Prior to the con, there were plans made regarding the orchestration
of who would go where and how. Well, those plans disintegrated mere
days before the con, but it only affected me mildly, and all those involved
did manage to get to the con.
Hm, on second thought...
Picked up @ndrew’s dance equipment for hauling down, as he won’t be
able to get there the same time as everyone else. Thought about heading
down that very night, then thought better.
Lovely day for a drive, indeed.
Instead of going straight for the interstate highways, I take US 301, then US 17 for most of the remainder of the way for a very pleasant drive. Got to the hotel at a reasonable time, at the cusp of rush hour. Got my badge, then found Christian and Marc and got my stuff into his room at the Red Roof Inn. The room happened to be possibly the farthest room away from the Holiday Inn. And when did they put up this fence? Video schedule looks promising, and the familiarity of the hotel is a big help. It’s nice to be back at a con where I don’t have to work, or figure out where everything is. Snagged a couple DVDs in the dealers room, but not as many as I wanted. The overall DVD selection was rather lacking. Oh well, off to Suncoast sometime next week.
Where was I? Oh yeah...
Went and got something to eat in the hotel’s restaurant. They had an Italian buffet, but there’s less Italian there than in the tip of my... Ah, I still ate till I was stuffed. Went back to the room to take a nap.
“So tell her I ate some of her Pringles. What’s she going to do about it, beat you up? I don’t care.”
Sometime close to midnight, I woke up and went back into the con, and found @ndrew to give him his dance equipment. Dived into some fan parodies, two of which focused on Cowboy Bebop. Looked like they could have used better source footage, but I’m not complaining. After that was over, wandered around aimlessly with Marc and Justin for awhile then eating some munchies while in Justin’s room.
Finally around 4-ish in the morning, after a quick peek at UFO Princess
Walkyrie (cute and fanservicey), Marc and I head back to the room.
It’s been fun so far, in that “you had to have been there” kind of way.
Sitting in Yamiko-chan while writing this, luckily I’m parked mere feet
away from the motel room. It’s a small comfort, one that I enjoy.
It’s also the only place I can write this in a lighted location without
disturbing Christian or Marc.
...maerd egnarts a saw tahT
During the night I had a strange dream about a curse that befalls people that go into a particular movie theater that shows the films through mirrors, that the cursed eventually see and hear everything as though they were living in a mirror. Well, my interest got the better of me, so I went and just walked near the theater, and it was just enough for the curse to start, but not enough for it to take over all at once. I noticed this event when I started to read something, and I thought, "good thing I can read backwards." The kicker is, it's impossible to read in dreams. Then I woke up.
Hot water fight BEGIN!
About noonish, I wake up to a call from room service asking if we want our room cleaned. I just opt for fresh towels instead, and grab a shower. It was a battle to get a steady stream of hot water out of it. Ok, this certainly counts against this place for next year. From there, I head to the dealers room to get a “couple” cds.
A few hundred dollars later, I have enough music to last a trip home and back and then some. Sitting by the pool, it’s a lovely day out here, although too chilly for swimming. As Marc says, if you sit in one place for about 3 hours, you’ll see about 80% of the people. Eventually, Joe stops by, and shortly after, Patti does so as well.
Yummy!
After parting ways, I go up to the con suite for some munchies. No drinks yet. Upon finishing a PB&J sandwich, they truck in a massive amount of soda, so I slosh down some Dew while sharing con stories. Eh, I don’t think I’m going to tape Cosplay this weekend. Heard some people were lining up for that as early as 9 this morning. Maybe they were signing up for being in it. I hope that’s it. Otherwise, I have to ask, WHY!? Could a con be that dead that spending 10 hours in line for something is the best thing going? That’s kind of an insult to the rest of the con. Even during the slowest con I still found something else to do, and that wasn’t even resorting to going home. Jeez.
Had an idea...
Bob DeJesus was doing more of those SD convention badges, and I already have one of my own, but I wanted one for Yamiko. I should get one for Ai-chan too, as soon as I get an actual image of her. But he was booked solid for the rest of the day. So while there, I get a Neko-con shirt and rummaged through a surprise collection of used LDs, finding one of Butt Attack Punisher Girl. If I didn’t get that, I don’t think I could have forgiven myself.
Playing hooky
Marc and Justin went off to watch Cosplay, and I hung around with the York club instead. Chris tried to get a seat for seeing the Cosplay, but gave up. Patti and I went to dinner at Denny’s and got a hot dog for Steve, while the rest of the gang went to sit in the hot tub. A lot of people had abandoned the idea of watching the Cosplay, as there wasn’t much room for everyone. It’s been getting overcrowded here, apparent from the vast amount of people still milling about. So we’re hanging out in their room, watching some stuff on Cartoon Network.
Girls with guns!
There was anime to be watched, so off I went for the video rooms. Started off with Saishuuei Heiki Kanojo (She, the Ultimate Weapon) or more easily pronounced as Saikano. It’s a helluva cool show, one I’m definitely keeping an eye on. While they didn’t show all of it, it looks like it’s steering straight for a sad and tragic ending. For something different, I checked out Arcade Gamer Fubuki. Not sure about it being a funny kind of stupid or a stupid kind of funny. Enjoyed it anyway, for all the brainless fun it was. I guess it was both kinds. Gratuitous panty shots of the main character. Don’t ask me how that was part of the plot, but it was.
Getting tired. Think I’ll call it a night, I’ve had my fun. All weekend long, there’s been a constant but subtle police presence here. But the festivities aren’t lost on them. On my way out of the hotel, I glanced at one of the uniformed sheriffs at the entrance, and noticed she was wearing fuzzy cat ears... She said people had been taking pictures of her like that all night.
As usual, today has moved faster than yesterday, but not as fast as
tomorrow will. The skies grow cloudy, and I see droplets of rain
appear on the windshield as I write this while sitting in Yamiko-chan.
I’m only a few feet away from my room, so I guess I’ll go in for sleep.
Waking up on the right side of wrong
Woke up, and within half an hour I had showered and got all my stuff out of the room. While I wait for the Yamiko-chan con badge to be done, I look through the doujinshi selection and find one entitled “Mobile Suit Kanon”. Mine! It’s a retelling of the first episode of Kanon series using Gundam robots. Odd that it was in with the hentai, it was rather clean. Untranslated, but for anyone that’s seen the first episode of Kanon, no problem.
Picked up the new Yamiko con badge, which looks nice. Hung around in the con suite, someone’s running oddball stuff on a computer, and another one’s running old video games. Gonna snag @ndrew to load his stuff in my car, then shove off in a few hours.
When it’s better to be late than early...
Um, Ground Defense Mao-chan isn’t supposed to start ahead of time. It’s on episode 3 already. At least they’re only 15 minutes each. Ultra-cute. Something about the only way to fight cute aliens is to use cute grade-school girls. Another show to look for. And now I need to find the theme songs. But it’s gotten too warm and humid in the room for me to enjoy it, giving rise to some noticeable Con Whiff. Plus, the cuteness of the show is rotting my teeth at an accelerated rate.
Gobbled up an Excel Saga manga. Methinks I’ll pass on the Belldandy figure for now, although it would have been loads of fun to get it, and outfit her with heavy weaponry. Well, that was my intention from the beginning. Same goes for a Card Captor Sakura doll.
Is this really November?
Ah, on a day like this, why not have part of the con outside? It would certainly be nice to take the same roads going home, but only if I had a few more hours of sunlight. Unfamiliar secondary roads at night are only fun if I’m not trying to hurry home. But I should be ok.
Ah, they would have found out anyway.
Checked out the Fan Parody production panel, but they started to cover more nerdy aspects of production, which involved things like video capture. Got @ndrew’s stuff in my car, and now we’re hanging out at the Iron Cat table, waiting for the time to go home. Met a girl that’s interested in being staff at AUSA, and inadvertently ruined the ending for Cowboy Bebop for someone.
Movin’ along with a player full of Ayumi Hamasaki.
Between the times of 4:30 and 11:30, we got home, including an hour for eating dinner at a Flying J buffet that was several orders of magnitude better than the hotel’s, dropping off @ndrew, and doing some grocery shopping. And to think, I have to go to work tomorrow...
Y’know, a weekend like this makes me wish I was able to go last year. But maybe I’m better off not pushing my luck. It was lean times last year, and maybe it just stacked all the fun for me into this year. I’ll take what I can get.
There’s a lot of stuff that I wanted to see and do over the weekend but didn’t, and yet there’s much that I did manage to see and do that I didn’t expect to. Anime that I wanted to see went by the wayside, but others that I didn’t plan on seeing but I’m glad I saw. There were some small mistakes made, although they didn’t detract from the fun.
This con is the last con of 2002 for me, and I’m content with that.
It’s been definitely a good year for con-going, and despite any problems
here, (has there ever been a con that doesn’t have problems?) I’m glad
I went.
Attendance: 1700, give or take a few.
Highs: Fan parodies, getting hooked on fresh anime, not wasting my entire Saturday evening on the cosplay, hearty meals through the weekend, nice drives to and from the convention, and was pretty good about buying stuff, even though I got a lot.
Lows: Slightly inconsistent video schedule, some Con Whiff happening on Sunday (this cannot be neglected!), and that exit ramp that I got right for when I came here for Katsucon 2 but never got right since.
Will Dizzy eat it?
Arby’s
mostly full meals from Denny’s, hotel restaurant, Flying J
munchies and some ice cream!
Cost overview: The big stack of CDs was easily almost half of what I spent. Then again, A/V stuff has a penchant for taking up the lion’s share of the total bill at any convention I go to. Total was somewhere around $560.
Next year? Sure, I’ll go.
Up next: Ohayocon 3!