Bean Town

Continuing (and ending) my coverage of visits to cities I hate, is a synopsis of my visit to Bean Town (aka Boston). I've never been a fan of Boston, so when my friend Trevor said I should visit because he'd be at Wizard World Boston (a comic and toy convention), I was reluctant. However, when Triple G (Greg) said he'd be going up with a rental car, well, I caved in. How could I pass up an opportunity to spend a weekend with my friends?

The drive up to Boston was spectacular and I think Triple G and I made it in like 3.5 hours. The plan was to pick Trevor up at the airport, but unfortunately there was some confusion as to when he was landing, so we abandoned the airport in search of the original hotel we were to stay in. This hotel was found to be too far away from the convention center, but Trevor's product was still being shipped there (supposedly). It turns out it didn't go there, so we headed back to the airport to pick Trevor up. Our trip to the hotel emphasized reason #1 I hate Boston - ungodly, unjustifiable traffic. We've got traffic problems in NYC, but nothing like this. Later that evening we come to reason #2 - the Boston Red Sox. It seems like everybody in the city is a Red Sox fan. Why is that? Sure there are a lot of Yankees and Mets fans in NYC, but you'll see plenty of people wearing other team hats too. Not true in Boston. Well, there was this one kid wearing Yankees attire, but we agreed that he probably lost a bet.

Since Trevor and Triple G were occupied most of the time with promoting FMA, I had plenty of time to tour the convention hall. As you'd expect, it's mostly about nerds and geeks wandering around and buying comics and toys for their collections. I used to be the epitome of this culture when I was younger, but now, not so much. I find myself selling a lot of my collectibles because the prospect of having to move all I've accumulated is downright scary. At any rate, you have to love the intelligence of marketing in the comic industry. If you know your consumers are nerdy guys that can't get dates, what better way to promote your product than to have hot girls in skimpy outfits by your booth. I took a picture of two of them at the request of Triple G and then got scolded by him for not capturing what was (or wasn't) below their waistline. Now I know.

After a hard day's work at the convention, Triple G, Trevor, myself and one of the other volunteers decided to go to Harvard Square for dinner Saturday night. For some reason we couldn't drive there (the reson being that the local Boston volunteer didn't know how to get there by car), so we took the T. That is, we took it after waiting like 30 minutes. You see, at the JFK stop, the red line forks. The way it's designed, you have to choose a platform to wait on and hope that the next train arrives on the one you are on. Well, needless to say we chose poorly - reason #3 I hate Boston. We did eventually get to Harvard Square which had people loitering everywhere. We soon found out that it was because every restaurant had a wait for seating (reason #5 I hate Boston). After sitting down and running out of a restaurant that was way too expensive, we settled on Bertucci's. Like the pros we are we ordered way too much food, but it was darn good so no complaints there.

All in all it was a good weekend. I may not like Boston a whole lot, but at least it's better than Nashville...mostly.