FanExpo 2010!

Okay, so FanExpo is over. Three days of chaos at the end of the summer break. I met a lot of great people and saw a lot of neat stuff (pictures below). However, before I continue with this account of what I saw and did there, let me just say that Hobby Star Marketing (the company that runs FanExpo) really screwed up on this one. They're known for not giving a damn about what their fans think, but this time was really bad. If I've pre-ordered a Deluxe Pass, I shouldn't have to wait in a three hour line to get in. It was bad to begin with, but on the second day the building filled to capacity, and anyone who left (ie. to get lunch or something) was forced to wait in a massive line that could only move when a large group of people came out (so that's three people at a time with a wait of several minutes in between. You do the math!). The problem is, Hobby Star kept selling tickets! Now, I'm all for letting everyone have their turn, but if the building is full to capacity and you've got eight hundred people waiting to get back in, I think that's a pretty good sign to stop selling entry passes.


Anyway, now that I'm done ranting...

I apologize if any of the pictures are grainy/blurry/too bright etc. It's amazing that I got my camera too work at all.

I decided I should wear my Union costume again (that I wore to Anime North). It's really comfortable, and I love the colours (that's Canadian spelling for all you Americans out there). Not to mention that Canada is a member nation of the Union in Gundam 00, so it seemed befitting.

I took the train into Toronto every day, because it was simpler than driving, and cheaper than staying in a hotel.

Real men take the train.

Upon actually entering the convention, the first things made evident were the large booths in the middle of the showroom. For the sake of simplicity, let us call these the TRON booth and the ALIEN booth.

The Tron Booth, in all its glowy glory.

Stuff at the Tron Booth

Black Guard's Helmet

Just a side note, these suits and helmets are apparently what they actually what they wear onscreen. No CG involved here, folks!

The Alien Booth was in fact meant as a promotion for the new Alien Anthology BluRay. It featured four opening cryo pods, where you could "sleep", and be sufficiently terrified out of your wits.

Weyland-Yutani is bad people.

Some employees of "The Company".

Oh, and they had free cardboard facehuggers. What's not awesome about that?


Hasbro also had a booth, which included numerous dioramas dedicated to their products. Perhaps the best one was the battle of Hoth diorama.

It's no wonder the Empire won.

Trench Warfare

One of the caves

A view of one side of the hangar

The whole diorama was filled with interconnected tunnels, and even had Han and Chewbacca shooting at the Probe Droid.


The Gaming section had a Halo Reach booth, but I couldn't be bothered to stand in line.

All they had was Firefight... I want Forge!

Convention guests this year included Stan Lee, William Shatner, Peter Mayhew, David Cronenberg, Summer Glau, and Ogata Megumi. If you don't know who even a single one of those people is, shame on you (and go look them up). Unfortunately, due to the Con being overcrowded, I have no pictures of any of them. I do, however, have pictures of THE BATMOBILE!

Dadadadadadadada Dadadadadadadada BATMAN!

Of course, as with any convention, FanExpo is really about spending money. Of course, that means there's plenty of awesome merchandise to go around.

Perhaps the most interesting dealer's booth for me was this place that carried video games not released outside of Japan. Of course, most of it was extremely expensive (for my budget anyway).

Haruhi has a game? I didn't even know that.

Code Geass!

I was especially pleased to discover that they had this in stock.

A brand new copy of A.C.E.: R!

Properly called Another Century's Episode: R, this is a Mecha Fighting Game featuring machines from Gundam, Code Geass, Macross, Full Metal Panic, and Armored Core, to name a few.

Some Gundam Games

And that's just one vendor! They had everything else geek-y under the sun.

More stuff! More I say!

I think I'll talk about costumes next... Or maybe just show you.


But since I'm incredibly tired right now, I'll save the costumes and loot for part 2.

Oh, and for those who met me there and want my email, it's Jern_Gundam@hotmail.com

The Last Days of Summer Break

People seem to have this bizarre habit of holding events in the last few weeks of the summer break.

Especially in Toronto.

As you may or may not know, the Toronto FanExpo is one of the largest "fan conventions" in Canada. With that in mind, it's obvious why it was held in the Metro Convention Centre, a colossal building right next to the CN Tower.

FanExpo ran from August 28th-30th, a sort of "conclusion" to the month. Unlike most other conventions, which are only geared toward fans of one genre (i.e. comic books or Sci-Fi), FanExpo is designed to appeal to fans of Anime, Sci-Fi, Comics, Horror, and Gaming. Of course this means a wide variety of vendors, artists, and celebrities are present at each show.

But wait, you ask, what kind of celebrities would be present at such an event? Well, the list was too long to mention everyone, but it included Leonard Nimoy, Billy Dee Williams, Linda Hamilton, Mary McDonnell, Beau Bridges, Walter Koenig, and even Bruce Campbell (this is my BOOMSTICK!).

I had the great pleasure of meeting some of my favourite voice actors, namely: Brad Swaile (Setsuna F. Seiei, Light Yagami/Kira, Amuro Ray), Crispin Freeman (Alex Row, Jeremiah Gottwald), Steve Downes (The Master Chief), and of course, Scott McNeil (Ali Al-Saachez)! I have pictures somewhere, but sadly I haven't been able to "retrieve" them yet. Perhaps at a later date.

Before I continue, it must be made common knowledge that this was not only my first FanExpo, but also the first convention I've attended. Hopefully the first of many.

Now on to the main event!

Upon entering the main hall, visitors were greeted by this statue of the Master Chief. What better way to set the mood?

See those white boxes? That's all comic books.

Even with his head mounted on a wall, the Balrog is terrifying

There's just too much!

For me, walking into FanExpo was like a dream come true, except that everything cost money! The vendors section was full of long booths, brimming with collectables, action figures, posters, books, DVD's and comics. Then of course there were the stores that practically sold nothing but Gunpla.

Of course, the Toronto Garrison of the 501st Legion was present, dressed as various characters from the Star Wars Saga. The members of the 501st sport costumes of very high quality, right down to the mouthpiece, which gives them that cold, menacing "Stormtrooper-y" voice. To create the feeling that these were real troopers on patrol, certain people were given a "Droid Hunt" badge. If a trooper approached someone in possession of one of these badges, that person would have to turn it over.

On the first day the trooper patrols were crawling all over the place, but as Fan Expo progressed they became less frequent.

The Fighting 501st: Vader's Fist on patrol

Droids?

This guy was fun. I took a couple of snaps of him, then as I turned to leave, thinking "he didn't notice my Droid Hunt badge, I'm ninja", he said "I'm not finished with you yet." Curses!

Anyway, according to the rules of the Droid Hunt, he took my badge away. However, near the end of FanExpo it was possible to pick up another as a souvenir, with a donation to charity. By that time I only had spare change left over, but gave all I could.

After all, good cause, plus 501st keepsake? How could I refuse?

It goes without saying that people would be Cosplaying at an event such as this. I was very impressed with some of the designs, however, I only took pictures of the ones I recognized.

Mal from Joss Whedon's Firefly/Serenity

For Z.A.F.T.!

The MJOLNIR MK V & VI

I'm no expert, but I think these guys serve The God Emperor of Mankind

On the third day, I wore my homemade Z.A.F.T. officer's uniform (the white one). Not entirely finished to my liking, so no pictures of that yet, but I will get some taken once it's all done.

Fan Expo may be over, but that doesn't mean there's nothing to look forward to. After all, it'll be returning next year: 2010!

We'll be back next year! Rebel scum.

Somehow in between all my running around to get stuff signed, I still had some time to myself, and used it well.

Yay, loot!

As you can see, I did a bit of shopping. I got all this for about $140 (Canadian, of course).

By the way, you may notice some signatures on the Gundam 00 DVD. In blue, Brad Swaile, the voice of Setsuna. The other signature is Scott McNeil's, the voice of (yep, you guessed it) Ali Al-Saachez!

I was exhausted after FanExpo, but just a few days later, I was at it again. This time at the Rotary Brantford Charity Airshow. Brantford, for all those of you who don't know, was once the home of Alexander Graham Bell, inventor of the telephone. But that has nothing to do with aircraft.

And aircraft is why I was there in the first place.

The Snowbirds: Canada's aerial acrobatics team

Some consider them a Canadian symbol. The Snowbirds, 431 squadron, is a group comprised of active members of our armed forces. They perform all kinds of tricks and maneuvers, including some lethal looking loops.

This, of course, is our Avro Lancaster bomber. One of only two (2!) left in the world that can still fly. This one is usually kept in the Canadian Warplane Heritage Museum, less than thirty minutes from where I'm sitting as I type this. The other airworthy Lancaster belongs to the Queen of England, and she doesn't let the public take flights in hers. That's right, it's possible to take flights in our Lancaster, although I think there's a waiting list (don't quote me on that).

Yes, that is an F-18. We do have those.

I'm sure there are some people who believe that our Air Force consists of Biplanes and lumberjacks with wings tied to their arms. I reject your blatant stereotyping with the power of the fighter jet.

Accelerate!

It's hard to tell from this picture, but that jet is going wicked fast. Ironically the clearest picture I took all day, with less blurring than the planes moving one third that speed.

In Soviet Russia, trainer plane pilots you!

Do a Barrel Roll!

It's been a great summer, but for once I'm actually exited about going back to school (blasphemy!), mostly because I finally get to choose all my classes. That means I'm going to be spending most of the year on a stage or around video cameras, which should prove to be awesome. Next stop, Hollywood (or Vancouver, if I can't get Stateside)!

Just one last thing. I took so many pictures at FanExpo and the airshow, that I don't have the upload space to put them all in my Flickr photostream. So, unfortunately I won't be able to upload the others for about a month, but if anyone thinks they'll still want to see those photo's around that time, just say so in a comment sometime between now and then.

Thus concludes my last post for the summer.

Danny Choo - The Master Has Taken Notice

Well, It's very late (or early?) here, and I was sorting through my e-mail when I noticed a message stating that Danny Choo has added my Flickr profile as a contact. It was a month old. While I must apologize to him for my lack of vigilance, I am extremely grateful for this, as it is the first step in my GRAND PLAN FOR WORLD DOMINATION! BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAA!

In case you're not familiar with him (and here I'm going to assume that you've been living under the proverbial rock, or in some cases, a very real, extremely grimy rock) , I shall enlighten you.

He runs the site dannychoo.com, a massive collection of photos (and such) of figurines, life in Japan, and all that good stuff. While I'm sorry to say that I've never signed up, I'm a fan of his work, especially the mecha stuff, like this article, which deals with Armored Core.

So here and now I'm making two vows: (1) To join dannychoo.com some time in the near future, and (2) to check my email and update this site every Saturday (unless I can't physically get to a computer).

In other news (if it can be called that) I have now finished Code Geass (both Lelouch of The Rebellion & R2). I'm surprised to say that I almost felt some kind of emotion at the end (something sort of... nice, compared to my usual blindingly zealous rage). But I'm not going to spoil the ending for you, you'll have to see it for yourselves, if you haven't already.

It's definitely going on the list of my favourite Sci-Fi Anime series. And Lelouch is now going somewhere high up on my "List of Bad-assery", with Grahame Aker, Char Aznable, Alex Row, and all the others (Boba Fett's on there too, even though he's not an Anime character).

(My, I do use parenthesis a lot when I talk, don't I?) (I do.) (It's a bad habit.)

(I'll stop now.)