Kaymyth

I'm going to go with better in every way. But I love my dog. (She turns 14 in a little less than a month. I remember when she was a tiny puppy I could fit into my hands.)

Oh, man, the McAvoy/Stewart line killed me. From the wind-up of the Colossus fight, when that line hit, I was doubled over in my seat with breathless laughter, tears ebbing out from the corners of my eyes. Context for "Are you there.." It's a book written by a popular children's author that's a bit controversial because it deals with the subject of a girl who starts menstruating for the first time. So it's basically a blood joke.

Thank you! It's a strange, obsessive little hobby that eats many hours of work, but I enjoy making things.

She appreciates scritches. And people who fly the helicopter for her. (You wouldn't believe how many remote control helicopters that dog has gone through.) She'll sometimes clamor for James to pick her up, she just doesn't like being squished. But she's a very friendly dachshund; not snappish at all (except under extreme duress). We're fairly certain, though, that she has the soul of a cat, partly because she's not fond of other dogs. She'll tolerate their presence, but once the initial frenzied barking is over, she'd just as soon not interact with them. In all honesty, once you've figured out how to put scale mail together properly, it's really hard to make it look bad.

D'awww. (If it helps, she doesn't particularly liked to be hugged. It makes her nervous. She squirms.) ETA: I also updated my cosplay thread with new pictures.

Now, really. They're giant mutant crab things. Who wouldn't want to chomp on that sort of deliciousness?

Well, then, there we go. OK, fellow nerds! I am about to show you something you never thought you'd see: Princess Leia in the Enterprise captain's chair!

I think it's generally considered a bad idea to put metal in the microwave.

Work in Progress: my armored D&D-esque Jean Grey costume. The front part of the scalemail as soon as the Phoenix emblem was complete: The scale is all aluminum. It's much lighter and easier to work than steel, and is available in anodized colors. And sewing the completed piece onto the corset: To the top of the corset will be gold scale that goes up over my chest and shoulders, securing at my back. I also have a piece of green scale to cover the corset lacings. There will also be scale pieces hanging down from the corset to cover my hips and rear, but loose enough that they can be moved out of the way when I sit. Comfort is important when one is planning on wearing this stuff all day at a convention. And the piece I just finished, the scale pieces of the gauntlets. These will eventually be attached to green faux leather strips with grommets in them to secure onto my arms, and probably some chainmail covering the elbows. So the next steps are going to be to start working with the faux leather. I need to do upper and lower leg armor pieces, as well as pauldrons to cover my shoulders and upper arms. I'm planning to back the pieces with craft foam to give them the appearance of thickness and strength without adding too much weight. Current completion goal: ready for a dry run at JordanCon, then make any adjustments needed before taking it into competition at Costume Con.

No official urban legends, but once you get me on the phone I can tell you some stories about the ghosts that populated one of my old college campuses. And, er, considerably more and weirder stuff than that if you want.

Indeed; mapping one's latitudinal degrees in relation to the equator first requires knowing where the equator is. Modern Scadrians just haven't explored far enough to get a real idea of the general geography of the planet. I mean, check the scale of the map - their known world, including the Elendel Basin and the explored areas of the Roughs, is altogether about the size of Texas. Texas. I mean, Texas is big, but it ain't THAT big.

I'm actually old enough to be your mother.

YOU feel old? That game is recent adulthood. Heh. I used to have that problem. Now that I'm in my late 30s, people think I'm in my 20s. Once you get past the 30 mark, this whole looking a decade younger than you are deal gets pretty sweet.

I'm making a note here: huge success.

That actually gave me the shivers.

Always happy to stomp on some brain weasels for a friend.

Probably because Lord Harms is embarrassed that his illegitimate daughter is the one with Allomancy, and almost certainly had Steris tested on every metal just to be absolutely sure.

The spren of Wayne has been turned to darkness! There is no hope for us now! *swoons dramatically onto a strategically-placed chaise*

BETRAYAL When did you join the Dark Alley?

You get an entire army of dead Grail-seekers. *inserts the Holy Hand Grenade of Antioch*

To a fellow person at Redacted, Inc: When, on a conference call, someone asks a question, they do not want to hear you going on and on about what a good question it is, and how it makes sense that they'd want to know the answer to that question. What they do want is for someone to answer the rusting question. Which I did. After having to break into you blathering on about the qualities of said question. I also had the opportunity to get a bit snarky yesterday. See, our former team lead shifted over to a different division, and eventually I wound up replacing him as lead. Except when I moved into the position, they bumped it up to full supervisor level (which we really needed). Former team lead came over yesterday and started asking one of my reps questions. Which was fine; they were reasonable questions to ask. What was not reasonable was when he started trying to tell her that she was doing her job wrong. (She wasn't, but that was beside the point; if he had an issue with that, he should have come to me, not her, or our team's manager.) She rightfully pushed him off, telling him, "Go talk to my supervisor." And I popped up and said, "Hi, <formerlead!" So he comes over around the cube farm to talk to me, and (loud enough for everyone to hear) only half-jokingly said, "How do you deal with these yahoos all day?" Now, I know this guy pretty well. He's a friend, but can be pushy and annoying and he knows it. He also has a pretty good sense of humor, and is actually going to respect you more if you're willing to give him crap. So I knew that I could get away with my response: "Much more delicately than you ever did." There were a lot of "ooooohs!" that rang up the aisle, and my manager thought it was the funniest thing she'd heard all day. ETA for Twi:

You get a pair of suspenders. *inserts a hairtie wrapped around a USB drive*

Don't try to make sense out of it. There are a LOT of ranks in there.

D'awww. Somebody needs a hug.

I think a lot of it comes from the fact that most of the people I meet who learn English as a second language come from Romance language backgrounds (usually Spanish). English is such a hot mess in comparison to Spanish/Italian/French/Portuguese. We have more irregular verbs than regular ones. Our spelling is all over the map. And I'm crap when it comes to the building blocks of grammatical structure. (Hilarious, coming from a writer, but I couldn't diagram a sentence to save my life.) English: the language that lurks on dark street corners, accosting and beating up other languages, then rifling through their pockets for loose vocabulary.