9 1/2 ft Couch Demolition

May 11th, 2009

Exciting news! I got rid of that couch I inherited when I moved into my place last summer. Last November I had mentioned that I could not figure out how the couch fit through the door. I had plans to tear it apart.

With a help of a friend it finally happened! The neighbor below me did call asking what I was doing. He thought the roof was going to fall through his room and asked us to move the couch into the hallway/kitchen to continue further. lol.

The demolition took us about an hour and half of hacking with two hammers. The scissors came in very handy to cut away the material. One of the hammers didn’t survive the demolition.

When we went to take the couch to a nearby trash dumpster a cop drove by and continued about his business. He appeared to be on the phone talking casually. About 45 seconds later he turned around heading our way. My friend told me to get the hell out of here since we’d be questioned if we lived there.

I posted some pictures in memory of the abnormally long couch. R.I.P. Mr Hammer.

~Cali

Abnormally long couch

November 23rd, 2008

I moved into my new place last summer. I have been loving the area and the place ever since. However, I have 4 pieces of sitting furniture in a wide enough apartment space. When company comes over they have a place to sit but it’s really crowded. There are two modern dutch couches that are mine. The sofa chair plus an abnormally long couch was from the previous person who lived here. If I could remove this abnormally large couch out of the living room it would free up space for either an office area or a little breakfast nook.

The problem I have been having is that there is no way to get it out of the front door. What has been making things worse is watching HGtv again! I stopped watching the television channel for about 6 months. Now that I have so many ideas with the living space, it seems like the couch stands out like a sore thumb even more so than it did before. Today I thought about cutting it in half to get it out the door. Today I did a search online and found a blog with someone who has split his couch in half before. I am considering to have a friend come over with a chain saw, but this guy’s idea seems better. Any of you have a saw, wire cutters and pliers I can borrow?

~Cali

I forgot your name…

November 13th, 2008

I chuckle every time I see the Surrogate Sharers videos by Rhett and Link. It seems like this happens to me frequently because I’ve known so many gamers over the years. Most of them I have known by their online alias. When I meet people in person at LAN parties or live events, it gets worse because not only do I forget their alias, I may end up not known their name. The good thing, I have a photogenic memory so there are many occasions I’ll recall meeting them at one time. That’s what I get for meeting so many people huh? I usually just wait for others to call out their name. I feel so bad when I have to ask for their name again or ask them when I met them previously.

~Cali

Researching & Making Kai’s Feral Hat

October 17th, 2008

I’ve been on the hunt for Heavenly Sword’s Kai cap for a project I haven’t revealed on youtube just yet. I am actually waiting on one thing that is being shipped from Japan. I contacted them yesterday because I purchased it on October 2nd. They said I should receive it some time next week. However, I am thinking about finishing this project without it this weekend. I cannot wait to show what I want to do. I’ll have to compromise with something else I have in my closet. teehee.

After about three days of internet browsing and many attempts of different keywords known in the English language, I realized that I needed to make it myself. Sure, I found some cute cat and bunny headband ears and different fox ear hats. Those fox ears were very, very tempting to buy just because! I figured out later that these animal style hats were related to cosplay and anime on many of the sites I visited.

The more I looked around, the more I realized that Kai’s cap was just that unique. The fabric on the hat kai is wearing reminded me of a fisherman’s hat; definitely not a typical hat found on ebay.com or Etsy.com. I did tons of research and found this bad ass website called gobbolino.co.uk. This rapunzel hat here reminded me of Kai’s hat, but it looked more like a beanie. I thought about it a long time and realized it would cost more to have it mailed to me and it would have taken much more time to get.

I had a variety of friends tell me that if I figured out a way to make one I should tell them how I did it. I was so determined to have a similar hat that I made up my mind that I needed to at least give it a try. I ordered a skull bandanna cap from this place on ebay.com. Once I received the bandanna cap in the mail I took it to the fabric store and found a similar color of fabric. The silk fabric was more than I wanted to spend on fabric for the hat, but I was that crazy….. seriously. That same day I also went to a neat craft store a block away for the buttons and paint.

Then, last weekend I stayed up all Friday night to get some of the video recorded while creating the hat. Woke up early enough to get some more done and it was done! On Sunday I edited the video and uploaded it. Here’s the final result.

Ninja Kitty Cap

The interesting part about the video was the introduction. If you watch the shadow in the background it looks like Batman. Yes, I’m that silly to notice and get excited about that. lol!

~Cali

Quick Update

September 22nd, 2008

I haven’t forgot about you! The past few months has been insane. Most of my latest happenings have been posted on youtube or gamespot blog.I also posted pictures from E3 and Quakecon in my smugmug page. Other than that, I’m extremely stoked about Lego Batman. The game will be released on store shelves tomorrow!

Also, I recently was able to get internets again from home. Other than school and other nonsense. Oh, and might I add my desktop computer is dead. :( Not sure what happened to it. I am contemplating on whether or not I should try to buy a gaming laptop, a new computer or to hire someone to fix this one. decisions, decisions….

~Cali

Injured toe is so confused!

June 22nd, 2008

It has been a week since I have injured my toe. I worked from home all last week and let me tell you it pretty much stunk. I hate not seeing human beings in real life. I guess some people would be excited, “hey, I get to work from home and I can do what I want.” Not me. Once Wednesday came along I was in jail.

I decided that it was best not to take any pictures because it’s un-lady like to show ugly feet. This toe was so ugly black; it looked like it was going to fall off by Monday afternoon. :( Having an ugly toe is fine but it hurt to an extreme while I slept; when I woke up in the mornings; when I stood for too long and when I hobbled. Any type of pressure gave an electricity of pain. This week I was supposed to be moving into my new place. I also have some traveling to do near the end of the week and of course my buddies decided to have PaintBall this coming Saturday. I’m not sure if I can safely do all three.

Backing up a bit, last Monday morning I hobbled my way to the Doctor’s office to grab a slip that would allow me to get x-rays at another place. I hobbled back to my truck, drove to the next place and hobbled into the X-ray place. Let me tell you, people sure look at you weird when you hobble. The nurse offered a wheelchair and I hesitated at first. The thought of getting in the wheelchair was a bit humbling but that wasn’t the problem. I had this sense of being an old lady and imagined myself 30-40 years from now. Being in so much pain from standing I ended up sitting down in the wheelchair. It was actually a lot of fun riding in it because the nurse drove the wheelchair pretty fast. The nurse mentioned that she didn’t get any tickets from driving crazy with wheelchairs yet. lol.

The x-ray experience was kind of weird. Even though I was in pain the nurse mentioned that my toes would be doing some stretching while she taped them to the x-ray board. She avoided touching the 4th injured toe by taping my pinky toe to the x-ray board. Then she taped the other two toes in the opposite direction from the pinky toe. The x-rays looked hilarious when I saw her loading them on the monitor screen. The cool part of the visit was how she kept me in the wheelchair and offered to drive me out to my truck. I had to wait 3 and half hours for my actual Doctor appointment so I drove another 45 minutes to get home. I should really change doctors closer to the city.

I spent about 3 hours total driving that day. I was very happy that I injured my left toe instead of my right. I wouldn’t have been able to drive that long if it was my right toe. The doctor didn’t do much but tell me about four steps to do, which anyone probably could have told me. Although, the Doctor was right about how I would have bruising farther up the toe near the veins of the foot.

My right leg and foot have been sore from shifting all of the weight to hobble. Since Thursday I have been walking extremely weird from having something wrong with both legs. What does not help is that I live on a hill. Any errands for food or anything means I have to park down the hill (darn truck is too big for SF neighborhoods!) and hobble up the hill. These are times to beg friends to drop off food. Sadly, some of my friends don’t have cars in the city to do any food drops.

~Cali