It's that time of the year again. Anime USA is creeping up really fast (is that a contradiction of terms?), and will soon be here. I'm making the signs once again, and not all that other crap I used to do before a bunch of people took it over for me. Still, the signs is more than enough work for me, so I'm bogging down now to get those done. As such, I may be less responsive to emails, messages, and I also won't be posting to my website much unless I get really bored or have something I really want to say. It's not exactly crunch time for signs outside of getting stuff ordered (which I think I've finished), and I'm not exactly behind schedule, but it still weighs heavy on my mind (although not as much since I've already taken care of a lot of it).

Every year Anime USA approaches, I get really nervous about all the stuff I have to do. I have to get the sign stuffs printed up either Tuesday night or Wednesday night (or both), and then ferry everything over to the convention hotel all at once and get the signs assembled that night. Then, I get up early in the morning (9:00am is early to me) and run around putting the signs up, which I have to get done by noon, so that only gives me 3 hours, and usually people want to make schedule changes on the signs that morning. After that, I don't have to do much. It's a good amount of work partially spread out over however much time I want, and then there's a sudden burst of a lot of work, and there's the relaxation and a little work. Hopefully my plan for not having to change the schedules on the signs will work out for me.

Aside from the work, Anime USA promises to be good times. We're in a bigger hotel this year, and it's more metro-accessible (you can walk there from the metro rail station), and it's a lot easier to walk to food places. Also, the nearest alternative hotel is less than a minute's walk from the convention hotel. So the new location has its benefits. The drawback is getting there kinda sucks, and you have to pay for parking, the latter of which makes a big difference if you're not carpooling.

While I am working the con, it's not all-expenses paid. I have to pay for my own parking, transportation, and most of my room costs. The con reimburses 1/4 of the room cost, so unless I'm splitting 4-ways with roommates, I'm still paying for the room. They do provide me with some food, though, and I don't have to pay for the convention badge or T-Shirt. Also, being on staff gets me into areas regular attendees can't go to. Granted, those areas aren't very interesting, and were I not on staff I probably wouldn't really want to go to those places, but having the option is nice. Mostly it's easy to meet people who are on staff, and it's nice having a more direct ability to get my input implemented in what goes on at the convention. I was joking about the fat-suit sumo wrestling, but they still did it.

I was probably going somewhere with this, but I started writing it yesterday, and now I've forgotten. Well, there's still some good info there.