October 28, 2004
Thursday October 28, 2004 • Howard Tayler

Miscellany, Miss Bunni
entry,

There's lots going on, so the entry is going to scan poorly. Oh well.

First of all, you may have heard of Jay "Tron Guy" Maynard. I knew him before he was famous, but only just barely -- we met at Penguicon 2.0 where his Tron costume debuted, and where he met the Slashdot guys who offered to publish his how-to.

Well, at Linucon earlier this month he debuted a new costume: General Levaughn Matsui "Hugo" Xinchub. The whole story is right here. Be sure to scroll down to the bottom for instructions on how to make your very own FULLY FUNCTIONAL* Strohl Munitions AP-130 Plasgun.

Jay's awesome. He tried to plug Schlock on the Jimmy Kimmel Live show when Jimmy asked about Jay's lack of mustache, but Jimmy, true to his comedic sense, talked over Jay's answer with "I'm sorry I asked." Indeed, Jimmy, you should be. Had you allowed Jay to inflict Schlock Mercenary on your viewers you never would have heard the end of it.

Moving on...

The Dragon's Keep gig yesterday was wonderful, but very problematic. We had something like three times the turnout I expected, and that meant that a lot of people got to meet me and see me draw stuff that was not for them.

I'm not lying when I say this tears me up inside. Seriously. The problem was twofold:

  1. I come from the business world where you always try to put paying customers first. I cranked out custom marker art as quickly as I could, and Sandra is happy with your contributions to the milk-for-the-baby fund, but there were more people there than I had time to draw for, and I put the most time-consuming (and therefore best PAYING) projects first.
  2. I booked the wrong afternoon. Three hours was not enough time, and they were the wrong hours for honest folks who work 'til 5pm. We should have done this on a Saturday, or at LEAST let it run another two hours until the store closed. Sadly, I had a family activity I needed to bug out for.
So... NEXT TIME (and there will be one), we'll make sure I'm there for longer, and I'll focus EXCLUSIVELY on doing quick custom sketches, free of charge, for whoever wants one. I'll just leave the markers at home, and those of you who want fancier commissions will have to work with me via mail-order.

If you were there and didn't get a sketch, I'm really, really sorry. I had a great time talking with you guys while I drew and markered frantically, and I totally want to do it again, only with more sketches and less money.

Moving on again...

Ahh, the irony. In the previous paragraph I seem to be eschewing money, while right here I'm plugging a new desktop background available for Paypal donors.

This may or may not be your thing. That's fine. TODAY (OCTOBER 28th) ONLY, as timed from California, Paypal won't be charging me any service charges. If you're planning to donate, today is a great day to do it. So for today, any Paypal donation, any amount, gets you the desktop URLs emailed to you. After today the minimum is $2.00.

Please don't feel like you have to blow a year's worth of pent-up donation guilt all in one shot. I mean, I don't mind getting large amounts of money in the mail, but I don't have anything to offer except Bunni with a needle right now.

I think I've run out of things to talk about. That's usually a sign that it's time to shut up.

*NOTE: "Fully functional" does not mean "fires plasma." It means "looks cool." Sorry about that.