Tali Props: Behind the Scenes

Chris posted his Tali props video so here it is, as promised!

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Garrus: The Making Of

Chris posted his making-of-video a few days ago. He's made some minor improvements to Garrus, primarily in the comfort of his shoes.

I made a cleaner set of Tali belt buckles, which sadly didn't make it into any decent full body picture shots from Halloween so I'll post them on their own. I also tried to improve the shape of my boots by caving in the calf portion to try and streamline them a bit more. Not so sure I was totally successful.



I'll post Chris' Tali props video when he has it up.

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Halloween Costume #2: Ninjette

Happy Halloween!

I've been reading Adam Warren's Empowered comic series and two weeks before Halloween, decided to make the costume for Empowered's best gal pal, Ninjette.



She's a beer-drinking ninja princess from New Jersey, hiding out from her clan. Aside from the beer drinking and actual ninja skills, I thought it would be a straight-forward costume for me to make and wear in two weeks.



It turns out that I only had one week to actually complete the costume since work sent me to China the week before Halloween. Compared to my Tali costume, Ninjette was almost a sleepwalk. The patterns were based off of a mish-mash of various pieces of clothing I owned. I did have to make my shorts twice because I assumed a stretch factor on the stretch vinyl that wasn't quite true. Thankfully, I was only off by a seam allowance width. I used the same kind of fabric paint for Tali's hexagons to make the Ninjette logo.

The arm and leg wraps were just long strips of the stretch vinyl. After this photo shoot, I ended up getting some black gloves and thigh-high socks to put on underneath the wraps so that when they slipped, it wouldn't look so obvious. There's still some refinement to do with that process, but when I went out to the club, I carried black electric tape for emergency repairs. I wore black toe shoes (not shown here) to complete the outfit.

The long ponytail is not mine, it's a wig from the Halloween store. I bought some nail polish pens and painted my nails while I was hanging out and waiting during my China trip.


I'm a bit bummed I ended up assembling the necklace in reverse order. But the comic rearranges the order frequently enough that maybe it's not that big a deal (except to my sense of detail). I also should have taken some darting into account for my halter top, but I didn't have time to adjust it. It still works but isn't as correctly fitted as I would like.

While Tali was showcased at work during the day Friday, I ended up wearing Ninjette to both parties we went to for Halloween. No costume contest for me. I figured anyone who didn't recognize the Ninjette character would just assume I'm wearing a generic ninja girl costume which isn't remarkable enough to warrant a stage performance. It was still a fun costume to make and wear. I especially liked the fact that 1) I could see clearly, 2) I wore the most comfy shoes I remember wearing for a costume and 3) I could dance.

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Post PAX + Press

We're back from PAX and still absorbing all the awesomeness of the experience. Friday was our Normandy crew day when we got a taste of traffic-stopping fame. We didn't get to the convention center until 4pm after getting ourselves outfitted up. We deliberately got a late start to the day because Chris and I didn't know how long we would last in our costumes and we knew we wanted to catch up with fellow Mass Effect cosplayer and awesome all-around girl, Holly Conrad at her evening PAX panel, From CG to Reality.

Little did we realize that as soon as we rounded the corner towards the last two blocks on the approach to PAX that our progress would be severely impeded by picture posing. Every few feet or so, we would be stopped by people wanting to take pictures of us or with us. Luckily, it was pretty easy to just ask the people asking for our pictures where Holly was and where the Bioware booth was. It just took a really long time to get there. We could only really move forward when security would tell us that we would need to keep moving to prevent blocking up the aisles. Then we would move another few steps and start it all over again.

The picture above was taken at the Bioware booth. We were a bit anachronistic standing in front of a huge poster of their fantasy game rather than Mass Effect, but we were loved up with flash photography all the same.

I didn't actually see much of PAX until Saturday when I had no helmet on my head. Chris switched to his Daft Punk (below) costume where he was wearing a helmet. He got stopped for plenty of pictures and interviews but we could still walk around and see the booths we wanted to see.


We're still looking for pictures and Chris' aforementioned interviews so if anyone's got links, please let me know!


Now for the pictures that we did find. I think my favorite mention of us came from Joystiq.com where they used our picture to lead the article and wrote that we were "quite possibly the best Tali and Garrus we've ever seen". Yay us!

We were included in Kotaku's gallery (picture 17).

Game Informer also had us in their gallery of PAX

About 56s into this video Daft Punk makes an appearance.

And then a random video where I desperately dodge the camera.


Saturday night, we had a blast attending the Paul and Storm and Jonathan Coulton concert. On Sunday we unexpectedly ran into them at their merchandise booth so I got Jonathan Coulton to sign my pass.

We had so much fun! I have some repairs to make on the costume and perhaps some redesign, but I'll give myself a week or so of down time before I tackle those so long as they're in time for Halloween.

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Full Mass Effect

Did a full dress rehearsal yesterday and recruited our friends Kati and Eric as our photographers. I jammed out some pretty late nights this past week trying to get all the accessories I needed, but failed to get the boot knife in before our photo shoot.


Of course, there's lights on everyone's costumes and we had to defend a dark lab from danger just to see it.



I have some fixes to do to the various attachments: hood keeps falling off from the wind, my leg and arm bands don't stay where I want them to. Nothing a liberal use of velcro can't fix. Chris and Lee have various cracks in their armor that needs patching up, but overall I think we're ready to hit the road with this Normandy crew.

I'll leave you with some photoshopping in honor of the Penny Arcade Expo we're going to. The original comic was from Penny Arcade.

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Head, Hand, Legs and Feet

Shepard first: Lee is almost done with his costume. Had a mild setback on schedule due to some mysterious illness, but he's feeling better now (and playing Borderlands) so he'll be back to finishing up the arm stripe tomorrow. His costume saga hasn't changed from the dremel and paint routine for a bit, but the details are really coming out nicely.




Chris is a genius. He finished my Tali helmet and the Omni-tool. It looks like I'm wearing a hologram in that shot. The helmet is the aforementioned vacuum-formed dome with purple tint and Nite Shades black spray to pull it darker. The frame is made of some more bent plastic (PET-G), EVA foam. We put a brimless baseball cap inside so that I can actually wear the thing. He's also built in a voice-activated mouth light and some UV LEDs in the hopes that the UV contacts I bought will glow inside the helmet.

The Omni-tool is a thing of beauty made of the same plastic, some mylar sheeting, rivets, bits of a keyboard's circuitry pattern and a bunch of tiny amber LEDs meticulously wired together.

Lest it sound like I'm not doing any work on my own costume, I've finished my Tali jacket and hood with the exception of a couple of snaps to attach the body scarves to my leg bands and belt attachment points. And the thing the holds my hood closed. The Tali boots above are made of shoes (they're in there, I promise) that aren't terribly comfortable, some upholstery foam to shape the toes, black Duck tape, and EVA foam. Ahh foam, is there anything you can't do?

I'm almost done with sewing. Just some gloves and a neck bib for the hood I'm wearing under the helmet. Then it's belts, arm packs and boot knife.

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Tali Helmet

Chris is making my helmet since he's got bandwidth, being finished with his Garrus costume and all. I made a model of what would fit around my head in Tali helmet fashion out of armature wire, wire mesh and a couple layers of duct tape on the outside. Then he filled it in with three layers of plaster, two on the inside, one on the outside and sanded the heck out of the outside to smooth it. Naturally, that required some Bondo to fill in a gaping chasm of an air bubble and we ended up with a Rorschach-looking helmet model.



Took some PETG plastic, vacuum-formed six or so helmet candidates, one of which will be the lucky recipient of paint, sanding, painted helmet frame, and overall Tali awesomeness. The picture below actually has the clear plastic over the mold, but it's a bit hard to see.



I keep forgetting to take a picture of the more finished version of the helmet at work, but I'll update that as soon as I remember. As for me, I'm working on my Tali legs. I have my squishy foam Tali toes and tonight will hopefully be making my boots.

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Shepard Armor Update

Lee has all of his main armor pieces formed and is moving onto detail work. The picture above is before doing some size adjustments and strapping everything together.

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Musical Intermission: Yoshida Brothers

Took a break from costuming (only mostly) yesterday to go see the Yoshida Brothers, a shamisen playing duo at Yoshi's jazz club in San Francisco. I found them by stumbling on this Youtube video some time ago. Then I heard that they were playing this week and figured they were worth seeing after listening to some of their other songs. They have some surprising influences in their songs, including blues and rock, for an instrument that sounds very traditionally Japanese. My current favorite songs of theirs are Storm (the song in the video above), Kodo, Rising and Indigo.

I'd never been to Yoshi's in SF before. The performance area was intimate and people were crammed in at small cocktail tables on several tiers. The sign outside said it can hold maybe 400 people, but it felt smaller than that. Last night, the brothers were accompanied by a really good drummer using a wide variety of percussion instruments from snares and cymbals to bongos and what looked like a set of chimes. Clearly they'd been working with him before because their point-counterpoint exchanges sounded dead on even with their complex syncopation. Everything in the performance seemed very exacting, even down to the timing and shape of the lighting that went with the music. Watching them play, their fingers flying over the three strings, made my fingers hurt. Afterwards, they were available for CD signing so we added their Best of CD to our collection.

I have a feeling I'll be sewing to the sounds of shamisen in the next couple of weeks.

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Garrus Complete

Chris did a full costume test over the weekend and I was there to take the pictures. Needed to take video to show off his armor and gun lighting. Very stealthy for a sniper. Or not.

Clearly I've got some work to do to measure up to this level of workmanship.

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Tali Bodysuit Evolution

From right to left, Tali's bodysuit evolved from paper tracing pattern, to practice suit (aka Christmas Tali) #1 which received hexagon treatment and ripped apart again, practice suit #2 with improved fit and finally the actual Tali bodysuit.

This isn't my first bodysuit project. This was:


There were improvements I wanted to make from the Harley bodysuit (better fit through the butt/crotch area) and obviously I needed to change up the fabrics and fabric division to become Tali'Zorah.



I've already previewed the hexagons painted on matte stretch vinyl fabric. I found the other fabric at my local fabric store for her hood/jacket.

Things I learned about the Tali bodysuit:
- Stretch vinyl has a high spring force. Its stretch characteristic is similar to the red Harley fabric from a pure length dimension but the amount of force it takes to get it to stretch the same amount is easily quadrupled. As a result, getting the suit on up to my knees requires some warm ups and calisthenics in addition to taking a break between each leg for endurance. I will be adjusting the assumed stretch for the jacket sleeves accordingly.
- The master pattern is drawn for the whole bodysuit. I subdivided for the fabric on the same master and traced off of it for each fabric type. Having the master pattern intact allowed me to adjust the pattern without having to recreate it every time.
- The seam allowance edges on each fabric creates a huge mismatch between edge lengths particularly through the U shapes on the legs and back. This made the U shapes very fiddly to sew. Thankfully both fabrics are stretchy and accommodated the mismatch.
- The zipper is only attached to one type of fabric instead of bridging the gap to both. This let me install the zipper onto the lycra fabric before attaching the whole assembly to the vinyl. Once I was working with the hexagoned vinyl fabric, I wanted do that attachment only once because any seam ripping on the stretch vinyl would show the holes made by the sewing needle. It came in handy because I did manage to mess up the zipper attachment the first time around.

Things I like about the Tali bodysuit:
- I'm happy with the fit through butt/crotch region. I even made sure to match up the hexagon across the seam. The saddle design seems to help with this fit. I used a pair of bike pants to model the flat pattern shape for it.
- The pre-work with the hexagon test suit paid off. The hexagons are largely vertical even through the back curvy bits.

Things I don't like about the Tali bodysuit:
- I messed up the zipper fit through my upper back. I think it's because the pattern was originally designed to include sleeves which would provide tension across the upper back and not allow it to bunch up. I've rationalized this away because that portion should be hidden underneath the Tali jacket. (And I'm not doing the hexagon fabric again)
- I messed up on the collar. Again, this should be hidden underneath the Tali jacket so I'm not going to fix it.

On to the Tali jacket + hood.

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Hexagons, EVA Foam and Garrus

Mass Effect 2 costuming update:



Matte 4-way stretch vinyl with painted hexagons for Tali's bodysuit. It was really hard to find a fabric with elongated hexagons so I decided to paint them on myself thinking that a pattern of hexagons with a stencil shouldn't be too bad especially if I cut the fabric first before adding the pattern. Turns out, the pattern isn't too regular due to the fit especially on the backside. The full pattern ended up being drawn 3 times: once on the test suit, once in chalk on the vinyl, and again in paint. Take a guess on how many hexagons there are (partial hexagons count).


Lee is building his armor out of EVA foam, the same stuff used for padded flooring in some gyms and garages. Luckily for him, someone else has been building very impressive male and female version of Commander Shepard armor.






Chris is mostly done with his costume. He's even got Garrus' sniper rifle done. I can't do justice to his process. Roughly, it involves armature wire, wire mesh, upholstery foam, carbon fiber upholstery fabric, fiberglass bonding resin, Mod Podge, plaster, craft foam, a lot of sanding, painting and offensive amounts of hot glue (his words). He's got a lot more pictures on his Flickr page.

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Costume Escalation

This year is the earliest I've started a Halloween costume. I blame Chris. He wanted to start on a project last month and figured an elaborate Halloween costume would be just the thing to work on. So we decided we'll be characters from Bioware's video game, Mass Effect 2 for the Xbox 360 and PC.



I'll be Tali'Zorah vas Normandy (on the left) and Lee will be Commander Shepard (on the right).



Chris will be Garrus Vakarian.

To take it up yet another notch, I decided that Halloween is too far away for such awesome costumes. We'll be going to PAX (Penny Arcade Expo) over labor day weekend and debuting our Normandy squad there. I thought I had three more months and through my own fault, I have one. Yay me.

I'll post updates on this over the next month. I have to go draw some hexagons on stretch vinyl fabric now.

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High Heel Peace

I hate wearing high heels. I don't care that I'm short and could use the extra height. They're uncomfortable, unstable and unhealthy. Research has shown that high heels can contribute to the development of chronic knee pain, sprained ankles and back problems. It's a conspiracy of fashion to sacrifice women's health for the sake of beauty. I'll never be a fashion plate because given the choice, I'll pick comfort and health over looks. However, when it comes to wearing dresses for evening wear, I don't have much choice in shoes. But to my shock, I've just discovered one very specific case where wearing high heels may help me more than hurt me.


Last night we went salsa dancing for the first time in four years or so. We stopped because it was frustrating for Lee and painful for my ankles. Ever since I pulled my Achilles tendon playing ultimate frisbee, my puny little ankles have never been the same. If I don't have healthy ankles, knees, legs then I can't go to karate practice which would make me grumpy. In fact, I've had to curtail all dancing except for special occasions because of ankle trouble.

A couple of weeks ago, my friend Maria suggested we go salsa dancing. I figured that it had been a while since I went dancing and agreed. But I didn't have decent dance shoes. The pair I have is sufficiently low-heeled but gives me blisters and is more suitable for swing fashion than salsa fashion. So I ordered a pair with 2.5 inch heels that the internet reviews claimed was very comfortable provided you ordered a size up (which I did).

Imagine my surprise when I tested them out in my living room to find that they were quite comfortable to dance in. I had to stay on my toes because putting weight back on my heels was a guaranteed wobble. The cool thing was that because of the heels, I was taking more of the physical strain in my calves - a much bigger, stronger part of my body than my ankles. I figured out that the higher heel prevented me from flexing my foot on a backwards step to the degree that my ankles don't like.

The true test was the actual salsa club. After five hours at the club, the part of me that was sore were my toes, not my ankles, not even my calves. For a night of salsa dancing, I consider that a success of health and I attribute it largely to my new dance shoes. It remains to be seen whether we do more salsa dancing, but I think I may be back in the game if we do, thanks to high heeled shoes.

I still hate high heels for most other applications, but in salsa dancing I don't think I'll wear any other kind.

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Sonja the Wresting Chipmunk

Yay! Speech 10 is over and I've got a shiny certificate and commemorative pin from Toastmasters declaring that I'm a Competent Communicator. Whew. It's so nice to be competent at something. The guest event I dreaded so much went well. We had 10 guests and free lunch. I was presented not only with my Competent Communicator pin but also a fancy certificate for winning our club speech contest back in February.

As for the speech, I ended up with three or four half-hearted drafts. Of the ten speeches I've done, this was the hardest to write. The previous drafts followed the typical commencement/motivational speech format that I gleaned from watching a bunch of commencement speeches on Youtube from famous people like Oprah Winfrey, Steve Jobs, J.K. Rowling and Obama. As I tried to fill out the format, picking the concepts I wanted to talk about it and fleshing them out, I realized I was bored. I still liked the concepts I picked out, but for some reason I wasn't compelled to deliver the speech I had written. And if I'm not interested in what I'm saying, then I can't possibly expect anyone else to be interested in listening.

In such a time of distress, I turned to whimsy. Once I aimed for whimsy, the words flew out of my pen faster than I could legibly write. I wrote a story with the same title as this blog post. I learned that having to deliver a story within 10 minutes forces me into a very spare economy of words. It's always a useful writing skill to practice and one that I don't always do so rigorously. I found out that memorizing a story is far easier my regular three point speech. Because the plot naturally leads from one event to the next, it only took me two tries to fully deliver the speech without having to refer to notes. Strangely enough, I had more trouble memorizing the song lyrics I used than the entirety of the rest of the speech. It's also much easier to endure dramatic pauses during the delivery when they're built into the narrative. At any rate, I'm glad to be on the other side of that speech. I'm looking forward to taking a break from speechifying for a little while. Oh yeah, read more to get the speech as prepared.



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The first thing that came to mind when I thought about writing an inspirational speech was to take stock of speeches that could be inspirational: sermons, commencement speeches, motivational speeches, halftime locker room talks. I don’t know the first thing about giving those kinds of speeches. But I do know a tiny bit about stories. I write fiction primarily for my own amusement. This is a story I wrote this past weekend hopefully for your amusement, if not inspiration.

Once upon a time, there was a chipmunk named Sonja. Sonja was on the verge of fulfilling her life's dream of becoming the youngest champion in the Worldwide Treetop Wrestling Federation's most elite competition, the Pinnacle Cup Challenge. She had been training for the last six years since the Pinnacle Cup Challenge was last held. Her every waking moment was either thinking, eating, drinking, or moving to conquer the rigors of the sport. She hadn’t lost a single match or competition since that fateful day six years ago when her older sister tragically won the Pinnacle Cup Challenge only to be struck by lighting in her moment of triumph. She was determined to give her parents and the memory of her sister, the champion she felt they deserved.

As her final match started, she threw the entirety of her skills, strategy and ability against her formidable opponent. The battle up the tree was fierce as they clashed and collided, trying to drag the other down. She was blind to anything else but the task at hand until she saw the prize acorn at the top of the tree. In one final lunge, she reached out her paw to claim her victory. But to her horror, it was another paw, not her own, that snagged it. The unthinkable had happened. She had lost.

Sonja didn't know how she got through the next few days, the endless parade of awkward reassurances and sheepish smiles meant to assuage her pain. She retreated from the world, from her family and friends and sought solace at a fermented fruit bar on the seedy side of the forest where no one recognized her.

After months of seething solitude, she was annoyed to find one day that some old chipmunk was claiming the seat beside her.
“Go away, old ‘munk,” she croaked irritably, barely glancing up. “Can't you see there's plenty of seats not near me?”
He chuckled and claimed the seat anyway, “I can't see anything at all, young one. But since I'm already seated, I think I'll just stay here.” He made a great show of settling himself in the chair, during which Sonja had decided scoot one more chair over, when he interrupted her, “Seems you’ve got a burr in your tail you need to get out before it festers.”

“That’s none of your business old ‘munk,” she snapped and defiantly sat back down. “You wouldn’t understand anyway.”
“And that's because I'm old and blind and never been young like you?”

“No, that's because you were never destined to be a champion only to commit the biggest failure ever on the biggest stage of your life. All my hard work wasted! I failed my parents, I failed my sister, I failed all those people who expected me to win! Now I'm nothing! That was all I ever knew and all I ever could be and it's all gone!” She became acutely aware of the silence in the bar after her outburst as every chipmunk in the room held their collective breaths.

“So?” He shrugged. “You’re still alive aren't you?”

His deliberate indifference to her plight infuriated her. She lunged towards him. “Maybe I should be dead! I wouldn't have to deal with you or anyone else expecting anything from me anymore.” She took a deep breath to continue but he interrupted her.

“That's not what I meant. You’re still alive. You have survived the biggest mistake of your life. You have a chance to do something now. You can choose to stay here, wallow in what's already happened and never move on. Or you could pick yourself up, learn from it and do something that moves you forward again.”

With a frustrated cry, Sonja hurled herself out of the door, not caring who got in her way and ran.

She raged as she ran, seeking to outrun his words and her own despair. She scrabbled and dodged through the tree trunks and branches but still those thoughts were there, images of her sister’s face in triumph, her parents’ disappointed looks. It was only in exhaustion that she stopped, her lungs fighting for air. Many long moments later, when her sobbing had subsided, she took one long clean breath, her chest unconstricted, unrestrained. It felt like relief. It felt like freedom. It was then that she realized that the old chipmunk was right. Her entire world had blown up in one huge, irretrievable mistake and she lived to tell the tale. She took another deep breath and imagined a brighter cast to her future. In her mind's eye, she saw what she imagined as pain and disappointment in her parents’ eyes and transformed it into love and concern. A song came to her mind then, written by her friend Jonathan Coulton:

“Enjoy yourself, do the things that matter
Cause there isn’t time and space to do it all
Love the things you try, drink a cocktail wear a tie
Show a little grace if you should fall

Don’t live another day unless you make it count
There’s someone else that you’re supposed to be
There’s something deep inside of you that still wants out
And shame on you if you don’t set it free. “

For the first time in months, a genuine smile crept onto her face as she looked to find her way home. She was looking forward to meeting that other person she was supposed to be.

The moral of the story is, whether you’ve just lost the treetop wrestling championship or you’ve lost something bigger, don't be afraid of mistakes. You can learn so much more about your own strengths and capabilities with failure than with any success.

The End.

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Speeches and Geeks

I'm supposed to be writing my Toastmaster Speech 10 right now. I'm supposed to be writing an inspiring speech.

Instead, I'm procrastinating. The video above has absolutely nothing to do with writing a speech other than the fact that I'm listening to it. The musician is Jonathan Coulton and I'm working my way through his discography instead of being inspiring. I especially like The Future Soon and his cover of Baby Got Back. It's fun, entertaining music which makes it perfect for my current purpose.

Anyway, about speech-writing: I'm not so secretly* resenting that my club has arranged a recruiting event around my 10th speech completing my Competent Communicator manual. (*At least not secretly to my friends who have been hearing me rant and whine about it for the last week. Sorry guys. It'll be over by 1pm on Thursday.) My friend, Chris pointed out to me that it's what I get for being good at speechifying. I'm not so sure about that, but since he's a far better public speaker than I am and a tough critic to boot, I suppose I should take it as a compliment. It just ratchets up the expectation that I give a fantastic speech. Which amounts to guaranteed writer's block.

Ooh, now it's time for karate practice. Maybe I'll come up with something brilliant for the speech when I get kicked in the head.

PS: Nope, no brilliant ideas, but I think that's because I got kicked in the hand rather than the head. I should aim better next time.

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It's a Hat Trick!

Today was our dojo's annual tournament. Ever since I got my purple belt, I've been expected to compete in the kumite (sparring) portion of the tournament. Just like the previous year, I approached the prospect with dread. I don't think today's results will change that, but I can be happy with my performance at least. I competed in individual kata (forms), team kata, and individual kumite. I won first place in all three events. Yay!

It'll probably never happen again.

It probably also helped that I was record keeping at one of the rings (we had three competition areas going at once to get through all of them in a timely manner) up until minutes before I had to compete in individual kata, then team kata, then kumite in rapid succession. I didn't have time to get nervous or overthink the sparring part. Although I did have a moment of panic just before individual kata where I blanked on the first couple of moves. Thankfully I didn't go first.

Afterwards, I could watch the black belts in their competition which is my favorite part. 1) I don't have to compete and 2), I get to watch people at a higher level of ability do it better.

Now, I can relax knowing that the next tournament is a whole year away.

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On the Eve of Madness

It's time for me to obsess on college basketball for my favorite time of the sports year: March Madness.

I'm only a mediocre basketball fan. I like basketball because of the fast pace of the scoring, but I only watch college basketball and I only really pay attention during March. There's always something dramatic about a 64 team, single elimination tournament. Unlike the NBA, I can keep track of which player is playing on which team. And each team has a particular identity and history. Because of the single elimination format, every game counts and the players treat it as such. I've even teared up during the 'One Shining Moment' segment CBS always puts together at the end of the Madness. It's cheesy, but I love it.

For full disclosure, I'm a Maryland Terrapins fan, I'll cheer for Cal and anyone playing against Duke. Last year I was entertained by the matchup between Cal and Maryland in the first round. Happily, Maryland won.

This year, Maryland is ranked 4th in the Midwest bracket. Sadly, I have them losing to my eventual winner, Kansas. Cal is up against Louisville in the first round but I don't have them getting past Duke. Just to spite Duke, I don't have them in my Final Four. They're overrated more often than not and this year is no exception. Muahahaha!

I much prefer being able to compare my picks against other people's, but I'll fill out a bracket regardless just so I can root for someone. Watching the games is more exciting that way.

Tomorrow is only a day away!

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My Very First Toast Contest

Technically, I participated in a speech contest in 3rd grade for the 4H Club. It consisted of my reading aloud a report I had written about visiting Fort McHenry in Maryland where the Star Spangled Banner was written. Yes, I still remember that. I got a blue ribbon for it and everything.

Despite that illustrious beginning, I have not tried my hand at a speech contest again until recently when my Toastmasters club held one in preparation for the area contest and on up. I won our club level contest and came in dead last in the area contest. Whee!

The competitor in me is quite bummed at my standing in the area contest. In my estimation, I totally should have won 2nd place (there were only 3 speakers in the area contest). On the other hand, I'm relieved since I don't advance to the next level contest. Some other feel-good rationalizations include:
- It's good for me that I didn't win anything because it only gives me an incentive to improve for the next time.
- It was a great learning experience to get out and deliver a speech to an audience largely unfamiliar to me rather than the more comfortable and familiar audience at my home club.
- Because it was an unfamiliar setting, I was more nervous and didn't give the best speech performance I could.

Done with whining now. Here's the text of the speech I used for the contests. It was a Project 4 speech in the manual which is meant to train the speaker to communicate ideas clearly, accurately and vividly.

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My earliest memory of water was in the Philippines. I was about 5. I had gone with my grandparents to a northern island where my grandfather grew up to get some beach time. The waves weren't particularly vigorous where we were and the tide was out, leaving a vast stretch of shallow water I could skip through to my hearts content. I skipped to make the biggest splashes possible. I chased some fish through the water until I found myself standing on a small bump in the sand. I stared at the horizon, trying to guess how far away it was when a larger undulation of water took away my sand stool. I remember flailing my hands and feet to keep my head above water. I remember watching my feet and thinking that they looked both very close to me and far away from the yellow sand beneath me. I remember the wind that brought the scent of watery salt to my nose. Most of all I remember not being at all worried that I didn’t know how to swim. I don't know how many moments later when I found solid purchase beneath my feet again in the form of my uncle who had come to bring me in for lunch.

Looking back, I have to marvel at a situation where I had no idea what I was doing and I was completely calm and serene. These days, the very prospect of putting myself into an environment of cluelessness sets my pulse soaring. How do I go back there? How do I regain that state of being? I think I may have found a clue to that.

A few years ago, my husband and I were vacationing in Curacao and decided to get scuba certified. I had only been snorkeling before and even then I stuck pretty closely to the surface where I had easy access to breathing. But the water was warm, the hotel we were staying had beach access to a coral reef. I didn’t have anything more specific planned than lying around the beach anyway, so it seemed like a good idea. After filling out paperwork and watching a few videos, we met our instructor, Shani who outfitted us with the gear necessary to go underwater. Between the four-armed hoses, the weight belt, the buoyancy control device jacket and the air tank, the short trek to the water was a trudge in sand. Once we were submerged, the water took most of the weight. And then we dove.
In water, I fall more slowly. I remember looking up as the surface retreated from my reach and having a moment of anxiety. It was too far away - I would never be able to reach it without air. But I concentrated on breathing steadily, clenching my teeth around the mouthpiece. The steady stream of bubbles going past my head was very loud in the muffled quiet of underwater. As we sank, color washed into shades of blue. It grew colder too. I looked down at the sand below me, at the flounder that matches the sand except for its little beady dome eyes that look slightly cross-eyed. We practiced skills at depth before we could go exploring. Each skill was a variation of what to do if something went wrong - I lose my mouthpiece, I lose my mask, I run out of air. Let’s just say it's not the most relaxing exercise of the vacation.
As Shani was testing my husband on some skill, I watched a large school of deep blue angelfish flow past me heading towards the deeps. Then I caught sight of them. Their sleek, curved forms were clustered near the surface and about forty feet from me. Their clicks and squeaks echoed through the blue as they bantered with each other. “Dolphins!” I wanted to squeal my excitement at my scuba crew but I would only swallow salt water if I tried. Instead I flailed at them and pointed towards the school. All three of us were motionless. I forgot to worry about breathing. I forgot to worry about how far away the surface was. I forgot to worry about whether or not I was learning the skills properly. I merely hovered above the ocean floor, marveling at the real live nature show happening before my very senses unfiltered by the television screen.

And that, I think is the secret. In that moment of wonder, that joy I stopped caring about the things that could go wrong. I was still as clueless about the environment I found myself in. The difference was the wonder. If I can find that with any unfamiliar situation, whether it's scuba diving or public speaking, I can return to that serenity. And that's how I learned how to embrace my inner fish.

Thank you.

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Mastering Toast

I decided long ago that the best toast was on the light side, with a minimal browning and warm enough to melt the peanut butter on top of it smooth. I've even branched out to english muffins. I think I've mastered that kind of toast.

The other kind of toast - the public speaking kind - is beyond me. When a Toastmasters group started up at work, I was intrigued. It was scheduled to meet during lunch once a week and very conveniently accessible. I posted a Facebook status indicating that I was interested but intimidated and every single post in response was in favor. I rarely see that kind of unanimity especially on the internet. In honor of such an anomaly, I signed up as a charter member.

Thus begins a tale of heart-pounding anxiety, near death experiences and a lot of words. Spoken out loud. In front of people. People with laser-death-gazes. Why does anyone do this sort of thing?

Actually, I joined back in October and in light of the fact that I haven't actually perished from publicly speaking, I can report that it's okay.

For those unfamiliar with the format of a Toastmasters meeting, here's a brief runthrough. Most meeting roles are filled by the members of the club from the toastmaster, the table topics master, speech evaluators, timer, 'ah' counter, jokemaster, etc. The toastmaster plays emcee for the meeting, introducing the agenda and the various speakers throughout. The timer, armed with a stopwatch and red, yellow and green cards, times each speech and table topic speaker and lets the speaker know when they've spoken long enough. The 'ah' counter keeps track of how many verbal fillers such as 'um', 'ah', 'er' the speakers utter. There are two prepared speeches and two evaluators to give them public feedback. The aforementioned table topics are open-ended questions or topics that members or guests can speak about for 1-2 minutes. Table topic questions are meant to train extemporaneous speaking. The entire meeting is meant to give as many people as possible the opportunity to practice getting in front of a supportive group and speaking.

To motivate people to volunteer for the roles and speeches, members are provided a speech curriculum and a leadership curriculum. The speech curriculum provides assignment speeches that each focus on a particular speech-making skill. The leadership curriculum provides assignments to take on various Toastmaster meeting and club roles. I assume completing each set of assignments earns you accolades, parades, a feast and maybe a certificate. I'll let you know when I get one.

As of this writing, I have given three speeches in the Competent Communicator curriculum. I've completed a number of the meeting roles and I try to volunteer for a table topic talk whenever I show up to the meeting and don't have a role. I've signed up for a speech contest next week and I've committed to completing my 10 speeches by the end of June.

There are a couple of interesting things I've learned:
-I learned that I speak pretty quietly. Actually I lied. I know that already. People tell me that all the time. I still don't believe them because I can hear myself just fine.
-I learned that I can memorize the gist of a 5-7 minute speech just fine. It's the individual words that I sometimes draw a blank on.
-It's very difficult to get rid of all the verbal fillers. Replacing the fillers with silence makes for a randomly dramatic sentence.
-In order to perform a speech, I have to write it. Which is nice for making me write about a random selection of topics.
-The more nervous I am, the faster the speech goes. For instance, telling the speech to my car as I drive might take 10 minutes. Practicing it in front of Lee may take 7 minutes. The actual speech? 5 minutes.
-Talking for longer than a minute on an impromptu topic seems like an eternity. Talking for less than 7 minutes on a prepared topic seems really short.

I'm sure there'll be more things to learn as I go on. Stay tuned for the next episode of death defying speechifying.

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My Top Five Video Games of All Time

That's a daunting title. I went through an entire discussion in my head why I don't need to do this (and honestly I don't except for I wouldn't have this blog post otherwise). That stating my Top Five OF ALL TIME would commit me to supporting this post for the rest of my life even if I change my mind and I would end up with a miserable existence supporting something I knew to be a lie and I would never respect myself again.

Then I took a deep breath and talked myself into a better perspective; this list is for fun. My criteria for the games making this list is whether I remember playing the heck out of the game. There are many other good games I liked, but I didn't repeatedly play it. This can be a misleading metric for me because of my obsessive tendencies. I may play the heck out of a game merely because it's the phase I was in at the time, but it doesn't necessarily mean it was good or I really liked it. Don't ask.

On to the list.

Dragon Age: Origins
This is probably on here because I'm still currently playing the heck out of this game. It's the source of ridicule from my gaming friends (and husband) but I don't care. In typical fashion with BioWare games, I replay the game because I want to see the story as a good guy and a bad guy. I'm currently replaying Dragon Age as four different characters concurrently, one of which is an exact (but better looking version) of a character I've already played through. If the 'obsessions' part of this blog wasn't evident before, here's some proof.

Final Fantasy 12
While I'd played previous Final Fantasy games (8, 10, and 10-2 specifically), this one snuck up on me. It was already out by the time I noticed it and I didn't even rush out and get it. I really enjoyed the characters, particularly one whom I consider Square's best character to date: Balthier. I had my share of annoyances with the game, but he made it interesting enough for me to finish the game. The story itself left some room for improvement. Without that, I wouldn't have been motivated to write my own behind the scenes interpretations to explain what they didn't. Perhaps I should thank Square for rekindling my interest in writing.

Dance Dance Revolution Series
Thus begins my music/rhythm game fascination. I saw these mini dance club floors in the arcades and at first thought it was silly to call playing Simon Sez with your feet 'dancing'. Then I found the home version (I didn't really want to spend time and quarters learning it in the public arcades) and played it on our PS2. Since that first game, I collected the subsequent releases with new music. I could play it to the point of injury after which Lee counseled me to put it away for my own good. It just so happened that one of those later game discs provided a preview of another game that had you singing into a microphone and dancing. Which leads me to the next entry.

SingStar/Karaoke Revolution Series
I grew up being told I couldn't sing and making people cringe when I attempted. This is why I was a band geek all through middle and high school instead. But I think I had some of my grandfather in me and I couldn't just leave well enough alone. (My grandfather would take any party as an opportunity to serenade my grandmother to her feigned embarrassment.) These games measured my pitch and timing, giving me feedback as to how far off the mark I was so I could correct myself. As a result, I could learn the right notes to hit and maybe inspire less cringing. I'm still not going to perform like my sisters can, but my car singing may be more palatable. I also played these games to the point of hoarseness.

Guitar Hero/Rock Band
I wasn't initially interested in these when they were plastic guitars only. Once they added drums and allowed a group of four to play as a fake band, I was all over it. Knowing myself, I would have played the plastic guitar to the detriment of my hands. But playing the drums seemed more ergonomically friendly and I looked forward to banging on plastic drums. And if I got tired of drums, I could switch to the guitar or bass and when I got tired of that, I could drop back to singing. Turns out I had to fight Lee for the drums, so I play guitar/bass more often than not, but it's still fun.

That's the five games. Three of which are music series. This was originally meant to be a Top Ten, but I only came up with maybe seven. 'Top Seven' doesn't ring as nicely so I'm down to Top Five with a few honorable mentions.

Monkey Island Series
This is a set of adventure puzzle games featuring an atypical pirate named Guybrush Threepwood. Adventure puzzle games have been in decline for some time because it takes a lot of resources to produce and not very many people play it. Nevertheless, I was delighted when they developed some recent episodes to visit with Guybrush again. (I still have 4 of the 5 episodes to finish).

Knights of the Old Republic
Another BioWare game and possibly the first one of theirs that I played. Again, I played it more than once. But it makes it on this list because I will occasionally quote myself to hearken back to myself playing the game.*
*Language deliberately obtuse to prevent spoilers. I guess this is only funny to Lee because he's the only one who's heard me quote myself.

And I'm done. No one hold me to this list because I don't want to have to live a lie. But I'll take cake.

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Stiff: A Book Review

-The maximum speed at which a human being has a respectable shot at surviving feet-first (the safest position) is 70mph. Terminal velocity of a falling body is 120mph and can be reached in 500 feet.
-Without temperature extremes, bodies lose about 1.5 degrees Fahenheit per hour until ambient temperature.
-Necrophilia was not a crime in any state in the US until 1965. To date, only 16 states have enacted necrophilia laws.

These are just a handful of tidbits I learned from "Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers" by Mary Roach.

It was recommended to me by a staffer in a random bookstore in this weekend. One of those little tags on the shelf with handwriting on it got me to pick it up and I talked myself into walking to the register with it for the sake of research for any future mystery novel I might write.

The book starts off with 'fun' fact chapters telling stories of what happens to the human cadavers donated to science, how anatomists of the 1700s and 1800s got their cadavers to dissect (from using executed criminals to using deceased loved ones and finally paid body snatchers pilfering the freshly dead from the graveyards). Later chapters deal with heavier topics such as the debate whether the soul resides in the brain or the heart, medicinal cannibalism, and future body disposal techniques (composting).

This is not a book for the squeamish. I'm a fan of the CSI TV show (the Las Vegas version), but I'm wary of the things I learn there because I've seen plenty of TV 'science'. The author put in a CSI moment addressing how body temperature, rigor mortis and yes, bugs and larvae, could be used to help determine time of death.

I was fascinated by the story of a Dr. Duncan Macdougall, who sought to determine if the soul had substance or more measureably, weight. In 1907, he placed six of his dying patients in beds on scales sensitive to two-tenths of an ounce. He found that upon each patients' expiration, the scales lost three-fourths of an ounce.

Throughout the book, the author uses healthy doses of both humor and respect to explore her subject matter. She also heavily advocated for organ donation, lauding as heroes the cadavers who bequeathed their life-saving organs after death. Although I started reading the book from a sense of curiosity and shock factor, her respectful treatment got me accustomed enough to the topic of human bodies after death that I could ponder the questions she posed without my brain trying to shy away so quickly. I don't think anyone really wants to ponder death, let alone post-mortem logistics, but the book made it a fascinating topic to spend an afternoon with. Yeah, morbid, I know.

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Fantastic Procrastinating

Found a new game to procrastinate on the web with. Or should that be 'Found a new game with which to procrastinate on the web'? Whatever.

I link you to Fantastic Contraption, a physics game where you can build contraptions to move a box/ball into a target zone with obstacles in the way ranging from empty space to objects. I haven't gotten through the 20 or so free levels, but I reserve the right to shell out the $10 for the full game at a later date. It's also available on iPhone/iPod.

Here's an example.

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Paper Stash Reduction

The idea of reducing the amount of paper in my house has been intriguing me for some time. Happily, I have my paper files in a file cabinet grouped in file folders that make sense to me. Unfortunately, I also have paper files going back more than ten years. Cleaning them out at this stage is a daunting process. I didn't have an impetus to start that process until I found the Neat Receipts system on sale on Woot for a significant discount. It was my first (and thus far, only) purchase on Woot and I've been pretty happy with it. Read on for my review.

The Neat Receipts system includes a small scanner and a database system to put the scanned data into. To my mind, the money I spent is primarily for the database (I already own a scanner).

The nice thing about the scanner is that it's a feeder scanner. I have the portable travel scanner although I keep it on my desk at home. It keeps the desk footprint small while still able to scan in long receipts and full 8.5"x11" documents. The larger scanner is able to scan in double sided documents at once. The scanner I have requires flipping over the paper to scan in the second side. It's decent and relatively fast.

But that's enough about the scanner. The real reason I like this is for the software. There are two pieces to the software system. The software that scans in the documents and the software that organizes the data. The scanning software provides options to automatically sense whether the object you're scanning in is a receipt, a business card or a document. I've found that this can be tripped up distinguishing between a receipt and document. I will typically manually set it to the document type to get over that hiccup. Even if I don't, it's easy enough to switch the type in the database afterwards. It also provides an option to import pdfs or images - handy for my online shopping receipts.

I spent the most time trying to figure out how to set up the database fields so that I can find the information easily later. I haven't been able to test how well the system I set up works, because I haven't found a need to go look up information I've already scanned in. The online documentation and tutorials keep talking about pulling out receipts and other documents for tax purposes, so perhaps I'll be testing that functionality out soon.

My Receipts Category has 2 main sections, one for my debit receipts and the other for my main credit card. Each section is broken down into monthly folders.

The Documents Category has sections for the companies I have documents from. For example, I have a section for the telephone, gas & electric, water, and mortgage bills. Each section is further broken down into yearly folders. I've also started a section I've labeled 'Mementos' where I've been scanning in concert and show tickets so I don't have to hang on to the physical tickets.

Thus far, I've scanned in roughly 80% of the relevant daily paperwork I have. I still have the past accounts to scan in, but since I haven't been receiving more statements and bills from them, I gave myself a break once I got the current accounts up and running. The initial scanning and organizing step is definitely a hefty chunk of work. Unfortunately, I have also added steps to my daily paper management regimen. In the past, I would get the mail, pay the bill online and then file the statement in the file cabinet. Now, I get the mail, pay the bill, scan in the statement, then file it into its appropriate section, then shred the paper. To be fair, under my previous regimen, I'd only been deferring the paper shredding event to a later date.

At some point, I'll have to figure out how to set up the data backup so I can still retrieve the information when I inevitably change computers. Right now, the paper database is backed up to my external hard drive along with the rest of the data on my computer.

Overall, I am very happy that I'm no longer adding to my paper stash in the file cabinet. There's still some more scanning and hashing out the details of backing up the database, but I feel pretty good about my new system.

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