Friday of Anime Central for me was much like Anime Central for everyone.
WE WAITED IN LINE FOR ANYWHERE 5-8 HOURS!!!!!
First things first, when the registration opened up that morning, not all of the computers were working. So it was delayed for about an hour and a half Friday morning.
12:30 PM, I get into line, which is halfway around the Convention Center, shit...
At about 2:30 PM, the line completely stalls, apparently the downtime that morning and this one were related. The staffers shut down all of the computers and printers to try and re-set the system...
NOTHING WORKED!!!!! The system was hacked, and hacked pretty good from what a member of IRT (Incident Response Team) told me as an "Unofficial Announcement". All the congoers had to go on were the rumors that started floating around. I guess the rumors were true.
I cant believe that one of our fellow anime fans and congoers would do such a thing. I know there are a lot of anime fans that are more than capable of doing it, but "Why?" is what we kept asking ourselves.
When I finally got inside the convention center, I still had about 2.5 hours left to wait. Shit...
Somebody had a beachball, and it was fun for the people in line to see something going on, we were all bored and most of us were starting to get pissed off. Me included. IRT took the beachball away, those bastards. After about 10 minutes, someone had a great idea. Blow up something else to hit around. Ill give you all a hint, it wasnt a glove, or a balloon. And it went on a part of the male anatomy. Thats right! Someone blew up a condom, and not just one, about 6 of them started to be bounced around. One of them was a little "underinflated", it was a balloon with a handle, which made me crack the hell up. Its one of the little obscene things in this world that make me giggle. At one point, I had someone hold my place in line, and went over to an autograph line, and stole a chair to sit on. Shit, I was standing in line for about 6 hours at that point, my knees were starting to scream at me. Lovely one-liners from the que like:
"CONSTRUCTION TRAFFIC IS QUICKER THAN THIS!!!(mine)"
"THE DMV DOESNT TAKE THIS FUCKING LONG!!! (Also mine)"
Other good ones, but I only remember what I said.
The guy in front of me, cosplaying Indiana Jones, started singing "Apature Science" from Portal, he got like 15 people to join in, it was great.
At about 7:00 pm, when I FINALLY got my badge, I had to leave. There was a Blue Oyster Cult concert I already paid for. So I got my badge, and took off from O'Hare. The concert was at 9:15 pm, I got out of the parking garage at 7:50 pm. I made it to Milwaukee, from Chicago, in 1:15:00! Thats an hour and fifteen minutes. Thank goodness that traffic cooperated with me. And I sped like a bastard too.
Day one: Complete! I SURVIDED LineCon Chicago '08!
