Messages

Yea, Craige, shhh!

The tower rooms are really worth it if you're the head of a department and you need to have meetings throughout the day. Otherwise, it isn't really that big of a deal.

The rooms are spacious and have lots of places where people can crash: one king-sized bed, a fold out Murphey that's around the same size, and you can request a rollaway. So you can confortably fit 5 people in the room. In addition to the comfortable room, you get a pretty nice bathroom with two sinks and a conference room with a huge table and couch-style chairs.

Personally, I'm going to request a suite so that my department will be able to sit in a comfortable room, and not in the Publications room in the boonies, when they work on the newsletter, schedules, etc.

Soo... you are describing the tower rooms in the second paragraph, not the suites, right?  Sounds better than I'd hear originally (actually, all I saw were pictures.)

Huh.  Sounds nice, Tony.  Though a question if you don't mind... when you say it was a small room... would you say it was the same as the standard ones?

For what it's worth, the Hilton does have suites... =)

Really?

...Ok, rephrase of lament...


Oh, if only we could get reduced rates on the suites at the Hilton!  :cry:

Apparently they also come with a sleepersofa, or something like that.  Kingsize bed, sleepersofa, more space.

Blast, why doesn't the hilton have suites? T_T

These policies have long been in place. If you have a problem with somebody, you just need the 4-digit code on their badge (prominently displayed). Turn that in to ConOps (or point the person out to a rover). They'll be taken into a small room with a very intimidating member of the rovers team and they'll be sternly warned that their activities could result in badge pulling or even arrests. If we find out that it is still happening, we would most likely take further actions against them.

Sounds great!  A couple questions, if I may.  

Ok, first one is, is this written anywhere in the con booklet that gets sent out every year?  It's a great thing, just wondering if it's around for people to know about it.  I hadn't heard about it before now, but I didn't read mine thoroughly, so I haven't any idea.

Secondly... and please understand this is not a criticism... are the odds good that the person with the badge number will actually be found?  I mean, if they've left the scene or the person who was being harassed left to go to ConOps?  On at least one day of the con there were people skating around, but no one seemed to be able to keep track of them.  Just wondering if it's easier to track someone based on badge number...

Though I guess this is one of the reasons you're supposed to have your badge on display at all times. :P

Yeah, everyone I know who went to the con is bummed that Montage isn't up.  BUT, the chick who made it has an account there, so hopefully it's just a matter of time.  She probably sent it to other cons or something and is waiting to upload it until after.

Cool... Man, I always miss the on-site pre-reg, bums me out.  But so long as the site doesn't have a major server crash and all that madness again, it's fine by me.  June's early in comparison to last year!  Any idea if it'll start at 35 or something higher?

What kinds of problems were people having with the elevators at the Hilton, other than the third-floor issue?  I know they were a bit crowded this year at times, but I never saw them as bad as the Mariott elevators were in prior years.  Although I did experience the' pressure' issue I think someone mentioned before... had a few dizzy spells on them, especially with the frequent starts and stops.

From everything I've read and asked the Hilton staff themselves, the tower rooms are completely identical to the standard rooms with the exception that you have exclusive access to the levels (cardkey entry) and that there's some sort of lounge area that has food and stuff at certain times of day, for free.

I wish the Hilton had suites like the Mariott.  I'd like to stay in a suite, but I'm not willing to deal with the massive elevator wait-time at the Mariott..   :?

Yes, things could've been synced better.  But the fact still stands that those AMVs are a lot better than a great deal of AMVs, and no one should be limited from creating AMVs or having to follow absolute standards to release them or submit them to cons.  The fact that average to subpar vids, depending on one's opinion, made it to the action finals is just proof that too many people sent in subpar vids.  Maybe they didn't have the time, who knows?  They went for it, and they got it, because their vids were better than the rest of the action potentials that were sent in.  (And I'll quit arguing my point here, as I don't want this topic to get locked on the basis of things becoming too heated.  Anyone can PM me if they feel the need to pursue this further.)

One issue I had with the contest was the audio presentation.  Back in 04, the lyrics were nearly impossible to make out, so drama vids and lyric-based action/free form videos were really difficult to follow.  2005 was much better; I didn't have any problems with that.  This year followed 2004, though not quite to the same extent.  I think the bass was just cranked a little too loud.  I know there's a rush and everything to get in, set up and get going, but maybe if one or two of the vids were played ahead of time to test out the system and try to even things out, it might be a little better.  It's really a killer to the lyric-based vids... It was even kind of hard to understand what was being said in the iMac spoofs, for me at least.

That's the infamous Numa Numa song !  The original song is by O-Zone, entitled 'Dragostea Din Tei".

Ultimately, even if you request to have your video be put into a specific category, that doesn't mean it'll necessarily be there.  It's the judges decision, and for years now you haven't been able to make requests; and that's all it is, a request.  Last year I entered a video that I only imagined as being drama; I hadn't even considered it as being action-based at all, yet that's the category it ended up in.  

But as it is, the judges can only work with what they're given.  It's not the judges fault if the category was a bit lacking in any regard- if there aren't enough people submitting awesome videos, you won't get a category filled with awesome videos.  It happens sometimes.  I highly doubt that extremely excellent videos were overlooked for those which appeared in any and all categories of the contest.  And if you take a look around good ol' AMVs.org as FanFicGuru suggested, you'll realize that the AMVs shown at the con are massively superior than the majority of those on the ORG.  

I realize I was a finalist this year so it may mean I'm a tad biased, but I'm not jumping up and down about my vid, either.  -shrug- I just feel that the judges shouldn't be blamed, nor the coordinator, or anybody for that matter.  If you want the finals to be so much better, encourage the masters of editing to submit their videos to the con, or keep sending in your own until they blow everyone else out of the water.  No flames intended.

(edit) Also occurs to me that some of the responses towards the editors are rather harsh this year.  Anybody who actually edits knows how tough it can be to synch something up properly, and the vids that were exhibited at the finals weren't just five minutes of unedited junk slapped together with a song.  There was a great deal of work that went into them, and I'm referring to those I had nothing to do with, for the record.  Maybe they could've been better, and there was definitely room for better vids this year, but flaming the editors doesn't help anything.  Making the finals any year is an honor and bashing those who did is ill-mannered.   :?

Yeah, I agree that the overall finals weren't quite as good as last year, but I think that the comedy division seriously made up for last year.  Last year was pretty meh for comedy with the exception of two that really stood out from the crowd.  Not a bad year, all in all.

I got transferred to a king-sized bed room instead of two doubles... I didn't really care, since I was the only one there, but I can imagine that given they sold out, anyone who was supposed to have a king-sized and got stuck with something else is probably pissed off about it.  I'm probably not the only one it happened to, either.  I would've made a fuss, but as I said, it wasn't a big deal to me and I just wanted to crash someplace without waiting around...

Otherwise, everything was fine with getting in and the room and all that.  I didn't have any maids barging in when I didn't want them to, which is unusual and awesome, the room was on a high floor which I enjoyed, there wasn't as much noise as last year (on my floor, anyway) and uh... well, the only thing that sucked was that the restaraunt's menu changed. ;)  But that's nobody's fault at Fanime!

I never had any problems with the pins, but as it is, I've lately taken to just keeping the badge either in a pocket or in whatever bag I've got with me.  I have to think ahead and pull it out when I get to a room, and I know it's technically Fanime policy to wear it at all times, but I'll present it if anyone wants to see it.  It's better than losing it or even worrying about losing it.  I like the new policy about replacement badges, but I'm not to keen on paying another five bucks for something when I don't have to, especially 'cause it wouldn't look as spiffy.   :?

If a parent is checking you in and the reservation is in their name, you don't need an ID.  Actually, last year, I had two rooms and one of them was in my name, but I still didn't need my ID.  Just had the other person check in for me.

Thanks for your and everyone's hard work, Zain.  I can imagine what a headache it must be, and having people biting at your ankles probably makes it worse.  

Any idea if there'll be a printed version available at the con again?

I remember a year before or so, the schedule only showed up at like midnight the day before the con... but I didn't actually mind last year, at the very least, I loved the fact that the con FINALLY had printed out schedules available on-site, and the TVs displaying them wasn't a bad idea either.  Printing out the schedule at home and shuffling through them there was always annoying, especially because they weren't formatted for regular printers.  But yeah.  Hopefully we'll get some info soon... or at least the printed out ones there.

p.s.:  MOVIE DAHLIA!  :)

It's kind of a mixed bag.  The Hilton has minifridges in all their rooms, and yes, I think there is a miniature freezer inside of it, but I don't think you can hook up gaming machines.  There's been a lot of debate about it in prior threads, but basically there's no simple AV hookup.

So, you either go with gaming or go with the fridge. :P

You don't HAVE to have a receipt, just make sure you have a valid ID.

Tsukai, the postcards are from prior years... it used to be that if you pre-regged or early-regged, you were sent a postcard in the mail with the registration info on it and your name and stuff, and you'd present that (with an ID) to the reg people and they'd get you your badge.  Last year you had the option of getting a postcard or just printing out your email instead; this year they were phased out entirely.

I'm sure it saves money, though I sort of miss it.  It was exciting! Reminded me how close the con was. ;)