back from AWA!

The 22nd AWA is over and it went pretty well! 29K attendees, 31K warm bodies, and at least one tasering because some people can't behave.
















The SHFS started an hour late because the hotel was late in getting the room set up and we had some confusion as to where the hotel needed to be directing their room setup resources. But we had a room full of sellers and buyers and a line down the hall and out into another facility entirely waiting to get in and spend money. I sold most of what I brought, Neil sold most of what he brought, Matt B. sold most of what he brought, most sellers seemed to do pretty well. I think the event might need a little more space, but I don't think we need to add tables; 70 is about as many tables as we can expect people to buy on a Thursday night, I think. Add an hour to the event, maybe.

We found out pretty much day-of that the Bebop+Mixer was going to have a dance floor and a live band, and I was like, is this gonna work? And it worked really, really well.

Anime Hell went smoothly - it's all digital files now, Tech had all the digital files, I just played them using VLC on their PC, not so much as a hiccup. I'm putting two hours of material in there but due to me setting up clips and pausing for emphasis, the show runs about 20 minutes over, which isn't fair to Gavv, so I have to start being more selective. Got a lot of great feedback about the show, too.

Stayed up late Sat. and Sun talking anime nerd stuff with the old anime nerds, caught up with some old pals, met some folks I only knew from online, didn't get too hammered, got food every AM, stayed hydrated. My US phone decided to update itself on Sunday and wiped all my contacts, THANK YOU PHONE, so I went in and out of touch with the world. Waverly wifi was spotty at best. Room wifi was fine. Didn't have a "party" per se, but people hung out in the room regardless and we had some snacks and booze. Didn't meet any guests, bought Chargeman Ken and a pair of Sanrio Gudetama socks for Shain in the dealer's room, sat in on some other people's panels for a change, had a Let's Anime reader say nice things to me after At The Movies.

Neil brought me a monitor to replace the dead monitor and it survived the trip from Boston to Atlanta, and it survived the trip from Atlanta to Toronto and it's a great monitor, thank you Neil.

So far I've avoided the after-con cold that's hitting a lot of people, but who knows, it's only Tuesday. Stay tuned.

the coming storm

I was doing the Chargeman Ken panel with Neil on Sunday, and Neil mentioned something about being "anti something" in the course of our onstage conversation. I forget what exactly he said. An audience member felt that he needed to join the conversation by saying "I'm anti-socialist, is that okay?"

I didn't wanna get into it, but I said "Hey, I'm from Canada, I have a health card in my pocket that says you're wrong." And I had a microphone, so that ended that.

The previous night I spoke to a friend who is healthy himself but is having terrible trouble with his aging parents who are requiring expensive medical care that is likely going to take every penny they ever had. Another friend's parents, both on fixed incomes, are spending enormous amounts of money on the dozens of medications they're both on. I read an article today about a doomsday prepper who's sending all of his doomsday prep food to Puerto Rico - he's losing his home due to foreclosure because all his money went to medical bills for his now-deceased wife. And it's great that the doomsday prep food is going to actually, instead of potentially, help people, but that's for a lousy reason, bankrupted by health care costs.

And I looked at that crowd at AWA and I felt like they were all going to be bankrupted by health care costs, every one of them. Even if you have a good job with healthcare and a retirement plan with healthcare, the insurance companies will just do their damndest to take it away from you, while at the same time the Republicans are doing their damndest to take away Medicare and Medicaid. This is a slow motion financial apocalypse that every single American is staring down the barrel of, if not now than in in a few years.

I don't have a solution, I can't tell everyone to start saving cash like crazy for their future, I can't tell them to move to Ontario or to vote for universal health care. Well, I can, but they won't listen. All I know is that I see this thing looming for everybody, all the time. America needs to get its shit together.