Who I Am, How I Am

First and foremost, at times I cannot be the easiest person to deal with.

It is no fault of others, it is my own.

The issue lies in the fact that I couldn't find a median in my personality.  Some people will tell you that I am brash, arrogant, pushy, forward, and at times outright stalkerish.  Yeah, that's right I said that.  Other people will tell you that I am cool, fun loving, quiet, reserved, and shy.

Shocking, isn't it.


But in the long run, I am both sides of that.  My personality goes both ways.  I try to control the extreme side of my personality so that I don't offend anyone.

Some people say that I shouldn't care what others think of me.  But I do.  I hate having to goto cons and not saying hi to someone I know because I said something the wrong way and offending them.

The second most important thing to me besides family is friends.  I love my friends, I cherish them.  When I goto cons and meet people I love that.  If within a few minutes of talking to that person, I will sense their vibes.  If there good, I will add them to my private Facebook account.  I always worry because I have a mouth on me and I will offend and not know it until it's too late.

I've also had problems of fitting in within the various circles I associate with.  It's because of the different subjects that are discussed and I don't have a clue as to what's going on.  So I just wait until something piques my interests and then I add my two cents.

At first all of this got to me... Then I got used to it.  I take with each experience what I learned and focus it for the better.

So if I run into you at a con and I seem to be nervous/flirty, I'm just trying to find my middle.

Sometimes You Can't Take it Back

Whenever I blog post about something, I won't take back what I said.  Most because of arrogant reasoning like "I want the whole world to know what you did" or "First Amendment right".  But I just deleted a post made on my website.  It kinda falls upon the logic of "It's the right thing to do", but more along the lines of "Fuck man, I really shouldn't have done that".

I made a blog post in regards to New Year's.  I was quite upset (and by quite upset, I was very infuriated) about what happened.  And I have one cardinal rule, "You fuck with my friends, I don't hold back on you, I take no prisoners."  That explains why my post was so venomous. A couple of people did get pissed at what I wrote, but it's okay.  I think they understand why I went that far.

But thinking back on that post and the events that happened, a ten year friendship just fell apart on both sides.  And for a while, that stung me.  It really hurt.  I never showed it, but it did.

Thinking back on what I said and how I feel about my friends makes me feel like a hypocrite.  But truth be told, I've done some real outlandish things and people have forgiven me for it.  But nothing along those lines.

I said that I would never take back most of the things I've said or done because I learn from all experiences because it makes me who I am and in most cases a better person.  This is something I'd take back.  As I said, I wish the events given at the time, played out differently.

And I owe that person an apology.

Andrea, I'm sorry.  I know we apologized at MangaNEXT to each other, but I'm doing it again because I feel more remorseful than before.  We have/had a 10 year friendship invested here.  I know for fact that neither one of us can easily forgive the other for what happened, but I hope that over time, we can try to fix that.  I know it won't be an easy task/overnight thing to do, but if we try and take our time, it will.  The guilt of the events past won't go away.  I will carry that guilt for as long as I live as a reminder of what I've done.

Cosplay And Drinking

It can go hand in hand if you're smart.

So yesterday or Friday I stumble across this image below:

Now, as some who enjoys cosplaying and drinking, I was like "WTF?"  This shit is WAY out of proportion. I say whatever and move along...

Sometime later, I come across this:

As you can see, it's the total opposite.  It's the closest to what I agree with, so I shared that image.

But overall, in both situations, we have a failure to communicate.  It's okay to go out to the bar and have a few drinks.  It's okay to goto cons and cosplay.  But it is NOT okay to take both seriously to the level of where people look at you stupid.  One should not be at the bar and drink themselves stupid, nor should you see that cosplay is all there is in the world.

You know what? Listen...  I goto cons and at night, I hit the bar.  You know what I find there? Other cosplayers.  You know what we talk about? Everything except cons and cosplay.  To me that's how it should be.  What I said describes 80 - 85% of us out there.  Nobody's perfect.  You got those who binge drink and think they are Sailor Moon or Lightning.  But they don't represent us, and they never will.

So kick back, relax, enjoy a drink. It's on me.

Thanks to Dark Sakura, Onezumi, and Taiki for helping me to pull this image off... And Mako-chan for proof-reading.

Geeks and Dating

Today I'll be talking about two things.  TLC's Geek Love and the Kotaku article, Nerds and Male privilege (which originated from here).

Geek Love-

Yes, I watched it.  Not just because I was on there, I wanted to see how it turned out.  It wasn't as much of a train wreck as I thought it was.  What you saw was no edits whatsoever.  Also what you didn't know is that in the Sunday session I was in, about half those girls I speed dated with were in the Saturday night session as well. 

Did I get a contact? Yes.

I was expecting more contacts, but I realized something yet again. I am not eye candy to most geek girls.  Yes I made them laugh and I got along so well with them.  But if I have the personality, but not the looks (I know I'm not an eye catch, but I am handsome), I will not be walking away with those digits/facebook/email, etc...  This is something I figured out a long time ago. I don't like it, but I've accepted it for what it is.  I understand when we all look for that someone, we have various expectations.  But be serious with yourself, you're not going to find that 100%.  You find something very close and when you give it a shot, that person may just turn into that 100%.  Looks don't mean a thing if the person can't carry a conversation. ^_~

And I speed dated with Anna, the Star Wars fangirl. She gave me the stink eye when I said that I was not into Star Wars...

Nerds and Male Privilege-

I back this article 100%.  I thought I had more to say about it, but I really don't. I reread it, fully understanding it a lot more.  I really don't see myself as having the male privilege, because I tend to think of myself as the average geek, but it is what it is.

Donate to Callie Care!

See that button on the right hand side? I'm asking all of you who read this blog to add that button and help Callie out.  More information is posted on the link to that button.  We're raising funds for her to help pay for medical bills. ^_^

If you can't donate or bid on the auctions, just pay it forward.  Click the link and add the HTML code to your site. I promise it won't break anything. :)

Happy Thanksgiving!

Well everyone, have a great Turkey Day. ^_^

I do have some good news tho.  Remember this post here - http://www.djranmas.net/2011/10/learning-from-your-mistakes.html

I have an update.  So here's the thing.  I have this rule of where if I see someone more than three times that weekend at a con, I talk to that person.  Well this person in the first story... I saw her profile pop up twice while I was logged into LinkedIn, Foursquare, and Facebook.  I took a deep breath and added her to my Facebook.  Next day I saw she accepted the request.  Went over and said hi, she liked it and chatted back.  Ended up talking over Skype and things are cool now.

And I'm happy about that.

I am truly thankful of that.  The guilt that I carried around was lifted off my shoulders and disappeared.  Especially the fact that I look at her as family... Hell, I still do.  I think she knows if she needed help, I'd come, guns blasting, the whole nine.

Now, I'm gonna have some tea, a little tv, and prepare for my trip to my grandparents house.

RIP Heavy D

I didn't think I'd would be posting about another sad thing so soon... But this is something I really took to heart about...

I really don't get upset over celebrity deaths, but I have to admit that it did hit me hard about passing of Dwight Myers aka Heavy D. I grew up in the same town that he grew up in during his career in the 80s - 90s. That was Mount Vernon, New York. Every year he would throw a Labor Day BBQ in the playground on 7th Avenue and I actually got a chance to go and have fun. I remember working in a video store and he came in and I got his autograph.

This will always be my favorite Heavy D song because it mentioned my hometown in it. RIP Heavy D. To be honest, I always said that nothing good came out of that town because over the years, it's gotten a lot more dangerous to live there.  But I will say this much tho, thank you for giving me a reason to be proud that I'm from Mount Vernon.