In addition to eating and sleeping I was going to complain about sitting on the toilet but that's where I play Tetris so it counts as recreation

Man, sometimes my defeatist attitude really gets to me and sabotages my chances at doing fun things. I got asked to co-host a toy robots podcast recently and I turned it down because I'm just too busy with the baby, the dogs, the fish and all my other responsibilities at home. I feel so overwhelmed by the mundane day to day life maintenance stuff required to keep my kingdom running with a minimum of damage to equipment and personnel. Plus just basic human necessities like eating and sleeping take up excessive amounts of precious time. What little free time I do have is devoted to reading comic books, writing poems about toy robots, and of course learning the ways of the Force. So I had to turn down the podcasting because all my time is taken up maintaining my meat body and keeping my son Trypticon from setting the fish on fire with his destructo-beams.

The stress can be crazy but every once in a while Botcon comes around and I get to leave behind the hustle and bustle and charred aquariums of daily life. One of my absolute favorite things to do at Botcon is sell my homemade toy robot themed creations, although every time I try selling some little resin cast robot thing it's always an embarrassing and awkward experience. Not for me, but for my friends I'm trying to sell my crap to. There's nothing like having to prove your friendship by buying something you don't want from some weird guy you only know from the internet. I suppose that when they give me their 3 dollars it's a sign of the true devotion and undying loyalty my friends have for me. I also suppose this is why as the years go on, fewer and fewer people hang out with me at toy robot conventions.

But forcing myself on friends and total strangers is a convention tradition and this year at Botcon will be no exception. In addition to whatever poorly crafted resin robot thing I'm going to make at the last minute, this year I will sell a booklet with all the poems I've written here at PSMR. I call it "The King of all Toy Robots Poems Collection" and it will be the most complete collection of poems I've written until I write some more. In addition to every poem I've done so far at PSMR, it will also include the Botcon '08 exclusive poem titled "I Only Feel Alive at Botcon (and That is Why I Want to Die)".

Actually, what usually happens when I undertake endeavors like this is I make about five copies and then come home with four, usually because I was too nervous to ask anyone if they wanted one and I probably dropped one in the airport somewhere. When any friends do ask if I've got anything to sell them I usually get overcome by irritable bladder syndrome and run away. I don't expect this year to be any different so after the show I'll sell off the remaining stock here as a special internet mail away offer for one dollar and four robot points. However if you send me five bucks I'll include a sketch of Voltron humping the Incredible Change-Bot of your choice. Judging from my site statistics, the poems are the least read things I write so I know my readers won't want to pass up the chance to pay to not read them in print.