Friday, January 30, 2004

8:22 PM -

I just want a decent pair of pants!

No, really... If you don't already know, I've been trying to make a unicorn costume since about July. It was originally for Halloween... HAH! I spent most of that time trying to make a foam cast from the horn I'd originally sculpted out of modeling clay. Everything I used for those horn attempts has pretty much been destroyed, although I still have some raw materials left over.

After the mental anguish that was October, I took a break. Nice long break... yay! Coming back to the unicorn project, I decided to try to make the other parts of the outfit so all I would have left to do was the horn. I made the shirt, made the pants, and LA! I'm having worse crotch problems with these pants anything I've ever seen. Now, I understand that white, stretchy fur isn't always the most flattering... but it seems like no matter what I do I get a giant ugly V shaped set of wrinkle lines that roughly approximate what my pelvis would look like if I was an action figure. Not being an action figure means that I don't have a cast-in-plastic neutered pelvis, which means my biological reality might make the pants even more unfortunate for most innocent or impressionable bystanders. At this point, I am reminded of the lyrics to a funny song.

If anyone knows how to sew and would like to help me sort out my pants issues, either for this pair or in general or for all of my sewing needs (you might not have noticed, but I have lots of waistline trouble, because my thighs want a bigger waistline than my waist does...), I'd love to hear from you.

In the meantime I might have to cry at Judy. Or learn use a burlap sack as an important but oft-overlooked fashion statement.

Monday, January 26, 2004

11:44 PM -

Whoa. Dustin just sent me a link to The Minibosses, a band that only plays covers of old 8-bit Nintendo game music. It's freaky to see video of people rocking out to video game music from middle school. Freaky as in, "whoa, that's kinda, acceptable... neat!" and freaky as in mildly disturbing. Check out their web site. They picked music that works well on guitar...

Fun fact: In 2001 I performed trapeze to a song from 8-bit NES, as performed by a Japanese orchestra. The track is from a CD called Dracula New Classic which is very very hard to find. The game was Castlevania 2, but my track didn't make it into The Minibosses stuff from the same game. Mine's prettier. I think it's the sad song from the end when you win.... I dunno!

11:49 AM -

oooooh! Why am I such a sucker for cute-looking villains?

Kingdom Hearts 2
Yeah, he's a villain
I think he's one of these

Anyway. If I actually chose to do this costume this year, I could join AJ et al. for a guest appearance on their convention circuit. And since the game doesn't come out until the end of this year at the earliest... I'd be all avant-garde and stuff.

I've said this before though! I always get costume ideas and never do them. So no one should gget their hopes up either way, especially me.

On another note: if you wanted to join our team for the SF Chinese New Year Parade Treasure Hunt but haven't gotten back to me, get in touch ASAP! I need to get our tickets in the next couple days.

If I wanted to wear a red wig, I should just re-finish the Iori costume.

Saturday, January 24, 2004

12:55 AM -

I just got home from a dinner that a friend hosted to celebrate Chinese New Year. We went to a Cantonese dim sum place in San Francisco, and the food was pretty good, although it was hard waiting until last for the vegetarian entrees to arrive. We managed. The company was excellent.

Near the end of the meal (which was negotiated by our hosts mostly in Cantonese), the waiter told our friends that our group was not entitled to certain foods and desserts that they were used to because we had too many white people in our party. The waiter was "not allowed" to bring the treats that my friends were asking about.

I got very angry upon fully understanding the story (I speak Mandarin, not Cantonese). In the car on the way home I've already chewed the owners out in Mandarin several times, accused them of racism, torn up the bill at least twice, walked out, and even come up with some pretty pathetic racist comments of my own. Luckily, none of this happened inside the restaurant, especially because our host was really trying to do something nice for his friends to celebrate the Chinese New Year. I really appreciate his intentions.

So... what do I do? I am at the very least writing a scathing letter to the restaurant. I would like to put more pressure on the restaurant though, perhaps by writing to local English-language and Chinese-language newspapers. I'm sorta wondering what to do with what I'm feeling, and would love some advice.

The ironic thing is that I am currently finishing up my paper about racist attitudes and stereotypes of Chinese and Chinese-Americans in the American mainstream media.

Thursday, January 22, 2004

11:39 AM -

Happy New Year! Year of the Monkey. What better opportunity to show off my mad Photoshop skillz (whatever... I had so much trouble changing black into the blue color that I started over partway through, but you don't know that from looking at the image...)

So I've mostly been writing a paper (appropriately enough) on Fu Manchu, a fictional character from the early 1900's. It was a hurtful stereotype that reinforced white Americans' negative ideas about Chinese and Chinese Americans. Doing the research has been really interesting. I learned that in 1882, the US actually passed a law forbidding Chinese workers to come here. I think that the Chinese were also ineligible for citizenship at that time. And the newspapers (SF Chronicle, shame on you!) would "quote" ethnic minorities in imperfect English, to make fun of the way that people talked. It's all pretty disgusting. It seems like the only positive press for the Chinese at that time was designed to attract tourists to Chinatown.

In any case, I've learned a lot.

On a different topic, I read today that there is some trouble communicating with Spirit, the Mars rover that landed a couple weeks ago. This whole Mars-in-the-news phenomenon has made me a little bit nostalgic. I mean, sometimes I wonder if I passed up a great opportunity. In undergrad I took a class with Steve Squyres, the scientist on Spirit who was all over the news as soon as they had a successful arrival at Mars. I did research with Hubble. (In fact, I still operate a NASA satellite at my current job...) Sometimes I wonder if I should have worked harder, been more involved, and really pushed to be a planetary astronomer. In my heart, though, I realize that there's a lot that I don't like about professional astronomy, like physicists' general lack of interpersonal skills and the "recognition" nastiness that goes on around publishing research and kissing up for grant money.

Also, and perhaps more importantly, I didn't have a lot of self-awareness when I chose astronomy. I have a lot of creativity that needs expression, and studying the planets, while academically fascinating, didn't nurture my soul and my passions. I felt more sense of accomplishment in doing my first fashion show than I did completing a physics class or analyzing a streak on the surface of Venus. (The Hubble thing with Jupiter was still pretty cool, I'll admit that.) So I have some confidence that creativity and my various arts are the right path for me, even if what I was doing in the past was also worthy of recognition.

Anyway, congratulations and get rich my little monkeys. Now gimme a red envelope already... or I'll just settle for some comments.

Saturday, January 17, 2004

3:14 AM -

After working late with the satellite tonight, I was struck by a bout of covetousness. I would really like to find a good action figure of each of the following characters: Iori Yagami (King of Fighters), Kuja (Final Fantasy 9), and Sheik (Zelda: Ocarina of Time or Super Smash Bros. Melee)... I'm not sure what this is about other than me wanting action figures of obscure things that never get made. It started because I've made costumes for 2 of these 3 characters already, and action figures would have been nice souvenirs. Does this mean I have to make a Sheik costume, too? Probably not. But if someone has mysterious action figure resources and is thinking about my birthday in advance... *wink* mwahahaha

Thursday, January 15, 2004

6:16 PM -

it's rant-a-blog!

We've had a mouse living in our office at work for about 2 months. It digs holes in our potted plant's soil and poops on our desks at night. I first found out about the mouse when I returned from my vacation in Vermont. I was kinda annoyed that no one simply took care of the mouse. Of course my annoyance has grown as people just seem to ignore the problem rather than address it. I think it's a metaphor for how things are at work. I bring it up from time to time, and people agree that yeah, the mouse is a problem, and then they go about their business.

My co-worker Marty's live-catch traps and her re-potting the plant effort have not worked. She's on vacation now. Finally, I took charge and called campus pest control, and they came today. They left a standard mousetrap and a sticky box trap right by the plant, where the mouse supposedly lives.

So tonight right before I leave, co-worker John initiates a conversation about how he thinks it would be better to simply get rid of the plant and never eat food in our office again, to make our office less appealing to the mouse. Never mind that the plant isn't really the issue because the plant has been safely indoors for longer than I've worked at the lab... not to mention the fact that it's Marty's plant and she's away. He feels guilty using the killing traps, which he thinks are inhumane (and I agree, somewhat), but he was perfectly willing to have his cat come in to catch the mouse until his wife said no. I pointed out that I was not insisting we kill the mouse, but I was frustrated that we had taken no action in 2 months. After fifteen minutes of back and forth, John agreed to call the pest control people again and ask for more humane traps. I made him take responsibility for it because I had already tried to solve the problem once and if he has issues, he can take responsibility instead of sitting idly as he has for the past 2 months.

Only after we reached that decision did I learn that the pest control person had initially offered humane traps, and John had specifically turned them down and asked for the killing traps. And yet he rather have a whole passive-aggressive discussion blaming me for the use of the killing traps and presenting a "let's hope it just goes away" solution rather than just say why he feels guilty and find a reasonable answer.

sorry, I needed to vent. and now, if you haven't already, click on the little godzilla dinosaur. sound clip courtesy of:

Tuesday, January 13, 2004

5:50 PM -

Clean!

I just spend a good couple of hours scouring my bathroom. It's such a hard project to get started, but it feels awesome to be done with it. Sometimes I think that my bathroom is my favorite room in this apartment... it's the most colorful and has the most toys on display.

Next on the list: the kitchen (insert ominous music cue...)

But I'm going to the gym first, since my plan to go yesterday go ruined. "Ruined?" you ask... Well, I was supposed to be done with work by 8pm, but never trust a satellite. I was there until midnight-thirty, which is why I took today off and had time to scour the bathroom.

I love how these blog posts come full circle. You'd think I know how to write or something. Leave us a comment, preciouses!

Monday, January 12, 2004

1:07 AM -

I'm still not sure if I will have time to whip out an elf costume between now and February 7. I did figure out how I would make the crown, though... can you say 54 cents in the "as is" pile at IKEA? wooowoooo!

I wonder if Lothlorien had thrift stores :-P

Friday, January 09, 2004

3:31 PM -

I was waiting for the bus up the hill to work today when I noticed someone standing behind me, smoking. We were under an overhang, hiding from the rain. Some guy comes up to him and asks him for a cigarette. As they share, the new guy (hereafter referred to as the crazy guy) starts talking about his unfinished MBA degree and how the student should care more about Bush's economic craziness, blah blah blah. I quietly slinked away and smirked from a distance.

Then the crazy guy gets on the same bus as me, and proceeds to proclaim that he has made a discovery greater than the atomic bomb, comparing himself to the Nobel-prize winning professors on campus. He talks about how the Human Genome Project is going to inspire a renewed interest in eugenics, where the "highly intelligent" people of the world sterilize the "below average" people in an attempt to create a super-race of humans. He talked about both China and India in that context. He also points out that he went to law school, never finished the bar exam, and can't give advice to the bus driver, but she should sue her employer because bus and truck drivers have a high rate of kidney disease, due to the vibrations of their vehicles.

I could go on an on about overcompensating for feelings of inadequacy and self worth, subliminal desires to eradicate massive segments of the human population, or imagining yourself in a world filled with people who reflect what you feel are your best qualities. I won't go on and on. But I will say two things: 1) If the highly intelligent people of the world develop an interest in eugenics and create a super-race of humans by eradicating the misfits, you heard it here first, from a crazy guy on the bus. 2) Don't smoke, but if you do, don't share cigarettes with crazy strangers.

Wednesday, January 07, 2004

1:24 PM -

Hrm. I've been waiting for 2 days for someone to post something new on LiveJournal so I can respond to it. No one has done that... so finally I'm taking matters into my own hands.

AJ has invited me to go with her to the Return of the King Ball with her and Judy. They are going as elves. After I got all excited about Legolas' outfit from the Aragorn's coronation, and about Elvish crowns in general, and recognizing this year may be the last time ever that it's vogue at all to make an elf costume... well... I'm tempted. I did some research, and I'll post them for die-hard costumers who want details:

The coronation outfit:
screenies

But alas, it's not a shirt. See this chess piece:
gak it's a robe!

And if there's one thing I don't need, it's a leafy robe. To be honest, I don't like the designs of the elf robes on the boys that much. So I looked at Legolas' silver shirt, infamous among costume recreation-ists, because apparently a lot of people want everything perfect down to the last detail.

from Fellowship...
costume tests...
but surprise!
and a lovely detail

That second set of shots should prove that the mythical "reunion outfit" is really just that pesky silver shirt again. It seems like there had been some debate. Whatever.

(Side notes for Judy, in case she ever gets around to reading this: probably no biting and nevermind about the wig. blech)

Anyway, enough showing off my mad cyber-stalking skillz. I am sorta discontent with all of these outfits, big surprise. I started checking out Elrond or even some extras, more extras, and even kinda creepy extra fansites, but nothing is very inspiring. Even worse, some of my feelings of "people are way too into this; I'm getting creeped out" are returning. So... I guess I'm feeling conflicted about whether or not I wanna do this.

I know how I'd do it, and maybe I'll make a couple of sketches and see if I feel inspired. I keep threatening to make a list of creative projects I want to do this spring, and I know at the top of that list is finishing the unicorn from last year, really working at trapeze, and making something for Fenny... so is there room in there for an elf? To quote Gimli, or maybe just Sean Connery, "Ach."

Leave me feedback, preciouses.

Monday, January 05, 2004

4:08 AM -

Major site update! I've finally put up the circus section of my website, which was kinda overdue since it's the very first thing on the very first page. Meh. There's a quicktime video in the circus section.... see if you can figure out why that trick is called the "spinning angel."

If you want to be included in the links section, please let me know. Bonus if you have made yourself a banner already.

It's 4 am and I am at work... see previous post for pity party invites.

Sunday, January 04, 2004

4:26 PM -

Woohoo, it's time for a new post. First of all... Happy New Year.

Second, if you're truly observant, you might have noticed that I've changed my format a little by adding an archives section. I'm not sure that I have it all programmed correctly yet, but since we can't have this thing grow and grow and never have a cut-off point, it's time to figure out how to make an archive. The index should be at the bottom of the page.

Also, a hearty welcome to LiveJournal user madletters, who went to college with me. He was publishing a blog via e-mail long before it was trendy, so hopefully he'll find LiveJournal to be a good fit.

After all those semantics, there's not actually much going on for me this weekend. I mean, I got some great vinyl from AJ, and got to hang out with her and Judy while fabric shopping, and I even got to see Oscar which meant that if only I had thought to pick up the scanner I am trying to buy from Daanish, I would have seen my entire LiveJournal friend list in one day.

Enough rambling... I have to work tonight at 11pm. Throw me a pity party... or at least find me a good link to one.