Avram's journal

Last night’s Games Club ran till almost 3 AM, and I only played one game. (San Juan, and I managed to win despite thinking I was doing really badly. I made really good use of a Crane.) That’s OK, as long as I get my San Juan/Puerto Rico fix for the week, I’m really there for the socializing. We wound up watching weird animation and doing tarot readings. If I hadn’t left my deck at home, and Beth hadn’t already left taking hers, we would probably have tried using a San Juan deck to do divination.

It was nearly 4 when I got home, so I slept in late, and stopped off at Pearl and the Art Store on the way (I’m pricing the Golden Transparent Airbrush Acrylics set — $26 at both places, $23 online), and to buy a new strap for my shoulder bag (the old one broke Thursday — my third Eagle Creek strap to break. I got a different brand this time) so I didn’t get to the MoCCA festival till after 3.

The con was physically larger — taking up more floor space in the building — but it seemed less dense, so I don’t know if there were actually more exhibitors.

First purchase: A membership in the museum. I’ve been meaning to for a while.

Second purchase: Fragments, the book of sketches by Enrico Casarosa and Ronnie Del Carmen. I’ve been looking for this, and not finding it at stores (turns out it’s not shipping to stores), so I snapped it up immediately I saw it at the Monkeysuit Press table. Beeeatiful!

It was at this point I said to myself “I’ve spent $60 in my first ten minutes; time to hold back.” So I bought no more comics after that, just a few buttons. I’ll go back tomorrow and get more stuff. I miss coming home with a bag full of minis.

Best moment: Shaking Scott Morse’s hand and telling him how much I liked Ancient Joe, and seeing his face light up.

Weirdest moment: Not one moment, but all the time, my feet sticking to the floor. The wooden floor of the Puck Building was sticky in some weird way that made rubber and plastic soles bond to it tightly enough that they made an audible thwick! noise when you pulled your feet up. A funny comment about this phenomenon could be used as an icebreaker for any conversation at the con.

Second-weirdest moment: A couple saw me and thought I was someone else. “You must be thinking of some other fat, bald guy with a Van Dyke. There’re probably a dozen of us around.” We had a nice little chat anyway, and traded theories about the sticky floor.

People I ran into that I already knew: A woman from work (but I knew that, since we’d chatted about MoCCA earlier in the week when she learned I was a comics geek; her husband does a comic called Gabbagool!), an old friend from my SVA days, one of cthulhia’s friends, and the woman running the con (who I know through pnh and tnh).

People I was expecting to see but didn’t: scottbateman, sw_inku, maybe bigscary and negativeq.

Guy whose t-shirts I would have bought a bunch of if they’d had them in my size: This guy. Ah well, there’s always ordering over the web.

How much I hate myself for having not made any progress over the past year in getting a comic done: A moderate amount.

Another comic I bought that I forgot to mention above: The Gypsy Lounge, by Jasen Lex. Some seriously neat combining of drawing and photography here.