Howdy, folks!

First and foremost, it's that time of the year again, and this big ole dragon will be turning 27 in less than a month (Feb. 11th). So mark the date!

In other news, it's been a while since I've posted anything noteworthy in my journal section, so I thought that a little report about the most recent of my convention experiences would be something that people would be curious and/or interested to see. Hopefully it provides something useful or at least amusing.

To sum up my experience this year, I would use the word "Ambivalence."

It seems to me that Further Confusion has reached that uncomfortable point in its existence where it needs to either decide to pull its head out of its ass, or start to lose its fan base and thus its revenue stream.

I'll spare most of the details as they're largely unimportant and will take far too much time to type out and to read later. I will, however, briefly mention a few of the obvious trouble areas that should be taken care of before the downward spiral continues on...

1. Registration. In the past few years especially, registering for this convention has become a hassle on wheels. It seems to me that the convention staff love to find new and 'great' ideas that they feel will streamline the process of getting people to give them money so that they can, in turn, give out badges. Regardless of how good an idea might seem, it's useless on a grand scale unless you TEST IT FIRST. This is not a common sense notion that seems to cross the minds of FC's constaff at any point in time, and if it does then they are doing it wrong. FC staff, your system should not break down within the first few hours of the first night you open registration. If it does, you haven't done enough QA testing to see if it'll work. Just saying.

2. Dealer's Den. Once again, the dealer's den room has not moved from the shitty tiny room it was in at the Marriott last year. The room is too small to support all of the folks who would like to sell at the convention, and all of the folks who would like to wander around the room aimlessly with pockets full of cash to spend. The problem of space is so bad, that reserving more than one table is nearly impossible, which has unfortunately pushed out a lot of traditional staples of the dealer's den experience. Companies like Bad Dragon weren't even selling at the convention, which is typically a big draw for FC, and artists like Gideon whom are almost never absent from these things was nowhere to be found. This left the den feeling quite sad and empty, with only a few good artists and a smattering of companies amongst the my little pony stuff (and holy crap there was a lot of that this year).

There were other issues that seemed to pop up here and there around the convention, but those two were the most glaring of them all, and it lessened my enjoyment of the convention as a result since it felt like there wasn't enough draw for people to come out. In summary, it's hard to say whether the fifty bucks I spent to register for the convention was really worth it, and I'll have to think very hard about whether or not I want to attend next year. Perhaps it's time to start considering another convention elsewhere in the country?

I will say that I still had fun in the sense that it was awesome to see all of the familiar faces of friends that I hadn't been exposed to in a long while. Drinks were had, good food was shared, and games of the most awesome variety were played when there was time and people available for them, and for that I would say it was worth the trip. If there are folks out there who are disappointed that they couldn't meet me or hang out with me, I'm just as disappointed and wish that there was always more time to get everyone in!