Tag: cons

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Dragon*con stuffs

So I suppose I should make a post about that whole five days I was in Georgia or something.

After a bit of confusions with my housemate, I got to the airport on Thursday without too much fuss. On the flight there, the Delta in-flight entertainment things in the seatbacks weren’t working, so no trivia or DirectTV for me. I made do with my laptop, game boy, even a (*gasp*) book. I landed just about as the other ShirtNinjas were eating a seafood dinner, and my dinner that evening would technically be the stupid little “crackers and spread” thing they gave me on the plane.

In the airport, it was amazingly evident there was a convention in town. You could pick out who was going from the crowd very easily (especially if they were already wearing their badges… perplexing). The first night was basically meeting up with Ardneth, getting my room key, and a bit of hanging out / scoping out possible hang out spots for the rest of the convention.

The rest of the convention followed a very predictable pattern, though we didn’t spend as much time sitting in the food court chatting as the last time I was there. I saw a few panels: the Venture Bros. panel was hilarious (Doc Hammer made everyone ask their questions in alphabetical order). Michael Winslow had a panel/presentation that seemed to be about 50% prepared and 50% improvised, and very impressive. The Mythbusters build team was suitably entertaining. The Brent Spiner/Robert Picardo/John DeLancie panel on the last day turned into a John DeLancie panel when the other two couldn’t show, but was still entertaining. I didn’t get a chance to see Peter David, but I’d seen him at Wondercon recently so it was no big loss.

Other highlights of the con were running into a sign on the sidewalk, buying PS238 from Aaron Williams and getting them signed. Ditto for Exploitation Now / Errant Story and Poe. The Steve Jackson Games (and other folks) booth where they’d call out “Exact Change!” in a triumphant voice every time someone paid with such. In a convention full of witty T-shirts, getting comments on the ones I wore (which I never saw anyone else wearing the ones I did. Luckily I brought more than I needed, or else I would have ended up wearing one that I saw a whole lot.) Seeing for the first time in probably 15 years. Meeting a few of the ShirtNinjas I hadn’t met yet (, , and others).

I would have liked to have taken pictures, but as my mobile post before said, the battery in my old Canon Elph no longer holds a charge. I think I’ve found one that’s suitable, I just have to figure if it’s worth it to spend the money on something I’d rarely use. I have the camera in my phone if I ever want to take a picture of something random that I run across, even if the quality is crappy.

I need to make a mental note that the flight I chose to go back home on was way too late, I was bored in the airport for too long, and that was even after taking my time on Monday. At least the flight back I got to play with the in-flight system (and lucky me once again I got one of the few empty middle seats on the plane next to me).

My internal clock is still all messed up. Even though I’m falling asleep at my usual west coast time, I’m waking up at the east coast time I was used to over the weekend. This lack of sleep is making me groggy and I’m getting headaches. I almost even fell asleep at work yesterday. I hope it all works out soon.

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So I’ve been busy at work for the most part, except when I’m stuck waiting for people to get back to me on all three of my simultaneous projects, like right now. So I guess I’ll use this time to post about AOD or something.

The benefit of being one of the last to make an LJ post on a convention is that most people already made all the cool references, so I don’t have to be witty or remember what happened. I spent most (almost all) of my time in the ConOps room. It was a much mellower con this year, especially compared to last year, where most of my energy was spent tracking down people, this time we didn’t do much other than communicate with “special ops” and handle staff check-in, parking validation, keeping track of what was stored in our room, and being a place where various people could get online and/or print stuff on the printer.

Of course, being stuck in a windowless room for so many hours, I began to lose track of time by the end of the weekend, which was a bit annoying.

For those of you who are watching Feasting on Asphalt, I watched episode two and was surprised to find Alton Brown stopped at not one, but two places in Evansville, Indiana, my mother’s hometown and where my grandmother still lives. I’ve been there once, but of course I didn’t recognize anything. My mother didn’t even recognize anything… oh well, I suppose it’s a big town.

I suppose I should get back to work.

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Greetings from AOD

There be internet access in the AOD ConOps room. And it only cost $1.99 for the month because I’m an AT&T Yahoo! customer. Weird, huh?

The entire contents of my car, Rob’s car, and a few other things are all sitting in the room, and it’s me on my laptop. I am very tired from lugging things in.

I forgot to bring paper for the printer for the second con in a row. I suck.

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AX Wrapup

So Sunday was the last day of AX, and once again I had to wake up for the morning shift. It was quite uneventful, in fact the day was mostly uneventful until the con was almost over.

Once again, our friend the bulleted list:

  • I had a dream Saturday night. I dreamt that I was in a McDonalds, but for some reason the person taking my order was psychic and handed me my order before I even said out loud what it was. I freaked out and ran, and as I got further away from her, I thought to myself “I wonder how far she can reach” and I hear her say “November 23rd!”
  • I must have been fixating on the smells of the soap, but I noticed that the hand soap in the Hyatt’s bathrooms was banana-scented, and the hand soap in the Renessaince’s smelled sweet, and reminded me of a certain weird cookie that i used to eat at Hebrew School. Must be a cross-wired olfactory memory.
  • For some weird reason, when I’m in Southern California, my phone switches from “AT&T” to “ROAM” and back again repeatedly. I have no idea if that means I’m actually not roaming or not…
  • I was introduced to a new concept yesterday: Wine flavored Pocky. I was so surprised that I was running all over the room shoving the Pocky under people’s noses, saying “smell this!”
  • At the very last minute, I was quite surprised when I ran into ElfEater, who said she’d been at the con the whole time. Of course, I hadn’t been hanging out by the DDR machines, which is probably where she was most of the time. 😛

So I think the themes that we take away from this Anime Expo are weird smells, audio clips, lines, walking and rain.

I’ve gotta go to work tomorrow. I don’t wanna go to work tomorrow. I’ve got a week’s worth of email and work awaiting me tomorrow.

And I still have to unpack…

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AX Day Three

It’s all over. I can’t remember if I spilled the beans here or not, but this was 5XL’s last concert. We mean it. And when I say “we mean it,” we mean it more than “this is our last song” and then 30 seconds later break out an encore that we honestly weren’t planning on doing.

It was an effort of passion, something we did because it was fun, we did it for the fans, the glory, but certainly not for the money… ’cause it cost us way more than it made. It was quite a ride, and now it’s time to take a break.

Changing gears, it’s time for some mini-updates.

  • It happened again. A completely different conversation, a completely different situation, and of course, a completely different girl. “My boyfriend” jumps out of the conversation and into my long term memory, a burned-in audio clip that will echo around for too long of a time.
  • So if AX fans line up for hours for an event they already have tickets for, how long do they wait for the tickets themselves? I woke up and went to my staff shift at 8am this morning as was surprised by quite a long line already outside. Little did I know, it was actually the third segment of the line, and the first person had actually started lining up at one in the morning. Insanity. Pure insanity.
  • On the way to the concert, my mom got a flat tire. Only later, I find out it was more than that. Remember that Firestone recall on Ford Explorers? Well, that’s what happened to her; she had defective tires and one of them blew out.
  • So I invited an old high school friend to the concert today. Of course, he was there before the concert, and left early, so he didn’t get to see my mom. Oh well. It was weird seeing him. I also found out that one of the people he still hangs out with that I used to know in high school is now married… and so the ratio goes up.

Only one more day left. It’s been four days, and I’ve built up enough emotional baggage to last me almost half a year… what a vicious cycle. I’ll have just gotten over everything, and it’ll be the convention season again.

Time for bed, I have to get up early again, of course. My feet hurt so much.

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AX Day Two

Compared to yesterday, not much happened today. And when I say “not much” I mean “only the equivalent of one week’s worth of social stimulus, not two weeks’.”

I’ve noticed that at anime conventions, people will line up two or three hours before an event even if the tickets are assigned seats. Force of habit, I guess.

The soap here at the hotel smells like Play Doh.

This one’s short. Time to go to sleep, tomorrow’s the big day, concert and all.

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AX Day One

Okay, so we get a bunch of little updates, as if they were separate entries. (This is what I get when I only get to use a computer once a day… what a raw deal!)

  • These last few days have been draining on my cell phone. I’ve gotten so many phone calls, made so many phone calls, and gotten so many voice mails. The last bit in particular is interesting, because I tried checking my voice mail yesterday and had a bit of a problem. Normally I press ‘1’ during my voice message to interrupt it and check my messages. For some reason, it didn’t work. So I called again, and it still didn’t work. I waited a few minutes, and it still didn’t work. I tried hitting random numbers instead of ‘1’ and managed to send myself a random page. Eventually, I try hitting ‘#’ and, lo and behold, I get my password prompt.

    Before I get my two voice messages, I am treated to a system message warning me that, starting July 3rd, I have to hit ‘#’ instead of ‘1’ to access my voice mail. Keep in mind that it’s July 4th. Grrrr.
    Current Mood: frustrated

  • So not only did it rain at the wedding, but it actually rained, and quite a bit for quite a while, today at the convention. It caused a little commotion, lucky for me I actually had my umbrella with me, ’cause I take my umbrella with me wherever I go. 🙂
    Current Mood: amused

  • I keep hearing two words out of context from a conversation I had today. “My boyfriend.” I’m not gonna elaborate, but I think you can probably guess. Let’s just say that those two words let me save face and gave me closure at the same time.
    Current Mood: wistful

  • I brought my portable DVD player and the little radio shack gizmo I need to hook it up to any TV. Well, it turns out that, in addition to there only being one free outlet in the room, there is a thing on the TV connector that prevents it from being disconnected. So I have to watch DVDs on the little screen instead of the TV. Oh well.
    Current Mood: frustrated

That is all.

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Anime Expo and 5XL

So, this is sort of in response to Torak’s comment on my last entry, but it warrants a new entry so you all see it.

For those of you who have delved into my webpage, you may be aware that I play keyboards in a band called 5XL. Well, we’re performing at Anime Expo (in Southern California the end of this week), so anyone who wants to come by, we’re performing on Saturday at 4pm in the Renaissance Hotel (across the street from the Long Beach Convention center), ’cause that’s where they’re holding their concerts and live events.

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SGI and Anime Central

So, my nice new flatpanel monitor has been on the fritz recently, after some playing with it, I figured out it’s one of the power supplies that’s broken, not the actual monitor… so I call SGI this morning, and after giving them all my information I hear the following words:

“I’ll just overnight you a new one.”

Man, I am so happy. This is what Customer Support is supposed to be.

On another note, today’s MegaTokyo comic is very cool…. because I was there. You can even see the Vibrating Sheep of Death in my picture.

I love in-jokes that I get. Hee hee.

Also, I gave my 30-day (well, more like 45 day) notice at my apartment today… whee.

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Chicago

I just got back from Chicago for a weekend, for Anime Central and a Bat Miztvah.

And now I need to catch up on sleep.

I’ve got photos online. And yes, the captions were rushed, because people were looking at my page as I was updating it so I just wanted to get something in there.

Whee.