1110th
Mar

Yesterday Tatty Devine had a special 24 hour offer for free postage on their website. I’ve had my eye on the newly restocked Arghhhhh necklace for a couple of days, and this was the push I needed to buy it! It’s one of those pieces from an older collection that I loved, but never got around to buying before it sold out. I’m so glad I had the second chance to buy it.

It was Pancake Day (as well as International Women’s Day, strange coincidence) on Tuesday, which meant getting out the eggs, milk and flour, and a big jar of nutella of course. My brother tried to take charge (having been a pub chef until recently) but his efforts just ended in a half burnt/half undercooked greasy mess, so I took over with my expert pancake skills. The best recipe I’ve ever used was one my old French housemate taught me, which involved copious amounts of rum and leaving the batter to sit for about an hour. Sadly we had no rum and not enough time so we had to just make do, but they still turned out pretty well. I left the flipping to the others though as last time I tried that, the pancake just ended up on the floor.

This week for some reason, the Triforce necklaces have been selling like hotpancakes. Good thing we restocked them recently! Maybe February is when all the Legend of Zelda fans were born.

This Friday sees the premiere of the worlds first feature film made for release via the internet. ‘Girl Walks Into A Bar’ is an 80 minute comedy that follows strangers in ten different bars across Los Angeles and how their stories connect over the course of one evening. It features stars such as Josh Hartnett, Danny DeVito, Rosario Dawson and Zachary Quinto, and is released for free on Youtube on Friday 11th March. Check out the trailer below, I think it looks like it will be great!

Our Christmas shutdown times at work have been confirmed, so Thursday is our last day and then we get 11 days off and don’t have to return until Tuesday 4th Jan. Whatever will I do with all that glorious time off? Probably watch a lot of DVDs and make some jewellery.

Sad times; Misfits series two has now ended, with a spectacular Christmas special to round it off. It is fast becoming one of my favourite current tv shows as it seems to be the perfect mix of teenage humour and problems, and supernatural abilities. It’s what Heroes would be like if you crossed it with Skins and the Inbetweeners. I’m very much looking forward to the next series after the special ended on such a cliffhanger. I’ll have to invest in the DVDs to tide me over until later next year.

Today I have brought some Chestnut and Chocolate cupcakes into work to celebrate almost-Christmas. They are going down a storm so I highly recommend the recipe. I had to make my own chestnut puree though as Tesco only seemed to stock whole chestnuts. I soaked them in a half water, half milk mixture and boiled for about 20 minutes until they were soft, before whizzing them in the blender into a paste. It worked a treat!

1015th
Nov


Nun and dead Cheerleader


Wheres Wally and V for Vendetta


Finger Food


Batgirl meets Batman


Me!


Me, my crossdressing cousin, Hulk Hogan


Supergirl has a nice cuppa

Hey kids, it’s blog time again. I’ve been super busy since Halloween so I haven’t even gotten my photos off my camera yet, but I will say that it was an awesome party and the cakes turned out well. Have a strange photo to tide you over for now:


My brother (left) and his best friend (right)

Halloween night saw the Eighties Matchbox B-Line Disaster gig at Heaven, and I actually half considered not going as I was so tired from the previous night. The support acts were a strange motley crew of bands, with the first band Arrows of Love being pretty good but only playing to about 3 people, the second I can’t even remember their name and the third was a surprisingly dire Robots In Disguise. If you know me at all, you will know that Robots are one of my favourite bands, but their whole set just felt very lacklustre and I couldn’t even be bothered to sing along. I’m not sure if it was my own tiredness, the crowd’s lack of enthusiasm or a rubbish performance but either way I was disappointed.

Luckily Eighties Matchbox put in a stellar performance which woke me up and had me thrashing away on the barrier with the rest of the crowd. It was such a sweaty, intense atmosphere that the bands facepaint had melted away halfway through the first song. The security guard in front of me looked like he was having the time of his life, and kept saying “You’re all mental, it’s brilliant” as he hauled crowdsurfer after crowdsurfer over the barrier. The setlist was a mishmash of older and newer tracks, although I was disappointed that In The Garden got overlooked. Another brilliant night with Eighties Matchbox, and I even had Guy hand me his setlist!

On Tuesday I finally had the fortune of attending a recording of Never Mind The Buzzcocks. I had figured out that the guest hosts remaining for the final three episodes were Tim Westwood, Frankie Boyle and Robert Webb and we were praying to every deity that it wouldn’t be Tim. How unlucky we were! I don’t think I have ever seen a more unfunny person in my life. Luckily the guests were vaguely funny, and Phil and Noel more than made up for it. I’m curious to see how it ends up being edited together, as it seemed so patchy and not very cohesive. It was still a good free night though, even with the tube strike starting and having to battle buses to get home.

Other than that, nothing much has been going on in my life. I have become slightly obsessed with Bearbricks though. I never liked them much (not keen on the shape and I prefer the artist based designs of Qees) but I’ve been on a quest to get the Spock Bearbrick from Series 19, and have ended up with quite a few others, including the awesome Iron Man one! May do some photos of them soon.

1028th
Oct

I went to see Carl Barat last night at the Scala on his first solo tour in support of his new album. I went with my mum, who is a massive fan, and my stepdad, which was quite nice as it meant I got free drinks! Carl was supported by a band called Swimming, who we only caught the last few songs of, and The Heartbreaks who I predict big things for.

When Carl finally took to the stage at 9:30pm, he looked incredibly nervous and mumbled his introductions before starting off with ‘Je Regrette’. It took a few songs for him to get into his stride, and although he had the backing of a large band he still looked quite uncomfortable during the gig. The crowd were loving every moment though, and managed to sing the words to most of the album despite it only being released a few weeks ago.

Carl played pretty much the album in it’s entirety, and peppered the setlist with Libertines and Dirty Pretty Things songs which went down a treat with the ravenous audience. The encore opened with two acoustic songs, including a sublime version of ‘France’, and then continued with a further three songs before ending on the triumphant ‘Don’t Look Back Into The Sun’. Carl confessed that he was no good at talking at gigs and decided to just let the music speak for itself, which was fine by the bouncing, cheering audience.

The setlist was:

Je Regrette, Je Regrette
Run With The Boys
The Man Who Would Be King
Carve My Name
She’s Something
Deadwood
The Magus
So Long, My Lover
Up The Bracket
What Have I Done
Death Fires Burn At Night
Death On The Stairs
Bang Bang You’re Dead
—————————-
9 Lives
France
The Fall
Time For Heroes
Truth Begins
Don’t Look Back Into The Sun

Earlier this week I got the chance to see The Social Network, which I had been looking forward to for a while. It was a really brilliant film with a great plot and an awesome soundtrack. I especially liked how they didn’t dumb down the computer stuff, but didn’t make it too full of technobabble either. I get so frustrated with films that show someone hacking into the US military site, tapping in a password and clicking a big flashing ‘LOGIN’ button. It was really enjoyable to see exactly why Facebook has become such a huge social phenonmenon, whereas sites like Myspace and Friendster have fallen by the wayside. I especially liked the use of Livejournal as the blogging medium, LJ represent 😉 I’m not sure how relevant this film will be in 10 years time though. It seems like more of a current day thing. Still a great film though, and I would highly recommend it even if you are not interested in Facebook or social networking.

This week I have also been quite busy with halloween plans, and testing my resin casts. Unfortunately the glitter didn’t turn out so well this time and seems to have clumped, so in my next batch I will just mix the glitter in like before. I’ll polish them up and see how salvageable they are anyway.

Unfortunately the Manics gig for tomorrow has been cancelled, but my Saturday looks to be busy. I am shopping and collecting costumes in the morning, bleaching and dying my hair after and then attempting to bake these for the halloween party:

They obviously won’t look quite as good! But I’ll try my best. Expect lots of photos from the party, especially as my brother has an absolutely hilarious costume planned.