Saturday, October 25, 2008

A party at a friend's house!

What glee! Golly gee! A fancy dress halloween party! 
Yes, I was invited to a halloween party, it was good times. In the beginning, I was torn between going as either a headcrab zombie, or the Joker. The Joker was Nicoleymoley's suggestion, and though I didn't want to just do as I was told, it really did seem like a pretty good costume idea, and I'm all for batman-related things, so I decided on Joker in the end. In the week or two leading up to it, there was a good bit of exitement, as katie has thrown some fairly wild parties in the past, this was not to be missed. 

This is the costume creation section for those interested in going as the joker for whatever reason!

This is "The dark knight" Joker, as earlier joker, while still respectable and pretty insane looking, simply doesn't look as real as the new one. I would love to say "He's so much cooler too!" and while that may be true, old joker could be quite a heinous mass-murdering psychopath in his own right. That's what's so cool about the new movie. They don't have villians, they have people so real, people so believable, you feel like you could be nearly watching a dramatization of something that really happened.

Anyway.

Jacket: I didn't have a purple trenchcoat like he does in the movie, so I actually had to borrow a purple shirt that belongs to my dad that was about 4 sizes too big. It worked allright in the end, but definately was the weakest point of the outfit in my opinion.

Shirt: Just a shiny blue shirt that I have, it's slightly reflective and has a purple-blue kinda tint depending on the way the light's hitting it that really worked well. In the movie, it has a hexagon pattern, but that was just too much.

Tie: Just a Purple tie. Any tie'll do so long as it isn't too noticeable. In the movie he has a kinda darkish tie with little beige patterns on it, but as long as the tie isn't too noticeable, you'll do allright, as most of it'll be obscured by the waistcoat anyway..

The Waistcoat: Definately the most work was done here. A good waistcoat could cost upwards of 30 euro depending on where it's bought, as it is a fairly specialty item, I suppose. That was not going to happen, I was doing this on the cheap. I read some stuff online, and the general consensus was to take a long-sleeved shirt, cut off the sleeves, and make due with that. I had no green shirts, so I had a bit of an idea. Waistcoats are meant to naturally be fairly form-fitting, not loose, but not constricting either, just that little bit tight, so I thought I'd go with an old white undershirt that didn't really fit me anymore. But then, I noticed an old "Wifebeater" (Not too PC, but that's all I know how to call 'em!) t-shirt. How wonderful! someone had already gone to the trouble of taking the sleeves off of a tight-fitting shirt for me! I decided to go with this. But as it needed to be green, I emptied about a fourth of a bottle of green food dye into enough  boiling water (helps if it's boiling, so says my mom) to just about submerge the t-shirt (maybe half a litre or more) and left it to soak for about half the day, then hung it out to dry. It came out a little light I guess, so you might want to use more dye than I did, though I was really pleased with the shade, and wouldnt've added more myself, though it wasn't quite as dark as The Joker's, I was still satisfied.
It needed to come down a little bit, so after doing some rooting around, I consulted my anatomy studier (my brother's an art student, so he knows what he's talking about), and the cutting point seemed to wind up around the solar plexus (Just under your ribs), perhaps a little higher. Cut straight down from the top centre of the shirt, and stop just short of the solar plexus. Now you'll notice that it never actually comes in half, this is just to create the illusion that it does. Also, the little bits of cloth left flapping about from the cut make for pretty nice little sticky-outy bits, I have no idea what they're called, but I had to pin them down, as they do flap about a bit, as flappy things do, I suppose. Next, buttons needed to be stiched on, though not actually buttoning anything to anything else, like I said, it's all about illusion! I stiched on clear plastic buttons as I didn't have any dark green buttons like in the original waistcoat, but my dear mom offered to re-do these in darkish black buttons. Turns out it doesn't really make that big of a difference, like the tie, as long as it isn't too noticeable, you can get away with it. For finishers, my mom cut a little triangle at the bottom, once again to give the illusion of it being in half.

Trousers: In the movie, they used really dark purple pinstripes, but I just used black dress pants, nobody seemed to notice, I myself only noticed his pants were purple after looking very closely at pictures, hardly occured to me in the movie itself, like before, as long as it isn't too noticeable, you'll be allright.

Socks: Odds of people noticing your socks? About zero. But all the same, The Joker wears kinda old-fashioned grandpa socks that have kinda weird patterns on them, I just stole a pair of grey socks with little black squares on them. In the movie, he has purple/yellow kinda socks that match, oddly.

Shoes: In the movie, he has old, beat up old fashioned shoes, with a kinda seamline that seems to give the impression of spats. Most of his stuff is pretty old fashioned looking like that. I just borrowed a pair of my dad's brown shoes that had the same kinda pattern. Unfortunately, they were nice, shiny shoes, so it really would've been more convienient if they had been beaten up old piees of crap, but oh well! Their quality was also a bit of stress for fear that they'd be vomited on!

Face paint: Ok, you only ever need 3 colours: White, Red, and Black. I just bought a store-bought set of halloween facepaint, that was applied with crayons and that worked just fine, I don't think you need to be too picky on this bit. 
White: Start off with a total base layer of white, covering the entire face, and just a little bitunder the jaw. But not the neck. As told by Nicoleymoley, less is more, so don't completely smother yourself in it, just rub it around a bit, it's supposed to look a little patchy anyway, so don't fret. 
Red: Okay, this is a little more tricky: The shade is kinda important, just average "red" is what you want, too light comes off as pink and kinda crap, too dark could look allright, but you really do want something in the middle. Bright and vibrant, but not pink. It's a little tricky to get this on  properly, you don't want to go too laterally and you don't want to go straight up from the lips. Most of the red facepaint is on the lower half of his lips, though you do want a little bit above as well. It more or less follows a 45 degree curve kinda line, I'm not quite sure how to describe it. The end of the smile meets( in three dimensions)
Front of face: Just under the earlobes
Profile of face: Just behind the eyes
From above: Just on the other side of each eye
Look up some images online to help you with this, as it's quite tricky to get it right!

Black: This is pretty simple, just follow your bones' natural eyesocket, and go out just a little on the top and bottom outer sides, and it's important to get the eyebrows as well, with a little coming over the eyebrows on the inside as well (inside and outside being relative to the centre of your face)

Hair: You will need mousse for this, I used Bryllcream and it worked allright, but you really just want something to make your hair as slick as possible with as little holding effect as possible, if you have naturally wavy hair then you'll be allright, though I would still advise moussing it to make it look slick. 
For hairspray you'll want a very light green, don't be too afraid of going too light as if you have naturally dark hair like me, the dark parts'll still show through no problem. Go light green on this, trust me, otherwise unless you're in broad daylight the green can be really hard to see.
It is important to use the hairspray first, then the mousse, as, well, I'm not sure why, but from what I've seen and from what worked for me, this seems to be what works, and it did, so it seems like the safest option.

My that was long! The party itself was quite party-esque, it was fun to see all my friends dressed up, having a good time, seeing some pretty great costumes! I'll level with you, most guys comstumes are about either looking cool, or hair and gore, and most girls costumes are about wearing as little clothes as possible. but I always find a dark side in these sorts of occaisions. People were drinking quite heavily, and it's really painful to watch how it affects people. Most drank in fair moderation, and they were just goofier than usual, but for a lot, this caused an allowance of doing things they wouldn't normally do, like making out with people they don't know very well, or becoming the "Life of the party", or in some cases, fall over. This might just sound like "Oh ho ho, what crazy fun", but there's something sad in this to me, that people need this. They need to be inebriated to have the courage to put themselves out there with another human being, they need to be drunk to do what they really want to do, they need to be drunk to put a spin on the evening to make it enjoyable, they need, need, need this stuff. And the sad part is, it doesn't last. The next morning, a relationship with that guy you were crazy about last night doesn't seem like such a good idea, or your friends have lost some respect for you after you've lost your ability to stand, or all sorts of stuff. I am so sorry for these people. It's not just them, it's us. We're all messed up and try to escape life, ourselves, our circumstances in all kinds of ways, and it's awful that we can't just wake up and start digging up. That's just me though. Though I had undoubtably the biggest smile on my face out of the whole group of people, People kept saying I looked depressed, looked sad, because they could see my frown. It's terrifying to just watch someone just plain old fall over, slump down as if they'd just been shot, and when you shake them and speak to them and ask them to move, to responed, to come back to life, when nothing happens. It is so scary, because it is their decision to allow themselves to become that way, and there's not a lot you can do to change it. 

"Why so serious?" -The JokerPS: Someone falling unconcious is quite scary, but is it quite as scary as that?PSS: A big bunch of shoutouts to My family for helping me with my costume, my mom sewed the buttons on, pinned the lapels (So that's what they're called!) And just generally used her momly wits to help me, to My dad for letting me borrow his shirt and very, very nice shoes, and to my brother for attempting to put on scars even though I was a bit of an impatient douchebag about it! 
Next, to Nicole, Aoife, Laura, and Sadhbh for not drinking, my respect for you girls' defiance of the status quo is an inspiration to say the least! (Though Nicole did try to frame me as a drinker.)
And finally, to Bernard, Who gave me the card to begin with! :P

Friday, October 17, 2008

Things only Spore will let you say!

"It's not genocide if there's only three of them, is it?" -on adorably delicious creatures.
"Cool! It's a rat-horse-frog!" -on whatever the crap that was (Kokimo)
"And the chorus rose, a black stench that affronted heaven." - on watchmen and 2 species singing in harmony.
"Lorcan, I've created a race of religious fanatics. What do I do now?" -On peacefulness' natural inclination towards religion.
"Destroy the religious zealots!"-Grant "You always say that. 'hey grant, I'm going up to ovoca', hey grant, my back itches.'"-Me
"I'm heading to the dentist now."-Grant "I'm sorry, what was that? I'm in the middle of wiping out a civilization."-Me

Monday, October 13, 2008

Apricity

Hey! I have a lot to blog and not a lot of time, so yeah. 

This one goes out to differentiation, for making my head explode like never before. I find black holes easier to understand, I kid you not.

I feel like I am going nuts
My brain is being such a klutz
A giant, crowded noisy hall
I drop the ball, begin to fall
Down the stairs of ignorance
Confusion runs amok and hence
I scramble to unify
The thousand voices screaming "Why?"
This rusted pile of machinery
Is beginning to make me quite angry.

Maths (I put the s on without thinking about it, Nicole, rejoice!) Is starting to become difficult to comprehend. It's like this for lots of stuff I'm doing too. C'est la vie,  seasons come and go. 
Speaking of seasons coming, the trees 'round my house are starting to turn all yellow, but only the insides! The outsides are still recieving sunlight and so maintaining chorophyl or something like that, I guess! At any rate, it's really pretty, like little green tinted fireballs growing all around you.

Today was fun! Though today is now yesterday as this post spans two days. It will soon span 3. I have not had time to blog properly. Freaking A, it's now been a week in stasis. This seems like this week has been universally crap for everyone. It's pretty weird, people completely unrelated to each other are having a lousy week. Bizzare. I'll just spew this blog post now.This last week has been very testing. But on sunday I went to a friend's church, and even though it was just a devotional, the pastor gave a short talk on keeping your eyes on christ throughout your troubles, so that was really inspirational, like there was hope again. Not that there ever wasn't hope, it was just hard to see. At any rate, I've spent the past week playing way, way, WAY too much half-life 2. I beat it on hard mode, so that was pretty awesome, I've always wanted to do that. Perhaps I'll blog about how totally awesome half-life 2 is someday. For now, let it just be said that I love vortigaunts way too much. Their mystery and veiled wisdom is so cool I can barely contain myself. Speaking of video games, I recently got the full version of "Spore", so that was really fun! It's like a  mish-mash of some different game styles, with some new ones thrown in, all tweaked. It's a lot of fun, space age sucks you in and demands you waste your time on it. No joke, 10 minutes very quickly turned into 4-5 hours from the pack tactics of creature to the space-faring journeys of a sentient race of all-consuming jerkbags, the veritable hitlers of the animal kingdom. 
I got those fillings today, it was all pretty good until they stuck a sharp piece of metal deep inside my mouth to drug me. Seriously though, it wasn't that bad, even when they said "This next drill's gonna rattle a little bit", pulling out some undoubtably nefarious implement with crooked claws, which proceeded to rattle my head and cause little bits of my teeth to actually burn, proceeded by the acrid smell of burning enamel. Seriously though, it didn't hurt that much, except for the needle and kinda the big drill. I am feeling allright now, and the last bits of the novacaine are starting to wear off, I seriously sounded like I had brain problems eariler, most responses settling at "mmm" or "humm" or "huh". Speech was no cup of tea. I hear it'll be sore tomorrow, and my thanks goes out to, well, Peter I guess, who came up with the fewest horror stories of the apparent twisted nightmare that everyone I know made fillings out to be. People's reactions varied between "You will long for death's sweet embrace" and "nah, seriously, you'll be fine. just kidding, I was right the first time. What with the death and all."
So that wasn't that bad. Tune in tomorrow for me complaining about my jaws!

I also got into GAP, a camp which I looked forward to, but unfortunately was on the waiting list for, and now I'm in! so much jubilations, God knows just how much I can take, and refuses to let me be tested by more than I can handle right now. It's a comforting thought to know that you're never really out of your league. If I can just hang on a little longer, I think things'll simmer down somewhat. If not, then I shall be fine as well. 

"We think: 'We're gonna get sober and we cut out these harmful habits and the things we were doing to destroy ourselves and everything's gonna be dandy after that, and life's just gonna be so much simpler, and it's all gonna be ok' but life still has a good way of knocking you down" -Renee

Wednesday, October 8, 2008

LAAAAAAAME!

So, went to the dentist today, turns out I have 2 small cavities. This aggravates me. So far, I have not ever had a cavity. This is something I have always prided myself on, and now it is no more. Quite frustrating. When the dentist lady was going over my teeth, she just quietly murmured "You'll need a filling", with about the same inflection as when she asked me how school was. Apparently I have been brushing often enough, but not thouroughly enough. I suppose deep down I'm just pissed off at myself for letting this happen. It'd be allright if fillings were something that could be worked off like pounds you gained at christmas, but alas, these things are permenant. 

Permenance bothers me. In the negative, I mean. The concept that something bad has occured that can never un-occur, never be made right, never rectified. Drives me crazy. I've got my fair share of scars, I've never healed well, but this is something seemingly self-inflicted, so, I dunno. More difficult to face up to something when it's your fault. Stuff like this just drives me crazy.
If I already had some, it wouldn't be so bad, but now it seems like I've fallen from grace, as it were. Gone from nothing bad to something bad, forevers. Very haunting.

I suppose I should stop now, so I shall move onto other things. There was a fire in school today! It was pretty freaky. My Englilsh class was, in a way, partly involved with it. Though I suppose it was unavoidable. I shall elaborate. Our english class went to the computer room, and my teacher forgot to turn off the lights. So, due to an electrical fault, the overhead lighting (Generic fluorescent encased in a plastic box) began to malfunction. When my teacher returned from the computer room, she opened the door to let her class in. Noticing a tiny fire already forming in the lighting fixture, she imformed her class that they would not be going into the classroom. She then ran to find "Sarge", the chief school custodian, as he would know how to deal with this. On returning, the fire had spread, with the plastic melting, raining down pseudo-napalm some desks, which were now on fire, with several books atop it already aflame. Snatching our class's recent, unmarked enflish tests (darn!), she headed to get more help, from other teachers. They put out the furniture and floor with water, and Sarge took care of the electrics. 

Meanwhile, my class was outside lazing about in the parking lot not doing physics. I am now in trouble with a friend of mine who is a girl for feeling awkward with her putting her arms on my shoulders. I am a big basket of crazy, so naturally there was no wrong that had been done, but she is a taken woman, and for some reason that fact just made me feel uncomfortable. Like I said, I am a big basket of crazy. Crazy day for a crazy guy.

Ever notice how you don't notice stuff until it's brought up? Like someone'll say "cough", and suddenly you'll have to clear your throat. Or someone will yawn, causing you to yawn. It's like that with my teeth. Everything was fine, then it turned out I have cavities, so now those two teeth magically hurt, as if they did not exist until she mentioned them. I wonder if it's a psycho-somatic or if I just never noticed. Go figure!The date of the fillings is 20th of october. Watch this space :P

"Why's a gun better than a wife? You can put a silencer on a gun" -S. Smith (not full name as I know the guy.) /edit he got this from the movie "Shoot 'em up"

Monday, October 6, 2008

Today, as opposed to yesterday.

Today was interesting. I saw a squirrel! (It was doin' like this *chitter*) For reals, I  was walking from school through the back gate, when two conker casings (them pointy things) fell from a tree, bursting on impact to release 2 conkers. Now, things falling from trees is one of those things that obviously happens, as there is shrapnel on berries and leaves and all sorts of stuff that falls from trees. But one very rarely sees things actually fall from trees in person. I don't, anyway. At any rate, me and my friend Aaron looked up, and saw a grey squirrel scurrying away down the tree, with a tiny conker in it's mouth. It was very adorable. Although grey squirrels are kinda the jerkbags of the animal kingdom. They show up, have loads of sex, and then steal your food. Adorable all the same.

This just in: atoms are crazy. Ca-razy! Apparently, all that I have been told of Bohr's model has been a big load of phooey. And by phooey, I mean horrible lies. In truth, atomic orbitals are crazy, and delve into like, 5 dimentions. 5, people! there are 4 that I know of, and the 5th one changes the way that electrons move! what the crap! It's all very complex, and I love it. It's making sense to me, which is good, because I've been kinda struggling with maths lately. But I'm on the up and up, because I've asked my maths eacher for help, and managed to one-up my brother on quadratics, so that's always an encouragement. :P

Learned "videotape" on piano today, it's super duper easy. You can learn it literally in a few minutes.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yA1iM7iaoxw&feature=related
Seriously. If you have like, 15 mintues, get some paper, write the chords down, and go learn it. It's just that simple. Fo' reals. Really nice song. 

I was about to do some quote, but THIS. JUST. IN. Toonami has been cancelled. For those of you who watched cartoon network, this was the cool part of it. Toonami had a robot called "TOM", who with his awesome ship's AI "Sarah", sailed the skies in their ship, the "absolution".
The setting aside, Toonami was an offshoot of Cartoon network, that showed anime from the far east. Some of it was golden, memories of which I still recall, and some of the series they showed were real gems. I'm talking cowboy bebop here, people. Tenchi muyo, inuyasha, DBZ, Outlaw star (Ok, so some of them sucked, but they had some good ones, and at least they tried.) 
This was the show that got me into anime, which has since become one of my favorite things to watch, ever, and well, I'll be honest, some of it has really touched me. I'm looking at Cowboy Bebop here. Now, if you don't like anime, the previous statement will no doubt amuse you. But just like any really amazing song or book, the things we experience can really touch us, so don't be so quick to dismiss it. At any rate, toonami is no more, and this is very sad. I can only hope that this wonderful traditional animation style is passed on to future generations. 

Or I'm on a nostalgia binge. Go figure.

"Bang" - Spike

Sunday, October 5, 2008

Relient k review thang.

A while ago, friend Nicole once told me about this band called "Relient k", I listened to a few songs she sent me, watched a music video or two, and thought they were quite excellent! However, aquirring such an oddity in the musical world as a christian band required going all the way down to a shop on the northside, so I just kinda put it out of my head. Then, once I discovered the sheer molten joy that is the iTunes online store, I discovered that you could get many songs you want, cheaply, and quickly. So I bought my first Relient k album "Mmhmm" It had "who I am hates who I've been (Mmhmm version)" on it, so that was more than enough reason for me to get it. I liked the music video, kinda,( what's the word. Begins with an R.... recognized? related. That's the one.) I related with the song, I heard it for the first time shortly after I got saved, so it was relevant. Nearly 2 years on, I still find it fairly relevant. And it was quite a nice song alltogether, so I bought the album.

Now's when the blog turns into an AA meeting. 

I loved that album. Listened to it all the time. Sung along to the songs. Loved it like crazy. Read more about the band online, heard about a new release they were doing, but that will be discussed later. I really loved the songs. They were songs that I could relate to (I would kill for a synonym, someone help me out here), +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++---

Man, keyboards are nasty. I just tried to shake a bit of carrot out of the keys, and about 2 pounds worth of crumbs fell out. Kinda pressed the plus key too, but I'm trying to go with a thing where I don't erase stuff I write. This will probably end up aggravating people. Let me know. Where were we. PS: I didn't even get the carrot out, it just fell in deeper :(

I related to them because, well, they wrote about things that guys like me think about frequently, namely God and chicks. In truth, that's usually the two categories of what their songs kinda fall into. Oh , and one of my favorite categories of theirs, "silly". They also have some quite funny silly songs. They have some pretty funny songs in their own unique, musical way.
So, after I had sucked out every last bit of enjoyment out of Mmhmm (you gotta give 'em points for the album name), listening to "Who I am hates who I've been (Mmhmm version)" fifty zillion times, (The first version's accoustic and kinda sad sounding, mmhmm's is more of a kick you in the face "YEAH" Kinda song.)  

I thought I'd get another album of theirs. Now, at the time I was going to buy one, they released a new kinda album, "The birds and the bee sides", which I ended up buying. I had heard good things about their other album "Five score and seven years ago" and it's legendary "Deathbed", but I decided to get "The bird and the bee sides", because it came with like, 25 songs. For the price of 14. It's a good album, though it is quantity over quality. There's a lot of good songs on it, but a lot of them are re-done versions of other songs, but they're good, I prefer "Up and up" accoustic to electric. Some new songs as well, so that's good. It also has just a little bit of country in it, but it's done well, and I trusted them enough at that point to pull it off. That lasted me for a good while, and then I bought "5 score and 7 years ago". Quite an album! Very good, though I think I still prefer Mmhmm. Has some really good songs on it, like "I need you" and "Devestation and reform", and of course, the legendary "Deathbed",  A song about a guy who is, you guessed it, on his deathbed, looking back over his life. I once described it to a friend as "a song about a guy who is on his deathbed, looks back over a life filled with mostly pain and misery, and then dies, but goes to be with Jesus once his life has passed." Needless to say, said friend looked at me like I was a magical talking popsicle. It's a great song, and it's 14 minutes long, and also has the lead singer from Switchfoot sing Jesus' lines. I don't know why I mentioned that, but people seem to mention it whenever they talk about the song, so I dunno. I'm probably conformist. Hope not, though I guess we all are a bit. Anyway. Great song, Great band, next up is "Two rights don't make a left but three do". On the reccomendation of Nicole, who introduced me to these guys, so she must know something! I'd reccomend them if you like rock or semi-pop or christianity. Or all three.I am currently Listening to: "Videotape" - Radiohead (I know it should be something by Relient k instead, but at least it's honest!)
Quote: "I love the garlic dick. WAIT! NO! DIP! I MEAN DIP!" -Yours truly. XD

Wednesday, October 1, 2008

Just a thought.

I was walking around trying to get bag-packing options for my school's habitat for humanity fundraising, and I just thought this. Walking along, saw those sodium lights that line the streets. Had a bit of a brain-ramble, as I do when I'm tired.

Sodium lights.
Hmmm. Sodium. 
Very dangerous. Explodes all the time. Probably a chemical compound. 
Sodium phosphate? Phosphorous. Wonder what that means.
Think sodium's a mineral that humans need .
Funny, we need things that can explode without warning to keep us alive. 
We rely on them. Wonder what else we rely on that can explode without warning.
He said, as the cars drove by.

So just remember next time you're using something, could it explode? dun dun duuuun. Your toaster will never be the same. :P