FANeXpo

FRIDAY:
The trip to the con was perhaps even more eventful than the convention itself. First time I've really driven this long on the highway, but the traffic was pretty good. Changing over from the 400 to the 401 was an interesting experience. That's where the traffic was iffy, but I got through well enough. I'm pretty fucking good at highway driving.

I parked at the Yorkdale mall, as one usually does when getting on the subway at the Yorkdale station. However, I had no idea where I was going. Didn't know where to park, didn't know where the station was. It was pretty much a mess. I found a parking spot, but had no clue as to where the station was. I wandered around for quite a while before I got to the subway.

And then walking from Union station to the convention centre was weird. Apparently there's this "Skywalk" shit that takes you straight to the building, but I didn't know. I wandered the street, and finally found it. Thankfully I was going in the right direction, and didn't have to walk back or anything. Fucking Toronto is confusing.

Got to the Expo around 4:30. Wandered around a little bit, being overwhelmed by the size and chaos of the convention centre. It was pretty ridiculous. Then I tried to find where Brian Bolland (artist of 'The Killing Joke') was signing, and did so successfully. They weren't letting anyone in, though, because Tim Sale was still doing his session.

Eventually (frankly, I don't know how), I saw a friend of mine, Geekers, and met up with him. Wandered about with him aimlessly, until I was able to line up for Bolland. He went off to some panel, but ended up skipping or something. Gave me a copy of The Killing Joke to get signed for him.

After waiting in line for about an hour, I got my book signed. Brian seems like a really nice guy, though I think I may have seemed a little retarded as I had no idea what I was doing. I shook his hand and smiled, and gave him the books. I was going to ask for a sketch, but again, I'm retarded. I was totally overwhelmed and timid... *sigh*

Afterwards, I just wandered around until Geekers called, and then we wandered around some more. Talked about some comics, looked at some interesting booths, and just doddled around until about 8:00. And then I left. I missed out on some panels I was interested in, but oh well. It was a pretty good first day. I was fucking tired.

When I got back to Yorkdale, I was so fucking lost. I had no idea where I was going, where I parked, or anything. Like, when I parked there earlier in the day, I had a hard enough time trying to figure out where the damn subway station was. This was ridiculous. I don't think I actually found the car until 9:10. I wandered around the mall, a number of times, trying to find the exit from which I came. It took me fucking forever.

But I found the van, called my mom, and headed home. It was actually a much smoother trip home than it was in the afternoon. Less traffic, and just a calmer drive. It was fun. I was pretty tired, but I kept awake by singing and such.

Got home safely, and then went to sleep. Early morning ahead of me.

SATURDAY:
Jesus fucking christ. I wish I had relished in the relative calmness of Friday. Sure, I didn't get up to much, but compared to today it was a fucking ghost town. Saturday is fucking ridiculous. There were so many fucking people. It was retarded.

I can basically some up the entire day with one little sentence:
The best "waiting-in-line" convention I've ever been to.

Ri-fuckin-diculous.

So, here's the story. I went down with a couple friends, as expected. Early in the morning, as we expected a somewhat higher volume of people. His dad drove us to Yorkdale (and parked in the correct spot, and knew where he was going), and we took the subway down to the convention centre. We walk to the place, get inside, and on the ticket-merchant floor we could already see the chaos. His dad spouted some crude comments, and mentioned a few times how ridiculous and retarded it was. We got in line for tickets, gave us money, and left.

Now, I already had my ticket, but I didn't want to leave them alone in the long-ass fucking line. So I chilled with them. It was fun, we made fun of all the crazy fucking anime cosplayers, commented on some of the badass superhero costumes, and ogled the sexy ones (seriously, Black Canary... holy shit). Oh, and I couldn't tell you how many times I told the furries to "yiff in hell". Seriously, there were so many furries. It was gross... and the worst part was that I think they took pleasure in my mockery. I eventually just resorted to yelling "FUCKING FURRIES!" every time I saw one walking by.

But yeah, after waiting in line for over an hour (I'd describe the lines to you, but it was ridiculous), we finally get downstairs. We find that we have have to wait in line to actually get onto the show floor. Thankfully we were able to unknowingly cut in line (and no one said anything to us, so it was all good), and we got in. It was incredibly busy. Some of the paths were uncrossable. The main rows were shoulder-to-shoulder, sweaty geeky body pressed up against sweat geeky body. It was awful.

We walk around a little bit, but my friends want to see the people from Smallville (Lex and Kara were there), so we head over to the celebrity autograph tables. Sure enough, Michael Rosenbaum was sitting there signing autographs. Long line, but they were insistent on meeting him. I wanted to go see Victor Lucas at 1, so I told them I'd chill with them in line for a little while, and then head over and see if I could meet him. Well, Victor's line was pretty big too, so I just sort of caught a glimpse of him, and then headed back.

We waiting for Rosenbaum for a while. A long while. We got in line pretty much when we got in, so it must have been about 12:45. We were really close, and then around 1:40 one of the expo volunteers tells us that he is stopping for a little bit as he has a "photo-op" session at 2. Understandable, but kinda annoying as we were pretty much at the front of the line. They say Rosenbaum will be back around 3, and tells us that we can wait.

A lot of people left, but we decide to wait. I think at this point we were third or fourth from the front. They really wanted to meet him, and I didn't really want to wander the convention alone, so I stuck around. One of the brothers and I went off to get food, but even the food court was packed. We didn't even get to sit and eat, we just brought the food back and ate it in line. We waited the hour, and anxiously waiting for Michael to show up.

He didn't. We waited, and by this time we were first in line. They finally said to us at around 3:45 "he has a panel at 4, so he'll probably come back after that". Awesome, another hour of waiting. I actually wanted to see the panel, but I felt that all this waiting, I needed to meet him; I needed to get the autograph.

Laura Vandervoort (Kara) was signing autographs a couple rows down. My friends wanted to see her too, and they sent out a "last call" for her session (as she was heading to the panel too). Apparently her line was going really quickly, so I offered to hold fort at the front of the line while they went over to meet her. They were over there for maybe ten minutes. They talked with her a little bit, got the autograph, and a photo. It was crazy-fast.

The friends came back, and we kept waiting. I offered to take them one at a time quickly around the con, just so that their entire experience wasn't just waiting in some god-forsaken line. I got some pretty neat swag, about equal to Friday's. A DVD, a couple posters, and a few comics. Checked out some awesome booths, ogled at the cute girls, and fanboyed when we came across celebrity-like people walking around (Tim Sale, for example).

We got back, with about ten minutes before 5. We waited, again. I expected Rosenbaum to be late again, though I hoped he wouldn't be too late. We had to leave at around 5:15. Eventually, he showed up; it must have been like 5:10. He was rushed though, he was leaving at fucking 6. And there was a big fucking line. My friend wanted him to say his famous line "I am the villain of the story!" into the camera, but that sort of pissed off his agent, and they said no.

We shook his hand and got a picture signed (one, with all of our names on it). We were hoping to get a photo with him, but they were rushed, and so were we. Again, like with Bolland, I wish I was more assertive. I should have told him how long we waiting, and asked for the damn photo. Oh well, not much we can do now.

And with that, we left the con. Unfortunately I didn't get to do all of the stuff I wanted to do (or nearly any of it, actually), but it was still a fun and interesting experience. I had hoped to get Tim Sale to sign my "Long Halloween", but that didn't happen (we missed his morning session, and I didn't want to approach him at his booth in Artist Alley). Next year will be better; I can only hope that the guests will be just as cool, and we are more prepared.

I didn't get to go on Sunday, but it's not much of a loss. Kinda wish I had, but I can only imagine it to have been pretty crazy anyway. And even so, the highway was closed coming out of Barrie, so it would have been difficult anyway.

Some current projects.

Well, it has been a while, hasn't it? In my absence, I've been busy with other stuff on the internet. You can watch my vlogs, which I do on a semi-regular basis. And I will be starting up a podcast with Tack, called "Retcast" in the coming weeks, which should be fun. You can check out the page here. I've also set up the RSS feed to be displayed on the sidebar.

As a final note, some friends of mine posted a short film on YouTube. We had planned this film, and actually started filming, quite a while back, but we decided to scrap what we had and start over. This time, however, I didn't take part in the production, but I did edit the project. You can check out the film below:

Random Thoughts

Why is is that we are taught to hide emotion? It is almost widely expected of men to hold back tears, but even women hide their faces when they cry. A great example of this expected unemotional mask is the military. During ceremonies and such, the soldiers must hold blank faces. Emotion is seen as unprofessional and immature. It's as though emotion is seen as an element of weakness. I think it's one of the main aspects of our humanity, and should be embraced.

Though people argue that pets show emotion, it has no real grounds for argument. It's pretty much widely accepted that the animal kingdom thrives on instinct and impulse, therefore reassuring the aforementioned uniqueness that emotion plays for our humanity. Our emotions define us, yet an excess expression of such is shunned and looked down upon.

I totally suffer from the inability to show emotion. I really wish I could, but it has been hardwired into my brain. Since puberty, I can count the number of times I've cried on one hand, and I've been very emotionally detached from my family and many of my friends. Unless I'm talking about something for which I'm passionate, conversation is either monotonous or nonexistent. It's truly a terrible thing, but it is something that we lose as we develop in the economically-driven world that we live in.

I watched a video a while ago which sparked this idea. I'm certain there is much more to discuss, but I've put myself out there. I truly wish that our emotion can be seen as something beautiful and unique, but I doubt that will ever be the case. Keep dreaming, friends; keep smiling, keep crying, keep laughing, keep expressing oneself.

Can't Sleep

So, I'm pretty much only posting because Roosterteeth is down... Makes me angry that I can't waste time on my forums.

Anyway, I'm very tired. I've found it relatively difficult to sleep for the past little bit. The past couple days I didn't go to sleep until about 6am. Yeah, brutal. Tonight, however, I'm staying up all night. I'll go to bed early Sunday night in hopes of getting a wicked-thorough sleep. Let's hope.

I've tried this before, and it didn't work out so well. Mostly because I got really tired and took a nap. Unfortunately said nap turned out to go for about five hours as opposed to the original plan of one or two. This time I'm determined to stay awake all day and hit the sack around 8 or 9.

That's about it... I'm really bored, and I don't want to go to sleep. I can't go to sleep, I need to fix this... Alright, I'm going to go take a shower, then maybe read a little bit.

Vlogs and such

As I mentioned in my previous post, I've been doing video journals. Unfortunately, however, I am no longer using YouTube to host them. Check out my Vimeo page for all of my vlogs and such.

Sorry I haven't kept this thing up to date, but I really don't think there's anyone out there who actually reads this...

Peace guys,
Brandon

Hiatus

Hello dear readers, however few of you that are out there...

I'm sorry I haven't written anything recently, but I haven't had a whole lot to talk about. I think I mentioned it before, but basically I have stopped copying and pasting from my other blogs. I really only write in my Roosterteeth journal now, and do vlogs.

But this isn't going to be an update, really. I just wanted to mention that I haven't posted anything in a while, and I apologize. If you really want to stay up to date with me, check out the video I posted in the last entry, which will link you to my vlogs.

I'm going to try to post something here at least once a month. Maybe I'll start writing stories, or post video diaries once I start production on some of the films I have in the works. I guess we'll see.

Alright, later days.
-Brandon

A Vlog.

Oh, hey there. Yes, it is true; as the title suggests, I have a vlog. You can watch an introduction video I made for said vlog below.

As mentioned in the video, I've been doing these things for a couple months now, but they've mostly been for my Roosterteeth forum-mates. But, I'm certain you can still find some enjoyment; enjoy!



I'm certain you can figure out how to get to my channel from the video window... but I'll link you to it anyways. Here you go.

Alright, hope you enjoyed that, and stay tuned for more vlogs in the future. Later days, my friends.

-Brandon

Oh, hey there. It's been a while.

But honestly, I don't know if anyone actually reads this, so what does it matter...

It has been a long time since I've updated. Almost two months, wow. Well, shit has been busy. School is stressful; life is changing; brain overloaded. I went through a minor bout of depression about a month ago, which is still somewhat hanging off my back. It was a pretty brutal and scary time for me... But, I'm pretty good for the time being.

As for school, I'm just extremely unmotivated. It seems ever since midterms I've just been in the whole "fuck it" mindset. I've had mountainous amounts of work, most of which I have not done. I just haven't been able to bring myself to do it. I've been distracted, and just overall unmotivated. But, it's getting into crunch time. I'm hoping I can get back into the rhythm soon.

I've tried really hard recently to keep in contact with a lot of friends that I've lost touch with. A lot of people from highschool that I sort of regret not hanging out and talking with more often. This whole depression and change in situation seems to have caused me to regret a lot of stuff. It's like I've started to look at my life from a different angle... I'm telling you now, growing up is scary, confusing, and unexpected.

Well, I've avoided sleep for long enough. Hopefully writing this was a good remedy for my insomnia. G'night, dear readers.

-Brandon