otaku

Anime Weekend

I know I don’t generally update much on the weekends, but this weekend will be especially sparse, as Aaron and I will be at Ohayocon in Columbus. We’ve attended for the past two years, but only for one day—this year, we’ve reserved a room, and will be at the con from Friday afternoon through Sunday.

Aaron’s got some co-workers that are going, too, including some that I’ve never met. They have every intention of drinking like crazy collegians in their hotel room, apparently. We’ll see how that pans out, as Aaron and I will likely be spending most of our “free” time screening anime in one of the several video rooms.

Unfortunately, we didn’t manage to procure a sewing machine in time to create my masterful Totoro cosplay outfit. Maybe next year.

We’re bringing the digital camera, so I may spend my day off on Monday posting highlights from the con. In the meantime, you can read about our previous experiences from Ohayocon4 and Ohayocon3.

photography

My And My Lomo

Maybe I?m supposed to be a photographer.

This morning, around 10:30, the fog rolled in. It happened to get brighter outside the window, in my periphery, so I turned to look. And the first thought in my head was, ?I can?t wait to go to break so I can photograph that!? I carry my Lomo in my purse or my jacket pocket almost everywhere now, so I?m almost always ready for photo ops like this.

As it turns out, I couldn?t even wait till breaktime. I pulled out my Lomo, pressed it up against the window to avoid glass glare, and took a shot. Then, about fifteen minutes later, I took my break upstairs in the quiet room (as usual) and took a couple photos from the second floor windows.

It?s gotten to the point where I don?t care who sees me and thinks I?m a dork for bringing my camera to work. Everyone in my department knows that I have my little plastic camera with me wherever I go, and I take pictures of weird things (like when the squirrel outside jumped up on the windowsill). Plus, the chintzy sound of the Lomo?s shutter has made it possible for me to take photos of people who don?t realize they?ve been photographed, not even after the shutter fires—maybe they thought it was a door latching shut. 🙂

memories 4 Comments

That Down-Home Dialect

Growing up, I never really thought about the weird amalgam of southern accents in my home. My Memaw, my Mom, my Aunt Sammie and I all lived together in the same household for some time: from as early as I can remember (age 3 or 4) up until my Mom got married (the summer after my 6th grade year). Anyway, my Memaw grew up in Florida, as did my Aunt, and my Mom spent her formative youth moving between Florida and southern Ohio. That made for some interesting pronunciations and vocabulary, not to mention the bizarre superstitions that Memaw had learned from Granny (but that’s another post entirely).

For instance, the knives in the silverware drawer that one used either for buttering bread or for screwing the tinfoil to the antenna contacts on the TV were called “case knives.” [I now know that most of the rest of the Western world calls these implements “butter knives.”]

I could have sworn that the piece of furniture in which my socks and underwear lived was called a “chester drawers.”

For years, I didn’t realize that the room in which the TV and couches resided was not, in fact, the “lithing room” (with a TH like THis or THese), and was actually the room in which one lived, or the “living room.”

I was also pretty sure that the outdoor faucet we used to fill up the kiddie pool was a “spicket” instead of a “spigot.”

I’m sure there were countless other bizarre words I heard growing up, but those are the ones that come to mind. Also: the couch was always the couch, never the sofa; we drank pop, not soda; we usually cleaned with a sweeper, rather than a vacuum; and we peed in the commode, not so much the toilet.

Funny, isn’t it, how things that seem perfectly normal when you’re a kid can seem totally fucked up once you grow up and step back.

randomness 2 Comments

Ehh.

I have a couple of witty ideas for blog entries, and I wanted to document yesterday’s LakeShoremen Brass rehearsal, but I just feel kind of ehh. Aaron’s even home for the week, and still I feel ehh. I did manage to successfully install MT-Blacklist, and for that I feel a little less ehh, although I won’t know if it’s not working until… well, until it doesn’t work.

I’m going to go see what Aaron’s found to watch on TV. Oh, yeah, and I’m going to stop drinking so much Caffeine-Free Diet Coke, because I’m belching like… um… like I did in college. Except quieter.