I still find myself hesitant and unwilling to speak up at times, yet the times I should do continue to increase. This is going to be some year.

Unrelated, why does every organization under the sun schedule events on a day I've had one planned on since January?

I complain that it's hard to review a con when I'm stuck promoting at it. It's even harder when it's the one I actually work at.

This year was my fifth Middle Tennessee Anime Convention, the fourth I worked at and the second I was actually staff for. Beyond a shadow of a doubt, it was my busiest MTAC ever. We had a packed house this year with well over 4,000 attendees. We even sold out of our badges. With some more responsibility on my shoulders this year, I was running around and being fairly busy. I didn't get to take my own photos, which is sad because there were some truly photo-worth sights. Luckily, that's what everyone else with cameras were for.

Starting with content, there was a lot. We had seven different programming tracks: art, cosplay, Japanese culture, martial arts, mature, music and otaku. All of which had plenty of panels and events. The two panels I organized were the Running an Anime Club panel and the Super Sentai panel. The other host talked most of the time in the anime club panel, which was fine as he knew what he was talking about.

The Super Sentai panel, however, was a bigger blast than I had expected. I hosted it with some input from friends in the MTSU Anime Club. I had a nice powerpoint presentation, if I do say so myself, including some neat clips (never get tired of the 25 red rangers from Gaoranger vs Super Sentai). It wasn't just Super Sentai though. I actually based my panel around that and Kamen Rider, with about equal content for both (if not more for KR). Also showed off some of my toys. I was fortunate enough to have both a Kamen Rider 1 and a Green Ranger cosplay in the audience. I even got my picture taken with Kamen Rider 1, as you can see for yourself.


I'm on the right, in my 5-second cosplay of Tsukasa (Kamen Rider Decade) from Blade's world. Yes, it's my belt.

I also ended up sitting on three other panels: Fandumb, Crossover Fans and Running a Convention. Fandumb is talking about what all is dumb about fandom, which is always funny. Crossover Fans is for those fans of anime and other fandoms, such as me and superhero comic books and movies. Running a Convention was the oddest as I had the least experience as any of the other panelists, which included our con chair and the con chairs of MomoCon and OMGcon. It was fun as usual. Like I said in my MomoCon post, it's about the stories.

While I didn't get to enjoy these as much (nor are they my cup of tea), MTAC really bulked up its mature and music tracks. I've been hearing differing opinions about whether such a strong focus on those is a good idea or a bad one. Particularly that it detracts from the anime nature of the con. I can see both sides. What do you think? What kind of content do you prefer to see at cons?

There were some hiccups along the way though. Delays plagued us throughout the con, some of which partially the fault of a freak storm and tornado during Thursday set up. Some fire alarms went off too by accident, but otherwise, not much incident.

All in all, it was busy, crowded, even rowdy at times, but I had a blast. I got to work along side some of my very good friends and help put on an amazing show. I'm resubmitting all my panels again, even asking for more of my Super Sentai/Kamen Rider panel.

With that said, I very much enjoyed the Middle Tennessee Sleeping Convention that coincidentally took place the day after MTAC.

(crossposted here)

Off to the MTAC con hotel in just over 12 hours. Super Sentai panel is basically done. Now just everything else I have to get ready for.

See people there.

Well, I was going to open with how I feel like I haven't posted in a while, a while being almost two weeks. I was then going to say how I had been posting elsewhere, such as talking about my MomoCon trip or Power Rangers continuing. Then the original draft of this was accidentally deleted and I posted a venting story about quality paper writing and citation in the interim. Opening with that now kind of loses the point of some of the stuff I was going to say, but oh well. I'll get to the point.

I've been wanting to start my own blog for a while now. Not a more personal thing like here, but one where I actually cover things I enjoy. Starting a blog has been bouncing around in my head for quite some time.  As with most projects I consider, I wonder if it would be worth my time. Not that such a task would be beneath me, but more so that there wouldn’t be a point to it. I always envision myself falling out of many or my pet projects, either due to myself losing interest or to no one else having any interest.

Still, I want an outlet to write about what I enjoy. However, that’s way too broad of a topic. If I were to do a blog, it would most likely be based on anime and tokusatsu fandom. Basically, it would be me writing about how awesome a particular Kamen Rider series was or my visit to a particular con or my thoughts on a particular anime club meeting.

Is that still too broad? Probably. Is there an audience for any of this? Maybe. Are there places people could go to get what I know in better ways? Most assuredly. Is there even room in the blogosphere? Well, technically there’s almost infinite room, but you get what I mean.

 As you can see, self doubt is another large factor (probably the largest) to many of my projects never getting off the ground.

Yet a couple of weeks ago, on a whim, I heard a speaker on campus, author and pop culture critic Chuck Klosterman, discuss some of his misadventures in getting his first book published. He said that really, no one will care if you do or don’t write, except for you, so you should do what you want to do.

Which brings me to my third and far less deep reason why I haven’t started a blog yet: what the hell would I name it?

I suck at names.

I've been working on a post since earlier this week, but it got deleted. This is not going to be that post. This one is a bit quicker to type and involves less hyperlinking. I'll get to the other one later.

I'm sometimes surprised at the inexperience in writing some of my college compatriots have compared to me. I'm not talking about the journalism writing. I came here to learn that. I'm talking about basic research papers. I'm talking about how cutting and pasting a bunch of text from one of your sources does not constitute a paper.

In editing a group paper last night, I found one of my team members' paper was just excerpts from one of his listed sources. Some sentence reorganization was done, but most of it came from his sources. Little to no original wording. Talking to the guy, it's been a while since he's used our citation method, but that's not my issue. The problem is that he didn't write a paper. He just copied and pasted. Even if the source is in the works cited, it's still plagiarism as none of it was quoted despite being word for word. It's intellectual theft. In an upper-division course, that should be unacceptable.

There could be two reasons for one to do such sloppy writing: lack of education or laziness. For the education, I know not everyone has had the high school background I had. My teachers took proper citation and plagiarism very seriously, probably more so than in college. Still, I would expect people to know how to at least write a paper. At least put the source's words into your own wording, and quote what you don't. That's relatively simple, and if one's academic career has not prepared them for doing just simple tasks, then I'm incredibly sorry. Someone just got screwed out of an education.

If it's laziness, well, then the blame is on the writer. Don't waste the teacher's time with this crap. Don't waste a teammate's time with fixing it.

This post has turned out more to be me ranting, but there is a serious point here. Writing papers may become inconsequential out of school, depending on the path one takes in life. They are, however, a basic part of academic life. It's necessary to know how to do one correctly, using your own words instead of someone else's. Otherwise, you'll never know how to give a voice to your own thoughts, and it's your own thoughts that will move you forward in life, not someone else's.

My boss at my campus job gave me her 15" CRT monitor and a printer/scanner/copier. No idea what I'd need the monitor for, but I could use the printer/scanner/copier. Plus, free computer stuff, so I'm in.

I saw the midnight premier of Watchmen in Opry Mills' IMAX last night. Let me tell you how it went.

The film starts off basically like the book with the Comedian's murder (the first couple of minutes/pages does not count as a spoiler). The full fight is shown, and the blows sound like they carry a good bit of weight behind them. In fact, you can hear and see the power of the strikes quite well, which is good work on the sound guys as well as the stunt team for choreographers.

Going IMAX was totally worth it if for nothing else than seeing just how much detail went into set design. The backgrounds came right out of the comic with homes decorated with newspaper clippings and old hero photos and the buildings covered with ads and graffiti befitting the time period. There's some points where it's almost comically obvious it's still 1985 (such as what's basically a Apple II in Ozymandius' office). There are points where the scenes cut back in time, and the sets follow suit and match.

The soundtrack is an incredibly random and almost hilarious at times choice of songs. I'm not a music buff by any means, quite the opposite in fact, and even I found it interesting. Ranging from folk rock to rock to gospel to classical to others, something will most likely stand out to you. Possibly too much, as some may find some song choices distracting from the scene at hand, possibly making light of it.

The casting seemed pretty well done. Sure, Dan (Nite Owl II) isn't quite as chubby as he is in the comic, and we got to see a bit more of Dr. Manhattan than I would have liked, but everyone played their parts well. They seemed believable and fitting of their roles. Rorschach, being the narrator through his journal entries, was really good. He had that gravelly voice that I had envisioned. When the mask came off too, he wasn't pretty or attractive. He was just as he should be.

Actually, one of the things I realised is Rorschach was in mask even more than he was in the comic. It's a side effect of compressing the prison scenes and his back story (it's all still basically there). Most super hero movies though, I complain that they try to have too much face time by having their heroes out of mask (I'm looking at you, Tobey Maguire). It doesn't help or hurt. It's just an interesting little note.

Going with a group comprised of people who have read the book (myself included) and people who haven't, both sides seemed generally pleased. For the newbies, they were able to follow the story quite well and didn't see everything coming. This eased my fear that the movie was telegraphing the ending too much, but it's just that I've read it enough times to know. For the ones in the know, it stayed true enough to the story to satisfy, while presenting it in an entertaining movie form.

I suggest you go see this film if you're a fan of Watchmen or of superheroes in general. If you don't know what to expect, you're in for a real treat to the inner workings as to how superheroes most likely would actually behave. If you've read the book, you should find this an enjoyable interpretation with some differences. If you're a stickler for direct adaptations staying word for word to the book, there are some slight changes in store. For the most part, the differences seemed pretty natural in the film form. Minor things like combining certain scenes, less focus on really minor characters and slight scene rearrangement.

Really thought, the Watchmen story is there, and it's enjoyable.

Often, I wish that I were skilled in photography, that I knew what I was doing with a camera so I could capture the awe and the amazement of the epic snow late Saturday night.


My apartment was filled with friends all weekend. Friday was the Star Wars RP, followed by Gangs of New York. Prior to the Saturday night snow, we had a GaoGaiGar marathon. Many stayed over the night because of the ice on the roads. Sunday, Thanatos and I watched a bunch of Kamen Rider Agito before more people got off work to join us for American History X.

It was a weekend of friends and fun. It was one I won't soon forget. I'm sore and tired and loved every minute of it.

(for more pics, check out my facebook)

Con Nooga is a small sci-fi con in Chattanooga, TN for its second year. Went down to it Saturday morning to promote MTAC. It's nice to occasionally have such a short trip, just barely over an hour from my place to the con if you don't stop.

The con itself is at the Chattanooga Choo Choo Hotel, which is a deceptively big place. It used to be an actual train station, and railroad tracks and trains are still around on the property. Problem is, it's all spread out. There's the actual hotel lobby that used to be the train station, three different hotel buildings on the complex, trains that have been converted into hotel rooms and a diner, and random other buildings. Panels and events were usually toward the front of the property in the main train station building or the nearby convention/ballroom building. However, the dealers room and some other events were in a building on the far side of the compound, and it's a decent walk. Luckily, there are bus and trolly services to go back and forth.

Didn't really see any events or guests as I spent most of the time at the MTAC booth, but as with every con, we got to talk to plenty of random visitors to our table, and that's always interesting. Then there's dinner with friends, and that was nice. Still, we had a fairly early Saturday night, not knowing anyone throwing any of the usual Saturday night room parties. Then we manned our table some on Sunday, packed up and left for home.

Probably one of my shortest con trips, but it was generally enjoyable and relaxing. We weren't really active or running around much. Just a nice little trip to Chattanooga.

Had a good Valentine's weekend. Spend most of the time with Tina (of course). We had fun and watched a couple of movies. Here they are:

First up, Taken starring Liam Neeson. Taken holds up a rule of mine that Liam Neeson makes a movie 100% better. Now, that doesn't save a movie, just make it better. Think how much worse Phantom Menace would have been without Liam Neeson's Qui Gon Jinn. Anyway, Taken was 100% Liam Neeson being badass. The trailer's give you most of the plot you need: daughteer gets kidnapped. However, the actual set up takes a good bit of time that feels right. It shows you Neeson's character and his connection to his daughter and his motivation behind many of his actions. There's tons of awesome action in the film, and most of it has a satisfyingly-achieved goal.

The second movie was Spider-Man 3 with RiffTrax. Spider-Man 3 sucks, but I'm sure you know that. If not, well, it does. Certainly the worst of the three Raimi Spidey flicks. Too long, too much forced exposition, too many villains, crappy characterization and a bunch of other stuff. However, it's slightly better with RiffTrax. RiffTrax, if you don't know, are mp3s recorded by the guys who made Mystery Science Theater 3000 to be played along movies, basically duplicating the MST3K experience. They cracked a lot of jokes at the movie, even referencing Zac Efron being Kira and Chocolate Rain. Doesn't save the movie, but it makes the mind-numbing chore of watching the movie a bit easier.

In between those, there was some catching up on Star Wars: The Clone Wars. Good series thus far. Anakin is actually decent, and there's a dark hilarity in knowing Asoka is most likely going to die a horrible death. Plus, R2-D2 fight. I'm glad Cartoon Network has a decent action-oriented lineup. But then George Takei voiced a Star Wars character, and my mind collapsed.