Tag: Con report

In Sickness And In Health…And In Sickness Again

~ mellopanther

Hello friends. Did I mention that I have major issues with post-con blues? Well you can pair that a propensity to be sick and you’ve basically described the past 6 months or so. I actually feel somewhat fortunate that I wasn’t able to get into Katsucon as a panelist because I would’ve just been a total wreck.

What wasn’t a total wreck were my first three game shows of 2017. Setsucon hosted Name That Tune and Wheel of Fortune while Anime Mini saw the initial foray of Doge! Much Press Very Luck. All three were successful although opinions may differ on the latter.

Next up is Tekko, and it’ll be busy both on and off the floor. Right now the only thing I can confirm is that Saturday morning will see the return of the Most Unusual Mix to the WPTS airwaves as part of the new Alumni Show. The rest is up in the air.

That being said, I can’t wait for yeas or nays, I’ve been busy getting a new friend of the company in Nightengale Needles and undertaking some super big projects that you will be hearing about very soon. Watch this space.

Let Me Be Honest

~ mellopanther

This has not been a good few weeks for me. My Otakon experience was marred by issues out of the convention’s control. While it was awesome that I was able to talk about Satoshi Kon to a group of 200-300 people in the middle of the night, the external stuff brought everything else down. Between car troubles, illness, lack of sleep, and a whole host of other issues, there will have to be a major reassessment of how I do things if I ever plan to go back. It’s a shame, but there’s not much you can do when you have a near-Perfect Storm of issues.

To compound on this, I had to pull out of Saikoukon due to a work conflict. This is the first time I can recall having to do this and it bugs me to no end. To be fair, I am fortunate to have a day-to-day job that gives me enough time out to do so many conventions—I’m still on pace for attending nine shows this year (more than I did in my first three years of going to cons) doing panels in as many as eight of them (as many as I did in my first five years of doing panels) and theoretically, I could’ve gone to 13-14 shows in total had I not gone to Japan—but there are other parts of my job that are dicey (tl;dr my job is secure, my position is not) and make it less desirable. Ideally, MP would be a side source of income while I find a position that pays well enough and is flexible enough to allow me to continue with MP, but that is still a long way from happening.

Luckily, I still have three shows left on the docket, and 2017 is shaping up to be very interesting, so I just need to find a way to get back on the proverbial horse (or is it panther in my case?) and continue to plug away.

A Learning Experience

~ mellopanther

So here is what happened in the first 3 1/2 months of 2016 in no particular order.

  • I moved across town into a larger space
  • I was sick
  • I changed shifts at my job
  • My job changed entirely
  • I went to four conventions
  • I did programming for three of them
  • I survived the Mildly Annoying Katsucon Fire of 2016

So yeah, I’ve been busy. Unfortunately, that has led to little time to maintain this space, but here is your catch-up report.

Continue reading “A Learning Experience” →

Setsucon Recap, Part 2

~ mellopanther ~ 1 Comment

You might have caught my review while recording Otaku Drive Time, but I wanted to go into detail regarding a couple of things here and there.

As mentioned previously, I mentioned 4th Edition D&D and got an interesting side conversation from two old-school RPG’ers.  The crux of the argument was that the combat was crap and the leveling system was also crap.  Because the main aspects of the numbers side of the RPG were so out of whack, the game itself fails.

Here’s the thing, though. One, I like how 4th Edition was pick-up-and-play ready.  The uniformity of the classes allow people to make new characters in no time flat.  Second of all, an RPG is only as good as its first two letters.  If the group you are in isn’t able to tell or participate in a good story, then it doesn’t matter how the combat system works.  I played 4th edition and Star Wars: Saga Edition for very long stretches–campaigns for each lasted over a year, if I remember right–and our parties had a lot of fun with memorable characters,  In the D&D game, I ended up turning into an Eladrin minivan because I was able to teleport half the group.  In Star Wars, not only was I an ace pilot that ended up putting two over on the GM in the final battle (that’s a great story for another time), our mechanic and our Wookiee were two great and awesome characters that would’ve been great in any system.

So while I understand the resistance to 4E, it shouldn’t have gotten in the way of a good game.  Any game system can work if you have the right story.

Setsucon Recap, Part 1?

~ mellopanther ~ 1 Comment

So let me briefly mention a list of things that went wrong for me at Setsucon.

  • I was unable to book at the Penn Stater due to lack of commitment from travelling companions
  • My driving directions flew away as I tried to pack
  • Retrieving said directions cost me my scarf
  • My car’s battery died on Sunday, just as I was trying to get to a panel
  • A jumper cable I had in case my battery died frayed off
  • Various counter-progamming battles that I likely lost on
  • Tempermental laptop cloning
  • Accidentally calling someone “Kara”

So here’s a list of things that actually went right

  • Super courteous staff
  • Super accommodating staff
  • Bee! :O
  • Name That Tune becoming more inclusive despite a low turnout
  • A reg line that almost Ouroboros’d itself
  • #TakeYourShippoToSetsuconDay
  • Singing along during A Real History of Fake Singers
  • That moment in A Real History of Fake Singers when you realize that you’re cosplaying what they’re talking about.
  • Wizardmon! D:
  • Knowing exactly what I was getting into when I mentioned Dungeons & Dragons 4th Edition
  • Meeting a lot of new and awesome people
  • Gosei Knight! x3
  • The Creamery
  • Spreading the gospel of MelloPanther and OTDT
  • Running low on business cards for the above

All in all, I’d say it was a net positive weekend and I’d love to go back.  In spite of everything that happened, I’ve been doing this for so long that I’ve built up sort of a resilience and ability to adapt to when things go pear-shaped.  Mean old State College didn’t get the best of me no matter how hard it tried, and I’ll just be back stronger and better for the next time.

As of right now, it looks like MP will be making its next date in April, but of course, there’s always the chance that things change.  Watch this space for more :3