It has been 2.5 months and I am sorry to everybody and everything that I have missed. Things have been tough at work and I've had more than a few nights that I slept at the store. I also almost died about 3 weeks ago. Massive food poisoning, exhaustion, allergies and violent sleeping habits, led to the worst week ever. I've also lost a lot of good friends and neighbors lately. I've posted a new picture in memorial. I'd do more but I wouldn't know what to do for half of them. My neighbor Ralph, music instructor Stephen, dear friends Maddy and Karren, Rocky and Pebbles (2 of my dogs), my "little sisters" grandmother, a few customers, and Reverend Tom Beatey. I wont dwell on it but I'd ask you to give them and their survivors your prayers.

On a lighter note, in the few spare moments of my time I have found some ways to relieve stress, and keep my blood pressure in check. On May 30th I saw, The Slants, and, Veritas, In concert at Dante's in Portland. (My first bar show *yay*) I have video uploading to veoh as we speak. I'll put up a link later. And on June 28th my friend Parker (The murderface) tricked me into running to his house and then dragged me to a female AC/DC tribute band named Hells Belles at the 7 Ceders Casino. They were awesome, although I don't think I'll be going into any bars for a while, thanks to the smoke and the fact I don't drink. I also joined (Or finally followed through) a band. The Off Beet Crusaders. We're an Asian American fusion band. Mostly English covers of J-Rock songs. We'll see how far it goes. None of us are serious about breaking into music but I needed a new hobby. We have our first recording session in August. God help you all.

The only other thing piece of news I have is about the Nobuo Uematsu Concert at Benaroyal Hall. I caught the last show, with Parker and Darren, and, I kid you not, I have never been more moved or terrified in my life. It was a mix of 11 amazing soundtracks mixed with the technical excellence of the Seattle Symphony and the amazing video arrangements of Square Enix. Also head maestro Roth's version of Swing De Chocobo was simply divine. I also attended the meet and greet with both Uematsu and Roth. They were kind enough to sign my program and CD as take some great pictures. I cried, laughed, cheered, and nearly messed myself all in the coarse of 3 hours. Awesome!

upcoming plans. Kumoricon Prep is about 50% done. Accommodations and transit are done. Vongola Primo is done, but Walter, and the mystery costume are not even started yet. I think we can do it. Aki-Con plans are moving well. No details for right now but we have a panel set up for the con and I know everybody reading this will want to see it.

I wish I could say something profound but I just don't have much to give the community right now. I'll see what I can do but I don't know when I'll have time to get back to the art again. I haven't even taken my camera out in months. I'll work harder to get back into the game and respond to the pile of messages that have stacked up.

Goodnight everybody. And I"m sorry for my ranting,

Robert Grey

First, I would like to apologize to everybody that thinks I've ignored them.

I've had a house wide internet problem, and it's taken me a few weeks to remedy the problem and that remedy was a new computer. Say hello to "Nia" [link] my new computer, I bought her with my tax return, and it's already paid for itself. My problem was the way I have my internet connection set up across my house. It requires a computer to act as an active networking hub, and the computer I was using has decided set a default IP address which I cannot override, or assign. Earlier this week I purchased, "Nia" and set it up as the new hub. It's streamlined the process and my internet connection is now faster than ever. Even on the oldest computer. I'll try to avoid gushing but now that I have iMovie, Final Cut and Garageband, I'm really getting into the AMV mood again. Suni, I'm gunning for ya!

On a side note, Parker and myself are going to The Slants (Gaijin Farwell show) on May 30 the Nobuo Uematsu concert in July. If you're going, or want to go, let me know, were looking for people to carpool.

On a sad note though, my convention crew is caught on the wrong side of a bridge closure and have cut our AX plans short. Oh well. We'll just blow everybody away at Kumoricon.

So that's basically it. I just wanted to let everybody know I'm not dead or ignoring you. Just fixing some internet trouble. Very sorry, now I'm off to answer my hate mail.

edit* OK! I apologize making a journal out of this instead of contacting everybody individually. Are you happy now crazy lady.

This is the longest Journal I have ever written and I swear the ending is worth it. I now give you permission to skip to the last paragraph.

A synopsis of Sakura Con:


Pre Con:

It started Thursday, after a long night rebuilding my Zant costume into a decent interpretation of the character (I'll explain later) I had to work from 7:00am to 2:00pm...But if you know me, you know I'd never be lucky enough to get out on time. At 12 I was hit by a Prius that whipped through my parking lot, while I was loading out a washing machine. It tor my pants and gave me a bump on the head and elbow, but I was, mostly, OK. At 2 I got caught by some customers I had spent 2 hours with earlier in the day, and spent another hour helping them make up their minds. At 4 they came back and changed there mind and actually bought something. At 4:30 I left the store and went home, packed and waited for a half hour for Louis to pick me up. (It was his first time driving and it was scary but successful) We picked up donuts, drinks, and Parker, and got going around 6:15. Got to the ferry around 8:00pm and caught the 8:20 to Seattle. My leg was killing me at that point and the headache wasn't helped by the unusually choppy waters. We got the the hotel around 9:00 along with everybody else it seemed. We got popular very quickly because we brought a 2x5 foot cart to help us move the supply's and costumes to the room. But no matter how "friendly" the ladies were, my headache kept me from enjoying it. After our last roommate, DJ, got to the room, we got bombarded by a loud group of friends that were staying in the hotel, they camped out and watched anime in our room until around 11:00 when we realized we hadn't eaten. In an act of desperation we munched on the donuts and went to bed. And just as I started to drift off to sleep, I thought to myself, "This has to be an omen."

Friday:

We got up at 6:00am on Friday and got our badges. We were their early enough, that only a few people were ahead of us and we were done in the hour. We went back to the hotel and got DJ up to speed on, Nadia and the Secret of Blue Water, (He was cosplaying Capt. Nemo that day and had never seen it.) Around 10:00am after eating and bathing and BUILDING DJ'S COSTUME FROM SCRATCH, we got the convention and met up with our Nadia and Lady Grandis, (AKA and ) Within 5 minutes of meeting up we had 16 pictures taken, including a video of Sanson beating Dan Hibiki in an arm wrestling contest.) We went to the top floor to check some of the workshops and panels when we were pulled over by one of the biggest names in the cosplay world. Jim Betts, The Cosplay Hunter. [link] We spent over a half hour with him coming up with poses and getting pictures galore. Me and Parker even got to pull some Saturday Night Fever posses. I was very happy with how well it went over. I spent the rest of the day meeting up with friends and Guild members and finally bringing real closure to a rather large misunderstanding with We topped it off with the AMV contest. It was great getting to see all of the AMV's including my own, and despite the fact we both fell short I admit my defeat to the lovely miss You got me again my worth Rival. Congrats. The day ended with the Masquerade ball where I spent most of the time hooking up my friends, although I cashed in on a dance :iconranmaowesme: owed me. Followed by the Rave and 3+ hours of Hellsing Ultimate. So good.

Saturday:

We got a slow start on Saturday. We had planned on leaving around 9:00 but it was closer to 10:30 before it happened. My Zant costume took longer than it should have to finish. (The replacement pieces were good on the costume, but they didn't connect as well as the original did.) After the agony of getting Zant on, we hit the floor. It took forever to get up the stairs and escalators, and even longer to get to the cosplay contest. Lots of people liked Zant and just as many people were into DJ's Bardok. We couldn't get anywhere. We watched/recorded the cosplay contest and exploded in applause when "Olympic Cosplay's Street Team" (:Ranmaownsme: and Mama Mandar) took the stage. They were great. After the contest we meet up with Link and Dark Link and and DJ went his own way. We were stopped every 10 steps for pictures. By the time we met up I had nearly 40 pictures. And it only got worse from there. (I tracked my pictures by marking every 20th picture with a mark on the inside of my helmet.) I tried to keep up with them but they got tired not long after I got there and we split up that's when I met up with a girl named Maia aka Who I ended up hanging out with a lot. That went on until 7:00 or so when I left. If I remember correctly I had over 460 pics at that point and my leg injury was killing me. I iced down and relaxed my let until 9:50 and then went to the Johnny Garfield Show, which fell through again. We had everything planned except the room position was horrible, and the convention didn't give us the mic or projector they promised us. We had to cancel, which I was OK with because I ran off to get my camera and helped Parker record my favorite con band, Soul Candy. We got some great video. (I'll update my journal when I have finished editing the video and load it onto youtube) After that the two of us went back to the hotel. Watched some anime and later, after Louis came back, we watched the Moulin Rouge, and took pictures of ourselves until 4:00am when DJ and Alicia came back and we went to bed.

Sunday:

The time 6:30 am. The alarm goes off, and an unconscious Parker delivers onto me...A boot to the head! Literally! After the ringing stopped I showered, got dressed, and left for the St. James Cathedral. I got lucky and got my favorite priest for the Easter service. After a nice service I went back to the hotel and helped my room mates pack up. We dropped off our stuff in the ballroom at he Sheraton, and checked out. Me and Parker ran off to the AMC theater and got tickets to see Dragon Ball Evolution, after the convention. We ran back to the convention center and went our separate ways. He to the Slants and myself to the exhibitor hall. I hadn't spent much time in there because of all of the pictures and though Zant made it difficult I still got contacts for my Mukuro Rokudo cosplay for Kumori con and bought an engraved convention sword. (pictures coming soon) After I finished buying the sword, I was stealth glomped from behind by Maia, who "caught me in a Masterball" and dragged me around all day. Not to say it wasn't fun. In the time I was with her I got my picture total over 780, where I lost count. I never though that it could get that far with a largely compromised costume. I left Maia around 4:30 and met up with Parker who saw me faint standing up. After he got me awake again we realized that I had had nothing to drink or eat all day, and the back and leg supports I was wearing were the only thing keeping me up. After prying my helmet off I got to breath and we left the con for pacific place.

Post Con:

At the movie I gorged myself on pretzels, movie nachos, and a 40 oz coke. It was like coming back to life. I actually liked the movie and I loved the comment of the otaku around me. That night we got on the ferry, and watched part of Nick and Nora's Infinite Playlist. After 20 minutes of waiting for the cops to walk the dogs around ferry we left the boat and found a McDonald's in Poulsbo to finish the film. We pigged out and I got back all the calories I lost from the last two days in Zant. We dropped off Parker. Got my stuff out of the car. Sent Louis away and I moved all my stuff back into my room. At that point it was almost 11:50 and I went to the bathroom. I caught myself in the mirror as I was about to go to bed, and stopped. I looked myself in the eye, and thought back to everything that had happened. The good, the bad, the disappointments, the surprises. And as my face started to show the emotion I threw up in the sink. After I wrenched and cleaned myself up, I looked at the mirror, saw, for a second, the faces of everybody I met, talked to, and spent time with, smiled, and said, "It's been a good weekend!"

After thoughts:

It took forever but it's done. I'm sorry to everybody who read the whole thing but I thought it was funny. I'm depressed that the con is over now but I'll live. I'll see you all soon. Anime Evolution is next. Zant will see you next time.

*Why almost nobody heard from me last week.

First, to everyone who tried to contact me last week I want to appologize. I was well...very emo. My dog of 16 years had a stroke Tuesday and we had to put her down. It had me really broken up and I just shut off the world. I really hate myself for doing that and I am so very sorry. I'll be working to make up for that.

*Sakura Con Update.
My Nadia cosplay is ready to go. I got the red rose to finish it off this afternoon and I'm ready to woo the ladies.(just kidding...sort of)
Zant from Legend of Zelda is technically ready but I'm still not satisfied with the results. I'm redoing the entire shoulder armor assembly. I hope to have it done before the weekend. If I'm lucky. At least the helmet is done. Never thought that would be the thing I was happy with on the first try. Anyway it will be done before the cosplay contest. Look for it.
My Kimono for the Masquerade ball is almost done. I'm hemming a few pieces but past that it's good to go.

My Die Hard Onizuka AMV trailer is in the finals for the trailer category of the amv contest. Which is sad since I did it as a joke. (I should enter crap videos every time. My aki con amv got 6th place. And I did it in under 3 hours.)

* Olympic-Cosplay Update

I invite everybody to check out new journal. You get to vote on the mascot contest and determine which face will get onto the Olympic-Cosplay t-shirts coming soon.

Past that I'd like to once again say sorry for ignoring you guys and I can't wait to see you all again in...15 DAYS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! OK NOW I'M PANICKING. GOODNIGHT!!!!!

Hello everybody. Hope your lives have been good since new years. If they have not then I am truely sorry. But lets make it a little bit better. My cosplay guild is holding a contest and they are looking for some good artists to help them out.

We're looking for somebody to draw Tab [link] [link] on a body of your own design. Give him the look you think best fits Olympic-Cosplay's image. Make it in Gimp, Photoshop, ms paint, crayola or whatever.

The winning design will be put on the new line of Olympic-Cosplay T-Shirts (Coming Soon) and hoods in it's unaltered form. The winner will also receive a free, one of a kind, t-shirt, an honorary membership in Olympic-Cosplay, and a New DVD box set from Funimation Home Entertainment.

The contest ends March 12th so get started everybody. And tell your friends. This is not limited to Olympic-Cosplay members. If you have an entry just note them at or send an email to olympic-cosplay@hotmail.com

Just to say it in advance thanks to everybody for the support. It means a lot.