Emerald City ComiCon 2017 Part 2

Every few hours, I woke up, and checked the phone. It was still not showing anything on the screen. Finally it showed a light, and I was able to to charge it without worry. There wasn’t enough time to charge it fully, but I knew the ferry had plug in spots, and used those. Honestly, I spent most of my time reading, and charging my phone while on the ferry.

The biggest problem I had was the parking spot I chose out was charging more than I thought, so I had to use the spare change I had to pay. My budget felt a little crunched from that. Luckily I always plan for a buffer in case of such events. If there is money left over from the buffer, I buy a cool book or something.

I would stop to grab a nice shot, and then head back to the power strip to charge more. The trip is grand, and has an amazing view, but I knew I had several trips to get pictures.

At the ferry station, I saw the coolest cosplay ever. Agent Carter and Captain America.

The walk to the Convention center was a lot happier after seeing them.

My legs hurt on the walk up, but I chose out an earlier time so I could help with turning things on, and opening up shop. Honestly, I wish I could be in better shape, but where I live has a problem with the water. It rains, and I break out into hives. I step in a puddle, and break out into hives. Because of this, the walk to the convention center was even harder.  I still pushed until I was a few blocks away, and then gave up. The people following behind me kept catching back up because of stop lights, and traffic. I wasn’t making any real progress by speed walking except to wear myself out.

At the convention center, I tried going up the nearest escalator, but was told I needed a badge. So I used the other escalator in the main hallway to the arcade. That sounds really arbitrary, but trying to move hundreds of thousands of people means having to make up a rules. I wasn’t given a badge, so I couldn’t go up that escalator.

Then I went to the door, and it was locked of course. For some reason I felt nervous since I didn’t have a badge to get the door open. When I asked for help, i was told to talk to the manager of the gaming area. I have worked with this man for four years now, so it’s not like we don’t recognize each other. Somehow though, I felt nervous, and fake, and as if I had just started my studies, instead of well into them.

The problem was, I wasn’t the one in charge of the arcade. I was simply opening it. They were asking if I was in charge, and that they needed that first. Once again, no badge, and feeling kind of nervous made me wait.

If it helps anyone out, I am big and tall. I look commanding, and even have a commanding voice. I have been a leader, and shown all sorts of initiative. Even I get nervous, and feel like a 14 year old being scolded by a teacher at times.

Eventually someone else showed up, and said the right things to get the door open. It wasn’t a long wait, but that nervousness was strong. The funny part is I knew how to turn everything on, and get stuff working.

The door didn’t have the right keycard. They had just changed how the keys worked on that one, and it meant a member of security come down, and manually open the lock. There was a request to have a fix made, because even the floor manager couldn’t open it. Our only choice was to leave the door open, but put a thing in front of it while setting things up.

Turning on an arcade machine is a simple job. There is a switch, and you flick it. The problem is finding the switch. It can be at the foot of the machine, the top, or somewhere on the back. I had checked beforehand, so it wasn’t too hard. Then I had to plug in some machines, and that meant finding a key.

Luckily we had a bag of keys for just that, and we got things done in a few minutes. I had figured out most of the procedures during set up testing. It’s important to test things so you know how they play, and also get to beat up M Bison a bit.

The lack of sleep, and all of the previous work started to get to me a little. I decided to just sit, and let my legs take a break. During this time, I chatted with folks about their favorite games.

One guy caught on that I spoke German. Sadly, all I could speak was spangleutsch. It’s like Spanglish, only German Spanish. You can imagine my grades in spanish class. He was a big time boardgamer, and was going to run some epic three to four hour adventures. That sounded like fun, but honestly, I didn’t have the time.

He recommended I get a patreon account, and talk about stuff on that. I talked about how Star Trek didn’t really follow cultures the way actual cultures work. For example, there are just as many Klingons as there are humans, but Klingons only have one culture. The same is with Cardassians, Ferengi, and others. That’s impossible. The likely answer is that there are other cultures, but humans haven’t noticed it yet. It was enough for me to realize I should write articles for a patreon account.

I wished him luck, or Viel Gluck.

The next guy who came in was chatting about games, and how they worked when I noticed his clothes. He had a Nintendo Switch backpack, with a Nintendo medallion on. Also,a Nintendo Jacket. By my amazing, might I even say Holmesian skills I asked if he worked at Nintendo. Nintendo of America is in the greater Seattle Area, in a town called Redmond. It is completely surrounded by Microsoft buildings.

He admitted he was, and we talked about the new Switch. I told him I really wanted to play it, but hadn’t had the chance yet. He came back a little bit later, with the console, and let me try it out. The game was Zelda: Breath of the Wild. I explored the land a bit before I arrived at a dungeon. By then, I felt so guilty, but the guy let me play it. When I died, I gave him the controller back. It was awesome.

I couldn’t stop smiling as he talked about maybe having a booth or something by Nintendo for the NorthWest Pinball and Arcade Show. He even gave us his card.  I put it into my small collection of cards for the trip. The guy I was working with saw it, and gave me his card after a small conversation.

Around that time, the volunteers switched, and I had new people to work with. It was a married couple from some of the Northern Towns. They are very nice, and had been working the ticket booth for years beforehand.

The wife decided to take fliers, and hand them out to people walking past the arcade. It was really effective, and I kind of hated it at first. A lot of the people who came in, had already spoken with her, and gotten a flier. So I was not needed to hand out fliers at the desk. I was basically sitting there, waiting for folks to approach me. Which was boring, and kind of loud.

On the other hand, I watched the ebb and flow of the people coming in. Several parents were telling their kids about how they played arcades back in the day. It was like Sesame Street, only with Street Fighter as part of the story. A game where guys beat the crap out of each other was being spoken about in the same way people remember going to the carnival as a kid.

Some kids wouldn’t go in. It’s a small room with arcade games in it. The entire thing was loud, and they were scared. Some parents simply didn’t go in. One little girl was scared, but stayed outside to hand out fliers.

I was out to lunch when I found out what she was doing this. The shot is a bit posed, because she was actually picking up some fallen fliers at the moment. She did impress a lot of people, and did well with her job.

As a reward, several people in cosplay came by. Including Totoro and Catbus.

We got a picture of her with them, but I decided not to show that in these notes.

Lunch was Subway again, and pretty much exactly as the day before. The only major difference was there were hispanic customers, which I listened to as they chatted with the servers. The entire frustration of not being able to talk back, but understanding what was being said was strong. All I could say was gracias, and try to form the right sentence for my order.

Back at the arcade, my phone died again. I did take some cool pictures before hand, so here is an awesome cosplay.

I got back, and decided to try the hallway approach. It was a lot quieter than inside of the arcade, and I could interact with more people. At first I gave a long spiel, about how people should try it out. Then I realized it was easier to just get them to try the arcade.

This caused an interesting thought to hit me. The entire job of marketing was to point to a door, and tell people to look into it. The entire display and everything is there, ready to go, but getting people to simply look is the entire point.

Since it was a classic arcade, it was a really easy sell. I loved arcades, and people going to the comic con loved them as well. So it was simply telling people to look.

“Hey look it’s your childhood.”

“And to your left, an arcade.”

“Hey, look into this room.”

“Relive your childhood, or give yourself a new one. Come try the classic arcade.”

The sell was easy, and when they walked out, I gave them a flier. Their faces showed how much they wanted to see this giant show. I didn’t need to sell it anymore. I found the right people to sell to, and showed them a hint of what was to come.

Several people stopped what they were doing and went in. There became a major problem, because the room got very crowded. The lines were to the door for some of the games. People started walking out because of how full the room was. I was selling too well. I made sure anyone leaving got a flier. I can only imagine what a 6’2 giant straight faced German guy handing out fliers would look like to a random person.

I had to take a break. Lack of sleep, and trying to focus quickly on people caused dizziness. So I went back in, and chatted with folks.

It was fun talking with folks about the locations of various arcades. I know where the majority are, so if someone said there wasn’t one near their house, I disproved them. There are several arcades in the area, and even in the neighboring towns. Many of them were from, or work with arcade collectors. The Puget Sound area has a ton of games to play.

I told people about the Nintendo guy, and gave his card over so they could have a booth. That was awesome just getting the card. Then I smiled because of how cool it all was. Nintendo tested Donkey Kong at a bar called Popeyes in Seattle. The bar isn’t there anymore, but the company still is. It would be awesome to have something like that at the arcade show.

A woman walked in, and we began to chat about arcades. Then she told me about her husband buying her a Porsche Spyder. It’s a hybrid supercar that has nearly 900 horsepower. Working with the electric engine at the same time it can go over 1000 horses. Yes, that is a lot of power, and I would love to drive one.

There was a catch to her getting the car. She had to be trained at a major training school to learn how to handle it. Talk about a tough life.

We chatted about cars for a bit, and then she brought up how she didn’t know if there was any mid range cars with front wheel drive. I honestly couldn’t remember, even though I was going through every car I had just played on Gran Turismo. I learned from a friend that GT is the best way to learn about cars. Also, it is way cheaper than trying to find all of those cars to drive.

I said I didn’t know, and she walked away. I was worried that I had somehow insulted her. I really wanted to talk cars. I had just learned about a new format for Formula 1 cars, specifically branded for Electric and Hybrids. So the Formula E races sounded really cool, but I had no chance to really know a ton about it.

My worries are that I somehow scared her with my comments, or I looked too tired, or something. It really did bother me.

Someone handed over a bag with various items in it. I put it on the table, and said if they come back, we will give it to whoever owned it. However, I wanted the Batman comic inside.

After that, I decided to head back. I told the folks who were volunteering now, and headed out. It was a fun little journey down the escalator. That’s when I spotted a new pinball machine. It turned out to be the Pinball Museum was located right at the base of the main hall. I chatted with them, and then walked home.

The walk was sort of unsettling. The day before I had watched a homeless guy talk to someone on a non existent phone. Now I saw homeless everywhere. They were making houses out of boxes, and putting things together with trash bags to get their homes in order. Tarps and boxes on a closed down storefront was a home for two gentlemen.

When I got to the ferry station, I saw people with bags, but they weren’t going anywhere. They were just sitting there, charging a phone, or trying to deal with life. One guy was charging a kindle. He looked so ordinary, but his bags said another story.

Someone else was strumming a guitar, and matched the average grungy Seattle look anyone could have. The music wasn’t great, but some people donated to him anyway. He smiled at them, and continued to play.

I got on the ferry, and charged my phone. I wanted to read, and think about what I had seen. I wasn’t expecting to write about homeless people, and how they work, but here we are.

In Hawaii, we had homeless people and considered them part of the community. The islands are expensive to live on, and several family have both parents, and old enough kids working to pay for needs. Then they also have food coupons, and other items to help them even after that. In the minds of the locals, the homeless people are the purest form of local, because they love to talk story, and don’t worry about modern convenience. So, everyone helped them out as best they could. If I had some extra musubi, I would give it to them. Sometimes, I would grab a snack, and just give it to them because I realized my hunger wasn’t that bad.

This is just part of being Aloha in Hawaii. In Seattle, I know there are places for homeless folks, like food kitchens, and places to stay. A friend tells about all of the regulations and rules a shelter requires. The fear is that one bad egg will ruin everything. They have heat lamps and rooms specifically to take care of nightmares like bed bugs from infesting. The kitchens require you to work to get food. They also have food coupons to help someone walk about town, and stay fed. Walking is what everyone does. No one even thinks to drive.

In Hawaii, a family with one car would drop a parent off at the bus stop, and then drive off. This was how life was. The bus was the best way to get to a place at a cheap rate. The real price was time. Going to Costco or Walmart was an all day journey on a bus. Keep in mind, this was on an island.

Portland has a similar feel to it, with all sorts of transportation. The homeless figured out how to use it to their advantage. They would use it for quick jumps from place to place, but never too far.

If you had a pass, you were considered a traveler. They connected all of the homeless with news, and information about places. There was also the internet, but word would be sent through the traveler to whatever location was needed. I had a long chat with a guy back in Hawaii, and then brought it up in Portland.

Sure enough, in Seattle, there are guys with the all year passes walking around. This was how they knew about the locations, and where to go. If one place got too bad, they would grab what they could, and walk or find a way to the next one.

The homeless talked all the time on the streets. I saw them in Utah, Seattle, Portland, and Hawaii. Their methods of meeting was the same. They would hug and chat like life was grand if they knew each other. If they only sort of knew each other, it was a different quick greeting, and then beckoning to be in the group conversation.

It’s a weird thing to say, but the further you are from middle class, the more your life becomes a communist system. You can be rich, and have someone dictating everything you do and say for life. The same will happen as a homeless person. Making connections, and finding out the best places to work is key. There will always be guards, walls, and rules.

I decided to do more investigation as I stayed that weekend in Seattle. Not a ton, but enough to confirm things were working as I suspected.

When I got back to where I was staying, my buddy was playing Battlefield 1. It’s a giant multiplayer battle game with weapons, and vehicles to drive around. The company is French, and based the game on World War I. They said they worked hard to find realism in the game.

My buddy drove a plane toward a wall, and then dove over to a jeep. He climbed up random super steep hills with a truck that held a giant gun, and then took out nearby snipers. There was a lot more running than the actual war had. Well, the side they were talking about anyway. Then he showed me the smaller skirmishes, and how the healer worked. It was so realistic how he gave a random corpse a shot, and then they were perfectly fine.

The French lost an entire Generation to the war, and have always considered it their greatest loss. Even today, there are memorials to the war that ended the future of so many empires. I love reading about World War I, and how it worked. Which is why I expected the game to work nothing like the actual war.

The graphics were nice, and the gameplay looked like fun. The best part of a game like this is that there is always something to do. Clear this building, or take on these snipers. It can be a large map, or a small section of one.

After a bit, I went to bed. Writing these notes, I realize what a full day that was. The next day was just as busy, and amazing.