If you’re not watching Chuck yet, you should. It’s one of my favourite shows at the moment, although it took some time to get to that place. The first season is okayish, nothing really special, but it gets better with the second season with a larger mythology and red line story line through out the season. That second season also ends with an awesome finale, with a major game changer for the following third season.

We’re now waiting for the 4th season, and the further we get into this show the more awesome it’s becoming. There was a panel at Comic-Con with the entire cast, and it’s great to get some sneak peaks of what’s coming up:

It’s a bit of a shame that they were cut short at the end; no time for fan questions?

This suitcase is meant for kids, but I so want one! It’s adorable, right?

Samsonite also has other animal designs (ladybird, crocodile and bee), but the panda is the cutest. They’re available on Samsonite.co.uk for £65.

I’m slowly trying to catch up with all the Comic-Con footage, but it’s brilliant that some networks have made entire panels available! Community is one of my favourite shows at the moment, so I was so glad to find the entire panel online:

[Community Panel at Comic-Con ’10]

If you don’t want to check out the entire video (44 minutes, plus some annoying ads inbetween), highlights are: describe Community in 5 words (around the 6:00), Donald Glover and Danny Pudi on the greatest TV bromance (11:25), Chevy Chase on what about this show made him return (13:38), Danny Pudi on Abed’s pop culture references (28:19), Dan Harmon on Season 2 (30:50), improv-ing during shoots (34:24).

I’ll be posting more Comic-Con stuff in the next couple of days, so stay tuned!

During my teen years I got completely addicted to all things Ancient World: Egypt, Rome, Ancient Greece, I read everything I could about them. Somehow during those years the ankh became my lucky symbol; every time I had an exam or something else important I would always try to have an ankh with me. This went on for some time, so eventually my mum gave me a simple silver ankh necklace.

Nowadays I still wear that necklace occasionally, although not as ardently as I used to. Up until moving to London, I used to wear that necklace every single day, never even bothering to take it off. The reason I stopped wearing it that much? Having a kitchen with a proper oven.

Anyway, I love the simple design of the ankh, and have always wanted another larger necklace. But most designs with ankhs are so embellished, with too many curves or colours. I finally came across this simple one though from Etsy store Ajewelryboxx for only $20:

Nice, right? Not too big and lumpy, but still not too small. Check out more from Ajewelryboxx.

I’m in the Netherlands for the next 3 weeks (reason behind the lack of posts here the past week) cat and house sitting while my mum’s on holiday in Indonesia. I was only gone for 2 days, when Cristiano tweeted “Is alone as @mseckington is in NL for 3.5 weeks. Realising I more and more want a cat.” And someone responded with 2 cats that needed a new home…

So we now have adopted 2 adorable brothers! Meet Casey:

And meet Dusty:

Casey is apparently settling in fine (as the below photo shows), while Dusty is still a little bit shy and quiet.

I can’t wait to meet these cats in 3 weeks time, although I love spending time now cat sitting Tasha, who you’ve seen in previous posts. Expect more photos soon!

Aw, these soaps are so cute! And they seem to smell nice too!

Avatar Bending Soaps – $5.50 (per single bar)

I love how they’ve actually put some thought behind the smells of these soaps! The orange Fire Nation soap is scented with a spicy orange, cinnamon and clove fragrance. The green Earth Nation soap smells like fresh cut grass. The yellow Air Nation soap is scented with nag’champa incense. And the blue Water Nation soap has a lemon verbena mint fragrance.

Browncoat Field Ration – $4.99

Ooh, this one sounds so good!

“A message to the last remaining members of the resistance: take care of yourself. Whether you’re out on that newly terraformed moon, or flying solo through the ‘verse, civility is what separates us from those savages on the fringe. This Browncoat field ration contains a combination of brown sugar scrub on one side, and a creamy apple cinnamon soap on the other. Each bar has 2 whole spoonfuls of real brown sugar.”

The TARDI-soap (caramel and apple fragrance) – $7.00

This one comes in a caramel and apple fragrance and is made of only vegan products!

Soap Dice – $5.50

These come in different colours and smells: Blue – Coconut, Pink – Cherry Lemonade, Orange – Lime Mandarin, Yellow – Banana, Green – Cucumber Melon, White – Unscented, Black – MANLY (Bergamot, Sandalwood & Musk). Ooh, the cherry lemonade and the cucumber melon sounds delicious!

There are more geeky soaps listed on Geeky Clean’s etsy page, like the Dharma Initiative and the Stargate portal (but the above 4 are my favourites).

Okay, this looks awesome:

I loved Zack Synder’s previous two movies (300, Watchmen) and again the style of this movie looks great.

Here’s the description from Wikipedia:

Set in the 1950s, it tells the story of Baby Doll (Browning), who is trying to hide from the pain caused by her evil stepfather and lobotomy. She ends up in mental institution in Brattleboro, Vermont and while there she starts to imagine alternative reality. She plans to escape from that imaginary world but to do that she needs to steal five objects before she is caught by a vile man. She has 5 days to escape before being lobotomized. In order to cope with the situation, she enters the hyper-real world of her imagination, and the lines between reality and dream begin to blur.

As I’m in an Avatar: The Last Airbender mood anyway today, this video made me smile:

Nickelodeon finally officially announced the sequel to Avatar: The Last Airbender! It (as expected) will be called The Legend of Korra and will feature the female waterbending Avatar, Korra.

You can see the full press release here. What’s mainly got me excited is this bit though:

Her quest leads her to the epicenter of the modern “Avatar” world, Republic City – a metropolis that is fueled by steampunk technology. It is a virtual melting pot where benders and non-benders from all nations live and thrive.

Steampunk!!!! Squeeeee!!!!

I know, I know, that was far too many exclamation points, but the fangirl in me couldn’t resist. I already was looking forward to this show, but with the added element (pun not intended) of steampunk it’s now pretty high on my MUSTSEECANTWAITFORTHIS list.

In 2014, two experimental viruses—a genetically engineered flu strain designed by Dr. Alexander Kellis, intended to act as a cure for the common cold, and a cancer-killing strain of Marburg, known as “Marburg Amberlee”—escaped the lab and combined to form a single airborne pathogen that swept around the world in a matter of days. It cured cancer. It stopped a thousand cold and flu viruses in their tracks.

I’ve seen my fair share of zombie movies, but when it comes to books, I’ve never actually read any zombie-themed stories (although I’m not counting fantasy series with living dead type monsters, I mean proper zombies-in-our-universe). So I don’t have that much to compare this book to besides the movies. One thing though that almost always annoys me in zombie films is that most characters have no idea how to deal with zombies or have never even heard of them. It’s as if they’re in a world where zombie movies don’t exist. Or it’s set in a apocalyptic future where zombies are threatening to take over.

In Feed that’s quite different. It’s set 20 years after a “zombie” outbreak; this is a world where people grew up with zombie movies and have adapted to a different way of living to deal with the outbreak. The zombie virus is dormant in every living person and can get activated when it comes in contact with the live virus (aka the zombies). Besides that it also gets activated if you die. Now think about it: how would this change the world you live in?

Mira Grant takes that idea and fleshes it out. Buildings require blood tests before entering, being a doctor is one of the most dangerous jobs in the world, and George, Georgina and Georgette are popular kids names (because of George Romero in case you didn’t get why). I loved discovering how this world works; Grant has created an interesting future and I wonder if there was a zombie outbreak how close to the truth this could be.

The story is about a blogger Georgia, who together with her brother Shaun and their friend Buffy, is invited to cover a senator’s presidential campaign. They slowly discover a conspiracy… Yeah, it sounds a bit cheesy, but before I knew it, I got so invested in Georgia’s story. First book in a long time that made me cry and that’s a tough thing to do.

What didn’t completely work for me was how the blogging and online world was explained. In the future every blogger fits a certain category; you have the Newsies, those who write up the news and are objective about it; the Stewarts, those who comment on the news; the Irwins, adventure/action/zombie-antagonizing bloggers; the Fictionals, those who write stories or poetry (including of course fan fiction); and finally the Aunties, recipe/mummy/lifestory bloggers. Then there was the way each blog had ratings and a spot in the uber list of rankings, as if it was more kindred to traditional broadcast media. Also: no mention of Twitter, but I’m guessing this book was written before that hit. It doesn’t diminish the reading experience, but I wished this was a little more similar to reality.

I really enjoyed Feed and I’m now really curious to what else Mira Grant has written (this is her first book as Grant, but she also writes as Seanan McGuire). Feed has a great story, which sucks you completely in. And it’s got a fascinating world to discover along the way.

Feed by Mira Grant – Available on Amazon.co.uk for £5.49 and on Amazon.com for $9.99.