i has a posse in moscow! (and other public service announcements)

heart meter pin, originally uploaded by spugmeistress.

hey everyone - am aware i haven't blogged in a while (or updated my flickr - this photo isn't even of what the heart meter pin looks like now!). unfortunately my ibook has died so i can't do a whole lot of internet stuff at home atm, typing this (very slowly, forgive the horrendous grammar...) from my wii currently (thank the lord for the opera browser, even if it is a bit pants!). all donations to the 'let's buy rach a new laptop' fund gratefully accepted ;) especially in the form of buying stuff from the shops or particularly custom orders - if you've been thinking of getting something personalised or asking for something special for a while then now's the time to do it! i certainly have plenty of time on my hands atm so to take advantage of that i'm offering special discounts on all custom orders - just convo me or use the alchemy button on etsy or send me a message on folksy :)
*** notice: due to the wonderful wii browser, i'm able to check both sites and fill orders as fast as ever, but be aware that if you send me a message/email and don't hear back quite so soon, it's just cos i'm waiting for a spare lunchbreak at work to reply on a computer where i can type faster than 8 words per minute ;) ***

so what've i been up to in the meantime? well, making new stuff (which i hope to be able to blog/flickr/upload to shops asap), getting back into exploring the awesome possibilities of cross stitch (don't worry, i won't be putting the hama beads away any time soon), and knitting something very special :)
thanks to everyone who has kept on buying though despite quietness. special props to my new russian fans (i am forever debted to your country (and alexey pajitnov) for giving the world the gift of tetris*), to my repeat buyers who just keep coming back for more (hi kim n holly!) and to the influx of orders from folksy.
hopefully i can return you all to your regularly scheduled OMEGAZOID soon :)

*new hi score! 205 lines, 350631 pts \o/ any tips for gba screenshots?

UK DIY

UK DIY is a craft exhibition at the Turnpike Gallery in Leigh (up north!), and as of last Saturday, I'm in it! Alongside some other amazing stuff, all about science and craft, craftivism, technocraft, subversive stitching and art, recycled and upcycled craft and lots and lots of awesome knitting. One of my favourite things there were these amazing sculptures made from straws which I went home and tried to emulate with my newfound glue gun and Morrissons drinking straws but didn't quite manage to make anything half as beautiful. Either way, it was pretty cool to have some of my stuff on show on the wall next to such cool people :) The exhibition is on til the end of April so there's plenty of time to go along and have a look if you're in the area, it's free too! I've re-stocked the Etsy and Folksy shops just in case people get the urge to buy ;)

mario star pin
boo ghost pin
chunky heart pin
red super mushroom pin (also available in green)
pacman and ghost earrings
ms pacman and ghost earrings
victorious space invader necklace
shy space invader necklace
pacman ghost chase bracelet (also available with ms pacman)

and now to make up for shamelessly pimping my wares, here's a big up for someone else's stuff! there was so much cool knitting on show at the exhibition on saturday, that i think this awesome mario cushion would certainly have fitted right in :)

geek love <3

heart collection, originally uploaded by spugmeistress.

happy new year everyone! wow, i can't believe i haven't blogged this year yet, but to be honest it's everyone else's fault for keeping me busy with so many orders over christmas and new year ;) it was very much appreciated, so thanks for buying and i hope all gift recipients loved their presents!

next big thing seems to be valentine's day, and since i won't be celebrating it personally (awwww), it gives me even more time to make things to help geeks everywhere find love, romance and cool gifts for their videogame-loving partners :D to accompany the best selling heart container necklace and heart meter pin, we now have pieces of heart necklaces (available individually or as a set of two split heart necklaces to share with your extra special friends or loved ones) and pieces of heart earrings too. chunky heart pins and heart keyrings are also still available for the less-jewellery-inclined/male types too :) for uk types, all the pixel heart valentinesy type gifts are all available here on folksy.

also, exciting news! i've been invited to be in a cool craft exhibition up north which opens coincidentally on valentine's day(feb 14th that is)! more details to come soon...

i heart christmas music

i *love* christmas music :D

so i made you all a muxtape^ 8trackplaylist to share in my joy and my vast christmas music mp3 collection.

liner notes:

*Weezer - O Holy night*
apparently they recorded this for an iPhone game which everyone loved so much they are releasing the mp3s on itunes (but possibly only in america? i can't find them on the uk store) this is my favourite of the 6 and i am absolutely addicted to listening to this song at the moment. as in i will happily play it 4 or 5 times on repeat. the high note near the end is pure win, and it's quite weird to hear weezer singing such explicitly Christian carols but very cool at the same time

*Darlene Love - It's a Marshmallow World
more generically winter than christmas but absolutely amazing all the same. kinda reminds me of hairspray and makes me want to be darlene love. she is truly queen of christmas music.

*Last Christmas - pas/cal
never heard of the band before this but much much much better than the wussy version jimmyeatworld did on the OC chrismukkah cd. kinda almost chip-tuney which is quite nice

*I Want an Alien for Christmas - Fountains of Wayne
i can't remember where i first heard this but i remember having to special order it into hmv when i was 13 because it was so cool. and then i plagiarised the cover artwork for my art homework... this was *way* before they fell in love with stacey's mom

*All I Want for Christmas is You - My Chemical Romance
my least favourite christmas song (when sung by mariah carey at least) made more than listenable by one of the few nu-emo bands actually worth listening to (sometimes)

*Trains to Brazil - Guillemots
not a christmas song. except it blatently is. even in the middle of summer this song never fails to make me feel all jingle bellsy inside

*Everything's Gonna Be Cool this Christmas - eels
one of the finest examples of original indie christmas songs, found on indie radio station compilation cd's, chrismukkah mixes and mp3 blogs the world over

*Merry Christmas Everyone - Shakin' Stevens
my absolute favourite christmas song ever. it's a classic. the video with shakey's awesome jumper makes it even better.

A spaceman came travelling by Chris de Burgh is my 2nd favourite (mostly because of how bizarre the lyrics are, but partly because the 'lalalah's' are immense) but I'm saving that for another time... yup, there's plenty more where this came from if you really want it ;)

credits:
*all the bands or artists for being awesome and...
*all the original songwriters for writing kickass songs that, whilst sounding horrendously annoying and/or crap when sung by the original artist (i'm looking at you mariah), make ace covers
*the amazing hypemachine for supplying me with many many mp3s and...
*all the music bloggers in the world who have even geekiermore exhaustive christmas music collections than me and share them every year
*adam and joe for playing the darlene love track last week on their 6music radio show and introducing me to my favourite 'new' christmas song (even though it's probably about 40 yrs old)
*my sister for knowing i wasn't being ironic when i asked for the O.C. Chrismukkah mix album
*my mum and dad for bringing me up with the annual christmas cd whilst tree decorating, letting me listen to the evening session one christmas and allowing me to experience the wonderful juxtaposition of the guillemot's non-christmas but blatently festive song, and for owning the Phil Spector Christmas LP
*god, because he invented christmas, and gave us something *even* better than christmas songs, but so good that it has inspired music throughout the ages


^i never ever used muxtape when it was going, and as soon as i find the perfect use for it, i find it got taken down by the stupid RIAA :(

http://8tracks.com/spugmeistress/merry-christmas-everyone

star power

star pin, originally uploaded by spugmeistress.

two new brooches up today, big ghost pin and star pin, available on etsy or folksy for the uk types.

speaking of star power - i recently became completely addicted to rock band when they had it at a conference i was at with work and nearly lost my voice pretending to be shirley manson :) back home all i've got is guitar hero 2 and singstar on the ps2. so the question is, to rock band or to guitar hero: world tour? and on the ps2 with the stuff i've already got (and some drums obviously, it's always been my secret ambition to be a drummer) or on the wii with the hope that nintendo gets DLC working? apparently rock band peripherals work with guitar hero world tour (or is it the other way round?) but it's all very complicated... any suggestions or advice welcome, for a rocking out christmas :)

the high score table of life

people who have been around me long enough know that i get a little bit excited about high scores. particularly tetris ones :) it's somewhat of an achievement when you beat your own personal best (and since my copy of tetris is so old that it doesn't save high scores, i have to write mine down on the back of the cart in permanent marker*) that you don't get very often in real life.

except for this week anyway :) the aforementioned people will also know that i am a little bit fangirly about late night radio 1, particularly colin murray's show on from 10 til 12. every tuesday night he does the black hole of radio 1 where they play an hour or so of stuff that people send in from the internet, exclusive myspace tracks, youtube live stuff, mashups and remixes from the hype machine etc. well last week i wasn't around much so i had to catch up on what i'd missed on the iplayer (praise the lord for its invention) and found that colin hadn't been in either, so it was huw stevens standing in for him (not quite as amazing as colin but still quite cool and introduced me to the wonder of iliketrains) but i thought i'd listen to the black hole anyway and how glad was i that i did? because i'd completely forgotten about it, but i had submitted my own link the previous week, and that, ladies and gentlemen, is why radio 1 played tragedy, the heavy metal bee gee's tribute band, on tuesday 18th november. i have a bit of a history of trying to get my name mentioned on every single radio 1 show i like - i won a competition on mike davies' punk show a while ago (he thought my surname was awesome), but this was certainly a personal high score for me :)

aaaaaaand, all this in a roundabout way links to my most recent collection! if you too want to celebrate being the winner on the high score table of your life, you could do much worse than one of my customised personalised pins or necklaces available on folksy or etsy. how cheesy does that sound?! i promise you i didn't make it all up to sound like the worst infomercial ever, but i really enjoyed making these and i hope people will like them - they come in whatever colour you like (including neon for all you nu-ravers out there) and there may even be a special mention somewhere for the person who comes up with the funniest 3 letter/digit combination ;)

*for the record, 205 lines or 261485 points depending on which one you count

one zine left

i've been mentioning this on the etsy and folksy listings, but omegazoid issue #1 is very nearly sold out! so if you wanted to get one, buy now to avoid disappointment ;) but if you *do* miss out, no worries because issue #2 is on the way soon! anyone got any requests? we'll have more puzzles, more games reviews, some pixel by numbers colouring in, but there's still room to fit in more if anyone has any super special ideas! there may even be some previews of the new stuff i have on the way including hi-score necklaces and pins, the key collection and more christmas tree decorations for this year :) all appearing on flickr soon!

music tip of the week: i went to see sigur ros at alexandra palace in london last week and they were *awesome* - we had snow (twice!), rain and a confetti party, not quite what i was expecting after seeing their heima documentary but a brilliant show, especially given the loveliness of the venue. however, i think the best bit of the night was the support band, for a minor reflection, also from iceland but with less lyrics and slightly more rock. i've been listening to their cd non-stop since i got back and it is the sound of pure win. check out their myspace if you like a good bit of post-rock!

mutants and alchemy

spugmeistress is pleased to announce that Alchemy is open! Alchemy is a feature on Etsy where you can commission custom items to your own specifications. you can either put your request in the public Alchemy forum and sellers will bid on it to see who can do you the best quote - or you can press the 'Request custom item' on my Etsy page if you would like me to do something for you. as you can see from the pics, i've done custom stuff before by request - one person wanted a heart container necklace in legend of zelda colours, and another more recently wanted four lives on their heart meter pin. it's the place to go if you want variations on items i'm selling, requests for restocking from my back catalogue or suggestions or commissions for new stuff!

if you can't think of anything spectacular to ask for, there are a couple of new lines and items in the works, so keep your eyes on this space (or on my flickr) where i'll post up the new stuff before it goes into the shop.

videogames: live and musical

it was london games festival this week, and whilst i didn't get to go to much (or to nottingham game city either :( ) i did get to see videogames live kick the whole thing off last friday. videogames live is an american thing where they get classical orchestras to play the themes from well known games in an attempt to celebrate videogames as a proper artform and give a bit of respect to the composers (can you guess whose idea the whole thing was? ;) ) unfortunately, the games with the most orchestral theme tunes seem to be the type of shooty war games i don't really play, so i didn't recognise half of them. super mario bros, and famous blindfolded youtube guy doing the PROPER tetris theme (the orchestra did a really random version in the arcade medley at the start) were probably my favourites.

i chose the final fantasy video to top off the post for a special reason though - the choir singing in it included my friend daisy! yay daisy! she (and the rest of the choir) was awesome, and blatently the best reason for going, although the choir didn't get to sing as much as they should have. videogame music doesn't tend to have many words in it... legend of zelda could have had words to sing along to if they'd gone with the awesome system of a down version but sadly not :(

one other particularly cool bit of the night was them showing this go team video before the show - i *love* the go team, pacman, and silly urban gaming type things, and i hope you all do too :) i also liked the loading screen they put up in the intermission, every show should have one of these! means you can judge whether you can make it to the bar/loo/tshirt stand in time before they dim the houselights again. life needs more progress bars.

speaking of progress - i've started getting back into my etsy/folksy shops a bit after a flurry of recent activity out of nowhere (thank you random buyers!) so i should probably start posting a bit more. i still have some new stuff i haven't got round to taking photos of, so i should unleash these on the world sometime soon. in the meantime, enjoy your shaky cam youtube fest!

operation: sleeper cell are go!

ok, so i know you've all been sat there at your computers, refreshing and wondering 'where on earth has spugmeistress gone?' well, now, ladies and gentlemen, i can finally reveal the super secret special project that has been stealing my time away from hama beads and DS games for the past couple of months!

are you ready? no, you're not. you need to be properly prepared for this kind of awesomeness. go get yourself a nice cup of tea, some suitable biscuits (the OMEGAZOID recommends and endorses ginger nuts, always) and find a comfy seat (and maybe your wallet...)

www.operationsleepercell.com is many things. it's an internet massively multiplayer game type thing. it's an interactive story about spies, intrigue and the eternal struggle between loveliness and EVIL. but most of all, IT'S FOR CHARITY! :D go, poke about the site, play and have fun, knowing you are doing it all in the cause of loveliness and raising funds for Cancer Research UK.

the OMEGAZOID is proud to sponsor Operation: Sleeper Cell and The Agency (as well as pointing at the websites and going 'I made that!' in a girly high pitched squeal ;) ) and as a result of over-flowing loveliness and all other things awesome, the OMEGAZOID would like to extend very special discounts to all members of The Agency who identify themselves in the proper fashion. If you have found yourself here for the first time, then check out the two shops:

www.spugmeistress.folksy.com (UK based site)

www.spugmeistress.etsy.com (US based site) and

www.flickr.com/spugmeistress to see the full range of jewellery, accessories and zines i've made in the past.

the game is running for the next 10 weeks, so we'll be a little busy until then, but any orders will be processed as soon as possible, and i'll be taking commissions and re-stock requests at the end of November/early December in time for Christmas. meanwhile, enjoy the game, and help us save the world!