Last night was Ginger's birthday party. I haven't mentioned much of anything about this on the blog because the details of the party were to be kept secret from Ging as long as possible.

The idea we had was for a murder mystery party with a steampunk flair. We all made steampunk-ish costumes and Rucht customized a murder mystery party kit to be a little more in this vein.

In case some of you don't know the general idea behind a 'murder mystery party' game, it's something like this: The host invites a group of guests who are all given a character role for the evening. One of them is the murderer. Through the course of the evening, the participants interact in character and will discover various details and secrets pertaining to the other characters which may make them seem more or less likely to be the culprit. At the end of the night, all the evidence is compiled, speculations are made, and the truth is revealed.

Ours was great fun. For the most part we were all roleplayers, but i don't think many of us have done much resembling larp (live action role playing). The costumes people made/assembled for this thing were great and i thought everyone did a awesome job of acting in character throughout the evening (granted there were digressions, but they were all amusing and didn't detract from the experience too much in my mind). This is definitely something I want to do again. The GM in me has decided it would be a fun thing to actually create one (though it would be a lot of work) and i've begun kicking around a few random ideas along this line.

I did break character from time to time to take some pictures. I think i got a few good ones - perhaps not as many as i would have liked, but I didn't want to devote a lot of time to that for this particular event. We did a nice group shot. As of the time of this blogging, i haven't gone through them all and I'm currently in erwin so i can't be working on that now. They should be up in a new gallery in a day or so. I'll update this post when they are.

~PS

Last night was the much-anticipated birthday/costume party for our friend McKenna. It was *lots* of fun. There were quite a few people there, and a lot of good costumes. Ginger's steampunk outfit was awesome, and Patrick's nobleman/wizard(?) costume was most impressive. Finn, of course, looked adorable in his King Arthur costume, and I had a good deal of fun taking pictures of him. I got a lot of compliments on my Vash the Stampede costume as well, which was nice. I don't think more than a handful of people actually recognized the character, but a lot of people liked the coat. :-)

The evening consisted of some most enjoyable socializing, some tasty, tasty fondue, and some other fun & games including Apples to Apples (always a favorite) and Rock Band (note: I can *not* play that game).

Near the end of the evening, we played a rousing game of Taboo. It should be noted that some of the participants were somewhat more tipsy than others - which, of course, added to its amusing nature. Also, there were at least two instances that words must have been guessed via telepathy or some other form of ESP. The first was Rucht's "Uhm...you might see this in a zoo..." to which Sheri quickly shouted "A zebra!" which, remarkably, was correct... ...but even more astounding than that was Nick's clue which began "So, there's this guy-" and was never actually finished because McKenna immediately yelled "Houdini!!" before he could finish coming up with the rest of the clue. Yes, the answer *was* Houdini. No, we still can't believe it either.

At one point during the game, there was a brief intermission caused by the eruption of an exceptionally brief sabre duel between Queen McKenna and the Pirate-Captain Nick. I wish I could have gotten a few pictures of this, but it literally lasted about 3 seconds, and by the time i got my camera back out, I had time for only a few poorly-composed shots before Captain Nick's weapon was sundered at the hilt and the blade ricocheted off a nearby lamp and "impaled" poor William, who had been napping on the floor nearby. After his defeat, Nick commented that clearly McKenna's blade was superior in its forging, and it was postulated that perhaps it was created by a Spaniard. Heh.

It was a great time. We need excuses to do stuff like that more often. I put up some of the best pictures i took at the party when we got home last night. They're in the McKenna's Birthday Party gallery.

~PS

As of about an hour ago, my costume for saturday's party has been completed. I've put an unnecessarily large amount of time into constructing this, but I've enjoyed it and I think it has turned out quite well. Its taken so long mostly because a lot of the pieces had to be fabricated/modified/repainted/etc in order to suit my purposes. Putting it on involves about 22 pieces and takes 15 - 20 minutes. Also, it's kinda hot so i may not be wearing the entire costume for the whole evening - but it'll be easier to take pictures of the others without some of the pieces on anyway. Still, it's pretty awesome. :-)

I'm excited & looking forward to saturday. :-D

~PS

Ok, so this isn't really steampunk, but I like the titles so much i'm gonna label it that anyway.

Here's the second nerf gun i've mod'ed and repainted. Like its predecessor, it's functionally only about 95%. In this case, the cylinder doesn't always index correctly when the trigger is pulled, making it somewhat unreliable. It *does*, however, seem to be getting better the more i play with it. I suspect i got a little too much paint on some of the more sensitive moving parts.

It *looks* pretty awesome though, and it will compliment the rest of my costume nicely. Now all i need is some sort of holster.

I added some more pics of this one to the Steamnerf Gallery.

~PS

For the first time in recent memory, i got to buy toys this evening, and it made me giggle. I'm pretty sure in some ways i haven't passed the age of 10.

These were bought for a specific reason/purpose, but i've still been far too amused with them. My intention is disassemble and repaint them in a couple of specific ways (and maybe add a couple other aesthetic touches to them - probably more on that later) for use as costume props and the like, but i'm having a lot of fun just playing with them.

I also have to say that it seems to me that Nerf guns seem to have come a long way since i was a kid in terms of the look, feel and operation, but and also in terms of the punch they have. These toys are pretty cool.

~PS

Seeing as we're getting into the last nice days of the year (before it gets cold, that is), we decided it was time to stop procrastinating and make time for some projects: namely, finishing staining the wardrobe we bought earlier this summer, and stripping/painting the front door frame (so i can then seal it to keep water from getting into the basement) - so that's what we did for most of saturday. The wardrobe now just needs a topcoat, and the door is ready for sealing. We were quite productive, I'd say. Hopefully we'll have a couple of free evenings this week to finish these projects.

Also speaking of nice weather, we need to have a big Kubb-for-all before it gets too nasty & cold outside. I'm figuring we've only got a couple of weeks...

In more "fun" news, we've also be trying to put together some costumes for McKenna's birthday party on the 1st. This has been a lot of fun for me, as we've been trying to build costumes by getting individual pieces, as opposed to buying a pre-made thing. Trying to come up with ideas or ways to do things has been an interesting challenge. I think i've got mine* pretty much done. It looks pretty awesome for what it is, but i do wish i could afford the glasses i'd want to finish it off. Or the gun. Or a couple of other minor details, because i'm kind of obsessive that way. (also, myawwww!). Maybe if I ever wanted to wear it to a convention or something... ...of course then i'd need something for the hair as well... ...rambling thoughts. Anyway, I've found it's a lot harder when you're trying to emulate something specific, as opposed to just trying to have a fun costume. Still, i'm really happy with it.

Oh, and sheri totally beat us all at minigolf on friday night. By like 5 strokes. It was amazing.

~PS

I thought $$60,000,000,000 was a bit of an overstatement in my case - even if you have been bugging me for pictures of this.

Here's what happens when you have friends like mine. They buy you awesome costumes, and then they want you to wear them and take pictures of it.

Apparently one of my friends found this replica of Vash the Stampede's coat on ebay, decided it must be mine, and gave it to me for christmas. It is pretty awesome. Whoever made it did a great job. It's pretty darn accurate from what I can tell too. I don't have the actual glasses, so I had to improvise for the photo (it didn't look right with no glasses). Still, looks pretty good.

I guess with costumes this cool, I feel it's about the least I can do to oblige their demands of photos. Plus, it's another excuse to play with my camera. I think took about 8 pictures. I thought this was the best one.

It really is a nice coat. I've thought about modding it slightly (by maybe adding a few details and/or maybe a partial lining) and actually wearing it places - but then i remember i generally don't like people staring at me. Plus, they'd probably think my strangeness + bulky coat makes me a terrorist or something. Then they'd Google me and find out i'm wanted for sixty billion (double) dollars. It's just all down hill from there...


Some of you may remember the penguin costume. That one I actually wore to a costume party. There's some pictures of that floating around somewhere. It was pretty spectacular too. I had thought about dressing the penguin up as something (that'd be two costumes at once!), but I think Vash the StamPenguin is too surreal even for me...


Anyway, thanks guys. :)


~PS