AJ's Ramblings

Tue, 13 May 2008 17:08:21 GMT

I caught Bobo sleeping on the tripod leg a couple mornings ago. Pretty special considering he had the entire living room to chose a snooze spot from. (And I got a little carried away with the depth of field thing on Zig's camera.)

I attended two weddings a couple weeks ago. I went from being the maid of honor at one to being a groomsman at the next!

The first one was my best friend from MD, whom I've known since I was 4 years old. It was a beautiful wedding with synthesis of Chinese and Irish customs.

I discovered that all those years as a cosplay handler was perfect training for taking care of the bride! I spent a lot of the wedding fixing her dress for photos, feeding her, and helping her change. See, real world application of cosplay! =D

The second wedding was a Star Wars wedding and I was good friends with the bride and groom so I stood on the groom's side with some other stormtroopers. It was the epitome of awesome geek wedding. Their cake was a star destroyer!!!

And here's Judy and me trying to look somewhat presentable after spending a day in costume. Helmet hair!

I also went to Spa Terra in between the wedding madness. If you're ever in Napa, check it out! To be perfectly honest, it was my first time going to a spa so I don't have much to compare it to, but it was soooo nice! I wanna go again...

Here's us bumming out at Robert Mondavi Winery after a day of drinking. =D

Fanime...
I'll be at Fanime on Saturday and Sunday. On Sunday, HCC has 2 panels: (Im)possible structures (4pm) and Resin Casting (5pm) in Panel Room 2. Come by and say hi!

I'm not entirely decided on what I'll be wearing but so far it looks like: Bleach, Trinity Blood and Touga.

Warning: WoW babble ahead!

Tue, 08 Apr 2008 19:03:37 GMT

Sorry for anyone who doesn't want to hear but I feel like rambling. =)

I did Kara for the first time yesterday. The noobs (absenceofmind, sesame_seed, and me) did not cause a party wipe and there was much rejoicing! Considering what a nervous wreck I was going into it, the whole thing went rather well. Of course, that was mostly 'cause we had our super duper sempais (who have been coaching us for the last couple of months) dragging us along.

Aki and I got spectacularly SQUISHED by the Strawman during the Opera Event and the entire party wiped once on Moroes, but we one-shotted everything else. We got as far as the Curator before calling it a night which was way farther than we originally planned to go .

It was pretty awesomely fun... in a mind meltingly stressful kinda way. I'm sure I'll be fine after we do it... 8-9 more times. ^__^'

Anyways, that's it for WoW babble. =)

Oh, isn't the drawing cute?! lorelai drew it for me. I'm a Tauren druid (a big fat cow for people who dunno WoW) and my name is Ikarous so she drew me a cow falling out of the sky. LOL

In other random news, my opera teacher asked me to perform in June. Ohgeez. I haven't practices singing in months. Gah.

Oh and I finally bought a new pair of in-line skates (after ziggybecket's garage ate my other 2 pairs). I can't wait for the weather to get nicer so I can go skate! It's been years since I skated on the streets. It's not like you have to watch for sidewalk cracks and debris when you're on ice so I'm praying for minimal wipe-outs my first couple of times out. @_@

WonderCon 2008 was full of Bleach

Tue, 26 Feb 2008 03:00:53 GMT

WonderCon was fun in a quiet kinda way. We did Bleach on Saturday with a bunch of first-time cosplayers! I think they had fun which was awesome. ^_^

Our little 12-year old buddy, Marc, is a huge Bleach fan and Hitsugaya is his favorite character so of course I was like: ohmigod, you're even the right size! We have to make you a Hitsugaya costume and Judy can be Matsumoto again! =D

His dad, Anthony, made the best Iba too.

We stuck Aki in my old Nanao costume, and Marcus and I did Arrancars. My Ulquiorra costume needs some serious re-vamping (hi headpiece of DOOM), but I'm really happy with how Marcus looked as Grimmjow.

It was fun and we ran into a Yoruichi and Soi Fong who know gogolotus.

On Sunday, Judy and I woke up super lazy so instead of putting on real costumes, we put on our kigurumi pajamas and gave the costuming panel as a flying squirrel and kangaroo. We also went to a yuppie tea place for lunch. I think the rest of the clientele didn't know what to make of us. =D

P.S. I totally cheated on the Arrancar costumes! =D They fabric parts were purchased off of eBay. I refuse to make hakama. (Noooo pleats.) When the price of a hakama from a martial arts store is only $20 less than the entire costume, I figured I might as well buy the entire costume from China. Yay sweatshops. =P

Of course I had to do so much fixing on the tops, I'm not sure I made the right decision. I ended up tearing apart both tops and re-doing them because they didn't fit and they weren't accurate. I guess the lesson here is: next time just buy the hakama and make the top from scratch.

Cobraaaaaa!

Wed, 20 Feb 2008 18:35:38 GMT

Did you know that in G.I. Joe, there are actually ranks among the cannon fodder? Apparently the silver cobra symbol is for the lieutenants and the red symbols are for the grunts. Who knew?

Judy took a commission to make a bunch of Cobra uniforms for some guys in the Central Garrison so I helped out with embroidering the fronts. It was fun to try out my new digitizing software although wading through the 2-inch thick manual was daunting.

This is what happens in our house if you sit on the couch: InstaCat! If you're really lucky, you get 2 InstaCats.

So one of the best xmas gifts I got was from Judy: I have way too much stuff so instead of adding to the pile of junk, she donated money to an ocean rescue charity and I am now the proud mommy of an adopted... octopus! Yay Tako-san! And they gave me a tako-san cookie cutter!

Ok, so it looks a little scary as a baked cookie, but it's still awesome.

One of these days, I'd like to get a decent photo of my cats awake. They really do do more than sleep...

Really!

2007 Costume Year in Review

Fri, 21 Dec 2007 20:39:47 GMT

'Cause I usually never do these, I don't feel like working, and reading aimeekitty's was fun.

---------COMPLETED COSTUMES
It was a slow year for me.

Xiao Mei (House of Flying Daggers)

The Bride (Five Star Stories)

Singaporean Pirate (Pirates of the Carribbean III)

Tigerlily (Kabuki by David Mack) - hi, GHETTO! Plz redo AJ, kthx.

---------STUFF I MEANT TO DO:
I can't find my 'planned costume list' from last year so I'm sure this is dreadfully inaccurate.

Stewardess from 5th Element - we actually did kind of finish these and then decided to re-do them in a new material cause they look so asstacular in vinyl.

Starfire's Wedding Dress - for something so ridiculously simple, you'd think I could just sit down and finish it!

---------STUFF I PLAN TO DO IN 2008

Ulquiorra from Bleach

Something steampunk

Marushi10 (design by Derek)

Seiju from Dolls

Starfire's Wedding Dress

Ashura from RG Veda

---------STUFF I'D LIKE TO DO IN 2008
Ohmigodwtfbbq, USE SOME OF THE FABRIC I HAVE HAD FOREVER. I am not allowed to buy any more fabrics for spontaneous, unplanned projects. If I can finish just ONE of these, I will be a happy camper.

Starfire's Robin Costume

Fatima Alecto decadent style (Five Star Stories)

Blreno (Five Star Stories)

Michi no Sora Aya (Psycho le Cemu)

Aosetona from Susanoo (Takarazuka)

And... lots more.

---------MY 2008 CON SCHEDULE
I have (as of last count) 4 weddings to attend to, 3 of which I have to fly to, one of them being in the U.K. And I know there are more weddings I haven't heard about yet *sigh*, so the con schedule is very minimal next year.

Wonder Con
Feb 22-24

Fanime
May 23-26

San Diego Comic Con
Jul 24-27

More FSS Photos!

Tue, 18 Dec 2007 18:02:30 GMT

I know you're probably sick of seeing FSS photos but these are really really cool! positivespace found this amazing wedding photographer, Ed Pingol, who was willing to try shooting ~~crazies~~ cosplayers and made time in his super-packed schedule for us. He's booked through to 2009 so we were super lucky, and the photo previews are amazing!

Thanks to kitkat_nap, ziggybecket, and Marcus for coming along and helping us out!

I don't think we've ever stopped as many cars as we did that day. I suppose you don't see nutty costumers every day on Mare Island so the muggles all had to stop their cars and stare. There was almost an accident too when one guy started staring and swerving. -_-

Sooo... the Designs II artbook came out recently and Nagano-san drew Ulicul in a bride dress for the back cover. I love Ulicul! I'm so tempted to make that outfit now too... ^^;

P.S. If you haven't seen it yet, Go!Comi put up some fun extra stuff for Japan Ai, like the pages that didn't make the final book. Check out the omake section! And go order aimeekitty's book: Japan Ai!

Random updates on my life and the impending zombie invasion

Tue, 13 Nov 2007 18:18:41 GMT

Aimee and me making snow kitties in Kyoto

aimeekitty had a book coming out!!!! It's called Japan Ai: A Tall Girl's Adventures In Japan and it's a collection of drawings done by Aimee about our trips to Japan. It looks so cute! Check out the preview of the book.

Guess what everyone in my family is getting for Christmas?!

I've been sewing but not for costumes. Judy and I are cramming to get stuff done for our Dolpa booths. The house is once again a complete disaster. In fact, I think it's worse than normal because we both had to completely empty our fabric bins to find scraps that could be used for doll clothing. Right now the house is a monument to the horizontal-fabric-categorizing-system. The kitties are loving it...

I have fewer dance classes now due to some re-scheduling but I'm dancing more hours than I used to as they're all 1.5 - 2 hour classes. Normally I would say this is great because I love hardcore dance classes but absenceofmind hurt herself rather seriously a couple weeks ago so she will be out of dance for 4-6 months. =( Not having her with me is somewhat killing my enthusiasm for it.

On the plus side, we got her playing WoW now to occupy her time which has been most fun. =D

I signed up for a real pole dancing class finally and I am a wreck after each class. I get very little upper body workout in my regular dance classes so having to climb poles is killing me. Well... it's incentive to actually work out my upper body, that's for sure.

I went mini-golfing with Colonel Toledo and Judy last week and actually did ok! This is huge 'cause I detest golf. I have discovered why hockey players like golf so much though. If you hold the golf club like a hockey stick, life suddenly gets much easier. =D I don't think I'm ready to progress beyond mini-golf though. That's about all the golf I can handle.

Then we rounded out the evening by having to help some clueless teeangers push their dead car. They were just standing there with the car dead in the middle of the parking lot!

Judy and I recently read World War Z, a fake documentary about a zombie epidemic that happens in the future. (Think 28 Days.) It is a really really good book and makes the whole thing seem so real that I now have an irrational fear of a zombie invasion. =P

Well... I thought it was an irrational fear. Then my co-worker sent me this article: 5 Scientific Reasons a Zombie Apocalypse Could Actually Happen.

@_@

Everyone start putting together a zombie-invasion-survival-kit! Don't forget the swords for decapitating the walking dead!

Back to the East Coast!

Wed, 31 Oct 2007 18:02:23 GMT

A synopsis of my first earthquake...
*house starts shaking and things start falling over*
Me: What the...?
Judy: Oh hey, earthquake.
Me: @#$!%!#%!@$#@%!$%

Let's just say I didn't handle my first earthquake very well. I'd be ok with never doing that again. ^^;

Nothing in the house seems to be broken although we heard a lot of crashing so maybe we just haven't found it all yet. The kitties are fine other than being utterly freaked out.

I think it felt worse for us than most people because we were close to the epicenter (duh) but also because we were on the second floor of the house and it was swaying a LOT.

Anyways, Happy Halloween everyone! I utterly fail as a costumer... I was halfway to work today when I realized it was Halloween and I had no costume on. =D

FSS Photoshoot

Fri, 12 Oct 2007 22:02:54 GMT

aimeekitty came up and visited with Judy and I this past weekend. We got into our epic-ly painful FSS costumes and kuronosho took amazing photos for us. They look beautiful! (I'm thinking he filtered out all the ones of us grimacing in pain when the wind blew. ^^; )

This weekend, Judy and I are driving down to L.A. ~~because we can't get enough of Aimee~~ because we haven't gone on the new Finding Nemo ride yet!!!

tristencitrine is joining us and after we're done running around DisneyLand, we're gonna go take a beginner pole dancing class!

I'm taking bets on who's gonna be the first one to fall off their pole!

Your contestants are:
Aimee - who trips over sidewalks on a regular basis
AJ - who walked into a full wall mirror
Judy - who gave herself 2 black eyes by opening a door into her head
TristenCitrine - who practically faceplanted after tripping over a small cement sculpture

Sooo... if anyone of us has a tragic injury come Monday, y'all know why.

Dance Performance Videos

Mon, 08 Oct 2007 16:11:37 GMT

The video got cut so the rest is here along with our group dance:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gS0t8ozwu3k&mode=related&search=
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vzoWZyw7ADE

These are of the technical rehearsal as taping during the actual performance was not allowed. Thanks to Aki's brother for trekking out to every single one of our rehearsals to tape us! And thanks to all our friends who came to watch us and support us. We really appreciate it! =)

I'd say the performance went decently well. I'm proud of how hard Aki and I worked on our dance and while it coulda been better (as always), it was at least presentable by the end there. ^^;

Now we get to take a break and think about what we want to do next year.

I haven't been doing much after the performance other then doing a good impression of a lazy cat and playing WoW. Yes, I know I'm way behind the curve, but I just started playing. (Blame Judy.) And no, I will not suddenly drop off the face of the earth, never to be heard from again. =P

It's a wedding cake!

Sat, 15 Sep 2007 20:40:38 GMT

I made this for my friend's bridal shower today. She's a really good friend and I couldn't think of what to get her that wasn't awfully generic so I decided to steal an idea I saw used for baby shower gifts, and made her a cake... out of towels. =D

There are 2 bath towels and 2 hand towels inside that cake and a metric !@#$-ton (as Judy would say) of lace on top.

I think it came out pretty well for my first try at this... and I really hope she likes it. @_@

A few random dance photos...

Sun, 09 Sep 2007 21:33:01 GMT

I had to miss the offical photoshoot organized by our dance studio 'cause I was at Dragon*con so kitkat_nap was super generous and spent an entire Saturday with us shooting photos so that we could have pictures in the program book.

Photos by kitkat_nap

It's been a very productive weekend... Judy and I scrubbed the kitties yesterday so they are all clean and fluffy now. And today we tackled the never-ending project of our garage. I swear our neighbors must think we're nuts. We've had 5 massive garage clean-out / re-organizations since we moved in and it's only been 2 years.

Of course, our neighbors think we're married too so I bet the garage is the least of their worries about us. =D

Dragon*con

Wed, 05 Sep 2007 20:45:53 GMT

So my first Dragon*con? Freaking awesome! So awesome I can't remember most of it so this will be short. I don't think I've drank this much since my freshmen year in college. =P

I wore my kangaroo kigurumi again with Aimee's monkey. Everyone thought I was Kanga and Roo from Winnie the Pooh. Might have had something to do with the fact that we were near the Disney gathering...

I got asked if I was a guy or girl while wearing my lime lolita. @_@ (Why doesn't anyone ever ask that when I'm cross-dressing?!) And then to make it even better, the dude came back again a few minutes later to tell me he had to ask because he thought I was hot.

There's no recovering from the hole you dug buddy, so just move along. :: roll eyes ::

We didn't bring our 5th Element stewardesses. We were actually close to finishing but we really didn't like the results so we decided not to bring them. I think we'll be re-making them in another material. Lord knows we spent enough time drafting mock-ups for it.

So instead, I did a last minute, ghetto-tastic Tigerlily from Kabuki costume and got to ~~stalk~~ meet David Mack again.

And before any of y'all ask ('cause I know someone is going to), yes, there is some serious padding going on in that bra!

Isn't Tracy's Kabuki costume phenomenal?! That tattoo took them 3 hours to apply...

My roomies were awesome! *loves to twjudy, aimeekitty, fatwetdog*

I love this photo of fatwetdog. She had a couple close calls on that fountain there and at one point, I was sure she was just gonna roll off that ledge and fall into the fountain... ^^;

I finally have a pirate costume! Somehow drinking is legitimized by the addition of a pirate costume.

To be really technical, I'm not sure if my costume qualifies as a "pirate" but who cares? I was dressed as one of the chicks standing behind Chow Yun Fat in his lair in Singapore.

The guy manning the door at the pirate party tried to keep me out by saying only pirate costumes were allowed in. When I told him I was from Pirates of the Carribean III, he told me he hadn't seen it yet. Nice one buddy. Even better was that one of the first costumes I saw inside was a guy dressed in a Starfleet uniform. =P

We didn't even make an attempt to see any panels although we did think very hard about it. And then we went back to sleep.

The icing on an awesome weekend was that my cousin came out to see me with her twin boys whom I haven't met yet. They're so cute! And starting to get to the really rambunctious stage... I feel sorry for my cousin. LOL

Major thanks to zendrag0n, Tracy, and Heath for showing us around at our first Dragon*con (and for other services rendered...)

And I know he's not gonna read this but thanks Tal for all the company and getting us into the VIP suite!

Status of AJ and Aki for the performance next month?

Tue, 21 Aug 2007 05:45:56 GMT

I think our consensus is that we're feeling pretty screwed. Try not to laugh while watching the video ok?

Oh, and anytime you hear us talking (be it in English or Chinese), it's us commenting on how we screwed up, or how our timing is off, or any number of other things going wrong... @_@

Kitty sandwich

Wed, 08 Aug 2007 18:23:39 GMT

Confusion is waking up in the morning to find that your roommate left a huge pile of millinery wire in front of your door. @_@

I still haven't figured out what it's for either... ^^;

It's been super relaxing winding down after SDCC. I finally discovered the carpet in my room after a weekend of cleaning. I was beginning to think it didn't exist anymore. Next up is cleaning the sweatshop area. It's a daunting task... sigh.

I'm taking the time to read lots and watch anime. I read the last HP book (it was ok), the comic Red Star (awesome!), more Kabuki (awesome!), and 30 Days of Night (art was not so awesome, story was ok).

Judy and I are currently watching Hex (British series, pretty good!) and Chevalier d'Eon which I thought was pretty good but I'm not raving about it yet.

I am however mad about Claymore! Thanks to black_howling, I was able to read up to book 13. And (big surprise), I wanna cosplay from it! I'm thinking Miria, but her outfit from after the battle at Pieta. Who knows when I'll get to it though.

I'm going to Dragon*Con at the end of the month for the very first time! I'm trying to decide what costumes to bring. We're working on the stewardesses from The 5th Element which should be fun and I think I need a pirate costume... just cause everyone needs a pirate costume.

I dunno what else though... I want super comfy, easy to transport and most of my costumes are not either of those. Maybe House of Flying Daggers? I'll have to noodle on it.

Comic con 2007

Tue, 31 Jul 2007 01:11:04 GMT

Head-eating headdress of doom.

Well first things first: we've started posting photos of our masquerade costumes over at hcc_cosplay. It's gonna be slow going finding photos though as we did not take any of our own.

This masquerade was one of the best (I think) that we've participated in at SDCC, so to win anything was phenomenal. To win Best in Show was very unexpected and we were floored!

Thank you SOOOO much to the HCC Transport Crew who waited on us hand and foot (literally!). We were absolutely useless once we got into costume and without our team of ever-patient, ever-helpful handlers (and lots of advil), we would have never survived. Nor could we have done the skit because they were all in it too!

As for the rest of SDCC: it was good!!!

- I got to attend some panels that made me really happy, like finally getting to hear Nail Gaiman speak! (That only took me 3 years of trying.)

- I ran into Irineo twice and met some other TT animators who told me where all the Newfus had ended up. That was awesome! Didn't ever see Glen Murakami though. =( Sadness.

- I found David Mack and got a bunch of Kabuki stuff signed by him. He was the one person I was determined to find this year.

- Got Moofia figurines!!! OHMIGOD CUTE.

- Got a bunch of Hamnimal stuff from Crisso. More cuteness!

- Hung out with lots of people and it didn't always involve drinking myself under the table... although there was plenty of that too. =P

- Got to meet gogolotus finally. Double yay!

- Got to see lots of people backstage at the masquerade! Everyone should do the masq just so we can all hang out together in costume quarantine (thebluelady's term). =D

And of course the best part always is hanging out with my HCC gals, be it in the hot tub or backstage or at Tin Fish (for the 3rd time in 2 days). I luv y'all... thank you SO SO much for helping me make a dream come true of getting a FSS cosplay group to happen.

More AX photos

Fri, 13 Jul 2007 20:42:42 GMT

Photos on sapphic_lens' website of Rosalie and Oscar. I was merely there as arm decoration for Inara's beautiful new costume. ;)

I think my favorite photo in the set is of Rosalie with my uniform. Yes, I stripped it off in the middle of the shoot so she could use it. LOL. I'm getting really good at putting on that cape by myself.

And look! I did my own make-up for our second performance in MD because the make-up artists were all super busy. I actually didn't come out looking TOO retarded.

The one in the middle is my dearest friend, Karin, who I've been performing with since we were 4 years old. We haven't performed together since I left MD for college which was a long time ago, so this was a wonderful reunion for me. Even better was that her mom came along to help so it was like we were kids again and our parents were carting us off to a performance. =D

Oh and I don't want to hear a WORD about the color of my costume. You shoulda seen my face when my teacher handed me my costume. (I swear Karin used to get all the better costume colors when we were kids too!) ^^;

Tue, 03 Jul 2007 20:00:34 GMT

I finally got a photoshoot of my House of Flying Daggers costume! Thank you sapphic_lens!!!

My hair is still too short and there was just no way to anchor that headdress properly so no jumps or spins during this photoshoot.

AX was very low key for me. I just put on a couple costumes and walked around. I got to see lots of people and really didn't do a whole lot of anything. It was nice and relaxing. My only regret was that I didn't see more people but it sounds like the people I didn't see were pretty busy and we were only there for 1 1/2 days.

Hm, I'd say more but there really isn't much more to say...

Oh wait, how could I forget! There were Five Star Stories cosplayers at AX!!!!! Three of them in fact which is more than I have ever seen in one place (in the U.S.) That totally made my weekend and made me wish I had brought one of my FSS costumes. ^___^

MD and AX

Mon, 25 Jun 2007 01:02:52 GMT

I'm currently in Maryland, visiting my family and performing opera. Sorry for the drunk-blurry photo... Karin was having some issues mastering my cell phone camera.

I had the not-so-awesome experience of wiping out on stage during our Friday performance. =P I was doing these spins jump thingies across the stage and there was a lot of costume debris on the stage. I have enough trouble traveling in a straight line while spinning; trying to avoid stuff on the stage is a lost cause. Anyways, I think I stepped on something because the next thing I knew, I was flat on my butt on the stage.

It was a little mortifying. (Just a leeeeeettle...) ^^;

Anyways, I got up and finished my little dance routine and kept singing, and that was that. And then afterwards, Karin and I went out drinking so I could drown my ~~embarrassment~~ sorrows. We tried to find a bar but apparently nothing is open after 1am in suburbia Rockville, MD and we were too tired to drive to D.C. We ended up at TGI Fridays right before they closed and I was much happier after whatever-the-hell-it-was the bartender made us.

I have one more performance on Tuesday at the China Embassy in D.C. The good news is that it's on carpet so you know... if I fall again, it'll hurt a lot less this time. :: roll eyes ::

I had almost forgotten about AX, except that I checked LJ and everyone seems to be cramming and making plans!

So I think my plan is:

Saturday morning - House of Flying Daggers Xiao Mei. Yes I know it's not really japanese-related but I want to wear it again.

Saturday afternoon - Astharoshe. Anyone else doing Trinity Bloody around that time?

Sunday morning/afternoon - Oscar's military uniform. I hope it isn't hot. Ugh.

We're only staying until Sunday and then we gotta drive home so it'll be a short trip for us. I hope I get to hang out with people!

And there was mud...

Sun, 10 Jun 2007 22:45:43 GMT

We survived the Muddy Buddy! There were no emergency room visits and we crossed the finish line.

We were running late this morning so we were terrified we were gonna miss the start of the race but when we got there, we found we were in Wave #9 and they had just started Wave #1. So it was all good and we even had time to take pre-race photos.

This race has a lot of participants. One of the things they tell you to do is decorate your bike so you can find it at the switch points. I think I got a little carried away as our bike was way over-decorated compared to everyone else but Judy was saying how a lot of people were complaining they couldn't find their bikes at the switch points. Lemme just say, Jess and I might have had the froofiest bike in the race but we never had a problem finding it!

Those girls in orange behind us are my girlfriends from college. They are way more hardcore than me. They climbed Mt Whitney last weekend and are doing the Santa Cruz Trail Run next weekend. Me: I plan to sleep next weekend. =P

Check out the shirts I made for us! In ice hockey, we skate drills around pylons (or roadcones) so if you're a really crappy player and everyone skates around you, you're a pylon. =D

Well... we thought it was funny.

The race starts... and the VERY first thing is this viciously steep uphill that killed everyone. I don't think anyone made it up without having to walk. It sucked. I wasn't too worried about the race being 6 miles, but I guess I hadn't really taken into account how bad the inclines would be so it was rather miserable after that. =D

(Apparently I can't add. The race was 6+ miles. How come it felt like so much longer...?)

Running in a bike helmet is the most annoying thing ever. Here we can see how mine is totally slipping off my head as I cross the not-quite-finish-line-because-we-still-have-to-do-the-mudpit.

We decided to spare our nice sneakers the mud bath.

And into the mud!

Jess: I can't believe we thought this was a good idea!
AJ: Dude...

I think Jess did something wrong... or I did. I got WAY muddier.

Actually, I got muddier than everyone else too!

And then it was off to the communal hose-down area which could have almost passed as a college spring break girls-gone-wild video.

The mud goes everywhere ok? Including down your shorts and bra!

Oh and I lied. I did get an injury. Jess ran into my leg with the bike while we were walking back to the car and gave me a huge scrape. =D

Thanks to twjudy (best roommate ever!) for coming and cheering for us, and taking photos, and driving us, and letting us climb into her car all muddy. =D

Conclusion: It was awesome but if we want to crawl through mud again, we'll skip the 8 mile run and just go make our own mud pit. =D

Muddy Buddies!

Thu, 07 Jun 2007 19:13:49 GMT

Sunnyside-up Bobo

I just realized I had not posted kitty pictures in a while. I'm about to lose my crazy cat lady cred, so have some Bobo.

I'm doing the Muddy Buddy on Sunday with my hockey buddy, Jess. It's a race where you take turns running and biking, switching off with your partner, and then at the end you crawl through a big mud pit together to get to the finish line.

For the record, I am a disaster on a bike. Thankfully, Jess is taking all the harder biking sections and I'm taking the longer runs.

The only reason we signed up for this road race (as opposed to another one with no biking involved) is 'cause we wanted to crawl through the mud pit. Brian told us we were nuts and that he could just make a mud pit in the backyard if that's all we really wanted. We probably should have taken him up on the offer. ^___^'

Wish us luck!

Celebrations

Wed, 30 May 2007 21:59:57 GMT

No, I do not own a slave Leia outfit. =P It was loaned to me by Jaymen of Leia's Metal Bikini. I was retarded enough to let my friend, John, talk me into wearing it, and after seeing photos, I'm thinking... never again unless I plan to do sit-ups for 3 months beforehand.

Thankfully, people were more interested in checking out my tattoos than me. =P

Anyways, Celebrations was fun! We only spent a couple days there but really, I think that's enough for me. I am actually not a rabid Star Wars fan (sacrilege I know), so two days was perfect.

The weekend highlights:

- seeing Pirates of the Carribean at the El Capitan. We got to see the costumes too which rocked. And yes the movie had issues, but at least it was fun.

- running around with my fellow geeky garrison buddies. Ok, we didn't have to travel all the way to SoCal to do that but it was fun.

- partying with Zen and Tracy... I can now say I have been in General Grevious' bed. =D (It's really not as bad as that sounds...)

- most random highlight: running into Glen Murakami and Irineo!!! That was sooo awesome! If you're reading this, sorry I was so spacey when you guys flagged me down!

- discovering that my prescription motion sickness medicine works! (Trust me: this is HUGE.)

I didn't buy anything although I was really tempted by the Mr Potato Head stormtrooper.

On Sunday, I went to hang out with my brothers. Albert was visiting from NYC and it's been a long time since all three of us were in the same city.

Do you see this photo?! I used to be taller than both of them... by a lot!

Bay to Breakers 2007

Mon, 21 May 2007 18:26:23 GMT

I'm alive, just very busy, and lately, I haven't really had anything all that interesting to say so posting has been minimal (to say the least).

twjudy and I did Bay to Breakers yesterday with the Golden Gate Garrison. We went with the smart choice of wearing sneakers instead of our official costume boots. My feet are much much happier this year. It was a lot of fun and we had twice as many troopers as last year! We even had some guys from the German Garrison (who were in town visiting) join us for the 8-mile walk.

Ok, it was more like 10 miles by the time we were done...

The interesting thing about all that boot camp marching practice we got in Pasadena is that now we all just automatically fall into ranks and my mind starts getting all panicky if I'm not lined up with everyone else. It made for fun times trying to navigate around all the drunks. =D

This morning, I got at least four phone calls from friends telling me that I'm in the San Jose Mercury News. There is also a photo of us from the race on the front page of the printed paper. (If you get the paper, I'm the small trooper on the right.)

Nothing like getting to work to find that your co-worker has already laid out the newspaper for everyone to see. ^^;

We're off to Celebrations this weekend. We'll be there Friday and Saturday. If you're going, lemme know where to come find y'all since I know a bunch of you will be stationed at booths.

There are days I wish I was a cat...

Fri, 06 Apr 2007 14:58:33 GMT

I was feeling like I hadn't done my monthly 'crazy cat lady' photo posting, so this is what my fuzzy monsters typically do in the morning while I'm getting ready for work. Life is so unfair sometimes... =D

I have a deadline at work that is killing me. I got promoted to part-time project manager which sounds all dandy until you realize that all it really means is MORE WORK.

In cosplay news, positivespace helped me finally get good photos of my Sakura Taisen yukata!!! That only took 3+ years...

She also took lots of photos from our hanami party in L.A. Go check out all the HCC girls in pretty kimono and yukata!

Tako-san!

Fri, 23 Mar 2007 20:59:34 GMT

So I was gonna have a more substantial post but I have no time being swamped at work so I'll just post this pic and make tristencitrine madly jealous of my new tako-san trash can. ^__^

Oh, and I made a fast page for my House of Flying Daggers costume. I'd say a photoshoot was forthcoming but I just chopped off all my hair so I can't put it up anymore. I obviously didn't think this one through... photos first THEN cut hair. =P