiro Nakamura
4. Claire Bennet
5. Nathan Petrelli
6. Mohinder Suresh
7. Noah Bennet
8. Angela Petrelli
9. Claude Rains
10. Nikki Sanders

1. What do you and 8 have in common?
We're both ruthless harridans.

2. Which other character on the list would 4 get busy with?
I think Claire has a secret thing for Sylar, and yes I probably have been reading too much fan fiction.

3. Which character on the list would 7 kill if they had to?
He'd kill Claude Rains, but not Sylar. I think he has a thing for him too.

4. Which character on the list is most likely Sylar's next victim?
I like Mohinder but I kind of what to see Sylar smack him about a bit. (Again, without Petrelli turning up).

5. 2 got turned into an animal! What animal is it?
A grizzly bear, who would read you mind to find out where the picnic baskets are.

6. You go on vacattion with 1, where do you go?
Switzerland to tour the antique timepiece museums. That would keep him quiet.

7. What would you do if 3 confessed their love to you?
Run a mile, everyone Hiro fancies ends up dead or kidnapped or something.

8. If you could have any power from the characters in the list, which would it be?
I would have Hiro's power, but I would only use it for convenience, not the good of humanity or anything.

9. Which characters would you kiss, marry, shove off a cliff?
Kiss Parkman, marry Sylar (he has life insurance right?), shove Rains off a cliff, though it didn't work the last time.)

10. If 9 and 2 were in a plane crash with you and there were only two parachutes, which would you give the spare to?
I'd give it to Parkman, I'm not down with the whole 'us northerners need to stick together'.

OK, last week I wrote this huge post about Comic-Con and for some reason it never showed on my journal. Perhaps it was the internet gods saying "You know Kirst, there were no real insights in there, why do you have another go and in the meantime we'll just delete this hour's work". Well, screw you internet Gods! Now I can't remember what I wrote so I'm going to have to go through my little notebook to see what I did on my holiday. I will break it into manageable chunks.

Shout Outs To The US -massive (aka some of the people we met)

At the LA Greyhound station there were a couple of people clearly going to Comic-Con. One of them was a guy named Greco from, as he put it,  'the crazy country of Chile'. He had a costume from Battle of the Planets and he was very excited to be one of the 50 people chosen for the masquerade. We mentioned that we had mistakenly got two passes each and he gave us his mobille number asking whether he could have the spare for his friend. He told us he knew someone at the Dark Horse booth but when we tried to deliver said pass they said they'd never heard of him. Greco showed up at a few Q and As, usually asking completely nuts questions. One of them was to the Family Guy panel - "When are you going to make fun of the crazy country of Chile?", to which Seth Green responded "How about right now?".

At the Browncoat social on the Saturday night (while others were schmoozing with Joss and getting invited to the IESb party with Zach Quinto, not that I'm jealous. Except I am) we met three great kids called Jasmine,Mike and I forget the other one. They were really cool though and we had a great time talking to them about all sorts of nonsense from Eddie Izzard to tiger training. Also in attendance were the awesomely hard working people from the California Browncoats and it was a great night, I'm glad we did it.

It was also great to bump into people from various message boards and internet places at the Browncoat fan panel where me and Kev talked about Serenity marketing and websites and ended up inadvertently launching our new collaboration 'JJ and Joss', whih is a musical puppet show based on the early life of Joss Whedon and JJ Abrams. People laughed at the concept, or towards the concept, which is good enough for me.

TV Is Awesome (aka Panel time)

The first panel we went to was Doctor Who and Torchwood in Ballroom 20 on Thursday. Steven Mofft, the new showrunner and writer of Doctor Who was very funny and the panel altogether was great, I had no idea that there was such a strong Who folllowing in the US. I accidentally ruined the series finale for a guy next to me because I didn't realise that they hadn't caught up yet, so sorry mate.
Torchwood panel was basically the John Barrowman show but I got some sweet footage of him singing a song from Miss Saigon with Naoko Mori.

Friday was the Dr. Horrible panel, which was legen- wait for it - dary. You'll have seen it on youtube no doubt so I won't bore with the details but it was nice to keep seeing Dr Horrible and Captain Hammer tshirts everywhere. I got myself a Dr Horrible one because the airline lost my damn bag and I literally had nothing to wear. I spent about £50 of Air France's money on shirts through the weekend. The screening of Dr Horrible was nice too, great to see it on the big screen and here the anguished cries of those who had never seen it before at the denoument.

We also saw the American Dad panel which was basically a table read of the first act of a new episode followed by an unrendered version for the second act and the finished product for the last act. It was a clever way to do it and it flowed straight into the Family Guy panel which also had an hilarious ten minutes from a new episode. Seth MacFarlane's voice is awesome.

On Saturday morning we got to Hall H for 8.00 am, two and a half hours before the start of the Heroes panel, and we still had to join the queue almost half way round the back of the convention centre. I was worried we wouldn't get in but the capacity of the room was 6,000 so we were fine. I was most excited about this panel and when they announced that they would be screening the entire first episode of Season 3 I almost vomited with pleasure. I've never seen Heroes on the big screen before either so it was doubly special. I was furiously writing down everything that happened for my mates on 9th Wonders, the official UK fanclub site, only pausing to go "I knew it!" when we found out who Nathan's assassin was, and when a certain other character appeared and did his thing. The question and answer session had to be quite short and unfortunately there was rather rubbish screening of questions which meant that one guy admitted he had never seen Heroes before and asked the castt to summarise the two seasons, and another woman asked if she could hug Milo Ventimiglia because she had bad eyesight or some such nonsense.

We managed to miss the Dollhouse panel because of Heroes but we got into Ballroom 20 early for the Fringe panel and ending up seeing Chuck, including Adam Baldwin. (Apparently ZQ was there for both Chuck and Fringe but I managed to miss him completely). We'd seen the screening of the Fringe pilot on preview night and I was really into it. I was hoping that someone would ask JJ more about Star Trek but no-one did and he didn't venture much information, except to say that they had no screenable clips because none of the FX were done yet.

Sunday morning saw us participating in a panel of our own, rather excitingly (see above). The final thing we did at Comic-Con was to go to the Buffy the Vampire Slayer musical screening in Ballroom 20 which was really good, but tinged with sadness becaue they kept announcing that Comic-Con was over. I'd really fallen in love with the place by this point and I definitely want to go back in the future.

Shopping madness

I got my hands on some really cool stuff including my beloved Heroes watch which apparently sold out on Sunday morning. I have a nice tan line to show my devotion to the watch. I also camped out in front of the Paramount stand trying to get a Spock poster, which I achieved after using Neuro Linguistic Programming on the guy handing them out. I felt such geeky achievement when I got my hands on that poster, it was the nerd holy grail of the weekend. After all the hassle I had trying to get the first one I accidentally got a second one by just walking by at an opportune time and sticking my hand out. I'm going to give the second one away in a contest when the Trek Movie gets closer, because I'm nice like that.

I also got a handbag that looks like a hotdog, and a Kingdom of Loathing tshirt. Their booth was awesome, though I haven't yet tried out the free item thing that they gave out. I am now a Level 9 Accordion Thief and have an 'I Stole Your Accordion' sticker for my erm, accordion case.

Well, I can't think of anything else, all in all it was a magical weekend! Bring on next year!

If you want to know what happens with Sylar (Zachary Quinto) in the first episode of Season 3 Heroes, go to www.zacharyquinto.co.uk and read my complete recap of the episode. 

Having fun at SDCC!

Love Doubleshiny

V quick post cause internet cafe time is running out, but SDCC is ace. Very proud of my new Heroes watch and Kingdom of Loathing tshirt. Managed to get a Spock poster today from the Paramount booth, which is an achievement which for me surpasses my degree.

Airline lost my luggage and I had to do a shopping spree a la the montage in National Lampoons European Vacation.

Love to all,

PS Joss Whedon tomorrow, Zachary Quinto on Saturday.

PPS I have a crush on Neil Patrick Harris

PPPS No-one can pronounce my name

Well, we're off to Comic Con tomorrow as proper press and everything. We have the pro camera, the solid gold contacts, the press accreditation and the business cards, and now all we need is a pro-looking mic block like all the big entertainment presenters have. Now, these don't come cheap, but you can knock one up with a few easy steps.

Step 1 : Take a normal kitchen sponge and remove the scouring bit. I thought about leaving it on so that I could do last minute nail buffing but then I thought, what would Joan Rivers do?



Step 2 : Cut a whole in the sponge for the mic to go through. Better get your mum to do this because craft knives are sharp.



Step 3 : Voila! You have a mic block! It already looks awesome and we're not even finished yet!



Step 4 : Next, disguise the fact that your block is made of kitchen sponge by covering it with some spare box. Again, mums are better at this.



Step 5 : Marry the foam block and cardboard together in a perfect erm, marriage of card and sponge.



Step 6 : Add your kick ass logo to the block, and you're ready to go, with just one final step...



Step 7 : Do a practice interview!



So there you have it, we're ready to go!

Ryan Jarman playing the accordion at Cribsmas day 2 in December last year, it was awesome because as you know I play the accordion, and we're a lonely pathetic bunch so I was pleased to see someone cool embracing the squeezebox. This was taken by my friend Mia and has pride of place on my wall.



I took this at the launch of a new pair of trainers called Puma Argentina 78s. I didn't even know they launched trainers, but I went along with k-bo and we drank some free Tiger beer while my mates Phil and Ste DJd. At the end there were theses trainer geeks there asking could they have the promotional signs sent by Puma. They'd driven from Carlisle or somesuch.



Alan Tudyk at the Serenity convention. It was a brilliant convention, probably the best one I have ever been to. I didn't take this picture by the way, I can't remember who did, but it's pretty good, it's captured the expression he had on his face the whole weekend. Yay Alan!



Yay! Corn Mo at the Cavern supporting Common Rotation. I love Corn Mo and I was really pleased with this picture. I'm going to see him on Wednesday supporting Ben Folds and I can't wait.  I saw him outside a TMBG gig once and asked him how I should respond to people who laughed at me for playing the accordion. He replied - "Tell them to shut the f*ck up!" Legend.



I took this of John Linnell when They Might Be Giants payed at the Academy in Manchester in 2004. It was a brilliant show and although I took about 100 photos this was the only one that came out any good. I was wearing a tshirt which said 'Accordion Players Squeeze Harder' and he read it and gave me the thumbs up.



Aw, my dog Sam who died in February. When we got him he was18  months old and he's been inside for so long that he didn't know how to run. This is him in one of his many 'cone moments', can't remember what the exact complaint once but he didn't like that cone. He used to get stuck under chairs when he was wandering round.



This is our new puppy Tilly. She's tiny in this (well, compared to now) because we'd just got her. I naively thought she might enjoy this dog shirt with 'Monster' spelled out in diamante but this was the first and last time she wore it. 



This is one I took of Ryan Jarman at a gig in Birmingham, can't remember when now. It was a great gig and I got a few good pictures - although this one's a bit blurred I like the yellow. 



How small is this monkey?! Very small is the answer. He fits on a man's thumb! Unless it's a giant, and a normal sized monkey.



This is my friend Nico on St.Patrick's day 2004. We were doing a live broadcast from a pub and he got rather drunk and danced. I took this picture as a warning to others. That's his awesome Sid Vicious tshirt he's wearing.



Not a brilliant picture but it's only one of two that I have of me on the red carpet at the world premier of Serenity where I was interviewing the cast. It was a rather surreal experience and it was clear to everyone that we shouldn't really have been there. That microphone was borrowed and had a large dent in it which I was trying to hide, rather unsuccessfully. 



He is the most handsome man I have ever seen in my life. It's Zach Quinto by the way.

More details are being released every day for Comic-Con. They have already tentatively hinted at a full Heroes panel, as well Dollhouse and Dr.Horrible's Sing-a-long-blog, so I'm excited about those, they also have a massive list of fan stalls which are going to be set up. Most excitedly - Kingdom of Loathing! Now I don't really know what they'll be doing, maybe selling merchandise or whatnot (how much do I want a KOL tshirt? Answer - very much.)

There will also be a stall by the California Browncoats who I think gossi knows and I'm pretty sure there'll be some sort of meet-up planned, though the unoffical strategy guide to Comic-Con tells you not to even attempt this. Fie on you sirs!

I've currently ordered two tshirts from my own Zachary Quinto Spreadshirt shop   , one has a picture of Spock and the phrase 'under new management' and the other says 'I went to Kirby Plaza and all I got was this lousy stab wound'. They are the two geekiest things I own.

I've also realised that there will be a free shuttle bus to the convention centre from quite near the hotel where we're staying which is good cos we had visions of it being about 100 mils away. "But it looked so close on the map!"