Oni-Con 2006 final impressions
Monday 30 October 2006 3:00pm by: rac	permalink | 0 comments Anime and Manga
Now that I've had a week to reflect about Oni-con and get caught up with all the stuff that I ignored during that weekend, there are a few comments I can make. Attendance was 4000-4500; about 1000 more than last year. The 'con was short-staffed. Really. Could have used more security, more registation personnel. There needed to be actual communication between Con Ops, Security headquarters, Registration and the Green Room. Even designated runners would have helped if phone or radio wasn't an option (but see above, not enough staff). There needed to be better communication with potential staff and tentative staff schedules ready at least a month before the 'con. Security didn't get an email until about a week before, and there were no schedules for where and when security would be needed that I'm aware of. After-hours registration was a mess. Security had a box of pre-reg badges sent up when the registration tables closed, but the badges were sorted in order by confirmation number. Nobody HAD their confirmation number. We spent about ten minutes per person sorting through badges to find them for the people who came late; we had nothing to correlate names with confirmation numbers to find them easier. Con Ops being in a separate building from the convention was confusing, at best, and potentially disasterous at worst. Registration had people coming to get volunteer, press, and industry badges and most of registration staff had no clue about these "special" circumstances, all of which should have been handled by Con Ops. The dealer's room seemed to be a bit...limited... in selections, and short a few vendors. I think the food situation with the George R. Brown and Aramark may have had a little something to do with that, though. The stage lighting in Main Programming left a LOT to be desired, and at times make seeing presenters and cosplayers difficult, as well as making photography...well...interesting. Granted, it wasn't all negative. I was able to attend several Voice Actor panels, and had a great time listening to the actors and actresses answering questions in their own spectacular ways. What I watched of the walkon Cosplay was mostly excellent. From a security op's standpoint, congoers were mostly cooperative and usually willing to comply with requests from staff. Most people put up with scheduling snafus and delays with little outward complaining, and appeared to leave the convention center in clean condition, picking up after themselves and not leaving trash around. I also have to give thanks to the George R. Brown staff, who was attentative to not just trash pickup, but providing water coolers to the staff rooms and generally showing a pride in their facility that just wasn't there at Park/Grand Plaza last year. All in all, I think that Oni-Con 2006 went off well. The band, 12012, was well received (although not my kind of music), the guests were great, and the congoers generally seemed to enjoy themselves. Many thanks and applause for the 'con adminstration, especially Lee, for their hard work. Next year will be even better -- If you're reading this, bring a friend or two or three, and introduce them to the wonders of Anime!

Oni-Con -- the first two days
Sunday 22 October 2006 8:15am by: rac	permalink | 1 comments Anime and Manga
I've got just a second to write--got to get ready for church in a few minutes, but I wanted to give some impression so far during Oni-Con. The Con started Friday, and I got there about 2:30. Security head told me to go check on registration and keep an eye on the lines there; no problem. Well, pre-reg was moving slow, and walk-in was too. I ended up helping with the walk-in badges; I have a loud voice and people could hear me when I called their names! There were a few irate con-goers who were annoyed at having to wait in line so long, but nobody was really a cause of problems for the staff. So, at this point, I'm not sure if I'm security or registration staff... I did get to see the Amano Cosplay Showcase on Friday afternoon. There were some amazing costumes entered, and the attention to detail was fantastic. I can't say which costume won (I'm not real familiar with Amano's designs) but they were all quite impressive. Those are the first pictures in the gallery that I'll post soon. Went home about 11:30 Friday night, and back at 9:30 on Saturday. Back to registration to help there. Calling out names again...I'm going to lose my voice before the weekend is over. Attended a voice actor panel on Saturday afternoon. Scott McNeil, Johnny Young Bosch, Carrie Savage and others talked, joked and gave their stories to an attentative audience. The Q&A was fun; Scott McNeil is a riot, and always has a ready answer and a voice to go with it. I stayed through most of the panel, and got some good pictures of some of the actors, as well as a few of con-goers in costume in the panel room. Saturday evening the cosplay contest went well (although quite long). I helped with seating as security, and then got to take a front-rwo seat to show pictures of the walk-on costumers. I didn't stay for the skits; most of them are usually inside jokes or involve series that I haven't see or have no interest in. Went back to registration to follow up, and ended up playing security escort for the registration close-out. Got to sit around the green room after that, and watched Ultimate Avenger 2 on Cartoon Network, then I went home.

Addictions
Friday 13 October 2006 12:14pm by: rac	permalink | 0 comments Rants
Listening to Sam Malone on KTRH radio this morning. He was talking about this new study that decaf coffee isn't caffine free (gee,really?) and was polling his callers about their addictions -- not alcohol or drugs, but anything else. One caller talked about his wife - she's addicted to Star Trek, and watches it from DVD for 4 hours every night -- to the extent that if power fails, she reverts to a portable DVD player with a backup generator! Personally, I'm not quite that bad. My wife thinks I'm addicted to the computer and Anime, but I really only have one overriding obsession: Dr. Pepper, and when I can get it, particularly Dublin Dr. Pepper, bottled in Dublin, Texas, southeast of Fort Worth. Dublin DP is made using the original formula, with Imperial Pure Cane Sugar instead of corn syrup. The real sugar makes a sweet drink, but not syrupy sweet, and I prefer to think of this drink as my personal Nectar of the gods. So you've now read about my addiction...what's yours?

New site layout complete!
Wednesday 11 October 2006 11:48pm by: admin	permalink | 0 comments Site Info
I'll be repeating some of what's in the sidebar, but Welcome to the pared-down, simplified NoIdea.US website! I've migrated from Geeklog to PluggedOut Blog for several reasons, but mainly for easier maintenance and relieving issues of "sleeper" spammer registrations. The wiki is gone, the forums are gone, and the galleries have been slimmed down as well. Just for reference, the links database is still here, and the downloads are still available, but some locations and internal URLs have changed. A bit of Apache Redirect magic should still point search engine links to the correct locations. Most of the old posts are still here, except for a few that specifically related to the old Geeklog setup. You may have to use the "search" feature to find the article you are looking for...don't be afraid to try it! If you need help with malware removal, try the SpywareInfo Forums or any of the sites listed at the Alliance of Security Analysis Professionals site. For help with Tivo2Mpg, see this thread at the DealDatabase Forums. Other than that, I've added NoIdea.US to FeedBurner. the syndication link can be found in the footer of this page, or by clicking on the "feedburner" icon in the right column. Welcome back, and thanks for reading!

Almost finished....
Tuesday 10 October 2006 1:21am by: admin	permalink | 0 comments Site Info
I've gotten the important articles from the old site uploaded and reconfigured for the blog script. Just a few details to finish (some image pointers and such) and I think this will be ready to go live! I'll have a few Apache Rewrite rules to test first before being completely ready, but it's pretty close now. Need to tweak the theme some to make the outer columns a bit narrower, too. This has become my TODO list for updates.... fix image pointers and links in imported stories apache rewrite rules for staticpages, articles.php, links.php from old layout copy links from old site to new links database update links script to log clickthroughs shrink the outer columns a bit for more space in the middle. RSS parser for layout side box (US-CERT or such) Update the "about" box. Finally, reconfigure apache from the test domain to 'new' site!

Site Going Live
Saturday 7 October 2006 9:10pm by: admin	permalink | 0 comments General News, Site Info
I'm almost finished with the revamp for NoIdea.US, and should be taking the new system live sometime this next week. I've got the gallery finished, and the file download page ready. I just need to get download logging in place, write some admin code to read the logs, and some Apache redirects in place for the downloads. So, the changes should be here soon!