Sorry, folks. Work has been busy as all get out, so I will be posting tonight after work.

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So as Mr Rich said, I was forced to return to my ren-faire roots yesterday. At about 4:30 yesterday afternoon the wind took out the power to a large part of my neighborhood, and it turned out, many other parts of the DC area. This morning at sometime around O-Dark thirty the power came on, but the lovely cable monopoly hadn’t yet caught up with the power people and we just got internet back about an hour before I got home from work. Huzzah!

As far as geeky pursuits with no power cord went, I curled up on the sofa next to a warm fire and plowed through a couple of books. My family *gasp* talked! Being a bit on the intellectually geeky side we ended up discussing Zorn’s Lemma and the Axiom of Choice, and telling really dorky grad school jokes. Wrap that up with some Christmas cookies, sock knitting, and some Christmas Carol read out loud, and I’d call it rather a success, doncha think?

Well, I’m not going to write up the entirety of the post I had planned for today, maybe I’ll polish it up really good for next week, if I remember. I will however say that this is the time of year that charities make their really hard sell and that there are, out there in the world, loads of geeky charities to choose from. The big one that everyone thinks of is of course, Child’s Play, and I heartily encourage you to consider them if you have a few extra ducats after the holiday sales have done with you. Not only does it help sick kids, but it helps to ensure that the kids of today are the geeks of tomorrow!

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Because Miss Katy’s power was out last night.

Apologies for the lack of post, but unfortunately Old Father Winter decided that parts of her area were not going to have electricity last night.

So, since a good chunk of geeky activity requires electricity in one form or another (lights to read by, power for TV and games, etc.), what is your favorite ‘blackout’ geek activity? (And please, keep it PG-13.)

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I never dated online, but I’m sure if I was single, I’d be all up in that e-Harmony Love You Long Time site.  I generally hate bars and don’t like the music they play at the dance clubs.  Online would be the place for me.

In this day and age of widespread digital video, I think it would be almost essential for these dating sites to offer video hosting.  Video is all around us.  We can grab video on our digital cameras, our phones, our laptops.  We’re all plugged in and we’re all filming each other doing really crazy shit.

Video profiles would allow potential daters an added dimension in meeting each other for the first time.  A lot of things can get mis-communicated or misunderstood in emails and text, especially when you’re trying to date someone.  Much of the underlying meaning in our real life conversations come from tonal inflections, facial expressions, body language, not just the words we use.  These are difficult to translate through just text.  Video profiles and Q&A vlogs would give users a better understanding of their potential date than text on a screen.

Of course, the idea is not without flaw.  Some of us are horribly camera shy.  In person, you might be a freaking mac daddy!  But if you’re afraid of looking like an idiot on video, your video profile will not represent the real you.  Still, I think it would be a nice idea to see some of these dating sites implement.

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As I was saying before I was so rudely interrupted by myself, the late ’90s were a dark era for fans of giant robots, mecha, and general Burning. Shows were dark, brooding, incomprehensible, and largely unsuccessful - a backlash was inevitable, and mostly welcomed.

One of the shows that started the anti-angst movement was Gate Keepers, by GONZO. Gate Keepers was a direct response to the Eva Effect, returning to the simpler sensibilities of the ’60s and ’70s. It was about as straightforward and old-school as you can get - Ukiya, the hero, is a hot-blooded young man with a strong belief in the fundamental goodness of mankind. He’s surrounded by cute girls who all love him in various ways, but he’s too thick to notice. There are a lot of attack names shouted out by the characters, and really, beyond a few of the villains, no one spends too much time pondering the meaninglessness of existence. While not a giant robot show in the purest sense of the word (the Gate Robo doesn’t really get much screen time), Gate Keepers marked a major turning point with its return to older, simpler, and lighter sensibilities.

The biggest sign that the Age of Angst was over was the release of Gundam SEED in 2002. The Gundam juggernaut returned to its own roots through the series - in many respects, Gundam SEED is considered to be a reworking of the original Mobile Suit Gundam story, with ZAFT taking the role of Zeon and the Earth Alliance being equivalent to the Earth Federation. With Gundam back on the airwaves for the first time in 3 years (6 years, if you choose to ignore Turn A Gundam like many other Gundam fans do) and becoming wildly popular without the help of cryptic plot twists and overbearing darkness, studios pulled themselves out of the post-Eva funk and started returning to the roots of their giant robot and mecha shows, making them fun to watch again instead of post-modern wastelands.

At the same time, there were attempts to add more moe of the sprouting kind to the previously testosterone-dominated genre, but that’s a subject for another time.

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At one point or another, most people, not just geeks, feel lonely and/or ostracized. Many of us have had that moment where a person or group of people we were trying to become attached to (ask out on a date, become a group member, etc.) has rejected us.

And at that moment, many of us, especially the nerds and geeks, have had this thought:

“I’ll show them. I’ll show them all.”

This doesn’t, of course, always mean violent retribution. In fact, I would dare to say that most people would imagine themselves taking the high road, and becoming better than the person/people who has rejected them, than becoming angels of vengeance.

There is a song I’ve only just recently heard of, by singer/songwriter Jonathan Coulton, that sums up how I, and many people I’ve known, felt at times like that.

The song can be found here. Go and listen to it, then come back. I’ll wait.

Done? Good.

The story in the song is an interesting slide, from the initial ‘I’ll become a great person, that’ll show them’ to the eventual (though accidental) retribution on the people who spurned the singer. And while science isn’t the path everyone takes (Hollywood and sports celebrity are more than likely to be very popular paths, too), it’s not hard to put yourself in the singer’s place.

Mr. Coulton has another song, this one having become an internet phenomenon last year, that reminds me of how I’ve felt when life seems against me, and to a lesser extent, how I felt when I was rejected by a girl.

Go and take a listen here, I’ll probably be listening too.

The first verse speaks to just about anyone in a corporate situation, and the last two speak a little bit more to the geeks and nerds in the audience, in my opinion. While we aren’t all programmers, it’s likely that most of the people reading this have been, at one point or another, a ‘work monkey’ of some sort. (I’ve been a translation monkey enough in my life) And I’d guess that, especially in the current economy, that many of us want more than we have.

So, do either of these songs strike a chord with you? Which one, and what was your experience like? Are there any other songs that remind you of these kinds of feelings?

(And if you liked the music, please go and support Mr. Coulton. The songs are cheap (some are even available for free), and quite good.)

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The holiday season has arrived, readers! Wake up with a lighter step! Take things with a warmer stride! And do your part to fight back against the Christmas-can-die-in-a-fire callousness.
(Seriously folks, you get semi-free stuff and certainly free food! Lighten up!)

But I’ll tell you, I personally am looking forward to something better than my Amazon Wish List. (If I had one anyway:)

COMIC MARKET 73* is on Dec 29th through the 31st in Tokyo! A motherlode more than your existing motherlode of doujinshi awaits!!!

*[The quick & dirty explanation is that Comic Market (Comiket) is a bi-annual Japanese small press convention of independant comic creators & cosplayers, offering primarily independent comics called “doujinshi.”]

As an artist & manga fan, I’m reminded around this time of year just how lucky we are to be able to reach media like this. Even if one hasn’t set foot in Japan, to think that one can actually sample, buy and communicate with the myriad creators at Comiket courtesy of the Internet is just mindboggling! And more so than before, there are individuals like the writers at Heisei Democracy, bold bloggers like Danny Choo, or able-bodied and strong willed artists and fans who are making their way to Comiket and experiencing the event firsthand. Someday, I hope to join them, and see the faces behind my favorite circles as well. I’ve GOT TO meet Himukai Yuji.

But, for now as I approach a real milestone of my life (30 years on this planet!) I look to Comiket news all over the net, steeple my fingers and itch for deliveries to my favorite mail order catalogues, and prepare to do what comes natural to me — geek the heck out. Add on the defensive buffs of Christmas holiday fever (+5 Happiness, Luck & WellWishes) , New Years Eve drunken schenanigans (+10 charisma, -6 agility) and my birthday to cap off the winter (30% critical up), and I personally can’t help but be a bit… jolly!

Likewise, more than new Iphones or 1080p TV’s… what events this holiday season are you all looking forward to?

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Oh guys. I am in SO much trouble. I was at work today (I am writing at really late o’clock Sunday night) and made a stupid, stupid bet with a coworker and lost. Now I have to buy her boyfriend’s Christmas present. She wants a video game that he hasn’t played yet and he’s into first person shooters and action type games and that is TOTALLY out of my experience. I am TERRIBLE at those games, and frankly I’ve been buried so deep in World of Warcraft lately to even have noticed any…

If you have any suggestions at all, I will be forever grateful. I will, um, I don’t know. Do something awesome for you guys. As soon as I think of something. I’ll owe you big time.

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While this week is supposed to be a Burning article, those tend not to be as fun to write as the Sprouting articles, and I can’t let an excuse to write about maid cafes slip by.

The tastefully named Richard Kim told you earlier this week that maid cafes are easy to start and keep open, but that’s not the whole truth. The market for cosplay cafes, and maid cafes in particular, is relentless and cutthroat, and the prospects for a new maid cafe are dim if they enter a saturated market without a solid plan to bring in a steady clientele.

So, to carve out a steady clientele and a distinct niche in the maid cafe world, everyone supplements their cosplaying girls with a gimmick. @home saboh has two stores: one which offers girls dressed in traditional Japanese clothing, and one with a much more “standard” maid atmosphere. Akiba Maid de Casino Guild is, well, a casino with maids as the dealers. Cafe Nagomi, which is famous enough to have been on television several times, is an imouto (little sister) cafe. I can name a million more stores and their gimmicks, from maid foot massages to a few hours of board games and rock-paper-scissors.

Not that I’ve been to any of these places, of course. You just, uh, hear about them in my line of work is all.

But what’s even more fascinating about the maid cafe industry is its willingness to change not just from store to store, but from week to week in order to retain customer interest. Nagomi is a great example of this - on their website, they are currently touting a pajama-themed event, where the little sister costumes get traded out for PJs. Nearby maid cafe Pinafore has become a popular location for video game events, with special days for Idol Mahjongg Suchi Pai as well as an upcoming event for soon-to-be-released gal game Period (warning: link not safe for work). Tsundere day, free cosplay day, animal day, even “twin tails with ribbons” day, if there’s some kind of fetish that will draw in extra customers for the day, these cafes have to be willing to cater to it if they want to survive.

There’s a shoujo manga currently running called Kaichou ha Maid-sama about a girl who works in such a maid cafe. Along with being one of the best crossover appeal manga currently in print (for some odd reason, Akiba guys LOVE reading about well-drawn girls in maid outfits), it’s a pretty good depiction of the kind of work that goes into running a special event each week, from extra costuming to acting lessons - I highly recommend it to anyone who’s even vaguely interested in the phenomenon.

So if you’re in Japan, and you’re not going to take my suggestion of walking into the basement of a game store and reading the genres of porn games to yourself, try checking out the maid cafes just to see the cosplay equivalent of an arms race. It’s a fascinating example of a market that forces itself to evolve weekly.

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From the desk of a wayward Crybringer:

-Derelict posts will be countered by doing them a day in advance. HAY GUYS I FIGURED IT OUT! So, pulling from my stable of sketches, here’s a winner:

Every so often, an artist has to step away from their slavish fandom of all things bishoujo PVC figures, side scrolling shooting games, doujinshi collecting, hometown football teams, and Law & Order SVU reruns to actually challenge themselves to do more. Thank Pocky for the next topic as well. Because maids are relevant to my interests. And where are you going to get ***drow*** maids? Who would think of such a thing?!

(Linked so as not to offend. I mean, it’s on lined paper. That’s offensive.)
-CB

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