2002-04-16 - 3:55 a.m.
#109: No Need for One Busy Weekend Part Two
Damn diaryland refuses to let me post the entry completely, so I'm going to have to resort to posting this thing in two parts....
Sunday 14th April
A new dawn which was apparently 2AM in the morning. At that point, my body decided to flick itself back to the "on" position and refused to go to sleep again until I got up, moved around a bit, watched the Batman Beyond tape I bought only several hours previous and collapse again at 4AM. When I fully intended to get up at 7AM to attend the con once again. I didn't need to, of course: my duties to the free pass had been fulfill and there was hardly anything left in the stands worth buying anyway. But lo! At 7PM I arose from my bed, cranky as hell, and ready to molest another crowd of anime watchers in the animation room with my obnoxious gameshow host presence. I wouldn't have missed that chance for the world. XD
I weaved my way through the Armageddon convention service entrance at 9AM once again, explored for a little bit in the empty and now rather bare looking convention hall before making a beeline to the animation room to wait out until 10AM. I was soon joined by Chris, EB and Josh, who had apparently managed to get in even without an exhibitors pass in hand. I'm not sure how he did it, but I think that whole "Dick Smith Electronics Employee Conspiracy" is involved in there somewhere. Probably had a secret handshake and all that too. O.o But in any case, we wiled away the half hour we had watching some AMVs, before Chris brought his role of moderator to bear and started up the first DVD for the day while I pitched my "AAC rules your world so much!".... to the single person who showed up this early for the day. Boy, did I look stupid doing that.
It got better after that, of course, and I kept leaving and entering the room again depending on whether or not I was needed to fire up the AMVs to the appropriate spot or announce the next showing. Strictly speaking, I wasn't needed that day at all, but I felt like making my presence known. I also became somewhat of an information centre, since most people there immediately assumed I was running the room. I even had some (rather pretty) girls talk to me, gyee! hyuk hyuk hyuk! But all they wanted to know either about what was going to be shown next, with a great interest in the X movie, I might add; or they wanted to know where they could get a copy of the AMVs shown in the breaks between series. Ah well. I guess my good looks and charms scared them away from asking the question that they so OBVIOUSLY wanted to ask, eh? ;-)
My excursions outside on the convention floor reminded me of exactly WHY I should have stayed in the animation room. It was hot, sticky, and unbearably full of life, especially for the lineup for autographs of voice actresses Veronica Taylor and Stephanie Nadolmy, Ash from Pokemon and Gohan from Dragonball Z. Yes, it was rather sad I'd decided to break down and get their autographs, but all I really wanted to do was ask them about how they managed to get their break in the voice acting industry and how I might go about doing that. Plus, they were both actually quite good looking women, albeit older. In fact, I saw/met quite a lot of pretty fangirls/women on Saturday and Sunday.... Not least of which were the two curvy live models dressed in Lara Croft outfits to promote the sale of the Tomb Raider DVD at one of the stands. And in one case, one was even more curvy and wearing shorter short shorts than Angelina Jolie. Rworl. And of course, the ladies at the Ralph stand. And David Macks Asian girlfriend who was the model for a lot of the Kabuki detailed artwork. I noticed a lot of nice looking ladies for those two days and I'm not sure why. O.o I mean, apart from the fact that I'm male and full of testosterone seeking release.
Standing in line netted me an unexpected bonus as well: I was standing next to a booth selling black and white Australian comics, from which I decided to make an impulse purchase of two issues of their work, the first issues of The Watch and The Witch-King, one of which I got for free. At first, it was mainly to stop the booth people from hawking their wares at me mercilessly, but a quick read through the issues convinced me that they were, in fact, NOT crap. They were so not crap in fact, I had to keep coming back for more and did so two more times. Though The Watch reminded me uncomfortably of another Wildstorm title with almost exactly the same name and premise, I decided to forgive them that for being so entertaining. Plus, they gave me a free piece of pencil drawn clipart by one of the artists, which sure is neat. O.o So anyway, that was a completely different thing from what I was expecting to get at the convention. On top of the autographs from the two voice actresses above I mean.
Speaking to the two voice actresses was fun, since they were both quite the friendly sort and happy to give out autographs. Their answers to my question about the voice acting industry were a little bit on the disheartening side however. Apart from "practice", of which I do a lot of anyway, apparently a lot of getting into the whole showbiz routine involves both knowing the right people and lots of luck. And I really don't have either of them in any great quantity. O.o Ah well, I guess that's to be expected of anything pertaining to the entertainment industry. In the end I came back to get their autographs a second time round for.... somebody else. *shifty eyed look* yeah. Yeah, that's right. I even got Stephanie Nadolmy to sign my long wooden sword (!) that I bought from the Medieval Swords display (yeah, I know what YOU were thinkin'). I was convinced by Michael to purchase one (he had gotten two!), and even though it was made of a softwood and would break easily, it was still a swordy-looking thingy! So that was yet another unexpected purchase at the convention followed by an even more unexpected signing by a voice actress from Dragonball Z. Heck, I even got David Mack to sign it as well, for good measure, though I wasn't able to grab Mark Millar and Frank Quitely in time for them to sign too. Yes, while other people may gloat about their autograph books, I have an autograph SWORD! @_@ I'm pretty sure my lack of sleep was influencing my purchasing decisions. Not to mention my judgement in general.
The last unexpected purchase for the day (yes, there's more) were tickets to see Vampire Hunter D - Bloodlust theis coming Friday and Akira - Redux on the very same day. I finally gave in to the peer pressure of watching those two films since like.... almost EVERYBODY in the AAC was planning on going. I mean, apart from Helen, who was taking the afternoon shift for the animation room and would be unable to attend without neglecting that duty (much the same position Clara was in the day before). I was also getting a lift from Ken, who offered me a ride home after the movie was over so that I might avoid the ravages of a Sunday evening bus. But before you think that all was happiness and cream on this day, a horrible and unfair crime occured to mar this otherwise wonderful day: EB had his bag stolen. While concentrating on some arcade machine at the Burger King Timezone arcade, some absolute bastard decided to walk off with his bag in broad daylight. Not only did his bag contain his wallet, keys and various personal belongings, it also included EVERYTHING he'd bought at the Armageddon convention from the past three days. That's totally, unequivocally UNFAIR. Absolute ASS to the impertinent tosser who decided to take off with that bag. And the bad thing is, on top of everything else, the only security camera which managed to capture a picture of the bugger happens to be "one of the worst in the city" according to the police constable that EB talked to. At this point, it looks like the bag is gone for good. Totally unfair.
So. Moving along, I guess. Those of us planning to watch Akira - Redux left the convention centre at 4:30PM and waved sadly goodbye to another weekend of Armageddon come and gone. We made it well into the theatre before the 5PM starting time, and then sat back to watch this masterpiece of animation unfold on the huge screen. It should be noted that before watching this, I would have said that with a trace of sarcasm. After that, I would have said it with awe. This was the second time I'd seen the film and, like Princess Mononoke almost a year ago previously, I finally just.... got it. The first time I watched the film, I was confused, dazed, and wondering just what the heck everyone was on about and why exactly did it acheive such popularity? I mean, sure it featured scenes of desturction, but lots of other anime movies did that. But now, however.... Now I was completely moved by the entire spectacular. I still came out of the theatre confused and dazed, but I understood now what the entire film was about. Or at least in my subconscious, since I can't fully explain it without watering down its elements. At its core, it's a story about humans reaching for a power that should still remain out of their grasp, and those who make light of it, or try to control it out of sheer curiosity, will ultimately be destroyed when that power backlashes on them. But that's a dry text description that doesn't include the more human reason about Tetsuos underlying psychosis that causes him to misuse his powers so. In a word, it was an awesome experience and I'm rather glad I went. I rather liked the dub too, though mainly for the fact that I recognised the voice of Tetsuo as that of the second voice of Daisaku for the Giant Robo dub as well as the poor scientist who got whacked by Tetsuo as Genya for the same dub. It's fun to recognise these things! XD
And so after that, the busy weekend drew to a close. Some things happened after that: there was a visit to the Timezone where EBs bag got stolen to see if the thief had made a return, and then we walked down to another arcade further down the road to see if the thief had visited there. We all carried wooden swords, too (there was a sudden sword buying spree after Michaels. O.o) and looked quite the threatening group, even if the softwood made the swords completely harmless. We didn't find anything, which wasted our rather dramatic entrance. After that, Amy, Chris, EB and Michael danced the night away on the various dance machines while Ken and I watched. And then we finally left once we decided there was no way in hell we were "getting our groove on" on those machines. And that's it for Sunday, basically. And now it's Tuesday after a Monday of reenergising ones batteries, which brings yet another evening AAC meeting at the University of Auckland. I wonder how many new people will be turning up this time thanks to the fliers at Armageddon? Hopefully better than the rather meagre turn out a la last year. O.o We shall see. And now, I need to go to bed cause I've been up typing this damn thing for WAY too long. I guess I feel compelled to make up for my month of complete silence. ^^;;;; Hopefully won't happen again. Oyasumi!
