I used to think it was awful that life was so unfair. Then I thought, 'wouldn't it be much worse if life *were* fair, and all the terrible things that happen to us come because we actually deserve them?' So now I take great comfort in the general hostility and unfairness of the universe. – M. Cole
“We just gave $18,000 worth of Subway cards to the homeless here in LA. What have you been up to?
Pic. “E.Z.” Zwayne (President of Living Waters) giving out one of my books and Subway gift cards to the homeless at the Los Angeles Union Rescue Mission. They encouraged us to preach to guests over lunch. They were very receptive and grateful for both the preaching and the cards.”
Only $7,000 more to go. It’s a good thing that they are donated. It’s a shame that the cards come with a price.
Here, in my lovely home state of Pennsylvania, the PA House of Representatives has been sued by some residents for not allowing a secular e.g. non-theist based invocation before the body. The suit, brought by Americans United for the Separation of Church and State, American Atheists, and members of various local groups here in PA, is brought because the PA HR has refused to allow a secular invocation.
The US Supreme Court decided in 1983 that bodies like the PA HR can start their business with an invocation, so this is not to stop invocations. It is to stand up for equal representation, requiring such bodies to acknowledge that not only their pet religion be allowed to stand up in front of them and be counted. The PA Senate allowed a secular invocation, but the House is notoriously conservative and goes out of its way to advocate for Christian, and Christian only, legislation like requiring In God We Trust be in public schools, that the Bible be the official book, and other theocratic nonsense. That is not to say every House member is a wannabe theocrat but a large number of them are.
Now, the invocations that are proposed are to follow. My question to my theist readers is why this should not be allowed? Why would a house member (unsurprisingly a Republican and the Speaker) hide behind this?
“Nowhere [in the Supreme Court decision of Greece v. Galloway] did we see any language which would require legislative bodies to allow nonbelievers to address the opening of legislative bodies in lieu of an opening prayer by a regular chaplain. It is our opinion, that while the Court encouraged a diversity of prayer givers, we do not believe that government bodies are required to allowed non-adherents or nonbelievers the opportunity to serve as chaplains.”
Amazing the excuses that some Christians will use.
“David Barton, the Religious Right’s favorite phony historian, is trying to sell his base on voting for Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump. But where most of Barton’s allies have resorted to pumping up Trump by dumping on Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton, Barton acknowledges Trump’s flaws – but says they don’t matter because Trump has been chosen by God to lead the United States.
Barton is a notorious liar in history, politics and religion. He does serve as a great example of a TrueChristian and I have to thank him for demonstrating just how idiotic the Christian god is by listing all of the bad choices for leaders this god made.
“We should only admit in this country those who share our values and respect our people. Trump added, “The time is overdue to develop a new screening test.” (all quotes from this site).
And he has no idea what this screening test would be. How does one tell if someone is simply lying? I’m guessing this twit is sure that he can see into someone’s soul, like Duhbya claimed of Putin and how great a guy he was.
What are these “values”? And if we keep people out of the country for not sharing these values, what happens to those people who are deemed not sharing those values who are citizens of the US? Do they lose their rights if not agreeing with the dithering of Trump?
Especially those people who don’t follow what Trump says here “At the same time, Trump said his administration “will speak out against the oppression of women, gays and people of different beliefs”
His base are those people who are all for oppressing women, oppressing homosexuals, oppressing anyone who doesn’t follow the religion that they do. From what he says, he has no intention of representing their desires.
Of course, he doesn’t even stand by this, with his own attacks on Clinton, and using all of the dog whistles that say that she’s not fit to be president because she a woman or as he said “He also added that Clinton “lacks the mental and physical stamina to take on ISIS and many of the adversaries we face.” How hilariously Victorian. Alas, reality shows that he’s wrong and lying again.
As usual, this man shows he is has no idea what he is saying and his followers evidently don’t care or are too stupid to notice. Lies and ignorance are what drive his campaign and it’s sad that so many accept what he says without a single thought.
I do wonder how my resident wannabee troll will explain this 🙂
Here I am back with my costume.
This painting was much more of a challenge. The most peculiar part is the pauldrons on the outside of the coat. There are a couple of ways one can interpret the painting. 1. There is a coat and there are indeed pauldrons on the outside of it (the way I went)., then there is a breastplate under the coat and a gold gambeson under that. 2. It could also be interpreted that that the “coat” is really a long vest, and the paracountess is wearing a red gambeson under her breastplate/pauldrons, and a gold shirt under that. On afterthought, I think the second version would have been a bit easier.
The photo shows the costume well enough. I do need to remember to have my tall husband sit when he takes pictures of me so I’m not looking any more short and squat than needed by the angle 🙂
The pauldrons are also small in the image and for them to stay in place they need to be bigger or have some type of odd harness to get them to be where they are. I had straps under the arms and two across the back.
I bought a jumbo sheet of Worbla for this experiment. I got it at cosplaysupplies.com, it comes with free shipping. This was 100 cm x 150 cm. I had this and a little left of the small sheet that I had initially ordered. At the moment, I probably have about 2 square feet of it left. Out of this I made bracers, a breast plate, pauldrons/spaulders, and a cutlass, plus the staff for Ezren. It cuts with a large pair of scissors (think regular sewing shears), and it is moldable like clay (rather hot clay, since it has to be heated before you can form it).
There is no secret for how any of these were made: it was trial and error. I used thin cardboard (beer boxes) to make patterns. I did reference various armor tutorials online and I’ve seen my share having once been a member of the SCA. Cardboard doesn’t quite move like heated Worbla but it does the trick.
Once I cut out the worbla after finessing the cardboard patterns, I needed to decide how thick it had to be. A tutorial on the worbla website had how to avoid using a complete sandwich of worbla/craft foam/worbla and I was able to cut down on how much I needed. You can see the technique here. You can also see how I rigged the strapping. I used plastic clips to hold the straps where I didn’t use elastic bands.
To heat the Worbla, I used a regular heat gun that you can get at any hardware/home improvement store. I also used the sun, since we had a few 90+ degee (F) days and I just let the Worbla sit in the sun. Small pieces can get too warm, and I literally had to lift some of them up with a spatula. The larger ones just got soft enough for me to only need a few seconds with the heat gun to finish the forming. One tip I have to offer is to use baking parchment (paper infused with silicone) to use under your worbla parts. Then they won’t stick if they get too hot. The paper can also show you when you are getting too enthusiastic with the heat gun since it turns brown at around 400 degrees (F). It *will* burn. Continue reading “What the Boss Likes – Gen Con 2016 and our adventures in cosplay, part 3”→
At most science fiction and fantasy based conventions, there is cosplay popping up. This is at its simplest, recreating a costume of a favored character and wearing it around. It can get as complicated as acting like the character when interacting with other cosplayers or with the audience. The idea is as old as SF/F conventions but has become much more prevalent recently. I’m going to guess that this is because it isn’t as odd as it used to be, there is the internet and technology has improved so much that one isn’t limited to a copy of a Starfleet uniform. There are also tv shows like Face Off (make up and effects) and Heroes of Cosplay to make it more familiar.
Gen Con isn’t by far the most popular convention for cosplay. You can look to the various Comicons and Dragon Con for that. However, more and more folks are partaking. I decided last year that I wanted to try my hand at it and gave myself a year to do two costumes. I refused to be sewing the costumes my hotel room. I really hated that Heroes of Cosplay show for being idiotic in amping up the drama and stress for no reason (well, there was a reason, some humans like to see misery).
These are the two characters I chose: Ezren by Wayne Reyolds and Paracountess Talminari by Yama Orce They both do great work. I had the pleasure of meeting Mr. Reynolds at the con and he gave me and my husband very nice compliments about the costume.
My personal opinion is that cosplay is best done if you physically resemble the character that you choose to play. I know that many people disagree with this, and I do understand why. However, there are characters I’d love to cosplay and it would simply be ridiculous (think Storm from X-men in her punk phase being played by me). I figured I could make a decent middle aged villainess and my husband is a great Ezren even without the costume.
This isn’t a “how-to” blog post. It isn’t step by step. If the reader has any questions that aren’t answered, please feel free to ask and I’ll do my best to explain what I did and why. I’m a seamstress of middling ability (lots of work in doing historical re-enactment garb) and I have a good mind when it comes to tearing apart images and figuring out how they would work in three dimensions. I also have a fairly high tolerance for failure, and most importantly funds that I can play with. Continue reading “What the Boss Likes – Gen Con 2016 and our adventures in cosplay – part 2”→
A couple of years ago, we went to Gen Con 2014 (posts here and here). We went back again this year and just got home. Here are some photos I took at the zoo, and one weird photo that I got coming home.
things always look better in sepia
ah, I love my big cats.
sassy hornbill
always torn about zoos, but it seems we need to have them to save the animals some humans have no problem destroying.
such intelligent eyes. The Indy Zoo does a lot of research to keep orangs alive and not extinct.
this little fellow posed very well
steam power station for downtown Indy. I always imagine a firefight on those steps on the chimneys.
another tiger in their pool
very hot tiger panting in the heat
warthog giving a nice photo
And the weird photos of what we saw in the sky just east of Indy at around dawn on 08/08/2016
The large photo and the detail:
this is a shot of the sky with the weirdness circled
Club Schadenfreude 