Daily archives: February 19, 2003


Alien in Europe

Remember the Sting tune “Alien in New York”? Well, being of American nature, I think we should have a exchange program of politicians serving terms abroad! It might help broaden the horizons of so many shite politicians and give them some appreciation for why things are the way they are. The New York Times this morning tries to solve the riddle of how the world doesn’t like “the best example of freedom and democracy worldwide”. Hmmm. Makes you wonder doesn’t it.

I have been listening to Radio 5 Live quite a bit over the past couple of weeks. It truly is the best news, chat and sports station in the whole UK. My favourite program is called Up All Night and provides some features along with guests from all over the world to debate current UK and world events. Highly informative and worth a listen if you have the chance. Scotland would not seem to be a hot bed of music, but let me tell you the Scnots have some excellent venues and bands. Try listening in to Beat 106 on Sunday evenings from 7 till midnight; there is so much indie and good stuff in them there highlands it’s ridiculous. Manchester and London have nothing on this country. I imagine it’s Scotlands wide availability of drugs and drink that fuel the attempted rockstar lifestyles, but hey, the music is fantastic so no complaints.

One word for a great new band from New York – LONGWAVE – these guys are f*ing awesome. Think all the things that made alternative music right all rolled up into one cool band. Just so you know they are good – Longwave was formed in the suburbs north of NYC.


Broadband blip

The good news- I can transfer broadband and all that goes with it to the new house for no extra cost (they would charge me if I’d cancelled).

The bad news- there’ll be at least a week and a half without the service as they make me go through a convoluted process involving cancelling, waiting whilst they get their act together and turn it off and then re-ordering. I’ll have to do something else with all my surfing time.

It’s definitely time to buy the new Command & Conquer


Permanent Damage

Another interesting column from Steven Grant. Topped and tailed by comics news, he takes in the DareDevil movie, comics movies in general and life under an Orange Alert (and snowstorms).

Homeland security agents this morning raided the winter home of Mother Nature in Vail, Colorado and whisked her off to an undisclosed location to be interrogated about reputed connections to Al-Qaida and other terrorist groups, as severe weather conditions along the East Coast closed airports and highways, hindered police and protective services, shut down power in several states, and, as threatened in a recent tape alleged to have been made by Al-Qaida leader Osama Bin Laden, brought much of the American community to a standstill…..

Ari Fleischer suggested the intelligence has long been known to the President. “President Bush in fact declared war on nature the instant his presidency began,”


Not To Do List

You get the impression that Dubya and his boys are breezing toward Gulf War 2 without a care or worry in the world. So it’s quite reassuring, in a twisted way, to hear that Donald Rumsfeld has a special list of things that could go wrong when they invade Iraq. Worst of them, I guess, would be that the oil fields get torched, which would make the whole exercise a waste of time and money (somehow I don’t think they care that much about the lives.)


High Seas

Damn! The world keeps stealing my best ideas. The first story of the DEx comic (another of my many stalled projects) revolved around a ship loaded with weapons smuggled out of Afghanistan and/ or Iraq. I was thinking more in terms of conventional weapons and things like Stingers with maybe the basis of a dirty bomb thrown in for good measure. Now there are rumours abroad that Iraqi NBC weaponry has been smuggled out of the country and is afloat in three large container ships.