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 5The 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. 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.
