So the incident with the dinosaurs has brought to my attention that many people here are less prepared to deal with the dangers of this city than they'd like. I have w number of years of experience teaching both firearms and hand to hand combat - I could also teach some forms of melee weapons as well. I'm also somewhat at loose ends at the moment. You'd there be interest?

I should warn you, as Elena is likely to tell you, I am not an easy instructor. And I won't teach people who can't show me that they won't misuse what I teach them.

Has anyone seen my daughter, Yuna, in the last day? She's just over five foot, light brown hair, mismatched eyes.

I know she can take care of herself, but her last message cut off do abruptly, and there seem to be a great number of fiends in the streets...

Distant Worlds was on Friday \o/ Jon and I did end up dressing up in cosplay, and ended up being two of the like...four people who did, but instead of making me feel like a dorky tool, this actually made things even more awesome and full of win. So, point form, because I cannot write coherently right now.

The Awesome:
-Concert itself - the song line-up was amaaaazing. I think the piece that impressed me the most was the opera from FF6, as they actually had three opera singers doing it.
-Getting high-fives on the way to the venue
-The guy who came up to me and very solemnly said said 'Do I have the honor of addressing the president of Shinra?' to me, and then, after shaking my hand, turned to Jon and added 'And the leader of the Turks as well?'
-Having an ex-military guy first recognize my outfit, and then recognize the tactical gloves I bought for said outfit, and then spent the next five minutes telling me how they were the most awesome shooting gloves ever.
-"RUFUS I LOVE YOU" from the Sephiroth girl from AE - she looks waaaay different without the wig
-Sitting in the sekrit composer section - seriously, Nobuo sat a row behind us, and Jeremy Soule was two rows back. Crazy.
-FF Distant Worlds in Vancouver in October omggggg

The Not-Awesome
-Getting stuck with a Dodge Caliber from the rental car agency - thing has a tiny back windshield, awful sight lines, and the turning radius of a stoned cow.
-Having to wake-up at six-thirty to get aforementioned rental back in time (one day rental)
-Having my new Underworks binder (which btw is pretty sweet, more on that at a later date), after several hours of driving around, and walking around Kinokuniya and being fine, suddenly start digging in really badly half-way through after-concert dinner.
-Freaking out about parking at Kinokuniya (we had some trouble finding the lot, and I can't parallel park, so panic ensued)

[Locked to Sheska and Elena]

Sheska, another young lady and I are doing a magic demo later, if you're interested in watching.

And Elena, I haven't tested you or the others in far too long. Bring whatever materia you have, but leave your gun - we won't have a backstop and I didn't think to bring dry fire rounds with me.

Four o'clock at the gardens in Chinatown.

I love 'Blue Skies Over Guardia' from the Chrono Symphonic project. It even soothes away my crankiness from watching my bus pull away while I'm stuck on the other side of the street.

Chrono Trigger = AMAZING

Some photos and stuff from the last week or so, because I am sleep deprived and it amuses me.

- lol geostigma nectarines (that was the second thought that crossed my mind, the first being 'ew, this nectarine has pus D:' - for some reason the juices from the bruises were seeping up through the skin to the outsides)
-My beatiful heirloom tomato display at work (I know, it would be more picturesque if they didn't have the code stickers on them)
-My awesome new phone 2 - first is locked, second is my main desktop (yes, that's Midgar. Yes, I have the victory theme as a ringtone. And a seperate Turks theme remix for my Turks - does Bree want in? - and the menu confirmation blip as a notification ding. Yes, I am a huge, huge nerd.)

Also, Desai fills me with happiness and glee, thank you Kara ♥

BONUS! Amusing convo with Jon as I was typing this up:

Me: ...Some day I'm going to get 'stigma' and 'stigmata' confused at the wrong time, and it will be very bad
Jon: heh, social stigmata
Me: My brain always thinks 'geostigmata'
Jon: ... isn't that kinda the last stage of the disease?
Jon: You start showing the signs of the messiah?
Me: Ahahaha XD

So I got the HTC Magic today, and it is, in fact, magic. Unfortunately, I failed to save the contacts list on my old phone to my SIM card, so I had to redo them all by hand, which was not magic, but. It's done. Also yaaaay apps. I think I may have gone a little app-crazy, but I guess I can always par things down later. It also took me an embarrassingly long time to figure out how to mount the phone on my laptop to transfer ringtones and wallpaper over ('embarrassing' because it's outlined in the user manual rather simply, I just skimmed it and missed an important step), but I persevered, and I now have a Midgar wallpaper and an FF victory music ringtone, because I am a nerd.

I will probably post some photos of it later, but I've spent all day furiously RPing and flipping through Android apps and sites, and now I am sleepy. I also have an Earthdawn game to plan for tomorrow ffffff.

1) Con photos are up - general gallery here, photos from the Final Fantasy Fight event here. I will probably do a highlights post later, but for now, have me in a senshi fuku

2) Can someone confirm a quick and dirty Japanese translation for me? (And by 'quick and dirty' I mean 'I pieced this together out of the kanji I was looking up to transcribe and Babelfish'). It's the text at the bottom of the ShinRa ID badge, I _think_ it reads something along the lines of 'This certifies that the abovementioned person is an employee of the Shinra Company', but a slightly more accurate translation and a slap upside the head if I screwed up in my transcription would be lovely. Transcribed text is '上記の者は”神羅カンパニー”、及び神羅グループ
系列会社の社員であることを証明します', you can see a photo of an original here

3) My teeny cheapass Samsung is finally starting to bite the dust (the pick-up mic has died, which means I can't actually talk to anyone on it), and I think I may upgrade to a smartphone. The iPhone is super-sexy, but I don't want to sell my soul to Apple. I'm looking at the HTC Dream as an alternative, although I suspect Android has a lot less neat apps avalible so far. I'm also a little worried about the battery issue - dunno about the iPhone, but the Dream apparently goes about ten hours without a charge which seems like a lot, only I'm used to charging my Samsung about once a week >.>

4) I'm reading A Long Hard Road again. I may secretly hate myself. Also, I figured out how to read fic on my mp3 player 8D

-Turks doujin! One old-school gen Turks one, and then one AC humor one, Rufus-centric

-Cute Neptune at the Sailor Moon photoshoot who wanted lots of pairing photos, which totally makes up for how hellish the boots were. Ugh, heels.

-Marluxia: "Mmm, smells like yaoi." *hipthrust*

-Assorted dinner shenanigans and planning for epic Turks group, including plans to have Reno slapped by half the con, and painting Shinra logos onto cheap fans so Reno can fan dance.

So! As apparently I missed a ton of cool people at Sakuracon - who's going to AE, what are you cosplaying as, want to meet up, and does anyone have a bathroom I can steal for half an hour at two pm on Saturday to change >.>

My cosplay schedule is looking like

-Rufus - Friday, Saturday morning and evening
-Super Sailor Uranus - Saturday afternoon, Sunday