Author: Alasdair

Healthy

Posted on by Alasdair

OK, I’m becoming faintly worried. Because I went to the gym tonight. See, when I joined the gym, it was my intent to go on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. The thought that I’m enjoying it enough that I’m going on nights outside of the routine I’ve set myself is, well, scary. I mean, yeah, so I decided to put getting in shape ahead of everything else in my life, including my writing. But I didn’t think I’d find myself getting home at nine o’clock at night, and thinking “what shall I do now? I know! I’ll got to the gym!” For someone who, six months ago, would have torn your arm off at the shoulder had you tried to take my cigarettes and lard away from me, to find myself eating healthy food, taking exercise and not shoving any more toxins into my body that strictly nessecary, well, I’m forced to ask “who am I, and what have I done with the real Alasdair Watson?”

Oh, and before anyone says it: whiskey and coffee are fundamental to my continued ability to operate like a human being, and as such are absolutely required toxins.

Mind you, the glass of red wine I had after getting in from the gym wasn’t. Perhaps there’s hope yet.

GSF

Posted on by Alasdair

Oh, fuck. I’m not good with conflict at the best of times. I don’t like arguing harshly with anyone. I’m told I’ve been known to look like I’ve been slapped in the event of people reacting badly in a heated discussion. But what I have even more of a problem with is watching my friends argue.

Most of the time, the Ninth Art staff get on pretty well. But just the odd time, there’s a bit of a blow-up. So, I surface from my morning’s work to check my mail, and find Andrew and Antony arguing. The latest mail I got was from Andrew, throwing what might be politely called a fit of the collywobbles. This is the second time in a month that this has happened. This time around, it’s oddly worse, because last time it happened, I was seething at the result – a day or two of my work went down the pan. I really dislike having my time wasted, you see. But I kept my gob shut about how furious I was, because I knew that everyone else had wasted their time as well, and I just wanted the whole think filed in the “dead” basket, and also because I’m not totally stupid or insensitive. This time, I’ve got no childish outrage to hang on to, and I just feel sick. Quite literally. I’m sitting here at my desk feeling nauseous. I’m not kidding about not being good at watching my friends argue.

But it’s starting to feel like we’re back at PopImage, except that frankly, this time around I could walk away with less of a sense of guilt – everything I needed to do at the outset is done, and the site could go on as it is forever, with minimal technical work (chiefly ensuring that a back-up of the database is done every so often, and in the event of disaster, restoring it). I quit PopImage because it was no longer fun for me. Sitting at my desk, feeling like I ought to head for the toilets and chuck my guts up isn’t a whole lot of fun, either.

I’m not going to quit, or even to mention this to the others. I’m not a two-year old, after all (even though I behave like one sometimes). But I’d be lying if I said the thought hadn’t crossed my mind.

Yes

Posted on by Alasdair

So, a few weeks back, I saw What Women Want. I’ve been pondering it on and off since then. I can’t decide if the film was misogynist or not. Part of me thinks it was. Cute as it may have been, funny though it was, the central message does rather seem to be that What Women Want is a man. Granted, they don’t want the arsehole the Gibson is playing at the start of the film, but still, given the sort of character that Helen Hunt is playing, is does seem that despite all her success, all she’s achieved by standing on her own, all she really wants is Mel…

But there’s another part of me that wonders: Would “What Men Want” have been hugely different? Wouldn’t the answer to that have been “a woman”? Especially given that we are, after all, watching a romance… Yes, there’s an argument to be made that the whole image of women given in the film is as creatures that spend most of their time worrying, and basically being mildly neurotic. But again, I wonder: are men that different? Maybe they worry about different things, but I ssupect that were it not terribly un-macho to admit to being worried about well, anything one might discover that yes, men worry a lot as well.

Is it misogynist to make a funny romantic comedy that, as part of the joke, requires the woman to be weaker, any more than is would be misandrist than to do the reverse?

God

Posted on by Alasdair

It’s 2:30am. The dinner party has just ended. Andrew’s in his bed, and Andrea is on the spare mattress in the lounge, and I know there’s no way I can sleep any time soon, which is irritating. My mind’s running nineteen to the dozen on all sorts of topics, and tonight’s top of the list: God.

Never the small ones that bug you at 2am, is it?

My relationship with god is a weird one. I used to be a Christian, until I lost both my grandfathers in the space of a week. Then, well, it wasn’t that I didn’t believe in god, it’s just that I hated him/her/it. Over time, that essentially teenaged rebellion mutated into atheism. But given my other half-mad beliefs, I actually find it currently impossible to disbelieve god, exactly. Oh, in an argument, I still take the atheist stance, simply because I think that living your life with an essentially atheist outlook, regardless of other beliefs makes more sense, and is a more useful thing to do, both for the individual, and society as a whole. But in terms of my belief god, it’s not even an agnostic stance – I’m a practising chaos magician, for god’s sake. If this shit works, and I have every reason to believe it does, then how can god not exist? Granted, I’m pretty sure he/she/it only exists because we believe it does, but still.

But I find that now, over a decade since my initial loss of faith, I no longer have hatred I did, expect on the most abstract level. I no longer have it in me to fight over people’s faith. Don’t mock mine, I won’t mock yours, that’s my view these days.

Odd thing, though: if I’d talked about this a year ago, I’d have been a hard line atheist, with a big old chip on my shoulder about how belief in god was unnecessary at this point.

What I can’t decide is if this change is for the better. It’s more mature, I think. It’s a good indication of the results of the work I’ve been doing over the last year, and they’re results I’m happy with. But I miss that white-hot certainty of unbelief.

Ah well. Time to get some work done.

Mugged By Music

Posted on by Alasdair

I knew I’d regret poping into Beggars Banquet last week. I was back in there today. I think the big problem is that they sell far too much 4AD stuff on CD, 90% of it for under a tenner. Last week, it was The Birthday Party, The Pixies and The Aphex Twin, this week, The Breeders, Throwing Muses and the Cocteau Twins. 6 CDs for about 35 quid isn’t bad, but I know it’s false economy.

They’ve shifted a bit

Posted on by Alasdair

My current “Goals for life” list:

1) Write comics.

2) Various Geek Projects.

3) Become immortal.

4) Climb a goddamn mountain.

5) Publish other people’s comics.

6) Get off-world.

7) Write more comics.

8) Write screenplays.

8) Direct screenplays.

10) Trek across a desert.

12) Own a pub.

13) Visit Mars.

14) Write more comics.

15) Write memoirs

16) Live inside a tesseract.

17) Write still more comics.

18) Alter body with nanomachines.

19) Continue writing comics.

20) Interact with an alien race.

21) Develop entirely new society, based on sane principles.

22) Replace entire body with nanomachines.

23) Write more comics.

Valuation

Posted on by Alasdair

I am worth $2,704,960.00. How much are you worth?

Note: I am prepared to accept significantly lower offers, from the right sort of person, with the right sort of terms.

Stupid

Posted on by Alasdair

Oh god.

It’s official. I am possibly the stupidest creature to walk the earth. There are, of course, many reasons why this could be true. But the most recent one is my antics this weekend. I spend Friday laid up with a cold, because at that point, the disease had not claimed my brain. But on Saturday, despite what I knew to be my better judgement, I went out. Not just for a quiet drink at the pub, oh no. I went clubbing. And stayed on the dancefloor for many hours, apparently to the silent ridicule of my friends. Which is fine, because I know I can’t dance, and don’t really care.

Then, having got home shattered at 5 am, I got up before noon, because no matter the circumstances, I can’t sleep past half eleven, and went round to my parents, to see relatives. And then we went for a trip up the London eye, where I took photos, and it was ace. But I got through the day on the leftover adrenaline of the night before, and made it home in a state of utter collapse.

Right now, I’m sitting at my desk, wishing I was dead.