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.