So I have a ride to Otakon! Was originally going to take the “Otakon bus”, which sounded pretty awesome when Hilary described it… at least the idea of being on a five hour long bus ride with a bunch of coplayers. Though I would imagine the ride back would be a bit on the hellish side; aside from an extra packed bus, thanks to the twenty extra pounds everyone has on them, mostly all the yaoi that was acquired at the show, I can only imagine all the tears being shed. Either from some kind of wardrobe malfunction, or heartbreak in general (you’d be surprised how much drama goes down at such shows, at least among teenage animu fans… any con is basically the special vacation episode of any soap opera). Anyhow, I’m hitching a ride with this guy Luke who?s been a reader of the site for many years now, and whom I’ve also had the pleasure of meeting and chitchatting with at ICONs past as well. So a road trip! Fun times are in sure to be in store. But speaking of Long Island, guess what I just recently unearthed…
Here we have footage of me at this past ICON conducting Gamer’s Court. It’s somewhat embarrassing, and I don’t know why I’m sharing it, but I am a pretty big narcissist, so how could I not? It’s the tail end of the hour, when I was REALLY drunk, and is therefore somewhat enjoyable.
And I know I mentioned this before, though it was somewhat buried in my New York Asian Film Festival wrap-up, so once again: I will taking my shtick over to the New York Anime Fest later this year! I’ll be moderating two panels, one on how to get a job in the video game industry, which will feature all my cool friends working in the field today, and locally, as well as one that will contrast and compare the video game scene here in America and the one in Japan. Now, perhaps I shouldn’t be admitting things, but since I’m also a loud-mouth, I must admit that I’m having a hard time finding experts to take part in that discussion, simply because those that I had slated will not be available, thanks to the Tokyo Game Show which also takes place that weekend. What wonderful timing! Anyhow, I’ll also be doing my patented top ten list, which has proven to be such a hit at ICONs past. Even to get MTV coverage, remember! And this time, I’m doing both the ten best and worst in one big shot. It goes without saying that my lists from before shall be sufficiently updated, though once can expect plenty of shots at Kingdom Hearts fans once again!
BTW, here we have bonus footage of me playing DDR from Dave’s birthday bash from a weeks ago. Again, everyone was extremely impressed with my Michael Flatley/River Dance approach to the game.
Moving on, it’s been a while since I’ve passed along another massive game related post filled with links, commentary, and wacky pics. Truth be told, I’ve sorta been out of the loop, thanks to the NYAFF, and have been struggling to catch up, in light of tons of more important things on my agenda. Though here’s one link that I caught, I think it was on Kotaku: what yearbook awards would be like for a high school that was filled video characters. Much of it is pretty entertaining, and reminded me of a similar piece I did a few years back at Nickelodeon Magazine…
… I’m still quite proud of Principle Pong, who is just as creepy as I envisioned. The person responsible for the artwork, for those who were wondering, is the ?ber talented Gary Marshall. And since I’m sharing old Nick Mag scans, here’s another super early piece of mine, also featuring Gary’s work, along with David Coulson (he’s behind the Baby Pac illustration)…