About me
My name is Caleb Newcastle and I've lived in England all my life.
I do very little with my life because I'm very, very lazy.
I founded Mega Sad Productions in the spring of 1998 because I had nothing else to do (GCSEs? What GCSEs? Oh... those GCSEs...).
Its forerunner (sort of) was Mega Sad Comics; a short lived comic-book company I founded in 1995 / 1996. After a long period of inactivity I've started producing Mega Sad Comics once more.
Stuff I do for fun
- I make websites. I don't use any HTML editors or anything stupid like that however. I use Notepad. The best thing in the world for making websites in. Pure, straightforward code, typed in by hand beats the crap out of the complex, mangled, manky stuff you get out of a scabby HTML Editor. So always use Notepad to make your webpages. If you don't I cannae be held responsible for the consequences!
- I read comics. Some of my favourites include: Transmetropolitan, Planetary, Preacher, Kabuki, The Sandman, Hellblazer, Rising Stars, the Dirty Pair, Maison Ikkoku, Ranma 1/2 and Gunsmith Cats. I also enjoy anything by Warren Ellis, Garth Ennis, Adam Warren, David Mack, Rumiko Takahashi or Neil Gaiman.
Check out Caleb Newcastle's Sad and Obsessive Comic Library for more details.
- I read books. Favourite authors include: Douglas Adams (The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy), Isaac Asimov (the Foundation series), Frank Herbert (Dune), Terry Pratchet (the Discworld series), Robert Rankin (The Brentford Trilogy), Philip K. Dick (The Cosmic Puppets, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, Radio Free Albemuth etc.) and Hunter S. Thompson (Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, Better Than Sex etc.).
- I watch television. Favourite programs include: American Gothic, South Park, Dawson's Creek (in very small doses), Quantum Leap, Ally McBeal, Frasier, Friends (the new ones anyway), The 11 o'clock Show, The Simpsons, Dilbert, Futurama, Oz, Jam, NYPD Blue and Vids.
- I watch films. The best film of all time is Leon (AKA The Professional) by Luc Besson. Other sweet films include: Fight Club, The Sixth Sense, Pulp Fiction, Cyrano de Bergerac, Mute Witness, Twelve Monkeys, Reservoir Dogs, Blade Runner, Moscow on the Hudson, The Fisher King, The Shawshank Redemption, The Matrix, Citizen Kane, The Trial, Seven, From Dusk Till Dawn, Cruel Intentions, Dogma, Time Bandits, Aliens, Things to Do in Denver When You're Dead, Gattaca, Falling Down, The Usual Suspects, American Beauty, American Psycho, Fresh, Mallrats and Clerks.
Check out the Internet Movie Database for more information on all of these films.
- I listen to talkSPORT (or Talk Radio as it used to be called) 1053-1089 AM. At night time. Favourite presenters include: Ian Collins, Mike Dicken, James Whale and Tommy Boyd, and, before they were fired by the evil Kelvin MacKenzie, Nick Abbot and Peter Deeley.
- And occasionally I listen to music. Favourite bands include: Incubus, Nerf Herder, Muse, Idlewild, Radiohead, CO.UK, Ash, Offspring, Foo Fighters, Lit, Pixies, Eels, Green Day, Queen and Garbage.
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Stuff I do the rest of the time
I started Sixth Form in September 1998. I was doing Maths, Computing and Physics A Levels and a Media Studies AS Level. I came to hate Physics, and asked to change it to English Literature. However, because it was way too late in the school year (just before the Easter Holidays) I had no other choice but to repeat Year 12.
For the five months that followed (May to September 1999), this is what I did:
- For the first month or so I slept.
- For the next three months I took part in something called The Prince's Trust. It was a twelve-week course where we learnt team-making skills (or something like that...). Anyway, we got a free holiday, so that made it pretty sweet. We also did a three-week project to help some local charity or whatever, and we ended it all by doing a small presentation. The other people in my team were: Aldous, Kate, Kevin, Kim, Malcolm and Steve. Our leader / teacher / mentor / whatever was Teresa and there was this longhaired guy, who buggered off to America, and was Teresa's assistant, called James.
- Then I went to Jordan for a few weeks.
And now I'm back! I restarted Year 12 in September 1999. I'm doing Maths, Computing and English Literature A Levels. I have completed my Media Studies AS Level for which I got a C. Huzzah.
Stuff that sucks @$$
On October 21st, 1999 I found out that I've got a hereditary disease called Retinitis Pigmentosa. Here's a little bit about it:
Since my greatest fear in life is the loss of my eye-sight I'm pretty much screwed (and not in the good way). To quote the British Retinitis Pigmentosa Society's information leaflet:
Obviously I'm getting in as much comic-reading, website-building and all-round-seeing now, whilst I still can. Monies, possible-cures, promotion-of-the-library (www.megasad.freeserve.co.uk); all of these things are welcome.
And now (May 11th, 2000) it turns out I'm shortsighted as well. So I get to wear glasses again. Woo-hoo. I'll post a photo of me wearing them as soon as I have one.
Contact me
If you like my website(s) and want to contact me there are three main ways:
- You can e-mail me at megasad@yahoo.com.
- You can sign the guestbook I have in my main site (Caleb Newcastle's Sad and Obsessive Comic Library).
- And finally, if you know me in real life, you can (shock-horror) talk to me.
And finally
If you want to read yet more self-indulgent shite about me you can check out the Caleb Newcastle page at The Freaks Webshite.
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Hereditary eye disease in which progressive degeneration of the retinal pigments leads to impairment of vision and, ultimately, to blindness. In the course of the disease the light-sensitive structures called rods--which are the visual receptors used in dim light--are destroyed early, causing night blindness in youth. Over time, further atrophy of the retina proper and of the layer of pigmented cells known as the pigment epithelium progressively constricts the field of vision until the affected person sees objects as if he were looking through a gun barrel. This stage is followed by complete blindness, usually by the age of 50. Deafness caused by a degeneration of the auditory nerve may accompany the visual loss. There are several hereditary patterns, but in most cases the disease is transmitted between generations as a recessive trait.
Courtesy of those Encyclopaedia Britannica dudes