Re: Your brains. An explanation

You may recall a couple of weeks ago I posted a very brief blog entry about being a zombie. And then I went to the pub.  Well it's explanation time.

Wish.co.uk (whose logo you can see splattered behind me) run a zombie apocalypse survival experience day, where you can go and spend the day in an abandoned shopping mall or old manor house, get given a shotgun, and are tasked with surviving against hoardes of rampaging zombies.  Now obviously until my research is complete there are currently no such things as zombies, which is why they require sporting (but slightly deranged) folk to dress up as zombies and take on the appropriate undead roles for the enjoyment of all.

Well it seems the zombie manor house (located in Warrington, just south of Manchester) is in need of new zombies, so on Thursday June 28th there were auditions run at Pineapple Dance Studio in London to find the perfect walking corpse.

It was a bit of a spur of the moment thing. I only found out about the auditions through Stephen Fry's Twitter feed on Tuesday night, but luckily was able to get the day off at short notice.  At this point I didn't even know if I could feasibly make it to Warrington and back every other weekend even if I got the job, but thought the audition itself would be a good laugh.  So through insane storms I trudged, and against all odds I made it to the doors of the studio in one (very wet) piece.

Seeing as I've never tried applying any kind of horror movie makeup before I just turned up as myself, and once I'd registered I was swiftly lead off to have some wonderful zombie touches applied to my face, and you can see the results yourself!

The actual audition only lasted a few minutes. There was a brief video interview of my zombie character (How did you die? What's your favourite organ to eat? Etc.), followed by a brief interview of myself (Where have you travelled from? Do you mind being shot at with ballistic weapons? Etc.), and then the moment where all of the zombie impressions at the pub finally paid off.  I was asked to leave the room and re-enter in zombie mode, and once I heard an audio cue ("Oh shit, it's a zombie!) I had to go into attack mode and launch myself at the audition panel.

Once that was over all of the zombies just milled around outside the studios, just chatting and following random passers-by down the street.  And when it was all over we were taken down the pub for drinks :) It should be noted that the pub was about a 10-15 minute walk away, and we all (roughly 50 of us at this point) stayed in character for the shamble through the streets of London. We got some strange looks, but it was all good fun!  Unfortunately I couldn't stay too late on account of the 4 hour journey home, but I enjoyed the post-audition mingle nonetheless.  And I stayed in makeup all the way home.

First corals

When I first set up my fish tank at the beginning of February there were only three things I particularly wanted for it; a clownfish, a cleaner shrimp, and a piece of coral.  Obviously as the weeks and months went on my ambitions grew, and my aquarium is now host to a whole undersea menagerie, but out of my initial wishlist the only thing still missing was some coral.  This wasn't down to any kind of supply problems with the store or anything like that - indeed they have an entire 10 foot tank filled with nothing but coral!  The simple problem was that corals need an established and settled tank to thrive in, and it's not recommended to add them into any tank until it's about 6 months old.

So on Sunday when I went in to get the salt water for my fortnightly water change I ended up picking up a couple of very interesting and beautiful specimens!  To be honest I went in hoping to get this elusive anemone for my clowns, but they were still waiting for stock to arrive so I ended up with my nose in the coral tank instead.  Here's what I ended up with:

I went with this two pieces of mushroom coral, which were together on this lump of living rock in the tank.  They're a type of soft coral and are apparently quite hardy which makes them well suited to beginners such as myself.  I've named the one on the left Sigismund, and the slightly larger one on the right Ahriman.

Then there was this guy.  I missed it to start with, as it was anchored onto a very small piece of rock, and is simply a very thin, green spiral, looping its way upwards.  As it didn't have a price on it and it wasn't like any other type of coral I've ever seen I wasn't sure what it was!  I asked the guy who I usually deal with in the store and he didn't have a clue, so he took the default option of offering to sell it me for £3 (whenever I discover strange and unexpected things in their tanks, they just offer them to me for £3 and I usually go for them!).  Obviously for that price I couldn't resist another new addition for the tank so I took it home, got it settled in and started Googling.  It didn't take me long to find out that this is a piece of spiral wire coral, which is a type of hard coral.  Since this photo was taken I've repositioned it to have a high up, central position in the tank, and it looks quite spectacular!

So there we are, my first three corals!  I may get another one in a few weeks, but due to the size of the tank I should probably leave it at that.  Now I'm just waiting for the anemone for my clowns, and a mandarin to round off the group.  Stay tuned for more pictures!



Re: Your Brains...

 

Yesterday I was a zombie.  This may well have been the most fun day of my entire life, so much so that it deserves a gushing blog entry!

However, I'm heading out to the pub in a bit, so the blog entry will have to wait!  Stay tuned though :)

Another new addition



So another week goes by and my little marine community gains another new member.  This week we have a sand-sifting starfish who goes by the name of Malcador, and here he is!  I caught him earlier investing the water surface and it seemed the perfect opportunity for a nice clear photo.  Normally (being a sand-sifting starfish) he spends his time burrowed under the sand in the tank, so photo opportunities are rare. In fact this was him literally moments after being first released into the tank...

Five minutes after this was taken he'd completely buried himself and I didn't see him again for 24 hours!

He's a very funky little guy, but they do have quite the appetite so I'll need to make sure I'm supplying the tank with enough food in the coming weeks. I only have 5 occupants really who eat the fresh food - the two clownfish, the two chromis, and the cleaner shrimp - but I have a lot of detrivores in the tank who eat leftover, uneaten food.  This is great in terms of keeping the tank clean, but of course it also means I have to work out how much to overfeed the fish so there's enough leftovers to go around.

It hasn't all been good news this week though, my suspicions that Roboute Guilliman (white-legged hermit crab) had died were confirmed when I found Lorgar (pom pom crab) munching on his remains.  It was a shame, but I hadn't had him long enough to get attached, so I wasn't too gutted by his death.  I won't be getting another one though - both of my white-legged hermits only lasted a few days, so either they're a little too delicate for a beginner like me, or they had a bad batch in the shop.  Either way, with the addition of the starfish I think my cleaner crew's big enough now.  Any further fatalities will be replaced, but I won't invest in any new clean-up critters.

So at this stage my tank is almost complete.  Hopefully this weekend I'll be able to buy (or at least reserve) an anemone, and then in another few months I'll get a psychadelic mandarin to finish the tank off.  In terms of naming, I've now run out of primarchs from Warhammer 40,000 (I've already reserved Corax for the anemone and Horus for the mandarin), so I'll need a new theme for the next generation of critters.  I'm thinking Mass Effect, but hopefully everyone will live for a good long while, so I won't have to give it any thought for at least a couple of years.

More invertebrates

Well the tank is continuing to progress nicely. I'm still waiting for an anemone for the clownfish, but the only one they have in the store is too big for my tank, so I'm just waiting for the next batch of stock to arrive in a fortnight.  In the meantime, I've expanded my cleaner crew with 4 new members.

 These guys are a pair of Pom Pom Anemone crabs, also known as Boxer crabs. It's fairly obvious to look at them how they got their name. The 'pom poms' are actually crab-claw anemones, which live in a symbiotic relationship with the crabs.  The crabs use the anemones to pick up uneaten food and general detritus off the tank floor, and also for self-defence against predatory fish.  The one on the left is named Khan, and the one on the right is named Lorgar.

This little guy is a white-legged hermit crab. He's quite a bit larger than the two red-legged hermits I also have, and has noticabley larger claws which he uses to defend his shell.  The most striking part of this little guy is his bright blue eyes, which as really beautiful. I actually bought a much larger crab originally, but sadly he died after about 48 hours so I returned to the shop and bought this guy as a replacement. His name is Roboute Guilliman.

On top of these guys I also bought a large orange-spotted sand-sifting snail.  I haven't been able to photograph him because he spends his time buried in the sand at the base of the tank.  His function is to keep turning the sand over to keep it aerated, whilst also cleaning up general detritus. His name is Vulkan.

So that's the latest tank update. In two weeks time I head back for my next water change, and hopefully they'll have an anemone I can bring home for the clownfish as well, but we'll just have to wait and see!

Today I met legends.

Today was a pretty good day as far as my autograph collecting went, as I attended my first Collectormania in Milton Keynes.  Let me say first of all that it was a truly poorly organised event.  The car park was a shambles with people just parking up wherever they fancied and no system of marshalls to keep things in order, and once you got inside it was pretty much the same in terms of the arrangement and the system for meeting guests.

However, once all of that was out of the way I did meet some pretty darned awesome guests :)

First up I met Carl Weathers, the man who played Apollo Creed in the Rocky series and Dillon in the first Predator film.  Both were films I loved while growing up, and I'm still a big Rocky fan so it was fantastic to meet him.

Second up I met the legend that is Lance Henriksen (above). I have to admit I wasn't sure what to expect from him, but he was a thoroughly bloody nice bloke :) He was the only person I was able to get a photo with and I was able to have a decent little chat with him (even if it was largely about how rubbish the weather was!). I very nearly didn't meet him today due to a tight budget, but I was extremely glad I took the chance now.

Then thirdly I met Sean Astin, who you may know as Sam from Lord of the Rings, or maybe even Mikey from The Goonies! Unfortunately he had such a big queue of fans that it was a bit like a production line; you handed over your picture and a slip of paper with your name on it, he'd sign an autograph, hand it over and move onto the next person. This did feel like it was an organisational thing rather than Sean's choice, but it was a bit of a shame not to be able to stop and chat for a few moments. I did get a handshake off him though, and of course one more autograph towards my Lord of the Rings collection.

Would I go back to Collectormania? Absolutely not. As an event it was a miserable experience, even though the guests were all cracking people :)

Fingers crossed for more fishy friends!

Well the Clownfish are settling in nicely, and the next planned addition to the tank was to be their anemone, but a quick visit to the pet shop has changed everything today.

Originally today's visit was just to reserve myself an anemone to pick up next weekend, but they had a lot of stock in which I hadn't seen before, and some which they only get in very rarely.  The rarity was a Mandarin, which I've been wanting to get as the final fish for my community.  They only have the one in, so tomorrow I plan to speak to my regular guy there and see if I can reserve it for next weekend and place the anemone on hold for a fortnight.

The exciting new additions were rather large sand-sifting snails, and also pretty big white-legged hermit crabs.  A snail I'd definitely love to have - I already have a turbo snail, but the sand-sifter would help to eliminate the algae problem I'm having in the substrate.  The hermit on the other hand is a bit more iffy.  Very beautiful creatures to be sure, but I know that some hermits can have a bit of a rough temperament, so I don't want anything that will upset my small red hermits, or either of the snails, so tomorrow I'll be asking about how compatible one of those would be with the other tank members.

At the very least I plan to add the snail to my aquarium tomorrow, and if all goes well I'll be adding the snail and a nice big fat hermit crab as well :) And then it'll be a week until the Mandarin, a fortnight after that until the anemone, and then my little tank community will finally be complete.  Altogether I'm feeling quite excited at the moment.

Fish!

Well it's been a few months! Settled into the new flat, settled into the new job. Got new friends, new hobbies, new haunts, and finally mu fish tank is almost all set up!  There's been a few casualties along the way - a Sea Hare, a Fire Shrimp, and a Turbo Snail.  But now I finally have the Clownfish I always wanted, a pair of Chromis, one Turbo Snail, a Cleaner Shrimp, two Hermit Crabs, a Peanut Worm, two Mini Brittle Starfish, and in a week I'll have an Anemone for the clowns :) It's really helping to have something living in the flat with me, and I already love all these little guys to bits.

I am insuranced!

See? I have remember the difference! :-D

Before and not-quite-after

So here I go with my first blog entry in my new place!  Isn't that exciting?  I'm excited.  Are you excited?  No?  Well you should be - I was going to buy you cake.  But now I'm not because you didn't get excited, and it's no one's fault but your own.

*ahem*

Anyways, this is my third night in my new home, but I've only just got connected to the internet, which is why I've only just gotten around to blogging.  The upside of this is that I've had lots of time to get myself settled and all of my things shelved/stashed/arranged as I'd like them.  I've just spent the last couple of hours running through all of my necessary address changes so am feeling a bit knackered, so this is just going to be a short entry with a few photos.

The reason this post is entitled "...not-quite-after" is because I'm not completely moved in yet.  I still have another car-load of stuff to bring up from my parents' house, but still I've got some shots from before I started unpacking and some from afterwards, so you can see the place starting to take shape.  On Sunday evening I should have everything settled and will be posting a proper 'after' photo :)

 So here is my kitchen.  It's not a massive kitchen, but for one person it doesn't really need to be.  The basics are there and there's just enough room to store enough food/cutlery to keep me alive between shopping trips!

Behold the living room!  It's a good size for me, with a pair of two-seater sofas and a helluvva lot of shelf space for my ridiculous collection of dvds/games/books/comics.  The floor does slant a little bit though, so it could be tricky if I've had a few to drink.

So here's the kitchen, post-tidying.  There's not much different since this photo, just the addition of a draining rack and a couple of fridge magnets! 

And this is the breakfast bar.  It's tidier than this at the moment.  The top is entirely clear except for my cookbooks which I've decided to store on here. 

 Here's a pretty drastic difference for you - the post-tidy living room!  Since this photo was taken I've added a glass display cabinet and my fish tank/table.  I've just got to get my coffee table up now, and the picture on the back wall is going to be replaced with my Clint Eastwood picture.

And here's the bedroom.  I use the term "room" very loosely, because it's really just a sleeping area of the upper floor in general.  It may only be room enough for the bed itself and a couple of wardrobes, but once again it's all I need.  Unlike at my parents' house I won't be spending most of my free time sat in bed, so all I really need it for is a place to sleep.

So that's where I'm now living (yes there's a bathroom, but I didn't think it was exciting enough to justify photos).  Like I said, I'll post a fresh living room photo on Sunday when the rest of my things are in, and hopefully I'll be able to get some photos of my furry neighbours before long as well!

For now though, be excellent to eachother.  And party on, dudes.

Farewell to an old life

Well I'm typing this blog entry from the comfort of my rickety old bed, and I'm just about to turn in for the night for the final time in my room.  This time tomorrow I'll be curled up in a different bed, in a different city, in my own apartment for the first time in my life... I'm feeling quite excited :)

It's a bit of a sad state in here at the moment.  It still feels like my room, but that's more a case of me being used to it as my room.  But everything that made it my personal living space has been stripped bare.  At the moment I'd actually say there's a feeling of sadness which is just overriding the excitement, but I think that once everything is unpacked in my new place and it feels like home then I'll be feeling pretty awesome.

I shall miss the cats though :( I need to visit the cats lots.

So tomorrow I shall be finishing work at about 13:00, driving to the estate agents to fill out paperwork and pick up keys, heading to my new place to measure it up a little, and then making trips there and back with my belongings.  And then going food shopping.  If I've got any energy left after all of that then I'll put some photos up, but I can't guarantee anything!



10 days to go...

As the song goes, "All my bags are packed, I'm ready to go..."

Well okay, not quite all of my bags are packed.  And most of my stuff is in boxes.  And I'm most definitely not leaving on a jet plane.  But at least the bit about being ready to go is true.  With ten days to go until I uproot from Sutton and finally make a home for myself in Lichfield, I am well and truly ready for the move.  All forms of entertainment are packed, aside from one or two things in each category;

All of my Xbox games are packed except for Dead Island, which I'm currently playing.  All of my dvds are packed, except for Underworld and The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest, which I only bought this evening.  All of my comics are packed, except for Marvel's Civil War, which I'm reading.  And all of my books are packed, except for Gav Thorpe's Deliverance Lost, which I started reading this afternoon.

My spare Magic cards are packed, as are allof my Fluxx decks and my Zombies!!! board game.  Most of my clothes are packed...  I really am now at a point where I have nothing more to do until the big day.

It's going to be a bit sad to leave - you can't live in the same place for 30 years without getting attached, but frankly I can't wait to get this move started.

It's official!

I can now officially say I'm moving out! :)  The estate agent called today to confirm that my credit checks and references have all come back fine, and so I can go in to pick up the keys and put down the deposit on February 1st.  Now that all doubt has well and truly been put out of my mind I can bring some boxes home from work and start packing my assorted bits and pieces.  The priority (aside from the fish tank, obviously, and essentials such as clothes etc) has to be my books, dvd's and Xbox games.  Once I've got those in then it's just a case of taking over what I can until I have a comfortable living space which isn't cluttered.

So while I'm settling into my new place my Friday Night Magic attendance will be taking a dip, and my cosplay efforts will be put on the back burner, but once I'm settled I can get back to my weekly FNM reports and my quest for the perfect Prefect :)

Pop back at the beginning of February to see some photos of my new home!

A home within a home

Behold, my wonderous marine aquarium!!!

Pretty impressive huh?  Oh fine then, that's not my wonderous marine aquarium.  It is, in fact, the photo off the front of the box.  This is my aquarium as it currently stands...

So not quite so scenic at the moment, but the important thing is that the initial expense has been paid and my fish-to-be have a home!  I had a good chat with the assistant at Aquatic Pets & Gardens in Stonall, and he was really helpful.  I ended up getting a package which included everything I need for starting up a reef tank, even including the pre-mixed salt water.  Once I've moved in I just need to head back to pick up my water and some living rock, then after running the tank for a week or two I can start adding livestock - probably starting with the Hermit Crabs :)  He recommended I don't go with the Humbugs as they can be a bit aggressive, so I'm probably going to go with Yellowtail Damsels instead.

I'm rather excited, it had to be said.

And another little treat for me today...

As a housewarming gift my sister bought me a little indoor water feature :)  There's a definite aquatic theme to my new apartment!

A Fishy Update

Well the whole "moving out" thing seems to be proceeding very much on schedule, with a Feruary 1st move-in date currently on the cards.  As long as my credit checks turn out fine then I should have nothing to worry about, and there's no reason that they should come back as anything less than stellar.

So I have been turning my attention to my future living companions; a tank full of marine fish.  Well okay, I have also done some sensible things such as buying new bedding and towels to take with me (the place is fully furnished, so on that front I'm all set), but with that sorted I spend an hour or so at Planters in Tamworth today to get some ideas about marine fishkeeping and just which species I'd actually like to keep.

I picked out a tank today, but haven't bought it yet.  First of all I don't have the money at present, secondly I have nowhere to store it for the next month, and thirdly I know that would completely jinx my credit check!  But I've at least picked it out, and it's a complete started setup, a decent sized tank, and isn't heinously expensive.  The assistant in the shop talked me through it and said that a tank of that size would be suitable for 4-5 fish, not including invertebrates.  By that point I'd already decided on the aquatic lineup from looking through their livestock, so I told him what I was after and said that the tank would be fine :)  So hopefully I'll be the proud keeer of a little marine community in a few weeks' time!  I shall, of course, be posting photos of my little fishy friends once they're alll settled in.

So, my intended lineup.  First up, a pair of Common Clownfish.  Yes, Finding Nemo has made them the bog-standard marine fish, but they are incredibly beautiful and I'd love to own a couple.  And with the Clownfish of course comes the anemone, in this case a Malu Anemone.  They'll be all the more fascinating to watch with an Anemone as part of the community.

Then the other two regular fish will be a pair of Humbugs, so-called for their black and white stripes.  I was torn between these and a pair of Yellow Tail Damsens, but the Humbugs won me over when I saw them in a tank with the Clownfish and the contrast in colours looked marvellous.

Invertebrate-wise I'm after a Cleaner Shrimp, as these guys just look really cool, and I can imagine myself spending ages just sat by the tank watching them at work.  And finally a pair of Hermit Crabs, which again will be fascinating to watch and nice to have to round off the community.

Being a marine setup as well I plan to get some coral (as yet undecided), and then I just need some scenery with lots of little spaces for the fish to swim/crawl through and explore.

Once I'm settled into the new place, I can picture this as being a very happy place to live :)

Speed: Epic finance fail.

On the way home from work today I suddenly fancied watching the movie Speed.  It's been a long time since I last watched it and it was good to watch a nice bit of mid-nineties action.

But for the first time ever I realised what a terrible financial decision it was not to give into Dennis Hopper's character and just pay him.  For the sake of saving $3.7million they wrecked a city bus, a jumbo jet, a subway train, and caused god only knows how much damage to other road vehicles, streets, and the subway system itself.

They really dropped the ball on that one.

A place to call home

I always said I wanted to move out by the time I was 30.  There does seem to be a certain stigma attached to living with your parents at 30.  Granted I also wished to be married by 25, but we all know that didn't quite work out the way I'd hoped!  But the moving out by 30 thing was an important personal landmark, and unfortunately it seemed for the longes time that my 30th birthday was just about going to beat me to it.

But, as the say, what a difference a day makes.

I went to view a place this afternoon in Lichfield, and all is looking good with regards to being able to move in next month!  I was a bit hesitant as it was described as "studio style" and I've never liked the idea of a studio flat, but this was just perfect.  It didn't take long to look around, but the apartment's a perfect size, it's a great price, it's in a truly beautiful location, and it's fully furnished :)  the landlord was a fantastic guy and has said that if I want it then my early February timeframe fits in perfectly for him, so I think I've found myself a happy little nest :)

More news to follow...

A year in films...

So with the new year now underway my cinema viewing list has now been reset.  Last year I managed to get to the cinema a whopping 19 times - not much for a true film buff, but for me it was a pretty impressive tally.  I don't particular expect to top it this year, but then again it's not supposed to be a target, more a point of comparison.

With that in mind I've compiled a list of the films which, at this early stage in the year, I already know I would like to go and see before January 1st rolls round again.  Obviously this won't be all of the films for 2012, as there are undoubtedly some in the works if which I'm not aware, but will see a trailer for in a several months and go "Ooooooh! I want to see that!".  Simlarly I dare say that some of these may be plagued with enough bad reviews to put me off going to see them on the big screen and end up waiting for the DVD or Sky Movies release (I'm looking at you, Green Lantern!).

Anyways, without further rambling, here is my intended 2012 cinema list as it currently stands:

·       The Avengers

·       Spider-Man

·       The Dark Knight Rises

·       The Woman in Black

·       World War Z

·       J. Edgar

·       Prometheus

·       The Pirates! In an Adventure with Scientists

·       Men in Black 3

·       Snow White and the Huntsman

·       Django Unchained