Not much to show and tell for the last two weeks. The paper went to press on a Monday for a change, but that messed up my mental schedule for the week. Then a sore neck put the kibosh on plans to see Robin Ince on the 16th. Next time.
Then there was Easter, and my regretful consumption of far too much milk chocolate, which anyway I’ve discovered I really don’t like all that much any more. Give me a bar of Lidl’s 60% any day.
On Tuesday I attended my first press screening in a while, Miyazaki’s swan song The Wind Rises; that’ll get written up before it’s out in early May. Don’t ask me about music; I’m working on it.
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So it’s a week and a bit after WrestleMania XXX, and the Internet Wrestling Community is still on a massive downer after the ending of The Undertaker’s vaunted ‘Streak’.
I understand that disappointment, and upset, and frustration. To be a wrestling fan is to know these things all too well. So it’s easy to fall into the trap of blaming Vince McMahon for The Worst Booking Decision Ever, since he’s the boss and nothing goes on the show without his approval (and by golly, he’s approved some clunkers over the years).
But that’s to assume the Phenom himself had nothing to do with it. And that’s just plain crazy talk. This is The Undertaker we’re talking about; the locker room leader, the elder statesman of WWE. Nothing happens to his character without his say-so. Make no mistake about it, the end of The Streak was his decision.
And more to the point, can anyone seriously say they didn’t see this coming?
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Allez Cuisine! A MetaFilter user has compiled nearly every episode of the original Iron Chef
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Every now and then Raymond Pettibon gets rediscovered, and I can't complain. See also: Pettibon interviewed by Kim Gordon #link
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Bet you didn't know about most of these. #link
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Argh! Attack of the Clown Trolls! #link
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I want one of these. #link
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At some point in the coming years, blogging will become cool again thanks to the hipsters, and then it really will be dead! #link
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No longer on YouTube at the request of The Jim Henson Company. Which is a shame, unless they make it a DVD/Blu-ray extra or something down the line. #link
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Late with the notes this week due to a reshuffled production schedule. But the paper’s been put to bed now so I’ll get these thoughts down as I decompress.
Week 656 started with the NUJ’s Freelance Forum for spring 2014 at Buswells Hotel all day Monday, which was mostly helpful to me in terms of my confidence in making pitches for writing work. Not that I’ve made any pitches yet, but I feel like I know what to say when the time comes (ie not too much, just enough; and for god’s sake proofread it before you send it).
Most of the rest of the week was devoted to production: lots of subbing, laying out pages, and emails, emails, emails. That bled into the weekend a bit, too, meaning I didn’t have a lot of time for my regular freelance bits. So the week to come will see a bit of catching up there. It helps that there’s a long weekend to come.
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Yesterday was Tabletop Day, and I spent a good chunk of it with Bee watching the live streams, playing Discworld: Ankh-Morpork (fun in the middle, but ultimately not really suitable for two players) and getting reacquainted with Race for the Galaxy (much better for two, and a lot quicker to play). Here’s hoping for some good board game vendors at the comic con in the RDS next weekend.
Work was mostly correcting InDesign page proofs this week — so time consuming! — with some review writing along the way. My few hundred words on Darren Aronofsky’s Noah went up on Thursday evening, and I’ll have some on new Irish film Calvary next week.
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