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My #DragonCon 2010 Report, Part 1 of 3: The Good
Sep 8th
Believe it or not, I normally don’t plan to go to Dragon*Con each year. When I do go, I’m usually only there for a day or two at the most. This year, though, I did the “full” Dragon*Con weekend experience by showing up on on the first day of the event and leaving on the last.
IMPORTANT NOTE FOR ANY LURKING BOT-TARDS: A few years back, Wasabi Anime talked to Dragon*Con about having DARE! The Transformers Panel Ultimate make an appearance and we were turned down. Strangely enough, I still think Dragon*Con is a great convention… which must mean only one thing: That’s right, BotCon was a weak convention on it’s own.
Moving on… I’ve broken my Dragon*Con report into three parts: the good, the bad and the ugly. Here’s a breakdown of the good stuff that happened last weekend.
- While in Atlanta, Georgia I took the time to eat at Gladys and Ron’s Chicken & Waffles. (Post regarding this coming next week.)
- I ran into LeVar Burton in the elevator our first night at the Hilton and we talked Twitter while a somewhat intoxicated Joey Snackpants proclaimed in a less than subtle fashion “OH MY GOD IT’S LEVAR BURTON!”
- That same night, I bought Edward James Olmos dinner at Trader Vic’s and Mr. Olmos then convinced Joey Snackpants to watch the new Battlestar Galactica. Read that story here.
- My Favorite DC Tweet: @TomCroom thinks nothing says #fail more than a Power Girl cosplay with less than a B cup. #DragonCon
- We went to a great Stargate panel… and (it seemed) that I pissed of John de Lancie with my question. Read this and then watch this. That aside, Christopher Judge is a RIOT and needs his own panel next year.
- I spent an evening walking around with a bunch of Stargate cosplayers (including Shannon, Katie McAwesome and Joey Snackpants) and wound up at the Stargate Charity Party. While going from hotel to hotel that night, I had someone recognize me from events I host at Florida SuperCon.
- We ate chicken nachos not once, but TWICE! at the Metro Café Diner.
- I had my photo taken with Scott Bakula and Dean Stockwell. QUANTUM LEAP AWESOMENESS.
- I tracked down Paul Dini via his Twitter posts so Shannon could have him sign her Harley Quinn books. Social Networking WIN.
- We went to a second Stargate panel. Going to more than one panel at Dragon*Con is extremely rare with my group… crazy!
- I met Drew Curtis from FARK. I bought a book from him, he signed it, and we made fun of Florida together. Good times.
- I got to see a couple of friends around the convention including “Uncle” George Lowe and Erin Gray… both great people.
- After being friends with my wife and a number of the Wasabi Anime staff AND being on my Facebook, I met Brian from Making Mischief for the first time (in person) in five years.
- After about two years of talking online, I met Kelly from Convention Fans in person for the first time.
- I also met fellow Twitter users @SarahNFisk and @EricaDodd at the convention in person. It’s fun using the Interwebz to meet get to know new people. Even more interesting: Sarah had a a friend she was meeting in one of the hotels that night… and her friend’s roommates in the hotel were my friends Angie and Tentacle Chris. (insert It’s a Small World theme here.)
- My other favorite Dragon*Con tweet: @thatDJSpider: ‘steampunk: when goths discovered brown’ #dragoncon
- A record THREE panels! We went to the Battlestar Galactica one, too.
- We went to the Stargate Charity Auction and Joey Snackpants scored an actual prop from Stargate SG-1.
- I met and got autographs from Michael Shanks and Ben Browder. Michael and I discussed our successful marriages while Ben and I discussed the fact that John de Lancie is a “serious” man who doesn’t answer questions about fast food restaurants.
- Before leaving town… we had dinner at a Zaxby’s. (I love that place.)
As you can see, it was a busy weekend at Dragon*Con 2010. Tomorrow’s post… The Masquerade.
So How Did My First Day of #GenCon Go? Read on…
Aug 6th
This weekend I am in Indianapolis, Indiana in an attempt to take Shannon to one more city we have never been to so she can buy another Hard Rock Cafe teddy bear, thus bringing the collection to 24 bears.
Oh yeah, and there’s some sort of gaming convention going on here, too.
Wasabi Anime is at Gen Con, the LARGEST GAMING CONVENTION EVER, hosting anime events. (click here.)
I’m not going to lie; I was a little nervous about doing this. Anime at a table top gaming show? Would we get pelted with dice by pissed off fanboys angered by my team and I infecting their weekend with Japanese cartoon stuff? I kept a green D20 in my pocket… just in case.
All my fears were laid to rest, though, after yesterday.
Twitter has been a great tool for us this weekend. As a matter of fact, Joey Snackpants went to a local pub named Scotty’s Brewhouse wearing his Wasabi Anime shirt, and one of the restaurant staff recognized him from being part of Wasabi Anime via Twitter. Ah – this Interwebz.
On a side note: Joey said the Brewhouse did a KICK ASS job catering to the local Gen Con folks. If you read this and are at Gen Con this weekend – you should most definitely check them out.
Speaking of Twitter, we did DARE! The Transformers Panel Ultimate to a room full of Transformers fans. I explained, in detail, why Beast Wars sucks and the audience agreed. (We have since had folks chanting “Beast Wars Sucks!” when they see us in the hallways.) Then Joey and I saw this post on Twitter…
Enjoyed @WasabiAnime ‘s #Transformers seminar at #gencon. If not for my bum foot, would have loved a 3 hour by them.
It’s good to read that the local gamers are digging our material. 
We hosted Grand Theft Anime later in the evening. I can’t remember the last time we performed that particular game show at a convention, but MAN that game is fun. The audience loved it. The odd part (for us at least) was the fact that the contestants were able to answer more of the anime trivia questions than folks at anime conventions usually do. It was crazy, strange and awesome at the same time.
The highlight of yesterday, though, was Mystery Anime Theater 3000. Joey Snackpants and I left our hotel to go to the panel (which would involve us lovingly ripping into the Sailor Moon R movie). Our expectation was to share some jokes with a couple of dozen Moonies who would stop by for a couple of chuckles.
We were both VERY shocked to see the line out front of the panel room when we got there and the realized that they are there for Wasabi Anime. Many of the faces seemed familiar from earlier in the day and, it seemed, we had already started building a local fan base at the show. By the time we started the movie, the room was STANDING ROOM ONLY. The audience was involved, laughing and all had a great time with us.
As a lot of my staff know, I haven’t been into table top gaming since my late teens – so when the Gen Con opportunity presented itself, I was on the fence about accepting it and coming. The amazing feedback and warm welcomes we received from the Gen Con attendees, though, have quickly turned this Florida geek into a Gen Con fanboy.
Now on to day two…
The Ballad of #BotCon continues…
Jul 19th
I got back from Colorado late last night, and I’ve been swamped with getting things together for about a dozen projects. Plus, I have a bunch of great photos to post and (to top it all off) the A/C is broken in the house. True story. It died while we were out of town, it seems, and it is currently 88 degrees while I’m typing this. The A/C guy will be here tomorrow.
That said, I thought the whole BotCon aka BotFAIL arguments had subsided. Joey and I wrote our review. Silly BotCon kids got their panties in bunch. Traffic to my blog spiked. Zaniness ensued. It seems, though, that the issues with the review have extended to a new faction: people upset that we piss on their beloved Transformers series: Beast Wars. Take this brainchild from Twitter:
@TomCroom You hate Beast Wars? You know, BW was somebody’s favorite childhood show, maybe somebody too young to have seen G1
@TomCroom Of course, that was too subtle. What I meant to say was “suck it”.
Cute. The Gobots was someone’s favorite show from my childhood, too – but that didn’t stop it from sucking. As anyone who has ever attended one of the DARE! panels can tell you, I am NOT a nostalgically blinded geek. I point out the good (and the bad) in much of G1 along with newer shows like Robots in Disguise and Animated.
Thus – you’re talking out of your ass. Douche.
Next up is just a whole new level of Interwebz fun. Someone referenced the whole thing in a webcomic. Seriously.
You should go read the whole thing on the author’s website. It’s chuckle-worthy, but he got the Grimlock bit wrong. We have hosted with Gregg Berger, the voice of Grimlock… BUT, Joey and I talked tonight and we’re not opposed to hosting an entire panel talking like Grimlock.
I can see it now…
“Me Tom think Beast Wars still sucks!”
“Me Snackpants hate Bayformers and want to smash!”
Also, for the record, I have blue eyes.
So why does Beast Wars suck? Great question – and one I’ll never answer on this blog. That material is reserved for DARE! The Transformers Panel Ultimate – scheduled for many quality conventions in the coming future including Gen Con, Anime Festival Orlando and (tentatively) Anime Weekend Atlanta.
So keep posting replies, arguing on forums and writing your web comics; none of that will change the fact that BotCon was a weak convention and a good trade show.
The BotCon Chronicles…
Jul 11th
The story to far…
1. Around the end of last year, I got word that BotCon, the Hasbro sponsored official Transformers convention, would be coming to Orlando, Florida. My friend Joey Snackpants and I became as giddy as schoolgirls at a Twilight movie premiere.
2. We contacted the convention offering to bring a “local flavor” to the show with the copyrighted trademarked patent pending universal awesomeness of “DARE! The Transformers Panel Ultimate”… our uniquely unique Transformers fan panel that has been featured at dozens of conventions in the Florida/Georgia area.
3. After a number of “please stand by” emails – we finally heard back with “no thank you” less than six weeks before the show.
4. Since we weren’t performing at BotCon, we took up an offer from the pop culture website You Bent My Wookie to go as press and write a review of our experience.
5. Joey Snackpants drove south. I drove north. We went to BotCon. We wrote this.
6. Not happy with our less than stellar review of thier show, BotCon fans found the YBMW review AND my original post criticizing BotCon regarding #4 (above.) Arguments ensued on my blog in this post.
7. Using the power of the Interwebz, I found the source of people finding my old blog post… it seems it was born out of this thread on the All Spark forums. (subsequent digging have also tracked that the blog post has been linked in member messages to and from folks at TransformersClub.com)
So there we are. I took some time to read some of the forum posts on the All Spark forums – and I found this gem from a BotCon STAFF member:
Pete@BotCon
Registered attendees always will take priority. It is all of you who support the convention, the local hotels, the eateries and so on and thus help us continue to churn out conventions and toys.
It reminds me of a scene from The Wedding Singer…
Billy Idol
One of our first class passengers would like to sing you a song inspired by one of our coach passengers. And since we let our first class passengers do, pretty much whatever they want, here he is…
A lot of the BotCon attendees have started to freak out and take offense to my insinuation that there is an air of elitism in the BotCon ranks and that the show doesn’t really cater to the “off the street” casual Transformers non-toy collecting fans. HELLO. (See above quotes.)
People keep resorting to diversionary Internet argument styles reminiscent of LiveJournal circa 2004… that is, they are trying to hinge their “argument” off of opinions OR facts that have nothing to do with what is presented while AVOIDING the key things that were brought up. Or they just post idiotic shit like this loser so his Twitter so his five followers can read it. FAIL.
So for all of you posting in this thread on my blog and visiting lurkers from AllSpark.com and TransformersClub.com… this is for you.
FACT: In the YBMW review (and related blog posts) we are talking about BotCon 2010. A number of you keep telling me how great the other BotCon conventions have been for years and (quite bluntly) I DON’T GIVE A SHIT. I reviewed BotCon 2010… not 2009, not 2008, and none of the years previous. The more you tell me how great the other years truly were, the more you are helping justify my opinion that this year’s show was WEAK.
FACT: BotCon only provided two rooms of entertainment for attendees – a dealers room and a panels room. This is BELOW AVERAGE for a fandom convention, thus the formultion of my opinion that BotCon presents itself as more of a TRADE SHOW.
FACT: BotCon did not have tickets on sale for their event online until (approximately) May 18th – which is barely a month out from June 24th (the start of BotCon) – a mere 36 days from the show… and not ALL the tickets. General admission was only available at the door. BotCon has been doing conventions for YEARS and yet the local “mom and pop” amateur shows seem to be able to get their act together sooner than that.
FACT: Speaking of tickets online, BotCon failed to disclose ALL of their pricing information in advance. Nowhere on the site did it state that there is an additional fee of $25 for an autograph AFTER paying $50 for an early admission ticket. Hence the perception of gouging attendees for money!
FACT: Speaking of information in advance, the BotCon schedule of events wasn’t announced until less than an month from the show. (See my comment a couple of facts back about the whole “amateur shows in Florida have been doing it better for years!” comments.) BotCon isn’t San Diego Comic Con; they’re not juggling 125,000 people – thus a schedule in advance shouldn’t be this hard!
FACT: Approximately 35% of the event schedule posted by BotCon was merely “autograph sessions.” Add in the fact that they list the load in times for dealers and related non-attendee useful information and it is EASY to come to the conclusion that the schedule is PADDED to look busier that it was.
Face it folks… those of you who spend the money you do on the BotCon trade show do so for collecting toys – NOT for a convention experience. I don’t know who is to blame in the end: Hasbro, the Convention promotors, or the complacency of the fans who keep handing over their money year after year.
In the end, though, Joey said it right: BotCon was BotFAIL this year.
“It’s A Small World After All” or “Let me tell you about yesterday!”
May 9th
In order to perpetuate the image that I am always doing something (so much “something” that I’ve barely had time to write about it), I spent Saturday galavanting across Orlando, Florida for a variety of reasons. First up: a couple of friends of mine got married six months ago and decided to host a wonderful wedding party at the Mennello Museum. As you can see, they are a very shy and conservative couple…
Congrats to Seth & Genevieve! I wish them years of happiness!!!
NOTE the paper mushrooms on the ground around them and in this photo. Seth mentioned something about a world wide thing taking place in the month of May. (Seth – if you read this, send me a link and I’ll post a clarification OR if anyone else knows that it is, reply and let me know!)
EDIT: Seth contacted me with the info about “The Spore Project”.
You can read abou it here: http://dougrhodehamel.wordpress.com/2010/01/01/spore-project-3/
You can SEE it here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/dougrhodehamel/sets/72157623113901730/
Now here’s the “It’s A Small World After All” part: I have a lot of friends that I have never met in person because we have become acquainted with one another via the blogosphere and social networking. One such person is Kelly aka “DreadPirateRose” from The Convention Fans Blog. Check this out:
Sadly, I didn’t read this until AFTER the wedding. It’s still a great example of how much smaller the world has become thanks to technology. Friends of friends of friends on the Interwebz. Crazy, man. Crazy.
After that, I attended a dinner meeting about our upcoming trip to Cancun, Mexico for a convention and then found my way to Jellyrolls with Joey Snackpants, Katie McAwesome and some other friends. Heavy drinking and zaniness ensued. Drunk texting is soooooooo 2005 – so now it’s all about Twitter! My best drunk tweet?
We found our way back home late last night – and the Mrs. is still asleep. (Don’t worry, I already called both our moms on her behalf.)
Special thanks to Anime Sushi (& Megacon!)
Mar 16th
Yes – the title of this blog post is tongue in cheek. That said, I did hear that Megacon was well attended and a good time was had by those who went. Kudos to Beth and her team on another successful year.
So why the obviously sarcastic title since (as many of you know) I am not a fan of Anime Sushi nor are they fans of me? It all has to do with this Twitter post:
http://twitter.com/TomCroom/status/7113327753
To get the full impact of the tweet, though, you need the complete story…
WAY BACK IN DECEMBER OF 2008
Everyone makes mistakes. Ask the Wasabi Anime staff and many of us will chuckle about some of our favorite typos and blunders when producing ads/flyers for our events. The one that most immediately comes to mind is the mystical month of “Devember”. We accidentally misspelled December when 5000 flyers were printed for an event we were working with about three or four years ago. The Wasabi Anime team passed all the flyers out at local conventions and giggled about it the whole time. It has since become our unofficial thirteenth month. As a matter of fact, it is still the year 2009 according to the Wasabi Anime Staff Calendar.
The point being, even we know when to laugh at ourselves.
Well, in December of 2008 I got my Megacon advertising book that gets mailed out each year to everyone on their previous attendee list. While looking to see if there were any guests of interest, I came across the two page spread for Anime Sushi’s anime events. I read through their descriptions and noticed that whoever had produced the ad had misspelled Anime Sushi’s website without the “e” – so it read www.animsushi.com.
Not once. Twice.
Seriously.
I (and many of the Wasabi Anime team) have misspelled some pretty funny things in our time, but if there’s ONE THING we’ve always made sure to get right it’s our website address – especially in print.
After some thought on the matter, I decided to give GoDaddy.com ten dollars and secure www.animsushi.com. I set up a one page website that told folks that there was a typo, and directed visitors to the correct address for Anime Sushi’s website. (After about 30 seconds the web page auto forwarded to the correct Anime Sushi site even if you didn’t click the link.)
Problem solved… or so you’d think.
GRAB YOUR TIN FOIL HAT, FOLKS!
Well, it seems that the fine folks at Anime Sushi took this action as an affront to their club and it turned into an OMGDRAMAZ. I heard this (of course) third hand when it blew up with someone who I had regarded, up until that point, as a casual friend acting like a total douchebag and calling my best friend to bitch about the website, me and Wasabi Anime while said best friend was driving hundreds of miles so see both of us and other friends for a Christmas party. It was that single “winner” move that pretty much put that person onto my ”don’t talk to me – you fucking annoy me” list.
It should also be noted that this wasn’t the first time I contacted Anime Sushi regarding a mistake. You know that 468 by 60 Megacon costume contest banner they use? It’s the same one they’ve used for a few years now. The first time they posted it, it had the misspelled word CUSTOME instead of COSTUME. I emailed one of Anime Sushi’s officers (whom I knew) to let them know strictly out of courtesy since I would hope someone would do the same for me in a similar circumstance.
Again – I (and others at Wasabi Anime) have gotten emails about typos in the past. We giggle at ourselves and correct the problem… and move on. We also try to avoid the same mistake twice.
WAY BACK IN DECEMBER OF 2009
Last December I got an email from GoDaddy.com letting me know that www.animsushi.com was about to expire. I had completely forgotten about the domain and seeing no use for it, I chose not to renew.
A week later, I was exploring the Megacon website and took the time to read the anime events page. While hovering over the hyper links for Anime Sushi’s website, I noticed something that left me completely dumbfounded: while the correct address was in the text of the site, the hyper link address for Anime Sushi’s website was spelled incorrectly. Whoever had coded the page had gotten it wrong. How was it spelled? You guessed it:
www.animsushi.com
This bring us back to my Twitter post. I noticed the website mistake on December 28th – and after some thought, I went back and coughed up another ten dollars to buy back the domain. My initial thought was to try and contact Anime Sushi and offer to transfer the domain to them and tell them of the error. They obviously just needed to keep it around for (what was appearing to be) a pretty consistent typo. I then thought about how the key members of Anime Sushi have always reacted to these things in the past… and I decided to save myself the headache of dealing with them. Instead, I just forward the domain to the Wasabi Anime website.
Only three others shared this secret — my friends the Sorceress, Man-at-Arms, and Orko. I eventually shared it with a fourth person – but all of them have, at my request, kept this private. There was debate as to whether or not to go public with it right before or right after Megacon. There was even discussion about whether or not to go public at all.
It seems, though, that the error WAS finally discovered by SOMEONE. Last Thursday (the day before Megacon) we tracked our final hits to the Wasabi Anime website from Megacon’s site:
So from December 28th, 2009 to March 11th, 2010 – Anime Sushi and Megacon have been supplying GreenMustard.com with a steady flow of website traffic.
After two years in a row, it’s safe to say that keeping an annual $10 investment for a regular traffic bump for first quarter of the year is probably worth it.
So it goes.
Two Ford related responses from yesterday…
Feb 26th
Yesterday I posted about the events surrounding my issues with Ford Motor Company and a couple of their dealerships. Since then, I have received two responses of note.
THE FIRST RESPONSE was from Scott Monty who works in Global Digital Communications for Ford Motor Company. Scott left the following reply to the aforementioned post:
Very sorry to hear you had this experience from our dealers. Due to them being independently owned and operated, our influence is a little limited. I’ve got an internal team taking a look at your situation in a little more detail. Expect to hear from someone shortly.
I did take the time to confirm his identity via Twitter – and he’s the “real deal.” I still haven’t heard back from anyone at Ford as of this morning, but I intend to keep an eye on my inbox and phone today.
THE SECOND RESPONSE came in the form of an unsigned email from a person alleging to be a tech at a Ford dealership. Here’s the email with my response below:
Hello,Interesting story. It seems a little misinformation was at the root of all of this. I am a tech at a Ford dealer, so I have a little insight to the “other side of the story”. First, to my experience, a lot of stripes are dealer add ons. They are nothing more than vinyl tape when it comes down to it. I am gettin the feeling that the “problem” was likely a MINOR issue, if an issue at all. New car, fine. There are seas of paperwork and info on a dealerships end, so “a simple phone call” isn’t quite such a simple thing. I deal with a lot of these “issues”, and often, the owners are the only problem. Not sure how warranty works on dealer installed stripes, either. USUALLY there is an addendum on the new vehicle invoice stating the stripes were dealer installed and the additional cost for that. Maybe they just did it and didn’t say anything, who knows. Either way, it is a stripe. Pretty minor, subtle aspect of the vehicle which doesn’t effect anything except appearance, maybe. I guess my problem is you are calling a FAIL on Ford, for something that is rooted at the dealer where you bought it. If dealers messed with every little petty complaint like this, man. Go back to the dealer where you bought it and make them take care of it. If they won’t they you’re pretty much outta luck. If the biggest complaint you have about the car is a spot on an add-on stripe, Ford is doing pretty well. Have fun.
HERE IS THE REPLY I emailed last night:
Thanks for writing.
While I appreciate the insight, there are a couple of things I’d like you to strongly think about:
Having never owned a car with racing stripes, I was not aware that most stripes are dealer add-ons. Regardless of that fact, a there has been a lot of press lately regarding a lack of full disclosure in financial dealings with the American public: predatory financing in the housing market, bad credit card practices, etc. As a matter of fact, the two aforementioned issues have recently seen a backlash from their actions (housing collapse and changes in credit card laws just last week.) That said – I repeat (and amend)… Having never owned a car with racing stripes, I was not aware that most stripes are dealer add-ons; nor was this explained to me when I bought my $34,000 sports car.
I agree with you that racing stripes are a MINOR issue – but that’s not the problem I’ve presented in my post. The problem is that it is becoming a MAJOR issue to get the minor issue fixed. Ford can push it off as “dealer responsibility” all they want, but the reality of it is that these actions are tarnishing THEIR brand.
To simplify my contention (which you seem to disagree with): I am calling FAIL on Ford because 1.) I was sold a brand new Ford product by a representative of their brand that is in need of repair and 2.) instead of conveniently fixing the problem they are forcing myself & my wife to take time off of work and drive, literally, hundreds of miles to take care of it because “it’s the dealer’s problem.” I expect to have to mail in my Xbox 360 if something goes wrong with a $400 piece of hardware, but I expect (as should anyone) a little more consideration for a $34,000 vehicle.
TWO THINGS in your email really bother me if they are (truly) part of the culture of working for Ford…
• “I deal with a lot of these ‘issues’, and often, the owners are the only problem.”
• “Go back to the dealer where you bought it and make them take care of it. If they won’t they you’re pretty much outta luck.”
If that is the attitude toward paying customers that Ford, the most successful American car company, has, then it’s no wonder the Japanese have taken over the market. (http://www.consumerreports.org/cro/cars/new-cars/buying-advice/who-makes-the-best-cars/overview/index.htm).
In closing, I would like to make it abundantly clear that I LOVE my Ford Mustang GT. I think that’s why this is all the more disappointing since it feels that Ford doesn’t feel the same way about their product.
Best wishes,
Tom Croom
www.tomcroom.com
