*edit* Forgot to link part four and misnamed this part :S all sorted now though*

Been a long old time since i’ve updated but not so for Tokyo there have been several updates to the Xanga Zombie Apocalypse still going on from Tokyoexpressman check em out here!

And here are links to all the other parts from both Tokyo and xxdeelynnxx who started a bit of a story too and of course my previous parts:

~Tales of Tokyo~

Part One: OutBreak

Part Two: Hack & Slacker

Part Three: Hi I’m Jamie

Part Four: Follow The Rules

Part Five: For Reals

~Pony Tales~

Part One: Note From Mom

~Fallen Saint~

Part One: Dans Last Post

Part Two: The Beginning of The End

Part Three: The Fallen Saint

Part Four: Garbage of The Dead

 

Part Five: The Bell

The truck had taken them within a short sprint of the docks before one too many impacts on its battered front had reduced it to a steaming immobile wreck.

The port had been the scene of a valiant hold out at some point and the remenants of blockades and choke points gave a momentary respite as Margo and Bede decided on the next move.

The city was dead, the roads choked with cars or shambling corpses and beyond the city limits lay only the vast stretches of motorway or winding side roads that could only offer slow and dangerous progress. So faced with little to no other option they began searching the port for any surviving or serviceable boats.

As twilight fell their search became more desperate and hopeless, the sprawling docks and warehouses now a tangled maze of barred doors and tumbled containers, each small stock room or office a terrible reminder of the fate that lay in wait or stumbled slowly through the inky blackness.

Only one or two lights still buzzed or flickered within the entire vast area. As they moved it sounded like there was nothing in their universe other than the scraping of boots on concrete, the flapping of coats and the heavy beating of their hearts. But as they would pause and the other sounds faded then they would hear it, the slow shambling progression a scraping brooding sound picked out by the odd pitiful moan.

Bede stopped breathing hard after a hurried dash over open ground, pressing Margo against the wall and turning off the one dim light he permitted as they moved.
“Shhhh” He hissed his eyes shining as they caught the feint light of the moon as it peeked from behind ragged clouds and shone through the high windows of the warehouse roof.

They waited as silence descended around them. Somewhere off behind them a dry moan echoed and something tapped slowly down the corrugated side of the warehouse they were in.
Then Margo’s hand tightened on Bedes shoulder as she too heard what had made him stop, the gentle ring ringing of a bell.

Rounding the corner of the slightly parted warehouse doors they emerged into the cold black night, ahead the sound of lapping water warned them the edge of the dock was close, while off to the right came again that ring ring.

Bede crouched low and moved in the darkest shadows behind some strewn containers, Margo followed moments later catching up with him more by sound than sight. The containers drew a jagged line from the corner of the warehouse right across the expanse of dock to the sheer edge that fell into the splashing blackness of the water, but behind the barricade that alluring bell toned again and again.

Crawling to the very edge Bede felt out peering into the darkness to find the end of the container.
“I think I can make it” He hissed barely louder than his own breath.
“Are you sure?” Margo asked her eyes straining to see through the shades of black and grey shadows.
“No” And Bede managed a humourless chuckle.
“Take my bag, and get yourself secure, i’m going to need to hold onto you as long as I can, until I can reach something on the otherside”
“If there is anything.” Margo said more to herself than to Bede.

Standing Bede thrust his backpack into her arms and waited for her to get organized while he shook his arms out trying to get rid of the sudden shaking that had gripped his muscles.
“Ready?” Margo asked and reached out sliding her hand down his arm to grip his right hand.
“As I’ll ever be” Bede said giving the hand a squeeze and then stepping out onto the tiny lip that was his only foothold at the bottom of the container.

Using his left hand he reached out as far as possible, feeling out round the edge of the container as he pulled at Margo’s arm. She resisted with both hands clasped tightly around his as she leaned away and slowly edged with him towards the drop.

Pinning himself more by sheer will than anything else to the side of the container Bede stretched out until his fingers could creep round the distant edge, A smile flashed across his face as he felt his fingers and then hand stretch out into open space, the doors of the container had clearly been taken or torn off leaving the open end as a safe haven on their passage round.

“On three let go” He said looking back quickly at the shadowy panting silhouette of Margo.
“One, Two…Three!” With a reluctant tug Bede sprang free of Margos hands and thrust out into the darkness, swinging round to come face to face with a wall of boxes.

He slammed into them hard almost bouncing back off and into the ominous black water behind him, but a mix of reaction and panic drove his fingers hard into two thin cracks between the box stacks and his feet found purchase on the no more than a foot wide gap between the end of the boxes and the door of the container.
“Fuck!” He breathed as he pressed his head against the damp cardboard,
“Are you okay?”
“Yeah, just give me a minute to catch my breath” ‘And stop fucking shaking‘ he thought.

From the end of the container, once they had both gotten to it having to push a couple boxes back into its depths they could see their prize a small intact fishing boat, with a pale golden bell lit up in the moonlight ringing gently as the waves rocked and lapped the boat.

 

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More to come soon this time I wrote more than one posts worth so i’ll stick up another section probably tomorrow or monday.

So recently I’ve been playing around with 99Designs making logos for design contests.

This is tricky but quite fun…and if I get good enough could be profitable (I really rather hope) only problem is you have to out do all the other hundreds of designers and spending time and effort only to not get picked and earn nothing is slightly daunting/depressing.

Also qutie similar to my normal pattern of working, as in doing a lot of effort but getting jack s*** out of it -_-

 

But in order to do this job I had to learn Adobe Illustrator and OMG that program is incredible!!!

It’s just so complex and powerful, you can literally do ANYTHING, I am in love with all its little 1′s and 0′s :] hehe

 

Anyway given the lack of guarentee with 99designs I’d really not mind working for much less potential profit as long as it was certainly going to be there at the end, so if anyone happens to need a logo for their business or website, i’d be more than happy to have a crack at it for a lot less than you’d look to pay even at the minimum price of 99designs or other freelance designer sites.

Sorry to get all salesy on a more personal blog, but if you don’t ask you don’t get and I could certainly do with a bit more paying work. Same goes for websites to be honest, currently only got my own projects on so there’s plenty time for working for clients.

 

Other than all that 2013 is progressing as expected, and I am mostly keeping to a posetive and change oriented outlook though I could do with a bit more speed in that change if i’m honest. And if i’m REALLY honest all I actually want to do is play games and write stuff, like more XZA for example…but I just can’t see much profit in that as yet :/ so websites, work and Adobe it is then I suppose

How could I possibly resist that blog title

This is the story of when I went to see The Hobbit.

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The plan was to go see it in our local cinema, which is tiny but probably good enough. But my brother is a bit of a stickler for quality and suggested we instead drive 3 hours off to the nearest city to see it in 3D This actually was a good call because I really enjoyed the film and was glad of the higher quality, even with the intervening 3 hours of uncomfortable car ride between.

The trip out was easy enough, though I did feel a little queazy as I often do in cars. And we arrived early giving us time to wander about the various shops near to the cinema. I spotted a shop gilr struggling to carry some clothing rack frames and spent so long considering the connetations of offering to help that the oppertunity passed me by lol as they so often do sadly I have yet to overcome my incredible ability to get caught in thought rather than just taking action and seeing what happens.

Out side there were some very cool clouds too:

During the wander about we found a Maplin which had some very cool little tool keychains for only £1 each couldn’t possibly resist those so we got a few each:

Then it was film time and the cinema was thankfull pretty empty so not that many rattlers or talkers. The fim as I said was brilliant! very nicely constructed to add more filmic qualities to the books story and also extend it since it is a little short perhaps for the same level of detail Peter Jackson wanted. One amusing thing that happened at the start when all the Dwarfs were arriving was after 12 were there and the final knock came at the door a chap behind us whispered under his breath ‘Thorin’ hehe :] it was nice to hear someone who was so into it.

After the film it was shopping time and as we entered the large Tesco there was a whole crowd of Starlings on the sign

Before the film my bro and mum had found a pet store and suggested I go check out the critters while they shopped, so off I went to find it.

There were Bunnies

And Hamsters…or maybe Gerbils not sure.

Rather attractive tiny fish

But best of all…

Some lovely lizards and a few snakes even. Plus plenty of little kids either saying ‘awww’ or ‘eewww’ depending on the tank they were looking into lol

After a quick wander about the pet shop (and some sneaky photography) I headed back to the Tesco, had the always fun task of locating people I knew in the vast area, by wandering at a fast walk through the central corrider of isles with a de-focused stare trying to spot familar shapes and coats and eventually caught up with everyone.

Then after all the shopping and packing and general hassle, it was back home time. 3 more hours in the car, but at night this time which makes it less sickening for me. And just as we came back near to home we decided to stop at an Indian restaruant to pick up some food…then just thought ‘why not stay here and eat?’ so ended up having a lovely selection of curry dishes. Mine was lamb with a sweet sauce that had honey in it :] it was amazing…and best of all the restaruant didn’t list a website address on it’s brochure, so if i’m lucky I might be able to get some work out of the whole adventure

And that was it, we got home in the mist and pouring rain. Unpacked and crashed out.

Once again and perhaps for the final time as i’m slightly pushing it on the 2nd already…HAPPY NEWYEAR

So here is how my 31st 2012 and beginning of 1st 2013 went:

 

Oh dear my memory is already fading for the morning of the 31st…errm I think I woke sometime around either 8am or 10am, might even have been 7:30am.

As is usual when my bro has gotten up early to head off and hang out at a stables he’s been helping out at. I stagger through and get my machine on ready to get on with work…or most likely various social networks first then work

Then teeth and splash my face with the bare minimum of ice cold tap water :S

After that I got on the PC and responded to various messages, comments and other random stuff until my dad finally got up and I could start thinking about breakfast.

With breakfast we have been listening to the Dune books on audio so far we are on The God Emperor and have been blowen away by the writing ability of Frank Herbert. So there was about 40 mins of that with toast and plenty coffee.

Then back on the system for more computer stuff, pretty sure I chatted with some folks for a while too.

Hours passed as they have a habit of doing and eventually my bro and mum came home and we all settled in for a nice quiet NewYears eve. There was plenty good food, though I can’t really recall what it was o.O and more importantly a good full glass and a bit of mulled wine which was lovely and followed up with more of the same wine, not mulled but with some added suger (it wasn’t very good wine -_-) during all this we watched a large amount of the tv show Malcolm in the Middle, which has HUNDREDS of episodes so we just kept going egged on by my dads addictive TV watching style

Eventually about an hour from midnight we got tired of endless MITM and me and my bro headed upstairs to try something different. He vanished into his iDevice addiction and I got into Hitman Blood Money to bring in the new year while assassinating people :/

Fortunately my brother noticed the time and with only half an hour to spare he suggested we do something better than this and off we went out into the cool, breezy but bright night. Just across from our house and road there is a hill, lovingly called ‘Mighty Mountain’ by us, since it was might when we were small and you still can’t get up it without running out of breath.

Atop this ‘mountain’ we lit a small but effective fire (with some smoke eating and struggle due to the wind) and there we sat with a couple of wheat beers surrounded by the quiet moon bright landscape as midnight drew closer wearing our Steve Zissou Intern hats

Then with only 5 mins to spare we heard the call of our dad and spotted that both my mum and dad had come out to join in. So I rushed off and checked my mum was okay coming up then grabbed my dads Zissou hat (got to complete the team and ran back up the hill, almost killing myself -_-

And just in time at the strike of 00:00 we were all there, on our little hill lit by the moon and a tiny but comforting fire

It was really very lovely, being able to sit in such wonderful peace and quiet with the people I am closest to in my life and welcome in another year. Esspecially a year I hope to be one of change for the life I’ve always known.

Sorry for the poor quality of images, but the light the next day was bad.

After a few hours up on the hill the fire died and we wandered down, my parents went off to visit an elderly neighbour and we headed in to listen to a few tracks of music.

Including this one:

Then at somewhere around 1am we headed to sleep

And that was my welcome into 2013 it was quiet and not really that eventful but I really loved it