First impressions: Darth Vader costume

A deluxe version of the Darth Vader costume has arrived today. The helmet is not bad at all, except that it is only the front section. There is padding inside around the eyes, so that they don't fog up.

The suit itself is very nice, but a bit tight at the top to get into, the cape is attached to the suit. The belt is hopelessly too big. What those two pieces hanging down the side are for, I would like to know.

With the suit, I also ordered seperate gloves and a voice changer. The voice changer I haven't tried yet due to the lack of time and batteries.

Meeting with professional wrestlers

After the wrestling event on Monday at the Good Hope Centre, there was an autograph signing yesterday evening after 8PM at the Saddles Steak Ranch in Claremont.

Wrestlers appearing there were Nathan Jones, Rikishi, Plack Perl, Green Berret, the Singh brothers, ODB and others.

Not too many people showed up for the event, but it was great to meet them in person.

I got hold of a business card with a link to NU-Wrestling USA.

World Wrestling Superstars (WWS) in Cape Town

Last night was an international wrestling event in Cape Town. For a totally unknown organisation, the attendence was good, but that was only because a lot of the wrestlers were known from WWE. A lot of these wrestlers from World Wrestling Superstars (WWS) had WWE contracts that expired at some point or just simply left WWE.

The show was great, it started of with several ladies dancing in the ring, followed by a local band marching through the arena with bagpipes and drums. After that the wrestling started.

During the one tag team match, the referee was always in a perfect position during a stranglehold, but also had a perfect blindspot which was abused by another wrestler each time. The entire event took three hours, and I only got out of there jsut before 11PM.

Apparently there is supposed to be an autograph signing today at 8 at the Saddles in Claremont, but I am not sure if that is 8 in the morning or 8 in the evening.

Costume booking issues

Due to all of the year-end functions taking place, I am beginning to juggle bookings of my home-based costume renting business. There are sometimes very close overlaps for certain costumes, and in some cases I got to check with some clients again at what date they were looking for something.

Yesterday a lady was asking for a specific Star Wars costume for five days. The time she needs it is shortly after I am getting that back from another event of soem company.

Today somebody wanted to come to check the small Catwoman costume that arrived on Saturday. Maybe some other people will come as well or they will come tomorrow.

Soon the ordered Darth Vader costume should arrive as well as the Pirate couple costumes.

Meeting friends at the train station

This morning I took an earlier train than usual, just to find somebody there who is normally leaving that station two trains earlier. For many months, we used to travel together by train from the Cape Town station to the Monte Vista station.

Vacation in Namibia

As every year, I will be going to Namibia to visit my family as usual.
This time I am leaving on 16th December 2005 and coming back on the 7th of January 2006. I am just very concerned about my mother with her job situation and my father with his health problems.

Costume bookings heating up

The costume bookings in the last couple of days have become quite a bit more frequent. As I get more bookings, more costumes had to be ordered or in different sizes. My booking system needs a serious upgrade to keep track of all the things going on.

Another DoW weekend

This last weekend was quite a bit about lack of sleep due to Organised Chaos (OC) and another Dawn of War session at Jokobus' place.

A bad weekend

DOSW ten year reunion

This morning came an email from a classmate dating back many years to when I was still in the DOSW (Deutsche OberSchule Windhoek [German High School Windhoek]).
On 17th December 2005 is the ten year reunion in Windhoek at the Heja Lodge from 17:30 onwards.

We close the company on the 15th, so hopefully I will make it on time.

Rip van washing line

Last night there were some strange sounds outside. First I thought it was somebody walking around at 10PM at night and really nearbywhere I am staying. The lack of footsteps tossed out that thought shortly after, since that would have been clearly heard. Then I suspected a cat that tends to come for visits, but that would never be so noisy.

In the end it turned out that the seperate noises which I heard were the individual strings of the washing line finally breaking. Tying up the strings wasn't a problem, but I just didn't have the strength or weight to get it back onto the same spot. At that hour, I didn't want to take everything that wasn't mine off, try and get the line up there with that lack of light, and then hang up everything again.

International connectivity

Yet again the international connection of South Africa to the rest of the world is fluctuating. It is too long overdue that another telephone provider comes along to become competition to Telkom. There is supposedly one, but that story is nice and quiet.

If there would be two or more competitors, instead of the current monopoly situation, then at least the service levels to all of those paying customers would improve. From what I can see with every move that Telkom makes, is that they just try and milk the poor paying consumer for as much money as possible before the second service provider can have an influence on that.

Wireless ISPs are an option, but in the end, they still use Telkom lines for international connections.