Sunday, August 10, 2003

Otakon report:

I had a great time with Saalon, but the con itself was a disappointment. Most of they anime showed was already out or uninteresting, the dealer’s room was pretty much obsolete in this age of internet anime merchants, and the con was packed with overexcited anime fans. It was that last which really ruined it; I can live with a merely average con, but when you’re surrounded by pasty-faced geeks who either scurry from one darkened room to another or WHOOP! whenever they see someone cosplaying their favorite anime character, I get really sick of it really quickly. I don’t mind geeks; I mind obnoxious behavior. There was a lot of obnoxious behavior this year.

I did see Catnapped, which I loved. It’s a kinetic, bright children’s film that manages to make some important moral points without preaching. It’s not as brilliant as, say, a Miyazaki film, but if I couldn’t show a child a Miyazaki movie, I’d show him/her Catnapped.

On the other side of the weekend’s coin, Saalon was fabulous. As always, he was an encouragement to be around, and he inspires me to do more with my life. He redeemed the weekend by being a simply wonderful companion.

In other news, I want to redesign the Cool Websites section of this website into something more like a celebration of cool websites. I haven’t done so, because I can’t think of a good way of approaching it. What should it look like? How should it be organized? What do you think?