This time around, I had woken up earlier despite watching a poker game all night, but I was hoping to get to the convention when it just opened. However, my friends were a little late in waking up so we were delayed in getting to the show. When we got there, we immediately walked around and looked through the anime/manga section of the convention and looked out for any deals to be had. A couple of friends and I watched an episode of Tsubasa, which is an anime series by the group called Clamp. Clamp series usually revolve around fantasy and romance. Some other popular series to come from Clamp include Magic Knight Rayearth, X and Chobits. Though a few of my friends were looking forward to watching it, it definitely wasn’t the same since the series was dubbed in English (we all prefer Japanese audio with English subtitles).

This time around, we were more intent in trying to get pictures of some of the celebrities…Tricia Helfer and Jonathan Frakes in particular since they were the main attractions. People were prohibited from taking photographs unless they paid $40.00 for the privilege! If you wanted just an autograph that still cost $25.00. My friend was able to snap off a few shots before we were told to move along.

Most of the day I was playing phone tag with my buddies since we’d never get consistent phone signal in the South Building basement and there seemed to be a larger contingent of my friends who ended up going this year. Most of the time, I was exploring through the Gamers’ section of the Convention and there were many different things to see and do.

I was watching teams ferociously battling one another in team World of Warcraft and you can tell they were serious and a lot was at stake when teammates would cheer each other on and co-ordinate strikes against their opponents. I can definitely see the appeal of the game with the rush of fighting live opponents and getting the sensation of defeating your opponent before they defeat you. Another big attraction in the gamer side was the Guitar Heroes II competition, whereby players bring their own guitars, play Guitar Heroes II and become scored by a panel of judges and basis of difficulty, accuracy and style. It definitely attracted a lot of spectators as wannabe guitarists would play the guitar behind their backs, play with one hand and even with their tongue! I thought to myself that these guys are really good and have WAY TOO much time on their hands! It was definitely an entertaining attraction nonetheless.

As well, Intel set up a green-screen booth whereby fans performed in a 25 second commercial and is then uploaded to a USB thumb drive where you can watch it at home. There were definitely some entertaining moment where people dressed up in costumes and randomly moved around in their allotted time span. I saw some X-Wing Fighter pilots, Superman, and a military commando perform infront of the cameras. I give credit to everyone having the guts to make a fool of themselves in front of total strangers.

At around 5:30 p.m, we decided to call it a day since there wasn’t really much else to do and it was REALLY busy everywhere, even more so than yesterday. Today I looked around for stuff that I may like to buy and figured that I’d buy it on Sunday…hoping that there will be deals to be had (people wanting to sell off their show inventory so as not to carry too much stuff back). An interesting and busy day…and it’ll be sad to see it done tomorrow.

-Stephen