1) Con photos are up - general gallery here, photos from the Final Fantasy Fight event here. I will probably do a highlights post later, but for now, have me in a senshi fuku

2) Can someone confirm a quick and dirty Japanese translation for me? (And by 'quick and dirty' I mean 'I pieced this together out of the kanji I was looking up to transcribe and Babelfish'). It's the text at the bottom of the ShinRa ID badge, I _think_ it reads something along the lines of 'This certifies that the abovementioned person is an employee of the Shinra Company', but a slightly more accurate translation and a slap upside the head if I screwed up in my transcription would be lovely. Transcribed text is '上記の者は”神羅カンパニー”、及び神羅グループ
系列会社の社員であることを証明します', you can see a photo of an original here

3) My teeny cheapass Samsung is finally starting to bite the dust (the pick-up mic has died, which means I can't actually talk to anyone on it), and I think I may upgrade to a smartphone. The iPhone is super-sexy, but I don't want to sell my soul to Apple. I'm looking at the HTC Dream as an alternative, although I suspect Android has a lot less neat apps avalible so far. I'm also a little worried about the battery issue - dunno about the iPhone, but the Dream apparently goes about ten hours without a charge which seems like a lot, only I'm used to charging my Samsung about once a week >.>

4) I'm reading A Long Hard Road again. I may secretly hate myself. Also, I figured out how to read fic on my mp3 player 8D