linkmachinego.com
11 February 2001
[comics] Brief reviews of London Comic Shops… the top three are the best shops in London… Gosh: ‘Fight through the superheroes on the ground floor and head for the stairs at the back of the shop. The lead to a basement full of alternative & independent stuff. Usually a couple of shelves of self-published bits.’
6 February 2001
[LMG] I’m all blogged out… taking a break for a couple of days. Not taking my laptop with me… just a Rio, a Colour Gameboy… and a few books. :) LMG returns at the weekend.
[morrison] Grant Morrison updates his website and has published good news for sad, lonely, fanboys everywhere: ‘”Sex is out of the question for me” admits once-promising Olympian John with a chuckle. “When you add my spinal injuries and other morbid disabilities to the obesity I’ve suffered since the accident well, you have the chemical combination for loneliness right there in the palm of your hand. That’s mostly why I started putting aside my spare time for poring over lists and charts and I can assure fans that 2001 will be be a hard and horny one for comics enthusiasts worldwide.”‘
[rap] Eminem: Courting controversy, Public Eminem No1 — BBC News and the Sunday Times on Eminem. ‘”I would quite genuinely shoot the little bastard,” said Julie Bindel, founder of the action group Justice for Women and a researcher at the child and women abuse department at North London University. “He is misogynist scum who will influence some women and men. Rather than censor him, though, I wish someone who took offence at his lyrics would leave him in a coma.”‘
5 February 2001
[infinite fanboys] I have not got the time to investigate this archive of Internet Fan Fiction… but it looks pretty comprehensive. If you find any amusing / sick / insightful fan fiction let me know
[comics] Long, fascinating behind the scenes expose of the formation of Image comics in the early 90’s from The Comics Journal. ‘The story he wants to tell is, in the final analysis, not the Story of Comics but the Story of Todd McFarlane. “The comic-book world could blow up tomorrow,” he told the Journal. “I’m taken care of. The guy you got to worry about the least is Todd McFarlane. I’m bulletproof. I will make no apologies for anything Image has done. I left Marvel to be free. Eight years later, is Todd free? You’re fucking right he is. I can’t even envision the day when I would go back to the plantation and do Spider-Man or Heroes Reborn. I’m free, goddamn it! I’ve got everything I want!”‘
4 February 2001
[fraud] A reckoning at the Russia house, SW16. Fascinating look at a massive credit card fraud operation run by a Russian in London… ‘Confident they now had enough information, officers carried out dawn raids on addresses across London, including those of the two main suspects, but even they were surprised by what was found at Tanov’s home. The 33-year-old Russian had turned a small bedroom into a credit card factory, at a cost of no more than £3,000, complete with computers, embossers and hologram making equipment, capable of producing near perfect replicas of Visa, Amex and Master Card.’ [via Beesley]
[norfolk] According to to the Sunday Times Norfolk is new playground of the rich. ‘But the north Norfolk coast is emerging as the rural retreat of choice for the monied classes, providing for London’s elite what the Hamptons of Long Island offers New Yorkers. Drawn to the bracing sea air, quaint villages and fresh seafood, the urban wealthy are colonising the area, sending house prices soaring and spawning a proliferation of designer boutiques and delicatessens. Indeed, the lure of Blakeney, Wells-next-the-Sea and Burnham Market has become so strong that some of America’s glitterati have forsaken the Hamptons for a trip to Norfolk.’
[comics] Nice Evan Dorkin fan page with lots of scans of his work from Dork!
3 February 2001
[cock] Flame of the week over at the Register: ‘And quit writing the word “cock” on every page of the register! It makes you sound like peanut eating jizz mopers! It’s bad enough that you write about lesbian disabled porn in between mastubatory frenzies, but having cock thrust upon each page is disgusting!’
[buffy] The Edible Buffy… you’re probably thinking it’s some nasty fan site dedicated to Buffy Fan Fiction but you could not be more wrong… ‘There are already a bazillion Buffy sites on the Internet, some specifically devoted to episode synopsis and analysis, the stars, the villains, and even the show’s philosophy. I figured I’d make my site slightly less redundant by exploring a heretofore untouched aspect of BtVS: the food.’
[comics] Another of those Previews Guides to the comics coming out in April 2001 this time from popImage. What I’ll be purchasing… Ministry Of Space #1 and the following collections: Jar of Fools, Soundtracks by Jessica Abel, and the complete edition of Box Office Poison.
2 February 2001
[nose] For anybody who comes to LMG for pictures of Danniela Westbrooke’s Nose: Gak Attack. ‘It’s class A Entertainment’
[blogger] Long, involved post on Metafilter about the breakup of Blogger. Matt Haughey: ‘Thousands of young and old alike, beginner and expert started using their website to communicate their voice, build a brand, feed an ego, and spread their ideas through weblogs. At the center of it all, was Blogger.com, and it showed no signs of stopping. But backstage, things were falling apart…’ [Related Links: Evhead, Haughey, Saturn, Megnut on Blogger]
1 February 2001
[our reptile rulers] David Icke publishes conclusive proof that Prince Charles is a shape-changing lizard.
[weblogs] Tom wins Best European and GLBT weblog at the 2001 Bloggies… Congratulations Tom.
[comics] SFX Magazine interviews Warren Ellis — Part One, Part Two.‘…Marvels trying to make a bit of money, bless ’em. They’re in business and that’s what they are there for, but no-one really needs a Ghost Rider film. It’s not important. Its not going to be a life changing event for anyone and its not going to a life changing event for comics. You are not going to come out of Blade or the X-Men and say “Bugger me, I’ve got to get the Yellow Pages and find a comic shop and buy loads of comics, because this was really good”. It’s more “That was alright, now down the pub.”‘
31 January 2001
[plug] The Updated UK Blogs List continues to grow… it’s a quick way to surf around all the UK weblogs which have recently updated…
[meme] Yet another Whassssupppp! parody… Ayuuuupppp! ‘Watching footie, supping some ale.’ [via Frownland]
[comics] Dan from Venusberg on the Superfriends‘Now, I’m pretty sure I’ve never seen Superfriends, but it has filtered so deep into my geek consciousness that I sincerely believe that I remember whole episodes. Most peculiar.’ I’ve never seen it either but I know exactly what he means… [has it ever been broadcast in the UK?]
[reading] Neal Stephenson’s Cryptonomicon‘Like every other creature on the face of the earth, Godfrey was, by birthright, a stupendous badass, albeit in the somewhat narrow technical sense that he could trace his ancestry back up a long line of slightly less highly evolved stupendous badasses to that first self-replicating gizmo–which, given the number and variety of its descendants, might justifiably be described as the most stupendous badass of all time. Everyone and everything that wasn’t a stupendous badass was dead. As nightmarishly lethal, memetically programmed death-machines went, these were the nicest you could ever hope to meet.’
30 January 2001
[weblogs] Not So Soft is one today. Congratulations Meg… Two entries which sum up Not So Soft: a quiet London mid-summer morning blog and the classic Txt Msg Theatre‘Tube wankstrel unclefuckers. Security alert=no trains. Crunchy arse wank dung bastard. Oh. Feh.’
[comics] Warren Ellis’ Guide To Previews (for comics published in April 2001) — I can’t help but admire Ellis’ efforts to warp the purchasing tastes of his army of fans… ‘What follows are my personal recommendations from this month’s PREVIEWS. I’ll give you a write-up on it, the page number it’s on, and its order code. Talk to your retailer and find out what they need from you to place a pre-order — or, hell, just print this thing off. But, you know, once the order’s in, consider the money spent. You’ve entered into a contract with your shop. When the comic comes in, you buy it. That’s how it works. Onward, my winged monkeys… ‘ [Related Links: Previews Picks — Another Excellent Previews Guide, Warren Ellis Website]
[conspiracy] The World According to David Icke — when not dealing with the global illuminati, lizard shapeshifting conspiracy, David Icke is still a football pundit. Icke on Michael Owen: ‘Knowing comes from the subconscious, so the ball is in the net before the conscious mind can think. I am sure that the best goal scorers will tell you how their body often reacts almost by itself when opportunity knocks and they don’t think about taking the chance, they just take it: Chance. Bang. Goal. That’s the subconscious. The cold, calculated computer that doesn’t bother itself with things like emotion or fear of failure. It is a mental version of Star Trek’s Mr Spock. This level is the guvnor when we are in a mental state of knowing rather than thinking.’ [via Disinfomation]
29 January 2001
[big numbers] Alan Moore: ‘…with the world political situation as it is at the moment the political radical is put in a difficult position because, hum, how do you rebel against chaos? You know, much as political conspiracy theorists would like to think otherwise, the brutal truth of the thing is nobody’s in control, this is a runaway train. Nobody’s in control, there’s not some big conspiracy in control, whether it’s Jewish bankers or nazis or CIA spooks, the simple truth is that the world is a complex storm of mathematics, basically… Very complicated mathematics that is beyond human comprehension.’
[tv] Long, interesting profile of Charlie Higson in the Independent… ‘.His favourite sitcom, as a child, was Dad’s Army. “I used to absolutely love it. As a kid, my favourite character was Clive Dunn, and I hated Captain Mainwaring, but now it’s the opposite. It happens to everyone as they grow up, doesn’t it?”‘ [Related Link: Charlie Higson’s Books]
[comics] Another link from the excellent BugPowder weblog… Neil Gaiman’s 24-hour comic — Being An Account of the Life and Death of the Emperor Heliogabolus.
28 January 2001
[classic gaming] Iain Lee interviews Matthew Smith [creator of Manic Miner and Jet-Set Willy] about his games and the many net rumours about him
[nasty] What is Botox? ‘Produced by a bacterium called Clostridium botulinum , Botox – or Botulinum toxin, to give it its full name – is a nerve impulse ‘blocker’, a medication used to temporarily paralyse muscle function. This has been useful in the treatment of illnesses such as MS and cerebral palsy, but more recently has been used to cure that plague of affluent Western civilisation: wrinkles.’