I have more cookies than I know what to do with. D:

It was, however, best attempt at baklava yet. Almost no syrup left behind this time.. still too drippy, even though, I boiled the shit out of it for 30 min. I probably also could have stood to leave the baklava itself in for another 5 min. The taste is still good, though. Left most of it up there, though. Better baklava in a week! :X

Today I just received a mailer for an assisted living community.

This marks the point in which my life will become hell :(

Why?

Well.....

A few months ago I went to the doctor for a bladder infection. I wasn't able to talk to my regular doctor, but I saw someone else instead. This is probably unrelated, but who knows?
Anyway... Since then, I've been receiving occassional mailers for senior citizen.. topics.
I've received FAQs on medicare, offers for hearing aids, and a few fliers for seminars on senior health issues and other such stuff. It's all been from my insurance company, and only addressed to me.

Today I got somthing from an assisted living facility. It's the first thing I've received that hasn't had the insurance company's info on it.

WELL CRAP.

I called the insurance people, and talked to 2 different people who had no idea what was going on, since my age and everything was correct in the computer. Apparently, there was some bogus name list they bought that had people who passed away over a century ago on it, and since then things have been kind of funny with the mailers. Or somthing? I'm not going to get started on how much I hate the "hey, we bought this list of names to mail junk to" thing. I already get enough mail from people like L.L. Bean, Crate& Barrel, etc, whom I've never purchased ANYTHING from, nor plan to purchase from.

But hey! Now these mailer guys want me to go live in a home! Sounds like fun! Maybe I'll get to go fight mummies!

Anyway -..- I called the assisted living place and asked them to work some sort of voodoo so that I won't get mail from them anymore, and the insurance people are going to do their best to stop things on thier end. Unfortunately, the woman I talked to said that since my name was out there already, I'm just going to continue to receive senior citizen spam.

Great!

It's not really a big deal, because I just shred it and toss it like everything else...
But it's not time for me to be getting old people mail yet :( I'm not even 30! That stuff can wait like.. 40 years. Or something. I don't know. :/ It's a huge waste of paper to try and get me to buy a hearing aid, srsly.

Almost all my shopping is done. I don't shop for very many people from year to year, though. It's almost entirely close family that I know I'm going to see within 6 months of Christmas (And that's like, 1-2 people usually) and whatever freinds I've been hanging out with the most that year. I'll get somthing for someone else if I just happen to see somthing that I KNOW would be perfect for X freind, and I'll go out of my way to get it to them, but nothing has really grabbed me like that this year.

I really wanted to just buy Tania a bunch of Twilight stuff and a Girls Next Door bobblehead, but I figured I wouldn't make her hate me this year. Though, she probably would have liked the Kendra bobblehead, taken it to work, and had all her coworkers go WTF. Damn. Maybe I should go back and get it :P

I never know what to get for Matt's parents. They are both pretty hard to shop for. Matt's dad is the worst out of anyone any year. He seems perfectly happy to play some windows 95 edition of solitaire all day long, and never needs anything else. Because of his health, he can't go out camping and fishing, etc like he used to, but he enjoys spending time with the dogs. Last year, we gave them a flat screen computer monitor and some dog toys. I wonder if I should cop out with dog toys again this year. I was thinking maybe a set of his& hers plush spa-type bathrobes. I should be able to get a really nice pair of them, and have that be a really nice gift, right? >..< Most of the time, I'm the one shopping for them, and I haven't even known them as long as Matt!

My mom isn't usually too hard to shop for. I used to think she was, but every year I manage to find somthing that I think she'll like. Well, except for last year. Last year we just went shopping together and I stole a jacket she found and paid for it. It was totally a cop-out :P But I found and wrapped somthing this year!

Ray is getting a hand-me-down computer, but he seems really happy about it. He knows about everything in advance from us because Matt had been saying that if he decided to get a new computer, he'd give his old one to Ray. We think maybe the graphics card is starting to go out, but it's still a lot better than his current computer (which is also one of Matt's old computers)

Out of everyone, Matt is totally the worst, though. He told me what he wanted this year, changed his mind, bought the thing he was looking at, told me to get him somthing else, then started shopping for the thing he told me to go look at. It's maddening. I have a few retarded things I saw that I think he'll like. I do want to go out and get him one more small thing, though, since the things that I did get him are thinsg we will end up sharing. I want to try to get him at least one or two little things that will be just for him. He says his new computer is his present to himself. I guess my present to myself was stocking up on Prescriptives lip gloss XD ha ha.

I need to upload a bunch of pictures to show you guys. Retarded things the cat has done. Retarded things I have made, etc. You know. Stuff.

Mostly though, I'm ready to get back to the beginning of fall and the anticipation for Halloween :P Christmas stuff isn't as exciting for me. Don't get me wrong. I absolutely LOVE opening stuff. I don't care if it's for me or not. I just like unwrapping things! It's the shopping for everybody and dealing with crowds and all the horrible fucking christmas music everywhere. OH MY GOD. Don't even get me started on the christmas music. Everyone has to put out a special christmas CD, and it ALWAYS sucks. ALWAYS. I saw some Enya CD I hadn't seen before and bought it. Apparently it was last year's christmas CD and it's horrible. Sting put out a new album, but it's medieval christmas music, and it's also horrible. (He sings really low and really slowly.. it sounds like he's trying too hard, and I don't think the pitch suits him. It doesn't really sound like him much)

You know what? Someone can buy me horrible music this year. A certain tard keeps linking me Lady GaGa mashups, so maybe I need some Lady GaGa CDs. After all.. I can't get Poker Face out of my head now :(

BTW- it looks like niconico douga went nuts over Dissidia and I totally missed it. Some of the MAD videos have been leaking over to youtube. Yay!

I still need to do some Christmas shopping for a few people, but I'm still in mild shock from the ammount of money I spent on makeup last week. At least I know it'll last me a few years... I should really try to get some photochrome foundation online, though. I'll be very sad when I'm out.

I watched a very strange movie last night that netflix said I'd love. It's called Cemetary Man, but it's this wacky Italian movie originally named Dellamorte Dellamore.
After watching it, I had to know the story, because it was so off the wall and strange.

Apparently the director of this film worked as a 2nd Unit Director on Terry Gilliam's Adventures of Baron von Munchausen, as well as Assistant Director to Dario Argento for many years. If I'd know that BEFORE I rented the movie, I would have known that the description couldn't have possibly explained WTF this movie was about. It's a rather fantastical film with Italian horror roots based on a popular comic book series bearing the (purposeful) likeness of Rupert Everett. So it's pretty fortunate that they actually did get Rupert Everett to come and star in it.

It was made a while back, and the DVD looks like a direct port from VHS, with all these amazingly cheesy horror trailers.

I really can't say much more about this other than I really think zoi_no_miko would love this.. or at least get a kick out of it :X

After hearing (yesterday!) about prescriptives shutting down, I rushed out to Dillard's and tried to buy as much as I could. Almost everything is gone already, though. It's so bizzare. I bought the last two tubes of my favorite lip tint/balm, and two in two other colors I liked. I also bought one of the mini gloss sets, one of the last of my favorite gloss colors, and a bunch of small eyeshadow thingers. They gave me some freebies too, which I was very excited about.

Unfortunately, they'd sold through ALL the photochrome foundation in my color. That was depressing ;( That stuff was seriously the best foundation I've ever used, AND it photographs amazingly.

Even more exciting, though, was this little shoe store we went to in the mall. I bought some awesome shoes yesterday from room rack that I was pretty excited about. They're silver glitter zebra stripe ballet flats with a pointed toe. But even more amazing were the boots I bought today. You heard me. BOOTS!

They had some random collection of boots from china called "Cover girl plus shaft" for fatass legs. I have some cute boots that fit over my calves! OMG! Serious shopping happiness right there.

I'm going to make that soup today. Srsly.

Aside from the turkey soup I'm going to make today, we've had turkey sandwiches, turkey quesadillas, and some turkey rice casserole thing I made with rice cooked in turkey broth, a can of cream of mushroom soup, and lots of freshly grated parmesan.

I think I'm going to make a turkey pot pie, too, but I can't decide if I want to try to make my own pie crusts or just go buy a roll of dough from HEB. I don't think I have a rolling pin, but I'm pretty sure I can do the rest of it.

I read a neat trick online for making your own flakey crusts, too. They suggested using a cheese grater to grate the butter in, that way you get the butter in very small peices without creaming it into the flour. Rolling pin aside, I have butter, flour, and salt, so I have everything I'd need to make my own. I just don't have the pin.. or a two liter bottle of coke.. or anything like that. I guess I could take a hairspray can and wrap it in saran wrap?

Anyway.. a freind suggested the turkey pot pie, and it seemed to be a great way to get rid of a bunch of the dark meat that Matt won't normally pick out and eat, as well as the leftover gravy, and the leftover celery from the stuffing. I'm going to take half the leftover celery and use it in soup, with some carrots I bought. I can use the other half and the rest of the carrots for pot pie, and it'll be great. I have some potatoes, too! The soup and the pot pie will have the same ingredients, but a different consistancy! Sounds great!

In other news.. I need to renew the paper-wings.org domain again. I usually renew it for two years at a time, but everytime I think about renewing it.. Ugh. Maybe I'm just not that SRS BSNS cosplayer anymore, but yeah XP

and everything went off without a hitch!

The only thing I didn't get around to doing was making the pumpkin pies, but that is ok. Tania brought 20 lbs of chocolate masquarading as a cake. We are swimming in it D: It is awesome D:

When dad saw the cheese& sausage grandma sent, he got a big smile on his face and said somthing like "That woman is awesome," and he got to have cheese curds, fat freddies, and sun dried tomato hummus & wine with his Packers game.

The turkey was awesome, the potatoes I made were awesome, Tania's cake was awesome.. and now we're swimming in leftovers!

I've been kind of stressed about the holidays lately. I don't really consider myself the kind of person to get stressed over the holidays, but here we are.

A large part of it is because dad is coming up to visit for Thanksgiving. I'm really happy to have him up here, even though he won't stay the night. (He just... never stays the night... anywhere D: ) I've been stressing out over getting the house as clean as possible before he comes so that he doesn't think I'm some sort of slob or somthing. (I am, but hey...)

Senpu has been really itchy lately, and we thought maybe it was allergies, or he was getting his yearly fleas late or somthing. He always seems to get fleas every summer, despite the fact that we don't leave doors/windows open and he doesn't go outside. It's a mystery. I can only guess that they're coming inside from people or somthing.

Anyway... I checked him over, and he doesn't have any sort of bugs or evidence of parasites or anything like that. He just scratches so hard he gives himself scabs on his neck and chin. The skin doesn't look infected, and it doesn't look like he has ringworm or anything like that, so I haven't taken him to the vet. I haven't been having allergy problems at all, but I decided to spend a little extra time with the vaccum to see if I could cut down on whatever was making him itchy. It didn't really seem to work, so I dumped his litter out and scrubbed the box down in lysol, and that didn't seem to do much for him either. I've been scrubbing the walls, floors, etc, from room to room anyway for cat/holiday visitor reasons, so I'm hoping it'll clear up. He seems a little less itchy today at least. I don't think it's his food, because we've been feeding him a very high quality dry cat food for two years now, and it hasn't disagreed with him yet.

I still need to scrub down the kitchen a little better. My brother has been making an effort not to trash it as badly when he cooks, but cooking is still messy, and there's still a bit to scrub down from his last visit. After that, I need to get all the cosplay crap off the kitchen table so we can use it. Gotta find another chair for the table, too. I did floors last night, but I didn't mop. I may mop a little tonight if I'm feeling really ambitious, because heavens know it needs it.

I realized I hadn't really posted in a while, and I still haven't posted photos from any of my latest adventures, but I've been feeling a strange combination of stressed and lazy. It's going to be hard to get everything done when all I want to do is procrastinate.

We did get a lot of Christmas shopping done when Ray visited, though... I've knocked 2 1/2 people off the list! I need to go back to Best Buy later this week and see if the things Matt had on his list are back in stock. Every year, he's harder and harder to shop for :P
Ray got his birthday present super early, but I still have to find him somthing for Christmas.

BTW- Christmas time is the best time to get holiday gift sets of stuff you like already. Last year, I got these awesomely huge Bailey's mugs. A few years before that, we got some ice cream bowls that looked like they had huge Oreos on the bottom. I'm keeping my eyes out this year for other winner ceramic finds, for sure :P

Anyone know a good place to find discontinued scents? Ebay and my google-fu are failing me.

I'm looking for a bottle of Index Tangerine Lychee by Fresh. I found a sampler of the stuff when I was cleaning out old makeup, etc, and found that not only do I like the way it smells.. it doesn't smell like bug spray on me!

It was in production in.. 2003! hurrrr. I'm a little late on the lateboat there.

Google-fu tells me it was a hot "it" scent for a while, and everyone wanted it. Whoah! Leave it to me to hop on the trendwagon years too late, huh? I found some ghetto looking site that had a bottle, so I did some research. The site is shopblueelephant.com, which is apparently the never-updated site for a real Austin brick-and-mortar boutique store. Of course, since the site is never updated, when I finally decided to check out, it was like "HAHAHA Sorry loser! Not in stock!"

So I guess the search for a nice perfume that doesn't reek of insecticide when I wear it continues on... :(

It's in my pants

Don't do the crime if you can't pay the time!

I'm tired of these socially inept dorks that come to comment on some cool geeky thing I'm wearing, then shuffle off like I'm bothering them by replying!

The first time it happened was when we were up in Denver, and some dude was like "That's a good show" and pointed at my Venture Bros. Guild of Calamitous Intent hoodie. And I was like "Yeah, it's awesome! I joined the shirt club this year too." and by the time I finished that, he was already glancing sideways and skittering away.

Today I went grocery shopping wearing my super-awesome "3 keyboard cat Moon" shirt. Internet dorkiness at it's finest. It's the best of 3 Wolf Moon,(If you don't know about this, you have to read the top user review) but with keyboard cat!

Dude was like "wow, shouldn't your shirt have wolves on it? :/" I was like "No way. Keyboard cat is way cooler", and he stood there staring at my boobs and glowering the entire time he was checking out my groceries. So.. instead of standing there in akward silence (after all, he said somthing first) I tried to make conversation. I was like...
"You know, if you play Warcraft... they made a werewolf one that is pretty silly too"

I mean.. this dude had the total gamer beard thing going on, so I pegged him for someone who would at least know what warcraft is.

He just replied "I know >:(" (continued grumpy death stare at keyboard cat on left boob)

After that, I gave up. :/

I'm not trying to flirt with these kids. I'm not interested in them, they arn't interested in me, and I'm fine keeping it that way. That doesn't mean I can't have a freindly conversation with people! I mean, why give someone geek props and then get all grumpy when they reply to you? Real life isn't the internet, where you can just post-and-run on whoever you want. I mean, honestly... I don't give a shit if these people talk to me or not. I can say that human conversation enriches my life, and by making an effort to enjoy varied conversation, we're all the better for it. BUT! Why bother coming up to someone and saying somthing without wanting to talk at all? It's almost as bad as those creepy fanboy photogs at conventions that come up and say "nice costume" while staring at your tits, then shuffling off akwardsly without saying anything else.

I have a great time with some of the other cashiers at HEB... and I don't even consider myself a people person! I've been making a pointed effort these past few years to keep my head up more when I go out, smile and talk to people, etc. Hell, that one dude at Gamestop is pretty awesome because he guessing which game I'm picking up as I walk in the door and then we geek out about it :X That's people skills. D:

I bet the dude at Gamestop would have liked my keyboard cat shirt.

PS: I think I need to buy a ticket for A-kon this year T..T

SEIKIMA II MOTHERFUCKERS!

Oh man.. I still have that Demon Kogure(in PJs) plush keychain around here somewhere.. XD

And it's the best medieval dating sim evar?

Actually, I've been having a lot of fun with it. I could talk about all the great things about the game, but parts of the plot are rediculously silly. Here's what I've done in game so far:

* Survived the battle of Helm's Deep, but since Gandalf didn't come, pretty much everyone died.
*Fought Zombies
*Fought Werewolves
*Told Indy to go home and found the Holy Grail for myself

Next, I have to make the dwarves like me! I kind of hope the dwarves have mummies or vampires, or I'll be severely dissapointed.

Also: The holy knight guy doesn't like it if you've already been in Antonio Banderas' pants, but the French Lesbian seems happy for you, even when you dump her.

Sexy, yo!



Photos on cosplay.com from halloween.. just a few :X

Here
and here
and another winner full size here!

My favorite month is over :(

I'm not really doing anything today, and that makes me kind of sad. I've agreed to go with a freind to a coffee house late this afternoon to see her freind's band play. I'll go in costume so as not to dissappoint the general public :P More than liekly, I'll be very dissappointed by how few people are in costume, and how I'll have managed to overdo it. (Since I bought a latex prosthetic nose in Denver, I'm going to putz with the Tellah wig and wear Tellah out and about. That's generic wizard, right?)

No plans for tonight, really, but I'm going to dress up, damn it!

I guess I have a lot of clothes to take pictures of now

Fan me if you want. I just wanted to show off my new purse XD
I'll have to start taking lots of pictures now :X

Time to relax. Senpu missed us a lot and hasn't stopped purring for at least an hour. Happy kitty

I'm just posting a quick update from the Matt's laptop, here in the hotel.

Early tomorrow morning, we'll be hopping on a plane and heading back home to Texas. The trip has been a blast, and I have a ton (more) pictures to forget to update online. It was great getting to see everyone, and they were all very understanding and gracious about our various sleep schedules. Now that I think on it, it was amazing we got to see as much as we did since it seemed like we were always running back to the hotel to pick up or drop somebody off.

I did a lot more shopping than I anticipated. Actually.. I didn't really plan on doing any shopping :X I figured we'd end up spending most of the money on travel, food, and entry fees to get into stuff. I didn't go totally nutzo, but considering I wasn't planning on spending anythning extra beyond souveniers for a few people, it was epic fail? lol

I bought a bag. For those of you that know me, it's pretty shocking, right? I didn't get some super expensive couture bag, but getting a name brand from a boutique was still a huge step for me. I'm not really a bag matchy matchy person, but it's hard to feel "grown up" when my "grown up bag" is the canvas, olive green, cargo-pant-like nameless monstrosity I bought from Wal-Mart to replace a cartoon-character bag I was using as a purse before.



It's a Betsy Johnson bag in purple plaid with gold metal bobs and lightning bolts and studs. Real adult, right? :X I don't know. Consider it me developing my personal style very very slowly, 10 years after anyone else my age. I don't think I can deal with a serious purse in like black or whatever.

I also got the kind of foam nose I wanted for Tellah. It'll be awesome when I wear it again. I just need to fix the collar on that jacket. When we were visiting kunkunkun, I saw that old Ragnarok Online mage cloak I made for him, and totally wanted to take it home and wear it to conventions again. :X However.. I'm trying to get rid of stuff and make room! I had to resist. I'll have to get a lot more wear out of Tellah so I don't run around making more costumes and selling none.

I hope to post more later when I get home tomorrow. I'm not sure when that will be, though. We should be flying back around 1:30 PM central after all the wacky time changes, but I don't know if we'll be driving back right away, or if my driver will need to take a nap before we make it back down to Waco.

I miss my kitty, but I have someone taking good care of him and checking on him so he doesn't get too lonely.

I'm a little sleepy, but I'm staying up to watch the new Venture Bros. rawr!

~Send out student loan payment BEFORE I leave (oops!)
~Applique for poodle skirt, then mail it. (scarf never got done, couldn't find the sheer I wanted to use for it. Made a ghetto hair tie though!)
~Pack
~Hit up HEB for travel food
~Go to Petsmart for kitty food
~Shower. (I stink lawl)

I need to pack. That's it! whohoo!

I'm not posting photos of the skirt yet. I'll post when my mom has it, that way I don't ruin the surprise of what it looks like before she opens it :X

I still want to show you guys some of our other fair photos, and the licence plate we saw that said "VLDMRT" (the bumper sticker read "Republicans for Voldemort"), but I don't think I'lll get around to it until after the trip. Then I'll have denver pics! whooha!

I also checked the Weather Channel's 10 day forecast for Denver. It's apparently fucking cold there today (By Texas standads), but it'll be in the high 50's/low 60s our entire trip. It'll be pretty nice, I think. I'll be able to get away with a coat, my scarf, and some hoodies. I don't need to go into full winter lockdown of multiple layers of shirts, hoodies, coats, gloves, and scarves :P

FYI: That is not stoping me from bringing a lot of retarded Prinny hats with me. I'm just kind of sad it's not going to be freezing and snowing enough for me to wear my PRINNY HELMET.
Yes, I really bought, own, and have worn (maybe twice) this goofy looking hat.

AAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

I slacked all week and didn't do a damned thing on that skirt. I HAVE TO FINISH IT TODAY D:
It's gotta go in the mail tomorrow. We are leaving tomorrow for Plano so we won't have a long trip to the airport thurs morning.

The fact that we are leaving tomorrow is blowing my mind right now, because I don't have anything prepared. I need to finish that skirt, make the petticoat, finish the hair tie, get the laundry done so we have clean clothes to take with us, find enough winter gear to stay warm in case it suddenly becomes freakishly cold up there, get in touch with the freind who will be watching the cat, clean the cat litter... make sure all the dishes are washed and there is no trash sitting around for roachfeast while we are gone..etcetc :/

omg.. I just remembered that tardo is almost out of food, too, so I have to go to Petsmart and get some cat food! I also need to take some Matt food with us. Maybe like some granola bars and pudding or somthing he can eat in the hotel room in the middle of the night. He won't think of bringing anything like that, and then he'll be miserable in the middle of the night when he can't sleep and he's hungry. That's why I have to think of it.

I need to make sure we bring enough various medications to last the trip, clean out my purse, read the airline luggage policy so we can try to get around having to check anything, etcetc. (Epic fail!) It looks like if we want to be able to shave, wash, AND wear makeup, we have to check a bag. Between the two of us, we can't fit everything we need in two tiny ziplocs and still comply to FAA regulations. I haven't been able to find out definitively if it's ok to bring a disposable razor. It looks like no razors? So whatever. We'll check our bags and I'll bring the bathroom bag and my makeup box, and everyone will be happy. Just gotta remember to bag the shit out of everything so if the shampoo explodes during the altitude changes, we won't have a mess

I forgot what a pain all that was. If I want to bring makeup/shampoo/etc, we may have to check a bag anyway D: crap!

I'm so not prepared for this. I've been slacking all week playing videogames and pretending I had more time than I really do.

And seriously.. if I don't get that skirt in the mail by TOMORROW, it won't arrive in time for halloween.
craaaap!

The best of our fair photos :P I keep forgetting to upload them, but at least they're on the computer now.