Everybody please note that this blog is now here. Please update your bookmarks accordingly. I thank you...

As of today, I'm migrating the blog to my own server. From now on, you can find the Ninth Panel at http://ninthpanel.dyndns.org/blog/ Check it out. I will continue this page for a while, but soon it'll just redirect you.

So what else is new? Well, I now have a beautiful daughter - Sophie Rebekah, born 4th March 2003. It's true what they say, y'know; nothing is quite like being a father. You cannot explain what it's like to just gaze down at this new little human being that you help create.

Hmm. Safari still doesn't parse this blog properly.

It's been a long time since I last posted (again), and I know that at least one person (hi James) misses my pithy insights into stuff. So here I am again. I think my last post had something about me migrating to a moveable type blog that I was going to host on my own server. Well, I tried, but I just couldn't get it to work on a win2000 box. I'm not exactly clueless at this stuff, but still no go. I'm seriously considering turning it into a Linux box, so if I do then I'll try again...

I think I've pretty much had it with Blogger. Now I'd got my own server, I think I'm going to relaunch the website using Movable Type. It'll give me a chance to flex my Unix and Perl muscles too...

Brent Simmons' wonderful RSS reader/Weblog posting system NetNewsWire Pro is an absolute Godsend for Bloggers and people who read blogs. He's now posted handy instructions for configuring NNW with various blogging systems. Check it out.

Is this working yet?

Test two...

Still trying to see if this works...

Trying out NetNewsWire Pro's new blogging tool.

Is this working? If it is, then there's a website you just have to check out: Technical Difficulties.

Is this working?

It's been a long, long time...
...since I posted anything. Wow. I've always been bad at posting a journal, but this is ridiculous. Anyhow, since I last posted, stuff has been a-happening. We've bought a house, and we're about to move in after having nearly the whole thing gutted and rebuilt; Liz is getting bigger every day with our very own 'lil swee'pea; and life has been one big roller-coaster. It's been great. More tomorrow...

Joined a new online forum the other day. This one's called 'ComicsPro', and it's hosted on DelphiForums (which is worthy of a post in itself, being as they're so crap). It's pretty interesting in that it supposed to be for comics professionals, whether they're creators, editors, publishers or retailers. Some big names have joined up, and it's set to lead to some very interesting discussions about the future of the comics medium in the US/UK. There are a couple of caveats though - you have to be invited to join (although I just sent an email to Manda Fisher, one of the moderators telling her who I was :-P), and there's no journalists allowed. Oo-er.

Where does the time go? It's been ages since I last posted, and all my good intentions have flown out of the window once again. All together now, "I must blog more... I must blog more..."

Got some time on your hands? Bored? Then why not sign up for GameNeverEnding? It's absolutely superb, and something I'm probably going to regret ever signing up for...

Just testing whether w.blogger is publishing properly to blogspot blogs yet...

Ooh boy, it's been a while since I posted. They'll be throwing me out of the blogger's union if I'm not careful. I have good reason though - this last month has been the proverbial 'if it could happen, it did...' Firstly, I've been ill. I've had this bloody annoying 'flu type thing that gives you a bad cough and chest infection, and leaves you feeling like shit for days. I still keep feeling dizzy and slightly nauseous. Ugh. We're in the process of buying a house. Yes, we're moving from the lovely little flat into a three-bedroom semi-detached house just up the road. The bloody prices of property nowadays is incredible. I'd hate to be a first-time buyer right about now - you can't get anything decent (flat-wise) under about £150,000. Though I'm loathe to leave our flat (it's in a lovely quiet road, we've got great neighbours, and we're three minutes away from the canal), we are struggling for space, and I'd love a proper office. So, I'm looking forward to getting into the house - it needs work doing to it though, so it won't be for a while. I'm not looking forward to boxing all my crap up though. The big news is that Liz, my wife, is pregnant. Yes, I'm going to be a dad. I've always been pretty ambivelent about kids, never much caring whether I was to be a father or not, but now it's upon me, it's strangely exciting. We went for an early scan a couple of weeks ago, and seeing Swee'pea (our pet name for the sproglet - ah, Thimble Theatre) was quite an experience. It kind of makes you giddy. We're going for another scan tomorrow, and if we can get pictures, then I'll post them. Won't that be a treat for you all? (I can feel the three people who read this start to edge away...)

Eagle eyed readers will notice the BlogTree logo down at the bottom of the sidebar. This is a wonderful project detailing the geneology of weblogs, and is a fascinating way of wasting a few hours if you're a blogging junkie like me. Blog authors can sign their blogs up, and then add parent and sibling blogs. If enough of us do this, it will be the furthest reaching index of the phenomenon that is weblogging. Only one quibble though - I wish that the site was a little easier to navigate round. The menu at the side's good, and there's always the back button, but it's a bit clunky is all. Come to think of it, I wish that the back linking html had elements in lowercase, but that's just me being lazy, I guess… [link thanks to Blogroots, another great resource for webloggers.]

I'm a member of Metafilter! At long bloody last! Yippee!

Well, I finally got my hands on Eric Meyer's new book, Eric Meyer on CSS, and it's a great as advertised. Well done, Eric. A most marvellous read, and an amazing reference.

Coutesy of Metafilter, here's the latest meme. All I can say is "Pie Gooood!"

I've added borders to the blockquote declaration in the template so that there's better separation between posts. Every day I find out something more about CSS that blows me away. I've ordered Eric Meyer's new book Eric Meyer on CSS, and I can't wait to get my grubby little mitts on it. Eric's a real visionary when it comes to CSS, and he's a big influence on the way I approach building websites.

Holy crap! I think we need an au pair pretty damn soon. Now if only I can convince Liz, my wife…
Only joking Liz…
Thanks to Ben Hammersley for pointing out this link…

AAARRRGGGHHH!!! Metafilter's down! What are we to do???
Still, it might mean that when the new server's back up I might finally be able to become a member...

Dirk Deppey from The Comics Journal emailed me to remind all you good people out there that the latest installment of the Comics Journal Audio Archive has been posted. If you haven't been checking these out, then where have you been? Dirk's been doing a great job in transferring classic interviews and panels to MP3 and then letting us all hear them via the Journal's website. This month it's the turn of the classic encounter between Gary Groth and Todd McFarlane, and it's great. I particularly like the way that Gary's frustration with the dumb-but-not-that-dumb McFarlane comes across in a way it never could in print. It's the funniest thing you'll hear this month.

And now Blogger's having trouble with their template server...
No, it seems to be back again...

Man, what a day. Went to the Royal Academy's Summer Exhibition. This is normally crappy, but this year they'd really outdone themselves. Room after room of empty, soulless images and sculptures with no point or originality. It was like walking round a bad rural art show with delusions of grandeur. And it was filled with lots of pretentous bores talking loudly about the "Art". And, and, the list of works, a small booklet that details all the work in the exhibition with name of artist, price etc., was three bloody pounds! Three quid for a catalogue!
We also checked out the Buddha exhibit while we were there. It was well lit and packed to the brim. There were hippies meditating on the floor. That's about all I remember. And while I'm on the subject, has no-one at the RA heard of temperature control?
Then we went to see the David Low exhibition at the Palace of Westminster. I was really looking forward to this. Low is the greatest Political cartoonist who ever lived, and a personal hero. So anyway, we get there and find that it was closed to the public due to some rich git getting married in the Palace of Westminster. I didn't even know you could do this. To say I was pissed off was somewhat of an understatement.
Some days it just don't pay to get up.

This is quite the worst use of browser detection and flash I've seen in a long time. And believe me, I've seen some bad sites. What's worse is that it apparently cost BT £1,000,000 to "create". So that's a million quid (a million? MILLION? How could anyone charge a MILLION POUNDS for a website?) wasted on a crappy, ill-designed and extremely difficult to navigate website, while we still can't get cheap and decent broadband in this country. Way to go, BT, you make me proud to be British and using your frankly laughable internet service. Bastards. Thanks to Zeldman and Simon Willison for bringing this travesty to wider attention.

Thought I'd give kudos to Nick Bradbury, the creator of the wonderous TopStyle. This is by far the finest program for editing HTML and CSS if you're a hardened hand-coder like me. This is doubly amazing to me as TopStyle is a Windows program only. I run it on my PowerBook G4 using Virtual PC (another great program), and it's fab. If you're into building websites, you owe it to yourself to download the demo and check it out. Nick's also a very nice guy (he offers excellent support for TopStyle), and he's a cartoonist too!

I'm now part of another blog. It's called Never Again Will He Mock My Power Vest!, and it's created by the members of the Thimble Theatre e-mail list. Which is nice. Check it out.

Another day, another meme. Google! DayPop! This is my blogchalk: English, United Kingdom, London, Hanwell, Brad, Male, 31-35!

You'll need a PC, or better still, Virtual PC on a Mac, to look at this, but it's well worth it. A lovely little novelty.

Aquaman's lament. Thanks to Faz for pointing out this lovely song.

Hurrah! The Web Standards Project is back, and in a new bloggy type look. If you've got anything to do with coding websites, then you really should go here, take heed and apply.

I haven't posted anything about Arsenal recently. Which is strange, seeing as we dominated the domestic season in 2001-2002, winning both the league and the FA cup. A quite marvelous season, and one with lots of great memories for me. Foremost is the fact that the team really pulled together and worked for each other, a feat that is getting rarer in the modern game due to the current focus on individual performance. This was highlighted at the last game of the season where you could really see the mutual respect and admiration that the players have for each other. Anyhoo, in light of this, and the fact that we're currently in the middle of the FIFA World Cup, I thought I'd take this opportunity to focus on some great Arsenal websites:

• First up, is the indespensible Arenal World. Chris Parry should be congratulated for making this site as good as it is. A virtual fanzine full of great writing, it also has a live newsfeed picking out all the latest Arsenal news.
• Almost as good, and only really let down by the lousy design, is Rupert Webb's ArseWeb. The great thing about this site, aside from the really good writing, is the fact that it's the place to check out all those transfer rumours, a must for all of us poor gooners during the interminable wait for the new season to begin!
Lastly, for now, is a brilliantly funny Arsenal blog, the one and and only @FC - The electronic Arsenal fanzine. A wonderful rant from the fevered mind of Gary, the sef-confessed "Red Geezer". Particularly funny is the rant about the new crest that Arsenal FC have forced upon us. Funny, and speaking as a designer like Gary, dead-on

Just testing out another new blogging tool - this time it's MozBlog, the blogging tool for Mozilla. Hopefully this will work nicely, as I do like Mozilla as a browser.

Oops. I meant to link to Pete's personal blog, Pete Ashton Dot Com, when I wrote the link to bugpowder below. This really is a fabulous read, dealing as it does with Pete's life as a bookseller, comics buff and depression sufferer. As a fellow SSRI-taker (although I'm on Prozac, and he's on Seroxat), I can really relate to this side of his life. Nice one Pete.

Thanks to Evan, comes news of some new blogs about blogs. Blogtoday and Blog About Blogs. I dunno, but I've always had fondness for meta- stuff (metacomics, metafiction, and now metablogs), so these are a must-link for me.

Even though it's on my permanent blogroll, I thought I'd give a well overdue shout out to Pete Ashton over at BugPowder. It's the MetaFilter of the UK independant comics scene.

I got my Bloggercode: B2 d- t- k+ s+ u f- i o x-- e- l+ c-- What's yours?

Sheppeyscum is the funniest site I've come across this week. Perhaps someone will do a follow-up: essexscum…

Marvel's dotComics has been around for a while, but I post the link here so that you, too, can sample the wares of the "house of ideas" without actually forking over any cash for them.

More on the Scott Kurtz PVP strips currently running about so-called "alternative" comics. Check out pvponline and the comics urinal - The Comics Journal Message Board, and then here. Frank Cho, man. Ain't he a piece of work?

Warren Ellis has been plugging his new sideline artbomb.net again. It's worth a look, as they seem to have a decent reviewing policy, and it's always nice to see stuff by Andi Watson.

Scott Kurtz has always struck me as one of the more interesting web cartoonists out there. He's obviously got some chops, and the strip is funny on a regular basis. This last week, he's been doing a series about "alternative" comics. It's pretty good, but I somehow get the feeling that he's feeling a little bitter about something…

Thanks to Metafilter, I came across this pair of themed articles — here and here. As you'll see, they're on my favourite subject: Comics. One is Pro, and one is Con. The article arguing for comics is ok, but the article against comics is simply the most breathtaking example of wrongheaded thinking I've seen in quite a while. Check it out.

A new organisation has been formed to, as they put it, "[help] facilitate the teaching of comics in higher education". They're called the National Association of Comics Art Educators, and they have an excellent, informative website here. It's really great to see this happening in Anglophone countries at last.

I've added a new commenting system, thanks to the fine folks at YACCS. Cool.

Following on from the last post, lots of interesting links can be found here.

Every now and then, you come across an article that you think "I wish I'd written that" This is one of those.

Interesting article about Dave Cooper. Telling quote:

"Cooper's entire Weasel series print run, which usually sells out, is now only 4,000 copies. Due to the low print run and the book's high production values, Weasel is sold to readers at about $7 apiece. Cooper puts an enormous amount of craftsmanship into every issue, creating a new oil painting for each cover, drawing tiny indicia for the endpages and designing original typography. As a result, unlike typical Marvel titles released on a monthly basis, Cooper only puts out two issues a year. Not surprisingly, the book barely brings in any money, and Cooper takes on a constant load of freelance work to support himself and his wife, Julie."

Sigh…

There's currently no commenting system at work on this site. I'm hoping to implement the YACCS system by tomorrow...

One horrible thing about leaving this beastie for so long is the fact that I'm now having to tweak the template in order to get everything working again. Bear with me while I do this necessary repair job...

Wow. Has it been so long since I posted last. I guess it must be. Still, this isn't unusual for me: I often started diaries and journals (especially ones in the form of comics) only to give up through laziness. My bad. OK, here's some stuff you should look up:

• The latest in the TCJ MP3 files are up. These are snippets (long snippets, mind), of interviews and panels featuring famous cartoonists that have been printed in The Comics Journal. It's lovely that the Fanta folks are doing this, as it gives us all a chance to listen to some of the folks who are, sadly, no longer with us, as well as some greats who still are. This month: Jack Kirby!
• Metafilter. Still the first port of call for me and many others when we need to know what's really going on.
• Bee. One the finest online strips, by a fabulously underexposed creator. Go. There. Now.
• This looks great. Kinda like what we wanted to do with Le Roquet...

I haven't blogged for ages. Typical. I often start things and then leave them for months when something else takes my fancy. A belated new year's resolution: I must blog more often.

I'd just like to wish everybody reading this a very Merry Christmas, and a wonderful 2002. Personally, I don't see how 2002 could be any worse than 2001, but that's me.

Some excellent news regarding Angouleme. This first piece comes from Dylan Horrocks, who writes:

"I just found out that the l'Association edition of Hicksville has received two Alph'art nominations: Best Album and Critics Prize"

Top work fella! The second comes from Paul Gravett:

"And yes, (Andi Watson's) a nice guy - in fact, his work is being included in the 'unknown/little known' international talents exhibition at the Theatre in Angouleme, one of just a few Brits. I just got sent the list of who's in it, in case anyone's interested:

1. Aranega Diego – France
2. Ayrolles Francois – France
3. Blatte – Belgique
4. Blettner Thomas – France
5. Bourguignon Jean – Belgique
6. Bouzard Guillaume – France
7. Caillaux – France
8. Capron – France
9. Cizo – France
10. Colino Maria – Espagne
11. Cook Greg – USA
12. Cooper Dave – Canada
13. Crane Jordan – USA
14. Desmets Claude – Belgique
15. Dutreix Romain – France
16. Duvo – France
17. Eco – Belgique
18. Gane Simon – Royaume Uni
19. Garcia Sergio – Espagne
20. Goblet Dominique – Belgique
21. Guerse et Pichelin – France
22. Henne William – Belgique
23. Hermans – Belgique
24. Hidalgo Manolo – Espagne
25. Huber Markus – Allemagne
26. Idrizovic Amir – Bosnie
27. Imius – France
28. Jason – Norvëge
29. Ju/CDM – France
30. Kanan Nabiel – Royaume uni
31. Kaze Dolemite – France
32. Kozaki Yuzuke – Japon
33. Lamelos – Pays Bas
34. Langridge Roger – Nouvelle Zàlande
35. Lelis – Bresil
36. Libens – Belgique
37. Mahler – Autriche
38. Manix – France
39. Mardon Gregory – France
40. Martin Pauline – France
41. Mathy – Belgique
42. Mawil – Allemagne
43. Messina – France
44. Micol – France
45. Millionaire Tony – USA
46. Mo / CDM – France
47. Modan Rutu – Israel
48. Nyls – France
49. Parrondo – Belgique
50. Peeters Frederik – Suisse
51. Poincelet – France
52. Pourquiè – France
53. Pralong Isabelle – Suisse
54. Raviscioni Nadia – Suisse
55. Rege Jr Ron – USA
56. Reuman Helge – Suisse
57. Ronald – France
58. Ryan Johnny – USA
59. Satrapi Marjane – Iran
60. Schrauwen – Belgique
61. Sommer Anna – Suisse
62. Steckerman – France
63. Tarrin Fabrice – France
64. Tebo – France
65. Thompson Craig – USA
66. Tofepi – France
67. Ulf K – Allemagne
68. Vandermeulen David – Belgique
69. Velhmann – France
70. Warfi – France
71. Watson Andi – Royaume uni
72. Weinstein Jacob – USA
73. Winshluss – France
74. Winzo – France
75. Witko – France
76. Ysebaert – Belgique

Wow. What a list. Congratulations to Roger, Simon and Andi for making the cut. (quotes courtesy of Thimble Theatre - The kewl klub fer kartoonists)

Just got in from having my first driving lesson for eleven years. Never hit anybody or anything, so I guess that's a start. Lots of people (including the lovely Liz) have told me that it gets easier, but it was just as hard, frustrating and downright scary as I remembered it being. Any tips?

This, to me, shows that the arts establishment in this country have their heads completely up their arses. After the Late Review's banal (and frankly, tired) arguments on whether comics are art or not, we come to the awarding to the Turner Prize, the UK art world's annual prize for the piece of BritArtToss that will most get up the public's nose. And this year we have a doozy of a winner. Self-proclaimed minimalist "artist" Martin Creed has scooped the prize for his "work" entitled The Lights Going On and Off, which consists of, wait for it, an empty room with a pair of flashing lights. Words cannot describe how I feel about this.

More on the Ware award. Today's Guardian has a great "review" of Jimmy Corrigan by Raymond Briggs. It's really more about the age-old question "Are comics art?" than the book itself, but it's well worth a read. Here's a taste:

"Now that Jimmy Corrigan has won the Guardian First Book Award, it can only mean that the strip cartoon has at long last become intellectually respectable. About time too."

On the negative side, some people have posted to a number of comics–related lists about the slot that the Late Review (a UK TV show about the arts) gave Ware's book. Not only was it short, but it was also incredibly patronising. So much for intellectual respectability.

Trying out another blogging tool now. This one is for Mac OSX and is called BlogScript. It allows you to use anything as a blogging tool. You just copy the text you want to post, and then evoke the script. It even pings Weblogs.com for you automatically.

Just checking out a new blogging tool. It's called iBlog, and it's a way to post without actually going to Blogger, or using that javascript pop-up window.

Chris Ware's Jimmy Corrigan wins Guardian First Book Award. This is fantastic news. And bloody well deserved. Well done that man, and could this be the breakthrough we here at team comics have always wanted in the Anglophone world? Let's hope so. Next up, Joe Sacco!

This needs no explanation. Enjoy. (Thanks to Memepool).

Most everywhere you look on the wide world of weblogs, Chris Raettig's online journal has been linked to most copiously due to the fact that a minion from multinational "service" giants KPMG wrote to Chris to tell him that he was breaching their "linking" agreement (Linking agreement?) by having a link to them on his small weblog (oops, seems like I'm breaking the agreement too! Naughty me). Anyway, this was jumped on by lots of bloggers, and most everybody's linked to KPMG, as well as Chris. Chris has posted a follow up to the whole thing that makes for very interesting reading. You'd think that KPMG would be only too pleased to see an increase in traffic to their website by what ever means. Let's face it, you're not going to go there for want of anything better to do. The copy alone could cure a narcoleptic.

The Boys done great. We beat Juve by 3 goals to 1. What a game, two from steady Freddie L, plus a brilliantly taken free kick into the top left corner by that man Henry. We looked a different side to the one that lost against Deportivo last time out - and we have done for the past couple of weeks. Beating Man Yoo has really put a spring in our step. Long may it continue.

I'm becoming a complete geek. Even more so than before. I've spent a lot of my time playing with Mac OSX lately, which has meant getting into UNIX. Oof. And I thought MS-DOS was arcane. If you're just getting into OSX, I can well recommend Mac OSX Hints, a great resource for learning more without jumping straight into a horrible mess.

It's Champions League time again. We're at home to Juventus, the Italian giants, tonight. Plenty of threat there in the shape of David Trezuguet and Del Piero. We really need to win this if we're going to go any further in this competition. Getting nervous again...

Like everybody else in the blogging community, I've just signed up to BlogSnob. What a great idea. If you've got a blog (and if you're reading this the chances are you probably have), why not sign up today?

Thanks to Metafilter (them again) for this link: What Did They Know is a fascinating look at suspect events and statements that happened just before 9/11. True or paranoid ravings? You decide.

Sometimes I despair of Flash. And then sometimes, you come across something like this, and it gives you new hope. Link courtesy of everybody!

Ah. Now it's back. And guess what? I was right – no comments!

Not sure what's happening with the commenting system. I changed the code as per Snorland's instructions, but it doesn't seem to have made a lick of difference. Oh well. There's probably no comments anyway!

Sorry for the truncated post below. It should end "Thanks to Metafilter for the link".

Check this out. I don't know about you, but I'd like some of these toys (thanks to

I'm back. I haven't posted for a couple of days because I got a new Mac over the weekend. I'm now the (very) proud owner of a 667 MHz Titanium PowerBook. With 512 mb of RAM, 30 gig HD, DVD, Mac OS 9.2.1 & X.1 and an Airport card. It's a beaut. I've networked it up to my old G3 PowerBook, and I need to hook it up to the PC I got from a client. Home networking! Ooh, I love my macs...
Now if only I can blank out the cost of it …

Wow. You knew Chris Ware's Jimmy Corrigan masterpiece was up for a Guardian First Book prize, right? Well, if you go here, you can vote for it if you think it should win. And guess what? It's way ahead at 46% of the vote.

Oops! Seems I rattled the cages of the people who populate the John Byrne Fan Site message board by having the temerity to suggest that:

1. John Byrne will only be a small footnote in the annals of comics history.
2. The Comics Journal will have a larger entry than Byrne.
3. That the USA is not the only place in the world where comics are created.

I won't go into all the to–ings and fro–ings as you can read them over there yourself, but I was struck by one posting in particular, by a guy calling himself "Hunter", which ended with this pithy statment:

">But I also believe the industry would have been poorer without John Byrne too... Most definetly. Just to start with, there wouldn't be an X-Men blockbuster movie nowadays!"

This sort of attitude amongst "comics fans" really pisses me off. It's as if a comic only really gains acceptablity if it's turned into a movie. I got news for you - comics aren't film, nor are they prose, music, poetry or theatre. Comics are an artform that can stand on their own (metaphorical) two feet without Hollywood raiding them for ideas every ten seconds. I'll go further - comics shouldn't be adapted into other media, nor should other media be adapted into comics. I believe that films or books made from comics or vice versa doesn't help or promote comics one iota. No-one cares that Ghost World, X-Men or Spiderman were originally comics. No-one except defensive fanboys anyway - are you so ashamed of liking comics that you have to cop this attitude?

When you use CSS to position elements, make sure you can add up. I've discovered I can't. Oops. More tweaking.

Check out reprocessed.org. It's built completely in XHTML & CSS, and it's lovely. Nice work fella!

Just read on the Arsenal mailing list that there's a rumour going around that we're about to buy Nino Gomes from Fiorentina for £7 million. God, I hope so. He'd be mustard in the Red and White.

I've added a form widget to open links in new windows. Thanks to Random Walks, a perfectly excellent blog for the code.

Here's a link to the Official Speakers' Corner Homepage. Haven't had time to explore it yet, but it looks like a good web presence for one of London's must-visit places.

So. It finished 2-0. We looked much better in the second half, but still never like we were actually going to score. Positives: Edu looked good when he came on, and Stuart Taylor was an improvement over Richard Wright who looks like he's lost whatever confidence he once had. Negatives: Too long to list. We really need to improve both in the league and in Europe, or it's another season with nothing to show for it except a lot of disgruntled fans and a mass exodus of players. Which might not be a bad thing.

Well, it's half-time, and my worst fears are being realised. We're two-nil down, and we're playing like a bloody pub team. Not one of our players look like they can be bothered (with the possible exception of Wiltord and Cole, and that's being generous). Still, I bet Wenger will come out with some excuse or other. We might as well pack up and go home now.

I decided to try posting from Opera - pretty difficult seeing as you only get a teenty-tiny window to do it in. Has anybody else seen this? I'm using Opera 5 for Mac

Only an hour and three quarters 'til kick-off. Nervousness increasing with every minute.

Pretty much everyone else has blogged this, but you really should check out the Internet Archive Wayback Machine. It's heaps of fun. Beware though, it's pretty intermittent at the moment. Apparently they didn't expect the amount of traffic they've been getting. D'oh!

Here's one for all you interface geeks out there: Graphical User Interface Gallery. Look how far we've come! (thanks to Boing Boing for the link)

More tweaking to the template. I do love to tweak.

Some good news. The new Comics Journal should be out tomorrow. That means I have that, the latest issue of the Acme Novelty Library and the second issue of Draw magazine to pick up from my box at Gosh. Yay!

Well, it's good news to me.

Arsenal are playing Deportivo la Coruna tonight at Deportivo's ground in the second leg of the Champions League. Seeing as how we've haven't been firing on all cylinders lately, and Deportivo are probably the best team in Europe (at least technically), I'm a tad worried that we're going to get stuffed. Especially when you consider that the last time we played them, two years ago in the UEFA cup, we beat them 5-1 at home.

There's a new build of Mozilla out. I'm using it to post this, and it's great. Go download it now, and support the efforts of the Moz team.

This is somewhat amusing in a sick way. These tests seem to be a meme infecting (if you'll pardon the pun) the web at the moment. Here's another.

I've just installed a commenting system (Snorland), so that I don't feel like I'm talking to myself. Although exactly how many people are reading this I've no idea...

Michael Fraase is a new hero of mine. Read Fun with spammers in awe.

Noticed this on the Arsenal.com site. So Steven Sidwell is staying on at Brentford for another month eh? That'll please my mate Twiggy, who's a dead keen Brentford fan. For my part, I hope we don't sell yet another good youngster just yet.

Blogger's back. Yay! But blogspot appears to be down. Boo! I think I'll just give up.

There's a great thread happening over at the Comics Journal Message Board. I won't say too much about it, other than it started off when someone posted a review of Maus they came across. Check it out.

Stories like this make me, as a dedicated advocate of comics as an artform, want to stick my head in a bucket of dog sick. Or, better yet, the head of the author of this edifying little piece into the afore-mentioned bucket.

Just a quick check to see if this system of posting works. Blogger itself has been down for hours now.

There are days when the net works like a dream. And then there's today. At least I'm back on using bt's anytime servers. I wonder if I can get a refund on the hour I just spent connected to their pay-as-you-go servers? Yeah right.

Owen Briggs' one man mission to document every CSS box error that browsers, both "compliant" and non-compliant, throw up goes on. This time he's discovered a nasty bug in IE6 on Windows that causes some very strange behaviour when you mouseover links with CSS backgrounds applied to them. Check it out at inflight correction and if you're running IE6, help him out. It's for the good of all that he does this.

Bugger. I forgot about the ad at the top. Time to re-edit the template...

Ahh. The first post to a new weblog. Um. More soon.