Volcano Top Trumps

One of the things I said I would write about is Volcano Top Trumps which are pretty amazing and my only volcano related Christmas present and therefore the best (thanks Paul!). As you may know/have guessed/deduced I am a massive top trump lover. Football top trumps were previously my favourite because of the great stats, I think I have 7 packs; Arsenal, Man Utd, Liverpool, Chelsea, World Stars, European Stars and Legends (if you're interested). I actually have a top trump card where 2014 Ballon D'or winner Christiano Ronaldo (to use his full title) has no Utd goals or int. caps, probably a great collectors item that's now worth a lot of fucking money. What is really fun with the football top trumps is you can combine packs so either have a really really massive game or people start with different teams which is a bit like a football match, if football was judged purely on facts like height and the year of birth. Lord of the Rings Top Trumps are also great, the main object here was obviously to keep Aragorn for as long as possible/ get all 3 Aragorn cards from all 3 films (and say "they have a cave-troll" as much as possible). I also used to collect the pop trumps cards on the back of Smash Hits which were really good as they were top trump cards with lyrics on the back, amazing I know (also probably now collectors items). The take home message from this paragraph is basically I LIKE TOP TRUMPS and I am incredibly cool. I like top trump so much and am so cool that once I made my friend a pack of Nigella chocolate cake top trumps, obviously there are enough recipes for 30 cards.

This is the card, someone has actually put it on ebay, no bids yet amazingly.

I also like volcanoes, so something that combines the two such as volcano top trumps is fucking heaven. I've only actually had one game with them so far, which was a large game with about 6 people. I think I was the first person out (which has nothing to do with my volcano knowledge) but it was very exciting. I'm sure I'll win all the other games I play, there will be lots. I'm not sure what my favourite volcano top trump card is, some famous volcanoes like Eyjafjallajökull are shit cards so that also sways your opinion. Also I haven't got the pack with me so it's hard to say but Vesuvius is always a goodun.  The project is made by STREVA with actual volcanologists from the University of East Anglia and the University of Plymouth. The website is pretty great and informative too, you can see that the selecting of categories was taken very seriously which is something we applaud here at volcano club. The categories are height, unpredictability, wow! factor, deadliness (best one), explosivity and devastation potential. I know wow! factor seems like an unscientific, vague category but you're wrong it's very scientific. It was done using paired comparisons (you see science) but all this is on the website where you can also order a pack of volcano top trumps. I'll let you know how my future games go.

Issue # Six - Part Two. Dormancy

Some of the pages join up so sorry if they don't make sense individually. Let me know if ya want a copy.  

Issue # Six - Part One. Eruption

Volcanic New Year Resolutions

SHIT. I just realised I haven't done a post since fucking April, that's literally ages ago. And I have done stuff since then but nothing big enough to stop me from volcano clubbing (I hate using blog as a verb so think I will use club from now on, which has loads of great connotations). I think it's like when you mean to contact a friend and then don't and then it becomes embarrassing that you haven't done it for so long so you never do, I'm sure I have many friends in various stages of this pattern. So sorry lads. But my second new year rezzy is to do all the shit I say I'm gonna do, which involves ticking EVERYTHING off my to do lists and not saying I'm gonna do shit I'm obviously not gonna do. My other resolutions are to 1. appear more enthusiastic (I'm generally quite inwardly enthusiastic) 3. feel less guilty about spending money/having fun (but still the same amount of money but definitely have more fun) 4. spend more time at the ocean. Guess the one I made when I was drunk?! I'm pleased with them all hence posting them. The really good thing is that not having clubbed (much better) for so long I've got loads of great shit to write about, mainly because I made a new zine, went to Indonesia and everybody else is really into volcanoes now (not sure how I feel about that).

there are gonna be more pictures like this which I actually took at actual volcanoes

So anyway instead of doing a proper post I'm just gonna write a list of things I will club about in the near future. I'm doing this because then I have to do them because you can't break resolutions in January and also hopefully the list will be so exciting that everyone will be well into Volcano Club.  

1. New Zine (actually 2 zines - eruption and dormancy)

2. Volcano Top Trumps (made by actual Top Trumps not me)

3. Climbing Mount Ijen (twice)

4. Climbing Mount Bromo

5. Indonesia in General

6. Indonesian forestry and volcanoes (the most exciting obviously)

7. Emma Stibbon

I think that's it, obviously I don't want to overexert myself. There will be probably be more stuff that comes up and obviously volcanoes do actually keep erupting, so there is always new volcanic stuff. Setting myself a time limit would come under the saying I'm gonna do shit I'm not gonna part of my resolution so I won't do that. All I will say is that the new zine will be on the blog by the end of the week which is pretty easy so I'm setting myself a low bar (potential flaw in my resolution). Basically I'm gonna do lots of clubbing this year (hopefully in all three senses of the word) and it's gonna be great. It's because I've gotta write my thesis and I thought what better to accompany sitting around for long periods writing shit no one care about really important scientific work than to sit around writing more shit no one cares about really important scientific work (resolution #1). The good thing about this blog is that I can just make stuff up so which I obviously can't do in my thesis so that will be a nice change. 

Also if anyone is reading and has any suggestions of stuff I can club about, if you haven't realised yet the link to volcanoes can be tenuous, then let me know.