Fun day yesterday

[feuervogel]

My friend K from high school just moved to Raleigh from Iowa, so I went to hang out with her. I'd invite her over, but she's allergic to cats, and even with Claritin, 5 cats is overwhelming.

So I found her place and we walked out to Glenwood Ave to get some lunch, then talked for a while about stuff. In general. Kinda like in high school, actually, except we're a lot older now.

When we walked back to her place, we walked past Escazú chocolates, which is a local (!) artisan chocolate shop owned by people of South American origin. Possibly Bolivian, but I'm not sure. I got a spicy chocolate ice cream pop, and my god, it was good.

I went back to Chapel Hill for COUP, and I was making fine time...until the traffic stopped. It took me 45 minutes to get about 5 miles. I'd called Ben to tell him I was stuck in traffic and get me some dinner, and he said he'd gone past an accident at Southpoint (276) when he was heading out. I wasn't even to the Durham Freeway yet (279), but knowing it had an end that wasn't really far away helped a lot. Even if my clutch foot got tired.

Good LORD there are a lot of new kids in COUP this year. William thinks it's because the kids who watched Pokemon on TV as kids are college freshmen now. *blinks* Good lord, I'm old. But it was adorably hilarious that one of the new kids asked if attendance at dinner was mandatory! Yes, we will make you join us for food! ... Yeah, no. We're a club made of college students and townies who (get this) watch cartoons for 3 hours once a week. We don't do anything mandatory, but we encourage people to come do social things, like eat food, see nerd movies at local cinemas, play (board & video) games at game night, and come to cons. What better way to make new nerd friends is there?

Speaking of cons, for reasons I am not at liberty to disclose, next year may be my last Animazement. (I already got my badge for 2010.) This would free my Memorial Day weekend to go to Wiscon. Or just stay home; who knows? I don't really *do* anything at the con, except this year I sat in Artists Alley for the better part of 3 days. Didn't sell much. (Though next year is the year of the rabbit, so I could make some adorable bunnies.)

OK, now to go wrangle some words.

Comments

[corbae.livejournal.com]

hey, I watched Pokemon on TV as a kid! They watched Pokemon, Digimon, and all the anime that came after, whereas I was really only exposed to Sailor Moon and DBZ (and Pokemon) before middle school.

[feuervogel]

I'm still old ;)

Lemme see, before middle school, I had ... Voltron and some Robotech. And I caught Galaxy Express 999 on HBO when I was like 5 (because we only had HBO for a year or so when I was about 5). *breaks out walker* You kids these days have it so easy! Back in my day ...!!

[david-f-smith.livejournal.com]

Yeah. I think that dude Andrew who sat with us at dinner was a good representation of the current freshmen -- watched Dragon Ball Z and Pokemon and whatnot as a young kid, then was just the right early-to-mid-teens age for the first round or two of more serious anime on Adult Swim (like Stand Alone Complex).

Pretty soon, of course, we'll have kids coming in for whom Japanese cartoons aren't anything special at all, just another ubiquitous bit of the cultural landscape.

In re: Memorial Day weekend, Wiscon doesn't sound like a particularly attractive prospect to me, but that is me. 101 1/2 will probably throw a big barbecue or something.

[feuervogel]

Considering Wiscon is a feminist exploration of media and full of meta and academics, I wouldn't expect a lot of people to be particularly interested.

(That is to say, it's sort of niche.)

[anacoluthon.livejournal.com]

That sounds very mysterious about AZ! I have to say that my plan of not going this year worked out pretty well for me.
The "is dinner mandatory?" email cracked me up.

I *really* need to get to the Escazu shop. Their 74% Roasted Pumpkin seed and Guajillo chili bar is amazing and I'd love to try some of what they only have in ther store. I'm pretty sure they're from Costa Rica because Escazu is a town there according to the magical internet.

[david-f-smith.livejournal.com]

The AZ stuff isn't really any big mystery, it's just boring haggard shit that doesn't need to be widely aired. I can tell some of the long horrible story at your party if you're at all curious.

Mandatory-dinner dude is one of those reminders that COUP provides vital socialization to some kids who really need it.

[feuervogel]

Like Dave said, it's a bunch of stupid shit that the internet at large doesn't need to know about, and I've only heard a fraction of it.

Kim got the sea salt peanut dark chocolate bar. It was good. (Then it got all melty on the walk back to her apartment, which is super close. And like 2 minutes' drive from Laura's.)

I was tempted by a couple of the truffles, but ice cream won out. The spicy is subtle at first, but then it says, "hey, remember how they said this had chilies in it? Hi!" Awesome.