WonderCon 2012: Day 2 recap

I'm sorry it took me over a week to get Day 2's recap up everyone (or anyone?); I caught my first cold of the year thanks to WonderCon...it's what happens when you shake so many hands. But without further ado, here is the recap along with the link to Day 2's Flickr album.

Enjoy!

WonderCon 2012: Day 1 recap

Well, I'm back from my 3 day whirlwind adventure from WonderCon and we have a lot to talk about. First of all, this was our first con since 2007 when Anime Expo changed venues from the Anaheim Convention Center to the Long Beach Convention Center, so we were pretty excited to get back into the con scene. Hopefully, we'll get to experience WonderCon once again next year (or some time in the future) when it returns to its rightful home in San Francisco. 

But let's get to the juicy stuff. I'm going to give you a play-by-play of what we did all three days, with the bulk of the events happening on Day 2. Each day will have its own separate post. If you are so inclined, you can also check out my Flickr photostream starting with Day 1 right here. 

WonderCon 2012

This is it! For the next three days I will be joined by tsudoku, our dearest buddy Vinh, @ohdrahcir, and possibly a few other friends for 3 fun-filled geek-out days at WonderCon! I'm super excited!

In case you didn't already know, WonderCon is kinda like the sister convention to Comic-Con in San Diego. Normally it's held in San Francisco, but this year the convention center in SF is undergoing some renovations, so the organizers at WonderCon have kindly graced the citizens of Orange County with their presence by holding it at the Anaheim Convention Center for one year only.

Tickets are super cheap ($25 at the door for one day only or $40 for all 3 days if purchased online, $50 at the door) and the panels are pretty amazing. There'll be quite a few celebrities, which I don't really care too much about (unless it's Joseph Gordon-Levitt—who will be there to promote his new film Looper—asking me to please, please, please make out with him), a few exclusive movie screenings and short Q&As with cast members, producers and directors (g'day Sir Ridley Scott), vendors (cha-ching, merchandise!), and plenty of cosplaying.

Ready Player One book review

Image courtesy of Goodreads.com

Here's a short review sans spoilers that I just posted on my Goodreads account about Ernest Cline's novel Ready Player One. If you are a lover of books, 80's pop culture, good books, video games, and just books in general, I suggest you do yourself a favor and get your hands on this one right away.

One of my biggest fears...

...is that no matter how many times I edit, revise, re-edit and re-revise, I'll always pass up the most obvious typo ever, like this lovely Resident Evil: Revelations bit:

image courtesy of Yahoo's Plugged In blog. See above link for
the full article

Oh my gosh that's totally something I've done before too! It's embarrassing...and how I've hung my head in shame :(

January 18th – SOPA/PIPA hearing at the House Judiciary Committee

There's a reason why I haven't been blogging as regularly as I should be (shame on me!), but I can tell you it has nothing to do with what I want to talk about today.  

If you know how to use Google, let alone turn on a computer, then you're probably aware that there is a bill that's quickly making its way toward Congress and if it gets passed, then it'll eventually make its way toward President Obama's desk and he'll probably sign it in to law (forgive me if I'm missing a few steps; it's been over 10 years since American Civics class). That bill is called Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA)/Protect IP Act (PIPA).

SOPA/PIPA is a huge deal and if you don't already know about it, Wiki it before it gets blocked.

"Blocked? That's ridiculous…there's no such thing as censorship here in America; we have the First Amendment (Freedom of Speech) to protect us from that! Ha!"

…if SOPA/PIPA passes, then that is what will happen. And it won't just happen to Wikipedia, but to every single media outlet, blog (gulp), and any random site that happens to have shared content or criticism of any kind, negative or not. Any sites that meet these criteria will automatically be pulled or blocked, whether or not the accusation that the content on that website was indeed taken without permission from the author/creator, or if it just happened to rub someone the wrong way.