ConnectiCon! It was a fun time. :)

Met up with Daniel Willingham of Head Doctor Productions, "Nanda" of Ugly Girl, James Rossi of Spriteville, USA, and M.Niels of Pocket Kitten. My brother also came along for the ride.

Basically, the convention was pretty much as I expected...most of the same stuff as Anime Boston, just not as much of it. Or at the very least, more compact, since it took all of one floor of the Connecticut Convention Center. Sadly, I only went the one day (Sunday), so I didn't get to poke around some of the panels that may have interested me, and I missed out on the scheduled Pirates tournaments. However, I did enjoy the poking around that we did do, plus I squeezed in a game of Pirates with my brother.

The main point of this trip, however, was to meet up with friends. So, after the initial mozying around, we opted for lunch. Which proved to be more difficult that we imagined, since (1) no one seems to be around Hartford on Sunday afternoons, and (2) there are practically no restaurants near the convention center itself. So we had to spend a lot of time walking around an unfamiliar city trying to find something agreeable to all. We settled on a Subway two or three blocks away.

Returned to the con and spent some time doodling in each other's notebooks. I may show off these sketched later.

More poking around and the aforementioned game, and it was getting to be dinner time. A problem, since as I previously stated, not a lot of restaurants nearby. (I don't know...am I too used to Boston, where you can't throw a rock without hitting at least 3 restaurants?) After several blocks and a few attempts later, we found one of those brewery/restaurants, except the kitchen was purposefully being held up to catch up on an unusually high volume. As we later found out, this volume was due primarily to the people attending the American Idol concert at the nearby Hartford Civic Center. The other reason, of course, was the fact that this was one of the few restaurants open within a half-mile radius. We were getting pretty hungry by that point, but we managed to entertain ourselves with Daniel doodling on a scrap of paper. The meal quickly disappeared after it was received (eventually) and we decided to call it a night.

A request for the city of Hartford, CT: maybe you could convert some of those extra Dunkin Donuts you have strewn about into some more diverse eating establishments. And perhaps some closer to the more popular venues and tourist attractions. And come join us in the 21st century and have these places open on Sundays, like everyone else.
posted by Tim at 11:45 PM