Circle Activities: the Mini-Convention

This is a bit more of a “update” post than Pacific content, since I’ve been absolutely swamped with work and life events. 

As you know, Pacific’s been a hobby and a labor of love for a long while. Over the years, due to health reasons, actual update’s slowed down a fair bit. As the primary driver of Pacific in its current form, I admit it’s been hard, but health isn’t the main reason for that slow down. What’s been harder is for me to reconcile the events and that alternative world that I wanted to describe (out of my dreams, you could say) with the world – and more importantly, the America – that we live in today.

To dream about America here, and then looking outside to see America as she is today. It hurts. 

Now, I don’t want to dampen your day with my griping, so instead, I’ll share something positive. The circle’s doing well – fast friendships are still forming, and as the specter of the pandemic lifts, we’re hoping to resume some of the things that we used to do (even if of course, technology and how we deliver stuff has changed quite a bit!) prior.

This thing that Zero’s put up is one of them.

Things are difficult in China right now, with travel restrictions and lockdowns still partially in place and only recently relaxing, but Zero’s experimenting with a new form of event planning. The idea is to take the convention that he’s fond of, and break that into smaller pieces targeting more specific, smaller groups. A lot of us with weeb interests are getting a little older and have more responsibilities on our plates, and it’ll be easier to get away for say, an afternoon or evening, instead of a full blown weekend.

Not only does this dodge the potential issues with crowding (a practical concern given China’s population density), but Zero thinks it’s also more likely to result in a better time for everyone. By organizing events around specific themes or topics, it’s assumed that because the events are smaller, you wouldn’t be attending it to have fun and meet people randomly – but rather, you’re here to have fun and meet people who you know for sure are interested in the same things as you.

This, for instance, is one of Zero’s ideas. A pilot event involving a camp-out in the middle of a nice park, themed around one of the circle’s favorite shows. Fried chicken and video games and a “drive in” movie. Doesn’t sound too bad, yeah?

Hopefully, if it turns out well, we’ll have some pictures and tales to tell! 

A Late (?) April Fools Joke (?): Zero’s Indie Music Radio Station

You know how each year we try to do something a bit “out there” for the team – be it ponies or horse girls or swapping the site to Russian for a day? This year’s idea is even more harebrained than I’d have thought, but here it is. Zero’s idea – an indie music radio (?) station. He’s still ironing out the bugs right now, but his intent is to provide uninterrupted audio streaming of indie artists 24/7. \

You can see some of the test runs below. Apparently, the Chinese Bilbili system can provide 24/7 uptime, and we’re trying to figure out if Youtube can do the same.

Youtube channel

bilibili

I say “late” because it is late, but it’s something Zero intends to work on with the other components of the circle. So it’s really not a joke, and the music I find to be pretty calming. I suspect he’s actually trying to integrate it into Nekoview, but that’s another story altogether.

I’m still pretty swamped by work (it’s that time of the year, after all), but we hope you’re having a good time!

A quick announcement:

Hi!

We’re still alive, but everyone’s been awfully busy. Morgane’s recovered, but she’s gone right back to work, and it’s travel season for about … all the students on the team.

And Zero.

So I’ll be making some announcements in the coming days.

First things first. We’re in the process of switching our NA distributors. I’ll have more information later, so stay tuned. Chances are we’ll probably go back to how we used to do things (you pay for the book, we pay for S&H from Chyyyyna) in the near future, but I’m afraid I can’t say much about it.

Secondly, we’ve got uuh, some opportunities coming up. There may or not be actual cooking involved with the Navy Foods book.

What sort of things would you like to see? What sort of recipes do you think would be neat to do? What sort of things would you be interested in having our readers eat?

(Did you like my ginger cookies?)

Please leave us a note via the usual channels, here, or message Morange –

Morgane! Sorry.

That’s all for now. Coffee?