Geek convention

Today Cal, Erik and I went to the Tokyo Game Show which is the largest game show of its kind. Talk about sensory overload. Loud announcements, flashing lights, scantily clad women (it looked like an audition for Show Girls in the bathroom), and a seething mass of geeks pushing and shoving their way thru the convention hall.

Despite my prediction that it would suck (based on a previous visit to the Tokyo Game and Toy show which is an entirely different event) it was pretty cool. I don't do well in crowds so I needed to take a time out at one point to calm down, but otherwise it was fun. Unfortunately we didn't get to play many games - it was like Disneyland and there were one hour line ups to play anything. So we just wandered around looking for free stuff, and Cal and Erik were ogling the women.

Actually there were a lot of people ogling the women - the fact that they had hardly any clothing on probably had something to do with that. The funniest thing though was the geek paparazzi. Whenever a new woman would come out, suddenly tons of guys with cameras would run over, and take a whole bunch of pictures. Being geeks, they all had nice, professional, top-end cameras. The woman would stand there and pose, making cute, clueless faces (which is what passes for sexy here), while the men snapped away. It was really funny.

There were tons of demos and videos and fun things at the show. I even applied for an official Star Wars credit card. I don't need another credit card, but how much fun is whipping Darth Vader out of my wallet going to be??!! Darth Vader was the best picture choice. Actually, the reason I applied was so we could get free things - I got a storm trooper magnet which I gave to Erik. Later on I played a train game (you drive a train around Tokyo) and won a rabbit magnet. We also ended up with free pens and DVD samples. All in all a pretty good haul. If we had waited an hour to play any of the other games, we would have gotten more free stuff though.

Afterward our feet gave out around 4, we headed over to Outback Steakhouse for some steak! Yum. Not to mention the potatoes I love so well. Then we waddled home with tired feet and full tummies.