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Available at my tee shirt store (click directly for item). Right now I only added Men’s tees for them, but I can add womens too – just let me know.

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Someone on Twitter had mentioned that every time they watched Star Trek, they heard ‘Cardassian’ as ‘Kardashian’ – and I’ve been giggling over it for weeks. I just can’t remember who it was!

EDIT: It was @theyanni!

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Oops

May 11, 2010 by

Turns out that my contact email address here hasn’t forwarded all of the emails it gets to my regular email address and I haven’t logged on in a while which means that I apparently missed a few review copies of things.

So, sorry if I haven’t got back to you on things – I’ll try and wade through them in the next few days.

In the meantime jump on over to formspring and ask me something – or you can use the form in the column on the right!

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US v UK

April 13, 2010 by

Over on Formspring,Twitterpal and blogger PhillyRadioGeek posed an interesting question:

What does the UK do better than America? What does America do better than the UK?

That’s a question that seemed simple so I was going to go with the obvious.

The UK does these better -

Tea
Cake
Chocolate
Doctor Who
Sarcasm
Having the hardest special forces this side of the Mossad
Healthcare
A certain type of comedy

- while the US does these better -

Coffee
Muffins
Pizza
Most science fiction series that aren’t Doctor Who
Thinking they have the hardest special forces this side of the Mossad
Talking about healthcare
A different, broader type of comedy

- while everything else is pretty much split evenly depending on personal opinion.

This was, of course, a blithe answer designed to dodge the actual question – but I started to wonder what I felt the real answer was. Obviously there are differences, but those differences are embedded deep in the cultures of each country and they’re not so easy to break down.

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The Seinfeld of Blog Posts

March 26, 2010 by

Friday seems to be a little bit of a dead day for me when it comes to blogging, short of a favorite character being killed, maimed, mutilated or wedgied – and as I haven’t picked up this week’s books (or even finished all of last week’s books) I can’t speak to that.

Plus I have a couple of things I need to do today. You know, as well as work.

So what to write?

Well, this. A post about nothing.

This week I’ve seen buses in New York with ads for Doctor Who on the side – ‘Follow Me’ – and apparently I’m not the only one, but at least Tom Brevoort was smart enough to take a picture:

I also saw an ad in Wired this week – BBC America really seem to be doing a good bit of promotion for the new Doctor and season and even though I’m a season and several specials behind in the Tennant years I’ll probably be watching when it airs.

So bravo, it seems I’ve finally been converted back to Doctor Who. Dammit.

In other news, I’ve signed up for that Formspring thing on the basis that I can use some answers for future blog posts.

You can ask me questions here or by tapping them into that form on the right in the sidebar of this very page!

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St Patrick’s Day

March 17, 2010 by

As an Englishman, you might imagine that St Patrick’s Day isn’t that big of a deal to me, and you would be right – but you would also be wrong.

I have a tiny, tiny amount of Irish in me – maybe a quarter, but possibly an eighth depending on whether I’m remembering something correctly – but that’s not why it’s important.

Partly, it’s because of this:

Guinness is one of those drinks that takes some getting used to, in my opinion. It’s thick, heavy, plays havoc with your head and stomach if you drink too many (but what doesn’t?), but it’s also full of flavour (I’m back to my traditional correct English spelling today, ignoring my pandering to US readers) and, let’s face it, it’s a meal in a glass.

It’s also, in case you didn’t know, good for you.

This 1920s campaign for Guinness ran on the fact that researchers found that people felt better after drinking it. And, er, it had iron in it, so it must be good for you. Of course, once the UK developed a body to police advertising, the campaign was pulled because if there’s one thing we Brits can do, it’s take the fun out of something.

Anyway, years later, it turned out that Guinness may actually be good for you after all – providing, of course, you don’t drink too much. Or drink and drive. Or get into a fight after drinking a lot of it.

But I digress.

The point is, a lot of my fondness for St Patrick’s Day stems from the fact that, yes, I enjoy a pint of Guinness. I really only developed a taste for it – and therefore only started ‘celebrating’ this day – after I started work in Manchester in an office where a trip to the pub at lunch for a couple of pints was the norm. St Patrick’s Day was an excuse (not that we ever really needed one) for a massive booze up, and even though you’d normally be paying for it for days afterward, it was always a good day or night out.

Still, I don’t think anywhere does St Patrick’s Day like the US does it (well, maybe Ireland but even then I wouldn’t be too sure), and it’s always amusing to me how many people suddenly become Irish around this time of year.

St Patrick’s Day last year (or the weekend before it) was spent at a Pogues concert here in NYC with my wife’s cousin (who’s as Irish as Scotch Canadian can get) and his footballsoccer mates, where much was drunk including several rounds of slightly dodgy vodkas.

A few weeks after, we found out my wife was pregnant and would have been at the time – which makes this little guy stewed in a little bit of St Patrick’s Day broth whether he knows it or not:

And really, that’s just the best reason to like St Patrick’s Day as far as I’m concerned.

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You asked, I answer

March 5, 2010 by

Yesterday I said you could ask me anything…so here goes:

Are you a tea drinker? What kind of tea do you enjoy?

I am – coffee in the morning, but tea in the afternoon and evening. I drink a lot of different teas depending on what’s available, what I feel like, whatever – Earl Grey, Peppermint, Lapsang Souchong, Assam, Prince of Wales, English Breakfast, Scottish Breakfast…even plain old blended PG Tips. Love those chimpanzees.

And also, if Green Arrow and Hawkeye got into a target shooting contest, who’d win?

Better shot: Green Arrow. Better fighter: Hawkeye. Better chilli: Hawkeye. Hawkeye wins!

ReynardCity

If you went on a cookery show, what would you cook to wow the judges?

Yorkshire puddings filled with poached flaked haddock and cheese sauce to start, followed by cuban pork chops with sofrito mash, then Jack Daniels chocolate pecan pie for dessert.

God, I’m hungry right now.

Matt

Would you rather be a Jedi or a Green Lantern (when their rings still didn’t work on yellow)? Explain why!

A Jedi, without a doubt. Being a GL takes too much creativity with the ring – the last thing you want to come up with in the middle of a battle is something lame like a boxing glove. Plus, last time I looked, GLs couldn’t do the Jedi mind trick.

TheYanni

Ever considered doing a podcast?

Considered, yes. But then I did an interview with my pal Chris – we interviewed Proof‘s Alex Grecian. Pretty much halfway through I decided that honestly? Not for me. Luckily due to a technical glitch the interview never saw the light of day – and that’s probably for the best!

Has there ever been a series that got cancelled that you still miss? Or a series that got cancelled that might be considered “ahead of its time” that you lament?

God, a few – but Chase is the first one that comes to mind. DC Johnson had the whole of the covert arm of the DCU mapped out – the DEO, Suicide Squad, Checkmate, the Creche and others. Some of these ideas got revisited years later in other series, but Johnson had it all figured out. Not only that, but artist JH Williams III absolutely killed on the book. It had the potential to be another Starman, but lasted ten issues, ending ignominously with a DC 1 Million tie-in. Sad.

And don’t get me started on how awesome Bloodhound was.

Chris McAree

Did you read any of the Marvel UK stuff and if so, did you like it?

Weirdly, no, even though I was buying virtually everything that Marvel US was putting out at the time – but I always liked the idea of Mys-Tech, and I do have a special place in my heart for Death’s Head.

matty

Do you think Hope Summers is going to turn out to be some ressurected version of Jean Grey during Second Coming?

No. I think Hope turning out to be Jean would be way too obvious – but I think that Hope may be a host for the Phoenix Force before all’s said and done. What I do find weird about the whole Hope thing is that nobody seems to have ever questioned exactly whose child she was before all the crap hit the fan where she was born.

Since you dropped the X-Books do you even care?

Ha, yes -I’m still going to be getting the X-books in trades, including the Second Coming trade. Now if only I can avoid spoilers somehow…

Captain Elias

How do you feel about the historical fact that Moondragon once raped Thor? Can you judge characters for what they’ve done before they died and came back ‘different’?

Kind of icky. The thing is, it happened so long ago that not even Thor seems that bothered about it – and he wasn’t overly bothered about it at the time, either I think. And I think just because a character’s been reborn doesn’t mean that they’ve been rehabilitated – although if they’ve atoned for their mistakes before death, that’s okay. As for Moondragon specifically, I’m not a huge fan in any case.

Who’s your favorite Guardian of the Galaxy? (Rocket Racoon is too easy an answer. Also, characters from the weird future team are acceptable.)

Dude, Groot. Of the original Guardians, I always liked Charlie-27 – probably because back when I was reading their book he was all about the unrequited crush on Nikki, and as a teenager I knew all about unrequited crushes.

How are DnA going to bring Thanos back after his heart got punched out?

The guy dated Death – I think he’s got an ‘in’ with the gatekeeper.

If the weilder of the quantam bands goes to the White Room when they die, think Wendell Vaughn ever met Jean Grey?

Probably, but he’d be too scared to make a move on her, they’d just exchange hair styling tips, And then Quentin Quire would make a move on Wendell and it would start to get weird…

How would you write the remaining plot of Buffy Season 8?

I wouldn’t want to. It’s like when you ask for directions and the guy scratches his head thoughtfully and says ‘I wouldn’t start from here’. What started off as a promising series has gone to hell – drawn out plots, leftfield character developments, and the belief that just because there are no longer TV budget constraints, anything goes. Hindu gods taking on the army? Buffy flying? No, I don’t think so.

Why do you love deadpool so much?

You know, I’m not sure when this happened – but I do really like Deadpool. I think it’s just that so many comics seem to take themselves seriously these days that having a character that doesn’t do so in any way at all is pretty refreshing. Plus, the books are really well written (not so much Deadpool Team-Up, but Victor Gischler’s Merc With A Mouth is funny as hell). I think he’s overexposed, I think the bubble will pop and he’ll be back down to one title within a year or two – but for now, the books are amongst the most fun on the market. Fun in comics – who’d a thunk it?

And lastly (sorry, I just wrote down whatever came to me–not known for my self-editing skills) if the Doctor showed up, hovering in the TARDIS outside your office window (I imagine you in a corner office, naturally) and offered to take you anywhere in time and space, where. would. you. go?

Er…tough  one. I have no idea. I’d want to say ancient Greece or victorian times, but the lack of indoor plumbing puts me off. So maybe the far future – but not too far. A couple of hundred years, for starters. Then I’d get some killer patents and market them back in my own time. That’s right, I learned nothing from Back to the Future Part II.

Jamie Gambell

What’s your dream project?

Comics: New Warriors and Lois Lane (not in the same book, obviously!). Film: I’d love, love to write a screenplay that I could actually sell. The screenplay I’m writing at the moment has the potential to be commercial provided I don’t screw it up.

Dream cast?

For the Warriors it would have to be the classic cast. I’m okay with the new Thrash, and I have an idea to bring back Nita that doesn’t involve time travel. Penance…well he’s due for a lightening up I think. For Lois, the rest of the Daily Planet staff would be a good start . As for the film, the one I’m writing with some actors in mind for key roles – specifically Katie Cassidy, Justin Hartley and Bill Sadler; I find that it helps me get into the different characters’ voices better.

Dream creators?

There are so many awesome artists out there that it’s difficult to name just one – but I do love both Tom Grummet and Todd Nauck’s art; I think either would be perfect for either Lois or the Warriors.

Thanks for playing folks – I may try this again!

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Ask me anything…

March 4, 2010 by

Okay, I am snowed under at work today – so instead of doing a post, ask me something. Anything. I’ll get to the answers later or tomorrow, but every question asked will be answered!

And just so the post looks pretty, Eric Canete‘s Cloak and Dagger…

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What Would Betty White Do?

February 23, 2010 by


She’d pop a cap in your ass, that’s what!

Celebrate the legend with a men’s tee women’s tee or buttons!

WWBWD? Men’s Tee
WWBWD? Women’s Tee

WWBWD? Buttons

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Face your fears

February 18, 2010 by

They say that you should face your fears.

They say that whatever doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.

I say they’re wrong…

…because clowns are fucking scary no matter which way you slice it!

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I mean…

…it’s not just me, is it?

Is it?


Really?

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NASA – At Work in Space

July 22, 2009 by

“Don’t look down, don’t look down, don’t look down…”

Posted via web from Rich’s Ramblings

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