My cat is officially amazing. She got better from her cold faster than I have! Geez. XD Go Sashi~

Today is definitely Friday. I did get up early (for me? About 9:15) and get to work about 10:15, but then I wanted breakfast and of course now that the semester's started up again Einstein's was busy. And I have already learned my lesson many times over about how they're really not too great in the customer service area to begin with. So half an hour later, I had my bagel and coffee, but hey, it's Friday. XD;

In the meantime, I am experiencing total software FAIL - I swear, I can't get anything to work! :x So while our sysadmin tries to figure it out, I'm back to - that's right - multidrizzling! Woo. XD Ah, familiarity~ At least I can get some of this data I've already processed organized so I don't lose it or something. I have a bit more to do on my proposal, and I also have to write that talk for the 19th. Augh, it feels like I don't have anything new to present since my talk last year. ;_; Hopefully no one will notice...

I do have some errands to run today as well, and I'm leaving early to pick up Diana and go down to Tampa to take Daisy out to dinner. Yay, Daisy! <3 And then this weekend I really hope to get some writing done, because I'm woefully behind on a number of projects and if I want to someday be an author, I'd better get moving! :D;

The end~

And I know it's totally late, but while I'm at it here are a couple of AFO pictures, featuring our double C.C. (or C^4, if you like XD) photoshoot!

( Pizza and green hair ahoy! )

And the obligatory Dragon*Con post! I'm sorry I haven't been around, but I got back from D*C and immediately died (i.e., got sick) so I've been kind of out of it for the past few days. Yesterday I slept most of the day, and had a lot of really weird DS9- and Enterprise-related dreams. That didn't feature Trip nearly enough, I say. XD;

ANYWAY. D*C was, of course, a lot of fun~ We did so much it'd be impossible to recount it all, and I'm sure no one wants to hear it anyway. But we got to meet lots of cool people and hang out with a bunch of friends and trek around in fun costumes and it was good~ We did a couple of panels: Torchwood, DS9, Firefly, Robert Picardo, and Ethan Phillips; we also finally got to go to the Miss Klingon Empire Beauty Pageant, which was rather fantastic. XD Plus there was the parade, the Shindig, and the Yule Ball~

Oh, but I do have one funny story! So we were sitting in the DS9 panel and someone asked the actors if they'd ever read the books, and wanted to suggest one for them to read. She said something to the effect of "I recommend Fallen Heroes, that was the best DS9 book by far." Of course, Valerie and I both immediately say "Oh, yeah! That one was the best!" and Dan just turns to us and says "Oh my God, you guys are so lame." XD But it really was a good book!

There really were a lot of funny stories, though~ Including Alan Tudyk's scripts he was always trying to pitch to Joss, a couple of very amusing stage kisses, and a number of stories recounting forgotten lines (apparently every time Chakotay takes a "sip" of coffee his lines are in the bottom of the cup, or they were on the armrest of his chair XD) and tales of trying to make Tim Russ crack up while reciting lines).

And so with no further ado, I give you about half a million pictures~ You have been warned - image-heavy!

( Pictures! )

A very, very Happy Birthday to Daft, Jirru, Alex, and Diana~! :D <3

So it's been raining all day, but nothing worse than that. UF is officially closed tomorrow, so I don't feel bad about not planning to go in anyway. I'm picking my grandmother up from the airport about 2:30, and I'm going down to Ocala first to hang out with Diana for a bit and get lunch because you can never hang out with Diana too much~ :D

Today was made of... well, morning!fail, as I did not get up and go to work, but at least productivity!afternoon, as I cleaned and got some work done on costumes~ Quidditch pants are now done, and I sewed the patch onto the robes last night at NGN, along with the trim on Lucy's top. I hemmed Lucy's dress and skirt, so the only things I have left to do on that are the trim on the sleeves, styling the wig (when it gets here), and figuring out how to attach the flask to my belt. I just need to reinforce the sleeves on my Quidditch robes and the elastic on the pads and I think I'm done with that, and Pippi is done except for the wig styling. Then I have to finish up Dan's Starfleet uniform and I will be DONE OMG. o.o Not too bad, and thankfully my grandma said she didn't mind if I sewed a bit while she was here. So everything will get done!

I finished Buffy tonight, finally~ It was a good ending, I thought, overall. I was pretty pleased, except for one or two small things that didn't take away, just made me sad. Now I get to read the comics, woo! I have the first one (since I won it at CSTS last year), and then I'll go about hunting down the rest.

Next post will hopefully be some AFO pix! They're uploaded, I just have to put them into some semblace of order or something. :D;

Wow, so I totally just bought a Code Geass messenger bag on a whim, because apparently they do exist and it was kind of cool looking? :D; And I need a bag with more pockets, and my medic bag is kind of faded anyway? D: Gah. XD; I am a dork. And I still want a Camp Half-Blood t-shirt, but I will wait 'till after Dragon*Con to buy that. BUT I WILL BUY ONE. And that is that~

Geez. I'm trying to remember what I'm even supposed to be working on, today. It's kind of hard. :x I think my Chandra images are made of fail, and I think Multidrizzle is definitely made of fail today, and... well, I suppose I am made of fail today too, because I keep getting distracted afjidafaj.

Also, I swear Artemis Fowl and Butler were in my dream last night and I just started reading the book yesterday. WTF? XD; But Artemis was trying to develop some kind of... virus or something, but it was for something good, only I don't remember what, exactly. Right. That was helpful. ^^; I also wonder if the author realized Artemis is a goddess, but then, it still sounds okay as a boy name, so...

This is definitely a Patrick icon sort of day.

First off, an AFO preview pic. I haven't gotten everything resized yet, but this picture makes me go XD so you all have to see it too~


I found a Lockonnnnnnnn~

Erm. :D; Anyway, I really will resize the rest of the pix and post a report-ish thing, just not tonight because Norton really wanted to run a full system scan and that makes e-ver-y-thing run sloooooow. In the meantime, I managed to resize two other pictures - my progress thus far on Pippi Longstocking, which I started last night when I got home from AFO. XD;

( Not bad for only a couple hours' work, so far? :D; )

Um. Other than working on that, not much new. Been meaning to work on my PJO fic or my app for the Camp Half-Blood RP, but failing at that a bit because of costuming getting in the way. ^^; I did get to watch Ella Enchanted on Disney tonight while patterning Pippi's apron, though~ I love that movie. XD It was such a cute book~ I finished re-reading The Titan's Curse and decided to forego re-reading The Battle of the Labyrinth because I have just read it, so I started Artemis Fowl instead, which is proving rather entertaining thus far.

NGN starts up again this week, much yay for that, even if it does take away a sewing night. And we can start up anime nights after Dragon*Con and finish Gundam SEED, woo~ (Well, not that I haven't seen the end, but Diana and Scott haven't!) AND Jen and I finalized our Disney Halloween plans, so YAY I'M SO EXCITED SHE'S GOING TO COME VISIT ME. :D Looks like I get to be Ron Stoppable again this year, though I don't think that's going to keep me from making Peter Pan for... uh, something. XD; Because I really need to make a Peter Pan costume. Really.

Happy Birthday to fyretoppaaa!! :D

So! Uh. Today was pretty productive, kind of? I was on the roster for closet clean-out duty for an hour with Jorge - they're trying to scrape up as much office space as possible because there is no room in the Astronomy department, so they're cleaning out anything and everything that they don't need. Apparently there was a LOT of junk sitting around. So that was an hour of sorting papers and whatnot, but it wasn't hard and it went pretty quickly~ Then I actually got to meet with Vicki, and I get to start dealing with Chandra data soon, which is a little scary but it looks like I can use SExtractor, so that's promising?

Then I came home and ate and immediately went out to get a flask for Lucy - I found something close at Michael's for a dollar, yay! - and then I got fabric for Pippi, which was a bit more expensive than I'd hoped, but not too bad overall (about $40). Then I decided to go see Hellboy II. :D; I was one of probably five people in the theater, alas, but it was actually a pretty good movie. I mean, it's Hellboy so of course it's going to be campy, but it was fun campy even if the plot was a bit see-through. I guess that's kind of what you get from comic book-based things, though, especially when they're like Hellboy. Things you forgive in comics seem a little more obvious in movies. But yeah, it was good, and points every time he gets to use the prehensile tail~ (I'm dumb. XD)

And then I came home and packed for AFO, which is going to be uber low-key but should be fun nonetheless, and involve as little walking in high heels as possible~ XD But I get to wear C.C. again, and I'm bringing Tenma, Setsuna, and Mulan as well. So hopefully I'll get pictures of the latter two, becasuse I have NONE. So I will be gone most of the weekend, leaving tomorrow afternoon and getting back Sunday night. Geez, I'm home for a week and I have to turn around and leave again. XD; Such is my life~ And I get to leave again in - OMG - two weeks for Dragon*Con. At least most of the time my grandma is visiting we'll be here. Now I just have to find a Sashi-sitter, because everyone I might normally ask is leaving! At least I got the rest of the wigs I needed, for about $10 apiece, which is very yay~ And Lucy's shoes arrived today! That was hella fast, but definitely no complaints here. :D

And for the rest of the night I may try to get a bit of writing done, or work on an app for the PJO RP I found. Because as soon as I realized it existed, a nymph and a half-blood decided to show up and demand attention. Geez. XD; But I am excited nonetheless~ Now to decide the half-blood's parentage... I was thinking Aphrodite, but I'm not so sure about that unless it was an atypical Aphrodite kid, which kind of defeats the purpose... Maybe Apollo. Or a scrawny Hepaestus kid. XD; That could be cute~ I keep picturing some weird mix between Alby and Nico. And I want to name him Xander. :D;

::shuts up now!::

Oh! But I forgot to mention the other day, but I have an amusing astronomy story. :D; When the new postdoc was moving stuff in, he asked me what our general hours were. So basically I said something like, "Well, most of us are here from 10 or 11 until 5 at least." And he said, "Ah, so you're morning people then." |D Ah, I love astronomers. Apparently I should no longer feel bad about showing up at 11. Well okay except I should. But I really did not want to get up today. :x

And now this song is stuck in my head. I suppose it's better than "Carrying the Banner" though. Man, that has been stuck in my head for days.

So, uh. I bring more pictures? Mostly just because I slaved away on this for most of the evening (from 7:30 until about now) so I figure at least I have something to show for it?

( Slytherin Quidditch robes progress~ )

AND NOW I AM TIRED. =_= I'm tempted to take tomorrow off from sewing, it would be kind of nice... And maybe I'll go to JoAnns and/or Michael's instead, to get Pippi supplies? Gah, I have to get the other two wigs I need, I'll do that tomorrow too. And I think I'm just going to wear my brown work boots for Pippi, which is totally wrong but I have no clue where I'm going to find her shoes. :x It'll be okay, I think~

So Leah moved out of the back of the office yesterday, finally clearing it out for the postdocs who are supposed to set up camp there. The first one arrived today; I totally forget his name (I am awful with names ;_;) but he seemed pretty cool. He's Australian. And he was amused by the action figures. :D; Always good!

Okay. Now I am going to go watch the rest of Return to Neverland, which I tried to do while eating dinner but then the power went out so I had to read and eat instead. And then maybe I'll work on my PJO story some more... or just get lazy and read or something. XD; I am beat!

So! As I promised Daisy, some progress pictures of Lucy!

( More info and pix below the cut~ )

Um... so that was what I've been working on since I got home? I finally got geomap and geotran to work for me at work, but now making the tables is not working. :x I think it must be a rule that nothing can go right on the first try. Alas. And I was going to start looking into how to download and/or analyze the Spitzer/Chandra data for these clusters, but that's apparently much easier said that done. Gah.

Watching Return to Neverland makes me want to make Peter Pan right now. :D; ::fail::

And now I want to either get some writing done, or get some more Percy Jackson read~

( Totally nothing but silly fangirl ramblings about things I don't think anyone else on my flist likes. XD; Just ignore~ )

... Okay, that really was pretty pointless. Hence the cut. XD; I seriously have this problem with my brain being in ten places, and none of them are reality. Guh.

At least I got some decent work done on Lucy's corset-thing tonight - probably not as much as I should've, but something's better than nothing, right? I really have to order wigs and stuff by, like, tomorrow. :x I think I've already picked them out, I just need to do it. And shoes for Lucy. I think I can get away with just black boots for the Quidditch stuff, and I realized my Kazuma gloves will work perfectly for that, so yay?

And now I'm not sure if I want to work on more Percy/Nico, more Weasley twins, or just go read more Titan's Curse or see what's on Disney. There was all this computer-y stuff I wanted to do, but now I don't feel like it so much anymore. And I swear this afternoon I really wanted to work on my Vereyeth thing, but I don't know where that desire went, either. There need to be more hours in the day, and fewer of them at work!

Trip pictures are coming, really. I just have to resize all ten million of them. >>; (And then Valerie gave me a check for "Trip with Harry Kim" and, well, isn't that the best crossover evar? ::is shot::) I miss Star Trek. Must be why I watched Generations and First Contact this weekend. ^^;

Woo, fail~

Wow, this morning was made of 'Abort, Retry, Fail.' I forgot my lunch and my computer. After I didn't hear the alarm for two hours. I think it's time to start putting it across the room again, except I'm not sure that ever did much, either. XD; I suppose when you don't want to get up, it makes ignoring the alarm unconsciously easier? D: At least Sashi woke me up at 10:30, many thanks to my kitty who needs to drink more water, I'm watching you!!.

Ahaha, and also all the food places are closed this week. ::faaaail:: I guess it's break week or something. At least Subway was open. Tuna sandwich and Percy Jackson helped, but now I'm back and I don't want to do work and this is not cool. Seriously, is being scatterbrained and lazy a medical problem? I need to take some anti-scatterbrained meds or something. >>;

Can I just go back to bed and try life again tomorrow?

Woo! We made it to LA! Valerie is mostly unpacked, the cat actually comes out from under the bed once in a while, and we have a couple of days to just hang around and visit people and whatnot (so if you are one of those aforementioned people, give me a call! XD).

That's about it for now - it would take a much longer entry to actually outline the trip, so suffice to say I am here and we are safe and I will be back in Gainesville Wednesday night (late). I haven't checked LJ or anything, and Valerie doesn't have internet yet (so I might not check it again until I get back, since Starbucks requires money for internet usage) so I'll attempt to check my giant flist then. :D; Hope everyone is having a good weekend and I'll talk to you all soon! <3

---

EDIT: ( Here, have three very random pictures :D )

ADSFJSP

( Why does life fall apart a day before you're going to leave town for a week and a half? )

Um. In other news, we are leaving for our Road Trip of Awesomeness to Reach LA in the morning. Late morning, probably, since I think we're not packing everything into the minivan until the morning. But I'm really looking forward to it, minor episodes of panic involving my cat aside. :D; We get to hit up the Grand Canyon and Hoover Dam and Vegas on the way, and I get to visit my awesome friends who live out in LA. Woo~ I'll definitely be keeping journal entries and pictures and stuffs.

Luff for all my friends, because everyone needs luff! <3 I haven't been around much because I've been going and going with no end in sight, but I swear hopefully things will slow down a little after the next few weeks. They'd better, because I really need a break. Explody Ali-chan is good for no one! (Well... I don't think so, anyway? XD)

I probably had more to say, but I'm exhausted and hungry. I'm going to go make dinner and share my bacon with Sashi.

SO here are some pictures from Metrocon, as well as of my C.C. costume. No links this time, just a cut, so, um, slightly picture-heavy. :D;

( Onward to the pictures! )

Whew, tired now! Gonna try to get out some tags before I head to bed. Ahhhh but I want to write more of my PJO fic. Guh, I think that might not happen 'till we're on the road and I'm bored, or possibly not until I get back.

Woo, Multidrizzling. Ah, the familiarity of a fruitless task. XD; I have apparently totally filled up my backup external harddrive. I have no idea how I did that already. o.O; I suppose I should go through and delete stuff...

Apologies (if they're in order, I suppose, though it's likely they're not?) for totally falling off the face of the earth. Last week was rounded out by finishing C.C. and heading off to Metrocon Friday through Sunday. It was a lot of fun, mostly just hanging out with Diana, Karen, and Monique. It was pretty chill, and the major plus was getting a staff badge in exchance for working the costume contest on Saturday (which saved me 65 bucks, which was major yay in light of this Very Expensive Trip I'm taking in a few days XD). I actually had quite a bit of fun helping out, so maybe I'll do it next year, too~ I mean, what's better than sitting around as C.C., eating Pizza Hut and trying to keep obnoxious drunk guys from leering at the underage girls? (Okay, well, you could take the obnoxious drunk guys out. There was some other event taking place at the convention center on Saturday as well, and there were drunk people all over the place. No, you cannot touch my hair, no, you cannot have my food, please go away and stop bothering us. :x) At least the guy helping me man the door, Chris, was pretty awesome too. And we kind of matched, since he was Hijikata from Gintama. Black costumes with gold bias tape FTW!

I really wanted to post some pictures of C.C., but alas I did not get any. I took ONE whole picture during the con, of a Lelouch staring angstily at my Lelouch plushie. XD; At least that was awesome. PLUS OMG. Diana is awesome. Because now I have Mickey and Jack Harkness on my desk. XD It's officially a party. Not to mention Luke Skywalker is trying to take out the Empy Child on top of the bookcase. She brought them back for me from AX, plus the holy-crap-so-awesome Tardis USB hub. XD I totally coveted that thing, I'm so excited~ Though I think that one may have to stay at home where I have more use for it.

Anyway, I've been djfafjaifaof-ing busy, trying to get my D*C costumes started before I leave for two weeks starting Saturday. I have Lucy fabric and the underdress is mostly done, and the outer skirt can probably get finished tonight. More on that later, I think. Plus I have a bunch of RP stuff to catch up on, and I'd like to get tags out tonight where I owe them in the HP-verse and such. And Jesse and Scott are coming over tonight to watch Cool Hand Luke. Because everybody needs to see that movie.

Speaking of movies, there are a whole bunch I want to see. skuldchan, are you interested in seeing either Hellboy 2 or X-Files while I'm out in LA? I'm guessing that without Valerie, I'm going to have to go see Kit Kitteridge on my own. :D;

I really need a costumes tag. I think I'm just afraid to go back through ALL my previous entries and apply it, because I bet I have a billion entries that would need tagging. D:

HEY WAIT. Someone moved my action figures around. XD Win. Though I'm not sure exactly what Ron is planning to do to Mal... >>; Aw, it's almost like having Valerie back.

Please make it be overwith. x_x; I need answers, but people haven't even replied to the emails I sent over the weekend. :x I'm going to give them until 12:30 or 1 or something, but then I'm writing more emails! I'm ALMOST THERE. Guh. In the meantime, I'll keep reading and rereading the instructions. Just to make sure I haven't missed something.

In the meantime, I'm going to take a tiny break because I've been here since before nine, which is pretty unusual for me. ^^; Think of how much more work I'd get done if I got up before 8 on a regular basis. >>; Of course, I couldn't sleep before 4 last night, so I'm guessing I'd be a lot more dead, too. And possibly heavier, because when I get up this early I need more food. XD;

Turns out a bunch of the PJO people at camphalfblood appear to like the same things I do! Whee? :D; AND I can post my fic! I think I'd better, uh, tone it down... which really isn't hard, given that most of the R-rated stuff is not necessary, and rather just stuff I came up with in my head at probably 2 in the morning because it sounded nice, or at least I thought so. So it's okay to take that out... except for the one bit that's kind of plot-relevant. Hm. I wonder if just implied stuff is okay? I suppose I should check. ^^; Otherwise I'm sure I can make something up~ I'm good at that!

In any case, I'd still like to start a fic comm, since people seemed interested. But at least now it's not just because I can't post Too Great a God~

Tonight is going to be filled with sewing and HP fanfic. I decree it so! AS SOON AS THIS THING IS DONE. :O

---

EDIT: Ahahaha, it's over by THREE MINUTES so far. XD;; I wonder if they'll care. Well, I mean, of course they will, but maybe they'll just stop at my allotted 12 hours and I won't have to juggle things to make it come out to exactly 12h.

Okay, back to under 12h by, like, seconds. XD; But I think my contact scientist is either very busy, or has forgotten about me. D: I am going to start freaking out soon. Or, well, just submit the thing and have it be possibly wrong. Probably the latter. But that's assuming that what I'm assuming is submitting actually is submitting. Eek I wish I knew for sure. I want my telescope time!

I CAN HAS SUBMITTED and forgotten English~. :D I'm going home!

The Gundam 00 communities were very amusing today~ XD Ah, that was fun. Summer Rendezvous on Meister Beach FTW. So totally FTW. XD; And then there was the naked picture of Aeolia Schenberg. Oh, God. Cannot unsee. |D;

ANYWAY. So I was watching Buffy. And Andrew was all complaining, "I didn't know what the marks on the knife meant, I thought they were just a pattern!" And Kennedy brings the knife over and he looks at it and goes, "Oh, this is such-and-such language. I can read it."

... WAIT. WHAT? You can't not know what it was and know how to read it at the same time. Admittedly, he used the knife maybe a few months ago, but he has not learned how to read demon in that amount of time. Most of that time he was busy being tied to a chair. Guuuuuuuys. Tiny writing snafu there. >>;

BUT I think Andrew is great~ He's really gotten much more awesome than last season. I will be sad when I have no more Buffy to watch.

Been working on the proposal on and off today... still haven't heard back about stuff, so I've just been trying to get the basics down. Hopefully tomorrow will just be filling stuff in. Though I think we can look at one or two clusters for more than an hour, and I'm betting it'll come down to me to make that decision. Gah, stressful! D: I just want it to be overwith. ;_; I'm at that point where I don't care anymore, but then that freaks me out because I haven't been working on it.

I also slept most of today, which I kind of didn't mean to do, but I was up until 4 trying to get my LJ to look cool before giving up and going with the layout I originally had planned on. ::dies:: Ah well. And tomorrow I'm going to try to get up and go in early so I can get this stupid proposal done and go home! And I may or may not decide to take Tuesday off to work on C.C. I managed to get the aklsdfjuai-ing hard parts of the top lined the way I wanted, and I'm rather proud of them! But now I have to finish the top part, and figure out the bootcovers, since I still have to modify those. And make the belts! Ahaha, this week will be a fun sewing week.

And then I realized that I only have, like, a month and a half-ish to prepare for Dragon*Con OMG. o.o; My mom said she'd be interested in making me a Quidditch sweater, so I emailed her info on that~ Otherwise I will just get the one from Whimsic Alley, which is $27 (at least on the website) and that is not a bad price at all! Plus, I don't know if my mom wants to spend the next month making me a sweater. XD; BUT then I figure that I will buy Lucy fabric next week and get to work on her... So I think Tinkerbell may get shoved out of the way, because Pippi Longstocking is easier and does not require wing guards. :D; Anyway, next week I will make lists and start in on the supply-buying. I will!

... Damn. I better enter some writing contests. Cash, I could use.

Well, after today, it's official. I apparently have the same taste in men as Andrew the formerly evil nerd. I think I should be scared. XD; But I swear, Warren is actually really cute when he's not being a total ass! In any case, there was totally an instance today where I had to pause the Buffy DVD to laugh for something like 30 seconds straight. ("Captain Archer~") Awesome. XD

In other news, I think this stupid evil proposal might actually be winding down. It might not be correct, but at least it's getting done. That's a good thing? I didn't have to do as much work on it today as I thought I would, because I'm still waiting to hear back on if I filled everything out correctly. But even if I haven't heard back by tomorrow, I'm going to do a little more filling in. At least I'll have gotten started...

I guess in the meantime I should work on C.C. or something... Only half-inspired, because I'm feeling kind of groggy; I couldn't sleep last night, I think I wandered around until something like 4:30 before I finally passed out. I got up at 12 though, so that's not *too* late, considering.

I kind of want a new journal layout. And maybe to pick a new default icon, only I'm not totally in love with any of the other layouts I've been looking at. Ah well, that's neither here nor there.

... Have I mentioned this song is stalking me? o.O;