MTAC was fun this year, though we weren’t there nearly as much this year, since we opted not to get a hotel room to save money. We also ended up not dressing up at all because we couldn’t figure out what costumes to wear that we wouldn’t be dying to get out of after a few hours. (The purpose of getting a hotel room: to easily change in and out of costume.)

On Friday, we went to see the Kaiju Big Battel screening. Louden Noxious and the Beav, the commentators on the show, were there to provide live commentary. One of the kaiju, Unibouzu, also made an appearance. We got pictures with him and with Louden. After that, we stopped by the game room, and Ben played Smash Bros for a little while. Then we decided to go to the Build Your Own Kaiju contest. Ben had to be at work later, so we couldn’t participate, since we couldn’t stay till the end. That was a little disappointing, but we watched them build the costumes for a little while, and I took a picture of one I dubbed Mr. Butterheart.

On Saturday, we arrived just in time for the Kaiju Big Battel press conference. Once again, Louden and the Beav were hosting it. Several other kaiju showed up, including the infamous Dr. Cube, who gave Ben a “Dr. Cube’s Posse” t-shirt. After the press conference, we contemplated getting in line for the cosplay contest. We started following the line down the hall…around the corner…down another hall…through the doors to outside…down the stairs…up the sidewalk….yeah, it was long. And the room wasn’t that big, so we figured it would be rather pointless to get in line. Instead, we walked around to the front of the hotel, and then I heard someone calling my name. Confused, I looked around. Then I spotted my niece, Meagan. She was there to play the taiko drums, but I hadn’t known anything about it, so it was a very big coincidence. I went and talked to her mom for a bit, and then we watched her perform. I was really impressed! She said she messed up once, but I didn’t notice.

After that surprise, we decided to see if we could get into the room for the overflow of people trying to get into the cosplay contest. We made it in without ever having to wait in line. Unfortunately, because we weren’t actually in the room with the people on stage, the pre-teens/teens/I-really-have-no-idea-how-old-they-were-but-they-were-acting-about-12 decided they would scream insults and stuff to the people hosting the event. Especially when they were having to stall for time (like it was their fault…sheesh) or accidentally mispronounced the name of a character or something. Ben and I were getting awfully irritated, and I was really wanting to chew some people out and/or have security call their parents, but I just tried to block them out as much as I could. It was mainly one side of the room, and not the side we were on, but it was just really ridiculous. I really hope my kids will have more respect for other people than those kids seemed to. Anyway, it was hard to tell details of the costumes on the screen, but from what I can tell, there were some decent costumes. At intermission, they announced the theme for next year, of course: ninjas.

After the contest was over, we went back to the game room. There was a Smash Bros tournament underway, and Ben tried to join in, but it was a double tournament, and he won’t let me play with him, haha. Okay, I’m not GREAT at the game, but I’m not awful either. But I probably would have declined anyway, because with that many people watching, I definitely wouldn’t have been all that good. Since nothing else was really going on, we left.

Ben had to work Sunday, so we didn’t go back. I stayed at home playing with my DS all day instead. It was kind of weird being there not in costume, but at the same time, it was kind of a relief. I think we got to enjoy parts of the con that we don’t normally get to, because we are usually stopping every 5 seconds to take a picture and it takes forever to get anywhere. It was kind of nice being inconspicuous for once.

Yep, Ben and I are still going to MTAC this year. No new costumes, though, and we are not staying in the hotel. Here’s a rough idea of what we might be doing each day, based on stuff that sounds interesting to me.

Friday -
12:15 pm: Kaiju Big Battel screening
2:30 pm: Build your own kaiju

Saturday -
12:00 pm: DS social?
3:30 pm: Kaiju Big Battel press conference
6:00 pm: Cosplay contest

Sunday -
1:15 pm: Guide to electronic music

No word on what the video game tournaments are, as they are set up by Gamestop. Maybe Ben can find out early.

Re Your Brains
Wii Safety Video

Wow, what a weekend…I didn’t take nearly as many pictures as I would have liked, but the ones that I did take are up in the photo gallery already. I took some video as well, which will be up as soon as I can wade through it and edit it.

We arrived in Atlanta on Thursday evening after being stuck in a traffic jam in Chattanooga for about an hour. We located the Hilton quickly enough, parked the car, and checked into the hotel. There were already people in costume roaming about, even though the con didn’t officially start until Friday afternoon. After we found our room, we relaxed for a bit and then went down to registration over in the Hyatt. The line was really long, but it was moving quickly, so it only took us about 20-30 minutes to get our pre-reg badges.

On Friday, we went to a panel on how to build combat robots (for stuff like Robot Battles and BattleBots, etc.), which was pretty interesting. Later that day, we saw Michael Winslow, the “Man of 10,000 Voices” from “Police Academy” and “Spaceballs.” He was really entertaining and did a scene from Star Wars using only his voice, as well as Led Zeppelin and Jimi Hendrix performances (I have all this on video). Friday night, we went to the Mystery Science Theatre 3000: A New Hope showing. Ben wasn’t finding it as funny as I was, so we ended up leaving about half way through. After that, we caught up with my friend Chris and some of his friends and hung out and walked around a bit.

Saturday morning, I meant to get up to see the parade, but was too tired. However, the Mythbusters panel was at 11:30, so I got up for that and headed over to the Hyatt. The line was crazy and no one really knew where it was, considering they had decided at the last minute to move the panel to a different room. I finally made it inside, but Ben was away at the consuite getting food, so he did not before they closed the doors. They showed a Blooper reel (which I have on video) and then did a Q&A session. They revealed some of the things that would be coming up on the show and Kari showed off some bobble head figures of the team she apparently made and would be selling at the Walk of Fame. I stopped by the Walk of Fame later that afternoon and got a picture with the three of them. Yay!!!

On Saturday night, I went and saw a showing of “The Last Unicorn” with commentary from the author, Peter Beagle, which was really interesting. I had heard that a live action movie was being made, but what I didn’t know was that Peter doesn’t have the rights to it anymore, and they are basically planning on screwing up the story. They are trying to raise money to get the rights back. When I was at the Walk of Fame earlier that day, I was going to get an autographed copy of the book (with the proceeds going toward this purpose), but he was away doing a reading, so I decided I would come back on Sunday.

After that, we were going to try to catch one of the costume contests, but the fire marshall had shut down the Hyatt because of the number of people in the hotel. When we finally got inside, the room was full. We decided to go back to the hotel and ordered pizza and watched the Dawn costume contest on Dragon*Con TV.

Sunday, Ben was going to be in the Heroscape tournament. It was at 1:00, so after eating lunch at the consuite (I’m so sick of PB&J sandwiches….), we went over to the Marriott to find out what was going on. There were about 15 people that showed up for the tournament. They played four rounds of games. Ben ended up only winning one of his four, but came SUPER close on two of them (only one guy was left on the map at the very end). If they had ranked everyone by points instead of games won, he would have come in fifth. He still got a prize of a wooden box to put miniatures in and a t-shirt.

While he was playing, I went back down to the Walk of Fame to get my autographed book. But….they were sold out!! I wanted to kick myself for not going ahead and buying one the day before and just coming back to get him to autograph it. He said that if I signed up for his email list, they would be selling them to everyone who was unable to get them at the con, autographed and everything. Which is cool, but still not really the same as having him autograph it in person. But I guess it will do.

After the tournament was over, we went downstairs to wait in line for the Whose Line Is It Anyway? finals. It turned out to be a lot funnier than I was expecting, although there were a few parts that were just kind of painful to watch because of how bad they were doing, hehe. Then we went back to the Hilton to our room and watched the Masquerade on Dragon*Con TV, where these really awesome Wallace & Gromit costumes won Best of Show for the Masters category. I wanted to run over to the Hyatt to get pictures, but didn’t figure I would have time, so I guess I will have to wait until they put out the DVD. Chris and a couple of his friends came over after that and we played several games of Fluxx before we went to bed.

On Monday, I wanted to go watch the Robot Battles, but Ben had to be at work at 5 that evening. So after going around the Dealer’s Room once, we headed out.

Overall, I had a ton of fun!

I’m soo excited. I think I’ve been rambling on about it to anyone who would listen for the past week (okay, so maybe the past year…). My goals for the weekend are:
* to get a picture with Kari, Grant, and Tori from the Mythbusters build team
* to get an autographed copy of “The Last Unicorn”
* to meet Peter Mayhew (Chewbacca)
* to see Episode IV in Mystery Science Theatre 3K style
* to watch Ben win a Heroscape tournament
* to take a ton of pictures
* to have A LOT OF FUN!!

I will be available by cell phone most of the time and possibly by email if the Hilton really does have free wireless as they claim. If they do, I will try to put pictures up periodically.

I meant to post this a few days ago, but here’s the picture of me in the completed water faerie costume at the Ren Fest last weekend.

Now to get started on my Dragon*Con costumes….

I also posted some pictures of downtown Nashville in the Nashville folder and photos from our Memorial Day cookout.

I’ve been working on the wings the past couple days, so here’s some new pictures. I’ll be finishing it up tomorrow night. I still need to go over with paint on the opposite side and do some touch-ups where it got smeared a bit.

Day 5 picture:

Day 6 picture:

I will have you know ahead of time, that in the making of these photos, I dropped my camera and did something to the lens. This is why the left half of the photos are blurry. In trying to fix the camera, I am pretty sure I broke it for good, and now it will take no pictures…..so that sucks.

I basically finished the dress today. I sewed the overlay skirt together and made the hems of both skirts jagged. I attached the pearl strand, but I’m still trying to figure out a way to keep it taut. I will probably loop it through something on the wings to keep it in place.

I have my elf ears on in these pics, but forgot to fix my hair to show them.

I don’t know when I will have pictures next, considering my camera is now broken.

I went to Joann’s yesterday and bought fabric for the base of the dress, as well as a bunch of stuff to decorate the wings with. I can’t start the wings yet, since the light blue stockings I ordered haven’t come in yet. I did, however, get my elf ears in the mail. I began work on the dress. I’m using a pattern for the basic pieces and modifying it.

Here’s some of the random stuff I bought:

The pieces are ready to be sewn:

Progress so far:

I still need to make the hem of the skirt jagged and hem it and add the sheer overlay. I also need to add loops for the pearl strand to go through, and then that is it for the dress. I wish those stockings would hurry up; I’m so ready to start work on the wings!

I thought maybe some people would be interested in following one of my costumes from beginning to end. So, I’m going to try to keep this updated on the progress of my faerie costume. So far I have bought: 3 yards white silk chiffon, turquoise acid dye, 5 light blue clip-in hair extensions, glitter lip gloss, shimmer eye shadow, 2 pairs of large light blue nylon stockings, elf ears, and some body jewels. Not all of this has come in yet.

I pretty much started on the costume last night. After pricing silk chiffon, I determined it would be cheaper to buy some white and dye my own. So this is what I did last night. However, I am used to dying polyester blends that don’t take dye very well, so I was very surprised at how well the silk took dye after only about 2-3 minutes in the dye bath. I had cut the fabric into two sections and wanted one piece (the larger piece) to be a lighter color. But after only 2-3 minutes, it was already too bright.

So after doing some googling today, I learned that I could lighten the silk by heating it up in a mix of water and hydrogen peroxide. So I did this tonight and was pleasantly surprised at the results. After about 30 minutes of cooking on the stove, my two pieces of fabric now look like this (they used to both be the color on the right):

Now the lighter piece of fabric nearly matches the color of the hair extensions, which is what I was wanting.

My next task: take a sample of the lighter fabric and buy the main dress material (something not sheer) that is close to that color.

The videos from MTAC and Brina’s shower are now up, as are photos from both events.

Some pictures of our costumes from last weekend are up in the cosplay section, but more will be coming since the official photos haven’t been posted yet.

Samantha has talked me into doing a faerie costume for the Tennessee Renaissance Festival, so I will apparently be working on that instead of taking a break from costumes for a month like I had planned. I drew up a preliminary sketch, and hopefully it won’t be too time consuming.

I need to take my bridesmaid’s dress for Jason and Becka’s wedding to be altered, as I don’t trust myself to take in a fully lined bodice on a dress.

2007:
Fall
Jessica Albert (Dragon Quest VIII)
Natalia Luzu Kimlasca Lanvaldear (Tales of the Abyss)
Kefka (Final Fantasy VI) - Ben

2008:
Spring
Presea Combatir (Tales of Symphonia)
Lloyd Irving (Tales of Symphonia) - Ben

Fall
Celes Chere - Opera (Final Fantasy VI)
Eirika (Fire Emblem: The Sacred Stones)

2009:
Spring
Leanne (Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance)

Fall
Rosa Farrel (Final Fantasy IV)
Ariel (The Little Mermaid)

(more…)

I spent most of Thursday night running around trying to finish up everything before Friday morning. I had decided that the boots I had purchased for my Celes costume were too tall and went on a fruitless 2.5 hour search through Opry Mills and Cool Springs for mid-calf white boots with a narrow heel. They don’t exist in April. However, Charlotte Russe was having a $4.99 boot sale and I did find some brown boots that I decided to cover with white fabric. So, then I had to make a trip to Joann’s for the fabric. I also went to Target for a few things, then went by the Marriott to pick up our passes for the con. After I got home, I had to cover the boots I had bought, finish painting Ben’s knife for Locke, do laundry, sew Ben’s belt for Locke, pack, and other various little things. I need to teach Ben to sew. I finally went to bed around 2:30 am.

I got up early Friday morning and drove to Clarksville to pick up Sabrina. Then we went back to the apartment, packed up both my car and Ben’s and then were off to Franklin. We arrived and checked into the hotel. The room was ready and on the third floor, right next to the elevator. Perfect. I went with Sabrina to pick up her pass and to get a schedule. Ben and I changed into our Wallmarket costumes and then went back downstairs. We ate lunch at the restaurant in the hotel, Lorraine’s. I had some very yummy chicken, pork roast, and cheesecake.

Wallmarket Aeris and Cloud were a big hit. Everyone seemed really surprised and happy to see cross-dressing Cloud, since it is so rarely done. At 2:00, we went to the Make Your Own Movie panel. We watched a short film on how to get rid of a dead body, which was pretty funny. They explained how to do some different camera angles. It was pretty interesting. After that, we changed costumes into Black Mage and Misa and walked around for a bit. Around 6:30, we decided to make a run to Kroger to get some snacks and soda, and also went to McDonald’s for a bite to eat.

Ben and I got in line to see the Protomen at 8:30. Sabrina didn’t think she could stand up for very long, so she decided to go back to the room. Which turned out to be a great idea, since we waited…..and waited…..and waited…..and waited. After 10:00 passed, we were so fed up with waiting that we left. I have no idea what time the concert actually started, but an hour and a half late is WAY too late.

On Saturday, Sabrina and I got up and went to the con suite for breakfast. I had a yummy egg, cheese, and sausage croissant and a banana. There was supposedly a Kingdom Hearts and Final Fantasy photoshoot at 1:00, so we went to get Ben up. We put on our Celes and Locke costumes and went downstairs. We found the photoshoot, but it seemed to be exclusively Kingdom Hearts, and we thought we would look a little out of place, so we decided to do something else. We went to the Build Your Own Mecha Workshop, in which four teams were competing to build a mecha out of random scraps of things, like keyboard parts, circuits, aluminum foil, and duct tape. It was pretty interesting to see what each of the teams created.

Then I drove Sabrina back to Clarksville while Ben hung out with Wayne. When I returned, we put our Wallmarket costumes back on and went downstairs to get in line for the cosplay competition. While we were walking past the people who were already in line, everyone broke out in applause for Ben’s costume, hehe.

The competition was pretty good, and the skits (ugggh) didn’t go on too long. At cosplay half-time, they announced the theme of next year’s MTAC: giant monsters (like Godzilla). They also announced that Kaiju Big Battel would be there next year. Ben and I freaked out about that. If you’ve never seen it (it comes on G4 in the mornings sometimes), it basically involves people in very weird costumes fighting. It’s hilarious.

After the cosplay, we hung out with some random people and ate Domino’s. Later, Ben and I went to check out the Random Battle Group. Ben got asked by one of the participants to be a summon (he was in his Black Mage costume again) and he agreed. I got this all on video (which will be up at a later date).

On Sunday, we didn’t do a whole lot. We ate breakfast in the con suite again (I had generic Froot Loops this time) and then packed. We were planning on going to watch the Ramen Eating Contest, but didn’t make it in time, so we went home after that, since Ben had to be at work and I had to go to Sabrina’s baby shower at 4:00.

It was a pretty good weekend….I definitely can’t wait till next year.

Costumes are coming along. I shouldn’t have any problems finishing in time, with little to no last minute rush, so that’s good. I need to run out to Burlington Coat Factory (the only place that sells gloves when it’s not winter) and a few thrift stores to find some things. Does anyone happen to have knee-high white 2″ narrow heel boots in a size 7? Hehe.

Here’s what I have left to do (taken from this post):

Celes Chere - Amano - 100% done!

Locke Cole - 95% done
• Purchase shirt - plain white, forgot it on my Wal-mart run yesterday
• Paint knife

Misa Amane - 100% done!

Aeris Gainsborough - Wallmarket - 100% done!

Cloud Strife - Wallmarket - 100% done!

At least now the air is back on…

Edited to add: There’s also a couple things I need to update on my Terra costume. Mainly, I need to size the gloves properly, glue the claws back on, and get some better shoes. There’s always shoes….

Not a lot has really been going on lately.

The apartment complex is being renovated, and they have been working on it since sometime last fall. From what I understand, they fired the first group of people and then hired some new ones. In the meantime, my balcony was closed off for the entire winter, and supposedly they are adding new doors and windows this week. The biggest problem? They shut the air conditioning off.

It is regularly between 85-90 degrees in my apartment during the day, even with windows open. Now, I’m a naturally cold person and I like heat, so while that’s an annoyance, it’s not THAT big a deal to me. The thing that annoys me the most is that the humidity in my apartment is messing up my TiVo. It’s nearly impossible to watch because the audio constantly crackles. It only does it every now and then, but this afternoon it wasn’t letting up (I was able to watch “Splash” this morning without having any problems). I didn’t understand why this was going on at first, so I spent 20-30 minutes googling the problem. And finally I narrowed it down to: it’s too humid. Today is probably the hottest it’s been in here (at least while I’ve been home) so that would explain why it’s being so relentless today (since I’ve had the windows and sliding door open). As far as I can tell, it’s not recording the crackles, so as soon as the air conditioning comes back on (they say it will be on before April 1…still a week away) I should be able to watch the stuff I’ve recorded crackle-free. And I can usually watch stuff at night when it’s not so hot in here. But I was trying to get some sewing done, and wanted the TV on for background noise. And a staticky crackling sound is NOT good background noise.

As for everything else, I went to Michelle’s baby shower yesterday. I took a few pictures, which I’ll add in a little bit. I went and saw “300″ a couple weeks ago, which I recommend. Ben’s birthday is next weekend. MTAC is in three weeks. I’m doing good on costumes (I think). Right now, I’m at: Misa - 100% done, Celes - 50%, Aeris (Wallmarket) - 90%, Terra - 90% (I need to do some touch-ups), Locke - 5% (I’ve bought some fabric and that’s about it), and Cloud (Wallmarket) - 70%. It’s hard to get motivated with it being so hot in here.

I think that’s about all that’s been going on.

If anyone else is interesting in attending the Middle Tennessee Anime Convention with us, it is still cheaper to buy tickets now than it will be at the door. The convention is April 13-15 and the theme this year is Robots. In addition to the mecha-themed events (which have yet to be announced), there will be, of course, the cosplay contest, the ramen-eating contest, martial arts tracks, video rooms, gaming rooms and tournaments (prob Guitar Hero 2, they haven’t been announced yet), a Protomen concert, and Pocky!!

I currently have a hotel room for both Friday and Saturday nights. However, I may just keep the room for Saturday night only (and just drive there on Friday since it’s only 20 mins away), depending on what’s events are going on Friday night. We can fit another 2-3 people in the room or, if you need to, you can crash at the apartment.

The current pricing is (good until March 17):
Friday only: $18
Saturday only: $20
Sunday only: $12
Any two days: $28
All three days: $32

Check out more information at mtac.net and let me know if you are coming!

I reserved a hotel room at the Hilton for D*C today, since someone so kindly posted the group code over at the Livejournal community. Someone posted the Marriott code a few days ago, but I was iffy about getting a room there since there’s supposedly all these renovations going on and no one is sure what (if anything) will be going on in the hotel and it sounded like most things were being moved over to the Hilton.

So, if anyone wants to come, I’ve got a room now and memberships are still only $50 until mid-February.

Now I just need to finish my costumes. Well, I need to finish my MTAC costumes first…

I updated the cosplay section with a couple new costumes that I plan on working on. Here’s my tentative schedule for the next few years:

2007:
Spring
Celes Chere - Amano (Final Fantasy VI)
Locke Cole (Final Fantasy VI) - Ben
Misa Amane (Death Note)
Aeris Gainsborough - Wallmarket (Final Fantasy VII)
Cloud Strife - Wallmarket (Final Fantasy VII) - Ben

Fall
Jessica Albert (Dragon Quest VIII)
Natalia Luzu Kimlasca Lanvaldear (Tales of the Abyss)

2008:
Spring
Presea Combatir (Tales of Symphonia)
Lloyd Irving (Tales of Symphonia) - Ben

Fall
Celes Chere - Opera (Final Fantasy VI)
Eirika (Fire Emblem: The Sacred Stones)

2009:
Spring
Leanne (Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance)

Fall
Rosa Farrel (Final Fantasy IV)
Ariel (The Little Mermaid)

Of course, this will more than likely change as I find new costumes I would like to make and what costumes Ben would like.

(more…)

I am not making resolutions this year, though I did fairly well at keeping the one I made for 2006 (to keep up with the news better). However, I do have several goals that I intend on trying to meet by the year’s end. These include buying a house around the time my lease is up (beginning of October) and buying a new or new-to-me car around November. I’d like to buy a car before then, but having car payments would severely lower the amount of a mortgage loan I can get. So my goal for the first half of the year is to get my credit cards as paid off as possible. This means attempting to be frugal with money for a few months, so I’m having to cut a few things. Like I doubt I’m going to continue my ballet classes until next year, probably not going to go out very often, and, well, just plan on coming to visit me if you want to see me. I just really, really want a house so I think I can make a few sacrifices for a little while. I might even consider getting a second part-time job to supplement the savings process.

I am, however, still planning on going to both MTAC and DragonCon this year, since tickets to both were purchased prior to me coming to this decision. Probably not going to make it to MomoCon this year and AWA is iffy (especially since it will be right when I’m trying to close on a house). I will be putting off a few costumes until I get the house, such as Presea, since I will need a large space (such as a garage or a yard) for working on her axe. The costumes I plan to complete this year are: FFVI’s Celes (Amano version), FFVI’s Locke (for Ben), Death Note’s Misa, and Dragon Quest VIII’s Jessica. The former three I hope to finish in time for MTAC and have Jessica in time for DragonCon. I’m only planning on working on one costume during the summer since I assume my spare time will be mostly taken up by house hunting.

Anywho, that’s my 2007 plans. Here’s hoping everything goes well!

Halloween was good. I came in first place in our office costume contest and our department won the haunted house decorating contest (well, we tied with administration anyway). You can see pictures of the office party in the gallery.

My birthday is in less than two weeks. I have no idea what the plans are, but something is scheduled for November 18th. However, this is the day before the Wii comes out, which means at midnight I’m leaving the party to go pick up the system. But I don’t really think we’ll be having a Wii-party that night, since I’ll still only have one Wii-mote. I might buy another, but seeing as they are $60 each, I doubt I’ll be getting three extras right away for all that multiplayer goodness.

Speaking of buying stuff, it’s November, so I promise not to buy myself anything other than: Nintendo Wii, Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess, and Final Fantasy III. Only cause I have all those pre-ordered. Anything else is fair game if you wish to buy me a present. And, as always, here is my wishlist. Remember to sort by priority! I’d like to buy myself a new outfit for my party but I don’t know if I’ll have the money.

I bought memberships to Dragoncon 2007 today. I was so sad about missing it this year that I went ahead and secured my place in next year’s convention. It is $45 per person right now, the cheapest tickets get and that price goes up on November 15. So if you want to go with us, hurry and get your memberships. Don’t forget, it’s $85 at the door, so $45 doesn’t sound so bad.