Our moron affiliate has a new moronic idea. I'm not surprised. But I'm beginning to think I should bring Tylenol to the office. When what he wants up starts with "[his country] is strategically located in [region]," you know you're in for a headache of a time. Dude. Forts are strategically placed. Tricorders when on a nudist planet are strategically placed. Countries? Not so much. And it just goes downhill from there. He has an ego the size of fifty countries, really.

Oh well. I'll be meeting with the two pipers again tonight who are planning their competition next year around mine, and we've found one lovely tune already. They're still looking for more, but the tune they found (hills of gilliecraic, something like that?) has suggestive swoops that would be perfectly complimented by twirls and flourishes. It's also an older tune, so theoretically no one else would be playing it, and judges like variety.

And, of course, since Monday night practice is at the normal place, I'll be venturing to the anime store to see if they have gotten in a Quincy cross or a Zaraki plushie. And now I'll be checking for anything YYH, too, since I'm in love with it. I don't recall seeing anything before, but since I didn't know the characters before, I doubt I would have noticed.

This week is going to be insane. We have a working-lunch meeting tomorrow, and a conference/seminar this weekend. I might be scarce from Thursday through Sunday, I don't know what my schedule will be like, or when we'll be getting back. Add to this that MarioKart for the Wii comes out on Sunday... heehee.

I need to finish my magazine article. It's not cooperating, though. I know what it's going to be about, but the first line is just being evil and stupid. I'll get it worked out.

The BleachMob seems to be up for movie cosplaying. :D I've talked to most of them except Lisa. This will rock. :D

The first Bleach movie, Memories of Nobody, will be in theaters June 11th and 12th. Article here. Yes, it will be the awful dub. But Bleach on the big screen. :D

Who wants to cosplay mob it, if there's a location near here? There's got to be, we're in the Orlando area, but...

Let's play? Jos? Jason? Laura? Lisa? :D

This whole post, summarized in case you don't feel like reading much: MegaCon = WOOHOO! Super Smash Brothers Brawl = WOOHOO! Pictures = this afternoon.


Picture spam to follow this afternoon in another post. I was going to shift pictures from camera to computer while at work, since it happens in the background and means I can work on appropriate stuffs while that happens, but the work dock blocks the USB ports, so that will happen later.

Mo, if you're reading this, I looked everywhere for you, and asked so many Axels if they were/knew a Mo. (One even got asked three times, whoops. Twice by me, once by a bunch of friends who was trying to help. Only because she was carrying a gigantic yaoi paddle later did I recognize her and not ask again. Poor harassed Axels... but they all started to look alike at the end there.)



( And now for the in-depth stuff that may wind up long enough to kill an f-list or five: )

And that was a relatively short summary of my exhausting (but very good) weekend.

I wanna do a BleachMob Bollywood cosplay sketch. Rukia vs Orihime over Ichigo. With Bollywood music playing, and the 'female' dancers behind either Rukia or Orihime but switching sides (so it doesn't look like we're playing to a specific ship and get jumped) and the 'male' characters dancing behind Ichigo.

We would get laughed off the stage.

But it would be so very much fun.

I haven't had a scraped elbow in about ten years. Apparently, that's too long. Poor elbow.

Anyways, my church had our annual Christmas party, and this year the theme was 'Reindeer Games.' Only eight reindeer ever performed well enough to qualify for pulling Santa's sleigh, so our pastor decided this meant the games had to be physically tough. They were.

I made it without injury through the paper relay, the snowball fight, and the snowball-clean-up-race (smart game, hee). But then it was the wheelbarrow racing. It's been ages since I have wheelbarrow raced. For those of you who aren't familiar with it, one person lifts the legs of a second, and the second runs on their hands. Dad had my legs. We did very well the first time, moving quickly. The second time, though, we were nearly halfway done when the pastor yelled "Twenty seconds!" Dad sped up. There was no way I could keep up with him jogging. We crashed dramatically. My arms and elbow hurt. But it was fun.

The BleachMob Christmas party did not go as planned.

Jason, Logan, and Lisa made it. It was cool to see Logan again; since he lives so far away he hadn't been to any of the gatherings, and I hadn't seen him since AFO. We were first supposed to go to Amura. Amura is apparently no longer open on Saturdays. We went to Crispers instead.

After a difficult time figuring out how the restaurant worked, Logan showed interest in the Hot Russian sandwich. He rapidly backtracked, but it was too late. Jason teased him about it for almost two hours... We discussed Avatar, and Laura's idea that we cosplay Avatar characters one day. Logan's for it, might cosplay Iroh. Jason still hasn't seen it. And I think he's probably still scared by 'the giant flying thing,' Appa.

We watched the Death Note movie, which is apparently only the first half. It was different from the manga, but in a good way, mostly.

Then Lisa came over and we played Super Smash Brothers Melee. I'm not very good at it. But it is fun being Kirby and getting different hats. We unlocked the stage that turns. I fell more times than I can count. I don't like that stage... Because of Lisa's work schedule she had to leave after that.

For dinner we were going to get Chinese food at Panda Express, but Jason decided he was too good for my directions and we drove in a giant circle. He saw Smokey Bones so we headed there, but ended up driving in more circles to get to it. That was great. Dinner was also good, but we were still rather full from Crispers and ice cream.

Went back to my place, watched the two most recent Bleach Eps, checked out the PSP Bleach game, discussed posters, Chocolate Rain, and facebook, and I gave them the mini-lesson in swing-tenor I gave Laura, Lauren, and Taisa. Jason figured out in five minutes a move that took one of our band's swing tenors about two years and took me a day. I'm only slightly jealous. Really. Just slightly. First time picking up the sticks. What the heck...

After that, they headed out. It was about 1:30 a.m. We talked a bit by the cars as it started to sprinkle, but it was late.

Both things were fun. Here's hoping, though, that we can pull off a Bleach Mob Party instead of a Moblet Party...

A minor sidenote: I have a burn on my left hand, and no idea how it got there...

Last week an IKEA opened in the Orlando area. Over half of the Floridians I know have already gone. Lisa wanted to go, so we went yesterday. Cars were parked in the dirt, a whole fleet of cops were trying to direct traffic, and more idiots than you can throw a stick at were ignoring cones and cops and cars. Hordes of zombies filled every aisle, murmuring "Fraaaaaaames" among other things. Every fifteen minutes there was another sound of something breaking. Half the aisles couldn't fit even a fly more.

Don't get me wrong. IKEA is neat. I could easily spend all of my savings there, just like JoAnne's or any bookstore.

But why did everyone have to go? It's not going anywhere, there wasn't a sale... It's some sort of lemmings syndrome. And yes, I know the whole lemmings-over-a-cliff thing was a hoax, but it still works as a descriptor. I just can't believe all of the traffic for an IKEA store. Maybe I'm just a spoiled Californian; we visited IKEA several times while I lived there. I dunno.

I did find half of littlest sister's Christmas present there, and found a present for mom at the nearby Mall of Millennia. I know what I'm getting other sister, and brother is covered with the Hyourinmaru I got him at Anime Fest Orlando. This leaves Dad, who I end up shopping for last every year. Part of why he's so difficult is his list - it's a mix of needed stuff (belts, grey tie, socks) and expensive camera gear. I might try to find time/means to get to JoAnne's and wander for a bit until an awesome fabric catches my eye that he would like.

The Bleach Mob invaded Universal CityWalk on Saturday. That was a whole lot of fun, again. I'm gonna have to make sure, though, that everyone knows Amura is only open for lunch for two hours. That's part of the plan for the Christmas party, but everyone in the Bleach Mob seems to run on Usagi (Sailor Moon) time. I think Jason and I were waiting for almost an hour, though I'm not sure on that. Then again, the traffic was horrendous.

Apparently parking is free at Universal after seven. We got there at about 6:45 and waited off to the side. Other cars passing by may or may not have been mocked. He wants a rock from China, like Lisa does, though for slightly different reasons. They both want coinage, and he wants a Tai Chi sword too. We'll see if that's possible to get through customs.

After sitting and chatting and waiting outside of the cinema for a while we headed to Hard Rock and ordered an appetizer and chatted and waited. Apparently there was a sold-out show for a group called 'Stoopid.' It's pretty bad when you can't even spell stupid right. People were asking us for tickets, but neither one of us had even heard of them before.

Fawn, Josh, and Jacob got there after a bit, and we chatted and drank, and Taisa and Laura made it soon afterwards. Josh and Fawn were both wearing Pokemon shirts, and it was decided that the Tomato is a pokemon that evolves into Kethuptron which evolves into Lycopene. The YMCA song came on while we were there; we were the only table to do the whole thing. There were also a whole lot of fake birthdays. I'm guesstimating about twelve people had their birthdays announced. Jason wouldn't let me pay for the appetizer and drinks, even though he drove. It was very nice of him, but I don't want to be a burden to anyone...

After dinner, as we were leaving, Jason had to use the restroom. The rest of us left the shop and hid behind a nearby palm-tree-like-bush-thing. Yeah, six people behind one bush. A kid wandered over and asked us what we were doing. I told him we were ninjas. He seemed to believe this. Fawn suggested that we cut off a branch each and go back into the store, holding it in front of our faces. Josh expected Jason to come leaping off the top of the building at us, Laura (I think) expected him to be scaling down the wall. Taisa poked her head around the bush and looked back at us with a funny expression, peeked again, and said "Hey, isn't that Jason?" He was standing there, watching us. Yeah. We're slightly lacking in the ninja skills department.

We wandered a bit and discovered that Taisa wants a Shadow plushie and that midway-games people are evil in their smirking. The guys dashed through a water area, some more successfully than others, everyone except Taisa rolled down a hill. Apparently the area around the hill was 18+. I'm still not sure why. We headed out of CityWalk, but before we left Josh got into a stroller and Jason ran him through the water area again. They'd almost made it when the whole line of water spouts in front of them shot up. They got slightly drenched.

We headed back to Josh and Fawn's place and played a little Guitar Hero before Apples to Apples. I need to stay on easy for a bit with Guitar Hero, hee. I tried medium... it wasn't pretty. I also tried a off-brand version of Caramel Bailey's, which was delicious. Apples to Apples is great. In the car ride to Universal I'd told Jason the story of sister skiing into a building while yelling "Paaaaauuuul!" (the name of our youth pastor at the time). It came back up in the game, which amused me.

It was 3:30am before we realized it. I haven't stayed up that late in ages. I was quite dead afterwards, but it was worth it. :D

The day started with a bang, literally. Byakuya's car was hit and totaled, so Byakuya and Renji didn't make it, alas. :( But they are thankfully all right. ~hugs JosKuchiki~

( Continued behind the f-list saving cut )