Monday, November 30, 2009

Realization of Sac-Anime and ALA

With the booking of the flight to LA ($62 one way via Southwest.com, pretty damn good deal) and a purchase of my ALA badge, it's quickly hitting me that for the first time in over four years I won't be attending Sac-Anime. But this is for the better for me and my blog since (like I've been saying over and over) I get to reach out to a different audience.

(On a side note, I got a reorder of business cards, 2000 for $40, also a pretty damn good deal.)

I may miss my hometown con, but its all for the better in expansion.

Also...wait, Sac-Con is next week? Right before finals? Hmm...

Sunday, November 29, 2009

ALA 2010 Update

I just talked to the person who really wants to stay with me over the con weekend and we got it figured all out. I'm guessing this means I'm ALA bound! I will book flight and badge and reorder business cards in the upcoming week, and I will see you all in about a month down in LA!

Saturday, November 28, 2009

Testing From My Droid

This is a test of a new blogging app for my new phone that I got last night, the Droid. My BlackBerry died yesterday when I couldn't hear anything when making or receiving calls.

On the flipside, this phone will really help me in my mobile blogging and real-time updates via Twitter when covering conventions.

Thursday, November 26, 2009

Happy Thanksgiving From the California Conventions Blog!

I hope everyone is filling up on turkey, stuffing, and Black Friday deals as we prepare for the end of the 2009 con season and the beginning of the 2010 con season.

I can't believe that it's nearly December, and soon enough a new year. It's been a fun year on the convention circuit, and I hope that in 2010 I can attend more conventions.

From everyone here at the California Conventions Blog (and my everyone I mean just myself), happy Thanksgiving!

Thursday, November 19, 2009

ALA 2010 November Update

Unfortunately, my contacts from the convention circuit have dropped out of ALA in January. I now have two options: find other roommates (which I have found, still working with them) or ditch my ALA plans and go to Sac-Anime instead. Either way, I'm going to a convention in January.

Monday, November 9, 2009

The Gift Card Route

I mentioned this on the FanimeCon Forums: instead of having one large charge on your credit card for your hotel stay, why not buy gift cards and pay the hotel in small increments?

This is how my plan works: in January, book the room. In the same month, buy a $100 gift card to the hotel you'll be staying at. In February, buy another $100 gift card. Repeat each month until you get the desired amount. Then when you check-out from the hotel, use all the gift cards you've accumulated; whatever the balance is after using those gift cards will be charged to the card that you put on file when you originally booked it. When you get the statement from the card company, it'll look like $100-$100-$100-$34.48 (over the period of 5-6 months) compared to $334.48 following FanimeCon. It also makes it easier to pay off the hotel when you don't have to worry about one lump charge and everything is in increments.

This gift card route can also be useful if you know you're going to eat out somewhere like Subway, McDonalds, or Jack-in-the-Box. Restaurants.com can also be a good resource for higher-end eating out - you can buy gift certificates on the cheap (you can get a $10 gift certificate to Chicago Pizza for $4!!!).

You can get all of these months in advance to draw out the ultimate cost of FanimeCon (or any other con you might attend), and that's the thing I want people to get out of this idea.

Tuesday, November 3, 2009

Fun with Anime & Economics #1

I'm going to go off-topic for a bit since I'm bored up in my ECON 100a class going over homework - I'm going to apply what I'm learning with anime.

EXAMPLE:
On April 5th, 2006, Ouran High School Host Club debuted in Japan. In the episode, Haruhi breaks a vase that the club was going to auction off with the starting price of ¥8,000,000. How much is that worth in Sept. 2009 USD?

First off, we must change the currency from yen to dollars.
So at the rate of 0.0085 on April 5th, 2006, ¥8,000,000 = $68,168.

But that's in April 2006 USD. We want Sept. 2009 USD, so we must summon the CPI (consumer price index). The CPI in April 2006 was 201.5 while the CPI in Sept. 2009 is 215.969.

So, $68,168 x (215.969/201.5) = $73,063.

Therefore, a ¥8,000,000 broken vase in April 2006 is worth $73,063 in Sept. 2009.

I wanted to twitter this, but this is more than 140 characters and I really wanted to get this off my chest.
Well, thanks for reading this.

Monday, November 2, 2009

FanimeCon 2010 Budgeting

With the purchase of my FanimeCon 2010 badge (in November at the low price of $45!), I can go to my budget sheet and update it.
Meanwhile, the big deal is whether to stay four days or three days - remember, one of my goals is to attend Day Zero; I can also stay Fri-Tues to avoid the Monday checkout rush and get some extra rest before driving home on Tuesday. As of now, the difference is about $100.
Hmm...decisions decisions...