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I really miss steak. It's been so long since I last had steak that I'm starting to forget what it's like. I have faint memories of it. I know I can't have steak every day, but once in a while would be nice. Hell, I'd settle for having steak only on my birthdays. I can't have steak by myself, of course. The best I can do right now is have Spam every other night or so. Spam is no steak, but at least it satisfies my hunger. Don't get me wrong, I'm sure many people love Spam, but there are only so many ways you can cook it before you get tired of it. It's either Spam, or go hungry. The only thing I have at home is Spam. I'm a starving carnivore.
You flatter me if you suggest that I just go out and buy steak. On the radio this morning, they were talking about some guy who paid $250 for beef jerky (beef jerky, not even steak!) and got robbed for $2000. That's insane. I'll never make that kind of money, so it's kinda pointless to ask if I would buy steak.
I've started thinking crazy thoughts, like maybe I should go jump on some random cow and go nuts. Something, anything.
Man, I really miss steak.

I got paid this week so I bought a little bit of fabric and guess what I've been doing all weekend? That's right, working on cosplay! This is by far the easiest mascot I've made; it's actually fun to work on it, it's that easy. I've been focused on cosplay so much these past couple days that I've been letting my household chores fall by the wayside, like laundry. So this afternoon I was all *sniff, sniff* . . . my socks smell funky. I guess wearing them 3 times is the limit. But rather than stop to throw in a load of laundry, I just took some scrap fleece and made me some patchwork booties. New booties = clean booties! Maybe with practice I can work my way up to making shoes out of animal hides and tire tread, like in Mad Max or something. The booties are ugly and too warm and too slippery on the tile, but I still like them. Now I can skate across the kitchen!
I'll probably watch the Superbowl tonight. Normally I don't give two toots about professional sports, but I did get talked into putting $5 into the office pot. So the possibility of winning money plus the entertaining commercials give me enough reason to watch.


( cut for pic )

( Talking about work )
Now that I've been with my company for five years, my vacation allotment has been bumped from 10 days a year to 15 days a year. Wooo! Now I don't have to be so damned stingy with the days I spend at cons.

I spent most of Sunday drafting armor patterns. For the Sechs costume, not the DC one. I need more reference pictures before I get started on the latter, anyways. Pattern drafting is about as much as I can do right now until I've got some money. Heck, even if I had the money, I dunno how I could work the armor, since my new oven is gas-powered and thus too hot for my typical technique. Heh heh. Oh well, I'll figure something out.
Last night I went to Super Happy Fun Monkey Bash (solo). It didn't have as much variety as I remember from the last one but I still laughed till I cried, regardless. The Ass Olympics were the best (worst?) part of the show. Those poor bastards . . .
Oh, before I forget, it appears that the Drafthouse has added later Friday and Saturday night showings for those of you who were interested but couldn't attend on weeknights. (For some reason FB won't let me edit the event now that it's in the 'past'.) I wouldn't mind going again, so long as I wasn't driving.

Okay, so the movie I'm going to tonight? My brother bailed. He says because it's supposed to snow tomorrow and he doesn't want to have to drive back through that (but I bet his waifu had a say in the matter). I kinda had a feeling this is how it would turn out.
So! That means I have an extra ticket and Drafthouse rules say: No Refunds. It's short notice, I know, but does anyone wanna come along? 7 PM tonight, we can carpool if it helps.

http://www.originalalamo.com/Show.aspx?id=7094

I spent most of this weekend sitting on my butt, killing zombies. I'm mostly house-bound at the moment since I need to be watching my money right now. I gotta say, my patience for being poor is starting to wear thin. This has been the most expensive move I've ever done; it's caught me by surprise. Easily over $2000 in extra rent, deposits, fees, bills, and other random 'surprises'. I could really use some overtime to help me get ahead of these bills. I'm just hoping I can get the bulk of it paid off while I'm still under the 'introductory 0% interest' phase of my card; after that the blood-sucking begins. But I shouldn't be all 'the glass is half empty'. After all, while I was in Louisiana last week my boss called me to let me know that I'd be getting a 1.5% pay raise, in recognition of my willingness to work out-of-town for long periods, like in Dallas. I almost chuckled; if they knew how many problems Dallas created for me, I think I'd be getting more than 1.5%. But that's not really relevant. Even though the extra money is almost insignificant, it's the thought that counts, considering that our company has been under a pay-raise and hiring freeze ever since the financial meltdown. The fact that I'm getting anything at all is a significant gesture.
I didn't intend to talk about money. It just came out. Anyways, I went up to Dallas on Saturday to pick up some furniture from my brother. I figured $45 in gas was worth getting a free drafting table and sofa. But they hadn't actually gotten around to buying their new couch so all I got was the table. That was kinda lame. While I was there, I laid my best Austin sales pitch on him to try and talk him into visiting me once in a while. I told him about the upcoming Sherwood Faire and Super Happy Fun Monkey Bash (which I'm trying to gather a group for). While cruising the Drafthouse website, we accidentally clicked on the clip below and impulsively bought tickets for that one-night-only showing. So I guess we're doing that on Wednesday night! Ha ha ha. It looks retarded and fun.

(Wrestling name or porn name? Maybe both?)
So after just a couple of days here in the Big Easy, my job has finished prematurely (unlike me). That’s a bit of a disappointment since I only now just managed to flip my sleep schedule, plus the work is easy and abundant. I could’ve made mad overtime on this job. I’ve done the math and I only "work" five minutes out of every hour. Okay, I also push a button occasionally, but really, this job is a big generous piece of cheesecake. Mmm. That’s why I’m writing this post, because I’ve got lots of time to kill and space to fill. I’m not going to lie, there’s been lots of talking to myself the past few nights. (Psst, this post is gonna have a lot of rambling if you haven’t already figured it out. Get out while you can!)
( Hey, how about a few pictures to spice up my bland windbaggery? )

I don't know why I still continue to think about my past relationship. It just evokes feelings of bitterness, resentment, and anger, so I don't WANT to think about it, yet I frequently do. I keep fixating on the problems we had and getting worked up about it as if it still mattered. Like recently I figured out that Liz dumped me the same way she did her previous boyfriend; she freezes the boyfriend out for months while she pursues a new relationship with another guy, until boyfriend tires of waiting and trying and decides to break up. That realization makes me boil over, that she pulled that same stunt with me. The rational part of me says, "Yeah, that was a dick move, but get over it. You guys are done, it doesn't matter anymore so stop thinking about it. It just gets you angry and worked up. Stop it." Still, I keep thinking about this and the other bullshit we had.
Honestly, I'm tired of thinking about all this crap. I want to be done with it. That's why I broke up with her, because I wanted to be done with it. All of it. So I don't understand why I keep beating this dead horse. So I wonder, why do I keep thinking about it? Is there some stubborn part of myself that refuses to give up until I convince myself, or Liz, or the world that I was right and she was all wrong? I don't know, maybe? It's not a flattering explanation, but it would explain why I doggedly keep returning to this subject. Or maybe I just _enjoy_ feeling angry and righteous and so I keep stirring myself up because I get off on it. I doubt this theory even more than the last one, but I can't dismiss it completely.
*sigh*
Then I consider: Well maybe you continue to think about this relationship (despite all the negative emotions that result) because it was very important to you for quite some time. Maybe just out of sheer habit you're still geared to think about these matters. Or maybe, after all the effort and counseling you two went through to solve your problems, you can't just accept that there was no resolution, and that you won't be able to let this go until . . . ?
I don't know, it's all confusing and tiring for me to try and figure out. One stupid idea that keeps coming to mind is "The best way to stop thinking about your last relationship is to get into a new one." I know that's immature logic but I'm hard-pressed to come up with anything else that resembles a solution.
I don't even know what the point of this post was. I guess I'm just tired of picking at this same old scab.

I was driving on the I-10 overpass through New Orleans (looking fruitlessly for a Wal-Mart). And while driving over a historic cemetery, I think, "That looks cool . . . hey! I know that place! It's from Left for Dead!" Ha ha ha. Recognizing a place because it's from a game. Oye. Maybe when I get some spare time I'll go do a closet-cosplay of Ellis there and take my picture. Ha ha.
And now, I'm gonna go kill some zombies in the Parish.

is NOT what you want to hear when you arrive at a party. But there I was, clueless. All I knew was that I'd received a Facebook invite, so there I was, with bells on.
I was in Dallas today, visiting my brother. Primarily to retrieve my camera which he'd borrowed for his Christmas vacation in Hawaii (that bastard). We farted around all day, doing errands and playing games. That evening I went to a birthday party which I ASSUMED was for someone I knew (I don't want to name names, but the only January baby I know is Lauren). I arrived at Dave & Buster's to be greeted w/ the question, "Who invited you?" I don't know, and it remains a mystery to this very day. But regardless, it was too late to disappear, as the birthday boy and his entourage soon arrived. Apparently, this circle of people hark from the guild called Medieval Times and as soon as they entered, I knew that my hair was not long enough, nor my beard thick enough, to knock mugs with these fellows. Some Latin guy once said, "En vino, veritus," (In wine, is truth) but I like to think, "En vino, amigo," (In booze, are friends.). As long as the beer kept coming, we were all friends. Thankfully, there were a handful of people that I DID know, so I wasn't entirely without some crutch.
So what could've been an awkward night turned out to be quite fun in the end. I'm glad I did manage to have fun, as tomorrow I head out to Louisiana for work again. This time it's New Orleans. I won't have much of an opportunity to experience the city, as I'll be working 12-hour night shifts, seven days a week. That's gonna be a helluva work schedule, but I ain't gonna complain (at least, not where anyone can hear me). I wanted work and lots of hours, and this is the form it's gonna take. I'll take it and like it. Hopefully on the far side of this assignment will be that North Sea job. I'm still looking forward to that.

A few months ago I got Progressive insurance for my truck. They offered a few options that saved me a bit of money; mostly I liked that I could pay 6-months worth upfront and not have to worry about forgetting payments every month. One of their money-saving options was a little monitoring gizmo that you plug into your car. I thought that was cool and signed up. I figured it would check if I used my turn signals, make sure I wasn't driving 100 mph, stuff like that.
I looked up my stats on the internet today and was shocked to find out that apparently, I'm a suck-ass driver. I'm on Progressive's naughty list. It's got me flagged for dozens of "hard stops" (braking more than 7 mph per second). I'm like, "Hello! I live in a city of 750,000. I drive in rush hour, there's gonna be lots of hard braking!" And Progressive is all, "We're gonna raise your rates by 10% when you renew." So I'm like, "Well I ain't gonna renew with Progressive then, nyah!"
I mean, it's cool to be getting some feedback on my driving, but now I'm braking like I'm a granny nun with a wedding cake in her lap. I got places to go, I can't spend half the day coasting to every stop sign.
Friggin' Progressive. Heck, they should call it "Repressive Insurance."

Okay okay, I know these boring cosplay posts belong in my Skunkworks journal, but this is funny, so I made an exception.
So anyways, remember those stilts I was working on? Sunday I ran into a big dead-end and I was in a funk for most of the day because it looked like this costume was just going to be impossible. I've never been this stumped on a costume before. I was _THIS_ close to giving up because I was completely out of ideas.
Today at work I came up with one little idea and I told myself, "Okay, we'll try this idea, but if it doesn't work, forget it, we're not doing this costume." Lo and behold, it worked! I can walk in these stilts!!! It's a helluva workout, but it works! I got to where I was feeling comfortable walking in them so I thought, "Hey, get this on film so you can see how it looks from the side. And you can post it to the internet so people can tell you how awesome your cosplay skillz are! Yeah!"
But um, I guess the cosplay gods decided to teach me some humility. So . . . here's my blooper reel. (P.S. It sounds worse than it actually was.)

Today has been a cosplay day. I've been focusing on making the midget-stilts for Captain Knuckles. I started there because I figure they're the hardest part of the costume; if I can get those to work, everything else with be a piece of cake. So yeah, I got them built. They're sturdy and stable so the next part is to see if I can walk in them.
. . . Yeah. That's been tricky, to put it mildly. I can step a few inches at a time. If I get going faster than that, I topple over. (Yes, I'm now wearing a helmet.) Effectively, I'm goose-stepping and boy is it hard. I take some comfort in reading that it takes significant training for people to walk like that, so maybe it's just a matter of practice.
Okay, break's over. Back to practicing!

P.S. Now whenever I sit down, it feels like I'm butt-walking, because that's what it takes to move the stilts. It's like my buttocks are trying to run away. It's weird.

Almost by accident, I discovered that Autocad is capable of producing "3-D" images. That was a great help. Designing the 2-d profile of the Catbus had been relatively straightforward, but fleshing it out in the third axis had been beyond my ability to visualize. Autocad's 3-D rendering allowed me to visualize the interior better and defuse some conflicts and trouble spots. The only variable remaining is how wide to make the bus. I didn't have the cross-section with me while I was doing the 3-d rendering, so I estimated 24" as a minimum for the cage width. It will be wider than that, of course. At this point I have enough data (and confidence in the design) to start fabricating the bus.

I have a passport! I can be a spy now! Awesome! International Cody of Mystery!

I was pretty busy that week between Christmas and New Year's. So busy in fact, that I didn't write nothing. Now I've got the time!
( Holiday Week report (sorry, no pics here) )

I've been meaning to do a year-in-review post for a couple weeks now and if I don't do it already, it' ain't gonna get done. So better late than never. I liked the format that opheliasavalon used, so that's what I'll be using. I've gotta say, thank goodness for LiveJournal; I would've forgotten 99% of this year without these cliff notes to refer to.

( 2009, for what it's worth )
It was a tough year.