Books, Con Fluff 1, CONS, CREATIVE, RANDOMIZER9.COM, WHATS GOING ON, WORDS, Writing

Everybody Dies…Or Not!

writingbear Whenever I write a short story with the intention of submitting it to a conbook, I have a tendency to want to write a happy or silly story. I’m not sure why, though it may have something to do with the overall fun atmosphere that I see at conventions. Nearly every large gathering of nerds that I have been to have been joyous experiences, regardless of the flavor of nerds that are present.

Unfortunately, “stories write themselves,” so that happy story might turn into one that is not-so-happy because I had some bad Mexican food or something. When this happens, I will end up either rewriting the story to make it ‘happy’ or shelve it completely in favor of a happy one. I have even had a few instances where I ended up with TWO stories that diverge at a certain point and at othertimes I’m satisfied with the happy story and abandon the other one.

I just feel odd sending a story that doesn’t end with a happy ending or a punchline into such a happy place. I should probably get over it. After all, I don’t think anybody actually reads conbook stories at the con because they’re too busy having fun!

BUSINESS, JUST SAYING, Microsoft, TECH, TECH SUPPORT, WHATS GOING ON, WHISKEY-TANGO-FOXTROT, WORK

RANDOM REVIEW: Windows 8

EATING MY PEAS

So Purdy…

I first gave Windows 8 a spin when the Developer Preview was released back in 2011. As I have not purchased a new computer since then, I haven’t had the pleasure of seeing the final product, but judging from prevailing opinion as well as feedback from customers, it seemed that I wasn’t missing much. As I work in tech support, I figured that I was going to have to support Windows 8 sooner or later, so I decided to eat my peas and installed Windows 8 on my laptop: a 14″ Toshiba P745-S4102 with 6MB of RAM.

THERE AND BACK AGAIN

The install went fairly well, but I made the mistake of not wiping the drive beforehand, so I had lots of icky bits left over from years of Windows 7 use. I would open up my boot drive to find rouge directories sticking out their tongues at me in glee. Obviously the thing to do was to delete them, so I got delete happy and of course, deleted an important directory.

So just like I did during my adventures with OS X, I had to start all over again. I formatted the drive, reinstalled Windows 8, and was back in business. Windows 8 seemed to be a little more happier after the second install, so lesson learned: always format the hard drive before dropping in a new OS.

THROWN FOR A LEARNING CURVE

Up until Windows 8 you could count on a few things like the Start Menu and Control Panel to be there. No mas. The Start Menu has been replaced by the Start Screen and other options are accessed by pulling up a ‘Charms Bar’ that is accessed by moving the mouse to either the upper or lower-right hand corner of the screen. Moving the mouse to the lower-left hand corner reveals a shortcut to the Start Menu, and the upper-left corner pulls up the last program opened and a list of currently open programs if you move the pointer down from there. The interface is not intuitive and poorly explained, you get zero help and are tossed into the Start Screen with nary a tooltip to help you.

A great example of how obtuse things are is the method for shutting down the computer:

Bring up the Charms bar by moving the mouse to one of the right-hand corners…that is, assuming you know its there.
Click ‘Settings’
Click ‘Power’
Click ‘Shut Down’ from the pop up menu.

Is it any wonder that people are upset about having to re-learn how to use their computer again? Expect to stumble around Windows 8 for a while (I certainly did) until you learn its intricacies or say ‘screw it’ and download a Start Menu replacement.

APPY, APPY, APPY

…or not!

One of the big reasons Windows 8 has received so much grief was because of the removal of the apparently-beloved Start Menu. I admittedly gave them static about this too, but having poked at it again, I now get what it is Microsoft had in mind when they removed it.

Mobile devices like smartphones and tablets have given us the concept of apps, or small programs that only do one thing or access a single service. Like many of you, I’ve gotten accustomed to doing things via apps. When done right, they’re great: you open up the app for whatever it is you want to do and take care of business instead of having to open up a browser, navigate to the website, login and all that.

Microsoft and Windows 8 want you to do everything in apps, and while I like this idea and would like to embrace it, the fact of the matter is that for whatever reason, the Windows 8 apps I have used have either fallen short of my expectations or just plain don’t exist.

The official Twitter app is one example. I have multiple Twitter accounts, randomizer9 is my main one and I have one set up for The Rules of Tech Support. The Twitter apps on my phone and iPad both allow me to switch back and forth between identities with a few taps, but the Windows 8 app only lets me login to one account, which reduces its usefulness.

Some apps just don’t exist. The most glaring omissions for me are Facebook and Gmail, though I can set up the Mail client for use with GMail. I’m also surprised that there isn’t a version of Office that uses the Metro interface. Granted, I don’t use very many apps to begin with, so its not that big of a deal to me, but other folks who love apps might be disappointed in the selection, though it should get better with time.

THE DOCKING DESKTOP

Luckily, the desktop is still around and is accessed by clicking the Desktop tile. While the Start Menu is persona non grata, much to the consternation of lots of folks (including myself) programs can be docked to the Taskbar just like in Windows 7. I found myself docking each one after installing them. This works pretty well for me and I haven’t really missed the Start Menu all that much, especially since discovering this handy list of Windows key shortcuts.

Unfortunately, installing legacy programs barfs icons all over the Start Screen just like it did before. It is a little jarring to see the a nice purdy Metro Start Screen morph into icky tile-o-rama with a tap of the Page Down key. The big problem with the Start Screen is that there is currently no good way to organize tiles that were installed by legacy programs. Sure, you can move them around, but one of the nice things about Ye Olde Start Menu was that it kept things you didn’t need out of the way. Hopefully the upcoming Windows 8.1 will resolve some of those issues, otherwise I’m not sure what I’m going to do once my Taskbar fills up with docked programs.

I have experienced no compatibility issues with older programs and hardware as of yet which is pretty darn lucky considering I still use Microsoft Money 2000 and WinAmp 2.9.

WHERE’S MY MEDIA CENTER?

I feel bad for Microsoft at times because even when they do things right they often don’t get credit for it or the Thing Done Right is completely ignored. Windows Media Center is one of those things. Media Center turns a TV-tuner equipped PC into a pretty decent PVR and can even stream TV from a PC to an Xbox 360, which is awesome. It was created during the Windows XP days (remember Media Center PCs? Yeah, me neither) and came included with certain versions of Windows Vista and Windows 7. It does not come with Windows 8. If you want Media Center you now have to pay an extra $9.99 even if you have the Super Mega Deluxe Happy Version of Windows.. So much for doing it right.

CONCLUSION

Despite all the wailing and gnashing of teeth you’ve probably heard, Windows 8 is not that bad. Yes, it does have some annoying habits, such as the made-for-touch interface and missing Start Menu, but I have learned to live with those inconveniences. That said, I understand why some people are upset: Windows users (such as myself) have grown accustomed to the Start button/menu being there for nearly twenty years. For Microsoft to just yank that football away like Lucy does to Charlie Brown is just not right. I know workarounds, but lots of folks either don’t or don’t want to go through the trouble/hassle. Microsoft reached just a little too far ahead in that regard.

I understand what Microsoft is trying to do with Windows 8. I even like the idea of doing everything quickly in apps instead of having to constantly go to the web browser. Unfortunately, the apps either don’t measure up in terms of functionality or they just aren’t there, which means I end up constantly having to go back to the desktop, which defeats the whole point of the new interface.

The much-touted quick startup and shutdown is nice and my laptop appears to be performing as well as it did before, though, as with any new system, one should be leery of potential conflicts with old hardware and software. I haven’t hit any snags yet in that department, but time will tell on that.

To wrap up: Windows 8 isn’t quite The Future just yet. It takes steps in the right direction with its app-centric design but is hamstrung by sub-par apps that will have you going back to the desktop over and over again. If you are one of these folks that just can’t live without the Start Menu, there are third party add-ons, but I can’t vouch for their usefulness or reliability. Once you get over the steep learning curve, 8 isn’t all that bad, but it isn’t as great as it could have been, either. The upcoming Windows 8.1 should make things better so we’ll have to wait and see what happens. While I’ll be sticking with Windows 8 for the short-term, I won’t be tossing away my Windows 7 install disc anytime soon.

3 out of 5 tiles.

JUST SAYING, Microsoft, Nintendo, ORIGINAL-GAMER.COM, RANDOMIZER9.COM, Sony, TECH, Videogames, WHATS GOING ON, WORDS

GAME OVER?

videogames I think I might be done with video games, or at least done with buying new consoles. I have been playing video games since the days of the Atari 2600 but my enthusiasm for new games and consoles has grown smaller and smaller with each sequel/lookalike/dark-haried protagonist/space marine game announcement for the last year or two.

One reason is I just don’t consume as much media as I used to. I see movies very occasionally, watch little to no television and don’t buy very many CDs and Blu-Rays anymore. A bigger reason is a feeling of ‘been there, done that.’ The Big 3’s E3 announcements impacted me with a great big ‘meh’ as I saw the sequel numbers get higher and higher.

So let’s run down the list:

SONY

I like to describe my PlayStation 3 as my “Blu-Ray player that also plays Ratchet and Clank.” I can count the number of PS3 disc games I own on my hands, and most of the downloadable ones I have are games that I reviewed for original-gamer.com It should say something that I still haven’t finished Ratchet and Clank: Full Frontal Assault and have yet to even purchase Sly Cooper 4. As I have nearly zero interest in JPRGs or any of the Sony exclusive titles, I don’t see any reason to get a PS4 anytime soon.

MICROSOFT

The Xbox 360 was easily my favorite machine of this generation, though it bears mentioning that about a third of the disc games I own have either ‘Rock Band’ or ‘Guitar Hero’ in the title. I’ve also purchased about a dozen downloaded titles and the Kinect is always fun when friends are over. The Halo and Gears of War series have both been entertaining, but I have little interest in seeing them drug into the ground a la Capcom. The TV functions of the 360 were also nice: I used it to stream and record HDTV from my PC via Windows Media Center to the living room TV. I was actually intrigued by the Xbox 360’s TV functionality but the high price and anti-consumer policies Microsoft may or may not be imposing mean I won’t be getting an Xbox One in the near future.

NINTENDO

“Nostalgia isn’t what it used to be,” the old joke goes. Nintendo has finally gone to the well once too often because Mario has become the new Madden as far as I am concerned. I think the breaking point was when they started making sequels. I may yet acquire Super Mario Galaxy 2 but my initial reaction was “Oh boy, they added Yoshi…whee.” When New Super Mario Bros. 2 was announced, I saw the ads about the whole ‘collect a bajillion coins’ thing and thought, “That’s IT?” I am intrigued by the Wii U, but its initial lineup landed with a great big thud and the current game drought makes me feel like I didn’t have it so bad after buying a launch 3DS. The sad thing is that the one franchise I would like for Nintendo to drag into the ground is one they’ve completely forgotten about: StarFox.

I haven’t done any PC gaming for quite a few years now. Seriously, the last PC game I bought was Portal…on disc…at Circuit City. Oddly enough, I may end up playing games solely on my PC from here on out. Since most of the big multi-platform releases end up on PC, I shouldn’t miss very many of the few AAA titles I’m interested in and there are loads of smaller devs doing interesting things these days on the indie scene. Maybe I’ll get an Ouya after its had a little more time in the oven.

So there you have it. I have been a gamer for well over 30 years now, and while it has been loads of fun, it may be time to hang up the controller for good. Will it happen? Who knows, but my current consoles and 3DS are doing just fine for now.

BUSINESS, HOUSE, JUST SAYING, RANDOMIZER9.COM, WHATS GOING ON, Wild Nights, WORDS

In Soviet Russia, house occupies you!

home You know, I can never resist a good ‘in Soviet Russia’ joke. Actually, I can’t resist a bad one, either.

Buying a house has all but consumed my life for these last two months. Nearly everything that I have been thinking about or doing (or blogging) since early March has been house-related. Finding a house, negotiating for it, digging up all the documents for the bank, shopping for insurance, finding a storage unit, moving all of my stuff out of my apartment into the storage unit, moving in with my cousins, closing, moving out of my cousin’s, then getting all my stuff from storage into the house and now I’m taking things out of boxes and putting things in their place and buying appliances.

Along the way, I missed out on quite a few things due to either poor planning, bad luck, or fatigue: Wild Nights, the St. Phillips Anime Club Bubblehead Tea event, Free Comic Book Day, the Central Texas Toy and Comic Expo and the Anthrocon conbook deadline. My stress level got pretty high and I even got sent to the “principal’s office” at work for getting a little too rowdy with a customer. My aggravation got to the point that I went from “this will be totally worth it” to “this had better be worth it.”

It has been just over a week after I got the keys, and the number of moving boxes cluttering up the living room is gradually decreasing. I am hoping to be at some semblance of ‘normal’ (or at least as normal as it gets for me) by week’s end, especially after the new refrigerator is delivered later this week. I ask myself, was this worth all the bother and stress and money and time and missed fun?

Without hesitation, I think: Yeah. Totally worth it.

BUSINESS, HOUSE, JUST SAYING, WHATS GOING ON, WHISKEY-TANGO-FOXTROT

Minor Details

I don’t know when the light finally came on, but when it did, I’m pretty sure I did a facepalm. After weeks of negotiating prices, repairs, dates and all that yadda yadda yadda on the house I want to buy, I realized that I had overlooked one important little thing:

Appliances.

You know, those little things that make life more convenient: a refrigerator to store food in, a stove to cook that food on, and a washer and dryer to wash clothes that have gotten dirty after cooking and eating said food. Since the disposition of the appliances is not in the home purchase contract, I could open up the door on Thursday to find the aforementioned modern conveniences waiting for me….or I’ll be making an emergency trip to Ye Olde Electronics or Department Store for a new refrigerator and stove.

It’s not as bad as it seems: If there is no washer and dryer, then its back to hanging out with the freakos at the laundromat. As far as the stove goes, I plan on replacing the it anyway because the home has an electric stove, something which I have learned to loathe during my many years of apartment living. Things might get a little dicey without a refrigerator, though, because I really like cold sodas and dairy.

Oh well, just as long as they leave the hot water heater. Then again, I’ve gone without hot water, too! 😉

Android, TECH, WHATS GOING ON

Up-and-Down Grade

I bet my size 14 would get great reception

I’ve had smartphones for quite some time, going all the way back to my T-Mobile Dash running Windows Mobile 6.0. From that ‘charming’ system I moved to Android with a Samsung Moment on Sprint, and am currently using a Motorola Photon, also on Sprint. My contract is coming up in a few months, and instead of contemplating which phone I’m going to upgrade to next, I am actually considering downgrading to a not-so-smartphone.

Why? Three reasons:

First, like many other folks, I’m trying to cut back on expenses, and the $80 a month I currently pay for my cellphone plan (and that’s with an employee discount) is a big one that I would love to reduce. I could easily get a month-to-month talk-and-text plan from Virgin Mobile that would cost half what I’m paying now while keeping me on Sprint’s network, which has been pretty good for me overall.

Second, I’m starting to wonder if Android phones have a limited shelf life: my Samsung Moment started crapping out a few months before the end of the two year contract that I purchased it under and the pattern appears to be repeating itself with my Motorola Photon. I think I’m done with Android at this point, and while I could get an iPhone or maybe even a Windows phone, I’m not sure I want to. I’ve never had the latest cell phone so being a step or two behind the times isn’t a big deal to me.

Thirdly, ever since I purchased my iPad mini back in December, I have been using my phone less and less for internet stuff. Thanks to the built-in 4G LTE modem and bigger screen I find myself reaching for it whenever I need to check my social networks or need to Google something. While it costs $20 for 1GB of data per month, that has been more than enough for me given my limited use of video and since WiFi is more pervasive now.

While this isn’t the first time I’ve thought about downgrading to a not-so-smart phone, having the iPad this time around would make living without one much easier. Who knows, maybe I’ll get a flip phone, or a phone with a physical keyboard…or maybe even one with a pull-out antenna! 😀

BAKING, BUSINESS, COOKING, FOOD, HOUSE, JUST SAYING, RANDOMIZER9.COM, WHATS GOING ON

How Home Sweet Home It Is!

After years of dealing with annoying neighbors one wall (or floor) over, lousy parking, poor management, constantly increasing rents and not being able to own a cat without a big deposit and paying ‘pet rent.’ I am finally going to take the plunge and buy a house. I’m almost there, too: if all goes well I’ll be a homeowner within a few weeks.

Its a big step for me and more than a little bit scary. For better or for worse, I am setting down roots here in San Antonio. There’s also the whole ‘what happens if I lose my job’ bit, but these days, that cloud is constantly hovering over everyone’s head, so that’s nothing new. Instead, I choose to focus on the Good Things associated with having my own home:

It’s my house, and if you don’t like it… – On a philosophical level, an apartment is never ‘really’ yours, and it will be nice to do whatever I want without having to ask myself whether I’ll be dinged for something when I move out. Also, there is the whole ‘investment’ angle, but I don’t care too much about that. In my opinion, the mentality of the home one lives in being an ‘asset’ instead of a ‘home’ is partially to blame for the nutzoid homeowner’s associations I always hear about in the news.

More room! – I have always lived in one-bedroom apartments and even lived in a efficiency once when things got tight. Unless I get a Unabomber special (i.e. an isolated shack) I’ll be getting a 2-bedroom house at the bare minimum and it will more than likely have a garage, too. That’s going to be a LOT of extra space that I’m not sure I know what to do with. I might rent out the extra room and I hear garages are great places to store things. I’m also looking forward to hosting parties again, it has been way too long since I’ve hosted a Super Bowl or New Year’s Eve gathering.

Do What I Want – One of the crappier parts of living in apartments is you have to be careful with your noise level lest you arouse the ire of your neighbors. While I am not a very noisy person, I do like to turn up the sound when I play video games and movies and have occasionally been ‘that guy’ that has had his stereo or surround sound system up too loud. Conversely, I have also had to bang on a few doors and tell neighbors to tone it down.

WOW a Garage! – My parent’s house does not have a garage and so I have never had the pleasure of having one. Based on what I have seen from friends, I understand it is a storage space. I might go nuts and actually keep my vehicle in mine.

KITTEH! – I have wanted to have a cat for some time, but as I mentioned in the intro, certain things about apartments have kept me from getting one. I can now acquire a cat and hug him and pet him and hold him and call him George. 🙂

Good Old Gas – My parents have a gas stove, and it is awesome. I have not lived in a place that has had a gas stove since I moved out, and cooking food has royally sucked since. One of my requirements for a home is that it have a gas connection so that I can once again experience the joy of heating up tortillas and hot dogs the way God intended.

House Party – When I had a bigger apartment a few years ago, I loved having friends over for games and even Super Bowl and New Year’s parties or two. It won’t be too long before I’ll be hosting get-togethers and this time we can crank up the tunes! 😀

Buying a house is big and scary and fraught with pitfalls, but I’ll take the hits as they come and look forward to the good things that come with owning a home, like freshly-warmed tortillas!

Apple, Books, Con Fluff 1, CONS, CREATIVE, FURRY, FURRY FIESTA, JUST SAYING, RANDOM STOPS, RANDOMIZER9.COM, Tablets, TECH, WHATS GOING ON, WHISKEY-TANGO-FOXTROT, WORDS, Writing

38 Things I Noticed During Furry Fiesta 2013

I’m all ears!

For the second year in a row, I headed up to Addison for Texas’ one and only furry convention: Furry Fiesta 2013: The Time Traveller’s Ball. I had a wonderful time, and so without further ado:

JUST TAKE THE TOLL ROAD around Austin, especially if you’re going northbound.
Driving up was much more pleasant in my still-pretty-new Honda CR-V
The con was made even more fun by the friends that went with me and the ones I met there!
Artist Alley needs to be a little bigger and supervised.
What? No Rock Band in the game room? Aw, I so wanted to do Power of Love…again and again.
BuckHopper just barely got last year’s Voice Over panel uploaded before this year’s show because he was very very busy with work.
Of course when you realize that his work involves videogames, the amount of sympathy you have for him might drop just a teensy bit.
I think his Voice Recording Basics panel needed to be just a little bit more, well, basic. My head was spinning near the end.
I was a very sad bear just ten minutes before my panel started because nobody was there. *sniff*
People then started to show up, and I became happy, and nervous!
I burned through my prepared material in a half hour…need to rehearse next time
Things went downhill fast during discussion when the subject of DRM and piracy came up…argh
At dinner, the restaurant owner asks how we’re doing and notices the badges. Her: “Are you here for a convention?” Us: “Yeah!” Her: “What kind of convention is it?” AWKWARD SILENCE.
Seriously, I have never seen nine adults (including me) simultaneously freeze like deer in the headlights.
OH YEAH, ITS AN ART CONVENTION! :3
Luckily, I remembered my ‘training’ the next day. Get some furry common sense, y’all!
One guy trying to explain Furry Fiesta to an older person got “What? Fairy Fiesta?” as a reply. That explains a lot, actually.
I’m not sure which made my attempt to record the fursuit parade worse: the lighting, my iPad mini, or the two rubes that stood next to me…seriously, I kept expecting to hear one playing a banjo and the other a jug.
The Furry Psychology panel filled up quick, they should just give Dr. Nuka a video room next time, it’ll be like college but much less boring.
If the International Anthropomorphic Research Project were to change the last word in their name to something starting with “F” it would be I-ARF which would be pawsome!
Got my first dose of con funk in AA when some nasty dude decided to sit next to me. Ended up having to shoo him off later, too…jerk.
Not sure which was better: acquiring a pair of bear ears to wear, or my friend Chris’ reaction to them. “What the hell are those things?!”
There were lots of Marty McFlys but one guy (a fursuiter no less) NAILED IT. How? He had a WALKMAN. Everybody else GO HOME.
There were lots of 4th Doctors, too 🙂
While my panel went well, my attempts to sell berks in Artist Alley did not. *shrug*
I guess I didn’t really need that Sales Tax ID after all, then.
Speaking of AA: If you are going to be in AA read the rules on the wall and don’t whine like a petulant child when they don’t match your expectations.
$3.75 for gas? Makes me glad the Excelsior gets about 30MPG on the freeway even with 3 dudes with 3 days worth of luggage.
Thanks for putting us in the ‘annoying kid’ section of IHOP, waiter. *twitch*
Either the con is short on staff or they were not very noticeable, because I don’t remember seeing very many staff members.
One person in AA had an old school early digital camera that I used to take his picture with a fursuiter: a big chunky HP one that was the size and weight of a brick.
Never mind the burgers (which are good) I want In-N-Out to come to San Antonio because the ‘well done’ fries are the BEST. THING. EVAR.
Boston Market. We also need them in San Antonio, too.
Some friends call TFF ‘CircleCon’ because everything on the second floor is well, in a circle.
Thing I forgot: Electric razor. The ol’ greymuzzle was showing by Sunday
Every time I thought I was going to need/use my laptop, I didn’t because my iPad mini did the job. I may have crossed a threshold.
Of course, just when I start to get familiar with the area around the hotel, they decide to move it next year.
I’ll definitely have to take Thursday off next year…maybe Monday, too 🙂

Books, CONS, CREATIVE, FURRY, FURRY FIESTA, RANDOM STOPS, RANDOMIZER9.COM, TECH, WHATS GOING ON, WORDS, Writing

Time for Texas Furry Fiesta!

The 4 3/8th Doctor

Another year, another Furry Fiesta! Texas Furry Fiesta 2013: The Time Traveller’s Ball is happening this weekend, and I’ll be there with ~~bells~~ ears on! Unlike last year where I went for funsies, this year I’m going to be ‘working’ this time as part of my efforts to get word out about my ebooks.

On Friday at 4PM, I’ll be hosting a panel called “How To Publish Your Own E-Books” where I will discuss the technical challenges involved with taking your literary masterpiece digital. With 5 e-books under my belt so far, I’d like to think I’ve learned a few things and am ready to share some knowledge! On Saturday, I should be in the Artist’s Alley selling paper copies of my berks, handing out flyers and chatting up anyone willing to listen, and Sunday will be the drive home…aww.

ANIME, CONS, FURRY, RANDOM STOPS, RANDOMIZER9.COM, ushicon, WHATS GOING ON

27 Things I Noticed During Ushicon 8

Ushicon 8 took place this past weekend. It is different in that it is the only 18+ anime con in Texas, as well as the first one I’ve ever attended. On with the list!

I didn’t know this year’s Ushicon was number 8 until I saw it on the t-shirt.
Yeah, that’s not terribly important, but if you’ve been around for awhile, you should crow a little, you know?
Worst thing that I noticed: Why does the men’s room on the first floor smell like mushrooms?
Round Rock has the screwiest parking lots I’ve ever driven through.
The maid cafe had the same large parfait on the menu listed as the “Lover’s Parfait” or “Forever Alone.” Clever.
Given that Valentine’s day is this week I was tempted to get a “Forever Alone” one but I think it contained enough sugar to put a horse into diabetic shock.
The Dairy Queen near the hotel has to be the fastest one I have ever been to. After placing my order, I filled my soda, sat down, started to chat with Chris, and BAM. Done.
The hotel did everything in their power to piss me off before and during check-in.
Wow, I can actually talk with fellow attendees about anime from the 80’s like Dirty Pair and even Robot Carnival!
No Rock Band in the video game room? WEAK.
It could have totally fit in the middle where nobody was playing table-top games.
Being an 18+ con meant swearing was okay. ***k yeah.
That said, I don’t think I’ve ever been to a con that was this well behaved.
Which, I guess, is kind of 0the point of the whole thing.
The panels were pretty interesting, or at least the ones I could enter because Panel Room 2 was too damn small for anything.
Meanwhile there were plenty of empty chairs in the video rooms…just sayin’
The cosplay show was cool; no judges or drama, just lots of folks showing off their cool costumes.
Holding up my iPad mini for 20 minutes to record it was not, guess I’ll stick with my camera.
Actually Panel Room 2 did work well for an improvised “Artist Meetup” on Saturday night 🙂
There were a few fellow furries present, w00t.
The number of bronies present (or at least the ones that were wearing t-shirts) could be counted on one hand. AWESOME.
The only time things got loud was when it got late and folks started drinking, you know, like at every other fan convention.
Went to a “Project Meeting” panel on Sunday to offer feedback. I sat around for about 10 minutes being ignored and left. They could have at least asked me to introduce myself.
Okay, not completely ignored, one guy was decent enough to offer me a doughnut.
There was a gap of ‘nothing interesting happening’ on Sunday long enough for me to make a quick sojourn to Fry’s Electronics.
Fry’s still has a anime section!
I made the mistake of going to the maid cafe to chill out during Yaoi Tea Time. It was like I was listening to a Spanish novela, and occasionally seeing…well, I’d rather not go there.

Eduardo Soliz

IT Guy, short story author, podcaster, and furry!

Category Archives: WHATS GOING ON