i hear you cry out.
how can you be done... there's still one more day.
yep... but i have had such a great time where i feel like even though i don't think i'll make it to the final day i got more then i could ever ask out of this con.
plus i'm really tired...
and i can't feel my right leg... so i should probably call it a good con and just recover.
so... story time sounds like it's in order.
I have only been going to cons for about 10 years...
i tend to average 2-3 cons a year because some rather large ones are not too hard to get to.
however that number went day 5ish years ago.
Cons lost their magic.
I ended up going to cons alone cause if i did go with friends they would just sit on the grass and talk about how dumb some of these nerds were...
yeah... you're the one who paid 50 bucks to 'sit on the grass'
i ended up only going to the dealers room cause the guests were the same almost every year and even if they were new the panels ended up being the same...
again with only going to the dealers room... at first it was fine cause you could get some good deals but then cons started jacking up the price by 20-50 dollars thinking that "those crazy kids will spend anything to get what they want"
it stopped being fun.
now granted at that point in my life i was dealing with the whole saving up for the next year of college still... one of the two huge cons i antended i just decided not to go.
and the horror stories i hear about hat con... 2 hour line ups just to get back in the building, no access to panels unless you pay for the weekend... all the guests were charging for autographs.
i was happy i skipped it...
i was happy i missed out on something i had really enjoyed.
(to be fair... i was in bed with a fever that weekend so the choice wasn't mine but i was still glad i didn't go)
because it was no longer what i remembered... little bright eyed naive kat thought that cons would always be the highlight of this time of year... and now i didn't want to go to them?
was i not as much of a fan as i used to be?
or did i just buy anything i wanted through the year which made the dealers room obsolete and took away the final thing that cons fulfilled.
while i still had anime north i was getting tired of it too... it was just too crazy, too many people and in the end going to a convention alone just isn't much fun... and while i did go with a good friend of mine last time i still felt overwhelmed and like i didn't have the time iwas expecting to have.
then... 3 or 4 years ago a new con started
and it was close, one of the easiest cons i've had access to.
so i went
and it was terrible.
no panels
no guests
no vendors room
just socializing while you waited for one of the few things they had planned.
so... pretty much my worst nightmare.
i don't mind socializing in ground of 2-4 but more then that and i just don't feel like talking anymore.
i was miserable... at the time
i am so glad i went.
the next year they announced doug walker, spoony and angry joe as guests.
but there was a catch.... it was further away/harder to get to.
still i had no idea if the con would last... it was it's 2nd year of the con so i figured... go, get the autographs and go to a few panels and hopefully it's good.
and it was.... it was a blast.
so i kept going
and they kept adding more and more amazing guests
last year i could barely go cause i had a really bad fever... bu i had dragged my friend from two hours away and i wasn't going to say "yeah sorry... you came all this way and we aren't doing anything."
i think i lasted 2 or 3 hours before we had to head back and i had to go be ill...
so this year... i couldn't get over the sheer amount of guests they had... but a few stood out o me personally.
James Portnow - he writes the show extra credits and is a professor at digipen, while his show focuses mainly on game theory or the games industry i really think most of his stuff can be applied to other disciplines so i had huge respect for him.
So when i went to his panel it was a blast... somehow i ended up first in line but i really just wanted to sit down and i figured no better place to wait then the line. the panel was so interesting and had some great discussion and after it was done we just kind of moved to a free all, sat in a semi-circle with air conditioning and chatted.
i had never been at any panel where the guest was so willing to continue to discussion despite the time ending... it's almost always "ok your time with me is done i'm going back to the green room"
today just as we were leaving I saw him agian and knowing i wouldn't be there for his signing session i asked if i could have his autograph and instead he's like "no.... no autograph... thats too much about me and this con should be able all of us... want a picture istead?"
yes i wanted a picture instead but i figured it would be too forward of me to ask... so this made me smile.
i haven't looked at the shots yet.... i hate pictures of me... but i will... and then i'll decide which to post on facebook for my anual visit to that site i don't like...
so yeah, really awesome guy... very kind and down to earth, i hope he had a great time cause i know for me personally he helped me remember what was so fun about cons in the first place... bumping into people who you look up to and just being able to have a conversation without worry.
Mara Willson - this is short, my brother really loved her films and i figured it would be nice to have her sign something for him cause he couldn't go.
Channel awesome/chez apocalypse - a lot of them came last year but i missed it due to sick so i was glad to see them... got a lot of autographs which was great and i half bought their book which i will not review until it's fully out for everyone.
The game chasrers - never actually saw these guys... thoug hthey must have hated the prices in the con for games.... everything was way too expensive (not that it stopped me from buying a super famicom game 'wanderers from Ys'... but thats more thanks to fangirling then anything else... i just thought it would be a fun thing to own even though i can't play it)
Pro jared - So... this may sound odd but i was most looking forward to seeing Pro jared.
see when i watched his q&a from another con all i could think was "wow... he's freakishly quick on his feet with his answers... maybe he did improv?"
then later on that vid he confirmed that he had.
so i essentially wanted to see him do some improv.
I love his reviews, i love his nuzlocke... but i wanted to see the improv more then anything else.
unfortunately he wasn't in many of the skits (cause there were a lot of people) but the skits he was in were pretty damn funny. (especially the one minute one... though i'm sure the one guy hated being part of that... his poor knees.)
so after the show i noticed that everyone was swarming the voice actor guy who was also there and i just wanted to tell jared that i hadn't laughed that hard in a long time and that he was one of the best things about this con.
"you mean me? not him?" he replied... to which i almost replied. 'i don't know who he is' but i kept that to myself... i knew 'who' he was.... i just didn't play mass effect or dragon age so... it wasn't as big a deal to me..
so i answered yes and asked if i could get a photograph.
he was really nice about it, i got my pictures which again... haven't looked at but i'm sure they are fine... i'm sure i throw off the white balance cause cameras hate me (read as i'm really pale and the camera either makes me paler or it cant focus on me)
after that i went ot his autograph area and got that....
and then i realized "wow i hurt all over" so we went through the dealers room and that was that.
It was probably one of the most fun cons i've ever been to. i feel a little bad cause i dragged my friend all around and half the people she had never seen but now she will (mwa ha ha ha) but still.. going to cons alone isn't fun... so i'm really happy she was there.
i got all my signatures in the book of friends cause it makes me giggle. i'm surprised how quickly it's filling up.
otherwise all i got from the deals room was a kero plush toy and a Riou plus toy (black nyanko), some perfume that smells like lilac (fav scent), a sailor moon surprise bag that had random stuff in it and... i think a piece of artwork... and thats really it. well as Ys 3 jpn... which i just had to get for novelty.
i'll post some of the pictures later but for now it's well past midnight and i'm running off very little sleep. i hope that those go tomorrow.. erm... later today... have a blast but for me right now... i have to pass out.
Edit:
Picture time, unfortunately a lot of the pictures are blurry cause of low light... i did my best~
also the lights they had in the guest session rooms had a very purple look to them, i tried to fix it but no luck : (
The first one is Jew Wario from RetrowareTV and his focus is on imported games, i really enjoy his stuff cause it gives a breakdown of how easy it is to play the game even if you don't speak the language.
the Second is Nash with booze... cause it was a pub quiz. He does a hilarious show entitled What the Fuck is wrong with you, it details horrible things found in the news and while sometimes it's painful to listen to cause of the shear amount of stupidity that some of these people do... it's always good for a laugh.
though there were a lot of questions about canadian content and i'm sorry but assuming that they know what is and what isn't is a bit silly in my opinion... hell there are sometimes i'm surprised something is classified canadian and i live here... while other times things are classified as hollywood despite that they were shot and produces here.
after this i went with my friend to the signing and the two of us bought the book, i will not review it till it's out but even then i'll probably only mention how enjoyable it was.
aka Improv all-stars.
as i mentioned before i was realyl looking forward to pro jared's improv and yeah it was really funny, the four special guests were Doug walker, Brentalfloss, Mark Meer and pro jared... all four had me in stitches by the end... i didn't get any pictures with brentalfloss cause he and doug had to leave a bit early and i was too busy laughing during the show to hold a camera/i was pretty far back/the lighting was kinda terrible.
then people left and i got to sit in the front so i got some more shots.
but yeah no context for anything... cause thats the way improv should be.
i will say this was my fav shot of the day.
hmm
...
so the pic with me and jared is terrible cause pale + purple light = no colour in my face... like... less then normal... and it was humid... and my hair was all frizzy...
...
..
.
my one with james portnow is a little better... but my hair is stil la frizzy mess... and i'm still as white as a ghost.
i had a great time... i really could not ask for a better con experience... i just wish i weren't so breakable/easy to get sick (i seem to have already come down with con plague)
hopefully the next year is even better!
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