Where's Bulma?

I was up pretty late last night. How could I have been so irresponsible on a Wednesday? Well, I have an awful lot of work to do before Friday morning, and the list taped to my apartment wall still has a few items that aren’t crossed off: “finish armor,” “paint gloves,” “make arm bracelets,” and a couple other bits and pieces that I’ll have to wrap up tonight.

If an afternoon perfecting the art of Medieval Carpentry sounds to you like time well spent, you should probably be at the seventh-annual Boston Skillshare at MIT this weekend. Run by an entirely-volunteer organizing collective, the two-day event features workshops ranging from the somewhat esoteric (“Wild Carrot as a Natural Method of Contraception,” “Making Milk out of Nuts and Seeds,” or “Spoon Carving”) to the practical (the simply-titled “Time Management”).

A couple weeks ago, I heard tell of www.flightlipdub.com, which was basically a contest to see who could best lip-synch the Flight of the Conchords song “Hiphopopotamus vs. Rhymenoceros.” I decided to do it because (a) I have recently aquired a retardedly-expensive video-camera and some editing software, (b) I needed an excuse to learn how to better use them, and (c) I have a friend with a chicken suit.

Anime Boston 2008

ThePhoenix.com's resident cosplay expert, Maddy Myers, reports from Anime Boston. And yes, if you must know, she made that Zelda suit from scratch.

Good idea: 15,000 Anime Fans swarming Hynes Convention Center.ce:office" />

Bad idea: Only five computers set up to register them all.

(Photograph by Michael Lutch)

Is there a pianist in the house?

Moved and excited by pianist Leon Fleisher’s performance of Beethoven’s Emperor Concerto with the Boston Symphony, I wanted to hear it again. But when I returned to Symphony Hall, I learned that around 6:00 PM that evening, a stomach flu had forced Fleisher to cancel, and that the distinguished Austrian/Canadian pianist Anton Kuerti, in town to hear his son Julian (one of the BSO’s two new assistant conductors) in his BSO conducting debut, agreed to go on, without any rehearsal, in Fleisher’s place.

Leap out of your desks, bitches.

You shouldn't be here.

It was born in New York City. But since then, the flash mob whatshamacallit has spread -- so that now these things are just about everywhere. Yes, it seems like with each passing week, another group of people randomly drop their pants while riding public transportation, or engage in a giant city-wide pillow fight or -- and this is my personal favorite -- freeze for a few minutes in some public place.