4:30 am - After so many dreams in the last few weeks involving
this wake-up call, I wasn't too sure if this was the real
thing at first. Fortunately, unlike all those dreams, I
had not slept in and missed my flight. In fact, everything
went right smoothly. Sorry, no Snakes
on a Plane references here. Not yet, anyway. The first flight took
off at 6:25, landed just an hour later in Winnipeg, then
it was right onto the next flight which landed at 12:18
in Toronto. When looking at the itinerary at first, I guess I neglected
to keep in mind I was going two timezones east, so I was expecting it
to last a little longer. The first trip was over so fast I barely had
time to nap.
12:30 pm - The anticipation before the first meeting was
really getting my heart racing. From the point where the
city became visible out the plane window all through the bus ride to the
hotel, I couldn't stop grinning like an idiot. That bus ride was a little
sight-seeing tour on its own. I got to see so many things I hardly ever
see in Regina. A harbour! Homeless people! Congested traffic! About a
dozen construction cranes scattered throughout the city like it had just
suffered from a massive superhero/supervillain battle and had to rebuild
everything in a rush to get things back to normal by the next issue! I
also caught a glimpse of my hotel about 15 minutes before getting anywhere
near it thanks to the large sign depicting its name in the distance. I
felt like if I had binoculars I could actually see Top waiting for me
in the lobby. Yes, the suspense was killing me.
1:00 - Finally, I reached the hotel. I looked around the
lobby, expecting someone to sneak up behind me and surprise
me at any moment. That wasn't to be though, as my eyes
were easily drawn to the bright orange cap pointed straight at me as the
head it was attached to hunched over, staring intently at the drawing
pad in the figure's lap, sitting in a chair in the middle of the area.
Turns out Topman is really easy to spot in a crowd, an attribute that
would come in handy countless times throughout the body-clogged convention.
I headed on over to get a closer look at what he's drawing. A familiar
toy-headed robot in a familiar drawing style greeted me. When the artist
glanced up to see who's looking over his shoulder a second later, a more
typical greeting took place. It's hard to describe what exactly was going
through my mind at this point, but I think Rich put it best as "meeting old friends for the first
time".
Off to business. We headed to check-in together. What should
have been a rather mundane task would come back to haunt
us later. They wanted a $400 deposit from both of us for "incidentals".
I assured the lady we had no interest in touching the mini-bar or anything
else and got the deposit bumped down to $100 apiece. Top put his on credit,
and I took mine off debit, with the promise of getting
it back in cash on check-out. Oh, if only it were that simple.
We headed to our room to settle in. Ninth floor, window
had a lovely view of the CN Tower. I got to see my own
team T-shirt right off the bat, but put it aside to save for the con.
Turns out Top and I didn't have a whole lot to say to each other at first.
Some initial awkwardness, I suppose. Plus, I'm not much of a conversationalist
to begin with. That's right, in real life too, not just on AIM. Top had
already had an extra hour in the area to scope around, so while he stayed
in the room to draw, I went to do a little exploration myself. Mainly,
I just walked around the block until I found a convenience store to buy
a Dr Pepper from. It must have been my lucky day, because I won a free
one from the inner bottlecap! Unfortunately, I then realized I did not
have access to the fridge in our room, so I had to drink it fast before
it got too warm. I just bought cans of the stuff for the rest of the trip.
2:00 - So, feeling settled-in enough, I decided my next
move would be to ring up the phone number Gauntlet had
given me, and see if we were going to meet up with him
that day. A monumental moment, first time hearing Gauntlet's voice! I
could tell it was really him too, as he said "Hm" a lot, and seemed to not be paying
much attention to what I was saying. The reception was terrible - I could
barely understand a word he was saying, except that he didn't get much
sleep, he was driving to the mall, and that he wouldn't be in town for
another couple of hours. I could also hear a female voice in the background.
I asked who it was, wondering if it was Needle, but he hung up before
I could get an answer.
It also sounded like he introduced himself as "Porthos"...It
was a bad connection.
Top and I chilled in the room for a bit more. He let me
borrow his copy of MMZ so I could experience that game
series for the first time ever. Back when it first came out I vowed I
wasn't going to support that spinoff series and avoid it at all costs.
Since then I've heard so many good things about it, it was getting impossible
to stick to that vow. I had actually decided to buy the games a few months
ago, but still haven't gotten around to it. This felt like as good a time
as any to try it out.
I drew a little during the time as well. Though Top drew
quite a bit more. He was pretty dedicated to his sketching
the whole trip, which I really admired. I barely ever draw just for the
hell of it any more, and I always have to find time to sit down and do
it. That's something that changed quite suddenly during the trip, but
I'll get to that later when all the other prolific artists show up.
3:00 - Top and I decided it was high time for some site-seeing.
We opted for the CN Tower, since it was within walking
distance and everything, plus to get there we went right through the building
where the Con would take place the next day.
The whole area was ripe with revolving doors and other
strangely hinged doors I was unaccustomed to dealing with.
I kept on moronically sliding into the same revolving door compartment
as whoever I was following, getting smacked in the backside or crushed
in the gap as a reward for my stupidity. Snakeman getting eaten by doors
became a quick running gag during the trip, sadly enough.
Top had already scoped this place out before I arrived,
so he led the way. The path was fairly straightforward,
though long, due to the cumbersome barrier of delapidated railroad tracks
between the north and south segments of the building. We would walk those
skywalks many times during the weekend. A bad omen for me, as walking
was not on my side. G phoned at one point along the way, but all I could
make out was that they were still an hour or so away.
$20 to go up to the observation deck of the tower. Not
quite the top of the world, but the best value considering
the lines to get any higher were very long. The ticket lady claimed the
line just to get to the deck was 15 minutes long, which must have been
a bald faced lie. We got the first elevator ride up as soon as we got
there.
I had been on the same tour about a decade ago with my
family, and nothing really changed much except the security.
9/11 and all that. It was kind of baffling though, as the security at
the base of the tower was more stringent than it was at airport. The metal
detector shot little air jets at us. The hell? After relaying the story
to my family last night, my dad suggested it was to blow the smell of
the bombs around for the dogs to smell (there were no dogs that I could
see, just a large, intimidating man prodding me with a handheld metal
detector) my mom suggested it was to press my clothes against my skin
to reveal any suspicious lumps. Both theories sounded kind of goofy.
At the top, Top and I looked out over the city, trudged
through the wind in the outdoor deck, stood on the glass
floor, and took some pictures. All in all, a pretty touristy time. Hey,
we had to do at least a little bit of that, might as well have gotten
it out of the way early.
I'll post the pics a little later. They're the best ones
I ended up taking with my phone, which it turns out I should
have had more practice with before building up half my trip album with
it. You should know I RARELY ever use my cell phone, much less the camera
feature in it. Somehow I was lucky enough to get Thursday's pics in a
decent size, but without warning, all the others turned out thumbnail-size
and unintelligible. I guess the damn thing switched to low res to save
space on Friday, and if I had at least known that it had such a lame space
problem, I might have taken more pics with my MP3 player camera instead
of about half and half. Not that the Player photos are much better. The
lighting is awful, it's unwieldly to shoot with, the pics are all dithered
badly, and most come out blurred thanks to the inconsistent speed. Combine
that with the fact I'm even worse at photography than I am at using a
phone or talking to people, and I'm just glad Top had the brains to bring
a decent camera along and do most of the gallery-building. Just look at
my crappy photos as examples of what NOT to do.
4:00 - On the way back through the skywalk, G phoned again,
sounding slightly more awake. He announced that he was
in town, just a few blocks from the convention hall. I informed him where
we were, and the female voice in the background suggests meeting up at
the Eastside Marios down the block. This time G did confirm for me that
he had his sister in tow, so in a few minutes, half the team would be
face-to-face.
Ah, but I had no idea "a few minutes" meant about twenty.
Top and I were standing outside the restaurant almost immediately,
and pacing nervously for a long time as the suspense built as high as
that crazy tower we just came from. Top's paranoia had plenty of time
to go to work during this time, and he kept sharing his theories on what
was about to happen. Would they pretend not to recognize us and sneak
up behind us to surprise us? Were they already in the restaurant and looking
at us out the window, laughing, wondering how long before we give up on
waiting? Would G have some other guy pretend to be him for a few days
while the real deal stalks in the shadows? Was he just going to stand
us up? I did my best to quell the conspiracy theories while not pondering
their validity myself too much. Top also said he had an odd feeling that
Needle's real name was Christina, based on someone else he had met by
that name or something.
It took me nearly the whole time to recall the street name
G mentioned on the phone and to look it up on the map I
took with me. Turns out they parked a couple dozen blocks away to save
on parking costs. That's Gauntlet for you. There was no conspiracy or
anything, they were just walking a long-ass way.
I had my phone out, ready to call and see how close they
were, when they walked right up and showed themselves in
plain sight. I didn't quite consider it when I noticed them looking at
me, or when I noticed them smiling at me, but when I noticed the shades
the guy was wearing, I knew it was really him. I'd looked forward to that
meeting for years, and it was everything I hoped it could be.
And yeah, we finally got real names! If you want a hint,
his name is not "Porthos", nor does it sound anything like "Porthos".
Her name is not "Christina", nor does it sound anything like "Christina".
He is also not Tony, nor am I Brion. That should narrow it down for you.
Real ages would come later. We had to refer back to the "Guess Gauntlet's
Age Contest" to see who won anyway.
5:00 - Our first stop was the food court to catch a bite,
get acquainted, and see some sketchbooks. Now I've seen
examples of their art before, but I never knew just how little a percentage
of their art actually gets posted. Like Top, G and Needle were pretty
dedicated to their drawings, doing a lot of sketching just for the hell
of it, whenever they had a chance to sit down and pull out a drawing pad.
It was pretty inspiring for me, who has only really drawn things in the
last several years because I had promised to draw it for somebody, because
I wanted to add something to one of my sites, or because I needed reference
images. I'd nearly forgotten what made me want to draw in the first place,
it had become some sort of chore. Meeting these guys really made the idea
of drawing fun again.
We hit it off with Needle surprisingly well, considering
what little previous contact we've had with her, and how
uninterested in the team scene she's come off as. We had our common artistic
interests to thank for that, I guess. She still zoned out somewhat whenever
we talked about MM or team stuff, but we had more to shoot the breeze
about than just that, and I was wrong to think she was in anyway unenthusiastic
about the group. She just doesn't have easy access to a computer like
the rest of us, she's still very much a full member of the team.
6:00 - After dinner, we grabbed the subway to go shopping
for a whip for Needlegal's 60's Catwoman costume. It was
my first time on any sort of Subway, but the others had lived with them
their whole lives, so I just followed their lead. Toronto's insanity revealed
itself in the form of its subway transfers, which unlike in Montreal,
do not allow you access back to through the station once you return to
the surface. The transfer is evidently good for a one-way continuous trip,
which makes no sense considering there is no one down there to even show
the transfers to. It seems you could just ride the trains all day until
you go up for air, and if you want back in, then you have to pay again.
So the transfers are basically worthless. Unfortunately, this was not
the only worthless piece of paper we would pick up in this ludicrous town.
I'll get to that later.
Needle leads us into a place called "Seduction". Interesting
name, sounds almost like some kind of sex sho-...oh. Yep,
we had gone whip shopping in the bondage section of a sex shop. How could
I not see that coming? Naive and inexperienced as I am, I might have been
pretty uncomfortable wandering around in there, but being in the company
of three other people reduced the awkwardness considerably. Even though
the whips were on the same wall as the ball gags, and the person minding
the counter a few feet away was a transvestite, I felt like I fit right
in. Unfortunately, it sounded like Needle didn't find the kind of whip
she wanted, having to settle on a short, tassled flail as the closest
substitute.
It was back to the subway in the other direction after
this. This time the car was a lot more crowded, with someone
in a wheelchair right in the door making squeezing in especially difficult.
I was the last one in, and naturally, the door tried to close on me. Damn,
those train doors are strong. Just as soon as I wormed my torso out of
the death grip, it clamped down on the sole of my shoe. It didn't hurt
or anything, but man, those Toronto doors would just not let me go. I
must have been really tasty to them.
After that, we realized we were headed in the wrong direction,
and the trains going the right way were considerably less
crowded. Go figure.
G then took us to a nice comic shop called the Silver Snail,
or the Crystal Snail, or something like that. I like my
local comic shops, but I have to admit this place had them one-upped on
toy, manga, and video content. It even had a certain issue containing
a certain cameo I was looking for that apparently hadn't even made it
to Regina yet. G suggested waiting until the Con to buy it since it would
be cheaper, but I ignored reason and bought it early.
By now I started to notice my unbearable foot pain. No,
the train door didn't take a heavier toll than I let on,
I actually have my job to thank. What is normally a sitting desk job well-fitting
my lazy lifestyle, had just last week turned more physical labour oriented,
having me walk back and forth through the factory floor, upstairs and
down, carrying heavy file tote boxes between locations. It's left my feet
in a sore, blistery mess just in time for my walking tour of Toronto.
Joy. I bought brand new shoes last Tuesday in anticipation for this, but
they ended up making matters worse. I refused to slow the group down though,
so I toughed it out, though not without annoying the others with my endless
whining about my poor, poor feet.
7:00 - We walked from the Slippery Snail to Chinatown,
where Gauntlet took us to check out some anime/manga places.
Unfortunately, some places were already closing by this time, so we missed
out on some bits. On our way out of the mall, our exit was slowed by Needle's
frequent distractions. Turns out small, shiny, cute things racked up on
display will stop her in her tracks. G expressed exasperation with his
sister's short attention span. You'd never realize from the eps that Needle
showed so many symptoms of ADD.
Our final stop on the tour was a little shop dealing in
asian pirate toys such as "Transforners", "Super Construction
Justice Warrior", "Ultra Fighter Six-in-One" and the
like. It was all very amusing.
Thankfully, it turned out the place where G parked is only
a short walk from the pirate store. We got a ride back
to the hotel in the famous stolen Sunfire, except it's not really a Sunfire,
nor is it stolen as far as I can tell. Just when I thought the walking
was over, G parked a few blocks away from the hotel, again to save money.
Damnit.
9:00 - Back in our hotel room with G and Needle, Top and
I got out our own sketchbooks and we showed off the rest
of our drawings to each other. We also all put on our team shirts since
it's getting hard to resist trying them on. The night turned into a big
sketching fest, with the four of us drawing whatever the hell comes to
mind. It turned out to be a somewhat educational experience. A passing
mention of how I mete out human proportions ended up being a big help
to Top's style, and Needle had some suggestions for me on how to make
my sketching more clean and solid. You might be seeing a significant jump
in quality from a couple of Mechs' arts in the near future thanks to this.
The siblings had to head off at about 10:30. After that,
there wasn't much left to do but go to sleep and rest up
for tomorrow.
7:00 - I was the first one to get up and get ready. Top
decided to sleep in for another hour or so. I seemed
to have slept well enough, since I was plenty energetic
all day, though I recall the sleeping itself wasn't all that great.
Unfamiliar bed and all that. Great pillows, lousy sheets. Plus excitement
tends to keep you from really nodding off. I must have recharged on
semi-consciousness alone. Same for the rest of the weekend. I was fine
during the day though. Did a bit more drawing and Gameboying, and listened
to my mp3 player while it was nice and quiet.
9:00 - Top and I went hunting for a good place for breakfast.
We opt for the buffet under the hotel. Not a good plan.
$20 for the all-you-can-eat, and somehow I forgot I can only ever eat
$10 worth of stuff at a time. I really felt like waffles though, and
wouldn't you know it, I only found the waffles' hiding spot after I
was already full.
I hate getting full on breakfast. That's one of the worst
times of day to get full.
10:00 - I forget why exactly, but instead of heading
straight back to the hotel, we keep exploring "PATH". "PATH" is
the name of the bizarre, maze-like, never-ending undergorund mall that
weaves its way throughout much of downtown Toronto. We thought it would
be simple to just walk along, and then head back the way we came when
necessary, but when it came time to backtrack, we quickly realized how
lost we were. We found a whole of two maps scattered throughout the
walls of this labyrinth, one of which was upside-down, and one of which
was missing the "You Are Here" marker. We would get lost in
PATH a few times throughout the trip, each time thinking we finally
got the hang of it, and each time we would end up going ridiculously
far in the wrong direction, and eventually give up and surface, finding
our way back home through the searing heat. I dramaticize, but it really
was pretty pathetic.
10:30 - At long last, we NetBattle! I'd never had a human
opponent to take on in EXE before. Neither Top nor I
had picked up an EXE game in months, and were embarassingly out of practice,
but I wasn't going to miss the oppurtunity. While unprepared, both of
us had fairly complete game files. In my case, I unwittingly brought
the copy of BN2 that had the strange save-data-erasing-incident a couple
years back.
Basically, I'd gotten a perfect file on Normal Mode,
and finished up on Hard Mode (BN2 keeps two separate
files for Normal and Hard), and one day I turn the game on to find the
Normal file completely missing while the Hard file remains completely
in tact. At that point I must have tried to speed-run through Normal
to get things back to normal, transferring a complete library of chips
over from my sceondary BN2 cart to speed things up, but must have gotten
bored with this just before the airplane mission (shoulda played that
during my flight, woulda been appropriate).
So since you can't Network in Hard Mode, I had to battle
Top with my half-finished Normal file. MM only had HeatCustom
style, Lv.64, with 680 HP. But thanks to basically cheating, he had
all the strongest chips in the game, including Sanctuary.
Top started out with Hubstyle, making his defense actually
weaker than mine despite his MM being more complete in
terms of Level. After he figured this out, he switched to WoodSomething,
which still had the disadvantage against my Heat, especially since he
kept charging up his buster but forgetting the range of the Twister
attack.
We both had the strongest chips in the game, but didn't
remember quite how to use them correctly. So it was essentially
two morons bludgeoning each other with nuclear weapons. We played four
times, with a 2/2 record. All I can say is that the fights we all over
too fast, and it was silly to see us both using a preset FastGuage right
off the bat simultaneously. Top actually pulled out all
his time-stopping chips first at the beginning of turns, suggesting
he's faster to the draw than I am. Remind me never to face him in the
town square at high noon.
11:00 - Called Hard's number somewhere around here to
see how close they were. Hard says they just crossed "the bridge" like
I know which bridge he's talking about. Turns out they're still in Michigan
at this point and ETA is another four hours. Guess those Premium Pass
2:30 entrance time is gonna go to waste for them. Suckers. I musta phoned
G somewhere around here too, though I don't have it written down in
my notes. Their ETA was just as far off. So Top and I were stuck alone
for a while longer. We went to Harvey's for lunch at one point, and
drew or lazed around for the rest of the time.
2:00 - It was finally time for the Con to start, at least
for us special VIP people who get to go in before everyone
else. Not as fun as it sounds. Not for me, at least, considering I was
hardly interested in the con to begin with, and was more interested
in meeting up with the others, who were still two hours away. Top and
I wander around the con floor in its least-crowded state, which is still
fairly crowded. We were given special goodie bags containing short comics,
buttons, a small movie poster...a pacifier, wtf? Nice
thought, but none of it stuff I would have bought for myself if given
the choice. Then again, I'm pretty frugal.
I was a little excited when I got to the used videogame
booths and saw them putting their wares fresh onto the
table. "Oh
boy!" I thought. "First dibs on the games I might not be able
to find anywhere else! This early admission might pay for itself after
all!" But alas, the selection was not much better than my local
EB, they just had a lot more of the stuff nobody else buys. Other than
that, there wasn't much to catch my eye.
4:00 - After an hour of walking around like this, I became
paifully aware of my feet once again. It was getting
completely unbearable at this point, and I made a mental
note to limp my way over to the nearest place that sells cushioned insoles
on my way back, which was about now. It was almost time to meet up with
Rich and Hard anyway. On our way through the skywalk, we ran into Needle,
with some guy in tow (Literally, the guy was on a leash).
It was there that we were introduced to the Maniacs' newest member,
Bondageboy. I had my doubts about this guy and his mesh shirt at first,
but he proved his worth almost immediately by suggesting I could find
cushioned insoles at the same Shoppers Drugmart where I purchased some
vinyl erasers earlier in the day while we were holed up in our room
drawing. How did he know I was looking for insoles, you ask? Did I mention
I wouldn't shut up about my damned foot pain? It was basically "Nice to meet you, Bondageboy. My feet hurt."
As we continued on in opposite directions, Needle informed
us that she'd have green hair the next time we see her.
All right then. Further down the hall we ran into Gauntlet, lugging
around the laptop we'd need to communicate with our absentees later.
He passed it onto us to drop off in our room.
When we got back to the hotel, I immediatelt split off
to find some cushies for my feeties. I hastily grabbed
the first Scholl's I saw, put it back when I realized
it was women's sized, and grabbed the next one I saw instead. Back at
the room, I was pretty dazed as Top informed me Rich and Hard were waiting
in the lobby. The excitement I should have felt this time was kinda
drowned out by the screaming coming from my shoes. I noticed an immediate
improvement as soon as I started "gellin'" though, and while they didn't completely
cure me, they at least slowed the foot pain down enough for me to keep
up with the others for the rest of the weekend.
Now some of you may have noticed Hard is almost as secretive
as Gauntlet. I had no idea what he looked like 'til this
point, and amazingly enough, I never did get his age even though I got
Gauntlet's. I got his name a couple of times in the past few years,
but kept forgetting it. He signed our group photo with it and I'm still
not sure I can remember what it is. I was delighted to find that he
was the tallest of our group, however. Not quite fourteen feet, but
still a couple inches above the rest. Top was the shortest guy too (taller
than Needle though) so we all matched the size roles of our characters
fairly well. Just something that made me smirk.
I was kinda confused to see how Rich was dressed. He
warned us that he would be dressed in black, which I
can sympathize with enough, but what was with the poofy pants? At first
I thought he had some kind of undisclosed artsy beatnik fashion sense
that was only slightly less laughable than the guy in the leash and
mesh shirt. As we got back to the con and he donned a black poncho and
a red bandana, it became apparent that he was cosplaying somehow. That
was certainly a surprise. I asked him who he was supposed to be and
I think he muttered "Eigen".
I'm not sure if that means he was a not-quite-accurate TM2 Magnetman,
or the Japanese wrestler he took the name from. At any rate, he looked
good, especially with the poncho covering up those fruity pants. He
didn't stay in character long though. The red bandana disappeared quite
quickly for some reason.
5:00 - Speaking of cosplay, guess who we found next once
the four of us got down to the now fully-crowded convention
floor? When Needle said "green hair", for some silly reason, I thought
she meant she was quickly going to dye her hair green and she would
otherwise look the same. So I was cought off guard when the others pointed
out Morrigan Aensland and upon closer inspection, it was indeed Needlegal,
or at least she was dragging around the same slave on a leash. I suppose
she was easy enough to notice, since she was certainly hogging a lot
of attention from the passers-by. In fact, when we saw her she was being
interviewed by some TV station, Sci-Fi from what I hear, though possibly
Space, since they had a fairly strong presence there (Wonder what kinda
CNA coverage they'll show on Hypaspace Weekly tomorrow afternoon? Better
tune in for once to check.) Being the shameless spotlight stealers we
are, a couple of us got right into frame behind Needle and did the "Hi
mom" stuff.
Now all that was left was to find the elusive Gauntlet.
But where could we ever - oh there he is. Turns out he
was waiting nearby Needle (wisely off camera), browsing the comics and
not noticing us. It took us a couple minutes of milling around Needle's
interview to notice him too, but naturally our attention was fixed on
her most of the time. Can you blame us?
So at last, the six of us were united! It was time to
escape to the food court to catch up, though it wasn't
easy. We couldn't go five steps in the convention building without someone
hitting up Morrigan for a picture, and the cosplayer's code forbids
turning down a photo-op, apparently. Eventually, Hard volunteered to
count the seconds between photo requests. The interval rose as we got
farther away from the action, but amazingly, the guy continued to count
while simultaneously holding a conversation. He must have a built-in
stopwatch. I wouldn't be surprised if he were still counting at this
very moment.
So once again we met to eat and began showing off our
drawings to one another. Gauntlet brought a whole issue
of Kids' Stuff, which is on too-large paper to be scanned easily, hence
why we'll never see it online. G also haded out special gifts for each
of us - lineart for the TM2 bio art! Nicely inked on big paper, everyone
got the original art for their own character. Personalized Gauntlet
art to take home and keep! Now that's a convention freebie! Rich also
brought a sample of the Dragon Skin he's going to be making more of
his toys of from now on, as well as the skull of General Cutman. Both
samples were too fun to pick up and touch and the rest of us found it
hard to put the damn things down. Some time during lunch Morrigan slipped
away and Needle returned in her place. Top was too engaged in reading
Kids' Stuff at the time to notice and was surprised to look up and suddenly
see her changed.
6:00 - This brief reunion wasn't to last once we got
back to the con, where we pretty much split up and got
lost as soon as we hit the floor. It would be the same all weekend.
Turns out cell reception was terrible in the area too, making it impossible
to find each other once we got separated. Gauntlet blended into the
crowd the best, I was never able to hunt him down, always had to wait
for him to find me. As mentioned before, Top was the easiest to spot,
despite much of the crowd being taller than him, his hat still shone
like a bright orange rescue flare to guide me back to the group every
time I went astray. You'd think Needle would be easy to find. It's not
like there were a whole lot of Morrigans at that con, but she was almost
as hard to keep track of as her brother. Mags and Hard
tended to keep close to Top when there, except for today, when Hard
was the first to run off on hos own without telling the rest of us where
he was heading.
Hard, G, Top, and Needle were the only ones with much
actual interest in what was going on down there. I was
too reluctant to buy things, which made me reluctant to even look at
things, while Mags just didn't find it to be his kind of scene. I mostly
just followed the others around while they looked at things, and maybe
looked at something that really caught my eye, like the TF stuff that
Gauntlet was obsessing over on the first day. This led me to a table
with a bunch of old, used toys, which featured a Transmetal Waspinator
that became my first purchase at the con. I'd long wanted a TM Waspy
to join my original Waspy, who was the only Beast Wars toy my parents
got for me back when it first came out, hence he became a sort of favourite
of mine. I also got a box of Pocky, just to see what everyone was talking
about. Chocolate pretzel sticks, just like I'd heard.
9:00 - The con ended early this first night. We were
there as the lights went off and everyone was ushered
out the doors. By now, the whole team had met up just before around
artists' alley, but Needle (first time I'd seen her in three hours,
now re-Morriganned) was being easily distracted and we lost track of
her on the way out. We waited just outside the doors for a while to
see if she was going to come out, but turns out she eventually went
on ahead of us, which we found out when G called her after about fifteen
minutes. By now I was getting too tired of waiting around in those painful
shoes and just went on ahead back to the hotel. Mags kept pace with
me while the others apparently tracked Needle down in the other skywalk.
I was so relieved to get those shoes off that I didn't put them back
on to walk through the hotel when we went down to meet in Mags/Hard's
room.
Turns out Needle couldn't make it to the group for the
rest of the night. She was off doing something with her
other friends, which was understandable, but disappointing considering
we were about to conference in Lennon. After getting down to the Camaro
crew's room on the second floor, I found out that I was supposed to
bring the laptop from our room, so I had to walk all the way back, find
it hidden behind Top's bed, make it down to the third floor and knock
on the wrong room, think that the scared person behind the latched door
was the guys messing with me, get the door slammed in my face, realize
I was on the wrong floor, and then make it down to the correct room,
all in my blistery, sore, sock feet. Damnit you guys.
Where was Top during all of this? Turns out he couldn't
buy something he wanted from the con on credit because
a certain hotel took out a $600 deposit instead of the $100 deposit
they were supposed to, and he was down at the front desk trying to get
that sorted out. Oh, if only that were the only bit of madness we were
to experience due to the hotel's complete ineptitude at handling cash.
10:00 - After much struggling with the hotel's internet
connection, the laptop's settings, and AIM's insufferable
firewall problems, we finally get a videochat with Lennon working on
MSN. Normally when someone tells me to get off AIM and use MSN, my first
response is to give them the finger. But for once it was the right choice.
I was amazed there was only a half-second satellite delay for communicating
with someone on nearly the opposite end of the planet. I guess all those
news reporters really are faking it. We could hear our
voices as they exited Lennon's speakers, re-entered his mic, and fed
back through our speakers with the slight delay. Because we're huge
dorks, we had some fun with the "echo" effect. Because we're huge dorks, we also
had some fun with Gauntlet's identity and how to reveal it to Lennon.
It was a hastily-made plan, and not very well executed, but first we
had the camera pointed at a card with the letter "G" drawn
on it, then we had Rich go on camera in sunglasses and a facewrap and
pretend to be Gauntlet, then the real Gauntlet went onto the laptop
but he "accidently" knocked over the webcam, and I think that's
when we finally gave it to him straight.
There was a whole lot of loud talkign for the rest of
the night. It got hard to keep Lennon in the conversation
though, especially since the audio started to get unbearably choppy,
making him impossible to understand. We eventually had to turn off the
sound and chat with him via keyboard while the video was still active
and he could apparently still hear us. With the more engaging conversations
happening right there in the room though, poor Lennon was starting to
get left in the dust. Everytime it was my turn to sit at the laptop,
my head was frequently craned over my shoulder to laugh at the nonsense
behind me. Everytime it was Hard's turn to sit at the laptop he'd say "Not it!" and
sit still on his bed.
G left the laptop and the comic book with us when he
eventually had to leave, and the rest of us continued
to annoy the neighbours with out racuous chatter until after 2:00 am.
For me, the night culminated, as many would, in a Clone High quote-off.
I went back up to my room, nearly forgetting my socks, and completely
forgetting my phone.
10:00 - Not up quite as early today, but of course we
were up much later the previous night. Today the con
started at 10, so we were already missing out by this
time. At least this time we weren't missing out on the extra features
we paid for in that stupid Premium Pass. Gauntlet and Needle got down
there a lot earlier than the rest of us, and I don't believe either
of them bothered to call us, though I think we would have kept sleeping-in
even if they did.
11:00 - We met down at the Camaro Room so we could go
to breakfast together. I was pleased to find Classi had
joined us at this point, as in she was on AIM and chatting with Rich
for a while already. Apparently Rich managed to sleep for less than
four hours and was up and at 'em by 7:00. I don't need to tell you he
wasn't very energetic that day. I took over at the laptop to catch up
with Classi when I got there. It was great to get in touch with her
then, because unfortunately, we couldn't synch up for the rest of the
weekend. We made plans to try a voicechat (she doesn't have a webcam)
later that night along with Lennon and the others so we could get all
eight talking to each other at the same time, but it wasn't to be. We
made the best out of it though. And G had to take the laptop back at
the end of the night, so this was the last day we even had the chance.
When everyone was finally ready, the four travellers headed to Tim Horton's
for a good old-fashioned Canadian breakfast of coffee and donuts.
12:00 - At this point I was still feeling lazy, not about
to head for the convention right away, so I opted to
go back to my room and draw for a bit. Top had learned of a Printing
Shop somewhere in the underground PATH, and wanted to go print off some
pictures of some Clockwork Orange cosplay he did a while ago, Hard and
Rich decided to follow him for some reason. I just lent Top my USB drive
so he could transfer the pics and set to lazing around the hotel room.
Here's where the weekend's most amusing adventure in
the death maze known as PATH took place, and I missed
it completely. I guess I should be grateful though. They encountered
another infuriating facet of Toronto's insanity - none of the shops
in PATH were open on weekends. Or maybe they just opened really late
in the afternoon. Or maybe they just saw us coming and decided it would
be best to close. To make matters worse, many of the doorways connecting
one tunnel to another, or even heading back to the surface, were inexplicably
locked. So the maze had a lot more dead ends than before (Ah, that reminds
me, when we met up at the con on Friday, Hard presented G with another
addition to his Dead End Minicon army. Aren't we nice to each other?).
By some incredible stroke of luck, it turned out the one shop down there
that WAS open that day was the Printing Shop, so their search wasn't
in vain. Although I believe on Monday just before check-out, he learned
of another Printing Place that was right inside the hotel, so maybe
it was after all. I didn't get to see just how frustrating their underground
adventure was, but they seemed pretty relieved to get back to civilization
eventually.
2:00 - I was apparently still in my room at this point.
I only went out to buy some Tylenol at the Shoppers'
for the headache I somehow picked up at breakfast (musta been all the
chocolate in my breakfast donut). I mostly spent all this time drawing
personalized pics for everyone to take home with them. I got the idea
Friday morning, and when G passed out his own gift art later that day,
I knew I had to get to work on my own gifts. I didn't have as much time
to clean everything up or ink or stuff like that, but everyone says
they like my messy pencilling style somehow, so I'll take their word
for it. More importantly, I made sure to have fun with it.
3:00 - Finally, Rich phoned me saying to meet up at his
room. I thought we were getting ready to head down to
the con, but it turned out he was already down there with the others
for a while and had gotten his fill of it. I guess that's what I get
for proclaiming my laziness and complaining about my feet, when it comes
time to go to the con, no one bothers to invite me. :(
I couldn't have been to eager to catch up though, since
I spent nearly another hour just hanging out with Rich
and doing more drawing. I also took the chance to browse the net, check
on some webcomics, and read the forums, which I was feeling deprived
of after two whole days. Eventually, I did want to check out the con
though. Rich was practically done with the whole concept of conventions
by now and decided to stay behind.
4:00 - Just before getting into the convention building,
Gauntlet finally called back. Turns out I'd just missed
him and Needle, who had left to get something to eat. It wasn't a total
loss though, as Top and Hard found me on the escalator and the three
of us hit the con for a while. There were a couple things I was interested
in buying at this point. First was a DVD for the first season of IGPX.
I don't get Cartoon Network up here, but I'd seen magazine ads for this
show. You may not know this about me, but I have a bit of a fandom in
futuristic racing. Racing videogames in general are the only kinds of
sport games I'll touch, and when you combine that with advanced technology
like in my beloved Megaman franchise, I'm all over it. So this IGPX
thing caught my eye. When Hard gave it an endorsement in conversation
the previous night, my mind was pretty much made up. The second thing
I was interested in was a $150 transforming Soundwave MP3 player with
Frenzy/Rumble earpieces. Gauntlet pointed it out on Friday
but wasn't about to drop that much money, even though it was half the
regular price. I certainly had money to burn since I wasn't about to
buy anything else, so I decided to grab it on Saturday. Unfortunately,
they seemed to be completely sold-out by now, so we were both screwed.
Instead, I noticed another toy booth had a Fox Kids black and silver
Transmetal Tarantulus on the racks. I thought my Beast Wars quota was
filled with the two Waspinators, but 1)I'd always loved the Tarantulus
character, 2)I've always liked spiders, 3)I REALLY liked his TM design,
particularly the big barrel shoulders, and his motorbike transport mode.
and 4)Call me shallow, but a black and silver repaint really works for
me. So black and silver Spider-Bike became my last purchase at the con. That's right, I kept my wallet sealed up for the rest of the day and
all of Sunday. I kept walking around the place though, unlike Rich,
who just stopped going. I really have a lot to learn about how these
convention things work.
5:00 - Spent about another hour wandering around, seeing
if I could find G and Needle if they came back, but invariably
ending up back on Hard and Top's tail. Top was spending some time trying
to get a good deal on some Buffy or Angel comics or something like that,
Hard was out for some celebrity autographs, and both
of them were enthralled by the varied Mario merchandise, such as the
delicious-looking plush Mushrooms and keychains that played classic
game sound-effects. I wasn't paying much attention though. I was getting
bored. I forget how, but somehow down the line we met up with Gauntlet.
He must have jumped down from the rafters in front of us or something,
because I have no idea where he was all day.
6:00 - We met up briefly before leaving the con. On Saturday,
closing time was 7:00, but the Masquerade (cosplay event,
which Needle obviously had a vested interest in) started at 8:00, so
she couldn't leave with us. We were lucky enough to at least meet her
for a minute before the Masquerade's Green Room closed up. This was
the day she was wearing the 60's Catwoman costume we'd bought the whip
for on Thursday. We made sure to snap a few pics before splitting up
again. Gauntlet warned us that the Masquerade tends to take several
hours, and our Catwoman/Riddler duo would only be on stage for a few
unaccounted seconds, so staying to watch was probably a bad idea unless
we were really interested in seeing a lot of cosplay, which not all
of us were (I wasn't).
7:00 - We phoned ol' Shut-In Rich and told him to meet
us at Casey's for supper. We mostly got appetizers. I
got a big plate of nachos. Gauntlet, having Crorq on the mind, got some
chicken wings. We didn't get many questions about our team shirts over
the weekend (probably since we weren't all together in public that often)
but the waiter here asked what "MM3 was up to" until we flashed him
the URL on the backs, to which he responded "Oh". Top and
Hard relayed the story of an adorable little Megaman cosplayer they
saw earlier. Apparently it was a great costume, but was falling apart
in some way when they found him or her. They asked for a photo, but
the kid had to run off and fix the costume before they got a chance.
Too bad. Maybe there are some other photos floating around online. I'd
like to see what they were talking about.
8:00 - It was back to the hotel for a rerun of last night.
We did a lot more throwing around of epilogue ideas this
time, since we'd racked up a lot in just a couple days. Once more we
were on a videochat with Lennon, but this time we didn't even bother
to turn the sound on. Rich also turned on the TV and found Full Metal
Jacket playing on what I can only guess was the History Channel. That
provided some entertaining background noise for the next couple of hours.
Hard seemed somewhat surprised that Canadian stations were showing American
historical dramas, like for some reason we'd ban all foreign-related
entertainment. Yeah, that would be a great idea. Stuck with just Canadian
TV? Shoot me before that happens.
9:00 - Despite Gauntlet's expectations, Catwoman and
Riddler returned from the Masquerade relatively quickly
and joined us at the room for the rest of the night. At last, 7/8ths
of the team chilling in the same room...even though one was on the other
side of the world and only there via satellite. This was the first time
Needle met Lennon though, so we made sure she went to the laptop first.
10:00 - At long last, it was time for our group photo
sessions. We got Bondageboy to be our photographer, and
he took a few with my camera, so the next pics I post will actually
have me in them. We even arranged to have Lennon and Classi in the pics,
sorta. We'd temporarily lost the video feed from Lennon for some reason.
Since Needle was chatting with him at the time I blamed it on her, earning
myself a swat from the tassle-whip thing. That put me in my place. At
any rate, it just so happened we saved a screenshot of the videochat
from last night, so I put that image on screen so we could pretend that
was the webcam. While we were at it, we got Lennon to send us a pic
he had of Classi so we could put it on-screen next to him, and then
with the six of us crowding around the screen, it would be like all
eight of us were together.
11:00 - Needle, BB, and Gauntlet had to leave early,
as usual. This time G had to take the laptop with him,
so that was the end of our online adventures. The rest of us stayed
in and talked loudly until after 1:00am. Once again, I left right in
the middle of a Clone High quote-fest. That night we also watched some
clips of it on YouTube for research purposes. That's right, we actually
needed to be freshening up on Clone High for the epilogues. You'll see
soon enough what we're ripping off from that show.
9:00 - We got up a little earlier today. I actually wanted
to get to the con on time since I'd heard there was going
to be a panel on the relaunch of Reboot, which I had
just heard about on Saturday. Though that actually wasn't 'til noon,
and the con didn't start until 11:00 today (and ended at 6:00, apparently
the last day is the shortest.) At this point I just did the usual morning
kicking-back, drawing, and writing down these little notes. This time,
since I was up early enough on a weekend, I tuned into CBC French and
watched an episode of Code Lyoko. Why french? Because it doesn't air
in english in Canada for some crazy reason, and I abhor downloading
TV shows to watch on my computer. My french is actually good enough
to get the gist of what those kids are saying, and the way most episodes
focus on dialogue-light action sequences helps. Why Code Lyoko? Well,
I'm not too sure about that one, but I've been hooked on those megacephalic
french kids for a while now. I also like the EXE series a lot, so maybe
there's your answer.
10:00 - Rich, Top, and I went to the Second Cup for breakfast.
Hard kept sleeping for another hour or so, lazy ass.
Aside from a bunch of ep and character ideas, we started scheming on
what to do next year. For those of you that wanted more cosplay, you
just might get it. Rich and Top also brought up their plans for hot
tubbing later. Hard was looking forward to it as soon as it was decided
we'd be staying at a nice hotel. Me? I didn't even think about it until
now. I was thinking, "Boy,
I'd love to relax in the hot tub." But then I realized "Crap,
no trunks." Well, it was obvious what I had to do, but sadly, I
don't think anyone would have liked it if I went to the pool with nothing
on. I tried to go buy a new pair from the shops, but of course, PATH
was all closed up on Sunday. Defeated, I resigned to missing out. Well,
who really needs a soothing hot tub anyway? I was perfectly fine after
three days of walking and sleeping in an unfamiliar environment. Didn't
need relaxation at all.
11:00 - Top and Rich went to the hot tub while I milled
around the room. Hard was apparently just getting up,
so he missed out too. I think he got to go later though. Well, whatever,
it was almost time for that Reboot thing anyway.
12:00 - I made it to the Reboot thing just in time, and
managed to find G, Needle, and Bondageboy already sitting.
I believe Top and Hard were looking forward to it too, but didn't get
out of the hot tub in time to make it before the doors closed. So yeah,
suck on that, hot tub. Well, turns out there wasn't much to take away
from the panel except that they really wanted to shape the new series
around the fans' input. Seemed like the sort of thing they'd say to
a room full of fanboys either way, but seeing as they're taking a fan-submitted
script and making a canon(?) comic out of it, they seem
to be sincere. Due to some legal mumbo jumbo they don't have all the
rights to the franchise at the moment though, so they're depending on
the success of the upcoming movies to allow the series to come back
in full swing. Also, there will be 3D glasses for some reason. Apparently,
all animated movies will be using stereoscopy from now on. *shrug* I
was expecting them to show something to the audience on the big screen
behind them, but seems they haven't started animating anything yet,
so that woulda been kinda hard to pull off. If there was one thing I
really liked about the panel, it would have to be the chair. After two
straight days of just walking around the vendors' booths on the convention
floor, I was delighted to learn that there were things you could do
at a convention that involved sitting down. I will have to keep that
in mind for next time.
1:00 - After the panel, we called up the others to see
what they've been doing the past hour. Turns out they
made it just a few minutes too late to be allowed in, so they looked
around the con a bit before going for lunch. Seems they were almost
done eating, but we convinced them to wait there for the rest of us
to catch up with them.
Needle and BB scurried off to get the results of the
Masquerade, and came back with a pair of big, red ribbons!
The Catwoman/Riddler duo won best comic book theme, or something along
those lines. It was an impressive victory, so let's make sure everyone
congratulates Needle and Gag on their latest awards.
Rich and the others were apparently eating at the "Richtree",
which was a couple blocks past the hotel, opposite the convention centre.
I had to rack up a few minutes worth of long distance charges getting
the directions from him. He didn't sound too happy about talking to
me...well he never sounds too happy when he talks, but this time he
was sounding even grumpier than usual. I found out later it was because
fumbling with his phone made him drop his restaurant charge card in
his soup. Some good came out of that though, Top got some pictures of
it.
The Richtree was a pretty crazy establishment. It had
a tropical island theme going on inside, with plenty
of exotic plantlife seemingly growing right out of the floor. It was
heavily crowded and huge, and had a unique ordering method. Instead
of the simple, relaxing, lazy "menu" system, or the equally simple, more involved,
less lazy "buffet" system, we were subjected to an overwhelming "market" system,
which forced us to wander around the complex, paying attention to the
various booths and their assigned culinary theme, and ordering our courses
from the appropriate booths. It was like being right back on the convention
floor, unfortunately. You had your drink booth, your seafood booth,
pizza, stir fry, sushi, soup, etc. I went with the Stir Fry, which they
prepared right in front of me, to my exact specifications. I gotta admit,
it was a nice system if you can handle the action. Despite all the walking
and seeking involved, there weren't many lines since everything was
spread out, and it's handy to watch your chef prepare your meal. And
yeah, charge cards. They give you a card when you go in, the various
vendors swipe it every time you take something, and then you pay it
off on your way out. Not sure if that's necessary, but it does simplify
things a bit when you're going to all those booths, you don't have to
deal with money and change every time. Hard said there was no reason
anyone should be unemployed in Toronto with a place like the Richtree
in business, because the amount of workers needed there was insane.
Top bought a loaf of bread that he carried around all
day for us to nibble on.
On our way out, we took some more group pictures in the
mall lobby, including a cheesy "in front of the fountain" shot.
All of these were on the good camera (Topman's), so you'll have to wait
a bit longer to see them.
On our way back into the con through the skywalk, we
apparently passed by Commander Riker. I completely failed
to notice. All I remember was some pushy guy (bodyguard or somesuch)
making us move aside as his party came through the doorway. After being
hounded by fanboys all day, I'm sure it must have been refreshing for
him to hear me say "who?" when someone pointed out who just walked
past us.
3:00 - Hard suggested we go see a showing of the first
two episodes of Fate Stay/Night. Apparently none of us
really knew that much about this anime, and I certainly didn't care,
but after the Reboot panel I was looking forward to any more con events
that involved sitting down. As we filed into the room, we were greeted
by a soft, lilting, japanese song that would turn out to be the anime's
opening theme. It was a nice melody, or so I thought at first. The Reboot
panel had something similar before it started, various tunes from the
series played in the background, offering plenty of nostalgia to the
fans coming in. Unfortunately, this room only had one such tune, and
only the first ten seconds of it, playing on a continuous loop. The
start of the showing was delayed about 20 minutes too, so this went
on for a while. We had to listen to the same damn song clip about a
hundred times in a row before someone finally came in and turned it
off. Many of us were calling for a baseball bat to the DVD Player at
this point, I'm certain someone in our group said "I don't even want to see this any more." and there was
almost a round of applause when the music finally stopped. Of course,
there was much groaning when the song started to play again at the beginning
of each episode.
The show itself was alright. The main character is a
tool. His parents are dead, surprise surprise. The female
co-star's parents are also dead, check. Not much action, but fight scenes
are fine. Plot not too memorable. I got to sit though, so it was awesome.
4:00 - It was the final stretch at the con. Hard went
straight to the line-up for getting Colin Ferguson's
autograph, and was there for the whole two hours. He apparently got
his autograph at the last minute, even after the con officially ended
and others were being ushered out. Lucky break for him, I guess. But
man, two hours in line? Screw that. It may not surprise you that I don't
go see movies on opening night or rush to buy products on their release
dates either. I prefer avoiding line-ups to the exhilaration of whatever.
Dunno what Gauntlet was up to, as usual. He poofed out
of nowhere somewhere near the end when it was time to
meet up. Needle and Gag wandered around on their own. Oddly enough I
found it easier to spot them in the crowds today than I did on the days
they were cosplaying. Top and Mags were on a mission to find something
appropriate to buy and send to Classi and Lennon as part of their care
packages. I would have liked to help with that, but I had no idea what
would have been appropriate. I already pointed out the difficulty I
have in figuring out what stuff I would like to buy for myself, it's
even harder figuring out what to buy for others. So once again, I was
walking around with nothing to do, mostly just looking for the others
as they split apart.
We called it quits at the con some time after 5:00, except
Hard of course. We told him to meet us back at his room
when we were done. Just before getting out the door, we remembered that
we didn't get any group shots at the con yet. Crap. I suggested walking
all the way back to Hard's spot in line so we could take some pics with
him there, but Gauntlet didn't have any faith in our ability to stay
together long enough to get that far. He had a point. Every time we
entered that area as a group, it took a whole five seconds for us to
split up in six different directions despite plans to the contrary.
It was amazing that we made it that far back to the exit without losing
anyone to distractions...except Top ran off to see if he could get a
last-minute deal on those comics, and Needle noticed a Sandman figure
she wanted to buy at the very end. So we took the quickie con photos
right there at the doors, with an incomplete group, just to prove that
we had been there. Bing, bang, boom, time to escape.
6:00 - It was back to the Camaro Room for our last night
together, and what a night it was! There were problems
though. Mags was looking forward to watching the Super Mario Bros. movie
all weekend, and we also made last-second arrangements to play MM3 together
on the Anniversary Collection. We had a PS2 that was capable of accomplishing
both those tasks, but there was a small problem...the
hotel TVs were guarded from any peripheral hook-ups! Well, damnit. That
was it then. Our night was ruined. There was nothing we could do about
an incompatible TV set.
On an unrelated matter, I'd like to request that any
hotel staff, law enforcement officials, or squealers
of any kind cease reading the log at this moment.
They gone?
...
Now?
Alright then.
We trashed the TV. We ripped that baby a new one. Once
again, Gag proved his worth by having impressive electronic
engineering know-how inherited from his technician parents. With the
tools on hand (including Rich's multi-tool, the mini-bar corkscrew -
or as we called it, "Crorqscrew", and even a lighter), we ripped off the connection
box, melted, chisled, pryed, and tore off the coaxial shield, very nearly
broke off the jack (it was hanging on by a thread), and eventually,
got the PS2 hooked up through G's adaptor. At first it seemed like the
TV wasn't responding to the signal, until Top noticed some kind of connection
between the signal and the lightswitch near the door. As soon as he
flipped the switch, we could see Metal Gear. Due to the coaxial damage,
there was a lot of static, which went away after some ever-so-careful
repositioning of the TV. We put in the copy of MMAC that either Rich
brought with him, or G just bought at the con (we had both to choose
from, I forget which we used) and we were in business. It was the Mechanical Maniacs' finest hour. Don't tell anyone.
We opted to take turns taking on our own levels. Mags
was up first since it was his PS2. His performance was
rather impressive. I believe he made it all the way through without
dying once. Hard and Top followed with decent skill. Hard died a couple
times because he insisted on taking on Hardman without the Magnet Missiles,
but made it worth it by managing to dodge at least one Hard Knuckle
attack. Top did quite well but had to start over from the beginning
after dying once since Hard left him without any extra lives.
The real hilarity ensued when Gauntlet's turn came. He
was awful! His excuse was not being used to the control
set-up, but you'd think he could have learned the new set-up eventually.
He didn't know where any of the commands were, he would often "Slide Slide!" when
he was supposed to "Jump Jump!", and he died so many times
that we had to take over for him and help him through.
After Hard took out Sparkman in Classi's place, it was
my turn. The others seemed to be quite accustomed to
the rapid fire feature of the AC, which I wasn't. Still, I managed to
put up a decent performance until I was knocked into a pit by that cloud-lift
bug which I was somehow unaware of until this point (guess I'd always
managed to luckily avoid it until then) and then Snakeman killed me
a lot. Someone offered to take over for me at one point, but I demanded
one last chance, and managed to win. At least I didn't come off as bad
as Gauntlet.
Gag started out on Gem's stage, but Mags and I took over
for him when things got hairy. I also made sure I was
the one to Search Snake Geminiman himself to death. Then Needle was
the only one left. She was reluctant to play, severely doubting her
abilities, but we insisted she at least pick up the controller at one
point. She didn't make it very far, but she gave it an honest shot.
I think Gag took over for her at one point, and I think Top took a shot
at it too. I remember Top claiming he had a speed-run pattern in place
for one of the stages, I forget if it was Needle's, Sparks' or his own.
Either way, we all got our turns during the first stretch,
and continued the cooperative effort right through to
the end of the game. We were given the most grief of all in Shadowman's
Doc Robot stage. That one made fools of us all, not just Gauntlet. After
way too many continues, and Rich, Needle, and Gag eventually giving
up on watching and going out to pick up pizza, Hardman was ultimately
the hero that would bring us past Woodman and Heatman to victory, though
even that was a hassle. There was one point where he was jumping across
the trapdoor lifts over the huge pit and we were complaining about him
not using Rush Jet, playing for his pride when we'd lost all of it half
an hour ago, and it turns out he just forgot he COULD use Rush Jet in
that spot. Gaahh.
This was the first time Gauntlet had seen the AC version
in action, and was quick to notice the various oddities
that the rest of us just glossed over. Like the altered title screen,
and the slightly different font, script, and format during story scenes.
We also discussed how the final stage would have looked in its extended
prototype form, given all the evidence pointing to how it was shortened.
Expect some additions to the MM Mysteries section on that.
This was also Gauntlet's first shot at MM8, amazingly
enough, and we just had to take him as far as Frostman's
stage so he could see "Jump Jump!" and "Slide Slide!" in action.
By now, Rich and the others came back with the pizza.
Y'know, I kept thinking I was going to be complaining
a lot about Needle's tagalong friend who had nothing to do with the
team and we had never met before, and dressed in a weird way, but then
he'd go and do something like hand-deliver me a can of Dr Pepper when
I didn't even ask for it, and I just wanna fire Lennon and make him
the new Geminiman.
After that, it was time for the SMB movie, but damnit,
damnit, damnit the disc was unreadable. The surface was
pretty scratched up when we took it out of the case, and we were handling
it with greasy pizza fingers, and apparently Rich treats his CDs like
crap (he confessed this was the third copy of the damn movie he bought
already) so it looked like we weren't going to see the Mario Brothers
in action after all. Rich was heart-broken.
With little else to do, We plugged in Needle's Ninja
Turtles game, and Gag did most of the playing while Needle
gave him advice. Apparently Needle was the only on present who knew
how to play the game, but was too lazy to actually work the controller
herself. I think Gauntlet took a turn too, but I had no interest in
it and just watched or did some drawing. Rich, Hard, and Top took the
oppurtunity to go down to the hot tub again. Top's bread disappeared
some time during the night and we're not sure who finished it off. The
bag was found near Hard, but he denied it.
12:00 - By the end of the night, the room was pretty
well trashed. Empty pizza boxes, bread bags, Ramune bottles,
and Pocky/Pucca wrappers littered the floor, along with crumbs from
the various food stuffs. The chocolate mushrooms Rich bought the previous
day melted into a chocolatey shroomy goop, which was re-solidified into
a weird chocolate bar in the mini bar fridge. Needle had a few bites
of that one and left it half-eaten on the bedstand. The TV was destroyed,
drawings were everywhere, and con swag was scattered all over the place.
We did our job.
10:00 - Well, this was it. After getting up, I started
packing up my stuff. It was a considerably easy job since
we hadn't been partying in our room like we were in Rich/Hard's.
The small amount of con swag I picked up fit neatly into
my backpack too. Instead of going for breakfast, Top insisted he treat
us to it with the some Second Cup vouchers he got from the hotel as
restitution for the credit card fiasco. We had to check out of our room
by noon. Plan was to keep our bags in the Camaro Room since Rich was
planning on extending the check-out until the evening.
11:00 - For Saturday and Sunday, we'd requested that
Gauntlet phone us once he got into town so we could meet
up on his schedule. On each day he didn't phone unless
we phoned first, I think he wanted to make sure we got
all the long distance charges. This time I didn't even bother to wait
and caught him before he even left home. Turns out they were being delayed
by a "spill" of
some kind. Chemical spill? Dunno, something like that. They didn't arrive
mutate or with super powers so it mustn't have been a big deal.
Top and I went down for check out. The receptionist said "I see
we've already given you your $100 deposit in cash." I responded
with "You did? I don't recall that part." and she got a deer
in headlights look. Here we go. Toldya it wasn't over.
She disappeared for a few minutes to look up the financial records and
I heard her claim they were training a new girl the other day, so that's
why they're incompotent. While she was gone, Top surmised that the $100
they gave him two days ago was the deposit I gave them. She came back
a bit later with the same conclusion. Her solution was to charge another
$100 to Top's card so they could give the cash back to me. I was wary
about letting them anywhere near a card again, but it looks like everything
turned out all right...or did it!?
12:00 - G, Needle, and Gag met up with us in Rich's room,
which was still in the process of being cleaned up. Hard
found a bra under his bed that morning. How did that
get there? I'd like to say the previous night's festivities were even
wilder than we remembered, but they weren't, so that must have been
there since before they checked in.
After all the trouble getting the PS2 hooked up to the
TV, unhooking it turned out to be a challenge too. With
the jack hanging loose, it was tough to get a good grip
on the coaxial plug to unscrew it. I didn't do much to help during the
initial hook-up job (except egging the others on when they were having
doubt about the property damage), but my strong finger-grip turned out
to be a valuable boon in freeing G's adaptor from the scene of the crime.
After that, Rich tried to fix up some of the damage with his rubber
glue, which ultimately only made things worse since it gummed up the
connection. Gag's techie skills got a faint, staticy image coming through
at first, but since we started moving the TV again, it was nothing but
snow. That bitch was toast. We put everything back the way it was except
the mutilated coaxial shield, which we just left on the floor (I think
we kicked it under the cabinet), and then we hanged the
mysterious bra over the connector box. I believe our initial plan was
to pretend we never watched TV all weekend and blame it on a previous
guest (if the housekeeping staff wasn't observant enough to find that
bra before we checked in, that just might have worked), and if they
did pin it on him, Rich would just pay for the damage, how bad could
it be?
Then we got down to the lobby and Rich pulled out an
express check-out sheet. When he got down to the "Address" field,
he drew a picture of Megaman shooting at a TV with a
bra flying off of it. Naaah, that's not incriminating at ALL. In any
case, it was funny as hell. He slipped the sheet into the express check-out
slot and we high-tailed it out of there, never to return.
Well, we still needed breakfast, or rather lunch at this
point. We headed down to the Second Cup beneath the hotel
and show them Top's voucher. The manager claimed that
the voucher doesn't work at that location, even though it's the only
location anywhere near the hotel. So it turns out the epic battle of
the Mechanical Maniacs vs. the Evil Hotel is far from over. Back to
the same inept receptionists, after several minutes of negotiation,
they call the cafe and get them to give us our well-deserved free food.
Naturally, we mentioned nothing about the TV.
Back at the Second Cup, we feasted on $40 worth of free
bagels, milk, and breakfast cake. We also put a lot of
planning into next year's gathering. Strangely enough,
most of the innovative and enthusiastic ideas came from none other than
Gag. Must be because he was new.
2:00 - We spent the rest of my time down at a food court
near a Printing Place where we were getting copies of
the cheesy fountain photo printed off for everyone. We
had a real con-style autograph session, so when it was all over we each
had a group photo signed by everyone else in the group. Naturally, there
were a couple extras to send to Classi and Lennon.
We had one last sketching session right there in the
food court. To my left, Rich and G got locked in a discussion
on how to handle the PCS6 and Crorq in future stories,
spending much of the time talking in their mock Torchman voices. To
my right, everyone else was talking about stuff that I couldn't keep
up with. So for the last hour or so I barely said anything. I just sat
there quietly and enjoyed some quality time.
5:00 - All good things must come to an end though. I
was the first to split off, since I had a flight to catch.
As I got my bags out of G's trunk, it seemed like the
perfect moment to do what I was eagerly anticipating
all weekend, start an improvised epilogue ending speech with "Well, it looks like everything turned out all
right." aaaand I screw it up, horribly, like I knew I would. I
ended up saying it when everyone else was talking about
something else and didn't hear me, plus it ended up having more impact
a few hours earlier when Top said it at lunch. Why did Top say it? Because
he's a jerk who steals my big moment, that's why. :P Well, one way or
another we got plenty of great material for the epilogue.
I shook everyone's hand, promised to see them all next
year, and then it was into my bus, driving away, never
to see them since.
Except for a couple minutes later when the bus looped
around the block and I could see them walking away to
the west. Well, that was a freebie.
This time I had to fly right over Regina to Calgary to
get a connecting flight back home. Nearly missed it too
since the Toronto plane was held up on the runway and
delayed. Had to run to my second gate when I got there. Six hours of
flying, but I made it home in one piece, with memories to last a lifetime.
Best vacation of my life. See you all real soon, guys.
Gatherings: 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019