Bleargh and Whoo!

Yet another move. This stime I get to stay stationary for almost three weeks! *sarcasm* Wow! But after that I fly for 14+ hours halfway across the world. Whoo.

Still struggling to keep my head above the water with that buffer. But everytime I try to draw a new page, I seem to feel tired. I think the problem might be I stopped doing a comic some time ago. No, instead, I was Building a Buffer. I think I'm going to dump that idea and just make comics. I lost sight of my original objective... very very bad thing to happen.

Other than that, only being able to access the internet once or twice a week for an hour or two is rather difficult as well. *sigh* Bear with me guys. I'm hurrying through stuff at the current; I'm sure quite a few of you had a chuckle at my expense over the botched Contest on wednesday. Note to self: Do NOT post solution on same page as the question.

Oh and check out a little cameo in Night and Day. Looks like those glasses are pretty much Jin's signature look now.

Go Vote! (Not for Me)

The Cartoonist Choice Awards Nominees are out! Among the running are Count Your Sheep, Fallen Angels Used Books and Elf Only Inn! You know what to do, folks!

I'm pretty disappointed on of the best B/W comics (Or best comics. Period) I've ever come across, Digger, is not even in the running. Doesn't seem quite fair, Digger kicks ass. I guess one thing that still annoys me about CCA is that the saaaaaame entries tend to get nominated every time. Just like M Schumacher winning Grand Prix after Grand Prix, it just takes the spice out of things.

Speaking of F1, what a great American Grand Prix it was at Indy yesterday! The other most exciting race of this season (Don't forget Monaco). Ralf Schumacher's crash was a bit scary, and I do wonder why it to the medical guys so long to rush to his aid.

I've been sick the last few days... Summer flu of all things. In the meantime, my buffer is down to a scary one week... and I just feel flat and unable to do anything. (Ping is scared). I think I might have to out my work on revamp Keen Gear on hold for a bit... Ugh.

In a state of perpetual moving...

Is no fun at all.

Honestly, it isn't. I now enter the state where I'm constantly moving, and probably won't settle down until I go back to Malaysia for the summer (is tired). That will be in July.

We moved out of my old house on Saturday... I regret to say my surmise about the bathroom was correct, the deposit was deducted because of the upstairs bathroom. I was surprised to note that the other two did ask the landlord to deduct the damage from their shares of the deposit, and to leave mine intact, since it wasn't fair to me.

I guess I did underestimate them after all.

Currently staying at Nutford House, which my brother recommended to me. To be honest, I am of the opinion it's rather... crappy, I have no idea why he had such good opinions of it. The only things that seems to be nice there is the pair of chocolate labradors the warden owns. I have such a soft spot for labs.

I am happy to report I passed my exams, although I met my waterloo in Mathematics. *cries* What is this? A computer scientist who can't do Maths?!?!

Had 'sports day' yesterday, with both F1 and England VS France for Euro 2004. Too bad my favourite driver dropped out within the first minute of the race *cry*. The match between England and France was a shocker, and even if England lost, that was bloody entertaining football. The last few minutes were somewhat surreal.

Keep an eye out for the Historical Romance Crossover, which starts tomorrow. I have a submission and have been paired with Aeire. I hope to goodness she can get hers up on time, I'd hate to go it alone.

There are a couple of new series up on Graphic Smash. There's Edge the Devilhunter (was on keenspace) and one I really like: Reckless Life by Tim Demeter. Check em out!

I currently have no stable internet connection, and am back to using the labs again. The upshot is without the temptation of surfing, I get to work on the comic better. Better get moving, I guess... that buffer ain't gonna grow by itself...

Oh, check out Jilly's blog. Yours truly helped :)

An Overdose of Real Life

If I seem to have been absent the last few days, you would be correct. I have barely spent any time in front of my comp lately, and any time I have spent seems to be hurried glances at this and that. I suppose it might actually BE a good thing my life is so darn busy. But that part of me that likes quiet is kinda relieved to have some time to breathe now.

I just saw off my friend and ex-roomate Jillian C from Nottingham, who came down on a 5 day visit. We went on a exhaustive tour of London, doing what we Londoners call "touristy stuff".


Tower of London. We didn't run into Liz and Ed through ;)


The hard part about taking this picture was that we were the ones taking it and we were in it too.


Breads and produce. The best part of this trip was that I found this little forge hidden away in an alley that sold real swords and armour. As in, old officer's cutlasses, epees and even a rapier that I coveted on sight. For £50, it does bear thinking about...


The ultimate 'touristy' thing to do: take a picture with a pair of constables. In my defence, I needed the uniforms as reference for Black Earth. The things I do for this comic.

We also went for a musical: Chicago, to be specific. Really really fun musical, although I still like Les Miserables better. But I loved how the orchestra is part of the act in this one, while in LeMis they were all hidden underneath the stage. Very fun, lots of cabaret-style dancing and very enthusiastic performances by the band. Another plus was that we managed to get £22 seats for £15. :) Can never complain about that one.

Also went to watch the third Harry Potter film. The script was still (regretfully) done by the same guy who did the last two, so you should know what kind of script to expect, but the new director... well, I was surprised at Alfonso Cuarón's directing skills, mainly because I never did watch A Little Princess and knew nothing about him beforehand.

But the directing... It was breathtakingly artistic. Beautiful would be one word to describe it. As it was, I spent the movie alternately cringing at the awful dialogue and marvelling at the wonderful directing. Oh, and the acting improved loads too.

The Prisoner of Azkaban was always my favourite book in the Harry Potter series, I'm glad the 3rd movie was a vast improvement over the rather poor first two, but I still wish they'd change that scriptwriter.

Oh well, at least it wasn't another League of Extraordinary Gentlemen. Not THAT'S a movie whose scriptwriter deserved to be shot. Repeatedly.

Busy working on the comic, you guys should be all right, I think. I have a buffer of 3 weeks so far. I'm currently taking part in the Historical Romance Crossover event. My partner is Aiere from Queen of Wands. Can you say wow?! I also have another little project that I'm going to hint at and not say much of until it's out, just because I'm evil and want to be maddeningly mysterious.

Other than that, I've been busy with helping my sister and preparing for hers and my own move out of this house. Speaking of which is a sore point with me... I'm rather mad at my housemates at the present. Mainly because I suspect I'm going to lose my deposit because of the state of their bathroom.

My landlord is a very very nice man, but I can tell that even he was a bit upset over the state it's in. And to be honest I can't blame him. All it needs is a zombie in the bathroom and it'd look like a scene straight out of Resident Evil. Yep. That how bad it is.

Here's a look for yourself. Now I hear that the bathroom from hell has scared away most of the prospective tenants for this house. Can't blame them either. It'd scare me away if I were them.

The worst part is that I already foresaw all this happening and was quite powerless to prevent it. The moment we finished our exams I had already repeatedly asked nicely, pleaded, begged and warned those two to clean that icking bathroom. To no avail. It's always excuses, excuses, more excuses that I get tired of hearing...

"But she's going to only mess it up again." or "she wants to clean it just before we move out (because the other she knows she's going to mess it up again)" and so on and so forth. In the end I'm just sick of being the one who has to be responsible while certain other people run around and have fun. I'm just sick of being the one who cleans up after everyone else.

In the end my efforts only resulted in them deciding to effing clean the F*cking bathroom 3 days before we leave... can you say too little too late? When my landlord came over today and told me about the trouble that bathroom caused, I have never been so ashamed as I did then when I stood in that mildew-covered bathroom and all the time he was still so polite and kind and considerate to people (who IMHO) didn't deserve it.

So why am I ranting this here? I don't know. I'm just frustrated, I guess. I knew this would happen, I told them it would happen but still nothing changes. It's like being Cassandra making prophecies that no one believes until it is too late.

Ah well, I guess I'm just going to have to be resigned with the fact I'm not getting my deposit back short of a miracle. But I do know the names of two people who are so going to get a ticking-off when I see them.

There's a time to be calm, a time to be nice, a time to be kind... and a time to a absolute bitch.