Monday, May 31, 2004
Animazement is over. I think it went rather well, although daytripping to it, while easier on my wallet, was a lot harder for me to cope with logistically. (When one breaks a prop, the level of convenience in dealing with it drops significantly when one has to drive 20 minutes to one's house to reach one's tools, as opposed to zipping up a floor or two to one's hotel room.) I'll try and have a con report written out by the end of the week if I'm able to. Lots to do next week. I have to get new front tires for my car, and that's just for a start.

Happy Memorial Day everybody. And thank you veterans and soldiers (You know who you are.)

Thursday, May 27, 2004

I just wanted to announce that, barring any unforseen (or forseen but unavoidable) disasters, I shall be at Animazement this weekend. I'll be at the Artist Alley all day Friday, so if you want to stop by and show your support by, oh...say... purchasing some of my work (or even by throwing random large-denominational bills in my direction for no apparent reason whatsoever) I would appreciate it. I'm also giving an armormaking panel on Friday night at 8pm, so if you're interested in learning about my armoring methods (or have a perverse desire to watch me embarrass myself in front of a large group of people because--let's face it-- I have all the charisma and public speaking skills of a block of road salt,) you're welcome to drop on by.

I've sent some new artworks over to Elfwood, which I hope to see posted in the next few days (or you could go to Animazement and see printouts I made of them in person. And buy them. Yes. You'll have the opportunity to buy them! PLEASE buy them!!) I also have another chapter of the Xenosaga TT to post as soon as I can get my overworked ass around to coding it.

If I had more energy, I'd tell you the stirring saga of the Haunted 6-pack of Dr. Pepper which is sitting in our fridge. Scarrry stuff, kids...scarrry stuff....Oooooh....

Monday, May 17, 2004

Rejoice! It's a new (and hopefully, for me, less stinky) week! I felt good enough this past weekend to go to the beach with mi amigo, Papi. The trip TO the beach took a little longer than both of us had expected, (the final 13 miles of the journey was solid stop-and-go traffic down the Highway of Perpetual Stoplights,) but we managed to find a parking lot that was reasonably close to the beach, so that was pleasant, at least. I'd never been to the Atlantic Ocean before. What can I say about it? It was blue. It was an ocean. And it smelled like Joe's Crab Shack. On the whole, I rather liked it. The water was a bit rough, though. Most folks who were there didn't dare venture past the breakers. Papi and I did at one point, and we were having fun bobbing up and down in rhythm with the waves. Suddenly, an errant tsunami muscled its way from the edge of the sea and ploughed into us, pushing us face-first into the sand of the shoreline. For a long time after that, we both stood in the breakers, letting the incoming waves sand-blast our legs smooth. We then went for a short walk, hunting for seashells and watching a wedding which was taking place just past the shoreline. The groom and his men were all dressed in white shirts with khaki bermuda shorts and the bridesmaids all wore pink, tie-dyed sundresses. It was very cute. (It would have been even cuter if the bride and groom had, upon kissing each other, rushed pell-mell towards the sea to take a spirited plunge, but such did not happen. Some people have no flair for the dramatic-- or any inherent desire to wind up on America's Funniest Home Videos-- I guess...) Anyway, I had fun. This was probably going to be the closest thing I would have to a vacation this year, (I do NOT consider sitting at home, hunting for employment, angsting over my bills and selling all my remaining personal possessions on ebay in order to pay them off, a vacation, thank you very much) so I figured I'd better enjoy myself.

Animazement is only a couple weeks away now. I'm still planning on going to it and giving my armormaking demonstration. Hopefully I won't be beset by any more maor disasters between now and then. One MINOR disaster I'm having to deal with is my printer-- it's suddenly stopped working and refuses to recognize it's LPT port. Every time I try to reinstall the drivers, it threatens to crash my entire computer. I tried opening the computer in BIOS and fiddling around with it, but to no avail. I guess my only alternative is to erase everything on my harddrive and reformat it (which I can't do because most of my program disks are still back in Minnesota. *sigh* Did I plan well for this journey or not?) If anyone knows anything about printers and why a Windows 98 LPT port might be failing, (I checked the connections and cables already, so it's not THAT), let me know, okay?

Thanks.