Monkeys and keyboards aside, one Random + CSS still doesn't make poop.

I'm still trying to get a ticket refund for NYAF. The guy whose number I have is still refusing, and I'm starting to put things together in a way that's none too flattering.

Most of the promises made about our dealers' room spot? Made over the phone by the guy who runs the Artists' Alley, who said we haaaaad to be there as artisans because we were "too professional." So the bit where we were told we had to buy $55 general admission tickets as well as the $750 booth, or the bit where we were promised two tables and five chairs, then arrived to find an empty square and were told renting tables would be $211 each? Even though other conventions typically include the tables so we had no reason to think this would be different? Not only is this awfully hard/impossible to prove: the guy who told us this doesn't have official attachments to the dealers' room and thus probably couldn't be held responsible for his promises.

And according to the guy I finally got a hold of (who didn't call back despite being left a couple messages), NYAF absolutely cannot tell if I used or didn't use my badge. And oh yeah, I should've gotten the extra ticket thing taken care of that weekend, despite how con staff told me I should wait until afterwards.


This is not the kind of game they want to play with me. We as a group worked mostly around the unnecessary expenses NYAF tried to use to drain more money out of us: We got our own chairs and tables from Target (for far less than $211 a pop) and we made do without an electrical outlet. The extra ticket thing, though, is $55 I could use on infinitely more important things. Like ebay. I'm gonna try to play as nicely as possible (because I hate irrational freaking-out customers), but I don't have the money for this sort of vampiric "I'll throw excuses at you until you go away" bullshit.

Today was the day to get some of my NYAF leftovers up on etsy. Success = moderate. I think earrings need to go up next--I've only got a million or so laying around here. D:

I was going to hold off on the etsy slam, since our one person from NYAF told me there's a ren faire on Sunday which direly needs gypsy jewelry. I have off Sunday and seriously want rid of some of these boxes of stuff. But this adventure went the way of anything related to NYAF: the guy called on Tuesday to say that oops, it's on Saturday instead. I work a 9-10 on Saturday and can't afford to call off any more.

I guess I get to sit on my boxes of retail stuff for a while longer--or at least until I get an opening to sit a vendor table at any of the local tribal/dance/ethnic-type shows. The question then becomes whether or not that'll happen before Tekko. Or before the person from NYAF calls back about my ticket fee refund.

Okay, so I'm gonna have to stalkabitch unless he calls back and/or gives my money back. The bullshit that went on with that con has left me with an extremely low tolerance for . . . well, anything involving the con.

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Panera's orchard salad thingy is made of awesome and tasty and I highly recommend it.

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So what's up with Deviantart going all Strikethrough-like? It's a bit of bad form for one of the company's higher-ups to take aim at at the people who age up characters for fic/art. At least Lj had the sense to not out-and-out call fanartists and fanficcers freaks. Some of the staff who abandoned aff.net have started the Evocative Fics and Forums Network as a sort of retaliation, which at some point should be taking fanart, but in the meantime I guess fandom gets to sit back and watch stuff get 404'd. Again.


I need to get back to writing. :P

Yeah, never again. It's beyond terrible when I made more at a 2.5k-person con on half a table in an un-air conditioned artists' alley with tiny tiny walkways. Only half the people at our booth broke even (me included, thankfully) and I only talked to one vendor at the dealers' room who said they were coming back. And in their case, it was because they're based only seven blocks away & kinda have to. So long anti-NYAF rant short, they'd have to pay me to get me back there.

Now to figure out who to bitch at to get my ticket money back, as Mr Used Car Salesman-type Artists' Alley guy told us we had to buy weekend badges as well as the dealer's booth & I dropped $55 on my pass before learning that no, admission costs were part of the dealer's fees.


There were good times, of course. The media was out in force there, in ways I've never seen at a con before. Our one boothmate, Jason of Puck You Productions, got interviewed by people from the Conan O'Brien show & people from some British tv show. I'm not sure how many of what groups interviewed me--there were three or four, and one might've been from Comcast--but I gave a different name every time. :P I hope I run into some of the pics, though. What I saw of 'em came out pretty okay.

(And did I get hit on? Sweet Jesus.)

Was it a complete loss, though? I'd say not. I saw sayaka_sama and allherglory--okay, so I decorated allherglory and plunked her in the chair behind my table. We met plenty of neat people--like Andrew of Paper Forest and Claire of Cute Plush, who fed us & who we plan to feed again at ACEN. We also met the lady who owns Kawaii Gifts in Shadyside. She's a happy friendly little someone who offered to give my coworker and I convention advice. (I want to feed her as well.) I also ended up taking a pic with this adorable little gothed-out creature from Artists' Alley who . . . well, I still don't know what gender they were. Trap? Reverse trap? No clue!

More pics may come later, but I still have wedding pics to sort through so let's not have anyone hold their breath. :P The primary mission is to get all my extra stock up at Etsy, either before or after I take on the ren faire on Sunday. Maybe this selling shiny things deal will work out after all.