Sunday, May 29, 2005

The future of blogging?

No not a new technological advancement, I'm talking about MY future, and not just blogging but the world wide web.
My thoughts are a little vague at the moment, but here goes. Recently I've been foolishly caught up arguing the toss about Revenge of the Sith, don't roll your eyeballs, I know it's a lame thing to do, that's part of the problem. You see I though Sith was terrible but other than that I just didn't care, it was just a film and that was that. But the forum, the only forum I'm part of because it grew up from out of a small press comic scene I was once part of, had someone posting about how amazing Sith was. Now it's a polite forum so I try an maintain a calm well balanced online persona, therefore my repsonse to these posts was to express my dislike of Sith and to say why. it really should have been an end to it except for one thing, I'm an idiot. How on earth can you rationally talk about how bad a Star Wars film is with a Star Wars fan! As the thread continued it became increasingly obvious that the fan was unhappy with my comments, me and my manner of expressing them. As for me I became frustrated at his ignoring my points his 'wacky persona'. All of this threatening at any time to tear through the thin veneer of 'polite debate'. Maybe I'm reading too much into it, but I don't know....
Then this morning I read a post on peteashton.com about petes response to a 'blogebrity' (it's a nightmarish concept given my dislike for celebs - more of that later) list that he's not on. Pete also mentions someones post on their blog about once being 'queen of blogging' until they backed away and became most forgotten. Bloggers becoming celebrities?! It's a horrible thought, but now I realise it's what most of us want, we want to be heard, we want people to understand us, agree with us, maybe we even want to provoke. Except, I don't think I do want that. I think no one needs a blog to be some one, I think idon't like being misinterpreted on forums as I express mild opinions about something pretty uninteresting, I don't think I want the pressure of trying to write posts that are interesting and usually failing. People having to back off from the harsh lights of blogebrity because the readers are getting weird, that seems wrong.
I don't know what I'm getting at, I still like the idea of blogging but I'm unsure where I fit into it and how I want to do it, but as I've posted maybe half a dozen times in the last couple of months and never linked my blog anywhere in an atempt to get a wider audience I wonder if I'm really going carry on.

Thursday, May 19, 2005

Celebrity Love Island

Continuing my hate/more hate obsession with celebrities (or 'celeities' as Callum 'famous and useless dad' Best would atempt to spell it - the question is, is he as thick as fuck or is he trying to make us believe that celebrity is close to deity?) I feel I have to make the obvious comment regarding Celebrity Love Island - why not gather up a few more of these useless talentless individuals, put them on the island and just leave them there? Honestly, it's not that cruel, leave a few cameras here and there and they'll be happy, and at least you wouldn't have to leave much food on the island, they don't eat much these famous folk.

Wednesday, May 18, 2005

After a long (for me) period of blogging silence I break this almost holy stillness to write about.... Star Wars. Pathetic isn't it? To atempt to redeem myself first I'll mention that lancaster is still lovely, we went to Kendal (a mere 20 miles away) which even lovelier. Being an assistant manager is proving difficult and rewarding in equal measures, which seems to be a good balance - I prefer it to boredom, at least I do so far.
I recently read a very good book about illustrating children's books and am feeling inspired and realising that I really need and want to draw more - basically I find drawing hard simply because I don't do it enough.
Writing is in a weird place, I've finished the 3rd draft and need to do another one. A friend read it and offered me a lot of good criticism and advice which I'd be a fool to ignore. On the other hand I really don't want to go through another draft just now so I'm putting it aside for a few weeks whilst I work on other things.
......so Star Wars.
My main gripe would be the advertising saturation. Bill Watterson took his syndicate to court for the right to not have Calvin and Hobbes devalued by having their images stuck on t-shirts, mugs, badges and only old tat to score easy money. Lucas feels that sticking Star Wars images on anything from junk food to lottery cards won't devalue it. Actually his increasingly mediocre film making skills seems to have devalued his creations without the aid of low class tat tie-ins, I guess he can stick Joda's face on any old crap and it won't make a blind bit of difference. Actually, it has made a difference, it's made me tired, it's made me realise that Lucas really does lack a soul - even if I don't believe that Lucas started out making Star Wars for the toys and merchandise, I do believe that it's the only reason he's carried on making them, that and the fact that he's clearly creatively bankrupt.
Sadly I let myself down by buying a tie-in recently, a lego tie-in. In my defence it was the lego aspect that appealed, if that's any defence.
As for the new movie, I'll see it for the sense of closure and with the not so secret hope that it's good. Sadly one line from the New York review seems to sum up my attitude to the recent Star Wars films, "Break me a fucking give."