Er, my to-do list? Is almost done. I'm actually sort of avoiding doing the last couple Otakon-related things on it just so I'll have something to do tonight.

So instead I'm doing unrelated things. Like last night I watched Return of the Archons. Really good episode, but pretty much the whole time, this is what I was thinking about:



...Also this and this at the beginning as well, but mostly that.

I could take it the silly way, or the way it was intended. Uh, actually, that's about half the same thing anyway.

• Post ten of any pictures currently on your hard drive that you think are self-expressive.

• NO CAPTIONS!!! It must be like we're speaking with images and we have to interpret your visual language just like we have to interpret your words.

• They must ALREADY be on your hard drive - no googling or flickr! They have to have been saved to your folders sometime in the past. They must be something you've saved there because it resonated with you for some reason.

• You do NOT have to answer any questions about any of your pictures if you don't want to. You can make them as mysterious as you like. Or you can explain them away as much as you like.

( I don't think any of these really need explanation. )

My weekend starts now, so two days off...

And next week's schedule was posted. I have Tuesday night off as well as Wednesday.

So two days off, then working Saturday-Sunday-Monday nights... then all of Tuesday to pack and do last-minute things while trying to correct my sleep schedule. And then like halfway through Wednesday (since we're not doing anything else before heading for Baltimore this year... as far as I know?), after we've had some more time to finish stuff, then we take off!

Only thing is, now we're a week away from leaving and still don't know who's going to be able to take care of our pets. :/

( ...Is there even a to-do list? )

As if anyone who's RPed with me for any length of time is probably aware...

( RPer quiz thingy )

...No wonder I got so tired of The Smutfic. XD

Five years.

(I am terrible and always forget. XD)

But will note that it's amazing what a decent amount of sleep will do to my mood - except that it might not have had so much to do with the sleep as it did with waking up to find that apparently Peter David made Shatterstar gay, and Rob Liefeld hates it. This is like the best thing ever, and I kept grinning and snickering throughout the first half of my shift when I thought about it. (Hey, fandom is supposed to be hating Peter David for some reason now, aren't they? Besides scans_daily, which I'm surprised even lasted as long as it did, considering that the first time I heard of it, I went "hooboy, that's one great big TOS violation just waiting to be reported..." So I can't be mad at him over that, and would prefer to just love on him for this.)

Shatterstar was probably my favorite of Liefeld's creations, though I could never put my finger on why exactly. Maybe just because he was so much fun to draw, despite the Liefeldness. But between this and Colossus, suddenly I'm thinking once again, as I did for a long time about 15 years ago, that I would love to be an artist at Marvel, at this point. I have to wonder if any of their artists are as bothered by this stuff as Liefeld is, come to think of it...

So yeah. Suddenly kind of want to draw comic book art again. But uh, I also have this urge to illustrate a really stupid Trek-related idea I had earlier. Because I could write it, but I suspect it would be more fun to put it in a visual format. :D

But I cannot draw. I need to sleep.

[Edit: Except that now I'm reading the stuff bantered about in the main link, and am laughing SO HARD. Liefeld didn't bother capitalizing his own name when he made a username, and PAD is just totally passive-aggressively schooling him.

Thanks for the reference to “Gladiator,” though. Now I’m definitely going to have Guido ask Shatterstar if he likes gladiator movies. And when Shatterstar says, “Yes, absolutely,” Guido will say, “Figures.”

...Dying over here. I so have to start reading these books again. XD]

And at some point in the next couple days, I'm going to fully assemble Ultros, whose frame has been made - complete with the wheels we didn't screw on Saturday when the rest was built, and what goes on top of the frame was done a few days before - and see how mobile he is. Possibly, considering that he is mobile, there will be video. :D

...but due to getting four hours sleep Saturday due to neighbor kids' firecrackers, then six hours sleep Sunday due to a pest of a cat who is indeed adorable and snuggly but also a loud pest, I don't feel like making the effort to post about most of them, so I will just say...

...Crap, I have to remake my Pistons icon again. And I just bought his jersey this last season too. :( At least he's going to a team that I like (which does not have Shaq on the roster THANK GOODNESS). And as for who I can giggle at during the shootaround if I make it out to a game next season, it sounds like we'll still have absolutely adorable BFFs Will and Kwame.

And now I go to bed. :/

In addition to stuff on the to-do list, this "weekend" akatonbo and I opened up a joint checking account for bills and so on. I really don't know why we didn't do it ages ago. Also I, uh, discovered the existence of these.

...

I really, really want them. I have not bought Barbie anything except like once when I was eight (and I didn't care about the doll, it just came with a cool horse), and I still really want them. :( Stores around here don't seem to have them, though, and considering some current financial stuff we're taking care of and Otakon in two weeks, I really shouldn't just go ahead and order the set. At least they're still below list price on eBay. I just hope they stay that way for another month...

OMG THAT LINK HAS A PIC WITH SPOCK-KEN'S HANDS BEHIND HIS BACK OMG OMG OMG. SO NOT HELPING.

As we were waiting around at the bank, I noted that one of the things we could do with them when (if :() we found them was...

Me: We could put them in Sam and Frodo's boat! [since yes, we do have that figure on the entertainment center already...]
Her: They're too big to fit in there, though.
Me: Not if they're really friendly! :DDDD
Her: ...Jim approves, but I'm still not so sure it'll work.
(a little later...)
Me: You know, saying characters are "in Sam and Frodo's boat" is kind of like the opposite of saying they're "in the closet".
Her: ..........
Me: Come on, it makes way too much sense!

Also I wrote still more Spock's-equivalent-to-PWP which I will probably not post anywhere. :( But at least it seems to have kicked akatonbo's Kirk in the butt? Wasn't he the one who started this whole thing?

Also, randomly, speaking of Trek and hobbits, this made me laugh for wayyyyy too long.

Edit: And upon showing akatonbo this other thing that totally cracked me up (especially because I didn't see the title before I clicked on it)...

Her: [british] On second thought, let us not go to the internet. It is a silly place.

...Though honestly, probably not any more silly than we get on our own. While at the bank, discussing other things to do with Star Trek Barbies, she pointed out that she might still have some leather pants from some other variant Barbie, and I pointed out that... did we really want to put Kirk in leather pants? That could only make him worse. Especially if it meant he'd turn into Draco Malfoy.

Of course, then it occurred to me that fanon!Draco is oddly similar to canon!Kirk in many ways.

And since I never really had Barbies, I had to admit that all I could contribute to re-clothing Starfleet officers was... uhm, Sailor Moon doll clothes.

Kirk would look cute in Venus's outfit. Spock gets Mercury, of course.

...On second thought, it may be a good thing for the world in general if we never get our hands on those dolls.

Already done:

- ordered rings (yayayayayyayayyyy, I hope they can make it before Otakon)
- got akatonbo pre-regged for Otakon
- made Locke's necklace
- ( took pics of Locke stealing... something small and cute )

So what's left for Otakon?

- make Adrian's belt
- Franziska's whip
- Ultros's front tentacles
- make Ultros's frame (Saturday morning, most likely)
- finish Locke's sleeve cuffs (if the fabric comes in, will use that; otherwise can sew it in like a half hour by hand in the car if I have to)
- Hem and hook/eye on Locke's pants

...Yeah, I think that's seriously it.

And since it just wouldn't be one of my posts lately without something really stupid and TOS-related, have another silly gif I made because it just made me laugh.

( Filename is wedontwanthimeither.gif )

So I decided I needed to make some Trek icons, and threw a bunch of upbeat stuff I hadn't listened to for awhile on a playlist just to go along with the spirit of the post that made me decide I need some Trek icons. (This one, which for the record is the comm that made me sound like Scotty the other day. XD) And maybe I should have been choosing my music a little more carefully while skimming episodes, because...

...I wound up scrolling in fast-forward through a particularly silly Kirk fistfight while listening to Rhapsody - Holy Thunderforce.

I think Spock and Bones say it all here:

I wish this shrunk down well to icon size, as their expressions are my reaction to a lot of stuff on the internet. XD (Edit: Oh well, I did my best - because this shot just makes me laugh a lot.)

I cannot stop laughing. ...I might need to speed up some of the more ridiculous TOS fight scenes and make a vid just for no reason other than to make me laugh my head off when I happen to find it again.

Also, akatonbo? Have a crack songcall. XD Reboot!Spock agrees with the sentiment. Possibly despite the observations in the comments.

(Icons that I have made thus far:

I think the Spock eyebrow one may need to just like... zoom in to just the eyebrow for maximum effect, though. XD)

Also speaking of graphics - no one told me they had implemented the variant moodbunnies! The black and dutch ones are now there as well as the white ones. So I had to switch to the dutch. For some reason I find that one particularly cute. ;)

Edit: ( Semi-large animated gif, because again I LOLed. )

...Should probably make a post about the "warnings" thing. Not going to get into the meta, just explaining my thinking when I choose what to "warn" for.

( Also going to put it behind a cut, because I know lots of people are sick of reading these. )

You know how usually my boss waits until like a week before a con I'd been planning for a year, then approves the time off that I requested for it half a year ago? And you know how Otakon was kind of in question due to people up at the store screwing up his time off and forcing him to take off the week I wanted off?

Well, today I looked at the scheduling software, at the request I'd put in back in like March, and it's been approved. All of it. Despite the issues with his own time off, and with more than two weeks advance warning as to how this was going to go down. So basically he rocked this time and I'm not going to complain about how he switched my days off again this week, because as long as I have everything I asked for in regards to Otakon, I don't really care what else I wind up having to do beforehand.

So I get off Wednesday morning at 7, and can either nap and then start driving in the evening, or just stay up as late as possible, sleep that night, and we take off early Thursday morning. The former is very much preferable (especially since the whole bunch of us is at the Days, which has a pool, so we could get in early Thursday and swim and then practice the skit), but now we have a little flexibility. And I don't have to be back until... I think the following Tuesday or Wednesday. One of the two.

You would not believe what a tremendous relief this is.

( Now for a bit of stupid Trek/muse weirdness, which actually is also a bit of a relief to me, but behind a cut because it's silly. )

Also: heeeeere's Ulty!


He's sort of draped over the entire couch here, and it's not big enough to hold him, which is why his mouth is crooked - it's on an armrest. But you guys get the idea.

1. All that's left on Locke that's necessary is hemming his pants, sewing patches on the back of his gloves, and making him a necklace. Aside from that, I may redo a little beadwork and make him a belt. But basically, Locke is done. Except for a couple things I could do at work, without even using up my days off.

2. Ultros had eyes as of last weekend, now has side tentacles and teeth, though I ran out of fiberfill with 1.5 teeth to go and had to run to the store at 4am. He looks hilarious and awesome now, just needs front tentacles, and while I was at the store I picked up something to finish...

3. Franziska's buttons are attached to her sleeves with super-strength magnets so I can remove them easily when it comes time to wash the shirt. I'm not sure how well this will work overall, but we'll try it. This is the last thing I had to do on her costume (except make a whip, I guess), so she is done, except I may make her sleeves less poofy. (And Adrian just needs a belt to be done.)

4. Was just browsing a Trek-related comm and caused both of us to crack up when I blurted out "I like this community, it's funn-OH CRAP I SOUNDED JUST LIKE SCOTTY"

5. Since finishing all my Otakon stuff is imminent and I guess I don't have to throw anything new together for Sunday (although I still don't know what we're going to do Sunday - there was talk of a YnM gathering, and I'm tempted to put a couple wigs I already own on akatonbo and myself, wear dresses and carry an extra frilly one, and troll the YnM gathering as Yuma and Saya), I guess this means no more to-do lists?

1. Watching that, then going out and driving home in my two year old car? Felt so low tech. :( I mean, it has a plastic gear shift lever. And backlit displays instead of full digital readouts. :(

2. Watching this movie works so much better when you don't have a migraine that causes you to get motion sickness every time something is moving quickly onscreen. I could actually watch the space battle scenes now, and the spacejump!

3. Boy, Spock is screwed up.

4. Aw gee, guys, why NOT just use the gold rickrack stuff on the sleeves of the uniforms? You were so close otherwise!

5. Really must show akatonbo The Naked Time, for values of Spock emotional breakdowns, Sulu and his sword, and Uhura tossing out one of the best lines of dialogue ever.

From a news article I just spotted...

Tonight the news broke that NBA superstar Shaquille O'Neal was being
traded to the Cleveland Cavaliers. Huge news, but what's humorous is that
apparently Shaq found out he was traded on Twitter.

Apparently the only time I find anything about Shaq entertaining is when
Twitter is involved.

Sorry, Lebron. I'm going to have to root against your team now. (Why don't
you come over to mine? I really don't have anything against you or the Cavs
personally, you know, and you do deserve a championship. Just, you know...
Shaq. And no more Ben Wallace.)

Just saw akatonbo off for her weekend in Detroit. Meaning it's just me and the cats and the bunnies until Sunday night. ...And I always worry about her when she's off driving alone, I can't help it. :P

I'd be asking myself "Well gee, what am I going to do without a vehicle for a couple of days?" but I do have a lot of costume work to do, including possibly walking up to the bead shop for Locke's beads since we didn't have time to do that before she left. But I'm tired now, after running around doing errands all morning, after sewing all night. Though the sewing's going decently, I've got one of Franziska's arm-poofs attached to the sleeves, and half sewn on. One of the errands was to stop in at Jo-Ann's and get some tulle to keep it poofed out, so once I put that in, I can finish the upper sleeve embellishment. So I'm like... 1/4 of the way done with Franziska's sleeves now? More like 1/3, I suppose, since I spent a lot of time patterning it too. This is trickier than Larsa, even, if involving far less fabric.

And most of my time last night was actually spent on sewing Locke's freaking bias tape. But it is ALL DONE, and I will not need to sew bias tape again for a long, long time! ...Unless I do wind up making a last minute Tir to go with mithrigil's Gremio. But at least the bias tape on that means no hems, and I hate hems at least as much as I hate bias tape. :D

Still, kind of embarrassing looking at my to-do list. It looks like I've barely done anything, and having checked for Adrian's belt and fingerless gloves at the thrift stores already, there's a few more things on it that I can't do yet. But Locke's bias tape and Franziska's sleeves (especially those sleeves) are definitely the most intensive work I've got left, and those are done/well under way.

And if I get tired of that, well... as we were browsing the sporting goods section of one thrift store for fingerless gloves, akatonbo suddenly went "DDR pads!" I looked over, and sure enough, lying on a table, three of them. And... two of them were the kind that zip around the edges with the hard foam inside. :O I only have the very first soft pads, and she doesn't like using them, but these are a little more like the machines, at least... And well, $12 each. We decided, why not? Maybe they'll get her playing at home, and that gives me an excuse to maybe buy a newer version than the very first PSX DDR, which is all I have now.

So long as they work. So I've gotta clear off the living room floor here at some point, set them up, and try playing doubles. ;) I've never done that before, since at the arcade it's expensive, con gaming rooms are too busy, I was living in a tiny box with barely enough floor space for one pad at first, and the next place I lived, I set the TV up at the foot of my bed.

Also funny: We walked out of the thrift store, each carrying one, and a guy about our age who was just walking in saw us across the parking lot and yelled "Niiiiiiiice!" XD

I thought that since I got out the Vulcan that's been lodged in my head for the last week and a half, I'd start working on kink meme fic again tonight. After all, I finally figured out how to get unstuck!

Instead, I seem to have found myself writing a FFT endgame fic with the working title "5 Things That May Or May Not Have Happened to Ramza Beoulve (But We'll Never Know)".

It's only the working title because I think it may want to be more like 7 or 8 things. Two are finished, another is almost finished, and two more are plotted out pretty completely. A little crack, a little humor, and some non-crack crossover action because every battlefield in Mullonde looks an awful lot like a room from another game, if you know what I mean. ( Somewhat spoilery! )

Since it was really slow at work last night, I finished FFT PSP. And duuude. I'd seen it before, of course, on the PS1, but... Matsuno is the master of "Rocks fall, everybody dies". I mean, the ending's like "Everyone dies! And now you're at the funeral and everyone's talking about how tragic it is! Oh and here's a guy who's still alive... and wait, maybe not everyone's dead after all? Ahh, pleasant peaceful scenery... and by the way, that guy dies. And here's the triumphant-sounding credits music... and now it's time for some more people to die."

About that last, by the way, I was all distracted by the fact that they totally copied Vagrant Story's credits - and if they like VS so much, can't they maybe re-release it, or make a sequel or something? So then the credits ended, and my reaction was this.

Ah, the end. Screen went black. ...Wait, what's it 'Now Loa'... Crap, I forgot. :(

But of course I love it, because it fits. akatonbo and I were talking when I got home about Matsuno endings, and how they just wouldn't let him do that in FFXII because it was part of the main series. And of course they wouldn't let him make a thirtysomething scruffy knight the main character. But then I got to thinking, and Basch's ending? Exactly sadistic enough to be a Matsuno ending. Same for Larsa, really. Their stories only have happy endings if you don't think about it too hard.

Just dropped nearly $100 (thanks to ordering in-state, I get to pay sales tax too) on ordering brass samples of akatonbo's favorite ring and my favorite ring. (Hers, mine.) We'll see if either of us winds up liking the other's better once we've had a look in person, or if we like our own less, or like neither. Also, hers is rather more expensive than mine (there's a cheaper version here, but it would take forever to have made so it might not arrive before Otakon, and we don't like that version as much), and neither of us is entirely sure we want to spend that much... but maybe we'll totally be sold on it. ;)

Fortunately, I'll be getting at least $70.00 refunded when we send the samples back. (And possibly the sales tax too, I'm assuming.)

This is so exciting. :D

Also exciting: this is what I will be marrying onstage at Otakon by force, if not thwarted by her champion. How freaking awesome is that? mithrigil has the MAD SKILLZ. ...And it occurred to me that akatonbo and I will, at con, be two of her three boyfriends, in various senses. XD

And now something that is exciting in a way that balances out the extreme girliness of picking out rings and linking to awesome froofy ballgowns! Bill Laimbeer resigned as head coach of the Detroit Shock because he wants to try his hand in the NBA. :O The articles I read about it this morning say he's already talked to Joe Dumars, and imply that he's stated his end goal is to coach the Pistons - but analysts say he'll have to put in some time doing assistant coach work before that happens, and that's even if Joe was planning on ditching Michael Curry, which he's not. (Probably.) Meanwhile, Rick Mahorn's taking over as the Shock's head coach.

And duuuuude. You know how great it is to get to write a post that contains the names Bill Laimbeer, Rick Mahorn, and Joe Dumars all together after twenty years? :D ...I just hope that this works out better for Bill than it did for another name I would like to mention in here, Isaiah Thomas. They're all still my boys. Yes, even Isaiah.

Last Monday, when I went out to run some errands before akatonbo got up, I left a note on the whiteboard just in case I was wrong, and she went into work that day earlier than I thought. (She's moved to a slightly different schedule for the time being, and I keep forgetting which days she goes in an hour later.) Then when I went out Wednesday to do errands, I was going to erase the message still there from Monday, but then realized I'd be writing the same message. So I wrote an addendum.

Later that day, I happened to glance in the direction of the whiteboard, and noticed that something seemed to have been written or drawn in between my two notes, very small. So I went to take a closer look, and found that my second message had been corrected:



I really should have expected that. XD

---

This t-shirt design just about killed me with laughter. :D

---

Writing Trek fic the last couple days led to discussion this morning about bits of canon that I'd recently discovered, and theories that akatonbo had come up with, namely that Kirk has sex with a different alien woman on pretty much every episode of TOS because, well, is it really a good idea to sleep around on a starship where you're trapped with the same people all the time? If you want to have casual sex, isn't "random alien woman of the week who is not a crew member" the best option?

"Well, except that a lot of the time they die shortly after making out with him," I pointed out. "Someone's got to point out that there's a pattern forming."

And at some point, the conversation turned to Spock's parents as represented in TOS, and suddenly I realized... when Spock shows up while Kirk's showing his parents around, Spock is probably checking up on them. Which led to the following quote...

"Captain, please do not seduce my mother. I would prefer for her to survive the episode."

---

I signed up for Facebook yesterday just out of curiosity, because I know a few people who only have Facebook and no other blog-like system. I am already rather irritated with its interface, and the fact that people can just look you up if they know your real name. I made sure everything other than my name and the fact I have an account is good and hidden, and didn't even bother putting in contact info (including LJ and DW, in particular I would prefer for the millions of family members not to poke around too much), but already am considering just deleting my account. I'm one of those cranky old-fashioned types that wants my online life (with fandom names and so on) and my offline life (with my real name) to not intersect except when I choose for them to do so, and there's way too much potential for someone to accidentally drop a comment on my "wall" with a link to something elsewhere that wasn't meant to be seen elsewhere, and so on.

So basically I'm a stick-in-the-mud who doesn't like having my real name on the web at all except for professional reasons, and thus the idea of using Facebook for anything other than job hunts and so on (or people posting on mine about anything other than job hunts and so on) gives me the creeps. I probably really should just delete the account. :P

---

Renewed AAA membership today, and stopped halfway across the parking lot, going "..." before I went back and looked in my glove compartment. Sure enough, my proof of insurance expired yesterday. I haven't gotten a new proof of insurance in the mail for a couple years - I just keep having to go down to the AAA office and asking for a printout every six months. This time I even watched the mail, expecting I'd get one in May due to the current one expiring in June. Nothing except the "payment has been automatically debited, amount due $0.00" statements. If those are getting to me, why aren't the proofs getting to me?

---

Also stopped to buy groceries today, and they didn't have what I was going to buy... so then I found myself thinking "Well, if I can't spend that money on food, maybe I should go buy that purple iPod!"

...Gorgeous purple iPod Nanos cost a little bit more than buy-one-get-one tapioca pudding. :P But I still want one, darnit.

It occurs to me that the only thing Spock has given me thus far is PWP.

Of course, specifically I mean the "Plot? What Plot?" definition, rather
than the other. Because all he gives me are conversations which
have very little relevance overall, but which facilitate deeper
understanding.

Of course, since Spock is Spock, this is every bit as satisfying as the
other definition of PWP. Possibly more so.

Of course this was not at all posted to further irritate an agitated Kirk
muse. Although Spock finds that too at least as enjoyable as the traditional
PWP.

My actual nights off were spent decorating Locke's jacket, and constructing his bandana. Both of these went much faster than I thought, with better results. And at some point I will make akatonbo put everything on for a progress shot, because Locke has definitely reached the point where he is recognizable. This means that even if I do nothing else at all to him for the next month, I could still wear him without feeling completely ashamed. I also did the yellow stripes on Franziska's outfit, which makes her even more recognizable than she was as soon as I added the bow, and finished off Ralse entirely. So the big thing left for Otakon is Ultros, which (aside from finding the time to construct the base) should be pretty simple, if tedious.

Friday morning, we ran errands, and hit the mall specifically to look at some ring samples at Sears. After doing that, I went "Hey, I should look for a black corset to go with that purple skirt!" Apparently corsets are not "in" anymore, because even Hot Topic didn't have any, except for a corset-top black and purple dress. ...Which I couldn't wear with the skirt, because it was a dress, but I tried it on anyway. And thought I looked hilarious. Cute, but hilarious, because I don't wear cute things. At any rate, they had a whole rack of rainbowy stuff up front because of Pride the next day, so I wound up buying a rainbowy top (which you will see later, though not the neat straps in the back). Also really liked the "Rainbows are Gay" and Bert/Ernie with rainbows shirts. XD

( This got long, so summary: Dents in old car, weather forecast inaccuracy, Vulcans plot-tribbling, Pride plus photos. )

Now I really need to try to sleep before work. :P

I'm working along on Franziska's yellow stripes, having turned off my custom Trek marathon due to akatonbo waking up a while ago, and despite her having gone off to work, I hadn't turned it back on. (Locke's jacket took me through three episodes of TOS S1, and before that an episode of X-Files and Forensic Files, plus a couple infomercials which I was too distracted by juggling paint and fabric to turn off.) And for some reason, there is a song stuck in my head, from a musical I really liked when I was in elementary school.

And the idea of it applying to Franziska is really, really wrong. And I'm snickering at the idea of her singing it, and then she makes a correction which makes it all make sense...

"No, little brother - you're never fully dressed without a whip."

Hey, justices, hey witnesses
I'll know if you slip -
And brother, I'm never fully dressed without a whip!

My clothes may be from Germany
They've made quite a trip -
But brother, I'm never fully dressed without a whip!

My record is astounding
If I lose, I'll have you know:
You'll be whipped from ear to ear
And then from head to toe...

...My brain just sort of does this automatically.

A couple days ago, I was all gung-ho about the idea of finishing Locke's jacket, just basically sitting down and doing stuff to it now that the basic jacket is sewn together. Now suddenly I feel lethargic and vaguely intimidated. Grumble. Possibly it's because I've worked a few more days since then (since my weekend starts now), and am more tired than I was.

However, so far in my "weekend", I have:

- found a bathing suit I don't hate (actually two! I liked the top of one and the bottom of the other. Sadly, they were not an exact color match, but I found a black version of the one I liked, and the top that I liked is black and purple... so win.)
- confirmed I have money in my checking account for any purchases I may make in the next few days
- made notes on the list of engagement rings we liked, pros and cons of each, ranking favorites
- sent said list off to akatonbo, who had already done the same
- bought enough Diet Coke to last me a couple more weeks

Things I should be motivated to do but am not (maybe after some sleep?):

- Ralse's hair ribbon (It's all I have left to do on the guy!)
- Just screw with Locke's jacket until it looks right
- Start on Locke's turban/bandanna thing
- Honestly, that jacket and turban are enough to keep me occupied for a couple weeks. Do I really need to add more stuff to the list? Edit: Yes, apparently - because I can't finish the jacket until I get some bias tape and a different kind of fake fur.
- Edit skit audio into what we're actually going to use as the instrumentals
- Really, make akatonbo watch an OT3 episode or two of TOS
- Franziska's sleeves
- Franziska's yellow stripes (and after those two things, she's done too!)
- Straighten out hotel reservations
- Actually pre-reg for the con maybe? :P
- Beat FFT PSP (I'm at the last battle, but didn't want to do it at work. I know I'd get to a cinematic bit, and then the bell would ring. :()

Despite being unmotivated to actually do work for it, I can't wait for Otakon. It appears Jess will be performing with us again! Though that's because puella_nerdii will again be absent, which means we're unlikely to see each other at all this year, which feels really, really wrong. :P But aside from that, and the bit where the third floor terrace is closed (everyone's frantically rescheduling photoshoots - it seems FF groups will likely be meeting up on the 4th floor now)... I'll be hanging out with awesome people. Wearing crazy costumes. Performing my dream skit. (I'm serious. I've wished it were possible for years.)

Though I will admit I'm mildly worried about our skit's reg status. I got the automated response saying that it had been received shortly after reg opened, and there is a post on the forums saying that if you got the auto-email, your submission was received. That very night, they apparently were emailing back everyone who submitted info before reg was open, so if they decided ours was too soon, they should have emailed us back by now. But on the other hand, although some places are saying that reg "resumes" tomorrow, others are saying that masq reg is "postponed" until tomorrow, and submissions were supposed to get confirmed within 5-7 days. Even though it's only been five and a half, once it actually hits seven, that's when masq reg resumes (or begins again?), and I'd really like to know if I have to submit again before that goes live. :/

Unrelated, I have this horrible urge to go buy myself an iPod Nano in that gorgeous purple shade. Just because I could, and it's such a great shade of my favorite color. I've been ogling it since they came out. :( Oh crap, they have refurbished ones for $99. This is so not helping.

The ongoing saga of STUPID at work continues! I went in last night, and found that someone had taped up a sign on the paper towel dispenser above the cafe area sink, reading something like "ATTENTION - Gas Station Team Members: DO NOT DUMP COFFEE OUT IN THIS SINK! It is a violation of health codes!!!!!!!!!!" Yes, complete with random bold/underline and a million exclamation points. I kind of blinked at it, and drained the coffee into the sink anyway. I'd believe that when I actually saw a code cited, because that makes no sense. Customers dump their coffee out in there all the time, and rinse their refill mugs, and so on. We encourage it, because it's much better than them trying to dump out their old coffee in... a drip tray that holds approximately one ounce before it overflows. (Seriously, people - they're DRIP TRAYS. Not drains.)

Then the boss showed up this morning, had a look around the cafe area, and stopped to stare at the sign. "Okay, who put that up?" I told him I didn't know, and he went "Pfft, morons. It's not a health code violation - it's just that when they dump the coffeepots out in that sink, it splashes everywhere and they don't clean it up." So he tore it down, and added "And you know what the head honchos really hate? Signs taped to things."

Bwahahahah.

Changing subjects: I seem to have found a way to not want to cut off all my hair! I was seriously so disgusted with my hair (and physical appearance in general) a couple weeks ago that I considered just taking some scissors to it myself. But then I thought "Well... I should see how it looks red, first. Maybe I'll dye it tomorrow." And then if I still hated it, I had an excuse to cut it all off. But akatonbo talked me out of it, saying we should do at least one more Emishi and Amon photoshoot before I do anything to my hair. (Which is true. Possibly we should drop a certain family photographer a line... ;))

Then a day or so later, I was just poking around and wound up absently playing with my hair, and pulled it over from its usual center part to a side part. And forgot about it, and left it like that. Then later I was in front of the bathroom mirror, and went "...Wait. I... look kinda cute?" So I did it on purpose when I got up that night, and still thought it looked pretty decent. So I kept on doing it, and I don't totally hate the way I look! Funny how just changing the part can make me kind of like my hair again. Although now I totally have Vayne Solidor hair. Not quite as low a part, but... yeah.

Also on the topic of vanity, it occurred to me that I have some money in the bank now, and I should get a new bathing suit. They're on sale at a lot of stores now, and the one I have wound up being way more pink than purple once I got it out in sunlight... which I didn't do until a while after I'd bought it. :P The pink bikini was amusing for Otakon last year, because it was the sort of thing Hokuto would wear, and so we took some Hokuto swimsuit shots. But... really. I want something less pink, so yesterday I went bathing suit shopping.

Unfortunately, there is hardly anything in my size that is not either pink, or a grotesque combination of like... bright blue and muddy brown, or orange and green, or something along those lines. Apparently this year "stuff that clashes with itself!" is in style. I gave up looking for something interesting, and started just looking for ... like a simple black or red bikini. There's hardly anything black that isn't also pink or just... dumb. Like the one that had little skulls printed all over it. Possibly this is because I can't wear actual women's clothing sizes, and have to shop in "juniors" or "misses", but I wasn't seeing a whole lot of decent women's bathing suits either. I saw a really nice purple/green tie-dye type one-piece at Kohl's, but they had exactly one, and it was a size 14.

I did actually manage to find a simple "mix and match" set of bikini tops and bottoms in assorted single colors at Target, but for one color, the only top they had was like a band of elastic that goes around the chest - no straps. I don't like that style. For another color, they had a bottom in XS, but no top smaller than M. For another color, they had a top in XS, but no bottom smaller than L. And one color, they had no tops whatsoever.

I'm starting to think maybe I should just make my own freaking bathing suit. ...And possibly make it a plain black one, with optional ruffles I can add and a place to put Franziska's brooch and bow for another (far sillier) swimsuit photoshoot this Otakon. XD