My Favourite Books

The Target Book
Originally uploaded by johnp2001

As a big Doctor Who fan and a fan of the Target Doctor Who books, I fell in love with a series of articles published in Doctor Who Magazine a few years back that chronicled the rise and fall of the Target Doctor Who books, which were an essential part of my childhood.

So I was delighted when the author of these articles decided to turn them into a book with LOTS and LOTS of nice piccies included.

I've read it 3 times now and it won an award as the most-popular non-fiction book in a recent DWM poll - even beating out all that new series crap pushed on poor unsuspecting kiddies by BBC Books.

This was when books were real books and Terance Dicks was king!

It's just a pity that so many of the books bearing his name are utter shite!

Sigh.

Prof M.

My New Range of Skin Care Products

The beta range is our now - made from fresh Ebola berries!

My New Album

Just a quick note that my new album is out next week.

We've decided to go all retro and bring it out on CASSETTE!

Here's a sneak peak!

Prof. M

DO NOT Pass Go and DO NOT Collect $200

The other day I was strolling around the enclosure when I saw a tresspasser climbing over the wall. For a moment I thought I might have had something to worry about but then I realised that he was less climbing and more falling over - he'd been electrocuted and their several razor-sharp spikes from atop the wall embedded in his chest.

What little that remained of him after he was pulled out of the Horda pit was fed to my pet Audrey II.

Security breaches are an all too common occurence nowadays. As the fame of my Garden spreads, so too does the number of wierdos who feel the need to try and liberate some of my less successful experiments.

Have these people not seen 28 Days Later? Don't they know that if they succeed it could mean the END OF CIVILISATION AS WE KNOW IT? I've got things brewing in a bucket down by the back fence that make the bubonic plague look like a case of the measles.

However, I recently had a Intruderlator 10000 installed (a custom job straight from SkyNet labs) which now oversees all my security needs. It slices, it dices, it mashes and minces. As you can imagine when I'm not using it to turn snoopy neighbours into garden-kill it's real handy in the kitchen.

So as I pass along the ranks of Ripley clones and caged mutant leaders with magnet fetishes I feel safe in the knowledge that there is only one pass to my garden and I'm wearing it. No ones gonna get their hands on this baby, not unless they get past the Manbots first. Heh heh.

I have nothing to fear except fear itself.

Now excuse me, I have to go break up a fight between the Triffids and the Audrey IIIs. And if they wake up Arnold the Krynoid, God help us all.

Sigh

Prof. M

flickr101 or another reason why I'm last on the bus

Don't get me wrong, I like flickr. I also like eating icing sugar out of the bag, but that isn't necessarily good for me.


As you can see to my left (or is that your left - I feel virtually confused) I've managed to plug in a few photosets from my flickr account. An account that has been languishing for the last year or so with little more than a handful of Dr Who audiobook covers on it because I wanted to showboat about them on a forum.

The reason I was doing this is that I love Doctor Who. I also love audiobooks. So of course, a couple of years ago when they started bringing out audiobooks of the original Target novels I was in fanboy heaven. They were even using the original Target covers - well most of the time anyways.

And therein lay the problem, sometimes they were using the cover from the first edition, sometimes the second. Also in the transition from book cover to audiobook cover, a few things were getting tweaked. Size, layout, font colours... Now most of the time this worked, but occasionally it didn't - and after a while it really began to bug me.

I'd be walking along listening to an audiobook on my iPod/iPhone, and every time I pulled the iGadget out to change something, there would be this cover I didn't quite like staring up at me.

So I decided to change it.

I scoured the net (although not too hard as I already had a good site in mind), got up the original artwork, used some existing covers to rough up a template in Photoshop and went to work. I don't know what it is but it was fun. The end result may not look too different to you but it makes all the difference in the world to my sad feeble little mind.

The only question is... should I be able to do it?

Conclusion - I just don't know.

And then there's Superman II...

Sigh.

Prof M

Red Bluff, Black Rock

Red Bluff, Black Rock
Originally uploaded by johnp2001

I love Red Bluff. This craggy bluff overlooks Half Moon Bay and the wreck of H.M.V.S Cerberus.

I've picnicked up here. Spent the night up here. And more than once climbed up to the top of the bluff from the beach.

I hadn't been back in many years, but recently dragged a friend to the spot when we went to Sandringham for the day so that he could take photos whilst I perved on the cyclists.

Whilst the bluff and the beach remained almost identical I could not say the same for the foreshore. Now cleaned up with most of the surrounding bushland cleared away, it has been turned from a pokey delight into a well-traversed picnic spot.

Thus evaporated a bagful of happy memories from my youth.

Sigh.

Prof. M

Perving on the Blog Next Door

One of my fave films is Rear Window. A fascinating examination of voyeurism and its consequences. The moral of which seems to be, that if you're gonna perv on your neighbours, make sure you turn the lights off first!

It used to be if I wanted to know anything about my next door neighbours, I could pop around for a cup of tea or stick a glass against the wall. Hours could be spent watching the hot guy in the flat opposite while he cooked dinner in his underwear or some such.

A furtive thrill to finish off the day.

Now along comes blogging - not only are we encouraged to write our own blogs, but it's expected that other people will read ours. I now know so much about my neighbours I need to enter counselling. Why peak furtively through the blinds when I can watch them full-frontal on their blog?

If Leonardo da Vinci had had a blog we'd prpobably know what that eyebrowless freak was smiling about and she'd probably be hanging on the wall in somebody's garage as a result.

I want the mystique back. This is my comment on other people's blogs.

Sigh

Prof. M

Days Off and Digital Cameras

This is what happens when you have a day off.

You end up down the pier with your best friend and his ultra-expensive camera. He takes the sort of pics that end up in Good Weekending and you end up taking happy snaps with your iPhone.

And am I the only person who still loves film in a camera? Where's the thrill of discovery in seeing exactly what you shot just a few seconds later? What's happened to getting your photos developed and getting them back and realising that your thumb is obscuring half of Horse Guards Parade during the Changing of the Guard?

Sigh.

Prof. M.