Edward and anna in the hotel. Preparing to go to masquerade office now...

...or maybe just that you have a very strange reputation. Excerpts from phone conversation just now:

Phone: *begins playing Kefka's Theme, which is indeed an awesome ringtone*
mullenkamp: *looks and sees who it is* Hey, what's up?
mithrigil: Hey, we were wondering, do you have handcuffs?
mullenkamp: Yep, they're probably still in the box with my makeup.
[assorted conversation ensues...]
mithrigil: And they asked "Do you have handcuffs?" And I go "I don't have handcuffs. I wonder if Andrea has handcuffs!"
mullenkamp: You know, it's kind of funny how I'm not at all surprised when someone me asks that, or that I'm the first person to come to mind to ask about handcuffs.

Yeah, it's con season. XD

akatonbo also just came in, in the process of printing out the skit script for everyone, and goes "Now we know where Ultimecia got all those Ks!" and holds out the document she'd just printed. ...Which is, for some reason, missing all of its Ks. Everything else is printed correctly, but there is a blank space wherever the letter K appears. ....WTF, printer got time kompressed.

A sign at my workplace is spelled correctly even though I didn't make it! ...I'm so glad I won't be back here for five days.




Editing this post instead of making another: Woooo, after work I stopped and bought travel-size toiletries for a change - I usually just grab all my usual daily routine stuff and put it in a plastic freezer bag, but then half my backpack is taken up by a big bottle of mouthwash and a full-size tube of toothpaste and so on. ;) So this will help.

Anna's wig (yeah, since akatonbo buzzed her head again, we needed a wig after all) is scheduled for arrival today! We ordered it from Amphigory maybe ten days ago, and they replied and said that they might not be able to get it in and then out for shipping for ten business days, but we figured we might as well give it a shot, and we could always use my old Hiro wig in a pinch, then have the Anna-specific one for next time we wear these costumes. No need, looks like. ;) Also, Anna's jewelry is so sparkly, and nearly done. She's got more bling than the prince.

So this stuff is awesome, and also my boys are going to the conference finals! Not that I was surprised, since they've gone 6 years in a row now. More like smug. And now they get to sit around and relax for awhile, since the Celtics and the Cavs are going to have to play at least two more games to decide who's going to face the Pistons next. Thank you, C-teams, for making sure I didn't miss anything during my con that I really wanted to see. :D

...But once again, everything is going so nicely that I wonder what terrible thing is about to happen.

Plans for today:
- Possibly hit up AAA and figure out what's up with my membership for the roadside assistance thing. (My card claims it's good through May 2010, but I got a renewal notice...)
- Trim Edgeworth's wig a bit more, while it's actually on akatonbo's head.
- Make little bag for iPod/speakers to live in. (Originally I thought I'd need a see-through window to make sure I could select which track I wanted, but... there's no display screen, and the controls are really simple. I think I'll be cool doing it through a layer of fabric.)
- Charge iPod and get proper songs on it (as much as I don't want to relinquish my "this is how the Gavinners sound in my head" playlist).
- Collect/print/stick together some reference images in case we decide to do craftsmanship.
- Start packing.
- Stay up as late as possible, so as to sleep at night tonight.
- If I can't sleep, possibly write more of Klavier attempting gothic lolita fashion. (hey - his crazy teenage fangirls started talking about how hot he and Daryan would look on the forums at their official website when tour dates for Tokyo were announced, and he lurks there, so... XD)

If you're driving late at night - And you crave some nethicite - You can still set foes on fire - Holy stones are now at Meijer!

Looking at the ACen schedule now... and WTF, there are actually panels that sound interesting (or just plain weird)! Bolding times of stuff I am either definitely or potentially (pending further explanation) interested in checking out, just noting other stuff that I find amusing, mandatory stuff all in bold.

Thursday:
5pm-10pm - Badge Pickup! At least for those of us who have already paid. akatonbo and I have been set since November, of course. Just in case there's anyone who hasn't already paid...

Friday:
8am - At-con and express reg opens.
1pm-4pm - Masquerade Sign-in Session 1. Might as well get it out of the way, right? Looks like we don't need to be in costume, too, which is good, because akatonbo and I will be dressed as lawyers. Office this year is apparently the Sky Harbor room, in the hallway towards the dome in the Hyatt.
1:30pm - The Advanced Guide to Glomping. ...Is it a good idea to have this right at the start of the con? ;_; I'm fearing for Edgey's safety.
2pm - Phoenix Wright photoshoot, originally in the panel area, but now people are saying there can't be any photoshoots there, and no one decided on a new place. I suppose we'll sort of wander around in that area and look for brightly-colored suits. ;)
3pm - The World of Brave Story. ...I suppose it's too much to hope that they mean Zodiac Brave Story.
5:30pm - Damn! That's Annoying. ...What? XD That could be ANYTHING about a con or anime fans!
6pm-9pm - Skit Review Session 1. We could go to this, or we could wait until Saturday morning when we will be in our FF costumes for the day already and have had time that evening to practice more. Thoughts, guys?
7pm - Cosplay.com photoshoot, moved to the lower level of the dome (where the upside-down wedding cake used to be). ...I see there is also a CLAMP photoshoot at that time, rather convenient for other people who will be wearing suits that day.
8pm - RPGs Beyond Final Fantasy. This could be fun, or it could kind of turn into opinionated rants about how FF is overrated, like it did last year, to my chagrin. What, is it against the law to like both FF and lesser-known games? Although it goes on for awhile, so if it gets tiresome, could always pop over to...
10pm - You're Doin' It Wrong! A Cosplay Panel. The guys running it mentioned on cosplay.com they'll be addressing such issues as Hot Topic costumes and poorly-designed Narutards. A nice little shot of elitism sounds nice. :D
9pm-whenever - Further Masquerade Sign-in. I don't see us actually needing this, but it will be noted.
11pm - Yuri: Doing It the Right Way. This is probably something I could use, since well, I already write slash. I would have been writing some femslash if femslash pairings ever came up in fiction that looked like appealing character dynamics, but sadly there just are not as many awesome female characters who seem like a good subject for that. ...Until I got to Phoenix Wright fandom, and there are awesome female characters all over the place, and I do ship a few of them. On the other hand, since the panel says "yuri" in the title, it sadly will probably be full of fanboys who want to see hot chicks getting it on rather than authors who actually are interested in doing things right.
11:30pm - Deconstructing the Misconstrued Perception of the Otaku Subculture. ...If this turns out to be a bunch of kids whining about how people at their high school think they're weird for wearing cat ears and tails or something, or their parents are mean for taking away their Nintendo games because they're neglecting their studies, I would laugh so hard.

Saturday:
8am-12pm - Masquerade Sign-in/Skit Review - Last Call. This is probably when we should do skit review in costume.
10am - Psychology and Anime. I'm not sure if they're talking about, say, analyzing psychologically screwed fictional characters (Fun!) or fanboying/fangirling EVA (Eh) or discussing the psychological effects of watching anime (LOL/STFU).
11am - Final Fantasy Complete photoshoot, pretty much at the same place it was last year. I guess they're looking at doing it in the grassy area instead of against the restaurant wall, though? (I say GOOD. That wall is ugly.)
1pm - both the Final Fantasy Cosplay panel and Making Video Games: The Love Child of Art and Science. ...Crap.
2pm - 108 Destinies: A Suikoden Panel. Sadly this is at the same time as the attempt at the Guinness record for largest gathering of video game characters, so I kind of hope that that attempt doesn't get taken too seriously after all. And then, following this panel, in the same room, the next three panels:
3pm - Female Stereotypes in Otakudom
4pm - Anime and Feminist Ideology
5pm - Lolita Dos and Don'ts. XD XD XD
5:30pm - Help Us Kill An Hour. I guess at least this panel is honest? XD
Somewhere in the above time frame will be the time when we report to the masquerade green room, because...
6pm - Masquerade! I'm kind of sad that it's going to be over in less than a week...
7pm - Turnabout Anime Justice panel, which is apparently going to be trials for anime characters in the style of Phoenix Wright. Pity we'll be backstage. Also at the same time, there is a panel labeled "STOP BEING FAT. PLAY DDR." XD
10pm - How (Not) To Write A Lemon. ...I'm thinking this would be good for laughs, if we're not too busy being photographed an hour after the masq. XD
10:30pm - When Fans Go Bad. ...You mean like ALWAYS?
11:30pm - Ghosts of ACen. ...I really wonder that this is. Anime ghost stories or something? Could be amusing.

Sunday:
10am - Final Fantasy Music Panel. Need I say more?
11am - Game Contains Scenes That Might Be Violent Or Disturbing. ...Probably something to do with the ESRB system and Jack Thompson and the like? *shrug*
12pm - Documenting Fannish History. ...Considering how amusing this sort of thing winds up when it's done on FW... well, sadly, the panelists will probably not be as amusing as the people over there. (Unless the panel is actually being conducted by wankas, which would be awesome!)
12:30pm - How to Pick Up an Asian Guy or Girl. ... :( I hope this is ironic.
1pm - An 8 Yr Old Beat You On Max 300! ........... XD Now THAT is a fabulous panel title.

As usual, no guests I'm particularly interested in seeing. (Sakimoto at Otakon was seriously the first and only time I've ever been really excited about a guest at a con, though the Pillows and L'Arc concerts were pretty awesome.)

At some point, either Thursday before reg or Sunday after check-out, we should hit Mitsuwa again, too. A Thursday evening trip to that area might happen regardless, because we found while driving around that area several months ago (rerouted due to weather issues and looking for something to do) that there's a Meijer store right by Mitsuwa (as well as a little Japanese geek stuff store where I got my FF Potion and an Animal Crossing cell phone charm). And Meijer is good for picking up any last-minute "OMG I forgot to bring this" items, as well as perishable food and cosplay repair items - and anyone coming would have a Meijer employee around to help them figure out where stuff probably is. ;)

Man, I was thinking I should do another kink meme fic roundup, and when I went back and looked for what I'd already posted to figure out where I should pick up... I haven't really written that many kink meme fics since the Diego/Mia genderswap - mostly just a really, really long one. But what the heck, I've already got links together, so...

The Keeping of Secrets - OP wanted Valant dressed in drag as Lamiroir, possibly slashed with Daryan. This was crack. So I thought about it for a second, and determined that I could make it make sense. Except that it wouldn't end up actually being slash, or any sort of romance/porn. XD Seriously, that's what the kink meme is for - making me consider how to make crack make sense. I still go back and cackle like crazy at this; probably my favorite kink meme offering yet. Apollo Justice case 3 spoilers, if it's not blatantly obvious. (I linked this before, but didn't actually explain, so...)

The Legend of Edgeworth - Yeah, I mentioned the Zelda AU before too. It's unfinished, and kind of on hiatus - I was having fun writing it, then got unexpectedly DIVEBOMBED by plot-katamari for the next thing. I do have plans for more of this... and yes, I have determined that I can work tentaclemonster!Gourdy in. I mean, Phantom Hourglass canonically has a tentacle monster! :D Uh, beyond that, not really any spoilers for huge plot events or anything, just lots of random zany video game quotes and old-school-gamer injokes.

Untitled Wangstfic-of-Doom - I don't see Apollo/Klavier in the canon, and when I saw a request for Klavier being on drugs and slipping drugs into Apollo's drink and accidentally overdosing/killing him, I kind of rolled my eyes and moved on. Klavier's not that dumb, guys. But then I started thinking about the likely after-effects of something like that in Ace-Attorneyland, where you can get slapped with a murder charge for more or less being in the same vicinity that a murder took place, or being the one to find a body. Suddenly I realized that if I could get through the first part... I could write crazy trials! So I did. Starts off a bit weak, I think, and I'm going to revise the beginning some now that I've decided Apollo/Klavier isn't so bad after all and thus writing it isn't like pulling teeth - but from the point where Phoenix tells Klavier they've arrested someone onward, I'm digging it. Whenever I edit this to post properly, too, I may add omake. Stuff like Edgeworth's reaction to Phoenix's new place in the epilogue, and Trucy REFUSING to tell people what Apollo said while he was semi-conscious... and a deleted scene involving Klavier prosecuting himself. :D Spoilers here and there for Apollo Justice in its entirety.

Time and Chance - ...Funny story about this one. I randomly decided to pick up some old prompts from the first couple parts of the kink meme that still had no responses. When I grabbed this one, I thought it was a wounded-in-the-line-of-duty Gumshoe confessing his love to Edgeworth. I don't ship them either (Phoenix/Miles is pretty darned close to OTP aside from a little experimentation), but I got an idea that struck me as really funny and it wouldn't leave me alone, so I sat down and opened the text file... and realized that it was supposed to be Edgeworth confessing his love to a wounded-in-the-line-of-duty Gumshoe. Which sort of killed the joke. But well, I had the majority of it plotted out already, so I changed the ending to be sweet rather than funny, and wrote it anyway. ...I wish I had been right about the prompt, because I think I need to add more funny to the fandom. Especially after that monster wangstfic above. Oh well. The next one adds funny! At least I hope so.

Untitled - Occasionally, since everyone is posting anonymously, the Captcha anti-spam thingy gives us words that are semi-appropriate for the Phoenix Wright kink meme. In this case, someone asked exactly who Captcha thought Klavier was referring to as "Herr Commando"... and honestly, this was not my first thought, but someone had already asked for a Metal Gear Solid crossover, so I did this instead. Making use of my newly-developed ability to write implied Apollo/Klavier without grumbling about it. Amazingly, no spoilers at all.

In other fannish stuff, I finally got around to making a carrying strap for the Lamia Harp, so I don't have to walk around holding it in my hands constantly. Made it out of the leftover fabric from the gold and purple stripes on Edward's pants, so it's suitably gaudy. Just need to add snaps so I can remove it and stick it in my pocket during the skit (so that a certain dragoon can grab the harp without strangling me (ACK which just made me think of Meekins strangling himself with his handcuffs, and it occurred to me that Edward and his twinharp is kind of like Meekins and his megaphone)). And let me tell you, turning a long narrow strip of fabric inside out after you've sewn the edges together? Annoying. :P I should probably try to dig up reference images to print out in case I decide to enter this costume in craftsmanship... hmm. If I can find a place to print them out in color. :P

Randomly, yesterday I had a dream that I was watching a really, really horrible horror movie about a mother who was trying to free her son from a curse placed upon him by his evil father, wherein every time the son looked in the mirror, he saw his father's face. She acquired some kind of big black demonic dog to allegedly drive the father's image out of the mirror, and this was the point at which akatonbo came in in my dream and I was like "Dude, you have to see this, it's HILARIOUSLY bad, watch!" And the son (horribly overdramatically acted) was all "Mirror, show me my true reflection~!" but it showed his father's instead, and he started screaming in agony... and I laughed so hard at the bad acting and terrible dialogue that I woke myself up. :D

Well, geese too. A whole bunch of these guys are hanging out in front of my church. Since I get here early after dropping akatonbo off at work, there are more geese than people so far...

Generally workaholism is a trait that is to be desired in modern American society. I mean, of course bosses love it when you're constantly busy, doing things you weren't even asked to do because you don't like being idle, working overtime and holidays when asked (and occasionally asking for it yourself).

But ARGH. It's incredibly frustrating to actually live with. I've been awake for an hour, and I'm driving myself absolutely crazy because there's nothing I need to work on, meaning I have no idea what to do. And I have a whole other night off tonight, and I just woke up after having slept at night for a change because of getting only three hours sleep yesterday morning before taking off, so I'm going to be awake for a good portion of the day. And basically, everything that needed to get done for ACen is done, and most of the things that were optional for ACen are done, and of the two optional things that are not done, one is kind of predictable (and thus not interesting), and the other is probably not going to be done within a week unless I have some kind of amazing breakthrough on a better material to make it out of. Add to that that my lengthy in-progress fic that I had been occupying my spare time with is done, and I'm going nuts here trying to figure out what to do with this day. I can't even really make my usual weekend to-do list, due to the fact that there are maybe three things to add to it, one of which is probably not going to happen, and another of which (unrelated to costuming) could be finished in approximately ten minutes.

And making me more nuts is the fact that I've wasted an hour trying to figure out what to do. If I didn't thoroughly hate my job once the doors open in the morning, I might even have gone down there and checked to see if anyone called in and needed a replacement. But yeah, my hatred for working the cash register and the stress of allowing people to pump gas without paying first (every customer is potentially a gas thief, after all) does outweigh the workaholism. Slightly.

Workaholism really, really sucks.

Maybe I'll go do that ten minute thing, then force myself to play some stuff on the Wii. (Getting better at Wii Sports is like work... right?)

...it's cold though.

And so, akatonbo and I prepare to embark on a trip to Detroit, for a Tigers/Red Sox game. She's wearing a Red Sox shirt and Tigers hat, and I'm wearing a Tigers shirt (Verlander jersey actually - it was conveniently available in the boys' department when I went looking for something appropriate) and Red Sox hat, and we won't be particularly unhappy no matter who wins and loses.

The really interesting thing will be to see... well, both of us have an amazing record of "my team" winning when we go to sporting events. Every time I've been to a game (Red Sox/White Sox twice, Red Sox/Indians once, Pistons/Heat once), the team I'm rooting for has won. She's been to a lot more games than I have, and the team she's been rooting for has won all but one of them. (The suspicion is that it was because her mother, who it seems unfortunately has a streak of seeing losing games, was present.) So what happens when the two of us are rooting for opposite teams?

Let's just say if the Red Sox win this one? Assuming that there's a Pistons/Celtics matchup in the East Conference Finals, I'm not taking her. :P

Whee, driving across the state on three hours sleep again. At least this time it's not blizzarding.

I can't possibly have nightmares now about going to the con and not having finished costumes, since everything is done except for some optional jewelry for Anna (which akatonbo is doing because she's better with beads), so instead what do I dream? I dream about getting to the head of the registration line on Thursday night, preparing to get my badge, and reaching for my wallet only to find that... I left it at home, three hours' drive away. Fortunately, in the dream, the guy who was running the line deferred to someone else who was working registration who remembered me pre-regging at Youmacon, when I told him I was like the 12th person who had registered for this year's ACen. (The person who remembered me pre-regging in the dream was not either of the people who were at the pre-reg table at Youmacon, amusingly.) So I got my badge, and figured I'd drive home to get it and then drive back Friday morning.

Dream fast-forwards to approximately 2pm Saturday afternoon, when I'm in one of the assorted corridors at the Hyatt and someone recognizes me from cosplay.com, and asks why I'm not in costume. I'm like "Oh yeah, I should get into my Edward costume - we'll be in the masquerade tonight, you know!" and this person comes back with me to my room upstairs so I can show her the costume. I open up the suitcase... and the vast majority of it ISN'T THERE, because I forgot to pack it. At which point I freak out and panic and berate myself for not having realized this when I drove home before to get my wallet, and here I'm faced with driving six hours and hoping that our slot in the masquerade is after 8pm, or ruining it for everyone because I'm STUPID, and then I think "Wait! I could potentially have it by 5pm if someone was willing to bring it to me!" and call my mom, telling her I'll pay gas money, anything...

I woke up as I was describing the costume to her - but oddly enough, I realized upon waking that despite the fact I was thinking of the costume I needed as "the Edward costume", what I was describing was "a white shirt with really crazily poofy sleeves, and there's like, a grey and white vest/tunic type thing over it with slashes down the front that show some red beneath", and the parts of the costume that were in my suitcase were powder-blue and green leggings with fake leather bits made of craft foam. I was totally describing Larsa's costume. I suspect that if the dream would have continued, my mom would indeed have spent three hours driving to Chicago to bring me this costume just in the nick of time, only for me to realize it wasn't the right one and now I had absolutely zero chance of going on in the masquerade. That's how my brain tends to operate. :P

This is all very weird because I'm really amazingly non-stressed about a con for the first time that I can remember, seeing as all that's really left to do aside from little optional details is shop for food to bring with us and then pack. So why the stress dreams?

On the other hand, causing me mild distress is the fact that I finished a fic that I'd been working on for a month, and now I can't really remember what to do when I'm not working on it. :P

I HAVE FINISHED THE WANGSTFIC-OF-DOOM.

...I'm really not sure whether I'm happy about this or sad. On the one hand, having it all finished is good, no further responsibility. On the other hand, I'll miss getting swooning comments in my email every day without any concern (since it's all posted anonymously) that someone's sucking up or replying because they feel obligated. (And I even got fan art, woo!) On the other hand, happy ending! On the other hand... I'm really not sure what to do next. There's the "Edgey's two daddies" fic which is semi-plotted and will probably wind up being every bit as depressing (especially since it can't have a happy ending, canonically - it's like Sydney and Hardin in a few ways), or I could just go back to writing the ridiculous gen of the Zelda AU while occasionally attacking prompts that are smaller in scale.

...Also I kind of realized all of a sudden after I left for work last night that akatonbo may have been hinting that I should pick up some mpreg. o_o Mpreg doesn't squick me or anything, but I just don't see the point to it, especially in a fandom that has so many awesome female characters. Granted, none of them have the same personality as Miles Edgeworth, but it's just... he's a GUY, okay?

Also picked up FFVI again, from where I was running around trying to re-recruit everyone. (I was stalled briefly due to the fact that I was used to being able to SEE THE WORLD MAP when I was flying around, when I played on a TV. On the teeny DS screen, I can't pick out where all the little white spots are to indicate "Hey, you should check and see what's here!" so I couldn't find a couple of places that I knew existed until I just went ahead and looked at a world map online and made a note of the approximate locations. I'm only missing... I think Locke now, and I'm going after him. I forgot what you have to go through to get him back, though - all I remembered was walking in and finding him... I think my brain blocked out the rest. :P The Phoenix Cave is pretty fun, honestly - tandem dungeons FTW! - but not when you're trying to beat it before your boss arrives.

Random bunny-stuff: Leah-bun has been acting really hyper when I get home in the morning for the last couple days. Zooming all around the room, and I nearly tripped over her when I came into my room the other day, because she was sitting right by the gate. Meanwhile, I'm very pleased that I managed to cheer up a sulky Ginger - Ginger was sitting in the back of the cage, all bunnyloafed out, for a rather long time, and I was mildly worried about her. So I put fresh litter in the box, fresh hay on top of the litter, gave her the nightly pellets and yummy berry treat (which she refused)... she was still sitting back in the corner. So I went to start getting ready for work, then looked back into my room a little later. Ginger had her ears up all perky, and was sitting atop the mound of hay, munching away. :D There's something really satisfying about making a little creature who doesn't speak your language or know how to express what she's dissatisfied about become happy.

...At the moment, she's bunnyloafed in the litterbox, staring at me over the rim, her ears popping up and swivelling towards me every time I look over my shoulder at her. XD It's so amazingly cute.

Related quote from a couple days ago.

akatonbo: Hey, did you know Panasonic's got a new line of televisions named... Viera? :D
mullenkamp: Yeah, I saw them in the Circuit City ad a few weeks ago. I'm guessing that unlike other Viera, they almost certainly don't come with rabbit-ears.

Sending out much thanks to Mith for tasties in mail! I kind of had to make myself eat something resembling breakfast first, but having sampled? Very very tasty. :D Thank you!

(Also, note to labtech - when should we drop off/you pick up some cookies? ;))

Went to Hobby Lobby today to get a single Sharpie to color one of the gems on Anna's outfit, since I have a pack that came with a light blue and a medium blue, but not a dark blue. So I pulled a "navy" Sharpie out of the display - the last one - and found out it was marked down on clearance. Whew! Of course, if that one is on clearance... I then proceeded to look at every other Sharpie color that I didn't have, and wound up getting a "plum" as well, before it vanished. There were no more "olive" Sharpies, and I fear that was probably on clearance too... a pity. You really can't have too many different colors of Sharpie on hand.

Anna's circlet now finished, I spent some time looking through my huge collection of midis (mostly video game music) in search of more good ringtones. ...The Final Fantasy directory, unsorted by game (when I started collecting midis, I had like... five), was kind of a headache, but got me to thinking. For one thing, I think FFII is my favorite of the standard battle themes. For another thing...

I resisted when everyone was claiming back around FF8 that Uematsu had lost his touch. I mean, I loved FF8's soundtrack. I still do. (And the fact that he didn't quite use the FF battle theme bassline through the entire game, leaving me kind of feeling cheated despite the FF8 battle theme being excellent... then threw it in just as the last battle theme picks up? One of my very favorite geekout moments in gaming history. I died. I still grin like an idiot every time I listen to the track and it gets to that part.) But looking back... there wasn't a single track from FF7, except for the final battle themes (which don't translate well to midi) that I looked at and thought "Oh yeah - I'd love that as a ringtone!" I can't even remember how most of them go. (And for the record, I never could figure out why people liked the Turks' theme so much... oh well.) There are a few slow/quiet/ominous tracks I liked, but in general, I'm pretty meh on the FF7 soundtrack... and most of the FF9 soundtrack too, although Uematsu seemed to do well with town themes in that game. Just not much else. And then, well, in FF10, he wasn't so much a presence... Meanwhile, I wanted to put like the entire soundtrack of FF2, FF4, and FF5 on my phone. (And a good portion of 6 too - I think Kefka's going to be my default for awhile. :D)

So I was inclined to say that perhaps he had lost his touch after all. But then again, I realized that "To Zanarkand" and "The Place I'll Return To Someday" are two of my favorite tracks ever... And that both of them are just a single instrument. So maybe he's still good at composing catchy, simple tunes much like he did in the NES and SNES eras... but is a little overwhelmed by all the options now when it comes to instrumentation, and gets too caught up in that to put the melodies first when he chooses to take advantage of that? I wonder. It seems odd, though, especially when Sakimoto does orchestral-style arrangements seemingly without effort - and as we heard straight from his mouth (well, the translator's) at Otakon last year, he has no formal music training.

Observations about other Square-associated composers after having taken a step back for awhile:

- Mitsuda. I never was as impressed by him as everyone seemed to be, and going back over the Chrono Trigger OST made me remember that. But then I moved on towards Xenogears, and found I liked more of the tracks there. And the stuff I heard from Xenosaga was pretty excellent. So maybe he really has improved with time.
- Sakimoto. I LOVE YOU MAN, but sadly your stuff is too complex to make good midis or ringtones. :( I might have to use MP3s and put some of his stuff on my phone anyway. Darned if I don't want some creepy Sydney BGM or the Undercity scaring people when my phone rings. :D
- Kikuta. I wish I had more from this guy, because while discussing how great the Secret of Mana soundtrack was years ago on IRC, I was sent some MP3s from other stuff he's done, and it's also amazing. Why wasn't he contracted to do more Seiken Densetsu? His style fit perfectly with the feel of the games. But I can't be too upset, because...
- Shimomura. Is there anything she touches that isn't golden? I can't believe it's the same composer in Parasite Eve, Kingdom Hearts, and Legend of Mana. Thus I have no idea what her own style is, other than AWESOME. In Legend of Mana, it was fairly obvious that she was taking cues from Kikuta to fit in with the series... but it definitely doesn't come off like a cheap imitation. *stops self from raving madly over the LoM soundtrack yet again*

...In other FF-related news, akatonbo has been into quinoa lately, and so there are boxes in our kitchen and stuff that say "QUINOA" ... and I just keep thinking "WTF ff.net - why are you shipping Quina with Rinoa?"

I am up much too late to be dissecting game music. -_-

Cell phone experiment is a success! And spoonybardiness is re-recorded, sound effects are recorded and skit audio is mixed.

...Given how much has gone right in the last couple of days, I wonder what terrible thing is going to come crashing down on me.

Edit: Well, cleaning a cat box that was so foul that my eyes and nose started burning and I had to stand up quickly to turn on the ventilation fan and leave the room is something, but not quite the scale of disaster I was expecting.

We now have WiiPlay, Metroid Prime, Wind Waker, Tales of Symphonia, and assorted baseball games (I couldn't tell you which ones, those are akatonbo's and I can hardly tell this year's sports games apart when they're on store shelves brand new).

My data cable for my phone also just arrived in the mail.

I finished writing the trial in wangstfic-of-doom, and am ready to go at the short epilogue.

Anna's circlet is finished aside from painting and gluing on a jewel.

And being a Friday evening, I can sing loudly without disturbing too many people, thereby making it a good time to re-record Edward's songs in the right key.

...I don't know what to do first.

Okay, I know what I should do first, and that's the recording. Then I can put another coat of paint on the circlet, and while it's drying I'll hopefully finish mixing audio... and then I'll have all night to play with my phone and new games and finish fanfic.

How did I start my weekend, after my punch-out time at 7 am? ...With an HOUR AND A HALF OF OVERTIME. :P And then walking around the mall, which was not good on my knees after standing still at a register for two and a half hours. (I was able to move around for the previous seven hours of my shift, which isn't as hard on my knees as just standing still. :P) Though the last couple hours of work were amusing, because I was working with Sandi, and she had also just bought a new cell phone... so between customers we were poking at the various features and trying stuff out. XD

But then after some sleep, I watched the Pistons advance to the second round of the NBA finals (sorry Philly, you did well - better than anyone expected - but it was pretty much inevitable), continued to snicker about the fact that all of a sudden everyone's all "OMG Tayshaun Prince! This guy is awesome!" when I've known this for a couple years now (Yeah, whose was the first Pistons jersey I bought?) and played with silly bunnies and silly kitties. And received more comments on wangstfic-of-doom. So all was good.

Particularly amusing/awesome moment of tonight's game, by the way - as I linked earlier this week, Antonio McDyess broke his nose about a week ago, had it surgically fixed the next day, and then played in the following night's game with a plastic mask over his face. (Rip Hamilton always wears one, and he was joking about how every time Antonio puts it on, he'll have to pay him royalties, cause that's his gimmick. :D) So at one point during tonight's game, Antonio sorta got smacked across the face, and there was a timing violation in the following play because he took a second to basically go "owowow" and tip his mask up briefly and cringe before advancing the ball. Sure, wearing it means that getting smacked in the face means you won't break it again immediately, but that thing still bumps against your nose if it's hit. Between the next couple of plays, he kept unfastening the bottom fastening of the mask and tipping it up and just sort of taking a breather from it, then putting it back and refastening it as the game resumed. Then in the middle of the next play, that bottom fastening he'd kept undoing apparently wasn't fastened properly, and the mask came loose... then it fell off. So what does he do? Ball's in play, he's in the middle of the action... so he reaches down and just swats the mask so it goes sliding over to the sidelines, and goes on without it. :D This after he had just gotten smacked in the face again, making his need for the mask kind of obvious. Well, screw that - playing ball now. XD

akatonbo noted that we're going to be in Detroit towards next weekend anyway, and if there's a conference semifinals game in Detroit on Friday night... ...Yeah, I think I'm going to be watching the ticket office. ;) Schedules for the semifinals don't seem to be up anywhere yet, so all I know is that there's going to be game 1 on Saturday night in Detroit, and game 2 is set for Monday in Detroit, since the Palace sent me emails offering special packages for those two games. This means that probably on Thursday/Friday they'll be in Florida. Drat. Oh well, maybe the conference finals. Or the NBA finals. :D

Anyway, weekend. Stuff to do:

- Change key of "Sir Cecil" midi (I could sing that low when I first made the midi, WTF? Maybe it's allergies.)
- Re-record Edward's vocals in said changed key
- Finish mixing skit audio yay!
- Design Anna's circlet
- MAKE Anna's circlet
- Make non-glowing magatama (thereby also testing just how "translucent" translucent Sculpey is - I've been wondering for awhile)
- Use non-glowing magatama to make mold for glowing magatama (I'm sure I'll have uses for both)
- Possibly make shell for glowing magatama (depending on how "translucent" it turns out to be - I don't know if I'll be able to use Sculpey or not)
- Phoenix doll still does not have hair or a face (much less clothes), and this should be remedied.
- Go to store and get WiiPlay at a time when there are actually employees there who can unlock the case -_-
- FINISH WANGSTFIC-OF-DOOM. As the Steel Samurai's motto declares, FOR GREAT JUSTICE.
- Watch bunnies happily explore the newly-cleaned-and-organized living room

...Every time I get a comment notification that something I wrote made someone cry? I kind of laugh. :D I mean, yo, it's just fanfic.

Maybe I'll actually finish the apparent tearjerker tonight (I guess it depends on how much more of the court's time Payne wants to waste, I was sort of expecting to wrap it up last night), since gas is $3.75 a gallon and the construction on the street out front had some sort of mishap which means that our sign doesn't light up after dark no matter what we do. I have had more people coming up and asking for directions on how to get to the highway with our onramps closed than I do actual customers the last couple nights.

Someone at the comm observed that there are Prince of Tennis characters EVERYWHERE in the Ace Attorney series. ...I always did kind of wonder what Klavier's singing voice sounded like - in my mind, the Gavinners sound somewhere between Muse and L'arc.

And also on the subject of courts, I just got my first jury duty notice. I'm rather annoyed, because in order to serve one day in court, I'm going to have to take two days off of work, seeing as I work third shift. I mean, if I work the night before the court date, I won't be awake enough to perform jury duty. If I can't sleep during that day due to being at the courthouse, I won't be able to perform my duties at work that night. And I'm pretty sure my employer doesn't give a crap about this and I wouldn't be able to be compensated for days of work I am legally forced to miss.

I tried to post by email directly from the cameraphone, but that apparently failed. However, I copied the message to my regular email address, so now I can post this picture regardless.


I had to reboot at one point due to a random fatal error while the register was... doing nothing at all. I just came out from the back room, and it was dead. Yeeeah. But at least I finally got a picture proving this.

In other news, even those among the main five of my boys who don't get the lion's share of attention and all-star status? Both rock.

Now - to try to figure out how to post photos directly from my phone. ;) I know there's FAQs about this, but until tonight I never had reason to look at them.

Edit: Okay, I think I got it set up - I'll have to try it at a later date. And it turns out to be a good thing I didn't get the $6 phone case when I first saw it and went "Oh hey, phone case that fits my phone and is $6." Why is this a good thing? Because in the last few days... it got marked down further to $3. :D I WIN AT CHEAP.

Edit 2: I'm slightly baffled as to a comment I got on the kink meme fic. "I love you, bb." ...What on earth does "bb" stand for? Is this some internet terminology I don't know yet, or is it just... random?

But in other news, I just ordered the cable for my cell phone. Turns out that the thread where the dude originally figured out how to do the custom ringtone thing... well, he tried getting the generic data cable from this one site. It was about $15. He said, though, that they were out of stock, and offered to send him this other more specific data cable for a few dollars more. I looked at the "more expensive" cable, since that one was confirmed to work... and turns out that it's on clearance now for half price, making it cheaper than the generic cable. :D Again, I win at cheap!

We has a Wii! :D I asked the store manager when he came down to get the money bags at 5:15 what was the situation with those Wiis, and he said we had 15 in stock, and no one was lined up. This might have had something to do with the fact that Toys'R'Us had been advertising that they would have them today, and Best Buy and Circuit City having them advertised on the front page of their fliers for this morning's papers. Meijer is a ways down the list already, and our ad saying we would have them was in the middle of the GM section... so probably no one got that far. ;) Mike also mentioned that last time they got Wiis in on a Sunday morning, some of them actually sat there all day because no one knew...

Regardless, as soon as Nate punched in just after 6, I punched out on break, ran up to the store, and was greeted in the rather desolate electronics department by James going "You got here just in time!" and pulling a Wii box out of a case. XD Came to about $240 after taxes and discount were factored in, and I was going to pick up Mario Kart too, but it had been put out at midnight and was already gone. Ah well.

So I hooked it up and set up our wi-fi and so on in about half an hour this morning while akatonbo was getting ready for work, and after picking her up tonight, we spent like an hour just making Miis. We need another Wiimote before we do most stuff, though - James suggested that the WiiPlay was a good option, since apparently it comes with more minigames AND another Wiimote. And I must pick up some points so I can buy River City Ransom, among other things. :D Will be hitting up various stores looking for games used, too - I prefer to get those as cheap as I can...

So our Wii number is: 1547 9820 6010 9753 - and it is full of assorted muses. While we were poking at stuff, Sydney struck up a conversation with Teshimine (HOT) and Klaus threw a mini temper tantrum off in the corner for some reason. And then Larsa and Gabranth (2.0, but we ran out of space) went bowling. (While Gabranth tried to pick up a spare, Larsa had to observe that he didn't seem to be very proficient with ranged weapons...)

...Because we are dorks, our Wii's nickname is "RonWiisley". XD

Also on the topic of gadgetry, my contact list from my old phone has now been moved over to the new Cyclops, and I'm wondering how exactly someone as antisocial as I am wound up with so many people on her phone. Granted, I don't call most of those people except to meet up when we're at cons together and lose track of each other (and there are a few, one in particular, that I should probably not bother transferring except that I keep hoping one day maybe I'll see their name pop up again), but still.

I need a new belt clip/case thingy for this new phone, since it's rather a different size and shape than my previous phones, and went looking at Meijer and found some that were the right size on clearance for $4-6. Then I realized they had magnetic closures, and went "...Wait, aren't magnets bad for LCDs? or am I just thinking of regular TV screens? I know they're bad for TV screens, since putting a boombox on top of the old TV for stereo sound while playing SNES kind of screwed up one corner... but maybe LCDs too? Maybe that's why they're on clearance..." So I held off, came home, and just now remembered to look it up. Turns out they're not, unless possibly you have a really incredibly powerful magnet, and in fact ran across this story about self-writing LCD fridge poetry magnets. ...Cool. And yay, I'll grab one of those phone cases tomorrow.

Early this morning, I started feeling mildly panicky because here it was, almost the end of my first night off, and I hadn't done anything towards the finishing of our ACen costumes aside from pinning the beaded fringe to Anna's capelet (actually sewing beaded fringe is a huge pain, and I was too restless to do it before I'd slept) and setting up our skit recording session (next Tuesday night; if I get Rosa's lines by Thursday afternoon, I bet I could get the whole thing mixed, or at least most of it, by Saturday night). But that's hardly anything! Wasted a day! Never mind that I had a good excuse (Mom's birthday, so I baked a cake and went over to hang out with the whole family and stuff, then had to nap due to exhaustion), and also got a lot more written on that kink meme fic - a day off without cosplay progress is a waste!

Then I realized that... oh wait. All of our costumes for ACen are in a wearable, ostensibly-if-not-actually-complete state, except that Anna needs a circlet. In a pinch, a band of craft foam/posterboard painted gold would suffice for that. We're in really good shape right now, so it doesn't matter a bit if I missed a day of cosplay progress. ...Of course, I did go ahead and sew the beaded fringe on (uggggh, what a pain) and attached the pins to the back of Edward's Dalmasca Damcyan emblem brooch. And then I sort of ran out of things to do, since I don't have measurements and so on to start the circlet, and went "...Uh... what now?" -_-

Then I remembered I'd never gotten around to posting the pics we took a couple days ago, giving the wigs a test run. (And hahah, I'm going to have to redo Edgey's a bit, because there was so much hair in the back of that wig, putting it on jostled it enough that a bunch of the layers underneath started sliding all over. XD Just a matter of trimming a little more and giving it a little hairspray while she's wearing it, though.) So... here are those. With cats, because Soda saw us on the couch and really, really wanted to join us.

( Lawyers. With appropriately colored eyebrows, even. And cats. Very image-heavy. )

In other productiveness, I've cleaned all the kitchen counters and the kitchen floor, and got my new phone out of the package and charged it. Haven't switched my service over to it yet, because I was going to wait until after I'd been to Radio Shack to see if they have the data cable I need to add ringtones and stuff. They didn't, so I'll need to order it online. I also forgot to deposit my federal refund check, which came yesterday. ...I am so filing online again next year. :D

...But now I really don't know what to do with the rest of my weekend. Hmm.

(And I can't stop listening to this song. I'm just loving the intro guitar riff. ;))

And I don't mean just because we're trying to sell gas for $3.68 a gallon. That's international fail.

Epic fail #1 of my workplace: I mentioned those 20% off coupons, and how I wanted to use them on a Wii, except they expire tomorrow? Well, after talking to the folks back in the electronics department, we found out that the store has 9 Wii systems right now. ...Thing is, they can't put them out until the ad drops on Sunday morning.

FAIIIIIIIIL. But at least we've got a pretty good shot at getting a Wii this weekend - the ad drops at 6am. I get out of work at 7am. Sunday morning. There MIGHT be one or two left, and I'd still get 10% off. ;) (Also I picked up a Cyclops with the coupon, and will see how the ringtone experiments go once I find out where I can get a cable. Note to self: $45.62 was the total.)

Epic fail #2 of my workplace: I came in to work night before last and found this sign on one of the coffeepots.




This is the level I'm working with. Even worse, this was clearly made by one of the more intelligent coworkers, because there are many who won't bother putting a sign on something that is for some reason unusable.

In other news related to "epic" and hopefully only tangentially related to "fail", the latest "i can't believe i'm writing something this wangsty, i hope i'm at least doing it decently apart from the part SPELLED OUT IN THE PROMPT ITSELF that is completely OOC, i should never show this to anyone" fic for the kink meme is actually going along quite nicely, has gotten to the point of the story where it has little to do with the pairing (which I don't really care for) and has EVERYTHING to do with trials which are horribly messed up due to prosecutors who are horribly messed up, which makes it a lot closer to canon, and thus I am not so ashamed of this one now. Yay! It's a good thing I'm not ashamed of it anymore, because it's thirty-seven freaking parts and song lyrics I made up and *goes to input the body of text* over 24,000 words.

And the next prompt I'm thinking of picking up is about Gregory Edgeworth and Manfred von Karma and I've already worked up a timeline going back to the 1950s for the backstory. -_- Given that the GS games take place in the FUTURE, it doesn't look like I'm going to be writing anything small (or happy) for awhile.

So I've got this 20% off general merchandise "employee appreciation" coupon I need to use within three days... I was hoping to go for a Wii, but we haven't gotten any in in the three weeks since this coupon came out. In any of the area stores at all, not just mine. It's extremely unlikely, according to the electronics department workers, that we'll get them in this week - we usually have Wiis advertised in the weekly circular when we're going to get them.

So I was thinking of using it on one of those cute little iPod Shuffles - they're little, more capacity than my old-style Shuffle, and they come in a nice purple color. But I don't really need another MP3 player, between the old Shuffle, akatonbo's Nano, and her Palm and the PSP.

Then I was randomly looking through an article on recycling in a newspaper left over from yesterday, and it was saying where to recycle various things. One thing they mentioned recycling was cell phones.

...I have done searches in assorted forums about how to get custom ringtones on a phone from Virgin Mobile. It's hard, because they don't permit downloading of most data types (including images or midis - I tried, and I can browse to the URL, but the phone says that the data type is blocked), and they make the manufacturers dummy out the data ports on the phones they sell through Virgin - so even though there are data cables that would allow me to upload stuff to my current phone, the port isn't there. Every article/thread/whatever that I've found about trying to get custom ringtones on my phone when it was purchased through Virgin says that it's impossible. However, one post I came across says someone had success getting custom ringtones on the Cyclops through a data cable - presumably because it's a cameraphone, and thus they can't dummy out the data port. Which means it's possible that the data port may not be dummied out on other cameraphones that Virgin sells too.

...I don't know if I should, though. It is an awful lot to go through, and an unnecessary expense (though not a particularly large one), just to have video game music as my ringtones and to set it up with the Steel Samurai ringtone when cosplaying Phoenix, and Theme of Lute when cosplaying Edward so I can say it's my Twinharp. But hey, something fun to use the coupon for, and there's that whole tax refund thing going on.

...it seems someone has animated one of our cats.

The (very short) theme song is stuck in my head now. -_-