Ever notice how it's the little things in life that amuse us so much? More to the point, ever notice how it's the silly little idiocies in life that amuse us more than anything else? Well, this is not as much ''the little blog that could'' as it is ''the blog that enjoys going up the down escalator in your local mall.'' Will it have anything of real importance? No, probably not. But enjoy the ride never the less!

 


Anime North begins in, oh, 4 or 5 hours. In between now and then, there's the usual packing of food, putting on of pants and travelling through the inevitable gauntlet of Toronto drivers. Ideally we're going to be arriving in TO early enough to avoid the worst of the "March of the Smegheads."

Ideally...

The past few days have beenrather unusual for me in many ways. Not because of the last-minute scramble to get everything done before depature (and oddly enough, this year almost everything was done with a day or two to spare), but because of that "night before Christmas" excitement. I don't think I had that sensation at Christmas itself, because...let's face it...retail at Christmas really kills the mood. As many, many, many previous bits of nowhere can attest.

And yet in the last few days, I've been giddy and excited. And also half-terrified that something at work would conspire against me, force me to miss part or all of the Con, and ultimately lead to the killing & eating of my employees. Well, not the eating. Too many calories.

Fortunately, I was sent off with a smile and a "we promise we won't burn the store down in your absence." (Yay?)


So...Anime North.

Confics. Panels. Swag. Room parties.

And, in a possibly suicidal promo gig, some of the Harvey's restaurants are going to be giving away a free original burger to every customer on Sunday. (I've been hearing this ad over the radio.) It's only at specially participating stores, but if the Head Office nunckles make the one near AN a part of this...I can only fear the hordes that will decend upon the poor bastards there.

So then, I bid you all a 4-day absence. Con reports will no doubt start popping up on Monday or so. But most everyone I'll be seeing at the Con anyways so...fear me!!

Today's Lesson: black electrical tape is a dying shoe's best friend.

Labels: Cons are better than Commercialmas, Hoorays for AN07, possibly suicial Harveys employees

posted by Phillip at 6:51 AM

 


The Confic is done and being printed up. 90% of the props have been wrangled, and the remaining ones just need to be purchased from one or two specific stores. Beyond clothes needing to be laundered in the next day or two, there's very little else left for prep work.

It's surprising how suddenly it's the week of the Con. I'm still stuck in this surreal feeling that it's yet another month off, and can scarce believe I have a whole weekend to play with. It's a great feeling. A great, overwhelming, evil "dance for me now, puppets!" sort of feeling. I need more of these.

The 3-days weekends of fun, of course.

And the evil dancing-puppets feeling too. (Where would the world be if no one was allowed to have that?)

It's somewhat peculiar in a way: the past few months, I have worked furiously whenever possible on finishing up the big-assed SM fanfic, and then launching immediately into the Confic. Once Sunday reaches its close, I'm suddenly going to be left with nothing impending to write. Oh well, there's still The Project. At least that's one far off deadline.

So if you'll excuse me, there's the dying hours of a holiday I need to get back to exploiting. Besides, Mel's starting to give me looks, like the Internet has suddenly become some sort of vile mistress I'm cheating on her with. And the playlist just ended with the Smiths telling me to "hang the DJ." Which is somewhat disturbing since that's the last line in the song I heard before everything went eerily silent...

Today's Lesson: contrary to Rayman's Raving Rabbids, bunnies can't dance. They can, however, leave poop all over the guest room carpet and then eat through one of your favourite childhood books. (Oh well, the binding had to be replaced anyways.)

Labels: Confic 07 is nigh, cryptic references to things I may or may not in fact be working on, Machiavellian puppet dances, see Mel I am not cheating on you with the Internet

posted by Phillip at 5:00 PM

 

And lo, there was a chorus of angels who burst forth with glorious song, and the celestial light from the heavens descended upon Kevin & I as we wrote the final few lines of the Confic's rough draft. And there was brought forth from the abyss of sight gags, the return of the drive-by bukkake.

And it was good.

Okay, enough of the King James version of this little bit of nowhere. But happily, the rough draft is in fact completed. There's still things to tweak, mind you. Desolation needs a few more cameos, Ruckus will (sadly) have to be removed from the intro, and there's still a couple of empty lines that need something witty slapped into them.

But at least now it's editting and prop wrangling to worry about.

One a gaming note, someone hacked the old Super Mario game and revamped it to a difficulty level that could be best described as "cruel & unusual." Witness the experience ofone gamer who attempts to get past the first two levels. The commentary alone is worth the watch...though it's sprinkled with some very colourful vocabulary. Enjoy!

Part 1: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k7VB-Nrh3hs
Part 2: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RoIqx76jk_s
Part 3: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rnw1N5Z3iVg

Labels: Sadist Mario Bros, the epic finality of Confic 07

posted by Phillip at 3:59 PM

 


Still alive.

Hard to believe, I know, but I'm still here. Sort of. Been working many hours at the store. many, many hours...oh, the hours. Can't say I'm particularly fond of the near-vegetative state I've been in the last few weeks, but the pay hasn't been half-bad. Silver lining in the cloud and all that. Honestly, this little bit of nowhere would have been posted sooner had Blogger not been so damned uncooperative during those few times where I did have enough will and cognitive power to write.

As a result, I'm rather loathe to face the fact that usually by now there's at least a rough draft of the Confic kicking about for those involved to read. Currently, there's everything but the apocalypse written. So the theory goes, unless there's a lot of banter between the Fancrew, another 5-6 pages and things should be finished. In a strictly "rough draft" capacity, of course.

But so far, things seem rather optimistic. Hysteria is killing the world with ribbons, Sarcasm is chasing cosplayers with a chainsaw, Carnage is getting doused in bishie sparkles, Havoc is discussing yaoi, and Chaos/Pesti/Ebichu are apparently the new OT3. (Don't ask me what the old OT3 was, though it probably involved a Psyduck.)

The plan is to have the finale written sometime over the course of Saturday & Sunday (hooray for a day off!), send it off to Kevin for editing/tweaking/making the script funnier, and then by Monday or Tuesday, there will be something for all to see.

This isn't a matter of hopefully. It's almost reaching a "do or die" point, since I'd rather not wait until the very last minute to get things out for printing, prop acquisitions and the like. In fact...why am I still here blogging when there's an end-of-the-world that needs writing?

To the Bakamobile!


Mel: "You don't have a license."

Myself: "That's never stopped me before in Grand Theft Auto!"

Mel: "I've seen you drive in GTA. I don't want to have to explain how you ran over our pets with an imaginary car."

Labels: driving imaginary cars and crashing them, misleading remarks about OT3's, more fun with Confic 07, reasserting the world that I'm still alive

posted by Phillip at 8:24 PM