newsiness and nerdiness

Museum news: ep 5 is currently being written. I have to churn 5 & 6 out before I run out of weird steam. I have painfully balanced my accounts and reckon I can just about stretch to getting the audio interface I want, so it's game on for recording. As always, get in touch if you want to be a voice. You probably don't, does anyone give a shit about this project other than me? Why should you, after all?

Sorry, I'm a little melancholy because of...

Work news: ughhh... roll on September and the new job.

..and apparently I'm a nerd



I disagree, I'm just a vaguely technology-savvy mac-geek, surely?

:)

Long weekend...

I had a nice weekend, even if I did spend some of saturday confirming that I'm the worst diver in history. I spent a while beached in the shallows splashing pathetically cos I'm not strong enough to stand unaided with all the bloody lead I have to wear. I make sure to keep my reg handy in case I fall face down. Otherwise I'd be like on of those tragic souls that drowns in a bowl of soup.

It was worth the effort, we saw some interesting moss. I think it was red, but Andy swears it was green. Who needs the Carribean?

I had a dress fitting too. My dress looks nice, apart from the lumpy body bits that get extruded from it. It's quite understated, and it looked even more so compared to the bridezilla who was having her fitting next to me. I've never seen such a blingy dress before, it was covered in rhinestones. I think having the sleeves attached to the middle finger like madonna circa 1984 was a nice touch. I'm such a bitch- she was probably looking at my dress thinking 'how plain and boring.'

Monday was the bolderboulder 10k, and I actually enjoyed it this year. I pushed myself hard, but not so hard I wanted to puke from 4k onwards. I was 4 mins slower than last year, but with a 6 month lay off from training I'm more than happy with that. Andy did really well and was 2 mins faster than last year, but I think I enjoyed the entertainments more. There were all sorts of bands and crazy people out there supporting us. There were over 50,000 runners this year, yet the organisation is exceptional- by far the best of any of the mass participation races I've done r watched on the telly.

The course isn't too bad, it's uphill at first. After 3 miles, the course takes a turn downhill as did the quality of the belly dancers. Gone were the nubile young woman and in there place some gyrating grannies. It was eye punishment. Serious.

Good News :)

I wrote to Donal Gallagher (Rory's brother) about using Rory's track Unmilitary Two-step in The Museum, and he is fine with it.

His email:

Hi Christine

Thank you for your message. Glad you would like to use Rory's 'Unmilitary Two-step", there is no problem to use the track and hopefully it will assist in bringing you talents forward to a wider audience.Your site is quite cool.

Lots of luck.

Dónal

I just made a girly noise, something like 'eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee'. I am very pleased.

More good news... 4 episodes are now written. Just two to go! Maybe I'll get this project finished one day. Maybe it'll even end up being broadcast *gasp*!

The plans for standup aren't going so well... I think when I give it a go, people will throw fruit. On the plus side, I'm likely to be very poor so at least I can eat healthily for a few days.

eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee :-)

Jobs n deep thinking n stuff

GX offered me a job, so I'll officially be a geophysicist come september. You know how it is, us future comic geniuses need to take a day job until we hit the big time. Deluded, me?! Hurrah for my early mid-life crisis :)

My trip to the UK was good, even if it wasn't a trip I made for happy reasons. I saw a lot of friends and family. I also went to Camden and got infected with some wierd disease than made me want to buy clothes and shoes and have a cool haircut. I think I was being brainwashed by hare krishna monks too, I kept inadvertantly giving them money and thus not being able to afford to eat anything other than cadbury's caramels. I also played gay croquet- it was just like normal croquet only bitchier and more brightly coloured.

The writing is going well, it even survived a catastrophic computer faliure. Fate let me reboot the computer one last time and drag off all the stuff I hadn't got around to backing up before it dissolved into a series of epilaptic-goading disco colours.

Sorry about the spelling today, I'm extra dislexic with a side order of dumb pie for some reason. I'll put it down to the wierd dreams I had.

I've been listening to a lot of radio comedy and trying to pull it apart and figure out why it works or doesn't. I was laughing my arse off at The Likely Lads and Dad's Army, but there is a lot of stuff I heard that I'd like to avoid- like obvious set ups (Terry is slagging off Bob's inlaws to a random stranger, who of course turns out to be one of the inlaws) and 'I haven't felt this bad since...' type jokes. What both comedies have taught me is that the characterisation is key to making it work, the setting is secondary (which is a relief since I keep forgetting to make my stuff 'museumy'). Having decent characters who are different and have a unique voice is reactive, like putting baking soda in water. kind of.

I listened to some free stuff on channel4 radio too- the most important lesson I learned there is that repeatedly saying the word tw*t doesn't magically transform something unfunny into a work of genious. Comparing their sketches to something equally wierd yet wonderful, the Boosh, was a revelation. It doesn't matter how wierd something is, if it isn't grounded in plot, character exposition or a complex web of oddness, it just ain't gonna work. This is wot i learnt.