Daily archives: December 19, 2003

Defeat from the jaws of Victory

This entry was posted in Uncategorized on December 19, 2003 by Ian Pattinson

I want to scream.
I managed to convince BT Yahoo to zero and close my old account because the disconnection fee was wrongly charged. Now I’ve just been out to post stuff and discovered that I’ve hit my overdraft limit again, mostly because the last cheque for my freelancing hasn’t arrived, so now the Direct Debit for the new account is going to bounce and the whole disaster is going to start again.
Plus I’m supposed to be going to see Return of the King tonight and I’m going to have to cadge the price of a ticket off someone.

Send me money by PayPal. You know you want to. Or buy something from the shop.

Name that avian

This entry was posted in Uncategorized on December 19, 2003 by Ian Pattinson

Are there any birdspotters out there who can tell me what this bird is-

It is freakily huge compared to the other, non magpie, birds that have been flittling around the garden recently. I’m used to seeing tiny things the size of its head.

(I nearly said I was used to seeing tiny tits, but I refrained…….

Doh!)

Semper Occultis

This entry was posted in Uncategorized on December 19, 2003 by Ian Pattinson

I’ve been trying to track down a picture I took of the MI6 headquarters to trace for a background shot in DEx, but, just in case, I’ve also been looking for pictures on the web. This site has a few, from various angles, and links to pieces on the history of the service.

(Semper Occultis translates as Always Secret, motto of the SIS/ MI6)

What ever happened to Dan Dare?

This entry was posted in Uncategorized on December 19, 2003 by Brian

After running some searches on Dan Dare after reading Ian’s post I came across some real British rocketry projects from the 50’s and 60’s. This is the kind of site full of old abandoned experimental technology that I suspect Ian will like.

DEx- then break

This entry was posted in Comics on December 19, 2003 by Ian Pattinson

Today’s edition of DEx is up. This is going to be the last one before a long Christmas break. It will probably return at the start of term (12th January) next year. By then it may also have changed venue. I’m not that happy with the comics manager I’m using, and I want to get more publicity for the project. Via BugPowder I found out about Webcomicsnation. The functions in the Professional account are just the sort of things I want. For instance, I have some naughtier sections/ stories planned for my second strip- Usual Time, Usual Place– that I’d be a bit dubious about posting on my rather uptight current ISP’s servers. Plus this way I can BitPass access to these stories as a barrier against younger viewers (not a huge barrier, admittedly, but it’s something.) I also like the look of the searchable character database because characters in the two strips are going to hop back and forth and appear in the background when least expected.

And of course, the increased profile might just mean I can make enough money off the strip to merit the day and a bit a week I spend on it.

Blame

This entry was posted in George Bush on December 19, 2003 by Ian Pattinson

Despite many an obstacle, an investigation into the September 11th attacks has concluded that they could have been avoided. No real surprise there. What is interesting is the list of people to be called to testify before the public part of the inquiry-

top officials in the FBI, CIA, Defense Department, National Security Agency and, maybe, President Bush and former President Clinton.

No doubt the two Prez’s, or their advisers, will take the opportunity to score points off each other. At least when Dubya says he knew nothing it’ll be convincing.