The last of the fallout from ACen:

Couple last ACen notes that warranted a full blog post (My goal is to push the Rifftrax reviews below the fold before mid-June...)

1. At least according to the almighty Internet, Anime Central's attendance in 2009 was over 15,000 paid attendees (17,500 total). I imagine that you could possibly add another 2,000 to 3,000 attendees for this year, 2010. I mention this because also according to the never-lying Internet, ACen's attendance in 2000 was slightly more than 2,000 people, including yours truly, and 3,200 in 2001, including both myself and Megane 6.7.

To be honest, when I left in 2000 and in 2001, the highlights of the weekend were pretty much getting together with all the other hard-core fans and the goofy people who devote time to writing stories that will never earn a penny in revenue. That lasted for a few hours on a Friday night. Other than a few minutes in the dealer room, there wasn't a whole lot else that really caught my interest.

While some people may decry the size of the convention and say that it was better in the old days, I'm SO not that person. The more the merrier, and it was a terrific weekend. I enjoyed myself far more than ten years ago and I think it's mainly due to the fact that MAPS can put on a better convention with more attendees.

As I believe I mentioned previously, I will be attending Youmacon in Detroit now that I know that there's a decent following there too. I think I became gun-shy about conventions due to the cost and the fact that there were so few people at the ones that I attended in the past... (two ACens and three JAFAX, JAFAX being a free convention in Grand Rapids but exceedingly lightly attended.) The larger scale makes the convention definitely worth going to. Hopefully Youmacon will be comparably good to ACen.

2. On Friday, I and my friends had just arrived to the hotel at about noon. I had already spoken with my family and told them that the car survived another three-hundred mile trip. (There's always a question...) I had a bit of a back-and-forth for the next ten minutes, but then left to get to the convention. While walking to the convention, my cellphone beeps again... and I thought it was more conversation with my significant other. No, it actually turns out to be a temp service asking me if I'd be interested in a job opportunity. To cut the story short, I'm scheduled for a job interview on Thursday, 20 May. I must admit, I'm glad that I checked the phone, even though I spoke to the temp service underneath I-190 with a convention raging around me. I hope that it was a good omen.

Megane and I will be embarking on the next MSTing shortly. (For that matter, we hope that you enjoyed / will enjoy the latest MSTing.) The good news is that there is already some work into it, but the bad news is that it is a bit longer than the typical MSTings we do. I *hope* that we can get it out before the end of the year, that'd be pretty sweet. I've got a summer without classes at least, though there's always the wildcard of when (not "if" anymore, I think) I end up at a new job. Anyway, thanks again for your support and indulgence seeing as how this has turned into some weird kind of blog/commentary/diary hybrid for me. I promise, more anime and movie reviews as well as more MSTings, and possibly some original comedic writings, I just have to get through this rough patch I'm going through.

ACen Wrap-up and going forward

I'm back from Chicago, which means that it's blog posting time. First, some blog cleaning though. I see my intrepid cowriter, among all of the other Rifftrax reviews, has completely ignored my cast gauntlet regarding the "New Moon" Rifftrax. I watched it once again on the way to Chicago, and it was just as good as I remembered. Of course, both times I watched the "New Moon" Rifftrax, it was with other people. As Megane probably knows from seeing the Cinematic Titanic live shows, there's just something about having someone around to build the laughter a bit greater. I would maintain that watching the "New Moon" Rifftrax would be still good watching solo as well though, it was pretty good and while there was a bit of middle-movie lull, the beginning and the end was pretty good.

Chicago was terrific. ACen is far larger than I remembered from 2000/2001, the other two times that I attended. Both of those times, the convention was within one facility. The dealer room was essentially a hotel meeting room and the main programming was the larger hotel meeting room. Now, it has spread to four buildings, including a convention center.

I took my brother-in-law as well as one of his friends. Both are graduating high school in the next couple weeks. Having them along made the whole thing a blast. While there were a few things that I wouldn't have minded checking out solo (some of the panels looked interesting, but I only attended the fanfic panel on Friday) we still had fun. For all the other con-goers who showed up, we were the ones that sat near the convention center entrance and just watched all the con-goers pass by. We enjoyed the costumes, the jokey t-shirts, even the weird snippets of conversation that probably meant something in context but were weird to hear individually. If we weren't there, we poked through the dealer's room a few times too as the convention went along. The two of them dropped at least $80 between them, I'm poor though (and paid for the hotel) so I just bought one con shirt.

The other place we were though was the anime music video room. I'm really partial to AMVs for a couple reasons. One, I love music and enjoy listening to new music. Two, it's in a small way an introduction to series that you may not have seen before. Three, I absolutely enjoy the comedy AMVs because I love laughing. Four, I'm able to turn the "critique" part of my brain off easier than when I'm watching movies and as a result, I'm able to enjoy AMVs easier. And five, if an AMV pops up that you're not crazy about, just wait about four minutes and there'll be another one going. We spent most of Saturday in the AMV room, between watching the AMV contest submissions, Iron Editor, the awards ceremony, and an interesting panel about how artists are trying to truly animate rather than just edit. Quite like Anime Central itself, anime music videos have come a long way in ten years, and it's startling to compare each of the pairs through time.

Of course, there is always a wild-card involved in a weekend like this, and I ended up with three. My car's tailpipe rotted through somewhere between Michigan and Chicago, so I had to figure out a way to put it up and back out of the way since the bracket was still connecting it to the body. Not a big deal, though I really need a new vehicle. I also managed to roll my ankle on Friday night. It absolutely sucked, because it was not a "mild sprain" in any sense of the word. I could put weight on it, but I really stretched that ligament good because if I even attempted to move it side-to-side it would scream at me. I set up the hotel so that it was an L-stop away from the action; getting to and from the convention from the hotel, not to mention all the walking involved in a convention, and I was absolutely in pain through the end of Saturday. (It's still not fully healed on Monday morning.)

The last wild-card needs its own paragraph. The convention was primarily centered around Rosemont's convention center. Late Saturday afternoon, around 5 to 6PM or so, chartered buses started arriving with... high-schoolers attending their proms. It seems that in the middle of the ACen madness, the convention center booked TWO highschool senior proms. Some of the high-schoolers were absolutely non-plussed with the weirdo freaks walking about. I personally was laughing so hard from the situation that I was losing it, and snapping a few pictures of kids just looking distastefully at the conventioneers. One of the costumers was the Joker in full face-paint, who would go back and forth through the crowds of kids. According to a few others I saw online, this isn't the first time that ACen has been held along with a prom (or a wedding, or a reunion, etc.) but it seems that the kids really didn't expect this either. I hope that their night was fully memorable.

This is already an epic blogpost, and probably somewhat boring for most people, so I'm going all-in for more complaining. Sunday was pretty crappy, because not only do I have to drive home but I'm reminded of how I have to end up at work the next day. After being around a blizzard of creativity and laughing for at least 75% of Saturday and Friday, I come back to my ordinary, boring, crappy, work. The same place that is glad to take any of my extra effort but is highly reluctant to give anything back. The same place that doesn't even pay me enough to repair my crappy car, much less find a decent one. The same place that I can get just enough money to find a hotel three miles away from the convention rather than staying at one of the five hotels in a three-block radius because I can't afford the extra cost.

I used to be able to take vacations that I would be happy to return home and get back to ordinary life, because you've gotten your fill of not having anything to do. Every single time I've had more than three days off from work in the last three years now, I'm utterly depressed the day before returning to work because I know I have to return to work. I hate the fact that my life has become 1/7 Saturday and 6/7 dread, with the very rare oasis of a four-day vacation to a convention.

So... back to the job ads to see if there's anything new or different that I can do which will allow me to grasp at least some of my life back. Especially since I want to find a way to go back again next year.

In other con news, I will very likely be attending Youmacon in Detroit. I had never attended before, but I asked my significant other to come with me and have the children's babysitter (Grandma) all set up. It's late October, which is about five and a half months... two a year for the time being seems fine, depending on where I will end up when I do finally find that new job.

Updates for ACen, and NetFlix plug:

We all received an update from Anime Central regarding the fanfic panel. The best that they could do for us was to give us time on Friday, from 12PM through 1:30PM. Therefore, we're up against the opening ceremonies and hoping that all the writers (and/or fans) will show up super-early on Friday. By all means, come on out and hopefully we'll still have a good time.

I signed up for NetFlix recently, and I must say that this $9/month subscription is far better value than the $55/month that I pay for cable. There's just something about a movie that goes right, or even a movie that goes wrong. It's so much more fun to crack jokes at bad movies than it is at bad TV shows. I think it's because busting TV shows is like criticising high-school basketball players for missing shots. They're going to miss shots... it's high school. They're going to make bad shows... it's television.

Movies are a whole other animal, because someone had to approve the specific story line. TV shows don't get that kind of scrutiny. So when a bad movie escapes Hollywood with a huge budget yet sucks on toast, it's sad yet funny.

And of course, you get movies that actually were decent ways to spend time. I watched the Jim Carrey movie "Yes Man" about three times before sending it back to NetFlix. Wasn't terrible, even if it had Zooey Deschanel's huge nose chewing up (or, really, snotting up) scenes. I had a chance to watch "The Men Who Stare at Goats" yesterday, and that was amusing too. Clooney needs a good straight man, but when he gets it he's usually pretty good.

The best part though is that those movies can be given back. While I was laughing at both movies, I was feeling darned good about the fact that I didn't buy either one of them for upwards of $20. Neither of those movies deserve that, especially since I'm not sure I'd willingly put either of them in my DVD player again.

As far as cable goes, there's two options now. Either check it out online (hello, Daily Show and Colbert Report) or get seasons through Netflix. In both circumstances, it's far cheaper than $55/month. Once the cable contract's up, I'm outta there.

The semester is close to ending. Thank heaven for that, as my backlog has grown larger. My significant other bought a copy of "New Moon", and the Rifftrax has been terrific through the first half-hour... though I haven't watched the rest of it. I've still got to finish Transformers 2 (as well as Transformers 1, which is still sitting at home). There's games to finish, and even MSTings to write if I ever get to that point. Much less, jobs to find. Anyone outside Michigan currently hiring?

New post of random thoughts:

I'm sitting here, waiting for the bus and using a Wendy's internet connection from across the street. (Thanks, Wendy's, I buy your chicken nuggets all the time, they're pretty good. Plug over.)

1) The Anime Central fanfiction panel has hit a snag. At present, the ACen organizers said that they would not provide space for a scheduled panel. I'm sure that there will be some sort of alternate plan, but this absolutely shocks me that an anime convention will not grant space for a fanfiction panel (but, thank heaven, the lemon writing panel is still on! Literature is SAVED!) I will post any updates I hear about this situation. I am still going, but there are absolutely no plans for a live MSTing at present.

2) Transformers 2 really sucks. I watched the first fifty minutes while riding buses, and it's utterly amazing how bad the movie is so far. So far there are humping dogs, Megan Fox doing everything she can to drape herself over freaking Shia Labeouf, the freaking Autobots draping themselves over freaking Shia Labeouf, and military security that couldn't guard an ocean. I'm not saying it's implausible, but MST3k itself had better narrative continuity and less implausibility. Thank heaven the Rifftrax is around, the riff they cracked about Buckcherry songs and a pole in Megan Fox's future was terrific. Can't wait to get to more.

3) The only problem, though, is that half my headphones died. I have--- I *had* a nifty pair of over-the-ear headphones that allowed me to shut out most other noise so that I could hear things while riding on the bus. My wife just bought a Nintendo DS, which came with a pair of ear buds... but they are a far cry from what I had. Ordered a new pair from TigerDirect, noise-cancelling and hopefully over-the-ear (though the pictures could have been clearer...) I'm crossing my fingers that it'll work.

MSTings still march along, Meg and I are still editing our most recent. Meg, in his wisdom, pointed out our next project... to continue a MSTing that we had already started but put aside. I think that the break will help the MSTing, it was dragging a bit but the action scenes are still to come. Hopefully, we'll be able to publish a couple of MSTings this year.