Cosplay progress?

A few days ago I posted about my dream cosplay - Colonel Commissar Ibram Gaunt, from Dan Abnett's Gaunt's Ghosts series of novels.  Since then I've been on the hunt for that perfect Napoleonic war-style officer's tunic to get the constume started.  It hasn't been going too bad - fortunately The Black Parade made that kind of style very popular in goth/alternative clothing circles, so there are things like that out there, even if you have to wade through mountains of chaff to find something worthwhile.

However I was talking about it at work with my sister yesterday, and one of our clients overheard our conversation and told us that his brother's friend owns a shop in Wednesbury which sells replica old-style military uniforms for historical recreations and the like.  They're probably going to cost an arm and a leg, but for Ibram Gaunt I'm willing to spend the money and assemble the costume slowly over time :)
With regards to my more immediate cosplay plan - Ford Prefect - the search continues to go well.  Although I still haven't found the perfect Argyle sweater/boating jacket combo I've come incredibly close, and that's only after one week of searching.  So with that in mind I have every confidence that this costume is going to come together nicely for Spring Memorabilia :)

FNM Result 25th November

Get ready for a mini blogging splurge!  Rather than having one massive and convoluted post, I'm going to make 3 entries about different bits and pieces.  So here's Friday Night Magic to start with.

This week's FNM was pretty good, although a little bit messy to start with.  I took my adjusted vampire deck along with me this week, and I say 'adjusted' because it's no longer pure vampires.  It always had Grave Titan and Sheoldred in there anyway, but I added Skirsdag High Priest, Royal Assassin, and 2 Reaper of the Abyss just to see how they performed.  Sadly the Reapers never made an appearence, but the Royal Assassin did his job well.  The High Priest wasn't too bad, and I managed to activate his 5/5 Demon ability once, but he wasn't consistent enough to justify a future place in the deck.  Definitely a sideboard card though, but in the meantime he'll be dropping out in favour of another low-mana vampire.  It was also the first time I tried the deck with Witchbane Orbs and Norn's Annex, and both of those cards worked nicely.

The evening started messily seeing as I was given a Bye with the first round.  There were uneven numbers and it was just luck of the draw.  Then after I settled down someone else appeared and was told 'you might as well play Rob', so we had a couple of games.  What neither of us realised was that we'd been officially paired up, so we thought it was just a friendly game to pass the time.  As a result we weren't really keeping score, we were sitching decks, and basically not adhering to the rules of FNM at all.  We only found out what had happened when we were asked to record our score and we didn't have one, so it was chalked up as a draw for official purposes.

After that the evening went considerably downhill with a pair of straight 2-0 defeats.  The Vampires at least held their own, and managed to put up a good fight before being defeated.  Now it's been a long time since I left FNM with less than two victories, so having racked up two defeats and a draw from the first three games I was on the verge of my worst performance for months.  I needed two victories out of two, and my Vampires didn't disappoint.

Round 4 was a straight 2-0 win.  The vamps came out thick and fast, and the removal spells in the deck helped me to keep control until I'd got an unstoppable tide of creatures out.

Round 5 was a little more nervewracking, as I was playing against a specifically anti-vampire white deck.  The first game was a devastating loss, my poor little vamps being smashed mercilessly to bits.  But then in the second game they managed to pull together and just scrape a win.  And then in the third they well and truly got their revenge, with a clobbering victory over their human adversaries.

So all in all it was a decent evening.  The simple result breakdown being:

Game 1: Draw

Game 2: Lost 2-0 vs Blue Illusions

Game 3: Lost 2-0 vs Red/White Artifacts

Game 4: Won 2-0 vs Black Vampires

Game 5: Won 2-1 vs White Humans

Overall ranking 16th (out of 31)

I'll probably be taking Vampires again next Friday, but version 1.0 of my Zombie deck is now finished :) I need to playtest it a lot this week, but if it looks alright then I may give it a FNM baptism of fire next week instead.  I think it may be suffering a creature shortage though, so it may need some tweaking and some more low-mana zombies.

In the grim darkness of the far distant future, there is only... cosplay?

On stage at Memorabilia this weekend I was asked what my dream cosplay would be, and I have to admit my mind went completely blank.  In spite of the fact that I was expecting that question, I just suddenly couldn't think of a single thing I'd like to do.  But if my brain had been in gear and I'd been thinking straight there would have been one dream cosplay, and one alone, which would have come to mind...

From The Black Library, and the pen of Dan Abnett, Colonel Commissar Ibram Gaunt.  The commanding office of the Tanith First and Only from the Warhammer 40,000 universe.  I've always loved the commissars in 40k, and their uniforms are just fantastic, and Ibram Gaunt has that edge over the rest of them with the iconic Tanith camo cape and the sword of Heironymo Sondar.

So there it is, my dream costume.  And ye gods I promise to myself that one day I'm going to do this, and grace the stage at Memorabilia as one of the greatest military commanders the Imperium of Man has ever seen!

For Tanith.  For the Emperor.

No one would have believed...

...that in the early years of the 21st century, Richard Burton would be replaced by Liam Neeson.

But apparently that's exactly what has happened.  I just received a text off an old workmate saying that there was a new tour of Jeff Wayne's War of the Worlds next December, and that Liam Beeson was playing Richard Button (don't you just love predictive text?).  Now I have to say I'm feeling well and truly divided over this.

I absolutely love Jeff Wayne's WotW and have been desperately waiting for another tour so I can go and see it live again, but I'm a little hesitant about Liam Neeson's role in it.  I think Neeson's a fantastic actor and he's got an amazing voice, but Richard Burton as the voice of the journalist is one of the most iconic things about Jeff Wayne's production.  Whenever I watch the dvd or listen to the soundtrack I always get chills when I hear Burton's opening monologue, and I don't think there's anyone who could match that.

That said, I would be very happy to be proven wrong in this matter.  The addition of Neeson to the big screen background sounds like it should be pretty cool, and if this is the direction that the live tour's going to take then I have no other choice but to give it a fair chance.

So, just a quick entry in light of some exciting/interesting/forboding news about my favourite stage show.  Hopefully in 12 months time I'll be eagerly blogging about how excited I am about going to see it in a couple of weeks!

A picture Prefect cosplay...

Well it may be another 4 months until the next Memorabilia, but I've already got the grey cells ticking over with regards to my next cosplay.  I've been to most Memorabilias in recent years, but I've never attended on both days before unless I've been running a stall, but in March I want to cosplay twice so I'll be there on both the Saturday and the Sunday :)

There's going to be a very noticeable theme over the weekend... something to do with Hitchhiking around the galaxy ;)  There are two tweaks that I'd like to make to my Arthur Dent costume, so I'll definitely be going as him again on one of the two days.  First of all I want to get a Babelfish sorted, and second of all I want to get a toy bulldozer, so that I can lie down in front of it to pose for photos!

For the second day I've had the seed of an idea planted in my head, and now there's simply no way to get rid of it!  So cosplay number two...

Arthur's constant friend and companion, Ford Prefect.  The Ford from the movie was terrible (as were a lot of things in that film), so for those who don't recognise this shot, it's the definitive Ford from the BBC TV series.  I've already started on my hunt for the argyle vest top and stripey jacket, and feel quietly confident that four months will be enough time to get this costume together :)  The only problem is that I know my hair won't be thick enough or long enough by March/April to match Ford's style, but I'll just have to do my best with what I can grow!

Stay tuned for updates over the coming months...

Dent Arthur Dent

I managed to get hold of a photo of me dressed as Arthur Dent at Memorabilia on Sunday! :)

This was taken when I was up on stage during the mini-masquerade.  Unfortunately Arthur Dent doesn't have a great deal of dramatic poses he can strike, but I do have a trick up my sleeve for next time ;)

Thanks muchly to Zoe (Romana from Sunday) for uploading this, and seeing as I'm shamelessly stealing her pics it's only fair that I put a link to her page of photos from the day, so here it is.

Memorabilia Sunday

So Memorabilia is over for another six months.  From a trading point of view it was still pretty disappointing, but from a fan's point of view it was a lot of fun again :)  I met a lot of nice, like-minded people, and had a good laugh with some friends and new folk alike.  In terms of spending I didn't pick up anything else for myself, but I started my Christmas shopping :)

So now I'm knackered and ready for bed, but first of all a quick costume roundup...

Indiana Jones was a nice surprise :) Not a costume you see very often.

Then I saw The Riddler from Batman.  There tend to be a lot of comic book cosplayers at Memorabilia, so I had to snap one when I saw him.

Two of the sponsored costumes at the show - Xena and Captain Jack Sparrow.  Both of them looked really good, and 'Jack' had the mannerisms down to a tee :)

From one of my favourite videogame series - Chris Redfield from Resident Evil 5

And another comic book cosplay - Loki, from Thor :)

Then a little later on I saw this group of three Final Fantasy XIII cosplayers, and was very grateful for a group shot :)

And last but definitely not least, Romana from Doctor Who :) This was Zoe, who I'd been nattering to on the Memorabilia forums and was a delight to meet.

The only one I'm missing is myself! I completely forgot to get a photo of me in my Arthur Dent costume, so I'll have to see if I can find one on the internet or get one from a friend.

So that's my Memorabilia experience for November.  Now, if you'll excuse me, it's time for bed :)

Memorabilia Saturday

Well, day one of Birmingham Memorabilia is over!  From a trading point of view I have to say it was very disappointing.  We barely made one-fifth of what I really needed to make, so I've just got to hope that I can pull out all the stops tomorrow to clear a lot of stock and make some money back.  I've got a few tricks up my sleeve though, so we'll have to wait and see what happpens ;)

From a fan's point of view it was a pretty damn good day :) The nice thing about having an anime stall is getting to interact with all of the fans, and it was great to have a good long babble about Death Note, Fullmetal Alchemist, Bleach, and a few of my other favourite anime series with the people who stopped by.  Even the ones who were only spending a pound, or even who weren't spending anything, it was great fun to just chat with likeminded people.  I didn't get a chance for many photos, but I did take a few...

First up, Kenpachi and Yachiru, from Bleach :)

Then Reno from FFVII (I think), Matsumoto and Byakuya from Bleach.

 Followed by myself as Ichimaru with Matsumoto from the previous group.  Anyone who knows Bleach will know the history between these two characters, which is why I wanted to get a photo of just the two of us.

Then a pretty awesome Battle Royale contestant, complete with exploding collar!  From the fact that she's still alive I'm guessing she must have won ;)

And then finally, from Bleach once again, Ulquiorra.

I did see a few more cosplays, including a pretty cool Lightning from Final Fantasy XIII, but I didn't have my camera on me for a lot of the time.  Tomorrow I'm going to have access to pockets (yey!) so I'm going to try and keep my camera on me at all times so I don't miss any cosplay photo ops.  I'm also going to be entering the masquerade tomorrow, so hopefully that should be fun.

On the shopping side of things I didn't go too nuts today.  I bought a bulk pack of Pocky from Tokyo Toys, one of my favourite anime retailers, and I bought the Kick Ass graphic novel, which I've been wanting to read for some time.  I also got myself three autographs - those of Derek Jacobi, Bruce Boxleitner, and Alice Krige.  They were all really nice folks and I even get to witness a really nice moment when Brice Boxleitner actually approached Derek Jacobi's table to shake his hand and tell hime how much he admired his work.  I've never seen that happen before at one of these events, and it really put a smile on my face.

Tomorrow's shopping list is largely work-based.  I'd like to get a calender for the wall or my desk, as well as some nice geeky coasters and a mousemat.  Aside from that I just hope to have a good day's trading, meet some more awesome people, and have some fun in the masquerade.  I shall blog again tomorrow night with tales of the final day as well as more cosplay photos!



Memorabilia jitters

Well I wanted to get a good night's sleep and be well-rested for the weekend's Memorabilia show, but it seems that's not going to happen.  I hit the hay about 11:00 last night, but then woke up at 12:00, 3:00, and finally 5:00, and this time I haven't been able to get back to sleep.  I think it's safe to say that nerves are the cause.

It's been 18 months since I last worked a Memorabilia, and 2 years since I last worked the pre-Christmas one.  But I think the biggest point of anxiety is that this is going to be my last Memorabilia, so I need to get as much stock sold as possible, otherwise it's just going to be left cluttering up the loft.  And seeing as all proceeds are going to paying off my debts so I can move out, there's a bit of extra pressure to do well.

I think the most important thing is that I just try and relax and enjoy the show, there's some great guests there this year who I can't wait to meet :) Today I'm hoping to meet Derek Jacobi (British acting legend, has appeared in damn-near everything, but my personal favourite was the title role in I, Claudius), Bruce Boxleitner (TRON in... well... TRON), and Alice Krige (The Borg Queen from Star Trek: First Contact).

Youtube wins

A pair of absolute epic Youtube wins which I felt compelled to share.  First up...


A mockup trailer for a 'serious' Super Mario Bros film.  I would pay good money to see this if it was made into a real film!
And second...

Excellent AMV for Jonathan Coulton's song, Code Monkey.  I heart this song ever so much and this is just an awesome video :)

Memorabilia Countdown

Just got home, all set up for Birmingham Memorabilia tomorrow :) Just need to have a shave and sort out my Ichimaru costume, and then grab an early night!

Salvation reached...

I've just finished reading Salvation's Reach by Dan Abnett, and after a slow start I have to admit it was pretty damn good.  Not one of the greatest in the Gaunt's Ghosts series, but probably up with the likes of Honour Guard.  The story was good, and a few characters said their farewells who will be sadly missed.  But I didn't really like any of the new characters, and was frankly a bit disappointed that they all made it through the book in one piece.

This has been the first time in a few months that I've got through a new book in the course of just a few days, and it felt good to be immersing myself with characters I love for a few hours a day :)  Now I'm up to date with the Tanith, the next thing to read is the latest in the Horus Heresy series; The Outcast Dead.  Once that's finished I have the sixth book in the Ciaphas Cain series, Cain's Last Stand, and by then I should have received my first ever Sisters of Battle novel, which has been preordered since the start of the year.  I've never read any of the novels about the Adeptus Sororitas before, but James Swallow is a good, solid author, and I have a feeling it's going to open up a whole new branch of the 40k universe which I previously knew very little about.

And THEN, once I'm all up to date with my favourite Black Library series, I can finally get back to A Song of Ice and Fire :)  I stopped part way through Steel and Snow, so it'll be good to get back to the Seven Kingdoms of Westeros.

Muchos reading still to do :)

Salvation's Reach, opening verdict...

Currently am about one-third of the way through Salvation's Reach - the 13th book in the Gaunt's Ghosts series.  Have to be honest, I'm not loving it so far.  It may improve, but at the moment this seems to be falling into the same kind of area as The Armour of Contempt.  Blood Pact and Traitor General are my two most recent favourite, but the series needs another big, rip-roaring novel like the glory days of Necropolis and Sabbat Martyr in my opinion.

FNM Result 11th November

Yes, two posts in quick succession, but I didn't think the little chocolate lament would fit in particularly well with this week's FNM result.

So another experimental week, this time I was using a slightly altered version of the Illusions deck I used at last Sunday's tournament.  A few counterspells have been removed to add a few unsummon spells, just so I have a defence against creatures which are already out.  I had high hopes for this deck, but sadly it still needs an awful lot of work, and completely fell apart on the night, resulting in my worst FNM performance since I started attending.  In one particular game I was killed in 6 turns, and in every turn all I did was play a land.  It was painful, to be quite honest.  The only victory of the night I got was against someone who had only been playing for a couple of months, and was at his first ever tournament of any description.

I will probably be unable to go to next week's FNM as I'll be setting up for the Birmingham Memorabilia event on the Friday afternoon, but if I get finished quickly enough then I will see if I can make it, and this time I will probably be playing Vampires again.  I'm also currently putting together a blue/black Zombie deck, but I've yet to playtest it.  However, given my love of zombies in general, this deck could well become my main deck if it works well.  I have a couple of cards on order for it and will post a decklist when they arrive, and then I'll be updating as and when I get a chance to see how it runs :)

But in the meantime, here's a breakdown of the Illusions' embarrasing performance on Friday

Game 1: Lost 2-0 vs Green Werewolves

Game 2: Lost 2-1 vs Red/Black Vampires

Game 3: Won 2-0 vs Green Werewolves & Tokens

Game 4: Lost 2-0 vs White Artifacts

Game 5: Bye (automatic 2-0 win)

It's the first time I've had a bye for poor performance in FNM, so I'm now feeling more determined than ever to get my Vampires and Elves up to a good fighting standard, and the sculpt these new Zombies into something terrifying.

A sign of the times

I've just been to Asda (Walmart, to you folks in the States... hello, folks in the States :) I do hope you're having a good weekend.  Trans-atlantic hugs), and have been confronted with a distressing sign of the times we live it: shrinking chocolate.

Oh I haven't had my head buried in the sand, I'm well aware of the fact that bars are getting smaller.  250g became 230g, half an inch got trimmed off Mars bars, it's all been happening since the recession.  It's a shame, but it's something we've all had to learn to live with.  But one thing I though was safe were the tins of chocolates.  Whenever Christmas approaches and the tins of Roses, Heroes and Celebrations (even Quality Street, if you have no soul) hit the shelves, they always seemed like they were going to weather the storm of chocolate shrinkage.  But today I picked up a tin each of Roses and Heroes, and have had to face the fact that they are now a whopping 20% smaller than in days gone by.  1kg has become 800g.

This makes me quite sad.  That is all.

A wholly remarkable book...

Here it is, ready to go.  My Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy for next Sunday :)

"In many of the more relaxed civilizations on the Outer Eastern Rim of the Galaxy, the Hitchhiker's Guide has already supplanted the great Encyclopaedia Galactica as the standard repository of all knowledge and wisdom, for though it has many omissions and contains much that is apocryphal, or at least wildly inaccurate, it scores over the older, more pedestrian work in two important respects.
First, it is slightly cheaper; and secondly it has the words DON'T PANIC inscribed in large friendly letters on its cover."

And the finishing touch...

Really looking forward to the weekend now!

Coffee shop girls

Why is it that coffee shops tend to employ girls who could best be described as "criminally attractive"?

Not a complaint.

Finally, a lie-in! :)

After a fair few weeks, finally I've managed to sleep in on the weekend! Ye gods it feels good :)  Not sure why, but recently I've just been so fidgety that I've been completely unable to stay in bed past 8:00.  It's about to come crashing to an end as I have to get up to go to Hobbycraft in a few minutes, but it was certainly a nice treat while it lasted.

It's been about a week since I updated, but there's not a great deal to talk about really.  Work's been pretty good.  The two new girls in the lab have settled in nicely and helped to ease the workload in there.  I'm quite looking forward to monday as our new admin girl starts then.  For the last few weeks I've been doing the admin assistants job seeing as our old one left, so once our new girl's settled in I can start actually doing  my own job :)

In the world of Magic I have been buying pretty new cards (as always), and am in the process of building a pretty funkeh Zombie deck :)  On paper it should work pretty well, but I'll have to wait and see.  Really can't wait to try it out at a FNM.  Oh and I now have 19 foil forests in my Elf deck :D  This Friday I tried out a Blue Illusions deck at FNM and it really didn't work out, but I shall post a full FNM result later on.

And the other big news is Memorabilia.  I've now got all of the stock I want for my stall, my dealer's pack has arrived, and I'm just about ready to go.  My Arthur Dent costume is all set for Sunday as well :) I bought myself new pyjamas and a new towel especially for the occasion, I just need to make my Hitchhiker's Guide now, which is the reason I'm off to Hobbycraft!

So I must go now.  Hoopy things are calling...

Elf Deck List

Yes, I'm posting a third blog entry for this evening.  Just before I head off to bed I wanted to finally post my Elf deck list from Magic The Gathering.  There's another mini tournament tomorrow, so it's got my MTG brain working away, and as a result I feel compelled to do this.

To be honest I'd rather be giving my new Vampires another test run, but seeing as my sister's going to be using them then I shall stick with my tried, tested, and much-loved Elves.  I have spent months working at this deck and am happy with it, but the Vampires are new and in need of as much playtesting as possible!

I have been on eBay this morning and purchased the only Elf this deck was missing :) I have to admit I didn't even know about her until this morning, but was so good that I quite simply HAD to get her and slot her into my deck.  Character-wise she's a bit of a mis-match, but ability-wise she melds nicely and will be a very welcome addition.  So the following list is not actually the one I'll use tomorrow, but in about a week it will be the final (probably) version of my first-choice deck... I rather think I'll be heartbroken when the Scars block rolls out of Standard Legal!

Main deck (yes it's 68 cards! *gasp* sue me.)

• 4x Llanowar Elves
• 4xCopperhorn Scout
• 4x Ezuri's Archers
• 4x Ezuri's Brigade
• 4x Elvish Archdruid
• 4x Ezuri, Renegade Leader
• 2x Glissa, The Traitor
• 4x Platinum Emperion
• 4x Swiftfoot Boots
• 4x Darksteel Plate
• 4x Naturalize
• 2x Titanic Growth
• 19x Forest
• 5x Swamp

Sideboard:

• 4x Gladecover Scout
• 2x Titanic Growth
• 2x Melira, Sylvok Outcast
• 2x Trepanation Blade
• 2x Phyrexian Metamorph

Happy Bonfire Night!

Sorry for the shortness of my last post, it was the first time I'd tried blogging whilst mobile with the hastily-downloaded Blogger app.  It's not fantastic, but it's certainly going to be great for blogging photos on-the-go :)

So anyways, yes.  Happy Bonfire Night.  It does seem somewhat strange to me that we British celebrate someone's attempt to blow up the entire government.  It seems even stranger that we liked the idea enough to still be celebrating it several hundred years down the line.  But I guess if Guy Fawkes had never tried to blow up parliament then we'd never have had V For Vendetta.  So good Guy Fawkes *pats head* Have a gold star.

I don't really mark bonfire night at all.  I sometimes spend half an hour or so watching fireworks out of the window, but I never actually go out to bonfires or firework displays.  I do love walking on November 5th though, as the smell of fireworks is very nice, and I was glad I got the opportunity to do that this evening :)

Yes, this evening I went out on bonfire night!  But no it wasn't anything bonfire/firework based in the slightest, it was a night of all-you-can-eat sushi at Woktastic in Birmingham (see previous post for a dynamic sushi conveyor belt action shot!).  I've eaten off their set menu before, but I've never had their sushi buffet, and I have to say I wasn't disappointed.  Fantastic selection, a nice handful of hot dishes, and a couple of welcome desserts.  In the end I filled up on a whopping 22 dishes, so I certainly got my money's worth!

It was originally organised as a work night out, but in the end only 3 of us turned up; Cass, Rich (Northie) and myself.  I was hoping for about half a dozen or so, but illnesses, family gatherings, and prior engagements whittled the numbers down.  It was still a good night though, and fun was had all round.  The one and only downside was that by 8:00 we were all stuffed and ready for bed!  It probably would have been a good idea to book later... perhaps that's something to think about if we decide to go again in the future.

So that's about it.  Happy Bonfire Night, people of the UK! Happy Saturday, everyone else.  And happy sushi to me!

Oh yes, and in other news, I watched Unstoppable this morning (Denzel Washington, Chris Pine, and a runaway train).  I was quite interested when I saw clips of it a few months back, but never saw it at the cinema.  I enjoyed it, and would certainly recommend it to folks :) A good flick, that's for sure.

Okay, I'm very sleepy now.  Post-food naps are needed.  Bye bye.

WOKTASTIC!!!

So much sushi!

I think 22 plates has filled me though!  What a cracking evening :)

FNM Result 4th November

Yep, it's Friday Night Magic results time!  And last night was a little different because I finally played with my vampire deck instead of my usual elves.  They do work a little slower than my elf deck, but I have to say they're a lot more fun to use, and I did a lot better than normal with them!  Sorin Markov, Bloodlord of Vaasgoth, and Grave Titan all saw action, so I did quite well with the hands I drew.

There were two downsides to the evening though.  Firstly the traffic was ridiculous so I arrived over half an hour late.  I was given a bye (automatic win), but I'd have rather had a proper game even if there was a chance I would have lost.  And secondly at the end of the night I left early and forgot to stay for the random promo giveaway.  November's FNM promo is a Go For The Throat, which I really like so am a bit annoyed with myself for losing the chance to win one.

But aside from that, I had fun.  Like I said, the Vampires were fun, and even when they lost they certainly put up a fight.  So, the results in full...

Game 1 - Bye (Win 2-0)

Game 2 - Lost 2-0 vs White tokens

Game 3 - Lost 2-1 vs Artifacts

Game 4 - Won 2-0 vs White tokens

Game 5 - Won 2-1 vs Vampires

Game 6 - Won 2-1 vs Vampires

I'm using the Elves again in a tournament tomorrow, but I think they may have to go into a FNM timeshare with the Vampires :) I'll probably use Vampires all month at FNM to see how they do, but at the moment they do seem to be the more powerful deck.

Baking fail?

...at this point we just don't know.

The book club man came around at work today and, as I often do, I picked up the obligatory cookbook in his latest offerings.  And being something of a Cadbury whore, I was very happy that it was a Cadbury's chocolate cookbook.  I had a quick leaf through it in the staff room earlier in the week - there was nothing in it that particularly stood out, but for only £3 I figured it was worth picking up and looking at closer.  So this evening, about midway through Masterchef Australia, I decided I really wanted to bake something nice but simple tonight to take into work and share with my minions tomorrow.

I had a good read through and I found a nice simple Chocolate Mousse cake, which I already had all of the ingredients for except for 200g of dark chocolate, so I swiftly scooted up the road to pick that up, and then came back home and got to work.

Now this was a very new experience for me - baking a cake without any flour.  Might sound strange, but all it contained was chocolate, butter, eggs, sugar, and some orange liquor.  According to the recipe it was supposed to rise during baking, then sink during cooling, and then once cooled it should have a texture similar to that of chocolate mousse (but with all the added bonus of being a cake).  The downside to this recipe was that there was no photo accompanying it, leaving me with no idea as to how well I'd managed to make mine.

Anyways, I ploughed on undeterred, and about an hour and a half later I took my finished cake out of the oven and it looked beautiful... which was quite a pity because I knew that it was going to be collapsing in on itself imminently.  About 20 minutes later I came back to a sorry-looking cake, which was just about cool enough to take out of the cake tin and transfer to a plate.  So now I'm just left waiting until morning for it to have cooled completely so that I can try slicing it and see what the consistancy's like :) I'm quite nervous, but I'm looking forward to giving it a try.  Unfortunately it still looks rather pathetic, so I wont be taking it in to share with the folks at work.  But anyways, yeah, I'm now just left counting down the hours and waiting to see if I've made an epic baking fail, or if I've managed to make an ugly looking cake with a soft and yummy heart ;-p

Hmm. Dreams again.

Evening folks.  Seems a bit of an odd time to be blogging about last night's dreams, but hey, what are blogs for?

It was a bit of a weird one.  Obviously in recent weeks I have left my old hospital job in order to return to my previous workplace in a more senior role.  It's been going alright, and I haven't for a moment looked back on the hospital days.  But in my dream last night I'd gone back to the hospital and had just started there again, but the weird thing was that the building itself was actually my new work place.  I was feeling kinda weird for being back there, but then suddenly I saw that one person I was hoping I'd never have to see or deal with again, and my heart sank.  Suddenly I was left thinking "god, why have I come back here?"  I woke up soon after that, but it was something like 5:00 in the morning, so I was still very tired and it took me a few minutes to remember where I actually work at the moment!  Needless to say when I worked it out I felt incredibly relieved, but that few minutes was a little bit horrifying, especially considering how realistic and tangible the dream felt.

Anyways, that was my nightmare last night.

In other Wednesday news, we interviewed folks at work today, and should very shortly be having some lovely new people starting.  They seem nice and level headed, and I frankly can't wait for them to start :) It'll be nice to have some fresh faces, and to see the place back up to full staff levels again... plus I'll have more minions to make me feel more like a proper Bond villain.  Tomorrow we're interviewing for another role, and I'm hoping we get some good interviewees seeing as they'll be working pretty closely with me.

And the other exciting news is the arrival of more Magic The Gathering cards for Memorabilia.  I've now got everything I want to sell, and the bonus is that if they don't sell I get lots of cards for my own collection!  I've also treated myself to 2 of the alternate art foil promo version of Bloodlord of Vaasgoth for my vampire deck.

So that's my Wednesday.  Now umming and ahhing over whether to watch Biggles, Sucker Punch, or Yu-Gi-Oh: The Abridged Series.  Decisions, decisions.