So while LJ was indisposed I decided to pretend it didn't exist and pretty much ignored the situation altogether. It seems to be back (or close) to normal now, so here I am. I've been in this weird limbo of unemployed with lots of free time.... and somehow finding myself sort of busy. And ffs, spending too much time with my parents. I spent 10 hours with them yesterday, helping my father buy and set up an awesome new laptop. But. TEN HOURS. =/

Just saw this movie from 2007 called Shelter, which was just great. It's about a guy named Zack, an artist in the ghetto of some SoCal city, with a sister who's a big flake and a 5-year old nephew who has clearly hung the moon and all because Zack is holding the ladder steady beneath him. His best friend goes out of town for a while and his brother stays there, and he and Zack end up hanging out, surfing a lot, and falling for each other.

Of course there's more to it, but it's pretty typical and straightforward -- nothing happens that you couldn't see coming a mile away, but it's sweet, and it's just-- nice to see this sort of romance/drama with a gay couple. =D I recommend it if you're looking for an easy, pleasant way to spend an hour and a half. <3

So now is where I'm going to get all fannish and say I WANT THE SPENCER/BRENDON AU! FIC FOR THIS MOVIE! They're surfer dudes! In southern California! The artist (~musician?) angle with family troubles is ALREADY THERE! There's an adorable kid! What more do we need? And really, WHY HASN'T THIS BEEN WRITTEN ALREADY? =(

And so I leave you with this, one of my favorites from the 8/09 Chicago M&G, from what I refer to in my head as Surfer-era!Panic. <3

...we all know how much I love stars, yes? I want these earrings so much. THEY ARE CHEETAH PRINT WOODEN STARS. But they don't have them in 5mm (4ga), dammit. WHYYYYY?! Realistically, they look like they'd fall out of my earlobe if someone breathed on them. Still, they are SO PRETTY.



Aaaaaand. This lady is absolutely crazy. $700/mo for an 90-square foot "apartment" in Manhattan's CPW. WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCK, LADY? JUST COMMUTE. I promise, you're not really missing that much by living a 40-minute train ride away. FOR THE SAME PRICE. What you gain is the ability to relax and also masturbate without bumping your knees/head/whatever into the ceiling. (Okay, so if she's Ace -- or anti-masturbation, I guess -- then maybe that's not an issue, but still-- breathing space! No panic attacks!)

OH MY GOD PEOPLE, I WANT THIS SO BAD. SOOOOO BADDDDDD!!! WHY MUST IT BE SO DAMN EXPENSIVE?!

I'm so glad I checked the mailbox today after coming back from brunch with my mom! I've been waiting for a package from cdjapan that should have been delivered a week ago. I was afraid that they attempted delivery and were already returning to sender even though I never received a notice of attempted delivery.

but there was a note in the box from yesterday! so yay, I won't have to pay additional shipping charges (what already cost an arm and a leg)!

so now I'm having a nice walk over to the post office about a mile away. it's chilly out but perfect for a walk.

Posted via LiveJournal.app.

A whole lot of stuff has been keeping me busy lately.

With last week's new iPhone 3GS release, the "old" 3G went down to $99 with a 2-year contract. With some discussion and finagling with Liz, we both got new phones -- hers is an LG Invision, mine the $99 8g iPhone 3G. I looked far and wide for a phone to compare to the iPhone and, for my personal taste and the features I'm interested in in a smartphone, the iPhone was actually the nicest. I'm slightly ashamed of myself everytime I look at it. Still, it was $99 for almost EXACTLY what I wanted. How can I argue? There still are instances that remind me exactly why I dislike Apple products, but in a phone, it's something I can overlook (whereas I wouldn't be able to overlook it in something like a laptop or desktop, or even an mp3 player). In any case, Liz's new phone is sleek and pretty and super lightweight! And I've been having fun with my new iPhone as well!

Saturday night I went to Medieval Times in NJ with a big bunch of coworkers for Danielle's birthday party. It was a blast. Our group was rooting for the yellow knight. Unfortunately, he was pretty lame. However, the "MC" of the tournament was CUTE. Long hair. Accent. Awesome. =D

Sunday I woke up with a scratchy throat. Went to eat lunch with parents and then came home to work on cosplay. Unfortunately, the scratchy throat developed into a full-blown cold by the end of the night. Stuffy/runny nose, coughing, SNEEZING, feeling weak. Ugh.

Monday and Tuesday were the worst. I've been drinking hot tea like there's no tomorrow. (Which isn't so bad, considering I love tea.) Yesterday was slightly better and today has also been slightly better, though I suspect it will be another week before the cough is completely gone. Which is fine, as long as it's all gone by the time Otakon rolls around.

Cosplay is coming along a bit slowly, though we all have a good grasp on what we have left to do. I think we'll make it in time. Haha, I'd really like to be done a couple of days before the con, so there's some relax time first, but at this point, why break tradition? We'll see how it goes.

All of a sudden today I'm in the mood for 311 (and therefore a mix of other reggae/ska/punk/dancehall stuff too). metallicapixie and lolichan are both partly to blame.

I have been super busy at work (still!) and also I have a Twitter gadget in my gmail, and since I'm on gmail all day long, I am also keeping updated on Twitter all day long. In the meantime, my LJ has suffered from my busyness.

KATSUCON! Will be in Virginia all weekend, running the booth (aka Cosclips, Katsucon's official photo booth)! If you're going to be at Katsu this year, stop by the booth and say hello! I have a feeling this con is going to be hectic and awesome. AND DRUNK. I'm driving back to NYC on Sunday -- hopefully by early evening. Luckily, I've got Monday off from work, so I get to leisurely return Jim's car to NJ and then make my way back into the city. I also don't have Japanese class that day, so I'm fucking set.

I have an excellent story to go along with this -- on Monday I called uline.com to order some supplies to be delivered to the hotel. So when I was telling the customer service rep the address of the hotel, she said, "Is this for Katsucon?" I was like "o_O! YES! We're Katsucon's official photo booth!" HAHAHA. It was AMAZINGLY AWESOME AND COINCIDENTAL AND COOL! So I told her to stop by the booth and say hi. I should have offered her a free photo or something, but didn't think of it at the time. Hopefully she'll stop by. That was just awesome and TOTALLY made my day. =D

There were other things I wanted to talk about. Dammit, why can't I think of them? Like how I got a PS3 and Judy got a 32" LCD HDTV, so now we're all tricked out and it's nice about the PS3 and all, but HOCKEY! HAHAHAHA! OH BABY!

BTW, today's XKCD is awesome.

Um, um, um... OH YEAH! I was talking to a coworker of mine whom I've been telling about cons and such. I sent her the link to Judy's flickr to show her some stuff and she asked if this chick is Sailor Moon? So I explained a little, prefacing by saying that it would sound ridiculous. And after a bit of back-and-forth, she said, "man, ever since i met you my life has gotten a lot more interesting and a lot less realistic."

DO YOU KNOW HOW AWESOME THAT WAS? =D That totally made my day! Now I'm just going around with a big smile on my face! =D

Con report and MORE STUFF on Monday, I hope.

Oh yeah, I also made pancakes for the first time on Sunday night. And now everyone's teasing me about it. WHAT! Jeez, it's not EVERYONE makes and eats pancakes all the time, people! =P

I completely turned my sleep hours around, which isn't a complete surprise. So of course last night I didn't get to sleep til 4:45am, for a whopping 2.5 hours of sleep before work today. Which means I'll be doing very little coherent work today. Though it's a pretty quiet day here; a lot of people are out on vacation, so.

Anyway, Saturday I did nothing but watch TV at home. I think I end up watching TV a lot over the Christmas holidays. Why, I have no idea. But I got to see The Illusionist, which was entertaining, but sadly very predictable. It's really too bad because I like Edward Norton a lot. I don't think this movie did him much justice, though. SPOILERS AHEAD! I didn't even really have a problem with the 3 plot points that rely on the viewer's suspension of disbelief: (1) that the hay in the stable had not been changed for who knows how many weeks? (2) that Eisenheim was able to pull off his "spirit" trick better than the example they showed, and (3) that there is such a drug that allows one to appear to be dead with an antidote that allows that person to revive immediately. So none of these bothered me much (the hay thing bothered me the most), but this was no Prestige.

Sunday I went out with Judy and actually finished up my gift shopping -- yay for sales at Banana Republic. I'd not be able to afford to get much from there otherwise.

Monday -- lots of cheuffering was done. Eating out, more watching TV, and retreiving Maryann's cell phone from someone who picked it up when she lost it on her way to AJ's.

Tuesday -- again, lots of watching TV. Also, caught up to what's current of Supernatural. Despite the horrible first episode, the rest of the season hasn't been that bad. I've seen up to episode 8, and from what I hear there are two to four episodes left in the season due to the writers' strike. This is unfortunate, of course, but I wonder what they've done with those episodes. Also, are any more scheduled to air anytime soon?

Lene said that the new girls on the show have been real bitches, and yeah, I'd have to agree. NO SPOILERS. I really did not like Ruby at all, but when they reveal her secret, it somehow made it more palatable to me. So I'm not so annoyed with her anymore. Bela, on the other hand, can go suck a lemon. If they have to have female characters that last longer than one or two episodes, can't they be Hunters or Hunter-like characters that are cool AND NOT WHINEY BITCHES?! Someone like a cross between Ellen and Sarah?

There were a few episodes that were particularly good in the comedic sense, like "Bad Day At Black Rock" (ep 3) and "A Very Supernatural Christmas" (ep 8). I loved the gifts the guys gave each other. LOLOLOL~! And the kid from "The Kids Are Alright" (ep 2) was so freaking adorable. <3 I'm not loving Sam this season (oh, wait, I never loved Sam, never mind), but I had lots of fun throwing my hands up in the air and cheering in agreement with Gordon when he said "Sam Winchester must die." =D That may have been my most favorite quote of the season so far... ^_~

Also watched four episodes of Spiral. It's a little slow drawn out (which is anime for you, most of the time), and a bit over-dramatic, but I'm enjoying it so far. The mystery-solving is done in the way of Sherlock Holmes, House, although it's more on the level of Encyclopedia Brown; all which I like, obviously. I think this will be one I have to watch by myself so as not to be distracted by the slight stupidity of it, which I cannot help but be more conscious of, when viewed with others.

Hah, also! Narumi Ayumu and Eyes Rutherford look a LOT like Sora and Riku. It's pretty amusing. In the ending, the Riku-lookalike even has a blindfold on. Hmm....

taken from kitedreams

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As for shopping... I went to Angelica's house last night and complained about how all my clothes are too big for me now and horrible it is. Lisa found some pants that she didn't want, that actually fit! So after wearing pants today that actually fit right, I couldn't help myself and went shopping after work. Not that I need much of an excuse to go shopping, but I really don't know how I've been wearing pants that are way too big for me now to work for the last 2-3 weeks.

Okay, so I got some tops too.

I didn't spend a lot, alright?!

So you wanna know how far we got working on our KH-Tron costumes? Hahahaha! We got out the sewing machine and located the patterns. We'd already bought the fabric. Yeah. That's it. We were gonna cut the fabric but then ended up playing some KH to show Juliet. ^^;

But I think we owe blackmage137 for coming over 'cause we probably wouldn't have even brought out the sewing machine and stuff if he hadn't come over. It was really nice to have you over, AJ! =D (Oh, darn, I just realized that I forgot to lend you the Prestige DVD.)

So you know what I did today? I was horribly bad. I went shopping. Oh man. Bags and shoes, baby -- bags. and. shoes. And the most adorable pink plastic piggy earrings. =D The bulk of my spending was in anticipation of having an "office job" -- so it isn't a waste of money. Really. In fact, most of the stuff I got was on sale. It's just that... I don't have a job yet. Haha. ^^;



On a slightly different note, after making that list of what songs I'm into right now, I put in the Buck-Tick tribute album, Parade ~Respective Tracks of Buck-Tick~, which was released in 2005, but that I never got around to listening to. It's AWESOME!!! すごい！ I'm really enjoying hearing BT songs played and sung in different styles and by different people. I'm really enjoying it. =D

And now for a slightly back-to-normal post.

Turns out one of the talons is slightly bigger than the other. So I put the one from my left ear (the slightly smaller one) into my right ear and stretched it. The one from my right ear is now in my left and is sitting in there nicely, if not as stretched as it could be will be as soon as my ears stop being sensitive and sore. All this, however, is making me nervous for the stretch to 6g (4mm). Which I think is a slightly bigger jump than from 8g (3.2mm?) to 3.5mm or so. But I've wanted to get to 6g for the longest time -- it's also where I plan to stop, so only one stretch left!

While talking on the phone earlier today I realized I'd have to use my hand instead of the side of my head to hold the phone for a while.

In addition, does anyone remember that Sailor Moon (blue and orange) messenger bag that I had been desperate to get a couple months ago? The one I bid $60 on and still lost at the last second? Well! I won it this Saturday (with many thanks to koyappi and Anita) for a whopping $16.50! I received it today in the mail and I STILL cannot credit it!!! Thank god for people who don't know any better than to end an auction for a collectible on a Saturday afternoon when no one is at home bidding on it.