TMBG were my first ever 'me' concert. I went on my own because, at the time, I had no friends into that sort of music and I didn't want to force my parents into attending a gig they wouldn't enjoy much. It was at the Astoria in London and I ended up sitting opposite a guy who was busy recording the show  - I later asked for a copy of the bootleg and still have it stashed away somewhere.

Since then, I've attended every TMBG gig in the UK, only thankfully now I've actually got friends who like the band, too! Last week they were performing in London at the Shepherds Bush Empire so we all dutifully went along to enjoy the gig.

The show was fantastic. TMBG are always full of energy.. They performed a lot of old classics, which was great for me because I'm not actually all that versed in their newer stuff, and they got the audience involved and dancing around even though we were in a seated section of the venue. It was really good stuff! I'll always try and grab tickets when they come back to the UK because they always put on a heck of a show.

Anyway, here's some photos I snapped of the gig. Enjoy!

A few months ago I was invited to deal at Armadacon, a small long running science fiction convention down in Plymouth, and I jumped at the chance! I absolutely love old school fan conventions. They've got a really different feel to comic expos, which have generally consist of a large dealer's room and a few industry panels. Fannish conventions are made by the fans, for the fans, and they're more personal and silly and fun.

Even though Armadacon is open to all science fiction, Doctor Who was the primary subject (and what with the big 50th around the corner, I wouldn't expect any different!) There were some amazing costumes, including a lady dressed as every Doctor which is actually a concept I've never seen before, despite being a really fun, obvious one.

The highlight for me was meeting Mitch Benn, a comedy song writer who has done a lot of work for the BBC, and is famous for numbers such as 'Proud of the BBC' and 'Doctor Who Girl'. He had a panel discussing his love of sci fi and his new book Terra, and later he performed a couple of songs for us. He seems like a lovely chap and I was pumped he made it to the con!

We attended a panel on physics, listened to some terrible science fiction in their 'turkey reading' session, watched a little anime, played some Magic the Gathering and witnessed the tail end of a very rousing Tea Duel. The masquerade and skits were really fun and generally the whole convention was just lovely.

Sales were low, as I expected them to be. I went to Armadacon for community and fun, to meet local fellow fans and dork out at panels and games. Most of my merchandise that sold was Who related of course and the weekend paid for itself, essentially.

Armadacon was really fun and I'm so glad I had the chance to attend and see what it was all about. I wish I'd actually taken some photos because this blog post doesn't really do it much justice. I'll certainly be back next year!

Halloween is my favourite holiday. Halloween has always been my favourite holiday. When I was a kid, mum would decorate the house and make punch and I'd dress up and we'd watch Halloween cartoons and carve pumpkins together, and generally dork out about it. Nobody really celebrated in our area back then, and I rarely had anywhere to go trick-or-treating, but I loved the magic and spookiness of it all. What kid doesn't love the chance to dress up and embrace a little magic and mystery?

I've been very fortunate to spend several Halloweens in America, where they really do it right, but generally most Halloweens here have been pretty uneventful as I got older. We still decorate the house, but we live in the countryside and rarely get any trick-or-treaters, so it's mainly a fun activity we do for ourselves.

This year, however, Moose lives in a house of cosplaying, nerdy friends who wanted to do something cool for the occasion, so I finally got the chance to have a Halloween house party!

Alice and I purchased a ton of decorations to spice the house up with, and we put in a huge order of pumpkins so we'd have enough for everyone to carve. I can't believe it, but Moose had never carved a pumpkin before! He'd never really done Halloween before at all, which I found just super sad, so that was something I was absolutely going to rectify this year!

We had an amazing night! We had cosplay baking downstairs using all the pumpkin guts (we must have given them three bowlfuls of seeds and guts, haha), horror video games, Zombie Dice, Space Hulk (not technically all that creepy but a fun game anyway!), and we ended up watching season one of Knightmare in its entirety (not a single group won in the whole season.)