HippieVan wrote: I'm really sorry about your dad, Lonne. I can't imagine how hard that must be. :(
It is. And it's depressing that there's nothing I can do about it. Well… except cherish and think back to all the memories I have of him. I tried to think that he had at least a decade left, and when I left him in California to return home he looked like he was recovering. Then I hear a week later that his health had taken a nosedive.
He's stable now, but is stuck in a nursing home. The siblings I have in the mainland US are visiting him regularly and hopefully they're following my advice on keeping him comfortable and keeping his spirits up.
If your parents are still around, spend as much time as you can with them. That time eventually runs out…
Lonne, that sux man! Cancer works like that. That's why people get those 5 weeks to live diagnoses… The damn thing is growing all the time in there and you can seem perfectly ok on the outside till it's too late :(
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It's so bloody HOT here at the moment, and today I'm going back to work. :( i've been sleeping during the day and doing stuff at night so I avoided the heat nicely, but now I have to go to the office during the day like normal again and I haven't selpt since yesterday because my sleep cycle is screwed. So tired… T_T
On the good side I finished my hat reconstruction! I successfully transformed the broken down old Scott's piper feather bonnet into a hussar busby! A pretty bloody unique object because those are always made from fur, never feathers. But it look fricken cool! WAY more majestic and awesome than any fur busby or any feather bonnet! ^___^
I had a weird kind of revelation tonight. I stumbled across a sub reddit for children of narcissists and thought my dad might be interested because he's always suspected that his mom (my grandma) has narcissistic personality disorder. Started reading some of it and realized that a bunch of the stories rung true in relation to my own mom. More reading about traits of narcissists and god, it fits her exactly.
It's a strange feeling. I hate thinking about this stuff, especially because I've managed to keep our relationship decent now we're living far away from each other. On the other hand, I've always had such a hard time explaining exactly what it is about her that's so upsetting to me. So in that sense it's a bit of a relief to have a name for all the weird, subtle undermining she's always done while still being a fine parent to any outside observer.
Well, had the bad teeth on my lower jaw pulled yesteraday and now I'm slowly going insane. Because right before that day my sister got me several boxes if those K-cup coffees from Starbucks. Now I have to wait before I can drink any thanks to the tooth extractions I got. Hopefully I will be able to partake in the stuff tomorrow… I can only hope… :(
@Lonne Did the dentist give you high doses of nitrous oxide? That is what happened to me when I was getting my wisdom teeth extracted. I was left with a mind numbing headache during the withdrawal period and I could not chew solid foods for a week. Eating nothing but tapioca pudding and soft foods was so much fun.
Those Starbucks k-cups are delicious. As of last month, I finally have a Keurig brewer, so I get to enjoy hot, fresh coffee whenever I want at home. My favorite Starbucks variety is the "Verona Blend" it comes out perfectly every time.
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Today I picked up a bottle of dead sea-salt "beach spray" infused with algae and sea kelp. It is supposed to give hair that "just left the beach style". Normally, after a day at the beach, my hair has that naturally messy and wind-tossed look that seems very low maintenance. So now I get to enjoy that look every day for the rest of the winter. I just find it hilarious that I spent money to get a look that I otherwise would have had for free when I lived near the Pacific Ocean.
kawaiidaigakusei wrote: Those Starbucks k-cups are delicious. As of last month, I finally have a Keurig brewer, so I get to enjoy hot, fresh coffee whenever I want at home. My favorite Starbucks variety is the "Verona Blend" it comes out perfectly every time.
I too am in love with a new keurig! My older sister got my dad a keurig for Christmas, and for me a milk frother and some syrups. So I get to make myself lattes (kind of). :) I haven't tried the Starbucks ones yet, because she got us a giant box of the Van Houtte ones to go with.
I went completely under for my wisdom teeth. Full anesthetic. After it was over and I finally managed to sort of be able to walk a bit, they gave me two strong pain pills and a class of water… of course my tonge didn't work, I litterally almost choked, I coughed that stuff so far across the room that there was blood and water everywhere! Then I got a nice little wheelchair ride all the way to my dad's car for the ride home…
My hair just after the beach is a dried out salty, sandy mess… I've had some of that beach spray but I don't trust it on my fine hair. Although maye it'll work better now my hair is shorter.
HippieVan wrote: I haven't tried the Starbucks ones yet, because she got us a giant box of the Van Houtte ones to go with.
I started with a Costco case of mixed Van Houtte and Timothy's, tried out an organic Ethiopian brand, and moved on to the Starbs variety. That machine has not helped my sleeping schedule because I am currently on a nocturnal sleep schedule. I just wish there was a Keurig bakery to go with it so I can have TimBits or BeaverTails to go with my coffee!!
ozoneocean wrote: I went completely under for my wisdom teeth. Full anesthetic. After it was over and I finally managed to sort of be able to walk a bit, they gave me two strong pain pills and a class of water… of course my tonge didn't work, I litterally almost choked, I coughed that stuff so far across the room that there was blood and water everywhere!
I was wide awake for the entire duration of the operation. The way I remembered it was like the Dentist scene in Little Shop of Horrors mixed with a first-person shooter game like DOOM. I was laughing the entire time because of my warped sense of humor found the situation funny, and the more I laughed, the more the dental assistant raised the percentage of the gas. Unfortunately, my sense of humor never recovered and I still laugh at the most inappropriate times.
Lol…As for the Beach Spray, what better way to tame unruly locks of hair than with salt, sand, seaweed and ocean water?! I have already been asked, "Is that a look people go for?"
HippieVan wrote: kawaiidaigakusei wrote: Those Starbucks k-cups are delicious. As of last month, I finally have a Keurig brewer, so I get to enjoy hot, fresh coffee whenever I want at home. My favorite Starbucks variety is the "Verona Blend" it comes out perfectly every time.
I too am in love with a new keurig! My older sister got my dad a keurig for Christmas, and for me a milk frother and some syrups. So I get to make myself lattes (kind of). :) I haven't tried the Starbucks ones yet, because she got us a giant box of the Van Houtte ones to go with.
Heh… my sister got my my Keurig coffee maker last year for Christmas. It was on sale, and so was the coffee. Then the sale was over and I found out the coffee was nearly $20 a box!!! O_O
I enjoy my K-Cup coffee on occasion because it costs so much. Still, it's better than that paint thinner coffee from Folgers that I use with the regular brewer…
ugh… something hit my system drive pretty hard. Not only wouldn't it start, but all the data on it got corrupted. So now as I type this Windows Update is running and afterwards I have to reinstall everything again. -_-
Awake during the op? No effing way! Faaaarrrk! D: Speaking of the beach, that's where I should be right now… But it's too hot to make the walk :(
I finished all the Sharpe series the other day, including that awful painful second last episode with Sharpe and his faithless wife… They shouldn't have done that to her character. Made her such an evil bitch. Now I've started rewatching Farescape again. Such an awesome SciFi series!
ozoneocean wrote: ncluding that awful painful second last episode with Sharpe and his faithless wife… They shouldn't have done that to her character. Made her such an evil bitch.
Well you could blame the fact that Sean Bean and the actress playing his wife were going through a divorce at the time so the writers decided to have a little fun with it… It is not based on any of the books but some of the characterizations were interesting. But a little too Sharpe strays into Dickens for me.
The character of the wife does go through the same changes in the books but much more slowly as she is grows apart from Sharpe. There was more to their prior relationship in the books as they had met before and Sharpe had grown to idealize her and the real person didn't match the image. Real sad stuff. Their romance in Sharpe's Regiment was a great satire on Jane Austen. Yeah, what if a hard bitten veteran like Sharpe strayed into a Jane Austen novel…
And the hussar with a leopard skin as a pelisse: Prussian Hussar regiment Von Zieten. I have this illustration as the instructions for a 75 mm metal figure. Love those yellow boots.
There are some weird and wonderful hussar variations, but THAT is the strangest! Wow… o_O Looks like he's draped himself in a horse blanket almost, the way it seems to have all those irregualar designs and stars on it?
And the strange hotpants look to his breaches… I noticed a few hussar uniforms from Germany in the 8th centry had that affectation… looks like a mixture of decoration and prottection, maybe that's where they put the leather to protect the breaches, but they must have realised how bad it looked? 18th C German hussars are truly the winners of the rainbow flag mardi grass parade.
French hussars seem to be generally the best looking ones I can find- it's a lot harder to find nationalities other than French British or German, you see some but those are generally allied to one of those three and in a variation of the allied country's uniform… Russia isn't bad… Poland is just doing their own special private thing… Speaking of the French though, even their Hussard De la Mort are superior! Leopard skin around the shacko, prety cool, AND skull and cross bones on their sleaves.
Hussars started in the army of imperial Austria (later called Austria-Hungary) and the cosutme originated in Hungary. They were a type of irregular light cavalry. By the end of the War of the Austrian Succession all the armies of central Europe had adapted the uniform for regiments of light cavalry especially those armies who had to defend themselves against the original Austrian-Hungarian types. As can be seen the 1750 Prussian uniform from my prior post follows the original Hungarian uniform of the 1680's hussar. This is pretty much the original costume.
These guys are Austrian hussars from the mid 18th Century:
Everybody eventually had a hussar regiment including New York City. The First US Hussar regiment was the 3rd NJ volunter cavalry from the Civil War. The regiment added the braiding to the US cavalry jacket to get volunters by offering a cool uniform.
The Prussian Totenkopf hussars predated the French Revolutionary Death's Head cavalry by 50 years and wore a nearly identical uniform. The "Black Brunswickers" who fought under Wellington in the Pennisula and at Waterloo also had black clad hussars (with the splash of color with sky blue facings) wearing totenkopf insignia along with the rest of the corps. The whole death's head motif would last in the Prussian army until World War I with the Leib Hussar regiment. Here's a Prussian Princess wearing the uniform of her sponsored regiment:
Bravo- yeah, I forgot to mention the colourful Austrians, for obvious reasons I often conflate them with Germany. I know most of that stuff of course, apart from that being an "original" uniform style, and the New York uniform specifically… I think there is a Boston unit that still has the uniform today (ceremonially), except that wear those ugly Tarleton helmets like the British used to. The versions I've seen of the older Hungarian style still used an extra jacket though, not a fur cape…? I can see how it may have evolved from a cape, but the leopard thing seems a bit exotic for the early version of it. Maybe that was only for officers?
It's interesting seeing all the changes the uniform style went through in different countries, all playing on the same theme, but all influencing it with their own national styles, till the marvelous pelisse and dolman were discarded in favour of those plain Atila tunics like the princess wears… with her low little pfelzmutze… The later barrel sash is just a belt with a sash facing stitched on for looks. The tight breaches turn into overalls, then trousers, then jodhpurs/whipcord breaches… Meanwhile the uniform had a huge influence on women's fashion with HIDEOUS women's pelisse dresses and coats… Today the pelisse and dolman are retained as names in ladies fashion that have nothing to do with the original namesake garments. Actual hussar pelisses and dolmans continue to reoccur periodically in fashion and rock music costumes as well as cartoonishly debased versions on US highschool matching bands.
Having examined the early 18th century dolmans with their long skirts and relatively few frogged buttons they are more like the later 19th century hussar dress of tight trousers and frogged tunic than the ridiculously short and tight Napoleonic versions with rows upon rows of braid. It's almost like the style returned to its roots after a long joyride through Europe.
The frogged tunic is actually a Austro-German development (not Prussian though they adapted it for economy) of the original Hungarian hussar dress. Just look at that Black Brunswicker infantryman, frogged tunic in 1809 first supplied by Austria and then uniforms copied and manufactured in Britain.
ozoneocean wrote: And the strange hotpants look to his breaches… I noticed a few hussar uniforms from Germany in the 18th centry had that affectation… looks like a mixture of decoration and prottection,
They are actually an cloth leggings worn over the breeches. They were called Sharawaden, Charawaden or Schalavary. They were kind of like a pelise for the legs and usually worn with it in cold weather. They were part of hussar dress for most countries in the 18th Century but had been superceded by trousers and coveralls by the 1780s.
And did you know that hussars fought in the American Revolution and were at Yorktown? Just imagine these guys riding along side George Washington. It happened. They were so famoud and did so well they were made a regular hussar regiment in the French Army after the AWI.
Were all those uniforms ceremonial? I hope so. I wouldn't want to end up in combat wearing those… But I still would love to wear one maybe once in my lifetime.
Ugh… well, found out my computer's system drive is worn out. A year earlier than the usual 5 year limit that drives have. Now I'm forced to use my data drive to run my computer 'til I can get myself a Terrabyte drive to use for data. And practically spent the entire day restoring everything, including things I didn't back up at all… I've seen better days than this…
And I bet a lot of female Mass Effect fans still swoon over Garrus despite him having sharp teeth and the ability to snipe 3 Blue Suns mercs with one bullet…. :)
@Lonne Yup! Hussars well and truly wore full dress uniforms in battle! -there were always variations people came up with to protect the uniforms and sometimes they left off wearing the pelisse over the shoulder, as you'd expect people made practical choices out of nessecity! But yes, people did wear the fanciest stuff into the most horrible, violent, awful batles. The most moronic justification I've heard for the pelisse slung over the left shoulder was that it could protect you from swords on that side. No. No matter how many buttons and metal braid you might have on that thing it will never ever stop a sword. You can't even throw it on a sword like a cloak in fencing because it's tied up fast because you DO NOT want to lose it. Nope, it was just worn for the style… and gave you an extra jacket for the cold winters, especially if you happen to be stuck in Russia.
The main heyday of the unit type with that outfit is really from the 1790s to about the late 1800s- they still wore variations before and after those dates, but not in battle and it wasn't the classic style any longer anyway.
The most famous instances were the nepolionic wars (early 1800s) and the Crimean war (mid 1800s). It was during the last years of the Nepolinic wars and the years between Crimea when the style was at its absoloute pinicle. It died off after Crimea because that war was so horrible and it had become so impracitcal and expensive by that stage that it was detrimental. In one case it was found that arms were stiched to tight that troops couldn't lift them over their heads!
Here's an example of some extremely well kitted out fellows…
And I realise I based my massive huge trunpeter busby on the one in th pic, so it wasn't as stupidly huge as I came to think… funny how you forget these things. I've been spending YEARS on that outfit, so no wonder I suppose.
@Hippie! There were lots of princesses wearing nicely tailored uniforms, these two Russian beauties for example:
That's not what I meant by pelisses and dolmans in women's fashions of the time though. You can see examples in the film Vanity Fair. They're quite nasy. The fashion for women at the time was tight sleave or no sleave, low cut bust, tight under the bust and then a fairly loose and shapeless thing hanging from under the bustline. I hate it!
None of them look as good as this handsome devil though…
So lovely! I don't know if it's some kind of weird internalized misogny or just good clothing design, but I really like men's clothes that are fitted for women. Speaking of which, I just bought myself a great pair of Oxfords.
I saw a nice jacket kind of like those ones at The Bay a while back. Not sure what international equivalent of the Bay would be…The Hudson's Bay Company was a fur trading company that was more or less the foundation of Canada, and now it's a bunch of nice but slightly outdated department stores. Anyways, I can only ever afford things there on clearance and it cost way too much. :( I had forgotten about it, I'll have to be on the lookout for something similar.
ozoneoceanwrote: That's not what I meant by pelisses and dolmans in women's fashions of the time though. You can see examples in the film Vanity Fair. They're quite nasy. The fashion for women at the time was tight sleave or no sleave, low cut bust, tight under the bust and then a fairly loose and shapeless thing hanging from under the bustline. I hate it!
Oh, I know exactly what you mean! Like this? I used to have a shirt that was cut in a similar style. Saw a picture of myself wearing it and realized how unflattering it was, never bought anything similar again. It makes even very thin women look like they have a belly.
I hate that almost as much as I hate the current trend of completely shapeless garments. Trying to buy sweaters this winter has been impossible because they're almost all enormous in the bust(which is saying something for me) and waist, and then fitted again at the hips. It's the weirdest style. Everyone knows that women's clothing looks best when it's nicely fitted in the bust and the waist, clothing designers! Get it together!
Very stylish shoes! I don't think it's internalised mysoginy, hahaha! I think it's a mixture of things- the inherent dichotomy always makes that sort of clothing look interesting. But the very fact that a style is more typically associated with males makes the tailored aspects more obvious and therefore even MORE feminine than something without those associations.
Yes, that's he style exactly. Everything was made to that shape. Imagine a fur coat/dress tailored in that way, with frogging accross the front all the way down to the ground. It's so lame it's horrible.
I know what you mean by that modern version of it too. It actually really works well on bigger women and women who're pregnant, it flatters and enhances. It's one of the best styles for that bodyshape I think, but on all others it's just bad.
I guess those uniforms allowed soldiers to fight war "in style" as it were. Learned a bit about Samurai armor. The armor we keep seeing in popular media is ceremonial armor which was not meant for combat. I'm guessing the actual armor used was probably leather, wood and steel tied together with silk cord.
As for costumes, I have this evil villain I created long ago for a giant robot story I've had in my mind. What does this human like muscular villain wear that makes him intimidating in front of his generals? Well… he doesn't wear anything. At the same time he's also in the shadows to keep things from looking too bad for the audience. The thing I want to convey with a costume like that is his confidence in his own power and the idea that he's not hiding anything from the people working under him (who can CLEARLY see him while the audience can't). Would this be the way to convey a very confident villain (who may not be evil)?
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The whole death's head motif would last in the Prussian army until World War I with the Leib Hussar regiment. Here's a Prussian Princess wearing the uniform of her sponsored regiment: 
