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!

 



Aaaaand, tada!

After 6+ months on the vanished list, due to popular demand this blog has magically reappeared! But don't for a moment think that you'll get any of that "behind the scenes/how'd they do that?" treatment. Mostly because if you do, you'll be subjected to lots of sad little remarks about how work is attempting to kill me; about how tired and rather apathetic I've been when it comes to updating the world about my life; about how--ooh, Mel has gummi bears! Shiny.

...hey, at least she's not staging a gummi orgy this time around. (She says, and I quote, "they're too tired to have sex right now.") Rule 34, folks. Even Mel adheres to it.

Anyhoo, here we are once again: you attempting to read this little bit of nowhere, and me attempting to update it on a regular basis. There's no guarantee I'll be anything even close to regular in the entries, but the current plan is to at least tac something up once a week.

To start: Anime North 2011!

The Con was very enjoyable this year, even if the cold from hell attempting to pound me into the ground before it even started. (And you know that it's a particularly sadistic strain of cold when you down an entire bottle of Buckley's over 2 days, and the cold just laughs at the effort.) After a rocky start--fun with the rental car, and the Walmart pharmacy being anything but efficient--we managed to pack ourselves and Shady up, and we were off to Toronto!

The Doubletree Hotel was ready for us this year, with all five elevators working for once. I will say it made a surprising difference: you barely noticed any lag time in waiting for elevators, and there didn't seem to be a lot of stopping-on-every-floor whenever the cabs were going down. Not even a minor sign of Gimpy the Wonder Elevator...which does make me kind of sad. Gimpy was always a mainstay.

The greatest heartbreak about the Con this year was mostly room-related. For the first time in about 5 years, we didn't have a window facing the TCC. Instead we got a scenic view...of the hotel rooftop. Awe-inspiring, truly awe-inspiring. So sitting at the windows and Cosplay-watching was pretty much off the roster this year, but we managed.

Anyhoo, we snagged our Panelist badges, hoofed it over to the TCC, met up with Nightbreak and just loitered about in the looooooooong line for the Dealer's Room. We did have fun watching the Cosplayers and trying to break Mel. Unfortunately, Mel pinched back.

Once we did get in, the Dealer's Room offered a lot of great and varied things. I will say it was a very good Dealer's Room this year, and I'm sure many an otaku went home with sobbing wallets and a shitload of swag. Oddly enough, Mel & I didn't really come home with a large haul. It's strange to reflect on, in many ways: I myself have been an otaku for going on 15+ years now, Mel for almost as long, and in that time we've collectively built up a sizable DVD collection and a pretty decent manga collection. Matter of point, for the last two years I've been focused on acquiring backlog titles that are harder to come by. As a result, there's not a lot left that really catches our eyes these days.

However, I did finally locate the X movie, and I somehow stumbled across a brand new Dominion Tank Police for $10. Mel nabbed a kanzashi from Maral's booth, some Mokona chess pieces and some very cool fanart from the Artist's Alley.

Amidst all this we managed to hang out with random members of the Fancrew, as well as the Fic Bitch and Dejana. Huzzah for friends! Huzzah for socializing with people who aren't customers!

And then there were panels as well. Fandom Entitlement was fun, especially since we had more people this time around (last time we were competing with the Dealer's Room and the One Piece panel). Sailormoon was filled with fans rejoicing the return of the manga series. Yuu Watase featured many people who hadn't yet heard of the new Arata series, so we spent a bit of time pimping that. Fanfiction was its usual good stuff, though I think given the crowd and interest there is the possibility of expanding or dividing it into a number of different panels with specific focuses. Aaaaand then there was FicFicBoom, which once again giddily devolved into Savage, Nightbreak, Gaffney and myself trying to break the audience. Bonus points for the all-hat orgy, the 4 Gospels shipping and Sean attempting to kill himself with a squeaky mallet. (Sometimes it's not necessarily the panel that makes it great, but the people you're on it with, and FFB remains my favourite still. ^-^ )

In between it all, Mel & I lounged in our hotel room (I played with Shady, and Mel played Plants Vs. Zombies), and lounged in the TCC parking lot as we idly watched the Cosplayers go by. I swear I'm more and more into the people-watching as years go by.

By the time Sunday rolled around, there was a welcomed dinner at Ginko's with Matt, Gary and Jen. Ohooo, do I love their sashimi. If I could just lay it all out on a table and roll around in it naked, I...uh...nevermind!

Now all of that is over. The Con is now 12 months away (again), and I've spent the last week fighting off that creeping cold--which has tried to kill me at work three days in a row now. But on the plus side, at least my store didn't burn down in my absence!

Wait...that means I still have to actually go to work. Dammit!

Labels: Anime North 2011 Con Report, the blog that wouldn't die (or update for that matter)

posted by Phillip at 5:45 PM