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 suddenly occurred to me that I’ve let this little bit of nowhere collect a fair bit of dust. Sure, it’s only been a week and a half since the last entry (and compared to some of the near month-long absences, it’s but a brief lapse), but all things considered, a fair bit has happened worth mentioning.

Which makes me somewhat amused and grateful that I’ve got Blogger, which lets me prattle on as long as I want to, without forcing me to squish everything down into a dozen, 4-paragraphed entries.

So here we go:

Weekend before last, Anime North smashed into Toronto with all the subtlety of an otaku crossplaying as a tonne of bricks. (Don’t ask me how, but I’m sure there’d be a way to create a skimpy bikini made entirely out of foam, prop bricks…and sadly, there’d also be a way for a 200 pound man to wear said bikini.)

All in all, the Con proved to be the much enjoyed and much needed distraction from everything that was work. On the Thursday afternoon, I buggered off early from work wit the promises from my employees that they would not burn down the store in my absence.

The early departure was just as well, since it took Mel & myself a few hours to get the final bits all prepped for the Con: assembling food & inordinate amounts of carbonated beverages, assembling all of Shady’s things (since this time around we were bringing to dog with us), making sure our other 3 pets had enough of their essentials in our absence, double-checking the Confic prop supplies and then hauling everything down to the car.

Sidenote: I am ever so thankful to the person who invented the wheeled dolly. Five very heavy trips down the hall, down 3 floors and across the parking lot turned into 2 minor trips that took only half the time otherwise needed. Hooray for wheeled carts!

Anyhoo, from there we were off to scenic…er, Brantford. As Gabe, Conqueror of All He Surveys (Save For The Child Restraint, But He’s Working On That), giggled and roared and stomped around the place with me (and at times, on me) and Donna, Kevin & Mel went off to grab the remainder of our food supplies.

Before we knew what was slapping us across the face with warm rays of sunshine, Friday had set upon us. Gabe was dropped off, the car was packed, and the journey to glorious Anime North 2007 was made. With minimal fuss on the roads too, a feat that surprises me greatly, considering it was still Friday afternoon on the 401 and 403. And during the summer, Fridays are better left avoided if travelling on those roads is required.

(Though from what I hear, most other days ending in ‘y’ are better left avoided if the 401 is involved.)

Not to anyone’s surprise, the Doubetree Hotel was already crowded with otaku getting their rooms, getting registered for the Con and showing off their Cosplay outfits. (And it saddens me that my myopia is such that, should I want to Cosplay again, most costumes require a non-bespectacled persona. And that would render my entire world a blob of colours I’d inevitably be running into or squinting at or looking in the completely wrong direction that I should be. )

From the start, our Shih-tzu proved to be a success in her own right. Whenever Shady was being carried or walked (on a leash, natch) through the hotel, many people were hear to go “Awww!” or “She’s so cuuuute!” So if Shady comes along next year, we’re thinking of milking her cuteness for all its worth and putting a sign on her that reads “Emergency Food Supply.”

Hey, she looks a lot like Menchi anyway…

But I digress. Mel showed off her swanky Hotel Room Reg skills by bypassing the long line-ups at the front desk, and heading straight to the VIP/Gold Member sign-in. Our hotel room registration took less than 2 minutes…with one minute spent mostly fighting over who got to eat the complimentary cookies.

Somewhere along the way we stumbled across Chris, Roupen, Matt, Jen, Dave, Maral and a few others in the gang. Heavy things were dragged up to our room, which naturally had to be the furthest possible room from the elevators. At the very least, the elevators weren’t crowded, so the travel was brief if not stretchy-arm-inducing. (Ah English, is there no verb you can’t mutate and still make it seem somehow natural.)

Once Shady was settled in with a few of her creature comforts, and a large bribe of dog treats, Kevin scuttled off to the Dealer’s Room to help Kinon with set-up, and Mel & I got ourselves registered for the Con. Which also took but a few minutes, since we got to head to the elite Panelist Registration table.

And the Con kicked off!

The Sailormoon panel went better than I’d feared, but not as good as I’d desperately hoped. (Granted, my fear was that my presence on the panel would equate me to the guy rearranging deckchairs on the Titanic as it sank.) With the Con literally starting at the same time as the panel, the audience wasn’t quite as lively as they could have been, despite a few prods at getting people to talk.

There was also a Crossplaying guy in the front row I rather wanted to shoot, and not simply because he decked out in ladies’ regalia. And here I only thought trolls existed under train bridges or on Internet message boards…

But meh, it only means we’ll have to try harder next year. And possibly get ourselves as panellists the authority to use tasers at our discretion.

By contrast, though, the Lemon Fanfic and General Fanfic panels were great. I have to credit Steve Savage for making them great, though I should also credit myself for wearing pants on both panels and not starting a panic/riot as a result. Many interesting things were discussed, like fandom problems, the use of slang (which is another rant for another time) and newly emerging or dying trends.

Savage and I also managed to break the audience with our now-infamous 300/Pokemon crossover. I’m not sure which of us started it, but we kept trying to top each other with bad ideas until the terrible idea became so crazy, it could just work. I think Savage came up with the line, “Pikachus, tonight we evolve in hell!” and I considered what a Charazard in a leather codpiece would look like.

And then there was the CPR/DDR mistake, and Savage showing off his Freudian slip by say “Sleeping Booty” instead of “Sleeping Beauty.”

So yeah, happiness were the fanfic panels.

The Dealer’s Room was also a great deal of happiness too, having been decidedly improved over last year. They rebuilt it. They had the technology. They made it bigger, stronger, and filled with a hell of a lot of cool things. And oddly enough, I spent my $200 swag stash and did not leave wishing I still had more money to blow. Wow, so this is what being a jaded otaku feels like.

I’m suddenly imbued with this elitist, egomaniacal sensation. This won’t do.

Mel-chan, fetch me the squeaky hammer!

Anyhoo, swag was bought. I caught up on my latest manga volumes…and marvelled at how the dealers probably had a combined total of near 120 books of Negima #14, and they were sold out of them before mid-afternoon Saturday. (Hell, they might have been near to running out by close on Friday night.)

Also on the swag list for me was the X-TV boxset, one of the beautiful hair accessories Maral sold at her booth (for Mel, not me, you idiots), a cheap copy of Samurai Champloo’s final volume, the Kenshin OVA box set, and a lot of sheep fridge magnets.

Oh, and I also blew part of my swag stash even before the Con had started on the “Pirates: World’s End” soundtrack. (And happily, I am not disappointed with that purchase. I’m even listening to it as I type this.)

Other Con highlights included seeing Elmo beat up Vegita during one of the wrestling matches (believe me, that was a fight where I wasn’t sure who I wanted to cheer for), the ever deafening yet ever enjoyable J-Pop Dance on Saturday, and incredibly cool Katamari Damacy fanart I (grrr!) was unable to buy.

There was also a casual fanfic shoptalk session with Dejana, Nightbreak and Jen. And, go figure, when I had to scuttle off to meet up with Mel for dinner, Savage showed up to take my place…and they all proceeded to have a kick-ass brainstorming session without me. Dammit. I think there’s a Murphy’s Law corollary to this, or something, isn’t there?

Amidst the blur of activities, sleep, food and spending time with Shady so as not to give her an abandonment complex, Sunday snuck up on us. Mel & I delivered most of our room stuff and Shady to Gary’s apartment for the afternoon, since we had to sign out of our room.

And then came the Fanboys Confic: So Long & Thanks For All The Pocky. All in all, I think it was well-received by those in the audience. Laughter abounded in many places, some expected and some unexpected. And the Fancrew seemed to enjoy hamming it up for their parts. Ysabet did a great job stealing the spotlight as Hysteria, as did Chris whenever he was on as Ebichu.

But admittedly the show-stealers were Roupen and Jason as the Raving Rabbids. Makes me wonder if we should arrange for a troop of Rabbid Cosplayers next year. Though all we’d ever be able to do is scream “DAAAAH!!!” and run in completely different directions with our plungers held aloft.

Alas, the Confic ended on a much more sour note than I’d have preferred, and it vexes me greatly, but I’ve made my rants about it, and this little bit of nowhere is not the place to dredge the ugliness back up again.

In the end, all good things much come to a close, as Anime North 07 did. And I’m willing to bet the employees at Harvey’s were glad about that. You recall my last bit of nowhere, where I mentioned the Harvey’s “free burger on the Sunday of the Con” promotion?

Well, as it turns out the Harvey’s right across the street from the hotel & Con was a part of that promotion. And watch my complete lack of surprise as hordes of hungry-but-broke-because-I-spent-my-last-dollar-on-swag otaku descended upon the place. Sure, you could have gotten yourself a free burger and eased your growling stomach. Provided you didn’t mind the 3-hour wait…and the lineup that threaded through the entire restaurant interior and around the whole damn building.

Poor employees. They had my pity.

So then…Sunday night. The natural and inevitable conclusion to the Con saw a gathering of friends, pizza being forced upon me despite me declining multiple times (which is sure to be a sign of the apocalypse), a great deal of swimming, and the fond farewell as Mel & I crashed at Gary’s apartment for the night.

Monday’s highlight consisted solely of vegetating at Gary’s with some anime, some food and tired conversations, and finishing off with the journey home.

Which brings us to last Tuesday, and my glorious return to all things tedious and retail. Now, I do admit to being slightly worried as to the condition of the store. My level of neatness and order, while pleasantly nowhere near being anal-retentive, still remains higher than that held by my staff. I was expecting some degree of messy, but hey, that wouldn’t be all bad.

I mean, it wasn’t like my employees actually did try to burn the store down while I was away for the weekend! HA HA HAAaaaaaaaaaa….

They did.

As far as I’ve been able to piece together, the opening employee grabbed a meal at the foodcourt A&W before starting. She doesn’t get the chance to eat the burger, and sticks it in the stockroom’s microwave for later. Around lunchtime, she goes to the microwave. She sets the timer for 30 seconds.

This nukes the burger…as well as the metallic wrapper the burger is in. Sparks ensue, which then set fire the paper bag the burger & its metallic wrapper are being held in. From what I’m told, smoke was pouring out of the microwave as my intrepid staffers rescued the burger. They opened the door, only to discover the top of the bag was in fact, on fire. Somehow they manage to get the flaming blaze o’ burger & wrappers into the bathroom sink, and douse the fire.

So yes, flames were involved, though miraculously the fire alarms or sprinklers going off were not. I don’t know how, but it would have made for an interesting story for me to hear, had I returned to find my store being damaged out due to water damage from the sprinklers.

I can gloat as I say this, since all involved parties including my district manager knew I was gone and in communicado for the entire weekend. So, no blame would even remotely fall on me. Evil, yes, but if I were ever to set my store on fire, I wouldn’t do it with a burger. That’s too silly.

And so endeth the Con weekend…eth.

“But wait!” you exclaim. “What’s been happening in the week or so since?”

Um…good question. The watching of anime? The dull tedium of work? A returning of efforts into The Project? Seriously, that’s about it. There are other things I could mention, of course, but don’t you think this little bit of nowhere has rambled on long enough?

Ta-ta.

Labels: AN07 Con diary, burgers are surprisingly flammable, DDR does not equal CPR, I do not dream of being Steve Savage’s OTP, swag glorious swag, this entry is way too long

posted by Phillip at 8:45 PM