DJ Lance...

So, a few weeks ago my friend Derek asked me if I could dress up as this character DJ Lance from the show Yo Gabba Gabba for his daughter's birthday. They live in Illinois so I would record the message and email it to them. I said yes, how hard could it be? I looked DJ Lance up on two of my favorite and most trusted reference websites, wikipedia and youtube. I came up with this gem:

Ok, this may be a little more difficult than I thought. It seems like they're all really good dancers and there the whole issue of the costume. I decided to get the costume off amazon.com first and worry about the dancing and music later.

When I was looking for the costume, it was kinda tough because I didn't want to get something too loose. The images on the packages just had photos of DJ Lance.

Like it would really fit like that... All my years trick or treating taught me that costumes never fit like the real thing. I didn't want to look like I was wearing DJ Lance's sweatsuit. When it came in, It was a decent enough fit and I just wore a pair of sambas for the shoes. Close enough.

For the video I just tried to do what he did in the youtube video. My gf filmed it with her iphone and we played the youtube video in the background to get some music. This was the first take. i would have done another, but the polyester was getting way too hot and no one want to see DJ Lance sweat. So, i'm typing too much. Here's the video :)

Derek said that she loved the whole thing and kept replaying it. Mission Accomplished. Happy Birthday :)

*Note I cannot take credit for that awesome wood paneling. That's my gf's place, not mine...

*sigh* It's almost Valentine's Day

Is it just me, or is Valentine's Day way to close to Christmas? It's not like in high school when all you had to do was get a candygram watch other people get candygrams. Now since we're sort of adults, we have to get real gifts. To make things worse, my girlfriend's birthday is at the end of November, so that's 3 major planning/gift giving dates right in a row.

Let me share the story of what happened to me last year. Not only did I do a good job with her birthday. I killed it. I knew she wanted to get into biking, so I got her this really cool retro cruiser bike and fixed it up. Exaggerated pictures below.

Yeah, I was a beast fixing it up. Then, along with a few of her friends we organized a surprise birthday party which went better than expected. I also got her a soccer jersey for our favorite team, Arsenal, so she wouldn't feel left out when we went to watch the matches. And oh yeah I designed a card for her and had her friends sign. So in short, yeah, I killed it.

That was all great except for one thing. Her birthday was at the end of November. I left myself with hardly any options left for Christmas less than a month later. I ended up getting her a book. Yep that's right a book. She told that was what she wanted, but c'mon.... it was a book.

By the time Valentine's day rolled around like 6 weeks later I was finished. I can't even remember what we did. I think we went out to dinner maybe. It was brutal trying to come up with something.

Looking back, I guess I peaked too soon. Maybe I'll start just getting crappy birthday gifts so that whatever I do for Valentine's Day looks better. *sigh*