READCON Recap, SPS In The Studio, And More!

READCON was epic! I had a really great time. Torin wore his Joel Suzuki costume, Melody wore her Toriel costume (which she won 3rd place in the costume contest with!), and everything was so much fun.

The 12th Doctor (or 13th?) meets Joel Suzuki

I was especially happy and honored to meet Peter, who reportedly had read both Book One and Book Two in just a few days. Peter also reads physics textbooks for fun! Such an awesome dude. I tried my best to keep up with him in a conversation about the recent confirmation of Einstein's theory about gravitational waves, but he was just too smart for me.

Me and Peter

Super big mahalos go out to Paul Warner, Shahala Middle School, Autism Empowerment, and my friends Davetta Price and Stacey Stein for setting this all up. Not to mention everyone who came out and supported some really great causes (namely, the Shahala Middle School library and the aforementioned Autism Empowerment.) I really hope I get a chance to do this again. If you want to see more pictures from the event, check out the Spectraland Saga's Facebook page here!

This weekend, my band Second Player Score will be returning to the studio to record three more songs. Can't wait! We've been boot-camping really hard, so we feel pretty ready to lay these tracks down. The songs that we'll be doing are "Origin Story," "Head Of Sin," and "Drink The Poison." Along with the five others that we've recorded already, and the three more that we'll be doing this summer, these songs will make up our second album, tentatively titled Nobody's Hero, which is slated for release in the fall.

It's been a while since I've done a video game update, so just to let you know what's up...I'm still grinding away at Xenoblade Chronicles X. I got to the end of the story part of the game (spoilers ahead, turn back now) and realized that I'm nowhere near the level of strength I need to be at to properly finish it off, so I've gone back into grind mode - completing missions, leveling up, etc. I figure that I need to have level 50 skells to beat the final boss (I've glimpsed a few sites that say that maybe even that's not enough, but seriously, I don't want to know), so it's gonna be a while. In the meantime, Twilight Princess for the Wii U came out, so yikes! Naturally, that game has gone straight into rotation, so it may be even longer before I actually "finish" (I don't know if anybody ever really "finishes") Xenoblade.

Just a quick note about Gravity Falls: from an emotional fanboy standpoint, I'm sad that it's over, but from a practical writer's standpoint, I'm glad that they decided to go out on a high note when the show was really reaching its peak. Kind of like The Police. The show was - and is - a major source of bonding for me and my daughter (we still quote lines from it to each other all the time), and for that, it'll always have a special place in...whoa, sappiness alert! Yeah, um, so, if you haven't seen it yet, be sure to check it out! (I'm sure they'll be releasing the whole series on DVD/Blu-Ray soon).

Coming next week - a major Book Three status update!