OK, I'll be subtle about this. TWC has reset it's counters for the start of the month. It would be really cool to be somewhere near the top of that list so its vitally important you and everyone you know votes, EVERY DAY. It's not cheating, it's what you're supposed to do. All you need to do is find a link that looks something like this -

- and click on it, then click again on the vote button that pops up. There's a button like it on the sidebar to the left of every page. Please please pleasepleaseplease click on it. It means a lot to me and it's a fantastic way of getting readership here. More readers, the better the site gets, ok?

You know it makes sense, and it's better than your average political scrambling. Well, at least it's honest.

What a humongous bag of poo. You can't trust a politician because of the walls of secrecy 'needed' apparently for the continuation of government in the country's interest. So we have virtually no way of knowing what they're doing except in what they tell us, and what they tell us about each other.

Then, when they're in government, they've got at best five years before the next general election, so after the comfy year where they've no idea what they're doing, they've then got a couple of years where they can pretend they're doing something before spending the final year and a bit panicing that they'll lose their election and doing as much kissing babies and spin as possible rather than actual work.

Any good that they do can be thrown instantly away by the slightest scandal so they spend more time covering themselves from sniping than covering their policies and promises and then when another party gets involved instead of a reasonable debate over how the country could be made better they spend all the time rubbishing each other.

Labour obviously can't be trusted since they took us into war against our will. The Tories can't be trusted because of what they did the last time they were in power. The Lib-dems can't be trusted because they're too wishy-washy but we don't need to worry about that because you're not allowed to vote for them in case you let the Tories in.

Proportional representation can't work because there is no way of giving the green party a say without also allowing the BNP a similar one, and even UKIP. Obviously not Veritas until the leather-skinned mighty one manages to get someone to give him the time of day.

The only solution I can think of is to extend the term of office to 10 years and to execute the entire cabinet (all members since the start of the government) once they are voted out. If that isn't motivation to try and do well for the country as hard as you can, then I don't know what is. Oh yes, and I'd make sure that there was constant access to hot and ready whores night and day for any MP. Saves any scandal cos it's all allowed and everybody's chilled out.

If you want some advice about Thursday? In all seriousness, look honestly at the individual people that are in your area trying to be the MP. Do they even live in the area? Do they know what your street even looks like? Can they answer a single question without sounding like a smug self satisfied slimy bastard? Think on and go vote, I'll see you on friday once Labour have sneaked in for a third term with a 10% majority. That's my guess.

A ruthless dictatorship would work. As long as it was me in charge.

Okay, in the latest news on the block, yes I did go to Denby Dale on Friday to see if I could find the proof of the big pie. I'll do a full writeup later, but the adventure is serialised on the latest Them's The Vagaries which may turn out an interesting way of doing it.

And yes, I did have a couple of beers while I was there.

• Labour won the general election on Thursday. With almost exactly a 10% majority. Shame I didn't visit a bookies with that info. But then again I probably wouldn't have got great odds.
  
  
• I have stopped smoking again. This is day one. And so far I'm about 15 seconds away from full blown murder. I'm in a bad enough mood to give up on the web, the comic, humanity and booze. Somebody drop me a line of encouragement or vote or something otherwise I can't be held responsible for my actions.
  
  
• I've started writing for IRM. They get to publish first but I'll hold copyright on everything I produce so I'll be putting it all up here on the roleplay section, and about time something new went in there.
  
  
• Absath on CTRL-ALT-DEL has just realised he's not reviewed anything in a while. This thought also occurs to me so while i'm in a mood to kill something I think it's perfect to rant aimlessly about something that offended my eyeballs. I'll keep you informed.
  
  
• Oh, the head that you see for 0.003 seconds at the end of the film is indeed Douglas Adams for those who weren't sure

I heard you smell like puppies.

Summer time, and the weather is easy. I'm not gonna apologise for the lack of posting this month, I've been having a busy time. I will however apologise for not having anything written for the comic today so that's going to have to wait until I get to my photoshop and start throwing things together later on today. I don't want to miss out on it because that would mean a break which i've not done yet in the 13/14 weeks of presenting the comics. When I made the last one though, I created Bob the glove puppet. I love that little guy. I think I'll keep him.

I've written a new game called 'Starship Thingy' for inclusion into the June issue of IRM which has taken a fair amount of this week, plus I went to the dentist who decided to rip out another peice of my skull, so I'm not in the best of sorts.

Since my news at the minute is jumping all over the place now I'll go the whole hog. The Web Cartoonists Choice Awards have opened the nominations for this years awards. Obviously it would be an honour to be nominated... (please?) ... I was thinking of something in the best newcomer category would be rather spiffy. Maybe in blue. You can find them by clicking the link here.

For those of you that were around last year, you might remember me going to Norway for a week to take part in the Bukkoy Viking Festival. Well in a month's time I'll be there again, doing the same thing. If I can manage to get ahead of the comic by that time (which doesn't seem likely) then there'll be all new comics even though I'm sitting on an island in another country. If not then I'll put up the 24 comics I did for the 24 hour comics challenge. That should keep you going while I'm gone.

Oh, I wrote a little review of Prince Of Persia : The Warrior Within and I'll probably be spending some time reviewing some films and other games as I go along. Maybe even some RPG games for that section. For those of you that don't know BTW, it was the 4th anniversary of Douglas Adams' passing this week. I shall be having a drink to commemmorate and locating my towel.

I think that's it from me, have a good weekend and I'll see you soon

I was presented with an interesting situation this morning. I work in a fairly sizable office building, which as I have mentioned from time to time has quite a few people who occasionally irritate me. (See : ABSOLUTE FUCKING MORONS). This morning I met a new one in a brief encounter. Though nothing to do with romance or trains.

The building where I work has many corridors punctuated by double doors every so often so that if the building were on fire, numerous people would die while arguing over who would hold the door open for others. Now, as I open one of these doors on my way back to the desk I am presented with a co-worker. He's walking towards me and gets to within two feet away before stopping and glaring straight into my eyes.

Suddenly my telepathy kicks in and I read the thoughts going across his oversized frontal lobe in large print letters. "He's opened the door, obviously because he saw me coming. Why then is he standing in the way? He can't honestly be trying to come through..? I don't understand this. He could see me coming, WHY ARE YOU STANDING IN MY WAY!!" Now both being english we end up staring at each other for a good second or two without actually saying anything.

Now I like to pride myself as a problem solver. So with this in mind I used the pencil I happened to be carrying and stuck it into his eyeball. With him no longer being in my way I stepped over the writhing and screaming body and went about my way. The Moral - You're in my way too and I was here first.

I bet he won't be staring at anybody else in the near future

• I have written my very first VAGUE download. I've been playing Su Doku for a few months now, since I noticed it in the times somewhere around early March. I like to think I've gotten quite good at them but I still wrote an assistant to it in Excel. You can get it here. Though I would prefer it if you were to right-click and Save-As. If you don't know what Su Doku is, it's currently in all the daily papers, each of which says they invented it or introduced it (it was the Times, in case you're wondering). But the official place to find out about it is at SuDoku.com. So there. I'll write a proper page for it at some point, but for the minute, you'll have to deal with just this link.
  
  
• IRM (June/July) is now with the editors and printers, as of yet I still don't know what bits are going to be used. RVC3: Terror Incognita (the Deadlands Book) ditto, but I'll let you know when I hear anything, and where to buy them from.
  
  
• I need a holiday, and I don't just mean this Norway thing coming up, cos I know I'm not going to be doing much relaxing while I'm there. The thing is, I've been putting it off for years (going on holiday) until I can afford something, but never having enough money on the spot while all of my friends who're not so well off end up in zanzibar or turkey (although one was by accident). So I've decided to take the plunge and just book something and pay for it as I go, monthly or whatever. I've not got anything booked yet, but I may well go see Germany and Egypt soon. Maybe the moon. I don't know yet.
  
  
• Kylie has breast cancer. A damn shame but I have to cheer. When was the last time a popular celebrity came forward to say such a thing? Years ago. Get the word out, get it in the public image and get the cancer charities using it. All donations gratefully received and inside of a decade maybe cancer can be cured. We can but hope.
  
  
• I don't like racing games. They aren't my thing. Sometimes I can play them and sometimes I can't. GT games are completely beyond me, Off-Road Racer used to be quite fun, especially in the arcade. But there is a new joy. Burnout 3. I say this for having spent a considerable amount of time giggling my tits off while causing multi-million dollar pileups. But the best bit is the Road Rage races. Wiping out as many people as possible inside of two minutes while driving down busy streets at 150+ mph? I nearly wept.

There I was, digging a hole ...

Right, you knew this was coming, it can't be a surprise, but for those of you that read them at the time, I'm sorry. What I'm talking about is that for the next 8 weeks you'll be treated to the tale of the Maltese Mallard, my entry from the 24 Hour Comics Day Challenge. I do this for a number of reasons, primarily of which is that I want some time to write some new gags, stories and fun and adventure. It gives Adam some time to draw some new peices for me to use and it gives me time to go to Norway for 10 days in a week or two. I'm having some ideas on how to revamp the site and the comic, possibly add in a whole amount of new content or maybe just a few flashy bits here and there. You'll see it all happen as and when I do though.

Oh, and for those of you wondering where I've been for the first part of this week, I've been ill. Sorry, that's all there is to it. I'm sort of recovered now, but that's all there is to it. I did get chance to play Mercenaries though. And it is indeed quite good fun.

I've also just had a SPECTACULARLY bad idea. How's about an online RPG game based around Superheroes, Gangsters and Magic set in a big city? I think it would work along the lines of people sending me an e-mail of what their character was doing and I would post to them various pieces and then at the start of the month I would provide a writeup on a new section on Vaguenet. It may work, it may also be the slowest RPG in the history of humanity. If you're interested in playing, then just drop me a line to say so. We'll cover who plays what and how many later, the only bit that would be nice is possibly a name for the game.

Again, for those of you still reading, e-mail me and tell me you'd like to play. The more people that mail, the more likely it is that we'll play, and you don't need to have played a roleplay game ever before, you just need a little imagination.

I wear my sunglasses at night ...

Wa-Hey! I truly am Genius personified. And I don't mean that god awful Test The Nation quiz that was on BBC1 on Saturday. (I only got 43 right). Oh yes, my genius. In theory, you should no longer have to wait until sometime during the day for me to upload the index for the comic, but it should pop up automatically at midnight. Now all I have to do is to upload the comic and tell the index when I want it to go live and i can take a holiday, like for example next week. I'll be in norway but still you'll be treated to a comic on Monday, Wednesday and Friday, how cool is that?

in theory with my new changes they also include the ability to auto-archive everything as and when it happens (though not yet), the size can be whatever i feel like for each comic, i can plonk a little text box to tell you what i was thinking at the time i wrote each comic (which you'll probably never want or read), and a tiny descriptive which would plonk the title somewhere slightly more prominant. All part of the service and I'll put them live as and when I feel like it.

Saw STAR WARS III on Friday. What can I say? Oh yes, that's what I can say. 'Thank God that's done with, Can we stop now please?'. I thought the big space battle at the end was rather pretty, could have watched more than that. The rest of it was the same tat that we'd seen numerous times before. In fact I was quite annoyed that peices that I wouldn't mind seeing properly (like the lightsaber fights), the cameraman decided to film from about 2 inches from the back of someone's head and so you see absolutely nothing.

Now we've got to get through the barrage of adverts, merchandise, toys, repeats, DVDs, DVD Special Editions, Re-releases, more merchandise, rumours of upcoming sequels, cereal tie-ins, bad impressions, pastiches, clipshows, reunions and conventions and it'll finally be over. Fat Fucking Chance. You'll be breathing Star Wars until the day you die.

I have a bad feeling about this