So, yesterday...

...I had the day off work, and although it wasn't as productive as I'd hoped, it wasn't unpleasant. I made some Bagpuss Userpics, and organised some of the music on my iTunes/iPod, mainly Erasure. In the process of which, I discovered that their song When A Lover Leaves You was made available as Garageband files for fans to remix as part of a competition. Although the competition is now over, the Garageband files are still online, so I downloaded them and have had a bit of fun with remixing it. The first attempt just involved panning some of the tracks and replacing the programmed drums with one of the Garageband stock drum tracks ("Edgy Live Drums 7", IIRC), and inadvertantly removing the instrumental solo. And fading it at the end. All of which combined to make it subtly different. At the moment, I'm thinking I'd like to try an extended mix, and then maybe something a bit more radical, like replacing all the instruments with something a bit more rock than synth. Watch this space. I'll probably upload anything I manage and post it under a F'lock.

In the evening, Tim and I were off to London to see the Now Show. That was good fun as ever (all of Mitch's songs were strong, and it's a shame that one of them isn't going to make the final edit; having said that, I can't right now remember what the songs were, except that one was a sequel to the one about Knut the baby polar bear. I must find the original and let Tim have a listen, as I suspect he'd like it.

Also, in place of Lord Marcus of Corduroy Brigstocke, they had a surprise special guest. Whose identity I shall not divulge ahead of broadcast, because I think it should remain a surprise, but I will say that when his/her identity was announced I think I quite possibly squeed like a fangirl.

After the show, as we were walking past the main entrance to Broadcasting House, the Surprise Special Guest was emerging from the doors, as were Laura Shavin and Jon Holmes, so we nattered and fangirled (well, I suspect Tim stuck to fanboying, but you know what I mean), and got bits of paper scribbled on.

I ended the day, thusly, on quite a high, although by the time Tim had driven us home from Newbury Park I was asleep. Managed to wake up as Tim drove onto our front drive. He does it so violently, y'see...

Oh, and on the drive back, shortly after we left Newbury Park, there was a moment when at least four police vehicles were all going in the same direction, sirens blaring away. Obviously some kind of major incident. I'd be interested to know what was happening, but can find nothing about it on the BBC news pages.

Driving lesson tonight, and another one tomorrow morning before Sarah and then Doctor Who.

David.

Comic books and Serenity and Supernatural

Ahead of The Now Show recording yesterday, because Tim and I had arrived in central London with Rather A Lot Of Time To Kill, we headed down to Forbidden Planet, where I picked up the first two issues of the latest Serenity comic book series, Better Days, which look just as wondrous as Those Left Behind did, and there's also the promise of a future comic book series telling the story of Shepherd Book, which should be fascinating.

One of the guys at the recording - someone I've chatted to before, but can't remember his name, was wearing a Serenity T-shirt, so he wins at life. He mentioned an upcoming Serenity convention in the UK. I think he said it's in the next couple of weeks or so, too soon for me to think about going, but I'd quite like to go to one in the future.

Also picked up the third issue of Titan's Torchwood magazine, which was good, although I can't be the only one who finds it somewhat bizarre that despite Torchwood the TV series being aimed at an adult audience and Doctor Who being more family-oriented, the magazines seem to be the other way round. I'm not necessarily talking in terms of swearing or anything like that, but whereas DWM tends to go for very text-heavy articles with small text closely bunched together, the Torchwood mag seems to go for fairly large text widely spaced.

Also, can anyone explain why my local Smith's hasn't stocked the second issue of Torchwood never mind the third, whilst it did have the second ish of Titan's Supernatural magazine the other weekend? I'd have thought that Supernatural was rather a minority interest in the UK compared to Torchwood...

On which note - do any of the Supernatural fans on my Flist know if there's a Supernatural comic book out there? The Titan mag doesn't include any comic strip, which is a shame. I'm sure a Supernatural comic book would be a good thing and V Popular. And I'd buy one if one already existed.

David.