Anime cons are like pizza: when they’re good, they’re great, and when they’re bad, they’re still pretty OK. However, if you’re a man walking past a proper pizzeria to go to Domino’s, then there’s something a bit wrong with you. In the same sense, I cannot really see going to Otakon when I have a choice of any the other semi-major cons around that time.

To put it nicely, Otakon was one of the most unprofessional, disorganized cons I have ever gone too. While I had a fun time, and enjoyed myself, it was like going to a Domino’s: it worked for now, but superior solutions exist.

The story of my disillusionment begins Thursday night, when ten minutes and five different staffers are wasted finding out that we cannot get our Panelist ribbons until tomorrow. The fact that your information booth staff actually was forced to say “I don’t know” rather than being able to contact someone to tell them the answer speaks volumes, in my eyes. I do not condemn those staffers for not knowing; instead, I condemn the management of the con for not properly informing them about a reasonably common occurrence, or at least giving them a walkie-talkie and allowing them to ask questions. That the information booth staff, who’s job it is to be the go-to place for information about the convention, were forced due to other factors to say they don’t know the answer to a question is unforgivable. I feel bad for the people sitting there, forced to deal with angry nerds asking them questions they can’t possibly answer. Why did this group not have a walkie-talkie? Why was it not a veteran con staffer, who knew answers? Why were they not given proper information? Perhaps my experience is unique, but I doubt it.

My second experience is on Friday, when we came to get our Panelist ribbons and check in at Panel Ops right before our 9 AM panel. It was at this point that, due to lack of information on all sides, my partner and I became the balls in a game of Panelist Pinball. We were bounced around from site to site, told that we had to go here to get to panel ops, only when we got here, we were told to go there. Again, this was solvable by every staffer, or at least every location, having a walkie-talkie or a veteran staffer to answer questions. We were bounced around so much that we were ten minutes late for our own panel, after showing up almost half an hour early. Again, this was not the staffer’s fault but the management’s fault. Lack of information about something that, while not policy, was extended to us as a courtesy, and even put in the email sent out to all panelists, creates the impression of a lack of organization and professionalism.

EDIT: I am backing off slightly on the following claim by pointing out that we did not ask for help as loudly as we probably should have. We were frustrated by both pre- and at-con problems interfacing with Otakon, and gave up too readily. My contention that the staffer should have acted proactively in such a situation stands. I’m also fixing a factual error: It was not all of the clips that exhibited this problem, as I stated originally. I do apologize for that.

Which leads into the last major objection I have to the convention. During our panel, the tech crapped out on us. Not ours, yours. As the panel was going on, the voices would drop out of most of our clips while the music played on at normal volume. This was not a failure of my partner’s laptop, or a corruption of the clips themselves, but a failure of something along the line from the speaker cable provided to us to the speakers. While I will admit to not knowing much about AV, I do know that when clips play out of the speakers of the very same laptop that was at the panel, and into my headphones plugged into the very same jack the speaker cable was, it takes the laptop and clips out of the equation. However, either due to apathy or lack of knowledge of what to do in that situation, the staffer assigned to our room made no effort to help, didn’t even indicate that she thought there was a problem, and didn’t even come over to ask us if she could help somehow. It’s this case where I do not know if it was this staffer or a more systemic problem, however. I cannot say anything but that it was a problem.

As I said in my opening paragraph, when one has no options, Domino’s is fine. It’s certainly food, and it fills and nourishes me just the same as any other food. However, when one knows about a proper venue and has the means to do so, to go to a sub-standard pizzeria instead of a good one is madness; in the same sense, I can no longer, in good conscience, attend the Domino’s Pizza of anime conventions. I wish you good luck in years to come, and hope to one day soon attend the new, revitalized Otakon.

Sincerely and hopefully yours,

Nathan “Neito” Malynn

Edit the Second:

It’s become a little obvious to me, from the discussion on Reddit, that people are misunderstanding my complaints, or putting words in my mouth, or what have you. I’ll give these people the benefit of the doubt and assume that the way I stated things was unclear. Here is a clear, concise chart of my grievances.

1. My complaint for Thursday is not that we weren’t able to pick up our ribbons and check in with Panels Staff, as some people think. It is very specifically that the information booth did not know the answer to my question, nor did they know where to send me to get my answer.
2. People seem to be thinking that we arrived only a small handful of minutes before our panel, and were late due to our own problems, which we are trying to blame on Otakon. We arrived at the convention center between 8:35 AM and 8:40 AM Friday. We were told we could enter at 8:30 AM. The pamphlet and website both stated that the doors opened at 8:30 AM. We were then marched between two entrances for about fifteen minutes, before finally being let in. Once we were in, the Panels Staff did their job perfectly, checked our IDs, gave us our forms, and gave us our ribbons. We had no at-con problems with evamonkey or any Panels staff. It was solely the staff managing the lines and doors at the con that gave us trouble.
3. I am not saying that our panel was totally ruined, or that our con was a waste. I, my partner, and my friends all enjoyed ourselves and had fun. I am not saying that people for whom Otakon is an amazing con are stupid. I am not saying that I will never attend Otakon again, ever, and anyone who does so is stupid. I am literally only saying that this experience has made it, for me, too much effort to attend Otakon next year. I am walking past a North End Pizzeria to get fast food pizza, to keep up my increasingly strained analogy. Indeed, I honestly hope Otakon proves me wrong next year by putting on an amazing, perfect show. I would love nothing better than to have my cynicism proven wrong, and myself publicly embarrassed on this point.
4. Many people defending Otakon, it seems, either didn’t do events, or otherwise didn’t try to do anything that was not standard for an attendee. This complaints are purely back-end things; they would not, and probably could not, have been noticed by a regular attendee, had I not mentioned them. For them, Otakon is this amazing 3-day orgy of awesome geeky fun. Hell, that’s what it was for me, once our panel was over. Props on the game room, Otakon. Props on literally everything but getting us in in such a way that we could’ve done our panel on time, as a matter of fact.

My complaints are specific, and seemingly minor to an attendee, but gamebreakers for me now.

As usual, hugs and bombs to neito@nerdramlingz.com

I’ve decided to totally straight-up steal Apreche’s idea of commenting on articles you read on your own blog. Since this blog gets barely any posts as it is, I figure it’ll also serve as something of an aggregator of things I’ve read during the day.

I was recently reading a New York Times article about abusive customers. In a rare move, I actually bothered to read the comments. This, to say the least, was a mistake. Many of the comments were of the “Yeah those people are assholes” variety, but a surprising amount were of the “The business is by default an asshole and deserve everything they get” variety. Now obviously, the first thing that’s wrong with is that you’re not really hurting the company by screaming at the person behind the counter. All you’re doing is ruining some poor person’s day for no real benefit. Oh, you got your latte for free? Well, fuck you. The second is that you look like the world’s biggest brat when you do that. Are you really so petty as to argue about a god damn two or three dollar latte? If you are, then you are a waste of a person.

Now, that’s not to say that the customer is always wrong. If I asked for a medium fry, I got charged for a medium fry, and you give me a small fry, then I’m going to point it out to you, as anyone should. However, I don’t have to get loud about it. I don’t have to call you a dicksplash or a cocksucker or a thief. At no point is it ever really a good idea to engage in that kind of childish tantrum-throwing. Even if the person behind the counter is wrong, you should act like a mature human being. Simply point it out. If there’s a line behind you, recognize that the people behind you did nothing wrong and offer to stand off to the side until it’s a little more convenient for someone to deal with your problem. If your needs aren’t being met, complain. But if the error’s on your end, back off. And if you ever feel the need to be abusive, you honestly don’t deserve service.

You know how 2pac keeps producing albums, even long after his death? It seems like Douglas Adams may be on the way to being that for books. The latest book, though not officially written in his name, is a continuation of his famous Hiktchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy series, titled And Another Thing…

(Warning, spoilers be ahead)
The book is written by the author of the Artemus Fowl series, Eion Collfer. It starts off with Ford, Aurthur, Trillian, and Random all dragged into an alternate dimension after the destruction of all Alternate Earths at the end of Mostly Harmless. After that, various things happen, Wowbagger shows up, and convinces Zaphod to convince Thor to kill him. Eventually, things happen, and the gang ends up with the last refugees from Earth as Thor smashes the imortallity out of Wowbagger, Random decides to go to school, and Aurthur ends up scouting out said school.

The Deus ex Machina of the Hitchhiker’s Guide 2.0 saving everyone kinda pissed me off, but other than that, the book is fairly solid. One of the big gripes is that it reads more like a fanfiction officially published than a continuation, and I don’t really agree with that. My biggest complaint is the flanderization of many of the characters. Ford goes from being a goofy, lackadaisical guy always on the lookout for a party to a drunk druggie who couldn’t give two wet slaps about such things as standing up. Random goes from slightly weird and pouty to a full-on Cloudkookooland goth. Aurthur goes from a slightly poorly adjusted worrywart to full-on neurotic paranoid. And, most annoyingly, Zaphod goes from clever but goofy party animal to being actively stupid in every way possible, to the point that he almost literally forgets how to pilot his ship, which he’s been using for years. Indeed, the only character who seems to come out of this with no major changes to their personality is Trillian, who, let’s face it, has not exactly been used a lot since Restaurant at the End of the Universe. They’re annoying changes, but not anything that got me to put down the book in disgust.

The plot is a bit wishy-washy, switching between various characters on a whim, such that at one point we’re with the usual gang on Nano, another time we’re on a Vogon ship watching as a single Vogon tries to save the reminder of the human race, and another point we’re on Asgard, watching Zaphod try to convince Thor of something. However, that’s pretty like the originals, which often lept around randomly before getting to the main plot.

What I can say actually pissed me off about this book is the ending. This is the only really spoilable thing about the book, so if you haven’t read it and intend to, come back to here after you’ve done so.

Ok, so my big problem with the ending is basically it’s just another excuse for Aurthur to get the world dumped on him. Aurthur gets on a hyperspace ship (which, if you read Mostly Harmless, you’ll know is not something that is good for beings from the Plural Zones like Aurthur is) and goes off to preview a school for Random. The ship blips, and Aurthur ends up next to Fenchurch, his one true love, as if they had never been apart. This all sounds well and good until you read that Aurthur is effectively trapped between dimensions, meaning nobody can see him. This was just an unnecessary, poorly written downer ending. There was no reason for that to happen, and Aurthur, knowing what he knows after losing Fenchurch and spending the better part of two years trying to make the same accident in hyperspace happen to him so he could find her, would never get on a hyperspace-bound ship, especially not after finally having the happy earthy family life he always wanted. It’s a bullshit “Oh, Aurthur, your life sucks so” ending that really ruined the book for me. Really, it pissed me off so much that I actually said, out loud, after reading it, “Fuck this shit”. It was just such a lame, contrived ending. Would it have hurt Eoin to just end it on a happy note?

Here’s a list of the anime that were shown during Will’s panel, “Craziest Moments in Mecha”.

Note: For GaoGaiGar, to avoid confusion, I felt the need to differentiate between the TV series, which is licensed in Region 1 and has been released in full, and GaoGaiGar FINAL, the OVA that ends the story, which has not.

Gurren-Lagann- Sci-Fi airing of the dub’s last scene. AKA Lagann Sandwich

Big O – Beck’s RX3 Fail

G Gundam –  Master Asia Intro

G Gundam – Love Love Tenkyoken

Mobile Suit Gundam – Brightslap

Victory Gundam – Tactical Nudity

Space Runaway Ideon – Death Montoge

Dai-Guard – Makshift Rocket Punch

Mazinger Z – Breast Missles

Xabungle – ICBM Toss

Macross 7 – Listen to my song! (Bassura jams out)

Macross 7 – Magical throat lasers restore voices. This is science.

The King of Braves: GaoGaiGar (TV) – Various Mic Sounders the 13th system change clips.

Gundam 08th MS Team – Man vs Mech

Gundam 08th MS Team – It’s not the man, it’s the machine. (Gouf Custom)

Overman King Gainer – Opener

Aquarion – Combination sequence

Aquarion – Gen Fudo introduction

One Piece – Pirate Docking Six: Big Emporor

Getter Robo G – General Hidler fight

Getter Robo Armageddon – Stoner Sunshine

Shin Getter vs Neo Getter – Texas Mack

The King of Braves: GaoGaiGar (TV) – Mic Sounders 1-12 test

The King of Braves: GaoGaiGar FINAL (OVA) – TenRyuJin Symmetrical Docking

The King of Braves: GaoGaiGar (TV) – Mic Sounders the 13th plays Disc P

The King of Braves: GaoGaiGar FINAL (OVA) – Mic Sounders the 13th plays the London Bridge

Gunbuster 2 (A.K.A. Diebuster) – Nono, the 7th buster machine, strikes!

Gunbuster – Combination and Fight

Neon Genesis Evangelion: The End of Evangelion: Complimentation. (Not shown due to time constraints)

The King of Braves: GaoGaiGar FINAL (OVA) – The final fight between Genesic GaoGaiGar and Palparepa, and the Goldion Crusher.

It’s interesting to think about how things seem like a good idea until you actually have to use them in practice. Features that you don’t put in to something, ideas you don’t think quite through, things that don’t seem to matter but do.

I’ll use, as an example, the dinky little MP3 player sitting next to my computer, charging. As MP3 players go, it does everything it needs to. It plays MP3s, it can charge, and it does, in general, everything an MP3 player should.

However, it’s interesting to see the ways in which it fails. It’s never anything too big, but the small annoyances add up to an amazingly annoying experience.

For one thing, you can’t rewind past the beginning of one file to the end of another. That may not be a huge failing, except for the fact that I listen to a lot of podcasts. Podcasts are significantly longer than an average song, even a short one. If I accidently hit ‘skip forward” or “skip backward”, which I’m doing all the time thanks to another annoyance, the fact that this device doesn’t have a “lock” switch, then I have to fast forward through the song at a rate of about 1 second of “real time” for 5 seconds of “song time”. That means if I’m say, 20 minutes into the podcast and hit “skip forward”, that means I have to deal with 4 minutes of songlessness while I’m walking to get back where I was. Petty? Yes. Minor? Yes. Annoying as all fuck? Hell yes.

Then look at the iPod. I would not be at all surprised if a significant amount of time was spent at Apple headquarters debating exactly what the right speed was for fast-forwarding and rewinding. You’re never left sitting, wondering what the fuck you’re supposed to do to get something to work. It’s laid out in an intuitive fashion that your brain can immediately parse.

Creating an interface or something of the sort isn’t as tough as people love to make it out to be. If you just spend some time thinking about it, it’s not that hard to figure out how things are going to be used, and figuring out how the most people are going to like it.