Worry vs. Donuts

The good: The word from PIxar’s Up panel is good: fans sound pretty happy with what Pixar has planned for the summer. Hopefully this means we won’t be seeing something on the level of, say, Cars 2. Elsewhere, the convention stayed extremely busy on its second day as fans packed the exhibit hall floor and filled panel rooms to capacity. Despite this - and this is quite frankly the most impressive thing about this show - I never saw a line for food that stretched to insane lengths (which I have seen and experienced at every other major con I’ve been to… ever). Whoever made this happen deserves a handsome raise and a lifetime of free massages. Good ones.

The bad: The lines for some events, autograph signings, and the like were not only poorly marked, they often stretched into other areas and blocked tables in the small press comics area. Boo, hiss. 

Running tally of costumes: 4 remote control R2D2s, 1 very impressive Bumblebee Transformer (who drew a team of photographers wherever he wandered), 1 old-school cylon, 2 Katamari “cousins,” Watchmen everywhere, 1 Sailor Moon, and enough Storm Troopers to invade and occupy a small nation. 

Props: To all the friends I saw, all the cool people I chatted with, and to Lincy Chan, who gave me an interview for next week’s The Gallery. Damn, artists are swell people.

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The con season began for me Friday, as I found myself accompanying Lanny to what she is calling “my first comic convention” (as in the focus is mainly on comics, which I like, so huzzah!), Wondercon at the Moscone Center in San Francisco. The convention is run by the people who run San Diego Comic Con, and you can tell - there’s a good mix of Hollywood studios promoting their latest fannish stuff, and it seems like every small and large press comic outfit has a booth in the exhibit hall.

The good: Capcom’s North American HQ is not far from here - a fact that is reflected by their huge booth in the center of the convention hall. On tap from them: demos of the recently released Street Fighter IV and the forthcoming Resident Evil 5. As one might expect, the Watchmen film is EVERYWHERE, Watchmen costumes are everywhere, and I’m going to stop right there because if you really care about Watchmen, there’s another hundred bloggers out there who are able to devote more time to covering it than I am.

Instead, I’d like to give my award for “coolest booth on the floor” to a smaller Hollywood outfit: Miramax, who have a few Skee Ball machines in the exhibit hall to promote their new film Adventureland. The film is director Greg Mottola’s first major film since Superbad (if you haven’t seen this film yet, go rent it now), so I’m really looking forward to it. It also helps that I’m a Skee Ball junkie. Finally, although it is a little small, the Artist’s Alley here is rather impressive, and features a good mix of artists that cater to every style you could possibly imagine. 

The bad: The presence of Hollywood does exactly what one assumes it would - it creates a “larger than life” feeling that can cause you to feel like a “big fish in a small pond” here. Because this con is so huge, it’s no surprise that the close-knit atmosphere you’ll find at some cons is lacking. However, the staff are friendly and helpful, and there’s a little something for everyone here. So as long as you’re searching for something you like, you’ll find it - the search might take you a while though.

Cool stuff today: Although Wondercon boasts a lineup of heavy hitters from So-cal, the con is careful to give plenty of love to local companies that are producing cool nerdy stuff. Case in point: the bay area is home to Pixar, and although Pixar’s relationship with Disney may conjure up visions of scary lawyers with cease-and-desist letters, Pixar has been granted the right to give convention attendees something very special: an advance screening of the first 45 minutes of their forthcoming summer film Up. I don’t know if I’ll make it to the screening (or survive the lines that aforementioned screening will entail), but I have to admit that I’m curious, especially since Wall-E was so fantastic. We’ll see what happens.

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Hello all!

So, my plans for the evening (aside from working on TAF stuff and The Gallery) include a trip to the UC Davis Segundo Commons for “Late Night.” Apparently, Late Night is where the commons stays open late so that students can eat and drink a bunch of food (ranging from “healthy” to “grease”) instead of heading to some other eatery for other kinds of food.

Now, I don’t know about you, but I think one of the best things about these places is that you can “choose your own adventure” with the drink machines. This is kind of like russian roulette for your palette, but occasionally you hit upon something that’s actually good.

Some of my attempts, gathered from years of working on college campuses and consuming break room crap:

Lemon Cola: (1 part lemonade, 5-6 parts cola) The idea is that it’s supposed to taste like the “Twist” cola beverages that were around a few years ago. It does - as long as you drink it quickly. If you have access to REAL lemonade from one of those drip machines (In N Out has them), use a little less of it - but it will still taste better.
Verdict: B. Good, but far from perfect.

Sparkling Lemonade: (1 part lemonade, 1.5/2 parts 7UP/Sprite/Lymon) Do you remember Sunkist Sparkling Lemonade? That stuff was the shit. You can make it with these beverages. It usually works best with fakey lemonade (Minute Maid, etc.). Much like the Lemon Cola, you’ll want to drink it sooner so it retains more carbonation.
Verdict: A-. Almost as good as the real stuff.

Break room Mocha: (1 packet cocoa, 2 half and half packets, 6 oz or so coffee) This mess is the closest I’ve been able to get to a decent mocha at work. That is sad, considering that this stuff tastes like you just mixed a bunch of random crap together. Which I did. Shame on me.
Verdict: D+. Needs a whole lot of work.

So, does anyone out there have any random beverage concoctions they want to share?

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As far as great American past times go, few are as simultaneously honored and disregarded as the New Years Resolution. Since this webpage (blog, chicken scratch… whatever) is tied to one of my resolutions for 2009, I figured I would muse publicly upon some of the things I’m “resolve-ing” for this year. I’m pretty sure that many of you don’t care, but hey - if you’re here, you’re obviously aiming to kill some time. On we go to the page cut: (Read the article)

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12:47 PST: Good afternoon, and welcome to the Election Day blog. Yeah, a funny thing to do when I haven’t touched this thing in months, but what the hell. I’m coming to you from the desk of the Pacific Tradewinds Backpackers Hostel in San Francisco, California. Fun place. Since it’s pretty obvious what we’re pulling for here (No on Prop 8, Obama, fluffy kittens for every American), this blog will mostly focus on the character of people here in the Common Room chatting about the election and life. Ah, there’s the phone. Someone looking for a guest.

Of course, I’m going to be doing 4 other things while doing this, so if there’s no other updates… that’s why. 

RESULTS: None yet. Phooey.

Conversation: we’re talking about how SF will respond if Obama wins or loses. We’re expecting lots of parties if Obama wins, and if he loses… well, we’re preparing for some kind of riot. I’m no good at gun battles, so I guess I just got another reason to root for Obama.

2:51 PM PST: Still waiting for results… but the laundry is done, so no complaints there. 

The locals are planning on heading to a bar somewhere to watch the results come in - we don’t have a TV here in the hostel. 

It’s quiet, so I’m going to take this chance to call Lanny.

7PM PST: As things go Obama’s way, the common room is full of people checking laptops. Ironically, the people who are glued to their laptops most are people from overseas, eager to see how the USA decides this thing. There’s a lone McCain supporter among them; a Japanese woman who thinks that he looks “cooler.” I did my best to explain what Americans think “cool” means to her in Japanese, but I’m not sure if I changed her mind…

People are heading to the bar soon. Things are about to get a lot quieter here.

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Currently moving. A less messed-up update is coming soon!

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(originally posted on ANN)

Special guest message: Around lunchtime, I found myself reading Shokotan Blog, the extremely popular blog of AX Guest of Honor Nakagawa “Shokotan” Shoko. Unfortunately, the blog’s top post at the time yielded a bit of bad news: Shokotan was unable to give any kind of opening greeting at the Opening Ceremonies this morning. This afternoon, we did an interview with her for an upcoming ANNTV segment (coming soon!). Since I felt bad that she wasn’t able to say her greetings this morning, I let her open the interview with them. Here’s a bit of what she had to say:

“I’m giza excited to be here in California among all these anime fans for Anime Expo! My first live show in the USA is Saturday, so please come watch the performance!”

As a side note, in case you’re wondering…

GIZA: “Giza” means “very.” Example sentence: “This is giza cheap!” Shokotan hopes that this word can become a slang term in the USA as well, so there you have it. Practice it, use it, tell your friends.

Times I was almost killed with a buster sword today: Only once! That, plus the generous width of all the hallways, may be the best fringe benefit of AX moving to the LA Convention Center. Sure, there are still people that insist on stopping to take pictures in the middle of doorways, but for the most part, the convention has struck a good balance between “empty” and “crowded.”

But what do the fans think? That’s the question I posed to a few groups of fans I met in the hallways. There seems to be a general consensus about one major thing: the space is a whole lot better. “There’s more stuff to do this year,” remarked one fan, while another mentioned how thankful he is that the dance, the arcade, the karaoke, and all the video rooms are in the same place instead of strewn through multiple hotels. However, while there’s ample appreciation for the LA Convention Center, LA itself isn’t that popular among the attendees. One Pokemon card player was quick to criticize the area: “My friends have been harassed by bums. In Anaheim, people could hang around outside and mingle. We’re stuck indoors here.” Other fans were a bit more forgiving; one girl cosplaying with her friends remarked on how the city seems safer than she expected it to be. 

Beyond the venue: Aside from venue-related comments, the registration process continued to be mentioned as a reason fans are happier with the convention this year. I have yet to meet anyone who says they waited in line for more than 10 minutes. 

Show some love: Every convention, I head into the Artist Alley in search of talented artists that will take my cash and give me nice looking art in return. Although there is a fantastic amount of talent in the North American fan community, it’s far more difficult to find someone to publish your work here than it is in Japan. So, for your viewing pleasure, here’s a look at some of the artists in this year’s alley:

One week after launching a new non-deviantArt site and original art gallery, Finni and partner-in-crime Zimmay have seen a good deal of traffic at their table to buy buttons and other cute stuff. Across the alley, Bryan Wong and Studio Constancy Roman have taken matters into their own hands: they’re on their third self-published volume, a collection of the comic Seasons of Constancy. Aside from working on fanart and other stuff for AX, Agnes Wiguna has some new color stills up from her short film Layang-Layang. If a softer colors and tones are your thing, you might want to check out the work of Lisa Tao. Finally, Vivian Lai has some shaded L stills for the Death Note fans.

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A look back at the Wednesday before Anime Expo 2008:

So far so good? Perhaps. After chatting with a handful of fans who hit the registration lines on Wednesday, I’ve heard comments that are both good and bad. The good: lines moved quickly and the convention didn’t close things down early as they have in previous years. The bad: the badge printing system had a few errors, a few duplicate badges were printed, and some badges had information missing. The real test for the system begins tomorrow, as both pre-registered fans and “at the door” fans rush to fill the…

Gigantic Event Hall: The LA Convention Center looks as if it could fit the entirety of the Long Beach Convention Center inside it three times over. This should help fix a lot of the space and line issues fans experienced last year, but I can’t help but feel that the amount of space may wind up feeling a little excessive. 

AMVs: One event I expect will be a whole lot better this year is the Anime Music Video contest. Last year’s errors, not the least of which was most of the show vanishing along with the laptop of the person in charge of things last year, left a lot of AMV fans feeling burned. This was one of the things that AX marketing guru Chase Wang specifically mentioned would run smoothly this year. Considering the growth and popularity of the contest (not to mention the vocal fanbase), I would be extremely shocked if it has the kind of problems it did last year. 

Artist Alley: Last year, Anime Expo caught a little flak for putting the Artist Alley in… well, an alley of traffic. Reflecting that, the convention has moved the alley into a separate room this year and is encouraging the artists to avoid sit down sketches and to keep traffic moving. Hopefully the wide open spaces of the convention center will help with space issues, but I still expect things to be crowded. After all, it took less than five minutes for Anime Expo to sell out the Alley this year. 

I’ll be back tomorrow with a report from Day 1!

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(For the uninitiated: my trip stories tend to be summaries of everything - a little bit of the touristy stuff, a little bit about the random conversations I have with passers by, and other random stuff. Enjoy.)

$4.63 - the price for 1 gallon of Unleaded at the Shell near LAX

The movement - The first thing I saw as I exited the LAX terminal was a group of workers in SEIU t-shirts, carrying carnations. I asked an airport staffer on his break what was going on. “Oh, they’re trying to get healthcare and such,” he says, “they’re currently working under limited contracts.” I was told that this sort of dispute is ongoing and that organization has been difficult due to threats of job loss levied against the workers. Still, the movement seems to have a strong following (the t-shirts were everywhere), and I can certainly understand the need for health care. (Read the article)

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