The Highlighter Complex

The Highlighter Complex
By Colin Slickens

Original concept: A test to see the way candidates react to a simple task in an attempt to discover their concept of order, their reaction to colour and their creativity/originality

Task set: Order the six highlighters in any order of your choice

Report: LARP - Friday 24th October 2014

On Friday 24th October 2014, the Sandwich Crew took part in a LARP (Live Action Role-Play) team building exercise as part of an away day (as mentioned in WNR #74). Here's a summary of events.

LARP written and organised by Simon Wicks.

LARP theme: Zombie Apocalypse

Location: Localville Country Park

Characters:
Simon Wicks - Mal/Farmer Bill (NPC)/Emelia (NPC)/Sam (NPC)
Cap - Zelda/Zombie A (NPC)
Jen - Hector Jones/Zombie B (NPC)
ArwaChihuahua - John Price
ANT - Bertha
Anya Stark - Kye Lewis
Ruby - Olivia
ConscienceSarah - Dr Tamara Hayward

Plot summary (written by Cap)
Eight survivors of the zombie apocalypse have been travelling together for about a year, all with different backstories and relations.

The day started as a typical day around camp, eating the food we'd managed to preserve. The action kicked off when a local farmer, "Bill" arrived, to tell us he'd heard a scream and wanted to know if it was us in trouble. He was glad when we told him it was nothing to do with us. He also wanted fruit but we refused. Naturally, we went off on an investigation to see what the disturbance was, and we came across a corpse, the corpse of someone called "Emelia". This disturbed Zelda greatly. Dr Tamara did her best but Emelia was long gone... however we did find on her, a diary and a mysterious substance in a glass vial. We took these things and examined them for clues, and found that the vial was stolen (by her) from the lab that she worked in. We left the corpse in the body, covered in leaves out of respect and moved on. Zelda later revealled she knew Emelia, as she had worked with her, but could not be sure what was in the vial as what was going on in Emelias labs had nothing to do with her.

It was shortly after that that the first zombie was sighted (Zombie A), however it did not attack, and the group decided that zombies were stupid, clumsy, and seemed lost and confused rather than violent. Meanwhile Bertha found a strange amulet in the forest...

Olivia, Mal and Bertha also went scavenging for food, since supplies were running low. They returned to camp highly intoxicated and vomiting. Turned out they'd eaten some suspicious berries. Dr Tamara treated them with edible absorbent yummy goodness which would soak up the poison in their stomach, and they made a speedy recovery.

Later, out in the forest, Hector came across a severely wounded man, and brought him back to camp for Dr Tamara to take a look. She changed his bandages, and it was revealed that his name was Sam, and he was the brother of the previously deceased Emelia. The news of her death shocked him, and he was difficult to get information out of, however we did gather that he did not know what was in the vial either.

Unfortunatley we did not have much time, as two zombies (angry this time - Zombie A and Zombie B) attacked the camp. The others fled, leaving Sam behind. Sam was eaten by Zombie B, and in a moment where the group momentarily escaped the zombies, they chanced the use of the contents of the vial on him. This caused him to come back to life, and not as a zombie! The vial had been a cure all along!

The zombies attacked again, and this time the group weren't so lucky. Many of us were turned. But some survived... the zombies seemed to be avoiding Bertha and, (with some prompting) it was discovered that the amulet repelled zombies. Bertha used this to help as many members of the group, but unfortunately most of us met an unfortunate fate. Welp.

Report: Perfect Sandwiches HQ Office

On a rare occasion, most members of the Sandwich Crew were in attendance at a particular board meeting. We were all rather bored and somehow we started to toy around with the idea of having an office where we all 'work'. After brainstorming some ideas, we all went away to put these ideas onto paper.

Currently, ANT is the only one with a completed illustration. Here it is:

ANT's depiction of the Perfect Sandwiches Office

And Master's initial reaction was: "This is not a place of work. But it's fantastic!"


DISCLAIMER: Perfect Sandwiches is not affiliated with Costa Coffee, CBBC's Raven or Marvel Entertainment. These references were included purely for the purpose of comedy.

Report: Avengers Assemble Movie Marathon

On Saturday 2nd November 2013, we had an Avengers Movie Marathon over at Wicks'. This included dressing up as Avengers, watching Marvel movies and eating. Here are the highlights...

In the Food Department:
We went all out on the food and the proof for that was in the sheer quantity. Wicks provided an array of drinks and snacks (incl. chocolate, mango, honeydew melon with a pinch of cinnamon, and plenty more) and ArwaChihuahua and Cap. were in charge of crisps.
For our main meal, we had pizza (generously provided by Wicks) and Shawarma (reference to the end credits scene from The Avengers) made by Master.
Alongside the savoury, we had plenty of the sweet. The result of the Bake-Off was most impressive. Take a look...

ANT's beautiful Halloween Haunted House Cake

Master's Avengers Cupcakes - all assembled

And from that, ANT won Best Halloween Bake and Master walked away with Best Avengers Bake.
As if that wasn't enough, Ruby brought a wonderful traybake, however we never got round to eating it as there was just so much!

Movie 1: Iron Man

Iron Man: The Surround Sound Experience, brought to you by ANT
One of the best things about sitting next to ANT was that she enhanced the movie experience by providing surround sound (creating whooshing noises when Iron Man was in flight). At one point, Master remarked, "It's like I'm really there, in the movie!"

49 more lifetimes for Tony Stark
ANT also expressed her opinion on Tony Stark's suit, saying "Surely it would've taken him a lifetime to build that suit." However, Master referenced the movie, which states that the Arc Reactor has enough power to get him through 50 lifetimes, so the response to ANT was something like, 'well, he's got 49 more to go.'

The Ballerina Pose
We all noticed how gracefully Iron Man takes off and lands after flight. If you don't know what we're talking about, watch the film again.

The appalling amount of product placement
It has come to our attention that there is an incredible amount of product placement in these movies, including multiple car brands, Coca Cola (of course), Bvlgari, and many more. Sheesh.

Names in the credits
No one knows why, but we just all decided to watch the credits roll for Iron Man. It sounds pretty boring, but the names of the production team kept us well entertained. I think it's arguable that the Best Name award goes to Andy Grandy. Whatta guy.
The graphics team sounded pretty dark...The Orphanage...!? (no joke)
Then we looked out for the most insignificant role...and the award for that goes to the Second second assistant director (and no, I haven't just accidentally written the word 'second' twice. That's the actual job title).

Movie 2: Thor

Bill Anderson
ANT just couldn't take Dr. Erik Selvig seriously. From the first second that he appeared, she just thought of Bill Anderson from Mamma Mia (also played by Stellan Skarsgård).

ANT laughs in all the wrong moments
There was no stopping her. ANT just found some of the non-laughable points funny.

Thor with audio description
None of us ever knew until Saturday how enjoyable it is to watch Thor with the audio description on. I've written out part of the transcript for the beginning here (slight spoilers):
"Silver stars fly over a blanket of clouds and encircle the word 'Paramount', written in italics above a snow-capped mountain peak. Paramount. A Viacom Company. Multiple images from comic books and graphic novels flip by in quick succession. Marvel Studios.
...
Something crashes down onto the desert floor amidst the swirling typhoon-like column of dust. Darcy turns the truck away from the typhoon. Jane grabs the wheel from her and steers back towards the swirling column of dust. Lightning flickers within it. The shape of a man looms up out of the dust and collides with the truck. Darcy stamps on the brake and the truck spins to a halt. Inside, Jane, Darcy and Erik catch their breath before leaping out of the vehicle and going to the downed man."

Film 3: The Avengers

The issue of Phil Coulson
It's no joke that he appears in literally every film! This has irritated a few of us, including ANT, who decided to share with us her thoughts (as usual) by saying, 'he just has that face...' (not in a great way)

The incompetent guards
In every film, there's always loads of incompetent guards/soldiers. Whether they be on the side of good or evil, they need more fight training.

Loki's not turning on the charm
This being the second time round that ANT's seen The Avengers, she still thinks that Loki's not turning on the charm during his little chat with Black Widow.

2/7 of us go for the sequel, 'Thor: The Dark World'
Coming soon, a review by Wicks!

All in all, I think it's fair to say that we've all had a Marvel-ous weekend ;p

Report: Egg rolling on Good Friday

Happy Easter everyone!
To top it off, I present to you the official egg rolling report...

On Friday morning, Wicks, Ruby, ANT and Master gathered at Wicks' house to paint eggs. ArwaChihuahua was also meant to be there, however she could not make it at the last minute due to extra work (even though everyone secretly thought that she was sleeping in). It has to be said that we were all hanging onto our hopes that she was gonna be finished soon, but those hopes were dashed when she sent ANT 'The Classic K' in a text (just the one letter, k, can say so much. In this case it said something along the lines of, 'Ok, stop bothering me now, I'm working').

I think it's fair to say that when we arrived at Wicks', we discovered that they had quite a variety of squash, for example, orange (a favourite in the household), pomegranate and raspberry (Wicks' personal favourite), peach (is Master the only one who has never tried this, because Wicks says it's 'quite standard'?), and many more.

Onto the actual painting, I can't remember the last time I had so much fun! We were making different colours, experimenting with different tools (Ruby used kitchen towel, Wicks ventured on to using permanent marker and ANT was using both sides of the paint brush) and washing brushes in paint contaminated water that very closely resembled fabric softener (which is what we called it for the duration of the morning).

We all had 2 eggs each, but how did we decorate them? Here's a little description for you:
ANT 1: 'The Ninja' - rather self explanatory. As ANT said, this one's 'out to win'
ANT 2: 'Mrs Potato Head' - "Don't be fooled by her. She may look pretty but she's a winner!" - ANT
Ruby 1: Wonderfully simple, but effective.
Ruby 2: 'Happy Easter' - with the theme of a basket of eggs, this is definitely the most suitable one for the occasion.
Wicks 1: 'Day & Night' - pro skills went into this creation: half was painted as day, the other as night
Wicks 2: 'Team' - this had everyone's names on it, which automatically meant that everyone wanted this to win!
Master 1: 'Tequila Sunrise' - named by Wicks' mother, the idea of the eagle came from ANT, which is meant to be a symbol of power and victory
Master 2: 'André the Double Ombré' - this time named by Wicks, this was inspired by sunsets, not to mention that Maste's obssession with ombré that day was a major influnce
As ArwaChihuahua was absent, we decided to paint hers...
ArwaChihuahua 1: 'Ya Snooze Ya Lose' - on one side is a clock, whilst the other side bore ANT's favourite saying
ArwaChihuahua 2: 'Marble Egg' - the idea for this was one that came along very near the end of the painting session. This was a joint effort by Wicks (who flicked paint onto the egg) and ANT (who protected the surroundings by providing a screen behind the egg)

Here's a pic of the finished eggs:

Top row (from left to right): 'Mrs Potato Head', 'Ya Snooze Ya Lose', 'Marble Egg', 'Day & Night', 'Team'
Bottom row (from left to right): 'The Ninja', 'Ruby 1', 'Happy Easter', 'André the Double Ombré', 'Tequila Sunrise'

So, what happened afterwards? Well, we set out, with the eggs carefully packed, to a nearby field that had an appropriate slope. Here's a pic:

We took turns filming at the bottom of the slope and also rolling our eggs.
One of the most memorable eggs has got to be 'Marble Egg', which refused to show any signs of cracking for an extraordinary amount of time. For a while, we had a conspiracy that there was one free range egg and that might be the one? But, near the end, all the eggs refused to crack so we ended up aiming to crack them. All sense of winning went out of the window and it just turned into a game of hurtling eggs onto the ground. They were so tough that they were creating egg-shaped dents in the ground upon impact.
There was one point when Wicks came up with the idea that perhaps we could try to smash eggs with other eggs, so ANT and Master aimed and it just so happened that, by a fluke, Master had aimed rather well and both eggs smashed in a horrendous mess on the floor.

After some 1 and a half hours of egg smashing, we called it a day and went home. Who knew that egg rolling could be so much fun? We plan to make it an annual event from now on.

Special thanks to Wicks for buying the eggs.
Thanks go to ANT for providing paint and brushes.
Extra thanks to everyone in attendance. I had the best time ever with you all :)

Cheers for reading! ;)

Report: Avengers Poll

Hello!

As you may or may not know, we have recently had a poll here that has posed the question: Who is your favourite Marvel Avenger? The results are in...

Black Widow: 10%*
Captain America: 0%*
Hawkeye: 0%*
Hulk: 30%*
Iron Man: 40%*
Thor: 20%*

*Results obtained from 10 votes.

So there we have it, Iron Man is our winner! Do you agree? Comment your thoughts below :)

Results of the Balloon Bet

So, this is what everyone has been anticipating (well, not really everyone, but never mind)...

On Thursday 8th November 2012, at around 13.15, ANT and Master noticed a balloon tangled in the branches of a tree opposite their place of hanging-out at lunchtime. They decide to bet on when they think it will be removed from the tree (removed, as in completely detached from the tree itself). It was decided and agreed on that whoever guessed the closest date would win the bet.
The prize: the satifaction of knowing you won.
ANT betted that the balloon would be removed by the following Monday (Monday 12th November 2012).
Master betted that the balloon would be removed after Christmas (Wednesday 26th December).

On Tuesday 4th December 2012, at around 13.30, ANT and Master noticed that the balloon had been completely removed from the clutches of the tree. It is unclear when exactly it was removed, but it was settled that this would be the day where the bet ended.

ANT was 22 days off.
Master was 22 days off.
Therefore, it is officially a tie. I think it is safe to say that ANT and Master are both on par with eachother in terms of ability to foresee the future ;p

I must admit that was rather fun :) Now to think of a tie breaker...

[The Balloon Bet was first mentioned in the post for Weekly News Round-Up: 11/11/2012]

Sports & Enterprise Day Report

As usual, it is a tradition that our form make a terrible mess of organising Enterprise Day beforehand and then wing it on the actual day. Last year, we managed to make a whopping twelve Great British Pounds, placing us last in order of which form made the largest profit. I am pleased to announce that, this year, we managed to beat last year's total by making £15! I think that was a pretty decent profit, considering we were selling cartoons and also bullying various kids into having a go at guessing the number of sweets there were in the jar! However, it looked like such a fix when ANT won with the closest guess to our jar of blue Smarties! It was astonishing to see the amount of joy that Smarties brings to people. A P.E. teacher managed to guess exactly the number of sweets in the green jar and was thrilled when he was told that he had won, especially as his guess had been a joke (it was 69)!

After lunch came Sports Day. As ANT had anticipated, Master managed to get dragged into participating in the 300m sprint, which she was not originally put down for. In the end, Master ended up getting bronze for her impromptu efforts :) Meanwhile, Wadz was a quarter of the reason that the Yellows won the girl’s relay. I was unable to witness her athlectic skillage from where I was standing, but I am sure her speed was almost parallel to that of the boy in Year 7 whom ANT has branded, ‘The Flame’.

All in all, it was a most eventful Friday where we had plenty of laughs, though it does sadden me slightly to say that this is the last year in which we get to participate, but oh well, we’ll live ;)