27th October 2009

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Starmen.Net Convention 2009 - Day 8: Frickin' Finale

get it, finale, finally, sorta.. y..yeah.

Anyway. I had been holding off on using my Tumblr ever again until I finished writing about the convention. Because I’m just that obsessive about them all going in order. And yes, that is the ONLY reason I’ve not used my Tumblr. So, how about we finally do this crap? :B Be sure to check out the previous days if you missed ‘em.

Anyway. Day 8 of the convention was really sort of the second half of one day since a few of us decided to abstain from sleep that night. ‘Cause.. why the heck not? It was a tough task to take on though, because tiredness reeeeally hit. However, by the time I was ready to fade out, it was a bit too late to even consider sleep without completely sacrificing whatever free time would be available the next day. So we were in it for the LONG HAUL!

The night consisted of Logan telling me to stay awake, and me really wanting to kick him square in the teeth. After the sun rose, a couple of us took showers to revitalize ourselves (somewhat). I was going to eat something, but I felt ridiculously ill. Perhaps because I didn’t sleep and I needed to, or that I was really not looking forward to what was coming.

Okay I lied I ate an apple. I only remember this because there’s a picture of it. Look at that gross apple.

Really, the only thing to do today was to clean up and remove all traces that we were here. Cleaning and packing up are kind of sad, don’t you think?

New Canada, so fresh and so clean-clean.

Matt (Skulryk) putting stuff in his car.

Gramma Annie (Eyes5 (also not her actual name)) totally getting things done.

Perhaps one of the more sad scenes of the cleanup process…

The Ceremonial Deflagging of the Pirate Cabin/Brobot House

Crap getting packed

Rob (Ozwalled) getting his shirt (the same one from 2008!) signed by everybody… again.

Sunglasses Party’s Final Hurrah

Earlier I had said how sick I felt, and this rung true even after my second (or like, thirtieth) wind kicked in. So what are you supposed to do in this case?

Eat some really melty and gross-looking ice cream caaaake!

At this point I was just going around taking pictures of every single thing ever for sad sentimental effect. :(

Van-ada ;o;

This actually most likely came before the ice cream cake, but screw it. I think this was us getting spoons to eat it with.

Bill (Sephy), Charlie (TheLosar), and Mark (AmzRigh) using our remaining time wisely.

Rob (Ozwalled), Randy (Carparama), Paul (Cyan), Aaron (SLing), and whoever’s legs those are doing some stuff.

bluh

I think it’s the law for my hair to look reaaaaally terrible when I go to Starmen.Net conventions. I mean, WOW.

[PICTURE DELETED DUE TO STRANGULATION]

Veronica (bloopie) actually wore her regular glasses for the final day!

yup

Taking these pictures was kind of tough, because I had been assuming that.. this was it. That everyone was gonna pack up, and then we’d be on our way, since at 11 AM we had to be out. The tears were going to be coming soon, and I couldn’t help but have sighing as my primary method of breathing because I was just WAITING for it to happen.

…Aaaaaand then they said we were going to lunch first. HOORAY!

Team Awesomecar! No, I wasn’t driving, my DS just flipped the picture.

The streets of Lake George.

I looked at this picture in my photobucket and wondered exactly why I even kept it or took it.

…And then I remembered.

THERE WAS A SECOND PLACE WHERE THEY HAD THE ~EXACT SAME~ DINGING MONKEY AS THE NOSTALGIC SOUL STORE.

There was no escaping it…

DING DING DING DING-DING DING DING-DING DING DING-DING DING DING-DING

…ding

…Anyway!

We arrived at this diner place, which had a really cool fancy 50’sish design going on on the inside, but we were going to be eating outside. Seeing as our group is.. you know, a liiiittle gigantic.

Look at that outstanding happiness!

One final one-sided chocolate bar. ;o;

hurr hurr lo⑨cation

Since I wasn’t feeling aaaaall that hungry at the start of lunch time, I just ordered some tea. However, what they brought out was a bag of lipton tea and some hot water. THANKS GUYS! :I

Bill Eager and the Sweaty Stack of Pancakes

What is this, why did I take this? Oh, perhaps it was because our table was an absolute mess (a hot one I may add) when we got there >:I

We finished up our meal… and then it was… finally… goodbye time. It kinda gives me that tightness in my stomach just thinkin’ about it again. :’(

Goin’ to pay for our food. Also, I put money down that our waitress still remembers Randy (Carparama) and Bill (Sephy) by name.

Ancient lookin’ jukebox!

Paul (Cyan) is Digidestined, man!

Sappy nerds begin to gather.

More gathering.

It had been a long week. A long, and absolutely fantastic week. There was so much fun that was had at Lake George at the Starmen.Net Convention, it makes me a little happysad to think back on it all, especially this long after it has been over. So this is why it was so hard…

…To finally say goodbye to everyone.

Let’s meet again in another 10 years or so.

26th July 2009

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Starmen.Net Convention 2009 - Day 7: Personal Stuff You Might Not Care About Edition

STUPID STUFF YOU DON’T WANT TO READ ALERT

yeah.

so um, for a long time prior, and especially during the convention, I had quite a crush on Ms. Veronica (bloopie). :x I had told her about how I felt a few times prior to the convention, but nothing came of it, unfortunately. Either way, she was a good friend, and it was a pretty tough fight to get her to even go to the convention in the first place, since her parents were really worried about the deep mysteries of the internet. Even if she didn’t feel the same way about me, I still wanted her to go, really badly, and I was really excited and happy when it finally worked out. And in all honesty, and I don’t want to sound like I’m being a persistent creeper by saying this, because I do know when I’m being rejected and when to move on, but there was still something about it that seemed like her responses to me weren’t genuine, or that she was too nervous or shy to get into something with me, so I couldn’t bring it upon myself to back down when I felt there was that hope there. I promised myself I wouldn’t focus my attention on her the whole week, and I don’t think I did. But, I couldn’t help but still feel what I felt for her, and it only intensified during the week. In the last few days, it got a bit too overwhelming. So I had to make a decision.

I knew how the conversations went in the past where I confessed my feelings to her, so I figured I already knew what the answer was if I was to bring it up at the convention. But I wanted to at least say something, just to close the book on it officially, and so I could just stop worrying about it and have at least one night of the convention where I didn’t wonder about how she felt about me.

I originally planned to bring it up to her on the sixth night, but by the time I had the opportunity, it was pretty late, and Veronica was really tired. When she gets tired, she gets really out of it. She wasn’t seeming too much in delirium-land, but it was still late enough for it to happen soon, so I straight up asked, “Hey, do you think you’d be up for talking about something pretty serious right now, or are you dead tired?” and she responded with the latter answer. In all fairness, I think she was totally lying because she was too nervous to talk about it, but I asked if we could talk about it the next day, and the plan was made.

Flash to that saturday, Day 7 of the convention. We got up and hung around for a while, and we all laughed about what happened the night prior with a certain attendee which I chose to not write about in the previous post, but we all know what I’m talking about. It was good conversation. Anyway, she finally came up to where we were around Brobot House, and after a while I called her over to the firepit and we both sat down.

“Heh, you probably have a good idea of what I’m going to say, right?”

She said she had an idea.

I talked about how I’ve been worrying too much about it, and how I knew she couldn’t reciprocate my feelings in the past, but how I’ve felt something there even still. I said how I just wanted to know if that she still felt the same way about me, so I could finally move on from it and enjoy at least one night of the convention without worrying about it.

There was a lot of silence in between us talking, and I knew my voice was shaking. I probably could have exploded at any second, but I didn’t, so woo!

After a while of her not saying much, she said she’d be right back and ran back to New Canada. I sighed and started feeling down on myself. She was gone for a little while, so I headed back over to Brobot House to wait for her to come back. She eventually came back out, and walked up to us at the brobot house. I asked if she wanted to go back to the firepit, and she sounded a bit confused and said, “Uh, maybe later.” I was devastated by this response. I just kinda sat there for a long while and felt kinda lame and sad.

After a while past, she kinda nervously blurted out, “Wait a second… did you get my text message?”

I felt like a huge dumbass, and I pulled out my phone. I didn’t feel it vibrate or anything, but I had a new text message. I knew the answer to my question was in there, and I was pretty scared as to whether it’d be what I was “expecting”, or if my hopefulness I was trying to suppress was going to win out.

I opened it up.

And she said.. that after everything that happened at the convention that week, her own feelings were made more apparent to her, as she was really unsure of them the past few weeks, especially when I told her how I felt the few times before, and..

She liked me too~

Yaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay~!

I’m really stupidly embarrassed to write all of this out and it sounds like such grade school crap, but that day was really special to me. I’m sorry for how many eyes I’m causing to roll thanks to all of this, but I dunno, I kinda wanted to write about it because it was important. :S

ANYWAY. ASIDE FROM THE SAPPY SHYNESS OF THAT EXCHANGE, THERE IS A MUCH MORE INTERESTING STORY ABOUT IT ATTACHED TO THE END HERE.

I actually posted this on the forums, but I’ll put it here too plus more detail because I was going to do it here first anyway (but was lazy).

This is a simple story of why I’m a moron and how I make poor decisions.

Veronica and my conversation kind of happened at an inconvenient time. Martin was just about to leave to the airport to leave since he had to leave a day early, so a bunch of people including him went to the beach. My conversation with Veronica didn’t end on much of a note at all, we just kinda said how we felt, and then… I went to the beach because I really wanted to see Martin off. x_x

It was a lot of fun, though. We stopped by the beach for a bit, and then headed back up to the main road for lunch, where we found this pretty overpriced but decent restaurant. I got to talk with Dan (Lier X Agerate) and Lindsay (Chewy) which was really nice because I didn’t get to see them all that much during the week. We talked about how Chewy was planning on working and moving to Japan soon, which sounded fun. Brian (ShadowX) and Ken (Squirl) were also there, and we all talked and laughed about everything that happened during the week. We talked about what happened last time they went to Lake George, and how things were different. We talked about how it was sad that Reid and Camille couldn’t make it and all that. And then Paul Simon’s “You Can Call Me Al” came on over the radio which prompted Dan to spout, “Aww, this just got real!” which I found hilarious for some reason.

However, after a while of being there and hanging out and stuff I started to feel like an idiot, and asked Squirl, “So like, if someone you really like just told you that she liked you, would it be stupid to, say.. go to the beach if she didn’t go?”

He nodded, and responded, “Yeah, that would be pretty dumb.”

I just nodded and said, “Yeah, just making sure. Thanks.”

Plans then broke out to somehow get me back to the convention house. Martin had to go to the airport, so there was a car heading over there anyway, so I got a ride back.

But… once I got back…

Nobody was there anymore. Aside from like, 3 people.

EVERYONE had gone to the beach.

SO! I ran in circles and panicked for a little while until someone suggested I take a bike down to the beach which I was about to do, until Cyan said he’d drive me down there. YAY! So we get there, struggle for a bit to find parking, realize that we DON’T HAVE ANY CHANGE so he was about to drive back, but then we realized there was 45 minutes on the meter. Aww yeah. So we walked down to the beach…

…and we couldn’t find anyone.

We called someone, and they said they went back. Nobody was there!

So… well…

We drive back!

Aaaaaaaand everyone is at the house again. Including her! So finally, after my stupid journey of embarrassing and horrible events, I was reunited with bloopie, to which we then went to Canada House and hung out, where I was to sing Pretty Fly For A White Guy like a Japanese voice actress and make a complete ass out of myself. And then I formerly asked her if I could be her boyfriend person and she said yes and all was well. We spent a bit of time alone for the rest of the day, but not too too much, since she was really shy about things.

Ahem. :x

yeah i’ll get on writing about the final day later ._.

p.s. i kissed her on the cheek once and she graded it a C-, what the hell is this crap this was all a horrible idea

26th July 2009

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Starmen.Net Convention 2009 - Day 6 & 7

Because they were the same day. And mostly because I only got like six pictures for day 7. :s

Sorry it’s been so long, but it’s finally time to finish this. And by finish it, I mean do two days in one but still have one day left after it. Unfortunately, since it’s been sol long, I don’t remember too much. And Veronica (bloopie) had my DS playing Phoenix Wright so I couldn’t take too many pictures, but! There are still stories to tell.

I woke up that morning a bit on the late side which made me sad, since there were only two days left. So I got up pretty quickly and showered up, and we all went out for lunch sometime later.

Deciding who’s riding where.

We went to Five Guys, and I was pretty excited because I’d never been there before.

This guy was the most over the top nice dude ever. Kinda. Or just really loud.

I ordered small spicy fries. They were supposed to fill the cup, and that’s it. But.. yeah. *thumbs up*

At Five Guys, they have a bulletin board where anyone can post anything, pretty much. They have blank white cards and crayons there for you to draw stuff on, and in Starmen.Net’s BEST INTEREST, we had to leave our mark. Like, seven times.

After we were done eating, we headed over to the Gamestop that was next to it. Because we’re nerds. And we found some stuff.

Awww yeah.

This juxtapositon was pretty hilarious.

After EarthBound, Ness turned to horrible Wii shovelware to make a living.

:( Shame.

They’re still putting money into this? Neat.

After that, we headed back to the house.. only to head back out to the beach! My first stop with a couple others was the candy store that Logan (Gonmon) found the Chocolate Babies in.

They were pretty relaxed about their hours.

LEGO candy!

derp

This one goes out to my homie Stephen (xfis) B)

After we picked up some candy, we headed down to the beach where everyone else was, where they were making sand sculptures (like a rad Devil’s Machine) that I didn’t get pictures of.

Aaron (SLing), some babies, Martin (Matilda_Caboose), and some of Rob (Ozwalled)

Some advertisement for airplanes above!

After this, we headed back, and we chilled out at the Blair House until the next day. We probably did a lot more, but Veronica (bloopie) had my DS playing Phoenix Wright for the first time, and she freakin’ owned it. She cleared two cases in like, 3 hours, which is dumb because I’m bad at the games and it takes me forever.

DAY 7

A lot happened on this day, but I don’t feel too comfortable talking about it in this post, since some people reading this might not want to see that kind of stuff, at least having something of romanticky subjects being in the middle of a bunch of fun times. So for the sake of keeping things focused on the group stuff, I’ll post a separate blog about what this day was about to me.

But! I still got a FEW pictures of this day, but not too many since Veronica (bloopie) was still playing my DS. ;o;

Well, after the main part of the day happened and Martin (MatCab) unfortunately had to leave us, it was a bit of a slow evening. We spent a lot of it cleaning up and just kind of chilling out. And playing Rock Band in Canada for a bit, singing like Japanese voice actresses. But New Canada was one of the places to be for that evening, it seems.

We spent a fair chunk of the evening playing some BADASS NES Roms including.. Sesame Street ABC’s and 123’s, and that stupid Mario hack that’s stupid.

Suddenly, WATERMELONS!

Since today was TECHNICALLY the final day of the convention, some people were planning on leaving pretty early in the morning… so we had to say goodbye to them tonight.

Saying goodbye to Jon (Jonk)

Bill (Sephy) is doing… something.

Randy (Carparama) and Logan (Gonmon) flail around on the ground, as some sort of dance to tell the lands that we are not ready to leave. That’s not true, I actually think they were dancing to some music. Horizontally.

Paul (Fishsticks) is a straight up G. Soon after, everyone in the room piled on him.

Quite a few of us abstained from sleep that night. I actually got really tired and irritated, but A CERTAIN SOMEONE (gonmon) was sure to yell at me EVERY FIFTEEN SECONDS that I wasn’t going to bed, and he also played music at me. I wanted to punch him in the face, but I appreciate his efforts and I’m sorry if I acted like an irritable tired jerk that night. ;o;

The final day remained. :(

30th June 2009

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Starmen.Net Convention 2009 - Day 5

Convention Day 5 was off to a moderately late start for a few of us, but I awoke much earlier than expected thanks to Flying Pikachu alarm and talk of putting underwear on my head. It was a great decision to room with two ladies.

It seems as soon as I got up, people started flooding into New Canada to do their usual thing, so I was forced to get up and get ready for the day.

How New Canada spent their convention.

I felt a little lame about how I didn’t get to hang out with a bunch of people the day prior thanks to me not going to Saratoga Springs with them, so my first course of action for the day was to head over to Pirate Cabin and see what the deal was. …And the deal was… something.

Brian (ShadowX) purchased…. as a gift for Kevin (SimonBob)…

…Natty Ice…

People sitting around, talking about how Natty Ice is a terrible beer.

Basically, the story with Natty Ice is that at last year’s convention in Chicago, Kevin (SimonBob) and other brobots went to the store to get some beer. Kevin spotted a brand of beer he had never tried or even seen before: Natural Ice. Being the beer connoisseur he is and wanting to try all kinds of beer, he purchases the small sample size of… a 24 pack. He learned very quickly of his mistake, but still slammed down every last can of it. What a champ.

So Brian purchased some more for Kevin this year. What a wonderful surprise!

It wasn’t long before a caravan was planning to set out for the nearest Wal-Mart to do some grocery shopping. Veronica (bloopie) and myself had already planned on acquiring popsicles at the Price Chopper or something, so we joined in the trip, listening to only the finest in Michele’s (Haunted Intuition’s) music collection. Featuring every great and terrible band from the 90’s. I love it. We returned back to the Blair House with the windows rolled down and Spice Girls blaring, but hardly anyone was there.

We return with our bounty, which cost 2 dollars. It was a personal challenge we set to finish off all of these somehow, including throwing them at other people. But it was harder than it sounds, because the freezer refused to 100% freeze them, so we had pouches of melty fudgesicles that we were trying to get rid of all week.

Also, a small gift for Kim (Wilhelmina) who was unable to make it..

And matching breakfast food. Both of them sucked.

Zebra Gum 2: Zebra Harder

Randy bought a basketball and we tried throwing it back and forth for a while. I had the bright idea of volleying it like a volleyball, which hurt like a mother, and almost hit Michele’s car. So we found a nice, family friendly rubber ball and had at it instead, creating the world’s finest sport:

Street Volleyball. (I was stupidly lucky to get this picture, I have no idea how it happened.) There were about 10 of us in the circle at the highest point, just hitting it back and forth/running down the road trying to grab the damn thing.

After the game died down, I decided to walk around and see what was going on in the different houses.

Rock Band in Canada, as usual.

Saying goodbye to Diana (it’s a piggy) via Brian’s phone, who had to leave the night before. :(

Eric(Eggstree) took a pretty amazing spill on the road while running for a basketball. He had some vicious battle scars to prove it. And by vicious, I mean disgusting. He wrapped up his wounds with paper towel and duct tape.

We headed back to New Canada for a bit to see how our fudgesicles were doing. They were kinda goopy. But the refridgerator portion had absolutely no problem keeping our milk and orange juice frozen.

Logan (Gonmon) playing doctor in the physics engine/falling sand game thing, OECAKE.

I stuck one flower in here from my hair the day prior, and it seems other people joined in on the fun.

Night fell quickly since the day started so late for me, but it was raining off and on outside so it wasn’t a super great idea to hang around out there. A large portion of the group hung out in New Canada however, so all was well.

…including Pikachu donning his Bro-wood hoodie.

steph x steve otp no flames plz kthx

Charlie (The_Losar) came in and told us about how he was trying to get a game of this going, so he explained the rules. The game sounded like a ton of fun and like it was really funny, but we unfortunately never got around to it. Maybe next year, we’ll crack it open.

Bill (Sephy) singing something hilarious.

The Story of Brokachu

One pikachu plushie entered this year’s convention as but a wee boy. But with exposures to the ways of Starmen.Net and the Brobots, this boy turned into…

…a bro.

It was harmless at first. All just jokes and popped collars…

And we even brought in Pikachu’s friend, Ubroa.

But… once the Natty Ice was cracked, we knew it was far too late for our friend. Pikachu.. was now and forever will be…

Brokachu.

Well… I’m not entirely surprised, taking another look at Veronica (bropie), Brokachu’s owner. (no she didn’t drink it)

Anyway, the party in New Canada died down a bit, but the party in Kevin’s (SimonBob’s) mind was only beginning. He was running around telling people how Brian thought he was so clever, buying him that 12 pack of Natty Ice. But he insisted that the joke was on THEM, because he drank it all in one night!

…

No, Kevin, I’m pretty sure the joke is still on you, my friend.

Just this is too much for one person.

Anyway, after everyone had gone to bed, I was the last one up in New Canada. And the room was a hot mess. So being a girly wimp that I am, I couldn’t sleep with everything looking so terrifying, so I decided to clean everything up.

I should have taken “before” pictures as well.

Anyway, it was pretty late by this time, so after everything was clean and/or shoved under something so you couldn’t see it, I went to bed myself. Two more days remained.

30th June 2009

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Starmen.Net Convention 2009 - Day 4

CONVENTION DAY 4 ARRIVED!

Danielle (Windy Rat), Melissa (Mistycat), and Diana (it’s a piggy), finishing up plushies in New Canada AKA Artist House AKA Metroid Cabin.

Today was going to be an awesome day. Bill Eager (Sephy G. Roth McMarshmallowstein formerly known as Doc Louis) was planning on hosting a live show of musical proportions at a local pizza joint known as “Pizza Jerks”.

We arrive at Pizza Jerks.

I’m not quite sure if you could consider the pizza of Pizza Jerks to be traditional New York pizza since we weren’t in the city, but they got points for being REALLY HUGE.

The pizza. The different kinds we got were cheese, pepperoni, and buffalo chicken (my favorite of the three).

Aaron (SLing) next to the pizza for comparison. Also making a stupid face. He then inhaled the pizza.

Brian (ShadowX) introducing the Bill Eager Experience™.

Bill Eager rockin’ the stage at Pizza Jerks.

Bill performed an amazing set at Pizza Jerks. Amazing enough that it got us free pizza. The setlist (with mp3s) was as follows:

1.Another Life on Mars
2.The Summer And The Shade
3.Autopilot
4.Holocene
5.Blue Drank
6.Little Cottage
7.Paraffin
8.Believe
9.Apollo

I knew the words and sang along to all of these. ._. I am pathetic.

Starmen.Net enjoys some Bill Eager tunes.

Bill Blue Drankin’ it on stage, accompanied by his backup band, the Sephytones. Featuring awesome audience participation. (NOW WALK IT OUT!) An absolute blast to hear live.

So the show eventually ended, and the staff of Pizza Jerks enjoyed it so much that they gave us our pizza for free. Talk about amazing. We suspect we had them at Blue Drank.

The show was so good it spawned Fanart, courtesy of Eyes5~

After Pizza Jerks, we walked around Canada Street for a while. I headed into the Price Chopper with some other folk to see if those Barrels of Monkeys still had my DS stylus, but they unfortunately did not. We made various stops along the way to.. nothing really. We were just walking around aimlessly.

Randy (Carparama) and Charlie (The_Losar) thumbwrestling EPIC STYLE. They were doing this all week.

Slice’s Italian Ice? Slicemasterflex was at the convention in spirit!

Kevin (SimonBob) with a snake. It’s a snake, it’s a snake, it’s a snake, it’s a snake, it’s a snake~

Stuff on beautiful Lake George.

Veronica (bloopie), Kevin (kevin_b_er), Kevin (SimonBob), and Randy (Carparama) admiring the lake. (foreground to background)

Would YOU let your dog poop in the community pool?! These are the hardships we are faced with at Starmen.Net Convention. Edobean also came to mind after seeing this sign. Another spiritual attendee!

Jon (Jonk) partaking in some Rock Candy.

I, and a few others, read this sign as “No Dying Here”.

After hanging around for the beach for a bit, Veronica and myself decided to venture back to the most horrible place of the Lake George experience.

That place was…

DING DING DING DING DING DING DING DING DING DING DING DING

NOSTALGIC SOUL.

I saw this and thought it was Rick Astley.

Fake dog poop!

DELUXE MIRACLE JESUS ACTION FIGURE!

After that short misadventure, we met up with the group at the beach again where, we discovered, that in our absence, we kind of missed our ride out. So we had a small but fixable transportation crisis. Luckily, walking back to the cars, we ran into another Starmen.Net car and things were well for the entire family.

Rollerskating Animals are prohibited at Lake George.

I read this as “Napalm St.”

Also, we found helicopter seeds! Yay!

After a fair bit of time at the beach, we return back to the Blair House for a bit of hangout time there.

And Sarah (Sarsie) put flowers in my hair, since Tony (Mansion_Maniac) was absent this year. Hooray, I’m a backup plan!

I also had a bite of what Sarah called “Sarsie Food”. It was just dirty rice. Pretty good though.

THE RETURN OF NEPAS!

The plan for dinner that night was.. well, there wasn’t one, since a large percentage of the group set out for Saratoga Springs for the afternoon. So a few of us who were left piled into the Fishtank and drove 30 minutes away to… a Taco Bell/Long John Silver combination. I took this opportunity to try out Long John Silver for the first time. Not too bad.

The standards of Taco Bell/Long John Silver’s dress code are among the finest.

All throughout the week, Paul’s (Fishsticks) van was showing one movie of spectacular quality, provided by Chaz (BlackLeader) as a reminder of his existence as he wasn’t able to make it this year. This movie was none other than Tom Hank’s beautiful portrayal of a level 9… something, in the movie… “Mazes and Monsters”.

This horrible picture is in no way a metaphor of the cinematic masterpiece that was “Mazes and Monsters”.

After dinner, people who abstained from the Saratoga Springs adventure piled into the Nerd Cabin to watch some Terranigma and discuss the finest in history, culture, and fine dining.

The finest dining being that… of Chocolate Babies.

A horrible picture of Terranigma. Logan (Gonmon) took it upon himself to voice the characters, and rename certain things, “Chocolate Babies”.

Toby’s (Radiation) copy of EarthBound. Yup. This is EarthBound.

It’s seriously a chocolate baby. It’s shaped like a flipping baby. Unfortunately, instead of being solid milk chocolate like I was expecting, it was more of a “grade D tootsie roll”, as Veronica so aptly put it. Very disappointing. But it’s a chocolate baby!

The large group returned from Saratoga Springs, and everyone was together yet again. They were caught up on the chocolate babies, and we were caught up on tourist trap-o-mania. However, Brian had a great surprise to reveal to all of us.

That surprise was known as Conopoly.

More Conopoly (featuring me!) Unfortunately no games were played since it was very dark outside, but plans were made for the future.

Time passed, good times were had, and it was night. The firepit for the night was set up, but Veronica had plans to expose Starmen.Net to something very, very special. This thing.. was a dream simulation game called “LSD”, and wearing her sunglasses at night. (We had been trying to sing this song at her all week, but no one knew past “so I can, so I can”.)

“LSD” being played on the giant projector screen! (Not the best picture, but this game is phenomenally weird and amazing.)

Veronica playing “LSD”.

After a little while of playing, people were noticing the oddness that was occurring on the giant screen. Small groups gathered and we explained the game to them. Quite a few people actually wanted to give it a shot themselves.

Andy (Artemis251) showing off his sweet “LSD” skills.

This crane fly also wanted in on the LSD action and after taking this picture, flew onto the projector screen and refused to get off, even after shooting NERF bullets at it.

It got a bit too late to take pictures after this point, but it was, honestly, quite late. A majority of people went to bed after their long journey at Saratoga Springs, but a small few of us stayed up and hung around the firepit until the wee hours, consuming sugary beverages and just enjoying the times.

On my way back to the room, I ran into Randy (Carparama) and Rob (Ozwalled), and decided to stay up until the even wee-er hours of the morning, talking about awesome times had at the convention thus far.

Rob relaxin’ on the stairs. Yeah, that’s daylight you see. It was a bit of a late night.

Randy, reclined on the stairs.

After long talks, we decided bed was probably the best option. At least, some of us did, except for Randy, who was set on staying up all night. He failed and went to sleep, to sleep for a huge portion of the next day. Ouch. But for me, I had had enough, and day 4 of the convention drew to a ridiculously late close.

18th June 2009

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Starmen.Net Convention 2009 - Day 3

This morning was a bit of a late one thanks to me staying up a bit later than I intended to, thanks to waiting until I “calmed down” after too much “sugar”. :V

ANYWAY.

I awoke via flying pikachu for the first time this week, which would be come very standard. After the regular morning routine, I went over to Canada to hear what the commotion was all about. I wasn’t surprised at all to see it was, yet again, Rock Band. I would have been more excited if my voice didn’t sound like a dying cat.

Melissa (Mistycat), and Michele (Haunted Intuition) rocking out, accompanied by hilarious vocals by Bill (Sephy).

EH, STEVE (Ploqazxswm)!

…There’s not much to say.

Jack (Cap’n Muffin) and Veronica (bloopie) admiring Rock Band from outside of the room, a safe distance.

Martin (Matilda Caboose) is well-protected from the sun.

So, Uboa. What is there to say about Uboa? Uboa is a creepy.. thing from the PC game, Yume Nikki. It’s become kind of iconic of the games, to the point where plushies have been made of it. Veronica bought one and brought hers to the convention, and it gathered a lot of interest. It also scared the crap out of me. That’s about all that needs to be said about Uboa.

Veronica shows off a PC program with great potential to give someone a heart-attack.

Today, Annie (Eyes5) planned on giving us all a tutorial on how to make plushies. A bunch of people piled into New Canada for the lesson.

Folks makin’ plushies.

My metroid plushie materials.

After the plushie workshop was mostly dismissed, the plans were to go bowling, something that has to happen at every convention ever, no exceptions. So we were off!

Oh. Yeah. I was dressed this all day. …Yup. NOT SURE HOW THAT’S RELEVANT.

Bowling! …And the worst pun name ever!

Bowling preparation.

Bowling names! Because it’s never fun to use your actual name. (Names were: Eggs (Eric), AmzPie (Mark), Cyan (Paul), and Emilio Estevez (Randy).)


Our team, which was significantly more creative with names. (Names: Magic Pin Lady (Stephanie), Rat (Danielle), Scoops Magoops (Me), and last but certainly not least, buttface (Veronica).)

Bowlinnnn’~

Mark (AmzRigh) singing REM as it came on the radio.

Logan (Gonmon) looking… like something.

Randy (Carparama) died.

Bowling eventually ended, me averaging about 130, which isn’t bad for my first time in a while. We went back to the house, and I eventually got out of that stupid Jeff suit.

Also, Martin (Matilda Caboose) had ZEBRA GUM.

Tattoo from the zebra gum that successfully stayed on until the next day.

Apart from bowling, there weren’t too many huge plans for the day, so we kinda sat around for the rest of the night and did random stuff.

Including playing Magical Cards with Mark (AmzRigh).

And of course, the (not really purple) firepit, where I sang songs very loudly despite not having any sort of alcoholic assistance, and despite STILL not having a voice. It was gross, and a bad idea, and I probably would have had my voice the next day if I didn’t do it. … … … But it was fun~!

At night, Logan turns into Uboa.

…and Annie turns into a Metroid. No one was really surprised.

Another convention day over, but a bunch more to go. Tomorrow was going to be an exciting one, so plans to get up early were in place. Were they going to be successful? Probably not.

17th June 2009

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Starmen.Net Convention 2009 - Day 2

Monday morning was a very early morning for me (starting at 7 AM~), despite getting to the house at 1 AM the night before. I had to make up for lost time, so I settled with 2 hours of sleep, after going to the bathroom and meeting an uboa plushie that made me scream, waking up Toby (Radiation) in the process.

Toby (Radiation) was leaving that morning, so I spent a lot of the first hours of the day talking with him about stuff, about what happened yesterday that I missed, all sorts of stuff. After a while, Kevin (SimonBob) joined us, as did Andy (Artemis251), Melissa (Mistycat), Danielle (Windy Rat), and Liz (NeoPaula), and very soon, a small game of frisbee started. Me only having 2 hours of sleep, I was obviously doing awesomely at it.

There was a lot of talk about breakfast that morning since we didn’t have any strict plans, so Liz and a couple of others went and bought breakfast supplies and we all went to Brobot House to eat it.

Melissa (Mistycat), Liz (NeoPaula), and Danielle (Windy Rat) in Brobot House waiting on breakfast.

Thanks to the smell of bacon and eggs, and possibly thanks to blaring smoke detectors caused by our really horrible burners (they were lined with tin foil, really :I), a few more Brobots rose from the depths.

Bill (Sephy), Paul (Fishsticks), and Derek (Falcon24) are awakened by the breakfast bell.

Toby (Radiation) waiting on some breakfast.

What was left of the eggs after I realized it would have been an idea to take a picture of the full plate of food.

Bill on the floor singing something.

Jack (Cap’n Muffin) eventually joins the morning brigade, and Kevin decides to make some coffee that we all promptly stole.

I had two hours of sleep, I needed it!

After breakfast, I decided to take a good look at the Blair House property, because I had arrived in the wee hours of the morning so I didn’t get the full experience.

The whole place was beautiful.

Brobot House/Pirate Cabin!

Couple of cabins, one of which was taken over for the last two days by some scary UFC lookin’ dude.

The main “motels” of the Blair House.

Toby’s dad was supposed to be there to get him at the CRACK OF DAWN, but it wasn’t until around 11 when he actually showed up. We didn’t have much to do, so we just hung around.

This was sitting on the TV in our room, New Canada. Many people thought bad things had happened to it, but really, it just wasn’t done being made yet.

Veronica (bloopie) and myself played a little bit of Touhou. She won.

Rob (Ozwalled) Scott Pilgrims New York.

Aaron (SLing), Brian (Shadow X) Cold Killa Ken (Squirl), and Danielle hanging outside of Canada.

Toby waiting for his dad.

Toby’s dad eventually showed up. He met a lot of us, and was actually a pretty decent guy. It was a shame to see Toby go so soon, though. You better be there all week next year, buddy!

The day was pretty much a free day to do as we pleased, so there was a lot of idle yet awesome hanging out and driving around to random places until the night time.

Suddenly everyone was awake and hanging out~

More people.

Veronica (bloopie) hugging Pikachu. :3 (this Pikachu was my alarm clock for the remainder of the week)

Veronica plays Touhou games as Stephanie (Frau Landers) watches. Logan (Gonmon) sits in the background, speedrunning Super Metroid.

Rob (ozwalled) and Steve (Ploqazxswm)

A few of us went down to Lake George’s namesake to walk and look around.

Lake George.

Walking down the main road of the city, Canada St.

We found a store (Called “Nostalgic Soul”, which… uggghh.. will later be remembered for horrible, horrible things.) that had a toy version of Frank from “Donnie Darko”, which we had just watched on Skype the friday before the con. We all thought of Luke (Aquas), who couldn’t make it this year. :(

We found a small arcade that had signs for various souvenirs including… E-MAIL!

I think it’s time to talk about Price Chopper. The Price Chopper was a very small grocery store wannabe, kind of like a Walgreens but a little bit more than that. Either way, the more important part about Price Chopper is that Martin (Matilda Caboose) was absolutely obsessed with the place for whatever reason, so we had to take a trip to it since it was right up the road.

However… it was not a regular day for the Price Chopper. Right in front of the door were two ladies who were very set on beating the hell out of each other. To make matters more odd, there was a pretty sizeable crowd (behind the shopping carts in the below picture, d’oh) watching the fight, and one of them shouted “WELCOME TO AMERICA!” at us as we walked into the store. …O…kay!

I was lucky to get this picture, I just kinda pointed and hoped it came out.

I had no idea they still sold these things. They also stole my DSi Stylus. :(

After the Price Chopper shenanigans, we found a pretty huge, but largely meh arcade. Then again… they did have…

DAY-EE-TOH-NAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH~

This lady looked like Lardna Minch. However, when you lost this game, Bertha flashed her underwear at you. We were done with this one pretty quick, even with EarthBound likenesses taken into consideration.

After quite the awesomely long day, night grew on us. The plans were to have dinner, which consisted of the classic hotdogs and hamburgers, with other things like corn and pudding pie made by Annie! (Eyes5) Mr. Bill Eager (Sephy) was wearing a very unfortunate amount of bronzer provided by Liz (NeoPaula), which I sadly didn’t get a good shot of with my crappy DS camera.

One of Annie’s pudding pies.

Annie also made some delicious Metroid Ice for us.

Veronica, Stephanie, Danielle, and a very blurry Joe (JamesPicard007) eat dinner.

Aaron (SLing) does his thing.

Stephanie likes a little bit of pie with her whipped creme.

After dinner, the plan was to watch a movie on a pretty big projector screen provided by Brian (Shadow X). But we couldn’t just watch any ol’ crappy movie on this thing, oh no. We decided that the best option was…

The Super Mario Brothers movie. Oh yeah.

A little ways into the movie, we stopped for a little while to do a very big and awesome introduction thing with everybody. We had to stand up in front of the screen, tell us our name, where we got EarthBound, and something interesting about ourselves. Someone has it on video, but it’s yet to show up.

I believe Jon (Jonk) introducing himself. The interesting thing about myself that I presented was that, unlike Logan (Gonmon), I was able to beat the Sanbone Trio level on Gitaroo Man. Called out, son. B)

We finished up the movie, and the blue drank around the fire began. There’s one story in particular that I’m sure you’ve all heard, so I’ll save their dignity a bit more and pass on that one. Just know that it was a good time, and firepits are always, ALWAYS awesome at the Starmen.Net Conventions.

Day 2 of the convention drew to a close. I wasn’t too tired despite only having 2 hours of sleep, but it wasn’t long before sleep time came, and we all rested for another great day of conventiontimes.

16th June 2009

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Starmen.Net Convention 2009 - Day 1

I woke up at 6 AM that morning in order to be ready by 7:30, when we’d be leaving. After showers and drinking more water thanks to having the worst lost voice ever, we packed up our stuff and headed out for Yes We Con 09!

Our crap packed up in Paul’s (Fishsticks) van.

Our first stop was pretty early in the trip, and it was for breakfast. We were about to pull into a Sonic before I remembered how long it’s been since I had… a certain food. A certain breakfast treat so amazing, Paul agreed to driving forever away to a Burger King to acquire them.

But… what exactly was that legendary food? Could it be… yes… they are…!!

CINI-MINIS.

We continued on for another hour or so, listening to some more Meat Loaf, as well as Paul’s own Convention mix, with very amazing songs on it. We arrive at a McDonalds in someplace Ohio, to meet up with Joe (JamesPicard007) and Danielle (Windy Rat).

Meeting up with Joe and Danielle.

It wasn’t long later that we met up with Eric (Eggstree) (also, this is the worst picture ever I’m awesome at photography)

The plan for us arriving at Lake George was to take a small detour to Pittsburgh to meet up with Mr. Andy (Artemis251) and Ms. Melissa (Mistycat) and caravan the rest of the way with them. We reached Pittsburgh and got slightly lost finding them, even parking in the wrong parking lot.

DINO RAM-…No, no, that’s not right.

The Carnegie Music Hall, which is totally not the same as Carnegie Hall.

Finally after going in many spirally circles around the right place, we meet up with Andy and Melissa.

Melissa (Mistycat) and Andy (Artemis251).

We took a trip up to Melissa’s (very tiny) apartment, where we located a small bag of blue on her freezer.

After that, we stopped for lunch at a nearby Subway.

Following Andy and Melissa out of Pittsburgh.

What was to follow were 10… BEAUTIFUL hours of vanning. Like all great drives, rest stops happened.

Andy using the world’s closest-to-the-ground Air Dryer.

The most unfortunate bear.

Andy, just kinda… hangin’ out.

So what happened next? Well… um… there was driving. And roads. And mountains.

We saw AT LEAST 70 of these stupid signs. This also prompted the question, “Why aren’t there signs saying ‘Bridge may not be there in event of Apocalypse’”. We were very, very bored. Let’s not mention the conversation about why the DeLorean from Back To The Future wouldn’t work.

I found this to be hilarious because the past 14 hours at that point was a mountain montage on the road.

I unfortunately didn’t get any more pictures for today because the DSi’s camera doesn’t have flash and we arrived VERY late.

I’m pretty sure I started going insane during the ride near the end. We were scheduled to get there at around 10, but we, unfortunately, somehow lost a magical 3 hours despite Paul’s fabulous minivan speeding skills. I was very worried that everyone would be asleep by the time we arrived, and various twitter posts about how the first day was over from many attendees made me very sad.

By the time we got to the Blair House, it was about 1 AM. We were all ridiculously tired of being on the road, to the point where I strictly avoided getting back into Paul’s van for the first half of the week. I was met, without even getting out of the van, by a giant hug from Randy (Carparama), followed by countless hugs by everyone. I was ecstatic, we were finally at the convention, and they all stayed up and made us feel welcome. I love all of you guys.

The Blair House, finally! (taken the next day)

The rest of the night was filled with hugs and catching up with people. Two of the first people I saw as we pulled up were Toby (Radiation) and Veronica (bloopie), Toby’s arm around Veronica, just like he had planned on doing just to cheese me off. I charge up the stairs toward him, and he prepares to be punched in the face by me. Instead, I give him a giant hug and we live happily ever after. Veronica allows me to hug her as well.

We headed inside the room that would later be known as “New Canada” or the “Artist House” depending on who you ask. I was promptly attacked by Annie (Eyes5) and Steph (FrauLanders) with scissors, as Toby had a plan to give Kim (Wilhelmina) a lock of my hair, because unfortunately, due to terrible circumstances, her parents didn’t allow her to go after all. After much resistance, I cut off some of my own hair, and Annie conveniently stores it in a small insect bag. I bring my bags up to New Canada, where myself, Toby (for the first night, because he had to leave the next morning at the CRACK OF DAWN 11 AM), Annie, and Veronica would be sleeping for the week.

Annie, Veronica, and Toby headed to bed, but a lot of us hung out for a few hours outside. We went out for a long walk down the main road of the area, visited a glorious store by the name of THE PRICE CHOPPER (more on that later), and walked back. Lots of talking about cons past, plans for the week, what the Fish Tank missed all day, various other things.

After all that, it was around 5 AM when I finally turned back in to New Canada. My bed for the night was a really squeaky chair that everyone was in love with, but I kind of hated for the rest of the week because it sucked to sleep in and it was loud. I woke Toby up and felt really bad, but eventually I drifted off to sleep… for two glorious hours.

No time to sleep in conventionland. B)

15th June 2009

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STARMEN.NET CONVENTION 2009. YES WE CON. Day 0

I put off starting to write this for a bit because I didn’t know how to start this off. So I’m going to cop out, and this is how I will start it out. With what you just read. Yeah.

Every year, Starmen.Net holds “conventions” in various places around the US. This year, we chose Lake George, NY. We rented out the Blair House for a week, for the second time in Starmen Con history, actually. Back in 2006, they rented out the Blair House for Wrath of Con, so we knew that we were getting a good experience already as far as housing goes. I was getting there via Paul (Fishsticks) and his minivan, the Fish Tank.

A few days before the convention were really tough. I was admittedly a little down because we had been fighting for Kim (Wilhelmina) and Veronica (bloopie) to get permission to come. Things were looking pretty decentish for Kim, but Veronica’s mother was being very strict about it. Time was fading, but right at the last second, we had a last-ditch plan to have Matt (Skulryk) and Rob (ozwalled) to go to Veronica’s house and basically prove that they aren’t pedophile murderers. She went to go get the answer, but…

I get the phonecall from Paul, and it’s time to head out. Crap!! I chug a glass of water, grab my stuff, get the last few words I can out of Veronica before we head out, but I’m ultimately left in the dark about it as we leave for Dayton Ohio, to stay the night before the long drive the next day. Luckily, and to great surprise, I get a text message from Veronica, getting a “We’ll think about it” from her parents. Hooray!! This was really good, considering she’d been getting flat out “no”s for days and days. I remained hopeful, and the drive to Ohio continued.

The drive to Dayton wasn’t that bad, but it was hard to talk to Paul because my voice was completely shot. It was good times, though. He talked about his awesome job playing around with really advanced simulators for the air force, and we (I tried, painfully, but still tried) sang Meat Loaf and Jim Steinman songs. It was a good time.

Paul’s (Fishsticks) Apartment

The best welcome mat ever kinda.

Inside the apartment.

My bed :V

We arrive at Paul’s apartment, lay out tomorrow’s plans, I hop online and find out that Veronica is good to go (yaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay~~), and try to head to sleep.
Keyword is try. I couldn’t do it. I was thinking nonstop of all of the new people I’d meet, everyone I’d see again, everything we’d be doing, and it was just too much for me to be able to relax and sleep. 3 hours later, it finally happens, leaving me with 3 hours of sleep to bear through a 17 hour van trip.

(The rest will come with time, I just don’t want to have one REALLY BIG post, so the days will be separate)