I’m pleased to announce that I will be presenting “When Gundam Goes Bad” at Anime Boston 2013 at 11:15am Friday May 24th in Panel 309. This is the second time giving this panel so it’ll be a slightly tweaked version. It was first presented at ConnectiCon 2013. I plan to be at Anime Boston all day Friday, with a possible stay over till Saturday. Anyone who wants to meet up can hit me up on twitter.

When Gundam Goes Bad

“The U.C. Gundam franchise has been held up over the past twenty years as the father of modern mecha anime. But while those original Gundam series were innovative and exciting, there is also a side of it there is extremely silly. We go over the details on when Gundam is extremely good, and when Gundam is laughably bad.”

 There is a poison that has been growing in gaming culture for some time now. In the last year or so I think it’s reached a zenith, and it is time that consumers start fighting back. The core gamers are told that there are threats to their hobby. That congress is legislating against their games, that iPhones and iPads are causing dedicated game consoles and game capable PCs to disappear. However, the real threat to gaming culture is internal, and is inflamed by PR firms who want to manipulate and gamers into buying into their story so they can sell games. Hype. Hype is the greatest danger to the gaming market and it is time that the majority of core gamers realized how they are being manipulated.

Of course, this could be a problem with the greater geek culture that has risen to prominence in the last ten years. Fans line up for hours to watch ten minutes of a film they are going to see in theaters in a few months. That waste of time and money has always baffled me, as I have always found myself with more media to consume than time to consume it. In gaming I’ve seen fans line up for hours to play a few minutes of Portal 2 at PAX East less than a month before release. The same for L.A. Noir, a game that wasn’t even worth playing even after the price had bottomed out. At NY Comic Con fans waited in line to watch game play of Batman Arkham City only a week or two before release.

I love podcasts. I listened to some podcasts before even iTunes started to support them but it wasn’t until they got rolled into the iTunes store that I became seriously dependent on them for entertainment during my daily commute and the more mundane tasks I have to suffer through during work. And now, as a podcast producer, I have a vested interest in the ecosystem around podcasts.

Before iTunes allowed podcasts into the store the way to actually get and listen to podcasts was tedious at best. Users had to download them using a desktop based RSS feed reader to download the audio files. Then the user would listen to it in their preferred MP3player on their PC or sync it onto their iPod or other MP3 players. After iTunes worked it into their store, things got a lot easier. Users could find and subscribe to the podcasts they wanted, and then iTunes would download them and delete them from the users computer and iPod after they listened to them. Users would still have to sync with their computers but the management of the audio files had become invisible.

This year has been insane, monumental… overwhelming. Two of the Podcasts from the Maximum Fun network both celebrated 2012 as a year for getting things done, and getting yours. “My Brother, My Brother, and Me” embraced 2012 as 20-does, in which they encouraged people to “get it done.” On “Jordan, Jesse Go!” the hosts declared the motto of 2012 “More Powerful Than Ever: Going Ape.”

Last year probably represents the biggest changes I’ve ever had... it was a huge amount of life experience crammed into a tiny year and I’m overwhelmed and burnt out by all of it. It’s as if I played catch up and then jumped ahead of where I should have been all within the same few months.

I’m not sure how to describe the total of what happened in 2012 in any kind of coherent way. I’m the same person I was a year ago in most ways, but at the same time I feel very different from even six months ago.

In 2012, I entered my first long term relationship; purchased by first new car; got a promotion to a much more exciting and high paying position, and purchased a my first home which marks the first time living on my own..

There is nothing really much more to say. I took got extremely lucky with some of it, and most of it I just pushed forward and took what I wanted.

Of course, some things suffered. I haven’t posted a blog post on Otaku in Review since October and haven’t been writing much outside of the “HEY LOOK AT MY HOUSE” posts on this blog. I also haven’t been seeking out any photography in the last few months…other than “ OH HEY, I BOUGHT A HOUSE.” Those hobbies have been replaced with learning how to paint and maintain a condo that is mine now… also paying for it.

I also kind of… let my diet fall apart at the end of the year with all the holidays and other distractions. So I’m at the weight I was when 2012 started. So the year 2013 will be the year that I not only endeavor to drop to my goal weight but hopefully learn how to adopt healthy eating habits. Low-carb dieting is how I lost the bulk of my weight but that really isn’t how I want to eat for the rest of my life.

So the general things I promise myself to do every year still stand. Fix my sleep schedule; which is a constant problem; get better organized, write more, take more photographs, and lose weight.

I do want to add another goal to this year: Go completely paperless. Not in getting rid of books or other such things but scanning mail and getting rid of it, moving to digital notebooks exclusively, using Evernote to transmit hand written notes. I don’t think “going paperless” means getting rid of all paper, but hand written notes should be catalogued digitally and then destroyed because there is no effective way to store and search it. So that is what I’m going to work on accomplishing this year: dump as much paper from my life as possible.

Happy New Year! Hope your 2012 was as great as mine and I hope you accomplish your goals for 2013!

The kitchen still needs the back splash painted, I decided not to bother with tile at this point because the project has just gone out of hand. The wall is pretty much the color I pictured and I bought the table with it in mind before I even closed on the condo.

Also, sorry for the quality of some of these photos, I went through quickly just for some updates and now I’m pissed off at the quality but blah.

From Condo

From Condo

The main living area is in a moderate beige which I really like, but upstairs I decided to go a little more bold, which I normally don't… but I felt like while most of the place should look stylish and modern I wanted color in the more personal areas. I might get sick of it… but at least for now I think it's beautiful.  

 Living room

From Condo

Going upstairs

Office

Garage

From Condo

Stairs up to kitchen

From Condo

Kitchen

From Condo

 I will be writing a full convention report about Otakon over at Otaku in Review but I wanted to get some details that are not exactly relevant to the convention out in this post, more of a vacation wrap up than a convention post.

I left early on thursday and made it to Baltimore around 3PM. I only stopped twice on the way, the second was for lunch at Waffle House which holds a warm nostalgic value for me. The food is delicious in a “this is bad for you and hastily prepared” sort of way. I had a Waffle with eggs and grits with sausage and toast. A carbo-load for a day filled with walking.

When I got into the city I went to the hotel but saw no place to drive up and unload my bags. Later I found that the valet parking area can be used for this, but at the time I just wanted to get there so I drove to my parking space a half mile away. Not being in the inner harbor proper the price was far better, $17 a day, and I got a deal with Parking Panda which made the four day stay a total of $60. In an area where parking will murder you, I claimed this as a huge accomplishment. Of course, I had to drag my suitcase, tote bag, and backpack three-fourths of a mile to the hotel. It was probably worth saving the money.

We sat for a bit and then went to get our badges. From there we met with the Out of Time Production crew  to Edo Sushi. I’m not a big sushi fan, although I tried one with raw salmon that I liked, but the consensus was that it was an overpriced mediocre Sushi place. Considering the thousands of Japanophiles in the area for the convention I’m, sure they cleaned up over the weekend. It had a nice Japanese atmosphere inside with waitresses dressed in Yukata and all the trappings of a high priced Sushi restaurant. I ordered an Asahi which I liked. It was a dry beer with a nice flavor and no after taste. For dinner I ordered a beef Teriyaki and expected to get some beef strips and rice but received a full steak covered in Teriyaki sauce. The meat was cooked perfectly and melted in my mouth, the teriyaki was slightly sweet and complimented the meat beautifully. For dessert I got some Green Tea ice cream, a favorite of mine at Japanese restaurants. Frankly, anything Green Tea flavored is an easy way to win my heart.

On the road to Baltimore!

Stuck in traffic in NYC :/

— Scott Spaziani (@ScottSpaziani) July 26, 2012

Breakfast of champions twitter.com/ScottSpaziani/…

— Scott Spaziani (@ScottSpaziani) July 26, 2012

Making my way through New Jersey, the parking lot state

— Scott Spaziani (@ScottSpaziani) July 26, 2012

I'm at Waffle House (Elkton, MD) 4sq.com/QdYmDb

— Scott Spaziani (@ScottSpaziani) July 26, 2012

In Maryland, stopped at a Waffle House because aww yeah Waffle House

— Scott Spaziani (@ScottSpaziani) July 26, 2012

Delaware is only three miles long yet costs $8 to drive through

— Scott Spaziani (@ScottSpaziani) July 26, 2012