Don't You Love When Things Work?

Okay! Here's the preview I'd been trying to get going. Thanks to the good graces of the Powers that Be at Mirage and Titan Publishing UK (thanks Murph, thanks Ned!) the following two pages are from my second Fast Forward! Turtles story for Titan UK. Unfortunately, you can't get it here in Australia, or in America - it's a UK exclusive. Still, here are a couple of pages anyway, and if you're in the UK, remember to pick it up and let me know what you thought! Hits the streets August 2nd I believe.

In other news, I picked up two new CD's recently, both of which I'm loving. It's been a good while since anything new impressed me, having been let down by some of my favourite groups' recent efforts (Stadium Arcadium... prime example), but Velvet Revolver's new album "Libertad" is absolutely, fuckin' awesome! Definitely ahead of their last album, which is among my favourites, and it certainly seems as though they're having more fun creatively with this one.

Scott Weiland's well known personal problems seem to have been exorcised on their first album, and the narrative diversity on the Libertad songs is much closer to some of his earlier Stone Temple Pilots material. Musically, it's a much different - though still hard-rockin' - sound, but not so drastically different as to alienate fans of Contraband.

The other CD was the Transformers soundtrack. Say what you want, but I'm a big fan of soundtracks, simply because of the mix of songs and artists you get, and if you dig a particular genre, they're even better, as a lot of soundtracks tend to stick to the same genres. I like my rock music, and I dig rap and hip-hop. Both genres are well and truly represented on Transformers, and a number of groups I normally wouldn't listen to have provided tracks that genuinely surprised me. The opening song by Linkin Park - a band I've never been a fan of - is actually really good, The Used turn in a rockin' track, as do Styles of Beyond, and the new song by the reformed Smashing Pumpkins is wicked too.

See the great thing about soundtracks in my mind, is that they allow you to discover new groups in a particular genre of music that you might not have heard had you not picked up or listened to that soundtrack. Thanks to Spider-man, I got into Injected, Daredevil led me to Revis and although I've heard most of the bands on Transformers, I've never really given them the time of day (until now).

Finally, I went in for what I hope is my final blood test today. I had no idea you were supposed to have a drink of water before you went in for these things. Every other blood test I'd been in for, I'd fasted beforehand, so I always went first thing in the morning. Anyway, went in, hadn't had a damn thing and sat down to have the blood drawn. The nurse tried a fairly large artery on my left arm, but nothing came. It's kind of bizarre watching a syringe being jiggled about in your arm and not seeing any blood come. Anyway, mission aborted, Nurse decides to go the right arm. Didn't look like it was going to be successful either, but we got there in the end. So there you have it, drink some water before you go in for a blood test.

By the by, in case you were wondering, I'm being tested for liver functions. I became kinda sick over the last summer and lost a lot of weight, my sleeping patterns were out of whack, which meant my eating habits changed (when I'd eat and all that), thing was, my work hours, and exercise patterns didn't. By the end of the summer, I couldn't drive anywhere because I'd start phasing in and out and if I sat down anywhere for too long I'd probably end up asleep. I'd also gone from being 73-74 kg to 61kg, which is/was really, really bad. Anyway, here I am, six months later, I've put most of the weight back on, I'm sleeping better hours, and feeling hella better, but some kind of bizarre anomaly occurred in my liver. There are four enzymes in the liver that help it do what it does, and you're supposed to have X amount of said enzymes in your system. Two of these enzymes were in abnormally high amounts, which would indicate dangerous alcoholism... if the one of the other enzymes were to be found in the same abnormally high amount! I'm not a huge drinker these days (actually, I can't remember the last time I had a big one out), and I certainly hadn't touched a drop of alcohol over the period in question, so the good doctor and I are baffled, and hopefully this blood test will come back saying everything has ironed itself out.

Until next time!

Peace!

Peace!