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In about one hour, I will be departing State College for a three-hour trip to the Radisson Hotel (Pittsburgh Green Tree) for another gathering of nerdism, Tekkoshocon 2008. Despite being their sixth year in operation, this is another small con unlike the 23,000-person, overcrowded Otakon 2007 (guaranteed again for 2008) – but it’s still several times larger than our own held in downtown University Park. Myself and a couple others from the Penn State Anime Organization will be promoting Setsucon as part of a friendly table exchange that this convention did with us back in January, and more from the PSAO are heading down just to enjoy the atmosphere and programming.

From what I’ve heard and seen, Tekkoshocon is one of the best anime gatherings in the surrounding states, mainly because it’s not so large as to force sloth-like movement and hinder desires to participate in everything on the schedule, but still filled with enough unique things to do in order to provide that “big con” experience. Hopefully, I can spend time updating this blog with some photos (unlike previous posts for Otakon 2007 and Setsucon 2008), as PSU Media Tech has lent me another camera for those spastic picture taking opportunities.

Now if only I had a cosplay ready for this event, since Tekko 2008’s fanart theme is “Super Sentai” – and giant robots are on the list. Or, if only I were better at drawing mecha. Oh well, can’t have it all at once, right? At the very least, thank God for opening up the time for this weekend, as the convention sits neatly between my last set of midterms and the inevitable final exams…