I'm Blogging

Limmy's Show - That's a Wrap

That's five weeks filming on Limmy's Show done. It'll not be a surprise to you if I say every second of it was a total pleasure. I had a great time on it from start to finish. Everyone on it was great to work with all throughout the production. I have no doubts that it will be very funny once it hits the TV screens come late 2009 or early 2010.

My set of photographs can be viewed by clicking this link. You'll notice that there are very few photos of me in there. Should you wish to see some of me looking fat and daft, you can hit up my fellow cast member Omar's Flickr page for some of his photies.

Over at Brian's blog he's running a Q & A on the show, so go and join in if you haven't already. He's also got a new video up on his YouTube page.

Who's Bootlegging Who?

This is a really good piece by Grace Maxwell, Edwyn Collins' wife and manager. She talks about music copyright and how the big companies aren't quite the victims they make themselves out to be.

"I'm Having a Sandwich"

Graham Linehan writes a great blog post on the misleading newspaper articles about the worth of Twitter. The Guardian in particular appears to have begun a trend of allowing people to write articles on topics they know little about, just so long as their article takes a negative slant.

If you use Twitter it's well worth a read and if you don't use Twitter cos you think it's just people letting you know they're having a sit down then it's perhaps an even more worthwhile read.

Twitter's so good there's even people plugging a radio sketch show.

Michael Jackson Death - The Latest

The telly and everyone else is still at it with the Michael Jackson patter. Here's a few of the best things I've found online.

Charlie Brooker on Twitter: "All 24-hr news channels should be forced to cover NOTHING but MJ 'latest' for the next 7 years. Anchors hanging themselves on air by 2011."

Video of Flavor Flav turning up to see 'Mother Jackson' and being told to turn about and get tae. Although, he promises he'll be back later on.

No Rock and Roll Fun looks at The Sun telling their readers it's their 'job' to buy Michael Jackson records. As if anyone who gave a stuff wasn't doing that already.

They've also been running a feature they call 'It's not eulogy, it's me'. "When the famous talk of the recently dead, it's normally not about the corpse, but all about them. Madonna's claims this morning that she "can't stop crying" is designed to say nothing about Jackson's life, or his death, and everything about how empathetic Madonna would like us to think that she is."

Fred Durst pays tribute to MJ by dressing up like him.

The BBC have a video of a fan who "Lives Michael Jackson literally every day."

Ken Levine has a post on Michael Jackson - Wall to off the wall coverage. In it he includes such gems as this: 'Fans flocked to the Michael Jackson star on the Hollywood Walk-of-Fame. But it was talkshow host’s star, not Jacko’s. His star was covered by a red carpet laid down for the premiere of BRUNO. But here’s the great part: The fans were informed this was the wrong Michael Jackson but they remained and set up their shrine anyway.'

This is an article on how the internet handled the Michael Jackson search requests.

Reuters reports of Jackson's death sparking a bus brawl in Florida. Funnily enough the bus driver was at the centre of it.

This is an article on Michael Jackson's Moonwalker video game from joystiq.com.

"Besides the musical, dance and technical genius of the man, and the influence he's had on four decades of artists, Michael loved Zombies." -Anthrax's Scott Ian (via)

Richard Herring has a bit on his blog with his thoughts on the news coverage. "...But it was also entertaining to see the news channels managing to stretch this one story, which has already happened and which there were unlikely to be many significant developments into hour after hour of news."

This is an interesting article on Jackson's manager Frank Dileo from Nashville Scene.

Here's an interesting story about Michael Jackson from Drew McWeeny at HitFix.com. He tells of his days working at a video store where Michael Jackson would be a regular after hours customer.

Back to No Rock and Roll Fun who look at the towns and cities attempting to turn his death into a money spinning tourist attraction.

An 'It's not eulogy, it's me' moment that NRARF missed comes from Twitter where the musician, actor and producer Wyclef remarked, “I will not be going on TV talking about this, but my memory of Michael was when he came and saw me in the studio, I LOVE MICHAEL.” Do you think he's great? Yeah, well he thought I was great.

Down the Wing's Old Firm Week

It's Old Firm week at my football blog Down the Wing. On Saturday I went to Ibrox to see Rangers demolish Hamilton Accies, after an early scare. Last night I was at Celtic Park to watch Celtic take on Villareal in the Champions League.

I'm now only 30 games short of my 50 game target.

75 Comics Being Turned Into Films

The Den of Geek lists 75 comics currently being turned into movies.

Runaways (2011)
This Marvel comics original finds teenagers fleeing to make up the sins of their parents, who they have discovered to be covert super-villains. A finished script is expected by early 2009 and Runaways is said to spearhead Marvel's post-Avengers strategy.

Red (2010)
Warren Ellis's 2003 thriller - about a retired CIA assassin that a new administration feel is a threat - is the first DC property to leave the fold for other producers, and will be produced by Transformers/2's Lorenzo di Bonaventura, amongst others.

What Obama Can Learn From The Wire

As we learned during the campaign one of Obama's favourite TV shows is The Wire. The Huffington Post looks at what the President Elect can learn from his favourite show.

I think I would just be happy if he went around saying "Sheeeeeeeeeeeeeeet" in the style of Clay Davis.

Politics

Clearly Obama paid close attention to Mayor Tommy Carcetti's campaign against Mayor Royce. Both Obama and Carcetti were good looking, with excellent debate and oratory skills. Just like Tommy Carcetti, who woke up white in a city that wasn't, Barack Obama woke up black in a county that wasn't.

The Greats of Football Manager

The new version of Football Manager (formerly Championship Manager) is out today. This blog from the Guardian's website looks back on half a dozen of the legendary names from the game.

"...it's a fact that more thirtysomethings remember the name of Tonton Zola Moukoko than the name of the bloke who sat next to them at school."

"Champo Manager has, of course, been cited in more than 35 divorce cases." Says it all really.

Patton's Top 5

A great blog post here from Patton Oswalt where he reveals he has a book deal, that he found Sarah Palin 'achingly sexy' and where he lists his 'Top 5 Female Nazis'.

"...How I'd attempt to turn them from their evil ways. Think of me as Kevin Bacon in FOOTLOOSE, and they're my Teutonic Lori Singer."

Down the Wing

If you can't get enough of my patter here then you'll be delighted to know that there is another blog where you can read a lot more of it. Down the Wing is a football blog I've set up in order to document my attempts to attend 50 or more matches over the course of the 2008/09 season.

You'll read my reports on the games, which are geared far more to the patter of the fans and players than the nuts and bolts of football tactics. So far I'm up to 14 matches. This gives me a bit of an uphill battle to complete the 50 before the end of the season.

I have given myself very few rules to follow. I'm not trying to visit every league ground or anything like that. I'm taking in Junior, Amateur, Reserves and Ladies football matches as well as Scottish League games, European matches, friendlies and Internationals. Basically if there's a referee I can count it.

I've had a couple of offers of spare season tickets for the odd game and if anyone else wants to chuck that kind of action at me I'd be happy to take you up on it. If anyone has a suggestion for an obscure team to go and see I'd be happy to hear that too.

This Place is Dead Alright

Due to Ronnie being quite new to the internet :o) he's managed to accidentally kill off This Place is Dead. This means that both he and Tommy have had to turn up at the doss house, bundles in hand, looking for new internet accommodation.

You'll find Ronnie and an already healthy number of posts at www.ronniebrown.co.uk while Tommy's monthly posts can be found at Nice Marmot. And as a new addition to the former TPID family Ronnie's wife Claire now has her own blog. Go visit them all.

The Guardian Gogarty Gaffe

There's been an almighty hoo-ha on the Guardian's website this weekend over a travel blog. Max Gogarty is a 19-year-old embarking on a gap year trip to Thailand. The Guardian thought it would be a good idea to let him document his journey in a weekly blog. The readership thought otherwise.

Firstly the many dissenting comments felt that young Max had fuck all to say. Then someone spotted that he was obviously the son of a Guardian writer (his dad is actually a freelancer who has had articles in the Guardian amongst other publications). If you read the piece it's dull as fuck pish, but the newspaper seems stunned that it launched hundreds of furious comments.

This is just the nature of the internet. I've said before if Charles Dickens or Albert Einstein had blogs on the Guardian's website, within ten minutes five folk would be on calling them plums.

This is Max's blog entry here. This is the travel editor's response to the many, many comments saying the Guardian's standards have slipped dramatically. Finally the editor sums the situation up.

The other odd thing about it is that Max writes 'bits' for Channel 4's yoof drama Skins. Inexplicably the url includes the words 'skins_blog'. The travel editor says this was a working title he forgot to change and in no way was it a plug for Skins. Why the fuck would you use it to save the piece if you didn't want to link the two?

Anyway here's a round up of forums and such discussing it.

Animal Actors

Ken Levine has a good post on writing for Eddie in Frasier and animal actors in general.

Late Show Writers on Strike

The writers for The Late Show in the US have set up their own blog about their striking experiences. Like this little Q & A.

Q: How long will the strike last?

Until the writers achieve a fair contract and/or Lou Ferrigno is elected president.

Q: Why did negotiations with the AMPTP break down?

Negotiations broke down when the AMPTP was unwilling to put “real” proposals on the table that compensate writers for work in new media. Also, AMPTP lead negotiator Nick Counter insisted on bargaining in his underpants.

Q: Will the networks attempt to use the writers' strike, particularly if it is an extended strike, to cancel “Airwolf”?

“Airwolf” was cancelled in 1987.

Vaginarino

Back to the beard contest, there is now a tribute site in full swing. Vaginarino really isn't as bad as it sounds. The girls of Vaginarino aim to pay tribute to their favourite photographs of bearded men on Whiskerino by mimicking the pics.

Not a Word

Back on the American writers' strike John August has a good post making it clear that writers and showrunners are doing -no screenwriting whatsoever- until the strike is resolved.

"The blockbusters of 2009 are sitting unwritten. That’s an economic factor I’ve never seen reported in all of this. The next installments of Spider-Man, Harry Potter, and every other movie franchise are unwritten and unproducible until the strike is over."

Showrunners Out on Strike

Here's a video of the showrunners of TV shows such as The Shield, Scrubs, Family Guy and ER out on strike. There's more of this kind of stuff at United Hollywood.

Pencils at Dawn

I found this cartoon site by way of Graham Linehan's blog. Some of the stuff on Pencils at Dawn is really funny. See this one too. The two guys who do it have their own sites here and here.

Pish Search

Some people arrive at this blog through some odd searches. It would appear that there are a few sexy terms that bring folk here. I'm glad however that someone somewhere likes the YOMG girls so much.