As of this morning, I have been ‘officially’ welcomed to Canada. This ritual requires a little something called a Double Double and a Maple doughnut (with filling) from Tim Horton’s – and they were both quite awesome. So first up, special thanks to the segashiro guys once again for bringing in those for me – that was seriously my entire lunch, and a very tasty one! So, check this out. Apparently the line to get in today was absolute chaos – due in no small part to a low amount of volunteers guiding people around. I managed to get a few pictures of the madness, and keep in mind this is at about 11 AM – a whole hour after the show had already started! That line winds alllllll the way around the room, and was just the line to get to the building the con was in! Once you got to that building, there was another line that was about a 30 minute wait just to get inside! Thankfully, once in the first time you could get a stamp that would let you in much faster – but still, talk about one heck of a line, right? I think this picture speaks for itself. (Yes, that is a real tattoo.) For reference: SEGA Tattoo = instant swag if you find me at a show.  Next, I had a cool chat with some guys about the future of Phantasy Star and SEGA, and hooked them up with some Rappies once one of them mentioned that he used to skip school just to go play the old Phantasy Star games on Genesis. Does anyone else give you free swag for skipping school? I think not!

Rappies!

Right behind our booth is an awesome import store with all sorts of classic games and systems. With the anniversary of the Dreamcast coming up, I thought this shot was quite appropriate – note the SEGA Saturn on the right too!

So many classics! I own at least nine of these DC games, and they’re pretty much all awesome.

At 4:00 PM, we started our SEGA Trivia! The turnout was much bigger than I expected, and ended up filling a huge part of our booth – when all was said and done, we gave everyone who entered a free SEGA sticker and other free stuff for joining! Here’s the group shot, with the winners below it: Me: On three…. one, two, three! Them: “SEEEEEGAAAAAAAA!” Our SEGA Trivia winners! (First to third, starting on the left) After the SEGA Trivia was over, we spread the love to a fantastic SEGA game known as Valkyria Chronicles! All three of our winners scored themselves a limited edition Valkyria Artbook, and everyone else who entered also got some free stuff to take back with them: The VC Trivia winners – First place in the middle, second on the left, and third on the right. On the way up to do some podcast recording, I ran across two guys with some Knuckles and Shadow hats – as it turns out, they had plushies to match:

Eyyyyy!

I sat down with the guys below to record a podcast and talk about SEGA, our games at the show, and the growing importance of community for both SEGA and the games industry as a whole. They had a Coke waiting for me when I arrived, so what better way to say thank you than… Moar rappies! As the evening began, I noticed one guy who had shown up at the booth at least three different times over the last day. He told me he was trying to beat his own personal record on the Megaton score for Bayonetta’s Climax attacks – and then he proceeded to rock a 750! (For those who haven’t played, you button mash X as fast as you can to get a high megaton score. Most people have trouble just getting 500!) I took a picture of him getting a 650 just afterwards – good luck on your goal of 800 tomorrow amigo!

The show closed just after 7 PM tonight, and we shut things down to head out for some dinner. There was a really cool view of the city skyline from outside, so I grabbed a shot of it:

After dinner, what better way to end the day than Cheesecake, right? It may not have been as good as Jr.’s Cheesecake that Kellie and I had at NYCC, but it was still pretty awesome eating cheesecake outside in the nice Toronto weather.

With the day at an end, I went back to the hotel to post the pics, write up this blog, and settle in. Tomorrow is the last day of the convention, and after that I’ll be heading home, so the third and final blog in this series will probably arrive late Sunday night or sometime Monday. Thanks again to everyone who visited the booth and said hello today! I even took extra swag, and you guys managed to make me run out a day before the show ended.

Until tomorrow…

SEGA!