"John Pearson's ECG Just Flatlined."

That probably wouldn't mean a thing to you, unless you just watched the second part of Space Odyssey: Voyage to The Planets.

And if you have, you'd probably feel as sad as I do right now. It was a very poignant piece of drama, with lavish CGI and a realistic and plausible account of how man might explore the furthermost worlds of our solar system some day.

But one scene will stick in my mind for a long time.

John Pearson's body being cast adrift into the midst of the rings of Saturn, to drift among the icy rocks there forever.

Very eerie; very sad.

Hell of a day ...

Today, I went out to Birmingham, risking a lot of money for the rail fare, in order to obtain a copy of the latest White Wolf books, Coteries and Ghost Stories.

I'm not going to comment on the contents of the books themselves, even though I've already read both of them, cover to cover (while I'm not a formal speed reader, I do read very quickly), and intend to spend the next few days digesting their contents at leisure (and coming on here and commenting thereon), but I already like what I see of both of them.

They are both hardbacks, which makes them reminiscent of comic book Annuals of the kind we get over here in Blighty. Very nice. Very high quality covers and contents. The internal art in Coteries is to die for.

However, the journey down and the journey back again was even more interesting than the prize, because of a number of things:

(1) I thought I'd never get the damn things when I got there;

(2) I completed one minor project while I was there, and draughted the outline of a second project whilst waiting for the books to arrive in the store;

(3) I went for a wander into Birmingham, and discovered parts of the city I'd never been to before, which I'll have to explore in greater depth next time I go down there, which might not, now, be until next January / February at the earliest :( and, of course,

(4) It took forever to get back home afterwards because not one, but two trains home, got cancelled - and yet, in the end, I managed to arrive in town not more than ten minutes late.

But thank goodness that the damned books did arrive, or otherwise I would have had to return home with the consolation prize - Shadowrun's State of The Art: 2064 (which I can make good use of, since it gives me ideas for an adept character I'm working on for my fiction).

Fiat Knox: Making Even Shopping An Adventure ...