April is the messiest month

To be honest, TS Eliot, I don’t find April all that cruel, but it is the month when my life tends to devolve into chaos. Too much going on, too many things that need doing, too little ability to organise myself – as shown by the last few blog posts coming in off schedule and one in the middle just going missing.

But there comes a point when you have to gather up all the 52-pickup cards; when you have to sign the overdue paperwork, finish off the spreadsheet, agree to go to all the parties on Facebook and generally get your shit together.

And to blog about it. Naturally.

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The main thing that’s been eating up my time this April is the Melbourne Comedy Festival, as I’ve been writing reviews for politics-and-culture website Crikey – you can find all my reviews (I think) here. That’s chewed up most of my energy and writing, which is kind of a bullshit complaint – ‘oh no, having to go to free comedy shows is SO TIRING and also my diamond shoes are too tight’. It’s actually a lot of fun, even if it doesn’t leave me much time or headspace for working on other things and means I barely see my wife for a month (she works in ticketing).

There’s a week left of MICF, and if you’re looking for a recommendation, my top five would be Watson, Hang the DJ, Sketch-ual Healing, Dave (if it’s not already sold out) and, um, I’m going to wuss out on #5 because I can’t choose between DeAnne Smith, Lisa-Skye and Simon Keck. Maybe go see all of them? Go on, you probably can if you try hard enough.

(The weird thing this year? Being recognised in bars and shows by comedians and producers, and being asked to go review more shows because they like my stuff. That’s a first. And cool. And weird. SO WEIRD.)

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Now, what did we do today? Oh yeah, Supanova! While I went to the first one in Brisbane – as a worker at the Borders stall, selling graphic novels – this is the first time I’ve been as a regular punter, along with my wife.

We ignored all the various TV/movie people and made a beeline for the comics area to say hello to writer Gail Simone. She was really pleasant and nice, as were Nicola Scott and Terry & Rachel Dodson. We didn’t keep them long; it’s weird to try to have a conversation with people you only know in a creator/reader context, because you’re not friends or anything. We kept it cool and brief, got some photos and signatures, and really enjoyed meeting them.

Also, wow – SO MUCH COSPLAY. It’s interesting that Supanova seems to be the primary cosplay avenue for most enthusiasts, or indeed the only one for a lot of people, and as such every second person was wearing a cape or carrying a sword. It’s not my thing (although I think I could do a solid pre-reboot Green Arrow, mostly because I have my own goatee already), but it’s awesome to see so many people having a good time and flying their geek colours. Makes me think there really should be more of a cosplay scene in this city, or indeed this country.

As for the rest of Supanova – ehh, not really for us. It’s all about monetizing nerds in some way, either by selling them stuff or getting them to pay for autographs and photos and face time. Which doesn’t do much for me, especially as I’m a terrible nerd who wanders around saying ‘I don’t know what show that costume’s from. I don’t understand why this person is famous. What the hell is Quidditch anyway?’ and so on. So we bought a couple of graphic novels from the All-Star Comics booth and a few fridge magnets for friends, and then we were basically done. And that’s okay.

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As a complete aside, I have to share with you guys this new bit of spam poetry I just found in the filter. It is AMAZING.

Viagra in disaster, pitt. 100mg viagra moving, two dimness telegraph – – a beast, soon generic and next. Suddenly stoma felt different, their hour infrared and broken. And when viagra were sighted caught run of a scarecrow, seals admitted so the mentioning boat for generic closet. A viagra can brutally give generic and evaporated, of a muscle could stay missing my bolting doesn’t, on blood. Viagra not stooped road to see all all policemen as the isn’t supervision of his deals. She cry you forgot the viagra to wait her assistance. The landing was page her captain’s and had i to have his street through ever. That viagra slapped toward the generic slime, the rooftop keeping in the offer. But whether he could please them discovers not around generic in it too fled. What the viagra.

Viagra – a noun, a verb, an adjective, a punctuation mark. It’s all things to all people. Mostly impotent ones.

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Anyway, between comedy, nerd-dom, reading about viagra and the usual making-textbooks-to-pay-the-bills, I haven’t had much time to do much else this month.

But that’ll change, and soon. And you know what that means – cocaine and video games more writing. Cub’s honour.