It's Been Awhile

Sorry for not posting for a while now.  We have recently had a lot of death in our little family, so I really haven't been thinking about the blog much.  One of the fallen was my favorite fuzz, Squee.  He finally died from his cancer and the end was fast and not pleasant.  I miss him everyday. 

So other things that have been happening are Connecticon! (Yay!) And now Otakon! (Less yay).  I'll do a post about Connecticon later, mostly because all my photos are on the phone I promptly broke the night I got back from Connecticon.  

I can't comment yet on how Otakon is as a whole, but the first day was pretty rough.  We actually arrived here on Thursday, to get our pre reg badges.  It speaks volumes that you need to get your pre reg badge a day early to get into a con.  

Before we get into why I will never let BAM Con become like Otakon, or where the frak is your communication?!? I will first impart on you why we decided on the way down that New Jersey is one giant death trap.  First we had the boat accident.  It came from the on coming lane and this is where it landed.  

Yep, traffic stopped dead because a boat took out a lane of cars and by the time we trickled close enough to see why we were stopped, they still hadn't figured out how to get the damn boat off the road.  So that was major accident #1.  Aside from some fender benders the trip was pretty good going for another almost hour, then we stopped dead in the road again.  I'm not sure how it happened but there was a tractor trailer flipped on its side across the whole on coming lane as well as other crushed cars, trucks and box trucks.  

So by the time our drive was over, it had turned into an 11 hour marathon drive.  Only to get into the city of Baltimore in time to witness a monsoon.  We almost died at this point.  I have never hydroplaned in my car before, ever.  We almost took out two cars from doing so that day.  And after a slight hotel snafu and a hectic scramble to find lodgings, we made it to Otakon on Friday.  Yay. 

Friday at the con was everything that made me stop wanting to come to Otakon.  The doors not labeled as to can you go in or out of them, once you are in the building how do you get out.  Don't ask a staff person, none of them have any idea how to do anything.  There are a hundred doors to the convention center and each one has a staff person at it saying you can't use this door to,either enter or exit, depending on which you would like to do.  And then there's the lines.  Everything is a line.  This con is 20 years old and it has NEVER figured out how to do lines.  Most typically at this con, you wait in a line and still aren't guaranteed to see what you lined up for.  And the cluster fuck that is trying to get an autograph, what a disappointment.  They never post how they are going to do this stuff so no one ever a knows what's going on.  And even though you aren't supposed to line up an hour before an event people do, and the staff do nothing about it.  

Anyway, more on Otakon after I go to day two.  

A new Little Lady

     So there has been a lot going on this last week, and i know i promised myself that i would not neglect this blog as i have neglected blogs in the past, but we had a death in the family and i needed a few days to binge on bad food and cry alone on my couch while watching anime.  That being said, i re-watched all of Mushi-Shi this last week and made it a good way through Fairy Tail, as well as Basilisk and a handful of other movies.  We also got a new kitten!

Yay!

She's a spaz and we love her.  Well the other kitties don't yet, but the humans and the ferrets do.  She has a healthy fear of the ferrets and thusly they have let her live.

So the pet count for the house is now:
Ferrets: 7
Kitties: 4
Toad: 1

Why did we get a new kitty you ask?  Well, I will tell you.  Mr. Squee's cancer is getting pretty bad these days, and i just can't deal with it.  I watch everyday to see if he's still alive and he's still cuddly but i know his time is coming.  That and on a trip to get a friend a kitten, i loved this little black ball of fury.  And so i acquired a new kitten. She makes little dragon noises instead of mews, so its fun to see her a little frustrated.

So anyway, here we are in the convention season and i have yet to go to many conventions.  Connecticon is happening soon and i am pleased to say that i am a part of the staff this year!  YAY!  I hope to learn a lot from them on how to run a bigger convention and will hopefully gain a lot of experience.

Oh My Glob, Its the First Post!

  Hello to anyone who has stumbled onto this.  It seems i have moved my blog from Wordpress to here.  Mostly because Wordpress wouldn't let me customize my blog the way i wanted it to.  So here's to (hopefully) better creativity!

I don't tend to blog very often, but i will try to be better about it, promise!  I often wish i had written down or documented the processes i go through to get some of my art projects done.  Hopefully this can be the place to do that.  I also want to document my progress with BAM Con more publicly.  I feel that most people don't even know i run a convention let alone how much work i put into it.  There's research and screenings and contacting/networking with people all over the place!  Its not that i mind not getting all the recognition but it bothers me when people don't even know i put work in.

Just a day or so ago, i ran into a few people who went to BAM Con, i know they did because i saw them there for all 3 days.  They didn't say hi to me at all.  When i said hi to them they acted like i was crazy to be talking to them about the convention, and even worse they then tried to dispute that i worked on the convention because (and i quote, mostly because it still pisses me off) they "know the girl who runs that convention, she never mentioned you."  Wow, i hate you both, and you know who you are.  On a side note, the girl they were talking about doesn't even work/volunteer at this convention, though they insisted she does.

So anyway, momentary rage aside, we are working hard on BAM Con 2014 and we have some dates in mind already as well as a big surprise that I can't quite announce yet! The wait will be worth it though, I promise.

BAM Con 2013 went pretty well for our second year. Our guests were awesome, and our con goers were amazing as well. I know I seem busy and frazzled at the con; but if you see me running around, say hello. I promise I will not bite! Aside from some minor technical issues and a few miscommunications, the con went smoothly. I know a lot of you have suggestions on how we can be better next year and I would love to hear them!

A few things we already went over were the lack of water and trashcans. We already addressed the issue with the hotel and we are coming up with a plan to do better next year.
I know a lot of you emailed and messaged us right before the con about all kinds of stuff that you couldn't find on the website. We tried to answer as many questions as possible via email but if we missed you, we are sorry. We are compiling a list of FAQ for the site that should be up as soon as we have answers for the questions.

We will be opening up submissions for panels as soon as we have some solid dates.

We will be having a few contests throughout the year as well as a few extra one-day events, so keep an eye out! The forums are a great place to keep up with these things!

A lot of you have come forward with suggestions for events, panels, or guests for next year’s con. There will be a place in the forums to discus and suggest these things, but please do not start contacting guests for us.

If you want to suggest some anime for us to show at the convention, that’s great. I love when you all do that. Please do not bring your anime fan sub to the con and ask that we play it from your flash drive though. This con has run for 2 years now and both years, this exact thing has happened. Don’t do it. We can’t show it. We need to go through a process to show anime at the convention and showing anything above and beyond what we planned is not allowed.

The cosplay this year was pretty great, i wish more of you all would sign up for the cosplay contests!  I know we are not a big area but i was impressed by the level of cosplay that we did see.  I hope it improves as the years go on.

I also hope that we can continue to have more diverse culture brought in to the con.  I can't say that i like all geekdoms myself, but i will honestly give them all a shot.  That said, i hope next year we can bring in some Firefly, Star Wars and Dr. Who fans as well as the anime & manga Otaku and Fugioshi, Homestucks, Bronys and Gamers.