Every performer at Arabian Nights Dinner Show is a perfectionist. No matter what their background may be, they all share a common bond that is a mix of a deep love for horses and a determination to entertain with flawless grace.

Performing in front of a crowd is not an easy task and every one of our highly-trained horseback performers understands that there is no room for error when a show is on. Add to that the fact that they are performing during a select number of dates during the Holiday Season and the phrase “practice makes perfect” takes on a whole new meaning.

Katherine Cox, Veronika Gatszegi and Michael Matrin practicing with guidance from Barn Manager Csaba Szilagyi.

This Christmas Season, Arabian Nights Dinner Show is putting on a brand new Holiday Show, featuring some of our most daring stunts ever—which makes the show even more difficult when the performers wear their amazing costumes on horseback.

Ilya Borzenkov is taking direction from veteran performer and Barn Manager Csaba Szilagyi while learning the Jack Frost silks routine featured in the Holiday Show

Arabian Nights performers practice on a daily basis. Only a handful of practices are in full garb, but every practice session is treated as if it was the real deal. Such is their dedication that performers may not even notice a difference between a full crowd or the empty seats of a practice session, as they are concentrated on the task at hand.

So the next time you visit Arabian Nights Dinner Show—and we hope you are planning on coming to one of our Holiday Show performances—be sure to remember that every one of our performers and horses have worked very hard when no one is looking to bring their own personal magic to the stage.

Practice does make perfect—and we like to show it off in every single show.

Newest painting by MC DEATH BEAR of the hawtest babe ever… Ms.Pac-Man! 11×14 painting made with Acrylics, sharpies and misting spray paint. This will be on sale at my booth at MAGFest 8. (Side note: The outline is neon orange… The quality of the picture looks great on the computers in the studio but looks awful on my laptop ha. I’ll try to get some better pictures soon)

My buddy Chris recorded me doing the final step of the painting and made this quick rad video for me! Check it out

Steve McGrath from Camp Chef highlights the Solstice Lamp just in time for the Winter’s Solstice.  http://www.campchef.com/new_items.html

Segment 4
Steve McGrath Continues his discussion of the five hottest gifts of the Holiday season. http://www.campchef.com/

Steve McGrath from Camp Chef highlights the Solstice Lamp just in time for the Winter’s Solstice.  http://www.campchef.com/new_items.html

Segment 4
Steve McGrath Continues his discussion of the five hottest gifts of the Holiday season. http://www.campchef.com/

Celebrate ths Winter Solstice at the Sun Tunnels, located in the West Desert. It is usually not too crowded this time of year. Make sure you bring plenty of extra gas and provisions in case you get stuck. Let folks know where you will be and when you plan on getting back. For more information or directions, visit http://users.wirelessbeehive.com/~paw/SUNTUNNELS.HTML

Download this week’s drivetime programming at our Network Page at http://www.backcountrynetwork.com/Download/Download.htm  . Check out the schedule below or find a station near you that airs Backcountry Utah.

December 21, 2009
Monday Morning (Track 1) Winter Solstice Light– Steve McGrath, Camp Chef  http://www.campchef.com/new_items.html

Monday Afternoon (Track 2) SCI is First for Hunters– Dennis Phillips, Safari Club International http://www.showsci.com/

December 22, 2009
Tuesday Morning (Track 3) Supporting Wildlife Conservation Programs Worldwide– Dennis Phillips, SCI http://www.showsci.com/

Tuesday Afternoon (Track 4) Share the Hunting Legacy at the Reno SCI Convention– Dennis Phillips, SCI http://www.showsci.com/

December 23, 2009
Wednesday Morning (Track 5) Events and Activities at the SCI Convention– Dennis Phillips, SCI  http://www.showsci.com/

Wednesday Afternoon (Track 6) See Wild Elk at the Hardware Ranch– Phil Douglass, DWR http://www.hardwareranch.com/  

December 24, 2009
Thursday Morning (Track 7) Winter Activities at the Hardware Ranch– Phil Douglass, DWR http://www.hardwareranch.com/

Thursday Afternoon (Track Elk Management at the Hardware Ranch– Phil Douglass, DWR http://www.hardwareranch.com/

December 25, 2009
Friday Morning (Track 9) Christmas for Cowboys– In Cahoots

Friday Afternoon (Track 10) Christmas Cowboy Poetry– J.P. Carson http://www.hebercitycowboypoetry.com/index.php?mod=perform&id_perf=14

Celebrate ths Winter Solstice at the Sun Tunnels, located in the West Desert. It is usually not too crowded this time of year. Make sure you bring plenty of extra gas and provisions in case you get stuck. Let folks know where you will be and when you plan on getting back. For more information or directions, visit http://users.wirelessbeehive.com/~paw/SUNTUNNELS.HTML

Download this week’s drivetime programming at our Network Page at http://www.backcountrynetwork.com/Download/Download.htm  . Check out the schedule below or find a station near you that airs Backcountry Utah.

December 21, 2009
Monday Morning (Track 1) Winter Solstice Light– Steve McGrath, Camp Chef  http://www.campchef.com/new_items.html

Monday Afternoon (Track 2) SCI is First for Hunters– Dennis Phillips, Safari Club International http://www.showsci.com/

December 22, 2009
Tuesday Morning (Track 3) Supporting Wildlife Conservation Programs Worldwide– Dennis Phillips, SCI http://www.showsci.com/

Tuesday Afternoon (Track 4) Share the Hunting Legacy at the Reno SCI Convention– Dennis Phillips, SCI http://www.showsci.com/

December 23, 2009
Wednesday Morning (Track 5) Events and Activities at the SCI Convention– Dennis Phillips, SCI  http://www.showsci.com/

Wednesday Afternoon (Track 6) See Wild Elk at the Hardware Ranch– Phil Douglass, DWR http://www.hardwareranch.com/  

December 24, 2009
Thursday Morning (Track 7) Winter Activities at the Hardware Ranch– Phil Douglass, DWR http://www.hardwareranch.com/

Thursday Afternoon (Track Elk Management at the Hardware Ranch– Phil Douglass, DWR http://www.hardwareranch.com/

December 25, 2009
Friday Morning (Track 9) Christmas for Cowboys– In Cahoots

Friday Afternoon (Track 10) Christmas Cowboy Poetry– J.P. Carson http://www.hebercitycowboypoetry.com/index.php?mod=perform&id_perf=14

First off I want to give a big shout out to anyone working retail during this crazy Holiday Season. Then I want to give a big shout out to anyone working full time retail and going to school part time like myself. To reward you I offer you this:

Free Year of Maxim Magazine!!!!

Merry Christmas from Sick Damage <3

More info at: http://www.xstreamproductions.com/HWhome.html

Yo you hipster turds need to stop jerking each other off in bum fuck Buffalo and start posting LOL. I have a hawt date tonight, finished a painting and I work 3 jobs and I can manage it…. being high doesn’t count as busy piss lips. SickDamage.com has confirmed they will be hosting the first ever SICKDAMAGE.COM DEATH PANEL AT MAGFEST 8! I’ll post the dates and times when they come in! Till then its mother fuckin Battle Fever J time!

MC DEATH BEAR apologizes to no man, woman or child

We just returned from the NFR in Las Vegas last week we had an amazing time. Our booth was visited by lots of people interested in doing more for their horse. Over the next few days we will have reports from the folks that attended this great event. As a teaser I will leave you with a photo of Mary.

Check back on Monday to hear how she did.

Well, it is now official. I have finally got a Myspace Page for Anime SG. I’ve been meaning to expand onto another networking site recently and after poking around I realized that pretty much EVERYONE is on Myspace. Every voice actor you could hope for, every j-rock band you could dream up and a lot of people who I know who have attended our conventions.

While I had a Myspace page for myself a while back, I mostly created it as a joke and never really logged in or cared about it. Personally, I don’t like Myspace. In my experience it was full of nothing but creeps save for a few good legitimize people. The fact that they also asked you a lot of ‘personal’ questions bothered me on account that my mother brain washed me to never give out anything over the internet (if I did people would come kill me and my family I was told x_x). However, with the start of the convention, it has been somewhat necessarily to give out certain details in order for business. While I still go by a fake name most of the time, I have loosened up quite a bit as of late. I’m also pleased to see that Myspace has put in a lot of new security protocols and updates so it’s not nearly as bad as it was. I have found it to be quite useful.

Don’t get me wrong. I will still use WordPress and Twitter to give out particularly important updates since they stream to the front page, however, I will mirror certain things onto the Myspace Blog for those who follow me. There will also be a calendar on there so you can see all the new recent actives that are planned and cool things going on.

Now! The moment you have been waiting for! The magic link to our new Myspace Page: Anime St. George @ Myspace.

Yes, the profile is made by me and I’m quite proud of it. <3

Everyone wants that Wonderful Wedding… So check out The Wonderful Wedding Show! With over 400 displays, your sure to find something to dazzle those dreams of yours. See it for yourself with two full-scale production fashion shows each day. One lucky couple will be walking away with a dream wedding at the Fairmont with a Honeymoon Vacation!

Need more info: http://www.wonderfulweddingshow.com

Greetings everyone!

While standing in my room this morning, I was looking over my manga collecting, seeing how it has grown in size over the past few weeks after my recent manga crazy. While my collection nearly isn’t as large as Karsons, we could however, between the two of us open a small store. This then gave me an odd idea to spice everyone’s boring holidays up and give everyone a bit of a project. That is why I have now cooked up a little contest to find the King (or Queen) of Manga!

~The Purpose~
The purpose of this contest is to see who out there has the largest manga collection. Even though Karson thinks it’s imposable for any to have a collection larger then he does, it shall be an epic battle now to see if one truly does exist or if Karson simply will have bragging rights forever.

The Contest will run from December 15th, 2009 to January 15th, 2010. The prize will be bragging rights.

~How To Enter~
To start off, simply take a picture of your manga collection and upload it online to a free image hosting site such as Photobucket or Imageshack and post the following information in our comments for this post:

-Your First Name (Or Username):
-Number of Manga You Own:
-Link to Image:

Remember to submit this info by COMMENTING! You DO NOT need to be a WordPress Member to comment so everyone is welcome to join!

~Rules~
-All Manga must be your own. Even though we cannot verify this, we ask that you remove any manga that you may be borrowing from the picture.
-You cannot record any manga you may have bought after you have sent us your entry.
-One Entry Per Person.
-Anime DVDS and Video Games don’t count. Sorry.
-This Contest is for fun so please keep it clean. No Flaming or tossing a fit if you don’t win. Again, it’s all for fun and humor.

With all that being said, I look forward to seeing everyone’s collection! I’ll set up different categories for different winners but of course we will only have one Manga King (or Queen)! I will also be posting a picture of my own collection for the contest!

The need of having event liability insurance for convention exhibitors is growing in the United States of America. As we emerge from our current worldwide economic slump companies are ready to sell their products and services and there is no better place to promote your company than trade shows and conventions. However, don’t let yourself be caught without having the proper insurance coverage.
pubDate:Wed, 09 Dec 2009 16:19:42 -0600
Original Link:Exhibitor Insurance – Why it is So Important? – insurancebazaar.net

8. Paramore in concert (again)

This made my Best in Fandom last year. What can I say? I really like Paramore. This time they opened for No Doubt, and the concert was incredible. The last Big Name, Big Venue concert I’d seen was Depeche Mode in, erm, 1989? And I had lousy seats that time. So the video effects and such of No Doubt were really damn awesome. And Gwen Stefani is astonishing.

My opinion of this tour, though, was unavoidably shaped by Twitter. I’d been reading Hayley Williams’s tweets all summer. I’d read her fangirling of Stefani, and how much she and the band were learning from an experienced band like No Doubt. I’d read which shows were great, and which she felt she could have been more on for. I read what it was like to do interviews in the afternoon, perform at night, and get up in the late morning to work out. I had a sense of investment in this tour, in Hayley’s experience of it — despite that fact that she doesn’t know me from Adam. The Twitter Effect.

But, anyway, when the first opener left and, after a bit, Paramore came out onto their set — much bigger than the year before, much fancier, and still NOTHING like No Doubt’s set still to come — I was willing this to be a great show. I whooped, sang along, hopped up and down, yelled when my section was pointed too, all the antics of a Fan.

No Doubt was also incredibly great. But I was there to see Paramore.

7. Big Finish Productions’ Seventh Doctor audioplays

I spent most of the first few months of 2009 catching up on the Seventh Doctor audioplays of Doctor Who, by Big Finish Productions. And by this I mean I didn’t listen to much music, I didn’t keep up with the podcasts I listen to, I spent my drives to and from work listening to Sylvester McCoy, Sophie Aldred, and Phillip Oliver save worlds. Save worlds, and mete out justice.

It’s fascinating to me, as someone who has come to Doctor Who fandom via the Ninth and Tenth Doctors, to see the Seventh Doctor taking on his role as moral judge. I don’t know exactly when this started in the Doctor’s various incarnations. I just know he didn’t start this way, but is a judge by the time we meet the Tenth Doctor. There seems to be some fascinating differences, though — Seventh Doctor relishes the role of moral authority. Ninth Doctor, we know, had recently seen the horror of that path. Tenth Doctor prefers to give people more chances than Seventh, but is still willing to make the extremely hard choices.

Anyway. I’m loving the evolution of Hex and Ace, their acceptance of The Doctor’s foibles paired with wariness of his secrets and manipulations. I’m loving the way the Doctor’s know-it-all-ness works for both good and ill. I particularly liked “Angel of Scutari” — excellent supporting cast, great plot, excellent acting. More Seventh Doctor from Big Finish is one of the things I am really looking forward to in 2010.

6. Dollhouse

This is not the best show I watch. It is, however, a fannish delight. It is, in the words of my friend Caroline, Big, Sexy Hospital. It’s a show starring lots of my favorite actors from different fandoms, with guest stars from other fandoms, written by some of my favorite writers, talking about important themes of identity and autonomy using inappropriately overly-sexual moments of tension. Plus, funny dialog. The show has not quite lived up to what I hoped it could be — it is definitely flawed. But in exchange for that, I get weirdly inappropriately sexy half-naked scenes where characters HAVE to cut each other FOR THE PLOT.

I feel like Dollhouse is trying to do two things, and the whipsaw between them weakens the show. On the one hand, I love the plot and the things the show is trying to say about autonomy and personal power. On the other hand, I also love the way the show is groping around in the dark of fandom’s collective subconscious, and serving up images from fanfic. River Tam vs. Faith. Wesley and Faith trusting each other knives. Helo and Faith sparring instead of screwing. I have always loved cross-over fanfic, and here it is, on Hulu, every week.

5. Jennifer’s Body

I reviewed the movie Jennifer’s Body here. I loved it. As I say in that review:

“Kusama, Cody, Fox, and Seyfried have put on the screen a movie about a kind of relationship between two women that I have rarely seen in film. That kind of relationship is called “complex”. So many times women’s relationships in film are two-dimensional, caricature, or merely serve as a prop in a movie about men. Not so here. The friendship between Jennifer and Needy is not perfect — they are occasionally thoughtless towards each other, or hurtful, and there’s a wealth of unseen history in the way Jennifer taunts Needy with their past sexual explorations together. But it is friendship.”

I still say this is the absolute best feminist horror film since Gingersnaps. After the no-buying-myself-things-near-Christmas ban passes, I am racing out to get this on dvd.

4. Batwoman, Greg Rucka, and J.H. Williams

In the pages of Detective Comics in the second half of this year, Greg Rucka and J.H. Williams have put out a comic unlike anything else out there. The story of Batwoman, of Kate Kane, is being told in art that is not groundbreaking, it’s genre-changing. Comic art should not be allowed to remain as it has been, now that Williams’s panel structure, narrative sequences, and color palettes have come to light.

But I’m always and forever a sucker for stories.

This story — the story of Kate Kane as Batwoman — is a story about family, and loss, and what a person finds in the world in order to make them get up in the morning. It’s a story about What Happened Next. Being Batwoman, it strikes me, is not Kate Kane’s goal in life. It’s the thing she does with her life after the worst things could happen to her. After she lost her mother and sister and career and relationships. It’s a story about the fact that one doesn’t conveniently die when one loses everything important, however much one might wish it. And, eventually, you get up and out of bed and have to do something. This appears to be Kate Kane’s story, told expertly by Greg Rucka, and it’s one of my favorite fandom things in 2009.

3. Plants vs. Zombies: Bedtime

This is all me, but I’m still damn pleased with what happened.

This summer I wrote a script for a four-page comic. My family was obsessed at the time with the PopCap Games’ “Plants vs. Zombies.” The idea hit me while I was sitting in the audience at the Como Park Bandshell, waiting for J’s dress rehearsal to get started. I wrote a little comic about a kid, about my son’s age, who lives in the house that is attacked by zombies in the game. The story was light and short and cute. The Best Moment in Fandom moments happened next.

What happened next is that PopCap Games agreed to let me produce this work. I emailed them, got reply, explained my project, and then — poof. They said go ahead. So what happened next is that Erika Moen agreed to draw it. Her art was fantastic — perfect for the tone of the story. And what happened next is that my contact at PopCap was so pleased with what he saw that PopCap included the comic in their Halloween promotional materials.

This was one of my personal best moments in fandom, albeit professional fandom.

2. Baltimore Comic-Con

I went to a few conventions this year — Microcon, Wiscon, CONvergence, Supercon. But the one I’d never been to, the one new to me, was Baltimore ComicCon. It was great. Not only did I get to meet all of the Fantastic Fangirls in person, I got to meet and see other friends from online.

But the thing that really, totally made the convention great for me was the generosity and friendliness of the creators. I’m not going to name them all here, for fear I might forget someone. But everyone had time to chat, however briefly. Even those with the biggest names/lines/crowds were extremely generous with their time.

1. Marvel’s consequences

I remember when Secret Wars II was playing out in the pages of Marvel comics. I never actually read the core books, the limited series in which all the heroes of the Marvel Universe tried to deal with The Beyonder come to Earth for a rematch. What I remember is that The Beyonder killed and resurrected the New Mutants. What I remember is that Rachel Summers was going to end the entire universe in order to kill The Beyonder, and that the love and compassion of her fellow X-Men stopped her — and then stopped The Beyonder from killing them all, right there, on the spot. What I remember, from that story and from all my most beloved X-stories from the late 80s and early 90s, is that the world of the Marvel Universe was a whole thing. It was all of a piece. When Kulan Gath (a Spider-Man villain) took over Manhattan Island for a couple weeks, the X-Men were trapped there, as were the Avengers. When two of the New Mutants got drugged by the same guy that attacked Cloak and Dagger, Tandy and Ty were there to help. I loved Mutant Massacre, I loved Fall of the Mutants, I even found Inferno fascinating — though frustrating. I loved the whole world of it all.

I later came to understand that the “world” events in Marvel tended to only apply within certain spheres. The mutant line, the heroes line, the spider-man line, the cosmic line. I grew, in the mid-90s, sick of crossovers that didn’t really affect anything except sales figures. I became disenchanted with the idea of a complete Marvel Universe. But I still remember how it felt, looking at Kitty Pryde in Uncanny X-Men as she mourns the death of her best friend, Illyana, who no-one remembers — wiped from the universe by the petulant thoughts of The Beyonder.

A new world lay in those panels. A complete world, rich and vibrant and alive and whole. And I could visit it any damn time I wanted to.

In recent years, Marvel has put forth a series of “world-changing events.” And I viewed these all with incredible skepticism, due to my feelings regarding the late 90s. But I read them. Avengers: Disassembled was good — I like it a lot. But I was profoundly and unexpectedly pleased when the Avengers stayed apart, the mansion was not rebuilt, and there were extended consequences. The Young Avengers formed. Isiah Bradley’s legacy as the black Captain America was retained and used. Character deaths — whether or not they stayed dead — had repercussions in the paths their friends and families took. And then, a bit later, we had House of M. In which the consequences of Disassembled unfolded to destroy a whole people. House of M was another world-changing crossover event — and we still haven’t seen it taken back. We still haven’t really seen Wanda, and there are still no more mutants. Civil War happened, and The Initiative came out of that. Not to mention Captain America’s death — long live Captain America. Events kept occurring, with consequence piling on consequence. The world of Marvel kept changing as a result of what had happened before. As Secret Invasion was about to launch, I was excited and pleased — this, this was the kind of Marvel storytelling I loved. A world at stake, really, with everybody’s fates on the line.

I wish Secret Invasion had been published as a single trade paperback — or released weekly until it was done. But that’s a quibble. I really liked the story. But more than I liked the actual plot contained in the issues, I liked how it changed the world. I loved Jessica Drew’s face being the face of the enemy, seen around the world. I loved all the “traitors” appearing on television to urge the world to embrace change. I loved the Skrull sleepers popping up in every title. I loved Marvel’s ad campaign – so reminiscent to me of the old “It’s 1984 – Do You Know What Your Children Are?” ads that appeared in the X-Men titles.

More than any of that, though, I loved What Happened Next.

The world changed. And I love Bendis and Marvel for it. The world of Marvel changed. And, sure, it’ll change back. That’s not my point — I don’t want Marvel to stay this way forever. But I want, I crave for the plots in these comics to have some sort of meaning. Repercussions. Consequences. If Norman Osborn saves the planet on international television, I want that to have an effect for more than one month. I want this, the Dark Reign. And then I want the Dark Reign to end as a result of Norman Osborn’s actions. I want his personal consequences to unfold as surely as Wanda’s did.

This current consequence-laden universe at Marvel fills me with joy in all sorts of ways. I love that Kieron Gillen’s S.W.O.R.D. is a result of Astonishing X-Men and Secret Invasion. I love that Jessica Jones shows up in Young Avengers and that the Young Avengers have been scattered into the other Avengers titles. I love that the Silent War of the Inhumans led into War of Kings. The interwoven, interconnectedness of it all makes me damn pleased.

I’m looking forward to The Siege, very much. I am not really invested in the “core Avengers,’ I don’t care much about Steve Rogers or Thor. But I am happily waiting to see what Marvel is going to do next to my beloved, much-abused, living Marvel universe.

Hey everyone!

For those who are interested, the local Japanese Culture Group in St. George, The Nihonjin Kai finally got a room reserved to host their New Years Pot Luck. I’ve previously been to these parties and they are great fun and wonderful if you want to learn more about Japanese culture as well as meet our southern Utah Japanese residents. All kinds of Japanese cooking will be served and it is requested that you bring One (1) Dish of your own to share. It is also strongly recommended and highly advised that you bring a plate, silverware and drinks for yourself or your family since they do not provide these.

What: Nihonjin Kai Culture Group
Where: Sunflower Town Club House
When: New Years Day (1/1/10)
Time: 12:00PM – 2:00PM
Address: 240 N. Sunflower St. George UT 84790 (Map)
Directions (Provided Nihonjin Kai Host): Sunflower direction; from Telegraph road ( where WalMart in Washington is located, but you don’t go that far.), you turn right at the DI light. You pass DI, Sandstone elementary school on your left side, and pass LDS church and another non LDS church on your right side. Keep going until you see tennis courts on your left side. ( Just before tennis courts, there is a “Sunflower” sign on your left side. You pass that sign, too. ) Turn left there and our club house is there.

Unfortunately, there was no address in the email that they sent me. x_x  However, I hope that it can be easily found nonetheless since there isn’t much out there in the first place (I live out in Washington, So I know). Nihonjin Kai has been having a hard time finding a place to host their parties in the past, people just being generally rude to them. I’m glade they finally have a place to hold regular parties and I’m glad to say that Karson and Myself will be attending their New Years Potluck.  We may be half zombies from going to First Night the night before but we will be there all the same. <3

We hope to see you there as well!

Yes, it’s a month later and I’m finally getting to my Darkover con report.  I don’t have a lot of fine details to report, other than that the weekend was a cheerful blur of meeting old friends and awesome new people.  We both love Darkover – it’s the smallest con that we sell at and sometimes it seems like it’s the friendliest.  We’ve been welcomed into the local con-vendor community wholeheartedly, and we see a lot of friends at Darkover (at other cons, too, of course).  This Thanksgiving-weekend con feels more like a family reunion than anything else.

The most notable thing that happened during Darkover was that we worried a great deal.  After Friday and Saturday, we’d made only about a hundred dollars over our booth fee (which is not high, fortunately) and were getting concerned at the low volume of sales.  Fortunately, on Sunday sales picked up and, in the end, we wound up making about average numbers for this convention.  I suspect, however, after talking to other vendors, that we may have been among the few who did – most vendors were looking grim.

What’s very interesting to note now, as I (finally) go through our sales sheets and move things around into their appropriate places in our inventory file, is that it turns out that sales really were low.  That is to say, the actual number of items we sold was very low compared to our usual numbers.  But for some reason, a lot of what we sold were higher-end items.  So even though we didn’t sell as many pieces as we normally might, we made just as much money.  I don’t know what to attribute this trend to!  Either the economy is recovering, or it isn’t; either people were shopping for the holidays, or for themselves.  We heard lots of stories about unemployment and tragedy but we also sold several pieces priced over fifty dollars.  It’s some sort of a conundrum.  Wrapped in an enigma.  Or possibly in bacon.  Battered and fried?  I don’t know.

The cash-only trend we’ve been noticing for the past year or so continued; we did far more cash sales than credit card sales.  It has to do with budgeting, I suspect.  We gave out our new convention coupons – a coupon with a code for free shipping when buying from the etsy site – but so far haven’t had any takers.  This was the second con we’ve given them out at.  We’ll continue to give them out and hope that it helps to draw people in to the website.  Lacking a fourth convention in the area to go to, we really would like to get online sales to pick up (tell your friends!).

All that said, we had a wonderful time at the con.  We’re paid up and ready to go for next year, and we look forward to seeing everybody again.  Our next con is Farpoint, in February – if you’re going to be attending, look for us!  We’ll have lots of new inventory and some really cool new products.

I’ve been playing with the idea of renting a table at an anime convention to sell my art work at for some time now. I’m just now finally getting around to working on it. I decided that I’m going to make several (like 25) mini painting (around 5 by 7 inches) and sell them and most likely prints of them at an up coming convention. My goal is to debut at the Castle Point Anime Con in April but I’m not sure if I’ll have enough work done in time to do it this year. I’m really excited about this and have been working really hard lately to create these paintings. So far i have 6 completed (Mikako and Tsutomu from Gokinjo Monogatari; L, Light and Misa from Death Note; and Death the Kid from Soul Eater. I’m currently working on Soul from Soul Eater and I’m a little over half way done. I’m really fired up for this right now and I’ve been getting a lot done recently. If i keep this up i should be done in no time. Hopefully they will actually sell. XD I think I’m going to be selling each painting for around $15-$20 each and each print at around $7-$10. Hopefully I’ll post examples up soon. Wish me luck everyone. =D

Here

Got Con? is a three part series originally written and posted the summer of 2009 for Northeast Wars’ web site. It is republished here over the course of three Mondays for completeness’ sake.

Previously on Got Con?, we talked about finding conventions by visiting local social hubs for your interest, like stores and clubs, tapping the knowledge base and promotional efforts at conventions you do know about and generally finding the right people to whom to talk. This week, we’ll discuss internet resources to find conventions within your reach. A lot of this may be familiar territory, as if you’re reading this article, you’re at least somewhat conversant with finding stuff on the internet. Even so, go behind the jump and give things a skim. You may yet find a convention or resource you’re not familiar with.

Convention Calendars

This is the big one, so let’s just get it out of the way right now. There are many sites on the internet devoted to providing listings of conventions happening all over the world. Some span all genres, other focus only on game conventions or anime conventions and so on. The key point is to figure out just how fresh the listings are. A number of popular listings sites have sputtered out over the years without disappearing completely. Make sure the years given in the listings are current.

That said, on with the list. These are just the sites that the Northeast Wars staff use to promote our own convention. If you know of one not mentioned here, give it a shout-out in the comments:

• Con-news.com
• Concommand.com
• Containment at Greententacles.com
• Fanboy’s Convention List – Fanboy also hosts a convention-oriented social network, Conventioning on the Ning service.
  
• Gameconventions.net
• Jinx.com’s Conference Listing
• New England Science Fiction and Fantasy Events
• Origins Game Fair’s Convention Listings
• Picofarad’s List of Recurring Conventions
• Upcomingcons.com
• Warhorn.net (not strictly a calendar site, but useful in that the front page is a big list of gaming cons)

Company Sites

The producer of your favorite game or product may list conventions on their site. Sometimes this is in general support of the convention lifestyle; other times, it’s because they plan to be in attendance as guests or dealers, or their products are featured in some way. Flying Buffalo Games maintains a calendar of conventions they plan to attend as a company or which an employee attends. White Wolf keeps a similar list of game conventions where their products appear. Steve Jackson Games‘ convention calendar will list any convention who cares to submit information, but it has a bias towards those events that demo and company representatives attend.

Interest-Based Web Sites

There are two ways general web sites centered around a given field of interest can help you find a related convention. The first is their news or open promotion sections, if they have those. Convention organizers often post notices to alert site users who might wish to attend. Other times, forum users may organize ride shares and meetups for conventions. The Miniatures Page and ENWorld.org are two prime gaming-related examples.

Secondly, the site owner or community may actually sponsor a convention themselves. These conventions may grow out of the friendships created through online interaction. Boardgamegeek.com, for example, hosts BGGCon in Texas, which has a very strong emphasis on building and maintaining the relationships built through the site’s discussion forums. Camp Nerdly grew out of the story-games.com community. More informally, some web communities will organize real life meetups that often wind up being about the common area of interest, even if they aren’t explicit game days or what-have-you.

And then there’s Conventions Fans, a blog that circulates the latest news from conventions all over the place. They cover every genre of convention, so there are plenty of opportunities here to find what you’re looking for, from Leonard Nimoy appearances to gaming.

Social Networks

One of the new buzzwords on the block, conventions are building presences on social networks. Northeast Wars, for example, maintains Facebook and MySpace pages, as well as a Twitter account. Even if you don’t care to participate in such a network, it’s not a terrible thing to create a dummy account for “research purposes.” Northeast Wars’ MySpace friends include a lot of conventions scattered all over the country. Over on GreenMustard.com, they’ve compiled a growing list of conventions that use Twitter.

In Con-clusion

So those are a few routes you can go in your search for a convention to suit your interests. Be warned, they won’t all work all the time. Some conventions have a minimal online presence, while others do all their organizing and promotion through online means. An all-around holistic approach will likely yield you the best results.

And don’t be afraid to try a convention without diving in head first. There’s nothing wrong with making a day trip out of things and buying a Saturday badge — Saturdays are traditionally the busiest day of a convention, so you can most easily get a sense of the overall tone then.

If there’s a method or resource you think we’ve left out, please feel free to point it out in the comments section. We’re always looking for new ways to find and network with fellow conventions.

By TheBigN

So, I had another post about the rest of Otakon at least partly written some weeks ago about the rest of my time there (you know, stuff like enjoying MELL’s Q&A and Yamakan’s second Q&A, EPIC KARAOKE throughout [at least on the end of those of us participating], seeing omo give his confession to Zange-chan, the FUNimation panel, bagpipes, seeing the Dealer’s Room after closing time and helping Hen Da Ne take down their wares, etc.). But then my main computer tanked, OSes were reinstalled, and all that good information, as well as 3 months of other stuffs, is gone to the electronic ether where all deleted files go. This also explains some of why I’ll probably be late with my Secret Santa entry for Reverse Thieves. And I always told myself to not write one of these “why I haven’t been writing in a while” filler posts. I’m a little ashamed at this.

But on to the real point of this post. If you’ve read my posts on Katsucon and Otakon for this year, you noticed that I had some pictures of cosplay that I’d taken for both of these. And I was planning on releasing more photos for later posts, like the said Otakon one, that have ended up not being made or have been purged. Instead, I’ve just put those cosplay pictures that I’ve taken con-wise onto a flickr account, and should be planning to add some more pictures of much more other stuff down the road. I’ve had the account up for a while, but it’s been incomplete to about now. Still, it’s kind of interesting to see that very few people have already found the place, and apparently some characters are focused on more than others.

As always, if any person looking at this is one of the people cosplaying and wants me to take down their picture, I will comply quickly. No problems. And there will be something of more substance than this post coming up soon, for those of you still reading.

It says something that this was one of the most seen pics in that short time, but hey. Bridget is awesome

Looking for all your Valentine’s needs? Find it at the Valentine’s Gift & Romance Show. With special “at the show only” pricing on products & services and Celebrity Sue Johansen (Sunday Night Sex Show) this is one Valentine show you don’t want to miss. Also check out Fashion shows, tastings and Demonstrations.

More info at: http://www.valentineshow.ca/

Nothing in the brave new world of digital marketing can surpass the power of a handshake and a face-to-face conversation. That’s why SAE regularly participates in major industry trade shows and events around the world. The tentative line up for 2010 includes:

• Check back soon!