DragonCon parade

Very short notice, but while I (probably) won’t be at the convention, I will be at the parade this morning with my friends, wearing a b&w PoDW shirt I had made in college years ago and brown capris. (I’m Indian, too.) Come look for me!

(I’ve now broken my tradition of posting something on my birthday every year, which was yesterday. 27 years old…wow. This site’s been with me for a very, very long time.)

Attn: Atlantan and North Georgian fans

For anyone who was wondering, I will not be attending DragonCon this year. I’m done with DragonCon–it was too huge and badly managed last year, and I can’t deal with such massive crowds packed into such small spaces (the convention’s grown far too large for its host hotels)…and I think I’ve mellowed out in my geekiness much more so than the standard convention-goer. DragonCon always ends up leaving me stressed and worn out.

However, a friend and I will be checking out the parade on Saturday. That should at least be interesting–I really admire people who have a talent for crafting such intricate costumes.

Ioanna, a fellow North Georgia PoDW fan, proposed a suggestion this week: would any Atlantan/north Georgian PoDW fans be interested in an in-person group meetup? Over the years I’ve met a few other fans–friends I made through the site, fellow Georgia Tech students, or people I talked with who happened to live in cities I visited. But in all these years, a group meetup never crossed my mind. One of the goals I had for this site was to attempt to connect PoDW fans, and I haven’t done a great job of that (though granted, it’s tough with a slightly obscure show that’s been “dead” for this long), but this is a more tangible way of going about it.

If you’re interested, drop me a line or comment here! Be sure to leave your e-mail address or something so I have some way of reaching you.

DragonCon

Whew. Was it just me or was it a lot more crowded than it was three years ago? It didn’t help that there was a new fire marshal who kept closing off the Hyatt because too many people were inside, either, and that we now had three hotels to navigate between for all the tracks and merchandise, instead of the usual two, in part because of construction at the Marriott. I honestly felt really overwhelmed by the sheer mass of people, especially after two years of being away from all that, but I still had a good time, though right now I don’t think I’ll be attending again next year.

(Out of curiosity, without searching online or through books, do any of you know how many moons the gas giant Yavin has? This was the single hardest question that came up during Star Wars trivia, and guess who got it?)

The Classic Cartoon panel went all right–I kind of felt like I had to fight to say much, and I was a little sleepy, but I think it went all right (when I introduced myself, I got a smattering of applause for mentioning PoDW, haha), and I hope everyone enjoyed it! The panel was the same time as the Star Wars Masquerade and a few other big events, so our crowd was a bit small, but that seems to be the way most of the animation panels at DragonCon go.

I went looking for a bootleg DVD copy of The Saga Begins so I could grab stuff from it for the site, because I know I saw vendors in the dealer’s room selling it in DVD format the last time I was here. It turns out that one vendor, On The Run Video, will have a DVD in time for DragonCon next year, and you can order it from their website–but not yet. (Or actually…was it TSB, or was it the Dark Water miniseries? Crap, I’m forgetting…either way, though, good news!) They had all 21 episodes of PoDW on sale at their table, but for whatever reason, that isn’t on their site. (It’s the same vendor, though, because I did buy all of SwatKATS: The Radical Squadron (!!) from them and the DVD cover on the website is the same as what I have. I can e-mail them about it.) A few other vendors had all 21 episodes available (and featured prominently), too. But once again, these are bootleg DVDs. The show has not been released officially on any medium within the last decade.

Okay, that’s it for now…happy Labor Day to any American visitors!

Unpacking and settling in

When going through my closet to clean out old junk (to make way for the new junk that’ll eventually arrive here once it’s completed its journey across the Pacific Ocean), I discovered that when my mom was tidying up in my absence, she designated a couple of bags just for all my Pirates of Dark Water merchandise and memorabilia. It made me laugh out loud, that my parents, who at first kept pushing the “why do you waste so much time on this crap? You need to study!” thing all through high school and into college, have finally given in and just rolled with it.

This is also my way of saying “hi, I made it to the US okay.” It was a tough transition–after two years there, I’d really dropped roots and made some good friends, and I shed many tears when I said goodbye, when I waved at the friends who came to see me off as my bus pulled away from the terminal in my town and I left Tokushima Prefecture and Shikoku, and when I walked down the jetway at Kansai Airport in Osaka onto the plane that would take me out of Japan and across the Pacific. But I’m here…and my hometown has never felt more suburban to me in my life. Things are going well, though. It’s been a week and a half, and the honeymoon period’s kind of fading, and I’m feeling uneasy about various things, but that’s just a part of culture shock. A local Japanese grocery has many of the little food things I miss about Japan, so that’s really nice, and I randomly found out yesterday that one of the librarians at a nearby library speaks fluent Japanese–talk about serendipity!

As for my merchandise inventory, it’s been nice going back through it, and it’s been really cool looking at the animation cels I’ve won and had shipped to my parents’ house while I was abroad. My Niddler plush was still stuffed away in a box with all the other stuffed animals, though, but it took going through that box to remember that I even owned it. I also had a good laugh at the horror that is the Halloween costume of Ren (blue plastic one-piece costume, with a picture of Ren on the torso), and I discovered the OOP Niddler action figure a former friend gave me, which stoically guarded my monitor during college, along with a stuffed ladybug a friend gave me in high school. I’ve reassigned them to their former post again, now that I’m back to using a desktop.

It feels good to be home. Strange, but good. I do miss Japan, but that’s to be expected.

I think this post kind of accidentally became my annual “post on my birthday” post, except a little early–I turn 26 tomorrow. I’d post something introspective about the evolution of the site and the fandom and stuff, but I’ve done plenty of that already.

And another reminder: DragonCon is this weekend, and I will be on the Classic Cartoons panel on Sunday at 5:30! I believe it’s in the Vinings room, but don’t quote me on that. The Pocket Programme is on the website, so check it out. I’ll be with three other people, and it should be a lot of fun, with a lot of emphasis on audience participation, so come on out to have your say. I hope a few of you will drop by! I’m looking forward to meeting you guys, and those of you who already let me know you’re coming, I’ll keep an eye out for you.

DragonCon panel update

EDIT, 25july2007 11:50PM JST – the time has changed to Sunday at 5:30 PM. And for those who aren’t aware, DragonCon takes place annually in Atlanta, Georgia, USA, which is also my hometown.

 

It looks like the Classic Cartoons panel is currently set for Sunday at 4:00 5:30 PM. I’m still trying to get a group of panelists together and figure out exactly what topics to address, but in my limited convention experience, I feel like fan-run panels like this are best when they encourage a lot of constructive audience participation and discussion, so I’d like to see if we can do that.

Like I’ve said before, please stop by and say hi! It’d be cool to meet you guys; I know at least a few of you are planning on attending the convention, so I do hope you consider coming and taking part in this. I’ll only be at the convention for a couple of days this year, if even that, and other than hanging out with my friends who’ll be in town, this is the only thing I have planned so far. I look forward to meeting you guys there!

In other PoDW-related news, a few links:
allgame.com – general info on the Sunsoft video games.
a Ukraine-hosted blog with a post including good screencaps of the Sega game.

(There are now 22 Facebook groups related somehow to the show. Dang!)

And minor updates:
– the link to the transcript to episode 11, “The Collection,” has been corrected on the episodes page
– the link to Myrmior’s DVD cover off the fanart page has been fixed

As always, please tell me if you find any broken links on the site! Chances are I won’t know about them at all unless somebody else tells me about them.

On a personal note, please don’t expect any blog updates for a while after this–I have about a week to finish packing and shipping stuff home, then I travel for a week, then I vacate my apartment and lug my suitcases to a friend’s place for a week so I can stay to help my successor and to take part in this massive dance festival our area has in mid-August (ironically, each dance group/team is called a Ren, haha)…and then I end my time in Japan and return to the US. (Thankfully, I’ve found a job, so that’s a huge load off my shoulders, knowing that that’s waiting for me!) This week marks my two-year anniversary of moving abroad, and I’ll be done just a couple of weeks after that.

And thank you for the kind e-mails and blog comments that the “On this site and the show” generated. I totally wasn’t fishing for compliments with that, I swear! But it really is great to know that you all are so supportive of this site and of my continuing to maintain it. Thank you so much!

For any Dragon*Con 2007 attendees

It looks like I’m going to be the main panelist/moderator on the Classic Cartoons panel on the Anime/Animation track, the same track I helped to moderate back in 2004. The person who’s stepped up as coordinator is someone I ran into a few times when we were both students at Georgia Tech, so that kind of helps! I’ll have returned to the US just 2 weeks prior, so please forgive me if I have a deer-in-headlights expression on my face, but if you’re planning on attending, please come out and say hi!

(For those unaware, Dragon*Con is the largest science fiction and fantasy convention in the US. It takes place in downtown Atlanta every Labor Day weekend. I’m currently only planning on attending for a day, and just dropping in and out of Midtown to hang out with my friends who’re coming in for the convention, but that may change. A lot of people adore this convention, and I did attend from 2001 to 2004, but it’s always been a bit stressful for me–too many people in too small a space, especially in the lobbies of the Hyatt Regency and the Marriott Marquis in the evenings. We’ll see how this year goes.)