Kickass the comicbook by Mark Millar

I've just read the last issue of 'Kick-ass' by Glasgow's own Mark Millar. It's pretty damn good. It's the story of a teenage boy who decides to become a superhero in the real world. It's violent and funny. On the back of 'Wanted' it was grabbed for cinema adaption before the comic was even finished.

Can't wait to see the film...

Homeopathy is pish

I'm sure most people realise that homeopathy is pure bollocks. As I passed though Central Station in Glasgow yesterday I saw an anti-homeopathy protest group. They were planning to take a mass-overdose of homeopathic medications to prove that these medicines have no effect.

Pretty cool idea.

You may think that all this homeopathy stuff is harmless but apparently the NHS spends £4million on this useless shite every year. That's £4million of my tax money. Bastards. I also object to private companies making a profit from the misery of people who don't know that they are being ripped off.

http://www.1023.org.uk/the-1023-overdose-event.php

Avatar film review

I was a bit cynical about Avatar when I first heard about it. It looked a bit shit. Why would I want to see a 3D remake of Ferngully? Who would want to see CGI smurfs?

Everyone that saw the film said it was good. It was doing well at the box office. I felt my life would be lacking if I didn't see it so I went last week. It was great.

I had to wear contact lenses so that I could watch in 3D. I'm glad I did because the experience was good. The film did look a bit cartoony at times due to the wall to wall CGI but the live-action CGI interface wasn't too bad and the 3D rocked. The story is a bit dumb but at least it has a solid anti-imperial and anti-capitalist message to it. Apparently the Awerican religious right are fucked off which is only good.

I'd go and see it again and I hope they do a sequel. As Avatar is noe the most successful film of all time they probably will.

Lax January

I've been a bit crap at writing my blog this month. There are a few reasons for that. I was a bit sick over new year with what I will describe as mind-stabbing painful exploding ass disease which the medical community would recognise as a perianal abscess. Being an idiot I didn't seek medical attention until after it exploded.

After that little adventure I had to spend a few days in bed with my friends flucloxacillin and metronidazole. Over the past six years I have prescribed these drugs to thousands of people. I think it's good to have some personal experience of these drugs. For what it's worth flucloxacillin gave me loose stools that had a funny smell and metronidazole gave me a headache and a funny taste in my mouth. They did seem to work.

Other than that work has been busy. I had some deadlines to submit a few academic things and we had a special drug trial patient that needed me to take pharmacokinetic blood samples at 3AM for a week. Life is fun as always.

Apparently 90% of blogs are never updated. I want this one to keep going for a while.

drphunk

The end of a decade

It's difficult to believe that 1999 was 10 years ago. Back then I had finished uni and I was doing a bunch of crappy jobs. I was working in Our Price records (now long gone) and on a switchboard. I was playing bass in a shitty local band. I hadn't even got a place at medical school.

In the past 10 years I've been to medical school, passed a lot of difficult post-graduate medical exams and started doing clinical research. I'm working in the medical speciality that I always wanted to work in. I've moved around the country a fair bit and I've done a lot of stuff that I'd never imagined I would do.

I've bought a posh flat in a good city. I have a decent job.

All in all it's been good and I wouldn't have done anything different. I'm looking forward to the next ten years. I hope it's just as good.

Happy new decade.

how the internet has changed alternative music

When I say alternative music I mean stuff you don't see on MTV. I mean underground punk and stuff you might not find in HMV. When I was young you could probably find Fugazi records or Dead Kennedys records easily enough. Big Black and Shellac were harder to find. When it came to more obscure bands you could order them direct from the record label in America or from some small distro advertised in maximum rock n roll magazine. You could wait for months until a record arrived and then you could hate it.

All that has changed in the past few years.

Music fans are spoilt nowadays. Within 15 minutes it is possible to obtain music that I only dreamed may even exist. Alternative music was a bit of a secret handshake club populated with inadequate wankers who needed something to make themselves cooler-than-thou. I can say that because I was one of the most inadequate wankers out there. I wasn't the worst though.

Now if you want to hear the Steve Albini produced demos for the classic 'in on the killtaker' fugazi album you can (that album is just begging for a deluxe reissue by the way). If you want to hear the entire back catalogue of Amphetamine Reptile or the Melvins you can. If you want to check out uber-cool new indie band, Girls, just pop to youtube and listen.

The internet has given us pins to pop the balloons that cool people have instead of brains.

The internet has put the power in the hands of the consumer. You can find out if a record is shit without paying for it. You can give your money to the artists that make music you like.

The smarter bands will be able to find an audience internationally and get their music out there without a big record company. Bands will have to figure out how to make money from music but at least they won't be ripped off by some faceless corporation.

Alternative music has changed.

And fuck the arseholes who think you're not cool enough to buy a record from them

Johnny Cash - I see a darkness. A graphic novel by Reinhard Kleist

I came across this graphic novel in a strange place. It was listed as one of the best graphic novels of the year in the free Metro newspaper that you pick up on public transport. Metro is not normally a place where I look for cultural highlights.

The book is a comic strip biography of Johnny Cash. It's slightly less saccharine than the recent biopic that was in the cinema a couple of years ago. I've read several books about Cash and I own about 20 of his albums. While this comic didn't capture every depth of his personality I did get think it was pretty good.

I bought the book for my dad (another big Johnny Cash fan) and he loved it. It's a decent enough comic book and a good present for a Johnny Cash fan.

And while we are on the subject of Steve Albini....

I found some Shellac material that I don't have. Shellac should be rich and famous even though they probably don't want to be.

Use any means necessary to hear their first couple of singles - uranus and the rude gesture:a pictorial history. I need to buy a record player so I can listen to them again.

And see them live if you can.

For more info

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shellac_(band)

Classic Steve Albini Article

Been looking for this for ages

http://www.mercenary.com/probwitmusby.html

The benefits of Spotify

I'm home at my parents house on a snowy christmas day. I've not been here very much over the past year. The snow outside is fairly deep so I'm not crossing the doorstep.

I don't have much stuff here. I do have my laptop and broadband wifi internet (which I don't have at home) so I'm enjoying listening to Spotify.

I was very happy to learn that Flipper, the American sludgecore band of the early eighties, now have their entire back catalogue on Spotify. The pesonal highlight for me in their 1991 album American Grafishy which was recorded with Rick Rubin. It kicks ass. I'm looking into options for obtaining a physical copy.

Spotify is brilliant. I was able to listen to most of Public Image Limiteds back catalogue before the gig last week. I was able to track down a lot of obscure punk today, including bands like Dr Know. I've also been able to check out Vic Chesnutt (a decision sadly influenced by the news that he is in a coma).

I also managed to find a black flag b-side I hadn't heard. Happy christmas to me!