Megacon: The Verdict? Awesome!

Very, very awesome. I mean, totally. I can't even describe how awesome this event was. The highlights:

Everything.

Well, let me encapsulate. I ran into a lot of interesting people and took a lot of interesting photos, those including:

- Ninja Babes from Space
- The Gears of War crew, in full regalia
- The King (the Burger King)
- A Predator
- Peach and Zelda from Super Smash Bros. Brawl
- Spider-Man
- LEGO Darth Vader
- Ghostbusters
- General Grievous
- The entire Team Fortress 2 crew, minus the Heavy
- Pyramid Head and, well, Mrs. Pyramid Head
- People from 4chan protesting Scientology
- Ghost Rider
- An enormous Kirby
- Ashley J. Williams
- Kakashi holding a "Naruto Sucks!" sign
- Two separate Luigis, one holding Yoshi, one holding an invincibility Star
- Tifa Lockhart
- A girl with a sword that was way bigger than she was
- Master Chief in a fetching blue MJOLNIR suit
- Transformers

And lots more. Those are just the highlights.

I spent a lot of money, but I expected to, so it was okay. I still have a good bit left to get me through to the end of the semester and the beginning of summer, assuming I avoid any more $100 trips to the mall for stuff I don't need.

I got to paint a figurine. He was a dragon knight, I decided, since he was in totally insane full-plate with a kickin' cape. Black armor with silver trim, faded purple cape, gold helmet with red plume. I decided that he would have a golden sword with which to slay the golden dragon. This spurred a debate with Travis over the fact that gold dragons are good-aligned in D&D and whether or not a golden sword would harm a gold dragon. I short-circuited the discussion by stating that he had a golden freaking sword with which to slay the goshdarn golden dragon and that was all there was to it. Sometimes an author of fantasy must put his foot down.

I bought, oh, what did I buy? Many things. I got a picture of what should have been the 36th character in Brawl, Fawful, of Mario and Luigi: Superstar Saga. He has fury. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ukxfzIoB7AA is a good example, but not my Luke-Approved YouTube Link of the Day, that'll come later. Look at the way he talks, and you'll see why I like him. I also got a short portrait drawn to my specifications of a couple of characters from Fullmetal Alchemist.

An big bag of dice was another thing I bought. They were selling dice from an enormous bin, where you could scoop out a random mug of dice for $9 or a hand-picked mug for $13. I went for hand-picked - how could I not? Picking the dice was the most fun part. I got, what, 8 d4s (I was searching for 4-sided dice, muttering "d4s, d4s" to myself. Jake leans over my shoulder and says "May d4s be with you, Luke." It was all I could do not to hit him in the face.), 20 d6s, 10 d8s, 13 d10s, 4 d12s, and 12 d20s. I will never again have to pillage my various board games and beg dice off people for enough dice to create characters.

I also got a 24-sided die that looks just like a big 20-sided die ("And I roll, what's that, a natural 22. That's a critical hit if ever I saw one."), and several special d10s. I got many that count off in ones and three that count off in tens, but I got one for hundreds, thousands, ten thousands, and hundred thousands. If I ever need to roll damage for a nuclear bomb, I am now ready to do this very thing.

I have been looking for a particular Magic card, Murmuring Bosk, for some time now. It's very expensive, but I need four of them, so I reluctantly bought one for $17. I did not want to buy four at that price. I bought several packs of Morningtide from this one group that was selling them for $3, which is a good value. Also I ventured many dollars on dice rolls. There were four d6s that you would roll at once. If you got a 4 or a 24, you won a free box of Morningtide packs, which I very much wanted. I didn't win any, to my annoyance, but I got several grab bags for my trouble. If you didn't win a box, you got a grab bag of random cards. Good stuff there.

The funny part, at least to me, is this. At the end of Saturday, I ventured $5 on five rolls of the dice. My last roll was 1, 1, 1, 6. If that stupid 6 had landed on its opposite side, I would have won a free box. But instead they gave me a pack of Morningtide, which I opened to reveal: a Murmuring Bosk. So that's two, I only need two more.

My costume was great. At least, great on average. I was Scar from Fullmetal Alchemist. My clothes weren't too difficult, just a long yellow shirt (should have been a jacket, but I couldn't find one), white undershirt, and black pants with white stripes (Victoria sewed the stripes on). And black boots. I begin to understand why people like boots. I had my hair bleached, and my highly skilled friend Lauren drew an incredibly complex and awesome tattoo on my right arm that my character uses to destroy anything he touches. It was very, very awesome and lasted all Friday...but it came off. I got caught in the rain when Vic's car broke down, and the ink ran right off. So I scrubbed off what remained and had Matt replace it with "COMPLEX TATTOO GOES HERE" in blue. I got less pictures taken, but more people thought it was funny. And yes, I did get pictures before and after.

That's about it. I'll post updates of my ski trip over the next week or so. The Luke-Approved YouTube Link of the Day is http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e-yldqNkGfo It's called "Food Fight." It's a history of American-centric wars over the last half-century or so, using food to demonstrate. There's a link explaining what foods represent what countries, but see if you can puzzle it out on your own. It's fairly self-explanatory, but some messed me up.

REPLIES.

Karen: Too bad to see you won't be posting for a while...does that mean you won't be reading the blog? Does that mean you won't see this response? I hope not. I'm working on the blog when I can, and I'll keep updates semi-regular. Trust me. I wouldn't miss out for long.

Jake: Well, yes, that would have just been foolish and against all the genre conventions. I'm going to write another story with that character, probably by the end of this week, maybe not. My costume came along great.

Mom: It all pretty much came out at once. I went a-wandering, as I am wont to do during the evenings, and came up with that plot and that story all in one rush. As for why nobody could remember, the protagonist ensured it, which I forgot to put in and edited in later.

Steve: I stretched a bit far, but I think it went well overall. You and your fruit rush. I ate most of the fruit I got, giving some to others. Pumpkin-flavored flax. I swear. And I know Brawl is amazing, I played it on Saturday at Megacon.

Bye.