Convention Report

Anizona 4 was definately a smaller scale event than Anizona 3 was. The vendor room was the smallest I'd ever seen at a con ever. There were no special quests save for two guys from the voice acting industry and a band called Toy Box.
It was pure chaos, however I say that in a good way. 1000 con attendees at a sold out convention raising hell in an Embassy Suites in Phoenix. I kinda felt bad for all the normal people staying at the hotel. Because Otaku don't know how to shut the fuck up, or talk at a reasonable pitch. Organization 13, or whatever it is the hell they're called in Kingdom Hearts, were in legion. Like a little gang of hoodlums.

Also I got to attend a voice-over panel, which I missed at PAF. I got to voice Taiga Aisaka from Tora Dora (...a girl, mind you...The choices were the guy, Ryuji, his retarded parrot Inko-Chan, and Taiga. I drew the short straw and got Taiga.), in which I only had two lines gratefully~ A disgusted exclamation, and a frantic "What IS that disgusting thing??". Actually came out pretty sweet when they played it back in it's completion. Also, it's of note that since that panel, I went and found Tora Dora on Onemanga.com and have been reading the fuck out of it. I likes me my romantic comedies. I recommend going and reading it.

Also got to throw down at the Gong Show talent contest with an Ichigo, Kenpachi, Hinata and Jurai in a little skit, and also killed with my 'Mario Brothers was about Drugs' routine. My hope is for next con, I can reserve some space and time to do a full Otaku Stand-Up routine. Sadly, I wasn't able to stick around long enough to go to Round 3 of the Gong Show to see if we won anything. I hope you guys made out like thieves, dudes!

My experiment in Hypnotism failed miserablly...my subject, a lovely gall dressed as Gunner Yuna, was way to hyper, and the location was not quiet enough~So we agreed we'd meet next time when I had more information and practice under my belt.

Also, I can't help but feel I kept looking at my gloves.
~Then again, they are very awesome gloves~

I tried to attend as many panels as possible, and of what ones I did go to, I had a lot of fun with them. The Adult Fanfiction Panel was a bit of a flake, but we all had a laugh at that one. The Secret Life of Cosplayers was the best hour, I felt. You can't top that one.

The raves, however...
No...just...no...I've decided I need to stop rave dancing...My build and fashion sense do not bode well for the others in attendance.

Despite everything going on, with talk of a hiatus for the Anizona series, I felt this convention was epic on a scale I now place higher than any I've attended. I met a lot of awesome people, saw a lot of awesome stuff, and did a lot of awesome things. And that's what counts. The Inu Yasha (I can't remember your name bro...) who ran the Secret Life panel said it best~ We Otaku really are just one big happy family. Bring us together, no matter what walk of life, and we'll bond like noodles and sauce.

~Keep it Random.

Pzwned Podcast

Holy crap on a triscuit, Anizona is this week. I always get nervous when conventions round the corner because there's just so much to get done beforehand. Like...securing time off from work, ensuring I have enough money to enjoy myself...you know, typical stuff. Fortunately, I don't have to worry about room and board since a friend is letting crash in his hotel room.

In some bad news, apparently the Fractured Transmissions podcast has been removed from the mypodcast.com directory. Did it get Pzwned? Suspended? Banned? Are we too hot for TV? Indeed, sir, are we too much for you to handle?
Eh, technical thing probably. We're not that controversial.

Nonsense

Let's get serious for a moment...

Okay, that's enough of that nonsense...

The Pitt is Bugged!

Ah, so apparently Fallout 3's latest DLC is just racked with bugs and issues. I'm browsing the TRIO of threads on the Bethesda Forums now, and it seems that known issues are a lot of missing textures and meshes, game freezes, among others. The forum community is guessing that the bugs are coming from either the file becoming corrupt when it was put up on XBOX Live, or issues resulting the the massive amount of info-suck generated by all the people downloading it at once. They're also suggesting waiting a bit, and then downloading to see if the issues resolve themselves. Re-Downloads may also be necessary.

It makes me glad that I didn't stay up late into the twilight to get my Fallout fix. Oh well, I'll wait till later tonight and see if things haven't been resolved.

Turkish Food Rocks

Saturday, after spending the day at the Renaissance Fair, we took dinner at a place called Efe's, which I have been informed is the only Turkish Cuisine establishment here in Arizona. I was a bit concerned about how the food and I were going to get along. Especially after Jade's husband (who IS Turkish), introduced me to a drink designed for those who've been out in the sun all day- which would be all of us. The taste was akin to someone mixing a dallop of sour cream in water and adding a pinch of salt.
When the food finally arrived, all concerns vanished. The menu only described the meat on my plate as simply "meat" roasted with garlic. A beti kabab it said. Served along with seasoned rice, a fire-roasted tomato, and delicious little pita breads for folding. My mind was thuroughly blown, and was the first to clear their plate. Which was a bit akward, with everyone conversing, and there I am just wolfing this stuff down. Jade offered me a bite of her dish, of which she was extremely proud of, which seemed like chicken and beef with a kind of nutmeg sauce and cabbage.

Around this time in the evening I learned my brother just finished with a visit to Urgent Care back home. He'd developed a heavy fever along with a real bad Canker Sore on the roof of his mouth. The fevers been kicking his ass royally, so I've been doing my best to baby him back to health. It's been frustrating for him, since he simply cannot eat without his canker sore emitting some serious throbbing pain.

I go back to classes today. Yay.

Why Scraps hates Dark Elves

Drow-- A race of cavern dwelling Elven offshoots. They live in a matriarchal society ruled over by priestesses in the service of a Drow-Spider amalgon named Lolth who will kill your ass for breaking any tenant of Drow society. Women are the strong, men are the support, and the less a Drow Woman wears, the prouder they are. They are evil for evils sake, enslaving other evil races just for kicks. Do a DeviantArt check on Drow and chances are what returns will be a strange crossover between an R.A. Salvatore novel and Victorias Secret.

I am not fond of this race of snide under-dwellers.

I feel my reasons for not liking Drow are simple...The average image of a Drow is Jessica Rabbit with dark skin and white hair who will eviscerate you with but a glance. They were created as a race by fantasy writers as a foil for masochistic players to sweat and drool over the fantasy of a dominating Elf-Chick. You can look, but no touchie. They represent the hot chicks that a Gamer could never get anywhere with away from the gaming table. The ones who would turn their noses up at you in High School at your futile attempts at courtship. The Mean Girls who's existance revolves around personal gain and the belitteling of others. If DnD was a High School drama on the Disney Channel, the head Chearleader and her little cronies would be Drow.

You can love them or hate. Me, personally, I could just plain do without them.

Memoirs of a Podcast Fanatic

When people see me, there's an 80% chance that I will have my earbuds in, listening a podcast of some sort. I normally load up my iPod with podcast subscriptions so I always have a welcome stream of something to listen to when I'm working (when applicable), driving, or running errands. Drives Jo to no end when we're driving somewhere. It's a good 45 minutes to Phoenix from the town we live in and she always gets stuck listening to RPPR or Order 66, maybe the occasional CAGcast or Sarcastic Gamer.
The chief reason for always being plugged in is in part of a resolution to stop being negative, and part of that process is interrupting any negative thoughts that may occur to me by distracting my attention away from such thinking.
It mainly began back when I was shoveling and running pizzas for Dominos. On really slow days there was really nothing to grab your attention, so I managed to get away with smuggeling in my mp3 player (A ZEN player...loved that thing), with it tucked into my shirt with only the earbud visible. Bosses didn't mind, most customers thought I was wired for bluetooth. I listened to a lot of comedy/stand-up. Dance Cook...Dimitri Marten...George Carlin...Robin Williams...Dave Chapelle. It was good stuff. Eventually though, other employees started bringing in iPods and it started causing problems, so from then on I could only use my player in the car during deliveries.

After a while though, it wasn't so much that I liked listening to the same handful of comedy bits over and over, it was just the fact that I preferred having someone elses voice ratteling around inside my head rather than put up with my own negative monologues. Around this point I started getting into Radio talk shows when they turned a popular local alternative rock station into a talk station. The morning guys were funny, but the evening and nights guys were horrendous. Tom Lycus (douchebag) and some other guy who did bad attempts at radio skit comedy. Hell I even enjoyed listening to broadcasted hockey games. Pretty much I saught out any reason not to think about my dead-end job.

So it was only natural that I drift towards podcasts when I got my hands on my first iPod Nano (which I still use). A half-hour lunch break when I was breaking my back for a big name movie theater became Podcast time, my little half hour of not having to think about work or anything. And so it goes and so it goes. Podcasts don't quite outnumber my music playlist on this little black wonder, since they tend to refresh to ditch the old ones after a while.

So if you ever bump into me, and I seem a little zoned out and appear to not be paying attention to anything you're saying, relax. Cheapy-D said something funny and Wombat's being an ass again.