Spent the last few days on vacation for C2E2.
- We stayed Thurs night in Kenosha as a half way point of home and Chi Town. Ate at a chain place called Chedders which was excellent. They had drink with an alcohol warning on it, so I of course had to try it. Needless to say I woke up at 3 am with a Tequila hangover.
- Drive in was ok considering it's the insane Chicago traffic and it was AM rush hour. I thought my buddy had lost his mind and was going to turn into oncoming traffic with a semi bearing down on us, but he was squeezing over for someone else, not turning. I screamed in fear in what will be the running gag memory of the weekend.
- My buddy understandably didn't want to drive all over (My travel plan was basically all within a mile or less of the hotel) and fight for parking spots and pay big parking fees. Our plan was to take the Metra system, which has a depot at the convention hall. We arrived at the hotel and saw they had a shuttle service for 7.50 cents a person one way, so we jumped on that. The shuttle wound up failing to pick us up at night despite our calls, so we switched to cabs the rest of the weekend.
- I went into my toy buying zone at the con. They didn't have much retro toys at all, a bit odd for a con dedicated to nerd shit of all forms. I did buy some modern MOTU, a set of 90s bendies Power Rangers, a 1990 WCW bendie SID as my own copy was beat up badly and covered in fake blood through my play time back in the day. I also bought some random magnets of Dwight from the Office and Sloth from the Goonies as Catholic Saints. Picked up a MOTU knock off from the 80s I don't think I owned, an Inhumanoid human w/drill, a Knock off power ranger and some modern Funko action figures that were made in the MOTU form.
- My buddy doesn't give a shit about toys, so he got Trish Stratus to take a pic with him and got her to sign a figure he bought of her at the con. - Fri was the Trish, Lita, Foley panel I talked about in the Flair's Last Match thread. We also went to see the original TMNT voice actors all together in one panel.
Other panels included The Nostalgia Critic and others from Channel Awesome having us discuss "Movies everybody disagrees with you on". I didn't go up to the mic, but later went to their booth and told them of my love for "Antfarm Dickhole" They howled along with me as I told them the plot. Brad Jones may review it for his channel, which would be fun.
- Another fun panel was "WTF Japan" where we watched random commercials, game shows and mini movies Japan produced about unpolite subjects. "F is for Fart" is an instant classic.
- Chicago's Ghostly Landmarks was another interesting panel I attended.
- The worst one was "Bad Trivia for Bad Prizes". The name should have been a warning. I thought maybe it was going to be goofy pop culture stuff but it was stuff like "What do you remove pencil marks with?" "AN ERASER!" "Here's a bag of erasers! HAHA!" A segment where 3 audience members danced to Madonna's "Vogue" was the highlight there. One woman stole the show with her grooves.
If toys and panels were not your thing, there was also a beer sampling area (13 bucks a can, hard nope for me), yard games to play, a big section for LAN gaming, an area with a few video game systems set up that had no theme I could figure out. (Mortal Kombat, some NBA game, and a bunch of games I was not familiar with).
- There was also a small arcade section set up with a preview for Jay and SIlent Bob's video game, then some home brews, and Retromania Wrestling. A ways away from that was some giant white arcade machines that may have been from Japan? They had NBA Jam, a few various fighting games and some Japan centric stuff. Oh and randomly Rally X. I do not know the title, but I played some Marvel fighter where you picked 3 guys to fight 3 other guys and it was pretty fun for a button smasher.
- There was a fun home brew game called Pollyanne or something like that which had the Mario platforming, Donkey Kong Jr climbing and Pac Man power pellet collecting all mashed together as monsters chased you. I had a lot of fun with that.
- Stuff for nerds of stuff outside of my realm could roam artist alley, dance at a DJ area, show off at a K pop dance stage, partake in trivia, board games, TONS of anime booths, and of course people watch!!! The Cosplay is often outstanding and there's enough girls worth going to Horny Jail over to counter the nerds who have a BMI of 3300.
- GOOD VIBES.
Random extras:
- Our shuttle driver told us to stay off the streets at night and showed us the scar in his head from where he took a bullet after being dragged off the street and shot despite giving the thug the 30 dollars he was carrying.
- We ate breakfast Sat in Chinatown and had Dim Sum, basically you select a bunch of smaller servings of food. We fat americans probably shared more plates than average. We had curry, taro, shrimp, stuff that looked like a sponge, chicken, and sausage and taters mashed into brownie sized bars. We were the only Europeans in the busy place.
- Leaving Chinatown we failed to get a cab to respond to our attempts to schedule a ride back on their website/app so we walked the 1/2 mile or so back. This would be fine most times but Sat AM it was already 90. I was drenched in sweat by the end of that walk, so I got to take a bonus shower before the convention.
- Sunday we ate breakfast by Millennium Park around the skyscrapers at a highly rated joint. I had a heart attack on a plate w/4 or 5 meats mixed with cheese and taters. Plus pancakes. We had to bail out to a buildings awning after as we waited for a cab as the heavens opened up
This AM we decided to not pay for another 25 bucks to park over by the convention since we were likely only going to stay a few hours, so we just skipped today and went home early. I had nothing I was going to find yet to buy and the panels I may have cared about were all happening at once at 11:30ish.
The drive home was super easy.
3D printed Shredder Buddha I snagged for 20 bucks.