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fucks sake

Okay now which one is clearer? 1?

or 2?

girl scouts selling cookies

garbage disposals

regular school assemblies 

PSAs

cheerleaders

serious school sports teams

Be kind. No one likes the errogant jerk they met after the round.

WORD DOES SPREAD. And fast. If you need an example of how being a jerk can ruin your speech and debate career, ask a coach who was at Fayetteville nationals about Russel Morris.

Do NOT talk bad about competitors or judges AT ALL after rounds. Save it for the bus. This means NO nasty comments about ANYONE, no making fun of any pieces, no criticism to ANY competitor.

Also, ANYONE CAN BE YOUR JUDGE. This is so important.

Stay in your suit. You will see people change out of their suits, but out of respect to your teammates and competitors, don’t change.

Make sure you tell your judge if you are cross-entered.

SAYING IT AGAIN BECAUSE IT IS PLAUSIBLY THE MOST IMPORTANT THING ON THIS LIST: BE KIND AND POLITE TO EVERYONE EVEN IF THEY ARE THE BIGGEST DICK ON THE PLANET. It also really helps for making friends at tournaments!!

Put your ego away. I don’t care if you have a big one or don’t have one at all, make sure NO ego comes through. It is another part of the kindness, of your ego is huge, it is only going to hurt you.

Please add to this guys!!

Shoutout to the people who see me approaching with their food and immediately start clearing the way for me. You are the real MVPs. You know what’s up. You understand.

And then her kid gets allergy testing done, and several allergies are confirmed, and I think great! This is likely why they are always upset and ill! Maybe now they can get better!

And my friend… does not stop exposing them to the allergies.

“But they’re allergic to wheat,” I say, “and milk, and you’re still giving them those things.”

“Oh but they’re only minor allergies, not like, anything dangerous.”

“But that’s not… that’s not how that works,” I say, trying to be helpful, as I explain that even low level inflammation can be extremely detrimental in the long term, and extremely painful to deal with and how exposure therapy doesn’t always work. So of course he’s always sick and always crying. Of course he is.

And she rolls her eyes and says, “Look, I know you think you know a lot about health. But you’re not a parent, so I can’t expect you to understand.”

Because apparently upon the benediction of motherhood, the sacred knowledge of the universe is imparted to you the moment the umbilical cord is cut. Because apparently someone who is sick all the time, wouldn’t be able to understand. Except of course I don’t understand her. I understand her child. And what it’s like to be ignored, and hurt, and abused. And sick.

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.