This blog is over.

Yes.

As the title says, this blog is over. This is the last post. Nil. Nothing more. Nada. Nothing. Zilch.

There are many reasons for this.

1. My life just isn't that interesting right now!
2. Everything interesting that I think about can be made into a comic strip.
3. Well, yeah, the comic strip takes up most of my free time just now.

There's been a few times over the last couple of months when I thought I could have blogged about something like my car getting vandalised, or getting selected for jury duty. I decided to write comics about them and neglect this blog. SHAME ON ME!

As my good buddy Ant said in his post that marked a year blogging, he realised that he couldn't imagine life without blogging. I can, but I can't imagine life without drawing and writing comics so that takes priority.

I don't see any reason to take this down and I may start another one at some point, but not for a while.

This is The blogging Steve signing off . . .

The Great Scottish Run: Half Marathon

Hi folks! It's been a while since I last blogged and excuses are minimal. Oops!

Anyway, this is as good a reason as any to get back going again. On Saturday I took part in the Great Scottish Run: Half Marathon. There was also a 10k going on the same day under the same banner which is what most of the people from my running group took part in. My flat mate and I though had decided ages ago (perhaps rather rashly) that we were going to do the half marathon!

The day started in a rather rainy manner. That drizzly type of rain that where you don't really realise you are getting wet, but you are actually soaked! Standing about waiting for the start we became really rather cold and to be honest I was beginning to wonder what I was doing there! Behind us there was a group of girls who were clearly still in the mood. They were jumping about singing motivational chants to eachother. I would have paid for that kind of enthusiasm as the race time approached.

Eventually the starting hooter went and we were off! It all started off quite enjoyably. The center of Glasgow is really quite a nice place to jog through. We wound our way through the centre dodging people trying to cross the road to continue their Sunday shop and made our way towards the motorway.

As we ran along the motorway we spent our time waving to the cars that honked their horns at us. all great fun! I was having a good time seeing parts of the city I hadn't been to before running along at a sensible pace.

It started to get a little tough just coming out of Bellahousten park when we were appraching 5 miles. The legs started to hurt a little bit, but nothing too uncomfortable. By this time my flat mate was starting to stop and walk occasionally. I'd said I would stick with him though so I walked along with him while he got his breath back then we would start running again.

The stops and starts got a bit more frequent as we ent through Pollock Park and, to be honest, I was getting a little annoyed with it! As we were coming out of the Park I decided to set off by myself. He was OK about it though. I think he was quite glad to have me not telling him to get a move on!

After leaving the flat mate I went on running for a few more miles, getting much welcomed water from various official and unoffical points around the course. One community we passed through seemed tyo have decided that they would support the run by setting up their own little water station with plastic cups rather than the offical bottled water. That was really good of them. If anyone from that water station reads this . . . Thanks!

My body started to give out at about 9 miles. Real physical pain started to set in and the run turned from an enjoyable jaunt through Glasgow into a bit of a war of attrition between the mind and body. My legs were screaming at me to stop, but I don't think I could have lived with myself if I hadn't put in as much as possible to actually finish the course.

Getting to 12 miles and entering Glasgow Green proved the kick up the arse I needed and managed to run (or at least hobble quickly) for most of the rest of the way. With there being crowds lining the last half mile a would find a strange sense of embarrassment when I slowed to a walk so I would quickly speed up again!

Crossing the finish line the overwhelming emotion was just relief that it was finally over and After I'd ate my free banana and Tunnocks Caramel Log and drank my bottle of water I felt better, glad I'd done this and come through virtually unscathed. I was satisfied!

I went round in 2 hours, 37mins and 00seconds. Hardly Olympic class time, but it's around about what I expected. Next time I'll make sure I do a bit more training beforehand and I'm pretty sure I can improve on that.

I kept this blog back until today so that I could tie it in with todays comic strip over on the International Hope Foundation site. Check it out if you like!

PLATYP-EYE GUEST APPEARANCE!

Just thought I'd let you know that one of my comic characters, Platyp-Eye makes a small, yet still totally awesome, appearance in this weeks episode of one of my regular comic reads Don and Doll.

Thanks Dolores and Adrian!

Awesome . . .

So . . . has anybody else heard of tis band?

The Cashmere Jungle Lords

I bought thier album "Southern Barber Supply" a couple of years ago when I found it in the bargin in Avalanche Records in Edinburgh.

They appear to be American, yet they don't come up on Allmusic.com of Wikipedia.

I am, indeed, flumoxed!

I bought the album because,
a) it as 99p,
b) the cover caught my attention,
c) some of the song names made the album look like it might be quite interesting.
d) IT WAS 99p!

Examples of song names:

"The nightmare of the Lost Crescest Roll"
"Ziggamus (the rainbow wizard)"
"Humphprey the Bogeyman"
"Bedouin Caravan"

It sounds pretty good eh? I bet you wish YOU had this album!

Unfortunately I can't find out anything about this band. I'm pretty sure this is their only album but I can;t be sure.

I may have been looking in the wrong places for info about them though. So if anyone knows anything about this band then I'd be well grateful of the info.

In summary . . .

CASHMERE JUNGLE LORDS = AWESOME

Yes indeedy . . .




EDIT: Also, I just noticed that the spelling in that post is atrocious! My big ol' flipper fingers keep hitting the wrong keys . . .

A wee post from the sketchbook

Hi folks. I thought I'd share with you a few pictures from my sketchbook. What I do is keep a sketchbook of caricatures of various people I see while I'm walking around Glasgow (or indeed anywhere else I happen to be when I see them). Usually it's because they have affected me in some way. Fascination, revulsion, pure awesomeness, sexual desire . . . and other such emotions.

Here's a few pictures that are in it so far . . .
















This guy is someone that I saw for only a second while stepping out the door of the local shop. His image burned into my brain! I'm not sure I captured entirely what i was intending though. Here he looks more like a disgruntled art critic while when I saw him my first thought was "Oddball character in a British Gangster Flick".


















This is a vastly overweight woman who I saw only a few days ago. On the way home from work she and her equally large friend sat down next to me on the train and proceded to have an incredibly loud and laughter filled conversation. I've got nothing against fat people, or indeed loud laughter filled conversations. It's just that it was on a very hot day (as most days recently have been. Go Global Warmaing!) and . . . Dear God . . . she stank to high heaven! Praise be to the Lord that I only had to endure two stops!

















To finish on a nice note this cheery looking fella is the old doddering guy who always makes sure he says hello whenever I see him out walking his dog. I don't know him, but he's always got a hello. What a great guy!

That's the first installment of the Steve's Sketchbook.



ps. In case you were wondering, none of these ones were inspired by "Sexual desire". Just thought I'd clear that up. ;-)

OK. So I finally did it . . .

I did one of those "Personality Test" things that get bloggers so hot and bothered! Blame a post on Zen Wizard's site! But seriously! I REALLY wanted to know who my 80's Heart Throb was!

Your 80s Heartthrob Is

Bill Gates

Who's Your 80's Heartthrob?

And so it's Bill Gates . . .

I am one sad S.O.B.

Oh Mr. Goose! You are a funny thing!

So This evening I, being bored and very hot (unseasonable I know, especially for this part of the world) I decided to go for a . . .

Oh! Wait! Hang on! I said to Ant a few days ago that I would give my opinions on the "Zidane Matter"! I'm afraid this'll be an abreviated version because a). I've got some other thing to blog about and b). Yes, it's a bit late!

Well, We've all had about a week to absorb the consequences of the World Cup Final. Mr. Zidane and Mr. materazzi have given their sides of the story and, as you would expect, they both contradict each other. All I've got to say is that even if Materazzi did say what he is apparently to have said he deserved to get head-butted in the chest. But that doesn't mean I condone what Zidane did. I believe he is being lauded in France now as a crusader for Football Against Racism. Surely they could've found someone who didn't resort to violence though?

Those sort of insults (as supposedly said) are ten a penny on a football field and someone of Zidane's experience should have been able to brush it off and maybe have had a quiet, but forceful word after the game.

And as Forrest Gump once said, "And that's all I have to say about that."

Back to the original, more amusing, topic.

So I went out for a walk this eveing, being bored and not a little hot due to the current heat wave hitting the UK. Glad I'm not in London where It's apparently about 31C at the moment!

I wish I'd brought my notebook actually because as I was walking around I thought of about 20 comic strips. About 15 of them depressing! I managed to save couple in the ol' memory box though so expect them to pop up on the IHF site some time in the future!

I went down to Glasgow Green where there there is a fair at the moment. It's the Glasgow Fair weekend, so most people (including me!) had the day off. I manged to steer clear of the fair though. I'm just not cut out for those things! Too many bad memories from the Linlithgow Marches Fair . . .

There's no past blogs about that, but trust me, I seriously dislike local fairgrounds!

Anyway here's the little incident that I've been working round to. I was walking along the edge of the Clyde which borders the Glasgow Green park, and I saw this family coming toward me. There was a bunch of geese gathered next to the fence and I could see the family slow down. They obviously wanted to go over and see the geese. Knowing that geese are not to be trifled with I sat down on a convenient bench to watch. The little girl in the pushchair obviously didn't want to go near the gese and promptly started crying. The father insisted though and on they went towards the geese.

Child still crying.

Father sticks his hand through the railing to pat the goose on the head to show the child that there is nothing to worry about . . .

Good ol' Mr. Goose bites Father's fingers!

Family rushed off in the direction they came from!

I managed to contain my laughter until I was a suitable distance away. Then how I laughed.

How I laughed!