AnimeNext and Other Stuff

Alright, look, it's not like I haven't been doing anything lately and thus haven't had anything to blog about - rather, I've been so busy that I haven't had any time to blog. This seems to be the way of things.

I've been installing crap on my new computer and downloading things to fill up its stuff. I've crashed it a few times already, ripping scratched CD's into iTunes. Ah, iTunes.

I've been playing a lot of Go at Go meet-ups and Go Club and such. I've started reading the second Go problem book in hopes to someday beat KL in a match.

I've been learning Japanese from Tetsuya. I have all the hirogana and katakana memorized and I'm starting on kanji. My Japanese vocabulary is about literally one dozen words now.

On Saturday I went to AnimeNext with N. We had a good time after waiting in the 2-3 hour registration line. I hoped to get there about 9:00, (in Jersey) so naturally I got up at like 7:30 and we finally got out the door at 9:15, in order to take the 10:40 bus out of Port Authority, because there was no 2/3 train to our stop that weekend and only one bus per hour to Jersey and I DON'T EVEN WANT TO TALK ABOUT the bus ride.

The point is we saw some good stuff, including "Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex" and "Nana; 7 of 7" which seemed to be written by Hal and Rick, and some decent AMVs, and the most excellent fan-dub "Voltron, Hell Bent for Leather" which was from 1992. We also watched the more famous fan-dub "Evangelion: Re: Death". By the end of the day we felt we got our admission's worth - even if there was no apparent con security at all.

And also the age of attendees had dropped. Last year at the 5 anime cons I attended N. was shocked to find that the age of anime con attendees had dropped by about 10 years in his 10 year absence from the con scene. Last year the cons we went to were populated with high school and college kids - the average age being about 4 or 5 years younger than me. At AnimeNext the average age was about 14 or 15. In the words of one CPM guy, "It's because Middle School rules!"

There was even a yellow bus full of 8th graders on what appeared to be a school-sponsored trip. Seriously, WTF?!

I can't imagine my parents shelling out the cash to take me to an anime con. A Star Trek con, maybe, but how did these 12-year-olds get their parents to choke up $120 for the hotel + $30 or more for admission + the god knows how many $$$ of DVDs and stuffed animals and crap they'd end up buying?! I mean, yes, N. was attending cons at 13, but he was scamming rides from high schoolers and paying his admission by being a Magic The Gathering middle-man...!!

Anyway on Sunday it was Eugene's birthday and we hung with the Columbia crowd who N. hasn't seen in ages, including more people with letter names like Q and the BSD. Eugene's friends were all delightfully knowledgeable about anime, and also passionate about their (albeit, 3rd ed.) D&D game. It was like some weird parallel universe of friends. Two bits of wisdom came out of this:

BSD: All D&D games start off like Record of the Lodoss Wars and end up like Slayers.

* * * * *

Q: Scrapped Princess was so promising until you hit the second disc.

Eugene: Oh my god, it's like my life has hit the second disc!

Comments Individual Archive Index

Post a comment

Name:


Email Address:


Comments:


Remember info?