Fanime: Draw the Line at Waiting

Before anyone asks for pictures...I didn't take any. I attend Fanime in San Jose with two of my friends. I have never been to an anime related convention. I have been to Wondercon and GDC, but those are a bit different. From what I understand, Fanime is run by and made for fans, hence the name; this could explain their tedious registration process. Had I known that when I arrived at 11:30am I would have waited in line for four and a half hours, I would have registered ahead of time and done a pick up, because that was the longest line I have waited in. Who thought it was a good idea to only have one registration station with about twenty computers when that many people attend? I guess that's why it is run by and for fans. First world problems...

After the grueling wait, we emptied our bowels, grabbed food, and took a few minutes to sit and eat. Next we perused the dealers floor, which was pretty cool. I really enjoyed the atmosphere; very friendly and low key. The artist floor had just a bunch of people who did fan art probably from deviantART. I didn't buy anything, but my giant robot obsessed friend did; not gonna say how much he spent on models.

Of course there were a lot of cosplayers, one of the funniest being Ashy Larry from Chappelle's Show and one of the coolest being a female troll from World of Warcraft. I saw way too many Black Butler and Hetalia (I watched this show on Netflix with a friend and I will probably say this more than once on this blog: WTF Japan Seriously?) cosplayers to count. Anime is hard to keep up with for me, mostly because I am tired of being disappointed with how few writers seem to know how to do a proper ending. I might delve back into some and I am open to suggestions for finished anime with solid endings... That's a difficult task.

Overall it was worth the long wait, even if we did not do any panels, but in our defense, none of the panels were really appealing. I might go again next time, but will register. Anime Expo sounded a lot more intriguing just because of the power behind it; could do some networking down there. I won't be at this year's AX, but I will plan on making a road trip to the next.

I leave you with this...

Diablo III and 1,000 Ways to Kill Haedrig's Wife

I cleared Diablo III on Hell and took a few minutes to see how difficult Inferno really is. Now that I have done that, I hope it will sate me enough so I can focus on story four this weekend. As much as I like the game, I felt like something was missing and although I did one playthrough of Diablo II, there were things that stuck out to me that were clearly missing from Diablo II. This video made me realize what is was I was thinking about. It still doesn't explain how Deckard Cain carried so many fucking satchels and managed to lose every last one.

I will be taking Saturday to hang out with a friend and go to Fanime in San Jose; should be interesting since I have never gone before. I will mock cosplayers quietly to myself and friends if they are hilariously awful; Sailor Moon does not weigh 235 lbs and smell like boiled hot dogs. I will praise good cosplay though...

I don't actually have 1,000 ways to kill Haedrig's wife, but here's a few:
Pummeled with jars of spiders
Crushed with a corpse
Frost
Fire
Exploding armor
Zombie dogs
Cleaved
Run over by a zombie

More Diablo III

I just beat the game on Nightmare last night and ready to start Hell. My second play through as a wizard was actually more fun that the first, because while in Normal I was able to build my character to do tons of damage and try out different builds around that idea, I died only a handful of times. In Nightmare I had to adjust and make my wizard more survivable, but it proved to be more challenging and rewarding; it is rare that a game's second play through is more fun than the first. At the end of Nightmare, it started to get fairly easy and I can see why people in higher modes dread making a new character and powering through all the difficulties to get to Hell and above.

On Sunday's I usually post my last finished short story, but I decided to take a week break to relax and prevent a burn out. I will take breaks whenever I feel like I need to cultivate ideas or feel like my work will be too forced. This means that Round #4 story will be delayed probably until this Sunday, and that the results of Round #5 will be posted next week.  I am going to attempt to distance myself from Diablo III in order to get your story delivered. The upside to my recent binge is that like most new exposures to new art and entertainment, my head is swimming with ideas for fantasy settings. I can't decide what my best genre is as I feel comfortable writing modern, fantasy, and science fiction.

Season 2 Episode 8 of Game of Thrones reminded me of why the books are so awesome. I nearly forgot what happens at the end of Clash of Kings, but remembered vividly once I got about ten minutes into the episode. For the sake of avoiding spoilers, I'll keep my fanboy level at a 2. I just hope it does my imagination while I was reading it justice, but so far, the show has done a solid job...

Currently I am working on something with a fellow creative mind. I can't say much, but it will be freaking sweet when it is finished. More to come...