the real university experience is having your horizons broadened by meeting people with different upbringings to yourself. your lecturers could never, imo

Last week was good for solar panel bores (e.g. me) because not only did we generate enough electricity to cover our own usage, but the excess export payments covered our entire bill including standing charges. Finally the electricity company is paying ME.

This is why I haven't watched terrestrial TV in like 20 years.

TR-49 was a really excellent game but the Switch 2 port was so broken. Thought it was just ours but others are reporting problems too. Freezes, stuttering, and most egregiously it locks when you try to complete the game. We had to watch the endings on YouTube 😬

On the one hand, lol, on the other, when I decided to pick my top 10 albums of all time a few months ago, these two were my very first picks and it wasn't even close.

I watched a video of Charlie Cox explaining his favourite Daredevil comics and I was just like, tick, tick, tick, okay all of those opinions are good. Well done on not being a clown.

I sometimes think about how well Yoda Stories captured the true essence of Yoda

When I moved to MK about 13 years ago there was a recently closed blockbuster video still there. It was like encountering a cryptid. One of the few that made it to the collapse of the business.

Alan Moore on now.

Not to disparage the current commentator team but imo Ed Leigh and Tim Warwood from the olympic snowboarding coverage should be doing the Artemis commentary.

This isn’t necessarily my favourite answer to this question because it’s not a song that blew me away with its artistry, but I always remember the first time I heard the Spice Girls’ Wannabe played over the shopping centre PA system, and thinking like “damn, that’s going to be so big.”

Great Journalism changes how you see the world. Old Man Murray's Time To Crate system was great journalism.

Dramatic scenes at BBC Breakfast.

I'm listening to the audiobook of The Anglo-Saxons by Marc Morris and honestly, it's making me respect patriotism even less because it's making it so clear that England as an idea is extremely recent and even the best rulers could barely keep it out of the hands of anyone who even tried invading.

Ok I have seen a GOOD APRIL FOOLS JOKE in the wild. My kids comic (Phoenix - home if @jamiesmart.bsky.social) comes in an envelope every week, we open it, had a fake cover for a soup review mag like we’d been sent the wrong thing. Genius!

thinking about...

Just read BENJAMIN by Ben H Winters & Leomacs. It's a surreal, intriguing, existential story about a PKD-esque sci-fi writer who wakes up 40 years after his own death in modern Los Angeles and tries to understand how and why. Really loved it. forbiddenplanet.com/470094-benja...

My monthly quiz night includes a guess-the-film-from-the-tagline question and a pal and I were driven to apoplectic rage when confronted with “He’s dying to become a chef”. This is the tagline for Ratatouille. Why is he dying??! Shouldn’t it be a pun?

Laughed out of McDonalds for attempting to order a Small Mac 😔

I read every issue of the Malbu Star Trek Deep Space Nine ongoing series from 1993-1995 to see if there were any hidden gems in there. To quote Leonard Nimoy on the Simpsons: The answer, is no. But maybe it's an interesting read anyway: www.patreon.com/posts/james-... #startrek #comics

Ever since I played EXIT 8, my brain spots "anomalies" everywhere. At work, it was an Out of Order sign pinned to the back of a door I just used. Yesterday, the "stand here" feet painted on the escalator were randomly scattered on both sides inside of the right. Anomalies! Turn back!!

Got this pic of Shirley Manson last night that I really like. She was recovering from laryngitis but somehow managed to still belt out every song. When they played Push It she announced it as their very favourite song of theirs and I was like ME TOO! ME TOO!

I saw Placebo and Garbage play a teenage cancer trust gig together last night and I can’t tell you how much it meant to me for Shirley Manson to specifically say that Brian Molko was a good dude. Those were my favourite bands as a teenager and it’s such a relief to see them age without getting sour.

Tbh if I wanted people to take my insane claims seriously I would simply not style myself like a Roald Dahl charicature of an evil headteacher

Really enjoyed this CRABS OF THE UK zine by @6knifes.bsky.social that I picked up at Gosh! a while ago. So interesting and beautifully illustrated, I’m sure some of you will enjoy it. Took me back to my crab-hunting childhood holidays. Available to buy here: tocsidiser.bigcartel.com/product/crab...

Ever since NY Fold in London closed, the only Place I’ve found that does a decent chicken parm pizza slice is in New York. You understand my problem?

I was thinking the other day that my ideal X-Men book is just them living in the mansion and it's entirely their between-mission down-time, goofing about with their powers, and working through their interpersonal dramas. This stuff turned up a lot in the 90s comics and I loved it.

[opening the fridge] orange juice with pulp, what is this, a 6music festival

Recently I assembled full run of Malibu-era Star Trek: Deep Space Nine comics published in 1993-95. It's so strange reading adaptations of a version of the show that barely existed (i.e. the year 1/2 pre-Dominion stuff.) The station gets bombed by terrorists about every three issues.

For the latest JAMES ACTUALLY READS HIS COMICS, I've read all of UNTOLD TALES OF SPIDER-MAN by @kurtbusiek.bsky.social and Pat Olliffe, plus some other 90s/00s Spider-Man and Daredevil. Does UNTOLD TALES hold up? Thoughts are here, posted on Patreon but free to read: www.patreon.com/posts/james-...

For the latest JAMES ACTUALLY READS HIS COMICS, I've read all of UNTOLD TALES OF SPIDER-MAN by @kurtbusiek.bsky.social and Pat Olliffe, plus some other 90s/00s Spider-Man and Daredevil. Does UNTOLD TALES hold up? Thoughts are here, posted on Patreon but free to read: www.patreon.com/posts/james-...

Really sorry to hear about the death of Sam Kieth. His work was so original and expressive. There's a Wolverine comic from 1993 called Blood Hungry that he did with the late Peter David, it absolutely blew me away when I was young and a new reader. All of these pages are from that comic!

Acknowledging that the time between the present day and UNTOLD TALES OF SPIDER-MAN is now as long (longer!) as the time between that series and AMAZING FANTASY #15, here's my pitch: UNTOLD TALES OF UNTOLD TALES OF SPIDER-MAN. Stories set between the panels of the original Untold Tales series.

Seeing a Spider-Man/Punisher team-up in the new movie reminds me of my favourite one ever, from the 1991 Punisher gameboy game, because WHAT DOES SPIDER-MAN THINK THE PUNISHER WILL DO WHEN HE GETS THERE?

Seeing a Spider-Man/Punisher team-up in the new movie reminds me of my favourite one ever, from the 1991 Punisher gameboy game, because WHAT DOES SPIDER-MAN THINK THE PUNISHER WILL DO WHEN HE GETS THERE?

Remembering the ancient ways

The other day, John Robins gave a very eloquent explanation on his podcast of why bands re-mastering, re-recording and otherwise trying to improve old albums was a bad idea, essentially arguing that art cannot be "completed" by a different version of yourself. So this is funny to see.

Not to sound fucking ancient but I bought two tickets to see a band at Brixton today and it cost more than the first time I went to a weekend music festival. I'm not a "90s were better" guy but the experience of live music somehow keeps getting both worse and more expensive.

PROJECT HAIL MARY is extremely good. Just consistently feel-good, cliché-avoidant, laugh-out-loud stuff. This is how I remember movies being.

We went to a garden centre today and checked out the tropical fish section. I absolutely lost my mind when I found out that Vampire Crabs exist. Look at them!

I’m a shareholder of the UPP because I lived in Oxford for a few years and always thought it was an incredible cinema. The original street-facing box office might even be the last in the country. Cannot emphasise enough how much it deserves to stay open as a cinema, so check out the petition below.

I’m a shareholder of the UPP because I lived in Oxford for a few years and always thought it was an incredible cinema. The original street-facing box office might even be the last in the country. Cannot emphasise enough how much it deserves to stay open as a cinema, so check out the petition below.

Not content with sending 8 notifications a day, my kid’s school likes to send a final notifications digest so that people can read a 9th notification with no new information in it.

If anyone ever tells you apostrophes aren't necessary, show them this and see if they understand it first go.

Have you been waiting for a podcast that does a deep dive on 1981's MY DINNER WITH ANDRE, a film that has lived in my imagination for 30 years thanks to a joke in the Simpsons? Well, good news: www.patreon.com/posts/152732...

The books I'm really enjoying in singles at the moment are Uncanny X-Men, Black Cat, Fantastic Four & Infernal Hulk. In TPBs, The Power Fantasy & Assorted Crisis Events are untouchable. Also reading through Untold Tales of Spider-Man for the first time and tbh it's instantly as good as everyone said

Son, when I was your age, apples were as big as watermelons, they were green on the outside, and when you cut ‘em open, they were red and juicy inside and tasted like watermelon

SATAN: So what makes you want to work here? Isn’t it a bit of a sideways move for you? ME: Well, sideways and down, haha SATAN: Haha ME: But I’ve been working in the sector for a while, and I feel this is where the action is SATAN: Your most recent role was… ME: Cinema website designer SATAN: Sweet

instead of "better or worse" you get asked how many lights there are