I attended the Calgary Comic & Entertainment Expo this past weekend with my buddy Dan and his cousin. Here’s random crap that I remember and is vaguely interesting.
– The night before the show, I spent about three hours putting together submission packages for some of the publishers that would be in attendance. I had talked to Dan on Facebook just prior to getting started, and he had said that he needed to get his stuff ready for the con as well. At 2 AM I checked my Facebook email before going to bed… and there was Dan, still online. All of a sudden having to get up and road trip to Calgary in five hours was starting to seem like a terrible idea.
– I didn’t actually fall asleep until 4 AM, because apparently my body is a jackass. I had to get up at 6:30 AM. Morning is stupid.
– We stopped in Lacombe around 9:30 to get breakfast. You know how most restaurants stop serving breakfast after 11 AM? Well apparently in Lacombe, McDonald’s refuses to serve you anything BUT breakfast prior to 11 AM. Apparently if they make McNuggets instead of pancakes during breakfast hours the UNIVERSE WILL IMPLODE.
– Once we got into Calgary, I quickly realized that whoever designed it is a jackass. It’s essentially a giant freeway with exits that go to various neighbourhoods. Which is fine, if you live there and know where you want to go, but terrible when you miss an exit and have to drive another few kilometres just to get off at the next exit so you can turn around.
– We eventually figured out where to go to get to the convention centre, when all of a sudden Dan spotted “Sweatervest”, one of the recent additions to the Happy Harbor Comic Jam crew. I don’t know his real name (and I don’t think Dan does, either). Dan frantically gestured for me to roll down the window, then bellowed “SWEATERVEST” as loud as he could muster. Now, at this point we weren’t sure if it was actually who we thought it was, or just somebody who looked creepily similar. Well it turns out it was him, which led us to marvel at the weirdness of passing him on the streets in Calgary.
– Upon arriving at the convention centre (the BMO Roundup Centre, near the Saddledome) the first thing we noticed were the two very large lines. Dan’s cousin and I both had advance passes, which let us go into the special entrance, while Dan had to buy his ticket at the door. In the first of many bizarre organizational choices that were revealed throughout the weekend, the advance pass entrance the normal entrance… were the same entrance. With two different lines. Which, inexplicably, moved at roughly the same speed, despite the fact that one required monetary transactions. The second bizarre organizational choice was that we received wristbands to allow us into the convention… which isn’t that weird, until I asked the girl at the counter if I was supposed to get another wristband for the second day of the con. She just looked at me and said, like it was the most obvious thing in the world, “Oh, just don’t take it off until the convention is over.” Apparently my face betrayed my opinion that wearing a paper wristband for two days was completely retarded, because she hastened to add “Oh, don’t worry, it’s waterproof.” Yes. THAT’s what I thought was stupid about it.
Next time: Into the convention! And of course, new HEAT update tomorrow.
