I walk to work. I don't think I can hack a big city anymore. what's that book then? I loved Tom Sawyer back in the days!

Teabaggy. Oh god the mental image *scrapes frontal lobe*

Shitson, I haven't been to a planetarium in ages, and I used to love it when I was a kid. It was what fed the spacenerd before I discovered star trek...

oh. and Depeche Mode... my mates roll their eyes at me, but I feckin love them!

Oh shush. I LOVED that episode!!! I thought you looked ZE HOT in it! It was the late 80s/early 90s, your hair really wasn't the worst hair on the planet at that time.

I used to work in a beach cafe, and some stormy winter days, the water would almost come up to our patio. Not that that kept the crazy Brits away... I've seen them sitting in a deck chair with umbrellas, defying a deluge.

Rutger Hauer... everytime I hear his name now, I have to think of Gretchen in Malcolm in the Middle, when she unwittingly starred in a porn film, thrilled that she is gonna make it to Hollywood like Roootgah Hauer! Dunno where the man gets his ego from, cos most films he made are at best mediocre. Saying that, Mr Stitch remains one of my all time favourites, though... I loved the over the top satire of it... the car race was priceless! Maybe the prickness of Hauer just added to the prickness of his character.

I feel with you... this is an awful loss. Ferris has really grown on all of us because of your blog, and you've always written with such love for that poor doggie. I've lost my pet budgie years ago - I've had him for 14 years, and he was my baby. It sounds almost silly, but he had an incredible personality, and sometimes I read my diary entry from that time and it still chokes me up. I still miss him. May the universe fill that hole with love and heal it with fond memories!:( I'm really sorry, and I hate to see you in pain. I hope your family is holding up ok.

Oh shit. Oh man, I'm so sorry, Wil. There's not much one can say in a moment like this. I'm glad Ferris had an awesome life with you when it could have been so much worse, if your wife hadn't stopped to help that poor puppy back then - that was probably the most awesome story I ever read on your blog. Bless Ferris. I'm so sorry :(

That's just beyond awesome. I wanna do an 80s party! Did you play all the tunes as well? Did you... did you play the SAFETY DANCE?

I've been thinking in the past days that I need to watch this film again. And now I think I needa watch It right after.

(P.S. now you got 42 to look forward to!)

Haha, you've blatantly saved this video for this day. Awesome. Happy Birthday dude! The younger generations better shut up, we gets us there soon enuff. You're still a studmuffin, so all is well. Toodles! x

Hahahaha no way, you made that up!

postmodern! Who says a stick of butter hasn't got a valid opinion? (http://pattis.blogspot.com/2006/06/hams-worth-of-hope.html)

Last sentence. Please don't say that.8(

I have never watched it, but some cheerleading society used it to advertise itself outside my shop, and I wanted to stab pencils in my ear. I feel for you. Next show and tell, make it a requirement to not use HSM. And clarify that this includes any sequels or related products. Oh, and you can have evil Parallel Universe Wil. I got dibs on Clone Wil. ;) *waits for restraining order*

postmodern!

If Zac Efron gets to play Wesley, I will go on a verbal killing spree. I think he has done enough damage with HSM. I think we should make a clone of Wil now, so that, by the time they reboot TNG, we have another Wil ready for the job. And when that's done, I want the clone. ... ok, that was creepy. ...sorry...

To be honest, I think feeding a stray kitten is totally cool.

Simon Pegg as Scotty sold it to me. Still gotta watch it.

It wouldn't kill a bookstore. In fact, it would make stock management much easier. There is a massive debate out there that publishers want to move more towards print on demand books, which would be firm sale (which means bookshops can't return them if they don't sell), which again would screw bookshops up massively, so obviously they don't want that. However, if they have a printer in-store, it lowers the risk for them massively, and would actually make them more money. It would be excellent for academic shops, who have more people with special interests that are more risky to serve (i.e. stocking expensive specialist books which might be non-returnable and also might not sell, and then end up outdated and dusty in a storeroom). The problem is that these printers are expensive, which goes against all business ideas on running high profit on low costs... it might take a while to pay off, because how many people will go and buy risky high cost specialist books? Books that sell themselves would just be cheaper to order and stock the traditional way.

Agreed. Marketing is what puts the word out there, but if the marketing is wrong or focuses on the wrong thing, it all goes tits up. They should have marketed it for a wider audience, but they were too damn stuck with the idea of using what you are most known for, which initially looks like a "cheap and easy" way to do it. Knowing from my head office, though (and it does sound like it from your experience as well), unfortunately marketing people tend to be the most cocksure buggers in the world... they live in their own little marketing world with little or no contact to reality.

And if it's any consolation, celebrity biographies are generally flopping like hell on the book market at the moment, with rare exceptions. I really don't know why, because one would think they have a recipe for success just due to their nature. I find it's only really scandalous people who make sales, and their scandals have to be quite recent, too... e.g. Jade Goody, Russell Brand, Jonathan Ross (sorry, very UK here), that lot. Success for all the wrong reasons... not necessarily because it's well written and interesting.

True, I guess... I did stock them for a while in my shop with a recommends tag on it, and lots of people recognised you. Thing is, Just a geek is only available in hardback, and most people aren't willing to pay full price on any books anymore, especially hardbacks. The problem with books like yours is the marketing... it is specialist because it's only known to a certain group of people, unlike Dan Brown (who can't write for shit, if you ask me, you'd outdo him anytime... suck up alert, sorry). If a book is widely marketed, more shops are willing to stock it. Sometimes word by mouth and bookseller recommendations to their head office can do the trick and get books into campaigns. The problem with these new Expresso printers is that people still can't browse and get a taste for it before they decide to buy, unless they have already decided to buy it. All it might do is shift the sales from online to a bookstore because it is available much quicker that way.