Otaku and Fanboy rejoice for the 14th annual Fan Expo Canada is in full swing at Toronto’s Metro Convention Centre. Running from August 22nd through 24th the convention is covers gaming, comics, anime, horror and science fiction. This year the expo showcases over 600 exhibitors over an area of 220,000 square feet.

More photos here.

Recently I was asked by the lovely ladies of “The Blue Skittle” magazine to offer my reasoning behind exactly why I’m looking forward to this years Penny Arcade Expo (PAX). I’ve pasted my paragraph below but be sure to check out the rest of the issue at http://theblueskittle.com

“My favourite response when people ask me about attending PAX is “I may have had to sell a kidney to afford it but it’s a once in a lifetime opportunity for me to go.” It’s when they ask to see the scar that I have to that I disappoint them and explain that I’m speaking figuratively. In all honesty though, for me, coming from Australia to attend; PAX is one of the remaining Mecca’s for game “consumers” since the retarding of E3 and I’ll be damned if I’d miss it while I’m staying in North America even if I am all the way on the East Coast living in Canada.”

I’m going to give you the ending to this story before I begin to tell it, not because it’s some clever film noir script, but because if my Mum reads the title she’ll freak out and worry that I’m lying in a ditch yet somehow able to write this post with my dying breaths. So, obviously the end is that I’m fine. I’m nursing a rather swollen right knee, feeling extremely stiff and sore the day after but I’m alive and walking and there’s no stitches.

Now for the story behind said injuries. The so called “Summer” here in Toronto seemed to last the first week I was here amidst the humid heat wave of mid 30’s, pffft, whatever… mid 30’s. Since that first week there’s been a mixture of rain that seems scheduled to start at 5pm each day and torrential downpour that just ruins the entire day. With that said I haven’t really had the opportunity to ride my lovely new bike to work; that is, until yesterday.

It was such a beautiful day, the sun was out, some light cloud cover of the fluffy white variety adorned the sky and a cool breeze flowed over me as I rode through the streets of downtown Toronto. So there I was, happily riding down King St heading towards work, a small bird had perched itself on my shoulder, the two of us whistling to the tune of Metallica’s “Enter Sandman” when all of a sudden a car door begins to open about 10 metres in front of me.

Now I can’t blame this guy for causing what was about to ensue but it was the catalyst. The door opened gently as they’d obviously not checked for anyone coming, be it car or bike for that matter, and I did what any cyclist would do, check my left shoulder and swerve out to avoid smashing into the door. That was all well and good, no problems getting out of the way there but in swerving out of the way of the car door I’d managed to get my bike tires firmly lodged in the rather deep rut of Toronto’s street car (tram) tracks.

From realizing I had my tires caught in the track and picking myself up off the ground to a resounding yell of “f@#k” took about 3 seconds, most of which was spent sliding along the asphalt in a sort of baseball like position on my right knee and shin. Brushing myself off inspecting the scene I’d remarkably not scratched any part of the bike frame nor any of my body besides the now large hole in my jeans and a sort of cheese grated knee. I was pretty happy with my fall skills, who knew that those two months in Boy Scouts would actually pay off!

The worst part of it all, other than today’s throbbing pain and swelling, is that because I’d passed the car a while back and slid so far on the ground it looked like I’d fallen off for no reason what so ever to those viewing the spectacle. I just looked like a complete numpty that didn’t know how to ride a bike. Good thanks!

I’ve always been a fan of Quicktime VR (QTVR), you know those funny little images that allow you to rotate around and get a 360 degree view of wherever they were taken. There’s something about them that just fascinates me so when I bought a new Canon SLR Camera not long ago I had it in mind that I’d explore the style more and set about taking some wonderful panoramas while I’m away.

Little did I know to have the “professional” set up and tripod mounts to do it would cost a small fortune and seeing how I’d already sold one kidney to fly to PAX at the end of August it seemed like my dream was over. Fortunately for me I found this little baby called the “Panosaurus” which allowed me to have a fully functioning panoramic camera mount for under US$100.

Armed with my new SLR, the Panosaurus and a trial copy of PanoramaFactory I quickly threw together this quick QTVR of my new living room. It’s nothing special but a good trial run and a chance for me to have a play! Look out for more of these (of much more interesting topics) in time to come.

Lets for a moment forget the fact that I’ve started a new job that has me slowly taming the beast known to the technorati as “Drupal” into a well trained, obediant King Charles Spaniel and concentrate on the rather unbelievable fact that I haven’t had coffee in about a month!

Yes children of the Internets I know it’s a hard fact to comprehend that I Raj “let’s-have-a-coffee” Sanchez could have been turned away from such a wonderful socially accepted addiction. You must be asking yourself “Why? What has happened to my little friend Raj to turn him away from his only true friend, coffee?” Well that’s a fantastic question really, why don’t you pull up your favourite Japanese-restaurant-sitting-cushion and get all settled in while I explain in intricate detail the justification in my passing on the joe.

Coffee in Canada sucks. Explanation over.

OK, I’ll go into a little more detail. If I wanted brown water I’d go down to the street and scoop out a cup from the nearest mud pool I can find. Why and more importantly “how” people can drink percolated coffee is beyond me! Yes it costs about CAD$1.50 for a jumbo mug of the garbage but that’s no reason for the millions of Tim Hortons’ franchises that exist here in plague proportions putting the US’s Starbucks chain to shame. Dare you ask for a “latte” you might find that you’re given something that resembles frothed milk but 9 times out of 10 it came out of an automated machine the likes of which you’d find in a Shell service station midpoint Melbourne and Adelaide.

There is one place I’ve found that does a good coffee, even if the late does come in a glass cup the size of a small water tower, and that’s the hotel I stayed in last year whilst I was visiting, The Drake. I’ve had about three there now and they’re generally pretty on the money.

Now before everyone (well mostly Canadians) out there starts screaming and rushing me in a mob like fashion I open up the comments section of the post to all of you T.dotters to please, please, tell me where I can get a good coffee!

P.S. If you tell me to go to Starbucks, Second Cup or any other chain that serves crap I’ll hunt you down and pour said establishments scolding muck in your lap ;)