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I might consider NOT showing up for Friday or Sunday next time they have their 3 day con so close after first of the month. Rent and bus pass are due leaving little leeway for spending, even if I wanted to. Top it off, Greyhound locked out the first and the fourth for no discounts fares. Even if you bought it advance, it was still 75 dollars rather than 54 dollars Canadian for travelling the weekend if you buy in a day advance.
Even though I got to the bus depot early, the first bus was full and already left. Still it wasn't enough to wait in line at Tim Hortons and catch the bus. I suffer the entire trip down to Toronto. The it hits me .... I forgot to leave my rent cheque with the landlord before leaving. A quick call and a quick apology. There was o mistaking this would be an expensive weekend even if I didn't buy a single thing. My other rent for two nights stay at bed and breakfast would send the total higher by $150. A deal for being repeat customer. All this before I even set foot at the con's door.
The first thing I do once I stepped in Toronto was quick timed to nearest Tim Hortons. I picked up a TTC day pass. I figure I would be justifying the $8.50 for unlimited day travel. Sunday to can ride on the pass for the cost of one.
I get the B and B to find that I only got one key. Sigh. My landlady promises that can lock the room and get the key later. There was a couple staying from Montreal. A real nice guy. It would be a sign later on in the con as I would met more and more people from Montreal and area at the con.
I headed out to College street to see if I could pick up some deals. I did pick up a 512 M Memory Stick Pro for the camcorder for the same price of 30 dollars regular Memory Stick at same size. The difference in Memory Stick Pro and memory stick is transfer speed. This translates into better quality of video. my 64M MS can record 4 minutes of video but at 300K bit rate while the MS Pro can transfer at 700+K bit rate but 256M MS Pro only stores 6 minutes and 512M MS Pro just 12 minutes. I thought what a rip until I looked closely at the output.
Well at least things were looking up at this point. I got a great deal on memory for camcorder. I had my Tim Hortons. I was happy at last with all the expense and such. I got to the MTCC and stopped for a hot dog at BOZOs chip wagon before facing the line ups. Immediately the guy remembered me when asked for a squab dog. "How's it going?" he said. I thought I had arrived. Then I turned around....
"Imagine if you will..."
Famous line from the Twilight Zone series. For me, it was only just the beginning of my Twilight Zone journey. For there was no line ups, well, not here. The sign sum it up that this year's con was in the South Building. SOUTH BUILDING?! That was five block walk or more. WTF?!
Being no stranger to South Building from the trade shows like the now defunct COMDEX. It's long and winding path. This sucks. Even though I know ALL the short cuts by taking the elevators it's still a LONG haul. I down my squab, er I mean hot dog and second coffee and head to the twilight zone.
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It did not bode well to see most of the volunteers standing around chatting
at the bottom of the escalator while so few others actually helped maintain
the line-up. There was a food court this year. Given that they
were servicing a captive audience, I didn't even bother even looking at
their wares, let alone what their prices were.
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For years, I've tried taken pictures of the line ups at cons and they never quite shown how vast or this case LONG the lines really are. I've tried panoramas which never really fit together since a line up is never a static object but a living chaos of impatience.
Even the sweeping pan of the line twisting it way though the halls, never quite match being so far yet so close. That was until this con....
As I darted from my position from somewhere in the middle of the line to take various photos, I sought out the start of the line. I figure I could put my DV camcorder with newly bought 512 M memory stick Pro to good use. Spending my summer walking with the camcorder had to have some point. The point was to see how long the line really was. I was walking quick pace all the time yet, following the line showed me one thing. The line, though fitting into large hallway was huge. Once I got to the end, I looked at the time remaining for video on the camcorder memory... 8 minutes! It had originally had 12 minutes of recording time, making the brisk walk over 4 minutes. The video was speeded up 2 times as not to bore people. I was thinking of some ragtime tune in my head but when I heard the munckin track, it stood as that. I nearly fell over laughing hearing my voice munckin out 'I'm walking to the end of the line'. Even 'Excuse' was funny. The real deal maker was one of the staff greeting me at the back of the line. The recording of the guys at the front was an after thought before the dealer's room opened. If you thought walking to the end of the line was long, it grew even
longer with another couple of loops before the doors actually opened. That
was alot quicker than when I got back to my spot in line as the line up
finally moved. It took about half an hour to actually get into the con
after it officially opened at 4 PM.
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Now that's Maid Service!
_
While I got my con pass upstairs there was some staff with portable
ticket seller that operates on Interac. This staff member knows no
limit to service by dressing in a traditional Maid Cafe uniform so often
seen in the streets of Akiba, in Tokyo.
I guess we could have counted ourselves lucky last year as Rue Morgue's Festival of Fear was surrounded by a dark shroud. Actually it was more a black curtain that separated their section from the rest of the mundane exhibits. NO LONGER! One the problems with dealers' room was no real clear boundary between dealers that were horror, sci-fi, comic or anime. Even the artist alley seemed to stray across the back of the hall. With little room for isle ways there was little choice. It did lead to two discoveries for myself.
... and ...
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More to come...
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