Anime North

What an awesome 7 hours I had. I wnt there after fashioning a pair of handmade Chii ears from Chobits, and passed myself off as a Male Persocon.

I was surprised as to how many people knew what I was trying to be - a lot came to me and said "Chii!" They thought I was so cute. :)

The unfortunate thing about the convention this year is that they were scouting out any Hong-Kong copies, so there were no cheap CDs, posters, or anything. Everything was mucho-money. I decided not to spend the full $300 I took out of my account (!) and purchased a Belldandy Figure (it's beautiful, I'll try to find an image of it later), a pair of paper Belldandy posters (I'll have to laminate these or something or else they'll get damaged), and a small Chii figurine - the only Chii-related item I could find at the con aside from Chobits manga!

I was trying to find the poster that Greg Dean has on his wall. No, not the Iria poster, the Belldandy one. sigh Look at the size of the posters below the Belldandy poster - if you know what a regular-size anime poster looks like then you know the Belldandy is frickin' huge.

I'm quasi-tired right now, and I have to work at U8TV tomorrow (bright and early at 8 o'clock YUCK), so I'm heading off to bed. I really wish I could have come back to the con for the full 3 days this year... sigh I'll make sure to do that next year.

And I'll do a more elaborate costume next year. I really enjoy Cosplay - I should do it more.

Flavours

I am a subtle taste, like Pine. I am a quiet, fresh taste, almost more of a scent than a flavour. You will be aware of me, but not quite remember me without being reminded. Not that I'm boring; on the contrary, I'm just a little outside the ordinary. What Flavour Are You?

If not Pine, then I would be...

Buzz buzz, I am Coffee flavoured. I am popular in the workplace, even though I am often bitter. I am energetic to the point of being frenetic; buzz buzz, out of my way. I tend to overwork myself and need periods of recovery time. What Flavour Are You?

Extinction threatens Japan

Japanese will become extinct unless the nation's birthrate stops shrinking, Health Minister Chikara Sakaguchi said yesterday.
Commenting on a slumping birthrate that means Japan's population of 127 million could start shrinking in 2007, he said, "If we go on this way, the Japanese race will become extinct."
Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi earlier told the Cabinet to encourage people to have children by providing better welfare services and making it easier to work while raising children.
Figures issued in April show the number of children under 15 in Japan has fallen for 21 straight years and now accounts for only 14.3 per cent of the population, the lowest on record. A UN report in 2000 shows Japan is graying so quickly it will need to import about 600,000 workers annually until 2050 to keep its working population stable. By then, if Japan follows the UN suggestion, nearly one-third of the population would be of foreign descent. -Reuters

It seems that now might be the best time to go to Japan...