Give me a minute to brush the dust off.

Hello!

I've come back from the dead (I got better), and while school seems to be taking over every spare moment of my life at the moment, hopefully in the foreseeable future I'll be able to spend more time on here, and less time writing essays (and playing Red Dead Redemption...). If I'm lucky I might even have the time during the September holidays to redo the blogger template and start showing off some of the stuff I've been doing while I've been gone (mostly essays. But interesting stuff as well).

So I'll see you again once I have my life back. For now, I give you this:

Oh Halloween!

the blood you drew

you carved a space to climb into
and like a lantern, like a pyre,
I burn, I burn with holy fire.

Check out Washington's 'How To Tame Lions' while you're at it.

Paper Street Soap Co.

 

Writing a desgin brief is a pain. Writing a design brief from the point of view of a fictional company from a movie you really like is much more interesting. But still a pain.

As well as studying Art this year, I'm also undertaking Visual Communication & Design, and part of your 'do this to pass' is that you've got to pretend that a company has approached you to do something for them.

Anyone who's seen (or read) Fight Club will know Paper Street Soap Company.

For those who don't, Tyler Durden makes soap from the fat that's dumped from liposuction clinics and sells it to rich people. I believe the remark about it is something along the lines of:

"We're selling rich ladies their own fat asses back to them."

 I'm pretending Paper Street is a proper company that just make fancy soaps, and thus far my teacher seems to not have picked up on it. Shame.

Anyways, in searching for a witty name for their latest collection of soaps, I found the Paper Street Soap Company website, which is full of wonderful in-jokes (hover over those little circles for links). And then I remembered that Last Exit To Nowhere, maker of wonderful movie-nerd shirts, has a PSSC t-shirt.

Available here, which I've been wanting for awhile.

Of Questions On Clays

I appeal to those of you with experience makin' stuffs. I know you're out there.

This year for art I'm required to make at least two artworks for my final folio presentation, and I'm planning on doing some anatomy/human body type sculptures.

I'd like to make one slightly bigger than A4 sized, length and width wise, and the other I'd hope to make about the size of an actual torso. I've used basic terracotta clays before in class, and the results were pretty good, but I've no longer got access to a kiln, wherein my problem lies.

I'm looking for a relatively cheap clay (or clay-like substance) that doesn't require kiln firing, and can be painted and perhaps varnished, something to that effect. Air dry would be a bonus, as well as light-weight, but I'm willing to pass those up for a better alternative.

Your help is much appreciated and willing particpants won't have their brains stolen in the night.

Unless you're into that kind of thing.

For Future Reference

Quick everyone, go watch this video so that later on I can make a reference to it and you'll all find it witty rather than just really weird because you've never seen a single episode of Black Books.

Of course, if you've never seen an episode of Black Books, you should go educate yourself immediately anyways.

So either way you're doing yourself a favour here. 

No, really. Don't look at me like that.

If you truly would like to educate yourself in the ways of Black Books, I suggest you start at the beginning, and then when you get to the end, stop.

Now, to stop you from never visiting the blog again, look, pretty thing!

Which I'll tell you more about next post.

Month of Music: Goin' Out West by Tom Waits

Summer TV drives me to watch DVDs more than normal.
Summer heat makes me too lazy to get up and search through various rooms of the house to find something new to watch.
So I keep watching the same movie, over and over.
Fight Club is thankfully worth watching and rewatching.
This track, while not as often remembered as The Pixies' 'Where Is My Mind?' during the end of the film, is equally as cool, and played during the first official Fight Club scene in Lou's Tavern.

Sci-Fi Sunday: The Thing (1982)

Is that a man in there, or something else?

I think I liked it.

I'm not sure though. The premise was good, and the sociological aspects of it were great, but it was... a bit slow. At times the slow pacing added to the suspense, making you wonder just how long was left, other times it just felt like they'd run out of script and you wondered how long before you left.

Originally, I'd wanted to do a double-feature comparing this to 'The Thing From Another World', but apparently none of the local video stores have even heard of it. This one I already owned, but never watched. I decided I probably should seeing as there is talk of a prequel being filmed this year.

I was surprised by how much I enjoyed it. The special effects, while not brilliant in the world of today, with Avatar's giant blue people, I imagine would be quite impressive in the early eighties, and provided a few "Ew" moments, particularly during the dog explosion, which is more than I can say of a lot of the movies I've watched recently.

Once upon a time, this was a husky.

The film follows the basic plot of 'something strange is found, it turns out to be evil, and it tries to kill everyone' which is a storyline we should all be familiar with by now. As the 'thing' takes the form of whatever it kills, there's no way for anyone to know who's the bad guy, and so the crew of the remote arctic outpost turns on each other in an attempt to stay alive, and to prevent it from reaching the rest of humanity.

Luckily the crew know the basic rule of the unknown evil: Kill it with fire.

Flambé anyone?

Also, I've been resisting the urge to make this joke all day;

"Look deep into the parka"

Month of Music: Papercut Skin by The Matches

I'm going to preface this by saying that I think that The Matches were one of the most underrated bands on the planet.


'Were' being the important word in that sentence. 'Were', because as of July last year, the band announced that they would be going on hiatus. Indefinitely.
They were going to be doing one last set of shows and releasing a rarities CD and then, who knows?
It was after hearing that they were doing their last shows in California that I particularly felt like stabbing myself. You see, a few months prior, they had toured in Australia. And I passed up the show because it was in the middle of a bunch of important tests and I thought that they would be getting rather big soon and would probably come back the next year.
It's funny in that way that slipping and falling really hard is funny.
(you know, in that it's not)


Anyway, great song, great band, great album. The Matches have a habit of taking a song in a completely different direction than you thought, and it's always brilliant. With most bands, there's always those one or two songs that you're not so fond of. Doesn't happen here. Every song is amazing. I wanted to recommend one or two for you guys to look up, but I can't choose.

Go buy all their albums. All of you. Maybe then they'll come back from their hiatus.

Now For Something Completely Different

from PostRejects.

Like the vast majority of people on the internet, I quite enjoy Mr Python and that grand old "Flying Circus" of his. However I have found that this is a fairly uncommon trait of people my age. They do exist, but most have only seen The Holy Grail, and I find that to be a bit sad.

A year or two ago, I went to a party dressed as Cardinal Ximénez (the one with the hat). It was a costume party, obviously, which made it a bit less odd. However, while I thought the costume witty and entertaining, nobody else did.

 Nobody expected it. But nobody understood it either.

So if I were to make a post secret about The Spanish Inquisition, it would look more like this:

Because sometimes having cool parents who let you watch Flying Circus videos at age 5 really sucks.

Also I hate that yellow mouse.

Month of Music: WTF by OK Go

Most of you will know OK Go from their music video for 'Here It Goes Again'.

No? Not ringing any bells?

Remember that film clip with the men dancing on treadmills? That was OK Go.

The band continue their tradition of strange music videos with the aptly titled 'WTF'.

This trippy video is directed by Tim Nackashi, and like a lot of their videos, was filmed in one continuous take.
'WTF' is the first single off their new album 'Of The Blue Colour Of The Sky', due for release this month (the 12th, to be exact), making it almost five years since their last studio album, and four years since the release of 'Here It Goes Again'.

Introducing the Month of Music

I have decided to dedicate the first month of 2010 to music.

That's right, January 2010 will be a month of posts about music. You have been warned.

My guess is that for the most part the posts will contain youtube videos, so sorry to those with slow internet connections. Trust me, I know your pain. And because I know your pain I intend to showcase only the best musical masterpieces. And a lot of covers of 80's songs. And some really tacky mash ups.

Because one can both give and recieve pain. I may even uncover some of the very short, very amateur, songs I have created in the past for you to laugh at. Again, pain is a two way street.

Conveniently, Triple J's Hottest 100 is on January 26th, and hopefully I'll get to post a nice... I don't know... selection of stuff, I guess.

And for those of you not interested in a month of youtube videos, don't worry (or do), because I'll be posting the usual odd bits and pieces (like Sci-Fi Sunday, which was this Sunday that just passed, if you've been following. (I know I haven't)), plus plenty of things I want to buy from online stores, just like normal.

Anyways, first post will be January 1st (of course), and I can tell you now it'll be a nice quiet start to the new year.

Wanting Things: Star Wars Geekery

First, a confession. The first Star Wars movie I saw was Episode IV. And I liked it. Still do.And yes, I have seen I through to III. Yes, they are far better than IV to VI. But Episode V and VI are still my favourites. Also I like roman numerals.

Don't look at me like that.

I still think Jar Jar was the worst thing ever to happen to the franchise. Teenage Anakin was generally whiny and annoying. I've never seen the animated series and for a few years there I really wanted a pet Tauntaun. 

But cutting to the point - ThinkGeek has a bunch of really neat Star Wars stuff. I'm sure everyone's seen the Tauntaun sleeping bag by now, thanks to the April Fools joke that became real, but there's also stuff like this:

Star Wars Cookbooks - Star Wars Chop Sabers

Classic Hasbro Star Wars Blasters

I'll take both cookbooks, the Vader chop saber, and GG's blaster.

Although if I had to choose between the cookbooks, I'd take the one with Darth Maul on the cover, because he had a lightsaber with two ends, and the coolest music.

There, I've said it.

Wanting Things: A Month Behind

T-shirty

I don't have L4D2 yet. Instead I live in my imaginary land where it's being released in a month and I actively ignore people talking about it. Generally by putting my hands over my ears and humming loudly to drown out their emanating sense of satisfaction.

So understandably I come across a few issues when I find nice L4D and L4D2 merchandise online. Covering my ears does no good and covering my eyes means I can't look at the merchandise that does exist my imaginary land. Luckily, The Valve Store has done me (and others like me) a favour and separated the not-yet existent merchandise from the stuff that does exist. If you follow.

Actually I found the store while looking for a shirt for my brother (Companion Cube!), and then was oddly surprised to find L4D wares. Because I'm not greatly intelligent, and because who would think that games made by the same company would share the same webstore? Really?

Anyway, there are two tees I'm quite fond of in the store. I Hate Vans and I Hate The Woods. Especially I Hate The Woods.

To anyone unfamiliar with the game, first, congrats on making it this far reading my rambling about something you have no idea about. Francis, an ex-con with an attitude, has a great deal of voice clips devoted to things he hates. There's a video on youtube of a song made from his hates. I like Francis because in the same position, I'd probably be acting the same way, with a touch of Zoey's "this only happens in the movies" attitude, and then a heaping pile of Church Guy's paranoid turning on everyone. Because I'm helpful like that.

And to those who don't understand those references: I'd be the "Game over, man! Game over!" guy from Aliens.

Helpful in a crisis.

Sci-Fi (Almost) Sunday: The Core

First, I must confess, I have seen The Core before. Twice, in fact.

My first viewing of The Core was probably in 2004/5, a year or two after it had been released in cinemas and flopped incredibly. The television was being particularly uninteresting and this was the best they had to offer. The main memory I have of it was falling asleep half-way through out of boredom. Not exactly a great endorsment.

The second time I saw it was sometime in 06/07. In science class.
Everyone knows, watching a movie in class is always good, even when they're just boring educational nonsense, because sitting in a dark room, the teacher doesn't know (and usually doesn't care) if you're paying attention or not. I thought that seeing as I didn't see the ending last time, I should pay attention to parts of it. Plus our teacher said that this way we could learn about the different levels of the core of the earth. To this day, I couldn't tell you anything remotely sciency I learned from watching The Core. In fact, scientists voted The Core to have the worst basis in science for a science fiction movie.

Sciencey.

So it must have lots of other cool stuff to make up for the complete disregard for science, right? ...Not really. As far as disaster movies go, The Core is strong on the doomsday, but rather light on the explosions. The acting is decent, but not even Two-Face and Hilary Swank, I mean, Aaron Eckhart and Hilary Swank can make this movie any more than bearable. There's also "the guy who was in The Devil Wears Prada" (Stanley Tucci) as the movie's annoying guy, "the guy who's been in a dozen of my favourite tv shows" (DJ Stanley) as the computer nerd, and "that French guy from all those French films" (Tchéky Karyo) as the weapons specialist.

Two-Face talking about sciencey things. Next he plays a trumpet.

That's right, weapons. Because you see, the core of the earth is said to be made of molten metal, which spins around and around and around and keeps the planet doing whatever it is that keeps us alive, until one day it stops. So the plan is that they build a ship to take them to the core of the planet, so they can detonate some nukes to get it running again. Very sciencey. They conveinently skip through the 3 month building process, explaining it all in very simple terms, so in the end none of it really makes sense. Eventually they get there after lots of stuff goes wrong and lots of people die and they save the planet! Which is such a surprise.


Ultimately you're going to have to see it for yourself, just to witness the complete disregard they have for even basic science principles. And that's what makes it watchable, in the end. It's so bad it's bearable. Watching them trying to explain the vacuum inside the earth filled with amethyst is hilarious, and much fun can be brought from guessing who dies first (and next). And don't forget the whales (you'll have to discover that on your own).

And you thought I was joking.

An Overall Good Time

A posthumous Happy Halloween to you all.

Due to technical difficulties, this will be a long, mostly text based post, where I ramble on about what happened on Halloween. If you wish to see the few pictures, scroll down towards the bottom. If not, feel free to read. Or do something productive with your time. Up to you, really.

Waking up on the morning of the 31st, it was a warm and muggy day. I'd kicked off the sheets some time in the early AM, too hot and restless to sleep. For days they had been changing the forecasts. Overcast with cool winds. Hot and sunny. Thunderclouds and rain. I was worried that it would be a repeat of the day before - hot and humid all day then rain pouring in come nightfall. Stepping outside my prediction seemed likely, with clouds overhead and a fairly oppressive heat. Luckily the main area that needed work done was indoors, so I didn't need to leave the house for a few hours.

The morning was spent removing almost everything from the living room, hallway and bathroom. All personal effects, knick-knacks and excess items disappeared into other rooms, light switches were covered with tape, doors sealed off with caution tape and Do Not Enter signs and furniture covered with white sheets. The bags of Halloween themed candy and bottle upon bottle of drink arrived and were hidden away in the fridge. The projector arrived and I found out that my year of light and sound tech classes had gone to waste when I was unable to connect speakers > playstation > projector. In my defence the speakers are possibly older than my mother, but still, it was quite a stumbling block. The brother was called out and set to fix it. He did. The cute cupcakes are various party foods arrived, and as we put them in the outdoor fridge we discovered it was just about cool enough to go outside.

Down to the shed we went. Up came the paintings, a second set of speakers (which didn't work any better than the pair we had), and more caution tape to wrap around the outside of the house. Back down we went, and dragged out all the wooden benches, and placed them around the path. Hot and sticky work. They look rather easy to carry. One person at each end, lift and carry. They're not. We collapsed back inside and debated hanging positions for the paintings. The portrait of his dead wife went next to his desk. Black and white figures went on the walls in the living room while creepy magpies were hung down the hallway, watching you pass, with one watching over your shoulder while you wash your hands in the bathroom. A bag of a hundred tea lights were opened and distributed in clusters in the room, with two dozen going in jars to hang outside. Others were placed on concrete tiles along the path, to be lit moments before guests arrived.

And then the neighbours came home.
As far as neighbours go, I have it pretty good. We live on a small street with no through road, and at present there are only four houses on the street. On the corner live a fairly large family who keep to themselves. Next door is my step-uncle and aunt and their daughter. Across from us have yet to finish building but are old friends of the family. However at the end of the street live the family that everyone will say hi to but don't really want to associate with. You know the type. Turns out November 1st was their eldest sons birthday, and they were celebrating the day before. And so the mob arrived. Last time there was a party there the police had to be called after they broke into our neighbour's shed. With a great part of the party planned to be outside, we had some decisions to make. Ultimately we chose to be non-confrontational. Inside the party went. We couldn't risk having them attempt to crash our party, nor did we want to be stuck outside in case the rain finally made an appearance.

It was a good decision, in the end. The police made an appearance only briefly, making sure nothing was going awry, and nothing went missing from our yard - something I was especially afraid of seeing as The Gardener was easy to take or destroy. The rain clouds, while still threatening rain, held out till midnight, and provided us with an early dark. An hour before guests arrived we scrambled to get ready and I briefly snuck out to snap some pictures of the set up. They were wonderful pictures. I say that safe in the knowledge that no one will ever be able to challenge me. Because they no longer exist. Three were recovered from the memory card. It does make you acknowledge how much you rely on photography to help you remember events. My main regret is that I can't show you all the effort that went into the party. The guests seemed to appreciate it though. And that's what's important, right?

The projector idea was a hit. Moved indoors along with the rest of the party, we pinned a white sheet to the blinds and played guitar hero, which was especially welcomed by the boys. A skewed gender ratio had them keeping to themselves, but thankfully the competitiveness of the girls got them playing together, with our effort at playing System of a Down's B.Y.O.B. on expert rewarded after we completed it on the third try. GH was such a hit that in the end we completely forgot that we planned to watch a movie just before midnight. Instead we sat around and did... party things, I guess. At several points, people moved outside to sample the cool air and for the most part the neighbours left us alone. The costumes were great, with my personal favourite being a milk maid, complete with milk jugs handing off a pole slung across her shoulders. I ended up being jealous of my brother's costume, because he ended up looking rather snazzy as Richmond from the IT Crowd. But I win in the end as I made it and did his make-up. My costume was rather... light, for me. Wearing a toga/dress and laurel wreath, I was Melpomene, the ancient Grecian muse of tragedy. Which, while sounding cool, means I was the patron saint of plays.

I had planned on doing a little slideshow of pictures from the party, but unfortunately they were also lost those along with the set up pictures. So very angry at my camera right now. The three pictures that were saved were:

Me doing my brother's make-up. (blurry)

And no, I'm not wearing a wig. I have blonde hair. Lets move on.

My brother again, pre make-up. (also blurry)

And The Gardener in his raincoat. (not blurry!)

Clean-up was relegated to the morning, and so those of us to lazy to go home crashed in the loungeroom, under the condition that they would have to help clean up. Breakfast was a very healthy meal of leftover Halloween candy and soft drink, of which, two days after the party, there is still plenty of. After the main cleaning was done, we all retreated to the lounge to play a nice calming game of Left 4 Dead. So all in all, it was nice. It's just my camera and the neighbours who couldn't made things nicer by not being quite so annoying. 

Almost There

The Gardener is done. For now. The fabric really bugs me for a number of reasons, but the main one is that it isn't old-looking enough. Right now though, I don't have the time. Or the initiative. It's done and I don't have to worry about it anymore. Sometime after Halloween I'll post more pictures.

I'm going to be all hyper tomorrow morning when I wake up. And then I'll realise I have to set up a projector and a set of speakers about twice as old as I am, clean the house and tape off doorways. Plus all that little detail stuff which is fun to plan but so time consuming to execute. Really wishing I'd had more time, but there's not much I can do now other than finish off an English assignment. Last English work for the year! Woo!

Learning From Your Mistakes

Some things you have to learn the hard way. I found this out, funnily enough, the hard way last night. Anyone following me on twitter would have noticed my little breakdown when everything seemed to go wrong at once.

As deadlines approach (and go flying past, not even stopping to say hello), I tend to start working on things late at night, because it's time I'm usually awake anyway and I find the hours between 11pm and 2am to be particularly productive, if not occasionally dangerous. I attempted to learn that lesson after I tried taking off my left thumb with a stanley knife a few weeks ago. I told myself that I wasn't going to be doing anything stupid like that again. So it only makes sense that last night I decided it would be a good idea to try and finish the papier mache on The Gardener. Because everyone else in this house seems to sleep (freaks), I had to do it in my room. No big deal. Spread out a few plastic sheets on the carpeted area I was working over, thought everything would be fine. And it was, for the most part.

Then I decided I should lean the thing against my desk while I go get a drink. I don't know why I thought this was a good idea. The Gardener is incredibly heavy. He's got two pieces of rather thick timber making up the cross, and in order to get it to stand up but still be portable, he's got a steel pipe hidden up the back of his cross, so I can just shove a metal rod in the ground and shove him on it. Of course, however brilliant that sort of forward thinking may be, it's pretty useless when you're carting the thing around indoors and looking for things to lean it against. You can't lie him on his front because you'll crush his ribcage. Can't lie him on his back because of the vines and the metal pole. So I'd taken to leaving him leant at oblique angles against things, with only the very top touching the wall, and something bracing the bottom. It had been working so far.

Then it fell. Must've slid to the side, then completely lost balance. I came back to my room to find him, still attached to his cross, thankfully, but lying half on the floor, half on the bed. Minus a hand. There was much cursing because I knew it was only a matter of time before one of the hands were broken, they stick out just a bit beyond the cross-beam and have a habit of getting hit on walls and door ways.Walk around your house with your arms stretched out, the same way kids do when they're trying to be airplanes and you'll understand what I mean. Still muttering and just generally pissed off, I take the injured party and move him to a better position. And then I see it.

My container full of my super-secret mache mix (and by super-secret I mean glue + water + hand sanitiser). Empty, a dark patch emanating from the lid, soaking my bed. When I had grabbed the container, I chose it because it used to be full of some sort of fruit in liquid. I assumed it would, therefore, be watertight. Wrong. I spent quite some time trying to soak up all the mix from my various bed things, and then I was stuck with the problem of having no mache mix left, no glue to make more, vines to finish and a hand to reattach.
The best solution seemed to be screaming and/or crying. But I didn't. I cleaned up the mess the best I could, then I made some flour + water mache mix. And I fixed it.

But here's some things I learned:

• Top heavy things will fall over, especially if balanced precariously.

• Just because you think it's water-tight, doesn't mean it is.

• Using flour glue makes you smell like you've been baking.
  

• Tape fixes everything.

• Your time spent over the last holidays playing Professor Layton and the Curious Village wasn't wasted.

"Critical thinking is the key to success." 

(Okay so I didn't really do anything puzzle like. But at the time, remembering I could make glue out of flour and water made me feel like a genius. Shush.)

Work In Progress

And only two weeks overdue. I was going to get all of the papier mache on the vines done last night. Was. That was before I discovered a spider inhabiting the support pole under the vine and had a little freak out. It's dead now but I had trouble working to the same efficiency knowing I'd almost touched a spider. Yes, I know, it's a tad girly but it was either a funnel web (very bad) or a house spider (not so bad). There's a nice spider chart here telling you just how hurtie the spiders will be. Don't click on it if spiders freak you out, the pictures, while obviously drawn rather than photographs, move.
But moving away from spiders, once I've got the last of the mache done all that remains is a coat of varnish and then paint. It is shall live! -evil cackle-

-From now on this post will be about mind-numbingly mundane details of my life, so turn back now if you wish. Don't say I didn't warn you.-

Sadly The Gardener is turning into one of those things that I could've had done in a week had I not have had so much else to do. I've probably mentioned this on twitter several times, but the last week in October is for me not only the week before Halloween (and therefore the most exciting), but also the last week for school work submissions for the year (therefore the most nerve-wracking). The logical, "let's get straight A's and go to University" side of me says I should put off everything else and study. The rest of me though, is screaming Halloween. Because I don't really want to go to University, and well, I like Halloween more than I like writing essays about feminism in Ancient Greece, the changing status of artists from the Middle Ages to today, and knowing the formulas on how to find the angles and side lengths of triangles given only one length and one angle.

Ultimately I've chosen to do both. I finished and submitted my math assignment a few days ago. The Gardener is both for Halloween and for school. I got back my mark for my feminism essay last night (I did shockingly well). I spend most nights sewing my costume instead of doing revision and on Wednesday I finished my last compulsory day of sound and lighting tech classes. It's a strange feeling, to be honest. A lot of things have been done, and yet there's still a lot left to do. So I made a list. And another one. And then one more. Then I made a chart of the days leading to Halloween/end of school and filled in when they had to be done. I'm a nerd. I know. These are two of the lists:

Orange note pads make me happy. But the point of this post (there was one, honest) was to ask how the hell you guys do it, those of you who have such large haunts. I have enough trouble with just my modest decor-plans.

Idol Worship: Frog on the Pumpkin

The Froq Queen is a busy little blogger. Not only does she run Frog on the Pumpkin, she also posts bits and pieces on a second blog, while her husband runs the Davis House blog. And then there's the Davis Graveyard website. Now add to that the fact that they run a really amazing haunt. If I was the FQ I doubt I'd have time to post at all. I'd probably spend all my time out in the garden playing with all the Halloween props, of which there are many.

This spider is my favourite of them all. I think. I'd love to have one hanging from a tree in the backyard. Just waiting to freak out passersby. Most likely I'd be the one most scared by it, but it would be worth it.

One of my favourite parts of the blog is seeing how their neighbours help out. People come to help make props, do make-up, even dance. I read these posts and sigh wistfully, wishing I had neighbours like the Davis family. But until then, I shall sit at my computer and look at all the pretty things they do. And hope that one day, I will.

Idol Worship: Art of Darkness

A lot of the time when webstores run blogs, they exist as nothing more than another place for them to advertise their wares. Shadow Manor's Art of Darkness blog is nothing like that.

The Shadow Manor shop was what first caught my attention. It's full of wonderfully pretty things for me to lust over and consider selling organs for (I'm looking at you, Bat Purse. Also this thing. I can't pronounce it but I know that I want it.).

And this one. 

However since I have only a limited number of organs and the store has many many pretty things, I think I'll be staying away from paid donor-ship for now.

The blog itself is wonderful, full of neat little dark crafty things, cool stuff from the blogosphere, a tutorial section, and my favourite, weekly link dumps. Oh the linked goodiness. So go have a look. Could you pick me up a few things from the shop while you're there?

It's In The Blood

I've posted my mother's art a few times, and my own more than a few, so I thought now was as good a time as any to show some of my brother's. Don't let the messy style fool you - he's only two years (and eight days) younger than me. He just likes things messy.

More than once I've gone into his room to get/steal something and ran into something creepy staring at me. Luckily for me though, he also shares my distaste for cutesy Christmas figurines, much to the chagrin of our mother. Last year I was bringing the boxes of ornaments and general Christmassy things down from the shed's loft when I dropped a box and it bounced its way down the stairs. I freaked out for a moment thinking it was the box full of expensive breakable things. It wasn't. It was filled with the annoying novelty plushes that sing songs and dance when you press them. Which explains the horrific cacophony of noise that erupted upon the box's arrival on the bottom floor. I decided that it would probably be best just to check to make sure nothing had died, and if it had I would have sufficient time to dispose of the bodies. Then I discovered that two creepy porcelain santa figurines were in the box. One survived unscathed. The other was not so lucky. Head shorn from its fabric body, he lay in the bottom of the bag, begging for a quick death. Or maybe I was just imagining things.

Either way, I had a beheaded santa to deal with. So I got my brother to dispose of it while I carted the rest of the decorations up to the house. I came back to find this:

I'm not sure why he decided to give it gold skin. I just know it's awesome.