The last act in my con going is usually the slideshow set to some appropriate music. Finally got around to it. It took a while to decide on the music and quite honestly, I guess I didn’t really want it to end.
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Author: blueZhift
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The Tyranny of the Normal
I’ve been doing a lot of thinking lately, well really over the last few minutes most intently. And I’ve come to the conclusion that I’m not too wild about Facebook any more. Facebook can be a wonderful tool for building an online social network, but I am increasingly feeling the same constraints that vex me in the real world coming into the online one as well.
Many of my hobbies and interests are anything but mainstream. Nevertheless, there are many forums on the internet where I’ve enjoyed interacting with other who share the same interests. Facebook has similar interests groups as well, but because my real name is associated with my Facebook activities, I do not feel as free to express my interests in those things. On Facebook, keeping walls between your different activity groups is not an easy task. Those who fail to do so run the risk of job loss, divorce, excommunication, and a variety of other sanctions as a result of “misbehaving”.
Ironically, using my real name on Facebook means that I can’t keep it real on Facebook. So I’m pulling back from there. I had fun experimenting with Facebook, but the chains are just too heavy. I still believe that there’s no such thing as anonymity on the internet, but I’ll take even this thin veneer over the nakedness of Facebook and the tyranny of the normal.
I’ve been waiting to see Second Skin for over a year since I first heard about it at last year’s SXSW film festival. I just watched it online and it was well worth the wait! Second Skin is a documentary about people who play online games. Anyone who has ever played games online or knows someone who does should check this out!
Fanboyism aside, it is a well made film with cool music. And at the end, I really felt something for the people. Even though I’ve just watched it online, I’m definitely going to add the DVD to my collection because it’s that good and I want to support the film makers. In some ways, it’s like watching a real life version of The Guild. But you’re laughing with, and sometimes crying for, real people.
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Otakon 2009 Out-takes
It’s over a week after Otakon but suddenly I’m remembers some weird stuff that I want to record for posterity…I guess. So here are what I call Otakon Out-takes.
The pre-reg line was ridiculous, but I’m used to waiting in lines so toughing that out is pretty easy. But what I could not escape was the drama unfolding between the young couple right in front of me. It started out with the usual kissy face every five minutes but somewhere along the way it turned ugly. Apparently something to do with the rollon bag the guy was pulling. Next came tears and sobs from the girl as she says she was trying to make things easier for him. Him trying to offer a consolation hug and explain how he wasn’t being a jerk. Pro-tip young guys: At this point it doesn’t matter if you are wrong or right, apologize and move on! I so wanted to tell him that, but I was doing my best to not notice what was going on. I have no idea how it all turned out.
The next bit of weirdness happened on Friday night while I was returning to my hotel room for a break and to freshen up before the dance. While waiting at the elevator, a young woman tells me that I make a terrible Mikuru. This may or may not be true, but I’ve heard more good about my Mikuru than bad, so whatever… I ignored this and continued my wait when from behind she lifts my skirt to see my panties! WTF! I turn and calmly tell her that that’s rather a rude thing to do. She tells me that I should be wearing striped panties and further informs me that she will be wearing striped panties the next day if I care to check. At this point it seemed pretty clear that she was probably drunk as she disappeared into another elevator with her friends.
Saturday was the big debut for the Princess Sakura cosplay I’d been working on feverishly to finish the last two weeks before the con. I was worried about walking in boots with 5 inch heels and other aspects of the costume. I was happy to make it to Panel 4 in time for the Crispin Freeman Q and A without falling over and had a seat on a nearby bench. Here on the bench I proceeded to have a pretty normal conversation with someone’s dad who was waiting for his son to come out of another panel. It must have looked a little strange to passersby since once I started speaking it was pretty obvious that I was not female. In any case, he was cool with it. However the guy I was soon standing in line behind seemed completely weirded out. He almost jumped 6 inches when I got in line! I successfully suppressed the urge to giggle!^^
So that’s it I think. Another, the 5th, interesting Otakon adventure is in the books. So now I’ll hunt around for pics of my cosplays and check out video of events I couldn’t go to, then it’ll be time to get ready for Youmacon!
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Otakon 2009 Aftermath
Almost a week has passed since I began yet another excellent Otakon adventure. I can scarcely believe I’ve been driving there and back from Chicago every summer for the past 5 years. Happily, this year that driving did not involve getting a speeding ticket!
All in all I had a ridiculously good time. Things got off to a less than stellar start though with a 90 wait in the pre-reg line. This lead to my missing dinner with the Mega Tokyo crowd and I also skipped the pub meetup which due to the pre-reg line delay started a lot later than I could stay up. But from those hiccups came the secret of my Otakon 2009 fun, think different!
I decided to do things a little differently this year, go to some different panels than I might normally choose. I was not disappointed. I saw Kikuko Inoue, soooo cute! Mary Elizabeth McGlynn, awesome! And Crispin Freeman, cool cool cool! MELL concert, OMG!
The main changes I made were skipping the rave and masquerade on Saturday night in favor of other things. Friday night’s rave was so crowded I literally could not dance and what little room I had left was taken up by the break dancing circles. The final straw was the truly horrid mix played by the DJ during the time I was there. It was the same beat over and over again. So, given the extra 5000 people that seemed to be present, I doubted Saturday would be any better.
I ended up using the Otacafe and karaoke as my main activity hub between panels and taking pics of cosplayers and showing off my own cosplays. I’m sooo happy at how well received my Princess Sakura cosplay was! I worked late night for two weeks straight finishing up the costume before the con. But the boots totally killed my feet, lol! Looking back, I must have walked a mile in those boots before returning to my room to change into my flats and hose as planned. I knew the boots could be trouble, so bought some matching flats at the last minute.
The gothic lolita look must really suit me, because I got a good number of compliments and picture requests. And I think there was even one guy who seemed to particularly like me dressed up this way… I was so happy with the outfit and the reaction that I wore it again on Sunday.
I usually shop and try to get in some last karaoke on Sunday. I got to sing two more songs that day, including the very last song of the con before the Otacafe shut down. That still gives me a warm glow because everything was nearly perfect. I sang Shizukana Yoruni from Gundam Seed which is one of my favorites and went well with my Princess Sakura cosplay.
In the end, there are always a billion things I would have liked to have done, but couldn’t. But that’s just life anyway. I had a really good time meeting old friends, making some new ones, and doing the things I enjoy the most. What more can anyone ask for from life?
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AOTS: On the Munn-ney!
Last week I watched the Attack of the Show 1000th show special on G4. For the most part, I’ve enjoyed the show since I first got G4 4 or 5 years ago. But a few years back when G4 made a lot of wholesale changes to AOTS, which included the addition of Olivia Munn and the departure of some old favs, like Sarah Lane, I wasn’t too wild about the changes. The AOTS changes and those to some other G4 shows looked like the simple, low brow addition of T and A.
Now I like T and A as much as the next guy, but not so much on my tech and gaming shows. But I have to say that while Munn still has a lot of haters out there, I am not one of them. She doesn’t strike me as a true gamer girl like X-Play’s Morgan Web, she’s more like the pretty girl who hangs out with geeks, nerds, and A/V guys for no apparent reason. And in that role she’s the perfect. A nice girl who’s easy on the eyes but not so hot as to be totally unbelievable.
So kudos to Olivia Munn! I think the Girl At The Video Game Store video casts her quite well!
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Otakon: To Infinity And Beyond!
With only a week to go until Otakon, I’m feverishly working, as usual, to finish a new costume. I keep telling myself that this may be the last one, but I just know that may not be true. It is certainly one of my more challenging projects.
I still don’t know if I’ll finish in time, but last night I had one of those OMG moments I get when I feel that things are looking good!^^
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Man in the Mirror
It’s still hard to believe that Michael Jackson is gone. No one was expecting this to happen so soon and the obvious comparisons with Elvis are, well, obvious… All I’ll say here is that I believe he was a true artistic genius and I enjoyed his art immensely. I can only hope and pray that he is finally at peace.
So I’m happily running, riding, and teleporting all over Vana’diel when my gamepad starts getting all wonky. Suddenly I’m randomly healing, changing views, and opening menus. Needless to say, in battle this would be a big problem.
I’m playing Final Fantasy XI on my PC using a Logitech Dual Action gamepad because the game is designed for and plays best with a Playstation 2 Dual Shock style gamepad. I bought the controller about 4 years ago, but honestly never gave it a whole lot of a workout. Indeed, back then I spent most of my playing time on the Playstation 2 and later the Xbox 360. But now suffering a partial banishment from the TV due to my gamer kids, I’ve been playing more on the PC.
At first I thought a driver upgrade would solve the problem, but it didn’t. I also tried shutting down the profiler, since FFXI doesn’t need it. But that didn’t work either. Then I decided to Google to see if anyone else was having this problem. Yup, that was it. Many customer reviews of the Logitech gamepad claimed that the pads were failing after a few weeks of use. The problems generally showed up in the analog sticks, which is where the buttons controller healing and view changes are in FFXI.
Unfortunately, it looks like Logitech is the only big name making a usb gamepad for the PC these days, and seeing recent complaints about today’s Dual Action gamepad, did not fill me with any confidence that the problems plaguing my 4 year old, lightly used, one had been solved. Admittedly, most PC games don’t use gamepads, so it is probably a low volume product for Logitech.
I know there are other gamepad makers out there, but I didn’t want to trade one cheap gamepad for another. And I also didn’t want to spend $50 or $60 bucks for something like an Xbox 360 gamepad for Windows games.
In the end, I ordered a Playstation 2 to PC USB Gamepad Converter by HDE on Amazon. I’d read of others using this for FFXI with good results. And I know my Sony Dual Shock controllers are made to last!  Hopefully this converter will solve my problem. In the meantime, I guess I’d better learn the keyboard and mouse controls for FFXI, a truly evil notion…
Hopefully this converter will solve my problem. In the meantime, I guess I’d better
learn the keyboard and mouse controls for FFXI, a truly evil notion…
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I Quit World of Warcraft…Again
Well, for the second time, I’ve quit World of Warcraft. I’ve really tried to like it, but I just don’t have time for two subscription based MMOs. And my heart really belongs to Vana’diel anyway. I may return to WoW in the future, especially if they ditch the subscription model, but that’s not likely to happen any time soon.
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Are Printed Books Doomed Yet?
Yesterday, pocket full of enticing coupons, I browsed my favorite Borders looking for something interesting to purchase. As I wandered the increasingly sparse store, which is closing come January 2010 if not sooner, I felt a growing resistance to buying books printed on paper.
The problem for me is that I generally like technical books and read a lot of manga. Most technical books are obsolete the moment they are printed. So while I still love them, I refuse to pay $50 for a book that is out of date with no way to update. As for manga, with so much of it on the web, legal or not, it’s hard to justify buying anything beyond a few series I’m following right now.
These thoughts are not new to me, but a recent Borders ad had the Sony PRS 505 book reader on sale for $199, a tempting price. It’s not the Kindle, but still a good reader, though the reviews I read said it was prone to crashing on recharge and didn’t handle PDFs very well. Sigh, the Kindle is still too expensive for me… Anyway, I really want to fast forward to a time when all of the books and magazines I want to read can be bought and downloaded to my reader. And technical books can be updated when necessary. I have a Rails programming book that I bought the e-version of that went through a number of updates, for free. One of my favorite tech books ever and more than worth the extra cost of the digital version.
I cannot be the only person who feels this way. Let’s move on to digital books everywhere already!
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Second Chances and My New Digital Self
Yesterday while working I received a chat message in Google Gmail from a colleague on a project I’m working on. These days, just getting a chat message is not a big deal, but as someone from *ahem* the dawn of email, the real time nature of chat still takes some getting used to. Nevertheless, I use chat along with a growing plethora of social network related sites and applications. As a professional and an enthusiast, I’m intrigued by the opportunities these tools present to create a new digital self. But do you create the person you are, or the one you want to become?
I used to joke that I come from the time when people used their real names on the Internet. But in an age of Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, and soon Google Wave, it seems that that time has come again. While I have no intention of spreading my real name all over the net in anything less than a professional context, I am becoming more comfortable with the notion of embracing a digital self more identified with my real self.
It feels like a second chance to reach out in ways not limited by physical separation, or a dubious set of in-person social skills. Well, I’m not really all that bad in person, but I’m no social butterfly either. In any case, I’m excited by the possibilities and filled with a new courage to be who I am as well as who I want to become.
After some initial reservations due to the awefulness of the English dub, I’m giving Gundam 00 another try from the beginning. I just watched Gundam 00 Episode 1 in Japanese on YouTube, legally!
With the explosion of anime and other programming moving to the web on sites like YouTube, Hulu, Joost, and CrunchyRoll, the triumph of the small screen over the big one in the living room seems well on its way. I still prefer to watch the living room TV, but I have more time away from that one, than with it. And if my household is typical, I have a lot more small screen around than big ones.
This freedom does come at a cost though, but not the obvious visual one. Instead, the cost is becoming your own programming director. On demand, ubiquitous entertainment means freedom from someone else’s scheduling decisions, but responsibility for doing it yourself. I think the current generation is up to the task, just we older ones have to catch on. I wonder if there is a market for tools to make this task easier?
The show, btw, was pretty good and sounds much better in the original Japanese. I like English dubs too, but what I saw for this particular show kinda put me off. So hurray for subtitles! Just remember, on YouTube you have to click the caption icon to get the subtitles.
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Tsunami of Depression
Yesterday was kinda tough. I’m not sure where the quake occurred, but the wave of depression that hit yesterday was nearly irresistable. Maybe it was a mix of things, bad weather, flu virus, and a collection of frustrations and recent disappointments.
I was proud to get through work, progress made, no meetings missed. But it was hard, and looking back, I probably should have gone home. Today is better, but sadly I can only whisper into the knothole of this digital tree.
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Schadenfreude and Global Warming
With a new administration in the US White House, I think we are poised to make some real progress in combating global warming. The crazy weather I’ve seen over the last few years in the Chicago area makes me wonder if this is only a taste of what is to come if we do nothing. Still, there is a lot of resistance to doing what is needed and even dispute over whether global warming due to human activities is real or not. Even if it isn’t, I don’t see anything bad about reducing greenhouse gas emissions and generally taking better care of the Earth.
If positive arguments don’t make a dent in the psyches of many, perhaps an opposite approach would yield results. In short, the climate changes due to global warming may actually benefit some regions of the world. While this isn’t very likely, it is a possibility. If the many of the rich are devastated while some of the poor elevated by climatic changes, then maybe the rich will get off their butts and do something. No one, especially the rich, wants to be on the opposite end of someone else’s schadenfreude. Perhaps the fear that someone else will benefit from our misfortune will be enough to motivate us to do the right thing.