Bros before Hos (That Topic Again)

About a couple of weeks ago, I had asked people on Facebook if they would date their best friend's ex.  Interesting answers I saw.  Like I said, something similar has happened to me, but it was a friend, and that relationship only lasted about a month or so.

So, here's my story.

We have Tenchi, Shinji, and Ryoko (using names, not their characters).  Now Ryoko was dating Shinji for about a year before they broke up.  Tenchi and Shinji are best friends.  Tenchi asks his bestie if it's okay if they could date.  Even Ryoko asked as well.  It has been a couple of months since the breakup and Shinji is okay with it.

Or so we thought...

Come to find out that Shinji is not happy and miserable about that.  Now Tenchi is uber happy because he's met someone with similar interests, despite him having failed relationships, thinking that he'd never find anyone.

Now I understand if there's various circumstances, but there was none.  And the funny thing is that Tenchi said he had no interest in her whatsoever.  Last I recall, Tenchi and Shinji haven't spoken much since this.  But they might be now, who knows.

But I know that some people have stopped talking to Tenchi because of this, myself included.

I feel that you should never jeopardize a friendship with your best friend over a woman, no matter how much you feel.  Now I understand if Shinji said it was cool with it and was over it.  But it looks like he's not.

That's all I have to say on the matter.

Humbled I Am.

It's not often I get praise for the things that I do.  When it does happen, I get all odd and awkward about it, for I am not used to it.  And I feel humbled.  I always say that I am doing my job.  Early this year when I uploaded my con photos, I saw a spike in the number of likes and comments.  Seeing that made me smile.  I knew that people out there enjoyed the work that I love doing.  I don't cherry pick when it comes to cosplayers.  I try to hit as many I can for photos if they're not in a rush or inconvenienced.  If I am inspired, I'll do an impromptu photoshoot (it has happened a few times).

To everyone that has liked my photos, videos, commented... Thank you.  You all are the reason why I goto cons and do this.  I am truly blessed, thankful, honored, and humbled.

I leave you all with this video:

Donate to Callie Care!

See that button on the right hand side? I'm asking all of you who read this blog to add that button and help Callie out.  More information is posted on the link to that button.  We're raising funds for her to help pay for medical bills. ^_^

If you can't donate or bid on the auctions, just pay it forward.  Click the link and add the HTML code to your site. I promise it won't break anything. :)

Happy Thanksgiving!

Well everyone, have a great Turkey Day. ^_^

I do have some good news tho.  Remember this post here - http://www.djranmas.net/2011/10/learning-from-your-mistakes.html

I have an update.  So here's the thing.  I have this rule of where if I see someone more than three times that weekend at a con, I talk to that person.  Well this person in the first story... I saw her profile pop up twice while I was logged into LinkedIn, Foursquare, and Facebook.  I took a deep breath and added her to my Facebook.  Next day I saw she accepted the request.  Went over and said hi, she liked it and chatted back.  Ended up talking over Skype and things are cool now.

And I'm happy about that.

I am truly thankful of that.  The guilt that I carried around was lifted off my shoulders and disappeared.  Especially the fact that I look at her as family... Hell, I still do.  I think she knows if she needed help, I'd come, guns blasting, the whole nine.

Now, I'm gonna have some tea, a little tv, and prepare for my trip to my grandparents house.

Pay it Forward, Help Out

Usually my blog posts are about something relevant, something that bothers or even annoy me and I need a place to put these thoughts in hopes that someone would understand.

This time it's different.

I had just chatted with my bro Dymatrex.  It seems that a friend of ours from the past was just recently hit by a car over the weekend.  Upon finding that out, all of my memories with her just flooded back...  The skits, photoshoots, hanging out, all that good stuff.

I had even thought about getting in touch with her, just to see how she was doing and so forth.  Now that may not happen, and I feel guilty for not doing so.

I setup my shrine, lit my incense and candle. Callie, I wish a fast and speedy recovery for you.

You can head over to Jessi's blog for more info - http://jessiawesome.blogspot.com/2011/11/dear-friend-of-mine-callie-was-driving.html.  I ask that you give if she needs any help whatsoever.

Thank you.

Learning From Your Mistakes

I've been cosplaying for over ten years.  During this time, I've made stupid mistakes.  Mostly of me speaking before I think.  Granted most of us are guilty of that, but me more so than others.  I am thankful that I've learned from that.  I'm going to share with you all a couple of short stories of where my mouth has gotten me into trouble and how I learned from it.

A few years ago I was a cosplay judge at Anime Boston. After watching all of the skits and we went into the back to figure things out, I spoke out of turn about a Silent Hill skit. Honestly, I didn't know and I didn't realize what I had done.  One of my friends who was a judge told me the mistake I made and I apologized profusely about it. I didn't realize that after that, word gotten out to those people in that skit what I said. I had thought that what was said in closed doors, stayed there.  I thought wrong.

Monday night, said former friend called me up screaming about what I said.  And I was hurt over that.  I didn't think or realize that cosplays/cosplaying held a higher weight than a friendship.  I tried to apologize and explain, but she didn't want to hear it.  That was the last of it. I shed a tear and moved on.  Come to find out later that said person was still pissed.  It seems that a certain photo of her was leaked and someone was talking smack about her and the skits on various forums.  Was it me?  Nope.  I thought about trying to defend myself, but from what I saw, noone would believe me.  I said fuck it, and moved on.

Lately, I've been thinking about trying to fix that friendship.  But I don't have the willpower to do so, because I fear that trying to will just blow up in my face.  I do hope that this person knows that I'd like to fix that and let it be.

---

Let's skip ahead to a few years later, Anime NEXT.  This one girl I was crushing on big time, stayed with me for the con.  She too had a thing for me, but whenever I tried to pursue, she pull up her defenses and start playing mind games.  Eventually I said fuck that and moved on.  She would stay at my house before and after the con.  Also because she would meet up with local photographers and needed crash space.  After the con, my best friend drove us home and we hung out on the Coney Island boardwalk.  Then after that, I really didn't hear too much from her.  I didn't think twice about that because I got swamped with work and other projects.

A few months later I dropped her a line to see what's up and she was quite rude to me. I demanded to know what her problem was.  She was mad at me because I told people that we slept together and that she was with me.  Immediately I told her that was an outright lie.  That con weekend, I never told anyone such a thing, but she didn't believe me.  I also found out that $700 was missing from the house too.  That would also explain why she stopped talking to me, and also why she stopped coming up to conventions in the NY / NJ / DC / MD areas, specifically the ones I goto.  I called her out for that and no response.

Skip to today where my new roommate is friends with her.  I told him everything what happened and he was like "Damn".  I sent her a friend request, thinking that she had let it be.  No reply.  I got angry, so wanted to call her out for her antics, but I said fuck it.  But I was hurt.  Hurt that she came up with this lie to cover up for the fact that she stole from my roommate.  I tried to put her on blast once, but that blew up in my face.  How I feel now? I just want her to admit she lied and she stole the money then all is forgiven.

Hopefully from reading these stories, you guys and gals understand why it's always a good thing to think before you speak and watch what you say....

GOODNIGHT!

Time is Money... And Money is Time

It took me a while to understand that phrase.  But that phrase hit me head on last week.

Last week, I found out this girl I knew from an online chatroom was in town.   So we made plans to hang out. I said that I'd contact her when I was done with work.  I was done around 11 and I texted her that I'd be free around 3.  No answer.  I texted her that I'm free at 5.  Still nothing, so I went home that day.  Around 9pm I get a text from her that she left her phone in her purse.

Call me annoyed, but I've never known a woman to not have her purse and phone on her when going out.  That night I was checking my Facebook update, as per the norm, and I noticed that she was checking into places in NYC via Facebook Mobile.  This was during the times I had texted her. I decided right then and there to ignore her.

You might think that was a dick move, or me being insensitive.  But listen... Now the day before, I was going to another site to finish a contract job the same day I was going to meet her.  So since she said that she wanted to meet, I opted to finish that contract job on Friday.

I have no problem meeting people to hang out for lunch, dinner, fun touristy stuff.  If you don't want to hang out and do other things, I'm cool with it, I'm not offended. I'm only offended when you say that you want to hang out and then not tell me.  I could have finished that work on Wednesday and had an early weekend on Friday.

I feel like I've learned my lesson.  Friends are friends, but don't fuck with my time which could jeopardize my money.