Portrait of the Artist as a Young Geek

Yes, it ended two weeks ago. I've been gathering my thoughts. Or something like that. Anyway!

Saturday was mostly just seeing the sights and hanging out with Allen and Christina. I ducked into a Geneon premiere for some short films that were mildly interesting, and I did a preliminary check of the sales floor, but much of the day was spent getting photos of cosplayers (I'll put them up tomorrow. Probably.) before we left relatively early. I did, however, get a couple compliments on my obligatory geek cred shirt.

Sunday was planned mostly as just the shopping day. I got several Trigun manga from the same booth that sold me the Akira last year (extremely discounted for the same reasons: 4 for $10), the GitS: Stand Alone Complex soundtrack from the official booth (discounted to $12), and for the wallet-breaker, about $160 worth of DVDs for about $130 (20% off across the board for Haibane Renmei, Spirited Away, and Howl's Moving Castle). Also took a long, hard look at the Haruhi DVDs but ultimately passed.

I hadn't even arrived until past 4pm Sunday (missed the Mushishi premiere, grr...) so I'd figured my chances of getting a ticket for the masquerade at 7pm were completely shot, given the effort Allen and I had to make to get in the year before. But as I'm walking around near the line around 6, I see staffers going around saying "remember, you can't get in without a ticket! get your tickets!" Wait, you're still handing out tickets? Turns out they had gotten use of a small arena this year, the largest room in AX history, and yes, they still had seats by the boatload. Sign from God; I was practically on my way out at this point, but I took the ticket, got in line, and was seated in less than 15 minutes. Not great seats -- I was in the balcony area -- but I still had a clear view of both the stage and the screens.

( Elaborations on masquerade (with video!) )

This Saturday was spent at the Orange County Fair with Allen, Christina, and Cindy. I went more for the company than for the activities, but the animal exhibits were enjoyable (and sometimes cute), the glass-blowing demonstration was fun to watch, and the food was surprisingly high-quality (if heavily priced). Also, Allen and Christina purchased a skillfully rendered lake scene... made entirely out of pressed flowers. More of this artists work is on her website gallery (try not to back out to the main site if Java applets annoy you). Although I couldn't afford anything myself, it was all very impressive.

Here's your answer. I didn't have the endurance or the cash to spend all four days there (much less cough up for a hotel room), so I decided to go Monday only, which had the masquerade, less crowds, someone who could transport me, and absolutely nothing else going on that day that could interfere with my ability to attend. Naturally, to try to ruin that last factor, as of Sunday I was still recovering from feeling sick and groggy all the past week, and it wasn't until that evening that I was sure I was feeling well enough to attend the next morning.

( Those without interest in anime won't care about or understand most of this; the rest, read on. )

The entire office went out for a (very early) Christmas celebration today. Big heaping portions of Italian food. Contractors like me did not get paid for time spent at the restaurant, but the food more than covered lost salary.

There was also a drawing of sorts. If you're familiar with white elephant gift exchanges, this was sort of like that, but not quite. Everyone put three slips with their names on them in the bag. First person to get drawn opened a present. Second person could either open another present, or "steal" what the first person got. Third person... and so forth. There were four changes from the standard gift exchange:

1) All presents were purchased by the company CEO, instead of the various participants.
2) The game did not end until the bag was empty; that is, until everyone had been drawn three times.
3) If stolen from, you didn't get to choose another present immediately; you had to wait for your name to get drawn again.
4) Forty people, six presents.

Ah, now you're getting the picture. All six prizes were nothing to sneeze at, but the pick of the litter was an iPod Nano, which for several draws after it was opened could not stay in one person's hands for more than thirty seconds. The next person would get drawn, and they'd immediately claim it, only to have it snatched by the next person after them... Amusing to watch, really. We all started chanting "Nano!" with each draw. (No, there was no alcohol at the table; who needed it?)

But after several minutes of this chaos, it became apparent how pointless it was to chase the Nano if you weren't literally the last person drawn from the bag. Someone would just take it from you, leaving you with nothing. So as each person got their third and final slip drawn, they decided to settle for some of the "lesser" prizes in hopes that they'd actually be able to keep them to the end. (Again, still good stuff, so even those got stolen more than a few times just for variety.)

But I will admit to being lucky... I was drawn fourth from the end and grabbed the iPod Shuffle (yes, two iPods in the game). Third and Second Place both decided they'd rather have something besides a music player anyway, and then the last draw-ee snagged the Nano for good. Which left me still holding the Shuffle when the smoke cleared. Score.

But it's National Procrastination Week, so I'm par for the course.

We arrived late and helped the girls move into their cabin first. It had some shelves, areas to hang clothes, two sinks, toilet, and shower. Then us guys moved into our cabin... know what we had? None of the above. The men got community restroom/showers. In a separate building. Through the snow. Ain't that always the way...

Along with paintballing (in which I'm not sure I actually hit a single person, although I did learn the fine art of crawling under fire), there was something called the Screamer. Which is basically strapping yourself into a harness and stepping off a 40-foot platform. Best way to do this is to close your eyes before jumping and not open them again until you feel the rope go taunt; at least, that's what I did. Anyway, Jerry had his camera handy to record me doing my swan dive, and Daniel recorded Danijela's method, which was to take a step forward on the "plank", scream, repeat steps 1 and 2 until you reach the edge, then scream LOUD as you step off completely.

Broomball tournament! Jerry was quick to sign the guys up as soon as he could: "Santa Clara" was the first team on the list. But if he had been a little slower on the draw, he might have noticed that no one else was actually using their church for their team names; competitors included groups like "Sis Broom Bah", "Hotcakes", and "Old Lady Diaper Rash". We could have easily used "Impact" or "Edge" (the names of our church's college group and evening worship service, respectively) if we had known. As it turned out, another team took "Impact" themselves... and then faced off against us in the first round. So we destroyed them, earning back the title. >:D Too bad we got spanked in the second round. ("Diaper Rash" won the tourney.)

Good praise music at the worship sessions, including one I hadn't heard before: "Undignified", which is a good song for those who forget praise shouldn't be so formal as some make it out to be.

Saw Jeremy (former roommate of my brother, JW), who works at the facility. I pointed him out to everyone who knows my bro; not sure if anyone pumped him for juicy gossip or not.

And the food was surprisingly edible!

Roman army, that is. They needed some more legionnaires for Bethlehem and I was all too happy to volunteer: everyone knows the Romans are the real stars of the show. :D In fact, over the course of the show we picked up more and more "recruits", to the point that we ran out of uniforms on the last day. At which point Tim, who was the smallest and least impressive of out number at a mere 5'8", was "fired" to let the taller troops have their time in the spotlight. ^^;

Romans are largely present to provide crowd control -- making sure that Mary, Joseph, and the donkey (and later, the wise men and their procession) have a clear path through the audience so that no one gets kicked. Of course, we're also a great photo op. Larry, at over 7 feet, got the most requests when he was present, but the rest of us had our chances as well. (The proper answer to "Can we take your picture?" is "Depends. Have you paid your taxes?") We also got to harass a lot of people at random, which they enjoyed way more than they should have.

We didn't get our usual camel this year. Instead, we got stuck with Roxie, who's younger, smaller, and (at least for the first three nights, before she warmed up to the crowds) more ornery. Riding her was out of the question from the start, and we quickly learned that we couldn't put her at the front of the procession either: the crowds were parting fast enough for the sentient members of the procession, who could walk a straight line, but not a camel who liked to turn sideways to see what was going on behind her. So we stuck her in the rear of the pack, where she had more room to manuever (and where there was less to see behind her anyway).

Script tweaks since last year:
- Last year, when I was playing a shepherd, the guards halted us when we tried to enter the city and we had to plead our way past and promise not to make trouble. This year, when I could have been giving it out instead of taking it, that scene was cut. Figures.
- Those who remember last year's commentary may be amused to know that during the exchange between Reuben and his wife, after "if I were with child, would you be putting ME in a stable?" Reuben now pauses for a moment to think about it. Sadly, it rarely got a reaction from the crowd, maybe because most of them couldn't see his face.
- The big change: while Mary and Joseph are looking for a place to stay, the wise men and their entourage are breaking camp on the other side of the church, in preparation to enter the city. The entourage even does a bit of a dance number. This unfortunately means that when they DO approach the city, they've got a large crowd of people who were watching that part of the show following them. Which means more work for us guards.

Had a brief scare on the last day when our commanding officer didn't show until the last minute. He's got a speech to deliver from a balcony to all the "provincials" in the audience, so we couldn't just start without him. There was a bit of a debate among the troops about who would deliver the speech if he didn't make it at all, and at one point we briefly debated the idea of having all 14 of us crowd the balcony and deliver it in unison. (No, not seriously.)

David White was the most obnoxious of the troops and gleefully so. He was telling anyone who asked that Roxie was actually two guys in a camel suit (some people actually bought it!), and when he wasn't doing anything important, he drew his (plastic) sword and used it to pick his nails or teeth. I think he was also the one to suggest that for the last performance, we go out with a bang by storming the stable and killing them all. I preferred the idea of marching in to, instead of one of the usual marching chants, "Men in Tights".

Anyway, record attendance. Last year we were a couple hundred people under our goal of 10,000 people over the five nights. This year: 14 thousand and change.

( CMZero: In Wheaton! )

Speaking of the flu, feeling better but still tired (which explains the delay in this post). Sleeping now, talk tomorrow.

Got back from the East Coast and our family trip to see Navy play Army on the gridiron, among other things. Time for a "how I spent my summer vacation" entry.

( A little history, first, just 'cause... )

( On to Annapolis! )

But enough about all that! The real reason my parents and I forged our way eastward was, of course, to see Andrew march out with the American flag on national TV. And there was that little football game afterward, while we were there... ( Read on... )

Anyway, 34-6 Navy. Go team. We flew back Sunday after celebrating and slept for half a day.

Campuswide Honors Program Banquet was last night. Graduating seniors eat free, so you'd better believe I was there. :D ( Commencing boring stuff no one wants to hear :p )

No, I didn't actually graduate this year. (Too many classes I wanted to take, so I'm going for an extra year.) But enough of my friends got out in four that I attended a couple ceremonies yesterday to congratulate them (okay, and nab some food at the receptions afterwards).

They had the usual goof-offs and entertainers walking across the stage. Especially when they called up the drama department, of course. (Graduating members of the local improv group, Live Nude People With Clothes On, all gathered at the far end of the stage and struck dramatic poses before leaving as one.) Also plenty of signs and messages written on the mortarboards ("Hire Me," "Hi Mom!", etc.)

During the CompSci/PhysSci section, the seated grads started bouncing around beach balls. Two stick-in-the-mud ushers decided this was Improper Behavior and started confiscating them as they bounced into reach. This led to some impromptu entertainment as the grads played keep-away with the last beach ball (to the cheers of the crowd).

I do expect to get out next year, so this was also good advance recon, so to speak. Namely, I've got an entire year to plan my mortarboard message. ^^