Tails’ Blography

Thank you to Pixie Dust for my first blog award! Woot!!

The rules:
List 10 things that make you happy.
Pass it on to 10 bloggers that make your day a better one!

1. My family

2. My bf

3. My pets

4. Photography and photo-editing

5. Food (esp sushi!)

6. My friends

7. Computers (ie internet, gaming, etc)

8. Trying new things (ie hot air ballooning, cage diving, wine tasting, etc)

9. Reading

10. Cocktails!

I’m tagging the following blogs (in no particular order) who are among those in my Google Reader and who I love reading! Each blog has such interesting posts and open my eyes up to new things with almost every post! Of course Pixie Dust is only my list, but I mentioned her above so to tag her would create a loop hehe

Christy’s Ramblings

The Kitchen Sink Recipes

Dog Parks

Chic ‘n Scratch

Dror Eyal Photography

my shiny & sparkly gem of a life

Scruffy Dog Photography

Heart in Stitches

Futuregirl Craft Blog

Cowbelly Pet Photograhy

This weekend past was another OC (Organised Chaos) LAN. For those who dont know what a LAN is, basically you pay R140 entry, bring your PC along on the Friday evening, connect it to the network, and play games like Call of Duty 4/COD4 (among other things) with (approx 700) other people on the network until Sunday afternoon. Of course, you dont have to stay the entire time, but the die-hards do. By Saturday morning their are tents, pillows, mattresses, and sleeping bags all over the place.

This month, we arrived on Saturday morning, since I was recovering from a sore throat (which subsequently turned into a head cold afterwards…sigh). We set up and got settled in. By this, I mean we plugged in our PCs, had a game or three, then went in search of food in the form of cheese burgers and chips from the local cafeteria.

Normally it gets extremely cold (around 3 degrees celcius) and we freeze our asses off despite jerseys, jackets, sheepskin slippers and a hotwater bottle, so this time we added a sleeping bag to the equation. Wow, what a difference! I’m definately bringing one to every LAN!

After hours and hours of gaming (mainly COD4), swearing, chatting, and laughing, we were paid a visit by a friend who’s never been to OC. Needless to say, after showing him the ropes and letting him have a go on the PC’s, he was hooked, and might bring his own PC next time. Score!

Each month lately they’ve been trying to have a theme, and this month’s theme was Tie July. The person(s) with the best tie(s) could win a 1 terabyte (I think) hard drive each – very worth it! I’ll snag a photo of the two winners from the OC Fan page on Facebook to show you (credit to Sheldon, the OC ‘tog).

I baked gingerbread cookies to take with (I even made one in the shape of a tie, but I didnt need it cos I wasnt there on Friday), and they were a hit! I made O’s and C’s, and offered them to the admin, friends, as well as random people I passed along the way. It was great!

Without further ado, photos! Of course all taken with my new Canon 40D! I’m positively loving the new cam, by the way! It handles noise so much better, it seems to capture light better than my Sony, and its very speedy!

Setting up

Just a look around at what it looks like on a Saturday morning

The OC gingerbread cookies I made

Another look around at our neighbours

A view from where I was sitting during prize giving on Saturday night

They dropped a CRT monitor from the Velodrome ceiling…it went BOOOOOOM!

Everyone goes in for the remains

What was left…

Our friend who came to visit

The bf gaming…

The bf and myself gaming!

My hot man!

The bf, Chris & Ferdie

Winner #1

Winner #2 – I really LOVE this one!

As I’m sure some remember, Ross Gellar from F.R.I.E.N.D.S told us his Celeb Top-5. I was reminded to post mine from a blog I stumbled across on a photography search. So here’s mine (in somewhat of a first to last order…):

John Lequizamo…I have a strange attraction to his teeth…
John Lequizamo (he’s from my fav film, ‘The Pest‘…if you havent seen it yet – get it! He’s also Sid the Sloth from Ice Age, Tibult from Romeo & Juliet, Toulouse-Lautrec in Moulin Rouge, and the voice of one of the rats in Dr Dolittle to name a few)

Bam Margera….oh my gosh he’s so hot!
Bam Margera (ok, ok, I hear some of you saying, “Whaaaat!!??!” but he’s hot! Oh he’s hot!)…if you havent watched Viva La Bam, you should – its really funny and a lot better than Jackass! Unfortunately he’s married…and he gave his wife his purple Lamborghini….*sob*

Legolas…yes the mythical elf thing does it for me….le sigh!
Legolas (note, not Orlando Bloom, I want Legolas, in costume, leg/body padding and all!)…a guy who can ride a horse and shoot a bow and arrow whilst making witty comments…oh my! Not to mention his mythical good looks!

Hugh Jackman…maybe its his Aussie heritage that does it for me, I’m not sure, but he’s definately hot!
Hugh Jackman (preferably as Wolverine – I mean, ROWR!! – but I’ll take him in person, Aussie accent and everything!!) I’m not usually a fan of big muscular men, in fact most often its a big turnoff…but I’ll make the exception here. He’s dreamy!

And who gets my fifth and final place….hmm tough choice….I’m not even sure at this point….I guess I’ll have to say….

From left to right: Zac (24), Taylor (26), and Ike (29)…all three are unfortunately already married and each have kids…curse you oceans-that-separated-us!
The Hanson Brothers….yes, I want ALL THREE!! Preferably all at once…ooooh what a day that would be!! Yum yum yum! (and dont you dare say or even think that the Jonas Brothers are better..GROSS!!)
And yes, I hear the jeering…but I tell you, these guys are doing great work in Africa helping the poor and needy. And if you havent heard them in a while, pop on over to their Media page on their website and take a listen, specifically, to “Middle of Nowhere Acoustic“. Seriously, its just breathtaking music (and yes, they do an acoustic version of “Mmmbop”). I can also recommend the Album “The Walk”, especially the song “Go”.

So, I challenge you – who makes YOUR Celeb Top-5?? Please link back to my post here so I can read your Top 5…I cant wait!

This month I finally participated in my first OC. OC stands for Organised Chaos and is a LAN held at the Bellville Velodrome. If you’re unfamiliar with what a LAN is, its pretty much a place set up for people to bring their PCs/laptops and play games against each other and share files etc. It runs from Friday evening (6pm I think) until Sunday afternoon (12pm), and lots of people bring mattresses and bedding to stay the nights. Tournaments are held and prizes can be won, and some months they’ve held spot prizes, where if your seat number is drawn you win a prize. Its great!

Booking is done online or on the day, and is R140 per seat. If you’re just spectating you dont pay, which is normally what I do. This time, however, I brought my PC and stayed the weekend. I participated in some Call of Duty 4 games, and sucked haha. I was sitting at 26 kills where everyone else was at around 80 haha (I wont even mention my kills:deaths ratio!!). Its a hard blow to my ego because I used to kick ass at Unreal Tournament a year or few back hehe. But I’ll get better…oh yea, I’ll get better.

Also at the LAN are food stuffs. There’s a burger place, pancake place and this month there was a chip place that sells those chip twister potatoes-on-a-stick things. Pancakes are R4 each, and burgers range from R14 (single plain burger) – R37 (a double meat and chicken burger with chips). Coffee is R5 and there are various chocolates, sweets and cooldrinks aslo for R5 each. Scooters Pizza* delivers to OC if pizza is more your meal of choice (oddly, whilst searching for the Scooters’ website, I came across the Epic Scooters Pizza Delivery site – really, what next!!). You can bring your own food and booze (if you drink responsibly and are not underage) if you’d like. I brought snacks (pretzels & doughnuts! yum!!) and wine (and was told I look “too classy” for a lan because everyone normally drinks rum/brandy & coke from a 2l coke bottle haha).

Unfortunately, for about 3 hours on Saturday at around noon, the power went out and left us high and dry. A lot of people gave up pretty quickly and went home (losers!), but we stuck it out and once it came back on again, we had a good 10 more gaming hours (we left at 3am on Sunday morning). In fact, a lot of people thought the break from gaming was a nice change. All in all, a great time was had and I cant wait for the next one! Seriously, I’m hooked!

If you’d like to participate and bring your PC, go to the OC website* for booking information (you can book online), prices, and rules. Its definately worth it! The site also has some great photos (April’s pics will be within the week I’m sure) or check out their Facebook group. Do remember to game safely and, especially since someone at this month’s lan had an epileptic fit, remember to get enough sleep and eat a decent meal. I was unaware but apparently too much sugar and sleep deprivation can induce fits if you’re prone. I enquired after the guy and turns out he was ok, the fit was minor, and he was collected and taken home to recover. Poor guy

Some pics of our little corner of OC:

About 1 min after the power had gone off (lights were running on generators)

A better view of the disgruntled lanners

The bf…unimpressed about me taking a photo of him. Thats our friend, Ferdie behind him, and behind him you can see some of the mattresses people have set up for sleeping

A disgruntled Steve hehe

My PC (yes, I like my grey mouse and keyboard, ok! ) next to Michael BIIIIIG 26″ monitor and sleek black keyboard (the silver machine behind my monitor was huge and very expensive! People kept passing by to admire it haha)

* Note: at the time of publishing this post, both these sites were down. If they’re still down when you look at them, keep trying every day or so – they’ll come back eventually.