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!

 

My wife is many, many things.

The most recent, and notably to my great surprise, is that apparently she now runs a scary LJ account that is distinctly not family friendly. Yep, according to that "what is your journal rating?" test, found here:

http://mingle2.com/blog-rating


Mel's LJ is a distinct and definite Rated R.

I'm not sure how it happened. Perhaps there was a slight defect. Perhaps my finger slipped when clicking the mouse. Or else it has something to do with Mel mentioning the word "orgasm" somewhere in one of her few-and-far-between posts. And it's not like it was even one of mine she was talking about.




Heck, she could have just misspelled the word "organism," and penalized as a result.

Speaking of, there's this great anecdote from when I was at a summer camp years upon years ago. Now first off, you'll have to keep in mind that this place was a Christian summer camp. (Shocking, I know, but foreknowledge of this adds to the comedy.) One night, there's a guest speaker who is discussing the different viewpoints between creationism and evolutionary theories.

He starts off with evolution, and describes it as...

In the beginning, two orgasms got together and said, "Hey! Let's make another orgasm, and with any luck it'll eventually be more advanced." So these orgasms made more orgasms, and over millions of years (and a lot of trial and error) these orgasms became increasingly detailed and complex. Until today, where we now have the human orgasm, the most advanced orgasm on the earth.

...and for the entire presentation, he really did not realize why all of us were giggling repeatedly through his speech. I must confess to wondering just what sort of expression must have been on his face once he'd been told about how his Freudian slip was showing.

So let that be Today's Lesson to all of you would be LJers, bloggers and theological debaters out there: "orgasms" are R-rated.

And probably not worksafe.

In which case, I apologize to your boss. (But I'm still not liable.)

Labels: blog ratings, orgasms = R ratings

posted by Phillip at 12:47 PM

 

It is Friday, and I find myself feeling out of sorts. It's the first Friday in a long time wherein I had the preceding Thursday off, and worked a Friday day shift instead of an evening shift. The resulting off-kilter sensation has left me wondering what to toss into the blogging fray.

I could have presented you with silly anecdotes involving work, life, the universe and everything else. I could have ranted about one of my employees who continues to be both a source of macabe amusement and vexation all at once. I also could have shown a series of webcam picks involving me and a "No Pants" dance.

(Because you don't need pants if you want to, and you can leave your pants, because your friends have pants, and if they have pants, well then they're no friends of mine.)

Instead I have opted to fill ridiculous amounts of this particular bit o' nowhere with something far more pointless. A while back, I pondered the concept of crossover fanfiction and what makes them so inherently full of fail. It was then that I realized that most crossover implode on themselves because the various universes being strewn together possess many incongruent or contradictory details; and rarely is a fanfic writer able to successfully negotiate these conflicts in a believeable manner.

This of course leads to unintentional humour and a lot of pain as heads crash-boom-bang against desktops. Thusly, I created the "ABC Crossover Horror!" exercise, which if anything is meant to be a source of amusement as opposed to inspiration.

Using the alphabet (but leaving out those pesky, extra "Cookie Monster" letters), I selected a series of random characters, places and objects from a variety of known fandoms. From there, my mission was to craft them all together in a "so bloody ridiculous it might just work" synopsis, using each letter-based item in proper alphabetical order.

This is the result....




It all begins in England, where ALUCARD, the infamous vampire/vampire hunter, under orders from the Hellsing Organization, is sent on a dangerous mission. (As opposed to saving kitties in trees and then eating them, which is something Alucard does every now and again in the off-season when he’s not destroying ghouls and the like.)

A new, sinister force is rising to threaten the world, and Integra Hellsing is not about to let England fall into the clutches of the fiendish mastermind known as the BRAIN. Yes indeed, the genetically enhanced lab mouse has once again escaped from his cage in Acme Labs (England Division, and would you like a spot of tea with that?) and embarked on his latest bid for world domination. Aided by his smart-as-a-side-order-of-gravy assistant, Pinky, the Brain has at long last come up with a foolproof plot that will guarantee his ruling of the planet.

“Pinky, are you pondering what I’m pondering?” asks the Brain.

To which Pink naturally replies, “I think so, Brain, but I doubt MPreg really is a good way to drive up the number of reviews for your fanfic.”

However, an unexpected monkeywrench looms on the horizon for the would-be megalomaniacs: not very far from the Acme Labs (England Division, and would you like another spot of tea?), Clamp’s favourite magical girl, CARD CAPTOR SAKURA, is touring the country as she learns more about Clow Reed.

Sakura’s journey takes her to Hogwarts, where she learns that Clow was one of the school’s best graduating students ever. And no tour of Hogwarts is complete without the obligatory run-in with the resident misunderstood badboy, DRACO MALFOY.

As to be expected, insults are traded, hair is pulled and sideglances are made at bosoms. (Sakura’s, not Malfoy’s; the MPreg won’t happen until the sequel, when we’re desperate to drive up the number of reviews.) But after beating him down with a few Clow Cards and a random levitating sausage, Sakura forges an unexpected friendship with Draco. Draco quickly reveals his secret angst over being half-Veela, three-sixteenths Scottish, one-quart llama, and still ninety-six-point-two percent jerk-off.

Sakura is also introduced to Draco’s new animal familiar: EBICHU, the housekeeping hamster! (Which suddenly explains so many things, not the least of which is why the last two spots of tea tasted oddly like bacon and lemonade…) After a steamy, romantic scene in the Prefect’s Bath…where Ebichu accidentally floods the bath after snapping off half the faucets…Sakura and Draco decide to make their own fate together, and leave Hogwarts.

On the run from Ministry officials, Death Eaters and Michael Flatley, the two find themselves trapped in the middle of a terrible thunderstorm. It also doesn’t help that Ebichu accidentally deployed the Wood Card and totalled the seriously kickass Harley Davidson motorcycle Draco has secretly been working on in the Hogwarts garage for the last three years.

But what luck! There’s a light over at the FRANKENSTEIN house!

Soaked and in need of shelter, Sakura and Draco knock on the door…only to discover that they are just in time for a wild gathering of unconventional conventioneers. After Ebichu leads them all in a rousing dance of the Timewarp-

Ebichu: “It’s just a jump to the left, dechu!”

Conventioneers: “And then a little step to the rii-iii-iiii-iiight!”

Draco: “Hey, these pelvic thrusts are really fun!”

Sakura: “But why do we have to get stripped down to our underwear?”

Draco: ^-^ “I don’t mind.”

Sakura: “That’s because you’re wearing my panties!”

Draco: “This chapter: crossdressing. Tomorrow: MPreg!”

Ebichu: “Are we that desperate for reviews already, dechu?”

Soon after, the conventioneers are greeted by Dr. Frank N’ Furter, that sassy sweet transvestite from Transsexual Transylvania. After making them quiver with antici…pation, Frank N’ Furter allows Sakura & Draco to stay the night.

Coincidentally, also staying over at Frankenfurter’s abode is GILES, one of the last Watches left alive on the Vampire Slayer Watcher’s Council. As it turns out, Sakura is not only a Card Captor, but a Slayer as well. Draco on the other hand, is still a jackass. Things go south as Ebichu runs off with Rocky, leaving Frankenfurter to seduce his three human guests.

Yet before the doctor can get to the Medusa Machine and start the floorshow, the HEAVYARMS CUSTOM lands in the backyard. One brief gunfight between the Gundam and some ninjas who inexplicably appear later, the hatch to the pilot’s compartment opens up, revealing INDIANA JONES!

Clad in his leather jacket and fedora hat, Indy cracks his whip and takes out another two ninjas. It is quickly revealed that Indy has traveled across time to help out Giles, since Buffy is Indy’s long-lost granddaughter. (No really! The supplementary character profile created for him has a flowchart and everything proving it!) Everyone piles into the Heavyarms.

Suddenly Michael Flatley attacks! But Indy is able to fend off the dark lord of the dance with a JEDI MIND TRICK.

Things are finally looking up for our heroes…right until the Heavyarms gets rolled up by a KATAMARI BALL. Indy tries to free them, but alas, he’s still not entirely sure how to drive standard on a Gundam. A dizzying scene change ensues!

Once everyone regains consciousness, they wake up and find themselves lost inside the LABYRINTH. Sakura immediately befriends Sir Didymus, while Draco’s toupee runs afoul of the Bog of Eternal Stench. There they meet Alucard, who has been whiling the time away by playing dodgeball with the detachable heads of the Fieries.

As it turns out, the Brain has crowned himself the new Goblin King after winning a pants-off against Jareth. And once he builds up an army of muppets, he will rule the world!! (Because no one would ever suspect the muppets.)

But fear not! For also travelling through the Labyrinth is the kawaii and sexy transfer student from America: MARY SUE!

Much to everyone’s surprise, this fangirlish waif is not only Sakura’s long-lost second cousin (which also makes her Indy’s long-lost, grand-something-or-other), but she is also the true Heir of Slytherin, the actual Lord of the Dance, the bestest Gundam pilot evah and the person who single-handedly saved the flathead pandas from extinction!

She has milky white skin and shining, deep almond eyes (made with real almonds!) that reveal the angst-ridden trials she’s had to endure in life. Which can also be understood with the lyrics of a Linkin Park or B-52’s song. Her long locks of at times chocolate caramel-coloured, other times fuchsia with a slight hint of lime-coloured hair bedazzles the entire cast. (Or else it could be the God Complex they’re staring at. Tea?) For today’s fic, Mary Sue is wearing a smashing set of zebra-patterned boots that go all the way up to her knees; black fishnet stockings; a fully regimental Scottish tartan kilt; two loose belts that have hanging from them all sorts of strange mystical items like Jack Sparrow’s compass, or her wizarding wand that has a phoenix feather, a dragon’s tooth and a unicorn’s foreskin all put into its core, or her carefully-guarded copy of the Necronomicon; and she has a black leather jacket overtop the latest tshirt to come out of Hot Topic, and oh dear lord, how much longer is this paragraph going to run on?!

So behold Mary Sue, all ye lowly fanpeeps! Gaze upon her mighty self-insertion and despair! Faster Mary Sue! Thrill! Thrill!

Ebichu: “Ebichu worships her Sueness, dechu!”

Draco: “Where the hell did you come from?”

Ebichu: ^-^ “Ebichu crawled in through one of the gaping holes in the plot, dechu!”

But all those random bits of comedic dialogue can only detract from the glory of Mary Sue. After informing everyone of the Brain’s nefarious scheme (and all without using the letter ‘d’, because she is that gifted a Sue), Mary Sue volunteers to lead them in storming the goblin castle

Alucard promptly sticks Mary Sue to the Katamari Ball and kicks it into the Bog of Eternal Stench. And there is much rejoicing.

Onhand for the festivities is N*SYNC! Recently reunited--

********
A/N: horrays! Justin finally brings sexyback to my fav. boyband EVAH!!!onesies!!!1!

********

--and having mysteriously stumbled into the Labyrinth after their latest concert, N*Sync serenades the gang with their newest #1 hit: “You + Me = OTP.” And while they quickly make friends with the assembled cast, N*Sync can’t stay for long. As it turns out, they’ve been tasked with taking the ONE RING and casting it into the fires of Mount Doom.

Accompanying them on their journey is PRINCESS SERENITY, who reveals her self to actually be half-elf. No, really! True story! See, the Silver Millennium happened to coincide with the period of time known as the Third Age of Middle Earth. During this time, Queen Serenity had a torrid affair with Elrond, making her a princess, a Senshi and a half-elf.

She immediately makes a pass for Draco and generates horrid amounts of angst as Sakura begins to feel insecure about herself and her relationship with Draco. As the gathering wanders the Labyrinth, torrid affairs, romantic interludes and accidental nakedness ensue. Sadly, most of the nudity comes from Ebichu.

Somewhere along the way, Giles is captured, brainwashed and ultimately joins Pinky and the Brain in the goblin castle. The loss of one of their treasured members hits the team hard, and so while everyone is trapped inside the Oubliette, Draco & Sakura try to lighten the mood with some healing sex.

As a last-ditch action, Indy decides to call in a favour he’s owed by Q.

With a snap of his omniscient fingers, the roguish member of the Q continuum transports the gang out of the Oubliette, and into the first-class cabin of a luxury jumbo jet that is circling over the Labyrinth.

But they can’t relax for long, because suddenly REAVERS attack! In a bold move, Alucard sacrifices N*Sync and allows the others to escape while the boyband is eaten, skinned and raped to death. (Quite possibly in that order. These are Reavers, after all. And more tea, dammit!)

The worst seems to be behind our intrepid band of heroes. However…there’s SNAKES ON THE PLANE.

Indy: “Snakes on a plane…why did it have to be snakes on a plane?”

Ebichu: “Ebichu will suck out the poison out from your pants, dechu!”

Indy: “Do you serve any other function beyond making scary comments?”

Alucard starts shooting holes in the windows as Draco, Sakura, Indy, Serenity and Ebichu race to the cockpit. However, the snakes seem to be everywhere! Oh noes!! Cornered and out of ammo, everyone wonders if this chapter might be their last.

But at the last possible moment, the plane reveals itself to be a TRANSFORMER. And in the process of transforming into an Autobot, all the snakes are sucked out of the plane. Plane-O-Bot-Four lands right at the front gates of the castle and vows to help defeat the goblin armies.

Yet with Giles leading the goblins, it appears that team player-killing is inevitable. The two sides are poised on the brink of all-out war. Ebichu also finds the Brain and challenges him to a crayon-wielding deathmatch.

Suddenly U2 appears, and within minutes Bono manages to secure peace between the goblins and our heroes. Even the Brain is touched by the humanitarian efforts and ceases his current plot for world domination. U2 then throws a massive concert for the Labyrinth, and everyone sings along to all their favourite songs.

Victory must be at hand!

However…unbeknownst to everyone else, the VENOM SYMBIOTE has landed in the Hundred Acre Wood and wastes no time bonding with WINNIE THE POOH.

The Vemon-Pooh symbiote is recruited by the Persian god-king XERXES, who is searching for a slightly less demoralizing target than those pesky, three hundred Spartans. The shadows of his mighty army fall over the Labyrinth, causing everyone to reform their ranks.

Eager to whup some ass, Alucard takes point on the goblin armies. Giles and the Brain help secure the defences, while Indy manages to get the Heavyarms revved back up. Plane-O-Bot-Four volunteers for a potential suicide mission to take down the Venom-Pooh. Sakura and Draco use what magic they can to boost everyone’s powers, while Princess Serenity accidentally opens up a temporal portal and manages to bring over all the Sailor Senshi, a Totoro and Bruce (don’t call him ‘Ash’) Campbell.

And Ebichu & Pinky form the cheerleading squad.

Faced with seemingly impossible odds, Bono calls in a favour from his Jpop buddies, Happatai. For there is one thing that unholy Persian hordes have a weakness for, and that is…YATTA!!

The entire assembled cast dons fig leaves and running sneakers, and dances along! Venom-Pooh gets rolled up by the Katamari Ball, and Princess Serenity has a torrid affair with Alucard…at least she tries, right until she glomps Alucard and he turns into a small, orange cat.

Yes, you guess it and would you like more tea with that, Alucard has the ZODIAC CURSE from Fruits Basket! Z’oh-my-gods, squeeeeeee!!!

And here is where this epic crossover ends. Will there be a sequel? Only time and MPreg will tell…





Pinky: “Well, that was fun! So Brain, what are we gonna do tomorrow night?”

Brain: “The same thing we do every night, Pinky…”


[The Brain holds aloft the One Ring to rule them all!!]


Brain: “Conquer Middle Earth!”





***

Laughing? Frightened? Thinking you could sneeze out a better ABC crossover horror? Well, what luck! It's your turn now! (See? And here you thought the audience participation was limited to strictly giggles and head-desking.)

Go ahead. I dare you....

Labels: ABC Crossover Horror, encouraging fandoms to do scary things I may get lynch-mobbed for, Safety Pants

posted by Phillip at 6:18 PM

 


It occurs to me somewhere, somehow, that I have not updated in a week or so. It's not that I'm forgetful about my little bit of nowhere. (At least not this time.) It's also not because I have a lack of things to mention. (There are a few, and none of them involve pants.) It's mostly because I really haven't been in the mood.

You could call this antisocial. You could call this anti-Intarwebs.

I call it: why must June suddenly be so damned hot? You know, besides the whole "prelude to summer" thing.

Tomorrow is teasing/promising a high chance of showers, coupled with a thunderstorm...which I will probably miss entirely, since that seems to be the trend for the last 6 months, and it saddens me because I really love thunderstorms, but they're hard to see from inside a store that has no windows. So the theory goes there may be a reprieve to sitting in a puddle of my own sweat and asking myself, "do I really need to be wearing pants in this sort of weather, or should my loins be girded with something a little more insubstantial?"

(Okay, so I lied about this bit o' nowhere not involving pants.)

Work...we shall not speak of work for the moment, save for the fact that I could best describe last week as, "Hulk smash!" I really do sometimes question whether I have preschoolers working at the store...or whether actual preschoolers may in fact be more productive and give me less stress. (Them getting crushed beneath the weight of a set of luggage not withstanding, of course.)

Home is all about bathrooms, mostly ours finally getting inspected and fixed after the unexpected "randrops from the 4th floor toilet keep fallin' on my head" incident. From the looks of things, the damage isn't as severe as we'd been fearing; while in a malicious sense I was hoping for something more terrible so we could go "Told you, dammit!" to the tight-ass of an owner, I am relieved it's not quite so severe. Our bathroom should be fixed by tomorrow afternoon. After which there will need to be a lot of sweeping from the drywall dust littering...well, pick a surface, any surface.

Mind you, the downside is that we're still stuck with the hideous mint-green toothpaste coloured bathroom tiles. Gyaaaaa.....

In other news, apparently Gabe has already decided who I am. On our last visit, Mel was playing with Gabe as I came into the room. Mel pointed to me and asked Gabe, "Who is that?" Gabe's immediate reply was, "Geek!"

I honestly don't know if that's what he actually meant to say, but it still works regardless. At least I'm not the kind of geek who wants to make love to an AvP movie poster. (I've met such a geek, incidentally. I still don't think he has a girlfriend...)


Today's Lesson: the anime series When They Cry is a great, leisurely-paced show about the friendships between rural/really smalltown kids...right until everything goes all Children of the Corn-ish and characters are rendered large blood smears across most of the furniture.

Dammit, when's the next disc coming out?

Labels: bathrooms that should have been fixed months ago, lies about pants, random tangents

posted by Phillip at 8:40 PM

 



It’s suddenly occurred to me that I’ve let this little bit of nowhere collect a fair bit of dust. Sure, it’s only been a week and a half since the last entry (and compared to some of the near month-long absences, it’s but a brief lapse), but all things considered, a fair bit has happened worth mentioning.

Which makes me somewhat amused and grateful that I’ve got Blogger, which lets me prattle on as long as I want to, without forcing me to squish everything down into a dozen, 4-paragraphed entries.

So here we go:

Weekend before last, Anime North smashed into Toronto with all the subtlety of an otaku crossplaying as a tonne of bricks. (Don’t ask me how, but I’m sure there’d be a way to create a skimpy bikini made entirely out of foam, prop bricks…and sadly, there’d also be a way for a 200 pound man to wear said bikini.)

All in all, the Con proved to be the much enjoyed and much needed distraction from everything that was work. On the Thursday afternoon, I buggered off early from work wit the promises from my employees that they would not burn down the store in my absence.

The early departure was just as well, since it took Mel & myself a few hours to get the final bits all prepped for the Con: assembling food & inordinate amounts of carbonated beverages, assembling all of Shady’s things (since this time around we were bringing to dog with us), making sure our other 3 pets had enough of their essentials in our absence, double-checking the Confic prop supplies and then hauling everything down to the car.

Sidenote: I am ever so thankful to the person who invented the wheeled dolly. Five very heavy trips down the hall, down 3 floors and across the parking lot turned into 2 minor trips that took only half the time otherwise needed. Hooray for wheeled carts!

Anyhoo, from there we were off to scenic…er, Brantford. As Gabe, Conqueror of All He Surveys (Save For The Child Restraint, But He’s Working On That), giggled and roared and stomped around the place with me (and at times, on me) and Donna, Kevin & Mel went off to grab the remainder of our food supplies.

Before we knew what was slapping us across the face with warm rays of sunshine, Friday had set upon us. Gabe was dropped off, the car was packed, and the journey to glorious Anime North 2007 was made. With minimal fuss on the roads too, a feat that surprises me greatly, considering it was still Friday afternoon on the 401 and 403. And during the summer, Fridays are better left avoided if travelling on those roads is required.

(Though from what I hear, most other days ending in ‘y’ are better left avoided if the 401 is involved.)

Not to anyone’s surprise, the Doubetree Hotel was already crowded with otaku getting their rooms, getting registered for the Con and showing off their Cosplay outfits. (And it saddens me that my myopia is such that, should I want to Cosplay again, most costumes require a non-bespectacled persona. And that would render my entire world a blob of colours I’d inevitably be running into or squinting at or looking in the completely wrong direction that I should be. )

From the start, our Shih-tzu proved to be a success in her own right. Whenever Shady was being carried or walked (on a leash, natch) through the hotel, many people were hear to go “Awww!” or “She’s so cuuuute!” So if Shady comes along next year, we’re thinking of milking her cuteness for all its worth and putting a sign on her that reads “Emergency Food Supply.”

Hey, she looks a lot like Menchi anyway…

But I digress. Mel showed off her swanky Hotel Room Reg skills by bypassing the long line-ups at the front desk, and heading straight to the VIP/Gold Member sign-in. Our hotel room registration took less than 2 minutes…with one minute spent mostly fighting over who got to eat the complimentary cookies.

Somewhere along the way we stumbled across Chris, Roupen, Matt, Jen, Dave, Maral and a few others in the gang. Heavy things were dragged up to our room, which naturally had to be the furthest possible room from the elevators. At the very least, the elevators weren’t crowded, so the travel was brief if not stretchy-arm-inducing. (Ah English, is there no verb you can’t mutate and still make it seem somehow natural.)

Once Shady was settled in with a few of her creature comforts, and a large bribe of dog treats, Kevin scuttled off to the Dealer’s Room to help Kinon with set-up, and Mel & I got ourselves registered for the Con. Which also took but a few minutes, since we got to head to the elite Panelist Registration table.

And the Con kicked off!

The Sailormoon panel went better than I’d feared, but not as good as I’d desperately hoped. (Granted, my fear was that my presence on the panel would equate me to the guy rearranging deckchairs on the Titanic as it sank.) With the Con literally starting at the same time as the panel, the audience wasn’t quite as lively as they could have been, despite a few prods at getting people to talk.

There was also a Crossplaying guy in the front row I rather wanted to shoot, and not simply because he decked out in ladies’ regalia. And here I only thought trolls existed under train bridges or on Internet message boards…

But meh, it only means we’ll have to try harder next year. And possibly get ourselves as panellists the authority to use tasers at our discretion.

By contrast, though, the Lemon Fanfic and General Fanfic panels were great. I have to credit Steve Savage for making them great, though I should also credit myself for wearing pants on both panels and not starting a panic/riot as a result. Many interesting things were discussed, like fandom problems, the use of slang (which is another rant for another time) and newly emerging or dying trends.

Savage and I also managed to break the audience with our now-infamous 300/Pokemon crossover. I’m not sure which of us started it, but we kept trying to top each other with bad ideas until the terrible idea became so crazy, it could just work. I think Savage came up with the line, “Pikachus, tonight we evolve in hell!” and I considered what a Charazard in a leather codpiece would look like.

And then there was the CPR/DDR mistake, and Savage showing off his Freudian slip by say “Sleeping Booty” instead of “Sleeping Beauty.”

So yeah, happiness were the fanfic panels.

The Dealer’s Room was also a great deal of happiness too, having been decidedly improved over last year. They rebuilt it. They had the technology. They made it bigger, stronger, and filled with a hell of a lot of cool things. And oddly enough, I spent my $200 swag stash and did not leave wishing I still had more money to blow. Wow, so this is what being a jaded otaku feels like.

I’m suddenly imbued with this elitist, egomaniacal sensation. This won’t do.

Mel-chan, fetch me the squeaky hammer!

Anyhoo, swag was bought. I caught up on my latest manga volumes…and marvelled at how the dealers probably had a combined total of near 120 books of Negima #14, and they were sold out of them before mid-afternoon Saturday. (Hell, they might have been near to running out by close on Friday night.)

Also on the swag list for me was the X-TV boxset, one of the beautiful hair accessories Maral sold at her booth (for Mel, not me, you idiots), a cheap copy of Samurai Champloo’s final volume, the Kenshin OVA box set, and a lot of sheep fridge magnets.

Oh, and I also blew part of my swag stash even before the Con had started on the “Pirates: World’s End” soundtrack. (And happily, I am not disappointed with that purchase. I’m even listening to it as I type this.)

Other Con highlights included seeing Elmo beat up Vegita during one of the wrestling matches (believe me, that was a fight where I wasn’t sure who I wanted to cheer for), the ever deafening yet ever enjoyable J-Pop Dance on Saturday, and incredibly cool Katamari Damacy fanart I (grrr!) was unable to buy.

There was also a casual fanfic shoptalk session with Dejana, Nightbreak and Jen. And, go figure, when I had to scuttle off to meet up with Mel for dinner, Savage showed up to take my place…and they all proceeded to have a kick-ass brainstorming session without me. Dammit. I think there’s a Murphy’s Law corollary to this, or something, isn’t there?

Amidst the blur of activities, sleep, food and spending time with Shady so as not to give her an abandonment complex, Sunday snuck up on us. Mel & I delivered most of our room stuff and Shady to Gary’s apartment for the afternoon, since we had to sign out of our room.

And then came the Fanboys Confic: So Long & Thanks For All The Pocky. All in all, I think it was well-received by those in the audience. Laughter abounded in many places, some expected and some unexpected. And the Fancrew seemed to enjoy hamming it up for their parts. Ysabet did a great job stealing the spotlight as Hysteria, as did Chris whenever he was on as Ebichu.

But admittedly the show-stealers were Roupen and Jason as the Raving Rabbids. Makes me wonder if we should arrange for a troop of Rabbid Cosplayers next year. Though all we’d ever be able to do is scream “DAAAAH!!!” and run in completely different directions with our plungers held aloft.

Alas, the Confic ended on a much more sour note than I’d have preferred, and it vexes me greatly, but I’ve made my rants about it, and this little bit of nowhere is not the place to dredge the ugliness back up again.

In the end, all good things much come to a close, as Anime North 07 did. And I’m willing to bet the employees at Harvey’s were glad about that. You recall my last bit of nowhere, where I mentioned the Harvey’s “free burger on the Sunday of the Con” promotion?

Well, as it turns out the Harvey’s right across the street from the hotel & Con was a part of that promotion. And watch my complete lack of surprise as hordes of hungry-but-broke-because-I-spent-my-last-dollar-on-swag otaku descended upon the place. Sure, you could have gotten yourself a free burger and eased your growling stomach. Provided you didn’t mind the 3-hour wait…and the lineup that threaded through the entire restaurant interior and around the whole damn building.

Poor employees. They had my pity.

So then…Sunday night. The natural and inevitable conclusion to the Con saw a gathering of friends, pizza being forced upon me despite me declining multiple times (which is sure to be a sign of the apocalypse), a great deal of swimming, and the fond farewell as Mel & I crashed at Gary’s apartment for the night.

Monday’s highlight consisted solely of vegetating at Gary’s with some anime, some food and tired conversations, and finishing off with the journey home.

Which brings us to last Tuesday, and my glorious return to all things tedious and retail. Now, I do admit to being slightly worried as to the condition of the store. My level of neatness and order, while pleasantly nowhere near being anal-retentive, still remains higher than that held by my staff. I was expecting some degree of messy, but hey, that wouldn’t be all bad.

I mean, it wasn’t like my employees actually did try to burn the store down while I was away for the weekend! HA HA HAAaaaaaaaaaa….

They did.

As far as I’ve been able to piece together, the opening employee grabbed a meal at the foodcourt A&W before starting. She doesn’t get the chance to eat the burger, and sticks it in the stockroom’s microwave for later. Around lunchtime, she goes to the microwave. She sets the timer for 30 seconds.

This nukes the burger…as well as the metallic wrapper the burger is in. Sparks ensue, which then set fire the paper bag the burger & its metallic wrapper are being held in. From what I’m told, smoke was pouring out of the microwave as my intrepid staffers rescued the burger. They opened the door, only to discover the top of the bag was in fact, on fire. Somehow they manage to get the flaming blaze o’ burger & wrappers into the bathroom sink, and douse the fire.

So yes, flames were involved, though miraculously the fire alarms or sprinklers going off were not. I don’t know how, but it would have made for an interesting story for me to hear, had I returned to find my store being damaged out due to water damage from the sprinklers.

I can gloat as I say this, since all involved parties including my district manager knew I was gone and in communicado for the entire weekend. So, no blame would even remotely fall on me. Evil, yes, but if I were ever to set my store on fire, I wouldn’t do it with a burger. That’s too silly.

And so endeth the Con weekend…eth.

“But wait!” you exclaim. “What’s been happening in the week or so since?”

Um…good question. The watching of anime? The dull tedium of work? A returning of efforts into The Project? Seriously, that’s about it. There are other things I could mention, of course, but don’t you think this little bit of nowhere has rambled on long enough?

Ta-ta.

Labels: AN07 Con diary, burgers are surprisingly flammable, DDR does not equal CPR, I do not dream of being Steve Savage’s OTP, swag glorious swag, this entry is way too long

posted by Phillip at 8:45 PM