Smooth-On is the company I get my silicone, resin, etc... from.

The recently launched a product called "Onyx". It's a black resin. It's surprisingly hard to tint resin to really get BLACK. I usually end up with some purplish grey color. So this was pretty neat. It's only $5 a bottle more than the white that I usually use ($89.75 I think for the Onyx).

The color is great. It really is black as can be. It kicks FAST! The pot life is 2.5 minutes. Pot life is essentially how long it is still liquid enough to pour. From the time part A and part B touch, you have just about 2 minutes to mix and pour it before it's useless.

Needless to say I wasted a fair bit of it tonight as I learned how to use it.

I don't think I'll get more of it, unless I get VERY good at casting quickly with this bottle. Having to fly like that means more bubbles, voids and other things requiring cleanup.

I did get a workable clone commander pistol pull out of it. I needed that to clean up and re-mold. My first attempt at molding it (nearly a year ago now!) did not go so well. The master was trashed and the mold tore in a few places. So I made a messy cast of it, and am repairing it. A pain to be sure, but better than scratch building it again.

Originally published at comlink.

So I've been going gray since I was twelve. That's right. TWELVE. Now that I'm solidly in my 20s, my occationaly strand of silver hair has become overwhelming patches of it. I've been solving this problem by getting my hair dyed, but my hair grows so QUICKLY that I end up with an inch and a half of silver after just a month. I can't afford to get my hair dyed professionally every month. I've decided the solution for this is an over-the-counter hair dye, but I have no experience with this. Does anyone have any recommendations or warnings? As in "don't use Hair Fall Out because it says it'll turn your hair a magical brown color but instead your hair all falls out."

Help?

In other news, despite still having the plague I continue to have a great time at home. I visited a friend at his awesome workplace and ate an awesome sandwich then I made Christmas cookies with friends. My favorite four-year-old refered to me as "my Lomer." As in, "I'm going to go sit by my Lomer!" *glee!* And I had fun playing with the two-year-old who will happily tell you that she's pretty. If you ask her if you're pretty too she'll reply "no, I'M pretty!" Hilarious.

I think I will always have a panicky heart-in-my-throat moment when my inbox goes ding! and it's notes from a beta reader.

BUT. I successfully whipped my draft into shape (adding another thousand words to it in the process, holy god), and said beta notes were both positive and helpful, and now my Yuletide fic is all wrapped up with a pretty bow on top and set under the AO3 tree for Christmas morning. YESSSSSS. I feel I must thank the federal government for its part in this, too, because they totally gave us all a snow day that I took full advantage of to get this done, believe me.

If I had the ingredients, I would so be making celebratory cookies right now. As it stands? Hot cocoa. Lots of hot cocoa. Maybe tea-infused cocoa, even. YAY YULETIDE'S DONE AND I'M PRETTY HAPPY WITH HOW IT TURNED OUT! :D

I just had an awesome dinner with friends I haven't seen in awhile. I've missed little-kid-hugs. I spent all summer working with little kids who'd hug you all the time, and then I moved to New York and I don't know any munchkins and most of the people I know live too far away and I've MISSED hugs. It was great to walk in and immediately get tackled by a four-year-old who spent the rest of the evening using me as monkey bars. I've also missed my hometown friends. I like New York but I'm not really close friends with anyone up there. It was great to reconnect with those friends who I've had since I was a kid. They've been there for almost all of my big life changes, and I've been there for theirs. I MISSED them.

Tomorrow my plan is to visit my summer camp kids, find more presents for my mom, and then either bake Chrismas cookies with friends or stargaze with friends. The cookies are very tempting because... COOKIES. And those friends live close by. The stargazing would take place in some mysterious place thirty minutes outside of town.

Oh my amazing friends also made me a Christmas care-package and the two-year-old little girl picked out lots of pink candles with flowers that will make my girly roommate VERY happy. The girly roommate has an unhealthy love of the color pink and I think I can actually compromise on pink accessories picked out by an adorable two-year-old.

In conclusion, I've missed my hometown.

So, in an effort to reactivate parts of my brain that have gone dormant, I bought Batman: The Killing Joke today.

Yes, I'm reactivating the bat-brain. Woo!

I didn't really appreciate what a disturbing book it was when I first read it. I was 12. I wasn't exactly the most seasoned reader.

Anyway, I'm reminded now how Oracle was born.

Originally published at comlink.

You may have heard that whole thing where basically the entire mid-Atlantic is waving its arms feebly from under something like twenty to thirty inches of snow. If not: hi. *waves arms, feebly* Considering every single one of my plans got cancelled today, I figured I'd use the time to edit my (thoroughly crappy, but still existent!) Yuletide draft.

That didn't happen.

And I do not care one whit, because I just got back from spending seven and a half hours with my best friend from elementary school, whom I haven't seen since we graduated high school in '02 and who now, coincidentally, lives right up the street from my mom.

It was so good to see her, guys. And considering how many snow days we spent together as kids? I find this -- an entire evening full of cooking and movies and video games and catching up on seven years worth of stories -- a fitting way to spend such a blustery, blizzardy day as this one.

So, as I sit here going over poetry for a final, I felt the need to get my rant on.

If you like poetry, AWESOME. Good for you.

I LOATHE poetry. I don't know if it's because I'm literal minded and attempt some sort of modicum of humility or if I'm just not sophisticated enough to enjoy it, but my god is it pompous! Have you ever heard a poet actually read their poems? They read it like they're friggin Moses on top of the mountain. For me, poetry just seems incredibly self-congratulatory and VERY pretentious.

Seriously, you can go on and on about how the form means something, but all I see is an attempt at being clever. And y'know what I hate? Fucking name dropping in poetry. It feels like the author is saying "See? I'm so brilliant, I associate myself with so and so!" We've been reading poetry in this class and the only one I REMOTELY enjoy is Langston Hughes. At least he spoke in terms I could understand and showed identifiable passion. I actually enjoyed reading him because he spoke in simple terms and never got too fancy. It kind of goes along with my pure straight loathing of Shakespeare. Yes, I know, I'm a bad actor. I hate Shakespeare. It's archaic, unrelatable, and overrated to your average person. and I do consider myself very average. More than anything, I really find myself annoyed by the people who think Shakespeare is the greatest thing ever and feel the need to tell you at length why you are wrong for not seeing what they see. I just really hate extremes in any situations. I hate liberals, I hate conservatives. I hate pretty much when anyone spouts off bullshit about how one extreme is so much better than the other and talks down to you for feeling the opposite like "oh you poor stupid thing." Seriously, fuck right off. More and more, I'm finding myself REALLY not liking theater people. At least around here, at Columbia. There's a general attitude of mental superiority that the kids at this school like the pretend they have over people who don't get their art. It's that whole "This entirely red canvas represents my inner anguish and pain while also telling you about the people of puerto rico and their troubles!" bullshit. No it doesn't! It's a fucking red canvas! "Oh, I'm an actor, I'm somehow intellectually above you because you don't understand why this play is so brilliant. Now excuse me while I go look into a mirror and shout how awesome I am." Fuck you, you play make-believe. That's all you do. You have different methods of it, and you're good at it, but you're playing pretend! Lose the attitude and learn some fucking humility. And poets? Not everything needs to be written about. For the love of GOD, I hate reading about the poet's grocery list or his apology note about eating plums. William Carlos Williams, I'm talking to you. Douche.

Sorry. I needed to get that out. I think my general point is that people piss me off. Fuckin' people. Knock it off.

like any good cat-parent, i got the kids some christmas presents. tucked away in my closet to save for the morning.

tonight, i see mal with something odd in his mouth.

it's a tube about 4" long, 3/4" diameter, stuffed with catnip. he's entranced with the thing.

then i think... wait... he doesn't... did he???

go upstairs.

closet door: open
target bag: open
pack of catnip tubes: open, scattered.

so yeah, he snuck into the closet and stole his present!

Originally published at comlink.

For a while I stopped blogging as I had become convinced that I really had nothing to say that NEEDED to be shared with hundreds of people.

In reality, this is all about me anyway! ;)

Seriously, I like the reminder of what I was doing. So to that end...

A few of us play the Star Wars miniatures game (Gospog, I haven't forgotten the rancor, I just suck at post office trips!!)

I think I'll start posting up recaps of the games. At least the good ones.

For those that don't play, the idea is simple. You have minis, each with a stat card... effectively the character sheet. From there, you do whatever your character is capable of. Move, shoot, force push, etc... The goal being simple: kill anyone that's not you.

The game has factions: republic, rebellion, empire, mandalorian, etc... Your team has to stay within one faction (for the most part, there are exceptions).

Each character has a point value, and your squad has a cap on points. Usually we do 200 points. So that 115 point Luke may be badass, but that's more than 1/2 your squad shot on one piece.

Tonight we did 5 pieces, no cap on points. Basically bring out your battering rams and see what happened.

My squad was brutal. Grievous, Ventress, Durge, Jango and Dooku.

There was one moment that I loved...

My squad was, as all good Separatist leaders would be, holed up in a room, waiting for the other 3 teams to soften each other up.

Right outside a door was Obi-Wan and Darth Bane (we weren't honoring timelines here). The door was shut. I was lining things up so that on my turn I could pop the door open and use Dooku's force lighting on both of them.

Obi-Wan used force push to shove Bane away from him and into the door, opening it, then ran.

Well, there we go. Bane is a MONSTER, but against all those pieces he didn't stand a chance.

The way the 3 teams all screwed each other over was just perfect.

Originally published at comlink.

I'm home for the holidays! I like New York, but it's nice to be surrounded by little flat buildings and ride in a car again. My mother also surprised me by decorating for Christmas. Previously she told me I'd have to assemble the tree and I was sort of dreading it. It was great to walk in and see everything already up.

Last night I was wired after "White Collar" and I was curious what fan reaction out there so I googled the show. I found set pictures that someone took and it was WEIRD because they were lovingly photographing Matt Bomer... and there were all my crew buddies in the background. Its so odd to look at a photograph where the subject is the pretty man, but see the costumer and the prop guy and the PA caught in the photo too. It's official. I can never read fanfic or look at art for this show. It's just too weird.

It's also funny because once you start filming in New York, you recognize different locations. The holding room for the party scenes in Gossip Girl where used as a big fancy library for an episode of White Collar. Suddenly I'm not listening to the dialogue but instead saying "I've been there!"

Oh, it's also great to be home because my mom bought me MUCH better cold medicine than I bought myself. Obviously she loves me and has more money than I do. Yay for fake-Sudafed! You're so much better then the crap I bought myself.

I know all the deep dark secrets for the "White Collar" season finale! Bwahaha! And nope, I'm not saying a word. I LIKE working on "White Collar" and I don't want anyone to get mad at me. It was a blast to shoot and seems like a really fun episode.

I was waitstaff. I was hoping I'd get a cute Vegas style cocktail dress to serve drinks in, but instead I was given a monkey suit and a ponytail. Not the most flattering look. I don't know how much you'll see me in the actual episode. I'm the waitress with the dark hair and the pony tail. There's another girl who also had dark hair and a pony tail... so basically you'll never be able to figure out who I am.

Matt Bomer and I decided we're distant German cousins.

I adore the guy who plays Mozzie. He was also dressed as a waiter so I said "oh how embarassing. We're wearing the same thing!" His response? "We should have called each other this morning and worn different ascots at least!"

I also learned that you should never ever say "I feel comfortable carrying a full tray of champaign glasses. I cater. I carry cocktails all the time." Saying this out-loud will mean they give you a crappy tray, make you walk on uneven ground, and you will spill the entire tray while the camera is rolling. After that I was taken off of drinks and given the SHRIMP PLATTER instead. Do you know how awful shrimp smells when it's under hot lights for fourteen hours. No one wanted to stand by me. :(

I did bond with my fellow waitstaff though. We found ourselves constantly sitting together until our catch phrase was "we're being segregated based on our costumes."

Anyway today was so much fun. Our call was at 6:30am and we were released at 9:48pm so it was a LONG day, but I'm so slap happy now from exhaustion that I really don't care. Yay "White Collar!"

This qualifies as a final project for my Science, Technology, and Society class. For reals.

this happens every year, but this time it took longer than usual.

a guy on the local 501st board posted some pics of an early christmas present he got from his grandmother.

my grandmother died in 1994. christmas of 1993, she insisted that she give me my presents on christmas eve, rather than christmas day. our home life was a mess at that point, so i was surprised to get anything at all. i wanted to wait until christmas morning, but she was adamant.

i remember it was a pair of newer stephen king books that i hadn't read. she had next to no money and wasn't even able to leave the house without help, so how/where/when she got them remains a mystery. it's not like there was an amazon.

anyway... i went out that night, like i did every weekend, to rocky horror. i was performing that night.

when i got home, the house was full of emts. she had a heart attack.

it took a long time for me to make the connection, but when she gave me the gifts, she knew. she was probably already having pains... it was not her first, but it ended up being the worst.

my mother took down the christmas decorations that night. she was such a miserable person at that point.

my grandmother was in the hospital for 6 months, and died there. heart attack after heart attack. the entire time i visited once or twice. i was also a miserable person at that point.

so every year i'm reminded that the last thing she ever did was give me a christmas present. he passing was when the last vestiges of a civil relationship between my mother and i ended. now, over a decade later, she's missing... run away somewhere to avoid her life.

it's strange... i've moved beyond being an emotional wreck over it, but every year around christmas i get uncharacteristically sentimental.

Originally published at comlink.

There are still a couple of weeks in 2009, but my blogging has been seriously lacking this year. Since I have the time and inclination, here I am.

2009 in review.

January

Went to Arisia, made some maile, generally did the same old nerdy stuff as usual.

February

Mah birthday was commemorated with a new Friday the 13th movie. How thoughtful!

I picked up a badger brush, double edged safety razor and a bar of shaving soap. Good bye expensive disposables, hello shaving like they did before I was born! ;)

We did away with our land line, moving to all cell, all the time. The only down side to date has been my inability to call my phone in the morning when I can't find it.

March

I joined twitter. *sigh*

I went to New Orleans for the second time.

I spent over $1000 to keep my 1997 Dodge Ram on the road. In retrospect, this was Very Dumb.

April

10th wedding anniversary!!!

Met Joss Whedon!!!

Went to a zombie walk! Only one ! here. It was pretty awesome, but in a month of REALLY awesome it's hard to keep up.

I did a presentation on vacuum forming armor at the Higgins Armory museum, and talked about how our plastic stuff relates to medieval armor.

2 weeks in Italy!!!


May

Still in Italy!!!

Not much else going on really. Nerd stuff, making armor, the usual. Pretty much talking about Italy a lot, and pulling out all sorts of "well, we had ... in Italy and it was SOOO much better than this!"


June

June was big.

I got a call from a recruiter about an awesome job opportunity in Waltham. I went in, interviewed, and got an offer.

I was waffling a bit about it. It seemed like a good idea, but I was, as always, nervous about the change.

I went to work on Monday morning to talk to my boss about leaving. I still wasn't 100% sure it was the right choice, so I was going to talk to him about my future there. See, I was brought on as the IT manager, but there wasn't a lot of IT to manage. I was pretty bored / frustrated, but I loved the company, or at least the idea of the company.

I got laid off that morning. Yeah, really. I guess that's one way to tell me that leaving was the right idea.

I took 2 weeks off in between to refresh my head, then started at my new place, which proved to be a fantastically good idea.

July

July was pretty uneventful on a grand reviewing the year scale. Mostly getting acclimated to my new job.

August

August marked the completion of version 1 of my animated style Captain Rex costume. I still wasn't "done", not by a long shot... but it was done enough to be approved by the 501st.

This was pretty exciting. I'm not much on the whole reviewing / approving bit of the clubs, but in this case, it was sort of proving the point that it could be done. There were all sorts of crazy debates over the Clone Wars style armor, and whether it could be worn by a real person. Well, there you go!

September

Blogging fail. 2 posts in LJ all month. By this point the microblogging of Twitter and Facebook are prevailing.

We finally made it out to the Loon Mountain Highland Games. VERY cool, and I definitely want to go back next year. Kilts EVERYWHERE!

October

In October we decided to cut loose the contract company we had been using for help desk work. I posted on Craigslist and got a million and one resumes. Oy! Seriously, I got something like 500 replies in the first 2 days.

I also finished the Clone Wars armor sculpt, and started production of 23 suits for my Garrison/Base. 23!!!! Ugh!!! I started this in August 2008 and finished in October 2009. BIG project. Too big. I'd like to not do that again soon!


The Woburn Halloween parade was this month, as you'd expect by the name. Much less stress this year... we scaled back our crazy prop building and just had fun.

I also trooped at a Celtics game. While not a basketball fan, it was cool being in the Garden during warm ups.

November

So, I'm pulling out of the driveway and the truck is making some pretty bad sounds in reverse. It also developed a fun issue with the brakes, where there would be no pressure in the system when the thing first started. You had to pump the pedal a few times to get the juices flowing.

Remember a few paragraphs back where I said that spending $1000 on repairs was dumb?

Well, I traded it in for $1750 toward a new 2010 Toyota Tacoma. Yeah, that was $1000 well spent. Especially after the $800 a few months before that for a new AC pump, and the new tires... Yeah.

So November. New truck. NEW truck. It had 3 miles on it when I first got behind the wheel, and 12 when I drove it off the lot.

December

I haven't posted at all in December. Lame.

So overall a busy, fun year. I've let my fitness decline. I'm ending 2009 about 20 pounds heavier than I started. But I've been on the right track for the last couple of weeks with exercise / eating better. Still not great, but better.

Plans for 2010?

Get back into shape. I want to see that 175 mark again!

Build my vacuum table. I've been hashing out the hows and the whats, now I just need the whens and the $$ spent.

See where life takes me. I don't really like to plan too far ahead. You never know what might happen to change things, so best to just go with it as it comes.

Originally published at comlink.

I get to do White Collar again! Yay! I don't know what I'll be doing, but they asked for my trouser and dress sizes and said to call again on Monday for a gig on Tuesday. Excellent. :)


In other news, I did not freeze to death today... merely to sickness. Well, MORE sickness. I layered as best I could under my newsboy costume but 20 degrees in Harold Square is still 20 degrees. We had a film crew on us the whole time so we couldn't slack off and they didn't let us off early as I hoped for. They also kept asking us to do things like "sing carols!" which does NOT feel so great while sick. I tried to minimize what I did, but I'm the girl who dances on a freshly broken toe. If you give me a job to do and dress it up so I feel kinda like I'm in a show, I'll walk on broken glass with a smile. It was sort of fun if you ignore the cold and the illness. I got to talk to lots of little kids about Santa Claus. I was also technically on CBS Early Show, but you only saw a second of me because the second camera man was in the way. I found the clip on their website and it's very disappointing. Hopefully I'll get some pictures of me and adorable kids though.

Tomorrow is gonna suck.

I'm sick. My throat is raw. My nose is dripping. I'm coughing. I'm sneezing. I'm SICK.

When I agreed to do this event tomorrow, I was feeling okay and it was in the upper 40s and 50s. Tomorrow it's going to be in the 20s and feel like it's in the teens with the wind chill.

What am I doing tomorrow? I'm standing in Time Square in a newsboy costume (socks, knickers, shirt, hat) and doing promotional stuff for Macy's. They keep saying "layer under your costume!" but honestly, how much can we layer when we're given SOCKS to cover half our leg? I can fit tights under socks, but not sweatpants or fleece. I'm going to freeze and my throat is going to hurt even more because we're supposed to be yelling "extra! Extra!" and all that fun cheesiness.

I'm a moron.

Oh yeah and there's a very strict cancellation policy. Basically if you cancel they take you out in a field and beat you to death with small pebbles so it takes longer. We're told under no uncertain terms do NOT cancel. *facepalm*