Monday, September 5, 2011 AnimeFest 2011, in which I did some volunteer work, and didn't get a chance to say hi to anyone.

Well, after this weekend, I can honestly say heading out to Memphis for MSC 30 shouldn't be a problem. I just finished up a 4-day stint over at AnimeFest, a con I haven't been to since '98, when it was kinda tiny and little. I worked the Arcade the whole weekend and also went out and generally kept to myself. I got to see Maria Holic (pretty funny), Trigun: Badlands Rumble (phenomenal flick that I hope could maybe instill a remake of the original series that incorporates the stuff from Maximum), and the K-ON! dub (not too bad, it's gets a future buy from me simply because they kept the tunes in Japanese), plus I spent a ton of hours in the Dealer's Room, checked out cool stuff like Anime Hell, and generally had a good time. Only thing is, I was supposed to say hey and talk shop with a peep, she was looking for some help with a Cosplay Podcast. The main difference between me when I go to cons for funs and when I work them is that I treat it like a job, which means I'm concentrating on the business at hand and really don't have time for anything else socially. I only got 22 photos from the con, most on Sunday, mainly because I had already completed my shift for the day and I didn't want to have nothing to post to FB. On top of thinking about the tasks at hand, I also tend to get tunnelvision when it comes to the opposite sex, as in, I generally try to act cordial and nothing else. There are WAY too many "age traps" at Anime Cons nowanddays, the nature of the medium skewers young to begin with, and it doesn't help that I'm 30, which generally is a deathspell when it comes to Anime Fandom. Most of the time when folks get my age you're just expected to either start working for Anime Cons in some capacity, or sit in the Tabletop/MTG Gaming Rooms, as for some reason you're supposed to graduate to that as you get older. I wasn't even paying attention that much when one of the girls I keep in occasional contact with showed up later in the weekend, of course to be fair, she was doing her Yoko Cosplay, and I could've sworn there were a few Yoko's running around the Con. Again, tunnelvision. Overall things were nice and chill while working the arcade, although it helped that I only had to work 20+ total hours over the course of 4 days, although next time I'm taking my cooler for food/drink (as I'm not going to quest to 7-11 for cheap food), and bringing my heavy comforter for laying on the floor. Most of the patrons were generally nice folks and my fellow Arcade peeps were generally a blast to hang out with. Also, much props to Joe (the Arcade Manager) for being chill and also putting up with my snoring. The only real issue I had with AnimeFest was that there was no panels for Toku shows. That part I may have to rectify myself, muahhahahahaha! Anyhoo, back to reality, peace out.