Monday, March 30, 2009

ImagiCon -- where the hell was everybody?

So, ya... ImagiCon was this past weekend. It was technically a first time con, though it pretty much grew up from the ashes of OmegaCon. And, like... no one came. Seriously, I'm having a hard time giving any actual opinion on how well prepaired the con was, or how much fun they had lined up for anybody, because no one showed up. Like, at all. I mean, OK, a few people did. I forgot my real camera at home, and was reduced to just phonecam pics. In the end I didn't even really care.

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She was the coolest girl at the con, because when the fuckaweful redneck shitmetal band wouldn't stop at the end of their set (they'd already run off 2/3 of the remaining people) she went and got security on them. I don't think she'd have done that if they hadn't told her to fuck herself when she asked nicely.

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But it was like all night and day there were enough folks for a kick-ass block party, wandering around the BJCC wondering where everyone else was. If they'd all been in one room it would have been a party, but all spread out like that it just felt like a ghost town.

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They did have one really cool thing going on that I've not seen before. They had little sets placed around the con, little back drops for picture taking. This is one of them:
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They had folks in costume scheduled to be at each station most of the day, sort of like getting your picture made with Micky Mouse at Disneyland. Or you could use the backdrops for pics of anyone in costume. Either way, they'd have made for much better pictures than the wall of some hotel. If there had been anyone there to use them. They had about 4 of the set up: this one, a mad scientist space station sort of thing; and also a castle/dungeon, and a small jungle full of Face Huggers. Cool, cool idea that I hope to see again at a more generally interesting convention.

These are the last of my pics.
Now, I'm not going to identify these girls, because I don't want to single them out for another critical comment.
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I've seen a good few of these new-school burlesque acts that have been popping up of late. I'm all on board with how its not just stripping. That said, if you're gonna take out the nipple factor, the skill level MUST come up to fill the gap, and in most cases, that's just not happening.

Girls, you can't just wear your bra, slap on some fake blood, wiggle a bit on stage, and call it burlesque. There really needs to be some practice and shit, ya know?

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All that said, their teacher did have some moves and actually knew how to belly dance.
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OK, this is the point where I want to insert a rant about how lame the scene is in Birmingham, how ever scene in this town (geek, punk, goth, hippy, raver, gamer, you name it) is self-defeating by assuming all things will be as lame as the last thing everyone assumed would suck, and about how the only way these scenes linger in their comatose halfdead state is by eating their young. But ImagiCon, I shit you not, wasn't even good enough to bitch about. I'd feel like I was getting all worked up calling a dead man lazy.

Snow Day!

Somehow, this never got posted, and just sat at "Edit." Oh well. Here it is.

About a month ago, we got an unseasonal snow. Actually, just about any snow is unseasonable for Alabama, so when you get it you play with it. This snow lasted all of like 8 or 10 hours, so there wasn't much time to plan or get anything really put together -- just grab some toys and a camera and get out to play before it all melts!

Checking the action on the new rifle:
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Looks good!
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Here you see Artemiss, taking advantage of the unexpected freeze and the opportunities it offers the modern zombie hunter. The undead freeze up solid, you konw.


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...and the hunter stalks her prey, trusty rifle in hand.
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Custom optics make hunting the undead a more practicable endeavour. Finding her target frozen in the snow, Artemiss takes aim....

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...and celebrates another successful hunt.

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I also wanted to get all barbarian and play with a sword in the snow. How very Conan. I claim a family heritage exemption on all this stupidity.

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By the Power of Grey Skull!

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Junk Shoppin'!


So we've been hitting pretty much every Thrift store, garage sale, junk shop, and scrap pile we can find lately. For the most part, there's not much to blog about in the "we went antiquing again," category, at least not for a Red Blooded American Man like myself. But there have been a few little gems. For one, I can tell you now that Huntsville is an undiscovered SteamPunk gold mine. Makes sense, all those old NASA sub-contractors, staffed by retiring former rocket scientists who never could throw away a box of old vaccuum tubes... But enough of that! I don't want our secret stash getting out just yet.

No, mostly I'm making this post just as an excuse to post these two old phone cam pics. I found these at an antique store -- seriously, not making this up -- two doors down from my local game shop. They are never open when I'm over there, so I never went in. Well, turns out its about the manlyiest antique shop I've ever seen. Like, old coppies of PlayBoy stuck in between old rusty syths and old steel Coka Cola vending machines, good condition 1950's cap guns right next to giant gold clocks. Fancy stuff. These two sort of sum up the best, at least in my eyes. The picture above is a 1940's battery tester, held over what I think is some kind of circuit tester, also 1940s vintage. The battery tester feels like a piece of farming equipment, with that heavy old wooden handle and big steel teeth. It feels like it still works.... daddy want!

Here's the other noteworthy item:
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Its about 250 pounds of beautiful, functional, polished brass manufactured in 1904 by the National Cash Register company, later to be known as NCR. This is the company who made my first computers in the 1980s, where my father worked as a tech and salesman after he got out of the Navy, where my grandfather was a MainFrame tech back when he got out of the Navy. I grew up going to company picnics in the company's sprawling private park in down town Dayton, Ohio as a kid.

And these folks, right next to my FLGS, have a working 1904 Nation register. If I had $350 burning a hole in my pocket... (well, OK, I'd probably buy a gun, but still!)