Animefest, all grown up

You win some, you lose some.

I took a risk on this video and I should have either played it later in the night or not played it at all.

Too quiet,
too slow,
too hard to read
on the back row.

It had pretty much the same effect as the driving scene in Tarkovsky's Solaris. It's a learning experience for us all.

This was really the show I was the most worried about, as Anime Fest is the bigger show of the year, and the oldest audience. Luckily, I had Eileen from PONG along with me, and--like me--when you hit a certain age and weight as a woman, you're free to do pretty much whatever the hell you want.

Our technical issues were pretty much finding a cable long enough. The solution I bought shortly after A-Kon worked very well to join two cables and boost the signal, so we did fine there. It didn't dig much off the audio, so we had a slight hum during the show, but I think it all worked out OK. As per usual, the staff we had for the room were more than helpful and helped move tables around, re-positioned the screen for us, and were all around awesome.

Other from that? What an great show. Came out strong, got hot with some meteors, gamed out with some punks, and we even had some fun with some old ads, including a personal, local favorite. I had no idea electronics ads from the 70s would do so well. It's all stuff Danno and I had talked about, but it was interesting to see it in action.

Besides Eileen stepping up to the plate on this show, I think our real star was Katie. Y'all already know and love Katie, but I think this weekend she did something really special. We've done the Hard Gay pose-off before, but you have to remember that Hard Gay is always trying to make things better for people. It's a big part of why those videos are called "Social Improvement" videos. Katie had our contestants do the pose-off and then asked them, "If you were Hard Gay, how would you make your community better?"

This totally changed the contest.

One guy talked about how he would encourage others to find the Hard Gay inside themselves, one talked about encouraging children, one guy: "Five words: Hard Gay Soup Kitchen, FOOOOOO!" (He won, BTW, and for extra prizes, took two noodle packets.) We had one fellow who--yeah, his dance wasn't all that exciting--but his Hank Hill impersonation was dead on and that made all the difference.

And the audience loved every moment of it. Once I've got the video, I'll get that posted.

We tried similar with the Camay walk of "What soap would you recommend?" but that that didn't hit as well.

Nonetheless, this was the first year we've done this without Danno, and that we still had folk in the audience at 12:45 (show started at 10), I'm going to take as a positive. It was a good learning experience and I want to thank everyone who came to the show and stayed through our rough spots. We know a lot more about what to do and how to do it and I'm pretty confident we'll be giving you guys great shows for many years to come.



Oh yeah, I found my glasses. And the case. I need to let Lost and Found know everything is fine. Sorry I threatened an imaginary kid who had stolen them. I was probably just angry about having wet pants from the sudden thunderstorm. Every con should start with a shower.

Views from AnimeFest 2014

Video shot by Avery Davies

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AnimeHELL at AnimeFEST 2012

This Labor Day Weekend!  It's AnimeHELL at AnimeFEST!  We'll be bring lots of candy, prizes and Hell Nurse Katie to Dallas on Sunday, September 2nd! Doors open at 10pm in Panel Room 6! So bring a friend and practice your Camay Walk!

Anime Fest 2011: The Curse Has Been Lifted

A lot of people asked about this piece after the show, so here it is, so you can share with your friends.

Plus, we totally suck for not putting up a post letting everyone know about ANIME HELL at Anime Fest tonight. We were in panel room 6 and you WILL NOT believe what went wrong at the show tonight.

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Nothing. Nothing went wrong. At all.

Well, there was one minor hiccup. Dan and Ed came by the house at around five, and we attempted to do sukiyaki. We had decided against the raw egg dip, so it was really pseudosukiyaki, but the entire thing was a disaster anyway, because a fondue pot will never produce the kind of heat you need for that. Keep that in mind if you ever decide to do pseudosukiyaki: no fondue pot. We moved the entire operation into the kitchen, which annoyed the cats, because ONLY CATS EAT IN THE KITCHEN.

Anyway, that pretty much sucked the bad luck out of the night. It's not that it was wrong per se, it just wasn't what I had hoped.

But as we were packing up and getting ready to head out the door, we got a call from the AV staff at A-Fest, letting us know that the room was empty and ready for us to come on down and make sure everything was going to work.

And everything did work. We had the most awesomest AV crew and staff was super-cool about everything, helping getting the stage turned so we could see what was going on, making sure there was a fifth mic for Katie, showing us the light pre-sets so we could get the house-lights up when we needed...

And thank-you, Spam, for getting us water. That really helped a lot. You have no idea. Sorry that kid shoved you during the Hard Gay pose-off and tried to make out with your buddy.

We opened with TV SHOW, which is kind of about what we do here.

Spike Spencer sat in with us for a while (on a dare, I heard) and I hope we did not hurt him too much. You were a good sport, Spike. Thanks for joining in on the madness.

We had a great audience, a great crew, and a great time. Your "Yatta" dance was one of the best I've seen in a long time and you, the audience, are why we do this show.

Dinner at Sushi World was, as always, wonderful.

We did not try to have sukiyaki, however.

Now, before I forget all over again, anyone who was asking about my shirt tonight. It's the Simplicity pattern 3852, and the fabric is similar to this, but on a black background. Someone had asked me before the show and I totally forgot to touch-base with you afterwards.

Also, sorry again to the kid I beaned with the candy cigarettes. Those things are dangerous!