The official Connecticon post
Time for the CTcon report:
-Friday: left my house around 10:30, didn't get to Hartford until 4 pm (the drive should have been no more than 5 hours, 'sup 11-mile backups in southern Connecticut?). Got to the convention center, found Brendan, and found Joe P. in the reg line, which at that point was around 4 hours long. Groaning at the possibility of another 4 hours of standing around after the 6.5 hour drive, Joe P. helped me execute an epic line cut maneuver to where he was standing, 10 minutes from the front of the line. I still owe him something big for that, like a car or a blow job. At that point we checked into the hotel, got settled in, and started out the con in typical con fashion by checking out the game room, which was pretty decent, but very crowded. Since I'm not big into FPS or fighters, the room didn't really hold much for me, save the two whole rounds of DDR I played all weekend (excluding the tourney, more on that later). After that, Brendan made the obligatory booze run and picked up the staples: Captain and Smirnoff (actually Smirnoff =/= staple since we usually drink better quality). Actually, since I've been sticking with better quality liquor lately, I couldn't even stand the Smirnoff. Too spoiled by mid-to-high level stuff D: Oh well, by midnight Manny, Brendan, and I were drunk enough to get ourselves lost in Hartford for about an hour. Hartford, by the way, is a pretty sketchy place. Not fun to be lost and drunk there late at night. We got back, partied a little more, and then I fell asleep on the floor since bedspace was gone by that point. I woke up around 5 am, shivering since we didn't realize the hotel room thermostate was set to 60°. I promply relocated to the closet, since it was slightly warmer in there (trapped more body heat). I just wanna restate that: I slept in a closet for a convention. I crossed the threshold of hardcore con-goer.
-Saturday: Slept in a little, since the closet floor didn't offer the most restful sleep possible. At 11:30 I headed down, ran into Rob, chatted for a bit, and then went to the game room to qualify for the DDR tourney. I got a 9.37 on Centaur (not bad for having never played the song before...not bad at all), and qualified in 5th place, I believe. I played my first prelim match against Derek, who promptly slaughtered me (apparently he bombed the qualifier, despite being a top-tier player). But here's where things went nuts: they wanted to only move the top 8 players to the tourney finals, which were held in the main event hall. Well, they scrapped that, and moved the whole top 16 bracket, and brought back in other players who had already lost their "prelim matches," all of which were scrapped. Except for me. I was left out of the bracket, despite being one of the highest qualifiers. I talked to Javier, who was trying his best to fix the awful job that the main event host was doing of running the touney, and he slipped me back in to the bracket in a no-show players slot. I ended up winning the first match (this time against Javier), and then got a bye through the quarterfinals since my would-be opponent was the other no-show. Yay free trip to the top 4. I ended up playing Derek again, and came a lot closer to winning, but still lost. Oh well, for only placing 4th I ended up getting $20 to Gamestop, a shirt, and a free copy of dothack:GU for PS2. Very nice. After that, we went back to the hotel, got drunk again, and then went to the rave around 11. The rave was actually very good! I stayed for about an hour (almost until the rave ended), and then went back with a large group to Javier's room for poker, pizza, and drinking soda out of bowls and coffee makers (you have to improvise when you run out of clean cups XD) Stayed until around 3, and then crashed.
-Sunday: spent the day wandering the dealer's room, trying to find final-day deals. Brendan and I went in on and got a few e-amuse IIDX cards (oh man we're nerds) and spent a long time drooling over Desktop Arcade's new combination Pop'n/IIDX controller (both controllers in one big, giant package, omgawesome) and unfortunately missing the chance to tell Steve Handleman that we were the ones who stole his social security number last spring (long story, don't ask). Brendan, Fonzi, Jav, and I then went to Dunkin' Donuts to get food, where we found out that the Dunkin' Donuts near the center is one of the test locations for new Dunkin' Donuts PIZZA. That's right, pizza from a donut shop. Yeah, it was pretty mediocre. If they every introduce it for real, don't bother trying it, it tastes like microwave pizza. We got in our final hang-out time, and then I left Hartford around 4. All in all, I went yet another anime convention without watching a single screening of anime. Go me!
So what now? I'm off work Friday, and Manny wants me to day-trip it down to Otakon, but I don't feel like spending another $40+ for a one-day reg there. I might go down just to hang out in the inner harbor though and maybe sneak around a bit. If that doesn't happen, anyone else have plans for Friday?
-Friday: left my house around 10:30, didn't get to Hartford until 4 pm (the drive should have been no more than 5 hours, 'sup 11-mile backups in southern Connecticut?). Got to the convention center, found Brendan, and found Joe P. in the reg line, which at that point was around 4 hours long. Groaning at the possibility of another 4 hours of standing around after the 6.5 hour drive, Joe P. helped me execute an epic line cut maneuver to where he was standing, 10 minutes from the front of the line. I still owe him something big for that, like a car or a blow job. At that point we checked into the hotel, got settled in, and started out the con in typical con fashion by checking out the game room, which was pretty decent, but very crowded. Since I'm not big into FPS or fighters, the room didn't really hold much for me, save the two whole rounds of DDR I played all weekend (excluding the tourney, more on that later). After that, Brendan made the obligatory booze run and picked up the staples: Captain and Smirnoff (actually Smirnoff =/= staple since we usually drink better quality). Actually, since I've been sticking with better quality liquor lately, I couldn't even stand the Smirnoff. Too spoiled by mid-to-high level stuff D: Oh well, by midnight Manny, Brendan, and I were drunk enough to get ourselves lost in Hartford for about an hour. Hartford, by the way, is a pretty sketchy place. Not fun to be lost and drunk there late at night. We got back, partied a little more, and then I fell asleep on the floor since bedspace was gone by that point. I woke up around 5 am, shivering since we didn't realize the hotel room thermostate was set to 60°. I promply relocated to the closet, since it was slightly warmer in there (trapped more body heat). I just wanna restate that: I slept in a closet for a convention. I crossed the threshold of hardcore con-goer.
-Saturday: Slept in a little, since the closet floor didn't offer the most restful sleep possible. At 11:30 I headed down, ran into Rob, chatted for a bit, and then went to the game room to qualify for the DDR tourney. I got a 9.37 on Centaur (not bad for having never played the song before...not bad at all), and qualified in 5th place, I believe. I played my first prelim match against Derek, who promptly slaughtered me (apparently he bombed the qualifier, despite being a top-tier player). But here's where things went nuts: they wanted to only move the top 8 players to the tourney finals, which were held in the main event hall. Well, they scrapped that, and moved the whole top 16 bracket, and brought back in other players who had already lost their "prelim matches," all of which were scrapped. Except for me. I was left out of the bracket, despite being one of the highest qualifiers. I talked to Javier, who was trying his best to fix the awful job that the main event host was doing of running the touney, and he slipped me back in to the bracket in a no-show players slot. I ended up winning the first match (this time against Javier), and then got a bye through the quarterfinals since my would-be opponent was the other no-show. Yay free trip to the top 4. I ended up playing Derek again, and came a lot closer to winning, but still lost. Oh well, for only placing 4th I ended up getting $20 to Gamestop, a shirt, and a free copy of dothack:GU for PS2. Very nice. After that, we went back to the hotel, got drunk again, and then went to the rave around 11. The rave was actually very good! I stayed for about an hour (almost until the rave ended), and then went back with a large group to Javier's room for poker, pizza, and drinking soda out of bowls and coffee makers (you have to improvise when you run out of clean cups XD) Stayed until around 3, and then crashed.
-Sunday: spent the day wandering the dealer's room, trying to find final-day deals. Brendan and I went in on and got a few e-amuse IIDX cards (oh man we're nerds) and spent a long time drooling over Desktop Arcade's new combination Pop'n/IIDX controller (both controllers in one big, giant package, omgawesome) and unfortunately missing the chance to tell Steve Handleman that we were the ones who stole his social security number last spring (long story, don't ask). Brendan, Fonzi, Jav, and I then went to Dunkin' Donuts to get food, where we found out that the Dunkin' Donuts near the center is one of the test locations for new Dunkin' Donuts PIZZA. That's right, pizza from a donut shop. Yeah, it was pretty mediocre. If they every introduce it for real, don't bother trying it, it tastes like microwave pizza. We got in our final hang-out time, and then I left Hartford around 4. All in all, I went yet another anime convention without watching a single screening of anime. Go me!
So what now? I'm off work Friday, and Manny wants me to day-trip it down to Otakon, but I don't feel like spending another $40+ for a one-day reg there. I might go down just to hang out in the inner harbor though and maybe sneak around a bit. If that doesn't happen, anyone else have plans for Friday?