nekozikasilver1

Wow, been a while since I posted here....  what can I say, with the existence of my blogs, I don't get here enough to update.  

Did 24 Hour Comic Day this year.  Successfully completed the inks for a 24 page comic.  I had wanted to get colours done, but oh well, at least I completed it and I can colour when I get it home.  Should check to see whether I can pick it up yet.  And whether the latest issue of Elric: the Balance Lost is in...

Got my new website up, nekomics.  at www.nekomics.com  

Errrr, what else... Right!!!  Continuing Disability Studies, cause it's awesome!!!

And my tablet broke.  Which is why my webcomics are on hiatus, even though I have a website now >.<  
I'm trying to save up the money to buy a new one, so I can get back to work.

Got a job though, just starting out at it, hope it all works out.  One of those home decor stores with towels, sheets, kitchen stuff and furniture.  And apparently scrapbooking things...  I just hope they remember that I said I wasn't too good a fit for cashier, and train me to do other things.  It's only been about a week, so there's a chance that they're just making sure that I can DO cash for the winter holiday rush.  

Oh, and Autistics Speaking Day is November 1st!!!  Sigh, I have an assignment due that day already, and there's always the chance of work.  But at least I TOLD THEM that I won't be in the country Dec 22-31st.  I'll be in Belize, where my brother is getting married.

I'm not dead, really I'm not.

sheesh, it's been a year though.... well, the last year has been a while lot of drama and trauma, moving and new things and such.

Things you should know; got a new computer, but now my tablet isn't working well with it. sigh, it's an old tablet, so I'm trying to decide between a new TV and a new tablet...

Comicgenesis hasn't been updating my comics for the past year, I don't know why, and have been driving myself crazy over trying to go over what could be done.  

Been going to 24 Hour Comic Day, and finished a 30 page comic this year.

I seem to be going deeper into this Autism and Disability Rights stuff, and am now back in school, in the Disability Studies program at Ryerson University, focusing on activism.  

Oh yes, and I am just building myself my own site with my own domain name, to put my comics

Merry Christmas all!!!  Hope you all have a good one.  I'm not officially celebrating for another few days, but we're relaxing here anyways.






Also, I'm not dead, just artistically dysfunctional.  Also, I'm now on Cosplay.com as Nekobakaz, so you can check out my costume for Anime North 2010!!

yeah it's been .... a year since I updated this journal, and a week since the con, but this thing is FOUR PAGES!!

Anime North 2009 con report

Quick note:  for those who saw me, I was the six-purple-and-silver-winged fairy in a maroon cloak and black leather, carrying, well, a halberd, or axe on a stick.  My friend Rachelle was the Naraku (from InuYasha).  If you have any pictures of us, please comment and send them my way; we'd love to see them!

I've been squeeing over this for a while.  I was really looking forward to AN this year.  As my roomie Rachelle was staff, I was able to get sneak previews at the gaming programs and be privy to the organization of the events.   It got me really pumped up for this year.  

And yeah, this year was TOTALLY better than last year!
Last year, I think AN suffered from Geneon in N. America going under, which left the organizers of AN trying to figure out how to make up for the lack of Geneon funding and support.  
This year they got their act together.  The convention area was much bigger, and while there was huge amounts of traffic, once the initial registration shuffle was over, things moved a lot smoother.  At least, they did for me.  The only times I had to wait in line was for checking into my hotel, getting my badge, and my weapons check.  After that, it was simply navigating the crowds.  Which isn't easy to do with wings as big as mine, but I did it.  

Friday was fairly tame for me.  I woke up at 7am to pick up the car at 9am.  It was a beautiful car! They gave me a free upgrade to a "luxury" sized car, a 2009 Chrysler 300.  It was the kind of car I'm sure I won't be able to afford till my mid-life crisis.  Alas, quarter-life crisis' can afford cars like these.  
Anyways, I had gone grocery shopping on Thursday, so I just loaded up the car, filled it up with gas and managed to contact my con-roomie James.  We arranged to meet on UW campus and I waited for his class to be done.  When I went to pick up James, I dropped Rachelle off at the school for her to pick up signs for AN from the kinko's.

So myself, James and James' friend Harrison met up and we got loaded into the car.  We had a brief stop at the Zehrs on our way out, to pick up some supplies for the boys.  Then we got on the road.  Right on time too!  We made good time all the way to Toronto, and got to the Doubletree alright.  Since it was still early to check in (although from the looks of it, we could have checked in already), James and I went to pick up our badges, got free Dr. Pepper and then went to check in.  As we did, I got text messages from Pam, aka Hikaru_ from my old geocities journal.  She needed to run to the bank to pay her rent that was late.  In my room, I got into costume, then sighed and agreed to drive her to the bank.  Not much to say about it except it was fairly uneventful.

But basically I hung around, found myself in the dealer's room, and bought a tonne of manga... well, first it was a death note that I got a free quill pen with (Labyrinth: paid in cash), then a huge stack of manga that got me two free posters (FMA and D.Gray-man) that I paid with credit, then a few more manga paid in cash (Hairy Trantula).  Then I found the Silver Snail booth and picked up a Gundam Exia (1/144), paid in cash, then another model store (can't remember the name) that I bought a Gundam 00 Raiser (1/144) paid in cash.  Then I carried it all back to the hotel.  

By the way, it's a lot of fun to have to put everything down for photos.  

But I got it done.  I looked over the Raiser, and since I'm only a little more familiar with 1/100 models, I thought that it was just the Raiser, and didn't have the Gundam.  So I went back to the Dealer's Room and found yet another store, and bought a Gundam 00 with cash.  I dropped it off at the room, had a bite to eat of the cake that Pam gave me as a thank you and a bit of a breather, and went to the Definite History of Godzilla panel.  Well, more like presentation.  The presenter had this nice slide show presentation.  Very educational.  

Afterwards I hung around the video rooms, trying to figure out whether I wanted to watch anything, but wasn't really interested.  A couple years ago, I know that I would have jumped at the chance to check out different anime without downloading it, but now with a somewhat better internet connection and definitely better anime sources, I feel more comfortable watching new stuff at home.  Also, I didn't feel like walking over the bridge with my wings to get to the Renaissance (which is basically my entire reason for not going over there; crossing that bridge with one set of wings is annoying, three sets would be frustrating).  So I went up to the room and made myself some soup mac n cheese cup.  Ewwww! And ate cake, yum! And then bed.  

In the morning, I woke up about 7, 7:30 and had a shower, ate breakfast of Golden Grahams and took my purchases from Friday to the car (thinking ahead is good).  Half-way in costume, I sorted out where I was going for the day, accounting in extra travel time and rest periods, and realized that I had left my voice recorder at home.  Drat.  I then decided that as much fun as it is to go meet the voice actors, getting voice clips was the best part and that I'll leave the over-fangirl-ism to the younger kids (gee, I feel old now!).  

I pretty much started texting to my twitter at this point.  So, for those who didn't see them:

The Code Geass panel: Watchmen spoilers in the Code Geass panel. Scooby doo reference in Code Geass panel:  Do I really need to explain these?
Waiting for Lars to get to the Lar's Art Thingy panel: Come to the dark side; we have pocky
The autograph session after Lar's Art Thingy: Death notes as autograph books; only @ anime cons
(A congoer tried to get Lars to sign his Death Note.  Lars just looked at him blankly and said "No.")
Anime north shopping complete: I had gone back into the Dealer's room, found a Gundam Exia 1/100 model at the Silver Snail.  I had also found that Rachelle had bought the last Masamune, so I settled for an Odachi (yeah, I can't remember which accents go where).  It's still pretty cool and taller than me.  It was also very fun to carry it back to the room, having to set it down every once in a while for photos. My arms got a workout.  
At that point, I was tired and needed food.  I spent some time in the room, and then went down to the hotel's cafe for a Caesar salad.  It was pretty quiet and the waiters were, er, attentive.  
Robocop quotes during tech repair: I went to the beginning of the Anime Hell showing.  There was a technical trouble with the two screens.  The guy in charge of the event made the "we have the technology" quote and then made a swine flu joke.  First he asked how many of us had swine flu, and a couple hands throughout the room shot up.  "Oh good.  We're going to lock the doors, so make sure you get near those people and go home with the flu."
lil' Roxas is adorable! Just as it says. Kids can pretty much cosplay as anything and it's soooo cute.
learning gundam 00 drinking games: I left the Anime Hell showing for the Mecha panel, which was educational.  I'm fairly new to well, everything, mainly because I'm picky about what I watch and haven't really had the resources to go back and watch anime older than myself.  But in it we got on the discussion of Gundam 00 drinking games.  There's at least two, and both are for season 2: drink every time H/allelujah says "Mary" (there's an episode where that's basically all he says); for the season finale episodes, drink every time someone goes TransAm.  Those of us who have watched the finale will smile at that last one.  

Watchmen & star trek in mecha panel:  yeah, we get off topic.  I'm not entirely sure how and I can't remember precisely what was said, but it was done.
Unicorn=bad wolf: Going around the Gundam model tables, I was often asked and told that "Unicorn" was coming out soon.  Having not really followed the entire subculture of fandom, I had no clue what that was and made polite neutral noises.  Basically along the lines of "Oh really? Cool, I'll keep my eyes open for it."   In the Gundam panel, I learned what it was; a new Gundam series.  But not just any new Gundam series, a new UC Gundam series.  Aka, original timeline.  For me, this was a realization moment kind of like in Doctor Who where you finally put the pieces together.  Hence, Bad Wolf.  It also reminded me I need to actually watch UC Gundam series.
Scooby doo quote in death note panel:  one of the panelists made a "meddling kids" quote when referring to Near and Mello.  It's funny cause it's true.  
Met savage bandito:  On my way back from the panels, heading to my room for sleep, a maskless Savage Bandito called out to me.  Apparently he had been looking for me all weekend, having spotted me from afar, but was too far away to catch up.  He remembered me from previous years.  Also grabbing a nearby Umbrella corp soldier, he proceeded with an interview and skit.  Knowing his update schedule, it probably will be out in time for Anime North 2010.  
But we hung out for a while, talking, and he took down my contact information, but I had to leave for sleep.  Pretty much went straight to bed as James was already fast asleep.
Sunday, got up early and carried stuff to the car, packed up and checked out. I was starting to feel a little sickish at this point, and so was James.  So I decided not to go for sushi after Anime North. It was an awesome idea, but I think it would have been a little overwhelming, even if  I wasn't sick.  And I had to drive home too!

lil' Cloud is SO CUTE!: Honestly, children under 10 really CAN cosplay as anything.  Also, there was a lil'Gaara that was soooooooooooooooooo adorable!! seriously, I really wish I had a camera when I see all these cute cosplayers!

RAMUNE!!: my last quest in the dealers room was to search out Ramuné.  Managed to find quite a few... plus a really awesome kitty hat that fits PURFECTLY, plus Fruits Basket bracelets, and Bleach and Deathnote cell phone straps.  That reminds me, Rachelle keeps saying she's going to show me where in town I can get Ramuné....

My costume won an award: I was just walking around, waiting for James to finish up in his panels, when, of course, I was approached by photographers.  After the mini-photo shoot, a staff member waiting at the side said "because your wings are awesome, here" and gave me a Hall Costume Award.  It's now proudly pinned to my badge (still attached to the wings; will have to take off for next year...)

Republicans 4 voldemort:  apparently this was said in a panel that James went to, and I recorded it.
Around 3:30-4:00, James and I looked at each other and decided that it was time to leave. So we found Harrison (he was dressed as Canada, btw) and loaded up the car.  I took off the wings and tiara, but not the make up and the rest of my costume, and we went to Jack Asster's (possibly spelling it wrong).  There was an interesting mix of con-goers and mundanes, but the staff understood and asked how the con was going.  Once properly feed on real food, we found our way onto the highway and made our way home.

And that was that!  We all had an AWESOME time, and apparently so did Funimation, going by their vblog.  And now, I'm counting down the days till ANIME NORTH 2010!!!

Right, so I'll be at Anime North again this year, still dressing as a fairy.  With a cape and crown now.  Yeah, hope to see plenty of people, I'm also planning on volunteering.  Just cause I like doing stuff.

Got a job.  Customer Representative at Nordia, working for Bell Express Vu.  According to them, we're in Toronto.  Right.  I start on the phones today.

Also, school.  One more class.  I'm taking a Distance Ed Anthropology class.  I like the class, I just don't seem to have a lot of time to do the readings.  The prof has given me an alternative assignment, since I'm bad at non-verbal communication with strangers.  

anyways, back to work.