Surprise Boxed Book and Villainy

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The letterzine

Yesterday I received a box in the post, with a bright green question mark outlined in purple, on the outside. Naturally, I recognised this as the symbol of The Riddler in the Batman/DC universe, as he's one of my favourite characters. However, as I don't live in Gotham, I had to assume that it wasn't in fact a parcel from Edward Nigma/Nygma. What do you mean he's just a fictional character? I should probably be thankful about that, haha. (There were also little purple umbrellas outlined in green on another part of the box, but I forgot to photograph those. Of course, it wasn't from The Penguin either though, just in case you were wondering :P). It made me smile!

Anyway, since a friend of mine, Kei (she blogs at Unfortunately Oh! & Doing a Thing. You should take a look!) recently got into the TV show 'Gotham' - I definitely didn't have anything to do with that - and has a tendency to make things look pretty, I was fairly certain it was from her. When I opened the box, I was greeted by a letterzine. featuring an apple with eyes, a Monty Python-style hand, a lovely statue, and some beautiful scenery on the cover.

Inside, every page was filled with interesting facts, pictures, stories, riddles, song lyrics, recommendations, quotations, and little notes from my friend, too!

You can see some sample pages near this text.

This is the second letterzine that   Kei has sent me; the first one was just as wonderful! However, she added an apple to the second one, so I have to like this one a little more. ;D

Both letterzines

Underneath the letter, there was a little trove of yet more wrapped-up treasures donning neon green question marks!

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There was an array of varied lovely things contained inside. Plus, each little parcel wasn't sealed with tape or anything like that, so I didn't have to rip the paper, which made me happy! (I have a strange dislike of ripping the paper open on presents if I can avoid it). 

Presents!

I named the two monster puppets in the bottom left Oswald & Edward, because one is red with a purplish tinge and the other is a sort of green colour. And because they're villains. :P

One of the presents was giant pencil made from the twig of a tree, but it isn't in the picture above. Do you know why? This is why:

I told you, they're V I L L A I N S.

My friend sent me villains in a box. Thanks, friend!

Perhaps I shall have to reciprocate the favour and send some little villains back to her sometime soon!

Drawings: Fancy Rats & One Punch Birthday

'Fancy Rats' for Rina

Over the past week or so, two friends of mine have celebrated their birthdays and so I decided to draw each of them something as a present. I did the drawing above, 'Fancy Rats', for my friend Rina, who's birthday was on May 2nd. She adores rats, but can't keep them at the moment due to having cats, so it was a little consolation.

'One Punch Birthday' for Kei

The second birthday drawing I did was for my other friend, Kei. It's of two of the characters (Genos and Saitama) from the anime/manga/webcomic 'One Punch Man', as she likes the show a lot (it's good - watch/read it!). It's not the kind of style I usually draw in, but I might try it again at some point because it was fun!

Birthday Babble

Vegan birthday cake

It was my birthday on September 29th and, although I didn't do anything out of the ordinary for it, I still had a fun day!

The picture above is of a my birthday cake, which was of the dark chocolate variety. I'm not usually a fan of cake, but my mother made that one for me and it was both vegan and had a third of the sugar of usual cake recipes, so this one was nice! (Of course, my housemate and my mother also enjoyed eating it too, haha). 

As well as the delicious cake, my mother also gave me these fantastic presents:

"Fangs" the bat and some make-up

Very pleased to have them! ♥

As I mentioned in this post, my housemate already gave me one of my presents early, but on my birthday he also surprised me with Metal Gear Solid: The Legacy Collection too!

This collection includes:
Metal Gear
Metal Gear 2: Solid Snake
Metal Gear Solid
Metal Gear Solid: VR Missions
Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty
Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater
Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots
Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker

Plus:
Metal Gear Solid: Digital Graphic Novel
Metal Gear Solid 2: Digital Graphic Novel

I didn't have this collection before, only the original games, so this was a great gift! :D

Also, lots of other lovely people took the time to wish me happy birthday and a friend from Germany even sang 'Happy Birthday' in a video to me, which made me smile! I also received other creative presents this year as well! 

'Floating Under a Full Moon' by Kei

Firstly, Kei drew me a picture of two of my favourite characters: Clear (Dramatical Murder) and Tretij Rebenok (MGS V: The Phantom Pain. AKA Psycho Mantis, from MGS/MGS4, when he was a kid). What can I say? My tastes in VN/games are somewhat varied, but in the end, I guess I just like characters in gas masks or something. Haha. Anyway, I am really grateful for this present, as it must have taken a lot of time and effort. Especially considering that she doesn't even play the MGS series at all and didn't really know what Tretij Rebenok looked like before attempting this. I think it came out wonderfully! :D

The next creative present that was given to me was from my friend Joseph, who made an animated video for the intro of a song called 'Innocence and the Angel'. The song is by a music project that another friend and I used to do (we're taking a break from it at the moment), so it had more of a personal meaning.  

Innocence & the Angel - opening from Joseph L. on Vimeo. Again, the amount of time and effort that went into this present astounds me and I'm really thankful that he took the time to make it for me. I love it! ♥

I spent the rest of my birthday with my lovely housemate watching cheesy horror/sci-fi films, laughing at silly things, and playing MGSV:TPP. Honestly, it was a wonderful day/night!

The Moors and The Moon

With my friend on Dartmoor

As I'm sure everyone is already aware, September 28th (UK time) was both a super Harvest moon and a total lunar eclipse, which are event that won't occur again together for another 30 years! Due to this, my friend, my mother and I decided to spend the early hours of the morning out on Dartmoor, where there is very little light pollution and hardly any buildings to obstruct the view. 

Mist particles swirling in the wind.

We got there at around 1am and, although it was rather overcast, the wind was whipping the clouds and mist about rapidly enough that it was still possible to view the eclipse.

My friend is dazed by the flash, whilst I gaze at the Moon.

At around 2:30am, the temperature began to drop and so my mother and my friend went to find a sheltered spot to make some soup to keep us warm, whilst I looked after our things. 

Although I have to admit that I did get a little bit distracted and went clambering around on some rocks  in the dark for a while! It was so peaceful sitting up there.

These are higher than they seem.

4:30am approached and it was time to leave, so we packed up and headed back. However, we did stop along the way to have one last look at the Moon and I managed to take one, very poor photograph of it in its rusty, hidden state:

The Super Harvest Moon Eclipse.

However, I wasn't too disappointed, because I got to see it with my eyes and had a wonderful night as well. There are some stunning photographs and time-lapse videos available elsewhere online though, should you want to see them! ;D

Walks in the Park with a Weirdo

There's a park near me that I've started going to this year quite regularly; I took my niece and nephew a few times when they were visiting, and sometimes I go by myself, but most of the time I go with my dear friend & housemate Nasu-pie (who does not like being in photos very often). Anyway, to get to the park I walk along a main road and there's another entrance that leads to a dual carriageway, but once inside it's such a peaceful and lovely place! 

A Monday in London: Up at the O2 and Down the Spiral of a Carsten Höller Slide...

The O2 with walkway.

From August 30th to September 1st my sister & her family very kindly let me stay with them in London. On the 31st it was a bank holiday Monday, so I also managed to meet up with my creative and lovely friend Kei - she blogs at Doing A Thing and Unfortunately Oh! - and we had some silly, fun adventures! I should point out here that I didn't take many photos, so any that are marked with "Doing A Thing" were taken by Kei and used with her permission (thank you!).

The O2 with the blue walkway arching over the top of it.

First, we went to the O2 Arena, as we were going to "climb" right over the top of it a little later that afternoon! However, as we were still a bit early we had a look around inside first. There wasn't much going on at the time, but we did find this interesting looking wall panel...

Visitors could change the music being played via touch screens.
There was a matching one to the left of it as well.

After a short wait, our timeslot for Up at the O2 came, so we went into the briefing room to meet our guide, Phil (he wasn't the mannequin modelling the rather fetching climb suit!)  and to watch a safety video.

Then it was time to get suited, booted, have some photos taken by the photographer (available for purchase at the end if you so desired; we didn't), have a few things explained, and begin the ascent.

Information about the O2 on the viewing platform

When we reached the viewing platform, 52 metres up at the top, it actually didn't seem that high. Even though there was a lot of cloud coverage the view was still great though!

With Kei at the top,

It rained the entire time, but I like rain, so it was enjoyable!

We needed to do this pose.
It was necessary.
It was.

We were on the viewing platform for a while and our guide came and told us some information about the various landmarks that could be seen, including The Arcelor Mittal Orbit, which will have a giant slide added to it by spring of next year! (Incidently, that slide is being created by the Belgian artist Carsten Höller, but more about his work a little later in this post). 

The way down was a little steeper, but actually much easier and the time seem to pass quite swiftly.  It was a fun experience and absolutely worth doing!

Next, we headed over to the Southbank Centre's Hayward Gallery in order to see the interactive exhibition, Decision, by Carsten Höller (told you there'd be more about him later). We entered via a long, dark tunnel (the "claustrophobic" entrance) that we had to navigate around by feeling along the walls. The sound echoed around and it was difficult to tell how far away from the other visitors you were at any time. Also, it gave me the feeling of wanting to stoop down to avoid banging my head constantly, even though my head was nowhere near touching the top. It was a great start!

Flying Mushrooms
The end of the tunnel and the mushroom orrery.

We emerged into a brightly lit room featuring what can only be described as an orrery-like structure , only with giant toadstools circulating in its mechanism instead of celestial bodies. Visitors were allowed to push the mushrooms around and I couldn't resist having a go...

The look of stupid awe and glee when I get to touch things in art galleries!

To avoid this entry getting extremely long, I won't detail everything here, but I'll share a few more images with you (if you'd like to know the context, Kei explained it over at her blog, which I'll link to below).

Moving on, at this pile of pills I was encouraged by a grinning security guard to take a pill and told "good luck" before he laughed a little. I appreciated that he got into his role (though he didn't have to), and took a placebo pill at the water fountain, haha.

Pill Clock

Divisions (Wall Painting with Aphids)

Snake and Half Mirror Room
There were two snakes and a mirrored wall

Kei: Upside Down Goggles
Dice can be seen in the background

Me: Upside Down Goggles

Isometric Slides

Isometric Slides was absolutely the best way to exit the exhibition (I went down the left one/right one on the picture)! I did feel bad for the two women in charge of helping people onto the slides and the guys taking the sacks back at the bottom though, because it must have been a boring job for them. 

Despite Two Flying Machines and Adjusted Hayward Sign not being open due to rain, I still liked this exhibition and actually appreciated the ideas behind the installations once I had read about them afterwards too (I always like to experience things without knowing the meaning first, for some reason). 

If you'd like to read more detailed accounts & or see additional pictures of the two experiences, you can check Kei's blogs about Up at the O2 and Decision.

As we were wandering back to the tube station, I also took photos of the murals/wall art below. The first one has been there for a while, but I hadn't seen the second one before. Either way, I think they're both gorgeous!

☆Birthday☆

I shall update with catch up posts very soon, as I've been absent for some time now, but today was the glorious day of my birth! I had a rather sedate, but fun day, filled with music and dorkery with friends. I was given some presents, which I will keep to myself (they aren't things), though I'm very grateful for them ^.^ My friend Nasu also made me a giant birthday cake, as he's a wonderful person:

And then, there was this gorgeous creation, from the darling Rina (who blogs at Kreativ):

Thank you for your dandy donkey! Haha :D

100 Happy Days: Day 56 - Silliness with Friends

Of course there was a hand with an eye on it and then of course the hypno-eye was involved!

100 Happy Days: Day 38 - Baking with The Princess

Today I assisted a The Princess with baking bread. (Well, I say "assisted", but truthfully my only contribution was scoring the diagonal lines before baking!) Teehee.

100 Happy Days: Day 34 - Splendid, Salacious Speed-Paint Sketch

My dear friend, The Aubergine Princess, completed this gorgeous sketch in around half an hour, and my Happy Day was made by being the first person to see it when it was completed! The picture above is a photo of my screen, but I've included the original below, just to display it properly.

Untitled by The Aubergine Princess

100 Happy Days: Day 23 - Painting Mutant Steampunk Rats

For today's 100 Happy Days post I decided to share a snapshot of myself helping to paint my friend's Warhammer Skaven (mutated, human-sized rats who use Steampunk-esque technology) models with a base coat. It was fairly simple, as I was just required to paint the figure black, but it allowed me to join in with a hobby of my friend, which was fun! He will later add much more detail to each one, so perhaps I'll post another photo of the completed army when he's finished.