FAQ: Just When I Have the Answers, They Change the Questions

I was originally going to make a video for this, but after realizing everything I kept forgetting to say after a couple takes and needing to sleep for my midnight shift at my second job, I decided to just make a blog about it.  Basically, I'm going to address a few things that I've either been asked recently, or have been asked repeatedly.

That kind of feeling.

#1. "Why aren't you on TGWTG?"

It doesn't happen that often, but every time I see someone ask this I get the urge to wave my hands frantically in front of me and babble incoherently about why I should never be there like a cartoon character.  The answer to this is pretty simple, though, and it goes something like this:

-I haven't made any attempt to apply as a contributor, nor plan to because

-They aren't accepting anyone for talent pick-up, nor have they for quite some time, and

-Part of being a contributor to the site is the ability to submit content on a regular basis, e.g. one article/video/podcast/whatever every two weeks.  Considering I first hinted at the next part of the Bloody Roar 3 Retrospective more than five months ago and have since failed to meet a personal deadline for it, I wouldn't last very long there.  Oh, and

-I'm not that good.  Then again, neither is Bennett the Sage.

You heard me.

#2. "You made fun of my fanfiction in that one video.  Please take it down."

This is a specific request that was posted after I put up all the video segments from the Bloody Roar Marathon.  The author of Blue Moon (Is that what it was called?  I can't remember.) said it was made for a friend and that they'd appreciate if I took it down.

Not to get into semantics, but I wasn't the one who made fun of it.  Blondeguygamer was.  I just quietly raged about the content of it and how wrong most of it was.

There are many reasons that I haven't taken down that video or edited the fanfiction portion out of it, which include the following.  For one, that would be a bit unfair to Blondeguygamer, who took the time to script out, film, and edit the video he contributed.  Second, I was and still am utterly baffled by the fancition itself: the misportrayed characters, the botched backstories, etc.  

Third, I have no sympathy for people who get upset when something they posted on the Internet, publicly, where anyone who might love it or hate it can see it, gets made fun of.  The author said this was written for a friend, in which case there were so many other ways this could have been handled.  Print it out and give it to them.  Put it on a disc or flash drive and give it to them.  Post it somewhere that has privacy settings or will otherwise only make it viewable to specific people.  E-mail it to them, either as an attachment or just in the body of the message.  There are tons of other options!

And to compound that point, instead of sending me a private message about it, the author requested this and said they wrote that fanfic in my public channel comments, which anyone and everyone has access to.  

Is she eating the laptop or vice versa?

However, the biggest sticking point here is that I've done the same damn thing.  I have my own terrible fanfiction on the Internet where anyone can/has see(n) it.  I knew the risks then and I still do now, which is why some of them have been up for over four years, and some that have been up for almost ten years.  I leave them up and don't get upset about the criticism they get because I can look back and acknowledge their shortcomings, and use that to mature as a writer.  It's the same reason I leave almost all of my crappy videos up on my YouTube channel (Shenmue, THPS3, the list goes on).

There are also certain things that prevent me, a citizen of the Internet for over a decade and YouTube for over 6 years, from showing sympathy.  Such things include having a username with "emo" and/or a number higher than 100 in it, listing "ghetto high" under School, listing Paramore AND Panic at the Disco under Music, and a complete and utter disregard for the English language.  

In summation, no.

#3. "Where is <insert video here>?"

I hear this a lot, particularly for 5 Dollar Gaming.  I'm going to try and explain this as thoroughly as possible so that, hopefully, I'll stop getting this as often.

The original plan, which is still the current plan, was to release videos in the following pattern:

Bloody Roar Retrospective --> 5 Dollar Gaming --> BRR --> SC On... --> BRR --> 5DG --> and so on.

Looking back at the release order of these particular videos shows this pattern.  That being said, I've been stuck on the "BRR" part, specifically Bloody Roar 3, for quite some time now.  Since starting the retrospective and 5 Dollar Gaming a lot has changed for me.  I've moved to a new place (still haven't finished unpacking yet) and don't have the PS2 set up yet.  I've been having issues with my capture equipment and may need to replace it entirely, which is why I haven't streamed or recorded any console games for awhile.  I've taken on a second job which includes a midnight to 8am shift, which I'm typing this part of the blog from right now.  I'm still in college and have switched majors to Japanese which, while I enjoy it a lot more than Journalism, moves at breakneck speed from lesson to lesson and requires (for me at least) a lot more time to devote to studying.

Also, there's that convention I staff which is coming up in March--A&G OHIO A&G OHIO A&G OHIO--for which I again will be stepping in the wrestling ring.  I won't say as who, but I will post this picture to completely give it away and make the beginning of this sentence utterly pointless.

IN AMERI-whatever.

#4. "<Generic 'Get More Subscribers' Message>"

<Generic 'Fuck Off' Message>

#5. "Can You Do X-Men Legends 2?"

Sorry, but no.  I liked the game, I played through the game, but that was a long time ago and I've since forgotten everything about it.  Maybe some time in the future, but right now I have no desire to go through another 99-part odyssey.

#6. Actual comment on one of the X-Men Legends videos: "wat game is this"

... I quit.

SC On Stonekeep: Bones of the Ancestors (Wiiware)

More like Defiling the Ancestors.

Even considering that this is a Wiiware game, it should not be inferior in almost every way to its predecessor.  I don't think it's unreasonable to ask that a game released in 2012 be better in some way to the game it's based off which was released about 17 years ago.

17 years!  And not only did you not improve anything, you made it WORSE!  Everything--controls, gameplay, graphics (debatable), story, design, the list goes on--is a step down.  No wonder this shit only costs 500 Wii Points; it's a goddamn trap!

 I am fully aware of how this sounds so far.

I'm not just pissed, I'm fanboy pissed.  

I played the original Stonekeep when I was a kid, a game that came in a big tombstone-shaped box and had what were, at the time, pretty solid FMVs (albeit with really obvious green screens), but the dungeon-crawling, atmosphere, and allies fought with along the way progressed the story and game well enough to become a game that's memorable to a decent amount of people nearly two decades after its release.

I would know.  I saw one of their rage-filled, 1-out-of-10 reviews as I was looking up images for this blog post.

Then this game came along from the same publisher (Interplay) as well as Alpine Studios, who proudly boast on their website that they're working on new PS2 and GameCube titles and list their newest release as a Windows 98-compatible Bible trivia game, and licensed by Bear Naked Productions Games, the same people who brought you Dance Sensation for the Wii.

This is it.  The lowest of low standards.  Trying to visit the sites for Alpine or BNP brings up webpages I swear I made on Geocities in the late-90s.

 I really liked wolves.  And using every color possible.

But wait, we haven't gotten to the game yet!  For those who need a refresher, this is the intro to the original Stonekeep:

Oh, that robed figure that saved the protagonist?

Never explained who that is.

Compare that to the WiiWare game's ungodly epic... uh... wall of text.  This is word-for-word what it said:

You have entered Stonekeep, the home of your ancestors.  You are now in the dungeons.

An evil force has entered the keep and driven out most of the former residents.

Only a true descendent of the clans can solve the mystery of Stonekeep and give the restless souls of the dead peace at last.

To survive your journey you must pick an ally to guide your path.

Choose a door to pick your ally and begin your quest.

Everybody got that?  Now here's what's wrong with this. 

#1. What dungeon?  The only thing close to a dungeon in Stonekeep from the first game was the sewer.  Unless you're talking about the various places BELOW Stonekeep, which, you know, aren't Stonekeep. 

#2.  How did we get to the dungeon?  Did we just waltz through the other parts of Stonekeep before this point?

#3. What evil force?  Is it the Shadow King from the first game Khull Khuum? (Spoiler: ha, no)

#4. "Driven out most of the former residents?"  That sounds about as threatening as a cranky 70-year old landlord.  This evil force can't get rid of and/or kill everyone/anyone?

#5. What clans? 

#6.  Souls of the dead?  I thought the resident were "driven out."  This becomes even more unclear later on.

#7. Pick an ally?  Why just one?  In the original Stonekeep up to three other people could tag along.  This becomes even more appalling later on.

#8. This plot is go generic and nondescript that I can summarize it in two sentences without leaving out any major details: Evil is attacking your home.  Find a random person to help you do something about it.

So now it's time to actually play the game and, instead of taking the role of a particular character like Drake in the original, Bones of the Ancestors offers two generic-looking character models with their only significant differences being name and gender.  One is named Marcus, the other is named Sheena.  Which one do you think I picked?

What were you expecting, a Gears of War reference?

Now the journey begins with standing in a room with three doors, each leading to a different ally.  Before I could even do this, though, I was instantly baffled by the design of the game itself.  For one, the interface is horrible.  The bottom quarter of the screen is blocked by a massive gray slab with a huge compass wedged in the middle, which is useless thanks to the map function.  On either side are a red and blue canteen-like thing which are supposed to display health and mana.  Had I not accidentally looked down by tilting the Wiimote and nunchuk forward (...) I wouldn't have known my character had a sword in her hand.

Even worse were the controls.  It's strange to say this about a game released so many years after the Wii launched, but this is easily the worst-controlling Wii game I've ever played (yes, worse than Escape from Bug Island), largely because it's awful on both possible fronts.  Not only is the responsiveness of the controls sluggish or at times nonexistent, but the control scheme itself is like something thought up by a seven-year old.  Or a bunch of forty-year old men who are trying way too hard to seem edgy.

Want examples?  Oh don't worry, there are plenty of bullets left in this magazine.

 Hold on, this is way too good for this game.

That's better.

The simple act of moving is a chore, with every turn feeling less like a person walking down a hallway and more like driving an 18-wheeler through a slalom course.  Oh, quick turns aren't like that, though.  Quick turns are in fact so quick that there is no animation for them; your character goes from facing one direction to another in a single frame.

But let's say you want to attack something.  Good for you!  You might try doing the obvious thing and swing the Wiimote to absolutely no effect, as well as hitting every button to no avail (except for discovering jumping and the map).  What you have to do is hold A, swing the Wiimote up, then release A while bringing it down, or doing the same thing from side to side.  This causes an attack that's delayed by almost half-a-second and, sometimes, will glitch on the upswing and not complete its animation, resulting in no attack at all and likely getting you hit by whatever is attacking you.

Spells are even worse.  Each spell involves some combination of holding a D-pad button, aiming it up, down, or at the screen, and performing some kind of motion.  Some require aiming at the screen and doing a "rainbow" motion.  Others require aiming at the floor and making a clockwise circle.  Throwing objects require holding B and either slinging the Wiimote, making a lasso, or doing some other movements which register about 60% of the time.

And I'm rambling now so here's a picture to break up the monotony.

Guess why I chose this one?

But what about choosing an ally you say?  Well, you open one of three doors, walk up to them, and teleport to somewhere else entirely, which still looks like the same old generic dark dungeon.  The thing is, you're actually choosing an ally the moment you open a door, so if you can't see the small, crudely-drawn picture on the door showing which ally it is, you're stuck with whichever door you accidentally open first.

Then the game becomes outright insulting to my intelligence:

I know where the A button is, thanks.

After that the ally says you have to strike him/her five times before he/she can strike you once.  After getting hit about eight times I hit five non-consecutive slashes and completed the objective.  Wow, we've got a winner here folks!

I got what is supposed to be a Sharga as an ally.  I say "supposed to be" because it looks like someone took the Shargas from the original game, dressed them up like medieval Christmas elves, and made sure they were constantly stoned out of their minds.

Feels good man.

After apparently teleporting to a new dungeon (a new dungeon that looks remarkably like the last dungeon) my ally was missing.  That's because allies in this game, instead of following you, simply appear in certain areas and never leave them. Usually you'll have an ally, they'll follow you around a room and halfway down a hall, then disappear for awhile.  After entering another room they'll either walk out from around a corner up ahead or simply appear in front of you.  Make no mistake, these allies can die, but the enemies are typically so incompetent or so weak that the ally will mostly be killed by your accidentally hitting him/her/it.

Speaking of, the enemies in SK:BotA (I am not typing out all of that again) are shockingly stupid.  Most of them are skeletons that either have swords, swords and shields, or rocks/spears to throw.  The ones with melee weapons slowly walk up to you and attack at the rate of roughly one sword or axe swing every three seconds, leaving lots of time to attack even with the botchy control scheme.  If one enemy of a group is attacking you, the other one will either attempt to use magic, throw things or, if it's another melee monster, wander around wondering what it's supposed to do.  Hell, even the allies will do the latter at times.

This bad AI can lead to the enemies killing each other without your having to attack, especially in the case of magic users.  If they have a projectile magic attack, just stand so another enemy is in the way and not only will they happily block the spell with their bodies, but the casters will happily cast the spell over and over until their friend dies.

Just trying to stay thematically appropriate.

But not to worry, because if you do take damage there are healing potions and mana potions aplenty all over the map.  You can only carry about ten of each, and the game helpfully reminds you of this every damn time you step over one of them when your inventory is full.  It does the same thing for when you pass by a door you don't have a key for yet, so the game will almost constantly be treating you like this is not only the first game you have ever played, but that it's the first game you have ever played every second you spend playing it.

Oh, and by "inventory" I don't mean "collection of items you can use," I mean "items you have which the game uses and you have no control over."  Health and mana potions are used automatically when the bar/lantern/jug/thing runs out, and keys are used automatically when near the right door.  The player doesn't even have control over things like equipment, as the hammer and sword are used according to different Wiimote motions and magically change in the player's hand when switching. 

As if my intelligence hasn't already been insulted enough, I got one key which unlocked a door leading to a room with nothing but a treasure chest in it.  In the treasure chest was another key.  Did I get a Wiiware title or a bullshit point-and-click Flash game?

Even the act of saving the game is horrendous.  Save points are little circles on the floor that look like teleporters from a Looney Tunes cartoon.  You step on them, the game saves.  It's simple, but that's the problem.  It's actually too simple.  There are no multiple save slots, so you're running only one game at a time.  And if you accidentally hit a save point when you didn't want to, which is incredibly easy to do as they're sometimes in the middle of a narrow hallway, well...

What he said.

Maybe I should clarify a bit: things do technically change in this game.  The levels do technically look different and the enemies aren't technically all the same... technically.  However, they're all so dull, monotonous, and ultimately similar to each other that their appearance is virtually the only difference between all of them.  The second level has brick walls and the same pictures of ponies (what?) showing up, but that's just about the only thing separating it from the first level.  The dwarves look like dwarves and sometimes have different weapons, but they still attack in similar patterns to all the skeletons from earlier.  BotA is simply blandness piled on top of blandness.

But that's not what ultimately drove me over the edge.  No.  Take a look at this quote from Interplay's website about this game from some time ago:

"The new Stonekeep is expected for initial release during the third quarter of 2010 and is planned for electronic distribution through Nintendo's WiiWare™ service"

-Interplay.com news release

This game was delayed for over a year.

Over a year!

OVER!

A!

YEAR!

And not one person in that time said, "Guys?  How about

we fix the, um... everything?"

What in the hell did we--"we" meaning Wii users, Stonekeep fans, Interplay fans, dungeon crawler fans, humanity in general--do to deserve this?  This is the kind of game I wouldn't wish upon those guys in high school that tried (and failed) to stuff me in a garbage can.

And I'm aware that because it's 500 Wii points I could technically do a Five Dollar Gaming on it, but fuck that.  This is the kind of game that needs to be quarantined.

Close enough.

LIVE! Bloody Roar Marathon

Watch live video from SCXCR Does Things on www.twitch.tv

SC On Escape from Bug Island (Wii)

Not a Universal Studios ride.

In my never-ending quest to find a survival-horror Wii game worse than Calling, I now come face-to-face with a rather infamous title.

Ha!  I wish.

Let's get this over with.  Escape from Bug Island is known as Necro-Nesia in Japan.  I'm not sure why they changed the name, but I'm guessing whoever is responsible only watched the first few minutes of the game and said "The island has bugs on it!  The characters must escape from this place- HEY WAIT A MINUTE!"

That's my best guess because Escape from Bug Island, while it has giant bugs, also has flying fish, bear trap-like plants, spiders, giant frogs, and giant gorillas, all of which are most definitely not bugs.  How do you- fuck it, moving on.

The game centers around Michelle, a woman (I'm assuming) who is studying insects and came to this island to find a few rare species that only live there.  She's... over-enthusiastic about it, to the point where I fear she may have the brain of a sugared-up five-year old.

HOLY SHIT A FLY IS THAT A FLY I'VE NEVER

SEEN A FLY LIKE THAT ONE!

Mike is the token tough guy douche bag who totes a shotgun and is supposedly Ray's best friend.  He constantly aims the shotgun at everyone and everything and, at one point, it sounds like it fires mid-dialogue and no one acknowledges it.  He's on the island because... uh...

Not this shit again.

And then there's Ray.  Ray came to the island with his smilie-faced backpack despite his crippling fear of insects, wearing shorts might I add, because he has a crush on Michelle and Mike is a friend of his.  Mike, however, uses his horribly written/translated dialogue to make advances on Michelle right in front of him, to which Ray mopes around and falls asleep.

I want you to guess which of these three characters ends up in the camp alone and we have to play as in this game.  Keep in mind which one has the best and worst reasons to be there, as well as the most and least knowledge of the surroundings and the best and worst physical abilities.

If you said Ray, congratulations!  You get to suffer like I did!

"With limited skills and ability..."

You might think it would go without saying that, since this is a Wii title, the graphics aren't that great.  However, I am going to dwell on this. The visuals are on par with an early Dreamcast title, and even with the flashlight on you'll rarely see more than forty feet in front of Ray.  Turning the flashlight off helps Ray not get noticed by enemies as fast, but it also turns most of the environment into a blurry gray blob.

In fact, before I go any further let's get one thing out of the way: controls.

May or may not be a better control scheme.

Despite having a massive tutorial at the beginning of the game which explains absolutely everything Ray can (sort of) do, the controls are still rather hit and miss.  Movement, while it takes some getting used to, works okay.  However, shaking either the wiimote or the nunchuk too hard (read: slightly) causes Ray to roll left or right.  The motion-sensitive three-hit melee combo is sometimes sketchy about detecting the final attack, and almost always reads one swing as two.

The worst part, however, is trying to do anything in first-person view.  It's set up so that wherever you point the wiimote, Ray looks in that direction, and pointing directly at the TV has him look straight ahead.  The downside of this design choice is that the looking is extremely sensitive and makes using ranged weapons (which must be used in first-person view) unnecessarily difficult, especially since throwing weapons depend on how hard the wiimote is swung.

The one thing I will give the controls credit for is having a left-handed option (despite Ray always holding a weapon in his right hand).  Thanks for realizing not everyone is right-handed.

YOU TURNCOAT MOTHERFUCKER!

 That's assuming you can see what you're doing, which isn't always guaranteed.  There's a flashlight Ray carries which lights up everything, including things that the light isn't pointed at.  When it's off, everything becomes a dark grey amorphous blob about twenty feet in front of Ray.  I understood why they limited the draw distance in games like Silent Hill 1, but this game from the last 2000's not only uses the same trick, but does so worse than those early titles on far less powerful systems?

And the environments aren't detailed or complex enough to warrant this trick, as they consist largely of the same three trees and a few different ferns most of the time.

And speaking of variety, the enemies are varied enough to stay interesting, as the section-by-section progression introduces one or two new enemies at a time, usually as the same over-dramatic music starts, stops abruptly, then starts again.  However, these enemies tend to be named incorrectly.  I'm quite phobic of insects and usually don't bother learning specific names for things, but I can tell the difference between a roach, an earwig, and a centipede, which this game can't.

SCXCR 1, Escape from Bug Island who cares?

Look!  It's a wild Beedrill!

More importantly, they aren't even strong enough to be a threat.  The "centipedes" are understandable because they're smaller, crawl on the ground and can be killed with one whack of a stick.  The giant mantises though?  Just hit them with a stick five times and they'll go down.  Hell, they recoil after every shot so there's no risk of getting hit either.  And this is assuming you didn't use the hunting knife found at the beginning of the game, which kills them even faster.

Giant crickets?  Throw a rock at them.  One rock.  That's all it takes to kill them despite their being much bigger and allegedly tougher than the shoebox-size "vampire" moths, which take two to four rocks to kill.

Spiders?  While they do move at Sonic-esque speeds, they are easily foiled by the wildly-swinging-at-the-ground-until-they-jump-into-the-melee-weapon-face-first strategy.

And even if the enemies do hit Ray, they don't do that much damage and there are enough healing items laying around that dying is almost never an issue.  Whether they're in cabins or boxes or growing at the base of or in the canopies of trees, healing items like mangoes, cans of food, red mushrooms, brown mushrooms, purple mushrooms, and oranges are everywhere.  Playing through on normal I had over a dozen oranges, a few mangoes, four red mushrooms, a brown mushroom, and two cans of food by the time I hit the second "boss" fight, enough to refill my entire health bar about five times.

Oranges 1, Bugs- *dramatic music*

Other characters are introduced either in cutscenes or via journal entries found around the island, though these characters are even less developed than the leads.  Additionally the cutscenes are voiced over, but cut off and tell the rest of the story in text, accompanied by the same 7-second loop used for the in-game menu, for no apparent reason other than to keep the game under budget and/or on schedule for release.

Oh yeah, this was released on Wii launch day in Japan.  How would you have liked this to be your introduction to the system?

Dynamic entry!

The funny thing is, this game has multiple endings.  All involve Ray escaping the island, but I just find it funny that someone thought this game would be worthy of multiple playthroughs to find everything.  This game is Resident Evil-like in terms of unlockable extras; unlimited ammo for weapons, a "samurai" weapon (a sword, not the Samurai Edge), and even game endings are grades up to A and S-rank like in most survival-horror games.  Heaven forbid they try something different.

This could very well be one of the worst games on the Wii I've played so far...

HOWEVER

I'd say that Escape From Bug Island is still better than Calling.  The only reason I say that is because things happen on a more consistent basis. That and the game in general has a tendency to be hilariously bad as opposed to Calling's "watching competitive fishing in real time is more exciting than this" bad.  As such this is now my favorite game to play on streams.

"What is this?!" -Blondeguygamer

Teaser - Bloody Roar Marathon

It's about that time.

No, this won't just be an Arcade Mode marathon.

Adventures with Eyes: Contacts

The following is a self-indulgent log of my attempt to wear contacts.

I never thought I'd wear them, but for the sake of convenience and being able to see when doing things like riding rollercoasters and/or cosplay, I'm giving them a shot.  This is no small feat for me as I A) Have never used eye drops, or put anything in my eye, and B) had a bad experience when I was 4 where I got a cinder stuck in my eye on a train ride, and then C) several years later got gnats stuck in my eye.  Gnats!  And you wonder why I hate bugs so much!

May or may not be a dramatization.

I'm going to try and update this as things do or don't develop.

Friday, October 21st 2:55 pm

-Visit the doctor's office and am given a walkthrough on how to put in the contacts.

-Spend about fifteen minutes trying to get one contact in, and failing.  Secretary/current contact coach tells me to put the contact down and get used to touching my eye with my finger.  Do so after "what the fuck" feeling passes.

-Spend another ten minutes trying to get one contact in, eventually succeeding.  Now my vision is all kinds of screwed up with one eye that can see and another that's still legally blind.

-Try getting the other contact in for about twenty minutes, then discover I was supposed to use my dominant hand (left) to put them in.  Great!

-Secretary leaves the office saying to come out if I get the contact in.  Fifteen minutes later, I still don't have it in.

-Five minutes after she comes back I finally get the other one in.  Now I have to take a contact out and put it back in.  this takes another ten minutes to get it out and five minutes to get it back in.

-Total time in contact training: 1 hour 15 minutes.

Could be worse I guess... 

-Drive home without wearing glasses for the first time.  Put my finger between my eyes to try and adjust the glasses I'm not wearing twice on the way home.

-Make that four times by that evening.

-Need to take out contacts after 5 hours as my eyes aren't used to wearing them yet.  7 the next day, 9 the next, and so on.

-Successfully take out contacts after about eight minutes of trying.  That didn't take as long as I thought it would.

Saturday October 22nd

-Get one contact in after about six tries, but it's folded on my eye and off-center.  Holy shit that hurt.  Eventually get the lens nudged into position and unfolded.

-Attempt to put in other contact and realize it's not on my finger anymore.  Fear for a moment that it dropped down the sink, only to find it sticking to the mirror.  The hell?

No, after you!

-Get the other lens in after a bit.  Total time getting lenses in: about... 15 minutes?  20?  I forgot to check the clock before trying it. Either way I need to keep them in a bit longer than yesterday while my eyes adjust to them.
-Take out both contacts later in the day in under ten minutes.  Only problem is I put both contacts in the same storage thing and don't know which one is the left lens and which is the right.  Considering my eyes are different not just in prescription but in shape and the lenses reflect that, this could end badly.

Sunday October 23

-Call the doctor's office and confirm that putting the lenses in the wrong eyes won't do anything worse than potentially blur long-distance vision a bit.  Hey, I like to be absolutely sure, okay?

Monday October 24

-Don't put the contacts in at all.  Didn't wake up soon enough to put them in and didn't remember to do it after (eventually) getting home.

I'm here to sell you Oops Insurance!

Tuesday October 25

-Forget to time how long it takes to get the contacts in, but get them out in a little over five minutes.  Most of getting them in was me dropping the left contact and trying to find it.  For some reason it takes longer with the left eye than the right.  Cosidering I'm left-handed, that means I'm struggling with what should be the easier eye.

Wednesday October 26

-Decide to wear contacts to classes.  Only takes about five minutes to get them in and, again, the left eye takes longer.  Debating calling mom and asking if it was the left eye I got a cinder stuck in when I was a kid.  The thing is, the contacts don't hurt to put in at all, they just feel a little odd at first.  But when I try to put one in my left eye, it keeps closing almost every time the contact makes... well, contact with it.

Wednesday November 2

Have been wearing contacts on and off lately.  Mostly off.  I can't look at things close up in detail like I can by taking my glasses off.  Considering the amount of cosplay work I've been doing, that discourages wearing contacts.

Thursday November 3

I head to Youmacon today.  Put in my contacts before heading to class/work.  I admit that a big reason I got contacts is so I wouldn't be blind when in cosplay.  I have no shame.

Could be worse, I guess.

It only takes a few minutes to get the contacts in now, and again, the left eye is harder than the right despite my using my left hand to put them in.  How work does?!

Friday November 4 through Sunday November 6

Successfully got contacts in and out the entire time in under five minutes in spite of sleep deprivation.  Now the only bad news is, I have no idea where my regular glasses went.

  Oops.

Youmacon 2011: I Am a Machine (Allegedly)

After getting home and realizing I took a grand total of three videos at Youmacon 2011, I figured a blog post would be the least I could do to preserve the memories of the dumb stuff I do at cons, or at least what I can remember.  Let us begin.

Thursday


I stopped at home to finish packing the car after work and left some time between three and four in the afternoon.  I went straight to the Renaissance Center, made contact with Russ (the guy I've shared a room with for two years now) as well as TigerUchimaru and Blondeguygamer, and got all my backseat luggage into the room.  Eventually I had to pick up WellUnreal007 from the airport, only to find out that I'd gone to the wrong terminal.  Upon arriving, traffic promptly stopped and/or turned into a massive clusterfuck as everyone tried to pull over to pick up arrivals while the police yelled at everyone and everything to keep moving.  Unreal was in the arrival area, but with my being unable to find anything resembling an opening in that area he ran out to my car while it was a couple lanes out and got in with his luggage.

We fought our way out of airport traffic only to find out that part of the highway leading back was closed, meaning three lanes of traffic were being funneled into a one-lane exit ramp.  Needless to say, we powered through my one-hour long mash-up of Bear Force One fairly easily before getting back to the hotel.

Mixed with Kriss Kross and Benzaie among several others.

No, I'm not kidding.

So we get back to the hotel and, with help, unload everything.  I also give everyone a copy of the Semblance of Order CDs I'd made for NerdPow! that I have left.  Then around 11:00pm I start going through my stuff and realize I forgot part of a costume I'd been trying to do for, no lie, about two years.  This is when I had my moment of crazy.

I used that night to drive all the way back home, pick up what I'd forgotten, and drive back to the hotel.  As I waited for an elevator going down, a Joker cosplayer (who had complimented my goggles earlier) asked if I had any alcohol.  I said no, and he kept going down the hall.  The hall which goes in a goddamn circle.

After about six-and-a-half hours of driving I was back at the Ren Cen, the time now around 6:30 in the morning.  I only got about two to three hours of sleep before...

Friday


With my missing the chance to pick up pre-registration the night before, I had to wait in line.  Let's get one thing straight right now.  The registration line was far, far worse.  If the registration line was the final level of Dante's Inferno (the story, not the game) then the pre-reg line was somewhere in space, orbiting several miles away from the Gates of Hell.  Still, the line was several hundred feet long.  It moved fast, though.

After that I went back to the room and, since Linkara was there this year, reprised the role of 90's Kid, this time with the right color of hat and carrying around Blondeguygamer's Genesis as a prop.  The sunglasses (which I can wear and still be able to see now that I have contacts) helped hide the massive rings under my eyes, though I was strangely not as tired as I should have been.  I think that means I've been doing this way too much.

I was stunned by how many people recognized it and/or asked for photos, and even got stopped for an in-character three-minute long conversation by a couple of Dr. McNinja cosplayers.  Then Linkara's live Atop the Fourth Wall happened.  This was taken immediately after:

I am only responsible for 1 of 4 TOTALLY AWESOME things in this photo.

 I went back to the hotel room to finish working on parts of Long's costume that I didn't finish before making the trip.  At the same time, Blondy took my Duke Nukem comic, which was already signed by Jon St. John, and got it signed by Linkara.  The thing I had to fix for Long was the weights on his ankles.  To put it simply, they wouldn't stay together.  I'd said to TigerUchimaru I would do it for the fighting game photoshoot later that day, and I wasn't about to go back on my word despite the problems I was still having.  

When Russ lent me his superglue, I kind of went nuts with it and (sort of) got everything together while they were wrapped around my ankles.  The backs of them looked ghetto as fuck, but that was better than them not holding up at all.

 Goddamn, I have no muscle mass.

When we met up and went downstairs, we discovered the clusterfuck that was doing a photoshoot at Youmacon 2011.  The photoshoot area was the Winter Garden, a food-like area at the bottom floor near a large glass area looking out on the river separating Michigan and Canada.  The sign indicating when these shoots took place, however, was on the third floor overlooking the Winter Garden.  Oh, and the Winter Garden didn't have much space in it, meaning groups frequently would meet there and move somewhere else entirely, or organized online to not meet there at all.  And to add to the confusion, two other photoshoots were scheduled at the same time as the fighting game shoot.

Marble Hornets Photoshoot: 11 AM behind the fake plants 

overlooking the Winter Garden.

When we got there, admittedly late, no one was on the third floor.  Or the second floor.  Or the ground floor.  Not only that, the only photoshoot we COULD see going on was for Homestuck, which I think is like if the Smurfs were all massive dicks to each other.  After wandering around for awhile and not finding anything we spotted an Ermac and a Smoke.  Upon asking them what was going on, they also had no idea what happened to the photoshoot.  After going upstairs to the sign and attempting to call in anyone we could (temporarily gaining a couple other Mortal Kombat characters) we decided to call it off.

Then we moved on to the food court, with me finally learning how to walk so that the ankle weights didn't slam into each other.  Amazingly enough someone stopped me for a photo, though I doubt he knew what the character was.  It was at the food court that, after watching a guy with his arms down his pant legs dance to rave music, I had Subway to cap off the night.  This just in: eating a sub with bigass weights around your wrists is kind of difficult.  I said I'd save the remnants of the other half for later, only to forget I had it and throw it out late Saturday.

 This foot-long is what all true con-goers strive for!

Saturday


Fun fact: the first thing I agreed to in regard to Youmacon cosplay was that I'd be a part of Youmaslam!, a group of cosplayers doing classic WWF stars.  So, around 9 in the morning, Russ was getting into his Macho Man Randy Savage costume while I slapped on a kilt and went as Rowdy Roddy Piper.  Fitting, seeing as how I'm part Scottish.

We met with his other friends who were in the group, which included guys dressed as Virgil (who was Static Shock part of the previous day), The Million Dollar Man Ted DiBiase, and Hulk Hogan, as well as a girl who was Elizabeth.  What I didn't realize at first was that not only was this group going to be together for awhile, Russ and the others got in touch with Team Four Star and we would be doing a run-in gag right after the finish to their Patty Cake Championship match at the start of their panel.

... Yay?

All botches were intentional.  No, really.

We met with Takahata101 and Kroze before their panel started and got a basic rundown: Taka and Lanipator would have their match, then when they shook hands Kroze would lead me, Virgil, and DiBiase in to beat them up in badly-choreographed fashion.  Then Hogan's music would hit and he and Macho Man would make the save.  This worked alright, though I think I might have stomped Lanipator in the stomach by accident.  The idea was to make it look really fake anyway.

The save could have gone better, though.  We organized before that Hogan would have a big boot spot on Kroze and Macho Man would do a double-axe handle off the stage on me.  Hogan's boot spot never happened.  When Russ rushed me to start the save, he accidentally caught me below the left eye with a forearm while running at me.  We worked it out and got to the double-axe handle spot, only for him to twist his ankle on the landing.  Then to end the spot, I get up and don't see anyone around me, until I look to my left and see Kroze getting rolled into my legs, knocking me over like a goddamn bowling pin.

How do I keep getting involved in semi-TGWTG-related shit?

All in all it went over okay, and they were appreciative of us helping out with the PCC ending.  However, the wrestling shenanigans didn't stop there.

After the panel we all went out together and got stopped for photos multiple times on the way to Deathcom's photo area.  When we got our photos and ordered a print, one of the guys running the booth stopped us and asked if we'd each do introductory segments for the videos they were shooting.  We were more than happy to oblige, so sooner or later there will be a clip of me attempting (keyword: ATTEMPTING) to be Rowdy Roddy Piper introducing Deathcom Multimedia's coverage of the Youmacon 2011 masquerade.

The best was Ted DiBiase's segment though.  To make the character look better onscreen, the guy running the booth pulled out about three hundred dollars in twenties and gave it to him to pose with as he did his intro.  Good. God.

Screw you guys!  I thought it was amazing.

I hung out with the guys a bit longer, hearing about how Hogan's mustache apparently felt like he had sandpaper taped to his face, and getting a photo or two of me getting elbow-dropped by Macho Man and/or putting him in a sleeper hold.  At one point a pair of cosplayers, one being an admittedly-cute black Chun-Li, challenged Hogan and Macho Man to a tag team match with me as the referee.  I responded with a rant about how they had a deal if I could get Macho Man's Intercontinental title and, mid-rant, black Chun-Li kissed me on the cheek.  

I didn't know what to say then, and I don't know what to say now.  I just kept on talking and then hauled ass to the food court with the others, where I eventually parted ways with them to switch costumes.

Everything will be... fine...

 It was at this point that I went through the pain-staking process of reprising the Connecticon nightmare that was cosplaying <name removed> again.  I had bad razor burn on my face and that bruise from the wrestling spot earlier, but I went through with it anyway.  If anyone asked about the latter, I could just say Billy hits me.

Unreal was dressed as Barry Burton too, so it was appropriate if nothing else.  TigerUchimaru said I was convincing, which I'm still not sure if that was a compliment.

I saw a bunch of Resident Evil cosplayers the previous day, but a lot of them were still around Saturday afternoon.  We met with a group of S.T.A.R.S. members, the main four of Alpha Team to be precise, who seemed surprised to see me as <name removed>.  Apparently there was another <name removed>, but it wasn't as recognizable.  They told us about the panel that night involving Resident Evil and Silent Hill, which I ended up missing because I was so damn tired.


At one point while in line for the dealer's room someone walked up to me, checked the name on my badge (SCXCR), and walked away.  I'm still not sure what exactly that was about.

We checked out a video game voice actor panel in which I found out that Reuben Langdon, who has done motion capture work for numerous videogames, tore his ACL multiple times during work for a game.  Afterward he, as well as Jon St. John (Duke Nukem) and Josh Keaton (Ocelot, MGS3) did autographs for everyone.  Not having anything appropriate for them to work with, I had them sign my one of the powerpoint presentations for my Geography class.  No, seriously.  Jon's message read "I've never lived there."

Gotta go fast!

After much dicking around in the game room, chiefly on Rock Band 3, Gauntlet Legacy, and The Simpsons arcade game (which Blondy had never played until then) we resumed wandering around the con until the panel Everyone In Your Wagon Has Died, an 18+ playing of Oregon Trail.  We noticed that TGWTG contributors 8-But Mickey and PushingUpRoses were in the crowd, but both left before the game actually started.  After everyone died, twice, mostly because the audience kept voting to ford rivers that were a couple dozen feet deep, we'd had enough and went to sleep.

Sunday

We'd actually started packing the previous night, and had just about finished packing before saying goodbye to TigerUchimaru, who had to catch an early bus, and heading to a Monster Hunter panel.  Unreal, Blondy and I all played an arena match against Great Jaggi, Barroth, and Royal Ludroth respectively with different partners.  We all succeeded in taking the monsters down and, between all of us, only fainted once.

During a final sweep of the dealer's room we pooled some money together to buy Fighter Maker (it's a long story), which Unreal would hold on to.  Meanwhile I got a Monster Hunter figure of Ceadeus and, thanks to Blondy's generosity, a Bomberman coin bank almost as tall as my computer monitor.  We also helped Unreal afford a K-On plushie.  Fuck me if I can remember which one it was.

At an escalator we were stopped by a black guy asking if we ever watched Star Trek.  This eventually turned into a conversation on the existence of intelligent life outside of our planet and how he was selling CDs of his raps about it.  He took what change I and Blondy (his Canadian change, mind you) had left and gave us a CD in the most mind-fucking homemade slip case I'd ever seen.  More on that later.

 LOW BRIDGE EVERYBODY DOOOOOWN!

After eating one last time in the food court with what little money we had left, we all got our things packed well in advance of checkout and started moving shit to my and/or Blondy's car.  The elevators were all packed so we took the stairs down to the third floor, then made for the lobby.

We shared a lobby elevator with a creepy-as-fuck Brony in a Rainbow-whatever-the-fuck-she-is hoodie whose face was stuck in slack-jawed mouth-breathing mode.  To make it worse, the lobby elevators move much slower than the regular ones since they only go between floors 1 and 3.  Not a damn word was spoken the entire ride.

... Nope, not as creepy.

Upon arriving at the parking garage, I realized I'd made a fatal error; my car keys were in the messenger bag I'd left at the hotel room for trip #2.  Unreal stayed by the car to watch our stuff while I raced back to the hotel room, only to get a call saying Unreal was on his way to help finish the last load and Blondy would watch my car.

After saying one last goodbye to Russ I entered the hall with a duffel bag in the wheeling position with two boxes stacked on top of it, something I really didn't want to take down the stairs.  However, a non-full elevator wasn't coming, so I didn't have much of a choice.  While trying to go down the first flight of stairs two girls asked if I needed help because what I had looked like "a disaster waiting to happen."  I said yes and one of them carried the boxes (nothing heavy, mostly some food and sewing gear) down to the third floor, for which I thanked her.

After finally getting to the car and loading everything up, Unreal and I parted ways with Blondy and proceeded to open the mystery CD on the way to the airport.  The slip case was a bunch of folded paper held together on all sides by scotch tape.  Random pencil drawings covered it, though calling them drawings is generous.  There was no rhyme or reason to most of the lines, no pattern to follow, and nothing recognizable save for the occasional crater or one abstractly-drawn face and the word "SHADOW KLAN" in the upper right. On the back we could only make out a few words that we guessed were track names, namely "BUMS."  I had to rip the case in a couple places just to get the CD out.

The CD itself was covered in a plain white label.  By this point I was already concerned about the CD potentially infecting my computer or Unreal's laptop.  Now I was worried it would either open the Gates of Hell or kill me in seven days.  Still, I put the CD in and heard... something.  

Jesus loves me this I know,
for the Shadow Klan tells me so.

The music itself was a bunch of sci-fi inspired backing tracks with what I assume was rapping over them.  I say assume because we couldn't understand a damn word the guy was saying.  I don't know if it was the car noise mixed with the guy's low voice, that he wasn't projecting or enunciating enough, or the voice not being mixed properly in the track, but it all sounded like incoherent mumbling to us.

Still, I'm going to try getting this guy's music to play during the breaks on Adult Swim.  It would fit right in.

Unreal got to his flight, I got to driving home, and switched to Initial D music so I'd get home just a little faster.

Let the countdown to next year begin!