My first tournament, anime conventions and rain...

Ah, it's been a busy week. I just came back from the very first international event (yes, there were some people from germany, great britain and sweden so it does count as "international") that I personally organized, with some of my buddies from Kasu (kasu.at - It's "my" club for traditional japanese games located in Vienna, I'm currently the vice-chairman there).
Today we had our second Mahjong Tournament and it was FUN! But a lot of work, I can tell you. But I do hope everyone had a good time, we tried our best to make it a successfull tournament.
Personally I'm quite satisfied with the outcome - the same goes for the gaming experience. I placed 7th (out of 20). and played pretty well, even though a tad too stupid sometimes But it's alright, I'm glad the day is over and I'm happy that it went as smoothly as it did!

But let's look at the days before that...
Did you ever consider going to an anime convention? Or something similar?
Last Weekend I was at the Maconvention near Linz. It's the second biggest Anime Convention in Austria and did help there by presenting traditional japanese games for "my" club Kasu (yeah, kasu is everywhere - KAAASUUUUU). It was fun!
Highlights include the ride to our hostel on saturday in Votaris's rather small car (we were 4 big guys and the lady driving...every curve was a delight and the slope at the end of our cruise a real thrill - CAN WE DO IT? Yes we could...She showed us her driving skills and brought us home safely.)
There were also two bands playing, Trill Dan, a japanese...Rock band and Lolita Complex, an austrian...Rock band. The first concert was fun, but both had real huge problems concerning the sound - one of the downlights of the whole weekend were the technical problems. They led to a lot of delays. Next year they hopefully know how the handle the equipment.
Many good cosplayers there, too. I tell you, many. It seemed to me like more than 50% of the visitors there had some kind of cosplay, some interesting Yoko's, some interesting characters nobody knew (or I didn't know ) and some please-I-can't-see-them-anymore characters. Everyone found something for their tastes, I guess.
The programm was nice and they tried to make it interesting, but the main highlight were the people there, no doubt. Met a lot of old friends and new interesting people. And I won the 3D "contest", as you all surely know (see my recent deviation for the entry). The contest only had two entries but still...



Oh, on Thursday I had an interesting experience as well. Went to an open air cinema at the top of the main library in Vienna. You know, during the day it was REALLY hot. 37°C and more. Weather forecast said "yeah, the weather during the night will be fine, most likely". So, off we went to see Monty Python's "Life of Brian". I haven't seen that movie in full length, yet, and as you can imagine, I didn't have the chance to this time, either.
After about the first half of the movie, the sky suddenly went cloudy. Lightnings were visible earlier already but they were far away. Now the closed in on us. The wind (or rather the storm) nearly tilted the projection area (and it would have done so, eventually, if the organizers hadn't reacted soon). Suddenly it started to rain. Heavily, it was quite  a downpour. In the whole city the rain and hail did quite some damage (we were lucky not to get into the really heavy hail...). So, after running for some enclosed space we were completely soaked. Completely, some people even started to undress before going outside again.
Nice! Riding home was fun and cold. And that after the hottest day of the year (if it wasn't for the money and the fact, that I'll probably never see the ending of the movie, it was a fun evening, though.)

So, remember kids: NEVER trust the weather forecast, not even for the next 2 hours.


...a rather long journal, but it shall be enough for now...