Mom and I went on a walk to the library/community center, where we discovered a small but well-equipped and cheap gym. Its hours are pretty terrible for her, but they're great for me. Plus, half a mile away, therefore, easy walking distance! Hopefully I will get signed up soon.

Then, as we were walking back, I spied a sign for an estate sale. We eventually found it. Antique dealers had picked most of it over the day before, but there was a lot of stuff left for fans.

Show of hands, who appreciates how awesome it is that I got a twenty-five-year-old Bruce Springsteen 45" single with "Jersey Girl" on the back for seven bucks.



( More (and bigger) under the cut. )

I am going to have a new userinfo header shortly.

So apparently my uncle had to go and get married on the one weekend on the year when I actually have a ton of stuff to do.

Not going to bother listing it here, because I'm going to bed and catching three or four hours of sleep as soon as I can find a decent dress shirt and pack it.

This is just a note to say that I'm going to be in Pittsburgh over the weekend.

Also, I now have three t-shirts with tentacles on them.

When I get back, progress will be made on my Nia cosplay (I now have all the materials except the ring and the shoes). Stuff will be written. Plans will be made. And so on.

Shirt has been found. I'm going to bed.

So it's been a bit of a mixed day so far. On the one hand, it's a nice day, I have my new Threadless shirts (of course, now that I've gotten those, there's another one that I totally want), and I scheduled a doctor's appointment for tomorrow to get more tests run on my thyroid and other potential metabolic issues. On the other hand, my computer crashed and I'm stuck on the laptop while I run virus scans on it and the doctor's appointment is at ten in the morning. Back on the original hand, though, a kitten just licked my toes.

Something else that's awesome: tomorrow at polychromatic is Fourth Wall Day. That means players can come pester the characters. You can also bring characters from other games, crack accounts, and whatever else you please.

I will be posting with Lockon (haroicsacrifice) and I invite everyone to come harass him. I am okay with duplicate characters; the one thing I ask is that nobody bring Ali, because that would be a huge moodkiller, to say the least. The point is, troll him. Twincest fanart, Feldt hentai, Innovator accounts who know a little too much about him, whatever would make him flail. At least some of the other Meisters (denyinurgod, worthier, holyinhell, irresoluteness) will be offering up their characters for trolling as well.

The train route to get to MangaNEXT was so tortuous and needlessly complicated that I've decided not to go tomorrow. This is more of an incentive for me to learn to drive.

The con itself was...somewhat disappointing--there just wasn't much content. But it's only its third year, so I sort of understand, and it was really quite well-organized (especially compared to NYAF, which is just kind of a trainwreck). But I was annoyed that they advertised their dealers' room as having manga-specific stuff such as doujinshi, and really it was just the same old stuff, except a lot less of it, and no doujinshi at all. Nevertheless, I still managed to spend a cringe-inducing amount of money on manga and anime.

I spent a lot of time in the manga library, reading the first three volumes of Reborn. All I have to say is that Amano is on some crack, and it's only occasionally the good kind. He seems to have very little interest in anything approaching coherence or believability. But it's amusing, and I like Haru and Gokudera quite a bit. I also hear it actually gets good after a few volumes, but I don't know how much I'll read. In and of themselves, I think the female characters are cute and fun, but the way the manga treats them is obnoxious (I want to see less being-Tsuna's-object-and-obsessing-over-cake!Kyoko and more dying!will!Kyoko).

The main reason I stayed until ten at night, though, was that I was waiting for the swap meet. Having experienced it, I think I can safely say it is a force of nature.

There were a handful of surprisingly good cosplayers. There was a Hinata I liked, and also a Vincent Valentine; and an amazing Amaterasu from Okami. I thought I took a picture of her, but I'd forgotten to put the memory card in my camera. Sigh. Hopefully someone else's picture will turn up.

I also talked to ali_wildgoose, which was nice!

All in all...I got a lot more stuff than I expected. ( Lists. )

Even though I'm not going back tomorrow, I do plan to go to AnimeNEXT in June.

Of course, now I'm free to start my NaNoWriMo tomorrow. I'm starting to get cold feet, but I refuse to let them make me run away. I will be posting it chapter by chapter at xashar.

But first, I'm going to make my drops at polychromatic and finish my political post before the election.

( More + links under the cut. )

And speaking of shoes...

I'm not much of a fan of shoe shopping, as a general rule. Either it's purely utilitarian, as for sneakers or snow boots, or it involves paying ridiculous sums of money for something I'll rarely wear. But I needed black ankleboots for my Death costume, and the nearby shoe store was going out of business and having a massive clearance sale, so I figured I'd grab the boots there.

Except that once I was there, and once I saw the prices, I went a little crazy, and I wound up getting four pairs of shoes.

Oops? But they were really cheap. When it comes to clothes and shoes, I'm a scavenger at heart.

Now I just need to figure out how I'm going to make it through an entire convention in three-inch heels. At least I plan to spend a lot of the time sitting down in the manga library.

For now, I think I'm going to play Mass Effect some more until my eyestrain headache becomes impossible to ignore.

Went to NY Anime Festival today. There wasn't really much there--it was my first convention other than Otakon, and the difference was striking, both in content and organization. Still, they had some neat stuff and some nice artists (including Avatar light ali_wildgoose and the amazing ghostfire, who I'd happened on both on DA and at Otakon before), and there was sushi at the Maid Cafe; that's as much as anyone can ask for from a small convention, I suppose.

I didn't mean to spend as much money as I did, but then I came across the Berserk artbook and it was expensive. But I got it anyway because eeee the little pictures of the Hawks were so cute and there were so many angsty pretty Griffith pictures. I know I haven't seen really good scans around much, so if there's a specific picture you've seen smaller and would liked scanned bigger, I'll do my best.

I also got several chibi action figures. One was a Rin/Archer set, and they are adorable (and OTP); the other bunch was three Final Fantasy figures, one of Squall, one of Rinoa, and one of Penelo. So cute.

Finally, I got two doujinshi, continuing my trend of picking up clean doujin from the porn rack at conventions. One was a very prettily-drawn Locke/Celes; the other was a hilarious Fran/Balthier. I wouldn't say the latter is entirely clean, since there's plenty of nudity, but there's no on-page sex, just lots of jokes and the two of them being drunk and naked and flirty. Also, abusing Vaan.

Oh yeah, and for free, I got three Sweeney Todd posters. YES. I am so excited for that movie I think I could burst. But then I wouldn't get to see it! Oh, these cruel paradoxes.

Anyway, I close with what appears to be the cutest video ever. I actually teared up from the cuteness while watching it.

Crow mothers kitten. It's true. And adorable.

omg omg omg

They'd been trapped in Jersey City for so long, according to the tracking. Weeks, even. I'd given up hope.

But today...

...my seven Guts/Griffith doujinshi finally arrived.

I am so...happy...

Oh yeah, and my Cats Laughing CDs, which I'd also been waiting for excitedly, but they were kind of overshadowed by the long-awaited doujinshi.

afljdsfkdls. I will scan these so hard.

It's about time I posted shiny pictures of the stuff I got at Otakon. Because...it's shiny. And I am a consumer whore.

Most of it is doujinshi. I have long since grown tired of scanning in every page of every doujinshi I get, so for most of them, I just scanned in my favorite pages. If you want icons of any of these, let me know; when I've paid for a doujinshi, I tend to be all right with making icons from it. I'm not going to make big icon posts of them, though--just personal icons for people who want them.

So here's the doujinshi! If anyone who knows Japanese wants to help me with the names (and circle names) of the ones that...only have names in Japanese, that would be awesome.

( SasuSaku cuteness. )

( Aerith/Tifa sweetness. )

( General GSD goofiness. )

( KakaSasu of the more serious variety. )

( Kakashi/kitty!Sasuke cuteness. )

But I didn't just get doujinshi! Oh no. I also picked up a couple of pencilboards/bromides/whatever the hell they are.

Adorable SEED doll!chibis of Kira and his harem. They're so simple, but I can't help but love that style of chibi.

Recent Heero/Relena bromide. I don't care how many idiotic fangirls write/draw Duo killing Relena for his beloved Heero (and it seems to be a popular theme). No, now I know that Duo's actual reaction to Heero/Relena is ":D!" And...I so need to finish watching Wing.

Also, I got stickers! Or possibly decals; I'm not sure. I think they're decals meant to go on computers or cellphones or whatnot. Anyway, two are D.Gray-man, one is xxxHolic (I actually bought another xxxHolic set, but I lost it, alas). I may someday offer up the D.Gray ones as prizes in an Allen/Rinali fanworks contest. We'll see.

But none of those was my best purchase. This was my best purchase. Because The Last Unicorn is fantastic and lfjdkslfds Peter S. Beagle is such a sweetheart ♥ ♥ ♥

Finally, ( pictures of some miscellaneous stuff. )

And that's it for tonight. Tomorrow, I'll collect the various pictures I took at the con and post those. ♥

Curse you, Acorn catalog! You have such shiny things for such distressing prices!

For the record, Acorn primarily sells DVDs, often of programs with a very British slant, and we've bought several such things from them (BBC adaptations of John le Carré novels, mostly, and the Wyrd Sisters and Soul Music miniseries). But I always get sparkly-eyed over the gifts and clothing and novelty items they have.

British book shelves!
Awesome dramatic flowy red cape!
Pretty necklace!
Pretty necklace #2!
Pretty...soaps!
Shiny watch!
Cool pajamas!

Maybe I can at least convince my mother that the pajamas would be a worthwhile investment. I doubt it, though, as I could get a pair of pajamas for much less. Oh well.

I did not accomplish anything today. This was largely on account of a) watching TV with my father and b) consuming Furies of Calderon. It's been so long since I'd really settled down to read epic fantasy that I'd forgotten I could like it. I am really digging this book--so much that it surprises me, even. I only picked up the first of the trilogy the last time I was at Barnes & Noble, so--having torn through most of the book tonight--I've informed my father that we're going back to Barnes & Noble tomorrow.

The setting makes me happy--it's a nice use of the elements, and I like that the government rings more Roman than generic-feudal-European. And the characters kick ass. I am so in love with that guy with the ironic name and the obligatory fighty chick that I can even forgive that whole accidental lifebonding thing that went down a few chapters back. Spies! With a twisty mentorship relationship! Win.

Oh, I did make some cat macros today. This included a kitten with a Geass eye. I'll upload them tomorrow (by which I mean later today), I guess.

One last thing. I tried to crack open Zelda: Twilight Princess again the other day, but, well...I cannot beat Morpheel. With some effort and luck, I can get past its first stage, but the second one? I suck waaaaay too bad at swimming. I just can't get close enough to grapple the eye; whenever I try, I wind up missing and getting sucked in and munched on instead. Any tips?