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OTAKON: 2005
Thursday Night
Okay, basically, Thursday Night was nothing more than a badge pick-up day, so not much to report here. We (Morbid Gnome, my cousins, and I) all headed out around 3:00 pm or so to go wait in line. At first, we thought the line was short. We were crazy to think that. Line started from Pratt Street Lobby, ran through the cut-out, and looped randomly around back. From what we saw later in the day, we were around the middle of the line... which was sad.
Because we arrived pretty early, we stood and chilled for a while. Morbid and I got bored pretty quickly, and sat down to play the Where in the U.S. is Carmen Sandiego? board game. It was pretty hot outside, and our asses were melting on the pavement. Ouch. Eventually, we got board of Carmen, and proceeded to play the asian card game of Big 2. So, it was 3 asians, my 2 cousins and me, versus Morbid Gnome (who is indeed a caucasian female girl). Eventually a person from the group behind us (they were from Lancaster, PA) joined and took Morbie's place. Asian free-for-all time. Basically Lancaster asian and my older cousin Bob owned my cousin Michelle and I, so we stopped playing. Line started moving, life went on.
As it turns out, the people in front of us were pretty cool too, and we decided to chat a bit. Security announced that if you had a cooler with you, you had to put it into your car or someplace otherwise you were not allowed inside the BCC. One of the girls took the cooler and did so. However, the line moved quicker than we expected, and before we knew it, we were inside. Yowch. Girl with the cooler still hadn't returned. Suckage level: major. Thanks to slightly better organizing by the OtaStaff, we got our badges pretty quickly and left.
On our way home, we drove past a Man-Misty... ::shudder:
Friday
On the morning, it started raining. As a result, I slept in late. When I woke up, I looked at the clock and realized it was the time I had promised Morbid I'd pick her up for the con. Eheheh... Basically, we arrived around 9:30 am or so. Finally met with Jen and Tony (I ninja-glomped Jen). Decided we wanted to go to Artists' Alley, so we headed off, in search of it. Poor Michelle (my other cousin), got stopped every 10 minutes or so because someone wanted to take her picture. Eventually, I noticed that Artists' Alley was closed, Morbie, Michelle, and I parted ways with Jen and Tony to go off to the line in the Dealers' Room.
Okay, when I say the quality of the staff this year sucked, I mean it really sucked. Organization seemed to be lacking in all areas of the Con. Dealers' Room line was no exception. We had to tell several groups of people that we were not the end of the line. One person even had the nerve to try to slip in undetected. "Hey, girlie, I don't know who you are, but this isn't the end of the line. Beat it." It got so bad that I made a sign: "NOT the END"
Dealers' Room seemed less packed than last year, but the addition of the Industrial Dealers' section helped a lot. Prices were ridiculous still, and I bought less than I had expected. After making purchases, going to the Gaia Booth, and a whole bunch of goofing off in the DR, we went to Artists' Alley on the accounts of Chugworth and Clone.manga being there. Bought posters from Kim-sensei, and the Chugworth book 1. The posters were risque, and I didn't want to buy them for fear of my parents/guests seeing them.
Eventually, it reached 2:30 or so, and we decided to go to the Sheraton to go check in. Turns out, Morbie's mommie already did so we went up. Bonus time! Something happened, and we weren't able to get the room we planned for. However, to compensate for this lack of planning on behalf of the Sheraton staff, we were bumped up and given a suite. Sweeet!
We chilled and relaxed in the hotel for a while, and I went to change into plain clothes. 4:00 soon came and we decided to grab a bite to eat at the Harborplace. Morbie and Michelle went for Thai, I went to Japanese Tariyaki. Shared my sushi with Morbie, and ended up finishing everything in front of me... A first!
To make things easier for us, we decided to take the skywalk back to the BCC. On the way there, we saw people Shinai-fighting. I took an interest and joined it. It was soooo fun. I fought more guys than girls, which was great. I eventually fought a guy who tried to roll and hit me in the leg. He did, but I was a bit quicker and hit him in the hip. It was hilarious because in the background, the person who was running it was playing the FFVII soundtrack, and the person who I was fighting (now on the ground) dropped stuff from his pocked. Mister Curator-person came to the middle and went "You know, when you fight monsters in an RPG and some of them drop gil? Look! ::points to change dropped::". It was the bomb-diggity.
Casey, James, D, and a bunch of OMSH anime club people showed up and Casey challenged me. James did the same with D. In the bout, I ended up hitting Casey in the neck (X_X), but luckily, she recovered quickly. I won, and Mister Angry-face won against D. xd
I realized that it was no fair that I did stuff I was enjoying and my cousin and Morbie weren't, so we headed to the manga library. It turns out that The Indigo was having a concert right outside, and made the experience a little less than comfortable. Time for Street Fashion panel came, and we realized that it moved to the Workshops, no map, so we went to Artists' Alley then went back to hotel. Michelle went home, and we chilled, yet again. Back to the con, for J-Urban, which sucked, and again, back to the Hotel.
Saturday
Woke up at 7:00, and looked at the schedule for the con. Saw that nothing we were interested in was going to happen until around 3-4, so we watched some Mythbusters, until around 10. Morbid and I headed out for a cup of Starbucks and a small snack at the Harborplace, since we were a bit hungry. Harborplace's Starbucks didn't take too long to get our orders, and the cheese danish was groood. Talked to the cashier about Otakon, who said she was jealous that she wasn't able to get off work to go hang out with us at the con. Said goodbye and off to the con.
Met up with Shipe and E near the entrance, and off, we headed to the Dealer's Room. Messed around the Gaia Booth for a while, then off to buy more stuff. Morbid and I found a stand that sold bumper stickers that we thought were great. Among the ones Morbie bought was: 'It's easier to change a condom than a diaper.' We though it'd be appropriate for her mom because we knew she'd love it.
Time for Shinai fighting! Went to the skywalk to find very few people there. Not nearly as much as Friday night. All the cool people were gone, and a girl started a grappling ring. I thought this was ridiculous because it was on cement and she had to tell people not to Take Down, which seemed like common sense despite the fact 3 people had tried it already. WTF, mate?
Shinai fighting wasn't as fun without the people from Friday night, so Morbid and I went back to the hotel room to drop off stuff and I could change back to plain-clothes. Ended up meeting with Morbid's mommy, so we sat around contemplating what to eat. Morbid's mom offered room service, since that was what she was getting. We agreed whole-heartedly. Food arrived pretty quickly, and Morbid and I sat and ate while we were watching Haibane Ranmei (Morbid's mom went home and got Morbid's PS2).
Finished eating, and we figured it'd be a good time to head off to the Gaia Panel an hour or so early to be sure that we'd get seats. Got to the door around 2:40 or so, and there was already a small line of about 20 or so people. Wow. Glad we got there early. Eventually the line grew and kind of got in the way of the one for the line for the Hong Kong movie, but they left, so the Gaia line continued to grow. No staff meant that we'd have to constantly tell people not to cut in line and where the end was. I'd had enough. I got up and acted as staff. Eventually the line got so long that it looped to the other side of the glass hallway. Staff came, and I continued to help and shout myself hoarse. Bleh. Nearly had my seat given away, because Staff told Morbid to save me a seat, but a Gaia mod told her to move her stuff so other people could sit. Glad I got there in time and Morbid didn't listen to her.
Gaia Panel was sweet. Gaia social happened afterwards, and so did the item toss. I caught a Kiki T-shirt!! Yay! Nothing much happened after that, so we went back to artists' alley and bought some more stuff.
Back to the hotel to finish Haibane, and at around 9:00 or so, we headed out to Artists' Alley again for MusaJump's raffle. Didn't win anything, so back to the hotel room, and we watched Alexander. Didn't like it as much as I thought I would, so turned it off and went to bed.
Sunday
Woke up around 9 and headed off to Dealers' Room line around 9:30. Bought some stuff, but I regret not buying some hard-boards. Grab bag sucked. Got stuff that no one in their right mind would want. Next year, I'm buying grab bags from the Japanese book shop.
Checked out at 12, and left the bookshop.
Needless to say, this con left much to be desired. I liked 2004 a lot more. But then again, 2004 had L'arc~en~Ciel, so that made the con's quality jump like, 100 times.
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