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So, I wake up with cramps. Yay. Boo.
TJ flails around telling me Al's called and the relator is coming by to look at the house. We assume this means it needs to be cleaned up. So we tidy up (mostly TJ's room and the critter room). I decide, to take my mind off the cramps until the painkillers kick in, to FINALLY clean the foyer.
I'm down there sweeping and shit, I've got the front door open for once so I can take a grody carpet out to the garbage. And the kid next store says hi, asks how I am. We chat, he says his dad is offering to help out with getting the weeds down in the yard, since Al won't do it. I'm like, yeah! sure! any help is good help. We chat, the relator shows up and I show him around. He just needed to get an idea of the square footage and wasn't here more than three minutes, tops.
I get back to cleaning, another knock on the door. The older lady next door wants to talk to me! I'm popular today. We have a discussion about how Al won't take care of things and I explain our situation to her and such. She's really, really nice and I'm glad that -I- can maintain a friendly relationship with the neighbors, despite Al not being able to. She repeated the bit about her husband wanting to help US with the yard, not AL. And asked if she could have one of the flowers from the bush out front, because she likes flowers and wanted one for her yard. Yeah, no problem.
So, I got a bit more information about the neighbors and I'd much rather have a good relationship with them than whatever Al has.
But the foyer is clean! Yay!
And my cramps are mostly gone, too.
Now, to try and get more work done on the Tikicon conbook. D: I spent most of last night roleplaying and lulzing and making dollz of the fandom highschool crew. :D :D I'm such a fag.
ALSO
We watched the Director's Cut of Watchmen last night. The interrogation scene with Laurie? THAT is my canon Laurie. I was worried for a long time because I always felt I was playing her a little rougher around the edges than I should've been. Because in the theatrical cut, she's not QUITE a brutal and a bitch. But THAT? YES. I squealed with glee.
Also, the parts with her and Rorschach bitching? Amazing.
Good god, though. The Bluray quality is A-MAZ-ING.
Also, also. I got my free 10-pack of Moo business cards today. Oh, I thought the minicards were nice. So pretty and shiny. o3o | | |
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Nothing, actually. The things society says I probably should've grown out of? Comics Video Games Unicorns My Little Ponies Action Figures Costumes Things I probably should grow out of? The Furry Fandom. | | |
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So, I'm taking on the time-consuming task of whipping together a mockup conbook/program for Tikicon. I don't know if this'll even be wanted/useful in the future, but at the very least, it gives me some graphic design practice. I'm aiming for an 11x8.5 half-fold brochure sort of thing. Small enough to be easily carried around, but large enough not to be lost easily. I considered a four-fold, but thought that would be too small. Half-fold seems a good size. Plus, it gives plent of room for what's needed in a conbook.  The cover is very, very, VERY rough at the moment. I'm basing it off of the website: http://www.screamingtikicon.com which is why it's so orange at the moment. I don't have a proper sized tiki head to use on the cover (where the LOGO is. the white box would go away, it's just there as a placeholder at the moment.) and I don't have the proper fonts that're used on the site, so I'm making due with what I can find. Plus, this is just a mockup. Doesn't need to be PERFECT. I also realize that 'toys' should probably be 'toy'. I figured the back could be used for sponsors or even things involed with the con. Like, with the Cleveland venue, the Ingenuity Fest, the Siegel & Shuster Society, Gotham Cruisers, etc., etc. I hate to leave space 'wasted' when it could be put to good use. Color-wise, it needs broken up a bit. There is A LOT of orange there. And it isn't even a pretty orange.  These are just the first two pages, the basic info all attendees want to know: what's going on and where it's going on at. I'm using info from the Cleveland event last weekend and I only had a map available for the Euclid area. The green is the space the Ingenuity Fest was taking place in. I couldn't find a map for the inside of the venue, the Halle Building, so I didn't add it yet. I'd have to make one from scratch and memory anyhow. The schedule is shortened, as I'm just showing an example. Obviously, in a normal conbook, it would have opening/closing times and more events and such. I also figure, if the inside of the book needs to be done in B&W, it'll still have enough contrast between everything. I'll have the greyscale it to be sure, however. I want to do a page for the celebrity guests with a little blurb about them and then a map of the dealer's room and artists alley, like Anthrocon has. The first con, there was no accessible map and Peter had the only one. I'm trying not to make it TOO extensive, of course. As these things cost money to get printed and all.
I went out and walked today. Dropped books off at the library and picked up a few more. Batman: R.I.P., The League of Extraordinary Gentleman and Burnout. Also stopped at the comic store, got a Black Ring and issue #1 of Bad Dog for TJ. Had a good bitch fest. Got some exceptionally nerdy dogtags for TJ at the Army-Navy store and headed back home. Overall, pretty uneventful. | | |
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I really hate the aftermath of conventions. Well, more like, the lack of anything happening. I'm also UBER busy before a con, prepping and finishing things and being generally crazy. Then the convention happens and MORE CRAZY all over the place. Then....a sudden stop. I'm unmotivated, bored, a fat, lazy lump of the weekend prior. It's annoying because my brain wants to work on things, but my body is like '...eh'. I don't get Post Con Depression. I get Post Con Lethargy.
But I did get the yard mowed. I cleaned the living room downstairs since it hadn't been cleaned since everyone was through here that last week. I gotta gather up dishes and do those, too. Blah blah blah house things blah. My area also needs cleaned like WOAH. It's starting to look like a basement-dwelling neckbeard lives here. Empty bags of chips, pork rinds, Little Debbie cakes, Pepsi bottles. It's pretty atrocious.
I also gotta put up my Pseudo Manitou prints somewhere on my wall. Because they're pretties.
I need to fill out my FAFSA for the coming school year, too. And my mom keeps telling me to go down and apply for food stamps, because they'll probably give them to me. Hey, free money for food to tide me over until I get a job? I can run with that. I just fucking HATE the welfare office. Like crazy. But it doesn't look like I'm going to get the luxury of ANY unemployment because Niles Target fucked up my hours. Assholes.
The fact that none of my stuff is selling right now is a little frustrating. Seems like the only original stuff I can ever sell has tits and ass, which is really depressing and makes me wonder why I even offer up originals and stuff. Oh, right, because I want them out of my hair and the money is nice. I just really don't know what I'm doing wrong. I thought I had cute stuff for sale at Anthrocon, little cheaply priced things and all, but I didn't sell a single thing in my book.
Uuuugh. I don't know.
I need to force myself through my commission list. Some people have been waiting WAY too long for simple things like sketches just because I've been a fucking lazy ass and I haven't kicked my ass into gear to do their pieces. I know I want to do my best on them, but I also can't keep stalling and making them wait. It's unfair to them and ends up stressful for me.
I'm also feeling stagnant with my art lately. This is probably partially due to the fact I know two other artists who do awesome expressions and shit that's, well, NOT STAGNANT. It's like I've drawn myself into a corner with my art and I don't have the vaugest fucking clue how to follow the maze back out to something decent. Uuugh. Maybe I'll pick up that pose book from the library again and force myself to sit down and draw from that. God knows it can't get any worse than the standing around poses I'm doing now.
Goddamn am I bitching. D:
Speaking of bitching, we staffed at Tikicon Cleveland on Saturday.
Yeah, wow. THAT could've been better planned and executed. The lack of signage, the lack of information given to us volunteers as to where things were (example: movie screenings at the Hanna Theatre? yeah, we're not all from Cleveland and just putting 'Hanna Theatre' on the schedule does not help anyone. even after Google Mapping it, I realized that even THAT was wrong and probably gave a dozen people the wrong directions.). The utter lack of volunteers in general and the ones that were there, but wandereing around with staff badges but NOT ACTUALLY DOING STAFF THINGS? Yeah, you guys can suck it.
It is not part of my job as a volunteer (or part of anyone's job as a volunteer, actually) to watch over the 10+ kids that were property of two other staff members. I helped out once because I was asked nicely. TJ and another girl were left behind the main desk for quite some time and had to put up with the screaming and squealing ALL WHILE trying to take registrations and pre-paid registrations. That's a great impression to give any of the guests.
PLUS. Batcopter rides were supposed to happen Saturday. Directed a bunch of people to where they were supposed to be (Carniege and 9th, I believe) and...no Batcopter. The Batmoblie was supposed to be set up and they were going to do some kind of raffle. That wasn't set up AT ALL.
Holding Tikicon during Ingenuity Fest was a good idea on paper, but in execution? Not so much. It was hard to find the Halle Building, the traffic sucked, the venue was a bit cramped and rushed. Even having Ray Park, Michael Rosenbaum and Edward James Olmos isn't going to save this, guys.
I was sorely disappointed in the fact that we all drove up an hour and a half at 8AM to get there at 10AM and there was only a handful of useable volunteers (because each celebrity guest gets a volunteer to handle their cash from autographs). Which meant some people sitting at the main desk for 6+ hours and some people manning the doors and checking badges for 4+ hours and no one bothering to switch out. There was jsut a small group of us that helped each other out.
I've staffed numerous cons and I've been to many more. I think I have a PRETTY GOOD IDEA of how to deal with volunteers and keep things running smoothly. I'll staff Tikicon Niles, but I'm going to be pretty anal about volunteers actually working and things making sense for guests. It's not rocket science. Really.
The fact that Peter was expecting 10,000 attendance? I will hold back my response to that one...
On the up side? I saw Todd Dezago and Terry Huddleston again, the latter of which I didn't expect to be there. Got to run around the festival with Anakin and Stormtroopers.
I also saw a Winter Soldier bust I wanted SO BAD but only had $10 on me. I sadfaced. HARD.
Overall? FFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFF.
Don't get me wrong, I'd love to see Tikicon suceed and go somewhere. But...if things keep like this, I may not continue to be involved. I'm not afraid to voice my displeasure at things, especially when I'm staff. I'm not going to bend over backwards and say everything went GREAT. Because it obviously did not. | | |
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I totally forgot I had photos I'd taken last week that I posted to flickr but didn't post here because the Furtopia FTP was down. 
( Read more... ) | | |
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 I love Bucky just leaning against the door there. Y'know.... casual. | | |
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Something accomplished this morning. Unemployment is still declined. I doublt I'll be able to get ANYTHING. This means I've gotta double up the job search and possibly go out of Labor Ready. We'll see. There's a store or two in the Jamestown Plaza that is hiring, I'll have to put in some applications there. I scheduled my COMPASS assesment at KSU. It's too soon to get in for Summer courses, so I'll be aiming for the FALL. This is good and bad. I was going to try and get in for Summer so I could get my Finanical Aid sooner and not have to worry about it. But I''ll only have a month or so until Fall classes. I think I can survive. Tikicon Cleveland is this weekend. I need to get back to Dawn to confirm that the three of us (TJ, Rob and myself) will be staffing. I didn't realize it was THURSDAY already. I thought it was Wednesday. So I'm going to give her a call this afternoon sometime. I called Peter back after he called me and left him a voicemail, but who knows if he ever got it. I picked up a trading card box from the comic store the other day because I was like DERP ART CARDS ARE THE SAME SIZE AS TRADING CARDS DERP so I can put my ATCs in something nice and they won't get ruined. I'm also thinking about maybe getting a few more made (the wallet-sized prints are the same size as well) and jotting my info on the back of them to hand out at the con. Because I hate jotting my info down for people and shit. Plus, they're ATCs and everyone loves those. I was followed a guy that maintains a Middle Eastern recipie website after posting that we found the tasty Mediterranean store yesterday and now I'm getting hungry browing recipies! I made wraps last night with the spicy feta salad, hummus, falafel (that came out pretty good! I'm not good at forming it into patties. I wonder if there's a trick to it?) and chicken on the garden veggie wraps we bought. Oh my god, it was so good. I didn't even season the chicken, just shredded and diced it and all the other flavors totally made up for it. It was so goddamn good. I could eat it all day long. Too bad there's only two wraps left. D: I need to write up what stuff I have leftover from the convention print-wise and such. Get it out of my hair. I think I'm going to keep the art card prints because they're so cute. There will be more, however. But I have a few 8x11 prints of the Beachy Phe pic and some random little prints people might like? I need to laminate the small ones, if there's any sheets left for that. I also need to see about gathering up the fursuit pieces we have lying about and sell those off, too. I've been trying to read through my library books so I can return them and get mooooar. I picked up Comic Book Tattoo which is a bunch of little stories based on Tori Amos songs. I'm not a big Tori fan, but as big as the goddamn thing is, I figured I'd find some good artists and stuff. So far, yeah! And some of the stories are really good, as well. I also got the Gothic & Lolita book so I can both be inspired and laugh my ass off. Might also run up to the plaza to grab some coin wrappers. TJ has amounted something like $30 in change over the last month! I'm probably due for something more to drink, as well.
And now, here's some art I've been meaning to post but I have to fight with the web FTP because Furtopia's FTP still isn't up. 
OT3 badge that didn't get fully finished before/at the convention. But I'd scanned the inks because I did want to digitally color it and make it look fancy. ALSO I FORGOT GINNY'S FRECKLES GODDAMNIT. Anthony only has a goatee because the Stark Gene finally kicked in while he was on vacation in Italy and doing the whole goatee combo looked like butts. So NO. I did everything but the faces on this. Those are Squeeji's fault. :D
( Two more back here... ) | | |
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Today was a nice, calm day. I walked down to the library to drop some books off. Went through Packard park and got some photos. Which can be found on my flickr, since Furtopia's FTP STILL isn't up despite the fact that it should've been on the 5th. Go figure. Stopped at the Mocha House and had myself a chai milkshake and a delicious peanut butter brownie. Read through some of the first Postsecret book. Found a secret inside of it that wigged me out a little because it's been something that's on my mind with this whole college thing. People seem to think going to college means one is growing up and moving on to a career and shit like that. I know that's not actually how it is, but there's that 'society standard' thing that lurks in the back of my brain that sometimes rears its ugly head with dumb shit. I was actually seriously considering making a secret that contained those very words. And, while it's probably not THAT strange of a thing to end up in a book that's shelved in the teen section at the library, it still jumped out at me. Surreal was an understatement, really. While at the Mocha House, TJ texted me to find out where I was because he was getting ready to head out. We ended up meeting at the library and I discovered that Josh runs the Downtown Warren History flickr, which I'd been following for a little while now. I pointed him to my photos of the Packard House and such. I also remembered I have that box of photos my mom got me when she was in the Mission from when Warren had the really bad flood years and years and years ago. I'll have to find them and scan them for him. After the comic store, we ran out to the mall and grabbed some critter food. We also found an amazing Mediterranean store today by the mall. They sell fresh-baked stuff and spices and yums and oh my god fresh hummus and spicy feta salad and GRAPE LEAVES OMG. Taste explosion in my mouf. We bought some falafel mix so I can try making some. Plus some delicious homemade pita bread and feta and stuff. There's really nothing better than fresh made food without all the bullshit preservatives in it. | | |
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