M Dash 27 - Blog by Hecko X » Trips and Events

Got 5,000 Genki Business Cards in the Mail

Hecko X — Thu, 15 Jul 2010 20:30:47 +0000

So… just got 5,000 Genki business cards in the mail… Friggin’ insane…

Anyway, I’ve added a scan of the front and back of the Genki business cards to the bottom of the post. The concept is that it’s just a ‘template’ and then people write their own names and contact info on the back when handing them out (getting everyone personal ones was too expensive for the union). Also, we’re giving some to stores to put in each manga they sell as a form of advertising.

How do you like them?

So, What’s Up with Genki?

Hecko X — Fri, 02 Jul 2010 10:28:59 +0000

I just realised that I hadn’t posted anything about how work for our convention, Genki 2010, is coming along, so I figured I’d rectify that!

Truth be told, the last few weeks have been paperwork hell for me. Being the accountant of the union, Genkai, which is behind events such as our convention Genki, it has been my job to balance the books. This means that I have to daily check the bank accounts (yes, plural, since I also manage books for the associate company), balance the books, send out confirmation emails to all the people who have joined, and then take note of who joined, when, and so on. I’ve probably sent out +500 mails in the last 3 weeks. Receipts and stuff like that also go through me, so I have to approve and organise all of them OTL

But despite me totally emoing over paperwork and deadlines, we’re doing pretty well. Our last deadline is on my birthday, July 23, because I’d probably forget otherwise and I most likely will anyway (random factoid: The last deadline we had was actually Kurikku’s birthday, May 27, when we open for registrations). But when we reach that point, we’re only gonna be working on making sure stuff run smoothly during the convention itself so we don’t have to stop parts of the convention because something broke down, but could have been avoided. We’d rather not have to fix stuff in the middle of the con and possibly cancel events; that sucks T^T

Our top priorities right now is to get permissions for weapons display and setting up the stage (since it’s an outdoor stage and we have to think about noise pollution), and making sure that eeeeverything is 100% legal by the time the con starts. For this reason, we (Kurikku and I) have gone on many trips to the tax office, the Copenhagen municipal office and to several police station departments. It would really suck if we held the most awesome con ever and then had our egos get groin-kicked by getting arrested and/or fined for something totally redundant… =.=;

And that’s all for now~. The next Genki 2010 update will probably come during the convention which is only a month away now 8D

Btw, all the drawings, which are of the Genki mascots (Ping&Pong), we’re drawn by the rovery Kaiki of hybridcage.net. I think their new designs are pretty cool *nod nod* And now if you’ll excuse me, I must be off; my bananaphone is ringing! >:3

Buddies’ Day Out

Hecko X — Sun, 27 Jun 2010 12:11:38 +0000

So, a few days ago Thursday, three friends and I, who had all been in the same group for the Year 2 Project, went out to celebrate having passed all of our exams. We had long since decided that when we finally finished the year (or “cleaned the year“, as we say in Serbia if you pass all your exams), we’d go to dinner and bowling, so that’s exactly what we did! 8D

We started off going to a burger joint named after a city in Canada, Halifax. None of us had ever been there before, which made it kinda cool for all of us since we all got to test out something new. Considering that it was a burger joint, their selection was fairly limited (5 types of burgers), but you could ‘customise’ them by selecting what kind of meat you wanted in them (e.g. 175g beef, 275g beef, chicken, etc.), what kind of side order, and what type of dip you wanted.

The burgers were absolutely delicious, but the prices were pretty damn spicy. Even the cheapest burger + side order on the menu was 110 DKK and a small drink was like 25 DKK. There are really good places with all-you-can-eat buffets with free drinks and ice cream for 2 hours for almost the same price, so I was a bit D8 about it, but it was pretty good nonetheless, and the waitress was pretty patient with us ^^’

Afterwards, we went bowling. Since we had like an hour and a half until our reservation at the bowling alley, we decided to walk there and had some fun in the meantime. We made it with like 20 minutes to go, so I can imagine it was further away than we thought XD

Anywho, long story short, we could all use some more practice (I’ve added our games to the end of the post)… And I seriously need to get back in shape, I was pretty sore the next morning, lulz XD In any case, it was a super fun day out, so thanks you guys!!

Genki @ Komiks

Hecko X — Sun, 20 Jun 2010 02:47:52 +0000

Okay, truth be told, this event is almost a month old which is why I’m a bit “hnnngh… ;>.>” about posting it, BUT HEY!! I haven’t really posted for ages because I’ve been busy with exams (which are now over), scanlations (which are partially on hold due to either vacation or licensing), and Genki work (which is now far more manageable), so I figured what the the hey~.

Anywho, Komiks is probably the largest comic book convention in Denmark. Compared to the comic conventions in the US or the manga conventions in Japan, it’s not; like comparing an ice cube to the iceberg that sank the Titanic, but here, it’s pretty effing big! Anywho, Genki were especially invited because the Komiks organisers had apparently heard about us (wuuuw) and wanted us to give their participants a taste of the East (mainly focusing on manga, but also other things).

So we essentially had us a miniature Genki convention with a manga lounge, a game room (organised by one of our Swedish partners, Terebi Ge-mu), a chill-out café with drawing and Perle bead making, and even an anime showing. The only thing that sucked is that we had no flyers for Genki to hand out and our banner wasn’t up until Sunday, so PR-wise, we crashed and burned (people didn’t know who organised it XD). But people at least had fun at our little corner of Komiks, so it’s all good.

I myself had buck-loads of fun too; I got the kick-assatastic drawing of Young Flaming Ninja from Kaiki (seen on the left; she gave me the original sketch), met this chick that I’m currently ’seeing’ (it’s a very casual relationship/arrangement, we’re not actually dating), and lost Kurikku to Samir from Sweden in a game of Super Street Fighter IV XD

Kurikku in turn, in a vain effort to win back his freedom, lost me, the chick I’m seeing, and aaaaaall of Genki to Samir, so now, we’re all Samir’s bitches until I get a chance to win everything back in a game of Tekken 6. And I’ll win his girlfriend and cat from him also, JUST BECAUSE!! JUST BECAUSE, SAMIR!!! >:3 /shakes fist at Samir

Oh, and one last funny story about the event: Terebi Ge-mu, the dudes from Sweden setting up our game room for Komiks, had prepared and safely locked away their consoles to get them to Komiks. They get to Komiks, and when they’re just about to unpack, they realise that they never got the keys from the guy who helped them pack their stuff. So now, we had like 8-10 consoles locked away in two red whatevers from IKEA and no key.

Kurikku suggest that they go to the IKEA 45 minutes into town, buy the same “metal cupboard storage”-thingy so they can get an identical key, and come back and unlock the ones they brought from Sweden with the consoles in them. I tell them no, since I can get them open without the key. Kurikku liked his idea better, so off to IKEA they went, and 30 minutes into their road trip, the van BREAKS DOWN in the middle of the highway, leaving them stranded for hours. And guess who had manage to pick open the locks with a hairpin and a screwdriver only a few minutes after they’d left XD

KodachiCon 2010

Hecko X — Mon, 10 May 2010 17:35:27 +0000

Ok, wow. I’m so tired… Anyway, this weekend was when KodachiCon 2010 in Lund, Sweden, took place, and boy was it cool. I actually wanted to take a bunch of pictures, but my cameraphone went into roaming mode as soon as we entered Sweden and the entire battery was drained before I ever got the chance to take pics, so I got zilch. Check out their gallery on facebook though: KodachiCon Gallery

This was actually my first con abroad, so it was big relief to me to have the ’safety net’ of going with a few friends as well as the con being organized by Mangakai Lund, the Swedish partners of Genki. I initially wanted to write two big posts, but I’m tired and busy with exams and such, so I’m just gonna make things short.

All in all, the con was pretty cool and chillaxed. In number of participants, it was about the same as Genki 2009, but they actually utilized the venue space (which I think was smaller than what we had) REALLY efficiently. The only place that ever felt crowded was the 2 metres between the doorway leading to the gameroom and the stairs leading to the lower level.

In terms of events, there was a cosplay show that I unfortunatelly didn’t go to, game room by Terebi-Gemu + game tournaments (I won the Tekken 6 one~ 8D ; got a medal and two games), an auction, a karaoke room supplied by us (Genki), a traditional game room (i.e. boardgames) + contests by S.A.R.Z., two cinemas; one dedicated to anime, the other dedicated to J-drama (they had also planned for an outdoor evening cinema, but it started raining), cool in-between events like Jeopardy and Mafia (which I really wanted to try having read the manga Doubt, but I was just way too tired), and lots lots more.

I got to meet a lot of really cool people, including some of the best Street Fighter and Tekken players in Sweden (I was no match for them in SF, but in Tekken, I whooped ass >:3 ), and in my opinion, their con was super duper awesome!! The only thing I regret was spending too much time in the game room, I wanted to go see some of the other stuff as well D8

Oh, one thing I thought was a bit “… but why?” was that the ‘kiosk/cafeteria’ didn’t really sell food other than snacks/candy and then breakfast during the morning. I mean sure, there was a McDonald’s and a petrol station like 5-10 minutes away so it wasn’t like people were dying of hunger, but since they already had an electric keddle free for use (if people had bought like tea or something, I guess), why then not hook up an extra one and then sell cup noodles or something? I think that would’ve been pretty cool. But then again, it might have been done like that for safety reasons (to avoid people being idiots and scalding themselves or others big-time) or maybe they need some licence to sell that kind of stuff, I dunno.

Copenhagen Film Festival 2010

Hecko X — Sat, 17 Apr 2010 14:58:09 +0000

The Copenhagen Film Festival *aka* CPH PIX has started!! 8D It lasts 10 days (April 15-25), and if it wasn’t for the ICO and the Year 2 projects, I would watch myself senseless with movies.

Even so, I will try my hardest to watch enough movies to justify buying a movie pass without sacrificing project time. Below can be seen a snapshot of my planned movie schedule (I’m too lazy/busy to code a table in HTML…). I’ll consider writting brief reviews if I have time, but don’t count on it as project work takes priority.

HANAMIII!!!

Hecko X — Sun, 28 Mar 2010 16:39:40 +0000

Long story short: We had a Genki meeting yesterday (which went awesome), and at some point, someone (it might’ve been me or Kurikku or someone, I forgot) was all like:

“SHIT, GUYS, SAKURA FESTIVAL, TWO WEEKS FROM NOW!! GENKI SHOULD SO DO SOMETHING FOR THAT!! O.O”
“…”
“O.O”
“…”
“O.O”
“…”
“O.O”
“O.O”
“YEAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!!!”

And now Genki is having a picnic with our Swedish partners, Mangakai Lund, where we’ll have music, food, fun, photo shoots, more fun, and just a Genki old time~.

Wasn’t that a beautiful story? Brings tears to my eyes T^T Epic storytelling, I know…

—-
About the picture, here are the credits:
Composite by me
Genki logo by eskdecay with minute modifications by me
Original photo of sakura pathway, no idea, but it was in the gallery of a person called sexyshinobi

Free Ice Cream!!

Hecko X — Thu, 25 Mar 2010 21:47:11 +0000

Today, Frisko had an event where they handed out free ice cream in order to kick off the coming of spring (or something like that). Anywho, since distribution didn’t start until 13:00, which is when I had class, but ended as soon as supply led up, me and two of my friends decided to sneak out of class. And by sneak, I mean make a large commotion to stun everyone, slam open the door, and run out before the teacher could ask what it was all about.

We sprinted to the nearest 7-Eleven (since distribution was from 7-Elevens across Denmark) in order to a) beat the crowd; and b) try to make it back before the company presentation we were having 10 minutes later. By the time we got the however, the crowd was huge, and we ended up spending 15 minutes in line, BUT WE GOT OUR ICE CREAMS IN THE END AND WE REGRET NOTHING!! >:3

We were totally late for the presentation however, so walking back into the class was a bit awkward… ;>.> BUT DUDE, FREE ICE CREAM!!

Hecko’s Great Adventure

Hecko X — Thu, 18 Feb 2010 21:05:35 +0000

Today, I was feeling extremely unwell and even nearly passed out on several occasions on my way to school. The top part of my head felt extremely heavy and tears started flowing for no apparent reason. Because I only felt ill when sitting still and not while moving around, I left the school after having contemplating what to do for about 10-15 minutes.

I decide to walk home and log everything of interest as I passed it by. Below is a map of the route I took. Clicking the blue points will bring up a small text box with info while clicking the green ones will bring up a video I recorded while there. Everything is chronoligical, so please find point 1 (the North-Eastern most blue point) first, if it doesn’t appear automatically, and then just follow the line, clicking the points as you go along.

Second ASP Tekken Tourney!!

Hecko X — Sat, 07 Nov 2009 15:11:06 +0000

NB! Load-time for the full post is long if you have a slow connection due to multiple images and videos. Sorry ^^’
And so, the second ASP Tekken tourney was held yesterday (Friday) in celebration of the recent release of Tekken 6. Despite many people having signed up, quite a few had to cancel due to work or illness (like 8 people or something), so we were only 7 in the tourney, including me. BUT WE HAD FUN NONE THE LESS!! 8D

A few of the participants had also attended the first tourney, but there were also quite a few newcomers, so it was all good. Mad props go out to Maria who joined us while not really having much experience with the game, but were just in it for the fun of it all, which I think is totally cool!

Character Usage

Naka	Tim	Sven Timo	Wang-chan	Henrik	Maria	Hecko
Ganryu	Lei Wulong	Ling Xiaoyu	Ling Xiaoyu	Yoshimitsu	Raven	Mokujin

All Tekken icons were made by “The B.O.B.“.

Initial Rounds

Best of five rounds, handicap at 100%, each won round gives one point (applies to rest of tourney as well).

	Naka	Tim	Sven Timo	Wang-chan	Henrik	Maria	Hecko	Total
Naka		3-0	3-1	1-3	1-3	3-1	1-3	12
Tim	0-3		3-1	1-3	3-0	3-0	2-3	12
Sven Timo	1-3	1-3		1-3	2-3	1-3	0-3	6
Wang-chan	3-1	3-1	3-1		2-3	3-0	1-3	15
Henrik	3-1	0-3	3-2	3-2		3-0	0-3	12
Maria	1-3	0-3	3-1	0-3	0-3		0-3	4
Hecko	3-1	3-2	3-0	3-1	3-0	3-0		18

3rd Finals Opening Qualifier

Because there was a three-way split on the last opening for the finals, Tim, Naka, and Henrik had to duke it out.

	Tim	Henrik	Naka	Total
Tim		1-3	3-0	4
Henrik	3-1		0-3	3
Naka	0-3	3-0		3

Finals

	Wang-chan	Tim	Hecko	Total
Wang-chan		0-3	3-2	3
Tim	2-3		2-3	4
Hecko	3-0	3-2		6

Videos

All four videos are from the initial rounds.

Ganryu (Naka) vs Ling (Jieqi)	Lei (Tim) vs Ling (Sven Timo)

Raven (Maria) vs Yoshimitsu (Henrik)	Mokujin (Hecko) vs Ling (Jieqi)

Conclusion

So in the end, I became the King of Iron Fist Tournament yet again!! The grand prize was a jar of candy, which I, like last year, shared with all who came to play ^^ Despite the many cancellations, it was way fun, and I hope everyone else had a great time too. Afterwards, we also had a few battles in Tekken 6 on the PS3, just for laughs.

Genki Websites Update Done

Hecko X — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 19:23:44 +0000

Finally done with updating the God forsaken Genki sites after like… just little over 21 hours now. Me and Kurikku spent half the night making the English site; adding content, fixing coding glitches (damn widgets…), uploading images, and whatnot. After that, we had to do everything one more time and translate it into Danish *sigh!*

Kurikku mostly did visuals (gallery, content, design), while I did mostly behind the scenes stuff (coding, grammar/spell checking, rephrasing, and making sure both sites had the same information). It’s absolutely splendid teamwork, if I do say so myself; he’s the front of the convention and I’m the guy in the shadows complaining about the visual editor wrecking my precious coding ;_;

But that’s the way I prefer it, as dealing with people creeps me the fuck out, so I stick with the information aspect of things. In anime terms, he is the the Tamaki to my Kyouya, and Genki is our precious host club ♥

Anywho, before and after shots (click for bigger):

Before	After

First Big Genki 2010 Meeting =D

Hecko X — Sun, 13 Sep 2009 15:29:32 +0000

Yeeeeeah, just got back from the meeting, wasn’t feeling too well, so left early. The meeting actually started yesterday, September 12, and should be ending just about know, as I started writing this.

Long story short, we made pretty good progress on the con, actually planning tentative budgets, what events to have, event placement, time schedule, and much much more. For a few new features this year, we’ll hopefully be having fan-made panels, a live Genki Radio that people can call to using Skype and talk with the hosts, and we’ll also start a Vide-Log thingy called “G-News” so that updates on our website won’t be text-only, but actually have videos of important Genki news and issues (as well as some… not so serious stuff XP). And we are keeping it all at the low, low price of only 150 DKK, which while it is twice the price of Genki 2009, is still the cheapest ticket price for a Danish anime convention, and that is kickass =D

We had a lot of people coming over, which was way nice~! Thanks to that, we really got some work done and covered almost all bases. Kajsa from Sweden unfortunately didn’t come (*heartbreak*), which is why my hair is not purple now ;_; But we did get Heavy (yiiir~, Chinese loverboy ♥ XD) as well as the chairman from Mangakai Lund to come, so it was all good. Kaiki also showed up on Sunday, but I dunno, she seemed kinda distant towards me at times and then at times we joked liked no time at all had passed (I guess we just have to get used to eachother again or something) :/ I hope it was just because she was tired (which I was too…) and not because she thinks I still have romantic feelings for her or something, cause that would make things kinda awkward… But I doubt that’s the case though; Shroomie’s a bright chick, so I think she knows by now that I like someone else and that I’m not interested in her as anything other than a really awesome friend I can be relaxed around ^^ (EDIT: She thought I still wanted to date her… =.=;)

Aaaaaaanywho, my failing love life (or something..?) aside, it was kinda nice seeing her again for the first time in over a year and have the chance catch up a bit. Hopefully, we can do that on a more regular basis (and not just once per year XP). That also reminds me that I should hang out with Heavy more often, and maybe Kajsa too. We’re like the three musketeers of perverted misunderstandings, it’s so great XD Roadtrip to Sweden it is!!

But yeah, back on topic, Genki stuff are going smooooothly for the time being, hopefully that will continue, and we will end up being the best convention in Denmark, yaaaaaay~! Updates on our site, genki.dk (English version here), should be coming soon, so look forward to awesome videos of awesome. AWESOME, I SAY!

Maré de Agosto Festival

Hecko X — Sat, 05 Sep 2009 10:19:01 +0000

A few weeks ago, Henry, a buddy of mine from Azores (a Portuguese archipelago in the Atlantic Ocean), told me about a festival that would be taking place on his island. I asked him if he would be so nice as to write a post about it for M Dash, and a few threats and embarrassing negatives later (okay, not really XP), he agreed. So here is Henry’s post with a few videos of the festival added =3

Two weeks ago, the 25th Maré de Agosto festival of world music took place in the island of Santa Maria, Azores. The name comes from the potent tides that usually hit the island around this time, (Maré de Agosto being portuguese for “Tide of August”). This music festival focuses on the different music styles and cultures from the world, however, the DJ’s sound pretty much all the same.

This year Reggae, Rock, Trance, Hip Hop, Folk, Dance, Celtic Rock, Percussion and African sounds could be heard in Praia Formosa (the island’s most popular bay) in the 4 days of the festival, which had its 25th anniversary this year, and if you ask me, it was well planned.

Two stages were set for this festival: The Main Stage, where two main concerts took place until 2:30 am,~when the next concert would take place in the Castle Stage, leaving the main DJ on the Main Stage. Also, activities such as percussion workshops, concerts and shows would take place in the Castle stage from 3 pm until 7.

So, usually everybody goes camping around the bay, either in the camping park (which got full by the first day) or in the surrounding fields. By the second day there was no place to leave a cooler at. Due to bad camping experiences last year, I begged my cousin (wub youz :3) to save me a seat on my aunt’s Nissan.

So, everyday I had a ride to Praia Formosa at 10 pm and a ride back home around 5 am, and stood by the main stage through the whole festival. The first day was cool. The festival was opened in the 20th of August at 10:30 pm by the local scout’s percussion band, BEY JÁ’ TUM (love you ^^). With only one band acting, the Portuguese WOK, the night was reserved to the french DJ Click. Best DJ I’ve seen.

In the 21st, the night started with Lura, a cape verdean singer, and was succeeded by Wolfstone, who I didn’t see, though I completely sorry being on the beach during that concert since it sounded fucking amazing. I returned later and the DJ turned out to be a total piece of crap.

The third day was amazing. Starting with the Cuban Kumar’s Hip Hop (whose band had an extremely hot singer), the show went on with the British band Fiction Plane, who threw one of the best concerts of the festival. For some fucking reason I only remember the last song from that concert, and I usually got drunk in the break between the second concert and the DJ. Stupid memory of mine. >_>

The last day was marked by Warsaw Village Band from Poland, whose concert was hit by a brutal shower, which caused everyone to open their parasols, run to the WC or shelter under the entrance. I picked the latter, and boy was it crowded. All I could move was my head, but fortunately I could reach my friend’s straw and drink his RedBull (]:D). Next came the reggae of Gentleman, from Germany, who gave us one hell of a show as well, specially when he went into the middle of the crowd (I wanted to jump high and scream, but had a beer cup on each hand. Fucked luck >_>).

This edition of Maré the Agosto was by far the most crowded one. A friend of mine who came from another island had to wait 3 hours for a ticket. I could barely move inside the main stage and going to the bar to get some beer and come back was a pain in the ass during the concerts, specially after you drink some of it. That’s why I always bought two beers at a time, since the first would end before I’d find my friends. Also, if anyone had a seizure outside the area, it would probably die, since most of the ambulances were parked at the festival. Same works for firefighters. Parking on the area was also terrible, and once we even had to hitch-hike to get to our car. Huge drug-smelling dogs intimidated everyone, specially those who hid their weed in sensible spots. At least we could drink safely. Amazingly, it rained scarcely, in the final day, which is something uncommon since it seems to ALWAYS rain during festivals and fairs. It’s frustrating.

Overall, this was the best festival ever for me. Great music, lots of fun, all my friends, amazing beach and light hangovers. What do you need more?

Wenki and Genki News

Hecko X — Sat, 29 Aug 2009 16:39:38 +0000

So, these past two weeks or so, I’ve been busy doing stuff for Genki; most notably making stuff for Genki’s brand-spanking new wiki, Wenki. It has reached a point where I think we can justify making it public and have people helping with adding stuff to it, such as images and videos from the respective cons and events, not to mention descriptions and guides. While the primary focus is on Genki, it is meant to be an overall convention wiki for conventions in Scandinavia.

Of other Genki news, we are gonna be having a major meeting on September 12th-13th (yes, lodging included, that’s how long it’s gonna be) where the planning for Genki 2010 officially kicks off. It’s may seem to some people that we are starting way too early, and there may even be some truth to that, but we are trying to get coorporation from the Swedish Mangakai Lund, Finish Animecon Finland, not to mention sponsorships from Coca-Cola and other international companies + financial support from the European Union, and that shiz takes time!

I’ll try to take some pics and make some vids during the meetings or the breaks and upload them in a post to keep those of you who are interested up to date. Hope things will go well for us.

Hail Storm

Hecko X — Wed, 12 Aug 2009 23:14:35 +0000

Yesterday (at time of writing, I don’t know when this might be published), on July 8th, we got hit by a minor natural disaster. It was a rain and hail storm of unseen proportions, not just for me, but also for the people who had lived all their lives here. The hails we insanely big; on average, they were the size of rubber baseballs, but some were as big as small melons. In the video just below, you’ll hear me laughing my ass off, but that’s how I usually deal with stuff that is way over my head; the situation was in fact pretty dire as there was a chance of the hail actually actually smashing through the front window, as it did on many other cars, and seriously injuring us.

We were able to get to some degree of safety at the nearby gas station, but the aftermath was just insane. The roof tiles of many homes were smashed by the hail and the immense raining led to massive water damages. Also, any harvest was smashed to bits by the hail, so a lot of people lost their livelihood and today (the day after), while at my barber’s, I heard of his neighbours who talked about suicide because they are simply unable to manage the costs of the damages to their properties and the loses of what they had grown (tomatoes, watermelons, apples, etc.) which they can no longer sell, as well as being forced to sell of their livestock because they don’t have the means to support them anymore and because they need the money to rebuild.

While my immediate family were among the lucky ones, with only half the roof smashed to crap and only little water damage, the cost of my barber’s family and that of his neighbours were in the thousands of Euro (per family), many of which do not earn more than half of that in a year, before taxes, bills, living expenses, etc. This was an unfortunate event that fucked over a lot of good people… Mother Nature can be a bitch at times.

My Apartment in Serbia

Hecko X — Mon, 20 Jul 2009 01:32:24 +0000

At this point in time, I’m probably living in the apartment me and my momz bought some years back. Construction finished some time the year before last and we were finally able to settle in last year. Anywho, I once promised to show it off and I guess now is finally the opportune time to do it. So do enjoy (and Kat, be sure to visit one day).

P.S. The entire top (i.e. 3rd) floor is mine.

Safe Arrival, I hope XD

Hecko X — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 03:45:52 +0000

I’ve hopefully arrived safely and figured that the first automatic post should be about my town where I’m at right now =3 For that purpose, I’ve made a Google Map for you peepz to check out XP Click the coloured markers for more information about that point as well as for potential pictures (if I had/could find any). Also, you can navigate the map by dragging, in case that becomes necessary.

Vis Draginac på et større kort

Off to Serbia ^^

Hecko X — Sun, 05 Jul 2009 03:08:12 +0000

Hello my lovelies ^^ I’m in an oddly good mood while writing this, which is all thanks to Michi to You All by Aluto. Anywho, later on today, I’ll be leaving on a jet plane, don’t know when I’ll be back again, as I am going to Serbia for the summer yet again ^^ The reason I don’t know when I’ll be back again is because I have no idea of whether or not I’ve passed my written Japanese exam. If I passed, I’ll be away until about mid-August-ish, but if I failed, I’ll be back already late July in order to take my retake examination.

Anyway, since my family in Serbia doesn’t own a computer, I won’t be able to post anything while there unless I can get to borrow someone elses computer and dial-up Internet (we’re that old-school XD). In preperation for this, however, I’ve written a bunch of posts in advance and scheduled them to be published on specific dates to prevent the blog from loosing audience while I’m gone. A new post should be published every three days, so the next post will be on July 8th, then July 11th, and so on.

I’ll try to take as many pics as possible, as I promised Kat I’d do that, since she won’t be able to go back to Serbia this year. I’LL TAKE HAWT PICS FOR YOU, I PWOMISE!! ♥ Anywho, I’m off, wish me a safe trip and that I don’t die during the Spartan physical therapy or something XD

Genki 2009; Conclusion/Analysis!

Hecko X — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 03:21:10 +0000

Genki 2009
Day One	Day Two	Day Three
	Conclusion/analysis!

Genki 2009 was, in the eyes of the organizer group (which I’ll refer to as “Genksters“, since the group doesn’t have a name yet), a beta-con, and while we planned it to the best of our abilities within the only two months we had, we did expect that a few things would go wrong. However, we went into this hoping to make a con that would let 200 people have an awesome weekend and to learn from the experience so that Genki 2010 could become even more enjoyable, and in our own opinions, and from the feedback we got from the guests, we seem to have done a pretty damn good job. But without further ado, here comes the analysis of the con.

Website

•The Good: The design was pleasant, the website was updated regularly, and it contained all the necessary information about the con.

•The Bad: Had too many pages making it difficult to find a specific piece of information. Also, due to lack of judgement, we made the posts inaccessible, i.e. they could only be read from the front page, which was just stupid since there was so much written in each post.

•Lesson learned: Less pages and better layout of where the information is. Make section links so we can link to a specific important section (instead of just the page it is on) when referring to information within that section. Also, make post accessible as single posts so they can be linked to, e.g. if friends go “Hey, have you seen this: [link to post] ?” on Messenger or something.

Schedule and room overview

•The Good: We were able to stick to the schedule. Our longest delay at any point during the con was 30 minutes. Also, all event information (time, location, and delay, if any) was posted on a whiteboard by the reception desk, which was updated after every two events or when there was a confirmed delay.

•The Bad: Room overview was essentially non-existant, except on the website. Whiteboard was small and could be missed.

•Lesson learned: Print out the room overviews and tape it to the doors on each floor. Same with the schedule. This way, people don’t have to check with the reception on the ground floor. Also, get a bigger whiteboard.

Budget

•The Good: We had a budget of only 16.000 DKK, made a friggin’ awesome con, and still stayed in the green =D

•The Bad: -

•Lesson learned: You don’t need half of a million DKK to make an awesome con; all you have to do is not squander tons of money on pointless stuff you can get for free, buy cheaper elsewhere, or get sponsored/borrow (lesson directed at J-Popkai who could have saved 50.000-100.000 DKK in 2008, had they put in a little extra effort and not been so spending crazy).

Pashiri

•The Good: They were a friendly, helping, well-mannered bunch of lovely people. I heart you all!! Much lubz ♥

•The Bad: -

•Lesson learned: Maybe there’s still some hope for the world… Also, get those people back, even if we have to bribe them!! O.o

Gameroom

•The Good: Lots of good games and fun tournaments. Was aired out regularly, so it was never super hot in the room, despite it being early summer.

•The Bad: We had neglected to darken the gameroom, so from about 2 PM and until about 6 PM, you couldn’t see half the screen (on any of the TVs) because of the sun. We didn’t realise until Saturday, because all day Thursday and Friday was cloudy, but by then, we couldn’t put up the ladder to get to the windows since all the tables were in the way.

•Lesson learned: Block off the sun going into the room as much as possible (which was kind of duuuur, but we managed to not notice anyway). Playing a game without being able to see what goes on in certain parts of the screen sucks. We should probably add more consoles for next year, if we can get the TVs, so we don’t have people waiting in line.

Café

•The Good: Compared to J-Popcon 2008, there were a LOT more things to choose from as well as vegan options. We also had Japanese pop and rock music going in the background.

•The Bad: Prices were still a bit steep, but we unfortunately have no control of that. The café is independent from Genki and we won’t intrude by telling them what prices to set. Also, the music took us like a day-and-a-half too set up, which kinda sucks. We should have that shiz running from day one, but we ran into some problems on Friday with the laptop, which was my fault for being an idiot, and on Saturday, we were busy with setting up for the cosplay show.

•Lesson learned: Communication with the café helps them know what dishes to put on the menu and gives participants a better experience of the con (lesson directed at J-Popkai).

Events/tourneys

•The Good: There were many of them, they were totally fun, and they were all well spread out on the schedule with little to no delays on any of them.

•The Bad: Because of the lack of a floor plan, not all people were completely aware of where the events would take place, until we started with the whiteboard system.

•Lesson learned: We rule, but remember the damn floor plan next year! >_<

Anime cinema

•The Good: Had many different series, so there was something for everyone. The contests in the cinema were a lot of fun, and some said they would like for them to be longer next year.

•The Bad: Because a minor misunderstanding with Valby Kulturhus, some unions actually booked the room we used for the cinema, meaning we had to close it down TWICE during the con. This issue has already been addressed though, and we have the entire place for ourselves next year for sure. Other than that, apparently not many people visited because they hadn’t heard about many of the series before, thus didn’t know anything about them, and felt they could have more fun at other parts of the con rather than chance an hour on a random anime they had never heard about.

•Lesson learned: Write a little bit of information about the anime on the programme next year so people have more to go on than just the title. Have 2-minute breaks between each episode so that people have a chance to leave if they find out that the series isn’t to their liking, so they don’t think they are forced to stay for the rest of the duration. Finally, decrease the number of series and increase the number of feature-length anime as MADAO (the guy in charge of the cinema) noticed an increase in cinema visitors when showing those.

Cosplay show

•The Good: Started on time (wuuuuuw, first con in Denmark to have that happen). Everything seem to go smoothly with no technical difficulties.

•The Bad: Not enough chairs :/ The building just didn’t have 200 chairs, so some people unfortunately had to stand.

•Lesson learned: Start on time again; people seem to like when you don’t delay the show by like hours! =D As for the chairs, we’ve rented a building for next year especially for the cosplay show and other stuff, and there should be enough seats for all 800 potential participants, despite the fact that probably 100 are gonna stay behind because they don’t really care about cosplay.

Focus

•The Good: We focused on a loooot of shiz, such as Japanese music, cosplay, manga, anime, art, the language, etc. which was really good, since it meant that there was always stuff to do that would cater to at least one of your interests. This is in contrast with other Danish cons which seem to have become more and more focused on cosplay alone and have started neglecting all the other stuff.

•The Bad: -

•Lesson learned: Giving everything equal importance instead of just focusing on one thing means that people get a much better impression of the con, so we should try to stay on that path and not let cosplay take over Genki.

And that would be it. There are some parts of the con I haven’t addressed which is simply because they seemed fine just the way there were, e.g. the Manga Lounge. If people, who were at the con, disagree with some parts I have written or would like to add something I have forgotten to mention (be it good, bad, or advise for next year’s con), feel free to write it in the comment section and we Genksters will address it during one of our meetings. That having been said, all things considered, I still think we did a pretty friggin’ sweet job of organizing the con. Genksters rule!! Pashiri were also of immense value to us, and we probably wouldn’t have been able to pull it off without their help during the convention. Pashiri rule!! And of course, Genki-Man filled us all with the proper Genki spirit and let our wonderful guests have a great time. Genki-Man rules!!

Finally, I would like to personally thank the people who showed up at our Genki panels. Your great feedback has helped in making this analysis and we will address all your suggestions and notes at our next meeting on July 4th, when planning Genki 2010 begins. So hearts to you all ♥

Genki 2009 Mash-up Video

Hecko X — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 03:23:17 +0000

A mash-up video of Genki 2009 as made by Alex Voigt Hansen. Everything was edited by him and most of it was recorded by him as well (I only recorded a few scenes). To have some fun while watching this awesome video, let’s play “Where’s Hecko!?” In the comment section, write the time frames where I appear in the video. Ret’su goooo!!