What?! Over 9000?!

Holy crap. Despite Ashley Gosiengfiao’s assertions to the contrary, it seems that based on the comments to yesterday’s Otaku Taiki post, there aren’t actually any real cosplayers anywhere. Or at the very least, cosplay seems to be a very fragile state of being that can be disrupted by the presence of money, professional photographers, or Parokya Ni Edgar, or the absence of competitive spirit, skits, love for the character being portrayed, or by playing a character no one actually knows.

So now we have a dizzying minefield of terms to add to the vocabulary of any unwary newbie (like myself) taking the plunge into the messed-up world of cosplay (which, as previously mentioned, doesn’t appear to actually exist): (more…)

Considering the widely divergent opinions about last weekend’s Metro Comic Con 2009, especially in the comments section of my coverage of the event, I’ve been wondering, what exactly do people want out of conventions? I mean, there are the basics — spacious venue, good sound system, good marketing, good layout — but all those things together don’t seem to add up to a convention that everyone would like.

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The title alludes to the two types of ‘free’ that is used in the open source software debate, Gratis (free beer) vs. Libre (free speech).

In the past week or so I’ve been finding myself mixed up in this debate in one way or another. From the brand new trolls on my site thanks to my latest Manifesto (hi trolls!) to a heated plurk debate about AP trying to DRM their news items, everyone has an opinion on this subject.

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