Tsubasacon
Oct. 13th, 2012 11:00 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
cornerofmadnessI haven’t been to a con in about two years, maybe three so I felt it was time to go. I didn’t particularly want to go alone. This is one thing that is just more fun with someone but alas no adult here wanted to go and while my students were going they surely didn’t want me hanging around and vice versa.
I almost didn’t go. I got highly nauseous over night and whatever it was shot my sugar into the stratosphere. In fact by noon I was certain it was already late afternoon judging by how draggy I was, not to mention the back pain as the weather changed yet again. I was so nauseous I actually cracked open the pepto bismal cherry (new flavor for me and for once pepto didn’t make me want to hurl).
I pulled on my Madam Christmas cosplay and headed about eighty miles south to Huntington but not without trials. I didn’t realize until I looked this morning that it was at Big Sandy Super Center arena (which is where many concerts are too). I’ve only ever really been to Huntington once taking students to the medical school and I vaguely knew how to get there. Sadly according to the tsubasacon website, parking is 10-15 minute walk away. I got out my new tom tom that insisted 3rd ave didn’t exist. I put in convention center. That didn’t exist. I substitute it for the old Magellan and Maggie insists there is NO Huntington WV (it’s only the second largest city in the whole state). Figuring there were sun spots or all GPS hates me, I go back inside, turn the computer back on and go to Google maps and learn that rt 2 runs right into 3rd ave. I have to make zero turns. Well that’s convenient.
I finally get under way with my final thought of don’t forget your camera or your sack of quarters. I forgot the latter and naturally ALL the parking is metered. Had to turn around go to a 7/11 and they gave me quarters. However the parking is literally across the street. Even I can walk that faster than 10 minutes which yay. But why in the hell was it 83 degrees out 0_o. At least my sleeveless dress wasn't too cold (well I had the coat but wasn't put that on until I had to)
I have to say, unfortunately, it’s not a very well run con with not that many interesting things. If they had voice actors, I didn’t know about them (not that I’d care. I don’t really get into that). They had only two or three panel rooms and the vendor room showed that eBay has nearly killed the vendor room. I mean this is a big convention center but the dealer room was tatty at best. I think this may be the one place that the artist alley was bigger than the vendor room.
I did my best but there wasn’t much. We had the t-shirts that had nothing to do with anime (or even SF/Fantasy really. I saw that at Anime Boston a couple years ago and couldn’t figure it out then either), the vendor selling cheap Asian swords and naturally the pocky stand but frankly I can get that at any Asian grocery in Columbus for half the price. There were two stands selling manga but it was all old stuff at half price. I was beginning to think that I wasted all my gas and my 35$ to get in.
I did however, find a few stands with cool stuff. I loved the messenger bags but they were $$$ and I have two. I thought about one for ELD but she doesn’t really use bags and I could spend that money on something else. I also found a Hellsing figure for Flippy but it cost more than I spent on everyone combined. Sigh. Didn’t get it either. Sorry ELD but no one had the chocomint figures at all.
I did find someone selling little figures and got Yuki and demon and non demon Rin for myself (they were the half charge take a risk and buy the box blind. Someone else had them too but you did have to buy and take the risk with them. I opted for the ones out of the box so I knew I was getting the three characters I wanted. I guess I can’t even pretend I’m not into the Blue Exorcist fandom any more).
I found a couple silly things for ELD for the holidays (but nothing you actually ASKED me to get. It wasn’t there. Pouts). NONE of the poster art was anything I knew or would be willing to hang on my wall. There was a little cloth wall scroll of Natsu from Fairy Tail but the kid in front of me got the last one. I’m big into cards so I got myself a deck of playing cards for Fairy Tail and I also got a really cool plastic folder of Rin and Yuki that had five in a pack. I almost got the Blue Exorcist magnets but they were tiny and I could probably do as well printing my own…. They had some of those buy a blind box sets of some anime I didn’t know (some girl rock band I think) that the characters talked. Now that was cool. Too bad it wasn’t like that for ones I collect.
I almost got the Cthulu originimi (sp) but I was running low on money and I was getting tired and I forgot to go back. I did get something from the alley for the holidays and then went outside to sit for a minute, kinda feeling as old as the Madam at that point. Sadly, Huntington is a depressed area and you can tell it. The costuming was just plain bad but there was a kid dressed as the current doctor and a moving Dalek (his friend was inside). I did take a picture. I couldn’t get the doctor except for his back because the kid in the black hoodie with the white swirl literally leapt into every picture I took.
I found the gaming room and wow I felt so OLD. One, the only thing I could think of is ‘Kids, when you hit puberty, deodorant isn’t an option. You must start using it. You all STINK.’ Two, these games are amazing. It’s like a movie. I would have murdered my mother and stepped on her body to have gotten games like this back in the 80s. I’d never have finished school if I had games like that.
None of the panels excited me and they weren’t showing any anime anywhere the entire time I was there (I should have gone on Friday when it would have been cheaper and they wouldn’t have been sold out of FMA brotherhood stuff. I just didn’t think that through). I went back to the alley and spotted someone I had walked past the first time. He looked a lot like Oliver Queen and he was talking to the Green Arrow (and I didn’t think to take a picture because by now I was feeling a bit ill again). I looked at the American ‘manga’ he had and the art he had done as matted wall art and posters. When he was free I said, ‘you know this looks like the Ridges, the insane asylum in Athens Oh, up where I live.’ His eyes got big and replied, ‘my brother is at OU (in the Athens) and the Ridges was the inspiration. I did get the whole trilogy since he was really nice to talk to and it was about a lady cop turned werewolf in Chicago called Paradigm Shift. His name is Dirk I. Tiede and he’s from Boston. His website is Paradigm Shift manga.
After spending far to much I run back across the street with my magic beans and stow them and head for the Barboursville mall to go get dinner (only to remember I forgot all my coupons and gift cards to either Logans or Olive Garden because I’m just that smart). I did get cannellinis at OG and then went to Books a million where the affects of pasta on my sugar were obvious as I signed up for their Millionaire card.
SOOOO peeps I buy gifts for, if you have a book in mind for the holidays, see if BaM has it because with the card, I at least get free shipping (take that Amazon, I don’t have to spend 25$) and they claim their prices rival Amazon’s (well it better since they might want to remain in business). I did buy the first of the Alice in the land of Hearts omnibuses since yeah, my brain was flooded with sugar.
I did like the drive home. Rt 2 follows the Ohio River and in the dark you can’t see the poverty. You can, however, see the lights playing on the water. It’s pretty. This route is also known for hauntings, UFO’s and the occasional Mothman. I was a bit disappointed with some of my purchases, not terribly so but still. The Fairy Tail playing card deck did not have a lot of anime art. It had the same repeating chibis on the cards of Natsu, Lucy, Gray, Erza and Happy and the face cards were the same art of them in their non-chibi form. I would have liked it better if it had use the anime art or at least wasn’t the SAME art for every suit. Also the Blue Exorcistfolders were five of the same picture which I thought it was five of different ones. Hmmmm.
It wasn’t the best con ever but they tried hard and it was fun to get out. I would have liked to have seen a little more of everything but oh well (wonders if most of their money goes into getting that convention center with not enough left over to attract movers and shakers in the industry there or did I simply miss them?).
I DO have to say that sometimes the Powers the Be know what they’re doing. I applied to Marshall University (which is just a block or two away) twice. Once in the 80’s for medical school (knowing I had no prayer) and once for forensics after being injured (and was stunned to be turned down), and both times I was rejected (something that didn’t happen to often in my academic life). With all due respect to the Thundering Herd, Huntington feels wrong. Seriously, both times I’ve spent time there, I couldn’t escape fast enough. The place gives me the heebie jeebies and I can’t tell you why. It’s like the whole town is over a hellmouth or something. I can’t imagine spending four years in school there. Maybe it gets better with exposure.
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Date: 2012-10-14 03:12 am (UTC)Maybe you can sell some of the duplicate folders. Unno.
I'll be interested in seeing what you found for me.
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Date: 2012-10-14 03:51 am (UTC)or use them or give them to another Blue fan
i'm hoping you don't have it. one is a brotherhood thing and since it wasn't even out the last time you and I went....
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Date: 2012-10-14 01:43 pm (UTC)That's also a good idea.
Now I'm even more looking forward to seeing it.
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Date: 2012-10-14 05:22 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-10-15 01:00 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-10-15 01:23 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-10-15 01:29 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-10-14 11:46 am (UTC)That sucks about everything else.
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Date: 2012-10-14 05:23 pm (UTC)yeah it could have been better but I had a good time
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Date: 2012-10-14 02:22 pm (UTC)The Super Center is an addition to the town since I moved. I never really thought that Huntington was big enough to have a venue like that. Guess I'm wrong.
I know that some Marshall programs are very difficult to get into. My cousin's kid, ANV, is in the forensic science program. She started applying when in 10th grade. The faculty watched her grades and progress through high school and she was given a scholarship to the program. 10th grade. I was just trying to get my friggin' driver's license and had no thought of college.
Though I'm not a Whovian... the dalek costume is friggin' awesome!
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Date: 2012-10-14 05:17 pm (UTC)It's a big venue. Big Sandy is trying to bring culture to the area without having to go all the way to charleston or columbus
I can believe that. Marshall does have that rep. I would have thought though, that after earning one doctorate, they would have let me into their forensic program. In 10th grade I was in a program that did science stuff in Pitt. That's how I met Cyril Wecht.
I'm a new Whovian (still don't like the old) but that was a great costume.
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Date: 2012-10-15 01:53 pm (UTC)My cousins' daughter Brittany went to the con. She loved it. :)
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Date: 2012-10-15 03:28 pm (UTC)that's good. Honestly the kids seemed to be having fun
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Date: 2012-10-14 03:01 pm (UTC)I bet the administration is under the control of some serious baddies. You could have been Huntington's slayer... or Soulless. ;)
That poor little convention. :( Poor you for going to it and spending all that money.
Ours is SMALL, but I bet it's better. XD Sadly, there was NO Brotherhood merch at ours. :( Correction, there was a VERY spiffy and VERY expensive Greed!Ling statuette.
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Date: 2012-10-14 05:11 pm (UTC)It could be that there was more at the con but I didn't know. I couldn't even figure out the poster board that told us what was going on since it never bothered to say WHERE anything was.
apparently Brotherhood merch doesn't exist. Those statuettes are horribly expensive. THere is a gorgeous one of Rin as well but it's well over 100$. I would like to see your con