Heartless Bastards and the Swizzle Inn Pub Quiz

As is becoming a tradition (well been twice anyhow) we went to a Pub Quiz at the Swizzle Inn (north) on Thursday, two remarkable things happened. One is we came joint second which got us a 12 pack of beer (unfortunately Bud but beggars can't be choosers). This was despite me poo-pooing someone's answer to who declared war on the UK and then a few year later switched to declaring war on Germany. I thought Italy stayed enemies for much longer, but I was very very wrong. I also nearly snatched defeat from the jaws of victory by crossing out 45 and putting 51 as the age of Roger Moore when he took over from Sean Connery (45 it was). Luckily I redeemed myself by correctly answering Battlestar Galactica, Iron Maiden and Superman (they were all easy questions if you're into comics, SF and a bit of metal so no huge problem), quite where I pulled the answer to what Jill bandaged Jack with, I have no idea but vinegar and Brown Paper it was.

The other remarkable thing (and this is only interesting if you're a IT geek) is the games machines in the Swizzle run on Linux (I only knew as one rebooted and I recognised the boot up process). However if this every comes up as a question I and all my readers are sorted :). It'll also mean that the quiz master reads this, which is just a tad unlikely.


Found a really good band on Emusic called Heartless Bastards. They're gentle country punk, the female lead has a really distinctive voice, which I can see would be an acquired taste. And Emusic is cool, it's 20 USD a month and you get 90 downloads a month without any evil DRM (it's in mp3 format). It's not hit music (which is fine by me) and if you want to cancel you don't lose any of your music. Also downloaded: Lennon, Nick Cave (I know why do I not already have all his stuff, this is question I have been asking myself), Young Gods, Skinny Puppy, Gods speed you black emperor, Yo La Tango, Early Day Miners and Neko Case.

Neil Gaiman

For people who have heard of Neil Gaiman, I got a comment on his blog (it's about half way down do a search for Kim Newman) hurray, I do the dance of joy :)

For those of you who haven't and are at all interesting in Fantasical writing or Non-superhero comics you really need to pick up something by him.
On the book front, American Gods, Good Omens (with Terry Pratchett), Anansi Boys, Neverwhere, and Stardust. (Also a load of really good kids books)
Comics; Black Orchid, Death, 1602 and Sandman (more on Sandman later)
Films & TV; MirrorMask, Stardust and Neverwhere (oh and an episode of Babylon 5 which is better on the second watching several years after watching it the first time).

As promised (or possible warned) Sandman. Sandman is a modern myth, it is, along with Cerebus and most Alan Moore stuff, arguably the most literary comic around. It lasted for 75 issues and is constantly in print in a series of collected editions. Well in a bid to produce a definitive edition (and also rake some more money in) DC has started releasing Absolute Editions. Book 1 has just been released. It collects the first 20 issues (the first 3 or 4 collected books) and is apparently massive.

Anyway if you live in Bermuda, wander into Comic Stop on Front street and ask what Sandman stuff they have, it's very unlikely you'll be disappointed (unless they don't have any).

Fast ferry trip, and browser stats

Work organised a trip out on a local ferry on Friday evening. Not too interesting you say, well the ferry's called the Wildcat and is a 2,000bhp catamaran , it holds about 35 people and will do over 45 knots. Which is a bit quick in nautical terms. All very good fun and just highlights again how small this place is. If I could travel the fastest I've ever been on my bike for the lenght of it would take me 9 minutes to go from end to end. Ignoring the whole riding into sea and drowing element.

After not posting anything for a while I've just checked out the stats for this page. And Firefox is running at 39% which is good. Linux is there at 6% which could be better, but I think I might need to actually write something technical and interesting to get any more Linux users.

On the Bermuda front 1 in 5 people are using Firefox (to visit this site) which is much better than it was, however I don't think I can start saying 20% of all Bermudians surf with it. Unless I also want to clain that all Chinese surf using Linux and firefox. (Had 1 chinese visitor and yep that's what (s)he used)

Urm stats can be made to say what you want.