Albany Games Fest!

The first day of the convention went rather well.  

Housemate and I made him a mask, as seen here: 

Obviously, I took this before he painted it. 

Though he didn't get a chance to do a cosplay contest.  

Still, there were events, stuff got sold, we met some new people, and we talked to some old friends... Well, I did, anyway.  

Rob made us turkey sandwiches for lunch and everything.  

There were games of both video and board varieties, and there were prizes to be won. 

Or, as one announcer stated, 

While this was a very busy con for those actively participating in the events, it was not so busy for the venders.  
This meant that we had some spare time. 

During this boredom lull in the convention, I found ways to entertain myself. 

I made more stuff,

I drew stuff,

I went over my to-do list, 

I drank too much water and had to go to the strange bathroom that doesn't make any sense to me...

You know what, let's take a moment to talk about that bathroom.  
I was told the men's toilet area was not this way. 

First off, I understand why that mirror would be so low.  If someone were to be in a wheelchair, that would be really useful. 

However, why were all the other mirrors segregated to another room?

  

And why did this other room require one solitary chair and trash-bin??

All that being said, it was a really nice, clean bathroom.  A+

*ahem*  

Now, while there wasn't a regular cosplay contest, there was the "Iron Cosplay" that involved using only newspaper and tape in a short amount of time to make a costume.  

My favorite was the narwhal, 

Followed closely by Cthulhu.  

Letsee...  
I started texting my friend at one point...

I braided my hair a few million times...

I complained about the cold a lot...

Oh, I also totally accidentally stabbed myself with this pencil: 

I still have a red dent in my wrist. 

I took pictures, but I won't post any here.  
I'm fine, by the way. 

EDIT: Almost a month later, and I still have a scar. 

What else did I do? 

Well, I spent a lot of time coming up with randomly terrible scenarios about everything for no particular reason...  

And I spent some time watching Rob play a videogame on his tablet...

When people were actively at the table, I kept my eye out for any wandering children. 

I also worried too much about my prices being too high or too low at any given time. 

To give you an idea of what our table looked like from our end, here are some photos!  (Are they still called that, if taken with a phone?  Phone-tos.) 

 

So many chairs.  This was before they were all filled with gamers. 

Earrings!  

More earrings...

So many earrings.  

A bowl of stuffed cats.  

Random spider.  

There were actually a lot of other things, but I got tired of taking pictures after a while.  

I even drew a thing for a sign for a thing!  

Day two went pretty smoothly, since we already knew how we were going to be set up.  

They had the "Iron Cosplay" again, this time with the best little girl ever. 

 Rob said if we ever entered such a contest, he would dress me as the shoe from Monopoly.  

It started as a mocking sort of plead from me not to ever do this: 

 And then it became weirdly dire in my head:

Eventually, tiredness took over.

And some really intense back pain.  

Around this time, I started making little stories in my head about the cats...

I wasn't the only one feeling the burn of it, so we left a little early.  Still, it was a fun, productive day.  

I highly recommend the Albany Games Fest at UAlbany next year!

 

Lost Like This

My sense of direction has never been fantastic. 

It is the real reason why a smaller campus is nice for me, though I'll admit that I've certainly gotten lost within small campus areas too. 

…Okay, within buildings.  I've gotten lost within a building or five.

Like, this one building on the smaller of my college campuses might as well be like that Escher painting. 
 



Once, as an undergrad, I got lost on the other side of campus because I had gone to the other dining hall. 

I had to call my friend from home, who had been there maybe once, to tell me how to get back to my dorm.
 

Of course, I had gotten stuck in my own dorm at one point before that… 
 

This one Summer, I was taking a class for college at my old high school.  

I figured, "Yeah, I remember this place.  It'll be a breeze getting around."

First of all, that saying, "You can't go home again" can mean a lot of things. 

In terms of my old high school, it means some major renovations were being made and the entire thing not only looked very different, but was actually being gutted at the time. 

So, after my class, I go to leave.  
I remember that the doors lead, you know... out. 

…And, technically speaking, they did. 

The problem was that "out" did not mean out to the parking lot. 

Out, in this case, meant out into a wasteland of mud and construction equipment. 

I like to think the equipment was just as confused as I was.
 

It was also raining, hence the dirt being mud. 

I turned to go back inside, but the door was locked. 

…

The door that I had just gone through was locked to the outside. 

I imagine I looked like this, trying to get back in:
 

With no other choice, I turned to see if I could some how climb may way out, back into society. 

I began to sink into the mud.

Not only was it really, super gross, but I also was working under the assumption that I was going to die there and be buried like some horrible time capsule. 

"This seems to be a college girl.  What was she doing back then in the 2000s wandering around a high school?  We may never know…" 

I actually don't remember how I got out, but I know that I was very distraught and disturbed when I went back to my parent's house. 

The sandals I had been wearing were given to the gods as sacrifice. 
 

I don't know why I thought that would be easy.  

I mean, even when I WAS in high school, I never knew where I was going.  

I'd carry around my schedule every day and ask my teacher EVERY DAY how to get to the next class.  

I was late most of the time, so I stopped going to my locker at all, except for before and after lunch.
 

I'd switch my school bag with my lunch box, then my lunch box with the other half of my school stuff for the rest of the day. 

Of course, this brilliant process is why I often did my homework, yet managed to not have it to hand in.

Middle school was even worse, because even if I had known where my locker was, (which I never did) I wouldn't have known the combination to my lock anyway.
 

I still have dreams where I'm lost and looking for my damn locker. 

I get lost in wide open spaces too.  I get lost in stores and panic the moment whoever I'm with is behind a display or something, thinking I'll be lost forever. 

Panic probably doesn't help the lost thing… 

I've learned to at least ask or pretend to know where I'm going until I figure it out, but I still feel like I'm always wrong about which direction I should go. 

…There's a metaphor in that, I'm sure.

EYES ON ALL THINGS

I'm alone in the house all day.  I try my best to keep up with dishes and putting away laundry and all that stuff...  I do commissions and I write and I complain about how things will be when I'm adding homework and papers to that list of stuff to do.

However, every now and then, I find myself feeling ill or I temporarily run out of shit to do.

And then I get bored.

Oh

Oh so bored.

And then the duct tape comes out.  

The "eyes" are ping pong balls sliced in half.  I've done this a thousand times, the most notable of them being the one I did here. 

So now the apartment has been invaded by trashcans which look at choo all da time.  

 LOOKIN AT CHOO


The "mouth" is the top of the trash bin.  That way you can feed the monster.  Sometimes I add teeth to the inside.  

Also, this means that when you knock over your can and the tissues or whatever fall out, it looks like the bin is vomiting.  JOY!

Standing up: 

I had done more complex monster bins before, including one that got complicated enough that I didn't want to use it for garbage anymore:

Now he holds umbrellas, so he's still useful.  

 "Bleh!" 


ANYHOO

I did it to the kitchen one too:  

Each had different colored eyes:  

The bathroom one was the only trash bin to need a different color duct tape: 

*sings*  Too much time on my haaandsss!