WonderCon 2009

[xxxplizit]

Despite looking very pale, WonderCon was a fun event for me.

I was there Thursday afternoon until Sunday night. I stayed at the Good Hotel. Yes, there's a hotel called "Good Hotel" (7th street in SF). It's a nice play to stay.

I'll try to keep the post as short as possible.

What has happened at WonderCon:

• Helped set up Cobblestone Books's booth, since I promised to help them out. Besides, I've known them for nearly 17 years.
• Watchmen Panel on Saturday. That one was obvious. I kinda slept in line for a little bit because I lacked some sleep due top studying for a midterm that occurred on Monday. See pictures.
• Astro Boy showing. From the 3D animation I've seen, it's actually not that bad.
• Went to Chevy's with a couple of the cosplay community. Fun times! That Pornogranite Pomegranate Tequila was good. It was interesting on how some people were discussing the older generation of the Bemani/DDR community way before I played. Oh, the oh-so-good ol memories, but then we all move on. We should all hang out again next year at Chevy's again.
• The Fire Emblem booth looked nice. I am surprised that they've set this much up just for a Nintendo DS game. I decided to play a lil bit of Fire Emblem Shadow Dragon. Looks like fun. ^_^
• Entered a shitload of sign-up contests there. Sadly, I wasn't lucky enough to win any. :(
• Bought a bowler hat for 25% off. I guess having an exhibitor's badge really helps, but don't tell people that. ^_^
• Custom Burger restaurant was tasty. Despite being a bit pricey, it was enough to fill me up.
• Nintendo Panel was interesting, discussing what games they translate from Japanese to English and vice versa.
• Wacom booth was awesome! Played with the actual drawing peripheral and I am so hooked! I want to get one of those and get back into drawing again.
• Capcom Booth was a no-brainer. That was the top booth of WonderCon, sporting a lot of games. Obviously, the Street Fighter IV was the hot spot. I had a good run playing some Street Fighter IV there. No, I am not that good, but I did rack up some wins.
• Cosplay photoshooting. See pictures below.
• Quite a lot of business-related stuff. I can't mention that to you guys; that's both personal and private. nya nya :P
• Just realized that "people want to kill me for some reason." *inside joke*
• More chatting with people. :P
• Packed up on Sunday and came home at 11:00 PM.

The downers (or what I missed):

• Mel's Diner sucks on making omelettes. Made my mouth severely dry.
• Bad weather.
• Not eating meat on Friday. Remember Catholics, this goes on until after Easter.
• Spending more than what I expected. Fuck.
• Some booth selling hundreds classic games for $20. Hundreds of games can be tempting. On CD and DVD format? Hmmm. PS controllers with converters to USB for 5 IBM laptops? Ummmm. Hit escape by accident and already knew...it was emulators with ROMs. Oh, oops, did I say something?
• Someone asking the Nintendo Panel guests about ROMs and Hacking. People booed him for asking such question. Saw that coming. Common sense people: the answer you will always get is "no comment".
• The amount of people bitching about Zangief being "Broken". Surprisingly, I beat some Zangief players with E.Honda, especially when some people kept eating my wake up Ultras. It's not like he's SSF2T Shin Akuma spamming 2 Air Fireballs or nearly 70% regular gou shoryuken.
• Didn't get the 10 wins in a row for the free Chun-Li figure. Oh well. About 8 wins in a row is good enough.
• Missed out some cosplays. Argh!
• EA's booth was disappointing. Only 2 games to play (Mirror's Edge and Burnout), both crashing frequently during the con. Wasn't too patient with that.
• A bad scar on my left eye after the edge of a falling box scratched it. Luckily, it wasn't directly at my eye.
• Getting severely sick the next morning. Very bad since that was my midterm day. Wasn't sure if it was because I was very dehydrated, weather problems, lack of sleep or overworking myself throughout the con itself. :(
• Missed out on Masquerade.
• Not being able to cosplay at the event. Not sure if that would be a good thing or a bad thing. You be the judge.

Pictures:



Epic FAIL. This was intentional.



Use the force to skeeball the course. :P



Fight the powah!...Oh wait, I didn't do anything. XD



Kikoken!



Awww, how adorable.



Force choke!



Why Windu? Why u slice off my hand!?



Willy Wonka was nice. Surprisingly, he gave me candy. ^_^



Tested the pressure-sensitive pen + peripheral. I was just testing. Sorry, I didn't take any pictures of sample drawings I did there. But yeah, this is a very interesting tool that I hope to get myself.



Fried Ice Cream at Chevy's.



Jesus loves us all!



Holy shit! It transforms!!



Soul Eater...Part 1



Soul Eater...Part 2



Taken before the Watchmen panel.



ACE wants you! Join or else...



God(Craig)zilla eating penguins.



The nutshack picture. For those who are Pilipino, you should know who they are.

More pictures here:
DAY 1
DAY 2
DAY 3

It was nice seeing a lot of people. From old school friends that known me since high school (or even elementary school). From even family; my aunt, uncle, and 2 kids were there. From the cosplayers, photographers, and even con staffers as well. Too long of a list, but YOU KNOW WHO YOU ARE!!!)

Overall, I liked WonderCon a lot. I'll definitely come back, though unsure about plans for next year's WonderCon.