Rachel: I've been spending a lot of time working on my Halloween costume.

Cynthea: Whatcha gonna be????

R: A superhero of course! Nightwing to be exact.

C: Of course! Lol, wasn't he a duck?

R: *blink* A...duck...?

C: Oh that was Darkwing.

Once upon a time there was a girl who loved Batman very much. She loved him so much that she found Batman sheets, and they were her favorite sheets in the whole wide world. She took them all the way to Prague with her, and brought them back home again, where she washed them and carefully put them away to use the next time she changed her sheets.
Then one day the girl decided it was time to put fresh sheets on the bed. But where had they gone? She looked everywhere for her beloved Batman sheets, but to no avail. They had vanished. The girl mourned for many days and many nights, until she finally died of a broken heart.
The end.



Ok seriously, how the hell did I lose my sheets?? I swear to god stuff in my room has decided it liked the Czech Republic better and hitchhiked back to Prague. I'm missing the most random stuff, which makes no sense because yes, my room is messy, but because it's already so full of stuff there weren't that many places to shove my unpacking into. The range of places that things from Prague could be is very small! What the hell!

Batman, come back to me!
:'(

LeftArrow, look! http://www.flickr.com/photos/walkerspace/2826435819/in/pool-superhero-costumes

Snyper, if we go to a con as Nightwing and Robin, we absolutely need to drag Halo along as Superboy. And Chien as Impulse. And...then I'm a 4th wheel. Damn. http://www.flickr.com/photos/walkerspace/2826410789/in/pool-superhero-costumes
And a Northstar just for yooooou. http://www.flickr.com/photos/10078808@N02/1130530201/in/pool-superhero-costumes I recognized him from the costume, aren't you proud of me?

( The DCU in metallic spandex )


Yesterday a customer asked me what I was being for Halloween. I shyly replied, "A superhero".
"Oh really? My son's being zombie Spiderman!"
"Oh how cool! I think that's actually canon, I'm pretty sure Marvel did some zombie comics. That's a great idea!"
"Yeah, he's been obsessed with Spiderman since he was 4 years old."
"How old is he now?"
"22."
I didn't ask her to hook me up with her son.
But I was tempted.


Anybody know anything about the Syracuse or Toronto comicons? I'm finding depressingly little info online.

I can't find my boots. Dammit. I'm trying to look at the bright side, this way I can modify them...
Anyways, can my Rochester people please remind me where the stripper stores are? I need a stretch boot and I think those're the most likely to have them (though I may not be able to find a heel I can walk in). I know exactly the boot I want...but I can't find it so I may have to settle for gogo boots. Which would normally be pretty lame on a male superhero, but let's be honest, Nightwing would totally wear gogo boots. Nightwing probably has worn gogo boots...

Does anyone have some way for me to read the infamous, and very old, DC Nation #45? I never got around to it at the time, and now I want to.

My unitard came in the mail today, yay! As expected, it's not designed for tall skinny girls. I'm still a little disappointed though, I thought maybe dancewear would fit better. The legs and hips are perfect, but the arms are a little baggy, the girth (torso length) is too short (superwedgie!) and most annoyingly the waist is way too big. Combined with the short girth, this means that instead of having a nice clingy waist it's pulled tight. So the front and back go straight down, making me look a lot thicker than I actually am. :( But I double-checked online and none of the other options seem any better, the few that might fit better don't come in the kind of unitard I need. Grr. If I go another size up the girth will fit, but then everything else will be loose...but it still might fit better...
Well anyways, the parents pitched in and donated some of their old clothes to the cause. I now have some blue tights (possibly the elementary school ones!) to use for the Nightwing symbol and a top to cut up for the mask. So now all I have to buy are gloves! And I have to find my fuckme boots, which is actually worrying me because I haven't yet encountered them in my room wanderings. :( I didn't give them to anyone did I? If I gave them to you, can I please have them back? It would be the height of irony if I had to buy black boots for a Halloween costume.

I need a new trenchcoat. I tried Burlington's, which is where I got my old one, but they didn't have anything good. Anyone know any other places in Rochester to go for trenchcoats?

I'm watching Supernatural with my parents, finally. I was superexcited about sharing my boys with them, but...it's not working. They don't really like it. :( They occasionally laugh, but they seem to be focusing more on the horror side, which is bad because they don't like horror. They don't seem to really get the Winchesters. We just took a break because Dad wanted to watch something lighter, which in this case meant SGA (ya know, the show with an ongoing war, frequent death, disturbing morality, and Constant Peril). But...Supernatural is light...

My question to you is: How long did it take for you to get into Supernatural? Did you love it from the beginning or did you have to reach a certain point in the show before it clicked? We just finished Bugs, episode 8. Most of the things I love best about the show come later in the series, so part of me wants to try and get them to stick it out at least until the end of S1. But if they're not liking it after 8 eps maybe they never will, and I don't want to force them to watch something they'll always hate.

My view might be skewed - I've been watching it for so long that I barely notice the horror anymore, and I honestly can't remember when I truly fell in love with the show. I'm pretty sure that I fell for Sam and Dean the first episode (possibly during the fight in the kitchen). But when I asked Mom if she liked Sam or Dean better she said she didn't like either of them as much as Rodney or John. :( And if you don't like the brothers, you're never going to like the show. I actually never expected Mom to be crazy into it, but I thought Dad at least would like it. Road trip in a muscle car! Crazy motels and diners! America! I think most of the things I like about the show come from my dad, and Mom's flist backed me up on the SPN watching, so I'm rather bewildered at the lack of enthusiasm. Where did I go wrooooong? Is love truly so blind?

Anyways, thoughts? Should I give up or urge them to keep watching?

My thought process: "Hm, I should dig through my stuff and see if I have anything I can use for my Halloween costume. I'm pretty sure I don't have anything made of blue spandex though...oh wait! I had those blue spandex tights back in elementary school...I'm pretty sure we got rid of those though. Damn, I should've held onto them, then I wouldn't have to buy more material."

BAD PACKRAT. NO COOKIE.

My dad got a new car, yay! Problem is, he has to pick it up on Monday, which he needs the car for, but I need to work from 13:30-21:30, which I need the car for. Could anybody give me a ride to and from work? Or maybe one way and I can get someone else to drive me the other way? I live in Spencerport/Chili and I work in Penfield. It's about a 30min drive. I will of course pay for gas, and maybe give you brownies or something from my room.
Pretty please with sugar on top?

For a long time people have been asking me who I was voting for, and I didn't really have an answer. Living in NY means that no matter what I vote we'll be blue, and I was expecting to be out of the country for the election so I wasn't going to bother with an absentee ballet. Plus I tried to avoid political discussions with my students and fellow travelers. Also, back when I was in DC, everyone was saying that no way in hell would the Republicans win and there was no doubt that a Democrat would be our next president. So basically, I wasn't paying much attention.

Since coming home, I've heard of a lot of people supporting Obama, but for rather nebulous reasons. As in, I hadn't heard a single reason, issue stance or plan or whatever, from anyone.
On the other hand, the McCain supporters were pretty clear that they thought he was going to be much better economically than Obama but without the crazy Religious Right stances that Bush had. So I was pondering voting for McCain.

I finally checked out their websites (and some peripheral sources) and I'm voting Obama.

( Reasons )

My point here is that McCain is planning to legislate on social/ethical issues, and he's a typical Republican stancewise. So if you're supporting him with the idea that he's a magical blend of leftwing morals and rightwing economics, time to reexamine your position.

Sources:
http://www.johnmccain.com/Informing/Issues/95b18512-d5b6-456e-90a2-12028d71df58.htm
http://obama.3cdn.net/795174956a7f432e93_4iiemv52b.pdf
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/tanene-allison/mccain-on-gay-rights-no-m_b_130268.html

If anyone needs a unitard for their costume, or wants to be a superhero of any kind, I highly recommend checking out

http://www.riversedgedancewear.com/lonsleevslee.html
and
http://www.spandexman.com

River's Edge Dancewear has...everything. It's insane. It makes me wish I needed something more interesting than black...::ponders obscure heroes::...

Spandexman has pre-made superhero unitard plus a bunch of others. I think this is where that Superboy hottie got his costume. And here I was admiring his sewing skill...

BTW, if you need some inspiration, check out these sweet con costumes.
http://www.greatwhitesnark.com/2007/07/31/gallery-of-costumes-from-comic-con-international-2007-part-one/
Serious kudos to Adam Strange and the Blackhawk. See the thing is, I know nobody will recognize me in Rochester if I'm someone other than Robin, but obscure heroes are fun! Unfortunately, obscure heroes are generally much more difficult to make costumes for too...I mean, someone like Huntress? Sweet jesus you'd have to make every single thing from scratch, and buy weapons, and learn to walk in heels...
Edit: Speaking of Huntress...http://www.thebatsquad.net/snipe/dragoncon2007/IMG_1336.jpg That girl with the ab costume? WINS.

As you may know, my family needs another car. My vote?

The black 1983 Camaro that someone on our street is selling for $3000.

Ok, it's the least practical car possible. But...Batmobile! Metallicar! (yes i know it's not that exact car but my muscle car options are limited) And it's from the year I was born! We were meant to beeeee.

Although really, if I want a Batmobile, what I need to do is steal Dad's 1971 Corvette and paint it black...and, ya know, get it to run. Because right now it's a 1971 Corvette-shaped lawn ornament.

Anyways...anyone have a spare car?
We also need another monitor, I know someone has a few extra lying around from their LAN party days...
I'll trade you...something. What do you want? I probably have it somewhere in my room.

In other news...

&hearts&hearts&hearts&hearts&hearts&hearts&hearts&hearts&hearts&hearts&hearts&hearts&hearts&hearts&hearts&hearts&hearts&hearts&hearts&hearts&hearts&hearts&hearts
&hearts&hearts my Supernatural DVDs came!&hearts&hearts
&hearts&hearts&hearts&hearts&hearts&hearts&hearts&hearts&hearts&hearts&hearts&hearts&hearts&hearts&hearts&hearts&hearts&hearts&hearts&hearts&hearts&hearts&hearts

So while I was at the climbing festival I tried slacklining. It's basically tightrope walking, and it's surprisingly hard. The webbing goes all crazy when you stand on it, so it's kinda like trying to walk on a 1" rope while some asshole is shaking it really hard. It took me a Lot of tries to stand up on it (we had it tied between 2 trees at about waist height so you had to put one foot on and push up), and then a dozen+ more tries to stay on instead of just catapulting myself off the other side. Eventually I stayed on for 3 seconds, and for whatever reason couldn't get past that time. I was still proud. :)
Look at me go!

That's while I'm still rising up I think, because there's another pic where I'm straighter but I have a really weird look on my face from thinking "I am looking at the tree not the ground I am looking at the tree" so hard, so I'ma use this one.

Anyways, I want to set up a slackline in my yard. I was trying to figure out how to do it in my room, but I can't figure out how to attach one end to the pole without sticking something to the pole (the other end could go on my punching bag). I think my balance has improved just from that one time, because I'm out of shape and waaaaay out of MA practice but my balance is much better than it should be. Worth a try! Does anyone else do this, and maybe want to show me how to tie a good knot?

I'm starting to get back in shape, finally. Ronon is my inspiration. &hearts Rowr.
After a couple months of not working out (obviously aside from walking I wasn't exercising in the Balkans and then September was just crazy) I'm low on muscle tone and flexibility, but it's always kind of comforting to see that no matter how long it's been since I've been athletic, I never return to my pre-Kuk Sool Won levels. I can always touch my toes, I can always stand on one leg, I can always do a few pushups...pathetic I know, but I was really the antonym of jock before KSW. :D Anyways, between Teyla, Ronon, and the fact that I'll be a superhero for Halloween, I have a lot of incentive to get back in shape Very Fast.

Ah, it's been very very good to be home. I've spent most of my time watching Stargate Atlantis with Mom. Nobody does marathons like the Amon ladies. We're just finishing up Season 2 now. She's finally agreed to watch Supernatural, so as soon as it comes in from Amazon we'll be tackling that, and Ryan's also interested in seeing it. I may not leave the couch for a month.

All in all I've had a quintessentially Rochesterian week. The day after I got home I hung out with Adriana, and as usual we drove around in circles because we always get lost when we drive together, which is weird because I'm fine whenever she's not in the car. But usually we find something cool, like an X-wing. Anyways, eventually we made our way to Bruegger's (tradition! and pumpkin cream cheese.) and also the Art Store and Toys R Us where she graciously allowed me to drool over the toys as long as I wanted. If you haven't yet seen them, I highly recommend checking out the Heroes toys. They're shockingly good, both the scuplts and the accessories, and Claude has an invisible alternate which is fantastic.

Please note what accessories Claude is supposed to have.
Yeah. Someone stole his wallet.

Last night I hung out with Dif and Ryan, 2 of my geeks. We saw Iron Man at Movies 10 (which apparently can no longer be called "the dollar theater" as it's raised the prices to $2.50), which was just as good as I remember it being. Then we went to Ihop for the first proper pancakes and really nice waiter I've had in a year. He even joined in the Hunt for Butter Pecan Syrup. The pumpkin pancakes are delicious btw (i &hearts fall).
Then we drove around for a couple hours doing nothing in particular, considered the lake/Dif's bro's hot tub but rejected them as too far away, rejected Big Lots as probably closed, stopped by some apartments but didn't bother seeing the people in them. Ah, high school. Eventually we hit Show World (the crappy Henrietta one because the proper Monroe one closed, I swear I leave for one little year and my city goes to hell) to see if they had the Sexy Robin Costume (my minions failed to locate it however), and checked out the new UberWegmans where Dif found Party Size mac+cheese that was bigger than his head. Oh and we ran into people we knew at both Movies 10 and Wegmans, and got gas at the Tiny Iraq. A truly typical Rochester night.

Today Dad came home from his ski-training-that-didn't-involve-skis and brought me Awesome Presents. Apparently they had a scavenger hunt at a flea market and he found spare time to pick up a couple things.

Is that not the scariest Adam West you've ever seen? :D The mag is from right after the TV show first came out, and the Superman they're referring to is the musical. The Batmobile is a tin that had some old Batsignal candy in it. I've been trying to pinpoint exactly when it's from, I'm a wee bit stumped. The Tim and Batmobile look like they're from the early 90s yes? However, the tag that came with it said "Watch Batman on Cartoon Network". The font doesn't make it clear which Batman series it is, I'm guessing BtAS since The Batman usually has very distinctive merchandise. However, I don't think BtAS aired on CN until 2001. Were they still using this BM/Tim design then? Also, that's the same Batmobile design as on my toothbrush, which is fairly new. I know just enough to confuse myself. :D Can a superior fan please clear this up for me?
Regardless, they're awesome. :)

It's good to be home.

It is the time once again for ImageOut! &hearts I'm so happy that I came home in time to go. :) It's the biggest LBGT film festival in the region along with some community and art programs and parties, and it's always awesome. You can check out this year's films at http://www.imageout.org/2008/08_festschedule.htm If you've never gone before and would like some input on what to see and how the whole thing works, I'm happy to help, ask away. Hope to see you there!

Ah, it's good to be back in the land of Movies 10.
I need to see Kung Fu Panda and Indiana Jones, and I'd be happy to see Iron Man again.
And can we just take a moment to relish the geek-to-normal ratio at Movies 10 right now? 60%. Nice.

Anyways, if anyone would like to see any of those movies and me, let me know. Let's be efficient!

Mom was showing me SGA fanvids and this song caught my attention, probably because of the strings. At first I didn't like it but it's grew on me, then I couldn't stop listening to it, and now I have to share it. Especially since there are a couple people who could use it right now.

That's all. Just letting you know I made it. :)