This exactly what my buddy looked like when he was waking me up after a whopping 3 1/2 hours of sleep on Day 2 of the Wonderconly extravaganza. A quick bolt of coffee down the neck and we're zooming off to the Con.
Now here's a funny point...you know, placing a popular and heavily patronized convention directly next to the most heavily patronized theme park in the world...bad idea. It took us nigh an hour just to get near enough to the convention hall just to pile out of the van in the middle of traffic in front of a rather exasperated cop. And thank jeebles I didn't have a car to park! I saw more than one person having a nervous breakdown shortly after dropping an exorbitant amount of cash to leave their car on a little spit of concrete.
The next pain in the ass that was destined to be the theme for the day was security goons seemingly swapping entrances and closing exits at whim. Can't go in through this door, for 10 minutes, then they wander off to go huff paint or whatever Anaheim event staff do to remain legally incompetent.
But enough of the whining, there's still a full day of Contastic fun ahead! Naturally we first check in at the t-shirt booth and set about hawking and spreading the love. And of course the lovely people of Orange County were nothing but receptive and kind to a hulking longhaired maniac in overalls, flinging sharp edged pieces of paper at their lily-soft hands. Okay, they mainly stared at me in terror and stutter stepped away, clutching my flyers in their bleeding hands, thankful that they narrowly avoided a ride on the Deliverance Experience.
And there was yet more fun to be had. You see, the Transformers had teleported in from Cybertron for a very special photo-op! And what goes better with a photo-op than a photobomb? After only miniscule amount of prodding, I find myself successfully dared to go ape at the windows behind the noble warrior-bots. So I get into my perfected Wild Okie Amble and proceed to appear dazzled and more than a little aroused by the massive metal forms before me. When I realize that I'm seeing quite a bit of pink jiggly activity out of the corner of my eye. And I turn to see that I'm about 3 feet from the ass of the most scantily clad Moral Kombat chick-ninja I've ever seen in my life. I mean, like I could see what she ate for breakfast scantily. And so with an uproar of outrage and laughter echoing behind me, I scuttled far away from any potential security conflicts or nerdrage moments.
At this point it was wisely decided to downshift on our excitement of the day. So, we set out to do some browsing and wandering. We stopped by the autograph alley to get a peep at Lou Ferigno and the very first playmate (GILFtastic! Polydent and support hose all the way!). And then we went around to scope out all the toys we could never afford. I was really quite taken by the fez vendor's designs and the quality of construction. A fez is a hat for life after all. Also the designs over at Steam Crow were extremely witty and drew more than a couple guffaws as we perused.
Saturday cosplay was decidedly stranger. With the gender bending costumes going from say girl Boba Fett, to Ron Jeremy as Wonder Woman. The brain bleach is on backorder, but I'll be using vodka until then to try and wipe the memories from my mind's eye. Plus, it being St. Patty's, you got to see things like Chewbacca with green hair extentions and a kelly green bowler. But sadly, no demented leprechauns to be tackled for their wee gold coins.
As the Con wound down, we again met up with some SoCal chums and headed back to the pad. Upon arrival we then set about savaging a fabulously Filipino beef curry over rice. Could have been a little spicier, but it was certainly a restorative that got me through the rest of the evening. Which consisted of sitting paranoid in a pickup at a grocery store parking lot on St. Pattys until 1am. Sober. You read those hated words right. Dead, bloody, sober. I did my best to make up for it by glugging until 4:30am. But I could feel St. Pat's disdain at my not getting puking drunk on his blessed day. Alas! There is still day 3 to come!
-Pook
