Coming Soon...

More posts!

It's been a crazy year for me as a substitute.  Since I've been subbing in September, I've gotten at least three calls a week from the same school district, at either the middle or high school.  Four different instances I did assignments that lasted more than a week (in one instance, in a subject that I wasn't certified in, which was only until they could find a sub).  The one I'm doing now I've been doing since the week before Spring Break for a teacher who has since resigned.  When I get done with my teaching career I'll probably write a book about this first year.

Monday is my last day of school, and there are two days worth of workshops for me to attend.  I don't have to attend them because I'm a sub, but I'm going to because I get professional development hours out of it.  After that, in between job hunting for next year, expect some more posts.

I don't know what about yet, but expect them soon.

When Con-going, Be Prepared...

Anime Boston is coming up in a little over a month, and I thought I would do a general post about things you should think of when going to any anime convention.  I've only really been going for a little over a year now, but I've already learned a few things along the way.  For instance:

Know the location -- I don't mean just knowing how to get there, but knowing the intricacies of the particular place where you're going to.  Is there WiFi there if you need it?  Can you get easy cell service in the building?  Where are the restaurants in the area?  Can you bring food inside?  What's the layout of the location? All the little things that you don't think of when you go to a convention for the first time you'll start to think of when you go to subsequent conventions afterwards.

Know what kind of cell service you'll get in the building -- When I went to AAC for the first time in 2010, having a cell phone on me and the kids wasn't that big of a deal.  It's on the first floor, so I could find them easily.  Going to Anime Boston, it's a priority because the event takes up the entire convention center, so knowing where others in your party are is important.  What we didn't know going down there, however, was that the cell phone coverage would be so spotty, and when there was coverage the kids couldn't hear the phone ring because it was so noisy in the convention center with that many people attending.

Food -- Make a plan ahead of time on where and when you are going to eat.  For this year, me and my party are going to be bringing bento boxes with us for lunch, then eating dinner at a restaurant afterwards.  This came from last year's experience of going to the food court in the Prudential Mall during Anime Boston, and finding it was packed with no place to sit.  It seems like such a small thing, but the ability to be able to sit down and eat can be considered a luxury sometimes.

Panels/Workshops -- Don't stress too much on this one.  The schedule can look a bit overwhelming, but just look it over and decide which panels are the most important to you.  I know for me, industry panels are a good safe bet for stories, and anything else is incidental after that.  And the Masquerade is always a must to attend just because it is the big event of the weekend.  At some point, you might change your mind and decide that workshop on how to create your own Pokemon isn't so important.

Can you think of anything else that you think of before going to a convention?

Sorry For The Delay in Posts

Sorry it's been so long since I've posted.  Real life has gotten in the way of me being able to post anything here, so I'm just trying to catch up right now -- I just got done doing a 6 week stint as a Language Arts teacher in fifth grade, and I'm still busy with other random assignments.  So forgive the lack of posting up here.

Here are a few things that I am planning for the future:

Anime Boston -- I have my press pass all set, so I will be doing some posts on Anime Boston here and at Examiner.com about the event.  And I'll be doing two days, but won't be doing an overnight there: on Friday I'm going down with the Franklin (NH) High School Anime Club as a chaperone and reporter, and on Saturday I'm going down with my stepkids.  I like doing the two days because then I don't feel the need to be running around like a madwoman trying to get stories and interviews.  And since I'll be going down with the Anime Club, I can sleep on the bus on the way home on Friday and not be so tired on Saturday.

New Web Show -- Part of the problem I'm having right now is finding companies that are willing to send me copies of DVDs to review for shows, so what I decided to do instead is review shows as they air via (legal) streaming web sites.  I'm doing pre-production work right now on a review show where I review shows that are currently streaming online, so that might not come out until this summer when I have time to record and produce the show (probably sometime in July), so when I have a set air date I will post it here, and also update you on the progress.

Writing More! -- I will try to write more here...I'm a one woman operation, so please be patient.  I plan on getting back to the planned Evangelion postings I was going to do before, but I just have to find time to sit down and do them.

I thank you for your patience.

Another Anime Convention Has Come And Gone...

No, seriously...AAC, otherwise known as Another Anime Convention, ended today.

I had a great time this year.  There was a lot to see.  Four panels/workshops alone on "My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic."  I'm still trying to understand this, but I will be writing something up on Examiner.com about it tomorrow night.

(Speaking of which, stories will be a little slow going this week because I'm booked all week at my other job as a substitute teacher, so having time to write and bring my son back and forth to different sitters this week is going to be a challenge to writing.)

Right now at Examiner.com I have some great pictures up from the con, as well as a starter story -- sorry for the lack of detail, but I'm going to be touching base with the chair at some point this week to get more details to add to it, and I needed something to be up there for the time being.

I was happy to see some "Madoka Magica" love there -- I bought a whole six pin set of the characters from the show, and took a picture of someone dressed as Kyubey.  She told me that people have been stopping her to get pictures telling her she looks "cute," not realizing that the character is "evil."

I do have some Masquerade videos up at the YouTube channel, although not all the skits because my camera died, and I have to check to see if the footage from the last two sketches that I took from my cell phone is still going to have sound towards the end of it -- I was having issues with the cell phone cutting the sound out towards the end of videos that I was taking, so I took the footage just in case it actually did work out. Another sketch/walk on will be up as soon as I re-edit it to be able to put it back up on YouTube -- first the download stopped, then it was rejected as a "duplicate."  Eventually I will have all the sketches either up or re-directed.

At some point in the next few weeks I will have interviews up for the voice actors that appeared at AAC this year -- Robert Axelrod, Quinton Flynn (of which I have some hysterical footage from his "Shenanigans" panel on Sunday that I will be posting up soon), Chris Cason, Christopher Smith, and Cynthia Cranz.  I'll be doing e-mail interviews with all five of them, so those will be up once the interviews have been conducted.

Overall, great con.  I love hanging out with fellow geeks. :-)  I will most likely be attending Queen City Kamikaze next, then Anime Boston in April.  So keep an eye out!

Another Anime Convention This Weekend!

Good news is that I will be at Another Anime Convention in Nashua this coming weekend, and you will see a lot of reports coming from the convention since I'm planning on being there for the entire three days.

I wasn't able to get my panel, though, which is a bummer.  But expect a series of stories on a non-anime property that seems to have the attention of the anime community, judging from the planned panels: "My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic."

On Friday, there is a panel planned as of this writing called, "Calling All Bronies!" (male fans of the show)  Saturday has two planned panels: Why Ponies are Awesome, and right after that in another room a panel with the title Survivng the My Little Ponypocalypse.  So I figured this fandom was ripe for a story package.

Whether I cosplay or not will depend on whether I can get my costume together in time -- most of the pieces I need still need to be purchased, so I have to get to the store this week and see if I can find them.

I'm still trying to perfect the technology for video, audio and such, so be patient as I try to put something together afterwards.  Plus, now that I'm a substitute teacher work is starting to pick up a bit.  So I will try to get something together afterwards by the end of the week.

Final Impressions: "Tiger and Bunny"

Warning: SPOILERS!


Last Chance: There will be spoilers in this post, so if you haven't watched it yet (as I encourage you to do), don't read this post!


25 episodes later...I stuck with this show, and was glad that I did.  A lot of excitement in its two halves -- while the first half focused on Barnaby's search for his parents' killer, the second was solely on Kotetsu's dealing with his powers declining and subsequent frame up by the true bad guy of the series -- his and Barnaby's boss, Albert Maverick.  And I felt like I didn't want to miss a moment of it.

The non surprise for me was how Kotetsu's daughter Kaede discovered she was now a NEXT.  I knew that was coming.  I thought that she would inherit her father's Hundred Power, but instead she can copy the powers of other NEXT she touches, which plays a huge part in later conflicts when she goes into the city to look for her father.

There were several avenues that I would have liked to have seen them explore in the series, such as getting more into the lives of some of the other superheroes that weren't featured in the show, such as Rock Bison, but they did a good job with this series.

The creators have said they have another project in the works.  Don't know if it's another anime or what, but we will see in November.  I hope it is, preferably one that focuses possibly on Kaede and her possible decision to be a hero like her father.

I Apologize for Not Writing Much Here...

Unfortunately in the real world I was kind of forced to panic about not having any type of work for awhile and was searching for a job.  So basically grown-up responsibilities kind of got in the way.

However, I got some cool stuff planned.

In a few weeks, I'll be going to Nashua to Another Anime Convention (AAC) for at least two days to cover it for Examiner.com, and I am hoping to also be able to host a panel on legal places online to watch anime.

I will also be covering Anime Boston for Examiner.com...I'm waiting for the request form for press passes to go up.  So my arrangements for that are going to be determined by a few factors that I am not going to reveal here until it gets closer to the time.  It may involve another story for Examiner.

In the meantime, I think starting in October I'm going to dedicate a whole month to "Neon Genesis Evangelion."  That's right, I said it -- a whole month dedicated to "Eva!"  Why, you may ask?  Because I can, that's why!  And also, I just watched the entire show for the first time this week, so I have a lot to discuss in regards to the show.  I'm not one to get heavily into mecha shows, but this one I liked because it went deeper than that.

I'll probably be doing some posts on another show that I have just been so inspired that I've been drawing fan art around it -- "Puella Maji Madoka Magica," or just "Madoka Magica."

So stay tuned to this space!