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Comic-Con 2006 Report, Part 1

After thinking that I wouldn't be able to go to the San Diego Comic Convention most of last week, I finally managed to know that I could definitely go once Thursday came. All I had to do was take a change of clothes, the cellphone charger, and not much else. Strangely enough, for all the last-minute planning I did, things didn't go as smoothly as planned. Below is a rough record of events that occured on Saturday (7/22):

12:30 AM - Finished packing a few items into my backpack. However, the digital camera I thought I had was nowhere to be found. Then I remembered that my crazy stepdad must have threw it away (along with my Gameboy Advance) because I left it in a box of toys. So much for thinking I'd get to take lots of hi-res photos...

4:30 AM - Just woke up from a nap taken at 1 AM. By this time, I thought I'd have been on the freeway and here I was just getting up. This was 2 hours later than I expected.

6:00 AM - Finally made it on the freeway after filling up my ride with $35 worth of gas. I was hoping to be able to make it from Las Vegas to San Diego in 4 hours and 15 minutes or so, but this didn't happen...

11:30 AM - Arrived in southeast San Diego after sitting through at least 20 minutes of backed-up traffic. I immediately went to Ralphs to use the restroom and withdraw money for a car payment.

12:30 PM - Finshed the car payment and went to go get some quick chinese food. After waiting more than 10 minutes for something that was supposed to be ready in 5 minutes, I left and headed straight for the Convention Center.

1:30 PM - Arrived at the Convention Center after parking in a nearby neighborhood and walking for 15 minutes. At the volunteer desk, I was given everything I needed to get in, but because I got there just a little too late, there was no work for me to do that day. Therefore, I just walked onto the event floor.

Between 1:45 PM and 7 PM, I did quite a bit of walking and standing, visiting many booths, including...

Square-Enix: Played Valkyrie Profile 2 and Dragon Quest: Rocket Slime. There was the opportunity to play the PS2 or cellphone version of Dirge of Cerberus, but I didn't get around to doing that.

Capcom: Played several matches of Super Street Fighter 2, losing all of them but coming closest to winning with Guile. It was one of those that ended in round 3 with under 20 seconds left and both of us with a small amout of life left. I also saw Lost Planet for XBox 360 and Megaman ZX, among other games.

Sony: Played Rogue Galaxy, though something kept crashing the game whenever someone paused and tried to reset it.

Snakes on a Plane: Walked through the booth, looking at the actual props used and some footage.

7:00 PM - The main hall closes, although the rest of the place was still open. If I wasn't walking around, I was watching some anime in the screening rooms while the sun was still up...

8:30 PM - The Saturday Night Masquerade starts. Although I didn't have a ticket to enter the ballroom where it actually took place, it was broadcast in another room, where I watched the entire thing. Most of the costumes (and accompanying skits) weren't that great, though there was one that took the cake. Called "Nintendont's", Mario, Pikachu, Link, Kirby, Princess (I can't remember if it was Zelda or Peach), and two guys from Fire Emblem manage to parody the old Batman TV series, Titanic, Brokeback Mountain, and some other couple of movies in a matter of minutes.

10:00 PM - The Masquerade nearly concludes after a few interruptions, jokes by the presenter, and a redoing of a skit with Evangelion 01 due to a technical glitch (the music didn't play the first time). Because I wasn't ready to leave yet, I went back to the anime screening rooms since I was too lazy to see what else was happening.

11:00 PM - I decided that it was time to leave since I was feeling sleepy and hadn't really eaten since I left Vegas (18 hours ago).

11:30 PM - Got off the freeway around the SDSU area. Before I managed to reach Taco Bell though, I was pulled over by the police. After showing my driver's license, insurance, and registration, they tell me that the lights between my license plate are out. It wasn't like that made it anywhere near impossible to see the plate, especially since anyone with working headlights could still see it...

Part two will be put up soon, detailing the events that happened Sunday and a list of costumes I saw people wearing on the two days that I was at the convention.

posted by el-chozo-loco @ 6:31 PM