Armageddon It?

There’s a certain irony in having the Armageddon Expo at Easter. I turned up half expecting the place to be under siege by the devoutly religious but unless they were dressed as Manga characters, I saw none.

One thing there is plenty of at The Expo is poindexter. In fact there’s so much geek in one room I’m honestly surprised the internet didn’t stop this weekend. It was surely faster the whole weekend for those at home surfing porn on the days they couldn’t get down to the shops to buy more gadgets that allow them to surf and store, more porn.

Armageddon isn’t always held on Easter weekend but there are two certainties at Easter; chocolate and retailers claiming that the Easter Trading Laws are outdated. Well they would say that wouldn’t they? It doesn’t help that the penalty for opening when you’re not allowed is a paltry sum in regards to what the retailer makes on the day, so where’s the deterrent? How about common fucken sense?

There are only a handful of days where families can be families and not be distracted by the lure of buying something they don’t really need to impress others that don’t really care. Some wanker on TV reckoned that if Garden Centres weren’t open on Good Friday then people wouldn’t have anything to do the long weekend. Yes they would, they’d just have to buy what they need before Friday!

Retailers should welcome the few days off that they get and not spend the entire time passing a brick about just how much they won’t make on the day. Who knows, they might actually enjoy it and maybe, just maybe, the world will be the better place for it.

Back, then, to Armageddon, where the essence of sweaty boy is always in the air. Now I admit I am a fan boy at heart, still. I collected comics for a long time and G.I.Joe toys for even longer, so I like a good GeekCon, but unfortunately Armageddon is slowly moving away from being one.

It is one of the few places however, where a fella can take a photo of anybody with no questions are asked. If that somebody happens to be a young girl clad in the skimpiest of homemade costumes then so be it; she’s not complaining and she’ll never know that once you’ve had a wank over it you’ll post it to a web site where other fan boys can masturbate over it too.

Of course there are a lot of homemade Cosplay efforts going on which is great, I love that shit, but there’s something about a morbidly obese Storm Trooper that isn’t quite right...

Michael Winslow is there every year. He’s the guy from the Police Academy movies that did all the noises. He is genuinely a funny guy is Mike and his improv noise making is very funny, but his actual showpiece is getting dated. Not to mention that over half the audience at Armageddon don’t know who he is or what movies he was in.

This year he was joined by another ‘star’ from the Academy movies, Marion Ramsey, who played the timid recruit Laverne who could scream down a jumbo jet when riled. She also has quite possibly the biggest pair of boobs ever to grace Armageddon, which would be great if they were spectacular, but sadly they’re not.

She wooed the comic book crowd by singing, karaoke style, two Tina Turner songs. The two women in from Wainui sitting in front of us loved it, everyone else preyed it would end at just two, whilst those watching under the age of 10 just wondered when the ice cream eating competition would start.

Then there were the crowd flow problems, the complete lack of interactive display availability i.e. some hard out Harry hogging the EA Sports FIFA 10 demo and the disappointingly expensive everything. All of which left me wondering what did I just get for my $18? Two hours of my life I’ll never get back?

But then maybe I am expecting too much from an event that is run for slackers, by slackers. Maybe as I grow older I become less of a fan boy and more of an impatient old man than I care to admit and try to disguise by wearing my G.I.Joe tee shirt. Maybe I should go to the garden centre next Easter and not the expo?

Nah.