Suburban Godzilla

Remember my Godzilla sock puppet T-shirt? You should, I wrote about it like 3 days ago. (That is, 3 days ago when I started this post, which means that it's actually been over two weeks). I've been meaning for ages to make a Godzilla sock puppet and I figured, hey, I'm on holidays. All I do is laze around, eat, and watch Star Trek with my family.

i.e., it's time to get off my butt and do something productive... uh, just do something.

So I dug out through the piles of unmatched socks we've accumulated over the years and found the closest match to Godzilla's skin tone. I was worried at first because I couldn't find any green socks, but then I looked more closely at pictures of Godzilla and it turns out he's not green, he's black. I don't know how I never noticed.

**bragging up ahead**

Also I know I've got the color just right because I have an original Bandai Godzilla figurine hand painted by a Japanese slave (there's a picture on the box of an unhappy man painting a little Godzilla with an eensy brush to prove it. Then there's a lot of Japanese writing with "GODZILLA DREAM" at the end). The color matches pretty well. Actually the figurine is pretty nifty. It's from a series that was made for Godzilla's 50th anniversary and it's an excellent photo subject.


Lovely. But I'm totally off track now.

So I dug up two socks, and looked around the Internetz for helpful instructions. I didn't find much, as it turns out that people don't write about making sock puppets nowadays, and I blame them entirely for the fact that my puppet is crappy and will fall apart before I can show it proper love, see a movie, and have a picnic on the beach with it.

So anyway, I mostly had to wing it. I used this for the mouth, though I modified it as I went along. I'm not actually sure what I did, I just remember there was a point where I stopped mindlessly sewing for a moment, only to discover I was sewing his mouth shut. YouTube and sewing don't mix. I finished sometime in the wee hours of the morning.

Following are three action shots of The Suburban Godzilla Sock Puppet that my dear mother valiantly risked her life to obtain. I don't think I have to tell you to click to enlarge.

I love this shot. I cropped it to the proportions of my screen, so I can use it as my wallpaper.

After a long day of knocking down pagodas*, Godzilla will often stare off into the horizon, wondering if his true love is out there somewhere, too.

Okay, this next one isn't what you'd call a quality shot, but I'm putting it here so you can see how bad the mouth turned out. As I said, his life expectancy isn't great.


*Get it? Because in the movies he always knocks down a pagoda...

Farm Crackers

Today I went to Costco with my parents. I love grocery shopping, it's so fun 8)

In Costco they're building something where the fridges are, so a section of the refrigerated food disappeared, leaving my parents disoriented and confused on their quest for butter. Something good came of the ensuing hunt, though, in the form of the discovery of cheese- and pizza-flavored crackers!

The crackers are farm-animal shaped, so you can eat cows, roosters, ducks, sheep, giraffes and pigs. This in itself is really not that remarkable, but what made me fall in love with these crackers was the fact that one of the mascots is a pig... called "Piggles".


So there I was, doubled over in the middle of Costco with a box of crackers in my hand, going, "HA HA HA HA HA, PIGGLES!! HA HA HA!" for a few minutes. When I finally finished I noticed that an old man was staring at me and that my parents had forged my signature on an emancipation form and run away.


They're actually very yummy. Also, according to the box they're 70% organic, which means that the other 30% is plastic, pesticides and dead bugs. Inorganic dead bugs.

Bits of cloth

I know it sucks to post about your clothes and that's really lame and all, but I LOVE MY T-SHIRTS.

And recently I've found a whole bunch of cheap ones, so...

This one is about protecting whale T-shirts. You see, everyone's always going "Protect the whales!" but who thinks about the whale T-shirts? NOBODY! A bold statement. Also this is wrinkled because I found it in a ball at the foot of my bed, for some reason. I thought it was in the laundry.

DJ Penguin.
Rad.

I wasn't going to get this one on account of the fact that it says "CUTE", but it has a space bunny on it. With fangs. And a space fish that FLIES.

I love this one. It has it all: a sock puppet, fabric and GODZILLA. Also I was with my sister one time when we needed 5o cents to get on the Metrobús, and some guy lent them to us and said that he was a designer-artist guy and he liked our T-shirts (sister was wearing mushroom shirt that says "I love you very mush")

Can't leave this one out. It has a naked woman on it taking a nap, AND it's a hoodie shirt. I got this at the Haggard concert last week and now that I think about it, I haven't washed it since. It doesn't smell... even though there were hordes of sweaty people smushed up against it. Yeah, I know. Ew. *eyeroll*

Mah youth

I've been badgering my parents lately for tales of their youth, and they both say they can't remember and that they were boring when they were young anyway (and let me tell you, in the case of my dad that ain't true, 'cause I've been talking to my aunt. Hoo boy). That got me thinking, I should write more here. Otherwise I'll be old and senile one day and I won't remember my youth.

Not fun.

So in the interest of not forgetting my entire life up to this point by the time I'm 40 and boring and LYING TO MY CHILDREN (should I have any), I'm going to try to not be so lazy about this.

So here's a hil-aaaarious tale of my golden years:


Like two weeks ago I went with my sister to the mall and we got some chocolate popsicles covered in cereal-y stuff. I accidentally spit out a ball of my cereal topping, watching in horror as it sailed from my mouth, forming a neat parabola through the gap in the glass case protecting the syrup and landed in the piña colada flavored syrup.

Then I looked around and saw that nobody had actually seen this, including the shop employees. Nobody, except for this one girl in the line who slowly moved her gaze from the piña colada towards me in disgust.

Yum, popsicles.

Lookng through an old notebook

I found this, dated June 11th, 2007:

"I think one of the guys at my [preparation] course [to get into high school] is crazy. He says he was walking down the street and an old lady with no teeth gave him an apple, but he didn't want it. Then he said Santa Claus came and then he started laughing like a madman."

That guy was creepy. He always wore a pair of red plaid pants. He had a weird name that started with an O...

How I hated that course.

Quote of the day:

"Up up down down left right left right B A start
Just because we use cheats doesn't mean we're not smart"

-The Moldy Peaches

Totally.

Material lust

You know, the Internet is probably not good for me. It seems that in the last few months I've just been surfing around and finding cool stuff for sale that I don't need, making a huge list in my head of Stuff That I Should Buy When I Have Money.

• This Godzilla Dress, because it's cute and has everybody's favorite supermassive reptile on it. Also it's good quality (it would have to be, 'cause it's freaking expensive).
• This Pac-Man hoodie. Because I only have one hoodie and I've basically been living in it ever since I got it. And while I do love my Domo-kun hoodie, I think it's getting lonely and could use a friend.
• A Viking hat and fur cape. For epic movie marathons.

Hm. Now that I think about it, most of the stuff I want is clothes. Or shoes... Geez, I'm such a girl.

Also there's stuff like notebooks, mugs... a lot of stuff from Etsy.

Live long and prosper. Over & out!

I'm just a poor boy, noooobody loves me!

So I passed all my courses and am officially done with school until August. However, I'm a wonderful person so I'm helping a teacher with a Math course for people who didn't pass Math and are writing the Examen Extraordinario (Google tells me this doesn't exist in English-speaking countries, but the gist of it is that at my school you write two finals: if you don't pass them, you write another two tests, which are the Extraordinarios. Yes, you get a lot of chances)

In this course, I'm the one who goes around and helps the students solve stuff they don't get. Also I fetch photocopies. I should actually be helping fourth graders learn to do easy stuff like factorizing (actually, I never learned to do that properly, I just figure it out every time I need to do it. But shhhh) but there was only one student helping in grade five, so I'm doing that instead. It's a lot harder, especially since the other guy that was supposed to be helping came, like, three times and then disappeared.


Also, on OTHER NEWS!!!

I have a confession to make.

I'm actually a man. (jk!)

I'd been wanting a Queen CD for maybe a month or so but couldn't gather the courage to buy it. I mean, I don't love Queen or anything, but they have some really good songs (case in point, Killer Queen. Also Don't Stop Me Now, among others). And buying a Queen CD is nothing at all to be embarrassed about, right?

So, rewind to three weeks ago. I want this to be quick and painless, so I wander over to Amazon and peruse** the selection of Queen albums available, and eventually settle on one of many compilations of their greatest hits. I then go to the Mixup Music Store website and discover, to my delight, discounts on most Queen CDs, and that they have in stock the one I've chosen.


(Enter the result of reading a buttload of plays for my Literature final exam)

(The next day. Setting: "Mixup" store, inside mall)

Enter ANDREA, stage right. Acting somewhat nervous. Reaches English Pop section, stands for a few seconds. Slouching, turns toward Metal shelf, which is situated opposite aforementioned English Pop display. Sighs loudly.

ANDREA: Oh, woe is me! So much preparation for this moment are to be in vain if my heart gathers no courage! For I am too cowardly to fulfill my purpose here, too cowardly indeed! Hark, what be here? Is it possible this be a trick? No, my eyes deceive me not! Behold! For this I wield in my unworthy hands is none other than the most recent–as of late– album by the good men of Rhapsody (of Fire)! And what is this? Could it be? Indeed, the money asked for this precious object is unusually low! Strange, I deem this, as is it not that items such as these are imported from the distant lands of the States up North United? I now know what I must do. It is necessary that I acquire this relic while the opportunity is present, for times like these are few and far apart in the life of one such as I. Yes, I approach the checkout now. Nothing will come between this album and I, as the death of any misfortunate scoundrel who attempts to pry my treasure from me will attest!

(End crappy attempt of reproducing an excerpt from a really old play about slaying people)


So Instead I got a lovely, cheap copy of Triumph or Agony. Why did I do that? I mean, what I ended up getting was a great buy, but why couldn't I stand 30 seconds in the Pop section without turning into an embarrassed pile of Jell-O? It's not like I'm a big metalhead or hardcore Goth or anything. I like pop! I mean, not most pop. But some pop. Sometimes.

So that was stupid. But! The situation has been dealt with.

Today I finally plucked up enough guts to buy a Queen CD! Actually, I didn't buy it. I stood next to my sister while she compared prices and track lists for me, and then went over to the checkout and payed for it with the money I handed her. So although I didn't technically buy it myself, I was present during the whole operation and was an integral part of it. Right? Right???

I paid the price (literally) for not buying the one I wanted when I had the chance, though. The album I'd chosen before wasn't there anymore, but we got another one that's pretty good. Two drawbacks, though: it doesn't have Bohemian Rhapsody on it, and it cost more than the others because it was an import. Ah, well. I'm still enjoying it right now. Also, I. love. my. sister.

** "to peruse" actually means to examine in detail, and not "to skim", as most people think. Hah, stupid people.