Happy Halloween 2019!

Did a quick run into town to pick up a copy of Luigi's Mansion 3, a game I've been pretty excited about for a little while now. In fact, I've been so hyped for it, I decided to etch Luigi's screaming mug into my personal pumpkin this year.

My goodness, this was a fiddly one to carve! But it was all worth it as it stood proudly on the snack table for our small Halloween party. Accompanying Luigi was some adorably decorated fairy cakes by me and Rebecca:

 

Plus a 'Mummy Brie' as prepped by Louis, I couldn't stop laughing when I saw it.

Suffice to say, we were well-fed at this party. Mark, Lucy, Louis and Lorna joined us for board games and good vibes in the evening as we reveled in the Halloween spirit.

As a small side piece, I collaborated with some of the writers at Sick Critic to compile a short list of the scariest games we ever played. The whole article was my baby so I wrangled in writers, formatted it and even wrote a small part of it. You can read it here if you fancy

Happy Halloween!

Baa Ram Ewe

Goodness, I haven't actually stopped today it feels like. Caught up with a few life admin things in the morning then headed off to the cafe to carve the 'Monster Sized' pumpkin - it was an epic task to gut that one let me tell you. A co-worker drew on the design for me and I got to work on cutting out the shape. After the complete disaster that was the first one I did I felt compelled to make this one a work of art, and the end result was something I'm very proud of.

It's a ram in honour of our unofficial mascot (as seen just below the pumpkin): Norman the Ibex. I'm thrilled with how this one turned out, and good thing too because we are submitting it to work's pumpkin competition. You get bonus points if you lark around a bit on the submission photo, at least that's what I told myself before we sent over this one:

Left work beaming, then took a quick stop in town to pre-order a game, then headed home to prep another pumpkin, I don't want to overload today's blog post with pumpkin snaps so I'll show it off tomorrow. Rebecca and I also wittled away the evening hours decorating fairy cakes for our little Halloween shindig we are having tomorrow. We both licked the icing sugar spoon perhaps a little too much, I'm feeling a bit sickly now but it's all in the spirit of things I guess.

Art Runner

Wrapped on a jolly successful filming day. I did a days work as a dedicated Art Runner/Assistant which felt pretty swell. My boss effectively put me in charge of two easy scenes, the first of which was a stone skimming scene that we did early in the morning, most if that hour I spent beach combing for the perfect skimming stone. We moved into a house afterwards so IKEA flat pack assembly was the name of the game followed by some milkshake continuity work, all of it was fun thanks to a stellar crew that kept things feeling light and professional.

As an added bonus, someone asked if I wanted a tea or coffee around lunchtime and one magically appeared in my hand a few moments later. Been waiting my whole life for that moment.

A added little tidbit, I bagged my first Bristol Running gig too! I got a call at lunch officially inviting me to join them on a 3 day commercial shoot with good pay, good hours and beat of all, I can go back home after each day is over to share dinner and my evenings with the people I love.

Mega Betrayal

Battled my way through the hoards of mums and kids that all flocked to Coffee 1 over half term. Babycinos all day basically, I've said it once, I'll say it again: if I had my own cafe I wouldn't serve them. I travelled down to London for yet another film shoot, this time though I didn't use my old favourite Megabus... I got a National Express instead! Very swanky bus experience, it was like stepping onto first class, so I enjoyed a slightly more cushy trip this time around for a decent price too (was cheaper this time round). Set my alarm, for early and I'm already anticipating riding 85 bus stops first thing tomorrow morning - that's not an exaggeration, I will be going 85 stops.

Cat got my Pumpkin

Well, if its free don't say no. That was my philosophy when Rebecca suggested going to Stonehenge today, luckily we have membership cards that permitted us entry at no cost. Good thing too because it is EXPENSIVE to visit the stones! It was nice enough to take a whirl round the rocks, but for what you pay for, you don't really get that much. Least it wasn't as ropey as The Rufas Stone.

With my help, Rebecca carved her first ever pumpkin tonight. I took a picture of a cat design I saw last year and we finally got the chance to make it ourselves. It came out really well too, she was chuffed as chips with it, showing it off online to anyone who'd listen. I'll let you be the judge of how good a job she did:

Pumpkin Spice Latte

Got to carve my first pumpkin of the year at work today! Seeing as it was for a coffee place, we thought it'd be apt to do a latte art design on our pumpkin, I was up for the challenge of doing an intricate design but it was perhaps one of those pumpkin designs that sounds better on paper than it does in practice. This is what we tried to recreate:

It actually started off really well, but once I stepped back from it to admire it, I noticed that the design curved in up and around the pumpkin so no-one could really see the whole thing. I felt a bit bad afterward because it was meant to be our centerpiece pumpkin that we were all really proud of, but I just feel a tinge of guilt every-time I look at it. I might get a picture next time, plus it might look better in the dark!

Keeping On Friday

Life finds a way to derail my day - in a positive way sometimes! I mentally prepped myself for a day of writing, but a Runner job is saw being advertised on Facebook was just too juicy to pass up. Then I did a bit of self-promotion on Twitter and my post exploded - I ended up being invited into a private Discord server that was full of pretty high-end video game YouTubers. Met up with Louis too after lunch to chat about a poster design for an upcoming board game evening I'm organizing for work, I left with a few ideas and hopefully I can make something fun and eye-catching.

After all that, I cracked on with a smidgen of writing, I've set a few deadlines for my next video and that often gives me something to aim for.