MY BETTER HALF...

This woman is cleverer, funnier and stronger than I am. So she can certainly kick YOUR ass...

LEAST ACTION HERO...

So many deadlines and dinosaur incursions, so little time...

JOURNEYMAN...

Lay back and think of the air-miles I'm earning...

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Archive for September 2008

(BATTLE)STARS AND GRIPES

It's been one of those weeks where people have been amazingly helpful or rat-bastard idiots from the planet Arse. (Otherwise known as PC World).

Let's get the necessary rat-bastardiness out of the way by laughing heartily and crying softly at the PC World complaints liasion who told me that if I didn't like the fact I'd have to wait for a written response to my attempts to halt my ongoing problems and complaints then I should... write a letter to them explaining my grievances. I swear I nearly reached down the phone and hit him with a blunt object of which I'm sure there were many lying about. Equally while away this weekend at Collectormania I got a call from said Written Complaints Department to explain they were really sorry about hearing all the problems I'd had, but couldn't do much without receipts of my expenditures etc. Given I won't have the five hours of my calls on my phone bill until at least December (and maybe not if then if the shorter calls don't show up) nor my credit card bill for a month ,that would take a while. Also I've learned (albeit by asking the same question over and over again until it was admitted through clenched teeth) that it's COMPANY POLICY that I won't get a penny of compenstaion other than those specific, exact to the penny provable expenditures. So I won't get anything for being lied to, admittedly misled, messed around, losing work time because of false promises, used petrol etc for the last few weeks. In short, they slap the wrists of the people that do it, but don't compensate the victim. As I said, rat-bastards. I'll be mailing Managing Director Rat Bastard Snr. forthwith. If no joy, BBC's Watchdog may get a call. Messeth with the Moz, ye not.

In better news, I spent a few hours talking with and interviewing Mark Sheppard (of Firefly, Leverage, Battlestar Galactica, Bionic Woman, 24 etc fame and pictured above) after Kerry helped set it up (she's working on Leverage with him at the mo). Very nice guy who could talk a hind leg off a donkey and then sell it back to the donkey and make a profit. Plus he has a really nice new, cutting-edge I-Phone. I think I have device envy. Also caught up with his BSG co-star Jamie Bamber to finish an interview I started last week. So all in all, that was a worthwhile trip.

I have to type up all of that before Cinema Days at the end of this week, so won't be getting much rest. It's not all as exciting as it sounds and I'll be judging not-that-profitable deadlines for a while yet.

All job offers entertained and chocolate accepted.

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AVAST ANNOYANCE.

Apparently it was just 'Talk like a Pirate' Day. Why are these days so popular... I don't know, they just arrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr.

*ahem*

But talking about pirates, the PC World/lost laptop situation stumbles ever forward. I've now been recompensed for the actual new laptop I bought. It doesn't take into account the TWO WEEKS I've had to wait for a refund on my credit card, nor the 4+ hrs of phone-calls, curtailed travel and general incompetence at every level, so I'm pursuing further compensation from their head office. I spoke to someone on the phone there and they refused to offer me more than £20 as a 'goodwill gesture' so that was a non-starter - I'll be looking for much more than that as I've already spent that on trying to sort this out.

I do have MOST of my e-mails back, though not the specific ones I needed (Sod's Law). The discs with the e-mail files on them were supposed to be posted to me, but naturally they weren't and I had to pick them up from the store as well. *sigh* The mind boggles, the blood boils...

Right now, I'm juggling a wave of outgoing bills with some events I have to attend. I hope to be at Collectormania in Milton Keynes next week. I spoke to Battlestar Galactica's Jamie Bamber on Friday and hope to catch him at the event next weekend. Kerry has helped set up a chat with actor Mark Sheppard as well, so hopefully I can get that done there too. Then it's Cinema Days the week after. Definitely need some more paid work coming in (writing and designing) , but also a ton of existing work and chores to get done too. No rest for etc etc

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QUE SERA, SARAH C.

A couple of the bulletin boards I'm on have been talking about the new TV season's offerings and some of the attention has been on the returning Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles. For me it's one of the most annoying programmes, only because I WANT to like it: it has a great premise, some decent performances, a truck-load of mythology to draw from and yet... and yet, if feels so damned lazy.

I appreciate I'm not a TV writer - sure, I think I've got one in me somewhere, but with the Impact duties, freelance duties, HLWW duties, designing stuff and other tasks, they keep me distracted - but T:TSCC feels like the characters are merely being mechanically moved around to get to a designated plot-point (oh, the irony). For me, GREAT television drama - and even some merely good stuff - works much better when it's the other way around; when the plot is or seems to be realistically driven by a character's believable actions and reactions. Bascially, less 'This would be a really cool scene...' and more of 'This is a really cool character, what if he...' etc.

Two episodes into the new T:TSCC season, I'm banging my head gainst the monitor and losing track of the plot-points that distract me, rather than draw me in. Some, admittedly, are a tad geeky and probably based around pragmatic production choices (How come Cameron gets all blowed up and yet comes out looking relatively unscathed etc) but others... meh. Is John SO stupid he would risk the lives of himself, his family and the whole world to take a leap of faith that his reset (actually polishing a memory-stick several times) of Cameron would work, but not take any precautions in case he hadn't? After a week of near-death escapades, would he bring back a girl to his unseen new super secwet home and NOT be bothered when she starts going on about the future and builds him a robot? Would Sarah let said really-annoying-character spend the night (and would John behave THAT gentlemanly?) And... tell me, is it really THAT easy to get into a nuclear power station's even more super secwet control areas with a self-made plastic badge and no background check? Has a guy from the future (yet another one?) who dies in your arms unable to inpart a key-to-the-future message, a severe 'lack-of-priorities' problem when he's revealed to have spent a great deal of time in your basement writing a thesis on the wall in his own blood instead of TELLING you things?). And don't even get me started on 'The Urinator' scene in the premiere. As a guy, that's just a very unsettling visual - and complete Garbage.

Instead of broadening its canvas, T:TSCC needs to tighten it's remit, concentrate on the clever scenes (Cameron writing in bar-code - brilliant), the possibly poignant (Sarah's cancer) and the meaningful (make John less pouty and 'Befuddle-me Emo' and get more with the program, literally) and less on the super conspiracy angle which seems to be at the whim of a diverging timeline and umpteen chronologically-challenged resistance fighters, anyway.

Less deux ex machina, more plot-mechancics, please. Otherwise, I'll be driven to only watch Bones (as long as they PROMISE to never do a London episode again) and House (because watching that and Blackadder back-to-back just proves Laurie is an acting tour-de-force).
Terminator... convince me, if you want to live.

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THE MIRROR COVER'D

Okay, a public service announcement for anyone who might be confused:

RIGHT: My brother's debut novel from a few years back

LEFT: NOT my brother's debut novel... from a few days ago.

I'm reliably informed the interiors are different...

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LESS IS MOORE

Yesterday was a long day. I went down to London (where surprisngly the sun was shining) to do an interview with Alan Moore. For those who don't know the name he's the guy who originally wrote Watchmen and V for Vendetta, two of the biggest / most controversial comcis ever produced. He has a reputation for being opinionated and has fallen out with Hollywood numerous times (sometimes understandbly) and given his Hell's Angel like frame /unfeasibly bushy beard, I was a tad nervous.

I needn't have worried. Though opinionated, he's an interviewer's dream in the sense that he's not afraid to talk at length (an interviewer's nightmare is the guy who just says 'Yes', 'No' or 'No comment' to every single question). There were lots of things I might have disagreed with Moore about, but he knows why he thinks what he does and the conversation was a good one and it'll produce a good piece for Impact.

Oh, yes, and...The Laptop Saga (Part IV: A New Hope). After being told conclusively and finally that my original laptop had gone the way of the dodo (if the dodo had been put in the wrong pile on the wrong shelf and summararilly destroyed by an over-eager employee without so much as a 'Whoops, there' goes my hard-drive! 'and disappeared forever never to be seen again by man, Stuart, their tech guy, now informs me it's back, risen from the dead in a way so unexpectedly lucky that people may well be writing books about it 2000 years from now. Still not working, but with salvagable parts. So, I have a new laptop, I SHOULD get the e-mails back from my old one, but - of course - there's no word on the vouchers/credit note that should have been issued over a week ago. Indeed, someone I spoke to at the PC World head office confirmed my claim was shut down a week ago because... and wait for this... I didn't ring them as told to. (My phone bill: 4hrs worth of calls and rising). After picking myself up off the floor and making mental notes to possibly ask Alan Moore to curse them, I demanded to speak to 'Melissa', my contact there. She wasn't in that day. She was supposed to call this weekend. She hasn't. I smell blood in the air.

Perhaps that's also because of the devastatingly funny and accurate SNL sketch:


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COLLISION, DAMAGE, WAVER

The laptop saga ("This time it's personal... computer") continues, though at least someone seems to be on the actual case. As I suspected the refund will take some extra days to come through but one of the tech people at PC World is at least trying to establish exactly what happened, why and how I'm further compensated - added to the fact that he doesn't think I'll get my hard-drive (or e-mails) back as they can't even find the damn machine or track where it went. Apparently all the problems may have started when they input the wrong info into their system when I brought it in (confusing it with a laptop my parentals had bought last year). The new laptop is fine so far, but I've spent a fortune in phone-calls, petrol and basic inconvenience, so I'm not letting this issue go. Did I drop on them the fact I'm the very annoyed editor of a national magazine? Oh, I think I did.

Of course, all this hardship may be moot. Tomorrow there's this big scientific experiment going on on the French/Swiss border where they are apparently firing atoms at atoms somewhere deep under ground to see how the universe was created...and we are assured that there's only a very minimal risk of this creating a black hole that destroys all life on the Earth. Which is nice.

Me? I'm thinking PC World are just holding out to see how that experiment goes first.

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Lap of the Gods. SUPPOSEDLY

So, I'm typing on a new laptop. An ACER 5920 for those who want to byte off more than they can chew. :)

Of course, it wasn't - and maybe still isn't - that simple. Because of the whole 'replacement operating procdure' and the fact I wasn't prepared to wait for the crdit note/vouchers to take days to come through, I've had to pay for this laptop (£399-ish) upfront. What is SUPPOSED to happen is that the vouchers should be sent to PC World and the manager will then cash those in and recredit my VISA card very quickly. SUPPOSED to is the key word here as I suspct, despite assurances, that there'll be a signifcant amount missing off my card for over a week. And I still have to get my e-mail back from the old computer as there was no reason for me to remove them for what should have been a minor reapir on the laptop's bodywork, not software.

Still.

Pretty laptop. :)

[CLICK ENTRY TITLE TO READ FULL POST] - Posted by JOHN MOSBY
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Lap (Top) Dancing.

Further adventures in Lap-topping...

My laptops always seem to cause me problems. Though the untold benefit of having access to a computer while travelling is, well, untold.. they always seem to develop faults and those faults seem to be compounded by when they happen and how easy they are to get sorted.

Earlier this year I think I blogged about problems with the keyboard and the fact it took two weeks to send away and repair. Ha! The good old days. I noticed the minute the laptop came back from repair that every so often the power would fluctuate, in short if I didn't have the battery in or the power lead at JUST the right angle then it might spontaneously turn itself off. Though this only happened every so often, the battery needed to be in all the time, just in case - hence the battery wore down quicker. During August the power problem had increased to such a degree I had to put it in for repair AGAIN. I was told it would take about two weeks again. C'est la vie. Except... when I call to find out the status this week (around three weeks after taking it in) I'm told there's been a few problems and they're waiting for a specific part, but otherwise all is fine. Call back on Thursday! I do. Only this time I'm met with confusion. The laptop, which has to be physically repaired by a third party was apparently NEVER picked up from the PC World store because PC World didn't confirm details. In short, despite the assurances, it's been a shelf ornament for nearly a month and still is. So, I've been let down by them AND lied to about its status. Never mind says another representative, we apologise and we'll get someone to phone you back by the end of business Thursday or very leatest Fri morning to sort out how quickly we can get those repairs done and back to you!

You're way ahead of me if you're guessing no-one called, but you're also right. Another hour on the phone this morning and no-one was confirming the actual ststus of the laptop or that I should have even received that promised call. In fact, I'm once again calling three or four different numbers and being passed from pillar to post with a 'sounds awful, but you need to speak to someone else...'

FINALLY, spoke to someone on the other end of the phone at Head Office who agrees that the service has been inexcusable, tells me that the laptop actually CAN'T be repaired, so.... I can have a new laptop (hopefully all old e-mails not lost - they were the only things I couldn't quickly transfer before it left). Just not sure when I can get it. There's vouchers and timing and details to sort before that happens. They were going to call back within two hours. Of course... that was one hour and fifty five minutes ago and... nothing.

Utterly hopeless service on almost every level until the last hour and fingers crossed that I actually will have something to show for my time and trouble. However, the last few months have shown me that with the lessons my mother has taught me (she's the Jedi-Master of justifiably effective complaining) I definitely know WHEN to complain, HOW to complain and make sure I come out of it with something to show for the trouble.

So. New laptop. Hopefully. Whooo - with a cautious side-helping of Hoooo. Maybe.

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Between a Rock' and a hard place.

Spent a day in London as Warner Bros. launched Rocknrolla on an unsuspecting public - well, probably quite suspecting as the public knows what to expect from a Guy Ritchie film and his last couple haven't done that well. However this is the guy (sic) that brought the world Lock, Stock... and Snatch so there's a certain kind of film that he does well if you like your gangster-chic to be of the cockney dramedy style.

The film is actually fairly good as long as you know what to expect and the likes of Gerard Butler, Thandie Newton, Tom Wilkinson and Idris Elba do nothing to hinder the pace and proceedings. It's packed with too many characters with silly names (One-Two, Mumbles, Handsome Bob) and overlapping plots and isn't as clever as it thinks it is, but the result isn't too shabby and better than I thought it would be.

The press event all took place in what appeared to be a normally disused building on the banks of the Thames which Warners had slapped with posters and temp lighting. There was a lot of pomp and circumstance, but also a feeling that they were all trying hard to be hip and make this a bigger thing than it was. But the press stuff went well. The cast seemed a bit bored but answered questions well enough (i watched as Ritchie expertly swatted the Daily Mail - that bastion of maintaining Britain's morality - for hypocritically asking about the state of his marriage to Madonna... ahh they never cease to disappoint) and I even got some stuff from Mark Strong about his role in the adaptation of Mark Millar's Kick-Ass. Still hoping to get on the set of that project if I can work things out with Mr M. in October.

All very exciting, but now back to the normal everyday world and day in and day out routine and hoping it won't be too long before I get my normal laptop back from repair. Back to work...

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