You’ll have had your tea?

I’ve been reading Petesy’s blog for some time now, it’s become a talking point between Dad and I as we marvel over his exploits. It’s definitely an aspirational read for me as I keep thinking to myself that I’d really love to do the things that Petesy does. Here’s the thing though; the only special part about what he does is that he does it.

He’s a family man with a job who loves being outdoors. He’s not a full time journalist or a team-based athlete just does it.

Like I said, up until now it’s been aspirational as I haven’t put any plans into action. Until last night that is. It was the back of 8 and I fancied a cuppa and on the way to the kitchen I looked outside and figured it’d be great to have that cuppa on the bench at the top of Blairadam forest that I’ve sat on many times.

The bag came out, the stove went in and I pedaled off into the dark.

And there you have it; me, sitting on the bench after dark with a steaming mug of Rooibos in my hands. Oh, I’m not smiling because the smiling pictures didn’t turn out too well.

It was a good night for it, the mist lending the air an other worldly quality which you can definitely see mingling in the steam from my tea. The roads were nice and quiet, with any drivers I did encounter giving me a wide birth. That’s probably through some mixture of incredulity at encountering a cyclist and the 240 lumens I was using to light the road.

Next time it’s a tent and a local hill.

Sunshine On My Shoulders

So a couple of weekends ago we got sunshine. Lots of it. Splitting the stones, so it was. Okay, so to anyone from a hot country it was probably still hat and gloves weather but for me it was time to let the pale skin get some Vitamin D.

I’ve attempted to cycle over to the Pillars of Hercules before though I didn’t make it all the way across. That was either last summer or the one before and it’s safe to say that my fitness has come on in leaps and bounds since then. I also have semi-slick tyres which makes a big difference.

So this time I made it. An 85km round trip in shorts and t-shirt, the only time I covered myself up with anything more was a brief stint of wearing a windproof while having my lunch at the Pillars. I took a short detour to the local farm shop after lunch, pictures below.

The ride back was a bit slower then the one going out, but I had a quick stop in Kinross for a restorative Bru and that put some energy back in for the pech up through Blairadam Forest.

The evening was spent in The Villager to celebrate Chris Brown’s birthday. It was great to see a bunch of people I haven’t for a while, but it also reminded me of how much I hate being in city centre pubs on a Saturday. That scenario is not for me. I’d rather have a bike and a road.

Hi-Ex 2010

Another year, another cracking convention in the town of my birth. Hi-Ex is going from strength to strength each year, which is a cliche but it’s true. Which is also a cliche.

It’s funny to think that the first con in 2008 was based in only a few small rooms in Eden Court and this year managed to fill the large theatre as well as several others rooms at different times over the weekend.

The main point for me was, of course, selling my collection. Stupidly I didn’t take any pictures of my setup, but you can see me standing behind a Predator over at the Forbidden Planet blog. I was also running up and down to cover another two tables, selling raffle tickets, Hi-Ex t-shirts and some very, very nice Dredd badges from Termight.

I did amazingly well over the weekend, helped in no small part by being the only person who was selling a wide range of back issues. I think the £1/book price point helped as well. I got a lot of repeat custom over the weekend, helped especially by dropping the price a couple of times on Sunday to try and shift more. The people who benefited from the “3 for £1” selling did better than hey had any right to hope for, but I’m glad I managed to make a lot of people happy with some new books to read.

I was quite restrained with my own spending (beyond copious beers), only stopping by Cinebooks and the Harker stands. I would have bought more but it was late on by the time I got round so some folks had sold out.

Dave from KoA was an absolute star, minding the stall for me while I got my first shot at some pen & paper role-playing. It was good. It was very good fun. I need to do more of that. Listening to nothing by D&D podcasts on the drive up and back probably helps with that opinion.

Dave and I yakked about the con for an hour for the podcast, both of us trying our best to sum up just how much fun we’d had. I had a truly amazing weekend. It was great to catch up with Simon, albeit briefly, I had a good conversation with Charlie Adlard about European comics, X-Files and Argento. Despite missing the Cam Kennedy interview on the Sunday, I ended up chatting to him one-on-one for a while as he wandered round the hall. He also gave me a beautiful set of postcard-sized prints of some of his iconic work.

So many other great moments, not least of which was the side-splitting Saturday night. A night of plentiful drink, plentiful friends old and new, and jam comics that will never see the light of day again.

Roll on Hi-Ex 2011.

Mighty Deerstalker

I’ve run the Mighty Deerstalker before. In fact, I’ve run them all. Luckily, Gary Tompsett knows I’m always up for doing something silly at a race and when he phoned me up a couple of months back to see if I’d be up for something “a bit different” I said yes. Then I asked what it was. I have a habit of getting those two question the wrong way around.

Turns out, the “something different” was to carry a camera round the course for the BBC show Country Tracks. It also involved me doing some to-camera work as well, a sort of video diary of my day at the race. I’ve no idea how it’ll all turn out, but it’ll be broadcast to the nation at some point and unlike last year’s Rat Race show on C4 you’ll be able to see my face. And hear my whiney voice. There are altogether too many recordings of  me available online these days, but never mind.

The act of carrying the camera was as awkward as I’d feared. They didn’t have a head cam so instead it was a fairly standard-sized palmcorder, loaded with a 40 minute tape. This meant I had to keep starting and stopping the recording when I thought something interesting was happening. Like I say, we’ll find out if it worked when it’s broadcast.

Even when racing and carrying a camera, my time spent marshaling still managed to kick in. On the way to the scree ascent, the headtorch belonging to the girl behind me gave out which makes the race more than a little dangerous. So I offered to run at a pace that meant we could both see by the light of mine. We did that and managed to post a fairly pathetic time of three hours.

As with last year, Sunday was a bimble round the red run in Glentress and we had a big turn out for the event.

Photo stolen from Pyro who wrote up an official and less-official report of the weekend.

A good weekend, new friends, new experiences, new brakes and new scars. They don’t come much better.

Tonight We’re Gonna Give it 35%

A lot of time has passed since the last entry and there are many things I’ve not written about that will probably now be lost to the mists of crap memory.

A short list of events I haven’t mentioned;

• The wrapping up of film 2009, though I did post a note on Facebook
• The OLL Christmas party. Probably the less said about that the better.
• Going to the physio (pain)
• Getting lost in the Pentlands and managing to 20km in three hours
• RROD
• The plan to sell the comics

That’s enough for now. Hopefully by exorcising a bunch of stories I wanted to tell but haven’t gotten around to it’ll free my brain to actually write things down as they happen.

A Day Late

So I had Christmas Day a day late. As anyone who knows me will know, this didn’t perturb me in the slightest as I can’t really be arsed with the whole thing but I could definitely have done without the splitting migraine which I got as a present. Thankfully my family decided to just leave me sparked out in bed rather than attempt to gee me up with any kind of seasonal spirit.

Therefore, for me, Boxing Day became Christmas day. As with almost any reasonably inclusive family gathering I found myself keep almost silent for fear of saying something that would upset. The fault would likely be all my own if I did as I have a habit of resorting to sarcasm. However, Emma remained a useful distraction as always so the spotlight was rarely turned on me.

All going to plan I’ll head back down the road tomorrow. Much as I’d quite like to chat to family (in small groups), the last few weeks of December have left me knackered which is probably partly to blame for my invalid turn yesterday. The lure of getting more acquainted with the new sofa in my lounge and reducing the pile of unplayed games and unread books. Maybe even some running in the snow.

Negativity

I haven’t written anything for a while. Not for a lack of things to write about, I’ve just been buzzing about like a blue-arsed fly for a few weeks. So, a few retrospective posts over the next few days should sort things out.

A few week’s ago the second podsmash of Sonic’s Clear Wank was recorded. It was an absolute blast and since Perrin hasn’t finished editing it all together I haven’t heard the end result. Can’t blame him since the recording took about three hours.

Before we did that though, those of us in the Sonic’s Ring contingent had to record a very short piece for The Game Reviews. Frankly, I really didn’t enjoy that part nearly so much as the subject was the “Most Overhyped Game of 2009”. I’m not sure you could get a more significant piece of negative journalism as it led directly to us taking a great game and pretending it wasn’t as good as the hype suggested. To be honest, I hope our segment gets dropped.

Continuing in the podcast theme, the Edinburgh Zombie Club recorded their first one last week. I’ve just finished editing it together into something coherent and sent it out to those involved for a stamp of approval. I’m hoping we can manage one a month between movie nights. Next time though we’ll need to be careful not to talk over each other so much, do so much monologuing or eat snacks and crack open cans. It’s a start though.

If the sentences above read like a 5 year old wrote them it’s because for Christmas I got a migraine and it’s still hanging around.

Folk it

Friday night saw me digging out the old recording equipment (and trialling some new bits as well) as I’d been asked to record The Mannequins EP launch night. I hadn’t seen any of the guys in ages and hadn’t used the gear for a long time either so it was good to catch up with both. The mics should be getting some more use next week at the inaugural Edinburgh Zombie Club Podcast recording. Quite how shambolic that turns out remains to be heard.

So, naturally, Friday night involved a few pints so I slept in a bit on Saturday morning. I seem ptogrammed to wake up at 9:30 on weekends. Normally I’d be annoyed and try to get up earlier, but since I average only about six hours a night during the week I figure my body knows what it needs. I got piss all done during the day but that didn’t bother me much since I was off to see the folk supergroup Lau in the evening.

I’ve only seen Lau once before but they’re firmly cemented as one of my favourite live acts. They took the roof off the place with a stunning rendition of Horizontigo and that was only the second track. Amazingly, they upped the ante further and never let up for a second.

Adding to my vinyl collection I picked up a copy of Live on orange vinyl. Beautiful so it is. The acoustic arguments aside, the aesthetics of vinyl far outweigh that of any other media. The only problem with Live is that it has neither Horizontigo or The Burrian which are both on Arc Light. Ah well, guess I’ll just have to re-buy that as well.

Adventures In Hi-Fi

Not, not an R.E.M. reference but instead a nod to my latest hi-fi purchase.

I actually picked it up a little over a month ago but I’m been slacking on the blogging so fuck off. I’ve been meaning to add a turntable to my hi-fi for a decade now. You can tell by the fact that I specifically bought an amp with a phono stage back in 1999. I finally have something to plug into it.

None of your new stuff though, this thing is almost as old as me. Bought from Hi-Fi corner on Leith Walk 25 years ago by Dave in the office it’s served him and his family well until now and now it’ll do me for a good long time to come. I missed a trick though, apparently if he’d heard I was after a turntable a week earlier I’d have had it for free. Unfortunately he googled and found it’s something of a collector’s item. That didn’t stop him selling it to me for a song!

I’ve been really enjoying the few records I have over on this side of the country but I knew the needle was worn and a couple of discs were skipping. Tonight that’s all fixed though. A quick stop at the same store it was bought from and I came away with a new new needle and cartridge as well as the requisite knowledge to get it setup properly.

All the tutorials I’d read and tried to follow about setting the weight on the arm were as nothing next to a thirty second demonstration. The owner of the shop took me through a number of tables with various high end additions but none of it was sales speak. He was clearly just interested in showing off what was possible often dismissing what he was about to show me with a “You don’t need this but just look”. The silicon gel filled arm rest was something else.

Fitting the new cartridge was a doddle and it took seconds to get the weight fixed. Now none of the records skip and it’s borderline silent between tracks (the borderline only being noticeable if I put my head next to the speaker).

One of my favourite albums of all time, Workingman’s Dead, is filling my room with sonic wonder.

Not Much To Say

Another quiet weekend in which I get very little exercise. Going to head into that new gym on the way home tomorrow and sign myself up as it’s the only way I’m going to be able to work off the shite food I eat most of the time.

I tried fiddling about with different audio recording setups before this week’s podcast recording but, sadly, audio in Linux remains in its infancy it seems. Or maybe it’s just that way when Skype’s involved. Closed source software causing issues on an open source system. le sigh.

I’m expecting a rude text or email from Scott at some point. He’s signed up for Facebook so if he takes a look in my info he might well find this place. I’ve never denied the blog, I simply don’t talk about it.

/me waves