Arbitrary Again

So, I'm back from Root Hill (might blog about that later), and Doctor Who is back on the air (I'm still confused, but my gut reaction is that I liked Let's Kill Hitler better than A Good Man Goes to War, even though there wasn't as much bashing of the Fuhrer as the title might lead you to expect).  However, it's gone half ten at night, and unlike certain other people, that's a bit late for me to be starting to write an ambitious blog post.  So I'll just leave you with a couple of little videos.

I forgot to embed Arbitrary Stopframe 8 when I uploaded it a few weeks ago.  I've just uploaded episode 9, so I may as well take the opportunity to rectify my mistake, and embed both at once:






Now that I've finished my big crazy glut of travellings, I might try and get back to doing these things on a weekly basis.  Ooh, how ambitious.


- The Colclough

Signing off (for now)

So, the Twenty Questions challenge is over.  Pretty much.  It has resulted in my most bloggingest month ever (sorry, I couldn't be bothered to work out how to say that in real grammar) with 18 posts in August, and it's prompted me to think through some questions and come up with some answers which had never occurred to me before.  I'd probably have gone my whole life without attempting a scientific comparison of the relative merits of sheep and cows, for example, if Hannah hadn't included that on her question list.

It's also made me pretty tired of staring at ye olde Blogger Create Post screen.

Anywho, I'm off to Root Hill tomorrow, so I'll be internetless for a week.  No more Blogger Create Post screens.  No wordsmithing races or challenges.  No animation, probably (don't panic though, I'm working on an idea for Arbitrary Stopframe Episode 9 for when I get back).  No webcomic updates (well, Tim's going to look after Fort Paradox as it's his turn this week anyway, and Cylinder and Miserable will get some bonus strips online tomorrow).  Goodness knows what else will happen though!  After all, it was thanks to meeting H and one or two other things that happened at Root Hill 2010 that I started this blog in the first place.  Who knows what RH 2011 might precipitate?

But before I head off, I've got one little loose end to wrap up from Twenty Questions: Sam gave me 5 extra questions, and I only answered 3 of them so far.  Here are the rest.


Sam's questions, #4: "Which do you prefer: Motorhead or Metallica?"

I really don't know.  I've never really listened to either.


Sam's questions, #5: "Who is your favourite Stand Up Comedian?"

Another case of "I don't have a particular favourite".  But if I had to choose one, then maybe Jeff Dunham. For Achmed.


For those of you who are going to Root Hill, I'll see you there.  For the rest, see you afterwards.


- The Colclough

The Halls of Infamy

The finale!  After weeks of plotting, scheming, and desperate clattering of the QWERTY board, I finally come to the last of Hannah 'LikesSheepBaa' Newcombe's twenty questions.  I've saved this one for last because in some ways, it's the hardest.  It's Question 8: "What is your favourite character that you’ve created so far?"


Shouldn't that be, "Who is your favourite character that you’ve created so far?"

Grammatical nit-picking aside, this is going to be tricky.  I've never had any children, so I can't really draw a comparison to "having to choose between my children", but I'm pretty sure this is what it would feel like if I did have any children and someone was forcing me to choose between them.

In fact, never mind mere 'tricky': picking a single favourite is going to be impossible.  There are too many of them that I'm too fond of.  The best I can do would be to present an alphabetically-ordered shortlist, with various facts, figures and claims to fame, and maybe illustrations.  And I'm going to put something cool on the speakers.  Bear with me while I fire up WinMP...


Not quite my all-time favourites, but Honourable Mentions:

• The 18th Everything Shopkeeper (from Cylinder and Miserable) - because he can say the most outlandish things and be absolutely accurate about it.
• Brother Threadmoose (from Cylinder and Miserable) - an itinerant monk affiliated with no known religion, prone to speaking with a mediaeval dialect, and in possession of a 'Parakamellama' - whatever the heck of of those is.
• Forkley (from Universe XGT, also appears in Fort Paradox) - encapsulates all the most amusing aspects of UXGT, and would probably be very, very bad for a lot of other people's heads if they knew all there is to know about him.
• Lulu the Ship's Cactus (from A Salesman Beneath) - because it amuses me to have a spaceship controlled by a prickly plant instead of a computer.
• Tom Thomason (from Grace and Caffeine and Goin' Teapotty) - old friend.  Probably been in my head longer than anyone else mentioned here except Forkley.

And now, the Front-Runners:

Cylinder the Cylinder (from Cylinder and Miserable, also appears in Fort Paradox and other media)

• Entered my brain: 2006
• First published appearance: 2006
• Official age: unknown (depends whether he had existed before the events of C&M Episode 0001, which is a question I've never bothered to work out an answer for)
• Race/Species: Geometrant
• Claim(s) to Fame: breaks the fourth wall; owns a Metaphysical Violation Drive ship and a 50-foot Norwegian custard jacuzzi; has a sentient sprig of broccoli as a butler; revels in the title of "the World's Most Notorious Travel Writer" and likes to hang out and eat pizza with his self-confessedly rabid fan club; claims to have sold the Sistine Chapel; also managed to parachute a lawnmower into a tree in Vietnam and get it stuck there while being chased by some very angry communists.

Edwin Hall (best known for his part in Grace and Caffeine, also appears in Fort Paradox and other media)

• Entered my brain: 2003
• First published appearance: 2006
• Official age: late 70s
• Race/Species: Human
• Claim(s) to Fame: has white hair and uber gardening skills; inherited my pragmatic/grumpy streak.
• Other remarks: I think I like Edwin because he reflects the part of me that gets upset when things don't make sense.  On that level, he balances out the other front-runners, who are all pretty much unfazed by pretty much anything.

Meebrick the Misnomer (from A Salesman Beneath)

• Entered my brain: 2010
• First published appearance: 2011
  
• Official age: late 50s, approximately
• Race/Species: Human
• Claim(s) to Fame: manages to be impossibly happy even when freefalling into a near-infinite void, almost getting eaten by giant bats, being put to work washing hundreds of sticky eggs, battling mechanical spacefaring turtles, or voyaging inside a miniature planet made of jelly.
  

Ron Haggard (from Megastropulodon)

• Entered my brain: 2009
• First published appearance: 2010
  
• Official age: 33
• Race/Species: Human
• Claim(s) to Fame: breaks the fourth wall (Cylinder isn't alone); sees the whole world through a filter of cartoon logic; laughs in the face of laser vision; is un-puffed-up enough to settle for being the Sidekick even though he's got more of a clue than anyone else; saves the universe from a gigantic hairy rampaging mutant monster using a bomb built from someone else's briefcase and a bottle of cold tea.
  

I'm curious - which characters have made the best impression on the audience?  To find out, I've opened a poll over in the sidebar.  Will be interested to see how the voting goes...


The Final Stats:

• Twenty Questions status: 20 down, none to go - I think, just for once, I might have won.
• Days until Root Hill: 2
• Latest book read: Jennings Follows a Clue
• Latest film/TV watched: Red Dwarf 1.6
• Latest music listened to: Doctor Who Series 5 OST by Murray Gold
• Latest edible item eaten: chocolate cookie
• Predominant colour of clothes: blue/grey
• Programs and web pages currently running: Microsoft Office Outlook and Word 2007, Firefox (tabs: MatNav 6.1; Blogspot Create Post), Windows Media Player 11
• Webcomics posted today: Cylinder and Miserable #1339

- The Colclough

Numbercrunching

...and just maybe some braincrunching too, as I tackle Question 20: "If the answer is 42, what is the question?"


42.

Obviously.

Did you see what I did there?  I answered a question about another question in such a way that the question was in fact the other question too, and therefore arguably the answer to itself.  Confused?  Me too.  Let me break it down for you (and more to the point, for me):

• Q: "If the answer is 42, what is the question?"
• A: "42."
• So the answer is "42", which fulfils the criterion stipulated in the original question.  Therefore, we can now proceed to work out what other question would fit the answer.
• But wait a minute - to get the answer "42", we started out from the question "If the answer is 42, what is the question?" - therefore, the other question that the first question was asking about, must also be "If the answer is 42, what is the question?"
• Therefore, the question is asking about itself.
• GAH!  THE RECURSION HURTS MY BRAINS!

Alternatively, you could save yourself a migraine like so: the other question could just be "What's 6x7?"

Mind you, that's a bit boring by comparison, isn't it?


Statisticcrunching:

• Twenty Questions status: 19 down, just one more to go!
• Days until Root Hill: 2
• Latest book read: Jennings Follows a Clue
• Latest film/TV watched: Red Dwarf 1.6
• Latest music listened to: How to Train Your Dragon OST by John Powell
• Latest edible item eaten: chocolate cookie
• Predominant colour of clothes: blue/grey
• Programs and web pages currently running: Microsoft Office Outlook 2007, Firefox (tabs: MatNav 6.1, twice; Blogspot Create Post)
• Webcomics posted today: Cylinder and Miserable #1339

- The Colclough

Sparkly or Undead?

A bit like Question 15: "Sheep or cows?", but odder and more fictional... and maybe trickier - Question 16: "Zombies or unicorns?"


Wow.  What a choice to have to make.  Sparkly white horses with magical horns on their foreheads versus the creeping, oozing, rotting, brainsss-coveting undead.

Sorry to keep doing this, but once again I must resort to summarising various points for and against in the tried and trusted bulleted-list format:

• It would probably be more manly to say Zombies.  Just because they don't sparkle.  If I'd asked Hannah the same question, she wouldn't have this problem.  But then again, how much do I care?
• Unicorns probably won't eat you.  Definitely a point to Team Sparkly.
• You might be able to use a unicorn as a lawnmower.  Zombies probably not.
• It's usually a given that zombies want your guts, but is the unicorn also out to get you?  If so, then I'd vote Zombie, because it's much easier to outrun a shuffling corpse than a galloping equid.
• But the flipside to that is that if I had to pick one or other as a mode of transport, then I'd have to vote Unicorn for exactly the same reason.
• If I was going to have a conversation with one or other, I'd talk to the unicorn.  Because they're supposed to be able to speak (I'm told), or at least understand speech, while the undead would rather kill you than listen to you.
• At the other extreme, if I had to eat one or other, I'd eat the unicorn.  It'd taste millions better - assuming some sort of unicorn protection magic didn't kill you as soon as you stuck your fork in - and zombies almost certainly carry multi-resistant salmonella or something.
• Both critters are equally damaging to metaphysics.
• If I had a girlfriend to worry about, then I suspect she'd want me to say Unicorn - "My boyfriend's got a unicorn!" sounds a bit less repulsive than "My boyfriend's got a pet zombie!"  But I don't, so that doesn't count.

Net result: on balance, probably unicorns.


Them statistics:

• Twenty Questions status: 18 down, 2 to go (so close now...)
• Days until Root Hill: 2
• Latest book read: Jennings Follows a Clue
• Latest film/TV watched: Red Dwarf 1.6
• Latest music listened to: How to Train Your Dragon OST by John Powell
• Latest edible item eaten: croissants and cowjuice
• Predominant colour of clothes: back to blue
• Programs and web pages currently running: Microsoft Office Outlook 2007, Firefox (tabs: MatNav 6.1; Blogspot Create Post)
• Webcomics posted today: Cylinder and Miserable #1339

- The Colclough

One Forgets

Question 11: "What is your earliest memory?"


I've got a few early ones, but I can't remember what order they happened in.  What I think might have been the first involved waking up in the middle of the night in my bedroom in Bristol, at the tender age of two or thereabouts, and wondering why the lamp on the far side of the room wasn't on.  Or it might have been another night, in the same room, where I had a dream that questioned what would happen if the shade fell off my ceiling light.  Yes, I've always had a bit of a thing with light and dark.  No wonder I ended up as an artist.

There were some other memories from the smaller bedroom, but I'm pretty sure those came later, as I only got moved in there after I stopped being an only child at two-and-nearly-a-half.  They included a certain level of paranoia about those little chinks of light coming through the gaps around the curtains (I think I was under the mistaken impression that they were spying on me), an equal if not greater level of paranoia about the cartoon drawing of an x-ray on my alphabet wall chart (I hated that x-ray with a vengeance, or more to the point I was scared stiff of it, and I was enormously pleased with myself one day when I worked up the courage to face the offending drawing and rip it out of the poster.  Mum was less pleased with the mess)... and then there was the incident with E.T.

I usually like to gloss over the one under the dining table with the felt-tip pens and little sister's t-shirt.  (How was I meant to know that wasn't an appropriate choice of canvas, anyway?)  That one aside, my most anecdotable early memory was the one where I woke up one morning to find my room had suffered an overnight alien invasion.  I came to, and may or may not have had time to note the disappearance of the aforementioned possibly-conspiratorial chinks of light from behind the curtains before I realised I was being stared at from across the very small room (I maintain that it was about 7 foot by 5) by the most hideous and obviously-malevolent entity I had ever seen.

In retrospect, it turns out to have been a small, stuffed version of E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, but as far as my three- or four-year-old self was concerned it was the miniature embodiment of evil come to kill me or something.  The situation probably wasn't helped by its unexpectedness - the fact that this thing had arrived in my room without a single word of warning or explanation.  The big problem was how to escape the room and find someone to help get rid of it, because my head was at the pillow end of the bed (see, I did have some residual scraps of normality!), and that was at the opposite end of the room to the door, with the beast strategically perched on a shelf in between.  I dared not get any closer without some sort of protection, as I would probably pay for it with my life.

Thank goodness for the miracle of duvets.  In a flash of inspiration, I retreated beneath the cover, and crawled down to the foot of the bed in its shadow.  The door handle was now just a few inches away, and if I could move quickly enough, I might outrun the monster.  There was probably one of those tense pauses like you get in Westerns, where everybody stares meaningfully at each other's gun holsters and the art department sends a well-placed piece of dry tumbleweed blowing across the street.

I ran.  I grabbed my door handle, yanked it open, hurled myself off the foot of the bed and into the relative safety of the landing, saw salvation in the bathroom in the shape of a parent or two, and ran towards it for dear life, as fast as I could possibly manage, shrieking hysterically.  I may have invented a new adjective to describe the indescribable horror that I'd just escaped.

The unwelcome alien was duly removed, and peace restored.

Only for him to turn up again in a very strange movie I saw several years later... except that time he didn't scare the living daylights out of me.


Grown-up me's statistics:

• Twenty Questions status: 17 down, 3 to go
• Days until Root Hill: 3
• Latest book read: Operation Mincemeat
• Latest film/TV watched: Red Dwarf 1.5
• Latest music listened to: How to Train Your Dragon OST by John Powell
• Latest edible item eaten: coffee
• Predominant colour of clothes: black
• Programs and web pages currently running: Microsoft Office Word and Outlook 2007, Firefox (tabs: Fort Paradox offline archive; A White Horizon; Blogspot Create Post; www.imdb.com), Windows Media Player 11
• Webcomics posted today: Cylinder and Miserable #1338

- The Colclough

Time And Relative Dimensions In Space

Question 10: "You now have a type 40 TARDIS.  Where and when would your top destinations be?"


Ooh, all of time and space... where do I want to start?  A few of my destinations, in some semblance of chronological order:

• ~4000 BC to watch the beginning of the universe.  No need to skip ahead and watch the end, because one way or another I'll get to see that anyway.  Spoilers...
• ~2400 BC to see what the Ark looked like.
• AD 1011, to see what my local area looked like a millennium ago.
• It's tempting to go to 1605 and give the Gunpowder Plotters a helping hand, just to see what would happen to history if they'd succeeded, but I don't think I'd go through with that one.
• I'd go to Skywalker Ranch circa 1994, pick up George Lucas, bring him to the present and show him how the world has reacted to the Star Wars prequels, and then take him back to 1994 so he could fix the scripts accordingly.
• There was this huge lantern exhibition in the local park when I was living in Hong Kong, and one of my lasting regrets is that I didn't take the time to try and appreciate the quieter, less OTT parts.  I'd take my TARDIS back to Sha Tin Park in autumn 1997 and look at all the bits I missed last time.
• I'd go to 2005 and bribe Russell T Davies to not write Love and Monsters.
• Saturn, just because.

...and that's just if I stick to real-world chronology.  If I was including fictional destinations, then I'd go and see Coruscant, visit Gallifrey in its heyday, and just to really confuse myself I might try and materialise on board Fort Paradox.


My stats, at present:

• Twenty Questions status: 16 down, 4 to go
• Days until Root Hill: 3
• Latest book read: Operation Mincemeat
• Latest film/TV watched: The Simpsons Movie
• Latest music listened to: Doctor Who Series 1 & 2 OST by Murray Gold - I scared myself when I hit 'play' because I'd turned the speakers up way too loud by mistake 8p
• Latest edible item eaten: beef burger
• Predominant colour of clothes: black
• Programs and web pages currently running: Microsoft Office Word and Outlook 2007, Firefox (tabs: Fort Paradox offline archive; A White Horizon; Blogspot Create Post), Windows Media Player 11
• Webcomics posted today: Cylinder and Miserable #1338

- The Colclough

The Shape of Things to Come

Another hard one... Question 7: "If you were a shape, what shape would you be?"


Hrmmm... good one.  I've never really thought about this one before Hannah asked it, and the following answer is only a spur-of-the-moment hunch thing.

I think I'd probably be a square, because it suits my obsessive sense of logic and orderliness.  Part of me wants to say a circle, but the whole pi thing would probably annoy me too much, whereas squares don't have that problem, so I'll go with one of those.  Also, squares are tileable, which would have all sorts of implications for productivity and so on.

The phrase 'being square' might have connotations of social deficiency, but that's not going to put me off from choosing my shape because I'm socially deficient anyway.  So there!


Not much change in these stats:

• Twenty Questions status: 15 down, 5 to go - three-quarters done...
• Days until Root Hill: 4
• Latest book read: Operation Mincemeat (nearly finished!)
• Latest film/TV watched: Red Dwarf 1.3 and 1.4
• Latest music listened to: Goin' Teapotty OST by Tim Johnston
• Latest edible item eaten: Cadbury's Dairy Milk
• Predominant colour of clothes: Grey
• Programs and web pages currently running: Windows Media Player, Microsoft Office Word and Outlook 2007, Firefox (tabs: MatNav 6.1; A White Horizon; Blogspot Create Post)
• Webcomics posted today: Cylinder and Miserable #1337; Fort Paradox bonus material

- The Colclough

The Waveform of Awesome

Time grows short, with Root Hill just four days away and 7 questions still unanswered.  And at this moment in time, I shall pick up on a question about time-based media, Question 3: "How would you describe your taste in music?"


The simplest way to summarise would be to say I like classical and neo-classical music, but that's a bit reductionist.  It ignores the fact that some classical music can be a bit boring even for those who generally enjoy classical, and there are some things I'd listen to quite happily even though they really stretch the bounds of neoclassical if not outright overstep them.  And then there are the things I'd call neoclassical but others wouldn't - e.g. Yanni apparently prefers to call his music 'contemporary instrumental', while others would classify it as 'new age', and although it has some classical traits, it's equally non-classical at the same time.

I enjoy music which has a meaningful melody and/or texture, emotional connotation, etc.  I have no time for the hyper-abstract arty-farty noises some people pass off as music, e.g. serialism (yes, techically very clever perhaps, but utterly meaningless to listen to), and at the other extreme I equally dislike the inexplicably popular genre of rubbish that seems to consist of a drumbeat, maybe two bars of melody on an endless loop, and some hollow, repetitive lyrics about a soured relationship (in other words, all pop music, and several other things too).

My approach to lyrical work may seem, at first glance, to be a bit self-contradictory, but there's some method in my madness.  Ideally, if there are going to be lyrics, then they should make sense.  This explains why the huge majority of lyrical work which I like is of Christian origin - so much easier to enjoy a song if you agree with what it's saying.  If you have to be familiar with something else to appreciate the song, that's fine - so long as I'm familiar with the other thing, of course - for example, Still Alive and Want You Gone would probably have lost me, except I already knew enough about Portal to get what they were on about.  Ditto the entire Trock subgenre, re: Doctor Who.  But then, there are other things I like where the lyrics most definitely don't make the blindest bit of sense at all, e.g. Adiemus.  The difference is that in Adiemus, the 'words' aren't real words at all, and they're only there for textural effect, so their non-grammatic nature doesn't bother me.  What bothers me is all that stuff in between, where there are real words strung together in some semblance of real grammar, and they seem to be 'about' something, but they're inaudible under the drums, badly-written, or both.  E.g. all pop music... again.

A lot of my music collection has some connection to the screen, partly because screen music is very often the type that I like anyway, and partly because listening to the score often brings on the same mood as watching the film / TV show, hence why I've got the soundtracks of the whole Lord of the Rings trilogy, and several CDs of Doctor Who.  (By the way, Hannah, I hope you're appreciating all these favourable mentions of your favourite show!)  I have a special soft spot for the scores Tim's written for my films.

And then there are the other ones.  The pieces which don't follow any of my usual criteria, but which I like anyway for various strange and obscure reasons.  Case in point: Safety Dance.  Basically, it's a pop song.  It doesn't make much sense at all.  Its obsession with dancing is completely at odds with my preference for not dancing.  But I like it anyway, because of the fact that I heard it for the first several times during Root Hill 2010, which means that I always associate it with, well, Root Hill.  And it's a happy song, even if it is somewhat deranged.


Sam's questions, #3: "If you could buy any car (money No Object) what would it be?"


Something British and sophisticated with a big engine and a leather interior.  Probably a Rolls-Royce, Bentley, Jaguar or Aston Martin.  Maybe one of each.


Time for stats:

• Twenty Questions status: 14 down, 6 to go
• Days until Root Hill: 4
• Latest book read: Operation Mincemeat (nearly finished!)
• Latest film/TV watched: Red Dwarf 1.3 and 1.4
• Latest music listened to: Martian Medicine OST by Tim Johnston
• Latest edible item eaten: Cadbury's Dairy Milk
• Predominant colour of clothes: Grey
• Programs and web pages currently running: Windows Media Player, Microsoft Office Word and Outlook 2007, Firefox (tabs: MatNav 6.1; Blogspot Dashboard; Blogspot Create Post)
• Webcomics posted today: Cylinder and Miserable #1337; Fort Paradox bonus material

- The Colclough

Done Differently

Question 19: "If you were prime minister, what would you do differently?"


All sorts of things.  I can never remember all of my planned policies at any one time, but here's a cross-section of The Colclough's Manifesto, in no particular order: if I become Prime Minister, then...

• I will implement a massive state subsidy on Lego.
• Green beans will be outlawed because they're horrible.
• It will be legal to do 80mph in the second lane on the motorway, 90mph in the third, etc.  If you're going to build 'fast lanes', then they should be fast.
• All children and pets will have the right to a sensible name.
• Children under the age of 15 will be banned from using games consoles - cereal packets and sellotape are a much better way to spend your formative years.  That's how I did mine, and it was good.
• Inheritance tax will be abolished, because the government have no moral right to profit from the death of their citizens or to exacerbate the grief of the bereaved by turning up and demanding money.
• The national energy crisis will be resolved by fitting devices to the Palace of Westminster to capture all the hot air made by the politicians, and use it to drive a colossal power station.
• To reduce red tape and bureaucracy, MPs and civil servants will lose pay every time they create paperwork.
• The internet will be reformed so that idiots are unable to use it.  Nobody will be allowed to connect until they've passed tests in basic spelling, grammar and numeracy.  Also, Facebook and all other variants on the theme will be outlawed because they rot the brain.
• The death penalty will be reintroduced for murderers, rapists, the criminally insane etc - much cheaper and more efficient than prison sentences, and prevents re-offending.  I would also have snipers in the big cities right now, shooting the odd looter.  That'd make the crowds think twice about what they're doing, I think.
• The BBC will have to produce a full run of Doctor Who every year (i.e. 13 episodes broadcast on 13 consecutive Saturdays in spring/summer - no more of these delays, hiatuses or split series).  If necessary, EastEnders will be killed off in order to free up resources for DW.
• Simon Cowell will be declared an enemy of the state, because of his heinous crimes against music.
• The tax system will be restructured so that cool people pay less tax than uncool ones.  Basically, I'd implement a tax on stupidity.
• Shops would be forbidden to put up any decorations, have mince pies on the shelves, or do anything else related to Christmas before the first of December.  Well, apart from selling Advent calendars, because they'd be a bit pointless if you didn't get them by the end of November.

Of course, like most manifestos, it's subject to revision.  But that's what it looks like for now.


Stats:

• Twenty Questions status: 13 down, 7 to go
• Days until Root Hill: 7
• Latest book read: still Dianetics
• Latest film/TV watched: Monsters vs Aliens
• Latest music listened to: Requiem by Karl Jenkins
• Latest edible item eaten: Haribo
• Predominant colour of clothes: Grey
• Programs and web pages currently running: Windows Explorer, Windows Task Manager, Windows Media Player, Microsoft Office Word 2007, Incredimail, JPEGCrops, Sony Vegas, Firefox (tabs: Blogspot Dashboard; Blogspot Create Post)
• Webcomics posted today: Cylinder and Miserable #1335

- The Colclough

That Pongs

Question 17: "What is your favourite smell?"


Time to tackle another hard one. One of the questions in this challenge has already dealt with the fact that a lot of people value one sense more highly than another, with H saying she'd prefer to keep her hearing at the expense of her sight if needs must, while I'd opt to have it the other way round.  To be honest, I don't think about smell the way I do sight or hearing, and if I was going to have to lose one of the three, I'd ditch the olfactory nerves without hesitation.  Which does make it awkward to pick a favourite smell...

...in fact, totally impossible.  I simply don't have one favourite smell.  Maybe I could compile a top ten though, in no particular order:

• Nearly-cooked pizza
• Hot bacon
• Cake
• Chocolate (solid or liquid forms)
• Tea/Coffee
• Month-old carpet (so it still smells like a carpet shop, but not too overwhelming)
• Freshly cut grass (used to have implications of progress, back in the days when I did the lawn mowing)
• Wood smoke
• Roses
• Ink (in small quantities)

What's yours?


Stats:

• Twenty Questions status: 12 down, 8 to go
• Days until Root Hill: 7
• Latest book read: don't remember anything since Dianetics
• Latest film/TV watched: Monsters vs Aliens
• Latest music listened to: Cylinder and Miserable Official Webcomic Soundtrack: Series 1 Suite
• Latest edible item eaten: some sort of cranberry breakfast cereal
• Predominant colour of clothes: grey & blue
• Programs and web pages currently running: Incredimail, Sibelius 5, Neuratron PhotoScore Lite, Firefox (tabs: Blogspot Dashboard; Blogspot Create Post)
• Webcomics posted today: Cylinder and Miserable #1335

- The Colclough

On Vegetation

Sarah and Tim are walking the dog, and I'm once again seizing the opportunity to blog.

As of the small hours of this morning, Hannah and I are both half-way to completing the Twenty Questions blogging challenge, and I've decided to mark the occasion with a brief recap of the question list.  Answered questions are denoted in grey like this, while the unanswered questions are denoted in italics like so:

My questions for H:

1. Where did the sheep obsession come from?
2. If you ruled the universe, what’s the first law you would pass?
3. What’s wrong with Doritos, anyway?
4. Who is your anti-role model?
5. How big are your feet?
6. Do you like mornings?
7. Beethoven or Bieber?
8. Ink or acrylics?
9. What’s the most overrated book out there?
10. Would you prefer an alien invasion or a zombie apocalypse?
11. What’s the strangest activity/project/group you’ve been involved with?
12. If you had to choose between your eyes and your ears…?
13. If you wrote a comic strip, what would it be about?
14. What’s your most recently formed life ambition?
15. So… what to do when life gives you lemons?
16. Which is the best chocolate bar, and why?
17. What would your dream house be like?
18. Has Steven Moffat dropped the ball?
19. Why is your car called that?
20. Is this the last question?

...and her questions for me:

1. We’ve reached the end of the Harry Potter era.  Thoughts?
2. If you were an animal, how on earth did you become an animal?
3. How would you describe your taste in music?
4. If you were a character in Doctor Who, who would you be?
5. Do you have a favourite medium to use when doing artwork?
6. How tall are you?
7. If you were a shape, what shape would you be?
8. What is your favourite character that you’ve created so far?
9. Do you have a favourite novel?
10. You now have a type 40 TARDIS.  Where and when would your top destinations be?
11. What is your earliest memory?
12. What is your suitcase packing method?
13. Please can I have your bank details?
14. Do you like broccoli when it isn’t named Albert?
15. Sheep or cows?
16. Zombies or unicorns?
17. What is your favourite smell?
18. Would you ever go bungee jumping?
19. If you were prime minister, what would you do differently?
20. If the answer is 42, what is the question?

To kick off the second half, I will answer Question 14: "Do you like broccoli when it isn’t named Albert?"


I do like broccoli, and so long as it isn't either gone off, or a particular pixelated sprig called Albert, then I'll eat it with no fuss and bother at all.  I've been accused of not liking anything green, but that's not a fair claim.  I'll eat lettuce, cabbage, broccoli, asparagus, and peas (among others) quite happily.  And I like plenty of vegetables in other colours.  It's just that the ones I don't like all happen to be green ones: cucumber, courgette, marrow, and most variants on the theme of green beans.

I digress.  Most of the times I've had this particular vegetable, it's been washed and lightly microwaved so it no longer counts as raw, but still pretty close to its in-the-field state, with all the nutrimental goodnesses still intact, and then served up in a little pile of its own on one side of the plate.

Some of you may be wondering why Hannah made that cryptic reference to a broccoli called Albert - since when does anyone name broccoli Albert?  For the benefit of those who don't know, she's making a reference to my webcomic, Cylinder and Miserable, in which Cylinder has an artificially-sentient vegetable called Albert S. Broccoli (the S. stands for Sentient) as his butler/chauffeur/manager/accomplice/whatever.  He was named after the former James Bond film producer Albert R. Broccoli, as a joke, and now it's stuck.


Some fresh, juicy stats for you to chew on:

• Twenty Questions status: 11 down, 9 to go
• Days until Root Hill: 7
• Latest book read: don't remember anything since Dianetics
• Latest film/TV watched: Monsters vs Aliens
• Latest music listened to: Cylinder and Miserable Official Webcomic Soundtrack: Series 1 Suite
• Latest edible item eaten: some sort of cranberry breakfast cereal
• Predominant colour of clothes: grey
• Programs and web pages currently running: Incredimail, Firefox (tabs: Hannah's blog; Blogspot Dashboard; A White Horizon; Blogspot Create Post; Webs)
• Webcomics posted today: Cylinder and Miserable #1335

- The Colclough

As Far as I Could Throw You

Okay, I said I'd be off the internet for a bit because I'm staying with friends for a week, but Tim's gone out for an hour or so and Sarah's busy, which leaves me with the opportunity to borrow their computer and do a blog without feeling all antisocial.  Muahaha!

Question 13: "Please can I have your bank details?"


No, I'm afraid you can't.

That's the reductionist answer, but actually this is an interesting question - is it a straightforward request for financial assistance?  Or is it a test of how much I'd trust you?  Allow me to elaborate.

What if this is about trust issues?  We live in a paranoid world full of hackers and scammers, and those in the know tell us it's a bad idea to let anyone know anything about where your money is and how to get at it.  Don't trust anyone as far as you can throw them, they say.  I'm willing to believe them on that, although if circumstances conspired to make it necessary then I might conceivably share the critical numbers with a close friend.  Not that I can imagine what those circumstances might be.

On t'other hand, it's not that I'm stingy and all.  If the question is about you being broke and wondering if I could spare a fiver for a friend in need, then you could just ask for a fiver, and chances are I'd let you have one and I wouldn't expect it back.

However, I've just thought of a third possibility: what if someone wanted my bank details so they could put money in?  Again, it depends who they are.  Most people probably have no rational reason for putting money into my bank account, so I'd still be reluctant to tell them anything.  But if you're all that desperate to part with your cash, I do accept cheques made to 'Matthew Colclough'.

Why d'you ask?


The good news is, I do trust you enough to show you my statistics:

• Twenty Questions status: 10 down, 10 to go (half-way there, and still winning (just about))
• Days until Root Hill: 8
• Latest book read: don't remember anything since Dianetics
• Latest film/TV watched: The 39 Steps (the 1978 version with Robert Powell)
• Latest music listened to: the nearly-complete Cylinder and Miserable Official Webcomic Soundtrack: Series 1 Suite
• Latest edible item eaten: bread and marmalade
• Predominant colour of clothes: approximately grey
• Programs and web pages currently running: it's someone else's computer, so this'll be a bit different to usual: Incredimail, Sony Vegas, Firefox (tabs: Blogspot Dashboard; A White Horizon; Blogspot Create Post)
• Webcomics posted today: Cylinder and Miserable #1334; Fort Paradox #70

- The Colclough

Grab Case, Insert Socks

It seems appropriate that I should answer Question 12: "What is your suitcase packing method?" while half-way through actually packing a suitcase.


I'm a minimalist traveller by nature.  Certain relatives (I shall name no names here) are prone to packing absolutely everything including the kitchen sink, even when they're only going away for two nights.  An entire separate wardrobe must be taken along for each possible weather, no matter whether or not there's any realistic chance of that weather happening, and so on and so forth.  Wellies rub shoulders with bottles of suncream.  But me?  I just grab a case, stuff in the bare minimum of clothes (calculated by a very advanced mathematical formula, which I'll explain below), pencils and related gubbins, the emergency ideas pad which usually lives under my bed in case I have inspiration at two in the morning, a book or two, some cash, and one or two other essentials like cotton buds (you know how they say not to put theose things down your ear?  I never use them for anything else.  How else are you supposed to get rid of itchy earwax?).

So, that formula.  Assuming I'm going away for n nights, the formula requires exactly, and only, the following items of clothing to be packed:

• n+1 pairs each of pants and socks (the +1 is in case of hideous accidents involving unexpected puddles of mud and suchlike)
• n/2 t-shirts
• if n>1, then 1 spare pair of jeans, 2 only if n is fairly large and the trip is expected to be a really messy one
• 1 jumper, or 2 if n>~4 and weather inclement
• pajamas, irrespective of n
• shoes - the one item which can't be reliably extrapolated from n

Exceptions may be permitted if n is a particularly large number (say >7) and the destination is known to have clothes-washing facilities and someone capable of using them properly.

Depending on the destination, my minimalism may be supplemented with some esoteric extras.  For example, as I'm going to Cardiff tomorrow to see Tim and Sarah, we're hoping to shoot a bit more of Alpha One's Winter Wonderland, and I've got two new sets (admittedly small ones) in flat-pack form ready to take with me.  So, bare minimalism plus odd-looking accessories to the business of stopmotion animation.  That's what I call a suitcase packing method.


And to finish off, here's a handy travel-size blob of statistics:

• Twenty Questions status: 9 down, 11 to go
• Days until Root Hill: 12
• Latest book read: I skim-read the introduction to Dianetics by L Ron Hubbard yesterday, and my inner being was deeply amused by the stupidity of it all
• Latest film/TV watched: Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade
• Latest music listened to: I think I overheard a few minutes of the Tangled OST on little sister's CD player sometime today
• Latest edible item eaten: fish and chips
• Predominant colour of clothes: bluuue, uuuuuee-uuue-uueeeeee-uuu... ahem... *stops singing*
• Programs and web pages currently running: Microsoft Office Outlook 2007, Firefox (tabs: MatNav 6.1; Blogspot Dashboard; Blogspot Create Post)
• Webcomics posted today: Cylinder and Miserable #1330

- The Colclough

I Think We Just Broke Metaphysics

What follows could be one of the most confusing blog posts I've ever written, as I attempt (whether I'll succeed is another matter) to answer what is probably the strangest of Hannah's twenty queries, Question 2: "If you were an animal, how on earth did you become an animal?" I've decided I should tackle this one head-on, rather than pushing it further and further down the list while answering all the easier ones. Let's get it over and done with...


The really logical answer (at least that's what my brain tells me it is) would be "if I was an animal, then I probably would have come into being the way most animals do: by having two other animals of my species decide it was breeding time".

There's another technicality I should point out: you could argue that in terms of biological classification, I'm already an animal, in the sense that humans as a species are much more animal than they are plant or fungus or bacterium, i.e. in the sense that we've got bones and muscles and nerves and bloods and vital organs, we lack roots and leaves, and so on.

However, I suspect the question was meant to imply a transition from being human to being an animal. So, if I had achieved this feat, how would I have done it?

Having never done it, I don't have a definitive answer. But there are all sorts of exciting - read: worrying - hypotheses, which I shall list in order of decreasing probability (and, for the most part, of decreasing appeal):

• Maybe a mad scientist kidnapped me and transferred my consciousness into a different body?
• Maybe I was surreptitiously fed a gene graft formula by an unscrupulous aide?
• Maybe I changed species during a freak teleportation accident?
• Maybe I got bitten by a radioactive mutant thing and started expressing its genes instead of mine?
• Maybe my life is part of a really weird webcomic, and I changed by cartoon logic?
• Maybe I got abracadabra-ed by a senile old fairy godmother who was aiming for somebody else?
• Maybe I set my heart on changing species, wished really really hard, and got what I wanted?
• Maybe I died and it turned out the Hindus were right?

Oh boy, I hope not...

Now, if you'd asked what animal I would have been, that'd have made for an entirely different blog post.  But you didn't.


Me statistics:

• Species, at last check: Homo sapiens
• Twenty Questions status: 8 down, 12 to go
• Days until Root Hill: 16
• Latest book read: ...keep assuming, etc...
• Latest film/TV watched: The Bourne Ultimatum
• Latest music listened to: still How to Train Your Dragon OST (I think)
• Latest edible item eaten: beef burger
• Predominant colour of clothes: back to blue
• Programs and web pages currently running: Microsoft Office Outlook 2007, Firefox (tabs: Blogspot Dashboard; Blogspot Create Post; MatNav 6.1); Skype
• Webcomics posted today: Cylinder and Miserable #1328 and 1329; Fort Paradox #69 (going away for the weekend, so I posted them early)

- The Colclough

Bungeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeerrmmmaybe I won't, actually

Question 18: "Would you ever go bungee jumping?"


The short answer is no, I really wouldn't. In fact, I'd sooner be tied to a dubiously thin-looking piece of rope and thrown headlong off the side of a bridge over a really deep canyon, and face the risk of getting splattered horribly over the ground if the rope isn't what it's cracked up to be. Oh, wait... that is bungee jumping, isn't it.  I guess that's why I'm not going bungee jumping in a hurry B]

I am not, and never have been, an adrenaline junkie.  People can harp on all they like about the 'thrills' of hurling themselves off buildings or out of aircraft, but I prefer to get my kicks from creative achievement, rather than from rash acts committed in the face of the laws of physics.  From my point of view, completing a chapter of Fort Paradox is much more exciting than any amount of physical activity.

I'm not sure what else to say about that one, and I've fulfilled the minimum word count, so I'm going to leave it at that.


Sam's questions, #2: "Have you seen any Godzilla Films?"


No, but I really really really want to! Because giant mutant lizard monsters are cool - especially when they've got atomic death rays.  Any offers of a DVD loan will be gratefully received.


Statistics time:

• Twenty Questions status: 7 down, 13 to go
• Days until Root Hill: 16
• Latest book read: Tim has reminded me that The Stig gets 25p every time anyone uses the word 'Min*****t', so I'm going to stop saying the name of that book - you can keep assuming it's still the last thing I read, until I tell you I've read something else
• Latest film/TV watched: The Bourne Supremacy
• Latest music listened to: How to Train Your Dragon OST by John Powell (I think)
• Latest edible item eaten: Weetos
• Predominant colour of clothes: depends if you're looking at my legs or my top - overall, I suppose "desaturated medium tones" would just about cover it
• Programs and web pages currently running: Microsoft Office Outlook 2007, Firefox (tabs: Josh's Most Excellent Blog; Blogspot Create Post; MatNav 6.1); Skype
• Webcomics posted today: Cylinder and Miserable #1327

- The Colclough

Ovine or Bovine?

Apparently, in Latin, the difference between a sheep and a cow is the letter 'B'.  And there was I, all that time, thinking the gap was a bit more substantial.  This could pose difficulties in answering Question 15: "Sheep or cows?"


It all depends on the context.

• Cows are bigger.  So if I had to carry one of them for any length of time, I'd go for the sheep, but if I wanted to use farm animals as ballast (I don't know why, it's just hypothetical!) then I'd say cow.
• Sheep taste more interesting... or do they?  I've mostly had adult beef but non-adult lamb.  To make a fair comparison, I should really be comparing beef to mutton, and lamb to veal.  Looks like I've got more eating to do, doesn't it.
• Cowjuice.  Therefore cows get another vote.  Enough said on that one.
• If I was a biker I'd probably vote cow, because I don't think riding around on a motorbike in a big fluffy sheep skin would make you look very clever.  But I'm not a biker.  Mind you, I wouldn't want my shoes made of sheep either, so I guess that is still a vote in favour of cows.
• Sheep are less likely to kill you if they get upset when you walk through their field.  Also, if you happen to stand in their deposits, sheep deposit is smaller and won't cover as much of your shoe.
• Speaking of footwear: sheep are much better at growing sock ingredients on their backs.
• Bullying and cowardice are both frowned upon, but sheepishness isn't so much.
• Sheep are probably funnier.  Mostly because of the ball-of-wool-with-a-face-at-one-end effect.
• And of course, we all know Hannah Likes Sheep (Baa!), so I daren't vote Cows anyway!

In conclusion: both have their advantages, but on balance, the answer is probably sheep.


Also: Sam's questions, #1: "If you could be in a Rock Band what Instrument would you Play?"


I never did get the hang of the fingering on string instruments, so that rules out Guitars and all variants.  My singing (read: 'droning') is atrocious, so that rules out Vocals.  So, um... do rock bands have keyboards?  If they do, then I'd probably say keyboards, as I studied piano up to Grade 4, and I like the one-key-one-note setup.  If they don't, then I guess that would leave me on drums.  Why do I suddenly feel compelled to say something about "dusting for vomit"?


Because we do like us a few statistics:

• Twenty Questions status: 6 down, 14 to go
• Days until Root Hill: 17
• Latest book read: go and take a wild guess.  Really.
• Latest film/TV watched: still The Voyage of the Dawn Treader
• Latest music listened to: How to Train Your Dragon OST by John Powell (specifically Track 9, New Tail)
• Latest edible item eaten: sponge cake
• Predominant colour of clothes: I haven't changed since this morning
• Programs and web pages currently running: Microsoft Office Outlook 2007, Firefox (tabs: Blogspot Create Post; National Rail Enquiries; MatNav 6.1); Microsoft Office Word 2007; Windows Media Player 11
• Webcomics posted today: Cylinder and Miserable #1326

- The Colclough

That's Novel

Once again, please forgive me my rancid pun.  Question 9: "Do you have a favourite novel?"


I'm usually very bad at picking favourites.  But for once, I do actually have one: my favourite novel is The Screwtape Letters by C. S. Lewis.

Yes, that's him of Chronicles of Narnia fame.  The Screwtape Letters is a bit darker than that better-known series (as one would expect, since it's framed as a series of letters from a senior demon, the titular Screwtape, to his nephew Wormwood, encouraging him in his efforts to secure the damnation of a human 'patient'), but it manages the impressive feat of actually saying very profound and wonderful things about God and humanity and salvation, while appearing at face value to be saying the opposite.  For all its devilish ranting, it's not that hard to read between the lines and appreciate Lewis' real intentions in the writing.

It's not a book I'd recommend for young readers, of course.  The story mostly takes place during World War II, God is consistently referred to as 'the Enemy', and there is a definite recurring implication that the demons basically want unsaved humans for food.  But for readers who know enough to see through the inverse logic, it's a brilliant book.

My favourite part is the ending.  You might want to skip the rest of this paragraph if you haven't read the Letters, as it contains spoilers.  The 'patient', who lives in London, is killed in a bombing raid in the space between the penultimate and last chapters, having maintained his faith despite Wormwood's efforts, and Screwtape spends his final letter berating Wormwood for his failure and describing in some detail what the 'patient' is now experiencing in Heaven, labouring the contrast between this and what Wormwood was supposed to have achieved.  In parts, as per the rest of the book, very funny, but also unexpectedly moving.


[Housekeeping note]  You might have noticed that, despite Hannah being seemingly disadvantaged in the race due to the fact that she's away from the internet for a week, I'm being all heartless and forging ahead anyway.  But there's a good reason for this: what she doesn't know yet, because it wasn't even finalised until yesterday, is that I'm going away for a week in mid-challenge too.  The plan is that I will be staying with friends from next Tuesday until the following Monday, and I probably won't be writing too many posts during the visit.  So I'm getting ahead while I can, and I expect Hannah will have plenty of opportunity to catch up.  See?


Because we do like us a few statistics:

• Twenty Questions status: 5 down, 15 to go
• Days until Root Hill: 17
• Latest book read: will anybody be surprised if I say Operation Mincemeat?
• Latest film/TV watched: appropriately enough, The Voyage of the Dawn Treader on Blu-ray (little sister's birthday present)
• Latest music listened to: Jevok Horgam by Tim Johnston - Odom the Grud's theme from Arbitrary Stopframe 8
• Latest edible item eaten: flapjack
• Predominant colour of clothes: same as yesterday... again...
• Programs and web pages currently running: Microsoft Office Outlook 2007, Firefox (tabs: Blogspot Dashboard; A White Horizon; Blogspot Create Post; MatNav 6.1)
• Webcomics posted today: Cylinder and Miserable #1326

- The Colclough

...For the Height of Me...

Sorry about the really weird post title.  A rottenish pun on the phrase "for the life of me", of course.  And wherefore?  Because thusly, Question 6: "How tall are you?"


Five foot seven and a bit. Or, if you're a metricist, 171cm.

Okay, I'm supposed to write at least a 100-word answer to each question, and that was only 12 words.  A bit short of target, no?  So I'll take advantage of the feet/centimetres dichotomy, and the opportunity it affords me to go off and ramble about my approach to units of measurement.

So: I use a strange mix of imperial and metric measurements, depending what I'm trying to measure.  I still prefer to measure myself (and anyone else, for that matter) in feet and inches.  But I never could get my head around Fahrenheit.

• In terms of linear distance, I'm fine with cms and mms on the smaller scale, but I will sometimes use inches instead for no particular reason, I always think of room measurements and people's heights in terms of feet, and I don't like trying to measure long distances in kms.  I always think of the distance from home to, say, grandparents' houses, or to Cardiff, or wherever, in miles.
• But if you introduce a third dimension, I suddenly come over all metric!  True story.  I can handle pints in the context of milk bottles and such, but for any other volume measurement I stick to litres.  I'd take mls over tsps and tbsps any day.
• I think decimal currency is a brilliant idea.  The way forward is definitely to have coins and notes in units of 1, 2 and 5 multiplied by various powers of 10.  That's the way we do it in Blighty, and when the Eurozone designed a new currency from scratch that's the way they did it too, because it is by far the most logical approach.  Not saying I like the Euro as a concept, or the aesthetics of their notes and coins, but I will concede that they did, at least, use all the right note and coin denominations.  Don't get me started on the silly Yankee system, with the missing 2c, the 25c instead of a 20, the missing $2, the weird naming foibles, the ghastly-looking $5 bill and so on.
• And then there's temperature.  Why on earth does the Fahrenheit scale place 0 at some arbitrary icy point, and call the freezing point of water 32?  I always thought that was a bit daft, and I much prefer Celsius.  Or even better, Kelvin, where 0 is defined as, well, absolute zero.  What a sensible place to start!

So, there you go.  That's how tall I am, and how I like to express how tall I am.

Are you a metricist?


Please don't feed the statisticians:

• Twenty Questions status: 4 down, 16 to go
• Days until Root Hill: 18
• Latest book read: will anybody be surprised if I say Operation Mincemeat?
• Latest film/TV watched: Top Gear Series 17 Episode 6, on BBC iPlayer
• Latest music listened to: some Minecraft fan songs Ben showed me on YouTube
• Latest edible item eaten: half a 'pains au chocolat'
• Predominant colour of clothes: same as yesterday...
• Programs and web pages currently running: Microsoft Office Outlook 2007, Firefox (tabs: MatNav 6.1; Blogspot Dashboard; A White Horizon; Blogspot Create Post); The GIMP
• Webcomics posted today: Cylinder and Miserable #1325

- The Colclough

The Meanings of the Mediums

Question 5: "Do you have a favourite medium to use when doing artwork?"


Nope.

That is to say, I don't think I have one overall favourite.  I have different favourite media for achieving different objectives, and I find that using different ones for different projects helps to keep me sane.  Ish.  I think I'd go mad(der than usual) if I was forced to stick to the same medium for a long time.

Some examples:

• If I'm trying to do an expressive drawing, I find it's a good idea to start in pencil, and work over it in ink and/or colour pencils once I've got the linework right.  Example here.
• On the other hand, if I want a more energetic feel, then I sometimes just go straight for the pen.  For example, my latest Fort Paradox illustration, Episode 076.
• I find paints are usually a more ad-hoc, hyper-analogue medium.  I tend to use paints when I've got a general idea but I don't have all the detail worked out, and I just want to grab a brush and see what happens.  There are exceptions (e.g. that kingfisher...) but a lot of my paintings are experiments in impromptunity.  Did I just invent a word there?
• When creating CD cover art (usually for Tim's compositions), I always work in the GNU Image Manipulation Program, because I feel CD cover art requires a certain level of technical sophistication.  The component images may come from a variety of sources (scanner, camera, CGI renders, whatever) but the final composite is always done in GIMP.

I've also been given five more questions by Sam, which I will try to answer soon:

1. If you could be in a Rock Band what Instrument would you Play?
2. Have you seen any Godzilla Films?
3. If you could buy any car (money No Object) what would it be?
4. Which do you prefer: Motorhead or Metallica?
5. Who is your favourite Stand Up Comedian?

I shall try to answer these, as well as Hannah's questions, in the near future.  So many questions... maybe I should have got a Formspring account after all?


Statistician Fodder:

• Twenty Questions status: 3 down, 17 to go
• Days until Root Hill: 19
• Latest book read: still Operation Mincemeat
• Latest film/TV watched: still Endgame
• Latest music listened to: the 9-tune mashup that forms the soundtrack of Arbitrary Stopframe episode 8
• Latest edible item eaten: apple and walnut cake, and coffee
• Predominant colour of clothes: denim blue on one half, medium red on t'other
• Programs and web pages currently running: Microsoft Office Outlook 2007, Firefox (tabs: Blogspot Dashboard; The Fantastic Blog of George Darlan; Josh's Most Excellent Blog; A White Horizon; Blogspot Create Post; MatNav 6.1); Sony Vegas; Microsoft Office Word 2007
• Webcomics posted today: Cylinder and Miserable #1324

- The Colclough