Fungi Forums
Miscellaneous => General Chat => Topic started by: WarpRattler on August 10, 2009, 01:40:39 AM
-
After posting in the HOPEFUL thread about this one year (http://themushroomkingdom.net/board/index.php?topic=9327.msg480231#msg480231) and having it end up being entirely pointless...I present one man's account of the Chicago Comic-Con & Video Game Expo (formerly known as Wizard World Chicago, and in fact still labeled as Wizard World Chicago in many places).
Prologue
When did I stop believing in Santa Claus? In truth, this sort of silly question holds no real significance for me. However, if you were to ask me when I stopped believing that the old man wearing the red costume was Santa, then, I can confidently say, "I have never believed in Santa, ever." I knew that the Santa who appeared at m
The car ride to Iowa a week before the convention was largely uneventful and dull. After wasting a lot of time in Decatur buying some last supplies for the trip (which largely killed my netbook), we finally hit the road for real. I watched episodes of The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya until the laptop ran out of power (before we left, I copied every episode I downloaded over to the netbook so I'd finally be able to watch them), and played a lot of Aria of Sorrow after that until we got there.
Our arrival and first day at my relatives' house in Iowa was, like the trip, uneventful. As everyone except me was cosplaying this year, I had a lot of time to sit on this computer and chat in #tmk. (The Internet connection here is dial-up, sadly.)
We spent almost a week in Iowa. During this time, I finished almost two runs of Cave Story (the second run is still unfinished, as I'm stuck in Hell), got Kalee to start playing Cave Story, proved to the denizens of #tmk that Kalee exists, played a lot of Ketsui Death Label, acquired a few PC games, finished Aria of Sorrow (good end, of course), and largely utilized much of the same sleep schedule I have at home.
I finished watching season one of Haruhi, and went to begin on season two - after watching the first episode, I discovered that for whatever reason, the newer version of Media Player Classic I was using didn't want to display subtitles on the rest of the episodes, and it wasn't until the night before we left that I downloaded the real version (and codecs) and found that I was able to watch them (more on that later).
Anyway, I did a lot of neat stuff here that week. I finally tried G-TYPE, the fanmade Gradius-R-TYPE-Darius mash-up game, and found that the idea works pretty well (not surprising, since those three series consist for the most part of horizontally-scrolling shmups). I painstakingly copy-pasted the first three fan-translated Haruhi light novels and preserved the formatting (for those who don't know, when I get into a series nowadays, I tend to get a bit obsessed for a while). I also saw a non-PBS television station sign off for the night and looked at some of the other "tame" 4chan boards I hadn't checked out in the past.
Chapter 1
As with the ride to Iowa from home, the ride from Iowa to Chicago was largely uneventful. (I'm trying to think of a car ride this year that was particularly memorable and having great difficulty doing so.) We arrived at the hotel, checked in, and got into our rooms for about half an hour of rest before heading to the convention center for preview night. What we would find there would be horrifying and absolutely disgusting.
No DC.
No Marvel.
No Wizards of the Coast.
Autographs only.
Final Destination.
For those who don't want to fight with the meme, DC, Marvel, and Wizards of the Coast - easily the three largest companies that normally appear at the convention - had no floor presence whatsoever. Sure, DC and Marvel had a few panels, but those were of no importance whatsoever. Instead, a large chunk of the standard commercial floor space had been given to autograph sessions involving stars I don't give a rat's ass about.
Also something about Final Destination, I guess. Anyway, the point is, this convention set itself up to be garbage from the moment we entered the show. Preview night, for the most part, sucked - some vendors were just beginning to unpack, many of the tables in Artist's Alley were empty, and approximately none of the big booths were worth stopping at. However, what I saw of what was there ended up being good - though nothing can make up for the distinct lack of free Magic cards and DC Nation buttons, overall I had fun the first day. We later went shopping for a few items for my brother's costume and food for the hotel room. We discovered that the Wal-Mart was being converted into a SuperCenter, and were able to get all of the food items we needed there instead of having to then drive over to Meijer or Jewel Osco to do so. I also picked up five boxes of Pocky, because I knew I'd need snacks for the convention.
Later that night, I finally got around to watching episode two of season two (for those who have been following the anime, that's episode one of the Endless Eight arc). I then went to watch episode three, only to find that my netbook seemingly lacks the power necessary to play .mkv files of that quality. I won't be able to watch episodes three through eight (and so on, since there should be at least two more episodes for me to download) until I get home.
Chapter 2 and so on to come when I get to my house. Things to come: Purchases! Energy drinks! Raffles! Sketches! Walking! Pocky! Costumes! Stories of the failings of Wi-Fi!
-
Pocky's a bit too expensive for me to buy in large amounts, although I enjoy it greatly. Looking forward to what will surely be a breathtaking narrative!
-
Yeah, I didn't buy a lot of Pocky - I just wanted something that would be easy to carry around in the bag I've been using for my netbook, and I was able to put four of the boxes in the front pocket. Looking back now, I should've bought two boxes of chocolate and three of strawberry that day instead of four and one - including the extra box my dad bought me when he went to Wal-Mart again one night, I've eaten five boxes of strawberry Pocky in the last few days, and I'm getting kind of sick of the flavor. Still have that one chocolate box that I'll savor, though.
-
Why would buy expensive faux-Japanese snacks and expensive energy drinks when you could just get, like, Three Musketeers and coffee?
But anyway, I've never been to any large nerd-convention ever (Comic Con, E3, PAX, all that), and don't really intend to, since I'd feel massively out of place and end up spending a massive amount of money.
-
I just realized what the struckout start of that was. Didn't the first time because I hadn't been primed by the rest of the post. I'm about ready to declare you more obsessed than TEM for Demon's Souls.
-
I didn't buy any energy drinks, if that helps. Venom Energy had a booth there with free samples, and I tried like two of them.
-
Chapter 2
After a very long morning of most of the other people doing costume stuff, we finally left for the convention a couple of hours after it started. The lack of DC, Marvel, and Wizards of the Coast was still quite noticeable, and the void couldn't possibly be filled by those lame autograph booths. The amount of Twilight fans was staggering, but Kalee and I quickly moved to the other side of the show floor, which was mainly occupied by those who were actually there for comics and video games, to wait for my dad to be done with costume photo stuff so he could give us our money. Kalee ended up with $40 of the $60 he owed her, while I had $20 for the day. Kalee and I each bought T-shirts - hers says I DON'T WANT YOUR FREE HUG, while mine says SEE YOU SPACE COWBOY... in the proper font and formatting.
With 3/4 of my money spent (and almost half of hers), I wasn't going to be buying much else that day. Kalee bought a finger puppet, a copy of the Watchmen TPB (at a little over half the cover price), and something else I can't remember right now, and ended up with zero money shortly after getting change so we could play the Lord of the Rings pinball machine one of the vendors had available for play. With nothing else to do, we wandered around the floor for a bit. We stopped at the GenCon booth, where we got free stuff for signing up for the mailing list; at the Westfield Comics booth, where we entered drawings to be held later; and the UFRAG.tv booth, where I entered a raffle for an insane video card (to be held the next day). We also signed up for a deal where we got free copies of Afraid, a horror novel, with the stipulation that we had to review it online. (I still haven't read this book, but I will.)
With plenty of time to kill before the first drawing, Kalee sat down to read Afraid, while I walked over to the Westwood College (a name that still messes with my head) booth to play Unreal Tournament III with some bots on enormous Apple cinema displays. I probably won't be buying the game any time soon, but [darn], that game is still fun.
I walked back to the Westfield booth to await the drawing. After four names were drawn with no one present to claim a prize, someone was finally there on the fifth one - and it wasn't Kalee or me. They began throwing posters to the crowd, and I got one - a rather nice Jonny Quest poster, to be precise. With nothing else to do, I sat down to read the first Haruhi light novel on my netbook, while Kalee read more of Afraid. I read a few chapters before packing up and walking back over to the Westwood College booth to play more UT3 as I awaited the next drawing.
I walked back to find Kalee sitting at an empty booth across from Westfield. She was drawing stuff. The day before, she had drawn a little alien jumping on a trampoline, named Bleeblesnorck by me. Today she was drawing his friends while she waited for another prize chance.
Neither of us won this drawing, either. We left to go do stuff by ourselves for the last hour of the convention. I walked into the vendor area and found a booth selling Japanese import items. I looked through the soundtracks and posters, then bought a deck of playing cards (three guesses as to what's on them) and left to meet up with everyone else.
I probably shouldn't even need to mention that the ride back to the hotel was boring. We made sandwiches, ate, and generally did boring stuff that night.
Notes for Chapter 2:
- Friday was better than Thursday in almost every aspect. This isn't the case every year.
- VGXPO's booth opened on Friday, and, next to the whole thing with autographs, was one of the worst parts of the convention. I didn't even stop there because of how pathetic it all seemed.
- I just remembered what one of the other things Kalee bought was: a Player Pin. I also bought one. I'm currently wearing both, since Kalee ended up not wanting hers for whatever reason. Throughout the convention, I considered buying more pins (the vendor had a few of every in-game pin), but never actually did so.
- The playing cards were four dollars, so I had a dollar left for the next day. This ended up being important.
-
You probably already know this, but you can conserve battery power by turning down the brightness on the netbook's screen. It'd be great if you had pictures of that Lord of the Rings pinball machine. I wonder how that Johnny
Test Quest poster looked. And it sounds like you and Kalee had a pretty good time.
-
I run minimum brightness whenever I'm not plugged in, since I like having three and a half hours of battery life. It was having the wireless stuff running while I sat in Dairy Queen's parking lot for an hour that killed it on the initial trip.
Here's some info about the LotR pinball machine. (http://www.ipdb.org/machine.cgi?gid=4858)
The poster is sitting in another room of this house right now, but everyone else is sleeping, so I can't go get it and take a picture right now.
All of us had a pretty good time.
Two more days left to recount...costumes and such will probably be a separate thing.
-
I don't understand this thread.
-
then bought a deck of playing cards (three guesses as to what's on them)
Most assuredly something like this:
(https://themushroomkingdom.net/board/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Flizarddude.kontek.net%2FHaruhiCard.jpg&hash=72767e198eb46ba42af4822428c0c8f1)
-
Man you look like a small-headed nerd.
My deck's two of hearts has Suzumiya, Nagato, and Asahina in yukata with fireworks in the background (and a cyan border, like every other heart card in the deck), but yeah. I tried to take a picture of it, but my camera sucks.
TEM, perhaps this (http://themushroomkingdom.net/board/index.php?topic=9327.msg480263#msg480263) might clear things up?
Chapter 3 to come later. I'm just going to make costumes a separate section after I've finished summarizing days.
-
LD, did you get caught in a fire or something, dude? 'Cause it looks like Warp burned your beard clean off.
-
Burn? What? (https://twitter.com/lizard_dude/status/2805307385)
-
To be honest I didn't think it was a very sick burn but the pun potential was too good to pass up.
-
Chapter 3
Though this was the longest day of the convention, it almost felt like the shortest. I chugged a sample bottle of Venom Energy's new flavor as we got out of the van so that I wouldn't fall asleep after staying up late the night before. After we got into the convention center, my dad handed me $20 for the day. I walked over to the booth where I bought the playing cards the day before and picked out three posters I thought looked nice (ignore the poor image quality and the fact that the two upper posters cut off when I took the picture):
(https://themushroomkingdom.net/board/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fimg.photobucket.com%2Falbums%2Fv339%2Fdonotcare95%2F0813090009.jpg&hash=5893eded5170794fcd04e4a02586cb8f)
At two bucks apiece, this meant I had $15 left for the rest of the day. I looked at the rest of the stuff at the booth: toys, figurines, statues, mech kits, keychains, plushes, bento boxes, wall scrolls, pillows, yaoi manga, hentai doujins...I still had my heart set on CDs, though. I left, telling the guy I was off to formulate a hare-brained scheme to get another five dollars (CDs were $10 per disc, and many were two-, three-, or even four-disc sets), and headed toward the sword vendor where my brother had somehow managed to get a job. Against all odds, he lent me five dollars, and I headed back over to the import booth and bought the Final Fantasy Tactics A2 OST.
I was now completely out of money. I wandered around for a bit before finding Kalee, who had separated from everyone else to find somewhere to lay down for a bit. I sat with her and watched some episodes of Lucky Star I had copied onto the netbook the night before. After she woke up, we walked over to the Westfield booth to sign up for another drawing. She then went over to the stairs next to the lobby to wait for the costume contest - which began when the Westfield drawing was to be held! I convinced the people at the drawing that I should be able to get the prize - a Bone plush - if she won.
The time for the drawing rolled around, and a voice blared over the intercom, saying that the costume contest had been rescheduled to start an hour later. While this meant Kalee could've made it to the drawing, she didn't make any effort to do so. (It ended up not mattering - someone else won.) I walked over after the drawing to find her sleeping next to the stairs. I sighed and sat down for a bit to play some Final Fantasy IV, then left to go look around the convention some more.
I stumbled upon a booth for "Custom-Built Arcades". Sitting there was a fully operational custom MAME cabinet. I recalled my dad mentioning that he had seen a MAME unit on Thursday, and had caught a glimpse of people playing Marvel vs. Capcom on Friday, so I stopped to see what was up.
I don't recall what game was running when I stopped there. I remember playing a lot of MvC myself. I remember hearing the specs on the machine. I remember asking which version of MAME the computer inside was running (MAME32). I remember flipping through their little flier saying what games the machine could run, and that DoDonPachi caught my eye. When he pressed the command to get back to the software, he allowed me to look through some of the games on there. I found DoDonPachi and loaded it up.
Some time later, I had played through two single-loop games of DoDonPachi with numerous people dropping in and taking the role of second player, including one person who knew Cave shmups. I switched the machine to Super Street Fighter II, noticed how hard it seemed to be to pull off QCF-P motions, switched over to Marvel vs. Capcom, sighed in relief as I threw fireballs with ease, played a few rounds, and walked over to the other side of the booth - where an Xbox 360 and Rock Band 2 were set up.
As I mentioned last chapter, I entered a raffle for a video card, as well as automatically being in the last Westfield drawing for the day. However, I played DoDonPachi for so long that I didn't realize when 5:00 passed. I then played Rock Band 2 for so long (the rest of the day, in fact) that I didn't realize when 6:00 passed.
By the time I realized I had missed both raffles, it was a few minutes before the convention was to end (and shortly after I had left the booth). I went to meet up with everyone else. We went to McDonald's for dinner that night.
At the hotel room, my dad bought access cards for Motel 6's wireless Internet service. Sadly, we couldn't get them working at all - way too many problems all around meant we wasted almost eight bucks for no Internet. I played some more Final Fantasy IV before going to sleep early - after all, I hadn't gotten much sleep the night before.
-
@ Lizard Dude: Nice shirt, man. I bet you get all kind of ladies with that.
-
Best idea ever (http://www.amazon.com/Three-Keyboard-Cat-Moon-Oxen/dp/B002JQ2K8I/ref=reg_hu-wl_item-added).
-
So those CDs were pirate copies, I'm assuming.
-
Not unless they're especially well-made pirate copies.
-
Just saying, actual soundtracks usually cost a lot more. And are made by like Miya and SM Records.
-
Funny stuff: some research and a closer look reveals that the CDs I bought are in fact especially well-made pirate copies. Had I not been stuck without Internet in my hotel room, I might've been able to research "K-O CD TRADING CO." beforehand and might've ended up spending $40 on something slightly more authentic (like, say, a ticket for ACen 2010 - see Chapter 4 when I post it). Thanks, Motel 6!
Regardless, it wasn't a complete waste of money (like the whole "bought a camera and it was actually a brick" story one of my former classmates would often tell about his father) - it seems like this company does a [darn] good job of reproducing the originals, to the point where you almost can't tell it's a bootleg from looking at it, or at all from listening to it.
-
I could make a bootleg CD so good you couldn't tell from listening to it too.
-LD
-
Except for the part of the listening process that involves taking the disc out of the case and placing it in the player, of course, because I always look at the bottom side of a disc before putting it in any drive or player. Unless you have CD-Rs that look like "real" CDs? If that's the case, I'm interested in where you got them and wish to subscribe to your mailing list.
-
What? That's the looking at it part!
-LD
-
I tend to associate the looking at it part with the case and booklet and such and the listening part with the disc - and I wouldn't put a disc, no matter how shrinkwrapped the case or sleeve might have been, into any drive or player without first looking at the side that gets lasers fired at it.
On to Grasstown Chapter 4!
Sunday, as always, was the shortest day of the convention. At the start, my dad unexpectedly handed me money. I used this $20 to buy two more (bootleg) CDs: Distant Worlds: music from Final Fantasy and Potion: Relaxin' with Final Fantasy. One thing you quickly learn from conventions is that you'll get a lot of discounts if you buy stuff on the last day, which is why I got the two CDs for $18 instead. I used the last two to buy Kalee a poster with Vincent Valentine on it. We walked around to a few more booths and signed up for some drawings before she ultimately got bored with the convention. The Anime Central booth ended up being pretty cool, though - after hearing the full-length version of the Lucky Star opening theme for the first time, the guy there played Caramelldansen on his iPod, and footage was taken of us dancing to the song.
The rest of the day was spent doing almost nothing...Kalee went to lay down near the stairs again and was told to go somewhere else by a rent-a-cop. I ended up sitting with her in the large, fancy-looking room connecting the programming rooms to the lobby, plugging in my netbook, and watching more episodes of Lucky Star while she napped.
We thought the rest of the day would progress like this: go to where a drawing was being held a few minutes before it was to be held, wait for someone else to be drawn, go back to the programming room, watch Lucky Star, repeat. We got through the repeat and up to the "go to the drawing" step, but then the unreal became real.
The ACen booth's drawing involved correctly answering a multiple-choice question about which theatrical anime release Ebert put on his "worst ten movies of all time" list to be put into a drawing to be held later that day. (It was Pokémon: The First Movie: Mewtwo Strikes Back, for those concerned.) They basically gave Kalee the answer, and I happened to be standing right there when they did, so we both were entered in the drawing, which was for a full three-day pass to ACen 2010.
Kalee's ticket was drawn. This means I have to spend $35 (or $40, depending on when I do it) on a ticket to the show as well. Hell yes.
We walked around for a bit to celebrate. What really happened: We walked over to the MAME booth, I played DoDonPachi, she joined in after no one else wanted to play, we finished the game, she went back to nap some more, I switched the machine over to a few different fighting games, and then I left to join her and watch more Lucky Star until it was time for the last drawing (which we lost). We wandered around a bit more before finally heading to the top of the escalator to wait for everyone else.
Chapter 5
The trip back to Iowa wasn't quite as uneventful as most of the car rides, since my dad got lost a couple of times.
I stayed up until like 6 in the morning using the Internet at my relatives' house. It was only dial-up, but [darn] it, I hadn't been online in days, and I needed it!
Also, I downloaded the excellent demo for Fifth's TIGSource Adult/Educational Compo entry JiroSum (http://forums.tigsource.com/index.php?topic=7712.0). Highly recommended, and not just because TEM's "Two Parts Water" is the background music - and well worth it on molasses dial-up.
I'm back home now typing this epilogue, and after thinking about the convention a bit...
Well, everything that said "Wizard World Chicago 2009" on it was completely wrong. This was a convention that tried too hard to be like its big brother in San Diego (a convention that's changed a lot since I last went to it five years ago). This wasn't the fun convention from last year or the year before. In so many ways, it was a disaster.
But in other ways, it was great. Though I ended up not seeing the whole convention (though I can't imagine I missed much), I had a good time with what I did see. Getting to play DoDonPachi and Marvel vs. Capcom with arcade controls, playing a peripheral-based rhythm game for the first time in ages, seeing Kalee win a full pass to an anime convention in May...
I hear Wizard's not going to be involved with the Chicago Comic-Con at all next year. Good for them - they'll have a bigger budget for GenCon and stuff.
I'll be buying an ACen ticket soon. I'm not going to just let Kalee spend half a week in Chicago alone, you know!
Until May, then.
-
the guy there played Caramelldansen on his iPod, and footage was taken of us dancing to the song.
Post footage plz
-LD
-
I'll have to find it, if it was put on the Internet. I looked yesterday, with no luck...
Special post about costumes coming up at some point. I saw some great stuff this year.