Yesterday I went to Ad-Astra, a long running sci-fi and fantasy convention in Toronto. I had never been to this particular convention before, and normally I wouldn’t really go to a show like this, there were some special circumstances here. I got to hang out with some good friends who I don’t get to see very much, and I was also arranged to be given the distinction of helping out at the convention as a Stage Ninja for the Masquerade. Unfortunately I was stupid and forgot my camera at home, so that means no full report. If I get some pictures from the other folks, I’ll post them on the message board, but until then you’ll have to accept this scan of my convention badge as proof that I went to this convention and had a good time.

This was a smaller-scale convention than the ones I usually attend. There wasn’t a lot to buy that I was interested in. I did find some cool ninja-related pins though. The other Stage Ninjas bought some too for the occasion, but for me they will be day to day wear. I also bought these two Godzilla comics. Check out the one with all the blood! That’s so awesome.

As a Stage Ninja, I helped to set up and tear down elements of the stage. During the masquerade itself, my job, being a tall ninja and not a small ninja, was to be a “catcher“, essentially staying in front of the stage and catching anyone who accidentally took a spill over the edge (which was probably not even a foot off the ground, but whatever). Thankfully, nothing like that ever happened. But it was really cool to be so close to the action. If I had a chair, I’d have had one of the best seats in the house!

It was a fun masquerade. Pretty short when compared to the Anime North and National Expo Masquerades, but from what I understand there had been a dwindling interest in costuming at this convention over the years, but the people involved went out of their way to make costuming a bigger part of the convention this year, and so we surpassed our targeted number of masquerade entires by a wide margin. Way to go!

There were some amazing costumes, but I think that everyone’s favorite entry, by far, was the first entry in the juniors division. It was this tiny little boy, who couldn’t be much older than 3 years old, dressed as Neo from The Matrix. He got up stage and enthusiastically started doing kung-fu poses, having the absolute time of his life. Adorable.

Of course, the other duty of the Stage Ninja is, when a problem with the audio seems like it will delay the masquerade for awhile, the MC makes the call for “Ninja Dance!“. All the ninjas go up on stage and dance and act silly for the audience. Well there was a technical difficulty towards the end, and so I certainly did bust a move. There’s probably video of that somewhere.

Other than that, the day was mostly spent hanging around chatting with my friends, eating instant noodles, and helping people out when I was called upon. A great day, all in all, and I needed that. I’m glad I was there. The people want to get the same crew of ninjas together next year, so it looks like I’ll probably be going back again.

Sayonara.

Yeah, so if you haven’t figured it out on your own by now, yesterday’s post was a complete fabrication. I made the whole thing up!

Bwahahahahaha!

As if all that text being underneath the date of April 1st wasn’t enough of a give away, I inserted a few other Easter eggs. “Monkey401” is not a real person. The “401” in his name means April 1st. The e-mail I said he supposedly sent me was in fact written by me, and is essentially the written equivalent of an over-the-top campy actor hamming it up. Though I did try very hard to make it seem like an authentic idiot e-mail, like I do get from time to time, I purposely overplayed the part to have some more fun with it. Heh heh. Besides, everyone should know by now that I’d never get depressed over something like that. Come on, “stop waching POKEMAN and just go away u sick freak bcuz no1 caeres about stupdi crap anime drawnigns!“, That’s just hilarious!

The major clue comes from this sentence:

“After opening this e-mail, I realize that life is too short to waste on things I enjoy like drawing and websites.”

You can see that a few letters seem arbitrarily bolded for no apparent reason. Well if you took those bold letters and stuck them together in the order which they appear, you’d get…

APRIL FOOLS

Besides that, it should be pretty obvious to anyone who’s been paying attention that I’d never seriously say a sentence like that.

“It’s been real.” Yeah, right. I don’t talk like that either. Unless I’m being sarcastic.

Ahh yes, and then there was “Adios!” replacing my trademark “Sayonara“. By that point something should have seemed off and everyone should have known that I was just being silly.

So there you have it. The whole thing was just some dark humor on April Fools day, mostly at my own expense. To those who were not fooled, good for you! And to those who where upset about me not drawing anymore and shutting this place down, don’t worry. I’m not going away. I’m not taking my site down. I’m not going to stop drawing. I’m not going to stop watching POKEMAN. I’m never growing up. I’ll still be right here on SykoGrafix, drawing, colouring, writing my stuff, kicking ass, and making fun of stupid people from here until the end of time. Count on it.

Oh, and to anyone who was actually happy when I said that I was just going away, never to be seen again, this is all I have to say to you:

SUCKERS! MUHUHUHAHAHAHAHA!

Sayonara.

You know, over the years, I’ve taken my fair share of criticism. Some of it deserved, perhaps, but much of it being nothing more than poorly constructed filth from people I have absolutely no interest in pleasing anyway. And the way I tend to deal with such criticism is no secret. I make fun of them, and have a damn good time doing it. But, doing so has also subjected me to even more criticism from people who are offended by that. So the disgusting comments just keep on coming, like pressurized sludge from a broken sewer pipe, and I am forced to choke on it all.

Well that’s enough. I’m not bulletproof. I’m just a man. I have feelings too, and there is only so much of this that I can take. For awhile, I thought that I could handle it, but now I know that I can’t. I just got this e-mail from someone called “Monkey401“.

OMG ur art is so sux! i hate this websiet!!!1 its teh worse sote ive evre seen! u shoud leran to draw u bastard how come y hav eto draw so crappy dawg. stop drawign stupid ANIME amd draw forr eal!! but i bet u cant eevn do that becasue u jsut suck so bad . jsut quit rite now shut thsi webiste down forever stop waching POKEMAN and just go away u sick freak bcuz no1 caeres about stupdi crap anime drawnigns! WTF this site is so gay! i will get all my freinds together and shut thsi site down if u dont! IDIOT NINJA U SUCK!!!!!!!!!!

Well, that’s it then. I can’t deal with this anymore. You win. All of you guys who have been saying bad things about me, you all win. I’m going to take my site down sometime before the end of this week. I’ve never wanted to offend anyone, so if someone hates my site so much that they feel compelled to write that, then I guess it’s better if I just go away, never to be seen again. After opening this e-mail, I realize that life is too short to waste on things I enjoy like drawing and websites. Maybe it’s finally time for me to just grow up.

So, it’s over. I’m calling it quits. Anyone who wants to try to contact me for whatever reason had better do so soon before I torch this dump forever. You can try to talk me out of it if you want, but I doubt it’ll work.

It’s been real.

Adios!

Last night I finally decided to undertake a little project that has been years in the making.

It is well known information that I enjoy collecting Transformers. Well, much like every chicken much hatch from an egg and leave the shell behind, every Transformer is removed from its package, leaving the box behind. So, throughout my several years of acquiring Transformers toys, I have also acquired a lot of Transformers boxes along with them.

Well, I always keep the boxes. I just don’t want to throw them away. So, these boxes have been in storage, taking up space, for a long, long time. With recent purchases of several large toys, I knew that I wouldn’t have much room for the boxes anymore. And so, it was time to flatten them.

So, here are some pictures of the boxes before I started. You can see that the floor was almost completely covered with them. I’ve got boxes here from Generation 2, Beast Wars, Machine Wars, Beast Machines, Robots in Disguise, Armada, and Energon.

It was tough to say goodbye. I really like the packaging. It’s a part of the product as a whole, and I’m sure that a lot of hard work goes into designing them. They have some great artwork and photographs. But when I was finished, that huge pile was reduced to this:

The smaller boxes were flattened, folded, and placed inside the boxes from my recently acquired Omega Supreme and Omega Sentinel. The boxes that were too big to fit in either of those went into this large plastic container. Ironically, Unicron’s box was left unfed.

I had to draw the line somewhere though. I just couldn’t bear to flatten my Japanese or Korean boxes. I just think they look neat.

So, now that that’s all done, the result is that it hardly made any difference. The boxes from the Omegas that I just got take up about as much room as all the smaller boxes I’ve had for years. Bah!

Sayonara.

Earlier this week I finally finished watching the fansubbed episodes of Transformers Super Link, the Japanese version of the show we know as Energon. I’ve had these episodes for awhile, but I hadn’t felt up to investing the time to finish watching the series. But with TransformersCon coming up and me running the fan panel on the night before I wanted to see the whole thing and have it fresh in my mind, so I started watching from the beginning.

As I watched the series, and especially as I neared the end, I just could not believe that so many people have said that they don’t like it. It boggles my mind that anyone, especially Transformers fans, could hate this show. This show rocked on so many levels! Now that I’ve seen the entire series from start to finish, I can honestly say that this is far and away the best Transformers show ever. Yeah, you read that right. Best ever. Better than Beast Wars, and much, much better than Generation 1.

Super Link has everything I’d ever want in a Transformers show. Great characters, amazing battles, internal conflict, metaphor, symbolism, everything. Even the main human character, Kicker, was not annoying! The way that characters like Ironhide (Roadbuster) and Scorponok (Mega Zarak) grew and changed through the series due to various circumstances was masterfully done, and even characters with smaller roles, like Landmine, had a little quip here or there that cemented who they were and what they were all about. It was a huge epic with different messages about knowing ones place as a part of team, obeying orders for the right reasons, and doing everything one can to accomplish a goal even if it seems insignificant. Not morals per say, but different, and often contradictory, interpretations of messages like these that aren’t going to try and change anyone’s life around, but are there nonetheless. The ending was mind blowing and very emotionally draining. Far from simple kids’ stuff.

It’s too bad that people have been turned off by the English dub, but I can’t accept that. If you don’t like the dub, seek alternatives! Fansubs have been available from TV-Nihon. If you just can’t stand anime, grow up! Anime is here to stay and Transformers has always had more of a connection with anime than it does to North American animation, so get used to it already. If you hated Armada, suck it up and watch this show anyway. There’s no excuse. But hey, those people who call themselves Transformers fans but refuse to watch this show, it’s their loss! Most people like that just want G1 all over again. Well Super Link is not G1, and thank Primus for that!

I really hope that there are other folks coming to TransformersCon who loved Super Link as much as I did, because I really can’t wait to discuss the show at the fan panel on the Friday before. This weekend, YTV will be airing the final 4 episodes of Energon, as well as the classic Transformers The Movie, so we should all be caught up with show after that.

As for me, I’m moving on to the new show, Galaxy Force! As Alpha Q would say “Something cool might happen again!“

Sayonara.