A Fraking good time

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Finally at the convention

My alarm clock goes off right at the time I set it for: the crack of noon. I decided not to make the same mistake I had made previous years of going first thing many hours too early; and wait in line for too many hours with just the really fanatical people. You know, those that spent the previous night working on the most mind numbing painstaking detail of whatever costume they are wearing.

So I show up at the convention center with my newly minted T-shirt and the 10 DVDs I spent most of the night making in mind numbing painstaking detail.

Overall I had a good time. There was a lot of side areas set up for people to show off whatever. A couple of people reading palms. I was tempted, only to see if they could see that time when I was a kid and was bit by a Doberman. (My Dad now has a couple of min-pins that love to chew on my hands.) There were plenty of those that would do some caricature of you in the anime style they were hawking. A couple were even using using the same style used in a certain Megaman Clone. Then I wondered into a discussion on drawing comics based on a simple word.

That word: taco.

I couldn't help myself, I had to chuckled under my breath. I came in at the very tail end of the class and it had ended almost as soon as I got there. (I seem to have that effect on people.) A guy who could hear me asked what was so funny. I told him about it and another girl joined in and we remembered the glory days that was Bob and George.

Of course, any shill without even one ounce of self-respect would twist the conversation onto themselves and the wares they are hawking. So I told them all about my web site and Rosenkreuzstilette. The girl said she had heard of me, she then promptly left. That meant she didn't get a copy of the Rosenkreuzstilette Combo Pack. One guy did take a copy. (One down, 7 to go.) This guy was bored fan. He actually drove about two-hundred miles to be there. I only drove about twenty. After that, I left a couple copies of the DVD on the table in the back.

I went back to the dealer's area to check on a table that I had left a couple of copies on. (Forgot to mention that, didn't I.) They were gone. Double checked ever garbage can in a 50m radius to make sure they hadn't found their way in to one. Since I was next to the dealer's room, I went in.

I was pretty disappointed. Most everybody was selling just Deathnote, Naruto, Lucky Star, and Pokemon merch. The rare occasion I saw mecha, it was of course Gundam. What is it with Gundam? Does Big Box have some sort of death grip on Transformers? Anyway I did manage to give away another disk to a dealer. She liked my shirt. I think she actually translated it.

Later on I somehow got into a conversation with a group of kids, boy was that a hard conversion. I don't know how teachers can handle it. But I managed to get through my presentation and hand out two more copies.

Walking around some more I got my attention put in a figure four leg lock by the AMV room. I just sat down and watched it for an hour. One I remember was the Deathnote opening with Lucky Star characters. Picture Konata catching a bullet. It ended so I went back to the comic discussion room to check on the disks, they were still there. I left them and so I left.

Started with 10 copies of the Rosenkreuzstilette Combo Pack.
4:
Went into other people's hands.

2:
Taken of a table.

2:
Still on a table.

2:
Still in the chew toys that I call hands.

I'll be honest, I'll score myself a 60% success rate in giving them out.

That's right, I gave them away.

Night before the Anime Convention.

Rosenkreuzstilette Combo Pack

SO now I'm done with the music. Changed them all out, screwed the pooch on a couple. Got the lengths correct to cover any looping issues, screwed the pooch on a couple. Even made sure the audio levels were the same through out, really screwed the pooch on that one. (I got one sore pooch.)

There's more. I decided to decode ALL the files in the alt-music version of Rosenkreuzstilette I'm putting together. I did this purely for bonus reasons.

Hey, Why don't I throw in all the various versions of Rosenkreuzstilette? Well? Can't think of a reason why not. The easy part was finding the original Japanese and English Hack. They were in my video games folder. Just a quick copy paste. Lucky me Rosenkreuzstilette 2: Demo 2 was nearby so in it went. Now finding the original Rosenkreuzstilette Demo and Rosenkreuzstilette 2: Demo 1 was much harder. I finally found them on some very disreputable sites that (unlike other sites) shall remain nameless here. Scanned them with anti-viruses, tested them out, scanned them again.

Next comes Nero. Burn, Baby, Burn! Until I get to disk 6. (Insert farting noise.) Apparently my DVD Burner took a total crap on me. Fortunately I have a backup. You see, for some reason, a movie will quit on me in one DVD-Rom, I just put it in another a keep going. So I finish up burning ten copies of the
Rosenkreuzstilette Combo Pack DVD

Of course I checked each and every disk to make sure it worked. (I just realized something: I never checked to make sure that they worked in XP, the most commonly installed OS in the world, what a crack head.)

I can kinda sorta guess what may be going through your mind: "He's made copies of the game, and is going to a convention. He's not seriously going to SELL them?"

No, of course not, I gave them away.

Insert Videos Here

Okay, so what the hell does an alternate music track have to do with an Anime Convention? I'll get to it.

There were several goals I set up for myself: First was to use songs of the same styling. What I mean by this is go play Megaman 9. Capcom used the Megaman 2 Stage Start in a game that uses the same feel as Megaman 6. I can hear the difference.

Second was to not use the most obvious songs. Like Toadman for Sichte's stage.

Third was to be able to justify the use of the song. Not just because I liked it.

And I epically failed.

Yes, I wound up using songs from all across the Megaman universe. From Complete Works, Powered Up, Arcade, Maverick Hunter X, to name a few. After about a day of trying to find a CW replacement for Replay Grolla, I gave up and went with Zero's Sacrifice from MH X. I discovered It really didn't matter if the styles didn't match, as long as it sounded close enough.
(I admit to being a little too anal about such things, like safe sex.)

So after that fateful decision, the whole thing came together rather quickly. Except for Talk Tears. I had forgotten about it until I did the last play through. CRAP! I could just leave it, but that isn't my style. So I go back into the Megaman music folder. By about this time I had heard all these songs several dozen times and was sick of them. I'm tired, cranky, and needed to make a call on the porcelain phone.

When I got back, playing through a random happen stance of random shuffling in Windows Media Player was Alia and Gate from MMX6. "Heh, That'll do."

Admittedly, I did use songs that I would have to contort myself into pretzel to justify. Like using Chargeman in Merkle's Stage. I could spend at least another 20 paragraphs comparing the similarities in attacks, or I can simply say, It's my favourite song from MM5, and I was desperate not to use Skullman or Woodman.

One thing I was trying to do for at least the regular stages was to use a song from Megaman One through Eight. I do have the soundtracks for Nine and Ten, but I don't find them interesting, and hey, Splash Woman is just too damn obvious. (Yes, I did use Toadman for Sichte's stage.)

Also, I actually used Geminiman for the Anime Convention, not Frostman Demo. Oh yeah, The Anime Convention, what does any of this have to do with the Anime Convention? Darn, ran out of time for this week.

Tune in next time when we'll hear Grolla say: "Hey big man, let me hold a dollar."

Rosenkreuz World Order

Recently an anime convention came to town and I decided to spread the good word that is Rosenkreuzstilette. Now, what would be the best way to do so? I could set up a booth. But the logistics, time, and money just ruled that out. What could I do to show everybody my fandom of this video game?

How about a t-shirt? That shouldn't be too difficult. (oy-vey.)

Making the images was pretty easy. Just took awhile to find a font that approximated the same look as the NWO logo from the 90's. (Bradly Hand ITC, I believe.) Did up a couple of images and went to a T-shirt shop my brother recommended.

And spent a good couple of hours being told what I wanted was too time consuming and very expensive. There were two other logos I made that had screen shots from the game as well. They said they would have to break down the images to put each color on a separate layer. About $20 a layer. You've all played the game, that would be way too much money.

I commented that I've seen kiosks in the mall that would take your picture and put on mugs and t-shirts. They said they couldn't do it and nobody in the area could.

My brother recommended another shop and they said the same thing. (I'm sensing a pattern.) However, they told me to check out a shop in the mall. The one I rarely go to because the only store I ever went in closed.

So, I gave them a call this time. They said yes, come on down. Bring all my material and they would help me out. Got there, the lady downloaded everything to her computer and said to comeback in a week because they were backlogged. A week later they showed me the final product. I was a little disappointed because it didn't turn out as good as I hoped. But hey, I ain't spending that kind of cash on a video game.

Paid for my shirts, (which now occupy space in my closet). Then went home and finished up that alternate music soundtrack.