Obviously why I don't feature in so many catchy prophecies, at least any JK Rowling rights, but dammit I wish it were so.

Anyway, it's my birthday and not much is happening this year, like many previous years it is more about how I decide to treat myself, slink away from the world and have a night to just unwind mainly because there's no one around to share it with but that's my bad instincts and lack of social savy.  (This all traslates to a bit of angst and feeling sorry for me self)

So what has another years wisdom given me?  An On The Moon T-Shirt and DVD's maybe but also a little pathos, not too much Athos or Aramis though, and little more bitterness and hardness but some whimsy aswell, also I have deepened and found fascination in the world and started smoking a little more, bring on the July ban so i can relax.

Looking forward to so much to come now, not least my return to University and move to London, but Harry Potter finally coming to a close. Oh how I'll miss it but I have long waited this July day.  Also the cover art makes me suspicious of Ron's other hand and Hermione's expression, also Harry seems to have Dobby with Gryfindor's sword on his back, just freaky.

I wonder what House I'd be in without taking an online test... I think Ravenclaw but maybe Slytherin... I doubt I'd play Quidditch though.  Typical, 26 years old and I wanna go back to being a kid, albeit a kid at Hogwarts... knowing what I know now....

In other news Dead Like Me series 2 finally made it to Region 2 release and there's talk of a straight to DVD movie of the same, awesome.  Now I want Twin Peaks series 2 please.

Order of the Stick is also quite rocking at the moment

Amazon prices are bad for you, far too tempting and especially on nostalgic crap, MacGuyver is finally affordable, you know you watched it and liked it... admit it... LIAR, you only deluding yourself, the man was a rolemodel and an education

Right I'm off to see Punt and Dennis live, good birthday to me

I don't mean the TV series, I've not even watched that yet, though I will check it out and it seems the Beeb will be broadcasting it at some point (May I think)... actually come to think of it, it's about fucking time that the Terrestrial Channels showed some decent Sci fi and genre shows... where the hell are the imports of Firefly, Dead Like Me, Wonderfalls, Joan of Arcadia, Tru Calling, Battlestar Gallactica that the Beeb, Channel 4 and Five could have bought up cheap and put out.  I'm not saying they're all good but I'd like to see for myself... I'd mention ITV but they do try so hard with Supernatural and Surface(?) and then ruin all faith with Primeval... poor confused ITV...

Anyway, I digress, my true meaning was for a little know XBox game called Heroes, Dungeons and Dragons Heroes.  Using 3rd ed rules you can either be a Fighter, Rogue, Wizard or Cleric but not a Lover. The best bit is it's 1-4 players and awesome fun and great value, it's my mates and we've played through it 3 or 4 times on the different difficuly levels and now I've found out how to unlock Nightmare mode the games can continue.

It's not as if it's difficult or an engrossing storyline but because of that my friends and I make it so much more amusing and fun by making jokes and shouting at the screen when we see the baddy in disguise.  It's pantomime and we indulge in tomfoolery, using spell effects as euphemisms and using the block command in synchronisation so it looks like the characters are doing the dance to Prince Charming by Adam and the Ants.

What I'm saying is I want more games like that but I don't game that much... Baldur's Gate Dark Alliance 1 and 2 would be great but they're only 2 player.

I play the Dwarf Cleric most times and it's fun when you're not quite that hard and charge into battle only to run away screaming ow ow ow or keeling over dead.

In other news the PS3 came out today, I looked at it in Asda and though about putting one on my credit card before realising that would be silly.  I'm still thinking about getting an XBox, not an XBox 360 but and XBox because I like Halo and Knights of the Old Republic.  I've got a PS2 but I rarely drag it out to play anything except Lego Star Wars and GTA games... Sorry Jooby, I'll get you those games back eventually, I also promise to play Kingdom Hearts at least once even though I've had it for 6 months.

Right enough rambing

I haven't been here for a while, for several reasons, the main being that I wasn't at work, closely followed with having nothing to say... well that's not true, I had plenty to say but I'm uncomfortable about using this forum to air something so personal but having read some of MrWarfrogs earlier posts I think it would be good to say some things.

My Mum is dying, a week or so back Doctor's said there was no more they could do and that the end was likely to be only weeks away.  I was crushed, I still am, but now not knowing when it's going to happen I'm at a loss so I've fallen back into my routine, only now my brother, sister and father are all at home looking after my Mum.

I doesn't need to be said but I just don't want her to go, but she's beaten the odds on cancer for a few years now and it is secondaries, bad ones, that she has now and it's always been a case of staying a few steps ahead.  I'm stuck with the dilemma of also taking time of work which my bosses are fine about but I wouldn't know what to do if I was at home.

For now I'm just focusing on doing something and as soon as she gets work then I'll take the time off, she's not much worse than she was a month or so back but now every cough or sigh makes you think the worst.  And it's not a certainty but I fear the worst, always.

Also to deal with is the fact I'm going back to Uni in October which is what myself, my Mum and the rest of my family thinks is for the best.

I'm OK as long as I know the facts it's just about I'm rather timid about getting the facts.

More to follow, at some point

Reading j00by 's journal i was given to ponder one of my favourite things/concepts... Time.

It's just awesome, so many connotations and myths, the idea of paradoxes, sayings and such. I love depictions of time travel and consequences on TV and Film, Back to the Future while a little corny and sacharine sweet in places is an excellent series of films, I've recently been such a child for the whole George kissing Elaine at the Enchantment Under the Sea dance while Marty fades from existence, and the whole climax of Earth Angel and Marty being fine.

Then there's The Time Machine (original not the remake, although it wasn't so bad), Quantum Leap, and virtually any sci-fi series that did a time travel episode. The Star Trek ones were okay but I only really remember the Deep Space Nine one and that's always good. Farscape did a belter about time travel and the whole wormwhole alien John calls Einstien, oh and the one where they screw up an planet's history by making Stark look through some goggles. Stark was ace. your side my side.

Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban with the time turner, again quite fun.

I don't know if time travel is possible, I've always had a problem thinking how it would link to the space you were travelling to. I had an interesting discussion in the pub over the weekend over whether if you could travel in time whether you would go forward or back, all three of us chose foward, we wanted to see what would come after. Strangely it echoed Revenge of the Nerds when Poindexter asks if you'd like to live in the peak of a civilization or during it's decline, but are we declining or peaking?

Most Sci-fi authors at some point dabble with a time travel story and Jack McDevitt has done more than a few. He did the brilliant Time Traveller's Never Die in a collection of short stories, Standard Candles, and an excellent one about how time travel is prohibited by some force and every time you try to make a trip you are directed to some mortal peril.

I love how perception of time changes in relation to your mood, why time flies when you're having fun and wonder if it's true that time run's differently in pyramids... Pyramids by Terry Pratchett, very good book.

Steven Hawking has said that time travel isn't possible or unlikely to be achieved because we've not seen any travellers yet. I think it's more complicated but possible, bet there's rules aswell. Maybe Hawking was being lazy because nobody from the future deigned to visit him.

I wish I could travel in time, not so sure I'd want to be immortal

I am a miserable bastard a large amount of the time, mostly in private so it may shock some of you, almost to the point that I find it too much effort to cheer up, but I do find that when my mood swings up boy do i bounce off the walls hence the subject.

There are reasons for my misery, some that I don't want to air right now, other's which are just pathetic and whiny, but I think a big part is because I'm used to it, I'm good at it and I like it a little, I don't let it get me down. I like to describe myself as an opptomistic pessimist, or a pessimistic opptomist, bit of an oxymoron but it's like "I think it's good, though maybe not" "It won't help, but it might" a bit like procrastinating at which I'm great, though probably not the best.

My drawing is improving, now I'm worried about running out of things to draw and I fear stretching my ability, i need to stop being scared of drawing something impressive that I can see perfectly in my head and give it a try.

I had an alright weekend, popped up to Manchester and hung out with some mates, stupid really as I'll see them this Sunday and I could have spent some quality time on Saturday brooding and doing chores... I'm joking of course, it was mucho fun but obligations called me home. Sunday was a day of ironing, i'm not the best person to iron and I take ages but at least I caught up on all the stuff I'd taped the previous week, Oppenheimer was an interesting guy and Criminal Minds is fun, though they'll eventually fun out of good sources to quote and you'll hear things like "Charlie Brown once said "I can't stand it""

Mandy Patinkin is great though and I wish they'd not cancelled Dead Like Me, although I hear the creator of that show is working on a new series that bears some resemblance and relation to Death, Pushing Up Daisies I think it's called.

Now I've got my writing ball going I should admit something if only to myself

I want to be an artist... I've denied it for so long and I don't want to become pretentious, though I know it's not a requirement, but I just got slowly hooked again over the past couple of years.

I was always a fair drawer, accurate if lacking in imagination and sometimes the complete opposite with my skill failing to bring justice to my scribbles. I wanted to be able to doodle funny, cute and striking little pictures of friends, surroundings and anything I could dream up. I however didn't have the dedication, didn't want to learn all that my art classes were teaching me and thought that science was much more important to study... I was wrong, or at least I wan't completely write... also my brother is one of those kind of artists that I wanted to be... I wonder if that's part of the reason, anyway he completely overshadowed anything I could do and once I was into my GCSE's I just stopped.

Then years past, I did A-levels, a Uni course, moaned and got bitter(er) for a year then got a proper library job with a broadband connection. I was sucked into the world of webcomics and I was amased and impressed by what I saw. I read loads and traweled through archives, then a friend started doing his own webcomic on his sight, I did a guest strip or two and thought nothing more of it, maybe a pang of regret but it faded. [Hook]

Then another friend, who may reveal herself if she so wishes, said we could do better, and I agreed, and so we split the roles, I would script she would illustrate and we'd be cranking out a masterpiece in no time. Oh we were so naive, damn it is difficult and I'm the one with the easy job! But we've persevered and honed it and it will one day emerge and do as we said, and this adversity and dedication to a creative process has only fuelled my gently rekindled enthusiasm. [Line]

Over the years I have become a big fan of many comic/web artists, mostly showcased in the awesome Flight comics, (Vera Brosgol is my favourite) and it's just humbling to see the output these people produce and so I dared to hope and dream again.

Then Judy (it may be me just putting the blame on her) suggested we reverse roles and work on another comic, me as artist herself scripting. I not only foolishly agreed I jumped at the chance, I need something to focus on, to increase my skill. Boy is it difficult but I'm loving the challenge... [Sinker]

If there wasn't so much else taking up my free time I'd be doing everything I could to learn drawing and painting, going back to college or uni, but another obsession has pipped that particular post.

I've applied to do a conservation course, while not the art degree I've started to yearn for I feel conservation is more me, and while on the course I can concentrate more of learning to draw again. Also if you've seen some of the comics on the web and the artwork that goes into them I'm certainly not the worst, and Judy is ace at drawing... we'll see how the scripting comes :)

Right, that'll do for now

So I have this journal and I find myself thinking about all the really interesting and insightful stuff I could be writing about, mostly stemming from whatever I've just watched on YouTube or DVD... and I find that when I come to write everything I've got to say is generally for my own mind to mull over and now I've thought about it there's no need to say it.

However, Due South is really rather good having watched the first two series over again and now I'm just waiting for the price to drop enough on series 3, even though I know it's not the original Vecchio.. but it is the guy who now plays one of the Cylons in Battlestar Galactica.

Interestingly though if I want to see David Marciano as a detective again I just have to watch the Shield, but it just ain't Ray, and what was Ray without Benton?

I was talking to Judy about it on Sunday and she was put off Due South by being forced to watch it by two girls who fancied... Vecchio!! I hate to steal this hot anecdote off Judy but since it's unlikely to surface on her journal I had to share. I have nothing against David Marciano but next to Paul Gross there's usually a more biased split. But hey, who the hell cares as long as they're watching and supporting the show?

Actually now I'm typing I get the urge to write more, foolish, foolish me

Hello to everyone

I am new though I have read livejournal's I have never gone so far as to create one myself until now. And what awesome thing have I chosen to share with the world on this my premiere?

I watched Bellville Rendez Vous yesterday and it was brilliant, really cute and funny. I had a rather full weekend of catching up on DVD's, cooking and travelling to Manchester to visit friends , and so I come to work knackered, feeling rough and unsure of where to begin.

So what do I do now, where do I begin? Is anyone out there?