Ever notice how it's the little things in life that amuse us so much? More to the point, ever notice how it's the silly little idiocies in life that amuse us more than anything else? Well, this is not as much ''the little blog that could'' as it is ''the blog that enjoys going up the down escalator in your local mall.'' Will it have anything of real importance? No, probably not. But enjoy the ride never the less!

 

"It's aliiiiiiive!"

Oh come on, like you were expecting anything but that given the title. And yet the whole "blogenstein" theme seems vastly appropriate, as it's been a while since this little bit of nowhere has seen any sort of return from the dead, and I currently feel like I'm already there. Yes Virginia, there was indeed an Anime North 2005 convention, and it was good, and it has left me satisfied, exhausted and a wallet full of pain.

(My wallet would like to add here, "My twenties...all those crisp, happy, beautiful twenty dollar bills...gone...gone!!!")

(On the other hand, Mel would like to add here, "Shining happy box sets!")



Last Thursday saw everything at long last falling into place. Before I started for my afternoon work shift, I made sure that all of my things were packed, and that the "Baka Royale" Confic had all of its props and scripts accounted for. I really do think that the Thursday was the first real day I actually realized there was a convention happening, and got excited about it. Amazing what happens when there's no more Confic prep work to worry about.

Naturally this left me anxiously drumming my fingers throughout my entire shift. Time did not pass so horribly slow, as it once did when I was a child waiting for Christmas morning; at the same time time did not pass by so horribly fast, as it still does now that I'm an adult trying to actually sleep past 9am Christmas morning without having parents or siblings wake me up. Somewhere in between, I cleaned the store, thought about the Con, handled customers and write little notes to my employees asking them to pretty please not burn down the store while I was gone for 3 days.

Mel picked me up after work, and expressed her sincere happiness in how we decided to load up the trunk of the car with all the heavy things (ie, the cooler) in the morning, and didn't leave it for her to lug down the elevator on her own. With Shady in tow (and sticking her head out of the car most of the time), we headed off to Hamilton. There we stayed overnight with Carly, who was going to dogsit Shady for us while we were at AN.

I also discovered that there is a subtle yet noticeable difference between a drink that has rye & ginger ale in it, and a drink that has ginger ale-flavoured rye in it. Namely how unimpressed I feel in the morning.



"Wake up, you fool! There's a convention out there!"

At least that's what my alarm clock was trying to tell me. I couldn't hear too much of it, since Sinatra--Carly's shih-tzu, Shady's brother--decided that the most comfortable place to sleep was pretty much on my head. Shady, on the other hand, decided that right in between Mel and I was the best place to sleep, which made for some interesting noises when I tried to roll over in the middle of the night.

Eventually, I dragged myself off Carly & Jorrit's futon couch and discovered that it was mid-morning. Mel also woke up, discovered it was mid-morning, had a severe disagreement with this fact and rolled back over to sleep a little more.

After some caffeine, a shower and some reassurances that yes, I was still alive despite feeling otherwise, it was time to start the first day of Anime North. After a quick stop at a nearby grocery store for cold meats, cheese and some film I completely forgot to buy the day before despite writing it in pen on my forearm, Mel & I headed out to Toronto. And Toronto welcomed us with open arms, an inherent lack of rain despite the reassurances of the weather forecasters to the contrary, and lots of traffic that still barely managed to slow us down.

There it was: the Hilton Doubletree Hotel! Home for three days and two nights to many otaku sporting strange clothes and even stranger smells (especially on day 3). And as timing had it, just as we were joining the line of otaku waiting to check into their rooms, Chris, Ysabet, Jen and Sean were in the lobby too! Naturally, Mel left me to hold our place in line, where I stood all alone whilst she squeaked and glomped and made happy Mel nyu's.

(I should add here that Ysa did come over and attempt to glomp me, but it wasn't an authentic Ysa glomp, for which I am happy. She was wearing a studded collar, and I'm not one to kick off a convention with arterial spray from my neck.)

But I got cookies out of the deal, so I can't complain. But to think: complimentary cookies with your room passcards! The sheer concept still boggles me. And they were still warm when they were placed in my hands. Screw the mints on the pillow, I'll take my cookies and run!

After getting fixed up with my swanky green Panelist badge, we lugged our baggage up to our room, and Mel discovered that she could arm/honk her car from our 7th floor window. It became a bit of a hobby: honk the car and see how many of the otaku passing by it jumped.

Surprisingly enough, Friday was quieter overall for Con reg than I expected. This probably had something to do with pre-reg party they had the night before. Of course, they made up for it on Saturday with loooooooooong lines for both pre-reg and reg. Armed with a much larger Dealer's Room and a much larger Artists' Alley, AN05 began with...my wallet wincing in pain.

But it was a happy sort of wincing in pain. Not half an hour into the Dealer's Room, and I acquired some Fruits Basket manga for Mel I promised to nab, a Gir plushie for the Confic, Pocky and a Mokona (because I knew that it would make Mel smile, and that is worth me having to stare at that scary white marshmellowy grin).

I suppose a shortlist of swag is in order here, as collected over the entire weekend. Mel's swag list included a lot of backlog manga she'd been wanting (Ceres, Tsubasa, KareKano and CCS: Master of the Clow), as well as more Stellvia, and also the last half of Escaflowne...for $13 a DVD. She also nabbed some very cool Chobits fanart from Artist's Alley.

Outside of the Mokona, I was very pleased with getting a bunch of Blade of the Immortal books for $6 a piece, a small armada of pencil boards to compliment the wall o' pencil boards (now up to a sensory overload-inducing 92 shitajiki, and 5 mini-boards), and the RahXephon DVD box set for a ridiculously low price. Mel talked me into that, and after getting over the guilt of purchasing it, I'm very thrilled to have it.

But that's enough gloating. You can put your middle finger down now.

Onto the rest of the Con, namely all the fun of panels! First up, the late-night "Lemon Fanfic" panel! I will admit that at times discussing lemonfics can be rather surreal. Where else can you state, "Yeah, in lemon fics the yuri is out, and incest is the new black"? All I can really say is that Steven Savage is brilliant and evil, and any fandom in general needs more people like him.

Somewhere after this, I collapsed onto my bed and fell asleep.



I woke up early and feeling really decent that day. I don't know what happened. It might have been the cookies. More fan artists were talked to. More swag was purchased. And more panels were visited or chaired. Sean, Mel, Ginny, Donna and I all sat in on Ysabet's Fruits Basket panel, where the name of the game was "how vague can you get without spilling the spoilers?" And there were pins afterwards too. Yay, more swag!

I think somewhere following this, a bunch of us (Jen, Too-Tall, Dan and Nightbreak among the group) wound up eating outside of the nearby Subway store. Much to our amusement, in another nearby hotel there was a convention for a bunch of older ladies who all dressed in puprle dresses and red hats. I have to wonder: what would their expressions be like if a Cosplayer walked up to them and asked, "Who are you dressed as? That's really strange costume."

The Witch Hunter Robin panel proved fairly lively, and I was impressed at how much of the series I recalled despite having binged on the episodes months ago. And if you ever want an interesting story, ask Nightbreak about Mel's facial expressions. Or on a related note, homicidal sideglances.

The Yuri panel can be summed up in a few short words: there are some things I just really didn't need to know about some of the other panelists. That is all.

But at least Savage's "Create Your Own Anime" made up for it. I had way too much fun sitting back and watching otaku compete in what can only be described as "Chaosfic creation". What scares me more than some of the ridiculous and on-the-spot series creations (featuring croissant powered mecha and Dragon Power Layer teachers) is that somewhere out there, someone is probably thinking these would make a good TV series.

Nightbreak, Sean and I also used this to devise our own frightening Anime series. The tagline? "My eyes cry with tears of justice!" I'll have to remember to unleash it on Savage sooner or later.

And to cap off the night, the Jpop dance! Which was amazing and pulse-pounding, as usual. This time around, they had some cool light and smoke effects to help out. Of course, there's nothing that quite prepares you for non-sequitor moments like a Pikachu suddenly trying to dance with your wife, or spontaneous acts of yaoi.

I guess Yaoi Happens is the best way of saying it. As we danced, two guys decided it was time for a little PDA. This didn't disturb me. In fact, when I saw it my first impulse was to think, "I can kiss better than that." What did disturb me was how word of this yaoi moment spread across the dance floor at a blinding speed. With one excited shriek, yaoi fangirls were suddenly stampeding past us to get a glimpse of the action. How did they get there so fast? And how did they all understand one seemingly incoherent shriek? Is there a "yaoi fangirl" language I wasn't aware of?

*shrug* Today's Lesson might as well be: the speed of yaoi fangirl rivals the speed of sound.

Well, all things must come to an end, and the end happened around 2:30 in the morning as Mel & I dragged ourselves into bed and slept.



There was an Utena panel on at 10am. I don't know how I got there. I don't know how I managed to do it without forgetting one or more articles of clothing. What I do know is that an apple, a granola bar and a can of Coke can give you a jolt, but won't necessarily make you coherent. Not that it's a prerequisite for Utena, but I suppose it helps to sound like you understand what the hell that carwash scene in the movie was all about.

Lunch was had in Swiss Chalet with Donna, Gabriel and Matt. I ate some soup, and Gabe decided to wear his cookies and eat the highchair.

To finish off the Con, the entire fancrew assembled together for probably the first time since AN started--with the usual scattering expected with people chairing panels, or working on Constaff or in the Dealer's Room. All the work on the Fanboys! Live Confic reading of Baka Royale came to fruition.

I have to say I for one was really thrilled with the turn-out. Despite how ridiculously long the fic was (something I really hope not to repeat), the room was filled with people the entire time. And best of all: the audience laughed at all the funny parts, groaned at all the really bad puns, and went deaf when Ysabet performed 2 Hysteria screams. It's great when you have a fantastic cast doing the voices and performances, and even better when you have a receptive audience looking to get wierded out.

From what I could tell, the highlights included: me being unexpectedly pelted by props over a "drive-by bukkake" one-liner; Mel beating me to death with a foam beam sabre; Roupen's uncanny Guu impression; pretty much anytime Ysabet had to perform Hysteria's run-on sentences; Kevin-as-Ruckus playing the game of "guess where my hand is"; Chris' Ebichu voice; and the scene-stealing Gabezilla being read his Baby's First Anime ABCs, and deciding that we didn't need the letter Z...or trying to eat the book.

And with that, the Con came to a close. I think I'll leave it at that for the time being. I've been writing this for about an hour or so now, and despite returning to Kitchener last night so I could show up for my Monday morning shift, I think I could use another weekend to recover. As it is, Mel's still very exausted and rather out of it (which does explain the "Shining Happy Box Sets" song).

All in all: it was a fantastic Con, and the Confic was worth all the effort Kevin and I (and especially Mel, who became the FAC and did a lot of the behind-the-scenes work on it) put into it beforehand, and if anyone can find a way to let me sleep for the next 17 hours, I will love you forever.

But before I go, I will add that the spirit of Gimpy the Wonder Elevator seems to be following Anime North. First there was the Regal Hotel, and now the Doubletree. Ah, Gimpy...we were starting to think you'd forgotten about us!

Ja.
posted by Phillip at 7:02 PM

 

Tomorrow is the last shift I have to contend with before having a full weekend off devoted to Anime, friends and bringing to an end the epic that was creating the Confic. So far things have come together with surprising ease; it's been so smooth that I'm kind of worried of when the other proverbial shoe will fall.

Mel's done up a fantastic "Baka Royale" cover, which actually uses a slightly altered BR logo. We've got all but 2 scripts done up and in their folders...with the remaining 2 getting done tomorrow since I, er, forgot there were 12 scripts and only bought 10 folders for them. Oops?

But things are almost ready to be set in motion, which on the downside does mean that I have to make sure I've got almost everything done tonight. Tomorrow morning I have off, and that is devoted tweaking a chapter of a fanfic due for release the Friday of the Con. After that...well, it's off to Hamilton after my evening shift to drop Shady off with my sister for the weekend. So if I forget anything or forget to do anything before I leave for work, I'm screwed.

So here it is, the obligatory pre-Con check!

Confic scripts? Check.

Confic Props? Mostly check. (with Pocky & a newspaper left to acquire)

Pretty much all details with the Con panelist organizer sorted out? Check.

Clothes? Check.

Swimsuit? Check. (Oooh, almost forgot that!)

Food? Check.

Washed dishes & cleaned kitchen before leaving? Check.

Cleaned Chance's litter box? Check.

Gathered food & toys for Shady's stay in Hamilton? Check.

Bought alcohol? Dammit, I knew I forgot something!


Today's Lesson: Chance is too damned large to be a shoulder kitty, no matter how much he insists otherwise.


posted by Phillip at 12:36 AM

 

Anime North is almost upon us. And I have spent very little time gushing excitedly about it in this little bit of nowhere, primarily because only now, with two days to go, am I able to look beyond "what must be done for the Con" and at last see "fun at the Con".

The Baka Royale scripts have been tweaked with only a few minor changes (one new short bit featuring, if he's awake, Gabezilla) and one deletion of extraneous PMS-2 dialogue. The scripts themselves will be ready by this evening, with minimal fuss.

And much to my sheer amazement, virtually all of the props are either accounted for or were made yesterday, with the only real exception being the "Will Yaoi For Conswag" sign. Happily, there's still air & silly string left in the "bukkake" canisters, so there's a plus. I myself am boggled at how within10 minutes I created the cheapest-looking set of Goku hair and Yugioh hair...and it looks like some actual cosplay costumes I've seen before. Meanwhile, Mel's created some amazing Laughing Man virus icons (which, unlike the "Will Yaoi For Conswag" sign, I now want to wear at least once around the convention centre, despite the icons lacking any eyeholes).

It suddenly occurs to me that anyone reading this who hasn't already seen the Confic script will have no idea why any of these things are in the live reading, and is probably very afraid of learning to know.

By tonight, virtually everything realted to the Confic will be complete, and I will be able to relax. Long is the way and hard is the road out of hell...or something theological like that. Whatever works for you, so long as it makes me sound intellectual.

Today's Lesson: James lives all the way in California. (No really, I did not know this before!)
posted by Phillip at 5:38 AM

 

Damn, I hate it when these things come down to the wire. Less than two weeks until AN05, and the Confic is in its final stages. Once Mel finishes making use of my laptop for one last computer assignment, I get to sit down and finish up the final 3 battles for Baka Royale. And then, while it will admittedly be a rough draft and will no doubt go through a few small changes before I get all the scripts printed up, people other than Kevin and myself will finally be able to see it.

I can't say I'm altogether surprised at how long the process has taken. The fic clocks in at 100 pages, minus those last 3 battles. It takes 40 pages before the Battle Royale game begins. But for the most part, I'm pleased with how the dialogue has evolved--and equally terrified of how scarier Hysteria's become in this fic. There are a lot of characters, and I believe I managed to give them all equal footing, which is rather impressive considering there are two scenes featuring almost the entire cast of fancrew and Senshi.

But in the end, it's the audience who decides how much of a roaring success this is. I hope they'll laugh. Repeatedly. I mean, what's not to like about this Confic? There will be Neko-Kyo, and Puchuu bears, and Nemesis, and Drive-By Bukkake, and Ebichu, and "Will Yaoi For Conswag" signs. Plus, as an added bonus, Goku gets repeatedly pummelled.

Either way, I'll be somewhat happy when this is over. Not because the Con's come to an end (though my wallet may let out a sigh of relief when that happens), but because I'll be one less project looming over my shoulder & demanding my attention.

In other news, the rumours are abounding of a sequel to one of my favourite Henson movies, The Dark Crystal. I must confess to being both excited and innately worried as to how well this could go without Jim in the director's chair, and possibly Frank Oz also not being on the project. I adore Fizgig's ridiculously huge set of fangs and teeny little paws; the way Chamberlain does his whiny "Mm-MMMMMM!"; and Ogra's eyeball. My fingers are crossed that if this movie is done, it's done akin to Spiderman 2, and not any of the bastard, cookie cutter sequels being churned out by Disney.

http://www.aint-it-cool-news.com/display.cgi?id=20225


Today's Lesson: fanpages are a Godsent, especially when you're trying to locate the contents of Guu's stomach.
posted by Phillip at 5:20 PM

 


Actually, it's more just a colourful title. There's very little kicking or screaming to be had, unless you're Gabriel and you've just soiled yourself.

You know, it's hard to hate Walmart when they start selling Dark City DVDs for $7. It's also hard to hate having to be driven out to London (Ontario, not England) from Kitchener when you get paid to kiss mannequins and take home a large bin of subs and raw ingredients from Mr. Sub. Mmmm, pickles!

As for an update on life, I discovered (courtesy of Carly & Jorrit's stag and doe party) that three shots of tequilla have very little effect on me, but two Jello shooters--or to be more specific, two shots of Jello-flavoured Vodka--will land me under the table begging for mercy and a stomach pump.

And as for the fics, I think I'll be able to fake my way through everything just in time for any and all self-assigned deadlines. Somehow...


Today's Lesson: some of the most germ-ridden things on this planet are...dollar bills! Yes indeed, the viruses, germs and junk being transmitted on those babies are just once again making me oh so thrilled to be working in retail. Ah, the goosebumps. Or is that hives?
posted by Phillip at 7:06 PM

 

I'm terribly suspicious that there's a new worm virus of some kind that was unleashed a day or two ago. It's the only way I can explain my Junkmail box going from an average of 7 a day to...oh, about 260 all of a sudden. It's certainly not something that worries me, as I never open those sorts of things (plus the virus checker is very thorough before opening any attachments) , but it's still rather annoying to have to glance through the 12 pages of junk just to make sure someone actually wanting to contact me didn't get shuffled in there by mistake.

In other news, I had an interesting discussion with a customer today about people suffering from the obsessive-complusive urge to steal shoehorns. No, really.

As for everything else, work continues with me ruling it like a dictator drunk on newfound power, and the fics continue with revisions, critiques, and a lot of debating on how a fight between Hysteria and Card Captor Sakura might end.

Today's To-Have Furniture Item: http://www.theoriginalsushipillow.com/pages/2/index.htm
posted by Phillip at 3:10 PM

 

I'm really beginning to dislike having opted for putting out two release dates of sorts on two different fanfics. Especially with one being the Anime North Confic that has to get finished within the next week or two; and the other being an epic SM fic that I could have sworn would have been over by now, dammit, but it continues to grow like some unholy monstrosity that may yet be merchandized into a cute plushie.

On the plus side, though, where the Confic is concerned, almost all the voice crew has been confirmed and signed up, and we've got the last half outlined to the point where I just have to throw in some dialogue, fanservice, disturbing puns and lots of overkill. My high hopes are to have most of it done by the weekend, and then spend the next few days editting before panicking about making sure I have all the copies & props handy.

And where the SM fic is concerned...well, the intent from the start was to release one chapter a week, which in theory would give me a buffer zone to finish any incomplete chapters. Currently I have roughly 8 weeks at this point before I start banging my head against the desk, cursing myself for having set a release date for chapter 1 way too close to Anime North.

The curse I seem to have is that I only really seem to write at my best when I feel under pressure or on a deadline. Dammit....

Okay, I'm done channeling the spirit of Piro. Time to put away the sad Puchuu in the snow, and get back to work. If anyone needs me, I'll be revelling in lots of dialogue, fanservice, disturbing puns and lots of overkill.

Today's Lesson: accidentally kissing a dog's eyeball leaves a rather unpleasant and salty taste in your mouth.
posted by Phillip at 7:11 PM