Clearly, I need a tattoo of Hobbes dressed as Indiana Jones, with a triforce, a heart container, and the Neverending Story Auryn hanging off his belt.
Amirite?
Protected: I needs your help!
•August 25, 2010 • Enter your password to view comments.Protected: Curious as to how I came to my perspective on gender issues?
•August 24, 2010 • Enter your password to view comments.Constructacon 2010: An exercise in awesomeness
•August 23, 2010 • 11 CommentsSo, what a weekend, eh? So crazy, I need a week to recover before I could post about it!
Construct-a-con (or Construct) is a relaxacon that has gone swimmingly for its second year, with around 50 or 60 people attending over the weekend. The point, see, is that it’s a con that more or less plans itself, attendees making whatever events they want to see.
The hotel was really great. The staff largely left us to our devices, and the layout was great. The pool was right in the middle, and all of the inner rooms let you see out on the main area. Not great for a night alone, but awesome for a convention.
One thing I’d like to see in future years is a few more open doors – it’s so easy to get to the various rooms, it would be fun to be able to flit about a bit off the main area. For the hour or so we had the door open, while we were preparing Family Feud, we had lots of people stop by for a visit!
Friday, James and Jer went to Del Taco and bought 100 tacos for 39 cents each.
At first, getting a taco after registering was a blessing. Eventually, it became the Evil Box o’ Tacos that only the mighty could survive.
Seriously, I think the only thing that saved my digestive system was that I killed off the bacteria with their hot sauce.
The first night, someone drank enough to regret it, and we gave her hell when she got back from the ER after being pumped fulla fluid. A few other people got a little reckless (like the Nigh-Deadly Orange Attack of 2010), but as far as cons go, it was largely drama-free.
I suppose slightly less painful was the coffee made with Monster. James nearly died, Jer almost threw up twice… but Dave was completely unfazed. And he doesn’t like either beverage. That coffeemaker is a biohazard now, I’m sure.
The woodchuck lasted until 1 am Saturday, and the Poet beer went for some time beyond that, and that sounds pretty much perfect to me.
Lucy and I plotted two events for construct, as I’ve mentioned here – Family Feud and the Cupcake decorating contest. They were both her ideas, but I jumped on FF, and with a poll of 37 responses, we had enough to be “statistical”. It was clear from the responses that it was largely an older female crowd who actually answered the poll – half the fun was hearing the teams protest over why “Name a Sci-Fi Movie” had Dune but no Star Trek, and shouting back “YOU SHOULD HAVE VOTED!” Hehe.
Lucy and I will definitely do this event again, it was so fun. Next time, we’ll take a lot longer, I’ll really push people for poll results (maybe we can get 100 answers!), and I won’t give the losing team FlarpTM. Awards were given courtesy of AASFA, who gave us cash money to buy prizes!
There were dozens of amazing cupcake designs – we bought vanilla frosting and dye, and people made wonderful colors and shapes. And some creepy shapes, too. Lucy lost her footing when she tried to stomp a slippery monkey cupcake, but no one was hurt, ‘cept that damned monkey.
The winning design was by K.T., and it was a beautiful field with a rainbow on top that said LOVE. She made 3 different colors of icing for it. Sweeeeet ;).
Our (retroactive) Con Chair is chosen Saturday night based on who brought the most fun to Construct, and this year Lucy and I were co-Con Chairs! How cool is that? No one took photos of the Feud, we were too busy havin’ fun!
Also, there was an awesome game of Geek Charades going on upstairs, I hear. Some prescient BS, Nuri was guessing them before people were drawing or something.
Also, there were giant paper airplanes gliding through the airspace above the pool, and a game of LARP chess, which involves movement upgrades and crowns on the ground and and destruction. Rock Band was played at all hours, and there were meals enough for everyone – I never popped into the Con Suite and found myself without anything to snack on!
While I was there, I learned Dominion from Matt and I played a few games of Magic with Nuri and James. It had been six years or so since my last game, it was kinda exciting to break out the old kits. Even so, let me tell you – the arms race is REAL. Fighting a newish pre-built Elf deck with 12-year-old cards is tough.
Thanks to everyone who came and made it such an awesome time, especially Nuri and James who flew in from far away, Marie who broke her con virginity with us (hot), and Jer, Randy and Melanie, who ponied up the cash to take it from a lark of an idea 3 years ago amongst a small group of friends to reality.
Construct Family Feud:
James mixes an alka seltzer with an energy drink in his mouth in the Con Suite:
Giant Paper Airplanes off the 3rd floor:
The website: Constructacon.org
The twitter hashtag: #constructacon
Photos from this year: Construct 2010
I kiss you on the brain in the shadow of the train,
I kiss you all starry eyed,
My body swings from side to side,
I don’t see what anyone can see,
In anyone else,
But you
… PS Jer, this is for everything you’ve ever done for us. And to us.
Construct-a-con 2010 Family Feud!
•August 17, 2010 • Comments Off on Construct-a-con 2010 Family Feud!Check out part 2, too (in HD at youtube.com)!
Construct Family Feud needs your help!
•August 9, 2010 • 3 CommentsHi folks, please excuse the cross-posting between the local mailing lists and LiveJournal, but this will only work with as -many- fen as possible answering our questions! Friends, if you can direct other people here, please do!
This survey is open to anyone who frequents Michigan conventions, and if you come to Construct this weekend, you’ll see the answers during Construct Family Feud! I’ll tabulate answers on Thursday of this week.
http://community.livejournal.com/constructacon/13505.html
EDIT: Screening this post ’cause sometimes people paste it here ;)
So you say, “I’m not so sure about this Maker Faire thing”
•July 30, 2010 • 1 CommentTo which I say, have you seen a go-kart shaped like a Twinkie that fires baked goods before?
And you squinch up your nose, to which I say, have you ever wanted to create your own 3d animation effects like Golem? Matt will show you how.
And I pile on by saying “tonight I had hard cider brats cooked over wood, a cherry crumble, and had access to a ceasar salad, corn on the cob with seasoned salts (like curry, bbq, or garlic), and during the show you can have tandoori chicken and other incredibly tasty and non faire-like foods.
You drool a little, but stand resolute. I say, “it comes with admission to Henry Ford Museum.” You admit that you haven’t been there in awhile. I tell you that I will be using liquid nitrogen to do crazy experiments with balloons, food and computer equipment, and there is a huge craft area with amazing baubles, a learn-to-solder center where kids and adults can be safely taught to make electronics, and I top it off by telling you there is a LIFE SIZE MOUSE TRAP game wherein THEY CRUSH AN ASTRO VAN WITH A SAFE (I should know, I just saw it!) and your head explodes with delight and you agree that you will be there, by hook or by crook.
That’s how this works! See you there. :)
Maker Faire! Liquid Nitrogen Ice Cream! Penguicon! Be there!
•July 30, 2010 • 3 CommentsOnsite Tickets
Tickets can be purchased onsite
Adult (13 – 61) $50.00/WKND $28.00/DAY
Youth (5 – 12) $35.00/WKND $19.00/DAY
Seniors (62+) $46.50/WKND $26.00/DAY
Kids (4 and under) Free Free
I will be there from beginning to end, and will probably be at the i3Detroit afterparty as well.
See you there!
My morning was a vacuum salesman’s wet dream.
•July 30, 2010 • 3 CommentsI got up early to make breakfast for us this morning (anniversary, by the way!). Lucy, on the other hand, had to rush out the door with the nice new vacuum – after work, she has to clean up her old apartment. Yes, we had to pay two months of extra rent, isn’t that fun?
Anyway, literally as I hear the door snap shut, something falls from atop the fridge.
Any of the castle folk remember that dessert I made with the “sprinkles” (aka super-large nonpareils) that were a little too crunchy?
Yeah, on a linoleum floor they’re kinda like caltrops. Thank god I didn’t do the Wil-E-Coyote shuffle atop them.
All I had left was a $20 bissell from my bachelor days, which is more like a broom than a vacuum. Hey, it works if you lift it up and place it right atop your mess! That won’t be frustrating at ALL with a mess made up of a bunch of tiny balls!
Maker Faire, Liquid Nitrogen, and shenanigans
•July 26, 2010 • 2 CommentsHey all! You’re going to the Maker Faire at Henry Ford Museum, this weekend, right? I will be producing Liquid Nitrogen Ice Cream with Jer and a select crew of elite volunteers. We need a few more people to take a 5 hour shift (Either Jer or I will always be there) to help out, play around, etc under the big tent. Free admission can’t be beat!
Contact myself or Jer; this is going to be a ridiculous amount of fun!