Fanime This Weekend

As I mentioned on Friday, Fanime was this last weekend. I was able to carpool with some friends who were also headed out west, and as I realized last year having the car was a big help. Especially since I had 2 costumes this year, plus a tux for the Black & White Ball. Overall it was an enjoyable time, but there was one HUGE GINORMOUS flaw: no schedules, EVER. Last year, they provided a PDF of the schedule before the con, which I printed at home and highlighted that which intrigued me. Part of the reason I did this was because I was under the impression that they wouldn’t provide me with one. However, when I picked up my registration packet (in 2010) there was a schedule inside, along with a color program and some adverts. This year? Just the color program. WTF Fanime? I get that y’all had more people than you were expecting, but anyone who pre-registered should have been given a schedule. Instead, the only physical schedules were the ones nailed down at the information desk. The fact that y’all have a pseudo mobile site at m.fanime.com is beside the point (especially since the site, which was identical to last years, is not really mobile friendly). If y’all weren’t going to print schedules, you should have mentioned it on the website. Then I would have made other arrangements and printed it out before I came to town. With that gripe out of the way, let’s talk about the all the fun stuff.

Fanime! started today, and I am currently en route to San Jose for that very reason. As previously reported, Jon went in 2009, and convinced me to join him last year, to which we did a 5 part followup. The first 4 parts were a day by day review done by Jon (Friday, Saturday, Sunday, and Monday), with the finale done by yours truly as my first con report. If you are in the San Jose area, we both encourage you to come on down and stop by; I will be there for the whole show, with Jon joining me on Saturday.

As Jon pointed out in part 1, I am doing my own post about my Fanime experience. We arrived via our respective motorcycles and pulled into the Hilton parking garage around 2:30 PM and thankfully were able to checkin early. After sherpaing our bags to the room, we changed and headed down to check out the con. Before we had even gotten to the Dealers Hall, we heard a shrill cry break the relative silence, we both stopped and looked toward the sound, just as it glomped me at full speed and ran off. We both looked at each other and busted out laughing. Jon was disappointed that he didn’t get a picture. I was more surprised than anything by the small woman with a backpack who ran full tilt into me, glomped, and then ran off again. A fine way to start the con I decided.