Still more Anime Expo

[avram]

Last day of the expo. I decided to go instead of hanging around waiting for the plumber, since I suspect that when my super told me the plumber’d be here today he was forgetting about Labor Day. No message on my answering machine when I returned at 6:30 PM, so I think I guessed right.

I got a chance to browse the dealers room at leisure. Found a bargain: the Cowboy Bebop Original Soundtrack CD-Box set — four disks plus a booklet (in Japanese) for $40, an amazing bargain for an import. I’ve got all four, plus my old Bebop soundtrack CD, in my five-disk CD player right now. Excellent!

I also spent $10 for an expo t-shirt, and that’s it for purchases. I was saved from greater expenditure by the observation that a table selling just about everything I wanted was owned by Kinokuniya Books, which I can shop at any time I want, so it wasn’t like I had to give up on buying this stuff if I didn’t get it today.

On my way out of the dealers room I met Q, who convinced me to go to the auction. The art auction had (for some reason) been cancelled in favor of a charity auction raising money for a Brooklyn-based 9/11 relief organization. Lots of very pretty stuff going for more than I can afford. Anyone who was there — Did you notice that big ol’ bald head silhouette being projected onto the lower-left corner of the display screen? That was me.

I noticed how the auctioneer controlled the flow of the auction, speeding things up when an item seemed to have exhausted the audience’s interest, or stretching them out when it seemed there were possible big spenders thinking about raising their bids, and controlling the bid increments. I wonder what lessons from that profession carry over into running tabletop role-playing games.

(The current track on the soundtrack CD reminds me of the theme from A Charlie Brown Christmas.)

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[jmhm.livejournal.com]

Anime fans gather, proudly obsessed - NY Times (http://www.nytimes.com/2002/09/03/movies/03ANIM.html)