Oh, Vergil. I forgot how totally fucking awesome you were. Don't listen to those people who say Dante's cooler, it's totally you.

And oh, DMC3 soundtrack, I forgot how much you sucked.

I had some Deep ThoughtsTM, but I am dead-tired at the moment, so they will have to wait until tomorrow.

Science week has barely begun, and I've already witnessed vandalism to the engineering E. I also possibly witnessed the vandalism being repaired, but it was one lone kid in an Engineering jacket (which could be camoflauge for a Science student), and I didn't have time to check if he was painting over the conversion of the red E to a big blue S, or painting it to start with - I'll have to go check later. I'm currently showing my faculty pride with aforementioned blue hair, and my awesome Science UBC t-shirt.

Yeah, I just bought $90 worth of stuff, including shipping and handling. Which I will not feel guilty about, damnit, because it was some of my Christmas gift certificates. What I got
-Mona Lisa Overdrive
-Dreaming Through the Noise
-Persona 2
-Leon pants (in the right size, this time!)

I've got about $40 left on the Amazon gift certificate - I may buy some books later. I'm also going to shamelessly spend whatever tax refund I get on cosplay stuff.

Oh, and I dyed my hair blue again. It came out more of a midnight blue this time, because I didn't bleach my hair out first, but it's still pretty neat. I'll post photos later.

A word of advice to my friends - if possible, avoid working in two countries in one tax year and/or having investments in your name. It will make your taxes so much easier to do.

I unfortunately have both, and it's an absolute nightmare. I think I may end up having to wait until I do my Canadian taxes, so I can figure out what of the Canadian income tax I paid qualifies as a tax credit against my US taxes - Canadian income aside, I owe the US federal government $61 at the moment, because I had no taxes withheld.

Things I'm downloading right now:
-Boku no Sexual Harassment (so I can scare other people with it)
-Enzai (I'm a masochist. And too curious for my own good)
-Gankutsuou (because I need to see the rest of it)
-Kizuna (because someone mentioned it to me when I asked for yaoi recs way back when, and I just found the third part, finally)

*sings* The internet is for porn, the internet is for porn, why you think the net was born? Porn, porn, porn~! (Yeah, I know Gankutsuou isn't porn. The rest is)

I'm a bit amazed at what you can find on Amazon now. I just did a quick search for some Leon stuff, thinking I'd maybe get one or two third-party sellers (I've got a $100 gift certificate, I'm trying to decide how to best use it). But no, you can buy BDU pants and Galco shoulder rigs straight from Amazon. Well. That helps me out some, although I need to make a list of the various things I want, cosplay and otherwise, and figure out the best way to get them.

Many things have happened in the last two days, which I should probably at least catalog for posterity. Tuesday night was the first night of the 50 Fathoms, and it rocked. My wussy little dolphin-boy managed to (somewhat unexpectedly) kill a monkape, which is like a 20-foot baboon. It was epic. Last night was the Meet the Profs networking event, which was a little disorganized (first year they've done it), but a good time anyway. Two of my current profs were there, as well as a few I sort of knew from other events. I kind of fangirled one of the Microbi researchers, who is totally awesome (and I'm not even that interested in her research, either! Neat stuff, but not my sort of neat stuff), and there was a lot of discussion about bioinformatics spawned by Yana's desire to minor in Math - apparently Perl is a great language for that stuff, as it handles strings really well.

I was supposed to work last night, but my walking partner never showed, so I got to go home and get paid for it anyway. So Yana and I decided to go wander around, as it was a beautiful night - we snuck into the Japanese garden, which is beautiful at night, then headed down to Wreck Beach and watched the lights of the city and ships and talked, before ending up in my room, where we watched some more Mushishi before calling it a night.

And I am made of win, because I have all my homework through Monday done! Yay!

Okay. I totally just promised to call Skuld the next time I get totally wasted. However, as I am likely to forget this while drunk, someone needs to remind me XD;

Anyway, weekend was totally awesome. There was much playing of video games and exchanging of presents - I think everyone liked what I got them which is yay, and my friends proved that they know me a lot better than my family by getting me tons of awesome stuff ♥ I think the award for geekiest present goes to Matt - he gave me a thigh holster. Yes, like for Leon cosplay XD;

Of course, now that I'm back, my life is made of busy, but it's okay. Next week should be better, once I get through this one. And it's the 'getting stuff done' kind of busy XD;

Because when I want to avoid homework, I research cosplay stuff! Pants are easy now that I've got a brand, care of the too-big pair (Propper International, and they're BDUs for those interested). The thigh holster is pretty easy, too, because it's nylon and an incredibly common style, so some ebay hunting should turn up a good deal.

The shoulder harness is harder - the closest I've find in new manufacture is Galco, which is 1) really expensive new 2) not totally accurate (much as we'd all like to believe that all of this is actually military-issue, there's bits here and there where I think the designers made shit up) - I may hunt ebay for that, or possibly do horribly indecent things to some cheap leather belts. He's got a double mag pouch on the right side which looks pretty much exactly like Galco's - the left is harder to tell, it looks like it may be a single horizontal mag pouch, but it's really unclear (I can pretty much only see it on the menu screen, with the Red 9 or semi-auto rifle equipped). I also have no idea where that cross-chest strap is coming from - I've never seen it anywhere else on shoulder holsters. It's also worth noting that the knife sheath isn't part of rig - it's held on with some heavy-duty black tape XD;

Gloves and belt and accesory bags I'm still investigating (watch, I'll make another post in half an hour with those, too), although I realized the other day I can totally re-use the gloves for Rufus (hooray one official art image). Gun-wise, if I opt to buy something new instead of using my cheap-ass dollar store one (it's as nice as some airsoft ones I've seen for three or four times the price), I'm going to go with the Blacktail, which the RE fanboys with too much free time inform me is a Springfield Armory XD-9, because I can use it for Ada, too.

I also need to cave and buy an actual binder - not just for Leon, but I've reached the point where I just can't do the ace bandage thing any more (there's a reason I did Virgil and mafia!Leon all Yaoicon), and Leon's the first new one I'm doing that needs binding. Underworks is looking like the best, but I'm going to investigate further. I may also cave and buy blue colored contacts, for Leon, Rufus, kind of Sephiroth (his are green, I know - I just need something lighter than brown).

Oh, any budding Leon cosplayers on the flist looking for a pair of pant? I'm trying to figure out what to do with the too-big pair - they're medium-short, so 31-35 waist and 26 1/2 - 29 1/2 inseam (which means if you're taller than 5'8", they'll be too short), and despite being used (as I got them at a thrift store) in great shape. Dark navy, poly/cotton ripstop. Too poor to give them away, sadly, but $15 plus shipping is a lot cheaper than anywhere else online.

I just missed my first English class of the week! Despite being fifteen minutes early - it's in a different building on Mondays. And I think the whole point of physics is to make me cry in as many ways as possible - I just shelled out $200 for the goddamn textbook, which I can't avoid buying because pretty much all the exam material is in it, rather than the lectures, and it comes with the online code to do the homework. With my $50 English textbook (a steal, comparatively), I am now much poorer. I really need a better job.

I meant to post this a while ago, but this is one of the funniest YouTube videos I've seen in a while.

Yana finally showed up at nine-thirty, so I didn't have to kill her, scheming was done, and I'm working on a list of profs to e-mail about summer positions. There's a lot of tuberculosis research going on here, which was surprising, although not unpleasantly so (who likes pathogens? I like pathogens! And diseases in general - someone else is doing some autoimmune stuff that looks neat). Shout-out to Skuld for being the Bearer of Good Advice.

And now Torchwood fic and bed (early tonight!), because I have many things to do tomorrow, like buy books and make appointments and finish Christmas presents.

Guess who just figured out how to 1) install Japanese fonts and 2) force Photoshop into accepting foreign characters? Oh yeah. Three months too late for what I originally wanted it for, but handy none the less!

I'm fairly certain there are more useful things I could be spending my evening on, but eh. And if Yana decides to finally show up at like quarter 'til midnight, I'm going to kill her, because I've been waiting around for her for the last hour and a half, and plan on actually going to bed at a reasonable time tonight.

And I'm going to kill Guy Upstairs (whichever one it is, may as well kill all of them for good measure), because I've been back a week and the noise is already getting to me. Three more months.

Kites + glowsticks + drugs = WIN.

(No, I have not tried this. Yet.)

And now, back to ROM-fiddling.

I've had lot of things on my mind lately - some good, some bad, and some that's not really either. Still, largely not really the type of stuff for this blog, because it's all hideously long-winded and introspective, and it won't help me to post any of it, and some of it is best kept to myself, I think. But it's a strange state to find myself in - good for me, though. There may be bits and pieces here, probably mostly science-related - I've found myself contemplating that a lot recently, and I find myself somewhat without an outlet among my friends - almost all of you guys are Arts-kids, and while I love you for that, sometimes I need someone who knows what the hell I'm talking about when I go off on tangential rants about the possibility of Yersinia pestis as a bioterrorism agent and the like. Yana does, although she gives me the 'silly Microbi geek...' eyeroll a lot (big words from a girl with the Krebs cycle on her wall), but that's it, really.

Speaking of science, I've added another resolution for myself this year - read one new scientific paper a week. Because I realised that while yeah, I don't understand a lot of the terminology or concepts, I have two options - I can sit on my ass until third and fourth year, when they start teaching some of these concepts, or with the amazing power of the internet, I can sit down and do the little bit extra I need to learn something new. We'll see how it works out.

New England called. It wants it's weather back.

Jesus Christ, it's cold out. Yana wasn't kidding when she walked in last night and said 'It's Toronto outside.' I think I may spend the evening holed up in my room with video games and sewing. And the English Lit class is a much better fit - not quite as awesome as my English class last term, but comparisions between Christ and Odin in early Anglo-Saxon Christian poetry? Win! Also, we're reading Milton, which means it's time for another round of Virgil Saves My Sorry Ass. Hooray fanboys.

And oh god so hungry. And tired. I need to start kicking Yana out earlier than three am, much as I hate to say it. Five hours of sleep a night = not cutting it.

No classes today, because physics labs don't start until next week. So I slept for twelve hours, and wanted to sleep more, but it was four and I had some stuff I wanted to get done today. I'm still exhausted for some reason - I hope it's just jetlag and I'm not getting sick.

The term is shaping up to be busy, but interesting. Chem is going to be almost exactly the same as last term (same prof, same lecture times - I just have a Tuesday morning lab instead of Wednesday afternoon, to avoid the Wednesday From Hell again), which is good. Physics will probably be boring but survivable. Bio should be easy, although still pretty interesting - intro cell bio, using bacteria as a model, and it's administered by the Microbi department instead of the Bio department. All stuff I pretty much know already. Intro to Theatre...I think I'm going to switch this for an English class. It's too abstract and theoretical for me, and the English class means an extra hour of sleep.

I'm working once a week, although I may pick up more shifts 'cause I need the money. My Wednesday night partner is fun - if a plastic flamingo painted bronze apears outside of Buchanan sometime soon....well. Also starting a tabletop campaign soon (finally!) - 50 Fathoms, so Age of Sail meets fantasy. Julie's character is the River Tam of our ship's crew, which, as her older brother, sort of makes my character Simon, except less dumb and more resigned. He's also the pilot/navigator. More on that to come later, most likely.

And I got packages from Melle, Lissa, and Nicole, as well as a card from Amberlee - the food-stuffs are delicious all around (I'll find the cranberry cookies a good home, Nicole - don't worry about it), and Melle, the scarf is adorable. And Matt, I'll be out on the Island next weekend, if Amber didn't already let you know, so don't say I didn't warn you XD;

New year, new cosplay post. Not all of these will be done this year, but I'm going to do my best.

Almost Done
- Ada (needs wig, choker, gun, and some shoe touch-up. Kei-kon, maybe?)
- Sephiroth (shoulder armor and belts. I really don't know, the first is hard)
- Mafia Leon (wearable, but I need to do the Chicago Typewriter

In-Progress
- Default Leon (needs pants that fit, gloves, gear. SakuraCon)
- Rufus (needs coats, gun, hair stuff. I've got fabric. SakuraCon, maybe?)
- TB Seishirou (Wig. Whenever Amber wants me for it)

Want To Do
- Vergil (Big and high on the list, but I need a Dante and decent PVC supplier first. Would like to do for Yaoicon, but I dunno)
- Something Torchwood (just an idea right now - either Jack or Ianto)
- Asher (here just because I'd need people to go with, and there is nobody at the moment, I think)

Cons: Kei-kon (depends on some friend situations), SakuraCon (almost definately), Anime Evolution (almost definately), Yaoicon (if I can afford plane tickets)

Anything I may have promised people and am missing? Anything people want to drag me into XD;? Oh, and anyone good with make-up? I need pointers really badly. I'd also like to get some better photos of some of my older stuff - mostly my hair looks _awful_.

EDIT: 'Cause Ammie reminded me - Teen!Sei - needs wig, collar pins, and at this point, new pants, because the pair I was going to use are now more dark grey than black. And a Setsuka.

So, on the plane yesterday, I discovered that there's something wrong with my headphone jack that's making it cut certain frequencies, annoyingly right in the human vocal range. So as I couldn't watch tv on the plane, I went through some of my old files, finally ending up in a folder of documents and papers about Ebola and Marburg, as well as a somewhat randomly-included file on NIH's safety guidelines for a level 2 biohazard lab (random because Ebola and Marburg are level 4 - I didn't save the files in the folder, someone else did, I just kept them because they looked interesting).

And one of the things under the basic lab safety stuff is '4. Mouth pipetting is prohibited; mechanical pipetting devices are used'. This is also included in my chem lab rules, and it was included at least verbally in the lab rules for the plant physiology lab Yana and I were in, although it's not on the print copy. And this leads me to wonder - why anyone would ever think pipetting by mouth was a good idea, ever? Even if you're not using something horribly infectious or toxic, you run a decent risk of contaminating whatever it is you're pipetting with your own spit. I can see why it's included, but I dunno, seems like common sense to me.

I just had a total scare-moment, thinking that Liz's Christmas present had fallen out of my backpack on the plane and disappeared forever, but no. I had just put it inside another bigger big inside my backpack to keep that from happening. I am too smart for my own good apparently. And I brought cookies for people here, and they all got broken in my luggage. Some just had the head or a leg snap off, but others are pretty crushed D: (still tasty, though?)

And I am back, after an hour and half delay at Chicago (some baggage mess-up) and being charged $50 by United because their weight limit is fifty pounds instead of seventy like all the other airlines I've flown recently (yes, I had a sixty pound bag). United also has like no leg room at all - I think I may avoid them in the future if possible.

Many more things to come, but _after_ I sleep.

Managed to find awesome presents for four different people today, as well as the elusive black long-sleeved shirt I've been looking for for months now (AKA Asher-shirt). They were $10, so I bought two. New clothing quest - short-sleeved silver button-down to wear over Asher-shirt for club-type things. And because it would be awesome. I also managed to box all the cookies up, and they will be in the mail in the next couple of days. I think pretty much everybody I have an address for is getting something, save people I'll be seeing in person soon.

I also packed for my flight, which ended up being a bit of a nightmare, but it's done. I leave Logan at 5pm, get into Vancouver at 10pm and will probably take a cab home (luggage + bus + 11pm = NO). So this will be my last post before Canada, most like, unless Chicago has free wireless.

And fun fact of the day! Leon's jacket is really obviously a bomber jacket, but more specifically it's a B-3 bomber jacket, which I think was used during WWII, and Wiki tells me that most of the bomber crew other than the pilot wore them, usually. More importantly, though, there's about four or five places that do reproductions, which is nice, as I was previously informed that repros didn't exist and you _had_ to buy vintage.

AND NOW, SLEEP.

EDIT: I lie, looks like it's actually a B-6. Which it seems that there may also be repros of avalible (the difference between it and the B-3 are small - one collar strap rather than two, and shoulder straps)

I am totally enjoying writing Asher in RR. I think some of this is because somewhere over the last several months, I've settled into him in a way I hadn't before. He was the first character I ever seriously wrote, and in the begining, his characterization was all over the place. Honestly, I cringe a little just thinking about some of the early posts I did for S_F. RR!Asher...is really what he was intended to be, honestly. The right ratio of asshole to decent human being, at the right times. Only took me, what, a year and a half XD;? I hope Anya doesn't take that long.

And I could ramble about Asher's characterization and personality for paragraphs and paragraphs (as, uh, a few people here know), but for now, have a little Asher and Ally snippet - first time they met, oh so many years ago. I meant to write more of it, but as you can tell by the post date there... no, not gonna happen. S_F-verse, but RR-verse is more or less the same, except they're each two years older, and LA doesn't get nearly as cold as Midgar.

Movie-wise, we saw Children of Men tonight, and I will be a dissenting voice, it seems, and say it was good, but not amazing. The world/setting were well fleshed out (although there was a certain amount of hand-waving in the history that bugged me in what was a rather cyberpunk movie. Cyberpunk thrives on the absence of the hand-waving found in most sci-fi). Unfortunately, the plot was a little simplistic (I guessed pretty much all the ending a third of the way in) which meant the 'this could be us' message was a little heavy-handed. Still, worth at least one watch, if only for the setting.

It's near impossible to find info on summer internships in Canada, and the ones I _can_ find are all government, and I am thus ineligble for them as I'm not a citizen or permanent resident. I'm expecting the main body of the university to be equally useless, because Co-op is the internship program, pretty much, and I'm not eligi8ble for that until after second year. There's extensive lists of US stuff, including about fifteen different positions here in Massachusetts, but I really don't want to live here over the summer.

I wish I hadn't left my MISA mentor's e-mail address back in my dorm. I think I could definately use some advice from someone with more experience in science than me, and who's more connected, too.

(Oh, and the pants were too damned big. I can't delude myself out of it, I'm going to have to buy another pair)

My dad and I went into Cambridge today to so some shopping and have lunch. My big quest was to get a new Tatsumi suit at Keezer's, but that ended up not happening. We did, however, find an vintage bomber jacket that fit me perfectly, but was unfortunately way too beat up for the price they were asking. Remembering that I sort of needed one for Leon, we set off on a bit of a quest through the various thrift stores. No success on the jacket, but the Garment District had a bunch of the navy blue tactical pants I needed, for $20 less than the cheapest online place, so I bought the smallest pair they had, which is maybe a touch too big (as in I'm right on the border between small and medium, and these are mediums).

My inner perfectionist is screaming that it'll look terrible and everybody will be able to notice, etc, but the more rational part of me points out that twenty bucks is twenty bucks, it's not that obvious, and if I really feel like I should, I can take them in along the inside of the leg an inch or two. Cosplayers: taking perfectionism to a whole new level.

Went to Crypt at the Toast Lounge in Somerville tonight, by myself as nobody else was free, and it was pretty damn awesome. A little more goth than I was expecting, both in terms of people and music, but it meant I didn't get hit on by sketchy old men. It was also a lot smaller than I expected - maybe thirty people at it's busiest, and never more than ten or so on the dance floor at once. Everybody was really nice - the manager introduced himself (and, uh, paid fifty cents of my cover, because I really really thought I had more change than I did), and introduced me to some other people.

The playlist started out a little too goth for my liking (it's okay to listen to, but not so much for the dancing), but around midnight it took a wonderful synthpop turn. Particularly when the DJ played 'Fearless', because oh god do I love that song. Favorite VNV Nation song, and kind of my personal anthem, in so much as I have one. So yeah, I think I'll go back again next time I'm in the area.

Jon brought over his Wii today, and I gotta say, screw Sony and Microsoft, I want a Wii. Oh Nintendo, how could I ever doubt you? The controls are both intuitive and fun, the new Zelda is sweet, WiiSports is strangely addictive, and the Virtual Console stuff seems to function pretty smoothly (Squeenix, I'm looking at you and your PSX ports with their shitastic loadtimes). Now I just need money for it >.>

I have been in a ridiculously good mood the last two days, despite having tons of shit to do 'cause I slacked the first few weeks of vacation. Hooray!

The good old recap post, now with bonus resolutions. In 2006 I:
-graduated high school
-moved out
-started uni
-finally admitted denim is not the devil's fabric
-discovered awesome music
-reconnected with some awesome old friends, and made several awesome new ones (shout-outs to my WA/Island amigos, as well as Julie, Yana, and the Wargamers)
-got drunk! (although not wasted)

Resolutions for 2007:
-continue working out and getting back into shape (gym at least twice a week, some sort of cardio)
-work on dealing with my anxiety issues, which I've realized are the source of most of my other problems
-pull my grades back up to at least ~80% in term 2

Happy new year, all. I ended up having a supremely low-key night. Winter came over and had some dinner and we talked, and then met up with Grace, Emily, and Dan, and headed back to Emily's house, as it was parentless. I was the alcohol-supplier, being the only one who had any, but this was pretty much just amaretto and gin (Liz, you were right - gin is far more awful than vodka. It tastes like how rubbing alcohol smells). I actually didn't have that much to drink at first, but then had the bright idea to try out a variation in Liz's Ninja in the Night recipe with amaretto, which was delicious, but nobody else wanted any, so I ended up having five by myself. Grace and Emily got a bit tipsy, and decided to call people in other timezones right after midnight to wish them a happy new year, so we did that, and listened to music, and then decided to sleep.

Which didn't work out so well for me - I laid awake until six am, at which point Grace got really sick (and not hungover-sick, but sick-sick), and me and Emily had to help her clean up, and by the time we actually fell asleep, it was seven am. So I am really tired right now, and my usual recap is going to have to wait until later. Hopefually today wasn't an omen for what the rest of the year is going to be like.

West-coast people, I miss you guys D: