Comic-Con Costume #1

New costume!

Almost done.

Well, sort of.

It's supposed to be this...

But still, it's a dress! I shall celebrate with ice cream!

Yes, I Know I Suck

So, I came across my own blog just now and discovered that, hey, it's been a month, a week, and three days since I last updated it. (Not counting the pic and three sentences I added yesterday.) Which is a new low, I think - although I'm too lazy to scroll through the archive and actually figure out if it's a record. Therefore, I suck. I am aware of it, and comments should feel free to explore the magnitude of my suckiness, but for now I'm over it. Mostly.

It's especially ironic given that a) I started the micro-posts to allow myself to blog more often by requiring less words at a time; b) I just ponied up $80 to Yahoo! for hosting the site I eventually intend to post this blog on; and c) I sadly and with much reluctance succumbed to the pestilence that is Twitter. Yes, I Twitter! Well, about once a week anyway.

But self-flagellation aside (verbal only, thank you - while I theoretically understand that for some pain can be a fetish, it seems ridiculous to think you'd accomplish much by whipping yourself - wouldn't knowing when the blow would fall kind of ruin it?), I'm back. And just in time for the run-up to summer geekitude galore.

As usual, the centerpiece of the summer will be the annual pilgrimage to Comic-Con (July 22-26, http://www.comic-con.org/cci/). But July also includes Independence Day (meaning good food, good friends, and ridiculous amounts of fireworks) and the Labyrinth Masquerade.

And if you can't wait that long, head over to http://www.cantstoptheserenity.com/ to find a showing of Joss Whedon's Serenity on the big screen sometime in June. (Dates vary by location, and profits go to the excellent charity Equality Now.)

I'm working on several Comic-Con costumes, although they're for the floor and not the Masquerade. (The stars were not as aligned as I thought this year.) I'll keep you posted on those and other events, and attempt to figure out how to use Twitter and Flickr to improve this blog.

Wish me luck... or better yet, perseverance.

Teenage Princess Persecuted By Madwoman

Micro-post #3.

Snow White

So I continued thinking about fairy-tale princesses, and what they might be like if they had been allowed to be strong women. Next on my list was Snow White. I started going through her tale, trying to make it real. Her mother died having her, and her father remarried a beautiful woman who probably ignored her most of the time. So... she would have been raised mostly by the servants, which would explain why a princess even knew how to cook and clean for a household of eight. She probably grew up sweet and well-mannered and completely ignorant. She would have been bewildered when the huntsman told her the Queen wanted her dead. The Queen had presumably not been interested in her at all until Snow White hit puberty, and then became instantly homicidally jealous (but was probably canny enough not to show that to Snow White). So you're Snow White, wandering around, making friends with servants and playing in the forest. Until one day a scary man tells you he was sent to kill you, and that he's not going to kill you, but your stepmother wants you dead and it will never be safe to go home again. So you run away and get taken in by seven bachelor miners who desperately need a housekeeper, and you're perfectly happy there. Despite the huntsman, you've never really been exposed to any danger, so when the dwarves tell you never to open the door to strangers, you promise without actually thinking about it. Of course you open the door to the nice old peddler woman and sample her apple. It doesn't actually make sense that your stepmother would be so enraged by your teenage beauty that she would not only throw you out and disown you, but then (upon finding out that her hitman had chickened out) stalk you for miles and miles, despite the fact that you clearly have no interest in deposing her, regaining your kingdom, or competing with her for the attention of men. This is because she's insane! And you, Snow White, are no heroine. Saving you doesn't actually save the world or even your kingdom. In fact, if you managed to save yourself, you'd be almost as bad a ruler as the insane Queen, because you have no training in anything but housework and are almost certainly hopelessly naive. So it's all for the best that you're going to marry the prince and let him add your kingdom to his, since it's probably the only thing keeping his father from invading already.

Sadly, Snow White is not a heroine. She's not even much of a fairy-tale princess. She's merely the final victim in a bizarre crime spree perpetrated by her stepmother. And as such, I can't really make her kick-ass. Although I'm open to suggestion if someone else can.

SemiGeekGirl really hates needlessly stripping the magic from things, as she's just done above. She realizes that she never really liked the Snow White fairy tale, but she knows that might not be true for everyone, and she apologizes.

Micro post - Labyrinth Masquerade

For more on this topic, see last year's posts. As soon as I get around to updating the tagging, anyway...

I'll do a detailed post on the awesomeness of the masquerade and what we plan to do this year, but for now I'll just give a brief summary. In the absence of a better idea, we've decided (tentatively) to do a twisted/fractured fairy tales theme with our costumes, specifically focusing on princesses/heroines. I've been trying to brainstorm, but a lot of times I end up just going around on the same thing. I did, however, have an inspiration for one princess, so I'll note it here.

Cinderella

So what if you were Cinderella - but instead of being the kind of girl who wanted nothing more than to go to the ball and marry the prince, you were a more kick-ass sort of protagonist? What exactly would you do if you no longer had to cook and clean for the step-wenches? Wouldn't you be out for revenge? Or at least out to help other oppressed young women? And most importantly, how can I tell that story without actually telling it? How can I make it into a recognizable costume?

I'm thinking, Vigilante Cinderella. Her clothing - the tattered remnants of a ball gown. The shoes, unfortunately, will have to be glass slippers. They're her most recognizable attribute, so I can't ditch them. (It's mostly unfortunate because I think that means whoever wears this one will need to purchase clear heels. And really, where are you going to use those again? Although there have been an awful lot of news articles about 'fallback careers'. Hrm.) The makeup - soot, of course, but used as guerrilla face-paint/camouflage. The weapons? A fireplace-poker-cum-rapier, and - my favorite part - mini pumpkin grenades. And, on her shoulder, to complete the picture, a pair of evil-looking sparrows for sidekicks.

SemiGeekGirl would insert an evil laugh here, but it's a skill she hasn't yet mastered. Alas.

Micro post - Chase Bank update

So I've now severed all non-checking account ties to Chase. Sadly, though, when I attempted to reorder checks online, I was informed my information was no longer on file. I assumed this was an artifact of the switchover, so I called the customer service number that popped up. After entering ALL of my information by touch-tone, I was once again informed that I wasn't on file. I hung up, called back, and proceeded to look for the magic menu option that would allow me to talk to a real human being. There wasn't one. I had to go to the bank anyway to deposit a check, so I went in Saturday morning. I asked the teller if she could order me checks, because if she couldn't, I literally had no idea how to get them. She put in the order. I then asked her to close all my non-checking accounts. She asked why. I told her, nicely, that they had terrible interest rates. She asked if I had spoken to anyone in customer service. I nearly cried.

I was proud of myself later for neither laughing in her face nor demolishing parts of the branch on my way out. There are days when it's a very good thing I am not an Adept-level mage...

Work Blogging

I’ve just realized that my unproductive and irrational work habits are multiplying, which makes me feel guilty and a little sad. On the other hand, when I confront their ludicrousness head-on, I’m amused… for the ten seconds or so it takes me to realized how pathetically not-funny most of them are.

Just now, for instance, I got up from my desk, momentarily cheered by the thought of being away from my cubicle, and drifted toward the office supplies in my usual fog of depressed sleepy ennui. I needed window envelopes; there were fifteen or twenty in a sorter with a variety of other envelopes, but that didn’t seem like enough. (I just counted – I actually needed fourteen.) So I hunted through a couple of cabinets until I found the box holding the rest of the supply, and grabbed as many as I could hold in one hand. Looking at the pile I’d just snatched up, I thought, isn’t it funny that I seem to take more of these at a time whenever I run out? And then I followed that thought to its logical conclusion and realized that some primitive part of my back-brain seemed to believe that if I just took enough, someday I would never need to get window envelopes again. Which is obviously absurd, so I was amused. And then depressed again by what passes for amusement.

And now I’ve actually bored myself writing this, which is another excellent reason not to blog at work, beyond the possibility of getting caught and the questionable ethics of using time in which I am being paid to do something else. I am BORING at work. My complete and utter lack of interest in the job actually just translates into complete and utter disinterest (sometimes). If you could accidentally commit suicide simply by sinking into complete passivity, I’d’ve died a couple of years ago.

Well, maybe a good rant will get the blood flowing to my head again. Today’s topic? Let’s go with Chase Bank, N.A. (I believe the N.A. stands for North America, but I don’t care enough to Google it. I just added it because it looks official, and that’s how they refer to themselves in all their radio ads.) So in October or so of last year, Chase purchased my bank, Washington Mutual. At the time, WaMu held my checking account, my savings account, and my primary credit card. I had been fairly well satisfied, if not ecstatic, about the services provided for all of these accounts, and had been a loyal customer for eight years.

In February, I happened to be looking over my banking information to see if I needed to wait for a 1098 before filing my taxes, and I noticed that the amount of interest I’d accrued on my savings account seemed kind of low. In fact, when I added it up, I’d gotten a total of $8 for the entire year – on an average balance of $4,000. Digging a little deeper, I discovered that the interest rate (a pitiful 2.25% under the orginal WaMu terms) had, under the new Chase regime, been adjusted to 0.25%. That’s right – one-quarter of one percent. Let’s round that down so that we can more clearly see what it means. Zero point two five percent rounds down to – big surprise – zero! I could have made the same amount of money by stashing the cash under my bed, and then asking any one of my friends for eight dollars. And I would have saved the gas I spent getting to and from the bank. (Okay, usually I walk, but still.)

So I jumped ship. I did a little research, asked around, and moved my savings to ING Direct. (The interest rate there, in the interest of full disclosure, is not great at the moment. But it is over one percent, and, more importantly, it is guaranteed to adjust upward as the economy recovers, something I don’t trust Chase to do.) In the first month, ING gave me as much interest on $100 (my initial trial balance) as Chase gave me on the remaining $3600.

But honestly, I’d been meaning to switch my savings to a higher-yield account for a while, and the best ones are rarely at brick-and-mortar banks. I was disappointed in Chase – and a little insulted by the 0.25% interest rate – but not really bitter. Until last week.

I received my current credit card statement last Monday, and took until Thursday to get around to really looking at it. (I paid it online Wednesday, but that didn’t involve looking at the statement because I’d already budgeted how much I could afford to pay, and just transferred that amount. I’m trying to pay it down, so the amount I transfer is always more than the minimum.) When I did look, I was shocked. The interest rate was 2.25% higher than before – over ten percent.

I’ve never had a major credit card with an interest rate in double digits. Never. (I’m not counting store credit cards here – those always have terrible interest rates.) And my WaMu Visa had held steady for over five years. I called Chase to inquire. The girl on the phone was clearly of the opinion that I was wasting her valuable time. She first tried to make me feel stupid by telling me that Chase had sent me a letter informing me of the change a month ago. Which I’m sure they did. I try to read those “Terms and Conditions” pamphlets, but they’re practically indecipherable. I probably filed it without getting all the way through. I explained, politely, that I wasn’t denying I’d been properly informed, I was just wondering if there was any way Chase could review my account and see if I qualified for a lower interest rate. She informed me with irritation that Chase had already reviewed all the accounts they received from WaMu, and they would not take another look for at least six months, so that I could build up a “payment history”. I pointed out that my FICO score is almost 800, I’m using less than one-fourth of my available credit, and that I had a six-year “payment history” with WaMu, the last three years of which I had always paid more than the minimum. She informed me that Chase had “decided not to take that into account.” Then she tried to say goodbye so she could hang up on me. I interrupted and told her the next call Chase would receive from me would be to transfer my entire balance to a different bank. She told me to have a nice weekend in a tone that sounded like she would prefer it if I stepped in front of a city bus. I asked her to report my comments to her supervisor, wished her a nice weekend in a tone that implied I hoped she would spend it having a root canal with no anesthesia in a dentist’s office where “The Bird Is The Word” was stuck on endless repeat, and hung up, literally shaking with anger.

Half an hour later, I’d been approved for a Citi card with a rate almost as low as my old rate, and a promotional APR of zero percent. As soon as it comes in the mail, I’ll be transferring my balance. It’s not enough revenge on Chase, but at least it’s something. Since despite my love of the name I have not yet learned how to make a Molotov cocktail, it will have to do.

That, and denouncing Chase to my loyal circle of thousands (or at least, more than one) of blog readers. Ah, sweet revenge.

SemiGeekGirl refuses to apologize for her delusions of grandeur... but she will apologize for the lag between posts. She's sorry.

Volume 2.5

So, right after the party I was exhausted.
Then it was my dad's birthday, which involved, among other things, a 200-mile round trip and something called "sky sailing". (It involves a small fiberglass aircraft, and a tow plane. Mildly terrifying but wholly exhilarating. Go Dad!)
Then, a week at work compressed into four days of random busy-ness. Why on earth would you call your accountant from Spain to ask why the logo of the carrier on your mobile phone did not match the one on your wife's? One - why would you care? Two - how the frak would I know? Three - you're in Spain! This call is costing you a dollar per minute!
Now I'm sick and head-coldy. New updates as I feel up to it.
Coming soon - the Renaissance Faire!

Volume II

Some of the male guests.
Some of the female guests.
The trivia quiz winner! Her prize: the LAST tube of Tauron toothpaste in the universe!
The motherfrakkin' seal, on which I spent at least six hours, all told.
Many BSG-clad guests. Yay!
Wonderful party kitten. Greeted all the party guests politely, made no attempt to cozy up to the allergic few, and spent most of the episode on the back of this chair, quietly watching with everyone else. (His comrade, the other cat, spent the entire party under the bed, not even sneaking out to go to the bathroom.)


More decor.
The whole spread.
Just a chips-and-dips platter. But the chips are all hexagonal, and there's toast!
I needed something vaguely healthy. I called it "reconstituted algae".
Cylon raider crescent rolls, stuffed with ground turkey and chorizo. Adorable and, apparently, delicious - it was the one food item I had no leftovers of!
Scotch cake, in a vague dogtag replica style. And I stayed true to the spirit of the show - there was Scotch in the batter, Scotch in the glaze, and about half a cup of Scotch just poured directly onto the thing. Tasty but potent!
The food item I am proudest of: the Eye of Jupiter fruit tart. Behold its wonder. (And, miraculously, it tasted good too. Not bad for a first try.)


Some decor. I made signs for everything.

Cleaning for the party. (In my Battlestar workout clothes, of course! And it was a good thing too, as several party guests were distressingly prompt...)

Battlestar Galactica Frakkin' Finale Party, Vol. 1

Volume One

Step 162 of 350. Or something like that. These posts will be quick and dirty, because it's about the content, and not the usual flights of writerly effervescence that I like to indulge in. Just for form's sake, I'll bring you up to speed: this Friday, March 20, 2009, the SciFi Channel will broadcast the two-hour series finale of the best show on television, Battlestar Galactica. As I did for the painfully long-ago series finale of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, I will be throwing a party. A big, extremely geeked-out, wonderfully obscure party. (As with all my parties, it seems it will be somewhat less well-attended than I'd hoped. But that's what the internet is for, right? So that multitudes of people I've never met can appreciate my genius? Yeah, right. And I'll be joining the Evil League of Evil anyday now.)

I've been preparing to throw this party since the fourth season began in spring 2008, but beyond some brainstorming and setting aside money (I figured if I took $20 out of each paycheck, it would pay for itself by the time the finale came around. It almost worked, too. I'm only going to come up a little short after I buy all the booze. But you can't skimp on fun!), I didn't really get started until February. That's when I started buying BSG-related stuff, figuring out how to decorate my apartment, and putting together costumes.

There have been some setbacks and misses along the way, but with some help from my boyfriend, my geek friends (I'm looking at you, Piratical!), and my minions (did I say minions? I meant parents. Parents. I've got to say, being an only child is nice work if you can get it), it's really starting to come together. A brief rundown follows with pictures, and I'll update as the event gets closer. Good Hunting!

The decor:
While I flirted with the idea of trying to recreate one of the cooler sets in my living room, I was ultimately foiled by price, time, my lack of carpentry skills, and the basic shape of my apartment. So the interior of a basestar was out, as were most of the interiors from Galactica. I considered a sort of tent/quonset hut theme meant to evoke New Caprica, but the ease with which my apartment became that depressing was, well, depressing. So I settled upon the easiest theme locale to recreate - the large open area occupied by Baltar's hippy-dippy-slutty acolytes. They took a largely unappealing and stark space (hello, my apartment!) and draped it with blankets and curtains and cloths in rich colors to make it a faux-Eastern-meditation style retreat. They also had throw pillows and pictures of Baltar, and possibly some Christmas lights. I can do that!

That took care of the living room. The rest of the apartment will be more of a hodgepodge. The bathroom and kitchen are function rooms that are for obvious reasons hard to disguise. They'll just get signs in the BSG font ("head" and "Joe's Bar" respectively, although I need to rewatch an episode to see if there is a sign for Galactica's restrooms, and if so, what it says). The bedrooms I don't want people in will get "Munitions Locker - Authorized Personnel Only" signs. The hall, being a hall, will become the memorial wall from Galactica, with all the pictures I can find of characters who died throughout the series. And maybe some of those electric candles, if I can figure out how to stick them to the wall right side up.

The rest of the open space, which is not quite part of the living room but not quite not part of it either, will contain an army-green mess table with themed food, a blue-curtained wall with a seal meant to evoke Colonial One, and a games table for poker, pyramid cards, and trivia entries. Plus all the BSG posters, toys, magazines, and prints not included elsewhere. Oh, and the shadow box containing the costume I bought from the Propworx auction (I DO own a piece of Battlestar Galactica, thank you very much!). Hmm. That room seems a bit crowded now. Well, as the apartment needs to remain functional for two people and two cats until Friday, major decorating probably won't commence until Thursday. I guess we'll see then.

Next was costumes, which to my shame are still in progress. The fact that they needed only minor alterations from army surplus wear caused me to leave them ridiculously late. One set of duty blues and one set of green BDUs still need pins, patches, shoulder suede, and pocket alterations. The workout clothes still need patches. (Note: I have all of those items, I just haven't attached them yet. I received my last BSG online orders last week - I never trust estimated ship dates.) Oh, and the blue curtain needs to be curtainized. At the moment it's just a big piece of fabric. Oh, well, that's tomorrow's task.

Then - the food.
I think this was the part I had the most fun with. A friend was kind enouigh to link me to some blogs where people had already created some amazing BSG food, and I copied some of their ideas, modified others, and came up with one or two of my own. The finalized menu follows tomorrow.

As do pictures, I hope...

So frustrated I nearly had to Twitter

So today is the 3rd of February (speaking of which, I completely forgot that yesterday was Groundhog Day. Not that I celebrate it or anything, but you'd think with how bored I habitually am at work, it would have been five minutes' worth of entertainment). The 3rd of February is not a significant date by any measure, but it is just three days before the 6th of February.

Which, for the past three years, has been the date on which hotel reservations for Comic-Con International open (and sell out). Last year, Comic-Con posted a blog for attendees, which listed the hotels, answered frequently asked questions, and provided a space for Con goers to complain, offer suggestions, and otherwise comment on accommodations. The blog went up in late January, posted a list of official Con hotels on 1/31, and closed the week before Comic-Con 2008. It hasn't been updated since.

And this year, there's been no information. The "hotels" page on the official website says to check back for updates, or subscribe to their RSS feed. I've done both. Still nothing. Last year, and in years before, Comic-Con sent out a little save-the-date postcard with the day hotel reservations would go live. I think the postcard came sometime in January. This year, they seem to be doing all their communicating by email, but I've received multiple emails from them, and nothing about hotels. No postcard, either.

So I'm freaking out a little, mostly because that's just how I am. But I'm going to be really pissed if, suddenly, Friday morning at 8:30, the site tells me they're going live at 9am. I spent far too much time at work today inputting different combinations of "Comic-Con", "hotel", "reservations", "open", "2009", "discussion", and "news". I found nothing, except for a couple of blogs that confirmed they hadn't heard anything either. And several Tweets that said the same thing.

Which, for a moment, almost made me want to join Twitter. Most of the time, I find the idea of updating random followers on my life and thoughts in 140 character bursts to be both pointless and irritating, but today, being able to rant to the world in tiny, angry tirades seemed like it would alleviate my desire to scream. (Which I try to refrain from doing at work.) I resisted, however; mostly because as a new member, I'd have no followers, and would thus be ranting to no-one.

The ultimately fruitless research was oddly satisfying, though. I actually felt productive, tweaking the advanced Google search, learning how to sort results by date, and combing various blogs and discussion boards for information. I found a number of interesting things, including a pdf brochure for the San Diego Convention Center that acknowledged Comic-Con as their best-attended event (by an 80,000-person margin) but failed to list it in the top 5 conventions of the year. WTF? More on that in a later post. I also found a misogynistic, borderline wacko rant by Dirk Benedict (the actor who played Starbuck in the original BSG) trashing the new BSG. It made me extremely angry, until I read the first comment, which went something like, "Dirk, I'm sorry man, but your show sucked on toast." And then all was well again.

But the information blackout continues, as does my mounting frustration. And the uncomfortable sense that doing anything would be better than my current job. However, since nothing can be immediately done about any of this, I continue to haunt the web, and rant on the side.

Check back for updates, or subscribe to my RSS feed.

Aaargh.

Ummmm....

On Tuesday, I read a New York Times article discussing a study that had shown that people who drank three or more cups of coffee a day were less likely to develop Alzheimer’s disease later in life. My grandpa has Alzheimer’s, so I was very interested. On Wednesday, I attempted to put this new information into practice. By noon, the world seemed to be vibrating and I had passed through “sharply focused” on my way to “so wired I might as well be drunk”. On Thursday I cut back to two cups of coffee and decided that the shaking of my hands was all in my imagination.

Not that any of this has much to do with anything. The ridiculous, wired sensation was at least a novel way to experience my job, which usually gives me the feeling I’m being slowly wrapped in grey cotton wool while white noise plays on the radio. It didn’t make my job more interesting, but it did elevate my illicit web-browsing guilt to a new level of paranoia. Think The Fugitive, except that instead of murdering his wife, he’s accused of browsing the Gold Box deals on Amazon.com. Oh, and poor Dr. Kimble was innocent. Never mind, bad example.

But at least I can use the ill-advised coffee buzz as an excuse for my complete lack of creativity lately. For the last thirty-six hours, anyway. Before that… well, I’m sure my brain was doing something very important. Like playing Lego Star Wars. Or driving.

Irregardless. Oops, tangent. A friend (and reader) of mine rails against this word, but I like the sound of it. Also, it escapes my main grammar-in-writing rule, because it’s near-impossible to misunderstand. Only the pickiest of readers will actually stop to consider whether I mean “without regard to” or “without without regard to” (as the etymology of the word suggests), and those who decide on the latter have made a decision to willfully misunderstand. Nevertheless, ten minutes’ worth of internet research has convinced me it falls into the same category as words like “ain’t” and “conversate”, so I will endeavor to stop using it in writing. Although not in conversation. Only idiots, foreigners, blowhards write exactly like they talk, and it’s never a good idea.

Regardless of caffeine adventures and video games, then, I’ve got to kick-start the creative juices into flowing. (Note: I made no promises regarding mixed metaphors.) While summer sees the fruition of many geek-related activities, preparation and planning must begin much earlier. And this spring sees a number of geek-fests of its own, including my local Renaissance Faire, the Paley Center Television Festival, and the series finale of Battlestar Galactica.

Which means it’s time to break out the sewing machine, the recipe books, the reams of scrap paper, and (sadly) the credit cards. I’ve already got a selection of Renaissance wear, and at this point I’m more likely to buy than try to create things from that period, at least for a while. And I don’t think anyone wears costumes to the PaleyFest. Wait, no – I just remembered. One girl did come as Buffy from the Prophecy Girl episode at last year’s Buffy reunion panel. The dress was perfect, but she was a brunette, which seemed puzzlingly half-assed. You’re willing to wander around the Arclight in costume when 95% of the die-hard fans – I’m talking people who spent the night on Sunset Blvd. to be first in line kind of fans, here – show up in street clothes, but you can’t commit to a wig? What’s the point, then?

But that still leaves the series finale of BSG. I’m throwing a party, and costumes will be mandatory. Anyone not wearing a costume will be forced to wear a sign labeling them a Cylon, and then tortured in other ways I haven’t settled upon yet. I’m willing to be somewhat lenient – guests can show up in drab, dirty clothes and claim to be colonists from New Caprica, or slutty, hippie-esque outfits and quote Baltar – but if they can’t even make that effort, they deserve ridicule. And of course I will be willing to help anyone who asks nicely.

So far, though, my efforts to outfit everyone I know as a member of the Colonial Fleet have hit several major snags. The first: undershirts. Anyone who watches the show will recognize the distinctively shaped, black-over-grey double undershirt that the characters seem to wear under every variation of the uniform. (Some people claim that the top shirt is actually a very dark olive-drab, but I've studied good pictures and I still think it's black. But color is less important than shape, in this case, since the shape is what you'll recognize from across a room.) Not only can I not find anything close to the black over-tank - which I understand, since it was obviously custom - but I can't even find sleeveless grey undershirts in the right shape. I may end up removing the sleeves from normal t-shirts and re-hemming the edges, but that seems like an obscene amount of work for the most basic piece of the whole outfit.

But considering my entire BSG costuming effort consists, at this moment, of a pile of undershirts, sports bras, and workout wear on my bedroom floor, and a little bag of patches bought much too dearly on eBay, I'm sure my trials have just begun. Stay tuned for seams and seething, accessories and aggravation, and the despair of dyeing!

Pictures to follow, but only in the event of success.

SemiGeekGirl congratulates everyone on surviving the first full month of 2009!

Boobs, boobs, boobs

I figured that since this was probably the only time that title would be even remotely appropriate, it would be a shame not to use it.

About two weeks ago, I found a lump in my armpit, near my right breast. Now, if you're a guy or you've never seen a movie on Lifetime, that may not mean much to you. For the rest of us, it means breast cancer. It doesn't matter that I'm still eight years shy of the recommended screening age, or that there's no breast cancer in my family history. It still felt like there was a blinking neon sign over my head that said CANCER.

But don't worry - this isn't a cancer story. Twelve days later, I've seen two doctors, had bloodwork, ultrasounds, and a mammogram, and it turns out I'm fine. I have a swollen lymph node: my doctor said my options were to wait and see if it goes away in three months, or have something called a "needle biopsy". I'll be seeing him in April.

And before I begin my rant in earnest, I'd like to exempt my gynecologist from it. He saw me promptly, answered my questions, returned all my calls within 24 hours, and was quick to inform me of my reassuring test results. But that was the only bright spot in a twisty and depressing medical labyrinth.

I've never been a fan of socialized medicine. I'm a capitalist, and something in me rebelled at having to pay for other people's health care. But unfortunately, a capitalist health care system only works if the costs of health care are reasonable compared with a middle-class (or even lower-middle-class) income. And that just isn't the case. For my two doctor's visits, I paid $45 dollars each, my usual copay. It was ninety dollars I would rather have spent somewhere else, but nonetheless it was not a problem. But my insurance claim lists the actual cost of those two visits at $500. If I didn't have insurance, that's what I would pay.

Five hundred dollars? I don't have that kind of money to drop at a moment's notice. I could put it on a credit card, but what about the next time? And that's not even counting the ultrasound, mammogram, and bloodwork. I expect to pay about $200 for all of that, but going by the same formula, the full cost would be approximately $1000. So without insurance I would be out fifteen hundred dollars - all to find out nothing was wrong.

And the money isn't the only problem with the system. I had to visit three different offices (two of which required valet parking, but that's a Los Angeles problem, not a medical system problem). None of these places communicated with each other. I had to fill out nearly identical forms at each place. I was asked the same questions over and over, and occasionally, I was asked if this test had been requested by my doctor. No, I just do this for fun. It's not like his signature is on the requisition form or anything! Oh, wait, it is.

I think I was asked if I was pregnant seventeen times. I'm not, that I know of, but as I haven't taken a pregnancy test since the last time I had sex, I can't be one hundred percent sure. Birth control isn't perfect. I also explained that - to medical professionals - approximately seventeen times. I was also asked, rhetorically, if I could wait - for a test, for a reading, for a doctor, for a technician. Given that I was on time for every appointment, and that all of these places are open pretty much nine to five, Monday through Friday, my answer was usually, "I guess... do you know how long it will be?" This was often met by a supercilious stare, and the question, "Why? Do you have to be somewhere?" Yes! Work! You know, that thing you're doing RIGHT THIS MOMENT.

All in all, my experience wasn't terrible. Nothing was wrong, and no one charged what I couldn't afford to pay. But at this point I feel like both of those things were pure luck, and that terrifies me more than I can say. What if, next time, something is wrong? I had enough trouble getting through all of the forms and appointments and bureaucracy this time - and I am blessed with good insurance, decent income, and a job with flexible hours. I can't imagine navigating the system while ill, and worried about my job.

So I'm laying my capitalist principles by the wayside. Bring on universal health care. Because our system sucks, and I don't want to move to Sweden.

SemiGeekGirl wishes you all the best of health... and promises to return to geekdom in the next post. Hail to the new Commander-in-Chief!

All I want is a command center

So I was combing the internet for any advance hint of the hotel list for this year's Comic-Con (fruitlessly, I might add - and as I searched back through archived blog posts from last year, I realized that there's not likely to be any news until the 31st or so. This despite the fact that reservations will almost certainly open on February 6th), and while I found pretty much zilch, I still built upon that in my OCD way.

I might not have mentioned that I do, at the moment, already have two hotel rooms reserved in San Diego for the entirety of that weekend. One is at a perfectly nice hotel that I have no desire to stay at, and the other is, well, somewhat out of my price range. As in, I could stay at this hotel for four nights, or I could take a round-trip flight to London and stay there for four nights. I'm actually vaguely appalled that I made that reservation... but I haven't yet decided to give it up, either. But the actual goal for this year's Con is to obtain a room at the convention rate. If I haven't made it clear why this is quite such a coup, let me spell it out: the difference between what I've agreed to pay for four nights and what the 2008 convention rate for four nights at the same hotel added up to is over a thousand dollars. The difference between how far my less-than-desirable hotel is from the convention center and this hotel is approximately three-quarters of a mile. It boggles the mind.

But it's also not the point. While I'm sure hotel drama will figure into this blog several more times, in this instance it was more about the process. As I sat there, comparing last year's rates with my Google map of all the downtown hotels, contrasting amenities and fees and quiet versus convenience, I started to sketch out my plan of attack for the morning that reservations open (and close. Last year, they had as many people logging on in the first five seconds as they had hotel rooms available).

I thought, okay, well, clearly what I did last year is not going to work. Me, sitting at work, trying to pretend to be working when my entire being is focused on getting through the most frustrating reservations process on earth, for an hour. Not really optimal for getting a room, or for working, funnily enough. So this year I've already decided to call in sick. Or call in with a doctor's appointment, maybe. If I feel like dragging myself in for half a day, afterward.

At first I thought I'd just do it alone. I can sit at my boyfriend's Mac, with my laptop on my lap, and my cell on my shoulder. But that might still not be enough. So then I decided to enlist my mom. Her eyes aren't great, so the internet is out, but I figured we could program the number into her phone, and I could write my credit card number out really big, and she could call too. But then I realized that since we would both be on the phone, a hundred miles apart, we'd be unable to communicate. If one of us got a room, we'd be unable to tell the other to give up. And what if they offered her options I hadn't prepared her for?

My next idea was my boyfriend. If he calls out sick too, then we can each be on a computer and on a phone. And we can talk, if we need to make decisions on the fly. But was that really enough? I thought, what if I get one of my friends who is between jobs right now to come over with her cell phone and laptop? I would have to make a big chart with the hotels and my order of preference, and another with my credit card number, expiration date, etc.

Which is when I realized that I need a command center. You know, your basic room, filled with screens and consoles and charts, shaped roughly like the bridge of a starship. I could hire all of my friends, and we would each have a phone line and a computer and some art supplies, and we would mobilize for each new project. Hotel reservations for Comic-Con? No sweat. A dinner party for ten next Saturday? Just pick a theme. Costumes for a Renaissance fair wedding? Let us know if you need peasants or gentry.

It's my ideal habitat. No wonder that stupid career assessment said I would do well in the military. I guess it wasn't just the snappy uniforms.

A Whole New World

So, unforgivably, it's been almost three months since I updated this blog. And as it turns out, quite a bit has happened. Let's start with the big things.

First, there was Halloween. I spent eight hours at work in a fabulous 16th century cream brocade dress with boned stays and ten yards of skirt. The shoes pinched, my hair spent all day slowly escaping its updo, and the corset-style bodice was not conducive to sitting in an office chair for that long. I looked fabulous, and won nothing. The prize went to my coworker who came as a giant can of Red Bull. To add insult to injury, they forgot to send out an email when they began the luncheon/prize-giving, so a third of the office (including me) missed half of it. Not good form at all.

I then went home to change into my Rogue costume and head out to a party. Note to anyone else who likes dressing up - changing costumes halfway through a day is always a good idea. Sure, you might have to start over on the hair and makeup portions, but it's a basic truth that good costumes are almost never comfortable. Changing costumes halfway through is like trading shoes with a friend when you're walking around Europe: sure it still hurts, but in different places. It doesn't sound like much comfort, but trust me on this one. You'll be grateful.

Anyway, my boyfriend and I hopped in the car and drove over to pick up another friend who lived on our side of town, knowing that parking sucks in Hollywood. I was driving, since that meant it would be my bf's turn to drive back and I could drink. Now, normally, it takes half an hour or forty-five minutes to get to the apartment where the party was. On Halloween, it took two and a half hours to get there and find parking. We could have driven to San Diego. On Hollywood Boulevard (several miles from the famous, glitzy section of it, I might add), traffic was moving approximately ten feet every two minutes. Once we'd discovered how bad it was, we couldn't even give up and go home, because getting out was just as bad! Never again. Needless to say, we were in a foul mood by the time we arrived, and not even booze could fix it.

Luckily, the next night was another Halloween party, much closer to home. Someone came as Captain Hammer, which was awesome. (If you don't know who that is, shame on you.) Someone else came as Slash from GNR, but he looked more the the Guitar Hero version than the real thing, which I thought was hilarious. And I contributed Slayer Cake, which was super-cool, if I do say so myself. (Well, it looked super-cool anyway. It tasted disappointingly generic.)

After Halloween came my birthday. It contained nothing geek-tastic to report, except that we did play HeroQuest on the hotel room floor and D&D in bed later. I heart geeks!

Note: I just realized that "playing D&D in bed" might mean something different to some people. Just to clarify, I did mean the actual game, with character sheets and dice, etc. What went on afterward in the bed had nothing to do with D&D.

We got back to town on Tuesday the 4th, in time to watch the election results roll in. When CNN called it for Obama at 8:01 PST, I turned to FOX News to make sure they agreed. Then I switched back to CNN and cried. I know lots of people who said they cried tears of joy when it happened, but that wasn't me. I didn't expect to cry, and for a moment I couldn't figure out why I was. And then I realized it was relief. I had been so terrified that we as a country would continue in the same stupidity we'd espoused for eight years. I hadn't known how afraid of that I was until I didn't have to worry about it anymore. And so I cried. Then we opened a bottle of champagne.

I also had a fantastic birthday party at the Edison, my favorite bar downtown. Everyone got very dressed up, and I got to have a little Cinderella moment as I descended the steps to the bar in a slinky black dress and a host of tuxedo-clad men looked up at me (we later discovered the British Embassy was having an office party there that night). Good times.

And that was November. The rest was work, and putting away the sewing stuff for a while. Our roommate moved out, so we redistributed all the furniture. On Thanksgiving, my car failed catastrophically on the way to dinner with my bf's family; I spent the majority of the day driving and riding around Southern California, getting my car towed, getting to my parents' house to borrow a car, getting back to dinner in Lake Elsinore, and getting home.

Car trouble proved to be a theme of the Christmas season. Once repaired, my car developed a mysterious ailment that caused it to die and strand me at stoplights for minutes at a time. Subsequent trips to several mechanics failed to address this tendency, and I've been borrowing my mom's car for three weeks now. Combined with all the usual Christmas activities and end-of-year craziness at my job, December passed in a long, stressed-out blur that I'm only now recovering from. It definitely had its bright spots, but sadly, they weren't enough to elevate my memory of the season.

All right, enough of this diary-style rambling. I sucked, I'm back, and we can return to business as usual - rants, geekdom, costumes, and absurdities. Did I mention that the other night I dreamed I was a Jedi, with the face and body of Mila Kunis, having an affair with Bale Organa from Episode III of Star Wars?

SemiGeekGirl wishes you all a belated Happy New Year and best of luck in 2009!