costume phase 1.5

i found some more materials so phase 2 is being postponed.  i decided to buy all this stuff so that if my costume needs to undergo more than 1 iteration i have plenty of supplies.  

cardboard, foam, & random synthetics

the red things you see are vinyl placemats and there's a bag of polyfill just to the left. i got all this at thrift stores.  unfortunately a small can of spray adhesive set me back eight bucks.  as you can gather from the photo i have yet to begin construction.  borrowing an electric carving knife from my grandma this weekend.  why?  to shape the foam, duh.  i got that handy tip from an instructional video about how to make a giant angry human-sized sandwich costume.  no, i'm not planning on being a sandwich...per se.  but anyway, as i sketch and envision my costume i can't help but feel nervous that maybe i've gotten in over my head.  although i guess if i fail horribly i'll have enough foam to do something lame.  like a piece of bread.  or cheese.  

making of the halloween costume, stage 1

most of you know that i like to make my own costumes for halloween (see post from November 4, 2009)

my sewing skills are rudimentary at best, and i don't have a lot of craft supplies just laying around. but my ideas are usually pretty kick-ass and i'm very resourceful.  nevermind that my mom's a champion costumer and seamstress - i only ask her to help when it's absolutely essential...or just really convenient. unfortunately i'm also very frugal and don't like to spend too much on materials, which can be the kiss of death for a do-it-yourself project. it's not like i can't afford to drop some bills at michael's craft store and the home depot, but i get way more satisfaction out of creating something using repurposed materials that i can acquire very cheaply.  

last year i spent way too much money. the result was totally cool, and i even won a contest sponsored by my hair salon (bob steele at post riverside) and got a $100 gift card so it kinda evened out.  so to avoid unnecessary expenses i'm starting this year's project many weeks in advance. hopefully i have ample time to cruise the thrift stores for materials and borrow stuff from coworkers.

i will admit that my plan for this years costume is ambitious.  obviously i'm not gonna tell you what i'm going to be, but it involves the foam that you see below:

i scored this at a goodwill store.  it was originally an exercise mat. all i did was cut the plastic sheath off to reveal the prize inside.  i didn't know how expensive foam sheeting would be at a fabric store - figured it had to be *much* more than the $4 mat i bought - so i stopped by a fabric store on the way home, just to satisfy my curiosity. when i saw the price per yard i did a celebratory dance in the aisle and quickly left the store.

next phase: cardboard and spraypaint

confused by the tube flop

i usually visit www.whiskeymilitia.com throughout the day so i don't miss any killer deals on awesome gear/apparel.  i'm usually on the lookout for cute clothes or funky shades.  anyway, check out what they had earlier today:

the tube flop by sanuk

so then i had to visit sanuk's page - http://www.sanuk.com/tubeflop - and there's a video dedicated to this product:

i'm not even sure how i feel about these. the girls in the video look cute enough wearing them. i guess it solves the age-old question: how does one wear tube socks and sandals at the same time? what a world.

oh, and i didn't purchase these if you were wondering.

i know exactly what i did to deserve this, and it rhymes with "skylight."

yesterday andy sent an email to my friend & me.  have a look:

Here are those photos of that art you really liked, now you know exactly what to order to go above your bed. I know you love photos of babies!

...Just kidding! These were in one of the bathrooms at a medical clinic I visited in Arkansas for work. They are so stupid, I had to take photos for Anne.

ok before you call me soulless, i don't *hate* babies.  i just don't find this kind of thing to be that cute.  anne geddes work gives me nightmares.


i have a feeling this is part of an elaborate payback plan for making him watch all the twilight movies with me.  if so, i have a lot of crap coming my way.

weird shit in my condo

i've been in my current residence for over a year and a half.  there is an odd assortment of stuff that is occupying some cabinet/closet space.  some of it belongs to the owner who doesn't live here, some of it belongs to the owner's half brother who was my room mate for a while but now has a home with his lady friend, and some of it is probably left over from various room mates.  since i've got the place entirely to myself now, i'm slowly going through everything and making room for the rest of the crap that i'm stashing in mary ellen's attic.  

i have given away/donated/thrown out some items (aquarium supplies, old medicines, OLD food), but a few small things remain.  sadly, the worst and weirdest stuff is still here.  have a look:

an innocent metal canister.  what's inside?

oh.  OH.  ew.  and yes, i opened it.  it's exactly what you think.

i found this in the hvac closet when i had to clear the entire thing out due to a clogged ac drain.  wtf?

view from the back.  it's a stick.  hot glued to the case. no idea, folks.

i see this every day upon entering my condo.  it's so dumb. i kinda forget it's there since i never have to look at it for more than a second. you know what, i think i'll go take it down. *done.* 

my mom used to keep me on a leash

yesterday i went to the airport to meet my mom upon her return from san francisco. there were some little kids running back and forth in the arrivals area, they were running into stuff and rolling around on the ground, getting in other peoples way, and having a blast as you can see from the video.  before i shot this clip it took me a few minutes to pinpoint who was in charge of these little hellions - no one in the vicinity seemed to be watching them.  i'm not even sure what my point is.  perhaps i am a bit envious of the freedom parents give their children these days, because when i was that age my mom kept me on a leash.  really, she did.  it was pink and had a harness. 

where's the parent?


wait a second, i do know what my point is:  if you take young kids into a very busy public place you should probably watch them a little closer. at least make sure they don't hurt anybody (or themselves, i guess) or piss other people off. and when they are disruptive, you should apologize profusely for your negligent parenting. heh. those of you who are parents are probably shaking your heads in disapproval thinking, "oh yeah? you'll understand when *you* have kids." maybe so. but for now, i'll keep whistlin' the same tune. and ps, i don't even wanna join your secret club but thanks for the well-wishes (weeks, plz don't flame me in the comments section).

jim "ices" my brother

a bunch of us went to the beach last week. chad had two smirnoff ices in his cooler and we all know those are good for one thing and one thing only.  i can't remember whose idea it was to ice my brother, but seeing as though he was the one to introduce it to me, it seemed only fitting that i'd get him at his own game.

i only have photos of the setup:

it was jim's idea to make an elephant out of towels. we spent a few minutes watching instructional videos on youtube and after a few crappy elephants we ended up with a good one.

john & marissa got to the house later that evening and after chatting for a few minutes walked right into the trap.  i'm pissed i didn't get photos but he grabbed the ice and chugged it so fast i didn't even have time to reach for my camera. john iced jim later in the week with the one remaining smirnoff. he even waited until jim had gone to the grocery store, basically giving him a chance to defend himself.

if you haven't heard of "icing a bro," it appears that you're too late to check out the original website.  i didn't know what it was either until john told me about it several months ago.  go ahead and look it up on you tube.  but don't spend too much time looking at the videos - you'll never get that time back.

best caller ID ever

look who called the office today...

intriguing.

sexcellent!

so naturally i researched the number to see who had called.  bunch of others complained it was a debt relief scammer message and showed up on many caller ids as "wirelesscocktail".  i kinda like the way our office phones truncate the name.  and i'd like to thank my coworker amy for supplying this bit of material.

"If you drive by UGA campus with your windows down they'll just toss the diploma inside your car."

i offer you this video:


disregarding the content, this has got to be the most poorly made video i've seen. ever. everything sucks - the singing, the acting, the videography, the lighting, the audio, the cast, the words to the song...i could go on. and it's funny because someone probably worked very hard on this production. and i get it - you've got a "flip" video camera and a macbook, whoopidy-doo. i mean, you don't see me trying to change the oil in my car, bake fancy cakes, or mend my own clothes. why? because i suck at these things and the results would be embarassing. so, just because you CAN doesn't mean that you SHOULD.

but seriously, i do feel bad for the people i know who went to uga and actually have talent and...no, no, i can't even say it. hah!! uga sux.

nerdy awesomeness (or awesome nerdy-ness?)

something awesome courtesy of two software applications i use frequently at work - visualHub and handBrake:

popup i get when i cancel my video processing job (visualHub).  makes me laugh every time.

and this is the popup that displays when my video is finished processing using the handbrake app.

i didn't have a cocktail in my hand the first time i saw this message so i couldn't follow the instructions properly.  in preparation for my next encode, i made myself a cocktail, took it back to my desk, and then my boss caught me with it.  apparently i can't drink on the job.  huh.

anyway it's almost 4pm on a friday afternoon.  i think my work here is done.

aahl rec league

there were some people shooting video and taking photos at my last hockey game - i dug through the 80 photos that the guy put on facebook and i didn't make any of them.  i'm bummed because they were really good photos.  here are two good ones of andy:

  but i did make one of the video clips (i'm #15 in black)

it's weird seeing that play on video, because i could have sworn i was skating *way* faster than that.

this chick's got it all figured out

i've been meaning to post this video for a while but never got around to it mainly b/c i was dreading spending time editing it. it's from tlc's "toddlers & tiaras." the clip below is only about half of what i want to show you, but i think you'll be sufficiently annoyed to get my point:

yes, i watch this show.  it's chock-full of people who deserve ridicule, primarily obese, undereducated, backasswards country women with bad hairstyles who waste obscene amounts of money on chintzy dresses for three-year-olds.  unbelievable.

the soothing voice of lois reitzes

if i need a break from hearing ke$ha - um, never - or need to catch up on politics and world events, i turn the radio to 90.1fm, WABE (npr).  occasionally i catch the "second cup" program with lois reitzes (sounds like right-sis), and while i appreciate her clear diction and dedication to the classics, i can't stand the sound of her voice.  i feel kinda bad saying that, since she's mild-mannered and her words never offend me, but if you can only depend on one thing in this in this world, it should be that i will make fun of someone or something on this blog...

i've been meaning to give you a sound byte of her for a while but never got around to it until now:


and another clip




oh, lois. i refuse to believe that she speaks like that all the time. there's just no way.  i'm hoping this is just her on-air voice, and no one ever told her how ridiculous she sounds so she just keeps it up.

my 55-yr old mom can beat up your mom

last weekend - for the july 4 holiday - andy, my mom, & i went to nashville to visit my brother john, aka "chron," & his gf marissa.  john's an avid indoor rock climber and i figured that climbing would be a fun activity that we could all enjoy together regardless of how bad we sucked.  didn't know if my mom would want to climb, but once the manager at climb nashville gave her a free pass and got her into a harness i knew it was gonna be a balls-to-the-wall kind of day.  we practically had to drag her out of the place.

learning to belay a climber

Easy climbing

andy, me, mary ellen, john, & marissa

andy was pretty good, which i will mostly attribute to his long limbs more so than his strength.  i'm sure he'll tell you something different.  i half-way expected to go in there and dominate, since i usually kick ass at stuff like this, but i was not so good. was a little embarrassed at how exhausted i was after two slightly more challenging routes.

the random drunken injury

have you ever had an awesome party weekend full of booze and general tomfoolery and then a few days later you notice all these bruises and cuts on you, and it's surprising because you have very little memory of how they got there?  bueller?...bueller?  this happened to me last weekend and i am still finding signs of random drunken injury, or R.D.I. as i'm now going to call it.  i guess this sounds way more severe than it actually is, it's not like i gashed my head open or anything, but i have a killer bruise, it's like 6 inches long, behind my knee that hurt real bad until today.  i'm pretty sure brandon's got similar bruises since we were the ones attempting to board the pontoon boat from the front - while in the water - without the aid of a ladder (ladders, ha.  i shall use my brute strength to get on the boat!)  i'm also missing a small chunk of flesh from my knuckle- got no idea how that happened.  all i know is that one minute i'm floating along in the lake and the next i'm handing andy a beer and my finger's all bloody.  weird.  and then there was that time i jumped into the lake "knees first" not realizing how shallow...yeah, that one didn't end well.  anyone else have any good R.D.I. stories?   

andy gives kfc the middle finger

you've heard of kfc's double down:

mmmm...obesity.

now i present to you, the andy parsons triple play:

bacon, cheese, hamburger flanked by chickfila breakfast fillets.

this creation was made possible by naomi & brandon sparks. they both work at the chickfila corporate office and came through with the good stuff this weekend:

why is this stuff so effin' good? also, if you're wondering why brandon't shirt looks photoshopped, it's because i needed to cover up a particular offensive logo.

i'm a sucker for advertisements

sex sells

best day ever

i usually stay away from writing about work stuff, but this event is totally blogworthy. for those of you who don't already know, i participated in this american idol type contest at my office building and freakin' took everyone to school. won an iPad. i'm going to keep bragging about this, so if you're sick of hearing about it... too bad.

my entourage. it seems as though champ is having difficulty with his poster. and yes i spent way too much time making paper fans with my face on them.

lots of props.

we got bonus points for wearing green/sustainable clothing. those are recycling logos pinned to my pants. in less professional situations i would outfit myself in ridiculous materials, like aluminum foil or newspaper. but since i was at work, i figured i should stick to traditional items. like pants. and a shirt. i was expecting my competitors to go all-out, since some of them went bananas with the gingerbread house competition back in december, but no, these people made me look like frickin' captain planet.

randy, paul, & simon impersonators.

these guys did a great job and were way funnier than i expected them to be. simon was ruthless, although there was always a shred of truth in what he was saying (we were all given advance notice that simon was going to be mean as part of the act).

just call me ol' yarn hair

friday is the first game of the summer ice hockey rec league. i'm glad, because i'm getting sick of jogging at 6:30am just to stay in reasonable shape. andy & i are on the stars again, which is great because the captain (matt asher) always drafts people who are fun, sociable, and not a-holes. asher also likes chicks on his team - this season half the roster is female. i'm cool with that, because girls usually don't smell as bad as dudes. the team doesn't usually have a winning record. there are many conclusions you can draw from these facts, but let's not go there.

i always look forward to the draft, mainly so i can see if asher gave me a ridiculous nickname. here's the screen shot from last season, followed by this season:

so as you see, last season i was "yarn hair," i'm guessing because my name is anne, my boyfriend's name is andy, so we're like raggedy ann & andy...who both have yarn for hair? got it. and then watergirl: i always fill my water bottle with filtered water instead of cooler water and i don't like other people drinking out of my bottle. asher always brings a bunch of water bottles filled with grody water and i tend to complain about it. it's true.

i'm not joking about this

every now and then andy threatens to break up with me when i watch horrible tv shows or listen to shitty music. it's understandable, i guess, because most of the shows i watch are pretty dumb. once he said he was gonna break up with me if i kept watching paris hilton's my new bff among other shows, and i think he got pretty mad when i paid for a britney spears song on itunes (circus). he usually just says it to make a point about how he hates stupid chick shows and pop music. it's funny that he never jokes about breaking up with me over legitimate stuff, like me eating all the dibs and thin mints, because if someone came into my house and ate all my stuff i'd be pretty pissed off. i'd probably cry about it if i didn't live next door to the grocery store...

anyway, i guess andy's mellowed out lately because i just downloaded ke$ha's album - as in, PAID FOR - and he didn't seem to have a problem. yeah, he thinks i'm dumb, but i know that deep down inside he likes the songs. which brings me to my point - the album is pretty good. i almost don't believe that i'm saying that. there are some bad, bad songs on there with ridiculous lyrics, and i'm not even sure you can call a lot of it "singing," but even the bad songs are catchy as hell. one of my faves is "party at a rich dude's house." it's so dumb, but so awesome. if you like fun, mindless, party pop music and have 10 bucks to blow, download this album immediately. i've already gotten $10 of enjoyment out of it. don't hate me.