The A-kon experience

[Merc]

Thursday:

Met Hal at around 4pm. We hanged out at his place for an hour before heading to his parents' place. Met the mutant-sized dog, Buster, and the smaller dog whose name is more forgettable, what with it not being a mutant and all. Buster is an attention whore.

Met Hal's parents, and we all went to Rudy's, the "worst BBQ in Texas". Which, for being the worst, was not half bad. A bit heavy on the pepper, but hey, we got dinner and a show when the counter people started playfighting when no customers were in line.

Following that, we went back to Hal's place, where we astounded and amazed and bamboozled the guys in #mk with the unholy union of Makoto and Usagi. Or rather Usagi_and_Makoto, I suppose. We did a bit of this when we were in his room earlier too, actually, come to think of it. Anyhow, he also kicked my ass at Melee for a while before we went our separate ways into the realm of Morpheus. He has a comfy couch, but too many pillows.


Friday:

At 5:30am, both Hal and I woke up, packed our stuff, did some things that needed to be done, including picking up drinks for the cooler and getting the digital camera that belonged to Hal's parents. We finally exit the Austin area at 7:00am. We made plans to take a picture in front of the convention center together at some point in the con.

The drive to Dallas was fairly uneventful, outside of Hal forcibly waking me up at one point with a sharp swerve (bastard!) when I nodded off and the huge truck that tried to sandwich us against the concrete road railing slab thingies. We eventually enter Dallas and promptly get lost a little while after passing the plushie's not so well hidden porn store, Lido's Adult Videos (forgetting that one "d" won't trick people of OUR caliber, plushie!). Buy a map of Dallas and get to the convention center quickly enough, with some comments thrown in about the weirdness of Dallas road signs.

After getting our badges from a friend of mine who got in early and picked all the con badges for the school group, we proceed to explore the con grounds, where everything is still pretty much closed, or in the setting-up stage. The anime playing at this point in the video rooms was hardly what we wished to start with.

So we decide to play a round of "Spot the cosplayer", where not only do we find the costumed shenanigans of the freaks and geeks of our kind, but try to place the series they come from. While Hal owned me with the multitude of Final Fantasy cosplayers, I in turn pointed out a multitude of the anime ones. Some cosplayers had some really nice costumes, such as Dr. Wily (who really needed a Gutsman plushie hanging onto his shoulder to be complete, I think) and the Ghostbuster, and some that were just funny, such as the dying Squall with a shard stuck through his chest (who was photographed for Dune, apparently) and Strong Bad (who was not photographed for Dracos, sadly). Also saw a few mikos, though most were kinda bleh. Took a picture of one anyhow.

We also watched some of the insane moves at the DDR machines in the gaming area, as well as seeing Hal get his ass handed to him in a silver platter at Melee this time. A line starts forming around the dealer's room that spans the entire floor outside the room as soon as the floor is enterable. The room itself does not open for an hour or two. I laughed at this point at those willing to line up for the "glory" or whatever of being the first to get in for that one item that just won't be there in an hour or whatever.

At around noon, things started to get interesting as we entered our first panel, World Building, where there are only two panelists. The first guy was somewhat of an amusement, as he stated that he wasn't doing the panel alone when the other guy didn't arrive yet, because "a panel isn't a panel with just one guy, it's a lecture then", and despite this, he stayed quiet for most of the panel once the other guy did arrive. The second guy however was a pleasure to listen and talk with. Apparently the author of the Realms of Uresia and Pokethulu books at that. Was fun listening to him talking about how he did interviews with kids to find out what they liked most about pokemon and the like for his research to parody the pokemon phenomenon. Same for listening to his amazement that some kids enjoyed pokethulu more than pokemon without getting the fact that it was a parody of it. He was an amusing guy. Learned that I should be harassing Hal for deck plans for his game, because "the players DEMAND floor/deck plans!". XD

At 1pm, we finally entered the dealer's room, and quickly browsed through a cel and cards booth. Nice cels, especially the SM ones, if a bit pricey. It was amusing that all the group SM cels consisted of just Makoto and Usagi. Browsing through the trading cards, we each buy a few SM cards we thought were kinda  cool. We take a small break to watch ep 1 of Kiddy Grade, which Hal was interested in, and return afterwards, having told Hal that odin should have the series. Browsing through the rest of the dealer's room brought on a bit of a disappointment. The prices were not that great, the selections of anime and manga tended to border on all being the same, and outside of toys and memorabilia, there was almost no good import stuff. Ie, no good import manga. The few import mangas that we saw, tended to be of series that were already licensed, or already scanlated. Which seemed kind of moronic in a way, but whatever. Hal managed to buy a bokken at a decent price though, and I got a nice Shaman King poster. Outside of the cards and these buys, we didn't buy anything else in the dealer's room during our stay at A-kon (not counting the stuff we got for the plushie and Dune).

Eventually, we found ourselves at the Music Video Contest, which resulted in extreme pain for my feet as I was forced to stay stood up on my already tired feet since all the chairs were full. Eventually found a place to seat, but only once the event was almost over. Anyway, backtracking a bit, the selection of AMVs wasn't that great, a lot of the AMVs suffering from a few technical problems that kept them from being good in my opinion. There were too many Final Fantasy MVs (I refuse to consider them AMVs no matter how good they were), and AMVs with clips that had subtitles or were just plain bad quality. The Saikano AMVs, the Wolfwood AMVs, and the Karekano AMV, however, kicked all ass. So did the Devil went down to Georgia AMV with hellsing and kodocha clips. The Naruto's United States of Whatever was amusing and very well done, though I really thought it was blown away by the Kareshi Kanojo no Jishou one and the Devil one. I'm glad the Karekano one won the judges' sweep award and the Devil one won the fan's award.

Stopping to rest for a while, we go back down to watch Abenobashi 1-4, and were incredibly amused. Went back to rest and eat cup ramen at the room (oh yes, we were in there with SEVEN other people, btw. Dropped the price from $50 per person to $30, but still...eesh). Planned to go to the Do As Infinity concert at midnight, but zonked out.


Saturday:

Woke up at 8am, took a shower, went to the convention center and watched Arcade Gamer Fubuki before finding Hal in the Kaleidostar video room at 9am. He had apparently been watching Wedding Peach beforehand, god rest his soul. Anyhow, he was apparently amused by KS, which he'd gone to see due to remembering me talk so much about it (^_^), so I must remember to send some KS episodes his way at some point.

We walked around aimlessly after this, with some "Spot the Cosplayer" thrown in, until we separated for panels again. Though I wanted to go to the Adventure Design panel that Hal went to, I ended up at the Photoshop Tips panel...and was in for a rude disappointment. Her is where I had my first big beef with the preparation, or rather lack of it, from the convention staff, though there'd been lots of smaller mistakes earlier and the day before. Because he didn't have a projector screen, and only a small laptop, he could not work on screen to show us tips and the panel became more of a "breaking into the industry as a colorist" thing, which quite frankly, I don't give a fucking damn about. At the last 10 minutes of the panel the screen finally came, though it took 5 minutes to set up, and so there were only about 5 minutes worth of tips. In other words, it blew big chunks. Fucking A-kon staff.

Disappointed, I stopped at the Life Drawing panel, left within a minute, Making Music Videos panel, left within two minutes, went to gaming area and met with Hal to go get lunch (ramen again) and pass by the dealer's room again. Found the stuff the plushie wanted at the new booth that showed up that day (Ichigo 100% manga), and Hal bought that Wild Arms poster that Dune wanted that we saw the day before.

At 4pm, we saw the awards for the AMV contest, and just hanged out doing a whole lot of mostly nothing till 7pm when the cosplay contest began. Didn't manage to get into the room with the contestants and had to watch on the screen from outside. The skits sucked ass for the most part, and what should have been the worst (ie, Chiyo-bubba vs Bill Gates) was the funniest. Kudos go to the Excel Saga one though for ending their skit with the Menchi cosplayer singing/barking. ^_^

I also couldn't help laughing at a dead baby joke one of the skits people said (How do you put a baby into the blender? Head first, so you can watch them kick on the way down). I'm such a bad person. ;_;

After the horrible skits were over, came the actual cosplayers. A few nice ones showed up, but for the most part, the group sucked. Hal refuses to acknowledge the presence of the chibi that showed up as Sailor Luna.

Once the pain ended, a line started to form, and being what geeks we and the rest of the con attendees were, everyone got in line, including us. Nobody knew just what the line was for, but dammit, Hal and I were at the near front! I actually suspected that it was for the Nami Tamaki concert and was right, but still. ^_^

Anyhoo, Nami was fun, even if as Hal said, she flubbed a bit on Believe (her first song). Once the show stopped, and she rushed off after waving at us goodbye, the announcer guy realized that she had stolen his mike, and rushed after her once he told us that. Like I said, Nami was fun. ^_^

After this, began a weird ass ballet thingie crap and they passed around hats asking for money. Hal and I were both "Pffft, I'm not paying for that", as were a bunch of other people in the crowd. I think the people that did pay, did so more out of pity for how bad they were. I mean, dear lord, these were supposed to be from a professional dance group or something like that.

Immediately after this, the announcer returned with his mike and brought up the judges for the cosplay contest, each one announcing their favorite group of cosplayers. At the end of that, a special award was given for the "Best Under 13 costume". Guess who won?

Hal didn't have to acknowledge her upclose existance though, since it was unfortunately past the chibs' bedtime and she was immersed in a fulfilling catnap. Anyhow, we put away chairs at the request of the staff, and filed out so they could set up for Psycho Le Cemu.

Meeting some of my school club friends, Hal and I hanged out with them in wait for the band concert...for a very annoying two hours with  the staff becoming an evil overbearing presence that we and the crowd dubbed the "Line Nazis". One of my friends split after the bitches in the staff crowded us into like a -third- of the space that we covered for a good hour, and making it a good hour before we were filed into a single filed line (again, these were unprofessional line nazis of the worst caliber) to get in. Still, we spent some time chatting with my school chums, and Hal feels he better understands my quirks now.

Anyhow, once we did get inside, the sound guy sucked as much as he did during the cosplay contest and the Nami concert, the lights were painful, and the damn tall people in front kept the shorties like me from ever really seeing much (though Hal claims to have had similar problems despite being so tall. Actually, he claimed more, including getting bapped by the night glow sticks people wove over their heads to of course make things harder to see ^_^).

Though we planned to hang out with the people from my school, we eventually found the concert too much and left. Going up to our room, with the plan of hitting the sack and get up early the next day to leave (the only interesting stuff for sunday were the fanfiction panel, and two others immediately after from noon-3pm). It was now just a bit over midnight.


Sunday:

...We ended up chatting over the course of an hour and a half, and then playing moon frisbee with a night glow stick for half an hour. We eventually got off our asses and went back to the convention area. The hentai video room had a line for it, and we didn't feel like going off towards the yuri video room (as we saw more than enough of that in Dune's Sailor Moon game together, thank you very much), so we headed towards the panels and gaming arena. In one of the panel rooms, they were holding karaoke, and we caught the last "show" before they had to close, which was two guys and Dejiko singing Yatta. After that amusing sight, we headed into the gaming arena where they'd grouped the machines into one zone which they said was unlimited free play after a $5 entrance fee. We bit, and spent the rest of the night playing DDR, Gauntlet Legends, some fighter games, and a 20 second table hockey game where I was promptly owned (man, I was -so- bad at it...I haven't played in YEARS, but damn, that was just horrible).

At 6am, we were packed and left, getting a bit lost trying to get out of Dallas, even with the map (which we never really consulted admittedly), stopped to sleep for 45 minutes at around 7:15am, and got to Houston at around 10:20am and my place at around 10:45am. I had a couple of moments I nodded off (with Hal not forcibly waking me up thankfully) and a couple of moments of hallucinations where I saw a road sign as a mallet falling down atop the car in front and smashing it, and a road sign for "Airline Rd" blur into "Anime Rd".

Anyhow, at my place, gave Hal a really quick tour while my mom made some coffee for him, and made some quick pasta. Hal then left on the road, I logged on to give a few quick mentions of the con experience, and then went off for a nap that lasted for...a good 10 hours. ^_^;;


Final Thoughts:

The dealer's room was a huge disappointment. Nothing was really cheap, there was a buttload of stuff not even REMOTELY connected to japanese culture (like a normal jewelry [nothing japanese related] booth and a booth with nothing but american comic books [though admittedly, I filled a hole in a comic book collection because of it]), a lot of the selections that WAS there was often the same as almost every other booth, and there was almost NO import manga and zero import anime. The lack of import manga was what really bothered me.

The preparation of the con staff was painfully bad, and this being the 15th year that A-kon has run, and supposedly at the same place...that's not good. The video staff often didn't know quite how to set up the DVDs properly (one person spent FOUR tries just getting the dvd to be in japanese with subtitles mode. with the dvd having only two options, dubbed and subbed). When the lights were turned on in a video room, nobody knew how to turn it off, and the panicky idiots felt they had to call the hotel staff for help. Hal and some other con members eventually came to the rescue of the idiots by turning off the lights themselves. At some of the rooms, they won't allow you to bring in your camera and/or bags and expect you to leave them by the entrance. When asked if there's a guarantee someone won't just take their stuff, the staff member promptly shrugged and answered with a "Not my problem, I'm not responsible for your stuff" type response. The staff members had problems with rudeness and an overbearing attitude, and this was more obvious during the wait for the PlC concert, with the "Line Nazis". The loveable chant of "WE LOVE YOU LINE NAZIS!" is forever stuck in our hearts and the crowd around us.

...Still, for all its flaws, it was still a fun experience. Like I mentioned, the gaming panels were great, there were some good AMVs and cosplayers, we got some cool stuff out of the fairly crappy dealers' room, there was free ramen at our hotel room, and hanging out with Hal was a plain old BLAST. Though we never did get to take a picture together, at the con, or either of our places. ^_^;

Anyhow, we need to drag other people in the general area like Dune, Panda, Shuten and whomever else into it next year. The two of us are already planning/considering doing it again.

We just hope there's some way to send comments to the convention people so they can hopefully look into fixing up their flaws. If not, then if nothing else I at least got some hints of what not to do for when I have to run Ronin Con in the fall semester at my school. XP

[Anastasia]

Hurry up and send me my goods! ^_^

And sounds like fun. Dunno about goin' myself, but it's good you two had a blast.

[Liddo-kun]

Hurry up and send me my goods! ^_^

I concur!  XD

Huggles to you both for going out of your way to get the goods for the two of us.  ^_^

And sounds like fun. Dunno about goin' myself, but it's good you two had a blast.

This I nod my head with as well.  I'll see about freeing up time the next time it's held, but no guarantees on my end.

Still, would be fun.  ^_^

I think....  >_>

[Brian]

I missed out on a Wild Arms poster?

Someone will die for this.

[Anastasia]

I can send you a picture of it when Hal gets his pics up, at least. And it's all mine. ^_^

[Halbarad]

If I'd known, I would have gotten you one, Brian. ^^ Wild Arms Alter Code F poster for $15.

Anyway, my turn!

Pre-Thursday. Spent a couple of days cleaning my apartment to make it presentable for Merc when he arrived. And it was overdue anyway.

Thursday: Tons of stuff to do. Ended up picking Merc up around 4:30, then the two of us came back to my place for a few minutes. Much ownage at SSBM was accomplished, then it was off to dinner with my parents. I love Rudy's. After dinner it was back to my apartment after making arrangements to pick up my parents' digital camera in the morning, and then from there we decided to go for mayhem in the form of taunting regulars in #mk. Bed followed, as we were planning on leaving Austin early to get to Dallas as the con was getting fired up.

And yes, I do have a comfy couch. I sleep on it myself at times.


Friday: Woke up at the crack of early to get ready to go - I still had to pack my stuff for the trip. Got things organized and ready to go fairly quickly though; I bundled up my clothes and my Gamecube (in the hopes that we could get some gaming done in our hotel room when the con was slow). Left the house about 6 am, made a quick stop at Walmart for food for the cooler, then stopped by my parents' house for the camera and headed out to Dallas after picking up breakfast.

The trip was pretty uneventful, other than Merc dozing off in the car a couple of times. Allow me to take this time to say I hate semis.

We arrived in Dallas around 9:15 or so, right on time. Unfortunately, I'd left the directions to the hotel back on my desk at home, so we ended up stopping about five miles north of the exit we SHOULD have taken (which wasn't marked right anyway) to get a map. It was on the way back that we saw the plushie's adult video store. We ended up getting slightly lost once we were in the right area for the convention center, but not seriously so, and the last hurdle was parking. Ended up walking through the doors of the con around 9:50 or so, and had our passes by 10.

And then we did... not much. The dealers' room wasn't opening until 11, the anime showing at the time was nothing that interested either of us, and the stalls that WERE open downstairs weren't much to look at. I got a few pics of cosplayers while we were wandering around. Eventually we wound up in the console gaming room, and I was promptly beaten senseless at SSBM. Who knew people actually used the block button? Also took the one and only pic I have of one of us while in the gaming room.

At 11, the second floor opened, where a fair number of exhibits were, as well as the dealers' room. Due to some kind of snafu, though, only the exhibit floor was open - the line for the dealers' room started, and it stretched around three sides of the exhibit area.

Our first panel was World Building, as Merc mentioned. It was a lot of fun, although the panel room had no posted schedule so we weren't even sure we were in the right place at first. There were only 4 people in attendance and the two panelists, so it was a fairly small group. Lots of fun though, and I learned a few fun techniques for creating elements of a world.

And NO DECK PLAN! I'm a writer, not an artist! If you want a deck plan, YOU make one. ^^

After the World Building panel we finally hit the dealers' room, which apparently opened sometime while we were in the panel. Got through about half the room before losing interest; I saw a lot of cels I liked, although every last one of them was out of my price range. The guy running the booth was fairly nice though, so I got a few pics while we were in there. I also found a few trading cards that were in my price range, as well as a red oak boken for $9 - not a bad deal, even if I can't really spar with it.

After the dealers' room, we tracked down our hotel room key and hauled all our stuff up to the room - it was good to take a load off for a few minutes, although we were sorely disappointed to find out that there were no A/V jacks on the TV at all - and thus no Gamecube.

When we got back to the convention floor, there was a group of Final Fantasy cosplayers at the end of the skyway connecting the hotel and the convention hall, as well as a statue of Al from Full Metal Alchemist that Merc thought was rather cool. There was also an FFT summoner that came through while we were looking around.

Next stop was at a showing of the first three episodes of Kiddy Grade - I saw a teaser outside one of the second floor exhibits that looked interesting, but unfortunately I found that it only LOOKED interesting. =\ Ah well.

Killing time was once again the order of the day (not for the last time), until 4, when we both decided to head over to the AMV contest. I managed to snag a seat on one of the tables set up to hold water at the edge of the room so I didn't have Merc's sore foot problem at least. ^^ The AMVs were fairly good; the most notable ones were a couple of Trigun AMVs, a hilarious and well done Naruro AMV done to The United States of Whatever (I have this one, if anyone's interested, PM me), the KareKano AMV Merc mentioned (which I also have now), and the Kodocha/Hellsing one to 'The Devil Went Down to Georgia'.

Dinner came after the AMV contest - bland Chinese at the only restaurant visible from the convention center. You'd think they'd have more information about local restaurants, really. -_-

Post dinner at 7 PM was the first four eps of Abenobashi, at Merc's recommendation. Which turned out to be a good recommendation, as I absolutely loved them. Very funny, even if the girl running the projector didn't have the first clue about what she was doing - it took her four tries to get the DVD switched over to subtitles.

Abenobashi let out at 9, at which point I had to go move the car anyway. >_> After getting the car in a new, cheaper lot, we headed back up to the room for a rest prior to the Do As Infinity concert that Merc wanted to check out at midnight. Unfortunately, the effects of getting up at five in the morning took their toll on both of us, and we promptly passed out.

Note to self: If I go again next year, I am NOT sharing a room with a bunch of high school students. -_-


Saturday: Woke up at 6:30, as the car had to be paid for parking for the next day by 7 am. I usually stay up once I get up, so I headed over to take a look at Wedding Peach, which was showing at 7 am. I managed to make it through two episodes before the gag factor kicked in. >_>

I took a bit of a walk around the convention center and the area nearby, finding a food court area in one of the buildings across the way. Woo. Had a banana and a bagel for breakfast, then headed back over to watch Kaleido Star - I'd heard Merc rave about it a few times, and the panels didn't start until noon, so I thought 'why not?' And I was pleased - it's a very good series, even if it got paused in the middle due to an accident with the room lights. -_- Which I had to fix myself, since the projector girl (the same one from Abenobashi the night before, no less) didn't seem too inclined to get up and do anything about it herself.

But I digress. ^_^; After Kaleido Star was round two of the dealers' room. Quite a bit of One Piece merchandise in evidence; it was tempting to buy this Chopper clock for Liddo-kun, as he's considering the role in Merc and Bean's OP game if it ever gets started. Tookmore pics of cels too, and managed to spot a pair of girls cosplaying Sailor Mars and Sailor Mercury. even though they weren't all that good. Downstairs was another girl cosplaying Sailor Jupiter who was a bit better, but not by a lot. I spotted one other of each of Sailors Mars and Merury, but I didn't get pics - Mercury #2 was worse than the one I DID get a picture of, and I only spotted Mars #2 once. Also picked up a Wild Arms Alter Code F poster for Dune while I was there.

Noon saw Merc and I parting ways; he headed off to a panel on Photoshop tips, while I headed over to a panel on Adventure Design - with the same two guys from the World Building panel the day before. Much enjoyment was had discussing various sources of creating an adventure as well as a few tips on GMing in general. I also managed to score a free book from S. John Ross, or I will once I send him an email. >_> Always a plus. While we were up on the third floor with the panel rooms, we also spotted a really cool Starscream cosplayer that just begged for a picture.

Saw Merc briefly as our paths crossed at the exit of the Photoshop panel; he headed over to Life Drawing while I wandered back down to the dealers' room for lack of things to do. More browsing ensued, and it wasn't long before Merc joined me again, complaining about the Life Drawing panel not being much more than an art class. Sigh. We looked through the booths again, where we found the plushie's manga, and a quick phone call to Dune revealed that he wanted ALL of it. After making the purchase, we headed up to the hotel room, where our roommates had thoughtfully left a couple of cases of ramen for everyone to snack on. A couple of cups of ramen and a bit of foot-resting later, and we headed back over to the convention center.

Not much was going on at that point, at least that we were interested in; spotted a few more good cosplayers although I didn't get pics of all of them. Auron and Kimahri both had excellent costumes - particularly Kimahri - although neither of the cosplayers was really tall enough to pull off the role too well. We also spotted a rather nifty Canti from FLCL - the guy in the costume was actually on stilts, looked very cool. Back up on the exhibit floor we also spotted a very nice Ghostbusters cosplayer; while the pic doesn't show it all that well, the guy's proton pack was hand made, and VERY nicely detailed. I was very impressed. And right behind our Ghostbuster was the snack stand, selling the junk food of choice for the con - Pocky! And lots of it, too. Personally, I think it tastes fine, but it has all the stomach-filling capacity of air.

Wandering around on the exhibit floor eventually led over to the Reaper Miniatures area, where they were offering free minis to anyone willing to sit down and paint one. While I did want to snag a figure and paint it, I ran out of time in line, as Merc and I both wanted to check out the awards ceremony from the AMV competition on Friday. There were three judges' awards (with runners-up) and one 'most popular' award. Runner-up, artistic went to Don't Want To Miss A Thing (SaiKano); runner-up for artistic went to I Want Your Girlfriend To Be My Girlfriend Too (Project A-ko) - very funny, and the timing was really well done. The actual winner of the artistic, technical, and overall awards went to He Needs Me (KareKano) (link is a direct download), which I thought was cute enough but not that wonderful personally. The popular award winner was The Devil Went Down To Georgia (Kodocha/Hellsing), which I haven't been able to find a copy of yet but was funny as hell. Second place for the popular award was United States of Whatever (Naruto) (another direct download link) - which had the entire theater cracking up when it was shown.

The awards didn't take too long, and I headed back up to paint my miniature while Merc headed back to the hotel room for a nap. Waiting for a spot and painting the figure took me about 45 minutes, and I'd say it turned out fairly decent. I wish I'd had something to seal the figure with, as it lost a bit of paint in transport, but you can't win them all. Got back up to the hotel room around 6:15 for a bit more ramen and chatting with Merc, then we headed down to watch the cosplaying contest at 7.

The first half of the cosplay contest was all skits, most of which sucked unbelievably. Some of the costumes were pretty good, but the cosplayers couldn't act to save their lives - and it showed. A couple of the skits were worth a chuckle (especially Chiyo-bubba vs. Bill Gates), but sound problems plagued the entire evening, really showing their head first during the cosplay contest. Merc and I were both watching it from outside the room on CCTV, and about half the time we couldn't hear a word that was being said.

The second half was just cosplayers showing off their costumes - nothing to really write home about there. There was a nice group dressed as Mortal Kombat characters, although I still deny the existence of Sailor Luna, much less the existence of a Sailor Luna cosplayer. She wasn't there and she didn't win an award, and that's all I have to say on the subject.

After the cosplay contest was the Nami Tamaki concert, which we managed to get fairly close to the front of the line for and got seated after no more than fifteen minutes or so. She did fairly well overall; while her first song had more than a few flubs in it, she recovered very well and completed the rest of her set without a hitch - on her end at least. >_> More sound problems; the tech manning the board apparently had no idea how to balance the background track with Nami's vocals, as during the first four songs either Nami or the vocals were too loud and drowned out the other. By the last song they had it straightened out, but still - something you want to get taken care of quickly.

The cosplay contest awards were handed out after Nami left; nothing too notable to mention there. I believe the ballet company filled in between Nami leaving and the emcee showing back up for the awards ceremony, and as Merc said... they sucked. A lot. And then had the audacity to ask for money. After the awards, we put up our chairs and were forced to clear the room so they could set up for the Psycho le Cemu concert, which was scheduled to start at 10 (we got out of the cosplay contest around 9:15 or so).

Figuring it'd be no big deal, we headed back out into the main room to wait. And wait we did. With reminders from the security staff every ten minutes that we needed to stay behind the line of pillars in the main hall. While we were there we met up with a group of Merc's anime club buddies, which at least made the waiting quite a bit more entertaining than it might otherwise have been. Around 10:30 the head of the security detail came out and demanded absolute silence, then promptly told us that the long line we'd been waiting in across the room was going to funnel down into about a third of the space it HAD been using. And so we waited further, saluting the line nazis occasionally. By 10:55 or so they finally opened up the press to form the actual line to get into the room; so we got out of one press of people and got to sit down and go nowhere instead. More waiting. By 11:20, we finally managed to get into the room, which finished filling up by probably 11:25 or so. And Psycho le Cemu didn't even show up on stage until 11:35; most of us were cheering the sound check guys as they came out to test guitars and so forth.

And the music, after more than two hours of waiting... wasn't all that good. Merc and I ended up leaving after about the fourth song (I couldn't see either; I'm a good bit taller than Merc is, but not tall enough, and with as far back as I was I could barely see half the stage). I think the concert ended about ten minutes after we left the room (meaning that most people waited two hours to watch a forty-five minute long concert), and we waited up a few minutes to see if Merc's friends would show up, which they didn't.

So it was back to the hotel room to sleep for the trip in the morning... or so we thought.


Sunday: Got back up to the hotel room around 12:30 and got ready for bed. It was just Merc and I in the room at that point, so we ended up chatting for a while. And by a while, I mean about an hour and  a half. By 1:30, we were both wide awake and people were coming in to sleep, so around 2 or so we headed back out to the con floor.

The shop areas were (obviously) closed, and neither of us felt inclined to wait in another long line to investigate Hentai-fest, so we wandered up to the arcade and console gaming areas for a bit. Just before 3, we stopped in at the end of a karaoke session, where we got one of the con's highlights: watching three people sing the Yatta song on a karaoke machine. ^^

Watching DDR was the order of the day for a while, until we finally got bored, bit the bullet, and paid the $5 admission into the arcade area - all the machines were set on free play, so it was $5 play-all-you-want until 6 am. Much in the way of DDR and Gauntlet Legends ensued. Around 5:30 we got sick of the arcades and headed back to the hotel room to collect our stuff, feeling rather manic from sleep deprivation. We managed to clear out of the hotel room by a bit after six, then it was off to the highway! After getting lost in downtown Dallas for a bit, but that was fun too, dammit! We made a stop about 45 minutes south of Dallas for breakfast at McDonalds, then shortly afterwards I noticed myself getting too sleepy to go much further without incident. Rather than drive both of us into the side of a tractor trailer, I pulled over at a rest stop where we both took a 45 minute nap. Well, I took a 45 minute nap, anyway. Then it was back off to Houston again, while Merc dozed next to me. At least his snoring helped me stay awake on the road from then on out.

We got into Houston and to Merc's house by 10:45 or so. After a quick lunch provided my Mrs. Merc Sr. (who makes a DAMN good cup of coffee, by the way), I got the brief tour of the house and started back to Austin around 11:30. Said coffee provided enough of a kick that I got home without any trouble, making it back to my apartment by 2:00.

And that's about it. The pictures were dumped from my parents' camera this afternoon and resized so you don't stare at an absolutely HUGE image, and other than that I've just been resting for most of the day and trying to catch up on sleep.

Overall, I have to admit I had a blast. Most of the con events and showings weren't all that spectactular or eye-grabbing to me, but getting to hang out with Merc for three days was a ton of fun. Even if he's not as talented in person. ^_^ Although that's probably a good thing, all things considered. I'd definitely go again, especially if we can scrape together a few more people from Soulriders to join us.

[Merc]

This I nod my head with as well.  I'll see about freeing up time the next time it's held, but no guarantees on my end.

Still, would be fun.  ^_^

I think....  >_>

Of course it would! We'd just need to take a picture of you in a washing machine before anything else.

[Liddo-kun]

Of course it would! We'd just need to take a picture of you in a washing machine before anything else.

*stabs you*

*stabs you again for good measure*

-_-;

And stop saying I own a pr0n shop, dangit!  O_O

[Anastasia]

Of course it would! We'd just need to take a picture of you in a washing machine before anything else.

*stabs you*

*stabs you again for good measure*

-_-;

And stop saying I own a pr0n shop, dangit!  O_O

But you do! Otherwise, why would Herb keep posting all those hentai links with the label 'Haruka'?!?

[Liddo-kun]

But you do! Otherwise, why would Herb keep posting all those hentai links with the label 'Haruka'?!?

Herb posting links of Haruka is a whole other issue in itself.

*shivers then nods sagely*

>_>

<_<

*stabs Dune and adds him to the running kill total*

[Halbarad]

*notes that he has so far escaped stabbings in this thread and cheers*