The Internet is a Jerk

My friend messaged me on Facebook today about how she found a photo of me while conducting a random Google image search. Naturally I assumed she was Googling “fabulous and beautiful ladies” but then she revealed what she actually looked up:

Whatever, internets. You can try to bring me down, but I laugh in your face. LAUGH!

I am actually pretty darn chuffed about this actually. I even appear another page down, next to a shirtless Jake Gyllenhaal so I feel that I won in some small way.

George R R Martin Ruined My Life

I am so sorry that I have not been posting very much lately but seeing as how it’s very nearly Christmas I think that’s fair enough. Plus I spent a whole week trying to create an audition tape to be the host of a music programme on one of our free-to-air TV channels here, only to have it ALL fuck up 20 minutes before the deadline so I missed out. Being a VJ is basically my dream job but after about 4500 takes and still struggling to get the whole 90 sec single review out in one go, I now realise that maybe I am not cut out for that particular type of job. Or maybe I am trying to make myself feel better. Either way, I’ve gone off track f what this post was meant to be about!

As I may have mentioned here, I have a Kobo eReader and enjoy using it thoroughly. One day I will do a review on the few eReaders I have used, but for now let me just say they are AMAZING and you will get extremely angry the next time you have to read from a real book. I’ve read more in the 6 or so months that I’ve owned my Kobo than I have for the last 10 years. It’s proved esoecially handy when it comes to really large books. Imagine being about to carry all seven Harry Potter books with you at all times? I know, right?

So, I started reading George R R Martin’s series “A Song of Ice & Fire” after finally watching the TV show. Let me just say it would have been a LOT better if I’d read the books first as I quickly discovered I got it ALL wrong while watching the show (I didn’t realise Theon Greyjoy wasn’t Ned Stark’s son and also thought Jon Arryn was the king… I know, I obvs wasn’t paying a whole lot of attention or something). But once I’d worked out how everything actually was, I was immediately OBSESSED with the series. Oh my god, I cannot devour them fast enough. I am almost finished the fourth book and am going to die when they’re all done and I have to wait for another one to be written.

Since the Christmas holidays are coming up and most of us will have some time of and probably be a bit bored at some point, I thoroughly recommend you start reading them. No, you do not have to be into fantasy or really dig medieval history, as a number of friends who thought they hated both are just as obsessed as I am with the books. You just need to be aware that these books are loooong. And Mr Martin spares no one. No matter how safe you think a character, he’ll find an awful way to kill them. And no matter how deserving a character is of death, they’ll never get their comeuppance. Ever. It’s a mind fuck and the third book will essentially ruin your life (it’s both incredibly long and has some of the most intense scenes I’ve ever read in my life in it). But it’s a damn good read and you learn a lot about the medieval times, even if the books are set in an alternate reality. Oh and it’s likely you will also start talking like they do in the books (ie. on the morrow = tomorrow, braking my fast = breakfast, moon’s blood = period etc). Good times, all round.

Have you read this series? What do you think? Doe you think the TV show compares?

Cara Rage: Costumes (or You’re Doing It Wrong!) PART 1

I’ve decided to do this rant in a few parts as I have far too much to say. Please enjoy part One of how NOT to dress up.

My latest rage is about dressing up in costume. This was inspired both before, during and after the recent Supanova convention here in Brisbane. A huge part of the convention is the dressing up as a favourite fictional character, the more obscure, geeky or nostalgic the better. I’ve only started dressing up for Supanova’s kind of recently and this year was the first that I dressed up on both the Saturday and Sunday. I LOVE dressing up, I always get carried away for fancy dress parties (which I like to throw as often as possible) and I am a BIG believer in making a worthwhile effort, or else not dressing up at all.

Unfortunately a lot of people do not share this sentiment.

I feel that unless you’re going to do it properly, you shouldn’t do it at all (in everything, but particularly dressing in costume). Half arsed costumes just serve to confuse and irritate those who can’t work out what you’re dressed as and those who actually did put in a lot of effort with their costumes. Just because it’s a comic book convention (sorry, “pop culture” convention) doesn’t mean you can dig up some bits and pieces from your wardrobe and claim you dressed up. It’s not a prerequisite for people to dress up for these sorts of conventions but people do because it’s fun.

I will share with you two of the examples I found:

Steampunk

I planned to dress Steampunk on the Saturday and so Googled pictures of steampunk girls for inspiration (even though I have a kick-arse costume already). I discovered a few Tumblr’s dedicated to Steampunk girls and while some were amazing, most were atrocious. I was given a pamphlet on what Steampunk is at a gamers convention a couple of months ago and laughed at how they said that if you want to be Steampunk you can technically just paint something brown and put a cog on it but people (in-the-know) will probably laugh at you for it. But unfortunately it seems to be what a lot of people assume Steampunk is! The genre IS very broad and there’s no exact look to achieve when dressing steampunk and it can vary so, so much. But there are some basic elements, colour combinations and accessories to be aware of which can turn your brown, coggy outfit into something sublimely Steampunk.

Some of the dreadful examples I found are as follows:

And for contrast, here are some excellent examples of what makes a good Steampunk (in fact the last one is where I got the inspiration for my outfit).

Look, Steampunk is not just a Victorian style outfit with a few cogs or clocks added. Nor do you transform an outfit into Steampunk just by wearing some old-fashioned-looking goggles and carrying a lantern or holding a wrist watch. It’s kind of hard to describe, but basically it ain’t this (purple, ill-fitting corsets, brown leather straps and a black leather choker ain’t steampunk, love. Sorry).

And just for good measure, Regretsy have a whole section on what is NOT steampunk. Hilarious!

HARRY POTTER

So naturally this will be a sore spot for me since I am a massive Harry Potter geek. I just don’t see how people get this so wrong but they absolutely desecrated the basic HP school uniform costume at Supanova this year. I don’t know why so many people attempted to dress like HP character this time, hardly any did when Tom Felton (aka Draco Malfoy) was appearing earlier this year. Maybe I am missing something, but when I think of a Harry Potter school uniform I think of something like this:

Yep, they’re damn good costumes! So what the hell gave these people the idea that this was in any way WHATSOEVER event remotely Harry Potter:

Unfortunately I couldn’t find a lot of examples, only these “paparazzi” style ones since their costumes are so slack, no one would want to take proper photos of them. But this was basically it. White shirt, black skirt or pants and a red or green tie and a wand. There was the occasional striped tie but aside from that it was so completely half arsed, I was beside myself with rage. This is a perfect example of doing it properly or NOT AT ALL. If you were a genuine fan of HP, you’d probably have a red and gold striped tie, a grey skirt and an actual long-sleeved white school/business shirt. I mean, my Gryffindor tie was yellow which I painted red stripes on. It don’t get much easier than that! Back when the movies were just coming out, I couldn’t get a grey pleated skirt anywhere so I had one made. THESE are things you do to make a costume remotely half decent, guys! Look at how much better it looks with a proper tie,  patch and grey vest! My god, it seems so simple!

Basically the only people who are allowed to slack off on the details are adorable little kids. And even then I wish their parents had have found a red tie at the very least…

COMING SOON: More rants about shit costumes that should never have left the house!

I am a Harry Potter Geek (and proud of it)

Unless you have been hiding under a rock, you’re bound to be aware that the final Harry Potter movie is coming out this week. If you also happen to read my blog regularly, then you may have noticed I have been MIA lately. These things are not just coincidence, I have been spending much of my spare time these last couple of weeks re-reading all seven books and re-watching the seven movies. Yes, I am a MASSIVE Harry Potter fan and I am not ashamed to admit it. I became a fan of the books back in 2000 after my mum bought the first three books (the fourth book, Goblet of Fire had only just come out at this stage) and spent the next two weeks gushing over them and begging me to read them. I figured it was some dumb fad and wouldn’t give in at first, but my mum was extremely persistent and so I decided to finally give them a go. And the rest, as they say, is history. I was obsessed almost immediately and devoured those books in no time. Shortly after I finished the fourth book, there was news that they were making the Philosopher’s Stone into a film. So for the next year I obsessed over these beloved books, and eagerly awaited the first film. I must have spent thousands on Harry Potter merchandise, in fact when I look back through photos at that time, I barely wore anything but my Harry Potter shirts. I bought ridiculous amount of collectibles off ebay and generally spent any time not at uni, obsessing over Harry and his magical world.

During my second year of Uni, I decided to start a Harry Potter fan club. I’d gotten inspiration from a local school that held weekly fan club meetings in the library and wanted something for adults to take part in, since I often got comments from other fans on my many shirts that I owned. I put up flyers around my uni and received a few emails from interested people. I even discovered a few people doing the same course as me were huge fans and quickly became good friends with them. The fan club was a pretty big deal back then, the first film had been a huge success and people were Potter mad everywhere you went. We got invited to the premiere of the second film at Movieworld and even got to meet Jason Isaacs, who plays Lucius Malfoy (he was here shooting Peter Pan at the time). I was on TV and in the paper all the time whenever a new film or book was released and lots of local book shops and libraries would get us to come act like characters and even hand out the new books. During my time living in the UK I saw the release of the Half Blood Prince (we lined up at Waterstones in Oxford Street for over 6 hours in a queue that ended up being about 10 blocks long and I’m now forever immortalised on getty images as a result) and the film release of the Goblet of Fire where I got to see all of the actors in the flesh and even got to shake the hand of Mark Williams.

And even after 11 years I am still a huge fan and find myself re-reading the books every year, I still finding them funny, sad, exciting and complete magic. I even have two Harry Potter tattoos (the dark mark and the Hogwarts crest) and still have ideas for others. I class myself as a Gryffindor and still have a rather vast collection of Harry Potter collectibles. I am a fan of the books first and foremost, but the films (even the 1st, 2nd and 4th ones which are pretty poor) hold a special place in my heart. I have gone through relentless teasing over the years for being such a big fan, and have even been called, stupid, childish, evil and a (god forbid) nerd for being so open about it. But it doesn’t matter, because I have helped so many other people discover the magic of Harry Potter over the years, and I feel that anyone who is so unwilling to give it a go is sad, boring and absolutely not worth any of my time.  If you can’t give the most famous series of books a chance and feel the need to tease anyone who likes them, then I have nothing more to say to you. If however, you’re willing to give them a go, I promise you they will at the very least be a very enjoyable read. And at most they will be the greatest books you’ve ever committed yourself to and will undoubtedly become as big a fan as million of us Harry Potters geeks around the world!

So I am nervous and excited and even a little bit sad about seeing the final film at midnight tonight. While I will always love the books more than the movies, the last three films have actually been really good and this will be the end of an era for many of us. Personally it’s been eleven years but I have friends who have grown up with harry Potter since the first book came out back in 1997 so it really is a big deal to many people.So it is with pride that I will be wearing my Gryffindor uniform once again, not for the last time but at the last proper launch of something this big and official. I’ve made some terrific friends and had some incredible memories as a result of my love for Harry Potter and for that alone it has been totally worth it.

Share your Harry Potter memories or stories. I’d love to hear them!

Internet Etiquette 101 – The Facebook Edition

Source

Ohhh Facebook. You’ce got to be the most boring thing on the internet and yet we’re all so horribly addicted to you. Tell me honestly, how many people do you know who does not have a Facebook page, never has, and doesn’t even have a fake one to spy on people? I know just one person (and it’s a shame because she’s a cool girl and I don’t have her phone number). How sad is that? Just about everyone we know is on Facebook. Actually I don’t think my dad is, but dad’s generally don’t count when it comes to this sort of thing.

Aside from the fact Facebook is the king of all time wasters, it’s also a total cess pit of human despair. How often do you skim through the latest friends feed and think to yourself “Oh god, just SHUT UP ALREADY!” or “Holy shit you must be the most boring person alive”. How many times have you seen a breakup unfold in status updates or realised someone you thought was pretty cool types lyk a fukhed omg LOL.

I believe there should be classes in school for internet etiquette. It’s 2011 now and we’re ALL online, from little kids all the way up to our great grandparents. And yet it seems as though all of the basic rules for existing with other humans gets thrown right out the window as soon as you’re sitting in front of a computer screen. Well, in my ideal world where people are paid to tell children how to behave in cyber space, the first and most important lesson would be FACEBOOK ETIQUETTE 101. Here are some of the most important lessons I have come up with so far:

• Learn to type. I know we can’t all be perfect at grammar and as much as it pains me to see they’re/their/there used in the wrong context, there is a far bigger problem at hand. People who can’t be bothered hitting this shift key, who use text-speak when they’re typing on a godamn keyboard and those who use terms LOL to punctuate a sentence when what they said was not even a tiny bit funny. Text speak should have gone out with the introduction of predictive text and qwerty phone keypads. It suited a time when writing the word “you” took five seconds and the letter “u” took two quick button presses. Using letters instead of words, abbreviating the shit out of everything and generally making everything you say unintelligible to most is so hideously daggy. A bit of correct spelling, grammar, and the occasional capital letter will always go a long way in most peoples books.
• Stop airing your dirty laundry in status updates. OK so you had a fight with your boyfriend, best friend, work mate or whoever. Of course you want to write bitchy, vague things all over the internet to show them how much they’ve hurt you or pissed you off. But it’s pathetic. I say this as someone who has been a culprit of it more than a few times. No one likes a vague status update, and especially not a whiney, woe-is-me one. If you’re fighting with someone, keep the fight in private, where it belongs. And if you really need to vent, that’s what best friends and ice cream are for, dammit.
• Post some damn captions! When you’re on a mad Youtube video posting rampage, please make the effort to mention why you’re posting the video. I don’t know what to expect when you post the video and nothing else, and quite frankly, nor do I care to find out. Even if it’s just something along the lines of “This is Amazing” or “HAHAHA”, give us SOMETHING!
• Stop “Like”ing everything. FUCK ME DEAD! This is the bane of my life when it comes to Facebook. Certain friends and family members keep liking every shitty Facebook group there possibly is. Can’t you just think a thought without having to make a page about it? I can’t even comprehend how shit some of them are. I knew people were dumb on the internet but damn this shit is scary-dumb.  I shall share with you some examples of the most recent ones I have witnessed (to prove that these really do exist, I even added links):

1. Slugs are snails that sold their house for drug money
2. Wow your fake tan looks proper natural.. LOL jk u fukin mango
3. Pre-drinking so hard you dont even make it out
4. Luring sluts into your bedroom with a trail of Supré vouchers (ummmm what????)
5. And by “k” I mean “fuck you”

• Don’t tag ugly photos. Man oh man some people are inconsiderate jerks. Why would you ever post a photo of a friend where they look like total arse? The only reason I can think of, is to make yourself look/feel better. And that makes you a shitty friend. I am against the idea of posting any bad photos of friends, but I’m always getting tagged in trash bag photos of myself (like the one time, while dressed like a chav, I fell into a bag of rubbish outside a hostel in London, I mean c’mon). If the photo is ugly as hell, have some consideration and don’t post it. IF you just have to upload it though, show some decency and don’t tag the ugly offender in it, I’m begging you!
• Don’t pick fights or be excessively obnoxious in comment threads. OK so this is tolerable to an extent. But when the original poster is clearly getting the shits and you keep egging them on and starting new arguments and being a prick, you need to stop. Do you do that shit in real life? If you do, then how the hell do you have any friends at all??? You’re just being an arsehole to someone you must like enough to have on your friends list so back the fuck up and let them have their rant without getting all up in their face about how much you disagree with them.
• Stop posting baby photos! Argh man, I am so over this. Look, I like kids and do find baby photos kind of cute. But you are NOT YOUR BABY! Don’t use a photo of your child as you profile picture. I’m sorry, but I want to see what my friends are up to, not how their kid looks in EXTREME CLOSE UP or in the bath. I know it’s your pride and joy, but you’re kidding yourself if anyone else (aside from like-minded parents who do the same thing) think it’s cute. Try having a photo taken of yourself WITH your child for once and leave the baby snaps for family get togethers. This also applies to photos of your ultrasound or of your pregnant belly.
• Speaking of profile photos, start posting good ones! OK so I know ya’ll can’t look as fabulous as me all the time *cough* but have some dignity and post half decent photos of yourself. This especially applies to guys. No, you don’t have to make a stupid face in every photo. No one will think you’re “gay” for smiling at the camera for once. Also, posing for photos with your attractive female friends doesn’t fool anyone either, guys. We don’t think you’re some amazing chick magnet, you obviously just have some hot friends. And for the ladies, you can stop posting group photos, so that we might accidentally mistake you for the hot one, because we can just refer to other photos to work out you’re really just the plain one hovering in the background.
• Stop being so down all the time. I admit I can be kind of guilty of this. I love to complain about stuff, and I often do so on Facebook. But I try to liven things up a bit with something funny or by using my excellent wit to make a whiney comment kind of funny. Chances are you’re just a friend of a friend I met at a party once, or someone I went to school with 15 years ago. If you’re going to be so damn moody/boring, I will never ever want to see you in real life again because I can only assume you’re a miserable sack of crap. Lighten up, it’s only the internet!

I know I have only just scratched the surface on this, so please feel free to share with me your own personal Facebook-related gripes and let us all wallow in self-pity knowing that we are all guilty of much of what we hate most about Facebook :D

RubyVelour.com Update

Hey guys, I am in the process of fixing up my blog which means there might be a few bugs hidden in various places and well as some formatting issues. I’ll hopefully have this sorted soon. In the meantime, you might be please to know this blog is now able to be read on mobile devices! Yay!

Brisbane Zombie Walk at Supanova 2011

Well Supanova 2011 is finally over and I am exhausted. If you thought attending for two days straight was exhausting, try having a stall there as well as going and getting your geek on. It was intense! We decided to get a booth for the Brisbane Zombie Walk, to help promote it and get some extra funds from donations and selling some merch. We got a lot of registrations and sold all our left over shirts from last years walk as well as the figurines and books we had from some of our sponsors. We’ve already started planning our stall for next year which may involve brain-icing cupcakes to draw in the crowds.

Things I observed over the last two days while surrounded by Brisbane’s biggest nerds:

• The girl in the stall next to us drew people as anime characters and was revoltingly good at it. She would have made thousands from her custom portraits on top of the pre-drawn pictures of manga and anime characters she was also selling. We are amused to see one man get her to draw his little doll which he had sitting on his shoulder as he walked around the convention. It was super weird and probably the highlight of the weekend for all who witnessed it.
• There is absolutely no such thing as body-shame at a convention like Supanova. Guys and girls were wearing some of the most revealing and skin-tight costumes I have ever seen and they walked around like they did not give a damn. Good on ‘em because god knows I’d have to lose about 20kg before I’d ever feel that confident without pants in public!
• Tiny top hats are pretty popular at the moment which is kind of cool but also makes me very jealous and possessive because I feel like it is my thing. There were some amazing ones there though and will have to start hunting them down to add to my collection.
• I was able to identify a lot more of the costumes than I thought I would. Maybe I spend too much time on the internet, or maybe I just have an excellent memory for useless crap. But at the same time there were just so many costumes I couldn’t identify at all so I just assumed they were all from anime’s I’ve never seen or heard of .
• People were cashing in on internet memes like Troll face, fffuuu guy and Forever Alone which was hilarious. One guy had a mask of Troll Face and pranced and danced around all the time. Too funny.
• Many nerds lack manners. The amount of times I was nearly knocked rotten by some pimply faced teen who was making for some stall was appalling. But then again, many of them are all super polite and in some cases extremely chatty. A couple of times I found myself in intense discussions about Lara Croft or dyslexia which was interesting albeit a little bit disconcerting.
• People actually recognised me and read my blog! I was shocked to say the least. I’m now going to have to up the ante knowing people who aren’t my friends read this thing. Thanks to those who came said hello, it was so nice to meet you :)

As a grande finale for the weekend, my sister and I went and got photos with Tom Felton (aka Draco Malfoy from the Harry Potter films). Naturally I was excited because I’ve always had a soft spot for poor Draco and loved how Tom played the character. He was really, really lovely and such a good sport. Basically the scene played like this:

Tom: Hi there.
My Sister: *loud whisper* Show him your tattoo!
Me: Hi! Um, I want to show my tattoo off in our photo *suddenly very starstruck and giggly*
Tom: Oh my god, is that genuine? *strokes my Dark Mark gently*
Me: Yep! *dying on the inside*
Photographer takes a photo, Tom has his hand around me and points at my arm and I try to pout but am overwhelmed with giggles so don’t quite pull of the come-hither look I was aiming for.
Tom: Thanks, lovely.
Me: Thank you! *walks the wrong way, dying some more*

Click the pic for the larger version

All in all it was a great weekend, though I am officially not doing anything zombie-related all week lest I end up strangling someone! I am probably going to be all Tom Felton/Draco Malfoy obsessed instead :D

My Vampire Birthday Party

So you’d think that now I’m well and truly in my late 20s that I’d stop having themed parties. WELL YOU’RE WRONG. I love having themed parties, but not just one of those boring decade parties (like 80′s parties or the dreaded flapper/gangster parties you see everywhere) but really specific ones. Like out Doomed Lovers party for Valentines Day one year (Anthony and I were Rihanna and Chris Brown) and our excellent Superheroes on a Budget party! For my birthday this year I decided I’d go for Vampires since I missed out on Halloween this year thanks to the zombie walk (and boy am I sick of zombies these days). I’ve loved vampires for years, especially the old ones starring Bela Lugosi and Christopher Lee as well as the recent, sexy TV shows like True Blood and yes, even Vampire Diaries.

I knew it was going to be a smaller sort of party considering it was on the last weekend before Christmas (damn having a birthday on December 23rd) but that didn’t stop me from going all out on decorating the place. I got some awesome vampire decorations from Martha Stewart’s Halloween range from Scrapbook.com and I also had a lot of help from my mum who made gravestones out of cardboard and cut out dozens of bat shapes before spending hours making almost 100 mini cupcakes with me the night before. I scoured the internet in the weeks leading up to the party looking for good ideas but found few that weren’t totally tacky and/or aimed at children. So we just used fake spiderwebs, lots of bats and dark decor to make my unit look like Dracula’s lair and had lots of red foods and drinks to keep the theme. It was so much fun to set up, but I was totally beat before the party even started. I might try not to go so crazy for my next party, I think (haha yeah right).

WHAT I WORE:

Dress: From Retro Metro, Paddington (I think it was some sort of costume as they had heaps in various colours)
Boots: Bought off a good friend who got them from Pulp – an amazing investment!
Gloves: From Adornments, Paddington.
Necklace: Not sure, probably from Diva or somewhere similar.
Hat: From my sister – from Dollars & Sense of all places!
Hair: My trusty extensions from Price Attack
Stockings: Ambra from David Jones (the best fishnets ever, I assure you).

And just for fun here are few snaps taken during the night (hover for descriptions):

Oh and in case you’re wondering how I got such kickarse vampire teeth, you’ll want to check out Dracula House. We got the werewolf fangs as there are four teeth which seemed like a good investment. They stick with this weird putty stuff that sets and become small plates that come out easily but stay put amazingly too. Don’t try and use these with crazy acrylic nails like I did – they stick like shit to a blanket! Get someone else to put them in for you, which is probably the best way to do it anyway as you may end up throwing many tantrums if you try and do it by yourself!

See the rest of the photos on my Facebook gallery.

Brisbane Zombie Walk – Over at last!

Well, I’m back! The Brisbane Zombie Walk took place last Sunday and was a massive success. Considering this was only the 2^nd year we’ve raised money for the Brain Foundation and we only managed to raise $1100 last year, the fact we not only surpassed our $10,000 target but managed to donate $13,000 is phenomenal! You’d better believe I’m proud! The after-party was also a roaring success thanks to the excellent bands we booked. In fact, aside from the usual incidents where people get carried away and make too much mess or damage personal/private property, it was a very well behaved walk this year. Oh, and did I mention there we 10,000 people this year? Yep, 10,000 participants. That’s double what we had last year and I can only assume will get bigger and better next year.

While this was the 3^rd time I’ve organised the walk, I learned a lot which will make the 2011 walk even better. We undertook so much this year, from corporate sponsorship, becoming a registered business to having our own merchandise and co-ordinating a whole heap of volunteers. All of which we undertook while still working 9 – 5 jobs! I’m amazed it didn’t send me mad as I thought I was going to wig out more than a few times, but it all worked out pretty well in the end, thankfully.

I don’t know why, but I decided to go as a Steampunk zombie this year. It’s not like I had enough of my plate without having an overly elaborate costume, right? But my mum worked her magic and produced the most fantastic costume in less than three weeks. The only downfall was that I had to cover half of it up with a hideous hi-vis marshal vest in order to be easily recognised by police and other participants, but ya gotta do what ya gotta do. I mightn’t be so elaborate next year since I almost died from heat stroke in all the leather and ended up having to do most of the walk backwards to stop people getting ahead of me (I don’t know what it is with people having to rush, it’s a zombie walk, slow down and be a zombie for crying out loud!) but I’m sure I’ll find something crazy to dress as again next year. (Umm and why, may I ask, do I always look my best when stressed out??? Seriously, it’s not fair!)

If you’re interested, you can check out the official Post Walk Statement for all the official info about the walk. Otherwise, you should check out all the photos at the Flickr pool that lots of amazing photographers took on the day (since I didn’t get t take any of my own photos, sadly).

Oh and if you’re thinking “Pfft there’s no way there were 10,000 participants this year”, let this awesome photo by Andrew Otten prove you wrong!

(Click for the larger version)

BZW Fundraiser Party

Hi ya’ll. Because it’s now October which means the Brisbane Zombie Walk is on its way (in fact at this exact time in three weeks I will probably be drunk and having a grand old time at the after-party) which also means my life is all about zombies in one way or another. Today I spent the whole day with my mum getting my costume made (it’s going to be amazing, though a LONG way to go yet) and last Thursday we had a fundraiser party at Mana Bar!

Last year we had a fundraiser gig which did really well except it was a huge stress to organise and although we made a fair bit of money, half it went straight back to cover the expenses of the night. So this time we used a venue that was hugely popular and didn’t need live bands to encourage people to come along. Instead we were able to get some really awesome prizes to give away in a raffle (including a TV, xbox, lots of video games, movie tickets and merchandise and heaps of other cool stuff). As the Mana Bar is a small venue that only fits 60 people at a time, it was a small and intimate affair but we made a lot of money, met some really cool people and saw some fantastic zombie costumes! Some of which won their owners prizes!

Anthony and I at the start of the evening

We also got to meet and greet a few of the people who helped us out with fundraising, including Sally from the Sun State Roller Girls. Plus we also got to meet some avid zoombie walk fans, which is really cool because we’re usually so busy trying to make sure the day goes well that we can’t meet anyone on the day.

Sarah and I running the raffle

The winner of the night – the Deathtrooper

And on a final note, we received the official t-shirts and wrist bands on the day of the party which we got to show off to everyone! Fingers crossed we can sell them all because damn they’re mighty fine lookin’ and I’d hate for any of them to go to waste!

All of the Zombie Walk fundraiser photos were taken by the Mana Bar and can be found here.