This year has proven to be a busy one, and life has been more than a little complicated due to close family illness. Hopefully, things are starting to settle down and I can turn my attention more to my art and crafts.

Anime North went extraordinarily well this year, setting a new record for just how well I can do at a con. Otakuthon was no so well in that sense, but I extremely enjoyed the con, and would like to attend again.

Next up will be Naru2U. Despite the issues last year, I decided to attend again, since, currently, I will not be at G-anime due to timing of their tables being open was just too early for me to look at.

Meanwhile, in a slightly off-topic note... Despite my experience at where I took animation being perhaps not the greatest, what with ailing hardware and software, and lack of a lot of variety of classes in general (I was in, what I do believe, was the last class to experience the original two year program.) I've generally always mentioned it as a place to go to other people when speaking of animation.

However, I cannot recommend it no longer--unless you happen to love Apple and already own an iPad2, then maybe it's the program for you! I recently learned of this new requirement (an iPad2, first day of class!) from a friend, and was disgusted. Yes, I am not a Mac user, I'm a PC user (and an Android user when it comes to mobile things.) No, I don't love Microsoft and would love for them to die in fire. No, I don't have any beef with Apple, save that they're not my cup of tea. That said, I don't own a single iAnything. Haven't felt the need and feel they're over-rated. Yes, they're shiny. Yes, you can do cool things with them. No, they're not better than anything else, especially when it comes to art.

The idea Apple>PC for Art is just stupid. I'm a firm believer in it's the user, not the tool, that makes art. In the right hands, you can make an amazing piece of artwork... with crayons. Just as I've seen some AMAZING videos put together with just Windows Movie Maker. If you can achieve the same kinds of things on a PC instead of a Mac, what does it matter?

And, for goodness sake, when someone owns a Cintiq, you cannot possibly convince me they should also buy a iPad. A FLIPPING CINTIQ!!! An iPad is a downgrade!

Sheesh. I appreciate them trying to upgrade their systems, cause when I was there it was a sorry state of affairs. (I only got my final in on time because I did my final almost entirely at home! Using Monkey Jam, an ancient copy of Premiere and my camcorder jigged up on a tripod, hooked into my ATI TV card! I brought it to school, and people were still working like crazy, lining up for the few pencil testers that were working.  Aced that term of animation, btw! It was nice after couple barely scraping throughs.) But, honestly?  This is just ridiculous.

Glad I have my piece of paper and never have to go back.

So yeah, go find somewhere else to go.  ...And make sure they have life drawing classes, unlike the school another friend of mine is taking animation... but that's another story. lol

And that's enough soap boxing for me.

Anyhoo, to end this blog on a happier note... Inkling from Wacom. Have you seen about that? No? Go google it! Now, there's a shiny thing. If it works as well as they're suggesting it does, I kinda want one. ...When it's less than $200 though. lol

After months of prep, the weekend was, well, not unproductive, but certainly not what I'd hoped for. C'est la vie! It happens, but the convention certainly has some issues that I hope they can work on for the next year. At the moment I'm not certain if I would return or not.

I still like Livejournal better, but this shall suffice, since I suspect I'm more likely to actually get comments here. XD So for any curious of what I'm up to, this will be the... lj, twitter, plurk... Fourth best place. (Yes, I have no Failbook. I deleted it. :3b)

Slowly but surely I beat my site into shape.

Now to figure out what next to do. :Oa