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Dave's review
Levi's review

When I asked Dan way back in late 2003 what his plans were for new years, he answered, "I was thinking about having a few guys over..." It was at this point that I knew it was official; the date for the first official Fantasticon had been set. Dan gave me instructions to be at his house on Wednesday, December 31st and to stay the night for the New Year's bash.

I was the first to arrive at Dan's house that fateful night, the exact details of time and weather now sadly escape me. Nevertheless, Dan and I waited in his basement, watching some TV, playing some Gamecube, and always eagerly anticipating the arrival of the other two attendees, Greg and Levi. I had still never met either of these two noble men, and only knew their faces from an old Photograph that Dan had shown me earlier.

Greg arrived after what seemed like ages of anxiety. We exchanged our Hellos and it was a moment I'll never forget. Shortly after, I encountered Levi for the first time as well. He joined Greg on what I now refer to as the "Awesome Couch". It's been close to a year since this most paramount of days, and some of the details have been dulled in my mind by time, but this was not one of them. Forever burned into my memory is the image of meeting stewmaster and swan for the first time.

The fest was now ready to start rocking. Dan's father had somehow managed to take advantage of a Pizza Hut mistake, turning our four or so Large pizzas (to be shared among the entire Epp family, as well as the F-con attendees) into something like 8 medium pizza. That was like one pizza per person! A very high person to pizza ratio, if you ask me. So, as we sat in the basement, each of us partaking of our own medium 'za, we turned the TV on to such shows as "Friends" and whatever else was on at that time.

At midnight we celebrated the new year with sparkling apple juice and a silent agreement that the next year would be full of totally sweet posts and rocking new threads on Fantastica. Speaking of the F, Greg, Levi and I left Dan alone with the Gamecube for a few moments to check for new posts. Levi was hoping for some Cheese to appear, for at that time bread and cheese were used to denote whether or not the thread had any new posts. If there were posts or not, I can't remember. But what happened next was probably the coolest thing ever.

Since we were on Dan's computer, we were logged in as him. The three of us took this rare opportunity to change some of his profile. All of it, actually. We made Dan's account a perfect replica of Scarlet Rose's, another Fantastica member. At the time this seemed hilarious, and believe me, It really was. We left the computer room trying to conceal our guilt, and Dan was none the wiser. Upon asking him about it later, he said he didn't think much of it and changed his account back.

The night went on, into the wee hours of the morning. We watched a really interesting infomercial for a juicer, some Clifford the Big Red Dog, and the opening animation for the start of the CBC broadcast day. We decided after this to hit the sack. The next morning we indulged in a bunch of different tasty treats provided by Mrs. Epp, who deserves many thanks for the help she provided in making this first Fantasticon a rousing success. After this, I was the first to go, being the first to arrive, and I bade my fellow Fantastica members farewell, as I stepped out into the sunlight.

It was December 31 when I arrived at Dan's house for not only a New Year's Eve bash but also, more importantly, the first official Fantasticon! Needless to say I was ecstatic. The house was full of fun and laughter, and the source was not exclusive to the kitchen where the Epp family was having supper. When I came downstairs, the three other attendees, Greg, Dave and Dan were sprawled out on the furniture, each with their own box of pizza lying in front of them, half eaten, grease dripping from their fingertips.

The reason I came later than the others is that I had stayed for a supper of Chinese food at my own house before leaving for the bash. Naturally I brought along my fortune cookie for some extreme New Years Eve entertainment later on.

When the pizza was gone, the party was ready to get started. I had brought along some Nintendo 64 titles to the party which I thought the other attendees would enjoy, but they were quickly dismissed as Dan fired up the Nintendo Gamecube, loaded with the hot new release, Mario Kart: Double Dash!!. The game had a lot of potential for fun, especially with four eager gamers at hand, but Greg and I, or maybe it was just I, couldn't handle the complexity of the controls for a regular race. We ended up having fun in the battle levels where all you had to do is drive and throw bombs. Even if you weren't aiming your bombs at anyone, you could still manage to emerge as a Mario Kart: Double Dash!! battle champion.

I also got to do a run through of the special Zelda collector's disc which Dave had brought along. We came to the conclusion that Zelda II: Adventures of Link is not a fun game, after I wandered around for far too long (keeping in mind that a minute of this game is far too long), talking to village folk as the other boys watched. Most likely this was the low point of the evening.

The party's momentum picked up though when we popped in another disc from Dave's library. This time it was a collection of demos for some of the Gamecube's most rocking games. From Mario Party 17 there was a mini-game where you had to squeeze through an onslaught of penguins to make it to the finish line. Another demo came from a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles game where you went around and would beat people up. Forever. But the best demo was surely for Sonic Heroes, for you got to experience the game's awesome theme song in its entirety.

When the game action had reached its peak, or maybe passed its peak, we realized that midnight was fast approaching! Dan's parents came down to celebrate with us, but probably more so with the TV because of the fun New Year's Eve countdowns. We watched the Conan O'Brien countdown, as his show is one of the few cool enough to cater to the central time zone. The countdown was satisfying, what with all of the sparkling apple juice being sloshed about, but it soon ended (as most countdowns do). Dan's mother then said, "I'm going to bed." We had a good laugh about that one.

The new year gave the bash some new energy so we settled down to watch some televison. Or maybe a movie. At one point we opened up the jumbo-sized bag of Nacho Cheese flavoured Doritos I had brought, only to eat a few handfuls before realizing that this bag was simply too extreme for any of us to handle. I think Superstore only has one size of Doritos and it's very big. Even at Superstore it probably cost 15 dollars, but I'm not sure because my dad got it.

As the night progressed, our TV programme selection became almost non-existant. Luckily we found a channel that was broadcasting a Jack Lalannes Power Juicer infomercial, non-stop. To this day I haven't seen a better infomercial than the one for the Jack Lalannes Power Juicer. It was amazing to say the least.

It was really getting late/early after we'd watched the infomercial 3 or 4 times. I think at 6 AM Clifford came on PBS, so we watched Clifford get tempted into jumping in his friend's pile of leaves while they were away, scattering the leaves every which way and all hell broke loose. During Clifford, we heard noise from upstairs and realized it was Dan's dad getting ready for work. I think he came down the stairs to see what was up, but no one was man enough to make eye contact with him. When he went back upstairs, we decided it was time to get to sleeping.

Somehow I managed to snag the basement's longest couch. Greg was assigned to the loveseat (though he might have later decided that the floor was kinder on the spine) and Dave and Dan were sent to no man's land between the computer room and the back of my couch. No ghost stories were told and perhaps that's my one and only regret from Fantasticon I. We fell asleep with gladness in our hearts and juicers on our minds.