A Whisky Contest for Bender

"Good sir, what has your Bender costume been up to lately?"
- Random Internet People

In a word (plus an article of speech), a contest! Bender's been battling for one of the coveted top five positions over at World Whisky Day's photo contest. Master Blender Richard Paterson will then choo-choo-choose the winner from those five photos.

During the first week I was actually surprised to find myself in the top five but that didn't last long. Over the Easter weekend my photo slipped to sixth and then seventh place despite Blair Bowman himself connoting on Facebook that my photo was brilliant!

It took some perseverance, but I pulled through and am currently mid-pack of the top five.

Many of the photos in the running are really great. Excellent even. And I'd be happy just to finish in the top five. But let's face it. It would be even sweeter if I actually won that fantastic prize.

Can Bender pull it off? I think so. After all, my photo encompasses more of the whisky-drinking marketplace than the others, as mine is the only top photo to feature women. And I am sure Mr. Paterson recognizes that the whisky market is more than men. Because someone wise enough to have blended what's been declared the world's best blended scotch in TWO prestigious competitions is surely wise enough to include men, women AND robots.

I sincerely thank everyone who has voted for me. A HUGE thumbs up from your favourite spirit-chugging robot, Bender!

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You can click here to see what Blair Bowman said.
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Update May 2012: My photo did not win. The winner was a great outdoor photo by Klemen Saje from Slovenia. My congratulations to him!

Bjork Swan Dress Costume

Halloween is arguably the best time of the year. There are so many reasons for its awesomeness that it cannot be summed up in a simple blog. Possibly a really complex blog posting would explain the awesomeness sufficiently, but I have very little time for that. During the month of October, I don't even have time to eat. I'm running on the last morsels of nutrients from my thanksgiving dinner.

This year I had two costumes; a work costume and one for my party. I began my main party costume in August. I've loved Bjork for as long as I can remember. My paraphernalia is extensive. It was time to complete it with some clothing.

It was time to cross-dress.

It was an obvious choice to go with the 2001 Academy Awards era Bjork. Yep, a home-made Bjork Swan Dress Halloween costume. And here's how I did it.

I picked up some sheer curtains ($15) at a thrift store, along with an $8 white skirt. I cut the sheers into strips, and sewed them onto the skirt in layers. I bought 3 white feather boas at Party Packagers for approximately $21. These were glued between the layers.

I bought a small bit of sexy satiny polyester ($6) for the swan's neck, and sewed that to the top of the dress. I stuffed it with about $2 worth of pillow stuffing and a piece of wire. I bent the wire into a U shape, that would go around my puny neck.


I bought $1.50 worth of orange and $1.50 worth of black Fun Foam at Michael's craft store. Using stupid, dull scissors (I need new scissors) I formed the orange piece into a funnel-like beakish sort of shape. It worked!




The black nostrilly part of the swan was more difficult. And my crappy scissors didn't help. I cut a bizarre symmetrical shape out of the black Fun Foam to make this part. It doesn't look like it works, but it does!




I slid the wacky black shape into the orange beak and used my hot glue gun to hold them together. Note to people using hot glue guns - don't use the glue sparingly. Go nuts! The fun foam wanted to revert back into its natural flat shape, and tore. I had to glue this beak twice.




Finally, I used the hot glue gun to attach the completed beak to the head of the swan. It's a major visible component of the dress, so it had to look right. Once complete, I was very pleased with how it turned out.



The last items I needed were shoes and a wig. I bought the shoes at another thrift store for $7. They're not an exact match, but they're close enough that literally 99% of people who see me would never know. (I later found out that 50% of people who saw me didn't even know who I was! Eeep!)

I picked up a surprisingly accurate wig at Spirit Halloween for $16 sometime in mid-September. Total cost, about $78. It's worth every penny knowing you'll never find yourself face to face with another Swan Dress Bjork costume, fighting for prizes at some dope-ass party.

Fully assembled, I'd say I make a pretty sweet Bjork. Most people wouldn't. Most people would run away screaming. Which is exactly what Halloween is all about!

Bender Costume Construction

April 2012 update.

I feel great thanks to the kudos from fellow bloggers as well as from other costumed Halloween lovers at the Boston Pizza Costume Contest I won October 31. Therefore, I thought a post on how I made my Bender costume was in order.

My homemade Bender costume started off as a hope. I knew it would be difficult even if I could find the parts I needed. But more importantly, I knew it was going to be impossible if I couldn't find the proper head. That's why I started in August.

Strolling through a Zellers one afternoon Suz stumbled across a $7 plastic garbage can, quite by luck. I popped the top off and slid it over my head. It was perfect.

I began working on the body first. I bought a Quick-tube, or sono-tube, for pouring concrete footings from Home Depot for $9. I bought the largest one they had, 12" diameter. As most people would agree, 12" is too small, so I split it open. It was also too tall for my torso, so I cut it almost in half. It was also too yellow, but that was easy to fix.

Using an angled strip from the bottom half, I wedged it into the backside, where my shiny metal ass would be, and screwed it together from the inside. I used other small curved bits of leftover tube as the joiners. The cracks were filled with Polyfilla and I later sanded them smooth. See Bender's body here.

While the glorious amounts of Polyfilla dried, I worked on the footcups. They were easy. I bought a pair of plastic salad bowls from the dollar store, flipped them upside down and, using a Dremel, cut feet holes out of them. I took an old pair of Nike's and glued the toe to the front of Bender's footcup. The glue (Goop) was flexible and allowed me to move the shoe around a bit. Finally, I painted them with grey primer, and attached a flap of grey fabric to cover my black shoes.

Back on the body, I carefully measured where my arms should go, and using a jigsaw, cut out arm holes in the sides. The tube would sit on my shoulders, so I attached a couple of spongey rubber pads that were a family heirloom, passed down from my grandpa to my dad, and finally to me. True story.

Once I climbed inside it I realized I could neither sit nor walk up stairs. With the jigsaw, I cut a flap in the front, but left it attached in the middle. Using carpenter's glue I attached a tab on either side of the flap and glued a pair of attracting neo magnets to each one plus the flap. The flap could be popped open with my thigh and would slam back down and be held in place by the expensive magnets.

Bender's head is unique and instantly recognizable. I knew I had to get it right so I was very careful and spent the most time here. First, I made the visor where the eyes would go. I made it from cardboard and added popsicle sticks for strength and a smoothness that bent cardboard is not known for. I filled in the little gaps with Polyfilla and sanded till it was perfect.

I know Bender is 30% iron, but in my case, he was 30% filler & adhesives. Using more Goop glue, I sealed the garbage flap in the top of the dome. Then I filled in the gap with, yep, you got it, more Polyfilla.

Using white caulking, I sealed the finished visor to the garbage can and smoothed it with my supreme caulking skills. I cut the top of a spray-paint can in half - horizontally - and glued it to the top of the garbage can to form the base of Bender's antenna. On that I attached a tapered tube of rolled paper. Finally, I mounted a wooden doll's head, which I purchased at Michael's for about $1.69.

The Dremel was too crazy and unpredictable to cut the mouth out, so I carefully drilled about 40 pilot holes around the mouth perimeter, then cut through them all with a nice blade. Once I sanded the edges smooth the head was ready for paint. Again, I used grey primer, as it matches Bender's colour perfectly.

The dollar store provided Bender's eyes. I used the domes off the packaging of two micro remote control cars, carved them to fit the contour of the garbage can, and spray painted them white. I painted the inside of the visor black, then glued the eyes in place. Once dry, I used a black Sharpie to draw his square pupils.

The fabric for Bender's arms & legs was cheap. I found 1.7 metres of the most perfect grey material at Fabricland for about $7. I had a friend of Suz's family sew this fabric onto some cheap clothing I picked up at Value Village for about $10. She also sewed the most excellent 3-finger square gloves from the same material. Here I am trying it on.

The mouth area is where I see out. I used a hot glue gun and attached some sheer fabric that used to hang in our bedroom window. Suz hated it, so it came down, and this seemed like a great use for it. I drew Bender's teeth with a black Sharpie. Inside the helmet I glued two strips I cut from popsicle sticks. The first reason was to add strength incase the mouth was poked from the other side, and secondly, to hold a neo magnet in place.

This magnet was the key to awesomeness. I glued the magnet's mate to the end of a big plastic novelty cigar that I picked up at Party Packager's for 49 cents. With the magnets, I could put the cigar "in" my mouth whenever I wanted. It worked flawlessly, and the Boston Pizza patrons agreed with their cheering.

This was the most elaborate costume, by far, I've ever attempted. Total cost was close to $100 which included a few extra parts I ruined and had to buy again. Total labour was about 25 fun and stressful hours. Everyone but my dad thought I was crazy. But it all paid off in the end when I won enough money to cover the cost of making it, plus more.

So, if you ever want to attempt a Bender costume, I hope this helps. If not, well, you know what you can bite.

Halloween Costume Contest

Sometimes it's not evident that I love Halloween as much as I do. The decorations on the outside of my house are minimal and up until this year, I had never been to a costume contest before.

For years I've been following the adventures of Rob Cockerham at cockeyed.com. He is exciting, talented, dimple-cheeked and modest. These are things I like.

Every year Rob creates elaborate Halloween costumes, then attends massive costume contests in California where the top prizes are huge cash awards, sometimes thousands of dollars. This year, Rob was my inspiration.

2008 marks the return of Futurama. A number of full-length feature movies have been created and the first two have already been aired. Showing my love for Futurama, and Bender in particular, I made a Bender costume. Here is the link to how I built it.

Days before Halloween I noticed two local restaurants were having costume contests. Since our annual Halloween party almost always falls on the same day as these pub, bar and restaurant contests, I've never been able to attend one. But this year Halloween (and thus, the parties and contests) fell on a Friday.

I phoned the Whistling Walrus and asked a few questions. I learned that the crowd would be cheering for their favourite costumes and the top prize was a Future Shop gift certificate, but they would not disclose the amount.

The Boston Pizza near our University was judging the contest the same way, with crowd cheers. Top prize there was $200 cash for best male, and $200 cash for best female. I decided this would be the one I'd attend.

At 10 p.m. Suz and I loaded the components to my costume into the Insight and drove about 1 kilometre to Boston Pizza. Inside, the bar was starting to fill up. Many people were dressed up, but nothing as elaborate as the manager in his totally authentic Ghostbuster costume! I mean, this thing looked like it actually worked. I could practically smell the ectoplasm on him, but maybe that was melted cheese.

The staff was dressed up and many of them loved my costume. Costumed people entered the bar area and many times rushed over to me to pose for pictures. I loved this! But I had never been to a contest before and didn't know how to work the room. I was very nervous. Luckily the Pope calmed me down and I went back to the bar where I calmed my nerves some more - and fueled my power cells at the same time.

Just before 11:30 the Ghostbusting manager made an announcement that the contest was going to start soon. The bar was packed. Every table had 6.2 people crammed around it and it was difficult to walk around. It was getting so full that people began beaming in.

Suddenly the crowds parted as a Christian Bale Batman and a Heath Ledger Joker entered the bar. They were, in a word, phenomenal. Batman's voice was perfect as he commented to me, "nice costume." The Joker moved about the room easily winning people over.

A few minutes later the manager called all contestants to the front. There were just under 20 people entered in the contest. The rest of the bar, well over 100 people, watched carefully as we all stood at the front.

After each name was called, that particular person climbed onto a table and the crowd cheered. The Pope garnered a huge applause. The transvestite did too. The morals of the bar were split.

One of the Incredibles got a big cheer, as did the red Power Ranger. Batman put on a great display and his his applause was excellent. But the Joker stole the show. With his slick hair and evil stares, the Joker was clearly winning the bar over. The applause was thunderous. I knew I had lost but decided that I was still very happy that so many people loved my costume and wanted to talk to me about it.

My turn came to climb onto the table.

The manager helped me up and I turned to face the crowd. As I slid my Bender helmet over my head I became deafened by the cheering. The bar erupted as I held my cigar and waved. People stood up. An entire table chanted "BENDER! BENDER! BENDER!" at the top of their lungs. I snapped my magnetic cigar onto my mouth and the crowd doubled their effort! I was amazed! I couldn't believe how strong the love was for beer-drinking, black-jack-playing, thieving Bender.

I stepped down, proud of my effort. I thought to myself, "That was close, but I think I might've won!" After a short tally the manager came back with his mic to hand out the prizes. 2nd place male went to.... the Joker! Everyone clapped and cheered. The manager then handed me the envelope, the one containing the $200 cash prize, and announced, "First place goes to Bender people!"

The Joker gave me a knowing grin from across the bar. After a few pats on the back from my fans, I went outside and congratulated the Joker on a good battle. I talked to the manager again and walked around meeting more people. I thanked all the meatbags who cheered for me before heading home, the giddy winner of Boston Pizza's 5th annual Halloween Costume Contest.

One more:
Bender & the manager.
Link:
How I made my Bender costume.

Hallowe'en Countdown

Corpses, blood, severed heads, death, the stench of rotting flesh, and something creeping around in the dark. Yes, October 1st is here and the Halloween countdown has begun. If you're like me I know you're thinking, "I won't be able to sleep" and it has nothing to do with those eyes staring at you from outside your bedroom window.

But for me Halloween started a long time ago. It started in April, when I ordered goodies for half price. And then it continued into August and September when I began working on my costume for 2008.

This year I'm tackling the biggest, most ambitious costume project I've ever attempted. And if things continue the way they're going, it's also going to be the most expensive costume I've ever made.

Supplies have been rather difficult to come by, but I'm doing my best to find cheap items that will work.

A trip to Michaels Arts & Crafts store ran me a total of $13 for magnets, glue, wooden popsicle sticks, and a wooden doll head. Zellers did me proud by offering an $8-dollar garbage can. A $10.50-trip to Home depot netted me some Polyfilla, a roll of duct tape, and some incidentals.

Things were getting expensive so to remedy the problem the Dollar store saw some costume action. There I purchased two micro remote controlled race cars that say absurdly logical things like "Power", "Speed" and "Momentum". I also bought two salad bowls and some snacks.

Finally, I snagged a courduroy deal at Fabricland, taking home the last 2 metres of material for only $7. For secret's sake, I've left out 4 items which total $24.

My running total is up to about $66.50 with work done on my costume clocked in at about 8 hours. And there is still not one single part of it that is wearable. That's not bragging - this thing looks worse than Roseanne Barr sounds.

When the results are fantastic, putting this much effort into a costume makes me proud. But if this turns out as crappy as I think it might, it makes me think I should cut my losses, hop in my Time Machine, go back and start over with something a lot more simple. Like hiding under the bed all night and pretending I went as the Invisible Man.

Halloween Party 2006

Fifteen years ago, during high school, I decided I wanted to start having Halloween parties. Back then they were simple. Chips, pop, one creepy candle, and 6 or 7 friends in our unfinished basement watching a scary movie.

Things are different now.

The amount and quality of the food has multiplied, and the drinks have mostly changed to that sort which have inebriating effects on the non-preg people who consume it. And luckily, all of my friends are happy drunks.

I started planning my costume 3 years earlier, but never got around to actually making it. Last year's phenomenal Zombie thing pushed it back yet again, and this year, as a contrast to last year's evilness, I decided that I absolutely had to finish it. After a lot of hard work (and some not-so-hard work thanks to Arr, the Kraken's beer-belt instructions) I was Duffman! OH yeah!

By 9:00 p.m. there were quite a lot of costumed people squeezing past each other in the foyer, and half an hour later the party was in 5th gear.

Inspired by the house drink of the evening, Suz's cousin made a stunning blue, white & red entrance as a Bleeding Smurf. I don't know how well Smurfs can handle their alcohol, because it wasn't even midnight yet when this particular Smurfette tumbled her three apples down the stairs.

Meanwhile, Doctor Est, the breast doctor, was offering free examinations all night, while a demon-eyed, Angel-esque vampire spent the night looking for new victims and influencing his wife to help Dr. Est with the 'hands on' portion of his examinations. Upstairs, animatronic freddy Kreuger scared anyone on a journey to the bathroom. The toilet didn't get flushed much, but the floor needed constant mopping.

When the judging for best costume started, Jedi Kevin, weilding a 'real' lightsabre, attempted to influence the judges while others, like the fully decorated and lit-up Christmas Tree, tried to sneak closer for some eavesdropping. Even Rainypete, yes, THAT Rainypete, got in on the action.

Down in the Dungeon, drinks were flying thanks to the main bartender, Suz, and a number of guest-bartenders including Pirate Brett who made me a tasty concoction which I lost, and 80s White Snake-ish dude, >Ryan.

When everyone's bellies were full of beverages and chocolate, we held the Best Costume contest. The judges were myself, Suz, Penny, Chris and Robin. We agreed upon five favourite costumes: Austin Powers, the Vampire, the Christmas Tree, the Bleeding Smurf and Pirate Brett. In order to convince the other party-goers that they deserved the coveted Best Costume trophy, they had to act. In less than a minute they worked out a most hilarious, tears-rolling-down-your-face skit, which I video taped for years of future enjoyment, and maybe a little blackmail.

Everyone voted via almost-secret ballot, and the best costume trophy (an Oscar-like gold skeleton holding his own head) went to Vicki, the Bleeding Smurf. I assume she'll have some pics posted on her blog, but Duffman offers no promises. OH no!

For more pics of party wackiness, click here.
And here.
And even here.