A Piece of Me

me: let me ask my mom

reaper: it's not a choi-

like even sitting in an office for eight hours a day isn’t particularly pleasant (or healthy, as we are beginning to see) but when we’re talking about doing *actual work* for that same amount time it gets pretty fucking brutal

doing literally *anything* (even leisure activities) for eight hours straight tends to be less than enjoyable but when we’re talking about things like construction, landscaping, factory work, and hell, even foodservice and retail, eight hours is a fucking ETERNITY

A few weeks ago, we exhibited at Emerald City Comicon. Typically when we attend conventions, we try to create some spectacle that captures people’s attention and sells games. Like the time we brought a marching band to PAX Australia.

At ECCC, we set up a “Pay What You Want” booth and encouraged people to give us any amount of money in exchange for our games. We put games on a table, set up some signs, stood off to the side, and waited to see what would happen.

We brought 2000 games. Before the convention began, we took bets on what would happen:

Tom thought we’d sell out in a few hours.

Alex thought we’d run out on the of the second day of the con.

Trin thought that we would not run out of games because we are no longer cool or relevant.

Jenn got a fever and didn’t know what was happening.

We were all wrong. 

The doors opened, and attendees swarmed the booth. Within five minutes attendees realized they could just take games and walk away. A small group grabbed armfuls of free games and left, but most people paid something. Within an hour, the booth looked like this:

We ran out of games in 51 minutes.and made $8042.48, or 18.7% of the games’ retail value. In other words, we lost $685.44 per minute.

Attendees put lots of other stuff in the payment box too.

Some things you put in our box:

Five Canadian Dollars ($3.72 USD)

Ten Euros ($10.66 USD)

Eighty Philippine Pesos ($1.59 USD)

One Chinese Yuan ($0.14 USD)

One Cubone Pokemon Card, XY Breakthrough (Avg price - $0.68 USD)

One Magic: The Gathering Eternal Masters booster pack wrapper (No Value)

One handwritten “Any Pizza Free” and “Twisted Flicks + KPC” Coupon from a Papa Murphy’s in Kirkland, WA (Estimated Value $25.00 USD)

One $1 Bill folded into a bowtie ($1.00 USD)

One “FeelTheBurn.org” $1 bill. ($1.00 USD)

Two halves of a $1 bill ($1.00 USD )

Once we sold out, we had to figure out what to do with our booth space. 

On Saturday, we gave our space to artists who weren’t able to get a table at the con. People showed up to exhibit cosplay horns, board games, recycled journals, and comic art.

On the last day of the con, we set up a station for mailing letters to representatives.

We provided pens, paper, postage, envelopes, writing tips, and the address of every US Senator. 

Over 200 letters were written by con attendees, including the most bad ass Imperator Furiosa cosplayer we’ve ever seen.

So I like hot stuff. I’m not like, a dick about it. I don’t brag because there are people out there that can handle waaaay hotter foods than me. It’s not a competition. So I’m at Tijuana Flats, a “mexican” food restaurant chain famous for their hot sauce bar. All in all, what they put out on the bar isn’t the spiciest stuff in the world, but you’ll find some delicious gems in there. I immediately look at whatever is marked black as hottest for the day (they change them) and immediately go to pump some into the little paper containers provided when… “Whooaaa, sweetheart you don’t want to do that,” I turned around and there’s this skinny guy in jeans and a logo polo. There’s another dude wearing the same shirt, so they must have come here from some sad IT job. I’m a little taken aback at this dude’s presumption that I am ignorant to what I’m doing, but I blow it off. ”Nah, man, it’s got the black label, I haven’t tried this one yet.” ”Are you sure? It’s really spicy.”  ”I’m pretty sure dude.” ”I don’t think you should, because it was a bit much for me.” At this point I’m feeling patronized. I stare at him.  “It’s fine. Really.” “Oooookay,” He says in this exasperated, don’t-say-I-didn’t-warn-you kind of voice. I get my hot sauce and sit down. Food arrives, I taste it with a chip first to test. It’s super sweet, actually. I dump the whole thing on my taco. I don’t know if he’s watching.  I go up to the counter and ask the manager to ring me up a bottle of the sauce to take home. It was pretty delicious! Manager says he’ll bring it to my table. They bring it, I pay, and the server asks if I’m into hot sauces - of course I say yes. Hot Sauce Police is now watching. She brings me an assortment of sauces they do not serve at the bar because of liability reasons. One of them was rated at 1.5 million Scoville units. I bought all of them, signing the credit card slip as he watches.

J.R.R. Tolkien: The window, which hanged on the wall, softly letting its curtains dance around the room, suddenly brought a bright light into the house.

Douglass Adams: Quite unexpectedly, light shined through the window in the room, which was less surprising when you think about the fact that’s what windows are for.

Lemony Snicket: Light shined through the window abruptly.