I saw this and thought of you.

I didn't think I was that obsessed with zombies, or that I talk about them that much. However I must do, based on the amount of times recently that someone has sent a zombie link/photo my way saying it made them think of me. I'm choosing to take that as a compliment. Hahah. So here are some of the awesome things I've been sent. 

From blogger Little Missy Me [via]

I so wish I had a reason to place this sign somewhere! Maybe on the door of my apartment??

Not only did Cecilia point out to me this awesome article I mentioned in a previous post about an accident on the set of a zombie movie that confused/concerned paramedics thinking all the injuries were real, but she also introduced me to the trailer of the scary TV show The Walking Dead. Creepy, but cool.

I've still not actually seen the show, but writing this post reminded me to get Season One on iTunes, so that's what I'm currently downloading now!

My mentioning I hope to compete in the City to Surf in zombie attire prompted Shane to show me this awesome link of a 5k run in Pittsburgh called Run For Your Lives, which is an obstacle course with zombies chasing you. I so wish there was one of these here in Sydney! 

In a similar vein, a uni friend of mine pointed out this awesome app (called zombies run) you can use on your smart phone for when you go for a run. It takes you on missions to get supplies, or kill a group of zombies, before getting you back to headquarters for safety. I definitely plan to get this shortly to re-inspire my running plans!

Lastly, is this one sent by another uni friend. It however, disturbed me a bit. I do think the idea is cool, but really wouldn't want to have this at home!  

[via]

That is all. 

Question for you:

Do you have a 'thing' that people seem to equate with you? Does it surprise/bother/impress you?

 

Cooking and Running Adventures of Late.

(Not doing both at the same time - though wouldn't that be interesting!?) 

One of the things I've been doing while working from home (well when not actually working), has been collecting recipes. I'm not sure I'll actually cook most of the recipes, but I do like imagining I have, and how they would taste. For this I partly blame Pinterest, as there are heaps of delicious looking meals on there. 

The other day I made chicken, mushroom, spinach and cheese filo pastry. Sorry I didn't think to take a picture, mostly because I learned the hard way that you don't put any pans on the bottom of the oven. It might seem obvious, but it turns out that the bottom of the oven is very hot and cooks things SUPER fast. So mostly I spent the evening trying to get rid of the horrible burnt smell that often fills our apartment (what must the neighbours think!). Husband liked them so much though, that he salvaged what was left of the burnt one (thankfully the main tray was not on the bottom so the rest cooked fine) and still ate it. 

[from here]

Today I made cornbread muffins, with ham, cheese and chives. Again I didn't take pictures because we ate several pretty quickly. So here's someone else's picture, which actually looks pretty much how my ones did (though to be honest, might were slightly overcooked in comparison). Pretty tasty, if I do say so myself.

Another thing that I've had a bit of time to do recently, is go running. As I mentioned last year, it is my aim to finish the couch-to-5k running program. I didn't do much last year, but have been running a bit more this year. I am now up to week 5, which is over half way. I'm enjoying running much more than I expected, and as such my friend and I decided the other week we would participate in the annual City to Surf run in Sydney - which is 14km. It is in August, so if I keep up the running it might be possible I can run a fair bit in it, but I'm still expecting a lot of walking to occur. We decided we must have awesome costumes for the event, so our plan is daggy 80s sports people, who've unfortunately been recently zombified and are therefore not running for fitness, but to chase other racers for their brains. I'm very glad I have a reason to re-wear my bloody shirt from the last time I was a zombie (see below). 

Again, I turned to google in the hopes of a picture, and there doesn't appear to be a zombie from the 80s dressed in sports attire. So, again instead of photoshopping I'll allow you to use your own imagination based on this combination of pictures, until August that is, when I will look like that! 

[p.s. the pic of not-me is from here]

So my questions to you are:

- What have you been cooking lately?

- Are you going in any running events this year?

- Have you ever done running and cooking at the same time?

Weird Searches

If you follow me on twitter, you'll know that every now and then I mention weird google searches that seem to bring people to my blog. Here are a few I found particularly amusing, and my thoughts on those... 

"How do I get the smell of burnt chocolate out of my house" - Haha sorry I only cause burning smell problems in my house, my blog is not the place for solutions, I'm afraid!
 

Or if you do find out where to buy them, come back and tell me. They are super cute.

"Where can you buy a pygmy hippo" - I know I said I want one, but I didn't actually get one, and even if I did YOU CAN'T HAVE IT! 

"mr hand addams family" - Well I assume this person found my blog due to my post on Alien Hand Syndrome. For future reference googler, it's called Thing, not Mr Hand! 

"strange things were afoot" - At least they aren't afoot anymore? Also, perhaps you mean this.

"annoying friend of spouse" - Please come back and tell me if you found my conditioning post on 'fixing' annoying people useful, or at least that you liked the picture of the rat playing a pan flute. 

"nyan cat website" - I just find this amusing, because if you google "Nyan cat website", the first option is of course, the Nyan cat website! How did they end up at my blog post on it then? Perhaps a more appropriate search then would have been: "Nyan cat, and those who love him" (or her?). I think I might just say Nyan one more time for good measure: Nyan. 

"i am a zombie" - Well don't come looking for me - aargh! And definitely don't read my post about where I plan to hide in a zombie outbreak. Also, I know I make a convincing looking zombie, but that's just a costume. I don't want to be friends at this point, sorry. 


Do you know of any particularly odd google searches that somehow led to your blog? I'd love to read about them in the comments! 

Where have you been young lady!?

scolding old lady from here

Well firstly, thank you for calling me 'young'. Sometimes I feel quite old at 26, so it's nice to be called that (don't scoff older people). Secondly, don't be concerned, the rumours aren't true: I did not actually turn into a zombie and I haven't been roaming the streets in search of brains ever since. The fairly boring truth is that our internet at home has had a lot of issues of late (still dodgy unfortunately), and I've been trying to be studious at uni and not write blog posts when I'm supposed to be PhD-ing.

So just a little bit of a recap on what I've been up to of late, based on three areas...

Science: Well, unfortunately still nobody has been signing up for my experiments. I suspect it's due to all the strict preparation requirements to give a saliva sample to test for cortisol; you must wake up between 6am and 8am, can't have had alcohol 12 hours prior to the experiment, can't have had caffeine a few hours before either, can't have eaten in the last hour, can't be on most types of medication, can't be a smoker... etc. The waking up between 6am and 8am would be my biggest problem along with the no caffeine, so even I wouldn't participate in my experiment! I'm hoping at the beginning of next semester when all the keen beans (i.e., nerds) are excited about experiments, I will get more participants. In the mean time I've just been trying to write papers and parts of my thesis.

Spouses: I only have one of those, but things are going good! It's actually our one year wedding anniversary on Sunday - woohoo! Our main celebration was actually when we went to the Blue Mountains a few weeks ago, but we're still going to have a small celebration this weekend by going out to dinner Saturday, and some sort of outing Sunday (we're thinking the zoo). Since the first year is traditionally supposed to be paper, I have made a present which I will show you after my Husband's seen it. 

Silliness: Not too much in the way of silliness lately. At least on a large scale. You'll be happy to know I still manage to fit in a small amount of silliness into each day. Or if I can't manage it, sometimes Husband contributes which is nice - not that long ago he decided to show me he could jump backwards down the stairs (our apartment is at the top of three flights of stairs). I, more concerned than impressed, yelled out "don't" and at that exact moment he went tumbling down. Thankfully no trips to the hospital were required, just a slightly bruised ego.

Well there you have it. 

 

What have I missed/what have YOU been up to lately? 

Strange things are afoot...

Just thought I'd share three odd/cool things I came across the other day.

The first: love a bit of alien conspiracy!

"there will be space ships by then"

The second: I'd just gotten off the bus at uni to see this - an elderly conga line! So cute, and yet entirely random.

sorry for crappy photo quality - had to covertly snap on my iphone!

The third: thanks to @cestaz for pointing this article out to me on twitter... apparently some zombies got injured on the set of a movie. Paramedics arriving at first thought some terrible catastrophe occurred and couldn't immediately tell all the blood was fake! It's funny to me especially, because the other night when I was dressed as a zombie I said to husband: "today would be a really bad day for a car accident - paramedics would have no idea which were my real injuries!"

That is all.

BRAAAAAINS.

As promised, here are some photos of me as a zombie, from the costume party on Saturday. I had a lot of fun with the fake blood - though it's not so fun to try and clean off when you get home and want to sleep! The main place I had trouble removing the stains was from my nails, so I just put red nail polish over the top. Problem solved (well temporarily at least haha)!

Here is a picture of my shirt, and one of me trying to look super menacing.

And here is me trying to eat Husband's brains! He's dressed as Ron Burgundy, by the way.

Overall it was a very fun night. One highlight was on the way to the party hearing two random girls walking behind us:

Girl 1: Gasp! Look at all the blood!

Girl 2 (to me): Ummm, your hand is bleeding?

Me (turning around): I AM A ZOMBIEEEE!!

Girls: Aaargh! 

Oh, she's talking about zombies AGAIN.

That's right people. I'm very excited to be going to dress up party soon - the theme is favourite movie (or similar). So I've decided to go as a zombie from Shaun of the Dead. I will put up pictures when the time comes. I tried to get husband to agree to be a zombie also, but he's instead opted to be Ron Burgundy from Anchorman - he's ordered the horrible suit and everything. I've been hearing quotes from that movie ever since. The only quote I can do in return (as a zombie) is: grrnrnnnnnnnnrrrrrrrrrrgggggggggggggghhhh.

via

If you had to dress up as a favourite movie character, who would you be?

Something Cheerful.

I have been a bit mopey of late, not due to anything particularly serious, more just a combination of a couple of small things - such as my paper for my first experiment being rejected by a second journal. However I don't particularly want a blog of complaints, so instead I choose to focus on a few of the things that made me smile this week:

[source]

• Babies. My friend gave birth on Friday night and yesterday Husband and I had the privilege of going to meet this new little person in hospital. It still astounds me how one day someone just has a big stomach and the next time you see them they are holding a baby (obviously a lot of pain occurs in the mean time, but the result is pretty good!). You know what gets me every time? Seeing their tiny tiny fingernails. I don't know why but it just makes me marvel at how amazing the human body is.
• Seeing knights at uni. During O-Week (orientation at the start of semester) there are a lot of stalls for people to join various clubs and societies. I was particularly amused by the Quidditch Club and the silent disco. Also seeing the knights getting ready for a fight (I'm assuming Medieval Society) was fun. It's days like these that I really enjoy being at my uni. 
• Smells. Nice ones obviously. I came across this article about a group of people who are trying to recreate smells of the past. Interested in what type of perfume Egyptian Pharaoh Hatshepsut wore 3500 years ago? They're working on it. Awesome.
• Fingerprint scanners that can stop Zombies getting in. Very clever!
• Walking on the beach. There is a beach a bit over 20 minutes walk from my house. Yesterday was a lovely clear day and a good friend and I went for a long walk. It was great to catch up, and to see blue everywhere (my favourite colour). Thankfully my knees are also a lot better than they were so walking was fine (I'm ignoring the part where I got a giant blister hehe).

[source]

 

...why was I grumpy again?? :P

What makes you smile when you're grumpy? I'd be happy to think about more cheerful stuff!

P.S. Check out this website: 1000 awesome things. Always cheerful.

An update of sorts.

I don't have anything particularly gripping to share today, but more just a combination of tidbits of information (I don't think I've ever said tidbit in my life, so there you go).

So attractive...

If you look over at my 30 before 30 page, you'll see I've crossed another thing off my list! I vowed to wear my horrible banana coat out in public, and the other day I did. Husband and a few friends had quite the laugh, especially when I matched not only some road workers with their high visibility vests, but also the curb at a service station, which was painted yellow to make sure people don't fall. It was fun though. Still not sure I'd wear it seriously however.

Secondly, I've lost my wallet (I know I was joking about being an absent minded professor not that long ago, but this is a bit much)! Somewhere over the long weekend it must have fallen out of my bag. I didn't even realise until Monday. Pretty crummy since I have to get replacements of all my cards etc., and particularly bad timing since...

I'm going to NYC next week!! Next Friday, to be exact. Hooray, but also, AARGH! It is very soon and I'm still working on my data and talk (and trying to make sure all my cards get replaced). I'm still not really looking forward to the flights either. However stay tuned for a post soon about getting over fears of flying... it's probably mostly to convince myself but maybe it will help some other people too! 

Lastly, I have a Productive June update for you. June has been very productive so far, I really only have one day of procrastinating to report, and that was the day before the long weekend, which everyone pretty much just phones in anyway. Also, I was very excited to find out that Productive June has now taken off in a whole different department in the uni, thanks to a friend over there. They're displaying guilt-inducing posters and everything! HOORAY! ...how is your Productive June going?

OK that's it for now. Sorry if that was particularly dull, but hey, the posts can't always be about the zombopocalypse (or can they...)!?

Why the lab is a good place to go in event of ZOMBIE invasions...

For a few years now, I've put some serious thought into what I would do in case of a large scale zombie apocalypse. This was mostly due to the sudden increase in zombie themed movies coming out (in my opinion 28 Days Later = scary but cool, Dawn of the Dead = crappy, Shaun of the Dead = AWESOME). Add to this the recently failed rapture and the CDC's extremely useful guide for zombie-related emergencies and I think this is something we all need to consider carefully people. Need more convincing? I suggest you check out THIS.

Thus, behold my list of reasons as to why laboratories are great places to go when zombies start roaming the streets:

Awards!

I've been a bit slack in getting around to this, but I've been nominated for two blog awards!

The End is Nigh - Allegedly.

So according to these goobers:

SMH news article

The world is ending: TOMORROW! How do they know this? A series of numerological calculations of the bible of course. I find this interesting since I'm pretty sure the bible is kinda against this sort of practice!

Anyway, the reason I'm so amused by this is because when I was 8 years old, I remember a similar group of weirdos were proclaiming the world was ending on the weekend. I was too young to realise how misguided these people were, and spent the whole weekend terrified! I honestly did not sleep the whole time and was a wreck. Obviously, it worked out OK with the world not ending and all.

 

Just in case on the minuscule chance these people are right, I don't want to leave you in the lurch. After all, I do try to make this a helpful blog, what with my 'how to look like a banana' posts and such. Luckily you can be prepared for this: the CDC has kindly made a guide for Zombie Apocalypse Emergencies.

Thanks to EK for pointing this website out for me!

Make sure you check it out, because well you never know...




*Update: Well it's Sunday here and the world hasn't ended - big surprise. 
**2nd Update: It turns out that the 'similar weirdos' from when I was around 8 (which was 1993/4) was actually THE SAME guy. If he was wrong last time why did people believe him again!?! I now would like to sue this dude (he's got enough money) for contributing to quite the anxiety-filled childhood memory. Pfft.