Category Archives: CONS

CONS, E3, RANDOMIZER9.COM, TECH, Videogames

WHEEE-3!

A few months ago when I got the e-mail from Oscar of original-gamer.com saying that I was part of the crew going to E3, I got excited.  Soon, the feeling had died down.  The constant stream of emails from various and sundry game and peripheral companies served as constant reminders that I was going to E3, but they failed to get me excited again.  As I opened my credentials in the mail, I got hyped up again, but once again, the excitement slowly ebbed away.

The stream of “Please come to our booth!” emails continued, and before I knew it, this past Sunday was the planning get-together and pre-E3 podcast.  I was happy, but not quite “OHMYGODOHMYGODOHMYGOD I’M GOING TO E3!” excited.

Yesterday, I received an email asking me to go to a booth to check out a certain music game.  I’m not sure if I can say the name or not, so I will say that it does involve rock but won’t make me a hero.

“OHMYGODOHMYGODOHMYGOD I’M GOING TO GET TO PLAY THIS GAME AT E3!”

I drove home yesterday with a big-ass smile on my face as I banged the drum beat to “Walking on Sunshine” by Katrina and the Waves on the Reliant’s steering wheel.  I was excited again, and I still am.  By this time next week, I will be in the midst of forty-thousand plus fellow members of the industry checking out all the Cool New Stuff and helping to report on it to all the happy-shiny people out in Internetland.

It feels a little odd to think of myself as “part of the industry” though.  In my mind, I am just the “voice guy” for original-gamer.com, and a writer and editor for them as well.

Then again, maybe it isn’t that big of a stretch.

Despite the fact that I will admittedly be (big finger quotes here) “working,” next week’s trip to E3 is my summer vacation.  I had recently been grousing about how I haven’t taken a ‘real vacation’ to somewhere far and/or different in a few years.  Well, if going to California to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with a bunch of developers, peripheral makers, Really Important People and fellow website multi-hat wearers doesn’t fit that bill, I don’t know what does!

Ready or not, here I come!!

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ANIME MATSURI, CONS

Anime Matsuri 2010 Report

As I sit behind my computer typing this, my eyes are barely open, my back and feet hurt a little, and I’m probably going to be a wreck at work tomorrow, but you know what?

IT WAS TOTALLY FARKING WORTH IT!

This was my first con outside of a familiar environment, and I have to say that I loved it, warts and all.

We had something of a ‘false start’ early Friday morning, as the first person that was coming along for the ride showed up a little late, but we weren’t in that big of a hurry, so it wasn’t a big deal.  My fears of not being able to fit everyone’s luggage into the Reliant did not come to pass.  This was partially thanks to my skills at arranging packages that have been honed by hours upon hours of playing Tetris.

The drive was fairly uneventful, save for a near-miss on the Sam Houston Tollway.  I almost hit some of those plastic stick-things that divide the lanes as I swerved to get into the toll lane and not the EZ-Pass one, which elicited a “WHOAAA!” from everyone and then some compliments as everyone realized that we didn’t hit anything.  Yeah, I totally meant to do that!

We eventually arrived (at about 11, I admittedly do drive slow), and met Naki, the head organizer of First Storm Manga, at the hotel.  We got our passes for the event, and set up shop at our table.

Our goals were twofold: to distribute as many copies of our compilation and mini-mangas as possible, and to recruit for our group.  On that level, I think it went very well; attendance was great, and we spoke with quite a few individuals who were interested in joining us in some form or another.  The response to the promotional items we handed out (buttons and stickers) was very enthusiastic; I mean, hey, who doesn’t like free stuff?

I have to say, though, that I feel we got a little TOO carried away at times with the other freebies, and lost sight of the fact that we are supposed to be promoting our manga, art, and writing.  That’s a discussion for another time, though.

In any event, we were succeeding a little too well; keeping up with button demand became something of a chore, and I had to run over to the FedEx Store to get fresh copies of our mini-mangas done on Saturday afternoon.

At this point I have to give a big THANK YOU to one of our Houston members:  Shauna was very enthusiastic (if not just a bit too perky for the morning, but that’s just me being a cranky old poop) and helped out a bunch.  I honestly don’t think it would have been as successful without her there.  In addition, we got to meet some of the other great Houston folks as well: Akiru, Johnny, Charlie, and Angela.  They were selling art at the table next to ours, and while the initial response was quite lackluster, things eventually picked up for them.

While things were going great con-wise, the hotel was a different story.  Anime Matsuri was held at The Marriott Woodlands Waterway Hotel and Convention Center (what a mouthful) and there’s really no better way to say it, but we got shafted.  We had reserved a double room with two queen beds and we got a single king, then had the nerve to try to make up for it by asking if we wanted  a rollaway bed for an extra charge.  Jerks.  The TV had plugs for hooking things up (like game consoles or laptops) that didn’t work.  There was no complimentary Wi-Fi, either.  Luckily I recently purchased a Sprint portable hotspot, which worked very well.  If its up to me, I will NOT be staying there next year, though.

Speaking of the neighborhood, The Woodlands is NICE. Heck, even the nearby Wal-Mart was nice.  The trees had the unfortunate effect of obscuring pretty much everything else, but it was all still very wow, especially when I missed a turn and passed by a lake surrounded with million-dollar homes.

I can’t say much about the rest of the convention, because except for the couple of times when I snuck away, I spent most of it at our table.  Everyone seemed to be having a good time, though.  I heard from other First Storm Manga members that it great, too.  I know of one person that was irked because a guest cancelled at the last minute, but I think for the most part we all had a great time, met some nice people, and had lots of fun.

I almost ran out of gas on the way back, though…the Reliant was fine, but I had to let someone take the wheel on the drive back because I was just so darned tired.  I got back at Sunday at 10, but it was a great time, and I can’t wait to hit the road again.  E3, here I come!!

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CONS, FIRST STORM MANGA

Anime Matsuri – Pre-Game

I’ve been going to anime cons for just over a year now, and despite that, I have yet to get what one might consider “the full experience” because they have all been near home.  I have yet to go somewhere completely different, stay in a hotel, and fumble around town searching for places to eat and/or a store to buy things that were forgotten.

Thus, my first “real con” will be Anime Matsuri this weekend.  I’ll be getting up at the crack of dawn tomorow, picking up some friends, and hitting the road as we head to The Woodlands, north of Houston.  I’ve never been to that area before, but that doesn’t really mean what it used to.  After all, how scary is going to a new place when you’re carrying a GPS-enabled cell phone with Google Maps installed?

It will be nice to not have to drive home every day at 2 AM in a haze, though.  Staying at my parents’ house during RealmsCon seemed like a good idea until I found myself needing a little help from Diet Mountain Dew to make the 30-mile trip from downtown Corpus Christi to my parent’s house.  Stumbling back to the hotel room Friday and Saturday night shouldn’t be nearly as bothersome.  Driving over there in a haze early Friday should be fun though…

I see this as a warm-up, because I will be going to this year’s E3, and THAT will definitely be an experience!

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CONS, FIRST STORM MANGA, REALMSCON

RealmsCon Day 1: In The Ghetto

Originally posted at J2GAMES.COM

First a disclaimer: I am from the Corpus Christi area.  Thus, my opinions are colored by the fact that I think Corpus Christi is a podunk town that only has only had one good thing come out of it, and that’s Whataburger.  I went to Realms-Con to preach the gospel of First Storm Manga and also out of curiosity to see what kind of con they could throw, especially after experiencing the uber-goodness that was San Japan.

It started out well enough on Friday morning.  First Storm Manga “Roadie” Javier and myself headed to the Holiday Inn Emerald Beach to set up shop.  I had expected a big hassle getting our badges because of the fun times I had running back and forth between the Municipal Auditorium and the Holiday Inn during the start of San Japan (YES I’M STILL BITTER).  The original plan was for us to use half of Chris’ table for FSM and the other half to sell his leftover stuff from San Japan.

First, we had to FIND the registration table.  This was made even more fun by the lack of signage.  As REAL men don’t ask for directions, we simply hung a left at the hotel’s front desk.  Walking down a hall, we saw some tables, and at the end, we found one with a “First Storm Manga” sign on it.  I was enthralled that we had our own dedicated table, but just a bit disappointed when I realized we had been placed at the ass end of the convention.  The only thing nearby was the video game room, which wasn’t even open yet.  My confidence would have been more inspired if it hadn’t been for the flickering fluorescent light over our table.  Great, I thought, I’ll be drained AND blind by the time this is all over.

But hey, a table was a table, and it would be all ours.

We still needed our badges, and so we headed back the way we came to find the registration desk.  As we walked around, we passed by Chris’ table, located right in front of the panel rooms in a high-traffic area.  Wow, isn’t he Mr. Cool.  We soon found the registration table OUTSIDE of the hotel.  I would later learn that they were forced outside to avoid a long line of people inside the hotel, which made sense, but at the time I remember thinking who could have thought that was a good idea.

Now for the fun part: “Hi, I’m Eduardo Soliz from First Storm Manga, and I am here to pick up our badges so I can set up our table.”  Now, technically, I was supposed to be under Chris’ table, but after seeing they had a table assigned to us, I logically reasoned that they would have badges set aside for us as well.  As the registration-gal flipped through the packs, I saw one with Chris’ name on it, which I hoped meant he would have an extra badge for his guest.  Much to my relief, I would later discover that was the case…once they figured out who he was, that is.

Badges around our necks, we headed back to the Reliant (my 2005 Dodge Neon) to get our wares and head over to our table “in the ghetto” as I would refer to it throughout the day.

Traffic was miserable at first, partially because of our location, partially because it was a school day, and partially because the video game room was running late getting set up.  The sign at the door that originally said “Open at 12:00” was quickly edited to read “12:15” then “12:30” then “12:50” and then was taken down.  We kept seeing the same people walk by over and over again as well as the occasional hotel guest walking to and from the pool.  Luckily, traffic picked up around four, once school let out, and except for a quick run to Subway and a trip to the hospital to visit some folks, the day was pretty uneventful.  We gave away almost all of our copies of Manga Madness, each with a copy of San Japanic! inside.

I kept wondering what was taking Chris so long, because he had told me he was going to be there at 3.  He showed up much later, but by that time, the other tables were closing down, so I figured we would do so as well.  We all rode in the Reliant to the two-story Whataburger By The Bay where we chowed down and discussed Saturday’s plans.

It was decided that we would move over to Chris’ table for the improved traffic, and so that we could peddle his wares (no free lunch and all that).  The move would turn out great in one way, and not-so-great in another…

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