RTX Trip Recap

And so it ends. Our trip to Austin was fantastic. We did an absurd amount of walking, met some interesting (and some very interesting) people, and got to attend panels hosted by some of our favorite internet personalities.

I realized that I never gave much of an explanation of RTX in my early posts for those who are unfamiliar. RTX is a convention hosted by Rooster Teeth, the makers of Red vs. Blue. My husband has been a fan for years, and introduced me to their work. The convention is primarily focused on their content, though there were other guests as well. We went to a panel hosted by 343 regarding The Master Chief Collection, for example, and got to see Bungie reps playing an early edition of Destiny with fans.

My favorite part of the trip, however, was the first panel we attended:

The RWBY Panel

RWBY was Rooster Teeth’s first anime, and I have to admit, I was a little hesitant at first. I really wanted to like it. It took a couple of episodes, but I got my wish. I’m a sucker for anything fairy tale based, and RWBY draws a lot tales and folk lore. If you like anime, give it a shot. If you don’t like anime, pretend it’s a cartoon made for adults (because it is). The link to the first episode is below. The animation begins a little weak, but it improves as the season continues.

We were lucky to get decent seats at the panel, where they showed the first episode of season 2. I couldn’t have been happier with it. It flowed like a normal TV show, smoothly following the stories of various characters. We were also promised that season two would have 12+ minute episodes, which is an improvement. They varied quite a bit in season 1, and it made it disappointing to stumble on the short ones.

My favorite part was watching the writers and actresses interact, though I’m disappointed to say our pictures weren’t great. I did snap this one later though:

This is a picture I took in the Rooster Teeth “Museum,” where they displayed several items from their shows. We went there right after the RWBY panel and saw them putting the gear the actresses had worn (as they cosplayed their own characters) back on display. Still on a RWBY high, I took a picture, thinking to myself that I’d probably regret taking a picture of stuff later, because pictures of stuff are never as good an idea as they seem in the moment.

Until I realized that I’d actually taken a picture of Monty Oum, the creator of RWBY, standing behind the table.

The Slow Mo Guys Panel

Besides the 343 panel (which is much more my husband’s area than mine), the other big panel we attended was Slow Mo Guys, which closed the convention on Sunday. If you haven’t heard of these two, their videos are addictive and hilarious. Gavin runs a slow motion camera, and they capture everything from the beautiful to the painful and hilarious, with Dan taking the abuse. I put a link to one of their pretty videos below.

We went to this panel impulsively, and it was the perfect way to close the convention. The panel was far more enjoyable than we expected. Dan was hilarious, walking on stage with a soccer ball taped to his head, “cosplaying himself” from one of their videos. They also showed some videos that they aren’t planning on publishing due to the content – blood, swearing etc. I appreciated that they gave us something new to watch after sitting waiting in line/sitting on ground/in a crowded hall for three hours to see them.

StreetPass

I’d never used StreetPass before this trip, which made watching my map its own entertainment. StreetPass is a Nintendo 3DS feature that allows you to see and play with the “Mii” characters of people you pass who are also using StreetPass. One part of StreetPass tracks where your exchanged Miis originated, filling a map. Since I’d never used it before, I knew that every highlighted location on the map belonged to someone I passed at the convention, and who was also using the system.

(I was too lazy to go through the process of getting a screen shot from the DS, so please forgive the quality of the pictures.)

I passed people from 37 different states, plus people from the UK and Canada. That helped put the 30k attendees into a new perspective for me, especially these are just the people I happened to pass who happened to be carrying around a DS using StreetPass.

Everything Else

I already shared all of the shopping we did, but there was far more to the convention than that. Another big thing was meeting Patrick from Quick Draw the day after we’d attended his panel. I was repeatedly impressed by the gracious behavior of this crowd. They had 30,000 people there going nuts over their work, and I never once saw anything but a polite, if not joyous, response from any of them. We didn’t wait for autographs because we prioritized going to events over signatures, but we were amazed at how many impromptu lines appeared. Some of them would show up on a hall with some guardians and allow lines of fans who wanted selfies and autographs to develop.

As far as Austin goes… It seems like a nice place. I can’t say we did too much exploring, but the part of the city we were in didn’t feel any different from being home. Don’t get me wrong, I didn’t expect to see cowboy hats everywhere or any of that other cliche Texas stuff, but I expected some noticeable cultural differences. I can say that every bar we passed was blasting music mid-day, which certainly isn’t the case here. I’d like to go back and see more of Texas (and Austin) at some point.

Here’s some more of what we saw:

Quick Draw!

Quick Draw. These two were hilarious

Jack and Gavin from Achievement Hunter playing “Trials.” Jack had great stage presence, which was fantastic, except that our camera couldn’t handle all of the moving.

Ryan from Achievement Hunter playing Destiny with fans.

Lego Master Chief. This was made by a Lego artist, who was pretty near the Mega Bloks…

343 Panel. Had a great time hearing from the original designer of the Halo 2 multiplayer maps and his excitement for the upcoming Master Chief Collection.

Preview of the RWBY video game

The crowd waiting for the RWBY game. They’re standing next to a wall of fan art

Gus with his Destiny team

Monty jumped on stage for the Iron Galaxy exhibit, playing fans

RTX Loot

We went a little crazy.

I promise a real post about our adventures at RTX once I’m home and can write on something other than my phone. For tonight, let’s look at one of the fun parts of conventions: The shopping.

Keep in mind that this is our honeymoon. We’re both moderately cheap people, but we made sure to set aside some money so we could go crazy this one time.

First is one of the RTX exclusive Halo posters that we got at the 343 panel. It was a fun bonus getting a free item for showing up to hear about a game that makes my husband so happy.

SuperFight! I told you that the card in our goody bag was a good ad. The game is a lot of fun, and we look forward to playing it at home with friends. The orange pack is a geek expansion. We laughed so much flipping through the cards that I can’t imagine not enjoying them in game play.

RWBY! If you haven’t watched RWBY, go do it. Husband never enjoyed an anime until this one, which comes in short, easy to digest episodes. Here’s how this pile happened:

I wanted a Blake figure (black hair/clothes). Husband was sad that they hadn’t released the Yang figure (the blonde girl), so he decided to get Ruby (the big box). The next day, he concluded that he’d want the Yang figure once it was released, so we should probably get the Weiss (angry looking one) figure too because it would be weird to have 75% of the set.

The same sort of thing happened with the plushies. We also bought season one of the show, and some buttons (which we then forgot to put on our lanyards. Oops).

Two shirts each. Husband got the official RTX shirt and the super cute Toothless shirt (second down). I got a Rooster Teeth shirt (Jeff’s Farm and Mercantile) and the Avatar: The Last Airbender shirt. The picture was free with the two non-RT shirts.

The buttons are gifts for our siblings. We could have gotten them items with Austin references, but nahhhh.

On the gift topic, Loot Crate was there selling last month’s crate. Since it had already been released, we knew its contents. This Transformers themed box will be my bother’s upcoming birthday gift. I won’t open it since that’s his job, but believe me that it has a pretty awesome shirt in it, along with some other goodies.

And our final Rooster Teeth items. We both bought hats since we weren’t smart enough to bring one, plus we got some Achievement Hunter (part of Rooster Teeth) playing cards. Why did we buy the cards? I have no idea. Probably because we had lost our minds and $5 seemed inconsequential surrounded by all of the more expensive items. Yet we still refused to pay $2 for a bottled drink. At least we retained some of our frugality.

Overall, it was a lot of fun looking at all of the great booths and crazy things for sale. I know we won’t be able to indulge like this on most vacations, and I have to admit that being materialistic about this market for a couple of days was a ton of fun. Thank goodness we can’t keep that up.

Looks like our next project at home will be redecorating our nerd room -er- I mean office. Right. That. This trip may have made us outgrow the space.

Now to get it packed…

Geekmoon Prep Part 2: To RTX We Go!!

Today is the day! We’re heading to RTX for our Geekmoon (honeymoon).The husband keeps saying he doesn’t know what his dream trip will be after this, he’s wanted to go to RTX so long. We’ve been slowly prepping for months now, planning our evenings away from the convention, setting our budget, figuring our which panels we’d like to visit. The last couple of days have been the craziest.

1.) We cleaned. I already wrote about this, but suffice it to say, I’m nice and worn out from yesterday. The husband too. Don’t think I didn’t put him to work.

2.) We packed. We packed again.

Obviously a lot is missing from this starter pile. You’ll notice the nice groupings of t-shirts. Husband has enough Rooster Teeth shirts for every day of the convention, though I’ve promised we can buy more while we’re there. I only have one, the RWBY shirt in the middle. I packed two other geeky shirts, and was sad to realize that my nerd attire is entirely black or dark blue. We’re going to Texas. It’s going to be hot. Hence the stack of tank tops. We’ve even got some fancy clothes in there.

I thought about packing my “Bow Ties are Cool” shirt, but then I remembered that Ashley Jenkins wears the same shirt in a lot of her RT videos. Ashley Jenkins is a hot blonde who looks about 800x better than me. No need to have all of her fans immediately compare us. I opted for a weeping angel shirt instead.

Other essentials (pictured and not pictured): Lanyards (we bought new ones. Mine vanished when we moved last year). Reading material. A DS, loaded with Pokemon X. My Audible App, with one and a half un-read (listened to) Dresden File books. Geeky necklaces. Comfy shoes. Plenty of SPF.

3.) Leave a note for the house-sitters. I can’t believe how much of a challenge this was. Mostly it made me incredibly aware of how much we spoil our cats. It included lines like “don’t let Kitty #2 in the bedroom alone because she crawls under the fitted sheet and eats the bed topper,” and “don’t let Kitty #1 in the office because she steals Husband’s Halo toys and it makes him sad.”

4.) Setup blog posts to publish automatically. BOOM. If you’re reading this, then step number 4 worked. If not, oh well. I’ll be having too good a time to care much. Once we’re back I’m going to do an incredible amount of reading to catch up on all the blogs I follow. It’s a little scary, but kind of exciting as well.

5.) Stash a new notebook in my purse. It’s still Camp NaNoWriMo, friends. My Day 2 word count was 4826, and that’s what the website will reflect until next week. I’ll be writing by hand while we’re away, which is my preferred method anyway. I only ever type my NaNo stories because it’s easier to track the word count that way.

Have a great weekend, everyone! I’ll be on during down time and while I’m waiting in lines, but mostly I’ll be enjoying my honeymoon. I look forward to catching up with you all next week.

Geekmoon Prep Part 1: Apologizing to Mom

I smell like every kind of cleaning product on the planet.

Aside from the hyperbole, I’m tired. It’s amazing how gross you can feel after cleaning. Here I’ve put all of this time and energy into making my home nice and well-scented, and now I’m disgusting. If I want to get clean, I have to go use the clean shower, ruining its perfect state.

Which brings me to the subject of this post: Apologizing to Mom

When I was a kid, we went to Lake Erie for a week every summer. This is the way Ohioans do the beach on a budget, the great lake being the nearest significant body of water. Pretend it isn’t brown and gross. It gets the job done.

For the most part, I looked forward to said vacation, but my mom had a way of ruining the start: We always had to clean.

“We’ll all feel so much better coming home to a clean house.”

No, Mom, we won’t, I’d think. I like my messy room. You’re just doing this as an excuse to make us all work.

I was a charming child.

The day before vacation was awful. I always seemed to end up in charge of the bathrooms, which was as regular a chore as I had growing up. For years, it seemed I couldn’t get it clean enough. Mom would come in and inspect the room, then find a spot I’d missed. Vacation Inspector Mom was even more critical of my bathroom cleaning skills than regular Inspector Mom. I’d clean and clean. One year, I spent what felt like an eternity (probably 5 minutes) cleaning the vent. I proudly told Mom that I’d cleaned spots she wouldn’t have even considered.

Sparkling clean

I was wrong. She’d thought of it. And found more.

It’s been 10+ since I had a pre-vacation cleaning session with my mother, and I realize how right she was. I’m typing with dry, lemon/bleach/Windex/Comet scented hands, because it’s the day before my trip and I just finished scrubbing my home, ending with the bathrooms.

Why? The idea of coming home from vacation to a dirty house – one that would need any kind of cleaning – sounds stressful and miserable. I don’t know if I became this way because of my mother, or if I would have anyway. Still, I feel the need to apologize.

You were right, Mom. It’s always better to come home to a clean house than not.

Okay, I’m going to go hope the fumes have cleared so I can shower and finish packing. If anything, this makes the first day of the trip all the sweeter. Sure, I’ll be on a plane, but I won’t smell like I fell into a supply closet.

***I’ll have a follow-up post tomorrow about the geek side of our prep. It is a honeymoon at a convention, after all.***

NaNo Beginnings

Hi there fellow NaNo-ers (all non-NaNo-ers). I feel like I’ve had a successful day, and there’s still plenty of day left.

3137 words so far! As you can see, my first drafts aren’t always the highest quality writing, but hell, I’m not a professional writer. My final drafts aren’t either.

Normally I’d like to have more of a cushion the first day, but we have a pretty crazy week already. I’m working on a final checklist of everything we need to pack tomorrow for RTX. I’m also trying to get together a couple of blog posts to schedule to go up later this week while I’m out of town because I won’t have my laptop in Austin and *gasp* I don’t own a tablet.

On that topic, I will be checking the blog via the app while I’m at RTX (geekmoon!) and I’ll put up some small, con-related posts while I’m there. It’s not in the plan to go to any of the autograph signings, so I doubt I’ll have any fun selfies with any of the guests, but there’s always something to photograph at a convention. Be prepared, friends. I’ll keep up on your posts while I’m gone too, but my commenting might be down a little.

NaNo is still on the schedule for tonight. I figure I’ll start again once it’s an acceptable hour to have a glass of wine while I write.

How is NaNo going for everyone else? Stay strong!  In my experience, the beginning seems to be either very stressful, or incredibly easy. Hope you’re all experiencing the latter.

How to hatch your dragon

Step 1: See a children’s movie. As I’ve noted, I’m on my honeymoon. What better way to start the first official day away from the responsibilities of adulthood than to see a movie aimed at people decades younger than yourself? We picked How to Train Your Dragon 2.

I might have cried. Twice. But that’s not required for step 1. Or any of the other steps.

*clears throat*

Step 2: Continue the escape from adulthood by going to a toy store. The kind made for CHILDREN.

Step 3: Get overly excited when you see toys from your recently viewed movie. Convince your spouse that it is okay to spend $5.99 on a tiny toy egg for the chance you’ll hatch your own Night Fury. Be prepared for negotiations. You may have to allow said spouse to do something like buy a Halo toy in exchange.

Step 4: Read the directions on how hatch the egg. Note that they say to remove wrap and put the egg in water.

Step 5: Remove egg from the packaging, and then again from the plastic lining around it, because you’re an adult and you’re smart and stuff and can handle following some simple directions. Temporarily feel like Hagrid. Except that Hagrid bought his egg illegally. And hatched it in fire. And it’s the completely wrong fantasy reference.

Step 5 is rough.

Step 6: Confidently drop your egg in the water, fully expecting a dragon to emerge from the depths of your super deep scary bowl at any time and become your best friend.

Step 7: Begin to worry about the lack of exciting action. Wait for your significant other to point out that the blue stuff on the egg is probably supposed to be removed. Angrily grab the box and note that it only says to remove one wrap, not two. Feel inadequate and secretly blame your parents for not buying you more awesome toys as a kid.

Go back to feeling inadequate and unwrap the toy. Again.

Step 8: Quickly forget your shame as you admire the immediate chemical reaction. Be sure to protect your hatching dragon from any nearby predators looking to make sure they remain dominant.

Step 9: Reveal your newly hatched friend!

Step 10: Continue to feel like Hagrid for at least 10 more minutes. Convince yourself that you absolutely needed another small toy in your home. Because it’s AWESOME.

/end

 

NaNoWriMo and the Honeymoon Collide

I’ve written about both my plans to participate in Camp NaNoWriMo and my Honeymoon Prep. These two events will be colliding later this week. As promised, here’s my most recent business card idea for the convention:

I’ve already promised myself that I won’t stress about writing while we’re in Austin, but I guarantee you I’ll be thinking about my word count during the slow points in the day. What better way to spend long periods of time in line? Playing Pokemon?

Actually, that sounds like a good idea too. Someone remind me to pack my DS. After all, I am…

BOOM. Used a graphic twice. I feel so accomplished.

Good luck to everyone prepping their novels! And to those who will be at RTX, I can’t wait to see you there!