Katsucon 9 Report

[Dracos]

I did say I'd get to this, so, here it is, the story of Katsucon.  We started off around five am from the Rensellaer campus, both me and Ginrai having been grouped in the Big Hulk van driven by our anime club president.  May I say here that he has great taste in music which is always a plus for an eight hour+ drive.  Stocked with music, empty bags, and junk food, we made our way from the friendly premorning skies of Troy, NY, to the sunny skies of Arlington, VA.  I had the pleasure of being one of the few who got a full night's sleep, much to the disgruntlement of my fellow con go'ers who were snoring as I idly looked about for entertainment on the trip.  It was about one or two pm in the afternoon when we finally got to hit the con itself, and needless to say, the group I was with (consisting of myself and Ginrai) went directly to the dealers room.  To say this place was poorly setup would be to give a compliment to the designers.  It was absolutely wretched to navigate half the time.  Getting dvd and front line stuff wasn't too much of a problem, but going for any of the sale items was a pain as they tended to be too tightly packed.  As befits my luck, I managed to get my hands on what appears to be the best deal of the con day one, the complete AMG collection plus a really nice poster for fourty.  After making about three or so circuits of the dealers room, we headed off to the game room which was, brilliantly, placed in the back of the dealers room.  Checking it out and signing up for the Super Smash Brothers Melee tournament, we quickly managed to find out...that they were desperately understaffed and underequipped, not even having about half the games they were intending too.  That sucked, so we left and headed down to see the midway of the start up events.  Distinctly boring, but allowed Ginrai to sleep again.  After that, I actually forget what we did.  Think we went off to grab some grub before coming back to catch halfway through the AMV productions.  Most of the AMV show was pretty mediocre by my standards.  Some going all the way down into outright terrible and most just being mediocre "Yeah yeah, we see you know how to attach music to video.  Get off the stage punk."  A few choice exceptions were "Sappy Self-Indulgence", "Self-Titled", and "SSBM: Brothers of liberty".  All three were excellently done and pretty much the best of that show by far.  Two of the three are currently being served up in #soulriders as Drac liked them very very much and allocated permanent hard drive space for them.  Anyhow, afterwards we went around hunting for the Gainax fellow Inou that was there.  We were rather surprised to turn around and find his booth literally empty right next to the exit of the amv showings with him twiddling his thumbs.  It was so abandoned that when I realized: "Shit, I don't have anything on me to sign.", we were able to go all the way back to our rooms and grab something and get back down.  No line, poor unpopular bastard. Anyhow, that ended up being the last thing I gave a damn about that night.  We swung around the art tables, but nothing really was worth purchasing there.  I headed back up to get shut eye for the next day, while Ginrai hung around a bit more.

Day two:
Okay, up bright and early...and I was the only damn one.  Went off to grab breakfast and then headed over to reshowing of the AMVs to see them all this time.  Sadly, my original judgement was correct.  They did suck overall save for those choice bits.  Afterwards I stepped out to take a look at the Megatokyo signature line.  And I turned around and went right upstairs.  It was "WAY TOO FUCKING LONG".  Came down and hunted up Ginrai downstairs a while afterwards, and we moved to head off Fred at his table which we'd scoped out yesterday.  Fifteen minutes later we had his damn signature.  I have no clue why I participated given I don't even read megatokyo.  But yeah, I have his signature.  Anyhow, after this we went to lunch.  Idea being we'd return for the tourney.  This idea being flawed as the tourney started officially well before we were to return.  Good thing, it started late.  Bad thing, it started VERY LATE.  As in four hours late.  Yeah, so we checked out the contest at the amg stand we registered for, neither of us winning, and then kept waiting for the tourney.  Eventually it started around four something later that afternoon.  It was scheduled to have 92 players.  I doubt it had more than sixty.  Round one was top two moved on.  I picked evil kirby, and I'm sorry to say I decided to totally kick Ginrai's ass round one.  Therefore, the number of RPI contestants in round two was a grand total of one.  That being Mr. "Yeah, I haven't touched this game like in six months easy." Dracos.  It took two more rounds before someone finally knocked me out when we were in first place elimination mode with about seven or eight people left in the tourney.  I for one am surprised as all get out I got that far.  I think everyone in that tourney who lost to me ought feel ashamed that I kicked their god damn asses.  Sheesh, took god damn near pro's to take me out.  SHAMEFUL.  Anyhow, having gotten my ass finally beaten in the fashion that it should have been round one ("Hey, you, tell me what the controls to this damn game are!"-Dracos, 20 minutes before tourney time).  So after this, we hunted for seats for the cosplay show.  This was supposedly to be the great show of the 'con.  It wasn't, save for one production which kicked ass.  And who was doing it?  Oh yeah, RPI trip arranger, Scott Madock.  Here's to him, his group kicked all sorts of ass with their Gundam wing cosplay.  Really, to be fair, about half of them were decent.  But that is balanced by the sheer number of fuckheads who went out there with: "Yeah, here's my costume.  I'm cool.  I can barely move.  Someone pull me off stage please."  God damn, people get awards for that crap?  Ouchie.  Worst of show was some guy who went out in a maid's outfit and said like two lines and then fled.  He got three awards.  Damn those idiot judges.  Anyhow, after that, I went ahead and got dinner, then claimed my bed area.  May I say it is WISE to be the early sleeper.  No fights for bed for me.  I got the bed every damn night.  Whoo-hoo!  ^_^  And so ended for me Day two of the con.

Day three:
We were supposed to be leaving today.  We hung around, watched some movies.  I bought some stuff in the dealers room.  Not a lot though, because by today the dealer people had gone from: "Hello, we like you."  to "FUCK YOU AND THE HORSE YOU RODE IN ON ANIMESWINE!  GET THE FUCK OUT OF THIS ROOM WITH THAT TRANSLUCENT BAG!"  Yeah, I hated security.  I think they all need a god damn dose of "hit yourself in the face" day three.  "Hey Dealers, I'd love to buy your stuff, but I wasn't allowed to bring a GOD DAMN BAG IN!  Yeah, but I got my imaginary bag right here.  It can carry anything.  Only because it's imaginary, it can only hold imaginary things.  Doesn't that suck?  So instead of spending the rest of my money, I will give security the finger and continue on."  Needless, to say, the crowning notion was finding out: "Hey, we aren't going NO WHERE."  At this time Drac had been spending money based on a three day budget.  He had a grand total of seven dollars in his wallet.  This could work.  Seven was plenty to provide funds for a single day of eating.  So Dracos went along with a group, got second meal of the day from the McDonald's nearby, and came back cold and angry.  This was rectified by the fact he had much anime and could commendeer a laptop.  Much anime watching commenced as Dracos watched all of Excel volume 1 in happiness and then half of Catgirl NukuNuku.  Drac was a happy drac.  Drac was ignoring at the time how utterly much it would suck to have an extra day out.  Fuck the ice and snow.  -.-  Dracos did this the rest of the evening, totally ignoring Katsucon 9.1 which was held for all the people who got stuck out here.  The early slumber commenced again, assuming we were going to be leaving tomorrow...boy was I wrong!

Day Four:
Well, the good news: It was no longer snowing here.  The bad News: It was snowing every inch of the way back up to the campus.  Result: We were snow stranded.  Whee!  So after examining the downstairs premises and finding: Yes, there was nothing whatsoever to do.  So, what do you do when you are stranded in a hotel room with fellow anime fans?  That's right, AMV GOODNESS.  Hooking up in Scott's room, we spent the morning watching more amvs than we could throw a bus at.  It was cool.  There was much discussion amongst arrogant experts of the best and worse of Vicbond amvs mostly.  Afterwards we went to get food.  Joyously, Dracos left this transaction with one gold dollar in his pocket which he keeps around for luck.  Joy!  BROKE!  So, expecting to hide up in the room for the rest of the day, I hear "Hey, we're having a Snow Con downstairs."  Do my ears deceive me?  Food?  Party?  Gaming?  They did not have to convince me to attend.  Damn, my stomach did that!  So I headed down for what turned out to be the best part of the con.  Damn, these guys knew how to throw a PARTY!  Anime in one corner.  DDR in another.  Gaming in a third.  More gaming in a fourth.  And gosh darn it, anime strewn around the room.  It was gold.  I made a bee-line to the gaming area where I battled for dominance on GGXX and SSBM until they took the damn tvs away.  Puushay!  Anyhow, moving from that I went over to enjoy the RPI card game where we commendeered a table for our own card game.  It was sweet.  Dracos notably got second game one.  He is slow.  Very slow.  It was a combination of solitaire and spit.  Multiplayer.  It was awesome.  Amusingly number one tried to call me for cheating.  I let him shuffle my hand.  He dealt me out a beaut of an opener.  I smiled.  What was the best part was, I was cheating.  Just was too fast with the cards for him to be able to call me on it on anything other than the fact that my style was different.  Pity that.  Of course, it didn't help that when I wouldn't cheat, I would still get killer opening hands.  That sort of points at you and says: "Waaaait a second!"  Anyhow, Got called on it.  Got away with it anyway.  It was funny.  The gamage continued for a full thousand points.  Both times Dracos lost.  Fuu that.  During this, Dracos got dinner and also saw LARP.  May I just say that LARP is the lamest thing I will ever see.  It has it's own category of absolute lame that is just beyond consideration.  I do not think I can CONCEIVE of a more lame way to spend time.  It's like taking the D&D rpg and putting it through a lamifier.  It was just THAT LAME.  So, after a long night of card games and partying, I departed for slumber.  With but a buck to my name, I was kind of hoping that day would be the last.

Day Five:
Today, we went HOME!  BEAUTEOUS HOME.  HOME WITH LOTS AND LOTS OF LATE WORK NOW X_X.  God damn you home.  Traveling the entirety of the day, we arrived sometime around ten pm that night.  It was long, it was cold, and we didn't have nearly enough snacks for the ride back.  The people who rode the big hulk home were all cool chaps though.  Much food sharing commenced and Drac's stomach was pleased.  And so came to an end the Katsucon 9 trip.  Fuck the security, It was fun.  Party on!

Fearless Leader

[kpjam]

I was wondering where this was.
Glad you liked the trip and didn't starve.

[Dracos]

I said I'd do it.  So here it is.  There's a lot on my backburner -.-.

Like that carnival break down I promised Panda months ago X_X.

Fearless Leader

[Edward]

Thanks for the report.  So did you actually watch any anime in the video rooms?  Specifically I'm interested in what anime you thought was best and what should be avoided at all costs.

[Dracos]

I went to the video rooms twice over the course of the con.  Mainly because the selection stunk in my opinion, with the high point being the entirety of hellsing being shown.  Grand whoop, I've seen it all twice through.

The two times I stepped in was when the con was just too fucking boring.  The first was to "His and Her circumstances."  Apparently popular.  I don't see it.  It was contrived, poorly animated, and had poor audio accompaniment.  I hated it within seconds.  Didn't even stay for a complete episode.  Moved over a few rooms down to Gigantor.  Which is old as dirt.  It was also significantly more funny than His and Her Circumstances.  The animation was crap and so was the storyline, but I wasn't expecting anything given it was old as dirt.  It provided a few moments distraction between more interesting events.  Overall, the video showings were crap that could be beaten by what I have on hard drive at this very moment.

Fearless Leader

[Anastasia]

Hmm, sounds like a bust except for the snow con.

If that's what you want, why not just stay at RPI next year and invite a ton of people for gaming and anime? Sounds better than the hassle of a multistate drive. Yeah.

And if that makes sense, I'll be amazed.

[thepanda]

I said I'd do it.  So here it is.  There's a lot on my backburner -.-.

Like that carnival break down I promised Panda months ago X_X.

Fearless Leader

Wow. O_O

I thought you had forgotten about that. ^_^

[Dracos]

Dracos rarely forgets things.  He can be busy as all get out, but tends not to be forgetful.

Fearless Leader