... *thud*

So, that con season was CRAZYPANTS. Crazy. In the pants. But, we all lived, so there's that!

For those just tuning in, here is a quick breakdown of all the places that Hooked on Chibis! appeared in 2011.

The Doctors were, of course, at all of the cons concurrently.

In January, Matt and Jenn went to Arisia in Boston, MA. We're planning to return in 2012 and this time we'll be there all weekend, because it was way too awesome to only be there for one day.

In February, Matt, Jenn, and the 8-bits went to two cons: Genericon in Troy, NY and Queen City Kamikaze in Manchester, NH. We're already signed up for Genericon 2012 and as soon as we're able, we'll be signing up for QC Kamikaze again (it'll be our third year there, and their third year as a con!!).

The Black Mage had been practicing his Blizzaga, so you can thank him for all that snow this winter.

Then in March, we took most of the month off to build up for the coming con storm, but we did pay a visit to Conbust in Northampton, MA. Because this con is only a few minutes from home, the table was staffed at various times by Jenn, Casey, Liz the Random Encounter, and Matt (Biz was up at school in NH, so we couldn't complete the set). We also met our new friends and fellow-artists Sean of NickelPUNK, Matt of Mattman: Dinosaur Hunter, and Auston, game developer and the guy who brought us Bosses Forever.

April saw CHIBIS EVERYWHERE. We did four yes four cons in April. First, Jenn and Casey went to UBCon in Buffalo, NY, where we met the incomparable Nigel Sade, experienced Tim Horton's for the first time, and practiced salsa dancing in our hotel room while eating potato salad and drinking wine. Because that's how we roll. Then a week later, Jenn and Matt went to Tora-Con in Rochester, NY, which is only 30 minutes away from Buffalo and made all that driving feel very silly. Yes, we drove home from Buffalo, only to drive back out to Rochester 4 days later. Trust us, it had to be done.

Then on Easter weekend, Jenn and Casey flew to Seattle for Sakura-Con while Matt held down the fort at Anime Boston (our fourth year at AB!). We learned some valuable lessons that weekend about how to split the party, how to get all the dolls to faraway cons, and how to set up in only 4 feet of space O_o

We all needed healing by the time April was over.

May was pretty quiet while we all collapsed from April's adventures, but it got crazy again at the end, when we went to Anime Central in Chicago. Jenn took the train out, Casey flew there, and they both rode the train home again; Casey fell in love with jetBlue and Jenn spent the whole train ride (both ways) going OMG IM ON A TRAIN THIS WINS. (Also, the day they returned was Jenn's birthday, which she got to spend almost all of on the train!!) The girls debuted their Plusle and Minun gijinka at this con as well - and since Biz was visiting her brother who lives nearby, she paid us a visit as well.

Two sassy vintage stewardesses. This pic was actually taken at Otakon, by Adorkable Photography.

 Then, only two days after getting home from ACen, Jenn got on a plane and flew to California for Fanime, in San Jose. She stayed with her aunt (Jenn's from everyplace, remember?), met up with old friends, saw plenty of familiar faces among the artists - and got to meet Colette, one of our first fans ever!

Wait, we have fans?!

June was almost quiet. We knew that AX was looming on the horizon, so we tried to keep things to a minimum while we frantically made every doll ever, but over Father's Day weekend, there were two cons we just couldn't pass up - so we split the party again, sending Matt and Biz to Tampa, FL for MetroCon, and Casey with her friend Merissa to Anime Mid-Atlantic in Chesapeake, VA. (Jenn had to work, and the 8-bits were still in school, so they held down the fort at home.)

JULY WAS INSANE YOU GUYS. First, Matt and Jenn went to Anime Expo in Los Angeles, which was huge and we had such a good time that we're already booked to be there in 2012! Then after we got back from AX, we had 3 days to get everything down to Hartford for ConnectiCon, which was the only con of 2011 to feature all four of us at one point or another! Even the 8-bits were there, and they had a great time in the game room and seeing all the cosplays. Then we had two weeks to find more chibis, and then Jenn and Casey drove down to Baltimore for Otakon, where we met more fellow-artists, saw a bunch of old friends, and sweated our wigs off from the heat. (Casey actually looked, at one point, like such a tuckered-out little Plusle that I wanted to put her in a Pokeball and get her to Nurse Joy!)

Jenn got pictures of her Darkrai gijinka, by the same awesome photographer who took that Plusle and Minun picture up there.

For our last hurrah, in August we went to RamenCon, a first-year con in northwest Indiana that Jenn just couldn't miss. We stayed with family, visited with even more family, made awesome friends with the artists and con staff, and had a great time chasing the 8-bits around while they did the scavenger hunt. Jenn and her younger 8-bit played in the Chopstick Challenge, where they had to build structures using only chopsticks (Matthew had to build a Duplo pyramid; Jenn had to assemble a Bionicle), and that was a crazy time indeed. The best news was, RamenCon's first-year attendance was 1083. You read that right, ONE THOUSAND EIGHTY THREE. This is one hot, tasty con, people.

Sixteen cons later, Jenn's still alive. And she still has hands.

We're home now, putting the chibis into their homes for the winter, which is not as easy as it sounds. The black mage keeps heading to the freezer for more practice, Dr. McCoy won't stop raiding the medicine cabinets, and the electric pokemon recently found where we keep the batteries O_o But we're winding down from traveling, winding up for the holidays - and best of all, we're almost unpacked!!

And finally, if you're keeping count, that's sixteen cons we did this year, thirteen of which Jenn was personally at. Whew!

 -- Jenn

MeatSpace Invaders

So, I was supposed to blog on Friday, and I even had an idea for an entry. Instead, I'm blogging on Sunday, about why I didn't blog on Friday.

Let me explain.

I went to work as usual on Friday morning, carrying with me a camera and a box full of dolls that I planned to photograph during my lunch break. After taking the photos, I was going to use the rest of my lunchtime to write a nice entry about my family's Christmas tree-trimming practices. Meanwhile, at 3:00 pm, my husband would pick up the 8-bits from school, deliver them to my parents (where they'd be visiting for the weekend), and he'd be back just in time to collect me from work at 5.

That plan was brilliant, and it stayed in place until about 10:00 AM, when my boss came to my desk and asked "so are you going to the thing later?"

"... thing?" I was confused. Meeting? Lunch? At noon? In January? What were we talking about, here?

"Yeah, the uh, Christmas party ... later."

" ... party?" Ok, a a party, but WHEN WAS LATER? After work? Saturday?

"Yeah, it's ... wait, didn't you get the e-mail?"

"... e-mail?" I really looked like a responsible employee with my one-word questions and increasingly blank stares.

"It went out ... oh maybe you're not on the alias yet. Hang on ..."

After a few minutes, I learned two very important things.
A: There was a Christmas party happening for the whole office, at my boss's boss's HOUSE, at noon; and
2) I am, in fact, not on the office's e-mail alias.

I mentioned that I didn't have a car with me, and he said they'd get me there, and then my husband could pick me up there and it would actually be less of a drive for him because Bosslady's house was closer to home than the office. (That's true.) So it sounded like a plan and I returned to my desk ... whereupon I remembered that Matt could only pick me up if I needed fetching before 2:30, or after 5. So after describing it all to him online, I said "well, ok, I'll just call you when I know what's going on."

Oh, and there was a Yankee swap happening at this party, so I needed to have a gift with me, with a value no higher than $7.50. Thinking quickly, I reasoned that no one would question the value of the dolls, so after briefly panicking over which of my anime/videogame/nerd themed dolls would go over best with The Office Crowd, I wrapped up a Mudkip in some borrowed wrapping paper and got a ride over with the rest of my department.

Now for the fast-forward: The party was a success, I got a zen-candle-perfume thingy from the swap, I got to know my co-workers a bit better, and the doll was a big hit even though no one knew what it was. And now it's 3:00 PM, I still hadn't gotten a good idea of what time I'd need to be picked up, and people were leaving the party. O_o Okay, no reason to panic, I'll just get a ride back to the office and go back to the original plan of working until 5. A coworker drove me back ... just in time to see the last person lock the door behind her. The door I don't have a key to. Crap.

I ended up going to Northampton with the car-driving coworker, and we browsed the local yarn store until Matt could pick me up there, so the story ends well. (I made it home! Hooray!) But the disruption of my intended plans mixed with the social anxiety of "surprise mingling with 50 near-strangers" in such a way that the rest of Friday, and all of Saturday, were spent panicking about all the stuff I hadn't gotten done yet.

And that's why you're reading about my crazy Friday on a Sunday, instead of reading about picking out Christmas trees on my grandfather's birthday on a Friday. Ta-da!

 -- Jenn