tattooed love boys...

my last morgan's post is that i gave my beer to a guy named marcel who was eternally grateful. i was grateful that i did not have the option of finishing my beer. :)

i did not go to tubby dog's as planned as the thought of hot dogs was making me ill. however, as soon as i got back to my hotel room, i was so hungry and had to settle for greasy pizza from some corner store. the less said the better about that. my friends are now under orders to force me to eat before allowing me to return to my hotel room.

ok, the reason i went to calgary in the first place was to attend the 3rd annual tattoo convention. i went to the 2nd annual one in february 2005 by accident. i was staying at the westin and checked in super early on the saturday and the lobby was jam packed. i was totally confused until i found out that it was actually the line up to get into the tattoo festival, not to check in or out. and then i ran into the black halos in the lobby who played the nite before. it was cool being in the same place as the convention because it was sooo cold that day and it ended up snowing in the afternoon. not a big deal for calgary folk, but poor little ole west coast me wanted to stay indoors for awhile. i had never been to a tattoo convention before. i was impressed. tons of people getting work done and a lot of vendors selling cool shit. i do have a small problem with the constant sound of needles since it brings back visions of the dentist but i can deal. since it happened to be the weekend of a friend's birthday, i thought that it might make a good annual trek.

anyways, winter rolls around and i hadn't heard anything about the 2006 convention. turns out they moved it from february to labour day weekend. and instead of being at the westin, it moved to the roundhouse. even better. i always try and head out of town around that time. was always trying to avoid the indy. anyways, the more i read about the convention, the more excited i was getting. tons of bands, more artists, more vendors, casino nite, burlesque show, car show and even a celebrity guest. kat from miami ink. although i don't watch it (i'm an inked watcher instead).

a bunch of us make plans to go. we are going to go all vip and stay for the entire weekend. and then, slowly the plans fall apart. (how can a groom get the day he's getting married wrong?) . so, it's just me flying solo again. no big deal. i have a friend in calgary that wants to go so it's all good. it means coming back a day earlier, and no vip but i'll live.

so it's saturday morning and we head to the drum and monkey for lunch (it's official. i am obsessed with this place.) i have the monkey burger which was very very yummy. but i still think the mac and cheese is my favourite. and then it's off to the roundhouse for the convention.

we get there around 1 and the line up is huge! massive! it goes from the ticket wicket, all the way down to the ramps and then up the ramps. (note to self: next year, buy tickets in advance). the lineup moves surprisingly quickly. and before we know it, we are on the convention floor.

i can't get over how big the convention floor is! people getting tattooes everywhere. we see kat and there is this huge crowd around her. i read that not only is she solidly booked (of course) but there is a waiting list of over 200 people. i take a really bad photo of her for my friend who loves miami ink. it's bad because i can't even get anywhere close to her. you can't even see what she is working on, the crowd is so big. i went to another booth to see if an artist friend of mine was there yet, but alas, no.

we walk around, checking out the different artists and their work. we reach the other end of the floor and there are the cars. oh, and here is the stage. the enigma is out doing a meet and greet. we get some photos taken. he tells us his show is in twenty minutes. we decide to hang out and watch the tattoo contest that is on and then hang out for his show.

ok, major beef with the convention is that everything was running sooo late. and they kept announcing the old times. the contests seemed to be throwing everything off schedule. i think they maybe needed to gather up the contestants and keep them organized before it started. instead of calling their names and then waiting for them to show up. or maybe they had too many people enter? and once, the schedule started to be off by so much, i think they should have revised it so people weren't hanging about needlessly. anyways, we watched one contest. medium colour. and then it was time for the enigma's show (which i think was almost an hour overdue) . now, the enigma used to perform in jim rose's circus. he is covered in blue jigsaw puzzle pieces tattooes and does a lot of stuff like sword swallowing, drinking windex, fire breathing, using a chainsaw blindfolded, shoving tubes etc into places where a normal person does not want tubes shoved into. incredibly disgusting things. we stayed for the entire show. :)

went back to looking around the floor. watched more tattoo artists work. by the time we hit the vendor area, we were exhausted. and it turns out that wearing my new blue suede converse shoes was not exactly a wise move on my part. but they looked good! haha. plus i was limited in shoes because i somehow ended up packing one boot from two different pairs of boots. the same foot! luckily, at blame betty's booth, they were having a shoe sale and i found a sweet pair of red and black creepers. whoo hooo! oh and at plan b's booth, i met the woman who made what i like to call my skull engagement ring. i think she was dissapointed i wasn't wearing it. i told her i would have but i wore it to the bar last nite and it fell off. causing me to rummage around the floor of morgan's trying to find it. which i did. thank god. i spent way too much money on that little baby.

i could barely move by this point. and i still hadn't heard any bands yet. i tried to get some info on when they were due to perform but the information wasn't easy to get, nor was i sure of the accuracy of the times. is that the old times or the new times? we ended up giving up and heading back to my hotel to collapse in front of the tv for a few hours.

more later. and pics!