Update (31 Mar 11): assjedi contacted me yesterday to arrange a meet-up and I collected most of my costume from him this morning. Robe was not there so I've asked him to check and get back to me.
Hi everyone,
I've had a bad experience with assjedi regarding my costume and I'm writing this to warn anyone who's considering lending him their things or dealing with him in other matters.
To summarise this post: Azmi Danuri, i.e. assjedi, borrowed my Jedi costume some time back, never returned it, and has been ignoring my many attempts to contact him to get it back. I still haven't got my costume back. Please read on for more details.
I haven't been active in costuming for a long while, but I started Star Wars costuming in 2002 and own a Jedi costume which I improved on over the years. In early 2009, around April, assjedi contacted me to ask to borrow my costume for a video shoot. I'd known him from various SW costuming events before, so I agreed to lend him what he needed, which was most of my costume. As far as I can remember, these are what he borrowed from me:
- tailored tunic and obi
- tailored robe
- handmade leather Jedi-style belt with Sam Browne-style rivets
- accessories that go on the belt: 3 handmade pouches (1 large, 2 small), and several handmade 'Jedi food capsules' painted silver and copper
- brown long-sleeved T-shirt
After that, he never once tried to contact me to return my costume. I was busy with school and other things, and since I had no immediate need for my costume and trusted him to take care of it, it was not a number one priority for me to contact him to get it back (which was a mistake on my part). I emailed and SMSed him about it two or three times but never got a reply.
Last month, on 10 February 2011, I found one of his more recent email addresses online and emailed him to ask him to return me my costume. He promptly emailed me back 15 minutes later and suggested that we meet that coming Sunday afternoon (13 Feb) at *Scape level 4, Grid New Media Studios. I agreed. When I arrived there at around 4.30pm, he was talking to a group of people and I presume he was there for a training session of his lightsaber choreography group. He said he'd forgotten to bring my costume with him. I accepted that reason and asked him to meet me at the MRT station near my home. He suggested Monday evening (14 Feb) around 8+pm, and I agreed.
On Monday, I SMSed him at his current handphone number at 4pm as a reminder, and to tell him to contact me when he was near the MRT station so I could go there to meet him. He did not reply to that message. Come evening, there was still no word from him even by 8.45pm. I sent him an SMS to ask when he would be there. No reply. I gave him time to reply, till 9.30pm, then called him twice. Either the calls rang out or he rejected my calls. In any case, he did not answer. At 9.45pm, I SMSed him yet again, "Are you coming at all?" Still no reply.
Then later that night, he shared a College Humor video on Facebook. So it wasn't that he was too busy with something else that was more important, or that he had no way to contact me, since he didn't email me about it either. He'd simply chosen not to show up.
Over the next week, I sent him several emails, SMSes, and also a Facebook message - 7 messages in all since his no-show. He hasn't replied to any of them. He's active on Facebook, the forums here, and the forums at Movie Mania, and even recently gave out as his contact number the handphone number I've been trying to contact him at. This handphone number is also displayed in his email signature. I don't see any good reason why he hasn't replied at all to any of my messages even now, a month later. Not even to tell me whether he intends to return my costume or not.
Seeing as it's been so difficult just to get a reply from him, I doubt I will get my costume back. Obviously I am not happy about this. It might not be a very grand or expensive costume, but I've had it for many years, spent a good deal of time and effort in making it, and it's seen me through several screenings of a few SW movies, costume parades, the Art of Star Wars exhibition, and so on.
I readily agreed to lend assjedi my Jedi costume free-of-charge, out of goodwill. I guess I was sadly mistaken to assume that I could trust him with my costume just because he's a fellow SW costumer who should understand the value of a costume to its owner.
Furthermore, I have since heard that this is not the only case where he has not returned things, and even money, that he borrowed. I hope this will serve as sufficient warning to others about assjedi.
Azmi, since you have continually refused to communicate with me via more private means, I'm posting this message to you here. I'm sure you're reading this since you're active in these forums, unless you're choosing to deliberately ignore a thread which has your username in its title. It was a favour you asked of me in borrowing my costume. You never tried to contact me to return it before I contacted you. Yet I have been more than accommodating in trying to meet up with you at your convenience so that you can return my costume to me. At this point it's clear to me that you cannot or will not return me my costume, and that you did not simply 'forget' to bring it when I went to meet you that Sunday.
I expected that you, as the self-styled 'Master' of a lightsaber choreography group, would at the very least have the basic courtesy to reply to my repeated attempts to contact you. Or that you would honestly and at the first opportunity tell me if you cannot or do not want to return my costume to me. Instead, it seems that you chose to lie and say that you 'forgot' to bring my costume at the first meet-up, completely failed to show up at the agreed second meet-up without notice or apology, and have been ignoring just about all of my messages.
Still, you are very welcome to prove me wrong by returning my costume to me, in its original condition. I will of course update this post accordingly should you do so.
Cross-posted to the Movie Mania forums.[/b]