Whilst on the plane home from San Jose, I found a newspaper stuffed in the little magazine holder in front of me. I casually flipped through it and noticed the advice column. It had the standard ‘husband problem,’ ‘kid problem,’ and ‘mucous beast from other dimension problem’ that are the primary kinds of letters featured.

It then occurred to me that it would be funny to write in with some bizarre problem and ask for advice. However, they probably quite a few extremely weird letters, so mine would probably not rate very highly.

Then, being a nerd, I wondered who orcs would turn to when they desperately needed advice? Who would they trust with their innermost thoughts and feelings?

Gorg,
There is an orc in my unit that I hate. He always pushes me and tries to steal my food. What should I do?
Thork

Dear Thork,
Kill him and eat his entrails.

Gorg,
Sometimes the other orcs make fun of me because I like flowers. I just think they’re pretty (the flowers, not the orcs) and like to put them on my armor. How can I get them to stop making fun of me?
Orc with Flower

Dear Orc with Flower,
Kill them and eat their entrails. If you kill enough of them, no one will laugh at you for liking flowers.

Tomorrow: Part 2

Well, we made it. San Jose was quite a bit warmer than we're used to, so we sweated a lot. The Con was not as large as Emerald City and we didn't sell as much, but we had a pretty good time overall.

We did sit next to Mark Texeira, who was tremendously cool and a ton of fun to talk to. Michael Golden was a bit further down and though I didn't get a chance to talk to him, Leigh had a long conversation with him at one point and reported that he was really nice. On our left was the team from Scrap Pictures, who produce Blazin' Brandy. They were all great to talk to as well.

Leigh did a lot of sketches (a few of which he will post, I'm sure) and I talked to people and more or less hung out.

Which brings me to my one observation for Super-Con. Writers don't have as much to do. I suppose if you're established and popular, you would sit behind a stack of books and autograph all day. Artists can obviously do sketches, but writers, well, write, so unless you've got a laptop or are comfortable writing on a notepad, there isn't anything to do.

So I decided to start offering to write sentences for free. When people approached the booth and chatted with us, I would casually mention that I was the writer and would write a sentence for them for free.

I mostly got blank looks, but a few people laughed. No one actually took me up on the offer, which was too bad, as I had a couple of doozies ready to go.

Maybe I'll get a chance to write some in Spokane in June . . .

Anyhow, things went well and we're looking forward to the next con.

Cheers,
-Jason

So, tonight Leigh and I will be flying out to San Jose for Super-Con. Now, I hate to admit this, but flying always causes me a little trepidation.

I’m not entirely certain why.

I’m not afraid of terrorists. I think, as most red-blooded American men do, that if terrorists tried to take over the airplane I would be able to stop them. This is mainly because I always carry a large, hardbound book onto the plane with me. You can’t have a machete, but they will let you take 6-pounds of hard-backed paper.

Terrorist: I have a box knife, fear me!

Me: I’ve got volume 5 of the OED! Let’s go!

Cue sounds of someone being pummeled with a book.

Note: the OED is the Oxford English Dictionary and it is frickin’ huge.

I don’t worry about both pilots falling over dead at the same time, as Mythbusters has informed me that planes can now land themselves.

I don’t worry about gremlins tearing the wire out of the wings (Yes, I saw that William Shatner episode of The Twilight Zone as a kid. Yes, it freaked me out). I have been assured by several stewardesses that they have since installed anti-Gremlin measures onto all domestic and international flights.

I just think that it has something to do with being stuck in a giant, flimsy, metal cigar at 22,000 feet and thinking ‘I hope the guy that glued the wings on wasn’t having a bad day.’

Yes, I know the wings aren’t glued on. I’m pretty sure they use screws or something.

Hopefully, there will be some good con stories for next Monday.

Cheers,
-Jason

I recently learned of a new MMO coming out in a year or two called The Agency. It's a super-spy game that combines FPS action and RPG growth in a 'James Bond' style universe. Needless to say, I'm really excited about this title and can't wait to get my hands on it.

For your viewing pleasure, should you choose to click on it:
The Agency Official Trailor

Cheers,
-Jason

Observation #4
A certain number of insane people come to comic-cons. I’m not just talking about ‘run-of-the-mill’ nutty, where you have a few too many pieces of Sailor Moon paraphernalia, play too much WoW, or have encyclopedic knowledge of the Discworld universe (I am guilty of two of these three. Guess which?).

I’m talking about the ‘wow, this person is allowed to drive a car’ kind of insane.

I had a young man come up and ask me if I liked Uwe Boll movies. Here is the actual start of the conversation, as well as I can recall it:

Him: Do you like Uwe Boll movies?

Me: Well, maybe ‘like’ is too strong a word. ‘Amused by’ is more like it. (friendly chuckle).

Him: (intense stare) Blood Rayne was the best movie ever made!

Me: Uhhh, I haven’t seen it (a lie, sadly).

Him: It is! They’re making a sequel!

Me: Really?

This continued for around 10 minutes, at which point Leigh came back and I excused myself to go to the bathroom. He was still there when I got back and eventually wandered away a few minutes later. Leigh and I compared notes and as far we can tell, he had the exact same conversation with Leigh as he did with me.

Well, that about wraps up my observations on Emerald Con. We’re looking forward to Super-Con in San Jose this weekend and hope to see more fans there (and to make new ones).

In case you can’t find us, we’ll be the two nerds sitting at a table.

Cheers,
-Jason