State of Blog 4/29/2013

     Hello all! I just wanted to let everyone know what was going on and the plans for the future of the blog.
     Some bad stuff went down this past winter for both my self and my friend, Randy, with whom I do the Lounge L33ts podcast. Around the end of January, my mom suffered a severe heart attack. She thought she only had the flu, even though my dad felt there was more to her symptoms. She wound up waiting three days to go to the Emergency Room (it's commonly recommended to seek aid within ninety minutes), thus more damage was done to her heart. She was in Bay Area Aurora for a few weeks, and had a triple bypass surgery that turned into a double bypass. Then she was transferred down to St. Luke's in Milwaukee and stayed there for another couple of weeks. Before all was done, her heart had gotten down to ten percent strength and there was talk of a possible transplant. However, with help from a pacemaker/defibrillator she has gotten stronger and is at home now. In fact, she has recovered so quickly that the doctors don't think she'll need a transplant anymore.
     During all this, I dropped everything thing and was planning on moving back home, but my friends and my aunt helped convince me otherwise. Madison is decent city with a lot of culture, and I have built up a support network of friends and co-workers. I have a life down here that I'm not quite so willing to give up. While I'm a little apprehensive when it comes to affording this life, I at least have steady income from a reliable job. I just need to budget better.
     And here we get to Randy's troubles. I won't go into too much detail, but Randy lost the roof over his head and has had to move in with my friend Bob and Bob's parents. He is trying to get on Social Security while at the same time working on his resume and, hopefully, job hunting.
     I have posted a brief video on the situation with the Lounge L33ts podcast here:

http://blip.tv/LoungeL33ts

We have the episode filmed, and I am currently editing it. In addition I have set up a Lounge L33ts email and Youtube account which will soon be seeing activity. I'm planning on uploading the latest episode, then going back and posting the first season episodes in between to help people get caught up. We're going to try something a little bit different: roleplaying sessions. It won't be every episode, but every now and then, we will hop on as our characters and give their point of view on what's happening within their world. There will still be regular episodes where we talk as our selves, but this will help provide a little variety.
     I'm still working on the final part for "The Way to Kumas." I was planning to have it finished quite sometime ago, but then my mom had her emergency. I want to have an ending that wraps up the situation for the characters but allows for further stories to develop off of it. My aunt has told me it's "like Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, except much better." I have yet to see the newer movie, but there does seem to be some similarities. I'm planning on being able to write my next short story within a month.
     And so that's what has been going on lately. Between my mom's heart attack, possibly moving back home, and helping Randy move, the blog has been a bit empty. It's time to get back to work.

Breath Deep

"Okay, you're going to feel a small pinch..."
There was a small pinch. And another one, and another one, and another one. Then time seems to skip.
"Okay, you'll feel some vibrations and hear some noise. If there is any sharpness, please let me know."
"Have yous tarted the gas already?"
The assistant smiles and nods. Everything is very floaty and I giggle a bit. Breath deep through your nose, not through your mouth. Your legs are shaking, try wiggling them or they'll cramp up. The doctor doesn't use a very good razor does he?
"Okay, can I have the sharpie?"
It's really loud. Boy that light is bright, bright enough for me to see the weaving on the doctor's scrubs. The stubble stands out on his jaw and neck like tiny black tree trunks on chocolate.
"Okay, and now the bee."
More noise. I can't hear myself think. You're breathing through your mouth again, breath through your nose. Long, slow breaths. The legs are shaking again. Seems to happen every time with the noise. My knees and wrists feel heavy, maybe that's why my legs are shaking. Long, slow breaths.
"Okay, now the sharpie."
This low pitched squealing is going to deafen me, if the oven in the coffee shop doesn't. The weaving in the scrubs stands out. I must look goofy, with my tongue lolling around in my head, my eyes rolling upward to stare at the small blue mounds of the weaving. They are like tiny blue foot hills leading into a brown and black forest.
"Okay, Erin, now you are going to hear some crunching and popping noises."
Breath deeper. Sounds just like when you got your braces in. Breath deeper, long, slow breaths. The mask is annoying as it lays against my cheek. It's bigger and more clumsy than I thought it would be.
"Now the large."
I wonder where we'll head off to after this. Maybe out to dinner, but I won't be able to have much. I can't wait to play on Lord of the Rings Online. I need to make a dwarf Guardian. I feel floaty again, but at the same time, my wrists and knees still feel heavy.
"Okay, now Erin, we'll have to ask you to close your eyes for this part."
I do so, and feel dry spaghetti being pulled across my lip, once twice, thrice, and then a short tug.
"Okay, we're all finished. Let's get you into the oxygen."
Breath deep. Everything is numb on my left side.
"Well, I was expecting it to be a difficult extraction, but it went much better than I thought." The doctor crosses his arms. "We'll probably look into taking the upper two out, then later at taking out the lower right. We'll go over some rules for when you get home, and get some prescriptions ready for you. I do not want you to go home and go to sleep. You need to pick up the medications and take them with some food on your stomach. Are there any questions?"
"No doctor."
"Okay, we'll schedule you for a followup exam to see how everything is coming along. Have a god day." He smiles and leaves as the asssitant turns and starts going over a lot of the procedures that I can't remember.
"Don't worry, I have everything I just said written down here," and she holds up a piece of paper.

Geek.Kon 2012 Links of Interest!

     Well, the time has come to start pimping out the annual Geek.Kon convention! Geek.Kon is an anime, scieince fiction, fantasy, tabletop gaming, and video gaming convention based out of Madison, WI. This year we will be on September 7-9th at the Madison Marriott West. Also, this year's theme is "Geekdom is Magic!"

     To register for day passes, go here:
    Registration Form
     To sign up to run a tabletop game (must register for day passes first):
    Tabletop Game Registration
     To register to run a panel, go here (must register for day passes first):
    Panel Registration

     We've got a few great Guests lined up as well, plus a great event known as Kon.Quest! We can't forget the contests, either:

     Fanfiction Contest

      What better way to fly the flag of your favorite fandom, than by participating in our Fanfiction contest? (Also, how's THAT for alliteration?)

Fanart Contest

     But perhaps you're  more of the visually oriented person. If so, enter our Fanart Contest!

     Other Events soon to come are the Geek.Show talent show, the AMV Contest, Karaoke, Mixer, and, of course, Rocky Horror Picture Show! I hope to see you all at the con!

Mad Matt Reviews: Giorgio Moroder's Metropolis (Romeomoon Debut)

I'm on TV! Well... bliptv that is... While he was staying over during Odyssey Con weekend, Matt thought we should check out a version of Metropolis we noticed as we skimmed through the selection on Netflix. I had noticed it before, but the whole 80's soundtrack made the thing sound too corny for me. It turns out, I really enjoyed it, especially the 80's music! This is my video debut on Mad Matt Reviews.

The Tale of Narn the Barbarian

     Narn wasn't born on the battlefield or in the pages of a pulp fantasy novel. He was born out of a few hundred lighted dots on a screen, based on a preselected image of the Diablo II Barbarian class. Through a mix of armor, weaponry, and slap dash skill point assignment, he became a killing machine... of sorts. Along with his plucky amazon sidekick, who sadly never saw the same kind of weapons upgrade and thus wound up dying repeatedly, he traveled the wild lands of Sanctuary, seeking fame and fortune. It turns out sidekicks aren't cheap to resurrect.

      Back in 2008, a girl I worked with, we'll call her “Amazon Vegan,” convinced me to buy the Diablo II Battle Chest, which, at the time, contained the original Diablo, Diablo II, and the Lord of Destruction expansion. She had everything planned out for us: I would play a “tank” and she would be the ranged fighter. It was a weekend around Easter, and I had had a particularly bad day at work. To console me, we went to VA's apartment and, with her husband looking on, installed Diablo II on my old Compaq Presario laptop.

      Now back in the early 2000's, I had seen the counter monkeys at my local comic book store play Diablo II, and it looked interesting. Unfortunately, my parents were lagging far behind when it came to home PC's, so playing the game on our computer at the time was out of the question. In fact, it just still barely ran on the laptop. That might have been due to us leeching off the local RadioShack Wi-Fi.

      This was the first time I had played a video game with the hopes of beating it on at least the normal difficulty. We had a Sega Genesis when I was young and I played a little Sonic the Hedgehog here and there. Now I was being introduced to fairly complicated RPG mechanics and character building, and it was a little bit intimidating. I had to learn to sort through loot, use gems and runes, level up my skills, repair my equipment, read a map, read a mini map, and use various hot keys. Teaming up with a level 97 electricity sorceress, we were able to make it pretty far into Nightmare mode. Then I had to quit to work on the Geek.Kon convention for the summer. It was fun while it lasted, though.

      Towards the end of my run on Diablo II, I ventured into the world of MMO's with a subscription to City ofHeroes. Like with Diablo II, I had seen some of the people at the University of Wisconsin Madison Anime Club playing it before meetings and became interested. My system was just barely able to chug through it. On top of that, I had never really played a video game that had a 3D interactive environment to it. I literally had to learn how to walk all over again using the WASD controls and the mouse.

      Soon, Narn ached to return to the battlefield. I remade him in CoH as a Willpower/Battle Axe Tank. One of the most satisfying things is slamming a battleaxe into the face of a startled Hellion. Narn is still growing in this universe, so expect to hear more of his adventures in Paragon City.

     Narn can also be found wandering the mines of the town of Torchlight, slowly uncovering the truth behind the incursion of evil there.

     And now that Diablo III is out, Narn can return to his own universe to confront the seemingly invincible Diablo once again. No matter what strange worlds he finds himself in, he'll always be there to fight against the powers of evil, even if only for the chance to gain the best sword in the game.

The Maw of the Beast

About a couple of weeks ago, a friend of mine asked if I would kitty sit for her. It seemed like a fairly easy task of feeding, cleaning, and playing with kitty until she returned from her trip to Germany. It's been going fairly well, except that kitty, named Miu Miu, likes to give love bites when he feels he's not getting enough attention. They would be nothing, really, except for the size of this cat. One moment I'm brushing, the next I'm wondering where my knee cap has gone. Oh, that's right...It's in the gaping maw of Catzilla here. It's not enough to draw blood (he usually grabs for sleeves or pant legs). He weighs about 25 pounds, maybe 22, and when he sits up the fat tumbles down his back to spill over the tops of his knees. I've been trying not to feed him too much, and have introduced him to the concept of a laser light...and exercise.  Here he is for your viewing pleasure:

Lying in wait..Like a fuzzy alligator.

The beast stalks its next prey.

"Feed me....."

"I could almost be mistaken for a foot stool."

"I hear your knee caps taste divine!"

It Doesn't Open a Tomb

     Yesterday I finished a small depiction of something that happened in my all girls gaming group. After falling through a portal into what was apparently the tomb of a great dragon king, our group was arrested by the nearby dragon population and sent on a series of quests for atonement. Who knew breaking into an ancient tomb and stealing an enormous crown was a crime? This particular quest focused on us scaling a mountain and retrieving half of a magical coin. The young chaotic, volcanic dragon guarding said treasure refused to give up "his shiny," even though we knew where there were a lot of shinies to exchange for it. In fact, there was a perfectly good dragon crown going to waste not too far off! After negotiations fell through, our Ranger, managed to somersault onto the youngling's head and up onto the invisible platform where the half-coin lay. Beating a hasty retreat, we stopped to rest and discuss exactly what this thing did, which lead to the following conversation fragment:

http://romeomoon.deviantart.com/#/d4ntfnj

      It also lead to this quote:
     "There is a special Hell for people who trick kids into grave robbing. A special Hell."
     Experiences like this are what I live for; seeing just how insane we can drive each other. Our GM told me once that she was surprised the group was still together. I think it's due to a healthy mix of intelligence and snark.We teeter just on the cusp of killing each other, but we don't because we know we'd be missing out on some fun. My half-Orc fighter would be nothing without the utility Fire Genasi, the iniquitous Human Ranger, the half Elf Battlemind, or our long suffering Eladrin Warlock (pictured above with the Orc). Not to mention the string of Clerics we leave behind. No one seems to want to play the Cleric. Also our GM didn't think we would actually try to reason with the dragon. Sometimes it pays to not kill everything in sight. Did I mention our character alignments were technically "Good?"
     I'd been thinking of doing a picture "someday" of the events of the group, and yesterday, Penny Arcade convinced me to "why the Hell not!" I picked up the newest compilation of the webcomic. The Borders Bookstore I used to frequent and buy these collections at closed down last summer, and the only other bookstore in the mall doesn't allow you to sit and peruse their wares so much. I snatched it up and read a good chunk of it as I sat waiting for "Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy" to start at the theater. I have just picked up on PA again, after wandering away from it back in 2010, or so. As an MMO player, I felt the last book bashed that type of game a little too much. It's okay to hate MMO's, just don't make me pay $15 for the same tired mockery of the genre. The guys seem to have mellowed on that front, though, and as a result, I'm having a lot more fun reading this one. I highly suggest you check it out.

MMO's All Around!

I've gotten into playing Anarchy Online again along with Hellsgate: Global. I've downloaded and installed Age of Conan, but I haven't gotten around to creating a character. All this is in preparation for my MMO Worlds panel for Geek.Kon. I plan on discussing, well. a lot of stuff. We'll introduce the panelists and the games they have played, a short history of MMO's, and probably some quick discussions on games that have been popular like World of Warcraft (once I find a person who still plays it regularly), City of Heroes, Perfect World, Lord of the Rings Online, etc.

Speaking of LOTRO, I've been rereading Lord of the Rings and logged on for the first time in about a month to check out the Shire and follow the path that Frodo is taking. I never realized how large the Shire was! I ran all the way up Evendim, which is level 30 minimum. I was a little disappointed that I couldn't enter Brandy Hall, but that is made up for by being able to wander around inside Great Smials. That's what I like in the game. With CoH, I'm stuck wondering what is inside the skyscrapers that tower over Paragon City, unable to randomly explore most of them except Police Stations, City Hall, Vanguard Headquarters, etc. In LOTRO there are far more landmark buildings that you can actually enter, many of which contain several quest NPC's. Pretty any major building from a the Prancing Pony, to the Foresaken Inn, and even a Cat-Lady house in Bree have multiple rooms to explore with dinning setups and random NPC's sitting around chatting. I need to play the game more.

Off for Sunday

Haven't had Sunday off for a while. Metcalfe's is having their Holiday Demo fair through the weekend, but I had to work late. By the time I got out, the vendors had already packed up for the day. I'm going to walk around with my friend Carol, who gives voice lessons.

Then it'll be off to the Geek.Kon meeting at Humanities. We've gotten a few rooms reserved with projeotrs for presentations on the big move. The Sheraton is unavailable for September or October for 2010, so we'll have a decision to make between the Marriot West and the Alliant Energy Center. If we choose Alliant, we'll have to be careful no to be on the dates Madcon has it reserved. I'm just looking at their at the door rate. $75 for the weekend...Damn! They have some good Sci-Fi guests, though. I'm sure Geek.Kon can beat them at pricing, but if we can get different dates, we shouldn't have a problem.

On Gaia Again

I've poked my nose in on Gaia today, just to check out what was going on. I'm tempted to come back, but if I do so, it's going to have to be without purchasing online items. I guess the main reason why I quit before, aside from not getting anything important done, was that I was spending far too much money on the monthly collectibles. It used to be that I could spend maybe $25 and get a couple of the MC's for my avatar. When I was last on, I was dropping $100 or more for the aquarium items, MC's sets, and Evolving Items. All this just to furnish a fake world for myself! Without another word, I dropped it and didn't look back for a good 6 months, or so. Out of curiosity, and probably a desperate need to connect to others, I checked up on my main account.

It's been a couple weeks now since the Geek.Kon 09 convention ended. I've gone from being a somebody involved in an entrepreneurial endeavor: strolling the halls of the con, checking up on vendors and Geek Theater, and beaming over the success of Iron Butt Challenge, to a nobody working in a grocery store, passed up for promotion time after time. Working on Geek.Kon, especially the 2009 con, proved to myself that I can do better. That I'm worth more than some kitchen drudge job. Granted at $10+/hour plus benefits, this is the best job I've ever had, but I can do even better.

Anyway, off topic again. Other avenues of socialization are opening up for me. I'm on City of Heroes again, contributing to the House of the Wayward Soul (more on that later), and I'm still on staff for Geek.Kon. I've stopped going to the UW Anime Club, since the guy running it isn't really what the club needs to survive. Talking during the show, then chastising people who tell you to shut up does not a good president make! I also might be doing stand up comedy again at the Open Mic on Comedy Club on State Street on Wednesdays, too. I just have to get over my fear of crowds.

To Stand Up or Not to Stand Up

I've been trying stand up comedy for a while, with my second attempt going really well. But sometimes I'm just not in the mood. I hate bars and, usually, the people in bars thanks to some bad past experiences and kind of a traumatized childhood. I've got a friend who's really into it, though, which kind of puts a bit of pressure on me to keep going with it. I've had new material for the past three weeks, but no urge to really get up there and do anything with it.

In other news, I've rediscovered Facebook, but you'll still see me on Gaia Online every now and then, too. Especially since I'm in charge of a guild. I've also gotten into Metalocalypse. I haven't had cable since 2003, so I missed a lot of the newer Adult Swim cartoonslike Frisky Dingo and Venture Bros. Thanks to Netflix, I can catch up. I've been into Metalacolypse so mch that I went and bought the Dethalbum Warner Bros. put out for the cartoon.

I'm also thinking of getting an animation program, but I'm not sure which one. I don't know if I should get Flash, since my last project with it didn't go so well. Tons of them are out there, though, maybe I'll be able to find one. Kind fo looking for something like what Disney or Don Bluth might use, although the Flash they use for Metalacolypse looks pretty good.

NNOOOOOO!!!

They've done it again, those bastards! Those wonderful men (and women) and their marvelous internets have done it again. I'm hooked on two sites now. One an old favorite, the other is a new discovery, although it's been around for a while. I'm usually a late bloomer when it comes to popular sites.

I recently discovered Fail Blog, which is makes use of the popular phrase "fail" when it comes to expressing failure now adays. I was suffering from insomnia one night a week or two ago and stumbled upon it while looking up internet memes on Wikipedia. It's got a hilarious collection of pictures and videos featuring stupid mistakes and random ass-holery.

I've been on Gaia Online for over a year now, and there's been talk of a Gaia Battle System for about as long. Every Gaian was gearing up to play the new MMORPG, and Gaia even held a naming contest (resulting in the name "zOMG," speaking of epic fails). It's now in rather buggy BETA testing and open to all Gaians to play. If it weren't for the lag, I'd be completely hooked. As it is, I've had to use Adblock to turn off the avatars, attack animations, and drops inorder to get it to run smoothly. Even then it's a bit glitchy. But lag and glitches and all the blocked graphics, I still went and played it for around eight hours yesterday.

All this comes when I'm supposed to be working on paintings for Christmas presents for my family. I'm going to go with more flower motiffs for them using watercolor pencils as the medium. I also want to do a portait for a friend using Photoshop Elements 6.0.

Window Live Spaces

So I can't seem to get into my Windows Live Space where the original Anime Impressions Blog is housed. I'm hoping it's just a glitch and they haven't gotten rid of the Spaces, or for some reason, locked my Spaces account. I keep mostly to myself, so I don't think I've caused anyone any trouble....

Speaking of the Anime Impressions blog, I did update it last week, but because I decided to organize my pictures in photobucket, now all the links to the screencaps are broken. So I have to go through all my entries and reinsert the pictures. Fortunately, I haven't posted that many entries. Still it's gonna take a crap load of time to fix, plus I have to take the thing off hiatus and add the entry on Robot Carnival.

In other news, I'm working on more of the Miss Popular comic. I've also created a LiveJournal community and a Facebook group for the UW Madison Anime Club. I've upped my Netflix account to 4-at-a Time, which will help me crawl through the new version of Doctor Who quicker.

Martial Arts

My Meez (large, animated)

Writer's Block

Already I have writer's block, and I've just started writing. How about a fantasy blog where I pretend I'm someone else in a story? A blog to store the short stories I'm writing? Random thoughts? Rant and Rave? Worklog? Random Poetry? Archiving my art? Entertainment reviews? Now that sounds good! But isn't the web already full of fanboys who rant and rave about thier favorite or most hated anime, manga, comics, movies, TV shows, celeberaties, and music? What can I conribute that would be so interesting? I'm a lowly deli clerk who happened to make enough money to buy a laptop and an internet connection. I have two degrees in art (A.S.A. and B.S.A.) from the University of Wisconsin Madison. I live with a couple of South Korean students. And when I'm not worn out from my daily job, I paint, draw, and write. I had intended to become a 2-D animator for companies like Disney and Don Bluth Studios, but then the crushing truth fell and I realised that no one really does this type of animation anymore. I still want to own an animation studio someday, however, I refuse to do computer animation.