Advertisement

Customize
Introduction (aka about this journal)
Hello and welcome. This is, fairly obviously, my online journal / blog / whathaveyou. Come, put up your metaphorical webtravelling shoes; won't you have a read for a while?

I also, like 11 million other people, play World of Warcraft. My main characters are:

  • Shukeralle, unguilded level 80 night elf druid (server: Aggramar)
  • Donda, level 72 tauren druid, also on Aggramar. Is in the "Hordes of Hell" giuld.
  • ...and an army of alts

Categories
anime books consumerism conventions cosplay dnd drawing dreams evolution exercise games general_woes grit impenetrable_writing intelligent_design links lj_meta_stuff manga martial_arts memes movies pc_woes polls politics reviews science star_trek star_wars work writing
Current Month
1234567
891011121314
15161718192021
22232425262728
2930
Apr. 4th, 2009 @ 07:16 pm How to make a Rorscharch mask for cheap
Current Location: Slightly embarassed
Current Music: The mockery of my peers, ringing in my ears
Tags:
How to make a Rorscharch mask for $0

You need the following:

Two triangular bandages from the First Aid Kit, which you haven't used for at least four years
A marker you can use to draw on clothes, that was probably left in the house by one of your brothers when they lived there
Three pieces of A4 paper
Some sort of cardboard
Stickytape

1) Fold one piece of paper in half and press it against your face, keeping the half-line in the middle of your face. Mark on the other side of the paper where your eyes, nose, and mouth are.

2) Ink in a symmetrical Rorscharch inkblot pattern on the paper. This is where the other pieces of paper come in - put them under the paper so you don't accidentally put a big black inkblot on your table.

3) Tape the inkblotted paper to the cardboard.

4) Placing one triangular bandage against the next, wrap the now-double-width bandage around your head in a suitably head-covering fashion. Tie a knot or two so that you don't have to work out how to wrap it around your head all over again. Now, with the bandages wrapped around your head, make some marks on the head-covering where your eyes, nose, and mouth are.

5) Remove bandages and realise you can't see the marks. Repeat step 4 until you can see the marks.

6) This bit is important to get right. Tape the suitably marked bandage to the cardboard so you can see the inkblotted paper through it. Stretch out the bandage and line up where your eyes are on it to where they should be on the inkblot.

7) Ink away.

8) Leave mask to dry overnight. You might be excited and want to try the mask out, but not breathing in ink fumes is a good idea.

9) Run a few tests the next night and realise that despite your best efforts, the pattern on the bandage is still askew and looks awful.

10) Wear it anyway.

11) (Optional Step) Get propositioned for hugs by a blue girl.

(EDIT)

12) Be quite embarassed and prefer not to post pics.

13) (Required step) Provide pics anyway.

I've only found one online so far, and it just shows how iffy the costume was.

Rorscharch and Haruhi.

If I ever do this again I'm constructing the mask in a different way. Perhaps like this, or like this.
About this Entry
Showtime
5 comments
Leave a comment
Permanent Link
Apr. 4th, 2009 @ 06:34 pm Supanvoa...!
Tags: , ,
Rorscharch's journal, 4th of April, 2009

Today very hot, and lots of people. Other people have made it hotter. People dressed in bizarre costumes. Was propositioned by people for photographs, and propositioned for hugs by a blue girl.

...

All right, that's quite enough of those silly ramblings.

Steven Scougall's Livejournal, 4th of April, 2009.

Supanova is on in Brisbane this weekend. As recent entries indicate, last night and some of today, I was cosplaying as Rorscharch from Watchmen.

Dear god, but cosplaying as Rorscharch is really really uncomfortable. The costume is really designed for night time in New York, not during the hot daytime of Brisbane. I was in a heavy leather jacket with the collar turned up, a constricting full-head mask, a cheap hat, and cheap wool gloves. Not a single part of my skin was visible, and this on a hot day in Brisbane. I got very very hot and sweaty. Not only that, it's quite hard to see with the mask on. I could see reasonable detail up close, shapes and colours further out, and it was all rather fuzzy.

Not to mention, after I finished making the mask I realised the Rorscharch inkblot pattern was crooked and I had no time or materials to fix it.

Despite fearing that it looked really cheap and nasty, I still got quite a few appreciative comments last night and was photographed quite a few times. Not to mention, I was propositioned for a hug by a girl cosplaying as a blue Twi'lek this morning. This is a new and strange experience.

I'm not cosplaying as Rorscharch anymore, though.

Other stuff:

Last night I was mainly there for the screening of "The Girl Who Leapt Through Time." Enjoyed it.

Unfortunately a lot of today is a bit of a blur. A white and black blur, to tell the truth. I was out-of-sorts a lot because of the costume, I hadn't prepared, I didn't have any plan or anything I was wanting to buy, and didn't enter any of the competitions. I sat in on the Anime Trivia, as I usually do, and was able to answer all but one of the questions in Rounds one and two. Round Three, the hard round, floored me though.

Iron Artist continues to suck. I remember once when there was a Quickdraw event: Two contestants get up in front of the audience and had a minute to draw something, one would win and the other would lose. I entered it a couple of times. It was fun.

Now, though, there's an event called Iron Artist - five artists in front of the audience have twenty minutes to draw something, and the announcers try to keep people interested in the proceedings. I didn't even bother going this time.

There are quite a few anime goods vendors besides Tamarket these days, which is good to see. Unfortunately, the days of being able to buy the full boxsets of Cardcaptor Sakura seasons 1 and 2 from an import vendor seem to be long gone. I picked up a Claymore poster (of Teresa I think) and an Angela CD, though. They don't compare to the imported full boxsets of shows we'll never get in Australia, but they're certainly a lot cheaper.

The cosplay competition took absolutely forever (and it seemed longer because of my costume, of course). The only things I can clearly remember are:
* Tenten from Naruto dancing to the Numa Numa song
* Gendo Ikari pulling a Seele box down to the ground, resting his elbows on it and doing the "hands folded in front of mouth" pose, and the screen saying "Gendowned." (*)
* A Harry Potter group doing a quick summary of Half-Blood Prince to "Bohemian Rhapsody"

(*) The smart-arsed screen with a mind of its own was back.

The system from last year where a gong would sound and the microphones cut out after two minutes really needs to come back.

Security continues to suck. I realise it's probably out of Supanova's hands, but Security still amounts to "take this armband, put it on, and don't take it off for the entire weekend." Can I just say I really hate this system? It makes it hard to wash, and right now the armband is getting caught on the edge of my keyboard a lot as I type.

Tomorrow I might go in with a better plan - and certainly no Rorscharch costume!

On that, I noticed a couple of other Rorscharchs. I talked to one of them - he was having a bit of trouble with vision too.

More on tomorrow's stuff - in a world first, the new Full Metal Alchemist series is being in shown in Australia at the same time as in Japan, premiering tomorrow night at Supanova. I'm torn. I would *love* to go, but the problem is I haven't finished watching the first FMA yet.

Yeah, I'm really behind the times.
About this Entry
3 comments
Leave a comment
Permanent Link
Apr. 4th, 2009 @ 07:10 am And they shall cry out, "cosplay us!" And I will reply, "No"
Tags: , ,
Rorscharch's journal, 3rd April 2009

Find myself in strange place, surrounded by strangers. One says will be wearing my face tomorrow. Eerie. Bears investigating.
About this Entry
Leave a comment
Permanent Link
Nov. 1st, 2008 @ 04:02 pm Halloween
Tags: ,
And finally, yesterday at work, the Business Casual Friday dress code combined with Halloween made for some interesting results.

My boss dressed up as Jason from... whatever that movie series, Ronnie had Freddy Krueger's hat and claws, I was a very black-clad Phantom of IT, but the show was well and truly stolen when Michael and Gabriel walked in in Sith costumes and makeup, with the Imperial March playing from Michael's phone.

It well and truly stopped the meeting I was in at the time. :)
About this Entry
Leave a comment
Permanent Link
Apr. 8th, 2008 @ 10:00 am Supanova comes again
Current Music: Wana, by The Back Horn
Tags: , ,
So once again Supanova came to Brisbane. And of course I went. Here are some of my thoughts.

Preview night

  • Didn't go this time. The only thing that looked vaguely interesting was the anime charity auction.

Day 1

  • Wrestling related stuff. Including a WRESTLING RING. Where they had WRESTLING MATCHES.

  • In anime theater, had the Sarcastic Screen. The AV guys would very frequently type a message and put it up on screen. Especially amusing in the cosplay where an otherwise boring act is suddenly livened up by the screen suddenly showing, "no u" or "wins on whining" or "and the point is..."

  • Given a wristband... for the entire weekend. "Don't take it off. Do everything this weekend with it still on. Shower with it on, etc. etc. with it on." Nuts to that. I put it on as loose as possible and eventually figured out a way to tease it off over my hand. Now, will have to work out how to put it back on.

  • Didn't do much buying of stuff.

    • Was shuttling between events a lot, and so the time I spent amongst the vendors was short and disjointed and disorganised.
    • Also, wasn't really looking for anythign in particular... except for Nodame 3,7,8,11 and Welcome to NHK 3, 4, 5, 6.
    • Found Nodame 3, 7, 8 very early on. BONUS! Didn't find 11 though. Bugger.
    • No luck with Welcome to NHK.
    • Saw a Kureha (from Ninja Gaiden) figurine. Vaguely thought of getting it, however she has a very small role in the game (get stabbed, gasp out "Ryu!", die). Also, her boobs are off-puttingly huge. Even given that she's from Team Ninja.
    • Poked listlessly around at the places selling anime-related goods. Didn't find very much to interest me. There was a Negima wallscroll that looked interesting (Setsuna, Konoka, Asuna, Nodoka) at Tamarket, but when I picked it up a guy said "Oh, are you going to buy that? Because my brother's off getting money to get it." To which I said, "OK, fine. You should hold onto it instead of leave it in the box." I am checking at Tamarket ASAP tomorrow morning.
    • Went and got a cheap Bleach wallscroll in response to that messup.


  • The EB booth had a big section for Singstar. It was kind of fun to gawk at for a bit.
  • They also had a Naruto fighting game for the Wii on freeplay. I gawked at that for a bit. It looks interesting. I can't help but wonder how well it will really control... I don't think the Wiimote + Nunchuk system is really suited to a fighting game.

  • Much like last year, the only stall specifically devoted to anime goods was Tamarket. However there were a quite a few stalls that had anime goods 'on the side'... except that it was more front and center. Daily Planet, for instance, was very low on the manga and comics and had a whole bunch of anime goods around.

  • Cosplay competition standouts:

    • Master Chief! OMG! He had the armor and everything!
    • A very funny Kingdom Hearts / Bleach crossover. "What world are we in?" "We're in the world of blek." "World of BLEACH." "That's what I said, world of blek." "Excuse us, but we're having a deadly showdown between Shinigami here." "Ex*cuse* me, this is a Disney characters-only conversation." "Oh no, who's this?" "It's a self-insert character! Quick! Stop her!" They won best skit. Their costumes were good as well, though one of the Shinigami had pre-heel turn Aizen's hair and glasses, #13 on his back (and #13's captain coat style), and was referred to as Gin. WTF?
    • Two young kids were a very adorable Monkey and Tripitaka. Tripitaka couldn't remember her lines so Monkey would have to whisper her lines to her. Very very cute. They got a Best Kids cosplay.
    • Too many Ls... and most of them weren't very good at being L, either! Most were like "I'll wear a white shirt and blue jeans and be L!" Like, half of them didn't even bother with the hair or eyeshadow, and hardly any got his speech patterns or slouch or mannerisms correct.
    • However, someone actually cosplayed as the Death Note. Really.
    • There was a Ryuk. Not the best Ryuk ever, but at least someone tried to cosplay as one of the more difficult-to-cosplay characters from Death Note.
    • Bizarre two ninjas and a catgirl skit. Ninjas spout some gibberish. Catgirl dies. Ninjas fight. Moral: Whenever you bring logic into a cosplay skit, god kills a catgirl. Please, think of the catgirls.


  • A weird samurai martial arts demo. "Samurai Martial Arts" as in bow, spear, sword, unarmed jujutsu, gun techniques. Some very small sparring, some very small kata. Not the best martial arts demo I've ever seen. Used Tsugaru (from DDR) as one of the background tracks.

  • Went to see Michael Winslow. Not a lot of substance - he didn't say much about how he makes the noises (he's not too sure himself), or when he first found he could make such varied noises. Used any excuse for comedy and to make noises though! So not a lot of substance, but very fun nonetheless.

  • Saw a little of James Kyson Lee's panel.

    • Masi Oka is like a geek to work with. ^_^
    • "It was weird", he said, about being a Korean playing a Japanese character. He didn't say much about the disconnect, and spoke more about the Japanese language training he had to do.
    • Spoke about how he got the part... IIRC he started off auditioning as Hiro, made a very big impression, but Masi Oka was much more suited to being Hiro and so James ended up as Ando.
    • That's all I saw before I took off for the cosplay comp.


  • Anime Trivia

    • Went to see what the questions were like and try answering them myself.
    • There were TWENTY TEAMS in a relatively small room... it was quite the squeeze.
    • Did bad in first round, better in later rounds.
    • Weird question - "What is under Kakashi's mask?" Uh, he wears a facemask and a hitai-ate. They are distinct. Under his facemask is his lower face. Under his hitai-ate is 'his' Sharingan eye.
    • I wrote down the questions for round 1, started writing the questions for round 2, then went 'fuck it.' and stopped writing the questions.
    • Lots of questions on Cowboy Bebop! What is the name of Spike's ship, what do Cowboys refer to, what is real age of Faye? There was quite a bit of surprise on the part of the questioner when she learned that some of the teams were like, "We haven't seen Cowboy Bebop, it's an old anime."
    • Question on El Hazard! (What does the drunkard Mr Fujiwara have to do in order to get his power?)
    • What is the name of the ship in Captain Tyler? Isn't it the Soyokaze?


Day 2

  • Got wristband back on no trouble
  • When lining up, there was an interesing scene: The police, questioning one of the con-goers, who had dressed as an Army Marine and hd guns of all sorts slung around his person.
  • Saw my boss there - he'd taken his kids along.
  • A bit lighter on events this time.
  • Got to Tamarket like INSTANTLY as soon as I got in the door. Got one of the other Negima wallscrolls...
  • ...then, in poking around, discovered a Konoka and Setsuna poster at another stall (Anime Trading Figurines). Only small sized, but excellent nonetheless, and basically performs the function I was looking for in the wallscrolls. It was the last one the shop had. Snapped it up right quick.

  • Karaoke

    • full of technical difficulties and communication glitches
    • One girl even had the wrong song. She soldiered on regardless, because she had the lyrics for the wrong song with her. Go girl.
    • Very few male performers.
    • The best solo performer, I thought, was a Chisa from Wolf's Rain cosplayer, singing a Wolf's Rain song. However, the lyrics were in English so this probably stopped her from winning. I've noticed this in earlier years - a few years ago there was one girl who sang "Fly me to the moon", and she was like a pro singer. Did she win? No.
    • Above two points really make me want to get up next time and belt out Happy People or Life is Like a Boat, both of which have plenty of English lyrics. ^_^
    • Rick Astley. While the judges deliberated, they tried to work out what to do to make things interesting for the audience. "I know, let's put on some music. Just no Rick Astley." The AV guys put Rick Astley on. Everyone started singing along, and hopping up on stage.


  • Cosplay

    • Something that occurred a few times was 'The Gong'. Whenever a cosplayer or group of cosplayers took too long (or presumably bored the AV people too much) there was a gong sound and the mikes were turned off.
    • "Gong gong gong" became a popular chant when the audience thought something was not working out well.
    • TOOK TOO DAMN LONG. The announcer interviewed any cosplayer that wasn't performing a skit. This lengthened the cosplay ocmp by at least 50 min!
    • A well done cosplay skit engages the audience regardless of their familiarity with the character and source material. 90% of cosplayers don't seem to get this. FAR too many skits that were strange, stupid, pointless, and/or boring.
    • WHEN SPEAKING INTO A MICROPHONE, HOLD IT HORIZONTAL A SHORT DISTANCE IN FRONT OF YOUR MOUTH AND SPEAK CLEARLY. 90% of cosplayers don't seem to get this.
    • A skit based on Adventurers wbecomic. Not familiar with it, but this skit shows *how* to do a skit based on something the audience doesn't know: "We realise that most of you have no idea who we are. Here are three short sketches based on webcomic that will help." And they *were* short. And pretty funny.
    • Far too often: "Come on guys, clap!" No! We do not want to clap! It's been two hours, the cosplayers you're telling us to clap for are BORING, and stop interviewing everyone because that makes them sound more boring! I shall politely flap my hands together for precisely 8.9 seconds instead!
    • TOO MANY Ls. STOP COSPLAYING AS L PLEASE. And too many Death Note cosplays. But still, a couple of Deathnote / L highlights - when the stage hand, dressed as L, hurried on stage to deliver a second mike to another L. They both shuffled and slouched around and passed the mike around in L's distinctive style. Second was the last act, and I was groaning and going "not another Death Note act, especially as the last one," and then they did the Hare Hare Yukai dance.
    • KISS! Four guys dressed up (very well) as KISS. They got on stage, got out some instruments (including drums) and mimed "Rock and roll allnight"


  • Madman panel

    • I always go to this
    • Yet this time I wondered why, exactly, I was going. It's not small and friendly like it was to start off, a few years ago. It's not all ainme related news these days either.
    • Plus, a glimmer of doubt - they will start with Blu Ray releases later this year. What does this mean for their regular DVD releases? How much longer will they stay with them?


  • Got rid of hated wristband ASAP once the con was done.


Ending thoughts

  • Still cheesed off that Tamarket is the only anime-goods-specific nonlocal shop coming to Brisbane Supanvoa anymore.
  • OK, I tell a slight lie. There was "Anime Trading Figures". Still, a distinct lack of anime-related stalls, compared to the earlier years. It results in Tamarket being mobbed very very quickly on Saturday morning and very very quickly selling all the really popular stuff.
About this Entry
4 comments
Leave a comment
Permanent Link
Apr. 18th, 2007 @ 04:31 pm The Supanova Convention this past weekend
Tags: , ,
So. This past weekend, Supanova convention came to town again.

My reaction to it this year was a little mixed. There were two things that really annoyed me this year.

First of all, there was only one anime goods vendor this year, Tamarket. In comparison to past years, where there've been multiple anime goods vendors, this was absolutely woeful. One of the reasons I go to Supanova is to see what interesting loot I can pick up, whether it's Region 1 DVDs, artbooks, Japanese-language manga, soundtracks, maybe a wallscroll, and even a couple of figurines once.

None of that this time. It was mainly just Tamarket this year. Nuts to that.

Second, not so much the convention itself, was that this year I didn't participate in any events. In past years, I have, at least, participated in the Anime Trivia event. Not even that this year. I sat towards the back of the hall and tried to answer the questions myself, just to see how much I knew. I got a dismal 7.5 points out of 32.

Despite that opening salvo of negativity, I did have fun. There was an interesting panel on mythologies and worldbuilding for fantasy/sci fi writers, and the events (cosplay, karaoke) were, as always, a blast.

Notable costumes

There was a garish green-and-yellow Darth Vader. On stage, he said the "I want to look on you with my own eyes" line, took off his helmet - and then his armor - and turned into Borat wearing *that* swimsuit. (And flesh coloured pants so that nothing actually showed.)

He was subsequently disqualified, but damn he was funny.

There was a Saito from Ghost in the Shell, who freely admitted that his actual costume was not the best in the convention, but what he did have was a *massive* gun. Its length was almost twice his height!

There was a very impressive costume - I have no idea who the character was, though. The costume was silver, very detailed and ornate, had retractable wings, and six inch platform shoes. He won best costume.

I saw a Susan Sto Helit on the Friday night.

There was a girl dressing up as Sasuke from Naruto. She said it was her first costume, but I thought it was very well done and accurate. She also took the time to wear red contacts, which I thought was impressive.

I bought a digital camera the day before the convention started, so I took pictures, and can actually get them online in a reasonably soon amount of time this time! (Incidentally, I thought I was going to have to pay $200 for the camera. I ended up finding one for $134!) Look for the pictures sometime this decade!

Notable events

In the Kamehameha Blast Off contest (people get up on stage and compete with each other on doing a Kamehameha) there was one guy who let everyone else do their yelling and screaming, and then yelled out, "This isn't Kamahameha! This... is... SPARTAAAAAAA!" He has very good volume, and the crowd went wild. I finally understand the term 'pop cheer'.

Unfortunately, as it wasn't what the contest required, he didn't advance.

I've already mentioned the Darth Vader / Borat in the cosplay, above.

Hrm... other events. I've mentioned the anime trivia above. I've put the questions in later on in this post.

There was an anime charity auction, where anime-related goods were auctioned off to raise money for a charity. I can't remember which one, but it was a children's charity, so all good.

In the auction, there was a Naruto notebook. It went to $100 in just two seconds. Eventually it sold for $250.

There were a few crazy impromptu items as well. For example, there was a "photo op with Dan Green (voice actor for Yugi)" item, and then a "the used water bottle of Yuri Lowenthal, signed by Yuri, Dan, and Tara Platt." It felt a bit ridiculous at times. But, in the end, $2034 was raised for charity, so all good.

Briefly mentioned above, there was a mythology / worldbuilding panel, conducted by Sonny Whitelaw and Jennifer Fallon. I suppose the most interesting thing I took from it was that to successfully build a world, fantasy, sci-fi, or otherwise, you really need to know how the real one works, so get out there, read the newspaper, and get informed. There was also an interesting bit on telling time - the days of the week are named after gods and the names of the months are after Roman emporers, so do they really make sense when used in another world?

There was an upset in the anime karaoke this year - the girl who's won the solo competition the past few years had to pull out. She got up on stage, the music started - and it was the wrong music. After checking with the sound engineer, and presumably confirming that she didn't have the right music, she pulled out.

Anime Trivia Questions

Round 1 - the easy round
1. In One Piece, who joins the Straw Hat Pirate Crew immediately after Sanji?
2. Who in the Angel Brigade is obsessed with cute things?
3. Who is Astroboy's brother?
4. Who is Naruto's biggest fan?
5. Who is the creator of Bleach?
6. What is the name of Tatewaki Kuno's sister?
7. (Shows picture of a Japanese VA) Who is this, and who did they voice in the Full Metal Alchemist movie? Props question, that adds no points but gets you props: They also played a part in a live action series. What was the series and what was the part?

Because I don't have the picture immediately to hand, I'll just say that it was a picture of Shun Oguri.

Round 2 - the harder round
1. Who gave Tony Tony Chopper his name?
2. Osamu Tezuka is from which city in Japan? (Sadly I didn't know this. SHAME ON ME.)
3. In Cowboy Bebop, what is the name of Ed's computer?
4. Who from the nine rookies passed the Chuunin exam?
5. What car does Rally Vincent drive?
6. What is it about Jubei-chan that made her eligible to wear the Lovely Eyepatch? (I only got this half-right.)
7. (Plays a clip of an anime song) What anime is this from? What is it in that anime (eg 1st opening, 2nd ending, etc.)? Who is the artist? What is the name of the song?

Again, because I can't play the music clip, I'll just note that it was the first 20 seconds of Asterisk.

Round 3 - OK, getting harder. All questions are double points.
1. Which Radiohead song is used as the ending song for Ergo Proxy? Also, name the other anime produced by the studio who created Ergo Proxy.
2. Which Japanese TV network first broadcast Cowboy Bebop in its entirety? What were the start and end dates?
3. What is the name of the chief villain in Battle of the Planets? What is his name in the original G-Force?
4. Name all 4 members of Team Guy.
5. Range Murata was the character designer for which 2 anime series?
6. What are the names of the Captain of SDF-1 in Macross and Robotech?
7. What are the names of the two anime/manga that Takeshi Obata is best known for?

I got almost no points in Round 3. This was a shameful performance, considering I did very well in round 3 last year.

The recovery

Keeping in mind just how exhausting the full two-day plus Friday night convention is, I made sure to get a couple of days off afterwards. This was a really good idea, and I spent Monday and Tuesday just bumming around the house, playing games, reading, and generally recovering.
About this Entry
6 comments
Leave a comment
Permanent Link
Jun. 26th, 2005 @ 12:22 am It's CRATEMAN!
Current Mood: It's Crateman!
Tags: ,
Once again I thought that perhaps I'd be able to find a photo of Generic White Ninja (my cosplay at Supanova in April this year) online.

Still no dice.

So in the meantime, check out Crateman, who was a surprise hit:

It's Crateman!

The text on his T-shirt says "Hug me, I have no friends."

EDIT:

This picture shows the crowd:

The lineup on Saturday morning

I know the guy dressed as Black Mage from 8-Bit Theater. Slightly behind and to his right, you can see me, studiously looking down at my program. Unfortunately (or perhaps fortunately) you cannot see the Zapp Branagan cosplayer, immediately in front of him.

EDIT 2:

But I'm not letting you off that easy. Here is the Zapp Branagan:

Zapp Branagan (I am almost certainly misspelling that)
About this Entry
4 comments
Leave a comment
Permanent Link
Apr. 11th, 2005 @ 03:37 pm Supanova
Tags: ,
So! Supanova came and went. And of course I went. It's like a natural law of the cosmos or something. Stuff has been acquired.

I went, as threatened in my earlier post, as Generic White Ninja again. (But only on the Sunday.) GWN looked the spiffiest he ever had, what with the addition of a dramatic black scarf and a Real Weapon. (Though with the scarf, heavy judo top, T-shirt, and pants tucked into socks, it was VERY HOT and not very well ventilated.) However, this was the last appearance of the ninja-so-super-he-doesn't-need-to-wear-black. He's shown up too many times now.

I will post pictures if I ever find any.

Ah! That reminds me. People actually took pictures of me this year! That was quite a surprise.

The surprise hit of the cosplay, though, was Crateman. Who was basically a guy wearing a milk crate over his head, a cape made of bubble-wrap, and some cardboard elbow guards. It seemed everyone knew about the guy wearing a crate on his head. I don't know if he won any prizes or not, but it was certainly novel.

To sum up: I came home on the Sunday, crashed, and found myself waking up at 1 am. It was *that* fun!
About this Entry
Leave a comment
Permanent Link
Apr. 8th, 2005 @ 11:12 am PC related aggravation and anime conventions
Tags: , ,
I am thinking that perhaps it's time to stop trying to make my computer work and just get a new one.

The reason I am thinking this is an increasing number of worrying messages and events. My PC has had, for some time, a weird little quirk where after I switch it on and it goes through all the BIOS checks unhindered, it does *not* boot Windows 2K but sits on a black screen. To fix, I have to press the reset button. The next time through, Windows will load.

However, this has been getting worse. A reset will not automatically work now.

And now I've had, a few times, a message showing up during the load of Windows, saying that Windows could not be loaded. That could I please check all hardware connected to the PC and get it sorted out in Safe mode.

I have been using Safe Mode far too often lately.

There has also been the on-going problem with the PC not being able to access certain internet sites, which I have dealt with by ignoring and going on an self-imposed exile-of-sorts from the internet. I have instead been using the time to get through my vast stack of unwatched anime. While this has helped put a dent in the stack (yay finished Rahxephon!), it *has* kept me from email and the internet. It has not been a tremendously responsible course of action, either.

Most aggravating of all, I did a complete reinstall of Windows 2K a little while ago, and all the problems persisted. This is why I'm starting to think a new PC - or at least, a new CPU and motherboard - will be required.

---

In other news, Supanova is on tomorrow. It's not exactly an anime convention - it calls itself a pop-culture convention. In addition to a strong anime showing, it has comics, CCG tourneys, movie actors as guests, and so on.

I shall of course be going. Though I'm wondering if I should pull out the Generic White Ninja costume and do the Mark 3 version. (This time with dramatic black scarf and less affilitation with Naruto.) I mean, I know it's an incredibly silly costume and I really shouldn't, but I have this little bug in my head saying "do it or forever hold your peace." Plus, it's kind of fun.

( For those interested, the various versions of Generic White Ninja... )

And if I can convince myself my singing voice does not suck / get up the courage, I will inflict my rendition of "Haikei, Akane" on everyone at the karaoke competition.
About this Entry
1 comment
Leave a comment
Permanent Link
Mar. 15th, 2005 @ 04:45 pm Random ramblings
Tags: , , , , ,
I have been having serious problems with sleep lately. As in, no matter how much I get, I get drowsy horribly easily.

Maybe my wanton youth of staying-up-all-night and playing-games-until-2am is finally catching up to me.

---

Got and played and finished Knights of the Old Republic 2 recently. I wasn't going to wait a year before getting and playing it, like I did with the last one.

In any case, KOTOR2 it is to like very much...

...and then the endgame hit. Blah. I'd heard that the endgame was not very good at all, and I agree. It seems to lurch from here to there, with little to no explanation of what's going on. Do this! Do that! Go there! You have a new power! Go fight this guy! Do it again! The end! You're left blinking at the screen and going "Huh?" Though there was at least one interesting fight during it all.

What is especially galling is that there is a fair chunk of content (recorded dialoge, for example) that is actually present on the CD that was cut from the final game. This thread on the Obsidian forums details some of it. (DO NOT check that link unless you have completed the game already!) Having checked that thread, and heard some of the nifty stuff that was going to be in the game, makes me a Sad Steve.

So anyway. Enough of the endgame. It comprises maybe 5% of the whole thing. The game itself is very nicely done and has some interesting themes on what the Force is and if it's necessary. Also, it has Kreia, one of the most interesting NPCs I've seen in a long time. She had me actually seriously questioning whether going full Light Side was a good idea.

---

Finally got "The Two Swords", the latest Drizzt Do'Urden novel by R.A. Salvatore, recently. Despite knowing it for what it is - bad fantasy hack job rubbish - I got it anyway, because I'd read the first two books in the Hunter's Blades trilogy and was damned if I was going to leave a series unfinished.

So I read it. It's really quite bad. (He actuallly uses exclamation marks in prose!) And as for the ending... well, it makes me think of KOTOR2's endgame. I was maybe fifty pages from the end, wondering how the author was going to be able to finish everything in the trilogy so far and wrap the whole 'orc invasion' storyline up...

...turns out he did it by not wrapping it up at all. In fact, he introduced NEW dangling plot points, and basically left things open for ANOTHER trilogy. Ack. Spare me.

Actually, on reflection, KOTOR2's endgame and ending was better.

---

In an effort to get through my stack of unwatched anime (I should be able to go through it faster, now that KOTOR2's finished) I have been watching R.O.D. the TV. I like Anita and Maggie, think Michelle is too silly and frivolous, and still gave to get a bead on Nenene. I saw episode 4 just last night and was very confused to see Joker and Wendy from the OAV, seemingly as the 'bad guys'.

Well! This is getting *interesting*.

---

I have had mad mad mad ideas to pull out the Generic White Ninja costume for Supanova one last time. See, this time, there could be a skit, of sorts. With the help of an assistant, the Generic White Ninja would attempt to fight off an attacking Slime/Tiny Inoffensive Monster, getting 'miss!' every time.

(That is, Generic White Ninja slashes through the air above the Slime, and the assistant holds up a "Miss!' sign.)

Finally, either the Slime/Tiny Inoffensive Monster attacks and gets a '9999', or the Generic White Ninja gives up in frustration and kicks the Slime off the stage, getting a '1'.

Highlight: Doing a special attack, as the assistant holds up subtitles for all the Japanese words.

Now I just have to decide if I really want to do this. ^_^;

EDIT: I have just remembered that the rules for the Cosplay mean no throwing of items from the stage. I think I'd just have to pretend-kick the Slime.

I have to decide fast, because Supanova is only four weeks or so away now.
About this Entry
Leave a comment
Permanent Link