Tag: conventions

Another Dragon*Con in the books, another year of future uncertainty

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

By now, I’m pretty sure I’ve written the same post a few times over, over the last few years, as another Dragon*Con is now in the rearview mirror, and I’m left pondering on whether or not I want to go the next year, if the con is still something for a person like me, and wondering just what the heck is different between myself from absolutely everyone else who also goes, but still thinks it’s the greatest event in the world.

This isn’t to say that I thought Dragon*Con 2018 was terrible or bad by any stretch of the imagination; quite the contrary, I did enjoy myself several times throughout the weekend, I treasure the time spent with the friends that I saw, have remorse for the idea of not seeing other friends swept away in different waves amongst the alleged 75,000-82,000 attendees throughout the weekend, and I took some pictures here and there.

As we know, Dragon*Con is by no means an economical event, and if the whole experience weren’t over $700 a year, it’s kind of a no-brainer that there’s still merit to going year-in, year-out.  One of the things I often pondered if simply getting older and having life priorities shifting around has something to do with my perpetually declining enjoyment of the convention, but seeing as how there are plenty of people who are older than me, with children and/or much later stages in their lives who still think it’s the best event in the world, this is a theory that holds no weight and alternatively points at the notion that my brain the one with the hang-ups, not my age.

But as I stand now, a day removed from the convention, and having had some time to decompress and try and gather my thoughts, I’m once again left in the position on wondering if I want to bother going again next year, and teetering on that seesaw of leaning towards no.  Granted, that’s pretty much been the case every year for the last like 2-3 Dragon*Cons I’d been to, including the one before the one I took off to go cruising in Europe alternatively, but the fact of the matter is that I keep having these thoughts, because I keep seeing this pattern of wanting to go to this event that costs a lot of money and I’m not having nearly as much enjoyment out of it as I hoped I would versus the fear of missing out and letting that be one of my primary impulses to going regardless.

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I didn’t know they lasted this long

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Fun fact: my first ever job, as in real W-2 actual paycheck with taxes deducted from it job, was at a Bertucci’s, as a bus boy.  I had just gotten my license, so I was told to get a job immediately, and considering that I wanted money, I was more than willing to comply.  I applied just about everywhere, and Bertucci’s was the place that pretty much hired me first, so it was there did I get my feet wet in the official working world.

I learned about Friday dinner rushes, shitty management, asshole servers who lied about their tip reporting in order to short the tip out to the bussers, that dishwashing paid better than bussing and kept you away from the customers, and that in the food service industry it’s everyone versus management amid the patrons.

It was similar to Waiting… the film, long before the film ever came to fruition.  Despite the fact that I knew how often they lied on their tip declarations, thus screwing me out of my share of tips, I had a decent relationship with several of the servers, one of whom died while I was working there from a hard-living life of alcohol and obesity while not at work (he fell down some stairs to his death).  But we all hated the managers, Larry (the Fairy (he wasn’t gay (I think)), just kind of fruity) and the asshole assistant manager named Enio who blatantly tried to short peoples’ pay, probably stole tips, and was just generally a piece of shit, and it was through this unity that made work not suck all the time.

Either way, I worked there for three months, saving up money for Anime Expo 1998, and then the Sunday before I left for California, I got a frantic phone call from Larry the Fairy, demanding that I come in to work, despite not being on the schedule.  At the time, I was sharing a car with my sister, and she had it and was out, not to mention that I didn’t want to fucking work on a day I wasn’t scheduled for, so I explained that I had no car, and thus could not come in.  Larry the Fairy yelled that I needed to come in regardless and hung up on me, and I shrugged and sat back down at my computer and didn’t go in to work.

Two weeks later, I rolled into Bertucci’s for my Saturday shift, and didn’t see my name on the calendar, or any other future dates.  I asked Larry the Fairy what was up, and he brusquely told me that my no-showing my unscheduled demand to come to work was interpreted as my resignation from employment.  I kind of scrunched my brow, but remembered that working at Bertucci’s absolutely blew and just said “okay,” went into the office to get my last paycheck, and walked out without any shits left to give.

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Photos: Momo-con 2017

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

[2020 note] This is more or less lost content that I never made a post about from 2017.  But it’s basically the photo dump of all the photos I took at Momo-con that year, and because I imagine photo galleries are the one thing that never gets old from the rando-internet traveller, they’ll always have some relevance on the web.

I vaguely remember this was the first time I was getting to use my new L-series lens at a convention, and thinking how heavy it was, but the photo quality that came from it was worth it, as I had some photoshoots of mythical then-gf in her Sweetheart Annie costume, as well as my famiry friends rocking Bioshock cosplay.

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Photos: A tiny Vegas trip

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Literally, two weeks ago, a close friend of mine messaged me out of the blue to tell me that she was getting married in Vegas.  Initially, she assumed I was already going to be in Vegas because of Otakon Ve(r)gas, but pffh I don’t don’t really go to conventions anymore, much less the ones run by friends.  I had no intention of going out to Vegas for OV, but to be there for a good friend’s wedding?

Not to mention an Elvis wedding?  Totally worth it.

Thankfully, I was able to find some reasonable travel and lodging accommodations, and was able to make it out to Vegas this past weekend, in spite of the last-minute nature.  The wedding itself was everything I thought it would be; short, succinct and to no real surprise, the Elvis impersonator himself was really mediocre.  He didn’t do the voice, barely any mannerisms, and nary was there more than like two lip curls.

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Social media discretion

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

I’m by nature a pretty cynical person.  Yeah, I know that that’s not necessarily the greatest personality trait to admit to, but it’s kind of true.  Thoughts go through my mind all the time whenever I see certain things, and it’s often times a mental scale being weighed on whether or not I should say them, or express them on social media.  I thought about it today, and if I had to place a number on the thoughts that I don’t say, I’d would probably venture something like 85-90% of thoughts that might come off as cynically skeptical do not make it through the pipes and out of my mouth or typed by my fingers.

As a sample, here’s a thought I had that I’ll share on my brog because only six people read it, but wouldn’t share on social media, because that would paint me publicly as a curmudgeon:

Nobody who’s already been to a prior Comic Con actually envies those who are going for the present one.

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Two cents on this con harassment story

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

I’m already disenchanted with the convention scene as a whole, and then there’s this story that’s been rampantly circulating that’s really driving home the fact that I’m beginning to really hate the scene as a whole at times, due to the rampant, well, people problem that seems to be pervading them more often than naught these days.

The thing is, I’m not even going to provide any links to it, because frankly I don’t think it really needs any more attention than it’s already getting; frankly, the fact that I’m posting about it in the first place isn’t helping quell the attention it’s getting, but it’s on my mind a lot lately, and I wanted to write about it regardless.

Long story short is that there’s a girl who dressed up at MomoCon over the weekend, claims she was touched inappropriately as well as groped, and when she voiced her disapproval to the convention itself, there are accusations that the convention told her that basically she brought it unto herself for wearing such a revealing costume in the first place, and that they harassed her to cover up and change.

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When I grow weary of the convention scene

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

I didn’t really enjoy MomoCon that much.  It’s not because MomoCon was executed poorly, quite the contrary, but it’s mostly two-fold to why I personally didn’t really have much of a great time.  One, my head wasn’t in really a great place, and hasn’t been in one for a little while for reasons I have yet to really discuss with others, and two, I simply felt like I was kind of too old or something, to really get much enjoyment out of a convention.

And I guess three, everybody I knew who was there was either on staff, an exhibitor, or a guest that had their own obligations to fulfill, so I spent an inordinate amount of time by myself, wandering around, and struggling to find things that I wanted to take pictures of.

Ultimately, I think I’m a little over the convention scene as a whole, and not just singling MomoCon out, because when the day is over, I know quite a few people who work and run MomoCon, and I have nothing but good things to say about them, their work, and their dedication to pulling off a convention the size of MomoCon, to which I remember its earlier days, when it was literally held at the Georgia Tech recreation hall.

But I really do feel that it boils down to the fact that I’m growing if not already grown, weary of the convention scene as a whole, and I’m not sure what lies ahead for me in regards to future conventions.  I’ve already decided that after this year’s Dragon*Con, I won’t be going to next year’s, because I want to actually miss it for a change, and I think I could allocate the $1,000+ spent on hotel and expenditures might be better spent towards like a big international trip or something dramatically different.

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