Son of QAF (British Version); To Sleep or Not To Sleep; Give Me Fever; Tintin and Snowy; "Cruel Intentions"

Michael of The Road Trip (Update 03.07: no longer available) was kind enough to send me a follow up message about QAF (BV). His comments managed to trigger some more events from the past. I must have explored QAF a lot more than I initially remembered. Because each time something is mentioned, a little relay snaps in my demented brain, and I remember some more info. Thanks, Michael.

I've found a site that has some videos from the series in MPEG. Try Queer As Folk. (Update 03/07: no longer available) Since it is non-streaming, I should be able to save them, but my connection is only 28.8, so it will take awhile. (I need to look into the DSL business.)

Last night was another one of those having-problems-sleeping nights. So I don't remember when I dozed off. The cats woke me a couple of times. And I woke up at 6, and trundled off to the kitchen to open the cat food. Then back to bed, again up at 8, then back to sleep around 9. What a fucking pain!

There is some residue of the sinus infection still about. Last night, I had a headache that would not go away. And because once when I woke up, my shirt was damp as from sweating. Then again, this afternoon, the same thing happened. However, I wonder how much of that was from the stress of a stressful Friday. Yesterday was also unusually hot. Not just warm but hot!

During the periods that I couldn't sleep, I whipped out my copies of Tintin. Tintin is the splendid, comic strip detective whose exploits were originally published in the early '30s. Wonder of wonders, the stories are now available from Little Brown Publishers in the original format. No one has come along and attempted to revise the stories for more modern times. So you get all the initial flavor. Tintin is irresistible and puzzling. You're never quite sure if he is a kid or a grown up. (Sounds like Beck!) He is absolutely indefatigable. His closest friends are his dog Snowy and the Captain. I love all those period details such as cars, clothes and street scenes. I especially like the panels in which rain appears.

One odd point is the size of the dialogue balloons. And I would not have noticed it except that I read about the situation in another context. The original strips were published in French with balloons sized accordingly. But as the strips were translated, it was necessary, in many cases, to enlarge the balloons. But if another translation occurred from the first, the balloons may have wound up being far larger than the dialogue. Indeed that seems to be the case in the English version. It is sort of like a subtitled film in which there is a long stream of speech, but the subtitle says only, "Maybe."

"CI" was on HBO a couple of hours ago. And I watched it to ogle Ryan Phillippe, who is very ogable in a post-adolescent kind of way. And there is a very brief rear nude scene.

A tad obvious at times. But more fun than I had anticipated. Certainly worth a casual watch. Certainly not as riveting as "Little Boy Blue" from the other evening. But the ending fizzles.

PAX!