JUST SAYING, RANDOMIZER9.COM, WHATS GOING ON, WHISKEY-TANGO-FOXTROT

To the Guy I Accidently Cut Off Today…

I would like to start off by apologizing for going around you. It was a mistake on my part; I was paying a little more attention to what was going on behind me than to what was going on in front. I also understand why you honked your horn a few times. I’ve been on the receiving end of bad driving too (heck, who hasn’t?) and I also like to let the offending driver know that they screwed up.

I will admit to being a little bit surprised when you started swearing and throwing the finger at me, though. We were going pretty slow, so its not like either of us was in danger of being in a serious accident. You also looked upset, I can’t say that I’ve gone as far as to swear like a sailor when I think I have been wronged on the road, but then again, I”m a pretty level-headed guy. I honk my horn once and then life goes on.

I don’t know what it served to accomplish, though. It didn’t get you to your destination faster, didn’t upset me, and only served to provide a spectacle to the other drivers around us. I was on the verge of hollering back “Sorry!” but I figured that you wouldn’t be able to hear me over the sound of your own yelling. If getting your ‘road rage’ on made you feel better, then I’m glad for that. I got a laugh out of it, too, so I guess we can call it a win-win.

We should always learn from our mistakes. I learned two things from this one: first of all, I should double check my front and back before passing someone, and second, people look like idiots when they holler and scream like little kids. Thanks for the lesson. Drive friendly, now!

CONS, FIRST STORM MANGA, JUST SAYING, MEZASU, MIZUUMICON, ORIGINAL-GAMER.COM, RANDOM REVIEW, RANDOMIZER9.COM, SAN JAPAN, TEXAS COMICCON, WHATS GOING ON

RANDOM REVIEW: Texas ComiCon 2011

Two Supermen and Lex Luthor in his powersuit

Looking SUPER!

I need to begin by mentioning that I had a different role at Texas ComicCon (TCC) this year. At the 2010 event (see my write-up here) I was an attendee like most folks, but this year, I was an exhibitor. I manned the First Storm Manga table in order to get the word out about our second Mezasu Mini-con coming in September. I also helped out some with the game tournament, so I was aware of their issues as well.

If I had to pick one word to describe the difference between the 2010 and 2011 Texas ComicCons it would be ‘bigger.’ They had bigger guests, such as Brent Spiner, Cindy Morgan, Margot Kidder, and some notable comic guests as well.

There was a bigger selection of artists and dealers. The San Antonio Event Center was jam-packed with dealers and artists. If you look at the picture of the Ghostbusters from my 2010 write up, you can see lots of empty space in the background. This was not the case this year; the organizers packed as much as they could into the building without it being too crowded. There was plenty of room for people, stormtroopers and the occasional Dalek to get around.

Sadly, there were also some bigger issues. Nearly all of them only affected exhibitors, though, so if you were at TCC 2011 as an attendee, then it rocked pretty hard.

Once again, there were problems with badges. Last year, the badges sucked. This year, we didn’t have any at ALL until Saturday (or at least that’s how long it was until I got mine). At this point, I have to wonder if it’s a problem that just happens to follow me around…so look out, San Japan!

I am a little shocked at the size of the staff working the event; if it was more than half a dozen people, I’d be surprised. If TCC is going to get bigger next year (and I have no reason to doubt that they will) then they are going to need to have some volunteers helping out. To the best of my knowledge, there is no safety staff and nobody helping out with Artist Alley. Other cons have volunteers that are available to keep an eye on a dealer’s tables for a few minutes if they need a bathroom break or somesuch, but this was not the case at TCC. I saw one of the guys running the event at my table maybe four times the entire weekend.

The remainder of the issues I am going to discuss all involve the location. As I said last time, the ~~WalMart~~ San Antonio Event Center’s glory days are way behind it, so yeah, it hasn’t gotten much better since last year. It is what it is and so I can’t place too much of the blame on the organizers. That said, there were a few things that could have been anticipated:

The facility was supposed to have WiFi, but sadly, the signal did not extend to the back right corner where I was situated. It didn’t affect me much, because I didn’t really need it and I have a hotspot device for when I want it, but the guys in the booth next to me needed it and were pretty miffed that they couldn’t get a signal. I gave them the password to my device and it was good enough to keep them going for the event. I can only imagine they would have raised a pretty big stink if I hadn’t. According to the TCC webpage, WiFi was supposed to be available.

Electricity was an issue on two fronts. For starters, unless you brought your own extension cord, you couldn’t get squat. Luckily, the guys I had lent WiFi to were kind enough to let me run a power strip off their extension, which was nice. I was later able to borrow an extension cord from the San Japan table, which allowed me to set up a monitor so that I could play a video from our first event (thanks, Proz!). I’m willing to concede that okay, I should have bought my own cord, but considering how many folks use laptops and cell phones, it shocks me (ba-doom, tish!) that electricity keeps being considered an afterthought at these events (see also: Mizuumi-Con). I don’t mind paying for juice (if the cost is reasonable) but let me know ahead of time if I need to bring a 25-foot cord just to get access.

The second electrical problem had to do with the video game tournament. The Original-Gamer.com guys bought along eight Xboxes, eight monitors, four television sets, and four Playstation 3s to use for their tournaments. Unfortunately, there were only two outlets within reach, and when all that stuff got turned on, the breaker tripped. This was eventually resolved by moving some of the equipment to another outlet, but I’m a little surprised that this wasn’t anticipated. Even the game tournament guys should have known that many machines was too much.

There were some doors near the back corner where I was at. With no staff around to keep the doors closed, it got a little warm in the afternoons. Unfortunately, at least one door was open nearly all the time because smokers were constantly running out to get their fix. Before you think I’m being nitpicky, keep in mind that there was nothing to stop people from sneaking in without paying. I don’t know if anybody did, but with no security staff around to check badges it’s a strong possibility.

Except for perhaps the staff issue, the stuff I mentioned are mostly minor nitpicks, because Texas ComicCon 2011 was a great event. I had a lot of fun, and judging from the reactions I’ve gotten from friends and seen online, it looked like lots of other folks did, too. I look forward to coming back next year, and look forward to seeing it come back even bigger and better. Great job, guys!

RANDOM REVIEW: Texas ComicCon 2011

TCC 2010 Review: http://www.randomizer9.com/?p=342

I need to begin by mentioning that I had a different role at Texas ComicCon this year. At the 2010 event I was an attendee like most folks, but this year, I was an exhibitor. I manned the First Storm Manga table in order to get the word out about our second Mezasu Mini-con coming in September. I also helped out some with the game tournament, so I was aware of their issues as well. So, here we go:

If I had to pick one word to describe the difference between the 2010 and 2011 Texas ComicCons it would be ‘bigger.’ They had bigger guests, such as: Brent Spiner, Cindy Morgan, Margot Kidder, and some pretty notable comic guests as well.

There was a bigger selection of artists and dealers. The San Antonio Event Center was jam-packed with dealers and artists. If you look at the picture of the Ghostbusters from my write up of the 2010 event, you can see a big wide space in the background. This was not the case this year, the organizers packed as much as they could into the building without it being too crowded. There was plenty of room for people, stormtroopers and the occasional Dalek to get around.

Sadly, there were also bigger issues. That said, nearly all of them only affected exhibitors, so if you didn’t have a table, then yeah, ComicCon 2011 rocked pretty hard.

I am a little shocked at the size of the staff working the event; if it was more than half a dozen people, I’d be surprised. If ComicCon is going to get bigger next year (and I have no reason to doubt they can) then they are going to need to have some volunteers helping out. To the best of my knowledge, there is no safety staff and nobody helping out with Artist Alley. Other cons have volunteers that are available to keep an eye on a dealer’s tables for a few minutes if they need a bathroom break or somesuch, but this was not the case at ComicCon. I saw one of the guys running the event at my table maybe four times the entire weekend.

The remainder of the issues I am going to discuss all involve the location. As I said last time, the Wal-Mart San Antonio Event Center’s glory days are way behind it, and well, it hasn’t gotten much better since. It is what it is and so I can’t place too much of the blame on the organizers. That said, there were a few things that could have been anticipated:

Electricity was an issue on two fronts. For starters, unless you brought your own extension cord, you couldn’t get squat. Luckily, the guys I had lent WiFi to were kind enough to let me run a power strip off their extension, which was nice. I was later able to borrow an extension cord from the San Japan table, which allowed me to set up a monitor so that I could play a video from our first event (thanks, Proz!). I’m willing to concede that okay, I should have bought my own cord, but considering how many folks use laptops and cell phones, it shocks me (ba-doom, tish!) that electricity keeps being considered an afterthought at cons (see also: MizuumiCon). I don’t mind paying for it (if it’s reasonable) but let me know ahead of time if I need to bring my own cords and stuff.

The second problem had to do with the video game tournament. They bought along eight Xboxes, eight monitors, four television sets, and four Playstation 3s to use for their tournaments. Unfortunately, there were only two outlets within reach, and when all that stuff got turned on, the breaker tripped. This was eventually resolved by moving some of the equipment to another outlet, but I’m a little surprised that this wasn’t anticipated, heck, even the game tournament guys should have known that it wasn’t going to work.

Sadly, there were also bigger issues. That said, nearly all of them only affected exhibitors, so if you didn’t have a table, then yeah, ComicCon 2011 rocked pretty hard.

Electricity was an issue on two fronts. For starters, unless you brought your own extension cord, you couldn’t get squat. Luckily, the guys I had lent WiFi to were kind enough to let me run a power strip off their extension, which was nice. I was later able to borrow an extension cord from the San Japan table, which allowed me to set up a monitor so that I could play a video from our first event (thanks, Proz!). I’m willing to concede that okay, I should have bought my own cord, but considering how many folks use laptops and cell phones, it shocks me (ba-doom, tish!) that electricity keeps being considered an afterthought at cons (see also: MizuumiCon). I don’t mind paying for it (if it’s reasonable) but let me know ahead of time if I need to bring my own cords and stuff.

There were some doors near the back corner where I was at. With no staff around to keep the doors closed, it got a little warm in the afternoons. Unfortunately, at least one door was open nearly all the time so that smokers could run out and get their fix. Before you think I’m being nitpicky, keep in mind that there was also nothing to stop people from sneaking in without paying. I don’t know if anybody actually did, but with no security staff around to check badges it’s a strong possibility.

Despite the nitpicks I just mentioned, I felt that Texas ComicCon 2011 was a great event. I had a lot of fun, and judging from the reactions I’ve gotten from friends and seen online, it looked like everybody else did, too. I look forward to coming back next year, and hope that it comes back even bigger and better next year.

There were some doors near the back corner where I was at. With no staff around to keep the doors closed, it got a little warm in the afternoons. Unfortunately, at least one door was open nearly all the time so that smokers could run out and get their fix. Before you think I’m being nitpicky, keep in mind that there was also nothing to stop people from sneaking in without paying. I don’t know if anybody actually did, but with no security staff around to check badges it’s a strong possibility.

Books, BUSINESS, CREATIVE, One Sheet Stories, RANDOMIZER9.COM, Writing

Sheet Happens

I recently published my first e-book: “One Sheet Stories” on Smashwords.com. It is a collection of five very short stories, each of which fit on a single sheet of paper. I’m not making a big fuss about it yet, I’m waiting for it to be approved for inclusion into their Premium Catalog, which would put it on the iPad Bookstore, Sony Reader, Nook, and lots of other places it will be easier to find.

It was surprisingly easy to do, or at least it was after reading over their style guide a few times to make sure my Word doc survived their affectionately named “Meatgrinder” program. I had fun putting it together and now I can get to work on future books.

I’m also going to work on this website, so if things look weird the next time you drop by, well, that’s just me kicking the tires on some new themes.

AETHERFEST, CONS, FIRST STORM MANGA, JUST SAYING, MIZUUMICON, RANDOMIZER9.COM, SAN JAPAN, STEAMPUNK, WHATS GOING ON

Aetherfest I

Some Aetherfest attendees in their Sunday best

Quite dashing, really!

I almost felt obligated to attend the new Steampunk con “AetherFest” after giving them crap on this very blog a few weeks ago. Honestly, though, I would have attended regardless just to satisfy my curiosity. When my friend Chris Holm asked me to help him out at his table and with his panel (as the “guest editor” of his new comic “Steam Pets”), it was an easy “yes.”

Unfortunately, “help out” also means “don’t get to see much of anything,” so I know there was lots of cool stuff I didn’t get to experience. I spent most of the event at Chris’ table over in the game room along with a few other vendors. Mutual friend Jackie Naehrig joined us on Saturday and we had a fun time hanging around and marveling at the attendees, many wearing appropriate attire and accoutrements.

Chris and Jackie dressed up, so I felt just a little bit embarrassed sitting next to them sporting a T-shirt and blue jean shorts on Saturday. I improvised a little something on Sunday, though. I put on some slacks, a button down shirt, dusted off a flat cap and stopped to get a set of suspenders on the way back to the St. Anthony Hotel. I have to admit, it felt neat, like I should have also been carrying a giant wrench or an oil can or something. I thought looked like the guy in the boiler room as opposed to all the captains, pilots and proper ladies walking about. Upon seeing my outfit, though, Chris said I looked like “Professor Layton’s hat boy.” Jerk.

The only panel I attended was one that I was a part of. I sat with Chris on his “Intro to Drawing and Comic-Making” panel where we talked about making “Steam Pets” and our experiences with First Storm Manga with a small spirited group. I wandered around for a bit and checked out the other dealer area and the “museum,” where they had quite a few neat items on display and for sale. It was all very nice and being at the historic St. Anthony Hotel (built in 1909) added greatly to the ambiance. Judging from the pictures I’ve seen on Facebook, the events they held on the evenings of Friday and Saturday appear to have been very entertaining. The misgivings I had previously about “steam-snobs” were unfounded, and I must say that looking the part does add to the fun of being there.

While I had fun at Aetherfest and have been hearing good things from people that were there, there are some things that they need to work on. Let me start by acknowledging that some of these things cannot be helped (particularly where the hotel is concerned) but you have to take the bad with the good, so here we go.

Split Vendor Area Is a Bother – Having two separate areas for vendors is never a good thing (see also: MizuumiCon 2011) and it would benefit all involved if the organizers could try to have all them in one area next time. I’m not familiar enough with the layout of the St. Anthony to know if that is possible, but if it is, it should be considered.

“Third Floor: Hosiery, Lingerie, and Panels!” – The majority of the panels were held on the third floor, which was kind of lousy, but I have to let it slide because it is a consequence of the way the St. Anthony was built. The fact that the program sometimes said “Third Floor” and “Third Room,” however, was not.

Needs Improvement, See Me After Class – Now that I have had an opportunity to look it over a bit closer, I’d say whomever edited the program was asleep at the airship wheel.

Promotion – I think the organizers missed out on prime opportunities to promote their event at either Mizuumi-con (which may or may not have been full) or at ChimaeraCon. I did see flyers at ChimaeraCon, but they did not have a lot of information about the event. I would strongly recommend the Aetherfest folks consider requesting a Con Alley table at San Japan 4TW in August.

Website – For the love of Tesla, lads, get a webhost or something. It’s not that expensive, and you can even get a free one from Google. Not everyone is on Facebook (yet) and while Tumblr does look nice, I shouldn’t have to go to some skeevy download site with pop-up ads just to see your schedule and program. In addition, if you have your own host, you can put up picture galleries, forums and other things to attract interest.

Despite the quibbles I just mentioned, I thought AetherFest was a good con. As was expected for a first-time event, the crowd was small, but those who made it out had a good time. Those of us who are “steam-newbies” got to check out some cool stuff and learn a little something about this fascinating world called “Steampunk.” I am confident that I will be returning next year. Who knows, I may even sport a waist coat or a bowler hat or maybe just a really big wrench.

Good show, fellows!

JUST SAYING, Odem, RANDOMIZER9.COM, WHATS GOING ON, WORDS

Saying Goodbye

My brother Roland’s funeral was yesterday. It was a big shock to see him go so soon and so quickly, and so everyone in the family has had a hard time coping with his death.

My brother told us to carry on if he were to go first. Go on with your lives, he would say, don’t mourn me, don’t feel sorry, just keep going. Its a great sentiment, and I knew he meant every word, but in practice, it is a lot harder to do. Every time I convinced myself that I was done crying, the tears would start rolling again after seeing old friends, or hearing the wails of our mother and his widow. Something I noticed during the funeral Mass helped me out a lot, though:

Growing up I was in the church choir (don’t be too impressed, we only had like 5 people) and during his funeral Mass, the choir played the song “Pescador de Hombres” (Fisher of Men) which I tried to sing. It is a song I am familiar with and so I didn’t think it would be a problem. At first, though, my voice was pretty awful and I would choke up at the line “En la arena/he dejado me barca” (In the sand/I leave my boat) because it made me think about my brother and his fishing boat. I kept on trying, though, and the song became a little bit easier to sing with each verse. By the fourth one, I was mostly back to form, I would still tear up a bit but I managed to hold it together for the rest of the song.

Moving on from my brother’s death is going to be like that. It will be hard at first, but as I keep trying eventually the pain will reduce to the point where will be able to go on without him. It won’t be easy, but I will reach that point eventually.

Judging from the number of people that showed up for the funeral, I could tell that my brother had clearly touched the lives of many people. I was glad for the time that we had together, but now that he’s gone, I’ll keep moving forward as best I can…just like I did when I was singing that song. Good-bye big brother…thanks for everything.

ANIME, CONS, FIRST STORM MANGA, JUST SAYING, MEZASU, MIZUUMICON, RANDOMIZER9.COM

Mizuumi-Con 2011

UPDATE: The president of the Mizuumi-con sponsoring organization “Patrick “Enzan” Lloyd” replied below, and apparently the empty tables were the result of no-shows.

Mizuumi-Con is special for me because it is where this crazy trip called “creativity” began. I first attended Mizuumi-Con back in 2009, where I attended two panels. The first was with Kevin M. Connolly, who discussed voice acting. The second was Chris Holm’s panel which talked about ‘inspiring artists.’ Kevin provided insight on doing voiceovers, and the message of Chris’ panel was…well, “get off your ass and do something.”

A few days later, I was flipping through old notes, trying to figure out what old ideas might be worth dusting off. A few weeks later, I would meet with Chris and a couple of other guys to form what would eventually become First Storm Manga.

This would actually be my second Mizuumi-Con behind the First Storm Manga table in the dealer/artist area. Unlike other cons, Mizuumi puts both artists and dealers in the same space. Last year, it was a madhouse; the space was packed to the gills with artists, dealers, and more importantly, customers. In an effort to ease the congestion, and I presume, get more dealers and artists involved, it was decided that a second room, dubbed the “Annex,” would contain the spillover.

It was a good idea on paper, but a few things kept it from working as well as it should have:

Distance – The two artist/dealer areas were at opposite ends of the OLLU campus from each other, so if you wanted to check both of them out, it was a decent hike.
Layout – The layout of the tables at the Annex was awful. They had the tables start at the walls and go in towards the middle of the room. This is great if you get a good spot in the middle of the room, but sucks if you are by the wall. Even if you are an attendee, having to constantly double-back is annoying and it didn’t take very many people to make things crowded.
Planning – In the main artist/dealer area we had at least a dozen tables that went unused.
Organization – Some of those people in the Annex could have been moved over to those empty tables but nobody in charge figured it out.

I went by the Annex a few times to say hi to friends and check up on them. It was crowded, hot and quite a few of my artist friends did not do as well sales-wise as they would have liked to. In contrast, the artists I knew that were in the original location did fairly well and things never got too hot or too crowded there.

Despite the Annex goof-up, I had fun talking to people about First Storm Manga and our own upcoming September event, the Mezasu mini-con. Mizuumi appeared to draw a good crowd and it looked like folks were having a good time. Mizuumi is a fun one-day event, and I try to encourage folks new to the anime scene to attend it as a starting point. I look forward to coming back next year; hopefully they will have worked out the kinks in the artist/dealer area.

A final note: If it sounds like I’m harping about the artist/dealer room thing it’s because I personally know just over half a dozen people that had tables there and I feel bad for the ones that got shafted. Hopefully things will be better next time.

RANDOM REVIEW, TECH, Videogames

RANDOM REACTION: Nintendo 3DS Unboxing

11:00 AM

Well, its finally here, and I’ve got mine. I picked up my Aqua Blue Nintendo 3DS this morning from Gamestop and then drove on over to Toys R Us to buy Super Street Fighter IV 3D Edition and Ridge Racer 3D. I was able to knock $50 off the price of the system by trading in my DS Lite at Gamestop, and Toys R Us was running a “buy one get one 50% off” deal so I picked up Super Street Fighter IV 3D Edition and Ridge Racer 3D. Thus, the blow to my wallet was softened a bit. I also stopped at Best Buy to check out memory card prices, and they had units available as of 1030 AM, so perhaps we won’t see any of the shortages that plagued the Wii…yet.

Its a box!

The first thing I noticed about the Nintendo 3DS was that the box seemed to have a little bit of weight to it. I was a little worried; one of the big things that I appreciated about the DS Lite and DSi were their extreme portability. When you are done, you fold it up, stick it in your pocket and be on your merry way. I hoped the 3DS wouldn’t be pulling off my shorts as it cruised along in my pocket.

Upon opening the box, I soon realized why it was so heavy. For some time now, Nintendo has included English, Spanish, and French instructions in their games. This probably saves them on manufacturing costs, because they can sell the same box in the USA, Mexico or Canada. That’s great for them, but it means that their games arrive with manuals that are three times as thick. The trend has continued with the 3DS, there are three copies of a “StreetPass Mii Plaza” pamphlet, three copies of the “Quick Start Guide” and to top it off, a ‘Operations Manual” that’s 328-pages thick. I guess the Big N won’t be getting any awards from Greenpeace anytime soon. Not that they have before or anything. The box also contained a registration card, a Nintendo Power subscription offer and a pack of “AR Cards.”

That's a LOT of paper!

Now it was time for the good stuff. Inside the box was the 3DS itself, an AC charger, and a charge cradle. The system has a glossy finish, similar to the DS Lite, but with a more metallic look to it. All of the exterior casing has the aqua blue color. Upon opening it up, I saw the bottom section was also aqua blue, but the top screen had a black background. To the left of the touchscreen on the bottom were the Circle Pad and a standard cross-pad, and to the right were the standard A-B-X-Y buttons and a power button.

I found the charge cradle curious at first, because it had a plug for the AC charger, but there was nothing to plug into the 3DS or any connectors that I could discern, just a switch that would be depressed when the system was placed onto it. I pressed the switch and nearby two connectors peeked out. I looked at the back of the 3DS and saw two contact points next to the charger connection where the connectors would meet. Clever. I noticed that the 3DS charger looked very similar to my DSi charger and it turns out that they are exactly the same. Same color, model number, voltages and everything.

The Hardware

The 3DS is about the same size as a DSi, is just a bit thicker, and feels just a tad lighter, too:

I AM YOUR FATHER!

Having heard about he 3DS’ less than stellar battery life, I figured I’d let it soak up a full charge before getting my 3D game on. I left the 3DS on its charger before leaving to attend to some geeky business.

3:30PM

Upon returning from the geek gathering, I was pleased to find the 3DS’ charge light was off, it was time to fire it up and ~~play some games~~ set up my wireless connection. As much as I wanted to get my 3D racing and fighing on, I figured I’d go through the motions and set it up to connect to my wireless router. The first thing I noticed upon turning on the 3DS was that it took a few seconds to start up. I don’t know if this was a one-time thing or not but it took long enough to be noticeably different from the nearly ‘instant-on’ behavior I was accustomed to on the DSi. UPDATE: It takes a few seconds every time.

I then went through the setup, it was fairly straightforward though I found it interesting that I had to select a ‘region’ (in this case, Texas) in addition to the country. Another addition was a little helper character that appeared in the bottom center of the screen, consisting of two rectangles stacked atop each other, with the one of top being bigger and having a smiley face on it. Tapping the character made some help text appear on the screen which seemed like a nice touch. Nintendo seems be focusing more on the online aspect this time around, hopefully it proves to be less of a pain in the neck than the Wii’s online.

I spent a bit of time fiddling around with the 3DS’ built in apps, which include Nintendo 3DS Camera, Nintendo 3DS Sound, Mii Maker, Mii Plaza, AR Games, and Face Raiders. I’ll have more on the system as a whole in a few days, but so far its looking pretty cool!

BUSINESS, RANDOMIZER9.COM, TECH, Videogames

Five Reasons I Think The Nintendo 3DS Will Succeed

Following a successful launch in its native Japan, the Nintendo 3DS will drop into American gamers’ hands this weekend. I think it will be as equally successful on this side of the Pacific for the reasons below. I don’t claim to be an analyst, own a crystal ball or have my future self sending me cryptic hints, this is just one player’s opinion. Admittedly, I have a vested interest in the success of the 3DS, as I will be getting one myself this weekend, so take that for what its worth.

Its not just about the 3D: The Nintendo DS is seven years old, and in terms of its polygon pushing abilities, it was almost dated from day one. It certainly lacked the graphical oomph of the Playstation Portable and succeeded partially due to the unique games that its touchscreen made possible. While the third dimension is the hook to get people to buy the 3DS, the biggest improvement will be found in the system’s improved graphical punch.

The 3D Is Nice, though: Nintendo got everyone’s attention at last year’s E3 with just two words: “No glasses.” While the Big N is routinely panned for being behind the curve in the graphical arms race, the cutting edge display of the 3DS does work as advertised. While its launch line up does appear to be lacking, the 3DS’ “killer app” is the 3D itself. At SXSW a few weeks ago, I was not surprised to see fellow attendees being very impressed with the unit’s capabilities at the Capcom booth.

3D is the “Big Thing” right now- Like it or not, 3D is currently very popular, partially thanks to the wave of 3D movies in theaters. While folks are willing to shell out a few bucks more to see a movie in 3D, they are less willing to shell out big cash for a 3D TV set and glasses. While the 3DS’ price point does seem high, it is in the right neighborhood for a new hardware platform and I’d wager that gamers will be willing to pay for the privilege of playing games in 3D.

Enough about 3D, How About Games Players Want: One reason we don’t see many shooters, racing games or 3rd-person action games on the Nintendo DS is that the system just doesn’t have the horsepower to handle them very well. The 3DS, on the other hand, is powerful enough for action games such as Super Street Fighter, Metal Gear Solid and Splinter Cell to be produced for it. Whether hardcore gamers are willing to give Nintendo yet another chance remains to be seen, but at least this time around, a Nintendo system has the ability to play core games, unlike its underpowered predecessor.

Its Not Just About Games, though: In addition to games, Nintendo has announced that Netflix Instant Watch will be available on the system as well as a ‘short form video service’ that will allow the viewing of 3-D movie trailers and other content. In addition, an eShop should be coming this summer for classic game purchases and exclusive 3DS games. The 3DS will also (finally) feature MP3 support in its Sound application. While none of the above is reason alone to buy a 3DS, they are nice little extras to have and enable users to get more use out of their system.

So, there you have it. I am sure there are just as many reasons for the 3DS to fail, but I think Nintendo will be able to pull off a successful launch. Following that, we should see some big games drop for the system by the end of the year to maintain interest and reel new players in. I should be posting a review of the system and/or whatever game(s) I decide to buy here sometime next week, so stay tuned, and thanks for reading!

Agree? Disagree? E-mail Eduardo “randomizer9” Soliz at edsoliz@gmail.com

The author received no compensation for this post.

AETHERFEST, ANIME, CONS, JUST SAYING, WHISKEY-TANGO-FOXTROT

Steam-Punks

UPDATE: Dress-up is not required, so come one and all!

When I first heard about the upcoming San Antonio Steampunk convention Ætherfest a few weeks ago, I was excited. I noticed that Steampunk had been gaining a larger and larger presence at anime conventions, and it was good to see that they were going to try their own thing. Having more geek conventions in San Antonio is also a Good Thing and I was looking forward to supporting these guys and learning more about what the whole Steampunk scene was about. Thus, I went to the Ætherfest webpage to read up on it. It featured the usual parade of guests, events, and dealers, and everything appeared to be business as usual until I got to the FAQ, which included this little tidbit of info at the bottom of the page:

Appropriately enough, this made me steamed

After reading that, I don’t feel like attending Ætherfest anymore. The paragraph above does not make me feel welcome as a guest. One of the points of a convention is to get folks that aren’t into your particular flavor of geekdom to see what it is all about in the hopes that they embrace it, or at least understand what its really about. Telling people that they might not be welcome because they aren’t dressed up is sending the wrong kind of message to your potential attendees. Yes, it does say: “we’ll try our best not to look peeved,” but that isn’t entirely reassuring. Indeed, the thought of spending a day being looked down upon by a bunch of self-important nerds in costumes and opera glasses is not my idea of a fun time.

If this message was intended to be delivered “in character” then okay, fine, I get the joke. That said, lots of other people will not, and when you’re starting a new convention, you don’t want to give people a reason not to attend. Admittedly, I’m probably making a mountain out of a molehill here, but I hope somebody sees the point I’m trying to make.

If Ætherfest is supposed to only be for hardcore Steampunk fans (steam-core? steam-elite?), then okay fine, do what you like. If, on the other hand, you are looking to get as many people to show up as possible and grow your fanbase, then this is not the way to do it.

Come on guys, we’re better than this!

UPDATE: Apparently some of the Aetherfest folks read the post. They agreed that their wording does come off as a tad ‘elitist’ but their intention was to poke fun at other cons where dress up is required, which is what I had guessed. They have posted the following disclaimer on their homepage and look forward to seeing everybody there for a jolly good time!

Well played, fellows!

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Five Things I Learned From My DSL Debacle

So after the smoke cleared, I got my DSL turned on and AT&T got another customer…well for now, anyway. It only took a trip to AT&T’s website, 2 customer service reps, one angry tweet, 3 techs, two social media team people, three executive escalation people, about a dozen voice mails, about twice that many phone calls, and seven days.

For my trouble, I’m getting my first month of service free, which I think is fair enough. I’m just happy that the switch got flipped, and hopefully things will be hunky dory from here on out. I also learned a few things:

Just use the phone already! I should have just called back the next morning, despite the terrible experience I’d had with the first CSR. Its just quicker, especially considering..
“The Power of Social Media” is worthless if the people answering the tweets don’t have the power to DO anything. Awhile back, a friend of mine had a problem with Netflix that he tweeted about. Someone from the company got in touch with him fairly quickly and got the issue resolved. Thus, when I got a response from AT&T’s social media people, I got excited that someone was going to get something DONE about my problem. Sadly, the only thing the social media mavens that answered my angry AT&T tweets did was tell me to wait for a phone call that would come at some indeterminate time. Of course, once I got past the social media d00dz, I found out:
Just because they’re “executive escalation” doesn’t mean they want to talk to you. I don’t think I’ve ever played as much phone tag as I did with the executive escalation gal. Part of it was because of my job, which entails answering phones, and part of it was because of the phone system at AT&T, which did not put me through to the person directly. Whenever I had time to speak, I had to leave a message and hope that she called me back before I got busy again. This is hardly efficient, especially considering that…
Competence is not “expected behavior” This was not the first time I had ordered DSL service from AT&T. I had expected the positive experience I’d had before to be repeated. Sadly, this was not the case; the smart people I’d spoken to years ago have probably either been laid off or hopefully, moved on to bigger or better things. As for me:
I may just be too patient. I probably should have thrown in the towel after the social media dweebs told me to wait 48 “business hours” for a phone call but I was desperate to get back on the intertubes and I wanted to see this whole thing through.

So I now have sweet, sweet, internet and life is good.

Aww, crap…

Eduardo Soliz

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

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