prepare to be INTIMIDATED

... or not, actually.


a couple weeks ago i rolled my lazy ass out to Carowinds to check the new rollercoaster, "The INTIMIDATOR Inspired by Racing Legend Dale Earnhardt." call me crazy, but i was somewhat skeptical of getting on a rollercoaster inspired by a dude who crashed into a wall, had a restraint malfunction, and died. nevertheless, i freaking LOVE rollercoasters, so i figured i'd better hit it up before the summer masses rolled the park. unfortunately, it was closed for repairs.

the second day the park was open for the year, yeah.

but! the GIFT SHOP was wide-open for business, and business was booming.


yes, people were buying mementos of a ride they had not ridden. god love the south, am i right? (please note the gentleman in the lower left wearing a fabulous NASCAR t-shirt, this was quite the recurrent motif during my Carowinds adventure.)

anyway, i hit pretty much every other interesting ride in the park and figured i'd check the "INTIMIDATOR Inspired by Racing Legend Dale Earnhardt" again on my way out. wonder of wonders, it was up and running again. yaaaaaaaaaaaay, i hope i don't die!


looking up at this, it IS actually somewhat intimidating. it is REALLY high, and when the little train rolls into the station, you see that the only thing holding you into your seat is an independent-arm lap bar. it looked almost like a rolling movie-theater seat. behold:



but, something about the little seating design was terribly familiar. there was something inherently... southern... in its design, something that would appeal to NASCAR fans both stereotypical and otherwise...



yup. the freaking rollercoaster seats look like power scooters. now when your scootering through the local Wal-Mart you can pretend you are Dale Earnhardt and FEEL VALIDATED.

sometimes i really do love this world.

in summation: the ride was fun, very high, very fast, very very very fast, and DEFINITELY worth waiting for the front seat. it made a massive difference- hanging over that first hill, looking almost straight down, suspended only by a somewhat dubious lap-bar... fuuuuuuuuun times.

i have to admit

i am the worst blogger. which is cool, because i never want to be referred to as a 'blogger,' ever.

i have to come up with a cooler term.

in other news, i am the BEST 'procrastinator,' which is not actually news. because we all knew that.

in other, OTHER news i have decided i MUST make an 'Interview With the Vampire' costume. because i do not have like 23 other costumes to make first.

ADD. it affects lives.



this message was brought to you by 'it's 4:01am why am i still awake.'

i want a dragon like for serious

i went to see 'How to Train Your Dragon.'



i laughed, i cried, i wished i was a Viking. all in all, pretty much like any other day. it was pretty good, especially for a CG kid's movie (which i usually don't care for. even the ones everyone else in the world loves, like 'The Incredibles' or 'WALL-E.') the worst thing about it was the main character's voice, it was GRATING and sounded like someone doing a bad impression of someone else. in addition to his irritating voice, he looked eerily like the Jordu Schell/Charlie White puppet in the video for Interpol's "Evil.". this is not an association that is going to be problematic for the target audience of the film, but i spent half the movie waiting for the patented Charlie-White-Creepy-Twist.

LOOK AT THAT SHIT IT IS UNCANNY

everyone else was pretty cool, even the dudes who only got a couple of lines. the plot is pretty generic, but it's executed decently here.

the father and son 'breastplate/helmet' scene was my favourite in the movie, because it was simultaneously hilarious and sad, but the highlight of the movie is undoubtedly this guy here:



i wondered how they could have possibly made something so incredibly endearing, and then i realized that a lot of the team here also worked on 'Lilo and Stitch.' and i freaking LOVE Stitch, and i love dragons, so a dragon who looks like Stitch was pretty much a shoo-in for 'character of whom i need a toy and with whom i am unreasonably enamoured.' time for another comparison shot!

UNCANNY!

i wonder if Toothless has an experiment number?

ladies and gentlemen, let me tell you

there is no more magical combination than karaoke and beer.



(except possibly Elton John, Guns'n'Roses, and frat boys. that's a pretty hilarious combination too.)

the Dress-Off Saga 3: the NERDLUNGENLIED

IT JUST KEEPS GOING!

the second edition of the Dress-Off skit was much higher in production value and appropriate wig content. all the things i wished we'd thought of/done before the first edition were changed and added, and the 'story' of the skit was a little clearer. we are rival cosplay gangs, we are competing by dressing up, and Nessa cheats and wins by using the Death Note to kill us. the longer time frame was a big help, and also having some time to practice was rather useful.

3 minutes, 20 costumes...



the order, L to R is Richard, Ness, my brother Cliff, and me.

the costumes in this round are:

1. Trunks and Goku, Dragon Ball Z
2. Yugi and Kaiba, Yu-Gi-Oh
3. Sesshomaru and Inuyasha, Inuyasha
4. Rukia and Ichigo, Bleach
5. Henchman from Venture Brothers and Moononite from Aqua Teen, both on Adult Swim
6. the Hitachiin twins, Ouran Highschool Host Club
7. Sasuke, Naruto, Sakura, and Kakashi, Naruto
8. Near, Light, L, Mello, Death Note
all wrapped up with an OC/SNL 'Dear Sister' reference...

THAT is some classic nerdening. yessssss. we won 'Best Performance' and got a crazy ridiculous trophy, in addition to being the best Death Note cosplayers at the con. i talk a lot of shit about that convention (Nekocon '08) but i actually had a lot of fun in the bits where i wasn't passed unconscious from exhaustion or furiously gluing things trying to finish our costumes....

the Dress-Off Saga 2: the NERDENING

so, part two of the Dress-Off Saga...

we (by 'we' i usually mean 'i,' everyone else just humours me,) decided that our skit needed polishing, upgrading, and another shot at being performed. Alicia couldn't go to Nekocon '08 with us, but my 'little' brother stepped up and took over. because i am lame and also stupid i decided we all needed Death Note costumes: me as Mello, Ness as Misa, my bro Cliff as Shidou, Richard as Light,and Jin as L.



Richard and Jin took care of their own costumes, but i made the bulk of Mello, Misa, and Shidou. i spent a long, long time making my own wig, (which i didn't realize was too long until i saw pictures,) and due to my delightful procrastination problems, a great deal of the actual costumes were made AT THE CON, and a variety of things were glued rather than sewn properly. poor Ness was glued into her costume, which was basically made of plastic wrap. (sorry, Nessa.)



Ness makes awesome jewelry, so she hand-made my awesome rosary, her awesome rosary, my awesome rosary bracelet, and her cute little goth earrings. (they were not, however, awesome rosary earrings.)

Cliff's costume weighs a ton, is built on hockey shoulder pads so it's mad hot, has gloves with two-foot-long fingers, and has very limited visibility. he was also stopped every ten feet for pictures and/or hugs. (AND apparently masks are semi-illegal in Virginia, so he had to keep the head off while walking around, and put it back on and re-adjust it every three minutes for pictures. Cliff is far too patient with my dumb hobbies, and obliged with minimal complaining.) i think he secretly enjoys dressing up like a crazy person...

i spent a retarded amount of money on this costume, but i don't care. Mello is still one of my favourite characters, despite having a largely insane fanbase. he is also the victim of the "Marsh-Mello" phenomenon, wherein he is mainly cosplayed by pasty overweight girls...

...



...yeah. lol.

anyway- i spent so much time freaking out about our Death Note costumes that i almost forgot to freak out about our Masq performance...

embarrassment for posterity: the Dress-Off Saga

our FIRST EVER COSPLAY SKIT

for some unearthly reason i decided we needed to participate in the Masq at Animazement '08. my friends consented to participate. the idea had started out as an for idea video project, where we would put on shitty closet cosplays and abridge anime series- it evolved into SpeedCosplay- where participants would attempt to create a recognizable costume in a set amount of time. for a skit, all of the costume pieces obviously had to be pre-selected and pre-set. they DIDN'T have to be GOOD.



from left to right, the cosplayers are Richard, Ness, myself, (if i look fat it is because i am. god, i look SO BAD here...) and Alicia.

in case you can't tell, the characters are: (from left to right, in order:)
1. Goku and Trunks, Dragon Ball Z
2. Yugi and Kaiba, Yu-Gi-Oh
3. Inuyasha and Sesshomaru, Inuyasha
4. Henchman from Venture Brothers and Moononite from Aqua Teen, both on Adult Swim
5. Sakura, Naruto, Kakashi, and Sasuke, Naruto
6. L, Light, Mello, and Matt, Death Note

there is so much bad happening here- we'd never had the chance to practice together, we'd never been in a Con Masq before (although all of us had stage experience,) and i hadn't slept in days. the others weren't much better off. a shipment of wigs had not arrived from China, leading to some pretty ridiculous improvising, (my favourite of which was Naruto's furry yellow Bart-Simpson-esque hat-hair. my least favourite was desperately trying to find a wig for Mello, driving almost 100 miles total to get the crappy "Glinda the Good Witch" THING i ended up with, and making myself actually, physically sick because i was so stressed. good times. i have since learned about WIG STORES duh, and will never buy a Party City wig EVER AGAIN. but i digress.)

even so, it worked out- people thought it was funny. we won Best-in-Show at Animazement, and when we re-worked the skit, re-did the costumes, and changed the cast up a little, we participated in the Nekocon '08 Masq and placed.(in hindsight, i would not have entered what was basically the same skit- it was almost entirely overhauled, but it still seems unfair. we were essentially stealing the premise from ourselves...)

in the end, it's a piece of crap but i'm still proud of it. with help from my co-conspirators i created the skit, chose the characters, made about sixteen change-sheets so that everything would run smoothly (ha ha,) made sixteen shitty costumes (by made i mostly mean 'assembled from things found in thrift stores,' and edited the music, (which i'd never done before,) and performed it with almost no actual practice, and we made it almost work...

and thus, the SpeedCosplayers were born. next post: the return of the Dress-Off...

HEY

HEY!

HEY GUYS!



HEY!


that is all.

guess who's a giant nerd?

if you said "you are," you'd be absolutely correct.

i like to waste my money, and cosplaying seems as good a thing to throw money at as any of my other hobby choices... my coworkers think i'm weird. admittedly, i am. but they spend all of their money on beer and cigarettes. so.

plans for 2010, subject to change...


NEEEEERRRRDDDD.

i do not know what's going on here...

but it pretty much sums up my life.



AND THAT'S ALL I HAVE TO SAY. GOOD EVENING, LADIES AND GENTLEMEN!

hey internet, i got you a book!

some things are only fun when you are the one doing them....

i can think of a lot of examples, but what i'm talking about right now is karaoke. being part of a drunken crowd singing along is fun, i suppose, but i want to be the idiot onstage belting out slightly off-key.

and i am damn well going to sing whatever i want to, i do not care if you've never heard of Kate Bush or Hot Hot Heat. or Jesus Christ Superstar.

too much excitement over Buddhist Chant Boxes...

i don't have anything useful or enlightening to say. i wouldn't make a post, except that this is a sort of exercise in dedication for myself, and i don't want to slack out just yet.

oh, wait! enlightening! people, allow me to enlighten you. you need one of these:

it's FUNSIZE!

the basic idea is, it's a little electronic music box that plays Buddhist chants. apparently they're similar to prayer wheels, in that they have an endless loop of song or chant. people also use them to meditate, since the repetition can be soothing. (or it can make you flip out like a crazy person- repetitive noise often have this effect on me. especially beeping. *shudder.*) this blue one has 12 different settings, i also got the Tibetan 4 chant version. let me just say: MAGICAL.
if you want, you can buy one here.

it comes with a headphone port and a neckstrap- let me tell you, it does look a little goofy around the neck, like bling for a Buddhist rapper, or an alternative to LifeAlert... "Help! I'm having a heart attack!" well, it won't send an ambulance, but it will help you start praying to the ancestors that you'll be reincarnated into something good...*


*(yes, i know. i'm not being serious. i'm just kind of an asshole.)

i want the 69 song version- it has a psychedelic spinning light Buddha, it just doesn't get better than that....


OH WAIT, YES IT DOES. i want this with the burning passion of the sun. i haven't ordered it yet because i believe they are actually sold out, and i'm pretending that when i DO get my shit together and order it, i will actually get one. (i'll save the discussion about my completely neurotic fixation on random things later.)

and, just because someone went to the trouble of making an auto-embed code:

postin' so damn hard

I'M DOIN' IT.

i'm not sure why, but there you go.

i think i might have done something terrible in a previous life to be condemned to wait tables in this one. or maybe i did something terrible in THIS life, which is actually true, and isn't really all that terrible- BE LAZY.

that was not the most eloquent sentence i have ever constructed.

anyway, the point is, waiting tables is balls. BALLS. but it pays better than working retail, has a super flexible schedule, and allows me to remain fat at a fraction of the cost my constant french-fry eating would otherwise incur.

the best part is that i don't even like french fries, excepting Chik-fil-a waffle fries. those things are goddamn magical.


that's right, bitch. those pants look like they're fitting a little too well, maybe you should EAT UNTIL YOU PUKE. mmmm.

ooh, i know, why don't you put some ranch dressing on there too?

addendum:

i WANTED to call this blog 'glass asylum.' apparently, some douche took that name in 2005 and hasn't been back since. thanks, asshole. at least make an intro post if you're going to start one of these fuckers.

ALSO: WHO WANTS TO SEE SOMETHING CREEPY?



oh, Bob Fosse. that's somewhat inappropriate! then again, that entire movie is a WTFfest.

well hello then, world

again and again and! my endless talent for forgetting to chronicle my own life is regrettable, but probably for the best. i've located many an abortive teenage attempt at diary-keeping, and let me just
tell you that i am no poet. i'm not sure i realized that at the time...

i've written exactly ONE poem in my life that did not suck like a streetwalking Hoover.

perhaps i shall share it one day.

since 'blogs' were such a big deal several years ago, and everyone has since moved on to 'tumblr' and 'twitter' and 'actually speaking to people in real life,' i've decided it's high time i started a blog.

ooh, maybe i'll link to it from my LiveJournal! (i won't. this was a joke.)

in any event, i don't expect anyone to read this, and i don't have very high hopes as far as remembering to update it more than three times before i wander off after something shiny. and even if i DID magically get my scatterbrains together, i could hardly ask you kind and mentally stable and wholly unsuspecting people to subject yourselves to my brand of whining. even if it is sometimes funny.

BUT! let's approach this with more optimism.

HI
HOW ARE YOU

I WILL SEE YOU SOON!


ha ha we'll see