One Short Day in the Emerald City

Emerald City Comic Con 2025 has come and gone, and I’ve had one heck of a weekend!  It was shorter than usual (I only was there for 1 day, as opposed to my usual 2 or 3 days at each con) and it brought about some stress (picking up my entrance badge took waaaay longer than expected), but I had plenty of fun cosplaying and losing myself among my fellow enthusiasts for a day!  Going through my whole day blow for blow isn’t that exciting, so I’ll let my photos do the talking:

(For those who can't tell from the Bryar pistol and lightsaber, I'm cosplaying as Kyle Katarn, the mercenary main protagonist of the Dark Forces/Jedi Knight series.)

This is the way.

First-person shooter perspective time!

FPS Perspective 2: Now With Lightsabers!

What's more dangerous than the Scarlet Witch?  Two Scarlet Witches!

What's better than an aspiring Jedi?  Two aspiring Jedi!

There you have it, I had a great time at another convention!  Best of all, I showed I can still work hard and play hard, even in the face of stressful times and massive life changes.

Future Shock

The year 2025 is now in full swing.  Without going into detail or sinking into despair, I will say that things look bad in most of the world.  Weirdly enough (or not so weirdly, considering how last year went), things are mostly going well in my personal and professional life.  I’ve been handling tricky cases with aplomb, I recently got certified for juvenile delinquency misdemeanor cases, and I’ve been making good use of my free time.  With my personal matters lining up well, I’ve got an announcement for this blog that I was hinting at last time:

Although I am still working out details and exact logistics, I have decided that I will be moving my law practice from Tillamook to Salem, Oregon.  If all goes according to my current plan, I hope to complete my move by the end of this year.

This announce raises an important question: “Ben, why are you doing this?”  Good question, friendly and conveniently inquisitive reader!  I’ve been thinking about what the future holds for a while now.  I’ve expected that I’d eventually leave Tillamook; the only undetermined factors were when and where to.  Late last year, as the world reached a new depth of s*****ness (see my last blog post), I finally decided that the one thing I need more than anything now was closer proximity to my friends and loved ones.  Tillamook has plenty of friendly people and a very welcoming legal community, but I know virtually no one outside my work sphere there.  My old college chums, my law school comrades, my drinking buddies, and Cthulhu are mostly located in or close to Salem, the town where I’ve lived half my adult life.  To top it off, I have some professional connections in Salem; it’s probably the legal community I’m most connected to outside of Tillamook.  The stars have more or less aligned: Salem is the optimal place for me, and now’s the best time to start moving there.

Make no mistake: this process won’t be easy.  I’ve got a lot of cases to wrap up (and I’ll likely be doing business in Tillamook for a while after moving), I’ll need to find office and housing spaces, and there are plenty of other complicated matters related to moving a business and moving in general.  Nonetheless, this move has the potential to drastically change my life for the better.  Not only are many of my friends in Salem, but I’m also already acquainted with the various restaurants, cafés, bars, social calendar events, shops, and historical landmarks of the area.  There will a lot for me to see, revisit, and experience when I finally get back.  Plus, Tillamook will still be less than three hours away, so I don’t have to completely abandon my ongoing adventures/ice cream orgies in the Dairylands.  All in all, I’m quite excited!

There’s a lot to do, and a lot to look forward to, but that’s all for another time.  I have a convention to go to, so I’ll be quite busy tomorrow…stay tuned for the next exciting entry!

Recognition, Recovery, and Relaxation

Times have been tough since my last blog post.  Although I have celebrated Thanksgiving and the winter holiday season, I’m not feeling particularly thankful or jolly.  I’m doing what I can to make the most of what’s left of 2024, but I have the feeling things are going to get crazier before they get saner.

[Confession time: originally, I was planning to go into detail on what is causing me distress (a lot of it involves contemporary politics and various topics of social discourse).  I was hoping to express myself in an articulate manner, but I’ve been sitting on this post for over a month, and the muse hasn’t come any closer to striking in the past few weeks.  I’ve come to see that dwelling on these things in detail, especially in writing, is only causing me to mentally spiral down.  Furthermore, I’m not sure I want my raw emotional baggage to be on display for all the Internet to see (especially due to the aforementioned/hinted political and social reasons).  To keep things succinct, I’ll put it like this:]

Things are bad.  Very bad.  Very bad for a lot of people for various reasons.  They have been getting noticeably bad over the past 2 years, but they are especially bad now and likely will continue to be bad in the coming months.  Many people are mad and sad (though sometimes for differing/conflicting reasons), and I am one of them.  Things are bad.

[It’s not winning me any Pulitzers, but that’s about as detailed as I’m willing to go right now.  I might be able and willing to discuss my concerns in detail on some future day, but today is not that day.]

Regardless of how bad things are, it’s important to recognize what in my life is still good (can you tell I originally planned this post for Thanksgiving?).  For example, I’m still fairly healthy; I survived COVID-19, and my latest doctor’s visit result is rather encouraging.  I’ll keep an eye on my diet and try to exercise more in the coming year, but I’m ultimately not too worried illness or injury.  My finances have been fairly stable, as has my career (though I may be looking at some big positive changes there soon…ooh, foreshadowing!), which passed a 5-year milestone this year.  Part of that stability comes from a helpful and supportive legal profession, as I have no end of fellow attorneys to turn to in a pinch.  Even that pales in comparison to my personal support network, as I have plenty of reliable friends that I can turn to in moments of crisis.  While I hope not to tax their time too much, I plan to continue keeping those bonds of friendship strong going forward.

Probably the most valuable thing that I’ve come to value is the resilience borne from my profession.  One thing they don’t tell you in law school is that you get used to feeling disappointment and bouncing back from it rather quickly.  Having tried dozens of cases and seen a lot of convictions, I’m very used to picking myself up, dusting myself off, and preparing for the next hearing.  I’ll be applying this mindset for the coming year and as I continue my journey as a growing attorney.  I’ll keep up my personal boundaries and try to get better at opening myself up to trustworthy people, but I think this continued resilience will be my greatest asset when the going gets tough, especially since my career may change in a big way soon (more on that in the future…).

One thing that’s definitely helped is taking a much-needed vacation to Hawaii this year.  Catching up with friends and seeing some sights was a great way to decompress, round out the year, and steel myself for the coming months.  While there are plenty of natural beauty shots I got during this trip, I think I’ll round out the last blog post of 2024 with something the Internet could always use more of: cat pictures (in this case, from the Hawaii Cat Café.

Happy New Year, readers!  I hope 2025 will be less bad.

Leisure Suit Lawyer

 

In all the hurly-burly of day-to-day life, I recently reached an inconspicuous milestone.  As of this month (October 2024, for those looking back), I have now been a licensed lawyer for 5 years.  While there are certain charms and perks to this job (flexible hours on some weeks, civic pride, and decent pay), being an attorney is a lot of work that can wear you down if you’re not careful.  To properly balance out my life, I spent most of the summer (and am spending the ongoing fall) with a simple quest: try to enjoy myself more by taking full advantage of what free time I have.  Benjamin D. Fischberg, Attorney at Law has his needs met (and I can’t discuss the particulars of his work); it was time to reconnect with Ben Fischberg, the gamer, cosplayer, and opportunistic adventurer.

One adventure that I took full advantage of was Canterbury Faire in late July.  I haven’t been to a renaissance fair in five years; the last one I went to was right before being sworn in as a lawyer.  As such, it was a grand time I spent with friends enjoying the atmosphere in my festive purple velvet robe and perusing the wares of various artisans (when not watching a mother***ing joust tournament).  In the process, I scored a parasol that I’ve been making good use of throughout the summer, along with some fudge and raspberry cordial that I did my best to make last (*burp*).  I didn’t take a lot of pictures (taking photos usually feels out of place), but enjoy these majestic mechanical dragons I found.

 

On a more day-to-day basis, a lot of leisure has been dedicated to video games.  I’ve spent the summer and early autumn dipping my toes into various games old and new—Animal Crossing: New Horizons, The Legend of Zelda: Oracle of Ages, Hades, and the Battlefront series, to name a few.  However, one game that has been taking a notable amount of time is Star Wars: Bounty Hunter.  This solid licensed third-person shooter was a major staple of my childhood, helped turn me into a serious gamer, and is indirectly the reason I became a lawyer (it’s a long story—I’ll probably get into my origin story in a later blog post).  It’s been a blast to catch up with the newly remastered Switch port, which has slightly better graphics, better lighting, and multiple control options.  Caught up in the glow of nostalgia, I’ve been spending my evenings zooming around on jetpacks and gunning down criminals.  As you can see, I’ve been hunting down the worst of the worst: gangsters, drug runners, animal abusers, graffiti artists, art critics, and people who don’t flush public toilets:

 

 

 

All my shooting and hunting paid off, as I accomplished something that had seemed far out of reach for the past 2 decades: I achieved 100% completion in Bounty Hunter!  Catching every secondary bounty (alive when wanted) was no small feat, but I managed to do it in less than 2 months since buying the remastered port.  I don’t know how I stack up as a gamer in the big picture, but 10-year-old me is impressed and proud of 31-year-old me.

(I also achieved 100% completion on Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door,  which is no less impressive, this summer.  I’ve been on a roll!)

As summer started to wind down, I geared up for another big adventure: Rose City Comic Con!  After a long trial early in September (where 5 hours of jury deliberations kept me in court until 10pm :P), I put on my Pokémon trainer costume from last con and met up with my buddy Carson (who was a great sport and helped me take loads of pictures) for 3 days of cosplay, perusing art, photo ops, and overall goofiness.  Having gone 6 years without any conventions, it feels great to have gone to 2 cons in a single year.  Even though there are still 2 months left in 2024, I’m looking forward to whatever cons I can make it to in 2025 (I’ve already looked into 4 so far).  For now, here’s (some of) the highlights of Rose City Comic Con 2024 in photographic form:

I got plans for this prop pistol...

me and Carson :)

The inevitable result of my wacky antics (fortunately, I know a competent attorney in the area).

A quick portrait I commissioned.

 

Someone was selling anime body pillows of General Grievous and Manfred von Karma.  I bought these $10 keychain versions, as I certainly wasn't shelling out $50 for full-size pillows...yet.

At the tail end of summer, I enjoyed a slightly lower-key adventure with Cthulhu with Salem’s Pride in the Park.  Given that Pride events are usually kept to June, having a second helping in September is an excellent treat for Salem residents (or weekend visitors, in my case).  The event got crashed by some homophobic @$$hole protesters, but we had an awesome time on a beautiful day.  There weren’t too many photo ops, but I stepped a little out of my comfort zone and got my hair temporarily dyed purple:

 

All in all, I’ve been doing my best to enjoy my free time; aside from these main adventures covered here, I’ve been trying other little tricks and hobbies.  I’ve been working on future cosplays one day of a time (in preparation for the aforementioned ~4+ future cons), I’ve been extending Rosh Hashana by enjoying apples with honey for dessert (also a great way to get rid of excess caramel sauce), and I’ve been pushing myself into picking up old hobbies (such as Lego and mixing rum with things—more on that another time).  Moreover, I’ve been preparing the blog entry that you are currently reading as a reminder to myself that fun is out there and that working hard doesn’t mean I can’t play hard.  As we go into Halloween and the holiday season, I look forward to finding out how else I can fill the time between court hearings in my 6th year as an apprentice attorney.