My Newfound Respect For...

...Lady Gaga.

I'm currently watching SNL and Lady Gaga is tonight's performer. I'm not really sure if this episode is a rerun or not, but I'm pretty sure that it's new. Let me first start off by saying that I've always been a fan of Lady Gaga's style and music, but tonight's SNL just upped it. Anywho, I watched her first performance, of Paparazzi, and that was really good (plus I thoroughly enjoy that song), but her second performance was awesome, she did like a medley of a bunch of songs, including some really nifty piano riffs. She also added some commentary about living in New York in her medley thing too. What really blew me away was that she was an active participant in a couple of sketches (something not too many performers do, it's really more of the hosts that do), and she was actually pretty funny. Oh, and not to mention all her costumes kicked some major ass, and she didn't have like the typical skinny stick backup dancer/singers, she had two real-looking women (you know what I'm talking about) and one fabulous guy dancer.

So, in summary, kudos to Lady Gaga!

-Kitty

Twas the night before school...

...and all through our room,
-the air conditioner is messed up and the cover thing keeps falling off
-it's fucking hot in here now
-all my shit isn't put away yet
-our school's website takes forever to load, provided that you can actually get on it...
-we have no HBO, so I missed the season finale of True Blood
-which would have been ok, except I can't get the website that I was counting on to watch it to load for me
-i have an 8:00am class that I have to catch a 7:15am bus for
-and now I'm tired, so I'm going to bed

**More tomorrow most likely...

-Kitty

Frustration...

So I definitely just realized that it's been quite some time since I've blogged. Which is surprising considering that I usually have a lot of stuff that I need to vent in the form of internet blogs.

Anywho. Tonight's rant is about my recent endeavors in fan fiction writing. I've recently taken my interest in Charlaine Harris's Sookie Stackhouse novels to a new level: fan fiction. I have two stories up, also under the pen name of chiisai-kitty. Everything thing was smooth sailing on the good ship lollipop up until about 10 this morning. Yes, I've been building frustration on this particular topic for over 12 hours now. Back to the story. At 10am, I toodled up to my laptop, switched it on, got online, and all that jazz. I pull up my document manager on fanfiction.net and start to edit my latest chapter of my story 'Stiletto' because I'm still full of the warm fuzzies that one gets when receiving a butt-load of praise off of one 3,000-word chapter. So I get it all set up, and press send. This is when I received the message that would become the bane of my existence for the entire 12 hour period. "Sorry, but we were unable to convert your file." Or something to that effect. It also advised me to try again. Which I did, like 5 times. So then I think that there might be something wrong with my Works Word Processor document, so I copy and pasted it into another one, then tried that. No go. I copy and pasted it into my Microsoft Word program. Tried it...No go. I even resorted to trying NotePad...still no go. So I keep trying all of these methods multiple times, over the course of 2 hours or so. All while working on upcoming chapters of 'Stiletto'. Needless to say, by the time I gave up trying, I had completed chapter 3.

I moved on to working on other stuff for the rest of my day, but the thought of not having my story up like I wanted to kept bugging me. So I get back on to try again around 4:30pm-ish. I repeated the same process as outlined above...still nothing. I then went to dinner, Target, and Blockbuster.

I got back home, and I decided to try again, propelled by some more warm fuzzies from people who read my stories. Only this time, I emailed it to myself and tried to post it off my desktop PC...still nothing. Around 11pm, I got the idea to reformat one of the chapters I had already published and put Stiletto Chapter 2 in its place. Thank God that worked. Except I had to copy and paste it a little at a time and reformat along the way. I think I was propelled this time by the fact that last week's episode of True Blood happened to be on at the same time I was fighting the formatting monster. So, in the end, my chapter is posted, and hopefully the glitch or whatever it was will be fixed. Or, at least now I know an easier solution. I'm not writing any of this because I'm mad at the site or anything...it was just hella frustrating.

Since I unloaded that rant, I'll keep my issues with last week's episode of True Blood to myself...for now.

Packing for AFO...

Right now, I'm pretty impressed I fit all of my crap for this weekend into my one biggest suitcase. Go me!

I managed to fit, comfortably I might add, 3 pairs of pants, 3 t-shirts, the necessary undergarments (including those needed for my costumes), a pair of socks (in case I want them), a hairbrush, a pair of flip flops, the boots for my costume for Saturday, Saturday's costume (minus the gianormous tail thats riding with me), PJ's, and an extra headband.

The only thing that I didn't have room for are my toiletries, which will be making the journey in my mom's bag (another reason my mom is good to have with us...lol).

Why did I have to limit myself to one suitcase, you ask? Because I'm dumb enough to offer a ride to two of the people in my group, and we have a freakishly small car (it's a Nissan Versa).

Hopefully, this will all work out.

The Rude People of CosplayLand

First, let me start off by dedicating this blog to the rude people of CosplayLand. Thank you for sucking so much that it inspired me to write a blog about you.

With AFO being so close and all, I've resorted to getting my cosplay fix by frequenting the cosplay blogs on such websites as cosplay.com and gaiaonline.com, seeing all the wonderfulness that the cosplay community is currently up to.

Or, in the case of the latter, just how mean some people can be to their fellow cosplayers.

Whilst on Gaia, after picking through the infinite "Who should I cosplay as?" threads (which annoy me equally as much, but more on that another time perhaps), I stumbled on this gem:

http://www.gaiaonline.com/forum/cosplay-and-conventions/i-was-told-never-to-cosplay-again-because-i-m-white/t.42565019/

A thread entitled, "I was told never to cosplay because I'm white."

This thread is now deceased (thank god), but my experience with it continues...

When I originally stumbled upon this thread, sometime last year I believe, I clicked, read the girl's story and offered my words of encouragement and went on my merry way, thinking that would be the end of it.

Nope.

Some a-hole decided to use this thread as his soapbox to promote his rather racist views of who should and shouldn't cosplay.

Which basically boiled down to: asians should, everyone else "ruins it" and shouldn't.

Through several incarnations of himself, this guy proceeded on a good 7 pages of dialogue with the other, presumably non-asian, participants of this thread. In this exchange, he basically said that asians created anime and therefore own it entirely, only asians can represent anime and its affiliates, and no non-asians have ever made any valuable contribution to anime and its affiliates.

First off, I wasn't aware that there was a correlation between skin color and sewing ability.
Second, this guy was later revealed to be Indonesian, a country that I'm pretty sure has no claim to anime fame.
And third, this guy was not a cosplayer himself.

Overall, the presumable non-asian faction outwitted him enough that the thread was allowed to die. But this guy still really pissed me off. I mean, I knew that people like him existed, but I didn't really think that such an elitist point of view could be applied to cosplay, a hobby that is supposed to be fun.

--

My second example of bigotry, cosplay-style, is a thread that my friend showed me. I don't have a link however, so my explaination will hopefully convey the retardation of this particular thread.

Original post: Some girl (who regretably is a Florida cosplayer...) felt the need to share some clearly photoshopped images of cosplayers, which she dubbed cosplay perfection. Now, nothing against the people in said cosplay photos, as the costumes were really well made and their overall presentation of their character was really impressive. That being said, with these pictures, something was just...off. Their skin was just a little too flawless and the lighting was just a little bit...unnatural.

However, this wasn't even the part of the OP that got me. A little bit further down on the OP, she started to bash what she called "plus-size" cosplayers. What it basically boiled down to is that she said that anyone above a size zero shouldn't cosplay. She then cited such examples as Sailor Bubba, Man Faye, and a Jessie from Pokemon crossplayer (all obviously jokes) as the representation of bad/bigger cosplays.

Once again, I had no clue that there was a correlation between size and sewing ability either.

It should also be noted that once again, the good people of CosplayLand banded together to defeat this evil thread, pointing out that larger people can indeed cosplay and that the above-mentioned cosplays were indeed jokes and intended to be funny.

Now, I am mostly just pissed that I have to witness this chick's idea of good cosplay at AFO as she will be there, in costume. Yay me.

--

My third example of cosplay meanness is a little closer to home (although I didn't think it could get closer than the girl that happens to frequent the same cons as I do). This example comes from within my own cosplay group.

*shock* *dismay*
Yeah, I know, me too.

This is the same friend who was mentioned in the previous blog about cosplay.

We had another cosplay meeting this week where finally everyone was in attendance. While we were working on my Kagome, who was the most behind on her costume, this other friend (the one who doesn't sew) made a comment to her.

The dialogue apparently went something like this (I learned of it later):
Kagome: I really hope I don't mess this up (about her green collar part)...
Other girl: Well, if you do, it's your costume anyway...

Upon learning of this, I was furious to say the least. Not only does the Kagome sew (while the other girl doesn't), she was freaking helping her with the costume that she was working on, while working on her Kagome costume. I mean, how freaking rude can you be. I'm actually really glad I didn't hear this when it happened, because then the shit really would've hit the fan.

Grr...well I'm sure I'll have more things to blog about once we actually go to the convention, so more on that later...

-Kitty

Tick Slayers

So, literally like a second ago, Lacy found a tick on my couch. For reasons unknown, we decided to catch it on a papertowel. Lacy brought it to the sink (the only smart idea in this plan), where I attempted to kill it. How do you kill a tick? For those of you that don't know, you have it burn them. So, while on the papertowel, I attempted to burn it to death. We succeeded, only after setting the papertowel on fire. So we put the fire out (thank god it was in the sink), and now it smells like burnt papertowel in my house...At least I still have a house...

Oh, the things that happen at cosplay meetings...

-Kitty

Convention and Cosplay Withdrawal pt. deux

I was on my way to post this blog when I noticed my fellow blogger and FL-convention attendee Tenchi's post on the same subject. Some some of this will be in response to that :)

*sniffs air* Ah, convention season. So lovely. With basically a month away until AFO, my best friend and I are getting pretty antsy. Thank god for the weekly (and sometimes bi-weekly) cosplay meetings we have at my house, otherwise I'd be going crazy right about now.

Anyways, like Tenchi had said in her post, hotel sharing can be complicated. I'm going to amend that for my blog and say that hotel sharing can be a bitch to organize. I'm still waiting on money, and I've had two people drop out (only one that I'm mad at though).

First, let me start by stating that I am practically the con mom. Despite the fact that my mom still goes (this is not weird since she enjoys it, and considers it a mini vacation), I function as the planner and the leader.

As a matter of fact, there are several advantages to my mom going.
1. She pays for her part of the hotel, therefore, its cheaper on the rest of us.
2. She drives. For the past 5 years she has done the back and forth from Daytona to Orlando on most (and sometimes all) days, and has never once complained about it. Go Mom.
3. I can sometimes convince her to hold my shit, which is helpful :)
4. She is our person-who-protects-your-stuff-while-pictures-are-being-taken. Which is super appreciated.
5. She lets us use her credit card to both book the hotel and buy my ticket :)
6. She protects us from creepers. Nuff said.

And most importantly, she isn't one of those crazy up-your-butt moms either. She's the cool, you-guys-do-what-you-want-i'll-sit-right-here-and-read kind of moms. Which is sweet. She also pays attention at the con, enjoys herself, and has even picked up on some anime. How many moms can you say do that?

In a nutshell my mom is pretty damn awesome.

So back to the hotel diatribe. This year there are 5 of us, me, my mom, and three of my friends. Only one of my friends has given me money, so I came up with a plan:
- First of all, my mom and I get a bed. We booked it, we're providing transportation, we paid first. Fair enough.
- My friend who paid first gets the first spot in the second bed. I decided that whoever pays next gets the last spot in the bed. Whoever doesn't is shit outta luck. Again, fair enough.

Now onto some cosplay related ranting:

So these cosplay meetings that I host are where we get together and work on our costumes. We all decided to do multiple costumes, which takes more time obviously. 2 of my group members sew, me and my other friend (the one who paid). She has two costumes of hers to do, and two for her sister, who can't sew. I have 2 costumes of my own, and I help my friend and her sister because I have the most experience (not bragging, its just a fact). My one other friend decided to do three costumes this year, one of which is already done. Thing is, she can't sew. Thing two is, she wants me and my already-paid friend to do them for her.

Let me start by saying, if I wanted to make 4 costumes, I would. The only reason I'm helping my other friends is because I got further along than they did. And they don't have anyone else that is willing to help them. My 3 costume friend has a relative that can, hence where she got the 1st costume that is already done.

It just makes me really frustrated that she has neither paid me hotel money or made an effort to help with her costumes, or learn how to do them herself. I mean, my friend's sister pins and cuts out all her own shit and then her sister sews it. She is also going to camp for like 2 weeks at the beginning of July. Actually a lot of my problem is her attitude; my friend's sister is helpful and doesn't hover (which I despise), while my 3 costume friend just hovers and makes snide remarks about my already-paid friend, which are way out of line.

So moral of the story, I'm really frustrated and I can feel my sanity slipping away. So if anyone has any advice that they're willing to share, feel free.

-Kitty

I'm on YouTube!

Never thought I'd say (or type) that sentence. But, alas, its true.

From AFO 2008, courtesy of techwarelabs.com

So...it's starting to sink in...

...that I'm leaving home in 3 months, exactly 3 months. As in, this time, 3 months from now, I'll be loading stuff into the car and going to college. No, scratch that, this time then I'll actually be on the road, if not already in Georgia.

And it's FREAKING ME OUT....to say the least.

Where did this revelation come from all of a sudden, you ask? I was looking at my MySCAD page that they just updated. It has all this stuff about "pay this" and "pay that" and "confirm your academic interests". Now it has occurred to me that this stuff has to be done, but I want it to be done now, and it can't. Why? I really don't know.

I'm also freaking because, oh yeah, I'M LEAVING HOME! I've never even gone to overnight camp before, and now I'm moving to another state. I mean, I have two of the greatest roommates anyone could ask for, but there's this lingering thought in the back of my mind, 'what if i don't get them as my actual roommates?'. I might die, honestly. We've gotten really close and planned all kinds of stuff and I just feel a sense of security, somewhat, knowing that I'm gonna be living with them. But then there is that sinking feeling. Hopefully it'll all be ok.

I think that's all I have to say for now...adios...
-Kitty

Special Edition: Gundam Wing Footloose

There's just something magical about the union of Gundam Wing and 80's musicals in cosplay.
Without further ado: Gundam Wing Footloose

Summer 2009

As I sit here, eating my delicious grocery store pizza, I was thinking, "It's that time again..."

What time you ask? It's summer, silly.
And summer for me means convention season.

But this is not just any ol' summer, this is the summer after my senior year of high school. Yep, I graduated all right. This summer is special for a variety of reasons:
1) This is the summer of my 6th year of cosplaying...woo woo!
2) Due to some...erm, scheduling conflicts...I am only able this year to cosplay at Anime Festival Orlando.
3) Due to reason #2, I decided to try and go above and beyond and add some firsts to my accomplishments:
first number 1: new biggest group- this one just kinda seems doomed from the start in my eyes, I've tried coordinating a big group before, didn't work so well...but I am determined to make it work (in the words of Tim Gunn) this year.
first number 2: first time attempting a 3 costume weekend. now I usually do attend cons all three days, but I usually just wear street clothes on fridays and saturdays, but not this year. due to my lack of other con cosplays, I've decided to cram them all into one weekend! sound crazy, you bet it is.
first number 3: first cosplays not made from walmart fabric. now this one I'm truly sad about. some genius, assumedly at walmart corporate headquarters, decided that killing the walmart fabric department was a good idea. I'm currently investigating if this was a county-wide thing (we have about 5 walmarts or so) or just in my town. If it is county-wide, I will have to attempt my brand of low-budget, high-quality cosplay at JoAnn Fabrics. It'll probably end up being more like high-budget, high-quality cosplay. I'm most angry at the fact that I probably won't be able to find a light beige-cream color to match my Kirara kimono to make the tail...

Well, that's about all I have to say on that for now, I'll be sure to update my blog with how I'm slowly losing my sanity on the weeks leading up to the convention. And then, of course, is the con review. This summer should be fun...

-Kitty

Senioritis and extreme boredom...

So, I'm sitting here attempting to memorize quotes from the plays that we've read in english this year, and I'm wondering: why?

And this is only a mere smidge in the massive pile of homework that I have to complete before the end of the year. So I ask again: why?

We all know we as seniors don't want to do the work, and they as teachers don't want to grade all of the work (we know because they've told us), so why even assign it, wasting our time and theirs?

Because I.B. is evil. The root of all evil, in fact. Sure, money is often blamed, but this is simply not the case. It's all I.B.'s fault.

Over the last 4 years of high school (ya know, the ones that are supposed to be the best ones of our lives....to which I call bullshit btw), I.B. has cost us sleep, time, and most importantly of all, sanity. And for what you may ask, a piece of paper and some credits that aren't even applicable to the school you're going to. So for that I say, "thanks a lot, I.B.". Thank you for depriving me of my so-called glory days of high school and giving me diddly in return. Thanks to your dumb program, I wasted an extra two years in Spanish and applied myself big time in two college level math classes...only to have to repeat them in college.

Thank you I.B.
You suck big time.
Have fun ruining the livelihoods of the generations to come.
That is, if you're not cut by the budget cuts.
But that would never happen though, right?
There is the legion of dilusional I.B. parents to prevent that "catastrophe".

Anywho, my rant is over. Back to my homework pile of death.