Solas Suarach

A good story should provoke discussion,
debate, argument...and the occasional
bar fight.
-- J. Michael Strazynski

..:Hilarious Trajedy .:. Katie
..: Aerial Ambition .:. Tiff
..:Tales from Trent .:. Beej
..:Realm of Angst .:. Nikki
..:Mad Scientist .:. Bish
..:Grey Skye Blue .:. Brynne
..:Elected Potatoe .:. Sean
..:Magdelina .:. Kat

..:Fanthroplogy .:. Research
..:Scary Duck .:. Weirdness
..:The Dreaming .:. Neil Gaiman
..:Whedonesque .:. Joss Whedon
..:Photo a Day .:. Something Interesting
..:WKOA .:. Odd
..:Belle Du Jour .:. Secret Diaries
..:Nee Naw .:. Dispatchers Tales
..:Confessions of an Aca-Fan .:. Henry Jenkins
..:CJSD .:. Brando
..:LUTD .:. Tales from the Undeground
..:Inky Circus .:. Odd Tales
..:Copper's Blog .:. Met Cop
..:Occasional Superheroine .:. Marvel Girl
..:AE .:. Ed Kennedy's Blog
..:Sleep Talkin Man .:. Nocturnal Ramblings
..:Blag Hag .:. A Bit of Fun

..:Sakura Crisis .:. Manga Scanlations
..:Ill Will Press .:. Neurotically Yours.
..:The Very Secret Diaries
..:Pancino .:. A Kick Ass Indi Band!
..:Bubblewrap .:. Boredom
..:Threadless .:. Good Clothes
..:Magdelina Designs by Kat
..:My OCAD .:. Ontario Artists
..:Facebook .:. Online People
..:The Mall Ninja .:. Redneck Stupidity
..:The Penn and Teller Essays
..:Tales From Homeward .:. Uncle
..:Overheard in the Office
..:Evil Mad Scientist Labs
..:Cool Aggregator .:. Cultural Oddities
..:The Fail Blog .:. Wasting Time
..:Cute Overload .:. More Time-Wasters
..:My Life Is Average .:. Stranger than Fiction
..:Not Always Right .:. Proof Humans R Crazy
..:Oddly Specific .:. A Collection of Signs
..:1000 Awesome Things .:. Neil Pasricha
..:Texts From Last Night .:. Hilarious

..:Boy Meets Boy .:. Sandra Fuhr
..:Friendly Hostilities .:. Sandra Fuhr
..:Other People's Business .:. Sandra Fuhr
..:Questionable Content .:. J. Jacques
..:Girl Genius .:. Studio Foglio
..:XKCD .:. Who The Fuck Knows
..:Vampirates .:. Jones
..:Cigarro and Cerveja .:. Tony Esteves
..:Count Your Sheep .:. Adrian Ramos
..:Dog Eat Doug .:. Brian Anderson
..:The Awakened .:. Sarah
..:Menage A 3 .:. Giz & Dave
..:Gingers Bread .:. Carl Sjostrand
..:Legend of Bill .:. Dave Reddick
..:Brathalla .:. Jeff Stevenson
..:SGVY .:. Kittyhawk
..:Nice Hair .:. A. Mauchline
..:Something Positive .:. R.K. Milholland
..:Weregeek .:. Alina Pete
..:Schism .:.Leigh Bader
..:Least I Could Do .:. Ryan Sohmer
..:Basic Insturctions .:. Scott Meyer
..:Girls With Slingshots .:. Danielle Corsetto
..:Blip .:. Sage
..:The Abominable .:. Karl Kercht
..:All New Issues .:. Bill
..:Just a Little Bit Off .:. Jeff Zugale
..:Ctrl+Alt+Del .:. Tim Buckley
..:Shortpacked .:. David Willis
..:CAD Sillies .:. Tim Buckley
..:Looking for Group .:. Ryan Sohmer
..:Family Man .:. Dylan Meconis
..:White Noise .:. Madsniper
..:Magic High .:. Madsniper
..:The Dean Show .:. Minkmix
..:Saturnalia .:. Spacecoyote
..:Pandect.:. Dina Situ
..:Arcana .:. Kelly
..:Megatokyo .:. Fred Gallagher
..:Mini!Marvels .:. ChrisG
..:Mac Hall .:. Matt and Ian
..:9th Elsewhere .:. Caroline Curtis
..:Sluggy Freelance .:. Pete Abrams
..:YWAM .:. Aoi Hayashi
..:Skyfall .:. Rekka and Mirai
..:Picture Diary .:. Lianu
..:No Rest For The Wicked .:. Andrea
..:Shifters .:. M. Tary and J. Strocel
..:Oh My Gods! .:. Shivian

..:Ver. 1 .:. Half of Mine
..:Ver. 2 .:. Lost Girl
..:Ver. 3 .:. Broken Doll
..:Ver. 4 .:. Kanashimi
..:Ver. 5 .:. Sgoil Dhubh
..:Ver. 6 .:. Solas Suarach

.:Saturday, July 12:.
..:12 of 12 Project: Con Report Part 2:..

Okay, seeing as I spent all of today up at the con, this month's 12 of 12 is going to be yet another con report. (Note: I did actually write this entry on Saturday, I was waiting to get the photo's back from the day so I could post them)

So, the weekend was... kind of a bender of fandom really. A con, a fest, a movie and an art show coming up. Meredith has had very little sleep and it's looking like more sleep is not in my immediate future as I can't seem to turn off Stargate.

Okay, first things first. Hellboy? Was AWESOME. Absolutely loved it, I love it when a movie not only lives up to, but surpasses the hype and the anticipation the fans have built up. Waited in line for an hour or so, much of it spent with Jenn attatched to KT's leg like a leach and the people in line behind us killing themselves laughing at our conversations.

Guillermo del Toro's mind scares the living FUCK out of me however. He created small, winged creatures, really really cute, called tooth fairies. Why? Because while they do eat people whole, they tend to go for the teeth first, and while they're chewing they sounded enough like a dentist drill that I actually ended up cancelling my dentist appointment as I don't think I could stand to sit in the chair right now.

The beginning of the movie was absolutely incredible, there was an animated sequence giving the history of the golden army and the elves told as a bedtime story. But the animation style? Was amazingly well done, probably one of my favoirite parts.

As always, in any del Toro movie, the little details and subtle layering of all the aspects of the characters, both good and bad, was beautifully done. Interesting plot, really REALLY funny and some suprisingly good action sequences. And perhaps the biggest miracle of all? I actually didn't hate Liz in this one, maybe because she seemed less like a whiny little emo girl and more like an adult.

Now, onto the con! Got up at the crack o dawn, no, really, the sun was barely up. Went out to the traditional breakfast at Mels, goddamn I love bacon. Tramped back to the apartment and drove off to the double tree where Polaris is held every year. (I always feel kind of bad for the normies who accidently stay at a hotel during one of the cons)

Got into the hotel, rushed through registration, then ran upstairs to catch Gareth David-Lloyd doing the I&I, we were a few minutes late, but not too bad overall. He was still rather pissed from the night before and trying not to squint at us all too badly.

Gareth was doing a bit of Q and A and storytelling when we walked in. Firstly? That man's accent is absolutely lush, god I love the Wlsh. Secondly? He was wearing a shirt (see photo below) with a punk sheep on it, and that made me happy.

He was also extremely witty and has an absolutely filthy mouth, lovely suprise that. Panders to the fans wonderfully, nice to see an actor young enough and new enough that he's still in love with the energy and enthusiasm that all the fans have for a show, and an actor, they love. And the fans did ask some rather.... well, in a show where we get sex scenes between the two male characters, what kind of questions do you think they'd ask? He has a pretty good sense of humour about it though, and warned all fans off ever touching any shaft shaped prop as aparently John Barrowman has a habit of sticking his genitals in them as a prank.

I love the brits.

Right after Gareth was Cliff Simon, a Johanessburg actor who plays Ba'al. He is hands down our little circle's favourite bad guy on Stargate as he is A) Gorgeous, B)Has the best clothes of anyone on the show, C)Is a complete and utter bastard and damn good at it and D)Has a voice that could charm the knickers off a nun. Damn.

He was a bit upset when he got onto stage as Don S. Davies had died last week and he requested that they not question him about it. So, of course, one asshole an gets up and asks for his opinion on Don's death. Tosser. Way to make the guest stars upset.

It was interesting though, as with any Stargate guest he told stories of Chris Judge and pranking the new cast (by Saran wrapping all their toilets, aparently this is now a tradition on set) and about Richard Dean Anderson and his love of tripping other actors up by throwing out his lines, coming up with something on the fly and then expecting them to follow along. I can totally see him doing that, I love actors.

So, right after Cliff Simon's Q&A let out I headed over to get my photo taken with Gareth whilst KT went out to hunt down some caffeine. And on the way I ran across a litte troup of fans outside doing a photo shoot.

There was a group of 11: All 10 of the Doctors as well as a Season 4 Rose. There was a Who Hug, a massive massive amount of photo's and alot of rather lewd jokes about screwdrivers and celery. The costumes were all REALLY REALLY good though. Usually in a large troup half the novelty is the fact that it's a group, but these people could easily have gone on their own and still had a million pictures take of them as the costumes were brilliant.

So, after snapping a million photo's and fangirling wildly at a few of the doctors got in line to see Gareth and get a photo taken with him. I was wearing my contacts today, you know the ones:

And was stopping foot traffic in the hall as people kept pulling me aside to take photo's with me or freak out and start backing away.

I made a small child cry, that alone was worth the contacts.

So finally got in to the atrium where they were snapping the photo's, and when I got to the front of the line Gareth jumped back when he saw me and started gushing a bit about how creepy those contacts are and how he hated it when Burn Gorman had to wear them for the show. Snapped a couple of photo's as he asked for a copy (squee) thanked him and proceeded to oooze my fangirlishly melted self out the door and resisted the urge to pinch him on the bum on my way out (barely).

Got a rather nice photo out of it though:

Was walking back from the photo, trying not to giggle as black eyed demon girl giggling like a maniac tends to make people back away and start talking about padded rooms, and a troup of armed military guys held me at gunpoint and pointed a scanner in my face.

No, really.

Aparently the con had hired on an Alien troupe for the year, and they were scanning the hotel for someone infected. What made this awesome was that just down the hallway where KT and Beej were, a man fell down on the ground, started convulsing, and this happened:

I love the fans, and old fashioned cons, the little alien moved and everything.

Stopped laughing long enough to stumble our way into the dealers rooms and do a bit of shopping, bought a few books and plushies, as well as an iteresting necklace, but no huge purchase this year. (Unlike Beej, but that will be explained later). What really did steal the show however was the fan cration contest. The ever present hand built figurines and toys, along with a few really fun ones this year.

First was the Adipose Cake:

The adipose are the little fat monsters from doctor who, they are ridiculously cute and happy looking, and someone made a cake out of it. The little caption on it says: "a moment on the lips, forever on the hips". I thought KT was going to kill herself with Squee over it, she was so amused. I really want someone to make a plushie of this, cause if they don't I may have to, just so I can squish it and scare Beej.

Another one of the really cool ones was that someone created the control room and lab complex of Stargate Atlantis out of Leggo.

No, really.

No, REALLY, look:

It was amazingly detailed and must have taken him an obscene amount of time, but it really was quite cool. I am currently really tempted to drag all my lego out of storage and see if I can reproduce some of it (the stargate and the puddle jumper) and put them in the fish tank as decoration (and yes, it is safe for fish, it's just a bitch to clean). He had even MADE little leggo wraith and everything, perfectly done.

After that we tooled about the art room for a while, a few nice prints that I may have bought if they were a little less pricey, some gorgeous molded leather masquerade masks and alot of really cool Steampunk jewelry. Steampunk usually consists of alot of mechanized, semi-futuristic stuff. In this case, neckalces and rings make of reclaimed pieces of old broken fob watches. I bid on a few, but it ended up going a little too pricey for my wallet, so I shall fall on the old standby of just damn well making it myself, (and probably adding in matching earrings while I'm at it). KT ended up buying a really nice piece of jewellry, looked v. nice, and could be worn 2 ways on top of it.

Came out of the art auction to this sight:

And yes, yes that is a TIE pilot playing guitar hero. The best part? He was playing a LOVE BALLAD. Awesome. I have no idea how he could actually see anything or even work the keys in that outfit, but he actually managed to get a decent high score.

Went upstairs to wander about for a bit, then I got this call from my baby sister:

"Mere?"
"Yes, where are you Beej?"
"I'm in the dealers room, can you come down and unlock your car so I can put this away?"
"Oh dear gods, what the hell did you buy?"
"One of the big remote control Daleks."
"....."
"WHAT?!?"
(Reason I was flipping out, I had seen some Daleks in the dealers room that were $300 and were MASSIVE)

It turned out she had actually bought one of the smaller models, so it was a hell of alot cheaper and smaller, but no less amusing of course. KT Spent a good 10 minutes poking it to make it scream "EXTER-MINATE!" at her. It may or may not be the most awesome thing ever. She's still all a-squee cause she got all the autographs and such she wanted as well as some really fun stuff.

So went off to go pick up the photo I had taken with Gareth, was told to come back in an hour, then another hour, then another hour.... after the third time I was pretty depressed as I had kinda wanted to get a photo with Cliff Simon as well, but if it takes them 7 hours to process it we didn't really have time. So guess who we bumped into just as I said this?

He was just standing about waiting for them to call him in to do photos and was really nice about getting a photo done. At least he was after he stopped being scared by my contacts.

One of the best days of my life, I made Ba'al, the best bad guy that Stargate has ever seen, yelp and leap away.

Cons are awesome.

We sat about for a couple more hours, kinda wrapping things up and putting off leaving, picked up the photo's and a few more fun things from the dealers room. (The Canadian Browncoats were selling juggling goslings, I really really wanted them!) I bought another teddy:

It's a mini-gloomy bear. I've never seen one of the little ones of these that have the blood on them, and he was dirt cheap. Am taking votes however, what do you say his name should be? Dexter or Jekyll....

Have happily spent the last hour scaring the living fuck out of my cat by chasing him around the living room with the remote control Dalek. He absolutely HATES that thing, and it actually says a bunch of different things ( all very vintage) and then does the gun sound. But the best bit? The eye-stalk has a motion sensor in it so it follows any movement you make. Le awesome.

Now, as I have been watching Stargate in search of Ba'al for about (checks time) 3 hours now, I need to sleep.

Art show is tomorrow, this is gonna be a good weekend.

Labels: 12 of 12 Project, art stuff, cliff simon, contacts, conventions, dalek, doctor who, gareth david-lloyd, hellboy, leggo, Movies, Nyx, polaris, star wars

Meru at 11:20 PM

.:Thursday, June 12:.
..:12 of 12 Project: 12 Cosplays seen at AN 2008:..

This month, I couldn't really be arsed to actually do the proper project, so instead you get the recap from anime north 2008 (a few weeks ago) done in 12 of 12 style.
This is a character from Bleach (I haven't read that far yet...) the headdress? Was awesome, very well done

This was a deathnote group, probably the best of the dozen of so groups that were wandering about the con

Willy Wonka!! How can you not love a cute guy dressed like Willy Wonka?

For some reason there were alot of really well done old school anime's this year, like these 2 amazing Rayearth cosplayers

This is Tiff and Laura bumming about waiting for the con to actually open so we could go in, Tiff's the Lolita and Laura is the Clover

See? Another well done vintage sailor moon pair

This guy was awesome..... he was actually scaring the crap out of people by having a perfectly normal conversation and then suddenly pulling out this huge fucking gun and demanding that you purchase something.

I WANT THIS PLATE!

The prop on this was amazing, and according to the girl weighed an absolute TON

I have no fucking clue what the fuck these 4 were but they just sat on the lawn for a few hours looking ominous and really creepy

Li from Cardcaptors

A really nicely done DNAngel cosplay pair

That's all she wrote

Labels: 12 of 12 Project, anime north

Meru at 1:18 PM

.:Monday, May 12:.
..:12 of 12 Project: The Puzzzle box:..

Okay, so a family tradition of mine is puzzle boxes. My mum started it by giving us large chests filled with things from our childhood, this is one of my small ones. So, what follows is the story behind 12 of the items in my butterfly puzzle box.

So the box itself is the fist item, my mum gave it to me, she got it in India, the box has to be opened in a certain order or else it won't come open at all.

Box lid has to slide off

Box when open

One of the more recent additions, a 2000 year old Fossil and a Silver Dollar given to me by my sis-in-law Kat last year, there's an awesome store called Maxilla and Mandible where she got some really cool bones.

Actual Silver Dollar - This one my mum gave me, and it's probably worth very little seeing as I carried the damn thing around as a good luck charm for 7 years

Rings - The blue stone on top is aquamarine, one of my birthstones, that my mum gave me when I was little. The dolphins are the first present I ever got from my first boyfriend when I was 14, and the bottom stone is a tigers-eye that was my favourite ring when I was little and it still fit

Necklaces - The butterfly was my grandmothers, I inheirited it when she dies, the other one is my name written in Arabic that my mum got me and Beej when we were both really small

Pendants - The round locket was a gift from my grandmother, the heart locket I've had since I was 6 (it's broken, but it still has pictures in it), the cross is another inheiritance from my grandmother and the gecko is a necklace from the emirates in honour of the squirmy little critters that live there

Elephant Bracelet - This was given to me when I finished up Brownies, one of the symbols for the international brownies was an elephant, cause elephants never forget.

Pound Coins - One for each of the british Isles, I usually try and pick up a set of coins every time I go over to the isles.

Stones - The carved stone is Viking runes, one is for peace, the other for intelligence. The green stone with red veins is a peace of bloodstone (my birthstone) that the girls on the England trip got me 4 years ago

Beads - These were part of my favourite necklace that broke when I was a kid, these beads are all I have left. My mum made the necklace for me in Nepal and brought it home with her

Earrings - The gold pair are my first pair of earrings, the first ones I ever got my ears pierved with (first of many) The chain cuff is a present from my dad, a souvenier of one of my first cons, and the butterfly was a present from an old friend of mine, whom I haven't seen since I was 12

Elephant Seeds - This is cool, each of these little seeds holds 12 carved ivory elephants. They're all hand carved in Africa, and are TINY

Elephants close up - See? TINY

Well, that's all till next month....

Labels: 12 of 12 Project, puzzle box

Meru at 6:34 PM

.:Monday, April 14:.
..:Bugger it:..

So, have decided bugger it with waiting till the end and have put up all the posts that I've done for the 12 of 12 project. Hopefully, knowing others know about the project this year will inspire me to actually keep up with it.

Bugger, work in 7 hours, I'm going to sleep now.

Labels: 12 of 12 Project

Meru at 12:08 AM

.:Saturday, April 12:.
..:12 of 12 Project: A Day in the Life:..

Oh gods, it's that time of the month again. Here is this month's entry for the 12 of 12 Project (Click the link for past posts and explanations).

So, for this month I decided to do the traditional thing and just do "a day in the Life," so you get 12 photos. One pic every hour, for 12 hours out of the day. And because there are stupid stupid people in my building, this morning I was up at 8am.

8:30am - Breakfast of student, bacon and bagels with a couple of advil to fight off the headache that's been sticking about for the past few days.

9:30am - Getting dressed for the day, wearing my brand new Dr. Who T-shirt that KT gave me for my birthday.
10:30am - Waiting in the Museum subway station for a couple of friends so we could go to the job fair downtown, they just unveiled all the new rennovations last week.
11:30am - Got out at the Dundas station to find that the Canadian Idol initial auditions were going on. I have to say, if that was an indication of Canada's talent we're all in deep deep trouble...
12:30pm - Got the job, come this summer I'm working the toronto concert series, should be some half decent pay.
1:30pm - Was walking about town with a few co-workers and saw this. It's about the size of my apartment. I immediately demanded that we steal it and take it home, but was told no...
2:30pm - Back at the museum station, yet another one of the cool renovations that they've done down in the station
3:30pm - Saw this walking home. I have no idea when flamingoes and penguins became the traditional means to wish one happy birthday... why didn't I get any penguins?
4:30pm - Back home at last
5:30pm - Reading THE MOST DULL BOOK IN EXISTENCE (also known as Moby Dick) for an English assignment
6:30pm - Was outside and the sun decided to actually show it's face for once today
7:30pm - My cat playing with Hefalump the snorting elephant, then flipping out any time it made any kind of noise.