I've added a new page up on the top right of the screen: Things To Do Before I Die.

I'll be adding to it whenever I think of new things I'd like to do, but also feel free to suggest things I could do in this post. If they're good, I'll add them.

EDIT: I'll be using strikethrough (well the CSS equivalent) to cross items off as I go.

The undead have fascinated me for a while now. There's just something interesting and unnerving about walking corpses that feel nothing and hunger for human flesh. A few months ago I had a chance to play a board game called Zombies!!!. The official text describes it best:

Zombies!!! puts you in the middle of the action as you try to escape the ever advancing zombie hoard. Players must use a combination of wits and brawn to be the first to the heliport and certain escape. The only problem is, the zombies are everywhere, they appear to be very hungry and your opponents would really prefer if you didn't escape.

The game itself consists of a number of "Magic: The Gathering"-style cards that you flip out on to the table to affect your player, other players and even the game world. Speaking of the game world, The closest example I can think of would be Mouse Trap in that the game is built up as each player puts down a map tile (unlike Mouse Trap you then populate the new area with items and undead) at the start of their turn. It also shares a similarity with Monopoly: games can last for hours if you have a large group of people.
Zombies!!! has been popular enough to spawn five expansion/standalone titles. All of which incorporate ideas from movies like as Evil Dead (Forest) and Dawn of the Dead (Mall). I know you can get this game from Mind Games, but if they don't have it you can always try Gamer's Paradise.

About a year ago Mike turned me on to a little browser-based game called Urban Dead. The basic idea of the game is that you're a post-apocalyptic survivor in a city called Malton. Choosing a Civilian, Military or Scientist class you roam the city defending yourself from the rampaging zombie horde. New features like mobile phones, power generators and the like are added when the creator is done but in a way that suggests the city is slowly recovering.

I played this game for a few months - right up until I was brought down by zombies when I forgot to enter a safe house for the night. I tooled around with being a Zombie for a while, but realised it wasn't that fun for me. My character sat on the server for months doing nothing, until just recently when I logged back in and discovered I'd been resurrected by some enterprising chap. Since then I've got right back into the game. The zombies are tougher and smarter, but the humans have a lot more technological options available to them, like the aforementioned mobile phones and power generators.

Going with my usual role-playing roles I've chosen a support class, in this case the Military's Medic subclass. Although it seems that if you level up high enough the concept of individual classes is greatly blurred. I've died a few times since I restarted, but thanks to resurrect-happy scientist players I'm back up again in no time!

We've moved from board games to web-based games and now it's just a short jump to video games. Specifically: Dead Rising. I spotted this title in the list of games for the upcoming Xbox 360 about this time last year. Dead Rising has you playing as a photographer stuck in the middle of a zombie-invested mall somewhere in the USA. While you’re asked to perform various side missions, it’s open-ended enough that you can just walk around taking photos, dressing up and balancing items on zombie’s heads. It’s also the only game I’d consider getting for the Xbox360, so much so that I’ve taken to walking around the house making zombie noises to try and entice my housemate to buckle and buy both.

Moving into literacy now: whenever I’m in Borders the first thing I’ll do is walk up to the stock computer and do a search for a book called “Zombie Survival Guide”. It’s never in stock, and I keep meaning to get one of the staff to order it in for me. Ironically I’m usually put off by the long register queue that's filled with quiet, shuffling people moving at zombie speed when doing everything from walking to pulling money out of their wallets.

You might be thinking that all this zombie talk had to have an affect. And you’d be right. I do have an idea floating around for a story based in Melbourne some time after a zombie invasion. I’ll reveal a bit more about once I have a better idea of how I want the story to progress. I will say this: it features bagpipes, conscription, a ludicrous body count and a car chase.

Well, well, well. After seeing that even Damien could get a Flickr badge working on his site I wasn't going to be left behind.

I've started tearing out the default WordPress code and replacing it with my own hastily cobbled together code. I know it's not much to look at but you wouldn't believe how much I've actually torn out.
I've also written up some text for the About page. Default text be damned.

I've got no new images for you to look at though. You'll just have to wait until I get another burst of inspiration.

As Damien and Mike have already mentioned, we spent the better part of last Sunday wandering the city taking photos. Our seven hour wander-thon covered:

• St Kilda Pier
• The South end of the CBD and it's many alleys (including the graffiti-ridden Hosier Lane)
• Carlton Gardens
• The Exhibition Building
• Alexandra Gardens
• Shrine of Remembrance; and the
• Royal Botanical Gardens

Photos taken that day can be found here. Damien's are here, and Mike's are here.

I had a lot of fun, especially when I got to use the big boy lens. (Thanks for making Captain Stumpy look inadequate by the way.) The pancakes were a welcome energy boost before we crossed the border and headed into the Botanical Gardens and it's surrounds.
I'm looking forward to the next session, guys.

Oh and top marks to Damien who, when asked if we were terrorists, pointed to his backpack and said: "This isn't a backpack. It's a bomb."

Bravo, good sir. Bravo.

It's been about 6 weeks since the last site-based update so I thought I'd better give a short update.
I've found a few sites to help me play around with the backend of the site. But even then I've been unable to even add a Flickr box to the right-hand side of the screen. The code is there, it's just not appearing for some reason. I'm missing definitely something.

I watched Catch Me If You Can the other week and really liked the style of the opening credits, which are helpfully accessible from the design company's website. With that fresh in my mind I put down a few sketches which I've helpfully uploaded here, here and here. I know the name "Innocent Bystander" does sound a bit ominous to a lot of you, but I do want the site to have a playful edge. Light colours (at the moment I'm thinking blue with black and white highlights at the moment) and no images-of-death.

I'm still in "sketch mode" until I figure out how to update this thing properly. So expect more of them to be uploaded.