Home Sweet Home -For Z-day!

Zombie Realtor takes a real bite out of the market! 

Okay the topic of Z-day has been broached several times to me in the last few months by various friends, as we debated our various plans that we have in place for surviving the zombie apocalypse.  We decided after much debate and arguments that we should consolidate out efforts into one plan so that when it comes we would be organised and in a position to be able to react quickly rather than scrambling.  

As such during the summer several of us took a little day trip to a certain island near where we live (I can’t divulge were or else come Z-day we would be over run by the masses and it would loose it’s strategic value) but the trip allowed us to recky the position of buildings of use, generators, safe harbours, etc that we could when the time comes.  All in all it was very useful and we now have a well formed plan which I will go into on another occiasion as a guide to the creation/formation of your own plans! After the debacle with Judgement Day and the number of e-mails I received from people who were unprepared I feel it is my duty to make sure that everyone is prepared for Z-day…in some small way at least. XD

A few days ago, a friend of mine who we had originally recruited to come up with designs and plans for storage on the island and for the selection of appropriate dwellings sent me information on a competition that was being run by an architecture company asking for designs for  ‘zombie proof’ homes.  

Pros: Isolated Cons: Getting to North Sea

My personal favourite of the current entries is one based upon the redesign of an abandoned north sea oil rig – a little utilitarian but when it comes to a toss up between survival and beauty, survival should win every time and if it doesn’t you need to get your priorities right.   Besides whats to say that glaciers and the floating bodies of the undead that pass by underneath the platform can't be beautiful!  I'm a silver lining type girl after all! 

Pros: Statue of Liberty Cons: Statue of Liberty

For those that value a little scenery and of course the benefit of an island, which offers its own level of security there is a rather ballsy design for a home in the Statue of Liberty, although how you would manage to create this before the apocalypse I would imagine the red tape would be considerable, although it would be both spacious and pretty although logistically it could prove something of a nightmare.  

Pros: No need for additional property Cons: Cholera

There are some interesting concepts for those who are not interested in a full blown escape plan but rather a sort of modification pack for your current dwelling.  It’s rather cool but anyone with any familiarity with books such as The Day of the Triffids will know that after the apocalypse comes the diseases and the pestilence so staying in cities will be a bad idea as things like Cholera and Typhus will quickly take hold so staying in your nice suburb home might seem like a good idea but in the long run its not really tenable.  

Check out the competition and the other entries definitely worth a look if you don’t have your plan Z-day finalised! 

The Z-day Home Competition

More Competition Results!

The results to the competitions that were run in the run in the last month or so to celebrate the launch of Pottermore! The job was to recast Character of Harry Potter- we had some great entries but the overall winner was Peter M with Nathan Fillian as Harry Potter (Epilogue) ! 

Cudos! He will be getting his very own custom Quidditch shirt and $15 worth of vouchers for Cafepress! 

Jessica C with Karen Gillan as Ginny Weasley (Epilogue) also gets a custom quidditch shirt! 

They are on their way to you! 

Keep an eye out for our next competition! 

Potty Potter Competition!

In recognition of the 500th order and the news about Pottermore I am kicking off the new competition with a 'pottery' theme! Harry was the star of J.K. Rowlings series but she has admitted that there are entire complex back stories for many of the minor characters! 

The COMP

SO your task this time around is 'Cast a Character' Pick a minor character from the Potterverse and cast them differently from the movies, create a movie poster, book cover, or forum graphic (500x200) for that character.  Same judging rules as always apply! 

The PRIZE

First prize will be a custom Quidditch shirt for your school/club or affiliation of choice and a $15 voucher for cafepress

Second Prize will be a custom Quidditch shirt as above.  

Closing date: 10th July
Send All entries as jpeg or gif attachments to : dantes.infernals.graphics@gmail.com

Geek Food: Doctor Who Cakes

Nerdy Baked goods! 

About this time of year I get an urge to go all domestic and do some cooking. So it’s probably a good time to start the series on baking for nerd-tastic occasions. 

Today we will be making a simple TARDIS shaped cake. 

Please note: the recipe contains raw eggs which make it unsuitable for pregnant women. 

The base is a simple sponge I favour this receipe but you can pretty much alter this to suit your own tastes: 

Ingredients: Makes one 20 cm / 8 in cake 

100 g/4 oz butter or margarine, softened

100 g/4 oz caster (superfine) sugar

100 g/4 oz self-raising (self-rising) flour

2.5 ml/0.5 tsp baking powder

Grated rind of 1 lemon

15 ml/1 tbsp lemon juice

2 eggs 

Method:

Blend together all the ingredients until well mixed. Spoon into a greased and lined 20 cm/8 in cake tin (pan) and bake in a preheated oven at 180°C/350°F/gas mark 4 for 30 minutes until well risen and springy to the touch. 

Obviously given that the TARDIS is rectangle the cake tin should be square as well. 

When the cake comes out leave it to cool completely, don’t be tempted to start working on while it’s still hot or even warm it will just make the rest a lot more difficult. 

From the top end of the cake (the short side of the rectangle) cut a slice to make the top edge blunter and set the cut piece aside, you will need it later. 

Now lay the cake with the broad side facing upwards and use the trim the cut piece so it is short than the original width of the cake and place it back where you cut it from. I use a lemon drizzle glaze to hold it in place but jam works just as well. 

You should end up with something that looks like this: 

Now for the icing

Ingredients: 

1 egg white 

450g. icing sugar 

50g. liquid glucose 

Flavoring and coloring 

Method:

Sift the icing sugar into a basin. Make a bay in the centre and add the softened glucose, egg white and flavoring. Beat, drawing the icing sugar into the centre until the mass is a stiff paste. Turn on to a board, which has been lightly dusted with sifted icing sugar, and knead into a paste.

Next knead the colouring into the icing as required and I tend to flavour the icing in a complementary manner to the cake so I go for white chocolate, vanilla, or lemon generally.  Whatever you don't use can be frozen and used for another cake! 

Working with fondant icing can be a pain as it tends to stick so make sure you have plenty of extra icing suger on hand to ‘flour’ your working board with it to prevent this as much as possible. 

Colour a fair amount of icing blue for the skin of the ship itself, the exact amount will depend on how thick or thin you want the icing to be. With this cover the entire shape of the cake and cut two extra long strip sections of blue for the door frame, a strip the same width as the cake, and 8 squares for the panels on the front. Liquid glucose or water (I use the lemon glaze) can be used to affix these extra sections to the base icing. 

Once these are in place you will need a small amount of white icing (which can be pulled off the main ball before you add the blue colouring) for the windows, police box sign, and door sign. The windows and door sign should be a little smaller than the size of the blue door panels. 

You sould be left with this: 

The final section requires patience, a steady hand, a toothpick, and a paint brush! With the toothpick, draw small lines down the two side columns, panes on the windows and write on the police sign and door sign. Next mix a little water with a small amount of black food colouring and with a very fine NEW artists paint brush dab or paint small amounts of colouring into the grooves you made with the toothpick. The grooves will take the colour and stop it from bleeding into the rest of the icing. I added a jelly to the top for the light on the TARDIS roof, and any other decoration is pretty spiffy as well. 

What you should be left with is this: 

More Competition Results!

Back from Hiatus and with the results to the competitions that were run in the run up to the birthday and over the Easter period in conjunction with CBS.  

 Our winner is Laura M with her hilarious Birthday banner of the Angel surprise party! Cudos for working in the birthday theme and the signature angel in such a witty way! The Christopher Eccelstone signed picture is on it's way along with the Doctor Who sticker packs by way of apology for lateness! 

First off the Easter Egg competition congrats to Kait for her winning answers and record time! Full details can be found in the thread.  Well done Kait your signed Ian McKellan memorabilia is winging its way to you! 

ANSWERS

New Competitions will be posted shortly but only the winners will be here, the competition details themselves will be here:

It's Been Nice Knowing You....

This could well be the last post I ever make, after today there may not be any more internet to post on and if there is it will be controlled by the machines, and it won't be safe to pass on human intelligence over the web like this.  

The Skynet missile defense system went online April 19, 2011at 20:11. It becomes self aware, declares war on mankind and triggers a nuclear apocalypse at some point today, April 21st 2011.   It will launch a pre-emptive strike in self defense against mankind, given that I've just got a tweet from BBC breaking news informing me that Obama has just given permission for an unmaned predator drone to be deployed to Libya I am guessing it will be soon. 

Those of you who heeded the warnings will have your nuclear bunkers already prepared and ready for this day.  I know I have mine stocked with enough freeze dried food to last a lifetime and enough DVD box sets of Star trek and Serenity to keep me going for at least a year.  I reckon a bit longer if I listen to the cast commentary and all the deleted scenes as well.  For those of you who were unprepared I wish you luck and recommend you take yourself to a quiet place and prepare to die in whatever manner you see fit.  

For those that fall in Judgement day you will not be forgotten, for those that survive, see you in the resistance. 

Good Luck

DOWN WITH SKYNET!  LONG LIVE JOHN CONNOR!!

Now the universe is down to 698 wonders.

Just two month's after the sad passing of Nicholas Courtney we heard today of the news of the passing of the wonderful Elisabeth Sladen.

Renowed for her role as the plucky Sarah Jane Smith, she featured prominantly in Doctor Who and it's spin off's the k-9 adventures and even having her own show The Sarah Jane Adventures.   Elisabeth played Sarah Jane alongside the third and fourth doctors, as well as re-ammerging in 10's tenure and even acted along side Matt Smith when he appeared in the Sarah Jane Chronicles.

Sladen's portrayal of Sarah Jane was a wonderfully positive role model for a generation of young geek woman.  She was a strong confident career woman, granted a little jeopardy friendly but really it's to be expected.  A wonderfully warm actress who will be dearly missed by fans of the show young and old.

Sladen passed from complications arising from her battle with cancer.

10 Reasons Not To The See the Sun This Summer

10 Reasons not to see the sun this summer!

Your Highness
Okay so this isn’t really that geeky but the truth is you have to support the Belfast made stuff! It looks funny, like it isn’t taking itself too seriously which is normally a good sign although I do hope they havn’t put everything amusing from the script into the trailer. On the other hand James Franco may mean that if it is poor I can put head phones on and just watch his pretty pretty face!


Doctor Who season kick off!
Okay not exactly a movie but still looking like it will be amazing. The season kicks off on the 29th of April – Easter weekend and will run on a slightly different format to previous seasons, with longer plot archs and a few twists. Some of the episode titles are intriguing and there are a few things I don’t want to know about the series or rather some characters in it but I’ll still watch it and probably love every moment.



Thor
I’m sort of hoping that everyone will be so busy with the Royal wedding in the UK Ill have nice empty cinemas to go see this one! It looks epic and with the staple of the film industry Anthony Hopkins playing any sort of role in the movie there must be something half decent in the script. I’m disturbed by the frequency of Portman this summer and I am not looking forward to seeing her in this simply because her character has been randomly changed to be more than it is and she feels like a hamfisted romance subplot…blech.



Pirates of the Carribean: On stranger Tides
My hatred of Kiera Knightly is no real secret and as far as I’m concered she’s enough reason to go see the new Pirates of the Caribbean movie, mainly because she isn’t in it! It’s been parred back to the two best character’s Barbossa and Jack, finally having ditched the dead weight!
Mermaids, Zombies and Blackbeard and directed by Rob Marshall, so I really do expect big things. Add to that the fact that it will be in 3D and I’m having a pirate themed party afterwards!



Hangover II

The Hangover was a great movie, even if it did give almost everything away in it’s trailer, now the Hangover II threatens to be one of two things…EPIC winning, like Sheen on Tigerblood, or utterly rubbish and a cheap way of cashing in on the flogging of a dead horse. I’m hoping for the first, mainly because it’s some of the same cast and Liam Neeson, which hopefully will set it apart from other such sequels (Bring It On 2-5 spring to mind). Certainly unlike the first instalment the trailer doesn’t give much away.





X-men First Class
As I mentioned in previous posts I am both excited and trepidatious of this one. The alterations to the already established canon makes me a little uneasy but I will probably go and see it anyway simply because I’ve waited this long for it, they were talking about a Magneto/Charles origin movie for 8 years!



Smurfs
I can see this being the movie that parents drag their kids too because they want to see it. Since the smurfs themselves sort of dropped out of popular culture for a while and I know that kids under 15 have pretty much no idea what the smurfs are about so like the chipmunks they were due a revamp and it looks like it might be a light hearted way to kill some time. Who wants to lend me a 10 year old for the afternoon?



Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2
I really wish they had not made us wait this long for the 2nd instalment of Harry Potter but if the first half is anything to go by it should be a great summer movie. I am of course trying to ignore the plot holes and inconsistancies that emerged from the first one, more than that I think Warner bro’s are being punished for leaving so much out of the first movies as they now try to hamfistidly shove in all the extra information that was a minor plot point in the books but now proves to be vital to Harry’s final deductions. I still say it’s a safe bet to bank on packed cinemas release weekend.



Captain America
I expect big things from this movie after all it sets the tone for the next Avengers movie’s. The cast seems like a ‘made in heaven’ sort of affair, and the red skull as the primary bad guy just screams FTW, although I feel the trailer doesn’t do it justice.



The Green Lantern
Another great superhero movie due this summer, it looks like it has a sort of 60’s vibe to the action but for my money that makes it all the more epic, and Ryan Reynolds casting as the named Green Lantern should bring out the Marvel and DC fiends to argue over if he is a better Deadpool or Lantern. I’ll reserve judgement until I’ve seen the movie but Deadpool will be hard to beat





Beastly is also released in mid April which should be a great little moment for all of the grown up Disney girls out there, in this remake of Beauty and the Beast.

11 Doctors, 3 Masters, but only one Brigadier!

The Geek world mourned today at the news of the death of Nicholas Courtney, the man who played the famous Brigadier Sir Alastair Lethbridge-Stewert, a commanding officer in UNIT (Originally the United Nations Intelligence Task force and now the Unified Intelligence task force)

Appearing periodically in the series from season 5 to 13, and reappearing the series 20th Season - and more recently in the Sarah Jane Adventures. Appearing alongside every doctor from Hartnell to Mc Coy he appeared in over 100 televised epsiodes with 5 different Doctor's

Having served in the military himself he portrayed the stalwart commander with a plomb in both the TV shows and the audio plays.

It would be a fitting send off to have a 21 gun salute of 'Five rounds,, rapid'

Nicholas Courtney passed away on 22nd of February 2011 after a short illness

X-Men: First Class

So the X-men: First Class has been on the cards for an absolute age in one form or another.  Rumours of the Magneto origins, Xavier origins movies have circulated the web since before the Wolverine movie was a twinkle in the plot writer’s eye. 

Set in the 60’s when Magneto and Xavier were both young men before all of the issues arose that eventually made them arch enemies.  While the plot has been left pretty oblique, I can only assume that ‘First Class’ refers to the beginnings of the X-mansion and the institute. 

I am concerned that there will be a lot of plot holes or things that don’t match with the Xavier we have been presented with in the previous films.  For a start Scott, Jean, and the others who formed the first class of X-men in the comics knew Charles when he was bald, even in the Wolverine movie Charles, although he can still walk, is bald.  I wonder how much of Jean and Scott’s back story, if any, will be shown. 

Moreover, if Emma is supposed to be the White Queen already she is going to be significantly older than Scott and Jean.  I know they aren’t sticking to the comics verbatim but at the same time the Emma/Scott/Jean triangle was a major feature of quiet a few of the comic runs.  While I think, January Jones will make a credible Emma Frost, she certainly has the 60’s movie starlet to pull it off I am worried that some elements of the movie will become a little like the overly cheesy hero shoes from the same period – especially since many of the characters will have costumes much like the ones from the comics. 

There were lots of debate over the role of Xavier and Magneto – at one stage there was talk of using the software that is used to age the faces of missing children but in reverse to make Ian McKellan and Patrick Stewart look younger – which is a touch odd in itself and despite the general concern over the people that have been cast I think the line up looks pretty good.  Despite the few age issues I have. 

At the moment the line up appears to be (Left-Right):

Micheal Fassbender : Eric Lensherr

Rose Byrne : Miora McTaggert

January Jones : Emma Frost

Jason Flemyng : Azazel

Nicohlas Hoult : Hank McCoy

Lucas Till: Alex Summers

Zoe Kravitz: Angel Salvadore

Jennifer Lawrence: Raven Darkholme

James McAvoy: Charles Xavier

(Not Shown)

Kevin Bacon: Sebastian Shaw

Oliver Platt: Man in Black

As a massive fan of Oliver Platt I’m incredibly glad that he’ll be appearing in First Class, although my internal type cast means that everything he appears in should simply be as varying shades of Porthos! He is capable of more than that I know but I find I don’t care – I simply want the sash that was a gift to him from the Queen of America.

Due to be released on the 3^rd of June 2011 First Class is set to be the first of a new trilogy directed by Donner.  I don’t want to judge the series too harshly just yet but there will be more details as I get them!  A few more stills attached! 

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EDIT:

HERE IS THE TRAILER! HERE
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Geek Decorating

 When I talk about Geek decorating, I don't mean geek feng shui, or how to make your house look bigger on the inside, I mean the actual decor! What's the geekiest item you have in your home? Captain Kirk cardboard cut out?  Fantasy wall art? Doctor Who bed spread?  The topic of geek decorating came up in a conversation recently as to how deeply you hide your inner geek or how proudly you display it.  My current level of geek display equates to my DVD's on display, Pride, Prejudice, and Zombies wall art, and some full size Cybermen masks.  Which is all fairly tame – especially when compared to my friend whose home is bedecked with swords, spider man comic book art, a hand drawn star trek caricature of him fencing Captain Kirk and a telephone in the shape of a TARDIS (granted I gave him that).  

I blame my own lack of geek interior decorating on the fact that as a student I don’t have a space of my own, I live in one room of a rented house, with no living room.  So I don’t have a lot of scope for decorating, and my parents refuse to allow me to redecorate the Victorian dining room to resemble Ten Forward.  

However, I have recently received from serious inspiration as to what I would ‘like’ to do with my home the minute I get one.  One my unfailing fencers revealed recently she has a ‘secret room’ in her house –hidden behind a door.  ‘So What?’ I hear you ask, well here it is -->

THATS RIGHT! It's Han Solo Frozen in Carbonite as a door!  It was custom made to replace the original and while it doesn’t look like a door (which is rather the point) It does look EPIC! 

BUT WAIT! There is more! The room itself is her  own little geek haven for gaming and what not! And its protected by her other major geek displayed item is the 7 foot Warcraft Orc that stands behind the sofa!

I have however, warned her that should the door go missing that those pesky mandalorians do look a lot like 5 foot female law students! XD

From what I can tell the prop itself can be bought from suppliers like THIS ONE and it then has to be altered to be a door -the amount of work and the detail involved is amazing! 

My jealousy is utterly unending! If there was ever an inducement to PhD study and becoming a lecturer then this is it!  More than that it is a truly proud display of geek pedigree and a way of judging  the geekiness of your friends – if they realise what the door depicts or can indentify the orc as Warcraft rather than LOTR then they can be considered fairly hardcore.  

So there it is viva geek decorating and heaven help anyone I end up living with because I've just been given something new to aspire to! 

A Brand New Year and Five Daughters

First post back from Christmas! Thanks for hanging in there! Law sucked my Christmas from me and I’ve been up to my eyes in boring! I am only now getting into the swing of things. 

BUT I thought I would kick off the year with a slight break from the geek world.  I recently watched the BBC mini series ‘Five Daughters’.  Its not science fiction, its not even a geeky topic but I thought I needed to mention it all the same. 

‘Five Daughters’ is the stories of the Anneli Alderton, Paula Clennell, Gemma Adams, Tania Nicol and Annette Nicholls, the victims of Steven Wright, dubbed in the media ‘The Suffolk Stranger.’  It follows the last few days of these women’s lives as they try to protect themselves and come to terms with the death of their friends. 

When the series originally aired, I like many people, was concerned and angry as to how the events and the people involved would be treated in the serial and I originally refused to watch.   The media in general place their emphasis on those who commit the crimes rather than the victims – most people can recognise the names or the faces of Myra Hindley, Ted Bundy, Jack the Ripper, John Wayne Gacy, but few would recognise the names of Janice Ann Ott, John Kilbride, Elizabeth Stride, and Darrell Sampson as their victims.  We are presented with headlines and pictures of the criminals looking callous or insane, with scant mention of the victims unless it is to point out how their lifestyle got them into trouble, as with Peter Sutcliffe victims, or how their lifestyle or age makes them even more pitiable. 

I admit now that my reservations were merely presuppositions on my part and I was entirely incorrect in what the scope of the show actually was.  It wasn’t a slasher movie; it didn’t portray Wright as a mythic Jack the Ripper type killer, indeed the actor playing himself was only on screen for about three minutes at the end. 

It instead, focused on the human tragedy of the events of October to December 2006 and the relationships of these women with each other, their families, and the police.  It was impressive that director Phillipa Lowthorpe, writer Stephen Butchard, and the BBC did not give in to the temptation to create a CSI/Silent Witness style show which I think would have diminished the series. 

Instead, the approach was sensitive and Natalie Press, Eva Birthistle, Jaime Winstone, and Aisling Loftus portrayed the girls as real people with real problems not as preconceived stereotypes of the fallen woman or as pretty woman parodies of their lifestyle.  It seemed a candid view of the victims lives. 

The victim centric approach is such a change from the normal series of this genre a d the emphasis on the human tragedy rather than the morbid fascination in their deaths helps to diminish the cult of notoriety that often attaches itself to people like Wright.  Well done BBC, in a genre where it is all too easy to forget the victims they’ve done a great job in focussing on the people who were really affected by the events of October – December 2006

EDIT!

I'd also like to add that the program that helped many of the street workers in Ipswich in the wake of the murders is on the brink of closure.  Help Save the ICENI - Sign the PETITION

If you've been affected by anything relating to the series please take a look at the BBC support site - HELP

ICENI Project Ipswich

BBC Five Daughters