August 24, 2008
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Otakon 2008
The last two weeks have been incredibly rough. So, really, no flak about taking two weeks to update. (I have another post-Olympics one planned for this week, too–hopefully I’ll manage to get it up before they’re forgotten about.)
Anyway, the first weekend of August was Otakon 2008. I’ve been going to this anime convention for the last 5 years, and really enjoy it each time. Though, as the years go by, I start enjoying it for different reasons. This year, unfortunately, we didn’t have a panel on the Lunar series (as I had the last two times). But in its place, I did get the chance to meet up with many people and overall had a good time.
I started the weekend by taking Friday off work and coming up to Baltimore by about 11:30. And then proceeded to wait in the registration line for almost three hours. It wasn’t too bad, though; everyone has to wait in line–even superheroes:
Speaking of costumes, I’m not really that ‘up’ on recent anime series. So there’s very little cosplay that I recognize these days (though apparently the series Death Note and Gurren Lagaan are popular sources; and my ‘curse’ only came up 5 times, so thankfully not as many people are doing FFX-2). I did, however, catch up with The Doctor. And they even had K-9!
Highlights
The highlight, though, wasn’t the convention so much as the other folks there.
First, I’d put together a meet up for fans of the Lunar series. It was sort of last-minute, but surprisingly I managed to get eight or so of us together. We had some lunch downtown near the Inner Harbor, and hung out for maybe 2-3 hours. I do have a video from that, but, I’m not sure if everyone in the video is fine with their image being up online. Sorry… But yeah, it was a success. Much more than I’d expected.
Second, I’d tried to put together another meet up for folks on the XKCD forums. The last 2-3 times I’d put one together, it actually went by really well. Unfortunately, only one other person was free around that time, so we just played Daigassou Band Brothers for a bit then split. Which was good, in fact, since there was something else I was trying to get to…
OC ReMix
I’ve mentioned many times in the past that I’m a fan of OverClocked ReMix, a video game music/remixing community. Last year, their panel was the highlight of the con for me; this year, same thing. Although, there were some very fortunate random encounters outside of that.
On Friday, while I was in the Dealers’ Room, I overheard a couple of voices that sounded really familiar. I looked up and recognized both Jillian Goldin (pixietricks on OCR) and Zircon talking to a few other folks from OCR (websites here: JG / zircon. Being a fan of their music (particularly their original work, not just their remixes) I introduced myself and we got to talking for a bit.
Me: Say, you mind if I get a photo?
P/Z: Sure, no problem!
(…)
P: …I think Dale was behind us. Maybe we should check the picture.
D: No, no, there’s no need for th–
Me: Dammit Dale!Nah, but I kid. Dale North’s a good guy. I recognized him both from OCR and his songs on Urbanizm Music (artist page), which are all really good.
On Saturday evening was the OCR panel, which was great as always. A bit shorter than I’d like (1½ hours, where last year they had a full 2 hours), but lots of entertainment, including an audience-led remix and a performance of “Still Alive” from Portal:
Besides that, someone else from the OCR boards who lives near Baltimore invited folks over to his place for a barbecue the Sunday after the convention. I wasn’t actually planning on going, since I’d only recently started posting on the forums. But, after the panel on Saturday, I changed my mind (Jill and DragonAvenger–someone else from OCR I’d met in line–convinced me on that). And, yeah, I definitely would’ve regretted not going. It was a lot of fun, from just being able to unwind from the convention with a lot of folks from OCR:
To a completely unplanned game of OCR-Ball. It’s kind of like Calvinball, but no masks and less violence. Same idea behind the rules, though:
Xerol: If it hits the shed, it’s out
Pezman: Playing with a Pepsi in one hand is worth 50 points
Kizyr: Hitting the camera is out
Pixietricks: If everyone on the team hits the ball, you win 20 games
Dyne: If it hits zircon, it’s out
DrumUltima: Hitting Jill in the face wins 150 games
Pixietricks: =(
Near the end, we just sort of started taking random cellphone/camera photos. This compilation courtesy of Jose the Bronx Rican:
Right then! This Friday I’m going out of town to Atlanta, both to visit my sister and go to DragonCon together. It’ll be fun. Though, in the meantime (since it’ll be like a week thereafter before I make an update about my Atlanta trip) I’ll try to have an Olympics-related one ready to go that weekend instead. ‘Til then. KF
