11:10am-12:15pm : Classical Mythology
12:45pm-2pm : Costume History
2:10-3:25 : Acting 1
3:45-5pm : Greek Civilization

That would be my full schedule for the fall semester, meeting tues/fri only. Not bad if I say so myself.

Which I did. Back to work and being sleepy..

1. Knowledge of Literature.—Nothing.
2. Knowledge of Philosophy.—Nothing.
3. Knowledge of Astronomy.—Nothing.
4. Knowledge of Politics.—Feeble.
5. Knowledge of Botany.—Variable. Well up in belladonna, opium and poisons generally. Knows nothing of practical gardening.
6. Knowledge of Geology.—Practical, but limited. Tells at a glance different soils from each other. After walks, has shown me splashes upon his trousers, and told me by their colour and consistence in what part of London he had received them.
7. Knowledge of Chemistry.—Profound.
8. Knowledge of Anatomy.—Accurate, but unsystematic.
9. Knowledge of Sensational Literature.—Immense. He appears to know every detail of every horror perpetrated in the century.
10. Plays the violin well.
11. Is an expert singlestick player, boxer and swordsman.
12. Has a good practical knowledge of British law.

Ahh, Holmes. I need to find a way to work this into his character sheet for Shadows.

I'll get around to fixing the broken picture html in my last post- eventually. Maybe tomorrow.

Back to my efforts for Shadows!

Whew. Origins. Wow.

It's a pretty awesome convention and Columbus is a pretty awesome town(except for the 2am last call in bars..).

The driving was alittle ridiculous but overall wasn't so bad with Ken and Emerson in the car. Overall.. I would have enjoyed everything more if the Origins schedule was alittle less ridiculous but due to a few problems with the TW shift schedule and then the game schedule.. it made it crazy hard for me to put my shift hours in AND play in the games I registered for. So, if I do this next year I'm gonna sort that out ahead of time. (and got damn, some airsoft guns hurt. The pellet marks are still there in some places, even through the jumpsuits). I'm amazed though-we had something like 11-14 volunteers and I've heard that they'll have 30-35 volunteers for Gencon. I mean holy crap. Alot of people seemed to be running on empty and high on stress at Origins- I imagine the extra/double the amount of volunteers would have really changed that.

The dealer room was epic. The games were pretty fun, new people were met(and will hopefully be gamed with at some point in the future).

The side quest/adventure AFTER the con was also pretty funny.. Three hours from home we pulled over at a rest stop and started looking at the Travel board.. showing some locales and how long it takes to get to nearby big distinations and the sort. We all look at eachother for a few moments, look at the board.. back at eachother and decide that we are going to stop at a hotel for the night and then hit Philadelphia in the morning. Not planned but- still fun. Assorted cheesesteaks were tried, frat party invites were given, occult shop found (but it was closed, sigh) and we attempted to lick the liberty bell but discovered it was now indoors so we only gazed longingly at it.

Emerson also convinced me to buy this epicly beautiful corset- that I hope I won't regret. Along with my side purchase of a steamy black gas mask, that I will love tenderly.

Oh, I've got some pictures of the assorted Origins stuff here.. None with Emerson since he was often taking the pictures though.

( PEEKTURES )

Next up- 4th of July weekend and then after that, Dexcon, with a tidy amount of 5 Cthulhu live games.

So, I've been too busy to properly update and all.. I've been taking care of all my doctor's appointments and general errands so I can get ready for Origins.

Finally, the day before Origins things are looking pretty decent, despite the potential luggage problem with Ken. In which we thought we may have had to drive to southern NJ to drop off luggage and then turn right around and drive back.. Thankfully- Someone is taking his luggage in Manhattan. And no, my car simply cannot carry the luggage for three people. I know, I know.. it's kinda teeny, but it tries.

I'm now going home to long island to pack and do a few more errands. I'm going on unemployment starting this or next week- I'm really looking forward to the free time to do some crafty things and work on my larp.

Weds morning at 5am, I wake up, I get a ride to Astoria.. work for a few hours and then head to Emerson's, then I will promptly throw myself into bed and try to get more sleep so I can do the 9 hour drive since Em can't drive and Ken only has a learner's permit. So.. I'll be in bed around 9amish and then we await Ken's phone call. He has a doctor's appointment early weds morning so we leave as soon as he gets into manhattan.. Which also means we're going to end up leaving at around 2pm... and will get to Ohio at around midnight.

Ohmy. Well, it'll be a "fun" experience. In lieu of anything amusing here.. Take this red panda being adorable, plz.

Okay. I request an opinion from the people of my friends list.

I intend to travel somewhere this year but I haven't determined where yet, I haven't made up my mind on where I want to go and haven't quite picked yet so, the list is as follows..

Montreal (I want to go but if it's identical to the US but with accents, I don't want to bother. Opinions?)
London
Ireland
France
Maaaybe Greece.

I want to hit New Zealand and Australia at some point but the airfare and whatnot to get there is crazy expensive so I'm not doing that first.

So- If anybody has been to these places before, lemme know. I'm really contemplating the euro using countries but I really want to wait until the dollar matches the euro.. but by then, the travel package prices won't be as low etheir. Opinions? :D

I'm just not sure how I feel about this. I think there should be kudos awarded for cosplaying in garb though.

“Have you ever been in love? Horrible isn't it? It makes you so vulnerable. It opens your chest and it opens up your heart and it means that someone can get inside you and mess you up. You build up all these defenses, you build up a whole suit of armor, so that nothing can hurt you, then one stupid person, no different from any other stupid person, wanders into your stupid life...You give them a piece of you. They didn't ask for it. They did something dumb one day, like kiss you or smile at you, and then your life isn't your own anymore. Love takes hostages. It gets inside you. It eats you out and leaves you crying in the darkness, so simple a phrase like 'maybe we should be just friends' turns into a glass splinter working its way into your heart. It hurts. Not just in the imagination. Not just in the mind. It's a soul-hurt, a real gets-inside-you-and-rips-you-apart pain. I hate love,” - Neil Gaiman

 No, nothing happened. I just stumbled on this quote again by Neil Gaiman and I'm quite a fan of it. I'm checking out an apartment a block away from the office in a few hours, looking forward to that. Aside from that.. I've been starting to work out again. I'm rather pleased with myself, I'm started at smaller increments and I'll gradually do the full workout at the same time.. I'm used the cardio/yoga type dvd I used to do way back when. I never tried the lower body workout because it hurt my knees too much but now that I've gotten the knee muscles working, even just alittle, I've been giving it a go. So far.. so good, my legs are burning, I was not aware of these butt muscles. Everything is sore and it's painful to walk or even sit down. No, I did not injure myself. I just did the lower body stuff two days in a row and my muscles are bitching about it.

Okay, one more Gaiman quote.

“God does not play dice with the universe; He plays an ineffable game of His own devising, which might be compared, from the perspective of the players, (ie everybody), to being involved in an obscure and complex version of poker in a pitch-dark room, with blank cards, for infinite stakes, with a Dealer who won't tell you the rules, and who smiles all the time.”- Neil Gaiman

Speaking of- Does anybody want to lend me a few of his books? I've only ever read Stardust by him and loved it but I'm not so keen on buying a bunch of books I'm only going to read once or twice.

I don't care how you feel about twitter.

Go to twitter and follow this,

#IranElections

People are protesting and twittering from Tehran and all over Iran with reports of what is going on. Currently tv satellite dishes are being removed and the internet is being choked to prevent news from getting in or out of the country. Proxies are being set up by people outside of the country. The entire faculty of Tehran University has resigned en masse in protest. Mousavi's mostly peaceful protesters are being seriously harmed by Mahmoud's violent mobs. The vote was stole by Mahmoud, they have just recently found trucks of stolen ballots near a stadium in Tehran.

So,  watch this. I never thought I'd see twitter become an outlet for history but there you go.

Whew. I'm prepping everything for Origins- bit by bit. Well.. Not everything is for Origins but there are things I'd like to get done before we leave for Ohio. So.. getting costume stuff together- I hit the warehouse going out of business again. Snagged some guns and holsters and a nifty armband. Looks like they've gotten raided for Ren faire garb, which means no more pretty dresses for me(until I get to the ren faire, that is). I'm done with all of my doctor appointments, got refills on my medication so I don't run out during the con(it's happened before, it sucks).

Went to my cardiologist for my heart hole and he informed me that there is no medication for the anxiety/panic attacks I get due to the heart hole but that exercising 45 minutes, 6 days a week would greatly improve my heart strength and overall health. Dammit. I should be exercising anyway but way to health-guilt me into doing it more, doctor, thanks.

What kills me is that everytime I want to goto south jersey to help with terrorwerks- something comes up. The two weekends before this Scion was *supposed* to happen but didn't due to the ST's(for whatever reasons) bailing out on game at the last minute and then telling people 3 days before and by that time, I've made plans and doc appointments around game time. So then there is no game...but still appointments so I need to stay in the city. So very annoying. Game finally happened this weekend(I mean like.. two days ago.) but argh. Doesn't change much for this weekend since Em is going into the hospital for some treatment again. Hopefully he'll be out by friday and will feel way better for Origins. I hear a lack of migraines and headaches is generally nice for people.

I've been following the results of the Iran "elections".. and I'm so completely disappointed. It's not like I expected a fair and civil election but alot of people(especially Iranians) got their hopes up for change in their goverment and then tada, Mahmoud rigs the election in his favor, claiming a landslide when Mousavi calls bullshit. Maybe not the most eloquent way to say this but the US has been totally ignoring this until a few days ago when twitter folks started harassing them about the lack of coverage. Currently- Mousavi supporters have been trying to protest but Mahmoud has both the riot police and followers on his side which so far means that many dissenters are being violently beaten and in some cases arrested. The best part is that the US and other democractic countries love to interfere in the business of others but for once, we're caught up in our own shit and can't help other countries that desire the same democracy that we have. So, we are too busy or we just don't want to get involved in another countries affairs, again, because that never seems to work out so well. I'm just hoping that Iranians get who they really voted for in the end.

Oh and the "reasons" for gas prices rising? Total bullshit, but what can you do. I'll probably only have to fill my tank twice to get to Origins, maybe two and half. But with getting 27.8 to 32 mpg and holding around 13-14 gallons per tank.. I should be fine. Reminding me to buy a sunguard for my sunroof. The mesh cover will not do for a 9 hour drive.

Time to eat some chili and work.

I.. have nothing of interest to say! I've taken the last two weekends to be all kinds of lazy with Emerson. We've been playing Star Wars Battlefront and Gauntlet(oyeaaah) and have been steadily scheming for Origins, oh, and watching Carnivale.. Which I'm not sure if I love or hate but I've determined it's interesting to watch and somewhat quirky. I've been getting all of my doctors appointments out of the way. Today is the cardiologist and tomorrow the dentist. But of course- The cardiologist will just want me to come back and run some stress tests on my heart that involve a treadmill and and me. Which makes me unhappy.

But who cares, I get to be a Twi'lek at Origins and thats all that matters. I kid.

I've been doing a complete and utter purge of my closet. It's pretty much all clean, organized and tidied up. Next step is my costume/jacket/crap/etc closet in the other room. I think I'll do that after I reorganize my bookshelves and everything else. I'm really trying to par down my belongs so that when I move, because I do intend to move, it'll be much easier and I won't be going "AHH! SO MUCH CRAP! AHH! NY APARTMENTS ARE TOO SMALL!!" Because that is a very very plausible outcome of moving in the 5-boroughs area.

Oh also, I sweet talked the nice old lady director of Classical Studies at Hunter to let me take Intro to Mythology even after the class was full and the professor said he couldn't allow any more overtally students. The conversation went as such..

chatting, chatting
Me: Well, the professor said he doesn't want to let anymore students overtally into the class..
Director: Yes, yes, I know. But I give you permission to do that and I also can tell him what to do..
Me: Oh! Well, I wouldn't want to be a burden but I would really like to take this class this semester..
chat, chat, gets authorization to register for the class.

She just totally vetoed any power this professor had, I almost feel bad for him.

This means my class schedule for the fall will be something like Intro to Mythology, Acting 1, Costume History.

How cool is that? Mythology + Larping(Imeantheatre,Iswear) + Costuming. Oh squee. I'm so stoked and incredibly interested in that costuming class.

Aside from all that- Whats with this rain schedule? It's etheir sunny from monday to thursday and raining on friday to sunday... OR, it's raining on and off on the weekdays and raining sporadically on the weekends. Aka- wtf, stop fucking with my weekends, Nature. I liked the rain but for only so long. I recall "April showers bring May flowers" But I guess nobody noticed the fine print saying "Will also rain all-fucking-June".

Back to work. I need some food.

oh god.. I love xkcd. I want someone to actually do this to them, it would be hysterical. News channels and whatnot are already drawing some annoying attention to them but Twilight fans? oh my.

So... I had a "amusing" incident yesterday. I'm at work, they request that I take Terry to do the bank run, which involves me driving her to a few banks and waiting outside for her in the car because there is NO parking in these places. So... we head to the Chase bank on the incredibly crowded Steinway street, right off of Ditmars, if anybody is Queens-savvy. I pull up to the illegal "no parking/trucks unloading" area below the subway and start waiting... I double park next to this guys red van and just wait... Someone has enough room to pull in next to me, behind me and behind the guy I've doubled parked by.

Suddenly, Hark! I hear a car horn honk. What else is new on this street. I ignore it, I'm on the phone talking to my father. Car horn keeps going, I look around..... no, I'm not in anybodies way, the black car that just pulled up behind me has more then enough room to get into the space, out of the space, dance in the space, etc but then there is an old lady who gets out of this black car and starts BANGING ON MY REAR WINDOW. This bodes ill will in me, I jump out of the car, tell the lady to cool her shit and leave me alone since she can easily get into the space and I'm not blocking ANYTHING. She keeps hitting the car, I jump in the middle and inform her that if she doesn't stop touching my fucking car I will have to take preventation actions. (and for some reason she needs to be within 2 feet of my car to pull into a giant space..). I get back into the car, look to see if Terry is out of the bank and then BAM, OLD LADY AT MY DRIVER SIDE WINDOW! She's now yelling and banging and when I go to open my car door, she throws herself against it. So.. at this point I can etheir open the car door and risk breaking some ladies hip or just wait until she moves. Throughout all of this she's belligerently yelling and screaming gibberish, what I made out was "I give you ticket!", "Coooooppps!!!", "They/I show you!! STUPID GIRL".. and other crazy ass nonsense. Traffic cops come over, they can't make sense of what the problem is because there is actually no problem and this lady is still screaming at everybody and is now waving her Handicapped Placard(which allows parking in handicapped spaces only, not illegal truck unloading areas, helloooo~) upside down and pointing at it furiously. Traffic cops call regular cops, because they are essentially impotent and can't do a damn thing. Terry gets out of the bank and is trying to figure out what the hell the problem is.. there is now a nice big crowd forming and an old gent in his 60-70's comes up and goes "well- if she hit your car you should get a camera.." and I explain to him that nobody has gotten hit or anything and he goes "....I......wow, she must be alittle cuckoo then- LADY YOU HAVE TO SHUT UP AND LOWER YOUR VOICE!!" (Because she is still screaming..) and she goes freezes- looks at the old guy- and goes back to it. I was hoping someone her age would have an effect but I was wrong.

Cops show up! They get out of the car and ask "So.. Is anybody hurt?" No. "Did etheir cars get hit?" No. "Were you trying to back into the parking space when she was trying to drive into it?" No. "So you don't even want the parking and you were just in your car idling, not moving, with your car in park?" Yes. "........uhm.. I see. Okay, you know what? Just get in your car and get out of here, this lady isn't really making sense and I'm not really sure what she wants. Just don't back into her.." All the while she's screaming triumphantly at the cops to write me a ticket or... something? for being a young'in I guess? As I'm getting the car and getting ready to drive, I could literally see the lady having a fit because they let me go.


I... uh.........yeaaah. Crazy lady was fucking crazy. I also assume that when you have a handicapped placard, you aren't able to jump out, run around, rage, have a temper tantrum and whail against my car. I guess I was wrong. Both groups of cops were just totally confused when they realized there was no actual problem for her to have this fit about.

I also love the two old guys who came up to the cops and backed me up saying that I did nothing wrong and she just started hitting my car.

My car is blissfully fine, btw. Just a big old lady ass print in the dust of the driver side door. I have now shared this ridiculousness and will proceed to eat, pass go and collect $200.

That is all. Back to my unpacking.

Thanks Zack. :D


Edit, Okay, one more thing.. for those who don't check Applegeeks lite.

As you can see here, well, maybe, I was on Roosevelt island. Last night I discovered that walking along the river by the east side of the island is pretty nice. Good view of a powerplant(very au natural) and the Queensboro bridge. Etheir way, I did an epic job of packing last night by taking nothing off the hanger and just folding it over into the suitcases. It took me 30-40 minutes to pack and then 10 minutes to pack it all into my very mini mini(haha....).

So, today I head to Emerson's to hang out with both him and Ken and then later, we trek to Long island for baking shenanigans and teaching Ken how to drive. This will not involve real children as obstacles, not yet anyway.

It'll be.. moderately nice. I'll get to do some real cooking, finally and see my pets. Sophie has likely left me a furry circle on my bed where she's been sleeping. The dogs are just... silly and I'll be more then happy to see Alchemy and see how he's doing. I know he isn't going to get sick like Marvel did but, still.


Annnd.. pizza is coming here. Good.


Fantastic quote, btw

“Truth is, even superheroes couldn’t get us out of the mess we’re in now. Superman can stop bullets, move mountains and crush coal into diamonds, but he can’t help us. He works for a newspaper. He needs a job. He wants to leap tall buildings and then crash on your couch. Batman can’t help you. He can’t get parts for his big, stupid American car. And Wonder Woman can’t help you, because we don’t allow gays in uniform.”

–Bill Maher, “Superheroes Can’t Save California”