Near-Victory For The Weather Gods Of The West

Well, I am finally back from the long haul of the Seattle trip, though some of us will be turning around and heading to Boston next week for a similar experience, and I do not know if I will be headed that way yet; however, I promised some highlights (and lowlights) of the Sakura-Con/Seattle experience and so I offer them to you, dear readers :)

Five Interesting/Strange/ and Otherwise Odd Things From The Journey to and from the Pacific Northwest:
(man, some long titles today)

1) The Weather Gods doing their level best to annihilate me and Dave with the a variety of plagues: In order: hail (on the way out), snow and sleet (Cascades), sand/dust storms (Central Washington/Eastern Oregon), snow storms/heavy blowing and drifting snow (Wyoming, the whole darn state), driving rain/thunderstorms (Kansas and Oklahoma), funnel cloud (Oklahoma), and Rainbow Death Beams (some of the most vibrant rainbows I have ever seen, looked like some sort of rainbow colored death ray, seriously).

2) Watching the failure of Testosterone at a local Mexican restaurant (Mama's I think the name was): Normally attractive women talk to my co-worker/friend Dave and this restaurant was filled with them, truly, but for some reason they all directed attention toward me and ignored him (this is not the norm, especially at the shows, he does get the lion's share of the attention, but such is the way of things). Then I noticed why... the place was filled with an intellectual vibe (or at least in the decoration of the place and the dress of the servers, so it only means so much I guess :) that was not lost on me. But the guacamole was very good, and I do know guacamole at least.

3) Link Master Shields (Zelda) are awesome and attract tons of attention (and sales :) Sometimes, you just get the right product. In our case, some nice shields and wooden swords that left our hand and went to the consumer in what seemed like seconds. We had 11 cases of swords shipped to us (about 250 total I guess) and sold every one... not what normally happens at an anime show.

4) Listening to 'Achilles: The Ecstasy and Agony in Eight Parts' by Manowar: I had never heard this song before until Dave played this quasi-speed metal band. Awesome, and totally appropriate. I am surprised more gamers are not Manowar fans, though they are late 80's, early 90's fare.

5) The 12 Egg Omelette at the Hurricane Cafe: Holy crap, that's a lot of omelette. And they cooked the bacon just right. Plus, we payed in the most unusual (or annoying depending on your point of view) way: 25 dollars in quarters and 5 dollars in half-dollars (someone paid for an item in 16 half dollars on Saturday).

Just another unique adventure to add to our annals of convention travels :) I will try and update some more this weekend and get back to some of my blog friends I have been missing. I still have a few things to take care of, and still a little worn from the trip (blast you, Wyoming :)

C.