He certainly seemed like a nice enough fellow. But it's a good thing we didn't have him working on anything important. Anyway, my boss took the time to finish up what this contracted cretin was supposed to be working on while he was using the company network to download warez, which means we'll likely have to go back and fix that soon, since my boss does not necessarily produce the most... robust code in existance.
(sob) I'll never be able to trust again! Well, that might be true if I'd actually known the guy. But he mostly lurked in his cubicle (he got one of the one with the walls almost up to the ceiling, too, the scum) and downloaded pr0n or whatever. But c'est la vie. And no, he didn't get "busted" for his many hits on www.warez.com, I don't think. Sure, the company firewall watches everything you do, but ever since the majority of the technical staff were "rightsized" I don't think any of the remnants have the time or patience to go a-grepping for fun stuff.
But this is all a digression from today's topic.
Which is...
This upcoming weekend, I shall haul myself forth to the airport and embark on a mighty journey forth into the great unknown that is Baltimore, MA. There, there in that pristine urban setting, I shall find the one thing lacking in this wretchedly humid clime, which is attractive young women dressed as Kei and Yuri... er, wait, no, that's not it.
I digress again by remarking that you know you're old when you're at an anime convention and you're wondering if that cute girl in the cat-girl costume is old enough to oggle without risking trouble. I'd almost feel like a dinosaur, striding the halls amidst the patter of younger life, if it weren't for the surly thirty-year-olds who're also at your average Con.
What KIND of Con, you wonder? An anime Con! If you even have to ask what anime is, you need to get out of the house more. OR, alternately, spend more time on your computer. One of the two.
But anyway, here we involve ourselves in a retrospective, looking back over the years upon Conventions past, in a desperate effort to dig up actual content now that 'Dragonball Z' has gone into reruns.
My first Con was... um. Umm... You know, I don't even remember what it was called. Suffice it to say that it was in Missouri in the spring, which demonstrated for all the world to see that someone seriously needed to listen to the weather-man before scheduling this sort of thing. Anyway, this was back in... '93? '94? It was a while ago. I was a mere Freshman in college at the time, basking in the aura of freedom. And so, I decided, out of the rebelliousness of my own heart, to undertake this quest into the frozen reaches of Missouri.
I was clearly quite, quite mad.
However, due to the robustness of the puddle-jumper in which I flew (nearly alone, I might add, which prompted the stewardess to allow me an 'all you can eat buffet' of airline food, since they had meals and to spare - this was back in the Old Days, when people were nice, even in the Midwest), I did not die in flaming agony in a crash, but instead arrived safely in the cold as heck reaches of Springfield, Missouri.
My host for the Convention of Doom was one Chris Meadows, who had arranged for one of his friends to drive me from the airport to the Convention. The Con itself was right next to the University at which Chris was attending classes, which was good, since it was, after all, spring break and nobody else would be around, which meant free crash space.
Chris' friend donned his 'costume' for the Con (a bed-sheet and a big stick) and ventured forth, the brave, somewhat Roman-looking samurai warrior. Chris and I followed, after dropping my stuff at Chris' dorm room.
Chris' dorm room requires a short digression, just long enough to mention that it was a double, but Chris had it all to himself. Apparently something to do with causing his room-mates to run screaming in horror... Which is a good way to get a very large room all to yourself, for those of you who're still in college.
Anyway, the Con was... mostly a bunch of anime fans hanging out. There was the obligatory LARP off in the distance, which seemed to mostly consist of people hanging out and looking surly. There was also the anime room, which was my first time seeing such a wondrous thing. A projector! Showing anime! On a big screen! The power... the power!
There were a few notable features of the Con, but most of them passed me by in a sleep-deprived haze. Something about a drunken artist's contest... Only a fanboy could have thought that one up. Get a bunch of comic book artists. Get them drunk. Make them draw! Watch the hijinks ensue!
There was also the art show, which was an art show. I bid on a nice little Chun Li drawing. So did other people. My surl overcame them all, however, as I managed to convey the essence of "Let me buy the damn picture or I'll rip your fucking head off." with a mere glance. Mine, at last, promptly to vanish into the drifting piles of kipple in my kipple boxes.
There was also the wandering around Springfield.
This was not, perhaps, the wisest thing to do. After all, it was cold as... a very cold thing. There was ice everywhere. And cold. And ice. And cold and cold and ice. The... anyway. Still, these wanderings led us forth to such wonders as the mighty Bass Pro shop (actually more like a minimall, food court and art museum welded to a sport fishing emporium in some horrific, Frankensteinian creation. There, there we consumed Lunch (there was, naturally, Restrauntage there) which involved onion rings, which I would never have thought to get normally, but apparently someone had established that when more than one Author meets, you're supposed to eat onion rings, and do the Onion Ring Chant.
Which, of course, begs two questions: "What's an Author?" and "Onion Ring Chant? Are you out of your fucking mind?". All will be revealed in some later entry, I'm sure.
What else, what else. Um. More anime. The dealer's room, where I bought some small-press comics and a little Yuri pin. Chris taking me to see the 'computer lab' in his dorm basement (two aging IBM PCs hooked to a droolingly slow internet connection). Beer of some kind in large bottles. And adventures getting back to the airport, missing the flight, and sitting around for the next one.
It was an interesting experience, but a mere appetizer for the main course.
Next episode: My first Katsucon... Hentai Space Vines, ho!
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