Post-Calgary Comic and Entertainment Expo update

The CCEE was awesome! I absolutely loved volunteering there. It was nice helping people to have a good time. Not only that, but I saw a lot of my old friends... friends I hadn't seen in years! The CCEE had brought me together with many new and old people.

Me hard at work helping people, lol. My friend Dustin
and his GF Lorraine in the background.

There were a few hiccups with the Expo. We projected high attendance (especially because of the huge names) but nothing like we had received that weekend. It got to the point where admissions couldn't let anyone else into the Expo because they had met (exceeded?) fire code capacity. Because of that, we had a few panicked exhibitors because they couldn't get their help inside of the Expo, and I had a lot of disgruntled friends on Twitter tweeting about long waits and how the Expo sucked. Interestingly, once they got in, their tune completely changed and they loved the Expo.

I found that kind of funny.

It was definitely a learning experience for all of the organizers. I think what this taught us is that geek culture is a lot more popular than we had all imagined. I learned that not from the backed up lines but from the many costumes worn by people of all walks of life, big and small, old and young, male and female. It really made me happy, deep down.

I volunteered both Friday and Saturday, and tried to keep Sunday open to explore the Expo myself. Sometimes life isn't that easy... I ended up coming down with a cold on Saturday night, and decided to sleep in and give myself some time to recover. It was a bummer because I really did want to see some of the panels and meet some people, but that's okay. I got to look around. I didn't even do any shopping, except for a replacement game for my cousin.

I did, however, get to see a lot of wicked costumes from my nice vantage point at the info booth. Here are some of the pictures!

My friend Devon and I. Devon made his own costume: a warrior from the Companions in Skyrim.

Me and Gir! This kid was sooo cute... he would have preferred
to drink his drink than get pictures with me, haha.

Quistis, (Drunk) Squall and I from FF8, in their SeeD outfits!

My friend Brennan as Gordon Freeman from Half Life. <3

My friend Luke and I... Though I can't remember for the life
of me where his costume is from! But he made it too!

My friend Dara in her Demon Hunter costume that she made from
scratch. She won Best Costume in her category! <3

Not only that, but my Chain Chomp earrings were a HUGE success! They turned out incredibly well. To be honest, I was pretty impressed with myself.

Elspeth. <3

Next year, Club N3rd and I are planning to do a group cosplay. 2013 is Year of the Plainswalkers, and I'll be making a Elspeth Tirel costume. I want to get started right away, too, so that there are no hiccups come Expo time.

The hardest part about cosplay, I'm learning, is it's so hard to just choose one costume and run with it... Bleh! I started playing Final Fantasy 13-2 shortly after my Winter semester ended and I am in love with Lightning's new outfit! She's another potential costume. So let's see... that makes:
- Terra Branford from FF6
- Dark Phoenix from MvC3/X-men
- Elspeth Tirel from Magic: The Gathering, and
- Lightning from FF13-2

... @.@

Anyway, that's enough of an update for now. Take care everyone!

Exciting news!

Hey everyone! I'm sorry I've been so quiet lately. I had a ton of papers to write, tests and quizzes to finish, yadda yadda. I just have finals to do now and I decided a breath of fresh air was in order.

*Breathes... and smiles*

So how have you all been? ^^;

Anyway, I guess I should explain my blog post title.

A couple weeks ago, I had my very first craft sale at my school! It went really well, actually. I was only there for a couple of hours between classes. I had a lot of people come to visit me, which was kind of nice! I also made a few sales and passed out business cards. I had nothing to lose by setting up shop for those couple of hours. So... I had a lot of fun and I have to do that more often!

My little booth!

I have been slowly pecking away at commissions that people have been giving me, too. I tell you... I can't WAIT to have more time to do more. Here's a few of the things I've been doing:

A French french toast charm for a friend of mine.

A pin made out of clay and handpainted with a logo from
the Nintendo DS videogame "The World Ends With You."

I love doing commissions because they're so unique and they're often things I would never think of. I guess what I'm trying to say is... I need people to request more things from me... ;P

Also, as I had explained earlier, my perfect first cosplay took a back seat when everything kind of .. didn't work out. I still wanted to be a part of the CCEE in some way, so I decided to sign up to be a volunteer for both the CCEE and a booth for my club, Club N3rd. The awesome part is that I know a few people who have serious connections with the convention, so it took very little effort for me to get my foot in the door (one text message, actually).

SO! I'm excited about that. I'll be getting my geek on in a couple weeks. Maybe not in the way I would have liked originally... but there's always next time!

For now, that's all I wanted to update you on. I have some exams to study for (just 5). So if anything else cool pops up, I'll update you! For now... back to being busy!

Pokemon Black: First Impressions

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Pokemon Black and White launched last Sunday, March 6th, and-- as I'm still an elementary school kid at heart-- I picked up a copy of Black. Black and White are completely new Pokemon games, which is where most of the appeal came from to me. I was curious about the new Pokemon, despite seeing the starters and wondering where the inspiration came from to mesh a pig and rabbit together (Tepig) or to make another grass-type lizard starter. Based on the latter, I was also wondering if the Pokemon franchise had anything left. Honestly, how many other Pokemon could you get when you aren't introducing more "types"? And what about naming them? Can the writers of Pokemon really come to surprise us again with this latest installment?

Needless to say, I was more than skeptical. And in ways, I still am.

I only really have time to play Pokemon in a vehicle of some sort (sorry Wheel of Time series... you've been put on the back burner), so I'm about 8 hours in. A huge part of my subconsciousness is reminding me that I'm a 24-year old playing a children's game. I ignore the voice and press on with the game. It starts as all Pokemon games start: the hero(ine) is in his/her bedroom, and the Professor of this town wants him/her to go to the Professor's lab to talk about some exciting news. Happens again here, except now you have a couple of friends along for the ride (no prominent rival as of yet). You each get a starter Pokemon-- great. You each embark on your journey-- awesome. Like every single Pokemon adventure game to date for the Nintendo hand held systems, you're doing the exact same thing: filling up a Pokedex and traveling to eventually beat the Elite Four (I don't count the Ranger games because they're just silly). A huge part of me was hoping it would be different, but why change a good thing? Nintendo was right in their decision not to stray from the beaten path. They did that with Pokemon Ranger and failed. Terribly.

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So, because I spent $40 on the game, I felt obligated to actually try to have fun. The Pokemon I'm encountering aren't imaginative in the least. You have your typical dog, cat, bird, and Bidoof-esque Pokemon that you'll only use as a HM whore later (*Cough*Patrat*Cough*). I'm not impressed... in fact, I'm regretting my purchase more and more.

I get to the first gym, which looks as though it promises some challenge. Depending on your starter, the gym leader will use the opposite, stronger type. Awesome! ...except that you can get a Pokemon that happens to be stronger than the gym leader's Pokemon from some random guy in the Dreamyard. How convenient. So the player lazes through the first gym. Enter the second gym. Oh-- right-- there's a guy who happens to be in every gym to help the hero(ine) with tips on beating the gym leaders. While this happens in every Pokemon game, it's different in Black and White. This adviser not only tells you the leader's weakness, but where exactly to find the Pokemon needed to wipe the floor with the leader's Pokemon. ........Really?!

The voice in the back of my head reminds me again that I'm playing a children's game. Right. So... they dumbed down Pokemon because it's a children's game. For the record, I didn't even use one of the strong, Fighting-type Pokemon suggested by the adviser dude. I whooped Lenora with my Pidove and Patrat, two Pokemon that were at the same level and of the same type as her two Pokemon. *Sigh*

At this point, I had lost pretty much all hope in the game until I started to notice the finer details. The Pokemon in battle are actually animated this time around. One really neat feature in the these latest games is that if you take too long to decide on a move, the screen (set in the point of view of the Trainer) starts to wander. The Pokemon will also wander around in the anticipation of it all. As well, I noticed last night that when an opposing Pokemon gets put to sleep, the eyes close.

I also found it convenient that they just put everything into the Pokemon Center.

The wifi and infrared connections are also nice. This game, like HeartGold and SoulSilver, has IR capabilities. It's a quick and easy way to register friends into your Pal Pad. They also have little things you and friends can do together over the wifi/IR connections-- such as this compatibility test-- which will result in in-game goodies at the end of it. The Xtransceiver tool is also neat. People with a camera and microphone can use it as a cheap Skype-type tool. It will split the top screen for the camera images!

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I also read that you can customize the C Gear screen by downloading various backgrounds and themes. I will have to try that when I have more time.

Maybe not worth $40, but the finer details are still pretty neat.

The only concern I have about the wifi connection in the game ("C Gear") is that it will drain your battery like nobody's business if it's left on. It's easy enough to turn on and off, but even when you close your DS, it continues to run, so one has to be vigilant about the use of the wireless.

As I haven't had much time to play it, I can't say much else yet. I will continue to play it, as I am a devoted Pokemon nerd, but I am really hoping it gets better. I would hate to put it down after 20 hours and never pick it up again. But I suppose that's the nature of a Pokemon game.

(Have you bought Pokemon Black or White? What are some of your first impressions?)

PS: Friend code = 0389 8112 3742