Fan Expo Canada!

So I was MIA from the internet this past weekend because I went to this little convention in Toronto called Fan Expo Canada! 3 days, one hotel stay, and $300 later I have returned!

Fan Expo, if you don’t know, is like 5 conventions in one: Horror, Sci-fi, Comics, Gaming and Anime. All in one gigantic room. <3

On Friday I went to go see the Tron: Legacy Special Presentation, they took away our phones and cameras. Then after about a half an hour later the co-producer Justin Springer came out and showed us a whole bunch of concept art, as well as an exclusive clip to the film. In short, it was pretty freaking awesome.

After that I took a little trip to the Light cycle they had set up from the new Tron movie:

On Saturday one of the first things I did when I arrived was line up to go get Linda Hamilton’s autograph. Linda Hamilton played the original Sarah Connor in the first two Terminator movies. Now, since my childhood consisted of a million re-watches of said movies I HAD to go see her.

After about 45 minutes to an hour of waiting in line, I finally got to see her. She’s aged really well in my opinion and she was such a nice person. Plus, she said I was really pretty Here’s a photo I took after I got her autograph:

Later that day I went to a panel called Video game Industry: Overview and Opportunities Pro Panel. My friend and I had arrived there ten minutes early (would have been sooner if we didn’t have to go check in at the hotel), and the line was so long it started to go into the women’s washroom on the opposite side of the hallway. When we saw that I told my friend the only way we were getting in was by majorly cutting into the line. So we sat down by a pole that was near the line and once it started moving we sort of assimilated ourselves into the line. Needless to say, we got front row seats

It was a really fun and relaxed environment. It was just like a normal conversation you would have with someone, except five people were on a stage, and about a hundred or so people were sitting below watching them. They talked about the Video game Industry and how it’s evolving, what will be sort of the next big things, licensed games and their ability to sometimes not suck, and how Scott from Electric Playground was still single for a reason.

Here’s a shot I grabbed at the beginning of the panel:

The guy in the green is Scott. He was actually sort of cute XD.

After the convention closed we went to a restaurant just down the street, then about two hours later we actually got to eat. >_> I had ribs for the first time in my life, and I have to say… I prefer steak.

Then we chilled in the hotel room. Here’s a shot of the view from the window:

Then Sunday, first thing we were chilling around the Bruce Campbell signing because my friend REALLY wanted an autograph but didn’t get a ticket before they were sold out. Well, it was a good thing we were RIGHT there because they announced RIGHT then that they were selling 50 more tickets. My friend was about the 5^th person in line and was now able to get the drawing of Bruce Campbell she worked pretty hard on signed.

About two hours in line later, she had met him and gotten her thing signed. Here’s a pic of Bruce Campbell I took:

Along the way I managed to pick up:

• A Goku (from Dragonball) plushie
• Death the Kid & Shinigami figurines from Soul Eater
• A Linda Hamilton Autograph
• 3 t-shirts, one saying “Erase all humans” with an alien gun on it, one with a Zelda emblem and another of princess peach. (Pics will come later)
• The entire Meru Puri: Marchen Prince series
• Two Naruto cellphone chains (one of Gaara’s gourd, another of Shikamaru)
• A tiny Heartless plushie that will soon sit in my car

Overall my weekend was pretty awesome. Now I got to get to driving for my road test, fixing up my websites, and doing my work report. Blah.

Tutorial Blogs?

So now that my work term is almost over and I am headed back to school for another term, I started to fix up my resume. As I was doing this I realized that the programming languages I knew were either ones I learned in school, or ones I learned specifically for this website and/or my other websites. Which basically just includes PHP and MySQL.

I decided to start learning javascript since in my HTML, XHTML, CSS and other stuff book have a nice little thing on javascript in the other stuff section. Now I was thinking perhaps as I’m reading through the other stuff section I would make tutorial blogs for both my learning and for something to add to the site.

My question for you guys is, would you like to see this integrated into this blog, or make it into another subdomain and attach it to my network? I plan to do this for most of the languages I learn on my own (outside of school) so it becomes like a study guide and/or reference for the future. It would also help me to learn the stuff better and would look great on a resume.

SO, what do you guys think I should do? Putting it into this blog would be more convenient for me, but would be a bit harder to navigate. Putting it into a sub domain would be easier in the long haul as I add more languages, but is a lot of effort for me NOW which I am sort of really busy and don’t want to do it but know I should >_>

And if I do make it into a sub domain, what should I call it? Perhaps another Zelda song since Elegy of Emptiness was from Majora’s Mask. Hmm….

Question for the comments: (if you don’t feel like reading the whole blog) Should the tutorial blogs be it’s own sub domain or integrated into this blog?

School & Stories

It’s August and so school is looming over me as I realize that on September 15^th, a month from now it will be the second day of class (and ironically my birthday). School has always been a very… weird thing for me. When I moved to the city I currently reside in I was in fourth grade. The people in my elementary school and I didn’t really get along so I started to concentrate on school more than rough housing at recess. It was then that I discovered that I was one of those ‘gifted’ children, AKA people someone with a high enough IQ that it was noticeable how much more intelligent I was than others.

Once I started to excel in school it started to become the norm, and next thing you knew if I had anything less than 90% in anything it was a fail to me. I remember in grade 10 I was so angry when I learned my science grade was 87% that my religion teacher made a big fuss about how ‘In 10 years, grades won’t matter’. I’m still angry about that science class because I finished with an 89% in that course.

Then in grade 11 I was so angry at a 3+ (78%) I had received in ONE section of my math test that I proceeded to rip up a friend’s test (because he wouldn’t let me rip mine) into pieces so small that a paper shredder was no competition for me.

Then I hit university and next thing you know I give up on school. I had spent so many years trying and because of my high expectations having to deal with lots of disappointments. The -only- time I was ever satisfied with a grade was my grade 12 Physics mark because I had set out for a 95% in that course and got it.

Now that first year is done my average is around 74%, your ‘typical’ university average. Mind you this is the year that I gave up on school to the point where I actually didn’t hand in assignments because I was too lazy. So my mindset is, if I can get the normal average with NO EFFORT whatsoever, what can I get with 100% effort?

Well I intend on finding out next term. I’m tired of having such low grades. I don’t want to leave a midterm worried that I failed it. But I have to thank my laziness in a sense. Because of it lower grades don’t work me up as much as they used to. I feel a little less stressed when it comes to school and I’m glad for that.

Unfortunately if I give 100% effort to school my sites and my writing may become neglected. I need to figure out a balance between hobbies and school because I know I can’t do 100% either way anymore.

Speaking of writing though, I finally updated Sky’s Content! Click here if you wish to read it. This chapter was more of a Yuri chapter than a Shikamaru chapter. Not much happened between the two of them. But it’s a good one! I like it because its a turning point for Yuri. She finally starts to move on from all the horrible stuff that’s happened to her. I guess her and I have been in sort of the same boat lately, so I can relate.

Also if you haven’t checked it out, my portfolio has finally been set up. Only the main page works right now though, none of the links are set up yet. I set up the databases and the subdomains for each of them, I just need to get working on them.

Question for the comments: What are your thoughts on going back to school?

Who Wants to See Karol's To Do List? :D

So I’m thinking. I go to this site multiple times a day. Like maybe 10-15 times depending on the day. So if I post my to-do list on here (with some slight modifications for teh intarwebs) I might feel more inclined to do some of the things on there. Also you will know why I haven’t done much on the site like at all in the past… 3 months.

Otherwise just ignore this post and read the one below it about Liar and it’s book cover. It’s a very interesting topic!

SCHOOL RELATED Update resume Back to school shopping Buy text books Work Report Pay school tuition BOOK RELATED Read Time Traveler’s Wife How to Grow a Novel HTML/CSS book 3,4,5,6,7,8 Finish brainstorming for book (REPLOTTING) Sky’s Content Chapter 14 Bombastic Love Chapter… 8? OTHER Finish Supernatural re-watch Clean Room Clear out computer – purge then defrag

WEBSITE Update layout on school program’s website. Set Up Portfolio Finish layout Set up FanUpdate Set up databases Designs Coding Show code and implementation Stories Sky’s Content Bombastic Love Set up onlyakiss.net version 2.5 with updated pages History About me Terms FAQ Affiliate request Clear the website of useless pages/images if not already gone

The source code for that list up there ^^ is really messy and unorganized, but it looks so neat! So yeah, gotta do this in a month, on top of a full time co-op job… Yay me!

Edit: This list seems to be never ending. Omg. NEVER ENDING I SAY.

"Liar" by Justine Larbalestier

So if you guys know anything that’s been going around the Young Adult (YA) world lately you know about this controversy surrounding the book Liar by Justine Larbalestier. Basically what’s happening is that the main protagonist in the book is an African American or otherwise black female, while the cover displays a white, Caucasian female. This has sort of caused an uproar in the YA community because people are really beginning to question covers, and what publishers will do to make books seem more ‘marketable’.

In her original blog post: Ain’t That a Shame, Justine explains that authors usually do not get any say in their covers. This holds true usually for what appears to be one reason: authors are not graphic designers. They usually have no experience in knowing what will sell to people, which is why they have no say. And apparently according to publishers, black covers do not sell as well as white covers.

Now this could be entirely true. They could have a million different statistics that show that black covers do not sell as much, but is that all that really matters in publishing these days? I know that the publishing market is dwindling as less and less people appear to be reading, but I think there needs to be a cut off point as to how far publishers will go.

But here’s the thing, as important as covers are, how many people these days ACTUALLY judge a book based on it’s cover? The last three books I bought were: The Time Traveler’s Wife, How to Grow a Novel, and A Clockwork Orange. Why did I buy them? Well, I bought The Time Traveler’s Wife by Audrey Niffenegger because I saw the movie trailer and thought it was a good concept. I bought How to Grow a Novel by Sol Stein because I heard from Kaleb Nation that it was an excellent writing book. Lastly, I bought A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess because I asked my brother what book to buy and he suggested that one.

I did not buy any of those books for their covers. In fact I didn’t even know what the covers looked like until I saw them on the amazon.ca page. And the next few books I’m going to buy is because a.) a friend recommended them, b.) I like the author, or c.) I see another movie trailer and think I must have it.

So in the case of Liar would having a book with a black female really take away from their costs? Is it really that important that the cover looks pretty and nice?

Then again, race is not the only thing publishers like to disregard these days when it comes to covers. A lot of the times, as pointed out by Maureen Johnson in her blogTV today, women authors typically tend to have more girly covers than male authors.

I know that I would really dislike it if the cover for my book that I’m planning was geared only towards females. My book is an urban fantasy, and I feel it is not geared to any sex in particular. Although I am a girl, I usually never like girly things. Like when I was young, I would be playing with my brother’s toy cars instead of my barbies. Now, I play violent video games (like Gears of War for instance) because they’re more fun than Nintendogs.

I guess the ultimate question is what makes a book sell? Is it the cover? Is it word of mouth? Is it movies? In my opinion, a fancy cover is nice, but people don’t read a book because it has a fancy cover. They read a book because they want to know the story inside (and/or are forced to read the book by school systems).

Question for the Comments: Why do you buy the books you buy? (i.e. based off cover, because of a friend recommends them, etc)

July is Officially the Craziest Month of My Life

So if you guys do not know by now what happened to me in the past month, then that must mean you’re new here to onlyakiss.net! In that case, grab a tissue because this is going to be heart wrenching. And for those of you who know what’s been happening, this is going to be my final thoughts on the subject that you will probably ever hear about in my blog.

So on June 30^th, my grandfather in Chile died. Because of my lack of passport (my fault) I was unable to go. I had to stay home without a license (also my fault), take care of my cancerous cats (I’ll get to that in a minute) and also go to work which was a 2 hour bus ride away.

July started off with a kick, having to wake up at 6am, leave my house by 7am only to arrive at work at 9am. Then if I didn’t leave work early enough I would miss a bus, and next thing you know, it’s 6:30 and I’ve missed the last stop for the bus that gets closest to my house. So I have to take another bus that gets me a 30 minute walk away from home. Did I mention this whole time it was raining?

That was a rough week for me, but then we get to the cancerous cats. That’s right, I said catS, meaning both of my childhood pets had terminal cancer. On July 17 we put down Rosco, the cat I went to the pet store and picked out myself. He had a tumour in his jaw and it had gotten to the point where he couldn’t eat anymore. He wasn’t ready to go, we could all tell when we took him to the vet. But we had no choice.

Then after we put Rosco down, my other cat, Felix got considerably worse. He was around 16 years old and because of his age he was more susceptible to kidney disease. Then on top of that, he also had a mass around his stomach and a tumour in his eye. They never really knew what type of cancer he had, I’m pretty sure they suspect it was some form of leukemia. In less than a week after Rosco went Felix degenerated to the point where he couldn’t move. It was so painful for him to walk or even stand that all he would do is just sit in the same place all day.

So the following Thursday, six days after Rosco left us we went to put down Felix. We went to the same room, put Felix down in the same spot and went through the exact same motions we did when we put down Rosco. It was so eerie how similar it was. But then after we put down Felix I noticed something I didn’t see in Rosco. Felix looked peaceful. Felix was ready to go, he was suffering and now he was no longer in pain. That moment was probably the most uplifting for me as I knew from then I could start healing. That the worst was gone.

And starting from that night I began to pray every night. I’m Roman Catholic and up until now I’ve never really been religious. Most of my faith had come from my grandmother and aunt’s blind faith in God. But now, after all this has happened I really feel like that I have no choice but to believe in God, or at least believe that there is some sort of higher power.

After the month that I had I simply refuse to believe that all the bad things that managed to happen to me in a span of three weeks is chance. That it was just random doings that were coincidental. If I were to believe in that then I would see no point in believing in humanity and the world as a whole. So my only option is to believe that something good has come out of all of this. That there is a reason that both my cats, my close family died within a week of each other. That my grandfather died, leaving my family in turmoil. There has to be a reason. There just has to.

So now that July is finally over I feel like I can move on. Although it is sort of hard when in the past two days you have dreamed that your cats were alive and well. That they still jumped on your bed and assaulted your face with theirs in an attempt to wake you up. That they were still outside in the backyard just enjoying the warmth and the freedom.

But hey I got to look on the bright side of things. In the past month I have done more brainstorming and more general plot ideas for my novels than I have done in months. I feel like it’s gotten to the point where I can be proud of what I’ve thought of. I have also realized that I have no choice but to write; that I wouldn’t be Karol if I wasn’t a writer as well. I’m still going to pursue Software Engineering, but I’m going to have an English minor attached to it.

So now all I can do is try to move on. Try to do what I think is best for me at this point in time and hope that it is the right decision. After all if July has taught me anything worth value, it’s that life can turn on you at any given point, so you need to turn on it first. You need to decide what you’re going to do, and not let life drag you around until you die.