That was the idea, at least. In the grand scheme of things, I know, one night isn’t much.

When I got back, I cancelled my preorders for Assassin’s Creed II and Settlers VII. In case you haven’t heard the news, Ubisoft has developed a copy-protection system that requires a continuous connection to their servers. As interesting as the games are, that kind of disconnection yoyo is more trouble than it’s worth, and I don’t trust Ubisoft to keep their servers online once the game stops selling. There are plenty of other games to keep me occupied, and even when there aren’t, I should spend more time writing. Even with the weekend out, I shouldn’t be this far behind.

After I make myself some lunch, I’ll go work on First and Last and Always again. We’ll see. Given the complications that keep coming up, I’m going to stop announcing specific posting days. Right now, all I’ll say is “soon”. Poke me and see what I’m up to; I’ve pretty much been asking for it.

Expect it Monday or Tuesday.

Sorry for the lateness.

Usually I prefer to let people explore the Brain Food links unguided and draw their own conclusions, but I think Don Peck’s How a New Jobless Era Will Transform America over at The Atlantic is worth a particular mention. One in eight Californians is presently unemployed, nearly one in ten Americans, and things don’t seem to be in much rush to get better. I’m not sure if the long-term effects will be as bad as Peck projects, but the possibilities are definitely sobering.

It makes me a little bit grateful to say that I have a job to complain about. I have a few responsibilities there that will no doubt distract me over this long weekend, but I’ve finished dinner now and a few other chores, so I’m going to settle in for a weekend of writing now. The alarm clock is set for 7:30 AM tomorrow morning. At some point I will have to leave the apartment to do laundry and get some sunshine, but aside from that, after I finish this post I plan to reboot my laptop, open up First and Last and Always, and start writing.

Before I go, I found for you an upload of P!nk’s very awesome Grammy performance, and you can click through to a preview of the upcoming story. Those of you who know how to get in touch with me outside of this site are welcome to poke at me once in a while and make sure I’m not wasting time.

First and Last and Always
By Adrian Mailenna
For Hannah, because she made a difference.

Even with his heart pounding in time to the DJ’s command, a hundred and twenty-six beats per minute, Jamie could feel the one it skipped. Someone was watching him; he’d felt it, uncoiling a tight, nervous desire from the base of his spine, sliding it up his back until it made the hairs on his neck stand on end and his knees go weak, made him excited and just a little scared.

For months he’d walked past the door here, stolen glances past the curtain at the slender, pretty boys dancing together here, taking each other home, but he’d never dared step in before. Now he wasn’t sure whether he should have come. Someone would notice him; someone would tell; people would know; they would be polite of course, nothing overt. It was the twenty-first century after all, but he would hear their whispers, notice their sideways glances in his direction, and he would move again, unable to cope, unwilling to be that token friend, unwilling to be treated so differently. It wasn’t his fault he’d been born this way.

But there was that look. It promised so much.

Staggering off the dance floor, he scanned the crowd as he made his way, panting, to the bar. Through the back of his mind he remembered a glimpse of perfect golden skin and kinetic black hair beneath the DJ’s lights, but most of all the flash of bright green eyes, inviting and seductive, even from across the room. Somehow he knew he needed to find them.

He hopped up onto a stool. He needed a drink, too. It was hot out there.

Aside from a hiatus in the late 90s, the series has been going on for a good twenty-odd years now, and a lot of very big science-fiction/fantasy names have taken part (George R. R. Martin edits, which should say something). Somehow I missed the release of the latest volume, Suicide Kings, back in December, but I got a chance to correct that this Monday. It was a good read, in that way that only a favorite, familiar series can be, though I have to admit that the older books felt more immersive. Unfortunately some of those (and even the reprints) have gotten disturbingly expensive, but the new trilogy (Inside Straight, Busted Flush, and Suicide Kings) is still in print. I’ll be happy to offer some good starting points if anyone is interested.

Also, while I’m pretty sure she isn’t playing Chrysalis, this cosplayer takes “anatomically pretty” to a whole new level. It must’ve taken hours to get ready.

It’s been a long and slightly painful week and I’ve drifting in and out of sleep for a couple hours now (hence the post-midnight update), but I have most of tomorrow (today?) set aside for writing. We’ll see how that goes.

At the moment, I plan to commission a different artist for each version of Elves, but I’m not sure. Either way I’m sure I’ll have Ten-chan return in the future. What do you think?

It’s very fashionable right now to donate money to Haiti, but please be careful where you donate; anywhere money flows, there will be unethical people trying to take a cut, and even legitimate organizations can be astoundingly poorly managed. Charity Navigator seems to be a good place to check things out first; they don’t have the resources to check every charity, but they rate most of the big players. Personally, my Haiti-bound donation went to Doctors Without Borders.

On a lighter note, I’ve been spending a lot of time wandering RedBubble lately. My friend Caitlin introduced me to it back in August, when I bought a print of her “Tokyo” project, and I keep coming back, usually just to explore. They have a great talent pool, and their print quality is fantastic if you feel the urge to buy something. One of my favorite recent finds is JenniferB. Really, I think the best way for me to introduce her is to shut up and let two of her poems speak for themselves:

1. I Want To Fuck You With Words
2. To be continued…

Some of her writing is a bit morbidly uncomfortable, but I think it’s still worth reading.

In site-related news, I’ve commissioned Ten-Chan to illustrate one of the Elves stories I finished back at the end of 2008. She says she should be finished soon, and I’ll post it appropriately as soon as I can.

Right now my goal is “by Valentine’s Day, even if I don’t sleep the whole weekend.” We’ll see how that goes.

In the meantime, I have been meaning to keep this site more active. I shouldn’t expect you to come back to the same page for six weeks running, and I feel badly about that. On the other hand, when I started this site, I made a very simple promise to you:

2. No filler.

We will not post unless we have things to say. 1000 Gears should be interesting even if you have no idea who we actually are.

Primarily I was concerned with “What kind of X are you?” quiz-memes and similar minutiae that is only actually interesting to the person taking the test. It’s very easy to slip into a routine of posting for the sake of posting, and I like that even less than silence. So, stuck between these two urges, I have a question for you, as my readers. If I were to post, once a week, sharing a small handful of interesting bits I’ve discovered online, would you consider that to be “content” or “filler”?

1. Tahdig! I think that only makes sense if you’re one of the three people I spoke with about it, but it’s awesome anyways.
2. Café Verführen has great souvenirs. Their shot glasses are etched, not printed, and their Sunday-morning gift boxes are copied from real vintage labels (seriously).
3. Ryusei is never ever without less than immaculately dressed. I think I’m a little bit jealous.
4. I wish I had taken up Tiff’s invitation to go watch Supernatural on Saturday night. I got some ideas for First and Last and Always that I needed to write down, and I didn’t see her at all on Sunday. She seemed like a good person to know.
5. In general, wish I were better about collecting phone numbers and email addresses.
6. The official YaoiCon “bishounen” events – Bingo, the Auction, and the (ahem) Bishounen Spanking Inferno raffle – can be a lot of fun in their own rights, but… (I never finished this sentence, and I wish I could remember what I was thinking when I started it. The events are fun.
7. Mostly for DreamSkaype, I’ve uploaded a picture of my special badge from my service as a waiter for the YaoiCon Café (not Café Verführen) back in 2007. Being called a “bishounen” feels like a compliment that I can’t properly accept, so I replaced it with something more comfortable.
8. I should bring Kelda another tribute offering of chocolate next year.
9. YaoiCon is always, at the same time, more and less expensive than I thought it would be.
10. …and then Buffy staked Edward. THE END!

Most YaoiCon attendees never visit the third floor of the hotel, unless they have rooms there. I don’t blame them. The con program doesn’t mention the treasure hidden up there. I don’t know whether this is a deliberate snub or one of those complications of printing schedules and hotel management, but it’s a shame either way. The third floor is home to Café Verführen, and I think it’s my favorite event at the con.

Full Disclosure: In the Fan Alley, I wound up exchanging cards with Matta’s real-life alter-ego, and she gave me a button with the Café Verführen logo. I gave her a Tybalt button in return, but take this how you will.

This is a fairly late review, mostly because I kept throwing out my earlier drafts. I don’t like rehashing old reviews, and most of what I said in last year’s writeup still holds true. It seems inadequate, though; there’s something magically captivating about the Café, something hard to pin down and describe. The experience is enchanting, somehow much more than the sum of its parts.

On one level, the Café is just that: a café. In that role, it’s one of the better places to eat at the convention. For about eight dollars, the hotel will hand you two thoroughly mediocre hot dogs from the warming tray, or a high-school-cafeteria hamburger and a bag of chips. For about the same price, the Café will serve you a plate of chicken teriyaki, with steamed vegetables that add color and balance out the softer textures of chicken and rice. Come the inevitable slow, lazy Sunday morning, the hotel will sell you the same hot dogs or hamburger, but the Café staff prepares a special prix-fixe menu, with pastries from a local bakery, tea sandwiches (your choice, salmon, cucumber, or a little of both), and little chocolate-dipped Belgian cookies.

I won’t say that it’s perfect, but its flaws are small and charming. Ryusei admits to a certain chronic tardiness. Hotel management hands down a few restrictions; I think Matta would like more fire in his kitchen. Still, I think my biggest personal complaint comes from the disappearance of mineral water from the dinner menu. It’s an incredibly small thing, totally understandable, but I like mineral water, and I feel compelled to complain about something, just so that this post will not turn into an uninterrupted wall of effusive praise.

In general, though, the Café is a wonderful at-con retreat for those who would prefer to enjoy their food rather than merely to refuel, to dine rather than to feed.

That’s not the magic of Café Verführen, though. Café Verführen is more than just a place to eat.

Give the staff a little bit of your time, and Café Verführen comes alive.

In one of my earlier drafts, I wrote: I get the feeling that neither Matta nor Ryusei would be satisfied with “good enough”. Matta would object, I think, because it would offend his work ethic, Ryusei because it would offend his ego. This says a lot about the staff and their dedication to improving on what they’ve done before, but more importantly, it says a lot about the characters that they’ve created, and the way they’ve led me to relate to them. They have history and motives, endearing quirks and real depth.

When poor Sebastian called in with the mother of all sick excuses, quarantined at Narita under suspicion of carrying H1N1, I had to laugh, because it’s a very clever way to handwave that someone couldn’t make it to the con… but part of me wanted to know that he’d be OK and arrive home soon. Jacob’s dry aura of frustration makes it easy to see why he has long talks with the company counselor, and Nishi’s affectionate concern seems only natural when he promises his friend a ride after work. Faced with such an extreme staff shortage, even Matta was pulled out of the kitchen to wait tables, and I didn’t have to stay afterwards to know that he would be grumbling about it for hours.

Ryusei hung out a Help Wanted sign, attracting the attention of “Bob” (actually another Sebastian, of Kuroshitsuji fame). “Bob” had a little trouble adjusting, and but he seemed to get in the spirit of things quickly enough. His various torments and indignities were fun and endearing, and I hope to see “Bob” return in the future, not only because he likes my kitty ears, but because he’s become a part of the Café Verführen story.

That’s the thing that sets Café Verführen apart, the thing that makes me place my reservations the hour the guest list opens, the thing that makes me rewrite my review over and over, trying to do justice to all the people and all the planning involved. Fanservice is easy, but chemistry is hard. Chemistry is more powerful, though, more valuable, and ultimately more fulfilling, and it’s there that the Café really shines. It doesn’t need to take its clothes off to enchant its guests; it can do that with plot and substance, refinement and understated charm. It can pull me into its little dream-world story, and it can make me care.

Café Verführen’s magic is very simple. It’s summed up in just five words, and as long as it doesn’t change, I’ll keep coming back for years.

Café Verführen makes me believe.

Other than that, I had a good time, took a handful of nice pictures, and met a lot of wonderful people, though I’m sorry that I didn’t get to spend as much time with them as I’d like. My fellow congoers (most of them, anyways) really are my favorite part of con, my reason for going, and I always enjoy the fan-energy rush that I get from spending the better part of three days with them. It’s very good for my creative urge, and I’m back at work on First and Last and Always.

I went to Café Verführen twice, and I’ll have a review of that up as soon as I’ve finished doing my post-con chores. In the meantime, if you have any questions about the con, or if you were there and want to get in touch, drop me a comment. I’ll try to get back to you as soon as possible.