You can check out Day One over here!
Day 2
Friday, I leave my day job in Barrie and head to Mississauga for the con…only to find out there has been a snafu with the passes for our podcast. Due to some pestering, arguing, yelling and what I was told “a bit of bamboo going under a few finger nails”, our passes are secured…but slightly different then what we were planning. I unfortunately miss Anime Hell (a great piece of programming involving weird Japanese film and television stuff) but no matter, I have my pass and I’m ready for day 3!
Day 3
Wake up bright and early and I head to TATANS HQ to pick up my co-host Adam. Adam also happens to be on another podcast called the Anime Roundtable (the official podcast of Anime North) so we are going to be at the con the entire day. This is going to be good…but long.
Now TATANS is not your regular podcast crew; we don’t set up in a dealer’s room, we set up in the lobby of one of the host hotels! It might sound kind of odd but we’ve found that since AN is a fan run con, it’s best to talk to the fans instead of actual guests. Best place to do that is in the hotel. Not a huge amount of traffic but enough to make it easy to grab people for brief chats. We do the show with the lovely Ashley MacDonald (if you listen to our show, you’ll know this poor woman got a terrible nickname from us last year but she was awesome enough to come in and co-host for the AN episode). We see a couple of great costumes from various video games and anime, dodge a few security questions and wrap up and hit the convention itself.
If you have never been to Anime North, it is a feast for the eyes. Good looking people, horrible looking people, people of every race, people offering free hugs, people in costumes that are awesome but make little sense for AN (a steampunk Ghostbuster was a particular favorite), just people everywhere!
Adam and I entered the dealers room to take a look around. Adam found a few deals, I didn’t see anything. Adam’s taste in anime is interesting in the fact that he prefers cutesy girly anime.
Not really an issue, just thought I’d mention it.
We get out of the dealer’s room, have some lunch and discover we have HOURS to kill. One word rings true in both our minds.
Beer.
We head to the local Kelsey’s with our friend Evan and have a few pints. The crew from the Conventioneers enters about a half an hour later and we exchange a few stories and wish each other luck with the rest of the day’s work.
Hours later, Anime Roundtable time!
As I mentioned earlier, The Anime Roundtable (hosted by Mike Nicolas) is Anime North’s official podcast and it’s pretty good, especially when they do a show at Anime North. A small but loyal crowd comes in for the show and away they go. A good mix of news and general nonsense (mostly provided by my co-host), always worth seeing.
We finally get out of there around 2:30am Sunday morning. I drive Adam back to TATANS HQ and head home.
Day 4
…urgh…too….tired….too…many…cosplayers….SLEEP zzzzzzzzzz
Brent Chittenden is a Canadian freelance writer who also happens to write humorous things for Bite TV’s blog. If you have need of his services you can reach him at [email protected], twitter at @BCNerdhole and his podcast Two Assholes Talking About Nerd Stuff. Feel free to become a fan of him at his Facebook group Brent Chittenden: The Writer.
