Even though my day isn’t going completely as planned, there are some things happening today that are quite awesome. The lovely folks at knomo have given me one of their laptop bags to give away to a lucky reader! And it’s a limited edition colour: Raspberry.

Pretty, right? The colour isn’t even available anymore in stores, so it really is a special sleeve! It’s for a 15″ laptop (37x27x4 cm or 14.6×10.6×1.6 in) and comes with a detachable strap. I reviewed this bag some months ago (read here): it’s somewhere halfway between a sleeve and a real laptop bag. There’s a main compartment for your laptop and a side pocket for your cables, adapter and other stuff.

To enter this giveaway, leave a comment behind with what you favourite post of mine has been. You’ll also get a second entry if you’re following me on Twitter and tweet about this giveaway with the hashtag #missgeeky. The competition ends on March 1st 15:00 after which I’ll randomly draw a winner!

Yay, it’s my birthday today! And it’s a bit of a geeky one, I’m turning 3^3. I’m not sure why but I still get stupidly excited for my birthday.

I really wanted a simple birthday this year. My plan originally was to got out for sushi tonight with a Keynoir voucher from last week, but that got cancelled yesterday (it was a £30 voucher for £75 worth of food, but apparently the restaurant was being evil, so Keynoir refunded the voucher). So instead I thought I’d take it nice and easy today: sleep in, then watch TV and movies all day.

Yeah, no such luck. Today of all days, they’ve decided to work on our main building entrance, stripping the paint, smoothing the walls and other annoying things that make too much sound. Our apartment is next to the main building entrance, and our bedroom is adjacent to the wall and foor they’re working on. So I got woken up this morning by the lovely sounds of drills and whatever those machine are called that they’re using. It’s been going on since at least 10am and they still haven’t stopped.

To make matters worse, I’m waiting for a couple of things to be delivered today, so it’s not as if I can flee the house. Plus, I only just discovered that the dust and rubble of whatever is is they’re doing has been trickling under our front door into our hallway, leaving everything dusty and messy. <sarcasm> Yay, just what I needed today!</sarcasm>

Sorry for complaining, but I just wanted some peace and quiet today! Ah well, they should be gone by tonight.

Thanks to all my readers for sticking with me the past 4 years. And thanks to everyone who wished me a happy birthday (be it in real life, Twitter or Facebook)! I’ve got two giveaways at the moment for a copy of the zombie tale Feed from Mira Grant and a ticket to the London Funding Conference, and there’s still time to enter both. Plus I’ve got a couple more exciting giveaways coming up, so stay tuned!

One more day to my birthday! As part of my birthday week giveaway, the organisers of the London Funding Conference have extended an invitation to all my readers to attend the conference on March 9th at the British Library Conference centre with a £25 discount! (Just use the discount code: “MGGuest”)

Next to that, they have given me one ticket to give away! All you have to do to enter this competition is to leave a comment behind with the reason why you’d like to attend this conference. The competition closes this Friday at 13:00 and the winner will receive a free pass to the conference. Here are some details about the conference:

The London Funding Conference is the UK’s premiere event for businesses looking for growth capital. Attending the Conference significantly improves prospects for businesses seeking investment and in particular helps delegates:

• Understand the different types of growth capital and how to secure the best one for them
• Meet funding experts and businesses that have recently raised investment
• Talk to potential investors
• Meet other exciting growth businesses

Confirmed speakers include Luke Johnson (celebrated entrepreneur and founder of Risk Capital Partners), Michael Blakey (canny angel investor and founder of Avonmore Developments) and Mark Prisk MP (Minister for Business Innovation and Skills).

The conference will feature hands-on funding support during the day and separately, high level funding strategy presentations during the evening. See the agenda or Book now!

There’s also a chance for you to get your hands on more free stuff: if you fill in their National Entrepreneurship Survey, you can win an iPod Nano (or £160 in cash). I stil have to see if I can make it to the conference, but if you’re interested, leave a comment behind and let me know!

I’ve always been more of a fantasy/romance reader, but ever since reading Feed (you can still enter the giveaway I’m holding) I’ve got a craving for near-distant non-apocalyptic but-set-in-the-future stories. Daybreak Zero looks interesting and has a very intriguing description:

A year has passed since the catastrophic event known as “Daybreak” began.

9 months since Daybreak killed seven billion people
8 months since Daybreak vaporized Washington
6 months since rival governments emerged in Athens, GA and Olympia, WA
4 months since the two governments of what was formerly the United States went to the brink of war
3 months since war was (barely) avoided
2 months since Athens and Olympia agreed to work together
1 month since they discovered that Daybreak isn’t over…

Simple, but it makes me really want to read it!

It’s out in hard cover next month, but I think I should wait till it comes out in paperback (can’t find out when that is, though). I wish I could have a library full of hard cover books, but I’m already running out of space as it is!

It’s my cats’ 3rd birthday today! We only got them last August, so this is our first birthday with them. They’re adorable and can be super cute, yet also very annoying. Lately they have the tendency to knock stuff off tables/shelves/etc whenever they’re hungry, just to get our attention. But they’ve also started curling up with me at night, and have started to even sit on my lap!

Here are some photos of my super cute cats, Casey and Dusty (Casey is the one with a lot of white, Dusty only has a little bit of white at his throat):

My cats so want this bookcase:

I’d really love a book case like this! It’s not only fun for the cats, but I think the 3D design makes it a bit less boring than most cases. It makes me wonder though: are there more furniture concepts designed with pets in mind? Like sofas with a cat nook in it?

Designed by Corentin Dombrecht.

Yesterday was my 4 year blog birthday! I somehow always manage to forget that, but every year I want to do something to make it a little special. Technically it’s not MissGeeky.com’s birthday, but it’s the day I started blogging (and all the posts from that original blogged were moved to MissGeeky when I started that). Plus it’s my actual birthday next week Tuesday, and my cats’ birthday on Sunday, so it’s pretty much a special birthday week for me anyway.

To celebrate this birthday week, I’ll be doing a couple of giveaways! The first is your chance to win Feed by Mira Grant. This was my favourite book from last year, so I think whoever wins this will enjoy it:

All you have to do to enter is to leave a comment behind here with your favourite book. The giveaway ends on Monday the 28th 17:00, and I’ll randomly draw a winner then. This is open to anyone, so even if you’re based in the US, Australia or wherever feel free to enter!

Thanks to all my regular readers and commenters for sticking with me for 4 years! I can’t believe I’ve been writing here for so long, and it’s been amazing. I never expected my blog to lead to so many awesome experiences. On to the next 4 years!

This is just… hmm, “beautiful” somehow seems the wrong word, but I’m not really sure how else to describe it. It’s a trailer for the zombie game Dead Island, and while it’s got the creepy and gruesome zombie vibe going on, there’s also this visceral aspect to it that makes it all rather emotional and stunning:

See what I mean?

These are gorgeous! They’re designed by artist Megan Lara. I love the details in these; look closely at the circle designs at the little icons! I could easily see myself in these tees (well, the Zelda and the Samus one, the Peach pose is a bit too much for a tee for me, still a cool design though).

All the tees are available on Level Up Studios as pre-orders (Zelda, Peach, Samus); they’ll be shipped on the 23rd of February. They’re $18 for Mens size and $19 for Ladies size. I’m really tempted to get myself a Zelda one. Check out Megan Lara’s site for more designs.

Oh, these are just gorgeous! They were designed for the brochures for the BAFTA awards this year, but I can’t figure out by who (anyone know?). I really love the one for The King’s Speech; it would look great on my wall!