As with the Unitech Halloween party photos from 1995, though Lisa has the 1996 ones somewhere, she never dug them out while I was still working for the company, so I will in all likelihood never get ahold of them.
Luckily, my costume this year, Samurai, had the same base elements as later Samurai Killed By A Ninja costume. Therefore, I've taken an extra photo of myself in the latter costume and (rather crudely) edited it to look like the the plain-wrap Samurai did. I've removed the embedded shuriken in the forehead and toned down the other makeup and color contacts, changed the wakizashi to a brown wooden bokken, and changed the red belt to a white one. The other difference (not visible here) is that instead of black tabi, I was wearing white socks and black sandals.
One funny anecdote from this year at Unitech was that my friends Matt Madsen,
John Jermanis, and I all independently decided to wear a martial arts uniform
from a class as our costume. I think John may have added a touch of humor to
his with a tied necktie mounted on his head like a bandanna, but in essence,
we all did the same thing. I believe Unitech wasn't yet doing prizes for the
costume contest, but if they were, I'm pretty sure none of us won anything.
At
lunchtime we thought it would be a riot to go to local Japanese restaurant Goro, but the mood
there was somber, the wait staff was unamused, and we all felt rather silly.
My hakama (the black ultra-wide-pant-leg thingies), the gi top, the white
belt, and the wooden bokken came from the Iaido class I took at UCI. One day when walking along a path on a
hill next to Middle Earth, I
was amazed to find three guys in samurai outfits practicing sword moves. I
asked them what the story was and found out that there was an Iaido class on
campus. I soon signed up for it. It was really neat, but unfortunately I
really didn't have the spare time for it, and I dropped out after a few
classes. At the very least, though, I got three Halloween costumes out of
the deal!
Dan Harkless
Page created: October 12, 2003
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