Halloween update!!!

NOTE:  I'm certainly never going to do anything as skimpy as these sketches suggest.

Okay, so I've been doing some thinking and sketching.

First of all, understand that these are my ideas for getting as naked as possible.  Chances are that I'll panic halfway through and add like 3 times as many clothes.

First idea:  barbarian warrior.  If I can find fake fur, I want to make a kilt-like skirt and doctor some boots so that they're also furry.  If the boots don't work, I'll probably convert a pair of flip-flops into greek-style sandals like I did last year.  For accessories, I'm planning on getting a vicious-looking axe and possibly drawing some generic tribal tattoos all over myself.

Now here's my robot idea:  start with silver shiny pants.  For boystown, this may end up being a pair of short shorts or something equally scandalous.  Since I also have to come up with a PG costume for the orchestra concert, I may do pants, or take a pair of jeans and cover them with saran wrap to make them shiny.  Then I'll add silver body paint or lots of glitter and use a bandaid to cover my belly button and draw a power button symbol on it.  Add some cheesy antennae and I'm a robot

If I want to go the confusing pun route, my idea is do do 'A clockwork Orange.'  I'd wear all orange or do orange body paint (or vast amounts of self-tanner) and tape a big wind-up key to my back.

Another idea that I had is to dress up as Link, from Zelda.  However, I feel like that's maybe too cliche and overdone?  It would be pretty easy, though, and it would give me an excuse to wear a tunic.  I could even make it sleeveless and short, in keeping with my plan to show as much skin as possible

Of course, the problem with many of these costumes is:  where do I put my wallet? 

I'm actually serious about this

I've been thinking, and I'll admit that this is somewhat fueled by watching Project Runway and thinking about Halloween costumes. But, in all seriousness, I have decided that I want to learn how to sew.

My main reasoning behind this is that I really want to MAKE things. However, I'm not creative enough to write or compose, I'm not patient enough to pick up knitting again, and I don't have the hand-eye coordination necessary for drawing or painting. And I really want to do something practical, where I have a clear reminder of my accomplishments. Combine that with the innate fabulousness of clothing, and I think we have a clear winner for a choice of hobby.

The cost doesn't seem to be TOO prohibitive; most beginner sewing machines seem to be in the $100-200 range. Of course, I'll have to keep buying things like fabric and thread and whatnot. In the end, though, it'll probably be way cheaper than video games, so I'll consider it money well spent. And if I ever get good enough that I don't have to buy as many clothes (not that I really need any more anyway), that'll be a bonus.

McCain vs. the media

I am finally feeling at least a little bit comfortable in saying that I think that Barack Obama is going to win the presidential election. It's not because the polls have been leaning towards Obama lately, polls are generally inaccurate and can change quickly. It's not even because McCain is getting blasted over his economic policies, although that helps quite a bit.

It's because John McCain doesn't get one simple fact: the Media (yes, it has now become a proper noun) holds a hell of a lot of power. First of all, his campaign cried 'sexist' when people tried to take a close look at Palin's life. That doesn't quite work when your entire base (who probably are sexist) ridiculed Hillary for saying the same things, with a great deal more cause for it.
Secondly, he has everybody seething about the fact that nobody can speak to Sarah Palin. And to be honest, that may be the smartest move for him. Her big interview before was a DISASTER. And besides, he doesn't want anybody to actually know her. She's a crazy book-banning creationist who thinks that the Iraq war is a mission from God. But you can't hide away your VP candidate, especially when they're a complete unknown like Palin.
Then came the big one: when pressed on the matter, he struck back, bitching about the liberal media and calling the NY Times an Obama advocacy group. He's actually created antagonism where there really wasn't much. I do realize that a lot of the media really is pretty liberal, but they at least usually try to stay unbiased.

Well guess what, they're done trying. And I'm convinced that this is what's going to eventually sink McCain, if his economic policies don't do so first.

I give up

Okay, it's official. I need to get a new iPod. I don't know how the hell I'm going to afford it, but if I have to start packing my lunches and stop going out for a couple months, then so be it. Living with a Shuffle as my only functional iPod is driving me crazy.

I am quite torn as to what to get, however. I'm leaning towards a nano, though. I think that 16 GB is plenty of space to keep me entertained, since I generally go through phases where I only listen to a few artists for a period of days or weeks. I do miss having my entire music library with me, but I also really like the fact that the nano is much smaller and tougher than the regular. However, I haven't actually seen any of the new models in real life, so maybe the regular iPod is skinny enough it won't stick out enough in my lil' gay pockets to drive me crazy. It's also gotten much more affordable ($250 for 12o GB) so cost isn't as prohibitive as I thought it would be. Also, though, the nano is now motion-sensitive like the iPhone so you can turn it sideways and shake it and stuff to make it do things. That's just fun. And they're way more colorful.

So maybe now I'm leaning towards the classic. However, I'll probably end up deciding in the store when I actually hold them and see how each compares in real life.

Next crisis: what I'm going to do for Halloween. So far, I'm leaning towards a satyr or a fairy. Get ready for a long rambling blog complete with sketches when I get around to fleshing out my thoughts.

I can't take this anymore

Holy crap, how is McCain doing decently in the polls? People actually LIKE Sarah Palin?!?!

The woman doesn't know what the Bush doctrine is. When asked about Bush's foreign policy, she floundered for a bit then spouted gibberish about Islamic extremism. And this is after her supposed crash-course on foreign policy. I'm not even going to get into her religion-inspired policies, which border on violating the separation between Church and State. I'm really hoping that she gets destroyed in the VP debates, or at least shows the public how crazy and ignorant she is.

The fact that she could end up in the White House scares the shit out of me. Besides the fact that I suspect that she would paint it pink

The more attention I pay to this election, the more terrified I get at the potential results, and the less respect I have for the American public, who have a tendency to take way too much at face value. Now I'm gonna get off my high horse and retreat to my studying and video games so I don't have to worry about this crap anymore.

SPORE UPDATE!!!

Okay, I'm getting way too excited about this game.

Anyway, I finally picked up Spore this morning. So far I've played the first stage of the game and the very beginning of the second stage.

So far, I wasn't too impressed with the first stage (the Cell stage). It's really simple, but for some reason I couldn't control my creature very well. Also, it was done in like 20 minutes, so it felt like a bit of a throw-away. It really doesn't suit my playing style well, because I like games where you get to wander around aimlessly and do things in my own time, while it threw me forward as soon as I ate enough creatures to get to the next stage of the game.

Then I got to the creature stage and absolutely fell in love. You get to control pretty much every aspect of how your creature looks, so it picks up a great personality. I have a feeling, though, that I'm gonna get rushed through too quickly again unfortunately. However, it's at least going to be better than the unicellular stage. There's also a social aspect of this stage, which will be fun.

One thing that kind of disappoints me is that it's not as similar to the Sim games as I thought it would be. The great thing about the Sim games is that you can just aimlessly do whatever you want, without any real defined goals (or at least that's how I usually played.) I think that the later stages will be more like that, but now I feel like I'm going on way too much of a defined path.

Bye-bye summer

Is it just me, or did it suddenly turn into fall immediately after Labor Day?  It seems to have immediately turned darker and cooler overnight.

Speaking of fall, I have made an Important Decision.  Seeing as I'm taking the subject GREs in November and I have to take the general test as well at some point, I don't have all that much extra time to waste.  So I've decided to cut way back on my drinking.  Not that I consider the amount that I drink to be all that excessive, but the idea of trying to study when I have a hangover is a complete joke.  So between now and then (with the probable exception of Halloween) I am going to start imposing strict drink limits when I go out so that I know that I can accomplish things the next day.

Aaanyway, gotta go start getting ready for work.  We're partially moving into a newly renovated space tomorrow and losing a certain amount of our current space, so things are bound to be crazy as we're trying to find room for everything and organize it all.