Saturday 13 April 2013

Convention Review: Gemucon 2013 [Cupcakes, Beachballs and That's so Gemubaby]

Reviews, we love reviews. Seems everyone and their pony is doing reviews, but this isn't so much an account of how I felt but what the Con was to me. If you want to write a diary try livejournal, or a little book with a flimsy lock on it that will protect your feelings.

Last weekend I attended Gemucon 2013 and it was a very interesting convention. I'm sure all of us who had attended enjoyed it thoroughly and are sitting comfortably cracking walnuts, coconuts and other consumables that humans usually use tools for with our thighs, after having to use all 20 flights of pain stairs to get to the games rooms.

Gemu for me started on the Thursday night where we kinda picked a venue that was too good for getting wasted at. I met Jakeachu and Rilack there where Jake and I jumped up and down shouting "SHOTS SHOTS SHOTS SHOTS SHOTS" to persuade Rilack to do silly shots with us. I'll not get into the machinations of how that went but it was a pretty awesome ice breaker, even if Rilack bought me a shot of something I could use to neutralise most toxins or strip the rubber off a car tyre. That troll convinced almost everyone to get classy and dress up then turned up in a T shirt.. Pains me to say this but well played good sir.

Accommodation
I didn't actually stay at the Britannia but I did see the rooms and although small they were not too shabby. A friend of mine stayed at the Park Plaza which was across the road and insanely spacious and nice, I tried to camp there but he was having none of it. I stayed at the Travelodge down the road which was okay apart from the drunk Nottingham people and the pub next to it, don't expect to sleep there because it'll annoy you senseless. We found out the joys of earplugs that stay, or drinking yourself into sleep/unconscious. Still for £25 a night it was pretty budgetcon and you didn't need to walk past reception to get to your room.

Food
Again did not stay at the Britannia, but we were in Nottingham City Centre. All you had to do was sneeze and several noodle shops would pop up.

Conventioning
The opening ceremony was a little slow to get going, as well as Friday night party. In all honesty I walked away from it as there was no saving that. What hit me right off the bat was the amount of socially awkward individuals and the boy-girl ratio made me think that females were suddenly DLC only. However the attendees were very well behaved and much quieter than most Anime Con attendees which was nice. Though the thing about smearing the free cupcakes on the banisters pissed me off; you'd need to be pretty fucking retarded to think that's a fun thing to do. Oh fuck, what to do with a free cupcake firstworldproblemsohmy... Smearing cupcakes on your body is horrible and wrong, it disgusts me and makes me wish there was a porn for it.

I can't remember most of Friday other than hobbling about in a half-assed daze being hungover and gallivanting around as a TF2 red spy.

By the time Saturday came about it was pretty widely known that punctuality wasn't a strong suit on the con, but it's rare to see that at most conventions anyway. Most of the day was spent going up and down the stairs in the Brittania hotel, with the stairwell caked in coffee cups, empty energy drink cans, glowsticks and the sweat of a thousand cyber athletes. You lot probably didn't know those muscles existed and now you can't even sit without getting a rash on your inner thighs. The games rooms didn't look so bad but I had to re-inject my bloodstream with cans of relentless by the time I got to the top, so I didn't really get an opportunity to have a game in between fashioning an IV drip out of tescobags and more spent glowsticks. I'm not gonna lie when I say this con had glowsticks, glowsticks everywhere, in your ears, in your hair. Though there was a table at the top with a sheet of paper that was available for doodling so I wrote "FOR A GOOD TIME CALL 0800-R-I-L-A-C-K"

My little crew had come prepared and caked ourselves in UV reactive and glowing gear, enough to make passers by think everything went nyancat. We got to the party and were begged to get it started. You asked, we delivered, you're welcome. On a serious note I gotta say I was happy that DJ Snap was there but I'd heard a lot of that mix at Kita and Ame and at Gemucon itself in the same fucking set you played it in! I really love DJ Snap mixes and the first time I heard the Kita mixes there were special times in my pants, but I was so drunk I was drinking near neat vodka (it was a mixer for my rum) and even I noticed everything sounding exactly the same as anything uploaded on Youtube and the Pokémon track played twice. The only thing that almost nullifies my arguement here is that Gemu is not an anime convention and as far as DJ Snap could be concerned Gemucon attendees are a completely different crowd (that said the fucking flyer was handed out at anime conventions that Snap had played at). Still it was something I had looked forward to and I can't help but feel short changed on that.

Fucking beachballs. Not the huge kind, we're talking football sized ones. Sure if the dancefloor is heaving a huge beachball would be cool but when you put a couple of beach balls in a sparse dancefloor that is 80% guys, you'll get a fucking kickaround. Who's idea was it to go "hey man let's fuck up a rave by playing keepy-uppy with balls that blow away with the slightest light fart"? If y'all kept it to yourselves then no problem, except for the sweaty lads landing on me who made me wish I'd wore my Metal/Rock gear, maybe impale a beach ball or three. Hell son if you want a mosh pit I'll show you a mosh pit, put your WKD down and put your damn shirt back on.

I owe DJ LastKnight a very hard kick to the ribcage, when DMX vs Thomas the Tank Engine came on I folded up and laughed my rocks off. Then I looked round and saw half the crowd looking at him, and the other half trying to carry on dancing to it regardless. That was it man, game over; I almost blacked out from laughing too hard and my girlfriend thought I was having an asthma attack on the floor. I think I'm still bleeding inside my chest, LastKnight, you chug lyf motherlugger.

The Geekton factor was one of the highlights for me, though half my team didn't turn up it ended up with myself, my girlfriend in the cosplay she won the masquerade in and four very young attendees who knew a fucking shit-ton of gaming knowledge. Big thank you to Zelly for the special sweeties for me, they were a sugary party in my mouth. There were a couple of teams at this event who were a bit too serious for their own good and not really the kind who where there to get into it and have some fun. If you get too serious you're not having fun, so shut the fuck up and appreciate your damn prizes from the Shite Box. Also for the person who had a glowstick leak on them; forgive me for not shouting; "BATHE IN IT".

Cosplay was slightly stranger than many Anime Cons, I won't say there were a lot of cosplayers and the Gamer crowd really brought out some special gems like the nice girl who won the Masquarade as Eliza Casshan from Deus Ex. I caught up with her and found out the entire cosplay is hand stitched from pleather taking her months to do entirely from scratch. If you cannot comprénde then think about a boxful of kittens playing with some string, haha they're so cute aren't they? She even got a douche to do some sewing for her the night before. Props to her and a deserved win I say. The Executioner at the Masquarade was amazeballs and really shoulda socked it to That Link Guy- OHHHHH SHIT SON YOU THOUGHT I'D FORGOT ABOUT HIM. Him. Well, to those who don't know The Link Guy was some douche in a Link cosplay who practically annoyed everyone he came into contact with and played his ocarina so much he had requests to stop playing. And guess what guys? He vlogs too. If you're reading this Jimmy, then I'll kindly re-direct you to my response to your shenanigans. In any case the masquerade was short and sweet; some stunners and some time wasters, I'm looking at you Link. I also heard you got banned from the Convention on sunday night, life achievement unlocked! 5G.

(Side note: don't go flaming the fuck out of him guys, it's far too easy.)

Now I'm not sure what it was about that side of Nottingham town centre but we saw a lot of non-convention drunk people. A drunk middle aged couple fell down on a traffic island and we went to help them, I watched because I'm a pretty shady looking character as it is and me helping up a drunk well dressed guy in the streets looks like a mugging from too many right angles. We spent another 10-15 minutes watching them amble up the road, that was entertainment right there. Then there was the hairy rambler who wanted me in his band, had to tell him my name was Marcus The Octopus to get away only to find the damned noodle shops were all shut. I shoulda taken him up on the offer, everyone said my first album should have been "Freshly Baked" (We ended up in Subways). I can't say shit however, I got so drunk Thursday, Friday and Saturday that come Sunday night I was drinking near neat vodka and struggling to get a happy alcohol rush. I ended up giving it away to Leon whom I hope it hit him like a brick to the cornea, I got you bro, I got you.

There are mixed reviews on Gemucon but I for one thoroughly enjoyed it. It felt a little like a Fushicon and that's not a bad thing, loads of connections were made and in-jokes made too. Most of the hate seems to come from things that no-one could have helped and I get the feeling that some of you wanted to it go down the pan. But it didn't and there were a lot of people who enjoyed it. Any haters? Headbutt a moving train and leave us to it.

But let me draw next set of conbadges? I draw mech and girls. I promise that whatever I draw won't have any extra elbows. When I pointed that out to Tomska he threw it away like a soggy nappy/BNP leaflet, still I really wanted that drawn picture of him with his willy out. Hah gaaaaaaayyyy..

Shout out to the girl who ran into a mirror, the guy who flipped his shit because he lost a quiche, the person who puked a trail of puke from the bar to the toilets like a magical technicolour yawn/rainbow path. GG
Shout out to the guy who looked like Tom Cruise and bought me a Guinness. GfuckingG.
Shout out to Team Neko, Conn, Rilack and Jakeachu you happy awesome buggers

There are so many people I can't highlight you all, so Gemucon, all of Gemucon, GG.

~Warai Otoko

Ps. I wrote this in stages to make sure there wasn't anything I missed. Of course I probably did, anything you'd like to highlight please stick in the comments box, mail, tweet or flash your ankles at me... Phhhwoorr...

Tuesday 9 April 2013

Conventioning 101

I was approached by Rilack of Gemucon to write up a guide on how to convention for beginners for the Gemucon Conbook. This posed a bit of a problem because I really wanted to do it and I was kinda shitting myself because I had to tone down my usual sarcastic doucheyness. In fact Rilack told me to make sure it was readable by anyone 16+ regardless of the fact that many attendees would be Xbox live players and well versed in the art of profanity. In any case, my review will be up shortly of the convention itself, and here's the article I wrote for it. There will be a few things echoed from Conventioning 102 but I'm quite happy with it.

How to Convention 101

Hello! And welcome to Gemucon 2013! My name is Jae, I’m a blogger under the name of Warai Otoko and everywhere else I’m JaeXD. Disregard my bad grammar, I warn you there will be a lot of it and an excessive use of the comma. In fact if anyone here studies English at a degree level or teaches it, please do not read any further and forgive me for setting any potential students back a few years in their syntax. For those of you who know me and my blog you’ll fare pretty well as you know the score, but unfortunately I’m not allowed to go full throttle here or Rilack will beat me with the Fist of Rukt.
    So here’s an article on how to maximise your time at a convention by yours truly, so if you really want to grab the action by the polar regions then read on, you lucky lucky people.

This is pretty straight forward and for the most part echoes the rules of the Convention, which you should go read if you haven’t done so. It’s okay, go ahead right now and read. I’ll stare at you uncomfortably as you do so.

Done? Good good, read on.

Food - Eat it. I don’t know how some people forget to do it, I wind up cranky and cantankerous if I haven’t eaten for more than an hour (more so than usual) but it’s understandable that there’s so much to do/see that you don’t think you’ll have enough time. Thankfully Gemucon is in Nottingham city centre, so run out and grab a bite to eat.

Drink - For conventions pack some isotonic drinks and make sure you drink the entire bottle if you start to feel a bit run down. These are pretty damn handy in the morning after a hard night’s thrashing around on the dancefloor like the greatest Magikarp attack impression. Regarding alcohol; adhere to the rules of the convention on that and if you do drink then do so with consideration. The committee are all issued with gravity hammers, just so you know.
    I’ll assume many of you are gamers who love carbonated beverages and the energy kind. Many of you however aren’t like me in that your blood isn’t mostly comprised of coffee, or XtremeCaffeine whose adrenal glands have biceps. I implore you to take it easy with the energy drinks or you’ll have a ridiculously harsh crash that’ll make you feel like forgetting to save your progress on Ninja Gaiden after those damn fire spider ninja shank you in the coccyx with those exploding shuriken.. For the love of Jenova, they were out of view on the screen how could I see them!? …  So take it easy on the energy drinks, unless you too cannot function without eating ground coffee beans or a bowl of cornflakes and relentless instead of milk.
   
Etiquette - Don’t get me wrong, when you’re in a place with a few hundred other people who share a hell of a lot of your interests it’s rather easy to feel like we’re all mates. In a sense we are, but like that friend who you don’t see very often and you have to get to know a little better before you jump on their back and start screaming “Death To The Covenant” and let’s be honest you can’t even do that with your best mates half the time, if I had mates I could put that to the theory. So don’t jump on or glomp anyone which is doubly important if they’re in costume.
    Let’s say you see a Chun Li cosplayer, I’m the first one to admit that yes I once had the hots for her sprite way back on the SNES with SF2 Turbo. I mean holy sugar mitts, dem thighs. Sure she was only a handful of pixels but what I would give to have her spinning bird kick me... Lost about half an hour in thought there. Anyway, you’ve got to remember that Chun Li isn’t a real person and that lass in the cosplay, no matter how amazingly stunning she is to you is still a real person who has every right not to be leered on or be treated as an object. This also goes for the guys with unholy chiselled abdominals or in that costume you girls love, for the love of Sparta don’t fling yourselves at him like soggy lovesick ragdolls. If you want a hug just ask, it’s okay to hug just ask before you do so you don’t accidentally damage cosplay. I like hugs too and one day I’ll get one from a real person too.
    Ask before you take photos and whenever possible exchange details on where they’ll be able to find the photos. Also let whoever you take a picture of have a look and say on whether you should keep or delete the photo. Nine out of ten photos of me look like I’m eating a tennis ball or about to go into hysteria mode, and I know you’d appreciate it too if you had the chance to ask for a re-take so you don’t end up put online looking like you’re having a happy in your pants.

Looking after yourself - Get a freakin’ shower at least once a day and use deodorant. You lot are pretty lucky, 5 years ago at conventions it was rare to shower and you could literally see the funk emanating from individuals. But we aren’t gonna do that at Gemucon, are we? Are we? HMMMM? Good. Now remember, lather, rinse, repeat. Always repeat. There’s another part to that but Rilack says if I mention how to have fun the “Jae Way” he’ll have at my kidneys with a plasma sword..
    Pack your medication and whatever you need to keep yourself running in sound condition. Personally I have a bag for painkillers, inhalers, mouthwash, engine oil and plasters. Having an emergency sewing kit in there would be pretty damn handy too.
    For the important stuff; always carry your ID on you and show your con badge so everyone knows who you are. Don’t carry any more money than you need and zip/button up your pockets to be on the safe side. I might sound like Daddy Jae here, however you need to remember that there will be a lot of people there and things can go missing unless you make sure you know where your personal items are.
Sleep is key for a good convention, sure some people pull all nighters and consider themselves the party equivalent of a visible pantyline but if you want to get the most out you need to get some quality sleep in. This’ll save you from shuffling about like the missing zombies from the Wii version of Dead Rising and on top form if you’re in any game tournaments. Don’t think that caffeinated drinks can save you from sleep either, when you need to sleep you need to sleep. Unless you’re Rilack; he doesn’t sleep, he waits.

What I’ve mentioned so far is common sense, but above all please respect those around you including anyone staying at the hotel who isn’t there for the convention. No, that’s not Pheonix Wright or Rude looking for Reno, that’s some guy in a suit. Probably. Don’t shunt/push or use your bodyweight like a meaty snowplough if you want to look at a stall. The hotel isn’t your house either so don’t think it’s fine to scream down the hallways shouting FUS RO DAH in your Dovakin fluffy hat. Hotel Security totally won’t get the joke and you won’t either when they find you. In fact go read the rules again just for good measure. Yes I am staring at you again.

    Make use of what’s available to you for the events, there’s so many on and it would be a waste not to get stuck in. There’s game tournaments, a cosplay masquerade and my favourite; The Geekton Factor hosted by Team Neko. If you like to party, and we love to party, you’re in the right place; when you see that group of attendees who’ll look like they’re having a cracking time you should go ask them what the cheat codes are to hadouken your boredom in the taint. Get stuck in and make friends, don’t be afraid to ask someone about their costume or just get up and say hello. Try not to disturb anyone whilst they’re having a break from being in character, I know I like to finish my sandwich/AA battery/coffee before I get back into the swing of things.

    Lastly, if you spot a committee member, take the time to thank them for what they’ve put on for you and maybe buy them a drink to say cheers for the gig. A little appreciation goes a long way.

That’s all from me but if you’ve got questions feel free to find me and ask. But I’m not telling you my badgename ohohohoho!

Remember folks;
>Eat
>Sleep
>Breathe
>Vidya Gamez