A Happy Homestuck Day

I took this picture a couple weeks back, with the intention of posting it here.

It's the first time in a while we've made up a shirt. My younger son wanted to make this shirt up, another Homestuck addition. The character is Jake English.

Found out just a couple days ago that today is Homestuck day, the day the first debut of Homestuck. Ten years, it's been, and I've been aware of it for seven of them!!!

The Obligatory Halloween Post

I've got another post to instant blog at some point, but in interest of keeping things timely, I'll do this first, the Halloween post!!!

Since I had nothing in mind in particular this year, I was going to reprise my Karkat costume again for this year... if I could find my candy corns headband!!! It's been several years since I had them out, and figured once again I'd have many new people at work to admire it. Don't think I ever posted a picture of it here, but after the first two years I ran that one, I found a white headband and a white glove and went as High Five Ghost from The Regular Show. That costume, while well received by my co-workers, was very top heavy and wanted to fall forward or backward all day. Anyway, the Friday before we were at the 99 Cent store and they had these eyeball antennas, and I was sold!!! As you can see, I also had one of my favorite shirts, the eyeball surfing through a ring of fire to go with it. One of my co-workers said, "Great costume, I almost didn't recognize you!!!"

The younger had the plan to go as Kevin from Welcome to Night Vale, a fairly easy costume in the clothing area, a lot trickier in the make-up department. I didn't get a day or even a half day off this year, so I had none of that, but lady friend stepped up and did an AMAZING job!!! I figured the older and her would go out to WeHo or somewhere like that for Halloween, (which sounds like a nightmare to me, but like something they'd do) but they didn't do anything. A few weeks before they'd gone to the Universal Studios event and taken the R.I.P. tour, so they got in on some anyway.

Of course, it was late by the time I got home, so the younger already had gone around the block behind us, and had a decent bag going.

I'd noticed that the street at the base of our hill is relatively flat and has a lot of houses on the way home, so we went down there to try our luck there. It wasn't that good, a lot of houses with no lights on, but we did get to go by one house we knew had a couple dogs that bark at everyone. We walk by, and the smaller one comes out barking, and he turns his scary face towards it, and it backs way off, that was hilarious. On the way back we took a video of it, but it's kind of dark.

One of the houses we went to told of a street I'd never heard of they'd taken their kid to that was hopping and pretty flat. We drove over, and it was pretty late by then, but we still did better there!!!

Halloween: A New Era

Happy upcoming Thanksgiving!!! Before it gets even farther along, figured to to the belated Halloween post!!!

The new era alluded to in the title refers to this being the first year where the older was not in the vicinity, so it was just the younger.

First up is a shot of the Jack-O-Lantern. For a change, they didn't have the carving contest at work this year. Just the one this year, as it seems time always gets tight this time of year. Based on Papyrus from Undertale. The youngest drew it out and I carved it. considering the challenging design, I think it came out quite well. Didn't do it that far in advance, either, so it was in excellent shape for the traditional early November mayhem. You can catch this year's here.

Next up is a construction shot of the most complex portion of the costumes this year, a pair of glasses. Involved was some Plexiglas from the dodecahedron project (worse for time, the protective paper had bonded fairly well onto it!!!), frames from some old sunglasses, much epoxy, and some even older than the Plexiglas window tint film. The black piece was a cardboard mock-up repurposed to hold the bows apart while it was being epoxied.

A couple of new shirts were in order. I did mine with the same technology the the older had previously used for his Vriska costume, a cardboard template and spray paint. The youngers' was made up with an iron on print, on an orange sleeved shirt. I never saw an image of this shirt with the orange sleeves, but hey, artistic license!!!

My costume was yet another Homestuck character, Lil Cal. Also involved was a gold tooth cap I'd had for more than ten years ago. My wife was a huge help locating it. Where is a good place to store such a thing??? An old ball cap and gold chain completed the look. To finish it off, I shaved off my mustache and beard and drew on the cheek spots and jaw opening. I wore it into work, and I think I was the only one in my department this year that dressed up.

The boy had his costume based on Dirk Strider, who of course, is closely linked with Lil Cal, so that is where the inspiration for my costume came from!!! Glasses, shirt, and an old wood sword fresh painted silver on the blade comprise his costume. I'm of the opinion that wanting to have the glasses and an orange shirt were primary motivators to his choice of costume!!!

More of the Jack-O-Lantern, this time on the cat tree. I don't think awesome cat much cares for his heiarchal position at the top of the tree being usurped.

Something cool, I have so many vacation days now, that I happened to see they had a half day available on Halloween, which of course I took. Nice, as they have moved the start and end time of my shift 15 minutes later, and it had already been a late get home time. We trick or treated around the neighborhood, the streets behind our house, then over to what had looked to be a promising area.

One place had this sign up on their gate... I feel vandalism coming on!!!

There!!! Fixed your sign for you, mister!!! No treat, here's your trick!!! Haha!!!

When we had headed over two weekends before, we'd spotted what looked like a walkway at the end of the dead end street we'd walked up. We had walked down it to another cul-de-sac in the valley below. This was the previously alluded to promising area. There were several houses with Halloween decorations, and while we were there we witnessed a mother and child having a Nerf gun war. It was pretty far on in the evening by the time we made it over there, though, and it wasn't as good as it had looked, though there was one guy we caught pulling into his garage who dug out a three year old bag of tootsie rolls and dumped a good quantity into our sacks.

Finally, now that there is one in the neighborhood, no Halloween night would have been complete without a visit to a haunted house...

"And they say the old man's body was NEVER FOUND..."

Best Halloween Ever???

As usual, I've got a backlog of posts I could do, but I'll start with this one, this year's Halloween post!!!

Start off with the pumpkins. I attempted to do the Red John smiley. It kinda came out. My wife did a pretty good cat face, I think it was the best of the three. The younger did a Derpy-O-Lantern. The older, we got him a pumpkin, but he never got around to carving it up. If it hasn't started rotting from the inside, I may cut it open and harvest the seeds. I was thinking just today of cutting it in half through the middle, and that gave me an idea for next year: try and find a large, round one, cut it most the way in half with a round part on the front, paint it up like a pokeball. Find another, smaller one and carve it up as your favorite pokemon and have it inside the larger one!!! There, I typed it out so I may remember next year!!!

He had pretty ambitious plans for his costume. Vriska, another of the trolls from Homestuck. It features some rather tricky looking horns, and one rather elaborate robot arm. He got the arm together pretty good, but never got the horns made up. It also has the hair, which we found him a pretty good wig for. He made up a stencil for the shirt and did it with spray paint.

The weekend before Halloween his DJ club was spinning the platters for a school dance, where several in attendance were dressed up. His ladyfriend was dressed up as a spider witch, which he said went well with his costume, the spider bitch!!!

Halloween night, he went out with several of his friends instead of going with us. He said one of his group hugged Slenderman. He and another girl were playing catch up with with the rest of the group when a bush jumped out and says, "What's the rush???" The girl shrieks. He stands there a few seconds, then points at the guy (in a ghillie suit) and announces, "You're a BUSH!!!" From there, there was speculation as to whether he was Senior or W Bush, to which bushman responded he was neither. You could tell he enjoyed his evening.

Of course, it was a work day for me. I reprised my costume from last year, Karkat. This year, for a change, I had a picture of him pulled up on my 'pod to show people how he looks, and they all agreed it was me. Of course, we've got a LOT on new people at work these days, so a lot of 'em hadn't seen last year, so I had that going for me. Unlike last year, however, a bunch of people dressed up, so that was cool. One of my favorites was the girl who came in with a full bee outfit on!!! The cafeteria even got all decorated up with lights and everything!!!

It was full dark when I got home, and the younger was antsy to get going. He had another very geeky costume idea he wanted to do, Ruby Rose from the RWBY series (so, if you're keeping count, both my boys cross-dressed for Halloween...)

We found him a red hoodie this year, and added on a cape, and I made up a rather dissapointing gun scythe.

I'm used to my wife not doing much at all, but this year she surprised me by having cat gear on when I got home, so she got in on the act for a change. We headed out arount the neighborhood.

Usually there's not too many kids around the area trick or treating because it's mostly all steep, but there were more than I've ever seen this year!!! It's a good one to do, because even though several places don't participate, the ones who do are usually pretty generous!!! Saw a parent done up in full on old school Joker from Batman. One house we were coming up on had probably a dozen kids coming the other way. One guy, probably around 12 or 13, came up to me and asks if I'm Karkat. I fived him for knowing that, and told him of my older going as Vriska. Yeah, by degrees, the neighborhood is getting geekier!!!

A bit further down, we come to a house with a lit jack-o-lantern outside and lights on, but it's down a series of steps. Obviously, they're participating, so we head down and knock and say the magic pass phrase. No one seems to be home, though, and as we're turning to go, here comes a little kid in a storm trooper outfit, minus the helmet. He's saying something about he needs his silver bowl, and we're wondering what that's about. Naturally, I had to use the line on him, "Aren't you a little short for a storm trooper???" Shortly after, his mother and little brother start down the steps. Turns out they live there, and had set out a rather large silver bowl full of candy, and someone abscounded with their bowl!!!

A bit later on, we came to a house that's the most done up we've seen. We walk up, and they invite us in, ask if we want any water bottles or some of the crock pot of chili they've got made up!!! I'm there. They were having a little Halloween party, and it was pretty excellent!!! The chili was pretty decent, too!!! We were probably there for close to half an hour!!! Just a few houses further, and there's ANOTHER Halloween party going on, and they invite us to have some hot dogs or help ourselves to their libations!!! We didn't, it was getting late late, and I had work the next day. I'm thinking of taking the day off next year. Truly one of the best Halloweens I've seen in our neighborhood!!!

The Broken Screen

When the main event of this post occurred, my youngest exclaimed, "I know you're going to use this on your blog!!!" With that kind of set up, guess I have to!!!

Pictured above is something I rigged up a while back. On my last recliner, the cat always loved to lay about on the foot rest portion. (As i searched for the post on the recliner, I realize I've not made mention of it's demise. It was an excellent chair, but unfortunately somehow the mechanism for the footrest broke, so it was permanently extended, making the sitting down and rising up difficult... but providing a ready resting spot for the feline!!!) Around my birthday of last year it was replaced by a smaller recliner, which fits the room nicely, but the footrest hits me mid-thigh, and it's vinyl skinned. But, it's in good shape and the recliner portion works well.

So, as the old one was on it's way out, I detached the footrest portion. Knowing that kitty was already accustomed to it, and knowing that one of his favorite places in the house is looking out of the window over the washer and dryer in the laundry room, I devised something I knew he'd like. I already had a couple of shelf brackets, but to span the distance I had to add a piece of wood under the footrest. All I had around was a 2x2, which I screwed to the bottom. Naturally, I had to mount the whole rig far enough out to clear the old school louver windows. He took to it right off!!! The first hiccup happened a couple days later. The shelf brackets are of stamped steel, and the 2x2 is on the very end. In other words, not near strong enough to support the mighty girth of wonder cat. It twisted around and probably dumped him off, or at least made him do the awkward struggle to maintain composure as it rotated around. I added in a couple aluminum brackets running up higher on the window frame, and it was back in service. As the weather warmed up, I finally got the chance to open up the window, affording him not only the view, but also the multitude of smells his kind so enjoys!!!

A couple weeks back, my wife, being the first one up, explains, "The screen is out!!!" There's another phrase that has taken on a whole new connotation!!! First thing I was wondering was if it was a computer screen, a TV screen or a phone screen!!! Of course, when I found out, I wasn't as concerned as I'd started. A little miffed that I was going to have to replace a screen, but that was about it. I mean, there wasn't any way our giant cat could get out between those little four inch slats... was there??? I did my morning routine, but I did notice that he wasn't around... so I told my wife to try and locate him. He eventually answered back... from directly below the window!!! Now his tuxedo markings are that of the Great Houdini!!! Oh, and the window is now closed.

Next up is some of the most intricate whiteboard art yet, the older's rendition of the Mobius Double Reacharound (Virus??? will putting virus references on my blog make it a restricted site???), another reference to Homestuck!!!

Found the original image. I know I had issue with it before, but now it looks like blogger posts GIFs without issue!!!

And finally, a little cup art. The only part I did was the 512. Below it is one of the new line stickers from work, which one of the girls did my nickname on. Now if you wondered, you have a clue to my real identity!!! Last week I'd worn my Karkat shirt, and ended up having to explain it several times. Did an image search for Karkat for one of the girls, and she says, "Awww, he's CUTE!!!" Haha!!! I was working with her again the next day, and she added in his shirt logo. I noticed shortly thereafter that it was actually a mirrored image. I theorized that it was because she's left-handed!!!

The Halloween Post

We interrupt our vacation pictures series to bring you the Halloween post!!!

So, a couple weeks back, my firstborn was telling me about one of the characters from Homestuck. "He's got candy corn horns..." Enough said!!! I'm going as Karkat Vantas!!! He's also got a sideways "69" on his shirt (the symbol for cancer) and types in all gray caps (I CONSIDERED DOING THIS POST IN ALL CAPS & CHANGING MY COLOR, BUT THOUGHT I WOULD QUICKLY TIRE OF THAT.) I used a couple of yellow cake decorating tips for the horns, with Chevy orange for the middle color. I was going to paint the tips white, but at the same time was still looking for a headband to put 'em on, as well as trying to figure out how to mount them. First plausible one I found was antennas, so I clipped them off and held the rig together with wire nuts on the ends, painted white. Will Karkat play at work??? No one knew who I was supposed to be (or what Homestuck was, for that matter), but everyone recognized 'em as candy corns and loved 'em!!!

In keeping with the theme, I made horrorterror dogs for dinner, from the Eat Mesa cookbook. Interesting and makes for quite a visual.

The firstborn had been talking about going as Indiana Jones, which surprised me a bit that Indy would still play today. Didn't get it together, so he wore a wig he'd picked up, and took my sledge hammer and was Thor. I was asking him if he was going to do anything else with his clothing. He answered while I was taking a drink of water... "No, it's casual Thors-day." I about died choking on my water!!!

The younger had the idea for his costume since early summer. He got a white hoodie, and wanted a red cape added to one arm. His brother asks him, "Are you going to be cosplaying as Enzo from Assassin's Creed??? Yes, that was what he had in mind!!! I took a closer look at the design, and sacrificed a threadbare, falling apart leather jacket and an old belt to make the shoulder guard, with the cape attached. Over the weekend, we stopped by the 99 cent store for some wrist blades (of course, they weren't wrist blades when we bought them, some modification was necessary) and as a bonus they had some wrist gauntlets. I think his came out the best!!! He's the cosplay kid!!!

Pretty geeky this year, too!!!