"Hey, what character do you normally play?"
"Ganon."
Hmm...go figure. Anywho, we all took our time, then shoved off for the con at some later point. G, Telly and I went shopping for a bit, then we noticed that it was pretty near the starting time for the Transformers movie (yes, the new one). Telly had some more shopping to to do G and I went to find the end of the line.
We never found it, though. By the time we got out there the line was about a half mile long, in the sun. Freakin' LineCon. We were so sick of long lines in the sun that we didn't feel like another, especially on the last day, so we went to eat. Telly joined us shortly afterwards, then it was back to the convention to watch Ganon tear it up in the tourney.
And tear it up he did. He was a bit nervous because another of the tournament players is the guy he lost to in the finals previously. Other than that foe, though, he was very confident. People were pretty surprised by him at first because the character Ganon in the game is something of a 2nd tier character - the pro's usually use different people - but he handled his business very well and garnered compliments from the entire crowd - he was basically coronated as the "best Ganon I've ever seen." In the end his nemesis was defeated and he had to go up against a Jigglypuff. The match was neck and neck for a good while until Jiggly snuck in wicked, unexpected blow that knocked Ganon flying off the screen for the win. Still, 2nd place out of 128 is pretty damn good and he got a nice little truckload of stuff, including .hack//G.U. Special Edition. I <3 .hack!!!
After that was done the convention was basically done as well. We met up w/Drax's crew and grubbed for a while, then went back to our rooms for a bit to relax. Watched some anime, had some pizza. After a few hours we went back to Drax's room to meet up with them again, then mobbed over to Outback. The strange thing is that when I saw Drax again I nearly didn't recognize her and Hom as this was the first time since Friday afternoon I didn't see them cosplaying.
After dinner we started walking back and I randomly interjected my honking sound. It's kinda like a tricycle horn, but without the horn. Apparently, this is one of the funniest sounds known to mankind - so much so that they saw fit to conclude their convention video with it. I'm told that the two girls nearly spontaneously combusted from laughing so hard after I left.
I still suspect that little sound byte is gonna end up on YouTube somewhere. If it really is that funny then girls all across the world could be walking around with beet-red faces and laughing hysterically. Not sure if that's good or bad to be laughed at like that, but it was definitely fun at the time
A couple of thoughts/bits of funniness...
- AX is fun, but good lord to they need to get their shiz together. The registration line was completely fouled up within two hours of it opening, and they had a "critical network failure" to boot.
- Communication from AX in general needs to be dramatically improved. Many times the vol's were left to fend for themselves, make decisions on how to handle crowds, route traffic, give explanations to people on why things were sucking at that moment, PR/spin control, etc. It's a *really* bad idea to leave that to volunteers or cheaply-paid staff. Yes, staff costs more. I guarantee, though, that those 44,000+ attendees would pay ten more dollars each for their badges. Given that next year's con will likely top 50k people, that's over $500k more in revenue just from the registration alone. Even if half of that goes to the extra expenses that's still $250k more to pay for extra staff. That's at least 5 more f/t staff, each of which could handle a team of 15 vols. And that's just from a simple increase in badge cost.
- The Long Beach CC area was not prepared for us at all. They've handled bigger cons and they've handled fan/otaku cons before, but they've never held an otaku con of this magnitude before. By the end of the con I heard the staff of multiple establishments saying they don't want us back.
- What kind of hotel kicks people out of their lobby?
- On the phone - "Why don't you come over to my room? I want to show you something." All the people who were listening on the phone raised their eyebrows.
- Overheard: "I was supposed to get sex with that last piece of candy!"
"That can still be arranged!"
To my knowledge, no sex was had from that piece of candy.
- Two of the times I went to ride the trolley/bus back to our hotel, the drivers were talking to one of the passengers who was also standing in front of the line that they are supposedly legally required to stand behind. I don't like my drivers talking to passengers. I prefer them to...oh, I don't know...focus on driving?
- Butt Seks will get you laughed at by everyone in line, as well as thrown out of the con.
- You don't have to have a beer belly to know your beer.
- Said our server at the Yard House - "I was just standing there and I was really hot!" Yes, honey...yes you were. And are. Hot.
- Outback has someone on staff in the back to carefully grow, peel, roast, and grind your coffee beans whenever someone orders coffee. Very carefully. And if you're lucky, they'll even brew it for you!
Next year's AX will be in the Los Angeles Convention Center. This is great news as far as the sun is concerned - all lines should be inside. It's terrible news from a logistics perspective - there aren't really any hotels close to the con (the closest one is about a quarter mile away and that's fairly small...the big ones are about a half-mile away or more) which makes cosplay a wee bit more difficult, and it really hurts the nightlife as the area around the con isn't conducive to just hanging out. Dodging bullets, maybe, but not hanging out.
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