I admit it. I'm just being lazy now.

So, yes, I went to Comic-Con this year and it's everything most of you already know. Crazy. Crowded. Insanely Expensive. Fun.

I'm afraid I don't have the energy for a blow by blow, but here's what I remember. 

I went to a LOT of panels. A good portion of which where a waste of time (Here's looking at you, Harry Potter fan panel), though a fair number were surprisingly interesting, and there were the usual highlights.

The first day was pretty dry for panels, though the surprise was the Evolution of Fantasy panel which featured two authors I've actually heard of (Lynn Flewelling, who wrote the Nightrunner series I was gushing about some months ago) and Jacqueline Carey. I enjoyed the discussion more than I was anticipating, and Lev Grossman did an excellent job moderating (I am looking forward to reading his book, Magicians, due to certain slashy hints he gave out during the panel), though Lynn seemed...I don't know...less than thrilled to be there. Maybe that's how she always looks. I any case, I'm still split on how I feel about her.

Brom's panel was another surprise. He's actually...much more warm and outgoing than I would have ever hazarded to guess from his (awesome but often very dark) art. I especially enjoyed his stories about the TSR editing staff calling his elf illustration "gay" and his story about running after some random jogger and his partner whilst on flipflops to ask him to pose for a picture. I'm also probably going to purchase his upcoming illustrated novel, The Child Thief, which is a dark retelling of the original Peter Pan. If nothing else, the cover art is lick-able. Speaking of lick-able, his son was in attendance in the audience. ADORABLE!!!!

I spend outrageous amounts of time in line for Attack of the Show and Kevin Smith. Both equally worth the wait. Really, line waiting is part of the experience. In fact, I met some really cool people in line for the District 9 panel (which I barely got into the end of, but still got to see the footage, which ruled, btw).

I keep telling myself I need to keep track of costume trends. The last year I was there the place was overrun with Naru-tards. While there were definitely Naruto cosplayers in attendance, it wasn't to the same degree as before. There were tons of Organization XIII people there and (much to my endless squeeing) many Axels. Jokers from every era were seem in great number, many of which were female. Another interesting trend was the number of female Mad-Hatters in amongst the explosion of various Alice cosplayers. I'm pretty sure I spotted at least five Dr. Girlfriends in the crowd, and there were TWO in the Masquerade. With G.I. Joe coming out, costumes for them were rampant on the floor, naturally, and there were also two Joe-themed skits. Disney princesses roamed the halls left and right.

The big thing at this Con wasn't so much the costumes but the signs. If you hadn't heard, there were people camping literally a day before the Con to get into the Twilight panel on Thursday. The series' popularity struck a cord, positive and (it seemed, mostly) negative. Whilst waiting for the masquerade, a procession of screams could be heard echoing down the hall like a wave. We later learned that protesters carrying various anti-Twilight signs and calling for shouts of support were walking the line. Similar signs could be see the rest of Con, sprinkled in among the usual Free Hugs (another trend I cannot account for).

I also spent far too much money on junk, but I couldn't resist a little splurging. I got an Axel and a Kagura action figure and some more dice to add to my collection. I got some character buttons from my fav webcomic artist Jeph Jacques, author of Questionable Content (who signed my program), and got suckered into buying another artists' comic cause I'm a sucker for gaming references. It's called Mystic Revolution. My favorite find was my signed (and personalized!) silver dragon lithograph by the very talented and equally gregarious Todd Lockwood, who, if you are not familiar, is responsible for a large portion of the art in the 3.5 D&D books and a solid collection of Magic cards. I really enjoyed meeting him and gave him a huge hug before buying from him.

In any case, I finished what will pass for my highlight reel for Comic-Con 09 and will post it as soon as I can to my YouTube channel.


 

I've officially concluded two book series - The Last Rune and The Doctrine of Labryrinthes.

As usual, I am filled with equal parts elation at seeing both to their conclusions, and equal parts deep sadness that there is no more to the journey.

In both cases, I didn't get the porn I was hoping for (and I never really thought I would, but hope is hope), but plenty of sappiness, which is almost as good. The Last Rune came to a speeding end like a bullet train. Almost, one might say, too fast, because the final recap of some of the characters felt lacking, or did not exist at all, though I suppose it makes the most sense to end with the characters you start out with. And I got a gay couple raising their dually parented daughter, which is made of win on many levels. Overall, very sweet and very well done. Doctrine was an emotional ride as always. Felix never fails to make me laugh, cry, and smack my forehead in exasperation. Though much less of the latter in this last book. Again I felt things were a little rushed. I liked that some emotional ends were tied up, but Monette left a lot of things unexplained in terms of the plot and some things that occurred in the previous books. I was glad for the hopeful ending though, which is the best I could have wished for, really, when you have such angst and trauma prone characters as Felix and Mildmay, and there were some moments in the book that had me crying, even days afterwards.

So, those done, I've moved on to book 5 of the Dark Tower series - "Wolves of the Calla". So far it's mostly recap, and I'm trying not to bang my head up against the wall. Combine that with the fact that the monster clocks in over 900 pages...and I may be at this awhile.

Um, in other news, still missing House, but what I have seen makes me hopeful that things are getting back to normal. Yes, I am still following Idol. I seriously want to tackle hug Adam and cover him with glitter. If he's not gay then I'm French maid, cause...yeah. I just hope he OWNS it, and when he wins, he kisses Ryan and...

...heh...that thought train is going elsewhere.

Totally going to go see Crank 2 this week. And May will have both Wolverine AND Star Trek.

*nerd-spolsion*

I feel bad. Because of work, I've been missing House a lot this season, and because I hate watching things out of order, I haven't done any catching up. On the other hand, I've been following Idol again this year. I feel a bit like a traitor. At least it's not on the same night.

Thoughts so far:

Holy shit, Adam is amazing. Give that boy a contract like now! Not only does he have a range but he makes me unreasonably happy in the pants. I haven't heard anything more about those photos of him, but one of them was like a snapshot from Velvet Goldmine, glitter and all. That does no damage in my playbook.

Actually, this is a pretty solid cast this season. Lil is also amazing. Michael is too adorable for words. Danny is also fantastic. Allison has a kick-ass voice, as does Alexis. Kris, Matt, and Scott are also good singers, and I actually hated Megan less after the last performance. And despite his performance last week, I like Anoop.

This will be an interesting season.

In the gaming news section: Mitch's campaign exploded figuratively and almost literally, so I took over with the promise that we'll revisit and properly finish things later. In the meantime, my "Pit" campaign has restarted and is going alright. The Tuesday Meetup game also went well this week. Yay for hordes of skeletons and giant spiders. We also apparently have a Sunday game and I am making my second attempt at reviving a briefly-played swashbuckler character.

My, I have neglected this space.

There is not much to say. My life more or less seems to revolve now around work and gaming.

This new campaign has been quite a rollercoaster. I did indeed create Felix as my D&D character (based, as I mentioned in an earlier post, on the gay wizard Felix from the Doctrine of Labyrinthes series), and he has been an absolute blast to play (pun not intended). I do wish we would have had more opportunities to explore his background. The closest I've gotten is when one of the players was snooping around my character sheet and saw he had ranks in Profession (prostitute). I sometimes have regrets about joking around about seducing party members, because everyone now believes he's a slut, when in game he's only slept with one person, and not a party member. The point is that he's running from his past full tilt, but the party necessarily doesn't realize his demeanor is more or less an act. They may never. But in any case, he's an amusing character to play.

On the DMing front I haven't run a game since the holidays started. My work schedule got in the way and I put things on hold...and just haven't picked it up again. In an effort to keep that up in some respect, I scheduled a game for my Meetup group that I've arranged to co-DM with my husband. We were discussing what we might run, and I mentioned wanting to stay away from the stereotypes of low-level enemies. Low level games are rampant with kobolds, goblins, and zombies. Among our group, it has been discussed that in video games, movies, and other media, the two safest and most common groups to villainize are zombies and Nazis. So, zombies are blase, but Nazis? What race in D&D would be Nazis? Elves. If it would be any race it'd be elves. So that's the theme. We'll have elves rounding up other races and taking them to camps, eventually getting the party itself captured. I wonder if there is a good elven equivalent of Furor...?

I am also well into taping our new sessions and have gotten a great response so far. I'm even gaining new subscribers every day, it seems. I've wanted to reach out to my viewers more and wanted to start a site for both them and the group to keep track of things like session summaries, experience points, character rosters, campaign setting info, and the like. It'd also be a great place for people to ask questions about the rules and talk about the game in general. I wheedled everyone into coming up with a name for us, and the name Oversized Parties, Incorporated was voted as the best idea. But I've just discovered that formatting a message board is a hopeless task for me, so I'm not sure how to approach the problem. I think a message board would be best, although I've toyed with using an LJ community as well. I'm not sure that'd be any easier.

Work on the other hand is more a distraction than anything. I actually get more reading done there than I do at home, and usually reserve it just for that. I'm now beginning to follow a series called the Last Rune by Mark Anthony. It's one of the many books I searched for looking for fantasy stories with gay or bi heros. So far that aspect isn't completely clear, not does it permeate the story. In fact, I found it was much better than I expected. The author is very talented and plot, pacing, and suspense. Something always seems to be happening. I also found myself much more attached to the characters than I thought I would be going in. While I am clawing my way hoping a romance does develop between the hero Travis and the knight Beltan (feelings finally being revealed, on the knight's side, at the very end of the second book), there always seems to be more to discover about these people. I hope it continues as well now that I've begun the third book.

For those of you who may have been wondering where the fuck I went, well, I'm not dead.

Our brief time of have internet didn't last long and I've been pretty much without until now. We decided that we couldn't afford where we were living anymore, cut lease, and moved back in with my folks. It took pretty much only my husband and I..by ourselves...over 2 days to do the move, and in the end we left a lot of crap behind.

I still hurt.

Hopefully I can get some faster net here soon, though, cause I can't take much more of this. I MUST have my YouTube.

On the upside, I suppose, we don't seem to be facing starvation on a weekly basis, and I got a job at the local Hallmark store. I actually kinda like it, as far as jobs go.

Anyway, I'll have more to write about later. I just wanted to update.

So I have my internetz back, at least for now. Still no tv, though. Thus YouTube has become my primary means for daily entertainment, other than my board, of course. Ok, so I do spend a lot of time rewatching my favs. Well, I fav'd them for a reason, didn' t I? Still, it leaves wanting on occasion. Often all I need is a small reminder of something, or one of their recommendations. Someone mentioned Disney songs and I ended up staying awake all night watching Thumbelina. I noticed my playlist of Halo machinima was lacking, so I dug up a some episodes of a series called "PreGame Lobby" that I'd watched before and found they had a few new episodes. I fucking love Matt. I mean, I would probably boot him if he was in my party too, but it's funny when he's annoying other people. Hehe.

What else? Um...yeah...fanvids...lots of fanvids. Trying to find every worthwhile MurakixTzuzuki or Snape/Harry vid. Hard work, that. Discovered some new music too. Must. Have. Gnarls. Barkley's. New. Album. Their singles are so catchy it's ridiculous. I don't think it's possible for them to make a bad song. Also, Stephen Lynch is made of win.

I fell really behind on my shows though. I avoided House fic the whole time cause I didn't want to get spoiled, and now I don't really feel like reading it anymore. I don't know if that means I'm burnt out on the pairing...no...I don't think that's true. It's just that the fics in the community tend towards these multi-chaptered epics that I don't really feel like following. Call me lazy, but I like my short and sweet. But anyway, I finally got ahold of the last three episodes...


Tried to catch up on Death Note, but the site that was hosting now requires me to download this program that basically says - "We will monitor what you search and send you spam and fuck you this is going to be your default search engine too" O.o Wtf? So much for that, then.

Finally got moving back at the Respite board. Finishing the arc that got put on hold for 3 months while I was away. The uncomfortable romance continues between Mattimeo and Tiponya. I can't wait until the next dream sequence. It will get more complicated still. I'd elaborated, but you know who you are is reading this journal...I'm not giving it away yet. Finally, I've proved that I can even turn Norse deities gay. Loki was all me, and vaguely understandable considering his history, but Thor wasn't my fault. I blame my aura of slash. It infects all.

Finally reading through that Nightrunner series I mentioned. It's decent. Lots of political intrigue and cool rogue/spy stuff, but I'm having trouble sticking with the third book. Several reasons for this: Alec and Seregil go from first kiss to established lovers between the second and third book. I love first time stuff and I felt a little deprived. My subsequent searches for fic revealed the author is one of those Nazi's that ordered it all removed for the internet. Didn't count on ZIP files though, did'ya? Yeah, she lost points for that. Secondly, I love the intimacy between them, but the teasing just makes me frustrated. I lose focus of the plot every time it happens and go off in search of smutty fics. I stop caring about what's going on outside of the two main characters and keep wondering when they're gonna get a little private time in. Yeah, I have problems.

I suppose one benefit of my large amounts of free time is that I, on occasion, get the motivation to get stuff done. Granted I do not always finish the things I start, nor are these things necessarily productive. I do not care if I spent 8 hours doing nothing. I still will not mop.

I've been going to the library alot. I've been working through the Westlands series by Katharine Kerr. I read a few of the novel from later in the series a few years ago and decided to start from the top. The plot is wonderfully complex and the world is so rich, made even better when you realize that all the little side-plots that crop up all are interconnected in their own strange ways. I also read through an (apparently) ongoing series by Sarah Monette, which starts with Melusine. Her world is so unique and the characters narrative voices are so compelling. Plus, gay wizards, FTW. I've fallen in love with both the main characters, Felix and Mildmay, and now I'm chomping at the bit to see what happens to them in books to come. The next one is scheduled for Spring of next year. I hope they straighten things out. Both of them are so stubborn for their own good. I alternated being wanting to slap them and wanting to hug them. Poor things. Oh, and I am so basing a D&D character off of Felix. I've been wanting to play a spellscale sorcerer/warlock for ages now, and Felix's personality seems to fit quite well with the race and the concept I had in mind. Let's see...I also have several books on order for the Age of Fire series by E.E. Knight. I love the idea of dragon protagonists. And also something called the Nightrunner series by Lynn Flewelling.

I've been fiddling endlessly with Movie Maker. I keep finding stuff to tape just so I can edit. It's pretty sad, frankly. I really want a proper film project, but I'm no scriptwriter. I taped Mitch and Alex playing Magic before a game, and then I got lots of random footage at my parents place, mostly of birds and junk. I even started something I threatened Gabe with months ago, with was a loop of a part in the D&D vids I tell him to "eat the nuts" and turn it into a techno beat. I sort of lost interest a few minutes in, but I consider the threat fulfilled nonetheless.

Mitch and I have been watching the Stargate series via renting through the library, because no cable means no tv either. I find myself constantly saying to myself, "Sliders did it first!", but I do admit the series is good. Dammit.

Our D&D group test ran 4th edition a couple weeks ago. I can't say we reached a verdict. It's certainly streamlined, and every class can do cool stuff, but it's seems way too, well, MMO. It's definately more video game than simulation. Also I feel there are less options for improvisation and creativity. The jury's still out on this one. In any case I've started running my game again, mostly to fill a gap until Alex can come play again. Hopefully I can start taping them again too. Travis is weird about the camera, but my subscribers keep asking for more. I got a whole bunch more after I posted that group and have over 60 now. It's pretty cool. Nothing to rival the big names, of course, but it's still pretty cool and I love reading their awesome comments and hearing about what part of the video they liked. Makes a girl feel special ;)

So that's it for me. Just thought I'd share.

Hello all. If you've been wondering where I am, my internet got shut off (I'm borrowing right now). But thanks to the free time, I finally got around to making those JCS fanvids I've been planning for ages. Well, one was planned, the other just was part flash inspiration and extreme boredom, but I like the result.

The first one is a slashy vid set to Static-X's "So"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5hR_cyQwFfU

The second is a semi-slashy-but-mostly-gen vid centered around Jesus, Judas, and Pilate.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4MwZs-PRUNI

Anyway, hope you like. ^.^

So we're still pretty broke and I'm still looking for work.

I know I'm desperate at this point, but even so, fast food is my last resort. Retail I can manage but sales is out, as is anything that would require a resume.  Cause, let's face it, I'm a shy loner with a less than stellar work history.

On the upside, I have an interview for a position at the Wild Animal Park, working at their interactive bird exhibit. I'm sure it'd be hard work, and I'd have to work through some anxiety issues, but it's still better than McDonalds. Plus, I really do love birds. I'd have been an ornithologist if I wasn't so bad at science. Keeping my fingers crossed on this one.

In other news, I started working out idea for a short video about DMing/GMing due to all the questions I've been getting on my D&D session videos. I hope to get Bailey in on it to insert some humor into what would otherwise be me talking at the camera. I just want to work on some new projects, as the editing for the latest arc of my vids is proving...tedious. Faire is also this weekend. I'm not sure I can spare the money to go, but...I'd really like to make another faire vid.

So yet another year goes by and I once again I have seen NONE of the movies which won or were nominated for Academy Awards. Hell, I haven't even gotten around to watching The Departed, the movie that won so many awards LAST year. And while I do intend to get to most of these eventually, it's more of a self-assignment homework assignment than a joy in most cases. Most of the things I like are fantasy movies, which are rarely made and even more rarely acknowledged,  and action actions movies. I like movies that are both fun and visually exciting. What's worse is I don't even like that many indie movies either. All the books about filmmaking are how to make our own films. I don't want to do that, alright?! I don't care. I WANT to work in Hollywood. I WANT to help make big studio movies with big stars and big explosions. I want to work with green screen and miniatures, and operate expensive rigs like cranes and stedicams. I want to film in exotic locations and interesting set-pieces. It's not that I don't care about story. I do. But apparently most of what is award worthy is not interesting to me. It doesn't daunt me from wanting to get in the business, but it makes me feel inadequate at something I'm supposed to love so much.