I had something of an adventure this week.

This past Wednesday I worked as staff for the Toronto Art Expo at the Metro Toronto Convention Center. It was just a temporary thing. I got the offer to come and work from one of the folks I had met at the Shonen Knife concert last year who is in charge of hiring for the event. It was very cool to be thought of for an opportunity like this, as they were looking for artistically minded people.

Essentially, I was one of 20+ people there to help artists unloading their artwork from their vehicles and moving over to their booths. This work mostly consisted of wearing a red shirt and pushing wheeled carts, mixed with healthy doses of sitting around and waiting to push yet more wheeled carts. Occasionally I would be asked questions that I didn’t know the answer to and had no qualifications or authority to answer anyway, such as what to do when things went wrong with people’s booths. This was slightly annoying as all I was ever told about was related to pushing those wheeled carts.

Anyway, I worked for 11 hours, and while I can’t say it was grueling work, since there was plenty of time to sit in between the busier periods, it was hard enough to make it nearly impossible to walk out of the building when I was finished. I wasn’t tired, but my feet were absolutely killing me, and I’m still aching today. But it’s going to amount to some money in my pocket, and I got to see some cool people and eat some pizza, so it’s all good.

Best of all, the folks that I met at the Shonen Knife concert knew that they were going to see me again, and since I had to leave as soon as the concert ended, they got me a CD and had it autographed by the band! So now I have an autographed Shonen Knife CD. That totally rocks and I’m incredibly thankful for it. So it was definitely a great day in that respect.

I’d do it again at some point down the line if I was asked. But this experience has made me glad that I don’t do work like that on a regular basis because it really takes a lot out of ya.

Sayonara.

Do I really even need to talk about Jack Thompson? At one point he was pretty much public enemy #1 to anyone who has ever picked up a video game controller. He still is, to a certain degree, though I imagine that he likes to think he’s done more damage in favor of his cause than he actually has. He likes to con the media into making him come across as some sort of expert on the dangers of video games, and, like a vulture he latches on to any tragedy that he can in order to blame video games on all the world’s evils and, by proxy, increase his own public profile. Nowadays he’s pretty much just reduced himself to being a joke. An annoying joke that just won’t end, but still a joke that can be made fun of.

Hence this catchy tune. It’s been stuck in my head since I first heard it, so now I need to share it with you all. Guaranteed you’ll be singing it tomorrow!

ALL SORTS OF WEAPONS!

Here’s the original post.

Sayonara.

Almost wasn’t going to do one this year. Almost. But I couldn’t let my people down!

Sayonara.

At this summer’s FanExpo I saw a dealer that had many anime artbooks for sale. Among those was one in particular that caught my eye. It was a Osamu Tezuka’s Black Jack artbook. Black Jack being one of my all time favorite characters, I knew I had to have it. But it cost $75, and while I seriously would have considered buying it at that price, I had already spent my allotted funds for the convention earlier that weekend.

Lucky for me, there’s eBay! By chance, I came across an auction for the book in question, and from a local seller no less. With shipping included, I bought it for about $30! So it all worked out in the end. In fact, this copy I bought on eBay may very well be the exact same copy I held in my hand this past summer.

It’s an awesome book with some really incredible full color and black & white illustrations, all by the greatest Manga creator of all time. Some of the images are full of some really graphic medical imagery, complete with detailed veins and arteries. but this one in particular is my favorite.

BLOOD! That is totally intense! Black Jack is so cool.

I’ll be on the lookout for more artbooks from now on. Any recommendations?

Sayonara.

I’ve gotten hooked to this free online game called Vector TD. It’s part of the tower defense genre, where you set up various weapon towers to shoot down waves of invaders. You get money for every enemy you shoot down which can be used to upgrade your towers and buy new ones. Different towers have different strengths and weaknesses, and some are more effective on certain kinds of enemies than others. It’s a fun diversion that has a lot of strategic elements, but takes up a lot more time than I really aught to be spending. Another example is Desktop Defender, which is also fun.

Anyone know any other decent free online strategy games? If it’s good, I’ll probably check it out, but I’m really looking for something deep that I can sink my teeth into without having to invest several hours into one sitting.

Sayonara.