PIC: Mace Windu costume!

Happy Halloween everybody!!

Here're some pics of myself in the costume that I've been bragging about. And yes, I made it myself with some help from mom for working out the patterns from photographic reference (couldn't have done it without her).

The first pic is "raw" and undoctored: Starfish took it using my crappy camera-phone.

The second is processed with my trusty PaintShopPro and taken myself at home... No, I don't "draw" with PSP - only colour-tuning contrast adjustments.

It had been a fairly quiet day at work. Nobody seemed particularly festive given the fact that management had decided NOT to hold an official Halloween function this year (there are business-related reasons I'm not allowed to talk about). I did however get to join UG and Starfish's team-lunch, etc... they said they wouldn't let remote decisions from higher-ups prevent them from having fun on Halloween.
...I couldn't agree more.

The costume itself turned out to be a big hit, actually and even the Division's director came by to check it out. Even after a full day when I took it off people were still dropping by my office to hoping to see me (to which I asked: "where the hell were you all morning when I was walking around?").

PIC: Kasumi even smaller

After promising myself to stop spending petty cash on little tiny things so that I may budget for bigger ticket doodads like these:


I end up picking up something like this...

Oh well - she was only 5 bucks.

life in the slow lane

Well, really I don't have all that much to report as of late.

FusionAce's contact revoked the parking permit on-site so at the moment I'm taking up a visitor's spot for the afternoon (the sign says 90 minutes; I doubt they'll care if I go over by about 5 minutes).

Because of this we'll be doing the 15-minute thing every morning from now on starting, you guessed it, on Halloween. Which is something I hadn't planned on but have managed to work around. My Jedi gi costume is pretty much done and tho I'll need to lug a pair of spray-painted rubber boots in a backpack on Monday, I've already left my lightsaber prop here.

Go figure, after going to the trouble of cleaning out my cubicle's cabinet in order to make room to hide it for the weekend (not that I'm afraid of theft - I've left other stuff here before), I discover that, silly me, I've left the key to lock it up at home in my other pants. ~_~;

Weekend looks dull, but I hope it's at least sunny (if not warm). It's been a while that I've been able to enjoy myself around town without thinking about "Oh I need to pick up this or that."

no news is sometimes just that

I've changed my mind: no news is not necessarily good news - most times it just sucks.

Called that shop. Made sure that my order was indeed not left in limbo. But still no joy on the shipment... Maybe it'll arrive during the day this after, maybe not.

I'm going on my second week without a cover on my current PC.... Ack. what an ugly thing.

Mayhaps I should pick up one of those little ionizer air-purifiers.

Minor Crisis of Faith?

Sometimes no news is good news.

At other times I ask myself if anybody out there (besides 2 or 3 visitors) cares what my Ben-Ohki persona is up to. There was a time when I deeply believed in the warning: "You fear having nothing to say ...and no way to say it." Well, the second half is a non-issue now with blogs at our disposal. The first half is a constant.

Anyway, I guess the point is I have nothing to report (and even less people to give a sh*t). FusionAce certainly doesn't seem to care one way or the other.

It's a slow week I suppose. The biggest news being that I successfully converted my first AVI2DVD job last night (took about 12 hour and that's including the "freeze" when it was waiting for me to click OK at the end - I supposed it should've finished some time in the middle of the night). The movie, in case anybody's wondering, is a Kamen Rider feature-length film I downloaded last year. I liked it enough to want a version I could enjoy in the comfort of my living room and not on a tiny 17 inch screen.

There was actually a second film I wanted to do in the batch, but turned out that I couldn't find the DVD-R archived I kept it on... so I figured I may as well head over to the usual bit-torrent sites to find it again.

Haven't heard from the local shop since I ordered my new case. I'm told by friends that this store in particular demands a $10 deposit on requests. Which is weird to me because I've placed orders before without having to do that. Huh... I had joked at the time that maybe it's because babou is white and I'm Chinese.... but I sincerely hope the store owner is not playing the race card - that's just low-class on his part.
I called yesterday but they just said the case wasn't in. I didn't however mention that I never received any order number or any contact from them since I clicked "submit" on their web-form. Maybe I should've clued them into the fact that it's as if my order had just slipped through the cracks for a week. ~_~;
I'll call them again today...