Cafe Vulgar

Le parkour

amidoh — Thu, 28 Feb 2013 02:13:39 GMT

One of the trickers broke his nose at training today. He went for a round-off, failed and his knee ended up where his face was. Crunch.

That, ladies and gents, is why I won't be delving into tricking for a little while longer.

5 sessions in and I've gone from ~~being terrified of vaulting~~ not being able to vault to successfully pulling kongs over about 4.5' obstacles. Considering I'm only 5'2" myself, I'm pretty proud of that for progress, and I'll definitely be joining the guys for outdoors training when the weather stops being shit.

Last week I played with wall runs a little. I've never tried running up a wall before. No idea of the technique or anything, but I was able to reach about 8ft up the practise wall we have set up in the gym. God, it's been a while since I've been this gushingly excited over anything, but I am so psyched about parkour you have no idea. And I was the lazy, unfit, unathletic girl in school who was always one of the last picked for anything. What happen :I

I leave you with the best definition of parkour I have found on the webternets.

Parkour: "A style of movement developed in France to insure that they could flee in any direction, at any time."

;-;

amidoh — Fri, 22 Feb 2013 01:01:19 GMT

Oh my god my lightbulbs keep exploding and it's terrifying halp
;-;
Especially when I'm reading creepypasta at 2am seriously

Footloose

amidoh — Thu, 31 Jan 2013 13:36:39 GMT

Possibly in relation to freerunning/karate but not the result of an injury I remember, my foot has been ridiuclously painful for about a week now. It's fine when I'm sitting, resting or even standing with weight on it, but the more I walk the worse the pain gets until it's overpowering. I'm off to doctor's later today to get it sussed.

Also I ache after yesterday's vaulting sesh. My thigh muscles are crying at me and my elbow is just like YOU HAVE NEVER MADE ME WORK THIS HARD WHAT ARE YOU DOING.

LIFE IS GOOD

B*Wise

amidoh — Fri, 25 Jan 2013 00:02:10 GMT

gillo gave me the letter B. What a hard letter.
OR SO I THOUGHT BEFORE I REALISED I COULD JUST ADD "BRO" TO THE BEGINNING OF EVERYTHING

REASONS TO BE CHEERFUL, PART 3

Bros: I got lots of bros and seeing them always makes me smile. I don't get to see them nearly as much as I should, but hopefully this shall soon be rectified.

Brobots:

ROBOTS EVERYWHERE AND ALL OF THEM ARE BROS oh my god Rung what are you doing go home you are drunk

Bromance: The display of which has convinced pretty much everyone we know that gs_disaronno and I are actually in a lesbian relationship.

Brorunning: by which I mean freerunning. I've recently started attending freerunning/tricking classes, though if we're being technical I am more into the parkour side of the sport and definitely want to work on my vaults and wall-climbs before I start on flips.

/b: but I don't think that's really a reason to be cheerful.

GOOD GRIEF THIS IS A REALLY HARD LETTER. THANKS gillo.

The Annual Botcon Roomie Beg Post Thing

amidoh — Sun, 20 Jan 2013 02:28:22 GMT

Any of you awesome types who are heading to Botcon this year finding yourselves possessed of some spare floor space in your hotel room that you wouldn't mind Jonny Foreigner (le me) crashing on? If not, do any of you know someone who is going and has space in their hotel room? Will pay toward room fee for duration of stay. Have passport, will travel :3 let me know here or in a PM. Comments are screened to protect the innocent.

APPRECIATED MANY TIMES.

Hur

amidoh — Thu, 22 Nov 2012 22:41:19 GMT

Wow, look at that. I finally (four years later) got around to half-assedly changing my journal layout so it is no longer black on black and I don't have to highlight posts to read them any more.

Okay so like stuff

amidoh — Tue, 20 Nov 2012 12:58:06 GMT

Yeah stuff is happening. I have a million deadlines because deadlines are cool except not when you have to rely on other people to make them. Doc's is taking over six weeks to get urgent records to me which means I may actually miss an application deadline because of it, which sucks.

Dissertation results come on December 12th. I am becoming nervous.

amidoh — Tue, 02 Oct 2012 10:31:11 GMT

Yes guys I am still alive.

My life has been a string of deadlines for the last few months. Now that I am deadline-less, I am compensating by creating imaginary deadlines.

There is a list of things I want to get done. Will probably post a progress or something when I am sure I am going to actually do it all.

At the moment, work is kicking my ass. Halfway through 8 straight days in a row and I am getting pretty sick of customers tbh :O

My birthday gift to you: AA recap

amidoh — Wed, 15 Aug 2012 00:20:22 GMT

It's my birthday today and I'm still ill. Had a bad viral chest infection for the week since Auto Assembly, and if that wasn't enough, my friend accidentally elbowed me in the throat at AA and bruised my windpipe so stuff like breathing and swallowing has been a pain anyway.

BUT.

It's time for a MOTHERFUCKING RECAP POST.

WITH PICTURES.

My Auto Assembly weekend kind of technically began on the Sunday prior, when Paul Eiding and his family showed up uninvited at my house for a Sunday roast dinner. They had decided to stop for a couple of nights in my town on their ridiculous trip through the UK and so they popped round, leaving their luggage because they stupidly booked a trip to Ireland flying Ryanair, which charges you double if you want to take luggage, drink their water or breathe their air.

I was working through until the Wednesday, when my AA weekend actually began. Eidings drove me to Stratford-upon-Avon to see an Indian production of Much Ado About Nothing, which was pretty awesome. We weren't allowed to take photos but I snuck one of the stage setup during the interval:

My lesbro Isa joined me on the Thursday and we went to Cov to do some stuff, then chilled out talking about creepy Japanese dating sim games including one called Maiden Rape Assault: Violent Semen Inferno because subtlety is an art apparently lost on the Japanese.

Friday came! Isa and I were dropped off at the hotel at check-in time, which was about 3, and from then hung around with everyone until dinner time, when she went outside to have a fag and I, being a non-smoker, caught up with my buddy JP and his buddy Michael Bell, who is the dirtiest old man the world has seen ever.

A little later on, I found Billy. Ages back because of some of the stuff I have done to help him be his organiser self, Billy promised me an Auto Assembly t-shirt. Well, he delivered. It was a beautiful purple, though slightly marred by the flourescent yellow lettering (he had apparently asked for yellow to match my (white) blonde hair... yup). It was a size smaller than I would normally wear, so it was a bit of a squeeze getting over my bazungas, but from the front it was fine.

Then I turned it around.

OMG Billy is such a dick.

Then we all got amazingly drunk in the bar.

Saturday started off well and we didn't do anything naughty.

I was selling some stuff from Paul's table so I didn't really take many photos from the Saturday morning, but at about lunchtime I went upstairs to get changed into my costume.

Sexy.

A decent photo of my costume, which was paradoxically the most all-encompassing yet the easiest to move in that I think I've ever worn.

I was then left standing while Isa graduated on to bigger, better things.

But it's okay, because Billy wanted a dance.

In the evening was the cosplay competition. After shuffling down the aisle blindly and making some unfunny but inaudible comments into the mic, I achieved second place in the comp, losing out to some joker who had come dressed as a swarm of scraplets. I don't mind losing to a guy with such an original idea, but the biggest compliment was the number of people who came up to me afterwards to tell me that I'd been robbed of first.

It was really hot. Isa nicked my head as I cooled off.

Then Paul and family tried to get a photo with me in costume, but Isa intervened:

Then we all got amazingly drunk in the bar.

Sunday!

Isa got into her amazing cosplay, which I think should have won something at the competition.

We tried to warn Townsend Coleman of the evils of James Roberts and what that man will do to all your feels.

The show closed with a guest conga led by the trouser-shattering Nick Roche:

And Billy dry humped a box.

More importantly, we then all went to the bar.

Paul's daughters quickly got into the spirit of things.

While Paul himself apparently gives orgasmic shoulder massages.

Isa and I united

and spelled out our secret combiner message.

Roche was unimpressed with the antics of Livio Ramondelli and JP Bove

Which is totally understandable because I was unimpressed with Bove too.

Livio and Billy looked really similar and everyone kept getting them confused over the weekend so they combined into Bilvio. I think it was the unanimous verdict, however, that Livio had the sexiest eyes at the convention. Men turned gay for those eyes.

Man pile-on.

Manwich

Then this photo, this is the photo that caused my throat injury. We took it kneeling down for some reason, and the guy in the middle elbowed me as I was coming in to kneel next to him.

Everyone played real-life Buckaroo on me.

Oh yeah, and Paul was stupid enough to leave his camera with me and Isa.

We filled it up

with

some

stupid

photos.

Also by this time I think he was so drunk and jetlagged and leaving the con at 6 the next morning that he didn't even notice this photo being taken or that his camera was gone. Cool.

That's it for now because this illness is wiping me out, but there are tons more photos and stories and stuff because BEST WEEKEND EVER!

Until AA2013.

Post-AA pre-recap meme.

amidoh — Wed, 08 Aug 2012 23:09:52 GMT

So I took this from mmouse15 because the way to fix a dead voice is talking. I am still getting over Auto Assembly which was beaut. Photo recap post is definitely coming because what an awesome weekend.

In the meantime, experience this.

Record music and voice >>

Meme Questions

1. Your name and/or username:
2. Where you're from:
3. The following words: aunt, roof, route, wash, oil, theater, iron, salmon, caramel,
fire, water, sure, data, ruin, crayon, toilet, New Orleans, pecan, both, again,
probably, spitting image, Alabama, lawyer, coupon, mayonnaise, syrup, pajamas, caught,
orange, coffee, direction, naturally, aluminum and herbs.
4. What is it called when you throw toilet paper on a house?
5. What is the bubbly carbonated drink called?
6. What do you call gym shoes?
7. What do you say to address a group of people?
8. What do you call the kind of spider that has an oval-shaped body and extremely long legs?
9. What do you call your grandparents?
10. What do you call the wheeled contraption in which you carry groceries at the supermarket?
11. What do you call it when rain falls while the sun is shining?
12. What is the thing you change the TV channel with?

What up

amidoh — Fri, 08 Jun 2012 22:14:47 GMT

Damn man, this thing has been kicking around for a while. I'd forgotten about it. Is mah Johari window chaps so have a poke and leave a prod.

Meanwhile, in anticipation of the Jubilee recap post which I will be sure to post soon, have a picture of me chilling with the Queen.

We're totally best buds.

LONG overdue Botcon post

amidoh — Thu, 31 May 2012 11:59:34 GMT

Okay ladies and gentlepersons, prepare to feast your eyes upon the delectable delight that was my experience at Botcon 2012, which for the first time I experienced without any of my normal crew.

It was rainy and rubbish as we traipsed to Heathrow after we stayed up late the night before watching episodes of Digimon because Billy (who makes stupid bets like this all the time) told me that there was no way he would like it. He liked it. I don't know why he was surprised, because exactly the same thing happened with Harry Potter last year.

This picture of Billy's face shows how tired and not with it we were when we got to Heathrow.

Luckily, a cup of tea fixed everything.

Many painful hours later, after facing US immigration (again) and a pretty hilarious shuttle ride from the airport, we made it to the hotel

where they gave us machetes for disemboweling our steak dinners.

The next day I knew we faced some hardcore queueing. This is, after all, Linecon 2012. So to prepare for the hours of standing still waiting for people to do stuff, I pumped some iron.

Hench.

Isa did the creep.

Hot sauce laser.

I'd found spacehussy, pellimusprime, justnuts, justbolts, peacewish and Justscrews. We dicked around for a bit.

Then joined the first queue, which was made infinitely more enjoyable by their presence.

Isa became hungry.

Rendezvoused with a swordage.

And then we went to a restaurant with some other cool people. It was a nice Italian restaurant in the hotel which served damn good veal. Sadly, Isa ate the waiter's tip.

That night we went on a rocking adventure and misbehaved like dudes.

It was pretty cool.

The Hall of Fame dinner was quite nice.

We spent the Sunday fantastically dicking around.

pellimusprime, justnuts and spacehussy had to leave quite early on the Sunday afternoon to get their silly flights back to their silly states. They were quite sad to leave.

I went back inside with swordage to get some plushies signed by Dan Gilvezan and Buster Jones so I can sell them for extortionate prices come Auto Assembly.
While doing this I discovered that Buster has an absolutely rib-cracking hug.

THAT IS NOT A GRIN IT'S A GRIMACE.

While with swordage I drew some fantastic art.

Which is approved of by the man himself:

I find myself kind of hoping he doesn't quite understand what "bishie" means.

Anyway, I spent most of the Sunday afternoon saying goodbye to people I know which, as peacewish pointed out in her fantabulous post about me, is pretty much everyone, so that took a while.

I drew a picture for Casey Coller and put his signature on it. Apparently it now lives in his portfolio with an incredibly high price tag despite that it is a piece of shit.

Isa had a final throwdown with Ratchet.

We rocked it.

Sadly, I don't have any photos of the Sunday night, but I will attempt to relay the awesome in wordal form.

Everyone had gone except me and ebonredseeker, and my disgusting roomie Billy had decided to go for dinner with his friends. Stuck for a food choice, I asked Casey what his plans were, and it turned out the IDW crew (at least those who weren't flying off straight away, like Chris Mowry, Livio and John Barber) were going to dinner. We went along with them.

There was us, three guys from the TFCon organising committee, Simon Furman, Casey, Josh Perez and Robby Musso, and we all traipsed in to a steakhouse that looked nice. They put together a table for us and sat us down.

We looked at the menu.

We looked at each other.

We looked at the menu again.

We all quietly decided that it would have to be something from the soups and starters section until Furman, utterly shamelessly, said that he would quite like to afford a taxi home and that we should go somewhere else. Thankfully, we escaped the overpriced place ($50 for a steak you joking bruv?) and went to the Mexican place across the street.

I was sat next to Furman and we experienced the creepiest seven degrees of seperation, ranging from the obbvious (we were going on the same flight back the next day and had travelled on the same flight out) to the downright bizarre (his wife's best friend taught me at Brookes). He offered us places in his Hasbro-paid courtesy car to take us to the airport the next day, which was cool.

After dindins, we went back to the hotel bar. ebonredseeker had some scholarly things to be getting on with, so she left us, but the rest of us stayed in the bar until it closed at 2am, then finally said goodbye to each other and went to bed.

Flight home the next day was uneventful, other than finding out that Furman lives just down the road from where I live currently. Stop it Furman.

Oh yes, and Furman was attacked by a vast predatory bird on the Monday, which came down twice and smacked at his head. Literary justice.

Botcon. Almost.

amidoh — Thu, 03 May 2012 00:27:05 GMT

There is a Botcon post incoming guys, I prooooomise. But first, I want the internet to know.

Simon Furman is my perfect girl.

Buenow

amidoh — Tue, 01 May 2012 21:03:03 GMT

Coherent Botcon post incoming tomorrow after I have slept beautifully. Just flying by to say that shit was so cash.

What is less cash is that my AIM name is apparently suspended? Guess someone was on it spamming or something.

Le Botcon

amidoh — Tue, 24 Apr 2012 00:33:46 GMT

Anyone who is rocking up Botcon, bitches best be greeting me while I'm there. I am spottable currently. My hair is a rainbow.

You know who you are ಠ_ಠ

amidoh — Fri, 23 Mar 2012 02:53:44 GMT

IS THERE ANYONE OUT THERE

REBERU CHEKKO SURU NO DE

amidoh — Mon, 27 Feb 2012 11:26:55 GMT

Somehow I accidentally signed myself up for a Japanese test over the weekend. Test is today.

My excuse is that the lady only talked to me in Japanese, so I only understood 4/5s of what she was saying. Still, I did sign the paper so that means it's my fault.

Off to my test it is then :V

Results :V

amidoh — Thu, 26 Jan 2012 12:29:45 GMT

I just got the results back for the first of the three essays I did over Christmas (weirdly, it was the one with the latest due date yet is the first I have had returned).

This was for my history class and was along the lines of the other essay we had to do for that class in that we had to summarise and compare a certain number of published works on a certain topic without making an argument of our own.

I did three books and two articles on the period of Japanese Imperialism between 1895-1945, using:
- Japan's Colonialism and Indonesia, M. A. Aziz, 1955
- Japanese Imperialism 1895-1945, W. G. Beasley, 1987
- The Opium Empire: Japanese Imperialism and Drug Trafficking in Asia 1895-1945, J. M. Jennings, 1997
- Colonialism and Development: Korea, Taiwan and Kwantung, S. P. Ho, 1987
- Japanese Attitudes Towards Colonialism 1895-1945, M. R. Peattie, 1987

Of those, the Opium Empire is a very interesting book and would probably hold interest even to those not studying Japanese imperialism. Aziz' work is interesting for its relative neutrality considering the time it was published, but the others are mostly aimed at those who are already invested in the topic.

Anyway, we had 4000 words as a limit and it was damn tricky staying in that limit with so much to discuss, and it is incredibly hard to write an essay without an argument. I wasn't super confident about it when I handed it in, but by that time I never wanted to look at it again.

Final mark: 75

I'm fairly certain that's the highest I've ever got for a piece of work (under the English system, that is; in Japan I was getting 90s but those are pretty much impossible in Britland).

I have to come down off the ceilng omg omg omg omg

I will temper this by the response given by my religion lecturer when I mentioned I was nervous about my essay results: "well, you passed" does not do much to alleviate my worries.

Life, death and everything in between.

amidoh — Thu, 26 Jan 2012 01:36:08 GMT

What is happening in my world chippity chaps.

> I will resume writing some fanfics. I swear. I will. I know exactly what I want to write, it's just getting it out in a way that satisfies me :I

> I must write a presentation about organ donation in Japan and why it is perceived so negatively (such as only 38 transplants being carried out between 1997-2004), due in two weeks.

> I must receive feedback for the three essays I handed in at Christmas without offing myself sob sob oh god

> I must plan and write my dissertation proposal. Depending on whether I can change the umbrella subject from international politics to history or religion, it looks like it might be the perception of death in Japan either in a historical or religious context.

> I have been playing Tales of Symphonia through again so I can get the ending with Zelos, as the first (and only) time I completed it, I had no idea the affection gauges existed so I got the default Colette ending, and I'm not particularly keen on Colette.

> I should make some headway on games that I have nearly but not quite finished, including Ocarina of Time, Baten Kaitos Origins and Tales of Symphonia 2.

> I must meet my lesbro's father in the hospital at 9 tomorrow morning sob sob I don't want to get up that early.

> I ought to book my Botcon tickets soon, as I think I have been successful in bullying at least one person to go with me :3

wat

amidoh — Sat, 31 Dec 2011 12:29:02 GMT

Wait a moment, who the hell upgraded my account. You sneaky bastard. ♥

RIM SKY

amidoh — Thu, 22 Dec 2011 03:38:15 GMT

Skyrim, stop it. Our relationship is progressing too quickly. I just can't quit you. I need to you help me out here by being the mediating partner.

So I'm enjoying this game. There are things that bug me about it, like the INSANELY NARROW HITBOX FOR YOUR PROJECTILE SPELLS GOOD GOD the number of times I have shot firebolts at people only to have them go through the person's arm and still count as a miss, but overall it's pretty cool.

I'm playing an Argonian. It was either that or a Khajiit. Ahahaha I am such a closet furry. I'm totally going the rogue-mage route. You know, where you sneak up behind someone, pilfer all the stuff in their pockets then unleash elemental summons and firebolts up their ass.

Also the number of bricks I shat when Paul Eiding's voice started growling at me out of my Xbox. I mean, I knew he was in it, but then suddenly there he is all up in my grill like "GET OUT OF MY FACE, YOU'RE USELESS TO ME AND I'M GOING TO MURDER YOU IN YOUR SLEEP UNLESS YOU KILL THESE PEOPLE 8|" and then, because Skyrim's AI is kind of dumb, "nice day, isn't it?"

Good goddam.

What I Did In My Xmas Holidays

amidoh — Wed, 21 Dec 2011 02:26:38 GMT

Okay so everyone knows that I have two essays to write in the next two and a half weeks, right? One about some books about some stuff and one about daoism in Japan. They're both 4000 words long. I'm 700~ words into the first one and I really should be getting on with them, as I'm back at work over the holidays as well.

The problem?

I bought Skyrim on Sunday.

Yeah, I think we all know how this is going to end.

Pop

amidoh — Fri, 16 Dec 2011 02:21:06 GMT

Read about opium smuggling in the late 19th C just before going to bed?

Dreams in opium flavour.

Makes sense.

FunPub, otherwise known as FuckPunters.

amidoh — Wed, 07 Dec 2011 02:00:56 GMT

Is anyone actually going to Botcon?

Cursed forever

amidoh — Sun, 04 Dec 2011 20:52:44 GMT

I was a hair model today for a salon in Leamington where one of our family friends works. The stylists had got one of the hairdressers from London (he won Best Hairdresser in London Award or something) to go through new techniques/new ways of doing stuff with them, so I have a rocking new haircut.

Well, before they started, the tutor gathered the stylists around each model (there were six of us) and went through good and bad points of our hair, the style it was in, what styles could work, colour on it and how that might change the way to cut etc etc. The two girls before me in the line were both bleach blonde with gorgeous haircuts already, which he commented on, and stuff about the tattoo one of them had and the clothes the other was wearing.

Then he got to me and the first thing he said was "when I look at this girl I think 'my god her hair is thick'. Damn, that's a lot of hair." Then later on when he was coming round to check my stylist's progress he added "your hair's like a rug."

So my stylist razored out a lot of the excess volume, which I always need doing and which is pretty uncomfortable. And he came back and was like NO YOU MUST RAZOR MORE. This happened at least twice.

SOB.