Tails’ Blography

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!

Last night myself, my bf, my family and a few others were treated by my aunt to The Rocky Horror Picture Show being presented at The Barnyard Theatre in Willowbridge.

We sat on the balcony overlooking the stage and audience, so we had great seats. We got there early, ordered pizza, I bought a bottle of wine which I shared with my mom, and snacked on chips and sweets which we brought in. I’ve never seen the Rocky Horror movie (yea yea!), so I went in armed with only the synopsis in my head that I had read a few hours before leaving. I knew the gist of the show, and I tell you, I loved every minute of it!

Of course, the moved quickly through the movie, and added humour here and there, and of course everything was theatrical. The singing, accents, and costumes were spot on (so I was told ) to the movie, and I found myself enthralled all the way through!

Half time brought lots of chatting, more wine, and I got to meet one of the cast and I snapped a photo (with her permission). The make up was brilliant, I just had to get a shot! After half time we all got up and did the Time Warp, as instructed by “Dr Frank N Furter”. Lots. Of. Fun!! Then the show continued and once again I was enthralled. Posters of “Rocky Horror” were being sold and my cousin bought one and managed to get it signed. After the show, I managed to meet three other cast members, namely “Dr Scott” and “Columbia”, and I was glad I got to thank them for a fantastic performance.

We werent allowed photos of video of the show, and I was too chicken to try my luck, so you’ll have to make do with seeing the photos I got before the show (click each for larger), at half time, and after the show. The show ends today for Cape Town, but they’re showing in JHB next, so if you’re there – you’ve GOT to watch it!

The poster of “Rocky Horror”

Michael and I (the camera makes us look pinker than normal…I swear!)

The view from our seats

The view to the right of us

Looking directly over the railing at the audience below

On of the cast members who came by at Half Time

So I’ve been taking a few photos here and there this weeked, but the weather has been nothing but rainy, so not many great shots.

However, the ones I’ve got so far, I am happy with, and I still have to get used to the camera, and how it feels and works, so my shots can only get better from here

So enough from me, here are some quick shots that I like

Gizmo, in B&W

Rozwell

Macro water droplet

Another macro water droplet, but this one I was hoping would have more light in the droplet

Macro water droplets

Gizmo-paws

A silly Gizmo photo

(yes, thats me in the photo haha!) So the day I’ve been waiting for since 2007 finally arrived, June 2: The Sims 3 Global Release Day! Of course, as soon as I could, I pre-ordered my Collector’s Edition copy and my bf was so amazingly sweet to buy it for me as an early birthday gift!

“Collector’s Edition!?”, I hear you say.
“Yes indeed!”, I reply, with a knowing smile.
“What do you get with it?”, you enquire, intrigued.
“Aha!”, I say while rubbing my hands together gleefully…

The Collector’s Edition comes with the base game (which incidently is Mac-friendly), a free download of the European Styled Sports Car (see photo insert towards bottom of this post), R114 worth of SimPoints to spend online (total of 1000 points!), a Hints & Tips Guide (not as great as I thought…they really could have done more with this), and a 2gig green USB Plumbob™ Flashdrive (check out the photo, its just toooooo cute, seriously!!!). I dont think I’ll ever use the flashdrive (I have an 8gig anyway) lest it get sratched but its my first Collector’s Item of anything (my sister bought a gold Lord of the Rings authentic ring with elvish engraving and everything for R2k which is her Collector’s Item) and its super cute and I’m so proud of it!

As for the game, well it blows my mind! I’m extra happy with all the new features and how they’ve kicked it up a notch (pun intended, those who’ve played will know what I’m talking about…if they have hungry chef-sims hehe).

After playing for a while, my sim progressed to the dating stage, and eventually got married and had a kid. However, when she went into labour, she had the option of having the baby at home or at the hospital (new feature!). I chose the hospital of course. So I expected her to call a cab (she couldnt afford her own car at that time) but instead she hopped on her bicycle and cycled to the hospital…in labour!! Shortly after she arrived (you cant follow them inside, though its rumoured to be part of the expansions at a later stage) her husband ran in after her to be there for the birth, which I thought was a sweet touch.

After her own kid grew up to the teenager stage, she was working out at the local gym (here you can follow them inside) and an NPC-sim was working out in front of the gym’s TV. I noticed she was pregnant. Well, apparently doing jumping jacks in your final hours of pregnancy is a big no-no as she promptly went into labour. Other sims gathered around to watch, and I offered to take her to the hospital (also a new feature, and there’s me and that hospital again hehe) which I did…but this time in my car haha. Shortly after we went in, the father-to-be dashed in and my sim stayed to watch the birth (after which she had a happy Moodlet for the next while for Witnessing a Birth).

Other weird but funny things that have happened include a sim dying at my sim’s birthday party – talk about a mood killer! People kept mourning! But I guess thats what happens when you invite someone who’s on their death-bed haha.

There are so many cool things I just cant think of them all right now and it would take a bunch of pages for me to elaborate on anything (if you have questions, just ask!) but a few favourites are:

:: Ever-changing neighbourhood – really makes you feel a part of a community. Sims get married, move out, have kids, etc all around you all the time. (tip: read the newspaper daily for neighbourhood updates!)
:: CAS (Create-A-Sim) – this has been revolutionised and you can now make your sims as thin or as obese as you want. You can also customise everything from muscle tone to the shape of the tip of your sim-nose!
:: CASt (Create-A-Style) – this is what we’ve been waiting for FOR EVER! Everything is customisable! You can make matching furniture, clothing and shoes, wallpaper and flooring! Everything! I even made pink appliances!
:: New placement options – this bugged me quite a bit in TS2. If you had a couch that took up three squares, and a TV that took up two squares, you couldnt centre the TV with the couch. You could either have the TV aligned with the first two squares, or the last two…but now, you can work in half-squares, allowing things to be centred and you can finally place items at an angle to make a more pleasing layout!
:: Age control – you can choose whether your sims have short lives (25 sim-days) or longer lives (1000 sim-days)
:: New work options – during your working hours, you control how your sims spend their time. Choose from Word Hard to Suck Up To Boss to Slack Off. Each option has its own reactions and consequences, so choose wisely
:: Faster loading times – huge plus! Loading saved games are quicker as well as entering CAS/St within the game and this makes the whole purchase worthwhile on its own!

Those are the ones I can think of off the top of my head. Of course I miss all the stuff I had in TS2, like weather and vacations, but I’m uber happy with TS3 and how they’ve created it! Very happy! Very, very happy!

So now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m off to Sim! Hehe!

I’ve been throwing seed and cooked rice out onto my lawn in hopes of attracting birds, and its finally paid off. Unfortunately, a cat was stalking the birds and they flew away when I went to chase off the cat, so I never got to get any photos of them, but I did end up capturing some other garden photos.

It really brought my love of photography back, and the reasons why I started. It was so peaceful out there, lying on my patio waiting for the birds. Eventually when they never came, I started moving around the garden looking at everything with a new outlook. One I havent used in a long time.

I climbed out of my “comfort zone” and used my 75-300mm lens, which made me think a little before each shot since its more limiting than my 18-70mm. I’m very pleased with the results, esp after seeing them on my monitor (the LCD on cam never does images justice).

Please feel free to leave comments on these photos, after all, my blog isnt called Tails’ Blography for nothing

Click the images for larger versions if you’d like.