Week 2

So, beginning of week 2 at the gym (more on that later) and I finally ran into one of the more uncommon gym stereotypes: buff grandpa.

I'm doing my own thing, dumbbell lunges, in front of the rack and he comes up to replace his dumbbells.

Now mind you, this gentleman looks to be north of 250 years old, with an epic snow white handlebar mustache. In each hand he's carrying dumbbells easily twice the size of mine. He replaced them on the bottom shelf, so those are the 50#+ range. 

Despite the leathery skin and superb face weasel, this dude is ripped. He gets my attention, so I pop my headphones. I shit you not, I was so startled that he DIDN'T sound like this when asking me to move so he could put his weights back:

Anyway, face weasels and shredded senior citizens aside, here's my current status on my Handbasket to Hell-th(tm):

Weight: 187.2 (-0.8 from last week)

Dumbbell Lunge: 10@20#, 2x 10@25# (2x 10@20# last week)

Dumbbell Press: 3x 10@25# (3x 10@20# last week)

Standing Dumbbell Deadlift: 3x 10@30# (2x 10@30# last week)

Weighted Decline Situp: 10@6#, 10@10#, 8@10#(exhaustion) (new exercise)

Changing up a little since I posted about exercise last Wednesday.

Using feedback from friends, coworkers and /r/fitness, I ditched my silly homebrew program and split day setup, in favor of amzn.to/UXI7Q5 and bit.ly/VJoHgy , modified slightly to incorporate my restrictions and needs.

Why dumbells and not barbell like SS is built around? Mainly because the apt gym has some odd Smith machine variant instead of a proper powercage, and I don't have an exercise partner to check my form and spot me.

Anywho, I'll be graphing my progress and uploading graph images to my blogs, so check them out soon!

Resolution 2013: Lose belly flab and overhang

Dear Body:
Fuck you. Sincerely, Link.

So, my 2013 resolution is to drop the beer gut by the end of the year. That's right, no belly overhang in 364 days. I'm keeping it real, no silly resolutions like "shredded 6pack by summer" or any nonsense like that. I'm nearing 30, and have never done a proper exercise program in my life. I never really set a goal until I saw this picture on Reddit where a guy with a starting body very similar to mine takes monthly progress pictures and by October, has gotten rid of all his flab, and is starting on real definition. (I wish I could find that picture again...)

To that end, workouts are now a thing in my life. MWF I'm lifting weights and running the elliptical. Monday is core, wednesday is arms and friday is legs. If i'm really feeling masochistic, I'll do core again on Saturday.
My goal each session is 1 set of 16 reps at 80% of my 1 rep max for each exercise, then increase 1 set each week to a max of three sets of 16, then determine new 1 rep max in week 4 and week five return to 1 set of 16 at 80% of new 1 rep max.

That being said, remember the part where I've gone 28 years without ever really exercising. Today was the start of my resolution, and also arms day, and also also determining initial 1 rep max week. I did 5 min on the elliptical at 80 RPM (which is a whole other set of challenges due to my destroyed knee joints), then moved to lifts. 16 reps of bicep curls at 50 pounds, 90 second break, 16 reps of tricep extensions at 50 pounds, 90 second break, 16 reps of lat pulldowns at 100 pounds, 180 second break + water. All reps were done at 1/4Hz, and I was starting to shake all over a little during the water break. Shakes aside, I didn't really feel tired, so I went for another round of sets.

Bad idea.

Bicep curls dropped to a painful-to-complete 14 reps before muscle exhaustion, tricep extensions I lost count of as I was trying to keep my breathing regular but I think I did 20 before realizing I was just hurting myself, and lat pulldowns were an embarassing 10 reps before my grip gave out and I dropped the bar. Nausea, massive muscle shakes, etc. I got back to the apartment and showered, and now only my hands are still shaking as I'm typing this. I'm pretty sure I'm going to regret set 2 tomorrow morning, but thems the breaks.

So, new datas:
Bicep Curl 1 rep max: 105 lb
Tricep Extension 1 rep max: 105 lb
Lat Pulldown 1 rep max: 180 lb

Will test these values next Wednesday. According to the math, I should be able to do 16 reps at 85, 85 and 145 pounds, respectively. We'll see how that works out.

I'm also contemplating doing a fast paced set in the 2 week of each rotation, 2 sets of 16 rep at 50% 1 rep max at 1/2Hz or 1Hz, both to prevent muscle memory and to work the quick firing muscle fibers. Thoughts?

Will update again on Friday with the values for my legs workout. Oddly, my calves and thighs have always been very well defined, with little to no fat present, even though I actually avoid leg exercise like running and biking due to my knees. I'm expecting my leg values to be disproportionately high, but we'll see what the math says.

All in all, I feel exceptionally out of shape right now. This is the point where I gave up previously. No "runner's high" of endorphins or anything, I just feel weak and sick. But I'm not giving up this time. Flat stomach incoming.

Maybe I'll get a "thug life" tattoo across it to celebrate when I reach my goal...

The Stars are Made of Light (0-968)

                Look up, sometime in the dark of the morning when your night terrors wake you up. Just stop. Look. Observe. Look into the eternal blackness of the galaxy spread out in front of you. Ignore your high school chemistry and astronomy. Remove Heisenberg, Hawking, Einstein and three thousand years of cultural knowledge and understanding. Experience the heavens as your tens-removed great grandparents saw them. Innumerable points of light searing out in the indigo blanket covering the sun.

Relive the wonder you felt as an infant, seeing the amazing show put on, solely for you every evening. Realize that even now, with over a thousand years of accumulated cultural knowledge, a THOUSAND, phrases like nuclear fusion, balanced gas mixture and critical mass have little meaning when looking up in the night. The stars are made of light.

Now, without looking away from this sky-spanning chandelier of light, it’s time to do some basic math. Realize that the naked eye can see anywhere from 5 to 2000 stars from horizon to horizon, depending on how close to your local downtown your bedroom sits, and that there are about 6000 stars visible unaided from the surface of our little spinning rock spaceship. Compare that to the estimated 300 billion stars in our galaxy alone, and the estimated 176 billion galaxies observable from this particular dirtball, the resulting number of stars is a mindboggling number that can only be written in scientific notation (5.28x10²², to be precise). So in comparison, night watchers near LA can see something like 0.0000000000000000000001% of the stars, while those in the country can see a whopping 0.0000000000000000001% of the stars while they look up with you. Finally, the (even more guesstimated) estimates put about 1.4 trillion planets in that visible portion of our galaxy, at the lowest estimation, and if even 1/100 of 1% of those spend enough time in the habitable zone around their star to support life, then there could be as many as 14 million other species out there in the blackness, looking up at the same time as you are. You could be unknowingly looking at each other right now, wondering if anyone else is out there.

This exact though process has been completed on a widespread, cultural level by every spacefaring race, and a generation or less later, they flung their best and brightest out into the void to go find those other watchers.

Enter the warp drive. That’s not what it’s really called, but the proper name has all 10 major engineers’ last names, the project name and the facility name as part of its proper title, and numerous seasons of Star Trek rerun infinitely have enshrined the name “Warp Drive” into the collective consciousness of Earth, so warp drive is what it’s called in conversation. There are only about, well exactly 10 people who really understand how the warp drive works, but the explanation to laymen and world leaders alike goes something like this:

“You know how gravity pulls you back to the ground when you jump, and the opposite poles of magnets attract each other and stick together?”
                “Well, yeah.”

“Okay, it’s doesn’t actually function anything like that, but it feels the same.”

“…”

“The warp drive doesn’t use magnetism or gravity to generate faster than light travel, but using the plotting computer, the drive locks on to a sufficiently heavy spatial object, like a star or planet, and is then drawn to it at up to FTL speeds.”

“So what stops the ship from crashing into the object?”

“Warp drive travels from heavy body to heavy body in a spatially straight line, so to decelerate, the computer just locks on to the departure object (the one you just left) and the attempt to draw itself back to that point slows the ship. Then you just unlock at the right moment and have a zero velocity spaceship, positioned right where you want to be, assuming you have a good pilot.”

“What happens if you don’t?”

“You slam into a rock planet, get swallowed up by a gas giant or burn up in the corona of a star.”

“…”

“Don’t worry, it’s fine.”

“If you say so. Wait, so what about locking onto something really heavy, like a black hole?”

“We don’t ever talk about what happened to the Their Shadows Deep.”

“…”

So there we went, doing what Humanity does best. Taking our best and brightest, encasing them in a shell of advanced polymers and alloys, then slingshotting them directly at some galactic object, and hoping their onboard math is good enough to stop them before they hit it.

Governments, militaries, foundations and concerned citizens all vied for the right to install the equipment they thought most necessary on these early missions into the unknown, with varying degrees of success. Early explorers of Alpha Centauri and Epsilon Erandi left in craft named China-US Time Warner Virgin ”Embark 1” and other such titles, equipped with a dazzling array of licensed broadcasting equipment (provided at no small charge by Time Warner), high-wattage chemical lasers (demanded most strenuously by Chinese and American Admiralty) and pretty paint jobs (sponsored by Coca-Cola, Fig Newton and Rogaine). When they arrived, they found exactly what was expected, Alpha Centauri Bb was in fact a “lava world” unsuitable for any form of habitation and devoid of rare elements, Epsilon Eridani b was a gas giant with an abnormally high concentration of super-dense oxygen, but otherwise unremarkable, and Kepler-22b was indeed a super-Earth, with a median temperature of 72-degrees Farenheight, but with the surface entirely ocean, and an almost entirely predatory carbon cycle, it too was passed on for colonization. So went exploration after exploration, and with countless trillions of dollars seemingly wasted, so the golden age of corporate-sponsored intergalactic travel ended.

Dreams 10-23-2012

At a party, maybe a Faire.

Standing on top of a ridge with a group of other people, many whom I knew as aquaintances, but no lcose friends.

All of us gathered around, and sitting on some object, a picnic table or maybe an el camino.

chatting, talking, dueling with sticks.

Someone was talking to me and mentioned that the girl in back was a fencer like me.

"who fences?" she asked in response to overhearing our conversation, looking up and disentangling herself from the much younger man she was entwined with.

"link does" my nameless conversation partner replied, giving me an opening, while my dream transformed her into Sonia Tyburn.

"yeah, foil and epee-" the rest of my statement is cut off as she walks way too close to me. I can smell her perfume, a hint of sweat from the heat of the evening, the smell of something sugary in her mouth that she's chewing on. The proximity reveals her to be blonde, amazonianly gorgeous, generic for a time, then my dream morphs her into Jenn O'Syde.

"Want a gummy beetle?" she purrs at me. I open my mouth in acceptance, and she places the very real-looking beetle in, which I crunch and chew, disgusted for a moment then realizing that it really is gummy, with a hard candy shell. While I'm processing this very odd sensation, she leans in, almost bashfully and kisses me, in the close-mouthed way preteens do. Her lips soft against mine.

The action is over before I realize it's done, and she's leaning back, a blush visible in the dim light. I half-awake in that instant, aroused, before falling asleep again.

"Well, that could have gone better" I jokingly reply and pull her back into me. She resists the kiss for a moment, then relaxes into it. Behind us, I can hear the young man, make exasperated noises, then he walks past the fence we are leaning against, and goes down the hill toward the other people.

As we break apart, "I'm sorry. I didn't realize you two were a thing. I'm sorry I messed that up."

"No, it's fine, my boytoy doesn't like it when I kiss anyone but him on the mouth." I look confused at her. "But he does get so horny when he catches me kissing them elsewhere." She says suggestively, her hands sliding off my shoulders and down my chest to my waistband, where she stops. "I need to go find some more nightbeetles, they're so delicious."

She giggles at my expression and skips off. I wander around the group, looking for something to rinse the bug out of my mouth with, and run into Sonia, returning from elsewhere. She gives me a drink from her canteen and we play-duel for a moment. Me with a tire iron, her with a broom.

"Man, I really wish I'd brought my rapiers." I exclaimed to no one in particular, leaning against the fence again.

The Jenn-creature returns from the darkness behind me, now mostly unclothed, but fully covered, gauzy tunic open to the bellybutton, clasped with a leather belt, then draping to cover her upper thigh. She looks exactly the same, but is now completely inhuman. She is holding out a wriggling beetle, several more in her other fist. "Um, no. Thanks though." my stomach turns at the sight, and I half-awake again, nauseated in real life as well.

She laughs a dark and ominous laugh as she wanders back off into the night. "It's already too late for you."

I awoke in a cold sweat.

Dreams - 10-8-2012

I dreamed about Helen again tonight.

This time, we were in the past, a past that had never happened.

After we broke up, she threw a big "end-of-HS" grad party at her adopted parent's (?) house in Temple, TX. A big old mansion in the middle of the warehouse district. I attempted to crash her party four times, but not as if I kept showing up, it was if it was a video game level and I kept resetting the level and trying again.

Once, I walked in the front door and attempted to fake an invitation. I was grungily dressed in military surplus and she was radiant, in a white prom dress, her hair coiffured and her blue eyes cruel as she ridiculed me in front of all her guests and threw me out. I responded by drawing a revolver and shooting her in the face, then putting the burning hot barrel in my own mouth and killing myself.

Another time, I snuck in by climbing the wall and entering through a window into the master bedroom on the top floor. I heard people coming, so I hid in an attic access in the ceiling. The door was perforated, and I was able to watch, dismayed, as she lost her virginity to every guy I had ever known and been envious of in a laughing, joyous orgy. I fled then, not caring about the noise I made in my exit. Her laughter as I ran revealed that she'd known I was there all along, maybe even that I was going to crash her party, and specifically invited those people to humiliate me. After making it to the street and vomiting, I found gasoline, chain and some locks, sealed the house in to the tune of her joyful moans, then set the building on fire. Walking away all "cool guys don't look at explosions" before crossing the street, where I was suddenly hit by a dump truck.

The next attempt got weird. Instead of trying to crash the party or sneak in, I waited in the snow (?) until the party was over, then following her as she walked home (I thought she was home). I confronted her on the seawall next to the docks (?) telling her I still loved her and wanted her back. I am unable to remember the words of her response, only that they were hurt, bitter and angry. She then told me she'd been learning to fight, and if I could beat her, she'd give me another chance. I accepted, desperately. She then went on to tell me how her biological parents had left her a present before returning to their home planet (?) and that she'd been using it in her fight training. A giant robot/combat machine rose out of the water in the docks and she entered, pummeling me to death on the docks with missiles, lasers and her screaming voice, shouting how she'd loved me and I'd ruined it. And that I would never deserve to love someone, so she was really doing me a favor by killing me.

The final time, I simply ignored my objective, knowing I'd just die again. I waited for the party to end, then followed Kate Swope (? Kate doesn't/didn't know Helen ?) as she left the party, we walked for some distance, before Kate started talking to me, letting me know she knew I was there. Abandoning my failed attempt at stealth, I moved up to walk next to her, and we talked about things I cannot now recall. She promised me a non-confrontational introduction, as she was Helen's roommate (?) and so I followed her up to the loft apartment they shared. Helen was angry and spit on me and cursed me to Kate, never speaking directly to me, before Kate calmed her down, then I was allowed to sit at one of the desks, the windows in the wall overlooking the dock. Helen had changed into sweatpants and a hoodie and after Kate changed, they sat and talked about the party, Helen pointedly ignoring me. Helen then started recounting all my failures, first just retelling fights we'd had in High School, then the times later (? but this dream was set just at the end of HS ?) when we'd met and she'd privately laughed at my attempts at reconciliation. She then started talking about my failures that night, when I'd tried to bluff my way in, sneak in and then fight her robot. She didn't seem startled or dismayed that I'd killed her when my attempt didn't succeed, just laughed derisively at my failure. During her storytelling, I was shrinking further and further down into my chair, that horrible empty feeling of embarrassment and humiliation. The sensation was so intense I woke up in a cold sweat, physically nauseated, letting my heart rate drop from over 120 back to 60 before I could fall asleep again. Apparently, the conversation between Kate and Helen had continued in my absence, which Helen commented directly to me about, the first time she'd spoken directly to me in this variant of the level.

"Awww, can't sleep? Is this too upsetting for you? I'm sorry, but you're going to have to weather the storm." Her voice was actually sympathetic when speaking to me. As if my journey through anger, humiliation and powerlessness was all part of some plan, and she, Kate and all the others were specifically present to make this happen for my eventual, if painful, benefit.

They resumed talking to each other, and I sat, quiet, taken aback that a dream character had spoken directly to my conscious self. After a while, Kate remarked that she was quite thirsty, and since they didn't have any food, she was going to go to the store. I offered to go instead, so that she didn't have to go out into the weather. Then timidly asked Helen if she wanted to go with me. Helen considered my face for over a minute, then agreed, smiling a little at me. A voice in my head said "everything went better than expected!" and I saw an overlay on my vision of the memeface that accompanies that phrase, as if some heads-up display was registering my minimal success.

Since I was still dressed, I went outside while Helen got changed into warmer clothes, and got my car started (? I walked to the loft with Kate ?) and was letting it warm up when a tatty Jeep pulled up on the street and a close friend of mine (Preston?) opened the door and told me to get in, that it would only take a minute. I complied, and we started driving, leaving the city shortly and proceeding up a mountain pass. He told me he was saving me, and we stopped the Jeep, then I followed him up a valley between two mountains to a concrete guard station. We entered, and he began speaking in Russian to the guard captain at the station, paid him some money, and was given a green duffel, then sent to what appeared to be a bathroom. The captain then approached me, "You are going to go with him. You do not have a choice. You must leave everything you have here, and take only what we give you, including your name." I must have looked hopeful, because he said, "No, you cannot be 'Krysa' you have not earned it. You get to be 'Zanudnyy'." While those were obviously Russian words, I understood them for some reason. The first was "Rat" and the second was "Wimp".

The door to the bathroom opened, my companion was not inside. The captain handed me a similar duffel and pushed me toward the room. When the door closed behind me, there was a loud click, and a section of the floor at the back of the room dropped away, leaving a shaft down with a ladder attached to the side. I turned away and opened the duffel, reaching in to find a half bar of some coarse soap on top, then losing patience and dumping the whole thing out. It contained toiletries, a full change of clothing and a Makarov pistol with one magazine. I changed into the clothing, but the toiletries back in the bag, put the gun in my pocket and descended down the ladder, leaving my old clothes on the floor in the bathroom. The trapdoor clicked shut above me as I descended, leaving me climbing down in darkness. I awoke just after the door shut and total darkness, my heart racing again.

Anger

Why do I feel like this?

An overwhelming sense of rage and betrayal,

A tsunami of red-eyed emotion ripping forth to destroy.

Like the bitch who trained me,

The cruel blacksmith who beat me into her image,

I lash out at people who show me

The slightest sense of weakness through emotional connection.

I am cruelest to those who deserve it least and I despise every movement I make that mimics hers to the letter.

I want nothing more than to feel myself again,

Bur I look in the mirror and see only her reflection glaring back at me.

Theres nothing I have to offer.

No resource or emotional commodity that hasn't been taunted it rotten by her touch.

All I have to offer is contagion,

But somehow my goddess still smiles at me.

Her voice, her eyes, her touch like at phoenix's tears, washing away disease like it never occurred.

I just want to be lost in her...

Вспоминая красоты

O, what wondrous miracle is this?

This porcelain goddess who fills my vision,

Haunts my waking dreams and inhabits my thoughts.

The corners of her mouth quirking in a smile, at my glance,

Cherry lips opening in a silent gasp at my touch,

Cheeks reddening ever so slightly at my whispered words.

Hair falling around her face as she looks at me beneath her,

Light behind her head silhouetting her with an auburn halo,

Piercing blue eyes shining out from within.

Financial Stability

So today we went to the Mall. Where shopping led me to a surprisingly disturbing realization about myself.

No, no, let me start earlier...

In December 2006, I joined the United States Air Force. Among the items provided us over those six weeks were 4 sets of BDU uniforms, 2 pairs of Black leather boots, a 4-dimensional green duffel bag...and a pair of New Balance 498 Cross Trainers.

Not being a very active person, I never knew the importance of getting new athletic shoes periodically, so I wore my NB498s for everything even remotely athletic. Squadron PT, after-hours raquetball, mowing the lawn, I wore them all the time, each outing getting them more and more broken-in, scuffed and stained.

Simultaneously, I grew up in a fairly low-income family. Clothes, shoes and outerwear were chosen as much for their thrifty price point as their functionality, and fashion was taken into account not at all. Add in that I've always been on the bare edge of making it, financially, so I've never had spending money, really at all, and shopping is not something that crosses my mind.

So when Jill suggested (nay, demanded) that it was time to buy new clothes, as my 1 pair of long pants (ink-stained and ragged-hemmed jeans) and my 2 pairs of shorts (one khaki and covered in spots of plastic from casting, the other olive green and mended from the multiple times Lilith has torn a hole in them) we suitable for someone who was homeless, rather than a 40+ hr/wk employee of a well-paying video game company, we went shopping.

I ended up with a new pair of jeans, and 3 pairs of shorts in varying colors, the rationale being that it was going to get hotter before it got cooler, and we could go shopping again in the fall. Throw in some new socks and boxers, and the butcher's bill was a mere $120, much less than I feared it would be. But that was all just lead-up.

Today, I was putting on my trusty NB498s, futzing around with repairing a broken lace when Jill again laid down the law.

"Those shoes are disgusting. You've had them for 5 years now baby, they're worn out and look terrible. We need to go get you new athletic shoes."

A little arguing for argument's sake, and off we go to Lakeline Mall, bent on shoe conquest and acquisition.

Journey's? Too skater-oriented. Hot Topic? Too goth. Where the hell does one go to buy athletic shoes in the mall? Oh right, The Finish Line.

The guy at TFL was a very good salesman. He listened to my tale of woe about not knowing what type of shoe I needed for my walking/running style, measured my foot, asked me to sprint the length of the store to watch my run, then pointed out over a dozen styles that would work, ranging from the Clearanced $25 rack to the $150 top-of-the-line, wisely pointing out a pair of $130 shoes that he was currently wearing as being quite comfortable.

I tried different pairs on, noting that while I wore a 10.5 in casual shoes and boots, he'd measured me at an 11. Some more talking with Jill about colors and styles and we agreed that the model the salesman had suggested were the most comfortable, and while he had a white and green pair on, the black and blue ones would fit in better with my current wardrobe choices (I don't have anything in bilious green). I balked a little at the price, but Jill didn't seem to care, something that blew my mind, as she's normally very reticent to spend money.

Then it hit me.

We have the money to spend.

Bills are paid. Savings has been increased. Nothing waiting in the wings. The extra money's just there. Spendable.

So we bought the shoes. They're quite comfortable. And I was sitting here playing some World of Tanks in my comfy new cross-trainers, then something else hit me.

These are the most expensive item of clothing I have ever purchased.

I did a quick inventory to make sure, costumes and garb are right out: Pinstriped Dress Slacks: $80, Legend of Zelda Hoodie $65, Steel-toed Work Boots $50... hmmm okay, that's not working, lets throw in garb and costumes too, but only the stuff I didn't make out of raw materials: Felt Steampunk Hat $35, Zombie Hunter ABUs $100, hell even my Ren Boots were only $125...

This really makes me nervous for some reason. Although it shouldn't.

Project: Carapace - Day 4: Settling into the swing of things

Day 4: Settling into the Swing of Things

Chainmaille progression was virtually nil today. Tweaked a few things to ensure that rings were butted tightly and that the pattern was even on the piece that I am calling "Front Yoke". I got about 55 rings into "Rear Yoke" before setting it down to work on leather. I'm finding that if I work on one thing for too long, the muscles I'm using for that particular task get extremely sore and then work over the next few days is painful.

I started punching holes in my lamellar plates in earnest today. Brent and I had already marked all the plates with the hole pattern, and I bought a 5/32" round hammer punch at Tandy to make the holes. It's a little bigger than Brent's 9/64" punch, but the visual difference should be invisible once everything is dyed and starts getting laced together.

About 20 plates in (read: 160 holes punched), I started noticing this black grit all over the table and my pieces. A little investigation revealed that it was bits of the 1-pound rubber mallet I was using in conjunction with my punch. Each strike was ripping off bits of rubber, and each hole took between 4 and 6 strikes to make, so the mallet was quickly disintegrating.

I went to Mall-Wart to pick up a polyurethane-headed mallet like Brent got from Tandy, but no such luck. All the soulless mega-mart had were more rubber mallets. On the way back home, I drove by an AutoZone and thought, "They have mallets at auto parts stores, maybe they have non-rubber ones!" And I was so right. There in the tool section was a one-piece, cast urethane dead-blow hammer, a lovely 2 pounds with steel shot in the head to add force and reduce recoil vibration. It was a little pricey at $13, but it looked like just what I needed, so I was willing to drop the dough.

I got back to the house with the mallet and tried it out, checking after each hole for marring of the striking surface or any signs that the mallet wasn't going to last. But I shouldn't have even worried, because aside from some extremely minor indentations, the mallet still looked new after punching another 20 pieces. Now keep in mind, the rubber mallet wasn't brand new, but it was in almost-pristine condition when I started. Here's a comparison of the two mallets after they each punched 160 holes:

The angle of the photograph actually hides some of the damage, because the rubber mallet (on the left) is actually indented over an 1/8" of an inch into the surface, but the dead-blow mallet has barely any marks.

Another benefit of the new mallet is that at double the weight and with a harder striking face to transfer more force into the punch, each hole takes 1 or maybe 2 (on the thickest plates) strikes to punch the hole, cutting down my time spent on each piece. With the rubber mallet, it was taking at least 90 seconds to punch each plate, now I'm creating all 8 holes in 30 to 45 seconds, and there's less repetitive motion strain on my wrist and elbow.

So with some anime playing on TV to keep me interested, I got down to work, setting up a rhythm to keep everything flowing nicely and at about midnight-30, I had a nice block of 100 plates fully punched and ready to dye tomorrow.

The plan tomorrow is to set up an assembly line of sorts. Brent and I will finish punching the other 200 cut plates, then design, mark and cut the pair panels for the shoulder straps as well as the 6 to 8 belts for the side closure.

After those are cut and punched, we will start the dye process. In a large bowl, we'll start submerging sets of 10 or so punched plates into the dye/water solution. I want to get a mottled effect on the armor, so once each set is submerged, pieces will be individually removed and excess dye dried off before the next piece is pulled from the dye bath, so the pieces from each set which are pulled out first will be lighter than the last pieces to be removed. There will be no purposeful pattern to the assembly of the pieces based on color, once they've been dyed they'll all just be thrown in a bag and selected one at a time at random to be added to the armor. The random selection will create a nice mottled effect to the finished vest. The shoulder straps and closure belts will be more traditionally dyed, using a foam brush, as I'm not too worried about their coloration.

Once dying is complete, we will start oiling each piece with neatsfoot oil and and begin lacing them together using suede cord, likewise oiled. I think the best method will be to oil each piece as it is selected for lacing, that way there is no confusion about which have been oiled or not.

Project: Carapace - Days 2 and 3

Day 2: Chainmaille and Lamellar

I didn't manage to get much done with the mail today, working on expanding the piece I have was frustrating, as it didn't look like I was doing anything after an hour of work, but I actually ended up doubling the size of the piece.

I put the mail aside and went over to Brent's place to work on the other armor project, Leather Lamellar in a style found during archaeological excavations in Visby, Sweden.

My main holiday gift from my parents, other than the 9-button boots they bought me at TRF, was a gift card to Tandy Leather Factory, which I used to purchase a whole saddle skirting hide, which for those not super-knowledgeable about leather, is approximately 20 square feet of cow hide, at between 12 to 16 ounces thickness.

The weight of leather assumes that a square foot of 1/64" thick leather weighs 1 ounce, so the saddle skirting I purchased is between 3/16" and 1/4" thick.

In the picture above my hide has had about 1/3 of its square footage cut into the pieces for the lamellar using a strip cutter set to 1 1/4" width. After each strip is cut off the hide, it is measured into about twelve 3" pieces and cut, creating the individual plates with only about 1" of waste per strip.

Day 3: Things begin to take shape

Back to work on the chainmaille, I started to form the shoulder straps, a pair of 16 ring x 16 ring squares on either side of one of the long edges of my main rectangle.

The plan is to duplicate above piece, then attach the duplicate to the original at the 16x16s to form a neck hole, shoulders and the beginnings of the chest and back. Next the edge that is on top in the photo will be extended, then widened in a T shape. The arms of the T on the front side will be attached to the T on the back, forming armholes and creating basically a very short vest. From that point, sleeves can be created, and the "hem" of the vest can continually be extended downward until it reaches the desired length, or I run out of rings.

My 5am math says that I've used 1492 links so far, which is scary, because that represents a little over 1/5 of my total rings, and also represents about 6.8 pounds. I can tell you that hefting it one-handed certainly doesn't feel like almost 7 pounds, so maybe I'm just exhausted and adding poorly. The real concern is that if this is 1500 rings, then the duplicate will bring it up to 3000 rings...wait a minute, I am completely wrong here. I've only used 746 rings. That means weight for this is only 3.4 pounds, which feels a lot more correct, and is only an expenditure of about 1/8 of my rings.

So, ~750 rings for the front, means ~1500 for the whole yoke, another ~1200 for the T extension, bringing the total to ~2700 for the mini-vest, a little over 1/2 of my total rings. If each sleeve is about the size of my 1/2-yoke, thats another ~1000 rings for each sleeve, bringing the total to ~4700 rings or about 93% of my rings, with a shirt that only hangs to just under my sternum.

Looks like I'm going to need to buy more rings in any case, even with my most frugal estimates of ring usage, which brings up my other concern: Ring Lord has stated that they will be discontinuing the 12ga rings when their stock is gone, which means I need to buy up their remaining 15 pounds before someone else does, but I'm not sure where the money for it is going to come from, because I certainly don't have the tools or means to coil and cut 12ga steel here at the apartment.

Back to leather this evening at Brent's, we had already cut 25 strips from the hide, creating about 300 individual plates, which were then marked with the "Visby" hole pattern, as shown below.

Of the the pieces, from left to right three different hole methods were used: Drilling with a 9/64" from the rough side (back) to the smooth side (front), drilling from front to back, and using a 9/64" hammer punch from back to front.

None of the methods produced satisfactory results, as drilling from front to back causes the ugly shredding of the leather seen in piece #2, and hammer punching from back to front causes the unfortunate puckering seen in piece #3. The old tried-and-true method of front-to-back hammer punching will produce the best results, and will not be significantly slower than drilling.

Using the test-punched pieces as templates, we marked all 300 pieces with the Visby pattern, and will begin to punch them in the next step.

That's all 300 pieces marked and ready for punching. To speed up the punching process, I will go to Tandy tomorrow and pick up my own punch set.

A quick test-threading of the pieces we punched/drilled brought up an interesting issue we hadn't considered with the rectangular pieces. Of the lamellar found in Visby, the pieces were lozenge-shaped, not pure rectangles.

When we threaded the three leather pieces together using the middle holes, the top and bottom holes of pieces 2 and 3 were obscured by the edges of pieces 1 and 2, respectively, explaining why the Visby pieces have the curved edges. While I'm not about to go back and trim 300 plates to give them rounded edges like the "Standard Piece" above, Brent commented that we could either use a hammer chisel for making belt ends to make them look like the "Centre Piece", or just punch the middle 4 holes closer to the edge of each piece than currently marked. I think I might try to do a bit of both, and look for a tool at Tandy that would do the job (a hammer chisel with a 4" gradual curve would be perfect), or borrow some fucking shears from Blue and just cut the pieces manually. *winces* Either way, it's going to be a shit job, and we're not even to the dying yet...

Project: Carapace - Day 1

I never update this as I should, but with a major project underway now, I'm making a commitment to update this every day I do any significant amount of work on it.

Day 1: Chainmaille

One of my holiday presents from my in-laws was surprisingly heavy as it was laid in my lap. I had my eyes closed as instructed, so when the 23 pounds of steel was deposited there, it was a pleasant shock.

The rings were fabricated and cut by the good folks at The Ring Lord, and are 12-gauge mild steel wire, wound to 1/2" inner diameter, for an aspect ratio of about 5, perfect for making sturdy, but not stiff, European 4-in-1 mail.

By the measurements of The Ring Lord, there are ~720 rings per square foot of finished material using the 4-in-1 pattern, but I believe that was measured with the material in it's most compact form, as I am about 300 rings in at this point, and have a piece that is 20"x3.5" when fully expanded, which is how it will be when worn, so I'm estimating more like 600 rings per square foot.

Nevertheless, some rough measurements on my own body with a tape measure says I'll need a 3'x2' panel for chest and another for back, and then a pair of 1'x2' panels for sleeves, for a total of about 16 square feet of material for the finished piece, minus the links missing for a head hole, so about 9600 rings.

My gift of 23 pounds gets me an estimated 5000 rings, so I'll probably be purchasing another 10 pounds at least, but only after I finish using these that I have and see where I am.

iOS 4.2 has already pissed me off...

...not so much the software itself, but Apple/iTunes' lack of a real backup process.

Below is a copy of the letter sent to Apple about my most recent issue, where I lost approximately 10GB of user-created (i.e. ME) music and video due to their "backup process" not actually backing anything up...

Now that the new iOS 4.2 has been released, I decided to upgrade my 3gs from 4.0.

When I first connected my iPhone and attempted to start the upgrade, a dialog box appeared: "This update will overwrite all information on your iPhone. Make sure you have created a backup before applying this update." or something to that effect.

Not wanting to lose the 10+gb of music and video that I had recorded, I right-clicked on my iPhone in the iTunes sidebar and selected backup.

iTunes churned away for a bit, then informed me that the backup had been completed successfully, so I proceeded with the iOS 4.2 upgrade.

A couple of phone reboots, and an "unknown error" that crashed iTunes later, the update was complete.

To my dismay, my ~12gb of data on my iPhone now only showed as ~1.5gb, with all of my music and video missing.

I immediately attempted to restore from my backup, which returned 90% of my photos (but not all), my downloaded apps and about 50% of my contacts to the phone, but still no music or videos.

Called support. Spoke with a Tier1 agent, who was very willing to help, but unable to actually do anything. Then she mentions that "oh yeah, you can't back up music or videos from the iPhone." Miffed and confused, I asked to speak to her Senior for clarification on this seemingly-illogical claim. When "Steve" got on the phone, he confirmed that yes, despite the dialog stating that if a user wanted to save their data, they should create a backup, the "backup" really only contained contacts, text messages and the like, and that Apple had never included media in the backup process. He then made the contradictory comment that Apple had made this specific decision to NO LONGER back up media from the user's device due to "complaints from users that their iPod and iPhone backups were using 20-30gb of additional space on their hard drive." Which is exactly what a REAL back up will do, as it is BACKING UP an exact copy of the data from one device to another.

So not only was "Steve's" comment in direct contradiction to his earlier statement that Apple had never offered a media backup from iPod/iPhone, it also flies in the face of smart computing practices AND good business sense.

Basically, what this bug report boils down to is that as a musician, videographer and computer professional, the complete lack of your software's ability to perform a real backup, combined with the either poorly-worded or purposefully-misleading dialog boxes in iTunes that lead the user to believe their information is being stored, is completely unacceptable.

At the very least, the dialog windows should be rewritten to inform the user that no media information will be backed up.

The correct solution, on the other hand, would be to offer users the option of doing a "quick backup," containing only the basic information currently saved by your poorly-designed "backup" process, or a "full backup," containing a 1-1 copy of the user's device.

I would sincerely appreciate a detailed response to this issue, as this is an extremely distressing lack of coverage for anyone who uses their iPod or iPhone to create new media.

Texas Classic Car Show

6:00am - Woke up, showered, shaved, etc. No breakfast

6:45am - Attempted to start RoXanne while still in the garage, no dice. Just cranked and cranked and cranked. Tried leaning her out, richening her up, nothing. Let her sit for 20 minutes (extra "getting-ready-to-go" time previously budgeted now used up).

7:10am - Start attempt number 139687321. Nothing. Still just cranking. Frustration level now at maximum. Angry cigarette break. Another attempt, nothing.

7:30am (we're supposed to be meeting the rest of the club at Krispy Kreme on 183 at this time) - Still in the driveway south of Slaughter and MoPac. Give up on car, post to FB letting people know I'm not going to make it. Call my mechanic buddy for advice, leave message.

8:00am - Buddy calls me back, suggests checking injector harness connections and plug condition (to ascertain lack or abundance of fuel, respectively). Remove plugs, see about 105 gallons of wet fuel pour off them. Realize I'm an idiot and had shit set WAY too rich. Clean and scrub plugs off, crank engine without plugs to clear fuel from housings. Dial down fuel delivery in computer. Reattempt start.

8:30am - RoXanne fires up like a dream. Hit the road to get to Rudy's on 183 hopefully before pre-registration confirmation closes at 9am.

8:55am - Get to pre-registration booth, get confirmed, roll over to show area. Car running rough, worry about fouled plugs again.

9:00am - Car dies in intersection of Jollyville and Braker. Get push into Wells Fargo parking lot from badass dude in a blue and white Camaro. Check plugs, yup their fouled because car is still too rich. At least this time they're only soot-covered instead of soaking wet. Clean with shirt tail and replace. Car starts now. Get to show.

9:10am - Stop in line to enter show area, almost slam into lime green and black Camaro in front of me because driver is an idiot. Flood engine and foul plugs again. Texas RXs club members are on hand to push me into show. A little embarrassing, but I fucking made it, so that's a lot better than 2 hours earlier.

9:15am - RoXanne's on display, lookin' sexy. I'm the 10th RX member to join the group, so now we're tied with the AC Cobra club for membership participation.

10:00am - Show opens. Already, everyone who walks by at least glances into the car, most stop for several seconds to several minutes around her. Stories are swapped, information disseminated, she's the talk of the section.

10:00am-3:00pm - Wander the show, see some other really cool cars, always looping back to check on RoXanne. Drink some beer, talk shit with the other RX drivers, poke some good-natured fun at the AC Cobra club guys for not having real cars (100% of the Cobras at the show were kits). Watch people ogle RoXanne, turn down purchase offers for RoXanne. Drink some more beer.

3:00pm - Awards are handed out, Texas RXs win club participation, which comes with a $150 gift certificate to Rudy's BBQ. Be absolutely surprised when RoXanne wins a 1000W, 4-channel sounds system amplifier, courtesy AudioFX for Best Import Car.

4:00pm - Break camp, clean and replace plugs, then refuel RoXanne. Caravan back to Liberty Hill with Danny's RX-2 to start stage 2 of the restoration: speed preparations.

5:00pm-9:00pm - Tune idle and non-boost fuel levels. Get rid of sputtering due to over-rich settings, idle is actually smooth instead of loping for the first time since I've owned the car (well, I could smooth out the idle previously, the car would just die 10-15 seconds later). All RPMs and speeds of acceleration under no load now track appropriately. RoXanne growls like she's supposed to instead of the drowning sputter she had this morning. Stomping on the accelerator brings the appropriate rising wail to the 9000RPM scream I love with no leaning out or choking.

~||~

So yeah, a frustratingly slow start to the morning, but by 10am, everything was great and it just got better throughout the day.

Got invited to a couple other shows before the end of the year, one at the end of October and one in mid-November. I'll see if I can make it to them, but going to TRF and getting my Mjolnir Armor completed by Halo-ween are more important at this point.

Stage 2 on RoXanne's restoration is installation of Eibach springs in the front and rear, replacement of the rear tires with 225/50R-16 or larger tires in the rear and some strenuous load-testing to ensure that the fuel values under boost are correct.

Danny will be taking care of the first item, Discount Tires the second and hopefully Scott/Bob/Joe over at Driveway Austin will consent to let me do some tuning from the passenger seat while RoXanne is driven around in track conditions.

~||~

So I got home and wrote this, then let Lilith out of her cage to take her out, walked around with her for like 30 minutes because she wouldn't do her business and then came back in to take a shower. She pushed the door open with her nose and came in, so I looked down at her and freaked out when I saw a 1 1/2" gash on her head all puckered open.

It wasn't bleeding, she wasn't whimpering or showing any signs of pain or discomfort and was just being her normal, bubbly self. I jumped over to start first aiding her, soaking a bit of towel in some hydrogen peroxide and cleaning the wound, and checking it out, and apparently she didn't even know she was cut. It's a straight slice across the top of her head, probably received when she shoulder-checked the fish tank sitting on the floor while she was running around excited after I let her out of her kennel.

She didn't fight against me while I was cleaning the wound, and it still didn't bleed any, just a couple spots of blood on the towel where the peroxide picked it up. Still needs stitches though, so Jill is about to drive to Round Rock Emergency Hospital to get her sewed up.

This whole time, she just wants to chew her bone or wrestle around with Connor or The Doctor. It's the wierdest thing, she's got this massive wound, but she doesn't seem to even know it's there. I'd be cussing, bitching and whining up a storm if I had a cut that relative size on my head. Oh well, guess she's a trooper.

Finally got my shower, updated this with the latest information and about to go to bed. Then Jill points something out offhandedly while I'm putting on jammies:

Apparently, I'm sunburned as all fuck.

XBox Live Support...I am disappoint.

Woke up this morning to the cat shitting in the hedgehog's cage while he cowered in terror inside his castle, the dogs wrestling around in the cabinet under the sink and the bedroom door wide open, even though I was butt-ass naked. Oh, did I mention it was 7:30am?

Yeah, so that was fucking fantastic. Roll with the punches though, right? So I get up, dress, get my morning tobacco breakfast on and then decide to start getting some stuff done around the house.

Step 1, cut a hole in the box... wait, wait, wait... wrong "To Do" list...'

So I cancelled my XBox Live account a while back, never really played online all that much and it seemed like a waste of $8/month. Then I realized (or it changed) that Netflix doesn't work through XBL unless you have an active subscription...That means no streaming goodness on the widescreen unless I re-up my XBL. Well, the CC on my account expired since then, so I'll just enter my new information and be good to go...

Wait a minute, says card information already exists on the account. Well, it IS the same card number, so I'll just update the existing information...

Nope, can't edit security code information...

Well, I'll just remove the old card and reenter everything...

Nope, say balance due... wait WHAT?

*Sigh*

Apparently even though I "cancelled" my XBL service they still tried to charge me every day for a little over a month even though the card information was expired, so my bank flagged it as a fraudulent charge.

*Call Bank*

"Hey there, XBox Live has been charging me using expired information, so the charges were listed as fraud, can you fix that?"

"Sure thing, you should be fine now, just make sure the security code gets changed, because that's what got the charges flagged."

"Thanks!"

[Total time on phone call: ~5 minutes, Eloquence and understandability of agent(located in San Antonio): Excellent]

*Call XBL Support*

*5 minutes of automated directory maze*

*10 minutes of hold music*

"Hallo,thaankyouforcollingEeeksbawksLivesupport.

MynameisManij,whatisyourgamertag?"

"I'm sorry, I entered it during the automated system, did you not receive it?"

"Nosir,canIpleasehaveyourgamertag?"

"Um, sure. N-U-L-L-3-X-3"

"I'msorry,thatisnotcorrect."

"Excuse me?" (I thought she didn't have any information, and that IS my gamertag...)

"DidyoumeanN-U-L-L-3-times-3?"

"..."

"Yeah, sure. That's what I meant"

"Thankyouforyourpatience,howcanIhelpyou?" (keep track of how many times she says that first part)

"I can't renew my XBL subscription because-"

"Haveyougonetobilling.microsoft.com?"

"Yes I have. If you'll just listen to my issue, I'm sure it will make more sense."

"Thankyouforyourpatience. Soyou'retryingtocreateanEeeksbawksLiveaccount. Icanhelpyouwiththatsir."

"..."

"No, no I'm not. I cancelled my XBL account several months ago..."

*5 minutes of explaining the situation, correcting her when she misunderstood completely and waiting on hold while she attempted to run my incorrect card information*

"Thankyouforyourpatience. I'msorrysir,yourpurchasecannotbemadewiththiscard. Itisbeingdeclinedforhavingincorrectinformation."

"I know. That's why I called in the first place. I don't need you to find out the problem, I know what the problem is. My card was expired and so the wrong information is on the account, and I cannot update my information because the billing system will not allow it. I need you to either remove the existing card information from the account so I can re-enter it, or I need you to update the security code."

"Thankyouforyourpatience. Sirwecannotchangeyoursecuritycode. Youwillhavetodothatyourselfonbilling.microsoft.com"

"That is what I have been attempting to tell you for the past 5 minutes. I cannot update my security code on the website. Are you able to remove all of the card information so I can re-enter it manually?"

"Nosir. YouhaveanexistingbalancewithEeeksbawksLiveaccount. YouwillhavetopaythatbeforeIcanremovecardinformation."

"Why do I have a balance? I cancelled my service before the end of the month."

"Thankyouforyourpatience.

EeeksbawksLiveaccountisbilledatthebeginningofeachcyclebeforeserviceisauthorized."

"So I have an outstanding balance because you couldn't charge me for service I wasn't receiving?"

"Yessir."

"..."

"So why was I billed for service?"

"Youwerenotbilled.Servicewascancelledandsonochargewasmade."

"So I have no outstanding balance."

"Thankyouforyourpatience. Thatiscorrect."

"So you can remove my card information now?"

"Nosir. Anoutstandingchargeof$8.65isontheaccount."

*Silent screaming* (This is the point where I started writing this blog entry)

"What service period was this charge for?"

"ThischargewasonSeptember9th,2010"

"Wait, I have not been able to change my card information for approximately 2 months for a charge I attempted to make 2 days ago?"

"Correctsir. Thankyouforyourpatience."

"Ok this is stupid. I want that charge removed so I can renew my service. Please remove it yourself or transfer me to a supervisor who will."

*5 minutes of holding, 2 minutes of re-explaining the situation to her. 5 more minutes of holding*

"Thankyouforyourpatience. Ihaveremovedthefruadulentchargefromyouraccount."

"Thank you. And the expired credit card?"

"Youshouldbeabletoremoveityourself."

"So you cannot remove that information from my account?"

"Yessir. Iamcapableofdoingthat. Ifyouwouldpleasegotobilling.microsoft.comandremovethecardinformation."

"..."
"Okay, fine"

*2 minutes of websurfing and logging in, only to find out that to remove card information you have to go to xbox.com/accountsupport or some shit*

*another 5 minutes of surfing and logging in, changing information and entering a new card.*

"It says that the transaction cannot be processed at this time."

"Yessir. Thankyouforyourpatience. PleaseenterthecardinformationonyourEeeksbawksLive."

"You mean I have to turn on my console and enter all this information again there?"

"ThatiscorrectMisterEeesack"

"..."

"Okay, this is really getting tedious."

*5 minutes of entering information in the XBox and attempting the purchase again.*

"I'm still getting the same error."

"Thatiscorrectsir. Youcanwait24hoursandtrythepurchaseagain,oryoucangotoamazon.comandpurchaseatimecard."

"Wait, what? You're telling me I have to wait a whole day OR go to a third-party retailer?"

"Thankyouforyourpatience."

"That's not even an answer to my question. Is there anything more you can do to help me?"

"Ifyourequirefurtherassistance. PleasefeelfreetocallusbackorgotoEeeksbawks.cawm/support. Goodbye."

"Wait-"

*Disconnect*

"..."

OMG I have never had such trouble TRYING to give someone money.

I could start a whole other rant about the fallacies of outsourced customer service, how using people from a barely-more-than-third-world country (yes I've been over there and trained people, so don't think I'm just making assumptions) who speak English as a third or fourth language is a bad idea, but that's for another time.

The moral of this story is that 2 and a half hours after calling this travesty of an organization, I still don't have XBL and I still can't watch movies in HD on my TV...

I'm out.

Oh my! What could this be? Stay tuned!

Disregard females, acquire currency.

Despite a total lack of finances, I am continuing with my efforts to get product created for Egyptian Dragon's shelves (racks? hangars? lines?). Of course my initial foray was to create Jill's "uniform" to wear while she is working in the shop, but unfortunately, I decided to purchase her fabric from Mall-Wart, on the grounds that it was 50% off.
Inevitably, the zombie manning the fabric counter cut an incorrect amount of EVERY fabric I selected, leaving me with barely enough black fabric for the overskirt (and therefore none for the matching panels on the bodice), and not even enough blue to complete the underskirt, much less the bodice. The mild consolation is that the cream fabric I purchased was either 120" wide or cut improperly, so I got double the amount I paid for. That being said, I have no idea what I'm going to do with this much cream fabric (maybe make a shirt for myself and some for the shop?).

[ This space intentionally left Blank ]

See the world in a haze of smoke and filth.
(The killer washes his hands of the life of one victim in the blood of the next un-

Oh fuck this.

I was going to rewrite a poem I did many years ago, lyricise it to use for a new Orchids in January song, but then I realized that it's shit.

I don't write enough anymore. Too many things on my plate distracting my attention. Since it's my calling, my One True Skill if you will, it's irresponsible of me to not write.

I know I'm three months late, but I'll make it my new-years resolution to write something in here every day, even if it's just a blurb about my day, a laundry list of activities. Even though no one reads this I'll try to make it a bit interesting for posterity's sake at least.

So, what to post?...

We've all been sick, both at home and the office. It's like a damn plague factory around me. Missed work, pressurized skulls and blocked ears are the norm in my vicinity. Despite these tribble-ations, I've been soldiering through, working through VPN when I'm too sick to make it into work.

I don't think I've talked about Orchids in January on here yet. OiJ is my new band formed with an old friend and now-roomate, Mikael. I personally hate labeling music genres, but if I must, I'd call it Indie Rock. We've played a few shows now at the Red Eyed Fly, and every one is more and more kick-ass. Taking a little break for now, as we're trying to get a DIY recording done in time for our shows during SXSW. No, we're not actually playing at SXSW, but we're going to have shows in downtown during the festival, so we're hoping for a good turnout. For those rare ones who might stumble across this blog and are interested in merch, it's available on my CafePress page, but if there is enough advance interest, we can make them available for purchase at the shows for cheaper (also, we have Stickers! Go vandalize the town in support of the band!). CDs will be available as well, as soon as we get the mp3s uploaded.

On the visceral side of life, I've also started an airsoft team, The Murder of Crows. So far we've only got one fireteam established, but hopefully we can gain more members or meet up with other teams and get something really fun going. We're looking for opponents as well, so if you're interested, let us know. We're not going super-hardcore right now, mainly because high-end rifles are expensive. Entry-level weapons are good enough for what we're looking to do right now anyway, and a lot more in our collective price range. It's all about the fun right now, and if we got enough people in our own group (8-10), and found somewhere to play (park, undeveloped lot, etc) then we'd be set.

On the costuming and recreation front, I got to hang out with Adam (405th admin) other day, who showed me a new take on the weathering method, so I should finally get my CQB and Jill's Recon buckets done. I was attempting to make them look all nice and new, like in the game, but they look too fake like that, so I'm going with the battleworn style. Also, I was invited to help make some suits with Adam, and the implication was that I'd get at least part of a suit in exchange for my work, so that's pretty badass and I might have a wearable suit sooner than I thought. We'll see what happens though. Pics will be posted (at least of the helmet) once the weathering is done. I still need to get gold visors for both helmets, nice padding and trim, and electronics (fans, lights, switches, etc), but that's a bit down the road.

Anywho, I'm kinda outta steam at this point, this blog post has taken hours here at work (i've been typing on and off between working). So I'm gonna stop for now. I'll try to post some fiction later tonight or as my post tomorrow.

I hate paranormal romance with a passion...

...any kind of romance novels for that matter. Sorry if it's your cuppa-t, but the vapid, overdone storylines are just impossibly tasteless to swallow.

Lets see if I can become a "#1 Bestselling Author!" like is listed on EVERY ROMANCE NOVEL EVER!!!1!!1!!11one >.<

*ahem* (in the following synopsis, pick one or more of the items listed in each color for each section to complete the sentence)

Sweet/innocent/cute/sexy girl who is a vampire hunter/orphan/cop/detective/werewolf is having a rough personal life because her boyfriend/buddy cop/partner/lover/boss/master has died/been killed by other monsters/been killed by her/committed suicide/found another lover/turned gay. Meanwhile, a body/corpse/victim/skeleton/arcane circle/nun is found in a local alley/bar/her apartment/strip club/vampire hangout and our heroine has to solve the mystery because she's accused/bored/fearful/vindictive/horny. While getting started she runs into a mysterious man/vampire/werewolf/scottish highlander/alien/demon/ghost who draws her to him with his irresistable/unrelenting/exotic/deep/throbbing passion/lust/looks/soul/manhood even though he's the killer/killer/killer/killer/killer. The story drags on for numerous improbable/outlandish/impractical/fantastic soft-core sex scenes, in which his hard/firm/rigid/rocky/hot/warm/immense/throbbing/pulsing/seeking/flexing manhood/manliness/shaft/erection/pole/hardness/masculinity performs impossible feats of ecstasy/desire/lust/transportation, then culminates in her realizing the obvious, that he's the killer/killer/killer/killer/killer, and she's forced to kill him/ignore the fact and make love to him again/kill herself/have an emotional discussion about how they can never be together because she's jewish/kill her ex/hide him from the police/turn him into a vampire/turn him into a wolf/turn him into a demon and then through some incomprehensible plot twist, she ends up alone at the end so that the series can continue.

Woo! now I'm "ZOMG #1 BESTSELLING AUTHOR EVAR!" Just like Hamillton, Kenyon, Harris and all those other pen names for the romance novel industry's pool of hack writers. (Oh, you didn't know that? You thought that the overly made-up woman on the back cover who "takes time out of enjoying the Vegas nightlife to set down her martini and write" [a no-shit direct excerpt from a back cover] really did all the writing? Silly person)

Anyway, time to sleep. Moar rage later.

FTW

So there I am, minding my own business, playing some Aion (more on that awesomeness in a minute), when my cell rings. I answer it and...wait, wait, wait. For this story to make any sense, we need a little flashback action *Does the Wayne's World wriggly finger motion* Doodle-loo! Doodle-loo! Doodle-loo!

[Two Weeks Ago]
So I'm browsing through Craigslist for jobs, and lo and behold, amongst the innumerable job scams and work-from-home pyramid schemes, I spy a well-written, readable ad. And it's for a company I recognize and love, Half-Price Books. Ad says: Want moneys? Come fill out application and get jobzored. (Ok, ok, so I paraphrased a teensy bit) So I roll up to the Round Rock HPB, completed application in hand and drop it off. The cutie behind the counter smiling coquettishly at me and promising to let the manager know I stopped by. A few days later I get a phone call; the assistant manager at HPB wants to know if I'm available the next day to come by for an interview, "But of course, good sir." I replied. 24-ish hours later, I'm sitting in a comfortable chair in HPB, reading a bit of tasty Halo fiction when I'm called to the office. Sitting down with the managers to have a lovely discussion about Books, Comics, Role-playing games and steampunk. Oh yeah, and we talked about hiring me too *grins*. "We'll call you Monday about the position" they gladly inform me. Well monday comes and goes without a call. A little let down, I shrug and continue my until-now, fruitless searching. Thursday rolls up, all angry and in-your-face; and after an extremely depressing let-down from NCSoft about the job there, I get a call. It's the assistant mangager from HPB, letting me know that he was really pushing for me to get hired, due to my literary experience and tastes (that's right kiddos, people want to hire me because I read cyber- and steampunk), but was overruled by the store manager in favor of another applicant. Thanking him for his honesty, I hang up, returning my now-bloody nose to the perpetual grindstone.

[Meanwhile, back at the Ranch (I mean the present)]
So there I am, minding my own business, playing some Aion (man, I just got the weirdest feeling of deja vu), when my cell rings. I answer it and its the store manager from Half-Price Books. "Is Isaac there?" she asks. "Right here, baby. Wha-chu want?" is my sultry reply. (ok so now I'm just taking gross artistic license with the actual facts) "Well, I was wondering if you might still be interested in the position at HPB, we liked your interview so much, we were very disappointed we didn't have enough positions. I petitioned the district manager, and she authorized us to hire an additional employee, and were wondering if you could come in Tuesday @ 11am to start training?"

Hell.

Fucking.

Yeah.

So, the job hunt is over, the training begins. So does teh leet moneys and all that.

[Next topic]
Aion. Dizzam, what can't I say about this game. Yeah, so I didn't get the Game Master position for Aion, or the Paid Beta Tester position either. I'm not holding a grudge against the game over that though.
Awesomely Appropriate Acts of Alliteration Aside, this is really the most beautiful MMO I've seen. Starting right from character creation, NCSoft continues the exceptionally detailed character generator it debuted in City of Heroes/Villains, taking it to the next level with 22 Facial presets, 6 body presets and 4 voice presets. Once the basics are finalized, players have 38 hairstyles, 17 face shapes, 18 facial decorations and 13 tattoo/scar/piercing choices, not to mention the full RGB color selection for hair color, and faction-appropriate RGB tables for lip and skin colors. (By the way, that's just male characters. Females have their own complete set up) As long as I'm doing my math correctly, that's 1,567,268,352 character design combinations, assuming you only use the hair/lip/skin color presets and don't delve into the RGB tables at all. Holy crap you say? But wait there's more! Now that you've chiseled out the main look of your character, there's an "Advanced" settings tab. 0.0! Face and Body are separated into two categories, with 25 sliders to tweak facial shape and 12 sliders for the body (Females have 13 because they have a booby size slider too). Add all this to the 2 factions, male or female character choice, 4 basic character classes, each with 2 subclasses, and you have an overflowing cornucopia of character creation goodness!

I'm too tired to go into the actual game (besides, I want to get back to playing ^.^) so I'll type another blog tomorrow about the gameplay.

(For the curious, Females have 23 facial presets, 6 body presets, 4 voices, 44 hairstyles, 20 face shapes, 7 facial decorations, 18 tattoo/scars, 25 face sliders, 13 body sliders and the same color choices, for a final possible combination total of 1,149,603,840 choices).

Well, I havn't posted in quite some time.

The combined stressors of moving (twice), joblessness and the general malaise of unease have fallen upon me and sapped my will to write, draw or otherwise emote, something I'm working really hard to push past. Hopefully this will help.

I've been working on handicrafts recently, pushing various forums of expression. My initial project is a recreation of the Hazardous Environment Suit (HEV) from Half-Life 2, that our daring hero, Gordon Freeman wears to battle the extra-dimensional aliens and the establishment. The armor is being created from #110 Cardstock, with the assistance of a rather novel piece of software called Pepakura, which translates 3d models such as .obj files into a useable format. Simplistically, with the aid of the user, Pepakura unfolds the model into flat shapes suitable for printing on paper. Thus unfolded, the now-flat shapes are ennumerated and lined, then printed. The inked sheets may now be cut apart and glued together to recreated the original 3d model in physical format.
That's all well and good, but cardstock isn't very suitable for costuming, so the next step is to line the interior of the piece with fibreglass and resin as well as resining the outside, which once dry, creates a quite solid, if still rough-looking creation. Thirdly, auto body filler (or Bondo) is spread along the outer faces of the model, to smooth and give definition to the piece. An alternate method is nicknamed "rondo" where the liquid resin and the paste bondo are combined, and the resulting compound is painted to the outside, giving a smoother finish that requires less sanding. The final step is painting and sealing, and I'll be using enamel-based spray paints for this step, from the wonderful people @ Rust-o-leum. Since Mssr. Freeman's armor is supposed to be metallic or at least ferro-ceramic in origin, I'll be sealing the armor with a Clear Gloss, possibly even automotive clearcoat if I can acquire access to a spray system.

My other project is a nice pair of goggles. They began as generic green plastic brazing goggles with an elastic strap. So far, I've repainted the eye cups with a nice metallic charcoal color, replaced the far-too-shiny connection chain with a nicely tarnished bit of brass ceiling fan pull chain and fashioned a pair of wire lens retainers from silver solder and brass wire, which will attach around the lenses. Still on the to-do list is: Paint the lens covers with a novel paint that replicates a hammered metal finish, procure a strap of black leather rawhide to function as a strap and possibly retint the lenses to give a reflective finish and recolor a neat little jeweler's loupe attachment, although that last I may leave as is for a bit of color contrast and to make it look a bit more hodgepodge.
Having not soldered for quite some time, I am actually rather impressed at how well the lens retainers turned out. Not horribly trashy, but not too professional-looking either. Just the sort of thing a busy and absent-minded inventor would have thrown together to help himself out. Now I need to pull together the rest of the outfit. For that matter, I need to finalize my mental image of my character. Chris, my roommate and writer of A Blog-worthy Life! has already finished his Steam Engineer Outfit, so I don't want to impinge on his purview.
The ideas I have floating around my cavernously empty skull are thus:

• Steampunk Inventor, replete with threadbare vest over a shirt stained with mysterious chemicals, pinstriped pants dropping to scuffed leather shoes and some kind of lab/over-coat, then add plenty of weird gadgetry and clockwork mechanisms for flair.
• Gaslamp Western Vigilante, think Deadlands. Dark, Wyatt Earp-ian Frock Coat, Decorative Vest, crisp shirt with gartered sleeves, tailored pants tucking into knee-high boots, Leather duster hat with goggles strapped around the crown, ray-pistol in a thigh holster, possibly at a bit of a Steampunk Knight flair to the outfit with an expanding shield and Tesla-sword.

So, there they are, ephemeral and vapid, but I'll pin one down soon enough. Suggestions or comments certainly appreciated.

Still searching for a job, the local economy is rather difficult, as everyone is searching for experienced help, degreed help or other requirements that equal not me. 10-20 resumes emailed daily is my usual number. So far, 80% get no response, 15% are some kind of pyramid scheme or scam, and the final 5% turn into an interview. Recently, that final 5% has been NCSoft, to Beta-Test for Aion and Half-Price Books, to be a Book Buyer. Both turned into nothing, but I was "assured that [I was] one of the highest-ranked candidates for the position." Empty words, since if I was really that qualified, why didn't I get the job? Oh well. So this is my major stressor, the sheer effort of beating the digital pavement searching for a company looking to hire someone with virtually no experience at more than minimum wage. (I have a black towel over my head as I type this, and apparently I look like a Shadow Thief, from the novelette "Peter and the Shadow-Theives," according to Cassidy anyway.) I really hate to do this, but I've started applying at restaurants as a server, waiter, bartender, bitch, you name it. Oddly enough, a lot of these places are requiring 1-3 years of waiting experience...It's strange, I know, waiting jobs are supposed to be entry-level. Yes that means you should be able to get it with zero experience. Anyway, it just makes it harder to get work, because while I waited and bartended for Mangia Pizza, it was only for 5 months.

Anyway, sorry to take up so much of your time, here's a picture of a member of the feline species, who possesses a poor grasp of grammar, the accepted currency of the interwebs.