I still remember watching the final episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation huddled in a huddled in a basement with a half dozen or so friends and the sad feelings I had when the title screen rolled.

‘All good things…’

It was the only thing I could think of when my best friend and nerd-in-arms Robert told me he was packing up and moving back to Australia with his wife and impending child.  After recovering from the heartbreak, we (our mutual friends) decided we’d best through a farewell party for our favourite couple.

Alex managed to hire the campest ‘Australian Life Guard’ to come and sing/entertain the group for about half an hour, which lent to the perfect combination of a giggling and embarrassed couple.

We had decked out the place with all manner of Aussie decorations, flags and the pinnacle of Austrailiadom: Fosters.  We also had a bottle of two of Robert’s personal favourite tipple that were quickly consumed.

It was a lovely evening that ended too soon, but fortunately with the marvels of modern technology this isn’t the end of our friendship at all.

Quite unlike like my childhood favourite: TNG.

There are a few more party photos in the gallery.

Tankball you say?  Yes, tankball.  It’s like paintball, but with tanks.  Take a moment and allow the awesomeness of that thought marinate for a bit.

My best mate Robert secretly arranged for a group of my friends to meet up in St. Pancaras to board a train heading north.  The plan was to keep the events of the day secret from me until we arrived, but on of my friends let things slip while we were waiting so my anticipation was triggered early!

Upon arrival there was the usual waiver signing (you know it’ll be fun if you have to sign a waiver), briefing and dividing into teams.  Our gang was transformed into three groups of three: driver, gunner and loader/firer on each team.  We then headed out to meet our tanks.

You have a member of staff in the already cramped tank with your team at all times.  Each team member gets a chance to drive the beast around their circular track (smiling for a photo op halfway through), then a shot at sitting in the gunners seat working out the aiming of the gun and calling out when to fire, and finally you’re in the loaders seat shoving ping-pong balls full of paint down the barrel and pressing that oh-so-satisfying FIRE button.  Once you’ve each made the rounds, it’s time for a quick spot of tea and some strategy before the tank-on-tank melee begins!

This was the part of the day I was most excited about, and since it was my day I got to choose the position I wanted on my team.  Driver.  I had visions in my head of barreling around the field and tactically positioning our tank for the most cover and best firing positions.  I was moderately let down here.  The battle actually takes place along two parallel tracks where the pair of tanks plod along in a straight line, stopping 4 or 5 times at marked locations to fire a couple of rounds and then move on to the next marker.

While disappointed that my tank driver fantasies were dashed, I wasn’t going to let that get me down and vowed to push our ride to it’s breaking point while still keeping within the confines of the rules laid out.

After lining up side by side with our enemy, we were given a countdown and then the green light to go.  My foot stomped metal, metal made contact with metal somewhere below and we were off!  As we approached the first marker our staff member began to urge me to slow down so we could stop in time.

I ignored him.

Only after four or five frantic requests across the mic to slow down did he finally say the magic word ‘STOP!’.   This caused my lead foot to switch from full on accelerator to full on breaking.  Somewhere behind me I could hear my team mates Rob and Neal being thrown about in their seats and this pleases me.  They somehow managed to regain their composure and fire off our requisite shots…I had no idea if they were hits or misses.  All that really mattered was getting to the next marker in record speed.

In the end our team of brave, battered warriors were victorious over Robert, Alex and Tim with a score of 10 hits to 7 out of a possible 12.  While congratulations and commiserations were being given I heard the opposing teams staff member say it looked as though our hard driving had almost broken our tank a couple of times.

This also pleased me.

All in all, it was a brilliant day out.  Thanks to all my friends who came along and made it even better.  There are a couple more images in the gallery.

One of the nice things about my recent move to the Earls Court area is its immediate access to the Earls Court area.  This may seem redundant, and likely is, but it’s just nice to have some fairly large, well used event centers within walking distance to my home.  After the ComicCon a couple of weeks ago, Robert and I as well as Danni and I went to this years Hyper Japan (on Saturday and Sunday respectively).

It was an interesting mix of Japanese cutesy-culture products, food, calligraphy & origami instructional classes, cultural education, video games and of course cosplay.  Part of the proceeds went to the Japanese relief fund as well, which was nice to see.

The day that Danni and I went (Sunday) was the Square Enix cosplay competition so there were plenty of Final Fantasy characters roaming the event center.  I’m always amazed at the amount of work these kids put into the costumes and we stayed to watch the contest which was interesting.  I’d always assumed it was just a matter of walking out on stage to display your efforts, but most put on mini performances in line with the characters they were depicting which was really impressive (even if I didn’t get the inside jokes of a lot of them).

I’m told there was also a Lolita fashion show which we missed, but it makes sense as there were an awful lot of girls dressed up that way.  The aptly named Tofu Cute girls were there again, but at the risk of developing a stalker like status I didn’t take another photo.  Instead, there were a couple of over-the-top cutesy girls at the exit when we were leaving that kindly posed for photos.

It was a very cool day out and difficult to resist making a lot of impulse buys (which I managed to do).  If it’s in the neighbourhood again next year I’ll definitely be returning.  A word of advice if you plan to attend as well: Go Early.  The queue on Saturday was around the block ridiculous, and that was for ticket holders.

Couple more shots in the gallery.

Convention season is upon us once again and Robert and I were off to the London Film & Comic Convention once again.  No William Shatner this year however, and really nobody I was willing to pay and queue to see, so it was just a lot of browsing, shopping and generally geeking out.

There were quite a lot of CosPlay costumes in addition to all of the neat stuff on offer.  This was definitely one of the cooler costumes I saw during the day, I give you a warhammer warrior priest!

I can’t imagine the amount of time something like this could take to construct, but it was very cool.  There were of course the cutie costumes as well, like these two girls working one of the counters selling sweets.

I managed to walk out of there with only a small purchase this year, which showed incredible restraint on my behalf.  My new Totoro joined Robert and I for a post-con viewing of The Green Lantern in 3D and I think he enjoyed it.

Once again, there are some more images in the gallery.