Why ARE we funding this?

One thing you always count on is that whenever someone comes up with a great idea, someone will inevitably do something stupid with it.

Case in point: 

She's since edited her GFM page after the unsurprising backlash at the idea of crowdsourcing a boob job.  Granted, you can crowdsource pretty much anything but at some point you have to wonder if there's a moment where you ask yourself, "Is this a good idea?" Is it a good idea to set up a fundraiser on the same place that's used to help people recover from tragedies and hardships and help other's jump start business? Is it a good idea to try to paint a sob story how this boob job will magically improve your self-esteem and catapult you to the lofty world of cosplay fame?

I feel these very important questions did not get processed.

But obviously crowdsourcing for something as necessary as a boob job for inevitable +5 Confidence and Convention circuit fame was bound to produce other enterprising copy cats. My friend decided to create a GFM that I really felt was worthy and I was all prepared to donate my money. I mean look at how glorious it is:

 

Why would you NOT want to fund this?

Sadly, the good people at GoFundMe did not feel the same and sent him this friendly letter:

I was sadden it was taken down before I got a chance to contribute.

And perplexed how my friend's dick enlargement donation fund seemed less worthy a cause than helping an aspiring fringe community celebrity get the boobs of her dreams. I don't know what he's going to do with a 17-incher (other than your girl) but it seems to be equally important.

Why can't my friend raise money to get a ridiculously large penis? I am full of mock outrage.

#Penisgate

So You Wanna Host a Panel?

It's almost time for panel applications to open up for your friendly neighborhood convention! Here's an inside scoop on what it takes to get a panel considered for the upcoming year:

Before you start you need to ask yourself the following question:
"Do I really want to do this?"

This is important because if you only give a half-hearted answer, it's better to just walk away now. When you get added to a schedule, you are officially apart of a convention's programming and if you don't show up, your friendly neighborhood convention staff has to scramble to figure how to fill the unexpected gaping maw in their schedule and appease a crowd of disappointed attendees. Not showing up for a panel you agreed to host is the fastest way to get blacklisted from ever hosting an event at that convention again.

So make sure you REALLY are excited about being a panelist.
Are you sufficiently hype? Cool. Let's keep going...

1. Fill Out an Application: The first and most obvious step of getting a panel approved is to actually fill an application out. It's not enough to casually mention on a convention's social media page that you'd like to see a certain type of panel at a con. We can only have panels that we can get hosts for. Take the reins! Be fearless!
2. Be Timely - Much like in real life, it pays to fill out an application early. In most instances, we begin scheduling before the panel application closes so if you're serious about hosting, you need to put your application in as soon as possible. We often get panels that are very similar in description and sometimes the easiest (and fairest) way to pick which one makes the cut is to pick the one that was submitted first.
3. Be Creative - Programming directors have to weed through stacks and stacks (Or spreadsheet cells and spreadsheet cells in my case) of panel applications. It gets tedious and it becomes incredibly easy to accidentally overlook panels. Come up with a catchy name and an interesting description. Make your panel stand out and stick in the mind of the program director. If they get excited about your panel, it's more likely to get green-lighted
4. Be Descriptive - Don't assume that whoever is reading your panel application knows what's going on in your mind. If a programming director can't figure out what your panel is supposed to be about, then they're more likely to leave it sitting on the cutting room floor.
5. Pick Something Other Than a Q&A - Q&A panels are popular among panelist but not necessarily among attendees. Remember that improv is an art and not everyone will understand you and your friends' inside jokes or personal favorite "ships". They are also notoriously difficult to coordinate if you have to find cast members. Find a way to incorporate the role playing elements of the Q&A into a different style panel or take the theatrics to the next level and enter into a skit contest. 
6. Choose a Good Title for Your Panel - The name of the panel is usually the first thing a programming director sees so make it a good one. It should be creative but don't get TOO out of control. You want someone to still be able to tell what your panel is about by reading it. Programming directors can and will change your panel's name to something entirely different.
7. Remember That You're Filling Out an Application - Treat a panel application the same way you would treat a job application: write in complete sentences, limit the grammatical errors, and be clear and concise. Panel applications are the first impression and a poorly filled out application may indicate a lack of seriousness on the part of the panelist. If we get the impression that you're going to flake, we won't pick you

Hopefully you're now armed with the information you need to get the panel of your dreams through the approval process!

The Great Dragon Ball Z Rewatch

So if you’re a contemporary of mine (late 20s-mid 30s), when it comes time to name an anime that got you into the game, one of the first animes off your lips will probably be Dragon Ball Z. I am no exception. I used to eat, sleep, and breathe DBZ in my middle and high school years. I had the DBZ themed Windows layout. I had posters of Gotenks all over the wall. My sketchbook was full of drawings of Sayians. I spent all my summer job money on those overpriced VHS tapes from Suncoast (Uncut version of course). I had fanfics up on Fanfiction.net. I am also pretty sure I was in love with Trunks (I was a frequent visitor of the Temple O’ Trunks website. Brownie points if you know what that is).

I. Loved. Dragon Ball Z.

Even as my rabid obsession tempered itself into a dull roar as I delved deeper into the rabbit hole of anime, DBZ always held a special place in my heart. I always named it in my top 5 anime but then all that changed when the Fire Nation attacked I watched Dragon Ball.

Dragon Ball was amazing and as I watched more of it, I began to wonder: “What the hell happened to Dragon Ball Z?”

I became so invested in the cast of Dragon Ball (Tien, Chaiotzu, Yamucha, Kriliin, Launch, Master Roshi, and Bulma) that I was down right irritated knowing what ended up happening to them in Z. They either became punchlines, background characters, or they disappeared all together. I was disillusioned.

I came to think of Dragon Ball Z as the beer of the anime world. When you first start drinking, you usually start with beer. It’s not THAT great but you like it and so does everyone else but as soon as you hit that liquor, you think less about that beer (Unless you’re fucking crazy and start with something like Evangelion. That’s like making your first drink absinthe).

By this point, Dragon Ball Z had tumbled out of my “top” anything.

I just pushed it out of my mind. I still revisited it kindly. I enjoyed the TFS Parodies but I couldn’t bring myself to watch the filler-free Dragon Ball Z Kai. I just didn’t care enough.

Then something strange and wonderful happened: the Avatar restored balance Toriyama came back. He started posting all these odd answers to questions that only the most hardcore fans ever pondered.

Who is Goku’s mom?
What are 17 and 18’s real names and where did they come from?

I felt myself being pulled back into the fandom again.

And then I saw Battle of the Gods.

Oh man, Battle of the Gods was beautiful. It was the perfect amalgamation of the humor and character interactions of Dragon Ball and the gratuitous violence of Z. It made me feel excited. I hadn’t been excited about DBZ in over a decade. It planted a weird and crazy idea in my head.

I was going to watch all of Dragon Ball Z. The entire series. Fillers and all.

My friends called me crazy and I accept that. I am. I think you have to be a little nutty to be a part of a fandom.

I have never seen the series in its entirety and I decided now is the time to discover one and for all, whether or not DBZ is actually a good series or if I suffer from a severe case of nostalgia.

So, I shall drag all unsuspecting followers down this magical shounen journey. Feel free to hop on the nostalgia train!

Explaining Yakko's World to Your Kids

So, if you listen to "Yakko's World" on a daily basis (which you SHOULD be doing if you don't do this already) you will notice that the song is a wee bit dated. The world has changed a great deal since the early 90s, so playing this song for your own geeklings will probably lead to confusion and bewilderment. In order to help save you the trouble of explaining to your kids why Germany was not in one piece to begin with, I have provided this handy guide for explaining Yakko's World to your kids.

He acts like an idiot, but I'm pretty sure that Yakko has tenure at a university somewhere

1. Republic Dominican is just the Dominican Republic inverted, purely for artistic purpose. 
2. The Caribbean isn't actually a country. It refers to a collection of independent countries and territories located in or around the Caribbean Sea. States in the Caribbean include Trinidad and Tabago, The Virgin Islands, and Dominica.
3. Although Greenland is almost completely autonomous, it isn't an independent country. It's controlled by Denmark
4. Puerto Rico is a Commonwealth of the United States. Although it has declined to join the union as a state, Puerto Rico also has voted against becoming an independent nation.
5. Bermuda is an overseas British territory
6. Tabago is just one half of the Republic of Trinidad and Tabago 
7. There are many San Juan (Juanes?) in North and South America but none of them are countries! This mostly likely refers to the capital of Puerto Rico
8. French Guiana, as the name indicates, is a part of France and is their largest overseas region
9. Guam is a territory of the United States
10. Czechoslovakia peacefully dissolved into the Czech Republic and Slovakia in 1993
11. Scotland is a part of the United Kingdom and is not an independent nation
12. "Both Yemens" refers to North and South Yemen, which weren't united until 1990. North Yemen came in existence after the collapse of the Ottoman Empire in 1918. South Yemen was a part of the United Kingdom until 1967.
13. England is a part of the United Kingdom and is not an independent country
14. Burma officially changed its name to the Republic of the Union of Myanmar in 1989 but many countries, including the United States, still retain the name "Burma" 
15. Kampuchea is more commonly known in the west as Cambodia.
16. Interestingly, no distinction is made between North and South Korea. The nations have been divided since 1948.
17. Tibet is an autonomous region of the People's Republic of China...
18. Not to be confused with the Republic of China, which is also known as Taiwan.
19. Sumatra is an island located in western Indonesia 
20. Borneo is a large island divided among three countries: Brunei, Malaysia, and Indonesia
21. "The Spanish Sahara is gone" refers to the modern territory of Western Sahara. It was occupied by Spain until 1975 when it was turned over to Morocco.
22. Dahomey was renamed the Republic of Benin in 1975
23. Zaire was renamed the Democratic Republic of Congo in 1997
24. Mahoré is an archipelago located off the coast of Southeast Africa. It is a part of France and is a part of the European Union
25. Cayman refers to the Cayman Island, a British territory in the Caribbean
26. Hong Kong is a special administrative region of the People's Republic of China
27. Abu Dhabi is the capital of the United Arab Emirates 
28. Yugoslavia was a country in Southeast Europe. A series of political and economic crises led to the country being divided into Slovenia (1991), Croatia (1991), Bosnia-Herzegovina (1992), Macedonia (1993), Serbia (2006), Montenegro (2006), and Kosovo (2008)
29. Crete is the largest island in Greece
30. Transylvania is a region within the nation of Romania
31. Palestine declared itself an independent nation in 1988 but its claimed territory has been occupied by Israel since 1967 (It's really a lot more in-depth and complicated for a blog about Warner Bros cartoon)"

And of course a few things were left out:

1. None of the nations that were born after the collapse of the Soviet Union (which dissolved 26 December 1991, after the song was written) are listed in the song with the exception of Russia. So the song leaves out Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Belarus, Moldova, Ukraine, Georgia, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, and Tajikistan
2. They also left out Dominica, South Africa, Singapore, Cote d'Ivoire (The Ivory Coast), Central African Republic, San Marino, and Vatican City, Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands, Vanuatu, Samoa, Kiribati, Tonga, The Federate States of Micronesia, Palau, Tuvalu, and Nauru. 

Now that you've spent about 15 minutes wallowing in nostalgia, go take this quiz and see how many questions you get right (My personal best is 139)