A Trip to New York. Warning: SO MANY PICTURES. Part 1
And so it begins. n___n Hopefully the pictures aren't too blurry, the screen on my camera is really little... For full story
experience, let your mouse rest over the images and read my alt-text. n____n
sajex called me up last Friday at an incredibly late hour to tell me of the amazing idea she had: going to the Comics con in New York. Meanwhile, I was living in Residence, and still needed to a)help finish the film and b)pack and move all of my stuff somewhere. And c)get over the border. A quick call to my parents a few days later, and my birth certificate was trusted to Canada Post express service to hopefully get to me in the promised two days. Three days later, and coincidentally the day we were leaving, it arrived. *shakes fists at heavens* KHAAAAAAAAAAN!!!! Can I get my parents 12 dollars back?
After packing everything, I called a taxi van so I could move my stuff down to the apartment where my friends are so generously letting me stay for the next little-over-a-week. After being called back about five times by the dispatcher and being told the taxi was ten minutes away, it finally arrived. sajex and Dusty helped me move all my stuff from the room to the lobby. marii-chan, celty and pirate_squid all showed up, with a shwarma for me. I still own celty monies for that. Unfortunately, it went into marii-chan's fridge, and I didn't see it until about one AM.
I. Was. So. HUNGRY.
But, before I could eat, we had to move all of my boxes. Unfortunately, the cabbie was terrible at packing things into the back of a van. Even though I had told the dispatcher that I was moving all of my things, I guess she didn't realise that 'all of my things' meant a couple of boxes. As we're bringing them out, the cabbie is just shoving them into the back in no particular order. I let him know that I had a lot, and he might want to wait to load stuff, but he assured me that it would all fit. When it just kept coming, *he* called another van. And then told me I was paying for it.
Yeah.
So, knowing that my father might disown me if I only half packed a trunk full of boxes, I continued to strategically stuff things in. We fit everything but two boxes that hadn't come down anyway, and what I wanted to give to goodwill.
Then, with Nicole's help, we moved all of my stuff into the space they had cleared for it around the hockey table. Right next to the crack in the wall.
Then I walked back to school, finished all of my homework, and studied for Bruno's test. THEN food. Then I walked back to the apartment.
Thursday dawns!
Dusty and I left to catch a nine AM class, since I had to turn in some layout and poster roughs or fail. Aparently, after we had left, the apartment manager came in and started to get mad at sajex and Nicole, since the space around the crack hadn't been cleared so this guy brought specially in from the T dot could work on it. They frantically shoved *everything* over, which included all of my stuff, an air hockey table, a couch, and a drumset. Then the guy pronounces the crack 'too wet', and leaves. -______-;
I handed in all of my stuff, took the test, got money, got travel insurance (go to here to print one off, it's already paid for!), got antihistamines and Tide, made it back in time for a quick shower and then we ran off to catch the go train. Fate was with us, though. Dusty and Nicole both forgot something, so we were delayed in setting off. Delayed the perfect amount of time so that we could catch a bus! It was great, our bags were heavy.
Made it into Toronto, shlepped our stuff to the Greyhound, met sajex who now had her poster, bought our tickets and some horrendously overpriced sandwiches that tasted like nothing, and got in line for the bus. Apparently you don't buy tickets for a bus with greyhound, but for a route. So we might not have been able to fit on the 7:30 bus, but have to catch the later.
Luckily for us, we *just* made it on. Nicole and I were 'Bus Buddies', since obviously Terri and Dusty'd want to sit next to each other.
Getting through customs was easy. We just smiled, and told where we were going. Terri grilled Nicole and I about where we were staying the night, and the only reason I could remember was because 'Dobs Ferry' sounds like a Fairy Fountain in Zelda. XD
I also managed to take through my pencil sharpener, and my matte knife. I had them in my pencil case, and then never x-rayed the bags or anything. Increased border security my arse. After we had got back onto our bus, two border patrol guys came on and checked the bathroom. We had seats in the back of the bus, right next to it, and man did it smell. The one guy who went in there made an awful amount of racket, which made the other border guy ask if he was alright in there.
Satisfied we weren't smuggling illegal beavers or something over the border, they let us go. We got three more people on the bus who sat right behind us, all of whom were coughing. We also lost a guy at the border. I wonder what on earth happened to him.
This was our first bus, the one we rode to Buffalo. Terri had done some checking on the cheapest way to get from Toronto to New York, and found out that if you buy to Buffalo and then from Buffalo to New York, it's cheaper. It isn't. The greyhound site doesn't default to 'round trip' if you put in a return date, so we wound up spending a bit more than we had originally though. Ah well.
After waiting for the next bus to come, we were pleasently surprised with a trip down memory lane. As soon as Terri stepped on it, she started to sing the old 60s batman tune with 'retro bus' as the words instead of 'batman'. And thus, it was named.
It is now about eleven or twelve at night when we board Retro Bus.
A few hours later...
As we were all sleeping, the bus pulled into a couple of gas stations. I woke up for one of them, but apparently it stopped twice, within about ten minutes. Terri figured that there was something wrong with the bus, and since we switched busses in Syracruse? after that, maybe there was. We all trooped off of the bus and went to grab our bags, only to be bruskly told to just get on the bus, they'll handle it. e____e So then we get on another ugly bus, only this one smells strongly of gasoline or soemthing.
Did I mention that as we get off of Retro Bus, there were border patrol people there with dogs and the like, sniffing our luggage?
After we had all gotten onto the bus, we sat there for a little while. Then some border patrol people come on, and start asking for passports. One lady starts to freak out slightly, because she's just travelling within the US and doesn't have her passport on her.
Luckily, she had enough other documentation that the border guy was satisfied. The lady sitting ahead of me was recognised by the other border guy. "I remember you!" He declared. "Do you remember me?" She mumbled something incomprehensible. "Who paid your bonds?" No answer. "Did your family?" Still nothing. "Do you remember?" She gives him whatever paper, and he moves on. I don't ever want to be as old as she was (she looked to be in her late sixties) and known to a border guy.
Made it into New York without any further problems, though Terri nearly gave Nicole and I heart attacks when she screeched about an IHOP.
We arrived at the bus terminal, got our luggage, got directions to the Javits center, and walked the seven blocks. It was so early, they were still setting everything up. We hadn't managed to buy our tickets in advance, so we decided to try to get Professional tickets. Talking to the ticket guy who was still learning how everything was working, we found out that we did count as professionals. The guy told us that we would get a free breakfast, which pretty much sealed the deal.
We got changed in the con bathroom, so we could feel more human. After a quick toothbrushing, usage of deodorant, face washing, and the like, we were ready to face the day. Rather than carrying our luggage around all day, we checked it at the coat check. I managed to stuff my big black coat into my backpack, so I only had to pay to check two things instead of three. Take THAT, the man!
Then we tried to find our way around the conference center, to find the breakfast. Dusty followed his nose.... To a dead end! We had to backtrack, only to find that the breakfast was for exhibitors, not professionals. Well!
So we walked around, until we found a McDonalds. Always one somewhere! I had this chicken on a biscuit thing, which was pretty good.
I've never seen it advertised in Canada, which is one of the reasons I got it. I also asked for water, and the guy gave me the 'free' size, which is the kids size you get in a happy meal. However, it didn't even matter, because you poured your own fountain drinks! I could have had anything! I'm too honest though, and just drank a couple of cups of delicious H2O.
We sat in the upstairs and planned our what we wanted to do and see during the con. One of the things that we wanted to check out was the Eisner documentary film, and we were worried about getting seats. Nicole and I set out to secure us some great seats, while Dusty and Terri went to get Terri some american money.
We also got pictures with two of our favourite super heroes:
We were what, two hours early? They were still setting up. We found out that Patrick Stewart was playing Macbeth on Broadway right now, and that you could get rush tickets for like 20 bucks. One of the volunteers and I squeed about this for a second, and then I had to inform Nicole who Patrick Stewart was. e____e Silly.
We watched the documentary, which was good and made me want to read a bunch of Eisner books.
After that, we decided to skip the Illuminated thing we were going to see (the next step in animation!) and go to the dealers room.
Where they had candies to entice people to check out their wares. And what kind of candies, you ask?
So many booths, so much stuff. I got this picture for hollie_hobbie, with a detail.
At some point that must have been about now, we also went for food. We found a pizza place just past the Mcdonalds that we had eaten at already. We also got some free Coke, which I wound up carrying around for the rest of the day, because apparently the states doesn't believe in having recycling bins *anywhere*. Finally found one the next day at the train station. The pizza was delicious, and he gave us a deal on the slices. Dusty had a vegetarian pinwheel or something. It looked wonderful.
We checked out a panel about drawing comics on a computer, which was interesting. There were four? people there, as I recall, and they each had a different way of drawing on computers. One guy used jillions of layers (what I do), and another guy talked about how he used to do that, but now he uses only a few layers. A dark, a seventy five percent grey layer, a fifty percent grey layer, a twenty five percent grey layer, and a highlights layer, I think. He paints everything in greyscale and then filters it into colour.
Another lady used 'manga studio', which seems like photoshop with some cheats in it, like speech bubbles and speed lines and the like.
After that, Dusty and I went to 'The State of Animation', while Nicole when to Women in Fantasy and Science Fiction, and I don't remember where Terri went. I suspect she got in line at the avatar place, but I can't remember for sures.
I recognised one of the presenter guys from the Ottawa Festival, JJ Sedelmaier. His company did the first season of Tek Jansen as well as a bunch of commercial stuff I didn't recongise, being from Canada. He talked about how his company got it's big break by doing the animated sequences on SNL, and how difficult it was for them to understand about working with animation where something couldn't be finished in three days, and wasn't infinitly tweakable.
The other guy, Mark Evanier, was talking about how he was doing a co-production with France on a Garfield show. I asked him why he was working with France, and not Korea or something. He told me that there were two ways to get a show made. One of them was to have a network or company put all the money up, and the other was to sell portions of the show and line up enough investors to get it done. Since this was a US?/France co-production, it's being made in France. It'll be in CG, and lipsynced to both languages.
They both seemed pretty hopeful about the state of the industry, and about 2d in particular. They pointed out that it was 'dead' a couple of years back, along with stop motion. And look at now! n___n
After that, we went to the avatar comic panel, which was really fun. Terri began by getting a bunch of signatures for her poster while we waited outside. They showed a bunch of comics and some fanvids, and talked about it all. It's really fun to see a show that seems to understand and pay attention to it's fandom. Rufftoon (or roughtoon?) was there, talking about her stuff. Apparently she has a comic I should check out. There were pages with the URLs of everything they showed, but I didn't manage to grab one. I'll have to find the list somewhere online.
Cosplayers!
Next thing I wanted to do was catch the X-Files 2 panel, about the upcoming movie. We got in a little bit early, so we also managed to catch some of Ralph Bakshi's panel. He would have been very interesting to see all the way through! He had some crazy opinions that he wasn't afraid to state. Apparently the original idea for Cool World was that a human father and a toon mother had a kid, half toon and half real who then tried to kill his father. Weird, but perhaps better than what Cool World wound up being.
Sorry for how blurry these are.
Then it was time for the next panel. Wait a second... Just who is that blurry man who's sitting down?
I nearly died.
Who would have ever thought I'd see Chris Carter??
Then we started the Sci Fi Friday, which was one of the reasons I went down. I was looking forward to seeing the first episode on the big screen in a theater full of people who'd prolly enjoy it.
As soon as this happened, though...
So, as all the Who fans have now realised, this was the Christmas special. -______-; And at some of the more serious parts, people laughed, which was really unfortunate. IT wasn't funny when you knew what the character had gone through, and what he was now going through, but coming at it without that knowledge... Well, I wish they had've showed the first episode of the fourth season. That would have been better.
We didn't stay for the Battlestar Galatica episode, though I thought the sum up was really quite hilarious.
On the way trying to find the bus stop, we walked past a bunch of taxis idling. One guy came up to us, and I asked how much to get to Grand Central. "Five dollars for you, for you, for you, and for you." He said, in accented english. Five dollars a person? Yeah, right. He didn't even have any stickers or anything on his car. Needless to say, we gave him a miss.
Found out where the bus stopped, and went to catch it only to find out that busses in New York don't take one dollar bills. WHAT???
Why don't they put in the little bill thingee, since their dollar currency amounts are in bill form??
We went to see if we could trade our dollar bills for the quarters, and found a group of guys who were camping out over night so they could be the first ones in the door come Saturday morning. It was apparently the third year they've done this, so they were pretty well practised. We got our money, and had a nice chat with them.
(in an aside: Nicole just gave me an *entire bag* of the white cheddar popcorn. Yummmmmmmmmm)
A picture I took from the bus:
Made it to Dob's Ferry, without falling asleep on the train and missing our stop. Gave Colin a call, and he came over and picked us up. He told us it was too bad that we hadn't arrived earlier, because they just got a firepit and they had had a fire. It's apparently a different place than what Terri had seen before, and it was the nicest little house ever. I really do love that style, it was so cosy.
Terri and Dusty slept on the pullout couch, while I took the other couch in the living room and Nicole slept on Ollie's bed upstairs, since he wasn't around yet.
The next morning, the plans to go to Dob's Diner failed, since we had to get down to the con for 11 o'clock. Didn't quite make it, since we went to the Stop and Shop to get some bagels and cream cheese, shampoo, fruit, and pop tarts. And everyone had to have a shower.
We walked down some of the steepest streets I have ever been on, and made to get to the train station in time to miss the train. -___-;
The trains made the coolest scifi noise as they left. I wish I could have got a recording of it!
On the train, Terri has finally gotten together all of the the she needs to sew on the arrow she cut out of felt onto her signature hat. Let it be known that she didn't have scizzors or anything to cut it out with, or needles to sew it on. The thread is mine... I still need to get that back! It's also TARDIS blue, not Avatar blue. ;)
The inside of Grand Central.
Terri hadn't managed to get money on Friday morning, so we went to the bank that we had seen outside of Grand Central to get stuff.
Dusty and I were terribly excited to see this:
We went there instead.
We went to see the Dinotopia: Behind the Scenes thing, and it was awesome. There's a third book out that I must buy. I wish I had've brought the one I was going to, but I cut it out for weight reasons. There was this one amazing painting where he actually blurred the paint to give it a motion blur. I thought he did it digitally, and was sligthly sad. But then he said he did it with the wet oil paint!!
He also makes a bunch of maquettes, and uses a bunch of reference. He gets his kids, and kids from friends and around the street, and friends, and all that to pose for him. He also does talks at schools and stuff, so I asked him if he ever came up to Canada. And I got his contact info, so now I've got to talk to Angela? Wouldn't that be *awesome*?? He also said he was talking to the people over at Dreamworks animation, and was asking them what their favourite schools were. They said 'Sheridan and Cal Arts', but Sheridan was first. n____n Hooray! No pictures of him, unfortunately.
We also topped the Sokka cosplayer in how far we had travelled to be there, which was kind of funny. He was one of those people who wants to be the center of attention all the time.
On to lunch! We walked back to the pizza place. We also checked out the little food store just in front of it, where they had...
Nicole and I had bought us some street meats, so we didn't get any pizza or anything. Colin and Dusty got pasta or something from the pizza place, and then managed to find someplace to sit inside, where they waited for us. Meanwhile, Nicole and I had concluded that there were no places inside and that there weren't likely to be any places available, and that it was hot. So we sat on the street. This guy came out of the apartment or office building, or whatever it was, and held the door for people coming in and out.
The rest of the time, he glared at us. Terri had bought this yogurt with fruit all through it, and was in raptures over it.
Eventually we all met back up, and went back to the con.
Nicole, Colin and I went to the dealer room, while Terri and Dusty saved spots down at the Avatar thing. I tried to buy...
Something... For someone's birthday... But the person I wanted to talk to was out for lunch... Anyway. We went to the Nick booth, and got pictures with Aang!
We also finally found Bobby Chiu, and talked with him and Nabeel. He was right next to Bill Plympton, so I guess that's good.
NOW TO THE PANEL. Hum, I think I deleted the pictures I got of the crowd. There's a video that I will upload here, just so you can all see the MASS of people that showed up.
Remember how many people there were before? Check it out now.
I tried to get pictures of all of the avatar things that they showed. No alt text for these, just enjoy.
.... That's right. THIS IS OFFICIAL ART.
AND THAT'S IT FOR THAT. Ho-MAN that was a lot.
It should also be said that Colin has only seen an episode or two of Avatar, and even he was excited by the trailers! You can find those on Youtube, I didn't take videos of them because... Well, I figured the pictures'd be enough. I guess I draw the line somewhere.
To the reboot panel! It was AWESOME. We barely even got in, there were so many people. Colin, Nicole and I sat on the floor. Terri and Dusty were trying to get stuff signed at the Nick desk. They were a little bit later. Anyway, here are some pictures from that!
Since neither of them worked for ABC or Mainframe, maybe? any longer, they could tell all the stories. SO MANY STORIES. It was awesome. For instance: How did Cecil get his name? click me to find out. It's why he was riding a brass rail. And AndrAIa? She was modeled on their favourite stripper. XD
When they were plotting out the third season, they were doing it over much alcohol and ribs, I think. They wrote it all down on one of those paper tablecloth things, but ran out space on the one side. So instead of just flipping the entire thing, they folded it and wrote more stuff. Then Dan Didio got back to his place, unfolded it, and realised he had no idea how it went back together! He had to figure everything out, like the rosetta stone.
oh!! There's an episode where the BS and P rejected the entire thing, the note actually came back 'entire episode rejected'. Then the creator guys got on the phone with them, and said that they'd used their notes to do the whole thing. And it was miraculously approved, with no changes!
The next episode, there's a bunch of binary that flashes by. If you were to decode it, it says 'fuck you, BS&P'. XD
I'm going to have to get some of the other stories from other people who were there, it was great.
He also signed our program books. Or mine twice, really.
After the Reboot panel, we caught the end of the Bill Plympton bit, which was interesting. I guess he just draws all of the frames, and then renders them on the paper! Someone else clips it all out and puts it on the background, he just does it. We saw a bit from his new film, "Idiots and Angels". I think it's something you'd have to catch from the beginning, and be prepared for a different story telling style than what you're used to. Then it might be really enjoyable.
I, meanwhile, had an awful headache. We made our way back on the shuttle bus and then the train, where there was a father who was making his child screech so high it literally passed what I could hear. And my headache got worse, and Nicole got what I suspect was a migraine or something. It was terrible. The kids behind us also thought they were hilarious, saying the names of where we where going. 'Hahahaha, YONKers, hahahaha'. Uhm... Okay? Hilarious? Whatever. Another favourite: Hah-stings on Hudson. It's Hastings. *eye roll*
When we got back to the Dob's Ferry, Nicole went pretty much straight to bed, while Colin, Terri, Dusty and I stayed up and sat around the fire. Colin's mom Joanna (however you spell it, I'm not sure. Apologies!) and a guy called AJ were also there. It was a nice way to end the night.
The next morning, Ollie, Colin's twin brother, had arrived. Colin had to go and do something for an art assignment, so he couldn't come in with us, but he still dropped us off at the station. We caught our train with much time to spare.
Nicole and I went to the Archie panel, which was in the same room as the Dinotopia thing, as well as the reboot panel. The funny bit? The Reboot panel was STUFFED. Archie, one of the best selling and longest running comics evers? Barely even full. Which meant it was freezing, of course.
They were enthusiastic, but not really engaging, y'know? It almost felt like they were there to test what they were doing, get some free audience response. And I still don't like the manga look that they're going with for Sabrina, though apparently it's selling really well. They're also trying a different style in Jughead, which I will have to find an example of. It's awfully different, I'm not sure I like it.
After that? We went to see 'Journey 3D', expecting to meet Terri and Dusty there. They went to see uhm... Something else. Well, times got mixed up, and they didn't make it. Meanwhile, we got to see...
He was really fun to listen to, and sounded pretty knowledgable about what he was speaking of. Journey 3d is based on 'Journey to the Center of the Earth', and was actually filmed with the new 3D cameras that James Cameron is making. I've heard this technology described somewhere as the 'saviour of the cinema', since you can't pirate the 3d ness of it yet. If it really is, I'll be happy. I don't want films to die out because everyone is pirating them.
He also talked about 'airball acting', where you around duck something you can't see, and then the special effects guys put in a crazy mummy or killer plants or something. Then, when the other people were trying to talk, he started to mess about with his 'imaginary friend'.
(What?? I typed more than this! DAMMIT. Well, I'll do it again.)
This is to show her that I saw it. I actually like how this one turned out! You can just see the wheel that you spun to win items. I won some fox ears, which I already have. Anyone want to trade?
It might also be to rub it in her face, a little.
There were so many signatures and writings on it! It was hard to find a place to write this:
So now there's a 'hey!' to her, on a con thing. Neat, huh?
I didn't write this, Nicole did, actually. REALLY. And she had to write it *twice*, because the first time she used a '>' instead of a '<' ! XD Silly.
I had to get this photo, because everytime I passed it, I was just a little bit sad. It's also a really nice poster. *sniffs*
We spent so much time in the dealers room, it was awesome. There were toys that were trying to be picked up by a company, as well as books that were looking for a pubslisher, books that the publisers were trying to start a 'buzz' about, so they were being given out free. Aisle 1900 was our best friend, Nicole and I grabbed SO MANY free books. I told her she couldn't complain about the weight of them, when we were going back to Toronto, but she told me that she would anyway. And she did, because they were terribly heavy. My shoulder was so sore from carrying them, but it is worth it. Now I have a bunch of new books to read!
We also got cool bags, here are pictures of them I took on Tuesday.
This bag is from the Eragon series, and I'm looking forward to reading the next book, Brisingr, or whatever it's called. Though I'm not a giant fan of how these dragons are drawn, it's still a cool bag.
We also had a free drawing coming to us from Bill Plympton, so we found his booth. It was coincidentally right next to where Terri and Dusty were scoring the free stuff in cool Nintendo books! Dusty won a Legend of Zelda twilight princess strategy guide, and
Terri won a super smash brothers brawl strategy guide. Dusty's looks really sweet, he hasn't even opened it up yet.
We also hadn't eaten since early this morning, when we had eggs at Colin's house in Dob's Ferry. Needless to say, Nicole and I were starving, so we both noticed a delectable smell in the back of the dealers room at the same time. "Are those mini-doughnuts?" I asked. Nicole thought they smelled of delicious as well, so we were now on the hunt for mini doughnuts!
So, having got directions from vader where the minidoughnuts are, we went off in search of them! Only to discover that instead of mini doughnuts, they were five dollar funnel cakes! Vader had lied!
When we went back to him to complain, Obi-Wan came in front of us, and warned us "Not to be fooled by his tricks." Where was he before, with our epic mini doughnut quest? Ah well, a late warning is better than no warning at all, right? So here's a photo to celebrate.
We later came across this, but knew it was a lie.
We had also got quite a few tiny containers of antibacterial handwash from this guy, who was indeed quite cute.
He also remembered us, which was cool.
Here are some awesome examples of stuff they had in cabinets. These are for my parents, who will truly appreciate them.
We had split up, and decided to meet in front of the animation magazines outside the con. Nicole and I met a man who had shook Patrick Stewart's hand, as he got onto the subway going 'uptown' for some appointment. After he had walked away, I said that we should have shook *his* hand, to have shaken the hand of the man who shook hands with Patrick Stewart that morning! Too late, though. What a way to start a day at the convention! He and his son were quite nice.
There were also some amazing sculptures there, of different characters. Of course we had to get our pictures taken with them! Who was first on the list?
It was a really sweet costume, it looked very nearly professional. I wasn't sure about the silver web detailing, looked like it could have been some really good quality fabric paint, or something. He also liked to stand completely still in the statue area, and then move to scare people. XD It was awesome.
So, the con is over, and I'm dying to see the original broadway cast of Rent. Dusty goes to call his grandparents, I think, while Nicole and I try to figure out where to get tickets. Turns out we could have bought them at the concierge place, any time over the past three days! By the time we figure this out though, it's closed up. And the security guards were NO help at all. All we wanted was a phone book, and when I asked them if they could grab it for us, they said that she'd already locked up for the night. Keep in mind, this was a waist to chest high booth that you could pretty easily vault over, especially if you were security.
FAIL.
We caught the shuttle bus, and were slightly stressing out over where Times Square was. A lady told us to get off at Pen Station, which was all well and good, but she didn't tell us WHERE pen station was. So we rode the bus to far, and wound up walking seven blocks back.
Nicole and I still hadn't eaten by this point, we had no idea where the theater was, or where the TKTS booth was. We were hoping to run across a phone book or something... Well. We wound up finally finding the TKTS palce, only they didn't have tickets left for Lion King or for Rent. I wanted to check at the theater, maybe they had some still available? We still didn't know where the theatre was, however, so we wound up asking at the Lion King theatre if they had any tickets left. Turns out the show started a half an hour ago, so we obviously couldn't get in. Asked at another ticket booth, but they were only selling tickets for music shows, or something.
So, on to food now. (So disappointed I couldn't see Rent, but it was my own fault. Next time I shall plan better.) We had walked past a Red Lobster on the way in, but I don't much care for seafood, so we decided to check out the Planet Hollywood that was there.
I also got the obligatory pictures of Times Square.
So, having walked all the way to the planet hollywood place and found out that even with two twenty percent off coupons, it was going to be hella expensive, we walked back to Red Lobster. And then we waited for half an hour to fourty five minutes, for a table. In the beginning, we sat on the floor between the tables in the bar and the fishtank. Then some people got up, and we stole their table. MUAHAHAHAAAAA. It was wonderful to sit down, though we still had bags of books.
Since it was so loud, they gave us a pager thing to let us know when our table was ready. The green light was blinking, so we thought that maybe it was ready already! Nicole went to check, only to come back with the sad news that it would blink much more when actually was time. And talk to us. And vibrate. O___O So fancy.
I had also grabbed another menu from the bar, so we could all figure out what we wanted to eat and order as soon as we sat down, so we could get food just a bit quicker. When I went to the bar, the bartender was helping someone else. She still acknowledged me, though. As she came back to where I was standing, this older guy gestures in my direction, to help remind her I was there. I leaned over an empty chair to ask for a menu, which she then gave me. He turned to me and asked me if I wanted to sit down, to which I replied "No, I'm going to go and sit back with my friends." As I walked away, I had to laugh a little. This guy was nearly my father's age, and here he was, hitting on me!
After what felt like FOREVER, our pager thing finally goes off, and said something like 'Your table is ready, please return this to the front desk', vibrated, and blinked red. Just so you couldn't miss it. We got a special key card to let us take the elevator to the second level, where we had to wait again since they'd sent us up before our table was actually ready.
After we were seated, our server shows up. He was cute, as well as pretty uhm... Campy? He was a great waiter, brought me some pop when my glass was getting low without me even asking, very friendly and all that. Terri wanted to leave him a cool tip, so we found a toonie to leave. He came after we had all of our monies on the table, but before we left, so he asked us if we wanted change.
"No," we said. And he gathered it up and said how this was a great night. Then he spotted the toonie, and stopped. And looked. And picked it up, and read what it said.
"OOOOH you're from Canada!" He exclaimed. ;) It was funny, he literally froze while he examined the coin.
We decided that we wanted to check and see if the *giant* Toys R Us was still open. This thing had a ferris wheel inside of it!!
Unfortunately, this being what, nine? Ten? It was closed.
As we left the Red Lobster though, Dusty looks over and calls out to me. "What?" I ask, and he points me towards...
And I cried a single tear.
So we walked over to Toys R Us, found it closed, and then walked back to the subway.
On the train.
When we got to Grand Central, Terri figured we could have just walked it. Didn't look too far, but then, it was a third of the width of Manhattan island. And we figured out the distance we'd walked from the shuttle to times square, which was about a third of distance, we told her she was crazy, and that we were all glad we had paid the two dollars. Plus, now I've ridden on a new york subway!
We had a bit of time to kill in Grand central station, before we could catch the train back to Dob's Ferry. We found the train, discovered we couldn't get on yet, realised it was *boiling* around the trains, and then found a cooler place to sit.
Dusty began this game of reading half a sentence from random places in a book, and making a hiliarious story out of it. Terri suggested that we all participate, so we each read a sentence from different books to make a story. This one was suprisingly clean, yet still hiliarous.
The train came! We went back to Dob's Ferry, minus the screaming kids and obnoxious teenagers. It was a much more pleasant ride.
That night, we all sat around the fire and continued our game of reading random sentances and making stories. This time, however, we had alcohols and dirty books mixed with kids books, which made it REALLY dirty. And even more hilarious.
The alcohol hit some people like a tonne of bricks, *coughnicolecough* but we hadn't been eating or sleeping properly in what, a month? So it was understandable. Dusty and I felt slightly cheated with our american beers. I had two, and was fine. And normally that much would do me. Ah well, it was free beer, so I do not complain.
After the fire, we went inside to the living room and watched some Eddie Izard clips on youtube, some done with legos and some of just him. They were *hilarious*. 'Cake or death?' While Colin, Ollie, Nicole and I were watching these, Terri and Dusty fell asleep on the pull out couch. Where Nicole and I were going to sleep, while Terri and Dusty were going to take the other couch. So Nicole took the couch, and I slept on the floor. Ollie brought me a thick comforter to sleep on, so it wasn't too hard a floor. Dusty kicked me a couple of times, but I kicked him back.
Muwahahahaaa.
experience, let your mouse rest over the images and read my alt-text. n____n
sajex called me up last Friday at an incredibly late hour to tell me of the amazing idea she had: going to the Comics con in New York. Meanwhile, I was living in Residence, and still needed to a)help finish the film and b)pack and move all of my stuff somewhere. And c)get over the border. A quick call to my parents a few days later, and my birth certificate was trusted to Canada Post express service to hopefully get to me in the promised two days. Three days later, and coincidentally the day we were leaving, it arrived. *shakes fists at heavens* KHAAAAAAAAAAN!!!! Can I get my parents 12 dollars back?
After packing everything, I called a taxi van so I could move my stuff down to the apartment where my friends are so generously letting me stay for the next little-over-a-week. After being called back about five times by the dispatcher and being told the taxi was ten minutes away, it finally arrived. sajex and Dusty helped me move all my stuff from the room to the lobby. marii-chan, celty and pirate_squid all showed up, with a shwarma for me. I still own celty monies for that. Unfortunately, it went into marii-chan's fridge, and I didn't see it until about one AM.
I. Was. So. HUNGRY.
But, before I could eat, we had to move all of my boxes. Unfortunately, the cabbie was terrible at packing things into the back of a van. Even though I had told the dispatcher that I was moving all of my things, I guess she didn't realise that 'all of my things' meant a couple of boxes. As we're bringing them out, the cabbie is just shoving them into the back in no particular order. I let him know that I had a lot, and he might want to wait to load stuff, but he assured me that it would all fit. When it just kept coming, *he* called another van. And then told me I was paying for it.
Yeah.
So, knowing that my father might disown me if I only half packed a trunk full of boxes, I continued to strategically stuff things in. We fit everything but two boxes that hadn't come down anyway, and what I wanted to give to goodwill.
Then, with Nicole's help, we moved all of my stuff into the space they had cleared for it around the hockey table. Right next to the crack in the wall.
Then I walked back to school, finished all of my homework, and studied for Bruno's test. THEN food. Then I walked back to the apartment.
Thursday dawns!
Dusty and I left to catch a nine AM class, since I had to turn in some layout and poster roughs or fail. Aparently, after we had left, the apartment manager came in and started to get mad at sajex and Nicole, since the space around the crack hadn't been cleared so this guy brought specially in from the T dot could work on it. They frantically shoved *everything* over, which included all of my stuff, an air hockey table, a couch, and a drumset. Then the guy pronounces the crack 'too wet', and leaves. -______-;
I handed in all of my stuff, took the test, got money, got travel insurance (go to here to print one off, it's already paid for!), got antihistamines and Tide, made it back in time for a quick shower and then we ran off to catch the go train. Fate was with us, though. Dusty and Nicole both forgot something, so we were delayed in setting off. Delayed the perfect amount of time so that we could catch a bus! It was great, our bags were heavy.
Made it into Toronto, shlepped our stuff to the Greyhound, met sajex who now had her poster, bought our tickets and some horrendously overpriced sandwiches that tasted like nothing, and got in line for the bus. Apparently you don't buy tickets for a bus with greyhound, but for a route. So we might not have been able to fit on the 7:30 bus, but have to catch the later.
Luckily for us, we *just* made it on. Nicole and I were 'Bus Buddies', since obviously Terri and Dusty'd want to sit next to each other.
Getting through customs was easy. We just smiled, and told where we were going. Terri grilled Nicole and I about where we were staying the night, and the only reason I could remember was because 'Dobs Ferry' sounds like a Fairy Fountain in Zelda. XD
I also managed to take through my pencil sharpener, and my matte knife. I had them in my pencil case, and then never x-rayed the bags or anything. Increased border security my arse. After we had got back onto our bus, two border patrol guys came on and checked the bathroom. We had seats in the back of the bus, right next to it, and man did it smell. The one guy who went in there made an awful amount of racket, which made the other border guy ask if he was alright in there.
Satisfied we weren't smuggling illegal beavers or something over the border, they let us go. We got three more people on the bus who sat right behind us, all of whom were coughing. We also lost a guy at the border. I wonder what on earth happened to him.
This was our first bus, the one we rode to Buffalo. Terri had done some checking on the cheapest way to get from Toronto to New York, and found out that if you buy to Buffalo and then from Buffalo to New York, it's cheaper. It isn't. The greyhound site doesn't default to 'round trip' if you put in a return date, so we wound up spending a bit more than we had originally though. Ah well.
After waiting for the next bus to come, we were pleasently surprised with a trip down memory lane. As soon as Terri stepped on it, she started to sing the old 60s batman tune with 'retro bus' as the words instead of 'batman'. And thus, it was named.
It is now about eleven or twelve at night when we board Retro Bus.
A few hours later...
As we were all sleeping, the bus pulled into a couple of gas stations. I woke up for one of them, but apparently it stopped twice, within about ten minutes. Terri figured that there was something wrong with the bus, and since we switched busses in Syracruse? after that, maybe there was. We all trooped off of the bus and went to grab our bags, only to be bruskly told to just get on the bus, they'll handle it. e____e So then we get on another ugly bus, only this one smells strongly of gasoline or soemthing.
Did I mention that as we get off of Retro Bus, there were border patrol people there with dogs and the like, sniffing our luggage?
After we had all gotten onto the bus, we sat there for a little while. Then some border patrol people come on, and start asking for passports. One lady starts to freak out slightly, because she's just travelling within the US and doesn't have her passport on her.
Luckily, she had enough other documentation that the border guy was satisfied. The lady sitting ahead of me was recognised by the other border guy. "I remember you!" He declared. "Do you remember me?" She mumbled something incomprehensible. "Who paid your bonds?" No answer. "Did your family?" Still nothing. "Do you remember?" She gives him whatever paper, and he moves on. I don't ever want to be as old as she was (she looked to be in her late sixties) and known to a border guy.
Made it into New York without any further problems, though Terri nearly gave Nicole and I heart attacks when she screeched about an IHOP.
We arrived at the bus terminal, got our luggage, got directions to the Javits center, and walked the seven blocks. It was so early, they were still setting everything up. We hadn't managed to buy our tickets in advance, so we decided to try to get Professional tickets. Talking to the ticket guy who was still learning how everything was working, we found out that we did count as professionals. The guy told us that we would get a free breakfast, which pretty much sealed the deal.
We got changed in the con bathroom, so we could feel more human. After a quick toothbrushing, usage of deodorant, face washing, and the like, we were ready to face the day. Rather than carrying our luggage around all day, we checked it at the coat check. I managed to stuff my big black coat into my backpack, so I only had to pay to check two things instead of three. Take THAT, the man!
Then we tried to find our way around the conference center, to find the breakfast. Dusty followed his nose.... To a dead end! We had to backtrack, only to find that the breakfast was for exhibitors, not professionals. Well!
So we walked around, until we found a McDonalds. Always one somewhere! I had this chicken on a biscuit thing, which was pretty good.
I've never seen it advertised in Canada, which is one of the reasons I got it. I also asked for water, and the guy gave me the 'free' size, which is the kids size you get in a happy meal. However, it didn't even matter, because you poured your own fountain drinks! I could have had anything! I'm too honest though, and just drank a couple of cups of delicious H2O.
We sat in the upstairs and planned our what we wanted to do and see during the con. One of the things that we wanted to check out was the Eisner documentary film, and we were worried about getting seats. Nicole and I set out to secure us some great seats, while Dusty and Terri went to get Terri some american money.
We also got pictures with two of our favourite super heroes:
We were what, two hours early? They were still setting up. We found out that Patrick Stewart was playing Macbeth on Broadway right now, and that you could get rush tickets for like 20 bucks. One of the volunteers and I squeed about this for a second, and then I had to inform Nicole who Patrick Stewart was. e____e Silly.
We watched the documentary, which was good and made me want to read a bunch of Eisner books.
After that, we decided to skip the Illuminated thing we were going to see (the next step in animation!) and go to the dealers room.
Where they had candies to entice people to check out their wares. And what kind of candies, you ask?
So many booths, so much stuff. I got this picture for hollie_hobbie, with a detail.
At some point that must have been about now, we also went for food. We found a pizza place just past the Mcdonalds that we had eaten at already. We also got some free Coke, which I wound up carrying around for the rest of the day, because apparently the states doesn't believe in having recycling bins *anywhere*. Finally found one the next day at the train station. The pizza was delicious, and he gave us a deal on the slices. Dusty had a vegetarian pinwheel or something. It looked wonderful.
We checked out a panel about drawing comics on a computer, which was interesting. There were four? people there, as I recall, and they each had a different way of drawing on computers. One guy used jillions of layers (what I do), and another guy talked about how he used to do that, but now he uses only a few layers. A dark, a seventy five percent grey layer, a fifty percent grey layer, a twenty five percent grey layer, and a highlights layer, I think. He paints everything in greyscale and then filters it into colour.
Another lady used 'manga studio', which seems like photoshop with some cheats in it, like speech bubbles and speed lines and the like.
After that, Dusty and I went to 'The State of Animation', while Nicole when to Women in Fantasy and Science Fiction, and I don't remember where Terri went. I suspect she got in line at the avatar place, but I can't remember for sures.
I recognised one of the presenter guys from the Ottawa Festival, JJ Sedelmaier. His company did the first season of Tek Jansen as well as a bunch of commercial stuff I didn't recongise, being from Canada. He talked about how his company got it's big break by doing the animated sequences on SNL, and how difficult it was for them to understand about working with animation where something couldn't be finished in three days, and wasn't infinitly tweakable.
The other guy, Mark Evanier, was talking about how he was doing a co-production with France on a Garfield show. I asked him why he was working with France, and not Korea or something. He told me that there were two ways to get a show made. One of them was to have a network or company put all the money up, and the other was to sell portions of the show and line up enough investors to get it done. Since this was a US?/France co-production, it's being made in France. It'll be in CG, and lipsynced to both languages.
They both seemed pretty hopeful about the state of the industry, and about 2d in particular. They pointed out that it was 'dead' a couple of years back, along with stop motion. And look at now! n___n
After that, we went to the avatar comic panel, which was really fun. Terri began by getting a bunch of signatures for her poster while we waited outside. They showed a bunch of comics and some fanvids, and talked about it all. It's really fun to see a show that seems to understand and pay attention to it's fandom. Rufftoon (or roughtoon?) was there, talking about her stuff. Apparently she has a comic I should check out. There were pages with the URLs of everything they showed, but I didn't manage to grab one. I'll have to find the list somewhere online.
Cosplayers!
Next thing I wanted to do was catch the X-Files 2 panel, about the upcoming movie. We got in a little bit early, so we also managed to catch some of Ralph Bakshi's panel. He would have been very interesting to see all the way through! He had some crazy opinions that he wasn't afraid to state. Apparently the original idea for Cool World was that a human father and a toon mother had a kid, half toon and half real who then tried to kill his father. Weird, but perhaps better than what Cool World wound up being.
Sorry for how blurry these are.
Then it was time for the next panel. Wait a second... Just who is that blurry man who's sitting down?
I nearly died.
Who would have ever thought I'd see Chris Carter??
Then we started the Sci Fi Friday, which was one of the reasons I went down. I was looking forward to seeing the first episode on the big screen in a theater full of people who'd prolly enjoy it.
As soon as this happened, though...
So, as all the Who fans have now realised, this was the Christmas special. -______-; And at some of the more serious parts, people laughed, which was really unfortunate. IT wasn't funny when you knew what the character had gone through, and what he was now going through, but coming at it without that knowledge... Well, I wish they had've showed the first episode of the fourth season. That would have been better.
We didn't stay for the Battlestar Galatica episode, though I thought the sum up was really quite hilarious.
On the way trying to find the bus stop, we walked past a bunch of taxis idling. One guy came up to us, and I asked how much to get to Grand Central. "Five dollars for you, for you, for you, and for you." He said, in accented english. Five dollars a person? Yeah, right. He didn't even have any stickers or anything on his car. Needless to say, we gave him a miss.
Found out where the bus stopped, and went to catch it only to find out that busses in New York don't take one dollar bills. WHAT???
Why don't they put in the little bill thingee, since their dollar currency amounts are in bill form??
We went to see if we could trade our dollar bills for the quarters, and found a group of guys who were camping out over night so they could be the first ones in the door come Saturday morning. It was apparently the third year they've done this, so they were pretty well practised. We got our money, and had a nice chat with them.
(in an aside: Nicole just gave me an *entire bag* of the white cheddar popcorn. Yummmmmmmmmm)
A picture I took from the bus:
Made it to Dob's Ferry, without falling asleep on the train and missing our stop. Gave Colin a call, and he came over and picked us up. He told us it was too bad that we hadn't arrived earlier, because they just got a firepit and they had had a fire. It's apparently a different place than what Terri had seen before, and it was the nicest little house ever. I really do love that style, it was so cosy.
Terri and Dusty slept on the pullout couch, while I took the other couch in the living room and Nicole slept on Ollie's bed upstairs, since he wasn't around yet.
The next morning, the plans to go to Dob's Diner failed, since we had to get down to the con for 11 o'clock. Didn't quite make it, since we went to the Stop and Shop to get some bagels and cream cheese, shampoo, fruit, and pop tarts. And everyone had to have a shower.
We walked down some of the steepest streets I have ever been on, and made to get to the train station in time to miss the train. -___-;
The trains made the coolest scifi noise as they left. I wish I could have got a recording of it!
On the train, Terri has finally gotten together all of the the she needs to sew on the arrow she cut out of felt onto her signature hat. Let it be known that she didn't have scizzors or anything to cut it out with, or needles to sew it on. The thread is mine... I still need to get that back! It's also TARDIS blue, not Avatar blue. ;)
The inside of Grand Central.
Click to view Terri hadn't managed to get money on Friday morning, so we went to the bank that we had seen outside of Grand Central to get stuff.
Dusty and I were terribly excited to see this:
We went there instead.
We went to see the Dinotopia: Behind the Scenes thing, and it was awesome. There's a third book out that I must buy. I wish I had've brought the one I was going to, but I cut it out for weight reasons. There was this one amazing painting where he actually blurred the paint to give it a motion blur. I thought he did it digitally, and was sligthly sad. But then he said he did it with the wet oil paint!!
He also makes a bunch of maquettes, and uses a bunch of reference. He gets his kids, and kids from friends and around the street, and friends, and all that to pose for him. He also does talks at schools and stuff, so I asked him if he ever came up to Canada. And I got his contact info, so now I've got to talk to Angela? Wouldn't that be *awesome*?? He also said he was talking to the people over at Dreamworks animation, and was asking them what their favourite schools were. They said 'Sheridan and Cal Arts', but Sheridan was first. n____n Hooray! No pictures of him, unfortunately.
We also topped the Sokka cosplayer in how far we had travelled to be there, which was kind of funny. He was one of those people who wants to be the center of attention all the time.
On to lunch! We walked back to the pizza place. We also checked out the little food store just in front of it, where they had...
Nicole and I had bought us some street meats, so we didn't get any pizza or anything. Colin and Dusty got pasta or something from the pizza place, and then managed to find someplace to sit inside, where they waited for us. Meanwhile, Nicole and I had concluded that there were no places inside and that there weren't likely to be any places available, and that it was hot. So we sat on the street. This guy came out of the apartment or office building, or whatever it was, and held the door for people coming in and out.
The rest of the time, he glared at us. Terri had bought this yogurt with fruit all through it, and was in raptures over it.
Eventually we all met back up, and went back to the con.
Nicole, Colin and I went to the dealer room, while Terri and Dusty saved spots down at the Avatar thing. I tried to buy...
Something... For someone's birthday... But the person I wanted to talk to was out for lunch... Anyway. We went to the Nick booth, and got pictures with Aang!
We also finally found Bobby Chiu, and talked with him and Nabeel. He was right next to Bill Plympton, so I guess that's good.
NOW TO THE PANEL. Hum, I think I deleted the pictures I got of the crowd. There's a video that I will upload here, just so you can all see the MASS of people that showed up.
Remember how many people there were before? Check it out now.
I tried to get pictures of all of the avatar things that they showed. No alt text for these, just enjoy.
.... That's right. THIS IS OFFICIAL ART.
AND THAT'S IT FOR THAT. Ho-MAN that was a lot.
It should also be said that Colin has only seen an episode or two of Avatar, and even he was excited by the trailers! You can find those on Youtube, I didn't take videos of them because... Well, I figured the pictures'd be enough. I guess I draw the line somewhere.
To the reboot panel! It was AWESOME. We barely even got in, there were so many people. Colin, Nicole and I sat on the floor. Terri and Dusty were trying to get stuff signed at the Nick desk. They were a little bit later. Anyway, here are some pictures from that!
Since neither of them worked for ABC or Mainframe, maybe? any longer, they could tell all the stories. SO MANY STORIES. It was awesome. For instance: How did Cecil get his name? click me to find out. It's why he was riding a brass rail. And AndrAIa? She was modeled on their favourite stripper. XD
When they were plotting out the third season, they were doing it over much alcohol and ribs, I think. They wrote it all down on one of those paper tablecloth things, but ran out space on the one side. So instead of just flipping the entire thing, they folded it and wrote more stuff. Then Dan Didio got back to his place, unfolded it, and realised he had no idea how it went back together! He had to figure everything out, like the rosetta stone.
oh!! There's an episode where the BS and P rejected the entire thing, the note actually came back 'entire episode rejected'. Then the creator guys got on the phone with them, and said that they'd used their notes to do the whole thing. And it was miraculously approved, with no changes!
The next episode, there's a bunch of binary that flashes by. If you were to decode it, it says 'fuck you, BS&P'. XD
I'm going to have to get some of the other stories from other people who were there, it was great.
He also signed our program books. Or mine twice, really.
After the Reboot panel, we caught the end of the Bill Plympton bit, which was interesting. I guess he just draws all of the frames, and then renders them on the paper! Someone else clips it all out and puts it on the background, he just does it. We saw a bit from his new film, "Idiots and Angels". I think it's something you'd have to catch from the beginning, and be prepared for a different story telling style than what you're used to. Then it might be really enjoyable.
I, meanwhile, had an awful headache. We made our way back on the shuttle bus and then the train, where there was a father who was making his child screech so high it literally passed what I could hear. And my headache got worse, and Nicole got what I suspect was a migraine or something. It was terrible. The kids behind us also thought they were hilarious, saying the names of where we where going. 'Hahahaha, YONKers, hahahaha'. Uhm... Okay? Hilarious? Whatever. Another favourite: Hah-stings on Hudson. It's Hastings. *eye roll*
When we got back to the Dob's Ferry, Nicole went pretty much straight to bed, while Colin, Terri, Dusty and I stayed up and sat around the fire. Colin's mom Joanna (however you spell it, I'm not sure. Apologies!) and a guy called AJ were also there. It was a nice way to end the night.
The next morning, Ollie, Colin's twin brother, had arrived. Colin had to go and do something for an art assignment, so he couldn't come in with us, but he still dropped us off at the station. We caught our train with much time to spare.
Nicole and I went to the Archie panel, which was in the same room as the Dinotopia thing, as well as the reboot panel. The funny bit? The Reboot panel was STUFFED. Archie, one of the best selling and longest running comics evers? Barely even full. Which meant it was freezing, of course.
They were enthusiastic, but not really engaging, y'know? It almost felt like they were there to test what they were doing, get some free audience response. And I still don't like the manga look that they're going with for Sabrina, though apparently it's selling really well. They're also trying a different style in Jughead, which I will have to find an example of. It's awfully different, I'm not sure I like it.
After that? We went to see 'Journey 3D', expecting to meet Terri and Dusty there. They went to see uhm... Something else. Well, times got mixed up, and they didn't make it. Meanwhile, we got to see...
He was really fun to listen to, and sounded pretty knowledgable about what he was speaking of. Journey 3d is based on 'Journey to the Center of the Earth', and was actually filmed with the new 3D cameras that James Cameron is making. I've heard this technology described somewhere as the 'saviour of the cinema', since you can't pirate the 3d ness of it yet. If it really is, I'll be happy. I don't want films to die out because everyone is pirating them.
He also talked about 'airball acting', where you around duck something you can't see, and then the special effects guys put in a crazy mummy or killer plants or something. Then, when the other people were trying to talk, he started to mess about with his 'imaginary friend'.
(What?? I typed more than this! DAMMIT. Well, I'll do it again.)
This is to show her that I saw it. I actually like how this one turned out! You can just see the wheel that you spun to win items. I won some fox ears, which I already have. Anyone want to trade?
It might also be to rub it in her face, a little.
There were so many signatures and writings on it! It was hard to find a place to write this:
So now there's a 'hey!' to her, on a con thing. Neat, huh?
I didn't write this, Nicole did, actually. REALLY. And she had to write it *twice*, because the first time she used a '>' instead of a '<' ! XD Silly.
I had to get this photo, because everytime I passed it, I was just a little bit sad. It's also a really nice poster. *sniffs*
We spent so much time in the dealers room, it was awesome. There were toys that were trying to be picked up by a company, as well as books that were looking for a pubslisher, books that the publisers were trying to start a 'buzz' about, so they were being given out free. Aisle 1900 was our best friend, Nicole and I grabbed SO MANY free books. I told her she couldn't complain about the weight of them, when we were going back to Toronto, but she told me that she would anyway. And she did, because they were terribly heavy. My shoulder was so sore from carrying them, but it is worth it. Now I have a bunch of new books to read!
We also got cool bags, here are pictures of them I took on Tuesday.
This bag is from the Eragon series, and I'm looking forward to reading the next book, Brisingr, or whatever it's called. Though I'm not a giant fan of how these dragons are drawn, it's still a cool bag.
We also had a free drawing coming to us from Bill Plympton, so we found his booth. It was coincidentally right next to where Terri and Dusty were scoring the free stuff in cool Nintendo books! Dusty won a Legend of Zelda twilight princess strategy guide, and
Terri won a super smash brothers brawl strategy guide. Dusty's looks really sweet, he hasn't even opened it up yet.
We also hadn't eaten since early this morning, when we had eggs at Colin's house in Dob's Ferry. Needless to say, Nicole and I were starving, so we both noticed a delectable smell in the back of the dealers room at the same time. "Are those mini-doughnuts?" I asked. Nicole thought they smelled of delicious as well, so we were now on the hunt for mini doughnuts!
So, having got directions from vader where the minidoughnuts are, we went off in search of them! Only to discover that instead of mini doughnuts, they were five dollar funnel cakes! Vader had lied!
When we went back to him to complain, Obi-Wan came in front of us, and warned us "Not to be fooled by his tricks." Where was he before, with our epic mini doughnut quest? Ah well, a late warning is better than no warning at all, right? So here's a photo to celebrate.
We later came across this, but knew it was a lie.
We had also got quite a few tiny containers of antibacterial handwash from this guy, who was indeed quite cute.
He also remembered us, which was cool.
Here are some awesome examples of stuff they had in cabinets. These are for my parents, who will truly appreciate them.
We had split up, and decided to meet in front of the animation magazines outside the con. Nicole and I met a man who had shook Patrick Stewart's hand, as he got onto the subway going 'uptown' for some appointment. After he had walked away, I said that we should have shook *his* hand, to have shaken the hand of the man who shook hands with Patrick Stewart that morning! Too late, though. What a way to start a day at the convention! He and his son were quite nice.
There were also some amazing sculptures there, of different characters. Of course we had to get our pictures taken with them! Who was first on the list?
It was a really sweet costume, it looked very nearly professional. I wasn't sure about the silver web detailing, looked like it could have been some really good quality fabric paint, or something. He also liked to stand completely still in the statue area, and then move to scare people. XD It was awesome.
So, the con is over, and I'm dying to see the original broadway cast of Rent. Dusty goes to call his grandparents, I think, while Nicole and I try to figure out where to get tickets. Turns out we could have bought them at the concierge place, any time over the past three days! By the time we figure this out though, it's closed up. And the security guards were NO help at all. All we wanted was a phone book, and when I asked them if they could grab it for us, they said that she'd already locked up for the night. Keep in mind, this was a waist to chest high booth that you could pretty easily vault over, especially if you were security.
FAIL.
We caught the shuttle bus, and were slightly stressing out over where Times Square was. A lady told us to get off at Pen Station, which was all well and good, but she didn't tell us WHERE pen station was. So we rode the bus to far, and wound up walking seven blocks back.
Nicole and I still hadn't eaten by this point, we had no idea where the theater was, or where the TKTS booth was. We were hoping to run across a phone book or something... Well. We wound up finally finding the TKTS palce, only they didn't have tickets left for Lion King or for Rent. I wanted to check at the theater, maybe they had some still available? We still didn't know where the theatre was, however, so we wound up asking at the Lion King theatre if they had any tickets left. Turns out the show started a half an hour ago, so we obviously couldn't get in. Asked at another ticket booth, but they were only selling tickets for music shows, or something.
So, on to food now. (So disappointed I couldn't see Rent, but it was my own fault. Next time I shall plan better.) We had walked past a Red Lobster on the way in, but I don't much care for seafood, so we decided to check out the Planet Hollywood that was there.
I also got the obligatory pictures of Times Square.
So, having walked all the way to the planet hollywood place and found out that even with two twenty percent off coupons, it was going to be hella expensive, we walked back to Red Lobster. And then we waited for half an hour to fourty five minutes, for a table. In the beginning, we sat on the floor between the tables in the bar and the fishtank. Then some people got up, and we stole their table. MUAHAHAHAAAAA. It was wonderful to sit down, though we still had bags of books.
Since it was so loud, they gave us a pager thing to let us know when our table was ready. The green light was blinking, so we thought that maybe it was ready already! Nicole went to check, only to come back with the sad news that it would blink much more when actually was time. And talk to us. And vibrate. O___O So fancy.
I had also grabbed another menu from the bar, so we could all figure out what we wanted to eat and order as soon as we sat down, so we could get food just a bit quicker. When I went to the bar, the bartender was helping someone else. She still acknowledged me, though. As she came back to where I was standing, this older guy gestures in my direction, to help remind her I was there. I leaned over an empty chair to ask for a menu, which she then gave me. He turned to me and asked me if I wanted to sit down, to which I replied "No, I'm going to go and sit back with my friends." As I walked away, I had to laugh a little. This guy was nearly my father's age, and here he was, hitting on me!
After what felt like FOREVER, our pager thing finally goes off, and said something like 'Your table is ready, please return this to the front desk', vibrated, and blinked red. Just so you couldn't miss it. We got a special key card to let us take the elevator to the second level, where we had to wait again since they'd sent us up before our table was actually ready.
After we were seated, our server shows up. He was cute, as well as pretty uhm... Campy? He was a great waiter, brought me some pop when my glass was getting low without me even asking, very friendly and all that. Terri wanted to leave him a cool tip, so we found a toonie to leave. He came after we had all of our monies on the table, but before we left, so he asked us if we wanted change.
"No," we said. And he gathered it up and said how this was a great night. Then he spotted the toonie, and stopped. And looked. And picked it up, and read what it said.
"OOOOH you're from Canada!" He exclaimed. ;) It was funny, he literally froze while he examined the coin.
We decided that we wanted to check and see if the *giant* Toys R Us was still open. This thing had a ferris wheel inside of it!!
Unfortunately, this being what, nine? Ten? It was closed.
As we left the Red Lobster though, Dusty looks over and calls out to me. "What?" I ask, and he points me towards...
And I cried a single tear.
So we walked over to Toys R Us, found it closed, and then walked back to the subway.
On the train.
When we got to Grand Central, Terri figured we could have just walked it. Didn't look too far, but then, it was a third of the width of Manhattan island. And we figured out the distance we'd walked from the shuttle to times square, which was about a third of distance, we told her she was crazy, and that we were all glad we had paid the two dollars. Plus, now I've ridden on a new york subway!
We had a bit of time to kill in Grand central station, before we could catch the train back to Dob's Ferry. We found the train, discovered we couldn't get on yet, realised it was *boiling* around the trains, and then found a cooler place to sit.
Dusty began this game of reading half a sentence from random places in a book, and making a hiliarious story out of it. Terri suggested that we all participate, so we each read a sentence from different books to make a story. This one was suprisingly clean, yet still hiliarous.
The train came! We went back to Dob's Ferry, minus the screaming kids and obnoxious teenagers. It was a much more pleasant ride.
That night, we all sat around the fire and continued our game of reading random sentances and making stories. This time, however, we had alcohols and dirty books mixed with kids books, which made it REALLY dirty. And even more hilarious.
The alcohol hit some people like a tonne of bricks, *coughnicolecough* but we hadn't been eating or sleeping properly in what, a month? So it was understandable. Dusty and I felt slightly cheated with our american beers. I had two, and was fine. And normally that much would do me. Ah well, it was free beer, so I do not complain.
After the fire, we went inside to the living room and watched some Eddie Izard clips on youtube, some done with legos and some of just him. They were *hilarious*. 'Cake or death?' While Colin, Ollie, Nicole and I were watching these, Terri and Dusty fell asleep on the pull out couch. Where Nicole and I were going to sleep, while Terri and Dusty were going to take the other couch. So Nicole took the couch, and I slept on the floor. Ollie brought me a thick comforter to sleep on, so it wasn't too hard a floor. Dusty kicked me a couple of times, but I kicked him back.
Muwahahahaaa.