CULTsha-sha

My comic collection

darkhorsedan:

So I’ve been back home in London for a few days and have managed to keep myself from going insane by keeping myself unusually busy with a number of things. On Saturday I actually finished one of the comic scripts I was working on and in general I’ve been doing a bit of writing here and there. Then yesterday, for some unknown reason, I decided I was going to catalogue my entire comic collection… It took me the best part of yesterday and about an hour and a half today to do it.

Actually, I think the reason I started doing it is because when I leave Bournemouth in about two weeks time I’m going to be moving in with my dad and I know issues are gonna arise over the storage of my comics.  Even now my bedroom upstairs has very little space, I’ve got two full draws of comics, a bookshelf overflowing with graphic novels, and about 5 other boxes full up with comics so I took some time on the internet yesterday looking for alternatives for storage. I found various sites that sell boxes made for comic storage, the largest of these being able to store up to 400 comics (apparently). These sounded ideal, so in order to find out how many I needed I decided I better count them.

Figuring out to actually catalog them came as a bit of a problem to begin with, I figured I would use excel spreadsheets to do it but I’ve never really used excel before and I wasn’t sure of what categories to put them into, all I knew was that I wanted to keep it simple.

Then I stumbled across a site on the internet called StashMyComics, which will actually do most of the work for you. You just find the comics you have, create your own categories e.g. Superman, Marvel, DC, etc and it will organize your collection. It gives you the totals of how many you’ve got that you can export onto your own computer in an excel spread sheet and it even values your collection (only in dollars though) tallying up approx how much you’ve spent against how much they’re now worth.

Ok, firstly bear in mind that most of these comics were bought between the period of 2002 - 2005 (when I came to uni I pretty much stopped buying comics aside from a few select titles), and this is just my comic collection, it doesn’t include the trade paperbacks (these are comics collected together into one book also known as graphic novels - though annoyingly, “graphic novel” is a term that people who don’t like to admit they collect comics use to refer to comics in general).

Altogether I own 819 comics and I paid (approx in dollars) $2193.42 and their totalled approx worth is $2786.10.

If any of you reading this (Geoff & Sophie) feel like having a look at my collection (can’t really think why you would to be honest but I’m just trying to show off the novelty of this site) it can be viewed here:

darkhorsedan’s stash

That’s mighty impressive Dan, or at least it is to me… Other comic enthusiasts might look at your collection and laugh cold heartedly; calling it feeble under their breath. The big fat jerks! I should sock em in the puss.

I have a few graphic novels that I was thinking of loaning you, a long term loan sort of thing. As you know I own a lot of crap and… Since your coming home today I may as well continue this discussion when I see you. 

Bye!

50 Greatest Comic Characters

Empire Online has created a recent poll for the 50 greatest comic book characters, another pointless exercise in listing things that usually boil down to personal opinion. I was suckered in because I like comic book characters and the art work was pretty cool. You can vote whether you think your favourite super hero should be ranked higher or lower which was a nice little feature too. Not sure I like the number one choice but I do agree. It’s Superman… Oh I haven’t spoiled anything, like it could be anyone else.

Interview

I could very well have an interview lined up on Monday morning; the lady from Office Angels said it would very early. I immediately blew a raspberry which didn’t go down well with her “It’s the only time they’re interviewing so please say yes”. So I said yes; but contempt still layered my words.

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“What’s the problem?” She asked, “A personal matter” I replied, but the only ‘matter’ is the ‘matter’ of me being in Bournemouth and this interview taking place in New Malden. I told them I live in Surbiton so my living in Bournemouth wouldn’t affect my efforts on the job hunt. I told myself I would put myself through this crap but all this commuting is starting to get old.

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Actually it’s not the travelling that’s the problem it’s the idea I might actually get this job working in admin for a construction company, it’s hardly a glitzy media role. Then I’ll have to move out of my great house, move in someplace small and damp and live on an even tighter budget than when I was student.

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Fine I’m over it now; I should be pleased that I may have found a job, and I am. Even if my situation was better off in the ‘place to live’ department I’d still be down in the dumps because university is over. It’s inevitable.

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I should look forward to good times ahead… I have a strong feeling that some are on their way.

How many has God killed? (Complete list and estimated total

darkhorsedan:

How many has God killed? (Complete list and estimated total)

Plus another link to a site called Skeptic’s Annotated Bible, a useful site that features a simple breakdown of the bible, colour coded and indexed in a variety of catagories including its examples of Gods cruelty and violence, injustices and intolerance, and any passages of the Bible that contradicts other parts.

 I could kill more than 32.9 million. I have a new goal in life.

Another Long Rant... Sorry.

The Wright Stuff on channel Five really pissed me off the other day. Wright posed a question, should we get tougher on knife crime? I think the exact, proposed hypothetical question was; should people caught carrying knives be jailed for 5 years? It was just a question designed to spark debate, nothing wrong with that.

Until one woman called up to disagree with this new made up law. Wright wanted the debate to be about whether it was fair to jail someone for carrying something like a pen knife who had no intention of using it to stab someone.

This woman however thought this wasn’t worth discussing and tried, in the short time allocated to her, to explain how society has lost its way with bad media influences and stuff. I know what you’re thinking but it was more than just a censorship rant, she said she thought the entire human race needed to be reprogrammed.

I wouldn’t have put like that, in fact the remark made Wright laugh and say. “I don’t believe that’s necessary, I think we just need to lock up a few bad guys”. He then cut her off, what a fucking prick. He could have at least tried to understand where she was coming from, I mean it is a debate show.

The thing is I agree with that woman, society has lost its way but it isn’t down to one contributing factor like gangster rap – it’s almost everything.

50 or 40 years ago we had stronger communities; people knew each other, they had principals and respect. What’s changed? Technology has for a start, and for those of us in the rich countries it’s made our lives so much more comfortable. We also haven’t had a World War in awhile which means we’ve enjoyed certain freedoms like not being bombed or dragged overseas to get shot at in a trench.

Basically Britain has become a country of whinging spoilt babies. Some people say all our problems with escalating crime is because of multiculturalism, perhaps - but I think it plays only one part. Yeah different cultures move here and integrate with our own, yes they may bring their prejudices with them and squabble with each other, with us and us with them. But come on, that’s just intolerance, ignorance and stupidity - a basic human fear of things that are different, if we tried harder at communicating with each other then maybe we could forge new communities.

But I guess that’s just a dream, most ethnic minorities live in the poorest parts of society. This is why it’s considered that only people with coloured faces are committing crime. Poor people commit crime that’s it. That’s the way it has always been.

That’s not all though, these crimes, these tragic murders on our streets, they were partly all my fault, I let these teenagers down, and so did you, and you and you, you you and you. The blood is on all our hands because no one is acting, the country is filled with morally decent people alright but people who do nothing. In fact that is pretty much the literal truth.

It’s not just one culture not communicating with another it’s happening on an individual level.

I could try and talk to these kids, set up community organisations and apply some education for these idiots who think carrying knives is a necessity. But I don’t because I can’t be bothered; right? It’s not my problem; right? Even if I did go and talk to these kids they wont listen to me because I won’t be able to relate to them, I’ll just be some wanker preaching bollocks. The people who do grow up in these areas and manage to get away and make something of their lives could go back and talk to them. But many don’t, why the hell should they, what do they owe to the dilapidated urban wasteland that brings forth such terrible memories? Nothing. But wouldn’t it be amazing if we all tried to get through to these misguided fools sooner rather than wait for them to kill someone and then punish them?

So why are these kids committing crimes in the first place? Well as I stated they’re poor, they are surrounded by advertisements that flaunt beautiful things they can’t afford and they are victims of an apathetic, violent, juvenile media that probably fuels their angst to boiling point.  

Here’s my run down:

1. Heat magazine, Nuts, Zoo, More, FHM all of this is trash, it’s literature for complete idiots, people who are totally dependant on useless trivial celebrity gossip and material crap.
2. Game shows like Golden Balls, Deal or No Deal, Who Wants to be a Millionaire, The Weakest Link all seem to celebrate cruelty rather than general knowledge.
3. Computer games, I’m a total hypocrite as I own a Playstation 3 and play loads of games but I’m fucking 25 I should be an adult. IT’S NOT COOL TO SIT AROUND AND PLAY GAMES ALL THE LIVE LONG DAY! Go out into the world and make a difference.
4. X-Factor, Fame Academy, Grease is the Word, Andrew Lloyd fucking Webber, Britain’s Got Talent, phone in for your favourite talentless poser. You could live the dream! You could be a celebrity too!
5. Thatcherism and New Labour have told us that embracing the free market and privatisation was necessary in maintaining a good economy. Though it now seems that it just prolonged the inevitable. In fact the economy was in even worse shape at the end of Thatcher’s reign in the 90’s than when she began her time in office at the beginning of the 80’s. Blair gave us the age of instant credit, and now we are in even more of a mess. We have become a nation that is hounded endlessly by corporations peddling their crap and we dig ourselves into more and more debt by buying it all. Only a few generations ago people bought what they needed, now we are convinced that we can’t live without the most useless garbage and we believe it, all so we can fill our homes with materialistic shit.
6. Facebook, Myspace, hell Tumblr even (again I am a total hypocrite) all promote self promotion, a chance to have your own space on the internet. They are social networks sure. But something about the way people have become obsessed with plugging themselves and trying to be “oh so” unique is a little sickening and quite frankly wrong.
7. Globalisation, ok your average street hood isn’t going to be aware of this but many adults are and do nothing. But then again what are we going to do? Pay more for clothes and food? Fuck that I’m going to Primark, they have a sale on! Slavery hasn’t been abolished, it’s just moved out of sight. Out of sight out of mind. 

We have let this happen, all of us. This is the shit we call a society and there is no way back. Kids are being brought up by kids, they model themselves and rebel against what they see and hear. When the law is changed, and it will be, to come down harder on knife crime it could very well discourage further crimes in the near future.

However this is only a temporary solution, if we continue down this road the next generation will become even more violent and rebellious and the law will become tougher, the generation after will act out and again the law will challenge them.

The whole process will repeat until we are all living under marshal law.

I wouldn’t say that the human race needs to be reprogrammed. I would say that many of the adults in this country have some serious growing to do. And I’m no exception.