It’s been a busy, busy 2012 so far. Despite our best intentions to go back to blogging regularly, it just never happened. Oops. ^^;
Well, part of what kept us away was preparations for the local anime convention that we both used to work at. They’ve decided to make the move from April, which is when it’s been held for the last 7 years, to March, so one month earlier means one less month to prepare! AS stepped down from his position, but I stayed on, though I didn’t really do much in my room this year, since I had a booth in the dealer’s room again. Which makes it a good thing that AS was not working for the con, he was working for me instead. Hehe. We spent two months pricing everything and believe me, I have LOTS of stuff. I wish I could say I don’t have that much anymore, but I have put down money for a dealer’s booth next year and will try again. At some point, I’ll just need to price it so cheap that it’ll sell rather than come back year and year. I’ve been peddling the same stuff on and off for 6 years, though many things have sat in boxes every year because I didn’t have the room to display them.
Lots of stuff still sold though. Tomoyo also hit a all time high for sales which was great ^^. I was quite surprised how much people spent at her booth alone. Lots of posters and dresses sold this year which was good, especially for me as I had to lug those dresses and boy were they heavy when bunched up in a 45 gallon tote ^^;;. Luckily those totes have wheels xD.
Something else that I saw people drop big money on was the new Neko Mimi ears. I know because our booth was next to NicoNico who was selling them. Most of you probably saw the commercial for it.
A little misleading as they don’t show you the big “antenna” that they stick on the forhead lol. Here’s what the actual one looks like from last year.
If you want to see Puffy Amiyumi wear it, well here you go.
Seems like they updated it for 2012. It’s a little slimmer on the front.
I tried it myself. It was interesting feeling the ears move on my head involuntarily (maybe? as they are supposed to react to your thoughts). A bit uncomfortable with the ear clip on the ear lobe but I guess you get used to it when you wear it for a while. Also a bit of a weird feeling with the sensor on the forehead. Not too heavy so it doesn’t weigh down your head which was good.
Btw, if you’re wondering how much they were selling for, it was 150 USD each, which was supposed to be a special “convention price” so I don’t know how much they will retail for when mass produced. I didn’t buy one but I got a nice shirt from NicoNico for free lol. Btw, make sure you keep your receipt for these when they are released worldwide as they are maybe on second generation(?) now and I did see a few people exchange theirs out for another pair of ears as they either stuck in place or just not functioning. They still have a few kinks to work out but I can see it as a pretty popular item at anime conventions.
I also planned another event this year. Each year the con has a theme and this year was “Alice in Wonderland” so I couldn’t NOT plan a tea party, despite my declaring that I was through planning another event last year. We held a “Mad Tea Party” that was hosted by the Mad Hatter and the March Hare. I believe it was very well received, so I’m happy about that. ^_^
I worked the music for this event ^^.
And now my focus is on our upcoming trip. Which I am sure you will easily guess where. ^^;; Yep, Disneyland! But that’s only because we’ll be in LA for something else and how can I be in LA and not go to Disneyland? :3 But the main part of our trip that I’ve been planning on and off for the last year is the CRUISE! Yay, we’re going on a cruise! It IS a Disney cruise, of course. I wasn’t really interested in cruising, so if I was going to go on a cruise once, it had to be with Disney. Though with all my planning, I’m quite interested in going on another cruise already and it doesn’t have to be Disney. xD;
We are taking a repositioning cruise, which means the ship is changing its home base. Currently, the Disney Wonder, which is the ship we’ll be sailing on is docking in San Pedro, California to do cruises in the Mexican Riviera. In May, she’ll sail up north and dock in Seattle for Alaska cruises. So we will be on her journey up north, from San Pedro to Vancouver, Canada (there’s an old maritime law that states all ships must stop at an international port, hence why we end in Vancouver and not Seattle). Aside from Vancouver, which is where we’ll get off the ship, we’re also stopping one day in Victoria and one day in San Francisco. I have of course, planned everything at each port down to the hour. xD
Will try to post about it as soon as we come back as I know I will start to forget details about the trip as time passes lol.
AS has been busy, because besides helping me price things, he has been job hunting and yay, he found a job! He started very recently.
It’s going well so far, though only because I’m learning lol. Once I start doing the actual work I bet it will get much tougher and easier at the same time lol.
