Loot

This PAX was one of the most, if not the most, satisfying trips to Seattle for me.  I have been saving my money I decided to not hold myself back from the all of the little things I wanted to accomplish/do/eat.  Essentially, I had a little bucket list for our trip and was ready to cross off as many things as I could.

Getting crepes at Unicone was high on my list.  They have an "okonomiyaki" crepe and I haven't had okonomiyaki since we were in Osaka last so I wanted to try it.  Sure enough, it was okonomiyaki in a crepe~ cabbage, egg, bonito flakes, pickeled ginger, Japanese mayo, and okonomiyaki sauce (which is a special type of bbq sauce).

All I was thinking in my head was "natsukashi!" which means "nastalgic" in Japanese.  This crepe brought me back to the time Aaron and I were talked into going to this restraunt by the place's outdoor hype-man (it's totally a real thing in Japan) and eating okonomiyaki and yakisoba.  Mmm!

A lot of my list was foods and this was the only one I remembered to snap a photo of, lol!  I also had a "choco almond corn whip" crepe (which is just a crepe filled with whip cream, almond slices, corn flakes, and chocolate syrup drizzle),  ton pei yaki (spicy pork inside a Japanese omelet topped w/Japanese mayo & tonkatsu sauce), pizza at Gameworks, and a soy Pumpkin Spice latte.  So much nummy food!!

Stuff pictured above that I picked up~~ a "Black Mesa" shirt and a Star Wars Storm Trooper button up.  You can't see the fine details with this but the pattern is Storm Trooper faces in various profile positions, and the buttons are little Empirial symbols.  Super cute!

I also picked up a little wallet, charcoal face soap, patterned stickey notes, notepad, and pen amd Daiso and Kinokunia.  A bottle of Japanese mayo (it's made with rice vinegar and oh-so-delicious!) was a must as I'm running low of my current bottle.  I've been eyeing a few cd's at Statbucks so I finally picked up "Cocktail Hour".  It's cute.  Has an enjoyable little variety of songs.  

Oh!  I just noticed that I didn't take a picture of the two games I got... bummer.  Oh well, I'm too comfy in bed to move and do it now, haha!  Anyways, I picked up "Boss Monster" which is a card game where each player is a dungeon boss and you try to kill the most heroes that walk into your dungeon.  I also bought "Angry Sheep", a dice game where you try to collect sheep during the sheep revolution.  Very fun!

What did everyone else do this last weekend? <3

What We've Been Up To

So it turns out life after giving birth is crazy.  To be honest, I've been doing more and being out & about more than I probably should.  But the craziness doesn't have much to do with baby Dean.

Owning a brick & mortar business isn't put on pause when you have a baby.  Our responsibilities don't allow much   maternity/paternity leave. Customers will understand a day or two of being closed, but after that they want the store open to spend their money.

One of the most popular items at our store is Magic the Gathering cards.  About a week before Dean was born we took all the cards home so we could revamp and reprice them all.  All 120,000 of them.

So every single day Aaron, my parents, our nephew, and I have been working to get all these cards organized by set (there's about 60 sets), color (there's 8 colors), and rarity (there's 4 types of rarity). Not to mention only some of these need to be in sleeves.  Aaron spends about 8-10 hours+ a day on this- no joke.

Tedious?  Yes.  Murder on my wrists?  Absolutely.  Insanity?  You bet.

But after four weeks we're starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel.

We wouldn't have done this if it wasn't worth the time and effort.  These cards are worth a small fortune and we have the market cornered since no one else on this side of the state has the set up we do.  Customers want to drop $$$ on them and have hounded us every day since we moved te cards home.  It's a pretty big deal.

Aaron feels like he has hardly seen his son, and my tindinitus is flaring up hard core, and we're both totally stressed out and frustrated about it.  But it's worth it.  Once we are done we can switch our focus home and just exist with our baby.  I cannot wait!

RadCon - Our First Convention

Valentine's Day weekend was RadCon, the local SciFi/Fantasy convention that takes place every year, and our store Sunken Treasures Games made it's vendor debut there. Having never done a show before, we had no idea what to expect, but figured at the very least the exposure would be good. RadCon exceeded all of our expectations and plan on being a vendor there from now on.


Now the cool thing about this show was that the hotel it takes place at sections off an entire wing of hotel rooms that vendors can rent and use as a store front. When we first heard this I was weirded out and turned off to the idea because it sounds really creepy. But once I talked to some other local business owners who are vendors each year, told us that the hotel takes out all the beds and furniture so we can use the room however we want, and showed us pictures, we decided to do it. The biggest pro for us was that we could pick our own hours; we could open early and stay open late if we wanted, and when we were done we just closed the hotel room door and that was that. Our merchandise couldn't be more secure.

Aaron did all of the hard work putting the "store" together. We were clueless as to what merchandise would be best so we brought a little bit of everything. Here's a video I took the first morning we were open:


I should have taken the video horizontal, I know, but oh well.




It was a crazy, fun, stressful, tiring, great weekend and we are excited to participate at RadCon again next year. Now we have a better idea of what to expect and how to handle certain things. Next year will be even more fun!

Have you ever been to a "con" before? PAX? ComicCon? What is your favorite part about the vendors there? What do you think about setting up shop in a hotel room?

I Remind Someone of Link

LOVE THIS!

Distant Worlds

Last weekend Aaron and I went to the orchestra. We totally traveled to Berkeley California just for it. But it wasn't just any concert. No no no. It was a 10th anniversary concert for Final Fantasy XI, which we have been playing for years and years. We even dressed up a bit for it. *^_^*

We had EXCELLENT seats! Were about 10 rows back and there wasn't anyone sitting in front of my so my short self was able to see the entire stage! The orchestra performed all our favorite songs in their own unique way which made it even more special. They performed a medley of the four main Nations in the game which was the best version of these songs I've ever heard! Two of the game's composers, Naoshi Mizuta and Kumi Tanioka flew in from Japan for the concert which was very cool.

Kumi Tanioka, Arnie Roth, and Naoshi Mizuta.
Aaron purchased us VIP tickets so we were able to meet the conductor and composers. They autographed posters and we chitchatted a bit in Japanese. Talking with the people who are the creators of music that is close to our hearts was very special.

I was able to tell Kumi Tanioka that her how much I loved her piano performance, and thanked her in Japanese for coming to America to perform. We had a moment. *^_^* Arnie Roth talked to me a bit about the challenges they faced with the music and that they weren't sure how well the music would be received since it was performed slightly different than in game. I reassured him that the performance was nothing short of amazing. Aaron told Naoshi Mizuta about our store (in Japanese) and he thought it was really neat and wished us luck. I told him I loved his music and thanked him for being at the concert. The night was just incredible!!!

Not only did we get to see the orchestra, but Aaron got us tickets to see a San Francisco Giants game! So we made the trek to San Fran on the BART (Bay Area Rapid Transit), which was pretty darn quick and easy, and spent the day in the city by the bay.

While we were in San Francisco, we visited Pier 39, Fisherman's Warf, Musee Mechanique, and USS Jeremiah O'Brian! We walked all this by the way. xD I'm going to save talking about these places for another post because I have so much to say about them. I can't wait to show you all!

In the mean time, I hope everyone has a wonderful Saturday! [waves]