This site's odd work schedule that forces one-day Sunday convention trips also gives us a chance to see other weekend events.  On the Anime Weekend Atlanta weekend, we spent some time at the (deep breath to pronounce the full title) O’Reilly Auto Parts Fall 4Wheel Jamboree Nationals presented by Toyo Tires (gasp), a wet dream for those who are in love with trucks. One guy was so proud of his modified Jeep that he put mirrors on the ground, so people could better see his ride's upgraded suspension. Truck tires were selling for $1,000 apiece. Entire street-legal trucks cost $35,000-$70,000.

This event was a lot larger than AWA or any anime convention, taking up all of the Indiana State Fairgrounds' 250 acres to the point that they ran out of space to put any more trucks. In the Atlanta area, the northern Buckhead suburb has the reputation of being the weekend cruising place, but the truck jamboree had more pickups than Buckhead has BMW's.

So is there any comparison between a truck show and an anime convention? The number of people in T-shirts is about the same, but you'll find a lot more Confederate battle flags at the truck show and fewer costumers, even if you include the booth babes at some of the parts dealers' tents. Fans posed for pictures with voice actors at AWA and with Bigfoot at the truck show: one of the Bigfoot trucks was so huge that you could climb inside one of the wheels and have room to spare. The artwork at the truck show covered entire trucks; one pickup was painted in an American eagle theme that covered every inch, and there was a semi and attached 53-foot trailer that was decorated with warriors and a castle that looked as if it came straight from Gen Con. The chrome on some of the fancier trucks was worth more than some of the anime fans' entire cars. You can get videos at both events, but the truck show videos tend toward Bigfoot races and instructions on how to rebuild your truck's suspension.

On videos: we had a few minutes to make a couple of passes through the dealers' room and chat with the four anime importers who had booths there. David Williams of ADV Films was keeping busy, and we noted that they had a repackaged DVD release of Devil Hunter Yohko, the original ADV release tat was first released on the VHS tapes that older fans may remember. At the Manga Video booth, We saw there was only one copy of the Highlander anime on display. Keith Burgess of Manga said that was because it pretty much was the only copy they had left, because the rest had been sold. We'll guess that sudden sales success was because the Highlander name is presold from its movie and TV show years. Over at the Funimation booth, they had hoped to have some early release copies of the Witchblade anime, but the discs weren't ready yet. You can expect all those companies to be on hand for the New York Anime Festival in December, which will be held a few blocks from the Media Blasters office. The Media Blasters guys are still amazed at the number of female yaoi fans who buy their videos, and to advertise their wares, they got a rainbow-hued flag and put “YAOI” on it in large stick-on letters. So, people started going to the Media Blasters booth and asked if they could buy the flag, only to learn it wasn't for sale.

What was for sale in the Cobb convention center used by AWA were log cabns. Not at the anime convention, but at a log cabin house show in the convention center hall next to the AWA dealers' room. The log cabin show was sparsely attended on the single day we spend at AWA.

We were surprised to learn that hard-core video gamer and Gold Digger artist Fred Perry was not planning to camp out at a store to be one of the first to get Halo 3, due to be released a couple of days after AWA. First-person point-of-view shooter games made him seasick, Perry said. One of the high points of our Sunday morning was watching Perry blow up a whoopie cushion, only to be disappointed when it wouldn't stay inflated.

More seriously, we're getting close to a couple of milestones for this site. We're nearing 200 fandom conventions attended, and we're a couple of months from the tenth anniversary of this site. AWA was the first convention we attended in 1997, and we've managed to keep that original report on this site, along with dozens more.