Anime 2009

Anime 2009: facts, things, anecdotes and statistics

Kaijuu — Thu, 14 May 2009 19:48:00 GMT

It's been almost two weeks since Anime 2009 started. We all had some time to recover, pick up our regular pace and work out the paperwork.
As for me, I put together a small list of stuff that's worth mentioning (and perhaps make a Quiz question or two out of it!).

*I've seen about 130 hours of anime in the month before Anime 2009, not counting the retaping I had to do.
*We had to replace two DVD-players during that time.
*About 60 DVD-R discs were necessary to make backups of all the re-authored stuff.
*The rental company needed 3 hours to unload everything from their truck on Wednesday.
*It took two Germans and two Dutchmen to connect the majority of the technical side of Anime 2009.
*We used approximately 1,5 kilometre of cable to connect everything together, including signal, power and everything.
*Approximately 500 meters of that were rented cables.
*The rest of it came from our own stock (personal and J-pop owned).
*The mixing console for VR1 had 1069 switches, dials and buttons.
*A total of 20 speakers and 40 amplifiers were used.
*These provided 6 rooms with an appropriate amount of noise.
*The video screen in VR1 measured 48 sqm.
*Total projection surface overall measured approx. 90 sqm.
*Eight LCD and DLP projectors were used to show stuff.
*We had 17 flat screen TV's in the Game Room.
*The largest TV in the Game Room measured 47 inches.
*The smallest measured 42 inches.
*I played about 10 seconds of Taiko no Tatsujin.
*After that, I was called away for something more important.
*The Photo Studio set-up in Event Plaza consisted of some wood, two sets of IKEA curtains and two professional flash lights.
*Renting the flash lights was cheaper than the cost of curtains and wood.
*I was called away four times for video room trouble.
*Once in the middle of our sake tasting event, so I was a bit drunk by then. :)
*The LED-sign for Event Plaza contains 10 illuminated characters.
*The sign took about 50 man hours to make.
*It contains an average of 62,9 LED's and resistors per character.
*The AMV contest had two winners, which had the same amount of points.
*The Cosplay Compo provided me with at least three panty flashes.
*Two of those were from the audience.
*I was interviewed twice by the same newspaper.
*Robert was also present at the second interview.
*The Quiz consisted of 61 questions this year.
*Martijn's record of 27 correct answers still holds.
*Only one person answered the 61st question correctly.
*The winner of this year's Quiz was the same guy who won last year.
*It took 8 people and 90 minutes to fill up a large van and a station wagon with my stuff.
*After that, there was still enough left to fill my own car and leave a bit for a second car.
*It took 5 guys 5 minutes to unload aforementioned van and station wagon into my house.
*The pile looked like a giant Tetris game.
*It took 1 guy (me) two full days to put everything back into place.
*Total amount of sleep in the final week before the festival: 23 hours.
*Total amount of sleep during the festival: 12 hours.
*Total amount of sleep the night after the festival: 4,5 hours.

About that; when I went to the hotel counter on Sunday afternoon to see whether I could keep my room for another night, the girl behind said counter told me that she would need an OK from the organisation to prolong my stay...
As soon as she figured out I was part of the organisation, she got me sorted before you could say Jack Robinson. :)

I spent the grand total of one (1) hour in the Dealer Room this year, of which 5 minutes were spent to buy the first season of Kodocha. The rest of it was for scouting out bootlegs and to get Marli a Clara plushie.
I also got some serious quality time with my niece Dana; her mom and dad made sure I did. :)

That's about it, I guess, or at least what I can remember. ;)

Cheers, K.

Can't believe it's only been ten days

Kaijuu — Tue, 12 May 2009 22:16:00 GMT

Now that things are returning to a slower pace again (just a handful of e-mails instead of 100+ a day), it's hard to realise that Anime 2009 was in full effect just ten days ago.
We made it to the regional paper twice: once on Saturday, once on Monday, my house is kind of clean and tidy again and the bills are pouring in.

So far, everything checks out; let's hope it stays that way. :)
We're also looking into dates for next year's festival; as soon as we know, we'll announce it on our web site.

However, with Anime 2009 out of the way, it's time to concentrate on the summer holiday, which will be spent in Japan yet again.
This summer we'll head for Okinawa, Hakata and Osaka, and everywhere else we want to go.
Needless to say I'm very much looking forward to that.
I'm also looking into some gadgetry for the trip: more on that later.

Cheers, K.

And that was the festival that was...

Kaijuu — Wed, 06 May 2009 21:48:00 GMT

After months of preparation, Anime 2009 has come and gone, and I think it was an awesome festival to look back on.
We had some pretty nifty events, the Dutch première of 20th Century Boys part 1, two appearances in the regional paper, an entertaining video programme and more visitors than you can shake a stick at.

Obviously, we dropped the ball a few times; it's kind of inevitable, but most of those balls were caught after one or two bounces and were put back into our juggler's hands.
The food was great too; because of the new cookery, we finally had okonomiyaki. It needs work, yes, but it's a good start, and things can only get better.

I was responsible for the technical equipment this year, and to make sure I wouldn't keel over, Thomas and Marli from Kilala changed their plans to provide help, support and lots of Vitamin Dana, for which I am eternally grateful.
Dana is an adorable baby, and I'm proud to be one of her uncles.
Also a big, big thank you to Max and Uzi, to Frank, to Jeroen D., to Jeroen v/d V., to Michel K., to Masami and Suzanne, to Tjalling and Katie, to Susan, to Jody and Jimmy, to Henri, Marco, George, Jelle, Ro and all those others who helped to make Anime 2009 once again the main Japanese event of the year
Overall, I've had lots of fun, despite getting so worn out people basically had to kick me to my bed.
I was pretty drunk from the sake-tasting event on Saturday, by the way.

My living room currently looks like a cross-over between a life-size Tetris-game (we needed to empty the van we rented in a hurry) and a bomb site; cleaning that up will probably take most of Friday evening.
I have to see where I'm going to put everything until next year, because there will be an Anime 2010!

Cheers, K.

Stuff I've been up to lately

Kaijuu — Thu, 23 Apr 2009 00:09:00 GMT

Well, a lot, actually. Most of it is still under wraps until next week-end, but this is something I can spill beforehand.
Film at eleven!

This is an LED sign I built together with a good friend. It's built using eight matrix panels I bought about a year ago at a dump store. It has 4096 LEDs in an array of 32x128 pixels and has an old PC running Debian as a source for its data.
It uses a USB to TTL-breakout board to get the data to the daughterboards at the bottom of the panel.

It's showing a test run with the logo's of some of the sponsors for Anime 2009, as I intend to use the sign during our festival which starts on May 1.

The guy who helped me out also has a website, it's called Sprite's Mods, where he has all sorts of weird and useful hacks.

Cheers, K.

RLY BSY

Kaijuu — Thu, 16 Apr 2009 23:21:00 GMT

Yeah, really.
Fourteen days and counting.

Cheers, K.

The rumours are false!

Kaijuu — Fri, 03 Apr 2009 22:09:00 GMT

I'm still keeping this blog. :)
However, I'm working very hard to get everything into shape for Anime 2009, along with my regular job and social life (the last one is suffering a bit).

At work, we're finally ready to migrate our servers from the old to the new ESX platform (which will mean a couple of nights of overtime next week) and my house is a mess because of the build of my current project, which involves a bucket full of LED's and resistors.
Fortunately, a good friend of mine is helping me, and we're aiming on finishing the project this Sunday. More details on that later, after Anime 2009.

All this is taking a lot of energy, but I'm also getting a lot of energy out of it, so it'll be fine. :)

Cheer, K.

Working on stuff

Kaijuu — Tue, 17 Mar 2009 23:02:00 GMT

Had a busy week-end this week-end: I had my buddy León over for some Chinese food, a movie and a chat on Friday; on Saturday, I went to Theaterhotel Almelo for a meeting with the hotel staff and a few co-conspirators for Anime 2009, and Sunday, I went to another buddy of mine for a look at his new house and some serious soldering. He's into LED-matrices, and promised to help me piece an LED-matrix screen together.

I bought a few panels about a year ago to experiment with, and he helped me to make something out of them, for which I am very grateful.
Current order of business is making a frame to fit the panels and the power supply on, and make it a decent-looking box.

Cheers, K.

A little surprise among my souvenirs

Kaijuu — Tue, 30 Dec 2008 23:51:00 GMT

I had something funny, the other day. When I was in Japan in August, I decided to raid the Hanshin Tigers' Shop on the 8th floor of the Hanshin Department Store in Osaka, picking up some Hanshin Tigers (wiki) memorabilia.
I also picked up a HT-jersey like they wear during home games. The store was kind enough to have one of each size unwrapped on the shelf, so I was able to see whether my western body would fit a Japanese 3L, and it did.

So I got one and paid 6300 yen (at the time, that was about 35 Euro) for it. Perhaps a bit steep, but hey; you only live twice, the yen was cheap in August and it would make a fun addition to my wardrobe and all that.
I shipped it home by slow surface mail, and put the pack with the jersey in my linen closet so that it could wait for an opportune moment.

That moment is near and so I unwrapped it to see how to wear it and finally discovering why the jersey had cost me 6300 yen without thinking about it for very long in the first place.
You see, it turns out that the 6300 yen I spent on the jersey also bought me a matching pair of sweatpants, something I totally overlooked when trying to figure out the sign in the shop. :D

So, why didn't I apparently bat an eyelash at the somewhat steep price? Quality and/or branded clothing can be quite expensive, especially in Japan, especially when it comes to larger sizes. Add that to the fact that the average soccer shirt in the Netherlands easily sets you back fifty Euro, and it all seemed to be on par with each other.

I won't wear the pants that often, I reckon, but it's a nice surprise nonetheless.
Now I'll only have to get me a baseball cap in order to look the part at Anime 2009; luckily, the next trip to Osaka isn't that far away.

Cheers, K.

Ticket Booth for Anime 2009 opens!

Kaijuu — Wed, 19 Nov 2008 22:54:00 GMT

Yesterday, we officially opened the ticket booth for Anime 2009, so that we can sell some stuff to raise the money needed for Anime 2009: Mental Maniacs.
This will be our eleventh festival, and it's going to be fun. :)
Now go and buy tickets.

Cheers, K.