Deadlines and dead lines

So Yasumicon is a close 3 days away. And I'm very eager. Like a young woman who just finished puberty. And junk.

The concern is that I'm so looking forward to this being the be-all end-all of anime conventions so that it can make up for Anime Expo being so shitty. And I know, in my rational mind, that Yasumicon just isn't "there" yet. They're still learning. It's not a "good" con yet. I just hope the people can help turn it around. And I'm not talking about friends, I'm talking about everyone else. Nothing ruins a good time for me quite like an asshole.

Prop? Oh, it's kinda going. I'm not going to have enough time to sand the edges again. First time I sanded the edges I spewed a cloud of dust that coated every surface and probably has balled up into a wad of gunk at the bottom of each my lungs. When I sanded I accidentally went too deep so I had to do another putty pass on the edges to seal it up. Then a crack developed and a fleck of putty broke off so last night I did ANOTHER plug. I wanted to paint the mounting bracket (fancy term for something stupid when you see it, remember, it's still a SECRET), but with the rain and getting home at a time where people would yell and scream at me if they caught me spraying shit means that's probably not going to get done.

I mean, it's not a whole lot of work. But everything has a "curing time" and there's no parallelism I can really do. Apply epoxy putty. Cure for 24 hours. Sand. Wash. Prime. Wait for 12 hours (which is effectively 24 hours since I have to work). Sand. Paint. Wait for 12 hours (again, 24). Sand. Varnish. Wait. Pfft. TIME'S UP SHITHEAD!

Anywho, I'm using a backpack for the base of the mount. Now, I had a backpack. I loved that thing. It's a Jansport, in my mind the PENULTIMATE backpack manufacturer in the US. It had a tough leather bottom and I remember getting it during middle school and it lasted me ever since. From middle school throughout college. I remember my mom got it for me because she was sick of me loading up my backpack to heavy that I'd tear through all those shitty condom-thin nylon sheet backpacks she always bought me every year. You know the type: it usually has a popular cartoon character on it, and when it doesn't, it's some flourescent neon nuclear shit.

But it had seen better days. I'd never cleaned it. Ever. The outside pocket had salt dusted all over it when I was carrying a salt shaker for use with some Tequilla. Inside? The things I've had in THERE, whooooo let me tell ya. Or... um... not.

So I chuck this thing in the washer. While it was washing I thought it might be cool to check it out. So I open the lid and shine a flashlight in and was astounded. The water was like a strawberry milkshake. It was thick and foamy and pink. (again with the pink.) I figured it was doing a pretty bang up job.

Bang it did. When I pulled my beloved backpack out it looked like it was assraped by King Kong.

Please, a moment of silence.

On the other circuit, Su's roommate Jed hooked me up with a beta test (ah, really a multiplayer stress test) of Company of Heroes. It's a World War II RTS game.

I played 7 "ranked" games so far. I lost ALL of them except one... and the one I didn't lose was because the other player disconnected. I suck SO bad. And it's a really cool game with a lot of options and styles of play. But there's NO FUCKING LEARNING CURVE. First game I lost it was like "well, I didn't know what I was doing." Sixth game I lost this guy steals my last victory point and then rolls TANKS into my HQ sector. I mean, WTF?! I was playing Allies and they need 4 support buildings before building tanks, and I had engineers franticly building the 3rd support building, thinking I needed it to get a firepower advantage to reclaim that which should be mine.

It's fun and all, but, shit, nobody likes to lose all the time. I'd probably pirate it when it comes out so I can see how the single player campaign is. Those are usually better curved and at least can "direct" you to being a good player. In stress test beta, there is ONLY multiplayer. I have no way to learn since I'm just pounded into submission time after time.

Bah. RTS games, no matter how cool they look or how much "strategy" is involved, is still just a race to see who can make the units the fastest.