Unsurprisingly, I caved to the urges – well, it’s one of the few urges I’m actually able to cave to on my own – and put in the order from the China retailer.

In a way it felt like I was ordering from those advertisements that used to fill up the back of comic books, except instead of the $4.99 and postage, I was paying out about £70. I was still filled with that giddy ignorant innocence that makes you watch the mail – and in this day and age, the order process status page – and dreaming up how I would set right the worlds wrongs, document fun conversations and seamlessly integrate my own POV shots in my vlogs.

There were a few problems in getting my sunglasses to me though. I had chosen the week following the Chinese New Year to place my order and then fell afoul to the worst bit of considerate business practice, a company that quality assures products it distributes. It only then took forty-eight hours to get from China to East Midlands (UK), via Hong Kong and London. Of course, it then took extra days just to go the three hour drive from the Midlands to here.

But you can judge for yourself the outcome in the following vlogs:

Now, there are some Pros and Cons to the camera, I could make compelling arguments either way, but instead I’ll just list a few thoughts.

• Con: The switching between modes is not the easiest, requiring you to press a Mode button and the required device button. One would wonder why they don’t just use a sliding switch, which would be a much more fluid method.

• Con: The buttons aren’t necessarily consistent in the amount of pressure required to operate and don’t really give much of a cue as to whether you’ve done it right.
• Con: On the issue of cues, most of the operating lights are located on the inside of the sunglasses arms, completely hidden. The only audio cues are when you’ve definitely done it right: the MP3 kicks in or you hear faint buzzing.
• Pro: There aren’t any telltale external signs of the devices being in use.
• Pro: For so many devices, the sunglasses aren’t actually that big and bulky. They are not, for example, Bono-sized goggles, but more akin to a cross between Dog the Bounty Hunter and Geordi LaForge.
• Con: Despite not being huge, they are not the most subtle or stylish and there does seem to be a fair bit of excess plastic that could be streamlined. They aren’t exactly Oakley or Raybans standard.
• Con: Yes, it is asking a lot, but it would be very useful if the lens polarised a little more or started off at a darker tint.
• Con: On a similar note, the video mode seems to suffer from brightness balancing when used in brighter surroundings. I don’t think I need to raise why this is somewhat ironic for cameras mounted in sunglasses.
• Con: I was aware that the resolution was only VGA quality – decent enough VGA quality at that – but it would have been a huge advantage if they had managed to include widescreen recording. For those thinking about video quality and aspect ratio on pin hole lenses, I’d like to point to the iPhone’s pinhole camera which is roughly same resolution.
• Pro: 15 minutes of footage only takes up 350MB and the sunglasses have 8GB (8192MB) capacity, which at my rough maths would give about five odd hours of recordable hours.
• Con: The microphone is affected by wind, picking up the grainy noise even in a slight breeze.
• Pro: The MP3 player is pretty good with some pretty nice earphones built into the frame, I could have done with the earphones being a little more flexible to fit my ears, but even outside they are audible.
• Pro: The Bluetooth seems to work decently, though you can’t adjust mic volume and it gets a bit crackly, especially near traffic. However, compared to holding the phone to your ear whilst cold air whips around you, it’s quite a wonder.
• Con: Very bad instruction manual with plentiful examples of Engrish.

There might seem quite a few cons, but this is actually a great gadget. A while back I bought a handheld digital video camera for a similar price, which was also VGA quality, but the actual end quality was much lower and the camera was a brick. The sunglasses camera combo is practical, slightly more subtle and leaves your hands free to carry other stuff.

I think this may be quite helpful in letting me do a few extra things in the vlogs or for catching those rare moments between proper filming. I’m hoping to pick up a proper video camera soon, ahead of the trip to Seattle, so it’ll be interesting to use the two together.

The most common examples of the perceived insanity tend to include the train with brake systems that require the completion of mathematic problems at both ends of the train, finding the right combinations to unlock seemingly mundane areas of the building or physical versions of logic problems.

These often seem to be crazy to the player, and in some cases the character, as they explore the facilities and make it so that there is a feeling that this would be completely unworkable in the real world. However, I’d like to put an alternative view across: We aren’t smart enough to be Umbrella employees.

I know that might seem as a simplistic statement, and indeed it is, but even the characters we play in the games aren’t, for the most part, smart enough to be Umbrella employees. Umbrella recruits highly trained doctors, professors in wide ranging fields, mathematicians and engineers. It would not be a far leap to expect Umbrella to recruit people above degree level, even custodial staff may be required to pass numerous IQ and personality assessments.

If you’ve ever commuted to work on public transport, you’ll spot people in business suits doing sudoku and crosswords. If you’ve seen documentaries on hackers and computer specialists, you’ll have seen how the most successful tend to frequently challenge themselves with logic problems or cryptographic puzzles. In fact, MIT have a longstanding tradition in things like their puzzle hunts calling on a broad spectrum of knowledge and physical activities like urban exploration and construction (usually for elaborate pranks).

If instead of thinking of the Umbrella facilities as a deserted, zombie-infested labyrinth you consider that the facility was filled with high IQ technicians who frequently challenged themselves – and whom the corporation actively encouraged to test themselves to keep skills fresh – then you could well see that these puzzles may actually just be a distraction from the grind and something that, because it is part of life there, could probably be solved in a heartbeat by the regular occupants.

Puzzles in the system may well be set by other employees as an acceptable prank that, at most, would get rolled eyes by supervisors and as long as it didn’t interfere with anyone else’s work, and was switched off before visits by the executives, then a blind eye was usually turned.

No doubt if there were employees left whilst we explored the facilities, they’d be of great help in getting past puzzles, it would be second nature to them. Sadly, we are strangers to the Umbrella corporation and therefore find the concepts strange and see only problems.

Umbrella embraces genius and challenges its employees to improve themselves and hone their skills. Umbrella are a good employer, we just aren’t smart enough to work for them.

I’ve had a few people tell me that I’m not alone in this desire, and I know that it’s a very common theme in tv and movies to feature just this type of thing, so I plan to pay a small homage to my personal top five flying/floating surveillance devices. This list is only my top four, and is in part based on my views on aesthetics – I like compact, shiny and efficient things.

Number 4
Random Marvel Flying Cameras (Marvel Comics)

What can I say, in comics and in cartoons Marvel sooner or later has someone hunt people down with flying cameras. In the ’90s cartoon series of Spiderman, Norman Osborn and Alistair Smythe hunt down Spidey with some robotic Spider-Slayers, leading the troops are small rocket-propelled cameras that follow Spidey as he swings through the city.

Reed Richards also had his own camera robots, which looked like mini-versions of HERBIE, and Dr Doom was reknowned for having robot everythings.

Number 3
Droids (Star Wars)

There are so many awesome droids to pick from in the Star Wars universe that I adore, and so many that I despise with a burning comparable only to the itchy kind you get after illicit night with a local in Indianapolis. But you can’t go far wrong with droids dedicated to surveillance and recording – unless you count the Hovercam from the racing scenes in Phantom Menace. You know, the one with lazy eye? Yeah.

But while Phantom Menace had a sucky hovercam mixed amongst a lot of other suckage, there is no denying the amount of win that surrounded Darth Maul, and the guy sure knew how to bring along the aces. Darth Maul’s Sith Probe Droids were small, sleek black floating balls. Silent and swift, these balls can track people unseen through busy residential areas. Just seeing Darth Maul sending the little fellas out on their mission showed that this was no amateur operation.

Also floating around during Phantom Menace and Attack of the Clones was another efficient little camera droid, which looked like a cross between a bumblebee and an owl. The senate cam droid was pretty much the camera used by the domestic media, as opposed to military applications, and probably wouldn’t even be able to perform quality paparrazi work.

No mention of camera droids from Star Wars would be complete without a mention to those wonderful probe droids. Most notable is of course the mechanical jellyfish Viper probe droid from the Battle of Hoth (a droid I love so much because it used to scare me in that good Star Wars way) to the clam-shell look-a-like Prowler 1000 used by the Republic soldiers during the Clone Wars. Military spy-bots are sexah.



Number 2
Laserbeak (Transformers)

More than just a floating camera, Laserbeak was a full espionage and sabotage robot in the shape of a vulture. Even if his involvement was later cut down in favour of the much cooler designed Ratbat and he was nowhere as sleek and menacing as little kitty Ravage, Laserbeak was perhaps one of the most efficient spys in Soundwaves collective of intelligence operatives.

Laserbeak was most commonly noted for replaying audio tracks, because he was linked to a handler who transformed in to a tape player, but he did make use of a hidden video camera to record Autobot plans from time to time. Just why a robot with powerful optics required a secondary camera system to record footage and didn’t just store what it ’saw’ is one of those “don’t ask” questions.

The other question is how Laserbeak managed to get all those camera angles, without being spotted right in front of the Autobot leadership. Either no-one thought about fixed camera positions and viewpoints or, more likely, the Autobots are just lame.

Of course, the Laserbeak from Transformers Energon took the flying camera idea a little bit further when it made the little golden bug-eyed budgie version of the classic Decepticon. They made him an Autobot that transforms between birdy, camcorder and laser gun mode.



Word has it that Laserbeak secretly films all the Transformer voyeur films that continuously fill ub the hard drive on Teletraan and was responsible for the now infamous leaked Blur Is Always Premature viral video.

Number 1
Cambot (Mystery Science Theatre 3000)

Let’s face it, Cambot had to come in here. Though I have to say that for the look, I only really like his final design of the floating eyeball – although his earlier designs did show that he was assembled from scap and so fitted a lot better.

Cambot acted as cameraman for the Satellite of Love crew, following their skits and then zooming down the access tunnel to film from the back of the theatre. Cambot never really expressed much personality beyond the Robot Roll Call where he kind of sounded like a cheesy photographer for a fashion magazine or ‘art pamphlet’, but he was a crucial part of the show.

Just to show I’m not alone in my love for these wonderful and inspiring stalkers, there are people who are trying to bring them to life. Granted they are mostly trying to create them to help blow other people up, but that’s life.

A Soldier’s Eye in the Sky

FORT BLISS, Tex. — The soldiers crouched beneath the blazing desert sun, waiting to burst into the villages in conditions similar to those they have encountered in Iraq and Afghanistan.

But this time, they got some high-tech help in an exercise intended to prove that new devices operated by the soldiers themselves can make those harrowing missions less dangerous in the future.

As the mock attack began on the sprawling military base here, tiny drones hovered overhead, peering through the windows to see insurgents gathered inside the houses. Small robots — like R2-D2 in “Star Wars” — crawled through some of the doors, flashing back live video of the startled enemy’s positions. Electronic sensors placed nearby watched escape routes. And a battery of six-foot-high missiles stood at the ready farther out in the desert to destroy vehicles that tried to rush in to help the insurgents.

“When I was in Iraq, we couldn’t see what we were busting into,” said Specialist Randall Thompson, who operates the robots. “But with this equipment, we can at least get a peek.”

….

The drones resemble flying lawnmower engines about the size of a beer keg that land on four curved wire feet. With the cameras on the drones acting like spotters, the ground-launched six-foot missiles, called “rockets in a box,” will eventually enable soldiers to destroy hostile forces more than 20 miles away without having to call in help from artillery units or other aircraft, Army officials say.

The robots could also search caves and cars at hazardous checkpoints. And the sensors could guard outposts and monitor areas cleared of insurgents, freeing more soldiers to fight.
[See full article here]
(Source: The New York Times, 11 August 2009)

Of course, we can’t forget the piece of tech that is not only high on my want list but no doubt being added to yours as soon as you hear about it: The Aeryon Scout. This is nearly everything I could hope for in a Cambot, though it lacks a ‘follow me’ feature and can only operate for twenty minutes, in that it is a quadrotor self-stabilising flying camera rig that can operate outside or indoors (even in confined spaces)

I already know about the relevant clearances needed to get into the US and about flight routes. I already know that I want to avoid traveling through Charles De Gaulle (Paris), and that I should expect travel times around 15 to 26 hours if I want to leave from my local airport. I already know about needing a US Dollar account and debit card, whilst bearing in mind that the exchange rate means I’ll have to have slightly more spending cash than last time when I came back with over a grand spending money left.

However, the planning for this years trip has been slightly more complex. As you may recall, last years trip to San Jose, CA, really revolved around two factors: being close to the Fanime convention and being somewhere central to see Dio, as she was at the time the only local I knew.

This year, the plan was actually to meet up with as many different people as possible, which meant that the first obstacle was to find a place people could actually reach. I looked at geographically central locations, which actually appeared to be Missouri or Ohio. This struck me with two quotes:

Yakko:“All is strange and vague”
Dot: “Are we dead”
Yakko: “Or is this Ohio?

and

Bart: Branson, Missouri. My dad says it’s like Vegas — if it were run by Ned Flanders.

However, our mutual friend, Kristiane of The Pilver fame through a rather fortuitous curve ball and suggested Seattle, WA.

Apart from the media, I’d only seen Seattle from the waiting areas of SeaTac and from the windows of planes, but it seemed a beautiful place and there seemed to be a fair amount of interest in the place. It seemed the most feasible spot, and so the destination became locked.

This did add a few minor issues in my mind, but ones that would spring up most anywhere we would have ended up. You see, nobody actually lives in Seattle, with Kristiane being the nearest, and most other people will be traveling in. This raises the question of how much time will be with other people and how much will be spent on my own – I don’t travel with people/I don’t have people to travel with. I’m likely to be Seattle for around 10 days and I know we’re fixing a weekend, I’m unsure if people will be around for longer either side.

This also adds to the decision about locating a hotel and the cost. I knew I was going to go for a Hilton or Hilton affiliate, mainly because I’m a member of their Honours program, and also because I’m going on holiday and therefore want comfort. If I’m on my own, I don’t want to spend ages traveling downtown, where most of the good stuff will probably be, so I’ll have to stay downtown.

The cost of downtown hotels isn’t cheap though, the main downtown Hilton is very hefty – and would be unfair to any people just making the trip for the weekend – and even moreso if you want one with a view. This isn’t too bad for me, as I’m British and anything above about six floors gives a unique view to me.

So, for me, I’m looking in to the affiliates and aiming for at most about $170 a night, given the number of nights.

Then we’re working out dates. I wanted to travel around the time of my birthday at the tail end of June, given two choices of date: the last weekend of June or the 4th July weekend. Obviously hotel costs and personal plans could have prevented people being able to attend, I think we’ve pretty much nailed down the weekend. For me, I just have to get confirmation of my bookings for both hotel and air ticket.

I have to still work out things to do whilst in Seattle, though I have a short list of ‘kinda want to do’:

• Go on the Underground City tour

• Go on the Pike Place ghost tour
• Visit the Sci-Fi museum
• Visit the Space Needle
• Visit the original Starbucks
• See a Baseball game
• Visit the Seattle Metaphysical Library
• Hookers and blow
• Hang out at a mall

Of course, I still have to work out all the other little things like wi-fi, communication and transport links which all differ city-by-city and state-by-state. I need to find out all the who and when details.

However it does seem to be slowly building and hopefully the crescendo will receive a standing ovation and not just the sort of clapping reserved for relatives at a school play organised by the teacher who is into ‘environmentalist issues’ and interpretive dance.

Guise Goes Global – Seattle, WA – June 2010

Now, some might consider that this is down to having only recieved two Valentines cards in the past twenty years, since the age of eight was the last time that kids did the ‘cards for everyone’ before realising that the cards were meant to be targetted. Some might also think that it’s because I’ve had three people in the past dump me in the days directly leading up to Valentines day. Those people aren’t actually right on this occassion, but lets all thank them for dragging that nasty business up.

In part I don’t like Valentines Day because it is a lazy excuse to hold sentiment and feeling, with a lot of people only ever actually making an effort to make a gesture once in the year. I use the term effort lightly too, because in most instances this takes the form of purchasing a mass-produced card and signing it without any thought to even an additional message, a box of cheap standardised chocolates that have been directly marketed as “show someone you care with chocolates” usually accompanied by a sign reading “50% off”, and taking the valentine out for a meal somewhere that took bookings for private romantic meals amongst other couples enjoying private romantic meals. I even know people who will make the one effort on Valentines Day, but will do nothing else ‘romantic’, even on special occassions like birthdays.

But maybe that’s me. I’m the type of guy who writes messages in Christmas cards, who buys gifts for people just because ‘it made me think of you’, and who thinks you can make an adventure out of anything as long as you really want to.

Another reason I don’t like Valentines Day is because of the siren song of a small, smug-looking, morkish troll with a fuzzy caterpillar stapled to his forehead to look like a bushy monobrow. A song that hypnotises the weak-willed like a Pied Piper and makes them believe the song is ‘their song’. It’s a song that floats through the air and sets of the cringe gland in all men.

As I put to my friends on Facebook, and seeking advice from my friend Tink: is there a legal defense where a man is allowed to open fire in a crowded area if he’s been subjected to having heard Lady In Red over 30 times in one day and then has Chris De Burgh’s morkish face, smug grin and caterpillar-stapled-to-the-face monobrow imprinted on his brain?

Lady in Red is one of the evilest songs ever. I’m not saying it is a bad song, just that the majority of its benefits have been corrupted over time by its popularity and its ability to burrow in to emotional centres like a parasitic lice and form a symbiotic relationship with its host. Most of its hosts are noticably middle- to old aged ladies who wear supermarket underwear, smell faintly of the combination of cabbage and lily of the valley, and who actually appreciate Oil of Ulay as a Christmas gift despite the fact that anyone giving it is basically confirming your feelings that you have ’signs of aging’ to hide. I’ve heard a lot of people say that it is ‘their song’, though mostly its the women in the relationship that say this.

Couple of times I’ve pressed on this, and most of the time the girl involved will have some personal instance where she felt the song described her and that it was therefore their song as a couple, though the guy couldn’t remember. Funnily, and before anyone states that guys don’t have sentimentality, the guys will often have a completely different song. The thing is though, a guys version of ‘their song’ tends to be based on things like: the song to that movie we went to on our first date; that song that was always playing on the radio when we were going out; that song she always sang or hummed; that song that always reminds me of her.

I’ve had a guy tell me that it was ‘their song’ because it was played at the wedding reception. I asked if it was the song used for the first dance? No. Was it put on at special request? No. What was she wearing at the reception? Wedding dress. What coulour was it? White. Ohhhhkay. It’s popular pulp, it gets played at every reception, every Valentines dance (where at least a percentage will be wearing red for it to be relevant), at every 10+ anniversary and at at least one funeral I’ve attended.

One of the things that gets me about the ‘deep meaning’ people see, is that I think I view it at an askew angle. To me, the song is more about the dress than the lady, because it almost seems that no-one (including the narrator) even noticed the lady before she wore this stunning dress, and then like Cinderella or any coming-of-age sitcom with a ‘plain girl’ she magically becomes stunning and everyone wants to know her. ‘Never saw you looking as lovely as you did tonight’, is hardly a testament to seeing the real depth. There also doesn’t seem to be anything more than bragging about having the trophy lady, it’s all about appearance and other guys not getting ‘a little romance, given half the chance’.

Yet still it persists as one of those songs that gets piped through shopping centres, played by my neighbours loudly, sung by drunks and uncles and drunken uncles, and used to disguise inadequate and awkward sex in hotels.

To me, I find more emotional depth in songs like Cyndi Lauper’s “True Colours“, any version of “The first cut is the deepest“, Savage Garden’s “Truly, Madly, Deeply”and to the more sweating end of the spectrum “I touch myself” and “Hallelujah“, but then I’m not the target audience. De Burgh wasn’t trying to woo me, something for which I shall be eternally grateful.

But just one message to guys out there, do something nice for the one you love at Valentines – make it last through the year.

So, final question: Do you have a ‘our song’, what is it and why?

Recently, as well as having a light season on blogging, I’ve also been lacking in putting up vlogs to YouTube. I have actually been recording footage nearly everyday, with some 20 hours worth of raw footage since just before Christmas up to the present, however the editing is tiresome at times and quite often the events don’t really strike me as worth mentioning, and so the footage is just sat in an external hard drive.

I still find times though when something interesting happens or something strikes me and I just can’t grab my camera in time, I know I’m not alone in wishing there was some way to be able to capture those random spontaneous moments of the day or the witticisms of company.

I don’t know how many people will remember the TV show Bailey Kipper’s POV, but ever since I watched that as a kid I wanted to be a walking, not necessarily to broadcast, but so that memories were captured.

Personally, I’d love a floating recording device that could follow me around like Cambot from Mystery Science Theatre 3000. I keep a quotefile/quotebook, but sometimes there are moments that you try to share in words, but never quite come across the same as if someone could witness it.

I actually started to look into things like bullet cam kits, pinhole cameras and extreme sport helmet cams. Bullet cams are the most expensive option, but give very high quality recordings, perhaps too high quality for random videos that may never surface and that I may get bored of in my usual manner. Pinhole cameras tend to be slightly lower quality, but the actual problem for me is that I’d have nowhere to place it that would give a good recording.

The better bet for me would be the helmet cam, these are usually of a semi-decent quality, some going up to 720p high-def quality, but the flaw is that mounting a camera to your head is hardly subtle, you don’t exactly achieve a slimline Borg look or even something trendy like a scanner from Dragonball Z, you typically end up with a thick tube mounted above your ear.

This leads me to telling you about being a consumer whore. I am quite happy to admit that I can be a gadget freak and brand follower, I don’t own very many branded clothing items (besides my Converse sneakers, which I adore because they last a damn long time and are such a classic style) but I do like to buy branded gadgets.

So, as winter has been cold I’ve spent some time trying to walk home in biting weather, chatting on my iPhone and feeling my hand getting very cold as I hold the phone to my ear. Obviously I needed to look in to a bluetooth device of some kind. I’m not overly fond of the earpieces, always finding that they look odd to me, but I did find Oakley Razerwire sunglasses that come with a bluetooth earpiece that fits on the frame. Stylish, branded and gadgetty, it seemed a pretty good option to me.

However, then I found another item which left me torn with decision. Whilst searching for ‘bluetooth sunglasses’ I found a pinhole camera mounted in to sunglasses, which also had a bluetooth device, mp3 player and FM radio built in to the frame. The camera is only to VGA standard, 640×480, but given that it would only be for those moments when a proper camcorder isn’t to hand.

So, I find myself torn between getting a single comparitavely cheap device that could do everything, but to a lower standard, or paying out for items that are actually designed to do a very good job (and not to mention, will be recognisably trendy).

Chances are, I will pay out for the single device to test it, regret the purchase and then have to save up again to fix the decision – because that’s how I roll.

So, seeing as we got this far together and you are still reading, how about a little group therapy session and a question for everyone to answer: Thinking back, has anything recently happened that you’ve wished someone was recording for you? If so, what happened?

So, a rather unofficial Saturday Night Thread, but I’m doing a movie marathon tonight and thought I’d try to blog throughout it as the night progresses. Wine, gift wrap and chocolate to be had. Feel free to drop a comment and join in.

19.00 GMT
Garfield Christmas Special

19.20 GMT
Garfield found the meaning of Christmas! Yay, Garfield! I seem to remember it being longer than 15 minutes or whatever, think I romanticised the Christmas special in to a magical extravaganza and not just Garfield’s Deliverance Family Reunion (with snow).

Gonna go make popcorn and decide what’s next!

So, there’s another confession I need to make. I’ve never really had the chance to watch any Rankin Bass animated movies, so I guess tonight is a chance to fix that!

19.30 GMT
Rudolph the Red Nose Reindeer

20.30 GMT
Huzzah for Rudolph. Who knew that a parasitic infection in the nasal passages leading to inflammation would prove so much benefit, and fair play to a guy with the nasal equivalent of crabs or tapeworm to get a girl. Though male reindeers are meant to lose their antlers during winter, does keep theirs, so what does that say about the relationship?

Anyway, half hour til a Criminal Minds double feature…so, I’m gonna drink and gift wrap, be back after psychopaths!!

23.00 GMT
And we’re back!!

23.05 GMT
The Year Without Santa

23.50 GMT
Good old Jingle and Jangle. Realising that I’m going to have to do a few more marathons before Christmas and, so unfortunate, consume more alcohol. Gonna find one more film to watch and finish off second bottle of wine. Got a lot wrapped tonight, which is nice.

00.10 GMT
National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation

02.15 GMT
Waiting for Matt at X-Entertainment to post the Saturday Night Thread. I’ve got a quilt laid out on the new sofa, lights off except the tree, pj’s on, a big mug of Aero hot choc, Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups and A Christmas Story a-waiting. I’ve never seen A Christmas Story, so this is Kind Of A Big Deal.

Guise: …now in the morning I sleep alone, sweep the streets I used to oh-oh-own…

Guise: Man, this place is dead. It’s like start of Resident Evil: Apocalypse dead or The Stand dead…or Gary Glitter Daycare Centre dead. There’s lights on everywhere but no-one is about. I’m not even getting run down in the middle of the road by some idiot in a used Fiat, what kind of town is this?!

Guise: I guess there’s no harm in going down a dirty, dimly lit back alley then. Nothing bad could suddenly happen when there’s no-one around to help…

????: I definitely look like Mulder right now. I’m rocking the Fox look. I know it. I feel it. Well, Playmobil gods, it’s time to solve your mystery of today! Doo doo doo doo doo doo, Doodede doodede doodede doodede deh.

????: That’s right Agent Smashy, we’ll crack this case wide open. You just look pouty whilst I ramble.

????: So, Agent Smashy, what do we hav….Holy Jingling Bells Below The Waist!!! I can’t believe it!! This means we…I…OH MY GOD!!! It’s all here!!!

????: I gotta stash this away before anyone notices. I can’t take the risk.

????: I can’t believe it, I just can’t believe it. After all we went through…I’d wondered if maybe the other guys had gotten away with it, cut me out…but this changes everything. I need to find the guys, they’ll know what we need to do…maybe we can still get this in time, maybe our ship will finally come in!

????: There’s no time to lose. I’ll just have to make a run for the border and hope security don’t spot me or have patrols waiting.

????: Well, that was anti-climactic. You mean I could have just left the calendar anytime. The gods suck.

Guise: …cos I know what it me-ee-ee-eans, to walk along the lonely street of dreams…that was anti-climactic. Wandering the streets I don’t know, dressed out of place, in an area that could be rough as anything…and yet I don’t get a whiff of trouble. Kinda like wandering San Jose on my own, only without the constant risk of becoming roadkill. Can’t believe I’ve walked from moonlight to moonlight, didn’t even notice the sun.

Guise: Ah. The Police…the Rozzers…the Old Bill…the Coppers…the Fuzz…no, wait, my butt is totally The Fuzz right now. Hot Fuzz, baby.

????: …and it’s so lonely here, if only I had company…or my magic wand, yeah, my wand…or, heck…

????: …rabbit would be a nice touch.

Guise: Finally, civilization! Pretty nice properties out in the ‘burbs too, wouldn’t mind a place like this myself. Guess I’m going to have to go door-to-door and see about getting directions, the locals must have some idea about this whole advent deal. Ok, first house…

Guise: Ok, here goes…just ring the bell and nicely tell them “Hi, I’m looking for a magical advent calendar that might be able to transform me from this anthromorphic rabbit form into my regular human self, would you be able to give me directions?” Yeah, this’ll so work…

????: Tappity-tap!

*CRACK*

????: Ok, let’s see what we’ve got ourselves stashed away this time. I hope it’s a convertable or maybe a Humvee…

????: Oh, yay…more tools. You know, those gods are stingy, couldn’t they have just put all my tools in the crate and buried that? This is more like trying to find your car keys on an early morning…or car keys and wife at the end of swingers party.

Guise: Well, this is it, the last house on the block. I can’t believe that everyone seems to be out of their homes today, or that every home looks remarkably the same. They must have a highly organised and anal retentive residents comittee. I bet it’s armed too.

Guise: Can’t see anything through the window, but it’s light inside. Everywhere is so quiet too. Maybe I’d have been better scouting the woods…there was just as much life there…

Guise: Nothing! And that’s the last house on the only block in the suburbs. I guess that means I’ll have to venture deeper in to the city…go to the bad side of town…the wrong side of the tracks…

Guise: …go forth in to the corrupt and pustulent urban sprawl where all manner of twisted, deranged, wicked and sinful being dwells…what horrors await? What horrors indeed?

????: …they’ve obviously taken great effort in this place. No arcana materials, no herbs, no chalk or anything for marking, and totally magic proof. I doubt even the gods or the power of the Duchess could even scry in here. I just wish they’d left me with a mirror, I must look an absolute monster after the last few days. No…actually…I wish they’d left me a toilet! Oh, I wish…I wish…

????: …I wish…

• Day 1 (Pt 1): Guise gets Bunny-fied in a random act of Christmas magic
• Day 1 (Pt 2): Guise wanders the Playmobil wilderness and two mysterious characters are NOT introduced!
• Day 2: Guise wanders the Playmobil wilderness STILL. The mysterious man gets some rather suspicious goodies. Two advent calendars still hide their secrets!

Guise: These feet are made for walking/And that’s just what they’ll do/Stones and snow between my toes/I’d kill for a pair of shoes. Man, I miss my Converse’s right now…and my hoodie…and my iPhone…and Facebook…and Twitter. So quiet and boring here, could do with catching up on some tweets….

*flutter flutter flap flutter*

*tweet tweet tweet tweet*

????: Ok, this should work. On 3.
1
2
3!!

????: YES!! And as far as anyone knows I got that throw in on the first take! Now to give it a hefty tug and no more hassle to box opening!

????: …just…a…little…more…

????: ….Oooof…damn it…think I broke my ass bone.

????: Aw Yeah! The family is all back together now, kids. Despite all the hardships we’ve faced and how far apart we’ve been, Daddy has come home and found his precious little angels in time and bought us all home. Christmas is saved.

????: Look Mr Grab, it’s your little brother, Mr Smash. Aw, I love you kids! And there’s Little Miss Toolbox, and we all know how you both like to fit inside her together…wait, what?

????: …they haven’t even read me my rights. Where the are the cops anyway? When I get home, I am so calling a lawyer. Home. *siiiigh* Home…

????: …sweet…

????: …home. *sigh*