Visit the kelpforest....

So, once upon a time, the Corpse Bride, a plague doctor*, and Rainbow Dash the My Little Pony went Trick or Treating...



This was after the candy collection and Avalon's posture is "I'm soooooo tiiiirrred..." She was wearing some fancy silver flip-flops, but they were hurting her feet. Angus was pronounced scary, and a couple people thought Gareth wasn't wearing a costume (C'mon, you gotta do better than that!) until he turned around. He's trying to do the V behind Angus's head (because that's something Rainbow Dash would do), but didn't realize his hat was hiding it. ;p

( behind cut, as I know pictures of other peoples kids are mostly of interest to other people... )

Here's a creepy little surreal animation for the season from the National Film Board of Canada, that I just happened to stumble across at YouTube the other day. It seems like when I used to go to animation festivals, their stuff formed most of the show. There also used to be a show late at night on Cartoon Network (pre- Adult Swim) called Oh, Canada, that I used to tape every week.

Some very slight male nudity, although really nothing graphic (really, how much more naked can you get than a skeleton?); the story itself is more disturbing. The art style reminds me of both Edward Gorey and Terry Gilliam, with a little bit of Bill Plympton thrown in.


How Wings are Attached to the Backs of Angels (~11 min.) - 1996


There is only one thing in color in the whole piece; what do you think it means?

Happy Halloween, Samhain, or whatever fall holiday you like to celebrate.

I had to go in on a Saturday and spend about 12 hours at work, but before I did, I had to photograph this house in the neighborhood across from my office, before they took their Halloween decorations down. They had a whole pirate theme going, with a full-on ship in the driveway and a giant squid!

Pirate house
Seal Beach CA
Sharp VE-CG30
01 November 2008

Angus's Sesshomaru costume wasn't quite finished when the cheap $40 sewing machine I bought to work on it started messing up all the stitches, but it was good enough for trick-or-treating (since most people who saw him wouldn't know who he was supposed to be anyhow). The wig is supposed to be white, but this was the nearest thing I could find, besides being the longest. And I had to take off the bow, because it was supposed to go with a sexy grown-up Alice in Wonderland costume. The pointy ears are made with band-aids - I fouind a website that had quickie pointy-ears and other costume shortcuts. Unfortunately, all of his cardboard armor fell apart while we were walking around. I still want to finish it so he can wear it to Anime Expo, should we go next year.

I think he's trying to look threatening.

Chibi Sesshomaru.
Huntington Beach CA
Sharp VE-CG30
31 October 2008

I fail; I have yet to take a pic of all three of them together. Avalon wore her Tae Kwon Do gi, and Gareth was Teddy Roosevelt again.

Where candy corn comes from?

California Adventure
Dismalland, Anaheim CA
Sharp VE-CG30
28 September 2008

( Requisite Family shot... )

Stopped by Joann's (Fabric and Craft store) to see about getting some details for the kids Halloween costumes. They didn't have what I wanted, but did have a lot of sparkly Halloween themed fabric...

Joann's
Westminster CA
Kyocera Switchback phone camera
23 September 2008

( +1 )

Off to trick or treat!

A pirate, an astronaut, and ( a chicken? )

I'm disappointed.

My oldest son had wanted to be Sesshoumaru for Halloween. I was a bit excited since he's a favorite character of mine, too. Probably not anything elaborate (not the the nearly professional ones you see at cons), because I haven't actually sewn anything for about thirteen years; the last time was when I made my own wedding clothes (I got married at the Ren Faire). I've never liked sewing clothes, although I don't mind crafts like stuffed animals and such - costumes seem to fall more in that category.

Anyway, after much searching of pattern books, finding a child's kimono pattern and figuring out how to alter it and how much of each color fabric to buy, trying to remember how to cut out a pattern, and tracing a crapload of stupid little red & white hexagons on fabric that shifted so much none of them are quite the same shape, I was ready to take all the pieces over to my mother-in-law's to try to put everything together. My mother's old sewing machines (both of them) bit the dust last Halloween, and whenever I remembered they needed servicing, there was no money left.

Well, after much futzing around with her machine (damn, every machine has a different bobbin apparatus), I finally got it set up and ready to go. I thought. However, when stepping on the pedal, it would sew about an inch before the bobbin thread tangled underneath the fabric and the needle jammed. After fiddling with it for half an hour, neither of us could get it to work properly, and MIL came to the conclusion that it needs to be serviced.  I don't know anyone else with a sewing machine and no money until Halloween day to try to repair mine or possible buy a new one (I know I saw a couple at Target for about $80).

Oh well. I'm making it big enough that he can wear it to Anime Expo next year, and maybe it can be next year's Halloween costume too. Grandma had some pirate stuff, so maybe we'll make do with that; he didn't seem averse to the idea and even wore the pirate hat home. And anyway the white wig we bought looks like hell now. He wore it to school Friday for "Crazy Hair Day"; I tried brushing it a little to make it look neater and wound up with a brush full of fake hair.  Although I realize nothing is going to look the way it does in the show, it's pretty pitiful.  Hopefully we can find something better before then.  Sesshomaru would slice and dice anyone trying to look like him with that awful rug.

In the meantime, Angus has fallen in love the "fluffy" - the piece of material intended for Sesshoumaru's moko-mokosama (as I've heard other fans describe it).  He wrapped around himself and fell asleep with it the other day....

( kids fall asleep in the damndest positions... )

Dad decided to pick up an early Halloween decoration.