Opera and other aspirational hobbies

I have been reminded of the existence of this blog and of how I shamefully neglected it for two years. I was just waiting to have something vaguely interesting to say, but it didn't happen. So I'll blog regardless.
For lack of deep thoughts, wise insights and any ability to do self-analysis I'll just talk about stuff I like.
Starting with opera.
I love opera but never went to see it until last year because I thought that you'd have to a) spend a fortune b) be dressed to the nines c) own a monocle or a diamond necklace and know how to air kiss people. Since I generally dress with my mother's hand-me-downs and jeans bought at the supermarket, I thought that opera was never going to be for me. After reading an excellent book with magic happenings and hauntings at the Royal Opera House (there's always a nerd catch to anything I do) I couldn't wait any longer and made some inquiries. I found out to my delight that it's perfectly possible to go to the ROH without spending a fortune or being a fashionista, even though you might end sitting (or standing) in places that carry dire warnings about vertigo in the online ticket reservation page - although not quite plastered to the ceiling on large strips of fly paper, as I initially feared.

The awesome curtain at L'Elisir d'Amore

I've since seen almost every production from almost every cheap place, but I really earned my strips with Wagner's Ring Cycle last October. You couldn't pick and choose to go and see only one of the four parts of it, you had to buy tickets for a whole cycle of four nights (performed within 10 days). It had sold out the year before on the first day it was put on sale. Anyway, I asked at the box office if they had any returned tickets and yes, they had one! A cheap one too, because it was a standing place on the balcony. The cashier seemed a bit hesitant though, and asked me twice if I was really SURE about having to stand. Why not? I asked, and bought the tickets. It wasn't until the beginning of October that I realised that the whole thing was over 16 hours long, with a couple of nights going on for 6 hours. That's a LOT of Wagner and standing. Besides I wasn't even sure how much I'd like it, being more of a Mozart person.
I ended up ordering a foldable fisherman stool on Amazon and practising how to hide it up the sleeve of my coat (it gave me a nice hunchback look). At the end though, I didn't use it much. There were enough intervals to crawl out, sit on the stairs and consume the wine and food I'd hidden up the other sleeve.
I was a bit anxious about these standing places, because they were right at the back of people who have probably remortgaged their houses to buy their tickets, you see liveried waiters going up and down with trolleys of food, so I was a bit concerned about breathing down the neck of the kind of people with 5 surnames who practice fox hunting with human prey and drink champagne from skulls of dead butlers.
Instead it wasn't like that at all. Since standing through 16 hours of Wagner is hardcore even by the standards of the most passionate music lovers, I ended up next to a bunch of people who seemed to be a TV casting of opera buffs. The most notable were a fat woman in tears, a German gay couple, a guy who directed the orchestra for the whole time (how I hated him) and a weirdo with a fisherman stool. Oh wait, that was me.
What I love about the ROH is you see the most amazing people. Well, it's what I love about London, but the ROH in particular. The other day I went to see Eugene Onegin in one of the cheapest sits in the whole place (it does actually provide an experience similar to being plastered to fly paper to the ceiling, although the audio is great). It cost £7, the cost of two pints of beer. Regardless, there were two guys who showed up in full regalia, wearing Dracula coats (I checked them for top hats but didn't see them, I'd like to think they'd left them at the wardrobe; I should have checked for fangs). How cool is that!?
Last Saturday I went to see the Tosca and behind me there was a crazy lady who first directed the orchestra (is it a fucking habit?) then harangued the woman with her about having been brought to a standing place, since she was the owner of the place. She made a huge scene and in appreciation I left her my seat for the 3rd act (it only lasts 20 minutes, the time for Tosca to jump off the castle, as once performed by Tacobell at Bacon of Hope).
I'm all blogged out, so I go back to camping reddit/r/Simcity and dreaming of the release day. And yes, also drawing another panel. Stay tuned for some more nonsense about things I like, sometime in the next two years.

Jogging for nerds

A friend mentioned the other day that I haven't blogged for more than two years, and that made me think that I might as well start again - especially now that I am so slow with the comic updates. I vaguely remember it as a pleasurable activity, the few times that I did it.

I have started working out a lot more than I used to around June last year, after someone I gamed with mentioned in IRC that they were doing Insanity and P90X from Beach Body (there is always a nerd link to everything I do). I had always steered clear of exercise videos, thinking that they mostly showed ex-fat Z-list celebs yelling and jumping around in pink spandex, but this is not the case with the BB videos. Lots of yelling actually, but no pink spandex or Z-celebs in sight (or maybe American ones that I ignore) - and it kicks your ass like - or more than - a tough gym class.

At the same time, I've used the coach-to-5k plan to start jogging. It goes more or less like this:

week 1
Walk 2 minutes - Jog 1 minute - Think that you are having a heart attack 5 minutes - Jog 1 minute - Hyperventilate 3 minutes - Jog 1 minute - A tunnel, with a light! And angels! And is that you grandpa? Is this heaven? 5 minutes - Jog 1 minute etc. etc.

until you are ready to survive a glorious:

week 9 - jog 30 minutes

The only problem about the 30 minutes is that it makes "coach-to-5k" a total misnomer, since it takes me almost twice that long to cover 5k. I am so slow that you could track my progress with a calendar.

The other day it was a bit embarrassing, because I ended up jogging next to a fast-walking woman with a baby in a pushchair and going at EXACTLY the same speed, right next to her. After two minutes or so she started looking increasingly nervous (add to it that I don't have smart runner gear, and the stuff I wear looks like I just robbed a homeless person). She must have thought that I wanted to steal her baby, possibly to eat it. I wanted to overtake her but I had run for almost an hour and I was already considering crawling for the rest of the distance, let alone sprint. Eventually I moved to the opposite side of the road before she called police.

At some point when you take up jogging - assuming that you don't hurt yourself and have to stop - something magic happens. It's no longer unpleasant and painful, it turns into an awesome feeling. Well, most of the time, and with aches and pains. But it's absolutely great. Your thoughts are no longer "fuuuuuuuuuuck.... fuuuuuuuuuuuck.... aaaaahhhhh... ohmgod Imgonna dieeee...." so you have your brain at your disposal for an hour to do what you want with it.

I think a bit about the script for the comic, but the only way for me to do something constructive with it is to actually write - not compatible with running - and at most when I run I could get an idea to elaborate later, so that leaves a lot of mind room for trivial thinking, like "If Berlusconi had orgies with prostitutes dressed as nuns, instead of just topless police and nurse costumes like he does now, would the Vatican be more upset about this scandal? And why are police unions upset about it but not nurse unions? hmmm... What if I cooked fish again but with pancetta instead of chorizo OOOH that's a seagull! A small seagull! Ugh, what if this guy with the mean looking dog attacks me? Is that a pit bull terrier? I'll yell OH SHIT LOOK BEHIND YOU! and throw him in the river when he turns around! But maybe I should throw the dog in the river first. Yes. Would the dog turn around though? If I use pancetta and white wine it will be delicious, I am sure. Not very healthy, though. Another seagull!" etc.

I thought that I should listen to audiobooks to put my brain to better use, but then I remembered the time that by mistake I added Mozart's Requiem to my jogging mp3 tracks and couldn't be bothered to take the phone out of its holder to change playlist.I ran even slower than normal that day, with an impending sense of doom. As beautiful as it was, I need something with a different tempo to keep me upright and mobile - I've tried different genres and these days I listen to loud trance and techno even if I am not a huge fan, it's great for running even if I end up with tinnitus. An audiobook might be too quiet and slow.

So it happened that yesterday, with particularly bad tinnitus after an hour of NTZZ NTZZ NTZZ NTZZ trance beat though my earphones, I browsed the Kindle store page and saw a book called Zen and the Art of Running and thought, YES! This is what I should do! so I downloaded it to see how you can run and meditate at the same time without getting run over by a truck. I have tried meditating before, but always end up falling asleep, or making shopping lists in my head, or just not even trying because I have very important things to do before bed, like the daily fishing quest in WOW and such.

I read about half of the book last night. It appears to have been written with the potential serial killer in mind as its target audience. It spends a whole chapter with advice on how not to get mad at pedestrians in your way, or even at red lights, because you shouldn't take it personally. They are not there specifically to hinder your progress. If someone suspects that the Illuminati or some other sinister group are controlling traffic lights specifically to annoy them, this book is the solution.

After making sure that you won't go on a killing spree the next time you go jogging, the book suggests some beginner exercises to increase your mindfulness. Listen to your body, it says, and notice its sensations, and as you observe them make them external and impersonal, and let their importance dissipate. Notice how, for example, your knee aches? Ok, label that sensation, and let it go... So I started paying attention to my body's sensations, and sure enough my left Achilles tendon felt a bit sore. I didn't manage to ignore it though. Oh no. Instead, I also noticed that my right arm felt a bit itchy, right above the elbow.Two horrible sensations and I couldn’t even decide what was worse! It was enough to drive anyone mad! Aaaah! Let's try to ignore it, no way, it's too bad... Wait, I have hair in front of my eyes and that's the most annoying feeling ever, Oh God! If I don't do something I'll howl! Two minutes later I was a total wreck, with enough aches and itches as if I'd been attacked by angry ants and rolled into a ditch to save myself. I guess that I'm much closer to enlightenment when I DON'T pay attention to my body, but I’ll try to keep practicing.

Tonight I'll read the rest of the book and apply its teachings in the morning when I jog in Greenwich Park, but I have a lingering doubt. Buddha was a fatty. Not much jogging, there.

Positive thinking

I've read in an article that the best way to beat negative thoughts is to:
a) Stop the thought in its tracks by telling yourself "Stop!";
b) think something positive, and
c) take a deep relaxing breath.

I have decided to give it a shot but I can already add two caveats:

- don't do it at work meetings or people will think that you're hyperventilating;
- never, ever do it when you are cleaning the cat's litter box.

Warhammer happened and I am sleep-deprived and wondering when I'll be able to finish the next episode. I'll have to work on it all weekend, dammit! STOP! Hey, it's great to stay indoors on a sunny weekend, you know you love it - DEEP BREATH.

I took a political compass test and it looks like I share the same views as Gandhi! I better check out what they were because I'm not too sure.

POLITICAL COMPASS TEST

A Dell?!?

Yesterday I went to see Ironman with a friend and really enjoyed it - it's a very entertaining movie. However I was very suprised to see that their bitchin' computers were labeled Dell (you can see it when Pepper leaves Jeff Bridges' office). I understand product placement and all that, but WTF? I can just figure Stark on the phone with their helpdesk, "yes, yes, a superhero iron suit... I pay with Visa, yeah... oh, I get a free printer with it? Aaah, your Supersaver Summer Deal, of course... Great! Thanks!"
As for books, I've finished reading The Dreaming Void a few days ago and I didn't like it very much. It only has two decent characters (Aaron and Troblum), aside from the old characters from Pandora's Box and Judas Unchained that make cameo appearances. Besides, Hamilton should do everyone a favour and stop writing about sex, he's really crap at it. The dream chapters were bog standard boring fantasy - I wanted to read science fiction, not all that crap. I like the guy, he's written good books in the past (like the Neutronium Alchemist) but this is not it - and the rest of the trilogy isn't even out yet.

One with nature

Sometimes I have the feeling that life mocks me in subtle ways.

A while ago I noticed the first signs of spring, tees in bud, etc. while I was walking to the train station. It made me think of Disney movies, with little couples of birds in love flying from branch to branch, and I felt uplifted (I know that mental images don't get much gayer than that, but it's not my fault if I watched so many Disney cartoons when I was a child). I reached the station, sat on a bench, and two of the dirtiest, mangiest pigeons that I've ever seen landed right in front of me and had a vicious fight over a crumb.

Last night as I went to bed I had a New Age moment and I put on loop a CD that I downloaded - a relaxation track with sounds of thunderstorm and pan pipes - thinking that it'd be nice to fall asleep and wake up to the sounds of nature. Sure enough, I woke up a few minutes ago to the loud sound of the cat vomiting a hairball. Well, at least it doesn't get much more natural than that.

Sims2 - It's that time again!

How exciting, today the new expansion of the sims2 is coming out in the UK! I can finally put aside LOTRO pvp for something else - for the full three hours that generally it takes for a Sims2 expansion pack to bore me thoroughly.

In anticipation, I've been checking the official forums and there seem to be several complains about bugs and glitches. The Sims2 have the BEST BUGS EVER:

Sad: "I had a pregnant dog go to work with a bladder that needed emptied. She never came home."

Irritated: "I am trying to work and all these sims are coming up to me wanting to talk to me through the teddy bear. Please maxis do you really think that in real life someone you don't even know is going to bring a teddy bear up to you and start talking through it to you?" Actually, that'd be awesome.

Irritated 2: "I also noticed that my guests now use the computer to browse the web and blog about their hobbies. This bothers me a lot although it was probably meant as a feature." Sounds quite realistic to me.

Confused: "The same sim, I called a taxi for her to go downtown. 'The taxi came, she got in, nothing happened, next thing I know, she is returned by the taxi and I am informed she had a good time and purchased a game." That's EXACTLY what happens to me when I go out and drink too much.

Simian Mobile Disco

Last week I went with a friend to a gig by Simian Mobile Disco, one of the few bands that she likes that I don't object to. I remember seeing their video Believe on YouTube last year and being really impressed because I thought it was actually done and sung by the Romanian destitute peasants that figure in it.
I enjoyed most of the show, but was really puzzled by the fact that I have no idea what the two guys on stage were doing. They seemed very busy turning knobs and stuff in what looked like an island counter in an alien spaceship's kitchen, but if they were just mixing prerecorded stuff, why did they even need to be there? Well, aside from looking cool in the dry ice and lighting effects while they cranked it to 11.
Another effect of ageing is that every time I go to a gig (not very often) I feel less and less part of the crowd. They look younger and more strangely dressed every time - I know I was a teenage rebel back in the day and dressed the part, but what's up with a flanel pijama with a strawberry motif accessorised with glow-in-the dark necklace? What the fuck, kids? Maybe it's a super hip Grampa-on-Acid look and I just don't have a clue.
A few more years and I'll be chewing a denture and complaining that back in my day we had real music, Sex Pistols, Ramones... TUNES, dammit! TUNES! Oh well, at least I still like Simian Mobile Disco, even if it's played by two strange guys on a futuristic kitchen unit instead of a village of poor peasants. Also, on the upside, I can now be mathematically sure that I do not suffer from photosensitive epylepsia, or I wouldn't be here to write this after that gig.

The tastiest battle of our time

The battle of Pelennor fields in candy form, re-created with liquorice and marshmallows by a family during the holidays. It's absolutely amazing. I wonder if they ate it afterwards, that's a huge army of candy.

Candy Minas Tirith

Bleugh

I've finally finished reading the space opera saga Pandora's Star + Judas Unchained by British writer Peter Hamilton. I've really enjoyed it, to the point of staying awake until 2-3 in the morning because I couldn't put the book down.

I have only one gripe. In Judas Unchained, it's the year 2400 something and a starship technician who not only isn't British, but isn't even from Earth, unwraps and eats a Cadbury bar. NO FUCKING WAY.

Cadbury chocolate sucks. It sucks immensely. The only reason why people in this country eat that dog puke is because they don't know any better, but it's horrible. Try Swiss or Belgian chocolate - hell, even whatever local non UK chocolate you can find - and compare. Cadbury's in-fuckin-edible. The UK has some special regulations and ingredient quotas on how to make chocolate where they use less cocoa and replace it with other stuff, arguably sweetened shit (as if anyone had to wait for the lab results to find out and couldn't tell from the taste).

Forget the evil aliens, the nova bombs, the quantumbusters, the 60 destroyed planets and the millions of dead Galactic Commonwealth citizens, the really scary thing in Peter Hamilton's book is the concept that four hundred years from now someone will still be shoving that garbage in their mouth.

/nerdrage

The turnip

In an attempt to eat more vegetables, I've subscribed to a scheme where you pay ten pounds a week and they bring you a box full of organic greens and fruit. I've done it before and it resulted in several pounds of carrots rotting slowly at the bottom of the fridge, but these new guys allow you to tell them your likes or dislikes beforehand. And that's not all! You can do it with smileys! I wonder if they have a japanese version. "Aduki beans: ^___^".
So that's the theory. In practice I received a box of mixed vegetables where half of the room was taken by a giant turnip. Anyone who's familiar with the old TV series Blackadder may remember an episode where Baldrick spends millions of pounds on a giant prize turnip, the dream of his life - this is not quite that big but it's getting there (probably they put the really big ones in the family sizes boxes). Now I'm wondering what to do with it. I wouldn't even know what to cook with a small turnip.
I could google giant turnip recipes, or maybe travel the world and take pictures of or with it in front of famous landmarks. I could keep it until Halloween and then carve a monster face in it.

If this was a China Mieville short story the turnip would slowly take over my thoughts and my life, I'd come to fear it and be obsessed with it at the same time, and eventually it'd open the gate to some other dark, terrible dimension. Shit, I should get up and throw it away. But now... I'm scared...

Done!

I went, I swore, I got my citizenship certificate. The high point of the ceremony was when we all had to stand up in turn and say "I, Gianna Masetti", "I, John Doe", etc. then wait to repeat together the rest of the formula. There was a lady who kept repeating "I, Council of Lewisham", "I, Lewisham Council?", "I... I... Council!" with increasing panic in her voice. I wonder if it was just stage fright or a complete lack of basic English skills. Or maybe it was just her name, by an uncanny coincidence.
Apart from that, the council staff performing the ceremony had that uniquely British brand of cheerfulness that reminded me of that Life of Brian's scene where they line up prisoners. "Good morning! Crucifixion? Jolly good! Out of the door. Line on the left. One cross each. Next please! Crucifixion? Splendid! Out of the door. Line on the left. One cross each."
They even had balloons, red white and blue, and a table of refreshments that I didn't try because a very large, angry woman stabbed me in the back with a plastic fork to get to the food (I couldn't move because there was a small kid in front of me stuffing his face with scotch eggs straight from the tray).
I didn't even complain to her because most of the people seemed to speak no English, despite the fact that you need to pass a written test before the ceremony, where you show your knowledge of Britishness answering questions like "Who is the patron saint of Wales?" and "From what countries did bus drivers come to England in the Fifties?". If I ran a pub I'd ask these questions at quiz night and I'm willing to bet that most born and bred Brits wouldn't have a clue.
Now I can apply for a passport, but I'm told that before they give it to me I'll have to go to yet another interview, where I will have to demonstrate that I am in fact myself. I hope that they don't go for a philosophical angle. "Good morning. Sit down. Tea, coffee? OK, to start let's define the concept of "self", shall we? Consciousness constitutes the reflected or relational level of the spirit, the level of its appearance. The self is the infinite relation of the spirit to itself but a subjective relation, as self-certainty. As this absolute negativity it is identity in its otherness; the self is itself and..."

Repeat, repeat, I, I, your name, your name, solemnly swear...

This afternoon I'm going to a ceremony to become a British citizen in addition to Italian.

I'm a bit nervous about it, especially the part of the instructions that says "then we will all stand up and sing the National Anthem". I realised that I only know the Sex Pistols version so I had to google 'youtube british anthem singalong' and practice a bit. At least I know the words now, they don't say "no future" as a foreigner may be led to think.

Aside from the first part of the anthem that everyone knows because it's sung at football matches, there are other verses that apparently are only sung on special occasions. I could find two on the internet - one is quite nice and wishes well to the Queen and invites people to send her gifts etc etc., the other one is a lot more pissy and has a bit of a rant about enemies and their plots and knavish ways - I assume that they mean the French. Anyway these parts aren't sung at normal ceremonies so I won't have the embarassment of starting with the wrong verse.

Also, the instructions don't mention having to walk on crosses to renounce my popish ways or anything hardcore like European merchants had to do to be accepted in Japan a few centuries ago. In fact, this is a country that welcomes and encourages diversity, to the point that the instructions of the ceremony invite me to wear my national costume if I am so inclined. I considered wearing a Roma jersey but I'd have to go and buy one for the occasion.

Short Q & A

A reader from Ukraine, Tassadar, wrote to ask some questions - here are the answers.

1) What is you favorite MMORPG ?
Well, I guess that the best game out there at the moment is WoW - although I'm a bit bored with it right now and I'm not playing it. I left it for a long time before and came back for the expansion but now I'm taking another break. I've also bought LOTRO to try it, it's very pretty but it makes me sleepy ;) The part where you play hobbits elves etc has no pvp so it's like playing The Sims. It has a pvp area though, more of that in answer 2. Historically my favorite games were UO and most of all Asheron Call 1.

2) What MMORPG do you think has the best pvp and pk system ?
I agree with you that WoW isn't really a pvp/pk system. I go afk for an hour in places where I will probably be killed because who cares? I can just run back. Battlegrounds are fun for an hour. Arena is fun but again, it's like a minigame. LOTRO has an interesting team pvp setup, where once you are level 10 you can go to a Fell Pool (or something like that) and make a level 50 evil character (orc, warg, etc.) and then fight high level good guys in a contested area that has fortresses that you need to control etc. This is done in raid groups and the bad guys require a lot of strategy to win because they are disadvantaged (but they are usually more skilled). You get points for kills that you can spend on abilities etc. to become stronger. There's in-game voicechat (although quality sucks) so you can logon and be in a pvp raid within 5 minutes, at peak hours. However, it's not free for all pvp in the way that AC1 Darktide was (it was great). I don't play it but I hear often that EVE is the closest you get these days to a free for all pvp setting. As for the future, I hope that Darkfall will finally get released because they promise ffa pvp, and I'm looking forward to trying Conan.

3) About your comic - Have you ever thought about meeting characters of The Noob irl ?
I've met plenty of people in game that inspire the characters. Not as in specific people, but as in human types, the pker, the roleplayer, and so on. But to answer your question specifically, the characters of the Noob are just fictional characters - I never actually thought that I'd like to meet them irl ;)

Noob e-mail

I received several emails while I was on holiday in Scotland, so I'll answer them here.

Simon writes about a free mmo that he plays, Eternal Lands, where high level miners can move on from diamond digging and start harvesting precious substances from public toilets. Apparently there's rare gunpowder to be found in human faeces (which possibly requires a dinner of curry vindaloo the night before). Maybe the designers of Eternal Lands were fed up with miners asking for craft improvements when they made this update. I was about to say that WoW designers can only dream to have players with their arms up to the elbows in dung piles then I remembered that there are quests in Nagrand where you have to do just that. Are they trying to send us a message? ARE THEY FED UP WITH PLAYERS? How's that possible!?! After all, listening to endless whining, moaning and complaining from people with an overinflated sense of entitlement has never killed anyone.

Earte writes a long suggestion for the plot based on Apocalypse Now/Heart of Darkness. Thanks, it's very interesting and detailed. I won't use it but I really appreciated it and had fun reading it. Anyway I have ideas that I haven't scripted yet, that are based on Apocalypse Now. The last time that I quoted it someone said that I was quoting Surf Ninjas, so I'm really curious to see if anyone thinks that "oh the horror... the horror" is a quote from Scary Movie IV.

I have received emails from several Swedish readers, horrified at the thought that Basshunter is embarassing their country outside national borders. I don't know what you're talking about, all I sing in the shower these days is "on enemies ve creep-ah lalalah ve sleep-ah". Mattias points out that the correct spelling is "vi sitter hÄr i venten". Double-dot omissions are seriously frowned upon in Sweden, I'm told. They may even creep-ah on you and bitchslap you, if you do it too often.

Borys from Poland likes the bored dwarfette/chavette in the last panel of 262. WTF, chavs are known outside Britain, now? Now that's embarassing - much more than Basshunter. I drew the dwarfette looking at a still image of the girl in the white gym suit in the video - a.k.a. the swedish version of Vicky Pollard.

J would like to see some eccentric newbies in bronze armour in the comic. Well, ok, but they'll have a hard time looking eccentric in Beacon of Hope, though, what with the flower guys and the squids and so on.

Then there's the usual bunch of people who want a piece of me, like some guy who signs his emails as Dynamo Ace. He offers to format in PDF and sell my comic with chapter bookmarks (chapter bookmarks, no less! welcome to the world of tomorrow! Don't you need some special expensive machinery to enter bookmarks in a PDF file?). He would generously give me 50% of the profit. How very kind! He'd be selling my work and keeping only half of the money! What a great deal.

And while the distribution of the comic is in safe hands with Dynamo Ace, I can rely on Janet from Nigeria to take care of the online store:

"Hello sale,
when i come across your website, i observe that you have different product in your store and available items, well before i procced i want to know if you can ship your product to one of my store in Nigeria.

Thanks,
Janet."

I really like the "hello sale". Nothing like the informal, human touch to start a business partnership.

This is all for this bunch of emails, thanks for writing and take care.

Please continue to hold

An old episode has come true! British Telecom have double-billed me for my broadband and I can't get through to their customer service!

"Please continue to hold. You are moving up the queue and you are now #35703895 in line to speak to our customer support desk in Bhubaneshwar."

Although they're not quite as awesome as the support line of a friend's broadband, who play MIDI versions of Pachelbel while you wait and wait.

Why I love the Sims 2

Because of their amazing bugs. I've bought the Sims 2 Pets on Friday and I was browsing a fansite forum, when I came across this post by a concerned player:

I had the weirdest thing happen after installing Pets. I created a dog and then called for an obedience trainer. They trainer sim came to the house but just sat in a van in front of the house sobbing and crying continuously! I couldn't get it to stop and I couldn't interact with the trainer sim. I ended up moving the family out and demolishing the lot. Has anyone else seen this?

That's such a great bug.

It seems that people don't have much luck even if the trainer is not upset, though, according to this answer:

My trainer won't train either. She came, I purchased training, then she sat on the couch and watched TV.

Are you unable to connect to the main webcomic site?

Two readers have posted comments saying that they have been unable to view the main webcomic site for over a month. I've spoken to the network administrator of the host who told me some things that you can check out if this is happening to you. He would also appreciate if you could post/email the results of these checks. Comparing them for all the people who are having problems would help him to see if there is a problem at our end.

These are the checks to do:
1. In windows, press start, then Run, type in CMD (win 2000/XP/Vista) or COMMAND (Win 98/ME)
2. In the command window, first type:
nslookup http://www.thenoobcomic.com
the IP should be 67.18.37.227

then type:
nslookup http://www.thenoobcomic.com 67.18.37.226
the IP should still be 67.18.37.227

If the first fails, but the second works, it is your local DNS server and you should be able to fix the problem by contacting your ISP. Even so, please send us the results so the network admin can check them.

3. If both work, type tracert 67.18.37.227 to see how far you get. (Tracert displays all the hops that you do to reach the page.)

HOW TO DUMP THE RESULTS TO A TEXT FILE
In the command window, type the following (where filename stands for whatever name you want to give to the file and [ENTER] stands for pressing the Enter/Return key):

nslookup http://www.thenoobcomic.com > filename.txt [ENTER]
nslookup http://www.thenoobcomic.com 67.18.37.226 >> filename.txt [ENTER]
tracert 67.18.37.227 >>filename.txt[ENTER]

Paste the results of the text file here as a comment or email them to me at gianna.masetti@gmail.com

In the commands above, > writes to file and >> appends. If you want to write the file in a specific folder, e.g. a folder called misc on your c: drive, just type the whole path, > c:\misc\filename.txt.

In the meantime the network admin has made some small change at his end so you may be able to view the comic website already. I hope this helps!

Minor things that annoy me

Commentary in some documentaries.
The sensationalist spooky bullshit, specifically. "There's something haunted here... something scary... IN THE POSTAL MUSEUM!"

Labelling in grocery stores.
Tesco, the supermarket where I normally buy my groceries, sells normal sized bananas and slightly smaller, misshapen ones. Instead of calling them honestly grade B bananas or something, they label them "Fun sized bananas". Fun sized? FUN SIZED?!?
Oh yeah... hilarious...right... "Joe! JOE! Oh God, come here, you have to see this!!! IT'S A SMALL BANANA! HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!". Jesus.

Force of gigantic dis

I'm participating to season 6 of Sketchbattle (with AF writing the scripts) - which is a lot of extra drawing but is also good fun. Today KC Green destroyed the other contestant in the best battle since the creation of the website. Just the hands spelling "Bitches" is pure genius - I was transfixed. He should win the season automatically just for that. The guy's comics are very funny - those I've read, anyway, because it would take 10 years to go through all the archives. By the looks of it, he draws two dozen strips per day. And most of them are very good.

Another contestant that I really like is Fabricari. His art is amazing (I'm not so sure about his bespoke sound effects though - zottlx?!?) and he's had a very good idea about setting a webcam on his drawing table so that people can watch him draw in real time. He explains how to do it and I am tempted to set it up too.

UK Webcomic Thing 2007

I've booked a table for the UK Webcomic Thing 2007. Now I MUST get book 3 ready - maybe even book 4. I just shudder at the thought of printing episode 200 because it would have to span across two pages. It's a pain in the ass to do things by trial and error by normal post across two continents.
I'm also thinking of buying a badge maker and make buttons. I don't use them but I've seen people walking around the convention last year with so many badges on their clothes that I wondered how they still managed to move - so I guess that they are a popular item. If not, I can try to use them instead of coins in soda vending machines.
What else? I have some fridge magnets and stickers from last year (the pirate parrot was particularly popular) and very few t-shirts left. Time to print some more.
If only I didn't suck at organising this kind of stuff.