 |
|
 |
 |
Nekocon 2003
I was a guest at Nekocon 2003, November 7th-9th. I had a blast. A lot of stuff will be left out unfortunately, just because... it's none of your business.
Wednesday:
I spent most of Wednesday morning running some last minute errands, bringing shirts and posters to the post office for shipping, and finishing packing. Nothing too exciting there, just routine maintenance.
I left my house at about 4pm, after loading up my car with a duffle bag packed with clothes and a large box full of shirts and posters. My friend Mookie was getting off of work around 5pm. I knew it would take me about an hour and a half to drive into Boston.
It was overcast when I left my house on Cape Cod, and I had a fairly uneventful drive into Boston. Got caught in some rush hour traffic, no big deal. By the time I arrived
at Mookie's street, it was pouring rain. And of course, that's when I realized I hadn't written down his house number. So parked and walked to a main street, and proceeded to seach for a payphone. The first one I came scross was in a laundromat, and was, of course, out of order. So I kept walking. Stopped in a bar. Broken as well. Finally I found a functioning phone, and as my luck would have it, it was outside, and under a gutter drain-off. I called Mookie to find out which house was his. By the time I walked all the way back and found his place, I was dripping wet.
Mookie (who draws Dominic Deegan) hadn't quite finished his latest comic when I got there. He was just finishing inking when I arrived. So I hung out for a bit and dried off while he uploaded the comic, and selected a few guest strips to last the weekend while we were away. After he had finished packing, we headed out. We found a nice little parking ticket on my windshield, letting me know that I wasn't allowed to park on that street without a guest sticker. Whatever. We started our journey down to Connecticut to meet up with our friend Matt Daigle, the ConChair for ConnectiCon, and his girlfriend Briana.
I gave Mookie navigation duties, and shortly after we were underway, we were lost. I blame the fog. See, we were competing with this mysterious fog that was consuming every window in the car. It cause the entire windshield to go completely opaque, save for the smalled window of visibility right above the dashboard. So we were both hunched over like old ladies trying to see where exactly I was driving this automobile. The fog was a formindable ally. I would turn up the heat, and it grew. I threw cold air at it, and it grew. I opened the windows, and it would retreat for a short time, then come back full force. I hated that fog.
We pulled over at a gas station about ten minutes from Mookie's house, after doing a twenty minute circle. The attendant, in all three words of english that he knew, told us to go "straight, next left". Fair enough.
We jump on the highway, and about fifteen minutes later Mookie says "I have a feeling we're going the wrong way.". I pull off at the next exit and find another gas station. The woman informs us that we were in fact heading in the right direction, and I proceed to give Mookie the evil eye. But hey, at least we got road snacks.
So back on the road again. Nothing too eventful. Long car ride down to Connecticut. We listened to some music, had some rather interesting conversations, the usual. Took us a little more than two hours to get down to where we were going.
We showed up at Matt and Briana's apartment around 10:30pm. We had some leftover pasta and garlic bread (we would have made it in time for dinner, if Mookie hadn't taken so long getting ready... *evil eye at Mookie*). We hung out for a bit, Matt showed his underlying obsession with board games, including his custom Monopoly board, with which he had taken four separate Monopoly boards and taped them all together to form one huge neverending game of death. He had even modified all of the property cards to reflect new purchase prices and rental costs. He also informed us that never before had all of the properties been bought in a single game before. Everyone always ended up bankrupt first. That's funny... I would have shot myself long before that. Dear god, Matt.
Afterwards, Matt decided to torture Mookie and I in an entirely new fashion. He called us into the living room and set to play the most horrific display of crap my eyes have ever seen. The Star Wars Holiday Special. No no. I don't think you quite grasp this. The Star Wars Holiday Special. If you've never seen it, then your eyes are still virgin. Still pure. Those of you that have seen it... you know what I'm talking about. God damned dancing storm troopers.
Finally, when Mookie and I had no more tears left to cry, Briana made him turn it off so we could get some sleep. We were planning on leaving at 6am, since we had a ten hour drive down to Virginia Beach ahead of us. I gave Mookie the couch, and I took the floor.
Now let me tell you a little bit about Matt's floor. See, you'd look at it and you say "oh... carpet". But you'd be wrong. It's deceiving, I know, but it is in fact concrete that is simply painted to look like carpet. I know this now. And my back knows this now.
Nevertheless, I was exhausted, so I fell asleep anyway.
Thursday:
So we were supposed to wake up at 6am. Yeah right. Not us.
We got up around eight, and kind of did the whole "what? I'm conscious now? oh fuck, it's cold outside" kind of thing for about twenty minutes. We finally got into action, and dressed, cleaned up and went outside to load up the car. Matt's car is a normal sedan from the mid-nineties, four door, that kind of deal. We packed the trunk full of crap, and then realized that we had no room for this ridiculous box of merchandise I was bringing. It was going to have to go in the back seat. And Mookie will never forgive me for that.
Now picture this. A standard sized back seat. Seats two people, plus there's that little bitch seat in the middle that no one wants to sit in when you're in high school. It's not really meant to seat a person, but it can, if you need to. So we shove this box into the back seat of the car, and the box, in all of it's glory, decides to take up not only the bitch seat, but a quarter of the other two seats as well. So Mookie and I are absolutely boxed in, brown box of doom on one side, window and door on the other. And poor Mookie had to sit behind Matt, who's like six-foot something, and he left Mookie little to no leg room. I fared slightly better sitting behind Briana, who was a bit more accomodating.
So we headed out. Now I'm going to mention that I didn't see Mookie once for the entire car ride down to Virginia Beach. We were less than an arms length apart, mind you, but that forsaken box nearly reached the ceiling of the car. Talking to Mookie was like talking to a priest at a confessional, behind that little sliding door thing.
The trip was pretty straight forward. Talked a lot, slept a lot, played some Final Fantasy Tactics, listened to some music, etc. Everything you'd expect on a road trip.
About halfway into the trip we decided to stop for lunch and get some gas. Matt found a Taco Bell. Since I refuse to eat that crap, I footed it across the street to a shopping center, where I had seen a SubWay. I also stopped in the WalMart next door to peruse the GameBoy Advance game selection. I met up with the group back at Taco Bell and we hung out for a bit, to stretch out legs, hit the bathroom and recuperate. After a short while we were on the road again.
Sometime after we passed through Baltimore, it started raining really really hard. Like, lightning and thunder type rain. Matt couldn't see ten feet in front of the car, but sped along at 50MPH anyway. At one point he blew right past the exit we were supposed to take. "No problem" Briana said, looking at the map. "We can take this exit a little ways up and still be on track."
"Oh shit" Matt says, as he blows right past the exit again.
"Fine" says Briana. "We can take the next exit. It will take us a bit longer, but it will still get us there."
"Oh shit" Matt says, as he blows right past the exit again.
Dear god, Matt.
We ended up on some country backroad in Virginia, tearing through the woods, pouring rain, for about two hours. And I swear to you, we encountered one of the foulest smells ever. I don't know what was going on on those backroads, but it was pretty damned rank. Finally, as we neared Virginia Beach, we realized we had no clue how to actually get to the hotel we were staying at. I called Sabrina, the head of guest relations for Nekocon, and she guided us in.
We finally got to the hotel around 7-8pm. It had stopped raining, but we were all pretty sore from sitting in the car for so long. I went straight to the front desk. Nekocon had put the hotel room in my name, so that was pretty much a breeze. The convention was being held in this hotel as well, so it was fairly convieniant that we were in the same building. I checked in and we headed upstairs.
The room was pretty nice. Nothing fancy, but nice. I called Sabrina to let her know that I had arrived. She had to go pick someone up, but Martin Matthews, the Con Chair for Nekocon came up to the room and I got to chat with him briefly. He gave me my program book and my guest badge, and gave Mookie a Panelist badge, since Mookie was going to be sitting in with my on my panels. He also explained all of the panels that I would be speaking at. I had an hour long panel to myself on friday night, I had a half hour autograph session on saturday, and I was part of an hour/hour and a half long general "Web Comic" panel on sunday. They also told me that I had to speak at the opening ceremonies. Fun stuff.
We all relaxed for a little bit, and quickly realized that we were hungry. So we headed out. We were trying to find the Hooters, but got lost, and ended up at some italian joint instead. That was pretty fun. I had a few beers and worked up a sufficient buzz. I forget what we were talking about, but I do recall that there was much laughing and choking on food as the result.
The rest of the night was rather uneventful.. we hung out, watched TV, talked, explored the hotel a bit.
Friday:
The first day of the Convention. Whee.
I woke up really early and went down to the fitness center. It sucked. Bad. They had this cheesy little weight set, a half-bench, and a bunch of treadmills. That was it. I did what I could and then decided to head back to the hotel room and make sure everyone else was up.
We all headed down to breakfast. We had the buffet breakfast, and I flashed my Guest badge and didn't have to pay. This was about when I decided I really liked being a Guest.
After hanging out for a bit, we decided to all set up our tables in the artist's alley. My table was in a good location, but it was far from Matt and Mookie's tables, so that kind of sucked. I set up my shirts and posters, made a cheesy sign with a Sharpie marker, and sat down to play some Final Fantasy Tactics while the convention opened it's doors and things got underway. I met a bunch of people over the next few hours, and some of the convention staffers came over to say hi. I sold some shirts, talked to some of the artists, played my GBA SP, etc. I hung out there for about four hours or so, then decided to pack up and take a walk. I left my box-o-crap with Mookie and Matt, and decided to wander around the convention for a bit. Checked out the dealers room, found Martin and Danny and talked to them about a few things, etc.
I then made my way back to the artist's alley and hung out with Matt, Briana and Mookie. Matt had brought some of his board games, so we set one up behind his table and played a few games. At first it was just Matt and I, but then Mookie joined in for a bit. It was this game called 'Samurai". It was pretty damned fun, to be honest. Matt tried to get me into some other games, card games and whatnot, but I wasn't having any of that.
A little ways into the afternoon, my friend Ellen showed up. I had been really looking forward to seeing Ellen again, so I was pretty excited to be hanging out with her for a weekend. She said hi, and we talked for a moment. She was staffing the con, so she was sort of busy. I decided to head over to the room where the opening ceremonies were being held. Aaaand then the fire alarm went off. Now you can imagine that a building evacuation with close to two thousand people can be fairly upsetting for a convention. We all shuffled outside, where we stayed for about fifteen minutes before they announced that they'd be letting people back in. I went around to a side door, where I flashed my badge and they let me in.
Once I got to the hall where the opening ceremonies would be held, I flashed my badge again and got inside the room and sat down while they were setting up. Met and talked very briefly with Fred Perry, who was a really nice guy. I can't say I'm familiar with his work, but I'm familiar with his status and reputation. Anyway, I hung out there for
a bit, watching people freak out when lights wouldnt work, sound wouldn't work, etc. They got it all worked out. I also found out what the fire alarm was all about. Apparently some little twerp thought it would be funny to pull the alarm. Except he did it right in front of convention security. Like, he pulled it and then turned around and was like "oh.... shit.". I heard the kid was sobbing like a little girl when they dragged him out. Sucker.
Anyway, the opening ceremonies were late because of the fire alarm, but they finally opened the doors and started letting people in. Ellen came and sat next to me, and we joked around while people took their seats. The ceremonies got underway and I started thinking about what to say when I took the microphone. I decided on a short and simple spiel about what I did for a living, and what my panels were about. Simple enough. Eventually they called my introduction, and I went up to take the microphone. And of course, as soon as I take the mic in hand and everything is silent, Big Danny T yells "Who's a sexy bitch?!"... and my mind goes completely blank. So I stumbled through this painful jumble of trying to get across what the hell I'm doing at an anime convention, even though I have nothing whatsoever to do with anime. I finished my introduction and took my seat, where Ellen was kind enough to bite her tongue.
The opening ceremonies ended and I still had a few hours before my first panel. Ellen wasn't working, and I really didn't feel like setting up my artist's alley table again, so I decided to hang out with her for a few hours.
Eight o' Clock rolls around, and we walk to the room where my panel will be. It was a decent sized room, with a bunch of chairs, and then two at the front. Now, I had been dreading since the moment I agreed to do panels that no one would show up, and they would be a flop. I couldn't have been more wrong. There was an excellent turn-out, and we filled up nearly all of the seats in the half of the room we were occupying. Mookie was there with me, and though none of his fans really knew he was on this panel with me, he was lending me a great deal of support by just being there. And Ellen was in the audience, and I always get a lot of support from her.
So I waited a few minutes for last minute stragglers to come in, and then launched into a brief introduction. I found that most of the people there were existing fans of the comic, but there were a few who showed up just to see what it was about, and to ask some general web-comics questions. After I talked for a few moments, I opened the floor up to questions, and a bunch of hands went up. I was totally relieved.
I ended up talking for an hour straight, answering question after question, and it was a blast. I had so much fun talking to fans, the hour flew by like it was nothing. Even Matt and Briana made a point to leave their table in shifts for the sole purpose of sitting down and asking me questions like "what is pr0n?" and "when are we going to play MechWarrior?". I can't even describe how much fun I had.
After the panel, I signed a few autographs, and then a couple of people who wanted shirts followed me to the artist's alley where I dug through the box of neverending pain to find their sizes. Ellen went to run a couple of errands while I did this, and talked to some fans after the panel.
She came back and got me and we hung out some more. After a while I started to feel the effects from the panel. I hadn't realized it, but it had sort of worn me out. Ellen was going to eat and socialize, and so I walked back to my hotel to rest up a bit. I flopped down on the bed and no more than five minutes had passed before Matt and Briana came in. Mookie was still down in the artist's alley being swamped by commissions and fans.
You see, earlier someone had told Matt about this arcade/bar place downtown called Jillians that had MechWarrior Pods. Matt, being some sort of MechWarrior freak, started foaming at the mouth. He had been talking about this place all day, and at some point I had agreed to tag along. Dear god, Matt.
So it was late, and I wanted to pass out, but I let Matt drag me into downtown Virginia Beach. We found the place relatively easy (Matt only went in two circles, that I recall). Now, I had never played MechWarrior in a pod before, so I had no idea what
was going on. I was tired. Matt is a veteran, so I let him choose my mech for me. I watched some short instructional video, and then strapped myself into this hug hunk of metal with lots of blinking lights and a sliding door.
I now know that if we ever reach a future where battle is conducted with sixty foot steel mechs, I am going to stay home. It ended up being Matt, Briana and I, and like two or three strangers playing this game, all strapped into our own pods. I got raped from every angle possible, and even some that were physically impossible given the game's design. The programmers would have shit themselves at how amazingly well I managed to get destroyed in this game. Hell, I think I even shot my own mech in the foot once...
But nonetheless, I had fun. I don't know how long we played for, because it all blended into one long orgy of metal and explosions and ear-bursting stereo sound effects. But a good time was had. I was hungry, but five minutes after sitting at the smoke infested bar I had lost my appetite. We decided to head back.
Now this whole time I had been worried that Ellen would come looking for me, and I wouldn't be there, and sure enough, I get back to the hotel and am greeted by a note from her. I had missed her by about five minutes, and she had headed to bed. I was fairly upset. Only one thing would cure my blues. Food.
We ordered a pizza and sat around watching TV. Comedy Central, as I recall. We passed out after watching some bad television for a while.
Saturday:
I decided to sleep in on saturday. Just because I could. So while everyone else went to breakfast, I remained in bed. God I love sleep...
I took my time getting up, getting showered, getting dressed. I finally made my way down to the convention and met up with Matt, Briana and Mookie. I also found that my artist's alley table had been assimilated by some other artists. No big deal. I mentioned it to the artist's alley coordinator, and they ran and got me a new table and set it up right next to Matt and Mookie. This way I could be off doing stuff and my shirts and posters could still be set up on the table, and people could still buy them if I wasn't around.
Essentially we just hung out all morning and afternoon. Talking to people, joking around. I broke for lunch around noontime (gotta love that Guest badge). Ellen hung out with me inbetween working the con here and there. Basically just a nice relaxing, lazy day.
Sometime in the afternoon, Ellen came and got me for my autograph session. They had moved the location last minute (it was orignially supposed to be outside, but it was pretty chilly), so nobody knew where it was. So not very many people could find me. It turned into more of a "sit around on the floor and shoot the shit" session than anything else. But it was pretty cool. One girl even asked for one of my shoelaces. Unfortunately, my shoes required them at the time, but I did give her some SubWay stamps that I had in my wallet. I even signed them for her.
Fans are awesome.
I chilled with Matt and the gang for a bit longer, sold some shirts, signed some posters, etc. Then Ellen came and got me and I took off with her. At one point I dragged her outside to look at the eclipse that was happening, but it was pretty cold outside, so that didn't last long. Was pretty cool nonetheless. I spent the rest of the evening hanging out with her. It started to get pretty late, and Matt and Briana wanted to get some sleep, so Ellen went to find out if I was allowed to go to some invitation-only anime party. By the time she got there and they said "sure, bring him over!" I was passed out and didn't hear her knock on the door. Ugh.
Sunday:
Sunday was the last day of the convention. Following routine, we all went down to the restaurant for breakfast, where I proceeded to gorge on french toast. We then
set up our tables, and kicked back and relaxed. Ellen hung out with me when she could, and thus I was happy.
Mookie and I were scheduled to attend a general "Web Comic Discussion" panel that afternoon. We sat in with a bunch of other web comics, the only one of whom I was familiar with (and actually rather surprised to see, since I had no idea he was going to be at the con) was Sean McGuinness.
Anyway, right off the bat some guy named T. Campbell or something took it upon himself to moderate the panel. He spent the majority of the time talking about his comic, and his experiences, and didn't give the rest of us much of a chance to get a word in. I answered a few questions, and injected a few opinions on some issues, but for the most part we all just sort of sat there while he talked. I kept myself entertained by making silly faces at Ellen, and by watching Matt make an ass of himself right outside the door. God I have the best friends in the world.
After the panel was over, I got to talk to Sean McGuinness briefly, which was very cool. He's a really nice guy.
Unfortunately about this time it was time to get going. We had decided from the start that we'd leave right after the panel, because of the ten hour drive ahead of us, and the fact that both Matt and Briana had to work on Monday. So, we started packing up our crap. We had brought most of it out to the car earlier in the day, so all we had to deal with was the stuff at our tables. I was pleased to see that I could break the box of suffering down to less than half its original size. I knew Mookie would be pleased as well. I got my stuff wrapped up quickly, and then spent what last few minutes with Ellen that I could. She walked me out to the car. And then I walked her back inside. And that was it. We had to get going.
We said goodbye, and I left to climb back into the car to spend 10+ hours on the road. Mookie and I switched places, and I sat behind Matt. Suddenly I had a whole lot more
sympathy for him on the trip down there.
We got gas, snacks and hit the road. We struck up conversation, but it was only a mere couple of hours before we were all sick of eachother. I'm kidding.
No I'm not.
Yes I am.
At least we didn't have the huge box taking up half of the back seat.
I'd say about halfway into the trip Matt started suffering fatigue-induced delirium and tried to combat it by singing along with the music at full voice. Yeah, that was pleasant.
It wasn't long before Matt missed his first exit, and then BLAM, we're in downtown Washington DC. A sightseeing trip we hadn't planned on. And then we try to find our way back to a highway and then BLAM, we're in the bad part of DC, and I'm dodging bullets left and right. Not really, but you get the picture. We stopped at a gas station (don't you love those things?) and got our bearings. We managed our way out of the ghetto without any serious knife or gunshout wounds, and we were on our way again. The rest of the trip was fairly silent. We took turns playing CD's, joked around here and there. At some point I mercifully fell asleep, and when I was awakened at two in the morning by Briana pulling on my nose as we pulled up in front of their apartment.
We went inside and I decided right away that I wasn't driving two hours to Boston to drop Mookie off, and then another hour back to Cape Cod, so we agreed to crash at the apartment. This time Mookie took the floor and I took the couch.
Now let me tell you about Matt's couch. It looks all fluffy, right? That's what we call "deception". As soon as I lied down on the thing I was made painfully away of a steel rod digging into my lower spine. Whatever. Sleep.
Monday:
Woke up bright and early, said our goodbyes to Matt and Briana, and headed out. Got Mookie to Boston, then got back to Cape Cod entirely without incident. Very uneventful.
Nekocon 2003 was my first experience as a convention Guest, and it was absolutely awesome. I had so much fun, as always.
I want to give a big thank you to Martin, Danny and Sabrina, for inviting me to Nekocon, and also for being just really cool people. I had lots of fun. Thanks guys!
Matt and Briana, you guys are great. Thanks for driving, thanks for hanging out. You're great friends. Matt, you need to get control of those wall-rumbling explosions. Briana, Donkey Kong! YAY!
Mookie, what can I say man? You know I love hanging out with you. Thanks for hitting the panels with me.
Ellen, thank you for making me 'thuffer'. Do not hold over people. See you soon.
To all the fans I met over the weekend, and to everyone that showed up at my panels, THANK YOU! You were all awesome. I wish I could have hung out with you all more.
|
|
 |
|
 |
|
|
