Random Aside - Otakon 1

While currently this blog is setup for use as a tool for a work project I feel I should take the time to talk about this past weekend's anime convention Otakon which occured down in Baltimore. For those who do not know me I have been an anime fan since the early 90's or late 80's, it all kind of blurs together after awhile. Yes I remember the days of VHS, when you only bought either Sub or Dub and subs were more expensive.
Ever since 1999, Otakon, the largest anime convention on the east coast is held here in Baltimore. I go every year but as I have gotten older the way I enjoy and particapate at Conventions has changed. In the early years I simply went to watch shows, enjoy the company of friends, and spend money in the dealer's area (remember the Internet was years away and so opportunities finding merchandise and being able to haggle over prices were few and far between) . For a number of years I went as part of the Press Corps. and as such went with obligations to others and so spent less time in video rooms and more time listening to industy talk about their next releases. And now for the past few years I have been going as a Panelist, which again has a different set of responsibilities. Of course more of those happen prior to the Con with getting all of the materials together and preparing to speak in front of a large groups of people. Up until this year I had still felt an obligation to others in terms of what I was doing at the Con. This year, outside of the one panel which I was involved with, my time was my own. This year I probably spent the most time I have ever in a Convention Video room in years, in part becuase projects I had worked on were being shown.
The Convention itself was actually rather fun. I saw one really good movie, Gunbuster, and its crappy sequel, Gunbuster 2. I watched a number of older titles, ran into old friends, saw a few interesting panels, and was even a little surprised. The panel I was on this year was "I Can't Believe You Haven't Seen That" a panel which shows the coolest, funniest, and most random anime moments we can find, and compresses them down into 3 minute clips. The panel went very well for being at 9 AM Sunday morning, or the earliest it could be on the final day of the Con. I would have been happy with 12 people but by the end we had a sizeable crowd which frightingly, was for us and not the Japanese guest scheduled after us.
I also ate at least 2 meals a day....in the past I was luck to get a meal (Ensure is a great product).
More to follow once more reflection has occurred.

23 Things; Item 8

Well I have just set up aBloglines account and subscribed to a number of RSS Feeds for sites I traditionally search. I like the general idea of RSS feeds but I personally I happen to like having to travel to websites to look up the latest posts and info. The ability to create an RSS reader account is nice and I can see the advantage if one uses 20 or more sites for information but honestly I have problems coming up with 10 sites I feel I need to visit on a regular basis. The idea is a good one but for me it is simply less than practical. So while I have a bloglines account I feel it will probably collect dust much like an old Hotmail e-mail account I had until it gets deleted by their system.

23 Things; Week 3 Part 3

Ahh technology, both the bane and lifeblood of my day. I find the connectivity with which internet allows. I can get TV shows from Britian, send e-mail to my friends abroad without dealing with a time delay, or talk to a friend about a social gathering without having to pickup a phone and calling.
The rise of high speed internet is really what I am talking about. I have been on dial-up and found it wanting for many reasons. There is a reason people don't remember the digital media forms of Real Media and Vivo, becuase they are three frames a second to allow them to be used by Dial-up at 24kps. Files over 20 Megs would take days to download, now you can grab something in the range of 175 Megs in under 20 minutes, if BitTorrent likes you. I grant this seems odd as a post goes, but I just saw the end of Season 3 of the current Doctor Who....it starts airing in the US on Friday, but the finale just aired on BBC1 this past Sat. and was avalible for DL an hour after airing in a easy to dl size. The only issues now is simply finding what you are looking for. Ain't technology grand.

23 Things; Week 3 Thing 2

Well I am trying out the Mappr function. I like the idea of it but they need to refine their seach abilities. Of course I am having loading issues of photos, which is a deterent, at least for me. The version from Flickr where you can tag on a map is very similar and a bit easier to move around with.
I had heard of the Color Picker before and that seems very nice and easy to deal with. Of course your options are a bit limited in terms of what images appear.

23 Things; Week 3 Part 1

http://www.flickr.com/photos/grocko/602371671/

The link is to a Flickr photo regarding the 29th (or third, of the new series) Doctor Who season that just finished airing on BBC1 this past weekend. If you are afan and don't want any spoilers, you may want to skip the rest of this post.
The image is meant in part as a joke. It shows one of the most iconic of Doctor Who villians, the Daleks, suggesting they are voting for Harold Saxon, the most recent incarnation of the Master who is the final villian for the season. Thankfully the Daleks did not show up in the final episodes, as I feel they have been overused at this point in the new series. The arc containing the Master ran three episodes with only the middle episode really being all that interesting in my opinion.
Once more I want to see Russell Davies not be the primary writer for the show.