What a classic line. Along with "These aren't the droids you're looking for." But as you can see, I found the droid I was looking for! All of this was possible because of MegaCon! Cait and I spent a day at MegaCon 2011 this year and we had a blast! I do wish I had a costume that I could have worn though. But I am working on that. By next year's convention, I should have a costume ready! Man, I sure use lots exclamation points. I guess I'm just excited. We drove down to Orlando on the Friday that MegaCon kicked off and we arrived shortly after it started. I must say that I was pleasantly surprised on how big of a convention it was. Having judged it to be a fairly small convention based off last year's pictures, it turned out to be fairly large. Not nearly as large as Comic Con or Star Wars Celebration, but still good-sized. After we got our bearings and got into the convention, we were greeted with rows and rows of booths.
In addition to the many booths, there were tons of people in costume! As you can see, we have Master Chief from the Halo series. I didn't realize that he was that short... Of course, it could just be a regular Spartan too. But he was not the only Master Chief at the convention either. There were plenty of costumed folks dressed the same. Lots of characters from Naruto, Bleach, One Piece, Full Metal Alchemist and numerous others that I didn't recognize. Then there were the video game characters. The most recognizable for me were Fang and Vanille from Final Fantasy XIII. There were costumes all over the place! I was in nerd heaven. But it was a while before I found the main reason that I wanted to come to MegaCon. 
Granted, I did see Obi Wan and Boba Fett wandering around. In fact, as you can see, it seems that everyone wanted to fight the Jedi. Even a Smurf. As Cait and I wandered up and down the rows of booths, we were amazed at how much stuff was for sale. There were weapons (swords and knives and such) vendors, people selling costumes, wigs, manga (drawn Japanese cartoons), anime (animated Japanese cartoons), we even found a booth selling authentic Japanese snacks. Things such a Hello Panda crackers, Pocky sticks, rice candy and so much more than I have ever seen. Now, you can find some of this in the ethnic section of most grocery stores, but the sizes that the vendor had were HUGE! Granted they were imported from Japan and didn't have any English written on them, but still. HUGE! In addition to those who I've already mentioned, you also had local and small manga and comic book artists, various arts schools plus a few miscellaneous booths that didn't really fit into any other category. You also had various groups displaying what they do best. For example, there was a group of Lego builders that built all sorts of displays. They built the Battle of Hoth and animated an AT-AT (All Terrain Armored Transport) along with a Snow Speeder circling around another AT-AT.
Ah, at last! I have found what I've been looking for! The Florida Garrison of the 501st Legion! The fine gentleman pictured on the right is a Scout Trooper. You might remember them as the Stormtroopers on the speed bikes in Return of the Jedi. I was hoping for more than just 1 legion member, but I was still happy to get this picture all the same. And if you look behind the scout trooper, you can see more costumes. Those were just costumes with no one in them. I did take a bunch more pictures and they can be found in my Picasa Web Album here. I was in absolute nerd heaven! All in all it was a great time. I do wish that we could have spent more time there, but there is always next year. And next year, I will be in costume (I can see Cait rolling her eyes now)! If you are curious as to the costume I will be wearing I'll give you a hint: Google Lt. Galle. That's it for this post about our adventures at MegaCon! - Brent
