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At 1/16/10 01:01 AM, Proteas wrote: Is he adjusting to the his new environment pretty well?

The first month had its ups and downs, but he's pretty much settled in now. We've even gotten to the point where we can let him out into the back yard and he will go do his business without one of us walking him down to the "potty corner" and he comes back to the door when he's done. He's had a few successful field trips, including a couple of jaunts out to the dog park.

Now if only I could get him to stop waking my up early in the morning because he wants his breakfast...

At 1/14/10 10:59 PM, Proteas wrote: I've got one that will mess with everybody here; our pitbull loves yogurt.

I feed Husker yogurt all the time, and he got some every single day when we first brought him home to help ease the food transition. It's good for introducing beneficial bacteria into the gut.

So far there hasn't been a single food he hasn't been willing to eat. He loves baby carrots. I've offered him cucumber slices, pear, plain cooked pasta, unflavored yogurt, cherry tomatoes, and even a raw egg, and he eats it all right up. The only thing he's been iffy on is celery.

Yes, that is an apple.

It took less than two minutes for it to be just a wet spot on his dog bed.

There's a great scene in The Dark Knight Strikes Again where Lara is talking to Superman and asks him about sex and he replies - with a very grim expression on his face - "Never with mortals."

At 1/12/10 09:03 PM, stafffighter wrote: Are there offical measurments for how big the penny in the batcave is supposed to be?

In the original comic where it first appears (World's Finest #30) it looks to about three times Batman's own height, so I'd say about 18 feet. I'm not sure the actual measurement has ever been mentioned.

We would undoubtedly be making a smaller model.

At 1/12/10 08:48 PM, Proteas wrote: O_O;

Damn, that site's expensive.

Oh yes.

Not everything, though. I paid about a hundred dollars plus shipping (which was a little pricey because this particular item was at their London warehouse, not their Los Angeles warehouse) for a screen-used costume from Wing Commander. Cheap because it's not exactly the most in-demand thing ever, but it's one of Steve's favorite movies and the costume was in his size.

At 1/11/10 10:38 PM, Proteas wrote: Hm... so is there any chance in the future of their being a room in your house with a batcave styled display case of costumes?

We've been discussing what we want to do when we've gotten a little more stable and fixed this house up - I don't think we want to stay here forever, and we've been discussing the possibility of moving closer to DC. I would definitely love to have a house with a space to display costumes and props. This costume in particular would be so stunning to buy and display as a beautiful piece of classic scifi memorabilia. I would love to display my Catwoman full-time as well.

And yes, we have discussed how one would go about building a giant penny.

I would also wish to purchase one piece of authentic Japanese armor or traditional clothing so that I can have people ask me questions about it, to which I can respond "It's Japanese," and they will ask, "How do you know?" and I will say "Because I bought it in Japan."

Good luck with that. Score means pretty much nothing if you have a thin file.

At 1/11/10 06:44 PM, Proteas wrote: What exactly do you do with all those costumes after the convention is over?

They go in the closet.

Steve's armor occasionally goes on a dummy and gets displayed, and I have a half-finished dummy that I could use to do the same thing with one of my costumes.

They're tape dummies - put on some sweats you don't care about, get someone to completely wrap you in duct tape. They cut you out and you tape the slits back up and then stuff the dummy with polyester fiber fill. It's a cheap, easy way to make a custom mannequin that is an exact replica of your body and is also quite flexible. You can bend it any way you want to dress it or work on a piece, and you can stick pins directly into it.

In 2008 we actually wore our Batman and Catwoman costumes to Free Comic Book Day as a favor to the guy who runs the comic book store where I used to work. We were a big hit. It was hot as shit outside and I thought I was going to die, but I had a great time.

Some of our friends who are fans of Battlestar Galactica get together for "Frak parties" where they wear their BSG costumes. We went to Frakking Laser Tag once, it was pretty cool. But my BSG costume is just a casual duty uniform, so it's hardly like wearing a costume at all.

The problem with any kind of dye or stain is that, well, it dyes or stains. At the end of a four-day convention, you'd still be blue.

But maybe I'm jut not committed enough to the hobby.

At 1/10/10 08:36 PM, stafffighter wrote: Why did this make Avatar pop into my head?

I have seen talk of people doing Avatar costumes. I shuddered. I also wondered about the logistics of that, because the aliens are like eight feet tall and pretty much naked all the time. Painting that much of your body can be very dangerous, not to mention extremely challenging in the first place.

I know a gal who did a She-Hulk outfit using airbrush paint, but only her face and limbs were painted.

At 1/10/10 07:36 PM, FUNKbrs wrote: Are you, or are you not saying you and your boyfriend get dressed up in costumes together? As a couple?

Yiffing is sexual contact between persons in fursuits. I do not own a fursuit. I have never had sex nor any kind of sexual contact while in costume. Therefore, I have never yiffed.

Furries are the most loathsome members of the greater costume community. I don't mind the cosplay/costume thing, but you're getting pretty fucking offensive if you persist with the furry jokes.

Yiffing only applies to furries. Nyah.

I don't get too pedantic about the costume/cosplay thing, but technically you're only cosplaying if you are role-playing as the character. When I dress up as Catwoman I don't pretend to be Catwoman.

Serious costumers don't like the word cosplay, by the way.

At 1/9/10 01:35 PM, morefngdbs wrote:

:To cast solid resin one for $67.50 which is a kit.

This is the one I was looking at. They had a "hero" Lawgiver from the film (i.e. actually carried by Stallone) that had genuine lights in it and was controlled by remote, but someone bought it before I could see how many thousands of dollars it was. I'm not really interested in an airsoft one - you can't carry them at cons unless they're peace-bonded. A solid kit one is fine for me.

Your hobby can get expensive fast Skunky .

Cheapest costume to date was Poison Ivy - $30 for the basic components, $15 for the thong I wore underneath it to prevent wardrobe malfunctions, and $8 for the silicone nipple shields I bought for the same purpose. Probably the most costly in terms of labor hours, somewhere in the neighborhood of 20 total hours. Most expensive costume to date is the Sinestro Corps I'm doing for this year - $300 for the basic suit, and then I have to buy boots and figure out my ring. The ones we have are far too large for me to wear, unfortunately. Catwoman was about $250 for the suit, boots, goggles, belt, and whip. I want a better whip, but genuine braided bullwhips are pretty expensive - as much as the whole rest of the costume, or more.

Steve's biker scout armor cost him roughly a thousand dollars.

It's definitely not the cheapest hobby out there. You've got the cost of the costumes and accessories themselves and then the price of hotel rooms and badges for conventions (since there really aren't many more places to show off your work), and travel expenses to get there in the first place. That was the first thing to go when we decided to buy a house last year and cut costs, believe me.

At 1/9/10 09:29 AM, morefngdbs wrote: The armor was a bit over the top though .

Well, it's based on a comic book, so it's kind of allowed to be over the top I guess. Not like it would really protect you at all, since it's just shoulder armor (and a codpiece for Dredd).

Mostly I just want my very own replica Lawgiver.

I find it astonishing that no one seems to be making replica Judge Dredd armor. No one!

I've already maxed out my costumes for 2010, but for 2011 I think I want to do a Stallone movie theme. Judge Hershey from Judge Dredd, complete with shoulder armor and Lawgiver, and Lt. Huxley from Demolition Man, complete with shock baton.

So far no luck finding armor replicas. Helmets are out there, though they're comic book style and not film style, but they should still work. Belt buckles and Lawgiver kits are also golden, plenty of places to get those. Might have trouble with the badge, as everyone seems to make Dredd badges and none for other characters, but the ARMOR is what I'm worried about.

The antibiotic they put me on yesterday has a strange side effect - a metallic taste in my mouth. It's gross. Only eight more days :/

I love how my dog thinks he can play with all of his toys at the same time. He tries so hard!

At 1/4/10 09:24 PM, Elfer wrote: This might just be me, but aren't the claims that she doesn't represent "real women" extremely insulting in the sense that they're implying she isn't even a real person?

I occasionally read the blogs on the Glamour website, and one of the entries resulted in a bunch of posts of women going "Oh, fat is beautiful, but skinny is SO GROSS!"

I'm 5'7" and weigh 118 lbs. You can see a few of my ribs, and my hip bones are somewhat prominent. I'm small-breasted and have a 27" waist. According to these bitches, I am disgusting and starve myself.

I pointed out the inherent hypocrisy in their comments and was promptly attacked.

I gave up. It wasn't worth it.

I am getting WAY too excited about ordering my spring seeds.

We prepped a nice big bed in front of the family room windows, and I want to plant it as a butterfly garden. A lot of butterfly-attractant plants are annuals, but I'm lazy, so I'm sticking to the varieties that come back every year. We've also been talking about our long-term plans for upgrading to a nicer house in 5-10 years, and I think a garden with a lot of low-maintenance plants would be a selling point.

At 1/2/10 11:58 PM, SevenSeize wrote: Can she walk at all?

I think they were all c-section babies, so she walks just fine. But I'm sure that scar is ridiculous.

At 1/2/10 09:06 PM, SevenSeize wrote: There was an 11 lb baby born too, god bless his mom.

I have a friend who was over twelve pounds when she was born, and each of her brothers was even bigger.

At 1/2/10 05:11 PM, morefngdbs wrote: 'trying to' ,I agree is a lot of fun...what's the weather got to do with it? :)

Well, I don't know about anyone else, but I was conceived right around January 3rd. The almanac tells me it was about 40 degrees that day and rainy. Guessing it was much nicer to stay in that night and make a baby than go out...

At 1/2/10 04:40 PM, LordJaric wrote: Which part of the sky will that be in.

Bootes is in the northern sky. Locate the Big Dipper and follow the handle to the nearest bright star, which is Arcturus. Arcturus is the bottom-most point of Bootes, and the shower is centered near the top of the constellation.

The nice thing about the Quadrantids is that they're bright and active and very noticeable, so if you're looking at even remotely the right area, you'll likely see some meteor action. On the peak night it is not unusual to see 80 meteors in an hour.

I'm glad we're having clear weather. The Geminid meteor shower was earlier in December and we didn't have a single clear night during the whole thing.

Last night was super clear (and super fucking cold) but the moon was so bright that I didn't bother looking for any meteors - the Quadrantid shower is going on right now, and will peak tomorrow night. I'm hoping for clear skies tonight as well.

If you can locate the constellation Bootes, that's where the shower is centered. This is one of the most active meteor showers of the year, so if you're at all interested in this sort of thing, get your ass outside tonight and tomorrow night and look for it.

At 12/31/09 10:19 PM, Proteas wrote: Green Lantern. The black ring that I'm after is the power ring for the Black Lantern, the very embodiment of Death in the DC Universe.

You can't see it in the picture because of the reflection, unfortunately, but Steve took a silver paint marker to our black ring and highlighted the logo. It makes it a thousand times better looking, and it only takes a minute.

I spent two hours last night in a hot tub with eight other people, champagne flutes, and fresh strawberries. No one brought a swimsuit. This is my life. Jealous?

At 12/31/09 04:03 PM, aviewaskewed wrote: Anyone specifically? Or is it just you with a Sinestro Corps costume? I guess number 2 right, since I don't remember any girls in the Sinestro Corps. Which really? Intergalactic sexual discrimination suit waiting to happen.

Feena Sik, actually.

At 12/31/09 02:48 AM, aviewaskewed wrote: I truly am the only one who sits in the corner going "what the fuck is with the Rainbow Lantern Coalition shit?" aren't I? That's ok, I know I'm already severely in the minority by saying the only real Green Lantern is the original, Alan Scott (especially with Kyle Rayner killed off now, I just have no use for any Green Lantern that isn't JSA anymore).

No, I agree with you. Once they went beyond Sinestro Corps, I checked out. We mostly collected the rings just to say we had them all.

I'm doing a Sinestro Corps character from the initial Sinestro Corps War storyline for DragonCon 2010. Trying to gauge how many other people will be doing GL-related stuff. It doesn't really sound like very many will be, unfortunately. I was hoping for a cool photoshoot.