First year ever that I didn't carve a jack-o-lantern. u_u I was all jazzed to try out my rotary tool, too. Halloween may be over, but maybe I'll do as Holly suggested and get a cheap pumpkin and carve it anyway! XP

We went for a road trip to Cincinnati for Halloween this year. There was a toy show Nov 1st, so we drove to Cincinnati on Halloween and stayed the night in a hotel, then returned today after the toy show. We arrived in the early evening on Halloween, so Jess and I put on our costumes and went for a stroll around the mall and grabbed dinner. Then went back to the hotel for the night, so we could get up early to hit the toy show. We wore our costumes to the toy show, too. No one seemed to really understand what the heck we were dressed as. I got a few new toys, though. I got vintage Starscream, Red Alert, Blurr, and Beachcomber (the guy gave me Beachcomber for free, 'cause I buy stuff from him at pretty much every toy convention). Also, I got two awesome Martian Manhunter figures at a comic shop the day we arrived.

My costume looked completely stupid, but I worked really hard on it. I stenciled and painted/colored the hoodie and shoes, and the stupid skirt took me practically 3 days of meticulous hand sewing because the sewing machine is broken. (It was originally a pair of shorts which were about 4 sizes too big, but I took them in, turned them into a skirt, hemmed it, made cargo pockets out of the scrap fabric, and added some awesome grey reflective stuff I found at the fabric store. It turned out pretty good. Too bad it didn't really have anything to do with the character.)

( Jess and I in costume )

Pretty sure absolutely no one understood our costumes. Someone wolf-whistled at us, though, which made me uncomfortable until Jess made me laugh by saying "They must think robots are sexy." A couple people saw the Autobot and Decepticon logos and were like "Transformers! I get it! You're a good guy and she's a bad guy!" but I don't think anyone actually got that we were trying to represent actual characters. Whatever. We don't have a lot of serious Transformers fans around here. I did however have an Italian guy at the mall recognize the logo on my left shoe and be like "Alitalla! I used to work for that airline! You make those? You are amazing girl!" but then he started trying to sell us hair styling appliances and we had to get out of there. Bleh. Whatever. We're home now.

Sooooo, there is a pumpkin decorating contest at work. The pumpkins were NOT TO BE CARVED, and the theme of the contest is "movie madness." I was put in charge of our branch's entry. This is what I came up with.

Wall E

He's really sloppy-looking, and he needs another coat of paint and stuff. Jess's branch made a really cool Mike from Monsters Inc. pumpkin. I think they'll probably win. We'll find out on Friday who won.

Anyway, we also carved pumpkins last night. My pumpkin creativity for the year was already burnt out by the Wall E pumpkin, so I just did a generic space-themed one. But actually, for the first time ever, I was the first one to finish my pumpkin. Usually I'll still be working on mine for hours after everyone else is finished.

Pumpkin 2008

And here are all of the pumpkins sitting on the front step:

Pumpkins!

Also, I made a Halloween-themed mix-tape. I want to put at least one more song on it, but I'll have to fire up the other computer to do it and I'm almost an hour late going to bed already, so I'll do it tomorrow. Here's what I have so far. If you think of any other songs I should put on it, let me know.

I felt a little sick to my stomach when I got up on Thursday. It only got worse as the day went on, and it progressed from being a general ache in my abdomen to a sharp pain in my left side. The same symptoms as my mysterious and as-yet undiagnosed abdominal ailment, only this time it was on the left side instead of the right, so no one could possibly confuse it for appendicitis like they always have before. Since it obviously wasn’t appendicitis, I didn’t bother going to the doctor. However, I did get sent home early from work, and then I called in sick Friday because my condition hadn’t improved. Mom just gave me some ultram that was left over from the last onset of my mysterious illness and put me to work. I don’t blame her. Eric and Crystal were getting married Saturday and there was still a bunch of stuff to do, so I helped her finish and deliver Eric’s groom’s cake and various other little things that needed to be done. Also, I finished the miniature replicas of Eric’s guitars to go on the top of his cake.

The Cake!
Close-up Bass
Close-up Epiphone Acoustic
Close-up Banjo

I think they turned out okay...not perfect by any means, but I did the best I could. They’re made of sculpey, painted with tempura paints and nail polish, and then the strings are actual tiny wires. W00t. Eric liked them, so that’s all that really matters. ^_^

So, I figure I’m long overdue to post some random pictures and stuff. Also, I got a digital camera last month with my Christmas money, so maybe I can post pictures more often or whatever... Like some more pics of that yellow bug across the street. ‘Cause who doesn’t love to look at pictures of a crappy, banged-up, rusted-out, falling-apart bug? I know I do. Anyway, on with my catch-up pictures. I’ll try to go chronologically.

Whoop Ass
Just a pic I took sometime in highschool with my old webcam.

Some pics from my senior prom. I totally went without a date. It was fun.
Pic 1, Pic 2, Pic 3

My fingernails with Strong Bad painted on them
It took freaking forever to paint them like that! It’s too bad I couldn’t get a better picture.

The only known picture of me in my ninja costume on Halloween 2006.
Yay. Fat ninja! Too bad you can’t see my sword from that angle. -_-;

2007 Jack-O-Lanterns
Guess which one’s mine. ^_^;

My Haircut Pictures
Before 1, Before 2
After 1, After 2
There were a lot of reasons why I wanted to cut my hair. I’m not going to get into that right now, though. However, once I decided to do it, I decided to time it to go with my 2007 Halloween costume!

My 2007 Halloween Pictures
Pic 1, Pic 2, Pic 3 (My painstakingly sculpted nose)
Jess dressed as Jereth, the Goblin King from Labyrinth. It was fun. Especially the part when we went to the grocery, in costume to buy vodka...and ran into my ex in the check out line. Good times. ^_^

Whoops! It’s been a while since I’ve updated. ^_^;; Well, first things first. Autumn-sama tagged me, so I’ll get that out of the way:


TAGGED by mzanthropy!
- list five habits/quirks/facts about yourself.
- tag five people to do the same.

1. I’ve only ever had 1 boyfriend, and that was for like a year way back in my late-freshman early-sophomore days in highschool. I’ve had guys hit on (or stalk) me and stuff, but I’ve just been too busy with other crap to go pursuing a relationship or whatever.

2. I collect things. A LOT of things. (Ex: Comic books, key chains, action figures, t-shirts, plushies, sunglasses, etc...)

3. I’m kind-of obsessive-compulsive about organization. Particularly with my collections. Practically anything I have more than one of, I’ll try to organize it by color, size, shape, title, genre, creation/release date, publisher, author, series, or some combination of two or more of those.

4. Out of EVERYONE I know, I have the lamest, most pointless menial labor-type job.

5. My dream all through early grade school was to become a marine biologist and PROVE THE EXISTENCE OF THE LOCH NESS MONSTER! However, in highschool my dream evolved into becoming a voice actor and/or creating my own (web)comic or (flash) cartoon series.

As for tagging people...I don’t want to obligate anyone, but anyone on my friend who feels willing to post five habits/quirks/facts about themselves can consider themselves tagged. ^_^


Anyway, on to updates in my life. I’ve noticed that the yellow bug across the street has been joined by an entourage of other suspiciously distinctive models of car. Namely a khaki Jeep, a silver Pontiac Fireo, a red Dodge Rampage, some red SUV of which I’ve yet to identify the make and model, and something hidden under a tarp.
*Click for Pic*
I’ve been keeping an eye on them. How many people live there!? Do they really need that many cars!? I swear, if a Semi pulls up across the street, I’m going over there!

In other news, Autumn-sama asked me to design a medieval-style dress for her wedding. Here are the designs I came up with:
*Click for Pic*
There are colored versions, too, but the colors suck, so I’m not posting them. Autumn said she likes them, so I’m pleased with them. The real challenge, however, is to find someone to MAKE the dress before her wedding in April. Mom said she’d make it for her, but we’d have to find a pattern similar to the dress for her to modify. I guess we’ll see what we can do...

Jess’s birthday was on Wednesday (the 23rd). We were both off work, so we just hung out all day. We had lunch at a Thai restaurant that we like. The food there absolutely RULES, and it’s nice and spicy! Spicy food = yay! After that we went to the comic book store (since it was Wednesday, a.k.a. New Comic Book Day) and I got the new Blaster Spotlight comic. Blaster is awesome. X3 It was a fun day. I got a bunch of other comics the next day, too. Now the only Spotlight I’m missing is Soundwave, and I’m missing #5 of Escalation and #3 of Devastation. I’ll have to order those ones online, ‘cause I can’t find them anywhere in town. XP

Thursday we went to The Players Pub to hear The Swing Rays. It was great! I knew most of the songs, and I couldn’t help but sing along. There was this guy sitting right in front of me who looked EXACTLY like Santa Claus, and he kept looking back at me. I think he wanted me to shut up so he could hear the band better, but hey, nobody MADE him sit right in front of me, and there were plenty of other seats around so...meh. By the time he sat down, I’d already put away a couple beers so I was a little too tipsy to care. (I might mention that I’m a serious lightweight. Like 2 beers makes me tipsy. ^_^;; )

On Saturday we had a birthday party for Jess. I made her a cake. She likes conversation hearts, so I used those and cordial cherries to decorate it. I flipped them over and painted custom messages on them with food coloring.
*Pics of the cake: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10*
We had some friends over, had pizza and cake (and beer), and we watched Harry Potter with the rifftrax. It was hilarious. Makes me miss the good old days of Mystery Science Theater 3000. Good times. Anyway, that’s about it as far as what I’ve been up to. W00t.