Tag: indypopcon

Busy morning

On By Luther M. SilerIn WritingLeave a comment

Brazel-Grond Bookmark FrontIt was official before, but it’s officialer now: I’m going to be at IndyPopCon again in a few weeks, from June 8-10, in Booth 1213, right next to Artists’ Alley.  I think I’m sharing a booth with someone– space sold out way faster than I anticipated this year, and I only got into the con at the last minute, but I don’t know who my booth buddy is going to be yet. (EDIT:  Never mind!  The email came through this afternoon!)  At any rate, I’ve spent the morning ordering books and bookmarks for the con, including the new one to the right, based on the cover for Tales: The Benevolence Archives, Vol. 3.  

(That book could really use some more reviews.  I know some of y’all read it.  Please? Pretty please?)

I suspect I’m going to regret putting that Prostetnic logo at the bottom there– I think it’s gonna wash out– but we’ll see.

At any rate, this is the first of three conventions I’m doing this year– one in Indianapolis, one in Kokomo, and one in Elkhart, so I’m trying to mentally justify the ridiculous amount of money I just spent by reminding myself that it’s covering all three of the cons.  We’ll see if that works or not; the money’s out of my bank account nonetheless. Popcon was a lot of fun the last time I went so I have high hopes for this one.  Wil Wheaton and Levar Burton are both going to be there.  I may try to see if I can use Twitter to get Wil to swing by my booth at some point.  It probably won’t work– I imagine if the celebs go to the vendor floor at things like that they tend to get mobbed– but you never know, right?  I sorta had Timothy Zahn at my booth once; this isn’t much different, is it?

There are movies we need to see coming out each of the next two weekends, so my wife took the afternoon off so we can go see Deadpool 2.  So maybe you’ll get a bonus post tonight.  I think it’s probably safe to say I’m gonna like the movie, right?

Monday miscellany

On By Luther M. SilerIn GeekLeave a comment

36004771I spent a few minutes looking for a meme pic or a GIF or even a YouTube clip of Marlon Wayans doing the “Got me a G-O-B” bit from Don’t Be a Menace to Society while Drinking Your Juice in the Hood,  but was both unsuccessful and powerfully reminded that that movie is even less funny than I remember.  So: South Park reference.

At any rate, however you spell it, I’ve got me one.  My first day was only notable in being almost entirely unworthy of discussion; there was some paperwork, some training videos, and that was about it.  They actually even let me go a bit early, time I used to wander around the sales floor and try to get used to the vast amount of inventory I’m expected to know stuff about.

And then the skies exploded, and we had perhaps an hour of some of the hardest fucking rain I’ve ever seen– rain so hard that I was unwilling to cross the parking lot to get to my car, because I would have been completely soaked in the five seconds it would have taken to get across the lot.  So I wandered the sales floor some more.

There is… uh… quite a lot to know.

IndyPopCon is officially the first convention that I came back from saying yes, I will definitely do that again next year.  Miracle of miracles: I actually made a profit!  Friday kind of sucked, but Saturday and Sunday were excellent.  I ran out of bookmarks Sunday morning and resorted to putting a plate of Oreos on the table in front of me.  The deal: you get a free Oreo, but only if you point at a book and say “Tell me about this one!”

More Oreos for greater enthusiasm.  $12 worth of Oreos probably made me over $150 in sales.  I’ll use that trick again.  My only real complaint about the con was the parking situation; my car was obnoxiously far from the convention center, and I’m not certain that the small amount I saved on parking that far away was remotely worth it.  I will investigate other options next time.

That said, my next convention has to be some sort of literary convention/book fair sort of thing.  I made money at this one, yes, but not exactly a lot of money, and I want to go somewhere where people are explicitly looking for books.  I know Gen Con does something like that, but Gen Con is expensive as hell and a pain in the ass to get into, and I’m not super interested in even trying with them.  There’s got to be something else somewhere nearby, though.

I feel like I’m forgetting something I wanted to talk about.  I’ll update if I remember what it was.

Home.

On By Luther M. SilerIn Photography1 Comment

Just four pictures today, on account of I had seen most of the good cosplayers before and I was selling books.  More details tomorrow, but not until after I get home from my first day at my new job!

And also assuming that I am not dead.

Which is not impossible to imagine.

IndyPopCon Photos, Day 2

On By Luther M. SilerIn Geek5 Comments

Hooooooly crap were there a lot of people out there today.   Yesterday was not a great day for sales– not a wipeout, but not good at all.  Today more than made up for that.

IndyPopCon photos, Day 1

On By Luther M. SilerIn Geek, Photography4 Comments

I didn’t take a ton of pictures today, but here they are.  The Daft Punk folks absolutely won the day.  Oh, and the Dalek.  There’s a dude in there.  With a voice modulator.  And absolutely no visibility. He was amazing.

 

Hope, perhaps

On By Luther M. SilerIn Politics2 Comments

cx1nxzk0ikbzns79dnql.gifThe one problem I’ve encountered so far in setup for IndyPopCon, and it’s a minor one, is that the Special Vendor-Only Discount Rated Lot that I decided to put my car in (because cheap) is cheap because it’s literally two damn miles from the convention center, with an entire football stadium in between.  Luckily, there is a free shuttle.  Less luckily, the shuttle doesn’t appear to be super fast and has a driver who believes he can get anywhere in two minutes.  It won’t be a problem until it’s time to break the booth down on Sunday, when it will ensure that lots and lots of people get into the loading dock before I do and slow me way the hell down.

But my booth is awesome, both in location and the amount of space allotted, so I’ve got precious little to complain about right now.  We’ll see how the next few days go.

One thing, though, is worth passing on: as I was waiting for the shuttle, I was sitting with the lot attendant, an off-duty Chicago (!!!) police officer who was chatty enough to fill fifteen minutes of conversation mostly by himself.  He terrified me at one point by, out of nowhere, bringing up the Orlando massacre.  Despite my demeanor online, I very much dislike talking about politics in person, even with people I agree with, and when a cop starts a conversation about guns I am hardwired to begin immediately trying to find some way to flee as fast and as far as I can to avoid having the conversation.  I really don’t want to be confrontational with people, I promise, and I’m not always great at conversing with strangers anyway.  A fraught issue like guns?  Run.

BUT!  Amazingly, the guy– having a conversation basically with himself, because my role was mostly to listen and grunt approvingly from time to time– managed to begin by presenting himself as a staunch “2nd Amendment guy” and then immediately walked himself down a rabbit hole where by the end of his spiel he was admitting that most gun owners in America didn’t have any business owning their guns (“or at least as many guns as they have”) and that after Orlando he was starting to seriously think that confiscation might be the right thing to do.

A cop said this.  A white cop.

How it didn’t happen after Sandy Hook, I don’t know.  A nation that changes nothing after children are gunned down in cold blood does not seem like a nation that suddenly sees the light after adults are killed, particularly adults in a gay bar.  But I feel like something is different this time.  Yes, anecdata, I know, but we may finally be getting closer to the beginning of a movement toward a sane gun policy in this country.

Maybe.

So, yeah, uh…

On By Luther M. SilerIn idiocy2 Comments

aw3snei4begajpjm8aghI guess I should post something, right?

Actually, take this as an alert: things are gonna be a bit on the light side around here for the next several days, as I’ll be in Convention Mode at IndyPopCon and my access to wifi is going to be uncertain until I return on Sunday, possibly quite late.  Then Monday is my first day at my new job.

I… uh… probably ought to have set up some guest posts.  I was at work all day today, and as a result I’m way behind in being ready to leave tomorrow.  But I’d rather sleep than pack.  Guess how helpful that is?

Yeah.  That kind of day.

#WeekendCoffeeShare: Major Announcement Edition

On By Luther M. SilerIn Stories17 Comments

newcoffee

If we were having coffee, I suspect you’d quickly notice that I was in an uncommonly good mood, at least compared to the last, oh, eight months.  Because good news:  I have a job.  Or, at least, I’m back up to my usual three jobs from the two I’ve held since October.

What’s the job?  Speaking broadly, sales.  Slightly less broadly, retail sales, but relatively large-ticket items.  It ain’t gonna be glamorous but I’ll be dressing nicer than I was at my last job and at least initially I really like the people I’ll be working with.  And, most importantly, 1) I can delete the “jobs” and “school” folders from my bookmarks, a fact that filled me with much more pleasure than the simplicity of the act might imply, and 2) I am not in imminent danger of running out of money and causing my family to lose the house.  Which… yeah, both of those are real good things.

This coming the same week as my brother’s wedding has me tentatively hopeful that 2016 is gonna drop the bullshit at least for a little while, but we’ll see.

Also!  You’ve probably figured this out if you’ve actually visited the site in the last week or so, but I’m going to be at Indy Pop Con in Indianapolis over Father’s Day weekend.  Specifically, Booth 722 in Artist’s Alley, which looks like a pretty primo location:

Screen Shot 2016-06-11 at 9.37.54 AM

I’m hoping those tables there are a common area of some sort and I’m not facing, like, the back of the food court or a stage or something.  This location is either going to be great or it’s going to be godawful; we’ll see.   At any rate: come see me next weekend!  This will probably be my last con appearance of 2016– at least, it’s my last currently planned one, although there’s a chance of appearing at at least one local event in the fall.  So I strongly suggest everyone reading this plan to run to Indy.

The conversation might turn to projects at this point, maybe, and we’d discuss how there are awesome hardwood floors under the disgusting, filthy pink carpet in my bedroom.  I’m planning on tearing out all the carpet over the next couple of days; pictures when it’s done.  Exciting!  Also exhausting.

So, yeah, coffee buddy, it’s been a good week. 🙂  You can fully expect me to spend the week after the con whining about how I haven’t had to work a 40-hour week in forever and I’m so tired and waah waah waah and all that sort of stuff, so be glad you got to spend part of the morning with me before I had to reacclimate myself to a working person’s schedule.