Wednesday, February 21, 2007

Costumes and LARPs and Nerds, OH MY! Sunday at Megacon

Sunday: The last day of Megacon. As much fun as I had been having, I was getting exhausted, and was eager to return to Gainesville. I arrived in the dealer room. I was on a mission today. It was the last day of con and I had yet to acquire my batarangs. Anxiously I marched towards the booth selling them. Many of their wares were gone, half the glass cases were empty. I couldn't spot them. Oh noes! What if they were sold out?? My heart sank momentarily. Then, there they were, buried among some brass knuckles. One set of two. $10. SOLD. I handed my MasterCard, they handed me the shiny, black, bat-shaped blades. I squealed with excitement. I put them in my Darth back pack and moved onwards.

I meandered through the rest of the dealer's room. Looking for anything, anything at all which caught my eye. I was starting to think that I wasn't going to find anything. That I was actually going to leave with some money left in my pocket. Then I spotted a group of younglings looking at some WoW TCG cards. I don't actually play the WoW TCG, or any TCG for that matter, but there was one card I had been wanting for some time. The baby hippogryph. I had done some eBay searches and only ever found it for like $100. I didn't want it that much. But this man had piqued my curiosity. I inquired briefly if they had it. Expecting to hear a no from the dealer, I heard him say yes! SQUEEE! I asked the price; it was probably going to be out of my budget. "$29". Wow! Not a bad deal at all. In fact, a great deal. I managed to get him down to $25, paid the man, and walked away a happy girl. Now, you may be thinking that paying $25 for an in game pet that is completely useless is quite a wasteful endeavor. However, it was just too cute to pass up.

As we continued our leisurely stroll, we noticed that Sean Astin, the cutest of the hobbits, was there. I wanted desperately to meet him, however, not desperately enough to pay $20. Its a ridiculous expectation to have to pay money to meet a person. Whatever.

The rest of the afternoon was fairly uneventful. There was some anime to be seen to be seen. GunBuster and DieBuster to be exact. I found GunBuster to be rather nonsensical yet highly amusing. But then again, who doesn't find overly bouncy teenage boobs amusing? DieBuster was sort of the bastardized sequel to the series, taking place 15 years later. DieBuster's plot made a tad more sense, and contained many more boobies and upskirts. My kind of show! Then Michael and I watched about an hour's worth of upcoming movie trailers. I love trailers, so I really enjoyed that.

After media was consumed by all and our pocketbooks were empty, we headed on our way out. But first we stopped for a minute to roll down a ramp. Now, you may be wondering why we engaged in such bizzare behavior. To understand this you must realize that we live in Florida, which is very flat. Therefore, anything resembling a hill must be rolled down. Even if its carpeted, and indoors, and in a convention center, and I'm wearing a skirt.

Tuesday, February 20, 2007

Costumes and LARPs and Nerds, OH MY! Saturday at Megacon

Saturday: Hectic...I think that is the best word to describe this day. After oversleeping, passing the highway, getting lost, discovering that International Drive hates U-turns, and parking in the wrong concourse then having to take a bus to the right one we finally arrived at the convention. It was approximately 1 PM. Our meeting time for Paranoia LIVE was 11 AM. Oops. Already people were lining up for officer training which wasn't until 1:30 PM. As I prepped my station, 2 o'clock inched nearer and I became apprehensive. This was, after all, my first Paranoia LARP as a full fledged GM, with my own secret society and missions and everything.

Two o'clock arrived and the victims....I mean players....arrived as well. After a brief introduction by James they split up into the secret societies. As I went on to explain our overall plan for this year's game to the players, it struck me that I had no idea what the story line was all about. I was so confused. So, I explained as best I could and sent my little guys off to their teams.

The rest of the game was fairly uneventful. Several passersby decided that I looked good enough for a picture. Two teams brought me valentine's made at the lovely PLC. I managed to kill several players, including one whole team for forging their paperwork. Tsk tsk!

At last, after 3 hours or so of standing around, assigning missions, and collecting hydraulic screwdrivers, it was time for the final battle. I had little sense of what was going on though. The story line still eluded me. Finally, as the grenade slaughters wound down, the story arc made sense. I was losing. My secret society was on the brink of failure. I did what any respectable leader would do. I immediately accused Michael of cheating. I suppose it was one last ditch effort to win it for my team. Mischa and I, allied in our causes, tried to push our remaining survivors by finding them mutant powers and more grenades, but victory escaped us; FCCCP won the game.

Medals were handed out, as were prizes, to the winning teams and MVPs of each secret society. The best player of the game escaped with a copy of the Paranoia tabletop handbook. 'Twas a successful Paranoia LARP. HUZZAH!

After cleanup and such we scurried in the chilly weather to Red Lobster, where we waited for over an hour, but got a nice booth. The service sucked so I stole a plate. We returned to the con to attended the Cyberia Dance Party. Apparently dry-humping to moderately paced Asian techno music is quite the popular thing to do here.

Exhausted, we departed. My wallet felt no lighter as I didn't buy anything today either. I passed out comfortably at Justin's house, and anxiously awaited the final day of Megacon.

Monday, February 19, 2007

Costumes and LARPs and Nerds, OH MY! Friday at Megacon

This past weekend was the glorious Megacon. Three days of anime, gaming and comics fun.

Friday: I dressed up as Sakaki from Azumanga Daioh. The costume was a grand success. Many came up to me for hugs and giggles. It could've been from recognition of the character; however, it could've also been the lack of pants-age.

One of the first things I did was go down to the Artists section. I got to meet Tim Buckley, creator of Ctrl-Alt-Del, one of my favorite internet comics. He was a really nice guy. Again, it might've just been the lack of pants.

The dealer room was just as I had expected: most of the vendors were selling comics. There were, however, there were booths of other wares. I was astonished at the amount of pointless yet amazingly cute objects. Apparently a 2 inch tall PVC figurine of a cat in a jar is worth $6.00 and will sell out by Sunday. To my surprise there were no hentai manga booths this year. Usually there are at least a couple booths, swarming with 16 year old girls buying Yaoi. I did find one porno/video hentai booth. No one was near it save for one 10 year old looking at the DVD covers. I wonder where his parents were...

During my initial walk through the dealer room, nothing caught my eye right away. However, my dear friend Juan ran up to me to inform me of a booth selling batarangs. I had mentioned earlier that I wasn't going home that weekend without a set of them. I walked briskly over to that side of the floor and found them there: shiny, sharp and heavy. Just what i wanted. I inquired on the price. (I had promised myself I wouldn't spend more than $30 on them.) They were only $5 each. SCORE! I continued to browse, assuring myself that if I waited till Sunday I could haggle for cheaper.

Efren Ramirez
was there, as was Lou Ferrigno. It was $20 to get to meet Efren though. I think celebrities shouldn't charge their fans. If it wasn't for the fans, they wouldn't be where they are. What a selfish thing to do.

The day ended with me not buying much of anything at all, and spending a considerable amount of time wandering around doing nothing or working the gaming booth for Paranoia sign-ups.