How shit are Tuesdays? I mean really, they are just awful ALL the time. I hate Monday’s a lot, because they were clearly only invented to piss everyone off, but to me Tuesdays are just about as bad. I don’t even know why, they just are. And that’s why I hate them. So to celebrate, I am going to post a “This is why my Tuesday sucked…” entry every Tuesday evening. Enjoy!
Fucking pantry moths. Have you ever had them? They are the BANE OF MY LIFE! I have two rice loving maniacs in my house and that’s where these little turds like to hang out tom infiltrate our home. They get EVERYWHERE, including sealed, airtight containers and especially all of my favourite foods. They’ve ruined millions of almonds, multiple boxes of expensive tea, all my baking goods and so on. Tonight I gave in and cleaned the whole pantry again, knowing full well they will be back very, very soon.
Dog poop. I find it amazing how much two small puppies are able to poop out every day.
A Song of Ice & Fire. I am 2/3 of the way through the third book and am obsessed. But I am torn between loving it and hating it right now. I don’t want to give anything away so let me just say George RR Martin is a cruel man who needs to stop killing off undeserving characters! I can’t stop thinking about the characters and wanting to READ UNTIL I DIE. It’s consumed my life completely and utterly.
Lack of sleep. See above.
Christmas! It only just dawned on me this afternoon that it’s almost December. In fact, it’s 1 month and 1 day until my birthday (December 23rd, mark it in your diaries people) and then BAM Christmas all up in your faces! That means only more pays between now and then! Argh I am SCREWED!
New Years Eve. As per the above, it’s almost NYE and I still don’t have plans. The one thing I want to do is too expensive (given that I am going to a music festival on January 2nd and I forgot to budget for any bloody thing again this year) and the other option we have involves a house party and I am just too damn lazy to organise such a thing.
Migraines. I woke up with one on Monday morning and an even worse one this morning. Because that’s a great way to start the working week…
About Ruby
My name is Cara (but you can call me Ruby) and I like the colour pink, swearing, fist shaking, daggy dancing and 90s RnB music. Often all at once. I live in Brisbane which is always warm and is famous for its zombies.
I have a turbulent relationship with Rihanna. For the most part I am not a huge fan of her music nor her voice & singing style. Some of her hit singles are some of my least favourite songs of all times. And then she goes and releases songs that are amazing and totally blow my mind.
I just listened to “We Found Love” today and my mind is BLOWN. I heard a few bits n pieces of gossip about how this new clip was bit in Ireland and that it was very controversial, but I tend to ignore the hype surrounding new music videos with pop singers as I’m usually disappointed because societies perception of “controversial” is usually tame and boring. But in is case it’s worth the hype because it is a fantastic clip that actually packs a punch.
Well done Rihanna, I like you again for the moment. I look forward to hating your next track and then loving another one in the near future.
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:
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).
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!
Considering how much planning went into my outfit/costume for this years Zombie Walk, I thought I’d do a “What I Wore” post.
As soon as I saw this dress I knew I had to have it for the walk. I mean really, zombie unicorns? Hello? Could it suit me ANY more? Oh yes, it could, because it’s PINK and BLACK! My only fault with it, is that it’s a bit too short. But I hav a very long torso and a lot of these styles of dresses sit to short on me as a result. So leggings were a definite, because I did not need to have any wiley protographers snapping any undies shots of me as I’m setting up the park.
My next decision was around the shoes. I had plans to buy the Iron Fist pink Gold Digger zombie flats but I didn’t have the time/cash to get them and I feared they’d get wrecked on a hectic 14 hour day with all my running around and climbing in gardens and later getting my drink on at the after party. So I got some cheapies that I did plan to decorate with black stitches but just plain ran out of time.
For my headwear I was going to buy this brain patch headband but my ever creative mum said she’d made her own version, but 3D! She whipped this up with Crayola molding foam with a red felt base. The blood drops were also made of the foam and then painted with red nail polish to make it shiney. She attached it to a headband which already had a fascinator base and voila, I had some adorable, exposed brains!
For my makeup, I wanted to keep it simple, cute and bloodless. I am so over blood and gore when it comes to zombies, let me tell you. I was given the tip recently that the coloured hair spray you use to make your hair “crazy” colours also works well on skin so I hunted everywhere for a can of white and then also bought a green and silver can for cheap. The white is used as a base and then green sprayed over top to give me a green tinge. I ran out of green on the legs so we used silver instead which nobody could really see anyway. But my poor face was now uncoloured! It took a lot of trickery and creative blending, but by using a pale foundation and then dusting a combination of green eyeshadows, then dabbing some white ae paint on to tone the green down, I managed to match my face to my body fairly well.
I used black and grey eyeshadows around my eyes, added eyeliner for definition and lots of mascara (I’ll be damned if I’m going to be an ugly zombie). I dusted some dark grey eyeshadow on my cheeks like blush to make my face a little bit gaunt and then drew on the scars wirth an old black eyeliner. The black lipstick finished the look and I was done!
Dress: Hell Bunny Zombie Unicorn petal dress from Sourpuss Leggings: Body Control ones from Avon Shoes: Basic pink slip-on’s from Rubi Fascinator: Made by my mum :) Eyeshadow: Various blacks and greys by BYS Lipstick: Black by Shu Uemera
Well it’s finally over. the 2011 Brisbane Zombie Walk is now behind me. And I’ve just posted the Post Walk Statement on the site which means I am finally free to discuss the events of the day here! Hurra!
Our day started pretty well, I somehow managed to get an awesome night sleep which was an total shock. I got up at about 7am and checked the zombie walk email, updated the blog and finished tidying up the house for everyone who was going to come over to get ready. By 9am everyone had arrived and were getting ready in every corner of our unit. I had a grand plan of painting myself a nice, light green with hair colour spray which had worked really well for the cover of mX but failed on me by running out 3/4 of the way through painting myself! Luckily a bit of clever makeup blending skills and I managed to make my face almost the same shade of green as the rest of my body. I went for a cute green zombie with black accents (ie. black cartoony scars, black around my eyes and black lips) to go with my adorable pink Zombie Unicorn dress. Oh and the adorable little Brain fascinator that my mum made me :)
The first incident of the day happened at about 9.30am when Anthony, who was the leader of the set up team, got stuck in our ancient lift. He’d disregarded a warning from another helper who said they’d been stuck in the lift for a good 5 minutes and found himself trapped on our level, with doors that simply refused to open. A bit of panic set in then, so I had to finish up my personal preparations and rush to Wickham Park to start setting up. This set us back a bit and one of our sponsors was already there which got me into panic mode good and proper.
Fortunately things went fairly smoothly, and we had a lot of friends helping out, as well as a number of volunteers so while we ran behind schedule most of the day, it as definitely not as bad as it could have been. Lift Boy was released after being stuck for a good 90 minutes and we got back on track. The fencing we had put up to minimise entry points into the park worked a charm with regards to getting people to donate a gold coin on entry. Sure, some cheapskates jumped them to avoid paying, but most people were quite generous. Well except for the tourists who threw in 5c pieces but I will talk about them more later.
By 2.30pm the park was absolutely packed, and because people sort of hung around the two entry points it was proving very hard for everyone to get in, and thousands were pouring in by this point. The plan was to have our speeches at 2.30pm but we held them off because some of our speakers went missing! During the speeches (which unfortunately weren’t hear by 90% of the people in the park, something we will have to rectify next year) we did the 10 minute countdown required for our Guinness World Record attempt. We had Sarah as the MC as she’s an excellent public speaker (and I am a stuttery, nervous wreck in front of big crowds), Gerald from the Brain Foundation, Erin Snape who raised over $6000 for the Brain Foundation and an officer for the QLD Police to remind everyone of the rules of the walk.
At 3pm I rushed down to the front exit point to get ready to lead the crowd on the walk, and was shocked to see THOUSANDS of people trying to get in still. We gave them another 10 minutes before deciding it was useless, and had to run out of the park and down the road for a good 200 metres before we’d passed everyone. Naturally my megaphone, which I use to yell at people and get their attention with its obnoxious siren, ran out of battery then so we had to get the police to sound sirens to get everyone’s attention, and get them to start following us down Albert Street and into the City. It was hard work, we had to shout a lot for people to follow us because they were all sort of standing around, looking a bit confused. We then opened up another exit point and people just poured out of the park. In fact a lot of people left via the top entrance point and had to walk around the block to meet us. I just can’t believe how many people there were.
My sister and I then spent the next half an hour sprinting around the City between intersections making sure the police we OK and then sprinting most of the walk route to try and get back to the lead of the procession. I literally have not run so much in my life (thank god I go to the gym so much so I was fit enough to manage it). We also spent a great deal of time trying to get tourists off the road. They were seriously only leaving about a 3m gap for the zombies to walk down, like some sort of catwalk. I had to SCREAM at some of them to get off the road and had to give up when I got them back a couple of extra metres. It was infuriating, I know most of them probably didn’t speak English but my screaming “MOVE BACK” and all but pushing them backwards with my gestures surely must have made sense to them? That’s about when my voice started to give out. Once at the front of the procession we helped Cassie and the other volunteers keep everyone in line (though barely, bloody rowdy zombies). Thanks to the delay in taking off, we arrived at the end point close to 4pm which was perfect for our plans. We then had to try and get people moving on to the after party and I then spent the next two hours running between home and the venue trying to find various things that had been packed up in various vehicles. When I finally got to relax, the after party was really good and the bands excellent. It was also so cute to see kids in the all-ages room, many of which were doing the Melbourne Shuffle extremely well (others just rolling around on the floor and jumping off seats).
So in summary, we raised over $24,000 for the Brain Foundation and attracted between 15,000 and 20,000 people. We estimate about 12,000 of those were actually zombies, but holy hell that is some turnout!!! We made some huge improvements on last years walk but we still learned a lot and have lots of exciting ideas for next year and will undoubtedly only get better and better as we become absolute pro’s at it. I will keep you posted about when we get the Guinness World Record!
BAM! Guess who’s on the front page on mX newspaper today? Damn right that’s me and my bestie Sarah! We did this photo last week on a whim. I had to go and buy a whole bunch of zombie makeup that day as I was just too disorgansied to make the blood and stuff as I usually do. Not bad for a 45 min rush job, I gotta say!
The writing in the bubble says:
WALK OF THELIVING DEAD Brisbane’s CBD will look like the set of Shaun of the Dead this Sunday when Sarah Keogh and Cara Westworth take part in the sixth annual Zombie Walk. Thousands of people in zombie costumes will start their journey from Wickham Park at 3pm until they finish at Centenary Place in Fortitude Valley. Brisbane’s Zombie Walk is the largest in the world and is held to raise money for the Brain Foundation of Australia. For more information, brisbanezombiewalk.com
And I believe we’ll be in City News tomorrow as well! What a week, I’m telling you now. But after a week of extreme stress (I lost a kilo from it this week alone) things are falling into place and the walk should be an amaing day. Don’t forget:
BRISBANE ZOMBIE WALK WHEN: Sunday 23rd October, fun starts from 11am, walk leaves at 3pm WHERE: Wickham Park, Brisbane City. Just follow Albert St up from the mall and we’re up on the right near Roma St Parklands WHY: For fun, of course! And we also raise money for the Brain Foundation. So dig deep!
Well it’s that time of year again. It’s mid-October and the Brisbane Zombie Walk is almost upon us. Literally every single thought that goes through my heard involves zombies in some way. There’s less than two weeks to go and I’m madly trying to sort out all of the permits (you don’t want to know how many we need, it’s insane) and all of the final details that will make this walk the most professional yet. It’s amazing how much we learn each year. I’m sure that even after doing this for 10 years, I will keep on finding new ways to make it run better. But we’re getting there and since my stress levels are relatively low right now, I feel confident in saying we’re doing pretty well. So that’s why my posts have been few and far between. I don’t feel the need to bore you to death with zombie-this and zombie-that for an entire month. But I did wnat to share a few things that might be of interest for the zombie-inclined:
First of all, how cute are our shirts this year? I am super proud of the design and they look AMAZING in real life! I got a couple of singlets printed as I hate wearing t-shirts, but they’re just for the female organisers, not for the public. Hopefully next year! Want one? Buy them here!
The QLD Police launched a new site called QldAlert which will compile all of their social media for a handy one-stop shop when there’s an emergency or major event. And to test it out, they made it all about a zombie outbreak. Told ya’ll the QPS had our backs!
My favourite Brisbane artist Lauren Carney has made special shirts for the walk, and is giving us half the proceeds! I am so exited, especially since the bag she had with this design at the last markets I saw her at had sold out :( Yay for cute zombies!
I accidentally stumbled upon this Greek label of shoes the other day and am madly in love. This designer has been around for about 10 years but it’s only been quite recently that the fashion world has been exposed to his… well, works of art. If I could only choose one label for my shoes for the rest of my life, Dukas would be it.
Here are some examples from his latest collections:
And here is my all time favourite design of his. I mean c’mon, pink patent leather with a pink persepex heel that doesn’t look anything like a stripper shoe? AMAZING!
I could sit here and post a dozen more examples but I will leave it you you to Google “Dukas shoes” and prepare to be amazed! The patent pink stiletto’s with black leopard print are especially delightful!
It has been ages since I did a “What I Wore” post and there are two very good reasons for it. Firstly, I still haven’t replaced my poor, broken camera (though I have an amazing one on layby which I pick up soon) and secondly, because I get all self-conscious and shy and so rarely take photos of my outfits and on the rare occassion that I do, I freak out and refuse to post it. I am lame, I know.
But I just bought this dress and was feeling lovelyso I got mum to snap a few quick pics on her mobile which turned out OK and I’m biting the bullet and posting! Yay for me!
Dress: Pink Bat Attack by Sourpuss (bought from my friend Skye-Bow Clothing & Accessories) Leggings: I got these babies from Avon. They hold you in and are slinky and just about the best pair I’ve ever owned! Necklace: Zombie Bling by Sourpuss (also from Skye-Bow Clothing & Accessories) Shoes: El-cheapo’s from Best & Less which I got for about $9 or something ridiculous!
Detail:
As you can (hopefully) see, the bats have wicked little grins. Now really, how could I have lived another minute without this dress in my possession? The necklace is also incredible, the perfect length and so nicely encrusted with rhinestones. Dear god I love Sourpuss!
Once again, I’m not sure why I waste my time reading the so-called articles on news.com.au because I get far too angry. And that’s before I even get to the reader comments! Today’s little gem is the article about a three year old getting swooped by a magpie, who may or may not lose some/all vision in one eye as the magpie wasn’t deterred by the child’s yells. There’s been a fair bit of publicity about swooping magpies this season, and naturally there are two distinct sides as to what to do about it.
The comments on this particular article are a fine example of the two vastly different opinions. On one hand, some share my view that this is what happens every year for as long as these birds have existed and that you need to be cautious when in an area known to contain nesting magpies. After all, this only happens for just over one month a year (between late-August early-October), so it shouldn’t be such a big deal that we keep away from affected areas or at least wear appropriate headwear when passing through.
But no, the jerks all come out, declaring them to be a horrible pest who maim and kill our precious children, so they must all be culled so we can live in peace. Never mind the fact there’s only ever been reports of one kid dying from a magpie attack back in 1946 and that was from tetanus. A kid died from being hit by a car after being swooped by a magpie last year, but the magpie didn’t intend for that to happen, he just wanted to protect his territory. But nah, that’s not good enough, and won’t somebody PLEASE think of the CHILDREN??!!
Look, it sucks for anyone who’s been hurt by a magpie. Personally I’ve never been attacked and as far as I’m aware, never even been swooped. I lived in the country for the first 9 years of my life, and then on the back of a huge park next to a creek, surrounded by bushland until I was in my early 20s. I visit my mum every other week and we go on long walks in various parks and I’ve never been attacked once (I have been swooped by plovers but I was trying to spy on the cute little babies and I carried a branch above my head, so I knew what I was in for). In fact I can only think of one person ever claiming to have been hurt while being swooped and while it did draw some blood, he had no real misgivings about it because that’s what happens in Australia this time of year. FANCY THAT!
My fear is that the boon’s will all be out trying to kill poor magpie’s after this extra publicity and so hundreds of innocent birds will be tortured because one kid got a peck in the eye in Toowoomba. I was horrified when I heard about how many flying foxes were killed, tortured, mutilated and left to die because of the Hendra virus scare we had in Queensland a few months ago, just because horses can catch the virus from bat poop which affected about four humans and a dog. I dread to think how many magpies will be harmed as a result of this “bad press”.
Anyway, my comment got published (which is rare for me, my comments rarely make the cut) and fortunately most of the commenters seem to be against culling these magnificent birds as well.
First of all, how cute are our shirts this year? I am super proud of the design and they look AMAZING in real life! I got a couple of singlets printed as I hate wearing t-shirts, but they’re just for the female organisers, not for the public. Hopefully next year! Want one? Buy them 
