I'm SomeGuy, 29 years old, residing in Vancouver, BC, Canada. I've studied English Literature, Chinese Martial Arts, and am currently pursuing careers in writing - possibly even in the anime industry itself.
And I work for this site.
And you should be watching Beck: Mongolian Chop Squad.
Or watching Ranma 1/2.
Or learning about the Shinsengumi.
Or planning to visit Vancouver, The Best Place On Earth (actual marketing motto).
Here at the "Smallville" page, I have my personal blog where I'll post about anything and everything. If ya need me or otherwise need to know anything from/about me, here's where I'll be.
If you're really looking for my more professional, site-type stuff, you wanna head over my "Metropolis" world.
(Banner Design Courtesy of Red Tigress - thanks Red!)
Cos & Effect went well enough. Super small little con', but a local summer con is a local summer con'.
We won a Final Fantasy Fight Tournament match finally! And then we lost to a returning champion who also happened to be a judge for the rest of the tournament! No criticism this time, though. It may have still been a wipe in that one, but at least it was towards a legitimate team. Really good tourney in all, and we all had tons of fun.
Except godson, who was asleep during the whole time and missed his dad work his magic. Shame.
Masquerade Ball was also pretty okay. Started on time, the lesson mostly made sense going by what I saw of people, and I actually had the leisure to enjoy the ball unlike last year. For the most part, people were enjoying themselves, though I saw some fatigue in some people mostly just chilling and doing stupid stuff while they waited for the rave. I also had some complaints that the music was too slow for too much of the dance. So be it, I can fix it next time. Also, people kept pulling me away from dances with someone to tell me about how the music was getting complaints or that chairs needed to be moved away from emergency exits.
Ah well.
Anyway, also had a really fun time the next day at the Academie Duello workshop. I learned a bit of old school bare-knuckle boxing as well as some Bartitsu (Victorian cane-fighting) while my other friends learned a bit of rapier. Spent a lot of time talking to them at their table later in the day as well. The main teacher definitely remembers me from "our annual meetings", and actually mentioned that if we wanted we could try to arrange some private workshops for a small group, we could make a day of swords and archery learning and stuff.
He also mentioned they teach mounted combat. Oh damn . . . so this might come up as well in the near future. Beyond that, I did also pick up a little something from their table in the dealer's hall:
. . . I may have bought a working model trebuchet . . . . . ahem . . .
Anyway, in all, good weather, nice costumes, and fantastic company. It was a'ight.
And now I have a couple weeks to prep for PAX. FML.
There's totally a little local con this weekend, and I've only barely changed my usual lead-up routines. It's a little funny in that sense. No serious workshop mode overhauls, no need for organizing a million things with people about accommodations and meet-ups, and no shaking-at-the-fists anticipation or anything. I did fix my Flynn vest, though, as I feel that will come into play during the weekend.
Still pretty excited, though, because it's the first con' that a TON of people from work are gonna check out. They all wanna see Stephen act like a jackass on a stage. That's gonna be fun. He's bringing his kid (the godson), after all.
And to be fair, I have been organizing a couple things. That Masquerade Ball is slowly coming along with a lot of people asking questions and the like. It's kinda hilarious to be completely in control of one of these (even though it IS a much shorter ball than usual). Who knows, this may actually end well for us. We'll see . . .
Beyond that, work is working me ragged leading up to my two weeks of vacation time. A stretch of four straight long evenings is killing me ever so slightly (and is hampering cosplay time for everyone else who may or may not need my apartment). Sucks. It's worth it, but yeah.
Anyway, speaking of the godson, check out what that whole group of elongated family gave me for my birthday:
Matthew, you may not know it yet, but you've been a cosplayer since before you stopped dumping in your pants . . . and that is awesome.
Thanks again to everyone for the well wishes! I truly did indeed have a happy birthday.
Started off with my finally getting that masquerade ball stuff sorted out and getting a forum post up about it at about 1am. So now I have to screen for questions and such as they come. So yeah, it's official: masquerade ball is go.
After waking up, got up, checked messages, changed my avatar, and then headed out to my brother's house. He was gonna take me up to the range to do some shooting - he knows what I like, what can I say?
At the outdoor range, we actually caught the tail end of another Vancouver ERT squad finishing off their drills (including a guy I knew from my brother's stag in Vegas last summer). It was fun to watch them essentially do one of the coolest jobs in the world, just shooting at paper while a sergeant calls out targets.
After they left, we loaded out the gear - and it was a LOT of gear. 4 boxes of ammunition (plus a bit of what the other guys left behind), my brother's service weapons (Sig Sauer pistol, decked-out C8 carbine ((Colt variant)), decked-out MP5), a couple Beretta pistols, another C8 carbine, and a Remington shotgun.
So, um . . . shotguns are frightening. And painful. And awesome. For purposes of general sense, here, have a YouTube that best describes the fear/pain/awe that is a 12 gauge slug:
Something like that. But with less collapsing. Still, one of my last shots with the Remington left a lasting impression. I had my cheek right up against the stock as I took aim, and when I fired, the recoil more or less made the shotgun stock grate across my face. To my credit, however, I did hit the paper with a shotgun slug at 50 meters, unassisted with iron sights. Still . . .
. . . totally worth it. My face is tender and my arm/shoulder is sore. Totally worth it.
After we finished shooting, I headed back home to shower before dinner. Had a little dinner at an Indian restaurant with the family. It was tasty.
Then, came back home and had a few friends pop over to chill. I made them watch Frailty. It was good times.
Then we discussed cosplay and such while I tried to convince another person to be my dance lesson partner for the masquerade ball. Currently she's in "I'll think about it" mode.
