Incessant Expressions

We spent the majority of our weekend the Florida Super Con???????? complete with “60,00 square feet” of convention space. I don’t know where they came up with that number — I suspect it was from the nimrods at the resort — but we visited every conference room and panel hall and it sure as hell wasn’t 60,000 square feet. Maybe that included the thicknesses of the walls and inclusion of bathroom stall sizes. I’ve been to quite a few of these things (not all comic-related) and frankly, the hacker cons I’ve been to have more logistic and organizational skills than this thing had. Imagine that, people without manageable social skills, varying degrees of personal hygiene, and a subtle dislike for meeting in large groups for fears of being labeled as “terrorist groups” can organize a convention better than the people of FSC, which was full of 13-17 year old kids (and their parents who wanted to hang themselves) who all wanted to not shower and hug the living hell out of everyone (and call it “yaoi” (WRONG, you kids are so stupid) and talk about wanting to be raped). Again, I’ve spent entire weekends with people who are socially inept and for the most part, have never spoken to a real girl (let alone a cute one) in person. But this place was basically a haven for rude (and smelly) morons who wanted to buy swords all day and then proceed to hit me with them all weekend. Oh, and nearly everyone under the age of being able to drive was dressed as a Wind Village ninja from Naruto or a commander from Bleach (and two shinigami from Death Note). This con basically ruined my like for both shows. I did revel in the fact that I saw a group of twenty-somethings sporting Tenchi Muyo costumes and some guy dressed as Cobra Commander.

We managed to snag less than 150 pictures, a feat for either of us given that almost everyone was in some form of costume. The costuming was expectedly uninspired for the most part but it was also pretty pathetic. Save for the Tenchi group, Mr. Cobra Commander and his wife from the Gothic Lolita tea party — which was fun and in an air conditioned room. We did get quite a few pictures from the tea party which will be up soon enough. That was an interesting affair in which I was one of three guys who wasn’t a photographer or documentarian. But I did get a fairly good cranberry/cherry homemade vegan scone. And some pink green tea. I also got to talk with Dana Snyder a few times (when he wasn’t mistaking me for Chris Robinson from the Black Crows) and Brian O’Halloran from Clerks/Clerks II (who liked our camera and my bag of snacks), and Pat Martin from the Students of the Unusual comic who also, jokingly, mistook me for Chris Robinson (this stemmed from a panel with Dana Snyder). I have a feeling we’ll be seeing Pat again at Screamfest later this year in Orlando.

I know I sound like I’m coming down hard on this con but it’s been going on for a few years now and if this is the best it can offer, I’d hate to see what previous years were like. I found the voice actors’ panel far more engaging (of which I heard about 20 minutes) than I did the Harry Potter Q&A, where I learned that Natalia Tena (Tonks) is little more than a potty mouth who really likes sex and Devon Murray (Seamus Finnigan) was about 3′5″ and likes horses. Somehow, shouldn’t that be reversed? Truthfully, that bored me to death but my girlfriend really wanted to go so we went.

Overall, I spent the weekend underwhelmed and trudged around in cowboy boots, bought more liquor (and found out my local liquor store has no flasks, I could’ve really used one on Saturday), but I saw my girlfriend all gussied up for a tea party. Which was hot.

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