whisper your dream to me

Thu, 15 May 2008 05:47:57 GMT

Bike to Work Day is tommorow!!! Is everyone ready? I am, woot!

Speaking of, I've successfully biked to/from work for the last 2 and half weeks, putting about about 100 miles on my bike in the process. woot. Other than A) falling off my bike trying to get off and B) taking a 3 mile "i'm not lost but I don't know how to get out of this damn subdivision" detour, it's going well. Until today, in which it was very very hot. Bleah. But I saw about four times the people I usually saw on bikes, so I guess everyone is ramping up for bike to work day!

And Bay to Breakers is this weekend. I'm going to be one sssoooooorrrreeee kitty by monday.

Oh, and my scary new sari obsession is a little closer to reality! I ordered a sari (much cheaper online, but a scarily cheap stitching charge for choli) and it's coming tommorow! Yay! soon i can embarass all my friends! yay!

Mon, 05 May 2008 02:21:44 GMT

Well, according to hobbit-lore, I'm officially an adult today. (It's my 33rd birthday, for those not as geeky as I)

I will have to say I feel a lot more like an adult now than I did at 18, or 21, or 30. Well, at least in the last couple of years, it seems like suddenly all dinner party conversations are about retirement planning and taxes, rather than the hot new anime. However, I still don't feel like I've grown up... merely older. Case in point, do you know what I did today? I went to a Star Wars Wedding for my loverly pals in the 501st. A stormtrooper married a bounty hunter. It was amazing. Not only were a huge number of 501sters in costume as pseduo-honor guard and set dressing, but they went all out. The cake was a star destroyer! The reception was a in a sound stage! (Apparently at the original ILM location, bad fan I am, aren't I?) I'm proud to say that while I'm definately growing older, I don't think I've necessarily grown up.

4chan can just go expletive themselves. :)

***

In other news, I spent two hours trying to get my bike baskets on my new bike. LOTS of swears and sore fingers, but I managed it. But now my front brakes stick. WTF? Anyone bike smart?

***

Oh, had a smashing time at Costume con this past weekend, hung out with some friends I've only known in passing and had a great time. LOTS of pretty frocks, and got my costuming mojo hat firmly back on. Also, discovered the wonderful world of sarees (sari) and scary new obsession.

Courtesty of sarcasm_hime

Thu, 24 Apr 2008 01:16:18 GMT

I commuted to work today on my shiny new bike, all 11 miles.

*mighty fist*

However, I did fall, completely ass over tea kettle, getting off my bike in front of the garage (my shoe caught on the water bottle holder thingy.) Girly shriek as added bonus.

Not so mighty, afterall, eh?

I need to start getting stuff together for Costume Con. Geesh, it's hard to believe it's here when it seemed ssssoooooo far away when I first heard about it.

Mon, 21 Apr 2008 05:29:57 GMT

Long time no update!

Last weekend we went to Aimee's for the FIDM exhibit, and while we were there we went to Huntington Gardens

Here's a photo of the front door, right now! Well, not right right now, because it's night time,b ut you get the idea. The roses are coming in wonderfully this year!

In completely unrelated news to plant things, I decided to try to bike to work because of gas prices (it cost me $72 dollars to fill up my tank on friday ?!?!?!?!). But, since I hadn't ridden my bike in a couple of years, the tires were flat and it was in really really sad shape. So, off I went to the bike store to get it tuned up. Well, they looked at it, and said they couldn't do it because of it's condition, that they couldn't sign off on it and say it's street safe, "and it's got to be at least twenty years old!"

I start protesting, and then realize, no. It's not twenty years old, it's 23. I got it in 5th grade. So, they managed to talk me into a boo-t-ful new bike (also, super light. Technology is nice!) My new bike has pink fishies on it!

So, I did a test run and did Los Gatos Creek Trail. A) ow. B) wow, it's gorgeous! why haven't I done this earlier???

I also had a fantabulous time at a friends Twin Peaks birthday party, in which discofish made the entire room up to look like... errr... can't remember the name, something Lodge. With crazy black and white floors and red curtains covering all the walls. In-Sane!

Sun, 06 Apr 2008 18:26:27 GMT

So, you're wondering what I've been up to? Preparing for a very adult, grown-up, dinner party.

The calm before the storm, i.e. what the house normally looks like. Little does it know what's in store! *cue evil laughter*

Grocery Store Trip FROM HELL. Not really, but I haven't spent that much on a single grocery store trip, I think ever. And I had to go back. Twice.

What was in the bags...

Downstairs get a clean and rearrange. Notice the lack of chairs...this becomes important later...

I got really sick of chopping, really fast.

The dinner menu was:

spring vegetable soup (tomatoes, potatoes, carrots, onion, celery, zuchinni, cabbage, garlic, and spinach in a beef broth.

Salmon (coated in mayo, parmesan, lemon pepper and breadcrumbs, and poached in lemon juice.)

Baked Torellini (cheese stuffed toretellini baked with tomatoes, fresh spinach, mushrooms, garlic, cream, feta and parmesan cheese.

Asapargus with Hollandaise sauce ('nuff said!)

Rice Pilaf

Bet you can guess what these are!

Now it's starting to look like a real party! (notice lack of chairs. This is about the point me remembering that I hadn't asked anyone to bring chairs beforehand started being a problem. There was a very real possibility that people would be sitting on painting chairs or a yoga ball. I ended up frantically washing the patio chairs. Very classy.

A place setting. Woot.

Unintentionally arty.

One of the few times I've used all four burners at once. At one point, the doubleboiler boiled over, and yes, I shrieked like a little girl. Of course, it was nothing, but I didn't realize that when it made the spratting noise. A little frantic wisking and all was saved, but no one would believe me! A disaster of hindenberg proportions, it must have been :)

The battlefield of the fallen

Another unintentionally arty shot

Nothing left but all the work. Bleah.

It was a great night! Thank you everyone soooooo much!!! *huggles*

Tue, 25 Mar 2008 02:57:58 GMT

I'm trying to decide what to do at about Costume Con. I still have enough time to make something new, but should I? I've started my Chevalier costume (just got my gold bullion and plate two days ago! woot!), but I haven't bought the fabric for the dress yet, and I'd like to buy silk, so that's going to have to wait. Do I actually start (and theoretically finish) one of the zillions of projects I already have the supplies for? Or do I let apathy reign the day? I'm pretty excitied about the friday night victorian undies party, though. I just need to find someone to help me get dressed :)

In the grand clean/toss/organize thing I'm going on, I decided to sell my one-off Sakaki. It's a beautiful doll, but I never use him and I've only ever made half an outfit.

The sale details are here if you are interested.

Wed, 19 Mar 2008 01:44:19 GMT

As per request, PICSPAM! (of chevalier d'eon underwear, natch!)

So, i cut the pieces out for these about six months ago and finally got around to putting it together. Only took a couple of days, but GOD, do I hate flossing (name for decorative boning channel top-stitching)

Pic of corset plus pocket hoops (minus waistband). I agree with the reviews, the pattern as is comes out too angular. I'm going to create a gusset to lower the top edge so it's a bit more sloping. I just haven't done it yet.

You know at cons you never have a place to keep your room key? I've got that problem NAILED. Where's my lunch? oh yeah, right here!

Did I mention I'm sick of flossing?

Oft muttered phrase while making this: "If I was AJ, I'd be done by now!!" The pattern called for 30 YARDS of boning. Not a typo.

What else have I been doing? I also made these: (psst: don't they go well with our yellow dining room? uck) and I'll be making a few more. My sewing can get pretty sloppy when I'm sewing for myself, but I had to be meticulous with these since they were for other people. God, it took FOREVER that way. But they were happy :)

Tue, 18 Mar 2008 14:13:02 GMT

Well, the internet has been down and I was all at sixes and sevens. what do I dooooo??????? (whiney voice)

Be super-productive, that's what! A couple of years ago, I moved three times in one year (not fun) a while back, and through those moves, developed the dreaded "Misc" boxes. Lots of them. Boxes full of random shit you never use but don't want to throw away because, hey, you might need it some day.

Well, over the weekend I had super-strict pact with myself. It's time to somehow regain my closet, so all those misc boxes must be unpacked. If there wasn't a place to put the item, it went into the trash. Granted, these are things that I hadn't used in at least three years, some of them longer. And you know what, I did it!! I have a closet again! Everything is neatly organized and with the exception of one box (what I allowed myself), everything is either put away or in the trash. (mostly trash, *sigh*)

Woot!

The internets just came back. And you know what it is, patch day...... *sigh*

BTW, don't leave a five pound bag of flour on the counter. The cats totally ate through the side of the bag and helped themselves, getting flour evverrryyywwhhheerrreeee. wtf?

I'm working on my chevalier costume. I cut out the corset, what? six months ago? and finally put it together. pocket hoops are done as well. Pics to follow. I'm very eager to use all my new metal thread embrodiery l33t skills on the stomacher. Woot.

GARAGE FULL = Costume sale!

Sun, 02 Mar 2008 23:00:14 GMT

Hi everyone!

Well, I finally ran out of room to store costumes. What that means for you? I'm going to sell a large majority of them, to make room for all new stuff! Please watch this entry for the breakdown, but I'll be selling pretty much everything other than Catherina, Pirate, Five Star Stories, Easterlings, Gimli, and my historical stuff! Make an offer! All costumes are used and sold as is! I'll be putting them up seperately here, but take a look at my site, they are all going!

Hand Maid May! Be supercute with this hot pink maid dress. Includes dress, headband and red purse. Seams inside dress are partially unfinished.

Stungun Milly Thompson - Includes coat and stungun! Coat is completely finished and partially lined. Because of the size of the gun, this costume is unshippable unless you'd like to spend about $70 on shipping it. Sorry!

Ouran Schoolgirl Dress only, seams completely finished. Worn once.

Jane from Tarzan/Can Can dress I put an insane amount of work and fabric into this dress. Very fluffy and ruffly. Dress is completely lined. Includes skirt and bodice. Hat not included. It met a horrible, lasting death, quite some time ago.

Kiyone from Tenchi Muyo Includes jacket, tie, pants, purse and hat (a bit squashed). Completely lined and finished.

Mon, 04 Feb 2008 03:24:52 GMT

Wee! I started the second class in my metalsmithing program (last one was forging, i.e. hitting hot metal with a hammer) this one is casting (pouring hot metal into molds. It's... interesting. The teacher is way too kindergarten for me though.

And, I have photos!!! :) A few new photos from the photoshoot we did a while ago with Ed Pingol. Who is awesome :) I have a lot more photos to go through, but I just had to post these :)

Love my bat-crazy expression :)

Wed, 02 Jan 2008 05:00:48 GMT

Tue, 18 Dec 2007 05:31:53 GMT

*gasp*

I know, two entries from me in one week is unusal, much less two in one day. Hey, I had a busy weekend!

So AJ and I threw a holiday dinner party this weekend. A real dinner party, with china and crystal and courses and coffee. For 15 people. Amazingly enough, I didn't burn anything, AND it turned out great! It was so much fun! (well, once all the cleaning and chopping and baking was done, anyway :)

Tue, 18 Dec 2007 02:53:25 GMT

I apologize for screwing up your friends list view, but DUDE, I. CANNOT. RESIZE. OR. LJ. CUT. THIS. BECAUSE. THIS. IS. TOO. AWESOME.

AJ, Cheryll and I did a photoshoot this weekend with Ed Pingol (AKA Mr. AMAZING!!!!) with our Five Star Stories costumes. It was a big gamble and I was very leery, but, DUDE. AWESOME.

The rest of the teaser pics can be found here at his site.

Tue, 04 Dec 2007 05:31:21 GMT

I've ordered TWO parasols off of ebay and they've both arrived broken (different sellers). One is about 120 years old, and the other 90. And now they are junk because the sellers couldn't be arsed to put them in a rigid boxes.

GAH.

Does anyone have the skills to repair them? They both need the stick part cut off and a new one replaced, probably by drilling a hole for a peg in each end and gluing the sucker. That's too much precision drilling for my feeble skills. Will pay cash moneys or skill trade :)

Fri, 30 Nov 2007 05:21:05 GMT

This is the guild I formed with my coworkers. My mostly female banking coworkers. My mostly female banking non-gamer coworkers. Hee! :)

I'm the bitchy looking bint in the middle. With my pet, Spot. :)

ETA: we had a laggard :)

Wed, 21 Nov 2007 02:56:33 GMT

Why have I been strangely missing? Because I'm cramming for dolpa (super dollfie convention).

*collapses*

Thu, 08 Nov 2007 14:13:16 GMT

If I were the type to buy $345 shoes, I would TOTALLY buy these....

Aimee's book about our trip to japan is coming out next week!!!

and there is a preview up here at publisher's weekly!!!

Wed, 31 Oct 2007 04:07:40 GMT

Wow. That was a STRONG earthquake...

Fri, 26 Oct 2007 14:20:52 GMT

*waves*

I spent the last month cleaning for houseguests that just left. It was absolutely fabulous having them, but now I'm all at sixes and sevens. I don't need to clean or entertain, now what do I do?? *snicker* But look at my lovely floor! I have one now!!

My little brother did end up evacuating for the SD fires, but was able to go home yesterday. He's super prepared boy, so actually had a very easy time of it and got out before the traffic was bad. I called my parents house to ask where he was, and he answered the phone. That was easy :)

I'm currently rather at odds for my next project. Nothing is really jumping out at me, even though there are some fun things to do. Luckily, I just have to throw together a viccy for Dicken's Fair, which should be pretty easy. It feels like cheating when all I have to do is follow a pattern :)

BTW, AJ has been super-productive girl and updated the website with our Five Star Stories costume pictures! Yay!!!!

and our vacuforming tutorial!!!

Plus Aimee arted about our rather silly dance class we took in LA. It was basically taking someone's job and turning it into this mondo empowerment thing. However, it got super silly and I sorta got the giggles half way through because, honestly, you can do that to any job... so I imagined replacing the instructor's dialogue with a class about garbage collecting... "so class, lift the can above your head and empty it into the dumpster unapologetically, representing that you are throwing away all the negative things in your life, extending your arms in a celebration of disposing that which you don't need anymore...."

Good thing the class was dark and they couldn't tell I couldn't keep a straight face....

Sat, 13 Oct 2007 14:41:52 GMT

Holy shit.

We drove by this last night, as. it. was. happening.

All of a sudden, everyone on the northbound and soundbound sides slammed on their brakes, with this eerie red glow, and then

there was an explosion and a fireball came from the side of the freeway. An actually fireball explosion. Neat in movies, terrifying in real life.

Eep.

Fri, 12 Oct 2007 05:32:17 GMT

Weeee!! Fun weekend with friends!!

First, we had our long awaited Five Star Stories photoshoot with kuronosho

More photos can be found over at HCC Cosplay over here!!! Unfortunately, the loverly tristencitrine and the fab-ul-lous positivespace couldn't make it, but hopefully we can get more photos with them soon. Didn't they turn out great, though? Doesn't Sho do an amazing job?!?!? Unfortunately it was really windy, which explains my "oh my god the wind is catching my ribbons and pulling the wig into new positions of PAIN into my skull" expression in most of hte pictures. Ugh.

The rest of the weekend was spent either putting up or taking down the display costumes at Silicon, or (almost) giving a panel. Or getting dressed to give a panel. Oh, and we had tea as well! *pats full tummeh* Oh, photo from silicon halfway in costume :) All my secrets revealed!

Back when dinosaurs roamed the earth...

Tue, 02 Oct 2007 16:07:01 GMT

Sometimes random searching on the internet is bizarre. God, I forgotten about these.... ancient, ancient skits found on you tube..

Anime Expo 2002

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lztmT6Uejzc

Animagic 2001 people. 2001. I don't think 90 % of the current cosplayer crowd was born yet.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nnZrxbqQGQI

DRAGON CON!!!!!!!!!!!!

Wed, 05 Sep 2007 03:52:14 GMT

Whooooo-hoooooo!!!!! I had an absolutely fabulous (albeit drunken) weekend! We were drunken pirates! VERY drunken pirates. VERY VERY drunken pirates (too bad the pirate party sucked, but we went back to the VIP party and that didn't suck :) Pirate harem!

AJ in Tigerlily and me in my Hand Maid May costume... god, I haven't worn that in ages. Look, we mock you wiht our Chick Fil A!! And check out Aimee's book!!! It's us in cartoon form!!!

My stripey victorian... not a particularily good costume to wear to packed parties (while amusing to wear when they put on Baby Got Back :)

Tuxedo dress!! (with shoes of pain... gah, 4 inch heels... ooowwwwww)

Zombie Walk!!! We ran out and attacked the Wolf Pack (Resident Evil costuming group) during the Costume parade :) However, Zombie stagger is hell on the thighs. I think they need to add Zombie walking to gym classes :)

Also spent a good 45 minutes talking to someone, who we later found out was a famous actor. Well, I guess we played that one reeeealllllyyyy cool. See what happens when you are too cheap for cable? :)

Mon, 03 Sep 2007 16:40:31 GMT

The Blue is good (the pink is better), but the BLUE IS STILL AWESOME!

Whoooo-hhhhhoooooooo DRAGON CON!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Wow, I'm having a fabulous time! :) I've had more alcholol in the last three days than in the last three years, staying out every night until 4, but it's been a blast. Plus the only time we've ever been able to use our feminine whiles to get into a VIP party.... twice :) Only one more day to party!!

(Unfortunately, the trip didn't start all that well... our red eye was delayed, the hotel was overbooked, etc, but all the fun since then WAY made up for it :) Our room was CRAZY with ajmeow, aimeekitty, and fatwetdog. Plus got to meet up with sewinggoddess, lindze, huongstar and fieryredhead!!! YAY!

Me and AJ and Dave (AKA our Ariel carrier)

Fri, 17 Aug 2007 00:50:25 GMT

Weee! I'm so excited about Dragoncon!!! wEEEE!!! (good thing I bought my tickets ages ago, I couldn't afford them now!) A chance to hang out with everyone without millions of commitments like normal. Plus, lots of historical costuming geekery is planned with my new historical costuming buddy. Can obsess about thread counts and cording and it won't seem, you know, weird....

Like always, I've gone from "wow, I'm exhausted of sewing" before a masquerade, to jazzed full of costuming plans after the masquerade. Of course, said jazz-ness is not about the costume I have to make NOW, of course not, but for events ages away. As always, I want to do everything but what has a deadline.

Question to all you lovely folks out there: Can you recommend touristy stuff in the Bay Area for an out of town friend? Especially things no more than an hour and half from San Jose? I think I've gotten all the standards, but maybe you have something a little unusual or rarely thought of to suggest?