Well, here it is- Hellboy costume Stage 1. Since I've pretty much squandered all my time lately (though that bbq/disc golf all afternoon yesterday was totally worth it), it's nowhere near complete. For one, I didn't have a tail, cloven boots, belt pouches, a gun, or a B.P.R.D patch. I did have the stogie, though after chewing on it for two hours it looked like I was sucking on a greasy turd, and pretty much tasted like it too.

I'm posing here with Meagan (Wonder Woman) and Ashley (generic manga chick). Meagan was by far the most appreciated, and she was having her picture taken with damned near everyone. It was great, though, because she pulled hers off better than the "professional" super heroes they had there. Granted, she's no Linda Carter ("sigh"), but who is.

They day itself was a comedy of errors all around. Since I screwed off all of yesterday, I was up until 2 am applying latex and face paint to non-porous plastics. This also meant that I didn't have anywhere near enough red paint, and no spirit gum to attach the horns with, never mind the costume pieces that I just left out altogether.

Got up at 7 to gather my stuff and get the mainstays prepped, since the original plan was to meet at Ashleys. Meagan calls me a bit after 8, becuase her make-up artist cancelled on her 10 minutes before her appointment (apparently she was having "an argument with another girl"). This throws them behind schedule, but kinda works for me since I have to wait until 10 am for Party America to open up for paint. The open, I grab my paint and head to Ashley's. The girls are supposed to be there around 10:30, and I get there at 10:15 and start putting on the make-up. I'm rushing, becuase I need to leave the Con by 1, or as it turn out 2. I end up smearing make-up all over my car, dumping the mini-grill I'd forgotten to take out of my car, and getting sealer powder over everything, it seems, except my make-up.

The girls finally show up at almost 11:30. I've been taking sessions with my car running with the AC full bore because if I sweat too much not only does the make-up run but the latex I've used to adhere my horns with will fall off too. The coup de gras was when I bent over to grab my supply box for last minute fixes and smash my forehead into my car, knocking one horn off. Luckily Ashley had some Krazy Glue. Better than nothing.

We finally get to the 'Con (after going where it was last year and finding out that particular location was now the gold jewelry expo), and it was good times. I wasn't buying a ton of stuff, partially because I couldn't touch a whole lot, but it was still pretty fun. I had to leave around two when my right horn fell off and I'd lost a knuckle from the Right Hand of Doom. Got back just after two, and proceeded to scrub paint from my body in a sud-filled frenzy. Now, it's off to work.

Lately...

Aside from my trip to KC (of which there's more to come, that's for damned sure), I haven't been up to much lately. Picked up two new restaurant jobs, so that's been good. I'm training in to bartend over at the Machine Shed in Lake Elmo, and it looks like that's gonna be an easy one that makes me good money. Things seem to run pretty similar to Joe's with more leeway on doing our own jobs and not relying on the management as much. In addition, the money looks like it'll be pretty good too. I'm also bartending at this place called The Happy Gnome, which is the sweetest name of any place I've ever worked. It's a place for beer connoisseurs, so I've had to beef up my beer knowledge by doing a lot of field research. They happy to assist in that, providing a free drink at the end of each shift. If their food wasn't so damned expensive I'd think it was just about perfect (though, from a bartending standpoint the expensive food is fine by me).

Disc golf has been good lately. I played a round Monday and three yesterday. My knee felt pretty rough, but between the four rounds I ended up three over par (+1, par, par, and +2). The pars were at Hansen, which was fine by me, since I birdied hole two both times, and the rest were hit and miss. The above-pars were at Acorn when I was playing with Patrick. I edged him by one stroke both times, which kept it nice and competitive and forced us to really try. Both games also came down to who did better on the 18th hole. He almost got me today, but my approach shot arrowed in and (according to the guys playing 17) missed birdie by inches. Needless to say, I was happy, though if I work on my putting I'm definitely going to be consistently under par soon.

Finally, since blogs without photos are generally boring as hell (not that I have a "readership" anyhow), here are some recent pics...

Mike and I in our war paint at the Minnesota Wild's sole playoff victory...

Kauffman Stadium on the most gorgeous day for baseball in the the history of the game. Such a fan of that ballpark now.

The one and only Boof Bonser getting his picture taken with the kids. I still can't decide whether he or Neshek is my favorite pitcher, but I am glad to see him on the starting rotation.

Kansas City Kicks Ass

This weekend is rocking my fuckin' world. Mike and I headed down to KC to catch the last two games of the Twins/Royals series. We left this morning at 4 AM, and got down here a little after 11, checked into the Marriott, painted my face and headed to the stadium.

I'm am now wholly in favor of a new stadium. Kauffman Stadium is an amazing, and I now see why the Royals still have fans. We had to pick up tickets there, since there aren't ANY scalpers you could haggle with. Our seats ended up being 30 rows up from the freakin' Twin's dugout, and we had an incredible view of the game. Not only that, but we were surrounded by more Twins fans than Royals, so there was a ton of good cameraderie. Better yet, it was a great game, well fought, and we ended up pulling off the game in the 7th.

Afterwards some Royals fans were gracious, some were pissy. Some were downright childish and one dumb sunnuvabitch who threw was trying to start a scuffle with some Twins fans. On the good side, though, we ended up passing on our two extra tickets to a father and son we'd been chatting with.

Afterwards, on to BBQ. We went to this place called Alfred Bryant's, apparently one of the most well know places in KC for the stuff. And that was the end of it. I hurt so bad from the quantities of bbq pork ribs, sauce and fries, that I just may die. They serve you the stuff on a few pieces of wonderbread, throw the ribs on, some sauce, a handful of pickle slices, and roll ya out. It's dang good stuff. I hurt. Tomorrow's game's gonna be even better. Damn this is a good trip.

Road to Hell(boy)

The costume progresses. I'd put it on hiatus when we weren't able to go to the cosplay deal, but now there's MicroCon (the local comic book convention). First, I stopped by the source to get some pics of the HB statue they have, since I'd be able to get better shots than from the comics (ironic, huh?). Then I went down to Twin Cities Costume and Magic to see what they had for me. Picked up a bottle of liquid latex to work on my horn nubs. Got some stuff there, then headed over the Axman Surplus to see what goodies they might have. I was really kinda disappointed, since I only found one thing for the entire costume. However, since that was for the tail, it wasn't a total bust.

For the most part, I'm still where I was before. The progress I've made is pretty much horns and tail. With a good coat of latex the spice caps I'm using for the nubs should take a good coat of paint. Then I should be able to fill the caps with heavy foam and spirit gum them to my head. As for the tail, I've decided to use a foam tube similar to a funnoodle. It was cheap, workable (man, a fillet knife cuts that thing up nice), and should be durable enough to last the day. Of course, the texture was completely wrong, but I picked up some tree wrapping that should cover it and give a nice knobbly texture that will take face or spray paint pretty well.

I'm gonna swing by Menard's after I do my hiring paperwork over at Machine Shed. I'll probably pick up some pvp pipe for the gun, and hopefully a handle. Now that I have the latex, I'm also thinking that I'll use a foot or so of that for the lengthy part of the Right Hand of Doom. I'm also toying with the idea of coating the glove with the latex, to see if that doesn't seal it well enough to take a better paint job. As is, I've got two weeks to finish this off, and I'm pretty sure that's plenty of time.

On a totally separate note, Monday night I saw an incredibly brigth meteor. I just happened to look over while driving home and caught it streaking across the washed out sky. The fact that it stuck out that much over the light pollution of the Twin Cities was quite impressive, and I'm pretty sure that it was a very low altitude burn out. Who knows, maybe some farm in Wisconsin now has a brand new alien baby...

Happy Belated Chocolate Jesus Egg Day!

Been a while since I've posted, not that a whole lot has gone on. I was gonna post some pics from the Twins home opener, but that didn't work out so well. You see, I need to get a camera case, because whenever I put my camera in my pocket it seems to turn on and drain the battery. I had an almost full batter Sunday, but when I went to take a picture of my full face paint it was dead. That's okay, I suppose- I'd gotten some paint in my eye, and it looked like I was crying blood for the first couple innings.

Otherwise, had a great weekend in Duluth. Caught concert that was downright hillarious- this old hippie dude was the roadie, and he was pissing the bands off so much my screwing with stuff during sets that it was almost a comedy act. I'm gonna have to try to catch 'em tonight just so I can see what an actual set looks like.

Finally got another job, and hopefully a 3rd in the works. I'll be serving with a fast-track to the bar at the Machine Shed over in Woodbury. My friend Dar from Joe's said that she's pretty sure that she got me a bartending job at the Happy Gnome in St. Paul too, and from the looks of it I'd much rather work there (pricier, classier, closer, and it's the HAPPY FREAKIN' GNOME!!). Soo, it looks like things worked out okay, and I didn't have to turn tricks on the street corner.

My cats are still adorable (I woke up last night with PK's front legs hugging my arm, and Guapo's just a clutz), and my appartment's still a mess. Saw "Tokyo Godfathers" over the weekend, and it was a nice "feel good" anime. Really looking forward to how much I owe in taxes this year (I'm 300 in to the feds, and haven't gotten around to my state stuff yet), and still don't know how I'm going to get the right color for my Hellboy costume's Right Hand of Doom. And yeah, that's about it. Sorry 'bout not having any pictures to post.