Anime North 2006 Report

Anime North was a Blast this year. While I think they've got too much
going on, too many people, and a little too corporate even for this
convention, my friends and I were a smaller bunch, up for less time than
in the past, and had one little troublemaker that had been in our group
now gone. We were able to have the fun we'd been missing in the past
couple Anime Norths.

We came up on Thursday and were able to get a few things done. The AN
Staff had set up pre-registration check-in at the Doubletree with a few
things going on at 6:30 until 11pm. This worked out great for us as we
wanted to visit Pacific Mall again and finally check out Market Village
early on Friday. We got our badges and pretty much didn't do a whole lot
other than that.

Friday morning we headed out with the intention of getting back in time
to find the Masquerade table and get the Coveted Attendance Sticker.
Pacific Mall is pretty huge by itself, but there's some out-plazas that
are worth checking out. Market Village has about 170 stores and 2 big
grocery-style food stores. There was one shop I had bought an Angel
Daisy doll for $7 Canadian that I almost hoped still had some left -
only to find they had several Tamagotchi 3s in stock!!! This toy is nigh
impossible to find around me in Ohio. I called 5 local stores and none
had any in, and got told things of product allocation to production
problems in China. And I find a store with 13 units in stock!!! Waaai!!
Waaai!! If I really wanted to, I could have bought 5 T3s and put them on
eBay and easily made my money back and then some. I got a clear red
plastic unit. I can lord it over people here that I got mine in Canada.
Heh.

It seems the Chinese bootleggers are getting lazier than ever. Most of
the shops with DVDs, if they weren't originals, were BURNED COPIES of
stuff they copied! I mean, nobody's going to buy it. (Obviously some
people have bought off them, otherwise the stores wouldn't exist.)
Laughably, there were copies of Da Vinci Code in one store.

One place to eat that I will recommend extremely highly, and this was a
recommendation off a friend who lives in Toronto - The Mongolian Grill
in Market Village - very good food, you can choose what you want and
then have them cook it on a gas-fired grill, much like the nomadic
Mongolian fighters used to do on their shields. (Or so they say.) No
more can people go in there to say their food isn't fresh or it isn't
what they wanted, because you can choose what you want, the sauces and
etc, and then see them cook it right before your eyes. What amazed me
was not just how quickly they did things, but the liquid of the sauces I
put in there, aside from what naturally would evaporate during cooking,
actually made it back into the bowl! $14.95 Canadian for an Adult lunch.
The place opens at 11:30 most days. It's All You Can Eat!! Lots of great
food there.

Since we were short one Looky Lou, we were able to cover both Market
Village and Pacific Mall in about an hour and a half. Having maps
grabbed and printed up from both websites helped out a lot. We were able
to check the stores we were most interested in and get done with 2 hours
to spare.

One shop had the Ranma 1/2 Mini trading figures listed in the last
Previews. I wanted the Shampoo / Ranma one, but they at first wouldn't
let me buy it. So I began purchasing one, and paid with a $50. Then
another, and another, and by the time I was going to buy and open a 4th,
the shopkeeper gave up. I was about to clean him out of change!!! ^_^ I
got my figure. They were selling them at $12.99 Canadian each. I have 4
others to sell on eBay, maybe.

One store near a shop called CD Dog had nothing but Gachapon machines.
In fact, between 2 stores with a decent selection of gachapon machines,
I managed to buy 4 capsules. I got some nice items, but after looking at
the insert sheets, I wish I had gotten some of the others instead.

After returning back to the hotel, we made it back over to the
Doubletree Friday night and while we were told not to wait for the
Masquerade info table to open back up, we went somewhere else, because
for some reason they had another table for people to sign up for
something in the same damn spot... Oy vay. It was for the Kotoko
concert. They could have moved it somewhere else... I don't know why
they didn't. Anywho, while the Masquerade Attendance sticker was highly
contended, I recommend getting it early on Friday so you don't have to
worry about getting one. Then line up early as possible (or as allowed)
and get a good seat. I managed to do both. ^_^

After I got that, I think I went over to the Toronto Congress Center. Or
did we eat at Boston Pizza? It took over the space of a small sub shop
that disappeared since 2004. I guess not many people ate there. I feel a
little sorry for the guy who ran it.

I think we did go through the dealer's room on Friday. I was looking for
a few things, like both Bottle Fairy DVDs. Hairy Tarantula people said
they had them, just didn't bring them in but check back Saturday
morning. I found another dealer with a good amount of stock, but decided
to give HT a chance to save me money. Saturday morning - they don't have
Bottle Fairy. That's OK, I still got it. I found the Collector's Box of
Wedding Peach with the beachball and extras DVD. I'm going to sell the
beachball with the first DVD. Heh.

I also bought the boxed set of Stratos 4 based on a scan of pencil
boards someone put together and posted on a.b.p.anime a week before the
convention. After doing some research, and seeing pics of Ayamo's one
piece swimsuit, I decided it was worth my time.

Anime North this year had a new thing for Friday Night - a Nominoichi
aka Japanese-style flea market for anime goods. I managed to sell some
items and made some money. I had hoped to meet up with one Canadian to
help me with the money-handling. I won't get into details, but since
that didn't work out, I still went ahead and set up on the table I got.
I'm glad to say it went well, and I don't have as many videotapes to
store in that little box anymore. Plus the 3 Chun Li / Cammy figures I
tried to eBay over a year ago sold very well. ^_^

Saturday... I blew off the Chobits Panel (and I felt bad about it) for
my tour of the Dealer's Room. I took along my Talking Luna Plushie (she
was a big hit) and got some cute girls one video and on film holding
her. Quite a few Sailor Moon cosplayers. One really hot PGSM Sailor
Mars, too, though I never was able to get her for pictures. T.T

I managed to see half of the Negima panel (I could have passed it up as
it was), and taped some of the Japanese Cooking Panel. I did a much
better panel in 2004, and I definitely want to do it in 2007, if I go
that is. I felt they tried pretty good for the panel, but I would have
whipped up some Okonomiyaki and Curry, and I can do both in 1 hour.
Easily. Curry can be done in about 20 minutes or so. I did it in 15
minutes one night I was really hungry and was going to do it anyway.
With a lot of prep done ahead of time, I can pull off both in one hour!
Iron Chef Otaku!! ^_^ There was a handout for the cooking panel, and I
may very well get around to adding the recipes to my page on Geocities.
^_^

For the first time ever, while going into Canada, we got pulled over for
an inspection of the vehicle. The two men were courteous and polite, did
their job with utmost respect, and while they were probably looking for
drugs or whatnot, and not finding any because we know that's illegal, we
had to wait a while for them to return our IDs. I don't know what that
was about. The guy we had to talk to before that was in the habit of
pulling people over, because the car before and the car after us were
also pulled over and inspected. Take a few seconds before progressing to
one of the border crossing booths to see who's getting people through
fast and who's taking a while and getting pulled over for inspections.
We were not searched when coming back.

Myers says those are the most nerve-wracking parts of the trip.

I'm going to go through the program and schedule booklet to see what
they could have left out and made it a better, smaller convention. Two
things come to mind though - the Midnight Masked Ball and the Japanese
Pro Wrestling thingy. There's more in addition to those they could have
left out.

Oh yeah, the Masquerade - they got the perfect host for the Masquerade
for once! He actually did prep work beforehand, and even got the
Japanese names right - and when idiots in crowd tried to "correct" him
on the pronunciation of "Clow" - he defended his pronunciation by
telling them to "Watch the subtitled version." Heh!!!

My Battle witht the Elements and my room

OK. Well, I finally had to get up in the attic, yes the joists and
everything supported me (you lose weight while asleep, I know this for a
fact - it may not be much but it happens), and got that big bunny
hanging up there down. It wasn't heavy at all.

Anywho, I had to get up there in my latest War With the Elements. Again
water decided it would invade my room but from above this time. I had
done a little taping up of the hole as well as some stapling of a
plastic bag to the ceiling, but I had to change that at some point, but
the root of the reason I write this is because I decided once and for
all (and it was the morning so I was feeling pretty brave and pissed off
at the same time - similar to that morning after that one hurricane (see
blog)) I needed to go up there and win another one for me.

It was a hard spot to find. It was practically all the way to the edge
of the roof. Based on what I saw as far as placement of electric wires
(and these were pretty new wires) to determine where the thingy for the
ceiling receptical was for maybe, oh I don't know, like a fan or light,
I judged well where I would place a bucket under the roof but above my
room. I think I found a 2nd leak over my closet - I'll have to check
this out very soon. I didn't know one was there.

This is a Catch and Release system. Basically, it's a slow leak, so
anything that catches the water will release it through evaporation. I
just hope, and it's likely, this will never fill up and does evaporate
pretty well.

Hell of a way to "meet" the neighbors

OK, So tonight around 6:30 pm I'm making dinner. I get mom's plate done
up and I begin making mine, when all of a sudden there's this loud
fire-cracker-like explosion sound that suddenly just happens. So we're
both like "What the hell was that?" and I try to figure out what that
was. Nothing in the kitchen was disturbed or exploded. And while I try
to figure that out for about 30 seconds, I see some guy walking out of
our yard looking at the house, I see him looking at me while I look at
him from the window. And I conclude at the time that for some reason
this guy set off a firecracker or something. Mom says calling the police
won't do much, but I maintain that calling the police at least gets the
complaint logged in somewhere. I call the police, they say over where we
are that's the county sherrif's department or whatever, and they refer
my call over to them. And I get a call from that person. They were very
helpful, explaining that this is just one incident and even though
there's nothing that can be done, they've logged the complaint and if it
happens again then they'll have to check into it.

I mention that I got a videocamera and not afraid to use it, and the guy
advises me something like that could aggravate things, but it could be
helpful but be careful. OK.

Anywho, I get to settling down, eventually getting something to eat
before a friend calls after that. I see the same guy again in our yard.
So I go out on the back porch and ask him if there's something I can do
for him. He says he's been practicing his golf swing and lost a golf
ball. I told him if we find it I'll be glad to return it. Then he
suddenly finds one in our yard out in front of the tree and goes on
about his way. I think he offers a bit of an apology for that.

Not a firecracker, but still an explosive sound. A golf ball hit the
house. Sheesh. Shoulda just come up and apologized rather than just
walking in the yard like he did.