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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Not had a lot of access to the Net in the last few days as Holly doesn't have a landline yet. However I have picked up an ocassional wi-fi bleed which must be coming from a nearby property. Actually, I'm probably hijacking the signal from the church next door. Thoughts that I may be going to hell for this are tempered by the fact that every Christian I know says it is better to give than receive, so at this time of year, I hope they practise what they literally preach ;)

The ground is still largely snowy, though no new snowfall since I arrived which means the roads are clear and the only real effort needed has been for me to help clear the porch. Holly's new dog Bob has trained me to keep throwing her toys for her to fetch, though I've countered by making sure the said toy is given to me not merely dropped at my feet expectantly. Pix, Holly's horse is not so much with the mind-games and prefers merely to be fed and watered.

In the last few days we've met up with Kit and Ariel for beer and food, visited the Garden of the Gods (see rocky outlets above), put up decorations (I'm great at other people's DIY jobs) and generally discussed life, the universe, irregular sleep-patterns and the importance of cash-flow and strategy when planning trips and executing all sorts of Plan Bs.
Other than that, fairly quiet, fairly fah-lalalala. Nothing new or desperate to report.





I woke in London in the morning with the kind of icy mist and rising sun that looks so great when you can see wide open spaces. sadly, it was mainly warehouses and buildings, but you can't have everything. Checked in easily for Virgin with no major hassles.

Sooooo, the flights were good in the sense that they took off, flew and landed safely and in the right order. I left Heathrow an hour late but with the promise of a shorter than normal 10hr flight. Watched Stardust and Rattatouille (sp?) and Doctor Who (Blink) on Virgin's impressive entertainment package. Time flew like the plane and ten hours didn't feel any more than eight and a half or so.Despite the earlier arrival, we landed far away from the main LAX terminal and for a good fifteen minutes the guy towing the plane performed the kind of parallel parking that made us go backwards and forwards about ten times. Even the pilot was forced to come on the intercom and say 'I have no idea what this guy's doing, we may end up in Disneyworld!' Finally - after a bus ride around the airport perimeter, I got to abggage claim, was quizzed throughly by Customs and grabbed my luggage and headed to Terminal 7 for my United flight to Denver.

Slept a little bit more and arrived ontime (even a tad early) in Denver where I was met by Holly and her dog Bob (who's a girl and clearly going to have gener issues somewhere down the line). Took an hour drive to Laporte to see Holly's place with six inches of snow from a few days before. Very picturesque.

Chilled out for an hour or so, then slept like a log until around 6:00am where I witnessed the sunrise over the snowy surrounding land and mountains.
I've arrived! There's snow! I have my camera. All is good.

So. Off I go. Technically this is the first day of my excellent ADVENTure ( see what I did there?) and things have gotten off to an okay if not quite exact start. I was supposed to be staying at the Yotel at Heathrow Airport (in one of those pods/cabins that everyone is talking about) but now it appears that everyone is talking about them not opening on time, so I'll be shuttled off by shuttle to a nearby hotel at Yotel's expense. Bad PR, but good response, I guess.

Now on the train down to London, GNER has been replaced as the train provider by National Express and they've got my vote by now providing free wi-fi throughout the train. Only strange thing was that when I came to my website, all the navigation instructions appeared in Swedish. No ikea/idea why. All good now. Which is nice.

Tomorrow I'm up early to chreck-in at T2 (the terminal, not the Arnold movie), though technically I've already done so online. Pays not to take chances with computers, I've found.It's going to be good to be away where there's a chance of snow this Christmas. Now if I can just survive without any slight or significant injury this time, it'll be progress.


Last weekend was the Dublin City Comic Con. You will never find a more wretched hive of scum and villainy in... No wait. That was Mos Eisley... easy mistake to make.

Building on the success of last year's outing, the DCCC was a two-day event and was a great mix of comic creators, artists, writers, alcohol, geekdom, alcohol, Doctor Whoness and... alcohol. Last year Team Wisdom, named after Doctor Who scribe Paul Cornell's Marvel comic, took second place at the charity quiz. This year, amidst muchserious and scary competition between our newly renamed Team Excalibur (Paul's tenure on that Marvel title starts in 2008, True Believers!) and Mark Millar's Team Sex Panthers (don't even ask) we were both beaten into joint-third place in part by the blatant cheating of the 'pro's' group which included Jim Lee, Liam Sharp and a host of googling blackberrys (sounds like a group). However we won all sorts of moral victories and as it was all for charity, all was forgiven (until next year when we crush their skulls and destroy their will to live).

Originally only going for the social side, I was drafted in to host a panel about comics and movies with top names including Andy Diggle (ex-2000AD editor and The Losers scribe) and Jock (Losers artist etc). Great fun. Hopefully for the audience too.

An excellent outing only marred by a restricted budget (Christmas and Denver are coming up WAY too quickly for financial comfort) and a snooty cow on the RyanAir desk early Monday morning who insisted I'd asked for online check-in and then not printed out my boarding pass... so I'd have to pay for another one or not get on my flight. It was only 3 Euros, but knowing that I hadn't even requested online check-in to begin with, never mind had a boarding pass to print, I was indignant. Thumbs down for the cheapo airline trying to make some extra cash off weary travellers.

Congrats to all involved in the DCCC and also to Paul for being part of (another) winning team for their work on Who at the Writers' Guild Awards at BAFTA. The official 'nicest man in comics' deserves it all.
(Above pic shows Paul, Mark Peyton, myself and RossS before our moral victory)

As some people may already know, the WGA (The Writers' Guild of America) went out on strike on Monday over residual and payment issues. In most debates there are two sides to every story, but it has to be said that in this one it's hard not to have the utmost sympathy for the writers when you look at the deals they've been forced to swallow in the past and the attitude of modern Hollywood today when it comes to giving up ANY extra slice of very profitable pies.

I've never written for TV - I'd love to but when is there time to even attempt what others already do exceptionally well - but a lot of friends and colleagues do. I hate the fact I may lose some good programmes to repeats if the roadblocks remain in place, but there is a principle here.

Check out the WGA informational video for what seems a very understandable argument or visit www.unitedhollywood.com